Isaiah XI. and XII.

THE eleventh chapter is a continuation of the prophecy contained in the tent h. There we learn of the onslaught made upon Jerusalem by the enemy, the Assyrian, and how he is arrested in his wicked endeavor by the sudden appearing of the Lord. The Assyrian of Isaiah's day is the type of the last Assyrian, who is yet to fall in Israel's land-Here we have a prophecy which reveals the Messiah and His Kingdom and shows the King in His beauty, the one who will break the Assyrian to pieces and slay the wicked one with the breath of His lips and establish His Kingdom, ruling in righteousness and peace.

The chapter may be divided into three parts, which we briefly consider.

I. King Messiah: who He is and what He will do.

"And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of His roots shall be fruitful; and the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah. And His delight will be in the fear of Jehovah; and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears; but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity the meek of the earth; and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of His reins, and faithfulness the girdle of His loins" (verses 1-5).

We care not to follow the infidel views of recent years, which under the assumed name of '' higher criticism '' deny that these verses have any reference whatever to Messiah. They apply it to Hezekiah and Josiah as well as to others. These critics, '' wise in their own conceit,'' prove only too well what spirit is leading them and to what these blind leaders of the blind shall come at last. Their deliberate aim is to rob the Lord Jesus Christ of as much of His glory as they possibly can and deny nearly all predictions in the Word of God, which foretell His first and His second coming. And this they do in face of the most positive proofs of the Old and New Testaments. That the prediction before us refers exclusively to the Lord Jesus Christ is to our mind beyond controversy. Only He can be meant by these descriptions, who is Immanuel. Besides this do we find in the New Testament a part of the fourth verse quoted and directly applied to our Lord (2 Thess. ii: 8).

We have, however, here again His first and second coming blended into one. The passage is to be linked with the two other passages in previous chapters absolutely messianic. We mean chapters vii:14 and ix:6-7. We learn there that He is to be born of a virgin and the Son born is Immanuel, that He will be from David and have His throne and government. In chapter xi:1-5 all this is still more First and second expanded. His humble origin as Man stands first. From the passage in the ninth chapter one might conclude that this child to be born, this given Son would come when David's house was still in a flourishing condition. The prophecy here tells us that the royal house of David was to be cut off first and after a long time a new shoot, a branch out of his roots, should spring forth and be fruitful. Jesse, who is mentioned here, the father of David, was a poor and humble man and out of such, a shoot should come forth.

It may be compared with a magnificent tree, which is cut down, but the root remains in the ground, and out of this root comes a sprout. Thus when the house of David was reduced to almost nothing the shoot and the branch, the Zemach, as he is called in Zechariah, came forth. Upon Him was and is the fullness of the Spirit of Jehovah, and He is the One who will judge the earth, yea, the One who alone is fit and fitted to rule in righteousness and reprove with equity the meek of the earth. His work in redemption is of course not seen here, it is implied by being judge. "He (God) has set a day in which He is going to judge the habitable earth in righteousness by the Man whom He has appointed, giving the proof of it to all in having raised Him from among the dead " (Acts xvii: 31).

And who is the wicked, whom He will slay with the breath of His lips? As indicated above, the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians gives the answer. It is the great head of the apostasy, the man of sin, the son of perdition, the one who exalteth himself, the lawless one. It is not the Assyrian, but the Antichrist who sits in the temple in Jerusalem (2 Thess. ii: 1-11).

II. The Peace He brings after the wicked One is slain.

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatted beast together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the she-bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sacking child shall play on the hole of the adder, and the weaned child shall put forth his hand to the viper's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, standing as a banner of the peoples; the nations shall seek it; and His resting place shall be glorious" (verses 6-10).

These blessed words speak of the peace which shall be on earth, when at last the Prince of Peace has come to rule in righteousness. They are, like almost every other gracious promise in the Old Testament, spiritualized and applied as being fulfilled in this present age. It is explained that through the grace of God man with an evil temperament can be changed from a tiger or a bear into a lamb. Other equally ridiculous interpretations are made of these verses. Many years ago we talked with a Hebrew, who gave among many other arguments, why the Messiah could not have come yet, the passage before us, and he reasoned very strongly that inasmuch when you put a lamb in a cage with a tiger, the tiger will devour the lamb or a child playing with a poisonous viper will be bitten and die, that therefore Messiah had not yet come. He said when Messiah is here the bear and tiger would go together with the lamb and the calf without hurting them. When we told him. not knowing better at that time, that this must be explained in a spiritual way, the Jew wanted to know our authority for making these words mean something else. There is no authority for spiritualizing them. They mean literally that which they declare. The peace on earth includes the deliverance of groaning creation.

When Adam was unfallen the mighty animals bowed before him, all was peace and harmony. When the second Man. Man, the last Adam, takes personal control of the habitable earth, and all things are put in subjection under His feet, that peace and harmony will be restored. Thus it is written in the Epistle of our salvation, in Romans viii: " For the anxious looking out of the creature expects the revelation of the sons of God, for the creature has been made subject to vanity, not of its will, but by reason of him who has subjected the same, in hope that the creature itself also shall be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans together and travails in pain together until now" (verses 18-23). The fulfillment of this, fie deliverance of groaning creation, means literally all of that which we read here in Isaiah xi. And when will it be? It will be in that day. It is the day of the Lord, when He is manifested in Glory. This corresponds to the statement in Romans viii, " the revelation Romans viii: of the sons of God." Christ the firstbegotten from the dead will be revealed and with Him the many sons He brings to Glory.

The Jew has a perfect right to make the argument that Messiah has not come yet, for groaning creation is still undelivered. But he overlooks the fact that there is a first coming foretold in the prophets which was literally fulfilled, and that peace will come and the reign of peace when He conies the second time. And the great majority of Christian believers hold that Christ came in humiliation, and they forget His second coming, which will be literal fulfillment of prophecy as was His first.

World conversion is indicated in the passage before us in the sentence, '' the nations shall seek it; and His resting place shall be glorious."

III. The Restoration of Israel.

" And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to acquire the remnant of His people which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cash, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And He shall lift up a banner to the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. And the envy of Ephraim shall depart, and the troubles of Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim will not envy Judah, and Judah will not trouble Ephraim; but they shall fly upon the shoulder of the Philistines towards the West; together shall they spoil the sons of the East; they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab, and the children of Ammon shall obey them. And Jehovah will utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with His mighty wind will He shake His hand over the river and will smite it into seven streams, and make men to go over dryshod. And there shall be a highway for the remnant of His people which will be left from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day when He went up out of the land of Egypt" (verses 11-16).

It is of course all folly to look for a fulfillment of this passage in any past or present event. Yet this is constantly done. It is the general opinion of commentators that these verses were fulfilled in the return of a remnant of Israel from the Babylonian captivity. This is so weak a claim that any one who reads the words carefully can point out the arguments which sweep this false exposition completely away. In the first place it is a second return from captivity and points therefore to a time beyond the captivity in Babylon. In the second place the dispersion of Israel here from which they are brought back is world-wide, including the islands of the sea; the Babylonian captivity was not a world-wide dispersion into the four corners of the earth. It is all future. This great bringing back of Israel comes with His glorious return.

Others who hold the second personal and premillennial coming of the Lord have at least partly tried to give this passage a present fulfillment. They speak of the destruction of the tongue of the Egyptian sea, the smiting of the river, the drying up of Euphrates, etc., as if it had reference to events in this present age. Thus some think the destruction of the tongue of the Egyptian sea means the cessation of the Turkish empire. We even heard it stated by a foreign missionary in Palestine that 'the highway" was a prophecy relating to the railroad from Jaffa to Jerualem (! !) Where will people end with their own private interpretation of prophecy? No, all is future and will come to pass when the Lord has come and gathers His people again. Then He gathers not only the dispersed of Judah, but also the outcasts of Israel, the ten tribes, and they will be one nation before Him. The song of praise of that restored people we shall read in the next chapter.

Exodus XV.

IT is a wonderful little chapter which follows the eleventh. The praise which is uttered in it is the praise of redeemed Israel, brought back to Immanuel's land, and richly blest there. The Lord will appear first and do all the wonderful things which passed before our view in the last chapter and then, when He has brought His people back the second time and they have seen their King in His Beauty and received Him at last, they will break forth in this glorious hymn of praise. Let us read the words first before we comment on it.

" And in that day thou shalt say:

Jehovah, I will praise Thee; for though Thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou hast comforted me.

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid; for Jehovah is my strength and song, and He is become ray salvation.

And with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.

And in that day shall ye say. Give ye thanks to Jehovah, call upon His Mme, declare His deeds among the peoples, make men-tion that His name is exalted.

Sing Psalms of Jehovah, for He hath done excellent things; this is known in all the earth.

Cry aloud and shout, thou inhabitants of Zion ; for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee."

When Israel passed through the Red Sea and God had overcome their enemies and led His people forth, they sang a similar song of worship and praise. That great deed of Jehovah in overcoming all their enemies and delivering them is the type of other deliverances of His earthly people and the song in Exodus xv is a foreshadowing of their future singing and rejoicing. However, their song after the passage through the Red Sea soon changed into murmuring. It will not be so when they are again in the land and their backsliding is healed. The Holy One of Israel will be in their midst and the praise will continue. It will be a perfect and endless praise.

In the previous chapter we had the description of the final deliverance of His people, and now we hear that perfect praise of a delivered and richly blessed nation.

" In that day " it is to be, not now, but in the day of the Lord's glorious manifestation. The praise to Jehovah is first of all for the comfort with which He has comforted His people. The long night of suffering and of woe is over; divine anger which hung over the people is passed, and the people acknowledge their sin, "Thou wast angry with me.'' The comfort is forgiveness and peace for Jerusalem. How this simple praise and acknowledgment of redeemed Israel brings all the "blessed promises of the prophetic Word into view. '' For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In the outpouring of wrath have I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting loving kindness will I remember thee, saith Jehovah thy Redeemer" (Isa. liv:7, 8).

" For they shall know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah; for I will pardon their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more " (Jerem. xxxi: 34). How sweet will be the rest and comfort for poor, storm-tossed Israel at last.

The second stanza of Israel's hymn of praise is what Jehovah now is for them and what they have found in Him. And who is this Jehovah? Who is He whom they worship? Who is it whom they acknowledge as their salvation? Surely no other than the Lord who, when He came the first time, was rejected by His own. Our adorable Lord Jesus Christ is this worshipped Jehovah, for He is truly Jehovah (compare Isaiah vi: i with John xii:4i). Long had Israel refused His salvation, refused Him who died for the nation, but now in praise they declare their perfect trust in Him and their deliverance from fear. " Jah, Jehovah is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation." He has healed His people and they ac-knowledge Him as their all. The word "Jah" means Jehovah, too, and yet there is a difference. " Jah " stands for Jehovah in His absolute self-existence. The third verse is the voice of the Lord calling upon His people in gracious promise: "And with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.'' There will be an abundant flow of water. His Spirit aid His mercy will flow forth like a river. Then surely the earth will be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea, and streams of living waters will flow forth from a redeemed people. What precious water Israel will draw and pour out from its buckets to water the dry places of the earth! (Num. xxiv:7).

Israel's mission during the millennium is seen next. They will declare His deeds among the nations and mention His exalted name. The time of Psalm singing has begun, and like the book of Psalms which ends with " Hallelujahs," which never end, "Praise ye the Lord" will be heard from Israel's lips and the nations will learn praise and worship from His earthly people, the head of the nations. " Let this be known in all the earth."

And what is the glorious climax of Israel's happiness and blessing in that day? Why does Zion cry aloud and shout ? He Himself, the Holy One of Israel, the Lord, Israel's King, the King of Kings, is in the midst of her. His glorious throne will be established in Mount Zion, and on top of that high mountain the joy of the whole earth will rest His Glory, seen by the indwellers of the earth (Psl. cxxxii: 13, 14). The angels will then ascend and descend upon the Son of Man and glory cover the earth.