Isaiah chapter 17

CHAPTER XVII.

Damascus and “ The Day of Vengeance.”

FROM Moab Isaiah turns again to Syria, and by the word of the Lord speaks in chapter xvii. of “ the burden of Damascus.” Syria, like Moab, was related to the divine purpose, and Damascus, like Ar and Kir, having corrupted Israel with her idolatry, and presumptuously desolated the inheritance of the Lord, was equally amenable to divine judgment. At the time of Isaiah’s prophecy, Israel is associated with Syria in the denunciations, for they were confederates, as the Bible tells us, in the days of Ahaz against the kingdom of Judah, thinking to subvert the dynasty and annul the cov­enant of God with David by setting the son of Tabeal upon the throne (Isa. vii. 6).

Even the least reflective of men must admit that it is not a little remarkable that the records of the activities of these peoples two thousand six hundred years ago should at this remote time circulate in ever increasing volume in hundreds of millions of copies among all peoples and nations and tongues. But even the most intelligent and devout will find it difficult, if not impossible, to rouse up to any interest therein, unless enlightened by the Gospel of the Kingdom. But once thus enlightened, then indeed all things become new. Ancient places and ancient men, ancient struggles, threshing out simple but vast and far-reaching divine principles, become associated with a future which eclipses in sublime interest all that has ever gone before; and in which the ancients of Israel shall once again tread on the ancient high places of their long past sojourn­ing in the days of their mortal weakness, and the supremacy of Israel’s God over all nations shall be vindicated beyond question for a thousand years.

In the light of the gospel “ whatsoever things were written aforetime ” appear full of instruction and interest; and to those who walk in that light, the fact of their being “ written aforetime ” is sufficient to engage their respectful and earnest " search.” What then can we glean from this “ burden of Damascus ” that has come to us in our own mother tongue in these latter days? Like the “ burden of Moab ” that precedes it, it is associated with a time of “ eventide trouble ” for Israel; of angry rushing nations like the billows of a storm-tossed sea ; and with the sweeping away of the Spoiler by a divine Rebuker as thistle-down before the whirlwind!

From Isaiah’s time to this great crisis, still in our future, stretches what is to mortals a vast span of time. To God it is not so. On the thousand-years-to-a-day scale (2 Pet. iii. 8) it is less than three days. Hence we must be prepared when we read : “In that day shall it come to pass ” thus and so, to take this large view of time, to remember that God sees the end from the beginning, and to enquire accordingly with reference to time and circumstance, with the end—the Kingdom of God, always in view.

Taking this view, it cannot but be instructive to look back through the scriptures upon the lands and cities that were the subjects of divine operations in times past, the records of which, in greater or less detail, He has seen fit to preserve for our use. Damascus past, present, and future, is by no means the barren theme that once it would have seemed to most of us.

Damascus has been a notable place from time immemorial. Josephus says it was founded by Uz, the grandson of Shem. Shem’s son Aram, gave his name to the land, which was after­wards called Syria (from Tyre, Tzur), and Mesopotamia is called in the Hebrew, Aram-Naharaim, Aram of the two rivers (Euphrates and Tigris). The name Padan-Aram (Plain of Aram), in the A.V., Gen. xxv., xxviii., etc., connects with this. In Aram’s country on a natural and beautiful site, Uz, his son, founded the beautiful city Damascus. The following description by a traveller is interesting.

“Damascus . . . occupies a site of singular beauty. Onthe eastern side of the range of Anti-Libanus, is a plain of vast extent, reaching far out into Arabia, and having an elevation of 2,200 feet above the sea. The river Barada, the Abana of the Bible, rises in the centre of the mountain range, descends through a sublime ravine, enters the plain, flows across it eastward for 20 miles, and empties itself into a lake, which, in the heat of the summer, becomes a morass. On the banks of the Abana, about a mile from the mouth of the ravine, stands Damascus. The river intersects the city in a deep rapid current, averaging 50 feet wide. On its northern bank is a large and comparatively modern suburb, but the whole of the ancient walled city, and the principal buildings, are spread over the plain on the south. The Abana is the life of Damascus, and has made it perennial. By an admirable system of channels and pipes, many of them apparently of high antiquity, its waters are not only conveyed through every quarter, but into almost every house, supplying that first requisite of Eastern life and luxury. The river is also extensively used for irrigation. Canals are led off from it at different elevations above the city, and carried far and wide over the surrounding plain, converting what would otherwise be a parched desert into a paradise. The orchards, gardens, vineyards, and fields of Damascus cover a circuit of at least sixty miles, and they owe their almost unrivalled beauty and luxuriance to the Abana. The area irrigated and rendered fertile by it is upwards of 300 square miles in extent, and the river Awaj, the ancient Pharpar, irrigates nearly 100 more. There was truth, therefore, in the boastful words of Naaman (2 Kings v. 12), “ Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? ”

“ The view of Damascus from the crest of Antilibanus is scarcely surpassed in the world. The elevation is about 500 feet above the city, which is nearly two miles distant. The distance lends enchantment to the view; for while the peculiar forms of Eastern architecture do not bear close inspection, they look like an Arabian poet’s dream when seen from afar. Taper­ing minarets and swelling domes, tipped with golden crescents, rise above the white terraced roofs; while in some places their glittering tops appear among the green foliage of the gardens. In the centre of the city stands the Great Mosque, and near it are the grey battlements of the old castle. Away on the south the eye follows a long suburb, while below the ridge on which we stand is the Merj, the Ager Damascenus of early travellers— a green meadow extending along the river from the mouth of the ravine to the city. The gardens and orchards, which have been so long and so justly celebrated, encompass the whole city, sweeping the base of the bleak hills like a sea of verdure, and covering an area more than thirty miles in circuit—not uniformly dense, but with open spots here and there. Beyond this circuit are large clumps of trees, dotting the plain almost to the horizon. The varied tints of the foliage greatly enhance the beauty of the picture.”

Such is the appearance of the modern survival of the city of Shem’s grandson, the scene of many interesting developments from his day onwards. ' The first mention that is made of it in Scrip­ture is in Gen. xv., where Abram says before God : “ Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus.” Although not the “ heir,” this faithful man of Damascus had to do with the heir, for he had later to return to the country of his origin to take a wife for Isaac. And God opened his way in the beautiful manner described in Gen. xxiv. After this we hear nothing of Damascus till David’s time, when, in the subduing of all the neighbouring kingdoms, he slew of the Syrians of Damascus 22,000 men and put garrisons in Syria of Damascus (2 Sam viii.). In Solomon’s reign, however, because of his apostasy, God brought about a reversal. “ God stirred him up an adversary, Rezon, the son of Eliadah, who fled from his lord Hadadezer, king of Zobah. And he gathered men unto him and became captain over a band, when David slew them of Zobah ; and they went to Damascus and dwelt therein, and reigned in Damascus. And he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, beside the mischief that Hadad did ; and he abhorred Israel and reigned over Syria ” (1 Kings xi. 24). Thus, as in the case of Moab, so with Syria and Damascus ; when Israel was faithful to God they were subdued under them ; when they transgressed the enemy prevailed by the express determination and foreknowledge of God.

Afterwards, in the books of Kings and Chronicles, we read of the leagues and conflicts of the Syrians with Israel and Judah, as when Benhadad first leagued with Baasha of Israel against Asa of Judah; and then with Asa against Baasha (1 Kings xv. ; 2 Chron. xvi.) ; or when Benhadad II. took certain cities of Israel, and laid siege to Samaria, but was defeated and taken prisoner by Ahab, who spared his life, and was rebuked by a prophet for so doing (1 Kings xx.). After this, Ahab, transgressing in the matter of Naboth’s vineyard, is slain in battle when he goes against the Svrians to Ramoth Gilead, and, according to the word of the Lord, the dogs lick his blood in Samaria in the place where they licked the blood of Naboth, his victim (I Kings xxii.).

Later on, in the days of Jehoram, king of Israel, and of Elisha the prophet, Benhadad, king of Syria, has an exhibition of the power of the God of Israel in the healing of Naaman his captain, of his leprosy. He sends a deputation to Jehoram with a royal present of money and goods, the gold alone representing more than ten thousand pounds, with the request that he would heal Naaman of his leprosy. How Jehoram was dismayed at the request, and how Elisha intervened, is well known to all who know the truth. The healing of Naaman, is one of the most beautiful object lessons in all the Scriptures. The Great Mosque of Damascus, referred to in the description above, is supposed to cover the site of the “ house of Rimmon,’ where Naaman afterwards so reluctantly escorted his royal master in his vain worship.

That Benhadad was not convinced by Naaman’s cleansing, appears from his subsequent war against Israel, which was the occasion of the manifestation of a further work of divine power in the opening of the eyes of Elisha’s servant at Dothan to the perception of the angelic host that encamped about the besieged city; and the subsequent smiting of the Syrian host with blindness, and leading them captive to Samaria, where Jehoram fed them, and sent them back to their master (2 Kings vi.).

One would think that such treatment would melt a heart of stone ; but a siege of Samaria by Benhadad immediately follows (2 Kings vii.), which is raised miraculously, as the chapter goes on to say. Some years afterwards, Elisha comes to Damascus, and Benhadad, being sick, sends to enquire of him whether he shall recover. Now, the position here is peculiar, and affords a wonderful illustration of the divine manifestation of time, place and circumstance. Some fifteen years or so previously God had commissioned Elijah to anoint Hazael king over Syria. Elijah had been removed ; and Elisha, with a double portion of his spirit, acted, as it were, as his deputy in the land of Israel. Benhadad, almost like Pharaoh, had rejected every evidence that the Lord God of Israel is the true God, and now he sent the very man who was to murder him, to the very prophet who was to appoint that man to be king in his place. So Hazael put Benhadad’s question: “ Shall I recover ? ” And Elisha answered :        “ Go, say unto him, thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely die.” And Elisha, foreseeing what Hazael would do to Israel, looked steadfastly at him and wept. What various things make men weep the recovery of territory to Israel, and we read of Jeroboam that " he recovered Damascus.” So Damascus alternately prevailed and was prevailed against during the history of the Kings of Israel, until in Isaiah’s day, we find it confederated with Samaria _Syria with Israel, to overturn the kingdom of David.

In chapter vii. Isaiah had already foretold the fall of Syria and Damascus. We glanced at the history of the time when looking at the prophecy of Immanuel. Ahaz, oppressed by Syria and Israel, called in the help of Tiglath Pileser, King of Assyria, a name that has been recovered in the Assyrian inscriptions. Ahaz robbed the temple of the silver and gold to provide the necessary “ present.” Tiglath Pileser accordingly “ went against Damascus and took it and carried all the -people of it captive to Kir and slew Rezin ” (2 Kings xvi. 9). Upon this Ahaz went to Damascus to congratulate the Assyrian King, and while there copied the idolatry of Damascus which became “ the ruin of him and of all Israel ” (2 Chron. xxviii. 23). These were the circumstances related to Isaiah’s prophecy (ch. 17:1): “ Behold Damascus is taken away from being a city and it shall be a ruinous heap ”

Amos likewise had foretold the destruction and captivity that should overtake Damascus, and had given the reason of it. He said, “ Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof : because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instru­ments of iron. But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Benhadad. I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain °f Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity into Kir, ^th the Lord ” (Amos i. 3-5). The book of Kings records the fulfilment of the words of Amos and Isaiah as we see, and furnishes another assurance that God is not indifferent to the oppression of His nation and the appropriation of His land at the hands of the nations outside, especially when He deigns to give them sufficient evidence to prove that He is the Creator and possessor of the heavens and earth.

Damascus recovered from these calamities, and was after wards the subject of further prophecy, of overthrow by the Babylonians. Jeremiah spoke of this about b.c. 600 (ch. xlix) and later Ezekiel speaks of the city as trafficking with Tvre in wine and wool (Ezek. xxvii. 18). The very name Damascus has become embedded in our language in connection with fruits and fabrics for which the ancient city was celebrated. “ Damson ” which used to be written “ damascene,” is really from “ Damascus ’’ and the term “ damask ” (which is simply transliteration of the Hebrew), whether applying to figured fabric, or a rich red colour, has the same origin. Even in the scriptures an example of this later usage is found, for the most confusing allusion of the A.V. in Amos iii. 12—“ the children of Israel . . . in Damascus in a couch,” is made intelligible by the R.V., which renders the last words “ on the silken cushions (damask) of a bed.”

“ The fortress also,” said Isaiah (ch. xvii. 3), “ shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of Hosts. And in that day it shall come to pass that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean. And it shall be as when the harvest- man gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.” “ The glory of Jacob ” is a wider thing than “ Ephraim,” and in harmony with previous utterances it would seem that Judah is here included in the desolation foretold. The figure of the harvesting in the valley of Rephaim would be forcible and intelligible enough to Judah ; for it was not only that it was a fertile valley near Bethlehem, where harvesting operations found ample illustrations; but in that valley the Philistines had been wont to come up and gather Israel’s harvest (2 Sam. xxiii. 13 ; Jud. vi. 3). 

It was here that David twice smote the Philistines, enquiring of the Lord beforehand and being assured of victory (2 Sam. v. 18-25). Isaiah's contemporaries, therefore, would know only too well what the spoiling of the glory of Jacob like the harvesting in Rephaim meant. Looking back, we see how the word accomplished its purpose. First Ephraim was " harvested" by the Assyrian, and then Judah * by the Babylonian, and the " glory of Jacob " as manifested in the goodly kingdom of David and Solomon weDt under eclipse. But, as in former prophecies, the foretold desolation was associated with the salvation of a remnant: " Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel. At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the Asherim (R.V.) or the sun images." The figures of the remnant, and the attitude of the " man," in contrast with the idolatry of Ahaz, direct us to the " day" in question. It is " the day of Christ," in which, as Isaiah had said (ch. x. 20), " the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them ; but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel in truth. The remnant shall return (Shear Jashub), unto (El Gibhor) the Mighty God," that is the Lord Jesus (Isa. ix. 6-7 ; Lu. i. 32). From the dust of death the fathers and the prophets, and all the saints small and great, will return to him ; and from all the lands of the enemy the remnant of his scattered nation will return to Immanuel's land. The rustling noise of the dry bones of Israel (Ezek. xxxvii.), as heard in Zionism, is at once the earnest of the political resurrection of the whole house of Israel, and (with the angry state of the nations), of the literal resurrection of the dead in Christ. F.rom the throne downwards the eyes of man will he towards his Maker. How great the contrast between Ahaz and Christ on the throne of David in Jerusalem! How different the attitude towards the Assyrian. " This man (the Bethlehem-born Ruler of Judah), shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land : and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal men " (or princes of the Man—Ps. xlv. 16 ; Isa. xxxii. 1). And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword. . . . And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples as a dew from the Lord ” (Mic. v. 5-7).

And as to Damascus, in those days it will be the peaceful capital of its country, in the hands of some of the shepherd- princes who are parts of the “ perfect Man ” in the kingdom of God. A brief allusion in Zechariah’s prophecy seems to refer to this. He says: “ The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach, and Damascus shall be the rest thereof, when thh eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the Lord” (ch. ix. 1). This is associated in the context, both preceding and following, with prophecies of the vindication of Jerusalem and the entry of her king, the cutting off of the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, and his speaking peace to the nations, in the midst of the children of the resurrection.

What sweet revenges await the faithful in the day of Christ! Elisha, who wept before Hazael in the city of Ben- hadad, will see Damascus transformed into a paradise, perhaps specially subject to his immortal administration, in the kingdom of God. Isaiah, who witnessed its antagonism with Ephraim against the kingdom of Judah, and who was an alien in the midst of his people for his testimony (ch. viii. 12), will rejoice with Shem, Abraham, David, Paul, and others in the glory of Immanuel’s “rest,” on the scene of their mortal “ sojournings.” The desolation that prevails over all these Bible lands, because Israel forgot the God of his salvation, and was not mindful of the Rock of his strength (Isa. xvii. 10), is only the earnest of the good things which are, by the same word, and at the same time, promised for the comfort and encouragement of the remnant who shall not “ forget,” or be unmindful, but who, like the prophets of old, shall walk in faith of the law and the testimony with their eye upon the kingdom of God to come.

Damascus still stands among its beautiful orchards and fields, watered by its perennial rivers, one among many wit­nesses to those who consider, of the truth of God revealed in the scriptures. The word that decreed the perpetual extinction of Babylon, decrees the perpetuation of Damascus ; but before it becomes “ the rest,” of its country in the kingdom of God, a fearful inundation of many peoples sweeping southward to Jerusalem will pass over the city and country. At first reading, the latter end of Isaiah’s seventeenth chapter seems to have but little relation to what goes before, but the more we con­sider it the more we admire God’s arrangement of the Word, and discover that the fault lay with our own perception in the failure to attain to the divine point of view.

Rushing Nations and Eventide Trouble.

"Ah, the uproar of many peoples, which roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing nations, that rush like the rushing of many waters ! The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters : but He shall rebuke him, and he shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm. At eventide behold terror ; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us ” (Isa. xvii. 12-14 R.V.).

This is the vision that Isaiah sees in connection with his denunciation of woe upon the northern spoilers of his day— Syria confederate with apostate Ephraim—whose judgment, with " the burden of Damascus,” he had just proclaimed. The propriety of the connection does not at first appear, and does not appear at all where the gospel of the kingdom is unknown. Of the truth of this last remark, the following clerical comment may be taken as evidence. It is quoted so that those who have been honoured with a knowledge of the truth may be incited to a fuller estimation of their privilege :

“ The passage that follows (xvii. 12-14) is one of con­siderable beauty. It does not seem to be connected with the prophecy which precedes, and does not belong to that which follows. It is one of Isaiah’s striking miniatures of the over­throw of Sennacherib’s army. There is no necessity to regard it as a fragment of some larger prophecy. The prophet probably inserted the piece in this place of his gallery to mark the contrast between the fates of Israel and of Judah when they severally came into collision with the might of Assyria. The moral of the lesson is too evident to need comment.”

So writes the " Rev.” C. H. H. Wright, D.D., Ph.D., vicar of St. John’s, Liverpool. But, on reading his remarks, one is constrained to ask : Is this “ a light that shineth in a dark- place ? ” Is there not more light in the “ sure word ” than is condensed into this brief paragraph ? No doubt the allusion : “ eventide trouble, and before the morning he is not,” is very suggestive of the destruction of Sennacherib’s army; but Isaiah had already spoken of that in chapter ten, and that deliverance, though great, was small by comparison with the salvation that awaits Israel in the time of the great inter­national conflict that belongs to the “ eventide ” of which Isaiah here speaks.

Then, again, so far from the passage not seeming to be connected with the prophecy that precedes it, nor with that which follows, the very reverse is the case. It is naturally connected with both. It is connected with the previous portion of chap. xvii. in that it portrays the eventide struggle that ushers in the day of the Lord, when “ the eyes of a man shall look towards his Maker ” (verse 7), and in which the rushing nations shall overrun the territory of Damascus and Samaria, with which the prophet is dealing It is connected with chap, xviii.. which introduces one of these rushing nations and its peculiar characteristics, and speaks of the result of the struggle in the judgment of the assembled hosts, the giving of their carcases to the fowls of heaven, and the subsequent restoration of Israel to the land of promise that has been so long desolated for their sins. The last verses of chapter xvii. may be regarded as a summary of matters, some of the details of which are revealed in chapter xviii., and others are found in other places of Isaiah’s prophecies (and in the words of the other prophets), where they speak of the same great crisis of the time of the end.

No originality is to be attributed to the present writer con­cerning the ideas contained in the remarks that follow. They are derived almost in their entirety from the expositions of Dr. Thomas that have been current in a small circle of believers of the truth for about fifty years past. At the same time they are not received without that proving of all things which the apostle enjoins, and which Dr. Thomas was ever wont to insist on concerning his own or any other writings. Peter, speaking of the word of prophecy, made more sure by the things that had recently happened to Jesus Christ, of which he was an eye-witness ; and exhorting the believers to take heed to it as unto a lamp shining in a dark or squalid place (2 Pet. i.), tells them in so doing to know first that no prophecy of the Scriptures is of private or special interpretation. “ For,” says he, “ no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.” So that any true interpretation by whomsoever, is not of the individual's own heart, but derived from the Spirit-word, and, being in harmony with all the Spirit’s utterances, will appeal at once as true to all men of good and honest heart, sufficiently conversant with the Bible and human history.

Dr. Thomas wrote particularly concerning this portion of Isaiah as far back as 1853. His remarks concerning it were re­produced in the Christadelphian for 1892, and may profitably be referred to by those who possess the volume. He gave a translation of Isa. xvii. 12 to xviii. 7 inclusive, which, whatever may be said against it, corresponds remarkably well with that of the Revised Version of 1885. The article was entitled : “ The Breaking of the Russo- Assyrian Clay, the Redemption of Zion and her Sons, which, to his mind, defined the scope and intention of the prophecy. Increasing familiarity with the subject will only deepen the impression that this definition is correct.

To follow the words of Isaiah xvii. 12-14, we may remark first of all that the figure of a troubled sea is common in the prophets, and beautifully expressive of human affairs in the kingdoms of men ; and that the eventide rushing of nations like mighty waters is also a frequently proclaimed feature of the prophetic word. “ The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked ” (Isa. lvii. 20-21). And the wickedness of the rushing nations spoken of in ch. xvii. is phenomenal, as the prophets elsewhere testify.

“ I saw, as it were, a sea of glass, having been mingled with fire,” said John, in Patmos (Rev. xv. 2), when he described the effect of the wrathful judgment of “ the Lamb,” who, in the days of his flesh, had calmed the storm on the sea of Galilee. The international storm that he will yet reduce to a glassy calm is the subject of allusion in the Psalm which says, “ God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea. Though the waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof” (Psa. xlvi. 1-8). The context of this psalm, like Isaiah xvii. and has to do with “ the redemption of Zion and her sons.” And another Psalm says:   “ The floods have lifted up, O Lord,

the floods have lifted up their voice ; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea ” (Psa. xciii.). The theme of this psalm is the stability of the world in the kingdom of God, and the identity of the language quoted with that of Isaiah xviii. is sufficiently obvious.

“ The nations shall rush like the rushing of mighty waters ; but He shall rebuke him.” This language of Isaiah also corresponds well with that of the last-named psalm, and with the revelations of the prophets in general concerning the latter days. The rushing waters encounter the divine rebuke when they sweep against Jerusalem. It is as when storm-tossed breakers spend themselves upon the rocks. “ Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further ; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed ” (Job xxxviii. 11), has this application to the sea of nations, as much as to the literal waves of the ocean. Nothing in the scriptures is clearer than this, that the kingdom of God is to be established on earth upon the ruins of the antagonistic kingdoms of men, and that the great crisis to come has to do with the promised land and the city Jeru­salem, where the hosts of the enemy are to be judged and Christ enthroned in victory, notwithstanding all their opposition. The second psalm tells us this plainly. God will have the raging nations in derision, and will say : “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” Psalms xlv.-xlviii. speak of the same thing in various phases, and so do various others.

Isaiah says that God will punish the host of the high ones, and the kings of the earth upon the earth, as a preliminary to the reign of the Lord of Hosts in Mount Zion (ch. xxiv. 21-23) ; and that Jesus will scatter or startle many nations, causing the waste places of Jerusalem to break forth into joy (lii.). That the nation and kingdom that will not serve Zion shall perish (lx.). That Jesus will tread the winepress in the day of vengeance when the year of his redeemed is come (lxiii.). The other prophets also speak of the same last crisis. Ezekiel (ch. xxxix.) foretells the overspreading of the Holy Land by the Northern hosts as a storm-cloud. Daniel (ch. xi. 40) says the Northern invader shall overflow, and pass over and plant the tabernacles of his palace ... in the glorious holy mountain in the time of the end. Joel says (chap, iii.) that all the heathen shall be gathered against Jerusalem for judgment. Micah (ch. iv.) speaks of the threshing in the last days of the many nations that gather against Zion. And instances might be multiplied.

“ But He shall rebuke him.” Who is the Rebuker and who is the rebuked ? God is the Rebuker, as the A.V. rightly indicates in italics. But God has deputed the rebuking of the sinners of the earth to Jesus Christ, which is a matter that they are very slow to recognise. The “ strong delusion ” that has settled down upon Christendom has altogether obscured this side of Christ’s work. He is in effect still alienated from his inheritance in the house of his professed friends. Like the Jews, all Christendom is in effect sending a message after him : “ We will not have this man to reign over us.” It seems a mere raving of fanaticism to say so ; but wherever the gospel of his kingdom is preached, it is rejected by the vast majority. And it cannot be gainsaid by anyone that it is revealed that the nations of Christendom are to make war upon him when he returns from heaven, and are to be overcome by him before his enthronement in Zion. This phase of his work is plainly revealed in all the prophetic and apostolic writings. It was so much plainer in the prophets than his sacrificial work, that the Jews accepted the former to the overlooking of the latter. Christendom has reversed their error, and worse confounded the ancient confusion.

Isaiah speaks of Jesus as the Rebuker. He is the Child born and Son given to the house of David, who shall break the yoke of Israel in a time of war unparalleled (ch. ix.). “ He shall judge among the nations and rebuke many peoples ” (ii. 4). “ For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with

his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke like flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword, will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many ” (lxvi. 15-16). “ The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ ” (2 Thess. i. 7-8). Thus he will be peace to Israel and destruction to the enemy (Mic. v. 5) and will “ divide the spoil with the strong ” (Isaiah liii. 12). Without doubt he is the Rebuker.

But who is the rebuked ? Why should the word speak of an individual as it were, in antagonism to the individual Rebuker in the time of the end ? Because at that time the nations gather together under one Head to oppose the King of the whole earth by right divine. And because in all the prophets this fact is revealed, and their language is in accord with it. First, with regard to the fact; and then with regard to the identity of the headship. Balaam, speaking of the “ last end of Jacob ” said, “ his King shall be higher than Agag.” (The LXX. renders this “ Gog.”) Isaiah, speaking of the coming of the Name of the Lord from far, says: “ Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared” (xxx. 33). That is, “ Hinnom’s vale of slaughter ” shall receive and consume “ the Assyrian ” (verse 31). Daniel says that the constituents of the great image representing the Kingdom of men were broken to pieces together by the stone (ch. ii. 35), and therefore the Babylonian “ head of gold ” must have a latter-day representative to be broken.

Individuals come and go but Powers remain, however they may be transformed, just as a river remains though its con­stituent waters change continually. Some remrks concerning the latter-day Babylon and the headship thereof have been made in previous chapters (chs. ix., xiv.). The king is “ the king" who “ shall do according to his will,” and who, in the time of the end, shall come to his end on the mountains of Israel (Dan. xi.). This is the “ proud man ” (Hab. ii. 5) who gathers unto him all nations, and lades himself with “ thick clay ” (compare Dan. ii. 34) ; but only to become “ booties ” for the children of the resurrection, with whom Christ “ divides the spoil.” All these allusions, by the spirit of God scattered through various speakers and times, point to the headship of the kingdom of men in the great crisis coming.

The matter is focalised, as it were, in Ezekiel xxxviii.-xxxix., where the description of Gog and his confederated hosts is given. In ch. xxxviii. 17, God says, “ Art thou he ” (or, rather, “ Art not thou he ? ” for God does not ask the question for information, but the reverse)[1]—“ Art (not) thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring thee against them ? ” And further on in the same prophecy (xxxix. 8) it says : “ Behold, it is come, it is done saith the Lord God ; this is the day whereof I have spoken.” So then here is the head of the heathen who is to be rebuked by the Lord Jesus in the time of eventide trouble. The identity of Gog and of the nations alluded to in Ezekiel’s prophecy is well known to those for whom these pages are written, and need not here be re-established. From the foregoing and other considerations, they will not hesitate to endorse Dr. Thomas’s description of the divine work of Isaiah’s allusion in chs. xvii.-xviii. as “ The Breaking of the Russo-Assyrian Clay.” Those who are not familiar with the identification in question may make themselves acquainted with it in Elpis Israel, pp. 377-392.

The allusion to the fate of the rushing nations in Isa. xvii. 13, is quite in accordance with the other sayings of God's “ ser­vants, the prophets of Israel.” Thus the expression, " chaff of the mountains before the wind, and the whirling dust before the storm, is parallel with Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the end of the kingdoms of men. The constituents of the representative image, under the descent of the “stone,” “ became like the chaff of the summer threshing floor; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them” (Dan. ii. 35). This, Daniel told the king, represented the breaking in pieces and consumption of all those kingdoms, by the kingdom of the God of heaven (verse 44). The preliminary stroke of judgment in that great work is the subject of Isaiah’s prophecy in chapters xvii.-xviii.

“ And behold at eveningtide trouble ; and before the morning he is not.” “ The evening and the morning were the first day.” Chaos and darkness preceded it, and were banished by God’s decree Let there be light.” But, as Moses says (Psa. xc.), “ A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night; ” a fact concerning which Peter says to the brethren : “ Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promises (2 Pet. iii. 8). We are in the “ eveningtide ” preceding the world’s “ Sabbath,” of which Paul speaks to the Hebrews in ch. iv. 9. It is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us, therefore, cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light ” (Rom. xui. 11-12). The present-day movements of the nations in the swelling waves of. military hosts rolling southward and eastward, with ever increasing amplitude, is an eloquent sign of the eveningtide trouble, when the mighty waters will converge against the Lord’s land, and, according to His decree, find their prescribed boundary and subjection.

Dr. Thomas has the following remarks upon the “ eveningtide trouble ” :—

“'At eveningtime . . . and before the dawn.’ This interval between the evening and the dawn is styled in Daniel, ‘ the time of the end.’ We are now in the eveningtime of the day of salvation—the ‘ to-day ’ of the times of the Gentiles. . . . The eveningtime before the dawn is the “ time of trouble ’ foretold by Daniel, when Jehovah shall come with his holy ones. But, saith Zechariah (xiv. 6), ‘light shall not be, the splendid ones draw themselves in. [Compare the margin of the R.V., “ the bright ones shall contract themselves.”—C. C. W.l But it shall be one day, this is known to Jehovah—not day, nor night, but it shall be at eveningtime there shall be light. This is a remarkable passage. Yiquahroth yiqniphahron, the splendid ones draw themselves in. Though they that be wise are to shine as the sun, as the bright­ness of the firmament and as the stars in the Kingdom, we learn from the text in Zechariah, that when they appear with Jesus ‘ before the dawn,’ before the Kingdom is set up, they restrain their splendour, as it may be supposed Christ did during his forty days’ sojourning with his disciples after his resurrection and before his ascension. This leads to the conclusion that while Christ and the saints are carrying on the war of Armageddon against the Beast, False Prophet, and kings of the earth and their armies,’ during the eveningtime, they will appear like other men. They will draw themselves in, restraining the manifestation of their brightness until they have fully executed the judgment given them to do.”

“ At eveningtime brightness shall shine forth ; that is, at the close of it. When the light shines, the dawn has passed, and the darkness been chased away. The day of glory shines upon the world, and the earth becomes full of the knowledge of it. The interval between the rebuke of the Assyrian by Jesus Christ, and the shining forth of his day, will be, I take it, about 40 years. This will be the most extraordinary period of the world’s history. The re-appearance of Christ, the resurrection of the saints, the dashing in pieces of the governments as a potter’s vessel, the restoration of Israel, the manifestation of Paradise in the Holy

Land, and the regeneration of the nations, are the events charac­teristic of the period. Who would not pray, ‘ Thy kingdom come ? ’ ”

Before the dawn he is not.’ In answer to the question, Who is not ? we have, He whom the Ruler of Israel rebukes, and chases like chaff before the wind. The fate of this Assyrian awaits all the Powers that oppress Israel.”

[1]  It is like Ahab’s question in I Kings xvii. :“ Art thou he that troubleth Israel ? ” better rendered by the R.V., “ Is it thou, thou troubler ot Israel ? ”