Isaiah chapter 44

CHAPTER XLIV.

Jeshurun, the Alpha and Omega.

THOUGH Jacob should be given to the curse and Israel to reproaches, yet there was hope in his end, as is proclaimed in chapter xliv., which, like the preceding chapter, suffers from the division introduced by the chapter heading. Again, the divine distinctions between “ the children of the flesh ” and “ the children of the promise ” must be borne in mind, lest the promises be misapplied. There is a national and temporal salvation for Israel, and there is an individual and eternal salvation for “ Israelites indeed,” whether of Jewish or Gentile extraction, of which Christ is the great example and Author.

Therefore we read these assurances and promises and encour­agements first with reference to Him, next with reference to “ his seed,” and finally with reference to the national salvation of the seed of Abraham, the signs of which we now see so plainly appearing.

This application of the matter, which is necessitated by the gospel of the kingdom, throws much light on all the expressions of the spirit of God by the prophet, and deeply impresses us with the divine authority of the record, and the necessity of hold­ing fast to the Word in faith and obedience, that our eyes may be opened, and not closed for disobedience ; and that we may have hope in Israel’s salvation about to be revealed.

“ Yet now hear, 0 Jacob my servant ; and Israel, whom I have chosen :  Thus saith the Lord that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee : Fear not, O Jacob my servant ; and thou, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

Here is Christ before us : the personal Servant of God ; Jacob, who shall supplant and supersede the children of Esau; Israel, the Prince with God, who has wrestled for the blessing and prevailed; Jeshurun, the beloved Righteous One, whom the Father has chosen; “ who rideth upon the heavens in Israel’s help, and in his excellency on the sky ” (Deut. xxxiii. 26).

This term Jeshurun (Delightful, Righteous One) is only found in the prophets in this place, and only three times elsewhere, namely, in Deut. xxxii. and xxxiii. It is there found in Moses’ song, and in his last blessing of the tribes. In the song it is applied to the nation of Israel, “ Yahweh’s portion and the lot of his inheritance.” Though delivered fom bondage and blessed abundantly, “ Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked .                   .   . and forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salva­tion.” He provoked God to anger and moved Him to jealousy by his idolatry, so that God determined to provoke him to anger and move him to jealousy by the call of the Gentiles (Rom. x.). In the accomplishment of this purpose the individual Jeshurun comes into view—in contrast with the national-—for He waxed not fat nor kicked, nor forsook God who made him, nor lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation.

He it is (and “ his seed ”) who is the subject of the gracious promise : “ I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring ’ (v. 3). “ Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness : for they shall be filled.’' " If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” These sayings of Jesus at once identify him with the prophecy, and define the thirst in question and the nature of its satisfaction. In John’s account in the last passage quoted (vii. 39), he goes on to say : " This he spake of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive : for the Holy Spirit was not yet given ; because Jesus was not yet glorified. ” But when Jesus was glorified, then, on the day of Pentecost, and in fulfilment of this and other prophecies, the spirit was poured out upon “ his seed,” and God s blessing upon “ his offspring,” in the manner recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. But even this was only an earnest of what shall be, for their " hunger and thirst ” was only partially satisfied. Like David, they still longed exceed­ingly for the time when they should, like their Lord, come and appear before God.” But in following Jeshurun the Chosen One, this was at last assured. In due time they will come forth from the grave as he did, and the spirit will be poured upon them to the extent of swallowing up mortality of life, and revealing them as “the spirits of just men made perfect,” even as the Lord the spirit ” ; for, as he said to Nicodemus, “ that which is born of the spirit is spirit.”

The things recorded of “ the elect ’ of Jacob in v. 5 bring before us other beautiful features of the work of Christ, past and future. “ One shall say I am the Lord’s ; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.”

More emphatically the first clause may be rendered, “ This one saith, For Yahweh am I.” Looking at Christ as the Head and source of it all, we realise at once that this was his motto. It reminds us of the superscription on the holy crown of the High Priest of Israel : “ Holiness to the Lord.” This crown of pure gold with its engraved legend had attached to it a lace of blue by which it was “ fastened on high upon the mitre. The pure gold is the refined and precious faith, and the blue is the healing, and the symbol finds its substance in the holiness and faith of Christ, and his wonderful works of physical and moral healing, which are yet but the earnest of “ greater works ” to come as he has promised. And as he was on earth (and indeed as he will be), so will “ his seed ” be. The immortal declaration of every one will then be what now is but a matter of blemished aspiration—" For Yahweh am I ! ”

“And another shall call himself by the name of Jacob.” Here again Christ, past and future (and " his seed ” after him), comes into view. Jacob is Supplanter—the last who became first—and who took away the birthright from the profane, by whom he was hated and threatened with death. Look at Christ in conflict with the priesthood, by whom he was hated, and at last slain ; and whom nevertheless he supplanted by resurrection, superseding the whole Mosaic economy. Truly he is Jacob by pre-eminence. And “ his seed ” after him share his experience in the flesh, and will share his victory. The whole existing disorder of Anti- Christendom will be supplanted by them. They are of Jacob already, and  will thoroughly carry out the doctrine of the name hereafter.

‘And another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord; ” or “ shall write on his hand, For Yahweh.” Here, again, we are reminded of the consecration of the High Priest, the thumb of whose right hand was cleansed with the blood of the ram of consecration, the substance of which is the blood of Christ, that sanctifies himself and his companion priests for the service of Yahweh's house. The right hand of the healed leper also was cleansed with the blood of the sacrifice, and afterwards anointed with oil by the priest, who poured the remnant of the oil that was in his left hand upon the head of the healed leper (Lev. xiv.). Jesus, when he, with a touch, healed “ a man full of leprosy,” said that this was “for a testimony unto them” (Luke v. 14). Afterwards, in crucifixion, the blood of consecration dyed his own hands when he stretched them forth in sacrifice, saying, “ For Yahweh am I.” And when, in the glad healing of the resurrection and change into the holy spirit nature, he exhibited those same wounded hands to his disciples, the antitype of the anointing oil, “ the oil of joy ” was revealed. Henceforth he was exalted as Zion s first-born man-child (Isa. Ixvi. 7), of whom, as of herself, it is written, “ Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of iny hands” (Isa. xlix. 16). Those who follow Christ in ‘‘taking up their cross,” write upon their hands “ For Yahweh.” And if they draw not back, they, with him, will be graven upon Yahweh’s hands forever.

There is in the world another marking of the hand which is not “ For Yahweh,” but “ For the Beast.” By Papal decree the priests and monks are anointed in the hand “ in the form of a cross.” The hands of these marked ones are against Yahweh, and against His people, whose blood they have shed abundantly in times past. Hence the proclamation hereafter of condign punishment upon any who shall, after due warning, dare to receive such a mark in their hand (Rev. xiv. 9-11). And the absence of this mark is actually one of the conditions of reigning with Christ (Rev. xx. 4). There is thus great discrimination called for here. Because we happen to see certain men professing Christ marked in the hand with much unctuous ritual, we are not to suppose that they are therefore acceptable to Christ and to the Father. Far otherwise. Those for whom now we write are well aware of this, and of the distinction with so vital a difference between the “mark of the beast,” and “ the seal of the living God.” In belief of “ the gospel of the kingdom of God,” and baptism into Christ upon repentance, they have written upon their hands “ For Yahweh.” They have “ set to their seal that God is true.' They have come out from the unbelievers; and, unless “ blotted out ” for apostasy, will hereafter be “ written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

“And another shall surname himself by the name of Israel,” or “ shall entitle himself by the name of Israel.”

Here again are Christ and “his seed.” He is Israel, the Prince with God, who has successfully wrestled for the blessing, and by reason of whom his forefather Israel himself will come forth from the grave to eternal life. And his brethren, like him and like Jacob of old, are wrestlers for the blessing “ till the breaking of the day.” They are entitled Israel now by reason of the wrestling; they will be entitled Israel in the Resurrec­tion because by Christ they will be “ made princes in all the earth ’ (Psa. xlv. 16).

And all these units of the “ one body ” are of “ one Father His “many sons,” whom He is “bringing to glory” by the Chosen One (Jeshurun), even the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is again proclaimed by the prophet: “I am the First, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God ” (v. 6). Here, " the last ” is singular, and not plural, as in xli. 4. But the doctrine is the same. The Father, manifested in Christ, is “ the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty ” (Rev. i. 8). This was not the world’s doctrine in Isaiah’s day (and Israel had gone off after the heathen); nor is it the world’s doctrine now, even in Christendom. As an abstract proposition, Mohammedanism is nearer the truth in this respect than Christendom, for it at least recognises that there is but One God. From a remote antiquity the doctrine of the Trinity has come down from Egypt and Babylonia, corrupt­ing the truth of God enshrined in the Holy Oracles. In Isaiah’s day, the Baalism of Damascus and Assyria, and the corresponding superstitions of Egypt, combined to corrupt and suppress the true worship of the Father in Israel. Hence these emphatic remon­strances, these appeals to the national history and experience, and these pungent exposures of the vanity of such idolatry.

We can imagine, in some measure, the experience of Isaiah and his brethren in Israel in such a state :)f affairs. Christ after­wards, of whom Isaiah and his sons were a type, is the great example, declaring the name of the Father, against those who professed the knowledge of God but in works denied Him. But Isaiah and his circle foreshadowed Christ’s experience, and that of his people after him. Theirs it was to suffer shame and contempt for His name’s sake in a dry and thirsty land. Theirs it was to “ witness ’ for the truth; and theirs was the comfort which, by the Spirit, the prophet was caused to put on record for the generations to come: “ Fear ye not, neither be afraid; have not I told thee from old time, and have declared it? Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no Rock. I know not any ” (v. 8).

The fall of Sennacherib and his host would be a very great comfort to the prophet and “ the poor,” his companions; and a very sweet vindication of his words and attitude in Israel. But. though “ the Rock of Israel ” triumphed in this, so bad is flesh and blood that “ Israel soon forgat,” as in the former days, and the gods that had been smitten, still were worshipped, and Yahweh still insulted.

Abstractly, it would strike us as an extraordinary thing that God should have to explain to Israel that molten and graven images are unprofitable vanities, and that a thing made by a workman cannot be God (Hos. viii. 6). Yet, as a sorrowful matter of history, such has been the case throughout all Israel’s generations down to the present time. When the word passed on to the Gentiles, Paul, on Mars Hill, used the same argument with beautiful appositeness to the circumstances surrounding the Greek superstitions he encountered (Acts xvii.). “ Certain of your own poets,” said he, “ have said, We also are his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art or mans device.” Some yielded to his argument, and turned from “ these vanities ” “ to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven.”

But as with Israel before, so with Christendom afterwards; though God revealed Himself in so unmistakable a manner in the person of Christ and in the works of the apostles, yet it was soon forgotten, and they lapsed into idolatry as gross as any that had defiled Israel of old. Even in the apostles' days the germs of apostasy were there. Paul wrote to the Corinthians against idolatry, and John concludes an epistle with the exhorta­tion: “ Little children, keep yourselves from the idols,” which, of course, involves all that alienates from “ the true God and eternal life.”

But in the course of centuries veneration of martyrs and worship of relics and pictures, after the style still current in Russo-Greek, and Roman Christianity, waxed worse and worse. In the seventh century God sent the Mohammedans against the image- worshippers, who were by them regarded as " infidels ” and idolaters. They “ tormented ” the “ unsealed ’ for a period of three hundred years. Yet they were not cured. Then came the great Turkish inundation, which, in nearly four hundred years more, resulted in the overthrow and taking of Constantinople and the extinction of the Eastern Empire. In this crisis the images again proved themselves to be vanity, for “ the celestial image of the Virgin,” which was paraded by the Greeks, could not deliver itself or them. But even this great overthrow did not make the image-worshippers repent, as we are told in Rev. ix. 20, “ They repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils (demons, the ghosts of the Virgin and “ saints ” and “ souls ”), and idols of gold and silver and brass, and stone and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk.”

Nearly four hundred years later the Napoleonic wars tor­mented the idolaters of Europe who still "repented not of their deeds.” And the system remains to this day. Christendom, Romish and Protestant, is one vast monument of idolatry, differing not in essence, but only in form, from that rebuked by Isaiah seven hundred years before Christ. In our own country there is unceasing war against the advancing Romanising tendencies of the age; but the Protestants themselves are but a daughter of the same “ mother ” (Rev. xvii.), faithless of the promises of God, and only a little less pronounced in their worship of the Virgin, and the “saints” and “souls” of Rome’s calendar. Judged by the word of the prophets it is true of the whole body politic of Anti-Christendom, as of Jacob of old : “ He feedeth on ashes : a deceived heart hath turneth him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand ? ” (v. 20). “ They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes (or literally daubed their eyes, because of their daubing with untempered mortar, see Ezek. xiii. 10, etc.). He hath shut their eyes so that they cannot see; and their hearts that they cannot understand ” (v. 18).

This is truly “ a marvellous work.” Christ himself expressly declared that it was part of his work—" For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not, might see ; and that they which see, might be made blind (John ix. 39). And those who were made blind were the ecclesiastical lights of the chosen people. And those who were enlightened were an obscure remnant. And what has been may be again—and is. “ God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie,” says Paul (2Thess. ii. 11). Why? “Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved . . . because they believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Here is the plain philosophy of the matter, and here is our opportunity for examining ourselves. If we hold not the love of the truth in obedience and the hope of salvation, we shall repeat the history of the idolaters, and from us will be taken away even that we have. Every generation illustrates this in some individuals. Let us therefore be warned.

“Remember these things, 0 Jacob and Israel ; for thou art my servant : I have formed thee ; thou art my servant, 0 Israel thou shalt not be forgotten of me ” (v. 21). To every one who has by the gospel become incorporated in Israel this exhortation applies, and this word of comfort. “ I have blotted out, as a thick cloud thy transgression, and as a cloud, thy sins; return untome, for I have redeemed thee” Individually our sins axe blotted out as concerns the past in baptism. Thenceforward we have an Advocate with the Father, who intercedes on our behalf if we sin not wilfully. But ultimately sins are only blotted out finally “ when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ ” again from heaven in the times of restitution of which Isaiah and all the prophets speak (Acts iii. 19). Then also Israel nationally will be forgiven and return to God, and all the earth will rejoice “ because the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel ” (v. 23).

Then follows a proclamation concerning the next great historical and typical deliverance of which Israel should be the subject after suffering the term of judgment for their sins—that is, the return from the Babylonian captivity after the fall of Babylon before the Medes and Persians. It is introduced by a rehearsal of Yahweh’s majesty and mighty works—His forming of Israel, His creation of the heavens and earth, His defeating of the adverse wisdom of the world, His confirmation of the word of His servant, and counsel of His messengers, His decree for the restoration of Jerusalem and Judah, His mandate for the drying up of the Babylonian deep—these are the excellences the rehearsal of which prefaces the sudden introduction of Cyrus, His “ shepherd,” as a type of the Greater Shepherd of Israel, and his commission to destroy Babylon and liberate the captives of Jacob. The name and attributes and work of Cyrus belong to the following chapter.