Isaiah chapter 11

CHAPTER XI.

" The Rod out of the stem of Jesse.”

BETWEEN the lopping of a bough, the cutting down of thickets of a forest, and the shooting forth of a branch, there is a great and effective contrast, and it is this that challenges attention in the opening verses of

chapter xi.

The modern division of chapter and verse somewhat obscures the fact, but “ the scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven ” will override this and grasp the idea conveyed. The purpose of the Assyrian invader was thus alluded to by God in His message to Hezekiah (ch. xxxvii. 24), “ Thou hast reproached the Lord and hast said, By the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon: and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees.” But instead of his cutting down the Israelitish cedar, and taking Hezekiah captive as he designed, he was himself cut down ; and the occasion taken of foretelling the prosperity in righteousness and peace of the kingdom of the “ Root and Offspring of David.”

The opening words of the eleventh chapter—words that have sustained God’s people for so many generations—run thus : “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots : And the spirit of the Lord 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 the Lord; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord ; 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 for 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 loins, and faithful­ness the girdle of his reins.”

The apostle Paul, quoting this eleventh chapter of Isaiah when writing to the Roman Christians, alludes to the mission of Jesus in these words (Rom. xv. 8) : “ Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written. .                                             .    . There shall

be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gen­tiles ; in him shall the Gentiles trust.”

This in few words is the inspired summary of the substance of Isaiah xi. Believing Gentiles should note well the order of their salvation : “ the Jew first,” and then the Gentile. The covenant God made with the Son of Jesse, is that which required the coming forth of the “ rod out of the stem of Jesse,” and which in the initial fulfilment of it at the birth of the Lord’s forerunner caused Zechariah to exult in that God “ hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.” Although Jesus was not born till six months afterwards, the angel Gabriel’s words to Mary were accepted implicitly by her, and by Elizabeth and Zechariah; and hence the language of accom­plished fact.

The exhortation Paul bases upon his allusion to the divine pur­pose expressed in Isa. xi. and the other scriptures he quotes, is briefly this : “ Rejoice in belief and hope, and minister to Israel’s need as occasion offers, realising your deep indebtedness to them in partaking of their spiritual things ” (Rom. xv. 13, 27). This argument appeals as powerfully to believing Gentiles of the twentieth century as it did to those of the first. They are contemporary with stirring signs of the approaching restoration of the Kingdom of David, and their faith and hope is strengthened by daily contemplation of these things in the “ lively oracles."

The term Branch (Nehtzer) of Isa. xi. 1 has sometimes been supposed to be referred to by Matthew in ch. ii. 23, “ He shall be called a Nazarene.” This was Jerome’s idea. The precise term “ Nazarene ” is not found in any prophecy extant But against

Jerome’s interpretation it has to be urged that Matthew’s refer­ence is general and not precise—“ that which was spoken by the prophets," not by one of them in a certain place. And, moreover, his allusion is geographical in its essence :—“ He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth ; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.” The view of Matthew's saying that sees in it reference to the “ reproach of Christ ” is evidently the correct one.

Nazareth was an obscure place (not even mentioned in the Old Testament Scriptures), in a despised district, and having so evil a reputation, that the first impulse of Nathaniel on hearing of “ Jesus of Nazareth ” was to exclaim, “ Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? ” He had much reason after he came and saw, to answer enthusiastically in the affirmative. As to Galilee, of which district Nazareth was a city, it was “ Galilee of the nations,” the goyim, the heathen, who were transplanted from Assyria and the neighbouring countries, " instead of the children of Israel ” (Is. ix. 1 ; 2 Kings

17. ). In Solomon’s time he gave Hiram “ twenty cities in the land of Galilee” (1 Kings ix. 11), in return for his preparation of timber for the temple. Hiram was much dissatisfied, “And he called them the land of Cabul (Disgusting, Dirty) unto this day ” (verse 13). Thus the land of Galilee seems always to have been alienated and despised.

The name Nazareth seems likely to be more correctly refer­able to the root whence comes the term Nazarite, than to the term Nehtzer, branch. This verb is nahzar, to separate ; and the derived noun is used in Gen. xlix. 26, of Joseph, who “ was separate from his brethren.” It is remarkable that the city which was the home in youth of Jesus, who is a Joseph to his brethren, should bear a name the associations of which in the days of his flesh should be alienation and dishonour, and which, descending upon his disciples in the epithet “ Nazarenes,” should in the public eye brand them as pestilent fellows and movers of sedition among the Jews (Acts xxiv. 5).

“ God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power : who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him ” (Acts x. 38).

This is Peter’s testimony to the household of Cornelius of the fulfilment of the promise of Isa. xi. 2. The Spirit of the Lord is the base of everything created, and Jesus always referred his wisdom and power to this Source. At Nazareth, in the synagogue, “ there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias,” and turning to the opening words of the sixty-first chapter he read before them : “ The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me ; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings.” And, in comment upon the prophecy, he appropriated it to himself, and by incisive reference to the history of Elijah and Elisha, warned those whose “ eyes were fastened on him ” that, as in the days of those prophets, the divine succour and healing passed over apostate Israel to reach unto a Sidonian widow and a Syrian captain, so it would be again with them in their rejection of him as the “ Physician ” sent of God. For this the congregation in their wrath sustained the evil reputation of their city by seeking to throw him over the precipice (Luke iv.).

But it was not only that Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power. The Holy Spirit had come upon others, enabling them to speak and do wonders. But He was above them, being begotten by the spirit : “ The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee (Mary), and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee : therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God ” (Luke i. 35). He was “ the Word made flesh ” that dwelt among the Jews and manifested forth the Father’s glory and goodness. John the Baptist, sent from God to bear witness to him, testifies of the Father’s visible approval of him, saying : “ I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not, but he that sent me to baptise with water, the same said unto me, upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptiseth with the Holy Spirit. And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God ” (Jno. i. 30). Again (Jno. iii. 34), “ God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.” And, by voice from heaven, the Father proclaimed Jesus to be His beloved Son. In controversy with the Jews Jesus always came back upon this effectual testimony that the righteousness of his claims 

was attested by the words and works of power which none other man ever did or could manifest (Jno. v. 19, 36 : viii. 47 : ix. 4 :

10. 25, 38 : xv. 24).

The quickness of his understanding in the fear of the Lord, even at twelve years of age, was the cause of astonishment in all that heard him, as was manifested on the occasion of his remaining in Jerusalem after the passover, and being found by his parents in the temple in the midst of the doctors (Lu. ii. 47).

The piercing discernment that depended not upon the sight of the eye or the hearing of the ear finds many exemplifications in the history of his life and work. Look at his reception of Nathaniel: “ Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile.” And listen to his answer to the surprised enquiry, “ Whence knowest thou me?” “ Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee ” (John i. 47). Against this place his seven times repeated declaration to the seven representative churches of Asia : “I know thy works,” and we begin to realise that all things are naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. In a word he revealed to the Samaritan woman “ all things that ever she did ” (John iv.). He reproved the Jews for murderous intent (John vii. 19), and by a simple act revealed the traitor at the table (John xiii. 26). With the brief words, “ He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her,” he convicted and scattered the callous and designing company of Scribes and Pharisees who used the woman taken in adultery as a means whereby “ they might have to accuse him ” (John viii.). “ He knew what was in man,” and anticipated an argument (Matt. xvii. 25) or turned a situation, leaving his enemies on the horns of a dilemma (Matt, xxi. 23-27) with a superhuman righteousness and skill that at last reduced them to the position of not daring to risk further controversy (Matt. xxii. 46).

But these manifestations in the days of his flesh were only the earnest of better things to come. It remains for him to judge the poor with righteousness, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth ; to smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips to slay the wicked. In the days of his flesh he “ judged no man ” in the sense of condemning them to death ; but at his second coming it will be different. The picture of Rev. xix. 11-21, exhibits Christ in an aspect that is almost lost sight of in the prevalence of so-called evangelistic teaching con­cerning him, as also is the picture of his judgment seat. It belongs to the truth to recognise in their places all features of the divine purpose in Christ. With the records of his past mighty works in our hands, and the striking developments of modern scientific inventions before our eyes, we cannot but recognise the unspeakable changes that will be wrought in human affairs when once he takes the tangled skein in hand.

That the world should be given into the hands of One of whom it was foretold that “ righteousness should be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his reins,” is a glorious dispensation of the Creator’s goodness. It will be appreciated to the utmost by reason of the long continued sufferings of the world at the hands of the wicked, whose characteristics are the very opposite of those which grace the Lord Jesus. The spirit of folly, ignorance and rebellion, has for thousands of years controlled the affairs of the earth, subject only to the invisible control of God. Paul sums up “ the course of this world ” as one directed by “ the spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience ” (Eph. ii. 2) ; but he defines the end of the matter as the gathering together of all things in Christ in the dispensation (or economy) of the fulness of times. Righteousness and faithfulness, unequalled in human affairs, qualify the Lord’s Anointed for immortal Kingship over all the earth ; and like qualification, in varying degrees, obtains in all the units of the glorious “ hosts,” who, with him, are to “ take the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.”

How Immanuel tames the Wild Beasts.

A picture of the peace of Jerusalem is thus given in verses 6-9.           “ 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 fatling together ; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed ; their young ones shall lie down together : and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain : for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."

The popular view of this prophecy finds expression in a well-known and beautiful picture of a little child leading some of the beasts spoken of; and in that vision the matter is for most people exhausted. But let the questions be asked : How does the knowledge of the Lord bear upon the taming of the wild beasts ? And what special reference has the matter to God’s holy mountain ? A greater and more interesting development then comes into view, and one which is the subject of description in other Scriptures.

There are human wolves and lions, the subduing of whom is a greater work than taming the wild beasts of the forest. What profit would it be if wolves and lions were tamed and men left wild ? It will not be                      so.     Beginning with   the Lord’s land, the                      knowledge

of the Lord     will,  after judgment,   transform mankind ;                      and Satan

being bound, and the “ old serpent ” cast into the abyss, earth will rejoice in the peace and blessedness of Christ’s kingdom for a thousand years.

In the forty-third chapter of Isaiah, God declares that He will do “ a new    thing,” saying,   “ The beasts of the                      field shall

honour me,     the dragons and the     owls: because I give                      waters in

the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself ; they shall show forth my praise. But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob.” Peter’s vision, described in Acts x., represented to the apostle, as the symbol of the Gentiles, a great sheet let down from heaven; “ wherein were all manner of four-footed

beasts of the earth, and wild beasts and creeping things, and fowls of the air.” In the end of the same chapter we learn that Cornelius the centurion, and his household were part of the substance represented by the vision. They were some of the beasts of the field that “ honoured God ” in the reception of His Word, and the doing of His will in obeying the truth in baptism

Thus God “ cleansed ” the “ common and unclean ” as He had thrice revealed His purpose to Peter in vision ; and He bore additional testimony to the fact in the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, enabling these Gentile converts to speak with tongues even as the apostles did on the day of Pentecost.

This illustrates the process of the transformation of Gentile wolves, lions, swine, and other unclean beasts into “ the sheep of God’s pasture,” led of Him all the days of their life, in hope at last of a place in His House for ever.

The case of Paul may be said to furnish a striking example of the same change. When he was a persecutor of the Lord Jesus and his people, although he did it in all good con­science, he was on the side of the Devil—a lion among the lions, a wolf among the wolves, who “ breathed out threatenings and slaughter ” against the sheep, and, on his own testimony, was “ exceedingly mad against them.” Because he did it ignorantly and in unbelief he obtained mercy of the Lord, and being baptised, for the washing away of his sins, became one of Christ’s sheep, to the amazement of those of the flock who had known him in his old character. Slightly changing the figure, it is Paul who applies the injunction of the law against muzzling the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn, to the apostolic labour, and liberty to partake of the carnal things of those to whom the spiritual things of the gospel were ministered (1 Cor. ix. 10).

The woman of Canaan who appealed to Jesus on behalf of her daughter, was promptly classed by him among the “ dogs,” and had sufficient faith and humility to accept his estimate, and plead that even the dogs got a crumb or two under the tables of their masters, a saying that at once seemed for her the “ crumb ” desired. Thus dogs, wolves, lions, serpents, sheep and oxen appear as the representation of their analogues among human animads ; and Bible students will recall many more illustrations that might be given.

But what wolves, lions, and serpents are those that have in particular “ hurt and destroyed ” in Yahweh’s holy mountain because of the lack of the knowledge of the Lord ? Bible history supplies the answer, which in brief is that they are the evil doers of Israel, and the Gentile powers God brought upon the nation in consequence of their sins. Literal visitations of lions (2 Kings xvii. 25) are not overlooked ; but the larger matter is now before us. “ Israel is a scattered sheep ; the lions have driven him away : first the King of Assyria hath devoured him ; and last, this Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hath broken his bones.” So says Jeremiah (ch. 1. 17). And again (chap, v.) “A lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities.” The four-headed and four-winged leopard of Daniel’s vision (ch. vii.) “ watched over their cities ” for between two and three hundred years ; and when at length Immanuel appeared as the “ heir of all things,” the assembly of the wicked, of Jews and Gentiles, combined against him as a gathering of wild beasts (lions, dogs, and bulls of Bashan), on the mountains of Israel.

But their fury did but accomplish the predetermined purpose of God in the death of Christ. As Ezekiel and Zephaniah had testified of their times, the princes, prophets and judges of Israel had become lions and wolves ravening for the prey (Ezek. xxii. ; Zeph. iii.) ; and secured a temporary triumph as the Spirit of God had testified in Psa. xxii., when telling how God’s Anointed should be brought into the dust of death. He had not failed to describe them in their true character as “ wolves,” “ serpents,” a “ generation of vipers ; ” and he had specially warned his disciples in sending them forth “ as sheep in the midst of wolves,” to be “ wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” After his death and resurrection, we find them acting out his advice in their difficult undertakings ; and from behind the veil, as it were, the Lord himself granted them occasional deliverance as suited His purpose.

Thus Paul (2 Tim. iv. 17), speaking of his defence before Nero, says, “ The Lord stood with me . . . and I was delivered out of the mouth of the Lion.” Peter exhorts to watchfulness, “ because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour ; whom,” says he, “ resist, stedfast in the faith ” (1 Pet. v. 8). And Paul warned the Ephesian elders against the “ grievous wolves ” who would surely arise and “ not spare the flock ” (Acts xx. 29).

History has only too well veiified Paul’s prophecy, and that of the later revelation of the Lord Jesus himself. In Rev. xiii., the Roman system in union with the secular power is represented by a beast “ like unto a leopard ’’ with feet like a bear’s, and a mouth like the mouth of a lion. The beast made war with the saints—for a time appointed—a time that we have the happiness of knowing is now in the past. The end of the beast, however, has not come yet ; but is to be brought about by war with the Lamb (Rev. xvii. 14 : xix. 19). Armageddon, on the mountains of Israel, will decide the matter for a thousand years, during which “ they shall not hurt nor destroy ” in all God’s holy mountain, " for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” “No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon; but the redeemed shall walk there ” (Isa. xxxv. 9). Of Jerusalem and her people : the new heavens and new earth, God says (Isa. lxv. 24-25), “ Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall he the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain saith the Lord.”

As concerning literal changes in the relations of man with the inferior creatures over which in the beginning the Creator gave Adam dominion, it has been well said that Daniel in the lions’ den is an illustration of possibilities when Daniels are multiplied in all the earth. In the beginning, “ every beast of the field and every fowl of the air ” were presented by the Lord God to Adam “ to see what he would call them ”: a very interesting incident in which Adam, strong in innocence and God-given dominion over the animals, exercised his observation, judgment, and powers of definition on their differing characteristics, and named them accordingly. Adam’s sons have been at it ever since ; for the matter is a great one, and it will be one of the delights of the kingdom of Adam the second to hear his classifi­cation of the Father’s creatures with a wisdom far exceeding Solomon’s. In the days of his flesh, in the temptation in the wilderness, it is said, he “ was with the wild beasts.” From these it seemed he had nothing to fear, like his prototype in the

garden of Eden:          but other and more terrible wild beasts

sought and took his life. Elijah fed by ravens is another glimpse of possibilities. Nothing is too hard for the Lord; and doubtless a feature of millennial blessedness will be the great reduction, or possibly abolition altogether, of the mortality due to wild beasts and serpents, which in countries like India assumes terrible pro­portions. But the language of the prophets, and the reason of the cessation of the “ hurting and destroying,” suggests that the matter of taming the more terrible “ beasts ” is the subject introduced in Isa. xi. 6-9.

‘ The Root of Jesse.”

The prophecy continues : “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign of the peoples ; to it shall the Gentiles seek ; and his rest shall be glorious.” How one and the same person can appropriately be symbolised in verse 1 by the expression “ Rod out of the stem of Jesse,” and in verse 10 “ Root of Jesse ” can only appear when the truth concerning Jesus is rightly apprehended. In Rev. v. 5 John in vision hears him called “ the Root of David ” by one of the elders; and in ch. xxii. 16 he says himself : I am the Root and the offspring of David.” The doctrine of “ Immanuel ” explains the apparent anomaly. God was the Root of David, as of all things created, and Jesus was God with Israel, and spoke God’s words, saying, for example, “ Before Abraham was I am.” The Spirit was the antecedent to Abraham, but the Jews, who looked no higher than the flesh, supposed that Jesus spoke of himself, and sought to kill him. It was otherwise with John the Baptist, who, recognising his heavenly origin, said of him, “ After me cometh a man which is preferred before me.” Inasmuch as Jesus was the Word made flesh, he is the “ Root of Jesse ” ; and because he “ was made of the seed of David according to the flesh,” he is obviously “ the Branch.” Were he merely a man, as some would have it, such expressions as the “ Root of Jesse,” “ The Root and offspring of David,” could have no rational place in the testimony concerning him. Those who seek to evade the force of the prophecy of Isaiah vii. concerning his supernatural origin, should consider this. “ The word of the truth of the gospel ” is so interlaced in all the scriptures, that any attempt to mutilate it must inevitably recoil on those who are unwise enough to make it.

“An Ensign of the Peoples.”

An ensign is a standard or banner, indicating the presence of royalty or authority; and denoting a rallying point for the people in peace or war. The Bible usage of the term with reference to Christ, introduces things that have no counterpart among the powers that be. Suppose we contemplate the late Queen Victoria in the year of the Diamond Jubilee (1897) as an ensign to the British Empire. We have an imposing spectacle truly; but there is no divine life and power behind the British throne. And although the boast be true : “ We hold a vaster Empire than has been ; ” that Empire is by no means universal, but is only part of what is to be possessed by Christ in the day when the British “ kingdom ” is “ left to other people,” even to “ the saints of the Most High.”

The term translated “ ensign ” is that which appears in the name “ Yahweh- Nissi ” (Yahweh, my ensign or banner), which Moses gave to the altar he built after the victory over Amalek (Ex. xvii. 15). Amalek fought with Israel in Rephidim; and Moses, having commissioned Joshua to direct the battle, stood with Aaron and Hur on a neighbouring hill, with the rod of God in his hand. When Moses held up his hand Israel pre­vailed, and when he let down his hand Amalek prevailed. And when he was weary, Aaron and Hur “ held up the failing hands ” till the going down of the sun, by which time Amalek was discomfited before Joshua. God directed Moses, saying, “ Write this for a memorial, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek front under heaven.” The altar, Yahweh-nissi (literally, He who shall be my ensign), represents Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, more honourable than Moses; and before whose un­failing uplifted hands Israel will do valiantly. Balaam, in his prophecy of “ the latter days,” saw him in vision in this victorious attitude (Num. xxiv. 17).

But before this there was another kind of “ lifting up” to which the “ Root of Jesse ” was to be subjected. When Israel loathed the manna and murmured against God in the wilderness, God sent fiery serpents among the people, by which many died, The people confessed their sin to Moses, who prayed for them ; and God commanded him, saying, “ Make thee a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole (nes, a standard or ensign) : and it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.” (Num. xxi.).

About 700 years afterwards, when the brazen serpent had been made an idol, it was broken up by Hezekiah. Another 700 years, and the substance of the sign appeared in Israel in the person of an Israelite, who was serpent-bitten, though no mur- murer, and who was at the same time the antitype of the loathed manna of the days of the exodus. He said : “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life ” (John iii.). And to the Jews, in the controversy that arose upon his declaring himself to be “ the light of the world ” he said, “ When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am he ” (John viii.). And just before that lifting-up took place he said, “ Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I he lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me. This said he, signifying what death he should die ” (John xii.). A few days more and the Son of Man was lifted up upon the cross. God so loved the world that He gave him for that end. He thus “ condemned sin in the flesh.” Thus “the prince of this world” was cast out. “ He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Yahweh-nissi received the initial stage of its fulfilment in Israel, and serpent-bitten sinners had but to look upon him and live. The apostolic preaching of the gospel, “ to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile,” is the literal unfolding of the meaning of the figures.

But the “ ensign ” did not then “ stand ” in the land of Israel as a beacon for all peoples. The nation that had rejected him, and the city before which he was crucified, were given over to judgment and desolation for a long “ time of the Gen­tiles ” as he had foretold; while he himself ascended to the right hand of the Majesty on High, “ from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.” When the time comes for that great crisis, he returns, and is “ lifted up ” on the mountains of Israel far otherwise than as in crucifixion, and all the world is called upon to behold :—

“All ye inhabitants of the world and dwellers on earth, see ye, when he lifteth up as an ensign upon the mountains ; and when he bloweth a trumpet hear ye ” (Isa. xviii. 3). This is a warning that precedes the stroke of judgment that gives the hosts of the robbers of Israel for a sacrifice to the beasts of the earth and the fowls of the air, and paves the way for the final replanting of Israel in their land. It is the great day in which the Assyrian falls, but not by the sword of man (Isa. xxxi. 8). “And his rock shall pass away for fear, and his princes shall be afraid of the Ensign, saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.” The Angel of the Lord who destroyed Sennacherib’s army was terrible to the Assyrian of old. Christ will be more so hereafter to the Great Northern Confederacy of the latter days.

And the glory of Christ as the “ ensign of the peoples ” is not confined to Himself as the Head of his multitudinous body ; but extends to all the children of the resurrection as well. This appears from the prophecy of Zechariah (ch. ix.) where God speaks of the release from the pit, of Christ’s prisoners of hope by the blood of his covenant. Of their royal position over Judah and Ephraim it is said: “ The Lord their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people ; for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land.” The Lord Jesus at their head is King of Kings, who “ was dead and is alive for evermore : ” who once was lifted up on the cross to suffer a malefactor’s death, but is then enthroned in glory with the saints as his “ crown of rejoicing.” And they who have looked upon him for salvation, as Israel looked upon the serpent in the wilderness, and who have “ suffered with him ” in various manners and degrees, are then with him “ an ensign of the peoples; ” and having been by him made “ unto God, kings and priests,” “ all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.”

Even in the days of their flesh, Christ’s people are in some sort “ an ensign of the peoples ” as he was. They are not now, and have not at any time been “ acknowledged; ” but like him have been, and are, “ disallowed,” disowned, and accounted “ the offscouring of all things.” “ The truth ” is their ensign or banner : “ Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth ” (Psa. lx. 4). Their testimony concerning Him who shall be the ensign of Israel constitutes them “ the salt of the earth,” “ the light of the world,” “ a city that is set on a hill (which) cannot be hid.” So Christ testified of the disciples, in the sermon on the mount, cautioning them at the same time about becoming unsavoury and extinguishing the light.

If we are to have part in the exaltation of the future, we must realise the exaltation of the present, and reckon with Paul that the sufferings in consequence are altogether negligible. In the resurrection morning the memory of the sufferings will be to the apostle a pleasure instead of a pain ; as the crucifixion must have been to the Lord when he awoke from the brief sleep of death. The victory that overcometh the world, says the apostle, is our faith ; and the Word of God, ministered by prophet and apostle, is strong to produce that faith wherever it is earnestly sought and diligently and prayerfully followed. Be it ours to cleave fast to it, that we may be as he was in the world, and may be counted worthy of a place in his glorious rest.

“ Nations rallying to the Ensign.”

“An ensign of the peoples, to it shall the Gentiles seek ; and his rest shall be glorious ” (Isa. xi. 10). Jesus is the “ ensign of the peoples.” But what does the word of God tell us of nations seeking to Him, and of His rest that is to be glorious ?

First of the nations. God’s division of mankind with the reference to His eternal purpose marks them off into the two classes—Jews and Gentiles. It might have been otherwise. What His purpose may be in other planets, with the in­habitants thereof, we know not; save the presumption (from the words of the Elohim at the time of Adam’s transgression), that they are to attain to perfection by faith and obedience manifested under trial—a choosing of the good, and refusing the evil, because of the love of God.

But concerning Earth His revelation is clear and unmis­takable, though so universally neglected, that “ Salvation is of the Jews.” It is vain to kick against the pricks. High-flown theories of presumptuous speculators may reject what they are pleased to term the narrowness and bigotry of a mere “ tribal theology,” and claim with swelling oration the “ Universal Fatherhood of God ” and the common brotherhood of man. They cannot alter facts. The facts are the “ pricks ” (goads). All Jewish history of the past, and the world-rousing Jewish develop­ments of the present, simply goad and torment the theorists who reject God’s plan. They can neither face nor account for them.

“You only have I known of all the families of the earth ; therefore I will, punish you for your iniquities ”—this, in a sentence, is an entirely satisfactory divine philosophy of the unparalleled sufferings of Israel in the past. “ He that scat­tered Israel will gather him ”—this is a perfect explanation of the movements of the present. A terrible lesson awaits the Gentiles among whom God has scattered Israel. A small rem­nant among them will save themselves in time before the judgment storm bursts upon the world. They will enquire of

God, by means of the Word He has given Israel and suffered it to come through them into their hands. They will discover their true relation to the matter in His gracious purpose from the beginning.

Man has no rights before God. It is true that Adam was " Son of God,” but he sinned; and “ the wages of sin is death.” Our natural birthright from Adam is only evil and death. Even to the elite of the chosen nation when they were in rebellion against the Father, Jesus said, " Ye are of your father the Devil.” We must realise our true estate before we can appreciate the goodness and condescension of God in providing a Saviour to whom nations shall seek, and whose rest shall be glorious.

After more than sixteen hundred years of human progress, all flesh had corrupted God’s way upon earth to such an extent that He determined to destroy “ the world of the ungodly.” He did so in Noah’s flood, saving only eight souls. So that it might have been said in that day, “ Salvation is of Noah,” according to the prophecy of Lamech, his father, who at his birth " called his name Noah (Rest or Comfort), saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.” In Noah’s family, in Shem’s line, comes “ the heir of the world,” and “ father of many nations ”—Abraham. Just as in the case of Noah, so in Abraham’s case, it is entirely " of the Lord ” that he is individually chosen as the vehicle of divine blessing, the fountain head of human hope in his holding of the divine covenant. That the “ wise men after the flesh ” have got the length in our day of saying that “ it has not yet been made probable” that such a man as Abraham existed, is only an exhibition to all whom it may concern of their own utter folly before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ and a world full of Jews.

“ In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” So God said to Abraham; and Paul, about two thousand years afterwards, speaking to some of those concerned, emphasised the fact, saying, “ The Scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, ‘In thee shall all nations be blessed.” Thus the matter of Isaiah’s prophecy of Immanuel is rooted in the covenant of God with his father Abraham. For nearly two thousand years the full scope and bearing of the divine pur­pose with regard to the Gentiles was concealed. It was there all the time, concurrently with all the law and the prophets, but, although the subject of abundant revelation, was not thoroughly comprehended till the “ rod out of the stem of Jesse ” appeared, of whom it had been said, “ In his name shall the Gentiles trust.” Even in his infancy the hope of nations comes before us in the songs of angels and prophecies of saints :—

“Peace on earth, goodwill from heaven Reaching far as man is found.”

was the theme of the heavenly host in connection with the glory of God to be revealed through the Babe of Bethlehem. And the aged Simeon, rejoicing in having survived “ to see the Lord’s Christ,” spoke of him as “ a light to lighten the Gentiles.”

Time passed and Jesus went forth on his mission preaching the              gospel of the Kingdom of God. Some incidents in                                                                     his

ministry foreshadowed the opening of the door of faith unto the    Gentiles.  On one occasion a centurion        asked the favour of

his    healing a  sick servant. “ I will come           and heal him,” was

the    answer.    But the centurion, deeply           impressed with  the

majesty of Jesus and his own unworthiness, said, “ Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed; ” and argued that that would be as easy for Jesus, as the giving of a command to a soldier would be to him. And “ when Jesus heard it he marvelled and said to them that followed, Verily, I say unto you I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness ; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” And he dismissed the centurion with the words : " Go thy way;

and as thou hast believed so be it done unto thee.” And the servant was healed as he spoke.

Soon afterwards the leaders of that generation of “ the children of the kingdom ” combined with the Romans and crucified the King, who died without resistance, and with a prayer to the Father for their forgiveness upon his lips. But he had forewarned them of the consequences of this filling up of the measure of their iniquity, telling of the great wrath of God that should come upon the land and city and nation, and the desolation of Jerusalem during a long “ time of the Gentiles.” Before the subversion of the Jewish State of those times, he caused the gospel of the kingdom to be preached “ in all the world,” or Roman habitable earth, to Jew and Gentile, and in the doing of this his apostles expounded to all men God’s purpose in Christ concerning Israel and the nations. Beginning at Jerusalem with devout Jews out of every nation, it extended, in the hands of Peter the holder of the keys of the kingdom (the key of divine knowledge), to the household of Cornelius and onwards ; and afterwards, in the hands of Paul, to the Jews and Gentiles of Europe and Asia.

Paul was especially “ the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” In the exercise of this function he had much to say of the word of God concerning the Gentiles. The Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s writings reveal it. At Antioch, in Pisidia, when the Jews rejected the gospel, Paul turned to the Gentiles, quoting Isa. xlii. as the Lord’s command in justification of so doing. At Lystra he rebuked the prevailing idolatry and restrained the priest of Jupiter from sacrificing to him ! At Jerusalem, when the apostles came together over the matter of the Judaisers, he witnessed to God’s working with him in miraculous attestation of his ministry, and, with others, took back to the churches of Asia the inspired decision of the apostles. At Philippi, at Athens, and Corinth, and at Ephesus (to trace the progress of the Acts), he testified to the Gentiles concern­ing Christ, and one night when imprisoned in the Roman castle in Jerusalem, “ the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem so must thou bear witness also at Rome.” And so, having appealed to Caesar, he was taken to Rome, where he convened the chief of the Jews for the sake of “ the hope of Israel.”

But these rejecting the Gospel, he turned to the Gentiles, as was his wont, and a community was founded at Rome, to whom he afterwards wrote the epistle which contains so much concerning the Gentiles in their relation to the Jews and to the Law of Moses, to Abraham as the father of many nations, to Adam who was inversely a figure of Christ, and to the promised “ receiving ” of Israel which is to be a revelation of “ life from the dead.” In the tenth chapter of Romans, Paul quotes the Word of God to Moses that He would requite Israel’s provoking Him to jealousy with their idols, by provoking them to jealousy by the “ foolish ” Gentiles. And he adds the “ very bold ” contrast in Isa. lxv., between disobedient Israel as the rejecters of God’s long-proffered mercy, and the Gentiles who suddenly accepted His gracious invitation. In the fifteenth chapter, Paul, emphasising the matter before us in Isaiah xi., says, “ Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy ; as it is written ’’—and he quotes where it is written—from the Psalms, from Moses in Deuteronomy, and from Isa. xi. “ Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles ; in him shall the Gentiles trust.”

The words of this quotation differ somewhat from the words of the text in the Old Testament. What is the explanation of the fact, and how does it bear upon the question of the inspiration of the Scriptures ? Paul’s quotation is from the Septuagint version, and as in the providence of God that version was the means of appeal to the Gentiles in the prevailing language of that day, a word or two on the subject may not be out of place.

Before the time came for the last dispersion of Israel, and the concurrent sending forth of the Gospel invitation to the Gentiles, it was necessary that there should exist a version of the Old Testament Scriptures that could be appealed to in the apostolic labours in a way that left their hearers an opportunity 

of “ searching the Scriptures daily whether those things were so ” (Acts. xvii.). The Jews, of course, could appeal to the Hebrew Scriptures ; but the Greeks would have been at a loss apart from a version in their own tongue, unless, indeed, supernatural gifts had in every case followed the apostolic preaching. That the last supposition was not the case, the New Testament writings clearly show. How the Septuagint Version came into existence is briefly shown by the following extracts from an “ Introduction ” to the book, that appears in Bagster’s edition of the Septuagint.

After the conquests of Alexander had brought Egypt under Macedonian rule, the newly founded city of Alexandria became especially a place where the Greek language, although by no means in its purest form, was the medium of written and spoken com­munication among the varied population there brought together. This Alexandrian dialect is the idiom in which the Septuagint Version was made

Amongst other inhabitants of Alexandria the number of Jews was considerable : many appear to have settled there even from the first founding of the city, and it became the residence of many more during the reign of the first Ptolemy. Hence the existence of the sacred books of the Jews would easily become known to the Greek population.”

The account then goes on to give reasons for concluding that the translation was commenced prior to b.c. 285 and probably com­pleted in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The fabulous stories of the miraculous agreement of the seventy-two translators said to have been employed by the Egyptian King (“ the King of the South of one of the verses of Dan. xi,) is dismissed; but the substratum of truth accepted is that “ the Egyptian King procured a translation of the Jewish Scriptures,” “ and that it was from the Royal Library at Alexandria that the Hellenistic Jews received the copies which they used.”

The variety of the translators is proved by the unequal character of the version. Some books show that the translators were by no means competent to the task, while others, on the contrary, exhibit on the whole a careful translation. The Pentateuch is considered to be the part the best executed, while the book of Isaiah appears to be the very worst.”

“At Alexandria the Hellenistic Jews used the version, and gradually attached to it the greatest possible authority : from Alex­andria it spread amongst the Jews of the dispersion, so that at the time of our Lord’s birth it was the common form in which the Old Testament Scriptures had become diffused.”

“ The Septuagint version having been current for about three centuries before the time when the books of the New Testament were written, it is not surprising that the apostles should have used it more often than not in making citations from the Old Testament. They used it as an honestly-made version in pretty general use at the time they wrote. They did not on every occasion give an authoritative translation of each passage de novo, but they used what was already familiar to the ears of converted Hellenists, when it was sufficiently accurate to suit the matter in hand. In fact, they used it as did their contemporary Jewish writers, Philo and Josephus, but not, however, with the blind implicitness of the former.’”

“ In consequence of the fact that the New Testament writers used on many occasions the Septuagint version, some have deduced a new argument for its authority,—a theory which we might have thought to be sufficiently disproved by the defects of the version, which evince that it is merely a human work. But the fact that the New Testament writers used this version on many occasions supplies a new proof in opposition to the idea of its authority, for in not a few places they do not follow it, but they supply a version of their own which rightly represents the Hebrew text, although contradicting the Septuagint.”

“ The use, however, which the writers of the New Testament have made of the Septuagint version must always invest it with a peculiar interest; we thus see what honour God may be pleased to put on an honestly-made version, since we find that inspired writers often used such a version, when it was sufficiently near the original to suit the purpose for which it was cited, instead of rendering the Hebrew text de novo on every occasion.”

These remarks are quoted for the sake of the interesting light they throw upon the apostolic ministry to the Gentiles, and because of the reverent manner in which is exhibited the true principle of judging of the apostolic handling of the scriptures. Superficial animosity, finding variation between the Hebrew text and the apostolic quotation or allusion, cries " Discrepancy ”! and, after the manner of Dean Alford on Acts vii., does not hesitate virtually to charge God with blundering and mistake! The friends of Christ approach the matter in another spirit. Their first axiom is “ Let God be true ; ” “ Thy word is perfect; ” “ The spirit of truth guideth into all truth.” Grant that God, by the Lord Jesus, inspired and guided the apostles in their mission (and how can it be denied ? ), and all is plain. Their voice is the Spirit’s voice. God, who spoke by the prophets and by Jesus, spoke finally by them as Jesus had promised (Matt. x. 20; Acts iv. 8) Their utterances are therefore authoritative.

In the passage before us (Rom. xv. 12 in connection with Isa. xi. 10), we simply conclude that for the purpose in hand Paul considered the Septuagint version sufficiently accurate : and indeed its rendering : “He that shall arise to rule over the Gentiles,” is quite equivalent to the Hebrew:                                                                                “ Which

shall stand as an ensign of the peoples.” So also “ In him shall the Gentiles trust,” is the same idea as “ To it shall the Gentiles seek.” We ought surely to allow the Author’s liberty of choice to the Holy Spirit, and whatever difficulties may appear, let us not charge God with error. Most difficulties can be solved; but if not, let them remain, and suspend judgment, avoiding the pitfalls into which the “ wise men after the flesh ” stumble to their own discomfiture.

Quoting this prophecy to the Roman believers, in illustration of the divine intention with regard to their privileged position in Christ, Paul adds: “ Now the God of hope fill you with 311 joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit,” After this he speaks °f the ministration of the Grecian brethren to “ the poor saints at Jerusalem,” and comments on the indebtedness of the Gentiles to the Jews. He desires their prayers, and, greeting many by name, with many words of approval and encourage­ment interspersed, concludes thus : “ Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began; but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith : To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever, Amen ” (Rom. xv. 25, 27).

Our time has come in the passing generations of the Gen­tiles, and the revealed mystery, by the Scriptures of the prophets, has become known to us, and we have so far rendered the obedience of faith as to put on Christ in baptism, and enter upon his service in hope of the rest that remaineth. “ In him shall the Gentiles trust ” receives an exceedingly fragmentary illustration in our day and generation ; but it is a real one nevertheless, for nothing but trust in his name would induce men and women to come out from kith and kin and all that is agreeable to the flesh, and accept the inevitable scorn and humiliation that pertains to a true following of Christ, and is part of the perfecting process that prepares for the Kingdom of God. The signs are many and clear that tell us the end is near, and that the larger fulfilment of the prophecy is near, when the nations shall seek the Lord at Jerusalem in the day that he shall be exalted there.

“ His Rest shall be Glorious.”

“ His rest ” is an extraordinary phrase to find applied to a son of David in prophecy. Familiarity has largely obscured the true wonder of it; and an effort has to be made to get rid of the blunting effect upon spiritual perception of the mere repetition of the familiar words. In the beginning, at the end of the creative week, “ God rested on the seventh day.” It has been said that the Hebrew word shabath “ is opposed not to weariness, but to work or action,” which, though well enough as applied 

to God, does not exclude the idea that the saints will be wearied enough before they enter upon “ the rest that remaineth.”

Though not definitely stated in the Scriptures, it is mani­fest that Paul endorses the tradition that just as God employed six days in the creation of the World Adamic, and rested on the seventh ; so He is employing six millenniums in the creation of the World Messianic, and will rest on the seventh, which is the day of Christ of a thousand years’ duration. In the epistle to the Hebrews, Paul argues on this wise, and refers to “ the rest (literally sabbath-rest) that remaineth to the people of God ” (Heb. iv. 9). He also refers to the history of the Exodufe, and the rest in the land of promise under Joshua, which was a type of Christ’s rest in the same land; and to the failure of the unbelievers to enter—“ whose carcases fell in the wilderness.” These were an example of the many who shall be refused entrance into “ his glorious rest ” in the day of Christ.

Paul makes a pointed application of these things to the believers of his day : " Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” He justifies his future placing of the rest by reference to the ninety-fifth Psalm, in which God, “ after so long a time ” (that is, in David’s days, about 430 years after the occupation of the land under Joshua), says to Israel, “ To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness.” On this Paul argues that if Joshua had given Israel rest, God would not afterwards have spoken of another day, and concludes that there remaineth a sabbath rest for the people of God.

In view of this he exhorts, saying, “ Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast, firm until the end.” And Paul also draws attention to Jesus, saying, “ He that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works as God did from his,” and adds, “ Let us labour, therefore, to enter into that rest.” And he encourages the brethren by reminding them of the faithfulness and sympathy of the High Priest of God’s providing, and warns them of the penetrating discernment of the Word and Spirit of God.

Christ’s own words contain the assertion of his fulfilling the position assigned to him by the Spirit of God in the prophets as the Giver of Rest to Israel and the nations. On one occasion, after upbraiding Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum for the disregard of his mighty works, he thanked God that the things of the kingdom were hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes; and apostrophised his hearers in words that have echoed round the world ever since : “ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For mv yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

This rest is mental and moral, and belongs even to this present time of waiting for the glorious rest of the kingdom of God. The man who comes to Christ finds rest and peace in many ways even now. He is delivered from the perplexities, doubts and distresses of those without Christ.” Has he been burdened with sin and sorrow ? Christ forgives him, and gives him hope and guidance unto life eternal. Has he dreaded “ the great unknown ” after death ? Christ enlightens him : he is the Resurrection and the Life, and death but “ a sleep in the dust ” for a night, with his strong hand ready to wake him in the morning. Does he look abroad on the Father’s works in nature—the great silent Universe, and yearn for an explanation of the state of things on earth—the reign of sin and death—the triumph of evil—wars, strifes and hatreds ever increasing ? Christ is the all-sufficient answer—“ the heir of all things, ’ “ the Way, the Truth and the Life,” once a wearer of this poor human nature, now glorious for ever with life and blessing in his hand ready to bestow it on his people.

The most conspicuous wearers of his yoke have the most earnestly attested the truth of his apparently hard saying that it is "easy.” Paul was positive of it. Truly judged—by comparison with the voke and burden of sin, we can see it is really so. Give a sinner long life, unclouded success, vast inheritance—everything but Christ ; and the final verdict must be “ Vanity of vanities, all is vanity ! ” And it is not only the final verdict. Where is the “ rest ” all the time of the vain march to the grave ? There is none and can be none : we were made by God, for God, and apart from God there is no rest or peace for the sons of men. Universal human experience altogether belies the practically universal human denial of this truth.

But come to the end of the matter with Christ, and rest of mind in mortal pilgrimage culminates in the perfection of physical, mental and moral rest, satisfaction and glory in the kingdom of God. A great gathering of the labourers of all past generations is the sublime crisis toward which the world is hastening. This will be truly “ glorious ” as the prophet foretold, a consummation worthy of the Great Creator, and providing, as it were, a living record of His dealings with mankind in all their generations. If this end were always in view, and “ the great cloud of witnesses,” we should never falter nor fail. And the word of God is able to keep it in view.

The Revised Version would render the line in Isa xi. “ His resting place shall be glorious.” This is truly so : “ the glory of the celestial body ” has fit topographical setting in the glory of Jerusalem in the age to come. The sixteenth chapter of Isaiah is the vision of it—Zion glorified by the presence of the Lord and the saints, the wealth of the Gentiles, the beauty of mountain, forest and stream, and the expurgation of every form of defilement. God, who appointed the city to desolation that it should become, as it has, a proverb and an astonishment, has appointed it for a praise in the earth in the latter days, and the desolation is but the earnest of the glory; and the more so as the tide is on the turn, and “ Zionism ” sounds the first note heralding the dawn of “ Zion’s glad morning.” We labour, as it were, late on the sixth day. The Sabbath of rest is at hand, and it will be glorious for those who hold fast the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end.

The typical rest of Israel in the Promised Land under Joshua was not reached without a final time of trouble and war. The glory of Solomon’s peaceful reign only succeeded the sufferings, wars and victories of David, which were celebrated by him in songs of thanksgiving to God for His deliverance. So Christ’s “ glorious rest is only reached after war and conquest on a scale far exceeding these actions of ancient times. Isaiah, in common with the other prophets, presents this picture, as also does the later revelation of the Lord Jesus himself.

“ The earth abideth for ever.” The everlasting hills are with us, and the countries that saw the mighty works of old, and are studded with the monuments of them, are to witness the revival of God’s work in the latter days. And though times and genera­tions change ; Israel is with us, ready to participate in these world-changing developments, but faithless of the wonder that is about to happen to the nation, when, by the hands of Jesus, Joshua, David, Isaiah, and the “ ancients of Israel ” in general, will come forth as the heads of the revived nation to subdue all enemies, and plant Israel victoriously in the Land of Promise to the glory of Yahweh’s name.

The Second Exodus.

History repeats itself, it is said, and certain it is that by the will of God Jewish history is to repeat itself, with variations that will redound to His ever increasing glory upon earth. The Exodus from Egypt in the days of Moses, and the return from Babylon in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, are both divinely before us in this prophecy as illustrations of what God intends to do with Israel in the latter days. The Exodus was, of course, a matter of national history in Isaiah’s day ; but the Babylonian captivity was yet in the future ; as also, but less remotely, was the Assyrian captivity of the ten tribes, which Isaiah now foretold (viii. 1, etc.). But the spirit of God, speaking of the recovery of Israel “ a second time,” included “ Assyria ” and “ Shinar ” among the countries of their dispersion, in harmony with the history that was to come.

Looking back upon the Exodus and the return from Babylon, we discern many beautiful analogies, which the gospel

of the Kingdom of God enables us to apply as light upon our future.

In the case of the Exodus, the time specified by God to Abraham was expiring, and a deliverer was provided by a birth of water as it were, and after training, was rejected by Israel, and kept in hiding in a far country till an appointed crisis for his revelation. The people multiplied and waxed more and mightier than the Egyptians. This was met by oppression and the cruel decree of Pharaoh against the male children. In Moses’ case the decree was not only circumvented by God; but was made actively operative against Pharaoh in his own court, through his daughter’s pity for the child who was afterwards to be the ruin of Egypt.                                                             After the long

time in “ a far country,” Moses is divinely sent back to Egypt to deliver Israel. Aaron in Egypt is sent to meet him : “ The Lord said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met him in the mount of God and kissed him. And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had sent him ” Then came the gathering of the elders of the people, and the doing of the signs. Afterwards came the demand on Pharaoh, and           his indignant refusal to                       recognise

Yahweh    or let Israel go. The plagues followed,   and                                                                 the

exposure and judgment of the gods of Egypt. The slaying of the firstborn was the last stroke threatened. Before it came the Passover was instituted and the beginning of                                                                                       the                                                                                      year

changed. Then came the judgment of that awful night, when by one final blow there        was brought right home                 into                                                                the

heart of every individual in Egypt the conviction that Yahweh alone was God in all Egypt, and that He was with Israel and against Egypt, with all-seeing scrutiny and almighty power.

The consecration of Israel’s firstborn followed, and then came the flight, the passage of the Red Sea, the drowning of Pharaoh and his hosts, and the fervent song of Moses and Israel on the further shore. Afterwards came the 40 years’ sojourn in the Wilderness, embracing the giving of the law by the disposition of angels, the making of the tabernacle, the manna, the murmurings, the rebellions, the gradual purging out of all the rebels, and at length the settlement in the land under Joshua of a tried and purified remnant which swept the land of the ripened iniquity of the Amorites and others, and took their place.

Somewhat analogous, though less dramatically striking, is the Return from Babylon. Again there is an appointed time ; and as with Moses, so with Daniel, it is more or less accurately discerned from the revealed counsel of God, and prayers and confessions and yearnings ascend to Him in consequence, in the face of life- threatening difficulties. An Ezra and a Nehemiah stand ready, as Moses stood. Decrees of kings are overruled by God as in the days of Pharaoh. Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes lend themselves to His purpose according to His will. There is the restoration of sacred vessels, the return of priests, the divinely-defended march from Ahava river to Jerusalem, the setting up of the altar, the laying of the foundations of the temple, amidst a strange mixture of joy and mourning that will find no place in the antitype. There is the hindering of the jealous neighbours and enemies, whose rejected appeal, “ Let us build with you,” stirs up all their animosity. There is the expostulation and encouragement of the faithful prophets (Haggai and Zechariah), who speak of times then present, and future glory then far remote. There is the subverting of the machinations of the enemies by the divinely controlled favourable decree of Darius. And finally the cleansing of Israel by a drastic process of separation from strange wives—a lesson for all time, for the most part little heeded.

When God says He will set His hand “a second time” to recover Israel from these and other countries, He expects us to be informed concerning what He did at the first ; lacking which, our ears will be dull of hearing, and our eyes closed, as it was with Israel of old to His displeasure.

Those then, who would understand and prepare for a part in the great and terrible and glorious work of Christ that is to come, must study the divine records of the work of God in the past, in the spirit of Psalm cv., “ O give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name; make known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him : talk ye of all his wondrous works. Glory ye in his holy name, let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face evermore. Remember his marvellous works that he hath done; his wonders and the judgments of his mouth, O ye seed of Abraham, his servant, ye children of Jacob, his chosen.” “ If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed,” says an apostle. Therefore the foregoing applies to Gentile converts of the latter days.

“ It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people which shall be left, from Assyria and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth ” (Isa. xi. 11). In the countries named there will be accomplished " in that day,” by the hands of “ the root of Jesse,” the “ prophet ” of whom Moses spoke, the antitypical “ Joshua ” of whom Zechariah testified, a work like that which, in the same countries, was performed by God through these “ men of sign ” of old. The analogy is expressed not only in this chapter xi. of Isaiah, but in other places as well, as Micah vii., Psa. lxviii., etc., and is striking and obvious to those enlightened in the truth.

The times of the Gentiles are running out, and there is expectation of deliverance for Israel “ in the air,” both spiritual and national. Christ is the Moses of the situation, who came “ not by water only, but by water and blood.” He is away in the “ far country,” and Israel groans in the modern house of bondage of “ the north country,” where oppressive decrees and periodical massacres make life intolerable. The saints, like Aaron, are expecting the command, “ Go into the wilderness to meet (the prophet like unto) Moses”—“at the mount of God.” And those who are faithful, like Aaron, will be “ glad in their hearts.” The antitypical Moses will show his brethren God’s power, to the extent of swallowing up their mortality in life in the twinkling of an eye, and will make known to them his counsels of war, and formulate his demands upon the courts of the powers that be.

Refusal and plagues will follow, and the war of the great day of God Almighty, and at last, out of the chaos of destruction, will arise, as out of primeval darkness, the new and beautiful order of the day of Christ. A new era will dawn upon the troubled world, and the Passover be celebrated afresh in the Kingdom of God.

Meanwhile, taking a view of the countries named, we perceive Israel still preserved, but in dispersion in all these districts : a monument to the truth of God (“ my witnesses,” He calls them), and an earnest of the blessedness that is to come.

“ From Assyria.”—Concurrently with the increasingly virulent attacks of scepticism on the Bible, an increasingly strong defence of " the impregnable rock ” has accumulated during the last half- century, which owes a good deal to Assyrian and Babylonian exploration. Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser, Shalmanezer, Sargon, Sennacherib, and others have come to light and are now in the British Museum. They of course agree with the Scriptures, and even mention some of the kings, as Jehu, King of Israel, and Manasseh, King of Judah. One of the most recent ethnological notes, speaking of the Assyrians as pure Semites, as manifest from Genesis (x. 22), and the native inscriptions, adds : “ Their descendants, the ‘ Chaldeans ’ of the mountains near Mosul, still speak a corrupt Aramean dialect, and have features closely resem­bling those of the Hebrews.” Current estimates place the number of Jews in Turkey in Asia at 150,000, of whom many are doubtless located in the regions of ancient Assyria.

“ From Egypt.”—Althought it is evident that nothing like the ancient sojourning in Egypt now obtains in that country, yet there are some 8,000 Jews there, and their number steadily increases with the rising prosperity of the country under British administration. But before the second exodus they will be brought there in full force as in the days of old.

“ Pathros.”—This was the name of Upper Egypt, as dis­tinguished from Mazor, Lower Egypt, and Mitzraim, including both. It was here that the disobedient remnant of Judah settled in Jeremiah’s days; after disobeying the word of God which He

spoke to them. Here they persisted in serving “ the Queen of Heaven,” ascribing their misfortunes to their previous neglect of that worship ; an inversion of facts that involved them in ruin with the country of their choice, for God gave Pharaoh Hophra into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, as He had previously given Zedekiah, King of Judah. In the resurrection Jeremiah will be familiar with Pathros, and his dealings with Israel in the days of the second exodus will be of a very different character from the galling encounters of the days of his flesh.

“Cush.”—The first mention of this name in the Bible is in Gen. ii. 13, where it defines the whole land compassed by the river Gihon, the second branch of the river of Eden. Cush was the son of Ham, and though his son Nimrod made a great name in eastern “ Babel,” the descendants of Cush mostly occupied Ethiopia, or Abyssinia. “ Ethiopia ” is the term used to represent Cush in the English Bible ; but this leads to confusion in Gen. ii. 13, where the retaining of the original name leaves all clear. Cush in Isaiah

11. 11 is in association with Egypt and Pathros, and is doubtless rightly referable to Ethiopia. Menelik of Abyssinia delights to style himself “ King of the Kings of Ethiopia ” (or Cush, which means black), and it is interesting to learn that there are in his dominions some 50,000 Jews, knows as Falashas, of whom, of course, the world is destined to hear more. In passing, it may be remarked that Isaiah’s description of our own “ land shadowing with vings, which is beyond the river of Ethiopia (Cush) (ch. xviii.), fits the geography of the case both East and West, for British power is found in its Indian Empire beyond the Euphratean districts, and recent developments have consolidated it also upon and beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.

“ Elam ” is Persia, speaking roughly and took its name from Shem’s son Elam. It is associated with Media in Isaiah’s prophecy against Babylon (xxi. 2), and was the country of Chedorlaomer, whose confederacy was defeated by Abraham and himself slain. It was after this exploit that Melchizedek, king of Salem, and priest of the Most High God, brought forth bread and wine and blessed Abraham on his return. Abraham will know all about Elam in the regeneration, when the antitypical Mel- chizedek reigns in Salem, and ministers bread and wine in blessing to his conquering heroes. There are 30,000 Jews, according to current estimate, in Persia, where, in the lands of Semitic origin and ancient settlement, they are better treated than among the Japhetic barbarians of the North quarters.

“ Shinak ” is Babylonia proper, the territory of the kingdon of Nimrod, the mighty hunter of men and beasts before the Lord. It is the land of Babel, where “ the children of men ” built the tower, and the Lord confounded human language and scattered them ; the land in which the Lord’s nation was captivated for its sins, and the vessels of His temple desecrated in the house of the god of Babylon. It is the land whose chief city, as a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, made nations drunk and mad (Jer, li. 7). Spiritually, its extent stretches far beyond the Euphratean country of Nimrod’s kingdom. As, by the decree of a Roman Emperor, the city of Rome was con­sidered and declared to be co-extensive with the Empire, so Babylon, giving its name to that same city, by reason of its spiritual parentage and family likeness, comes before as the designation of an enormous system ramifying into all the earth ; and “ the land of Shinar,” therefore, stands for all the territory of the enemy, where        Israel  is hunted   and captivated for                                     their

sins, and the saints,           who   are Jews   inwardly, have in                                        past

times shared the experiences of Daniel and his companions as far as concerns wild beasts and fire. The vision of Zech. v. gives us this idea of “ Shinar ” as Dr. Thomas has scripturally demonstrated (Eureka i., p. 72). The house of the wicked woman there described, was     to be built in            the land of Shinar,                  and

established and “ set        there   upon her   own base.” “ Her                                   own

base ” is a ricketty foundation. God’s rock foundation is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. iii.), and individuals and communities are built upon him who hear his sayings and do them (Matt. vii. 24). No other " house ” will stand. Babylon is condemned before­hand in the Revelation, and the prophets and apostles are to rejoice over her downfall. In Isaiah xi. “ from Shinar ” suggests this secondary and antitypical view of a feature in the second exodus. Of the number of Jews in the territory 

ol ancient Shinar we know little, but the spiritual extension of the territory necessitates the taking in of nearly all the world ; and the present estimation of the world’s Jewish popu­lation is from ten to eleven millions, whose rising watchword is Zion versus Babel, Immanuel’s Land versus Shinar.

“ Hamath ” was a city and district of Upper Syria, the northern boundary of the land as appointed bv God, both past and future (Num. xxxiv. and Ezek. xlvii.). It is at present, of course, included in the Asiatic part of the Turkish Empire, in which as a whole the Jews are numbered at 150,000.

“ The islands of the sea ” comprehended at first mainly those of the Great Sea, the Mediterranean, one of the chiefest of which (Cyprus) is now being spoken of as a “ side door ” to Palestine in the colonisation movements of Zionism. But wherever there are islands there are Jews, so complete is the dispersion which God foretold. In “ the remote islands of the Northern Seas,” as Dr. Thomas described Great Britain and Ireland from a Jerusalem standpoint, the Jews have found more toleration and comfort in the latter days than in any other land of the Gentiles. The Jewish Scriptures have taken hold on these people more than on others, and this, humanly speaking, is perhaps an element in the explanation of the phenomenon. The hold is slight enough truly, but even a traditional veneration for God and His holy word in the days and hands of Cromwell, led to a befriending of the Jews in this country which has progressed from that day to this, and has not been marred by anti-semitic outbreaks such as disgrace the continent of Europe.

In all the countries of this divine enumeration Israel remains in dispersion, and in more or less antitypical Egyptian and Babylonian conditions. It is noteworthy that here and in other prophecies the uniting of the severed kingdoms of Israel and Judah is specially emphasised. A fantastic theory (Anglo-Israelism), that obtained considerable currency some years ago, and is not yet entirely extinct, has, while in a rude manner drawing attention to the prophets, quite obscured this fact.

Anxious to identify Britain with “ the lost ten tribes,” it has glorified “ Ephraim ” to the point of almost totally eclipsing Judah, though it is undeniably plain that to Judah the royalty belongs. It would be vain to follow its benighted ramblings ; but occasion may be taken of noting afresh the uniform declaration of God by the prophets that the division of Israel is to be healed not by British ascendancy indeed, though that has its place in the work, but by divine power in the hands of “ the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” Isaiah, who here speaks of the reuniting of Israel and Judah, was a witness of the “ envy ” between the two kingdoms, and the " vexing ’’ wars that threatened the stability of the Davidic covenant. Jeremiah spoke in similar strain (iii. 18), " In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the North to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.” Ezekiel, with his symbolic sticks labelled Judah and Ephraim, which he joined together and made one in his hand (xxxvii.) graphically represented to the captivity the unification of the nation in the hands of the Son of David. And other illustrations might be given.

How deeply interesting and impressive is the spectacle of the first breath of national and political life stirring the dry bones of Israel. This “ unification of the nation,” though, of course, without the faintest reference to the " Son of David,” much less to “Jesus of Nazareth,” is the spirit of the Jewish movement in these latter days. In the book that started Zionism . “ A Jewish State, by Dr. Herzl, he speaks with an insight, earnestness, and emphasis that are almost prophetic. He was doubtless an instru­ment in God’s hands, though he did not discern the true nature of the mighty work to which he stood related. He says, when rehearsing the phases of Anti-Semitism :—

" We are a people—One People.”

“ We have honestly endeavoured everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding communities, and to preserve only the faith of our fathers. It has not been permitted to us. In vain are we loyal patriots, our loyalty in some places running to extremes; in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow-citizens ; in vain do we strive to increase the fame of our native land in science and art, or her wealth by trade and commerce. In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers.”

Again, discussing the effects of Anti-Semitism, Dr. Herzl says:—

“ We are one people—our enemies have made us one in our despite, as repeatedly happens in history. Distress binds us together, and, thus united, we suddenly discover our strength. Yes, we are strong enough to form a State, and a model State. We possess all human and material resources necessary for the purpose.”

These things are so : the scattered elements of the nation are there, and ready, and it needs only the divine Architect to “ restore again the Kingdom of Israel.” But the nation will not become “ one nation ” until the Lord brings it about; but here is the first blush of the thing visibly before us. These things were written in 1896. In the following year the first Zionist Congress was held at Basle, and for the first time since the destruction of Jerusalem the national voice of Israel fell upon the ears of an astonished world. It portends the return of Christ and the setting up of “ the ensign,” round whom, after centuries of alienation and suffering, the rescued tribes of Israel will at last rally.

Details of the restoration of Israel are scattered up and down the prophetic scriptures like parts of a dissected picture, for the exercise of the senses of those to whom the “ hope of Israel ” should come, whether of Jewish or Gentile extraction. Micah, who was contemporary with Isaiah, speaks as he does of the world-astonishing marvels of the second exodus (vii. 15). So also does Zechariah (x. 9-12). Various details are seen in vision by various prophets, and putting them all together in their proper places, we arrive at a more or less complete vision of the whole, in proportion to our skill in the placing of the disjointed parts. In this synthetical work, so far as we are aware, nothing has excelled, if indeed anything has equalled, the labours of Dr. Thomas in his books Elpis Israel and Eureka.

It will be found upon study that the work of restoration is as deliberate and well marked a matter as the process of disintegration and scattering Just as there was a time in which the nation of Israel was split into the rival kingdoms of Ephraim and Judah ; there will be a time, in the days of the greater than Solomon, in which they will be joyously re-united. Isaiah’s prophecy of this came at a time when the enmity between the two kingdoms was at its height, and when the faithful remnant in Israel needed some encouragement concerning “ the sure mercies of David,” because of the threatening overwhelming of his throne and kingdom at the hands of Ephraim and Syria. It was glad tidings for the prophet to say : “ The envy of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off : Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines towards the west ; they shall spoil them of the east together ; they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab, and the children of Ammon shall obey them.”

The Philistines, Edom, Moab, and Ammon figure in Bible history only as Israel’s more or less successful enemies ; and it is certain that nothing like the state of affairs depicted by Isaiah (xi. 14) has ever been seen from that day to this. Those who deny the restoration of Israel and declare that these ancient territories will never be subject to his dominion, deny the truth, and in effect, as the apostle says, “ make God a liar.” This is the position of Christendom as a whole, though many, by reason of the striking Jewish developments current, are more or less disposed to admit portions of the truth. But where, in the preaching of churches and chapels, is it put forth as the express function of the Lord Jesus “ to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the desolations of Israel ? ” Yet in Isaiah xlix. it is said of him that Yahweh formed him from the womb to be his servant, "to bring Jacob again to him.” It belongs to the latter-day revival of the truth to exalt the matter to its true place, whence by Gentile complacency and perversity it has been dethroned ; and to emphasise the fact that the Gentile contingent of Christ’s people are but the slip of the wild olive, grafted contrary to nature upon the good olive tree of Israel, where they stand only by faith (Rom. xi.).

In the fall of Israel the initiative was taken by Ephraim, whose kingdom was founded from the first upon apostasy from God in the hands of “ Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Isiael to sin.” Ephraim came to an end in the days of Hezekiah. Their evil example was followed by Judah, and the prophets protested against it, especially Ezekiel, but without avail ; and Judah’s captivity followed in the days of Zedekiah. Judah, return­ing from the Babylonian captivity, in a future generation filled up the cup of their iniquity in the rejection of Jesus, who became to them “ a gin and a snare,” and they were afterwards overthrown and scattered as they remain at this day. But Jesus was not known to the " diasporaWhen he spoke of going unto the Father the Jews said : “ Whither will he go that we shall not find him ? Will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles ? ’ But as he is to be ‘‘a stone of stumbling and rock of offence to both the houses of Israel ” (Is. viii. 14), Ephraim must yet get to know him.

Whatever scraps of information may have distilled through missionaries among scattered Jewish peoples in Gentile lands, they relate to quite ” another Jesus,” than he of apostolic testimony ; and the knowledge to which the ten tribes are to come is of a very different character from these hazy dreams. The revelation of Joseph to his brethren is the type of the future manifestation, and the order is, “ the tents of Judah first ; ” just as David was first made king over Judah in Hebron. The same kind of order is suggested by the events of the Exodus. First the manifestation of the rejected Moses to Aaron and the elders of Israel, and after­wards to all the people, followed by the divine demands on Pharaoh.

In the antitype the Lord Jesus, the rejected ruler and deliverer of Israel, returns as a nobleman from a far country whither he had been “ to receive for himself a kingdom and to return ” (Luke xix.). He comes after long absence—‘‘After a long time the Lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth with them ” (Matt. xxv.). The time of his coming is that of the sixth vial of Apocalyptic revelation when the symbolic Euphrates is drying up, and the frog-demons are provoking the kings of the earth to war. His first work is " reckoning with those servants ” — the judgment of his household, which implies the resurrection of the dead. This is introduced in the parable of the ten virgins in the same chapter, Matt, xxv., and is the subject of plainer speech elsewhere both by Jesus and the apostles and prophets. Apart from the rising up of the spirit’s “ dead body ” (Is. xxvi.), there could be no “ perfect man ” in manifestation as the multitudinous Christ—no “ ensign of the people ” on the mountains of Israel, and no restoration of Israel such as the gospel of the kingdom of God promises. Christendom does not believe this ; but would gladly omit resurrection and judgment altogether.

The first work of Christ, however, will take Christendom by surprise as completely as it will Israel, and will result at last in the discernment “ between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not ” (Mai. iii.). The details of the judgment are revealed in various phases. Although Omnipotence and omniscience are with the Judge and his angelic retinue, it is evident that it will be a work of time—though as to how long we cannot speculate with profit. It is revealed that acceptance by the Lord is followed by change of this body of our humiliation into the divine nature in a moment at the appointed time ; and that rejection by him is followed by weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and excommunication from the camp of the saints into that of “ the devil and his angels,” there to await the “ everlasting fire ” prepared for their consumption.

The locality of the judgment-seat of Christ is revealed to be in the lands that witnessed the mighty revelations of God to Israel of old. Christendom has no idea of this ; but consigns the whole inheritance of Christ and the saints to a fiery des­truction at some perpetually receding “ last day ” of its benighted speculations. The truth delivers people from this, giving them to understand that God proposes to put things right upon earth where they have gone wrong, to regather the nation of His

choice to the land whence He scattered them for their sins, and to reveal Himself in glory through the prophet like unto Moses to the resurrected “ ancients of Israel, in the place where He at the first revealed Himself to Moses, who was “ faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after.” When Elijah fled from the wrath of Jezebel he instinctively came to this locality—" unto Horeb the mount of God” (1 Kings xix. 8). Elijah with Moses upon the mount of transfiguration spoke of Christ’s “ decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” And Elijah with Moses will have to do again with “ Horeb the Mount of God” in the days of the second exodus. The sixtv-eighth Psalm, which speaks of that exodus (verse 22), and which speaks also of the resurrection and victorious ascension of Christ (verse 18 with Eph. iv. 8), locates the future manifestation of  God                                             in Sinai (verse                17). The                                      italics

in the Authorized Version are unauthorized and misleading. The margin of the R.V. lets a little light in, though not much. It is beautiful            and fitting   that in                                         the place           where

Moses received of Israel offerings of the willing-hearted for the “worldly sanctuary,” there the Lord Jesus should receive his own willing-hearted “ that the Lord God might dwell in them ” (Psa lxviii. 18 ; Eph. ii. 22).

Accompanied by this glorious multitude, he goes forth from the land of the South on the work of conquest and national reconstruction of Israel that this psalm and the prophets in various places describe. He comes into his land and discovers a defenceless remnant of his nation that have been made a prey by the King of               the   North,                                            who has taken Jerusalem,

and doubtless supposes       that his old dream of                                            Universal        Empire

is at length about to be realised. He is terribly undeceived by the outburst of divine judgments depicted in Ezekiel xxxviii., xxxix., and elsewhere, in which, as in Joshua’s time, the con­federacy of the North is overwhelmed in destruction. The result of this marvellous and unexpected deliverance of the land and city is to reveal to the astonished remnant in the land that “ Jesus of Nazareth is He : ” and, as the result of beholding his wounded hands, they perceive that he whom their fathers sold and put to death, is indeed the Messiah. As with Joseph’s brethren of old, so with these—fear, shame, and penitence take hold of them—“ the spirit of grace and of supplication ” takes the place of the spirit of rebellion which for so many centuries took the form of the “ message sent after him ”—" We will not have this man to reign over us.”

Judah and Jerusalem being thus delivered, the proclamation is sent forth to the nations to submit to God’s king enthroned in Zion (Psa. ii. ; Rev. xiv.). The bulk of Israel is still scattered among the nations—north, south, east and west. They are com­manded to “ give up ” to “ keep not back,” as was Pharaoh of old (Isa. xliii. 6). They refuse, and the war is carried into their countries, and nations and kingdoms are broken to pieces by- God, with Israel as His “ battle-axe and weapons of war ” (Jer. li.). It is little dreamt of by the nations among whom the ten or eleven millions of Jews are scattered, that this is the relation of the ancient people to God and towards them ! It is in the course of these developments that they are brought again into Egypt, and disciplined in the wilderness as were their fathers, with the like result of purging out the rebels from among them and providing a purified and humbled generation that shall worthily occupy the Land of Israel as “ a righteous nation,” under Messiah and the saints, who are themselves in a higher sense, “ the righteous nation which keepeth the truth ” (Isa. xxvi. 2). This leading of Israel through the wilderness as in the days of old is plainly prophesied by Ezekiel (ch. xx.), since whose days no such movement has taken place. His contemporaries did not believe it, any more than ours do. He complained : “Ah, Lord God ! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables ? ” In a sense our contemporaries are less excusable than they, for so much more of Ezekiel’s prophecy is now history. We witness the latter-day colonization movement of which he spoke (ch. xxxviii.), and the second exodus “ by the same word ” is sure to be witnessed presently.

The prophecy of Isaiah concerning the rise and triumph of Immanuel which concludes in his twelfth chapter, necessarily touches but briefly the outlines of these great developments. He says in the conclusion of the eleventh chapter, “ The Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea, and with His might}- wind shall He shake His hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dry shod. And there shall be an highway for the remnant of His people which shall be left, from Assyria ; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.” From this prophecy it has been supposed by some that it is God’s intention to close the waterway between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; and from other scriptures it has been supposed that Jerusalem itself would be approachable by water from the Mediter­ranean and Red Seas.

But these suppositions are unwarranted. The purpose of smiting the sea and the river is to “ make men go over dry shod ” as in the Exodus. Zechariah (ch. x. 11) repeats the prophecy, saying, “ He shall pass through the sea with affliction and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up : and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away ” Here there appears to be a blending of the literal and figurative, as also in Isaiah xi. The sea of Egypt and the Nile and the Euphrates have all been literally manipulated in the divine purpose in the past, and will be so again. But they also stand as symbols of the Egyptian and Assyrian powers. In this particular prophecy (Isa. viii. 1), “ The waters of the river strong and many ” are the symbol of “ the king of Assyria and all his glory.” And in Rev. xvi. the drying up of the Euphratean waters is the symbol of the decline of the Turkish Power for the preparation of “ the way of the kings of the east.”

So there are physical and political miracles in store for these ancient countries, and new literal and figurative highways will be opened in consequence. There has been a dead block for a long time, territorially, politically, and religiously; but the coming of Immanuel will change it all. Great international routes of pilgrimage to Jerusalem will be opened as the result of his victories (Isa. xix. 22-25 ; Zech. xiv. 16). And the voice of thanksgiving and melody will resound in Zion, because God’s salvation is known in her in all the earth.