Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2

by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

Ver. 3. "And He hath His delight in the fear of the Lord, and not after the sight of His eyes doth He judge, nor after the hearing of His ears doth He decide."

We now learn how the glorious gifts of the Anointed, described in ver. 2, are displayed in His government. All attempts to bring the second and third clauses under the same point of view as the first, and to derive them from the same source are in vain. That He has delight in the fear of the Lord, is the consequence of the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord resting upon Him,--He loves what is congenial to His own nature. That He does not judge after the sight of His eyes, &c., is the consequence of His having the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. It is thereby that He is freed from the narrow superficiality which is natural to man, and raised to the sphere of that divine clearness of vision which penetrates to the depths, הריח with the accusative is "to smell something;" with ב, to "smell at something," "to smell with delight." The fear of the Lord appears as something of a sweet scent to the Messiah. The other explanations of the first clause abandon the sure, ascertained usus loquendi (comp. Exod. xxx. 38; Levit. xxvi. 31; Am. v. 21), and, therefore, do not deserve any mention. On the second and third clauses 1 Sam. xvi. 7, is to be compared: "And the Lord said unto Samuel: Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him; for not that which man looks at (do I look at); for man looketh on the eyes (and, in general, on the outward appearance), and I look on the heart." It is especially John who repeatedly mentions that Christ really possessed the gift here assigned to Him, of judging, not from the first appearance, and according to untrustworthy information, but of penetrating into the innermost ground of the facts and persons, comp. ii. 24, 25: αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς, οὐκ ἐπίστευεν ἑαυτὸν αὐτοῖς, διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας, καὶ ὅτι οὐ χρείαν εἶχεν ἵνα τὶς μαρτυρήση περὶ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου· αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐγίνωσκεν τί ἦν ἕν ἀνθρῴπῳ. Farther--chap. xxi. 17 where Peter says to Christ: Κύριε σὺ πάντα οἶδας· σὺ γινώσκεις ὅτι φιλῶ σε. Farther, i. 48, 49; iv. 18, 19; vi. 64. In Revel. ii. 23, Christ says: "And all Churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts."

Ver. 4. "And He judgeth in righteousness the lowly, and doeth justice in equity to the meek of the earth, and smiteth the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He slayeth the wicked."

The King shall be adorned with perfect justice, and, in the exercise of it, be supported by His omnipotence,--differently from what was the case with David, who, for want of power, was obliged to allow heinous crimes to pass unpunished (2 Sam. iii. 39). Just as by the excellency of His will He is infinitely exalted above all former rulers, so is He also by the excellency of might. Where, as in His case, the highest might stands in the service of the best will, the noblest results must come forth. The first two clauses refer to Ps. lxxii., which was written by Solomon, and where, in ver. 2, it is said of Christ: "He shall judge thy people in righteousness, and thy lowly ones in judgment," and in ver. 4: "He shall judge the lowly of thy people, He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressors;" compare farther Prov. xxix. 14: "A king that in truth judgeth the lowly, his throne shall be established for ever." The earth forms the contrast to the limited territory which was hitherto assigned to the theocratic kings.--In the second part of the verse ארץ does not by any means stand in contrast to דלים and ענוים, and, in parallelism to רשע, designate the wicked ones; but ארץ "earth" stands in antithesis to the narrow territory in which earthly kings are permitted to dispense law and justice. It is a matter of course, and is, moreover, expressly stated in the second clause, that the earth comes into consideration with a view to those only who are objects of His judging activity. From that which follows, where changes are spoken of which shall take place on the whole earth, it follows that ארץ must be taken in the signification of "earth." and not of "land." Hand in hand with the infinite extent of the King's exercise of justice goes also the manner of it. "The whole earth," and the "breath of the mouth," correspond with one another.--In the words "with the rod of His mouth," a tacit antithesis lies at the foundation. As kings strike with the sceptre, so He smiteth with His mouth.--שבט, the ensign of royal dignity, is the symbol of the whole earthly power, which, being external and exercised by external means, must needs be limited, and insufficient for the perfect exercise of justice. The exercise of justice on the part of earthly kings reaches so far only as their hand armed with the smiting sceptre. But that great King is, in the exercise of justice, supported by His Omnipotence. He punishes and destroys by His mere word. Several interpreters understand this as a mere designation of His severity in punishing,--"the rod of His mouth" to be equivalent to "severity of punishment;"--but that such is not the meaning appears from the following clause, where likewise special weight is attached to the circumstance that the Messiah inflicts punishment by His mere word; "the breath of His lips" is equivalent to "mere words," "mere command;" compare "breath of His mouth," in Ps. xxxiii. 6. Hitzig's explanation, "the angry breath of His lips," does not interpret, but interpolate. In the future Son of David every word is, at the same time, a deed; He speaks and it is done. The same which is here said of the Messiah is, in other passages, attributed to God: compare Job xv. 30, where it is said of the wicked: "By the breath of His mouth he shall go away;" Hos. vi. 5: "I have slain them by the word of my mouth." In general, according to the precedent in Gen. i., doing by the mere word is, in Scripture, the characteristic designation of Divine Omnipotence. Parallel is chap. xlix. 2, where Christ says: "And He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword," equivalent to: He has endowed me with His Omnipotence, so that my word also exercises destructive effect, just as His. In Rev. i. 16, it is said of Christ: "And out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword,"--to designate the destructive power of His word borne by Omnipotence, the omnipotent punitive power of Christ against enemies, both internal and external. An instance of the manner in which Christ smites by the word of His mouth is offered by Acts v. 3 (where, according to the analogy of the word spoken in the name of God by Elijah, 2 Kings i. 10, 12, and by Elisha, 2 Kings ii. 24, v. 27, the Apostles are to be considered only as His instruments): ἀκούων δὲ Ἁνανίας τοὺς λόγους τούτους πεσὼν ἐξέψυξε, comp. ver. 10; xiii. 11. The Chaldee translates: "And by the word of His lips wicked Armillus shall die." He refers רשע not to the ideal person of the wicked, but to an individual, Armillus, (ἐρημόλαος, corresponding to the name of Balaam, compounded of בלע "devouring," "destruction," and עם "people") the formidable, last enemy of the Jews who shall carry on severe wars with them, slay the Messiah ben Joseph, but at length be slain by the Messiah ben David with a mere word, compare Buxtorf, Lex. Chald. cap. 221-224: Eisenmenger, entdecktes Judenthum ii. S. 705 ff. In 2 Thess. ii. 8, in the description of Antichrist's destruction by Christ: ὃν ὁ Κύριος Ἰησοῦς ἀναλώσει τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ, there is an intentional and significant allusion to the passage before us, Antichrist there being, like רשע here, an ideal person; for the arguments in proof, see my Comment, on Revelation, vol. ii.

Ver. 5. "And righteousness is the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins."

Righteousness and faithfulness are in a similar manner connected in 1 Sam. xxvi. 13 (? Prov. xii. 17). Faithfulness is trustworthiness. The point of comparison with the girdle is the closeness of the union; comp. Ps. cix. 19; Jer. xiii. 1, 2, 11.

In ver. 6, the Prophet passes from the person of the glorious King to a description of His Kingdom. With regard to ver. 6-8, the question arises, whether the description is to be understood figuratively or literally; whether the Prophet intends to describe the cessation of all hostility among men, or whether he expected that, in the Messianic time, even among the irrational creation, all hostility and destruction, every thing pernicious was to cease. Most of the ancient interpreters are attached to the former view. Thus Theodoret says: "In a figurative manner, under the image of domesticated and wild animals, the Prophet taught the change of the habits of men." He refers every thing to the union, within the Christian Church, of those who, in their natural condition, lived far separated from one another, and in hostility the one to the other. Jerome considers the opposite view as even a species of heresy. He says: "The Jews and the Judaizers among ourselves maintain that all this shall be fulfilled according to the letter; that in the light of Christ who, they believe, shall come at the end of the days, all beasts shall be reduced to tameness, so that the wolf, giving up its former ferocity, shall dwell with the lamb, &c." Upon the whole, he states the sense in the same manner as Theodoret, from whom he sometimes differs in the allegorical explanation of the details only. In a similar manner Luther also explains it, who, e.g., on ver. 6, "the wolf shall dwell with the lambs, etc." remarks: "But these are allegories by which the Prophet intimates that the tyrants, the self-righteous and powerful ones in the world, shall be converted, and be received into the Church." Calvin says: "By these images, the Prophet indicates that, among the people of Christ there will be no disposition for injuring one another, nor any ferocity or inhumanity." The circumstance that the use of animal symbolism is widely spread throughout Scripture is in favour of this interpretation. One may, e.g. compare Ps. xxii., where the enemies of the righteous are represented under the image of dogs, lions, bulls, and unicorns; Jer. v. 6, where, by lion, wolf, and leopard, the kingdoms of the world which are destructive to the people of God are designated; the four beasts in Dan. vii.; but especially Is. xxxv. 9: "There (on the way of salvation which the Lord shall, in the future, open up for His people) shall not be a lion, nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon,"--where the ravenous beasts are the representatives of the world's power, hostile to the Kingdom of God. Nevertheless, the literal interpretation, defended by several Jewish expositors, maintains an undeniable preference. In favour of it are the following arguments: 1. The circumstance that it is impossible to carry through, in the details, the figurative interpretation; and it is by this that our passage is distinguished from all the other passages in which the wild, cruel, and destructive tendencies in the human sphere appear under the images of their representatives in the animal world. The supposition that "we have here before us only a poetical enlargement of the thought that all evil shall cease" (Hendewerk, Knobel), removes the boundaries which separate prophecy from poetry. 2. The parallelism with the condition of the creation before the fall, as it is described to us by Holy Scripture. It is certainly not without reason that, in the account of the creation, so much emphasis is laid on the circumstance that all which was created was good. This implies a condition of the irrational creation different from what it is now; for in its present state it gives us a faithful copy of the first fall, inasmuch as every heinous vice has its symbols and representatives in the animal kingdom. According to Gen. ii. 19, 20, the animals recognize in Adam their lord and king, peaceably gather around him, and receive their names from him. According to Gen. i. 30, grass only was assigned to animals for their food; the whole animal world bore the image of the innocence and peace of the first man, and was not yet pervaded by the law of mutual destruction. Where there was not a Cain, neither was there a lion. The serpent has not yet its disgusting and horrible figure, and fearlessly men have intercourse with it; comp. Vol. i. p. 15, 16. But the influence of sin pervaded and penetrated the whole nature, and covered it with a curse (comp. Gen. iii. 17-19); so that it not only bears evidence to the existence of God, but also to the existence of sin. Now, as it is by sin that outward discord, and contention, and destruction arose in the irrational creature, so we may also expect that, when the cause has been removed, the effect too will disappear; that, with the cessation of the discord and enmity among men, which, according to ver. 9, the Prophet expected of the Messianic time, discord and enmity in the animal world will cease also. In the individual features, the Prophet seems even distinctly to refer to the history of the creation; compare ver. 7: "The lion shall eat straw like the ox," with Gen. i. 30; ver. 8: "the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp," with Gen. iii. 15. 3. The comparison of other passages of Scripture, according to which likewise the reflection of the evil in the irrational creation shall cease, after the evil has been removed from the rational creation; compare chap. lxv. 25, lxvi, 22; Matt. xix. 28, where the Lord speaks of the παλιγγενεσία, the return of the whole earthly creation to its original condition; but especially Rom. viii. 19 ff.--that classical passage of the New Testament which is really parallel to the passage before us. 4. A subordinate argument is still offered by the parallel descriptions of heathen writers. From the passages collected by Clericus, Lowth, and Gesenius, we quote a few only. In the description of the golden age, Virgil says, Ecl. iv. 21 sqq.; v. 60: Occidet et serpens et fallax herba veneni occidet.--Nec magnos metuent armenta leones.--Nec lupus insidias pecori. Horat. Epod. xiv. 53: Nec vespertinus circumgemit ursus ovile nec intumescit alta viperis humus.--Theocrit. Idyll. xxiv. 84. Utterances such as these show how unnatural the present condition of the earth is. They are, however, not so much to be regarded as the remains of some outward tradition (against such a supposition it is decisive that they occur chiefly with poets), but rather as utterances of an indestructible longing in man, which, being so deeply rooted in human nature, contains in itself the guarantee of being gratified at some future period. But, with all this, we must do justice to the objection drawn from the evident parallelism of passages such as chap. xxxv. 9, and to another objection advanced by Vitringa, that it is strange that there is so much spoken of animals, and so little of men. This we shall do by remarking that, in the description of the glorious effects which the government of Christ shall produce on the earth, the Prophet at once proceeds to the utmost limit of them; and that the removal of hostility and destruction from the irrational creation implies that all that will be removed which, in the rational creation, proceeds from the principle of hatred, inasmuch as it is certain that the former is only a reflection of the latter, and that the Prophet speaks with a distinct reference to this supposition which he afterwards, in ver. 9, distinctly expresses. Hence, to a certain degree, a double sense takes place; and, in the main, J. H. Michaelis has hit the right by comparing, first, Gen. i. and Rom. viii., and then continuing: "Parabolically, however, by the wild beasts, wild and cruel nations are understood, which are to be converted to Christ; or violent men who, by the Spirit of Christ, are rendered meek and gentle, just as Paul, from a wolf, was changed into a lamb." We are the less permitted to lose sight of the reference to the lions and bears on the spiritual territory, that ver. 6 is, in the first instance, connected with vers. 4 and 5, in which the all-powerful sway of Christ's justice on earth is described, of which the consequences must, in the first instance, appear in the human territory; and, farther, that the point from which the prophecy started, is the raging of the wolf and bear of the world's power against the poor defenceless flock of the Lord.

Ver. 6. "And the wolf dwelleth with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf, and, the lion and the fatling together, and a little child leads them."

Ver. 7. "The cow and bear go to the pasture; their young ones lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox." (The going to pasture of the bear corresponds with the lion's eating straw [comp. Gen. i. 30], and we are not allowed to supply the "together" in the first clause.)

Ver. 8. "And the sucking child playeth on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child putteth his hand into the den of the basilisk."