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

by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

The second Messianic passage of the section which is of importance for our purpose, is chap. xxxiii. 17.

"Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty; they shall see the land that is far off."

The "King" is the Messiah. This appears from the reference to the Song of Solomon i. 16, where the bride says to the bridegroom, the heavenly Solomon, "Behold thou art fair, my beloved" (comp. Ps. xlv. 3;) and from the words immediately following: "they shall see the land that is far off." The wide extension of the Kingdom of God is indissolubly connected with the appearance of the Messiah. Those who refer the prophecy to Hezekiah refer "the land that is far off" (literally: "the land of distances") to "a land stretching far out," in antithesis to the siege when the people of Jerusalem were limited to its area, since the whole country was occupied by the Assyrians. But the passage, chap. xxvi. 15: "Thou increasest the nation, O God, thou art glorified, thou removest all the boundaries of the land," is conclusive against this explanation. Comparing this passage, as also chap. lx. 4; Zech. x. 9, Michaelis correctly explains: "The land of distances is the Kingdom of Christ most widely propagated." In chap. viii. 9, likewise, the Gentile countries are designated by the "distances of the earth." Farther--Hezekiah could not be designated simply by מלך without the article. It is only by the utmost violence that the whole announcement can be limited to the events under Hezekiah, which everywhere form the foreground only. We might rather, with Vitringa, think of Jehovah, with a comparison of ver. 22: "For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us," and of Ps. xlviii. 3, where he is called מלך רב. To Jehovah, the passage, chap. xxx. 20, 21 also refers,--a passage which has been so often misunderstood: "And the Lord giveth you bread of adversity, and water of affliction, and not does thy teacher conceal himself any more, and thine eyes see thy Teacher. And thine ears hear a voice behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it; do not turn to the right hand, nor to the left." The affliction prepares for the coming of the heavenly teacher; by it the eyes of the people have been opened, so that they are able to behold His glorious form. But although we should understand Jehovah by "the King in His beauty," we must, at all events, think of His glorious manifestation in Christ Jesus, who said, He who sees me sees the Father, and in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily; and it was indeed in Christ that God, in the truest manner, revealed and manifested himself as the Teacher of His people.

The close of the whole of the first part of Isaiah is, in chaps. xxxiv., xxxv. formed by a comprehensive announcement, on the one hand, of the judgments upon the God-hating world, here individualized by Edom, that hereditary enemy of Israel, who was so much the more fitted for this representation that his enmity was the most obstinate of all, and remained the same throughout all the phases of Israel's oppression by the great kingdoms of the world (he always appears as he who helped to bring misery upon his brethren); and, on the other hand, of the mercy and salvation which should be bestowed upon the Church trampled upon by the world.

On chap. xxxiv. 4;, 5, where the heaven is that of the princes, the whole order of rulers and magistrates; the stars, the single princes and nobles, compare my remarks on Rev. vi. 13.

The description of the salvation in store for the Church, in [chap. xxxv.], is pre-eminently Messianic, although the lower blessings also are included which preceded the appearance of Christ. The description contains features so characteristic, that we must necessarily submit it to a closer examination.

Ver. 1. "The wilderness and dry land shall be glad for it, and the desert shall rejoice and sprout like the bulb."

The wilderness is Zion--the Church to be devastated by the world.--"For it,"--i.e. for the judgment upon the world, as it was described in chap. xxxiv. with which the changed fate of the Church is indissolubly connected.

Ver. 2. "It shall sprout, and rejoice with joy and shouting. The glory of Lebanon is given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the excellency of our God."

"The glory of Lebanon," &c. is a glory like unto that of Lebanon. The real condition of the glory of Zion, or the Church, is brought before us in the subsequent verses only; it consists in the Lords glory being manifested in it. The majestic, wooded Lebanon, and fruitful Carmel, are contrasted with one another; the latter is put together with the lovely fruitful plain of Sharon, rich in flowers; compare remarks on Song of Sol. vii. 6. Michaelis says: "The Lebanon excels among the forests; the Carmel among the fruitful hills; the Sharon among the lovely fields or valleys."--To "see the glory of the Lord, the excellency of God" means to behold Him in the revelation of the full glory of His nature. Prophecy would have fed the minds of the people with vain hopes, if God had revealed himself in any other way than in Christ, the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Col. ii. 9), and who, along with His own glory, revealed, at the same time, that of the Father; for it was the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, John i. 14; ii. 11.