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

by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

In the solemnly introduced short summary of the history of the covenant-people, in chap. vi., there is, after the announcement of the impending complete desolation of the country and the carrying away of its inhabitants in vers. 11, 12, the indication of a second judgment which will not less make an end, in ver. 13: "But yet there is a tenth part in it, and it shall again be destroyed;" and this goes hand in hand with the promise that the election shall become partakers of the Messianic salvation.

The Prophet clearly sees that, by the Syrico-Ephraemitic war, the full realization of that threatening of the Pentateuch will not be brought about, as far as Judah is concerned; that here a faint prelude only to the real fulfilment is the point in question. Although the allied kings speak in chap. vii. 6: "Let us go up against Judea and vex it, and let us conquer it for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal," the Lord speaks in chap. vii. 7: "It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass." And although the heart of the king and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind, the Prophet says: "Fear not, let not thy heart be tender for the tails of those two smoking firebrands."

It is Asshur that shall do more for the realization of that divine decree first revealed by Moses. It is he who, immediately after that expedition against Judah, shall break the power of the kingdom of the ten tribes, chap. viii. 4: "Before the child shall be able to cry: 'My father and my mother,' the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried before the King of Assyria." The communion of guilt into which it has entered with Damascus shall also implicate it in a communion of punishment with it, chap. xvii. 3. The adversaries of Rezin shall devour Israel with open mouth, chap. ix. 11, 12. Yea Asshur shall, some time afterwards, put an end altogether to the kingdom of Israel; "Within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken that it shall not be a people any more," chap. vii. 8. Upon Judah also severe sufferings shall be inflicted by Asshur. He shall invade and devastate their land, chap. vii. 17, and chap. viii. He shall irresistibly penetrate to the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, chap. x. 28-32. But when he is just preparing to inflict the mortal blow upon the head of the people of God, the Lord shall put a stop to him: "He shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by the mighty one," chap. x. 34. "Asshur shall be broken in the land of the Lord, and upon His mountains be trodden under foot; and his yoke shall depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders," chap. xiv. 25. "And Asshur shall fall with the sword not of a man," chap. xxxi. 8. These prophecies found their fulfilment in the destruction of Sennacherib's host before Jerusalem,--an event which no human ingenuity could have known even a day beforehand. But Isaiah does not content himself with promising to trembling Zion the help of God against Asshur in that momentary calamity. In harmony with Hosea and Micah, he promises to Judah, in general, security from Asshur. He says to Hezekiah, after that danger was over, in chap. xxxviii. 6: "And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the King of Assyria, and I will defend this city."

Behind the Assyrian kingdom, the Prophet beholds a new power germinating, viz., the Babylonian or Chaldean; and he announces most distinctly and repeatedly that from this shall proceed a comprehensive execution of the threatenings against unfaithful Judah. According to chap. xxiii. 13, the Chaldeans overturn the Assyrian monarchy, and conquer proud Tyre which had resisted the assault of the Assyrians. Shinar or Babylon appears in chap. xi. 11, in the list of the places to which Judah has been removed in punishment. In chap. xiii. 1-xiv. 27, Babylon is, for the first time, distinctly and definitely mentioned as the threatening power of the future, by which Judah is to be carried into captivity. The corresponding announcement in chap. xxxix. is so closely and intimately interwoven with the historical context, that even Gesenius did not venture to deny its origin by Isaiah, just as he was compelled also to acknowledge the genuineness of the prophecy against Tyre, in which the Babylonian dominion is most distinctly foretold, and even the duration of that dominion is fixed. The 70 years of Jeremiah have here already their foundation.

The Prophet sees distinctly and definitely that Egypt, the rival African world's power, on which the sharp-sighted politicians of his time founded their hope for deliverance, would not be equal to the Asiatic world's power representing itself in the Assyrian and Babylonian phases. He knows what he could not know from any other source than by immediate communication of the Spirit of God, that, by its struggle against the Asiatic power, Egypt would altogether lose its old political importance, and would never recover it; compare remarks on chap. xix.

As the power which is to overthrow the Babylonian Empire appear, in chap. xxxiii. 17, the Medes. In chap. xxi. 2, Elam, which, according to the usus loquendi of Isaiah, means Persia, is mentioned besides Media. This power, and at its head, the conqueror from the East, Cyrus, will bring deliverance to Judah. By it they obtain a restoration to their native land.^[1] Nevertheless Elam appears in chap. xxii. 16 as the representative of the world's power oppressing Judah in the future; and from chap. xi. 11 we are likewise led to expect that the world's power will in future shew itself in an Elamitic phase also, and that the difference between Babel and Elam is one of degree only, just as, indeed, it appeared in history; comp. Neh. ix. 36, 37.

An intimation of an European phasis of the world's power, hostile to the kingdom of God, is to be found in chap. xi. 11.

After the Kingdom of God has, for such protracted periods, been subject to the world's power, the relation will suddenly be reversed; at the end of the days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be exalted above all the hills, and all nations shall flow into it, chap. ii. 2.

This great change shall be accomplished by the Messiah, chaps. iv., ix., xi., xxxiii. 17, who proceeds from the house of David, chap. ix. 6 (7), lv. 3, but only after it has sunk down to the utmost lowliness, chap. xi. 1. With the human, He combines the divine nature. This appears not only from the names which are given to Him in chap. ix. 5 (6),but also from the works which are assigned to Him,--works by far exceeding human power. He rules over the whole earth, according to chap. xi.; He slays, according to xi. 4, the wicked with the breath of His mouth (compare chap. l. 11, where likewise He appears as a partaker of the omnipotent punitive power of God); He removes the consequences of sin even from the irrational creation, chap. xi. 6-9; by His absolute righteousness He is enabled to become the substitute of the whole human race, and thereby to accomplish their salvation resting on this substitution, chap. liii.

The Messiah appears at first in the form of a servant, low and humble, chap. xi. 1, liii. 2. His ministry is quiet and concealed, chap. xlii. 2, as that of a Saviour who with tender love applies himself to the miserable, chap. xlii. 3, lxi. 1. At first it is limited to Israel, chap. xlix. 1-6, where it is enjoyed especially by the most degraded of all the parts of the country, viz., that around the sea of Galilee, chap. viii. 23 (ix. 1.) Severe sufferings will be inflicted upon Him in carrying out His ministry. These proceed from the same people whom He has come to raise up, and to endow (according to chap. xlii. 6, xlix. 8), with the full truth of the covenant into which the Lord has entered with them. The Servant of God bears these suffering's with unbroken courage. They bring about, through His mediation, the punishment of God upon those from whom they proceeded, and become the reason why the salvation passes over to the Gentiles, by whose deferential homage the Servant of God is indemnified for what He has lost in the Jews, chap. xlix. 1-9, l. 4-11. (The foundation for the detailed announcement in these passages is given already in the sketch in chap. vi.,--according to which an election only of the people attain to salvation, while the mass becomes a prey to destruction.) But it is just by these sufferings, which issue at last in a violent death, that the Servant of God reaches the full height of His destination. They possess a vicarious character, and effect the reconciliation of a whole sinful world, chap. lii. 13-liii. 12. Subsequently to the suffering, and on the ground of it, begins the exercise of the Kingly office of Christ, chap. liii. 12. He brings law and righteousness to the Gentile world, chap. xlii. 1; light into their darkness, chap. xlii. 6. He becomes the centre around which the whole Gentile world gathers, chap. xi. 10: "And it shall come to pass in that day, the root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign of the people, to it shall the Gentiles seek, and His rest shall be glory;" comp. chap. lx., where the delighted eye of the Prophet beholds how the crowds of the nations from the whole earth turn to Zion; chap. xviii., where the future reception of the Ethiopians into the Kingdom of God is specially prophecied; chap. xix., according to which Egypt turns to the God of Israel, and by the tie of a common love to Him, is united with Asshur, his rival in the time of the Prophet, and so likewise with Israel, which has so much to suffer from him; chap. xxiii., according to which, in the time of salvation. Tyre also does homage to the God of Israel. The Servant of God becomes, at the same time, the Witness, and the Prince and Lawgiver of the nations, chap. lv. 4. Just as the Spirit of the Lord rests upon Him, chap. xi. 2, xlii. 1, lxi. 1, so there takes place in His days an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, chap. xxxii. 15, xliv. 3, comp. with chap. liv. 13. Sin is put an end to by Him, chap. xi. 9, and an end is put especially to war, chap. ii. 4. The Gentiles gathered to the Lord become at last the medium of His salvation for the covenant-people, who at first had rejected it, chap. xi. 12, lx. 9, lxvi. 20, 21. The end is the restoration of the paradisaic condition, chap. xi. 6-9, lxv. 25; the new heavens and the new earth, chap. lxv. 17, lxvi. 22; but the wicked shall inherit eternal condemnation, chap. lxvi. 24.