One passage is of great interest, because in it righteousness is used to play upon itself, in its two meanings of human duty and Divine effect—lvi. 1, Observe judgement—probably religious ordinances—and do righteousness; for My salvation is near to come, and My righteousness to be revealed.
To complete our study of righteousness it is necessary to touch still upon one point. In Isa. xl.-lxvi. both the masculine and feminine forms of the Hebrew word for righteousness are used, and it has been averred that they are used with a difference. This opinion is entirely dispelled by a collation of the passages. I give the particulars in a note, from which it will be seen that both forms are indifferently employed for each of the many shades of meaning which righteousness bears in our prophecies.[138]
That the masculine and feminine forms sometimes occur, with the same or with different meanings, in the same verse, or in the next verse to one another, proves that the selection of them respectively cannot be due to any difference in the authorship of our prophecy. So that we are reduced to say that nothing accounts for their use, except, it might be, the exigencies of the metre. But who is able to prove this?