Whether with the final chapter of our prophecy we at last get footing in the Holy Land is doubtful.[292] It was said on p. [20] that, "in vv. 1 to 4 of this chapter the Temple is still unbuilt, but the building would seem to be already begun." This latter clause should be modified to, "the building would seem to be in immediate prospect." The rest of the chapter, vv. 6-24, has features that speak more definitely for the period after the Return; but even they are not conclusive, and their effect is counterbalanced by some other verses. Ver. 6 may imply that the Temple is rebuilt, and ver. 20 that the sacrifices are resumed; but, on the other hand, these verses may be, like parts of ch. lx., statements of the prophet's vivid vision of the future.[293] Vv. 7 and 8 seem to describe a repeopling of Jerusalem that has already taken place; but ver. 9 says, that while the bringing to the birth has already happened, which is, as we must suppose, the deliverance from Babylon,—or is it the actual arrival at Jerusalem?—the bringing forth from the womb, that is, the complete restoration of the people, has still to take place. Ver. 13 is certainly addressed to those who are not yet in Jerusalem.
These few points reveal how difficult, nay, how impossible, it is to decide the question of date, as between the days immediately before the Return and the days immediately after. To the present expositor the balance of evidence seems to be with the later date. But the difference is very small. We are at least sure—and it is really all that we require to know—that the rebuilding of Jerusalem is very near, nearer than it has been felt in any previous chapter. The Temple is, so to speak, within sight, and the prophet is able to talk of the regular round of sacrifices and sacred festivals almost as if they had been resumed.
To the people, then, either in the near prospect of Return, or immediately after some of them had arrived in Jerusalem, the prophet addresses a number of oracles, in which he pursues the division, that ch. lxv. had emphasized, between the two parties in Israel. These oracles are so intricate, that we are compelled to take up the chapter verse by verse. The first of them begins by correcting certain false feelings in Israel, excited by former promises of the rebuilding and the glory of the Temple. Thus saith Jehovah, The heavens are My throne, and earth is My footstool: what is this for a house that ye will build—or, are building—Me, and what is this for a place for My rest? Yea, all these things—that is, all the visible works of God in heaven and earth—My hand hath made, and so came to pass all these things, saith Jehovah. But unto this will I look, unto the humble and contrite in spirit, and that trembleth at My word. These verses do not run counter to, or even go beyond, anything that our prophet has already said. They do not condemn the building of the Temple: this was not possible for a prophecy which contains ch. lx. They condemn only the kind of temple which those whom they address had in view,—a shrine to which the presence of Jehovah was limited, and on the raising and maintenance of which the religion and righteousness of the people should depend. While the former Temple was standing, the mass of the people had thus misconceived it, imagining that it was enough for national religion to have such a structure standing and honoured in their midst. And now, before it is built again, the exiles are cherishing about it the same formal and materialistic thoughts. Therefore the prophet rebukes them, as his predecessors had rebuked their fathers, and reminds them of a truth he has already uttered, that though the Temple is raised, according to God's own promise and direction, it will not be to its structure, as they conceive of it, that He will have respect, but to the existence among them of humble and sincere personal piety. The Temple is to be raised: the place of His feet God will make glorious, and men shall gather round it from the whole earth, for instruction, for comfort and for rejoicing. But let them not think it to be indispensable either to God or to man,—not to God, who has heaven for His throne and earth for His footstool; nor to man, for God looks direct to man, if only man be humble, penitent and sensitive to His word. These verses, then, do not go beyond the Old Testament limit; they leave the Temple standing, but they say so much about God's other sanctuary man, that when His use for the Temple shall be past, His servant Stephen[294] shall be able to employ these words to prove why it should disappear.
The next verse is extremely difficult. Here it is literally: A slaughterer of the ox, a slayer of a man; a sacrificer of the lamb, a breaker of a dog's neck; an offerer of meat-offering, swine's blood; the maker of a memorial offering of incense, one that blesseth an idol, or vanity. Four legal sacrificial acts are here coupled with four unlawful sacrifices to idols. Does this mean that in the eye of God, impatient even of the ritual He has consecrated, when performed by men who do not tremble at His word, each of these lawful sacrifices is as worthless and odious as the idolatrous practice associated with it,—the slaughter of the ox as the offering of a human sacrifice, and so forth? Or does the verse mean that there are persons in Israel who combine, like the Corinthians blamed by Paul,[295] both the true and the idolatrous ritual, both the table of the Lord and the table of devils? Our answer will depend on whether we take the four parallels with ver. 2, which precedes them, or with the rest of ver. 3, to which they belong, and ver. 4. If we take them with ver. 2, then we must adopt the first, the alternative meaning; if with ver. 4, then the second of these meanings is the right one. Now there is no grammatical connection, nor any transparent logical one, between vv. 2 and 3, but there is a grammatical connection with the rest of ver. 3. Immediately after the pairs of lawful and unlawful sacrificial acts, ver. 3 continues, yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. That surely signifies that the unlawful sacrifices in ver. 3 are things already committed and delighted in, and the meaning of putting them in parallel to the lawful sacrifices of Jehovah's religion is either that Israelites have committed them instead of the lawful sacrifices, or along with these. In this case, vv. 3, 4 form a separate discourse by themselves, with no relation to the equally distinct oracle in vv. 1 and 2. The subject of vv. 3 to 4 is, therefore, the idolatrous Israelites. They are delivered unto Satan, their choice; they shall have no part in the coming Salvation. In ver. 5 the faithful in Israel, who have obeyed God's word by the prophet, are comforted under the mocking of their brethren, who shall certainly be put to shame. Already the prophet hears the preparation of the judgement against them (ver. 6). It comes forth from the city where they had mockingly cried for God's glory to appear. The mocked city avenges itself on them. Hark, a roar from the City! Hark, from the Temple! Hark, Jehovah accomplishing vengeance on His enemies!
A new section begins with ver. 7, and celebrates to ver. 9 the sudden re-population of the City by her children, either as already a fact, or, more probably, as a near certainty. Then comes a call to the children, restored, or about to be restored, to congratulate their mother and to enjoy her. The prophet rewakens the figure, that is ever nearest his heart, of motherhood,—children suckled, borne and cradled in the lap of their mother fill all his view; nay, finer still, the grown man coming back with wounds and weariness upon him to be comforted of his mother. As a man whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see, and rejoice shall your heart, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass. But this great light shines not to flood all Israel in one, but to cleave the nation in two, like a sword of judgement. The hand of Jehovah shall be known towards His servants, but He will have indignation against His enemies,—enemies, that is, within Israel. Then comes the fiery judgement, For by fire will Jehovah plead, and by His sword with all flesh; and the slain of Jehovah shall be many. Why there should be slain of Jehovah within Israel is then explained. Within Israel there are idolaters: they that consecrate themselves and practise purification for the gardens, after one in the middle;[296] eaters of swine's flesh, and the Abomination, and the Mouse. They shall come to an end together, saith Jehovah, for I know, or will punish,[297] their works and their thoughts. In this eighteenth verse the punctuation is uncertain, and probably the text is corrupt. The first part of the verse should evidently go, as above, with ver. 17. Then begins a new subject.
It is coming to gather all the nations and the tongues, and they shall come and shall see My glory; and I will set among them a sign,—a marvellous and mighty act, probably of judgement, for he immediately speaks of their survivors,—and I will send the escaped of them to the nations Tarshish, Put[298] and Lud, drawers of the bow, to Tubal and Javan,—that is, to far Spain, and the distances of Africa, towards the Black Sea and to Greece, a full round of the compass,—the isles far off that have not heard report of Me, nor have seen My glory; and they shall recount My glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brethren from among all the nations an offering to Jehovah, on horses and in chariots and in litters, and on mules and on dromedaries, up on the Mount of My Holiness, Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, just as when the children of Israel bring the offering in a clean vessel to the house of Jehovah. And also from them will I take to be priests, to be Levites, saith Jehovah. For like as the new heavens and the new earth which I am making shall be standing before Me, saith Jehovah, so shall stand your seed and your name. But again the prophecy swerves from the universal hope into which we expect it to break, and gives us instead a division and a judgement: the servants of Jehovah on one side occupied in what the prophet regards as the ideal life, regular worship—so little did he mean ver. 1 to be a condemnation of the Temple and its ritual!—and on the other the rebels' unburied carcases gnawed by the worm and by fire, an abomination to all. And it shall come to pass from new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, saith Jehovah: and they shall go out and look on the carcases of the men who have rebelled against Me; for their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.
We have thus gone step by step through the chapter, because its intricacies and sudden changes were not otherwise to be mastered. What exactly it is composed of must, we fear, still remain a problem. Who can tell whether its short, broken pieces are all originally from our prophet's hand, or were gathered by him from others, or were the fragments of his teaching which the reverent hands of disciples picked carefully up that nothing might be lost? Sometimes we think it must be this last alternative that happened; for it seems impossible that pieces so strange to each other, so loosely connected, could have flowed from one mind at one time. But then again we think otherwise, when we see how the chapter as a whole continues the separation made evident in ch. lxv., and runs it on to a last emphatic contrast.
So we are left by the prophecy,—not with the new heavens and the new earth which it promised: not with the holy mountain on which none shall hurt nor destroy, saith the Lord; not with a Jerusalem full of glory and a people all holy, the centre of a gathered humanity,—but with the city like to a judgement floor, and upon its narrow surface a people divided between worship and a horrible woe.