We have stated that the massacre of the infants was an invention to form an excuse to get Jesus into Egypt; for his return from that country would serve to prove that he was the one referred to when the Lord is made to say, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." Here, we confess, we are at a loss to express our astonishment. In the eleventh chapter of Hosea, the Lord complains of the ingratitude of the Jewish nation, and reminds them what he had done for them in times past. He expresses the love he had for them when the nation was young, and required the power of his arm to protect them. "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt" (Hosea. 1.) It need not be said, that this refers to the deliverance of the Jews from the hands of Pharaoh. Israel is the son spoken of who had already passed out of Egypt. "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." (Matthew ii. 23.) There is no such prophecy to be found in the Old Testament.
CHAPTER XXII.
Christ and John the Baptist
"THE beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." (Mark i. 1,2, 3.) As in Matthew, at the very outset, the second Gospel starts out to show that Christ is the one foretold by the prophets, and that a direct reference is made to him by Isaiah, as one who was to be preceded by another who was to prepare the way for his advent. Cotemporaneous history, and a critical examination of the words of the prophet, will dispel the delusion.
Hezekiah, king of Judea, was improvident enough to show to the son of the king of Babylon, then on a visit to him, all his treasures, and riches of every description; and "there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed him not." When Isaiah was told by the king himself what he had done, the prophet spoke and said: "Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days." (Isaiah xxxix. S, 6, 7, 8.) The Babylonian captivity-is here referred to.
Isaiah then proceeds to declare that after great suffering, in their servitude under the Assyrians, the Lord would deliver the Jewish people, and that they should again be a great and prosperous nation. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." (Isaiah xl. 1,2, 3, 4.)
With what tenderness the prophet speaks to his countrymen, to assure them that their captivity will not last forever! Divested of poetical language and figures, the Lord says: In your lost condition in slavery ("wilderness") you shall hear the voice of the Lord to comfort you. Be prepared, for he will provide the means ("highway") for your deliverance from captivity. The words wilderness, desert, and highway are symbolical terms, representing the lost condition of the Jews and the promise made by the Lord, that he would provide means for their deliverance from their enemies. What follows, holds forth to the Jews a glorious future. "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low." That is, the down-trodden and oppressed children of Israel shall once more take the stand of an independent nation; and the proud and lofty Assyrian shall in his turn be humbled, and come under the yoke of the conqueror. The idea which underlies the language of the prophet is, that the Jews will be ultimately restored to their own country, and again become a prosperous people; and as is characteristic of all these Jewish prophecies, the expressions, "and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain," are mere expletives, to obscure the sense, and increase the ambiguity. Like the oracles of Greece, a simple idea is concealed beneath figures and metaphors, and the mind distracted by the introduction of thoughts that have no meaning, and no connection with the subject.
Josephus, after giving a full account of this prophecy from Isaiah says, it was subsequently fulfilled in the captivity and restoration of the Jews, and that when he wrote, the words of the prophet had passed into history. (Antiq., book x. chap. 2, sec. 2.) The Lord, by the prophet, is addressing the Jews of that day about matters which directly concerned them, and what was said had no more to do with John the Baptist preaching on the Jordan, in the neighborhood of the Arabian desert, than it had with the travels of Livingstone over the sands of Africa. The John referred to in Mark is a historic character, and all we know about him we learn through Josephus.
In his day he was a reformer. Shocked at the low condition of the Jews, who had reached the lowest deep in crimes and vices of all kinds, through the corruption of the priesthood, and tyranny of their civil Governors, he undertook to reform abuses, and elevate the moral standard of the nation. Standing on the banks of the Jordan, crowds from the surrounding country came to hear him denounce the sins of the people, and be baptized. He preached repentance, and those who did repent he purified with the mystic waters of the Jordan.