But Isaiah, too, expects deliverance from these miseries of foreign servitude and domestic anarchy. He looks for the dawn of a just and lasting peace; only the means of its attainment seem strange for an "exemplar of non-resistance."
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; They that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Thou hast multiplied the nation and increased their joy, They joy before thee according to the rejoicing at harvest-time, As men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of (Israel's) burden, and the rod laid to his shoulder, The staff of his oppressor, thou hast broken as in the day of Midian.
For all the armor of the armed man in the tumult And the garments rolled in blood shall be for burning, for fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, And the government shall be upon his shoulder: And his name shall be called: Wonderful-counsellor; The-Mighty-God-the-Everlasting (my)-Father; The Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, To establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even forever. The zeal of Jehovah of Hosts will perform this.
Even with the devout restraint of the closing line it must be admitted that these verses have a somewhat martial ring.
Doubtless the pacifist will emphasize the line, "The zeal of Jehovah of Hosts will perform this," taking here the view of the Pharisees, who in contrast with the fanatical nationalism of the Zealots opposed the aggressive militarism of the later Maccabees with a doctrine of quietism. Their cry was, "Leave all to God." Against the Zealot they appealed to the proverb: "They that take the sword shall perish by the sword," from which the inference is plain that if the aim be never to lose one's life one should never take weapons. But perhaps Isaiah the "non-resistant" is entitled to one more chance to prove himself not a Pharisee, even when he expects "the zeal of Jehovah of Hosts" to win the victory of peace. Fortunately he tells us how he expects the zeal of Jehovah to operate, in the doom he pronounces upon "drunkard" Samaria, the city whose luxuriant mountain-top was crowned with mingled towers and olive groves, like the fading wreaths upon the heads of drunken revellers. In contrast to Samaria's fate Isaiah has this promise for the temple-crowned hill of Zion, shadowed under its altar smoke:
In that day will Jehovah of Hosts become a crown of glory And a diadem of beauty unto the residue of his people, A spirit of justice to him that sitteth in judgment, And a spirit of strength to them that turn back the battle at the gate.[3]
II
It should hardly be necessary to explain that Jesus in deliberately giving up the career of purely non-political preacher, teacher, and healer, to assume the career of Christ and Son of David, fully conscious as he was of all the dangers it implied, was neither ignorant of the Isaian ideal, nor out of sympathy with it. When he rode into Jerusalem accepting the acclamation: "Blessed be the kingdom that cometh, the kingdom of our father David," he was not betraying the national hope; he was lifting it toward ultimate realization at the cost of Calvary.
It is true that he avoided suicidal collision with Roman authority on the one side, as prudently as he forestalled the sweeping off of his following into the insane fanaticism of the Zealot nationalists on the other. The prophet's method of a symbolic purifying of the temple was exactly suited to this purpose. In the temple Roman authority explicitly renounced control. The policing of this combined fortress, sanctuary, and treasure house was left, even to the power of life and death, in the hands of the Sadducean hierocracy. It was administered by a numerous and efficient Levite police commanded by a "captain of the temple." On the other hand, Sadducean control was notoriously and infamously corrupt. The abuses by which (with their connivance) money was extorted from the worshippers made it so hateful that a worthy reformer might be sure of popular support strong enough to cow "the hissing brood of Annas" into an interval of "fear of the people." And the reform might even be accomplished without unchaining the red fool-fury of the Zealot mob, if it was seen to be the work of a prophet, by authority "from heaven" and not "of men," consistent, even if regarded as a messianic act, with the course of one who had come "meek and lowly and having salvation, riding upon an ass, and on a colt the foal of an ass."
It is of vital importance to a historical appreciation of Jesus' sense of his mission to realize fully and adequately what he meant by this one public overt act of his career; for by it he signalized to all Israel assembled at the Passover his purpose to achieve a national deliverance such as the feast commemorated. From it every loyal Israelite might infer that the hope of "the kingdom of David" was now about to be realized. Jesus thus entered deliberately upon the stormy and dangerous seas of messianistic agitation, as a claimant to leadership in the achievement of the national hope.
To herald such a reform as Jesus proposed, reviving the national ideal, the purification of the temple was a symbolic act worthy of the greatest of prophets. It was exactly fitted to raise and define the issues at stake. It would convey just the right impression to the multitude, whose attention could be reached by this time-honored method, and by this method alone. It was also free from the worst dangers of messianistic agitation. It would avoid on the one hand the Scylla of needless collision with Roman authority, and on the other the Charybdis of Zealot turbulence. The calm and fearless "authority from heaven" with which it was effected overawed resistance, so that even while asserted by force it attained its result with the shedding of no other blood than the Messenger's own.