Isaiah 8

21-24. There was the clear threatening, too, of long and desolating invasions. By the eating of curds and honey is signified the cessation of all the ordinary processes of agriculture. There is no corn, no vintage, no olives, but such produce only as grows of itself. On the sloping hill-sides, where there were wont to be vineyards with a thousand vines, each worth a piece of silver, the scanty population will come with bows and arrows to shoot the game which has found there an undisturbed covert, or to pasture the heifer, or two or three sheep, which are all they have managed to save from the invading foe. R. P. S.

21,22. In consequence of these spoliations, the condition of the country will be wholly changed. The population left shall not be agricultural, but pastoral. Instead of living on the fruits of the soil, they shall subsist upon spontaneous products, such as milk and honey, which shall be abundant only because the people will be few and the uncultivated grounds extensive.

25. Not only the fields, not only the vineyards, shall be overrun with thorns and briers, but the very hills, now laboriously cultivated with the hand, shall be given up to like desolation. The reference is probably to the hills of Judea, anciently cultivated to the very top, by means of terraces that still exist. Thus understood, the verse merely strengthens the foregoing description, by declaring that even the most carefully cultivated portions of the land should not escape the threatened desolation. A.

8:1 AND the LORD said unto me, Take thee a great tablet, and write upon it with the pen of a man, For Maher-shalal-hash-baz; and I will take unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD unto me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and, My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried away before the king of Assyria. 5, 6 And the LORD spake unto me yet again, saying, Forasmuch as this people hath refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the River, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks: and he shall sweep onward into Judah; he shall overflow and pass through; he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel. 9 Make an uproar, O ye peoples, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and it shall be brought to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us. For the LORD spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying, Say ye not, A conspiracy, concerning all whereof this people shall say, A conspiracy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be in dread thereof. The LORD of hosts, him shall ye sanctify; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. 16, 17 Bind thou up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait for the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.

19. And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter : should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of 20 the living should they seek unto the dead? To the law and to the testimony ! if they speak 21 not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them. And they shall pass through it, hardly bested and hungry : and it shall come to pass that, when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse by their king and by their God, and turn their 22 faces upward : and they shall look unto the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the 9 : 1 gloom of anguish ; and into thick darkness they shall be driven away. But there shall be no gloom to her that was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time hath he made it glorious, by the 2 way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the nations. 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 3 the light shined. Thou hast multiplied the nation, thou hast increased their joy : they joy 4 before thee according to the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, thou hast 5 broken as in the day of Midian. For all the armour of the armed man in the tumult, and the 6 garments rolled in blood, shall even 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, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 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 judgement and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts shall perform this.

Chap. 8. According to the course of thought, chapter 8 should close with verse 7 of chapter 9. The subject is not complete at any point short of that. These are the times of Ahaz. The historical circumstances which gave occasion to this message are essentially those upon which chap. 7 is based—viz., Ahaz, his court and many at least of his people, greatly alarmed by the combination of Syria and Ephraim against Judah ; and in order to avert this danger, calling to their aid the king of Assyria. This policy displeased God, inasmuch as it implied a most unreasonable, ungrateful, and cruel unbelief in Himself, and exposed them to all the evils of being dependent upon the favor of an idolatrous and wicked nation. The Lord therefore first assures them that they have nothing to fear from Damascus and Samaria (the capitals representing the kingdoms), since those cities would soon be despoiled and erelong laid desolate ; and next, He declares that He will scourge and punish them by bringing upon them as a foe the very power they had been inviting to their aid as a friend, the great Assyrian hosts. In discoursing upon this point, the prophet aims especially to encourage faith in God and not in Assyria or in any other power ; also to lead them to fear God and none else besides, and to resort to God and not to spirits of the dead or of the living for knowledge of the future or for relief from danger. H. C.

The prediction of the overthrow of Syria and Israel is now renewed in the form of a symbolical name, to be inscribed on a tablet and attested by two witnesses, and afterward applied to the prophet’s new-born son, whose progress as an infant is made the measure of the event (verses 1-4). It is then foretold that the judgment denounced upon Syria and Israel should extend to Judah, as a punishment for distrust of God and reliance upon human aid, in consequence of which the kingdom should be imminently threatened with destruction, yet delivered for the sake of Immanuel, by whom the strength and wisdom of all enemies should be alike defeated (verses 5-10). The Messiah Himself is then introduced as speaking, warning the prophet and the true believers neither to share in the apprehensions nor to fear the reproaches of the people, but to let Jehovah be an object of exclusive fear and reverence to them, as He would be an occasion of destruction to the unbelievers, from whom the true sense of this revelation was to be concealed, and restricted to His followers, who, together with the prophet and the Son of God Himself, should be for signs and wonders to the multitude, while waiting for the manifestation of His presence, and refusing to consult any other oracle except the word of God, an authority despised by none but those doomed to the darkness of despair, which is described as settling down upon them, with a sudden intimation, at the close of a change for the better, especially in reference to that part of the country which had been most afflicted and despised (verses 11-22). A.

1-4. The birth of Maher-shalal-hash-baz. These verses are plainly a sequel to the former message. The promise of Immanuel was a pledge of God’s unchanging mercy to the house of David, though long and sore judgments were first coming on the land. This birth of Isaiah’s son, and his name, were a pledge of the speedy fall of Pekah and Rezin by the Assyrian. The date is the second year of Ahaz. His third year was the last of Pekah, and toward its close the prediction was fulfilled (2 K. 15: 39; 16: 8-10). The tablet would announce that the prophetess would bear a son to be so named, in less than a year; and that before this child could utter its first articulate speech, the judgment on Ephraim and Syria would have come. Birks.

1-4. In these verses the Lord predicts that Damascus and Samaria, the capitals respectively of Syria and Ephraim, shall be plundered within two or three years by the king of Assyria. Special arrangements are made to fix the date of the prophecy and the interval of time before its fulfilment so as to leave no room to doubt that it was a real prophecy spoken not only before the event, but before such an event had seemed to human view at all probable. These arrangements comprised (1) the writing of the emphatic and significant phrase, “Maher-shalal-hash-baz” upon a large “roll,” or rather a smooth tablet, in very large letters; and (2) in giving this name to a child born to the prophet, with the Divine promise that before this child could say “my father, and my mother,” the event predicted by his name should take place. This name signifies “Speed the plunder, the spoiling hastens on.” More briefly and nearer to the form of the Hebrew, thus: Hasten—booty; speed-spoil. Writing “with a man’s pen” is supposed to refer to letters in common use and known to the common people, another sort of pen being used perhaps for characters, known to the learned only. The object was to make the writing entirely legible to all. Verse 2 is supposed to continue the words spoken by the Lord to the prophet, “And let me take witnesses for the truth of this prophecy that I now give you,” even Uriah, the same probably who appears in 2 K. 16: 10-16 co-operating with the king in idol-worship, and therefore a specially suitable witness in this case; and Zechariah, who was doubtless the father-in-law of Ahaz, and maternal grandfather of Hezekiah. (See 2 K. 18: 2 and 2 Chron. 29: 1.) These were “faithful witnesses,” such men as Ahaz especially would confide in. The significant name given to this child corresponds to the case of his other son, “Shearjashub,” “a remnant shall return;” and also to the three children born to Hosea, each of whom had its significant name. All these children became through their very names prophetic heralds; every utterance or thought of either name suggesting the event it predicted. H. C.

5-8. Because this people refuse the protection of the God of Israel, and because they were at that moment exulting in the supposed success of their policy in calling in the Assyrian king, therefore the Lord will bring this same king and his victorious hosts over their land. This Assyrian raid is beautifully expressed here as an inundation of the great Euphrates, which is often called as here “the river,” the great river of Western Asia, and subject, much like the Nile, to periodical inundations. It rises mightily, rushes over all its banks; having swept over Syria and Ephraim, it comes down upon Judah too, yet not quite deep enough here to drown all the people, the waters rising only to the neck. But the spreading out of his wings, the outreaching tides of his great waters, shall fill the breadth of thy land, Immanuel—i.e., the land of Judah, still under the protection of Jehovah Jesus, “God with us.” Obviously this alludes to the Messiah’s birth of the virgin as foretold, or rather seen in vision as present, in chap. 7: 14. Hence it leaves no room for doubt that the prophet thought of this child as really the promised Messiah, already actually ruling in his power, and shielding his people under his omnipotent arm. H. C.

8. Thy land, O Immanuel.** He reigns over the kingdom of David—the Son of Man, as He is the Son of God—God Himself, in His wondrous way, with us. Immanuel! In the whole world of realities there is nothing so real or so comforting to us as this. Immanuel! God with us! F. D. H.

9,10. The course of thought here is obvious. The prophet’s soul, touched with the name Immanuel, becomes all aflame with faith in Zion’s King and with indignation that heathen powers should combine to lay his land desolate. So he boldly challenges them to do their worst; it should only recoil on themselves and crush them with the more terrible destruction. The mighty Immanuel will make the wrath of men praise Himself, and will gird about Him even the extremest human wrath as His weapon for their ruin. The first verb, rendered “Associate yourselves,” comes rather from the Hebrew verb, which means to do evil, to act wickedly, used here in keen irony. Do your worst; be as madly wicked as you will in your rage against God; you will only the more surely be broken to pieces. In the last clause of verse 10 the Hebrew is “for Immanuel,” “for God (is) with us.” H. C.—Even as a name Immanuel contains a proposition, and here this proposition is distinctly announced, but with a designed allusion to the person whom the name describes. As if he had said, “the assurance of your safety is the great truth expressed by the name of your deliverer, to wit, that God is with us.” The mere retention of the Hebrew word could not convey its sense in this connection to the English reader. A.

12, 13. “Dread not, like this people, the league of Ephraim and Syria. Devise no counter league with the Assyrian king. Make no secret terms with these invaders. Form no conspiracy to set up this son of Tabeal. Bring no false charges of treason against the prophets of God. Be not terrified with rumors of new alliances abroad or treacherous plots at home. Fear only God’s anger, and rest simply on His promise. Set Him high in your thoughts above every earthly power. Sanctify the Lord of hosts Himself, and let Him be your fear.” Birks.

13. Jehovah of hosts, Him shall ye sanctify (i.e., regard and treat as a holy God, and as the Holy One of Israel), and He shall be your fear, and He your dread—i.e., the object of these feelings. If they felt as they ought toward God, as supreme and almighty, and as their own peculiar God, with whom they were united in a national covenant, they could not so distrust Him as to be alarmed at the approach of any earthly danger. The collocation of the words makes the sentence more emphatic. Him shall ye fear is substantially equivalent to Him alone shall ye fear. Thus explained, the passage is at once a condemnation of the terror inspired by the approach of the two kings, and of the application, which it had occasioned, to Assyria for aid against them. A.

Let Him be your fear. There is something to fear in God. He speaks in wrath as well as in love; He has a left hand that points to the outer darkness, as well as a right that shows the way to rest and eternal reward. Beware of God—for sin is not all ignorance—it is a crime of the will. Moral suasion is not enough; sentiment alone will not do; sweetness and light have no backbone against the seductions of sin, no motive sufficiently strong to keep men away for the sorcerous shore of the sirens. The soul must be touched with a holy fear of God, if it is to find strength to resist the devil, and put him to flight. J. R. Paxton.—There is a virtuous fear, which is the effect of faith; and there is a vicious fear, which is the product of doubt. The former leads to hope, as relying on God in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose God; persons of the other character fear to find Him. Pascal.

14. And He (Jehovah) shall be for (or become) a holy thing (an object to be sanctified) and for a stone of stumbling. God was the only proper object to be dreaded, feared and sanctified—i.e., regarded as a holy being in the widest and the most emphatic sense. Thus explained, the Hebrew word corresponds almost exactly to the Greek term applied to Christ by the angel who announced His birth (Luke 1:35). In 1 Pet. 2:7, where this very passage is applied to Christ, the word “precious” seems to be employed as an equivalent to the word here used. To others He is a stone of stumbling, but to you who believe He is something precious, something honored, something looked upon as holy. The same application of the words is made by Paul in Rom. 9:33. These quotations seem to show that the prophet’s words have an extensive import, and are not to be restricted either to his own times or the time of Christ. The doctrine of the text is, that even the most glorious exhibitions of God’s holiness—i.e., of His infinite perfection, may occasion the destruction of the unbeliever. The most signal illustration of this general truth was that afforded in the advent of the Saviour. It was frequently exemplified, however, in the interval, and one of these exemplifications was afforded by the conduct of the unbelieving Jews in the reign of Ahaz, to whom the only power that could save them was converted by their own unbelief into a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. A.

16-18. The Messiah, present so intimately in thought throughout the two verses preceding, appears here as the speaker. It is He who says (verse 16) “My disciples;” a phrase familiar to His lips during His life in the flesh. It is He who says (verse 18), “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given Me;” these very words being cited by Paul to the Hebrews (2:13) as said by Jesus and as signifying that He is partaker with His children of flesh and blood, and in common with them, has in God a Father, so that they are all of one. But the Messiah being the speaker, what is His meaning? This: Bind up and seal in the hearts of my obedient and trustful people these great truths just spoken. They are to be My witnesses to these truths.

19,20. When they advise you to go to those who profess to know the spirits, the super-wise men (“wizards”), “who peep and mutter,” as if strange, uncouth sounds best befitted the dignity of such spirits and of human fellowship with them; then reply to them, Should not people seek unto their own God if they would know the future or the things of the unseen world? Has not the great God all knowledge and supreme control over all other worlds and over all the future of this? Is it not all-sufficient that you may go to your own God for all wisdom and for all needful help? Besides, can the dead bring any help to the living? Go rather to the law and the testimony, the sure word of God, for this reveals all that mortals need to know under the pressure of present ills or the fear of the otherwise dark and unknown future. If any class of men discard this word of God and speak not according to its revelations, they are those upon whose darkness no dawn of hope shall ever rise. H. C.

20. The prophet appeals to the law and the testimony as to an authority which was at once supreme and final. What was this law and testimony if it was not an acknowledged external code which could be bound up and sealed among the Lord’s disciples? The moral platform from which the prophets spoke to the men of their own day is abolished if there was no antecedent law to which to recall them, and for the violation of which they could be reproved. There must have been a previous education in spiritual truth ere the prophetic enunciations on either side could have been given or received. The entire foundation of their work was laid in the spiritual recognition of a standard from which their own generation had departed. Leathes.

A cardinal canon of certitude for the Christian is, “The Scripture saith it.” Now a singular feature of the entire Bible, too little noted, is its own certitude. It is self-assertive throughout; note Gen. 1:1 and John 1:1 as specimens. It speaks, like the Master, “as one having authority.” Its Mosaic law bristles with imperious phraseology—“thou shalt,” “shalt not.” Its gospel bears the sanction, “. . . shall be saved.” From Genesis to Revelation not one uncertain note is struck. The entire canon carries the air of easy lordship. This well-known characteristic of Christ’s words and manner marks His Book also, the Bible, through and through. The sources of this certitude are not hard to discover. These are two, uttering a blended stream of authority, the first Divine, the second human. God speaks throughout the Book, but not through a tube. He speaks through certain men who are conscious of their appointment to the task and of their authority in discharge of this task. The two sources are not co-ordinate, though in the production of the Book they are co-ordinated—that is, the authority of God in Scripture antedates and conditions that of its human authors, but in actual speech the two become blended. Yet neither is lost in the other. It takes both to make the Book. The more remote authority of God lends supreme sanction to what His human agents say, and holds over from age to age through all periods of human production, unifying His Book. Yet if the authority of the human authors also were wanting, we might have some kind of a Divine message indeed, but we should not have the Bible. There is the dual note of certitude throughout the Book—the self-assertive consciousness of the inspiring Spirit who knew whereof He spake and the self-assertive consciousness of Moses, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Matthew, and the others one by one, whose personalities one by one carry to us weight and definite flavor, who also knew whereof they spake, and who show that they knew it.

Two things result from this dual certitude of utterance: First, the Book is vitalized through and through, by the Spirit of God, with the Divine thought, tingling and red with life to its finger-tips, Divine in every turn of expression or shade of meaning; second, it brings us into touch—not with the ever-present Divine Will only, but equally—with the will and within range of the personal magnetism of more than a score of the picked men of the ages, until we drink in instruction from and bow to the appointed authority of the leader of the Exodus, the poet-king, the seer of Babylon, Paul and Paul’s physician, the preacher at Pentecost, the exile on Patmos, and all that glorious fellowship who were honored of God by specific and fit appointment to this unique service of His Church and this unique honor in the annals both of literature and of the kingdom of Christ. Of this honor we may not rob them without defacing and somewhat depotentizing the blessed Book, nor without grave damage to ourselves and to the Church of God. Just because inspiration is not mechanical but vital, it involves both the distinct personality of the revealed

God and the distinct personalities of His several known human agents and co-workers. Lacking either of these things it were something less than the Bible, “the Word of God written.” Lacking either the certitude of its known Divine Author or the certitude of its known human authors, its authority for man might remain, but its power over men would be immeasurably reduced. The word as God gave it to us must be left untarnished by elimination of the inbreathing Spirit from a single page or by the erasure of so much as one human name and personality inwoven with and consciously entering into the Divine utterance. W. W. Faris.

We do not ignore reason. She has her mission in regard to the written Word. She is to examine its claims to inspiration. She is to weigh the external and the internal evidences of its divinity. But when she has settled that question her work is done. Thenceforth she is to sit at the feet of the great Teacher and reverently receive His words. She is to study them so as to comprehend their full meaning. But she is never to sit in judgment upon them as wise or unwise, as right or wrong. They come with authority. They are the utterances of Him who gave us reason and who can never tell us anything that is contrary to it, though He may tell us many things that transcend it. Interior.

We take the Bible into our hands, and examine diligently its different sections, delivered in different ages of mankind. There is a mighty growth in the discoveries of God’s nature and will, as time rolls on from creation to redemption; but as knowledge is increased, and brighter light thrown on the Divine purpose and dealings, there is never the point at which we are brought to a pause by the manifest contradiction of one part to another. It is the wonderful property of the Bible, though the authorship is spread over a long line of centuries, that it never withdraws any truth once advanced, and never adds new without giving fresh force to the old. The brief notices given to patriarchs expand in the institutions of the law and under the breathings of prophecy, till at length, in the days of Christ and His apostles, they burst into magnificence, and fill a world with redemption. It is throughout the same system for the rescue of human kind by the interference of a surety. Melvill.

Chap. 9. The subject of chap. 8 continues over into chap. 9 to the end of verse 7. Then follows a message which fills out this chapter and the first four verses of chap. 10, addressed to the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, variously named Jacob, Israel and Ephraim.

1. The exact thought of the original may be expressed thus: “But darkness shall not be [permanent] where this oppression lay; for as the former time dishonored and oppressed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the latter time shall greatly honor and bless those lands, even the way of the sea beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.” The northern and eastern border tribes, including Zebulun and Naphtali on the west of Jordan and the two and a half tribes on the east, had been held in low esteem, as being far from Jerusalem the honored centre; less enlightened religiously, earlier and more apostate into idolatry, more exposed to the nation’s foreign enemies (see 1 Chron. 5:25, 26), and more corrupted by heathen families and tribes living among them. Deep traces of the same disesteem appear on the face of the New Testament history. (See John 1:46 and 7:52; also Matt. 26:69 and Acts 2:7.) Over this region the waves of the great Assyrian river had swept with terrible devastation; but it should not be always first in calamity and darkness. The latter time should reverse this law and give to that region distinguished honor, as the next verse proceeds to say. H. C.

2-7. Here the message changes, with a striking abruptness, from the midnight of sorrow to a daybreak of hope and joy; from the Assyrian and Chaldean desolations to the times of Immanuel, the great hope of Israel, and the heir of David’s throne. The same region, the borders of the sea of Galilee, where the sorrow of captivity had begun, was to witness the first dawn of the joyful change.

2. This promise is quoted (Matt. 4:14-16), and is given as the reason why our Lord chose Capernaum by the sea of Galilee for the main seat of His earthly ministry. That same district of the Holy Land, marked by the first step of national downfall, was also chosen for the first dawn of light, when it was made the scene of our Lord’s personal ministry. He who was despised and rejected of men would choose His apostles and dawn upon the benighted people in despised Galilee. Birks.

3. The prophet now, by a sudden apostrophe, addresses God Himself, who, by bestowing on the Galileans this great light, would not only honor them, but afford occasion of great joy to all the true Israel, including those who should be gathered from the Gentiles. Thou hast enlarged the nation (i.e., Israel in general), thou hast increased its joy (literally, to it thou hast increased the joy), they rejoice before Thee like the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. A.

5. Carrying forward the same line of thought, the prophet adds yet another cause for the nation’s joy. “For every war shoe of the soldier who arms himself at the cry, To battle! and every garment rolled in human blood shall be burned—the food of fire.” All that belongs to war—the armor and the weapons of the soldier and the garments drenched in the blood of the slain shall be swept away with fire; and War itself shall die! Unfortunately the English translation misses the full sense and mars the exquisite beauty of this verse. The Messiah abolishes all war; but not until His foes are either swept away by His judgments or melted into penitence and won over to submission by His love. This prophecy looks at the glorious results—the annihilation of all that makes war a scene of horror.

6. From the effects and the results of Messiah’s reign, the prophet comes to speak here specifically of the Messiah Himself. A wondrous child is born to the race of man, all unique and peculiar; born a prince, to bear on His shoulder the insignia of supreme power (as the Orientals wore a key upon the shoulder, and modern occidentals, an epaulette, to indicate authority); “and His name shall be called” (i.e., He shall truly be, and therefore shall be worthy to bear these significant names) “Wonderful” (for “great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh”); “Counsellor” (for on Him shall rest the spirit of wisdom and understanding; the spirit of counsel and might; the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord," etc., Isa. 11:2); “the Mighty God” (not a god in any inferior sense; but the Mighty God, Creator and Lord of all); “the Everlasting Father” (a name entirely applicable to Him as the Creator of all worlds, and as being truly a Father to His people; existing, moreover, through all the depths of a past eternity, and onward through the cycles of an eternal future); also, “the Prince of Peace” (the glorious King whose reign shall be the consummation of peace and prosperity throughout this otherwise troubled and sin-cursed earth). Nor this only; but He gives peace, even a “peace that passeth all understanding,” to those who are justified by faith in Him (Rom. 5:1; Phil. 4:7), and who abide in Him with faith unfaltering and love supreme. “Everlasting Father,” literally Father of eternity, may mean either, existing eternally, and in this sense one “who only hath immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16); or one that gives eternal life to His people. H. C.—The natural and striking application of the words is to Jesus Christ, as the promised child, emphatically born for us and given to us, as the Son of God and the Son of man, as being wonderful in His person, works and sufferings—a counsellor, prophet or authoritative teacher of the truth, a wise administrator of the Church, and confidential adviser of the individual believer—a real man, and yet the Mighty God—eternal in His own existence, and the giver of eternal life to others—the great peace-maker between God and man, between Jew and Gentile, the umpire between nations, the abolisher of war, and the giver of internal peace to all who being justified by faith have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1). A.

The words of this prophecy refer to what the prophet had said in chap. 7 respecting Immanuel, the son of the virgin, and also to the first prediction of the seed of the woman, and to the seed of Abraham, in whom all nations were to be blessed, and to Shiloh—that is, the son whom Jacob had promised. Haldane.—Abraham did see the Saviour’s day and was glad. Moses, as lawgiver, did predict the Redeemer, and the law given him was the purposed preparation for the “truth and grace by Jesus Christ.” Shiloh does come, with His never-departing sceptre of peace, as Israel promised. All the immense and costly system of sacrifices does verily serve its predestined end as the “shadow of better things to come,” things which did come in Him who “once offered up Himself,” the Refiner and Purifier of all the sons of Levi, at once High-Priest and Victim, “made higher than the heavens,” “continuing ever,” “having an unchangeable priesthood,” “ever living to make intercession.” David, chieftain of kings, takes his singular exaltation not only from the personal worth of his penitence and the inspiration of his song, but as the regal ancestor of the human part in the Prince of all the kings of the earth. The prophecies from age to age and along the pages of the Bible resound the ever-strengthening and ever clearer cry, “He cometh! the Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace! Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” F. D. H.

What mean these expressions—His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Father of Eternity, the Prince of Peace—if they do not mark the Divine nature of the Messiah? The words of the seventh verse announce expressly a blessedness and an

eternal reign, accompanied with judgment and righteousness, which can only be understood of Jesus Christ, being totally inapplicable to any other king. Haldane.—Great names indeed. But where is the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus, at which every knee shall bow? Perhaps you will find in all these names that one name, but drawn out at length and poured forth. Nor could He at all be called or be a Saviour, if one of these were wanting. Bernard.—The Scriptures style Him Jehovah-jireh (the Lord will provide); Jehovah-nissi (the Lord my banner); Jehovah-shalom (the Lord send peace); Jehovah-rophi (the Lord that healeth thee); Jehovah-tsidkenu (the Lord our righteousness); the Prince of peace; the Prince of life; the King of Zion; Immanuel, God with us; the living God; the true God; the only wise God; the God over the whole earth; the mighty God; God over all, blessed for evermore; Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; the same yesterday, today, and forever; “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, or can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.” Sherman.

intellectual accordance with the Socini, or Blandrata, or Servetus in one cardinal doctrine—and that a doctrine not distinctively Christian, but belonging also to Judaism, to Islam, and to simple Deism—is as nothing compared with the

intense response wrung from me by some of Luther’s readings of Paul, and by his favorite book, the ‘Theologia Germanica.’