great Evangelical truth, Evangelical in its literal sense and true to the depths of human nature, that nations and individuals alike can leave their past behind them, and start afresh in the race of duty; so impressive from its peculiar historical significance as the key-note of the new period of Asiatic and European1 history; so striking in the imagery with which it figures that Divine progress demanding for its approach and preparation the reduction of pride, the exaltation of humility, the simplification of the tortuous, the softening of the angular and harsh was heard in part once again when long afterwards in the wild2 thickets of the Jordan a voice was raised inaugurating another new epoch, and preparing the way for another vaster revolution in nations and in churches. But nevertheless the whole expression of the exhortation breathes the atmosphere of the moment when it was first delivered the sense of the expected deliverance at last come the heart of an oppressed people again breathing freely-the long prospect of the journey yet before them, through the trackless desert- all irradiated with the hope that no wilderness would be too 1 See Lectures XL. XLII. 2 Matt. iii. 3; Mark i. 3. In this application of Isa. xl. 3, the words "in the wilderness" have been separated from their proper context; and also the word which properly describes the Mesopotamian desert has been transferred to the wild country of the Jordan. The grand prelude of this new prophecy has suffered a singular eclipse. Its words escaped citation in the New Testament. In later times the whole passage has been entirely omitted in the public services of the Latin Church, and 3 only used on incidental occasions in the Greek Church. In the Sunday services of the Church of England this splendid chapter was almost pointedly excluded till the revision of the English Calendar of Lessons in 1872. It is to its selection as the opening of Handel's "Messiah " that it owes its proper position before Christendom. * In Josephus, Ant., xi. 1, these prophecies under the name of Isaiah are substituted for those of Jeremiah given in the earlier account of Ezra i. 1. arid, no hills too high, no ravine1 too deep for the Divine Providence to surmount. Another utterance of the same Prophet is still more directly fitted to the emergency of his own time, though still more sacredly associated with the mighty future. "The Spirit of the Lord God rests upon me, "because the Eternal hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the suffering, He hath sent me to bind "up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the "captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are. bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the "Eternal." 66 B.C. 536. It was five centuries onwards that in the synagogue of a hitherto unknown Jewish village the scroll which contained the writings which by that time were all comprised under the one name of the Prophet Isaiah was handed to a young Teacher, who unfolded the roll and found the place where it was thus written. He closed the book at the point where the special application to the Israelite exiles began. He fixed the attention of His audience only on these larger words which enabled Him to say to all those whose eyes were fastened on His gracious countenance, "This day is this "Scripture fulfilled in your ears." But the original fulfilment of the consolation was that contemplated by the Prophet who saw before him the exiles depart in their holiday attire for their homeward journey; destined to strike root again like the sturdy ilex of their native country, and carry on the righteous work for which alone home and freedom are worth possessing. His mission was "to comfort all that mourn, to appoint "unto them that mourn in Zion, to give them beauty 1 The word for "valley" in Isa. xl. 4, is "ravine." 2 Luke iv. 16-21. "for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of "praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be "called the terebinths of righteousness, the planting "of the Eternal, that He might be glorified." with the natural order of events. B.C. 536. Such is the ideal of the Return: nor is it unworthy Connected of the mighty issues which ultimately hung on that event. Although the actual event seems small and homely, yet that very homeliness indicates one of the main characteristics of the epoch on which we have entered. Unlike the first Exodus, this second Exodus was effected not by any sudden effort of the nation itself, nor by any interposition of signs and wonders, but by the complex order of Providence, in which the Prophet thus bids his people see an intervention no less Divine than that which had released them from Egypt. "Wheel within 1 "wheel" was the intricate machinery which Ezekiel had seen in his visions on the Chebar; but not the less was a spirit as of a living creature within the wheels. The document that inaugurates the new 2 era is Cyrus. not the the word of Jewish lawgiver or prophet or priest, but the decree of a heathen king. "Now in "the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word "of Jehovah by Jeremiah might be fulfilled, Jehovah "stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he "made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and put it in writing." Decree of 66 It is difficult not to suppose that the language of the decree is colored by the Hebrew medium through which it passes, but in tone and spirit it resembles those which have been found inscribed on the Persian monu 1 Ezek. i. 20. 2 The emphatic solemnity of the decree is confirmed by its repetition no less than three times, in Ezra i. 1-4; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23; 1 Esdras ii. 3-7. 1 ments; and if Ormuzd be substituted for Jehovah, and "the Creator of the earth, the heavens, and man"kind," for the single form of "the Creator of earth," there is nothing impossible in the thought that we have the very words of the decree itself. But at any rate it stands as the guiding cause of the liberation, and stamps itself as the turning-point of the whole subsequent history. Before this time the people of Israel had been an independent nation; from this moment it is merged in the fortunes of the great Gentile Empires. There are three successive periods through which it has to pass, and each will derive its outward form and pressure from an external power. Of these the first is the Persian. Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes were henceforth for two hundred years to exercise the influence which in earlier times had been exercised by the Princes and Kings of Israel. The year henceforward is dated from the accession of the Persian Kings as afterwards of the Rulers of Antioch and of Rome. We shall hereafter trace some direct effects of this connection on the religious condition of the people. It is enough for the present to remark that the community which returned under these circumstances was no longer a nation in the full sense of that word, and thenceforth had to eke out that inestimable element by its connection with the powerful monarchies with which it was brought into contact. But this very change was transfigured in the language of the great contemporary Prophet into the vision which has never since died out of the hopes of mankind, that the wide course of human history, the mighty powers of the earth, instead of standing, as hitherto, apart from the course of religion 1 Ewald, v. 48. The Persian form is slightly varied in Isa. xlii. 5; xliv. and progress, would combine with that hitherto isolated movement. "Arise,1 shine, for thy light is come, and "the glory of the Eternal is risen upon thee. The "nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the "brightness of thy rising. Thou shalt suck the milk of "the nations, and shalt suck the breast of kings." Kings shall be thy nursing fathers and queens thy "nursing mothers." "The nations shall see thy right"eousness and all kings thy glory." 66 Doubtless the real fell far short of the ideal, as in the actual Return, so in the actual Cyrus. But the fact which enkindled those hopes, and those hopes themselves, have lent a framework to the noblest aspirations of humanity they are the same as Plato expressed in the well-known saying, that the world would not be happy till either philosophers became kings, or kings became philosophers the same as the last seer of the Jewish race expressed in the cry, "The kingdoms of "this world are become the kingdoms of the Lord and "of his Anointed." B.C. 536. character of the It is evident that the return was not that of the whole of the exiles. Those who had been transThe partial planted from the north of Palestine in the Assyrian captivity never returned at all, or only Return. in small numbers. Those who had been transported to Babylon and became settlers, as we have seen, in those rich plains and in that splendid city, were many of them contented to remain some holding high places in the Persian court, though still keeping up communication with their brethren in Palestine, some permanently becoming the members of that great Isa. lx. 1, 3, 16. 2 Isa. xlix. 23. 8 Isa. lxii. 2. 4 See Ewald, v. 29. |