In that day shall this song be sung. Isaiah 26:1-10 Periods of restoration W. Reading, M. A. If it be demanded, what period of time is this which the prophet speaks of? we must answer, that it is the time when the people, who for their provocations were thrown into the furnace of affliction, and had continued in it till they were purged from their sins, were delivered from it, and restored to the favour of God, and the enjoyment of His former mercies. Of which restoration there are three kinds or degrees plainly spoken of by the prophet Isaiah. 1. The Jews' return from the land of their captivity, especially that of Babylon. 2. The restoration of the family and kingdom of David in the person of the Messiah. 3. The perfect felicity of that kingdom in astute of future glory. ( W. Reading, M. A. ) Three elements in prophecy C. A. Dickinson. All true prophecy, seems to have in it three elements: conviction, imagination, inspiration. The seer speaks first of all from his knowledge of, and experience with, the inherent vitality of right and righteousness. He is sure that the good in the world is destined to conquer the evil. Then when he attempts to tell how this victory is to be brought about he uses his imagination. He employs metaphors and figures which from the necessities of the case may not be literally fulfilled. And then, in addition to this, his prophecies have in them a certain comprehensiveness of plan and structure, and a certain organic relation to history, such as can be revealed only by the Divine Maker of history Himself. It took a man of large parts to see above the wreck and ruin, and through the darkness of his age, such visions of hope and promise as Isaiah saw. Everywhere around him were sensuality and oppression. The Church of the true God had been almost swallowed up by the foul dragon of paganism. And yet the prophet, with his eye upon the future, beheld a day when this song was to be sung in the land of Judah: the song of salvation. Sure he was that God must triumph, and with the poet's instinct he clothed his assurance in the language of metaphor, and set it to the rhythm of song. ( C. A. Dickinson. ) The triumph of goodness C. A. Dickinson. 1. Those who study this song in the light of succeeding history find in it the picture of the ultimate triumph of the Church. The central figure is the strong city, the walls and bulwarks of which are salvation, and through whose open gates the righteous nation which keepeth the truth is allowed to enter. This picture reminds us at once of that vision of the new Jerusalem which fell upon the eyes of the seer of Patmos many years after, and which was evidently the type and symbol of the perfected kingdom of Christ. To attempt to give to this strong city and this new Jerusalem a literal and material significance is to involve ourselves in inextricable difficulties. 2. There are two views concerning the progress and ultimate triumph of Christianity in the world. In some respects these views are the same; in others they differ radically.(1) The first theory is that there is to be in the near or remote future a sudden, visible appearance of Christ in the clouds of heaven to take His place upon the throne of David at the earthly Jerusalem, where He will reign with His saints for a thousand years. Meanwhile the world is to come more and more under the Satanic influence.(2) The other theory is that of a gradual development under the spiritual forces which began to be dominant in the world on the day of Pentecost, when Christ, according to His own promise, began His reign in His new kingdom. This I believe to be the true view: the one which Christ Himself propounded when He said His kingdom should be like the seed that should "grow" up. 3. I am well aware that those who claim that the world is fast ripening in evil for its final catastrophe can point to many facts which seem to substantiate their theory. But just here, it seems to me, comes in one of their greatest mistakes. There is, of course, danger of generalising too much, but there is certainly great danger of allowing some near fact to blind the eyes to the great general truth which lies beyond it; to hold the sixpence so near the eye that we cannot see the sun. There is danger of confining our thoughts so exclusively to certain specific texts as to get a wrong conception of the real truth of which these special texts may be only a small part. Now, what are some of the signs that we are living today in an age of conquest?(1) Take that law of decay which you find written upon evil everywhere, whether in the individual or the nation. "He bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, He layeth it low." Rome in her arrogance was the first great organised power to make war against the new kingdom. But Rome fell, and over the ruins of her pagan temples the Christian walks today. France posed as the haughty oppressor of the weak and unfortunate, as the instigator of the horrors of St. Bartholomew's day, and following close upon her dreadful sin came the death and desolation of the Revolution. Our own great nation allowed to ripen in her very heart the malignant curse of slavery, and for her sin was obliged to suffer the pangs of a civil war. These are only a few of the conspicuous illustrations of the great truth that righteousness is surely, though perhaps slowly, vindicating her everlasting strength.(2) I might call your attention to the other side of this conquest: to the rapid increase in the present days of that strong City whose wails are salvation. I might show you a whole library filled with missionary literature which tells that the kingdom of the new King has extended its bounds into almost every habitable part of the earth. I might point you to the Year Books of our Churches, and show you what armies of men and women are yearly marching through the gates of the strong City. I might show you how the spirit of the Cross, having taken possession of the civilised nations of the world, has materialised into churches and hospitals and asylums and charitable institutions and temperance guilds and myriads of Christian homes.(3) But further, I might speak of another phase of this conquest. "When Thy judgments are in the earth," says the prophet, "the inhabitants of the earth will learn righteousness." These Divine judgments appear as a subtle tonic atmosphere pervading the whole world, and, like the ozone of the mountains, invigorating almost unconsciously every age and generation.(4) The influence of the Gospel is pervasive. In a certain sense we have a right to say that a community is a Christian community even though but a small minority of its inhabitants profess to accept Christ as their personal Saviour. The spirit of Christ is in that community; the leaven of the Gospel is leavening it. The new kingdom is established there, and even they who deny allegiance to it are in many ways better than they who are without it. The principles of Jesus Christ are the standard principles of morality throughout Christendom today, and men are inevitably judging them. selves and being judged by others according to these standards. 4. I believe that we are in the midst of mighty spiritual forces which are working successfully for the redemption of this world from sin; and I have two great incentives to spur me on to earnest effort.(1) The one is faith in humanity and Christ. I say humanity and Christ, because I believe they are one. That, to me, is the meaning of His incarnation. The mighty forces of righteousness are moving with their slow, crushing power as the steam roller moves over the newly macadamised road, breaking and levelling everything before it, that the chariot of the King may ride smoothly on to its destination. But this is only a part of the truth. The other part is that the new kingdom is open to all.(2) The other thing which spurs me on is hope — that blessed hope which the apostle had of the glorious consummation of this age of conquest. ( C. A. Dickinson. ) We have a strong city. A city the emblem of security R. H. Davies. To understand this figure of a city we must remember what a city was in the earlier ages; i.e. , a portion of land separate from the general surface, in which the people of a locality gathered, and put their homes into a condition of safety by building walls of immense strength, which should both resist the attacks of enemies and, to a great extent, defy the ravages of time. Such a city, then, was the emblem of security. ( R. H. Davies. ) The song of salvation R. H. Davies. I. THE GROUND OF REJOICING. Salvation; and consequently eternal security. "We have a strong city." All God's people are represented as citizens; the whole sainthood is represented as a corporate assemblage of people possessed of peculiar privileges, connected with an eternal condition, and as such are to dwell in some region of safety and bliss. Here they find not such an abode. Here they have "no continuing city, but seek one to come." And, when they shall be gathered together in the presence of their Lord, they will constitute the body to form a city. II. THE CHARACTER OF THOSE WHO ARE TO PARTAKE OF THESE BLESSINGS. "The righteous nation which keepeth the truth." ( R. H. Davies. ) Salvation, i.e Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. freedom and safety. The original sense of the word rendered "salvation" (as Arabic shows) is breadth, largeness, absence of constraint. ( Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. ) Saving health J. M. Gibson, D. D. (1) Political theorists have been fond of picturing an ideal State, the government of which would be perfect.(2) The ideal State in the mind of the average Hebrew was limited to his own race, but in the writings of the inspired psalmists and prophets it could not be so restricted, but widened itself out so as to embrace the whole world. Thus was the way prepared for the grand conception of the kingdom of heaven as first proclaimed and then established by the Son of God.(3) But it is a difficult thing, except in moments of great exaltation, to put much intensity of feeling. Into a conception so vast. It was a great deal easier to conceive an ideal State than an ideal world, and an ideal city was still more manageable for the imagination. We need not wonder, then, that even after the great proclamation about all the kingdoms of the world becoming the kingdom of God, the seer of Patmos should fondly return to the thought of the city, and revel in anticipating the advent of the New Jerusalem. Nor shall we be astonished that the prophets, though they had the wider outlook, should even in their moods of highest exaltation cling fondly to the thought of a holy city as the best picture, the more serviceable that it was a miniature of the coming kingdom of God.(4) In these early days of insecurity, the first requisite of a city was strength. So it is natural that this should be the feature on which the prophet here lays special stress. But wherein does its strength lie? He speaks not of ramparts or forts, of fleets or armies, but of salvation as the bulwarks of the city. We find this word salvation in other places translated by the more suggestive rendering "health," or "saving health." 1. The first thought suggested in this connection is that the city should be a clean place to live in, healthy from end to end and in every corner, each house in it a fitting abode for sons of God and daughters of the King. When we pass from the sanitation of the city to the saving health of the citizen, we think first of his body, and recognise the necessity of having all the conditions as conducive as possible to its health. 2. But clearly we cannot stop there. We must have the "mens sana in corpore sane"; hence the need of universal education, to secure intellectual sanity. 3. Nor may we end here, for moral sanity, a sound conscience, is even still more important. The nation must be a righteous nation. 4. Clearly, there must be sanitation for the will before we have reached saving health; and inasmuch as the will is swayed by desire, the sanitation must reach the heart. What sanitary measures could we here summon to our aid? The purest water will not cleanse the heart; the most bracing air will have no effect upon the soul. There must be a fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness, and some breath of God for inspiration to the soul. 5. And here we reach the prophet's highest, dominating thought. "In that day," the passage begins. What day? Look back ( Isaiah 25:9 ). "It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him, and He will save us." And look forward (ver. 4), "Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." "Lord, Thou wilt ordain peace for us; for Thou also hast wrought all our works in us" (ver. 12). This introduces us to one of the most important questions of the day. There are many, sound and strong on the subject of righteousness, who yet fail to realise that righteousness is so bound up with saving truth — that truth of God and His salvation through Jesus Christ His Son, and by His Holy Spirit breathed in human hearts, which they sometimes offensively set aside as mere dogma — that the one cannot be had where it does not exist already, and cannot be retained long where it does without the other. "Open ye the gates that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in." 6. How can we open or help to open these gates of national strength and saving health? For individual action the answer would be such as this: First, by loving truth and keeping righteousness ourselves; next, by doing all we can to help others to a life of godliness and righteousness; further, by earnest and frequent prayer to Him who gave of old the promise, "I will open to you the two-leaved gates"; and lastly, by the faithful exercise of the privileges of citizens, seeing to it that in the forming of our opinions, in the giving of our votes, in the use of all our influence, not selfish interest, or class interest, or even party interest, but the interests of righteousness and truth be the determining factor. But individual action is not enough. We must combine; we must bring our united force to bear. And here the main reliance must be on the Church of Christ, on which is laid the responsibility of carrying on His great work of salvation. ( J. M. Gibson, D. D. ) Our strong city A. Maclaren, D. D. There are three things here — I. THE CITY. No doubt the prophet was thinking of the literal Jerusalem, but the city is ideal, as is shown by the bulwarks which defend, and by the qualifications which permit entrance. And so we must pass beyond the literalities of Palestine, and must not apply the symbol to any visible institution or organisation if we are to come to the depth and greatness of the meaning of these words. No Church which is organised amongst men can be the New Testament representation of this strong city. And if the explanation is to be looked for in that direction at all, it can only be the invisible aggregate of ransomed souls which is regarded as being the Zion of the prophecy. But, perhaps, even that is too definite and hard. And we are rather to think of the unseen but existent order of things or polity to which men here on earth may belong, and which will one day, after shocks and convulsions that shatter all which is merely institutional and human, be manifested still more gloriously. The central thought that was moving in the prophet's mind is of the indestructible vitality of the true Israel, and the order which it represented, of which Jerusalem on its rock was but to him a symbol. And thus for us the lesson is that, apart altogether from the existing and visible order of things in which we dwell, there is a polity to which we may belong, for "ye are come unto Mount Zion, the city of the living God," and that order is indestructible. There is a lesson for us, in times of fluctuation, of change of opinion, of shaking of institutions, and of new social, economical, and political questions, threatening day by day to reorganise society. "We have a strong city"; and whatever may come — and much destructive will come, and much that is venerable and antique, rooted in men's prejudices, and having survived through and oppressed the centuries, will have to go, but God's polity, His form of human society, of which the perfect ideal and antitype, so to speak, lies concealed in the heavens, is everlasting. And for Christian men in revolutionary epochs the only worthy temper is the calm, triumphant expectation that through all the dust, contradiction, and distraction the fair city of God will be brought nearer and made more manifest to man. To this city — existent, immortal, and waiting to be revealed — you and I may belong today. II. THE DEFENCES. "Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks." This "evangelical prophet" is distinguished by the fulness and depth which he attaches to that word "salvation." He all but anticipates the New Testament completeness and fulness of meaning, and lifts it from all merely material associations of earthly or transitory deliverance into the sphere in which we are accustomed to regard it as especially moving. By "salvation" he means, and we mean, not only negative but positive blessings. Negatively, it includes the removal of every conceivable or endurable evil, whether they be evils of sin or evils of sorrow; and positively, the investiture with every possible good that humanity is capable of, whether it be good of goodness or good of happiness. This is what the prophet tells us is the wall and bulwark of his ideal. real city. Mark the eloquent omission of the name of the builder of the wall. "God" is a supplement. Salvation "will He appoint for walls and bulwarks." No need to say who it is that flings such a fortification around the city. There is only one hand that can trace the lines of such walls; only one hand that can pile their stones; only one that can lay them, as the walls of Jericho were laid, in the blood of His first-born Son. "Salvation will He appoint for walls and bulwarks," i.e.d. , in a highly imaginative and picturesque form, that the defence of the city is God Himself. The fact of salvation is the wall and the bulwark. And the consciousness of the fact is for our poor hearts one of our best defences against both the evil of sin and the evil of sorrow. So, let us walk by the faith that is always confident, though it depends on an unseen hand. "Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks," and if we realise, as we ought to do, His purpose and His power to keep us safe, and the actual operation of His hand keeping us safe at every moment, we shall not ask that these defences shall be supplemented by the poor feeble earthworks that sense can throw up. III. THE CITIZENS. Our text is part of a "song," and is not to be interpreted in the cold-blooded fashion that might suit prose. A voice, coming from whom we know not, breaks in upon the first strain with a command, addressed to whom we know not. "Open ye the gates" — the city thus far being supposed to be empty, — "that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in." The central idea there is just this, "Thy people shall be all righteous." The one qualification for entrance into the city is absolute purity. Now, that is true in regard of our present imperfect denizenship within the city; and it is true in regard to men's passing into it, in its perfect and final form. They used to say that Venice glass was so made that any poison poured into it shivered the vessel. Any drop of sin poured into your cup of communion with God shatters the cup and spills the wine. Whosoever thinks himself a citizen of that great city, if he falls into transgression, and soils the cleanness of his hands, and ruffles the calm of his pure heart by self-willed sinfulness, will wake to find himself not within the battlements, but lying wounded, robbed, solitary, in the pitiless desert. "The nation which keepeth the truth," — that does not mean adherence to any revelation, or true creed, or the like. The word which is employed means, not truth of thought, but truth of character; and might, perhaps, be better represented by the more familiar word in such a connection, "faithfulness" A man who is true to God, that keeps up a faithful relation to Him who is faithful to us, he, and only he, will tread and abide in the city. ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) The walls and bulwarks of a city J. C. Cronin. Accepting the vague but universal idea that there is an abundance of sin of every sort massed together in any great city, our inquiry concerns the main lines of work by which the welfare of the city may be promoted. To the eye of the prophet there comes a vision of a strong city; and the walls and bulwarks of that strength is said to be salvation — that is, the strength and safety of a city is in the men and women in it who are saved through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. I know there are many to turn a deaf ear to any such claim as this. They reject it as being too sweeping. They say that there are many sources from which the life-giving waters come. Let us take a look at some of these things which are supposed to give safety. I. And perhaps the first thing to be mentioned is Law. It need not be any highly moral or religious enactment, but simply plain, everyday, matter-of-fact law. The city needs it. People in the simplicity of country life, where there is an abundance of room, can get on without much law. But the city needs law. And no one will decry the beneficent effect of righteous laws. It must be said, however, that the good effect of law is very much diminished by the many bad laws which are enacted. Are we claiming too much when we say that largely the efficiency of law is due to the Christian men and women who are in the city? Righteous laws follow in the train of progress made by Christianity. The bulwark which at first seemed to stand out alone and distinct becomes identified with that bulwark in the vision of the prophet whose foundation stone, as well as its lofty capstone, is salvation. II. We are led on to speak of another bulwark for the city. It is A BENEFICENT AND POWERFUL PUBLIC OPINION. But again, I assert that very largely all this safety is due to the presence in the city of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is the public conscience itself, and where did it come from but through Christianity? III. But again, look at another so-called secular bulwark. Call it THRIFT, the genius of success, the ability to get on in the world. Thrift is consistent with pure selfishness. Find a society in which everybody is only thrifty, where no man cares for his neighbour, where the human heart feels nothing of the flow of generosity and love, and, while you may be able to point to fine and well-kept houses, neat little cottages, well-dressed, clean children, you are really looking upon a hollow, lifeless sham. I do not want to live there, A sea of poverty with a little stream from Calvary flowing into it would be far better. Just a touch of human sympathy and love would transform the whole. ( J. C. Cronin. ) A song of salvation G. Clayton. I. What is the PERIOD referred to? A day which was to he remarkable for the destruction of the Church's enemies, for the salvation of her friends, and for the glorious extension of the Gospel through all the nations of the earth. II. What is the SUBJECT of this song? "We have a strong city: salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks." The inviolable security of the Church was to be the subject. III. WHERE is this song to be sung? "In the land of Judah." It was sung when the great salvation was accomplished by the one offering of Christ upon the Cross; and the risen Saviour said to His disciples, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature"; and the tidings were sent abroad; and the Gospel, which was first preached at Jerusalem, was sounded forth into all lands. And we cannot but indulge the confident persuasion, that among the Jews, though they are for the present cast out, this song shall be sung in due time, which shall be "as life from the dead." But as that people have long since been cut off because of their unbelief, we remark, that the words will apply to others also; "for he is not a Jew which is one outwardly," etc. So that this song comes down to us. ( G. Clayton. ) The Church not in danger J. C. Cronin. I. THE FIGURATIVE DESCRIPTION WHICH IS HERE GIVEN OF THE CHURCH. 1. It is a city; from which metaphor we obtain three ideas respecting it —(1) Its amplitude. It is not a family, or a village, or a hamlet, or a provincial town; but a city. It includes as its inhabitants, all the good both in heaven and in earth, who form "an exceeding great multitude." The dimensions of this city are such as comport with the largeness of the Father's designs, the transcendent value of the Saviour's merits, the variety and immensity of the Holy Spirit's influences.(2) Its order No city ever flourished long without rule. Christ is the King of this city, and He establishes His laws in the midst of it.(3) Its magnificence. We are not to look for the magnificence of the Church in outward splendour and glory, but in its sanctity — its holy principles and practices. 2. But this city has an important appellative; — it is "a strong city." And this will appear, if you consider —(1) The foundation on which it rests. "Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever."(2) The protection it enjoys. God Himself dwells in this city; and His presence is our stay and our defence. All His attributes and promises are connected with this safety.(3) The principles by which its unity is cemented. Unity is strength. And the unity subsisting between the members of this city is so strong as not to be dissolved by any earthly power. The principles by which the members of the Church of Christ are united are these two — truth and love. "We have a strong city."(4) The rude assaults it has sustained, uninjured. We hardly know the strength of anything till it is put to the test. The Church has been exposed to the opposition of earth and the fury of hell. II. ITS IMPREGNABLE SAFETY. How do I know that this city shall continue, and its interests be advanced, until its glory is consummated? Why, for this reason: "Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks." 1. Hostility is implied. 2. The means of preservation and defence are amply provided. 3. It implies a glorious issue. All these means shall prove effectual III. HOW MAY WE HAVE A SATISFACTORY ASSURANCE THAT WE HAVE PERSONALLY AN INTEREST IN THIS CITY OF THE GREAT KING? You may have this — 1. If you have chosen Jesus Christ as the ground of your dependence for salvation. 2. If you are visibly incorporated with the inhabitants of this city. 3. If you are enabled to exemplify the distinguishing character of those who are citizens of Zion. 4. If you find that you have truly merged all your interests in the interests of the Church, and have identified your happiness with her successes. 5. If you find your thoughts and affections much engaged on that future State of which the Church on earth is but a type.Conclusion — 1. Let me call upon you to be thankful to God, who has afforded you such an asylum. 2. Let me invite you to enter this city. 3. Let us dismiss our fears, when we have once got within the walls of this city. 4. Endeavour to bring as many as you can to be inhabitants of that Zion, the privileges of which you enjoy. ( J. C. Cronin. ) The saving arm of God a sure defences to the Church of Christ against all her enemies J. Young. I. Mention some of those ENEMIES against whom the Church is fortified. 1. She is fortified against all the attempts of Satan. 2. A wicked world is always disposed to take part with Sam against her. 3. The Church has enemies within her own walls; and is often in the greatest perils by false brethren. 4. The Church has enemies even in the hearts of her best friends and sincerest members. That principle of corruption that is not totally subdued in the best Christians, as it is inimical to God, must also be inimical to the Church; and, as far as it prevails, its effects must be always hurtful to her. II. Speak of that SALVATION which God has promised to appoint for walls and bulwarks to the Church. 1. Salvation bears an evident relation to misery and danger. 2. It is but a partial salvation that she can hope to enjoy in this world: — 3. But her salvation shall one day be complete. From every salvation that God has already wrought, faith draws encouragement: considering it as a pledge of what He will work in time to come. III. CONSIDER WHAT ABOUT THE CHURCH IS SECURED AGAINST THE ATTEMPTS OF ENEMIES BY THE SALVATION OF GOD. She may lose much of what may appear to a carnal eye as most valuable to her. But in the eye of the Church herself, and of all her genuine children, all this perfectly consistent with the all-sufficiency of that salvation by which she is defended. An is still safe that is necessary either to her being or her well-being, and all that is essential to the happiness of any of her citizens. 1. Her foundation is always safe. She is "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone." 2. Her existence is always safe. The Church may be driven into the wilderness; but she shall never be driven out of the world. 3. Her particular citizens are all safe, under the protection of God's saving arm. 4. Her privileges and immunities are all safe. These having been purchased for her by the blood of Christ, and bestowed upon nor by His God and Father, are also preserved by Divine power and grace; and none shall ever be suffered to deprive her of them. 5. Her treasures are all safe. She has a two-fold treasure: a treasure of grace, and a treasure of truth. Both these are lodged in the hand of Christ. 6. Her real interests are all safe and secure: and that to such a degree, that neither shall she suffer any harm, in the issue, — nor shall her enemies gain any advantage, by all their apparent success. 7. In a word, her eternal inheritance is perfectly safe and secure. IV. Conclude with some IMPROVEMENT of what has been said. 1. The Church of Christ has but little occasion for the favour and protection of earthly princes, and little cause to regret the want of it. 2. It is neither upon ordinances nor instruments, upon her own endeavours nor those of her members, nor upon any created assistance that the Church of Christ ought to depend for safety or prosperity. 3. Neither the Church of God, nor any particular Christian, has anything to fear from the number, the power, the policy, or even the success of their enemies, 4. This subject informs us what it is that really brings the Church of Christ into danger. Nothing but her own sin can bring her into real danger; because this, and nothing else, tends to deprive her of her protection, or to cause her defence to depart from her. 5. We may here see plentiful encouragement to every member of the Church, as well as to those who bear office in her, to continue strenuous and undaunted, in opposing every enemy, in defending every privilege, that God has bestowed upon the Church, every ordinance that He has instituted in her, and every truth that He has revealed to her. 6. We have here an ample fund of consolation to all those who are affected with the low condition of the Church of God in our day. ( J. Young. ) The city of salvation A. Fletcher, D. D. In the Scriptures we read of some very strong cities, that are now levelled with the dust. But the "city" mentioned in the text is stronger than all the rest. The state of nature may be called the city-of-destruction; and the state of grace, the strong city, or the city of salvation. I. The NAME of this city. "Salvation." It is a very old name, it has had this name a great many thousands of years; it has never changed its name; it is a durable name; it is an unchangeable name. II. What KIND of a city it is. 1. It is a large city. It would hold all the inhabitants of the earth for thousands of generations. 2. It is a free city. The Lord Jesus Christ welcomes you to come and live in it. 3. It is a wealthy city. The treasures of free grace are in the city of salvation. 4. It is a healthy city. They breathe good air who live in it. The Physician is the Lord Jesus Christ, who heals every disease. 5. It is a happy city. 6. This city will last foe ever. Where is Babylon? Where is Tyre? Where is Nineveh? Where are the cities of Egypt? Those mighty cities are levelled with the dust, but this city will last through all eternity. III. The BUILDER of thi

Benson Commentary Isaiah 26:1 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Isaiah 26:1-2 . In that day — When God shall do such glorious works for the comfort of his people, as are described in the foregoing chapter; shall this song be sung in the land of Judah — In the church of God, often signified by the titles of Judah, Jerusalem, Zion, and the like. We have a strong city — Jerusalem, or the church, which is often compared to a city. Salvation will God appoint, &c. — God’s immediate and saving protection shall be to his church instead of walls. Open ye the gates — Of the city, mentioned Isaiah 26:1 . An expression which implies the increase of the number of believers, and the enlargement of the church. That the righteous nation — The whole body of righteous men, whether Jews or Gentiles; (for he seems to speak here, as he apparently did in the foregoing chapter, of the times of the gospel;) which keepeth the truth — Which is sincere and steadfast in the profession and practice of the true religion; may enter in — May be received and acknowledged as true members of the church, which all such persons undoubtedly are. Isaiah 26:2 Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. Isaiah 26:3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee : because he trusteth in thee. Isaiah 26:3-4 . Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace — Hebrew, in peace, peace; peace with God, and peace of conscience; peace at all times, and under all events; whose mind is stayed on thee — Hebrew, ??? ????? , the thought, or, mind fixed, or, the stayed mind, as Bishop Lowth renders it; that is, the man whose thoughts and mind are fixed and settled on thee by faith, as the next clause explains it. In the foregoing verse, the righteous are represented as being admitted into the city, and here as being preserved and defended in it by God’s almighty power. Trust ye in the Lord — Ye, who truly turn to and obey him; for ever — In all times and conditions, and as long as you live; for in the Lord Jehovah — In him who was, and is, and is to come; is everlasting strength — Hebrew, ??? ?????? , the rock of ages; which will assuredly support those who build their confidence thereon. That is, he is a sure refuge to all those that trust in him through all generations. Isaiah 26:4 Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength: Isaiah 26:5 For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust. Isaiah 26:5-6 . For he bringeth down — Hebrew, he hath brought down, or, as it may be rendered, he will bring down, them that dwell on high — He speaks not so much of height of place, as of dignity and power, in which sense also he mentions the lofty city in the next clause; which may be understood, either of proud Babylon, or of all the strong and stately cities of God’s enemies. The foot shall tread it down — God will bring it under the feet of his poor, weak, and despised people. The meaning is, you have good reason for trusting in God, for he can and does raise up some and throw down others, according to his own good pleasure. Isaiah 26:6 The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy. Isaiah 26:7 The way of the just is uprightness: thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just. Isaiah 26:7 . The way of the just is uprightness — Hebrew, ??????? , righteousness. The just proceed steadily on in the practice of the various duties of righteousness, which they owe to God and man; or, their way is evenness, or plainness, as the word may be rendered. It is their constant care and endeavour to walk with God in an even, steady course of obedience and holy conversation. Bishop Lowth translates the clause, the way of the righteous is perfectly straight, not crooked, involved, and intricate, like that of the wicked. Thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just — Dost mark and consider it, and observe the various difficulties and dangers that will occur in it, and wilt give them grace sufficient for them; or, thou dost examine it. Thou, who art most upright in all thy ways, and therefore a lover of uprightness, and of all upright men, dost weigh, dost narrowly observe and ponder, the path of the just; the whole course of their actions, and, which is implied, dost approve of them, and direct them to a happy issue. This seems to be the most common meaning of the word ??? , here rendered to weigh: see Proverbs 4:26 ; Proverbs 5:21 . It bears, however, another sense, Psalm 78:50 , namely, to make the way plain, or, to remove obstructions out of it. In this sense Bishop Lowth understands it here, and therefore translates the clause, thou most exactly levellest the path of the righteous. While the way of the wicked is perplexed, and rugged, and full of obstructions, God makes the way of the righteous plain and easy before them, by preventing or removing those things that would be stumbling-blocks to them, so that they walk safely and comfortably forward in the path of duty. Isaiah 26:8 Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. Isaiah 26:8-9 . Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Lord — That is, as some understand it, of thine ordinances and commandments, in which we carefully and conscientiously walk; or, in the way of thy chastisements. As we, thy people, have loved and served thee, when thou didst make our way smooth and pleasant before us, so we have not forsaken thee, but waited upon thee, when thou didst see fit, for our trial, to make it difficult and troublesome. We have possessed our souls in patience under thy chastisements, and have waited thy time for our deliverance. The desire of our soul is to thy name — Hebrew, to thy name and thy memory; that is, to the remembrance of thy nature and attributes, according as thou hast made thyself known by thy word and works. And so the sense of this clause is, our affections are not alienated from thee by thy judgments, but we still continue to desire thy presence and favour, and we support and comfort ourselves with the remembrance of what thou art, and what thou hast done, and what thou hast promised to be to, and do for, thy people. With my soul — Sincerely and most affectionately; have I desired thee — The prophet speaks this in the name of all God’s people; in the night — In the time of affliction, often termed night, or darkness; or, rather, in the night, properly so called, as appears from the next clause, wherein early, or in the morning, is opposed to it. When others are sleeping, my thoughts and desires are working toward thee. Yea, with my spirit within me — By fervent and importunate prayer for thy loving-kindness; will I seek thee early — Betimes in the morning. For when thy judgments are in the earth — And good reason it is that we should thus desire and seek thee in the way of thy judgments, because this is the very design of thy judgments, that men should thereby be awakened to learn and return to their duty; and this is a common effect of them, that those who have been careless in prosperity are made wiser and better by afflictions. Isaiah 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Isaiah 26:10 Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD. Isaiah 26:10-11 . Let favour be showed to the wicked — If thou dost spare them, when thou chastisest thy own people, and grantest them health, prosperity, and other blessings; yet will they not learn righteousness — They will not be led to repentance by thy goodness; and therefore it is requisite thou shouldest send thy judgments into the earth, to reckon with men for abused mercies. In the land of uprightness — Even in thy church, and among thy people, where righteousness is taught, professed, and, among many, practised; and where unrighteousness is discountenanced and punished; will he — The wicked man, deal unjustly — Hebrew, ???? , will act perfidiously, perversely, or injuriously; and will not behold the majesty of the Lord — Although God gives such plain and clear discoveries of his majesty and glory, not only in his words, but also in his works, and in all the dispensations of his providence, whether those of justice, or those of grace; and especially in his glorious patience and mercy toward wicked men; yet they wilfully shut their eyes against these discoveries, and will not believe, or will not consider, and lay to heart, what a God of terrible and glorious majesty he is. Lord, when thy hand is lifted up — To smite and chastise them, in order that by repentance, faith, and prayer, they may make their peace with thee; they will not see — They will not take notice of it; are not aware that thou art angry with them, and about to execute thy judgments upon them. Nay, even when thou dost actually smite and punish them, they are guilty of the same obstinate blindness as when thou dost only threaten them, shutting their eyes against the clearest convictions of guilt and wrath, and ascribing to chance, common fate, or second causes, what is manifestly a divine correction and rebuke. They regard not the symptoms of their own ruin, but cry, “Peace, peace,” when thou, the holy and righteous God, art waging war against them. But they shall see — Whether they will or not. They shall know and feel, and that by sad experience, what they would not learn by other and easier ways. Atheists, scorners, and the carnally secure shall shortly feel what now they will not believe, that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. They will not see the evil of sin, and particularly the sin of hating and persecuting the people of God; but they shall, at length, be convinced to their sorrow, by the tokens of God’s displeasure against them for it, that what is done against his people, God takes as done against himself. And be ashamed for their envy at the people — They shall see that they have done God’s people a great deal of wrong, and therefore shall be ashamed of it, and of the enmity and envy which produced it. Yea, the fire of thine enemies, &c. — Such fire or wrath as thou usest to pour forth upon thy implacable enemies. Isaiah 26:11 LORD, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them. Isaiah 26:12 LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. Isaiah 26:12 . Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us — That is, for thy true and genuine church and people. Though thou hast afflicted us, ( Isaiah 26:8 .) yet the time will come when we shall be in a very different, yea, in a happy condition. Or, referring to what he had last said, he means, as thou wilt destroy thine and our enemies, so thou wilt bless us; thy people, with peace and prosperity. For thou hast wrought all our works in us — Hebrew, ??? , to, or for us. All the good works done by us are the effects of thy grace. And all the good and great works which have been wrought for us, all the wonderful deliverances and singular blessings vouchsafed us, came from thee. The argument is this: God hath done great things for us, and delivered us formerly upon many occasions, and therefore he will still deliver us, and give us peace. Isaiah 26:13 O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. Isaiah 26:13-14 . O Lord our God, &c. — The people of God, having already obtained their deliverance in part, with the overthrow and destruction of their enemies, proceed to unfold and express their hope, that God would perfect all his good works for them. Other lords besides thee — Who art our only King, Lawgiver, and Judge; and besides those governors who have been appointed over us by thee, and have ruled us in subordination to thee; even foreign and heathen lords, such as the Philistines formerly, and lately the Assyrians, and afterward (as the prophet foresaw would come to pass) the Babylonians, have had dominion, over us — Have exercised a tyrannical power over us. The reader will observe, the song begun, Isaiah 26:1 , is continued, and Isaiah is foretelling what the language of the church would be after her deliverance. By thee only — By thy favour and help, by which alone we have been rescued from the tyranny of our enemies, and not by our merits or strength; will we make mention of thy name — Celebrate thy praise, and trust in thee for the future. Bishop Lowth renders the clause, Thee only, and thy name, henceforth will we celebrate. They are dead, &c., they shall not rise — Those tyrants are destroyed, they shall never live or rise again to molest us. He probably refers to the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib’s army before Jerusalem, and to the overthrow of the Babylonian empire. Therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, &c. — That they might be thus effectually destroyed thou didst undertake the work; and thou hast perfectly accomplished it, and abolished the monuments or memorials of their greatness and glory. The prophet speaks of what he foresaw, with certainty, would be done, as though it were effected already. Isaiah 26:14 They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish. Isaiah 26:15 Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth. Isaiah 26:15 . Thou hast increased the nation — Namely, the Jewish nation, which multiplied exceedingly in Egypt, and afterward in Canaan, so that they filled the land. But the prophet perhaps foretels their increase after their return from captivity in Babylon; and, as some think, that increase of the church (called the righteous nation, Isaiah 26:2 ) which was to take place in gospel days. Thou art glorified — In faithfully fulfilling thy promises made to Abraham concerning the multiplication of his seed, and making him the father of many nations. Thou hast removed it far unto all the ends of the earth — Thou hast scattered thy people over all the world, so that they are found in every nation under heaven, where they are witnesses for thee, the only living and true God, against idolaters of all descriptions. This was the case before, and at the time of the coming of the Messiah, and of the opening of the gospel dispensation, Acts 2:5 . And in a little time, the Gentiles being called into the church of God, the Christians were spread over all parts of the Roman empire, and far beyond its utmost limits, and they were much more faithful witnesses or the truth than the Jews had ever been. But, as the Hebrew of the first clause of this verse, ???? ???? , when literally rendered, is only, thou hast added to the nation; some think the prophet does not speak of adding to their number, or increasing them, but rather of adding to their plagues or chastisements. This, it must be acknowledged, would agree well with what follows. Then the interpretation of the next clauses would be, Thy justice is glorified in their punishment, and thou hast removed them out of their own land, and suffered them to be carried captive to the ends of the earth. This, as the reader will easily observe, would accord perfectly with what follows to the end of the chapter. Isaiah 26:16 LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them. Isaiah 26:16-18 . O Lord, in trouble — Amidst the various calamities brought upon them for their correction and especially in their captivity; have they — Namely, thy people; visited thee — Come into thy presence with their prayers and supplications; they poured out a prayer — Prayed much and earnestly, as the expression implies; when thy chastening was upon them — When thou wast punishing them for their sins. Like as a woman is in pain, &c. — A comparison often used to express men’s consternation under great calamities, from which they cannot deliver themselves; so have we been in thy sight — Such has been our anguish and danger, of which thou, O Lord, hast been a witness. We have been with child — That is, we have had great expectation of a speedy and happy deliverance, have been big with hopes; and we have been in pain — Have comforted ourselves with this, that the joyful birth would make us forget our misery, but, alas! we have, as it were, brought forth wind — We have had the torment of a woman in child-bearing, but not the comfort of a living child. “We have had no good issue of all our pangs and throes; they did not produce deliverance and ease, as in the case of travailing women, but all our own labours proved abortive: in vain we struggled with our enemies, who were still too mighty for us,” and we were utterly unable to effect our deliverance. To bring forth wind, is much the same kind of phrase with feeding on wind, and reaping wind, Hosea 12:1 ; Hosea 8:7 ; and signifies, to take a great deal of pains to no purpose. This seems to be spoken of the siege which the Jewish people endured, and of all their other labours and sufferings to prevent their coming under the Chaldean yoke. Thus the attempt of Zedekiah to withstand Nebuchadnezzar we find only brought greater evils upon the country, 2 Chronicles 36:13 . We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth — In our land, where we had far greater advantages than we could have had elsewhere. Neither have the inhabitants of the world — The Assyrians, Chaldeans, or our other enemies; fallen — By our means. Isaiah 26:17 Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. Isaiah 26:18 We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. Isaiah 26:19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Isaiah 26:19 . Thy dead men shall live — The prophet here, speaking in the name of God, turns his speech to God’s church, and gives her a cordial to support her in that deep distress which he had foretold she should suffer, and which is described in the preceding verse. Thy dead men are not like those mentioned Isaiah 26:14 , for they shall not live, as was there said, but thine shall live. You shall certainly be delivered from all your fears and dangers. For here, as Bishop Lowth observes, “The deliverance of the people of God, from a state of the lowest depression, is explained by images taken from the resurrection of the dead.” And nothing is more frequent, both in Scripture and other authors, than for great calamities to be compared to death, and deliverance from them to reviving, a resurrection, and life; and particularly the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, and their deliverance out of it, is largely expressed by this very similitude, Ezekiel 37:11 , &c. “It appears from hence,” says Bishop Lowth, “that the doctrine of the resurrection was at that time a popular and common doctrine; for an image which is assumed, in order to express or represent any thing in the way of allegory, or metaphor, whether poetical or prophetical, must be an image commonly known and understood, otherwise it will not answer the purpose for which it is assumed.” Together with my dead body shall they arise — It is to be observed here, that the words, together with, are supplied by our translation, there being nothing for them in the Hebrew. “All the ancient versions,” says Bishop Lowth, “render the word in the plural; they read ?????? , my dead bodies.” The Vulgate has it, Interfecti mei resurgent, My slain men shall rise. The Syriac and Chaldaic read, their dead bodies; and the LXX. ???????????? ?? ?? ???? ????????? , those that are in their graves shall be raised. It seems this clause is added merely as an amplification or repetition of the former, being entirely equivalent therewith, and expressing only that the Jewish Church, with which the prophet connects himself, as being a member of it, should be delivered out of captivity in Babylon, but not that he himself should either personally suffer in that captivity, or have a part in that deliverance. Thus, in a similar way, ( 1 Thessalonians 4:15 ; 1 Thessalonians 4:17 ,) the apostle connects himself with those that should be found alive at Christ’s second coming, we who are alive, &c., certainly not intending to signify that he personally should be alive at that time. Awake, &c. — Out of your sleep, even the sleep of death, ye that dwell in the dust — You that are dead and buried in the earth. For thy dew — The favour and blessing of God upon thee; is as the dew of herbs — Which refreshes and revives them, and makes them grow and flourish. And the earth shall cast out the dead — As an abortive birth is cast out of the womb, to which the grave is compared, Job 1:21 . But, as the verb ???? , here used, does not properly signify to cast out, but to cast down, or cause to fall, these words are by many, both ancient and later interpreters, rendered otherwise, namely, thou wilt cast down, or she, that is, the church, shall cast down the land of the giants, or violent ones. Thus the Vulgate: Thou shalt draw into ruin the land of the giants; and the LXX., ? ?? ?? ??? ?????? ???????? , the land of the ungodly shall fall, or be brought down. The sense is, the church shall prevail against all oppressors, and shall cast them down: when brought low she shall rise, but her enemies shall not. Isaiah 26:20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. Isaiah 26:20-21 . Come, my people, &c. — These two verses are supposed not to belong to the song which takes up the preceding part of the chapter, but to be an address of the prophet to the people of God on the contents of it. Having foretold their wonderful deliverance, and the utter destruction of their enemies, lest they should suppose that these predictions would immediately begin to be fulfilled, and thereby should meet with a disappointment, which might shake their faith respecting the future fulfilment of them, he here warns them that they must first expect storms, and exhorts them to prepare for them, and patiently to wait God’s time for the accomplishment of his promises. Enter thou into thy chambers, &c. — Withdraw thyself from the company and conversation of the people of the world, lest, partaking with them in their sins, thou shouldst also partake of their plagues; and shut thy doors about thee — Separate and seclude thyself, as far as may be, from men and things, and give thyself up to meditation on these awful dispensations of divine justice and mercy, and to prayer. Having entered into thy closet, and shut thy door, pour out thy supplications and intercessions before thy Father, who seeth in secret. Hide thyself, as it were — In this time of danger and calamity, when the judgments of God are so awfully abroad in the earth, put thyself under the protection of his providence and grace, by faith and prayer. He alludes to the common practice of men, who, when there are storms or dangers abroad, betake themselves to their houses or chambers for safety: or, it may be, to the history, Exodus 9:19-20 ; or, to the command of Moses to the Israelites, ( Exodus 12:22 ,) not to go out of the doors of their houses: while the destroying angel was going through the land of Egypt; or, to the like charge given to Rahab, as the condition of her preservation, Joshua 2. For a little moment — Whereby he intimates, that all their afflictions, how long and tedious soever they might seem, were but short and momentary in comparison of that happiness which was reserved for them; until the indignation be overpast — The dreadful effects of God’s anger, mentioned in the next verse. For the Lord cometh out of his place — Cometh down from heaven, which, in Scripture, he is frequently said to do, when he undertakes any great and glorious work, either of delivering his people or destroying their enemies. The expression is borrowed from the manner of princes, who come out of their palaces either to sit in judgment, or to fight against their enemies, both which things God is here represented as doing. To punish the inhabitants of the earth — All the enemies of God and of his people; for their iniquity — For all their sins, and especially for oppressing and persecuting his church. The earth also shall disclose her blood — The innocent blood which hath been shed upon the earth shall be brought to light, and shall be severely revenged upon the murderers. Isaiah 26:21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 26:1 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. -22 BOOK 5 PROPHECIES NOT RELATING TO ISAIAH'S TIME In the first thirty-nine chapters of the Book of Isaiah-the half which refers to the prophet’s own career and the politics contemporary with that - we find four or five prophecies containing no reference to Isaiah himself nor to any Jewish king under whom he laboured, and painting both Israel and the foreign world in quite a different state from that in which they lay during his lifetime. These prophecies are chapter 13, an Oracle announcing the Fall of Babylon, with its appendix, Isaiah 14:1-23 , the Promise of Israel’s Deliverance and an Ode upon the Fall of the Babylonian Tyrant; chapters 24-27, a series of Visions of the breaking up of the universe, of restoration from exile, and even of resurrection from the dead; chapter 34, the Vengeance of the Lord upon Edom; and chapter 35, a Song of Return from Exile. In these prophecies Assyria is no longer the dominant world-force, nor Jerusalem the inviolate fortress of God and His people. If Assyria or Egypt is mentioned, it is but as one of the three classical enemies of Israel; and Babylon is represented as the head and front of the hostile world. The Jews are no longer in political freedom and possession of their own land; they are either in exile or just returned from it to a depopulated country. With these altered circumstances come another temper and new doctrine. The horizon is different, and the hopes that flush in dawn upon it are not quite the same as those which we have contemplated with Isaiah in his immediate future. It is no longer the repulse of the heathen invader; the inviolateness of the sacred city; the recovery of the people from the shock of attack, and of the land from the trampling of armies. But it is the people in exile, the overthrow of the tyrant in his own home, the opening of prison doors, the laying down of a highway through the wilderness, the triumph of return, and the resumption of worship. There is, besides, a promise of the resurrection, which we have not found in the prophecies we have considered. With such differences, it is not wonderful that many have denied the authorship of these few prophecies to Isaiah. This is a question that can be looked at calmly. It touches no dogma of the Christian faith. Especially it does not involve the other question, so often-and, we venture to say, so unjustly-started on this point, Could not the Spirit of God have inspired Isaiah to foresee all that the prophecies in question foretell, even though he lived more than a century before the people were in circumstances to understand them? Certainly, God is almighty. The question is not, Could He have done this? but one somewhat different: Did He do it? and to this an answer can be had only from the prophecies themselves. If these mark the Babylonian hostility or captivity as already upon Israel, this is a testimony of Scripture itself, which we cannot overlook, and beside which even unquestionable traces of similarity to Isaiah’s style or the fact that these oracles are bound up with Isaiah’s own undoubted prophecies have little weight. "Facts" of style will be regarded with suspicion by any one who knows how they are employed by both sides in such a question as this; while the certainty that the Book of Isaiah was put into its present form subsequently to his life will permit of, -and the evident purpose of Scripture to secure moral impressiveness rather than historical consecutiveness will account for, -later oracles being bound up with unquestioned utterances of Isaiah. Only one of the prophecies in question confirms the tradition that it is by Isaiah, viz ., chapter 13, which bears the title "Oracle of Babylon which Isaiah, son of Amoz, did see"; but titles are themselves so much the report of tradition, being of a later date than the rest of the text, that it is best to argue the question apart from them. On the other hand, Isaiah’s authorship of these prophecies, or at least the possibility of his having written them, is usually defended by appealing to his promise of return from exile in chapter 11 and his threat of a Babylonish captivity in chapter 39. This is an argument that has not been fairly met by those who deny the Isaianic authorship of chapters 13-14, 23, 24-28, and 35. It is a strong argument, for while, as we have seen, there are good grounds for believing Isaiah to have been likely to make such a prediction of a Babylonish captivity as is attributed to him in Isaiah 39:6 , almost all the critics agree in leaving chapter 11 to him. But if chapter 11 is Isaiah’s, then he undoubtedly spoke of an exile much more extensive than had taken place by his own day. Nevertheless, even this ability in 11 to foretell an exile so vast does not account for passages in 13-14:23, 24-27, which represent the Exile either as present or as actually over. No one who reads these chapters without prejudice can fail to feel the force of such passages in leading him to decide for an exilic or post-exilic authorship. Another argument against attributing these prophecies to Isaiah is that their visions of the last things, representing as they do a judgment on the whole world, and even the destruction of the whole material universe, are incompatible with Isaiah’s loftiest and final hope of an inviolate Zion at last relieved and secure, of a land freed from invasion and wondrously fertile, with all the converted world, Assyria and Egypt, gathered round it as a centre. This question, however, is seriously complicated by the fact that in his youth Isaiah did undoubtedly prophesy a shaking of the whole world and the destruction of its inhabitants, and by the probability that his old age survived into a period whose abounding sin would again make natural such wholesale predictions of judgment as we find in chapter 24. Still, let the question of the eschatology be as obscure as we have shown, there remains this clear issue. In some chapters of the Book of Isaiah, which, from our knowledge of the circumstances of his times, we know must have been published while he was alive, we learn that the Jewish people has never left its land, nor lost its independence under Jehovah’s anointed, and that the inviolateness of Zion and the retreat of the Assyrian invaders of Judah, without effecting the captivity of the Jews, are absolutely essential to the endurance of God’s kingdom on earth. In other chapters we find that the Jews have left their land, have been long in exile (or from other passages have just returned), and that the religious essential is no more the independence of the Jewish State under a theocratic king, but only the resumption of the Temple worship. Is it possible for one man to have written both these sets of chapters? Is it possible for one age to. have produced them? That is the whole question. CHAPTER XXIX GOD’S POOR DATE UNCERTAIN Isaiah 25:1-12 ; Isaiah 26:1-21 ; Isaiah 27:1-13 WE have seen that no more than the faintest gleam of historical reflection brightens the obscurity of chapter 24, and that the disaster which lowers there is upon too world-wide a scale to be forced within the conditions of any single period in the fortunes of Israel. In chapters 25-27, which may naturally be held to be a continuation of chapter 24, the historical allusions are more numerous. Indeed, it might be said they are too numerous, for they contradict one another to the perplexity of the most acute critics. They imply historical circumstances for the prophecy both before and after the exile. On the one hand, the blame of idolatry in Judah, { Isaiah 27:9 } the mention of Assyria and Egypt, { Isaiah 27:12-13 } and the absence of the name of Babylon are indicative of a pre-exilic date. Arguments from style are always precarious: but it is striking that some critics, who deny that chapters 24-27 can have come as a whole from Isaiah’s time, profess to see his hand in certain passages. Then, secondly, through these verses which point to a pre-exilic date there are woven, almost inextricably, phrases of actual exile: expressions of the sense of living on a level and in contact with the heathen; { Isaiah 26:9-10 } a request to God’s people to withdraw from the midst of a heathen public to the privacy of their chambers (chapters 20, 21); prayers and promises of deliverance from the oppressor ( passim ); hopes of the establishment of Zion, and of the repopulation of the Holy Land. And, thirdly, some verses imply that the speaker has already returned to Zion itself: he says more than once, "in this mountain"; there are hymns celebrating a deliverance actually achieved, as God "has done a marvel. For Thou hast made a citadel into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin, a castle of strangers to be no city, not to be built again." Such phrases do not read as if the prophet were creating for the lips of his people a psalm of triumph against a far future deliverance; they have in them the ring of what has already happened. This bare statement of the allusions of the prophecy will give the ordinary reader some idea of the difficulties of Biblical criticism. What is to be made of a prophecy uttering the catchwords and breathing the experience of three distinct periods? One solution of the difficulty may be that we have here the composition of a Jew already returned from exile to a desecrated sanctuary and depopulated land, who has woven through his original utterances of complaint and hope the experience of earlier oppressions and deliverances, using even the names of earlier tyrants. In his immediate past a great city that oppressed the Jews has fallen, though, if this is Babylon, it is strange that he nowhere names it. But his intention is rather religious than historical; he seeks to give a general representation of the attitude of the world to the people of God, and of the judgment which God brings on the world. This view of the composition is supported by either of two possible interpretations of that difficult verse, Isaiah 27:10 : "In that day Jehovah with His sword, the hard and the great and the strong, shall perform visitation upon Leviathan, Serpent Elusive, and upon Leviathan, Serpent Tortuous; and He shall slay the Dragon that is in the sea." Cheyne treats these monsters as mythic personifications of the clouds, the darkness, and the powers of the air, so that the verse means that, just as Jehovah is supreme in the physical world, He shall be in the moral. But it is more probable that the two Leviathans mean Assyria and Babylon-the "Elusive" one, Assyria on the swift-shooting Tigris: the "Tortuous" one, Babylon on the winding Euphrates-while "the Dragon that is in the sea" or "the west" is Egypt. But if the prophet speaks of a victory over Israel’s three great enemies all at once, that means that he is talking universally or ideally: and this impression is further heightened by the mythic names he gives them. Such arguments, along with the undoubted post-exilic fragments in the prophecy, point to a late date, so that even a very conservative critic, who is satisfied that Isaiah is the author, admits that "the possibility of exilic authorship does not allow itself to be denied." If this character which we attribute to the prophecy be correct- viz. , that it is a summary or ideal account of the attitude of the alien world to Israel, and of the judgment God has ready for the world-then, though itself be exilic, its place in the Book of Isaiah is intelligible. Chapters 24-27 fitly crown the long list of Isaiah’s oracles upon the foreign nations: they finally formulate the purposes of God towards the nations and towards Israel, whom the nations have oppressed. Our opinions must not be final or dogmatic about this matter of authorship; the obscurities are not nearly cleared up. But if it be ultimately found certain that this prophecy, which lies in the heart of the Book of Isaiah, is not by Isaiah himself, that need neither startle nor unsettle us. No doctrinal question is stirred by such a discovery, not even that of the accuracy of the Scriptures. For that a book is entitled by Isaiah’s name does not necessarily mean that it is all by Isaiah: and we shall feel still less compelled to believe that these chapters are his when we find other chapters called by his name while these are not said to be by him. In truth there is a difficulty here, only because it is supposed that a book entitled by Isaiah’s name must necessarily contain nothing but what is Isaiah’s own. Tradition may have come to say so; but the Scripture itself, bearing as it does unmistakable marks of another age than Isaiah’s, tells us that tradition is wrong: and the testimony of Scripture is surely to be preferred, especially when it betrays, as we have seen, sufficient reasons why a prophecy, though not Isaiah’s, was attached to his genuine and undoubted oracles. In any case, however, as even the conservative critic whom we have quoted admits, "for the religious value" of the prophecy "the question" of the authorship "is thoroughly irrelevant." We shall perceive this at once as we now turn to see what is the religious value of our prophecy. Chapters 25-27 stand in the front rank of evangelical prophecy. In their experience of religion, their characterizations of God’s people, their expressions of faith, their missionary hopes and hopes of immortality, they are very rich and edifying. Perhaps their most signal feature is their designation of the people of God. In this collection of prayers and hymns the people of God are not regarded as a political body. They are only once called the nation and spoken of in connection with a territory. Only twice are they named with the national names of Israel and Jacob. { Isaiah 27:6 ; Isaiah 27:9 ; Isaiah 27:12 } We miss Isaiah’s promised king, his pictures of righteous government, his emphasis upon social justice and purity, his interest in the foreign politics of his State, his hopes of national grandeur and agricultural felicity. In these chapters God’s people are described by adjectives signifying spiritual qualities. Their nationality is no more pleaded, only their suffering estate and their hunger and thirst after God. The ideals that are presented for the future are neither political nor social, but ecclesiastical. We saw how closely Isaiah’s prophesying was connected with the history of his time. The people of this prophecy seem to have done with history, and to be interested only in worship. And along with the assurance of the continued establishment of Zion as the centre for a secure and holy people, filling a secure and fertile land, -with which, as we have seen, the undoubted visions of Isaiah content themselves, while silent as to the fate of the individuals who drop from this future through death, -we have the most abrupt and thrilling hopes expressed for the resurrection of these latter to share in the glory of the redeemed and restored community. Among the names applied to God’s people there are three which were destined to play an enormous part in the history of religion. In the English version these appear as two "poor and needy"; but in the original they are three. In Isaiah 25:4 : "Thou hast been a stronghold to the poor and a stronghold to the needy," poor renders a Hebrew word, " dal, " literally wavering, tottering, infirm, then slender or lean, then poor in fortune and estate; needy literally renders the Hebrew " ‘ebhyon, " Latin egenus . In Isaiah 26:6 : "the foot of the poor and the steps of the needy," needy, renders " dal ," while poor renders " ani ," a passive form - forced, afflicted, oppressed, then wretched, whether under persecution, poverty, loneliness, or exile, and so tamed, mild, meek. These three words, in their root ideas of infirmity, need, and positive affliction, cover among them every aspect of physical poverty and distress. Let us see how they came also to be the expression of the highest moral and evangelical virtues. If there is one thing which distinguishes the people of the revelation from other historical nations, it is the evidence afforded by their dictionaries of the power to transmute the most afflicting experiences of life into virtuous disposition and effectual desire for God. We see this most clearly if we contrast the Hebrews’ use of their words for poor with that of the first language which was employed to translate these words-the Greek in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament. In the Greek temper there was a noble pity for the unfortunate; the earliest Greeks regarded beggars as the peculiar proteges of Heaven. Greek philosophy developed a capacity for enriching the soul in misfortune; Stoicism gave imperishable proof of how bravely a man could hold poverty and pain to be things indifferent, and how much gain from such indifference he could bring to his soul. But in the vulgar opinion of Greece penury and sickness were always disgraceful; and Greek dictionaries mark the degradation of terms, which at first merely noted physical disadvantage, into epithets of contempt or hopelessness. It is very striking that it was not till they were employed to translate the Old Testament ideas of poverty that the Greek. words for "poor" and "lowly" came to bear an honourable significance. And in the case of the Stoic, who endured poverty or pain with such indifference, was it not just this indifference that prevented him from discovering in his tribulations the rich evangelical experience which, as we shall see, fell to the quick conscience and sensitive nerves of the Hebrew? Let us see how this conscience was developed. In the East poverty scarcely ever means physical disadvantage alone: in its train there follow higher disabilities. A poor Eastern cannot be certain of fair play in the courts of the land. He is very often a wronged man, with a fire of righteous anger burning in his breast. Again, and more important, misfortune is to the quick religious instinct of the Oriental a sign of God’s estrangement. With us misfortune is so often only the cruelty, sometimes real, sometimes imagined, of the rich; the unemployed vents his wrath at the capitalist, the tramp shakes his fist after the carriage on the highway. In the East they do not forget to curse the rich, but they remember as well to humble themselves beneath the hand of God. With an unfortunate Oriental the conviction is supreme, God is angry with me; I have lost His favour. His soul eagerly longs for God. A poor man in the East has, therefore, not only a hunger for food: he has the hotter hunger for justice, the deeper hunger for God. Poverty in itself, without extraneous teaching, develops nobler appetites. The physical, becomes the moral, pauper; poor in substance, he grows poor in spirit. It was by developing, with the aid of God’s Spirit, this quick conscience and this deep desire for God, which in the East are the very soul of physical poverty, that the Jews advanced to that sense of evangelical poverty of heart, blessed by Jesus in the first of His Beatitudes as the possession of the kingdom of heaven. Till the Exile, however, the poor were only a portion of the people. In the Exile the whole nation became poor, and henceforth "God’s poor might become synonymous with God’s people." This was the time when the words received their spiritual baptism. Israel felt the physical curse of poverty to its extreme of famine. The pains, privations, and terrors, which the glib tongues of our comfortable middle classes, as they sing the psalms of Israel, roll off so easily for symbols of their own spiritual experience, were felt by the captive Hebrews in all their concrete physical effects. The noble and the saintly, the gentle and the cultured, priest, soldier and citizen, woman, youth and child, were torn from home and estate, were deprived of civil standing, were imprisoned, fettered, flogged, and starved to death. We learn something of what it must have been from the words which Jeremiah addressed to Baruch, a youth of good family and fine culture: "Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not, for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the Lord; only thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest." Imagine a whole nation plunged into poverty of this degree-not born into it having known no better things, nor stunted into it with sensibility and the power of expression sapped out of them, but plunged into it, with the unimpaired culture, conscience, and memories of the flower of the people. When God’s own hand sent fresh from Himself a poet’s soul into "the clay biggin"’ of an Ayrshire ploughman, what a revelation we received of the distress, the discipline, and the graces of poverty! But in the Jewish nation as it passed into exile there were a score of hearts with as unimpaired an appetite for life as Robert Burns; and, worse than he, they went to feel its pangs away from home. Genius, conscience, and pride drank to the dregs in a foreign land the bitter cup of the poor. The Psalms and Lamentations show us how they bore their poison. A Greek Stoic might sneer at the complaint and sobbing, the self-abasement so strangely mixed with fierce cries for vengeance. But the Jew had within him the conscience that will not allow a man to be a Stoic. He never forgot that it was for his sin he suffered, and therefore to him suffering could not be a thing indifferent. With this, his native hunger for justice reached in captivity a famine pitch; his sense, of guilt was equalled by as sincere an indignation at the tyrant who held him in his brutal grasp. The feeling of estrangement from God increased to a degree that only the exile of a Jew could excite: the longing for God’s house and the worship lawful only there; the longing for the relief which only the sacrifices of the Temple could bestow; the longing for God’s own presence and the light of His face. "My soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth after Thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is, as I have looked upon Thee in the sanctuary, to see Thy power and Thy glory. For Thy lovingkindness is better than life!" "Thy lovingkindness is better than life!"-is the secret of it all. There is that which excites a deeper hunger in the soul than the hunger for life, and for the food and money that give life. This spiritual poverty is most richly bred in physical penury, it is strong enough to displace what feeds it. The physical poverty of Israel which had awakened these other hungers of the soul-hunger for forgiveness, hunger for justice, hunger for God-was absorbed by them; and when Israel came out of exile, "to be poor" meant, not so much to be indigent in this world’s substance as to feel the need of pardon, the absence of righteousness, the want of God. It is at this time, as we have seen, that Isaiah 24:1-23 ; Isaiah 25:1-12 ; Isaiah 26:1-21 ; Isaiah 27:1-13 was written; and it is in the temper of this time that the three Hebrew words for "poor" and "needy" are used in chapters 25 and 26. The returned exiles were still politically dependent and abjectly poor. Their discipline therefore continued, and did not allow them to forget their new lessons. In fact, they developed the results of these further, till in this prophecy we find no fewer than five different aspects of spiritual poverty. 1. We have already seen how strong the sense of sin is in chapter 24. This poverty of peace is not so fully expressed in the following chapters, and indeed seems crowded out by the sense of the "iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth" and the desire for their judgment. { Isaiah 26:21 } 2. The feeling of the poverty of justice is very strong in this prophecy. But it is to be satisfied; in part it has been satisfied. { Isaiah 25:1-4 } "A strong city," probably Babylon, has fallen. "Moab shall be trodden down in his place, even as straw is trodden down in the water of the dunghill." The complete judgment is to come when the Lord shall destroy the two "Leviathans" and the great "Dragon of the west". { Isaiah 27:1 } It is followed by the restoration of Israel to the state in which Isaiah { Isaiah 5:1 } sang so sweetly of her. "‘A pleasant vineyard, sing ye of her. I, Jehovah, her Keeper, moment by moment do I water her; lest any make a raid upon her, night and day will I keep her." The Hebrew text then reads. "Fury is not in Me"; but probably the Septuagint version has preserved the original meaning: "I have no walls." If this be correct, then Jehovah is describing the present state of Jerusalem, the fulfilment of Isaiah’s threat, Isaiah 5:6 : "Walls I have not; let there but be briers and thorns before me! With war will I stride against them; I will burn them together." But then there breaks the softer alternative of the reconciliation of Judah’s enemies: "Or else let him seize hold of My strength; let him make peace with Me-peace let him make with Me." In such a peace Israel shall spread, and his fulness become the riches of the Gentiles. "In that by-and-bye Jacob shall take root, Israel blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit." Perhaps the wildest cries that rose from Israel’s famine of justice were those which found expression in chapter 34. This chapter is so largely a repetition of feelings we have already met with elsewhere in the Book of Isaiah, that it is necessary now only to mention its original features. The subject is, as in chapter 13, the Lord’s judgment upon all the nations; and as chapter 13 singled out Babylon for special doom, so chapter 34, singles out Edom. The reason of this distinction will be very plain to the reader of the Old Testament. From the day the twins struggled in their mother Rebekah’s womb, Israel and Edom were at either open war or burned towards each other with a hate which was the more intense for wanting opportunities of gratification. It is an Eastern edition of the worst chapters in the history of England and Ireland. No bloodier massacres stained Jewish hands than those which attended their invasions of Edom, and Jewish psalms of vengeance are never more flagrant than when they touch the name of the children of Esau. The only gentle utterance of the Old Testament upon Israel’s hereditary foe is a comfortless enigma. Isaiah’s "Oracle for Dumah," { Isaiah 22:11 f.} shows that even that large-hearted prophet, in face of his people’s age-long resentment at Edom’s total want of appreciation of Israel’s spiritual superiority, could offer Edom, though for the moment submissive and inquiring, nothing but a sad, ambiguous answer. Edom and Israel, each after his fashion, exulted in the other’s misfortunes: Israel by bitter satire when Edom’s impregnable mountain-range was treacherously seized and overrun by his allies; { Obadiah 1:4-9 } Edom, with the harassing, pillaging habits of a highland tribe, hanging on to the skirts of Judah’s great enemies, and cutting off Jewish fugitives, or selling them into slavery, or malignantly completing the ruin of Jerusalem’s walls after her overthrow by the Chaldeans. { Obadiah 1:10-14 ; Ezekiel 35:10-15 } In "the quarrel of Zion" with the nations of the world Edom had taken the wrong side, -his profane, earthy nature incapable of understanding his brother’s spiritual claims, and therefore envious of him, with the brutal malice of ignorance, and spitefully glad to assist in disappointing such claims. This is what we must remember when we read the indignant verses of chapter 34. Israel, conscious of his spiritual calling in the world, felt bitter resentment that his own brother should be so vulgarly hostile to his attempts to carry it out. It is not our wish to defend the temper of Israel towards Edom. The silence of Christ before the Edomite Herod and his men of war has taught the spiritual servants of God what is their proper attitude towards the malignant and obscene treatment of their claims by vulgar men. But at least let us remember that chapter 34, for all its fierceness, is inspired by Israel’s conviction of a spiritual destiny and service for God, and by the natural resentment that his own kith and kin should be doing their best to render these futile. That a famine of bread makes its victims delirious does not tempt us to doubt the genuineness of their need and suffering. As little ought we to doubt or to ignore the reality or the purity of those spiritual convictions, the prolonged starvation of which bred in Israel such feverish hate against his twin-brother Esau. Chapter 34, with all its proud prophecy of judgment, is. therefore, also a symptom of that aspect of Israel’s poverty of heart, which we have called a hunger for the Divine justice. 3. POVERTY OF THE EXILE. But as fair flowers bloom upon rough stalks, so from Israel’s stern challenges of justice there break sweet prayers for home. Chapter 34, the effusion of vengeance on Edom, is followed by chapter 35, the going forth of hope to the return from exile and the establishment of the ransomed of the Lord in Zion. Chapter 35 opens with a prospect beyond the return, but after the first two verses addresses itself to the people still in a foreign captivity, speaking of their salvation ( Isaiah 35:3-4 ), of the miracles that will take place in themselves ( Isaiah 35:5-6 ) and in the desert between them and their home ( Isaiah 35:6-7 ), of the highway which God shall build, evident and secure ( Isaiah 35:8-9 ), and of the final arrival in Zion ( Isaiah 35:10 ). In that march the usual disappointments and illusions of desert life shall disappear. The "mirage shall become a pool"; and the clump of vegetation which afar off the hasty traveller bails for a sign of water, but which on his approach he discovers to be the withered grass of a jackal’s lair, shall indeed be reeds and rushes, standing green in fresh water. Out of this exuberant fertility there emerges in the prophet’s thoughts a great highway, on which the poetry of the chapter gathers and reaches its climax. Have we of this nineteenth century, with our more rapid means of passage, not forgotten the poetry of the road? Are we able to appreciate either the intrinsic usefulness or the gracious symbolism of the king’s highway? How can we know it as the Bible-writers or our forefathers knew it when they made the road the main line of their allegories and parables of life? Let us listen to these verses as they strike the three great notes in the music of the road: "And a highway shall be there, and a way; yea, the Way of Holiness shall it be called, for the unclean shall not pass over it": that is what is to distinguish this road from all other roads. But here is what it is as being a road. First, it shall be unmistakably plain: "The wayfaring man, yea fools, shall not err therein." Second, it shall be perfectly secure. "No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon; they shall not be met with there." Third, it shall bring to a safe arrival and ensure a complete overtaking: "And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall overtake gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." 4. So Israel was to come home. But to Israel home meant the Temple, and the Temple meant God. The poverty of the exile was, in the essence of it, poverty of God, poverty of love. The prayers which express this are very beautiful, -that trail like wounded animals to the feet of their master, and look up in His face with large eyes of pain. "And they shall say in that day, Lo, this is our God: we have waited for Him, that He should save us; this is the Lord: we have waited for Him; we will rejoice and be glad in His salvation . . . . Yea, in the way of Thy ordinances, O Lord, have we waited for Thee; to Thy name and to Thy Memorial was the desire of our soul. With my soul have I desired Thee in the night; yea, by my spirit within me do I seek Thee with dawn". { Isaiah 25:9 ; Isaiah 26:8 } An Arctic explorer was once asked, whether during eight months of slow starvation which he and his comrades endured they suffered much from the pangs of hunger. No, he answered, we lost them in the sense of abandonment in the feeling that our countrymen had forgotten us and were not coming to the rescue. It was not till we were rescued and looked in human faces that we felt how hungry we were. So is it ever with God’s poor. They forget all other need, as Israel did, in their need of God. Their outward poverty is only the weeds of their heart’s widowhood. "But Jehovah of hosts shall make to all the peoples in this mountain a