A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Introduction to the Old Testament

J >> John Edgar McFadyen >> Introduction to the Old Testament




Who is the servant? The difficulty in answering this question is
twofold: (i.) while the servant is often undoubtedly a collective
term for the people of Israel, xli. 8, xliv. 1, 2, the descriptions
of him, especially in the songs alluded to, are occasionally so
intimately personal as to seem to compel an individual
interpretation (cf. liii.). But in this connection we have to
remember the ease with which the Oriental could personify, and apply
even the most personal detail to a collective body. "Grey hairs are
upon him," says Hosea, vii. 9, not of a man but of the nation; and
Isaiah himself, i. 6, described the body politic as sick from the
crown of the head to the sole of the foot (cf. Ezek. xvi., xxiii).
Clearly, therefore, individual allusions do not necessarily compel
an individual interpretation; and there is no reason in the nature
of the case, and still less in the context, to assume a reference to
any specific individual. The songs are an integral part of the
prophecy: the function of the servant is the same, and the servant
must also be the same in both. Indeed one passage in the second
song, xlix. 3, expressly identifies the servant with Israel; and in
liii., an intensely personal chapter, where the servant, after
death, is to rise again and take his place victoriously in the
world, the collective interpretation of the servant as Israel,
emerging triumphantly from the doom of exile, is natural, if not
necessary.

But (ii.) admitting that the servant is everywhere Israel, a new
difficulty emerges. The terms in which he is described are often
apparently contradictory. At one time he is blind and deaf, xlii. 18, 19;
at another he is Jehovah's witness and minister to the blind and deaf,
i.e. to the heathen world, xliii. 8-10, xlii. 7. This contrast, which
runs through the prophecy, is simply to be explained as a blending of
the real and the ideal. The people contemplated are in both cases the
same; but, at one time, the prophet contemplates them as they are,
unreceptive and irresponsive to their high destiny; at another, he
regards them in the light of that destiny--called, through their
experience of suffering and redemption, to bring the world to a saving
knowledge of the true and only God.

_Chapters xl.-xlix._ fall somewhere about 540 B.C.-between
the decisive victories of Cyrus over the Lydians in 546 (cf. xli. 1-5)
and the capture of Babylon in 538. The prophecy opens with a word
of consolation. The exile of Judah is all but over, her redemption
is very nigh; for the eternal purpose of Jehovah must be fulfilled,
xl. 1-11, He is a God whose power and wisdom are beyond all imagining,
and He will be the strength of those who put their trust in Him
(xl. 12-3l).[1] For He has raised up a great warrior from the north-east
(cf. xli. 2, 25), i.e. Cyrus, through whom Israel's happy return to
her own land is assured (xli. 1-20). Israel's God is the true God; for
He alone foretold this day, as no heathen god could ever have done,
xli. 21-29. The mission of His servant Israel is to spread the knowledge
of His name throughout the world, and that mission must be fulfilled,
xlii. 1-9. Let the world rejoice, then, at the glorious redemption
Jehovah has wrought for His people, xlii. 10-17; for their sorrow,
xlii. 18-25, and their redemption alike, xliii. 1-7, spring from a
deep purpose of love. Israel is now fitted to be Jehovah's witness
before the world, for her impending deliverance from Babylon is more
marvellous than her ancient deliverance from Egypt, xliii. 8-21. Her
grievous sins are freely forgiven, xliii. 22-28, and soon she shall
enter upon a new and happy life, xliv. 1-5, for her God, the eternal
and the only God,[2] forgives and redeems, xliv. 6-23.
[Footnote 1: Between xl. 19 and 20 probably xli. 6, 7 should be
inserted.]
[Footnote: Ch. xliv. 9-20, though graphic, is diffuse, and
interrupts the context: it is probably a later addition.]

The deliverance of Israel is to be effected through Cyrus, who is
honoured with the high titles, "Shepherd and Messiah of Jehovah,"
xlv. 1, and assured by him of a triumphant career, for Israel and
the true religion's sake, xliv. 24-xlv. 8. Those who are surprised
at Jehovah's call of the foreign Cyrus are sternly reminded that
Jehovah is sovereign and can call whom He will, xlv. 9-13, and the
ultimate object of His call is that through the redemption of Israel,
which he is commissioned to effect, all men shall be saved, and the
worship of Jehovah established throughout the whole world, xlv. 14-25.
In xlvi. the impotence of the Babylonian gods to save themselves when
the city is taken by Cyrus is contrasted with the incomparable power
of Jehovah as shown in history, and in His foreknowledge of the future,
and made the basis of a warning to Israel to cast away despondency.
Then follows a song of triumph over Babylon, the proud and luxurious,
whose doom all her magic and astrology cannot avert (xlvii.). Ch. xlviii.
strikes in places a different note from that of the previous chapters.
They are a message of comfort; and, where the people are censured, it
is for lack of faith and responsiveness. In this chapter, on the other
hand, the tone is in places stern, almost harsh, and the people are
even charged with idolatry. Probably an original prophecy of
Deutero-Isaiah has been worked over by a post-exilic hand. This chapter
is in the nature of a summary. It emphasizes Jehovah's fore-knowledge
as witnessed by the ancient prophecies and their fulfilment in the
coming deeds of Cyrus; and the section fittingly closes with a ringing
appeal to Israel to go forth out of Babylon.[1]
[Footnote 1: Ch. xlviii. 22 is probably borrowed from lvii. 21,
where it is in place, to divide xl.-lxvi. into three equal parts.]

_Chapters xlix.-lv._ presuppose the same general situation as
xl.-xlviii.; but whereas the earlier chapters deal incidentally with
the victories of Cyrus and the folly of idolatry, xlix.-lv. concentrate
attention severely upon Israel herself, which is often addressed as
Zion. The group begins with the second of the "servant" songs, xlix. 1-6,
its theme being Israel's divine call, through suffering and redemption,
to bring the whole world to the true religion. In earnest and beautiful
language Israel is assured of restoration and a happy return to her own
land, of the rebuilding of her ruins, and the increase of her population;
and no power can undo this marvellous deliverance, for Jehovah, despite
His people's slender faith, is omnipotent, xlix. 7-l. 3. In l. 4-9 the
servant tells of the sufferings which his fidelity brought him, and his
confidence in Jehovah's power to save and vindicate him.[1] The glorious
salvation is near and sure; let Israel but trust in her omnipotent God
and cast away all fear of man, li. 1-16. Bitter has been Jerusalem's
sorrow, but now she may break forth into joy, for messengers are
speeding with good tidings of her redemption, li. l7-lii. 12. The fourth
and last song of the servant, lii. l3-liii. 12, celebrates the strange
and unparalleled sufferings which he bore for the world's sake-his
death, resurrection, and the consequent triumph and vindication of his
cause. In fine contrast to the sufferings of the servant acquainted
with grief is the joy that follows in ch. liv.--joy in the vision of
the restored, populous and glorious city, or rather in the everlasting
love of God by which that redemption is inspired.[2] Nothing remains
but for the people to lay hold, in faith, of the salvation which is
so nigh, and which is so high above all human expectation (lv.).
[Footnote 1: Ch. 1. 10, 11 are apparently late.]
[Footnote 2: From liv. 17 and on we hear of the "_servants_ of
Jehovah," not as in xl.-liii., of the _servant_.]


CHAPTERS LVI.-LXVI.

The problem of the origin and date of this section is one of the
most obscure and intricate in the Old Testament. The general
similarity of the tone to that of xl.-lv. is unmistakable. There is
the same assurance of redemption, the same brilliant pictures of
restoration. But, apart from the fact that, on the whole, the style
of lvi.-lxvi. seems less original and powerful, the situation
presupposed is distinctly different. In xl.-lv., Israel, though
occasionally regarded as unworthy, is treated as an ideal whole,
whereas in lvi.-lxvi. there are two opposed classes within Israel
itself (cf. lvii. 3ff., 15ff.). One of these classes is guilty of
superstitious and idolatrous rites, lvii. 3ff., lxv. 3, 4, lxvi. 17,
whereas in xl.-lv. the Babylonians were the idolaters, xlvi. 1.
Again, the kind of idolatry of which Israel is guilty is not
Babylonian, but that indigenous to Palestine, and it is described in
terms which sometimes sound like an echo of pre-exilic prophecy,
lvii. 5, 7 (Hos. iv. 13)--so much so indeed that some have regarded
these passages as pre-exilic.

The spiritual leaders of the people are false to their high trust,
lvi. 10-12. This last passage implies a religious community more or
less definitely organized--a situation which would suit post-exilic
times, but hardly the exile; and this presumption is borne out by
many other hints. The temple exists, lvi. 7, lx. 7, 13, but religion
is at a low ebb. Fast days are kept in a mechanical spirit, and are
marred by disgraceful conduct (lviii.). Judah suffers from raids,
lxii. 8, Jerusalem is unhappy, lxv. 19, her walls are not yet built,
lx, 10. The gloomy situation explains the passionate appeal of
lxiii. 7-lxiv. to God to interpose--an appeal utterly unlike the
serene assurance of xl.-lv.: it explains, too, why threat and
promise here alternate regularly, while there the predominant note
was one of consolation.

In its general temper and background, though not in its style, the
chapters forcibly recall Malachi. There is the same condemnation of
the spiritual leaders (lvi. 10-12; Mal. i. ii.), the same emphasis
on the fatherhood of God (lxiii. 16, lxiv. 8; Mal. i. 6, ii. 10,
iii. 17), the same interest in the institutions of Judaism (lvi.),
the same depressed and hopeless mood to combat. From lx. 10 (lxii.
6?) it may be inferred that the book falls before the building of
the walls by Nehemiah--probably somewhere between 460 and 450 B.C.
This conclusion, of course, is very far from certain; it is not even
certain that the chapters constitute a unity. Various scholars
isolate certain sections, assigning, e.g., lxiii.-lxvi. to a period
much later than lvi.-lxii., others regarding xlix.-lxii. as written
by the same author as xl.-xlviii., but later and other different
conditions, others referring lvi.-lxii. to a pupil of Deutero-Isaiah,
who wrote not long after 520 (cf. Hag., Zech.).

To complicate matters, the text of certain passages of crucial
importance seems to be in need of emendation (cf. lxiii. 18); and it
is practically certain that there are later interpolations. One can
see how intricate the problem becomes, if Marti is right in denying
so important a passage as lxiv. 10-12 to the author of the rest of
the chapter, and assigning it to Maccabean times. But, though there
are undoubted difficulties in the way, it seems not impossible to
regard lvi.-lxvi. as, in the main, a unity, and its author as a
contemporary of Malachi. In that case, the superstitious and
idolatrous people, whose presence is at first sight so surprising in
the post-exilic community, would be the descendants of the Jews who
had not been carried into exile, and who, being but superficially
touched, if at all, by the reformation of Josiah, would perpetuate
ancient idolatrous practices into the post-exilic period.

This prophecy begins with a word of assurance to the proselytes and
eunuchs that, if they faithfully observe the Sabbath, they will not
be excluded from participation in the temple worship, lvi. 1-8. But
the general situation (in Judah) is deplorable. The spiritual
leaders of the community are indolent and fond of pleasure, men of
no conscience or ideal (cf. Mal. ii.), with the result that the
truly godly are crushed out, lvi. 9-lvii. 2, and the old immoral
idolatry is rampant, lvii. 3-13. The sinners will therefore be
punished, but the godly whom they have persecuted will be comforted
and saved, lvii. 14-21. The people, who have been zealously keeping
fast-days, are surprised and vexed that Jehovah has not yet honoured
their fidelity by sending happier times: the prophet replies that
the real demands of Jehovah are not exhausted by ceremonial, but lie
rather in the fulfilment of moral duty, and especially in the duty
of practical love to the needy (lviii.). It is not the impotence of
Jehovah, but the manifold sins of the people, that have kept back
the day of salvation, lix. 1-15; but He will one day appear to
punish His adversaries and redeem the penitent and faithful, lix.
16-21. Then the city of Jerusalem shall be glorious: her scattered
children shall stream back to her, her walls shall be rebuilt by the
gifts of the heathen nations, and she shall be mistress of the
world, enjoying peace and light and prosperity (lx.). Again the good
news is proclaimed: the Jews shall be, as it were, the priests of
Jehovah for the whole world, Jerusalem shall be secure and fair and
populous (lxi., lxii.). But if Judah is thus to prosper, her enemies
must be destroyed, and their[1] destruction is described in lxiii.
1-6, a unique and powerful song of vengeance.
[Footnote 1: The enemy is not Edom alone. Instead of "from Edom and
Bozrah" in lxiii. 1_a_ should be read, "Who is this that comes
_stained with red_, with garments redder than a _vine-dresser's_?"]

A very striking contrast to all this dream of victory and
blessedness is presented by lxiii. 7-lxiv. 12, in which the people
sorrowfully remind themselves of the brilliant far-off days of the
Exodus when the Spirit was with them--the Spirit whom sin has now
driven away--and passionately pray that Jehovah, in His fatherly
pity, would mightily interpose to save them.[1] The devotees of
superstitious cults are threatened with destruction, lxv. 1-7, while
brilliant promises are held out to the faithful--long and happy life
in a world transformed, lxv. 8-25. Again destruction is predicted
for those who, while practising superstitious rites, are yet eager
to build a temple to Jehovah to rival the existing one in Jerusalem;
while the faithful are comforted with the prospect of victory,
increase of population and resources, and the perpetuity of their
race (lxvi.).
[Footnote 1: Professor G. A. Smith refers this prayer to the period
of disillusion after the return and before the new religious impulse
given by Haggai and Zechariah--about 525 B.C. ]




JEREMIAH


The interest of the book of Jeremiah is unique. On the one hand, it
is our most reliable and elaborate source for the long period of
history which it covers; on the other, it presents us with prophecy
in its most intensely human phase, manifesting itself through a
strangely attractive personality that was subject to like doubts and
passions with ourselves. At his call, in 626 B.C., he was young and
inexperienced, i. 6, so that he cannot have been born earlier than
650. The political and religious atmosphere of his ministry was
alike depressing. When it began, the Scythians were overrunning
Western Asia, and Judah was the vassal of Assyria, as she continued
to be till the fall of Nineveh in 606 B.C. Josiah, in whose reign
Jeremiah began his ministry, was a good king; but the idolatries of
his grandfather Manasseh had only too surely left their mark, and
the reformation which was inaugurated on the basis of Deuteronomy
(621) had produced little permanent result. Idolatry and immorality
of all kinds continued to be the order of the day, vii. 9 (about
608). The inner corruption found its counterpart in political
disaster. The death of Josiah in 609 at Megiddo, when he took the
field, probably as the vassal of Assyria, against the king of Egypt,
was a staggering blow to the hopes of the reformers, and formed a
powerful argument in the hands of the sceptics. The vassalage of
Assyria was exchanged for the vassalage of Egypt, and that, in four
years, for the vassalage of Babylonia, whose supremacy over Western
Asia was assured by her victory on the epoch-making field of
Carchemish (605).

There was no strong ruler upon the throne of Judah during the years
preceding the exile. Jehoahaz, the successor of Josiah, deposed by
the Egyptians and exiled after a three months' reign, xxii. 10-12,
was succeeded by the rapacious Jehoiakim (608-597), who cared
nothing for the warning words of Jeremiah (xxxvi.), and his
successor Jehoiachin, who was exiled to Babylon after a three
months' reign, was followed by the weak and vacillating Zedekiah,
who reigned from 597 to 586, when Jerusalem was taken and the
monarchy perished. The priests and prophets were no more faithful to
their high office than the kings. The prophets were superficial men
who did not realize how deep and grievous was the hurt of the
people, xxiii. 9-40, and who imagined that the catastrophe, if it
came, would speedily be reversed, xxviii.; and the priests reposed a
stubborn confidence in the inviolability of the temple (xxvi.) and
the punctiliousness of their offerings, vii. 21, 22.

Jeremiah, though he came of a priestly family, knew very well that
there was no salvation in ritual. He saw that the root of the evil
was in the heart, which was "deceitful above all things and
desperately sick," xvii. 9, and that no reformation was possible
till the heart itself was changed. It was for this reason that he
called upon the people to circumcise their heart, iv. 4, and to
search for Jehovah with all their heart, xxix. 13.

It would be interesting to know what was Jeremiah's attitude to the
law-book discovered and published in 621, but unfortunately the
problems that gather round the authenticity of the text of Jeremiah
are so vexatious that we cannot say with certainty. On the one hand,
we know that, though at that time a prophet of five years' standing,
he was not consulted on the discovery of the book (2 Kings xxii.
14); on the other hand, xi. 1-14 explicitly connects him with an
itinerant mission throughout the province of Judah for the purpose
of inculcating the teaching of "the words of this covenant," which
can only be the book of Deuteronomy. But there is fairly good reason
for supposing that this passage, which is diffuse, and very unlike
the poems that follow it, _vv_. 15, 16, 18-20, is one of the
many later scribal additions to the book. Even if Jeremiah did
support the Deuteronomic movement, he must have felt, in the words
of Darmesteter, that "it is easier to reform the cult than the
soul," and that the real solution would never be found in the
statutes of a law-book, but only in the law written upon the heart,
xxxi. 31-33. Here again, this great prophecy of the law written upon
the heart, has been denied to Jeremiah--by Duhm, for example: but at
any rate, it is conceived in the spirit of the prophet.

It is unfortunate that some of the noblest utterances on religion in
the book of Jeremiah have been, for reasons more or less convincing,
denied to him: e.g. the great passage which looks out upon a time
when the dearest material symbols of the ancient religion would no
longer be necessary; days would come when men would never think of
the ark of the covenant, and never miss it, iii. 16. But even if it
could be proved that these words were not Jeremiah's, it was a sound
instinct that placed them in his book. He certainly did not regard
sacrifice as essential to the true religion, or as possessing any
specially divine sanction, vii. 22, and the thinker who could utter
such a word as vii. 22 is surely on the verge of a purely spiritual
conception of religion, if indeed he does not stand already within
it. If the temple is not indispensable, vii. 4, neither could the
ark be.

This severely spiritual conception of religion is but the outcome of
the intensely personal religious experience of the prophet. There is
no other prophet whose intercourse with the divine spirit is so
dramatically portrayed, or into the depths of whose heart we can so
clearly see. He speaks to God with a directness and familiarity that
are startling, "Why hast Thou become to me as a treacherous brook,
as waters that are not sure?" xv. 18. He has little of the serene
majesty of Isaiah whose eyes had seen the king. His tender heart,
ix. 1, is vexed and torn till he curses not only his enemies, xi.
20ff., but the day on which he was born, xx. 14-18. He did not
choose his profession, he recoiled from it; but he was thrust into
the arena of public life by an impulse which he could not resist.
The word, which he would fain have hidden in his heart, was like a
burning fire shut up in his bones, and it leaped into speech of
flame, xx. 9.

As a poet, Jeremiah is one of the greatest. He knows the human heart
to its depths, and he possesses a power of remarkably terse and
vivid expression. Nothing could be more weird than this picture of
the utter desolation of war;--

I beheld the earth,
And lo! it was waste and void.
I looked to the sky,
And lo! its light was gone.
I beheld the mountains,
And lo! they trembled.
And all the hills
Swayed to and fro.
I beheld (the earth)
And lo! there was no man,
And all the birds of the heaven
Had fled.
iv. 23-25.

A world without the birds would be no world to Jeremiah. Of singular
power and beauty is the lament which Jeremiah puts into the mouths
of the women:--

Death is come up at our windows,
He has entered our palaces,
Cutting off the children from the streets
And the youths from the squares.

Then the figure changes to Death as a reaper:--

There fall the corpses of men
Upon the face of the field,
Like sheaves behind the reaper
Which none gathers up.
ix. 21, 22.

The book appropriately opens with the call of Jeremiah, and
represents him as divinely preordained to his great and cheerless
task before his birth. In two visions he sees prefigured the coming
doom (i.) and the prophecies that immediately follow, though but
loosely connected, appear to come from an early stage of his
ministry, and to be elicited, in part, by the inroads of the
Scythians--the enemy from the north.

False to the love she bore Jehovah in the olden time, Israel has
turned for help to Egypt, to Assyria, and to the impotent Baals with
their licentious worship, ii, 1-iii. 5; but[1]if in her despair and
misery she yet turns with a penitent heart to Jehovah, the prophet
assures her of His readiness to receive her, iii. 19-iv. 4. The rest
of ch. iv. contains several poems of remarkable power. The Scythians
are coming swiftly from the north, and Jeremiah's patriotic soul is
deeply moved. He sees the desolation they will work, and counsels
the people to gather in the fortified cities. The scene changes in
v. and vi. to the capital, where Jeremiah's tender and unsuspecting
heart has been harrowed by the lack of public and private
conscience; and again the land is threatened with invasion from the
swift wild Scythian hordes.
[Footnote 1: Ch. iii. 6-18 contains much that is altogether worthy
of Jeremiah, especially the great conception in v. 16 of a religion
which can dispense with its most cherished material symbols. It
interrupts the connection, however, between vv. 5 and 19, and
curiously regards Israel as the northern kingdom, distinct from
Judah, whereas in the surrounding context, ii. 3, iii. 23, Israel
stands for Judah. The difference is suspicious. Again, v. 18 would
appear to presuppose that Judah is in exile or on the verge of it,
which would make the passage among the latest in the book. If it is
Jeremiah's, it must be much later than its context.]

The following chapter (vii.) introduces us to the reign of
Jehoiakim.[1] The prophet strenuously combats the confidence falsely
reposed in the temple and the ritual: the former is but a den of
robbers, the latter had never been commanded by Jehovah, and neither
will save them. With sorrowful eyes Jeremiah sees the coming
disaster, and he sings of it in elegies unspeakably touching (viii.-x.:
cf. viii. 18-22, ix. 21, 22).[2]
[Footnote 1: The scene in ch. vii. is very similar to, if not
identical with that in ch. xxvi., which is expressly assigned to the
beginning of Jehoiakim's reign (608).]
[Footnote 2: Ch. ix. 22 is directly continued by x. 17. Of the three
passages intervening, ix. 23, 24 (the true and false objects of
confidence) and ix. 25, 26 (punishment of those uncircumcised in
heart or flesh) are both in the spirit of Jeremiah, but they cannot
belong to this context. Ch. x. 1-16, on the other hand, can hardly
be Jeremiah's. Its theme is the impotence of idols and the
omnipotence of Jehovah--a favourite theme of Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Is.
xl.), and it is elaborated in the spirit of Is. xliv. 9-20. The
warning not to fear the idols is much more natural if addressed to
an exilic audience than to Jeremiah's contemporaries. It may be
taken for granted that the passage is later than Jeremiah.]

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