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He miscalculated his distance, and landed on Isaiah's portly waistcoat with such force that the milder brother grunted aloud, and, arising, demanded with indignation to know why he was thus assaulted. For a mere second Sennacherib was disconcerted, but recovering himself, he drew Isaiah on one side and whispered in his ear, "I on'y meant to gi'e thee a nudge, lad.
It was during the era of Assyrian and Babylonian invasion that the predictions of a MESSIAH, a great Deliverer and righteous Ruler who was to come, assumed a more definite expression. The spiritual character of Isaiah's teaching has given him the name of "the evangelical prophet." A small part first came back under Zerubbabel, head of the tribe of Judah, who was made Persian governor.
What was true of the ancient Church is still more true of us who have received every requisite for holy living. Isaiah's solemn appeal has a still sharper edge for Christians: 'Judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?
I suppose that there was ringing in Paul's head some echoes of the music of Isaiah's words, 'How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good! But there is a great deal more than an unconscious quotation of ancient words here; for in Paul's thought, the one power which brings a man into harmony with the universe and to peace with himself, is the power which proclaims that God is at peace with him.
The critics contradict John again, when they say that we must put no meaning into Isaiah's words but that of his own time. His great prophecy of a suffering Messiah, they say, had reference only to Jehoiachin, the captive king of Judah, or to the whole Jewish nation as the afflicted people of God. Philip and the critics are evidently at variance.
You must not imagine that every family in Judea had a copy of Isaiah's Works, nor even that a copy could be found in every village; it is possible that there were not, when the people were carried into captivity, more than a few dozen copies of these prophecies in existence, and these were in the hands of some of the prophets or literary dignitaries of the nation, or in the archives of some of the prophetical schools.
When he received the menacing letter, his faith was greater, having been heartened by Isaiah's assurances. So he then himself appealed to Jehovah, spreading the letter before Him, and himself prayed God to guard His own honour, and answer the challenge flung down by the insolent Assyrian. It is noble when faith increases as dangers increase.
That noblest succession of moral teachers in ancient history, the Hebrew prophets, developed a conception of the nature of God in terms of righteousness, so broad in its outreach, so high in its quality, that as one mounts through Amos' fifth chapter and Isaiah's first chapter and Jeremiah's seventh chapter, he finds himself, like Moses on Nebo's top, looking over into the Promised Land of the New Testament.
He had said, "I am a man of unclean lips." The fire burned the sin away. So the seraph said, speaking in God's name, "Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged." It was the assurance of the Divine forgiveness, which had come swift as a seraph's flight in answer to Isaiah's confession.
The easy-going Christianity, which is the apology for religion with so many of us, has no deep sense of sin, because it has no clear vision of God. 'I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. The next stage in Isaiah's experience is that sin recognised and confessed is burned away.
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