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Indeed, many chapters of Isaiah's prophecies speak altogether of this invasion of the Assyrians and their destruction. But what has this story to do with us, you may ask? There are no miracles in our day. We can expect no angels to fight for our armies. We must fight for ourselves. True, my friends: but the lesson of these old stories, the moral of them stands good for ever.
The time comes when Isaiah's prophecy shall be perfectly fulfilled, according to the great words in the closing hook of Scripture, about the river of the water of life proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb.
Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing. ISAIAH xxxv. 5,6. 'Then' when? The previous verse answers, 'Behold, your God will come, He will come and save you. And what or when is that 'coming'? A glance at the place which this grand hymn occupies in the series of Isaiah's prophecies answers that question.
The same general representation is contained in the words before us. Isaiah's great vision is not, as I take it, of a future, but of what the Jerusalem of his day might he to the Israelite if he would live by faith. The mighty Lord, 'the glorious Lord, shall Himself 'be a place of broad rivers and streams.
The vineyard, with its slope to the southward, and rich soil, and careful cultivation, and secure defences, and convenient apparatus, represents the people whom God chose and cherished. The drift of Isaiah's parable is to show the exaggerated wickedness of that favoured nation. The vineyard brought forth wild grapes, those sour grapes which set on edge the teeth of him who tastes them (Ezek.
G.A. Smith, whose Commentary on Isaiah is distinguished not only by thorough scholarship but by what is far rarer in works of the kind a profusion of just and inspiring ideas at this point, following bad examples, says that there are ideas imported into the account of Isaiah's call which belonged to a later period of his life.
All this had reference to things of a reasonably near future and had no reference to the birth of Jesus some seven hundred years after, who was not a prince sitting upon the throne of Israel, and who did not bring national glory and renown to Israel, for such was not his mission. Hebrew scholars and churchmen have often claimed that Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled by the birth of Hezekiah.
Some people feel mortified if they cannot tell just where every line of poetry that happens to be quoted can be found, but who thinks of being ashamed because they cannot tell the author of the matchless poems in the Old Testament? I do think there are no poems like Isaiah's and Jeremiah's and the Psalms. For imagery and pathos and sweetness all other poems are tame in comparison.
Fetch it on, Isaiah! What are you starin' at me like that for, you dumbhead?" Isaiah brought in the supper. Then he demanded to know what the fuss was all about. Shadrach told him. Isaiah's chief interest seemed to center on the attempted shooting. "Why the son of a swab!" he cried, excitedly. "Of all the cheek I ever heard of in my life that Abner Bacheldor's got the heft!
When then we hear of the "tinkling ornaments" of the Jewish women in Isaiah's time, "their combs, and round tires like the moon," their "chains and bracelets and mufflers," their "bonnets, and ornaments of the legs, and head-bands, and tablets and ear-rings," their "rings and nose-jewels," their "changeable suits of apparel, and mantles, and wimples, and crisping-pins," their "glasses, and fine linen, and hoods, and veils," their "sweet smells, and girdles, and well-set hair, and stomachers," we may be sure that in Assyria too these various refinements, or others similar to them, were in use, and consequently that the art of the toilet was tolerably well advanced under the second great Asiatic Empire.
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