in which the Prophet steps back from the _ideal_, to the _real_ stand-point, _the punishment appears as still future_; _city and temple as still existing_. In chap. xliii. [Pg 176] 22-28, the Prophet meets the delusion, as if God had chosen Israel on account of their deserts. Far from having brought about their deliverance by their own merits, they, on the contrary, sinned thus against Him, that, to the inward apostacy, they added the outward also. The greater part of Israel had left off the worship of the Lord by sacrifices. It is the mercy alone of the Lord which will deliver them from the misery into which they have plunged themselves by their sins. But how can the Lord charge the people in exile for the omission of a service which, according to His own law, they could offer to Him in their native country only, in the temple consecrated to Him, but then destroyed? The words specially: "Put me in remembrance," in ver. 26, "of what I should have forgotten," imply that there existed a possibility of acquiring apparent merits, and that, hence, the view of our opponents who, in vers. 22-24, think of a compulsory, and hence, guiltless omission of the sacrificial service during the exile, must be rejected. Vers. 27, 28 also, which speak of the punishment which Israel deserves, just on account of the omitted service of the Lord, and which it has found in the way of its works, prove that this view must be rejected, and that vers. 22-24 contain a reproof. The passage can, hence, have been written only at the time when the temple was still standing. Of this there can so much the less be any doubt that, in vers. 27, 28, the exile is expressly designated as future: "Thy first father (the high-priestly office) hath sinned, and thy mediators have transgressed against me." (The sacrificial service was by a disgraceful syncretism profaned even by those whose office it was to attend to it). "Therefore I _will_ profane the princes of the sanctuary, and _will_ give Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches." Even ואחלל is the common Future, and to ואתנה the ה _optativum_ is added; and hence, we cannot by any means translate and explain it by: _I gave_.--In chap. lvi. 9, it is said: "All ye beasts of the field come ye to devour all the beasts in the forest." This utterance stands in connection with the לנקבציו, at the close of the preceding verse. The gathering of Israel by God the good Shepherd, promised there, must be preceded by the scattering, by being given up to the world's power--mercy, by judgment. By the wild beasts are to be understood the Gentiles who shall be sent by God upon [Pg 177] His people for punishment. This mission they must first fulfil before they can, according to ver. 8, be added to, and gathered along with, the gathered ones of Israel. By the "beasts in the forest," brutalized, degraded, and secularized Israel is to be understood, comp. Jer. xii. 7-12; Ezek. xxxiv. 5; and my Commentary on Rev. ii. 1.