29: "The people of the land use oppression, and boldly practice robbery, and vex the poor and needy, and oppress the stranger." Where sins so gross are still prevalent, where the law of the Lord is so wantonly broken, an installation into the dignity of the saints of God is out of the question. For that, it is absolutely essential that exertions be made that the high destination of the people: "Ye shall be holy for I am holy," become a truth; that in a moral point of view it show itself as truly separated from the world,--and that is something so infinitely great, that men are utterly unable for it, that it can proceed from God only, with whom nothing is impossible.--The last words of the verse are commonly explained: "by the spirit of _judgment_, and by the spirit of destruction or burning." In that case the putting away of the filth and blood by the judging activity of the Lord, by the destruction of sin, would be spoken of משפט, however, may also be taken in the sense of "right:" by the spirit of right which lays hold of, and changes the well disposed (comp. Mic. iii. 8: "But I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of _right_ and might"), and by the spirit of destruction which consumes the disobedient. In favour of the latter view are the parallel passages; above all, chap. xxviii. 6, where it is said of the Messianic time, "In that day the Lord will become, &c.," "And for a spirit of right to him that sitteth for right;" farther, chap. i. 27, 28: "Zion shall be redeemed by right, and her converts by righteousness. But the transgressors and sinners are destroyed together, and they that forsake the Lord are consumed." Comp. Matt. iii. 11: αὐτὸς ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρί, where likewise a double washing, that of grace and that of wrath, is spoken of. In chap. xxxii. 15: "Until the Spirit be poured out upon us from on high," Isaiah likewise points to the regeneration which, in the Messianic time, will be accomplished by the Spirit; and it is, according to the whole _usus loquendi_ of the Old Testament, most natural to think of the Spirit transforming from within The Spirit of God scarcely occurs elsewhere in the Old Testament as the executor of God's judgments; so that the supposition is [Pg 23] very natural that the spirit of destruction has been brought in by the spirit of right only.--The word בער is, by some, understood as "burning," by others, as "destruction." We ourselves decide in favour of the latter signification, which occurs also in chap. iv. 13, for this reason, that it is in that signification that בער is, in Deuteronomy, used as the _terminus technicus_ of the extirpation of the wicked. If the Church does not comply with the command: ἐξάρεῖτε τὸν πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν, 1 Cor. v. 13; Deut. xiii. 6 (5), God himself will enforce His authority by His Spirit, who carries out the judgments of the avenging God, just as He carries out every influence of the Creator upon the created.