It is a nation waiting, indistinguishable in shadow, whose outlines only we see. It is no longer the thrilling practical cry, which sends men into the arenas of social life with every sinew in them strung: _Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow_. It is rather the cry of one who still waits for his working day to dawn: _I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help?_ Righteousness is not the near and daily duty, it is the far-off peace and splendour of skies, that have scarce begun to redden to the day. III. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. But there was another Person, whose righteousness was in question during the Exile, and who Himself argues for it throughout our prophecy. Perhaps the most peculiar feature of the theology of Isa. xl.-lxvi. is its argument for _the righteousness of Jehovah_. Some critics maintain that righteousness, when applied to Jehovah, bears always a technical reference to His covenant with Israel. This is scarcely correct. Jehovah's dealings with Israel were no doubt the chief of His dealings, and it is these, which He mainly quotes to illustrate His righteousness; but we have already studied passages, which prove to us that Jehovah's righteousness was an absolute quality of His Godhead, shown to others besides Israel, and in loyalty to obligations different from the terms of His covenant with Israel. In ch. xli. Jehovah calls upon the heathen to match their righteousness with His; righteousness was therefore a quality that might have been attributed to them as well as to Himself. Again, in xlv. 19,--_I, Jehovah, speak righteousness, I declare things that are right_,--righteousness evidently bears a general sense, and not one of exclusive application to God's dealing with Israel. It is the same in the passage about Cyrus (xlv. 13): _I have raised him up in righteousness, I will make straight all his ways_. Though Cyrus was called in connection with God's purpose towards Israel, it is not that purpose which makes his calling righteous, but the fact that God means to carry him through, or, as the parallel verse says, _to make straight all his ways_. These instances are sufficient to prove that the righteousness, which God attributes to His words, to His actions and to Himself, is a general quality not confined to His dealings with Israel under the covenant,--though, of course, most clearly illustrated by these.