The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Isaiah, Volume 2 (of 2)Smith, George Adam
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Isaiah, Volume 2 (of 2)
Smith, George Adam
Bible. Isaiah -- Commentaries
them long nights of lonely prayer; and the Son of God did not pass to
His supreme self-sacrifice for men till after the struggle with, and
the submission to, His Father's will in Gethsemane.
II. THE SUBSTANCE OF SERVICE.
The substance of the Servant's work is stated in one word, uttered
thrice in emphatic positions. _Judgement for the nations shall he bring
forth.... According to truth shall he bring forth judgement.... He
shall not flag nor break, till he set in the earth_[180] _judgement._
The English word _judgement_ is a natural but misleading translation
of the original, and we must dismiss at once the idea of judicial
sentence, which it suggests. The Hebrew is "mishpat," which means,
among other things, either a single statute, or the complete body of
law which God gave Israel by Moses, at once their creed and their
code; or, perhaps, also the abstract quality of justice or right.
We rendered it as the latter in Isa. i.-xxxix. But, as will be seen
from the note below,[181] when used in Isa. xl.-lxvi. without the
article, as here, it is the "mishpat" of Jehovah,--not so much
the actual body of statutes given to Israel, as the principles
of _right_ or _justice_ which they enforce. In one passage it is
given in parallel to the civic virtues _righteousness_, _truth_,
_uprightness_, but--as its etymology compared with theirs shows
us--it is these viewed not in their character as virtues, but in
their obligation as ordained by God. Hence, _duty_ to Jehovah as
inseparable from His religion (Ewald), _religion_ as the law of
life (Delitzsch), _the law_ (Cheyne, who admirably compares the
Arabic ed-Dîn) are all good renderings. Professor Davidson gives
the fullest exposition. "It can scarcely," he says, "be rendered
'religion' in the modern sense, it is the equity and civil right
which is the result of the true religion of Jehovah; and though
comprehended under religion in the Old Testament sense, is rather,
according to our conceptions, religion applied in civil life. Of
old the religious unit was the state, and the life of the state was
the expression of its religion. Morality was law or custom, and
both reposed upon God. A condition of thought such as now prevails,
where morality is based on independent grounds, whether natural law
or the principles inherent in the mind apart from religion, did not
then exist. What the prophet means by 'bringing forth right' is
explained in another passage, where it is said that Jehovah's 'arms
shall judge the peoples,' and that the 'isles shall wait for His arm'
(ch. li. 5). 'Judgment' is that pervading of life by the principles
of equity and humanity which is the immediate effect of the true
religion of Jehovah."[182] In short, "mishpat" is not only the civic
righteousness and justice, to which it is made parallel in our
prophecy, but it is these with God behind them. On the one hand it is
conterminous with national virtue, on the other it is the ordinance
and will of God.
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