ASSUMING that these prophecies, whatever past accomplishment they may have received, have for their center the day of the Lord, how are we to meet the difficulty about these various peoples and cities which once troubled Israel? How are we to account for these prophecies looking onward to a future day, seeing that they no longer, or very feebly exist? The answer is that the very same difficulty applies to Israel. No one knows clearly or certainly where the ten tribes are; neither does it seem any one's business to search beforehand. We may leave them in the obscurity that God has put them in. We know, if we believe His word, that as surely as He has preserved the dispersed remnant of the two tribes, so will He bring out of their hiding-place the descendants of the ten. We know that not only the Jews proper are to be restored, but also the old nationality of Israel. To this the δωδεκάφυλον hope to come; the full twelve tribes making one nation in the land, and one King shall be King to them all. “And they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.” Every letter of the promises will be accomplished. Scripture cannot be broken.
Even if we saw no signs, why doubt? Do we need such tokens? It is a proof of feebleness of faith, if we ask a sign. God's word is the best assurance; on this let us take our stand. If God has said that so it shall be, we have a right to expect that He will bring from their recesses the ten tribes and will save them out of all their dwelling-places wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them. We are far from being fully acquainted even with the little world on which we live. Long ago, there were parts of the world better known than they have been till of late. Thus, the early accounts of Africa and central Asia for instance have been largely confirmed by recent researches. God may have the ten tribes in some of those little-explored regions, or they may emerge unexpectedly out of a nation with which they have long been confounded; but we are not bound to show where they are. God has declared that He will bring them into their own land, and this in a peculiar manner; for they are to pass through the wilderness again, and there be purged of the transgressors in their midst, who thus never reach the land, instead of being destroyed in it, like the apostate Jews. Thus, there is a totally different destiny for the ten tribes as compared with the two. If God will accomplish both, nothing will be easier than for the same God to define the descendants of their old Gentile enemies, whether near or farther off. The truth is, it is the very same principle of faith that accepts and accounts for both; as it is mere incredulity which finds a difficulty in either. These remarks apply to almost all these chapters.
Again, some strangely misunderstand the bold figures of the prophets, as if employed to cast their subjects into an enigmatic, if not ambiguous, mold. This is a great error. For they are not to throw a cloud over things, but to give emphasis and energy. Many, whose object is to deter Christians from reading the prophecies, talk much of these tropes, as if their presence was evidence enough to show that the meaning is doubtful. Nothing can be more contrary to the fact; for in the inspired writings, as in others, figures are used, by a kind of poetical license, to illustrate, adorn, and enforce the sense, and in no case to mystify. Figures are quite as definite and are only more forcible than plain, literal terms. The very speech of ordinary life abounds in metaphor and simile; but, of course, the poetical character of the prophecies gives occasion to their more frequent use.
Again, the difficulty of Scripture does not lie so much in its figurative style as in the depth of its thoughts. In the word of God there is perhaps nothing more profound than the first chapter of John. Yet what first strikes one there is the exceeding simplicity of this Scripture as a matter of language. It used to be the common habit of those who taught the Greek language in some parts of the country to make this gospel a sort of initiatory exercise. Notwithstanding, in all the Bible you can find no revelation or handling of truth more full of depths, none that will cause the really spiritual to stand more amazed, however attractive the grace it displays in Christ. This will show how entirely unfounded is the notion of such as fancy it is a simple question of words. The divine truth of Scripture is the difficulty, not its obscure language. It is difficult because of our darkness morally, because of our want of acquaintance with the mind of God, judging appearance by the natural senses or the mind, instead of receiving things from God, reading His words in the light of Christ. So far from the prophetic scriptures being the most difficult part, they are much easier than is commonly imagined. It is a great thing to begin with believing them; intelligence follows and grows apace. If we may compare the various parts of Scripture, the New Testament is without doubt the deepest of God's communications; and of the New Testament none exceed the writings of the Apostle John for penetration into the knowledge of what God is; and of the writings of the Apostle John, who would treat the epistles and the gospel as less profound than the Apocalypse? None, I am persuaded, but such as are too superficially acquainted with any of them, to warrant their pronouncing a judgment.
This may encourage some to take up the prophecies with a more child-like spirit, always bearing in mind that God looks onward to the future crisis that ushers in “the day of the Lord.” He thinks of His beloved Son; and that which gives importance to the prophecies is that they unfold the scene of His interests. The Jews are the people of whom the Lord Jesus deigned to be born as to the flesh. They have proved what they were to Him; He has now to prove what He will be to them. He means to have an earthly people (Israel), as well as a heavenly (the Church), for His glory. The word of God stops not short of this. If it is not fulfilled, yet it is sure in the keeping of God, who has already given a partial accomplishment. Hence we get the principle for interpreting all prophecy; it is to be for the glory of the Lord Jesus in connection with Israel, and the nations upon the earth. I am speaking now of Old Testament prophecy. The New Testament takes another character—the Lord Jesus in connection with Christendom, also, besides confirming the oracles about Israel. This may show why the Lord attaches importance to a little place or people on the prophetic field. Israel was much in His eyes because of the Messiah; and His own counsels are not dead if they sleep. Hence, too, when God removes the vail from His ancient people Israel, their old antagonists will begin to appear. This is to my mind full of interest. There is a resurrection of every individual. The body will be raised for the manifestation of everything that was done in the body, for it is by the body that the soul acts. Even so will it be with these nations. There is a destiny analogous; they are to re-appear when Israel does, and God will distinguish them according to their original names, and not those they may bear in the process of human history. The Lord will go up to the sources: hence we have their judgment connected with the last days, and not merely that which fell upon them long ago. They go down to the close. Some may have been more completely accomplished in the past than others; but with this difference, they all look onward to the future.
The last generation will do as their fathers; then judgment will fall. Thus it is that God will deal with the nations. They will manifest the same hostility to Israel, the same pride against God, as formerly. This may seem a hard principle to some, but it is most righteous. If a child has grown up, knowing his father's dishonor, hearing of his disgrace and punishment, would not that sin be most peculiarly odious in his eyes, if any right feeling existed? The public example of his father's evil ways would be ever before him. But if the son trifled with it, and used it as an encouragement to walk in the same path, is it not just that there should be a still more severe punishment exacted of that son? Besides having the universal conscience of men, he had special witness in his own family, which the heart of a child ought to have felt and pondered deeply.
This is just the principle of God's ways in government. Man ought to take the more earnest heed from the past; and God, who deals righteously, will judge according to that which man ought to have remembered. He ought to have used the witness of the past as a warning for the future. These nations will then reappear, and, instead of recalling their fathers' ways for their own warning and profit, they take exactly the same road, and once more will endeavor to root out and destroy the people of God.
So it is in Isa. 17. Damascus, which was to the north of the Holy Land, was the very ancient and celebrated city of Syria. (See Gen. 15) It is now made a heap of ruins—the cities a place for flocks. (Ver. 1, 2.) And, as of old, Syria and Ephraim conspired against the realm of David's son to their own discomfiture, so once more the remarkable feature of this judgment is, that God will deal with His people as well as with their old ally. “The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts. And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean. And it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.” He will gather out all scandals from them and punish the transgressors; He will employ their enmity to purge that threshing floor of the land of Israel; He will deal in a judicial manner with His people. The nations may lure themselves and each other on with the hope that it is going hard with Israel; but their conspiracy will be offensive to God, however He may use it for Israel's good. This is here described. “Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel. At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves or the images.” (Ver. 6-8.)
Thus it is plain there is, at this time, a discriminating judgment proceeding in the land of Israel. Compare chapter 28, where the course of the overflowing scourge is described. “In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation. Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shall set it with strange slips: in the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.” (Ver. 9-11.) But now comes the retribution. “Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. And behold at evening tide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.” (Ver. 12-14.) Let the nations gather their multitudes; let them rush on like mighty waters. But the rebuke comes; and they flee and are chased, yea, like thistle-down before the whirlwind. “And behold at evening time trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.” When was all this accomplished in the past, from the day that Isaiah wrote? When was there the gathering of all these nations and their complete dispersion? On the contrary, Israel was broken and scattered, as were the Jews afterward. Here it is not one nation triumphing over God's people, but a gathering of all nations, who seem but waiting for the morning to swallow up Israel; but before the morning they are not. Surely it shall be; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.