He inculcates again and again that men should not rely upon the creature, but upon the Creator, from whom all temporal and spiritual help pro ceeds ; that in order to attain salvation, we should despair of our own and all human power, and rely upon God. He opposes those who expected help through foreign alliances with powerful neigh bouring nations against foreign enemies of the state.
The people of God have only one enemy, and one ally, that is, God. It is foolish to seek for aid on earth against the power of heaven, and to fear man if God is our friend. The panacea against all distress and danger is true conversion. The politics of the prophets consist only in point ing out this remedy. The prophet connects with his rebuke and with his admonition, his threaten ings of divine judgment upon the stiff-necked. These judgments are to be executed by the inva sion of the Syrians, the oppression of the Assyrians, the Babylonian exile, and by the great final separation in the times of the Messiah. The idea which is the basis of all these threatenings, is pro nounced even in the Pentateuch (Lev. x. 3), I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified ;' and also in the words of Amos (iii. 2), You only have I known of all the families of the earth ; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities :' that is, if the people do not voluntarily glorify God, he glorifies himself against them. Partly in order to recal the rebellious to obedience, partly to comfort the faithful, the prophet opens a prospect of those blessings which the faithful por tion of the covenant-people shall inherit. In almost all prophetic utterances, we find in regular succession three elements—rebuke, threatening, and promise. The prophecies concerning the de struction of powerful neighbouring states partly belong, as we have shewn, to the promises, be cause they are intended to prevent despair, which, as well as false security, is a most dangerous hindrance to conversion.
In the direct promises of deliverance the pur pose to comfort is still more evident. This de liverance refers either to burdens which pressed upon the people in the days of the prophet, or to burdens to come, which were already announced by the prophet ; such, for instance, were the op pressions of the Syrians, the Assyrians, and finally, of the Chalcheans.
The proclamation of the Messiah is the inex baustible source of consolation among the pro phets. In Isaiah this consolation is so clear that some fathers of the church were inclined to style him rather evangelist than prophet. Ewald pointedly describes (p. 169) the human basis of
Messianic expectations in general, and of those of Isaiah in particular :—` He who experienced in his own royal soul what infinite power could be granted to an individual spirit in order to influence and animate many, he who daily observed in Jerusalem the external vestiges of a spirit like tbat of David, could not imagine that the future new congregation of the Lord should originate from a mind belonging to another race than that of David, and that it should be maintained and sup ported by any other ruler than a divine ruler. Indeed every spiritual revival must proceed from the clearness and firmness of an elevated mind ; and this especially applies to that most sublime revival for which ancient Israel longed and strove. This longing attained to clearness, and was pre served from losing itself in indefiniteness, by the certainty that such an elevated mind was to be expected. ' Isaiah, however, was not the first who attained to o. knowledge of the personality of Messiah. Isaiah's vocation was to render the knowledge of this personality clearer and more definite, and to render it more efficacious upon the souls of the elect by giving it a greater individuality. The person of the Redeemer is mentioned even in Gen. xlix. ro, ` The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh (the tranquilliser) come ; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be' (i. e., hinz shall the nations obey). The personality of Mes siah occurs also in several psalms which were written before the times of Isaiah; for instance, in the 2d and troth, by David ; in the 45th, by the sons of Korah ; in the 72d, by Solomon. Isaiah has especially developed the perception of the prophetic and the priestly office of the Redeemer, while in the earlier annunciations of the Mcssiah the royal office is more prominent ; although in Ps. cx. the priestly office also is pointed out. Of the two states of Christ, Isaiah has expressly de scribed that of the exinanition of the suffering Christ, while, before him, his state of glory was made more prominent. In the Psalms the inse parable connection between justice and suffering, from which the doctrine of a suffering Messiah necessarily results, is not expressly applied to the Messiah. We must not say that Isaiah first per ceived that the Messiah was to suffer, but we must grant that this knowledge was in him more vivid than in any earlier writer ; and that this knowledge was first shewn by Isaiah to be an in tegral portion of O. T. doctrine.