chariah ix.-xi. is believed to be
really from a prophet of uncertain name, contemporaneous with Isaiah.
It was written while Ephraim was still a people, i.e. before the
capture of Samaria by Shalmanezer; and xi. 1-3 appears to howl over
the recent devastations of Tiglathpilezer. The prophecy is throughout
full of the politics of that day. No part of it has the most remote or
imaginable[4] similarity to the historical life of Jesus, except that
he once rode into Jerusalem on an ass; a deed which cannot have been
peculiar to him, and which Jesus moreover appears to have planned with
the express[5] purpose of assimilating himself to the lowly king here
described. Yet such an isolated act is surely a carnal and beggarly
fulfilment. To ride on an ass is no mark of humility in those who must
ordinarily go on foot. The prophet clearly means that the righteous
king is not to ride on a warhorse and trust in cavalry, as Solomon
and the Egyptians, (see Ps. xx. 7. Is. xxxi. 1-3, xxx. 16,) but is to
imitate the lowliness of David and the old judges, who rode on young
asses; and is to be a lover of peace.

Chapters 50 and 53 of the pseudo-Isaiah remained; which contain many
phrases so aptly descriptive of the sufferings of Christ, and so
closely knit up with our earliest devotional associations, that they
were the very last link of my chain that snapt. Still, I could not
conceal from myself, that no exactness in this prophecy, however
singular, could avail to make out that Jesus was the Messiah of
Hezekiah's prophets. There must be _some_ explanation; and if I did
not see it, that must probably arise from prejudice and habit.--In
order therefore to gain freshness, I resolved to peruse the entire
prophecy of the pseudo-Isaiah in Lowth's version, from ch. xl. onward,
at a single sitting.

This prophet writes from Babylon, and has his vision full of the
approaching restoration of his people by Cyrus, whom he addresses by
name. In ch. xliii. he introduces to us an eminent and "chosen
servant of God," whom he invests with all the evangelical virtues, and
declares that he is to be a light to the Gentiles. In ch. xliv. (v.
1--also v. 21) he is named as "_Jacob_ my servant, and _Israel_ whom
I have chosen." The appellations recur in xlv. 4: and in a far more
striking passage, xlix. 1-12, which is eminently Messianic to the
Christian ear, _except_ that in v. 3, the speaker distinctly declares
himself to be (not Messiah, but) Israel. The sam