pon the
kingdom of the ten tribes, and he had been commissioned to announce
their approaching fulfilment upon Judah also, and that in the form of a
captivity in Babylon: "Behold, the days come, that all that is in thy
house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day,
shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And
of thy sons which shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall
they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of
Babylon" (39:6, 7). Micah also had foretold, in express terms, both the
Babylonish captivity, and the subsequent delivery of God's people
(4:10). We see, then, what a full preparation had been made for the
revelations vouchsafed to Isaiah in the chapters now under
consideration. They relate not to something new and unheard of, but to a
captivity which he had himself foretold in accordance with the
threatenings of God by former prophets. Under the illumination of the
Holy Spirit he is carried into the future of Zion. In prophetic vision
he sees her land wasted, her temple burned, and her children groaning in
captivity. As the nearest interposition of God in her behalf, he
foretells her liberation by Cyrus, the anointed of the Lord, and her
restoration to the promised land. But this is only the earnest and
pledge of a higher redemption through the Messiah, the true servant of
Jehovah, under whom she shall be glorified with a perpetual salvation,
and her dominion extended over all the earth. To limit the prophet's
vision to the deliverance from Babylon would be to make him a messenger
of glad tidings which mocked the hopes of the covenant people; for this
deliverance did not fulfil the just expectations which his lofty
promises awakened in the bosoms of the pious remnant of Israel. No; it
is in Christ's redemption alone, of which that of Cyrus was only a
shadow, that Zion receives in full measure the glorious promises which
shine forth in this part of Isaiah.

If now we consider the _form_ of these promises, we find that they bear
throughout the stamp of true prophecy, as distinguished from history.
They have neither the dress of prose history, with its dates and
circumstantial details, such as we find in the books of Ezra and
Nehemiah, nor of historic poetry, like the song of Deborah and Barak;
like the seventy-eighth hundred and fifth, and hundred and sixth psalms.
They are expressed in a series of poetic images, in which, wit