ntal passage is in Deut. xxx. 3, 4,
where the gathering of Israel is promised "from all the nations whither
the Lord thy God has scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out into
the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather
thee, and from thence will He fetch thee." This passage shows with what
clearness the future scattering lay before the eyes of the holy men,
even at the first beginnings of the people of God. In vers. 11 and 12
we have the summary of the whole of the second part of Isaiah, in which
the announcement of Israel's being gathered and brought back is
constantly repeated; and it is quite incomprehensible how some grant
the genuineness of the prophecy before us, and yet bring forward,
against this second part of Isaiah, the argument that the Prophet could
not _suppose_ the scattering, that it must really have taken place,
since he simply announces their being brought back.--As regards the
redemption from the scattering, all that which in history is realised
in a series of events, is here united in one view. There is no reason
for excluding the deliverance under Zerubbabel; for it, too, was
already granted for the sake of Christ, whose incarnation the Prophet
anticipates in faith; comp. remarks on chaps. vii., ix. This
redemption, [Pg 128] however, in which those who have been brought back
remain servants in the land of the Lord, can be considered as only a
prelude to the true one; comp. vol. i., p. 220 f. 448. The true
fulfilment began with the appearance of Christ, and is still going on
towards its completion, which can take place even without Israel's
returning to Canaan, comp. vol. i., p. 222. Asshur opens the list, and
occupies the principal place, because it was through him who, under the
very eyes of the Prophet, had carried away the ten tribes, that the
dispersion began. But the Prophet does not limit himself to that which
was obvious,--did not expect, from the Messiah, only the healing of
already existing hurts.--With Asshur, _Egypt_ is connected in one pair.
Egypt is the _African_ world's power struggling for dominion with the
_Asiatic_. Its land serves not only as a refuge to those oppressed by
the Asiatic world's power (comp. Jer. xlii. ff.), but, in that struggle
with the Asiatic power, itself invades and oppresses the land; comp.
chap. vii. 18; 2 Kings xxiii. 29 ff.: "In his days Pharaoh Necho, king
of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria." In a similar
connection,