have become ripe for a participation in the
Messianic salvation.--There cannot be any doubt that, by the "_Sprout
of the Lord_" the Messiah is designated,--an explanation which we meet
with so early as in the Chaldee Paraphrast ([Hebrew: bedna hhva ihi
mwiHa dii lHdvh vliqr]), from which even _Kimchi_ did not venture to
differ, which was in the Christian Church, too, the prevailing one, and
which Rationalism was the first to give up. The Messiah is here quite
in His proper place. The Prophet had, in chap. iii. 12-15, in a very
special manner, derived the misery of the people from their bad rulers.
What is now more rational, therefore, than that he should connect the
salvation and prosperity likewise with the person of a Divine Ruler?
comp. chap. i. 26. In the adjoining prophecies of Isaiah, especially in
chaps. vii., ix., and xi., the person of the Messiah likewise forms the
centre of the proclamation of salvation; so that, _a priori_, a mention
of it must be expected here. To the same result we are led by the
analogy of Micah; comp. Vol. i. p. 443-45, 449. _Farther_--The
representation of the Messiah, under the image of a sprout or shoot, is
very common in Scripture; comp. chap. xi. 1-10; liii. 2; Rev. v. 5. But
of decisive weight are those passages in which precisely our word
[Hebrew: cmH] occurs as a designation of the Messiah. The two passages,
Jer. xxiii. 5: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I raise unto
David a righteous Sprout;" and xxxiii. 15: "In those days, and at that
time, shall I cause the Sprout of righteousness to grow up unto David,"
may at once and plainly be considered as an _interpretation_ of the
passage before us, and as a commentary upon it; and that so much the
more that there, as well as here, all salvation is connected with this
Sprout of Jehovah; comp. Jer. xxiii. 6: "In His days Judah [Pg 14]
shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is His name
whereby he shall be called: The Lord our righteousness." The two other
passages, Zech. iii. 8: "Behold, I bring my servant _Zemach_," and vi.
12: "Behold, a man whose name is _Zemach_" are of so much the greater
consequence that in them _Zemach_ (_i.e._, Sprout) occurs as a kind of
_nomen proprium_, the sense of which is supposed as being known from
former prophecies to which the Prophet all but expressly refers; or as
_Vitringa_ remarks on these passages: "That man who, in the oracles of
the preceding Prophets (Is. and Jer.) bear