The words of Isaiah were
delivered by him in a prophetic character, with the solemnity belonging
to that character: and what he so delivered was all along understood by
the Jewish reader to refer to something that was to take place after the
time of the author. The public sentiments of the Jews concerning the
design of Isaiah's writings are set forth in the book of
Ecclesiasticus:* "He saw by an excellent spirit what should come to pass
at the last, and he comforted them that mourned in Sion. He showed what
should come to pass for ever, and secret things or ever they came."
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* Chap. xlviii. ver. 24.
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It is also an advantage which this prophecy possesses, that it is
intermixed with no other subject. It is entire, separate, and
uninterruptedly directed to one scene of things.
The application of the prophecy to the evangelic history is plain and
appropriate. Here is no double sense; no figurative language but what is
sufficiently intelligible to every reader of every country. The
obscurities (by which I mean the expressions that require a knowledge of
local diction, and of local allusion) are few, and not of great
importance.
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