Introduction
Sec. 7. ZION’S FINAL GLORY.
The preceding two chapters present in dark colours the great moral deterioration of natural Israel, by which the better few, “the small remnant left,” (Isaiah 1:9,) were overwhelmed, till Jehovah came again and manifested himself, through prophetic vision, for their deliverance. The place and order of the vision is Jerusalem, at the birth of the Messiah, with a comprehensive extension of the scene far into the latest days. This literal advent of Zion’s Redeemer appears to take on a typical character of stages manifested gloriously in the far future. St. Paul quotes one of them when he (Romans 11:0) applies it to the still future recovery of Israel, when the broken olive branches shall be grafted in once more. The Apocalypse (Revelation 20, 22) borrows imagery from this chapter of blessings still future. The chapter is the close of the second cycle of those later prophecies of Isaiah, which also show an intimate relation to each of the earlier series; for example, the charge to comfort Zion (Isaiah 40:1) is herein fulfilled, and her sorrowful complaints (Isaiah 49:1-2) are silenced by rich abundance of blessing. No less intimate is the relation here with the opening and close of the earlier visions in Isaiah 1:26-27; Isaiah 2:1-5, with Isaiah 35:1, presenting thus a unity of structure in the whole book of Isaiah which neological commentators cannot well gainsay.
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