The Book of the Prophet Isaiah Tr. (Volume 1); With Notes and Remarks to Which Is Prefixed a Dissertation on the Nature and Use of Prophecy. by A. Jenour. to Which Is Prefixed a Dissertation on the Nature and Use of Prophecy. by A. Jenour (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1830. Excerpt: ... EXPLANATORY NOTES. CHAP. XI. I. V. 1. The prophecy which follows can be understood only of Christ and his kingdom, and affords therefore a certain example among many others, of the manner in which the prophet passes from temporal to spiritual things. The singular beauty and appropriateness of the metaphorical language employed in this verse will in a great measure be lost, unless it be read in connexion with the preceding chapter. There the destruction of the Assyrian army was compared to the cutting down of a vast forest of tall and lofty trees. Here the house of David is spoken of as a stump of an aged tree, cut down to the ground and apparently lifeless, from which however, as a slender shoot, at the appointed time, would spring the long expected Saviour. Nothing surely can be imagined more striking than the opposition, between the greatness and magnificence of the Assyrian king and his army, and the lowly, mean condition of the son of David, the king of Israel; the one represented by a simple shoot springing from a decayed stump, the other by an immense forest of stately trees: yet the shoot is to rise and nourish, the forest to be destroyed. It should be observed that as the original word translated in our English Bible stem, signifies that part which remains in the ground after the tree has been cut down, this implies that the shoot which should spring from it, that is the promised Messiah, would not appear until the royal family of David was apparently destroyed; and therefore the prophecy cannot have had its accomplishment in Hezekiah, or in any other prince who came to the throne in regular succession whilst that family was in a flourishing condition. But the metaphor exactly describes the state of the house of David when Jesus Christ was born in...