Every gem of this second section of Isaiah takes on a new lustre in this setting. It is the cry of the lost sheep in the wilderness, catching sight of the Shepherd who they thought had forgotten them, that we hear in the gracious strain:
He shall feed his flock like a Shepherd, He shall gather the lambs with his arm, And carry them in his bosom, And shall gently lead those that are with young.
The vision of the Suffering, Righteous Servant of God grows clear and pathetic in the true historic light. The chastened nation feels itself called to a higher mission than that of political power. It is to teach the other nations of the earth the knowledge of God. That knowledge it is itself to learn in the school of sorrow. It is to save humanity through the sacrifice of itself. Thus the secret of suffering is spelled out, not for ancient Israel alone, but for all mankind; the secret which is shrined, for ever sacred to us, in the story of our Lord Christ; from whom you and I this day, through a simple symbol, are to learn anew that if we sorrow it is that we may be made perfect through suffering, and thus be fitted to lead our fellows up into the light and love of God.
_These writings should be read critically, until we can decipher the successive hands working upon them, and interpret them accordingly._
Few, if any, of the books of the Bible stand now as they came from their original authors. Nearly all have been re-edited; most of them many times. Some of them have been worked over by so many hands, and have undergone such numerous and serious changes, that the original writer would scarcely identify his work. The historical writings of the Old Testament take up into them all sorts of materials, from all sorts of sources. If the annals of the Venerable Bede, the father of English history had been re-written again and again through the subsequent centuries; abridged, enlarged, interpreted by each editor; the accumulating knowledge and growing experience of the nation read into his simple chronicles; we should appreciate the critical care needful in studying our edition of Bede if we would know the real original. Very much such care is necessary if we are to use the Old Testament histories aright for information. It is as though there were several surfaces to the parchment on which the histories were written, on each successive film of which, in finest tracery, an older record was inscribed.