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The word "heal" in Isaiah.
A | No hope in themselves |
6: 10. The judgment upon the people.
A | The blessing of the people. Only hope in Messiah. |
a | 19: 22. EGYPT. Smite and heal. Intreated and heal.
b | 30: 26. Heal the stroke of their wound.
b | 53: 5. With His stripes we are healed.
a | 57: 18, 19. ISRAEL. I will heal, restore.
The reader will see from the brief notes we have given above that these verses in
Isa. 6: contain, in a condensed form, much that illustrates the progress of the Lord's
purposes in relation to Israel. Peter evidently refers to this usage of "healing" when he
explains the typical character of the healing of the lame man:
"Neither is there THE HEALING (A.V. salvation) in any other" (Acts 4: 12).
We must now pass on to the prophet's answer to this great commission.
"Then said I, Lord, how long?" (Isa. 6: 11).
The prophet does not draw back or refuse to utter the solemn words of judgment
committed to him, but he manifests the true spirit of service when he asks "How long?"
It was fitting that the man who was to utter woe after woe against his own people should
first of all be brought to say of himself "Woe is me"; and so here, even though he
perceived the judgment to be just, the prophet must have pleased the Lord by his evident
pity. The Lord's answer is twofold--first, the desolation of judgment; and then, the
pledge of restoration:
"And He answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses
without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away,
and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it
shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them
when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof" (Isa. 6: 11,
12, 13).
Here is no small disturbance among the people, but a laying waste and depopulation
that was to reduce the land to "utter desolation".
The removing "far away" of verse 12 was but the sequel to Israel's moral and spiritual
separation from the Lord:
"Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips do
honour Me, but have removed their heart far from Me" (Isa. 29: 13).
In contrast to this, when at last Israel are restored and their forsaking is for ever past
(Isa. 54: 7), then we read: