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No.2.
The Veil.
pp. 221 - 224
In the physical world darkness is just absence of light. No effort is needed to dispel
the darkness of a room before light can be admitted. So, in the passage before us,
darkness is brought about by interception, and the interception is set forth under the
figure of a veil. Veils in the Scripture are used either for covering, as the veil used by
Ruth, the same word being translated "mantle" in Isa. 3: 22. Another kind of veil is
mentioned in Isa. 3: 23, the Hebrew word here used radid means "to descend", and
then "to subdue, and bring into subjection". This veil not only reached down to the feet,
but suggested at the same time some element of subordination. The veil of the
Tabernacle and Temple was a "separator", the Hebrew baroketh meaning to break, to
interrupt, "the Holy Ghost thus signifying that the way into the Holiest of all was not yet
made manifest". The veil used by Rebekah is called a tsaiph, from a Hebrew word
meaning to double. The figure of a veil is used by Isaiah in much the same way as it is
used by Paul in II Cor. 4:
"And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people,
and the veil that is spread over all nations" (Isa. 25: 7).
This passage not only provides a parallel with II Cor. 4:, but a closer examination
reveals connections that, though obvious to a Hebrew using his native tongue, would be
for ever "veiled" to an English reader.
The word veil that is found in Isa. 25: is the Hebrew word masekah. Masak "to
mingle" gives us the word meaning a veil, from the idea of the weaving or mingling of
the threads, and so an unpenetrable hedge of thorns is mesukah (Micah 7: 4). All this is
on the surface, and needs no great intimacy with the Hebrew language to discover. But
no one but a Hebrew speaking his own language would see any connection between
Isa. 25: 7 which speaks of a veil, and Isa. 25: 6 which speaks of wine purified from
its lees or dregs, and no one but a Hebrew could have associated the adulteration of wine,
as Paul has done in II Cor. 2: 17, with a veil (II Cor. 3: 13 - iv.6). Yet the `mingled'
wine of Isa. 5: 22; the cup in the hand of the Lord full of "mixture" (Psa. 75: 8); the
`hanging' for the door of the Tabernacle (Exod. 26: 36) and the very "covering" of the
King of Tyre (Ezek. 28: 13) are all variants of the same word in the original. He who
mingles water with the wine of the Word, is friend and associate with him who mingles
the threads of doctrine so that they form a veil.
We have already emphasized, when commenting on II Cor. 2: 17, that the Apostle
was not dealing so much with a flat denial of the truth, but with the more specious, yet
none the less deadly "watering down" of the truth. The alternating differences exhibited
in II Cor. 3: between the transient glory of the Old Covenant, with the exceeding glory
of the New, is after all but the principle of "Right Division" in process of application.
This we shall see more clearly when we suggest a new translation of II Cor. 4: 3, 4.
Moses placed a veil over his face so that the children of Israel should not perceive that