Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 23:5
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
5. the days come ] The phrase (first occurring in Amo 4:2), according to Jeremiah’s employment of it (cp. Jer 23:7, Jer 30:3, Jer 31:27; Jer 31:31; Jer 31:38, Jer 33:14), implies a special call to note the announcement thus introduced. In spite of the troubles which are now gathering round them there are none the less surely days of deliverance coming.
Branch ] mg. Or, Shoot Or, Bud. While the word designating the Messiah in Isa 11:1 is rightly translated Branch, the Heb. substantive here ( emach) can only mean shoot, that which springs immediately out of the ground. In Isa 4:2 the word is used in a more general sense, not as here of the individual Messianic Ruler, but of the produce of the soil in the blissful age of the Messiah. See further in Dr. p. 364 and on Isa 4:2 (Skinner) in C.B.
deal wisely ] For mg. prosper see on Jer 20:11.
execute judgement and justice ] Cp. the same expression as used of David, the ancestor of the Messiah, in 2Sa 8:15.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
5 8. Du. and others reject these vv., which are also viewed with suspicion by Co. The use of the term “the Shoot” for the Messiah by Zechariah (Zec 3:8; Zec 6:12) shews that in his time it was an established expression, and therefore might naturally be employed as early as pre-exilic times in connexion with Messianic expectations which were even then current. Moreover, there can be little doubt that “our righteousness” (Heb. idenu) is an appellation chosen by the prophet as hinting (see on Jer 23:1-8) at the name of the reigning king, Zedekiah (Heb. idiyahu). “What Zedekiah’s name, received at his accession, set forth as an ideal, would be a realized fact in the time of the Messianic King” (Peake). Contrast the Messianic picture in Psalms 2 (specially Jer 23:9) with that (so much more consonant with Jeremiah’s character) given here of a wise and just ruler over a nation united and at peace. We have a prophecy less plainly Messianic in Jer 30:9, where see note.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Even with the temporal kingship abolished, Davids mercies are still sure.
A righteous Branch – Or, sprout, germ (see Isa 4:2 note). The sprout is that in which the root springs up and grows, and which, if it be destroyed, makes the root perish also.
And a king shall reign … – Rather, and he shall reign as king. Davids family is to be dethroned (temporally), that it may reign gloriously (spiritually). But compare Jer 33:17, note; Jer 33:25, note.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jer 23:5
I will raise unto David a righteous Branch.
Christs Divine titles: the righteous Branch; and the Lord our Righteousness
Some of the grandest productions of nature appear small or feeble in their origin; though nothing is little or feeble with God. The majestic oak, the pride of the forest, that breasts the heavens in power, springs from a little acorn-cup; the mighty ,river, that creates life, health, beauty, and fertility in a realm, rises from some feeble well-spring beside the mountain. Now the wonderful fact of growth in life, or progress in nature or grace, was pre-eminently a profound truth with Christ, in His pure human nature. He that was Davids Root, as God, the almighty cause of all life, was yet Davids Offspring and Branch, as Man.
I. Christ is the Righteous Branch. He is called by this remarkable name by the prophets (Isa 11:1; Isa 4:2; Jeremiah, in my text, and 33:15, 16; Eze 17:22-24; Zec 3:8; Zec 6:12).
1. The Divine titles of our Redeemer in Scripture are most expressive, and are full of spiritual truth and beauty. Among other glorious titles, He is called the Alpha and Omega, the First and Last, including all the letters of the Greek Alphabet, to denote His Eternal nature; as the Beginning and End of all things; as the Author and Finisher of our faith; as the origin, centre, and circle of all blessings for His people. He is the only and true Foundation on which the whole Church of God is built, and the chief Corner-stone of its perfection and beauty. He is our great Captain of salvation, and our Counsellor and Mediator before God in heaven; He is the Mystical Vine to give us Divine life; and the Heavenly Manna to feed and nourish our souls; as well as the living Water of purity and celestial joy. He is our Day-spring and Day-star from on high, to enlighten and guide us; as well as to give Divine knowledge and glory; and our Daysman and Deliverer to reconcile us to God. He is the Child born as man, to be our sacrifice; and the Son given as God, the Eternal Son of God, to impart infinite value to His work of salvation. He is the Prince of Peace, the King of Zion, our Great Prophet and High Priest; and our Peacemaker with Jehovah; our Redeemer from all sin; our Refuge in all danger; our Strong Rock in every storm; our Divine Saviour and Shepherd, who died to deliver us, and lead us to heaven; our Almighty Sun and Shield; in fine, the Righteous Branch, the Branch of Renown, the Righteous Branch of Jehovah, the Lord our Righteousness.
2. Christ is the Righteous Branch, as the cause of all Divine light and life in the Church. The word rendered the Branch, has a double meaning; it signifies both a shoot from an old stock, or a branch springing from a tree, vigorous in life, with rich blossoms and fruits; as well as the splendour of dawn, or the sun rising in eastern glory. This double emblem is most appropriately applied to our Redeemer; both in the sense of His human origin, as springing like a branch into perfect and glorious life from the family of David; and in His Divine nature as God, displaying the splendour of His majesty like the full-orbed sun rising over the earth and dispelling all darkness.
3. As the Righteous Branch Christ fills all His Church with Divine life and blessings. This may be illustrated thus: when a tree is transplanted from one field to another, it belongs, in civil law, to the ground where it has root, and receives nourishment and growth; for though it may be the same tree still in its roots, stock and branches, yet, as all these derive new and continued life from the place where it grows, it therefore belongs, in civil law, by right to the lord of the soil. So Christ, in taking our pure human nature into union with His Divine nature, made ours His own by lawful right, and He gives infinite value to humanity. His Divine and human nature are distinct, though united–separate, though in connection, like our own soul and body. And all of our Divine life, and all the blessings we spiritually enjoy, must come and be derived from Christ, and vivify and nourish our spiritual life, as sap rising from the roots of a tree gives all the stock, branches, leaves, blossoms, and fruit their support, beauty, and sweetness!
II. How is Christ truly the Lord our Righteousness?
1. He only can restore righteousness to our fallen nature.
2. No sinner can ever be saved unless in some way by this righteousness of Jesus.
3. Christ is the Lord our righteousness in a twofold sense. He is the Cause, by His active and passive obedience to all the demands of Divine justice, and the Fountain of all our righteousness by His sacrifice on the cross. And as our Mediator in heaven, His continual intercession, and the blessed work of His Holy Spirit produce in our hearts holiness of life. This great work and doctrine may thus be illustrated. Suppose a powerful monarch goes to a prison-cell, where some favourite, who has been condemned for treason, lies expecting death. Royal mercy rises above law; royal affection remembers a friends doom. The sovereign opens the prison door and bestows on him a full pardon. This frees the offender from all just demands of the law. But the monarch does more: he takes him again into his favour; he exalts him even to higher honours than he forfeited, and he admits him to an the communion of a friend, and to all the dignities of the state, and he bestows on him a royal title to an inheritance which nothing can destroy.
4. This scriptural doctrine, that Christ is our righteousness, must be implicitly the firm reliance of faith, and of all the heart. The natural man cannot receive this great truth. Like other things of the Spirit, it must be spiritually discerned.
Remarks–
1. How Divine and comforting are the Scripture titles of Christ! This one of the Righteous Branch is most expressive and just for our Redeemer. Many kings and rulers have been unjust and unholy, but the Lord Jesus never! for all His own nature, all His moral government of the world are perfectly righteous, holy, and just, and all of His dealings among men shall shine forth as the rays of a full-orbed sun in glory!
2. How great and glorious are the blessings bestowed on Christians by the Redeemers work as the ever-living and righteous Branch of Jehovah! Take heed, then, of being in Christ for Divine life and fruitfulness. The leaves and blossoms on any fruitful branch or tree, though all various, must derive all their life and beauty from the living stock. All real Christians have all their continued spiritual life, holiness, and perfection from Jesus. And as no flower nor blossom can he without a branch, nor no ray of light without a star or sun, so no beauty nor brightness can be without Christ, the righteous Branch and Sundawn of eternal blessedness.
3. What a blissful and long day of peace and happiness shall that be for all the gathered Church of God! Gentile and Jew, all nations shall join hands in perfect amity and goodwill No more discord, no more destruction, no more death. (J. G. Angley, M. A.)
The Lord our righteousness
I. Inquire who is the person here spoken of; and whether any individual has appeared, since the days of Jeremiah, answering this description. Jeremiah, we find, flourished in the reigns of Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah. In vain shall we look either to the times of the prophets, or to the commencement of the Christian era, for any individual answering the description in the text.
1. He was to be of the stock of David: to this description Christ exactly corresponded. He was born of a virgin, of the house and lineage of David.
2. He was to be righteous. To this part of me description, also, Christ exactly corresponded. He did no sin, and in Him no guile was found.
3. He was to be a King. To this, also, the character of Jesus of Nazareth corresponded. He was born King of the Jews; He was so called by the wise men who came from afar to worship Him. When asked by Pontius Pilate if He were a King, He did not deny it; and when He was pressed, He replied in the affirmative–Thou sayest that I am a King. A King He was, but in disguise–a King, but wearing the garb of a servant.
4. It is here predicted that He should reign and prosper. Here, certainly, the history of Jesus of Nazareth does not correspond with the prediction before us. To reign and to prosper, is to have victory over all open enemies, and to see his friends in peace, and happiness, and prosperity around him. But mark the history of Jesus of Nazareth. Being in disguise, He hid Himself: He refused to be made a King when the people would have done so; and, instead of reigning and prospering, He was despised, scorned, crucified, and slain; instead of having the victory over His enemies, they had the victory over Him; and though, from the inherent dignity of His person, they could not hold Him, for He was a King, yet He left the world under a disguise, and left His foes in apparent triumph, to rejoice in the success of their rebellion.
5. He was to execute judgment and justice in the earth. Here, again, the history does not correspond with the prediction. He was, indeed, just; but He did not execute justice; He did not establish an ascendency of righteousness. On the contrary, injustice, violence, and deceit remain to this day.
6. In the reign of the King here spoken of, Judah is to be saved, and Israel is to dwell safely. Here, certainly, the history of Jesus of Nazareth does not correspond with the prediction. In His days, Judah was despised and trodden down: according to their own confession, they had no king but Caesar:–to Caesar, the Emperor of Rome, they paid tribute.
7. His name was to be called, the Lord our Righteousness. Now, what shall we say to this? Why, instead of all acknowledging Christ as the Lord our Righteousness, the bulk of professing Christians scoff at the very doctrine connected with this name! But I dwell not on this:–the speaker is a Jew, and the words must apply to Jews;–the Lord our Righteousness;–the Righteousness of the Jewish nation. Now I ask, Has the Jewish nation ever acknowledged the Messiah to be the Lord their Righteousness? Certainly not: therefore, the prophecy of Jeremiah has not been fulfilled. In examining this prophecy, we have seen that three points of the description have been fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth; that three other points of His description have not been fulfilled in Him; and that the seventh has been fulfilled in a very partial manner, and not in a peculiar application to the Jewish nation. Now, it is an acknowledged truth, by all who believe the Word of God, that Christ, who, for a season, dwelt upon earth, shall come again. So that between what He did and what He shall do, all the parts of the prophecy shall be fulfilled in Him. Now, it is very remarkable that what we should expect from this prophecy He would be, we are told from other prophecies He shall be. For we are told that He will execute judgment and justice in the earth; and that He will reign as a King in the earth.
II. Consider one or two of the important particulars which are revealed concerning this King, so prospering and reigning.
1. Concerning the reality and identity of the Kings person. The human nature of Jesus, returning to earth as He quitted it from Mount Olivet,–the nature that was degraded, persecuted when on earth,–this same human nature shall be exalted in Zion; calling His brethren after the flesh, the Jews, to rally around Him, and to acknowledge Him as Jehovah their Righteousness in that day.
2. Concerning the appearance of the King in that day. On this subject the history of the Transfiguration was, I think, intended to instruct us.
3. Concerning the manner of His administration in His kingdom: the manner, I mean, of His interference in this kingdom. It was a Theocracy under which the Jews were placed. All difficult questions were referred to God Himself; and He gave answers by the Urim and Thummim on the breast of the High Priest. He either spake to the people by Moses, or by some visible appearance. The Lord Jesus Christ will reign by a visible interference; by stretching out His arm to award and to punish. And then will be said that which is written in the Psalms: So that a man shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous; there is a God that judgeth in the earth. (H. MNeile.)
The kingdom of the Messiah
I. The person of the Messiah.
1. His human incarnation–A Branch. This term is often used by the prophets, to represent Christs assumption of our nature.
2. His personal perfection–A righteous Branch.
(1) In His essential nature as God, Jesus Christ was infinitely pure, holy, just, and good.
(2) In His human nature as man, He was perfectly righteous, and free from everything sinful and impure.
3. His sovereign character–A King shall reign. He possessed every qualification requisite for the dignity of His character. He is infinite in wisdom, righteousness, power, and goodness. He is not only a Prophet to instruct, a Priest to atone, but also a King to rule and save His people.
II. The nature of His kingdom. A King shall reign and prosper, &c.
1. A universal kingdom. His presence fills all space, and His power is unlimited.
2. A mediatorial kingdom. This refers to Christs official character, as the Mediator between God and man.
3. A spiritual kingdom. The kingdom which Christ established in the work of redemption, is designed in its personal influence to destroy sin, that grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life.
4. A celestial kingdom. Heaven is often denominated a kingdom, and is the promised inheritance of the Lords faithful people (Luk 12:32). (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
The nature and prosperity of the Messiahs reign
I. The character of Christ. A King (Num 24:17; Psa 2:6; Psa 45:1; Isa 32:1; Zec 9:9; Luk 19:38; Joh 18:37; Rev 17:14). There are three things we look for in a King.
1. Supreme power (Eph 1:21; Rom 9:5; Php 2:9; Col 1:18).
2. Legislative authority.
(1) Christ s authority to govern all arises out of His being the proprietor of all (Joh 1:10; Col 1:16).
(2) His legislative authority is still more confirmed by virtue of His redeeming acts: He has bought us with a price, and redeemed us to God by His blood.
3. Righteous administration; or the exercise of certain qualities essential to good government.
(1) In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; He knows all His subjects–is acquainted with their infinitely diversified necessities. And such is His immaculate purity, that it is impossible for Him to enact any laws that will not subserve the interests of His creatures.
(2) His justice is equal to His wisdom; justice and judgment are the habitation of His seat.
(3) He is so merciful as to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
II. The nature of His reign. A King shall reign, &c.
1. The reign of Christ is spiritual (Luk 17:20; Rom 14:17).
2. The reign of Christ is benevolent. Look at the Alexanders, or Caesars, or mighty chiefs of antiquity, marching at the head of vast armies, while every battle of these warriors is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood. How violent their operations! how cruel and sanguinary their triumphs! Oh, how unlike the means used by the Lord Jesus to subdue the world to the obedience of Himself! (Isa 42:2.)
3. The reign of Christ is equitable. It is founded on principles of justice, reason, and truth (Heb 1:8). The laws by which He governs are holy, just, and good: the obedience which He requires is not only right in itself, but essentially connected with human happiness.
4. The reign of Christ is perpetual. Earthly kingdoms have their rise, progress, perfection, declension, and ruin (Isa 9:7; Heb 1:8).
III. The prosperity with which that reign shall be attended. The word prosper is always used in a favourable sense. To prosper as a king implies–
1. To have an increase of willing subjects.
2. To have adequate provision for the supply of all their wants. Our heavenly King possesses infinite treasures of grace and glory.
3. To secure their real happiness. Christs subjects are all happy–by the indulgence of benevolent dispositions–by the conformity to righteous laws–by the practice of holy duties–by the anticipation of future felicities (Psa 72:7-8; Isa 11:4-9; Isa 52:9).
4. To subjugate or destroy His enemies (Psa 2:9; Psa 2:12; Isa 60:12). But as Christ came not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved, He is employing means to conquer its prejudice, and slay its enmity.
Observe–
1. If Christ shall reign and prosper, how great is the folly and madness of infidels, sceptics, and sinners of all descriptions, who attempt to prop the tottering throne of infidelity!
2. This subject should inspire the souls of Christs devoted subjects with joy and gladness. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Jer 23:5-6
The Lord our Righteousness.
Jehovah-Tsidkenu
After his conversion the apostle Paul must continually have been meditating on the state of Israel. Much as he loved the Gentiles, and clearly as he saw the disposition of God that now the Gentiles should be brought in, he never could forget Israel. What shall we say then? he exclaims. Look at Israel look at the Gentile nation! Israel for centuries has been striving most anxiously after one thing, to be righteous before Jehovah; they have not attained it. Why then has Israel not attained it? Because they sought it not by faith but by works (Rom 10:3). Why have the Gentiles attained it? Because by the grace of God they have been made willing to receive Jesus as their righteousness. Now look at the Jews going about to establish their own righteousness. They wish to be righteous before God. They wish to be such men as God approves–to be counted righteous and just so that He may be pleased. Therefore their idea of righteousness before God entirely depends upon their idea of God and of Gods requirements. God has not left them in ignorance about this. If men who have not the revelation of God form a conception of God according to their own ideas it will be exactly in proportion to their moral condition; therefore the heathen nations made unto themselves gods like unto themselves, as ambitious, as impatient, as self-indulgent, as impure, as changeable as they were themselves. Israel knew the Lord. I am Jehovah; I am God, and not man, spirit and not flesh; I am holy, be ye also holy. And not simply had God revealed Himself unto them, but He had given unto them also the law as a mirror in which they should see what His idea of men was. Israel had the law of God, and in the law of God they had the character of the righteous One described. And now Israel went about to establish a righteousness of their own. In this process those of them who were sincere in themselves and those of them who really sought not merely to be righteous, but to be righteous before God in order that they might have communion with God, very soon came into the knowledge of their sin, and into the most painful consciousness of their defilement, and, therefore, wishing to he righteous before God, they soon began to cry unto God out of the depth, and to know that innumerable sins had taken hold upon them, and that woe is unto them because they are undone and of unclean lips, and unto such through the knowledge of the law there came death under the law, a longing after pardon, and after the power of Gods Spirit operating on their hearts. But those were always the exceptions, the small minority, the remnant according to the election of grace. The majority of the nation lowered their standard of God, and lowered their standard of the law, and so far did this deteriorating process go on that they not merely came into the idea that they were able to fulfil the law, but they came even to the idea that they were able to do more than the law commanded; that they were able, by extra exertions and by observing precepts which God never has enjoined, to have a treasury of merits, works of supererogation. Curious inconsistency–as long as men go about establishing their own righteousness they are proud before God. But then you would think that if a man is proud, and if he has got the kind of self-consciousness so that he can stand, as it were, before God, that then he would be sure of his salvation. One of their most celebrated prophets, whom they called the law of the world, was on his death-bed, and one of his disciples asked him, Rabbi, what sayest thou now? The Rabbi said, Heaven and hell are before me, and I know not whither I am going. If I were to be summoned into the presence of an earthly king I might well be afraid, and yet his displeasure would only last a few years, and his punishment, however severe it may be, must come to an end; but I am now going into the presence of the Lord God Most High, whose wrath is everlasting, and His punishment is infinite, and I know not whether I shall be acquitted. Going about establishing a righteousness of their own, lowering the idea of God, lowering the standard of the law, proud and unbroken in spirit, and yet without any peace or assurance of the favour of God. Such a one, also, was the apostle Paul before he was converted; he went about establishing his own righteousness, and afterwards he said that he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, according to the law blameless, but now he wishes not to have his own righteousness, which is by the law. There is another righteousness of which both the law and the prophets have continually testified; which is apart from the law, which man does not work out, which is as much given to man as bread is given to a hungry person, and as water is given to a thirsty person. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. What is the sad condition of the Jews? They do not see two things: they do not know that Jesus is Jehovah, and they do not know that this is our only righteousness. Jesus our Righteousness. And what is the lamentable condition of Christians who do not know the Lord? Simply the same thing, for if they knew Jehovah-Tsidkenu then they would have the knowledge of salvation, they would put no confidence in the works of the law, they would simply rejoice in Christ Jesus. Then this Jesus is Jehovah When He was an infant He had angels already calling Him Lord, and it was quite right that the wise men of the East worshipped Him. He is Jehovah, but He is God manifest in the flesh There is in all human beings, however far they may be from God, this peculiarity: that without union with God they cannot have life. When we think of this union with God, that God should be all in all, that we should be one with God, unless we go by the Word of God we may fall into great depths of error, and into that which is very ungodly. And here is a very peculiar thing, that you find among all the Eastern nations a striving after this being absorbed in God. You find it in India, you find it in China–almost wherever you go; you find it among the Arabs and the Persians. Mystics in all nations, what do they want? They have a feeling that there is in God the only true existence, the only life and blessedness; that everything else apart from God is transitory, is imperfect, is unsatisfactory; they wish to be one with Him; they wish to be absorbed in Him. But the great error which they commit, the great evil into which they are landed is this, that they do not see that sin is sin, that it is wrong, that it is evil. They imagine that sin is necessary, something through which we have to pass, something for which we are not accountable; and thus they deafen the voice of conscience, and declare evil not to be evil, and that there can be no real difference between good and evil. But round it is the truth which God has taught us, that we are to be one with God; we are to be in such a close union with Jehovah that it may be said, We live, yet not we, but Jehovah lives in us. But how union with God? Because we believe in Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us, and in this faith in Jesus submitting to the righteousness of God there are three elements. No boasting. You can judge any religion, simply by that one point–is all the glory given to God and no glory to man? Secondly, there is no uncertainty, for we have a perfect and Divine righteousness. Thirdly, there is no compromise with sin, because, if we believe that Jesus died for us, we believe that God condemned sin in the flesh. We must depart from all unrighteousness, nay, we are crucified unto the world, and the world unto us. (A. Saphir, D. D.)
The Lord our Righteousness
If, as it seems probable, Zedekiah had already begun to reign, it is perfectly certain that he could not be the person to whom the prophet referred when he looked forward to the advent of the righteous Branch. If he wrote shortly before the commencement of his reign it would be just possible so to interpret the prophecy. In the former case the very allusion which there might have been to the name of the reigning king would show all the more plainly that it was not in him that the promise was fulfilled; in the latter case, the want of precise correspondence between the two names would only bring out into higher relief the non-correspondence of the prophecy with the fact. As a matter of fact the name of Mattaniah was changed to Zedekiah, and not to Jehovah-Tsidkenu. Neither could it be said that in his days, when the captivity was fast hastening on, and the dark shadow of Babylon must have hung like a thundercloud over the land, Judah should be saved and Israel should dwell safely. We are constrained to infer from the known historical conditions of the writing, that the prophet must have meant to depict circumstances not immediately before his eyes when he wrote. Moreover, this conclusion is forced upon us from the fact that some eight or ten years later Jeremiah repeated this promise, in a slightly altered form, when he was shut up in prison,–In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, or, this is that which men shall proclaim to her; or, as Bishop Pearson has it, He which calleth her is the Lord our Righteousness. Enforced as that promise was by the remarkable addition at the very lowest ebb of the national hope, Thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before Me to offer burnt-offerings, and to kindle meat-offerings, and to do sacrifice continually; it is inconceivable that the same prophet who had declared the seventy years captivity of the whole nation as well as the captivity of Zedekiah himself should have spoken in this way, believing that the hopes he cherished for Judah were fulfilled in Zedekiah. His words, therefore, are a standing monument of an onward-looking hope. The main point which we have to grasp firmly, is that here, if anywhere, there is a prophecy of the times of the Messiah, which is known to have been given before the Captivity, and was undeniably not fulfilled for many centuries to come after it. It is insisted, however, that the analogy of similar names in Scripture, such as Jehovah-Messiah, Jehovah-Shalom, and Jehovah-Shammah, and the like, makes it needful for us to render this name, The Lord is our Righteousness. Let us assume, then, that we are to understand it, The Lord is our Righteousness. If that, then, was His name, the name by which He was to be called, I see not how it can be applicable to Him unless He is Himself the Lord Jehovah. The proposition, The Lord is our Righteousness, is to be His name, however awkward and uncouth that may; but if men are to say to Him or of Him, if they are to call Him The Lord is our Righteousness, it is hard to escape from the conclusion that He must be the Lord. But believing, as we do most firmly, that this is the prophetic name of Christ, and of Christ alone, what is it designed to teach us?
1. It teaches us that Christ is to us the realisation of righteousness; it is no longer an unattainable conception or an abstract idea which we find it hard to grasp or to fulfil, but in Him it becomes a concrete fact on which we can lay hold, and a thing which we can appropriate and possess. He becomes first righteousness, and then our righteousness; first, the visible, incarnate and reeled exhibition of righteousness, and then something of which we can claim possession, and in which we can participate.
2. If this is the obverse presentation or positive statement of the truth, it has also its reverse or negative side. If the name whereby Christ is called is The Lord is our Righteousness, that fact is destructive to all other hopes, prospects, or sources of righteousness; it gives the lie to them, and asserts their vanity, for we can have no righteousness but what we find in the Lord. Behold in Him your righteousness; look away from and out of yourselves to Him and be righteous. The apprehension of that blessed fact will be the harbinger of peace and joy and fruition of righteousness in you. Whereas before there was nothing but continual delusive hope and abortive effort, together with painful disappointment and self-reproach, now there is the fulness and the fatness of a satisfied soul, the soundness and strength of a heart that is at peace with God, the quietness and assurance, the blessedness and calm confidence of a mind that is at rest in Christ. To know that the Lord is our Righteousness, is to have and to know that which can alone enable us to contemplate the past with equanimity or serenity; it is to have and to know that which is alone the antidote for care and anguish and remorse, that which can alone take the sting out of sin and rob even the broken law of its just terror. But we have to face the future as well as to look back upon the past, and in that future there sits the shadow, fear of man, and we know not what besides may lurk there. It may be loss, bereavement, sickness, pain, disgrace, infamy; but if the Lord is our righteousness, and if He who is our righteousness is the Lord, the very and eternal God Himself, then, come what may, we must be safe with Him (Prof. Stanley Leathes.)
The Lord our Righteousness
Man by the fall sustained an infinite loss in the matter of righteousness: the loss of a righteous nature, and then a twofold loss of legal righteousness in the sight of God. Man sinned; he was therefore no longer innocent of transgression. Man did not keep the command; he therefore was guilty of the sin omission. In that which he committed, and in that which he omitted, his original character for uprightness was completely wrecked. Jesus Christ came to undo the mischief of the fall for His people. So far as their sin concerned their breach of the command, that He has removed by His precious blood. Still it is not enough for s man to be pardoned. He of course is then in the eye of God without sin. But it was required of man that he should actually keep the command. Where, then, is the righteousness with which the pardoned man shall be completely covered, so that God can regard him as having kept the law, and reward him for so doing? The righteousness in which we must be clothed, and through which we must be accepted, and by which we are made meet to inherit eternal life, can be no other than the work of Jesus Christ. We, therefore, assert, believing that Scripture fully warrants us, that the life of Christ constitutes the righteousness in which His people are to be clothed. His death washed away their sins, His life covered them from head to foot; His death was the sacrifice to God, His life was the gift to man, by which man satisfies the demands of the law. Herein the law is honoured and the soul is accepted. You have as much to thank Christ for living as for dying, and you should be as devoutly grateful for His spotless life as for His terrible death. The text speaking of Christ, the son of David, the Branch out of the root of Jesse, styles Him, the Lord our Righteousness.
I. First, then, He is so. Jesus Christ is the Lord our Righteousness. There are but three words, Jehovah–for so it is in the original–our Righteousness. He is Jehovah, or, mark you, the whole of Gods Word is false, and there is no ground whatever for a sinners hope. He who walked in pain over the flinty acres of Palestine, was at the same time possessor of heaven and earth He who had not where to lay His head, and was despised and rejected of men, was at the same instant God over all, blessed for evermore. He who did hang upon the tree had the creation hanging upon Him. He who died on the Cross was the ever living, the everlasting One. As a man He died, as God He lives. Bow before Him, for He made you, and should not the creatures acknowledge their Creator? Providence attests His Godhead. He upholdeth all things by the word of His power. Creatures that are animate have their breath from His nostrils; inanimate creatures that are strong and mighty stand only by His strength. Who less than God could have carried your sins and mine and cast them all away? How can He be less than God, when He says, Lo I am with you always unto the end of the world? How could He be omnipresent if He were not God? How could He hear our prayers, the prayers of millions, scattered through the leagues of earth, and attend to them all, and give acceptance to all, if He were not infinite in understanding and infinite in merit? How were this if He were less than God? But the text speaks about righteousness too–Jehovah our Righteousness. And He is so. Christ in His life was so righteous, that we may say of the life, taken as a whole, that it is righteousness itself. Christ is the law incarnate. He lived out the law of God to the very full, and while you see Gods precepts written in fire on Sinais brow, you see them written in flesh in the person of Christ. No one that I know of has dared to charge Christ with unrighteousness to man, or with a want of devotedness to God. See then, it is so. The pith, however, of the title, lies in the little word our,–Jehovah our Righteousness. This is the grappling iron with which we get a hold on Him–this is the anchor which dives into the bottom of this great deep of His immaculate righteousness. This is the sacred rivet by which our souls are joined to Him. This is the blessed hand with which our soul toucheth Him, and He becometh to us all in all, Jehovah our Righteousness. You will now observe that there is a most precious doctrine unfolded in this title of our Lord and Saviour. As the merit of His blood takes away our sin, so the merit of His obedience is imputed to us for righteousness. Imputation, so far from being an exceptional case with regard to the righteousness of Christ, lies at the very bottom of the entire teaching of Scripture. The root of the fall is found in the federal relationship of Adam to his seed; thus we fell by imputation. Is it any wonder that we should rise by imputation? Deny this doctrine, and I ask you–How are men pardoned at all? Are they not pardoned because satisfaction has been offered for sin by Christ? Very well, then, but that satisfaction must be imputed to them, or else how is God just in giving to them the results of the death of another, unless that death of the other be first of all imputed to them? I must give up justification by faith if I give up imputed righteousness. True justification by faith is the surface soil, but then imputed righteousness is the granite rock which lies underneath it; and if you dig down through the great truth of a sinners being justified by faith in Christ, you must, as I believe, inevitably come to the doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ as the basis and foundation on which that simple doctrine rests. The Lord our Righteousness. The Lawgiver has Himself obeyed the law. Do you not think that His obedience will be sufficient? Jehovah has Himself become man that so He may do mans work: think you that He has done it imperfectly? You have a better righteousness than Adam had. He had a human righteousness; your garments are Divine. He had a robe complete, it is true, but the earth had woven it. You have a garment as complete, but heaven has made it for you to wear. You will remember that in Scripture, Christs righteousness is compared to fair white linen; then I am, if I wear it, without spot. It is compared to wrought gold; then I am, if I wear it, dignified and beautiful, and worthy to sit at the wedding feast of the King of kings. It is compared, in the parable of the prodigal son, to the best robe; then I wear a better robe than angels have, for they have not the best; but I, poor prodigal, once clothed in rags, companion to the nobility of the stye,–I, fresh from the husks that swine do eat, am nevertheless clothed in the best robe, and am so accepted in the Beloved. Moreover, it is also everlasting righteousness. Oh! this is, perhaps, the fairest point of it–that the robe shall never be worn out; no thread of it shall ever give way.
II. Having thus expounded and vindicated this title of our Saviour, I would now appeal to your faith. Let us call Him so. This is the name whereby He shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness. Let us call Him by this great name, which the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath named. Let us call Him–poor sinners!–even we, who are to-day smitten down with grief on account, of sin. I have no good thing of my own, sayest thou? Here is every good thing in Him. I have broken the law, sayest thou? There is His blood for thee. Believe in Him; He will wash thee. But then I have not kept the law. There is His keeping of the law for thee. Take it, sinner, take it. Believe on Him. Oh, but I dare not, saith one. Do Him the honour to dare it. Oh, but it seems impossible. Honour Him by believing the impossibility then. Oh, but how can He save such a wretch as I am? Soul! Christ is glorified in saving wretches. Only do thou trust Him, and say, He shall be my righteousness to-day. But suppose I should do it and be presumptuous? It is impossible. He bids you; He commands you. Let that be your warrant. This is the commandment, that ye believe on Jesus Christ whom He hath sent. And some of us can say it yet better than that; for we can say it not merely by faith, but by fruition. We have had the privilege of reconciliation with God; and He could not be reconciled to one that had not a perfect righteousness; we have had access with boldness to God Himself, and He would never have suffered us to have access if we had not worn our brothers garments. We have had adoption into the family, and the Spirit of adoption, and God could not have adopted into His family any but righteous ones. How should the righteous Father be God of an unrighteous family?
III. I appeal to your gratitude. Let us admire that wonderful and reigning grace which has led you and me to call Him, The Lord our Righteousness. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ the righteousness of those who believe in Him
I. Christ becomes the righteousness of those who believe in Him–as their atoning Mediator. Sprinkled with that blood which the Godhead hath enriched, the penitent sinner fears not the wrath of the destroying angel of justice. Covered with that righteousness with which the Godhead hath invested him, the true believer can stand even the searching beams of Divine holiness. Behold, then, both the way by which we are to be justified from our sins, and our encouragement to apply for mercy. In this part of the process of justification, no qualifications are required on the part of man, but a lively sense of his need of mercy, and a full reliance on the propitiation of the Lord his righteousness. But as he is to be fitted for eternal happiness by the love and service of his Maker, a rule of duty must be prescribed and imposed on him. Christ therefore becomes the righteousness of His people–
II. As their Lawgiver–imposing on them a law of evangelical holiness and perfection. The destiny of man which the scheme of redemption is designed to further and to secure, is to be eternally happy in the presence of God. For this presence, holiness is an indispensable qualification. In the justification of those who believe, therefore, Christ acts not only as Mediator, procuring their pardon, but also as Lawgiver, delineating the nature and extent, and enforcing the obligations of the Divine law. In this character, we are to acknowledge, receive, and obey Him, and He thus becomes the Lord our Righteousness.
III. As our Almighty Sanctifier who impresses on our hearts the obligations of the Divine law, and enables us to obey it. Thus is complete provision made for our release from the bondage of sin, and our being reinstated in all the graces and virtues of the Divine image. Let us then learn–
1. To ascribe our salvation to the free and unmerited grace of God.
2. But while we humbly acknowledge and adore the free grace of God in our salvation, let us remember that there are qualifications on our part. (Bp. Hobart.)
Christ, the Lord our Righteousness
So could none speak, save God. If man would condense his words, he says too little, or he says it obscurely or untruly. The characteristic of this Divine saying, is, that in the two Hebrew words it contains a summary of the whole supernatural relation of God to man under the Gospel, and of man to God. It contains the whole hidden life of the Christian: it is the substance of sacraments: the unseen spring of self-sacrificing holy action; the fountain of his inward peace; the surest contentment of his soul; the enkindling of burning zeal; the soul of devotion, the fervour of love. It matters little, as to the great outline of the prophecy, whether He, through whom this was to be wrought, is here declared to be the Lord our Righteousness or whether the Lord our Righteousness were simply a title given to designate His character, that this would be His characteristic, His watchword, the centre of His teaching, His life, His being; this the end of His toils and tears; this the passion of His heart; this He should labour to bring about, that the Almighty God should be our righteousness. In contrast to the evil shepherds, who, misleading the people, had encouraged them in their sins, and so had brought Gods judgments upon them, He was to do away Gods judgments, and outwardly to restore them to His favour; but He was also inwardly to remove the cause of that disfavour, their unrighteousness, and to he their righteousness. The change was to be, not without man, but within. It was to be an inward closeness of relation of God to man, and of man to his God. The words presupposed all the teaching of the law, orally or through ritual, as to sin. Create in me a new heart, O God, and make anew a stayed spirit within me. Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. It was the universal cry of our fallen nature; the deepest trace of that original righteousness, wherewith God endowed Adam, as soon as He created him. But, though felt more or less, weakly or mightily, disguised or clearly or corruptly, the belief that it could, that it would, be satisfied, was given, where alone it could be given, among the people to whom God revealed Himself, by those whom He sent to promise what He alone could fulfil. This union Jeremiah spoke of under those two words, the Lord our Righteousness. As unrighteous, we could not be united with Him. God s aweful holiness and mans sinfulness are incompatibles. Your sins have been abidingly severing between you and your God, was expressed in act by the whole Hebrew ritual. The truth ever lived before their eyes; it was enforced by the prophets; it was chanted in the Psalms; it was confessed in their prayers. But there was a Deliverer yet to come, a deliverance larger, wider, deeper, more inward, than any before, which should stretch out and encompass the human race, through One despised and rejected by those who were despised of all. He Himself was personally to restore our race, personally to be our righteousness. And has it not been? Is it not? This was the faith of the barbarous nations from the first, written not with pen and ink, but by the Spirit of God upon the hearts. This was the hope and strength of martyrs; this was the virtue of the continent; this was the victory of the young; this, the triumph over the worlds seductions; this, the peace with God and the full contentment of the soul, the Lord our Righteousness. In Christ Jesus, the Holy Ghost saith, we are chosen; in Christ Jesus we are called to eternal glory; in Him we have redemption; in Christ Jesus we are created, are a new creation in Christ Jesus we are alive unto God; in Christ Jesus we are accepted; in Him we are justified; in Him we are sanctified; in Him we are accepted; in Christ Jesus we are of God; in Christ, it is the will of God that we should be perfected; in Christ Jesus, those who are His, have fallen asleep; in Christ Jesus they shall be made alive. This supernatural life antedated our use of reason. Antedating, then, the use of reason, His first act, in our Christian land, is to unite the soul to Himself. As we are really sons of man by physical birth, so are we as really and as actually sons of God by spiritual birth; sons of man, by being born of man; sons of God, by being members of Him, who is the Son of God. Blessed they who so remain, in whom the hidden life in Christ unfolds with the life of sense and reason. But if this has not been so, if the soul have gone away from God into a far country, forgetting Him, squandering in pleasures of sense the gift of God, can such an one be the object of the love of God, can to such an one Jesus be the Lord our Righteousness? God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost long to communicate Themselves to the creature, which they made for Themselves. They long anew to sanctify him, anew to make him that wherein They may take pleasure; to fit him, by the renewed gift of righteousness, for Their gracious engracing Presence; to make the soul, which has been the abode and sport of devils, the dwelling-place of the Trinity. And whether He works this in those who know no more, by creating in the soul a penitent sorrow, for love of their God, that they had so offended God, or whether He teach the soul, over and above, that He gives superabundant grace through an ordinance of His own appointing, and that He has still left power with His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and turn to Him, no sooner is His work accomplished, sooner has his Saviour absolved him through His own words, pronounced at His command by his creature s lips, than the dark catalogue of sins is blotted out by the precious blood, the soul is again transfigured with light; it is not forgiven only, it is arrayed anew with the righteousness of Christ. Yet there is a higher closer union still, on which Jesus Himself dwelt with greater fulness and greater complacency of love towards us; which, in different words, He presented again and again; which, when contradicted or misapprehended, He dwelt on the more; which He seems in His love to have been loath to cease to speak of, that mystery whereby He is, above all, our righteousness, because He, who is righteousness itself, comes to dwell in us, that we may dwell in Him; to be one with us, that we may be one with Him. In other sacraments He gives us grace; in this, Himself. By no less condescension could He satisfy His love towards us. They are His own words, he that eateth Me. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
Christ is our Righteousness
I. What is meant by His being our righteousness?
1. That it is in Him alone that God the Father is well pleased (Mat 3:17; Mat 17:5). Not only with whom, but in whom, I am well pleased, atoned, pacified, satisfied. He is Gods all in all, and why then should He not be ours?
2. That it is by and through Him alone that we are justified; that is, acquitted from guilt, and accepted into favour, which are the ingredients of justification.
3. It is through His merit and mediation alone that our performances are made acceptable (1Pe 2:5),
4. It is by Him alone that we have right and title to the heavenly inheritance.
II. Call Jesus Christ by this sweet name, the Lord our Righteousness; each one with application to himself—as David. And would you think an Old Testament saint, that lived under that dark dispensation, should have such clearness in this matter? A shame to us that are not clear in it, that live under Gospel light (Psa 4:1).
1. The misery they are in who never yet called Jesus Christ by this name, and the blessed and happy condition they are in that have done so.
(1) Till we have called Jesus Christ the Lord our Righteousness, that is, heartily owned Him as such, our condition is a shameful, naked condition, and that is a wretched, miserable condition (Rev 3:17), because, till clothed with Christs righteousness, our shame appears in the sight of God.
(2) Till we have called Jesus Christ the Lord our Righteousness, ours is a dismal, dark condition. When we call the Lord our Righteousness, then He rises upon our souls as a Sun of Righteousness, and that which follows is the light of comfort, and peace, and joy; such joy as none knows but they that feel it. It is hidden manna (Psa 85:10).
(3) Till we have called Jesus Christ the Lord our Righteousness, we are in a perilous, perishing condition. Christs righteousness is to us as Noahs ark.
2. The difficulty, nay, the impossibility, of being pardoned and justified, accepted and saved, in any other way, and the facility and easiness of obtaining it in this way.
(1) It is impossible we should be accepted of God without a righteousness, one or other, because He is a righteousness God; that is, He is of pure eyes, and, therefore, cannot endure to look upon iniquity (Psa 5:4; Psa 11:7).
(2) It is impossible that either our own righteousness, or the righteousness of any of our fellow-creatures, one or other, in heaven or earth, should bear us out and bring us off before God. On the other hand, how easy is it to obtain peace, and pardon, and salvation, by the merit and righteousness of the Lord Jesus, by calling Him by this name. Easy, did I say? mistake me not. I mean easy to grace, easy where God is pleased to give a willing mind, as knowledge is easy to him that understandeth (Pro 14:6; Mat 11:28-30; 1Jn 5:3). Easy; that is, it is a ready way to justification and salvation, whereas seeking it by our own righteousness is a round-about way. We can never while we live know in any other way that one sin is pardoned, because perseverance to the end is required. Oh, then, be persuaded; and you that have called Him by this name, call Him so still.
There are four special times and seasons when this should be done.
1. When we have done amiss, and are under guilt, and wrath threatens. And when is it not that it is so?
2. When we have well done, after some good work, and pride of heart rises, and we begin to expect from God as if we were something. No, Jesus Christ is the Lord my Righteousness. I am an unprofitable servant when I have done all
3. When we ask anything of God (Joh 14:23).
4. When we come to look death and judgment in the face, which will be shortly; when sick and dying. Oh, then, for Christ, and His righteousness–it will be the cordial of cordials. (Philip Henry.)
The Lord our Righteousness
I. When the people of Christ address Him by this name, it implies a contrite acknowledgment that they have no righteousness of their own,–that they are destitute of all personal righteousness in which to appear before a holy God.
II. When the people of Christ give this name to Him, they declare their solemn persuasion that they require a righteousness, though they have none of their own, in which to appear before the Holy One of Israel; they not only confess their entire destitution, but acknowledge their indispensable need, of a true and perfect righteousness.
III. When the people of Christ address Him by this name, they express and profess their faith, that Messiah being in one person God and man, has brought in a righteousness in their behalf, which is by God accepted for them, and imputed unto them, for their justification.
IV. When the people of Christ call Him by this name, they are seen in the act of embracing, appropriating, and rejoicing in him, as the Lord their Righteousness. The Lord our Righteousness. It is the language of joy and triumph, as well as of reliance and faith. It is not tile spirit only of the drowning man laying hold of the plank, but of the safe and happy, rich and joyful man, realising his safety, and rejoicing in his treasures. My Beloved is mine, and I am His. Conclusion–
1. See here how wondrous a provision the Gospel has made for at once humbling the sinner and exalting him,–laying him low in his own eyes, and yet gloriously ennobling him.
2. See what a ground of security, of peace, and of everlasting blessedness, the believer in Christ enjoys.
3. Use the subject in the way of self-inquiry, and of direction, according to the result of it. (C. J. Brown, D. D.)
Jehovah-Tsidkenu
I. A righteousness that is absolutely perfect.
1. It has passed through every test (Joh 14:30; Joh 8:46; Heb 4:15; Heb 7:26; 1Pe 2:22).
2. It has fulfilled every requirement (Php 2:8; Mat 3:15; Mat 5:17).
3. It has satisfied the highest claims (Mat 3:17; Rom 4:25; Php 2:9).
II. A righteousness that is identified with Christ Himself.
1. Christ–Gods gift of righteousness (Rom 5:17).
2. Christ for us, in the presence of God (Heb 9:24).
3. He is made unto us righteousness (1Co 1:30).
4. The Lord our Righteousness (Jer 23:6; Isa 40:1-31; Isa 42:1-25; 1Jn 2:1).
III. A righteousness that is put to our account.
1. Not the reward of our obedience (Tit 3:5; Eph 2:8-9; Gal 2:16).
2. Not something we have to wait for (Rom 3:22; Rom 10:4).
3. But a righteousness that is ours now by faith (Rom 5:1; Rom 3:28; Php 3:9).
4. Christ for us, our righteousness, to be distinguished but not separated from Christ in us, our sanctification (1Co 1:30). (E. H. Hopkins.)
The Lord our Righteousness
In journeying through a mountain region, we find ourselves, at times, on the top of a gentle hill which will give us a delightful view of the picturesque scenery of the landscape that immediately surrounds us. But, now and then, we may reach the summit of some towering mountain. That lifts us far above all other points of view. As we stand there and gaze, we can look down on hills, and plains, and valleys, and take in the geography of all the surrounding country. In the mountain range of Scripture truth, we reach such an elevated summit in our text. The righteousness here spoken of may be looked at from five different points of view.
I. Its author. We see from the connection in which our text is found, that the person here called Jehovah our Righteousness, is the same as the righteous Branch, the prosperous King, promised to be raised up unto David. This proves that the Jehovah of our text is Jehovah-Jesus. Isaiah (Isa 11:1), in speaking of Him, says, There shall come forth a rod, &c. Ezekiel (Eze 34:29) calls Him the Plant of renown Zechariah (Zec 6:12-13), speaking of Him, says, Behold the man whose name is the Branch, &c. When the angel Gabriel foretold His birth, he applied this very prophecy to Him, saying, The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever. And then, to complete the testimony of Scripture on this point, and prove to a demonstration that the Jehovah of our text is Jesus, it is only necessary to turn to a single passage in the New Testament (1Co 1:13).
II. Its foundation. It is spoken of in the New Testament as the righteousness of Christ. And the foundation on which it rests–that of which it is made up–is the active and passive obedience of our Lord and Saviour. It embraces all that He did, to honour Gods law, when He obeyed its every precept to the uttermost, in thought and feeling, in purpose, word, and action; and all that He suffered, when the tremendous penalties of Gods broken law were visited upon Him. The righteousness of Christ means simply the benefit of all that He did and suffered. This benefit, or righteousness, belongs to His people. It is made over to them. It is reckoned as theirs.
III. Its nature. No miser ever felt half the joy in counting over his hoarded gold, and no monarch ever experienced half the rapture in gazing admiringly on the magnificence of the crown jewelry he inherits, than the intelligent- Christian experiences in dwelling on the nature of that all-perfect righteousness that Jesus, his glorious Saviour, has wrought out for him.
1. It is a gracious righteousness. It was of Gods good pleasure alone, that ever a plan for working out such a righteousness was devised. It is grace alone which makes men feel their need of this righteousness, inclines them to seek it, and makes them willing to cast sin and self, and everything else away, and to rest on this righteousness, on this only, on this now, and on this for ever, as the ground of their acceptance with God.
2. It is a perfect righteousness. Gods perfect law was the standard by which this righteousness was to be measured; and it came fully up to that standard. It was the scrutiny of Gods holy and penetrating eye to which this righteousness was subjected. He weighed it in the balances of the heavenly sanctuary, and declared Himself well pleased with it. It is because of His connection with this righteousness that God the Father loves His Son with a love that is unspeakable. This was what the Psalmist meant (Psa 45:7). And it is because Christs people share in this righteousness that God cherishes towards them the same affection that He entertains towards His only-begotten Son. Nothing less than this will meet our wants. A robe I must have, says an old writer, of a whole piece; broad as the law, spotless as the light, and richer than ever an angel wore; and such a robe I have in the righteousness of Christ. It is a perfect righteousness.
3. It is an uniform righteousness. Where the sun shines at noonday, I have the benefit of his shining, as fully as though there were none around me to share his beams, and he shone for me alone. Yet each of my neighbours has, or may have, the same benefit of his beams that I have. And so it is with the righteousness of Christ. The dying thief who turned in penitence and faith, and was accepted in the last hour, had just the same title to enter heaven that the apostle Paul had, or Peter, or John, or Isaiah, or Elijah, or David, or Moses, or Abraham, or Enoch.
4. It is an unchanging righteousness. If the whole world, with its contents, were given at once to you or me, in fee-simple ownership, of course it would be impossible to add to our worldly possessions. There might be much that was new for us to discover; but there could be nothing new for us to own. We might proceed to lay bare the rich mines in our inheritance, and to search out their hid treasures. But this would only be adding to the knowledge of our possessions; it would not be enlarging them. And so when Christ gives Himself and His righteousness to His people, He gives them a world of spiritual treasures, which it will take all eternity for them fully to explore and find out. But all this is given to them from the start. The soul once justified is justified fully. The righteousness which secures justification will remain without changing what it was at first.
5. It is a glorious righteousness. We see this in the peculiar position which the ransomed people of Christ will occupy among the creatures of God, in possessing this righteousness. They will stand on higher ground in the scale of being than even angels and archangels can ever reach. We have no reason to suppose that there is another tribe or race of creatures in all the boundless universe who will rise to a point of elevation like this. This is what is meant when we are told that Christs ransomed ones are to be a peculiar treasure unto Him. They are to be to the praise of the glory of His grace, as none other of His creatures shall be. Their peculiar, distinguishing privilege will be that Jehovah-Jesus is their righteousness.
IV. Its importance.
1. It is not possible that we can have the comfort of being Christians, unless we have a clear knowledge of this great truth. Suppose that, in a week from to-morrow, you have a note of a large amount to take up, and you have nothing with which to meet it. Of course, under such circumstances, you must feel very uncomfortable. And suppose that, under these circumstances, a friend should deposit, in your name, at the bank a sum of money more than sufficient to meet all your indebtedness. The fact that the money was there would put you in a position of safety. But unless you have a clear knowledge and a full assurance of this fact, you cannot be in a position of comfort in reference to it. Now, in our natural condition as sinners, we are all overwhelmingly in debt to God. We are liable at any moment to be called to a settlement, and we have nothing to say. But when we are led to repent of our sins, and believe in Jesus as our Saviour, His infinite and all-perfect righteousness is entered in the bank of heaven in our name, and to our account. It is reckoned as belonging unto us. If we are able to understand this truth, and grasp it, in the exercise of a firm faith, we shall have access to the most full and flowing fountain of comfort which the Gospel affords.
2. Our confidence for the future must depend entirely on our knowledge of this doctrine, and our belief in it. It is only by sharing in the righteousness of Christ that any child of Adam ever has entered heaven, or ever will. And the robes which the ransomed wear who entered that blessed abode are robes that have been washed, and made white in the blood of the Lamb.
V. Its possession. It is faith in Christ, alone, which can make this righteousness ours. Show me one, therefore, who is exercising simple faith in Christ as his Saviour, and I will show you one who has a gracious, covenant, inalienable right to say, This little word our in the text takes me in. I belong to the company here spoken of. Jehovah-Jesus is my Righteousness. (R. Newton, D. D.)
Jehovah our Righteousness
In that day, when we all shall stand before God, there will be a great multitude whom no man can number, perfectly spotless even in His searching sight. He who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, will look on them without offence. Nay, more than this: He will delight in them. These very men came from the world where we live–out of sin and imperfection–out of disease and decay–out of doubts and fears–out of murmurings and backslidings, and a thousand infirmities and errors. And whence came this change? Where nothing approaches that is not perfectly holy, how entered this uncounted multitude of sinners? First, I think we shall be able to make it manifest that such a change cannot come from a mans self. We all can do much for ourselves in the way of self-government. But will any one be bold enough to say that self-government will make a man perfectly holy in Gods sight? Everything human is imperfect; and no imperfect thing will suit our present purpose. We must have a perfect principle of righteousness, a perfect fount of holiness, something into the image of which the saints may be changed, each in his measure and degree, but all without spot or flaw of any kind. I answer that I cannot believe death to bring with it any such radical and total change. On what is the change at death dependent, in the case of Gods saints? Why, entirely on the reality, and on the amount of progress, of that other change of which we are speaking. According as they are holy here below, so will that change be glorious. Again, what sort of a change is it that death brings about? Not a change of heart–not a change of desires, affections, principles–but merely, great as it is, a change of circumstances. The righteousness of the saints remains after death what it was before, with this difference, that every circumstance which before hindered its development will then be removed, and all will be replaced by circumstances the most favourable possible. Sin and imperfection will have been left behind in the grave; perfection and spotlessness put on in the resurrection. But the spiritual life goes on throughout, before and after death, one and the same in principle, in nature, in acceptability with God. Mankind is a tree tainted at the root. It is not that there are not fair branches–goodly leaves–bright blossoms–vitality and sap in abundance:–but that a taint lies at the root and infects all, so that it brings forth no fruit fit for the Masters use. What power can heal this tree? Manifestly, no power from without. All the suns, showers, and dews of heaven will never eradicate that taint from its root. The only conceivable way would be, if by some wonderful process its vital sap could be renewed; if some better and healthier influence could enter into its very root and core, and permeate all its branches with wholesome and fruit-bearing vigour. Such was the state of our humanity. Our race laboured under two disabilities before God: guilt, and powerlessness for good. He that created first, must create anew. By the same power, which made the first man a living soul, must the second Adam become a life-giving spirit. And all this within the limits of our race,–that the God whom man had offended, man might satisfy; that as by the disobedience of one man all were made sinners, so by the obedience of one man might all he made righteous. And this mighty thing was undertaken and achieved by the eternal Son of God Himself. He became man: not an individual human person, bounded by His own responsibilities, accountable to God for Himself and Himself only, which would have done us no good, whatever were the result of His Incarnation: but He took our nature upon Him–our nature entire: as entire as it was in Adam: He entered into its very root and core, and became its second Head. Now mark–He did not take that nature in its sinful development, as it then was, and now is, in each member of the human family; this would have been against His very essence and attributes as God, and was unnecessary for His work, nay, would have nullified that work: but He did take it subject to all the consequences of the state in which He found it–to temptation,–to infirmity,–to bodily appetites,–to decay,–to death. In our nature, He wrought out a perfect righteousness: and He presented Himself before the Father at the end of His course on earth, as the holy and righteous Head of our race, claiming of right, and by the terms of the everlasting covenant, that gift of the Holy Spirit, due by His merits, and become possible by His perfect human righteousness now united to the Godhead. So, then, the Lord Jesus becomes the Justifier of our race,–i.e., our clearer from guilt: and the Sanctifier of our race,–i.e., the giver of the Holy Spirit from the Father, by whom we become holy and changed into the image of God. Now, let us contemplate the effect on those who believe. Entering into Christs finished work, they know Him as Jehovah their Righteousness. In themselves, they are as others. They carry about with them the remnants of a body of sin, and are in conflict with it as long as they are here below. But sin has no dominion over them, nor shall it condemn them in that day. They are accepted in the Beloved. Christs righteousness is their righteousness, because they are living members of Him the righteous Head, and are regarded by the Father as in Him with whom He is well pleased. Do you call Christ, Jehovah your Righteousness? What, then, is your estimate of your own duties, and your performance of them? (Dean Alford.)
The Lord our righteousness
I. The Lord is our Righteousness, because He is our pardon. We have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Our amendment–our often too partial, superficial amendment–is not our pardon; for how can amendment cancel the past? Neither is our repentance our pardon; it neither is nor can be the meritorious cause for which God pardons. In the words of one of our greatest saints: Our repentance needs to be repented of, our tears want washing, and the very washing of our tears needs still to be washed over again in the blood of our Redeemer.
II. He is the Lord our Righteousness in the sense of our acceptance with God. It is solely through His merits that we are first received, and are afterwards continued in the favour of God. Just as His righteousness is the meritorious cause of the remission of those sins which we repent of, so His righteousness is the meritorious cause of the acceptance of our service, notwithstanding its imperfections.
III. In ordaining His Son to be the Lord our Righteousness, God has also ordained in His wisdom that He should be the source of righteousness in us. He, our great Head, our second Adam, is the Lord, our renewal in righteousness.
1. We partake of an evil nature, because we have naturally transmitted to us Adams weak and sinful nature, and those who are savingly in Christ have had, and yet have, supernaturally transmitted to them Christs nature, as the seed in them of spiritual and eternal life.
2. He is the Lord our Righteousness, inasmuch as He is the Lord our strength to serve God and subdue Satan.
IV. In what respect Christ is not, and never can be, our righteousness. He never can be our righteousness, so as to supersede the necessity, in any one particular, of our own personal holiness and righteousness. Righteousness is the order, the harmony, of Gods intelligent creation, just as sin is its disorder, its confusion. The righteous Lord loveth righteousness, because He loves order, He loves harmony, He loves to see His creatures truly and permanently happy, which they only can be so long as they understand and fulfil the conditions of the particular place in His creation which He, in His infinite wisdom and goodness, has assigned to them. The love of God is righteousness. It is our inmost heart and affections being disposed towards God, as they should be when we consider who God is, and what He has done for us, and what claims His goodness has on us as spiritual beings redeemed by His Sons blood. Reverence to God is another branch of righteousness. It is our souls knowing and realising their place in the presence of so great and terrible a God. Obedience to rulers is righteousness; it is acting in accordance with the requirements of the place in which God has set us in human society. Obedience to parents, honouring and reverencing our parents, loving our brothers and sisters, is righteousness; it is realising the duties of our condition as members of families and households. Feeling for, assisting, judiciously and generously relieving the poor, is righteousness; it is fulfilling our position in a world left by God full of inequalities of estate and condition; which God has left full of these inequalities, in order that those servants of His to whom He has lent some superfluities, may grow in the grace of Christian charity by lessening the misery they see around them. Bearing distress with patience is another branch of righteousness; it is our hearts not revolting under, but submitting to, the dispensation of a God who always orders all things for the very best. (M. F. Sadler, M. A.)
The Lord our Righteous
I. To whom does this passage refer? It is vain to inquire whether the reference here be to the Jews literally, or to Christians; for the thing comes to the very same result.
II. His personal title. He shall be called the Lord our Righteousness. The word is Jehovah. Hence the amazing importance of the preceding inquiry; for whoever the person, intended may be, here is a name applied to Him which is above every name.
1. The language is strong; but His perfections allow it. His omniscience allows it. Peter said to Him, Thou knowest all things; and He said, The Churches shell know that I am He who searcheth the reins and the heart. His omnipresence allows it. Where two or three are gathered together, &c. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. His unchangeableness allows it. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
2. The language is strong; but His operations justify it. By Him were all things created, &c. Without Him was not anything made that was made.
3. The language is strong; but it accords with the worship demanded of Him and received by Him.
4. The language is strong, but the occasion requires it. His greatness must he carried into every of His work as a Saviour.
III. His relative character, or what He is to us. The Lord our Righteousness. The former would have filled us with terror; but this softens down the effulgency; this throws a rainbow around His head, and tells us we need not be afraid of a deluge. How is He, then, our Righteousness? We answer, generally, He is so in two ways: by His making us righteous by a change in our state, and by a change in our nature; for the latter is as really derived from Him as the former.
IV. The knowledge of this. For names are designed to distinguish and to make their owners known. Persons, more than things, are always called by their proper names.
1. This is considered His greatest work and honour. When a man takes a name from any of his actions, you may be assured that he will do it from the most peculiar, the most eminent, the most glorious of them.
2. It means that He is to be approached under this character. This is always to be the great subject of the Christian ministry.
3. That all His people would own Him as such. (W. Jay.)
The Lord our Righteousness
I. The law has shut us all up under sin.
1. This law having been given, and being expressive of Gods nature and holiness, He must require that it be perfectly obeyed. He can allow of no deviation from it, no coming short in any one jot or tittle. A lawgiver conniving at the breach of his own laws, though in the smallest particular, would be to make them despicable.
2. Who can declare, that never in thought, word, or deed, he has come short of what he owed to God and his neighbour? Who can say, I am clean, I am pure from sin? Yet the slightest imperfection, though but in thought, exposes us to the curse of Gods righteous law.
3. But some perhaps will say, I have not, it is true, done all I should have done; but I have done my best. The law replies, Tell me not of your best; have you done all? if not, the curse is upon you. But I have repented of what has been amiss. Tell me not of your repentance: you have transgressed; the curse is upon you. But I will do better. Tell me not of doing better: you must do all. Could you render full obedience for the-time to come, the past is still against you. That debt is unpaid: you are under condemnation.
II. How, then, shall man escape? He has transgressed, and he must die, unless he can find one to answer the utmost rigour of its demands, to bear the fiercest vengeance of its curse. But no creature can do this. What hope, then, unless God Himself should find a substitute? What hope, unless God Himself should obey the law which He had given, and suffer in our stead? But is this probable? nay, is it possible? Yes. God Himself has done it. Jehovah has become our Righteousness. God has given His only-begotten Son–In Christ, and in Him only, have we righteousness and strength.
III. Apply these truths.
1. Has the law wrought in us its convincing humbling work? Have we seen ourselves lost?
2. Have we, under a deep sense of our own undone condition, betaken ourselves to Christ for help? Have we, without reserve, fixed our hope of salvation upon Him? (E. Blencowe, M.A.)
The Lord our Righteousness
I. An announcement of an important truth.
1. The Lord is our Righteousness inasmuch as the purpose and plan of justifying sinners originated with Him.
2. Inasmuch as He Himself has alone procured righteousness for us.
3. Inasmuch as it is through His grace and by his free donation that we receive righteousness.
II. An utterance of personal belief and confidence. The language of faith, hope, joy, gratitude.
III. A directory to the spiritual inquirer. Anxious sinners wish to know the way of acceptance with God. The text is a brief but satisfactory answer. (W. L. Alexander, D. D.)
Christs supreme name
I. Exhibit the delightful character under which Christ is here presented.
1. His essential dignity.
2. His mediatorial office.
3. The spiritual relation in which He stands to His people.
II. Specify some considerations which put an emphasis and value upon redemption, and heighten our sense of its importance.
1. The work of redemption has ennobled our nature and shed a lustre over the annals of our world.
2. It eclipses and throws into the shade the greatest of the Divine works.
3. It enhances the value of temporal blessings following in its train.
4. It forms a permanent bond of union among subjects of grace.
5. Judge of the grandeur of the work by the doom denounced against those who despise and reject it. (S. Thodey.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. I will raise unto David a righteous Branch] As there has been no age, from the Babylonish captivity to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, in which such a state of prosperity existed, and no king or governor who could answer at all to the character here given, the passage has been understood to refer to our blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, who was a branch out of the stem of Jesse; a righteous king; by the power of his Spirit and influence of his religion reigning, prospering, and executing judgment and justice in the earth.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Though some interpreters think that Zorobabel may be here intended, who was descended from David, and ruled the people when they came out of Babylon, yet even the Jewish doctors themselves, as well as the Christian interpreters, understand this as a prophecy and promise of the Messiah; the prophecies and promises of whom are usually ushered in with this particle
behold to stir up peoples attention; and who also was the Son of David, and who is called the Branch, Isa 4:2; 53:2; Zec 3:8; Isa 11:1, where the reason is also given, he being there called a Rod out of the stem of Jesse, a Branch out of his root; besides that, the application to him of the name King, ordinarily applied to Christ, never given to Zerobabel, and the term righteous, make it evident. Jer 33:15, he is called a Branch of righteousness, which is the same with the righteous Branch here mentioned. He is called the
righteous Branch, not only because himself was righteous, therefore called the righteous One, Act 3:14; 13:35, but because he maketh his people righteous, Isa 53:11; 60:21. Jesus Christ, answering the type of Melchisedec the king of Salem, and who is the King of kings, 1Ti 6:15, shall reign spiritually, and shall not be like Jeconiah, of whom God said he should not prosper; but he shall prosper, and shall execute justice and judgment, protecting the innocent, and defending his people throughout the world, judging the prince of the world, and by his Spirit governing his people. So as the prophet relieveth the people of God, under their oppressions by these latter kings of Judah, with the promise of the kingdom of Christ, a usual argument made use of by the prophets to comfort the people of God in those days against any evils come or coming upon them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. As Messianic prophecyextended over many years in which many political changes took placein harmony with these, it displayed its riches by a variety moreeffective than if it had been manifested all at once. As the moralcondition of the Jews required in each instance, so Messiah wasexhibited in a corresponding phase, thus becoming more and more thesoul of the nation’s life: so that He is represented as theantitypical Israel (Isa 49:3).
unto DavidHENGSTENBERGobserves that Isaiah dwells more on His prophetical andpriestly office, which had already been partly set forth(Deu 18:18; Psa 110:4).Other prophets dwell more on His kingly office. Therefore hereHe is associated with “David” the king: but in Isa11:1 with the then poor and unknown “Jesse.”
righteous Branch“theBranch of righteousness” (Jer33:15); “The Branch” simply (Zec 3:8;Zec 6:12); “The Branch ofthe Lord” (Isa 4:2).
prosperthe very termapplied to Messiah’s undertaking (Isa52:13, Margin; Isa53:10). Righteousness or justice is thecharacteristic of Messiah elsewhere, too, in connection with oursalvation or justification (Isa 53:11;Dan 9:24; Zec 9:9).So in the New Testament He is not merely “righteous”Himself, but “righteousness to us” (1Co1:30), so that we become “the righteousness of God in Him”(Rom 10:3; Rom 10:4;2Co 5:19-21; Phi 3:9).
execute judgment and justicein the earth (Psa 72:2;Isa 9:7; Isa 32:1;Isa 32:18). Not merely aspiritual reign in the sense in which He is “our righteousness,”but a righteous reign “in the earth” (Jer 3:17;Jer 3:18). In some passages He issaid to come to judge, in others to reign. In Mt25:34, He is called “the King.” Ps9:7 unites them. Compare Dan 7:22;Dan 7:26; Dan 7:27.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,…. Or, “are coming” d; and will soon be here, a few days, months, and years more; so it was usual with the prophets to represent the coming of Christ as near at hand, to comfort the saints, and keep up their faith and expectation of him, and especially the latter prophets; see Hag 2:6 Mal 3:1; as also to usher in their prophecies of this sort with a behold, as a note of admiration, attention, and asseveration; see Isa 7:14;
that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch; the Messiah; so it is explained by the Targum, which calls him the Messiah of the righteous; and by Kimchi and Ben Melech; and by the ancient Jews e also; who is frequently by the prophets spoken of as a branch, Isa 4:2 Zec 3:8; which respects his incarnation, his springing up and appearance in the earth, and the meanness and weakness of it; and here, his descent from the family of David, when that was in a low and mean condition, to be his successor in his throne and kingdom, not in a temporal, but in a spiritual sense; and is a branch and plant not of man’s raising, but of the Lord’s, his human nature being formed without the help of man; and is that tabernacle which God pitched, and not man; and is therefore elsewhere called the Branch of the Lord, and said to be brought forth by him, Isa 4:2; the epithet of “righteous” is given him, because righteous in himself, and the author of righteousness to others; a branch that brings forth and bears the fruits of righteousness, from whence all those that are ingrafted in him come to have righteousness;
and a King shall reign and prosper; the King Messiah, the same with David’s righteous Branch, his son and offspring; who was appointed by God the Father “King” over Zion, the church, from all eternity; was always promised and spoken of as a King, and came as such, though his kingdom was not with observation, it being not of this world; and when he ascended to heaven, he was declared Lord and Christ; and now “reigns” on the same throne with his Father, and will till all enemies are put under his footstool: and as he prospered in his priestly office, by obtaining the redemption and salvation of his people, which is the “pleasure of the Lord” that was to “prosper in his hand”, Isa 53:10; so likewise in his kingly and prophetic offices, by going forth in his Gospel conquering and to conquer; riding forth therein prosperously, and subduing his enemies, and causing his ministers to triumph in him: or, “shall deal prudently” f, as the word is rendered in Isa 52:13;
[See comments on Isa 52:13];
and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth: in his church, and among his people, by governing them with righteous laws, and by protecting and defending them from their enemies; for “all judgment [is] committed to the Son”; who will judge one day the whole world in righteousness; see Joh 5:22.
d “dies sunt venientes”, Montanus, Schmidt. e Bemidbar Rabba, parash. 18. fol. 223. 2. f “et prudenter aget”, Calvin, Tigurine version; “aget intelligenter”, Montanus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Prophet confirms what he had before said of the renewal of the Church; for it would not have been in itself sufficiently strong to say “I have promised pastors who shall faithfully perform their duty,” except the only true Pastor had been set before them, on whom God’s covenant was founded, and from whom was to be expected the accomplishment of the promises which were hoped for. And it was usual with all the prophets, whenever they gave the people the hope of salvation, to bring forward the coming of the Messiah, for in him have God’s promises always been, yea, and amen. (2Co 1:20.) This, indeed, appears now, under the Gospel, more clear than formerly; but the faith of the Fathers could not have been complete except they directed their thoughts to the Messiah. As, then, neither the love of God could have been made certain to the Fathers, nor the testimony of his kindness and paternal favor be confirmed without Christ, this is the reason why the prophets were wont to set Christ before their eyes whenever they sought to inspire the miserable with a good hope, who otherwise must have been overwhelmed with sorrow and driven into despair.
What, therefore, so often occurs in the prophets is deserving of special notice, so that we may know that God’s promises will become ineffectual to us, or be suspended, or even vanish away, except we raise all our thoughts to Christ, and seek in him what would not be otherwise certain and sure to us.
According to this principle the Prophet now says, that the days would come in which God would raise up to David a righteous branch He had spoken generally of pastors; but the Jews might have still been in doubt, and hesitated to believe that any such thing could be hoped for; hence God calls here their attention to the Messiah; as though he had said, that no hope of salvation could be entertained except through the Mediator who had been promised to them, and that therefore they were not sufficiently wise except they turned their minds to him. Moreover, as the accomplishment of salvation was to be expected through the Mediator, God shews that the promise, that he would give them pastors, ought not to be doubted. Hence it appears that I rightly stated at the beginning, that the former doctrine is confirmed by this passage in which God promises the coming of the Mediator. And the demonstrative particle, behold, as we have elsewhere seen, is intended to shew certainty; and it was necessary for the Jews to be thus confirmed, because the time had not as yet arrived, and we know that their faith must have been grievously shaken by so many and so long trials, had they not some support. God, then, seems to point out the event as by the finger, though it was as yet very remote. He does not intimate a short time, but he thus speaks for the sake of making the thing certain, so that they might not faint through a long expectation. Come, then, he says, shall the days in which he will raise up to David a righteous branch
Though the preposition ל, lamed, is often redundant, yet in this place it seems to me that God has a reference to the covenant which he had made with David. And the Prophet did this designedly, because the Jews were unworthy of being at all regarded by God; but he here promises that he would be faithful to that covenant which he had once made with David, because David himself was also faithful and embraced with true faith the promise made to him. God then, as though he would have nothing to do with that perverse and irreclaimable people, but with his servant David, says, “I will raise up to David a righteous branch;” as though he had said, “Though ye were even a hundred times unworthy of having a Deliverer, yet the memory of David shall ever remain complete with me, as he was perfect and faithful in keeping my covenant.” Now, it cannot be doubted but that the Prophet speaks here of Christ.
The Jews, in order to obscure this prophecy, will have this to be applied to all the descendants of David; and thus they imagine an earthly kingdom, such as it was under Solomon and others. But such a thing cannot certainly be gathered from the words of the Prophet; for he does not speak here of many kings, but of one only. The word “branch,” I allow, may be taken in a collective sense; but what is afterwards said? A king shall reign They may also pervert this, for the word “king” is often taken for successors in a kingdom. This is indeed true; but we ought to consider the whole context. It is said, in his days Hence it appears evident that some particular king is intended, and that the words ought not to be applied to many. And the last clause is a further confirmation, This shall be his name, by which they shall call him, Jehovah our righteousness Here also the Jews pervert the words, for they make God the nominative case to the verb, as though the words were, “Jehovah shall call him our righteousness; ” but this is contrary to all reason, for all must see that it is a forced and strained version. Thus these miserable men betray their own perverseness; for they pervert, without any shame, all the testimonies in favor of Christ; and they think it enough to elude whatever presses hard on them.
We must now, then, understand that this passage cannot be explained of any but of Christ only. The design of the Holy Spirit we have already explained; God had from the beginning introduced this pledge whenever he intended to confirm faith in his promises; for without Christ God cannot be a Father and a Savior to men; nor could he have been reconciled to the Jews, because they had departed from him. How, indeed, could they have been received into favor without expiation? and how could they have hoped that God would become a Father to them, except they were reconciled to him? Hence without Christ they could not rely on the promises of salvation. Rightly, then, have I said, that this passage ought to be confined to the person of Christ.
And we know of a certainty that he alone was a righteous branch; for though Hezekiah and Josiah were lawful successors, yet when we think of others, we must say, that they were monsters. Doubtless, with the exception of three or four, they were all spurious and covenant-breakers; yea, I say, spurious, for they had nothing in common with David, whom they ought to have taken as an example of piety. Since, then, they were wholly unlike their father David, they could not have been called righteous branches. They were, indeed, perfidious and apostates, for they had departed from God and his law. We hence see that there is here an implied contrast between Christ and all those spurious children who yet had descended from David, though wholly unworthy of such an honor on account of their impiety. Therefore as these kings had roused God’s wrath against the people, and had been the cause of their exile, the Prophet says now, that there would be at length a righteous branch; (78) that is, that though those did all they could to subvert God’s covenant by their wicked deeds, there would come at length the true and the only Son, who is elsewhere called the first-born in the whole world, (Psa 89:27,) and that he would be a righteous branch.
And this ought to be carefully noticed; for neither Hezekiah nor Josiah, nor any like them, when viewed in themselves, were worthy of this sacred distinction,
“
I will make him the first-born in the earth;” and further, “My Son art thou.” (Psa 2:7.)
This could not have been said of any mortal man, viewed in himself. And then it is said,
“
I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son;”
and the Apostle tells us, that this cannot be applied even to angels. (Heb 1:5.) As, then, this dignity is higher than angels’ glory, it is certain that none of David’s successors were worthy of such an honor. Hence Christ is justly called a righteous Branch. At the same time, the Prophet, as I have already reminded you, seems to set the perfect integrity of Christ in opposition to the impiety of those who under a false pretense had exercised authority, as though they were of that sacred race of whom it had been said, “I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son.”
It follows, — And reign shall a king This also has not been added without reason, shortly after Jeconiah had been driven into exile, and also the whole royal family had been exposed to every kind of reproach. The crown, indeed, was cast on the ground, as it has already appeared, and was trodden under feet. There was, therefore, no hope of a future kingdom when the seed of Abraham had become, as it were, extinct. This is the reason why God promises what we now hear of the restoration of the throne; and we may easily infer from what all the prophets have said, that the salvation of the people was dependent on the person of their king; and whenever God bade the people to entertain hope, he set a king before their eyes. A king was to be their head under God’s government. We now see the design of the Prophet in saying, that a king would reign
Some think that a king is to be understood as in opposition to a tyrant, because many kings had departed from their duty, and committed robbery under that specious authority. I have no doubt but that the word king was expressed, lest the people should doubt the fulfillment of this prophecy; for if it had been only said, “I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign,” they might, indeed, have entertained some hope, but it would have been small, and not full and complete. We, indeed, know that Zerubbabel and others excelled in some things, and were highly regarded for David’s sake; but there was then no kingdom. God therefore intended here expressly to testify that there would be the high privilege of a kingdom, that there might be nothing wanting to the Jews, as the power of Christ would not be inferior to the power of David. Reign, then, shall a king; that is, he shall reign gloriously, so that there would not be merely some remnants of pristine dignity, but that a king would flourish, become strong, and attain perfection, such as it was under David and Solomon, and much more excellent. (79)
It follows, — And shall act prudently, and shall do judgment and justice in the land; or, “he shall prosper,” for שכל, shecal, means both; yet the Prophet seems here to speak of right judgment rather than of success, for the two clauses ought to be read together, “he shall act prudently,” and “he shall do judgment and justice.” It seems then that he means this in short, — that Christ would be endued with the spirit of wisdom as well as of uprightness and equity, so that he would possess all the qualifications, and fulfill all the duties of a good and perfect king. (80)
And in the first place, wisdom or prudence is necessary; for probity alone would not be sufficient in a king. In private individuals indeed it is of no small value; but probity in a king, without wisdom, will avail but little, hence, the Prophet here commends Christ for his good discernment, and then mentions his zeal for equity and justice. It is indeed true that Christ’s excellences are not sufficiently set forth by expressions such as these; but the similitude is taken from men; for the first endowment of a king is wisdom, and then integrity in the second place. And we know that Christ is often compared to earthly kings, or set forth to us under the image of an earthly king, in which we may see him; for God accommodates himself to our ignorance. As, then, we cannot comprehend the unspeakable justice of Christ or his wisdom, hence God, that he may by degrees lead us to the knowledge of Christ, shadows him forth to us under these figures or types. Though, then, what is said here does not come up to the perfection of Christ, yet the comparison ought not to be deemed improper; for God speaks to us according to the measure of our capacities, and could not at once in a few words fully express what Christ is. But we must bear in mind that from earthly kings we must ascend to Christ; for though he is compared to them, yet there is no equality; after having contemplated in the type what our minds can comprehend, we ought to ascend farther and much higher.
Hence, the difference between the righteousness of Christ and the righteousness of kings ought to be here noticed. They who rule well can in no other way administer righteousness and judgment than by being careful to render to every one his own, and that by checking the audacity of the wicked, and by defending the good and the innocent; this only is what can be expected from earthly kings. But Christ is far different; for he is not only wise so as to know what is right and best, but he also endues his own people with wisdom and knowledge; he executes judgment and righteousness, not only because he defends the innocent, aids them who are oppressed, gives help to the miserable, and restrains the wicked; but he doeth righteousness, because he regenerates us by his Spirit, and he also doeth judgment, because he bridles, as it were, the devil. We now then understand the design of what I said, that we ought to mark the transcendency of Christ over earthly kings, and also the analogy; for there is some likeness and some difference: the difference between Christ and other kings is very great, and yet there is a likeness in some things; and earthly kings are set forth to us as figures and types of him.
(78) The Sept. and Arab. give, “a righteous sun-rising — ἀνατολὴν δίκαιαν;” the Vulg., “a righteous branch;” the Syr., “a ray of righteousness.” The Vulg. is alone correct, as there can be no doubt as to the original words. — Ed
(79) We cannot express the words in our language without changing the terms as follows, “And a ruler shall rule,” or, “a reigner shall reign.”
Bochart says that this double use of the same word, as a substantive and a verb, imports in Hebrew what is enhancive, according to what Calvin says here. The king was to be a king indeed, with full power and dignity, and with a large extent of empire.
The Welsh will express the words literally, — (lang. cy) A breniniaetha brenin.
And so it is rendered in Greek, —
Καὶ βασιλεύσει βασιλεὺς
—
Ed.
(80) The verb שכל first means to be wise or prudent, and in Hiphil, as here, to understand, to act wisely or prudently; and secondly, as the natural effect of wisdom, it means sometimes to prosper. But the first sense is given to it here by all the Versions: “and shall understand,” is the Septuagint; “and shall be wise,” the Vulgate; “and shall act prudently,” the Syriac. Our version is the Targum, Blayney gives the same idea with Calvin, “and shall act wisely;” which is no doubt the correct one. — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE COMING KING
Jer 23:5-8
HAWTHORNE in his Great Stone Face has given us a meaningful allegory. One must look upon that wonder of the White Mountains in order to appreciate Hawthornes picture. Of all the suggestive and even strange appearances that take form in mountain scenery, the great stone face is by far the most realistic. It is little wonder that the state is willing to expend many thousands of dollars to steady one brow of that face, which by sheer weight is about to break away, for as it appears now, and did appear in Hawthornes day, no imagination whatever is needed to outline a noble countenance, that, like a massive Abraham Lincoln, looks out over the beautiful valleys that stretch away toward the sea.
You will recall that Hawthornes idyl springs from the imagination that this face symbolizes a man to come in whose makeup strength and sweetness should so combine as to render him the idol of the communitythe sage of the centuries. And you will also recall that even then, in the community itself, the lad was growing in whose features the mountain should finally find its reflection; and in whose nature the community-dream should be perfectly realized.
Our text gives us the original of this ideal. It presents, however, no limited mountain-likeness, nor yet a mere local dream. The Face discoverable in it, as long delineated by inspired Prophets, was the expectation of the centuries. It is little wonder then, that the Prophet introduces his statement with the word BEHOLD! And it is less a marvel that he expects the attention of the world, for he deals with a world-need, with a world interest, and with an age-long conception.
But let us hear what the Prophet saith!
A SWEEPING SENTENCE
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
This sentence anticipated the Babe of Bethlehem. Jeremiah is not crying Behold because he counts himself the first man to see this vision afar; but he is joining his voice with that of other Prophets who have pointed to the same day, the same transcendent event, and the same incomparable Person.
Isaiah, the mighty Prophet, the inspired evangel of Old Testament truth, the man whose lips had been touched with a live coal from off the altar, the man who had seen God sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up His train filling the temple, had cried out in kindred language, in anticipation of the same Advent, BEHOLD, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His Name Immanuel. That was the sign that in this Son the world would have a Saviour.
It is quite popular now to deny the Virgin Birth, and some can even veil that denial with the eloquence of a Gunsaulus, calling the madonna that bright and new conception of woman recreated and recreating, a conception of Christianity glorified in a light produced from the romance of imagination and limned against a background built of the accumulated shadows in the flight of sixty centuries. * * Truly have the millions touched through a superstition the bands of a great truth; earths Madonna is woman made Divine in inspiration and work through Christ.
But with whatever features of rhetoric the denial of the Virgin Birth is garlanded, it is a death stab at Christianity itself and makes the whole New Testament story a volume of fiction and fraud, presents the pitiful sight of Apostles either self-deceived or deceiving, makes the blessed Mary to be a common prostitute, slanders the angel Gabriel who is supposed to have given the great annunciation, and blackens alike the character of Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Ghost.
Daniel Webster was capable of a better logic! In a letter from his hand, condensed by Prof. Sanborn of Dartmouth, he said, The Gospel is either true history, or it is a consummate fraud; it is either a reality, or an imposition. Christ was what He professed to be, or He was an impostor. There is no other alternative. His spotless life in His earnest enforcement of the truth, His suffering in its defense, forbid us to suppose that He was suffering from an illusion of a heated brain. Every act of His pure and holy life shows that He was the author of truth, the advocate of truth, the earnest defender of truth, and the uncompromising sufferer for truth. Now, considering the purity of His doctrines, the simplicity of His life and the sublimity of His death, is it possible that He would have died for an illusion?
When He came in His first and earthly estate He was kingly in character; when He returns in glory He will come as the crowned One. At the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Php 2:10-12).
Consider, the judgment of the worlds brainiest men and tell me if when He returns He will not come as King?
Napoleon said, I know men, and I tell you Jesus Christ is not a man. Everything about Him amazes me. His spirit overwhelms me and His will confuses me. There is no possible comparison between Him and any other being in the world. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I founded empires, but upon what did the creation of our dominions reston force! Jesus Christ founded His empire alone upon love, and at this hour millions would die for Him.
Alfred Tennyson, when asked what he thought of Jesus Christ, said, What the sun is to that flower Jesus Christ is to my soul; He is the Sun of my soul.
His kingship belongs to His Divine character! The time of His reign is with the Fathers appointment; the certainty of it is in the inspired promises.
This reign will be a righteous reign. And He shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
How marvelously the speech of inspired Prophets harmonizes! Listen to Isaiah: Of the increase of His government and peace there shall he no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever (Isa 9:7).
The minor Prophets breathe the notes of the major. Hear Daniel: Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy (Dan 9:24).
There are those who have lived under the hallucination that by the law of evolution everything was improving and that by and by righteousness would naturally obtain in the earth, and its arrival should be called the Kingdom of God.
All such philosophers are being either disillusioned by these evil days, or their dementia demonstrated. We have indulged in legislation, sanitation, eugenics, companionate marriage, and birth control, and we have marveled at the mechanical advances of the century, and boasted that man was going to be the lord of all creation; and we have even set up as a sort of new religion, Humanism, which is the worship of the composite man.
But while we are about the business of world-improving, sin and crime of every sort is making prodigious progress, and today the nations of the earth are wrapped in a darkness that deepens; and even the prophets of yesterdays optimism are beginning to fear the issue of time and are now questioning the philosophy by which they have maintained their own position.
But, into this darkness the promises of God penetrate, and we can see, even now, in faint outline, that Kingdom which is to come; the Kingdom that God Himself shall set up in the last day; the Kingdom over which His Son shall reign solitary and alone; the Kingdom in which the law shall be executed in righteousness; the Kingdom from which war shall fade forever, and under which prosperity shall be the universal portion; the Kingdom which shall at last witness the will of God, done in earth, as it is in Heaven.
R. F. Horton, in one of his books says: The Kingdom of God comes to earth just in proportion as the rebellious will of men acknowledge the will of God. Every student of prophecy knows that that will not take place until Christ Himself is come to His throne, until every eye beholds Him, and every will recognizes His supremacy, and every knee bows to His authority, and every tongue confesses to His glory.
There is a great day coming! But according to this text that day will be associated with other desirable results:
ISRAELS SALVATION
Israel, Gods chosen people, shall yet be saved.
Once in a while we meet a man who makes the boast that he has never failed to carry out his plans, to execute his purposes. Such a man must have kept his plans within most reasonable limits and his purposes within easy accomplishment.
But if there is a God at all, His plans cannot fail, nor His purposes perish; and according to this text, when the Lord shall come, Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely.
Possibly of the thousands of promises recorded in sacred Writ, there are more of them that relate to the redemption of Israel than to any other solitary subject. As far back as the Pentateuch, when God had declared His purpose to drive Israel to the ends of the earth, He promised that, when they should repent, He would turn their captivity and have compassion upon them, and gather them from all the nations whither He had scattered them. Jeremiah writes: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch.
Micah says, Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old (Mic 7:20).
Isaiah shouts, Oh, ye of Israel, Ye shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves (Isa 61:4-6).
Hosea says: For the Children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim: afterward shall the Children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days (Hos 3:4-5).
Ezekiel declares: Behold, I will take the Children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: * * And David My servant shall be king over them * *. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob My servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children * * for ever: and My servant David shall be their prince for ever (Eze 37:21-25).
Amos says: I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God (Amo 9:15).
But why multiply promises more since their name is legion! Let us look now to see if God is moving in the fulfilment of His holy Word.
You are all familiar with the fact that the most stirring incident of the war of 1914-18, the late world-war was the surrender of Jerusalem under the expressed promise that it and its land should be opened to the return of its ancient people, and since the day when Allenby walked with uncovered head, conqueror, through its streets, Sir Herbert Samuels, the Jew, has administered that land.
You are also familiar with the fact that Rabbi Leon Magneshow significant the titlethe great Lionhas already established a Hebrew University at Jerusalem. When he came to Los Angeles, while on a visit to the States, he was met by more than a thousand Jews with an enthusiasm that even exceeded that which scientists gave to Einstein on his first visit to America.
This University, like many other products of the late war, was the thought and proposal of Lord Balfour, who pledged the delivery of that land to its Divinely promised owners; and the Zionist movement, a movement of Jews back to Palestine, has followed the line of prophecy most rapidly since the surrender of Jerusalem fourteen years ago. Before the war was dreamed, and even before the slightest appearance of their return, thirty millions of dollars were pledged by Jews to that object and since the war ended thousands of them have already found their way to the fatherland in the fulfilment of Gods plan and promises.
Little wonder that Sir A. T. Davis, late director of education in Wales, wrote:
There is nothing in all history to parallel the restoration of Palestine. The eyes of all students of prophecy are on Palestine, for it is the central sign of the Coming of Christ. The Scriptures clearly state that before Christ comes the Jew must be back in Palestine, and as already seen they are on the way.
Daniel, five hundred years before Christ, informed the world that Rome, not London, was to make the final seven years agreement which is to be broken in the midst of the week.
That prophecy is also looming now that Mussolini declares, Rome is a universal city, dear to the whole world. It is destiny that Rome again takes her place as the directress of the civilization of all western Europe.
In 1885 there were scarcely five thousand miserably poor Jews in the land of Promise but sometime since, Dr. Weizmann declared:
In seven years we have brought 100,000 Jews to the country. They have formed sixty new colonies and nine-tenths of the business of Jerusalem is in the hands of the Jews. A friend residing in Palestine gives these interesting figures regarding Tel-Aviv (near Jaffa), said to be the only entirely Jewish city in the world. It started to be built twenty-three years ago; in 1920 it had a population of only five hundred, today it has 50,000; and it is estimated that fifty-million dollars has been invested in building it.
In 1931 Ernest Gordon, the son of our great Baptist leader A. J. Gordon, wrote:
The largest land purchases in Palestine by Zionists has been consummated recently, a sufficient reply to those who think that the Arab-Jewish clash of 1929 has anything more than passing significance. The cost of this tract of 290,000 Dunans of land in the valley of Jezreel has been $4,500,000, made in an immediate last payment. Permission to purchase had to be obtained from the Grand Mufti at Jerusalem and the Moslem Council.
All of which looks to the fulfilment of Amo 9:15 I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I hate given them, saith the Lord thy God.
And again, as Zechariah wrote: I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness (Zec 8:8).
And yet again, O mountains of Israel, * * ye shall be tilled and sown, * * the cities shall be inhabited and the wastes shall be builded (Eze 36:8-10).
Christ shall be owned and honored of them.
This is His Name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Have you not been impressed with the proposed council at Jerusalem, suggested by Jewish leaders, and appointed for the purpose of discovering who Christ was, and especially who was responsible for His crucifixion, the arrangements for which meeting are now going forward?
Perhaps never since Christ was crucified has the Jewish mind been so divested of prejudice as to render possible even the discussion of these subjects as it is at this present moment. Their study of the Old Testament prophecies has convinced many of the orthodox among them that they might have made a mistake; while the boasted liberty of thought on the part of even their modernist leaders has led to an approach to these great and century long questions.
What is the explanation of this? There is but one, It was the capitol of the people of promise and is destined to be the capitol of the world when the final promise of the Second Coming of Christ as the King of Glory is fulfilled.
The old Jacobic spirit has not perished from the flesh of Israel. It is not an unusual thing to find a convert from Israel to Christianity, who is still out to deceive and to secure profit from the flocks of Laban. But when we meet a genuine Jewish convert to Christ we may see in him a sample of Gods plan for Israel, when once he is truly converted.
A. J. Gordon relates a personal experience in connection with the Moody campaign at the Worlds Fair in 1894. He says,
We found ourselves at our lodgings in a room next to a Russian guest. During the evening, strains of subdued evening chant in Hebrew was heard. We enquired who our neighbor next us was, to learn that it was one Joseph Robinowitz of Russia. To our surprise, we were adjacent to the man we would have crossed the ocean to see, and only a sliding door between us. Introduction followed; and then three weeks of study and communion together concerning the things of the Kingdom, the memory of which will not soon depart.
It seemed to us, as we talked day after day with him and heard him pour out his soul in prayer, that we never before witnessed such ardor of affection for Jesus, and such absorbing devotion to His Person and glory. We shall not soon forget the radiance that would come into his face as he expounded the Messianic Psalms at our morning or evening worship, and how, as here and there, he caught a glimpse of the suffering or glorified Christ, he would suddenly lift his hands and his eyes to Heaven in a burst of admiration, exclaiming, with Thomas after he had seen the nail-prints, My Lord and my God!
Do you know, he said one day, what questioning and controversies the Jews have kept up over Zec 12:10, They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced. They will not admit that it is Jehovah whom they pierced. Hence the dispute about the whom; but do you notice that this Aleph, Tav? Do you wonder, then, that I was filled with awe and astonishment, when I opened to Rev 1:7-8, and read these words of Zechariah, now quoted by John, Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him and then heard the glorified Lord saying, I am Alpha and Omega? Jesus seemed to say to me, Do you doubt who it is whom you pierced? I am the Aleph Tav, the Alpha Omega; Jehovah, the Almighty.
Nothing could be more thrilling and pathetic than to hear this latter-day Prophet of Israel dilate on the blessedness and glory of his nation when it shall at last be brought back into favor and fellowship with God. The Gentile nations cannot come to their highest blessing till then, nor can our rejected and crucified Messiah see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied till His kinsmen according to the flesh shall own and accept Him. This is the Name whereby He shall be called by them, The Lord our righteousness.
THE HOME-COMING OF GODS OWN
Jer 23:7-8 present the home-coming of Gods own:
Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth, which brought up the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
But, The Lord liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the House of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.
Their past experience is a proof of the love. They used to sing of it, The Lord liveth, which brought up the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
To this day they have not wholly forgotten that evidence of Divine love. Long after the event the Psalmist made it the subject of his song. Turn to the 105th Psalm and you will see him calling upon the people to give themselves unto the Lord, to make known His acts unto the people, to sing unto Him, to sing psalms of praise; to talk of all His wondrous works. In that Psalm he rehearses their history in going into Egypt, and shows His favor upon them while there, while in the 106th Psalm he tells of their deliverance out of it and Gods salvation at the Red Sea; of His care and keeping in the Wilderness, of His pardon of their idolatry in the matter of the golden calf, of His compassion at Baelpeor: of His repeated deliverances from the just judgment against their sins, and the multiplied occasions of praise that God had brought unto them.
George Lorimer, in his Argument for Christianity truthfully insists that in spite of mans sin, Gods graciousness is repeatedly proven; and in view of the many manifestations of the same, he comes to this conclusion: As we look backward and comprehensively grasp all that has fallen out, both of good and bad, and observe their bearing and results, we are constrained to recognize a guiding intelligence that is not of earth and a benevolence that has never failed to bring light out of darkness. Why then should we, who have been thus taught, falter in our faith or yield to the dismay of doubt? Though we see Him not, we have sufficient reason for trust; and though error may for the time being seem to prevail against truth, and the hearts of His children fail with fear, unless the centuries have lied to us He will yet remember the Kingdom of His dear Son, will enlarge its borders, establish its authority, and bring forth its righteousness as the noonday.
Careless seems the Great Avenger: Historys pages but record One death struggle in the darkness twixt false systems and the Word.
Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, But that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknownStandeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
History will yet record greater examples of Gods love. They shall not forever continue to say, The Lord liveth, which brought up the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt but will be enabled to say The Lord liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the House of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.
In other words the mercies of the past will be exceeded by the multiplied favors of the future.
A. W. Archibald, in his volume The Trend of the Centuries speaking of the dealings of God, tells us the glory of the chosen people had passed when, as they were scattered everywhere, every important city contained a synagogue. Thus were furnished points of contact, centers at which Christianity, which was of Judaic origin (for salvation is of the Jews) could take root.
Uhlhorn, in his Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, well says of the advantage arising from the Jewish dispersion, that the Gospel thus found channels everywhere cut, a network of canals extending over the whole Roman empire, and was able to diffuse itself rapidly in every direction. An American would stand little chance of moving the German as a nation, or the French, or the Italians, but let groups of Americans be located in every considerable city of Germany, France and Italy, while all in those countries understood and could speak the English tongue, and the prospect would be infinitely better. There would be place to rest the lever, and with such a single vantage-point Archimedes declared that he could move the world. Exactly this condition of things existed at the coming of the Messiah. There were Messianic centers not a few but many, wherever there were little settlements of Jews, who, as we learn from both sacred and profane sources, were in an expectant mood.
How marvelous then is the opportunity of evangelism in connection with the Second Coming of Christ, for scarce a village in the world but has its Jew and the prophecy is of Christ that when He shall come the second time, It shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you.
He is coming! He hath said it!
Coming soon to claim His own,
And the time is fast approaching
When well gather round His throne.
We shall then sing forth our praises
To the Lamb once crucified,
Gladly bow the knee before Him
Who in our place once died.
No more sorrow, no more trial,
Every tear He wiped away;
When our Lord at last shall lead us
To the land of endless day!
Meanwhile, just a little longer
Must we work, and watch, and pray,
Then well hear the shout of triumph
Ushering in that glorious day!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
(5) Behold, the days come.The words point to an undefined, far-off future, following on the provisional order implied in Jer. 23:4, when the kingdom should once more rest in one of the house of David.
A righteous Branch.The idea is the same, though the word is different (here Zemach, and there Netzer), as in Isa. 11:1. In both cases, however, the word means a sprout or scion, springing up from the root even after the tree had been cut down (Isa. 6:13), and not a branch growing from the trunk. It is probably in reference to this prophecy that we find the name of the Branch (Zemach) so prominent in Zec. 3:8; Zec. 6:12. Here, it is obvious, the prophet speaks of the one great Shepherd.
A King shall reign.Better, he shall reign as King, the Branch or Sprout being the subject of the sentence. As with all the Messianic prophecies of this class, the thoughts of the prophet dwell on the acts and attributes of a sovereignty exercised personally on earth. Such a sovereignty, all power in heaven and on earth (Mat. 28:18), was indeed given to the Christ, but not after the fashion that men expected.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. In the midst of this fearful gloom, most unexpectedly and refreshingly are we favoured with a vision of supernal glory. The words of this passage break upon our ears sweetly and cheeringly as the angels’ song upon the ears of the shepherds. In this extremity of despair the light of God’s blessed consolation beams with ineffable beauty. In none of the prophets, not even in Isaiah, “the evangelic prophet,” is there a brighter gleam of the “latter-day glory.”
Behold A formal opening, indicating the importance of what is announced.
Days come Literally, days ( are) coming: pointing to some indefinite future.
Branch See Isa 4:2; and, for the force of the word, Gen 19:25; Isa 61:11; Eze 16:7; Eze 17:9; Hos 8:7. The original in Isa 11:1, is a different word, and quite distinct in meaning. It is unfortunate that both are represented by the same word in the Authorized Version. The term here employed signifies a sprout or shoot sent up from the root, and is strikingly expressive of the Messiah’s relation to the Davidic dynasty. Of this line nothing was left but the vital root, and yet from this Christ came. The branches had been cut off, the stately trunk was prostrate and dead, but from the hidden root a new shoot came forth of supernal beauty and immortal vigour.
A King shall reign Rather, that shall reign as king, the sentence resting directly on the word “branch.” Isa 52:13; Dan 9:24, etc.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Coming Son Of David ( Jer 23:5-6 )
The fact is now brought out that one day a Son of David would arise from the house of David who would restore His people’s fortunes and establish the everlasting Kingly Rule of God. It is a regular promise in Scripture, commencing with the promises made to David in 2Sa 7:12-13; 2Sa 7:16 and confirmed, for example, in Jer 30:9; Jer 33:15-17; Isa 9:5-6; Isa 11:1-4; Isa 16:5; Isa 55:3; Eze 34:1-31; Eze 37:21-28; Hos 3:5; Amo 9:11.
Jer 23:5
“Behold, the days are coming,
The word of YHWH,
That I will raise up to David a righteous Branch,
And he will reign as king and deal wisely,
And will execute justice and righteousness in the land.”
Following the restoration promised by YHWH will be the coming days when He will raise up to David a righteous Branch (or Shoot), a Branch of righteousness (Jer 33:15), a Branch which will grow out of his roots (Isa 11:1), in other words a sprouting from the shoot, we might say ‘a chip off the old block’ although emphasising the derivation of the one from the other, and He will reign as king and deal wisely, and will execute justice and righteousness in the land (compare Isa 11:2-4; Isa 9:5-6), precisely what the current kings had failed to do (Jer 22:2-4). And this too was the guaranteed ‘word of YHWH’. Note that the ‘word of YHWH’ has guaranteed the whole process.
There was an initial fulfilment of this in Zerubabbel, ‘Behold the man whose name is The Branch, (the one who has sprouted from the stock of David), and he will grow up out of his place, and he will build the temple of the Lord’ (Zec 6:12), but it was only as a shadow of what was coming. It awaited its final fulfilment in our Lord Jesus Christ Who was not only the Branch, but also the whole Vine from which other branches would grow (Joh 15:1-6). He came and established the Kingly Rule of God in justice and righteousness (Luk 1:32-33; Luk 1:69; Luk 2:11), and appointed twelve men to sit on the thrones of the house of David (Psa 122:4-5) ruling as servants over His people (Mat 19:28-29). He was a greater than David (Mar 12:35-37), and His Kingly Rule was not directly of this world (Joh 18:37), for He ruled over a people not an area of land (Act 2:36; Mat 28:18-20).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jer 23:5. Behold, the days come, &c. After having foretold the return of the Jews from captivity, the prophet here delivers a lively prediction of the Messiah, of whom the Jews themselves interpret this passage. After the captivity, when the kingdom of David failed, Zechariah (Zec 3:8.) taught them to look for the appearance of God’s servant, the Branch. In virtue of these promises, the people still expected the coming of the Messiah, till Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and the prophet also, declared that they were completed in the conception of Jesus Christ, when, through the tender mercies of God, the Day-spring from on high visited them, Luk 1:68; Luk 1:78. The Hebrew word by which Christ is denoted under the image of a branch, tzemach, is rendered by the Greek word in the LXX.; and, signifying both a branch and the day-spring, is the reason why Zechariah is introduced as varying the expression, though indeed it might have been rendered branch: the Greek word anatole was applied to the Messiah, by the Greek Jews, before our Saviour’s time. From them the Latin Jews called him Ories, from whom the Gentiles at Rome learned the name, without knowing the reason of it. Though this term was originally applied to Solomon, it was not exhausted in him, nor indeed in any of his successors; for, as it was renewed by Jeremiah in this chapter, and by Zechariah in the place above quoted, so the completion was still looked for by the son of Sirach in the beginning of the Greek monarchy, and believed by the Jews, at the time when our blessed Saviour raised Lazarus from the dead. The character in the latter part of the verse, He shall execute judgment, &c. is also given by the Psalmist and the prophet Isaiah to the Messiah; because his laws are the most perfect rule of righteousness, and himself the most impartial rewarder of every man according to his works. See. ch. Jer 33:15, &c. Bishop Chandler’s Defence, and Houbigant’s note on the place.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Here are two verses, which contain an epitome of the whole Bible; Christ and his offices; Christ and his work; Christ and his character: all that refers to his glorious Person and finished salvation, is implied in what is here said. The passage opens with a behold! regard, take notice, as a thing of immense consequence: and of immense con sequence indeed it is. The day here spoken of, is as similar to all the other like phrases in the Prophet, the gospel day, the day of salvation. Jesus, under the similitude of a Branch is pointed at, and most divinely proclaimed. Several of the Prophets described Christ by this same representation. Isa 4:2 ; Zec 6:12Zec 6:12 . And in express allusion to the house of David, from whom Christ after the flesh was to arise, the Prophet described him, Isa 11:1-2 . How plainly these representations, refer to the Lord Jesus, and in him were completed, and in no other the beloved Apostle shows, Rev 22:16 . His royal office is also strongly spoken of. And how fully is Christ shown to be King in Zion, King of Nations, King of Saints; the Church’s head and husband, the smallest reference to the scriptures will prove. Psa 2:6 ; Eph 1:20-21 , &c, Rev 19:16 . And what a volume of blessings and mercies are summed up all in one, in that comprehensive account the Prophet gives of the properties of his royal grace and power. Both Israel and Judah, both Jew and Gentile, shall be alike interested in his salvation. His name shall be the full redemption of his people: And this, not only from what he is in himself, and in his own glorious and Almighty character, but, in the relationship in which he hath put himself to his people, and in which by grace they stand in him. Jehovah in himself eternal; and Jehovah perfect righteousness, and Jehovah our righteousness. For what he is, he is to them, and for them, and his righteousness, by virtue of this union with him is to all intents and purposes theirs; for he is made of God to them all these, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; so that they stand in the sight of God, one with him, and as a part of himself: And Jehovah declares, that this shall not only be the case; but that the people shall know it, and proclaim it, as those who rejoice in it, and take delight: they shall call him so: and live in the enjoyment of it. Was there ever anything more blessed, or ever anything more gracious. Reader! if our hearts take no interest in this most precious scripture, they must be cold indeed!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 23:5 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
Ver. 5. I will raise to David a righteous branch. ] Who shall raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof, Amo 9:11 who shall also sit upon the throne of his father David, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Luk 1:32-33 Annon hoc probe sarcitur, &c. Is not this a good amends for that which is to befall Coniah and his posterity, put beside the kingdom? Of Christ the “righteous branch,” see Isa 11:1 ; Isa 4:2 Zec 3:8 See Trapp on “ Isa 11:1 “ See Trapp on “ Isa 4:2 “ See Trapp on “ Zec 3:8 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 23:5-6
5Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD,
When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch;
And He will reign as king and act wisely
And do justice and righteousness in the land.
6In His days Judah will be saved,
And Israel will dwell securely;
And this is His name by which He will be called,
‘The LORD our righteousness.’
Jer 23:5 I will raise up for David a righteous Branch This is literally sprout, BDB 855. This was a symbol of life out of death. It was used of the Messiah in Jer 33:15-16; Zec 3:8; Zec 6:12; the same concept but different terms in Isa 11:1 (twig, BDB 310 and shoot, BDB 666); Isa 53:2 (young plant, BDB 413; a root, BDB 1057). It (BDB 855) apparently refers to Zerubbabel in Zechariah, but foreshadows the Messiah.
In the midst of oracles of judgment, judgment, judgment, comes hope, promise, and a new leader, a new day! The concept of a Messiah is recurrent in the OT although the term is not. The Aramaic Targums read Messiah in this context, paralleling Branch, which shows the rabbis of that day saw this text as Messianic. See Hard Sayings of the Bible, pp. 343-344, for the title’s four different usages.
I would like to add my comments from Isa 4:2 which includes brief quotes from Zec 3:8; Zec 6:12, and Special Topic: The Branch of the Lord .
Isa 4:2 the Branch of the LORD To describe this title (BDB 855, Targums interpreted it as the Messiah) let me quote from my commentary on Daniel and Zechariah where the term is also used (but just a note of caution, we must be careful about assigning a technical meaning everywhere a word or phrase is used-context, context, context is crucial). This term may have developed over time from a reference to ideal abundance to God’s special Servant who will restore that abundance (i.e., a shoot, a branch).
Let me share notes from my commentary on Zechariah.
Zec 3:8 the Branch This may be sprout (BDB 855). This is another Messianic title (cf. Jer 6:12; Isa 4:2; Isa 11:1; Isa 53:2; Jer 23:5; Jer 33:15). See full discussion and Special Topic: JESUS THE NAZARENE .
This title is used of Zerubbabel in Jer 6:12 as a symbol of the royal Davidic line. It is surprising that it is used in this context, which emphasizes the priestly aspect of the Messiah. The twin aspects of redeemer (priestly, cf. Isaiah 53) and administrative leader (kingly, cf. Isa 9:6-7) are merged in the book of Zechariah (cf. chapter 4).
Zec 6:12 Branch This word (BDB 855) means sprout (cf. Jer 3:8; Jer 6:12; Isa 4:2; Isa 11:1; Isa 53:2; Jer 23:5; Jer 33:15). This is a title for the Messiah. In Zechariah it refers to Zerubbabel as a type of the Messiah (cf. Ibn Ezra and Rashi). The name, Zerubbabel, in Akkadian, means shoot of Babylon. This was possibly a play on his name since he rebuilt the temple in 516 B.C., but it is really an ultimate reference to Jesus. This title and the matching VERB (will branch out, Qal IMPERFECT) appear together in this verse.
SPECIAL TOPIC: JESUS THE NAZARENE
A description of YHWH’s Branch (NKJV, NRSV, JB)
1.beautiful, BDB 840, cf. Jer 3:19 (often used of Promised Land in Dan 8:9; Dan 11:16; Dan 11:41)
2.glorious, BDB 458 means abundance, honor, and glory (glory, BDB 802, also in this verse)
These two terms are often used together (cf. Isa 13:19; Isa 28:1; Isa 28:4-5).
Some versions take this verse as a reference to plant growth in the period of restoration (LXX, Peshitta, TEV, NJB, REB, NET Bible). In a sense the Messiah and the age of restoration are lexically linked.
This is also from my notes on Isa 11:1 :
Isa 11:1 a shoot This rare word found only here in the OT (twig, branch, or shoot translated rod in Pro 14:3, BDB 310, KB 307), obviously refers to a supernatural Davidic descendant (cf. Isa 6:13; 2 Samuel 7; Rev 22:16). Out of this seemingly dead stump (i.e., exiled Judah) will come a new king! This imagery (but different Hebrew word) is seen again in the Suffering Servant Song of Isaiah Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12 (i.e., Isa 53:2).
The Jewish Study Bible (p. 807) adds an interesting comment on stump.
If the translation ‘stump’ is correct, then the passage may presume that the Davidic dynasty will (or has) come to an end; this reading would deviate significantly from Isaiah’s notion that Davidic kings will reign eternally (cf. 2Sa 7:8-16; Psa 89:20-37). But the Hebrew ‘geza’ refers not only to a stump of a tree that has been cut down but also to the trunk of a living tree.
I cannot confirm this meaning for shoot unless it is Isa 40:24.
from the stem of Jesse Jesse was King David’s father. This future descendant is mentioned in Isa 11:10; Isa 9:7; Isa 16:5.
The OT gives the lineage of the Special Coming One, the Anointed One.
1. from the tribe of Judah, Gen 49:8-12, esp. Gen 49:10 and Rev 5:5
2. from the family of Jesse, 2 Samuel 7
The special child of the new age has now been identified as a special ruler. His person will characterize the new age (cf. Isa 11:5).
a branch from his roots The NOUN branch, sprout, or shoot (BDB 666, cf. Isa 14:19; Isa 60:21; Dan 11:7) is parallel to branch or sprout (BDB 855, cf. Isa 4:2; Isa 61:11). New growth will come! Special Topic: The Branch of the Lord .
will bear fruit The MT has the VERB bear fruit (, BDB 826, KB 963, Qal IMPERFECT, Dead Sea Scrolls, NASB), but most ancient and modern versions assume a similar VERB, (BDB 827).
1. NKJV, NRSV, Peshitta, shall grow out
2. NJB, will grow
3. LXX, Targums, shall come up
4. REB, will spring from
5. JPSOA, shall sprout
The second option fits the parallelism best!
SPECIAL TOPIC: MESSIAH
Jer 23:6 Judah. . .Israel This would predict the reunited kingdom. The United Monarchy split in 922 B.C. under Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, and Jeroboam II, an Ephraimitic labor leader (cf. 1 Kings 12).
The LORD our righteousness This may be a play on the name Zedekiah, which means the Lord is righteous, the person Nebuchadnezzar put on the throne to replace Jehoiachin (cf. 2 Kings 24). It is a descriptive Messianic title in Jer 23:5; Jer 33:16. It is parallel to a righteous Branch in Jer 23:5.
Jer 23:7-8 This is a repeated literary piece from Jer 16:14-15. The same sentiment is found in Isa 43:18-19. A new day is coming (cf. Jer 16:14; Hos 3:4-5)! The new age of the Spirit, the new age of righteousness, the new age of the Messiah is coming!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Branch = Sprout from the root, not from a branch. Compare Isa 11:1; Isa 53:2. Here, Hebrew. zemach. The name of the brightest star in the Zodiac sign “Virgo”. See App-12. See notes on the Structure of the Four Gospels. Compare Jer 33:15.
King. See the Structure of the Gospels. Matthew. Compare Isa 9:6, Isa 9:7. Zec 6:12, Zec 6:13. Psa 72:2. Luk 1:32.
judgment and justice. See note on Jer 22:3.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Branch
(See Scofield “Isa 4:2”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
The Lord our Righteousness
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute judgement and justice in the land. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord is our righteousness.Jer 23:5-6.
When this prophecy was uttered, Judah was ten years from her fall. The good Josiah was in his graveslain by the archers of Pharaoh-Necho of Egypt. Jehoahaz, his son, after three months reign as successor, had been deposed. Jehoiakim, his brother, after acting as sovereign for eleven years, was a captive in Babylon. Jehoiachin, after three months of inglorious rule, was, like his father, carried off into exile. And now Zedekiah, his fathers brother, occupied the throne. Still things in Judah went from bad to worse. Judah was on the down grade. There was no remedy, no healing more. Like a boat that has crossed the death-line on Niagara, Judah was in the rapids and hurrying to the brink of the fatal precipice. Its sun was going down in blood and darkness. Its day of grace was expiring. The thunder-clouds and lightning shafts of judgment were drawing near. No power on earth could save it.
In these circumstances Jeremiah sums up his verdict upon the kings and rulers of his day in general, under the figure of shepherds who have destroyed and scattered the sheep entrusted to them. The troubles which befell Judah, and led ultimately to its ruin, are traced by Jeremiah to the short-sightedness and studied neglect of those who were its responsible guides. Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them; behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord. And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply. And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be lacking, saith the Lord. The unrighteous rulers will be deposed: wise and just ones, in the happier future which Jeremiah now begins to contemplate, will take their place. There follows the passage from which the text is taken: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute judgement and justice in the land. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord is our righteousness.
The prophet sees
I.An Ideal Kinga Righteous Branch, having this title, The Lord is our righteousness.
II.National deliverance, when the fruits of righteousness shall be reaped in security and peace. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely.
I
Righteousness Enthroned
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch.
1. The same words are repeated further on. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel, and concerning the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgement and righteousness in the land. Of course, the prophet was well acquainted with the prediction of his distinguished predecessor, Isaiah: There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots. At a later period, the name by which these two prophets had described that illustrious Person who should arise in the line of Davids descendants to sit upon Davids throne became recognized as one of the appropriate titles of the Prince-Messiah. Zechariah twice speaks of Him as the Branch. Behold, I will bring forth my servant, the Branch; Behold the man whose name is the Branch. The attribute of righteousness is also assigned to Him by Isaiah. With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
2. Not only was the Branch to arise, but He was to sit on the throne of David, endued with power from on high. Jerusalem had seen many branches of the royal tree cut off and wither; this should be exalted and clothed with power; He was to reign and prosper. His spiritual kingdom should know no end, should be subject to no reverse. The strength of Judah should not be cut off again as of late, when Josiah fell at the battle of Megiddo, a righteous prince slain by the uncircumcised; but He should prosper, He should reign, not merely for His own good, as selfish rulers are wont to do, but for the good of His people. And who should they be? Not only the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, but the people of the whole earth; for all kingdoms, and nations, and languages should bow down before Him, and serve the Lord their Redeemer. He should execute judgement and justice in the land. He should not give cause to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, saying, Behold the people of Israel, the chosen people; they all follow after iniquity, and their princes pervert justice. For He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
3. The Branch was to have the significant designation The Lord is our righteousness. In what sense are we to understand this name? The name which is applied to the ideal king in chap. 23 is applied to the ideal city in chap. 33; both alike are to be called by the same significant title, Jehovah is our righteousness. There is something strange, to our ears, in a name thus formed; but it is in analogy with Hebrew usage. It was the custom of the ancient Israelites to form proper names compounded with one or other of the sacred names more freely than we should do. Thus they gave their children such names as Jehovah (or God) heareth, or remembereth, or judgeth, or Jehovah is a help, or is opulence, or again, Jehovah is perfect, or exalted, or great. And we find places named similarly. Thus we read of an altar called Jehovah is my banner, and of another called Jehovah is peace. Names thus formed were felt, no doubt, to be words of good omen; or they were intended to mark what either was, or was hoped to be, a reality. The prophets, by an extension of this usage, not infrequently employ the name as the mark of a character, to be given to a person or place because the idea which it expressed was really inherent in him or it. Thus Isaiah, speaking of the ideal Zion of the future, says: Afterward thou shalt be called The city of righteousness, the faithful citycalled so, namely, because the qualities of righteousness and faithfulness, so sadly lacking in the existing city, will be conspicuous in it. And Ezekiel, speaking of the restored Zion, says, in the last verse of his Book: And the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there; he imagines, that is, a symbolical title, summing up in a brief and forcible manner the characteristic state or condition of the city.
The case is similar in Jeremiah. The city bears a name indicating the character of its inhabitants: God is the source and ground of their righteousness. Jerusalem is to become the home and abode of righteousness, through the gracious operation of her God. Here a similar name is given to the ideal king, or Messiah. He is the pledge and symbol to Israel that their righteousness was to have its source in God. Just as Isaiah, when Judah was sorely tried by external foes, had given his ideal king the symbolical name of God is with us, as a guarantee that Divine help would be assured to them; so Jeremiah, at a time when the character of the people had largely deteriorated, gives him the symbolical name of The Lord is our righteousness, significant of the fact that the nations righteousness can be assured only by God. The ideal ruler whom Jeremiah foresees will govern his nation with wisdom and success; and under his gracious administration the Divinely imparted character of righteousness will be realized by the nation.
The name is a brief and pointed censure upon a king whose character was the opposite of that described in these verses, yet who bore a name of almost identical meaningZedekiah, Jehovah is my righteousness. The name of the last reigning Prince of the House of David had been a standing condemnation of his unworthy life, but the King of the New Israel, Jehovahs true Messiah, would realize in His administration all that such a name promised. Sovereigns delight to accumulate sonorous epithets in their official designationsHighness, High and Mighty, Majesty, Serene, Gracious. The glaring contrast between character and titles often serves only to advertise the worthlessness of those who are labelled with such epithetsthe Majesty of James I., the Graciousness of Richard III. Yet these titles point to a standard of true royalty, whether the sovereign be an individual or a class or the people; they describe that Divine Sovereignty which will be realized in the Kingdom of God.1 [Note: W. H. Bennett, The Book of Jeremiah, 325.]
4. Jeremiahs prophecy is a foreshadowing of the fundamental doctrines of the gospel. It is true that we are not distinctly told how this righteousness is to enter individual and national life, but we are assured that Gods righteousness is the ground and source and guarantee of our righteousness. We are left in doubt as to whether Jeremiah so far anticipated the teaching of the New Testament as to view this righteousness as conferred through the agency of the same ideal ruler, whose name is designed as the symbol of the fact. The terms in which he speaks, however, do not suggest that he conceived him as the author of justification, in the theological sense of the term; they imply rather that he pictured him as ensuring, by his wise and just administration, the conditions under which righteousness of life might be maintained effectually among the people.
For us the question is, What are the conditions under which righteousness may become ours?
(1) A passion for righteousness is rooted in human nature.It is God who has put the desire for righteousness in our hearts, and with all our carelessness we cannot drive it out. We cannot help reverencing all that is good when once we see it; even the fact that we are so ready to find fault with one another is the witness to the fact that we have an ideal of righteousness in our hearts. We may put it on one side as far as we can, but we shall find that it comes back, and that as youth and its pleasures pass away, and mature age and its ambitions, we shall realize more and more that righteousness is the one thing that matters. Sorrow may leave its mark upon us, or disillusionment may sour us, but there will remain one thing of which we are perfectly surethat come what may, right is right and wrong is wrong, and nothing can turn the one into the other. We may be in just as much doubt as ever we were whether this or that is the right thing to do in this or that particular case, but we shall be quite sure that there is a right thing and a wrong thing, if only we had eyes to see.
O these words ought and ought not, right and wronghow often men, how often we ourselves, would fain have banished them from the dictionary! Thank God they are not man-made words, and therefore cannot be man-changed. They shine aloft like stars. They are writtenas David indicates in that glorious twin song of nature and human naturethey are written with the same ink that catalogues the stars: they are His sign-manual who hung these nightly seals. Rightly seeing one of them, seeing how the moral world lay behind the material:
Thou dost protect the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens by Thee are fresh and strong.
My brother, when next the tempter says Transgress, Do the forbidden, Touch the accursed, Handle the pitch-stained thing, wilt thou not say, Dost thou bid me pluck the planets from their courses, cover the spangled heavens with sackcloth? Bid me as soon pull the strong firmament down. How can I do this great, because abnormal, thing?1 [Note: R. W. Barbour, Thoughts, 22.]
(2) The attainment of righteousness is beyond mans best efforts.Of course men have often fancied they could work out a righteousness for themselves. The Pharisees and the Jews generally imagined they could do so by ceremonial observances; and men commonly suppose it can be done by what are called good works, virtues, philanthropies, religious forms, penitential inflictions and such-like performances. But all these might exist without personal holiness. And since holiness means keeping Gods law without defect, without transgression, without interruption, without a fleck or stain of moral defilement, nothing can be clearer than that no man has ever done or can do so.
A righteousness which begins and ends with me, and my efforts to make myself good, and to do so by living up to my own standard, can never really satisfy my best aspirations. The stream cannot rise above its own source; with all my trying I cannot rise above my own standard for myself, and that standard is marred by my sins, is limited by the fact that after all it is only part of me. It is just that that I want to get away from. I want to be lifted above myself. In my best moments (and they, after all, are the moments that we must try to live by) I yearn, not only to be free from the limitations of my own lower nature and the web of bad habits that I have woven about myself, but to be lifted to a higher level altogether. Yes, I easily forget; the world and the flesh and the devil are very near and very insistent, but I hunger and thirst after a righteousness which shall not be my own: I long to be righteous even as he is righteous.
I have vowed above a thousand times, said Staupitz, Luthers friend, that I would become better, but I have never performed that which I vowed. Hereafter I will make no such vow, for I have now learned from experience that I am not able to perform it. Even Bernard Shaw has pointed out with much penetration that it is possible for a man to pass the moral catechism, Have you obeyed the Commandments? have you kept the law? and at the end to live a worse life than the sinner who must answer Nay! all through the questions; while W. R. Greg, content with low ideals, can only hope that men may attain the measure of the stature ofWilliam and Robert Chambers.1 [Note: T. Whitelaw, Jehovah-Jesus, 96.]
In Mr. Zangwills masterly studies of the children of the Ghetto in olden days he describes with wonderful pathos and power the feelings of a Jewish boy when it was first brought home to him that beyond the walls of the Ghetto was a glorious world he was not allowed to enter, or, if he did, he must wear a badge of shame; on no condition whatever would he ever be permitted to share in its rich and brilliant life; he was born of an accursed race. Victor Hugo does much the same in his delineation of the life of that curious criminal underworld of medival Paris called the kingdom of Argot. The poor wretches who belonged to that kingdom were all outlaws, mostly thieves and vagabonds. It was tolerated by the officers of justice so long as its members kept within bounds. It had its own laws, administered by the outcasts themselves; and a certain standard of honour and good conduct was enforced, too. But once included in that community, whether by birth or by evil fortune, no one could ever get out of it; no amount of well-doing therein was of any use as a pass to citizenship in the kingdom of France. And so with the soul of man. Here on earth it is bound to an order of things which has its own constantly changing distinctions between good and evil, noble and ignoble, worthy and unworthy; but sometimes a vision is vouchsafed to it of a state of perfect freedom which knows none of these, nor needs to know them, but which it cannot enter; no earthly excellence is sufficient to open a pathway there.1 [Note: R. J. Campbell.]
(3) Christ is made unto us righteousness.He who has put the yearning into our hearts has not left it unsatisfied. Because nothing less than that would do, He has given us His Son. Christ is our righteousness not merely as a teacher of what is righteous, not merely as a guide to the discovery of righteousness, but as the Procurer, the Author, the Source of that righteousness which we need. By Him the price of our redemption has been fully paid, and on the ground of what He has done, God, the Judge of all, stands ready to confer pardon and legal acquittal on all who come to Him through His Son. The righteousness, therefore, in which we are to be accepted of God is not a righteousness which we have to bring to Him, but a righteousness we have to receive from Him. It is already in His hands, and from Him alone can we obtain it. The Lord is our righteousness.
Sometimes we hear the criticism passed upon the gospel that it is unethical, that it disregards human merit as a means of access to eternal blessedness. Salvation by magic someone has called it. There is a semblance of truth in the charge. But why should not God be able to endue us with His own righteousness, share with us His own perfection, without any other qualification on our part than that of the faith that accepts the gift? If we have to wait for that consummation until our human standards of moral worth have risen high enough to qualify us for it, we shall not gain heaven in a million years; nor, indeed, shall we gain it at all, for there is something in the righteousness Divine which bears no ratio to any earthly good.
A girl of twelve lay dying, and her mother said, Are you afraid, my darling, to go and meet God? Oh no, she replied, I am not afraid; I look to the justice of God to take me to heaven. The mother thought her child must be wandering, so she said, My darling, you mean His pity, His love. No, mother, she said, I mean His justice; He must take me to heaven, because Christ is my righteousness, and I claim Him as my own; I am as He is now in Gods sight, and God would never reject His own child.1 [Note: H. W. Webb-Peploe, The Titles of Jehovah, 168.]
Here where the loves of others close
The vision of my heart begins.
The wisdom that within us grows
Is absolution for our sins.
We took forbidden fruit and ate
Far in the garden of His mind.
The ancient prophecies of hate
We proved untrue, for He was kind.
He does not love the bended knees,
The soul made wormlike in His sight,
Within whose heaven are hierarchies
And solar kings and lords of light.
Who come before Him with the pride
The Children of the King should bear,
They will not be by Him denied,
His light will make their darkness fair.
To be afar from Him is death
Yet all things find their fount in Him:
And nearing to the sunrise breath
Shine jewelled like the seraphim.2 [Note: A. E., Collected Poems, 247.]
II
Salvation Secured
In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely.
Jeremiah sought to comfort the Jews by telling them that the time of their sorrows and sufferings in captivity should pass away, and the days should come in which they should once more be safe from their enemies. Out of the royal house of David, now brought so low, so decayed, that it was but as a dry root in the ground there should spring a fresh Branch, even the Messiah. He should reign over the true Israel, His Church, and should protect, guard, and keep them from harm. He should gather His people together, and unite them once more; and so glorious and blessed would this deliverance be that, compared with it, the coming out of the bondage of Egypt would be as nothing.
1. Gods purpose for the earth was that it should be replenished and subdued and governed by a race which in that activity should themselves come to perfection. Human failure intervened, and a Divine interference was necessary by which in the midst of human history a new race was created, related to all the other races and part of the entire race, their responsibility being that of realizing the Divine intention, and the secret of their greatness being that all the people should be righteous; until, in process of time, failure having followed upon failure, we have the supreme Divine interference in the coming of the God-man, the new birth of man, and the creation of a new race, an elect race, a royal priesthood, a chosen nation, a people for Gods possession; and the great Christian apostle is seen devoting time and strength and toil and energy to every individual that every man may be presented perfect in Christ Jesus.
In national life the true prosperity of the nation depends upon the multitude of her people in order to the fulfilling and subduing of natural resources, and in order to the making of a people by such toil. There is nothing more important in national life than the multitude of the people; and in order to the peoples true strength industry is sacred. The Pauline principle may be stated by way of illustration: If a man will not work, neither shall he eat. This is no mere word of political significance, in the narrower sense of the word political. It is fundamental. It is fundamental to national prosperity. In order to the realization of the natural resources of the land, their subduing, their government, their proper use, their leading out to all fulfilment, the most important thing is the multitude of the people; and the toil that subdues is most important to the people. The scattering of a people is therefore a crime. Its restoration and increase mean stability and strength.
The final test of all legislation is the effect it produces upon the people that create the national strength. In proportion as a nation learns the value, as to its supreme welfare, of its sons and its daughters, its little children, in that proportion the nation is moving in the true line of progress, that of the Divine purpose and programme, which brings it into right relationship with the ultimate intention of God. In proportion as children are allowed to fade and wither and die in evil conditions, for the enrichment of a few, the blight of the curse of humanity and Deity rests upon the national life. In proportion as we realize that our wealth consists in our people we approximate to that Divine intention expressed in the words, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish and subdue and have dominion over the earth. In that way, and in that way alone, we approximate to national strength.1 [Note: 1 G. Campbell Morgan.]
2. The greatness and prosperity of any people rest ultimately on character. Thy people shall be all righteous was Isaiahs great dream. The deep secret of their victories was that of the enthronement of Jehovah; and resulting from it the people were seen as all righteous, and consequently the nation was seen as an instrument of the Divine purpose, possessing the land, bringing forth its beauties, realizing them. Thus the nation realized itself, and became in the midst of the earth, the exhibition of the Divine purpose for all the world, the Divine intention for all humanity. It was the dream of a prophet in the midst of a decadent age. Actually the people were falling, soon were to be driven away, but here we have the holy and inspired vision of Gods purpose, and out of the midst of it we hear these words: Thy people shall be all righteous.
So far at the outset of his Parliamentary life, the opinions of Benjamin Disraeli, if we take Sybil for their exponent, were the opinions of the author of Past and Present. Carlyle thought of him as a fantastic ape. The interval between them was so vast that the comparison provokes a smile; and yet the Hebrew conjurer, though at a humble distance, and not without an eye open to his own advancement, was nearer to him all along than Carlyle imagined. Disraeli did not believe any more than he that the greatness of a nation depended on the abundance of its possessions. He did not believe in a progress which meant the abolition of the traditionary habits of the people, the destruction of village industries, and the accumulation of the population into enormous cities, where their character and their physical qualities would be changed and would probably degenerate. The only progress which he could acknowledge was moral progress, and he considered that all legislation which proposed any other object to itself would produce, in the end, the effects which the prophets of his own race had uniformly and truly foretold.1 [Note: J. A. Froude, The Earl of Beaconsfield, 92.]
Patriotism is doubtless a great and necessary virtue; it must always regulate much that we do, but it should not therefore narrow our aspirations. A nation, as well as an individual, has much to learn, and must learn it, as the individual learns, mainly by sympathetic intercourse with like-minded nations. On this gradual education of nations, more than anything else, the hope of the worlds future depends. Nations with like ideas of righteousness go forth on their separate ways, not that they may emphasize the differences which arise from differing experience, but that they may bring the results of their experience to a common stock. It is not enough that each nation should recognize and glorify the ideas on which its vigorous life is founded as it knows them. It must learn from the experience of other nations to understand them better and apply them more thoroughly. It is mans highest wisdom humbly to seek to understand Gods will in things great and small; in the concerns of a particular hearth and home; in the questions which concern his countrys welfare; and in those greater issues on which the future of the worlds progress depends. Our personal efforts, whatever they be, only avail if they are in accordance with Gods purpose. If we have done our best to discover this purpose, and with our whole heart to work for it, we cannot ultimately fail. This purpose floats before our eyes in the form of a vision, capable of realization here and now, of a time when all peoples shall be happy in the knowledge of the Lord as their God.2 [Note: Bishop Creighton, Counsels for Churchpeople, 37.]
3. The righteous nation serving a righteous king will enjoy security and peace. Israel shall dwell safely. Such shall be the confidence of the spiritual Israel that they shall dwell even thoughtlessly and carelessly, as the original word impliesnot careless as to their manner of life; not thoughtless as to the nature of the Divine requirements and rightful claims of humanity; but careless, as being free from care, since God careth for His own; careless as knowing in whom they have believed, and persuaded that He is able to keep that which has been entrusted to Him. Happy people that thus dwell safely! Israel dwelleth in safety: the fountain of Jacob [the progenitors of a great people] alone, in a land of corn and wine; yea, his heavens drop down dew. Happy art thou, O Israel: Who is like unto thee, a people saved by the Lord!
4. True, the ideal state foreshadowed by Jeremiah has not yet been realized; the law of God is not yet written so indelibly upon the hearts of men that all can be said to act upon it instinctively, or that we can yet afford, as some strange sectaries have imagined that we could afford, to dispense with teachers and instructors, and other methods of reminding us what that law is. But it is upon a profound sense of the requirements of human nature that the prophets declaration is based; and it is one of the most far-reaching and comprehensive anticipations of the ultimate destiny of human history that are to be found in the Old Testament Scriptures. It sets vividly before us what should be the aim of our endeavours, and the goal of our aspiration. And so, every time that, in our public services, the Decalogue is recited, it is followed by the petition, expressed in the very words of the prophet, that the laws of which it is the sum may be written in our hearts.
The remotest fibre of human action, from the policy of empires to the most insignificant trifle over which we waste an idle hour or moment, either moves in harmony with the true law of our being, or is else at discord with it. A king or a parliament enacts a law, and we imagine we are creating some new regulation, to encounter unprecedented circumstances. The law itself which applied to these circumstances was enacted from eternity. It has its existence independent of us, and will enforce itself either to reward or punish, as the attitude which we assume towards it is wise or unwise. Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws so far as we can read them, and either succeed and promote our welfare, or fail and bring confusion and disaster, according as the legislators insight has detected the true principle, or has been distorted by ignorance or selfishness.
And these laws are absolute, inflexible, irreversible, the steady friends of the wise and good, the eternal enemies of the blockhead and the knave. No Pope can dispense with a statute enrolled in the Chancery of Heaven, or popular vote repeal it. The discipline is a stern one, and many a wild endeavour men have made to obtain less hard conditions, or imagine them other than they are. They have conceived the rule of the Almighty to be like the rule of one of themselves. They have fancied that they could bribe or appease Himtempt Him by penance or pious offering to suspend or turn aside His displeasure. They are asking that His own eternal nature shall become other than it is. One thing only they can do. They for themselves, by changing their own courses, can make the law which they have broken thenceforward their friend. Their dispositions and nature will revive and become healthy again when they are no longer in opposition to the will of their Maker.1 [Note: J. A. Froude, Short Studies, ii. 11.]
The world seems to be weary of the just, righteous, holy ways of God, and of that exactness in walking according to His institutions and commands which it will be one day known that He doth require. But the way to put a stop to this declension is not by accommodating the commands of God to the corrupt courses and ways of men. The truths of God and the holiness of His precepts must be pleaded and defended, though the world dislike them here and perish hereafter. His law must not be made to lackey after the wills of men, nor be dissolved by vain interpretations, because they complain they cannot, indeed because they will not, comply with it. Our Lord Jesus Christ came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them, and to supply men with spiritual strength to fulfil them also. It is evil to break the least commandment; but there is a great aggravation of that evil in them that shall teach men so to do.2 [Note: John Owen.]
Law, so far as it can be used to form and system, and is not written upon the heart,as it is, in a Divine loyalty, upon the hearts of the great hierarchies who serve and wait about the throne of the Eternal Lawgiver,this lower and formally expressible law has, I say, two objects. It is either for the definition and restraint of sin, or the guidance of simplicity; it either explains, forbids, and punishes wickedness, or it guides the movements and actions both of lifeless things and of the more simple and untaught among responsible agents. And so long, therefore, as sin and foolishness are in the world, so long it will be necessary for men to submit themselves painfully to this lower law, in proportion to their need of being corrected, and to the degree of childishness or simplicity by which they approach more nearly to the condition of the unthinking and inanimate things which are governed by law altogether; yet yielding in the manner of their submission to it, a singular lesson to the pride of man,being obedient more perfectly in proportion to their greatness. But, so far as men become good and wise, and rise above the state of children, so far they become emancipated from this written law, and invested with the perfect freedom which consists in the fulness and joyfulness of compliance with a higher and unwritten law; a law so universal, so subtle, so glorious that nothing but the heart can keep it.
Now pride opposes itself to the observance of this Divine law in two opposite ways; either by brute resistance, which is the way of the rabble and its leaders, denying or defying law altogether; or by formal compliance, which is the way of the Pharisee, exalting himself while he pretends to obedience, and making void the infinite and spiritual commandment by the finite and lettered commandment. And it is easy to know which law we are obeying: for any law which we magnify and keep through pride, is always the law of the letter; but that which we love and keep through humility, is the law of the Spirit; and the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.1 [Note: Ruskin, Stones of Venice, vol. ii. chap. ii. 87 (Works, xi. 116).]
The Lord our Righteousness
Literature
Alexander (W. L.), Sermons, 66.
Alford (H.), Quebec Chapel Sermons, ii. 215.
Brown (C. J.), The Word of Life, 154.
Buchanan (T. B.), in Sermons for the People, vii. 236.
Butler (G.), Sermons Preached in Cheltenham College Chapel, 389.
Collins (W.), Hours of Insight, 141.
Driver (S. R.), Sermons on the Old Testament, 204.
Henry (P.), Christ All in All, 71.
Hiley (R. W.), A Years Sermons, ii. 301.
How (W. W.), Plain Words, ii. 249.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity, ii. 430.
Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., v. 35.
Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, ii. 25; vi. 361.
Purves (P. C.), The Jehovah Titles of the Old Testament, 58.
Randall (R. W.), Life in the Catholic Church, 330.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vii., No. 395.
Webb-Peploe (H. W.), The Titles of Jehovah, 152.
Whitelaw (T.), Jehovah-Jesus, 87.
Church Pulpit Year Book, 1904, p. 280 (J. C. Ryle).
Churchmans Pulpit: Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity, xiii. 486 (H. Alford).
Clergymans Magazine, 3rd Ser., xii. 301 (W. Burrows).
Literary Churchman, xv. (1869) 482.
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
the days: Jer 30:3, Jer 31:27, Jer 31:31-38, Jer 33:14, Heb 8:8
I: Jer 33:15, Psa 72:1, Psa 72:2, Isa 32:1, Isa 32:2, Isa 40:10, Isa 40:11, Dan 9:24, Amo 9:11, Zec 9:9, Rev 19:11
Branch: Psa 80:15, Isa 4:2, Isa 11:1-5, Isa 40:9, Isa 40:11, Isa 53:2, Eze 17:2-10, Eze 17:22-24, Eze 34:29, Zec 3:8, Zec 6:12, Zec 6:13, Joh 1:45
reign: Jer 22:30, Psa 45:4, Isa 9:7, Isa 52:13, *marg. Isa 53:10, Luk 1:32, Luk 1:33
and shall: Jer 22:3, Jer 22:15, Psa 72:2
Reciprocal: Gen 49:10 – until Num 27:16 – set a man 2Sa 8:15 – David executed 2Sa 23:3 – must be just 1Ki 4:25 – safely 1Ki 10:9 – to do 1Ki 11:39 – not for ever 1Ki 12:16 – now see 2Ki 19:34 – my servant 1Ch 5:2 – the chief ruler 1Ch 12:40 – there was joy 1Ch 17:11 – I will raise 1Ch 18:14 – executed Psa 45:6 – O God Psa 45:11 – Lord Psa 58:1 – Do Psa 68:22 – the depths Psa 85:10 – righteousness Psa 99:4 – strength Psa 101:2 – behave Pro 16:10 – A divine sentence Pro 29:2 – the righteous Pro 31:9 – General Son 1:3 – thy name Isa 9:6 – the government Isa 11:4 – But with Isa 16:5 – in the Isa 32:18 – General Isa 33:22 – the Lord is our king Isa 37:35 – and for Isa 42:6 – called Isa 45:21 – a just Isa 45:24 – in the Jer 21:12 – Execute Jer 30:21 – governor Jer 31:23 – As Jer 31:38 – the days Eze 1:26 – the appearance of a man Eze 21:27 – until Eze 29:21 – I cause Eze 34:24 – a prince Eze 36:11 – will do Eze 37:22 – and one Eze 37:24 – David Eze 45:8 – and my princes Eze 46:18 – the prince Hos 1:7 – will save Hos 1:11 – the children of Judah Mic 2:13 – their Mic 4:4 – none Zec 12:8 – the house Zec 13:7 – the man Zec 14:11 – shall be safely inhabited Mat 1:1 – the son of David Mat 2:2 – born Mat 6:10 – Thy kingdom Mat 11:3 – Art Mat 21:5 – thy King Mat 22:42 – The Son Mat 25:34 – the King Mar 10:47 – thou Mar 15:12 – whom Luk 1:69 – in Luk 2:14 – and Luk 7:19 – Art Luk 18:38 – Jesus Luk 20:41 – Christ Luk 24:27 – and all Luk 24:44 – in the prophets Joh 1:49 – the King Joh 7:27 – no man Joh 7:42 – not Joh 8:16 – yet Joh 16:10 – righteousness Joh 18:33 – the king Joh 20:28 – My Lord Act 1:6 – restore Act 2:30 – he Act 10:36 – he is Act 13:23 – this Act 13:32 – how Act 26:6 – the promise Rom 1:3 – which Rom 3:21 – righteousness Rom 9:5 – who is Rom 10:3 – God’s righteousness Rom 14:17 – but 1Co 1:30 – righteousness 1Ti 3:16 – God Heb 1:8 – a sceptre Heb 7:2 – King of righteousness Heb 7:14 – sprang Rev 5:5 – the Root
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 23:5. Jeremiah used the same practice as that of Isaiah (though not nearly as frequently) of passing from affairs of ancient Israel to those of spiritual Israel under Christ. David was the first king of ancient Israel from the tribe of Judah, hence it was fitting that lie be named in connection with the spiritual King (Jesus) Who also was from the tribe of Judah (Heb 7:14). Branch means something that has sprouted from another plant and is properly applied to Christ as he was a lineal descendant from David.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 23:5-6. I will raise unto David a righteous branch The house of David seemed to be quite sunk and ruined by the threatening pronounced against Jeconiah, (Jer 22:30,) that none of his seed should ever sit upon the throne of David: but here we have a promise which effectually secures the honour of the covenant made with David, notwithstanding that threatening; for by it his house will be raised out of its ruins to a greater lustre than ever, and shine brighter than it did even in the days of Solomon. We have not so many prophecies of Christ in this book as we had in that of the Prophet Isaiah. But here we have a very illustrious one. Of him, doubtless, the prophet here speaks, and of no other person. Even the Jewish doctors, as well as Christian interpreters, understand this as a prophecy of the Messiah, who is called the branch: Isa 4:2; Isa 53:2; and the man the branch, Zec 3:8. And here he is termed the righteous branch, not only because he himself was righteous, but because he makes his people righteous; and a king that shall reign and prosper Not like kings that now were of the house of David, going backward in all their affairs, but one that shall set up a kingdom in the world, which shall be victorious over all opposition; one to whose hands the good pleasure of the Lord shall be committed, and under whose care and management it shall prosper; one who shall execute judgment and justice in the earth All the world over, Psa 96:13. The present kings of Davids line were unjust and oppressive, and their affairs therefore did not prosper; but this king shall break the usurped power of Satan, institute a perfect rule of holy living, and in due time make all the world righteous. In his days That is, under his dominion, when his kingdom shall be set up and established upon earth; Judah shall be saved, &c. The people of God, typified by Judah and Israel, shall be saved with a spiritual and eternal salvation, a salvation from the guilt and power of sin, into the favour and image of God here, and into the kingdom of his glory hereafter. At which kingdom, till they arrive, God will be a special protection to them, their refuge and strength, and very present help in trouble; so that they shall dwell safely Confiding in the care of their strong helper, and preserved in perfect peace. And this is his name whereby he shall be called Namely, by his people, and by God; the name whereby he shall be known, and which shall at once be descriptive both of his person and office. THE LORD, Hebrew, JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS Though of the seed of David according to the flesh, he shall indeed be JEHOVAH, God in human nature, and OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS; namely, justifying us by his merits, sanctifying us by his Spirit, and directing us in every part of our duty by his doctrine and example; the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth in him with a faith that worketh by love.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
23:5 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise to David a righteous {e} Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice upon the earth.
(e) This prophecy is of the restitution of the Church in the time of Jesus Christ, who is the true branch, read Isa 11:1; Isa 45:8, Jer 35:15, Dan 9:24 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
"Behold, the days are coming," introduces a message of hope for the future 16 times in Jeremiah. [Note: Harrison, Jeremiah and . . ., p. 119.] Yahweh also promised to raise up another Davidic King in the future (cf. Psalms 2; Psalms 44; Psalms 72; Psalms 89-110). He would be as a branch or sprout (Heb. semah) that springs up from an apparently dead stump, namely, the Davidic line of kings (cf. Jer 33:15; 2Sa 23:5; Psa 132:17; Isa 4:2; Isa 11:1; Zec 3:8; Zec 6:12). His characteristic virtues would be wisdom, justice, and righteousness, traits notably absent from the last of Judah’s kings (cf. Jer 22:3). He would be a true shoot (Heb. semah saddiq), a "legitimate scion," of David’s line. [Note: See J. Swetnam, "Some Observations on the Background of saddiq in Jeremiah 23:5a," Biblica 46:1 (1965):29-40.] He would rule as a true King, not as a puppet like the last four kings of Judah. This is one of the few direct messianic references in Jeremiah (cf. Jer 3:15-18; Jer 31:31-34; Jer 33:15-16).