ions of awkward embarassment. All that is required is, to remove
the stone of offence which has caused these interpreters to stumble.
Towards this a good beginning has been made by _Vitringa_, without,
however, completely attaining the object. In ver. 14, the Prophet has
seen the birth of the Messiah as present. Holding fast this idea, and
expanding it, the Prophet makes him who has been born accompany the
people through all the stages of its existence. We have here an _ideal
anticipation of the real incarnation_, the right of which lies in the
circumstance, that all blessings and deliverances which, before Christ,
were bestowed upon the covenant-people, had their root in His future
birth, and the cause of which was given in the circumstance, that the
covenant-people had entered upon the moment of their great crisis, of
their conflict with the world's powers, which could not but address a
call to invest the comforting thought with, as it were, flesh and
blood, and in this manner to place it into the midst of the popular
life. What the Prophet means, and intends to say here is this, _that,
in the space of about a twelvemonth, the overthrow of the hostile
kingdoms would already have taken place_. As the representative of the
cotemporaries, he brings forward the wonderful child who, as it were,
formed the soul of the popular life. _At the time when this child knows
to distinguish between good and bad food, hence, after the space of
about a twelvemonth, he will not have any want of nobler food,_ ver.
15, _for before he has entered upon this stage, the land of_ [Pg 56]
_the two hostile kings shall be desolate._ In the subsequent prophecy,
the same wonderful child, grown up into a warlike hero, brings the
deliverance from Asshur, and the world's power represented by it.--We
have still to consider and discuss the particular. _What is indicated
by the eating of cream and honey?_ The erroneous answer to this
question, which has become current ever since _Gesenius_, has put
everything into confusion, and has misled expositors such as _Hitzig_
and _Meier_ to cut the knot, by asserting that ver. 15 is spurious.
Cream and honey can come into consideration as the noblest food only;
the eating of them can indicate only a _condition of plenty and
prosperity_. "A land flowing with milk and honey" is, in the books of
Moses, a standing expression for designating the rich fulness of noble
food which the Holy Land offers. A land which flows w