ave here before us only a poetical
enlargement of the thought that all evil shall cease" (_Hendewerk_,
_Knobel_), removes the boundaries which separate prophecy from poetry.
2. The parallelism with the condition of the creation before the fall,
as it is described to us by Holy Scripture. It is certainly not without
reason that, in the account of the creation, so much emphasis is laid
on the circumstance that all which was created was _good_. This implies
a condition of the irrational creation different from what it is now;
for in its present state it gives us a faithful copy of the first fall,
inasmuch as every heinous vice has its symbols and representatives in
the animal kingdom. According to Gen. ii. 19, 20, the animals recognize
in Adam their lord and king, peaceably gather around him, and receive
their names from him. According to Gen. i. 30, grass only was assigned
to animals for their food; the whole animal world bore the image of the
innocence and peace of the first man, and was not yet pervaded by the
law of mutual destruction. Where there was not a Cain, neither was
there a lion. The serpent has not yet its disgusting and horrible
figure, and fearlessly men have intercourse with it; comp. Vol. i. p.
15, 16. But the influence of sin pervaded and penetrated the whole
nature, and covered it with a curse (comp. Gen. iii. 17-19); so that it
not only bears evidence to the existence of God, but also to the
existence of sin. [Pg 121] Now, as it is by sin that outward discord,
and contention, and destruction _arose_ in the irrational creature, so
we may also expect that, when the cause has been removed, the effect
too will disappear; that, with the cessation of the discord and enmity
among men, which, according to ver. 9, the Prophet expected of the
Messianic time, discord and enmity in the animal world will cease also.
In the individual features, the Prophet seems even distinctly to refer
to the history of the creation; compare ver. 7: "The lion shall eat
straw like the ox," with Gen. i. 30; ver. 8: "the sucking child shall
play on the hole of the asp," with Gen. iii. 15. 3. The comparison of
other passages of Scripture, according to which likewise the reflection
of the evil in the irrational creation shall cease, after the evil has
been removed from the rational creation; compare chap. lxv. 25, lxvi,
22; Matt. xix. 28, where the Lord speaks of the [Greek: palingenesia],
the return of the whole earthly creation to its o