_in
addition_, the circumstance that the barrenness of the country is not
at all pointed out in the preceding context. _Finally_--When we
understand this expression as referring to the Messiah, this verse,
standing as it does at the head of the proclamation of salvation,
contains the fundamental thought; and in what follows we obtain the
expansion. In the verse before us we are told that in Christ the people
attain to glory,--and, in those which follow, how this glory is
manifested in them. But according to this view, every internal
connexion of the verse before us with what follows is entirely
destroyed. 3. According to _Hendewerk_, by the "Sprout of the Lord,"
"the collective person of the ruling portion in the state during the
Messianic happy time," is designated. This opinion is the beginning of
a return to the Messianic interpretation. But then only could that
ideal person be here referred to, if elsewhere in Isaiah too it would
come out strongly and decidedly. As this, however, is not the case; as,
on the contrary, the Messiah everywhere in Isaiah meets us in shining
clearness, it would be arbitrary to give up the _person_ in favour of a
_personification_. 4. _Umbreit_ acknowledges that, in the case of
[Hebrew: cmH ihvh], the Messianic interpretation is the only correct
one. "The two subsequent prophecies in chap. ix. and xi.," he says,
"are to be considered as a commentary on our short text." But it is
characteristic of his compromising manner that by "the fruit of the
land" he understands "the consequences of the dominion of the Messiah
for the land, the fruits which, in consequence of his appearing, the
consecrated soil brings forth,"--thus plainly overlooking the clear [Pg
19] contrast between the Sprout of the Lord, and the fruit of the land,
by which evidently the same thing is designated from different aspects.

Ver. 3. The Prophet now begins to show, more in detail, in how far the
Sprout of the Lord and the fruit of the land would serve for the honour
and glory of the Church. The words: "He that was left in Zion and was
spared in Jerusalem," take up the idea suggested by the "escaped of
Israel" in ver. 2. The double designation is intended to direct
attention to the thought that the remnant, and the remnant only, are
called to a participation in the glory. _Zion_ and _Jerusalem_, as the
centre of the covenant-people, here represent the whole; this is
evident from the circumstance that at the close of ver.