Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel--were pre-eminently
afflicted. On the contrary, they occupy an honourable position.
Jeremiah receives, after the capture of Jerusalem, proofs of esteem
from Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel is entrusted with the highest public
offices. Ezekiel is held in honour by his compatriots. How then could
the people despise the prophets on account of their sufferings? How
could they imagine that they had been smitten by God? How could they
afterwards conceive the idea that the sufferings of the prophets had a
vicarious character?--To what quarter soever we look, impossibilities
present themselves; and if, moreover, we also look at the parallel
passages, we must indeed wonder, that a hypothesis altogether so
untenable should ever have been listened to.

CHAPTER LV. 1-5.

The Lord exhorts those who are anxious to be saved, to appropriate the
blessings of salvation which are so liberally offered, and which,
although bestowed without money and price, can alone truly satisfy the
soul, vers. 1 and 2. For He is to make with them a covenant of
everlasting duration, in which the eternal mercy promised to the family
of David is to be realized, ver. 3. David--such is the salvation in
store for the Church--is to be a witness, prince, and lawgiver of all
the Gentiles who, with joyful readiness, shall unite themselves to
Israel.

[Pg 343]

Ver. 1. "_Ho, all ye that thirst, come ye to the water, and ye that
have no silver, come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk
without silver and without price._"

The discourse is addressed to the members of the Church pining away in
misery. By the water, salvation is denoted, as is not unfrequently the
case, comp. chap. xii. 3: "And with joy ye shall draw water out of the
wells of salvation," xliv. 3; Ps. lxxxvii. 7, lxxxiv. 7, cvii. 35. The
thirsty one is he who stands in need of salvation. To the words: "Ho,
all ye that thirst, come ye to the water," the Lord refers in John vii.
37: [Greek: ean tis dipsa erchestho pros me kai pineto], where the
[Greek: pros me] had been added from ver. 3. It is to be observed that
Christ there appropriates to himself what Jehovah is here speaking.
_Michaelis_ says: "Christ, in consequence of the highest identity,
makes the words of the Father His own." There is an evident reference
to the same words in Rev. xxi. 6 also: [Greek: ego to dipsonti doso ek
tes peges tou hudatos tes zoes dorean]. Similarly