trast to the unclean lips in Is. vi.
With unclean lips they had, in the time of the long-suffering of God,
invoked their idols, Ps. xvi. 4. On the words: "To serve Him with one
shoulder," comp. Is. xix. 23: "And Egypt serves with Asshur." The
words: "From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia," in ver. 10, rest on Is.
xviii. 1. In both of the passages, Ethiopia is the type of the whole
Gentile world to be converted in future. In Is. xviii. Ethiopia offers
itself and all which it has to the Lord; here it brings the scattered
members of the community of the Israelitish people to the Kingdom of
God. [Hebrew: etr] always means "to supplicate," [Pg 359] never "to
burn incense." Ezek. viii. 11 must thus be translated: "Every man, his
censer in his hand, and the _supplication_ of the cloud of incense went
up;" compare remarks on Rev. v. 8. The dispersed members of the Church
_supplicate_ that the Lord would again receive them into His communion
(compare Hos. xiv. 3; Jer. xxxi. 9, 18; Zech. xii. 10); and these
supplications cannot remain without an answer, since they from whom
they proceed stand in a close relation to the Lord. "The daughter of my
dispersed" is the daughter or communion, consisting of the dispersed of
the Lord, just as in the phrase "the daughter of the Chaldeans," the
Chaldeans themselves are the daughter or virgin. The designation, in
itself, plainly suggests the dispersed members of the old Congregation,
inasmuch as they only can be designated as the dispersed of the Lord.
To this, moreover, must be added the reference to Deut. iv. 27: "And
the Lord _disperses_ you among the nations;" xxviii. 64: "And the Lord
_disperses_ thee among all the nations from the one end of the earth
even unto the other,"--an announcement which, at the time of Zephaniah,
had already been fulfilled upon the ten tribes, and the fulfilment of
which was soon to commence upon Judah. It is only when the members of
the old Congregation are understood by the suppliants and dispersed,
that the call, "Wait ye upon me" is here established and confirmed. The
offering of the meat-offering signifies, in the symbolism of the Mosaic
law, diligence in good works, such as is to be peculiar to the
redeemed. A single manifestation of it is the missionary zeal which is
here shown by the converted Gentiles.

In harmony with the Song of Solomon, Isaiah announces in several
passages, that the converted Gentiles shall, at some future period,
labour for the restor