the Gentiles shall come to thee. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Madian and Epha: all they from Saba shall come, bringing gold and frankincense, and showing forth praise to the Lord. All the flocks of Cedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the rams of Nabaioth shall minister to thee they shall be offered upon My acceptable altar, and I will glorify the house of My majesty.

:

Who are these that fly as clouds, and as doves to their windows? For the islands wait for Me, and the ships of the sea in the beginning that I may bring thy sons from afar: their silver and their gold with them, to the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because He hath glorified thee. And the children of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister to thee: for in My wrath have I struck thee, and in My reconciliation have I had mercy upon thee. And thy gates shall be open continually: they shall not be shut day nor night, that the strength of the Gentiles may be brought to thee, and their kings may be brought. For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish: and the Gentiles shall be wasted with desolation.

Its Power and Increase.-The glory of Libanus shall come to thee, the fir-tree, and the box-tree, and the pine-tree together, to beautify the place of My sanctuary: and I will glorify the place of My feet. And the children of them that afflict thee shall come bowing down to thee, and all that slandered thee shall worship the steps of thy feet, and shall call thee the city of the Lord, the Sion of the Holy One of Israel. Because thou wast forsaken and hated, and there was none that passed through thee, I will make thee to be an everlasting glory, a joy unto generation and generation. And thou shalt suck the milk of the Gentiles, and thou shalt be nursed with the breasts of kings: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver : and for wood brass, and for stones iron and I will make thy visitation peace and thy overseers justice. Iniquity shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction in thy borders, and salvation shall possess thy walls, and praise thy gates.

Thou shalt no more have the sun for thy light by day, neither shall the brightness of the moon enlighten thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and thy God for thy glory. Thy sun shall go down no more, and thy moon shall not decrease for the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. And thy people

shall be all just, and they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of My planting, the work of My hand, to glorify Me. The least shall become a thousand, and a little one a most strong nation: I the Lord will suddenly do this thing in its time.

SECT. CLXI. PROPHECY OF THE PREACHING OF CHRIST. HIS VICTORY
OVER HIS ENEMIES, AND HIS TENDER MERCY TO HIS OWN PEOPLE.

To

The Office of Christ.-The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Isaias LXI. because the Lord hath anointed Me: He hath sent Me to preach 1-11. to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up. proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,* and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all that mourn. To appoint to the mourners of Sion, and to give them a crown for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of grief : and they shall be called in it the mighty ones of justice, the planting of the Lord, to glorify Him.

And they shall build the places that have been waste from of old, and shall raise up ancient ruins, and shall repair the desolate cities, that were destroyed for generation and generation. And strangers shall stand and shall feed your flocks: and the sons of strangers shall be your husbandmen and the dressers of your vines. But you shall be called the priests of the Lord: you it shall be said: Ye ministers of our God, you shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and you shall pride yourselves in their glory. For your double confusion and shame, they shall praise their part therefore shall they receive double in their land, everlasting joy shall be unto them.

to

For I am the Lord that love judgment, and hate robbery in a holocaust and I will make their work in truth, and I will make a perpetual covenant with them. And they shall know their seed among the Gentiles, and their offspring in the midst of peoples all that shall see them shall know them, that these are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God: for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation: and with the robe of justice He hath covered me, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth her seed to shoot forth, so shall the Lord God make justice to spring forth, and praise before all the nations.

* Our Lord read this passage in the synagogue at Nazareth, and applied it to Himself. Luke iv.

Isaias

Christ's Victory.-Who is this that cometh from Edom, LXIII. 1-19. with dyed* garments from Bosra, this beautiful one in his robe, walking in the greatness of his strength? I, that speak justice, and am a defender to save.

Why then is thy apparel red, and thy garments like theirs that tread in the winepress?

I have troden the winepress alone, and of the Gentiles there is not a man with me: I have trampled on them in my indignation, and have trodden them down in my wrath, and their blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my apparel. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, the year of my redemption is come. I looked about, and there was none to help: I sought, and there was none to give aid and my own arm hath saved for me, and my indignation itself hath helped me. And I have trodden down the people in my wrath, and have made them drunk in my indignation, and have brought down their strength to the earth.

His tender Mercy.—I will remember the tender mercies of the Lord, the praise of the Lord for all the things that the Lord hath bestowed upon us, and for the multitude of His good things to the house of Israel, which He hath given them ac cording to His kindness, and according to the multitude of His mercies. And He said: Surely they are My people, children that will not lie: so He became their Saviour. In all their affliction He was not troubled, and the angel of His presence saved them: in His love and in His mercy He redeemed them, and He carried them and lifted them up all the days of old.

But they provoked to wrath, and afflicted the spirit of His Holy One and He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against them. And He remembered the days of old, of Moses, and of His people: Where is He that brought them up out of the sea, with the shepherds of His flock? where is He that put in the midst of them the spirit of His Holy One? He that brought out Moses by the right hand, by the arm of His majesty that divided the waters before them, to make Himself an everlasting name. He that led them out through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness that stumbleth not. As a beast that goeth down in the field, the spirit of the Lord was their leader so didst Thou lead Thy people to make Thyself a glorious

name.

Look down from heaven, and behold from Thy holy habitation and the place of Thy glory: where is Thy zeal, and Thy

*That is, bloodstained. Edom and Bosra, a chief city of Edom, are here taken in a mystical sense for the enemies of Christ and His Church.

strength, the multitude of Thy bowels, and of Thy mercies? they have held back themselves from me. For Thou art our father, and Abraham hath not known us,* and Israel hath been ignorant of us: Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our redeemer, from everlasting is Thy name. Why hast Thou made us to err, O Lord, from Thy ways: why hast thou hardened our heart,† that we should not fear Thee? return for the sake of Thy servants, the tribes of Thy inheritance. They have possessed Thy holy people as nothing our enemies have trodden down Thy sanctuary. We are become as in the beginning, when Thou didst not rule over us, and when we were not called by Thy

name.

THE PROPHECY OF MICHEAS.

The prophet Micheas lived in the reigns of Jotham, Achaz, and Ezechias, from B.C. 756 to 700. He is not the same as the Micheas mentioned in the last chapter of the third book of Kings in connection with king Achab. This Micheas was contemporary with the prophet Isaias. He foretold the destruction of Samaria and Jerusalem, and also prophesied of Christ and His king

dom.

SECT. CLXII. THE PROPHECY OF MICHEAS.

AND it shall come to pass in the last days, that the moun- Micheas tain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared in the top of IV. 1-13. mountains, and high above the hills: and people shall flow to it. And many nations shall come in haste, and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for the law shall go forth out of Sion, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into spades: nation shall not take sword against nation: neither shall they learn war any more. And every man shall sit under his vine and under his fig-tree, and there shall be none to make them afraid for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken. For all people will walk every one in the name of his god: but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.

* That is, Abraham will not now acknowledge us for his children, by reason of our degeneracy: but Thou, O Lord, art our true father and our redeemer, and no other can be called our parent in comparison with Thee. DOUAY BIBLE.

The meaning is, that God, in punishment of their great and manifold crimes, and their long abuse of His mercy and grace, had withdrawn His graces from them, and so given them up to error and hardness of heart. DOUAY BIBLE. This prophecy of the Church is to be found in nearly the same words in the second chapter of the prophecy of Isaias. It foretells that the law of Christ's kingdom is a law of peace.

Micheas v.

1-5.

In that day, saith the Lord, I will gather up her that halteth:* and her that I had cast out I will gather up and her whom I had afflicted. And I will make her that halted a remnant: and her that had been afflicted a mighty nation: and the Lord will reign over them in mount Sion, from this time now and for ever. And thou, O cloud-covered tower of the flock of the daughter of Sion, unto thee shall it come: yea the first power shall come, the kingdom to the daughter of Jerusalem.

Now, why art thou drawn together with grief? Hast thou no king in thee, or is thy counseller perished, because sorrow hath taken thee as a woman in labour? Be in pain and labour, O daughter of Sion, as a woman that bringeth forth: for now shalt thou go out of the city, and shalt dwell in the country, and shalt come even to Babylon: there thou shalt be delivered: there the Lord will redeem thee out of the hand of thy enemies.

And now many nations are gathered together against thee, and they say: Let her be stoned, and let our eye look upon Sion. But they have not known the thoughts of the Lord, and have not understood His counsel: because He hath gathered them together as the hay of the floor. Arise, and tread, O daughter of Sion: for I will make thy horn iron, and thy hoofs I will make brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples, and shalt immolate the spoils of them to the Lord, and their strength to the Lord of the whole earth.

Now shalt thou be laid waste, O daughter of the robber: they have laid siege against us, with a rod shall they strike the cheek of the judge of Israel. And thou, Bethlehem Ephrata, art a little one among the thousands of Juda: out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel: and His going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.+ Therefore will He give them up even till the time wherein she that travaileth shall bring forth, and the remnant of his brethren shall be converted to the children of Israel. And He shall stand, and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the height of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall be converted, for now shall He be magnified even to the ends of the earth. And this man shall be our peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land, and when he shall set his foot in our houses: and we shall raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal

men.

*The nation of the Israelites is represented.

This passage is quoted by St. Matthew (chap. ii.) as that on which the scribes rested when they told Herod that Christ was to be born in Bethlehem.