Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: May 8
Today is: Saturday, April 27th, 2024 (Show Today's Devotion)
Select a Day for a Devotion in the Month of May: (Show All Months)
Isa_49:11-12
It has been suggested that the land of Sinim means the land of China or of the Chinese; and this notion, which was formerly regarded with little favor by interpreters, has been of late years taken up and warmly advocated on the Continent, not only by Biblical scholars, but by comparative philologists, whose conclusions must be allowed much weight in such a question. We must confess that we were once opposed to this view, or rather, did not acquiesce in it; but on a review of the whole subject, with the advantage of later researches, we now incline to entertain it with very little hesitation.
It is clearly intended in this text, to indicate the universal extent of this ingathering of nations, by pointing to the remotest quarters in different directions. Still it must be allowed that there is some obscurity and difficulty in the mode of indication. At the first view it seems doubtful whether more than three directions in all are designated; and then, whether more than two, or even one of these, is distinctly intimated. The north is clear enough. The word translated the west is “the sea;” and is, therefore, not free from uncertainty: but as the sea does usually denote the west in all such distributive intimations, with reference to the Mediterranean, which lay to the west of Palestine, it is needless to suppose that it means anything else here.
Having thus two directions, north and west, expressly stated, it remains to look for the south and the east.
It is very clear, that if four quarters of the world, or rather the four cardinal points, are at all stated, one of them is comprised in “those that come from far,” because this is one of the only four terms of indication which the verse contains. It has been thought by some, indeed, that this clause is not a single item in an enumeration of particulars, but a generic statement comprehending the specific statements that follow. This interpretation appears to have originated in a wish to give the widest meaning that can be afforded to the terms of the prediction, as against the restricted local application for which some have contended. But the interpretation is not required to establish this larger meaning, seeing that if one of the four quarters is denoted by the phrase “from afar,” the idea necessarily suggested is, that all the other points enumerated are likewise remote. That “from afar,” really does stand for one of the points of the compass, seems to be clear from the necessity and the probability of the case. When four local designations are given, one of which certainly, another almost certainly, and a third (the land of Sinim, in this case) most probably, denote particular directions, it is most natural to conclude that the fourth is so used likewise, however vague it may be in itself as an indication. The presumption thus created is confirmed by the fact, that the hypothesis of only three divisions admits that the whole earth was meant to be included; and it thus becomes a question whether it is most agreeable to general usage, and that of Scripture in particular, to understand a threefold or fourfold division of the earth in such connections. If the latter, as is certainly the case, then analogy is strongly in favor of the supposition, that the first clause, “from afar,” is not co-extensive with the other, but contains the first of four particulars enumerated. Over and above this argument, derived from the usual distinction of four points or quarters, there is another furnished by the use of the pronoun these, when repeated so as to express a distributive idea. In all such cases, these and these mean some and others; nor is there, perhaps, a single instance where the first these comprehends the whole, while the others divide it into parts. This would be just as foreign from the Hebrew idiom, as it would be from ours to say, “Some live in Europe, some in France, some in Holland;” when we mean that some live in Holland, some in France, and all in Europe.
From all this it seems to follow, that the verse most probably contains the customary distribution of the earth or heavens into four great quarters, and that one of them is designated by the phrase “from afar.”
Assuming, therefore, that “from afar” designates one of the points of the compass, it remains to inquire what point this is. And that we have already the north and the west, this must be either the south or the east. Some have contended for the east, and this has been met by the just remark, that “afar” never does mean the east, and is not elsewhere used to denote it. But it seems to have escaped the notice of those who have written on the subject, that “from afar,” or at least the equivalent expression, is used to denote the south in Scripture; as in our Savior’s declaration “the queen of the south came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.” We cannot go any further in showing that “afar” denotes the south; but if we can show—and to this we have now narrowed the question, that the land of Sinim is in the east, the other question is settled by the absence of the alternatives, and “afar” must stand for the south.
A Canaanitish tribe called the Sinites is named in Gen_10:17, and 1Ch_1:15; we have also the wilderness of Sin, and the mountains of Sinai; Egypt also might possibly be called the land of Sinim from Syene, or from the city of Sin, otherwise Pelusius; accordingly, all these have found advocates, but to all of them the objection is open, that they are all too near at hand to suit the context, whether “from afar” be taken as a general description or a distinct specification.
It is to be noted that in the name Sinim the im is merely the sign of the Hebrew plural, and the proper name is to be sought in Sin as the radical portion of the word. Looking to the remote south, there is no nation known to the ancients, nor indeed any nation, that bore this name. A place or nation giving a name in its remoteness to any point of extreme distance, must have been a place or people of importance, for it is only such whose name and reputation reach to distant regions. There is none such in the south; and eastward, the only country important and remote that comes to us with this name is China, which is well ascertained to have been first known to the ancients by the name of Sina; Sin, Chin, or Jin (with the usual termination, a, added in the case of a country), being merely different modes of representing the same word. This is certainly a very important fact; to many it will seem sufficient and conclusive, being, indeed, as strong a piece of evidence as exists for the identification of many important ancient names. If this be correct, it is encouraging to find China set down by name as standing for the extreme east of the old world, and prophetically destined to be brought into the blessedness of Christ’s kingdom. The remoteness of the country is not against this interpretation, but in favor of it, under the explanation of the first term, “from afar,” which has been already given.
The statement already made indirectly disposes of many of the old objections to this interpretation. The only plausible ones that can still be urged against it may be reduced to two. The first is, that China was unknown to the Jews at the date of this prophecy. To this it may be answered, first, that no one who believes in the inspiration or the prophets; can refuse to admit the possibility of such a prediction, for the encouragement of future ages (as in the case of Cyrus), even if the fact were so; and, indeed, it might be that the peculiar circumstances and seemingly inaccessible character of that great empire, might create a peculiar need for so distinct an intimation by a name which, in our day, the most renowned scholars and critics, holding different views of Divine inspiration, have with rare exceptions agreed, must denote China.
But, secondly, it is not impossible that China was known to the Hebrews even at a very early period. If the fleets of Solomon penetrated to the shores of India, or to Ceylon, nothing is more probable than that the intelligent and inquiring supercargoes whom such a king as Solomon would be sure to send therewith, may have heard something of the great country which lay in the still remoter east. It is hardly possible but that they must have made some inquiries on the subject, if only to bear back to their master some report respecting what might seem the utmost eastward bounds of the habitable earth. The answer would be, that beyond India lay the great country of Sin, or Sina, beyond which lay the great ocean, and that in this direction there was no further land. Again, some knowledge of this country and people may have existed in Egypt, and have been thence acquired by the Israelite. In the ancient Egypt which the monuments disclose, there is much to remind one of China. The type of their civilization was essentially the same; and there was great similarity in their habits of life, their arts, implements, and utensils. In fact, China is a living Egypt. This powerfully suggests that there was some connection between these countries, of which nothing is at present known distinctly, but which further researches in the ancient lore of China and of Egypt may disclose. We do not rely upon the proof for a commercial intercourse with Egypt which some have found in the fact, that porcelain vessels with Chinese inscriptions upon them have been found in the tombs of ancient Thebes—because another mode has been suggested in which these articles may have found their way into the tombs. But what we can say is, that in the face of what has within the present century been brought to light respecting the knowledge and intercourse of ancient nations, it is rash and hazardous to affirm that in the time of Isaiah the Israelites could have had no knowledge of China, even by name. And this brings us to the apparently formidable objection, that the name Sinim is not that used by the Chinese themselves, nor by any other nation, until long after the date of this prophecy, it having been derived from a family that did not ascend the throne until 246 years before the birth of Christ. Too much stress has, however, been laid upon this dark and dubious tradition of a distant and unknown country. The very text before us makes it doubtful; the universal prevalence of the word Sin, Chin, or Jin, throughout eastern or southern Asia, from time immemorial, presupposes an antiquity still more remote; and the Chinese historians themselves record that the family from which the name derives its origin, for ages before it ruled the empire, ruled a province or kingdom on the western frontier, whence the name might easily have been extended to the western nations. There are, in fact, few cases of a name being more extensively or longer prevalent than that of China, the very form in which it exists in Sanskrit, the mother tongue in south-eastern Asia. That the Chinese themselves have never used it, though acquainted with it, is nothing to the purpose. A Hebrew writer would, of course, use the name familiar in western Asia—even as we have always called, and so now call Persia, as did also the Hebrew writers, by a name which was never in use by the inhabitants of the land.
Upon the whole, then, if any other interpretation be given to Sinim, we cannot account for its being placed here as representing one of the quarters or divisions of the world. But if it mean China, that extreme limit of the eastern world, that hive of nations, supposed to comprehend a third part of the human race, a natural and consonant interpretation is reached. Even to us there would be nothing unintelligible or absurd, however strange or novel, in the combination, north, west, south, and China. On the whole, then, a hypothesis which solves all difficulties, satisfies the claims of philology and history, unites the suffrages of the most independent schools and parties, fully meets the requisitions of the text and context, and opens a glorious field of expectation and effort to the church, may be safely regarded as the true one. Note: The principal authorities in support of this view, that Sinim denotes China, are Manasseh-ben-Israel, Montanus, Calmet, Gesenius, Winer, Maurer, Hitzig, Henderson, Umbreit, Hendewerk, Knobel, Beck, and Alexander. The last-named authority, in his Later Prophecies of Isaiah (New York, 1847; since reprinted in Glasgow, together with the Earlier Prophecies, under the editorial care of the Rev. Dr. Eadie), has given a large note on this question (pp. 178-185), on which this day’s Reading is mainly founded, with some additional illustrations and suggestions. Professor Alexander largely examines an article on this question which appeared in the Chinese Repository from the pen of one of the missionaries, to which we have also referred, and have drawn from it further particulars. Besides these, the question has been examined as one of historical and literary interest by the most eminent comparative philologists, such as Langles, Lassen, and others, and whose conclusions are in support of the view that China is really denoted by this name.