.^ GIFT or i I I CLARK'S FOEEIGN THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY NEW SEEIES. VOL. XLIl. 5r^e PTopf)Ecfc3 of Igafafi. VOL. I. EDINBUliGH: T. & T. CLAIIK, 38 GEOllGE STREET, 1892. PRINTED BY MORRIS T. .V T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. IX)NDOX, HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN, CEORGE HERBERT. NEW YORK, CHARLES SCRIBNER's SONS. BIBLICAL C'OMilEMABY THE PROrHECIES OF ISAIAH. FKAXZ DELITZSCII, D.D. LElh/lU TRAXSLATED FROM THE FOURTH EDITION. TIClitb an 3lltro^ucticn BY Trofessok S. li. DKIVEK, D.D., Oxfokd. VOL. I. K D I N P, U R G II : T. & T. CLAIMv, 38 GEO KG E STREET. 1892. [This TrnnsMion is Copyright, hy armngnnent irilh Ihf Aitlhor.] i> OXFORDER MEISTERN ALTTESTAMENTLICHER FORSCHUNG T. K. CHEYNE und S. R. DRIVER ALS DANK FUR BEWAHRTE LIEB' UND TREUE GEWIDMET. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. This fourth edition of my Commcntnnj on Isaiah contains the fruit of continued labour since the appearance of the third in 1875, and, after the latter was out of print, a thorough revisal of the whole has been made in preparation for a fourth appearance. To the commentary in the form it has hitherto presented, the objection has been made that it contained too much etymological matter and too many curious details far removed from the proper object of an exegetical work. The com- plaint was not without foundation, and I have taken care that it cannot be raised against the commentary in its present form, especially since, apart from this consideration, I had thought to make the greatest possible curtailment, and my taste is opposed to unnecessary repetitions. In former editions of my commentaries, however, I always leave so much that is peculiar to each, that they do not quite become antiquated by later ones. The illustrative essays contributed by my friends Flei.'^cher (d. Feb. 10, 1888), Wetzstein, and Von Strauss- Torney are to be found in the second and third editions ; those who consider these contributions of importance may still have access to them, at least in libraries.^ The excursus by Wetzstein on the Gable mountain - range in IJatanea (Vs. ^ These papers are lliose of Victor v. Strauss-Tomey, " Can D*3*D, in Isa. xlix. 12, be the Chine.se?" and of Wetzstein, in the second edition, " On Lsaiah, chap. xxi. ; " " On the Nabl (^23) and kimheil .■er Mcssias als Versohner ; in 1889 another, Sind die Jndcn vnrklich das auserwdhlte Vollc ? The publication of Wellhausen's Gesehichte Israels ill 1878 stirred him deeply: he was alternately pained by the boldness with which it treated sacred things and impressed by its brilliancy and the frcfiuent cogency of its argument. X INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. The immediate result was the series of twelve papers, called Fentateuch-kritische Studien in the Zcitschrift filr Kirchliehe Wissenschaft tend Kirchliches Leben for 1880. In these papers Delitzsch discusses critically certain prominent questions (such as the laws respecting the Passover, the Tabernacle, Deuteronomy, the " Law of Holiness ") on which Wellhausen's conception of the history of Israel turns, and, while fre- quently repudiating particular points in Wellhausen's argu- ment, recognises in his conclusions a large element of truth. Six other papers on cognate topics followed in the same periodical in 1882. About this time also two courses of his lectures were published in English from notes taken by one of his pupils — Messianic Prophecies and The Old Testament History of Redemption (1880, 1881). Meanwhile he had been busy in the preparation of new and improved editions of many of his commentaries. Thus the fourth edition of his Genesis appeared in 1872, the fifth, incorporating the results to which his recent critical stndies had led him, under the title Ein neuer Commeniar uber die Genesis, in 1887 ; Job reached a second edition in 1876, the Psalms a fourth edition in 1883, Isaiah a fourth edition in 1889. In 1888 a number of discourses and articles were reprinted by him in a volume called Iris ; Farhenstitdien und Blumenstiicke ; here he gives freer scope than usual to his imagination, and treats a variety of topics half playfully, half in earnest, with inimit- able ease and grace. Professor Delitzsch's last work was Messianische Weissagungen in Geschichtlicher Folge, the preface to which is dated only six days before his death. In this volume, which contains his lectures on Messianic prophecy in the form in which they were last delivered by him in 1887, his aim, he tells us, was to state the results of his lifelong study — " eine Spatlingsgarbe aus alter und neuer Frucht " — in a clear, compendious form, as a last bequest to those engaged in missionary work. One department of Delitzsch's literary labours remains still to be noticed. As remarked above, it was a guiding aim of his life to make the New Testament better known to Jews. This first bore fruit in the missionary periodical called Saat auf Hoffnung, — " Seed in hope," — which was edited by him- self from 1863, and to which he was a frequent contributor. INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. xi In 1870 it assumed a still more practical shape in an etlitidn of the Epistle to the liomans in Hebrew, accompanied by a most interesting introduction, containing an account and criticism of existing translations of the New Testament into Hebrew, and valuable illustrations of the thought and plirase- ology of the apostle from llabbinical sources. He did not, however, rest here. A series of Talmudische Studieri, chiefly on linguistic points connected with the New Testament, which ulti- mately extended to seventeen papers, had already been begun by him in the Zcitschrift fiir die gcsammtc Lutherischc Tlieo- lotjie und Kirche (1854-77);' and in 1876-88 these were followed in the same periodical by another series of papers, ITorae Hchraicae et Talmudicae, supplementary to Lightfoot and Schoettgen, on the Hebrew equivalents of various New Testament expressions. These were, no doubt, " chips " from tiie great work on which he was at this time busily engaged ; for the desire of his heart, a new Hebrew version of the entire New Testament, was now on the point of being realized, the British and Foreign Bible Society having en- trusted him with the revision of the version published by them. This revision was completed in 1877. The improve- ments which it contained were very numerous ; nevertheless, it was capable of more ; and these, due partly to himself, partly derived from the criticisms and suggestions of other scholars (which Delitzsch always generously welcomed), were incor- porated by him in the editions which followed (the 9th, in 1889). It was in consequence of some suggestions tendered by him for tliis purpose that the present writer first made the acquaintance of Professor Delitzsch, and began a literary correspondence with him, which was continued at intervals to the period of his last illness. An interesting account of Professor Delitzsch's labours in connection with this subject has been written by himself in English in a pamphlet called The Hebrew Nevj Testament of the British and Foreign Bilk Society (Leipzig 1883). In its successive editions Delitzsch's Hebrew New Testament has enjoyed a very large circulation, partly among Christian scholars, on account of the exegetical interest attaching to it, and partly among Jews, for nmny of *■ See the subjects and dates in The Hebrew New Testament of the Brituih and Foreign Bible Society, p. 35 f. XH INTllODUCTORY NOTICE, whom the primary documents of Christianity, set forth in their own language, have been found to possess a peculiar attractiveness. During the later years of his life, Delitzsch spent much time in the successive revisions of this work, and was unwearying in the effort to make it correspond more completely with the ideal which he had set himself.^ At the time of his death he had nearly completed his preparations for a tenth edition, which was to include such extensive im- provements as to entitle it to be termed, in a certain sense, a " new " translation,^ The translation, even in the editions which have already appeared, shows great scholarship and accuracy, and every page evinces the care that has been bestowed upon it. Such is the record, though even so not told quite fully ,^ of Professor Delitzsch's wonderfully busy literary life. It can afford no cause for surprise that one who knew him well, and who found him working whilst lying propped up in bed during his last illness, should have remarked that he had never known a man who made uniformly such a careful use of his time. His nature was a richly-gifted one ; and he had learnt early how to apply to the best advantage the talents entrusted to his charge. And yet he was no mere student of books. He had a singularly warm and sympathetic dis- position ; he was in the habit of meeting his pupils informally ^ See, most recently, his short papers in the Expositor for February, April, and October 1889 ; twelve others, written by him during his last illness, and published in the Theologisches LiteraturUatt, 1889, Nos. 45-52, 1890, Nos. 1 and 2 ; and Saat auf Hoffnung, February 1890, pp. 71-74. The first of those in the Expositor is of importance as evidence of the friendly spirit in which Delitzsch and Salkinson, the author of another modern Hebrew version of the New Testament, which has sometimes been placed in rivalry with Delitzsch's, regarded personally each other's work. On the characteristics of these two Hebrew New Testaments, the writer may be permitted to refer to an article by himself in the Expositor for April 1886 (though it should be stated that some of the grammatical faults there pointed out in Salkinson's translation have since been corrected), 2 See Saat auf Hoffnung, February 1890, pp. 67-70, 74. 8 For some minor writings, as well as several other articles in periodi- cals, and his contributions to Herzog's Real-Encydopddie (Daniel, Heilig- keit Gottes, Hiob, etc. ; see the list in vol. xviii, p. 725 of the second edition), have, of necessity, been left unnoticed. INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XUl in both social ami religious gatherings ; and he loved to make, and succeeded in making, many friends. His personality was an impressive one, and e.xerted a wonderful charm upon all who came within reach of its inlluence. He loved lilngland ; and there are many both in tliis country and in America who still retain the vivid memory of kindnesses received from him in past years, while they were students at Leipzig, and who liave heard with sorrow the tidings of his death. Tiie present writer never had the privilege of meeting him personally, but he has received from him many most genial and friendly letters, besides experiencing in other ways tokens of his re- gard. The depth and reality of his convictions are attested by many passages of hi.s writings. His personal religion was devout and sincere. Mission work, especially among the Jews, interested him warmly ; he was much attracted by the movement among the Jews of South liussia in the direction of Christianity, headed by Joseph Ilabinowitzsch, and published several brochures illustrating its principles and tendencies. Of his pamphlet, Ernste Fraijcii an die Gehildcten judischer Religion, more than 4000 copies were disposed of in three months. The anti-Semitic agitation which broke out in Germany a few years ago deeply vexed him ; the injustice of the charges and insinuations brought against the Jews by a Koman Catholic writer in 1881 he exposed in a pamphlet, entitled, Rohlings Talmudjude helcuchtet, which was followed by other publications having a similar aim. As a thinker and author, though he is apt to be less suc- cessful in his treatment of abstract questions, and sometimes does not sufficiently hold his imagination in check. Delitzsch is forcible, original, and suggestive. His literary style is altogether superior to what those who know it only through the medium of translations would suppose to be the case. His commentaries and critical writings are distinguished not less on account of the warm religious feeling which breatlies in them than for the exact and comprehensive scholarshij) which they display. Thoroughness is the mark of all his works. His commentaries, from their exegetical complete- ness, take rank with the best that Germany has produced. He brings out of his abundantly furnished treasury things new and old. Amon" Christian scholars his knowledge of Xiv IXTRODUCTOEY NOTICE. Jewish literature was unsurpassed. Jewish views— though these it is true, are often only of interest as curiosities— are noticed in his commentaries more fully than in those of any other modern scholar. In difficult and controverted passages, the interpretations adopted by different authorities, from the earliest times, are compactly stated. The successive editions of his commentaries invariably bear witness to the minute and conscientious labour bestowed upon them. It is not the least valuable of their characteristics that they incorporate,^ or contain references to, the latest notices or researches which have any important bearing upon the text. History philo- logy criticism, travel, archaeology, are equally laid under con- trfbution by the keen-eyed author. One never turns to any of liis commentaries without finding in it the best information available at the time when it was written. His exegesis if occasionally tinged with mysticism, is, as a rule, thoroughly sound and trustworthy, attention being paid both to the mean- in- and construction of individual words, and also to the connection of thought in a passage as a whole The least satisfactory of his commentaries is that on the Song of Song,, the view taken by him of the poem as a whole obliging him in many cases to adopt strained interpretations of the text. Delitzsch appreciated scholarly feeling and insight in others and acknowledges gracefully (in the Preface to the second edition of Jol) his indebtedness to the exegetical acumen of that master of modern Hebraists, Ferdinand Hitzig. In the matter of etvmologies, however, Delitzsch never entirely dis- owned the principles which he had imbibed from Fiirst • and hence even to the last, he sometimes advocated derivations and connections between words, which are dependent upon questionable philological theories, and cannot saiely be accepted. Critically, Delitzsch was open-minded ; and with praise- worthy love of truth, when the facts were brought home to him did not shrink from frankly admitting them and modi- fyincx as circumstances required, the theories by wnich he had lying, as circuiubLctuuco i^vi——, " , , ■, i i,„j previously been satisfied. As was remarked above he had accepted from the begiBning, at least in xts man, features the critical analysis of Genesis: and in the earlier editions of hif Commentary on Isaiah he had avowed that not all the argu- ments used by rationalists were themselves rationalistic. But INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XV as late as 1872 lie still taught that the rontatonch, as we have it, was virtually a product of the Mosaic age. A closer study of the subject, however, which he was led to undertake by tlu' appearance of Wellhausen's History, convinced him that this view was not tenable ; and in the papers noticed above, written by him in 1880—1882 (the substance of which is stated in a condensed form in the Introduction to his Nnr Commentary on Genesis), he embraced the critical view of the structure of the entire Hexateuch, treating Deuteronomy as being, in form, the work of a prophet of the age of Hezekiah, and allowing that the ceremonial law was not probably cast into its present shape until a later date still. "Wiiile accept- ing these conclusions, however, he holds rightly that each of the main Pentateuciial codes embodies elements of much greater antiquity than itself, and rests ultimately upon a genuine ^Mosaic basis. The importance of this change of position on Delitzsch's part is twofold : it is, firstly, a signi- ficant indication of the cogency of the grounds upon which the critical view of the structure of the Old Testament rests ; and, secondly, it is evidence of what some have been disposed to doubt, viz. that critical conclusions, properly limited and ([ualified, are perfectly consistent with a firm and sincere belief in the reality of the revelation contained in the Old Testament. In the matter of the authorship of the Psalms, though there are signs in his last edition that he no longer upheld so strenuously as before the authority of the titles, he did not make the concessions to criticism which might per- haps have been expected of him. In the case of the Book of Isaiah, the edition of 1889 — which, by what was i'elt by both to be a high compliment, was dedicated conjointly to Piofessor Cheyne and the writer of this notice — is accommo- dated througiiout to the view of the origin and structure of the book generally accepted by modern sch(dars. Such is a sketch, only too inadequate and imperfect, of Franz Delitzsch's life and work. He has left a noble example of talents consecrated to the highest ends. May his devotion to learning, his keenness in the, pursuit of truth, his earnest- ness of purpose, his warm and reverent Christian spirit, find many imitators ! s. K. DKlVKi:. INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETICO-PREDICTIVE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. In the Canon of the Old Testament tlie prophetico-historical are followed by the proplietico-predictive books. Both to- gether, under the name of Q*^^''?^, ibrm the middle of the three divisions in the collection, — the first, in accordance with their position, being designated the " Former Prophets " (Q''S'33n C':b*xnn), while the second are named the " Later Prophets " (Cjiinsn d^x'^Jm). In the !Masora this middle division is sometimes called xrippw'S, " tradition," ' because the Torah is regarded as the fundamental revelation of God, and post- iMosaic prophecy as tradition {^)>^?., for which the Aramaic is ^^Vi^'^'^, from QX'S, trculcrc) flowing from this original source in a continuous stream ; the Former Prophets are then, under tlie title of f'n^o^i? ^^iji^^^'^, distinguished from the Later Prophets, which are called ^?'?n '^^'^^V'^. It is true that the Torah also is a propheti(;al work, antl is cited as such in Ezra ix. 11 ; for Moses, the mediator of the revelation of law, is, as such, the prophet to whom no other was like, Deut. xxxiv. 10 ; but it was not becoming that the Pentateuch, which is separated from the Book of Joshua under the name of minn (idd), should be included in the division of the Canon which is designated " the Prophets ; " it is certainly the unique record of the fundamental revelation which has ever conditioned the existence and life of Israel as the nation pre-eminently associated with the history of re- ' Regarding tliis Masoretic title, f^ce Johannes Delitzsdi, De Insqnmtiont Scripturae Sacrae, 1872, p. 7 f. VOL. L A 2 ISAIAH, demption, and from which, moreover, all prophecy in Israel has been derived. And this holds true, not merely of prophecy, but of all later writings. Not only the prophetic style of writing history, but also the non-prophetic, — i.e. the priestly, the political, the popular styles, — has its model in this Torah. The former follows the Jehovistico-Deuteronomic type, the latter the Elohistic.^ The opinion that the historical works found among the Hagiographa were placed there merely because of their later origin, but should properly have been ranged among the " Former Prophets," ^ rests on a misconception concerning this variety in the style of writing history. Ezra, — whom we have good ground for regarding as the author of the great " Book ^ With reference to the Pentateuchal criticism, we purposely remark here, in a conspicuous position, that the acknowledged Isaianic discourses present parallels to all the constituent portions of the Pentateuch. (1) The Jehovist : jn cnpnn h'h'2, XXX. 29, cf. niDD, xxxi. S'X^Ex. xii. 13, 23, 27 (only here in Jehovistic context is the name of the festival referred to the verb riDS) ; TWrxh • • ■ naVO, xix. 19 'x. Gen. xxviii, 18, 22, xxxi. 13 (as, inasmuch as the law forbids the erection of a n3VD, not only as a means of heathen worship, Lev. xxvi. 1, but also absolutely, Deut. xvi. 22, the view which the prophet reveals appears to be shaped by a reference to the naVO of Jacob at Bethel).— (2) The Law of the Two Tables : *33 niX-ji? i. 12'N^"'JS-nN niS"iHEx.xxxiv.24(alsoDeut. xxxi. 11). — (3) Deuteronomy, i. 2-N..the beginning of the Song irTXn, Deut. xxxii. 1.— (4) Deuteronomy together with the Law of Holiness : i. 7, r\tyo'\y DD iHX '^^ Lev. xxvi. 33, noDC' DDns nriMi; ex nisi::* DDny^x.Lev. xxvi. 3i, 33, vn^ canjn nain; nnx u'h^^ d^it u-2ii:h asnons -^ Deut. xxviii. 33 (cf. si ; Lev, xxvi. 16) ; Dm nDSHDD HDlDCn '^ Deut. xxix. 22, niDVI mo DDSnoa (cf. the reference to Sodom and Gomorrah in ver. 10 ff.). Add also xxxvi. 7, according to which Hezekiah abolished the high places, and centralized the worship in the Temple of Jerusalem : the restriction of worship to one place, accordingly, does not date from Josiah's time. — (5) The Elohist : iv. 5, nin' S131 '^^ Gen. i. 1 (though I would not adduce this parallel, if Wellhausen did not pronounce Kin to be the late production of theological abstraction, and the passage in Isaiah corrupt); i. 14, nD''Knn'>^Num. X. 10, xxviii. 11 ; N"lp?D, i- 13 (which occurs with the Elohist and else- where also, but not with the Jehovist), and mvy in the same verse 'X.mVJ?, Num. xxix. 35 (and elsewhere also, but not with the Jehovist) ; mtDp in the same verse ^v. Lev. ii. 2, ix. 16, v. 12, vi. 8, jn2n TDpm (viz. the mars)- And is not the altar in heaven, vi. 6, the antitype of the n^TD mDpn in Ex. XXX. 27, etc. ? ' This view has been maintained, e.g., by B. Anger, Geschichte der messianuchcn Idee (edited by Max Krenkel, 1873), p. 9. INTRODUCTION. 8 of Kings" to which the Clironicler (2 Chron. xxiv. 27) refers under the title ^'P^\} iSp C'lnp, a collectiun bearing on the history of Israel, to which he had appended, as the eoncluding portion, the history of the time of the Restoration, — is no- where called a " prophet " (><'??), and, in fact, he was not one. The Chronicler also — who, besides the Uooks of Samuel and of Kings, both of which have been arbitrarily divided into two parts, had also before him that work of P'zra as his main source of authority, and thence produced the historical com- pendium lying before us, the conclusion of which was made up of the memorabilia of Ezra (now, however, in separate form as the Book of Ezra) — makes no claim to be a prophet. Neliemiah, too, — from whose memorabilia our Jiook of Nehemiali is an extract, arranged in the same fashion as the Book of Ezra, — was not a prophet, but a Tirsliatha, i.e. a provincial governor under the king of Persia. The Book of Esther, however, through its relegation of the religious element to the background, is as far as possible removed from the prophetic style of writing history ; from the latter, indeed, it differs as characteristically as the Feast of Purim, the Jewish Carnival, differs from the Passover, the Israelitisli Christmas. But it must seem strange that the Book of Iluth stands among the Hagiographa. This little work so closely resembles in character the closing portion of the Book of Judges (chaps, xvii.— xxi.) that it might have been placed between Judges and Samuel, and probably did actually stand there originally ; only for liturgical reasons has it been placed beside the so- called five Megilloth (festival rolls), which succeed one another in accordance with the festival calendar of the ecclesiastical year ; for the Book of Canticles forms the lesson read on the eighth day of the Feast of Passover, Ptuth is read on the second day of the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), Kinoth (Lamentations) on the ninth of the month Abib, Koheleth (Ecclesiastes) on the third day of the Feast of Tabernacles, while Esther is read in the Feast of Purim, which falls in the middle of Adar. This is also the simplest answer to the question why the Lamentations of Jeremiah are not appentled to the collection of Jeremiah's prophecies. The Psahns, however, — though David may be called a prophet (Acts ii. 30), and Asaph is named "the seer" (•^f'^n), — stand fir.^t amoii'^ the Hagio- 4 ISAIAH. grapha, inasmuch as they do not belong to the literature of prophecy (nNin:), but of that of sacred lyric poetry ('\'<^ niH"). Their prophetic contents are entirely lyric in their origin, whereas the lyric contents of the Lamentations through- out presuppose the official position and public announcements of Jeremiah as a prophet. Among the canonical books of the prophets (D^X"'33) are found only the writings of those who, in virtue of special gifts and calling, were commissioned publicly — whether by word of mouth or by writing — to pro- claim the word of God ; and this they did freely, not being fettered, like the priests, by legal forms. For, though the name ^<'?3 denotes one who announces, publishes, proclaims, i.e. (as we must further conceive of him) one who speaks as the organ (HQ, "mouth," Ex. iv. 15 f.; Jer. xv. 19) of God; and though the earliest application of the term (see Gen. xx. 7 ; cf. xviii. 17-19 ; Ps. cv. 15), which is revived in the writings of the Chronicler, is far wider than the later ; yet here, in designat- ing the middle division of the Canon of the Old Testament, the word is certainly not so restricted as in Amos vii. 14, where it indicates one who, having gone through a school of the prophets, or at least having been educated through inter- course with prophets, had wholly devoted himself through life to prophetic teaching. It has, however, a specific sense that has been incorporated into the organism of the theocratic life : here it is the designation of one who comes forward, on the basis of a divine vocation and divine revelations, as a public teacher, and who thus professes not merely the gift of predic- tion, but also by preaching and writing exercises the office of a prophet, — an office which, at least on Ephraimitish soil, had further received a distinct and characteristic impress through the institution of the schools of the prophets. This explains the fact that the Book of Daniel could not find a place among the D''X''a3. For Daniel was not a prophet in this sense : he received and became the medium of divine revela- tions, but he was not a divinely commissioned public teacher like Nathan and Gad, Ezekiel and Zechariah. As remarked by Julius Africanus (in his letter to Origen concerning Susanna), not only did the way and manner in which the divine disclosures were made to liim differ from the iiriTrvoia '7rpo^i]TiKt), but he did not hold the office of a prophet, so that INTRODUCTION. 6 tlie Talmud (iVcgilla 3«), speaking of the {>ost-cxilo prophets ill relation to him, says, " Tiiey stood above him, lor tlu^y were prophets, but he was not a prophet " (n'2*D ^Dny inrx It is thus because of a fundamental distinction between literary productions of a prophetic character properly so called, and those which are not prophetic in the same strict sense, — a distinction that holds alike in the domain of history and in that of prediction, — that all the books of historical and pre- dictive content, which stand among the Hagiographa (D*3"in3, which the grandson of Sirach renders by the expressions tA dXXa TrdrpLa j3i^\ta and to, Xoiira rwv ^i^Xlmv), have been excluded from the middle division of the Old Testament Canon entitled D\s^n3. Distinction was made between the historical books from Joshua to Kings, and the predictive books from Isaiah to Malachi, as works of men who exercised the prophetical oflice, and thus as works of a prophetic character ; and such books, on the other hand, as Chronicles and Daniel, which, though recognised as having been written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, were not written on the occasion of a call to make prophetic announcements through speech and writing, and did not thus originate from true prophetic inspiration. The two different styles of writing history are also really unmistakable. Each of them has its own peculiar history. The non-prophetic — considering its history and remains — we would call the national or annalistic. It is evidently quite possible that a prophetic historical work like the Books of Kings and an annalistic work like the Books of Chronicles, may have borrowed certain elements from the other historical style ; but when once the distinguishing features of the two styles have been discerned, those elements which are foreign to the peculiar nature of each work, and which have merely been utilized for carrying out its design, nearly always admit of being made out with certainty. The oldest type of non-prophetical historic composition is found in the priestly-Elohistic style of writing in the Penta- teuch, as distinguished from the Jehovistic-Deuteronomic style. These two styles are continued in the Book of Joshua, and this, too, in such a way that, generally speaking, the latter appears in those portions which narrate the history of the 6 ISAIAH. conquest, while the former occurs in those sections which describe the division and apportionment of the land. The Book of Judges, at the very beginning, which holds up the history of the judges as a mirror in which one may see and learn of God's dealing in salvation, bears the impress of a pro- phetic historical production ; while the concluding portion, like the Book of Euth, deals with Bethlehemitish stories, which point to the Davidic kingdom, the promised kingdom which formed the centre of prophecy. And though the main portion of the book is founded upon oral and even written forms of the stories regarding the judges, there are also introduced extracts from a more complete work, in which the prophetic pencil of a man like Samuel had combined into an organic whole the accounts of the judges, not merely down to the times of Samson, but even to the complete oveithrow of the Philistine oppression. That the Books of Samuel are a pro- phetico-historical work is expressly attested by the Chronicler in a passage which refers to the main body of these books ; in those pieces, however, which record the encounters with the four Philistine children of the giants, 2 Sam. xxi. 15 ff, (= 1 Chron, xx. 4 ff.), and those which tell of David's heroes (anina) who stood nearest to him, 1 Sam. xxiii. 8 ff. (= 1 Chron. xi. 11 ff.), they contain at least two remnants of national or popular historical composition, which delights in the repetition of the same words at the beginning and the end, after the manner of a refrain, and touches on the domain of an epic or national ode, reminding us, as Eisenlohr has fitly said, of the legend of Eoland and Artus, and the Spanish Cid. More of such remains are found in the Chronicles, as the list of those who joined David during the time of persecution by Saul, 1 Chron. xii. 1-22, beginning with the words : " Now these are they who came to David at Zihlag, while he was still hard pressed ly Saul the son of Kish ; and they belong to the heroes who are ready to help in war, armed with hows, with the right hand and the left using stones and arrows hy means of the low!' Some of these pieces may have fallen into the hands of the later historians separately, and may have been incorporated without any change ; but, so far as they are tabulated, the Chronicler leaves us in no doubt regarding their main source. After giving a census of the Levites from the age of thirty INTRODUCTION. 7 years and upwards, in 1 Cliron. xxiii. '2-2-lrf, ho a idx nb), or, " Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel" (so also in Judg. vi. 8, and in 2 Kings xix. 20 before the addresses of Isaiah) ; and there is nothing that occurs in them more frequently than the phrase y^!^ \V] (" because that "), and Deuteronomic expressions like D'^yan, {<'pnn, 1^3 \T)^, and others ; to which may be added a liking for similes, in- troduced by "I'tf'sa ("as"), 1 Kings xiv. 10, 15; 2 Kings xxi. 13. The idea of God's "choice" of Jerusalem recurs in the same words in 1 Kings xi. 36 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 27 ; and the idea " that there may always remain a light to David" (Ti"!^ "T'J), 1 Kings xi. 36, is an exclusive peculiarity of the author among Old Testament writers. The words, " I have raised thee up from among the people, and set thee for a prince over my people Israel," occur not merely in the second address of Ahijah (1 Kings xiv. 17), but also slightly altered in the address of Jehu (xvi. 2). The words, " Him that dieth in the city shall the dogs eat, and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat," are found in substantially the same form in the second address of Ahijah (xiv. 11), in Jehu's address (xvi. 4), and in that of Elijah to INTRODUCTION. 17 Ahab (xxi. 24). The tlireatenin«:;s, "I will (k'stroy every man child, him that is shut up and him that is left at large in Israel, and will sweep behind the house of Jeroboam," is found, with slight variation, in the second address of Ahijah (xiv. 10), in the address of Elijah to Ahab (xxi. 21), and in the second address of Elijali to Jehu (2 Kings ix. 8) ; while it is clearly seen from 1 Kings xvi. 11 and 2 Kings xiv. 26, that the form of these threatenings is the style of the narrator. It is therefore undeniable that almost all these prophet- utterances, so far as a common impress is possible at all, are of similar type, and that the common bond which unites them is no other than the subjectivity of the Deutero- nomic narrator. A similar conclusion must be drawn regarding the prophetic addresses in the Chronicles, which likewise so extensively bear the unmistakable traces of the Chronicler's own treatment, that Caspari, in his treatise on the Syro-Ephraimitish war (p. 53 ff".), acknowledges, even regarding what seems to be the most original of all the addresses (in 2 Chron. xv. 2-7), that it recalls the peculiar style of the Chronicler. In the case of the Chronicler, how- ever, whose chief source of material must have resembled the spirit and style of his own, — an assumption which the Book of Ezra especially warrants us in making, — it is less easy to say how far he exercised a free hand than it is in the case of the author of the Book of Kings, who seems to have found the most of the addresses merely indicated in outline, and to have freely reproduced them from such sketches. If these discourses had come down to us in their original form, we should possess in them an exceedingly important source of information for the history of the development of prophetic ideas and forms of expression. We should then know that Isaiah's favourite phrase, " for Jehovah hath spoken it " ("i3"=i njn^ ^3), so far as we have information, was first employed by Ahijah (1 Kings xiv. 11); that Joel, when he prophesied " in Jerusalem shall be deliverance " (Joel iii. 5), had been preceded by 8hemaiah (2 Chron. xii. 7); that Hosea, in iii. 4 (cf. v. 15), took up again the utterance of Azariah the son of Oded, "And many days shall Israel con- tinue without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and witliout law ; but when they turn in their distress "... VOL. i. B 18 ISAIAIT. (2 Cliron. xv. 3 f., where, as the parallel proves, the perfects ia ver. 4 are to be understood in accordance with the pro- phetic context); that in Jer. xxxi. 16 we have an echo of an utterance by the same Zechariah, in the words, " for there is a reward to thy work;" that Hanani, in saying, "The eyes of Jehovah run to and fro throughout the whole earth " (2 Chron. xvi, 9), is the precursor of Zechariah (iv. 10); and there are other similar instances. But, considering the influ- ence which the idiosyncrasies of the two historians exercised upon the discourses which they communicate (cf. for instance, 2 Chron. xv. 2 with 1 Chron. xxviii. 9 ; 2 Chron. xii. 5 with xxiv. 20 ; also ver. 7 with 2 Chron. xxxiv. 21, and the parallel in 2 Kings xxii. 13; and 2 Chron. xv. 5, "In those times," with Dan. xi. 14) ; considering also the difficulty in finding out the original elements of these addresses (pos- sibly, for instance, the idea that a light will remain to David, 1 Kings XV. 4, 2 Kings viiL 19, was really first expressed by Ahijah, 1 Kings xi. 36), one will be able to make of them for this purpose only a cautious and sparing use. It is doubtful whether such expressions as, " to put my name there," 1 Kings xi. 36, and "he shall root out Israel from this good land," 1 Kings xiv. 15, have received the Deutero- nomic form (see Deut. xii. 5, 21, xiv. 24, xxix. 27) from the prophet or from the author of the Book of Kings (cf. 1 Kings ix. 3 and the parallel passages in 2 Chron. vii. 20, ix. 7 ; 2 Kings xxi. 7 f.). There remains, however, in the predictions of those older prophets, a sufficient amount of original matter for enabling us to see in them the prefigura- tions and predecessors of the later ones. Thus Shemaiah, with his threat against Eehoboam and its later modification (2 Chron. xii. 5-8), reminds us of Micah opposing Hezekiah (Jer. xxvi. 17 ff). The position assumed by Hanani towards Asa, when he invoked the aid of Syria, is precisely the same as that of Isaiah in relation to Ahaz, — as there is also a close resemblance generally between both events. Like the man of God in Bethel, Hosea and Amos prophesied against the " high places of Aven " (Hos. x. 8), and the " altars of Bethel " (Amos iii. 14, ix. 1). When Amos, in consequence of the divine call (Amos vii. 15), leaves his home and betakes him- self to Bethel, the chief seat of the Israelitish image-worship. INTRODUCTION. 19 in order to prophesy aciainst the idolatrous kingdom, is there not in this a repetition of the history of the prophet in 1 Kings xiii.? And when Hanani, in consequence of denouncing Asa, is thrown into prison, is this not a kind of prehide to the suhsequent fate of Micaiah the son of luilah (1 Kings xxii.), and of Jeremiah (Jer. xxxii.) ? Moreover, Ahijah's symbolization and confirmation of what he predicted, by rending into twelve pieces a new garment (a symbol of the kingdom still undivided and strong), has its analogies in the history of the earlier prophets (1 Sam. xv. 26-29) as in that of the later (Jer. xxii.). It is only such signs (D^nsiD) as that by which the prophet who came from Judah to Bethel confirmed his prophecy (1 Kings xiii. 3), that almost wholly ilisappear from the later history of the prophets, though even Isaiah does not disdain to offer King Ahaz a sign in verifica- tion of his prophetic testimony (Isa. vii. 11). No essential difference exists between the propliecy of earlier and that of later times ; in particular, we see it is the same spirit which from the first, and all through, unites the prophets of both kingdoms, notwithstanding the diversity of action which was necessitated by different circumstances. But differences do present themselves. The earlier prophets are exclusively occupied with the internal affairs of the king- dom, and do not as yet draw within their range the history of other nations in the world with which that of Israel was closely interwoven ; their predictions are exclusively directed to the king and people of both kingdoms, and not yet to a foreign nation, — one of the neighbouring peoples, or what we might expect, the Egyptians and Syrians ; the Messianic element still lies in a non-transparent chrysalis state ; and the poetry of thought and language, which afterwards ap- jjeared as the result of prophetic inspiration, announces itself only in some striking figures of speech. As we have seen, it is perhaps scarcely possible to pronounce a decided opinion regarding the style of delivery of these older prophets ; but, from a general impression of a sufliciently reliable kind, we may distinguish prophecy, down till about the time of King Joash, as the prophecy of overmastering action, from the later prophecy, which was that of convincing speech : as remarked by G. Baur, in the case of the older prophets it is 20 ISAIAH. only as a confirmation of clear inward conviction that concern is shown about words, — the modest attendants of powerful external action. Just for this reason they could not very well produce prophetic writings in the highest sense of the word. But even from the time of Samuel, the prophets as a body had made it a part of the duties of their calling to treat the history of their time in a theocratic-pragmatic way. The cloistral, but by no means quietistic, retirement of the life in the schools of the prophets was specially favourable in the northern kingdom to this literary occupation, and secured for it unquestioned liberty. From 2 Chron. xx. 34, however, w'e perceive that prophets in Judah likewise occupied themselves with the writing of history ; for the prophet Jehu belonged to Judah, and, as may be inferred from 2 Chron. xix. 1-3, lived in Jerusalem. The literature of predictive writings, however, properly so called, had begun in the time of Jehoram king of Judah with the " vision " (ptn) of Obadiah, — for we think we have proved elsewhere ^ that this pamphlet against Edom was occasioned by the calamity mentioned in 2 Chron. xxi. 16, 17, to which also Joel and Amos refer. Obadiah was followed by Joel, who had before him the prophecy of the former, introducing into the wider and fuller circle of his own publication, not only matter, but also expressions, found in the prophecy of Obadiah. Here again the prophetic literature, in the higher sense, shows how it grew out of the prophetico-historical literature ; for Joel informs us of the result of the penitential worship which had been brought about through his appeal, in a historical passage (ii. 18, 19a) connecting the two parts of his writings. It is now the fashion to bring him down into post-exilic times, but this is one of the worst fruits of the forced consistency of Penta- teuch - criticism : nothing is more certain than that he flourished during the first half of the reign of Joash the king of Judah.'^ Obadiah and Joel were contemporaries of Elisha. 1 In the essay, "When did Obadiah Prophes)^?" Zeitsdi rift fur das (jesammte lutherische Thculogie uwl Kirche, 1851, p. 91 ff. '^ See my essay, " Two certain Results regarding the Prophecy of Joel," in the same journal, 1851, p. 306 ff. ; of. Le Propheie Joel nach E. Le Savoureux, von Ant. J. Bauuigartner, Paris 1888. INTRODUCTION. 2 1 Elisha himself wrote iiothing ; but from the schools under his •guidance there proceeded, not merely prophetic deeds, but also prophetic writings; and it is significant that the writings wliich bear the name of Jonah, whom an ancient Haggada describes as one of the " sons of the prophets " (D'N'33n ''33) of the school of Elisha, do not so much belong to the prophetic literature, in the higher sense, as rather to the prophetico- historical, and, in fact, to the historical writings by prophets. An approximation to the time when Jonah was sent to Nineveh may seem from 2 Kings xiv. 25 — according to which Jonah the son of Amittai, of Gath-hepher, in the tribe of Zebulun, had predicted the restoration of the kingdom of Israel to its promised extent — a prediction which was fulfilled in Jeroboam the son of Joash, the third of his house after Jehu, and which thus was issued in the beginning of the reign of Jeroboam II., if not even under Joash. The mission to Nineveh may belong to an earlier period than this predic- tion. A glance at the Book of Ajios, on the other hand, shows us that at the time when this prophet flourished, Assyria was about to arise again. The indication of time, " two years before the earthquake " (Amos i. 1), fixes nothing for us. But if Amos prophesied " in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel," then — assuming that, according to 2 Kings xiv. 23, Jero- boam II. had reigned forty-one years, from the fifteenth year of Amaziah, and was thus for fourteen years contemporary with Amaziah, and for twenty-seven years with Uzziah — his period of activity lay in the last twenty - seven years of Jeroboam's reign. When he appeared, the kingdom of Israel was still at the height of its power which had been secured through the efforts of Jeroboam, while the kingdom of Judah was yet in the low estate into which it had fallen under Amaziah ; for both, he predicts a common fate to befall tlieni at the hands of Assyria, which, though not mentioned, is never- theless clearly meant. The beginning of the public ministry of HosE.v comes into contact, at most, with the close of the ministry of Amos. The symbolical portion (chaps, i.-iii.) with which his book begins takes us to the last five years of Jeroboam's reign, and the subsequent prophetic discourses are not out of accord with the statement in chap. i. 1 (which is 22 ISAIAH. from a later hand), according to which this prophet continued to prophesy under Hezekiah, and thus till the fall of Samaria, in the sixth year of Hezekiah. After Hosea, the Ephraim- itish Jeremiah, appeared Isaiah, who according to chap. vi. was called in the last year of Uzziah, about twenty-five years after the death of Jeroboam II. His younger contemporary was Micah, of Moresheth, who, according to chap. i. 1, did not appear till some time within the reign of Jotham, and whose book, according to the inscription " concerning Samaria and Jerusalem," must have been composed after the fall of Samaria in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign (with which also the narrative in Jer. xxvi. 17 ff. agTees), so that his ministry thus began and ended within the far longer ministry of Isaiah. The same remark holds good of Nahum, the Elkoshite, whose " burden of Nineveh " closes the pro- phetic writings of the Assyrian period : he prophesied after the defeat of Sennacherib, when the power of Assyria was broken; but the yoke on Judah's neck (i. 13) was to be viewed as broken only if Assyria did not rise again. Nahum was followed by Habakkuk, who, among the twelve minor prophets, was the last of the Isaianic type, and began to announce a new era of judgment, — the Chaldean. He prophesied before Zephaniah and Jeremiah,^ during the reign of Josiah, and possibly even as early as Manasseh's time. With Zephaniah, then, begins the series of prophets of the type of Jeremiah, whom he resembles in following older prophets, and reproducing their materials and words in a kind of mosaic. Jeremiah, according to the opening verse in his prophecy, was called in the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign ; hence he began his public ministry before Zephaniah, — for internal grounds ^ compel us to place the prophecies of the latter after the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign. Jere- miah's ministry in Judaea, and finally in Egypt, lasted more than eighty years. In his last prophetic discourse (chap, xliv.) he gives a pledge of the certain fulfilment of its threats, in the approaching fall of Pharaoh-Hophrah, who in the year 570 B.C. lost throne and life in the same place where his great-grandfather Psammetichus, a century before, had seized 1 See my Commentary on these prophets. 1843. * See my article on Zephaniah in Herzog's Cyclopaedia. INTRODUCTION. 2'6 the Egyptian crown. Contemporaneously witli Jereiniali, tliough without knowing him personally, so far as we are aware, Ezekiel wrought in the same spirit among the exiles of Judah. According to chap. i. 1, 2, his call took place in the thirtieth year, i.e. of the era of Nabopolassar, which is nearly the fifth year after the captivity of Jehoiakim, 595 B.C. The latest date associated with his ministry (xxix. 17) is the twenty-seventh year of the captivity, which is the sixteenth after the destruction of Jerusalem, — the period between Nebuchadnezzar's raising of the siege of Tyre and his expedition against Egypt. We thus know of a ministry of twenty-two years on the part of this prophet, who, when called, may have already been older than the still very youth- ful Jeremiah. Jeremiah and Ezekiel are the two great prophets who spread their praying and protecting hands over Jerusalem as long as possible, and when the catastrophe was inevitable, saved it even in its fall. Their announcements, together with the prophetic sermon in Isa. chaps, xl.-lxvi., have bridged over the chasm of the exile, and laid the foundation of the restored national church of post - exilian times. This community was cheered and encouraged by Haggai, in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, through his prediction of the glory in store for the temple, now rising anew from its ruins, and for the house of David, which was again coming to honour in Zerubbabel. Only two months later Zechariah appeared : his last predictive discourse belongs to the third year of Darius Hystaspes, the year after the promulgation of the edict requiring the building of the temple to be continued. The predictions of the second portion of his book (chaps, ix.-xiv.) are thoroughly eschato- logical and apocalyptic, and make use of older circumstances and utterances of prophets as emblems of the final future. Prophecy was now silent for a considerable time, until the last prophet-voice of the Old Covenant was heard in Malachi. His book accords with the state of things found by Nehemiah on the occasion of his second stay iu Jerusalem under Darius Nothus ; and it was his peculiar calling in connection with the history of redemption to predict the speedy advent of the messenger appointed to precede the coming of the Lord, — namely, Elijah the propliet, — and that the forerunner would 24 ISAIAH. then be followed by the Lord Himself, as " the Angel of the Covenant " (n"'"i2n T]X^^), the Messenger or Mediator of a New- Covenant. This survey shows that the arrangement of the " later prophets " in the Canon is not strictly chronological. The three " greater " prophets, who are so called because of the extent of their books of prophecy, stand together; and the twelve " minor " prophets, because of the smaller extent of tlieir books of prophecy, are conjoined in a fMov6^i^Xo<;, as Melito calls it, which is named i^'i? D-.Jp, in the Masora '^P'''}.^ (="1PJ? ■'?.^), in the Hellenistic dialect ol BcoheKa (Wisd. xlix. 1 ; Josephus, c. Apion, i. 8 ; cf. Eusebius, Hist. Eccks. iii. 10), but also to hwheKairpo^T^Tov (the Book of the Twelve Prophets). Within this collection of the smaller prophetical books, chronological order is so far observed as that they fall into three groups, representing three periods of prophetic literature, viz. prophets of the Assyrian period (Hosea to Nahum), pro- phets of the Chaldean period (Habakkuk and Zephaniah), and prophets of the post-exilian period (Haggai to Malachi). There is, moreover, an evident desire to join, as far as possible, a prophet belonging to the kingdom of Israel with one belong- ing to the kingdom of Judah, — thus, Hosea with Joel, Amos \vith Obadiah, Jonah with Micah, Nahum with Habakkuk. Besides this, however, Hosea stands first, not so much because the opening word in his book (viz. ripnn, " beginning ") made this an appropriate one with which to begin the collection, — still less because (as is stated in Bathra 14&) of the four prophets, Hosea and Isaiah, Amos and Micah, he was the first to be called, — but (in the same way as, among the Pauline letters, the Epistle to the Romans is placed first) because his book is the largest; and this principle of arrangement becomes more prominent in the Septuagint, in which Hosea comes first with fourteen chapters, while Amos follows with nine, then Micah with seven, Joel with three, Obadiah with one ; a new series next begins with Jonah. The reason why, in the Hebrew Canon, Joel immediately follows Hosea, may lie in the contrast between the complaint of Joel over the all-parch- ing heat and the all-devouring swarms of insects on the one hand, and the illustrations from vegetable life — bright, fresh, and fragrant — at the close of Hosea on the other. Amos INTRODUCTION. 25 tlien succeeds Joel, because, taking up again tlie annouuceineiit of judgineut with which the latter concludes (Joel iv. IG), he opens his book with the words, " Jehovah will roar out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem." Obadiaii follows, on account of the mutual relation between Obad. 19 and Amos ix. 12. And Joxaii comes after Obadiah, for the latter begins, " We have heard tidings from Jehovah, and a messenger is sent among the nations," and Jonah was such a messenger. Similar reasons of a more accidental character aided in the combination of a Judaic with an Israelitish prophet. The fact that Zephaniah follows Habakkuk is explained on such a ground, which happens also to accord with the chronological order; for a catchword in the prophecy of Zephaniah (i. 7), " Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God," is taken from Habakkuk (ii. 20). The post-exilian prophets (called in the Talmud Q-'jinsn D''N'33n, " the last prophets ") then form the close, necessarily following in the order of time and in accordance with the contents of the books ; for, like the trans- position of Joel into the post-exilian period, the transposition of Malachi into the time before Ezra is one of the evil results of forced consistency in Pentateuchal criticism.^ We now return to the so-called Greater Prophets. These immediately follow the Book of Kings, which is now divided into two parts ; and at the head, in the Hebrew as well as in the Alexandrian and Syriac Canon, stands Isaiah. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, — such is the Masoretic arrangement,^ in accordance with the chronological order of their appearance. In the manuscripts, particularly the German and French, an- ^ From the fact that no trace of any reference to the Priest-code is found in Malachi, but ratlier, on the other hand, more reference to Deuteronomy, — for to him the Levite is identical witli the priest (ii. 4-7), his proscribinj^' of mixed marria;^'es (ii. 11) rests on Dent. vii. 3 (but cf. also Ezra ix. 14), and his requirement of the tithe and theheave-ofrering (iii. 8-12) is stated in Deuteronomic lan<^uage in Deut. xii. (>, xi. 17,— one must draw another inference than that false conclusion of Pentateuchal criticism. 2 In Ochla vre-ochla, indeed, the citations from Isaiah follow those from Jeremiah and Ezekiel ; but when the Ma.sora reckons Isa. xvii. 3, >vn D'N'3|n, i.e. the middle verse of the division called the D*S'33, it is under-stood that Isaiah is the first prophet following after the scries from Joshua to Kings. 26 ISAIAH. ottier arrangement is occasionally found, — Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah : this is the order laid down in the Baraitha (i.e. the collection of treatises not taken into the official Mishna) regarding the consecution of the Biblical books and their authors, and the regulating principle here was, as shown in the Gemara,' affinity of contents. Jeremiah follows the Book of Kings because his prophecies almost wholly relate to the Chaldean catastrophe, with which the Book of Kings con- cludes ; and Isaiah follows Ezekiel, whose book ends with consolation, because the hortatory portion of Isaiah is consola- tion throughout.^ In opposition to this Talnmdic arrangement, — which Lagarde {Sijmmieta, p. 142) and others, following Eichhorn, erroneously regard as meant to be chronological, but which Cornill (Jeremia und seine Zeit, 1880) thinks was in- tended to express progressive estimation of the worth of the several works, — the order given in the Masora, for which better reasons can be assigned, and which is further attested by the earliest ecclesiastical writers (Melito, Origen, and Jerome), has justly maintained its superiority. 1 The explanation is not a false one, but neither is it exhaustive. The Baraitha regards Jeremiah as the author not merely of the book contain- ing his prophecies but also of the Book of Kings, so that " Kings " and "Jeremiah" inseparably cohere, forming the links uniting the "former prophets " with the " later prophets ; " see Marx (Dalman), Traditio Rab- binorum veterrlma de librorum V. T. ordine atque origine, 1884, pp. 34-37. 2 It is precisely with reference to chaps, xl.-lxvi. that Isaiah is regarded as the prophet of comfort kkt i^ox'yiv ; so that according to Berachoth 57b, whoever sees Isaiah in a dream may look for consolation ; and according to the Midrash on the Lamentations, all the ill that Jeremiah predicted was by Isaiah turned beforehand into good. INTRODFCTION TO THE BOOK OF ISAIAH, ESPECIALLY THE FIRST PART, CHAPS. I.-XXXIX. § 1. TJie Time of the Prophet The first requisite for an understanding and appreciation of the prophecies of Isaiah is the knowledge of his time, and of the periods during which he exercised his ministry. The first period embraces the reigns of Uzziah and Jothara. The starting-point is determined in accordance with the view taken of chap. vi. ; but, in any case, Isaiah appeared about the end of Uzziah's reign, and thereafter laboured continuously through the sixteen years of Jotham's reign. The first twenty- seven years of the fifty-two during which Uzziah reigned run parallel with the last twenty-seven of the forty-one during which Jeroboam II, ruled. The kingdom of Israel, under Joash and his son Jeroboam II., and the kingdom of Judah, under Uzziah and his sou Jotham, each passed through a season of outward splendour greater in height and duration than had ever been previously experienced. In proportion as the glory of the one kingdom faded, that of the other flourished ; the bloom of the northern kingdom grew fainter as that of the south grew brighter and excelled the other. ?>ut outward splendour, in this case as in the former, carried within it the seeds of ruin and decay ; for prosperity degene- rated into luxury, and the worship of Jehovah stiffened into idolatry. It was during this last and longest season of pro- sperity in Judah that Isaiah appeared, called to the sad task 28 ISAIAH. of vainly preaching repentance, and therefore also of announc- ing the judgment of hardening and devastation, of the ban and banishment. The second period of his ministry extends from the accession of Ahaz to that of Hezekiah. During these sixteen years three events occurred, all combining to bring on a new and momentous turn in the fate of Judah. In place of the worship of Jehovah, which had been conducted under Uzziah and Jotham with regularity and in external con- formity to the law, open idol-worship of the most varied and abominable character commenced with the reign of Ahaz. Then were resumed and continued the hostilities already begun under Jothara's reign by Pekah the king of Israel, and Eeziu the king of Damascene Syria : the Syro-Ephraimitish war threatened Jerusalem with the express purpose of destroy- ing the Davidic kingdom. In this distress, Ahaz invoked the aid of Tiglath-Pileser the king of Assyria : he made flesh his arm, and thereby entangled the people of Jehovah with the kingdom of the world in a manner unknown before, so that they thenceforward completely lost their independence. The kingdom of the world is the Nimrodic form of the heathen state. Its characteristic feature is the constant endeavour to burst beyond its natural boundaries, not merely for purposes of self-defence or revenge, but for conquest, and to throw itself upon foreign nations like an avalanche, that it may become an ever-growing and world-embracing colossus. Assyria and Eome are the first and the last members of the world-kingdom that brought enslavement and oppression on Israel througliout her history. The times of Isaiah saw the approach of the calamity. Placed thus on the verge of this new and important change in history, and embracing the whole with his far-seeing eye, Isaiah is, so to speak, the universal prophet of Israel. The iJiird period of his active ministry extends from the beginning to nearly the end of Hezekiah's reign. Under this king the nation rose almost in the same degree as it had fallen during the reign of Ahaz. He forsook the course of his idolatrous father, and restored the worship of Jehovah. The mass of the people, indeed, remained at heart unchanged, but Judah had once more an upright king who listened to the word of the prophets at his side, — two pillars of the state, men of might in prayer § 1. THE TIME OP THE morHET. 29 (2 Cliron. xxxii. 20). When it came therefore to a breaking off from the Assyrian domination, this was certainly an act of unbelief on the part of the nobles and the mass of the people, since they relied on help from Kgypt, — an expectation which caused ruin to the northern kingdom in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, — but, on the part of Hezekiah, an act of faith in Jehovah (2 Kings xviii. 7). When Senna- cherib then, the son and successor of Sargon, was coming against Jerusalem, conquering the country and laying every- thing waste, while Kgypt did not bring the help that had been promised, the carnal defiance of the magnates and the mass of the people brought its own punisliment. ]^ut Jehovah averted the worst of the impending calamity ; the flower of the Assyrian host was destroyed in a night, so that, as in the Syro-Kphraimitish war, now also there was no proper invest- ment of Jerusalem ; thus the faith of the king and of the better portion of the people received a reward for their quiet resting in the word of promise. There was still a power in the state that preserved it from ruin ; and the coming doom, shown in chap. vi. to be inevitable, was yet once more delayed when the last annihilating blow was to have been expected. It was in this miraculous deliverance, which Isaiah predicted, and for which he prepared the way, that the public ministry of the prophet reached its culmination. Isaiah is the Amos of the kingdom of Judah ; for, like the latter, he has the dreadful vocation to see and proclaim the fact that the time of forgiveness for Israel as a people and kingdom is gone for ever. But he was not likewise the Hosea of the kingdom of Judali, for the dreadful call to accompany the fatal course of his country with the knell of prophetic announcements was not assigned to Isaiah, but to Jeremiah. This is the Hosea of the southern kingdom ; for to Isaiah was granted what was refused to his successor Jeremiah, once more to restrain, through the might of his prophetic power, arising from the deep and strong spirit of faith, the coming of the night, which threatened at the time of the Assyrian judgment to engulf his people. The Assyrian oppressions ceased, and, so far as Judah was concerned, were not to be renewed. The view beyond As.syria was clear, and prophecy was about to be concerned with tlie nt^xt world - kingdom, now cautiously 30 ISAIAH. approaching. Beyond the noon-tide of his public ministry there remained the evening of life, which he cannot have idly spent, devoid of word or deed. But though he no longer took part in public affairs, he lived to the beginning of Manasseh's reign, when, according to credible tradition ^ to which allusion is made in Heb. xi. 37 ("they were sawn asunder "), he fell a sacrifice to the heathenism which had once more become predominant. I have purposely refrained from assigning numbers which might indicate the length of reign of the four (or, including Manasseh, five) kings of Judali under whom Isaiah exercised liis ministry. It is certainly difficult enough to make a thoroughly harmonious and consistent arrangement of the dates given in the Book of Kings and also in the Chronicles ; but at present, after the monument literature of Babylonia and Assyria has also come forward as a witness, it is un- deniably certain that the Biblical numbers assigned to the reigns of kings occasionally need correction, though in other respects they are proved to be true by indubitable Assyrio- logical testimonies. The founder of the received Biblical chronology was James Ussher (Usserius), in his Annates Veteris et Novi Testamenti, 1650-54,^ a work at which he had laboured for sixty years. We give here a tabular view of his reckoning in that portion of the history of the kings under whom those prophets flour- ished who committed their prophecies to writing. The Biblical reckoning of this section rests on trustworthy tradition, but in a number of instances it is uncertain how ^ According to the Tahnudic treatise, Jebamoih 496, it was found in a genealogical list of a Jerusalem family ; and according to Sanhedrin 1036 iu a Targum on 2 Kings xxi. 16 (published by Assemani, Gatal. Vatic. i. 452), it is amplified in a Jerusalem Targum which the Codex Reuchlin puts in the margin, Ixvi. 1 ; and appears in simpler form (compared with the Targum) in the Apocryphal "Ascension of Isaiah" (edited in the Ethiopic text by Rich. Laurence in 1819, and by Aug. Dillmann in 1877 ; in Greek, from a MS. in the National Library at Paris, by 0. von Gebhardt in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift, xxi. 330 ff.), to which Origen appeals. Eegarding a Persian form of this "Ascension," or rather the kindred " Vision of Isaiah," see Spiegel, Literatur der Parsen, p. 128 ff. 2 Gustav Baur also made Ussher's system the basis of his Tabellen iiber die Geschichte des ixrael. Volkes, 1848, except Avhere Prideaux (on Ezra and Nehemiah) and Bunsen (on Egypt) offered something better. § 1. THE TIME OF THE PKOrHET. 31 tlie Scripture historian liimseir counted tlie be^^inniiig and the end of the reigns, and the mutual relation of these in both kingdoms. Alongside of I'ssher's calculations, accordingly, I place, by way of example, those of my friend Aug. Kohler (in the appendix to his BihliscJie GcschicJitc dcs A. T., 1884). The figures within parentheses beside the name of the king indicate the duration of his rule, and the large numbers give the year in whicli the monarch in question ascended the throne. JUDAH. Ussher. Kohler. Irrael. Ussher. Kohler. B.C. B.C. B.C. B.C. Atlialiah (6), . 884 881 Jehu (28), 884 881 Joash (40), 878 875 Jelioahaz (17), . 856 853 Aniaziah (29), . 839 836 Jchoash (16), . 839 838 Uzziah (52), 810 807 Jeiobuam 11.(41), 825 822 1 Zecliariah (^), . 773 769 Shallum {^\ . 772 768 Jotliam (16), Menahcm (10), . 772 768 Sole ruler, . 758 755 Pekahiah (2), . 76? 758 Ahaz (16), 742 739 Pekah (20), 759 756 Hezekiah (29), . 726 724 Inter reqtium . 736 Alanasseh (55), . 698 695 Hoshca (9), 730 727 Anion (2), . 643 640 Fall of Samaria, 722 719 Josiah (31), 641 638 j This table is merely intended to render the computation of the Books of Kings and Chronicles as objective as possible. Doubt remains especially as to the interregnum between Pekah and Ho.shea ; perhaps such a blank should be excluded, and the reign of I'ekali made to extend to 727 B.C. No account is taken in the table of the Assyrian chronology : Kohler himself is of opinion that it helps us in several instances to the actually correct dates. He has already shown ^ that what is narrated in Isaiah, chaps, xxxviii., xxxix., occurred in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah 's reign ; and, on the other hand, what we read in Isaiah, cha])S. xxxvi., xxxvii., happened in his twenty-fourth year (701 L.c). The following durations of reigns are definitely fixed by the testimony of the Assyrian monuments : — Shalmaueser II., . . . . 8 G 0-8 24 b.(J. Tiglath-Pileser II., . . . 745-727 „ 1 In the ZcUschriJt fiir lidhauche Theohyic, 1874, i)i>. 96-98. 32 ISAIAH. Shalmaneser IV., .... ^Jll-I^^ B.C. Sargon, 722-705 „ The following names and dates are also given : — Ahab (battle at Karkar between Aleppo and Hamath, against the kings of Damascus and Hamath, with their allies ; unless, as Well- haiisen and Kamphausen suppose, Ahab is erroneously named instead of his son, Joram), . . . . . 854 B.C. Jehu (tributary), 842 „ Azariah {i.e. Uzziah, in connection with Tig- lath-Pileser II.), . . . . 740 „ Menahem (made tributary by Pul, i.e. Tiglath- Pileser II.'), . . . . 738 „ Pekah (dethroned by Tiglath-Pileser), . 734 „ Fall of Samaria, 722 „ Campaign of Sennacherib against Samaria, 701 „ See the thorough investigations of Schrader's Cuneiform In- scriptions and the Old Testament, 2nd edition ; ^ and the sum- maries of Friedrich Delitzsch, under the article, " Sanherib," in Herzog's Beal-Encyelop., continued by Hauck, Bandxii. (1884). To these Assyrian synchronisms regard is shown, either entirely or in great measure, in the calculations of Well- hausen in his article on " The Chronology of the Book of Kings after the Division of the Kingdom," in the Jahrhucher fiir Deutsche Theologie, 1875, pp. 607-640; cf. Kamphausen, in Stade's Zeitschrift, iii. (1883) pp. 193-202, and in his work, The Chronology of the Hehrew Kings, 1883; and of Duncker in his History of Antiquity, 5th edition, 1878. Following S. E. Driver in his Isaiah, his Life and Times (1888, p. 13), we give here the estimates of these three writers, passing over the otherwise important article in The Church Quarterly Ecvieio for Jan. 1886, pp. 257-271, inas- much as the author is unknown to us, and an anonymous authority is of no weight. ^ His name was probably Pulu (Puru) before lie rose to be ruler of the Babylono- Assyrian kingdom. - Translated into English by the Rev. Professor Owen C. Whitehouse, London 1885-88, 2 vols.— Tr." § 1. THE TIME OF THE rROniET, 33 JCDAH. Athaliah (6X . Joash (40), , Amaziah (29), Uzziah(32), , Jothani (IG), . Sole ruler, . Ahaz (16), Hezekiah (29), Maiiasseh (55), Amon (2), Josiah(31), . Israel, ' RC. n.c. B.C. i 84? 843 843 83? 837 837 800 797 797 791 778 792 (750) (751) 740 736 740 1 735 735 734 ' 715 715 728 686 686 697 1 641 641 642 639 639 640 Jeliu (28), Jehuahaz (17), . Jehoash (16X • Jeroboam 11.(41), Zecliariali (i), . Sliallum (ii^), . Mei-.aheni (10), . IVkal.iah (2), . Pekah (20), Hosliea (9), Fall of Samaria B.C. B.C. 84/ 843 81? 815 801 798 785 782 746 741 745 741 744 741 •.111 tins 738 734 736 733 730 700 722 B.C. 843 815 798 790 749 749 748 738 736 734 722 Tlie figures do not give here tiie year of accession to the throne, but the complete first year of the reign of the monarch which followed his accession. Those of Duncker prefer, in seven places, instead of the Biblical figures, other numbers, which make Jeroboam II. to have come to the throne earlier than Uzziah, and Jotham earlier than Pekah, — an unfounded conjecture, as even Kamphausen thinks. A strange feature in Wellhausen's arrangement is the elimina- tion of Pekahiah (but cf. his Prolegomena, p. 475). Kamp- hausen, in six instances, lengthens or shortens the numbers of the years indicating the duration of reigns (Amaziali, 19; Uzziah, 42 ; Ahaz, 20 ; Manasseh, 45 ; Menahem, 3 ; I'ekah, 6) ; but, without claiming mathematical exactness for these coiTections, he is ratlier on the whole convinced that, in the Biblical chronology of the period of the kings, we are on really historical ground. It may thus perha])s be necessary also to maintain, with W. liobertson Smith (TV/c FropJicts in Israel, pp. 413-419), that the year of Samaria's fall was not one of the last years of Ahaz, but one of the first of Hezekiah, If we place the death of Uzziah in the year 740, and the defeat of Sennacherib before Jerusalem in the year 701, then Isaiah's public ministry embraced a period of forty years. VOL. L C 34 ISAIAH. § 2. Tlie Arrangement of the Collection. The collection of Isaiah's prophecies is, on the whole, chronologically arranged. The dates in vi. 1, viL 1, xiv. 28, XX. 1, xxxvi. 1, are points in a continuous line. The three main divisions also form a chronological series ; for chaps. i.-vi. set before us the ministry of Isaiah under Uzziah and Jotham ; chaps, vii.-xxxix., his ministry under Ahaz and onwards to the last years of Hezekiah ; while chaps. xl.-lxvi. — their authenticity being assumed — are in any case the latest productions of the prophet. In the middle division, likewise, the group in chaps, vii.-xii., belonging to the time of Ahaz, chronologically precedes the prophecies in chaps, xiii.— xxxix., belonging to the days of Hezekiah. In several instances, however, the chronological arrangement is set aside in favour of an arrangement according to the subject-matter. Thus the discourse in chap. i. is not the oldest, but is placed first as an introduction to all the rest ; and the account of the prophet's consecration, given in chap, vi., which should stand at the beginning of the group which belongs to the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham, is placed at the end, where it looks backwards and forwards, like a prediction in the process of being fulfilled. The Ahaz group, which follows in chaps. vii.-xii., is a whole moulded at one casting. But in the group belonging to Hezekiah's time (chaps, xiii.— xxxix.) the chronological order is again interrupted several times. The predictions against the nations, from xiv. 24 to chap, xxii., which belong to the Assyrian period, are introduced by a " burden " concerning Babylon, the city of the world-power (chaps, xiii. -xiv. 23), and closed by one concerning Tyre, the city of the world's commerce, which was to be destroyed by the Chaldeans (chap, xxiii.) ; while a shorter " burden " concerning Babylon, in chap. xxi. 1-10, divides the cycle into two halves, and a collection of prophecies regarding the nations converges in the great apocalyptic epilogue (chaps, xxiv.-xxvii.), like streams discharging themselves into a sea. Accordingly, the first portion of the Hezekiah group, of pre-eminently ethnic contents, is interwoven with Babylonian pieces which belong to divers points in the life of Isaiah. Another such piece is the great epilogue in chaps, xxxiv., xxxv., forming the last § 2. THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE COLLECTION. 35 echo of the second portion of the Ilozokiah group. This second portion is mainly occupied with the fate of Judah, the judgment which tlie Assyrian world-power executes upon Judah, and the deliverance tliat awaits it (chaps, xxviii.-xxxiii.): these announcements are closed with a solemn declaration, in chaps, xxxiv., xxxv., of the judgment of God on the world of Israel's enemies on the one hand, and the redemption of Israel on the other. This Babylonian portion is followed by the historical section in chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix., which form the historical frame of Isaiah's predictions delivered near the time of the Assyrian catastrophe, and furnish us with the key for understanding not merely chaps, vii.-xxxv., but also chaps, xl.-lxvi. If we take the IJook of Isaiah, then, as a whole, in the form in which it lies before us, apart from critical analysis, it falls into two halves, chaps. L-xxxix., and chaps, xl.-lxvi. The former subdivides into seven parts, the latter into three. The first half may be called the Assyrian, inasmuch as the point at which it aims and in which it terminates is the fall of Assyria ; the second may be called the Balnjlonian, as its final object is the deliverance from Babylon. The first half is not purely Assyrian, however ; but among the Assyrian portions are inserted Babylonian pieces, and generally such as apocalyptically break through the limited horizon of the former. The seven portions of the first half are the following: 1. Prophecies on the growth of obduracy in the mass of the people (chaps, ii.-vi.). 2. The consolation of Immanncl in the Assyrian oppressions (chaps, vii.— xii.). These two portions form a syzygy, ending with a psalm of the redeemed (chap, xii.), the last echo of the song at the Red Sea ; and are separated by the consecration of the prophet (chap, vi.), which looks both backward and forward : the opening discouise (ch^f^T^i-), as a kind of prologue, forms the introduction to the whole. 3. Prophecies of judgment and salvation of the heathen (chaps, xiii.-xxiii.), chielly belonging to the period of the judgment on Assyria, but enclosed and intersected by r>al)ylonian pieces. A prophecy concerning Babylon (chap. xiii.-xiv\ 2o), the city of the world-power, forms its introduction ; while a prophecy concerning Tyre (chap, xxiii.), the city of the world's com- merce, which received its death-blow from the Chaldeans, 36 ISAIAH. forms its conclusion ; and a second prophecy concerning the desert by the sea, i.e. Babylon (chap, xxi, 1-10), forms the centre. 4. Then follows a great apocalyptic jpwphccij con- cerning the judgment of the world and the last things (chaps. xxiv.— xxvii.), affording a grand background to the cycle of prophecies concerning the nations, and with it forming a second syzygy. 5. A third syzygy begins with chaps, xxviii.-xxxiii. : this cycle of prophecy is historical, and treats of the revolt from Assyria and its results. 6. With it is combined a far-reaching eschatological prophecy on the avenging and redemption of the Church (chaps, xxxiv., xxxv.), in which we already hear, as in a prelude, the keynote of chaps, xl.-lxvi. 7. After these three syzygies we are carried back (by chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix.) in the first two historical accounts to the Assyrian period, while the other two show us, afar off, the entanglement with Babylon, which was then but about to begin. These four historical accounts, with the indications of their chronological order, are peculiarly arranged in such a way that half of them look backwards, half of them forwards ; they thus also fasten together the two halves of the whole book. The prophecy in chap, xxxix. 5-7 stands between the two halves like a sign-post, bearing on its arm the inscription " Babylon " (•'23). Thither tends the further course of Israel's history ; there is the prophet henceforward buried in spirit with his people ; there (in chaps, xl.-lxvi.) does he proclaim to the mourners of Zion the approaching deliverance. The trilogical arrangement of this book of con- solation may be regarded as proved ever since it was first observed and shown by Eiickert in 1831. It falls into three sections, containing three times three addresses (chaps, xl.-xlviii., xlix.-lvii., Iviii.-lxvi.), with a kind of refrain at the close. § 3. The Critical Questions. The collection of Isaiah's prophecies is thus a united whole, whose several parts have been skilfully and significantly arranged. This arrangement is worthy of the prophet. Nevertheless, the present form of the work is not to be attributed to him, if (1) the prophecies in chaps, xiii.-xiv. 23, § 3. THE CHITICAL QUESTIONS. 37 xxi. 1-10, xxiii., xxiv.-xxvii., xxxiv. and xxxv. cannot liavo lieen composed by him ; and (2) if the historical accounts in chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix., which we find again in 2 Kings xviii. I'A to XX. 19, are not records from Isaiah's ])en. For if tliose prophecies be taken away, the beautiful whole, especially the book against the nations, tumbles to pieces into a confused qnodlibd; and if chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix. were not directly com- posed by Isaiah, then neither can the arrangement of the whole be directly the work of Isaiah ; for it is precisely chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix. which form the clasp binding the two halves of the collection together. The critical treatment of Isaiah began in the following manner : — The commencement was made with the second 2}urL Koppe first of all expressed doubt regarding the genuineness of chap. 1. ; then Doderlein expressed his decided suspicion as to the genuineness of the whole ; and Justi, followed by Eichhorn, Paulus, and Bertholdt, raised tlie suspicion into confident assurance of spuriousness. The result thus attained could not possibly remain without reaction on the first part. Kosenmliller, who was always very dependent upon predeces- sors, was the first to deny the Isaian origin of the prophecy against Babylon, in chaps, xiii.-xiv. 23, though this is attested by the heading; Justi and Paulus undertook to find further reasons for the opinion. Greater advance was now made. Along with the prophecy against Babylon in chaps, xiii.- xiv. 23, the other, in chap. xxi. 1-10, was likewise condemned, and llosenmiiller could not but be astonished when Gesenius let the former fall, but left the latter standing. There still remained the prophecy against Tyre, in chap, xxiii., which, according as the announced destruction of Tyre was regarded as accomplished by the Assyrians or the Chaldeans, might either be left to Isaiah, or attributed to a later prophet unknown. Eichhorn, followed by liosenmiiller, decided that it was spurious ; but Gesenius understood the Assyrians as the destroyers, and as the prediction consequently did not extend Ijeyond the horizon of Isaiah, he defended its genuineness. Thus was the Babylonian series of prophecies set aside. The keen eyes of the critics, however, made still furtlier dis- coveries. In chaps, xxiv.-xxvii., Eichhorn found plays on words that were unworthy of Isaiah, and Gesenius an allegorical 38 I3AIAH. announcement of the fall of Babylon : Loth accordingly condemned these three chapters, and Ewald transposed them to the time of Cambyses. With chaps, xxxiv., xxxv., on account of their relation to the second part, the procedure was shorter. Eosenmiiller at once pronounced them to be " a poem composed during the Babylonian exile, near its close." Such is the history of the origin of the criticism of Isaiah. Its first attempts were very juvenile. It was Gesenius, but especially Hitzig and Ewald, who first raised it to the eminence of a science. If we take our stand on this eminence, then the Book of Isaiah is an anthology of prophetic discourses by different authors. I have never found anything inherently objection- able in the view that prophetic discourses by Isaiah and by other later prophets may have been blended and joined together in it on a definite plan. Even in that case the collec- tion would be no play of chance, no production of arbitrary will. Those prophecies originating in post-Isaian times are, in thought and the expression of thought, more nearly akin to Isaiah than to any other prophet ; they are really the homo- geneous and simultaneous continuation of Isaian prophecy, the primary stream of which ramifies in them as in the branches of a river, and throughout retains its fertilizing power. These later prophets so closely resembled Isaiah in prophetic vision, that posterity might on that account well identify them with him. They belong more or less nearly to those pupils of his to whom he refers, when, in chap, viii. 16, he entreats the Lord, "Seal instruction among my disciples." We know of no other prophet belonging to the kingdom of Judah, like Isaiah, who was surrounded by a band of younger prophets, and, so to speak, formed a school. Viewed in this light, the Book of Isaiah is the work of his creative spirit and the band of followers. These later prophets are Isaian, — they are Isaiah's disciples ; it is his spirit that continues to operate in them, like the spirit of Elijah in Elisha, — nay, we may say, like the spirit of Jesus in the apostles; for the words of Isaiah (viii. 18), "Behold, I and the children whom God hath given me," are employed in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ii. 13) as typical of Jesus Christ. In view of this fact, the whole book rightly bears the name of § S. THE CRITICAL QUESTIONS. 39 Isaiah, inasmuch as he is, directly and indirectly, the author of all these prophetic discourses ; his name is the correct common-denominator for this collection of prophecies, which, with all their diversity, yet form a unity ; and the scicond halt" particularly (chaps, xl.-lxvi.) is the work of a pu])il who surpasses the master, though he owes the master every- thing. Such may possibly be the case. It seems to me even prob- able, and almost certain, that this may be so ; but indubitably certain it is not, in my opinion, and I shall die without getting over this hesitancy. For very many difficulties arise. — this lirst of all, that not a single one of the canonical books of prophecy has a similar phenomenon to present, ex- cepting only the Book of Zechariah, with chaps, ix.-xiv. of which the same is said to be the case as with Isaiah, chaps, xl.-lxvi., with this difference merely, that whereas the latter are ascribed to a prophet who lived during the exile, chaps. ix.-xiv. of Zechariah are attributed to one or two earlier prophets of pre-exile times. Stade has proved the post- exilian origin of Zechariah, chaps, ix.-xiv., also ; and we may still continue to assume that it is the post-exilian — but, after chaps, i.— viii., much older — Zechariah himself who, in chaps, ix.-xiv., prophesies concerning the last days in figures borrowed from the past, and pui-posely makes use of older prophecies. Xo other book of prophecy besides occasions like doubts as to its unity of authorship. Even regarding the Book of Jeremiah, Hitzig allows that, though interpolated, it con- tains no spurious pieces. Something exceptional, however, may have happened to the Book of Isaiah. Yet it would cer- tainly be a strange accident if there should have been preserved a quantity of precisely such prophecies as carry with them, in so eminent a degree, so singularly, and in so matchless a manner, Isaiah's style. Strange, again, it would be that history knows nothing whatever regarding this Isaian series of prophets. And strange is it, once more, that the very names of these prophets have suff'ered the common fate of being forgotten, even although, in time, they all stood nearer to the collector than did the old prophet whom tlicy had taken as their model. Tradition, indeed, is anything l)ut infallible, yet its testimony here is powerfully corroborated by the rehi- 40 ISAIAH. tion of Zeplianiah and Jeremiah — the two most reproductive prophets — not merely to chaps, xl.-lxvi., but also to the undisputed portions of the first half. To all appearance they had before them these prophecies, making these their model, and taking out passages for incorporation in their own pro- phecies, thus forming a kind of mosaic, — a fact which has been thoroughly investigated by Caspari, but which none of the modern critics as yet has carefully considered, and ventured, with like citation of proofs, to disprove. Further, though the disputed prophecies contain much that cannot be adduced from tlie remaining prophecies, — material which Driver, in his Isaiah (1888), has carefully extracted and elucidated, — yet I am not convinced that the characteristically Isaian elements do not pre- ponderate. And, thirdly, the type of the disputed prophecies, which, if genuine, belong to the latest period of the prophet, does not stand in sharp contrast to the type of the remainder, — rather do the confessedly genuine prophecies lead us in many ways to the others ; the brighter form and the richer eschato- logical contents of the disputed prophecies find their preludes there. And if the unity of Isaian authorship is actually given up, how many later authors, along with the great anonymous writer of chaps, xl.-lxvi., have we to distinguish ? To this query no one has yet given a satisfactory reply. Such are the considerations which, in the Isaian question, assuredly do not allow me to attain the assurance of mathematical certainty. Moreover, the influence of criticism on exegesis in the Book of Isaiah amounts to nothing. If any one casts reproach on this commentary as uncritical, he will at least be unable to charge it with misinterpretation. Nowhere will it be found that the exposition does violence to the text in favour of a false apologetic design. When John Coleridge Patteson, the missionary bishop of Melanesia, undertook his last voyage of supervision among the islands, — a voyage which ended with his martyrdom on September 29, 1871, — he was studying, on board the schooner, the Book of Isaiah, with the help of this com- mentary, regarding which he wrote before on one occasion, " Delitzsch helps me much in Isaiah." His last letter speaks at the close about this commentary and Biblical criticism. Miss Ch. M. Yonge, in her biography, has not given this § 4. EXPOSITION IN ITS I'UESKNT STATK. 41 passage.^ Lut tloubtloss it exi)rcssed his ilet'p aiul iibsnrbiiii,' interest in the Divine word of ])roi»hecy, which at present almost completely disappears behind the tani^led thorns of an overgrown criticisin. Meanwhile, if we hold ourselves warranted, on the one hand, in objecting to that direction of criticism from which a naturalistic contemplation of the world demands foregone conclusions of a negative character, — on the other hand, we are certainly far from denying to criticism as such its well-founded riuhts. § 4. Exposition in its Present State. When the Church, at the time of the Reformation, began to examine and sift its possessions that had been handed down by tradition, Biblical criticism also took its rise. At the same time, Scripture exposition on historico-grammatical principles, conscious of its task, endeavoured to reach the one true meaning of Scripture, and put diW end to the legerdemain of the " manifold sense of Scripture " which had been developed in accordance with tedious examples ; this advance was made under the influence exerted by the revival of classical studies, and by the help of increased knowledge of Hebrew derived from Jewish teachers. For Isaiah, however, the lielormation- period itself did not accomplish much. Calvin's Commentaries answer the expectations with which one goes to consult them ; on the other hand, Luthei-'s Scholia are a second-hand and poor performance. The productions of Orotius, important enough in other fields, are in Isaiah, as throughout the prophets generally, of little consequence ; he mixes up the sacred with the profane ; and being unable to follow prophecy in its flight, he clips its wings. Aug. Varenius, of Rostock, one of the orthodox Lutherans, wrote a Commentary on Isaiah which is not to be despised even now ; but, though learned in many ways, it is the confused production of an undisciplined mind. But Campegius Vilrinfja (who died in 1722 as jtrofessor of theology at Franequer), by his Commentary in two folio volumes, which appeared in 1714, threw all the works of his predecessors into the shade. It is he who originated the historical I Life of J. a PaUcson, vol. ii. p. 379 (cf. 2G8), 5th e.liticjii (IftTr)). 42 ISAIAH. method of expounding the prophets, and in this he has given us his own work as a model ; ^ but, though starting with the correct principle that it does not exhaust the meaning of the prophet's words, he nevertheless, in the allegorical explanation appended to the grammatico-historical, shows that he is not yet quite free from the Cocceian method, which, without con- sidering the couiplex-apotelesmatic character of prophecy, reads in the prophets the most minute allusions to the history of the world and the Church. The shady sides of the commentary usually come before the reader first ; but the more he uses it, the more highly does he learn to value it. There is deep research throughout, — nowhere a superabund- ance of dead and dry learning. The author's heart is present in his work. At times he pauses in the path of toilsome investigation, and gives vent to his thoughts in rapturous expressions. He sees and feels more deeply than Bishop Lowtli, who keeps to the surface, alters the Masoretic text according to his taste,^ and does not get beyond aesthetic admiration of the form. The era of modern exegesis begins with that destructive theology of the latter half of the eighteenth century which pulled down but could not build. This destruction, however, was not unproductive of good : the denial of the divine and eternal in Scripture has helped us to recognise its human and temporal aspects, the charm of its poetry, and — what is of still greater consequence — the concrete reality of its history. Rosenmilller s Scholia (3 vols.; last edition, 1811— 1820) are an industrious, clear, and elegant compilation, chiefly from Vitringa; the sobriety of judgment displayed in selecting, and the dignified earnestness — far removed from all frivolity — deserve our praise. The Commentary of Gescnius (in three parts, or with the translation, four parts, 1820- 1821), which is more decidedly rationalistic, is also more independent in its exegesis, careful in its historical expositions, and especially distinguished for its pleasing and perspicuous style and the stores of learning gathered from all the literature on Isaiah, especially the new sources of grammatico-historical knowledge opened up since Vitringa's time. The Commentary 1 See Diestel, Geschichte des A. T. in der christlichen Kirche, 436-438. ^ Against him, Kohler wrote Vindiciae texius Heb. Esaiae, 1786. § 4. EXPOSITION IN ITS PltESENT STATE. 4 3 of Hitzuj (1833) remains his best work, cniincnt for its ]>recisiou, acuteness, and orij^inality of graniniatical perception, its fine tact in discovering the train of tliought, its pith and exactness in stating carefully considered results ; but it is also disfigured by reckless and pseudo-critical assertions of an arbitrary character, and by a designedly profane style of thought that remains unatfected by the spirit of prophecy. The Commentary of Hcndcwcrk (2 vols. 1838-1843) is in ])hilological and historical exposition often very weak ; the style is diffuse, and the eye of the disciple of Herbart is too dull to distinguish between Israeli tish prophecy and heathen poetry, between the politics of Isaiah and those of Demos- thenes. Nevertheless, the careful diligence and earnest endeavour to point out in Isaiah the germs of eternal verities, are nnmistakeable. In the work of Ewald (translated into English; London 1875-1881) there is universally recognised his natural penetration, and the noble enthusiasm with which he throws himself into the contents of the prophetic books, in which he finds a perpetual present ; and his endeavour to attain a deep apprehension is in some degree rewarded. ]]ut it is provoking to observe the self-sufficiency with which he ignores nearly all his predecessors, the dictatorial confidence of his criticism, the false and often nebulous pathos, and the com- plete identification of his opinions with truth itself. In setting forth the characteristics of the prophets, he is a master ; his translations, on the other hand, are stiff, and hardly according to the taste of any one. Umlrcit's Practical Commentary (2nd edition, 1846) is useful and stimulating; a profound icsthetic and religious conviction of the glorious character of the prophetic word reveals itself in highly poetic language, heaping one figure on another, and almost never descending to an ordinary level. The other extreme is the prose of Knohcl (died 1863). The precision of this scholar, the third edition of whose Commentary on Isaiah (1861) was one of his last works, deserves the most grateful recognition for its excellence in philological as well as in archteological matters ; but his almost affected commonness of style prevents him from seeing the depth of meaning, while liis excessive desire to find historical realization everywhere conceals from him the poetry of the form. The Commentary of Drechslcr was a real 44 ISAIAH. advauce in the exposition of Isaiah. It was edited by liimself only as far as cliap. xxvii., and then completed (2 vols. 1845-57) by me and by H. A. Hahn of Greifswald (who died in 1861), from his notes, though these afforded little that could be used in the exposition of chaps, xl.-xlvi. Since the time of Vitriuga, this is comparatively the best Commentary on Isaiah, chaps, i.-xii.,^ and especially on chaps, xiii-xxvii. Its excellence does not lie in the exposition of details, — for this is inadequate, through the fragmentary and glossatorial style of its exegesis, and, though diligent and thorough, especially in a grammatical point of view, is not homogeneous or productive, — but in the spiritual and spirited conception of the whole, the profound perception of the character and the ideas of the prophet and of prophecy, the vigorous penetration into the inmost nature of the plan and contents of the whole. Meanwhile (1850, 2 vols.) there appeared the Commentary of Peter Schcgg, which follows the Vulgate, and contains valuable remarks in connection with the history of translations, but also displays free and profound insight into the genesis and meaning of the prophecies ; at the same time there also appeared the Commentary of Ernst Meier, the Tiibingen orientalist, which did not get beyond the first half. If any one was specially called to advance the exegetical study of the Book of Isaiah, it was C. P. Caspari of Christiania ; but of his Norwegian Commentary all that has appeared readies only to the end of chap, vi.,^ and its progress has been hindered not only by the exhaustive thoroughness of investigation at which he aimed, but .also by the Grundtvig controversy, which involved him in very extensive studies in the field of Church history. Wealth of material for the following prophetic dis- courses is also afforded by his " Contributions to the Intro- duction to the Book of Isaiah, and to the history of Isaiah's time," which appeared (1848) as vol. ii. of our Studies in Biblical ^ See the review by Franz Dietrich in lieuters Repertorium, vol. xlviii. pp. 1-25. In the same year, 1845, Scliroring in Wismar began his Studies in Isaiah, three parts of which (1845, 1852, 1857) have appeared. 2 Commentar til de tolv forste Capitler of Propheten Jesaja, Christiania 1867. Cf. also the treatise on the Seraphim in Isaiah in the Theological Tidsskrift for 1859, and the Essay on the position and meaning of Isaiah viii. in the History of the Kingdom of God, in the Bibelske Afhandlinger, 1884. § 4. F.XrOSITION IN ITS PRESENT STATE. 45 Thcologij ; his "rro*;rannn" on the Syro-Kphraimitisli wardml)- lished in 1S49); and his tre;itise, not by any means olisoh^e, on "Jeremiah a witness to the t;enuineness of Isaiah, chap, x.xxiv., and hence also to that of Isaiah, chaps, xl.-lxvi., chaps, xiii.- xiv. 23, and xxi. 1-10 " (with an Excnrsus on the relation of Zephaniah to the disputed prophecies of Isaiah), which appeared in the Zcitschrift f. d. ges. luth. Thcoloyie n. Kirchc, 1843. Amoiiu Jewish Commentaries, two must be mentioned ; tlie work of M. L. Malbim (who died at Kiew 1879), which (published at Krotoscbin 1849) especially deals in a concise style with the exact meaning of synonymous words and ex- pressions ; and the learned, subtle, and ever-stimulating work of Samuel l)avid Luzzatto, of Padua (died 18G5), part of which, from the beginning to chap, xxxviii., was published l)y himself under the title Frofdct Isnia rolgarizzato c commcntato ad nso dcgli Israditi, while the remainder was edited after his death from the materials he had left (L'adua 1855-18GG). Of additional literature that has been published since the appearance of the second and third editions of this Com- mentary (1SG9, 1879), the following, arranged in chronological order, is worthy of notice : — CnEYNE, T. K (Oriel Professor at Oxford, and Canon of Colchester) : The Book of Isaiah chronologically arranged. An amended version, with historical and critical introductions and explanatory notes. London 1870. There had previously lieen jmblished, Tiy the same writer, Notes and Critici^iiLs on the Hebrew text of Isaiali (London 1868) : freijiiont reference was made to this work in the second edition of our Commentary. Skinecke, L. (Pastor at Hevensen, near Xordheini) : Der Evangelist des Alten Testaments. Erkliirung der AVeissagung Jesaia's, Kap. xl.-lxvi. Leipzig 1870. See the review Ly Ed. Kiehiu, in Studien u. Kritikin, 1S72, pp. 553-578. P.IKK^, T. K. : Commentary on the Pook of Isaiali. London 1871. 46 ISAIAH. HTki'"' "I2D, Liber Jesaiae. Textum raasoreticum accuratissiine expressit, e fontibus Masorae varie illustravit, notis criticis confirmavit S. Baer. Praefatus est edendi operis adjutor Fr. Delitzsch, Leipzig 1872. DiESTEL, LuDWiG (died at Tiibingen, 1879): Der Prophet Jesaia, erklart von Aug. Kiiobel (who died 1863); Aiiti. 4. Leipzig 1872. EiEHM, Ed. (died at Halle, 1888): Das erste Buch Moi=e nach der deutschen Uebersetzung Dr. Mart. Luthers in rediviertem Text niit Vorbemerkungen und Erlauterungen, und einem die Berichtigungen des Jesaja enthaltenden Anhang ini Auftrag der zur Ptevision der Uebersetzung des A. T. berufenen Conferenz herausgegeben. Halle 1873. Stade, Berniiard (Professor in Giessen) : De Isaiae vaticiniis Aethiopicis diatribe. Leipzig 1873. See the notice by Aug. Dininann in the Liter. Centralblatt, 1874, Nr. 9. Strachey, Sir Edward: Jewish History and Politics in the time of Sargon and Sennacherib. An inquiry into the historical meaning and purpose of the prophecies of Isaiah. Second edition, revised, London 1874. Weber, Eerd. (died at Polsingen, 1879): Der Profet Jesaja in Bibelstunden ausgelegt. 2 vols. Nordliugen 1875-76. Klostermann, Aug. (Professor in Kiel) : Jesaja, cap. xl- Ixvi. Eine Bitte um Hiilfe in grosser Noth. In Zeitschrift ftir luth. Theologie, 1876; pp. 1-60. KoHUT, Alex. (Chief Piabbi in Fiinfkirchen) : Antiparsische Aussprliche im Deuterojesajas. In Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellschaft, 1879, pp. 709-722. Neteler, B. : Das Buch Isaias aus dem Urtext iibersetzt und mit Berlicksichtigung seiner Gliederung und der auf seinen Inhalt sich beziehenden assyr. Inschriften erklart. Munster 1876. See the notice by "VV. Baudissin in the Theol. Literaturzeitung, 1876, Nr. 19. S 4. EXrOSITION IN ITS PRKSENT STATE. 47 Reuss, En. (riofessor in Strasburg): Les IVtiplii'tcs (form- ing Part 2 of his work on the Scriptures), 2 vols., the former of which contains the translation and exposition of the old Isaiah portions, while the latter contains the decidedly later portions. Paris 1876. The Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah according to the Jewish Interpreters. I. Texts edited from printed books and MSS. by Ad. Neubauer. II. Translations by S. II. Driver and Ad. Xeubauer. "With an introduction to the translations by Prof. E. B. Pusey. Oxford and London 1876-77. See the notice by Hermann Strack in the Theologi.^iche Litcratur- zcitung, 1877, Nr. 21. Le Hir (formerly Professor in the Seminary of Saint- Sulpice, Paris): Les trois grands prophetes, Isaie, Jeremie, Ezechiel; analyses et commentaires. Paris 1877. See the notice by W. Baudissin in the Theologische Literal iir- zeitung, 1877, Nr. 11. Nagelsbach, C. W. Eduard (died at Gunzenhausen, 1880) : Der Prophet Jesaja, theologisch-homiletisch bearbeitet (Theil 1-i des Lange'schen Bibelwerks). Bielefeld u. Leipzig 1877. [Translated into English, with additions, by Samuel T, Lowrie and Dunlop Moore. Xew York and Edinburgh 1878.] See the notice in the Beilage zur Luth. Kirchenzeitung, Xr. 1, and that by Em. Kautsch in the Theologische Liloiatuizcitung, 1878, Xr. 25. Strack, Herm. (Professor in Berlin): Zur Textkritik des Jesaias. In Zeitschrift fiir luth. Theologie, 1877, pp. 17-5 2. Studeu, G. L. (Professor in Berne) : Beitiiige zur Textkritik des Jesaja. In the Jahrblicher fiir protest. Theologie, 1877, pp. 706-730. Feiir, Fredrik : Profeten Jesaja : Ett gammaltestanicnlligt Utkast. Upsala 1877. De Lagarde, Paul (Professor in Gottingen) : Semitica. Aus dem 23. Bande der Abhandl. der kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissensch. in Gottingen. Gottingen 1878. 48 ISAIAH. Pages 1-32 contain critical remarks on Isaiah, chaps, i.-xvii, : see the notice Ly Eberh. Nestle in the Theol. Literaturzeitung, 1878, Nr. 11. LOhk, Fr. (raster in Zirchow a/Usedom): Ziir Frage liber die Echtheitvon Jesaias 40-6G. Drei Hefte. Berlin 1878-80. See the notice in the Liter. Beilage tier Luther. Kirchenzeitung, 1879, Nr. 17. KoSTLiN, Fhiedeich : Jesaia nnd Jeremia. Ilir Leben und ilir Wirken aus ihren Scliriften dargestellt. Berlin 1879. Bartii, J. (Professor in Berlin) : Beitrrige zur Erklarving des Jesaia. Karlsruhe 1855. ScHOLZ, Anton (Professor in WUrzbiirg) : Die alexandrin- ische Uebersetzung des Bnclies Jesaias. Wiirzburg 1880. Cheyne, T. K.: The Prophecies of Isaiah. A new trans- lation, with commentary and appendices. 2 vols. London 1880-81. [Fifth edition, 1889.] See my notice of the first edition in TJie Academy, 1880 (Ap. 10). Knabenbauer, A. (Jesuit priest): Erklarung des Propheten Jesaia. Freiburg i. B. 1881. Distinguished for the very extensive use made of the older exposi- tory literature (certainly with no great profit), and for beneficial regard to the more modern. GuTHE, Hekm. (Professor in Leipzig) : Das Zukunftsbild des Jesaia. Leipzig 1885. Bredenkamp, C. J. (Professor in Greifswald) : Der Prophet Jesaia erkliirt. Drei Lieferungen. Erlangen 1886-7. This author has also published Vaticinium quod de Immanueh edidit Jtmias. Erlangen 1880. Von Orelli, Coni;. (Professor in Basle) : Die Propheten Jesaja und Jeremia ausgelegt. Nordlingen 1887. [Trans- lated in Clark's For. Theol. Lib., Edinburgh 1889.] [Driver, S. It. (Eegius Professor of Hebrew in O.xford University): Isaiah, his Life and Times. London 1888.] [Sayce, a. H. : The Life and Times of Isaiah. London 1889.] [Smith, George A. : The Book of Isaiidi. 2 vols. London 1889-90.1 THE SUPERSCRIPTION OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. I. The external title as handed down is '1W\ The LXX. .always modifies the form of the prophet's name into H^AIAS (see Frankel, Vorstudien, p. Ill); on the other hand, it renders the name rr'yf* in Ezra viii. 7, 19 by 'I(raia<; (but in other places in many other ways '), both paroxytone, inasmuch as a? in prosody is long ; Lat. Isai((s (Esaias), in I'rudentius with accented « and short i (but, on the other hand, Jcrcmlas, because in this ease the c, which is short in accordance with the Hebrew, is not suited for bearing the accent of the word). In the book itself, and throughout the Old Testament Scrip- tures, the prophet is called ^'^'\W\ (in the Babylonian Codex, dating from the year 916, ^n^Vj^'\ according to the old style of writing) ; on the other hand, in the Books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, the shorter form designates other per- sons. Though the shorter form of such names was in ancient times cuiTent along with the longer, it came to be exclusively used in more recent days ; hence its employment as tlie usual title. The name is a compound word, signifying "Jalm (Juh) has wrought salvation," — yc^ being equivalent to V"^"^^ (in ^'Vlr'i'''), as am in "^'^D"! is equivalent to 2'r'"!'? — not "salvation of Jahu" (as explained, for instance, by Kiiper, with Caspari) ; for, as Kiilder has shown, in the beginning of his Commentary on Zechariah, the number of the names of persons compounded of a substantive and n^ is exceeded by ' 'lIff«i«j(or even ' Uadix;, following' tlie analof,'}' of ' llaiolo;, ' llavx"';) is essentially a modi Hcation like ' lau'tx;. There are some other jjropcr names beginning -with ^, Init the LXX. renders none of these by 11? or I<7, like this one. In Ezra viii. 7, 19, n'jJB'^ is modified into the loriu l(7«i«,-, and in 1 Chron. iii. 21, Neh. xi. 7, into 'liaix;, — a worse form. VOI^ I. D 50 ISAIAH, that of those which are formed from the perfect of the Qal, and this, too, with the meaning of a derived conjugation, especially the Piel and Hiphih Combined with V^",, how- ever, the name would probably take the form ^'I'Vf^. (like i^'i?;"?, "^'tPP, ''^,'i?']V), and signify, " Jahu is my salvation ; " hence '^yi'], like '^^1_?\, '^'P?], '^l^.^}, will be an exclamation of thankfulness to God made into the name of the child.^ The prophet shows he is conscious that it was not by accident he bore this name ; for V't^'in^ y^^^ and njn*j'"^ are among his favourite words, — nay, we may say, he lives and moves in the coming salvation : but nin'' is the God of salvation ; this is the peculiar redemptive designation of God. The name in- dicates the Being who exists absolutely (i.e. eternally and independently), who bears witness to Himself (Ex. iii. 14), as freely and according to His own counsel determining His ways, ruling throughout the course of history, and fixing its form. This work of free grace has for its end that salvation which, beginning with Israel and working outwards, embraces and includes all mankind. The element in'' (n^) in the prophet's name has been shortened from the " tetragrammaton " nin' by rejecting the second n. From this abbreviation we see that the vowel a stood at the beginning of the divine name. According to Theodoret, it was pronounced 'Ja/3e by the Samaritans ; this is also the pronunciation given in the Archontic list of the divine names found in Epiphanius, Jacob of Edessa, as we learn from an excursus to his Syriac translation of the ^1070* irmOpoviot of Severus of Antioch, was under the erroneous impression that the name in Hebrew was pronounced n^^ like riMX ; moreover, this OT-iCru, in the Codex Curzonianius of the Syro-Hexaplar Isaiah, is tran- scribed in Greek characters HEHE {Zcitschrift der deutsclien morgenl. Gescllscliaft, xxxii. 465 ff.). The testimony hereby borne to the conclusion of the word in n— is confirmed by the abbreviation into i"J, which, after the analogy of similar abbreviations, has come from Jrin^, through an intermediate form )n.\ The modified form ""Aid (found in Theodoret) does not point to the divine name nin' (which must have been represented by "la^d), but TV ; ^law with its by-forms is >^\, and 'lacoid (in Origen, co7itra Celsum, i, 656) is the ^ See Friedr. Delitzsch, Prolerjomena, pp. 206-208. THE SUPERSCHirnON OF TIIR BOOK OF ISAIAH. 5 I condensed HMH*.^ The pronunciation Jcliovah {Yehovah) has arisen from a combination of the Qcri and Kdhih, and did not become current till after the sixteenth century ; Galatiuus, about 1518, in his work de arcanis cat/iolicae veritatis, was the first who remarked that the " tetragrammaton," read as it is pointed, sounds Jehovah (Yehovah); from that time people began to pronounce it so, but Genebrard, who died in 1597, in his Commentary on the Psalms, continues against Beza to oppose it as an intolerable innovation : Tmini vdustatis tcmeratorcs ct nominis Dei ineffahilis projanatores atque adeo traii-ifonnatores Jow vcl Jehovah Icrjunt, vocalulo novo,harharo, fictitio, irrelirjioso et Jovcm gcntilium rcdolenfr. If. The title of the hook, given hj itself. Ver. 1 : "The vision of Yeslmyahu, son of Amoz, which he saw eonccrning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziijahii, Jotliam, Ahaz, Yehizkiyahu, kings of Judah." Isaiah is here called f'ic^^-jn. The Jewish doctrine, known even to the early Fathers of the Church, that when a prophet's father is named, the latter also was a prophet (Megilla 15a), is unfounded. But there is at least some sense, though no historic basis, in an old tradition repeated in the Midrash (Pesikta de-Bab Cahana 1176) and the Talmuds {Megilla 10&, cf. Sola 10&), that Amoz was the brother of Amaziah, the father and predecessor of Uzziah, and that Isaiah was thus, like the Davidic kings, a descendant of Judah and Tamar. The nature and appearance of Isaiali make a thoroughly royal impression. He speaks to kings like a king. With majestic bearing he goes to meet the magnates of his people, and of the world-power beyond. In his style, he is among the prophets what Solomon was among the kings. In all circumstances and moods, he is master of his materials, a master of language, — simply magnificent, sublime without affectation, splendid though unadorned. But this regal character had its roots somewhere else than in Ijlood. Only this much may be said with certainty, that Isaiah was born in Jerusalem. For the character of his prophecy betokens closest intimacy with the capital : accord- ing to Chagiga 136, he stands in relation to Ezekiel as a native of the chief city to a native of the provinces ; notwith- standing his exceeding manifold prophetic missions, we never ' Cf. Bau(li.«siii, Sludien zitr semit. lielujiourgeschichte, i. 183 f. 5 2 ISAIAH. find him outside of Jerusalem ; here, too, as may be seen from chap. xxii. 1, and the style of his intercourse with king Hezekiah, he lived with his wife and children in the lower part of the city ; here he carried on his ministry under the four kings named in ver. 1, who are enumerated without " vav copulative ; " there is the same unconnected enumeration as in the titles of the Books of Hosea and Micah. There Hezekiah is called '"■'iPTH", — almost the same form as here, — but with the simple rejection of the toneless v The Chronicler especially prefers the complete form, — full both at the beginning and the end, — though he also uses the rarer form in''pTn. Pioorda is of opinion that the Chronicler took this malformation from the three titles, where it is a copyist's error for I'l'ipTni or !^'i?T^1 ; but it is also found in Jer. xv. 4 and 2 Kings xx. 10, where such an error in transcription could not possibly have taken place. Accordingly, it is not an irregular form ; we must not, however, with Eoorda, derive it from the Piel, but from the Qal of the verb (" strong is Jehovah"), with a connecting i, which occurs pretty frequently in proper names derived from verb-roots with a vowel in the middle, such as bxp*'ii^ from D'i:', 1 Chron. iv, 36. Under the kings already mentioned Isaiah exercised his ministry, or, as it is expressed in ver. 1, saw the vision which he committed to writing in the book before us. Among the many Hebrew synonyms for seeing, ntn is the general ex- pression regularly used for prophetic perception, whether the form in which the divine revelation was made to the prophet was a vision or an audible communication ; in both cases he " sees " it, — distinguishing this divine message, in its super- natural objectivity, from his own conceptions and thoughts by means of the inner sense, which is designated by the term used to denote the noblest of the five external senses. The prophet accordingly is called ^fn, " a seer " (at an earlier period in the language, nsn, 1 Sam. ix. 9), and prophecy is called |iTn ; the term ^^<1^3, which is the cognate of J*'??, appears only in the latest period (thrice in Chronicles and Nehemiah). The noun lifn^ indeed, is also applied to individual visions (ef. Jer. xxix. 7 with Job xx. 8, xxxiii. 15), like P'^n (const. iir"), which is formed from "'Tn by euphonic doubling, and is more frequently used in this sense ; but here, in the title to the THE SLTEKSCRirriON OF THE HOoK OT ISAIAH, ;'3 r>ook of Isaiah, the abstract nieaiiing passes over into the still more closely related collective, indicatin;^ the whole of wiiat is seen, i.v. the contents of the vision. We may not concliule, therefore, that the first part of ver. 1 was originally the superscription merely of the first prophetic address, and that it was only through the addition of the latter part that it was changed into a general title for the whole book : Vitringa iield this view, and perhaps it may even be correct, but with the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxxii, 32) this wyy" pm appears as the general title of the collection. Along with Judah, Jerusalem is further specially mentioned as the object of the vision. The " perpetual Qeri " to ok"!- (cpu"^"!*) is Cvti^T;, which is hardly to be regarded as a " broken dual," i.e. as formed through internal change of sound, but — like P.2V for ^"^^l 2 Chron. xiii. 19, and the Aramaic P^H'— a later form in which the diphthongal ojim or aim has been resolved from the original em, dm, an. Cheyne finds in the particularizing, from Judah to Jerusalem, an indication of the fact that Isaiah was a city-prophet. But the object of the prophecies of the provincial prophet Micah is also (i. 1) marked by the mention of the capitals of both kingdoms. The advance from " Judah " to " Jerusalem " is a centralizing step ; and if prn is meant to indicate the totality of what was seen by Isaiah, this designation of the object of Isaiah's prophecies by "Judah and Jerusalem" is centralizing. For his vision extends far beyond Judah, not merely to the sister kingdom of Ephraim, but also to the Gentile nations. "Within the widest circle of the nations of the world there lies the smaller one containing the peoples bordering on the Hebrews ; and within this, again, there is the still smaller one of all Israel, including Samaria ; within this, once more, there is the yet smaller circle of the kingdom of Judah ; and all these circles include Jerusalem, because the whole history of the world, regarded in its inmost working and its final purpose, is the history of tlie Church of God, which has Jerusalem, the city of Jehovah's temple and the kingdom of promise, for its peculiar site. In this sense, the expression " concerning Judah and Jerusalem" is also suitable for the whole book, in wliich everything that the prophet sees is seen from Judah and Jerusalem, and for the sake of both, and in the interests 54 ISAIAH. of both. It is more probable, however, that the latter part of ver. 1 is a more receut addition, so that the words from prn to uh^'n'^ thus formed the original superscription of the first address, and conld only indirectly (like the names of the Books of the Pentateuch) be used as the designation of the whole book. For it is inadmissible, with Luzzatto, to take itJ'N as nominative instead of accusative (qui instead of quam, so. visionem), in order to stamp the words " The Vision of Isaiah, son of Amoz," as the superscription of the first dis- course, in chap. i. ; the suggestion is contrary to the syntax, for nrn "i^'x prn is the usual Hebrew construction of tlie verb with its own substantive (Ges. § 138. 1). FIRST HALF OF THE COLLECTION OF PROPHECIES. CHAPS. I.-XXXIX. TART I.— PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE COURSE OF THE MASS OF THE PEOPLE ONWARDS TO HARDENING OF HEART, CHAPS. I.-VI. Opening Discourse, regarding Jehovah's way with His Ungrateful and IiEBEllious People, I. 2 ff. The prophet is standing on the fateful boundary-line between the two halves of the history of Israel. Neither by the riches of divine goodness which they experienced during tlie times of Uzziah and Jotham, which closely resembled those of ])avid and Solomon, nor by the chastisements of the divine displeasure which inflicted wound upon wound, have tlie ])cople allowed themselves to be brought to repentance and reflection ; the divine means of training have been exhausted, and it only remains that Jehovah should let His people in their present condition be consumed in tlie fire, that a new people may be formed out of the gold which has stood the flery test. At this period, so pregnant with storms, appear the propliets, like birds upon the sea, presaging the tempest, and more active than at any other epoch, — Amos in the days of Jeroboam, Micah in the reign of Jotham, but above all Isaiah, tlie prophet Kar i^o^V^, standing midway between Moses and Christ. Conscious of this his exalted position in the history of salvation, lie begins his opening address in Deuteronomic. fashion, like the grand Song of Mo.ses in IJeut. xxxii. This form has been shown by tho investigations of Klostcnnann M 56 ISAIAH, {Studicn II. Krit. 1871) to have passed current in Hezeliiali's time, at latest, as a prophetic testimony reaching back to Moses, so that it may actually be regarded as such (see No. X. of my " Studies in Pentateuchal Criticism," in Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 503 fF.). This song is the compendious programme and the common watchword of all prophecy, to which it stands in the same fundamental relation as the Decalogue to all other laws, and the Lord's Prayer to all other prayers. The law- giver therein sets before the eyes of his people their whole history to the end of time. This history falls into four great periods : the creation and exaltation of Israel ; the ingratitude and apostasy of Israel ; the surrender of Israel into the hands of the heathen ; lastly, the restoration of Israel, — sifted but not destroyed, — and the accord of all nations to praise Jehovah, who has revealed Himself in judgment and in mercy. This fourfold division is not merely preserved in every part of the history of Israel, but it forms the distinguishing mark of the history as a whole to its remotest end. Every age of Israel has thus in that song a mirror of its present condition and future destiny. This mirror the prophets held up before their contemporaries. Thus did Isaiah. He opens his prophetic address as Moses begins his Song. ]\Ioses begins (Deut. xxxi. 1): "Hear, ye heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth." In what sense he calls on heaven and earth he himself tells us in Deut. xxxi. 28 f. He foresees in spirit the future apostasy of Israel, and takes heaven and earth, which will endure beyond his earthly life now drawing to a close, as witnesses of what he has to say to his people with such a prospect. In like manner, — only with the interchange of the parallel verbs VO^ and prxn, — Isaiah begins, " II^ojt\ heavens, and give ear, earth : for Jehovah speaks." The ground of the demand is put in a general way : they are to hear because Jehovah is speaking. But what Jehovah speaks substantially agrees with that address of Jehovah which is introduced in Deut. xxxii. 20 by the expression " And he said." What Jehovah, according to the statement there, will one day have to say in His wrath. He now says through the prophet, whose present corresponds to the future of the Song of Moses. For the time has now arrived when heaven and earth, — which always exist CHAPTr.K I. 2. b I and are always tlie saiiH", wliidi liave continued tliroiigh lln; past history of Israel in all })laces and at all times, — should tulfil the duty laid on them by the lawgiver to be witnesses ; and this is just the special, true, and ultimate sense in which they are required, as they were by I\Ioses, to hear. They were present and shared in the proceedings when Jehovah gave the Law to His people ; the_heavens^^cording to Deut. iv. 36, as the place i'rom which the voice of God issued, and Jhe earth as the place where His great fire appeared. They were solemnly admitted to the scene when Jehovah gave to His people the choice between a blessing and a curse, life and death (Deut. xxx. 19, iv. 26). They are now, therefore, to hear and bear witness regarding what Jehovah, their Creator and the God of Israel, has to say, and what complaints He has to makjB (ver. 2): " Children lianc J hiwaht v]) Miid exalted, hut ilicy have reOcltect agetinst life'' ^Tliough' Israel' is^ meant, Israel is not named, but the historical facts are generalized into a parable, in order that the astounding and appalling state of matters may be made more prominent. Israel is Jehovah's son (Ex. iv. 22 f.) ; all the members of the nation are His children (Deut. xiv. 1, xxxii. 20) ; He is the Father of Israel, whom He has begotten (Deut. xxxii. 6, 18). The existence of Israel as a nation, like that of other nations, is effected, indeed, by means of natural repro- duction, not by spiritual regeneration ; but the primary ground of Israel's origin is the supernaturally efficacious word of grace addressed to Abraham (Gen. xvii. 15 f.) ; and a series of wonderful dealings in grace has brought the growth and development of Israel to that point which it had attained at the Exodus from Egypt. It is in this sense that Jehovah has begotten Israel. This relation of Jehovah to Israel as His children has already, in Isaiah's time, a long time of grace behind it in the past, — the time of Israel's childhood in Egypt, the time of youth in the desert, the time of growing manhood from Joshua to Samuel ; and now Joshua can say in the days of Isaiah, " I have brought up children, and exalted them." The opposite of bna is Pi^, that of D") is ''S'f . The PiL'l ''"il? signifies to " make great," and when a])plied to children (as here and in 2 Kings x, 6, etc.), to " brint; up " in the sense of natural growth ; and the I'ilel cpn, 58 ISAIAH. which is used also in xxiii. 4, Ezek. xxxi. 4 (cf. the proper names in 1 Clirou. xxv. 29-31), as the parallel to ^"^i, signifies to " exalt " in the dignitative sense of raising to a high position, to which wise love of a father gradually advances a child. The two verses depict the condition of mature man- hood and high honour which Israel had reached under the monarchy of David and Solomon, and which has again been enjoyed under Uzziah and Jotham. But how ungrateful were they towards God for what they owed to Him, — " but they have broken away from me ! " Instead of an adversative particle (^3N possibly), there is merely i copulative, used energetically, as in vi. 7 (cf. Di?!, Hos. vii. 13). Two things that ought never to have been conjoined, — the gracious and filial relaticm of Israel to Jehovah, and Israel's base apostasy from Jehovah, — these, though utterly contradictory, were now actually combined. The verb V^'Q, i^^i (here with retracted tone,-^ from the presence of the following ""S), in accordance with its radical idea, signifies to " break away, break loose " (Lat. dirumpere, as in amicitiam dirumpere)^ and is followed by 3 with the object forming the completion of the action ; it means violently and determinedly to break connection with any one, and is here used of the inward severance from God, and renunciation of His claims, which forms the climax of nx^sn (Job xxxiv. 37), and of which the full outward mani- festation is idolatry. From the time that Solomon, towards the end of his reign, gave himself up to idolatry, the worship of idols had never wholly ceased, even in public, down to the days of Isaiah. Two attempts had been made to put an end to it, — the reformation begun by Asa and completed by Jehoshaphat, and afterwards the one accomplished by Joash during the lifetime of the high priest Jehoiada, who had ^ Only in the following cases is there no retraction of the tone : (1) When the syllable to which it would he retracted is a closed syllable ; (2) When the former of the two logically connected words ends with a heavy suffix ; (3) When the final syllable of this word is closed and accented, as in y) C3*pn. 2 In Arabic, i^^': originally had a piirely sensuous meaning, and it is expressly remarked that it received an ethical sense only through Islam ; it is the proper word for breaking the fruit by bursting ojjen the husk. ClIArTKK I. 3. 59 preserved liim ami lnou-lit liini up ; the first, however, li:iat which would-be .shown p^ the^brutcg : " -4./i ox ivnoweili Ids mmicr, and an 0s/' the, c'rih "^of ifs\n^stcr,—^^ Ci Israel doth not hiMc,'mi/ people' dom not consider.*''' A plrtiigti^* ■^^<^jl , ing ox has a knowledge of its purchaser and owner i^ip), to whom it willingly submits ; and an ass, the domestic animal of proverbial stupidity (in the East also ; see Zcitschrift der deutschen niorgcnl. Geselhchaft, xl. 266 f.), has a knowledge at least of the crib of its master OyV?' ^ plural of excellence, as in Exod. xxi. 29, — a degenerate species of the " extensive " plural, as distinguished from the " multiplicative " plural), i.e. it knows that it is its master who puts its fodder into the manger (Cii3Si — from DaN, to fatten cattle — with — instead of — , like the forms i^t^^, p^>?). No such knowledge has Israel, — neither direct, like instinct, nor indirect, acquired by reflection (|ji2nn). The expressions yT vh and pnnn vh can- not be taken here (as for example in Ivi. 10 ; Ps. Ix.xxii. 5) in an objectless sense, and as indicating a state or condition, — — as if the meaning were, "they are ignorant and inconsiderate," but the object is implied in what precedes, and the words mean "they know not, consider not what, on their side, corresponds to the owner and to the manger which the raastet hlls," — namely, that they are the children and the property of Jehovah, and their existence and prosperity solely depend on the grace of Jehovah (Jer. v. 24, cf. Hos. ii. 10). The parallel, with its many contrasts, like the similar one in Jer. viii. 7, where animals are again introduced, explains itself even through the employment of " Israel " and " my people." Those who, in knowledge and gratitude, are far surpassed and ])ut to shame by the brutes, are not a nation like any other nation among men, but " Israel," descendants of Jacob, who 60 ISAIAH. wrestled with and overcame the wrath of God, and by- wrestling also obtained the blessing for himself and his pos- terity ; they are " my people " too, — those whom Jehovah has chosen out of all peoples to be the people of His possession, and most especial care and direction. This people, bearing the honoured name — bestowed by God Himself — of one who was a hero of faith and prayer, — this favoured people of Jehovah lowered itself far beneath the level of the brutes. Such is the complaint poured out before heaven and earth by the noble speaker. The piercing cry of complaint by the deeply-pained Father is at the same time the heaviest impeachment. But the cause of God is to the prophet the cause of a friend who feels the grief of his friend as he would feel his own (v. 1). Hence the complaint of God now changes into strong invective and threatening on the part of the prophet ; and in conformity with the deep indignation by which he is moved, his discourse in verse 4 moves rapidly along like a lightning storm, giving forth flash upon flash. The address consists of seven mem- bers, not formally connected, but so arranged as to form a climax, and each is composed of but two or three words: " Woe to the sinful nation, the guilt-laden 2Jeople, the miserable race, the children acting corruptly ! They have forsaken Jehovah, blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, turned aioay backwards!" The distinction attempted between Mn and lis, making the former to signify " Oh!" and the latter " Woe!" is untenable ; for, with some doubtful exceptions, ^n also is an exclamation of pain, and here not so much a calling down of woe {vae genti, as Jerome renders it), as a lamentation (vae gentem), but one that is filled with wrath. The appellations of Israel which follow point to what the nation ought to be in accordance with the divine choice and determination, and express what, through its own choice and self-determination in opposition to God, it has become. (1.) According to the divine choice and determination, Israel should be a "holy nation," Ex. xix. 6, but it is a " sinful nation " {gens peccatrix, as the Vulgate correctly translates) ; for t^ph here is not so much a participle as a participial adjective, signifying what is habitual, — the usual singular to the plural Q^^^t^n, afiap- TQ)Xoi, the singular of which is not in common use, and occurs ClIAITEK I. 4. 61 only oiu'C (Amos ix. S) in tlit> foniinitu' as an adjectivo. " Holy " and " sinful " are shar}) contrasts, for C'inp signifies that which is separated from what is common, unclean, sinful, and superior to it. At the same time, the alliteration in ^3 -in (with FascJc, to preserve the independence of the two words, whose sound is so similar) is intended to produce the impression that the nation as sinful is a nation of woe. (2.) In the Law, besides being called ii'i"ip ^3, Israel is called nin" Qy (Num. xvii. 6), the people chosen and highly favoured by Jehovah ; but it is fiy "133 QV, a people heavy witii iniquity. 133 is the construct from 133, " heavy," like ^"JV from b"}}! ; the form "tsa is usually employed with the meaning of "clumsy" (Ex. iv. 10); and besides, tlie dissyllabic form sounds more rhythmically. Instead of employing the readiest descriptive expression, " a people of heavy iniquity," the ])roperty of the iniquity (the weight) is attributed to the people themselves upon M'hom it lies as a burden, — in accord- ance with the view that he who carries a heavy burden is himself so much the heavier (cf. rjravis oncrihiis in Cicero). py is always the word employed whenever sin is meant to be indicated as heavy and coarse {e.g. in xxxiii. 24 ; Gen. xv. 16, xix. 15), and when there is further included the idea of the guilt incurred by it. From being the people of Jehovah, they have become a people heavily laden with the guilt of sin. In this way the true nature of Israel has been crushed, and changed into its opposite. We translate ^iu by " nation," and 2y by " people," because the former (from ^"13) is the mass of individuals who have been joined together through one common descent, language, and country, whereas DV (from cpy, ^^ "to combine") is the people joined together by unity of government (cf. for instance I's. cv. 13); hence we always read of the " people of Jeliovah " ("in"; ny), not the " nation of Jehovah" (ni.T ••13); and '13, free from every slur, occurs only twice (Zoph. ii. 9 ; Ps. cvi. 5), with a suffix referring to Jehovah, but here it is used as in Mai. iii. 0. (3.) Israel elsewhere bears the honourable title of the seed of the patri- arch (xli. 8, xlv. 19, cf. Gen. xxi. 12); in reality, however, it is a seed of evil-doers (xiv. 20, cf. xxxi. 2). Tiie idea of a similar descent, contained in )!^l, goes ba( k to that of a like 62 ISAIAH. inherited nature (Ixv. 23 ; Prov. xi. 21); and D''y'?o does not mean the fathers, but the contemporaries of the prophet (the genitive being intended to be taken attributively), — a race consisting of miscreants. The singular of the noun D"'y?p is y?.^, with the sharpening of Vl^ with Pathach, which is usual in ]}"]} verbs with guttural radicals ; V^p (with Kamez in pause, ix. 16, which see) is a Hiphil participial noun. (4.) The children of Israel are, in virtue of the divine act, " children of Jehovah," Deut. xiv. 1 ; but through their own doings they are D''ri^n^p D^J3, " children acting corruptly;" what the Law had dreaded and predicted had thus come to pass : Deut. iv. 16, 25, xxxi. 29, In all these passages the Hiphil is found, and in the parallel passages of the grand song, Deut. xxxii. 5, the Piel r\^p, both of which conjugations contain within themselves the object of the action (Ges. § 53. 2): these verbs thus signify to do some- thing destructive, to act in such a way that one becomes a cause of ruin to himself and others. That the degeneration of the children is meant to be regarded in relation to Jehovah, and not to their forefathers, — the opinion of Eosenmiiller, who follows Vitringa, — is evident from the latter part of ver. 2, cf. xxx. 1, 9. After the four exclamatory clauses, there follow — making up the saddening seven — three de- claratory clauses describing Israel's apostasy as complete. There is apostasy in disposition: " they have forsaken Jehovah." There is apostasy in words : " they blaspheme the Holy One of Israel." T^? (properly, " to sting," then " to mock, treat with contempt"), used of blasphemy, is an old Mosaic word; see Deut. xxxi. 20; Num. xiv. 11, 23, xvi. 30. " The Holy One of Israel " is a title designedly applied to God here ; it is the keynote of Isaianic prophecy, and first sounded in this passage (see under vi. 3). To mock what is holy is in itself sinful ; it is doubly a sin to mock God the Holy One ; it is trebly a sin that Israel mocks God the Holy One, who has set Himself to be the Sanctifier of Israel, and who, as He is the holiness of Israel, so also, in conformity with His holiness, seeks to be sanctified by Israel (Lev. xix. 2, etc.). And lastly, their apostasy is also apostasy in their way of acting : " they have turned away backwards." In the Niphal "ii^3, which occurs only here, there is contained the ClIArTLR L 5. C3 idea of delibcralcness in their estianLjenicHt fntin Cod : the expression of this is still furtlier intensified by eiiiployiiiL,' "linx (which is added emphatically, instead of V^nx?^). Their conduct should be an imitation of Jehovah's ; but they have turned the back to Him, and entered on the path chosen by themselves. In ver. 5, which now follows, it is, first of all, doubtful re- garding the meaning of r^lf^y {^^?, as iu Ps. x. 13, iv. 3, with -- even in cases where no guttural follows, after bv, as after IV, Vs. iv. 3 ; ]V\ Hag. v. 9 ; and thrice hdJ?, 1 San), i. 8 ; see on Prov. xxxi. 2 ; cf. Konig, Lclinjcl. p. 143), whether it signifies " why," as the LXX., Targum, Syriac, Pashi, Kimchi, Hitzig, and now also Cheyne take it, or " on what," i.e. " on which part of the body " (Jerome, Saadias), a view for which Ewald, Knobel, and Schroring(in Part 2 of his Jcsaian. Sludiai) decide. Eeuss also translates, oit vous frci2)pcra-t-on encore ? Luzzatto considers the latter rendering insipid, especially because a member of the body that has already been smitten can be repeatedly struck again ; but he thinks the meaning is that there is no judgment which had not already fallen on Israel, so that it is no longer far from utter ruin. Xever- theless, we decide with Caspar! for the meaning " to what " (i.e. for what end) ? For in all the other (fourteen) passages in which riD'bv occurs, it has this meaning, once even along with >^^\^, Num. xxii. 32 (cf. Prov. xvii. 26), and the people do not come to be viewed as a body till ver. 6, A\ hereas the interrogative, " upon what," would require the reader or hearer to presuppose it even here. Put in translat- ing J^lpvy by " to what end," we do not understand it (as Malbini does, for instance) in the sense of cui hono ? with the idea underlying the question, that it would certainly be fruitless, as all smiting hitherto has proved, — for this thought is not, as we should expect, directly expressed, — but after tlie ai alogy of questions with no^ (Ezek. xviii. 31 ; Jer. xliv. 7 ; cf. the comment, on Eccles. v. 5, vii. 16 f.), qua de causa ? with the underlying thought that this continual calling fuith of divine chastisement is certainly a mad desire fur one's own destruction. Accordingly, we render the first part of ver. 5 : " Why do you vjish always to he smitten, incrcafiiny your rr- IcllionV* niy (with Tiphcha, a stronger disjunctive than 64 ISAIAH. Tebir, cf. Ezek. xix. 9) belongs to ^3" ; but ^3^ without niy would make it appear as if they had not yet been smitten for their apostasy hitherto. There are not two interrogative clauses on the same plane (as Luzzatto thinks), as if the mean- ing were, " Why do ye wish to be smitten afresh ? Why do ye add revolt ? " Nor is the second clause the answer to the first, to which it assigns the reason (as Nagelsbach thinks), " For what (for what purpose) should ye be smitten still more ? Ye heap rebellion on rebellion ; " but the second clause is subordinated to the first, an adverbial secondary clause more closely defining the main proposition, as in v. 11, xxx. 31, cf. Ps. Ixii, 5 (" delighting in lies "), iv. 3 (" while ye love vain show"); also Ps. v. 10, xxvii. 27 ; see Ewald's Hehxio Sijntax, § 341& [Eng. transl. pp. 240, 241]. The LXX. has irpoaTidkvTe'i uvofilav. n-iD (a fem. partic. used as a noun, with neuter sense) is deviation from truth and rectitude ; here, as pretty frequently elsewhere, it means disloyalty to Jehovah, who is the absolutely Good and absolute Goodness. It is difficult to decide whether trsn-b and 33^-^3 signify " every head," " every heart," or, as Ewald and others think, " the whole head," " the whole heart." hb, followed by an indeterminate singular, sometimes signifies completeness, as in ix. 11, " with whole mouth ; " Ezek. xxxvi. 5, " with joy of the whole heart ; " 2 Kings xxiii. 3, " with whole heart and with whole soul ; " also Ezek. xxix. 7, " the whole shoulder . . . the whole loins." More usually, however, ^s, with an indeter- minate genitive of parts of the body, signifies " each," " every" {qnisque, not totus), xv. 2, xlv. 23 ; Jer, xlviii. 37 ; Ezek. vii, 17 f., xxi. 12. It is thus most natural, syntactically, to translate the latter part of ver. 5, " every head is diseased, and every heart is sick ; " this rendering is also most in accord with the circumstances, inasmuch as the words in the first part of the verse are not addressed to the people as a whole, but as a multitude made up of individuals. The 7 at the beginning of ^^n^, indicates the state or condition into which a person or thing has come : " every head is in a diseased con- dition ; " see Ewald, § 2l7f^ : lachdli (this, in spite of Konig, ZeJirgcb. p. 106 f., is the pronunciation intended), without the article, as in 2 Chron. xvi. 18; cf. 'm. 1 Sam. i. 11 ; the form with the article would need to be vH?- What is meant ciiAriKR I. t;. 65 is disease arisinc; from a wouiul caused by a bldW (as in -Tor. X. 19, V. o). The prophet asks his fellow-countrymen wliy they are so mad as to continue calling forth the judgments of God, which have already fallen on them stroke upon stroke, through their heaping one apostasy on another. Are matters already so far gone with them that, among the many heads and hearts, there is no longer a head that has not fallen into a diseased condition, and no heart which is not thoroughly sick C^'^, an intensive form, from W) ? Head and heart are named as the noblest portions of the outer and the inner man : outwardly and inwardly, every individual of the nation has already been smitten by the wrath of God, so that they have enough, and might have been brought to bethink themselves. Considering this utterly miserable condition of every individual of the nation, the view (in ver. 6) of the whole people as a miserably diseased body does not come on us imexpectedly : " From the sole of the foot to the head, there is nothing sound in it, — scars, and weals, and festering wounds: they have not been pressed out, or hound up, nor has there been any softening with oil" In the body of the nation, to which (or to the people as a whole) reference is made by i3, " in it," — the address now passing into objective form, — there is nothing healthy (Dhp from opJJ', not, as in Judg. xx. 48, from no with the root nno) ; it is covered with wounds of various kinds, inflicted at different times ; and for the healing of these many and manifold wounds, which all together, close on one another, one on the other, cover the body of the nation, no kind of means has been employed. VVB (from yvs, to cleave, tear open) is a wound made by tearing the flesh, as by a sword-stroke: this required binding up (Ezek. xxx. 21), that the gaping Hush might close again ; nn^an (from ""^n- j^^^, to be striped) is a swollen stripe or lump, such as is caused by the stroke of a whip or a blow of the fist ; this required softening with oil, in order that the coagulated matter or the swelling might disperse ; nnp nsp is the still fresh and bleed- ing wound, wliich needed pressing out to cleanse it, and thus facilitate healing. The three predicates, in relation to the ideas presented in the subject.s, show an approximation to a chiasm. The predicates are plural in form, owing to the subjects being taken collectively ; the expression jpf3 nnan t<7», VOL I. K 66. ISAIAH. which, as regards its meaning, refers to mi2n, is accordingly to be understood as a neuter construction, and to be rendered, " nor has softening with oil been effected." Considering the Pual near it, ^"if might also appear to be of the same conjuga- tion, but actually is not, because, according to the accentuation (with two Pashtas, the first of which, as in \p^, Gen. i. 2, marks the place of tone, so that the form here is to be pro- nounced z6ru), it has the tone on the penult, — a fact for which (in spite of what Stade says, § 415) no reason could be perceived, if the form were from the verb rriT. For the assumption that the tone is retracted in order to prepare us for the heavy incidence of the tone in iti'sn (Ewald, § 194c) is quite arbitrary ; for, though the influence of the Pause sometimes reaches to the second last word, it does not extend to the third last. Moreover, according to the usage of the language, nnf signifies " to be dispersed," not " to be pressed out," whereas "i^T and "ilj are commonly used in the sense of pressing together, and pressing out. Hence r\\ (like ^c'a) is either the Qal of a middle-vowel intransitive verb -lir, or (more probably) — because the middle-vowel verb nf in Ps. Iviii. 4 has another meaning (" they are estranged ; " of. i""!^ above, in ver. 4) — the Qal of i"!j {- jj' constringere), which is here in- flected as an intransitive verb, and in a measure corresponding' to the Arabic passive of the Qal \u (Olsh. § 245. 1); cf. Job xxiv. 24, ^b'i, and Gen. xlix. 23, the actively used ^3h. The surgical treatment, so highly necessary for the nation, is a figurative representation of the pastoral address of the prophet, which, though certainly published, was as if it had not been published, inasmuch as its salutary effect was con- ditioned by repentance on the part of the nation. The people despised God's offer of service like that of the good Samaritan (Luke X. 34). They did not like the radical cure of which the prophets made offer. The view of the body as diseased within and wholly lacerated without was thus all the more calculated to excite compassion. The prophet speaks of the existing condition of things. He says that it has already come to the worst with the people, and this is precisely the ground and the subject of his inculpatory complaints. Hence, when he passes in ver. 7 from figurative to literal CIIAriER I. 7. 07'. lanp;uage (like vor. '2o after 22), it is to be perceived that lie is there also speakini; of what was then present. The body thus internally and externally disorganized was, properly speaking, the people and the country in the frightful condition described in ver. 7, which begins in the most compre- hensive manner, and closes in the same way : " Your country — a xcastc ! yoiir cities — hurncd with fire ! your arable land — before your eyes strangers are devouring it, and a desert like an overthrowing by strangers." Caspari (in his Beitrdge, zur Einl. in das Buch Jesaia, p. 204) has pointed out how nearly every word here corresponds to the threatenings of a curse in Lev. xxvi. and Deut. xxviii. (xxix.). The designation given by the prophet to the foes who have devastated the country reduced its cities to ashes, and seized its harvest, is simply D'l', " strangers," or barbarians (cf. Festus : hostis apud antiquos IKrcgrinus dicebatur), without mentioning their nationality. He abstracts from the historic definiteness of the present, in order the more impressively to show that it bears the character of the curse which was predetermined. The climactic ex- pression for this is, that — as stated in the noun-clause at the end of ver. 7, which goes back to repeat what was previously said — there has been wrought a desolation, D^ir n2Snp3, " like an overthrow of foreigners." This emphatic repetition of a catchword in a verse, seen here in the case of O'l^, is a figure of speech (called epanaphora) common to the two halves of the collection : Ewald, Studer, Lagarde, and Cheyne, reading DID nD3no3, mistake this peculiarity of Isaiah's writings. It is a question, however, whether, with Caspari, Knobel, and Niigelsbach, D^IT is to be taken as a subjective genitive, in which case the clause would mean " like an overthrow such as barbarians usually cause ; " or whether we should, with Hitzig, Luzzatto, and others, regard the word as an objective genitive, and render the expression, " like an overthrow such as is wont to befall barbarians." As nasnp, in conformity with the primary passage in Deut. xxix. 22, in all other places where it occurs, designates the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, etc. (xiii. 19 ; Amos iv, 11 ; Jer. 1. 40), that was accomplished by God, and seeing that Isaiah also, as ver. 8 shows, has this catastrophe in his mind, we decide for the view that C^J, like DTr*^. i'l Prov. xii. 7, is the objective 6-S ISAIAH. genitive : this view is further rendered more probable by the form of the noun, which points to a state or condition rather than an action (cf. nanno, rh^^D, nptpb'D) ; in this way also the 3, marking the comparison, becomes more significant. The prophet means to say that the desolation which has befallen the country of the people of God is like such com- plete ruin (subversio) as God sends on nations which stand outside of the covenant- relation (cf. Eph. ii. 14), and which, like the people of the Pentapolis, are utterly destroyed by Him, leaving no trace behind. But, as declared in vers. 8, 9, there is merely similarity, not identity. Jerusalem is still preserved, but in how sad a condition ! There is no doubt that in ver. 8 " the daughter of Zion " means Jerusalem. The genitive in the expression p»V"n3 is that of apposition, so that " daughter of Zion " is equivalent to "daughter Zion;" cf PT^^ n^ina, xxxvii. 22, where annexion comes in twice, instead of apposition (Ges. § 128. 2d). Zion itself is represented as a daughter, i.e. as a woman. Such is the name applied, first of all, to the townspeople dwelling round the fortress of Zion, to which the individual inhabitants of the city are related as children to their mother, inasmuch as the community sees its members from time to time coming into existence and growing up, and those who are thus born within her are, as it were, born of her and brought up by her ; but, in the next instance, the name is also applied to the city itself, either including or excluding (cf. Jer. xlvi. 19, xlviii. 18; Zech. ii. 11) the inhabitants, — here, however, as shown in ver. 9, these are included. This is precisely the point of the first two com- parisons. " And the daughter of Zion is left remaining like a booth in a vineyard, like a night - MU in a cucumber' - field." The vineyard and the cucumber field are considered by the prophet in their condition before the harvest (not after, as the Targums represent it), during which they need to be watched ; hence the point of the comparison is this, that throughout the vineyard and the cucumber field not a single human being is to be seen, and that nothing but the booth and the night hut * show, nevertheless, that such a being has his abode here. ^ The picture of " a lodge in a garden of cucumbers," in Thomson's Land and the Book, shows four poles covered above with boughs, and with CHAPTER I. 8. 69 So stands Jerusalem in tlie midst of a far-reachinr^ desolation, — a sign, liowever, that tlie country was not wliolly de- populated. But what is the meaning of the third of the comparisons ? Hitzig renders, " like a watch-tower;" Knobel, " like a guard- city;" Reuss (who, however, would rather expunge the words, which he considers a gloss), " comme un lieu de garde;" but though ni'iv: may mean a guard, a watch, ""'V cannot mean a tower. And for the rendering which most readily presents itself, "like a guarded city" {i.e. a city preserved from danger), the 2 of comparison is unsuitable. Nor is it ad- missible to take the first two 3 in the sense of sicut, and the third in the sense of sic ; for this correlative 3 is usual only in clauses indicating identity, not in those properly signifying comparison. "Weir's conjecture, that the reading should be n^"^"is i^V? (Prov. xxv. 28; 2 Chron. xxxii, 5), is ingenious: this would make the clause mean "like a city (with walls) broken through," — hence, defenceless ; but there is no need for this conjecture. We translate, "like a blockaded city," deriving nni^j here, as in Prov. vii. 10, from "iV^, — not, with Luzzatto, from i^v, Nt. "iiV3, fem. nnW3 (which is not in use, and, moreover, in this obscured feminine form, cannot be proved to exist; see Stade, § 78a), and after the LXX., with Strachey, rendering the words " like a besieged city." i>'3 signifies to observe with keen eye (cf. >^y^^, and Uj, observare, with U), custodire), with good intention, or (as in Job vii. 20) with hostile design ; it may thus, like the synonymous terms in 2 Sam. xL 16, Jer. v. 6, be used of the investment of a city. Jerusalem was not actually blockaded when the prophet uttered his predictions, but it was just like a blockaded city, inasmuch as between such a town and the blockading enemy there is a desolate and uninhabited space, in the midst of which the city lies in silence and solitude, shut up within itself. The citizens do not venture forth ; while the enemy, on account of the missiles of the citizens, do not hazard an approach into the near vicinity of the walls ; in the suburbs a floor for the watcher, raised somewhat above the ground : the whole thus forms a hut open on adl sides. A fuller description is given by Wetzstein in our Commentary on Job (2nd edition), p. 348. 70 ISAIAH. everything has been laid waste, partly by the citizens, that the enemy may not find anything useful, — partly by the enemy, who, for instance, fell the trees. Thus, in spite of all the joy ihat might be felt at the preservation of Jerusalem, the city wears a cheerless aspect ; it looks as if it were in a state of blockade. That we must explain the passage in this way, with Caspari, is shown by Jer. iv. 16 f., where the actual storming of Jerusalem is predicted, and the enemy- — probably with reference to this comparison by Isaiah (see Hitzig on the passage in Jeremiah) — are called ^''lA Tor the present, Israel has still been spared the worst : the omnipotence of God has graciously prevented it. " Unless Jeliovah of Hosts had left us a little of what escaped, we should have become as Sodom, we should he like Gomorrah," ver. 9. n^l'B' (for which the LXX. and Eom. ix. 29, with a regard to vi. 13, has a-irepiia) is also in Deut. ii. 34, etc., what escapes by flight from defeat and destruction: and, accord- ing to the accents, tjyipp is to be taken with 1"'")ti', so that these two words will mean " an escaped remnant, which is nothing more than a trifle:" on this noun-use of ^V^, cf. xvi. 14 ; 2 Chron. xii. 7 ; Prov. x. 20 ; Ps. cv. 12. Looking at Ps. Ixxxi. 14 f., cf. Job xxxii. 32 (where the conditional clause is easily supplied), one might be inclined to place I3j;»3 in the apodosis, and render it " we would almost . . . ;" but considering the accentuation actually before us, the inference is more strictly logical. The designation n"iS2V nin'' occupies a strongly emphatic position in the front. It would have been all over with Israel long ago but for the compassion of God (cf. Hos. xi. 8) ; and because it is the omnipotence of God which set in motion the will of His compassion. He is called nisay nini, " Jehovah (the God of) the heavenly hosts," - — a title in which nisny is a governed genitive, — not, as Cheyne and Luzzatto think, in accordance with the analogy of ^^'?^^, an independent name of God.^ The prophet says " us " and " we :" he is himself an inhabitant of Jerusalem ; and even if he had not been such, he is, nevertheless, an Israelite : 1 That niNSy does not indicate the hosts of Israel (which was the view of R, Josd in Shabuoth 356), but the powers of nature subject to God, I think I have shown in the essay, Der Gottesname Jahve Zebaoth, in the Luther. Zeitschrift, 1874, p. 217 ff. CIIAITEK I. 10, 11. *!l he tlierefore associates himself witli his nation, like. Jeremiah in Lam. iii. 22. As he has come to experience the wrath of God along with them, so he now also celebrates the mighty compassion of God which he has experienced with them. But for this compassion, the people of God would have become like Sodom, from which only four human beings escaped : they would have been like Gomorrah, wliich was utterly annihilated. The address of the prophet has now reached a resting- point. That it is here divided into two sections is shown even to the eye by the space left between vers. 9 and 10. The prophet pauses after he has declared that nothing but divine compassion for Israel has prevented the utter destruc- tion it has well deserved. He hears in spirit the remon- strance of his audience. They would fain represent the accusations which he had just uttered as unfounded, by appeal- ing to their exact observance of the divine law ; but in opposition to this ground of self-vindication which the pro- phet has read out of the hearts of those impeached, he but proceeds to prove the divine arraignment, which lie begins in vers. 10, 11 : "Hear the loord of Jehovah, ye Sodom-jmhjcs ! listen to the law of our God, Gomorrah-nation ! For what purpose is the midtitxide of your slain offerings to me ? saith Jehovah. I am, sated with hurnt-offcrings of rams, and the suet of fatted calves ; and tlie blood of hullocJcs and lambs and he-goats, I do not like." The second attack in the prophet's address begins, like the first in ver. 2, with " hear ye ! " and " listen ! " The summons to hear is in this instance (just as in the case of Isaiah's contemporary, Micah, — chap, iii.) addressed to the Ci'?'>*P (from nyi?^ ^, deciderc, with the noun -ending p— , see Jeshurun, p. 212 ff.), i.e. men with decisive authority, the rulers in the fullest sense, and to the people who are subject to them. It is of the mercy of God that Jerusalem still exists, for Jenisalem is vvevfiariKm SoBofia, as is said regarding Jerusalem in the Apocalypse (xi. 8), with reference to this passage in Isaiah. According to Ezek. xvi. 49, pride, the lust of the flesh, and want of mercy were the chief sins of Sodom ; and of these, the rulers of Jerusalem and the multitude subject to them and worthy of 72 ISAIAH. tliem were not less guilty now. But they think they do not by any means stand in such disfavour with God, because out- wardly they render satisfaction to the law. The prophet, therefore, summons them to hear the law of the God of Israel which he wishes to declare to them, — for the prophets were called to be the expounders of the law, and to announce what was truly the will and good pleasure of God ; and what He requires is, not external acts of worship with no corresponding homage of heart, not ceremonial performances at all in the first instance, but freedom from sin and a course of life that flows from obedience to Him and loving sympathy with other men. " For what purpose is the multitude of your slain- offerings to me ? saith Jehovah." The prophet purposely says iox\ not ipj^, to indicate that what he declares is the constant language of God in opposition to the heartless show of rever- ence and the hypocritical ceremonial righteousness of Israel. The multitude of ^V^], i.e. sacrifices of animals which they slaughtered, has no value in His eyes. As the whole worship is here examined in detail, Q'nnT appears to denote the D''px', i.e. the " peace-offerings " or communion-offerings, with which a meal was associated, for Jehovah vouchsafed to the offerer a share in the enjoyment of what he offered. But it is better to take cn^T as a general name for the bloody sacrifices, which are then divided into nibiy and 3?n ; for they are partly whole-offerings, which are wholly (though piece by piece) laid on the altar and there consumed by fire, and partly tliose sacrifices of which only the pieces of fat were burned on the altar, viz. sin-offerings and trespass-offerings, and especially peace - offerings. Of the sacrificial animals mentioned, C^S (bullocks) and D'X"'"!'? (fatted calves) are species of "1153 (large cattle), while Ci''i^9? (lambs) and Dninj; (young he-goats as distinguished from '^'^y'f, the older long-haired he- goat, the animal taken as a sin-offering) together with the 7^K (ram ; the usual whole-offering of the high priest, the tribe- prince, and the nation on all high feast-days) are species of jN^f (smaller cattle). The blood of these sacrificial animals (such as, for example, the young bullocks, sheep, and he-goats) was, in accordance with the requirement of the law, dashed against the altar round about, in the case of the whole-offer- ing, the peace-offering, and the trespass-offering ; in the case CIIAPTKU I. 12. 73 of the sin-offering, it was smeared on tlie horns of the altar, poured out at the foot of the altar, and in some instances sprinkled on the side of the altar or towards the vessels of the inner sanctuary. With such ofTeriugs Jehovah is sated, and no longer cares for them. (The two perfects here indi- cate what has long been and still is going on at present.) What Jeremiah (vii. 22) says of sacrilices — that God never properly wished them — Isaiah now says, in ver, 12, regarding visits to the temple : " When yc come to appear before vry face, wlw hath asked this at your hand, — to tread, my courts / " T\^}^^h_ is a contracted infinitive Niphal for nix^np, as in Ex. xxxiv. 24; Deut xxxi. 11; cf. the similarly contracted Hiphil forms in iii. 8, xxiii. 11 ; on the other hand, ii^7? in Deut. xxvi. 12=->c'y^ (cf. Neh. x. 39); as r?^nD, Dan. ii. 35, iv. 34 = r?/':!"?. *^)'^\ "^S ■^^'1? is the standing expression for the appearing of all male Israelites in the temple, in accordance with the law, at the three great feasts, but it also came to be used in speaking of visiting the temple generally (cf. Ps. xlii. 3, Ixxxiv. 8). According to Ewald (§ 279<.). '33 indicates the subject connected with the passive verb (" to be seen by the face of God ") ; but why is it not rather a local accusative with prepositional meaning, "before the face of" (as Nagelsbach thinks), seeing that it is used interchangeahly with the prepositions \, ris, and % ? It is probable that niS")S has thus been pointed here and in Ex. xxxiv. 24, Deut. xxxi. 11, instead of niS-jS (like ^X^;., E.v. xxiii. 15, xxxiv. 20, instead of '''*'>':), in order to avoid speaking of " seeing God," — an expression which is so apt to be misunderstood as meaning a vision with the eye of sense (cf. Ex. xxiv. 11, LXX. w^d-q- aav) ; unquestionably, however, the Niphal perfect stands in xvi. 12 ; 1 Sam. i. 22 ; and also hkt (not nx-i^) in Ex. xxiii. 1 7 ; moreover, the expression, " to see the face of God," i.e. of Him who reveals Himself in His sanctuary, is not opposed to the religious ideas of the Old Testament, Ps. xi. 7, xxvii. 4 ; and in the Mishna, appearing before God at the great feasts is called nj^i and P'?<1 {Harjiga i. 1 ; Pia 1. 1). Cheyne considers that the expression " to see the face of God " is a remnant of the old Semitic worship of God by means of sensible figures which has been transferred to the languagi^ of revealed religion : this is i)0ssible, but there is no proof tiiai 74 ISAIAH, such transition has actually occurred. Those whom Jehovah here addresses through His prophet certainly visit the temple diligently ; but who has required this of their hand (i.e. asked this performance from them) ? Jehovah certainly has not. " To tread my courts " stands in apposition with " this," which it more closely defines. Jehovah has not desired them to appear before Him ; He has not asked for this lifeless and undevotional tramping thither (vii. 25, xxvi. 6 ; Ezek. xxvi. 11), this senseless opus operatum, which would better be left unperformed, as it merely desecrates the holy places, by wearing out the floors for no purpose. Because they do not perform what Jehovah has commanded, as He has commanded it, He directly forbids them in ver. 13 to go on : " Continue not to bring lying incat-offerings: dbomina- tion-incense is it to me." It is but rarely that nrap denotes an offering in general (Gen. iv. 3-5; 1 Sam. ii. 17, xxvi. 19); here, however, as throughout Malachi, the " meat-offering " (meal- offering) is meant, as is shown by the more specific term rinbp following, which, without such an addition as is made in Ps. Ixvi. 15, cannot be understood in the same way as the expres- sion in the law, nniiTen "i-tppn (to consume in smoke upon the altar). The meat-offering of the people of Jerusalem is called a.)^ nmo (the second noun being derived from xiK'=nNK', to be waste, desolate, and of like form with niD), as being a lifeless and hypocritical performance, having behind it nothing of the mental disposition which it appears to express (cf. Job xxxv. 13). In the second half of the verse the LXX., Jerome, Gesenius, Umbreit, Knobel, and Nagelsbach trans- late thus : " incense, — it is an abomination to me," — the term " incense " being here used as the name of what was offered daily on the golden altar of the Holy Place (Ex. xxx. 8). But in no place where the prophets denounce heartless ceremonial worship is mention made of the offering of incense by the priests, and in any case it is more simple and natural to take ^ip?, not as a bare absolute case, but — what is quite allowable — in conformity with the Darga marking it, as a construct. The meat - offering is called " incense " because of the so-called " memorial " ("^l?!'^), i.e. that portion of it which brought the grateful offerer in remembrance before God, and which the priest burned on the CIIAPTKR I. 14. 75 altar, — an act which was called '"^rnsrs I'tppn (see I^v. ii. 2 ; cf. Jer. xxxiii. 18); with this "memorial" also there was regularly combined incense, which was wholly — not merely in part — burned on the altar. The mcat-ofTerinf^, with its sweet odour, is merely the form in which gratitude for (lod's bless- ing, and earnest prayerful desire for this, manifest themselves; but in the case of these worshippers, there was only the forn), without the inner spirit ; the form with which they thought they have satisfied God is empty, and therefore an abomination to Him. As little pleasure has God in their punctilious observance of the feasts : " New moon and Sahboth, tlie calling of an assembly — / cannot bear iniquity and a festal crowd." The first object-ideas, which are logically governed by ^3^K"JO (properly the iniperf. Hophal, " I am unable," viz. to bear, — an ellipsis which must be supplied in the same way as in Ps. ci. 5; Jer. xliv. 23; Prov. xxx. 21), become absolute cases, inasmuch as P3iX"NP assumes another and a different object in the following '^"J^.V! P.'?. When three things are enumerated, the conjunction is readily dropped by the third, and stands only with the second: see also Ueut. xxix. 22; Ps. xlv. 9 ; Job xlii. 9 ; Eccles. vii. 26. As to new moon and Sabbath (which, when joined with tinn^ always signifies the weekly Sabbath), and generally the convocation of assemblies of the whole community on the weekly Sabbath and high festivals, as required in Lev. xxiii., — Jehovah cannot endure a festival associated with wickedness, n^yy (from "lyy. to press, squeeze together) is synonymous with t<7'?^» ^^ shown by comparing Jonah i. 14 with 2 Kings x. 20, to which it is related in the same way as iravifyvpLq to i/cKXTjaia ; ^ and px (from ps, to breathe) is moral vileness, as the utter absence of all that has essence and value in God's sight. These two nouns are purposely placed together by the prophet. A closely packed festive gathering, and inward barrenness and emptiness on the part of those assembled, — this is a contradiction that God cannot endure. ^ In tlie language of the law, the last clay of the Feast of Tabomaclcs (Lev. xxiii. 36 ; Num. xxix. 35) and the seventh day of tlie r'cast of Unleavened Bread (Dent. xvi. 8) is called Divy, not from "lyy, cohibere, clauderc, but consdpare (cf. Jer. ix. 1). 76 ISAIAH. In ver, 14 He gives still stronger expression to His aversion : " Your new moons and your festal seasons my soul hates ; they have become a burden to me ; I am weary of bear- ing them." As the soul of man, viewed as the bond between his spiritual and his bodily life, is, though not the principle of his self-consciousness, yet the centre from which he draws the circle of this self-consciousness, in order to comprehend the sum-total of his whole being, and attach it to the thought of himself as a person ; so — to take a designation from man who has been made in the image of God — the " soul " of God, as indicated by ''V*'??, is the centre of His being, encircled and penetrated by self-consciousness : hence, whatever the soul of God hates (cf. Jer. xv. 1) or loves (xlii. 1), that He hates or loves in the inmost depths and in the whole extent of His being. (See Bibl. Psychology, p. 258 of Eng. transl.) Thus He hates each and all of the festivals that are kept in Jerusalem ; the beginnings of the months and the D^lJ^i^ (" appointed feasts," — here, as in Ezra iii. 5, applied to all the feasts on which, or on the most solemn days of which, a " holy convoca- tion " took place) during the course of the month. These have long been to Him, who bears them, a burden, nnb? (nnb being synonymous with {arenthetical]y in the middle of it, — rarely, as here and in 88 ISAIAH. Ivi. 8 (see our commentary on Ps. ex. 1), at the beginning. The utterance commences with '■in, the painfulness of pity commingling with the outburst of wrath that has been determined. Along with the Niphal IP Dp^ (" to avenge one's self on ") there stands the allied Niphal Dn? (properly, " to console one's self "), the latter with ^, the former (in accord- ance with the so-called Assyrian system of pointing) with i under the preformative, which is sometimes found elsewhere also, e.g. in Gen. xvi. 2, xxi. 24; Num. xxiii. 15; Ezek. XX. 36 ; 1 Sam. xii. 7. Jehovah is going to relieve Himself of His enemies by letting out on them the wrath that had hitherto burdened Him (Ezek. v. 13): thus does He now call the mass of the people in Jerusalem by their right name. Ver. 25 declares wherein consists the revenge to which Jehovah has been inwardly constrained : " And I will bring ■mine hand upon thee, and will smelt out thy dross as with alJcali ; and I will remove all thy pieces of lead." As long as God leaves any man's actions or sufferings alone, His hand is said to rest. T ^""t^n followed by bv signifies the turning of the hand which has hitherto been at rest, either for punishing (Amos i. 8 ; Jer. vi. 9 ; Ezek. xxxviii. 12 ; Ps. Ixxxi. 15), or even, though but seldom, for saving (Zech. xiii. 17) the person mentioned. Here the reference is to dealing towards Jerusalem, in which punishment and salva- tion are combined — the punishment as the means, salvation as the end. Jehovah's intervention is compared to a smelting which will sweep away- not Jerusalem, but the ungodly who dwell there. These are compared to dross or drossy ore, and — inasmuch as lead is removed in all refinement of silver — to those commingled pieces of lead which Jehovah will speedily and thoroughly separate 133, " like the alkali," — the abbreviated mode of comparison, instead of 1333, " as with the alkali." Dv''']3 (from ?"]3, to separate) are the pieces of tin or lead (lead-glance)^ containing the silver, which, inasmuch as ^ Pliny {Hist. Nat. 24. 16) says that plumhum nigrum sometimes occurs alone, sometimes combined with silver : ejus qui primus fiuit in fornacihus liquor stannum appcUatur. What is here meant is the litharge which, in the process of obtaining silver from the lead-glance containing the precious metal, separates itself till it comes to be the so-called silver- glance. This dross, in the form of powder, is called ^n2, and the pieces CHAPTER I. 20. 80 all the baser metals are distinguished from the jireeious ones by tlie fact that they are combustible (oxiilisable), are sepa- rated by smelting. Both li, i.e. potash (an alkali obtained from the ashes of wood and of land-plants generally), and in3, ■i.e. natron or soda (which is either mineral, or obtained from plants), which dissolves in water (see on Prov. xxv. 20), were employed from the earliest times, when one wished to extract a metal from its ore, as a means of accelerating the i)rocess of smelting. The conjecture of a different reading, nan C^^B, "in the crucible "), is thus supertluous. As the threat against Jerusalem, put in this allegorical form, does not refer to destruction, but to smelting, there is nothing strange iu the fact that in ver. 26 it changes into pure promise, the meltingly soft, ardently mournful conclusion of the clauses in T.~, which is the keynote of the later songs of Ziou, being continued : " And I will restore thj judges as in the olden time, and thy eounsellors as in the heginnin;/ ; aftericards thou shall he ealled the eity of riyhtcousness, a faith- ful citadel." Even the threatening itself was relatively a promise, in so far as what could stand the fire in Jerusalem would survive the judgment, the specilic object of which was to bring back Jerusalem to the precious metal of* its true nature. But after this has been accomplished, still more than this shall also come to pass. The imperishable kernel that remains becomes the centre to which all elements of excellence are attracted, — Jerusalem again receiving from Jehovah its judges and counsellors, whom, from the time that it became the city of David and the seat of the temple, it had possessed in the best days of the kingdom, — not, indeed, the same persons, but men of like excellence. The two time-limitations have the force of accusatives attached to the predicate : " as in the beginning," i.e. of the sanie character as they were before, njb'xnn signifies, in a neuter sense, what is D^^ns ; on the other hand, mQ'y is the name of the f5oliJ lead which is obtained by melting,' down lead -glance which docs not contain silver. But that ^n2 signifies lead (plumbum nigrum), Zech. iv. 10, as well as tin (plumbum album), Num. xxxi. 22, is accounted for in the same way as the hoinonymy of iron and bai^alt, oak and terebinth : the two metals are called by the same name on account of external resemblance and common properties,— softness, flexibility, colour, and specific gravity. 90 ISAIAE. temporally or locally (Ix. 9) the first; and the fact that, in n^bwna^ a second preposition follows 3, is not without example elsewhere, as Gen. xxxviii. 24 ; Lev, xxvi, 37 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 14 (also x. 27, if we read ^"P^^, which is sug- gested by the LXX.) ; cf also bv3, Ps. cxix. 14 ; Isa. lix. 18, Ixiii. 7 Under such divinely commissioned leaders, Jerusalem will then become what it had been, and will be what it ought to be ; and the names by which the city is called are the expression of the effect produced on the minds of others through the manifestation of its true nature and character (cf. Zech. viii. 3). With Isaiah the giving of a name is the perception and recognition of the real existence of what has come into outward manifestation. The second designation applied to Jerusalem is without the article : this term nnjp^ of such weighty and definite purport, is never used in Isaiah with the article, and, indeed, never occurs with it anywhere except in 1 Kings i. 41, 45. Jehovah has thus announced the course irrevocably fixed, and leading to salvation, which He will pursue with Israel : this is the leading principle of God's dealings henceforth, the law of Israel's history. Its purport, briefly and tersely put, is thus expressed in ver. 27:" Sion will he redeemed through judg- ment, and her returning ones through righteousness." OSt^b and ^?yi are in other places called divine gifts (xxxiii. 5, xxviii. 6), lines of conduct on the part of men that are well-pleasing to God (i. 21, xxxii. 16), royal and Messianic virtues (ix. 6, vi. 3-5, xvi. 5, xxxii. 1). Here, however, the idea is not this peculiarly human one (as Cheyne thinks), but, as shown by parallel passages like iv. 4, v. 16, xxviii. 17, it is to be referred to Jehovah, and the words are to be regarded as meaning God's justice and righteousness in their primarily judicial self-fulfilment. A judgment of God the Eighteous One will be the means through which Zion, — so far as it has remained faithful to Jehovah, — and those who in the midst of the judgment return ('7''??^, instead of which Luther read n^niJ'), will be redeemed. This judgment will fall upon sinners and sin, and will be the means of breaking that power which has restrained and impeded the nature and workings of Zion, as these were designed of God ; it will further be the medium through which those who turn to Jehovah are incorporated CIIAriER I. 29. 91 into Ilis true Church. AVhon God therefore reveals Himself in His punitive righteousness, He is working out a righteous- ness which is bestowed as a gift of grace on those who escape the former. The idea of " righteousness " {hiKatoavvT}) is here, as in Hos. ii. 21, on New Testament lines. In front, there is the fire of the law ; behind, there is the light of the gospel. Behind the wrath is hidden love, as the ultimate motive- power, like the sun behind the thunder-clouds. Zion, as far as it is truly Zion and is becoming Zion, is redeemed ; only the ungodly are destroyed, but these without mercy, as is added in ver. 28 : " But the destruction of the transfjrcssors and sinners [shall be] together, and those who forsake Jehovah shall perish." In this way even the judicial aspect of the ap- proaching act of redemption is expressed in a manner that can be understood by every one. The impassioned exclama- tory clause in the first half of the verse is explained by the declamatory verb-clause of the second. C^yfB are those who in heart and in outward conduct have broken away from Jehovah ; Q^^^t^n are those who spend their lives in open and prevailing sins ; nin^ "ary are those who have become estranged from God in one or other of these ways. Ver. 29, beginning with an explanatory ^3, declares how God's judgment of destruction ffdls upon all these: "For they shall he ashamed of the terebinths in which ye delighted, and ye must blush beeause of the gardens in vjhich ye had pleasure." The terebinths and gardens (this second word with the article, as in Hab. iii. 8 first Qnnia, then D-injB) are not referred to as objects of luxury (as Hitzig and Drechsler suppose), but as unlawful places of worship (see Deut. xvi. 21) and objects of worship : both of them are frequently mentioned by the prophets with this meaning, Ivii. 5, Ixv. 3, Ixvi. 17. *T2n and ■^ns are the usual verbs employed in speaking of Gentile will- worship (ide\o6pT]aKeLa), as in xliv. 9, xli. 24, Ixvi. 3 ; and r? t*i3 is the customary phrase for indicating the shame that comes over idolaters when the helplessness of their idols proves that they are nothing. Regarding c^s (to be disturbed, lose self- command) and isn (to be covered over, become covered with shame), see our commentary on Ps. xxxiv. 6, xxxv. 4 ; cf "Wiinsche on Hosea, i. p. 54. The LXX. and other ancient versions incorrectly render C'rx by eUcoXa, though the feeling 92 ISAIAH, by which they were prompted is correct : the places of worship here (cf. Jer. xlviii. 13) stand for the idols (°V^', for which the form Q'^si is never written when Dii is the meaning). The abrupt transition from plain statement to direct address shows how excited the prophet is here at the close of the discourse. In this animated strain he continues ; and, led by the association of ideas, he makes terebinths and gardens the future figures of the idolaters themselves. Ver. 30 : " For ye shall he like a terebinth with withered leaves, and like a garden in luhich there is no water." Their prosperity is being destroyed, and they are thus like a terebinth n^J? npnb. This last expression does not mean " withered its foliage," i.e. whose foliage is withered (for n?y is masc), but " which is withered in its foliage " ^ (genitival construction, as in xxx. 27; see Ewald's Syntax, § 288c); their sources of help are dried up, and thus they resemble a garden that has no water, and is therefore waste. The terebinth (turpentine-pistacia), a native of southern and eastern Palestine, casts its leaves (which are small, and resemble those of the walnut-tree) in the autunm. In this dry and parched condition, terebinth and garden, to which the idolaters are compared, are readily inflammable. There is but needed a spark to kindle, and then they are consumed in the flames. Ver. 31, in a third figure, shows the quarter from which this kindling spark will come : " And the loealthy one hecomes tow, and his work a spark ; and both shall hum together, and no one extinguishes them." The form i?y3 primarily suggests a participial meaning, " he who prepares it ; " but ponn would be an unusual epithet to apply to the idol. Besides, the figure, on this view, becomes distorted, for certainly the natural order is that the idol is what kindles or inflames, while man is the object to be kindled, — not the converse. Hence i^VS here means " his work " (as in the LXX., Targum, 1 The noun rb'H is a collective, and not till we come to Nehemiali do we find the plur. U'hVi j^st as it is not till we reach the post-Biblical Hebrew that a plur. nilS is formed from the collective iia. We might have expected n^y instead of rhv, — hke nib' in 2 Kings viii. 3 ; but such nouns from verbs n^ are mostly combined with the suffixes ehu, ^ha {e.g. nX"IO for nS"lD, Lev. xiii. 4, xx. 25), the termination (i = aj having an influence on the choice of the suffix-forai (Gesen. § 91, note Ih). CflAriER I. 31. 93 and Vulgate): the forms ii^i's and iH;s (cf. lii. 14; Jer. xxii. 13) are two equally possible modifications of the funda- mental form vV? O^V?)- As ver. 29 referred to the worship of idols, 7J?3 does not here mean work in the general ethical sense (as Gesenius thinks, 2%s.), but the idol, as something made (cf ii. 8, xxxvii. 1 9, etc.). The wealthy idolater, who out of the abundance of his possessions (Ipn, xxxiii. 6) could alford gold and silver for making idols, will become tow (Talm. ;nC2 b'C' mj?^, " refuse of flax," from lyj, to shake out, viz. in the swingling and combing ; and, on the other hand, jpn is the Talmudic word for flax that is still uncombed and un- dressed), and the idol will be the spark that sets this mass of fibres on fire, so that both will burn without any possibility of being saved (regarding "lys, see the remarks on iv. 4).^ For the fire of jud.;ment that consumes sinners does not need to come from without : sin carries within itself the fire of wrath. But the idol is the corpus delicti, — the sin of the idolater, as it were, set forth and embodied in visible form. The time when this first prophetic discourse was composed is a difficult problem. Caspari, in his Contributions, has thoroughly examined all possible dates, and has finally decided in favour of the view that it belongs to the time of Uzziah, on the ground that vers. 7-9 do not relate to an actual, but merely to an ideal present. But this view is, and must con- tinue to be, arbitrary. Every unprejudiced reader will receive from vers. 7-9 the impression that what is there depicted is .something actually present. Moreover, during the period of Isaiah's ministry the land of Judah was actually laid waste on two occasions, on both of which Jerusalem was spared only through the miraculous protection of Jehovah, — once during the reign of Ahaz, in the year of the Syro-Ephraimitish war ; and the second time during Hezekiah's reign, when the Assyrian host laid waste the country, only to be finally dashed to pieces at Jerusalem. Gesenius, ]\Iaurer, Movers, Knobel, Driver, and * This jch i^^ ari ol'l Hebrew word preserved in the Mislina {Shahlxith ii. 1). Eabbi Jo-jojih thLic ex])lains it, with reference to the present iu.s.saf,'e, J'-Di nSi p^HT NJiTO, Hax which has been broken, but not yet combed ; and it seems to be assumed there that Isaiah, wlicn he calls the idolater ponn, alludes to ph : "As the miyj proceeils from the join, to will the idolatrous p^n become miy:."— (Dr. II. Ehrenlrcu.) 94 ISAIAH. Others decide in favour of the year when the Syro-Ephraimitish war took place ; while Hitzig, Umbreit, Drechsler, Luzzatto, and Kiiper hold that the time was that of the Assyrian oppression. Whichever view we may take, there ever remains, as the test of its admissibility, the difficult question, How has this pro- phecy come to stand at the beginning of the book, if it belongs to the times of Uzziali and Jothara ? This question we shall endeavour to answer when we reach chap. vi. The path of General Judgment, showing the course of Israel from False to Teue Glory, Chaps. II.-IV. The limits of this discourse cannot be mistakeu. From the beginning of chap. ii. to the end of chap. iv. a complete circle is formed. After frequent changes between exhortation, reproach, and threatening, the prophet reaches the object of the promise with which he began. On the other hand, chap. v. commences with a wholly new subject, forming an indepen- dent discourse, though connected with that which precedes by the superscription in ii. 1 : " The word v)Mch Isaiah the son of Amos saw co7iccrning Judah and Jerusalem." Cliaps. ii.— v. may possibly have already existed under this heading before the whole collection was formed : this superscription was then taken over into the entire work, in order to call attention to the transition from the prologue to the body of the book. What the prophet utters concerning Judah and Jerusalem he calls " the word which he saw." When men speak one to another, the words are not seen, but heard ; but when God speaks with the prophet, this is done in a supersensuous manner, and the prophet sees it in this way, — for though the spirit of man has neither eyes nor ears, yet when enabled to perceive the supersensuous, it is altogether eye. The way in which Isaiah begins this second discourse is without a parallel ; there is no other prophetic address whatever that commences with n^ni (for Ezek, xxxviii. 1 is not a begin- ning, but a continuation). It is easy to tell the reason, however. This " consecutive preterite " receives the meaning of a future only from the context ; whereas ''nil (with which historical books and sections very commonly begin) shows its character by its very form. It is further to be noted that the copu- ciiAriER II. 1. 95 lative lueaiuiv:^ of tlic ) in the " conseculivo iiiipciTi-ct " jotaiiis less of its liviug force than in the " consecutive perfect." The propliet accordingly begins with " and ; " and that n*n is meant to bear a future sense is to be made out, not from what precedes, but from what follows. This, however, is not the only strange thing here ; for there is, further, no other case in which a prophetic address — especially one like this, whicli runs through all the phases of prophetic discourse (exhortation, reproof, threatening, promise) — begins with a promise. "We are in a condition, however, to see clearly the reason of this remarkable phenomenon ; for vers. 2-4 are not at all the words of Isaiah himself, but the words of another, taken out of their connection. " Every one of the propliets," says the PcsUda de-Ilah Cahana 125h, "follows tlie precedent set him by those who have gone before (s'33 s'33 "Dio) ; but thou, Isaiah, dost prophesy under the direct iniluence of the divine majesty " (n-il3:n "sr:). This is a grand testimony to the originality of Isaiah, yet it does not exclude his falling back on his predecessors. For we aho find the words of vers. 2-4, in a slightly different form, in Micah iv. 1-4 ; and whether Isaiah took the words of this prediction from Micah, or whether both prophets derived them from a common source, in any case tliey are not Isaiah's originally.^ Nor was it at all intended that they should ^ The statement in Jer. xxvi. IS, that Micah uttered the threatening' recorded in Micah iii. 12 (the coiuiterpart of wiiich is the promise in Micali iv. 1-4 and Isa. ii. 2-4) during the reign of Hczekiah, seems to militate against the idea that Isaiah borrowed from Micah. Independently of each otlier, Ewald (Prophets of the Old Testament, Eng. trans, vol. ii. pp. 27, 314) and Hitzig {Commentanj on Isaiah and Micah; Sludien und Kritiken for 1829, 2) have conjectured that both Micah ami Lsaiah repeat what was first uttered by a third and earlier inniiliet, whoiu Ilitzig further supposes to have been Joel ; Cheyne also (IHfJS) thinks this j.iob- able. The passage in question has actually many ])oints in common with the Book of Joel, such as the picture given of the refcjrging of the ens and nnCfO (iv. 10), the combinations of 3-1 and DIVy, <'f ;dj and riixn (cf. with Micah iv. 4). In Micah, however, it forms the obverse side of the threat of judgment that preceded ; ver. 3 also reminds us o\ Micah's style (see the remarks on that verse) ; and the statement in Jer. xxvi. 18 is quite compatible with the fiup])Osition that Isaiah borrowed these words of promise from Micah (see the closing remarks on chapa i.-vi.). Cf. Caspar! on Micah, p. 444 If. 96 ISAIAH. seem to be his. Isaiali has not fused them into the general current of his own address, as prophets are elsewhere wont to do with the predictions of their predecessors. He does not reproduce them, but, as we are meant to observe, from the abrupt beginning, he quotes tliem. This certainly does not seem to agree with the heading, according to which the succeeding declarations are the word of Jehovah which Isaiah saw ; but there is no real disagreement. It is just the spirit of prophecy which here brings into Isaiah's remembrance a prophetic utterance already recorded, and makes it the starting- point of the series of thoughts which follow. The borrowed l^romise is not by any means cited for its own sake, but serves merely as a basis for the following exhortation and tlireat of judgment, through which, after the borrowed introduction, Isaiah's discourse aspires to a conclusion of its own. The subject-matter of the borrowed words of prophecy is the future glory of Israel. Ver. 2 : "And it comes to imss at the end of the days, the mountain of the house of Jehovah will he established on the top of the mountains, and exalted over hills, and all nations stream unto itl' The expression " the last days," or " end of the days " (Q^pj[i J^''"}!^^), which does not occur anywhere else in Isaiah, may either, in contrast with the time of commencement, signify the time of the end, or, in contrast with the present, the time tlitit follows (as in Deut. xxxi. 29; Jer. xxiii. 20); according to preponderating usage, however, this expression is applied to the future that forms the close of history. AVhether we render it by kv ia-'x^drai'; ■fjfiepaL'i or (as in 1 Tim. iv. 1) by ev v(Trepoi<; Kaipoh, . the idea it presents is eschatological, but this in relation to the horizon of the speaker. This horizon is very varied ; and the history of prophecy is just the history of its gradual extension and completion. In the blessing of Jacob, Gen. xlix., the occupation of the land of Canaan stands in the foreground of the "last days," and regulates the per- spective ; but here, in Isaiah, " the last days " mean the time of the end in the most simple and literal sense. The prophet predicts that the mountain on which the temple was built will one day visibly tower above all the heights of the earth, and be enthroned like a king over his subjects. At present, the south-eastern hill on which the temple is built is sur- CMAnEK II. 2. 97 pass;c(.l in heii^lit by the souLli-wcstorn liill ; nml the basaltic mountains of Jiashan, rising in bold ]ieaks and columns, look down with scorn and contempt on the little limestone-hill which Jehovah has chosen (Vs. Ixviii. 16 f.), — a wrong re- lation which the last times will remove, by making the out- ward correspond to the inward, the appearance to the reality and intrinsic worth. That such is the prophet's meaning is contirnied by Ezek. xl. 2, wliere the temple-mount appears gigantic to the prophet, and by Zech. xiv. 10 (parallels, which Cheyne also compares), according to which all Jeru- salem will one day, as the actual centre and apex (cf. Ezek. V. o), tower above the country round about, which shall have become a plain. If this be the meaning of the passage, there still remains doubt regarding the sense attaching to t'Nna. Is it meant that Moriah will come to stand " upon the top " ctf the mountains surrounding it (w'S^3 being rendered as in Vs. Ixxxii. 16), or that it will stand "at the head" of them (the expression being used as in 1 Kings xxi. 9, 12; Amos vi. 7 ; Jer. xxxi. 7) ? The former is the view of Hofmann (in his Weissag. wtd Erfullung, ii. 217): his opinion is, not that the mountains will be piled up, one on the top of the other, with the temple-mount over all (as it is said in Fcsikla de-Bah Cahana 144J, that God will bring together Sinai, Tabor, and Carmel, and erect the temple-building upon the top of them), but that Zion will seem to float on the summit of the other mountains : this is also the explanation given by Ewald. But inasmuch as the expression P33, "established," is not favourable to this mode of getting rid of a wonderful j'henonienon, and because K'Nha, in the sense of "at the liead," occurs still more frequently than with the meaning " on the top," what is meant is the exaltation of Zion by means of lifting, yet this in such a way that the physical and visible elevation is but a means to the dignitative and moral, and easily changes from the literal sense to the ideal. Kaised to a position towering over everything besides, the mountain chosen of God becomes the place of meeting and the centre of unity for all nations. It is the temple of J(;hovah which now, visible to the nations from afar, exercises such magnetic powers of attraction, and with such results (cf. IvL 7 ; Jer. iii. 17 ; Zech. viii. 20 ff.). Now, it is but a single nation, Israel, VOL I. G 9 8 ISAIAH. that makes pilgrimages to the temple-mount on great festivals, — then it will be otherwise. Ver. 3 : "A nd peoples in multitudes go and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the, house of (lie, God of Jacob : let Him instruct us out of His ways, and we will walk in His paths." This is their watchword for the starting, this is their song on the way that they go (cf. Zech. viii. 21 f., ii. 15). What urges them is the desire of salvation. Desire for salvation expresses itself in the name they give to the goal of their journey: they call Zion ( = Mount Moriah, 2 Chron. iii. 1) the "mountain of Jehovah;" they call the temple built on it " the house of the God of Jacob ; " " Israel," as the name of the people of God, has by frequent use become common, so they employ the more refined name "Jacob," — the name dear to Micah, of whose style (see iv. 11, 13, v, 6 f.) we are further reminded by the expression " many nations." Desire of salvation shows itself in the object of their journey ; they wish Jehovah to teach them " out of His ways " O''?!'^^) — rich material for instruction with which they would like to be gradually intrusted (JP is here used in a partitive sense, — "out of the fulness of this material for instruction," cf. xlvii. 13, and the somewhat different IP in Ps. xciv. 12) : " the ways of Jehovah " are those in which He Himself walks and in which He conducts men, the revealed ordinances of His government and His will. Desire of salvation also shows itself in their resolution to set out : they not merely wish to learn, but they have made glad resolve to act in accordance with what they have learned : " so will we walk in His paths," — the cohortative, as frequently is the case {e.g. Gen. xxvii. 4), being used as the expression of the subjective purpose, or the subjective inference. Here end the words of the multitude of the heathen who are going up to Zion ; but the prophet, at the end of ver. 3 further adds the reason and motive of this holy pilgrimage of the nations : " For from Zion will a law go forth, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem." Zion ^ was originally the name of the south-eastern hill (not, as is now acknowledged, of the south-western hill which was erroneously considered ' On the meaning of the word, see Wetstein in my Commentary on Genesis, 4th edition (English translation, Edinburgh cii.vrTF.n II. 4. 99 Zion) on whicli, at several successive stages of descent, were built the temple, the palace of Solomon, and the city of David ; ^ then it came to be specially applied to the height on which the temple stood, and by synecdoche to the whole of Jerusalem, the true centre of which is the sanctuary. Tht; greatest emi)hasis is laid on the expressions " out of Zion" and "out of Jerusalem," which indicate a feeling of triunjph, and remind us of John iv, 22, »} atoTtjpla €k tcov 'Iov8ai(oi> ea-Tii'. From Ziou-Jerusalem will go fortii irjil^, i.r. instruc- tion regarding the questions which man has to ask at God ; and " the word of Jehovah " is that by whicli the world was created and by which it is spiritually transformed. Hence, what makes the nations truly prosperous comes from Zion- Jerusalem. Thither assemble the nations, thence they carry away a blessing with them to their homes, and th'us Zion- Jerusalem becomes the source of all-embracing good ; for, from the time that Jehovah chose Zion, the sanctity of Sinai (according to Ps. Ixviii. 1 8) was transferred to Zion ; and what was begun at Sinai for Israel is completed from Ziou for all the world. This was fulfilled at that Feast of Pente- cost when the tir.->t-fruits of the Church of Christ proclaimed the law of Zion, i.e. the gospel, in all the languages of tlu; world. It is fulfilled, as Theodoret here remarks, in the fact that the word of the gospel, beginning at Jerusalem olov airu Tiva 7:r]y)]<;, ran through the whole inhabited world (cf. Lukf xxiv. 47, ap^dfievov utto ' lepovaaXijfi). All these fulfilments, however, were but preludes to an end still to be expected, and forming their completion. For there is no fulfilment yet of what is predicted in ver. 4 : " And He will judye between the naiiana, and pronounce judg- ment to many natio7is ; and they forge their swoi'ds into conltcm, and their spears into pruning-hooks : nation lifts not up the. sword against nation, neitlicr do they learn war any more." When the nations thus betake themselves as pupils to the God of revelation and to the word He has revealed, He becomes among them the supreme judicial tribunal. When dispute arises, it is no longer decided by force of arms, but by the word of God, to which they all bow with willing • See Klaibcr in the ZriUchrift det Denticlien Palasiina- Vereitu, iii. 100 ISAIAH. submission. C?"!, used in this way by itself (without the parallel C^pyv, found in Micah iv. 3), signifies "many," not " great." When this power of the peace-producing word of God is in active exercise (Zech. ix. 10), there is no longer need for iron weapons : these are re-forged into tools for works of peace, — into D'^X (instead of which we find Q"'0^ in 1 Sam. xiii. 21, from nnx, to break), "coulters" which pre- prepare the furrows while the ploughshare turns them up, and into J^iip?'?, " pruning-hooks " or " bills," with which the vine is pruned, in order to increase its fruit-bearing power. Neither is there any more need for military exercises, for there is no need in learning what can no longer be applied : it is useless, and men turn from it in disgust. There is peace ; yet not an armed peace, but a full, true, and God-sent peace. The true humanity tliat was overwhelmed and choked by sin now gains the mastery, and the world observes its Sabbath. What is set forth in Ps. xlvi. 9 f., IIos. ii. 20, was seen more fully by Isaiah, Micah, and Zechariah, is a moral postulate laid down in Scripture, the goal of the history of redemption, the predicted counsel of God. Isaiah comes before his contemporaries with this older prophecy regarding the noble and world-embracing calling of the people of Jehovah ; he holds it up to them like a mirror, and exclaims (ver. 5) : " house of Jacob, come, ! and let v.s walk in the light of Jehovah ! " This exhortation is formed under the influence of the context from which vers. 2-4 are taken (as may be seen from Micah iv. 5), and of the cited words themselves ; Micah prefers 2?V.1 to ^^?'JP'\ though the former name is not unusual in Isaiah (see viii. 17, x. 20 f., xxix. 23), and in chaps, xl.— Ixvi. comes into prominence. With the words " house of Jacob " he turns to his own nation, for whom, because Jehovah has shown Himself graciously present among them, so glorious a future is in store ; and he calls on them to walk in the light of such a God, unto whom, in the end of tlie days, all nations shall come in crowds. The summons, " Come, and let us walk," is the echo of the summons, " Come, and let us go up," in ver. 3 ; and Hitzig quite correctly remarks, " Like Paul in Horn. xi. 14, Isaiah seeks to rouse his fellow-countrymen to a noble jealousy by pointing to the example of the heathen." CIIAITEK II. 6. 101 " The light of Jehovah " (an cxpressi(Mi in which there is a not unintentional reference to ""i^V] in ver. 3 ; of. Piov. vi. 23) is the knowledge of Him tliat has been revealed. It is nuw high time to walk in the light of Jehovah, i.e. to turn this knowledge to regulate daily life ; and the exhorta- tion to this is highly necessary for Israel just now, when the nation, because it did the contrary, had been given over to a perverse mind. This sad thought, which the prophet i.s constrained to make the basis of his warning cry, comes from him in ver. 6, in the form of a prayer breathing sighs : " For Thou hast rejected Thy people, the house of Jacob ; because they have been filled from the East, and are sorcerers like the Philistines, and with the children of foreigners they go hand in hand." Once more we have twice ""S, in immediate succession ; the first gives the reason for the warning cry, the second introduces the justifieaLion of this reason. The address is directed to Jehovah, not to the people. Of early commentators, Saadia and Gecatilia (cf. also Eashi), and among modern writers, J. D. Michaelis, Hitzig, and Luzzatto take the first words to mean, " Thou hast given up thy nationality " (isy being taken for ^SJ? "^^r'^IP). But Dy signifies " people," not " nation- ality ; " and this interpretation would not have been thought of if the sudden introduction of the address to God had not been considered strange. But in ii. 9, ix. 2, etc., the prophecy also assumes the form of a prayer ; moreover, the combination of t^'P^ with Dy as an object, recalls such passages as Ps. xciv. 14; 1 Sam. xii. 22. Jehovah has cast away His people from Him {i.e. rejected them), and left them to tliem- selves {^V}) ; the perfect is not a prophetic one (as Cheyne thinks), but speaks of what has actually occurred, as is shown by the various symptoms pointed out : (1) They are full from the East (Qli?*? : here I? indicates the source from which the filling comes, Ezek. xxxii. 6 ; Jer. li. 34 ; and see my com- mentary on Eccles. i. 8), i.e. full of Oriental manners and fashions, particularly idolatrous usages. D"Ji5 is the name given to Arabia down to the peninsula of Sinai, together with the Aramean countries adjacent to the Euphrates. Under Uzziah and Jotham, whose dominion extended as far as Elath, the sea- port of the Elanitic Gulf, the influence of the south-western 1 02 • '• • ' ISAIA.II. Orient predominated ; but under Ahaz and Hezekiah, on account of their relations to Assyria, Syria, and Babylon, that of the north-east was predominant. The conjectural reading Dpi50 (suggested by Gesenius in his Thesaurus) or Dpjpjp (supported by Ewald and Bottcher) would remove the name of the extensive region from which Judah's disposition to imitate received its impulse and material; but perhaps Isaiah wrote mpo DDp (" fullK^j of sorcery from the East "). (2) They are ^""33^ (a form which is interchanged with the more complete 2''??V?, Deut. xviii. 14, etc., from the Poel l^'y, Lev. xix, 26 ; 2 Kings xxi. 6), not " Tagewahler," as Luther renders it — for the form is opposed to the derivation from •^^iy, "time" (see Sanhedrin 656; and cf. Eashi on Lev. xix. 26), but those who observe the clouds for signs of the future (a rendering which Aben-Ezra also very properly prefers), or — more in accordance with the meaning of the Poel — those who bring clouds and storms ^ like the Philistines (who were subdued by Uzziah, and afterwards by Hezekiah), among whom ^ There is no ground for the explanation " concealing " {i.e. practising secret arts) ; for the meaning "to cover" is arbitrarily transferred to the verb py from the roots pa and pa (see on Ps. Ixxx. 16) with which it is said to be allied. But as a denominative from ^^"^ (" a cloud," as meeting the eye), piy might mean " he gathered auguries from the clouds." Or — if we take p'y as synonymous with py, Gen. ix. 14 (for, in the Targums, py and pyo interchange with the Hebrew piy and piyjp> apoc. piy) — it means " to cause a storm ;" we would then have the rendering "storm-raisers," tempestarii, vKpoltMKrui. (On storm-raising through incantations, especially among the Turanian nations by means of the " rain-stone," see Bernstein's edit, of Kirsch's Syriac Chrestomathy, p. Ill, line 9 if. ; Wustenfeld's edit, of Kazioint, i. p. 221, line 10 ff. ; Hammer - Purgstall's Geschichte der goldenen Horde in Kiptschak, pp. 206 f., 435-438.) The derivation of piy from ^>]} in the sense of the Arab, 'ana (im-peTf. ja'tnu), — as it were " to ogle," in modern Greek 6f*f/.ctri^£iv, oculo maligno petere et fascinare (see the Journal of the German Oriental Society, xxxi. 539),— though in itself philologically possible, founders on the Targumic py (to practise sorcery), which cannot possibly be traced to j^y. From a purely philo- logical standpoint, however, another explanation still remains possible. From the idea of " coming to meet," 'ana obtains the transitive sense of holding back, preventing, restraining (as it were contrarier), especially to rein in the horse with the bridle (indn), in application to sexual rela- tions. CIIAITEK II. 7, 8. 10.'< sorcery was practised by incorporated guilds (1 Sam. vi. 2),whil(! a iainoiis oracle of Beel-Zebub existed at Ekron (2 Kings i, 2). " And with the children of foreigners they make themselves familiar;" such is the rendering we must give this expression, following Gesenius, Knobel, and Nagclsbach : pSD with D*B3 signifies to clap hands (Job xxvii. 2.S) ; the Iliphil is used only here with 3 in the sense of striking hands with a person. On the other hand, the LXX. and Syriac render the expression in accordance with the idea of abundance or fulness elsewhere pre- sented in psD (or paL") ; but whether it be translated " in the children of foreigners they find satisfaction," or " with the children of foreigners they provide themselves abundantly," the rendering is equally opposed to the usage of the language, which nowhere points to this construction with 3. But the Hiph. p-spn may be compared with the Arab. c'tLL?, IV., to give the hand (as a token of agreement and approval) ; it is here com- bined with 3 after the analogy of 3 yjB, focdus pangcrc cum ttliquo. Jerome, following Synimachus, here translates pueris alienis adhacsenmt ; but D'i33 ""ip^ is equivalent to 133 *33 (Ix. 10, Ixi. 5), only with stronger emphasis on the un- sanctified birth, the heathenism inherited from their mother's womb. The prophet means to say it is with born heathens that the people of Jehovah make themselves common, — make common cause in the ordinary business of life. He now goes on, in vers. 7, 8, to describe how, in con- sequence of this, the land of the people of Jehovah is crammed full of objects of luxury, self-trust, and estrangement from God : " And their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures ; and tluir land is filled with horses, and there is nx) end to their chariots. And their land is filled toith idols ; to the 2vorJc of their hands they hoiu down in worship, to that which their oum fingers have made." The glory of Solomon's days, which revived under Uzziah's reign of fifty- two years, and was maintained during Jotham's reign of sixteen years, carried within it the curse of the law ; for the law regarding the king, in Deut. xvii. 14 If., forlnds both the niultii)lying of horses and the multiplying of gold and silver. Standing armies and stores of national treasures, like every- thing that lends support to carnal self-tru.st, are ojiposed to the spirit of the theocracy. Nevertheless Judea is immcasur- 104 ISAIAH. ably full of those things which entice to apostasy (lyi?, from )'^?_, according to Abulwalid and others, like ^33, niTj j cf. ^^*ij), and not only so, but also of things that openly show it ; D''^''bs are " idols " (in the Pentateuch only found in Lev. xix. 4, xxvi. 1 ; in the singular b'b^, " empty, worthless," Assyr. uldkt, from 77^, to be weak, decaying, null ; ^ not, as Heiden- heim thinks, from b^, " a false god ; " nor, as Movers supposes, a diminutive, meaning a little god, a small image of a god). The condition of the country is thus at variance not merely with the law regarding the king, but also with the decalogue. The existing splendour is the most offensive caricature of what had been promised ; for the nation whose God will one day become the desire and salvation of all nations had exchanged Him for the idols of the nations, and vied with them in the appropriation of heathen religion and practice. This was a condition of affliirs ripe for judgment, and from which the prophet can at once proceed to the proclamation of the judgment, ver. 9 : " Thus, then, men are lowed down, and masters brought low; and forgive them — nay, this thou shalt not ! " The moods of the verbs mark the judgment as one that arises through an inward necessity from the worldly and ungodly glory of the present ; this use of the verb-forms frequently occurs, as in ix. 7 ff. It is a judgment through which small and great, i.e. people of all classes, are brought down from their false eminence, nti^'i, as in xxix. 4 (cf Eccles. xii. 4), might be the imperfect Niphal (cf. ^3', '^?^ ^?i'), and Gesenius regards it as such ; it is probably, however, the intransitive imperfect Qal (Stade, § 490a), for nnc^, mr, nnc' hardly ever have formed a Niphal ; the Qal in itself signifies to be bowed down, depressed, as b^f signifies to be humble and to be humbled. Q"iN and ^'^^ are not mere inter- changeable terms, without any essential difference (as Nagels- bach thinks), but differ as in v. 15 ; Ps. xlix. 3 (cf. iv. 3 ; Isa. liii. 3) ; Pro v. viii. 4, and as in Attic Greek avOpwiro^i differs from avrjp, — ordinary human beings who disappear in the crowd, and men who rise out of it,^ — all (Ptcv. vi. 15) are ^ See Friediich Delitzsch, Prolegomena, p. 133. 2 In the Arabic of Syria, ms is strangely used in the latter sense ; " people of importance " are called awddim, or nds awddim (Journal of the German Oriental Society, xxii. 154). CIIAPTKK II. 10, It. 10;') thrown clown to the c;roiind hy tlio ju(]jj;nicnt, and that with- out mercy. Tlie prophet expresses tlie conviction (^N beiii'^' used as in 2 Kings vi. 27) that God can and will no longer take away their sin (this noun being the object we must regard a.s following the verb Nb'n, Ps. xxxii. 1 ; af: is ai)i)lied to God, and signifies to forgive, as in IIos. i. G). Xo other course is now left open for them V)ut to follow the sarcastic command of the prophet in ver. 10: "Creep into the rock, and bury thyself in the dust, before the dread look of Jehovah, and before the glory of His majesty !" The forms Ni3 and ip^n are imperatives ; the inf. constr. of the Niphal is sometimes indeed used instead of the infin. absolute (Num. XV. 31 ; 1 Kings xv. 39), but there is no instance of the latter form being employed as an imperative. The nation that was supposed to be a glorious one shall and must creep away ami hide itself ignominiously, when the glory of God which it bad rejected, but which alone is true glory, is judicially mani- fested. It must conceal itself in holes of the rocks as if from a host of foes (Judg. vi. 2 ; 1 Sam. xiii. 6, xiv. 11), and bury themselves with their faces in the sand, as from the deadly simoom of the desert, that they may but avoid the necessity of enduring this intolerable sight. When Jehovah reveals Himself thus in the fiery glance of judgment, there follows the result summed up in ver. 11: "The haiujhty looks of the people are brought low, and the pride of the lords is bowed down, and Jehovah, He alone, stands exalted in that day." The result of the judicial process is expressed in perfects; 33^0 is the 3rd pers. of the preterite, not the participle : " Jehovah is exalted," i.e. shows Himself exalted ; while the haughty demeanour of the people is abased (^2*^' is a verb, not an adjective, in agreement, by attraction, with the genitive, instead of its governing word ; see also 2 Sam. i. 21; Lev. xiii. 9 ; Ps. cxl. 10, Kdhib ; Dan. iii. 10, Kethih), and the pride of the lords is bowed down ('Tr" = nw, Job ix. 13). Here ends the first strophe of the proclamation of judgment, appended to the borrowed prophetic passage in vers. 2-4. The second strophe extends as far as ver. 17, where ver. 11 is repeated as the conclusion. Looking at the expression, "on that day," we ask ourselves, what kind of day is this ? To this question the propliet 106 ISM AH. replies in the second strophe, first of all in ver. 12: "For Jehovah of Hosts has a day over everything, towering and high, and over everything lofty, and it lecomes low" Din''? Dr, " Jehovah has a day " (xxii. 5, xxxiv. 8), which even now forms part of what He has freely and independently determined and appointed beforehand (Ixiii. 4, xxxvii. 26 ; cf. xxii. 11), the secret of which he makes known to the prophets, who, from the time of Obadiah and Joel, announce this day, in terms ever the same, like a watchword. But when the time appointed for this day arrives, it passes into the history of time, — a day for the judgment of the world, which, through the omnipotence by which Jehovah rules over the highest as well as the lowest spheres of all creation, passes upon all worldly glory. With Nb'rPS the accent used is Tiphcha (Luzzatto, Baer) ; but certainly Athnach would be more suitable, as in Lev. xiii. 18. As the future is spoken of, the perfect bs^l acquires the force of a future {'pret. conscc), " and it shall be brought low (or, sink down)." The prophet now enumerates all the high things on which this day falls, arranging them together two by two, and com- bining them in pairs by a double correlative ]. The day of Jehovah falls, as the first two pairs declare, on everything lofty in nature (vers. 13, 14): " As upon all cedars of Lebanon, the lofty and exalted, so upon all the oaks of Bashan ; as upon all mountains, the lofty ones, so upon all hills, the exalted ones." But why upon all this majestic beauty of nature ? Has this language a merely figurative meaning ? Knobel understands it figuratively, and regards it as referring to the grand build- ings of Uzziah and Jotham, for the erection of which like timber had been brought from Lebanon and Bashan, on the western slope of which the old shady oaks {sindidn and halltd) still con- tinue to grow luxuriantly. But that trees may mean the houses built of them cannot be proved from ix. 9, where the reference is not to houses made of sycamore and cedar wood, but to the trunks of such trees ; nor again from Nah. ii. 4, where n"'C'h3n mean the fir lances which are brandished about in eager desire for the fight. As little can mountains and hills mean the castles and fortresses upon them, especially because ver. 1 5 expressly refers to these, in literal terms. In order to understand the prophet, we must bear in mind what sacred CUArTER II. 15, 16. 107 Scripture assumes tlirouglnait, tliat all nature is joined with niun to form one coranion history ; that man and the wliole world of nature are inseparably connected as centre and circumference ; that this circumference likewise is under the influence of the sin which proceeds from man, as well as under the wrath and the grace which proceed from God to man ; that the judgments of God, as proved by the history of nations, bring a share of sufifering to the subject creation, and that this participation of the lower creation in the corruption and the glory of man will come into special prominence at the close of this world's history, as it did at the beginning; and lastly, the world in its present form, in order to become an object of the unmixed good pleasure of God, stands as much in need of a regeneration (TraXiyyeveaia) as the corporeal part of man himself. In accordance with this fundamental view of the Scriptures, therefore, we cannot wonder that, when the judgment of God goes forth upon Israel, it extends to the land of Israel, and, along with the false glory of the nation, overthrows everything glorious in surrounding nature which had been forced to minister to the national pride and love of display, and to which the national sin adhered in many ways. What the prophet predicts was already actually beginning to be fulfilled in tlie military inroads of the Assyrians. The cedar forest of Lebanon was being unsparingly shorn : the hills and vales of the country were trodden down and laid waste, and, during the period of the world's history beginning with Tiglath-Pileser, the holy land was being reduced to a shadow of its former predicted beauty. From what is lofty in nature, transition is now made in vers. 15, 16 to what is exalted in the world of men, — the fortresses, commercial structures, and the works of art that minister to the lust of the eye: "As vpon every hiijh tower, so upon every precipitous wall. As upon all shijys of Tarshish, so upon all u-orks of curiosity." P.y erecting lofty and precipi- tous, i.e. difficult of ascent (i^^*3), fortifications for defence and offence in war, Uzziah and Jotham particularly desired to render service to Jerusalem and the country generally. The chronicler (2 Chron., chap, xxvi.) states that Uzziah built fortified towers over the corner-gate, the valley-gate, and the southern point of the cheese-makers' ravine, and strengthened lOS ISAIAH. these places (till that time, possibly, the weakest positions in Jerusalem) ; also that he built towers in the wilderness (perhaps in the wilderness extending from Beersheba to Gaza, for increasing the safety of the country, and its vast flocks that were pastured in the '"'^S'f, i.e. the western portion of Southern Palestine). The Books of Kings (2 Kings xv. 32 f.) and Chronicles relate of Jotham that he built the upper gate of the temple ; and the Chronicles, moreover, record (2 Chron. xxvii.) that he still further fortified the Ophel, i.e. the southern spur of the temple-mount ; that he founded cities in the hill - country of Judah, and erected strongholds and towers in the forests (for watching and repelling hostile attacks). Hezekiah also distinguished him- self by such building enterprises (2 Chron. xxxii. 27-30). But the mention of ships of Tarshish points to the times of Uzziah and Jotham (as Ps. xlviii. 8 points to the time of Jehoshaphat), for the seaport of Elath, which, according to 2 Kings xiv. 22, was recovered by Uzziah, was once more lost to the kingdom of Judah under Ahaz (2 Kings xvi. 6). From this Elath (Ailath), Jewish ships, following in the wake of the Phenicians, used to sail through the Eed Sea and round the coast of Africa, landing at the harbour of Tartessus, the ancient Phenician emporium of the maritime district abounding in silver and watered by the Baetis (i.e. the Guadalquivir), which was itself also called Tdprrjaao^ : they returned through the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gib- raltar, so called after the lauding of Tarik in 711 : Gibraltar = Gelel-Tdrik). The expression ^''^'\T\ ni'JS was primarily applied to these vessels sailing to Tarshish, then probably to merchant-ships generally.^ The following expression ni'^K' •T^P!?'!' is taken in too restricted a sense if we confine it, with the LXX., to the ships, or, with Gesenius, understand it as meaning beautiful flags. Jerome has correctly rendered the ^ Jerome, on tlie verse we are now considering (where the LXX. renders IttI ttccv 7rXo 6ctKuaa-t\i\ gives it as a Jewish opinion that E^''ti'-)n is the proper Hebrew name for the sea, while D'' was originally derived from the Syriac ; and in conformity with this, Luther eays that the Hebrew has two words for indicating the sea, D'' and K'"'tjnn, the latter being used specially to indicate the ocean. Perhaps this view is meant to reconcile 2 Chron. ix. 21, xx. 36 with 1 Kings ix. 26 ff. (Kamphausen in Jenaer Literal urzeitunrj, 1876, p. 170.) ClIArTER II. 17. 1(10 (lause ci super omnc quod vitjc pulchnim est. ^*?'^', from !^?t;\ to SCO, behold (see my commentaries on Job xxxviii. .SO and Gen. iii. 6), is siglit in a quite general sense {dia) ; while rrion is used here in something of the same way as in Ezek. xxvi. 12, but without the need of understanding it, as in that piissage, to mean splendid buildings, with the additional idea of watching, or outlook, in accordance with the Targumic noD = nsvD (Ewald, Cheyne) ; the proper place for men- tioning these would rather have been after ver. 15, before the ships of Tarshish. What is meant, therefore, is every kind of works of art, made of stone or metal, and painted ('"''?V'P, diofia, display ; cf. Lev. xxvi. 1 ; Ezek. viii. 1 2), which delight the beholder by their imposing and tasteful appearance. Ver, 17 now concludes the second strophe of the an- nouncement of judgment appended to the earlier prophetic passage : " And tlic pride of the people is bowed down, and (he haughtiness of the lords brought low ; and Jehovah, He alone, statuls exalted on (hat day" This refrain-verse only slightly differs from ver. 11. The subjects of the verbs in ver. 17'< have been transposed. It is almost a rule to put the predicate at the beginning of the sentence in the masculine (nK\ but nn^jn in Ps. xliv. 2G), though the subject following is a feminine noun, when this denotes a thing or things (see Gesenius, § 145. 7, a). The refrain-verse of the two following strophes (in vers. 19—21) is based on the closing portion of ver. 10, and runs out into the concluding words n^'7 ^^^-- ^^^^ announcement of judgment now turns to the idols, which were mentioned before (in vers. 7, 8), but last in order, as the root of evil, among the things with which the land abounds. In a brief verse, consisting of one member and but three words, their future is declared (ver. 18) as if with a swift lightning- flash: "and the idols pass utterly away." The combination of the plural nominative with the verb in the singular is intended to signify that the idols, one and all, are a " mass of nonentity " which will be reduced to annihilation : they will disappear ''v3, i.e. either they will utterly perish, or (seeing that h''b''2 is not elsewhere used adverbially) they will all ]»crish (dudg. xx. 40, a passage which shows that one might 110 ISAIAH. also say Qv^sn 7p?i), — their images, their worship, even their names and their memory, Zech. xii. 2. In ver. 19 is declared what the idolaters will do when Jehovah has so thoroughly deprived their idols of all divinity, by rising from His heavenly throne, while His glory revealed in heaven returns to earth and manifests itself as a judicial fire : '•' A7id they will creep into caves of rocks, and into cellars of earth, before the dreadful look of Jehovah, and before tlie glory of His majesty, when He rises to put the earth in terror." n"ij?p (from i^y, to go down deep, to be sunk down) is a cave naturally formed, and i^pnp (from ^2^^, to bore through, or bore out) is an artificial excavation underground : in this way, apparently, — to judge from the added genitives, — we must distinguish between the two synonyms. 5*1^^9 Y'W is a sig- nificant paronomasia which admits of being easily rendered in Latin : ut terreat terrain. The judgment thus falls on the earth without limitation, — on men, its inhabitants, and on all nature, intimately associated with human history, — a whole in which sin, and therefore wrath, has gained the mastery. The fourth strophe begins with ver. 20 : " On that day vAll man cast away his idols of gold and idols of silver which they made for him to worship, to the moles and to the bats." The traditional text separates ni"ia "i3nb into two words, without giving us to understand what they are intended to signify.^ The division was due to the fact that in early times pluri- literals were misunderstood, and regarded as compound words ; cf. Ixi. 1 ; Hos. iv. 18 ; Jer. xlvi. 20. The word as uttered by the prophet was certainly rinansinp (see Ewald, § 157c); and "TJ?!?!^ (a form similar to N'ja']Sp', the dawn) would appear 1 Abulwalid, Parclioii, and others regard the double word as tlie singu- lar of a noun which signifies a bird (perhaps a woodpecker), as an aniuial that pecks fruits nins)- Kirachi prefers to take isn^ as an infinitive (cf. Josh. ii. 2), signifying '* to dig holes," comparing the Talmudic i^a, a pit or hole, a grave. No one renders the expression " into the mouse- hole," because rns, mouse = i' ,li, more exactly i' ,lj (from /a'ara, to dig, dig up), is not a Hebrew word, and was taken from the Arabic only at a late period (hence the Hebraeo- Arabic mi3, a mouse-trap). Tlie name of the mole in Arabic is ^^^^^l ,lj, i.e. the blind mouse (rat). CIIAriEll II. -JO. 1 1 I tx) be tlie mole, and to liavo ruceivcil the name as an animal that digs and throws up the soil with its shovel-like foroiVet, Lat. talpa (as translated by Jerome and explained by Kashi). Against this view, Gesenius and Knobel make the objection that the mole does not live in houses ; but it actually burrows undorneatli the floors of houses, barns, etc., forming its holes beneath them. And are we obliged to think that the shamed idolaters throw their idols into lumber-rooms, instead of rather hiding them outside, thrusting them into holes and crevices ? Along with the mole is named " the bat," *l?t?y (the sound of which is but accidentally similar to taljja) : this name, since the time of Bochart and Schultens, has been regarded as a com- pound of ^OV = HDby and ^V (cf. vvKT€pi {i.e. niyht-flyer), Journal of the Germ. Oriental Soc. ixxii. 241. Fleischer says that " Fiirst's u_fiil?i occultare— -put in this general way — is a fiction. The probable etymology, as correctly explained in Freyl;i^', w Jlai, Jl:7.r> applied to the heavens, and night. From this cooies AVir , one in the dark, tenebrio, i.e. wolf ; and this form n-sfinbl-'S si^py, alike in its quinriueliteral form and in its general etymological im-aning. See Bericht der kim. tacks. Get. der Wiss. Band L 184G and 1847, pp. 430, 431." 112 ISAIAH. made to their order, and thrust them like smuggled goods in bat-holes and mole-heaps to hide them from the eyes of the Judge, that, after casting away the useless burden that would condemn them, they may then betake themselves to flight. Ver. 21: '^ To creep into the holloios of the stone-hlocJcs, and into the clefts of the rocks, hrfore the dreadful look of Jehovah and hefore the glory of His majesty, ivhen He arises to put the earth in terror." Instead of niiyoD, in ver. 19, there is here found ni"ip33, " into the hollows " (from ii?3, to dig a hole) ; and instead of nsy m^non, there is here Q'^V^sn ''??i'P?, " into the crevices of the rocks " (y?p, a rock, properly a cleft, like rupes, from rumpere). Thus ends the fourth strophe of this " dies irae dies ilia," appended to the quotation from the earlier prophet. Now follows a closing nota hene in ver. 22 : " then, let man go, in whose nose is a hreath ; for at what is he to he valued ? " The LXX. leaves this verse wholly untranslated : was it not to be found in their copy of the Hebrew ? Cheyne regards it as a marginal note, dating from post-exilic times, which breaks the connection; but it is the moralizing conclusion drawn from what precedes, and the basis of the proclamation of judgment (introduced by '2) which follows with the opening of the next chapter. Instead of nsn, Jerome (like Berachoth 14a) read ^03^ giving the strange rendering, eoxelsus reputatus est ipse ; and it appears that Luther also allowed himself to be misled by this. If we look both backwards and forwards, we cannot possibly miss the proper meaning of this verse, which must be regarded as not only giving the result of what precedes, but as forming the transition to what follows. What has gone before is the prediction of utter ruin to everything of which men are proud, and of which they boast; and in the beginning of the following chapter the same prediction is resumed, with more special reference to the Jewish state from which Jehovah is taking away every support, so that it is falling into a state of collapse. Accordingly, ver. 22 exhorts to renunciation of trust in man and all that is human, as in Ps. cviii. 8 f., cxlvi. 3 ; Jer. xvii. 5. The view taken is as general as in a gnome or apothegm. The ethical dative D^b is in this case also the dative of advantage : out of regard for yourselves, for the sake of your own salvation, do cease from CllAPTKR II. 22. 113 man, i.e. from trust in liim. in wliosc nose {in cvjiis nnso, ns in Job xxvii. 3 ; on tlie other hand, in Gen. ii. 7 is found tlie equivalent ^'2S3, in narcs ejus) is a breath, a breath of life, which God has given him, and can take from him again as soon as He pleases (Job x.xxiv. 14 ; Ps. civ. 20). Upon the breath which goes out and in through his nose depends his earthly existence, which, once lost, is gone for ever (Job vii, 7). On this breath, therefore, there also depends all the trust that is placed on man — how weak a foundation ! Under these conditions, and in view of this transitoriness, the worth of man as a basis of trust is as nothing. This idea is here expressed in interrogatory form : " At (or for) what is he reckoned (or to be reckoned) ? " The passive partie. 2C'n3 combines with the idea of actuality (acstimatus) ihat of necessity (acstimandns) and that of possibility, or what is fit and becoming (acstimahilis). The 2 is here that of price or value, corresponding to the Latin genitive {quanti) or ablative (quanta), — a species of the instrumental 3, the price being represented as the means of exchange or purciiase : hence the meaning is, " At what is he reckoned ? " not, " With what is he compared ? " — an idea which would be expressed by TiS* (liii. 11 ; cf. fiera in Luke xxii. 37) or cy (Ps. Ixxxviii. 5). There is here used ^^3, not noa^ because this looser form is usually found only when a relative clause follows (co quod, see Eccles. iii. 22), and not "S? ; because the long final vowel in this case is employed only when the succeeding word begins with N, or when nc3 stands in pause (as in 1 Kings xxii. 21) ; under all other circumstances ntS3 is used. The question thus introduced cannot be answered with a positive fixing of value ; the worth of man, considered in himself, and apart from God, is as nothing.^ At this porisni a pause is made in the announcement of judgment, but only for the purpose of gathering new strength. In four stroi»hes, concluding in the same way, the proi)het has proclaimed the divine judgment on every exalted thing in the world that has fallen from cjuiinuiiion with God, ju.st as ^ Inafraf;inentof Ae.^cliyhis jireservL-il in I'lutarcli, /><'^xi7., Taiitiliia is represented as saving of liiinself: "My conra^'f, whith fDnnerly nadied to heaven, now sinks to earth, and cries to nie, Learn not to esteem too higlily what is of man." VOL. L II 114 ISAIAH. Amos begins his book with a round of judgments, forming seven strophes which begin in the same way, and bursting forth like seven thunder-peals upon the nations on the stage of history ; the seventh stroke falls on Judah, on whom, as on its proper object, the storm of judgment remains. Similarly with Isaiah here, the universal proclamation of judgment concen- trates itself more especially on Judah and Jerusalem. The current of discourse now bursts the banks confining it in strophic form, — though otherwise it flows with freedom, — and the exhortation in ii. 22 not to trust in man, which rests on what has gone before, becomes the stepping-stone from the universal proclamation of judgment to the more special one in iii. 1, while the prophet assigns a new reason for the exhortation: " For, beJwld, the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, removes from Jerusalem and from Judah support and means of siqyport, every sujjjwrt of hread, and every support of water." That the announcement of judgment here begins anew is evident even from the name of God, ni^{n^• nin^^ t''^^^, with which Isaiah everywhere (i. 24, x. 16, 33, xix. 4) introduces the judicial dealings of God. Trust in man was the great sin especially prevailing in the times of Uzziah and Jotham. The national glory at that time carried within it the wrath of Jehovah, which began to break out even in the days of Ahaz, and during Hezekiah's reign was merely restrained, not changed. This outburst of wrath Isaiah here proclaims, describing how Jehovah is throwing down the Jewish State into ruins by removing from it the supports of its existence and the pillars of its fabric. In i.VC'O n3J;L^'m the full idea is placed in the foreground ; the two nouns, which are but one and the same word in difierent forms, and these determined by the gender (cf. Micah ii. 4 ; Nah. ii. 11; Zeph. i 15, ii. 1; Ezek. xxL 3; Ewald, § 1725), serve to generalize the notion-, fulcra omne genus (omnigena). Both are "instrumental" forms, and signify that which is used in giving support, whereas IViJ*'? means what supports : hence the three perhaps correspond to the Latin fulcrum, fultura, fidcimen. Of the various means of support, bread and water are first named, not in a figurative sense, but as the two absolutely indispensable conditions, and the basis of human life. Life is supported by bread and water (iV"f being synonymous with IVD, Ps. civ. 15, etc.); it goes, as it CIIAPTKR III. 2, 3. 115 were, on the crutcli of bread, ami " to break the statT of bread " (Lev. xxvi. 26 ; Ezek. iv. 16, v. 16. xiv. 13 ; Ps. cv. 16) is thus equivalent to physical destruction. The fall of the Jewish State accordingly begins with the withdrawal from it by Jehovah of all support all'orded by bread and water, all stores of both. And this was actually fulfilled ; for. both in the Chaldean and in the Roman periods, Jerusalem perished under dreadful famines such as were threatened in Lev. xxvi. and especially Deut. xxviii., — both chapters filled with curses to follow the commission of sin ; on both occasions, the inhabit- ants were reduced to such extremity that women devoured their own children (Lam. ii. 20 ; Josephus, Bell. Jud. vi. 3. 3, 4). No real objection, therefore, can be made against the opening of the enumeration with " every support of bread, and every support of water." Nevertheless these words are regarded by Hitzig, Knobel, Meier, Chcyne, and Eeuss as a gloss. We grant that the transition from these words to what follows (" hero and man of war ") shows a certain abruptness and want of homogeneity, and that this fact, of course, arouses suspicion ; on the other hand, if they be omitted, we regretfully miss the arrangement of vcr. 1 into two members (cf. xxv. 6). Vers. 2 and 3 continue the enumeration of the supports which Jehovah takes away : " Heroes and men of war, judf/cs, ami prophets, and soothsayers, and elders : captains of fifty, and. highly respected men, and counsellors, and masters in art, and those skilled in muttering." As the State, under Uzziah and Jotham, had become a military one, the prophet in both verses begins with the mention of military oflicers : ■'is? is a com- mander who has already proved himself brave ; "^P^rP ^*"':* is the common soldier who is armed, and had been well trained (see Ezek. xxxix. 20); D'ti''?n "ib is the leader of a company consisting of fifty warriors (see 2 Kings i. 9, etc. ; similar officers were also found in the Assyrian army). Moreover, the leading members of the State are mixed together, so that the picture here given presents great variety of colour : t^jiic' is the officer appointed by the government to administer justice and carry out the law ; iPT is the oldest member of his family, and the senator appointed by the city corporations; yvy is the counsellor standing nearest the king ; D'3D K'bo (properly, 116 ISAIAH. one whose face (i.e. personal appearance) is accepted — i.e. one who is beloved and respected : Saad. wdrjih, from wAgh, the face, appearance) is a person held in esteem, not merely in virtue of his office, but also on account of his wealth, age, benevolence, etc. ; ^TIH °?D is in the LXX. rendered , — swearing, conjuring), together wdth t*'?], the false prophet of Jehovah whose predictions are also merely Dbp (Micah iii. 11 ; Ezek. xxii. 28), signifies a soothsayer that cherishes heathen superstition : the word is found as early as in Deut, xviii. 10, 14. After bread and water, these are the supports of the State. They are here intermingled thus, without any attempt at arrangement, because the mighty and magnificent State, properly regarded, is but a heterogeneous mixture of Judaism and heathenism, and the godless glory will become a mass of utter confusion when the wrath of Jehovah bursts forth Deprived of its proper foundation and torn from its grooves, ihe kingdom of Judah falls a prey to the most audacious despotism, as shown in ver. 4 : " And I give them hoys as princes, and childish caprices shall rule over them." The revived glory of Solomon is thus anew followed, as before, by Rehoboam-times. The king is not expressly mentioned, — intentionally so : he has sunk to the mere shadow of a king ; it is not he who rules, but the party of aristocrats around ClIAriER III. 5. 117 liiiii, \vlio move him about like a puppet as they choose, treating him like one of themselves. Now, if it is in itself generally a misfortune when the king of a country is a lad ("•W, Eccles. X. 16), it is doubly so when the princes or magnates surrounding and advising him are also youths (^''IV-^) or youngsters, in the bad sense of the term : this produces a government of Qy^^JfJ?. None of the nouns of this form has a personal meaning. According to the root-idea of the verb- stem, it is possible that the word may be explained (with Ewald, § 167i) as signifying " childislniess," and this as being equivalent to " little children " (the abstract being used for the concrete, like to, TraiBiKa). But there is no need for supposing that D-^i^yn stands for D^^hy (or D'^^iyo ; see under ver. 12); or, what is comparatively more admissible, that it is an adverbial accusative (the opinion of Cheyne, who trans- lates the passage, " and with wilfulness shall they rule over them ") ; for ^p'f^\ does not necessarily require a personal subject (cf. Ps. xix. 14, ciii. 19). The form D"'b"i^yn (which occurs only in the plural, and is formed like Q''?^n3ri) takes its meaning from the reflexive ''?l'nn, which signifies to meddle with, make sport of, give vent to one's caprice ; hence this noun signifies " vexations, annoyances " (Ixvi. 4). Jerome, who translates the word by effcminati, appears to have been thinking of eoph oppress one another, one this and another that ; the hoy breaks out furiously upon the old man, and the despised iipon tlie honoured." As shown by the clause describing the mutual relation of the persons, C'?? is a Niphal with reciprocal meaning (cf. DTO, xix. 2) ; this verb, followed 118^ ISAIAH. by n, signifies to treat as a tyrant or taskmaster (see ix. 3). The meanest selfishness then stifles all nobler motives ; one becomes a tyrant over another, and rude insolence takes the place of reverence, which, by the law of nature, as well as the Torah (Lev. xix. 32) and custom, is due to the aged and superiors from boys and those in the humbler ranks, npj^j (from i^b[>, which is synonymous with ??[}, viii. 23, xxiii, 9 ; cf. xvi. 14 ; the root of which is bp, to be light, small) means one who belongs to the lowest stratum of society (1 Sam. xviii. 23), and is the opposite of 1??? (from n?3, to be difficult, weighty) : the LXX. well renders 6 art/io? Trpo? rov evTifiov. When there is this disregard of the distinctions due to age and rank, the State in a short time becomes a wild and waste scene of confusion. At last, there is no longer any authority bearing rule ; even the desire to govern dies out, for despotism is followed by mob-rule, and this by anarchy in the most literal sense ; distress becomes so great that he who has a coat (cloak), so as to be still able in some degree to clothe himself respectably, is besought to undertake the government. Vers. 6, 7 : " When a man shall lay hold of his brother in his fathers house [and say], ' Thou hast a cloak ; thou shalt he our ruler, and take this ruin under thy hand,' he will cry out on that day, saying, ' I do not want to he a surgeon, when there is in my house neither hrcad nor cloak ; ye cannot make me rider of the people.' " The population will have become so lean and dispirited through hunger, that, with a little energy, it would be possible to decide, within tlie narrow circle of a family, who is to be ruler, and to carry out the decision. The father's house is the place where (JT'n being here the local accusative) one brother meets the other; and one breaks out into the following words of urgent entreaty, which are here introduced without "ij^xj? (cf. xiv. 8, 16, also xxii. 16, xxxiii. 14). nap is a rare mode of writing ^p*, found also in Gen. xxvii. 37 ; "^.l^"!! indicates the assumption, without any ceremony, that he will agree to what is expected. In Zeph. i. 3, "^/^i'S^ means that through which one comes to ruin ; here it means the thing itself that has been overthrown, and this because bp3 (not merely to stumble, trip, slip, but actually to tumble over after being thrown off the equilibrium by a cirAiTP:u III. 8. 119 thrust from the outsiilo) is not uscil of biiildin^s that fall into ruin, and with a reference to the prosopopeia which follows in ver. 8. He wlio has the advantaj^e over many, or all (iiIkts, of still beini^ able to clothe himself respectably (even though it were merely with a blouse) is to become supreme ruler or dictator (cf. PVP, Jud;^'. xi. G), and the State, now lyinj:; in a wretched state of ruin, is to bo under his hand (i.e. his dominion, his protection and care: 2 Kings viii. 20; Gen. xli. 35 ; cf. xvi. 9, where, instead of the more usual singular T, the plural is found). With ver. 7 begins the apodosis to the protasis introduced by '3 as a particle of time. The answer given by the brother to the urgent request of those who make the appeal is introduced by the words, " he will raise (viz. his voice; see xxiv. 14) on that day, saying:" it is stated in this circumstantial manner because it is a solemn protest. He does not like to be C'nn^ i.e. a binder (viz. of the broken arms and legs and ribs of the ruined State, xxx. 2G, i. 6, Ixi. 1). It is implied in the form n'ns that he does not like it, because he is conscious of his inability. He has no confidence in himself, and the assumption that he has a coat is false ; not merely has he no coat at home in his hou?e (in view of which we must remember that the conversation is carried on in his father's house), but he has no bread ; hence what is expected from him, almost naked and starving as he is, becomes impossible. " "When the purple of the ruler," says the Midrash on Esth. iii. G, "is oilered for sale at the market, then woe to the buyer and the seller alike ! " This deep and tragic misery, as the prophet proceeds to show in vers. 8-12, is righteous retribution. Ver. 8 : "For Jcrusalan is overthrown and Judah is fallen, because their tongue and their doings are against Jehovah, to defy the eyes of His glory." The name of the city of Jerusalem is regularly (Gesen. § 122. 'ia) treated as feminine, the name of the people of Judah as masculine ; names of nations appear as feminines only when there is a blending of the two ideas, the country and the people (as, for instance. Job L 15). The two preterites "^^f? and 7W express the general fact which will prove the occasion of such scenes of misery as have just been described. The second clause (a substantive one), on the other hand, beginning with ^3, assigns already 120 iSAun. present sin, not sin still future, as the reason of the coming judgment. % is employed to indicate hostile direction, as in ii. 4 ; Gen. iv. 8 ; Num. xxxii. 14 ; Josh. x. 6. The capital and the country are in word and deed against Jehovah ini^p ^y ninn^. Here '?.}} = '?'y and nhD^ (as in Ps. Ixxviii. 17) is the syncopated Hiphil inf. for riin»n^ (cf. the syncopated forms in xxiii. 11, i. 12). The Qal mo, which is likewise pretty often construed with the accusative, means to reject in a contumacious manner, and the Hiphil nnon to treat contumaciously, — properly, to oppose strenuously, avrireiveiv, ohiiti : the root is "in, j^, stringere, and this is connected with "ip, the name of anything bitter, as being astringent, though there is no warrant for the rendering in the LXX. of nno, nion, non, Ex. xxiii. 21, by irapa-TTiKpaiveiv. The ? is a somewhat shortened expression for lyp^, Amos ii. 7 ; Jer. vii. 18, xxxii. 29. But what does the prophet mean by " the eyes of His glory " ? The con- struction is certainly just the same as is " the arm of His holiness " (lii. 1 0), and a reference to the divine attributes is thus intended. The glory of God is that eternal manifesta- tion of His holy nature in its splendour which man pictures to himself anthropomorphically, because he cannot conceive of anything more sublime than the human form. It is in this glorious form that Jehovah looks upon His people. In this is mirrored His condescending yet jealous love, His holy love which breaks forth into wrath against all who requite His love with hate. But Israel, instead of living in the consciousness of being a constant and favoured object of these majestic and earnestly admonishing eyes, is studiously defying them in word and deed, not even hiding its sin through fear of them, but exposing it to view all unabashed. Ver. 9 : " The aiypcar- ance of their faces testifies against them, and their sin they declare like Sodom, without concealing it; woe to their soul! for they do evil to themselves." In any case, what is meant is the insolent look which their sinfulness is stamping upon their iaces, without the self-condemnation which in others takes the form of dread to commit sin (Seneca, de vita leata, c. 12). The construct form man, if derived from "lan (Jos. Kimchi and Luzzatto), would follow the analogy of rnj33 cn.vrTEu III. 10, u. 121 in Ezok. xxxiv. 12. But inn = Arab, hdara (hakint), affords no suitable meaning ; ^1^^ is the active noun formed from the Hiphil I'Si?. Tlie common expression D'?3 I'sn signifies to look searchingly, in(|uiringly, keenly into tlie face of a person, to fix the eye upon him ; and, when used of a judge, to take the side of a person, by showing undue regard to him (Deut. i. 17, xvi. 19). This latter meaning, liowever (" their respect of persons," " their partiality," Prov. xxiv. 23, xxviii. 21), though supported by llitzig, Maurer, and Gesenius, is inadmissible here, simply because the words do not refer to judges specially, but to the whole nation. " The appearance of their faces " is to be understood here in an objective sense, their look (to etSo?, Luke ix. 29), as the agnitio of Jerome is also to be taken as meaning id quo se agnoscendinn dat vidtiis cornm. This is probably the usual Hebrew designation for what we call physiognomy, — the meaning indicated by the expression of the face, and then the latter itself. The expression of their countenance testifies against them (3 n^y as in lix. 12) ; for it is the distorted and troubled image of their sin that cannot and will not hide itself. They do not even content themselves, however, with this open though silent display; they further speak openly of their sin, making no concealment of it, like the Sodomites who proclaimed their fleshly lust (Gen. chap. xix.). Jerusalem is, in fact, spiritually Sodom, as the prophet called it in i. 1 0. Through such shameful sinning they do themselves harm (bp3, allied to 1^3, signifies to complete, then to carry out, to show by actual deed) : this is the undeniable fact, the actual experience. But seeing it is the curse of sin that the knowledge of what is perfectly clear and self-evident is just what is marred and even obliterated for man, the prophet dwells still longer on the fact that all sin is self-destruction and self-mmder, presenting this general truth with its opposite in palilogic fashion, like the Apostle John, and calling to his contem- poraries in vers. 10, 11 : " Say of the j'lcst, tliat it is well with him ; for they will enjoy the fruit of their doings. Woe to the wicked ! it is ill ; for what his hamls have wrought will he done to him." What is declared in Prov. xii. 14 is here re-echoed in prophetic form. We cannot, with Vitringa and 122 ISAIAH. some modern commentators, translate " Praise the rigliteous one ; " for, though "i?5< is sometimes construed with the accusative (Ps. xl. 11, cxlv. 6, 11), it never means to praise, but to utter, express (see also Ps. xl. 11). We have here the transposition familiar to us even from Gen. i. 4, — simple and natural in the case of the verbs nxT (cf. also xxii. 9 ; Ex. ii. 2), VT^ (1 Kings v. 17), and lOK (like Xiyetv, John ix. 19): dicite justum quod honus ^= dicite jiistum esse bonum (Ewald, § 336&) : the object of seeing, knowing, or saying is first mentioned generally, and then what qualifies it or defines it in some way. 3iu and, in ver. 11, V^ {VI when not in pause) might both be the 3rd sing, perfect of their verbs, used in a neuter sense : 3iO, " it is well," viz. to him (as in Deut. v. 30; Jer. xxii. 15 f.); and V\ (from yvU " it is ill" (as in Ps. cvi. 32). But Jer. xliv. 17 shows that we may also say ^^1n y^^, ^V?), find cf. the Bedouinic ^'^sy, plur. 'aicdlll, with the sense of juvcncus (a young bull, three or four years old). Bottcher correctly renders the word by pucri (lusorcs) ; hb'W^, however, is not, as he supposes, in itself a collective form, but the singular is used collectively ; or perhaps better still, the predicate is meant to apply to every individual included in the plural idea of the subject (cf. xvi. 8, xx. 4; Gesenius, § 145. 5), so that the meaning is, — the oppressors of the people, every one Avithout exception, are (even though advanced in years), in their way of thinking and acting, like boys or youths, who make all those subject to them the plaything of their capricious humour. The person of the king — vt'iZ being understood by Hitzig, Ewald, and Cheyne as a plural of excellence — is here also placed in the background ; but the female sway, afterwards mentioned, points us to the court. This must have been the state of the case when Ahaz, a young spendthrift, twenty years of age (according to the LXX., twenty-five), came to the throne, after the end of Jotham's reign. Once more the prophet, with deep i)ain, repeats the words " my people," and, addressing them directly, passes from the rulers of the nation to the preachers, — for tlie onE^NO are prophets (Micah iii. 5) ; but what characters ! ' An Arabic proverb (Cat. Codd. Lips. p. 373) runs tints: "I llfp to (icxl in order to escape from the domination of boys and the govtrnnKiit of women." 124 ISAIAH. " Instead of leading the people on the straight road, they lead them astray (ix. lo ; of. 2 Kings xxi. 9); for, as we know from the history of this gang of prophets, they ministered to the godless interests of the court, making themselves the slaves either of the dynasty or the demagogues ; or they pandered to the desires of the people, which were of no higher tone. Moreover, " the way of the path " of the people {i.e. the main-road or highway, by the branches of which the people were to reach the goal designed by God) have they " swallowed " {i.e. taken away the eyes and feet of the people), so that they cannot find it and walk in it. Nagelsbach renders this passage differently, — " they drag down thy path of life into destruction ; " but the solemn nature of the expression rather points to the conclusion that " way " means law, or the path of duty (Theodoret, Jerome, Luther). Whatever is swallowed is invisible ; it has disappeared without leaving a trace behind. " To swallow," in the sense of deglutire, is expressed by the Qal, as in xxviii. 4 ; the Piiil V?? signifies absorption, in the sense of annihilation. The way of salva- tion shown in the law is no more to be seen or heard ; it has perished, as it were, in the preaching of the false prophets with their misleading doctrines. Such is the state of matters. The exhortations of the prophet have no great range or breadth of view, for he must ever recur to the announcement of judgment. The judgment of the world comes anew before his mind in ver. 13 : "Jehovah is standing to plead, and has ste2Jped forward to jiidge the nations." When Jehovah, wearied of exercising patience, arises from His heavenly throne, this is called D^ip, as in ii. 19, 21, xxxiii. 10 ; when He sits down on the judgment-seat before the eyes of all the world, this is called "^V^, as in Ps. ix. 5 ; Jonah iv. 12; when He descends from heaven (Micah i. 2 ff.) and comes forward as accuser, this is called 35:3 or "ipv, Ps. Ixxxii. 1, — the latter word signifies to go forward and stand, in contrast with sitting ; while the former means to stand, with the additional idea of being firm, fixed in purpose, ready. But Jehovah's pleading (^n^ Jer. XXV. 31) is likewise judging (p'n), because His accusation, which cannot possibly be denied as false, is at the same time the sentence of condemnation : and this sentence, which ClTArTER III. 14, 15. 125 irresistibly operates, is at tlio same time also the execution of the piinisliment. Thus God stands — Accuser and Judge and Executioner in one Person — in the midst of the nations (Ps. vii. 8). But among the nations it is Israel specially, and among the Israelites it is particularly the leaders of the poor misguided and neglected people against whom He stands, as shown in vers. 14, 15: "Jehovah icill enter into jxuhjmcnt xcith the ciders of His people and their princes, — and you, ye have eaten iip the vineyard ; the plunder of the sufferer is in your Jiouses. What do you want, that you crush my people, and grind the face of those in suffering ? Declaration of the Lord Jehovah of hosts." With the first part of ver. 14 cf. Ps. cxliii. 2. The address of God begins with Drisi ; the clause to which this "and ye" (or "but ye") forms the contrast is wanting, just as in Ps. ii. 6, where the address of God begins with V^5, " and I " :^ " but I." The suppressed clause, however, is easily supplied in some such way as this : " I set you over my vineyard, but ye have eaten up the vineyard." The question has been asked whether it is God Himself who silently passes over this clause, or the prophet ; but certainly it is Jehovah Himself. The majesty with which He comes before the rulers of His people of itself practically and undeniably declares, even without express statement in words, that their majesty is but a shadow of His, and that their office is held from Him and under Him. But their office is owing to God's having committed His people to their care ; the vineyard of Jehovah is His people, — a figure which the prophet, in chap, v., forms into a parable. Jehovah appointed them to be keepers and pre- serves of this vineyard, but they have themselves become tlio cattle C^'i'S) which they were to drive off; the verb ^V? is used in speaking of the cattle that utterly devour the stalks of what grows in a iield, or the tender vines in a vineyard (Ex. XX ii. 4). The jjroperty of which their uidiappy fellow- countrymen have been robbed is in their houses, and attests the plundering that has been carried on in the vine- yard. '?Vi7 forms an explanation of D'^aC ; for a lowly and distressful condition is the usual lot of the community which God calls His vineyard ; it is an oppressed Church, but woo to the oppressors ! In the question D3j"? there is implied the 126 ISAIAH. want of understanding and the bold insolence of the begin- ning they have made : <^^ is here, after the manner of a prefix, fused into one word with Dp?, as in Ex. iv. 1 ; Ezek. viii. 6 ; Mai. i. 13. The Qeri, by resolving the Kethib, helps us to understand the meaning. D3?0 should properly be followed by ""S (quid est vohis quod atteritis populmn meum, as in xxii. 1, 16), but the discourse hurries on (as in Jonah i, 6) because it is an outburst of wrath. Hence also the expres- sions setting forth the conduct of the rulers of the people are the strongest possible. 5<3"^ occurs also in Prov. xxii. 22, but \^3 jno is a strong metaphor of which no other example is found. The former signifies to beat (or pound), while the latter (the extreme opposite of \^S n^n) means to grind small (to powder), as the millstone grinds the grain. They beat the face of those who are already bowed down, repelling them with such merciless harshness that they stand as if they were annihilated, and their face becomes pale and white, from oppression and despair, — or even (without any reference to the loss of colour) so that their joyful appearance is ex- changed for the features and gait of men in despair. Thus far, language still affords figurative expressions fitted in some measure for describing the conduct of the rulers of Israel, but it lacks the power of adequately expressing the boundless im- morality of this conduct ; heuce the greatness of their wicked cruelty is set before them for consideration in the form of a question : " What is it to you ? " i.e. what kind of unutterable wickedness is this you are beginning ? Thus the prophet hears Jehovah speak, — the majestic Judge whom he here calls nixav nin; 'p^ (to be read Adona^ EloMm Zchaoth, according to the traditional vocalization). This threefold name of God, which pretty frequently occurs in Amos, and also in Jer. ii. 19, first appears in the Elohistic psalm Ixix. (ver. 7), — as this judgment-scene generally is painted with psalm- colours, and especially reminds us of Ps. Ixxxii. (Elohistic, and a psalm of Asaph). But though the prophet has this judgment - scene thus vividly and dramatically before him, yet he cannot help breaking off, even after he has but begun the description ; for another message of Jehovah comes to him. It is for the women of Jerusalem, whose sway is now, when the prophet CHAPTER III. 16, 17. 127 is delivering his burden, not one whit less influential in the capital (see ver. 12, beginning) than that of their husbands, who had forgotten their calling. Vers. 16, 17: "And Jehovah hath spoken : Because the daughters of Z ion arc haiujhty, and walk with necks stretched forth and twinkling with the eyes, walk with tripping gait, and tinkle with their foot ornaments ; therefore the Lord maketh the crown, of the head of Zion's daughters scabbed, and Jehovah will make bare their secret parts." Their pride of heart ('"^?3 is used as in Ezek. xvi. oO, of. Zeph. iii. 11) reveals itself in their outward conduct. They go with outstretclied neck, i.e. bending back the fore part of the neck, seeking to make themselves taller than they are, since they think themselves exceedingly great. Cornelius ^ Lapide here remarks : instar gruum vcl cijgnorani ; habitus hie est insolentis ac procacis. (The Qcrt here substitutes the usual form ri^it::, but Isaiah perhaps intentionally employed the more rare and rugged form ni^iLiJ, for this form actually occurs in 1 Sam. xxv. 18, as also its singular it3: for I'lO: in Job XV. 22, xli. 25.) Moreover, they go twinkling (ni'iubp, not rinipc'o, " falsifying ") the eyes (like P"'3, the accusative of closer specification), i.e. in pretended innocence casting wanton and amatory glances about tliem (LXX. vevfiara oc^OaX^oiv) : this participle comes from ■'i?"^'~"ii?P, not in the sense oi fucare (Targum, Shahbath 62&, Yoma 9b, Luther), properly "to dye reddish-yellow" (Pesikta, ed. Buber, 132a, "with red colly- rium;" Talm. pis', parall. ^na, Kcihuboih 17 a) ; but secondarily to paint the face. This derived sense is in itself not probable here, from the simple fact that the painting of the eyelids black with powdered antimony (t]13, liv. 11) was not con- sidered a piece of vanity, but regarded as an indispensable item of female adornment. The verb is rather used in the sense of nictare (LXX. Vulgate, Syriac, of. Saad. " making their eyes flash "), syn. tp"i, of. ""!^, to twist) are chains, and these, too (according to the Targum), chains for the arms, or spangles for the wrists, corresponding to the spangles for the ankles; the arm-chain or bracelet is still at the present day called siicdr (hence the denominative ,^, to present or adorn with a bracelet). ni^V"! are veils (i'rttm 'P, Aram. ' In this sense the crescent is the 6i;,Ti (trasm) with which the tribe of the Uiiwale mark tlieir herdw as their property. ^ "Amulet" and "talisman'' are both words dcrivid from the Arabic ; the former cornea from Aj-j%>>. in.'^tead of the plural Jj'k/»c>- (from J.>»i>-, to bear, carry), wliich is more u.sual in this sense,— see, however, (iildemeister (in the Zcitschrijt der deutsch. morgcnl. Gesell»haft, xxxviii. 140-142), who considers amoktum an old Latin wonl : the latter is from ♦>-.lIr, tlie Arabic form of Ti>.t(>f<.ec.. 132 ISAIAH. ''?n, J-c^i, Jii, Jr^y to be loose and flaccid, to hang down or hang over loosely) ; these were more costly and of better quality than the ordinary veil worn by maidens, which is called ^l^y^*. D*"?^3 are tiaras; the term occurs elsewhere in Scripture only in passages in which the word is applied to coverings for the heads of men (the priests, the bridegroom, and persons of rank). '^i''i'^* are the stepping-chains (from nnyy, which primarily means a step or pace ; then the little chain which makes the pace short and elegant). Ci''"!5j'p (from ""t^'P, to gird) are dress girdles, such as the bride wears on the marriage-day (cf. Jer. ii. 22 with Isa. xlix. 18); the Targum wrongly renders ^^'ippppp hair-pins (/caXa/^tSe?). t:'23 ''nzi are holders of scent (^^!j being used only here in the sense of the breath of an aroma). Luther appropriately renders the ex- pression " musk-apples," i.e. capsules filled with musk, ^''^'n? (from !^'n^, to whisper, to work magically) are amulets worn either as charms or as a protection against witchcraft, perhaps something like the later niyop (Shahhath 60a), i.e. small plates with an inscription, or small bunches of plant- roots with sanative powers. riiy3D (from V^^, to sink into, seal) are signet- rings worn on the finger, corresponding to the □nin worn by men on a string hanging down over the breast, fjsn ^pT3 are the nose-rings in common use from patriarchal times (Gen. xxiv. 22) till the present, generally put through the right nostril, and hanging down over the mouth ; they are different from nn (a word occurring seven times), which is the ring put through the nose of animals, though this term is also found along with DIJ in Ex. xxxv, 22 as the designation of an ornament.-^ ^^^t^P are garments such as a person of rank brings out and presents to another, — gala-dresses, robes of honour (from pn ^L>., to draw out ; as a denominative verb it signifies to put on a gala - dress) ; the Arab, is .uiri- (usually pronounced y way of distinction ; see the essay on " Ohrgehange (D''DH) als gotzendienerisches Gcriith," in Geiger's Zeitschrift, x. (1872) pp. 45-48. CHAriEii III. 18-23. ir.3 '"'t^^^ i* ^^'6 second tunic or frock, whidi was worn over tlit^ ordinary one, — the Roman stohi. nin aprp (fruni npo, to spn-ad out) are wrappers or broad wrapping - cloths,' like tlie one; which liuth wore when she crept close to Boaz in her best attire (liuth iii. 15). Q'P'in (here written D'^'inn with the article, according to the Masora) are pockets into which people put money (2 Kings v. 23), which at other times is carried in the girdle or in a purse (D^?). Q'^v? (according to LXX. Bia*, *"!, Job xxxvii, 11 ; along with "'"i, Simsou ha-Nakdan also compares ""^ in Ezek. xxvii. 32. The inverted arrangement of the words in the last of the five clauses is very effective. In the fivefold exchange, shame and sadness take the place of the haughty rejoicing of luxury. The prophet now, by a sudden transition, directly addresses the people of Jerusalem ; for the " daughters of Zion " are the daughter Zion in her present degenerate state. The daughter Zion loses her sons ; the daughters of Zion thereby lose their husbands. Ver. 25 : " Thy men will fall ly the sword, and thy heroism in the war." The plural n'*np (the singular of which — in Ethiopic, met, " man " in the sense of husband, the Latin maritus — is still found only in the form inp, with the union-vowel 4, as a constituent part of proper names) is a prose-w^ord in the Pentateuch, especially Deuteronomy ; else- where it is a poetic archaism. ^;np is changed for ^nn^33, " thy heroic power," an abstract expression meaning the inhabitants of the city, in the same way as o^obur and rohora are also used in Latin (probably in like manner Jer. xlix. 35). What the prophet here predicts for the daughter Zion he sees in ver. 26 as fulfilled on her : " Then will her gates lament and mourn ; and sJie is made desolate, sits doivn on the earth." The gates where the husbands of the daughter of Zion, now fallen in the war, used at one time to assemble in such numbers, have been deserted, and in this condition one as it were hears them complain and sees them mourn (xiv. 31 ; Jer. xiv. 2 ; Lam. i. 4) ; and tlie daughter Zion herself is quite vacated, thoroughly emptied, utterly stripped of her former population. In this state of saddest widowhood, or bereavement of her children, brought down from her former exalted position (xlvii. 8) and princely adornment (Jer. xiil 18), she sits on the ground in the manner shown on Eoman commemorative medals, struck after the destruction of Jerusalem, which represented Judea as a woman utterly crushed and in despair, sitting under a palm-tree before a warrior standing erect, while there is inscribed at the side, Judaea capia (or devicta). The LXX. translates in accord- ance with the general sense, teal KaTaXei^drjay ixovt] kuI et? CITAITEU IV. 1. ].".7 TJjv y?}v e8a(f)ia9/jaT} (ef. Luke xix. 14), — only S"'.'! is not tin; second, but the tliiid person, as also nnip: is third person perfect Niphal (for ^^i^^), a pausal form, such as is often found also with smaller distinctive accents than Silluk and Athnach (here in connection with Tifcha, as also in v. 0, xxii. 14 ; 1 Kings V. 31; Amos iii. 8). The clause at'^i ps^ follows without any connecting particle, as is pretty frequently the case when one of the two verbs stands in relation to the other as a closer specification which would otherwise be expressed adverbially, as for instance in 1 Chron. xiii. 2, and with inverted arrangement of the words, Jer. iv. 5 ; cf. xii. G : in her depopulated and therefore isolated condition, or her deprivation also of even the most necessary articles of house- hold furniture (cf. xlvii. 1, 5, and the Talmudic VD3:d 'p3, " robbed of his property "), Zion sits on the earth. When war shall have thus unsparingly swept away the men of Zion, then will arise an unnatural state of things: women will not be sought by men, but men by women. Chap. iv. 1 : " And seven women shall lay hold of one man on that day, saying, Our own bread ivill we eat, and in our own garments will we clothe ourselves; only let thy name he named upon us, take aicay our reproach." Tlie division of the chapters is wrong, fur this verse is the closing one of the prophecy against the women, and the concluding portion of the whole discourse only begins with iv. 2. The present pride of the daughters of Zion, every one of whom deems herself the greatest, as the wife of so-and-so, and whom many men now woo, comes to an end with the self-humiliating fact that seven of them offer themselves to one man, — any one, — and that, too, with a renunciation of the claim, legally resting on the husband, for food and clothing (Ex. xxi. 10). It is enougii for them to be allowed to bear his name (^V is employed, as in Ixiii. 19 : the name is put upon what is named, because giving it its defmiteness and its character) ; he is to take away their reproach merely by letting them be called his wives (viz. the reproach of being unmarried, liv. 4, as in Gen. XXX. 23 the reproach was that of being childless). Grotius appropriately compares Lucan (Pharsalia, ii. 342): Da tantum nomen inane connuhii, Herat tumulo scripsissc Oatonvi Mnrcia. The number seven (seven women to one man) is explained by 138 ISAIAH. the fact that there is an evil seven as well as a sacred seven (for example, Matt. xii. 45). With iv. 1 endl^ the threatenings addressed to the women of Jerusalem. It is the side - piece which accompanies the threatenings against the rulers of the nation. Both scenes of judgment are but parts of the picture showing the doom about to fall on Jerusalem and Judah as a State or commonwealth. And even this again is but a part, namely, the central group in the picture of a much more comprehensive judgment about to fall on everything lofty and exalted on the earth. Jeru- salem is thus the centre and focus of the great judgment-day for the world. In Jerusalem there is concentrated the un- godly glory now ripe for judgment ; here, too, will concentrate the light of the true glory in the latter days. To this pro- mise, with which the discourse returns to its starting-point, the prophet now passes directly. But indeed no transition- stage is needed ; for the judgment in itself is the medium of salvation. Jerusalem is sifted by being judged ; and by being sifted it is delivered, pardoned, glorified. In this sense the prophet proceeds, with the words " on that day," to describe the one great day of God at the end of time (not a day of twenty-four hours any more than the seven days of creation) in its leading features, as beginning with judgment but bringing deliverance. Ver. 2 : " On that day will the sprout of Jehovah become an ornament and glory, and the fruit of the earth pride and splendour for the saved ones of Israel." The four terms signifying glory, here combined in pairs, confirm us in the expectation that after the mass of Israel have been swept away together with the objects of their worthless pride, mention will be made of what will become an object of well- grounded pride for the " escaped of Israel " {i.e. those who have escaped destruction, the remnant that has survived the judgment). According to this interpretation of what is pro- mised, it is impossible that it can be the Church of the future itself that is called " the sprout of Jehovah " and " the fruit of the earth " (the opinion of Luzzatto, Malbim, and Eeuss) ; moreover, considering the contrast drawn between what is promised and what is set aside, it is improbable that nin^ npv and r?.?n 'I? (not " fruit of the ground," '^^1,'^^ 'IS) mean the blessing of harvest bestowed by Jehovah, the rich produce of CIIAriKK IV. '.». lliO tlie land. Fur tliough " tlio sprout of Jeliovali " may possibly signify this (Gen. xix. 25 ; Ps. civ. 14), and though IVrlility of the land is a permanent feature in the pronnse regarding the latter days (as seen in xxx. 23 IT. ; Zeeh. ix. IG f. ; cf. tlie close of Joel and Amos, also the end of IIos. ii.), while it is also said that the fruitful fields of Israel will become famous in the eyes of the nations (Eztk. x.xxiv. 29; Mai. iii. 12 ; cf. Joel ii. 17), yet this earthly, material good, of which, more- over, there was no lack during the times of Uzziah and Jotham, was wholly nnsuited for forming a contrast that would quite outshine the worldly glory hitherto prevailing. Even after granting what Hofniann says, " that the blessing which conies from the fields, as the natural gift of God, may form a con- trast with the studied works of art and articles imported from abroad of which men had hitherto been proud," yet what llosenmiiller had previously remarked remains true, "that the grandeur of the whole discourse is opposed to this inter- pretation." Let any one but compare xxviii. 5, where Jehovah Himself is in like manner called the glory and ornament of the remnant of Israel. But if ^)^\ n^pv is neither the delivered remnant itself, nor the fruit of the field which Jehovah causes to sprout, it will be the name of the Messiah : such is the view given in the Targum, and such also is the opinion, among modern commentators, of Rosenmliller, Heng- stenberg, Steudcl, Umbreit, Caspari, Drechsler, Strachey, and (le Lagarde.^ The great King coming in the future is called npy (dvuToXj] in the sense of Heb. vii. 14), as a Sprout arising from soil which is at once earthly, human, and Davidic, — a Sprout that Jehovah has planted in the earth, and causes to burst through and sprout up as the pride of His congregation, which was waiting for this heavenly Child. In the parallel member of the verse, this Child is likewise called )'^^5^ '19, as the fruit which the land will bring forth, — just as Zedekiah is called H^n V}1 in Ezek. xvii. 5, because the same reasons ' In his Semitica (i. 178) on this pa-ssage, this writer exi)kin8 mn* HDV a.« Kvrouirui (fviv and dvudtv tiouBnu.iyo», po that, taken in conjunction with Jcr. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15, it points toadcscendant of the house of David whom Jehovah causes to he born in a time of darkness and distress, in contrast with the natural descendant that had hocome utterly uselesa and worthless. 1-40 ISAIA.H. for which nin* np)f cannot mean the blessing of the fields apply with like force to pxn na^ instead of which there would be used the expression >^^1^'^ "•"If), if the produce of agriculture were intended, — for whenever the former expres- sion occurs instead of the latter, there is always a probable reason for the choice, as in Num. xiii. 20, 26 ; Deut. i. 25 ; cf. Lev, XXV. 18 f. Here, however, it was necessary to say " the fruit of the ground " in order to make clear the mean- ing of the expression " the sprout of Jehovah," for it is self-evident that ■"'P'^^ means the land of Israel. In this way therefore will the Messiah be the " fruit of the earth " as the noblest fruit of the land in the future, — fruit in which all growth and bloom in the history of Israel reaches the end that has been promised and appointed of God. Without importing New Testament ideas into the passage, we may nevertheless account for this double designation of the Coming One merely on the ground of the endeavour to describe the twofold aspect of His origin : on the one side, He comes from Jehovah, and yet on the other side He is also of earthly origin, by His going forth from Israel. We have here the passage on the basis of which nnv has come to be adopted in Jeremiah (xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15) and Zechariah (iii. 8, vi. 12) as a proper name of the Messiah. There is much that com- mends itself, however, in Bredenkamp's interpretation : " The prophet here depicts the circle of light forming part of the future glory, but not its centre. The Sprout of Jehovah — an expression which points to the silent and mysterious power of creative grace — and the fruit of blessing with which the land is clothed, is the same as is called in Hos. iii. 5, ' the goodness of Jehovah,' the good things of the last days, which, as the gift of God, will present themselves on the ruins of the glory that has passed away." Nagelsbach also understands what is promised in the sense of the declaration in Ixi. 11. Connecting itself with the expression b^l^] n;?\bQ in ver. 2, ver. 3 goes on to describe the Church of the future : " And it shall come to pass, whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem, — holy will he he called, every one who is written down for life in JeriLsalem." The keynote of the whole verse is given by the word " holy." Whereas formerly, in Jerusalem, persons were distinguished according to their riiArxKR IV. 3. 141 rank and tlieir fortune, without rejijarcl to tlicir nior.il worth (iii. 1-3, 10 f. ; cf. xxxii. 5), " holy " will tlu-n be the one chief name of honour befitting every individual, inasniucli as the national vocation of Israel (Kx. xix. G, etc.) would now be realized in every one. Hence the expression " he shall be called " is not, of course, equivalent to " he shall be," but it presupposes this, as in i. 26, Ixi. 6, Ixii. 4. "Holy" (C'ni5) means what is separated from the world and superior to it ; the congregation of the saints, or holy ones, who now inhabit Jerusalem, are what remain after a smelting ; their holiness is the consequence of a washing. The term iNy'lin is interchanged with "inian : the former word contains the idea of intention as a part of its meaning, and thus signiiies what has been purposely left behind ; the latter points more to the simple fact, and signifies what remains over or is left. The latter part of ver. 3 declares the character and the numbers of those w^ho will constitute this " remnant of grace." This apposition - clause means something more than those who are entered as living in Jerusalem ; for ? 3^3 signiiies not merely " to inscribe as " something, but (like 2nD with the accusative, Jer. xxii. 30) "to inscribe as destined for" something. Whether we translate ^''^np " for life " (as in Dan. xii. 2), or — a less probable meaning, however, as tlie foim is not D'^np — "for living ones" (cf. Ps. Ixix. 20; 1 Sam. XXV. 29), there is always contained in the expression p nvian the idea of predestination, the presupposition of a divine " Book of life " (Ex. xxxiL 32 f. ; Dan. xii. 1 ; cf. Ps. cxxxix. 16 ; Eev. xx. 12, etc.), and thus a meaning like that which is contained in the words of Acts xiii. 48, oaoc yaai> TeTayfxevoi, et7 ; cf. Ezek. xxx. 16), is purposely left without a corresponding np^?, " by night," because what is meant is a place of safety and concealment at all times, whether by night or by day. Instead of speci- ^ This word is shown Ly the f^ouiul of its initial letter (h not /() to be different from the Arab. ^,.v^ , from which comes ^^^\ *Ui the water that is preserved under or by means of a covering of sand, or by means of the rock below, from evaporatin-,' or oozin<; away. In a biof,'rai>liy of Mohanmied (MSS. iu the Royal Library at Berlin, Sect, jyetzst. ii. Nr. 311), it is said in the section on the battle at Muta : '• ^,*m-^j' (hisd or hasd) is a sandy spot under which there is a rocky bottom ; if rain falls upon this sand, the water dries up, but the rock prevents it from running VOL. I. K 14'6 ISAIAH. fying the most manifold dangers, tlie burning heat of the sun, storm, and rain are mentioned as examples ; but it is a striking fact that the rain, which certainly is a benefit earnestly desired by one in a state of ^')p, i.e. drought and burning heat, is also mentioned. At the present day, when rain falls in Jerusalem, the whole city leaps for joy. But the effects of rain, especially of the winter rain which suddenly pours down, are certainly very often destructive. The Jeru- salem of the latter days is like Paradise restored (Gen, ii. 5 f.) ; one will not then be any longer exposed to the destructive changes of the weather. In this way the end of this pro- phetic address runs into the beginning. This Mount Zion, roofed over with a cloud of smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night, is no other than the mountain of the house of Jehovah, which is exalted above all mountains, and to which the nations make their pilgrimage ; and this Jeru- salem, which is holy within and all-glorious without, is no other than the place from which one day the word of Jehovah will go out into all the world. But what kind of Jerusalem is that ? Is it the Jerusalem which is to see the glorious days of the people of God in this present life (Eev. xii.), or is it the Jerusalem of the new heavens and the new earth (Eev. XX.) ? The proper answer is. Both in one. In the vision of the prophet, the Jerusalem of the latter days on earth and Jerusalem of the life beyond — the glorified Jerusalem of earth and the glorified Jerusalem of heaven — are fused to- gether as one. For it is a characteristic of the Old Testa- ment that it views the closing period of the present life and the eternity that lies beyond as forming one continuous line, and looks upon the whole as if its character were that of earth. The first cross-line was drawn by the New Testament. away, and the sand keeps the heat of the sun from drying it up ; if any one therefore digs under this sand, he finds water." According to this, it might appear that nori originally means to "hide one's self." But the proper signification of the old Arabic ^a«.:s^_ ls"^^ ^^ ^° draw out (water), to exhaust, empty, and, metaphorically, to find out something secret, to draw secret thoughts out of any one by questions, etc. The water of a mo>. is gradually taken out from under the sand, hence the name. ciiaptku v. 1. 147 The Judgment of Devastation upon Jehovah's Vineyard, Chap. V. Concluding Discourse of t/ic First Cycle of Prophecy. The foregoing discourse, at the close of chap, iv., has run througli all the phases of jn'ophetic address; and it has so completely worked out its fundamental thought, — the over- throw of the false glory and the establishment of the true glory of Israel, which is realized through judgment, — that chap. V. cannot be regarded either as a continuation or as a completion of it. Unquestionably chap. v. contains various allusions to chap, ii.— iv. The parable of the Vineyard in chap. v. 1—7 grows as it were out of chap. iii. 14; and in chap. V. 15 the recurrent verse or refrain of chap. ii. 9 is repeated, but varied in a similar manner as in chap. ii. 17. Yet these and other points of contact with chap, ii.-iv. do not prove that chap. v. was not independent, but only that the two were written about the same time. The contem- porary circumstances or situation of the two discourses is the same ; and the range of the prophet's thought from its relation to his surroundings at the time, is therefore closely related. Nevertheless the fundamental thought which is carried out in chap. v. is an entirely difiierent one. Tlie basis of the discourse is constituted by a y)arable of Israel as the Vineyard of Jehovah, which, contrary to all expectation, was bringing forth bad fruit, and therefore was given up to devastation. What sort of bad fruit this was, is described in a sixfold woe ; and what kind of devastation it was to be, is told in the gloomy night-like close of the dis- course, which is wholly without a promise. The prophet began the first discourse in chap. i. like another Moses, and the second not less intensely with the text of an older prophecy ; and now he begins this third discourse like a jilayer who has a crowd of people around him, and who with alluring words addresses and rouses up him.self and his hearers. Ver. la: "Come, I %vill sing of my beloved, a song of my dearest about his vineyard!" The winged rhythm, the nmsical euphony, and the graceful assonances of this invocation are inimitable and cannot bo reproduced in a translation. The h of 'TT/ ^ind i-"'.?? 148 ISAUH. indicates the reference : the song refers to his Beloved ; it is a song of his dearest one himself about his vineyard (not of his cousin, patruelis, as Luther, following Jerome, translates it, for nn signifies ixdruus, imcle, but here the meaning is deter- mined by I'lJ aya7n]r6*n ; and in like manner in chap. x. 15 we have is 3vnn and «inD3 for ^n23, chap. xi. 14; cf. Comm. on Ps. cxxxii. 10. This was a difficult piece of work, as the C3l gives us to understand ; it was difficult, and for that reason gave evidence of surest expecta- tion. But how utterly was this deceived ! The vineyard brought forth no such fruit as is expected from a sorek- planting ; it brought forth no C'32j; at all, i.e. no berries or clusters such as a cultivated vine bears, but it brought D'V*^3, wildings. Luther at first translated this word as wild grapes, and latterly as harsh or sour grapes ; but they come to the same thing. The wild and the noble vine are only qualita- tively different ; the titis vinifcra is, like all cultivated plants, assigned to human nurture, under which it becomes ennobled, whereas growing in its wild state it falls short of its destina- tion. Hence Q'V''"^? designates the small sour berries of tlie wild vine (Pashi : lavihruehcs, i.e. berries of the luhrusca), as well as those berries of the noble vine which have remained unripe and stunted (but which are not like "^cla, which are only not yet ripe).* Such berries as these were brought forth 1 In the .Jciusalem Talmud such stunted berries are called r?'^^^ ! and in the ilishna {Ma'aseroth i. 2, SheblUh iv. 8), t^S3n is the word used rc'j^ilarly of grapes that have become lialf-ripe. 150 ISA.IAH. by that vineyard ; they were such as are produced by the wild vine, but not such as are to be expected from the most carefully cultivated vines of the noblest sort. The Song of the Beloved One, so sorely deceived, thus ends. The prophet recites it, and not his dearest one himself ; but because the two are one heart and one soul the prophet can continue thus in vers. 3 and 4 : " And now, yc inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I fray you, between me and my Vineyard I What was there further to do for my Vineyard which I did not do for it ? Why hoped I for the bringing of grapes, and it brought wildings ? " The person of the Beloved may already be discerned, from the fact that the prophet speaks as if he were the beloved himself. The Beloved of the prophet and Lover of the prophet, 'T'lJ and nn, is Jehovah, with whom he is so united through a unio mystica, elevated above earthly love, that, like the Angel of Jehovah in the primeval histories, he can speak as if he were Jehovah Himself (see especially Zech. ii. 12-15). To one who has insight, the parabolical meaning and purpose of the song, therefore, betrays itself already here ; and even the inhabit- ants of Jerusalem and men of Judah (y^'V and tJ^'S, taken collectively, as in chap, viil 14, ix. 8, xxii. 21, cf. xx. 6), who are appealed to as adjudicators or umpires, are not so utterly stupefied by sin that they should not perceive at what the prophet was aiming. They are called upon to decide on which side the guilt of this unnatural issue lies, of this r\\m_ of the Vineyard, so contradictory to the riib'i? of the Lord : that instead of the bringing of grapes, which was hoped for, it has brought wildings. On riib'j;?"np, quid faciendum est ? see Comm. on Hab. i. 17 ; Ges. § 132. 1. Instead of {^i^) no^, we have the more appropriate V'^'^'9 ; for the latter asks for the causa efficiens, or the cause, whereas the former asks for the causa finalis, or the purpose. The parallel passage in chap. 1. 2 resembles this passage, both in the use of the yno, and also in the fact that there, as well as here, it relates to both clauses, and especially to the latter of the two. This paratactical construction is also found in the case of other con- junctions, as in chap.xii. 1, Ixv. 12. They are called upon to decide and answer as to this what and wherefore ; but they are silent, just because they clearly see that they would have to CIIATTKR V. 5, 6. 151 condemn tliemselves (as TXivid similarly contlemned liimsilf on the occasion of Nathan's parable, 2 Sam. xii. 5). Tho Lord of the vineyard, therefore, a^ain proceeds to speak. He, its acenser, will now also be its jud^e. — Ver. 5 : " JVoic then, I will Id you hww ichat I will forthwith do to mtj rincyard : take away its hcdye, and it shall be for grazing ; pull dotcti its wall, and it shall he for trampling npon." Before "J|1V\ as in chnp. iii. 14, we must imagine a pause ; the Lord of the vineyard breaks the silence of the umpires, which betrays their con- sciousness of guilt. They shall hear, then, from Him what He is going to do to His vineyard (^ in *P"i3p, as, for example, in Deut. xi. 6), n^'j? '3S, fut. instans, equivalent to faclurus sum (Ges. § 134. 2 l). In the following inf. ahs. the content of the ■>?."*? nx, id quod, is unfolded. On this explicative use of the inf. abs., see chap. xx. 2, IviiL G, 7 ; in such cases it represents the place of the object, as elsewhere of the subject, luit always in an abrupt, stiff manner. He will take away the ns^bTp, i.e. the green thorny hedge (Prov. xv, 19 ; Hos. ii, 8 = J^^iop, Micah vii. 4 fr. ^3i^'=!;v:', "Fi^D, :iD, to hedge round), with which the vineyard is enclosed, and will pull down the ■>7a, i.e. the low stone wall (Num. xxii. 24; Prov. xxiv. 31 ; cf. Ezra ix. 9 ending, according to Cheyne, in allusion to Isaiah's parable), which had been surrounded by the hedge of thorn - bushes to make a better defence, as well as for the protection of the wall itself, more especially against undermining, so that the vineyard, in consequence of this, is exposed to grazing and trampling down (LXX. KarairaTq^a), i.e. becomes an open way and resort for men and beasts. Thus the unthankful vineyard comes to an end, and indeed to a hopeless end. Ver. 6: "And I will utterly ruin it : it shall not be pruned, and it shall not be hoed, and it shall shoot up in thorns and thistles ; and I will command the elouds not to rain rain over it." nn3=nn3 fr. n^3=nn3 (c:^*, iikin to in2, yo), abseindcre, signifies the sharply cutting off, and, as the action is viewed as a quality : what is sharply cut off, absci.ssum 'prccruptum, vii. 19, or it is also transferred to the result of the action : tlie sudden total destruction.' This is the » Tn the AraMc, ut because Isaiah is prophet in Judah, he applies the figure more ])arti- cularly to Judah, which is called Jehovah's favourite ])lanta- tion, inasmuch as it was the seat of the divine sanctuary and of the David ic kingdom. i'Pp conit. along with V^}, like V~) in Num. xi. 7, E\v. § 213a, and d^y'^JIw', an abstract plural furm : the delighting, from the Pilpel, occurring in chap. xi. 8, in the sense of delightful playing, literally, stroking or cares.-ing ; Luther has sci7ic zartc Feser, a term applied to the vine-i-hoot which is planted. This makes it easy enough to interpret the details of the simile. The fat mountain-peak is Canaan, flowing with milk and honey (Ex. xv. 17); the digging up of the vineyard, and clearing it of stones, is the clearing of Canaan from its former heathen inhabitants (Ps. xliv. 3) ; the sorek-vines are the holy priests and prophets and kings of Israel of the better early times (Jer. ii. 21) ; tlie protecting and ornamental tower in the midst of the vineyard is Jeru- salem as the royal city, with Zion the royal fortress (Micah iv. 8) ; the winepress-trough is the temple, where, according to Ps. xxxvi. 9 (8), the wine of heavenly joy flows in streams, and by which, according to Ps. xlii. and many other pass- ages, all the thirst of the soul is quenched. The grazing and trampling down are explained in Jer, v. 10 and xii. 10. The bitter deception experienced by Jehovah, is expressed in a play upon two words, indicating the surprising change of what was hoped for, into its opposite. The explanation which Gesenius, Caspari, Knobel, and others give of ^^'p?, as " shedding " = bloodshedding, does not commend itself ; for even if HDD occurs once or twice in the Arabizing book of Job (chap. XXX. 7, xiv. 19) in the sense of eljundcre, like .^i-;. yet this verbal root is otherwise strange to the Hebrew (and the Aramaean). Moreover, n2L"D in any case would only mean pouring out, or shedding, and not shedding of blood ; and although the latter might indeed be possible in reference to the Arabic saffdh, saffdk (blood-shedder, blood-man), yet it would be an ellipsis such as cannot be substantiated anywhere 154 ISAIAH. else in Hebrew usage. On the other hand, nnb'O, rendered " leprosy," does not yield any appropriate sense, as (nnsp) nnsDp is never generalized anywhere else into the general meaning of " dirt " (Luzzatto : sozzura), nor does it appear as an ethical conception. We therefore prefer to connect it with a meaning assuredly belonging to the verb nsD (see Kal, 1 Sam. ii. 36; Niplml, xiv, 1 ; Hithpael, 1 Sam. xxvi. 19), viz. " to associate or to join," of violent annexation, or from the root-conception of " snatching," and specifically " carrying forcibly away," etc. ; of. ^P), 1?5^, fj^D, nsp. Hence we regard the word as denoting the grasping appropriation and unjust heaping up of worldly possessions ; certainly a suitable anti- thesis to t3S::'», as '"ij^yy vox oppressorum (not sanguinis, which would be said) to ni?ny. The prophet depicts, in full-toned figures, how the expected noble grapes had turned into wild grapes, with nothing more than an outward resemblance to grapes. The introduction to the prophecy goes thus far. The prophecy itself follows next, a sevenfold discourse composed of the sixfold woe contained in the following vers. 8-23, and the announcement of punishment in which it issues. In this sixfold woe the prophet describes the bad fruits individually. Confirming our explanation of nsiipp, the first woe relates to TrXeove^la, covetousness and avarice, as the root of all evil. — Ver. 8 : " Woe unto those joining Iwusc to house, who lay field to field, till there is no more room, and ye are made to dwell alone within tlie land." yjj, as also 3"ip, is construed with 3 in Judg. xix. 13 and Ps. xci. 10. The participle, because equivalent to a relative clause, is continued in the finite verb, as in ver. 23 and x. 1 ; the regular syntactical construction in cases of this kind (Ges. § 134. 2). The preterites after "ly (there being two such preterites, for DS5< is an intensified p^ including the verbal idea) correspond to future perfects : they, the insatiable, rest not till, after all the smaller landed properties have been swallowed up by them, the whole land has become their possession, and no one besides themselves will be settled in the land (Job xxii. 8). Such covetousness was all the more condemnable, as the law of Israel had provided very stringently and carefully, that as far as possible there should be a proper proportional distribution of the ground and soil (Num. xxxiii. 54), and that hereditary ciiArrKi: v. o, la 155 fiunily property should be inalieiuiblo. The curse in Deut. xxvii. 17 was directed nj^'ainst the displacing of a boundary (in the language of the lionian law, Criimn termini vwti). All landed property that had been alienated reverted to the family every fiftieth year, or year of jubilee ; so that aliena- tion had reference only to the usufruct of the land till that time. But how badly the law of the jubilee year was observed, may be inferred from Jer. xxxiv., according to which the law of the manumission of Hebrew boiulsmen in the Sabbatical year had fallen entirely into neglect. The same complaint which Isaiah makes is brought forward by his con- temporary Micah, in chap. ii. 2 (cf. Ts. xlix. 12 ; Job xxii. 8). The announcement of punishment is also there expressed in terms similar to what we have here in vers. 9 and 10: " Into my cars Jehovah of hosts : Truly many houses shall become a desolation, lanje and heautifnl ones icithout any in- habitants. For ten yokes of vineyard land unll yield one ■pailful, and a quarter of seed corn u'ill bring forth a bushel." How the prophet thinks of the nominal clause, Into my ears (or literally in my ears) is Jehovah - Zebaoth, is made clear from chap. xxii. 14 : He is revealing Himself there to me. "'JT5^3, pointed with Kamez along with Tifcha, as in that parallel passage, reminds us of what is to be interpolated in thought. In Hebrew, to say into the ears did not mean to speak secretly and softly; but, as Gen. xxiii. 10, Hi, Job xxxiii. 8, and other passages show, it means to speak in a manner that is distinct and intelligible, and which excludes all misunderstanding. It is true that the prophet has not Jehovah now locally external to him, but he has Him notwithstanding objectively over against his own ego, and ho is able to distinguish distinctly the thoughts and words of his own ego from the inspeaking of Jehovah which rises aloud within him. This inspoken word tells him how it will go with the rich insatiable landowners. NP'CK introduces an oath of an affirmative sense (the complete form being 'P^< "^ X^"DS), just as DS, e.ff. Num. xiv. 23, introduces an oath of a negative sense. A universal desolation will ensue ; D'3"} signifies not less than all, for the houses (pronounced bdttim) form altogether a great nund)er (cf. D'?"}, chap. ii. 3, and -jToXKoi, e.fj. Matt. xx. 28). r?

* (with Dag. lene, Evvald, § 2126) of vineyard land are ten pieces as large as can be ploughed daily with a yoke of oxen, as is shown by the analogous !j^j ( \j,i), Pr^- H?, which signifies the plough-span with belongings, and then the field, and particularly (in accordance with the Turkish Kanius) a culti- vated field of the extent of 400 roods. On the assumption that vineyards, on account of their many curves, are difficult to calculate by yokes, and that they were never ploughed, Noskowyj (in his treatise, De vciUe Hadhramaut, 1866) under- stands the meaning to be ten pieces of yoke-like espaliers of vines trained on cross-laths (called vina jugata in Varro). But 1 Sam. xiv. 14 decides iox jugum {jugcrwn) as a measure of land. D''»"i3 is also applied to vineyards lying in the plain, and niDV may be a measure of corn-land transferred to vine- yard land, which undoubtedly was not worked with the plough but with the hoe. Moreover, we want the inter- mediate links requisite to furnish the proof that the ancient Israelites had the same chief field-measure as the Eomans.^ Thus, then, ten days' work will only produce a single 03. This measure of liquids, which first appears in the time of the kings, was equivalent to n2"'X as a dry measure (Ezek. xlv. 11). According to Josephus (Antiq. viii. 2. 9), it con- tained 72 Eoman sextarii, or a little more than 33 Berlin quarts. The "i^n (perhaps an ass's burden,^ cf. "ii»n, 1 Sam. xvi. 20), a dry measure generally called "ib after the time of the kings, contained (according to Josephus, Antiq. xv. 9. 2) about ten Attic fMeBifjbvoc,^ a fxeBifivo'i being a little more than 15 pecks. If any one sowed 150 pecks of grain, not more would be reaped from it than 1 5 pecks : the harvest there- ^ See on the jugerum, Hultscli, Griechische und romische Metrologie, 1862, p. 68 f. 2 It has been objected to me that, according to Mezia 80a, a 'qn? is already equal to ^ "ib=nDh, the amount of a normal ass's burden. 3 Or rather 7J Attic Medimni = 10 Attic Metreti = 45 Roman Modii ; see Bockh, Mdrologische Untersucliungen, p. 259. CIlAriKU V. II, 12. Ifw fore wouM only yii'ld the tenth pnrt of the seetl sown, for the ns'X is the tenth part of -ion, or three seahs, the usual tnininium for one baking {e.ri. Matt. xiii. 33). In the trans- lation, these relations of measure could not be exactly re- produced. The second woe, to which the curse fallinrj upon the vine cultivation (ver. 10a) leads by association of ideas, is directed against the revellers who carry on their indulgence in carnal security into the day. Ver. 11:" Woe to those who rise tip in the earhy morning to run after strong drink, vho continue, till late in the evening, wine injlaming them" "^P/^ (from ipS, Inl'ai'a, to slit, tear up, split) is the break of day, and ^~'^, (Irom 1V"?i to blow, sigh) the evening twilight {Bcrachoth 'ih), when it begins to become cool (1 Sam. xxx. 17), and the night into which it passes (chaps, xxi. 4, lix. 10). inx, to continue till late, as in Prov. xxiii. 30 ; the construct state before words with a preposition, as in chaps, ix. 2, xxviii. I), and often elsewhere (Ges. § 116. 1). ">3C', standing with T.\, is the general name of all other strong drinks, csjtecially of wines made artificially from fruit, honey, raisins, dates, etc., including barley -wine, olvo^ KpldLva, or beer (eV Kpidcov jxedv in JEschylus, Suppl. 930, elsewhere called ^pvrov /SpvTov, ^11609 ^v6o3Q. beiuj; innuedi- ately joiued to 12b as a fundamental statement. MuriM)ver, nyn 'i^ao does not siijnify " unawares," but unknowingly = un- designedly, and yet more frequently " in non-understanding," Job XXXV. 16, xxxvL 12, cf. iv. 21. The knowledge which they lack, according to 12b, is knowledge of the ruling of God and of the moral order of the world, according to which calamity is the necessary consequence of wrong-doing. In the sequel, i"ii33 and ^iicn are, as the predicates show, collective terms used in a personal sense ; the former signifies the dlitc of the people (cf. Mic. i. 15), and the latter the crowd that lived in riot and revelling. The former become 3Jn 'np, men of famine ('^P, as in Gen. xxxiv. 30 ; Job xi. 11 ; otherwise 'V"f5<, 2 Sam. xix. 20, or '?,^, 1 Sam. xxvi. 16); and the latter Npy nny (sing, as the subj.), parched with tliirst. Instead of '^9, the LXX. and Jerome read 'rip (dead ones) ; but the reading adopted by Hitzig, PiOorda, Ewald, and Uottcher, 7.D (HTp), after Deut. xxxii. 24, and exactly corresponding to the parallel nnv, is more probable ; it signifies sucked out or emaciated by hunger, nny (au. X.e7.) is formed like DpK, ^\}-f, ^"H, and other adjectives which express defects ; the place of the e is represented in such forms of verbs n*^ by an a that has arisen out of ay. The debauchees of rank must starve, and the low boon companions nmst thirst to death. The threat of punishment commences again with I?? ; it has not yet satisfied itself, and therefore readies deeper still. Ver. 14 : " Tiure/orc t/ie umier-world opens wide its throat, and stretches its mouth immeasxirdbly wide ; and the pomp of Jerusalem goes down, and its tumult and uproar, and t/iose who are jubilating in it." The verbs which follow P? are prophetic preterites, as in ver. 13. Tiie feminine sutfixes attached to what the lower world swallows up, do not refer to ''^Xt', but, as expressed in the translation, to Jerusalem, which is necessarily required ity '"^3 T?jn ; Ssr has, accord- ing to the rule, Dag. forte conj. The withdrawal of the tone from t.^pin to the penultimate (cf. )*En in I's. xviii. 20, xxii. "J, Ezek. xxii. 25, whereby the Zere, which cannot be shortened into Segol, gets the checking Metheg) is here omitted ; the rhythm thereby becomes more i)icturesque : one hears the 150 ISAIAH. falling object rolling down, and at length striking upon some- thing. A mouth is ascribed to the under-world, also a ti'S?, i.e. a greedy soul, in which sense ^'SJ is applied metonyinicaliy sometimes to a thirst for blood (Ps. xxvii. 12), and sometimes to devouring greed (chap. Ivi. 11), and even, as in the present passage and Hab. ii. 5, to the throat or gullet which the soul opens "without measure" (cf. Mai. iii. 10, "'77''^?~'iV, to insuf- ficiency), when its craving knows no bounds {Psychol, p. 204). One is reminded here of Cerberus, whose original was Egyptian : the devourer in Amenthes (nether-world).^ The prophet ap- pears to connect ?ixt^' (which is feminine, like the names of countries) in thought with the verb Wf (cf. Hab. ii. 5 ; Prov. XXX. 15): th.e God-ordered accursed power which calls for and swallows up all that is upon the earth. The idea of " decision " appears to be really connected with the Assyrian ludlu? But the view always still recommends itself, which holds that the Hebrew word starts from the idea of sinking or depth ; for the fundamental meaning of the vbtJ' is ■)(a\av, not to be hollow, as it might appear after bw (hollowing, properly deepening of the hand), biyt^p (hollow way, properly a sinking of the ground), ?V'^^ {excavator = cavorum hahitator, properly deepener, one who digs himself in). The desig- nation corresponds to the notion, universal in antiquity, which assigned Hades to the depths below the upper world. As God reveals Himself in heaven among blessed spirits accord- ing to the light of His love, so does He reveal Himself in Sheol, in the darkness and fire of His wrath. And, with the exception of Enoch and Elijah in the Old Testament, with their singular departure from this life, the way of all mortals went Iiither, until Jesus Christ changed the dying of all believers on Him from a descent into Hades into an ascension to heaven. But even under the Old Testament the believer might know that whoever hid himself on this side the grave in Jehovah the living One, would retain his eternal germ of life even in Sheol in the midst of the shades, and would taste the divine love even in the midst of wrath. It was this postulate of faith which lay at the foundation of the fact, 1 See Ludw. Stern, Ueber das ag. Todtengericht, Ausland 1870, Nr. 46. 2 See Alfred Jeremias, Die habyl.-assyr. Vorstellungen vom Leben iiach dem Todc, 1887, p. 62. ClIArTKR V. i:,, Kv. IC.l that already under tlic OM Tt'staincnt tlie all-oniiiiiicliciKliii^ raiii^e of tlio idea of Sixi" begins to be contracted into the narrower notion of a liiidx) or fore-hell (see Psijc/iol. p. 415). This is the case in the passage before us, where Isuiah predicts of everything of which .Ternsalcni was proud, and in which it revelled, including the jubilating i>ersons themselves, descent into Hades ; just as the Korahite author of Ps. xlix. wrote (ver. 14) that the pomp of the godless will be given up to Hades to be consumed, without having hereafter a place in the upper world, when the righteous will have dominion over them at some future time. Hades even there is almost equivalent to the I^ew Testament yeevva. The prophet now repeats a recurring thought of the second prophetic discourse (chap. ii. 9, 11, of. ver. 18). It accpiires here a much deeper sense, from the connection in which it stands. Vers. 15, 16 : " Then are mean men bowed doum, and lords humbled, and the eyes of lofty men are humbled. And Jehovah of hosts shews Himself high in judymcnt, and God the Holy One hallows Himself in riyhteousncss." What had exalted itself above earth to heaven, must go down earthwards into hell. The consecutive imperfects exhibit the future, here represented as historically present, as the direct sequel of what is also represented as present in ver. 14 : Hades opens up, and tlien both low and high in Jerusalem sink down, and the soaring eyes now wander about in a horril)le depth. It is the will of God, who is both exalted and holy in Himself, that as the exalted One He shall be exalted, and that as the Holy One He shall be sanctified, liut Jeru.salem has not done this ; and He therefore proves Himself the exalted One by the execution of justice, and sanctifies Himself (^'^p3 is to be rendered as a reflective verb, as in Ezek. xxxvi. 23, xxxviii. 23, whereas the reading cnf)3 is the expression of a resulting fact), by the manifestation of righteousness, in eon- sequence of which the people of Jerusalem must give ]Iirn the glory against their will, as KaTa-)(d6vioowcr of hell. Even VOL I. L 162 iSAiAir. in its outward reality, ancient Jerusalem, like the company of Korah (Num. xvi, 30, 33), has become subterranean. Just as Babylon and Nineveh, the ruins of which are dug out of the inexhaustible mine of their wide-stretching foundation and soil, have sunk into the earth, so do men walk about in the present Jerusalem over ancient Jerusalem, which has sunk beneath the ground ; and many an enigma of topography will remain an enigma so long as ancient Jerusalem is not scraped out of the earth again. And considering that the Holy Land is at the present time a great pasture-ground for tribes of Arab shepherds, and that the modern Jerusalem, which has been built out of rubbish, is a Mohammedan city, what ver. 17 prophesies has been literally fulfilled : " And lambs feed as upon their pasture, and nomad shepherds enjoy the waste places of the bloated ones." There is no necessity to supply an accusative object to the verb ^J?"]"! (Knobel and others), namely, the devastated lands mentioned in the second clause (^V"), to pasture, as in chap. XXX. 23), nor is ^l?"]"? that accusative (Caspar!) ; but the place is determined by the context thus : Where Jerusalem is sunken, there lambs feed in the manner of their own pasture- ground, i.e. just as if they were in their old accustomed pasture ("1?"^, as in Micah ii. 12, from nm, the Targum word for in: in Exod. iii. 1, is to drive, and Q";9"J? ^^ equivalent to Dinnap), The lambs meant are those of the Q'lJ mentioned in the second clause, which word, used so substantively as here in distinction from D^"}?, indicates strangers putting up any- where yet settled down, those roaming inconstantly about or leading a nomadic life. Were Q^")3 (cf. chap. xi. 6) referred to the lambs themselves, it would be an idle word. The LXX. translation has dpve'i, and therefore there must have been read Q'''}3 or Ci^^a (which is approved by Ewald, Knobel, Reuss, and Bredenkamp). But one of the lines in the prophecy, which is authenticated by the historical fulfilment, is thereby obliterated. D''n» ninnri are the lands of those who were formerly full of marrow (i.e. full-fed, and strutting about in fulness of enjoyment), which lands have now become wastes. With ver. 17 the second woe closes. It is the longest of the woes. This also confirms the fact that luxury was the chief vice of Judah under Uzziah and Jotham, as it was of cii.U'TKu V. la 163 Israel nnder Jeroboam II. (sec Amos vi., where tlic threat of punishment is also the same). The third woe is pronounced upon the supposed strong- minded men who challenge the judgment of God by presumptuous sins and blasphemous sayings. Ver. 18 : " Woe imto those who draw criminality with cords of un- righteousness, and sin as with the cart-rope." As "HV? is also used in Dent. xxi. 3 in the sense of drawing at the yoke, that is to say, drawing a plough or cart, and as the cart or waggon, nrJj; (the word commonly used for a transport waggon, as distinguished from "^^plP, the state-carriage or even the war chariot), is here expressly named, the figure might appear to be the same as that which underlies the New Testament hepo- ^vyelv (2 Cor. vi. 14), and to mean : Evil-doing is the burden which they draw behind them with cords of *ed to the punitive power of darkness. And although it may be sweet as regards its material enjoyment, it is nevertheless bitter, inasmuch as it produces abhorrence and disgust in the godlike nature of man, and, after a brief self-deception, is turned into the bitter woe of miserable consequences. Darkness and light, bitter and sweet, therefore, are not tautological metaphors for evil and good ; but designations of evil and good according to their essential natures, and their necessary and internal effects. The ^V^, with following K parallel to D'ipxn (with Mcrcha, not Darga), has a subjective meaning, as in Job xvii. 12. The fifth woe, ver, 21:" Woe unto those who arc irh- in their own eyes, and wlio are imulent in their own sight." The third woe had reference to the unbelieving naturalists, the opponents of prophecy, nsioj ; the fourth woe referred to the moralists, who brought ideas into confusion ; and to this woe is attached by a closely-connected thought the woe denounced upon those whom want of humility makes inaccessible for the nr:3n, which goes hand in hand with the nsi^J, — that wisdom of which the fear of Jehovah is the basis (Ps. cxi. 1 ; Prov, i. 7 ; Job xxviii. 28; Eccles. xii. 13). "Be not wise in tliine own eyes," is a fundamental rule of this wisdom (Prov. iii. 7). Upon this wisdom rests the prophetic state - policy, whose warnings, as we read in chap, xxviii. 9, 10, they rejected so contemptuously. That in this woe the prophet had specially in view the untheocratic state-expediency, is shown by the sixth woe, which is directed to the administration of right in the State. The sixth woe, vers. 22, 23 : " Woe unto those who arc hemes to drink wine, and hold men to mix strong drink, who acquit evil- doers for a bribe, and take away tJic rightconsnc^s of the righteous from everyhody." We see from ver, 23 that tlie drinkers in ver. 22 are unjust judges. The threatening of these is every- where Isaiah's ceterum censeo ; and accordingly it is also here the content of the sixth and last woe. They are heroes, yet not in avenging wrong, but in drinking wine ; they are famous men, yet not for deciding between guilt and innocence, but for mixing strong drink, that is to say, with spices (so Cbeyne, Knabenbauer, and others ; cf. vinum aromatitea, 166 ISAIAH. myrrhinnvi, ahsT/nthites, etc. in Pliny).^ The wine of tlie Jews of the present day in Jerusalem and Hebron, Guthe tells me, is always spiced, and it thereby acquires great power of heating, and passes violently into the blood, a fact which agrees with the Up'hl'' in chap. v. 11. But it always remains questionable (cf. on Song of Sol. vii. 3) whether it is not mixing with water that is meant. It was an old custom to temper or dilute wine and other spirituous liquors paK'", e.g. date wine and cider) by an addition of water, and to make them more agreeable for drinking (Maimonides' n^'Oi |'on ma^n, vii 9), which is called ^?^ (in the Mishna Jto, Ahoda zara 585), wherefore this verb also comes to mean to pour in, to fill up, chap. xix. 14 (in Mishn. Jio), e.g. Fcsachion x. 1, and else- where, and the classical Kepavvvvai and tein'perare. Accord- ingly "ijp?, "V'f'r'j or •'•1? signifies any kind of fine tasting wine which has been made palatable by spicing or diluting (Arab. chamr memzuga). In such preparation of intoxicating drinks they are praiseworthy and strong, and therefore the more accessible to bribery for acquitting the guilty and condemning the just (Deut. xxv. 1; Prov. xvii. 15); beclouding them- selves with strong drink, they become blind to riglit, and get bold for wrong, chap, xxviii. 7 f. ; Prov. xxxi. 5. 2i?y (Arab. 'uJcb, whereas 3py, a heel = 'akib) is an adverbial accusative : in compensation for, or for pay ; and 13^P (which, as one is tempted to read Dn», belongs, according to the Masora, to the misleading i^JDO) refers back distributively to Q^TIV; as, for example, in Hos. iv. 8, In the three denunciations of woes in vers. 18-21, Isaiah confined himself to the mere unexplicated ""in. On the other hand, the first two woes denounced upon the covetous and the revellers were already expanded into a detailed announcement of punishment. But now, when the prophet has reached the bad judges, the announcement of punishment breaks out so vehemently that a return to the form of the mere expression of woe is not to be thought of. To the two therefores, 1?/, in vers. 13, 14, a third is now added in ver. 24: " Therefore as fire's tongue devours stuhhle, and hay colkqjscs in flame, their root ^ The Assyrian Syllabaries enumerate several kinds of such spiced wines, such as karanu Idni = Absinth wine (karauu =S3"'"lp, Ahoda zara 30a. Cf. Noldeke in DMZ. xxxiii. 331). CIIAITER V. 24. ]f)7 V'ill hecoinc as mould, and f/irir hlossofn Jlij up as Just; fur thcfi have despised the Torah of Jehovah of hosts, and scorn- fully rejected the proclamation of tfie Holy One of Israel." The persons pvimarily intended are those described in vern. 22, 23, but with an extension of the range of view to Judah and Jerusalem, the vineyard of wliich they are the bad fruit. The sinners are compared to a plant which moulders both above and below, and therefore altogether, into dust (of, chap, xxxvii. 31; Job xviii. 16; Amos ii. 9; Mai. iii. 19; and the expression, " let there not be to him root below and fruit above," in the epitaph on the sarcophagus of the riienician king iryJDt'X, E^mun'azar). Their root nioulders in the earth, and their blossom (n"]3, the same as in chap, xviii. 5) turns to fine dust which the wind carries away. And tliis transformation of root and blossom takes place very suddenly as through the force of fire. In the expression ''bxs ^Tl}} ^'^ P"'-*? ^'i?, which consists of five short words with five sibilants (cf. Jo. ii. 5), one hears the crackling sparks, the lanibent flame. When the infinitive construct is connected with both subject and object, the subject generally stands first, as in chap. Ixiv. 1, but here it is the object, as in chap. XX. 1 (with reference to the former, compare the similar Arabic form Jcatlun Zcidun 'Amran). The infinitive con- struct passes in the second clause into the finite verb just as in the similarly constructed passage, chap. Ixiv. 1. As hbt lias the intransitive meaning collabi, either i^^^^. is ace. loci, or n^n^ C'trn is the construct state, and means flame-hay, i.e. hay destined for the flame, or going up in flames.* As the reason ^ In Arabic also, 7mi^<5 sifrnifies hay ; l»ut in common usaj^e (at least in Syriac) it is applied not to dried riu. IGO tlio corpses lie unlmrinl upon tho streets like the conniioii sweepings. The reading niirn is to he rejected, for eitlier nivn^ as tlie Complut., or n^v^n, which has tl)e Masora on Xuii). XX. 39 in its favour. It at once occurs to compare nmD3 with the Arahic kitadha, sweepings, scourings, from ^^J", to sweep, to scour (see on chap, xxxiii. 12); but Icusdlia is tlie common form for such refuse {e.cj. kuldma, nail-paring), while nn'DS must mean swept out, and tlien as there was no reason for using here the form O^B?, any more tlian P"^^, pin, ^i3V", nmD3 had to be written. Hence the a is to be taken as that of comparison, and ■in''^ is to be derived from n'D (vcrrere), as 'np from '""np (Usuj synonymous with ^\^}. It will therefore not be a pestilence (which, moreover, as a stroke of God is indicated not by i^p'?, but ^3J), but a carnage of war ; and in reference to the still more fearful judgment threatened in vers, 26 sqq., which is to proceed from the world-power, it cannot be doubted that the spirit of pro- phecy here indicates the bloodshed brought about by the Syro-Ephraimitic war in Judah (see 2 Chron, xxviii. 5, G). The mountains may well have then trembled under the marching of troops and the clashing of arms, and the felling down of trees, and the shrieks of woe, and nature in any case had to suffer along with what men had incurred ; for nature is related to man according to God's creative order, as the body of man to his soul. Every infliction of the wrath of God which falls upon a people, smites at the same time the land which has deteriorated with it ; and in this sense the mountains of Judah then quaked, although only to the iiear- iug of initiated ears. But for all this (3, notwithstanding, in spite of, as in Job L 22), Jehovah's anger, as tlie prophet foresees, will not turn away as it does wlien He is satisfied, and His hand will remain always still stretched out over Judah in order to strike again. Jehovah does not take the human instruments of His further strokes anywhere from Israel and the neiglibouring peoples, but from the peoples in far-off lands. Ver. 2G : " And He lifts up a banner for the distant peoples, and hisaoi to it from the end of the earth ; and behold hurrying hasti/i/ it covies hitJur." What the prophet here prophesies already 170 ISAIAH. began to be fulfilled in the time of Ahaz. But the prophecy ■which starts with this verse bears in it all the possible marks of being the opposite of a vaticinium 'post eventum. It is properly only what was threatened in Deut. xxviii. 49 sqq. (cf. chap, xxxii. 21 sqq.), which is here presented in a more plastic form, but which yet appears to the perception of the prophet as if emerging out of mist. God summons the far-off peoples; pinnp is here and in chap. xlix. 1 virtually an adjective, as Jer. xxiii. 23 it is virtually a substantive. It combines the meanings from afar, as e.g. in chaps, xxv. 1, xliii. 6, and far away, as e.g. in chaps, xxii. 3, xxiii. 6, cf. chap. xvii. 13, as in Homer, eKaOev, from far, may have the sense of far away (so with the opposite, eyyvdev, near) ; the measure of length being determined from the terminus ad quern backwards, instead of from the terminus a quo forwards. In this passage and elsewhere piniD has become fixed into an expression of distance, with the whence and whither lost sight of (see on chap, xxxvii. 26). The visible working of God presents itself sensibly to the prophet in two figures. Jehovah plants a banner or standard which, like an optical telegraph, tells the peoples still at a far distance, like the battle-horn, "iBir, that they are to band themselves together for war. D3 is a high staff with a fluttering banner (chap, xxxiii. 23), set up upon a bare mountain-top (chap. xiii. 2) ; in^ i)^ and with the roar of young lions full of strength (Ci/S?). In place of the roaring there succeeds a growling (p"^^,, fremitus, Prov. xix. 12), when the lion makes himself ready, and prepares to fall upon his prey.^ And so the prophet hears, in the army thus ready for battle, a low, evil-foreboding hum. But he immediately also perceives how the enemy seizes his booty and drags it irrecoverably away (p'h^\ properly, how he makes it slip away, i.e. brings it into ^ In Arabic, en-nehem is used to signify greediness (see Ali's Proverbs, No. 16). 2 The Indo-Germanic names of the lion appear to he connected with N^2^j perhaps also ^''^ ; see Curtius, Griech. Etymol. No. 543. rii AFTER V. 80. 17:^ a place of pafety; cf, ^licali vi. 14). This jircv or booty is Juclah. And it adds to the weird, gloomy cliaracter of ihv. propliecy that the prophet does not name Judah. As if he was not able to let it pass his lips, this object still remains unexpressed in ver. 30 : "And there is a deep moaning over it in that day, like the moanimj of the sea ; and he loolcs to the earth, and behold darkness — tribulation and light — it becomes night in the clouds of heaven over there." The mar of the lion and the surging of the sea are so like each other in the impression they make, that Sierra Leone (Sierra = Arab, i^^-, mountain chain) took its name from the fact that those wlio first landed there took the noise of the waves breaking on the steep shores for the roaring of lions. The subject of c'nj'i is the mass of the enemy ; and in the expressions y)>V and t:33 (with the Pi. used only here instead of the usual Hi. I3'3n) the prophet has the people of J.udah in view as the enemy falls upon tliem with a roar like the sea, and thus rushes as in sea-billows over them. And wlien the people of Judah looked to the earth, and therefore to the land in ■which they dwelt, darkness presents itself to them, — u darkness in which is swallowed up every friendly and smiling aspect formerly exhibited by it. And what further ? "lixi "i>* have been explained as moon {='^^^) and sun (Jewish expositors), and as stone and gleam = hail and lightning (Drechsler) ; but these and similar explanations depart too far from the ordinary usage. And the separation of the words "^V and "lix, proposed by Hitzig, Gesenius (Thesaurus), Ewald, Knobel, Umbreit, Schegg, Meier, Luzzatto, Nagelsbacii (who refers to Job xviii. 16), and Bredenkamp, so that the one word closes a sentence (" darkness of tribulation ") and the other opens one (Cheyne : " yea, the light is dicsk through the clouds thereof"), is against the impression of the connection made by the two monosyllables, and which is supported by the punctuation. However, we thus obtain a connected thought, as in the Yulg. : et ecce tenebrae tribulationis et lux obtenehrata est in caligine ejus (Jer.). But if ii«^ ">>' are left together, a still more exfiressive meaning results, lix) "iV are tribulation and lighting up, the one following the other and pa.ssing over into the otlier, like morning and night, chap. xxi. 12. This 17 J: ISAIAH. pair of words forms an interjectional clause, which states that when the prophesied darkness has settled itself on the land of Judah, this will not yet be the last, but that an alternation of anxiety and a glimmering of hope will follow it, until it will have become utterly dark in \}^^''']V., the clouded sky over the land of Judah (Q"'?i"'li^, dir. Xey., from ^11^ ; cf. ^llj, , i,j, to drop or trickle, whence also ^?^V,, with which Jerome confounds it, and the suffix referring back to 1*7.^^, pfr5 at one time denoting the earth as a whole, and at another the land as forming a part of the earth). The prophet here prophesies that before it comes to an extremity with Judah, approaches will be made towards it within which a divine respite will always again appear. Grace tries and always tries again to spare, till at last the measure of sin is full, and the period for repentance has expired. The history of the Jewish people runs on, according to this law, till the destruction of Jeru- salem by the Eomaus. The Assyrian troubles, and the miraculous light of divine help which arose in the annihilation of the host of Sennacherib, form the foreground of the sad course of history, which ever and again awakened hope, but at last ended in utter darkness. Thus closes the third prophetic discourse. It begins with a parable which contains Israel's history in nuce, and closes with an emblem which symbolically represents the gradual but sure accomplishment of the penal termination of the parable. This third discourse is therefore not less complete in itself than the second. The kindred references are explained from the contemporary basis of them being the same, both being grounded and founded upon the powerful and rich, but also proud and luxurious Uzziali - Jotham time of peace. The terrible slaughter in the Syro- Ephraimitish war, which broke out at the end of the reign of Jotham, and the varied complications with the imperial world-power which king Ahaz introduced, and which issued eventually in the destruction of the kingdom of Judah, — the period in the history of the kingdoms of the world, or great empires, to which the Syro-Ephraimitish war was the prelude, — still lies for the prophet in the womb of the future. The description of the great mass of people rolling over Judah CIIAPIER V. 30. 175 from afar is couclieJ in such naniek'ss and gonoral terms, ami is so vague and misty, that we cannot but say that everything that was to happen to the people of God on the part of the world-power during the five great and extended periods of judgment that were now so soon to commence (viz. the Assyrian, the Chaldean, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Iloman), is here unfolding itself out of the mist of futurity, and presenting itself to the prophetie eye of the seer. Already in the time of Ahaz the character of the prophecy changes in this respect. It is then that the eventful relation of Israel to the imperial power assumes its first concrete shape in the form of a relation to Assur (Assyria). And from that time forth the imperial power in the mouth of the j)rophet is no longer an unknown quantity ; for although the notion of the world-power was not yet embodied in Assur, yet it is called Assur, and Assur represents it. It also necessarily follows from this, that chaps. ii.-iv., v. belong to the time anterior to Ahaz, i.e. to that of Uzziah and Jotham. But several puzzling questions suggest themselves here. If chaps, ii.-iv., v. were uttered under Uzziah and Jotham, how could Isaiah liegin with a promise (chap. ii. 1-4) which is repeated word for word in Micah iv. 1 sqq., where it is the direct antithesis of the threat in chap. iii. 12, which was uttered by Micah, according to Jer. x.xvi. 18, in the time of Ilezekiah ? Again, if we consider the advance made in this threatening prophecy from the general expressions with which it commences in chap. i. to the close of chap, v., in what relation does this discourse in chap. i. stand to chaps, ii.-iv., v., seeing that vers. 7-9 are not ideal, but have a contemporary historical reference, and therefore at least presuppose the Syro-Ephraim- itish war ? And lastly, if chap. vi. does really relate, as it apparently does, to the calling of Isaiah to the prophetic office, how are we to explain the singular fact that three prophetic discourses precede the history of his cjiU, which ought properly to stand at the opening of the book ? Drechsler and Caspari have attempted to explain this by maintaining that chap. vi. contains an account of the call of the prophet, who was already installed in his otfice, to a particular mission. The proper heading to bo adopted for chap. vi. would therefore be, " The consecration of tlu; prophet 1 V 6 ISAIAH. as the preacher of the judgment of hardening;" and if chap. vi. stands in its true historical place, it would contain the result or sequel of the preceding prophetic preaching. But true as it is that the whole of the central portion of Israel's history, which lies midway between the commencement and the close, is divided into halves by the contents of chap, vi., and that the significant importance of Isaiah as a prophet consists especially in the fact that he stood upon the boundary between these two historic halves, yet there are serious objections which present themselves to such a view of chap. vi. It is possible, indeed, that this distinctive importance may have been given to Isaiah's calling and appointment at his very first call. And what Umbreit says — namely, that chap. vi. must make the impression upon every unprejudiced mind of its being the prophet's inaugural vision — cannot really be denied. But the position in which chap. vi. stands in the book itself exercises an influence contrary to this impression, unless that position can be accounted for in some other way. The im- pression, however, still remains (just as at chap. i. 7—9), and recurs again and again. We will therefore proceed to chap, vi. without labouring to efface it. It is possible that we may discover some other satisfactory explanation of the enigmatical position of chap. vi. in relation to what has preceded it. The Prophet's Account of his Divine Mission, Chap. VI. The time of the occurrence narrated in the following words : In the death-year of the king Uzziah, is important as regards the prophet hiniself. The statement thus made in the naked form in which it is here prefixed, makes a much sharper impression than if it commenced with 'n^l (cf. Ex. xvi. G ; Prov. xxiv. 2 7). It was the year of the death of Uzziah (as he is also called in 2 Kings xv. 13, 2 Chron. chap, xxvi., whereas he is called Azaria in 2 Kings xiv. 21, 1 Chron. xii. 12, and in cuneiform inscriptions). It was therefore the year in which Uzziah was still reigning, although his death was at hand ; not the first year of Jotham's reign, but the last of Uzziah's ; lor it is more than highly probable that in the calculation of the regnant years of the kings, the year of the accession of one king was reckoned to his prede- ciiArii-u VI. 1, 177 cesser as his last (Mc. v. Xiebiilir, Wi'llliauscn, I)illii.aiin). I'ousoriuontly, although the first call (Heyschius : 7} x^^poToi'ia rov 7rpo(f)}]Tov) of Isaiah is narrated in chap, vi., yet in llic superscription of chap. i. the ministry of the prophet is rightly dated from Uzziah ; for although liis activity under Uzziah was but very short, yet it is reckoned as a very signilicant epoch-making beginning. It is true that, according to 2 Cliron. xxvi. 22, Isaiah wrote a historical work embracing the whole time of the reign of Uzziah, but it does not follow from this that he appeared in public long before Uzziah's death. If he was called in the year of the death of Uzziah, then that historical work was a historical retrospect of the times of Uzziah. According to the Biblical statement, Uzziah reigned fifty-two years. This long period was for tiie king- dom of Judah what the less lengthened period of Solomon had been for the whole of Israel — a time of powerful and happy peace, in which the people were completely tlooded with proofs of the love of their God. But the richness of this divine goodness exercised as little influence over the people as did their earlier troubles. And now the eventful change in the relationship of Jehovah to Israel occurred for which Isaiah was chosen to be the instrument, primarily and before other prophets. The year in which this took place was the year of the death of Uzziah. In this year Israel as a people was given up to hardness of heart, and Israel in the mass, as a kingdom and country, was given over to annihilation and devastation by the imperial power. How significant is it that, as Jerome remarks (in his Up. 18 ad Damasuju), the death year of Uzziah is the birth year of lionndus, and that liome was founded shortly after Uzziah's death in 754-3 B.C.! In this year, the prophet goes on to relate : " TJun I saw the All-Lord ^ sittiiuj npon a hujh and exalted throne, and Ilis skirts Jill the tcv^ple." Isaiah sees, and, moreover, not when sleeping and dreaming, but God gives him while awake a loolv into the invisible world, by opening within him the inner sense for the supersensible, while the external activity of the senses ceases; and he presents this supensensible object in sensible form on account of the spirituo-corporeal nature of 1 [Ot-rnmn: A!lhrrr.—Tn.] VOL. 1. M 178 ISAIAH. man, and liis limitation by the present life. Tliis is the mode of revelation characteristic of ecstatic vision (iv eKaTaaeo or iv irvevfjiaTt,). Isaiah, then, is here transported to heaven ; for although elsewhere prophetic ecstasies have the earthly temple as the place and object of the seeing (Amos ix. 1 ; Ezek. viii, 3, x. 4, 5 ; Acts xxii. 17) ; yet here the high exalted throne (to which and to Him sitting on it, chap. Ivii. 15, Np'pi D"i is to be referred) is the heavenly counterpart of the earthly throne of the mercy-seat ; and therefore '?3"'n (properly, spacious hall, a name of the temple as the palace of God the King), as in Ps. xi. 4, xviii. 7, xxix. 9, and frequently else- where, is not the Jerusalem temple (Eeuss and others), but the heavenly temple. There he sees the universal ruler, or, as we prefer to translate this name, formed from n>5 = ri"n,^ the All - Lord sitting (3'^" is an accusative predicate, for the Hebrew expression is like the Latin form vidi te amhulantcm), and, moreover, in human form (Ezek. i. 26), as is shown by the trailing robe, of which the floating ends or skirts fill the hall (Q"'bi::', as in Ex. xxviii. 33, from hr=JL, mcd. 0, and Jlj, mcd. Y, to hang down loose, see on chap. v. 14). The LXX., Targum, Jerome have obliterated the figure of the trailing robe as too anthropomorphic. But John in his Gospel is bold enough to say that it was Jesus whose glory Isaiah beheld (John xii. 41) ; for the incarnation of the Logos is the truth of all the Biblical anthropomorphisms. The heavenly temple is the super - terrestrial place which Jehovah, by giving Himself to he beheld there by angels and saints, makes into a heaven and a temple. In giving His glory to be beheld. He must at the same time veil it, because the creature cannot bear it. But what veils it is not less splendid than what of it is made manifest. It is this which is symbolized to Isaiah in the long trailing robe. He sees the Lord, and what he further sees is the all-filling splendid robe of the indescribable One. As far as the look of the seer reaches, the ground is covered everywhere with this splendid robe. There is therefore no place to stand there. In accord- ance with this, the vision of the seraphim is determined in 1 Comp. Der Waltende as applied to God by the Old German and Anglo- Saxon poets. CIIAI'TKn VI. 2. IT'.) ver. 2 : " StrapJiim stood over Him, each om of which had six wings ; 2cilh two he covered his face, and with two he corcird hijt feet, and icith two he flew." V ^I'Dp is not to be explained ns near to him ; for allhoii«^li the mode of expression that one in standing finds himself T'V, over one sitting, Ex, xviii. 13, or even -'i'?, above him, Jer. xxxvi, 21 (2 Chron. xxvi. 19, nit2pn narop pvp, above the altar of incense), is also nsed of spirits, Job i. G ; 1 Kings xxii. 19 ; Zech. vi. 5 ; and of men, Zech. iv. 14, in relation to God upon His throne, where an actual towering above is not to be thought of ; yet "b H'CC. that strongest expression for supi'a, cannot be otherwise than literally meant; and hence the Targum and Kashi explain it " above, for His service." The sequence of the accents can be taken as in favour of this view (Luzzatto) ; it is the same as in Gen. i. 5a. How Isaiah thinks of this standing above Him who is on the throne, is to be inferred from the use made of the wings of the seraphim. The imperfects do not state what they are accustomed to do (Bijttcher and others), but what the seer saw them do ; he saw them fly with two of their six wings (^".Pi^, dual, instead of the plural, as also elsewhere in the case of words used for what is presented in pairs, DMZ. xxxii. 33). They therefore stood flying, that is, they hovered (cf. noy, Xum. xiv. 14), as is said of the earth and the stars : they stand although in free space. Job xxvi. 7 ; and as Apuleius says of the eagle wlien fixing his prey : rolatn parne eodem loco pcndida circumturtvr. It is true that the .seraphim (how many not determined ') are not to be regarded as tower- ing over the head of Him who is sitting on the throne, although lS applies to Him, and not to the throne (Jer. svj^cr illud, scil. solium) ; but they hovered over His robe that filled the hall, being supported by the two outspread wings, while witli two other wings they covered their faces in awe before the divine glory (Targ. ne videant), and with two wings they covered their feet in the feeling of the deep distance of the creature from the Holiest of all (Targ. nc rideantur), as tlio cherubim in Kzuk. i. 11 do their bodies. This is the only ' Nestle draws my attention to tlie fact that Oii^'i-n only acvfpt.'^ two eeraphiin, and refers the sulHx of v:d and v^3l tt) iUA. Tlie LX.\. fivour tills view, for they have merely to crp&ows-ov and t,v; -roiec; (without xvtZk, as in the imperfect text of the Stier-Theil Polyglott). 180 ISAIAH. passage in the Holy Scripture where the seraphim are mentioned. The representation of the Church, which took its rise from Dionysius Areopagita, represents them as at the head of the nine choirs of angels ; the first rank or order is formed by the seraphim, cherubim, and throni, for which view it may be adduced that the cherubim in Ezekiel bear up the chariot of the divine throne, whereas here the seraphim hover round the seat of the divine throne. In any case the seraphim and cherubim are heavenly beings, different in kind ; the attempts to prove their identity have only an apparent support in Eev. iv. 8. Further, D'^S'ib' certainly does not mean merely spirits as such, but if not the most exalted of all, yet such as have a separate place before the others ; for the Scriptures really teach a gradation in their rank, hicrarchia coclestis. As the cherubim of Ezekiel are three-fourths in animal form, and the writer of the Apocalypse gives animal forms to three of the four ^wa, which are six- winged, like the seraphim here (Rev. iv. 7, 8), the seraphim thus appear, apart from what was human shaped in them, necessarily to be represented as winged dragons ; for the serpent lifted up by Moses is called ^"J^ in Num. xxi. 8, and the flying dragon in xiv. 29, ^siJ'P ^1f, from Cjib' (to burn, and particularly to cause burning wounds, whereas serpens is related to epireiv, reperc ^). In any case the name seraphim includes the idea of burning, and in any view the sensible externality in which they appear to the seer is an emblematic embodiment of their supposed nature. While the seraphim hover above on both sides of the throne, and thus form two semicircular choirs hovering over against each other, they worship Him that sits on the throne as in a responsive hymn. Ver. 3 : " And one cried aloud to the other, and spake : Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts, filling the ivholc earth is His glory." The meaning is not that they raised their voice in concert at the same time (Luzzatto) ; nor is ^^< used in Ps. xlii. 8 in this sense as = *7J33 ; but it was an antiphonal song proceeding without interruption. Some of them commenced and others responded, whether they repeated the whole Trisagion or continued the 1 Cheyne, like Riehm, sees in the cherub of the original extra-Israelite representation, the personified thunder-cloud, and in the seraph the personified serpent-like lightning. CIIAPTEll VI. 3. 181 c'np li'Mp 'cnp with it23 jhsh-Sd ah^. Isaiah hoars tliis anti- phonal or hy]ioi)honal song of the seraphim, not merely to learn that endless worship of God is their blessed occupation, but it is with this doxology as witli the doxologics of the Apocalypse : like the whole scene, its significance lies in its reference to the history of salvation. God is in Himself the Holy One ti^i"'!^, le. He that is separated ; that is, from the world of the finite and also of sin, and who is exalted above it His glory ni33, as Oetinger and Bengel have formulated it, is His disclosed holiness, as His holiness is His inner glory. That God's holiness should become universally manifest, or what is the same thing, that His glory should become the fulness of the whole earth, is what was already brought into view in Num. xiv. 2 1 as the end of the work of God (cf. chap. xi. 9 ; Hab. ii. 14). This end of the work of God stands eternally present before God ; and the seraphim also have it before them in its final completion as the theme of their song of praise. But Isaiah is a man in the midst of the history which is striving to this end ; and the exclama- tion of the seraphim, as now thus precisely expressed, gives him the means of knowing to what it will eventually come on earth ; and the heavenly forms which now present tliem- selves visibly to him enable him to conceive the nature of the divine glory with which the earth is to become full. The whole Book of Isaiah bears traces of the impression of this ecstasy. The favourite name of God in the mouth of the prophet ^^1^'] tnnp, is the echo of this seraphic Sandiis ; and the fact that this name of God is already expressed in the discourses in chap. i. 2-iv. 5, and thus used by way of pre- ference, is a further confirmation of the view that Isaiah is here narrating his first calling. All the prophecies of Isaiah bear tliis name of God on them as their stamp ; it occurs thir- teen times (and including chaps, v. IG and x. 17, fifteen times) in chaps, i.-xxxix, ; twelve times (and including chajts. xliii. 1 5, xlix. 7, cf. also Ivii. 15, fourteen times) in chaps, xl.-lxvi. ; and therefore twenty-nine times in all in the whole I'ook of Isaiah. On this Luzzatto remarks : "The i)rophet, as if foreseeing that the second part of his book would be denied to be his, has impressed the name of God, i>sx" tnnp, as his seal on both parts, |^'22 V-mn nnn." The word elsewhere occurs, apart 182 ISAIAH. from Hab. i. 12, only three times in the Psahris (Ps. Ixxi, 22, Ixxviii, 41, Ixxxix. 19), and twice in Jeremiah in two pas- sages (chaps. 1, 29, li. 5), which the hypothesis of interpolation regards as introductions of their Isaiah 11. It belongs to Isaiah's peculiar prophetic signature, il33D, Here we find ourselves at the very source of this phenomenon. Does the thrice holy indeed refer to God the Triune ? ^ Knobel con- tents himself with remarking that the expression serves for strengthening. No doubt men are accustomed to say thrice what they wish to say exhaustively and satisfyingly ; for the three is tlie number of disclosed unity. But why is this so ? The Pythagoreans said that number is the principle of ail things ; but the Scripture, according to which God creates the world in twice three days by ten words of power, and completes it in seven days, teaches that God is the prin- ciple of all numbers. That the three is the number of un- folded and self-enclosed unity has its ultimate ground in this, that it is the number of the threefold being of God ; and that being admitted, the Trisagion of the seraphim (as well as that of the clierubim in Eev. iv. 8) therefore applies in the con- sciousness of those spirits to God the Triune, and it is called in the language of the Church, not without right, Hijmnus Trinitatis. Isaiah, hearing this, stands enraptured at the farthest dis- tance from Him that sat on the throne, namely, under the door of the heavenly palace or temple ; and what he there further felt and saw is related by him in ver. 4 : " And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of those who cried ; and the house hecame full of smoke." By riiss D'stpn the LXX. Jer. Syr. and others understand the posts of the lintels, the supporting beams of the ^ip^'^ closing the door at the top (Mishn. ^'^Pf, Arab. <^.C-;0- This may be taken as correct; for that D'sp means not merely the thres- holds, but also the horizontal beam which closes the frame- work of the door above, is proved by Amos ix. 1, where the 1 Galatinus asserts that lie saw a Targum in Lecce (a town in the Neapolitan province of the same name), in which the Trisagion was trans- lated : Ntrnip nn Xt^-np Xin SC'np N2N a^y^lp, doubtless an inter- polation by a Christian hand. ciiAiTKU VI. i. I8:i cnmmand is f^iven to smite tlio clinpitors of tlio tcinj)l(« of Bethel that the D*DD may tremhle, niul to smash the upper beams, supported by the pillars, down upon tlie head of those assembled. Hence Bottcher's view (Lthrh. i. 428) recom- mends itself ; he understantis D*2D to mean the upper and lower threshold totjether, as distinj^uished from the ui)riu'lit door-posts, nios, however, does not mean, as Nii^'olsbaeh holds, " the rii;ht-anLjled frames, like the bend of the arm " (for which no parallel can be quoted), but the basis of the upper beam ; hdn beinj^ related to DK as mntrir to viatcr, and being used of the receiving basis (e.fj. Talmudic Kn©>< ^1^1?., the frame or box of the hand-mill, Ikmchoth 18i, and nnjp nss, the woodwork which runs along the back of the saw and holds it stretched, Kelim xxi. 3 ; cf. the German Scraubenmutter, literally, screw-mother or female-screw, which, with its hollowed windings, receives and holds the cylindrical screw).^ As often as the choir of the seraphim began their song (^7il5i!i, cf. the collective singular 3?.i^<7, the andjush, in Josh. viii. 1 ; P^"i^, the men of war, in Josh. vi. 7 and elsewhere; and ^Si^'r^', the rearguard, in Josh. vi. 9 and elsewhere), tlie lower and upper crossbeams of the portal whicli Isaiah stood in shook. The building was seized, as it were, with devout awe. At the same time it was filled with smoke. Reference in this connection has been made to 1 Kings viii. 10; but there fJod attests His presence by the cloud of smoke behind which Ho conceals Himself, whereas here such a self-attestation was not required, nor does God dwell here in cloud and mystery ; and the smoke is not represented as the effect of the presence of God, but of the songs of praise of the seraphim. Tlio material for producing smoke on the altar of incense is thereby set on fire. From this point .some light begins to fall upon the name D'pb', which, when derived from a verb, ^y^\ in the sense of the Arabic sarafa {mrufu), to tower forth, to 1)0 set high, or highly honotired (Gesenius, Hengstenberg, Hofmnnn, Kurtz, Cheyne, Schultz, Bredenkamp), gives a .sense wliicli expresses J Friedr. Delitzsch, Prokg. 107-110, c;irric8 back the cof^natc Utiim qs, rrss, nex to the fundaniental notion of wiilth (rooniine^**), acconlinj? to which ntSS in this pasi^age would mean the holder which leceiveu into it the beam or post. 184 ISAIAH. little. On the other hand, to follow Knobel, who reads ^''^X'^ servants of God (Targ. Ti^yy'), would be a venturesome contri- bution of a new word to the lexicon. The verb f\~\\:^ means urere and coiiiburere ; and if the name is explained therefrom, then the D-aib are fire-spirits of a burning nature, and efficient in setting on fire or burning away. And in any case there exists a connection between the name of these heavenly beings and the name of the serpents, D-Qnb, in Num. xxi. 6, especi- ally as Isaiah himself uses Cjib' in chap. xiv. 29 as the name of a serpent. Why should not the seraphim be heavenly antitypes of that which the serpent was, which, apart from sin and the curse, belonged to the good creation of God, and even appears in Num. xxi. 6—9 as afyadohaifioiv (cf. John iii. 14) ? Like winged dragons, the seraphim hover round the throne of God as a crowning lustre. But it is only their being, which is invisible in itself to sensuous eyes, that thus makes itself visible to the seer. At first, overwhelmed and intoxicated by the majestic spectacle, the seer now becomes conscious of himself. Yer. 5: " Then I said, Woe to me, for I am lost ; for a man of unclean lips am I, and I am dwelling among a people of unclean lips ; for mine cijes have seen the King, Jehovah of Hosts" It is a fundamental view of the Old Testament that man cannot see God without dying (Ex. xix. 21, xx. 19, xxxiii. 20 ; Deut. xviii. 16 ; Judg. xiii. 22). He must die, — not, as Eitschl and Schultz, in their theory of sacrifice, suppose, as a creature standing at a deep distance from God, but as an impure one and a sinner, — because the divine holiness is for the sinner a consuming fire, chap, xxxiii. 14. But besides, it is true that the infinite distance between the Creator and the creature exercises of itself a prostrating effect, which even the seraphim cannot sustain without veiling their faces, but not a death-producing effect. Here, in Isaiah, the two facts meet : he is a man, and, moreover, a sinful man. Therefore, as he has come to see God, he regards himself as undone, annihilated C^'PI?, like oXwXa, jjcrii, the preterite of the fact viewed as complete for the individual's consciousness) ; and so much the more since, as regards his own person, he is unclean of lips, and at the same time is a member of a people of unclean lips. The un- holiness of his own person, in virtue of the solidarity of the cii.vi'Ti;k VI. c, :. 185 natural connection, is diniblod l>y the unholincss of [\\g jteoplo to which he belongs. This unholincss he calls unclcanness of lips, because he sees himself transported into the midst of choirs of beings who praise the Lord with clean or pure lips ; and he calls Jehovah the King, for he has in fact not seen Jehovah face to face, but he has seen the tlirone, the all- fdling talar, and the seraphim hovering around the enthroned One and doing Him homage. — He has therefore seen the heavenly King in manifest majesty, and he designates what was beheld by the impression he received. Here, however, to stand iu sight of Jehovah of Hosts, the King exalted above all, to whom everything pays homage : to stand here and, in the consciousness of deep uncleauness, to be compelled to remain dumb — this excites in him the annihilating anguish of self-condemnation. And this finds expression in the con- fession which is made by the contrite seer. This confession is followed by forgiveness of sins, which is guaranteed to him through a heavenly sacrament, and is appro- priated as his through a seraphic absolution. Vers. 6, 7 : " And there ficw to me one of the scrajyhim, xoith a glowing coal in his hand ; with tlie tongs he had taken it away from off the altar. And with it he touched my mouth, and said : Behold, this has touched thy lips and away is thine iniquity, and thus thy sin is expiated." One of the seraphs hovering about the Lord flies to the altar of incense, the heavenly type of the golden altar of incense of the earthly tabernacle, which was reckoned as belonging to the Holiest of all, and in his hand a nsV"!, which he had taken ni5^=nni?^, with tongs from the altar. ns>n is either a red-hot stone (Aq. S. Th. 'yfn](f)o<;, Jer. calculus) from the structure of the altar, or a red-hot coal (LXX. dvdpa^). The Masora distinguishes scholastically * '^r^T}> mosaic pavement (see Norzi on Ezek. xl. 17),' and "^sy^, ' Corap. Xuldeke, Syrischc Gramm. p. 18. Au analo^^ous example ib the distinction betweeen \d\ and V^l, of which the former mcanH a natural father, the latter a spiritual father (.see Payne Smith, under '' In the sense of Inirnin;^ coal or burning stone, nsy^ is related to C'DV^ Crijy), 1 Kings xi.\. G, as n. unitatis. Also in Arab. (_£jj (not 186 rsAiAH. glowing coal ; and the latter must be what is here meant, as the seraph would not have torn a stone out of the structure of the altar ; and it is far from being natural to think of the heavenly altar as constructed of stones, according to the direc- tions in Ex. XX. 25 (cf. Josh. viii. 31), which, moreover, refers to the altar of burnt-offering, and not to the altar of incense. With a pair of tongs he has taken it off from the altar, because even the seraph's hand does not immediately touch the structure consecrated to God, and the sacrifice belonging to God : aud now he flies with this burninsf coal to Isaiah, makes it come into contact with his mouth (W^i, Hi. in the causative sense as in chap. v. 8; Ex. xii. 22), of whose uncleanness above the other members of the body he had complained (cf. Jer. i. 9, where the prophet's mouth is touched by Jehovah's hand, and is thereby made divinely eloquent), and assures him of the forgiveness of his sins, coincident with the application of this sacramental sign (cf. Zech. iii. 4). The 1 connects as simultaneous what is said by Vi} and ip ; the i^T. in the neuter refers to the burning coal ; and "isari is a mode of sequence separated from its "i, because the notion of the subject has to be made prominent. For it is really im- possible that the removal of the guilt of sin is to be thought of as momentary and the expiation as taking place gradually : the very fact that the guilt of sin is done away, shows that the expiation is also completed, iss, with the accusative or 7y of sin, signifies to cover up, extinguish, or wipe out this sin (see for the fundamental meaning, chap, xxviii. 18), so that it has no existence for the punitive justice of God. The sinful uncleanness is burned away from the prophet's mouth. The seraph therefore does here by means of fire from the SJui ,) is the name used for the stone made red-liot, which serves for roasting by : it and the flesh, wrapped up in leaves, being covered over. Two verbal stems of the form c;^n are to be distinguished. The one, from which is derived nsvi, pavimentum, means to lay firmly on or beside one another, Assyr. rasapu (whence, e.g., arsip, I erected, used of piling building-stones on one another), Arab. i^Ju>j, and the cognate word in Mishna, 5j:n, to join in rows, connect. The other meaning is to glow, Arab, i^jjj „ cognate c^C'l- This distinction is correctly made by Miihlau- Volck. Stone, calculus, ypii^Ho;, as a part of the flooring, is a meaning erroneously adopted by Aquila and others. ciiAi'TEU VI. a 187 altar, and therefore by means of divine fire, wliat liis name denotes : he burns up, yet not in a destructive way, but in a wholesome way : he burns away as likewise from the elevated ^lyf in Num. xxi. 6-9, there proceeds a healinj; power wliich makes the deadly poison inefiective. As the smoke which tills the house comes from the altar, and arises in consequence of the adoration of the Lord on the part of the seraphim, the incense-oflering upon the altar and this adoration are thus closely connected. A fire-glance of God, and, moreover, as the seraphim are sinless, a pure fire-glance of love, has kindled the sacrifice. Now, if the fact that a seraph by means of this love-fire purges the seer of sin, presents an example of the historical calling of the seraphim in relation to salvation, the seraphim are the bearers and mediators of the fire of divine love, as in Ezekiel the cherubim are the bearers and mediators of the fire of divine wrath. For as in this instance a seraph takes the fire of love from the altar, so in that case (Ezek. X. 6, 7) a cherub brings forth the fire of wrath from the throne-chariot ; and the cherubim therefore appear as the bearers and mediators of the wrath which destroys sinners ; or at least of the doxa which has its fiery side turned towards the world, as the seraphim appear as the bearers and mediators of the love which purges away sin, or of the doxa which is turned on its side of light to the world.^ After Isaiah is purged of sin, it becomes manifest what is the special purpose of the heavenly scene. Ver. 8 : " Then I heard the voice of the All-Lord saijing : Whom shall I send, and 2vho will go for ns ? Then I said : Behold me here ; send me ! " According to Knobel, the plural «^ is the plural of majesty, by which God frequently speaks of Himself in the Koran ; but the Holy Scripture furnishes no certain example of this. It is rather the plural of inner reflection or of self- consultation (Hitzig), but the Biblical representation of the relation of the heavenly beings to the heavenly God decides for the view that the seraphim are included in the idea, as 1 Seraphic love is the expreseion used in the languape of the Church to denote the ne plus ultra of holy love in the creature. The Syriac fathers regarded the burning coal as the .symbol of the incarnate Son of (!od, who is often designated in jioetry as the " live or burning coal " Qcm urtd dcnura): DMZ. 1860, pp. 679, 681. 188 ISAIAH. they form along with the Lord an assemhled council (niD D^nip, Ps. Ixxxix. 8), as in 1 Kings xxii. 19-22 ; Dan. iv. 14, and elsewhere (see comm. on Gen. 1. 26). The mission for which the right man is sought is not only a divine mission, but generally a heavenly mission ; for it is not only a matter that concerns God that the earth shall become full of the glory of God, but it is also a thing incumbent on the spirits who serve Him. But Isaiah, whose longing to serve the Lord is no longer suppressed by the feeling of his sinfulness, has no sooner heard the voice of the Lord than he exclaims in holy self-consciousness : V!?rincipalis ; the word is the causa media, and the prophet is the caum ministcriaUs. There are three figurative expressions for hardening : r'?p'7, to make fat, jnnrpicm, i.e. to make without feeling for the operations of grace (Ps. cix. 7) ; T23n^ to make heavy, and especially heavy or dull of hearing (chap. lix. 1); i'C'n or IV[} (whence imj^r. V^^, also in p. yV*'7), to spread thickly, to smear over, to do to any one what happens to diseased eyes when their sticky secretion during the night becomes a closing crust (from VV'^*, syn. n^tD or nno^ chap. xliv. 18 ; Arab. ^Xs^S, iUincrc coUyrium in the sense of occaccare ; related to Vi'j\ with which nn£3 is translated in the Targum). The three future clauses with js point back in the inverse order to the three demands. Spiritual sight, spiritual hearing, spiritual feeling are to be taken from them, their eyes becoming blind, their ears deaf, and their hearts covered over with the grease of insensibility. Euled by these im- perfects, the two preterites v ^.V?^ the announcement is a threatening one ; but from that point up to 03 a comforting prospect already begins to dawn, which in the last three words lines the horizon of this gloomy announcement like a distant streak of light. It will fare with them as with the terebinth and the oak. These trees, with which a multitude of associations from the early times of Israel were connected (see on Gen. xii. G), have (like certain others, as, for instance, the beech, the nut tree, and the alder) the property of renewing themselves again from the root- stump even when their trunk has been felled. As the forms nL;'2'_ (dryness), ni^.?1 (fever), nn^y (blindness), nsnc' (consump- tion) designate certain conditions, and especially faulty ones, so ri3?*C' is not the throwing down or felling as an act, but the condition of a tree which is thrown down or hewn down : the state of fallenness, not (which would here be too little) that of defoliation (Targum) or of the falling of the fruit from the stalk (Syr.). Perhaps also the name of the gate of the temple, riDpC' lyj', points to trees which formerly stood there, and had been felled down. D3 • • • "lU'x goes together in quihus ; 2 has its primary significance of cleaving to something. Of the felled terebinth or oak, deprived of its trunk and its crown, there is still a riDJfp (collateral form of !^3irr?), i.e. there is a root-stock, truncus (a cippus, which the word otherwise signifies, but it is a natural cippus, and capable of shooting), fast fixed in the ground, — an image of the remnant surviving the judgment, which becomes a t^'^P ^\ from which a new Israel shoots out after the old Israel is exterminated. In a few weighty words the way is thus sketched upon which God will henceforth go with His people. It presents an outline of the history of Israel to the end of time. It is repeated iu Zech. xiii. 8, 9, where instead of the tenth we have a third, and they are therefore both to be taken as the symbolical 192 ISAIAH. designation of a fraction, but not as its arithmetical measure- ment. Israel as a people is imperishable in virtue of divine promise ; but the mass of the people is henceforth destined for destruction in virtue of a divine decision, and only a remnant which is converted will finally propagate Israel's prerogative as a people, and inherit the glorious future. Now, if the impression which we have received from vers. 5—8 is not a false one,— namely, that the subject of chap. vi. is the inaugural vision of the prophet, and not his calling ad unum specialem actum officii, as Sebastian Schmidt holds, — this impression will be verified by the fact that the discourses in chaps, i.-v. do not merely give a picture of the state of the people ripening for the fatal event in chap vi., as Strachey holds, but that these discourses already contain the elements here conveyed to the prophet in the way of a revelation, and that the prophet is there already found executing his fateful commission. The impression also actually stands the applica- tion of this test. For the very first discourse, after it has shown to the people as such the gracious way of justification and sanctification, takes in the consciousness of its being all in vain, the turn indicated in chaps, xi.-xiii. The theme of the second discourse is that it will only be after the overthrow of the false glory of Israel that the promised true glory will be realized, and that after the extermination of the mass of the people, only a small remnant will live to experience its realization. The parable with which the third discourse begins, rests upon the supposition that the measure of the sin of the people is full, and the threatening of judgment which is introduced by this parable agrees actually, and in part verbally, with the divine answer received by the prophet to his question, "^9"'^^. From all sides, therefore, we have the view confirmed, that Isaiah in chap. vi. relates his consecra- tion as a prophet. The discourses in chaps, ii.-iv. 5, which belong to the time of Uzziah and Jotham, do not fall earlier than the death-year of Uzziah, from which date the whole time of Jotham's sixteen years' reign is open for them. Now Micali appeared on the scene under Jotham ; but his book, by work- ing up the proclamations he delivered in the time of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, has taken the form of a chronologically indivisible summary, which, as we may learn from Jer. xxvi. ClIArTKU VI. 11-13. 103 18, lie rccitod (»r publislu'd in tlie time of llczckiali ; ami hence Isaiah may thus quite well have taken the word of promise in chap, ii, 1—4 (certainly borrowed from some source) from ^licah's lips, though not from Micah's book. Further, the position of chap. vi. is not inexplicable. Hiivernick has already observed that the prophet in chap. vi. is justifyinj?, on the ground of a divine commission, the manner and style of his previous proclamation. But this only serves to explain the intention from which chap. vi. was not made to stand at the commencement of the collection, and not why it is found exactly in this and no other place. Propliecy and fultilment are brought together ; for, on the one hand, chap, vii. brings manifestly forward the judgment of hardening suspended over the Jewish people in the person of king Ahaz ; and, on the other hand, we find ourselves in the middle of the Syro-Ephraimitish war, which forms the transition to the judg- ments of extermination prophesied in chap. vi. 11-13. It is only the position of chap. i. which still remains obscure. If the verses chap. i. 7—9 are meant to have a historical reference to the times, then chap. i. was composed when the danger of the Syro-Ephraimitish war was averted from Jerusalem, while the land of Judah was still bleeding from the opened wounds which this war, aimed at its annihilation, had inflicted upon it. Accordingly chap. i. is more recent than chaps, ii.-v., and also more recent than the connected chaps, vii.-xii. It is only the comparatively more indefinite and general character of chap. i. which seems to tell against this view. This objection, however, is removed, if we assume that chap. i. is not, indeed, the first spoken discourse of the pro])het, but the first of his discourses that was written down, and that it was primarily designed to form the ])roi'miuin to the discourses and historical narrations in chaps, ii.-xii., the contents of which are ruled l)y it.^ For chaps, ii.-v. and vii.-xii. are two cycles of prophecy ; chap. i. is the portal which leads into them, and chap. vi. the band which connects them » A different view is taken l>y v. HoflTman (Hermfiieutik, herauBplirainiiti.^li war, in 2 Kin;4S xvi. and 2 Chron. xxviii. The Book of Kings relates that the incursion of the two allies into Judah began already at the end of the reign of Jotham (2 Kings xv. 37); and apart from the statement taken from Isa. vii. 1, it mentions that Rezin reconquered for Edom the port of Elath which Ixdonged to the kingdom of Judah (in 2 Kings xvi. 6 read ni^b instead of Dis!^) ; and the Book of Chronicles relates that Kezin brought a multitude of Jewish captives to Damascus ; and that Pekah conquered Ahaz in a bloody battle, in which his forces were destroyed. However unquestionable the credibility of these events is, yet it is as difficult to bring them into an indubitably certain connection in relations of fact and chrono- logy, as Caspari has attempted to do in a monograph on the Syro-Ephraimitish war, published in 1849. If we could assume that lb, '^y (not ^^?',), is the authentic reading, and that the thwarting of the attempt to take Jerusalem, related here, had its ground, not in tiie intervention of Assyria, but in the strength of the city, — so that accordingly lb would not be an anticipation of the ultimate thwarting of the whole under- taking, altliough such summary anticipations are in the manner of the Biblical mode of writing history, and likewise also in the manner of Isaiah, — then the course of events might be so represented that while Eezin marched to Elath, Pekah wished to deal with Jerusalem, but did not attain his purpose ; but that Eezin was more successful in his easier undertaking, and that after the conquest of Elath he joined his allies. It is this wliich may thus be taken to be referred to in ver. 2 : " And it was fold tlie house of David : Aram has settled down upon Ephraim, — then his heart shook, and the heart of his 2ycople, as the trees of the forest shake before the vnnd." The ^V n^3 indicates here the coming down of the one army after the other in order to strengthen it ; whereas ver. 19, 2 Sam. xvii. 12 (cf. Judg. vii. 12), indicates a hostile attack, and 2 Kings ii. 15, a spiritual KaTa^aiveiv. ^I'^p^ (feminine, like the names of countries, and of the peoples thought along with their countries, see chap. iii. 8), as the name of the chief stock of Israel, is used as the name of the whole kingdom, and here of the whole military power of Israel. Following 196 ISAIAH. the combination indicated above, we find that the allies now prepared themselves for a second united march against Jeru- salem. In the meantime, Jerusalem was in the condition indicated in chap. i. 7—9 : like an invested city in the midst of a land overrun by a plundering enemy setting everything on fire. Elath had fallen, as Rezin's opportune return from it showed ; and it was quite natural, humanly regarded, that in the face of his approaching junction with the united army of the allies, the court and people of Jerusalem should tremble like aspen leaves. ^3*1 is a contracted impf. Qal ending in a, not in short o, on account of the guttural, as in np'l, Ex. XX. 11, and such like ; and i?iJ, otherwise the form of the infin. abs. chap. xxiv. 20, is here and only here inf. constr. instead of m (cf. nij, Num. xi. 25; 3b', Josh. ii. 16; Dio, Ps, xxxviii. 17, and frequently). In this time of terror, Isaiah received the following divine instructions. Ver. 3 : " Then said Jehovah to IsaAak, Come, (JO out to meet Ahaz, thou and Shear- Jashiib, thy son, to the end of the aqueduct of the upper pool hy the road of the fullers field." The fullers,^ i.e. cleaners and thickeners of woollen stuffs, received as workmen the name D"'P?'3 from 023, related to '^^^j /LuJ^^j suhiyerc, which is related to Y^l, as TfKvvetv, likewise specially used in reference to clothes washing, is related to Xoveiv. Tlie D2i3 nnb, so called as 'being their washing and bleaching place, lay, as Eobinson, Schultz, von Eaumer, Thenius, Unruh, Schick, and most expositors hold, upon the western side of the city. Zimmermann, in his maps and plans of the topography of ancient Jerusalem (1876), places the two great pools on the west of the city, the lower pool and north-west therefrom the Mamilla pool, eastward from which in the same line lies the Hezekiah pool, through which an aqueduct led the water of the upper pool to the upper city. On the other hand, Williams, Kraft, Meier, and Hitzig transfer the upper pool with the fullers' field to the north- east of the city, beside the monument of the fuller (Joseph. 1 In the Aramaic of the Tahiiud and Targums the fuller is called -i^p, as in Arab, we have also kassar and miksnr, the cylindrical round fuller's club, which, according to Hegesippus (in Euseb. H. E. ii. 23), was the instrument by which James the Just was beaten to death. A D31D appears in the controversial dialogue with a Christian in Sanhedrin 38b. CHAPTER VII. 4. 107 JFajs, V. 4. 2). But llabsliake eiioainping by the upper pool (chap, xxxvi. 2) comes from Lachis, and therefore from the south-west. Furrer (in the Bibd-Lcx. ii. 4G4) also recognises the ^lamilhx-pool as the " upper pool in the fullers' held." Explorers have not yet succeeded in discovering a living spring on the west side ; ' both pools were probably even in former times only fed by rain, for catching which the lie of tlie land is very favourable."^ If the upper pool was the Mamilla-pool, then the road ^/pp, which ran past this fullers' held, was the road which led from the western gate to Joppa. Here in the west of the city, outside the enclosing wall, king Ahaz now found himself engaged in preparations for the event of a siege of Jerusalem, which received the most part of its water supply from the upper pool ; and here, according to Jehovah's direction, Isaiah with his son was to meet him. These two are like a blessing and curse in person, offering themselves to the king for him to make his choice. For the name '^>'0\ isp', i.e. remnant is converted (chap. x. 21, 22), is a kind of abbreviation of the divine answer which had been given to the prophet in chap. vi. 11-13, and is, moreover, at once threatening and promising, but in such a way that it has the curse, as it were, before it, and the grace behind it. The prophetic name of the son of Isaiah is intended to urge the king by threat to Jehovah, and the prophetic announcement of Isaiah himself, whose name points to salvation, I^'', is designed to entice him by promise to Jehovah. No means remain untried. Ver. 4 : " And smj to him, Take heed, and keep thyself quiet ; fear not, and let not thy Iceart become soft from these two smoking stumps of firebrands, — at the burning anger of Resin and Aram, and the son of Rema- liah." The imper. " take heed " is regularly pointed ""pB'n (see especially, Ex. xxiii. 21 ; Job xxxvi. 21), and thus ">?B'n Oi^U'ni will accordingly be infinitives absolute in the sense of urgent imperatives (Hitzig) : take heed, and keep at rest! = ^ Schick believed lie had discovered it in 1865 about ton minutes' walkini; distance from the JafTa gate ; see Ausland, Nr. 38, 1805. * This is entirely different from the Gihon, a runninj,', altli()U<,'h inter- niiltent sprinj^, probably the same as the Mary-spring at the east foot of Ophel, and therefore in the eastern side of the city. 198 ISAIAH. be on your guard, and do not act precipitately, rather keep at rest. The first is a warning against self-willed acting ; the latter is an exhortation to undismayed equanimity. Calvin correctly renders it : ut et exterius contincat sese et intus pacato sit animo. The explanation given by Jewish expositors of ""P^'"?, conside super faeces iuas (Luzzatto, vivi riposato), according to Jer. xlviii. 11 and Zeph. i, 12, gives an unseemly sense to the exhortation. The object of terror before which and at which the king's heart is not to be dismayed, is first introduced with IP, and then with 3, as in Jer. li. 46. The two allies are at once designated as what they are before God, who sees through things in the future. They are two tails, i.e. nothing but the fag ends of wood pokers (iMi, properly turners, namely, fire-turners, an Arabic figure for a warrior, Ges. Thes. p. 157h),^ half-burned off and wholly burned out, so that they do not burn any longer, but only still keep smoking. Certainly they are not this yet at the time in question as regards outward reality, where, as ''"^nj^ does not conceal, their anger has not yet been long kindled, but they are such before God, who makes the prophet cognisant with Himself of His counsel. Along with r>*"! (in cuneiform in- scriptions Easuna^), in order not to honour it with the name of a king, D"]Sl is specially named, and Pekah is called '''^.YPTi?' *^ recall the lowness of his descent, and the want of any promise in the case of his house. The ''3 ]T. which now follows does not belong to ver. 4, as might appear in consideration of the Sethume after it (fear not on this account that), cf. Ezek. xii. 12, but it gives the motive of the following sentence of judgment as in chap, iii. 16. Vers. 5-7: "Because that Aram has resolved evil against thee, Ephraim, and the son of Bemaliah, saying. We will march against Juclah, and strike it with terror, and conquer it for ourselves, and mahe the son of Tahcl Jcing in the midst of it : thus saith the All-Lord Jehovah, It shall not come about, and not take place." The promise to Ahaz is founded upon the wicked design with which the war has been begun. How far the allies had already advanced on the way to their ^ Cf. Schwartzlose, JVaffen der alien Araber, p. 32. ^ Schrader, Lie Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, 2nd ed. 1883, p. 2G0 sqq. ciiArxEU VII. «, 9. 199 ultimate goal, the overthrow of the T^avidic kinLC'loin, it dorn not say. But we know from 2 Kings xv, o7 that tlie invasion had already begun before Ahaz had ascended the throne, and we may see from ver. 16 of Isaiah's prophecy that the ^}T^} (from pp, tacdere, paven, for which the Syrian translator has n3j;p3 from TVP, ahsciiidcre) had been successfully attained. The J?'!?^"?, ic cleaving, forcing of the passes and fortification (2 Kings xxv. 4 ; Ezek. xxx. 16 ; 2 Chron. xxi. 17, xxxii. 1) can therefore not be regarded as pertaining to the future. For history knows nothing whatever of a successful resistance of Judah in this war. Only Jerusalem has not yet fallen, and this, as '"^^ina 7)70 shows, is what is specially referred to under 'T]'''^', just as 11t^'^{ in chap, xxiii. 13 refers to Nineveh. Here they intend to appoint as king a favourite named ^^^^^ (see Ezra iv. 7, in p. intentionally ^^}^, a vocalic change which the tone - long e of bi^ does not otherwise admit ; of. DMZ. xxxiii. 30, but which here separates the name of God from the name of " this good-for-nothing fellow ") ; but the intention remains a mere wish, the thing wished does not come about (cf. Prov. xv. 22), and is not realized (cf. Zech. xiv. 8). The allies will not succeed in altering the course of history as the Lord has ordered it. Vers. 8-9 : " For head of Aram is Damascus, and head of Damascus Besin, and in other sixty and five years Uphraim will he broken to pieces as a people. And head of Ephraim is Samaria, and head of Samaria the san of Remaliah ; if ye believe not, verily you will not remain." It naturally occurs to regard 8& as a later interpolation (Eichhorn, Gesenius, Hitzig, Maurer, Knobel, Meier, Dietrich, Cheyne, IJeuss). The prophecy here becomes divination, and one might hold that an indefinite expression of the near future would have been more effective than this fixing of a considerably distant terminus, and it is, in fact, probable that instead of ^}^ ^^\ D't?^ "liV^i there stood in the original text the expression of what was only but a short delay (ciiap. xvi. 14, XX. 3, xxi. 16), and that a later hand glossed the unprecise expression by a reference to the history of the ^ The name has not yet been traced out in the cuneiform inscriptions; 6ee Schrader, «.«. p. 384, and comp. liis Keilinschriften u. Geschichis- forchung, p. 39G. 200 ISAIAH. fulfilment of tlie prophecy. If 8h be left out, the whole idea is only this, that the two hostile powers will remain in their previous relationships without an annexation of Judah. If 8b is retained (under the supposition of such a phrase as " within a short time " instead of the " within sixty-five years "), then 8a and 9a similarly say that the old condition of things will remain ; but 85 states that while Syria gains nothing, Ephraim, which had become involved in an unnatural and irreligious league with it, will lose its national inde- pendence, and 9b, that Judah, although Samaria's attempt to take away its independence fails, yet if it gives up its trust in Jehovah and makes flesh its arm, it will have no continuance, i.e. will lose its national independence. Ver. 86 is a prophecy announcing the destruction of Ephraim ; 9& is a warning, threatening Judah with destruction in so far as it rejects the promise from unbelief. The colour of the style of 8b is entirely Isaianic (cf. on ^iJ^3, chap. xxi. 16, xvi. 14; and on Dyp, away from being a people = so that it is no more a people, cf. chap. xvii. 1, xxv. 2, and Jer. xlviii. 2, 42). But it cannot be asserted that the sixty-five years are false, and that they are in contradiction with chap. vii. 16. Certainly they do not come out if we refer the prophecy to what happened to Ephraim in consequence of the Syro- Ephraimitish war carried on by Tiglath-Pileser, and to what was done to it by Salmanassar in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, to which events, and more especially to the former, chap. vii. 16 relates. But there is another event through which the existence of Ephraim, not merely as a kingdom, but also as a people, was broken, namely, the carrying away of the last remnant of the Ephraimitish population, and the planting of East Asian colonists upon the soil of Ephraim. While the land of Judah remained desolate after the deporta- tion to Chaldea, and a new generation grew up there, which, being in exile, might again return, the land of Ephraim was occupied by heathen settlers, and the few who remained behind were fused with these into the mixed people of Samaritans, those in exile being lost among the heathen. This is the view which was already held by Malvenda, Calraet, and Usher as to the terminus ad quern. Bosanquet reckons the sixty-five years from the year 736 as the con- CIIAriKR VII. 8, 9. 201 jectural date of tlie inootiiiL; of Isaiah villi Aliaz, and as extending to 071, founding \ij>on the fact that even after the fall of Samaria, a kingdom of Samaria continues to be always mentioned in the inscription, hut it is found for the last time in one that dates from 081 to 073. This calculation by the Assyrian monuments has, however, meanwhile become doubt- ful by more correct reading of them. Nevertheless tiie fact remains that the populating by Esarhaddon (2 Kings xvii. 24, Ezra iv. 2, and his successor Asnappar = Asur- banipal, Ezra iv. 10) of the land of Ephraim with colonists from Eastern Asia is the fulfilment of the DJ"? nm, ; and if it was Esarhaddon under whom Manasseh was carried away to Babylon about the middle of his reign (2 Chron. xxxiii. 11), then we get just sixty-five years from the second year of the reign of Ahaz to the final ending of the existence of Ephraim as a people (fourteen years of Ahaz -f- twenty-nine of Heze- kiah -I- twenty-two of Manasseh = sixty-five). Then was ful- filled what is here unconditionally predicted, DPp riri^ (certainly not 3 imp/. Qal, but Ni. r\n:^ Mai. ii. 5), just as the condi- tionally threatened ijp^^n ^^ was fulfilled on Judali by the Babylonian exile. For iPXJ signifies to have a fast hold, and pipsn to prove fast holding. If Judah does not holdfast to his God, he will lose his fast hold by losing the country in which he dwells, the ground beneath his feet. The same play on words is found in 2 Chron. xx. 20. The suggestion that the original reading was ^3 i:"'Dxn tib DX, but that *3 appeared objectionable and was altered into '3, is improbable.' Why should it have been objectionable when the words form the conclusion of a solemnly introduced direct discourse of Jehovah ? On this ''3, which has passed from the confirmat- ive into an affirmative meaning, and here opens the conse- quence of the hypothetical clause, cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 39 ; Ps. cxxviii. 4 ; and (as used in the formula nny '3) Gen, xxxi. 42, xliii. 10 ; Num. xxiL 29, 33 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 30. Their con- tinuance is conditioned by faith, as this >d surely asserts." * Geiger in DMZ. 1801, p. 117, and previously in tlie Ri- v ii • w p^nn, 1860, p. 89. * It is worth quoting wliat Augustine remarks on this subject in his De doctrina Christimia, ii. 11 : Nisi credideritu, thiJI intelliiidU [so LXX. and Itala]. Alius [Jerome] intcrprotatua est : Nisi crcdideritia, non per- 202 ISAIAH. Thus Isaiah speaks, and thus Jehovah speaks through him, to the king of Judah. We are not informed as to whether he replied or what he replied. He is silent, for in his heart he hides a secret which consoles him better than the word of the prophet. The invisible assistance of Jehovah and the distant prospect of the fall of Ephraim are not sufficient for him. His mind is already made up. His trust is in Assur (Assyria), with whose help he will be superior to the kingdom of Israel, as that kingdom had been to the kingdom of Judah through the help of Damascene Syria. The pious theocratic policy of the prophet comes too late. He therefore lets the enthusiast talk, and thinks he knows what it is worth at the best. Nevertheless, the grace of God does not give up the unhappy son of David as lost. Vers. 10, 11 : "And Jehovah continued to speak to Ahaz as follows : Ask thee a sign from Jehovah thy God, going deep down to Hades or high up to the height above." Jehovah continued, — what a deep and firm consciousness of the identity of the word of Jehovah and the word of the prophet is expressed therein ! It occurs also in chap. viii. 5. According to an astonishing communicatio idiomatum which runs through the Old Testament books of prophecy, the prophet speaks at one time (as, e.g., in Zech. ii. 13 and 15) as if he were Jehovah, and at another time, as in this passage, Jehovah speaks as if He were the prophet. Ahaz is to ask a sign from Jehovah his God. Jehovah does not scorn to call Himself the God of this son of David who so hardens himself. Perhaps the holy love which pulsates in this '^''\P^_ may yet move his heart ; or perhaps he may reflect upon the covenant promises and covenant duties manebitis. Quis horum vera secutus sit, nisi exemplaria linguae praece- dentis legantur, incertura est. Sed tamen ex iitroque magnum aliquid insinuatur scienter legentibus. Difficile est enim ita diversos inter se interpretes fieri, ut non se aliqua vicinitate contingant. Ergo quoniani intellectus in specie sempiterna est, fides vero in rerum temporalium quibusdam cunabulis quasi lacte alit parvulos, nunc autem per fidem ambulamus, non per speciem, nisi autem per fidem ambulaverimus, ad speciem pervenire non poterimus, quae non transit, sed permanet per intellectum purgatum nobis cohaerentibus veritati : propterea ille ait : Nisi credideritis non pervianebitis. Ille vero : Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis. Et ex ambiguo linguae praecedentis pleruraque interpres fallitur, cui non bene nota sententia est, et earn significatiouem transfert, quae a sensu scriptoris penitus aliena est. CII AFTER Vir. 10, u. 203 wliich this irni'X recalls to iniiul. He is to ask fur a nix from this his Clod, nix (from njx, to iiulicate) is a thin<,', event, or act wliich may serve to guarantee the divine cer- tainty of some other thinfj, event, or act. This happens partly through sensible miracles presently performed (p]x. iv. 8, 0), or through fixed symbols of the future (chap, viii. 18, XX. 3), and partly through prophesied events, which, whether miraculous or natural in themselves, are not to be humanly foreseen ; and therefore if they occur, they authentic- ate either the divine causality of other events retrospectively (Ex. iii. 12), or their divine certainty prospectively. The thing to be here guaranteed is what the prophet has just prophesied with great definiteness : the preservation of Judah with its kingdom, and the fruitlessness of the wicked enterprise of the two allied kingdoms. If this was to be guaranteed to Ahaz in a manner that would break down his unbelief, it can only be done by a sign, nix, which breaks through the regular course of nature. As Ilezekiah, when Isaiah announces his recovery and a prolongation of life for fifteen years, requires a nis, and the prophet gives him it (chap, xxxviii.), so does Isaiah here meet Ahaz with the offer of such a sign, and, moreover, by laying before him heaven, earth, and Hades as the sphere of the miracle. P^V^ (PPJ?i^) and r}-^^\} are either injin. ahs. or inipcr., and ^/fJP' is apparently imper. : p^^ with the He of challenge, which is given here instead of >^'>^^ as 'ipxc' (as likewise elsewhere with distinctive accents, as in Dan. ix. 1 9, and even without any pause in xxxii. 11, q.v.); but in no case do we need to read, with Hupfeld, nxs-j' with the tone upon the last, in the sense of •"'P???' ; and thus : in profundum desccnde (or descend- endo) precare. But '""P^^ may also be a pausal collateral form for "^^'^'f , which is allowable in itself (cf. Y^^], always in p. for I'sn^, and other examples. Gen. xliii. 14, xlix. 3, 27),^ and here it appears to be preferred on account of its con- sonance with "^^Vl?? (Ewald, § 93. 3). We give the preference to this latter possibility, with Aq. Sym. Theod. Jer. {^ddvvov ^ The passing of the o into it (a) likewise produces the infinitive form ^riB^^, 1 Sam. XV. 1 ; 13"in^ (according to Norzi), 1 Sam. xxiv. 11 ; lioy, Obad. ver. 11. On corresponding imperative forms, see on chap, xxxviii. 14. 204 ISAIAH. ek aBrjv), against the Targum ; it corresponds to the antithesis (cf. Job xi. 8), and if the words before us were unpointed, this would first suggest itself. The challenge, accordingly, amounts to this : Descend down deep (in thy asking) to Hades, or ascend high up to the height ; but more probably (as the closer construction is more pleasing, and nun as imper, would be well distinguished from the inf. by the ibnn n3jn, cf. ^?'}>], Ezek. xxiv. 10, with a gerundive acceptation of pi2])n and najn, Ewald, § 280a): going deep down to Hades, or ix, from nix, as vcl, from velle) going high up to the height. D'his offer of the prophet of any kind of miracle in the upper or lower world cannot but perplex the adherents of the modern view of the world. The prophet, says Hitzig, is here playing a dangerous game, and if Ahaz had closed with the offer, Jehovah would certainly have left him in the lurch. So Meier observes : it cannot have at all come into the mind of an Isaiah to wish to do a miracle. And de Lagarde says : If he had done it, he would have been an enthusiast whom the failure of such a niN would have subjected to punishment for lying, or whom an artificial performing of it would have made a deceiver. None of these commentators can recognise the miraculous power of the prophet, because they do not at all believe in miracles ; whereas Ahaz knows the miraculous power of the propliet, but is not to be constrained by any miracle to renounce his own plans and believe on Jehovah. Ver. 12 : " But Ahaz ansivered, I may not ask, and may not tempt Jelwvah." How pious this sounds, and yet his self-hardening culminates in these pious - sounding words ! Hypocritically he hides himself under the mask of Deut. vi. 16, in order not to allow himself to be disturbed in his Assyrian policy, and he is so unthinking as to call the acceptance of what Jehovah Himself offers him a tempting of God. He studiously draws down upon himself the fate indicated in chap, vi.; and not merely upon himself, but upon all Judah. For under the successor of Ahaz, the host of Assyria will stand upon this same fullers' field (chap, xxxvi. 2), and demand the surrender of Jerusalem. In this hour when Isaiah stands before Ahaz, the fate of the Jewish people is decided for more than two thousand years. The prophet might now be silent, but in accordance with CHAPTKR VII. 13-15. 205 tlie coinmaiul in cliaj). vi. he uuist speak, altlioni,'li lii.s wonl be a savour of death unto death. Ver. 13 : " He spake, Hear, tlicn, Jioiisc of David : Is it too little for you to make men tccarij, that yc also weary my God ^ " He spake. Who spake ? The speaker, according to ver. 10, is Jehovah, and yet wliat follows is given as the word of the prophet. Here again the statement proceeds on the assumption that the word of the prophet is the word of God, and that the prophet liimself, even when he distinguishes himself and God, is the organ of God. The address is directed to 1^1 n'3, i,c. to Ahaz, includ- ing all the members of the court. DT^** is the i)lural of the category, and by it the prophet indicates himself. The prophet would, indeed, well have borne that those of the house of David should yield no re.sults to his zealous human efforts, but they are not satisfied with this (cf. on the expression minus qiiam i^os = quam ut vobis svjflciat, Num. xvi. 9 ; Job XV. 11); they also weary the long-suffering of his God by letting Him exhaust all the means of their correction without etfect.^ They will not believe without seeing; and when signs are about to be given them to see in order that they may believe, they will not even look at them. Jehovah, then, will give them a sign against their will after His own choice. Vers. 14, 15: "Therefore the All- Lord, He ivill give you a sign : Behold, the virgin * is with child, and bears a son, and calls his name Immanucl. Butter and honey will he eat when he knoivs to reject the had ami to ' Perhaps IK/TI and 'nSx form an intended enantiophony ; see the collection of examples in the Review p^Jrin, Jahri;;. 2 (ISM), pp. 94-99. • [As will be .-:eeu by what follows, " virt,'in " is not strictly the correct rendering of not'yi according to Dr. Dulitzsch's own view ; but as he retains Jungfrau in the German, it has been thought better in like manner to retain the usual English term rather than introduce " damsel,', "maid," or "maiden." Clieyne renders DD^yn, "the young woman," «'so Hitzig, It. Williams, Niigel.'^bach, and (in effect) Ge.'^enius ;" gives the rendering of Ewald and Delit/,.sch {Jun(jfrau) as "the maiden;" and quotes the late Profe.ssor Weir of Gla.«gow a.s retaining "virgin," while obsen'ing : " But the Hebrew, strictly speaking, does not correspond to our 'virgin.'" Dr. Kay in hi.s comm. on Isaiah in the Speaker's Com- rmntary, *-./., .s;iys : "Our Kngli.'*h word "maiden" comes as near, pro- bably, as any to the Hebnw word." " Or maiden " is added in the margin of the Revised Version. Prof. Drever remarks : " Probably the Engli-^^h word damsel would be the fairest rendering" {Isaiah, p. 41). — Tk.] 206 ISAIAH. choose the good." In its form the prophecy recalls Gen. xvi. 11:" Behold, thou art with child, and wilt bear a son, and call his name Ishmael." Here, however, the words are not addressed to her who was afterwards to bear the child, although Matthew gives this form to the prophecy ; -^ for rifcjnp is not 2 p. but 3 jp. = nxnp (ground form kara'at, which occurs for ri"i[?, "it takes place," Deut. xxxi. 29 ; cf. Gen. xxx. 11 ; Lev. XXV. 21 ; Ps. cxviii. 23).^ The question as to whether the clause is to be translated : Behold, the virgin is with child, or shall be with child, ought not to have been raised. njn with the following participle (here participial adjective ; cf. 2 Sam. xi. 5) is always presentative, and the thing presented is always either a real thing, as in Gen. xvi, 11 and Judg. xiii. 5 ; or it is an ideally present thing, as is to be taken here ; for except in chap, xlviii. 7, ^}i^ always indi- cates something future in Isaiah. This use of nan in Isaiah is of itself opposed to the view of Gesenius, Knobel, Fried- mann {De Jesaiae vaticiniis Achaso rege edilis, 1875), S. Davidson, and others, who understand '">p?J''7 to apply to the already pregnant young wife of the prophet, and who, like Eaven (see on chap. viii. 3) and Eeuss, identify Immanuel and Mahershalal.^ But it is already very improbable that it is the wife of the prophet who is meant ; for if he meant her, one cannot well see why he did not rather say nx''23n Further, tlie meaning and use of riD^y are against the reference of the nix to the prophet's own household. For while Tihna (from ^ri3, related to ?13, to separate, sejungere) signifies the virgin maiden living retired in her parents' house, and still a long while from marriage (Assyr. has also hatulu, a youth), nppy (from OPV, to be strong, full of sap and vigour, arrived at the age of puberty, V^y, (Ji, to swell) is the ^ Jerome discusses tliis difference in an exemplary manner in his Ep. ad Pammachium de ojjtimo genere interpretundi. 2 The pointing makes a distinction between nxip (slie calls) and DXIp (as Gen. xvi. 11 should be pointed), thou callest (see Abenezra's Zachoth, 7a, and Jekuthiel ha-Nakdan on Gen. xvi. 11) ; and Olshausen (§ 356) is wrong in pronouncing the latter form of writing the word a mistake. ' Another view is taken by the expositor to whom Jerome refers : Quidam de nostris Judaizans Esaias duos filios habuisse contendit Jasub, et Emmanuel. Et Emmanuel de prophetissa uxore ejus esse generatum in typum Domini salvatoris, etc. CIIAITKK VII. 14, 15. 207 mature woman who is near maniaj^e.* Both names may be applied to a female who is betrothed or even married (Joel i. 8; Prov. xxx. 19 ; see Hitzig on these passages). It must also be admitted that the idea of immaculate virginity is not necessarily connected with nobv (iis in Gen. xxiv. 4.'>, of. 16), since in such passages as Song of Sol. vi. 8 it tan hardly be distinguished in sense from the Arab. Surrii/a. It must also be admitted that it might be said of one who ha.s a still youthful fresh wife, that he has a no^jy for his wife ; but it is inconceivable that in a religiously earnest and well- weighod style a woman who has been already for a long time married, like the prophet's wife, could be called absolutely na^yn without qualification.- On the other hand, the ex- pression w^arrants the assumption that the prophet by riD^yn means one of the nioSy of the royal harem (Luzzatto) ; and if we consider that the birth of the child in the view of the l)rophet is to take place in the near future, his look might have been directed to that AUjah (AM) hath-Zcchariah (2 Kings xviii. 2 ; 2 Chron. xxix. 1) who became the mother of king Hezekiah, to whom the virtues of his mother appear to have been transmitted in contrast with the vice of his father. But while the expression might admit this view, reference to Hezekiah and his mother is excluded by the fact that he was born to the young king Ahaz before his accession to the throne, and therefore he cannot be meant either here or ^ Vercellone, in a lecture (in his iJissertazioni accadcmiche, Roma 18G4X has defended at considerable len^'th the assertion of Jerome : llehraicum noSy nunquam idsi de virgine scHbitur, significat enim puellam virginem ahsconditam ; but his defence is untenable. The root is not rhv> ^o con- ceal, accoiilinjj; to which Aq. translates Gen. xxiv. 43, x~cKpvj:o;. Luther, in 1523, expressed himself to better effect thus : " Well, tlu-ii, to oblige the Jews, we shall not translate the word Alma as virf,'in, but as a maid, although in German maid means a woman who is still youn<,', and wears her crown with honour, so that it is said : she is still a maid and not a wife. Thus, then, the text of Isaiah is most properly translated : Behold, a maid is with child." In fact, the translation ^ utxni; (Aq. S. Th.) is more exact than ij xap^ivo; (LXX. Syr.). In medieval Bermons Chri.st is culled "the son of the maid." ■-' A young and newly-married wife might be called n?3 (a.s in Homer, iiuft.(i;n = nubilis and nupta ; Eng. bride); but even in Homer a married woman, if young, is sometimes called Knvpihin i>.oxo;, but not Kovpri vtijvi;). 208 ISA-IAH. in chap. ix. 5.^ But, in any case, even if the prophet thought of one of the nmhv of the then royal house, the child thus prophesied of is the Messiah, that wondrous heir of the Davidic throne whose birth is exultingly greeted in chap. ix. It is the jMessiah whom the prophet here beholds as about to be born, then in chap. ix. as born, and in chap. xi. as reigning, — three stages of a triad which are not to be wrenched asunder, a threefold constellation of consoling forms, illuminat- ing the three stadia into which the future history of his people divides itself in the view of the prophet. Or is n'obvn no determinate person at all, or not any single person ? Duhm asserts that wife and son are merely representative ideas ; and Eeuss holds that by the virgin is meant la femme comme telle. Kuenen thinks that some particular woman of the time was meant ; and Henry Hammond as early as 1653 expounded this view, maintaining that the prophecy has found in Jesus Christ a fulfilment which goes beyond its immediate sense, that in its primary sense pregnancy, birth, and maturity are only parabolical facts subservient to the chronological measure- ment of time. But all this is opposed by the address in chap. viii. 8, which demands a definite and highly significant personality. And, further, the view is not to be accepted which holds that the house of David is the noby, and that her son is a future new Israel (Hofmann, Ebrard, Kohler, Weir) ; for while it is true that in contrast to the widowhood of the community of Israel a youthful age of it, cp^^J^, is spoken of in chap. liv. 4 (cf. Jer. ii. 2), yet the community of Israel is never absolutely called '^9'?VC or np^inan^ and the text is here thoroughly individual in its reference, and does not point to a ^ According to 2 Kings xvi. 2, Ahaz on ascending the throne was twenty 3'ears old, and according to 2 Kings xviii. 2, Hezekiah on his ascending the throne was twenty-five years old. Now, as, according to 1 Kings xvi. 2, Ahaz reigned sixteen years, he tlius died in his thirty-sixth year, and would thus have to be regarded as father of Hezekiah when eleven years old. According to the LXX. and Pesh., in 2 Chron. xxviii. 1 he was twenty-five years old on ascending the throne, and therefore died when forty-one yeai's old, so that Hezekiah, according to this reckoning, would have been born to him in his sixteenth year. This might have been possible. But however Hezekiah's accession to the throne may be regarded (see the tables on pp. 32-33), the result is always reached that Hezekiah was already born when his fatlier succeeded to the govern- ment (cf. Driver, haiah, p. 40). cnArTER VII. M, 15, 209 twofuld jicrsona vwrall^. The prophet would liave said IVV"ii3 ; nr^bv in this kind of personitioatioii is unheard of, and the house of David, as then before the view of the prophet, was not at all deserving of such a designation. There is therefore no other alternative left but to accept the view that tlie prophet means by no^yn a particular virgin, and one, more- over, belonging to the house of David, as the Messianic character of the prophecy desiderates. She who is meant is the same as is named by Micah v. 2, 'Tiipi'. It is the virgin whom God's spirit presents before the prophet, and who, although he cannot name her, yet stands before his soul as selected for something extraordinary (cf. the article in ">y3^i in Num. xi. 27 and similar passages). How exalted this mother appears to him, is seen from the fact that it is she who gives the son his name, the name '',?<'>3^y (here to be written as one word).^ Tiie purport of this name is purely promissory. But if we look at the i?P and the occasion which preceded it, the nix can be no mere promise and no pure promise; we expect (1) that it will be an extraordinary fact which the prophet announces, and (2) a fact with a threatening presentative side. Now a humiliation of the house of David is already included in the fact that the God it will not recognise nevertheless shapes its future as the emphatic Kin says : He (avT6<;) from His own impulse and out of His own choice. But this shaping of the future must also be as threatening for the unbelieving house of David as it is promising for the believers of Israel. And the threaten- ing of the niK cannot be to be souglit exclusively in ver. 15, seeing that both 1?^ and nan transfer the central bearing of the ms to ver. 14; and further, tlie externally unconnected addition of ver. 15 shows that what is said in ver. 14 is the main thing, and not conversely. In ver. 14, however, a threatening element of the niN can only lie in this, that it is not Ahaz and not a sou of Ahaz, or generally of the house of David as then hardening itself, through whom God saves His people, tut that a nameless virgin of lunnble rank, whom God has chosen, and whom He shows to His prophet in the mirror of His counsel, will bring forth the divine deliverer of His ^ See on this tlie tractate Sofrim iv. Ilalncka 8, and pp. 67, G8 of the edition by Joel Midler, 1878. VOL. I. 210 ISAIAH. people in the midst- of the impending tribulations. And by this it is indicated that He who is the pledge of the continued existence of Judah does not come until the present degenerate house of David, which is bringing Judah to the brink of destruction, is removed even to the stump (chap. xi. 1). But now comes the further question. Wherein consists the extraordinary characteristic of the announced fact ? It consists in this, that according to chap. ix. 5, Immanuel Him- self is a ^^^3, — He is God in bodily self-presentation. If, how- ever, the Messiah is ^i^^^^V in the sense that, as the prophet in chap. ix. 5 (cf. chap. x. 21) expressly says. He is Himself ^^, His birth must also be a wonderful or miraculous one. The prophet, it is true, does not say that the no^y whom no man has yet known will bear Him without that happening, so that He is born not so much out of the house of David, as into it, a gift of heaven ; but this n^':}]}n was and remained in the Old Testament an enigma or mystery, powerfully inciting to the ipevvav mentioned in 1 Pet. i, 10—12, and waiting for its solution in a historical fulfilment. Thus the niK is on the one side a mystery staring threateningly at the house of David, and on the other side it is a mystery rich in comfort to the prophet and all believers ; and it is couched in such enigmatic terms in order that they who harden themselves may not understand it, and in order that believers may so much the more long to understand it. It is the result of the self-hardening of Ahaz, that the nis withdraws itself from his comprehension, just as the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven, according to Matt. xiii. 10-17, was wrapped in the veil of parable to the benefit of the disciples, but for the punishment of the hardened masses. In ver. 15 the threatening element of ver. 14 then becomes alone predominating. It would not be so if thickened milk and honey were meant here, as the usual food of the tenderest age of childhood (as maintained by Gesenius, Hengstenberg, and others). But the reason on which it is grounded in the following verses, 16, 17, conveys another view. Thickened milk and honey, the food of the desert, will be the only provisions which the land will furnish in the time con- temporaneous with the ripening youth of Immanueh >^^'9^ (from i, the vague expression of direction in time, as in Judg. xix. 30 ; 2 Sam. vii. 6 ; for which elsewhere is also used Di'n"!^^, with following infin., Ex. ix. 18 ; 2 Sara, xix, 25). The calling in of Assur laid the foundation for the overthrow of the king- dom of Judah not less than for that of the kingdom of Israel, Ahaz thereby became a tributary vassal of the Assyrian king, and although Hezekiah again became free from Assyria through the miraculous help of Jehovah, nevertheless what Xebuchadnezzar did was only the accomplishment of the frustrated undertaking of Sennacherib, "I'lt^N* ^|?9 ns stands with incisive force at the end of the two verses. The rix is frequently placed where to an iudelinite object is appended the more particularly defined object (Gen. vi. 19, xxvi. 34). Cheyne thinks that the closing words nic's l^io DS weaken the energy of the expression, and that their ultra - distinctness betrays the fact of their being an interpolation. Like Knobel and others, he rejects them as a gloss. But even if '{?\22 iVwX in ver, 20a be a gloss, here the words appear to me to be like the arrow point of vers, 16, 17, The very king to whom Ahaz has recourse in his terror will bring Judah to the brink of destruction. Besides, the entirely loose unconnected succession of ver. 17 after ver, 16 is very effective. The hope which ver. 16 gives rise to in Ahaz, is suddenly transformed into bitter deception. In the view of such catastrophes, Isaiah prophesies the birth of Immanuel. At the time when he will understand aright what is good and bad, he will eat only thickened milk and honey ; and this fact has its reason in the desolation of the whole of the old territory of the Davidic king- dom which will precede his maturer youth, when he would choose other kinds of food if they were to be found. Consequently the birth of Immanuel in the vision of the prophet occurs in CIIAITKR VII. 18. 2ir. the interval between that present time and the Assyrian oppressions, and his earliest childhood runs jiarallel with the Assyrian oppressions. In any case, their consequences arc still lasting during the time of his riper youth. This cannot be taken away from the propliecy ; nor does Bredenkamp (who takes \n]nh as determining a purpo.se "in order that he may know what Aliaz has not known : to reject the evil and to choose the good ") succeed thereby as he intends in separat- ing the birth of Immanuel from being interwoven with the Syro-Ephraimitish war. We shall afterward.s see how, not- witlistanding this involvement, the truth of tlie propliecy nevertheless continues to exist. "What now follows in vers. 18-25 is only the development in detail of ver. 17. The promising side of the nis remains in the background. In the presence of Ahaz the promise must be dumb. So much the more eloquent is the threatening of judgment expressed from ver. 18 : "And it comes to pass in that day, Jehovah shall hiss for the jly that is at the end of the Nile-arms of I^gypt, and the bee that is in the land of Assur ; and they come and settle down all of them in the valleys of tlie declivities, and in the clefts of the rocks, and in all the thorn thickets, and in all the meadoivs." The prophet already said in chap. v. 26 that Jehovah would hiss for dis- tant peoples, and now he is able to name them by name. Bees and swarms of flies are also used as a Homeric image for swarms of peoples, //. ii. 87 : rjvTe Wvea elcrl fieXiacraiov aSti/atui', and 469 : rji-re ixvidoiv uZwdcov cdi'ea rroWd. Here the images are likewise emblematic. The Egyptian peoplo, being unusually numerous, is compared to the swarming liy (^^-^ 4__j^. J, from < ,j, to move much and inconstantly hither and thither) ; and the Assyrian people, being warlike and eager for conquest, is compared to the stinging bee, which is so difliculL to turn away (Deut. i. 44; Ts. cxviii. 12); n-jb^ from -\2i, jJ< to be behind one another, to follow one another, drive, swarm. The emblems also correspond to the nature of tlie two countries ; the fly to slimy Egypt, which, from being such, alx)unds in insects (see chap, xviii. 1),^ and the bee to the more moun- * Egypt abounds in raidges, gnats, gadflies, and especially muscarine, in- cluding a species of small flies (jw».n:, pastures (from b[}}, accord- ing to the Assyr., related to n"':n^ Y^'p^, to make to couch, to bring to rest), are covered over with their swarms. Just such places are named as afford the flies and bees suitable shelter and abundance of nourishment, and this shows the faithfulness to nature with which the figure is depicted. If we look at the historical fulfilment, it also corresponds to the literal terms of the prophecy ; for no collision of the Assyrian and Egyptian forces took place in the time of Hezekiah ; and it was not till the time of Josiah that a collision took place between the Chaldean and Egyptian powers in the eventful battle fought between Pharaoh-Necho and Nebuchad- nezzar at Carchemish, which was decisive for the fate of Judah. That the spirit of prophecy points to this eventful occurrence, is shown in ver. 20, where there is now no further reference to Egypt, because it succumbed to the Eastern Asian empire. Ver. 20 : "In that day the All-Lord will shave with a razor that is for hire on the hanks of the river, loith the king of Assur, the head and the hair of the legs ; and also the heard will it take away." Knohel takes the hair-growth as figurative of the vegetable produce of the country ; but the allegation that the flora, as the hair-covering of the soil, is a Biblical representa- tion, has only limited support in the use of "ft? as a name of DMZ. xii. 701, 70?, Anra. 3), and they are a great plague to men in the whole region of the Nile (see Hartmann, Nalurgescliichtlich-medicinisclie Skizze der Nillander, p. 204 f., 1865). The wasp is found as a hieroglyphic sign, iu Lower Egypt (see E])ers, Aecjijinen und die Biccher, Mosc's i. 73 f.). CIIAriF.R VII. 20. 215 the uncultivated vine left to itself (Lev. xxv. r>)} Tlie pcojtle of Judah are viewed here, as chap. i. G, as a stripped and naked man, who has not only the hair of his head and parts (^rP"], euphemistically of the place where the two Iccjs separate) shaved olT, but, what is most sluxnieful of all, also the hair of his beard, which is the sign of manly vigour, manliness, and manly dignity. For this purpose the AU-liuler uses a razor, which is more exactly designated as condnclitia in litorihus (see on ''?^V^, 1 Sam. xiv. 4), Euphmtis (1^3 here instead of "'■??!?), find yet more precisely as the king of Asshur, although this mL"j< nboa may be an elucidative addition not belonging to the original text.'' •^"J'PV"'? might mean, as the genitive of a neuter, conduditii, or of an abstract term, condudionis, as it seems to have been so taken by the accentuation ; but we take it rather adjcctively : with a razor, tliat is to say, that which is for hire in the regions on both sides of the Euphrates — the king of Asshur. IV^ is masc. in Num. vi. 5, but mav ha fern. in the same way as ""^sn in Hos. viL 4, and as ?3ri and Dinn^ with same nominal prefix ta, always is ; and that it is thus understood here is shown by ^^PK'. The verb nsp has here its proper meaning, to shave off, radcre (cf. J??, abstcnjere, whence 3iSD, (TTToyyo^, o-(f)6yyo<;, a sponge), which also takes on the special sense of scraping together, gathering in. In "TJ'^tJ'n there is involved the bitterest sarcasm for Ahaz ; the cheap knife which he had hired for the deliverance of Judah is hired by the Lord in order to shave Judah wholly and most shamefully. ^ In the Arabic (Persian and Turkish) we frequently find the hair of the head compared to long leaves (DMZ. vii. 373), to the foliiiL;e of vines (de Sacy, Chreslom. iii. 54), or to the branches of i)ahns (Amrulkais, Muall, V. 33). In the classical usaf,'e, figurative terms like x.6,un, (^o/in, coma (caesaries) are commonly applied to woods and trees. In the Mishna, Penh ii. 3, the branches of two trees beating on each other are designated -iyb> ^ .>jtl^ «ilso signifies the tract along the banks of a river (as the jilacc fur .•xs. passing over), and x«f i^, that of the Euphrates, the whole tract of land stretching from the east bank of the Euphrates to the Tigris, and from the west bank to the Arabian desert (berrljet-fl-'arah), from which, according to the Turkish Kaniilsand Lex geographicuvi, ii. 232-3, is derived 'Il/ri or 'Ibrdnt, the name of the Jewish people, as having come from the land stretching from the bank of the Euphrates to the Tigris. 216 ISAIAH. Thus shaved Juclah is a depopulated and desert land, in which men nourish themselves no longer by cultivating corn and wine, or by trade and commerce, but exclusively by the rearing of cattle. Vers. 21, 22: " And it will come to 2^a,ss in that day that a man keeps a little coio and a coiii')le of sheep. And it comes to pass, on account of the quantity of the milk produce, he will eat cream, for butter and honey shall every one eat loho is left within the land." The former prosperity has gone down even to scantiest housekeeping. One man keeps carefully alive (i^'H, like n^^nn elsewhere) a diminutive milch cow (only a heifer, for the strongest and finest of the cattle that are full grown have fallen as spoil to the enemy) and two head of smaller animals. ''Jn'^', not ''J^, because two female sheep or goats in milk are meant, and all the same this is enough ; there are but a few men now in the country, and since all the land is pasture, the few beasts give milk in abundance ; for, as a rural proverb says, " the cow is milked through the .mouth." Bread and wine are unprocurable. Whoever has escaped the Assyrian razor eats thickened milk and honey ; this, and nothing but this, without change ad nauseam. ; for the hills, formerly covered with vines and corn-fields, are now over- grown with thorns. The prophet repeats this three times in vers. 23-25 : "And it vnll come to pass in that day, every place where a thousand vines stand at a thousand silver pieces, thorns and thistles loill it he- come. With arrows and with hows will men go ; for the whole land will hecome thorns and thistles. And all the hills which are wont to he hoed with the hoe, thou unit not go to them from fear of thorns and thistles ; and it hecomes a gathering place of oxen, and a treading place of sheep." The ^03 ^b^, i.e. 1000 shekels of silver, recall to mind Song of Sol. viii. 1 1 ; but there that is the value of the yearly produce. Here the thousand shekels are the value of a thousand vines, the designation of a peculiarly valuable bit of vineyard. In the present day the value of a vineyard in Lebanon and Syria is still reckoned according to the value of the separate vines, and usually one vine is reckoned as worth one piastre, a little more than two- pence each, just as in Germany a Johannesberg vine is valued at a ducat. Every piece of land where such precious vines stand will become a prey to thorny brushwood. People go CIIAriKR VII. 23-25. 217 there (~p'f '""^-l'. I'etracLion of the tone, with following IMilel) ' with arrow and bow, because the whole j,'ronnd will have become thorns and thistles (see on chap. v. Ga), and therefore wild beasts will make their abode among them. And thou, — thus does the prophet address the dweller in the country, — thou comest not to all the hills which have been hitherto most carefully cultivated," thou comest not to them in order to make them again fertile, from fear ('"i^T. in the accusative = riKi'p) of thorns and thistles, i.e. because the thick undergrowth frightens thee from attempting to reclaim such a fallow. Jerome, Vitringa, Ewald, and others interpret otherwise : timor vcprium non veniet illuc, but nsp' si3n"NP lias a personal meaning ; if nxT were the subject, the expression would have been Dxi^n. Thus, then, they give the oxen free course there, and let what grows be trodden down by sheep and goats. The description is intentionally tautological and pleonastic, heavy and dragging. It aims at giving the impressiion of a waste heath, of a dull uniformity. Hence the repetitions of n^n and '7'n^.. In vers. 23-25, whatever is intended as historically future may be also in every case translated by the future ; the inipf. D*iJ'"'Tn^^ ver. 23a, expresses the condition of things at the breaking in of the devastation (" where when this breaks so and so many vines will stand"); only imy^ in ver. 25a has not a future, but a present signification ; not sairicntur, and still less sarriebantur, but sarriuntur, as expressing the culti- vation going on at present. The indefinite subject of n^ni in ver. 2oh is all that lies round about. Thus far does the discourse of Isaiah to king Ahaz go. He does not say expressly when Immanuel will be born, but only what will have happened before he enters upon the riper years of boyhood : namely, first the devastation of Israel and Syria, and then the devastation of Judah itself by the Assyrians. But when he represents Immanuel as eating thickened milk and honey as well as all those who survive the Assyrian oppressions in the Holy Land, he manifestly beholds and thinks of the childhood of Immanuel as coincid- ing with the time of the Assyrian calamities. In such a 1 In the Codices the remark is expressly made on KU' : h'']h Ci'DQ 'l p3 p y*Jir1% i.e. twice occurrin;.,' as Milel, licre and in DeuL. i. 3b. * Compare the reminiscence in the Mialina, I'tah ii. § 2. 218 ISAIAH. combined perspective view of events which lie far apart, consists what Chr. A, Crusius has designated the complex character of the prophecy.^ The ground of this complex character of it is the human limitation attaching to the far look of the prophet, which limitation the Spirit of God allows to exist and makes subservient to Himself. If we cleave to the letter of the prophecy, it is possible on account of its complex character to find fault with its truth ; but if we look upon the substance of what it contains, it will be found that its truth is not thereby destroyed. For the things which the prophet sees together are also essentially connected although not in time. If Isaiah here, in chaps, vii.-xii., looks upon Assyria absolutely as the universal empire (cf. 2 Kings xxiii. 29 ; Ezra vi. 22), this is so far true, seeing that the four empires from the Babylonian to the Eoman are really only the unfolding of the beginning which had its beginning in Assyria. And if, here in chap, vii., he thinks of the son of the virgin as growing up under the Assyrian oppressions, this is also so far true, since Jesus was actually born in a time in which the Holy Land, deprived of its earlier fulness of bless- ing, found itself under the supremacy of the universal empire, and in a condition which went back to the unbelief of Ahaz as its ultimate cause. Besides He, who in the fulness of time became flesh, does truly lead an ideal life in the Old Testa- ment history. The fact that the house and people of David did not perish in the Assyrian calamities is reall}^ as chap. viii. presupposes, to be ascribed to His presence, which, although not yet in bodily form, was nevertheless active. Thus is solved the contradiction between the prophecy and the history of its fulfilment. We do not need to have recourse to the expedient of Bengel, Schegg, Schmieder, and others, who hold that the mx consists in an event just about to happen, which points typically to the birth of the real Immanuel ; nor do we require the expedient of Hofmann, who takes the words of the prophet as an emblematic prophecy of the rise of a new Israel which will come to spiritual understanding in a troublous 1 Ed. Konig (Offenbarungsbegrifi des A. T. ii. 388, 389, 1882) thinks this subject can be more correctly formulated thus: "God makes what was announced by prophecy separate itself in reality into different stages." CHATTER VIII. 1, J. 219 time, due to the want of understanding in tlie Israel of tliat present time. Ifather is the view of Vitringa, Haneberg, Reusch, Vilmar, and others to be adopted, namely, that the ])rophet makes the stages in the life of the Messiah of the far future to be time-measures of tiie events of the immediate future. This he actually does ; but in prophesying, without holding the birth of Immanuel to be au event of the distant future, he combines him who is seen in vision with the approaching tribulations. Far sight and near sight are com- bined with each other in his prophecy ; the prophecy is , divine within human limits. Two Signs of thi: Immediate Future, CiiAr. VIII. 1-4. In the midst of the continued turmoils of the Syro- Ephraimitish war, Isaiah receives God's instruction to perform a peculiar prophetic action. Vers. 1,2: " Then Jehovah said to mc, Take thee a large tablet, and write thereon in common IcgiUc lines : In speed trophies, hooty hastens} And I will take for mc trustworthy witnesses : Uriah the priest and Zccharinh the son of Jehcrechiah." The tablet (cf. iii. 23, where the same word signifies a metal mirror), perhaps a smoothed tablet of wood, is to be large, in order to produce the impression of its being monumental ; and the writing upon it is to be ^^^^ t^in, the stylus of the people, i.e. writing in the usual popular character, consisting of inartistic lines easily read (cf. Eev. xiii. 18, xxi. 17). What is to be written is introduced with f of dedication, as in Ezek. xxxvii. 16, or, more generally, of relation, as, e.g., j^ Jer. xxiii. 9. But as it is not a personal name which the ^ introduces, but a thing, nnob will have to be taken, as Luzzatto does, for fut. instans, according to Gen. xv. 12 ; Josh. ii. 5 ; Ilab. i. 17 (see remark upon it) = acccleratnra aunt spolia, spoils are about to be hastened. Most of the commentators confuse the nature of the thing by taking these words at once as the name of a person (Ewald. § 288c); they are not yet this at the outset, but only become such afterwards. At first they are an oracular announcement of what is future : trophies, booty, are at hand, — but who is the conrjuered one ? Jeliovah and ^ [Malier-.slialal-liasli-b:iz.] 220 ISAIAH. His prophet, although not initiated into the policy of Ahaz, know. But their knowledge is intentionally shrouded in the veil of mystery. For the inscription is not to predict any- thing to the people. It is only to be a means whereby publicly to announce that the course of events was one that was foreknown and pre-indicated by Jehovah. Accordingly, when what is said by the inscription on the tablet occurs, men will know that it is the fulfilment of this inscription, and therefore an event predetermined by God. On this account Jehovah takes to Himself witnesses. It is not necessary to read eitlier '^"^"•^'^il' ^^'i'^^^ Knobel and others (and I got to testify), nor ^Tyrnj with LXX. Targ. Syr. Hitzig (and get to testify). The relation is the same as with P"''}X instead of ?'}\} in Ezek. v. 3. Jehovah says what He will do, and the prophet knows without its being necessary to be told him that it was to be done instrumentally through him. Uriah is doubtless the same person who afterwards set himself to serve the heathen desires of Ahaz (2 Kings xvi. 1 sqq.). Zechariali ben Jeberechiah (Berechiah), of the same name as the post- exile prophet, was perhaps the Asaphite mentioned in 2 Chron. xxix. 13. The two are reliable witnesses as being persons of high distinction whose testimony is of great authority with the people. Accordingly, when the history of the time itself solves the enigma of that inscription, these two will tell the people how long before it had been written down by the prophet as such. In the meantime something occurred whereby the place of the dead tablet was taken by a more eloquent living one. Vers. 3,4: " And I approached the, ^jro^7i€^(^ss ; and she con- ceived, and hear a son. Then said Jehovah to me : Call his name Swiftly — Trophies — Booty hastens ; for hefore the hoy will learn to cry my father and my mother, they will carry the property of Damascus and the trophies of Samaria hefore the Icing of Assur." How entirely different does ver. 3 sound from chap. vii. 14 ! The ns-'S: is not the nKhv there ; for if the son of the virgin is the Messiah, he is born into the house of David, and not into the house of the prophet. Besides, the prophet has already a son from his young wife, and she was no longer nD^y.^ To his son Shearjashub, in whose name the 1 J. J. Raven (Cambridge), in his Essay on Isaiah vii.-ix. 7, observes on chap. viii. 3: "New to accomplish the sign that was given to Ahaz, ClIAriKK YIII. .1. 4. 221 law of the history of Israel was fonmilatcd to the pioidict en I he occasion of his call in chap, vi., there is now addeil another son, to whom the inscription on the tablet (with omission of the )>) is given as a name, ayd who therefore symbolizes the approaching chastisement of Syria and of the kingdom of the ten tribes. IJefore this boy learns to lisp the name of father and mother, they will carry away (xt?^,, not :> imiierf. Xi. which is NL"r, but Kal with the latent un- determined subject t«ir"i3n, Ges. § 137. 3) the treasures of Damascus and the trophies {i.e. spoils taken from the Hying or slaughtered enemy) of Samaria before the king of Assyria, and lie will therefore leave the territory of the two capitals as a conqueror. It is true that Tiglath - Pileser only conquered Damascus and not Samaria; but he wrested from Tekah, the king of Samaria, the land beyond the Jordan and also a part of the land on this side. The trophies which he took home from there to Assyria were not less -'r''^ n"ipb' than if he, as Shalmanasar-Sargon afterwards did, had conquered Samaria. The birth of Mahershalal took place about three-quarters of a year later than the preparation of the tablet (for there is no need to take ^npj^i in the sense of a plupf.) ; and the interval defined from the birth of the boy till the chastisement of the allied kingdoms amounts to about one year, Xow, as the Syro-Ephraimitish war did not begin later than in the first year of Ahaz, and as the chastisement by Tiglath-Pileser occurred during the lifetime of the allies, whereas Pekah was murdered soon thereafter (2 Kings xv. .SO), there elapsed from the beginning of the war to the chastise- ment of the allies at most three years, and the setting forth of the tablet cannot consequently be assigned a much later date than the scene with Ahaz. The inscription on the tablet adopted as the name of the child was not a purely consolatory prophecy, since the prophet had shortly before prophesied that the same Assyria would devastate .ludah as well as the two allied countries. It was only a practical proof of the omni- .scient omnipotence of Jehovah shaping the history of the future. The prophet has indeed the melancholy vocation of the propliet takes to wife the young woman spoken of ; " but this and other forced hypothetical explanations — such as that Ahaz may liave adopted Maliershalal — convict themselves. 222 ISAIAH. having to make obdurate, to harden. Hence his discoursing and acting are so enigmatical in relation to both the king and the people. Jehovah foreknows the consequences which the calling in of the help of Assyria v/ill have for Syria and Israel. This knowledge He writes down with the certification of witnesses. If this is fulfilled, it is at the same time a termination to the rejoicing of the king and people in their self-obtained deliverance. But Isaiah does not find himself surrounded merely by the very wide circle of an incorrigible people ripe for judgment. He does not stand alone, but is surrounded by a small band of believing disciples, who need consolation, and are worthy of it. It is to these that the promising other side of the prophecy of Immanuel belongs. Mahershalal cannot comfort or con- sole them ; for they know that when Assyria has done with Damascus and Samaria, the troubles of Judah are not over, but are only really about to begin. The prophecy of Immanuel is destined to be the stronghold of the believers in the terrible judgment time of the worldly power which was then commencing ; and to turn into the light and unfold the consolation it contained for the believers, is the purpose of the discourses which now follow. The Esoteric Discourses, Chaps. VIII. 5-XII. A. — ImmanucVs consolation in the coming darknesses, chap. viii. 5-ix. 6. The heading and introduction : " And Jehovah continued further to speak to me as folloivs" extends to all the following discourses as far as chap. xii. They all tend to consolation. But consolation presupposes need of consolation. Hence the ]^)rophet must also begin here with threatening of judgment. Vers. 6, 7 : " Forasmuch as this people despises the waters of Siloa that go softly and hold with delight to Rezin and the son of Remaliah — therefore hehold ! the All -Lord hringeth up upon them the waters of the river, the mighty and the great ones, the king of Assur and all his host ; and it rises up over all his channels, and goes over all his hanks." The Siloa has the name ^^, or, according to a well - supported reading, npK' CMAITKU Vlir. 6, 7. 223 (the resolved open form like Pi'V, "•^'P is intorclianf^oaMo with the sharpened furni like Ni^p, "i^V, ">^'3, nnd the full \vritin;4 with the defective as in "^nL", "»in'L"), 06 cmittoido, either in an infinitive sense as shooting forth, or iu a concretely coloured particij^l sense (after the form "^isa) iia emi&'iii^ (aTreo-TaX/icVof, John ix. 7), bubbling forth ; cf. Talm. pni>C'n no, land to be artificially irrigated (oppos. i»i-2n n'3, fertilizetl by rain).' Tlu* " waters of Siloa " streamed from what is now called the Mary - spring, and they were brought from there to the western city by means of a canal sunk in the rocks ; and they served besides for watering the gardens lying at the outlet of Tyropoeon and the valley of Kedron (see Miihlau, Art. " Siloah " in lliehm's Did.). The canal had a slight slope ; the fall, therefore, was moderate ; and, further, the spring was intermittent. These still-flowing waters'* present an image of the invisible ruling of God which does not always api)ear sensibly to the eye, — that God whom Israel and the royal house with which He had connected His promise might call their own. The beautiful figure was the more ajjpropriate, that the Siloa passage ran through the Ophel from the north- east to the south-west, and the Siloa water therefore to a certain extent streamed from Zion. But Zion and the mount of the temple are one, and hence Jerome has good ground for representing the fons Siloe as flowing ad radices mo7iti.)b^) makes the impression that it indicates the object of the delighting. Perhaps DiDO is to be read with Meier and Bredenkamp, following which Eeuss also translates: et perd courage au snjct de Resin; DiDD, melt- ing away (chap. x. 18), for fear is perhaps pregnant for fearing, and is in virtue of a bold construction, irpo'i to (7r]uacvQfj,6vov (like t^'iif, chap. Ixv. 18), connected with the ciiAPTF-r. VIII. 8. 225 accusative of tlie oltject. This melting away would corre- spond to the trembling like aspen leaves in chap. vii. 2. lUit however the text is to be taken, what is threatened in vers. 7, 8 must be referred to Epliraira and Judah. The image of the invasion of x\ssyria is, as in Jer. xlvii. 2, taken from the periodic overflowings of the Euphrates. The over- ilow of the Assyrian host pi33 liere used of a heavy massive multitude) strikes Ephraini first, in whose territories it flows over everything. P"'Q^« is the channel holding the water, and nna the bank ; rina is abbreviated from nina. The threat of punishment is introduced by i?;!; ] is like the Aral). ^_j, the mark of sequence (Ewald, § 3486). The words irj's "n^O'ns we take as an elucidation by the prophet himself, as in chap. vii. 17. Xot till then, but certainly then, and irresistibly, this overflowing reaches on to Judah. Ver. 8 : " Aiid i^resses forward into Judah, ovcrjlows, aiid streams farther, till it reaches to the neck ; and the spreadings out of its wings fill thy land, as hroad as it is, Immanuel!" Ephraim is put wholly under water by the river; it perishes entirely. But in Judah the river rolling on (i?y, driving farther or there- over, Hab. i. 11) and pressing forwards (^^), really reaches the most dangerous height ; yet if a deliverer is found, there is still a possibility of being saved. Such a deliverer is Immanuel. To him the prophet complains that the land which is his land, and not merely the land of his birth (Gen. xii. 1 ; Jonah L 8) but of his dominion (cf. chap. ix. 6), is idmost swallowed up by the world-power ; the land has become filled in its whole breadth (cf. on n*ni^ Ges. § 147a) by the outspreadings (rii^P, a Ilophal noun ; cf. similar nominal forms in ver. 23, chap. xiv. G, xxix. 3, and especially I's. Ixvi. 11^) of the wings of the stream, i.e. of the masses (if water covering the land, pouring from the main stream like tw(j equally broad wings, on either side of the trunk. The figure of wings of the stream is introduced by tiic fact that the stream represents the army of As.syria, and the wings of the stream are the 'S3X, the wings of the army of Assyria. ' nt33, to spread itself out, applied to a river, corresponds to the Arab. maddn, yamuddu, which is also said of the water pa.«ping over its hank and the surroundings, and flooding them. VOL. I. P 22G ISAIAH. But it also naturally occurs from the nature of the subject to compare the onward hurrying stream to a bird shooting thither; ^Aer6*, is what is carried on in '^l?'^. ; for the latter terra is not 3 p. prf Pi., which would have to be V")?!!, as Ps. cxviii. 18 0?r:i']li'i, Josh. ii. 18, is the form of address to a woman, with i instead of i), nor does it need to so be corrected ; rather is this 3 p. imperf. Kal (without suffix IB', Hos. X. 10, whereas impf. Pi. ip'i.) closely con- nected with nM nprna, according to the analogy of the usual passing of the participial and infinitive expression into the finite form. With overwhelming influence and instructively warning against going in the way of this people, Jehovah spake to the prophet as follow.s. The warning runs to the effect that the prophet and those who stand on his side are not to call '^^'?. what the mass of the people call lif'p (cf. the cry of Athaliah, Tj'p -)L"p, 2 Chron. x.xiii. 1.".). Tlie combination of Ilezin and Pekah does not appear to be meant, for that was., in fact, an actual conspiracy or league against the house and people of David. Still less can the warning mean that believers, when they see how the unbelieving Ahaz brings the jicople into misfortune, ought not to enter into conspiracy against the jterson of the king (Hofmann, Drechsler) ; they are not warned, in fact, against making nc'p, but from joining in the 228 ISAIAH. popular cry wlien the people say nc^p. Eoorda is therefore perhaps right when he explains it thus : so^mo hie est de con- juratione, quae dicehatur prophetae et discipulorum ejus. The same thing happened to Isaiah as to Amos (Amos vii. 10) and Jeremiah ; when the prophets were zealous against calling in foreign assistance, they were treated as being in the service of the enemy, and as having conspired for the over- throw of the kingdom. Those who were honest were not to share in this confusion of ideas. But this explanation of Eoorda is seen to be impossible, by the fact that the warning is introduced as addressed to the prophet himself ; and even if it is to be regarded as applying mainly to the disciples gathered around him, yet it cannot exclude himself. No solution of the enigma justifies the transformation of the nK'P into ^"^p, as held by Seeker, Gratz, and Cheyne ; for that Isaiah with his disciples is warned against making the religion of the people theirs, is a thought quite foreign to the connection, nor is it so expressed that the warning could be understood according to ver. 19. We are therefore thrown back upon the explanation which has been commonly adopted since Jerome : noli duorum rcgum timere conjurationeni. The prophet and his followers are not to call the enterprise of Eezin and Pekah conspiracy ; and they are generally not to join with cowardly political newsmongers (Niigelsbach) in the worldly ways of judging and speaking of the people who look upon things apart from God, nor in the hue and cry (2 Kings xi. 4) of the rabble who deny the higher hand in all things (Knabenbauer) ; they are not to fear 0^1^^) what is to the people an object of fear (with subj. suffix, which is applied objectively in 1 Pet. iii. 14), nor are they to regard it as terrible, or feel it as terrible (Pl.^j^, as in chap. xxix. 23 ; Deut. i. 29, and in the Jewish Tefilla ^-''T^,^., "we shudder before thee "). The object of its fear was a very different one. Vers. 1 3-1 5 : " Jcliovah of hosts, Him sanctify ; and let Him he your fear, and let Him he your terror ; so will He hecome a sanctuary, hut a stone of stumhling and a roch of offence to hoth the houses of Israel, a snare and trap to the inhahitants of Jeru- salem. And many among them luill stumble and will fall, and hreak to pieces, and he snared, and taken." With n^ni. commences CHAPTER viir. 13-15. i^^y the logical apodosis to ver. 1.".. If yc actunlly confess Jehovah the Holy One as such a one (t^"^?'?, as in chap, xxix. 23, for which there is only once Pi in Dent, xxxii. 51), anel if it is He whom ye fear, and who fills you with tenor, (.(""li!^, used of the object of the terror as N"^io of the object of the fear, and therefore it is that which terriHes in a causative sense), then He will become a ^Vp. t^"^!?? may indeed also denote the sanctified object or the object to bo sanctified, as Knobel understands it here according to Num. xviii. 29 (of. the plural in Lev. xxi. 23; Ezek. xxviii. 18, res sandac) ; but keeping to the idea of the word, tliis gives an unmeaning apodosis. Usually tnpD means the sanctified place, the sanctuary, with which the idea of an asylum is easily associated, because the temple was also regarded among the Israelites as an asylum, and was also generally respected as such (1 Kings i. 50, ii. 28 ; 1 Mac. x. 43 ; cf. Ex. xxi. 14). This is the ex[)lanation given here by most expositors ; and the punctuators also took it in this sense, seeing that they have divided the two halves of ver. 14, as antithetical, by atknach ; and thus t;npo is to be understood really, and to be translated sanctuary (Driver), and not asylum or refuge, which would be too narrow. The temple is not only a place of shelter, but also of grace, of blessing, of peace. "Whoever sanctifies the Lord of lords, him He encompasses like temple walls ; He hides him in Himself while death and tribulation dwell without, and He comforts, feeds, and blesses him in his fellowship, u-ip^b n\ni must thus be explained, as I still always think, according to such passages as chap. iv. 5, 6 ; Ps. xxvii. 5, xxxi. 21, and Prov. xviii. 10 ; for the sequence makes us expect the expression of what Jehovah will become for those who sanctify Him. Another view is held by Peuss, who understands yhpo to mean an unapproachable dSvrov (J.j>.) (see Baudissin, »S'^M(/ie7i, ii, 8'J), and similarly Breden- kamp, and v. Orelli : "Sanctuary, He showing Himself as the destroying one whom one does not profane unpunislied ; " Cheyne, " and He shall show Himself as holy." But this gives an idea that is not germane to the following series of synonyms, and a thought that is not to be expcicted in relation to ver. 13. One expects the statement that He will beconie 230 1SA.IAH. a sanctuary to those who sanctify Hira, also on His side. The antithesis follows : to the two houses of Israel, on the con- trary, i.e. to the mass of the people of the two kingdoms as a whole, which neither sanctifies nor fears Jehovah, He becomes a rock and snare.^ The synonyms are intentionally accumulated (comp. xxviii. 13) in order to make the impression of a manifold but always inevitable fate of death. The first three verbs of ver, 1 5 refer to I35< (stone) and i^ii* (rock), and the last two to ns (snare) and K'pio (springe).^ All those who do not give the honour to Jehovah are dashed to pieces by His ruling as on a stone, and they are caught in it as in a trap. Accordingly, D3 might refer to px and iiv (on them, as Gesenius, Hitzig, and Cheyue explain it); but why then not U on Him ? "We take D2, with Ewald and Nagelsbach, partitively like 13 in chap. x. 22. The words that follow in ver. 16:" Bind up the testimony, seal the doctrine among my disciples" is either a prayer of the prophet addressed to God (Drechsler and others), certainly ]iot to Immanuel (Vitringa), or a command of God to the prophet. As the word of God to the prophet has preceded this, and as God is not expressly addressed, it is such an instruction as we find in Dan. viii. 26, xii. 4, 9, Eev. xxii. 20, and elsewhere, addressed to the seers of things in the far future. The explanation of Eosenmliller, Knobel, and others, namely, by bringing in God-taught men {adhihitis viris piis ct sapientibus), is grammatically impossible. As keep- ing safely requires a place, the immediate local significance of the 3 has to be maintained. People tie together ("i^V imper. liv, instead of "iv, the more orthographic mode of writing it, not infin. absolute, which would be i^^) what they wish not to get separated and to be lost ; men seal (°DC) what is to be kept secret, and is only to be opened by one entitled to do it. ^ As Jerome on this passage informs us, the " two houses " were referred by Jewish Christians (Nazaraei qui ita Christum recipiunt ut olservationes leyis veteris non admittant) to the schools of Shammai and Hillel. 2 Malbim correctly remarks : "riD catches but does not injure ; K'piD catches and injures [e.g. by breaking off the legs or by crushing the nose. Job xl. 24] ; the former is the simple snare [like the simple snare or gin for catching fieldfares] ; the latter is the springe [a rod bent like a bow, of a flexible nature, which easily springs back], and the snare which catches by means of the springe (Amos iii. 5)." CIIAI'TF.U VIII. 17, 18. 231 And so the testimony of the prophet wliich rehites to tlie future, and liis instruction designed to i)repare for this future — that nnu'n and nnin whicli the great mass in their obduracy (hi not understand, and spuru in their self-hardening — lias to he deposited by him well secured and well preserved, as if by band and seal, in the hearts of those who with believing obedience receive the prophetic word Q'^'^7, of the same form as W, ready to learn and learned, common to both halves of the collection of prophecy, chap. 1. 4, liv. 1 3). For it would be all over with Israel unless a community of believers con- tinued to exist ; and it would be all over with this community if the word of God, which is the ground of their life, escaped from their heart. There is here already announced the great idea which the second part of the Book of Isaiah carries out in the grandest style. The command in ver. 16 stands un- connected without nrisi like the beginning of a new discourse, and in ver 17 the prophet continues to speak of himself without ^JX\ ; ^O'sni is the perf. of sequence. Ver. 1 7 : " I wait then upon Jehovah v:ho conceals His face from the house of Jacob, and I hope on nim." There is a lacuna per- ceptible between vers. 17 and 16, and the supposition that something has fallen out (Cheyue) suggests itself, i^sn gets from the fundamental meaning of " making fast" the mean- ing of firmly directing, of straining the mind towards some- thing future, just as nifj^ ^^^.^ originally means to be strained, firm, strong, and ^^ therefore signifies strained expectation, confident hope. "With the i form ''jn'?^'!. the older i form -nnipi interchanges (Ges. § 75, 9). A time of judgment has now commenced which will last for a long time yet ; but the word of God is the pledge of Israel's continuance in the midst of it, and of Israel's renewed glorification beyond it. The prophet therefore hopes in the grace which has now hidden itself behind tlie wrath. The future is his home, and he also serves it with his whole house. Ver. 18 : " Bthold, I and the children vjhom Jehovah has niven me for siyns and types in Israel from Jehovah of hosts, who dwclUth upon Mount Zion." He presents himself to the Lord with his children ; he devotes himself with them to Him. His bodily children are meant, not his spiritual children (his disciples, as Jerome 232 ISAIAH. Calvin, Vitringa, and Bredenkamp explain it). It is not the latter, for the obvious reason that it would then be expressed by w^in, according to the analogy of n*S"'2:n ""ja and 'J3, the " my son " of the Proverbs. They are indeed Jehovah's gift, and certainly given for a higher purpose than the common everyday happiness of the family. They serve as signs and types ministering to the purpose of the history of salvation. nis is a preindication and token, (jriiJLelov, in vi'ord and deed, which (whether it is itself something miraculous or natural) points to the future and is a pledge of it. nsio (after the form ipio = npND and |TNO, from ri2X, or after the form 1i/io, 'C'pS^ from HD^ = n;x, cj:^! =='^?C> C-^-'O is a miraculous work, repa^i, which refers to a supernatural cause or type, rviro'i ( prodigium =porridigium), which points beyond itself to something future and concealed, literally turned round, that is, opposed to the common, para- doxical, striking, standing out ; Arab. li^;1, res mira, Secvov tc. His children are signs and enigmatic images of the future, and that from Jehovah of hosts who dwells on Zion. In accordance with His counsel (to which the QV in Wp points), He has set up these signs and types. He who can realize the future which they represent as certainly as He is Jehovah of hosts, and who will realize it as certainly as He has chosen the hill of Zion for the place of His gracious presence on earth. Shear-jashub and Mahershalal are indeed figures of future wrath no less than of future grace, but the name of their father ^^^Vp] declares that the salvation of Jehovah is the ultimate end. Isaiah and his children are figures and Huiblems of the redemption which is making way for itself through judgment. The Epistle to the Hebrews in chap. ii. 1 3 puts the words of Isaiah into the mouth of Jesus, because the spirit of Jesus was in Isaiah, — the spirit of Jesus which in this holy family, bound together by bands of the shadow, pointed to the New Testament community, bound together Ijy Ijands of the substance. Isaiah and his children, together with his wife, and the believing disciples gathered around this family, form upon the ground and soil of the present CH AriER VIII. 10. 2:!. 3 viassa pcrdifa of Israel the stock of the coinniunity or cliunh of the Messianic future. To this ccclcsiola in ccdcsia is directed the admonition of tlie prophet in ver. 19: "And when they shall say to you, Inquire ye of the necromancers and of the soothsayers who chiiy and ichhpcr — shall not a people inquire at their God? for the liviny at the dead!" It is unnecessary to take 19a as an anacoloutlion (as Cheyne does) : 1 9i is the apodosis, as I'l'pNri nb 2|?)' easily .completes itself. Those who are demanding are Jews of the existing stamp; for, from chaps, ii. G, iii. 2, '6, we know that all kinds of heathen superstition had found their way into Jerusalem, and were practised there as a trade. Those to whom the prophet assigns the answer are his chil- dren and disciples. The circumstances of the time were critical. People were going to wizards to obtain information about the gloomy future, nix (from a^x, to be bellied or hollow, to sound indistinctly) means primarily the spirit of sorcery or witchcraft, then the possessor of such a spirit = 3ix pys, and more especially the necromancer or conjurer of the dead. '-ini means primarily the possessor of a spirit of soothsaying { TTvdcov or TTvev/ia rod irvdojvos:), Syr. jadiia (after the inten- sive form '"lys) with unchangeable vowels), then also the soothsaying spirit itself (Lev. xx. 27 ; Deut. xviii. 11), which may have been called PJn^, just as Baificov is, according to riato, = Sa/j/xcov. These people, designated by the LXX. here and elsewhere as iyyacrrpofjivOot, i.e. ventriloquists (ot eV T7]<; KoiXian, dufiiies it thus : "31S hv2 is the Pytlion (QITTD), if- .soothsayer (= Truiuua rrxj^uvrj; txui,), who sjx-aks from his arm- hole ; 'J1jn% he wlio siieaks with his moutli." The mx b]}2, in so far a.s he deals with the bones of the dead, is called in the Talmud X»?3tD K3ix» '■.ff. the witch of Emlor, Sluihliath 125/^ On the history of the etymological explanation of the word, sec l^.ltcher's /V in/cris, ^ L'O.'i-Sn. 234 ISAIAH. not go to ask their God, but such heathenish demoniacal deceivers and deceived ones ! (?X ^Tl, to turn oneself' to any one to inquire, chap. xi. 10, synonymous vs'ith 3 ^^f, 1 Sam. xxviii. 6). Wliat blindness to consult the dead in the interest of the living ! The word of the prophet is the echo of the divine prohibition in Lev. xix. 31. 2''nDn here do not signify the idols, as in Ps. cvi. 28, but the dead, as is proved by Deut. xviii. 11; cf. 1 Sam. chap, xxviii. ; and IVii is to be taken neither here nor elsewhere as equivalent to the substi- tutive nnn, " instead " (Knobel), but, as in Jer. xxi. 2, as " for " = for the benefit of, as " for " elsewhere is equivalent to " on account of," Prov. xx. 1 7. The nekyiomancy (necro- mancy, medieval nigroviatia, whence black art), which makes the dead teachers of the living, is a gloomy deception. In opposition to such a falling away to miserable super- stition, the watchword of the prophet and those who stood with him is thus given in ver. 20 : "To the doctrine of Ood and to the testimony ! Or shall they not thus speah who are without a dawn?" The summons: To the instruction and to the testimony, that is to say, to those of Jehovah of which His prophet is the medium, ver. 17, is like a watchword formed in time of war, Judg. vii. 18. In this formation the following N?~QX gives the presumption of a conditional sense : he who has not this word is to be regarded as Jehovah's enemy, and will suffer the fate of such a one. This is to all appearance the meaning of the apodosis "IK'S "T"^ ^''T?. Luther has given the rendering correctly thus : If they will not say this, they will not have the morning dawn; or, as he previously translated it, keeping more closely to Jerome : they shall never overtake the morning light, really, they are those for whom no dawn rises. But if we take 'iJl ^b DX as a conditional protasis, then -ic'X, as opening the apodosis, is and remains hard in style whether it is taken relatively : thus they are a people to whom, etc. (cf. 2 Sam. ii. 4), or as an alternative for the affirmative and recitative ■•3, of which there is no certain example (cf. 1 Sam. xv. 20). On the other hand, N? D^? also signifies "truly" (Ps. cxxxi. 2), according to which Luzzatto and Cheyne and Driver explain it : truly they shall speak thus when (it^'K, guum, as, e.g., in Deut. xi. 6) no dawn shows itself to them : CIIArTEU VI [I. 21, 22. 235 l)ut tliis wati'liword is not suited for the j)Cople which is too Lite in thinking of something hetter, and tliat asscrtative meaning is got by nb DS only by means of the suppression of a principal clause (Ges. § 155. 2 f.), which would be insipid here. r>ut it also means annon, numnc ; and this meaning suggests itself the more readily here since there is a pre- ceding question with x?n (of. chaps, x. 9, xl. 28); and accordingly we adopt the explanation given by Knobel and lieuss : Or, will those who are without a dawn not agree with this word, this people whose present and future is surrounded by night, and which can hope for no breaking of light which could benefit them, inasmuch as they do not turn themselves to God's teaching and God's testimony, of which His prophet is the bearer ? ^ There now follows the description of the people which is without a dawn, and the description proceeds in the singular, into which the plural of the interrogative clause has changed (the individuals being thrown together into one mass). Vers. 21, 22: "And they will enter thereinto hard pressed and hungry ; and it comes to pass when hunger comes upon it, it is roused to anger and curses by its king and hy its God, and it turns itself upv:ards and looks down to the earth, and, behold, distress and darkness, the ayiguish of night around, and thrust out into darkness." Cheyne, agreeing with Siegfried, changes the order of these verses (arranging thus, vers. 20, 22, 21, 23). Diestel and Nagelsbach begin, without changing the order, by taking ver. 21 as the apodosis to ver. 20. Accord- ing to the syntax this is possible, but it more naturally occurs to take it so that the description of those who are without a dawn is further carried on by i?yi : those who are without a dawn, and who will enter into . . . The singulars attach themselves to ib in ver. 19; ^^ refers in the neuter to the land, as ^'''}V in Job vi. 20 to the place. The people roam about in the land — so far will it come in the approaching Assyrian oppressions — "^^'i??, pressed by hard misery, and 3jn, hungry, for all provisions are gone, and the fields and vineyards are laid waste. As often as it again becomes ^ Strangely enough, vers. 19, 20 are regarded in Lev. Rahba, c. 15, as words of Beeri, the father of tlic prophet Hosea, incorporated in the liuok of Isaiah. 236 ISAIAH. sensible of hunger, it falls into rage (^^f^nni, with ) of the apodosis and pausal a with Rehiah), and curses by its king and by its God, i.e. by its idol. We must thus explain the passage according to 1 Sam. xvii. 43 and Zeph. i. 5, if we would keep by the authenticated usage of the language, which shows no 3 ?'?p corresponding to the Latin cxecrari in aliqucm (Gesenius, Cheyne, and others, following LXX. Symm. and Jer.) ; the object of the cursing is rather everywhere expressed in the accusative. The connection, king and God, refers to one and the same object, as in Ps. v. 3 and Ixxxiv. 4 (otherwise than in 1 Chron. xxix. 20): they curse by the idol who is regarded by them as king and God ; ^ they curse with, as they consider it, this most effective curse their unhappy condition, without recognising in it the just punish- ment of their apostasy, and humbling themselves penitently under the all-powerful hand of Jehovah. Consequently, all this reacting of their exasperation and of their rage avails nothing — whether they turn themselves upwards to see if the black sky is not unclouding itself, or look down to the earth, there meets them everywhere only distress and darkness, only, as Hi^^v e]iyp expresses in a sort of summary, a surrounding night of anguish (^^V^, a connective form of ^lU^'f from Pjiiy, ^£iL, obtcgere, the veiling round, darkening). The judgment of God does not convert them, but only heightens their bad- ness ; just as in Eev. xvi. 11, 21, after the pouring out of the fifth and the seventh vials of wrath, men utter blasphemies and do not penitently cease from their works. After this statement of what the people sees when it turns up its eyes or casts them down, the participial closing clause of ver. 2 2 fin. tells how it sees itself: in caliginem propulsum. There is no need to supply a completing N^n, but from the preceding nsn there is easily repeated isn or =133^, en ipsicm ; n/?^, ace. loci, stands with emphasis first, as in Jer. xxiii. 12, 'yP^^. What next follows would be directly connected if ni:D nhzn) could mean at caligo clispcUitur (more exactly, est aliquid quod dis- ■pellitur). This is the view of Hitzig and of Chr. A. Crusius. But the verb m:, the imrt. Pual, the shrill interruption of the 1 Menahem b. Seruk in his Lexicon (written c. 950), under the word jSXj assumes the reading ID^O^- CIIArTER VIII. 2X 2.) 7 gldomy niplit - iinni^e whose close is expcctoti, is aUo^Gthor tipposed to this iiitorpretation. Ami yet the reason -^ivin<; "2, which now follows, assumes the thought that it will not always continue thus ; but as it remains unexpressed we must seek to get it by looking back to inr 1^ ps il"S. The prophet gives the reason for the assumption involved in the words he has used, namely, that a renewed dawning cf light is to be expected, although not for that present genera- tion. Ver. 23 : "For it (foes not remain dark whrrc there is no7v distress : at the first time he has hro7u/ht into ignominy the land of Zchulon and the land of Naphtali, and in the last he Irings to honour the road hy tJie sea, the other side of the Jordan, the circle of the heathen." Is vh *3 to be understood as inter- rogative with Abravanel and Luzzatto ? (cf. 2 Kings v. 2G); for is it not surrounded with night . . . ? Such a form of address expressed by sb with the accent of interrogation, is the style of Hosea, but not of Isaiah. Or is '•3, liy supplying the intermediate clause, " it will not so continue," to bo trans- lated by "but" or "nay, rather, immo," Ewald, § ?>oOb (Cheyne, 1870, "nay," novf ," surely ") 1 This would be a harsh ellipsis. We have not to read between the lines what is grounded by "3 ; but the statement that the unbelieving people of Judah is passing into a night without a morning, is grounded on the fact that a morning is coming whose light, however, does not rise first over the land of Judah, but over other regions of the land. The transition is liarsh, how- ever explained. Reuss remarks: Transition hrusque (chap. iv. 2, vi. 13) a Za prddiction d'nn ehangement heureux. ^]p!0 and PV^"2, because formed from yi'W and P^v, cannot have arisen from ^IV^i? and \>fP (as '^P^'O, a tube for pouring through, from •^P.VIP), and are therefore to be regarded as Hophal nouns, like n^a in chap. viii. 8. They indicate that which (o, rt) is darkened, oppressed, and then also that {on) it is darkened, oppressed, and theref(jre the fact or circumstance of darkening and o{)pression ; and they thus pass into the meaning of ab.stract verbal terms, being darkened, being oppressed. The meaning is that there is not, i.e. there does not continue, a state of surrounding night on the land {^, like '"^3 in ver. 21, to be referred to 1*7^) which is now in a state of distress, and, moreover, tho.se very regions which God formerly made to 238 ISAIAH. experience deep humiliations, will be brought by Him in the future to honour (/P[} = ^^.[}, opp. T'^Dn^ as in chap, xxiii. 9). The height of the glorification will correspond to the depth of the ignominy. The noun ny, however it be construed, is used as masculine, although it is originally feminine, how- ever it may be derived. It is not correct to translate with Knobel : as in the former time, etc., so that ny is ace. temp., and 3="i^^f3 for 3 is never used conjunctionally in this way (see on Ps. xxxviii. 15) and in chap. Ixi. 11, Job vii. 2, the verbal clauses after 3 are elliptical relative clauses. The rendering adopted by Eosenmiiller and many others is also wrong : sicut tempus prius vilem reddidit, etc. Hence, too, the \ of ii"'nj!* = ?>' as, e.g., in ''^^Vf), like the proper name nipty in 2 Sam. xxiii. 31, being modified from n^^p^ according to the form nnni^ (from obv, Aeth. saUnia, Arab, zalima, to be dark). The apostate mass of the people is to be regarded as swept away ; for if death has cast his shadows over the land, it must be quite desolate. In this state of things those remain- ing in the land behold a great light which breaks through the sky hitherto covered with blackness. The people which turns its eyes upwards in vain, because with cursing, chap, viii. 21, is no more ; it is tlie remnant of Israel which sees this light of spiritual and material redemption rise above their heads. The prophet, in what follows, tells what this light consists in, first describing the blessings and then the star of the new time. He tells it in a thanksgiving of prayer and praise. Ver. 2 : " Thou maJcest the nation numerous, prcparest for it great joy ; they rejoice hcfore thee like the joy in harvest, as men rejoice lohen they divide spoil" ''ia[' is doubtless the Israel that has melted down to a small remnant. That God makes this again into a numerous people, is a leading feature in the picture of the time of glory (chap. xxvi. 15, Ixvi. 8 ; Zech. xiv. 10, 11), which in this respect is a counterpart of that of Solomon in 1 Kings iv. 20. If our explanation is so far correct, then the Chethih \h, taken negatively, can only be understood if we translate, with Hengstenberg, Hitzig, and Schegg, thus : Thou increasest the nation to which Thou formerly didst not give great joy, which must signify jper litoten, which Thou hast sunk into deep sorrow. But it is unnatural to take one of the prophetic preterites commencing with T'^i^p in chap. viii. 23 in any other than a future sense. We must therefore give the preference to the Kcri i^,^ and translate : magnum facis nnmerum gentis, ei ingens gaiidium paras. Sb stands first without special emphasis, as in chap. xlv. 24 ; Lev. vii. 7-9 ; 1 Sam. ii. 3, Keri ; Job xxix. 21; Ps. vii. 14, cxxxix. 17; Dreschler gives it such emphasis, rendering thus : To it, in which there was not any appearance at all of such an issue. And it is intentionally that i^'^'^}^ and ri^3"in stand beside each 1 On the passages in whicli N^ Chethtb is 1^3 Keri, see commentary on Ps. c. 3, and in Job xiii. 15. n^^-in is an ingenious conjecture by Sehvyn and others for ^ ^<|jn (n''3"in). CIIArTKU IX. 3. 4. 2 41 other, in ordor to co-onliiKite tlie intensity of joy with the extensiveness of the niultitiule. This joy is a holy joy, as T.^B? indicates ; the expression is the one used in Deuteronomy for the joy tliat is experienced at the meals connected with the sacrifices and titiies (chap. xii. 7, xvi. 11, xiv. 23, 26). It is a joy i'>'|53 rinDL"2, like the joy in the harvcst-tinic, (the temporal TVp3 operates here as a virtual genitive), just as men exult when they divide spoil.s. It is therefore joy over j.,'ood thinj:[S that have been obtained, and, moreover, in consequence of evil that has departed. For the division of spoil is a thinj^ that is done by conquerors. This secund figure is not merely a figure. The people so gladdened is actually a victorious and triumphant people. Ver. 3 : "For the yoke of its lurdcn, ami the stick of its neck, tJie stick of its driver, thou hast hrokni to pieces, as in tJie doj/ of Midian" The suffixes refer to DV^- Instead of v^D ^^'^'" '?°' the more vigorous form v2p is inten- tionally used with Day. dirimcns and Cliateph-Kamez, under the influence of the previous u. The rhythm of the one-menibered verse is anapaestic. v3p and i^ C'Jb both recall the Egyptian bondage (Ex. ii. 11, v. G). The future deliverance which the prophet celebrates is the counterpart of the Egyptian deliver- ance, liut as at that time the whole of the great people of Israel was redeemed, whereas only a remnant participates in the final redemption, he compares it to the day of Midian, when (lideon broke tiie seven years' dominion of Midian, not with a great army, but with ii handful of undismayed warriors strong in (lod (Judg. vii.). One asks here: Who is the hero, Gideon's antitype, through whom this is to happen ? The prophet does not; say this yet, but building a chiuse with *? upon the others, he first of all gives a reason in ver. 4 for the ceasing of the despotic sway of the world-power from the annihilation of all the equipments of war. Ver. 4 : " For every hoot of hooted trahxplers in the tuimdt of hattle, and cloak rolled in hlood — all is for hurninr/, a food of fire." The complex subject stands first in the way of a protasis, for the predi- cate begins in the way of an apodosis with '^^''J}\ ; cf. chaji. xliv. 12 ; Ex. xxx. 33, 33 (Driver, § 123a). All the equip- ments of war are meant, wherever they may be found; but while in Zech. ix. 10 the representation referring to the fratri- cidal wars between the separated kingiloms applies primarily vol. I. y 242 ISAIAH. to the whole of Israel, here it is applied by reference to the previous subjugation by the universal power primarily to the foreign enemies from whom the possibility of conquering Israel henceforth shall be withdrawn. What becomes ^^"W? rx rbbm is not merely kindled and burned out, but entirely burned away ; it is consumed by the fire until it disappears without leaving a trace behind. This closing state- ment requires for |iKD the concrete sense of a thing that can be burned ; and this at once excludes the meaning, noise or din (=r^tf, Jer. Syr. Eashi, Malbim, and others). On the other hand, the meaning, equipment of arms, given by Knobel and others, is admissible ; it is obtained by comparison of the derivatives of the Aramean pT, tt^ and the Arabic zdna, Impf. yazin (to deck, to equip) ; nevertheless the interchange of d and T in this word cannot be philologically established by the dialects. Jos. Kimchi has rightly referred to the Targumic rP l?'p (Syr., also saun), which means shoe (see Bynaeus, De calceo Hcbraeorum, p. 83), whicli is rather an Aramean than a Hebrew word, and the application of which in this place is explained from the fact that the prophet has in liis mind the annihilation of the Assyrian forces. One would, indeed, rather expect l^XD (sdun), (ravSaXovfievo^, instead of |t?D ; but the denominative verb I>?9 may mean the appearing or coming up in the soldier's shoe or soldier's boot, caligatum venire, although the primary meaning is undoubtedly calceare se (Eph. vi. 15; Syr.). Accordingly we translate it: Every boot of the booted strider in the tumult of battle. Thus we do not take ^'T\ (which Gratz, after the Targum, would transform into y^"i), with Drechsler, as indicating the noise of the warrior proudly tramping in his war-boots, nor do we take it, with Luzzatto and Niigelsbach, as applying to the war-boot itself, for which, notwithstanding the davi caligares of Pliny, H. N. ix. 8, the word is too strong ; but we take it as referring to the noise of battle (as in Jer. x. 22), amid which the warrior, booted for military service, appears. i>?b is genitive and n^.iJtt is attributive ; rolled in D''P"=i, that is, in violently shed blood, in which the mortally wounded warrior rolled about. The prophet intentionally names boot and cloak. The destruc- tion of the hostile weapons is viewed as a matter of course, when even every single shoe which a soldier of the enemy ciiAriKii IX. 5. 24;5 1ms worn, and overy soldier's cloak lyinj; on tlio battlo-fliOd, is given up to the fire. The prophet upon the two sentences with '3 now rears ii third. The ground of the triumph is the deliverance, and the ground of the deliverance is the annihilation of the enemy, aiui the ground of all the joy, of all the freedom, of all the peace, is the new great king. Ver. 5 : " For a child is horn to us, a son is given to us, and the fjorcmment rests upon His shoulder, and they call His name : Wonder, Counsellor, Strong God, Eternally Father, Peace Prince." lie whom the ])rophet foretells in chap, vii, as the Son of the virgin, who was to grow up in a troublous time, is here beheld by him as born (but the words do not say tliat this is now seen only in the vision of the prophet), and as having entered upon possession of the government. In the former passage he appeared as a sign, and here as a gift of grace. The prophet does not say expressly here, any more than in chap, vii., that he is a descendant of David. But this follows of itself from the fact that he bears ny^Tpn (from n-iL*'=-nr "i^b'), the government with its official right, chap. xxii. 22, upon his shoulder; for the promise of eternal kingship, of which the new-born child is the fultilment, has been bound up with the seed of David in the course of the history of Israel since 2 Sam. vii. In chap. vii. it is the mother who names the child ; here it is the people, or any one who rejoices in him. ^"y^., " they name, he is called," as Luther correctly translates, but under the mistaken idea that the Jews, in order to efface the Messianic sense of the passage, had altered the original t<7.i5*i into ^IP^). The active Nip'i has, in fact, been misused by Jewi>h expositors with this object in view, as Rashi, Kimclii, Malbim, and others, following the example of the Targum, explain the ])assage thus: The God who is called, and is ^Jr'3N lur^x y]n' »bz. calls his name Di^j—ib ; but this explanation evidently tears asunder the connection in the clause from a ujotive or tendency. And Luzzatto rightly observes that one docs not here expect attributes of (Jod, but such as characterize the child ; and therefore he translates thus: God, the Strong, the Etenially-Father the Peace- Prince, resolves upon something wonderful. He thus persuades himself that the wliole of this long clause is meant to be the 244 ISAIAH. proper name of the child, as, indeed, other proper names thus consist of whole verbal clauses, not merely in Arabic (as, for example, the giant's name, haraka nahruhu, his collar-bone flashes), but also in the Hebrew, as, for instance, the names of the two sons of the prophet. But granting such a sesquipedalian proper name to be possible, how unskilfully would it be formed, since the long-winded sentence, which yet should have to be spoken in one breath, would resolve itself in this form into separate clauses which are again names, and, moreover, contrary to expectation, names of God ! This holds also against Cheyne, who maintains that what follows yo^ is one name, although not, as Luzzatto thinks, in the form of a connected proposition. There are, however, in any case five, or if, with Cheyne, Wonderful-Counsellor is taken together, four names, forming one name. According to Luzzatto's way of taking it, the nanie would also be one name as regards its form. Luzzatto frankly confesses what ])rompted him to his view. He formerly attempted, like Aben Ezra, to take the words from n^jd to uhv~~(^ as the name of the child, regarding nnj ^s as well as "ii;-''3N as a hyperbolical expression, like the words applied to the king in Ps. xlv. 7a ; but afterwards he could not help taking the view that it was absolutely impossible for a human child to be called "inj ^K, as God Himself is in chap. x. 21. The accentuators likewise appear to have shrunk from making nn3 h^ be regarded as a human name. For if yiy^ xii^i was to be the introduction of the following string of names, then Siy^ would not have been marked witli geresh, but with zakeplt. It is inter-punctuated as if Dl^c^'iL" nyaK were the name of the child, and what precedes from sbs were the name of the God who assigns to him these two names of honour. But wherefore should there be just here in connection with tlie naming of the child such a periphrastic designation of God, seeing that this is not Isaiah's habit elsewhere, and generally it is unexampled, especiall}' in this form, without a prefixed 'n ? Moreover, the names of God, in order to mark them off in contrast to the two names of the child, sliould at least be determined thus : "lisan ^xn sbs KV^'n. Supposing then that, according to the accentuation, the translation would be : " And He who is a Wonder of a Counsellor, or (as in this case we ciT.vrTKi: IX. 5. 2 \~) expect a connective accent instead of the tdi^ha, although tlie least separative accent) He who resolves upon something' wonderful, the Strong-God, calls his name: Eternally- Father, I'eace-rrince : " we must yet reject it as resting upon mis- understanding and misinterpretation. AVe take the whole from S^D — as the connection, expression, and syntax requin^ — as a governed accusative preilicate to the \c\» N"ipM, which stands at the head : " they call his name " (cf. N"ip, they name, it is called, Gen, xi. 9, xvi. 14; Josh. vii. 26, and sujyra chap. viii. 4, sb", they will carry; chap. vii. 24, they will come, Ges. § 137. 3). If it he objected to the Messianic, interpretation of chap. vii. 14, 15, that the Christ who appeared has not been called Immanuel, but Jesus, this objection is removed by the fact that neither did He bear as a proper name the five names by which He is to be called according to this second prophecy. Moreover, this objection does not less apply to the interpretations adopted by Jewish expositors, such as llashi, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, Abravanel, ^Nlalbim, Luzzatto, and others, and also by such Christian expositors as Grotius, Gesenius, and Hendewerk, who are in favour of referring the prophecy to Hezekiah, — a view which is chronologically untenable, as has been shown in connection with chap. vii. 14. The name Jesus is a combination of all the Old Testament designations of the one to come, according to His nature and works. The designations given in chap, vii. 14 and chap. ix. 5 have not, however, disappeared in it ; they continue to be in the mouth of all believers from Mary downwards ; and there is none of these names under which worship and homage have not been paid to Him. Tlie first name is vbih or vh^^ which is not to be taken along with XVf\\ as might seem recommended according to chap, xxviii. 29, nvy N'^DH This is the view of the LXX., A S^ : 6avfia(TTo<: aufi^ov\o<;^ Theodoret : davfiaarm fiovkcvoiv. Explaining it ^ To be written here with zere, according to Ahulwalid, Ilikma, p. &T, and Kimchi, Michhl, 202a. The codices vary (see Norzi). 2 The ;*£'/«<■/.»},' (iovhr,; iyyO.c.; of the LXX. is evolvcl out of ^S )y\'> K^Q from the view that not only Q'n^X "^n ■'md D'^S '33, hut aUo D\-|^x in I'«- viii. 6, and ^s in Job x.x. 15, can mean "angels." In .1 and S- there is interpolated after /*£'/«An; iIoVKyj; iyyOo; a new independent translation of the tive names : doLVfAttaro; avuilov'^o; Itxvpo; i^ovaiefTTiii; eipx"''' ilpv*^: TToirr.p Tov uf/.'foi/To; uluvo;. S^ has also $t6; before iayypo:, which again i* 24G ISAIAH. in this way, y)})'^ i6s may be regarded as an inverted form for Vibzi |*yv : One counselling wonderful things ; and the possi- bility of this inversion is proved by chap. xxii. 2, ni6r2 mxjrn, i.e. full of tumult. Or we may, with Ewald, § 287^, after the analogy of Dit< nid, Gen. xvi. 12, take the connection as genitive or appositional (Niigelsbach) : a Wonder of a Counsellor ; in which case the separating idisha gedola in siss would have to be exchanged for a connecting mahpach. Both combinations have their weak points, and their meaning would rather lead us to expect njfy K7S» ; whereas to take x^S and yiiv as two separated names has nothing opposed to it (not even the accentuation, which, in this combination of jpashta with telisha gedola, is without a parallel elsewhere, and is therefore unique). As the Angel of Jehovah answers Manoah in Judg. xiii, 18, when he asks how he is named, that his name is ""^s C^ps), and therefore that his nature is incomprehensible by mortals, so the God-given Pailer is ^)^ {'^ b^, to split, separate) a phenomenon lying beyond human comprehension and natural occurrence. Not merely is this or that in him wonderful ; he is himself entirely a wonder, 7rapaSofacr/io?, as Symmachus translates it. The second name is YVy, Counsellor, because in his royal ofhce (Micah iv. 9), by virtue of the spirit of counsel which he possesses (chap. xi. 2), he always knows how to find and to bring counsel for the best good of his people ; he does not need to surround himself with counsellors; but without being counselled he counsels those who are without counsel, and he is the end of all lack of counsel for his people. The third name, "lis? ?{?, ascribes to him a certain divine nature. This indeed is not so if we translate the words with Luther : " power, hero ; " ^ or with Meier : " hero of strength ; " or as Hofmann formerly did : " a God of a hero ; " or with Ewald : " hero-God," i.e. he who combats and conquers like an invincible God. But all these and similar renderings break a double translation of ^x. This interpolation of the LXX. is older than Irenaeus and Origen ; see Field's Hezapla, in loc. ^Luther would have "power" understood in the sense of absolute might, but translated it more correctly in 1542 as Deris for its. His accepted rendering is like the i(jx,vp6g Iwxto; of Aquila and Symmachus, and Theodotion's iaxvpo; Ivvitarn;. Only Syr. ami Jerome give ^N its meaning " God ; " and S"^ has, as stated, 6a lax^po; t^ovatxaTYn. cnAi'TKi: IX. 5. 2 17 down in connection with cliap. x, 21, when." lie to wliom tlic remnant of Israel a>^ain penitently turns is called "^^33 ^s*. Moreover, we cannot take ^^ (which in the sense of " mighty " only occurs in tlie plural, with the exception of Ezek. xxxi. 11, wlierethe Orientals write Vn) in this name of the Messiah otherwise than in '??^3^V. And, in addition to this, ?x in Isaiah is always a name of God, and he is strongly conscious of the contrast hetween aV and QIX, as is sliown by chap. xxxi. .'i (cf. Hos. xi. 9), Finally, "ii33 ?x is everywhere else a designa- tion of God, as in Deut. x. 17 ; Jer. xxxii. 18 ; Neh. ix. 32 ; and the noun ii39 is used in the designation adjectively, like np* in '■nC' 7K. The Messiah is therefore here called " Strong God " (and so the designation is understood by Knobel and others), but he is thus named as a hero equipped with divine power; or according to Kuenen, who compares Zech. xii. 8, as a mighty God surpassing the children of men, and not as a supernatural ruler. We compare upiv mn^ in Jer. xxiii. (5 — a Messiah name which even the synagogue cannot call in question (see Midrash Mishe 57a, where it is cited as one of the eight names of the Messiah), and whose significance for the conscious faith of the Old Testament was that the Messiah would be the image of God as no other man (cf. ^^, Vs. Ixxxii. 1), and would have God dwelling in liim (cf. Jer. xxxiii. IG). Who sliall lead Israel to victory over the hostile world but God the Strong ? The Messiah is the bodily presence of this Strong God ; for He is with him. He is in him, He is in him with Israel. From the third name arises the fourth name : njr*3K (according to Ochla weochla and some manuscripts *ir3X, in one word), Eternally-Father ; for it is just what is divine that is eternal. He is tlius named not merely as the jiossessor of eternity (Ilengstenberg) in the same sort of way that the pre-Islamic Arabians called their time -god ^JO%£■ y\^ nor as creating a continued existence (Junilius, Instituta regul. i. 15 : Causa ct ycnitor hcatitudinvi nostras), but as the tender, faithful, and wise trainer, guardian, and provider of his own in eternity (chap. xxii. 21). Ho is Eternally - Father as the eternal loving King, as Ps. Ixxii. describes Him ; the primitive word for king is Sanskr.yaTiai-a. begetter, i.e. father (see Max Mailer's Chips, vol. ii.). He is * See V. Orelli, Ztil und Ewujkeit, j>. 1U7. 248 iSATAn. Strong God, as the man in whom God exhibits Himself, and he uses his divine strength in a philanthropic gentle manner for ever for the good of his people. And he is accordingly, as the fifth name says, Di7^"ib', a Prince who removes all peace- disturbing powers, and secures peace among the peoples, Zech. ix. 10, as it were the embodied peace which has come down to the world of the nations (Micah v. 4). If ny'ax signified, accord- ing to Gen. xlix. 27, "father of booty" (as held by Hitzig, Knobel, Kuenen, Schultz, and others), then the advance to m^lJ'-ib' would only express that he leads through a conflict rich in booty (Micah v. 3, 4 ; Isa. liii. 12) to peace; but 3K has, when a ruler is in question, presumptively the same sense in its favour as in chap. xxii. 21, and in genitive connections ny always represents the adjective adernus {e.g. chap. xlv. 17, Ivil 15).^ He will therefore be thus named on account of the devoted protection and tender provision which he bestows upon his people, and which he indeed vouchsafes to them for ever. But the goal and the fruit of his dominion is peace. Intentionally the five names die away in nfe, like the three utterances of the Aaronic blessing. To elevate the David ic government to a government of eternal peace is the end for which he is born, and for this end lie proves himself to be what he is named and is. — Ver. 6 : " For increase of the government, and for peace vjithout end vpon David's throne and over his kingdom, to establish and support it through judgment and righteousness from now onwards for everlasting — the jealousy of Jehovah of hosts luill accomplish this." f^SiD? (with "TJDinD W'df is here not a participle but a substantive, according 1 Among the names of persons compounded with '»2X (see Nestle, Eigennamen, pp. 182-188), hardly one is found elsewhere in which the relation is genitival and the genitive has an attributive sense, for QlpLJ'^^Kj DlbtJ'^N means, in fact, not father-of- peace, but the Father (God) is peace. 2 In the Talmud the Mem clausum is represented as a mystery. When Bar-Kappara says {Sanhedrin 94a) that God designed to make Hezekiah the Messiah, and Sennacherib Gog and Magog, but that Hezekiah was not found worthy of this, and therefore the Mem of nilD^ was closed bnnpj, there is so far some sense in this, since the Messianic hopes really could cleave for a certain time to Hezekiah ; whereas the assertion of a certain Hillel {ih. 986), that Hezekiah was actually the Messiah of Israel, and no other was to be expected, is an absurd (perhaps antichristian) idea. Compare the beautiful Mid rash on Neh. ii. 13, D^i'TlS Cn, that CIIAITKR IX. r,. 2-4 9 to the form nsT^ nl'TO, ami not from n^-in l,„t from np";, an infinitive noun expressing abstract action or its actual result. The august king's child brings an always more widely extend- ing dominion and endless peace when he sits upon David's throne and rules over David's kingdom. He is a scmpfr Augustus, i.e. one always increa-'ing the kingdom, yet not by war, but by peaceful spiritual weapons. Internally he gives the kingdom t:2"*p and •"'P^V, as the foundations and pillars of its continuing existence : legal right which he pronounces and ordains, and justice which ho himself practises and transmits to the members of the kingdom. This new time of the Duvidic monarchy is as yet still a thing of faith and of hope, but the jealous zeal of Jehovah guarantees its realiza- tion. The accentuation is here n)islcading, since it gives the appearance as though the words D7ii»-nj?i nnyp belonged to the closing clause, whereas the perspective which they open applies directly to the government of the great descendant of David, and only indirectly to the work of the divine jealousy. riK3|5 (properly glow, of. Deut. iv. 24) is one of the deepest conceptions of the Old Testament.^ It is double-sided ; the glow of love has for its obverse the glow of wrath. For jealousy is jealous for the object of its love in opposition to everything which trenches upon it and this love. Jehovah loves Ilis people. That He leaves it to such bad Davidic kings as Ahaz, and gives it up to the world - power, is not compatible with this love in the long run. His love flames up, consumes all that is adverse to it, and gives His people the true king, in whom that which was typified in David and Solomon culminates as in its antitype. With this same expression : the jealousy of Jehovah of hosts, etc., Isaiah seal-j the promise in chap. xxx. 32. the broken walls of Jerusalem will be closed in tin; day of njilvation, and that the govemuient will then be opened, which lias been closed up to the time of King Messiali (n'L"i:n "[^O ny nciDD)- ^ See my Introduction to Fcrd. Weber's treali.^e on the Wialh of Gotl, 1862, p. xxxv. 250 ISAIAH. B. — The punishing hand reaching out to i7iflict still more strokes. chap. ix. 7-x. 4. The great light will not arise before the darkness has reached its deepest. The gradual increase of this darkness is prophesied in this second section of the esoteric discourses. Many difficult questions rise in connection with this section : (1) Is it directed only against the northern kingdom, or against the whole of Israel? (2) What is the historical standpoint of the prophet in time ? Most commentators answer that the prophet is here only prophesying against Ephraim, and particularly after Syria and Ephraim had been already chastised by Tiglathpileser. The former position is incorrect; the prophet indeed starts from Ephraim, but he does not stop with Ephraim. The fates of both kingdoms, causally connected as in reality they are, flow into one another here, as in chap. viii. 5 sqq. And it is not merely this or that point, but all that is expressed historically in this section which the prophet has lying behind him from the standpoint he occupies. We know from chap. ii. 9, v. 25, that he uses the imperf. cons, as the preterite of the ideal past. We translate here in the present throughout, for our mode of representation is familiar with making a past event present, but not with this historicizing of the future. In its external arrangement, no section of Isaiah is so symmetrical as this one. We have had approximations to strophes with the same begin- ning in chap, v., and with the same ending in chap. ii. In this section chap. v. 256 is made the recurring refrain of four symmetrical strophes. In translating we shall always take a whole strophe at once. Strophe 1, vers. 7-11: "The All-Lord sends out a word against Jacob, and it descends into Israel. And the people altogether must make expiation, Ephraim and the inlmbitants of Samaria speaking in arrogance and pride of heart. ' Bricks have fallen, and we build up with hewn stones ; sycamore trees are hewn dovm, and we 'put cedars in their place.' Jehovah raises high Rezin's oppressors over him, and goads on his ene- mies. Aram from east, and Philistines from west, they devour Israel with full mouth, — for all that His anger does not turn CIIAPTKU IX- 7-11. 2r)l aivay, and His hand is strdchrd out dill." Tlio word i3"n is the ines^ongor of tlie Lord in nature and history ; it runs ([uickly through tlie earth (Ps, cxlvii. 15, 18); sent by the I^rd, it comes to men to destroy or to lieal {Vs. cvii. 20), and never returns to its sender with its object unaccomplislied (chap. Iv. 10, 11). Tluis does tlje Lord even now send a word against Jacob {'^W\, not used otherwise tlian in chap, ii. 5). And this heavenly messenger passes down into Israel (/03, as in Dan. iv. 28, and like the Arab, nazala, the term used of the coming down of divine revelation), turning to lodge, as it were, in the soul of the prophet. Its first com- mission is directed against Ephraim, wliich is so little humbled by the misfortunes experienced under Jehu (2 Kings x. 32) and Joahaz (2 Kings xiii, 3), that they are presumptuous enough to substitute for bricks and sycomores {ficus sycomorus} which furnishes an excellent wood for building, but is a very common tree, 1 Kings x. 27) hewn building stones (n\T3, Cod. Babyl. nM3 from rtJ, like rinia from T13) and cedars. ^'^.J!,-!! is not used here as in Job xiv. 7, where it means nova gcrmina emittcre, but as in chap. xl. 31, xli. 1, where it mean.s, with ^'^, novas vires assumcre, so that in this passage, where the object is something external to the subject, it means sjihsti- tiiere, like the Arab, achlafa, to restore, to replace. The poorest style of building in the country is contrasted with the best, for " the sycomore is a tree wiiich only flourishes in the plain, and there the most wretched dwellings are still built in the present day of bricks dried in the sun, and of knotty beams of sycomore." ' If the war has destroyed these, then more lasting and stately dwellings will be raised in their place. Ephraim is to be brought to feel this defiance of the judgments of God (jn) as in Hos. ix. 7 ; Ezek. xxv. 14). Jeho- vah gives to the adversaries of Kezin supremacy over P^phraim (^si^), and spurs on the enemies of Ephraim. '^pDp, as in chap. xix. 2, from ^?D, in the root meaning, which is dialec- tically guaranteed, means to prick, figere (which has nothing to do with the meaning to plait and to cover); from which * As distinguished from avKi/xopoi or avKci^ii>o{, the sycomore, rnr\, means the nmlberry-tree, morus ; see Imm. Low, Aram. PJlamennavien, Nos. 332 and 338. ' Rcsen, " Topograph ieches aus Jerusalem,' in I>MZ. 1860, xiv. Clii. 252 ISAIAH. we have '^y, ^p, aL-, a prickle, a nail, peg, and the Aramaeo- i ' Heb. TW, i^j^) a knife : and therefore the pilpel is to be translated to goad, to incite, according to which the Targum translates this passage and chap. xix. 2 and the LXX. chap, xix. 2. It is not necessary to adduce the Talmudic "HP^p, to kindle (by friction), which never occurs in the metaphorical sense of to excite ; our 1030 would be better taken as an intensive form of "n^D, in the sense of the Arab, (^j^l, " to provide oneself with weapons, to arm ; " but this is properly a denominative from that likka which means an offensive weapon, from stabbing and spearing, from which the transition is easy to the meaning of spurring on and instigating. The " oppressors of Eezin " (r>") ''Tl-f, like Ma ''in in chap. i. 4) are the Assyrians who were called in by Ahaz against Eezin. The indirect designation of them is peculiar, but neither does the striking out of the n:f (Lagarde) nor its transformation into ntJ* (Ewald, Cheyne) commend itself; most in its favour has the conj. vnv with pvn expunged (Bredenkamp), so that vmx O^v) and va""** are specialized in ver. 11. The range of vision here widens to the whole of Israel ; for the northern kingdom has never had to suffer from the Philistines, whereas an invasion of Philistines into Judah actually belonged to the punitive judgments of the time of Ahaz, 2 Chron. xxviii. 16-19. Ephraim is overrun by Aram, that is to say (if pvT is not expunged), by Aram as subjugated by Assur, and now tribu- tary to it, and Judah is invaded by the Philistines, and becomes a fat prize of both. But this extreme distress is still far from being the end of God's punishments. Because Israel does not turn {2U i6), God's wrath also does not turn (2^ ah). Strophe 2, vers. 12—16: "But the people turneth not unto Him that smiteth it, and they seek not Jehovah of hosts. There- fore Jehovah rooteth out of Israel head and tail, palm-braTich and rush, in one day. Elders and the right honourable, this is the head ; and prophets, teachers of lies, this is the tail : the leaders of this people have become mis-leaders, and their followers swallowed up ones. Therefore the All- Lord will not rejoice in their young men, and will not have compassion on their orphans and widows : for altogether they are impious and evil- ciiArTF.R IX. i2-i«. '2r>:\ (Jocra, and eirrjf mouth sprahih hlaAphcmy, — inth all this His (tnijer is not turned away, and His hand is stretched out still." The T of oyni corresponds to the Latin antevx. ^y ^^^ is used of thorough conversion that does not stop half way. ;n2sn^ the smiter of it, or lie who sniiteth it, is Jehovah (com- pare, on the other hand, chap. x. 20, where Assur is meant). The article and sutti.x are used as in chap. xxiv. 2 ; Prov. xvi. 4, and elsewhere. It might be thought that the 1 of \r\'2'^r[ was inadvertently appended from the following nxi ; but the article could rather be dispensed with than the sutlix ; the Ciise is similar to what we have in D*p ^)i^^, chap. Ixiii. 11, q.v. There is now coming a great day of punishment, like several which Israel has experienced in the Assyrian oppressions and Judah in the Chaldean oppressions; and in it head and tail, or, according to another proverbial ex- pression, palm branch and rush are rooted out. One might think that by this is meant the upper and the lower classes, high and low; but ver. 14 makes another application of the first double figure by giving it a turn different from its popular sense (cf. Arab. er-ru'Hs w-al-cdndh = high and low, in Dietrich, p. 209). Since Koppe this ver. 14 has l)eeii almost universally held to be a gloss (Hitzig, Ewald, Dietricii, Knobel, Cheyne, Diestel), and, moreover, a sotte f/losr (Keuss). I'.ut in opposition to this is to be put the habit of Isaiah (chap. i. 22, 23), and also of the other prophets and poets of interpreting their figures themselves (Hos. xiii. 15 ; I's. xviii. 17, 18, cxliv. 7); against it also is the Isaianic conception in chap. iii. 3, xxx. 20; against, too, is the mediating relation of this verse to ver. 15 ; and against it further is the wit of the inter- pretation. The chiefs of the people are the head of tiie pooy)le as a body; and behind it sit the pro])hets, like tiie wagging tail of a dog, flattering the people, — prophets who love, as Tersitis .says (iv. 1 5), hlando caudam jadare popcllo. The prophet drops the figure of 1^23, the palin_ branch forming the crown of thu palm (which has its name from the fact that it is formed like the palm of the hand, instar paltnae manus), and I^wJK, the rush which grows out of the marsh.' It signifies the rulers of the people ' Tlie noun djk is used in the. Old Testament as well as in the Talmud to signify both a marshy phut' (s«-o Mezin 3G^, and more f.^pfcially M/Wa zaru 38-, to rot, to fust=^nJX, j^\. 1 On the extra-bi.blical use of the f\:n. see J)MZ. xxiii. 635, 636. 2 The reading jno is wrong ; the Masoretic reading is j;-|D, and the interpretation U 'jrovnpov is therefore excluded. CHAI'TKU IX. i:-?o 2. '5 not turned airay, anJ IIU Ixtnd is strrfclirtl out still." Tlio standpoint of the proplict is nt llie fartliest end of tlio courso of judgment, and from there he looks back ; conseqiu'nlly this link of the chain is also past in his view, and hence the con- secutive imperfects. The curse, which the apostasy of Israel carries within itself, now breaks fully out. Wickednes.s ^V'^'\ i.e. the constant willin;.^ of evil, is a fire which man kindles in himself. And whcii the grace of tlod, which stitlos and checks this fire, is at an end, it breaks forth ; the wicked- ness flames forth like fire pV^, as in chap. xx.v. 27, is used of God's wrath). So it stands with the wickedness of Israel, which now consumes first thorns and thistles, i.e. the indivi- dual evil-doers who are tlie most ripe for jud'', related to 3>7, literally to set on [lire]). The distinction which the two figures intend is therefore not the high and low (Ewald), not the useless and useful (Drechsler), but the individuals and the whole people (Vitringa). The fire into which the wickedness breaks out seizes individuals first, and then like a forest-conflagration it seizes the people in all its ranks and members who whirl up (roll forth) the ascending of smoke, i.e. they roll forth in high ascending smoke. "H^^JP'!', air. Xey., a synonym of ^?'r'?'?, Judg. vii. 13, to turn oneself or roll (cf. Assyr. ahdku, to turn) ; the smoke itself has the name V^'V, JL=, from the pillars of smoke curling into one another (cf. ^.yuL:, used of the felted beard of the camel). This fire of wickedness is notliing else but God's nnay, for so wrath is called as breaking forth from within and spreading itself inwardly more and more, and then passing outwards into word and deed ; it is God's own wratli ; for all sin carries this within itself as its own punishment. IJy this fire of wrath the soil of the land is gradually and wholly burnt out, and the people of the land entirely consumed ; D^if, utt. Xey., to glow (I..\'X. air/K€- 256 ISAIAH. Kavrai, and similarly also in Targum), and to be dark, black (Arab, 'atama, late night), for what has burned out becomes black (cf. Din, Aram. Q'T'P). Fire and darkness are correlates throughout the whole of Scripture. Thus far do the figures go in which the prophet unveils the inner nature of this stage of judgment. In its historical manifestation it consists in the most inhuman self - destruction during an anarchical civil war. Devoid of any gentler feeling (p^ Ton for ?V, as in Jer. li. o), they devour each other without being satisfied ; "i_^|i, to cut, to hew into (whence the Arab. J^'fr, the butcher), iv^t, according to Jer. xix. 9 = inj/'i, a member of his family and tribe, who, as being a natural defence and support, is figuratively called his arm, Arabic *adud (see Ges. Thcs. p. 433). The Talmud in reading iy^T testifies to the defective mode of writing lynt (see Norzi). This interminable self- slaughtering and the king -murder conjoined with the jealousy of the tribes, shook the northern kingdom again to its destruction. And how easily the unbrotherliness of the northern tribes towards each other can turn into united hostility against Judah, has been sufficiently proved by the tSyro-Ephraimitish war, whose consequences are always still going on, even now when the prophet is prophesying. This hostility of the brother kingdoms will still increase. But even this is not yet the end of the judgments of wrath. Strophe 4, chap. x. 1—4 : " Woe unto them that ordain godless ordinances, and to the writers ivho ijrepare trouble ; to force away the needy from demanding justice, and to roh the suffering of my 'people of their rightful claim, that widows may become their prey, and they plunder orphans. And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the storm that cometh from afar ? To ivhom. will ye flee for help, and where will ye deposit your glory ? There is nothing left but to crouch dovm under captives, and they fall under the slain — loith all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is strctehcd out still." This last strophe is directed against the unjuat authorities and judges. The woe upon them, as we have already several times seen, is t'he ceterum censeo of Isaiah. Pi^n (to cut in, originally to mark, chap. xxx. 8 ; Job xix. 23) is their deciding of decrees ; and 3ri3 (Piel occurring only here, and ciiArTEi: X. i-t. 257 in the perf. accoiiliipj: to (li's. § 120. 0) is tlicir oflicial suh- scribiuij: and writing (not scribbling, scrawling, Ewald, § 120/'). Their decrees are p>5 'PPn (an open plural from a [trincipal form P^ = P^, as in Jiulg. v. 15, cf. '^^3, "-i^n, 'P'^V, '.bS').' ina^nnuh as their content is nothingness, i.e. is the direct opposite of moral reality : and what they write out is ?9V. trouble, ie. unjust (cf. ttoj/ov, irovijpo's) oppression of the people."'' Poor people who wish to enter upon legal proceed- ings are not allowed by them to do it ; widows become their prey — that is, the object of their spoil, and they plunder the orphans entirely (compare on the diversion into the finite verb, chap. v. 24, viii. 11, xlix. 5, Iviii. o). For this the judgment of God cannot be escaped by them, and this is told them in ver. 3, the statement being clothed in three questions (beginning with "^^^ quid ifjitur). The noun rriJiJa of the lirst question always means simply a visitation of punishment. nsiu' from nsr is empty and waste, emptiness and wasteness, then the rumbling of what has fallen down into an empty deep ; and more generally it is a catastrophe, destruction, and here " coming from afar," because a distant people (Assur) is God's instrument of wrath. The second question runs thus : Upon whom will ye throw yourselves when seeking refuge (-'V D«, covstr. 2'>J'a<'fjna7is only here) ? Tliird question : "Where, i.e. in whose hand, will ye deposit your weallii in money and property ("^i^^, what is weighty in value and imposing in its appearance) ? ^]V with ^^, as in Job xxxix. 11, or ?, Job xxxix. 14, is to leave anytiiing with a person as property in trust. No one receives from them their wealth as a deposit ; it is irretrievably lost. To this negative answer there is attached the following *i|ip3, which as a preposition after a preceding negation signifies prra/tr, as a conjunction nisi (DK 'rps, Judg. vii. 14), and when it governs the whole proposition, as in this case (cf. Gen. xliii. o ; Num. ' On tlie piinctuatiou of »ppn with vocal SheM (williout metheg) sec Kimchi, Michlol, 796. In like manner Dcut. xxxiii. 17 lias rii33i, H"l aiitlunticated like ni33"l in Num. x. 30. 2 Tlie current accentuation, D'STIDCI, rnnrha, SdVi tiphrhnh, is wron;^. Tlie correct accentuation is u''2r\2^\ tij'hcliah Qxnd melhaj), ^*2]}, vicnltu ; tlicn 13.-12 ^oy is ail attributive clause VOL. I. R ZoS ISAIAH. xi. 6 ; Dan. xi. 18), nisi quod; and here, where the previous negation is to be supplied in thought, it signifies nil reliqimm est nisi quod. The singular V13 is used contemptuously, the high persons being taken together in the mass ; and rinri does not mean acque etc or loco (Ewald, § 2177j), but m/ra in its primary local sense (cf. ^inii, Ezek. xxxii. 20), Some crouch down in order to find more room at the feet of the prisoners who are crammed closely together in the prison ; or if this is to be taken as referring to a scene of deportation, they sink under the feet of the other prisoners, being unable to bear their hardships. The others fall in war ; and as the carnage lasts long, in such a way that when corpses them- selves they are covered by the corpses of the other slain (cf. chap. xiv. 19).^ And even with this God's wrath is not yet satisfied. The prophet, however, does not follow out the terrible gradation further. The exile to which this fourth strophe points also actually forms the close of a period. C. — The annihilation of the imperial hingdom of the world and the rising of the kingdom of Jehovah in His Anointed, chap. x. 5— xii. The law of contrast which rules in the history of salvation also holds good in prophecy. When distress culminates, the course of events takes a turn and it is changed into help ; and when, as in the previous section, prophecy has become black as night, it suddenly becomes as bright as day, as in the section which now begins. The ''in spoken over Israel now becomes a '»in over Assyria {Assur)? Assyria, proud of its own power, after having served for a time as a rod of the wrath of Jehovah, itself now falls under the power of that wratli ; its attack upon Jerusalem becomes its overthrow, and ^ Lagarde (Sijmmida, i. 105 ; Mittheilumjen, i. 210) reads ninb ''Jp^ *T'Dk nn : " Beltis sinks down, Osiris is crushed " (according to xlvi. 1 ; Jer. 1. 2). But tlie following i^S"" n''jnn nnni lias then no connection ; and I still hokl that it cannot be shown that Egyptian gods were worshipped in Judah in the time of the kings. - [Dr. Delitzsch uses " Assur " rather than Assyria, and it is retained in tlie renderings of the Hebrew text.— Tr.] ciiAiTEn X. .-, xn. 2rj9 on tlio ruins of iliis iiiijuMial kin;^tli>m uf the world iIhto lises up the kingdom of the great and riglitoous son of David, who rules in peace over his redeemed people and over the. ])eople who rejoice in him. This is the counterjiart of tli*^ redemption from Egypt, and one rich in material for songs of ])raise, like that which happened on the other side of the Ked Sea. The Messianic prophecy, which in chap. vii. turns the side of its curse towards unbelief, and the substance of whoso promise breaks through the darkness in chap. viii. o-ix. G, like a great light, is standing now upon its third and highest stage. In chap. vii. it is like a star in the night ; in cliap. viii. 5-ix. 6 it is like the breaking in of the morning ; and now the sky becomes entirely cloudless, and it appears like the noonday sun. The prophet has now penetrated to the fringe of the light of chap. vi. The name Shear-jashub, having emptied itself of the curse it contained, is now transfigured into a pure promise. And it now becomes as clear as day what the name " Immanuel " means, and what Innnanuel's name "iiDi bn declares : the remnant of Israel turns itself to God the Strong, and God the Strong is henceforth with His people in the sprout of Jesse, who has the seven spirits of God dwelling in him. As regards the date of the com- position of this third section of the esoteric discourses, most n)odern commentators agree in assigning it to the time of >Iezekiah, because cliap. x. 9-11 represents the conquest of Samaria as having already taken place. Now if the prophet had, in fact, already foretold in chap. vii. 8 and viii. 4, 7 that Samaria, and with Samaria the kingdom of Israel, would succumb to the Assyrians, he might ])resuppose it here as ideally a past. lUit vers. 9-11 really require us to a.ssign the composition of this section, at least in its existing form, to the time of llezekiah, and is o]»[)osed to the view that would assign its composition to the time of Ahaz, whether before or after the punishment inflicted on the two allies by Tiglath - pileser (Vitringa, C'aspari, iJrechsler). The prophet begins with *in, which is always used as an expression of indignant pain in opening a proclamation of judgment over the party named ; altliough this proclamation, as in the present case ('f. cinq', i. 4, 5 -V), does not always 260 ISAIAH. immediately follow, but there may be prefixed to it a state- ment of the sin by which the judgment is brought about, i'irst of all, Assyria is more definitely indicated as the chosen instrument of divine judgment upon all Israel. Vers. 5, 6 : " Woe to Assur, the rod of mine anger and a staff is he in their hand — mine indignation. Against a reprobate nation ivill I despatch them, and against the people of my displeastire will I direct tliem to prey prey, and to spoil spoil, and to make it trodden doion Wee street mire." AVhat follows ""in is not necessarily vocative, but it may be the designation of the object (without \, b^, ?P), as shown by chap. i. 4. ''PV! is either permutative of the predicative Sin, which is placed emphatically in front (cf. the Xin"nnx, similarly with mahhcph, in Jer. xiv. 22), as we have translated it; or DTa Nin stands elliptically for DTa Nin tj-s, the staff which they use is my indignation (Aben Ezra, Gesenius, llosen- mliller, and others), in which case, however, we should rather expect n^VT xin DT3 nuiy\. It cannot, however, be rendered : " And a staff is he, in their hand is my indignation," as Knabenbauer gives it, for this breaks up the half verse too much. Nor is it permissible, following Knobel's view, to take ""DyT as a separated genitive to n^n, and to punctuate ntpp^ which is altogether without an example in the Hebrew language.^ Hitzig, Ewald, Diestel, and others eliminate m*n xin as a gloss ; but a glossator would have written tj'X DT'3, and what remains would be a tautology. Instead of ia^bpi the Kcrt gives i^siboi, as the infinitive combined with a suffix appears everywhere else ; compare, on the other hand, 2 Sam. xiv, 7. Further, the manuscripts waver between Donp and D?p-ip like nnnp (Ewakl, § 160c). Assyria is to be a means of inflicting the divine wrath on Israel ; for Israel, and particularly (in accordance with the standpoint of this prophetical discourse) Judah, is the reprobate nation, the people which had become the object of the overflowing divine wrath. The instrument of punishment, however, exalts itself and ^ In Arabic this separation of the governed word from the governing word with a genitive relation (even apart from the allowable interposi- tion of a word expressive of an oath) is a poetical licence ; see de Sacy, Gramm. t. ii. § 270. CIIAriKK X. 7 11. 201 iiuikcs itself out of a iiu-an into an ciul in itself, ^'er. 7 : " ^\-vcr(hcUss he vicandh not thus, nor doth his heart think thus: for to destroy is his striving, and to cut off nations not a few." Assyria thinks P'^*?, not as he ought to think, in consequence of the fact that he is coiulitioned in his power over Israel by Jehovah. For wliat tilled his heart 03273 instead of the usual ^33p"cy) is the strivinj^ peculiar to the imperial power, not tolerating any independent people beside itself, to destroy peoples not a few (t^yp N7 in apposition, as in Xeh. iL 12, cf. Num. ix. 20), i.e. as many ])eoi)le3 as })os- sible, in order to extend the range of its dominion, and to deal with Judah as with all the rest; for Jehovah is to Assyria only as one of the idols of the peoples. Vers. 8-11 : "For he saith, Are not my generals all kings? Is not Calno as Carchemish, or Hamath as Arpad, or Samaria as Damascus ? As my hand has reached the kingdoms of the idols — and their graven images n\rc more than those of Je7-usalcvi and Samaj'ia — tthall I not, a^ I have done to Samaria and her idols, likeici.^e d-o to Jerusalem and her idols ? " The king of Assyria bore the title of the great king (chap, xxxvi. 4) ; in Assyrian mrru rabbu, or even (cf. Ezek. xxvi. 7) of the King of kings ; in Assyrian, sar sarrdni (sarru, not malik, because the former, in the political linguistic usage of the Assyrian,^ is a higher title than the latter). The generals in his army he can call kings, because the satraps'' who led their contingents were like kings in the extent and splendour of their dominion, and some of them were also really subjugated kings (cf. 2 Kings XXV, 28). He proudly asks whether one of the cities named was not as incapable of resistance as the other, and yet had fallen before him. {i'''p3')3 (even aft^r a connecting accusative, not t^"C3"!?2, but c='!:3-)23;' on account of tlie incompatibility of ^ In the titular desi<;nation8 of the Rfnls, sarru (iarraln) and malik (mnlkatu) intcrchan;^e, as Schrailer has shown aj,'ainRt Stade. * 2«T&«-/:;(cf. a»Tp* in the Persian senpe in the Aiharnanians of Aristo- jihant's), in Tlieoponipus iZetTpi-rn;, in inscriptions i|«it>^«T.vw», is the oM Persian (cuneiform) kluliatra pdvan, i.e. f^overnmcnt-kecper {pavun, in nt-o- Pen-ian abridged aa .,u in ^'j^i-1, larlan, city-kccpcr, ,JkiL', It'i'jhbdn, garden-keeper), plur. Ilchraized into Q'iSiTJ'ns. « Cf. on the rnh', Luth. Znlschn/t, x.xiv. (18C3) p. 411. Tlio pinirtuation adopted is 33, 32. even after *Ynn ; wlnther C3 may al.'-o be adopted 262 ISAIAH. the aspirates) is not Circesium nor MaLug, but tlie ruined site Girbas (plur. Gerabis), lying to the north-east of Aleppo, a name corrupted from Evp(07r6'p, to attain, as in Ps. xxi. 9, and 'y'7^\} with the generic article), which had stronger idols than Jerusalem and Samaria, he will likewise overcome Jeru- salem like Samaria, Jerusalem having equally powerless idols. IP, prae, implies oidy a " more than " (as e.g. in Ezek. v. 6), which may be either a more in number, or, what is more directly suggested, a more in power (compare the similar question in Amos vi. 2). Note here that ver. 1 1 is the apo- dosis to ver. 10, and that the comparative clause of ver. 10 is repeated in ver. 1 1 in order to bring Samaria and Jeru- salem specially into comparison. The king of Assyria calls the gods of the peoples by the name of idols without the prophet transferring to him his Israelitish standpoint. On the contrary, the chief sin of the Assyrian lies in this. For (cf. Ps. xxvi. 12, cvi. 7, cxxix. 2, eel. Baer) is questionable ; see Strack, Proleg. p. 116, Liber Psalmorum Hebr. ctque Lat. p. ix. 1 See on this Chnld. Genesis, p. 293. Paradies, p. 225. a See Sclirader, KAT. 2 Auf. p. 385. ciLvriKi: x. 12. 2G3 uliile lie rcc^qniscs no otluT Ljods tliaii his own iintiniial pods, he phices Jehovah nlon;^ with the iihds of the hi-alhen culls which hail been introilnceil into Samaria niul Jenisaleni. For the worshippers of Jehovah this fact brings the consola- tion that such blasphemy of the one living Cloil cannot remain unavenged. For the idolaters, however, it brings a bitter teaching ; for their gods really deserve nothing better than to be spoken of with scorn. The prophet has now characterized Assyria's sin. It is ambitions self-exaltation above Jehovah, carried even to blasphemy ; and yet he is only Jehovah's rod, which it was in His power to use. And when He has used this rod so far as He would. He throws it away. Ver. 12 : "And it will come to pass, vhcn the All-Lord shall bring to an end all His work vpo7i Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will come to punish on the fruit of the jrride of heart of the ling of Assur, aiid on the havghty glancing of his ryes." The statement about the Lord suddenly changes into a direct ntterance of the Lord. AVhen He will consummate His whole work, a work whifh, as in chap, xxviii. 21, is ])unitive (Cheyne, Orclli, and Bredenkamp), this will l)e done in Zion and Jerusalem, where He calls to Assyria "thus far and no farther," with the judgment on Assyria, the instru- ment of punishment which has become presumptuous and further nnusable. 1'^?, ahsiiuhre = ahsolvcre, Lam. ii. 17, Zech. iv. 9, is a metaphor derived from the loom, as in chap. xxxviiL 12. There is no reason for taking VS?' as fut. cx- actuvi, which would be expressed in the perfect in acconlance with chap. iv. 4. The " whole work " is that which has been carried out to the utmost. The end of the work of punish- ment passes into the judgment upon the instrument of punisli- ment, and therefore into the deliverance of Jerusalem from extreme distress. The '^S of the pride of the heart of Assyria is his vainglorious blaspheming of Jehovah, in which his whole disposition is concentrated, a.s the internal quality of the tree is in the fniit which hangs aloft amid the branch<'s. rnscn, as in Zech. xii. 7, is the self-glorilication which expres.ses itself in the lofty look of his eyes (I'lov. xxi. 4). A considerable number of genitives are intentionally brought together in order to express that Assyria is greatly puth-d np, even to bursting. lUit Jehovah, towards whom humilitv is the soul 264 ISAIAH. of all virtue, will visit and punish this pride. AVhen He has punished so far that by further punishing He would annihilate Israel, which is inconsistent with His grace and truth, He then turns His punishing against the instrument of punish- ment, which falls imder the curse of all that is selfishly opposed to God. Vers. 13, 14: "For he has said: By the, strength of my own hand I have accomplished it, and hy my own wisdom, for I am prudent, and removed the houndaries of the jJcopks, and I pilundcrcd their stores, and, as superior, -put down enthroned ones, and my hand took out the possessions of the peoples like a nest ; and as men gather forsaken eggs, I have gathered up the ivhole earth, — there was no one ivho stirred a ■icing and opened the mouth and chirped." The imperfects ruled by the preterites express what happened several times. The second of these preterites, "'nb'iB' (= '•n'DitJ'), is the only example of a perf. Poel of verbs n"^, and is only in appearance a mixed form from CpVtr (Po. of DDi.") and np'^ (Pi. of l^?^'). The object to this is rhTn^ (Chcthtb) or nn^njr (Kcri), which means parata in the sense of ra fieXXovra (Deut. xxxii. 35), or, as here, ra virapxcvTa. According to the Kcri, it is further to be translated : and put down, a mighty one, en- throned ones; i''??, as in Job xxxiv. 17, 24, and xxxvi. 5. The Mishna (Yadayim iv. 4) has Dn''n'n\~iy (Chethib), ">n'"DVl^^ and "1^23 {Keri). But the Chethih i"?^? is suitable if the 3 is taken, as in chap. xiii. 6, as 3 vcritatis : as a strong one (superior in strength), not : as a bull (Bredenkamp) ; for "'"'3N can be shown to have this meaning only in the plural (Ps. Ixviii. 31, xxii. 13, 1. 13), although it would give a relevant sense. It is possible, however, that what is indicated by T3i«, according to Ps. Ixxviii. 25, is a superhuman power (Cheyne), as the bull-god (alpu, and also Kar i^. sedu) ap- pears in the inscriptions as a power marching through the enemy's lands and trampling everything down. In ver. 14 the stiffer i consec. appears before the 3rd pers. fem. The kingdoms of the peoples are here compared to birds' nests, which the Assyrian seizes upon and harries (^??, as in Hub. ii. 5 ; cf. nsb' in chap. v. 7) ; and their possessions are com- pared to lonesome eggs, the mother bird being away. And thus there is not even an appearance of resistance, and in the nest not one of the little birds stirs a wing to defend itself, ciiAiTKi; X. i:>. 2(3.") nov does any one open its licak to scare away l)y its diirpin;.'. Seb. Scliniid correotly venders it thus : mdla alum viont ad (k/cnilcnduiii aid os ajxrit ad (cnrndum. Thus proudly does Assyria look back upon his course of victory, and thus con- temptuously does he look down upon the subdued kingdoms. Tliis self-exaltation is a senseless sin. Ver. 15: " Darr. the a.rc boast itself against hivi who hews wdh it, or the saiv magnify itself against him v:1io drav:s it ? As if a staff were, sicinging those who lift it vp, as if a stiek were to lift vp not- v.-ood." What madness lies in this .self-deification is indicated by the two questions. The boasting of the As.syrian is the bragging of an axe against (literally, over) him wJio hews with it (13 3>*nn, without moving back the tone, which is not usual, especially in participles of A'al, excepting n*> and s''^), orof asaw("iiro from "iw"3, »j.^ Aramean 1D3, in Mi.^lates) uiiri^^litness as the fruit of the jicnal judgnient, — a thouj^ht whicii, though appropriate in itself, would not be expressed merely by one word, and it is excluded by the reason given in the following clause. On ^Pj.*' with the ace, sec Ges. § 138. 2. That P'/'?, as in Dent, xxviii. Go, is not used in the sense of perfecting, is shown by ver. "lo, where ^j^ (feni. of '7;3, that which vanishes, then the vanishing, the thorough ending) interchanges with it, and ^Y]^.^.. its Zion, is indirectly encouraging. Zion is, in fact, the site of the divine gracious presence, and of the kingdom which is imperishable according to the promise. Those who dwell there, and who are God's people (God's servants), not merely by their calling but by their inner qualities, are also heirs of the promise ; and if the Egyptian bondage becomes renewed in an Assyrian bondage, they may be certain of this to their consolation, that the redemption of Kgypt will also be renewed. cnyp T]-i"i3, in the way, i.e. in the njanner of the acting of the K;,'yptians. TT}. is the course both of active procedure and also (as in ver. 2G and Amos iv. 10) of passive endurance. 270 ISAIAH. The encouraging address is now based upon new reasons by taking up again the grounds of consolation from which the Pj" derives it. Vers. 25, 26 : " For yd a very little, then is the indignation past, and my ivrath turns to destroy them, and Jehovah of hosts shakes over him the scourge as He smote Midia)i at the rock of Oreh, and His staff reaches out over the sea, atul He lifts it up in the manner of Egypt." The phrase : a very little (as in chap. xvi. 14, xxix. 17), is meant from the point of view of the ideal present, when Israel is threatened by Assyria with destruction. Then will the indignation of Jehovah at His people suddenly have an end (pVl ^'^, borrowed in Dan. xi. 36, and to be interpreted according to chap, xxxvi. 20); and Jehovah's wrath becomes or goes forth Dn73n"?y. Luzzatto recommends the conjectural reading : Dn^ h2T\-hv "'3S"! : and my wrath against the world will cease ; ban being taken, as in chap. xiv. 17, with reference to the oLKovfievr} as enslaved by the empire. It would be better explained as : " and my wrath at the world will fulfil itself," ^3n being taken for the sinful world represented by the empire. But the traditional text gives an easier connection forver. 26. We are not, however, to be misled by the bv into explaining it as : my wrath (burns) at the destruction inflicted by Assyria on the people of God, or at the destruction endured by that people. It is the destruction of the Assyrians to which Jeliovah's wrath is now directed ; ?V is used here, as i'requently, of that to which the look is directed, that to which the intention points (Ps. xxxii. 8, xviii. 42). When taken thus, ver. 2 oh leads on to ver. 26. The destruction of Assyria is here prophesied in two antithetical figures founded on facts of the olden time. The almighty criminal judge will brandish the scourge over Assyria (■>"?ii', agitarc, as in 2 Sam. xxiii. 18, in assonance with the following ^'f}V), and will smite it after the manner of the smiting upon Midian, chap, xxvii. 7, or of the blow (overthrow) which Midian experienced. The rock of Horeb is the place where the Ephraimites slew the Midian king Oreb (Judg. vii. 25). Then will His staff be over the sea, i.e. will be stretched out, like the miraculous staff of Moses, over the sea of tribulation into which the Assyrians have driven Israel (D^, an emblem borrowed from the type, see Kohler on Zech. x. 11; cf. Ps. ciiAiTKn X. ::. 271 Ixvi. 6), ami He will lift it up, comniatiding the waves of the sea that they swaUow Assyria. Dpv? T^^.'^, a Jatnis-W(»r(l, iis Cheyne calls it, iiulioatoil in ver. 24 how the Ku'vptiaiis raised it, but here how it was raised over the Kj-ypliaiis. The expression is intenlionally confonned to that in ver. 24 : Uecause Assyria had raised the rod in the Kijyptian nianucr over Israel, Jehovah will also raise it in the Egyptian njaniier over Assyria. The yoke of the world-power must then burst asunder. Ver. 27: " Aiid it vill come to pass in tlutt dai/, its burdtn will remove from thy shoulder and its yoke from tlnj nerk, and the yoke null be destroyyl from the pressure of the fat. ' There are two figures here: in the first (cessahit onus rju.'i a rervio: (ua), Israel is represented as a beast of burden ; in the second {it jugum ejus a collo tuo), as a beast of diaught ; and this second figure divides again into two divisions. For i*D^ oidy states that the yoke, like the burden, will be taken from Israel ; but ?^^, that it will itself spring the yoke by the counter pressure of its fat strong neck. Knobel, who alters the text, remarks ai^ainst this view that the yoke was a cross piece of wood and not a collar. And undoubtedly the simi»li' yoke is a cross piece of wood, but it lies upon the back vi the neck of the ox (usually of two beasts yoked tngeth»'i-, juvienta=Juymcnta, like Juyuin from jungerr), wliere it often rubs deep broad wounds on the nape, and is fastened unthr the neck by means of a cord, which at the same time connects it with the beam of the plough.' It is derived from S^y = ^^V. inire, U, immittirr, to let in ami close (as by a sort of stoppel, which the Kamus explains by 'jLr»^, to stup up). The conj. /y 72n\_ is therefore in accord with iIm- thing, lint that jCw* '39 nieans " face of the fat," and refers to the head of tlie lat bullock, is contrary to the linguistic usage, according to which 'r?? must designate that before which the yoke nni-^t yield (cf. e.g. Vs. Ixviii. 3). We therefore do not get away • ProfeR.«or ShofTfr wrote to mo nftiT hU n-turn from a visit to rulcxtino, in the year 18GG, in tlu-.Ho teinm : "I saw uinny ox«-n at the jiloiij^li in P!j;ypt, Palctiiu", Syria, au'l at K|>1ipvu.>« ; and the yokc(-jij) wax always a cross pii'ce of wwxl laid on the l>ay a ropo under the Ufck with lla- Inam of iIk- ploiij;!!," 272 ISAIAH. i'rom the view tluit what is expressed is a bursting of the yoke produced by the increasing fatness of the ox, the yoke being a cross piece of wood with its connecting rope or strap. Undoubtedly ^?n is not the most natural word for it; it means a corrumpi, but such as lias been produced by means of a disrumin, which has resulted, lit., if we compare the Arabic J.x>-, ^y means of a crumpling, a crushing together, a wrench- ing. Probably the word was chosen by reference to ''^f}, the yoke-rope, although there is no denominative Pual in the privative signification of being unroped (Niigelsbach). Kimchi makes the striking remark on this passage, that the yoke usually becomes hurtful to the fat flesh of the ox by pressure and rubbing, but that here the converse case occurs, that the fatness of the ox becomes the means of destroying the yoke (compare the figure of grafting in Eom. xi. 17, to which Paul there also gives a turn nrapa ost eventum, because it is too special for any other view. But the Assyrian army when it marched against Jerusalem did not come directly from the north, but from the way to Egypt out of the south- west. Sennacherib had conquered Lachish, then besieged Libnah, and marched thence against Jerusalem. The prophet, however, does not mean to give a piece of military history, but to present vividly the future fact that the Assyrian will advance to Jerusalem after devastation of the land of Judah. One need not object to calling the description ideal, or even poetical (see Driver, Isaiah, p. 73). It is not, however, on that account a chimera ; for ideas are the essential roots of the real, and reality is their historical and external form. This external formation, their essential manifestation, may, CUArTF.R X. 2fl-3J. L'T.? without detriment to tlieir cssenliality, be presented in pt\r- tioular momenta i-ither in one form or in another form. Tlic Assyrian has really come with the storm strides of a compieror from the north, and the cities nanieil have been really struck by the dangers and terrors of war. The description here given, when looked at aesthetically, is one of the most pictur- esque and magniticent representations that human poetry has ever produced. Vers, 28-34 : " He comrs vpon Ayyuth, marchis ihrongh Mujron, in Mich mash, he leaves his hagf/ui/i. They march right across the ravine ; — let Geha be our night - (juarters ! Bamah tremhles ; Giheah of Saul flees ; Scream loud, (laughter of Gallimf only listen, Ixajsha ! Poor Anathoth ! Hurries Afadmena, the inhabitants of Gebim rescue. To-day he still mahs a halt in Nob, — smngs his hand over the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. — Be- hold, the All-Lord, Jehovah of hosts, lops dmvn tlic branches loUh terrible farce, and tlwse of towering growth arc hewn down, and the lofty are laid loiv. And He fells the thickets of the fore.^t icith the iron; and Lebanon, by a majestic One it falls." The Assyrian suddenly assails n>y, or as the two St. Petersburg MSS. write it, n^V (='">^V, 1 Chron. vii. 28, K»V, Nch. xi. :51. usually '>n or 'V), about six German miles to the north-east of Jerusalem {?V Ki3 comes hostilely upon, in the same sense as, e.g., Judg. xviii, 27), and in doing so he here steps for the fust time upon Kenjamite territory that was under the sway of Judah. The name of this *Av, which means a heaji of stones, agrees with the name of Tell d-hagar (van de Velde), ^\hich lies at the distance of forty-five minutes' walk south- cast from Beitin = liethel ; but such Arabic translations of the original names of a place as reproduce their rocogin'sed original meaning are not to be expected from tradition. Schegg,* who made a three days' excursion from .Teru.salem for the sake of exploring this Assyrian marching route, and who returned by Teyyiba. Michmash, (leba, Anata, and Lsawiya, puts Ay more proltably (as the march would then be straightforwards) on the site of the present Ti.'yyil)a,six lionrs' journey to the north of Jerusalem, 2700 feet above the sea, upon an isolated hill from whence a wide view opens up ' See tlic notice of my Coiniiicnlary in Kcuwjh'8 Theolog. LUeritiurhlaU Jahrg. ii. 80, 81. VOL. I. » 274 ISAIAH. towards the lowlands of Jaffa, to the hill of the Franks, over the Gor, and a great part of the Dead Sea, so that the deep blue mirror of its waters and the limestone hills encompassing it are seen nowhere else to such extent from one point of view. The hill, upon which lies the Christian village with about one thousand inhabitants, contains many ruins and the strong foundation walls of ancient fortresses and deep vaults, which point back to early pre-Roman antiquity. We give the preference to this determination of the situation of the place, as there is found in the neighbourhood of Teyyiba a small village with the name of Chirhet 'Ai. At this point the Assyrian army could survey the whole of the land yet to be conquered to the south. Instead of turning to the usual great north road (the " Nablus road "), the army marches straight by Michmash to Jerusalem without allowing itself to be delayed by the difficulties of the unlevelled way which led over mountain and valley. From Ay they pass MlGRON, the name of which appears to be preserved in the ruins of Burg Macrun, which lies some eight minutes' walk from Beitin. Michmash (p'^?^, according to Norzi, but in 1 Sam. xiii. B>opD while in' Ezra ii. 27 and Neh. xi. 31 it is DDsp, with D) still exists as a small village with ruins on the eastern side of the Migron valley under the name of Michmas. Schegg says of Michmas : " It lies, like Jerusalem, upon a neck of land between two valleys, the one of which separates it from the tableland on the west and the other from that on the south, on which Geba lies and over which the road to Jerusalem goes. The latter valley running from west to east is not narrow, but it is difficult to cross, deep, and so furrowed, especially near the bottom of the valley, that it requires effort to pass over it. The stream of this Wadi es-Suweinit has scooped through the rock a deep narrow frightful bed about ten minutes' walking to the east of Michmas. On the right and left, rocks — some of them 100 feet high, perpendicular, naked, and dingy red — form such a narrow outlet that the foaming waters of the winter torrent must still, it appears, struggle to escape. The rocky clefts of Kedron at Mar Saba are roomy valleys compared with this Suweinit. I did not see a rock outlet like it even on Lebanon with all its numerous ravines. Hence this Wadi has been called from of old "i?.V^ I CIIAriEU X. 28-34. li O L"opQ, as in 1 Sam. xiii. 2o." After the Assyrians liaJ dc- posited O'l??'?, Jer, xxxvi. 20) in Michmus as much of their baggage as they could dispense with — whether in order to leave it there or to have it sent after them by the easier road — they passed over the ford (^"J^VP, as in chap. xvi. 2), namely, that of the Wadi es-Suweinit. If they had marched through this rocky valley lengthwise, this would have led them to the Dead Sea; but they wished to go to Jerusalem, and therefore they cut through the valley and river crosswise. On their diilicult march they encourage each other by saying, " Geba be our night-quarters ! " " The beautiful tableland between Geba and Hizma," Schegg further remarks, " was thoroughly fitted for this, and quite inviting ; for it is large, i'ruitful, and even to-day is well cultivated. For the first time I saw here in Judah wide- stretching wheat -fields and beautiful groups of trees which picturesquely shade tlui surroundings of the little village of Geba." This Geba is now almost universally regarded, according to the view given by Gross, as not the Gibeah of Saul ; but the latter is recognised in the towering Tell (Tuleil) el- Fid which lies more to the south (Eobinson, Yalentiner, Keil, and others). And rightly so. For this mountain, the name of which signifies " bean-hill," presents a strong position suiting the Gibeah of Saul ; and for the view that there were two Benjamite places of the name of 1*33, nv2:, or nyaa, there is the evidence of Josh, xviii. 21-28, where y?3 and nypa are distinguished from each other. Besides, this mountain, which lies to the south of er - Pium, and therefore between ancient Ilamah and Anathoth, fits into the marching route of the Assyrian as here indicated ; and it is at least improbable that Isaiah should have nanjed one and the same place first y?.3 and then (without any visible reason) Tix^' ny^s. The Assyrian army therefore took up its night quarteis in Geba, which still bears this name ; and from there it spread terror to the west and east, and especially to the south. In the morning, having emerged from the deep valley l)etween ^lichmash and Geba, they leave on their flank the Benjamite Eama, now er-Iiam, which lay half an hour's march west from Geba, and which, trembling, sees them marcli on. The inhabitants of GiBEATii OF Saul, lying on the summit of the 2V6 ISAIAH. •' bean-hill " commanding the whole surrounding region, take to flight as they march past. Every station on their route brings them nearer Jerusalem. The prophet lives through it all in the spirit. It is so objectively present to him that it puts him into anguish and pain. The cities and villages of the region are lost. He calls upon the daughter, i.e. the inhabitants of Gallim, to set up a far shrilling cry of woe with their voice (adv. ace. Ges. § 138. 1, E. 3); and to the near-lying Laysha (cf. on the two places which have now disappeared, Judg. xviii. 29 ; and on the personal names, n^^jp -^m K'l-S-p ^d!3S, 1 Sam. xxv. 44) he calls out sympa- thetically : O, only listen, nearer and nearer come the enemy ; and over Anathoth (the still existing 'Andtd, which lies three- quarters of an hour's walking to the north-east of Jerusalem, a name which Cheyne regards as that of the Babylonian goddess Anat, the wife of Ami) he makes this lamentation, taking its name as an omen of its fate : " 0, for the poor, Anathoth ! " No change of the text is required. nj;j|, as in chap. liv. 11, is an exclamation, and riinjy follows according to the same order of words as in chap, xxiii. 1 2 ; it is a prefixed apposition as in Jer. iii. 6, aSijJ'^ >^^f^ (compare in the Persian text WJ^i sy^[i ^i\, 0, noble Buchara, DMZ. xxxviii. 330, 331). Ever nearer now to Jerusalem draws the crisis so much to be feared. Madmena ("dung-heap," see on Job, pp. 62, 63) flees in anxious haste ; the inhabitants of Gebin (" water- pits ") run off with their belongings ; T'i?n from ny, jlc, to flee (cf. D'ln, and also "^PO).^ ^"^ therefore to carry away in flight, to bring hastily into safety, Ex. ix. 19, cf. Jer. iv. 6, vi. 1, synonymous with D'Jn, Ex. ix. 20, Judg. vi. 11; different from ryn (Prov. xxi. 29, vii. 13), from W, j^, to be firm, strong, defiant, from which is derived tVip, madz, a fortifica- tion, in distinction from the Arabic JU^, madd, refuge; cf. chap. XXX. 2, "to flee to Pharaoh's fortress," 3 W, like < J JU. Neither of these places has left any certain trace 1 Hardly, however, ti'lj?, John iv. 11, which probably means, according to LXX. and Targ., congregari, and with which Gesenius compared the Arab. ^^Ij in the erroneously accepted sense of "to hasten." CHAPTER X. 28-34. 277 behind.' The passajjc is usually hold to mean further that the uriny ivsted another day in Nob. But this is not conforniablf to the intention of surprisin;^ Jerusalem by the suddenness of the destroying blow. Hence we explain it thus: Even to- day he will make a halt in Xob {in co est ut subsistat, Ges. § 132. K. 1) in order to gather up new strength in sight of the city doomed to destruction, and to arrange tlio plan of attack. The view held, that Nob is the still inhabited village of el-Isawtya to the south-west of Anata, fifty-five minutes to the north of Jerusalem, is at variance with the situation as described by Jerome : Stans in oppululo Nub et procul urbcin voiispicictis Jerusalem. "'Isawiya," says Schegg, " lies at the commencement of the valley of that name, which is turned towards the Dead Sea ; it is a very lovely place, but is so sunk in the valley, and surrounded on three sides by mountains, that one cannot think at all of identifying it wiili Xob." Perhaps what is meant is the height which rises on the north of Jerusalem, and which is called Sadr from its breast-like prominence or convexity. From this height the way leads down into the valley of Kedron, and the city spreads out at a short distance before one going down. It may have been here where the Assyrian is represented as halting in the vision of the prophet. Nor is it long (which is ex- pressed by the ^sy which follows dcruySeTox?) till, stretching out his hand for a blow, chap. xi. 15, xix. 16, he swings it over the mount of the daughter of Zion (chap. xvi. 1, not n'3. in connection with which the writer has thought of nyn'_ n'3 in), over the city of the holy hill. What will Jehovah then do, the only one who can save His threatened dwelling-place from such a host? — Up to ver. 32a the discourse has moved in rapid stormy steps ; then it begins to linger, and, as it were, to beat with anxiety, and now it breaks forth in dactylic vibrations like a long rolling thunder. The hostile army stands before Jerusalem like a broad thick forest. Then it is shown that Jerusalem has a God who does not allow Him.self to be taunted with impunity, nor does He leave His city at the decisive moment in the lurch, like the gods of • A writer in tlio Palfgline Krplorntion Fund, 1880, p. 108, 8UpiH*«-« tliat Gc'tjini i.-* in tlu; nei^'hlxjurhuod of the cavc« of the six huadix-il Bcnjamites {Mu^hdrel-el-0'ai). 278 ISAIAH. Carcheraish and Calno. Jehovah is the Lord, the God of the spiritual and starry hosts. He smites down the branches of this forest of an army ; ^VO is a so-called Piel privativum : to lop off (literally, to deal with the branches, cf. ^\?p, chap. v. 2), and niNQ = nnX3 (in Ezekiel nnxb) means, like the Latin fro7is, both branch and foliage, the leafy branches as the adornment of the tree, or the branches as adorned with leaves. His instrument is ^V"^J(|?, His terrifying crushing power (compare the verb in chap. ii. 19, 21). And even the lofty stems of the forest, thus stripped of branches and foliage, do not remain standing ; hewn down, they lie there, and the tall ones must go down. It goes with the stems, i.e. the leaders, as with the branches and the foliage, i.e. with the great crowded mass. The whole thicket of the forest (as in chap. ix. 1 7) He hews down (Hip^, 3 p. Piel, although it may be also JViphal), and Lebanon, i.e. the army of Assyria, which now stands over against Mount Zion, like Lebanon with its forest of cedars, falls down through a gloriously powerful One, "T^'^i?, i.e. through Jehovah (chap. xxx. 21 ; Ps. Ixxvi. 5, xciii, 4). In the history of the fulfilment given in xxxvii. 36, the 'n ■qxj'rp is this "inx as the organ of the present divine government. So it goes with the imperial kingdom of the world. When the axe is laid to it, it falls without hope. But in Israel it becomes spring. Chap. xi. 1 : " And there goes forth a sproitt out of the stump of Jesse, and a shoot out of its roots brings fruit." If the world-power is like the cedar forest of Lebanon, on the other hand the house of David, on account of its falling away, is like the stump of a felled tree (VTa, truncus, from VTa, truncare), like a root stock without stem, branches, or crown. But while the Lebanon of the world- power is overthrown so as to remain lying, the house of David becomes young again ; and while the former, when it has reached the height of its glory, is suddenly laid low, the latter, when it has reached the utmost danger of destruction, is suddenly exalted. What Pliny says of certain trees in L. xvi, 44 : inareseunt rursusque adolescunt, senescunt quidem, sed e radicihus repullulant^ is fulfilled in the tree of the 1 The cedar is unlike the oak in that when it is felled it does not send up any shoots. The pine resembles the cedar in this respect according to Herodot. vi. 37 : " to destroy like a pine-stem." CIIAl'TEK XI. 2. 2 t '.) Davklic dominion, wliich lias its root in Jesse. Out of the stump of Jesse, i.e. out of the remnant of the chosen royal family, which had sunk down to the insi;4nificanc6 of tin- house from which it sprang (" the fallen tabernacle of David,'" as Amos expresses it in chap. ix. 11 '), there goes forth a sprout, ipn ( U>L , from "'On to swing, to sway, halanccr), which promises to fill up the place of the stem and crown ; ami below in the roots, covered by the earth and only rising a little above it, there shows itself a "i^*3, a little fresh green twig (from ■'>'3. ^, . to glance, to blow). The history of the fulfilment has here alluded even to the sound or ring of the prophecy ; the at first insignificant and undistinguished ""yp, was a poor despised Xaznrcne (^fatt. ii. 23). But that this lowliness of the beginning will not continue is already indicated by the nnp, from ms, to break out and up, to unfold itself, to be or become fruitful, Ex. xxiii, 30. In the humble beginning there lies a power which carries it up to the height with certain progress (Ezek. xvii. 22, 23). The sprout shooting out below the soil becomes a tree, and this tree gets a crown with fruits ; and thus a state of exaltation and completion follows the state of humiliation. Jehovah acknowledges him and consecrates and equips him for his high work with the seven spirits. Ver. 2 : " And the spirit of Jehovah descends vpon him, spirit of wisdom and of under- standing, spirit of counsel and of power, spirit of the knoioledge and fefir of JeJiovah." 'n n^"* is the Divine Spirit as the bearer cf the whole fulness of divine powei*s. Then follow in three pairs the six spirits com]trehended by 'n mi, the lirst pair of which relate to the intellectual life, the second to the practical life, and the third to the direct relationship to God. For "CDH is the faculty for recognising the es.sence of things through their appearances, and nj'? is the faculty for recognis- ing the distinctions of things through their appearances ; the former is ao^pia, the latter hiuKpici^ or oTJ^eo-t*?. *^yV. is the gift which enables man to form right resolutions, and nn^aj * The Messiah is therefore emblcinatically called '^w 13, Sanhrdriu 96ft: "when will Bar najti cume?" f'f. Dalniun, Ver kidtnde uitd slerbende McmUis der Stjnnfjnge (ISbS), p. 13. 280 ISAIAH. that of putting them energetically into action, 'n njn is the knowledge that is founded in fellowship of love, and 'n riNT is the fear of Jehovah giving itself up to adoration. There are seven spirits which are enumerated from above down- wards ; for the spirit of the fear of God is the basis of all (Prov. i. 7; Job xxviii. 28; Ps. cxi. 10), and the spirit of God is absolutely the heart of all ; it corresponds to the shaft of the seven-flamed candlestick, and the three pairs to the arms that stretched out from it. In these seven forms (see my Psycliologij, pp. 188, 203) the Holy Spirit descends upon the second David for abiding possession ; as is expressed here by the perf. consec. nrai, wdiich is accented on the last syllable on account of the following guttural in order to guard against its indistinct pronunciation (cf. Gen. xxvi. 10); n^3, like Kara^aivuv koI fieveiv, John i. 32, 33. The seven torches before God's throne in Rev. iv. 5, cf. i. 4, burn and illumine in his soul. The seven spirits are his seven eyes (Rev. V. 6). His royal mode of ruling is then also determined according to this his divinely produced, spiritual equipment for his office. Ver. 3: " And fear uf Jehovah is fragrance to him, and he judges Twt according to outward seeing, and he determines justice not according to ontivard hearing." The translation should not be : His smelling is smelling of the fear of God, i.e. the penetrating of it with deep judicial insight (Hengsten- berg, Umbreit, and others) ; ^ nor : His breathing is in the fear of Jehovah (Cheyne), for nnn does not mean " to breathe," and with 3 it does not mean " to smell something " (as with a following accusative), but " to smell with pleasure " (v. Orelli), like 3 nxn, to see with pleasure, or as in Gen. xxix. 32, to see with inward sympathy (Ex. xxx. 38 ; Lev. xxvi. 31 ; Amos v. 21). It is not meant that he has as regards himself pleasure in fear of God, but that fear of God when he perceives it in men is fragrance to him (nh^i nn^ Gen. viii. 21); for the fear of God is a sacrifice of adoration, continually ascending to God. Brilliant or repellent external qualities do not determine his favour or disfavour ; he judges not by the external appear- ^ So also in Sanhedrin 93&, whereas R. Alexandri combines in^in with D>m, and explains it : He (God) has loaded him with duties and sufferings as with millstones (see Dalman, op. cit. p. 38). CIIAriKK XI. I, 5. 281 anco, but by tlic ivlationshij) to his God in tlie depths of thu heart. This is the standard accordin<^ to which he will jiid^'c in saving and will judge in punishing. Vers. 4, 5 : " Aiu/ Jiul;/vv), and forward on the hips, D>7"'^ (LXX. tu'^ T7\evpuciliai«, a« liuchcr 8U1ji><»v.''j means the incarnated .\ijramninyu» (Aliriuian). 282 ISAIAIL ance with the promise (chap. xxv. 1). The i^^iJSSi is specially made prominent by the article : he is the true and faithful witness (Rev. i. 5, iii. 14). The trilogy of the prophetic figures of the Messiah — as about to be born, as born, and as ruling — is now complete. Isaiah was not the creator of Messianic prophecy, as Guthe (in his Das Zukunftsbild dcs Jesaia, 1885) tries to prove, iorcing the proof by negativing all the Messianic prophecies before Isaiah. An ideal king was hoped for before the expectation was attached to the house of David. But Isaiah and his contemporary Micah raised the outline to a living richly-coloured picture, for which the opening period of the secular empires furnished the basis. With the virgin's son, the five-named king's child, the son of David anointed with- out measure with God's spirit, there begins a new time in which this king's righteousness attains to a world-conquering position, and finds a home in a humanity which, like him, has risen up out of deep humiliation. The fruit of righteousness, however, is peace, which now reigns under the government of the Prince of Peace, not only in humanity, but, without being disturbed from any quarter, also in the animal world. Vers. 6—9 : " And the wolf dwells loith the lamb, and the pard lies down with the kid, and the calf and lion and fattened ox together — a little hoy drives them before him. And cow and hear go to the pasture, their young lie down together; and- the lion devours chopped straw like the ox. And the suckling plays on the hole of the adder, and the weaned child stretches his hand to the pupil of the basilisk-viper. They will not become bad, and will not commit destruction in all my holy mountain: for the land has become full of knowledge of Jehovah like the ivaters covering the sea." The Sibyllines, iii. 766 sqq., paraphrase this, and Virgil in his Eclogue perhaps stands unconsciously under the influence of Isaiah through the medium of that paraphrase (Cheyne). The Church Fathers, Luther, Calvin, Vitringa, Schmieder, regard these images from the animal world as symbolical. Piationalistic expositors take them literally, but as a beautiful dream and wish. In the Midrash on Ecclesiastes at chap. i. 9, a real transformation of the animal world is already rejected with li'cu'n nnn ^n ps ; but CIIAITEU XI r,-9. L'S3 we have here really a projihecy before us the full realization of wliicli is certainly conditioned hy a re-creation, and it there- lore belongs to the new earth un»ler the new heaven. Even Ifeuss refers here to Rom. viii. 1 sqq., reniarkint,' that " the idea, at once poetical and sublime, of nature sighing for its glorification, is at bottom only a more ideal form of this same conception." There now reigns in irrational nature, from the greatest beings in it down to the invisibly least, a nmlevolent strife ami fierce delight in carnage. But when the son of J)avid shall have entered upon the full possession and exercise of his royal inheritance, then will the peace of Paradise be renewed, and the truth contained in the popular legends of an aurca actas will be authenticated. It is this which the prophet depicts in charming images. The wolf, formerly scared away from the flock, now keeps good neighbourhood (13) with the lamb ; the leopard lets the frisky kid lie down beside it. The lion between calf and fatted ox neither seizes upon the weak neighbour nor lusts after the fat one ; a little boy rules the whole three together with his driving staff (jnj, according to Stade, V 33, stimvlo propcllcre). The cow and bear graze with each other, while their young lie together on the meadow. The lion thirsts no more for blood, but, like the ox, is satisfied with chopped food, i.e. with cut and crushed straw. The suckling has its delight, i.e. enjoys itself (Pilpcl in the same reflexive sense as in Ps. cxix. 70, from VVy, to stroke, to caress, to smoothen, mulccre) on the hole of the adder ; and the child hardly yet weaned l>oldly and safely stretches his hand to '3ii'D>* n")^xp,* From Jer. viii. 17 it is clear that ^JU'EV is the name of a species of snake ; it is, according to Aquila and Jerome in the pas!?age, the ^aai\i, dirigere, tciuUre ; it is cognate in root with nr^ projiccre, from which comes "i^ (liand). So much the more uncertain is the meaning of the air. Xey. miSD. Correspond- ing to the parallel "in^ it appears to mean the hole (Syr. Jerome, LXX. koltt]), whether from i^s = "iiy, from which comes '^ip^P, s ,U^ (there is no word in Arabic of this meaning from a verb beginning with \) ; or from nix, the light-hole (as "liXi? occurs in the Mishna, Ohaloth xiii. 1), or the opening where the hole appears. But it is more probable that miND is something that exercises an attractive power oa the child, such as the play of colour, or better, the apple of the eye (Targum), as the fern, of ""i^^O, the light of the eye {Enibin 5bb = power of seeing). The glance of snakes, and not merely that of the basilisk-lizard but also that of the basilisk-viper, was regarded as having a paralysing and fascinating power. But this terrifying hurtfulness of snakes has now ceased, chap. Ixv. 2o ; the basilisk has become so gentle that he lets children catch at his sparkling eyes as if they were precious stones. The prophet thus represents as in an idyl the state of peace of the glorified time which was about to come, and it is requisite to take the thought of the promise in a spiritual sense without adhering literally to the media through which it is expressed. But the representation is more than a drapery thrown around the object ; it is the refraction of the beheld future in the soul of the prophet. But are the animals still to be taken as the subject in ver. 9 ? The subject most naturally suggested is the animals, some of which have just been named as terrible and destructive to men ; and that they are actually thought of as the subject is confirmed in chap. Ixv. 25, where chap. xi. 6-9a is compendiously repeated. That ^V"?.' requires men as the subject is refuted by the usual njn n^n (compare the parallel promise in Ezek. xxxiv. 25, which rests upon Hos. ii. 20). That ^n^ntJ'': can be said of animals is evident from Jer. ii, 30, and is at once understood. But if the animals are the subject, then "'^li' "in CHArTF.K XI. 10. 2S5 here is not the liill of Zion (Chcyno), upon which wild beasts never had their hiir in historical times, but, as ^3 indicates, the holy mountain land of Jehovah ; and this is just the sense of ^uhp in in chap. Ivii. i:i ; cf. Ps. l.xxviii. f>-i; Ex. XV. 17. Further, the fact that j)cace ]uvvails in the animal world, and that there is also peace between the animals and man, is founded upon the univei*^ally i)revailing knowledLie of God, in consequence of which has ceased that destructiveness of the animal world in relation to man by which alienation from God and apostasy had been previously so often punished (2 Kings xvii. 25; Kzek. xiv. 15, and other passages ; see also remarks on chap. viL 24). The meaning of ^cnp -in-^aa also determines the extent of the signification of )'^nn ; it is the land of Israel, the more restricted domain of the government of the son of David, that is meant (Hofmann), which is henceforward, like the pam- disiacal centre of the whole earth, a prelude of its future totjil and perfect glorification (chap. vi. 3, insn-^ja). It has become lull of ''"""nx njn^ of that experienced knowledge of Jehovah which consists in fellowship of love (njn like 'i"J?, a collateral form of njn), like to the waters covering the sea, i.e. the bottom of the sea (cf. the borrowed passage in Hab. ii. 14, where riy^p is a virtual accusative : full of the knowing). ^ nD3 (like ? "^20 in Ps. xci. 4) means to afford covering to something ; the Lamed with a i)articiple readily comes in as a designation of the object, particularly (in Arabic it holds regularly in this case) when it precedes the ]tarticiple (Ewald. § 292«). The omission of the article in the case of D'P?^ '■'' •'" immediate consequence of the inverted order of the words ; and generally the attributive participle, when it is in any way more closely determined, can dispense with the article. The prophet has now described in vers, l-o the ju.st ruling of the son of David, and then in vers. 6-9 the i>eace which under his goveniment extend.s to the animal world, and which is the consequence of the living knowledge <>f God having become universal, and which therefore follows from a sjnritual transformation of the people subject to him. The mutter here indicated is variously enigmatic, an