Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

destroys sin, or of the same divine doxa with its light side towards the world.1

When Isaiah had been thus absolved, the true object of the heavenly scene was made apparent. Ver. 8. " Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Behold me here; send me!y The plural "for us" (lanu) is not to be accounted for on the ground that, in a case of reflection or self-consultation, the subject also stands as the object in antithesis to itself (as Hitzig supposes); nor is it a pluralis majestatis, as Knobel maintains; nor is the original abstract signification of the plural hinted at, as Meier thinks. The plural is no doubt used here with reference to the seraphim, who formed, together with the Lord, one deliberative council (sod kedoshim, Ps. lxxxix. 8), as in 1 Kings xxii. 19-22, Dan. iv. 14, etc.; just as, from their very nature as " sons of God " (Vne Hd-elohim), they made one family with God their Creator (vid. Eph. iii. 15), all linked so closely together that they themselves could be called Elohim, like God their Creator, just as in 1 Cor. xii. 12 the church of believers is called Christos, like Christ its head. The task for which the right man was sought was not merely divine, but heavenly in the broadest sense: for it is not only a matter in which God Himself is interested, that the earth should become full of the glory of God, but this is also an object of solicitude to the spirits that minister unto Him. Isaiah, whose anxiety to serve the Lord was no longer suppressed by the consciousness of his own sinfulness, no sooner heard the voice of the Lord, than he exclaimed, in holy selfconsciousness, " Behold me here; send me." It is by no means a probable thing, that he had already acted as a messenger of God, or held the office of prophet. For if the joy, with which he offered himself here as the messenger of God, was the direct consequence of the forgiveness of sins, of which he had received the seal; the consciousness of his own personal sinfulness, and his membership in a sinful nation, would certainly have prevented him hitherto from coming forward to denounce

1 Seraphic love is the expression used in the language of the church to denote the ne plus ultra of holy Jove in the creature. The Syriac fathers regarded the burning coal as the symbol of the incarnate Son of God, who is often designated in poetry as the "live or burning coal" (Jcemurto denurd): DMZ. 1860, pp. 679, 681.

judgment upon that nation. And as the prophetic office as such rested upon an extraordinary call from God, it may fairly be assumed, that when Isaiah relates so extraordinary a call as this, he is describing the sealing of his prophetic office, and therefore his own first call.

This is confirmed by the words in which his commission is expressed, and the substance of the message. — Vers. 9, 10. "He said, Go, and tell this people, Hear on, and understand not; and look on, but perceive not. Make ye the heart of this people greasy, and their ears heavy, and their eyes sticky; that they may not see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and their heart understand, and they be converted, and one heal them" u This people" points back to the people of unclean lips, among whom Isaiah had complained of dwelling, and whom the Lord would not call u my people." It was to go to this people and preach to them, and therefore to be the prophet of this people, that he was called. But how mournful does the divine commission sound! It was the terrible opposite of that seraphic mission, which the prophet had experienced in himself. The seraph had absolved Isaiah by the burning coal, that he as prophet might not absolve, but harden his people by his word. They were to hear and see, and that continually as the gerundives imply (Ges. § 131, 3, b; Ewald, § 280,5),by having the prophet's preaching actu directo constantly before them; but not to their salvation. The two prohibitory expressions, "understand not" and "perceive not," show what the result of the prophet's preaching was to be, according to the judicial will of God. And! the imperatives in ver. 10 are not to be understood as simply instructing the prophet to tell the people what God had determined to do; for the fact that " prophets are often said to do what they announce as about to happen," in proof of which Jer. i. 10 is sometimes quoted (cf. Jer. xxxi. 28; Hos. vi. 5; Ezek. xliii. 3), has its truth not in a rhetorical figure, but in the very nature of the divine word. The prophet was the organ of the word of God, and the word of God was the expression of the will of God, and the will of God is a divine act that has not yet become historical. For this reason a prophet might very well be said to perform what he announced as about to happen: God was the causa efficiens principalis, the word was the causa media, and the prophet the causa ministerialist This is the force of the three imperatives; they are three figurative expressions of the idea of hardening. The first, hishmin, signifies to make fat (pinguem), i.e. without susceptibility or feeling for the operations of divine grace (Ps. cxix. 70); the second, hicbld, to make heavy, more especially heavy or dull of hearing (ch. lix. 1); the third, ywn or Vpn (whence the imperative V^n or V^)9 to smear thickly, or paste over, i.e. to put upon a person what is usually the result of weak eyes, which become firmly closed by the hardening of the adhesive substance secreted in the night. The three future clauses, with "lest" (pen), point back to these three imperatives in inverse order: their spiritual sight, spiritual hearing, and spiritual feeling were to be taken away, their eyes becoming blind, and their ears deaf, and their hearts being covered over with the grease of insensibility. Under the influence of these futures the two preterites v ND"il 2W affirm what might have been the result if this hardening had not taken place, but what would never take place now. The expression? KB"} is used in every other instance in a transitive sense, " to heal a person or a disease," and never in the sense of becoming well or being healed; but in the present instance it acquires a passive sense from the so-called impersonal construction (Ges. § 137, 3), "and one heal it," i.e. "and it be healed:" and it is in accordance with this sense that it is paraphrased in Mark iv. 12, whereas in the three other passages in which the words are quoted in the New Testament (viz. Matthew, John, and Acts) the Septuagint rendering is adopted, " and I should heal them" (God Himself being taken as the subject). The commission which the prophet received, reads as though it were quite irreconcilable with the fact that God, as the Good, can only will what is good. But our earlier doctrinarians have suggested the true solution, when they affirm that God does not harden men positive aut effective, since His true will and direct work are man's salvation, but occasionaliter et eventualiter, since the offers and displays of salvation which man receives necessarily serve to fill up the measure of his sins, and judicialiter so far as it is the judicial will of God, that what was originally ordained for man's salvation should result after all in judgment, in the case of any man upon whom grace has ceased to work, because all its ways and means have been completely exhausted. It is not only the loving will of God which is good, but also the wrathful will into which His loving will changes, when determinately and obstinately resisted. There is a self-hardening in evil, which renders a man thoroughly incorrigible, and which, regarded as the fruit of his moral behaviour, is no less a judicial punishment inflicted by God, than self-induced guilt on the part of man. The two are bound up in one another, inasmuch as sin from its very nature bears its own punishment, which consists in the wrath of God excited by sin. For just as in all the good that men do, the active principle is the love of God; so in all the harm that they do, the active principle is the wrath of God. An evil act in itself is the result of self-determination proceeding from a man's own will; but evil, regarded as the mischief in which evil acting quickly issues, is the result of the inherent wrath of God, which is the obverse of His inherent love; and when a man hardens himself in evil, it is the inward working of God's peremptory wrath. To this wrath Israel had delivered itself up through its continued obstinacy in sinning. And consequently the Lord now proceeded to shut the door of repentance against His people. Nevertheless He directed the prophet to preach repentance, because the judgment of hardness suspended over the people as a whole did not preclude the possibility of the salvation of individuals.

Isaiah heard with sighing, and yet with obedience, in what the mission to which he had so cheerfully offered himself was to consist. Ver. 11a. " Then said I, Lord, how longV He inquired how long this service of hardening and this state of hardness were to continue, — a question forced from him by his sympathy with the nation to which he himself belonged (cf. Ex. xxxii. 9-14), and one which was warranted by the certainty that God, who is ever true to His promises, could not cast off Israel as a people for ever. The answer follows in vers. 115—13: " Until towns are wasted loithout inhabitant, and houses are without man, and the ground shall be laid waste, a wilderness, and Jehovah shall put men far away, and there shall be many forsaken places within the land. And is there still a tenth therein, this also again is given up to destruction, like the terebinth and like the oak, of which, when they are felled, only a root-stump remains: such a root-stump is a holy seed" The answer is intentionally commenced, not with ^""W, but vith DK "WK. iy

(the expression only occurs again in Gen. xxviii. 15 and Num. xxxii. 17), which, even without dropping the conditional force of BK? signified that the hardening judgment would only come to an end when the condition had been fulfilled, that towns, houses, and the soil of the land of Israel and its environs had been made desolate, in fact, utterly and universally desolate, as the three definitions (without inhabitant, without man, wilderness) affirm. The expression richak (put far away) is a general and enigmatical description of exile or captivity (cf. Joel iv. 6, Jer. xxvii. 10); the literal term gdldh has been already used in ch. v. 13. Instead of a national term being used, we find here simply the general expression "men" (etlihd-dddm; the consequence of depopulation, viz. the entire absence of men, being expressed in connection with the depopulation itself. The participial noun lid azubdh (the forsaken) is a collective term for places once full of life, that had afterwards died out and fallen into ruins (ch. xvii. 2, 9). This judgment would be followed by a second, which would expose the still remaining tenth of the nation to a sifting, ^ri) 3K>, to become again (Ges. § 142, 3); 1$w rpn, not as in ch. v. 5, but as in ch. iv. 4, after Num. xxiv. 22: the feminine does not refer to the land of Israel (Luzzatto), but to the tenth. Up to the wTords " given up to destruction," the announcement is a threatening one; but from this point to "remains" a consolatory prospect begins to dawn; and in the last three wTords this brighter prospect, like a distant streak of light, bounds the horizon of the gloomy prophecy. It shall happen as with the terebinth and oak. These trees were selected as illustrations, not only because they were so near akin to evergreens, and produced a similar impression, or because there were so many associations connected with them in the olden times of Israel's history; but also because they formed such fitting symbols of Israel, on account of their peculiar facility for springing up again from the root (like the beech and nut, for example), even when they had been completely felled. As the forms yahbeslieili (dryness), dalleheth (fever), *avverelh (blindness), shachepheth (consumption), are used to denote certain qualities or states, and those for the most part faulty ones (Concord. p. 1350); so shalleceth here does not refer to the act itself of felling or casting away, but rather to the condition of a tree that has been hewn or thrown down; though not to the condition of the trunk as it lies prostrate upon the ground, but to that of the root, which is still left in the earth. Of this tree, that had been deprived of its trunk and crown, there was still a mazzebeth (a kindred form of mazzeluli), i.e. a root-stump (trancus) fast in the ground. The tree was not yet entirely destroyed; the root-stump could shoot out and put forth branches again. And this would take place: the root-stump of the oak or terebinth, which was a symbol of Israel, was " a holy seed." The root-stump was the remnant that had survived the judgment, and this remnant would become a seed, out of which a new Israel would spring up after the old had been destroyed. Thus in a few weighty words is the way sketched out, which God would henceforth take with His people. The passage contains an outline of the history of Israel to the end of time. Israel as a nation was indestructible, by virtue of the promise of God; but the mass of the people were doomed to destruction through the judicial sentence of God, and only a remnant, which would be converted, would perpetuate the nationality of Israel, and inherit the glorious future. This law of a blessing sunk in the depths of the curse actually inflicted, still prevails in the history of the Jews. The way of salvation is open to all. Individuals find it, and give us a presentiment of what might be and is to be; but the great mass are hopelessly lost, and only when they have been swept away will a holy seed, saved by the covenant-keeping God, grow up into a new and holy Israel, which, according to eh. xxvii. 6, will fill the earth with its fruits, or, as the apostle expresses it in Horn, xi. 12, become " the riches of the Gentiles."

Nowr, if the impression which we have received from ch. vi. is not a false one, — namely, that the prophet is here relating his first call to the prophetic office, and not^ as Seb. Schmidt observes, his call to one particular duty (ad unum specialem actum officii), — this impression may be easily verified, inasmuch as the addresses in ch. i.-v. will be sure to contain the elements which are here handed to the prophet by revelation, and the result of these addresses will correspond to the sentence judicially pronounced here. And the conclusion to which we have come will stand this test. For the prophet, in the very first address, after pointing out to the nation as a whole the gracious pathway of justification and sanctification, takes the turn indicated in ch. vi. 11-13, in full consciousness that all is in vain. And the theme of the second address is, that it will be only after the overthrow of the false glory of Israel that the true glory promised can possibly be realized, and that after the destruction of the great body of the people only a small remnant will live to see this realization. The parable with which the third begins, rests upon the supposition that the measure of the nation's iniquity is full; and the threatening of judgment introduced by this parable agrees substantially, and in part verbally, with the divine answer received by the prophet to his question " How long?" On every side, therefore, the opinion is confirmed, that in ch. vi. Isaiah describes his own consecration to the prophetic office. The addresses in ch. ii.-iv. and v., which belong to the times of Uzziah and Jotham, do not fall earlier than the year of Uzziah's death, from which point the whole of Jotham' s sixteen years' reign lay open before them. Now, as Micah commenced his ministry in Jotham's reign, though his book was written in the form of a complete and chronologically indivisible summary, by the working up of the prophecies which he delivered under Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, and was then read or published in the time of Hezekiah, as we may infer from Jer. xxvi. 18, it is quite possible that Isaiah may have taken from Micah's own lips (though not from Micah's book) the words of promise in ch. ii. 1-4, which he certainly borrowed from some quarter. The notion that this word of promise originated with a third prophet (who must have been Joel, if he were one of the prophets known to us), is rendered very improbable by the many marks of Micah's prophetic peculiarities, and by its natural position in the context in which it there occurs (yid. Caspari, Micha, pp. 444-5).

Again, the situation of ch. vi. is not inexplicable. As Havernick has observed, the prophet evidently intended to vindicate in ch. vi. the style and method of his previous prophecies, on the ground of the divine commission that he had received. But this only serves to explain the reason why Isaiah has not placed ch. vi. at the commencement of the collection, and not why he inserts it in this particular place. He has done this, no doubt, for the purpose of bringing close together the prophecy and its fulfilment; for whilst on the one hand the judgment of hardening suspended over the Jewish nation is brought distinctly out in the person of king Ahaz, on the other hind we find ourselves in the midst of the Syro-Ephraimitish war, which formed the introduction to the judgments of extermination predicted in ch. vi. 11-13. It is only the position of ch. i. which still remains in obscurity. If ch. i. 7-9 is to be understood in a historically literal sense, then ch. i. must have been composed after the dangers of the Syro-Ephraimitish war had been averted from Jerusalem, though the land of Judah was still bleeding with the open wounds which this war, designed as it was to destroy it altogether, had inflicted upon it. Ch. i. would therefore be of more recent origin than ch. ii.— v., and still more recent than the connected ch. vii.-xii. It is only the comparatively more general and indefinite character of ch. i. which seems at variance with this. But this difficulty is removed at once, if we assume that ch. i., though not indeed the first of the prophet's addresses, was yet in one sense the first, — namely, the first that was committed to writing, though not the first that he delivered, and that it was primarily intended to form the preface to the addresses and historical accounts in ch. ii.-xii., the contents of which were regulated by it. For ch. ii.-v. and vii.-xii. form two prophetic cycles, ch. i. being the portal which leads into them, and ch. vi. the band which connects them together. The prophetic cycle in ch. ii.-v. may be called the Book of hardening, as it is by Caspari, and ch. vii.-xii. the Book of Immanuel, as Chr. Aug. Crusius suggests, because in all the stages through which the proclamation in ch. vii.-xii. passes, the coming Immanuel is the banner of consolation, which it lifts up even in the midst of the judgments already breaking upon the people, in accordance with the doom pronounced upon them in ch. vi.

CONSOLATION OF IMMANUEL IN THE MIDST OF THE ASSYRIAN OPPRESSIONS.— Chap, vii.-xii.

As the following prophecies could not be understood apart from the historical circumstances to which they refer, the prophet commences with a historical announcement. Ver. 1. " It came to pass, in the days of Aliaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah (Uziydhu), king of Judah, that JRezin the king oj Aramaza, and Pekah {Pekacli) the son of Remaliah (Rcmalydhu), king of Israel, went up toiuard Jerusalem to war against it, and {he) could not make war upon it" We have the same words, with only slight variations, in the history of the reign of Ahaz in 2 Kings xvi. 5. That the author of the book of Kings copied them from the book of Isaiah, will be very apparent when we come to examine the historical chapters (xxxvi.-xxxix.) in their relation to the parallel sections of the book of Kings. In the passage before us, the want of independence on the part of the author of the book of Kings is confirmed by the fact that he not only repeats, but also interprets, the words of Isaiah. Instead of saying, " And (he) could not make war upon it," he says, " And they besieged Ahaz, and could not make war." The singular ydcol (he could) of Isaiah is changed into the simpler plural, whilst the statement that the two allies could not assault or storm Jerusalem (which must be the meaning of nilcham ral in the passage before us), is more clearly defined by the additional information that they did besiege Ahaz, but to no purpose (tzur raly the usual expression for obsidione claudere; cf. Deut. xx. 19). The statement that " they besieged Ahaz " cannot merely signify that " they attempted to besiege him," although nothing further is known about this siege. But happily we have two accounts of the Syro-Ephraimitish war (2 Kings xvi. and 2 Chron. xxviii.). The two historical books complete one another. The book- of Kings relates that the invasion of Jndah by the two allies commenced at the end of Jotham's reign (2 Kings xv. 37); and in addition to the statement taken from Isa. vii. 1, it also mentions that Rezin conquered the seaport town of Elath, which then belonged to the kingdom of Judah; whilst the Chronicles notice the fact that Rezin brought a number of Judoean captives to Damascus, and that Pekah conquered Ahaz in a bloody and destructive battle. Indisputable as the credibility of these events may be, it is nevertheless very difficult to connect them together, either substantially or chronologically, in a certain and reliable manner, as Caspari has attempted to do in his monograph on the Syro- Ephraimitish war (1849). We may refer here to our own manner of dovetailing the historical accounts of Ahaz and the Syro-Ephraimitish war in the introduction to the present work (p. 41 sqq.). If we could assume that?3J (not v3J) was the authentic reading, and that the failure of the attempt to take Jerusalem, which is mentioned here, was occasioned by the strength of the city itself, and not by the intervention of Assyria, — so that ver. lb did not contain such an anticipation as we have supposed (p. 43), although summary anticipations of this kind were customary with biblical historians, and more especially with Isaiah, — the course of events might be arranged in the following manner, viz., that whilst Rezin was on his way to Elath, Pekah resolved to attack Jerusalem, but failed in his attempt; but that Rezin was more successful in his expedition, which was a much easier one, and after the conquest of Elath united his forces with those of his allies.

It is this which is referred to in ver. 2: u And it was told the house of David, Aram has settled down upon Ephraim: then his heart shook, and the heart of his people, as trees of the wood shake before the wind.19 The expression nuach ral (settled down upon) is explained in 2 Sam. xvii. 12 (cf. Judg. vii. 12) by -the figurative simile, " as the dew falleth upon the ground:" there it denotes a hostile invasion, here the arrival of one army to the support of another. Ephraim {feminine, like the names of countries, and of the people that are regarded as included in their respective countries: see, on the other hand, ch. iii. 8) is used as the name of the leading tribe of Israel, to signify the whole kingdom; here it denotes the whole military force of Israel. Following the combination mentioned above, we find that the allies now prepared for a second united expedition against Jerusalem. In the meantime, Jerusalem was in the condition described in ch. i. 7-9, viz. like a besieged city, in the midst of enemies plundering and burning on every side. Elath had fallen, as Rezin's timely return clearly showed; and in the prospect of his approaching junction with the allied army, it was quite natural, from a human point of view, that the court and people of Jerusalem should tremble like aspen leaves. VM is a contracted fut. kal, ending with an a sound on account of the guttural, as in Ruth iv. 1 (Ges. § 72, Anm. 4); and VU, which is generally the form of the injin. abs. (ch. xxiv. 20), is here, and only here, the injin. constr. instead of V^ (cf. noach, Num. xi. 25; shob, Josh. ii. 16; mot, Ps. xxxviii. 17, etc.: vid. Ewald, § 238, b).

In this season of terror Isaiah received the following divine instructions. Ver. 3. " Then said Jehovah to Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou and Shear-jashub thy son, to the end of the aqueduct of the upper pool, to the road of the fuller s field." The fuller's field (sedeh cobes) was situated, as we may assume with Robinson, Schultz, and Thenius, against Williams, Krafft, etc., on the western side of the city, where there is still an "upper pool" of great antiquity (2 Chron. xxxii. 30). Near to this pool the fullers, i.e. the cleaners and thickeners of woollen fabrics, carried on their occupation (cobes, from cabas, related to cdbash, subigere, which bears the same relation to rdchatz as TfKvveiv to \oueiv). Robinson and his companions saw some people washing clothes at the upper pool when they were there; and, for a considerable distance round, the surface of this favourite washing and bleaching place was covered with things spread out to bleach or dry. The road (mesilldh), which ran past this fuller's field, was the one which leads from the western gate to Joppa. King Ahaz was there, on the west of the city, and outside the fortifications, — engaged, no doubt, in making provision for the, probable event of Jerusalem being again besieged in a still more threatening manner. Jerusalem received its water supply from the upper Gihon pool, and there, according to Jehovah's directions, Isaiah was to go with his son and meet him. The two together were, as it were, a personified blessing and curse, presenting themselves to the king for him to make his own selection.- For the name Shedr-ydshub (which is erroneously accentuated with tiphchah munach instead of merchah tiphchah, in rh. x. 22), i.e. the remnant is converted (ch. x. 21, 22), irafl a kind of abbreviation of the divine answer given to the prophet in ch. vi. 11-13, and was indeed at once threatening and promising, but in such a way that the curse stood in front and the grace behind. The prophetic name of Isaiah's son was intended to drive the king to Jehovah by force, through the threatening aspect it presented; and the prophetic announcement of Isaiah himself, whose name pointed to salvation, was to allure him to Jehovah with its promising tone.

No means were left untried. Ver. 4. " And say unto him, Take heed, and keep quiet; and let not thy heart become soft from these two smoking firebrand-stumps: at the fierce anger of Rezin, and Aram, and the son of Remaliah." The imperative iptf? (not pointed "iptf?, as is the case when it is to be connected more closely with what follows, and taken in the sense of cave ne, or even cave at) warned the king against acting for himself, in estrangement from God; and the imperative hashket exhorted him to courageous calmness, secured by confidence in God; or, as Calvin expresses it, exhorted him " to restrain himself outwardly, and keep his mind calm within." The explanation given by Jewish expositors to the word hisshamer, viz. considc super fo?ces tuas (Luzzatto: vivi riposato), according to Jer. xlviii. 11, Zeph. i. 12, yields a sense which hardly suits the exhortation. The object of terror, at which and before which the king's heart was not to despair, is introduced first of all with Mm and then with Beth, as in Jer. li. 46. The two allies are designated at once as what they were in the sight of God, who sees through the true nature and future condition. They were two tails, i.e. nothing but the fag-ends, of wooden pokers {lit. stirrers, i.e. fire-stirrers), which would not blaze any more, but only continue smoking. They would burn and light no more, though their smoke might make the eyes smart still. Along with Rezin, and to avoid honouring him with the title of king, Aram (Syria) is especially mentioned; whilst Pekah is called Ben-Remaliah, to recal to mind his low birth, and the absence of any promise in the case of his house.

The yd an 'asher (" because") which follows (as in Ezek. xii. 12) does not belong to ver. 4 (as might appear from the sethume that comes afterwards), in the sense of "do not be afraid because," etc., but is to be understood as introducing the reason for the judicial sentence in ver. 7. — Vers. 5-7. " Because A ram hath determined evil over thee, Ephraim and the son of Remaliah {Remalyahu), saying, We will march against Judah, and terrify it, and conquer it for ourselves, and make the son of TdUel king in the midst of it: thus saith the Lord Jehovah, It will not be brought about, and will not take place? The inference drawn by Caspari (Krieg, p. 98), that at the time when Isaiah said this, Judaea was not yet beaten or conquered, is at any rate not conclusive. The promise given to Ahaz was founded upon the wicked design, with which the war had been commenced. How far the allies had already gone towards this last goal, the overthrow of the Davidic sovereignty, it does not say. But we know from 2 Kings xv. 37 that the invasion had begun before Ahaz ascended the throne; and we may see from ver. 16 of Isaiah's prophecy, that the " terrifying" (nekltzennah, from kittz, tcedere, pavere) had actually taken place; so that the " conquering" (hibkia\ i.e. splitting, forcing of the passes and fortifications, 2 Kings xxv. 4, Ezek. xxx. 16, 2 Chron xxi. 17, xxxii. 1) must also have been a thing belonging to the past. For history says nothing about a successful resistance on the part of Judah in this war. Only Jerusalem had not yet fallen, and, as the expression " king in the midst of it" shows, it is to this that the term "Judah" especially refers; just as in ch. xxiii. 13 Asshur is to be understood as signifying Nineveh. There they determined to enthrone a man named TaVel (yid. Ezra iv. 7; it is written TdVal here in pause, although this change does not occur in other words {e.g. Israel) in pause — a name resembling the Syrian name Tab-rimmon)? a man who is otherwise unknown; but it never went beyond the determination, never was even on the way towards being realized, to say nothing of being fully accomplished. The allies would not succeed in altering the course of history as it had been appointed by the Lord. — Vers. 8, 9. " For head of Aram is Damascus, and head of

1 The Hauran inscriptions contain several such composite names formed like TaVel with el: see Wetzstcin, AusgaviiJilte grieclrisclie und latcinische Inschriften, pp. 343-4, 361-363). By the transformation into Tab'al, as Luzzatto says, the name is changed from Bonus Deus to Bonus minime.

Damascus Rr:in, and in five-and- sixty years luill Ephraim as a people be broken in pieces. And head of Ephraim is Samaria, and head of Samaria the son of Remalyahu; if ye believe not, surely ye will not remain." The attempt to remove ver. 8b, as a gloss at variance with the context, which is supported by Eiehhorn, Gesenius, Hitzig, Knobel, and others, is a very natural one; and in that case the train of thought would simply be, that the two hostile kingdoms would continue in their former relation without the annexation of Judah. But when we look more closely, it is evident that the removal of ver. 86 destroys both the internal connection and the external harmony of the clauses. For just as 8a and 8b correspond, so do 9a and 96. Ephraim, i.e. the kingdom of the ten tribes, which has entered into so unnatural and ungodly a covenant with idolatrous Syria, will cease to exist as a nation in the course of sixty-five years; " and ye, if ye do not believe, but make flesh your arm, will also cease to exist." Thus the two clauses answer to one another: 86 is a prophecy announcing Ephraim's destruction, and 96 a warning, threatening Judah with destruction, if it rejects the promise with unbelief. Moreover, the style of 86 is quite in accordance with that of Isaiah (on *iiV2, see ch. xxi. 16 and xvi. 14; and on DVD, "away from being a people," in the sense of " so that it shall be no longer a nation," ch. xvii. 1, xxv. 2, and Jer. xlviii. 2, 42). And the doctrinal objection, that the prophecy is too minute, and therefore taken ex eventu, has no force whatever, since the Old Testament prophecy furnishes an abundance of examples of the same kind (yid. ch. xx. 3, 4, xxxviii. 5, xvi. 14, xxi. 16; Ezek. iv. 5 sqq., xxiv. 1 sqq., etc.). The only objection that can well be raised is, that the time given in ver. 86 is wrong, and is not in harmony with ver. 16. Now, undoubtedly the sixty-five years do not come out if we suppose the prophecy to refer to what was done by Tiglath-pileser after the Syro*- Ephraimitish war, and to what was also done to Ephraim by Shalmanassar in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, to which ver. 16 unquestionably refers, and more especially to the former. But there is another event still, through which the existence of Ephraim, not only as a kingdom, but also as a people, was broken up, — namely, the carrying away of the last remnant of the Ephraimitish population, and the planting of colonies from

Eastern Asia by Esarliaddon 1 on Epliraimitish soil (2 Kings xvii. 24; Ezra iv. 2). Whereas the land of Judah was left desolate after the Chaldean deportation, and a new generation grew up there, and those who were in captivity were once more enabled to return; the land of Ephraim was occupied by heathen settlers, and the few who were left behind were melted up with these into the mixed people of the Samaritans, and those in captivity were lost among the heathen. We have only to assume that what was done to Ephraim by Esarliaddon, as related in the historical books, took place in the twentysecond and twenty-third yea*rs of Manasseh (the sixth year of Esarhaddon), which is very probable, since it must have been under Esarhaddon that Manasseh was carried away to Babylon about the middle of his reign (2 Chron. xxxiii. 11); and we get exactly sixty-five years from the second year of the reign of Ahaz to the termination of Ephraim's existence as a nation (viz. Ahaz, 14; Hezekiah, 29; Manasseh, 22; in all, Q5). It was then that the unconditional prediction, "Ephraim as a people will be broken in pieces," was fulfilled (yechath me dm; this is certainly not the 3d pers. fut. kal, but the niphal, Mai. ii. 5), just as the conditional threat "ye shall not remain" was fulfilled upon Judah in the Babylonian captivity. JOSO signifies to have a fast hold, and P*?Kn to prove fast-holding. If Judah did not hold fast to its God, it would lose its fast hold by losing its country, the ground beneath its feet. We have the same play upon words in 2 Chron. xx. 20. The suggestion of Geiger is a very improbable one, viz. that the original reading was *3 WBND vh DK, but that '3 appeared objectionable, and was altered into ^3. Why should it be objectionable, when the words form the conclusion to a direct address of Jehovah Himself, which is introduced with all solemnity? For this *?, passing over from a confirmative into an affirmative sense, and employed, as it is here, to introduce the apodosis of the hypothetical clause, see 1 Sam. xiv. 39, and (in the formula HJny ^ Gen. xxxi. 42, xliii. 10, Num. xxii. 29, 33, 1 Sam. xiv. 30: their continued existence would depend upon their faith, as this eld emphatically declares.

Thus spake Isaiah, and Jehovah through him, to the king of Jiulali. Whether lie replied, or what reply he made, we are not informed. He was probably silent, because he carried a secret in his heart which afforded him more consolation than the words of the prophet. The invisible help of Jehovah, and the remote prospect of the fall of Ephraim, were not enough for him. His trust was in Asshur, with whose help he would have a far greater superiority over the kingdom of Israel, than Israel had over the kingdom of Judah through the help of Damascene Syria. The pious, theocratic policy of the prophet did not come in time. He therefore let the enthusiast talk on, and had his own thoughts about the matter. Nevertheless the grace of God did not give up the unhappy son of David for lost. Vers. 10, 11. u And Jehovah continued speaking to Aliaz as follows: Ask thee a sign of Jehovah thy God, going deep down into 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 in these words! According to a very marvellous interchange of idioms (communicatio idiomatum) which runs through the prophetic books of the Old Testament, at one time the prophet speaks as if he were Jehovah, and at another, as in the case before us, Jehovah speaks as if He were the prophet. Ahaz was to ask for a sign from Jehovah his God. Jehovah did not scorn to call Himself the God of this son of David, who had so hardened his heart. Possibly the holy love with which the expression u thy God" burned, might kindle a flame in his dark heart; or possibly he might think of the covenant promises and covenant duties which the words " thy God " recalled to his mind. From this, his God, he was to ask for a sign. A sign i^oth, from \ith, to make an incision or dent) was something, some occurrence, or some action, which served as a pledge of the divine certainty of something else. This was secured sometimes by visible miracles performed at once (Ex. iv. 8, 9), or by appointed symbols of future events (ch. viii. 18, xx. 3); sometimes by predicted occurrences, which, whether miraculous or natural, could not possibly be foreseen by human capacities, and therefore, if they actually took place, were a proof either retrospectively of the divine causality of other events (Ex. iii. 12), or prospectively of their divine certainty (ch. xxxvii. 30; Jer.

xliv. 29, 30). The thing to be confirmed on the present occasion was what the prophet had just predicted in so definite a manner, viz. the maintenance of Judah with its monarchy, and the failure of the wicked enterprise of the two allied kingdoms. If this was to be attested to Ahaz in such a way as to demolish his unbelief, it could only be effected by a miraculous sign. And just as Hezekiah asked for a sign when Isaiah foretold his recovery, and promised him the prolongation of his life for fifteen years, and the prophet gave him the sign he asked, by causing the shadow upon the royal sun-dial to go backwards instead of forwards (ch. xxxviii.); so here Isaiah meets Ahaz with the offer of such a supernatural sign, and offers him the choice of heaven, earth, and Hades as the scene of the miracle. PpV.n and n^jn are either in the infinitive absolute or in the imperative; and rb$p is either the imperative?$& with the He of challenge, which is written in this form in half pause instead of npxtp (for the two similar forms with pashtah and zakep7i, vid. Dan. ix. 19), " Only ask, going dee]) down, or ascending to the height," without there being any reason for reading n?NK> with the tone upon the last syllable, as Hupfeld proposes, in the sense of profundam fac (or faciendo) precationem (i.e. go deep down with thy petition); or else it is the pausal subordinate form for •^KB', which is quite allowable in itself (cf. yeclipdtz, the constant form in pause for yachputz, and other examples, Gen. xliii, 14, xlix. 3, 27), and is apparently preferred here on account of its consonance with rhy$ (Ewald, § 93, 3). We follow the Targum, with the Sept., Syr., and Vulgate, in giving the preference to the latter of the two possibilities. It answers to the antithesis; and if we had the words before us without points, this wrould be the first to suggest itself. Accordingly the words would read, Go deep down (in thy desire) to Hades, or go high up to the height; or more probably, taking pDVn and ruan in the sense of gerundives, " Going deep down to Hades, or (iK from n}N? like vel from velle = si velis, malls) going high up to the height." This offer of the prophet to perform any kind of miracle, either in the world above or in the lower world, has thrown rationalistic commentators into very great perplexity. The prophet, says Hitzig, was playing a very dangerous game here; and if Ahaz had closed with his offer, Jehovah would probably have left him in t be lurch. And Meier observes, that " it can never have entered the mind of an Isaiah to perform an actual miracle:" probably because no miracles were ever performed by Gothe, to whose high poetic consecration Meier compares the consecration of the prophet as described in ch. vi. Knobel answers the question, *• What kind of sign from heaven would Isaiah have given in case it had been asked fori" by saying, "Probably a very simple matter." But even granting that an extraordinary heavenly phenomenon could be a " simple matter," it was open to king Ahaz not to be so moderate in his demands upon the venturesome prophet, as Knobel with his magnanimity might possibly have been. Dazzled by the glory of the Old Testament prophecy, a rationalistic exegesis falls prostrate upon the ground; and it is with such frivolous, coarse, and common words as these that it tries to escape from its difficulties. It cannot acknowledge the miraculous power of the prophet, because it believes in no miracles at all. But Ahaz had no doubt about his miraculous power, though he would not be constrained by any miracle to renounce hisown plans and believe in Jehovah. Ver. 12. " But Ahaz replied, I dare not ask, and dare not tempt Jehovah? What a pious sound this has! And yet his self-hardening reached its culminating point in these well-sounding words. He hid himself hypocritically under the mask of Deut. vi. 16, to avoid being disturbed in his Assyrian policy, and was infatuated enough to designate the acceptance of what Jehovah Himself had offered as tempting God. He studiously brought down upon himself the fate denounced in ch. vi., and indeed not upon himself only, but upon all Judah as well. For after a few years the forces of Asshur would stand upon the same fuller's field (ch. xxxvi. 2) and demand the surrender of Jerusalem. In that very hour, in which Isaiah was standing before Ahaz, the fate of Jerusalem was decided for more than two thousand years.

The prophet might have ceased speaking now; but in accordance with the command in ch. vi. he was obliged to speak, even though his word should be a savour of death unto death. Ver. 13. " And he spake, Hear ye now, 0 house of David! Is it too little to you to weary men, that ye weary my God also?" " He spake." Who spake 1 According to ver. 10 the speaker was Jehovah; yet what follows is given as the word of the prophet. Here again it is assumed that the word of the prophet was the word of God, and that the prophet was the organ of God even when he expressly distinguished between himself and God. The words were addressed to the a house of David," i.e. to Ahaz, including all the members of the royal family. Ahaz himself was not yet thirty years old. The prophet could very well have borne that the members of the house of David should thus frustrate all his own faithful, zealous human efforts. But they were not content with this (on the expression minus quam vos = quam ut vobis sufflciat, see Num. xvi. 9, Job xv. 11): they also wearied out the long-suffering of his God, by letting Him exhaust all His means of correcting them without effect. They would not believe without seeing; and when signs were offered them to see, in order that they might believe, they would not even look. Jehovah would therefore give them, against their will, a sign of His own choosing. — Vers. 14, 15. " Therefore the Lord, He will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin conceives, and bears a son, and calls his name Immanuel. Butter and honey will he eat, at the time that he knows to refuse the evil and choose the good" In its form the prophecy reminds one of 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 the person about to bear the child, although Matthew gives this interpretation to the prophecy;x for HN^i? is not the second person, but the third, and is synonymous with «"itnj5 (according to Ges. § 74. Anm. 1), another form which is also met with in Gen. xxxiii. 11, Lev. xxv. 21, Deut. xxxi. 29, and Ps. cxviii. 23.2 Moreover, the condition of pregnancy, which is here designated by the participial adjective ny} (cf. 2 Sam. xi. 5), was not an already existing one in this instance, but (as in all probability also in Judg. xiii. 5, cf. 4) something future, as well as the act of bearing, since hinneh is always used by Isaiah to introduce a future occurrence. This use of hinneh in Isaiah is a sufficient answer to Gesenius, Knobel, and others, who understand haalmdh as referring to the young wife of the prophet himself, who was at that very time with child. But it is

1 Jerome discusses this diversity in a very impartial and intelligent manner, in his ep. ad Pammachium de optimo genere interpretandi.

as Gen. xvi. 11 should be pointed (thou callest); and Olshausen (§ 35, b) is wrong in pronouncing the latter a mistake.

altogether improbable that the wife of the prophet himself should be intended. For if it were to her that he referred he could hardly have expressed himself in a more ambiguous and unintelligible manner; and we cannot see why he should not much rather have said •JHpfel or n^nar^ to say nothing of the fact that there is no further allusion made to any son of the prophet of that name, and that a sign of this kind founded upon the prophet's own family affairs would have been one of a very precarious nature. And the meaning and use of the word 'almdh are also at variance with this. For whilst bethuldh (from bdthal, related to bddal, to separate, sejmigere) signifies a maiden living in seclusion in her parents' house and still a long way from matrimony, 'almdh (from \ilam, related to chdlam, and possibly also to D?N, to be strong, full of vigour, or arrived at the age of puberty) is applied to one fully mature, and approaching the time of her marriage.1 The two terms could both be applied to persons who were betrothed, and even to such as were married (Joel ii. 16; Prov. xxx. 19: see Hitzig on these passages). It is also admitted that the idea of spotless virginity was not necessarily connected with ' almdh (as in Gen. xxiv. 43, cf. 1G), since there are passages — such, for example, as Song of Sol. vi. 8 — where it can hardly be distinguished from the Arabic surrije; and a person who had a very young-looking wife might be said to have an 'almah for his wife. But it is inconceivable that in a well-considered style, and one of religious earnestness, a woman who had been long married^ like the prophet's own wife, could be called ha almdh without any reserve.2 On the other hand, the expression itself warrants the assumption that by ha almdh the prophet meant one of the 'aldmoth of the king's harem (Luzzatto); and if we consider that the birth of the child was to take place, as the prophet foresaw, in the immediate future, his thoughts might very well have been fixed upon Abijah (AM)

1 On the development of the meanings of 'dlam and clialam, see Ges. TJies., and my Psychol, p. 282 (see also the commentary on Job xxxix. 4). According to Jerome, alma was Punic also. In Arabic and Aramaean the diminutive form guleime, 'alleimtah, was the favourite one, but in Syriac 'alimto (the ripened).

2 A young and newly-married wife might be called calldh (as in Homer nvfiQn = nubilis and nupta; Eng. bride); and even in Homer a married woman, if young, is sometimes called xovptltn &ho%os, but neither xovpn nor bath-Zecliariali (2 Kings xviii. 2; 2 Chron. xxix. 1), who became the mother of king Hezekiah, to whom apparently the virtues of the mother descended, in marked contrast with the vices of his father. This is certainly possible. At the same time, it is also certain that the child who was to be born was the Messiah, and not a new Israel (Hofmann, Schriftbeiceis, ii. 1, 87, 88); that is to say, that he was no other than that " wonderful" heir of the throne of David, whose birth is hailed with joy in ch. ix., wThere even commentators like Knobel are obliged to admit that the Messiah is meant. It was the Messiah whom the prophet saw here as about to be born, then again in ch. ix. as actually born, and again in ch. xi. as reigning, — an indivisible triad of consolatory images in three distinct stages, interwoven with the three stages into which the future history of the nation unfolded itself in the prophet's view. If, therefore, his eye was directed towards the Abijah mentioned, he must have regarded her as the future mother of the Messiah, and her son as the future Messiah. Now it is no doubt true, that in the course of the sacred history Messianic expectations were often associated with individuals who did not answer to them, so that the Messianic prospect was moved further into the future; and it is not only possible, but even probable, and according to many indications an actual fact, that the believing portion of the nation did concentrate their Messianic wishes and hopes for a long time upon Hezekiah; but even if Isaiah's prophecy may have evoked such human conjectures and expectations, through the measure of time which it laid down, it would not be a prophecy at all, if it rested upon no better foundation than this, which would be the case if Isaiah had a particular maiden of his own day in his mind at the time.

Are we to conclude, then, that the prophet did not refer to any one individual, but that the " virgin" was a personification of the house of David? This view, which Hofmann propounded, and Stier appropriated, and which Ebrard has revived, notwithstanding the fact that Hofmann relinquished it, does not help us over the difficulty; for we should expect in that case to find " daughter of Zion," or something of the kind, since the term "virgin" is altogether unknown in a personification of this kind, and the house of David, as the prophet knew it, wTas by no means wTorthy of such an epithet.

No other course is K*ft, therefore, than to assume that whilst, oo the one hand, the prophet meant by "the virgin" a maiden belonging to the house of David, which the Messianic character of the prophecy requires; on the other hand, he neither thought of any particular maiden, nor associated the promised conception with any human father, who could not have been any other than Alia/. The reference is the same as in Mic. v. 3 ("she which travaileth," ydUdaJi). The objection that hdahndh (the virgin) cannot be a person belonging to the future, on account of the article (Ilofmann, p. 86), does not affect the true explanation: it was the virgin whom the spirit of prophecy brought before the prophet's mind, and who, although he could not give her name, stood before him as singled out for an extraordinary end (compare the article in hanndar in Num. xi. 27, etc.). With what exalted dignity this mother appeared to him to be invested, is evident from the fact that it is she who gives the name to her son, and that the name Immanuel. This name sounds full of promise. But if we look at the expression u therefore," and the circumstance which occasioned it, the sign cannot have been intended as a pure or simple promise. We naturally expect, first, that it will be an extraordinary fact which the prophet foretells; and secondly, that it will be a fact with a threatening front. Now a humiliation of the house of David was indeed involved in the fact that the God of whom it would know nothing would nevertheless mould its future history, as the emphatic fcttn implies, He (clvtos, the Lord Himself), by His own impulse and unfettered choice. Moreover, this moulding of the future could not possibly be such an one as was desired, but would of necessity be as full of threatening to the unbelieving house of David as it was full of promise to the believers in Israel. And the threatening character of the "sign" is not to be sought for exclusively in ver. 15, since both the expressions u therefore" (laceri) and " behold" (liinneh) place the main point of the sign in ver. 14, whilst the introduction of ver. 15 without any external connection is a clear proof that what is stated in ver. 14 is the chief thing, and not the reverse. But the only thing in ver. 14 which indicated any threatening element in the sign in question, must have been the fact that it would not be by Ahaz, or by a son of Ahaz, or by the house of David generally, which at that time had hardened itself against God, that God would save His people, but that a nameless maiden of low rank, whom God had singled out and now showed to the prophet in the mirror of His counsel, would give birth to the divine deliverer of His people in the midst of the approaching tribulations, which was a sufficient intimation that He who was to be the pledge of Judah's continuance would not arrive without the present degenerate house of David, which had brought Judah to the brink of ruin, being altogether set aside.

But the further question arises here, What constituted the extraordinary character of the fact here announced? It consisted in the fact that, according to ch. ix. 5, Immanuel Himself was to be a N?a (wonder or wonderful). He would be God in corporeal self-manifestation, and therefore a u wonder" as being a superhuman person*. We should not venture to assert this if it went beyond the line of Old Testament revelation, but the prophet asserts it himself in ch. ix. 5 (cf. ch. x. 21): his words are as clear as possible; and we must not make them obscure, to favour any preconceived notions as to the development of history. The incarnation of Deity was unquestionably a secret that was not clearly unveiled in the Old Testament, but the veil was not so thick but that some rays could pass through. Such a ray, directed by the spirit of prophecy into the mind of the prophet, was the prediction of Immanuel. But if the Messiah was to be Immanuel in this sense, that He would Himself be El (God), as the prophet expressly affirms, His birth must also of necessity be a wonderful or miraculous one. The prophet does not affirm, indeed, that the " 'almdh" who had as yet known no man, would give birth to Immanuel without this taking place, so that he could not be born of the house of David as well as into it, but be a gift of Heaven itself; but this u 'almdJi" or virgin continued throughout an enigma in the Old Testament, stimulating "inquiry" (1 Pet. i. 10-12), and waiting for the historical solution. Thus the sign in question was, on the one hand, a mystery glaring in the most threatening manner upon the house of David; and, on the other hand, a mystery smiling with rich consolation upon the prophet and all believers, and couched in these enigmatical terms, in order that those who hardened themselves might not understand it, and that believers might increasingly long to comprehend its meaning.

In ver. 15 the threatening element of ver. 14 becomes the predominant one. It would not be so, indeed, if "butter (thickened milk) and honey" were mentioned here as the linary food of the tenderest age of childhood (as Gesenius, I [engstenberg, and others suppose). But the reason afterwards ligned in vers. 16, 17, teaches the very opposite. Thickened milk and honey, the food of the desert, would be the only provisions furnished by the land at the time in which the ripening youth of Immanuel would fall. Hfejapn (from Non, to be thick) is a kind of butter which is still prepared by nomads by shaking milk in skins. It may probably include the cream, as the Arabic semen signifies both, but not the curds or cheese, the name of which (at least the more accurate name) is gebindh. The object to VTr is expressed in vers. 15, 16 by infinitive absolutes (compare the more usual mode of expression in ch. viii. 4). The Lamed prefixed to the verb does not mean u until " (Ges. § 131, 1), for Lamed is never used as so definite an indication of the terminus ad quern; the meaning is either "towards the time when he understands" (Amos iv. 7, cf. Lev. xxiv. 12, " to the end that "), or about the time, at the time when he understands (ch. x. 3; Gen. viii. 11; Job xxiv. 14). This kind of food would coincide in time with his understanding, that is to say, would run parallel to it. Incapacity to distinguish between good and bad is characteristic of early childhood (Deut. i. 39, etc.), and also of old age when it relapses into childish ways (2 Sam. xix. 36). The commencement of the capacity to understand is equivalent to entering into the so-called years of discretion — the riper age of free and conscious self-determination. By the time that Immanuel reached this age, all the blessings of the land would have been so far reduced, that from a land full of luxuriant corn-fields and vineyards, it w^ould have become a large wooded pasture-ground, supplying milk and honey, and nothing more. A thorough devastation of the land is therefore the reason for this limitation to the simplest, and, when compared with the fat of wheat and the cheering influence of wine, most meagre and miserable food. And this is the ground assigned in vers. 16, 17. Two successive and closely connected events would occasion this universal desolation.

Vers. 16, 17. " For before the boy shall understand to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land ivill be desolate, of whose two kings thou art afraid. Jehovah xcill bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father s house, days such as have not come since the day tohen Ephraim broke away from Judah — the king of Asshur" The land of the two kings, Syria and Israel, was first of all laid waste by the Assyrians, whom Ahaz called to his assistance. Tiglath-pileser conquered Damascus and a portion of the kingdom of Israel, and led a large part of the inhabitants of the two countries into captivity (2 Kings xv. 29, xvi. 9). Judah was then also laid waste by the Assyrians, as a punishment for having refused the help of Jehovah, and preferred the help of man. Days of adversity would come upon the royal house and people of Judah, such as Rasher, quales, as in Ex. x. 6) had not come upon them since the calamitous daf (fmiyydm, inde a die; in other places we find Vmin-hayyom, Ex. ix. 18, Deut. iv. 32, ix. 7, etc.) of the falling away of the ten tribes. The appeal to Asshur laid the foundation for the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah, quite as much as for that of the kingdom of Israel. Ahaz became the tributary vassal of the king of Assyria in consequence; and although Hezekiah was set free from Asshur through the miraculous assistance of Jehovah, what Nebuchadnezzar afterwards performed was only the accomplishment of the frustrated attempt of Sennacherib. It is with piercing force that the words u the king of Assyria " (eth melek Asshur} are introduced at the close of the two verses. The particle 'eth is used frequently where an indefinite object is followed by the more precise and definite one (Gen. vi. 10, xxvi. 34). The point of the verse would be broken by eliminating the words as a gloss, as Knobel proposes. The very king to whom Ahaz had appealed in his terror, would bring Judah to the brink of destruction. The absence of any link of connection between vers. 16 and 17 is also very effective. The hopes raised in the mind of Ahaz by ver. 16 are suddenly turned into bitter disappointment. In the face of such catastrophes as these, Isaiah predicts the birth of Immanuel. His eating only thickened milk and honey, at a time when he knew very well what was good and what was not, would arise from the desolation of the whole of the ancient territory of the Davidic kingdom that had preceded the riper years of his youth, when he would certainly have chosen other kinds of food, if they could possibly have been found. Consequently the birth of Immanuel apparently falls between the time then present and the Assyrian calamities, and his earliest childhood appears to run parallel to the Assyrian oppression. In any case, their consequences would be still felt at the time of his riper youth. In what way the truth of the prophecy was maintained notwithstanding, we shall sec presently. What follows in vers. 18-25, is only a further expansion of ver. 17. The promising side of the "sign" remains in the background, because this was not for Ahaz. When Ewald expresses the opinion that a promising strophe has fallen out after ver. 17, he completely mistakes the circumstances under which the prophet uttered these predictions. In the presence of Ahaz he must keep silence as to the promises. But he pours out with all the greater fluency his threatening of judgment.

Ver. 18. u And it comes to j^ss in that day, Jehovah ivill hiss for the fly which is at the end of the Nile-arms of Egypt, and the bees that are in the land of Asshur; and they come and settle all of them in the valleys of the slopes, and in the clefts of the rocks, and in all the thorn-hedges, and upon all grass-plats" The prophet has already stated, in ch. v. 26, that Jehovah would hiss for distant nations; and now he is able to describe them by name. The Egyptian nation, with its vast and unparalleled numbers, is compared to the swarming fly; and the Assyrian nation, with its love of war and conquest, to the stinging bee which is so hard to keep off (Deut. i. 44; Ps. cxviii. 12). The emblems also correspond to the nature of the two countries: the fly to slimy Egypt with its swarms of insects (see ch. xviii. I),1 and the bee to the more mountainous and woody Assyria, where the keeping of bees is still one of the principal branches of trade. ">^:, pi. D*"}**!, is an Egyptian name (yaro, with the article phiaro, pi. yarou) for the Nile and its several arms. The end of the Nile-arms of Egypt, from a Palestinian point of view, was the extreme corner of the land. The military force of Egypt would march out of the whole compass of the land, and meet the Assyrian force in the Holy

1 Egypt abounds in gnats, etc., more especially in flies (nmscarias), including a species of small fly (nemath), which is a great plague to men throughout all the country of the Nile (see Hartmann, Natur-gescJiichtlichmcdicinisclie SJcizze der Nillander, 1865, pp. 201-5).

Land; and both together would cover the land in such a way that the valleys of steep precipitous heights (iiachale habbattoth), and clefts of the rocks (nekike hasselahn), and all the thornhedges (naazuzlm) and pastures (nahalolim, from nihel, to lead to pasture), would be covered with these swarms. The fact that just such places are named, as afforded a suitable shelter and abundance of food for flies and bees, is a filling up of the figure in simple truthfulness to nature. And if we look at the historical fulfilment, it does not answer even in this respect to the actual letter of the prophecy; for in the time of Hezekiah no collision really took place between the Assyrian and Egyptian forces; and it was not till the days of Josiah that a collision took place between the Chaldean and Egyptian powers in the eventful battle fought between Pharaoh-Necho and Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish (Circesium), which decided the fate of Judah. That the spirit of prophecy points to this eventful occurrence is evident from ver. 20, where no further allusion is made to Egypt, because of its having succumbed to the imperial power of Eastern Asia.

Ver. 20. " In that day will the Lord shave with a razor, the thing for hire on the shore of the river, with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet; and even the beard it will take away? Knobel takes the hair to be a figurative representation of the produce of the land; but the only thing which at all favours the idea that the flora is ever regarded by biblical writers as the hairy covering of the soil, is the use of the term ndzir as the name of an uncultivated vine left to itself (Lev. xxv. 5). The nation of Judah is regarded here, as in ch. i. 6, as a man stript naked, and not only with all the hair of his head and feet shaved off (raglaim, a euphemism), but what was regarded as the most shameful of all, with the hair of his beard shaved off as well. To this end the Almighty would make use of a razor, which is more distinctly defined as hired on the shore of the Euphrates (conductitia in litoribus Euphratis: ndhdr stands here for hanndhdr), and still more precisely as the king of Asshur (the latter is again pronounced a gloss by Knobel and others). " The thing for hire:" hasseclrdh might be an abstract term (hiring, conductio), but it may also be the feminine of sdeir, which indicates an emphatic advance from the indefinite to the more definite; in the sense of u with a razor, namely, that which was standing ready to be hired in the lands on both sides of the Euphrates, the king of Assyria." In hassec'irdh (the thing for hire) there was involved the bitterest sarcasm for Ahaz. The sharp knife, which it had hired for the deliverance of Judah, was hired by the Lord, to shave Judah most thoroughly, and in the most disgraceful manner. Thus shaved, Judah would be a depopulated and desert land, in which men would no longer live by growing corn and vines, or by trade and commerce, but by grazing alone. — Vers. 21,22." And it will come to pass in that day, that a man will keep a small cow and a couple of sheep; and it comes to pass, for the abundance of the milk they give he will eat cream: for butter and honey will every one eat that is left within the land." The former prosperity would be reduced to the most miserable housekeeping. One man would keep a milch cow and two head of sheep (or goats) alive with the greatest care, the strongest and finest full-grown cattle having fallen into the hands of the foe (Hjn, like Hjnn in other places: side, not shne, because two female sheep or goats are meant). But this would be quite enough, for there would be only a few men left in the land; and as all the land would be pasture, the small number of animals would yield milk in abundance. Bread and wine would be unattainable. Whoever had escaped the Assyrian razor, would eat thickened milk and honey, that and nothing but that, without variation, ad nauseam. The reason for this would be, that the hills, which at other times were full of vines and corn-fields, would be overgrown with briers.

The prophet repeats this three times in vers. 23-25: "And it will come to pass in that day, every place, where a thousand vines stood at a thousand silverlings, will have become thorns and thistles. With arrows and with bows will men go, for the whole land will have become thorns and thistles. And all the hills that were accustomed to be hoed with the hoe, thou wilt not go to them for fear of thorns and thistles; and it has become a gatheringplace for oxen, and a treading-place for sheep." The " thousand silverlings" (eleph ceseph, i.e. & thousand shekels of silver) recal to mind Song of Sol. viii. 11, though there it is the value of the yearly produce, whereas here the thousand shekels are the value of a thousand vines, the sign of a peculiarly valuable piece of a vineyard. At the present time they reckon the worth of a vineyard in Lebanon and Syria according to tlie value of the separate vines, and generally take the vines at one piastre (from 2d. to 3d.) each; just as in Germany a Johannisberg vine is reckoned at a ducat. Every piece of ground, where such valuable vines were standing, would have fallen a prey to the briers. People would go there with bow and arrow, because the whole land had become thorns and thistles (see at ch. v. 12a), and therefore wild animals had made their homes there. And thou (the prophet addresses the countryman thus) comest not to all the hills, which were formerly cultivated in the most careful manner; thou comest not thither to make them arable again, because thorns and thistles deter thee from reclaiming such a fallow. They would therefore give the oxen freedom to rove where they would, and let sheep and goats tread down whatever grew there. The description is intentionally thoroughly tautological and pleonastic, heavy and slow in movement. The writer's intention is to produce the impression of a waste heath, or tedious monotony. Hence the repetitions of hay ah and yihyeh. Observe how great the variations are in the use of the future and perfect, and how the meaning is always determined by the context. In vers. 21, 22, the futures have a really future sense; in ver. 23 the first and third yihyeh signify " will have become" (factus erlt omnis locus), and the second " was" (erat); in ver. 24 K13J means " will come" (yeniet), and tihyeh a will have become" (facia erit terra); in ver. 25 we must render ye dderun, sarciebantur (they used to be hoed). And in vers. 21, 22, and 23, hdydh i* equivalent to fiet (it will become); whilst in ver. 25 it means factum est (it has become). Looked at from a western point of view, therefore, the future tense is sometimes a simple future, sometimes a future perfect, and sometimes an imperfect or synchronistic preterite; and the perfect sometimes a prophetic preterite, sometimes an actual preterite, but in the sphere of an ideal past, or what is the same thing, of a predicted future.

This ends Isaiah's address to king Ahaz. He does not expressly say when Immanuel is to be born, but only what will take place before he has reached the riper age of boyhood, — namely, first, the devastation of Israel and Syria, and then the devastation of Judah itself, by the Assyrians. From the fact that the prophet says no more than this, we may see that

Ilia spirit and his tongue were under the direction of the Spirit of God, who does not descend within the historical and temporal range of vision, without at the same time remaining; exalted above it. On the other hand, however, we may see from what lie says, that the prophecy has its human side as well. When Isaiah speaks of Immanuel as eating thickened milk and honey, like all who survived the Assyrian troubles in the Holy Land; he evidently looks upon and thinks of the childhood of Immanuel as connected with the time of the Assyrian calamities. And it was in such a perspective combination of events lying far apart, that the complex character of prophecy consisted. The reason for this complex character was a double one, viz. the human limits associated with the prophet's telescopic view of distant times, and the pedagogical wisdom of God, in accordance with which He entered into these limits instead of removing them. If, therefore, we adhere to the letter of prophecy, we may easily throw doubt upon its veracity; but if wTe look at the substance of the prophecy, wre soon find that the complex character by no means invalidates its truth. For the things which the prophet saw in combination were essentially connected, even though chronologically separated. When, for example, in the case before us (ch. vii.-xii.), Isaiah saw Asshur only, standing out as the imperial kingdom; this was so far true, that the four imperial kingdoms from the Babylonian to the Roman were really nothing more than the full development of the commencement made in Assyria. And when he spoke of the son of the virgin (ch. vii.) as growing up in the midst of the Assyrian oppressions; this also was so far true, that Jesus was really born at a time when the Holy Land, deprived of its previous abundance, was under the dominion of the imperial power, and in a condition whose primary cause was to be traced to the unbelief of Ahaz. Moreover, He who became flesh in the fulness of time, did really lead an ideal life in the Old Testament history. He was in the midst of it in a pre-existent presence, moving on towards the covenant goal. The fact that the house and nation of David did not perish in the Assyrian calamities, was actually to be attributed, as ch. viii. presupposes, to His real though not His bodily presence. In this way the apparent discrepancy between the prophecy and the history of the fulfilment ma}'' be solved. We do not require the solution proposed by Vitringa, and recently appropriated by Haneberg, — namely, that the prophet takes the stages of the Messiah's life out of the distant future, to make them the measure of events about to take place in the immediate future; nor that of Bengel, Schegg, Schmieder, and others, — namely, that the sign consisted in an event belonging to the immediate future, which pointed typically to the birth of the true Immanuel; nor that of Hofmann, who regards the words of the prophet as an emblematical prediction of the rise of a new Israel, which would come to the possession of spiritual intelligence in the midst of troublous times, occasioned by the want of intelligence in the Israel of his own time. The prophecy, as will be more fully confirmed as we proceed, is directly Messianic; it is a divine prophecy within human limits.

In the midst of the Syro-Ephraimitish war, which was not yet at an end, Isaiah received instructions from God to perform a singular prophetic action. Vers. 1, 2. u Then Jehovah said to me, lake a large slab, and write upon it with common strokes, c In Speed Spoil, Booty hastens; and I will take to one trustworthy ivitnesses, Uriyah the priest, and Zecharyahu the son of Yeberechyahu." The slab or table (cf. ch. iii. 23, where the same word is used to signify a metal mirror) was to be large, to produce the impression of a monument; and the writing upon it was to be " a man's pen " {cheret 'enosh), i.e. written in the vulgar, and, so to speak, popular character, consisting of inartistic strokes that could be easily read (yid. Rev. xiii. 18, xxi. 17). Philip d'Aquin, in his Lexicon, adopts the explanation, a.Enos/i-writing, i.e. hieroglyphic writing, so called because it was first introduced in the time of Lnosh." Luzzatto renders it, a letter e cubitali; but the reading for this would be U cheret ammath 'ish. The only true rendering is stylo vulgari (see Ges. Thes. s.v. 'enosh). The words to be written are introduced with Lamed, to indicate dedication (as in Ezek. xxxvii. 16), or the object to which the inscription was dedicated or applied, as if it read, " A table devoted to i Spoil very quickly, booty hastens;'"

unless, indeed, TmahSr is to be taken as afut. instans, as it is by Luzzatto — after Gen. xv. 12, Josh. ii. 5, Hab. i. 17 — in the B6D86 of acceleratura sunt spolia, or (what the position of the words might more naturally suggest) with maher in a transitive sense, as in the construction "ijn? nvr, and others, accelerationi fipolia, i.e. they are ready for hastening. Most of the commentators have confused the matter here by taking the words as a proper name (Ewald, § 288, c), which they were not at first, though they became so afterwards. At first they were an oracular announcement of the immediate future, accelerant spolia, festinat pro?da (spoil is quick, booty hastens). Spoil; booty; but who would the vanquished be? Jehovah knew, and His prophet knew, although not initiated into the policy of Ahaz. But their knowledge was studiously veiled in enigmas. For the writing wTas not to disclose anything to the people. It was simply to serve as a public record of the fact, that the course of events was one that Jehovah had foreseen and indicated beforehand. And when what wras wrritten upon the table should afterwards take place, they would know that it was the fulfilment of what had already been written, and therefore was an event pre-determined by God. For this reason Jehovah took to Himself witnesses. There is no necessity to read nyV^) (and I had it witnessed), as Knobel and others do; nor HTyni (and have it witnessed), as the Sept., Targum, Syriac, and Hitzig do* Jehovah said what He wrould do; and the prophet knew, without requiring to be told, that it was to be accomplished instrumentally through him. Uriah was no doubt the priest (Urijah), who afterwards placed himself at the service of Ahaz to gratify his heathenish desires (2 Kings xvi. 10 sqq.). Zechariah ben Yeberechyahu (Berechiah) was of course not the prophet of the times after the captivity, but possibly the Asaphite mentioned in 2 Chron. xxix. 13. He is not further known to us. In good editions, ben is not followed by makkeph, but marked with mercha, according to the Masora at Gen. xxx. 1 9. These two men were reliable witnesses, being persons of great distinction, and their testimony wrould weigh with the people. When the time should arrive that the history of their own times solved the riddle of this inscription, these two men were to tell the people how long ago the prophet had written that down in his prophetic capacity.

But something occurred in the meantime whereby the place of the lifeless table was taken by a more eloquent and living one. Vers. 3, 4. " And I drew near to the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son: and Jehovah said to me, Call his name In-speed-spoil-booty-hastens (Maher-shalal-hash-baz): for before the boy shall know how to cry, My father, and my mother, they will carry away the riches of Damascus, and the spoil of Samaria, before the Icing of Asshur." To his son Shear-yashub, in whose name the law of the history of Israel, as revealed to the prophet on the occasion of his call (chap, vi.), viz. the restoration of only a remnant of the whole nation, had been formulated, there was now added a second son, to whom the inscription upon the table was given as a name (with a small abbreviation, and if the Lamed is the particle of dedication, a necessary one). He was therefore the symbol of the approaching chastisement of Syria and the kingdom of the ten tribes. Before the boy had learned to stammer out the name of father and mother, they would carry away (yissd', not the third pers. fut. niphal, which is yinndse, but, kal with a latent, indefinite subject hannose: Ges. § 137, 3) the treasures of Damascus and the trophies (i.e. the spoil taken from the flying or murdered foe) of Samaria before the king of Asshur, who would 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 took from Pekah, the king of Samaria, the land beyond the Jordan, and a portion of the land on this side. The trophies, which he took thence to Assyria, were no less the spoil of Samaria than if he had conquered Samaria itself (which Shalmanassar did twenty years afterwards). The birth of Mahershalal took place about three-quarters of a year later than the preparation of the table (as the verb vaekrab is an aorist and not a pluperfect); and the time appointed, from the birth of the boy till the chastisement of the allied kingdoms, was about a year. Now, as the Syro-Ephraimitish war did not commence later than the first year of the reign of Ahaz, i.e. the year 743, and the chastisement by Tiglath-pileser occurred in the lifetime of the allies, whereas Pekah was assassinated in the year 739, the interval between the commencement of the war and the chastisement of the allies cannot have been more than three years; so that the preparation of the table must not be assigned to a much later period than the interview with Ahaz. The inription upon the table, which was adopted as the name of the child, was not a purely consolatory prophecy, since the prophet had predicted, a short time before, that the same Asshur which devastated the two covenant lands would lay Judah waste as well. It was simply a practical proof of the omniscience and omnipotence of God, by which the history of the future was directed and controlled. The prophet had, in fact, the mournful vocation to harden. Hence the enigmatical character of his words and doings in relation to both kings and nation. Jehovah foreknew the consequences which would follow the appeal to Asshur for help, as regarded both Syria and Israel. This knowledge he committed to writing in the presence of witnesses. When this should be fulfilled, it would be all over with the rejoicing of the king and people at their self-secured deliverance.

But Isaiah was not merely within the broader circle of an incorrigible nation ripe for judgment. He did not stand alone; but was encircled by a small band of believing disciples, who wanted consolation, and were worthy of it. It was to them that the more promising obverse of the prophecy of Immanuel be^ longed. Mahershalal could not comfort them; for they knew that when Asshur had done with Damascus and Samaria, the troubles of Judah would not be over, but would only then be really about to commence. To be the shelter of the faithful in the terrible judicial era of the imperial power, which was then commencing, was the great purpose of the prediction of Immanuel; and to bring out and expand the consolatory character of that prophecy for the benefit of believers, was the design of the addresses which follow.

The heading or introduction, " And Jehovah proceeded still further to speak to me, as follows" extends to all the following addresses as far as ch. xii. They all finish with consolation. But consolation presupposes the need of consolation. Consequently, even in this instance the prophet is obliged to commence with a threatening of judgment. Vers. 6, 7. u Forasmuch as this people despiseth the waters of Siloah that go softly, and regardeth as a delight the alliance with Rezin and the son of Remalyahu, therefore, behold! the Lord of all bring eth up upon them the waters of the river, the mighty and the great, the king of Asshur and all his military power; and he riseth over all his channels, and goeth over all his banks." The Siloah had its name (Shiloach, or, according to the reading of this passage contained in very good MSS., Shilloach), ab emittendo, either in an infinitive sense, u shooting forth," or in a participial sense, with a passive colouring, emissus, sent forth, spirted out (yid. John ix. 7; and on the variations in meaning of this substantive form, Concord, p. 1349, s.). Josephus places the fountain and pool of Siloah at the opening of the Tyropocon, on the southeastern side of the ancient city, where we still find it at the present day (yid. Jos. Wars of the Jews, v. 4, 1; also Robinson, Pal. i. 504). The clear little brook — a pleasant sight to the eye as it issues from the ravine which runs between the southwestern slope of Moriah and the south-eastern slope of Mount Zion1 (v. Schubert, Reise, ii. 573) — is used here as a symbol of the Davidic monarchy enthroned upon Zion, which had the promise of God, who was enthroned upon Moriah, in contrast with the imperial or world kingdom, which is compared to the overflowing waters of the Euphrates. The reproach of despising the waters of Siloah applied to Judah as well as Ephraim: to the former because it trusted in Asshur, and despised the less tangible but more certain help which the house of David, if it were but believing, had to expect from the God of promise; to the latter, because it had entered into alliance with Aram to overthrow the house of David; and yet the house of David, although degenerate and deformed, was the divinely appointed source of that salvation, which is ever realized through quiet, secret ways. The second reproach applied more especially to Ephraim. The 'eth is not to be taken as the sign of the accusative, for sits never occurs with the accusative of the object (not even in ch. xxxv. 1), and could not well be so used. It is to

1 It is with perfect propriety, therefore, that Jerome sometimes speaks of the fons Siloe as flowing ad radices Montis Zion, and at other times as flowing in radicibus Montis Moria.

be construed as a preposition in the sense of " and (or because) dcl'ujht (is felt) with {i.e. in) the alliance with Rezin and Pekah" (On the constructive before a preposition, see Ges. § 116, 1: sus 'eth, like rdtzdh tin.) Luzzatto compares, for the construction, Gen. xli. 43, vndthdn; but only the inf. abs. is used in this way as a continuation of the finite verb (see Ges. § 131, 4, a). Moreover, bte'O is not an Aramaic infinitive, but a substantive used in such a way as to retain the power of the verb (like i?DD in Num. x. 2, and "i^Dp in Num. xxiii. 10, unless, indeed, the reading here should be "ISD *D), The substantive clause is preferred to the verbal clause B^l, for the sake of the antithetical consonance of E>ib>p with DNft. It is also quite in accordance with Hebrew syntax, that an address which commences with *3 jjp should here lose itself in the second sentence " in the twilight,'* as Ewald expresses it (§ 351, c), of a substantive clause. Knobel and others suppose the reproof to relate to dissatisfied Judasans, who were secretly favourable to the enterprise of the two allied kings. But there is no further evidence that there were such persons; and ver. 8 is opposed to this interpretation. The overflowing of the Assyrian forces would fall first of all upon Ephraim. The threat of punishment is introduced with \y>\ the Vav being the sign of sequence (Ewald, § 348, b). The words "the king of Asshur" are the prophet's own gloss, as in ch. vii. 17, 20.

Not till then would this overflowing reach as far as Judah, but then it would do so most certainly and incessantly. Ver. 8. u And presses forward into Judah, overflows and pours onward, till it reaches to the neck, and the spreading out of its icings fill the breadth of thy land, Immanuel." The fate of Judah would be different from that of Ephraim. Ephraim would be laid completely under water by the river, i.e. would be utterly destroyed. And in Judah the stream, as it rushed forward, would reach the most dangerous height; but if a deliverer could be found, there was still a possibility of its being saved. Such a deliverer was Immanuel, whom the prophet sees in the light of the Spirit living through all the Assyrian calamities. The prophet appeals complainingly to him that the land, which is his land, is almost swallowed up by the world-power: the spreadings out (muttoth, sl hophal noun: for similar substantive forms, see ver. 23, ch. xiv. 6, xxix. 3, and more especially Ps.

Ixvi. 11) of the wings of the stream (i.e. of the large bodies of water pouring out on both sides from the main stream, as from the trunk, and covering the land like two broad wings) have filled the whole land. According to Norzi, Immanuel is to be written here as one word, as it is in ch. vii. 14; but the correct reading is 'Jmmdnu El, with mercha silluh (see note on ch. vii. 14), though it does not therefore cease to be a proper name. As Jerome observes, it is nomen proprium, non interpretatum; and so it is rendered in the Sept., Me6' r\^wv 6 @e6s.

The prophet's imploring look at Immanuel does not remain unanswered. We may see this from the fact, that what was almost a silent prayer is changed at once into the jubilate of holy defiance.— Vers. 9, 10. " Exasperate yourselves, 0 nations, and go to pieces; and see it, all ivho are far off in the earth! Gird yourselves, and go to pieces; gird yourselves, and go to pieces! Considt counsel, and it comes to nought; speak the word, and it is not realized: for with us is God" The second imperatives in ver. 9 are threatening wrords of authority, having a future signification, which change into futures in ver. 10 (Ges. § 130, 2): Go on exasperating yourselves (ijh with the tone upon the penultimate, and therefore not the pual of njn, consociari^ which is the rendering adopted in the Targum, but the haloi VV^, malum esse; not vociferari, for which jjffl, a different verb from the same root, is commonly employed), go on arming; ye wall nevertheless fall to pieces (chottu, from chdthath, related to cdthath, confringi, consternari). The prophet classes together all the nations that are warring against the people of God, pronounces upon them the sentence of destruction, and calls upon all distant lands to hear this ultimate fate of the kingdom of the world, i.e. of the imperial power. The world-kingdom must be wrecked on the land of Immanuel; u for with us," as the watchword of believers runs, pointing to the person of the Saviour, " with us is God"

There then follows in ver. 11 an explanatory clause, which seems at first sight to pass on to a totally different theme, but it really stands in the closest connection with the triumphant words of vers. 9, 10. It is Immanuel whom believers receive, constitute, and hold fast as their refuge in the approaching times of the Assyrian judgment. He is their refuge and God in Him, and not any human support whatever. This is the link of connection with vers. 11, 12: "For Jehovah hath spoken thus to me, overpowering me with GoiTs hand, and instructing me not to walk in the way of this people, saying. Call ye not conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy; and ichat is feared by it, fear ye not, neither think ye dreadful" TO, " the hand" is the absolute hand, which is no sooner laid upon a man than it overpowers all perception, sensation, and thought: chezkath Jiayydd (viz. ' dlai, upon me, Ezek. iii. 14) therefore describes a condition in which the hand of God was put forth upon the prophet with peculiar force, as distinguished from the more usual prophetic state, the effect of a peculiarly impressive and energetic act of God. Luther is wrong in following the Syriac, and adopting the rendering, u taking me by the hand;" as chezkath points back to the kal (invalescere), and not to the liiphil (apprehendere). It is this circumstantial statement, which is continued in vyissereni (" and instructing me"), and not the leading verb ' } dinar (" he said"); for the former is not the third pers. pret. piel, which would be v yisserani, but the third pers. fut. kal, from the future form yissor (Hos. x. 10, whereas the fut. piel.is vyasser); and it is closely connected with chezkath hayydd, according to the analogy of the change from the participial and infinitive construction to the finite verb (Ges. § 132, Anm. 2). With this overpowering influence, and an instructive warning against going in the way of " this people," Jehovah spake to the prophet as follows. With regard to the substance of the following warning, the explanation that has been commonly adopted since the time of Jerome, viz. noli duorum regum tirnere conjurationem (fear not the conspiracy of the two kings), is contrary to the reading of the words. The warning runs thus: The prophet, and such as were on his side, were not to call that kesher which the great mass of the people called kesher (cf. 2 Chron. xxiii. 13, " She said, Treason, Treason!" kesher, kesher); yet the alliance of Rezin and Pekah was really a conspiracy — a league against the house and people of David. Nor can the warning mean that believers, when they saw how the unbelieving Ahaz brought the nation into distress, were not to join in a conspiracy against the person of the king (Hofmann, Drechsler); they are not warned at all against making a conspiracy, but against joining in the popular cry when the people called out kesher. The true explanation has been given by E-oorda, viz. that the reference is to the conspiracy, as it was called, of the prophet and his disciples (" sermo hie est de conjuratione, quae dicebatur prophetce et discipulorum ejus"). The same thing happened to Isaiah as to Amos (Amos vii. 10) and to Jeremiah. Whenever the prophets were at all zealous in their opposition to the appeal for foreign aid, they were accused and branded as standing in the service of the enemy, and conspiring for the overthrow of the kingdom. In such perversion of language as this, the honourable among them were not to join. The way of God was now a very different one from the way of that people. If the prophet and his followers opposed the alliance with Asshur, this was not a common human conspiracy against the will of the king and nation, but the inspiration of God, the true policy of Jehovah. Whoever trusted in Him had no need to be afraid of such attempts as those of Rezin and Pekah, or to look upon them as dreadful.

The object of their fear was a very different one. Vers. 13-15. " Jehovah of hosts, sanctify Him; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your terror. So will He become a sanctuary, but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence (vexation) to both the houses of Israel, a snare and trap to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, And many among them shall stumble, and shall fall; and be dashed to pieces, and be snared and taken?"* The logical apodosis to ver. 13 commences with v hay ah (so shall He be). If ye actually acknowledge Jehovah the Holy One as the Holy One (Jiikdlsh, as in ch. xxix. 23), and if it is He whom ye fear, and who fills you with dread (mdarxtz, used for the object of dread, as morali is for the object of fear; hence " that which terrifies " in a causative sense), He will become a mikddsh. The word mikddsh may indeed denote the object sanctified, and so Knobel understands it here according to Num. xviii. 29; but if we adhere to the strict notion of the word, this gives an unmeaning apodosis. Mikddsh generally means the sanctified place or sanctuary, with which the idea of an asylum would easily associate itself, since even among the Israelites the temple was regarded and respected as an asylum (1 Kings i. 50, ii. 28). This is the explanation which most of the commentators have adopted here; and the punctuators also took it in the same sense, when they divided the two halves of ver. 14 by athnach as antithetical. And mikddsh is really to be taken in this sense, although it cannot be exactly rendered "asylum," since this would improperly limit the meaning of the word. The temple was not only a place of shelter, bat also of grace, blessing, and peace. All who sanctified the Lord of lords lie surrounded like temple walls; hid them in Himself, whilst death and tribulation reigned without, and comforted, fed, and blessed them in His own gracious fellowship. This is the true explanation of vhuydh Vmikddsh, according to such passages as ch. iv. 5, 6, Ps. xxvii. 5, xxxi. 21. To the two houses of Israel, on the contrary, i.e. to the great mass of the people of both kingdoms who neither sanctified nor feared Jehovah, He would be a rock and snare. The synonyms are intentionally heaped together (cf. ch. xxviii. 13), to produce the fearful impression of death occurring in many forms, but all inevitable. The first three verbs of ver. 15 refer to the "stone" ('eben) and "rock" (tear); the last two to the "snare" (pack), and " trap" or springe (mdkesh),1 All who did not give glory to Jehovah would be dashed to pieces upon His work as upon a stone, and caught therein as in a trap. This was the burden of the divine warning, which the prophet heard for himself and for those that believed.

The words that follow in ver. 16, " Bind up the testimony, seal the lesson in my discijiles" appear at first sight to be a command of God to the prophet, according to such parallel passages as Dan. xii. 4, 9, Rev. xxii. 10, cf. Dan. viii. 26; but with this explanation it is impossible to do justice to the words " in my disciples" (Vlimmuddi). The explanation given by Rosenmiiller, Knobel, and others, viz. " by bringing in men divinely instructed" (adhibitis viris piis et sapientibus), is grammatically inadmissible. Consequently I agree with Vitringa, Drechsler, and others, in regarding ver. 16 as the prophet's own prayer to Jehovah. We tie together ("ny, imperf. "ri¥ = nV) what we wish to keep from getting separated and lost; we seal (chdtham) what is to be kept secret, and only opened by a person duly qualified. And so the prophet here prays that Jehovah would take his testimony with regard to the

1 Malbim observes quite correctly, that " the pack catches, but does not hurt; the mokesh catches and hurts (e.g. by seizing the legs or nose, Job xl. 24): the former is a simple snare (or net), the latter a springe, or snare which catches by means of a spring " (Amos iii. 5).

future, and his instruction, which was designed to prepare for this future, — that testimony and iliorah which the great mass in their hardness did not understand, and in their self-hardening despised, — and lay them up well secured and well preserved, as if by band and seal, in the hearts of those who received the prophet's words with believing obedience (limmud, as in ch. 1. 4, liv. 13). For it would be all over with Israel, unless a community of believers should be preserved, and all over with this community, if the word of God, which was the ground of their life, should be allowed to slip from their hearts. We have here an announcement of the grand idea, which the second part of the book of Isaiah carries out in the grandest style. It is very evident that it is the prophet himself who is speaking here, as we may see from ver. 17, where he continues to speak in the first person, though he does not begin with 'JK1.

Whilst offering this prayer, and looking for its fulfilment, he waits upon Jehovah. Yer. 17. "And I wait upon Jehovah, who hides His face before the house of Jacob, and hope for Him." A time of judgment had now commenced, which wrould still last a long time; but the word of God was the pledge of Israel's continuance in the midst of it, and of the renewal of Israel's glory afterwards. The prophet would therefore hope for the grace which was now hidden behind the wrath.

His home was the future, and to this he was subservient, even with all his house. Yer. 18. "Behold, I and the children which Jehovah hath given me for signs and types in Israel, from Jehovah of hosts, who dwelleth upon Mount Zion." He presents himself to the Lord with his children, puts himself and them into His hands. They were Jehovah's gift, and that for a higher purpose than every-day family enjoyment. They subserved the purpose of signs and types in connection with the history of salvation. u Signs and types:" 'oth (sign) was an omen or prognostic (crrj/xelov) in word and deed, which pointed to and was the pledge of something future (whether it were in itself miraculous or natural); mopheth was either something miraculous (repas) pointing back to a supernatural cause, or a type (tvttos, prodigium = porridigium) which pointed beyond itself to something future and concealed, literally twisted round, i.e. out of the ordinary course, paradoxical, striking, standing out (Arab, aft, iftfres mira, Bewov re), from JIBS (related to SJDn

-pN) _ nwte, like ^Dto = iDftte. His children were signs and enigmatical symbols of the future, and that from Jehovah of hosts who dwelt on /ion. In accordance with His counsel (to which the Dy in D#? points), He had selected these signs and types: He who could bring to pass the future, which they set forth, as surely as He was Jehovah of hosts, and who would bring it to pass as surely as He had chosen Mount Zion for the scene of His gracious presence upon earth. Shear-yashub and Mahershalal were indeed no less symbols of future wrath than of future grace; but the name of the father ( Yeshctydhu) was an assurance that all the future would issue from Jehovah's salvation, and end in the same. Isaiah and his children were figures and emblems of redemption, opening a way for itself through judgment. The Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. ii. 13) quotes these words as the distinct words of Jesus, because the spirit of Jesus was in Isaiah, — the spirit of Jesus, which in the midst of this holy family, bound together as it was only by the bands of " the shadow," pointed forward to that church of the New Testament which would be bound together by the bands of the true substance. Isaiah, his children, and his wife, who is called " the prophetess" (iicbiah) not only because she was the wife of the prophet but because she herself possessed the gift of prophecy, and all the believing disciples gathered round this family, — these together formed the stock of the church of the Messianic future, on the foundation and soil of the existing massa perdita of Israel.