Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

1 This is the opinion of Valentiner, -who also regards the march of the Assyrians as an " execution- march" in two columns, one of which took the road through the difficult ground to the east, whilst the other inflicted punishment upon the places that stood near the road. The text does not require this, however, but describes a march, which spread alarm both right and left as it went aloDcr.

the great crowded masses. The whole of the forest thicket (as in oh. IX. 17) he hews down (nikkaph, third pers. piel, though it may also be niplial); and Lebanon, i.e. the army of Asshur which. is now standing opposite to Mount Zion, like Lebanon with its forest of cedars, falls down through a Majestic One (addlr), i.e. through Jehovah (ch. xxxiii. 21, cf. Ps. lxxvi. 5, xciii. 4). In the account of the fulfilment (ch. xxxvii. 36) it is the ano-el of the Lord (maVach Jehovah), who is represented as destroying the hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp in a single night. The angel of Jehovah is not a messenger of God sent from afar, but the chosen organ of the ever-present divine power. This is the fate of the imperial power of the world. When the axe is laid to it, it falls without hope. But in Israel spring is returning. Ch. xi. 1. " And there cometh forth a twig out of the stump of Jesse, and a shoot from its roots bringeth forth fruit." The world-power resembles the cedar-forest of Lebanon; the house of David, on the other hand, because of its apostasy, is like the stump of a felled tree (geza\ truncus, from gdza, truncare), like a root without stem, branches, or crown. The world-kingdom, at the height of its power, presents the most striking contrast to Israel and the house of David in the uttermost depth announced in ch. vi. fin., mutilated and reduced to the* lowliness of its Bethlehemitish origin. But whereas the Lebanon of the imperial power is thrown down, to remain prostrate; the house of David renews its youth. And whilst the former has no sooner readied the summit of its glory, than it is suddenly cast down; the latter, having been reduced to the utmost danger of destruction, is suddenly exalted. What Pliny says of certain trees, " inarescunt rursusque adolescunt, senescunt quidem, sed e radicibus repullulant" is fulfilled in the tree of Davidic royalty, that has its roots in Jesse (for the figure itself, see F. v. Lasaulx, Philosophie der Geschichte, pp. 117-119). Out of the stumps of Jesse, i.e. out of the remnant of the chosen royal family which has sunk down to the insignificance of the house from which it sprang, there comes forth a twig (choter), which promises to supply the place of the trunk and crown; and down below, in the roots covered with earth, and only rising a little above it, there shows itself a netzer, i.e. a fresh green shoot (from ndtzer, to shine or blossom). In the historical account of the fulfilment, even the ring of the words of the prophecy is noticed: the netzer, at first so humble and insignificant, was a poor despised Nazarene (Matt. ii. 23). But the expression yiphreh shows at once that it will not stop at this lowliness of origin. The shoot will bring forth fruit (pdrdh, different in meaning, and possibly1 also in root, from pdrach, to blossom and bud). In the humble beginning there lies a power which will carry it up to a great height by a steady and certain process (Ezek. xvii. 22, 23). The twig which is shooting up on the ground will become a tree, and this tree will have a crown laden with fruit. Consequently the state of humiliation will be followed by one of exaltation and perfection.

Jehovah acknowledges Him, and consecrates and equips Him for His great work with the seven spirits. Yer. 2. u And the Spirit of Jehovah descends upon Him, spirit of wisdom and understanding, spirit of counsel and might, spirit of knowledge and fear of Jehovah? " The Spirit of Jehovah" {ruach Yehovah) is the Divine Spirit, as the communicative vehicle of the whole creative fulness of divine powers. Then follow the* six spirits, comprehended by the ruach Yehovah in three pairs, of which the first relates to the intellectual life, the second to the practical life, and the third to the direct relation to God. For chocmdh (wisdom) is the 'power of discerning the nature of things through the appearance, and blndh (understanding) the power of discerning the differences of things in their appearance; the former is aocpia, the latter Stdfcpiais or crvveais. ic Counsel" ('etzdh) is the gift of forming right conclusions, and " might" (geburdh) the ability to carry them out with energy. "The knowledge of Jehovah" {ddath Yehovah) is knowledge founded upon the fellowship of love; and u the fear of Jehovah" (yirath Yehovah), fear absorbed in reverence. There are seven spirits, which are enumerated in order from the highest downwards; since the spirit of the fear of Jehovah is

1 We say possibly, for the Indo- Germanic root bhar, to bear (Sanscr hharami = Qspa, fero, cf. ferax, fertilis), which Gesenius takes as determining the radical meaning of pdrach, cannot be traced with any certainty in the Semitic. Nevertheless peri and peracli bear the same relation to one another, in the ordinary usage of the language, as fruit and blossom: the former is so called, as that which has broken through (cf. pettr); the latter, as that which has broken up, or budded.

the basis of the whole (Prov. i. 7;,Iob xxviii. 28; Ps. cxi. 10), nnd the Spirit, of Jehovah is the heart of all. It corresponds to the shaft of the seven-lighted candlestick, and the three pair of arms that proceeded from it. In these seven forms the Holy Spirit descended upon the second David for a permanent possession, as is affirmed in the perf. consec. nrrjl (with the tone upon the ultimate, on account of the following guttural, to prevent its being pronounced unintelligibly;1 nuach like Ka,Taj3aiveiv kcu jieveiv, John i. 32, 33). The seven torches before the throne of God (Rev. iv. 5, cf. i. 4) burn and give light in His soul. The seven spirits are His seven eves (Rev. v. G).

And His regal conduct is regulated by this His thoroughly spiritual nature. Ver. 3. " And fear of Jehovah is fragrance to Him; and lie judges not according to outward sight, neither does He pass sentence according to outward hearing." We must not render it: His smelling is the smelling of the fear of God, i.e. the penetration of it with a keen judicial insight (as Hengstenberg and Umbreit understand it); for herlach with the preposition Beth has not merely the signification to smell (as when followed by an accusative, Job xxxix. 25), but to smell with satisfaction (like 3 nsn, to see with satisfaction), Ex. xxx. 38, Lev. xxvi. 31, Amos v. 21. The fear of God is that which He smells with satisfaction; it is reach nlchoach to Him. Meier's objection, that fear of God is not a thing that can be smelt, and therefore that herlach must signify to breathe, is a trivial one. Just as the outward man has five senses for the material world, the inner man has also a sensorium for the spiritual world, which discerns different things in different ways. Thus the second David scents the fear of God, and only the fear of God, as a pleasant fragrance; for the fear of God is a sacrifice of adoration continually ascending to God. His favour or displeasure does not depend upon brilliant or repulsive external

1 This moving forward of the tone to the last syllable is also found before Ayin in Gen. xxvi. 10, and very commonly with kumah, and verbs of a similar kind; also before Elohim and Jehovah, to be read Adonai, and before the half-guttural resh, Ps. xliii. 1, cxix. 154, but nowhere on any other ground than the orthophonic rather than euphonic one mentioned above; compare also mDI in ver. 13, with riDl (with n following) in Ex. viii. 7.

qualities; He does not judge according to outward appearances, but according to the relation of the heart to His God.

This is the standard according to which He will judge when saving, and judge when punishing. Vers. 4, 5. " And judges the poor with righteousness, and passes sentence with equity for the humble in the land; and smites the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He slays the wicked. And righteousness is the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His hips." The main feature in ver. 4 is to be seen in the objective ideas. He will do justice to the dallim, the weak and helpless, by adopting an incorruptibly righteous course towards their oppressors, and decide with straightforwardness for the humble or meek of the land: *dndv, like rdni, from rdndh, to bend, the latter denoting a person bowed down by misfortune, the former a person inwardly bowed down, i.e. free from all self-conceit (hdciach V, as in Job xvi. 21). The poor and humble, or meek, are the peculiar objects of His royal care; just as it was really to them that the first beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount applied. But " the earth" and u the wicked" (the latter is not to be understood collectively, but, as in several passages in the Old Testament, viz. Ps. Ixviii. 22, ex. 6, Hab. iii. 13, 14, as pointing forward prophetically to an eschatological person, in wdiom hostility towards Jehovah and His Anointed culminates most satanically) will experience the full force of His penal righteousness. The very word of His mouth is a rod which shatters in pieces (Ps. ii. 9; Rev. i. 16); and the breath of His lips is sufficient to destroy, without standing in need of any further means (2 Thess. ii. 8). As the girdle upon the hips (mothnaim, LXX. rrjv 6a<pvv), and in front upon the loins (chaldtzaim, LXX. ra? TrXevpds), fastens the clothes together, so all the qualities and active powers of His person have for their band tzedakdh, which follows the inviolable norm of the divine will, and ha'emundh, which holds immovably to the course divinely appointed, according to promise (ch. xxv. 1). Special prominence is given by the article to yemundh; He is the faithful and true witness (Rev. i. 5, iii. 14). Consequently with Him there commences a new epoch, in which the Son of David and His righteousness acquire a world-subduing force, and find their home in a humanity that has sprung, like Himself, out of deep humiliation.

The frail of righteousness is peace, which now reigns in humanity under the rule of the Prince of Peace, and even in the animal world, with nothing whatever to disturb it. Vers. 6-9. tt And the wolf dwells with the lamb, and the leopard lies down with the kid; and calf and lion and stalled ox together: a little Inn/ drives them. A nd cow and bear go to the pasture; their young ones lie down together: and the lion eats chopped straw like the ox. And the suckling plays by the hole of the adder, and the weaned child stretches its hand to the pupil of the basilisk-viper. They will 7iot hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the land is filled with knowledge of Jehovah, like the waters covering the sea J* The fathers, and such commentators as Luther, Calvin, and Vitringa, have taken all these figures from the animal world as symbolical. Modern rationalists, on the other hand, understand them literally, but regard the whole as a beautiful dream and wish. It is a prophecy, however, the realization of which is to be expected on this side of the boundary between time and eternity, and, as Paul has shown in Rom. viii., is an integral link in the predestined course of the history of salvation (Hengstenberg, Umbreit, Hofmann, Drechsler). There now reign among irrational creatures, from the greatest to the least, — even among such as are invisible, — fierce conflicts and bloodthirstiness of the most savage kind. But when the Son of David enters upon the full possession of His royal inheritance, the peace of paradise will be renewed, and all that is true in the popular legends of a golden age be realized and confirmed. This is what the prophet depicts in such lovely colours. The wolf and lamb, those two hereditary foes, will be perfectly reconciled then. The leopard will let the teazing kid lie down beside it. The lion, between the calf and stalled ox, neither seizes upon its weaker neighbour, nor longs for the fatter one. Cow and bear graze together, whilst their young ones lie side by side in the pasture. The lion no longer thirsts for blood, but contents itself, like the ox, with chopped straw. The suckling pursues its sport (pilpel of VVf, midcere) by the adders hole, and the child just weaned stretches out its hand boldly and fearlessly to meurath tziplioni. It is evident from Jer. viii. 17 that tzipKoni is the name of a species of snake. According to Aquila and the Vulgate, it is basiliskos, serpens regulus, possibly from tzaph, to pipe or hiss (Ges., Fiirst); for Isidorus, in his Origg. xii. 4, says, Sibllus idem est qui et regulus; sibilo enim occidit, antequam mordeat vel exurat. For the hapax leg. hdddh, the meaning dirigere, tendere, is established by the Arabic; but there is all the more uncertainty about the meaning of the hap. leg. miXD. According to the parallel y\ it seems to signify the hollow (Syr., Vulg., LXX., kolttj): whether from "HK = "ny, from which comes myo? or from lis, the li^ht- hole (like "^ND, which occurs in the Mishna, OJialoth xiii. 1) or opening where a cavern opens to the light of day. It is probable, however, that meurdh refers to something that exerts an attractive influence upon the child, either the "blending of colours" (Saad. renders tziplioni, errakas, the motley snake), or better still, the " pupil of the eye " (Targum), taking the word as a feminine of md'or, the light of the eye (b. Erubin 55b = the power of vision). The look of a snake, more especially of the basilisk (not merely the basilisk-lizard, but also the basiliskviper), was supposed to have a paralyzing and bewitching influence; but now the snake will lose this pernicious power (ch. lxv. 25), and the basilisk become so tame and harmless, as to let children handle its sparkling eyes as if they were jewels. All this, as we should say with Luthardt and Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, ii. 2, 567), is only colouring wdiich the hand of the prophet employs, for the purpose of painting the peace of that glorified state which surpasses all possibility of description; and it is unquestionably necessary to take the thought of the promise in a spiritual sense, without adhering literally to the medium employed in expressing it. But, on the other hand, we must guard against treating the description itself as merely a drapery thrown around the actual object; whereas it is rather the refraction of the object in the mind of the prophet himself, and therefore a manifestation of the true nature of that which he actually saw. But are the animals to be taken as the subject in ver. 9 also? The subject that most naturally suggests itself is undoubtedly the animals, of which a few that are alarming and destructive to men have been mentioned just before. And the fact that they really are thought of as the subject, is confirmed by ch. lxv. 25, where ch. xi. 6- 9a is repeated in a compendious form. The idea that ^JTV requires men as the subject, is refuted by the common njn n*n (compare the parallel promise in Ezek. xxxiv. 25, which rests upon Hos.

ii. 20). That the term yaslichithu can be applied to animals, is evident from Jer. ii. 30, and may be assumed as a matter of course. But if the animals are the subject, liar hodshi (my holv mountain) is not Zion-Moriah, upon which wild beasts never made their home in historical times; but, as the generalizing col (all) clearly shows, the whole of the holy mountain-land of Israel: liar kodshi has just this meaning in ch. lvii. 13 (cf. Ps. lxxviii. 54, Ex. xv. 17). The fact that peace prevails in the animal world, and also peace between man and beast, is then attributed to the universal prevalence of the knowledge of God, in consequence of which that destructive hostility between the animal world and man, by which estrangement and apostasy from God were so often punished (2 Kings xvii. 25; Ezek. xiv. 15, etc.: see also ch. vii. 24), have entirely come to an end. The meaning of " the earth " is also determined by that of "all my holy mountain." The land of Israel, the dominion of the Son of David in the more restricted sense, will be from this time forward the paradisaical centre, as it were, of the whole earth, — a prelude of its future state of perfect and universal glorification (ch. vi. 3, " all the earth"). It has now become full of u the knowledge of Jehovah," i.e. of that experimental knowledge which consists in the fellowship of love ('"W!», ^ke ■TO, is a secondary form of njn, the more common infinitive or verbal noun from yr: Ges. § 133, 1), like the waters which cover the sea, i.e. the bottom of the sea (compare Hab. ii. 14, where laddath is a virtual accusative, full of that which is to be known). " Cover:99 cissdh J! (like sdcac f, Ps. xci. 4), signifies to afford a covering to another; the Lamed is frequently introduced with a participle (in Arabic regularly) as a sign of the object (Ewald, § 292, e), and the omission of the article in the case of mecassim is a natural consequence of the inverted order of the words.

The prophet has now described, in vers. 1-5, the righteous conduct of the Son of David, and in vers. 6-9 the peace which prevails under His government, and extends even to the animal world, and which is consequent upon the living knowledge of God that has now become universal, that is to say, of the spiritual transformation of the people subject to His sway, — an allusion full of enigmas, but one which is more clearly expounded in the following verse, both in its direct contents and also in all that it presupposes. Ver. 10. " And it will come to pass in that day: the root-sprout of Jesse, which stands as a banner of the peoples, for it will nations ask, and its place of rest is glory? The first question which is disposed of here, has reference tc the apparent restriction thus far of all the blessings of this peaceful rule to Israel and the land of Israel. This restriction, as we now learn, is not for its ow"n sake, but is simply the means of an unlimited extension of this fulness of blessing. The proud tree of the Davidic sovereignty is hewn down, and nothing is left except the root. The new David is shoresh Yishai (the root-sprout of Jesse), and therefore in a certain sense the root itself, because the latter would long ago have perished if it had not borne within itself from the very commencement Him who was now about to issue from it. But when He who had been concealed in the root of Jesse as its sap and strength should have become the rejuvenated root of Jesse itself (cf. Rev. xxii. 16), He would be exalted from this lowly beginning Vnes 'ammin, into a banner summoning the nations to assemble, and uniting them around itself. Thus visible to all the world, He would attract the attention of the heathen to Himself, and they would turn to Him with zeal, and His menuchdh, i.e. the place where He had settled down to live and reign (for the word in this local sense, compare Num. x. 33 and Ps. cxxxii. 8, 14), would be glory, i.e. the dwelling-place and palace of a king whose light shines over all, who has all beneath His rule, and who gathers all nations around Himself. The Vulgate renders it u et sepulcrurn ejus gloriosum" (a leading passage for encouraging pilgrimages), but the passion is here entirely swallowed up by the splendour of the figure of royalty; and menuchah is no more the place of rest in the grave than nes is the cross, although undoubtedly the cross has become the banner in the actual fulfilment, which divides the parousia of Christ into a first and second coming.

A second question also concerns Israel. The nation out of which and for which this king will primarily arise, will before that time be scattered far away from its native land, in accordance with the revelation in ch. vi. How, then, will it be possible for Him to reign in the midst of it? — Vers. 11, 12. " And it will come to pass in that day, the Lord will stretch out His hand again a second time to redeem the remnant of His people that shall lift, out of A$8?mrf and out of Egypt, and out of Pathros, and I of Ethiopia, and out of'Elam, and out of SJiinar, and out of llamath, and out of the islands of the sea. And he raises a banner for the nations, and fetches home the outcasts of Israel; and the dispersed of Jiulah will He assemble from the four borders of the th" Asshur and Egypt stand here in front, and side by side, as the two great powers of the time of Isaiah (cf. ch. vii. 18-20). As appendices to Egypt, we have (1) Pathros, hierogl. to-res, and with the article petores, the southland, i.e. Upper Egypt, so that Mizraim in the stricter sense is Lower Egypt (see, on the other hand, Jer. xliv. 15); and (2) Cush, the land which lies still farther south than Upper Egypt on both sides of the Arabian Gulf; and as appendices to Asshur, (1) rJElam, i.e. Elymais, in southern Media, to the east of the Tigris; and (2) S/wiar, the plain to the south of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris. Then follow the Syrian llamath at the northern foot of the Lebanon; and lastly, " the islands of the sea" i.e. the islands and coast-land of the Mediterranean, together with the whole of the insular continent of Europe. There was no such diaspora of Israel at the time when the prophet uttered this prediction, nor indeed even after the dissolution of the northern kingdom; so that the specification is not historical, but prophetic. The redemption which the prophet here foretells is a second, to be followed by no third; consequently the banishment out of which Israel is redeemed is the ultimate form of that which is threatened in ch. vi. 12 (cf. Deut. xxx. 1 sqq.). It is the second redemption, the counterpart of the Egyptian. He will then stretch out His hand again (yosiph, supply lishloach); and as He once delivered Israel out of Egypt, so will He now redeem it — purchase it back (Jcdndh, opp. mdcar) out of all the countries named. The min attached to the names of the countries is to be construed with Uknoth. Observe how, in the prophet's view, the conversion of the heathen becomes the means of the redemption of Israel. The course wThich the history of salvation has taken since the first coming of Christ, and which it will continue to take to the end, as described by Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, is distinctly indicated by the prophet. At the word of Jehovah the heathen will set His people free, and even escort them (ch. xlix. 22, lxii. 10); and thus He will gather again (dsaph, with reference to the one gathering point; vol. i. T hibbetz, with reference to the dispersion of those who are to be gathered together) from the utmost ends of the four quarters of the globe, " the outcasts of the kingdom of Israel, and the dispersed of the kingdom of Judah" (nidche Yisrdel unephutzoth Yehuddh: nidche = niddeche, with the dagesh dropped before the following guttural1), both men and women.

But this calls to mind the present rent in the unity of the nation; and the third question very naturally arises, whether this rent will continue. The answer to this is given in ver. 13: " And the jealousy of Ephraim is removed, and the adversaries of Judah are cut off; Ephraim will not show jealousy towards Judah, and Judah will not oppose Ephraim." As the suffix and genitive after tzorer are objective in every other instance (e.g. Amos v. 12), tzor€re Yehuddh must mean, not those members of Judah who are hostile to Ephraim, as Ewald, Knobel, and others suppose, but those members of Ephraim who are hostile to Judah, as Umbreit and Schegg expound it. In ver. 13a the prophet has chiefly in his mind the old feeling of enmity cherished by the northern tribes, more especially those of Joseph, towards the tribe of Judah, which issued eventually in the division of the kingdom. It is only in ver. 136 that he predicts the termination of the hostility of Judah towards Ephraim. The people, when thus brought home again, would form one fraternally united nation, whilst all who broke the peace of this unity would be exposed to the immediate judgment of God (yiccdrethu, will be cut off).

A fourth question has reference to the relation between this Israel of the future and the surrounding nations, such as the warlike Philistines, the predatory nomad tribes of the East, the unbrotherly Edomites, the boasting Moabites, and the cruel Ammonites. Will they not disturb and weaken the new Israel, as they did the old? Ver. 14. " And they fly upon the shoulder of the Philistines seawards; unitedly they plunder the sons of the East: they seize upon Edom and Moab, and the sons of Ammon are subject to them." Cdtheph (shoulder) was the peculiar name of the coast-land of Philistia which sloped off towards the sea (Josh. xv. 11); but here it is used with an

1 The same occurs in lyp^ IKC^, W^, 1*6?, *rbv, inpn. In every case the dagesh has fallen out because of the following guttural (Luzzatto, Cramm. § i80).

nation (b'cdthiph = b*c8t!i2ph; for the cause see at ch. v. 2), upon which Israel plunges down like an eagle from the height of its mountain-land. The "object of the stretching out of their hand" is equivalent to the object of their grasp. And whenever any one of the surrounding nations mentioned should attack Israel, the whole people would make common cause, and act together. How does this warlike prospect square, however, with the previous promise of paradisaical peace, and the end of all warfare which this promise presupposes (cf. ch. ii. 4)? This is a contradiction, the solution of which is to be found in the fact that we have only figures here, and figures drawn from the existing relations and warlike engagements of the nation, in which the prophet pictures that supremacy of the future united Israel over surrounding nations, which is to be maintained by spiritual weapons.

He dwells still longer upon the miracles in which the antitypical redemption will resemble the typical one. Vers. 15, 16. " And Jehovah p>ronounces the ban upon the sea-tongue of Egypt, and swings His hand over the Euphrates in the glow of His breath, and smites it into seven brooks, and makes it so that men go through in shoes. And there will be a road for the remnant of His people that shall be left, out of Asshur, as it was for Israel in the day of its departure out of the land of Egypt" The twTo countries of the diaspora mentioned first are Asshur and Egypt. And Jehovah makes a way by His miraculous power for those who are returning out of both and across both.. The seatongue of Egypt, which runs between Egypt and Arabia, i.e. the Red Sea {sinus Heroopolitanus, according to another figure), He smites with the ban (Jiecherim, corresponding in meaning to the pouring out of the vial of wrath in Rev. xvi. 12, — a stronger term than gaar, e.g. Ps. cvi. 9); and the consequence of this is, that it affords a dry passage to those who are coming back (though without there being any necessity to read hecherib, or to follow Meier and Knobel, who combine hecherim with chdrum, Lev. xxi. 18, in the precarious sense of splitting). Ajid in order that the dividing of Jordan may have its antitype also, Jehovah swings His hand over the Euphrates, to smite, breathing upon it at the same time with burning breath, so that it is split up into seven shallow brooks, through which men can walk in sandals. TO2 stands, according to the law of sound, for TO3; and the air. \e<y. TO (with a fixed kametz), from TO = ttin, DDn? to glow, signifies a glowing heat. — a meaning which is also so thoroughly supported by the two Arabic verbs med. Ye *U and *U {inf. 'aim, gaim, internal heat, burning thirst, also violent anger), that there is no need whatever for the conjecture of Luzzatto and Gesenius, ES5J2. The early translatois (e.g. LXX. 7rvevjj.aTi ftiaUo, Syr. beuchdono, with a display of might) merely give conjectural renderings of the word, which had become obsolete before their time; Saadia, however, renders it with etymological correctness suchun, from sachana, to be hot, or set on fire. Thus, by changing the Euphrates in the (parching) heat of His breath into seven shallow wadys, Jehovah makes a free course for His people who come out of Asshur, etc. This was the idea which presented itself to the prophet in just this shape, though it by no means followed that it must necessarily embody itself in history in this particular form.

As Israel, when redeemed from Egypt beyond the Red Sea, sang songs of praise, so also will the Israel of the second redemption, when brought, in a no less miraculous manner, across the Red Sea and the Euphrates. Ch. xii. 1, 2. " And in that day thou wilt say, I thank Thee, 0 Jehovah, that Thou wast angry with me: \ Thine anger is turned away, and Thou hast comforted me. | Behold, the God of my salvation; \ I trust, and am not afraid: \ for Jah Jehovah is my pride and song, \ and He became my salvation" The words are addressed to the people of the future in the people of the prophet's own time. They give thanks for the wrath experienced, inasmuch as it was followed by all the richer consolation. The formation of the sentence after *3 is paratactic; the principal tone falls upon lb, where ydshob is written poetically for vayyashdb (cf. Deut. xxxii. 8, 18; Ps. xviii. 12; Hos. vi. 1). We hear the notes of Ps. xc. 13, xxvii. 1, resounding here; whilst ver. 2b is the echo of Ex. xv. 2 (on which Ps. cxviii. 14 is also founded). VW (to be read 'ozzi, and therefore also written VW) is another form of MP, and is used here to signify the proud self-consciousness associated with the possession of power: pride, and the expression of it, viz. boasting. Zimrath is equivalent in sense, and probably also in form, to stmr&At, just as in Syriac s'mori (my sono*) is regularly pronounced ^'mor, with the i of the suffix dropped (sco Hnpfeld on Ps. x\'w 6). It is also possible, however, that it may be only an expansion of the primary form zimrath — zimrdh, and therefore that zimrath is only synonymous with zimrdthi, as chSphetz in 2 Sam. xxiii. 5 is with cheplitzi. One thing peculiar to this echo of Ex. xv. 2 is the doubling of the Jah in Jah Jehordh, which answers to the surpassing of the type by the antitype.

Ver. 3, again, contains a prophetic promise, which points back to the commencement of ver. 1: " And with rapture ye will draw water out of the wells of salvation." Just as Israel was miraculously supplied with water in the desert, so will the God of salvation, who has become your salvation, open many and manifold sources of salvation for you (W*? as it is pointed here, instead of T.?*?1), from which ye may draw with and according to your heart's delight. This water of salvation, then, forms both the material for, and instigation to, new son^s of praise; and vers. 4-6 therefore continue in the strain of a psalm: u And ye will say in that day. Praise Jehovah, proclaim His name, \ make known His doings among the nations, \ boast that His name is exalted. \ Harp to Jehovah; for He has displayed, majesty: \ let this be known in all lands. \ Shout and be jubilant, 0 inhabitant of Zion: \ for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee." The first song of six lines is here followed by a second of seven lines: a prophetic word of promise, inserted between them, separates the one from the other. This second also commences with the well-known tones of a psalm (compare especially Ps. cv. 1, 1 Chron. xvi. 8). The phrase, " Call upon the name of Jehovah," signifies. Make the name of Jehovah the medium of invocation (Ges. § 138, Anm. 3*), i.e invoke it, or, as here, call it out. Geuth is high, towering dignity; here it is used of God, as in ch. xxvi. 10, with rdsdh: to prove it practically, just as with labesh in Ps. xciii. 1, to show one's self openly therein. Instead of the Chethib meyudda ath in ver. 5, 1 The root is the same as, for example, in %&y (they rejoice) and ttpJP; here, however, it is more striking, because the singular is written pyo, and not pyD- At the same time, it is evident that the connecting sound ay was rather preferred than avoided, as Ewald maintains, — as we may see, for example, from the repeated aychi in Ps. ciii.

the keri substitutes the Jiophal form miidaath, probably because meyudda, according to the standing usage of speech, denotes one well known, or intimate; the passive of the hophal is certainly the more suitable. According to the preceding appeals, the words are to be understood as expressing a desire, that the glorious self-attestation of the God of salvation might be brought to the consciousness of the whole of the inhabitants of the earth, i.e. of all mankind. When God redeems His people, He has the salvation of all the nations in view. It is the knowledge of the Holy One of Israel, made known through the word of proclamation, that brings salvation to them all. How well may the church on Zion rejoice, to have such a God dwelling in the midst of it! He is great as the giver of promises, and great in fulfilling them; great in grace, and great in judgment; great in all His saving acts which spread from Israel to all mankind. Thus does this second psalm of the redeemed nation close, and with it the book of Immanuel.

Just as in Jeremiah (ch. xlvi.-li.) and Ezeklel (ch. xxv.-xxxii.), so also in Isaiah, the oracles concerning the heathen are all placed together. In this respect the arrangement of the three great books of prophecy is perfectly homogeneous. In Jeremiah these oracles, apart from the prelude in ch. xxv., form the concluding portion of the book. In Ezekiel they fill up that space of time, when Jerusalem at home was lying at her last gasp and the prophet was sitting speechless by the Chaboras. And here, in Isaiah, they compensate us for the interruption which the oral labours of the prophet appear to have sustained in the closing years of the reign of Ahaz. Moreover, this was their most suitable position, at the end of the cycle of Messianic prophecies In ch. vii.-xii.; for the great consolatory thought of the prophecy of Emmanuel, that all kingdoms are to become the kingdoms of God and His Christ, is here expanded. And as the prophecy of Immanuel was delivered on the threshold of the times of the great empires, so as to cover the whole of that period with its consolation, the oracles concerning the heathen nations and kingdoms are inseparably connected with that prophecy, which forms the ground and end, the unity and substance, of them all.

The heading in ch. xiii. 1, " Oracle concerning Babel, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see" shows that ch. xiii. forms the commencement of another part of the whole book. Massdh (from RfeO, efferre, then effari, Ex. xx. 7) signifies, as we may see from 2 Kings ix. 25, effatum, the verdict or oracle, more especially the verdict of God, and generally, perhaps always, the judicial sentence of God,1 though without introducing the idea of onus (burden), which is the rendering adopted by the Targum, Syriac, Vulgate, and Luther, notwithstanding the fact that, according to Jer. xxiii. 33 sqq., it was the scoffers who associated tins idea with the word. In a book which could throughout be traced to Isaiah, there could be no necessity for it to be particularly stated, that it was to Isaiah that the oracle was revealed, of which Babel was the object. We may therefore see from this, that the prophecy relating to Babylon was originally complete in itself, and was intended to be issued in that form. But when the whole book was compiled, these headings were retained as signal-posts of the separate portions of which it was composed. Moreover, in the case before us, the retention of the heading may be regarded as a providential arrangement. For if this " oracle of Babel" lay before us in a separate form, and without the name of Isaiah, we should not dare to attribute it to him, for the simple reason that the overthrow of the Chaldean empire is here distinctly announced, and that at a time when the Assyrian empire was still standing. For this reason the majority of critics, from the time of Rosenmuller and Justi downwards, have regarded the spuriousness of the pro-

1 In Zech. xii. 1 sqq. the promise has, at any rate, a dark side. In Lam. ii. 14 there is no necessity to think of promises in connection with the mas'oth; and Prov. xxx. 1 and xxxi. 1 cannot help us to determine the prophetic use of the word.

phecy as an established fact. But the evidence which can be adduced in support of the testimony contained in the heading is far too strong for it to be set aside: viz. (1) the descriptive style as well as the whole stamp of the prophecy, which resembles the undisputed prophecies of Isaiah in a greater variety of points than any passage that can be selected from any other prophet. We will show this briefly, but yet amply, and as far as the nature of an exposition allows, against Knobel and others who maintain the opposite. And (2) the dependent relation of Zephaniah and Jeremiah, — a relation which the generally admitted muse-like character of the former, and the imitative character of the latter, render it impossible to invert. Both prophets show that they are acquainted with this prophecy of Isaiah, as indeed they are with all those prophecies which are set down as spurious. Stahelin, in his work on the Messianic prophecies (Excursus iv.), has endeavoured to make out that the derivative passages in question are the original passages; but stat pro ratione voluntas. Now, as the testimony of the heading is sustained by such evidence as this, the one argument adduced on the other side, that the prophecy has no historical footing in the circumstances of Isaiah's times, cannot prove anything at all. No doubt all prophecy rested upon an existing historical basis. But we must not expect to be able to point this out in the case of every single prophecy. In the time of Hezekiah, as ch. xxxix. clearly shows (compare Mic. iv. 10), Isaiah had become spiritually certain of this, that the power by which the final judgment would be inflicted upon Judah would not be Asshur, but Babel, i.e. an empire which would have for its centre that Babylon, which was already the second capital of the Assyrian empire and the seat of kings who, though dependent then, were striving hard for independence; in other words, a Chaldean empire. Towards the end of his course Isaiah was full of this prophetic thought; and from it he rose higher and higher to the consoling discovery that Jehovah would avenge His people upon Babel, and redeem them from Babel, just as surely as from Asshur. The fact that so far-reaching an insight was granted to him into the counsels of God, was not merely founded on his own personality, but rested chiefly on the position which he occupied in the midst of the first beginnings of the age of great empires. Conse- ijiicntly, according to the law of the creative intensity of all divinely effected beginnings, he surveyed the whole of this long period as a universal prophet, outstripped all his successors down to the time of Daniel, and left to succeeding ages not only such prophecies as those we have already read, which had their basis in the history of his own times and the historical r'ulfilment of which was not sealed up, but such far distant and sealed prophecies as those which immediately follow. For since [saiah did not appear in public again after the fifteenth year of llezekiah, the future, as his book clearly shows, was from that time forth his true home. Just as the apostle says of the New Testament believer, that he must separate himself from the world, and walk in heaven, so the Old Testament prophet separated himself from the present of his own nation, and lived and moved in its future alone.

The prophet hears a call to war. From whom it issues, and to whom or against whom it is directed, still remains a secret; but this only adds to the intensity. Ver. 2. " On woodless mountain lift ye up a banner, call to them with loud sounding voice, shake the hand, that they may enter into gales of princes! " The summons is urgent: hence a threefold signal, viz. the banner-staff planted on a mountain " made bald" (nishpeh, from which comes sh'phi, which only occurs in Isaiah and Jeremiah), the voice raised high, and the shaking of the hand, denoting a violent beckoning, — all three being favourite signs with Isaiah. The destination of this army is to enter into a city of princes (nedlblm, freemen, nobles, princes, Ps. cvii. 40, cf. Ps. cxiii. 8), namely, to enter as conquerors; for it is not the princes who invite them, but Jehovah. — Ver. 3. u I, I have summoned my sanctified ones, also called my heroes to my wrath, my proudly rejoicing ones." " To my wrath " is to be explained in accordance with ch. x. 5. To execute His wrath He had summoned His "sanctified ones" (m'kudddshim), i.e. according to Jer. xxii. 7 (compare Jer. li. 27, 28), those who had already been solemnly consecrated by Him to go into the battle, and had called the heroes whom He had taken into His service, and who were His instruments in this respect, that they rejoiced with the pride of men intoxicated with victory (vid. Zeph. i. 7, cf. iii. 11). Tpy is a word peculiarly Isaiah's; and the combination n)^ T?? is so unusual, that we could hardly expect to find it

The command of Jehovah is quickly executed. The great army is already coming down from the mountains. Vers. 4, 5. " Hark, a rumbling on the mountains after the manner of a great 'people; hark, a rumbling of kingdoms of nations met together! Jehovah of hosts musters an army, those that have come out of a distant land, from the end of the heaven: Jehovah and His instruments of wrath, to destroy the whole earth." Kol commences an interjectional sentence, and thus becomes almost an interjection itself (compare ch. lii. 8, lxvi. 6, and on Gen. iv. 10). There is rumbling on the mountains (ch. xvii. 12, 13), for there are the peoples of Eran, and in front the Medes inhabiting the mountainous north-western portion of Eran, who come across the lofty Shahu (Zagros), and the ranges that lie behind it towards the Tigris, and descend upon the lowlands of Babylon; and not only the peoples of Eran, but the peoples of the mountainous north of Asia generally (Jer. li. 27), — an army under the guidance of Jehovah, the God of the hosts of spirits and stars, whose wrath it will execute over the whole earth, i.e. upon the world-empire; for the fall of Babel is a judgment, and accompanied with judgments upon all the tribes under Babylonian rule.

Then all sink into anxious and fearful trembling. Vers. G-8. " Howl; for the day of Jehovah is near; like a destructive force from the Almighty it comes. Therefore all arms hang loosely down, and every human heart melts away. And they are troubled: they fall into cramps and pangs; like a woman in labour they tivist themselves: one stares at the other; their faces are faces of flame." The command *W*5 (not written defectively, Ov??) is followed by the reason for such a command, viz. " the day of Jehovah is near," the watchword of prophecy from the time of Joel downwards. The Caph in ceshod is the so-called Caph veritatis, or more correctly, the Caph of comparison between the individual and its genus. It is destruction by one who possesses unlimited power to destroy (shod, from shddad, from which we have shaddai, after the form chaggai, the festive one, from chagag). In this play upon the words, Isaiah also repeats certain words of Joel (ch. i. 15). Then the hands, hang down from despondency and helplessness, and the heart, the seat of life, molts (cli. xix. 1) in the heat of anguish. Universal consternation ensues. This is expressed by the word v'nihhdlu, which stands in half pause; the word has shalsJieleth followed by peik (pasck), an accent which only occurs in seven passages in the twenty-one prose books of the Old Testament, and always with this dividing stroke after it.1 Observe also the following/*^, paragogica, which add considerably to the energy of the description by their anapaestic rhythm. The men (subj.) lay hold of cramps and pangs (as in Job xviii. 20, xxi. G), the force of the events compelling them to enter into such a condition. Their faces are faces of flames. Knobel understands this as referring to their turning pale, which is a piece of exegetical jugglery. At the same time, it does not suggest mere redness, nor a convulsive movement; but just as a flame alternates between light and darkness, so their faces become alternately flushed and pale, as the blood ebbs and flows, as it were, being at one time driven with force into their faces, and then again driven back to the heart, so as to leave deadly paleness, in consequence of their anguish and terror.

The day of Jehovah's wrath is coming, — a starless night — a nightlike, sunless day. Vers. 9, 10. " Behold, the day of Jehovah comethy a cruel one, and wrath and fierce anger, to turn the earth into a wilderness: and its sinners lie destroys out of it. For the stars of heaven, and its Orions, will not let their light shine: the sun darkens itself at its rising, and the moon does not let its light sinned The day of Jehovah cometh as one cruelly severe (aczdri, an adj. rel. from 'aczdr, chosh, kosh, to be dry, hard, unfeeling), as purely an overflowing of inward excitement, and as burning anger • Idsum is carried on bv the finite verb, according to a well-known alteration of style (= ul'hashmd). It is not indeed the general judgment which the prophet is depicting here, but a certain historical catastrophe falling upon the nations, which draws the whole world into sympathetic suffering. 'Eretz, therefore (inasmuch as the notions of land generally, and some particular land or portion of the earth, are blended together, — a very elastic term, with vanishing boundaries), is not merely the land of Babylon here, as Knobel supposes, but the earth. Ver. 10 shows in what way the day of Jehovah is a day of wrath. Even nature clothes itself in the colour of 1 For the seven passages, see Ewald, Lehrbuch (ed. 7), p. 224.

wrath, which is the very opposite to light. The heavenly lights above the earth go out; the moon does not shine; and the sun, which is about to rise, alters its mind. u The Orions " are Orion itself and other constellations like it, just as the morning stars in Job xxxviii. 7 are Hesperus and other similar stars. It is more probable that the term cesil is used for Orion in the sense of " the fool " (= foolhardy),1 according to the older translators (LXX. 6 'flplcov, Targum nephilehon from nephila, Syr. gaboro, Arab, gebbdr, the giant), than that it refers to Suhel, i e. Canopus (see the notes on Job ix. 9, xxxviii. 31), although the Arabic suhel does occur as a generic name for stars of surpassing splendour (see at Job xxxviii. 7). The comprehensive term employed is similar to the figure of speech met with in Arabic (called taglib, i.e. the preponderance of the pars potior), in such expressions as "the two late evenings'' for the evening and late evening, " the two Omars " for Omar and Abubekr, though the resemblance is still greater to the Latin Scipiones, i.e. men of Scipio's greatness. Even the Orions, i.e. those stars which are at other times the most conspicuous, withhold their light; for when God is angry, the principle of anger is set in motion even in the natural world, and primarily in the stars that were created " for signs " (compare Gen. i. 14 with Jer. x. 2).

The prophet now hears again the voice of Jehovah revealing to him what His purpose is, — namely, a visitation punishing the wicked, humbling the proud, and depopulating the countries. Vers. 11, 12. u And I visit the evil upon the world, and upon sinners their guilt, and sink into silence the pomp of the proud; and the boasting of tyrants I throw to the ground. I make men more precious than fine gold, and people than a jewel of Ophir" The verb pdkad is construed, as in Jer. xxiii. 2, with the accusative of the thing punished, and with?JJ of the person punished. Instead of ' } eretz we have here tebeL which is alwavs used like a proper name (never with the article), to denote the earth in its

1 When R. Samuel of Nehardea, the astronomer, says in his b. Berachoth 08&, '* If it were not for the heat of the cesil, the world would perish from the cold of the Scorpion, and vice versa" — he means by the cesil Orion; and the true meaning of the passage is, that the constellations of Orion and the Scorpion, one of which appears in the hot season, and the other in the cold, preserve the temperature in equilibrium.

entire circumference. We have also 'dritzlm instead of nedlbtm: the Batter signifies merely princes, and it is only occasionally that it has the subordinate sense of despots; the former signifies men naturally cruel, or tyrants (it occurs very frequently in Isaiah). Everything here breathes the spirit of Isaiah both in thought and form. " The lofty is thrown down: " this is one of the leading themes of Isaiah's proclamation; and the fact that the judgment will only leave a remnant is a fundamental thought of his, which also runs through the oracles concerning the heathen (ch. xvi. 14, xxi. 17, xxiv. 6), and is depicted by the prophet in various ways (ch. x. 16-19, xvii. 4-6, xxiv. 13, xxx. 17). There it is expressed under the figure that men become as scarce as the finest kinds of gold. Word-painting is Isaiah's delight and strength. ' Ophir, which resembles 'okir in sound, was the gold country of India, that lay nearest to the Phoenicians, the coast-land of Abhira on the northern shore of the Runn (Irina), i.e. the salt lake to the east of the mouths of the Indus (see at Gen. x. 29 and Job xxii. 24; and for the Egypticized Souphir of the LXX., Job xxviii. 16).

Thus does the wrath of God prevail among men, casting down and destroying; and the natural world above and below cannot fail to take part in it. Ver. 13. " Therefore I shake the heavens, and the earth trembles away from its place, because of the wrath of Jehovah of hosts, and because of the day of His fierce anger" The two Beths have a causative meaning (cf. ch. ix. 18). They correspond to 'al-cen (therefore), of which they supply the explanation. Because the wrath of God falls upon men, every creature which is not the direct object of the judgment must become a medium in the infliction of it. We have here the thought of ver. 9a repeated as a kind of refrain (in a similar manner to ch. v. 25). Then follow the several disasters. The first is flight. — Ver. 14. " And it comes to pass as with a gazelle which is scared, and as with a flock xoithout gatherers: they turn every one to his people, and they flee every one to his land." The neuter vhdydh affirms that it will then be as described in the simile and the interpretation which follows. Babylon was the market for the world in central Asia, and therefore a rendezvous for the most diverse nations (Jer. 1. 16, cf. li. 9, 44) — for a Trdfi/jLL/cTos o%\o<;, as JEschylus says in his Person, v. 52. This great and motley mass of foreigners would now be scattered in the wildest flight, on the fall of the imperial city. The second disaster is violent death. — Ver. 15. " Every one that is found is pierced through, and every one that is caught falls by the sword" By " every one that is found" we understand those that are taken in the city by the invading conquerors; and by " every one that is caught" those that are overtaken in their flight (sdphdh, abripere, ch. vii. 20). All are put to the sword. — The third and fourth disasters are plunder and ravage. Ver. 16. " And their infants are dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses plundered, and their ivives ravished" Instead of tisshdgaludh, the keri has the euphemistic term tisshdcabndh (concubitum patientur), a passive which never occurs in the Old Testament text itself. The keri readings shuccabt in Jer. iii. 2, and yishcdbenndh in Deut. xxviii. 30, also do violence to the language, which required DV 23£> and HX (the latter as a preposition in Gen. xix. 34) for the sake of euphemism; or rather they introduce a later (talmudic) usage of speech into the Scriptures (see Geiger, Urschrift, pp. 407-8). The prophet himself intentionally selects the base term shdgal, though, as the queen's name Shegal shows, it must have been regarded in northern Palestine and Aramaean as by no means a disreputable word. In this and other passages of the prophecy Knobel scents a fanaticism which is altogether strange to Isaiah. With ver. 17 the prophecy takes a fresh turn, in which the veil that has hitherto obscured it is completely broken through. We now learn the name of the conquerors. " Behold, I rouse up the Medes over them, icho do not regard silver, and take no pleasure in gold" It was the Medes (Darius Medus=Cyaxares II.) who put an end to the Babylonian kingdom in combination with the Persians (Cyrus). The Persians are mentioned for the first time in the Old Testament by Ezekiel and Daniel. Consequently Mddai (by the side of which Elam is mentioned in ch. xxi. 2) appears to have been a general term applied to the Arian populations of Eran from the most important ruling tribe. Until nearly the end of Hezekiah's reign, the Medes lived scattered about over different districts, and in hamlets (or villages) united together by a constitutional organization. After they had broken away from the Assyrians (714 B.C.) they placed themselves in 709-8 B.C. under one common king, namely Deyoccs, probably for the purpose of upholding their national independence; or, to speak more correctly, under a common monarch, for even the chiefs of the villages were called kings.1 It is in this sense that Jeremiah speaks of " kings of Madai;" at any rate, this is a much more probable supposition than that he refers to monarchs in a generic sense. But the kings of Media, i.e. the rulers of the several villages, are mentioned in Jer. xxv. 25 among those who will have to drink the intoxicating cup which Jehovah is about to give to the nations through Nebuchadnezzar. So that their expedition against Babylon is an act of revenge for the disgrace of bondage that has been inflicted upon them. Their disregarding silver and gold is not intended to describe them as a rude, uncultivated people: the prophet simply means that they are impelled by a spirit of revenge, and do not come for the purpose of gathering booty. Revenge drives them on to forgetfulness of all morality, and humanity also. — Ver. 18. a And bows dash down young men; and they have no compassion on the fruit of the womb: their eye has no pity on children." The bow* do not stand for the bowmen (see ch. xxi. 17), but the bows of the latter dash the young men to the ground by means of the arrows shot from them. They did not spare the fruit of the womb, since they ripped up the bodies of those that were with child (2 Kings viii. 12, xv. 16, etc.). Even towards children they felt no emotion of compassionate regard, such as would express itself in the eye: chits, to feel, more especially to feel with another, i.e. to sympathize; here and in Ezek. v. 11 it is ascribed to the eye as the mirror of the soul (compare the Arabic chasyet el-ain ala fuldnin, carefulness of eye for a person: Hariri, Comment, p. 140). With such inhuman conduct on the part of the foe, the capital of the empire becomes the scene of a terrible conflagration. — Ver. 19. " And Babel, the* ornament of kingdoms, the proud boast of the Chaldeans, becomes like Elohirrts overthrowing judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah." The ornament of kingdoms (mamldcoth), because it was the centre of many conquered kingdoms, which now avenged themselves upon it (ver. 4); the pride (cf. ch. xxviii. 1), because it was the primitive dwelling-place of the Chaldeans of the lowlands, that ancient cultivated people, who 1 See Spiegel's Eran das Land swischen dem Indus und Tigris (1863), p. 308 sqq.

were related to the Chaldean tribes of the Carduchisan mountains in the north-east of Mesopotamia, though not of the same origin, and of totally different manners (see at ch. xxiii. 13). Their present catastrophe resembled that of Sodom and Gomorrah: the two eths are accusative: mahpecdh (Karaarpo^T]) is used like dedh in ch. xi. 9 with a verbal force (to tcarao-Tpe-sjrcu, well rendered by the LXX. ov rpoirov Kareo-Tpe^ev 6 Oeos. On the arrangement of the words, see Ges. § 133, 3).

Babel, like the cities of the Pentapolis, had now become a perpetual desert. Vers. 20-22. " She remains uninhabited for ever, and unoccupied into generation of generations; and not an Arab pitches his tent there, and shepherds do not make their folds there. And there lie beasts of the desert, and horn-owls fill their houses; and ostriches dwell there, and field-devils hop about there. And jackals howl in her castles, and wild dogs in palaces of pleasure; and her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged? The conclusion is similar to that of the prophecy against Edom, in ch. xxxiv. 16, 17. There the certainty of the prediction, even in its most minute particulars, is firmly declared; here the nearness of the time of fulfilment. But the fulfilment did not take place so soon as the words of the prophecy might make it appear. According to Herodotus, Cyrus, the leader of the Medo-Persian army, left the city still standing, with its double ring of walls. Darius Hystaspis, who had to conquer Babylon a second time in 518 B.C., had the walls entirely destroyed, with the exception of fifty cubits. Xerxes gave the last thrust to the glory of the temple of Belus. Having been conquered by Seleucus Nicator (312), it declined just in proportion as Seleucia rose. Babylon, says Pliny, ad solitudinem rediit exhausta vicinitate Seleucice. At the time of Strabo (born 60 B.C.) Babylon was a perfect desert; and he applies to it (xvi. 15) the words of the poet, ipn/jLia fieydXrj *<tt\v tj fieydXn 7roXt?. Consequently, in the passage before us the prophecy falls under the law of perspective foreshortening. But all that it foretells has been literally fulfilled. The curse that Babylon would never come to be settled in and inhabited again (a poetical expression, like Jer. xvii. 25, xxxiii. 16), proved itself an effectual one, when Alexander once thought of making Babylon the metropolis of his empire. He was carried off by an early death. Ten thousand workmen were at that time employed for two months in simply clearing away the rubbish of the foundations of the temple of Belus (the Nimrod-tower). " Not an Arab pitches his tent there'' (Ardbi, from 'Ardbdh, a steppe, is used here for the first time in the Old Testament, and then again in Jer. iii. 2; y&hel, different from ydhel in ch. xiii. 10 and Job xxxi. 26, is a syncopated form of bjW, tentorium figet, according to Ges. § 68, Anm. 2, used instead of the customary *}*£): this was simply the natural consequence of the great field of ruins, upon which there was nothing but the most scanty vegetation. But all kinds of beasts of the desert and waste places make their homes there instead. The list commences with zhjyim (from zi, dryness, or from ziyi, an adj. relat. of the noun zi), i.e. dwellers in the desert; the reference here is not to men, but, as in most other instances, to animals, though it is impossible to determine what are the animals particularly referred to. That ochim are horned owls (Uhus) is a conjecture of Aurivillius, which decidedly commends itself. On benoth ydandh, see at Job xxxix. 13-18. Wetzstein connects yaandh with an Arabic word for desert; it is probably more correct, however, to connect it with the Syriac *OJP, greedy. The feminine plural embraces ostriches of both sexes, just as the 'iyyim (sing. *K = ^R, from 'dvdh, to howl: see Bernstein's Lex. on Kirsch's Chrestcm. Syr. p. 7), i.e. jackals, in this appellation is a direct reproduction of the natural voice of the animal, which is called ivawi in vulgar Arabic). Tan as the name of the jackal; and this is supported by the Syriac and Targum rendering yaruro (see Bernstein, p. 220), even more than by the Arabic name of the wolf, tindn, which only occurs here and there. ^, ibnu dwa, is the common jackal found in Hither Asia (Canis aureus vulgaris), the true type of the whole species, which is divided into at least ten varieties,

Tan may refer to one of these varieties, which derived its name from its distinctive peculiarity as a long-stretched animal, whether the extension was in the trunk, the snout, or the tail. The sunning themselves quietly upon its walls, which came down very leisurely when alarmed by the cries of the Arabs. And as Rich heard in Bagdad, the ruins are still regarded as a rendezvous for ghosts: sd'ir, when contrasted with 'attud, signifies the full-grown shaggy buck-goat; but here seirim is applied to demons in the shape of goats (as in ch. xxxiv. 14). According to the Scriptures, the desert is the abode of unclean spirits, and such unclean spirits as the popular belief or mythology pictured to itself were seirim. Virgil, like Isaiah, calls them saltardes Satyros. It is remarkable also that Joseph Wolf, the missionary and traveller to Bochdra, saw pilgrims of the sect of Yezidis (or devil-worshippers) upon the ruins of Babylon, who performed strange and horrid rites by moonlight, and danced extraordinary dances with singular gestures and sounds. On seeing these ghost-like, howling, moonlight pilgrims, he very naturally recalled to mind the dancing seirim of prophecy (see Moritz Wagners Reise nach Persien unci clem Landc der Kurden, Bd. ii. p. 251). And the nightly howling and yelling of jackals (dndh after rikked, as in 1 Sam. xviii. 6, 7) produces its natural effect upon every traveller there, just as in all the other ruins of the East. These are now the inhabitants of the royal 9armenoth9 which the prophet calls 'alm'noth with a sarcastic turn, on account of their widowhood and desolation; these are the inhabitants of the palaces of pleasure, the luxurious villas and country-seats, with their hanging gardens. The Apocalypse, in ch. xviii. 2, takes up this prophecy of Isaiah, and applies it to a still existing Babylon, which might have seen itself in the mirror of the Babylon of old.

But it is love to His own people which impels the God of Israel to suspend such a judgment of eternal destruction over Babylon. Gh. xiv. 1, 2. " For Jehovah will have mercy on Jacob, and will once more choose Israel, and will settle them in their own land: and the foreigner will associate with them, and they will cleave to the house cf Jacob. And nations take them, and accompany them to their place; and the house of Israel takes them to itself in the land of Jehovah for servants and maid-servants: and they hold in captivity those who led them away captive; and become lords over their oppressors." We have here in nuce the comforting substance of ch. ^lvi.-lxvi. Babylon falls that Israel may rise. This is effected by the compassion of God.

He chooses Israel once more (iterum, as in Job. xiv. 7 for example), and therefore makes a new covenant with it. Then follows their return to Canaan, their own land, Jehovah's land (as in Hos. ix. 3). Proselytes from among the heathen, who have acknowledged the God of the exiles, go along with them, as Ruth did with Naomi. Heathen accompany the exiles to their own place. And now their relative positions are reversed. Those who accompany Israel are now taken possession of by the latter (hithnachel, tcXrjpovo/jLelv eavrS, like hithpaiteach, ch. Hi. 2, \vea0ai; cf. p. 94, note, and Ewald, § 124, b), as servants and maid-servants; and they (the Israelites) become leaders into captivity of those who led them into captivity (Lamed with the participle, as in ch. xi. 9), and they will oppress (rdddh b\ as in Ps. xlix. 15) their oppressors. This retribution of like for like is to all appearance quite out of harmony with the New Testament love. But in reality it is no retribution of like for like. For, according to the prophet's meaning, to be ruled by the people of God is the true happiness of the nations, and to allow themselves to be so ruled is their true liberty. At the same time, the form in which the promise is expressed is certainly not that of the New Testament; and it could not possibly have been so, for the simple reason that in Old Testament times, and from an Old Testament point of view, there was no other visible manifestation of the church (ecclesid) than in the form of a nation. This national form of the church has been broken up under the New Testament, and will never be restored. Israel, indeed, will be restored as a nation; but the true essence of the church, which is raised above all national distinctions, will never return to those worldly limits which it has broken through. And the fact that the prophecy moves within those limits here may be easily explained, on the ground that it is primarily the deliverance from the Babylonian captivity to which the promise refers. And the prophet himself was unconscious that this captivity would be followed by another.

The song of the redeemed is a song concerning the fall of the king of Babel. Vers. 3, 4a. " And it cometh to pass, on the day that Jehovah giveth thee rest from thy plague, and from thy cares, and from the heavy bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou shalt raise such a song of triumph concerning the king of Babel, and say J9 Instead of the hiphil hinniach (to let down) of ver. 1, we have here, as in the original passage, Deut. xxv. 19, the form heniach, which is commonly used in the sense of quieting, or procuring rest. 3¥*y is trouble which plagues (as TW'is trouble which oppresses), and rogez restlessness which wears out with anxious care (Job iii. 26, cf. Ezek. xii. 18). The assimilated min before the two words is pronounced mX, with a weak reduplication, instead of me, as elsewhere, before n, n, and even before "l (1 Sam. xxiii. 28; 2 Sam. xviii. 16). In the relative clause ^"^V "^N, lp$ is not the Hebrew casus adverb, answering to the Latin ablative qua servo te usi sunt; nor do ^... "lKte belong to one another in the sense of quo, as in Deut. xxi. 3, qua (vituld); but it is regarded as an ace. obj. according to Ex. i. 14 and Lev. xxv. 39, quon { a fait servir, as in Num. xxxii. 5, quon donne la terre (Luzzatto). When delivered from such a yoke of bondage, Israel would raise a mashal. According to its primary and general meaning, mdshdl signifies figurative language, and hence poetry generally, more especially that kind of proverbial poetry which loves the emblematical, and, in fact, any artistic composition that is piquant in its character; so that the idea of what is satirical or defiant may easily be associated with it, as in the passage before us.

The words are addressed to the Israel of the future in the Israel of the present, as in ch. xii. 1. The former would then sing, and say as follows. Vers. Ab-6. " How hath the oppressor ceased! the place of torture ceased! Jehovah hath broken the rod of the wicked, the ruler s staff, which smote nations in wrath with strokes without ceasing, subjugated nations wrathfully with hunting that never stays." Not one of the early translators ever thought of deriving the hap. leg. madhebdh from the Aramaean dehab(gold), as Vitringa, Aurivillius, and Rosennuiller have done. The former have all translated the word as if it were marhebdh (haughty, violent treatment), as corrected by J. D. Michaelis, Doederlein, Knobel, and others. But we may arrive at the same result without altering a single letter, if we take 2tn as equivalent to ^n^, 3Vn? to melt or pine away, whether we go back to the kal or v.o the hiphil of the verb, and regard the Mem as used in a material or local sense. We understand it, according to madmenah (dunghill) in ch. xxv. 10, as denoting the place where they were reduced to pining away, i.e. as applied to Babylon as the house of servitude where Israel had been wearied to death. The tyrant's sceptre, mentioned in ver. 5, is the Chaldean world-power regarded as concentrated in the king of Babel (cf. shebtt in Num. xxiv. 17). This tyrant's sceptre smote nations with incessant blows and hunting: maccath is construed with macceh, the derivative of the same verb; and murddph, a hophal noun (as in ch. viii. 23, xxix. 3), with rodeh, which is kindred in meaning. Doederlein's conjecture (mirdath), which has been adopted by most modern commentators, is quite unnecessary. Unceasing continuance is expressed first of all with bilti, which is used as a preposition, and followed by sdrdh, a participial noun like cdldh, and then with Uli, which is construed with the finite verb as in Gen. xxxi. 20, Job xli. 18; for Vli chdsdk is an attributive clause: with a hunting which did not restrain itself, did not stop, and therefore did not spare. Nor is it only Israel and other subjugated nations that now breathe again. — Vers. 7, 8. " The whole earth rests, is quiet: they break forth into singing. Even the cypresses rejoice at thee, the cedars of Lebanon: ( Since thou hast gone to sleep, no one will come up to lay the axe upon us.'" The preterites indicate inchoatively the circumstances into which the whole earth has now entered. The omission of the subject in the case of pdtzchu (they break forth) gives the greatest generality to the jubilant utterances: pdtzach rinndh {erumpere gaudio) is an expression that is characteristic of Isaiah alone {e.g. ch. xliv. 23, xlix. 13); and it is a distinctive peculiarity of the prophet to bring in the trees of the forest, as living and s'peaking beings, to share in the universal joy (cf. ch. lv. 12). Jerome supposes the trees to be figuratively employed here for the "chiefs of the nations" (principes gentium). But this disposition to allegorize not only destroys the reality of the contents, but the spirit of the poetry also. Cypresses and cedars rejoice because of the treatment which they received from the Chaldean, who made use of the almost imperishable wood of both of them for ornamental buildings, for his siege apparatus, and for his fleets, and even for ordinary ships, — as Alexander, for example, built himself a fleet of cypress-wood, and the Syrian vessels had masts of cedar. Of the old cedars of Lebanon, there are hardly thirty left in the principal spot where they formerly grew. Gardner Wilkinson (1843) and Hooker the botanist (I860) estimated the whole number at about four hundred; and according to the conclusion which the latter drew from the number of concentric rings and other signs, not one of them is more than about five hundred years old.1

But whilst it has become so quiet on earth, there is the most violent agitation in the regions below. Ver. 9. " The kingdom of the dead below is all in uproar on account of thee1 to meet thy coming; it stirreth up the shades for thee, all the he-goats of the earth; it raiseth up from their throne-seats all the kings of the nations" The notion of Hades, notwithstanding the mythological character which it had assumed, was based upon the double truth, that what a man has been, and the manner in which he has lived on this side the grave, are not obliterated on the other side, but are then really brought to light, and that there is an immaterial self-formation of the soul, in which all that a man has become under certain divinely appointed circumstances, by his own self-determination, is, as it were, reflected in a mirror, and that in a permanent form. This psychical image, to which the dead body bears the same relation as the shattered mould to a cast, is the shade-like corporeality of the inhabitants of Hades, in which they appear essentially though spiritually just as they were on this side the grave. This is the deep root of what the prophet has here expressed in a poetical form; for it is really a mdshdl that he has interwoven with his prophecy here. All Hades is overwhelmed with excitement and wonder, now that the king of Babel, that invincible ruler of the world, who, if not unexpected altogether, was not expected so soon, is actually approaching. From "nto onwards, Sheol, although a feminine, might be the subject; in which case the verb would simply have reverted from the feminine to the radical masculine form. But it is better to regard the subject as neuter; a nescio quid, a nameless power. The shades are suddenly siezed with astonishment, more especially the former leaders (leading goats or bell-wethers) of the herds of nations, so that, from sheer amazement, they spring up from their seats.

And how do they greet this lofty new-comer? Ver. 10. " They all rise up and say to thee, Art thou also made weak like us f art thou become like us V This is all that the shades say; what follows does not belong to them. The pual chulldh (only used here), " to be made sickly, or powerless," signifies to 1 See Wilkinson's paper in the Atlicnzcum (London, Nov. 18G2).

be transposed into the condition of the latter, viz. the Bephaim (a word which also occurs in the Phoenician inscriptions, from Nzn — nsn, to be relaxed or weary), since the life of the shades is only a shadow of life (cf. ecBcoXa, clkikv?, and possibly also kciii6vt6<; is Homer, when used in the sense of those who are dying, exhausted and prostrate with weakness). And in Hades we could not expect anything more than this expression of extreme amazement. For why should they receive their new comrade with contempt or scorn? From ver. 11 onwards, the singers of the mashal take up the song again. — Ver. 11. " Thy pomp is cast down to the region of the dead, the noise of thy harps: maggots are spread under thee, and they that cover thee are worms." From the book of Daniel we learn the character of the Babylonian music; it abounded in instruments, some of which were foreign. Maggots and worms (a bitter sarcasm) now take the place of the costly artistic Babylonian rugs, which once formed the pillow and counterpane of the distinguished corpse. V& might be a third pers. hophal (Ges. § 71); but here, between perfects, it is a third pers. pual, like yullad in ch. ix. 5. Rimmdh, which is preceded by the verb in a masculine and to a certain extent an indifferent form (Ges. § 147, a), is a collective name for small worms, in any mass of w7hich the individual is lost in the swarm. The passage is continued with T** (on which, as a catchword of the mashal, see at ch. i. 21). — Ver. 12. " How art thou fallen from the sky, thou star of light, sun of the dawn, hurled down to the earth, thou that didst throw down nations from above?" W^n is here the morning star (from hdlal, to shine, resolved from hillel, after the form JKB, Jer. xiii. 10, *)V?.> Ps. cxix. 113, or rather attaching itself as a third class to the forms '^T}9 tivy: compare the Arabic sairaf, exchanger; saikal, sword-cleaner). It derives its name in other ancient languages also from its striking brilliancy, and is here called ben-shachar (sun of the dawn), just as in the classical mythology it is called son of Eos, from the fact that it rises before the sun, and swims in the morning light as if that were the source of its birth.1 Lucifer, as a name given to the devil,

1 It is singular, however, that among the Semitic nations the morning star is not personified as a male (Hedsphoros or Phosphoros), but as a female (Astarte, see at ch. xvii. 8), and that it is called Naghali, Ashtoreth, Zuhara, but never by a name derived from hdlal; whilst the moon is re- was derived from this passage, which the father^ (and lately Stier) interpreted, without any warrant whatever, as relating to the apostasy and punishment of the angelic leaders. The appellation is a perfectly appropriate one for the king of Babel, on account of the early date of the Babylonian culture, which reached back as far as the grey twilight of primeval times, and also because of its predominant astrological character. The additional epithet cholesh ral-goyim is founded upon the idea of the influxus siderum:l cholesh signifies "overthrowing" or laying down (Ex. xvii. 13), and with *al, " bringing defeat upon;" whilst the Talmud (b. Sabbath 1496) uses it in the sense of projiciens sortem, and thus throws light upon the cholesh (=purah, lot) of the Mishnah. A retrospective glance is now cast at the self-deification of the king of Babylon, in which he was the antitype of the devil and the type of antichrist (Dan. xi. 36; 2 Thess. ii. 4), and which had met with its reward. — Vers. 13-15. " And thou, thou hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and sit down on the mount of the assembly of gods in the corner of the north. I will ascend to the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High. Nevertheless, thou wilt be cast down into the region of the dead, into the corner of the pit." An antithetical circumstantial clause commences with veattah, just as in ver. 19, " whilst thou," or " whereas thou." The har hammoed (mount of assembly) cannot be Zion, as is assumed by Schegg and others, who are led astray by the parallel in Ps. xlviii. 3, which has been entirely misunderstood, and has no bearing upon this passage at all. Zion was neither a northern point of the earth, nor was it situated on the north of Jerusalem. The prophet makes the king of Babylon speak according to the general notion of his people, who had not the seat of the Deity in the midst of them, as the Israelites had, but who placed it on the summit of the northern mountains, which were lost in garded as a male deity (Sin), and in Arabic Midi signifies the new moon (see p. 145), which might be called ben-shacar (son of the dawn), from the fact that, from the time when it passes out of the invisibility of its first phase, it is seen at sunrise, and is as it were born out of the dawn.

1 In a similar manner, the sun-god (San) is called the " conqueror of the king's enemies,1' " breaker of opposition," etc., on the early Babylonian monuments (see G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, i. 160).

the c-Kuuls, just as the Hindoos place it on the fabulous mountains of Kaildaaj which lie towards the north beyond the Himalayas (Lassen, i. 34 sqq.). DW£ (with an aspirated 3 in a loosely closed syllable) are the two sides into which a thing parts, the two legs of an angle, and then the apex at which the legs separate. And so here, p£¥ ''rov (with an unaspirated Caph in a triply closed syllable) is the uttermost extremity of the north, from which the northern mountains stretch fork-like into the land, and yarcethe-bor the interior of the pit into which its two walls slope, and from which it unfolds or widens. All the foolhardy purposes of the Chaldean are finally comprehended in this, " / will make myself like the Most High;" just as the Assyrians, according to Ctesias, and the Persians, according to the Persce of JEschylus, really called their king God, and the Sassanidae call themselves bag, Theos, upon coins and inscriptions (^eddammeh is hithpael, equivalent to \thdammeh, with the usual assimilation of the preformative Tav: Ges. § 34, 2, b). By the ^ in ver. 14, the highflying pride of the Chaldean is contrasted with his punishment, which hurls him down into the lowTest depths. t\$, which wras originally affirmative, and then restrictive (as rak was originally restrictive and then affirmative), passes over here into an adversative, just as in Ps. xlix. 16, Job xiii. 15 (a change seen still more frequently in j3tf): nevertheless thou wilt be hurled down; nothing but that will occur, and not what you propose. This prophetic turad is language that neither befits the inhabitants of Hades, wTho greet his advent, nor the Israel singing the mashal; but the Avords of Israel have imperceptibly passed into words of the prophet, wrho still sees in the distance, and as something future, what the mashal commemorates as already past.

The prophet then continues in the language of prediction. Vers. 16, 17. " They that see thee look, considering thee, look at thee thoughtfully: Is this the man that set the earth trembling, and kingdoms shaking? that made the ivorld a icilderness, and. destroyed its cities, and did not release its prisoners (to their) homeV The scene is no longer in Hades (Knobel, TJmbreit). Those who are speaking thus have no longer the Chaldean before them as a mere shade, but as an unburied corpse that has fallen into corruption. As tebel is feminine, the suffixes in ver. 17 must refer, according to a constructio ad sensum, to the world as changed into a ivilderness (midbdr). Pdthach, to open, namely locks and fetters; here, with baithdh, it is equivalent to releasing or letting go (syn. shillcach, Jer. 1. 33). By the u prisoners" the Jewish exiles are principally intended; and it was their release that had never entered the mind of the king of Babylon.

The prophet, whose own words now follow the words of the spectators, proceeds to describe the state in which the tyrant lies, and which calls for such serious reflections. Vers. 18, 19. "All the kings of the nations, they are all interred in honour, every one in his house: but thou art cast away far from thy sepulchre like a shoot hurled away, clothed with slain, with those pierced through with the sioord, those that go down to the stones of the pit; like a carcase trodden under feetV Every other king was laid out after his death " in his house" (b'bethd), i.e. within the limits of his own palace; but the Chaldean lay far away from the sepulchre that was apparently intended for him. The IP in T^pJ? signifies procul ab, as in Num. xv. 24, Prov. xx. 3. He lies there like netzer nitlidb, i.e. like a branch torn off from the tree, that has withered and become offensive, or rather (as netzer does not mean a branch, but a shoot) like a side-shoot that has been cut off the tree and thrown away with disgust as ugly, useless, and only a hindrance to the regular growth of the tree (possibly also an excrescence); nitlidb (cast away) is a pregnant expression, signifying " cast away with disgust." The place where he lies is the field of battle. A vaticiniwn 2?ost eventum would be expressed differently from this, as Luzzatto has correctly observed. For what Seder ' Olam says — namely, that Nebuchadnezzar's corpse was taken out of the grave by Evilmerodach, or as Abravanel relates it, by the Medo- Persian conquerors — is merely a conclusion drawn from the passage before us, and would lead us to expect n^^n rather than firwn. It is a matter of indifference, so far as the truth of the prophecy is concerned, whether it was fulfilled in the person of Nebuchadnezzar I., or of that second Nebuchadnezzar who gave himself out as a son of Nabonet, and tried to restore the freedom of Babylon. The scene which passes before the mind of the prophet is the field of battle. To clear this they make a hole and throw stones (abne-bor, stones of the pit) on the top, without taking the trouble to shovel in the earth; but the king of Babylon is left lying there, like a carcase that is trampled under foot, and deserves nothing better than to be trampled under foot {mubds, part. hoph. of bus, conculcare). They do not even think him worth throwing into a hole along with the rest of the corpses. — Ver. 20. " Thou art not united with them in burial, for thou hast destroyed thy land, murdered thy people: the seed of evil-doers will not be named for ever." In this way is vengeance taken for the tyrannical manner in which he has oppressed and exhausted his land, making his people the involuntary instruments of his thirst for conquest, and sacrificing them as victims to that thirst. For this reason he does not meet with the same compassion as those who have been compelled to sacrifice their lives in his service. And it is not only all over for ever with him, but it is so with his dynasty also. The prophet, the messenger of the penal justice of God, and the mouthpiece of that Omnipotence which regulates the course of history, commands this. — Ver. 21. u Prepare a slaughter-house for his sons, because of the iniquity of their fathers! They shall not rise and conquer lands, and fill the face of the earth with cities^ The exhortation is addressed to the Medes, if the prophet had any particular persons in his mind at all. After the nocturnal storming of Babylon by the Medes, the new Babylonian kingdom and royal house which had been established by Nabopolassar vanished entirely from history. The last shoot of the royal family of Nabopolassar was slain as a child of conspirators. The second Nebuchadnezzar deceived the people (as Darius says in the great inscription of Behistan), declaring, " I am Nabukudrac ara the son of Nabunita."?3 (used poetically for?K, like ^2 in ch. xiv. 6 for &6) expresses a negative wish (as pen does a negative intention): Let no Babylonian kingdom ever arise again! Hitzig corrects D*ny into D^y (heaps of ruins), Ewald into DT")¥ (tyrants), Knobel into D'jn, and Meier into D*iy, which are said to signify conflicts, whilst Maurer will not take D^V in the sense of cities, but of enemies. But there is no necessity for this at all. Nimrod, the first founder of a Babylonio- Assyrian kingdom, built cities to strengthen his monarchy. The king of Asshur built cities for the Medes, for the purpose of keeping them better in check. And it is to this building of cities, as a support to despotism, that the prophet here refers.

Thus far the prophet has spoken in the name of God. But the prophecy closes with a word of God Himself, spoken through the prophet. — Vers. 22, 23. "And I will rise up against them, saith Jehovah of hosts, and root out in Babel name and remnant, sprout and shoot, saith Jehovah. And make it the possession of hedgehogs and marshes of water, and sweep it away with the besom of destruction, saith Jehovah of hosts" "W£*J DK> and 13?) P? are two pairs of alliterative proverbial words, and are used to signify "the whole, without exception" (compare the Arabic expression uKiesel und Kies" "flint and pebble," in the sense of " altogether:" Noldecke, Poesie der alten Araber, p. 162). Jehovah rises against the descendants of the king of Babylon, and exterminates Babylon utterly, root and branch. The destructive forces, which Babylon has hitherto been able to control by raising artificial defences, are now let loose; and the Euphrates, left without a dam, lays the whole region under water. Hedgehogs now take, the place of men, and marshes the place of palaces. The Icippod occurs in ch. xxxiv. 11 and Zeph. ii. 14, in the company of birds; but according to the derivation of the word and the dialects, it denotes the hedgehog, which possesses the power of rolling itself up (LXX. Zprjfiov cocne KaToifcelv e^/you?), and which, although it can neither fly, nor climb with any peculiar facility, on account of its mode of walking, could easily get upon the knob of a pillar that had been thrown down (Zeph. ii. 14). The concluding threat makes the mode of Babel's origin the omen of its end: the city of ^p, i.e. Babylon, which had been built for the most part of clay or brick-earth, would be strangely swept away. The pilpel NtDKtD (or NBND; as Kimchi conjugates it in Michlol 150a&, and in accordance with which some codices and early editions read PWNDKID1) with double zere) belongs to the cognate root which is mentioned at Ps. xlii. 5, with an opening i, d, D (cf. ch. xxvii. 8), and which signifies to drive or thrust away. NtDNDD is that with which anything is driven out or swept away, viz. a broom. Jehovah treats Babylon as rubbish, and sweeps it away, destruction (Iiashmed: an inf. absol. used as a substantive) serving Him as a broom.

There now follows, apparently out of all connection, another prophecy against Asshur. It is introduced here quite abruptly, like a fragment; and it is an enigma how it got here, and what it moans here, though not an enigma without solution. This short Assyrian passage reads as follows. Vers. 24-27. " Jehovah of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as J have purposed, that takes place; to break Asshur to pieces in my land, and upon my mountain will I tread him underfoot: then his yoke departs from them, and his burden will depart from their neck. This is the purpose that is purposed over the whole earth; and this the hand that is stretched out over all nations. For Jehovah of hosts hath purposed, and who coidd bring it to nought? And His hand that is stretched out, who can turn it back?" It is evidently a totally different judicial catastrophe which is predicted here, inasmuch as the worldpower upon which it falls is not called Babel or Chasdim, but Asshur, which cannot possibly be taken as a name for Babylon (Abravanel, Lowth, etc.). Babylon is destroyed by the Medes, whereas Asshur falls to ruin in the mountain-land of Jehovah, which it is seeking to subjugate, — a prediction which was literally fulfilled. And only when this had taken place did a fitting occasion present itself for a prophecy against Babel, the heiress of the ruined Assyrian power. Consequently the two prophecies against Babel and Asshur form a hysteron-proteron as they stand here. The thought which occasioned this arrangement, and which it is intended to set forth, is expressed by Jeremiah in Jer. 1. 18, 19, "Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria." The one event was a pledge of the other. At a time when the prophecy against Assyria had actually been fulfilled, the prophet attached it to the still unfulfilled prophecy against Babylon, to give a pledge of the fulfilment of the latter. This was the pedestal upon which the Massdh Babel was raised. And it was doubly suited for this, on account of its purely epilogical tone from ver. 26 onwards*

Among the punishments enumerated in 2 Ohron. xxviii. 5-21 as falling upon king Ahaz, we find the following, viz. that the Philistines invaded the low country (shephelah) and the south land (negeb), took several cities, six of which arc mentioned by name, and settled there. This offensive movement of the Philistines against the government of Judaea was probably occasioned either by the oppression of Judah on the part of Syria and Ephrairo, or by the permanent crippling of Jndah through the Syro-Ephraimitish war. In either case, the fact itself is quite sufficient to throw light upon the threatening prophecy which follows.

This is one of the prophecies the date of wThich is fixed in ver. 28. " In the year of the death of king Ahaz the following oracle ivas uttered" " The year of the death of king Ahaz ' was (as in ch. vi. 1) the year in which the death of Ahaz was to take place. In that year the Philistines still remained in those possessions, their hold of which was so shameful to Judah, and had not yet met with any humiliating retribution. But this year was the turning-point; for Hezekiah, the successor of Ahaz, not only recovered the cities that they had taken, but thoroughly defeated them in their own land (2 Kings xviii. 8).

It was therefore in a most eventful and decisive year that Isaiah began to prophesy as follows. Ver. 29. " Rejoice not so fully, 0 Philistia, that the rod which smote thee is broken to pieces; for out of the serpents root comes forth a basilisk, and its fruit is a flying dragon" Shebet maccek, " the rod which smote thee " (not " of him that smote thee," which is not so appropriate), is the Davidic sceptre, which had formerly kept the Philistines in subjection under David and Solomon, and again in more recent times since the reign of Uzziah. This sceptre was now broken to pieces, for the Davidic kingdom had been brought down by the Syro-Epraimitish war, and had not been able to recover itself; and so far as its power over the surrounding nations was concerned, it had completely fallen to pieces. Philistia was thoroughly filled with joy in consequence, but this joy was all over now. The power from which Philistia had escaped was a common snake (ndchdsh), which had been either cut to pieces, or had died out down to the very roots. But out of this root, i.e. out of the house of David, which had been reduced to the humble condition of its tribal house, there was coming forth a zepha, a basilisk (regulus, as Jerome and other early translators render it: see at ch. xi. 8); and this basilisk, which is dangerous and even fatal in itself, as soon as it had reached maturity, would bring forth a winged dragon as its fruit. The basilisk is Hezekiah, and the flying dragon is the Messiah (this is the explanation given by the Targum); or, what is the same thing, the former is the Davidic government of the immediate future, the latter the Davidic government of the ultimate future. The figure may appear an inappropriate one, because the serpent is a symbol of evil; but it is not a symbol of evil only, but of a mrse also, and a curse is the energetic expression of the penal justice of God. And it is as the executor of such a curse in the form of a judgment of God upon Philistia that the Davidic king is here described in a threefold climax as a snake or serpent. The selection of this figure may possibly have also been suggested by Gen. xlix. 17; for the saying of Jacob concerning Dan was fulfilled in Samson, the sworn foe of the Philistines.

The coming Davidic king is peace for Israel, but for Philistia death. Ver. 30. " And the poorest of the poor ivill feed, and needy ones lie down in peace; and I kill thy root through hunger, and he slays thy remnant" " The poorest of the poor:" b'core dallim is an intensified expression for l/ne dallim, the latter signifying such as belong to the family of the poor, the former (cf. Job xviii. 13, mors dirissima) such as hold 'the foremost rank in such a family, — a description of Israel, which, although at present deeply, very deeply, repressed and threatened on every side, would then enjoy its land in quietness and peace (Zeph. iii. 12, 13). In this sense yni is used absolutely; and there is no necessity for Hup f eld's conjecture (Ps. ii. 258), that we should read ^23 (in my pastures). Israel rises again, but Philistia perishes even to a root and remnant; and the latter again falls a victim on the one hand to the judgment of God (famine), and on the other to the punishment inflicted by the house of David. The change of persons in ver. 305 is no synallage; but the subject to yahdrog (slays) is the basilisk, the father of the flying dragon. The first strophe of the massah terminates here. It consists of eight lines, each of the two Masoretic verses (29, 30) containing four clauses.

The massah consists of two strophes. The first threatens judgment from Judah, and the second — of seven lines — threatens judgment from Asshur. Ver. 31. "Howl, 0 gate! cry, 0 city I 0 Philistia, thou must melt entirely away; for from the north cometh smoke, and there is no isolated one among his hosts" "W, which is a masculine everywhere else, is construed here as a feminine, possibly in order that the two imperfects may hat- monize; for there is nothing to recommend Luzzatto's suggestion, that njfip should be taken as an accusative. The strong gates of the Philistian cities (Ashdod and Gaza), of world-wide renown, and the cities themselves, shall lift up a cry of anguish; and Philistia, which has hitherto been full of joy, shall melt away in the heat of alarm (ch. xiii. 7,?idmdgJ inf. abs. niph.; on the form itself, compare ch. lix. 13): for from the north there comes a singing and burning fire, which proclaims its coming afar off by the smoke which it produces; in other words, an all-destroying army, out of whose ranks not one falls away from weariness or self-will (cf. ch. v. 27), that is to say, an army without a gap, animated throughout with one common desire. ("W^, after the form 2C>iD, the mass of people assembled at an appointed place, or nufed, Josh. viii. 14, 1 Sam. xx. 35, and for an appointed end.)

To understand ver. 32, which follows here, nothing more is needed than a few simple parenthetical thoughts, which naturally suggest themselves. This one desire was the thirst for conquest, and such a desire could not possibly have only the small strip of Philistian coast for its object; but the conquest of this was intended as the means of securing possession of other countries on the right hand and on the left. The question arose, therefore, How would Judah fare with the fire which was rolling towards it from the north f For the very fact that the prophet of Judah was threatening Philistia with this fire, presupposed that Judah itself would not be consumed by it.

And this is just what is expressed in ver. 32: " And what answer do the messengers of the nations bring? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and that the afflicted of His people are hidden therein." " The messengers of the nations " (mal'ace goi): goi is to be taken in a distributive sense, and the messengers to be regarded either as individuals who have escaped from the Assyrian army, which was formed of contingents from many nations, or else (as we should expect petite in that case, instead of mar ace) messengers from the neighbouring nations, who were sent to Jerusalem after the Assyrian army had perished in front of the city, to ascertain how the latter had fared. And they all reply as if with one mouth (yaaneh): Zion has stood unshaken, protected by its God; and the people of this God, the poor and despised congregation of Jehovah (cf. Zech. xi. 7), arc, and know that they arc, concealed in Zion. The prophecy is intentionally oracular. Prophecy does not adopt the same tone to the nations as to Israel. Its language to the former is dictatorlally brief, elevated with strong self-consciousness, expressed in lofty poetic strains, and variously coloured, according to the peculiarity of the nation to which the oracle refers. The following prophecy relating to Moab shows us very clearly, that in the prophet's view the judgment executed by Asshur upon Philistia would prepare the way for the subjugation of Philistia by the sceptre of David. By the wreck of the Assyrian worldpower upon Jerusalem, the house of David would recover its old supremacy over the nations round about. And this really was the case. But the fulfilment was not exhaustive. Jeremiah therefore took up the prophecy of his predecessor again at the time of the Chaldean judgment upon the nations (Jer. xlvii.), but only the second strophe. The Messianic element of the first was continued by Zechariah (Zech. ix.).

So far as the surrounding nations were concerned, the monarchy of Israel commenced with victory and glory. Saul punished them all severely for their previous offences against Israel (1 Sam. xiv. 47), and the Moabites along with' the rest. The latter were completely subdued by David (2 Sam. viii. 2). After the division of the kingdom, the northern kingdom took possession of Moab. The Moabites paid tribute from their flocks to Samaria. But when Ahab died, Mesha the king of Moab refused this tribute (2 Kings i. 1, iii. 4 sqq.). Ahaziah of Israel let this refusal pass. In the meantime, the Moabites formed an alliance with other nations, and invaded Judah. But the allies destroyed one another, and Jehoshaphat celebrated in the valley of Berachah the victory which he had gained without a, battle, and which is commemorated in several psalms. And when Jehoram the king of Israel attempted to subjugate Moab again, Jehoshaphat made common cause with him. And the Moabites were defeated; but the fortress, the Moabitish Kir, which was situated upon a steep and lofty chalk rock, remained standing still. The interminable contests of the northern kingdom with the Syrians rendered it quite impossible to main- tain either Moab itself, or the land to the east of the Jordan in general. During the reign of Jehu, the latter, in all its length and breadth, even as far south as the Arnon, was taken by the Syrians (2 Kings x. 32, 33). The tribes that were now no longer tributary to the kingdom of Israel oppressed the Israelitish population, and avenged upon the crippled kingdom the loss of their independence. Jeroboam n., as the prophet Jonah had foretold (2 Kings xiv. 25), was the first to reconquer the territory of Israel from Hamath to the Dead Sea. It is not indeed expressly stated that he subjugated Moab again; but as Moabitish bands had disturbed even the country on this side under his predecessor Joash (2 Kings xiii. 20), it may be supposed that he also attempted to keep Moab within bounds. If the Moabites, as is very probable, had extended their territory northwards beyond the Arnon, the war with Moab was inevitable. Moreover, under Jeroboam n. on the one hand, and Uzziah-Jotham on the other, wTe read nothing about the Moabites rising; but, on the contrary, such notices as those contained in 1 Chron. v. 17 and 2 Chron. xxvi. 10, show that they kept themselves quiet. But the application made by Ahaz to Assyria called up the hostility of Moab and the neighbouring nations again. Tiglath-pileser repeated what the Syrians had done before. He took possession of the northern part of the land on this side, and the whole of the land on the other side, and depopulated them. This furnished an opportunity for the Moabites to re-establish themselves in their original settlements to the north of the Arnon. And this was how it stood at the time when Isaiah prophesied. The calamity which befel them came from the north, and therefore fell chiefly and primarily upon the country to the north of the Arnon, which the Moabites had taken possession of but a short time before, after it had been peopled for a long time fey the tribes of Reuben and Gad. There is no Other prophecy in the book of Isaiah in which the heart of the prophet is so painfully affected by what his mind sees, and his mouth is obliged to prophesy. All that he predicts evokes his deepest sympathy, just as if he himself belonged to the unfortunate nation to which he is called to be a messenger of woe. He commences with an utterance of amazement. Ver. 1. " Oracle concerning Moab! for in anight 1 Ar-Moab is laid icaste, destroyed; for in a night Kir-Moab is