III. Isaiah

III. Isaiah

III. Isaiah(TOC)

The complicated processes of Isaiah-criticism are here, of course, to be dealt with in so far only as they show the influence of the modern theory. The change which the last years have wrought in this field cannot be better appreciated than by comparing the chapter on Isaiah in the second edition of Kuenen'sHistorisch-Kritisch Onderzoekwith the conclusions of the triumvirate of most advanced Isaiah-critics, Duhm, Hackmann and Cheyne. Kuenen, in his day a far from conservative critic, yet recognized the large sections  1-11:10; 17-20; 28-31, with minor exceptions, as substantially Isaianic. If now we inquire to what extent this result is antiquated by the three critics mentioned above, we find that a large number of prophecies are denied to Isaiah within the limits of what Kuenen considered genuine. These are chiefly 1:27, 28 (Duhm and Cheyne); 3:18-23, 25, 26 (Duhm and Cheyne); 4:2-6 (Duhm, Hackmann and Cheyne); 9:1-6 (Hackmann, Cheyne doubtful); 10:20-27 (Duhm, Hackmann and Cheyne); 11:1-9 (Hackmann, Cheyne doubtful); 19:1-15, 16-25 (Duhm, Hackmann and Cheyne); 28:5, 6 (Duhm, Hackmann and Cheyne), 23-29 (Hackmann doubtful, Cheyne); 29:16-24 (Duhm, Hackmann and Cheyne); 30:18-26 (Duhm, Hackmann and Cheyne), 27-33 (Hackmann and Cheyne); 31:5-9 (Duhm, and Hackmann in part; Cheyne). Besides this a tendency is perceptible to bring down to a later post-exilic period such sections as had already been denied to Isaiah by Kuenen and older critics. This is the ease with reference to 11:10-12 (Kuenen, exilic period; Duhm, close of second century B.C. at the earliest; Cheyne, Syrian period); 24-27 (Kuenen, Persian period; Cheyne, in part, time of Alexander the Great; Maccabean period); 32:1-8, 9-20 (Kuenen, pre-exilic; Cheyne, post-exilic); 33 (Kuenen, possibly reign of Josiah; Cheyne, second half of Persian period; Duhm, 162 B.C.); 34, 35 (Kuenen, between 536 and 458; Cheyne, about 400, possibly later; Duhm, Maccabean[49] period.) Further, the drift of this newest criticism is toward a division of the larger sections hitherto considered coherent into a number of small fragments believed to have been patched together by a redactor. A typical example is chapter 3:1-15, on which Cheyne comments as follows 1a and 1b may be genuine, 1c is a gloss, 2, 3 may have an Isaianic basis, 4 is undoubtedly Isaiah's, 5 has points of contact with genuine passages, 6, 7 betray the editor's hand, 8-15 are Isaiah's, in which, however, 10 and 11 take the place of four lines become illegible in the editor's time. Consequently the share of Isaiah in the production of the book passing under his name is reduced to a minimum. Even with the collection and arrangement of the smaller groups of prophecies distinguished by the critics he had nothing to do. As a literary author he has almost entirely evaporated.

Each of the three above-mentioned tendencies finds its ultimate explanation in the fact that it facilitates the adjustment of the contents of Isaiah's book to the scheme of development. How the first and second subserve such purpose need not be pointed out. As to the third, the division of a larger context into a number of fragments and the implied denial of the prophet's literary activity tend to deprive the sections under attack from the natural protection which their coherence with undoubtedly genuine prophecies affords them.

The full significance of the conclusions reached by the critics can be perceived only in the field of Biblical theology. After the elimination from his work of so many important prophecies the prophet's face assumes features quite distinct from those with which students have been so long familiar. A new estimate must be placed upon his contribution to the progress of Old Testament religion if these latest results are correct. It would be useless to deny that the old Isaiah with his wealth and grandeur of thought was a far more illustrious figure among the prophets than the new Isaiah now in process of construction. Cheyne, who never loses an opportunity to glory in the modern view for the enrichment it brings to our appreciation of the spiritual greatness of the prophets, half-mournfully admits that we must divest Isaiah and his ministry of that luminous splendor which in the old conception of his work was so warming to the heart and uplifting to the imagination. Broadly speaking, the outcome may be characterized as the restriction of the prophet's teaching within the limits drawn for Amos and Hosea, which we have already found to be artificial in their case but the inadequacy of which is still more palpable as regards Isaiah. The pronounced Universalism, the highly developed Messianic ideal, the sweet rich note of promise so peculiarly alternating with the harsh tones of judgment, the sublime faith in the sacrosanct character of Jerusalem and Zion in the Assyrian crisis, all that has hitherto been counted specifically Isaianic, must be given up; and what we keep is a stern preacher of righteousness and national destruction, the chief exponent of that cold, supremely ethical spirit which is supposed to mark the highest development of prophetism. In so far the results of the newest Isaiah-criticism seem to fall in with and to confirm the general interpretation placed by the modern hypothesis upon the prophetic movement in the eighth century. On the old view Isaiah's teaching soared high above the possibilities of evolutionary construction; now it moves within the terms of this construction. But the force of the argument that might be derived from this will be immediately broken if we inquire how the critical results in question have been obtained. The conformity of the new Isaiah to what a prophet ought to be under the modern hypothesis arises from the fact that the critics have been guided by theira prioriidea of the true prophet in fixing the criteria for what is genuine and not genuine in Isaiah's book. The agreement with the postulates of the hypothesis appears in the conclusion for no other reason than that it has been made the major premise in the critical syllogism.

Chapter 2:2-4 is the first important passage on whose post-exilic origin Hackmann and Cheyne are agreed.[50] Before them Stade had already reached a similar conclusion.[51] It is unnecessary for our present purpose to enter upon a discussion of the difficult problem which of the two versions in which we possess the prophecy, that in Isaiah or that in Micah, is the original, or whether perhaps both borrowed from some older prophet.[52] The only question to be considered is whether there are valid reasons in its ideas or forms of expression to discard the three just-mentioned possibilities for a fourth view, viz., that the prophecy is entirely out of place in the eighth century, that it must be assigned to a much later period, and was consequently worked into the books of Isaiah and Micah at a still later date. The objections raised against the origin of these verses in the age of Isaiah and Micah are the following. Stade takes exception to the pronounced universalism here expressing itself. "The piece shows the most striking affinity with the ideas of Joel; to speak more particularly, with the ideas of those late writers who lived on the work of Ezekiel, one of whom has been pointed out in Deutero-Zechariah—it possesses no affinity whatever with the prophecy of the Assyrian period. The many peoples which come to Jerusalem to worship appear nowhere before Isaiah 66:23, Zechariah 14:16-19. The thought of Jerusalem's external elevation is a gross perversion of the Isaianic idea of her spiritual significance; the pilgrimage of the peoples finds its parallel in Isaiah 60, with this distinction, that in the latter prophecy everything proceeds naturally, whilst here a miracle takes place: this must be of secondary origin."[53] In addition to this Hackmann points out the fact that no inward transformation of Israel seems to be required by the writer. The holy mountain and the house of Jehovah occupy too prominent a place; the former represents the people of Jehovah and its exaltation is symbolic of the self-exaltation of Israel over the heathen, a specifically Jewish trait. The nations come to thesanctuaryto obtain Thora: this must be understood of priestly Thora exclusively, for the prophet could give Thora in every place. Finally the intense longing for eternal peace here expressed is not in agreement with the temper of Isaiah, to whom Jehovah was still essentially a God of war, breaking Israel and the nations to pieces with elemental power. The sentiment of 2:4 reflects the experience of the later Jews, for whom war meant no longer victory but affliction.[54] Cheyne repeats some of these arguments and adds, among others, that "in the light of Jehovah" (verse 5) is a poetic equivalent for "in the Thora of Jehovah."[55]

Our criticism of this long array of arguments may he compressed into the statement that in so far as these features are made to resemble the physiognomy of later Judaism they are misconstrued and grossly overdrawn, and that, when reduced to their true proportions, there is absolutely nothing to be said against their Isaianic origin that does not ultimately resolve itself into some form of the general charge of incompatibility with the critical hypothesis. To begin with the physical interpretation of verse 2a, even if we render in the most realistic manner, "the mountain of Jehovah's house shall be establishedon the topof the mountains," the context requires us to understand this as a mere figure of the preeminence which the religion of Jehovah will in the latter days be recognized to possess over all other cults. Even in post-exilic times no Jew could have possibly anticipated such a physical elevation of Mount Zion as to make the latter visible to the most distant peoples. The exaltation referred to is one that will attract the nations and therefore must be conceived of as spiritual in kind. All that remains, then, of the charge of grossness in the conception can at the utmost strike the figurative embodiment of the idea, not the idea itself; and it would be unfair to deny the Isaianic origin of a prophecy for no other reason than that its poetic expression seems to fall short of a certain standard. If we divest the thought of its symbolic garb, it will be seen to express a universalism of the most ideal type, having no affinity whatsoever with the offensive traits that but too often disfigure the later Jewish expectations.[56] Not the exaltation of Israel but Jehovah's is symbolized by the exalted site of the temple mountain and represented as that which attracts the distant nations. Of subjection of the heathen to Israel the prophecy contains not a word. Hackmann's whole contention on this point would have to rest on the single phrase, "the house of the God of Jacob," which will sustain no such weight. Equally inaccurate is it to say that the Thora for which the nations flow to Jerusalem is priestly Thoraexclusively. This is not implied in their resorting to the temple, for the latter comes under consideration as the dwelling-place of Jehovah, who supplies all Thora whether by priest or by prophet, so that of themediatesource of the Thora nothing is said here. How the importance attributed to the temple can be out of place in the work of a prophet who wrote chapter 6 it is difficult to understand.[57] The charge that no inward transformation is here required of Israel is entirely unwarranted. If the peoples who come to Jerusalem inwardly appropriate the word and Thora of Jehovah to such an extent as to forego war and submit to Him all their disputes, the same must bea fortioriassumed of Israel. Besides, this charge has been rendered possible only by the violent severance of verses 2-4 from the following context. Obviously the prophecy has been placed where it stands for the purpose of contrasting the ideal religious and moral condition of Israel with their actual state in the present. The invitation, "O house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of Jehovah," is of itself a sufficient reminder that as yet even the chosen people do not appreciate the uniqueness of their religion.

But if all these alleged difficulties vanish before an impartial exegesis, what must be thought of the assertion that the two main ideas of the prophecy, those of the conversion of the heathen nations and of perpetual peace, are foreign to Isaiah's mind and lie far beyond his horizon, so that where they occur his authorship is excluded? For there can be no doubt as to the actual presence of these two ideas here in their maturest form. Duhm's attempt to weaken the meaning by comparing what is here predicted with the occasional consultation of foreign oracles in the pagan world, whereby, of course, no abandonment of the national cult was intended, fails to do justice to the words. As Hackmann rightly insists, the phrase, "to walk in the paths" of a God, cannot mean less than to adopt the service of that God; and, whatever may be one's preference between the readings, "all nations," "many peoples" (Isaiah) and "peoples," "many nations" (Micah), the absolute universality of Jehovah's influence over the heathen world is implied in the assurance that peace will prevail, for if some nations were excluded from this sphere of influence, these might again make war necessary.[58] How, then, can we prove the possibility of such advanced ideas in the age of Isaiah? As for the idea of the many peoples assembling themselves against Israel, apart from the thought of their conversion, the Isaianic character of this is vouched for by chapter 8:9, 10, 14:24-27, 17:12-14, in all of which passages the strong expressions, "far countries," "the whole earth," "all the nations," "many peoples," are used. It may be further argued that Isaiah is familiar with the thought of the future conversion of such nations as had in his time interposed in the history of Israel (chapter 11:10, 18:7, 19:19-25), and that consequently the idea of a universal conversion of the peoples may well have developed itself out of the expectation of a widespread attack upon Jerusalem expressed in the three passages just quoted. The critics have attempted to break the force of this argument in a twofold manner. First, they have interpreted the apparently universalistic terms of chapter 8:9, 10, 14:24-27, 17:12-14 in a less comprehensive sense as applying to the various elements of which the Assyrian army was composed, so that after all Isaiah would have had only one distinct nation in view as the assailant of Israel, and Hosea 10:10 might be quoted as a parallel passage. And, secondly, it has been denied that Isaiah speaks in any of the undoubtedly genuine prophecies of the conversion of a foreign nation. In regard to the former of these assertions, it must be admitted that the context of the three passages speaks of the Assyrian attack upon Judah or Ephraim. Nevertheless, the expressions employed seem to me too absolute to be exhausted by such a reference. For the prophet speaks of the nationstaking counsel together, and the specific intention of Jehovah in reference to the Assyrian to break him in His land and tread him under foot upon His mountains (14:25) is subsequently generalized to a purpose concerning "the whole earth" (verse 26). In view of this the conclusion is justified that Isaiah beheld in the predicted frustration of the Assyrian attack upon Jerusalem a pledge of the ultimate and permanent salvation of Israel from the world power in its largest sense. It is not impossible that even the statement in Hosea bears this meaning,[59] although this cannot be asserted with any degree of certainty. The critics themselves have begun to perceive the precariousness of their weakening interpretation; for the newest representatives of the school, Hackmann, Stade, Nowack,[60] now resort to declaring the passages in question suspicious, and that not on any serious objective grounds, but for the simple reason of their reference to "many nations," so that obviously here a degree ofa priorismhas been reached which precludes all further discussion. The matter at issue was the Isaianic character of the conception of a world attack upon Israel. In the course of the debate oracles are adduced of hitherto unquestioned genuineness in which this conception appears. At first the position is taken that these oracles speak only of the Assyrian army. Then, when this is felt to be an unnatural exegesis, their Isaianic origin is boldly denied or represented as doubtful, because they contain the idea of a world attack upon Israel. All the "weak, flimsy arguments"[61] advanced to lend some sort of external justification to this proceeding cannot conceal the fact that criticism is here moving in a circle.[62] The second assertion opposed to the argument formulated above is that Isaiah nowhere mentions the conversion of a Gentile nation to the religion of Israel. Here again the passages which speak unambiguously are ruled out, and where a weaker interpretation seems at all possible this is eagerly seized upon. The former applies to chapter 11:10, 19:19-25, the latter to chapter 18:7. We shall not contend here about chapter 19, because the question of its genuineness had become a debated one, apart from its universalistic content, on a purely historical basis. Chapter 11:10 is connected with the Messianic prophecy 11:1-9, presently to be considered, and stands or falls with the latter. But a word should be said regarding chapter 18:7. Duhm and Cheyne reject this verse, the latter, it would seem, primarily for the reason that it represents Jerusalem as "the center of an empire to which the neighboring peoples will hasten to pay tribute." But it is undeniable that after its amputation the discourse of verses 1-6 breaks off abruptly, and some conclusion is felt to be wanting. Nor is it easy to see why the content of verse 7 should be classified with "the eschatological inventory of the later period" (Duhm). The sense most naturally put upon the words is that under the figure of a tribute brought to the temple they speak of the worship which the Ethiopians will offer to Jehovah. So understood they do not presuppose, as Cheyne thinks, a Messiahless Israelitish empire. It should also be observed that, altogether apart from verse 7, the body of the prophecy itself contains these very significant words (verse 3): "All ye inhabitants of the world, and ye dwellers on the earth, when an ensign is lifted up on the mountains, see ye; and when the trumpet is blown, hear ye!" Would it not be rash to assert that the prophet who thus recognized the interest of all the world in Jehovah's dealing with the Assyrian cannot have conceived the thought of universalism?[63]

The other feature deemed unnatural in a prophecy of the eighth century is the intense longing for peace to which Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3, 4 give expression. With the temper also of Isaiah in particular this has been pronounced inconsistent. If the latter reasoning is to have any meaning, we must attribute to the prophet a desire for continual war and a positive aversion to the thought of peace, because so only could Jehovah reveal his martial character. Somewhat more plausible appears the suggestion that the value here ascribed to peace and the sentimental delight taken in its blessings are best explained from the bitter experience and war-weary spirit of post-exilic Israel. But such an explanation could lay claim to acceptance only if all points of contact for a similar feeling in the conditions of Isaiah's time were lacking. This is of course far from being the case. Isaiah would have had to be altogether void of pity, if in prospect of the distress to be wrought by the repeated Assyrian invasions and deportations he could have failed to develop an eager desire for peace. In point of fact, there are utterances in Isaiah's prophecies which reflect precisely such a state of mind, born from compassion with his distressed and ravaged people. It is sufficient to quote chapter 28:12, where the burden of the prophet's message is summed up in the words, "Give ye rest to this weary." But this longing for peace is so little exclusive of delight in the warlike deeds of Jehovah that in both chapter 9 and 11 the Messiah appears in this twofold character of a victorious warrior and a prince of peace. If the later writers could harmonize these two aspects why not Isaiah? We have here, besides, the older evidence from Hosea, which we do not have in regard to this thought of universalism. Hosea predicts that in the future the bow and the sword and the battle shall be broken out of this land and Israel lie down in safety (2:20).[64]

The literary evidence collected for the late origin of chapter 2:2-4 may be passed by in silence, for Cheyne himself admits that from the style of this passage no definite conclusion can be drawn.

Next in order comes chapter 4:2-6, a passage in rejecting which Duhm, Cheyne and Hackmann are unanimous. The grounds on which this verdict rests have been best summarized by the last-mentioned critic. That the remnant in Zion shall be called holy is said to belong to the trains of thought growing out of the post-Ezekielian legislation; the idea of being written into life finds its parallel in Malachi 3:16, Revelation 13:8; the representation of the cloud by day and the fire-illumined smoke by night to symbolize the presence of Jehovah betrays a mind fond of Hexateuch tradition, perhaps presupposes definite eschatological theories based on study of the Hexateuch; on Zion there will be in the future festal assemblies of the blessed saints, while Isaiah only once makes reference to a )rq m and that with disapprobation; delight in such assemblies is characteristic of the post-exilic legislation; the presence of Jehovah in the cloud is to protect from heat and rain; this belongs to the later expectation of miraculous workings of nature in the realm of glory (Isaiah 25:4, 30:26; Joel 3; Zechariah 14).[65]

It will be seen at a glance that all these arguments derive their entire force either from the assumption that the priestly laws and narratives are of late origin or from the obvious fallacy that ideas prominent in certain periods must therefore be confined to such periods and cannot have their roots in earlier writings. Conservative scholars will gladly accept the testimony thus borne to the presence of legal ideas, of the signs of Hexateuch study, of Messianic expectations with a strong supernaturalistic color, in a prophecy against whose Isaianic origin not a single objection of any weight of a historical or literary character can be raised, and which both by its position and contents authenticates itself as the appropriate conclusion of the undoubtedly genuine discourses in chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 4:1 cannot well have been the end of the preceding prophecy, so that the critical view necessitates the assumption that the genuine conclusion has been lost. All the ideas of the disputed verses stand, furthermore, in vital connection with the innermost spirit of Isaiah's theology, as has been pointed out by us elsewhere.[66] The prospect that the restored people will glory in the simple product of the soil forms a contrast to the luxury of the women depicted in 3:16-4:1, and embodies the thought that Jehovah and His direct gifts alone ought to be the pride of Israel (cf. 28:5). The conception of the remnant in verse 3 is Isaianic, and as to this remnant being called "holy," even if this be understood in a ceremonial sense, there is no reason to press the idea to such a formalistic extreme as to make it inconsistent with the prophet's ethical teaching, as, e.g., Duhm does, who thinks that Isaiah could not have thought a permanent state of holiness for each individual possible or desirable, because he looked forward to a Messianic era in which there would be room for agriculture. And this notwithstanding the fact that in this very prophecy the blessings of agriculture are given the foremost place in the eschatological picture (verse 2). Evidently the writer had a more reasonable conception of holiness than is imputed to him. What he thinks of is ethically conditioned for it results only after Jehovah has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the blood of Jerusalem (verse 4). The manner also in which this purifying process is conceived of, viz., by extirpation of the evil elements "by the blast of judgment and the blast of burning," is entirely in harmony with the usual representations of Isaiah. Besides this the idea of the holiness of the remnant is vouched for by the closing words of chapter 6, "the holy seed is the stock thereof," the excision of which by the critics is a wholly arbitrary proceeding. In general, chapter 6 reveals sufficient interest for the external embodiment of the worship of Jehovah to cover every single feature of chapter 4. This applies also to verse 6, which even Dillmann would reject on the ground that the pavilion against heat and storm and rain which Zion affords cannot be meant in a literal sense because in this there would be nothing new, and that an allegorical allusion to the various troubles to which man is exposed in the present world would not be after the manner of Isaiah. But the thought is poetically and figuratively expressed without being an allegory, and revolves deliverance from such discomforts of life only as interfere with the continual worship of Jehovah. Chapter 28:2, 32:2, prove how natural the use of the image of storm and rain comes to Isaiah. Finally, the idea of the predestination of the remnant to life is not without points of analogy in Isaiah's general outlook, for if it be the determined purpose of Jehovah to cut away the majority once and again in repeated judgment (6:13), it is but the reverse side of this that the number of those who are to remain till the end has been definitely fixed in his counsel. Of the offense taken by the critics at the prominence of the miraculous factor in the Messianic prophecies of the book of Isaiah, we shall have occasion to speak presently.

The linguistic evidence adduced against the Isaianic authorship of this prophecy consists in the words hpx in verse 5, "canopy;" )rb in verse 5, "to create;" rwtsm, in verse 6 "a covert." Of these words the first not only stands alone in the prophecies of Isaiah, but occurs only once besides in the entire prophetic literature (Joel 2:16). If unique in "reproductive prophecy," why should any suspicion attach to it as ahapax legomenonin Isaiah? )rb in the Qal species is protected by Amos 4:13, which, as we have seen, there is no reason to consider late. It is entirely unnecessary to substitute )b and to render "Jehovah will come" on the authority of the Septuagint.[67] rwtsm finally is an unobjectionable formation; that Isaiah always uses rts in the same sense is true, if always may mean once or twice;[68] leaving aside 32:2 (rejected by Hackmann and Cheyne), the two words are equally frequent; as to its form, rwtsm stands on a line with hsxm certainly used by Isaiah, and it is here specially appropriate because suggested by the immediately preceding use of the latter.

A further example of prophecies shifted under the influence of the modern hypothesis from the eighth century to post-exilic times is furnished by the recent treatment of chapter 8:22-9:6; 11:1-9. This introduces a subject which more than any other promises to become in the immediate future thequestion brulanteof the Biblico-theological discussion of prophecy. How the Messianic prediction in its wide impersonal sense can no longer find room in the reconstructed Amos and Hosea has been shown in our previous article. This very fact, however, seemed at first but calculated to increase in the critical estimate Isaiah's share in the development of Messianic prophecy, inasmuch as now not only the remarkable personal definiteness assumed by it in his book, but the very first conception of the Messianic ideal itself had to be attributed to him. Perhaps the strain thus put on the productivity of one writer was too great to be borne; for the elimination of this element from Amos and Hosea had been scarcely completed when voices began to be heard in defense of the thesis that in Isaiah also the Messiah is not original, but the creature of those unknown later writers whose work has become so curiously interwoven with the genuine discourses of the eighth-century prophet. Smend, while not yet going to the extreme of denying the genuineness of 8:22-9:6 and 11:1-9, had already been compelled to minimize the importance of these passages and of the Messianic idea for Isaiah's teaching, and to explain the partial disappearance of the Messiah's figure from later prophecy on the ground of its accidental and temporary significance.[69] It could easily be foreseen that what was thus declared accidental would soon he judged foreign to the prophet's mind; and this position has been actually taken by Hackmann and Cheyne, although by the latter with some hesitancy. Marti, in adopting Hackmann's conclusions, has gone so far as to declare that the prophets until the time of Deutero-Isaiah (i.e., toward the close of the exile) knew nothing of a Messiah. And last of all we have a monograph of Volz on the subject ofPre-exilic Jahwe-prophecy and the Messiah in their Mutual Relations(1897), in which an attempt is made to prove the following three theses (1) that the Messianic idea is foreign to the spirit of pre-exilic prophetism; (2) that in the writings of the pre-exilic prophets from Amos until Ezekiel (exclusive) there is not a single Messianic passage; (3) that the Messianic expectation as found in Ezekiel is not the natural product of pre-exilic prophecy in its original purity, but the offspring of a union upon which the latter has entered with a totally heterogeneous tendency.[70]

In reviewing the arguments by which the elimination of an element hitherto considered of so great importance in the theology of Isaiah is defended, we shall again have to distinguish between thea prioriones and those derived from the historical or literary phenomena of the prophecies themselves. The former need only to be stated and to have their true character and tendency pointed out; the latter require examination in detail.

Thea prioriBiblico-theological attack upon the Messianic prophecies proceeds along two lines, the one represented by Hackmann, the other by Volz. Hackmann has devoted an extensive discussion to the three passages, 2:2-4, 8:22-9:6; 11:1-9, which he groups together by reason of their internal resemblance. He condenses his estimate of them into the statement that they are "absolute delineations of the future," meaning thereby that they appear detached from the historical basis of Isaiah's present and move in a distant time as in a newly discovered fabulous country.[71] Though this is incorrect if taken as a denial of every point of contact between these prophecies and the historical situation in Isaiah's time, yet it not inaptly characterizes what is at once the most striking feature of the passages in question and the ground of their rejection by Hackmann and his fellow-critics. It is with the element of the supernatural in its most developed form that the critical theory comes into conflict here. The prophets are supposed to be bounded by the horizon of their own age and environment; the personal Messiah, as depicted by Isaiah, transcends these limits and moves upon the field of history against a background of eternity. Still further to the modern school the prophets stand for righteousness and conversion by acts of free will; the personal Messiah is felt to stand for the realization of a new order of things by miraculous sub-ethical acts and processes. It is plain that, apart from the general anti-supernaturalistic animus, the one-sidedly ethical conception of prophetism in general and of Isaiah in particular here biases the critical judgment. The prophet, as the moderns delight to paint him, is so entirely absorbed in the one idea of righteousness, his great discovery and gift to the world, that it must be impossible for him not only to describe the future from any other motive than that of making it the embodiment of his ethical aspirations, but likewise to expect the realization of such a future in any other way than as brought about by the voluntary conversion of Israel. Hence it is not enough that Isaiah 9:6 makes provision for the upholding of David's kingdom with judgment and righteousness, or Isaiah 11:3-5 for the righteous treatment of the poor and weak of the land: in order to accredit themselves as genuine Isaianic oracles these prophecies would have to guarantee expressly that ethical processes only will be used to accomplish this end. Righteousness and judgment as supernatural gifts conferred upon the Messiah by the Spirit and miraculously established by him—this is the central thought of these passages and precisely this it is that the advanced critics find inconsistent with the "genuinely ethical conception of' Isaiah." The modern hypothesis has been charged with making the prophets preach the doctrine of salvation by works. It might perhaps be added that it represents them as Pelagians in their conception of free will. If some of its representations are correct, the prophet belonged to those who consider regeneration an immoral process.[72] And yet, looked at from a purely historical standpoint, what was more natural than that one so deeply convinced as Isaiah of the inefficacy of the mere moral suasion of the divine Word should have expected from a mysterious miraculous power the transformation of present conditions? To be sure, Hackmann and Cheyne try to make a distinction between the preternatural and the supernatural, and think that the conditions described in 11:6-9 belong to the former category. But the distinction is obviously a modern and subjective one. Whether such things as the peace established between the wolf and the lamb, and the straw-eating of the ox, and the playing of the child with the asp and basilisk be considered preternatural or the restoration of nature to its normal original state, depends of course on the theological or philosophical premises from which the question is approached. Isaiah's views on this point must have differed greatly from those of a believer in the modern doctrine of evolution.

Along a different line, though not from a different point of departure, Volz makes his attack upon pre-exilic Messianic prophecy. Its political externalism, particularistic national character, and the manner in which it places the human king in the foreground, constitute to his view so many aspects in which it is in direct antagonism to the true spirit of original prophetism. The Messiah is, he claims, in the extant Messianic prophecies, a purely political and scarcely at all a religious factor, his function being the twofold one of upholding internal order among Israel and of representing the nation externally in victorious war. Pre-exilic prophecy, on the other hand, is almost exclusively a prophecy of judgment; and if occasionally, a better future is held in prospect, not its external side but its ethical and religious blessings are dwelt upon. Further, the Messianic idea nowhere enters into an organic union with the thought of universalism; neither among Israel nor among the nations does the Messiah appear as the Mediator of the one true religion; whereas ancient prophecy tended by its very nature toward ethico-religious universalism. Finally, the prophets condemned not merely the empirical kingdom as it existed in their day, but opposed the institution of the kingdom on principle. This renders it improbable that they should have looked forward to a final political organization of Israel with a king at its head, the more so since the figure of the earthly king was bound to force Jehovah into the background in the popular consciousness.[73]

Severe strictures can be made on the accuracy of this characterization of the Messiah and of His work as a part of the prophetic eschatology. He is by no means a political and external factor after the manner here represented. Both the religious character of His official equipment and the religious spirit in which He discharges His functions are strongly emphasized in chapter 11:2, 3. The spirit of the fear of Jehovah will rest upon him and his delight shall be in the fear of Jehovah. And when it is said in verse 9 that all hurting and destroying shall cease on God's holy mountain, because the land shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, the prophet evidently thinks of the Messiah as the one who by His activity brings about this perfect state of affairs. It is far from true, therefore, that no more is ascribed to Him than the maintenance of internal order among Israel and the victorious leadership of the people in war; He is as much the embodiment and Mediator of the prophetic ideal of religion as He is the representative of the prophetic ideal of righteousness. In regard to the alleged absence of connection between the Messiah's work and the extension of the true religion to the Gentiles, it must be admitted that in chapter 8:22-9:6, owing to the concrete events from which the prophecy is by way of contrast developed (8:22), the thought of universalism does not stand in the foreground. But even here the spirit of the discourse as a whole is rather favorable than indifferent to this idea. The increase of the Messiah's government and the peace without end present, to say the least, a side of the prophecy to which a further development of the Messianic hope in a universalistic direction might easily attach itself. As to the companion prophecy in chapter 11:1-9, even if the verse immediately following did not supplement its statements by the most explicit promise that the root of Jesse will stand for an ensign to the peoples and be sought by the nations, it is scarcely conceivable that the author intended to confine the regeneration of the world of nature and of men here depicted to the land of Israel. What would internal peace in both respects signify if from the outside the danger of invasion continued to threaten? The whole description suggests a change of conditions on a cosmical scale, although, of course, the prophet's main interest centers in his own land, Jehovah's holy mountain. And what value after all can be attached to this argument from the absence of a pronounced universalism, if we observe that from one quarter chapter 2:2-4 are declared out of place in the eighth century chiefly on account of its universalistic content, whilst from another quarter of the same camp all the Messianic prophecies are declared out of place in that early period for the precisely opposite reason that they lack the spirit of universalism? Surely here the critics are divided against themselves. The suggestion finally that the attitude of prophecy toward the kingdom in general, and the prominence of the kingship of Jehovah in Isaiah's mind in particular, render such an idealization of the human kingship as these passages contain improbable,[74] is entirely unwarranted. Hosea is the only prophet to whom with any show of evidence an unfavorable opinion of the kingdom as such could be attributed, and even in his case we have found it necessary to exclude from this judgment the kingdom of David. In the other prophets, however often individual kings may be attacked, there is no trace of polemic against the institution of the kingdom. As to Isaiah, chapter 1:21, 26, prove that for him the Davidic reign constitutes the ideal past in which the human kingship was the approximately perfect instrument of Jehovah's rule, and this is further confirmed by the honorable conception of the Davidic kingdom in its relation to the sanctuary which finds expression in chapter 29:1, no matter whether we accept the ordinary rendering, "city where David encamped," or that of the Septuagint, polij hn epolemhse Dauid, a question to which shall we have occasion to return later.[75] In no wise could Isaiah have feared that his picture of the Messianic king would force Jehovah into the background. The Messiah of these prophecies is lifted so high above ordinary earthly limitations, is himself so much a figure of supernatural appearance and is represented as so absolutely under the control of Jehovah's Spirit, that every thought of his supplanting Jehovah is from the outset excluded.

Notwithstanding these restrictions, however, there is a sense in which the Messiah remains a thoroughly national figure, and in so far the critics are guided by a correct instinct in denying him a place in their interpretation of the early prophets. Radical as the opinions of Hackmann and Volz may seem, those who have intelligently watched the principles and tendencies of modern criticism will not be greatly startled at their avowal. The wonder is rather that they have not found expression and adherence before. From the beginning the new conception of prophetism has borne within itself an unsolved antinomy. In behalf of the theory of development, the ethical teaching of the eighth-century prophets had to be differentiated as much as possible from the preceding stage of Jahvism. The point of difference was accordingly found in this, that Amos and Hosea, by announcing the destruction of Israel for its sins, sacrificed the national element in the ancient religion, which had hitherto been supreme, to the ethical element, which from its formerly subordinate place was now raised to a central commanding position. Together with the anticipated dissolution of the state, the old Jehovah with His morally indifferent favoritism for one people is believed to have disappeared, and a new Jehovah with the one attribute of strict righteousness exercised without partiality to have taken His place. Now it is easy to see that on such a view of the divine nature as is here ascribed to the evolving prophetic consciousness, no room remains for any vigorous national hopes or aspirations. Had the representatives of the new prophecy continued to be ardent patriots and to expect special favors for their own people, they would by doing so have denied their newly acquired conviction of Jehovah's exclusively ethical character. The latter had been born out of the surrender of the national idea, and therefore could not be naively associated with it any longer. It is true the first advocates of the new hypothesis went on in the old manner and placed the two elements of nationalism and ethical absolutism side by side in their interpretation of the prophetic teaching; but they did not explain their consistency.[76] And it was unavoidable that in course of time the inner disharmony of the two should make itself felt to the critics, and that, once felt, its removal should be attempted by toning down those features that bear witness to the intensely national spirit of the prophetic faith. Some of these features might be possibly accounted for by the lingering influence of the old popular Jahvism, from which even the prophets had not entirely emancipated themselves. In view of the assumed evolution of the ethical idea of God, in sharp antithesis to the national claims of Israel on Jehovah, even this will scarcely seem plausible. But how much greater becomes the difficulty if, far from being such a mere relic of an outgrown stage of belief, the national element in the prophetic consciousness proves to have been vigorous enough to create the entirely new figure of a personal Messiah with all the wealth of patriotic hopes it stands for. It is this that renders the conflict between the Messianic expectation and the modern view of prophetism acute, and leaves no other escape open for the latter than the bold denial of the genuineness of all personal Messianic passages in the pre-exilic prophets.

While the presence of the Messianic element in the eighth-century prophets is driving the critics into these revolutionary methods, it may furnish us with the basis for a strong argument in defense of the old position. The prophecies of Isaiah and Micah show the national Messianic expectations and the ethical ideal closely wedded. This justifies the conclusion that these are not, as the new hypothesis represents it, two mutually exclusive principles, marking by their successive ascendancy two distinct stages of religious evolution among Israel. If in the prophetic mind they existed side by side without detriment to the high ethical tone of its teaching, there is no valid reason for denying that such was the case in the pre-prophetic period also. The prevalence of the idea of a special bond between Jehovah and Israel in the ancient times no longer proves the non-existence of belief in his absolute righteousness. The ethical Jahvism forms no antithesis to the national Jahvism, and its birth cannot be explained from the death of the latter.

We now proceed to examine the historical and contextual arguments which are said to favor the excision of chapters 8:22-9:6 and 11:1-9 from the genuine work of Isaiah. Both prophecies, it is claimed, lack the necessary contact with the historical situation in the prophet's time, such as is found in all critically unsuspected pieces. This, of course, cannot mean that the two prophecies in question, simply because they have for their background the captivity and the fall of the Davidic house lie beyond Isaiah's historical horizon. For even Hackmann, while believing that in the earliest discourses of our prophet no destruction of Judah is anticipated, yet admits that soon after the Syro-Ephraimitic war a thoroughgoing judgment was threatened by Isaiah against the southern kingdom. Now, in so far as the fall of the royal house was necessarily involved in the general catastrophe, there is by common consent not a single element here wherewith the prophet was not perfectly familiar. What is meant is rather this, that in the prophecies before us the writer fails to approach these facts of the overthrow of David's kingdom, of a protracted foreign oppression and the subsequent restoration in the manner in which Isaiah is accustomed to do this, viz., starting from a definite basis of concrete contemporary events; that oblivious of the present he plunges into the future, and by so doing betrays his later standpoint. Strangely enough it would seem to the ordinary reader as if quite the opposite were true. In chapter 8:22b, the prophecy opens with a reference to the affliction of the northeastern regions of Palestine by Tiglath-Pilesar, than which no other event can have made a deeper impression on Isaiah's mind during the earlier half of his ministry. In chapter 11:1, the point of departure is furnished by the contrast between the mighty forest of the Assyrian army, whose trees Jehovah will hew down, and the shoot that is to come forth from the stock of Jesse; so that the vision of the future would again seem to unfold itself with perfect naturalness from the conditions of the immediate present. How then is it possible for the critics to speak of prophecies detached from Isaiah's historical situation? The solution lies in this, that Hackmann and Cheyne both consider 8:23b and 10:33, 34, editorial insertions prefixed to the Messianic passages to produce an artificial adjustment of the latter to Isaiah's standpoint. In other words, these critics first themselves create by their divisive treatment of the text that lack of historic connection with Isaiah's time on which they afterwards rely to prove the late origin of our prophecies. It is true, Hackmann endeavors at length to justify this proceeding by contending that 8:22b does not fit into the terms of 9:1-6, because the regions there mentioned belong to northern Israel, whereas the expected hero is to sit on the throne of David, and because the thought of a reunion of the two kingdoms could not be so simply presupposed. In his view, then, a connection indeed exists, but it is too clumsy to be thought of for a moment as made by Isaiah. On the soundness of this judgment ultimately rests the whole weight of Hackmann's argument and in its last analysis it appears to be a judgment based not on historical but on logical or aesthetic grounds. Are we then so thoroughly familiar, it may be asked, with the mental processes of these ancient seers that we may determine offhand that their thought cannot have moved in this or that manner, because to us it appears a fanciful or mysterious manner? Are the prophets to be modernized altogether in their mode of thinking as well as in their ethical teaching? Would it not be better to form in an inductive way our opinion as to what the prophetic consciousness is capable of in the matter of combination or perspective? If the discourse here in one bold leap projects itself from the first stage of the Assyrian judgment into the final deliverance of the Messianic era without touching ground at any intermediate point, and if analogies for such a movement can be adduced from other prophecies, ought we not to think twice before deciding that this transition of thought is a psychological impossibility? Chapters 8:1-10, 17:1-8, 9-14 and 28:1-6 are of essentially the same character, and the belief that in each of these cases Isaiah himself is responsible for the combination keeps in closer touch with the facts than the view that he cannot have executed such atour de force, and that therefore a redactor must shoulder the responsibility. Nor need we entirely despair of making the process more or less intelligible to ourselves. Isaiah, it should be remembered, even before the Syro-Ephraimitic crisis, viewed the coming judgment as an organic whole, the successive phases of which were to grow one out of the other. A perspective of this kind must have considerably facilitated the linking together of the two extreme parts of the whole process. In the calamities that befell the northeastern regions the prophet undoubtedly beheld the first installment of a judgment that would not stop until all but a few had been consumed, the beginning as it were of the end. In point of fact, the whole preceding context represents Ephraim and Judah as equally involved in what is impending, Jehovah becoming a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel (8:14). It required no large stretch of the imagination, therefore, to pass from the vision of the depopulated and ravaged "district of the nations" to the more comprehensive scene of the entire people walking in darkness and dwelling in the land of the shadow of death.[77] We cannot require that the prophet should have explicitly mentioned the destruction of the remainder of Ephraim and the destruction of Judah, for these two he had not yet witnessed in their concreteness; it was natural for him to mention only those three items of which the first was given as a matter of experience, the second as the goal of the judgment, the third as the ultimate object of faith. And if it should be further asked, why 8:23b confines the dawning of the great light to the regions mentioned, whilst the darkness spoken of in 9:1 covers the whole people, our answer is that this must be explained from the strongly imaginative character of the discourse. The prophet, seeing the vision of the people restored and victorious rise in contrast with the scene of desolation that had just swept by,[78] first fastens his eye on those parts of northeastern Palestine on which the first stroke of judgment had descended and which it was but natural should be thought of as first witnessing the reversal of Israel's fortunes. There is no need to say with Dillmann that these sections of the country are representative of the whole, for obviously the prophecy is not conceived in the fixed forms of sober reflection; it partakes throughout of the nature of a veritable vision in which the attention is first held by a single point and then takes in a wider compass. The difficulty that the reunion of the two kingdoms was too important a thought to be incidentally presupposed is solved on the same principle. From Isaiah's historical standpoint as occupied at the opening of the prophecy this thought would indeed have required explicit assertion, for to it Ephraim and Judah were still separately existing. But the idea of their reunion under the one Messianic king is not introduced until the prophet's imagination has advanced to where the exiled people of the two kingdoms stand before him, no longer divided, but united in their common misery. Admitting that such a prospect was possible to Isaiah, and that he expected a restoration beyond it, who will assert that he cannot have simply taken the healing of the old breach for granted without expending a word upon it? A silent assumption of the fact was the most natural thing under the circumstances. Besides, if Hosea 2:1-3, 3:5, are genuine, which we have found no sufficient reason to doubt, the idea of a reunited Israel must have been familiar to both the prophet and his hearers.

The argument for the detached character of 11:1-9 is even less conclusive than the one just examined. To be sure, we must again agree with Hackmann in his interpretation of the phrase y#y (zg as implying the cessation of the Davidic dynasty, and in his general view that the deliverance wrought by the Messiah comes after a protracted period of oppression and not in a momentary crisis of Judah's history. There is no place for the things here described in Isaiah's immediate present; the prophecy is not "zeitgeschichtlich" in this sense. But we must disagree when Hackmann proceeds to build upon this the further opinion that, thus understood the vision loses all contact with contemporary history ceases to be "zeitgeschichtlich" as to its point of departure. True, if 11:1-9 are taken by themselves, it must seem strange that the prophet should suddenly confront us, and that by mere implication, with the momentous fact of the fall of the Davidic dynasty, an event not predicted on any previous occasion except in so far as it was included in the general judgment on Judah. But this difficulty arises wholly from the unwillingness of Hackmann and others to read 11:1-9 continuously with 10:28-34. The obvious connection of these two passages explains what suggested to Isaiah the figure of "the stock of Jesse," and why it is introduced without the preparatory statement that the tree of David's dynasty will be hewn down. The insertion of every such intermediate thought would have spoiled the highly effective contrast between the lopping off of the boughs of the Assyrian forest and the raising of the new shoot from the stock of Jesse. Considering that the idea of the fall of the Davidic house is admitted by all to have lain in the background of Isaiah's consciousness; the only question is whether for rhetorical reasons he could for once let it enter his discourse in this indirect manner and overlook the fact of his having never formally announced it before. This question we venture to answer in the affirmative. It may be further asked, however, whether the rhetorical contrast in question is logically conceivable, whether the thought of the humiliation of Assyria's pride can have been connected in the prophet's mind with the idea of a Messianic restoration separated from the latter by a long interval of continuous judgment. It may be claimed and has been claimed, that if Isaiah foresaw the destruction of Assyria he cannot at the same time have expected the ruin of Judah andvice versa.[79] To this we answer that the prophet need not have thought of the defeat of Assyria as precluding further punishment of Judah. The analogy of other prophecies in which, as already observed, he passes from the contemplation of one particular stage of the judgment to the ultimate restoration, overleaping all intermediate events, leads us to conclude that in this case also he could regard the provisional deliverance connected with God's punishment of the Assyrian as a prophecy and pledge of the final Messianic salvation, though fully aware all the time that new and repeated judgments issuing into a prolonged captivity would intervene. There is no difficulty inherent in the thought, therefore, which would compel us to modify our belief in the continuity of the discourse, so far as chapter 10:33-11:9 are concerned. But Cheyne thinks he has a valid reason in what precedes for dismembering the context. He considers such the incongruity of the two figures of the Assyrian army advancing against Jerusalem and spreading terror everywhere, and of the lopping down of the forest by Jehovah. "Can Isaiah have imagined an army planting itself on a sudden like trees?" he asks; and, answering this in the negative, concludes that 10:28-32 is Isaiah's, 33, 34 the redactor's, 11:1-9 post-exilic. It is impossible to meet this argument because it is based entirely on a subjective opinion in regard to certain canons of taste to which the prophet is required to conform in the choice and combination of his figures. We are convinced that the application of modern artistic standards to the work of Hebrew prophets is an unhistorical and therefore critically unsafe proceeding. It may be questioned whether the use of metaphor in the passage before us is essentially bolder than that in the undoubtedly genuine prophecy of chapter 18:3-6, where first Jehovah appears making martial preparations against the Assyrian, then the latter's destruction is represented under the figure of the lopping off of branches and tendrils, and lastly the fallen enemies are pictured as being eaten by wild beasts.

There would seem to be the less reason for Hackmann to deny the possibility of connection between chapter 10 and 11:1-9, since he makes chapter 10, or, speaking more accurately, those parts of it which he considers genuine (verses 5-19, 28-32) refer to a destruction of the Assyrian army which was to follow the conquest of Judah and Jerusalem, so that nothing is implied which would interfere with the full execution of the judgment threatened against the southern kingdom. We do not believe this exegesis to be correct; indeed, we consider it one of the most vulnerable points in Hackmann's entire construction. But assuming it to be correct, verses 33, 34 must on this view be admitted to harmonize perfectly with the genuine parts of the chapter, because they convey no intimation that Assyria's defeat will involve any direct favorable consequences for Judah. And, still further, on this interpretation, Isaiah could, even more easily than on our view, have linked together the cutting down of the Assyrian forest and the coming forth of the shoot from the stock of Jesse, because no other events were expected to come between, the sequence being: (1) Destruction of Judah and Jerusalem with the cessation of David's kingdom; (2) defeat of the Assyrian power; (3) Messianic restoration.[80]

Hackmann still further claims that the tenor of these prophecies does not agree with Isaiah's outlook into the future as known from chapter 1:26 and 32:15-20. These passages, he thinks, prove that the program of what was to come after the judgment was extremely simple; in fact, involved nothing more than the two items of a purified people and a state of society in which righteousness and judgment would be firmly established. There is, however, nothing in Chapters 9 and 11 inconsistent with this similar hope; nay, its realization is expressly guaranteed by the character of the Messiah's rule. Nor is it advisable to determine from one set of passages the limits beyond which other passages should not go in elaborateness of description. If one were to judge from the majority of what Hackmann calls "the historically fixed prophecies," i.e., those that can be assigned to a definite date and occasion, he might easily infer that Isaiah's horizon was bounded by the judgment and did not include any better future at all. Such a conclusion would be equally justified as the conclusion that the wonderful pictures of Chapters 9 and 11 cannot be by the same hand that drew the bare outlines of chapter 1:26.

Two more considerations adduced by Hackmann must briefly be noted here. The alleged absence of the Messianic figure in the later prophecies of Isaiah is made to tell against its Isaianic origin in Chapters 9 and 11. This brings us face to face with the question already touched upon above, whether there actually was a continuous later period during which Isaiah dropped the personal Messiah, if not from his personal expectations, at least from his public expression of the same, and if so, wherein lies the explanation of this fact. This question is greatly complicated by its interdependence with the chronological problems of Isaiah-criticism. Several views may be held on the subject: (1) It is possible to assign chapter 11:1-9, together with the whole context of which it forms part (Chapters 10:5-12:6), to about the same date as the later eschatological prophecies in Chapters 28-31. In this case the two would be mutually supplementary; chapter 11:1-9 would be to the Sanherib discourses what 8:23-9:1-6 are for those connected with the Syro-Ephraimitic war, and in both the figure of the Messiah would be equally prominent (so Driver,Introd., p. 200). (2) Dillmann places chaps. 28-31 in the years 726-722, and chapter 11:1-9 in the first years of Sargon (until 716-715). If this could be accepted it would yield direct evidence that the prophet did not mean to abandon by the discourses of chapter 28-31 the idea of a personal Messiah, since he reaffirmed it several years later. But the trend of modern opinion is against such an early date for the prophecies of Chapters 28-31. And, apart from this, the problem would remain how Isaiah could preserve silence during this long interval of almost twenty years on this important feature, especially when meanwhile uttering discourses so vitally connected with it as those in Chapters 28-31. (3) Placing Chapters 28-31 about the year 702, and the prophecies in Chapters 9 and 11 at a much earlier date in the prophet's ministry, we may seek an explanation for the disappearance of the Messiah from those later discourses. The explanation usually offered is that the Messianic descendant of David of Chapters 9 and 11 stood for Isaiah in contrast with Ahaz, the unworthy occupant of David's throne, hence is made prominent in the prophecies belonging to the reign of this king, but recedes into the background during the reign of Hezekiah. It has been observed that the denunciatory discourses of Chapters 28-31 are not directed against the king, but against the Judean grandees and politicians, and this may be interpreted as reflecting a favorable opinion on Hezekiah, and in so far as confirmatory of the above explanation. With Guthe and others this view forms a part of the theory above stated, ascribing a second "Zukunftsbild" to Isaiah. But even apart from its connection with this theory, which is not essential to it, serious objections arise. As we have seen, chapter 11:1-9 cannot be separated from chapter 10, and chapter 10:11 carries us beyond 722. How then can we bring 11:1-9 to the reign of Ahaz, unless we adopt the view that Hezekiah's accession did not occur until 715? Furthermore there are two passages certainly belonging to the reign of Hezekiah in which the Messiah is after all introduced again. These are 32:1 and 33:17. Some would make the expressions, "a king," "princes" (anarthrous) refer to the future magistrates in the abstract, but the personal Messianic sense seems more natural. The pros and contras of the various views stated cannot, of course, be exhaustively discussed here. Driver's opinion seems to us to have most in its favor and to be least open to objections. All we aim at is to show how little weight can be attached, in view of so many opposing possibilities, to Hackmann's claim that the contents of the later discourses are unfavorable to the genuineness of the Messianic prophecies in Chapters 9 and 11.

The alleged silence of later prophecy until the time of Ezra, by which Hackmann finds his conclusions confirmed, cannot count for much. Even if proven, there would be nothing more strange in this than there must be from the critical standpoint in the diversity of Messianic expectations, some with, some without a personal Messiah, ascribed to post-exilic writers. Why, if the author or authors of chapter 9:1-6 and 11:1-9 wrote before the date of the so-called Trito-Isaiah as Hackmann assumes, is there no trace of their Davidic Messiah in Joel or Isaiah 24-27? Slavish adherence to older models can on neither view be attributed to the prophetic writers, whether we place them before or after the exile. Even within the limits of the same prophet there is freedom in the choice of forms under which the Messianic future is depicted.[81] In point of fact, however, there are unmistakable references in later pre-exilic prophets to Isaiah's Messiah. Jeremiah 23:5, promises the raising up of a righteous branch unto David who will execute judgment and justice in the land, and the term "branch" cannot be understood here, as Hackmann thinks, in a collective sense.[82] The allusion to Isaiah 9:6 is plain. Ezekiel 21:32, 34:23 seq., 37:24, must be judged of similarly. This much only is true, that in Jeremiah and Ezekiel the Messianic king does not occupy the central place in their prophecies of the restoration which he occupies in Isaiah. The reason for this is possibly to be sought in the insignificance of the later kings after Josiah as factors in the historical development, as has been pointed out by Riehm.[83]

The linguistic indications of a late origin found by Hackmann in the two prophecies are confined to ten words. Cheyne himself however, while repeating and supplementing this list, gives warning to proceed cautiously and questions the conclusive character of five out of the ten. No doubt the list might be sifted still further. Over against such doubtful phenomena, one may well urge the unplausibility of crediting some unknown author of the post-exilic period with what has been universally and justly regarded as the highest flight of prophetic eloquence.[84]

Chapters 19:16-25 and 23:15-18 are assigned to a post-exilic date somewhere between 275 (Cheyne) and 150 B.C. (Duhm) for reasons drawn from the development hypothesis, such as the bold universalism expressed in the hope of the conversion of Egypt and Assyria, the high respect with which the altar, the mazzebah, the sacrifice and oblation are mentioned in 19:19, and the servants of the sanctuary in 23:18, all of which is deemed inconsistent with the prophetic attitude toward the cult. Inasmuch, however, as both sections are obviously appendices to the preceding oracles on Egypt and Tyre, and the latter have long been attacked by modern critics on historical grounds,[85] it cannot be claimed that the denial of Isaiah's authorship is in this case primarily due to the exigencies of the evolutionary scheme. It is interesting to observe how the critical interpretation of chapter 19:19 has veered around in response to the change of opinion regarding the date of the prophecy. As long as the chapter was believed to be Isaianic, verse 19 was made much of as an argument for the nonexistence of the Deuteronomic law in Isaiah's time. It had to render service also to discredit the historical character of Hezekiah's reform. When the apologetes answered that the altar in the strange land and the mazzebah were intended by the prophet as mere symbols, this was waived aside as a shallow subterfuge. Now that verses 16-25 are declared to be late, it devolves upon the critics themselves to explain how the late writer reconciled this statement with the plain prohibition of the law, and behold the reasoning of the apologetes leaps at once into favor. Cheyne's remarks on the subject sound precisely as if they came from one of the old defenders of the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy.[86]

The case of Chapters 24-27 is similar to that of the sections just quoted. The genuineness of this prophecy also had been long denied before the modern reconstruction of the history of doctrine created a new necessity for such denial, and even at present the arguments adduced against the Isaianic authorship are to some extent of a historical and literary character. Besides, although the critical analysis is applied to these chapters, it is not for the purpose of separating Isaianic material from later accretions, but to disentangle two elements both alleged to be post-exilic. For these reasons the subject does not fall within the scope of our present discussion. Nevertheless it may be remarked in passing that these chapters possess great interest from a Biblico-theological point of view. Those who are persuaded with us that no valid reasons have been brought forward against their genuineness will find much material here for refutation of the critical hypothesis. Duhm says of what he calls "the apocalypse" contained in Chapters 24, 25:6-8, 26:20-27:1, 12, 13, that it makes use of the Priest Code after a fully-developed dogmatic fashion. Priests and people appear in 24:12 as distinct social categories. In the same chapter (verse 5), "the laws," "the ordinance," "the everlasting covenant," refer to Genesis 9:1-7, a section assigned to P. "The righteous" for whom glory is destined in verse 16 are the people of the Thora. "The windows on high" of verse 18 point back to Genesis 7:11, 8:2 (both in P). "The righteous nation which keepeth truth" of 26:2 are the people faithful in observance of the law. "The name" and "the memorial of Jehovah" in verse 8 refer to the temple cult; cf. also 27:13. "Righteousness" in verses 9 and 10 means conformity to the law; "the land of uprightness" is the land where the Thora rules. Chapter 27:9 presupposes the law enjoining unity of sanctuary and prohibiting Asherim and Hammanim. In a word, no Old Testament Scripture exhibits more fully the vital connection between Messianic prophecy (in the wider sense) and the legal basis of Israel's life. The Messianic judgment is here throughout represented as resulting from transgression of the Thora, and as ushering in a new state of things, of which observance of the Thora will be the chief characteristic. It is no wonder then that recent critics have placed the component parts of Isaiah 24-27 at a sufficiently late date to account for this lively interest in the Thora. Duhm dates "the apocalypse" from about 130 B.C., and makes most of the other fragments still later. Cheyne thinks "the apocalypse" as well as the remainder belong to the time of Alexander the Great. And both freely confess that in going down to so late a period they are determined by the features mentioned above, together with some other advanced doctrines concerning angels and the resurrection, and in general the apocalyptic character of the entire prophecy. But, although the trend of critical opinion toward these extreme dates is clearly due to the prevailing theory of development, it might be said that, inasmuch as apart from and prior to the influence of this theory similar conclusions had already been reached, the argument from the doctrinal phenomena simply lends confirmation to these and is nota priori.

No such excuse, however, can be offered for the rejection of the single verse, chapter 18:7, for wholly theological reasons. One of these, the implied universalism, has been noticed already. Another is derived from the phrase, "the place of the name of Jehovah of Hosts," used as an equivalent to "Mount Zion." The expression reminds of Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, and, as in 26:8, "name" signifies the specific presence of Jehovah in the temple, perhaps, as Guthe points out, in connection with the ark. Its use by Isaiah is important for three reasons: first, because it reveals the prophet's agreement with the Deuteronomic principle of unity of sanctuary; secondly, because it proves his attitude toward the temple cult in the abstract to have been one of appreciation and not of hostility; and, thirdly, because together with similar utterances[87] it furnishes the basis for the subsequent enunciation by the prophet of the sacrosanct character of Zion, and in so far shows what little right the critics have to eliminate the latter on the ground of its incompatibility with Isaiah's general teaching.[88]

The material next requiring our attention consists of Chapters 28-33. Modern doubt concerning the genuineness of this part of the book first fastened on chapter 33, which Ewald assigned to a disciple of the prophet, a view defended since by Dillmann. Ewald's criticism, however, was not founded on the religious tone and ideas of the prophecy, but entirely on its literary character. Stade, attaching himself to Ewald, included within the line of attack chapter 32, and boldly placed the doctrinal arguments suggested by the development theory in the foreground.[89] It should be noticed that his discussion not only left the genuineness of the preceding Chapters 28-31 intact, but made the assumption of their Isaianic origin a vantage-ground for denying that of Chapters 32-33. And, inasmuch as Stade accepted the one group of discourses and rejected the other, both in their entirety, his treatment of the subject was still free from the divisive method which plays so prominent a role in the present phase of the criticism of these chapters. Nevertheless the similarity of ideas between Chapters 32 and 33 on the one hand, and certain sections of Chapters 28-31 on the other hand, is so close that the rejection of the former was equivalent to the insertion of the analytical wedge into the latter. Sörensen first intimated that Chapters 28-31 might be composite. He called attention to the strange effect produced in chapter 28 by verses 5 and 6 between 4 and 7, by 16b, 17a between 16a and 17b; in chapter 29 by verses 5-8 between 4 and 9, and verses 17-24 after verse 16; in chapter 30 by the peculiar transition in verse 18; in chapter 31 by the almost unintelligible verse 5; especially in chapter 32 by the open contradiction between verses 14 and 15.[90] From the last-mentioned passage Sörensen draws the conclusion that shortly before the crisis of the Sennacherib-campaign Isaiah predicted the impending conquest and destruction of Jerusalem by the Assyrians, but that possibly after the fearful affliction of his people together with the blasphemous attitude of the invader had changed the prophet's mood and the issue of events had failed to verify his original forecast, he may have subjected the discourses previously uttered to a revision introducing the element of hope into a once purely threatening context. The year 701, as Sörensen himself remarks, would thus become the birth-year of the Messianic hope.[91] Here, then, the theory of the composite character of Chapters 28-31 is tentatively proposed, but no inferences are drawn from it detrimental to the genuineness of any part of the material.[92] A further step in the disintegration process is marked by Duhm's commentary (1892). Duhm finds in Chapters 28-31 considerable sections of post-exilic origin clumsily interwoven with the original Isaianic discourse. The characteristic feature of these interpolated pieces he recognizes in their promissory eschatological import. But even he retains enough of the old view to assume that in the genuine prophecies themselves there must have been a definite promise of Jerusalem's deliverance from the Assyrians, to which this later more luxuriant development could attach itself. Plainly this was a mediating position such as could only partly satisfy the critical instinct, now feeling its way toward elimination of the element of promise on principle and not merely in its most pronounced form. Hackmann is the critic who has done away with this last remnant of the old interpretation of Isaiah. He claims to have established on the basis of a thorough analysis of Chapters 28-31, that the real message of the prophet during the Sennacherib-crisis was not one of encouragement and hope mixed with threatening, as is traditionally assumed, but a message of judgment pure and simple. Hackmann's partition of the text, with some modifications, as well as the conclusion based on it regarding Isaiah's attitude at this juncture, have been adopted by Cheyne in hisIntroduction to the Book of Isaiah(1895). The latest discussion of the subject from the advanced critical standpoint is by Brückner, who in some instances coincides with Cheyne where the latter goes beyond his predecessor Hackmann.[93]

It is safe to say that these operations bring us face to face with a question second in importance to none within the whole range of prophetic criticism, the question whether Isaiah predicted the miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem from the Assyrians. In this question, the fundamental principles now struggling for supremacy in the interpretation of the Old Testament in general, and of prophetism in particular, are focused and brought to a sharply defined issue. The modern hypothesis is bound to move toward a negative answer of this question along three of its basal lines of thought. The first of these may be indicated by the antithesis of works and grace. It is easy to perceive how the excision of the promissory parts of Chapters 28-33 strikes at those very elements in which the Church from ancient times has recognized the most precious part of Isaiah's message, and which have won for him the name of the evangelist among the prophets. The undeserved salvation of the city accomplished by Jehovah, in spite of her own sinfulness, for the purpose of manifesting His free love for Zion,[94] forms one of the three great historic embodiments of the gospel of grace in the Old Testament; and its inspired interpretation by the prince of the prophets has been ever valued correspondingly. In more than one Isaianic passage it is linked backward to the deliverance of the exodus: it furnishes the prelude to the hymn wherewith the prophet in the second part of his book celebrates in advance the return from exile, and so occupies a central place in the history of the Old Testament doctrine of redemption. The unfolding of the idea of faith also is inseparably connected with it. On the other hand, it will be as readily perceived that the prediction of such a sovereign gracious deliverance fits badly into the critical construction of the prophetic consciousness. For according to the latter the new prophecy had its very root in the discovery that Jehovah does not and cannot deal with Israel according to grace, but exclusively according to works; and it is impossible to charge Isaiah, the foremost of its representatives, with a fall from the height of this idea. It is in entire fidelity to its principle, therefore, when the modern hypothesis, after a period of hesitation, begins now more and more confidently to assert not only that Isaiah did not expect or foretell, but also that he could not have expected or foretold the event in question. Wherever such a prediction appears in the genuine parts of his book, it must be construed in the sense of a conditional promise made dependent for its fulfillment on the people's conversion, instead of being intended by its fulfillment to produce such conversion, as is clearly the implication of the rejected passages. With the elimination of the idea of grace the conception of faith must undergo considerable modification. It is interesting to observe how with several writers the center of gravity in this characteristic Isaianic idea is being shifted from the element of trust to that of obedience or conformity to the prophetic standard of righteousness. Says Hackmann, in paraphrase of the classical passage chapter 28:15 : "You have made the Egyptian alliance your refuge in which you think yourselves secure. ... Jahve, on the contrary, makes the foundation reliance on himself to be exercised in righteousness and judgment, honest adherence to your obligations (as tributary to Assyria) until Jahve's providence brings deliverance."[95] Similarly Cheyne, commenting on chapter 7:9, remarks: "Trust the prophetic word, and ye shall never have togive way(28:16). Of course, Isaiah does not mean merely the word of promise; he implies all those moral conditions which he has expressed in Chapters 2-5. "[96] Now it may certainly be said that the proposed analysis does not result in the removal of these important elements from the body of Scripture, but simply in their transfer to a later period of Jewish history; and that a truth valuable in itself ought to claim our acceptance equally when the product of the Maccabean age as when emerging in the time of Isaiah. But this reasoning, whatever may be its force in other instances, is entirely unsatisfactory in the present case. For, in the first place, the distinction between the pre-exilic prophetic and the post-exilic Judaistic periods is from the critical standpoint itself far more than a mere matter of chronology. It has connected with it a certain estimate of the religious character and value of these two periods; and though the critics can of course no longer subscribe to the once current opinion about the spiritual barrenness and unproductiveness of the post-exilic age, yet even with them the judgment stands that, compared with the era of the great prophets, its piety is of a lower, less healthy type.[97] Consequently it makes an immense difference whether the doctrine of Zion's gracious deliverance is to pass under the name of Isaiah or to be relegated with so much other material to the time of Judaism. But even apart from this inevitably resulting difference in valuation, it must be remembered in the second place that the intrinsic character of the doctrine is completely changed by its detachment from the historical basis of Isaiah's day. The view hitherto taken was that the prophet by inspiration knew and foretold the event, and that it came to pass according to his word. The modern view is that Isaiah did not predict the event, that it did not occur in the form in which in his book the prediction is put in his mouth, but in a quite different, much less supernatural form; that this slight basis of fact gave rise to a legend in which the true proportion of things was altogether lost; that finally out of this mixture of legend and history, with the former preponderating, grew the prophecies of promise now contained in Chapters 28-33 with their far-reaching eschatological implications. Granting, therefore, that the evangelical element is preserved, it is preserved in a shape which renders it well-nigh valueless. The truth of salvation preached by an accredited prophet in close connection with supernatural facts—this is what the healthy realism of the Church has always believed in and judged essential to its faith; to cease insisting upon this and deem the bare idea of salvation, as developed in the fancy of some post-exilic writer, and lacking all adequate historical basis, sufficient, is nothing else than Rationalism and Pelagianism in principle.[98]

The second reason which has made the denial of the genuineness of our prophecies attractive to the critics is connected with the view taken by them of the prophetic attitude toward the temple cult. In several passages of the disputed sections the promised preservation of Jerusalem is associated with the fact of Mount Zion being Jehovah's dwelling-place, where He is acceptably worshiped, whose conquest by the Assyrians might therefore be construed as evidence of the impotence of Israel's God, while for the same reason an act of salvation proceeding from that center could not but be interpreted as in an eminent sense the work of Jehovah alone. By themselves, of course, these utterances of Isaiah do not prove that the public service of Jehovah was regulated by law, and this law recognized by the prophets. The regard here shown for the temple and its ceremonies might be explained in other ways than by supposing that the writer found it invested with the rank of the only legitimate sanctuary in a Mosaic law code. On that score no suspicion need have attached to the statements in question. At the same time there is something in their tone and spirit which, while on the one hand it betrays a certain affinity with the nomistic views, seems on the other hand positively inconsistent with the critical hypothesis. For according to the latter the early prophets were not merely indifferent but actually hostile to the sacrificial cult in which they rightly recognized the pagan, anti-ethical element in Israel's religion, and over against which they placed the demand of a purely spiritual service of Jehovah consisting in obedience. Thus the popular religion of the cult and the prophetic religion of righteousness are said to have formed an absolute antithesis; and it becomes exceedingly difficult to explain how in Isaiah the demands of the latter can have been sufficiently abated to permit his cherishing this extreme reverence for the temple. It is true, the critics do not think a compromise between the two principles in the abstract impossible, and even believe that later, in the time of King Josiah, one was actually entered upon by the formation of the Deuteronomic law book. But how antagonistic the two tendencies in reality were is proven by the very fact that in their opinion this step proved fatal to the true life of prophetism, because it broke the strength inherent in its previous uncompromising attitude.[99] Besides, this was almost a full century later than the time of Isaiah and after the prophetic movement had passed the zenith of its power. It is a totally different thing to find Isaiah, in whom the prophetic spirit is supposed to have attained its purest and most vigorous expression, assuming an attitude toward the temple in which not only there is absolutely no trace of antagonism, but which approaches very closely to the reverence for Zion usually deemed in critical circles characteristic of the later ritualistic period. Thus the modern theory was reduced to the uncomfortable position of having to recognize in the greatest of the prophets the father of a principle diametrically opposed to what in its view was the vital principle of prophetism. Isaiah by proclaiming that Jehovah's fire and furnace are in Zion became sponsor for the idea of Jerusalem's inviolability, and was in all likelihood the authority to whom those appealed who attacked Jeremiah because he dared to predict the destruction of the holy city. The conception of Zion as the one legal sanctuary in its first beginnings had to be dated from him. Considering all this, there seemed to be almost as much justification for placing Isaiah at the head of the subsequent development in which the essential truth of prophecy was obscured, as for considering him the highest exponent of this truth. In a word the most fundamental antithesis by the aid of which the modern theory explains the evolution of Old Testament religion threatened to elude the critics' grasp. Now it has begun to be realized that this whole difficulty may be swept away at one stroke if it should appear possible to deny to Isaiah the sections in which this peculiar favoritism for Zion and the temple crops out, and to assign them to a post-exilic date. Our prophet could then take his place with Amos and Hosea in the ascending line of the development of the ethical idea, and the excised passages can take theirs with the other nomistic portions of the Old Testament to which they bear such a marked similarity in tone and spirit.

We believe, however, that there is still a third and even more powerful motive at work in the present attempts to divide these chapters. The prediction of the sudden deliverance of Jerusalem in a crisis fraught with the gravest danger is one of the most signal instances of supernatural disclosure of the future in the whole Old Testament. Its elimination as a factor to be considered undoubtedly would make the naturalistic explanation of the facts of Isaiah's career a far more solvable problem than otherwise. Still it is not so much the desire to evade this one stubborn fact that prompts the critical analysis. As we shall have occasion to see later, even if the prediction be wiped out from Chapters 28-33, there are other unassailable passages which will continue to bear witness to its historicity. Besides, the modern view takes no serious offense at the presence of a certain naïve supernaturalism in the prophetic consciousness, not even if this on a single occasion should rise to the anticipation of a specific event and thus gain a semblance of objectivity.[100] But there is reflected in these chapters a supernaturalism of a more conscious and comprehensive type, such as the critics are wont to call eschatological and for which they have no place in their construction until after Ezekiel. Here speaks a prophet who knows himself the herald and interpreter of a divine plan carried out in Israel's history, who rises above the immediate present and boldly projects his interest into the future. The Messianic outlook, though lacking the personal definiteness of Chapters 9 and 11, is of the widest and farthest; it includes the transformation of nature, the reversal of all present conditions, and this to be effected by the pouring out of the Spirit from on high.[101] A perfect society in which all sin is forgiven and from which all sickness has been banished stands at the goal.[102] And these things are no mere by-play; they evidently engage the writer's enthusiasm by reason of their inherent importance. Now it is plain that such a frame of mind, call it eschatological or by any other name, is too remote from what the modern theory has learned to consider the central prophetic consciousness, for it to admit of natural psychological combination with the latter. It is detached from the issues of the immediate present, its horizon extends beyond the limitations within which the sober, stern moral sense of the early prophets must have confined their hopes, and it peoples this new world with images connected only by the slightest thread with the high ethical interests these teachers had supremely at heart.

Some individual doctrinal features, which by their weight help these more general considerations to turn the scale in favor of the partition of our chapters, will meet us in the discussion later on. We must now inquire what are the objective arguments used by the critics to justify what the postulates of their hypothesis thusa prioricommend to them. The proposition to be established is that Chapters 28-33, or more strictly speaking Chapters 28-31, reveal to the critical eye two strata: one of a denunciatory character, possessing all the traits of genuine Isaianic prophecy; another, promising and consolatory in its tone, showing all the marks of a later supplementary deposit. The first argument adduced in support of this is a chronological one. Chapter 28:1-6 date from before the conquest of Samaria by the Assyrians,[103] whereas the subsequent sections clearly reveal their connection with the Sennacheribcrisis, the remainder of chapter 28 included, which latter has so many points in contact with Chapters 29 and 30 that it cannot possibly be separated from these. At the same time chapter 28:1-6 have obvious connection with verse 7 seq., the words hl)-Mgw forming the connecting link. But, Hackmann reasons further, no plausible explanation has been given, nor can be given, of this combination of two prophecies of different dates on the view that it was made by Isaiah himself. Consequently it is to be regarded as one of the symptoms pointing toward the activity of a redactor who hardly confined himself to the mere arrangement of Isaianic material, but must have added from the later work of others or from his own.[104]

It may be rightly questioned whether this difficulty is as insurmountable as Hackmann represents it. To be sure, we may agree with him in the opinion that Giesebrecht has not satisfactorily solved the problem. According to this critic, the oracle against Samaria dates from about 724. Those designated in it as "the residue" of Jehovah's people, were at that time in the prophet's intention the whole Judean kingdom. The destruction of Samaria would have the salutary effect of radically converting the Judeans, thus ushering in the fulfillment of Isaiah's optimistic expectations: "In that day shall Jehovah of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty unto the residue of his people: and for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn back the battle to the gate." Now, at a later date in the Sennacherib-period, having been compelled by the prevailing moral corruption to modify this favorable forecast of Judah's destiny, the prophet takes up again, Giesebrecht thinks, this original prophecy for the double purpose of publicly revoking the promise it contained and of holding up to the Jerusalemites the fate of Samaria, meanwhile realized, as a fearful warning of the catastrophe which was on the point of overtaking them.[105] To this Hackmann justly objects that the prophet cannot have taken so promising a view of Judah's prospects at the late date of 724, because the discourses belonging to the crisis of 734 prove him to have expected at that time already the judgment on the southern kingdom.[106] Isaiah's intention cannot have been, therefore, to revoke a promise once given to the Judeans in their collective capacity. But, granting this, an exposition remains which will account in a perfectly natural way for Isaiah's repetition of this earlier oracle by way of preface to the following Sennacherib prophecies. We may understand "the residue" of the purified Israel which the prophet everywhere places at the end of the era of judgment, including remnants of both the northern and southern kingdoms, and to which as the final result of the whole process appropriate reference could be made at each important crisis of its course.[107] In this case the oracle against Samaria serves as introduction to these later prophecies because it enunciates the basal principle of destruction of the mass and restoration of a remnant, according to which Jehovah conducts his dealings with the two houses of Israel, and as it were furnishes the text for what Isaiah had to say during the campaign of Sennacherib both in its threatening and in its promissory aspect.[108] The phrase "in that day" need not be pressed as strictly coinciding with the fall of Samaria, but may denote the period of the restoration in general. If the later writers can be credited with the loosest possible use of this phrase, why should a more general reference of it be denied to Isaiah? And the persons designated by hl) Mgw are not identical with "the residue" of verse 5, but stand in parallelism with the drunkards of Ephraim in verse 1, as well as in contrast with the wise counselors and brave warriors promised "the residue" in the future (verse 6). They are the leaders at Jerusalem, whose revelry is described in verses 7-22, the priests, prophets and politicians.[109]

A second argument relied upon to show the composite character of these chapters consists in the remarkable dualism of the contents and the abrupt transition from the denunciatory to the promising sections. A number of cognate phenomena are pointed out as lending special significance to this fact. The threats and the promises are intermingled; those who hear the one hear the other likewise, so that the latter must have robbed the former of all force. And not only is there no indication that the widely different messages are intended for two different circles, but the contents of both are simply irreconcilable, inasmuch as in the one the destruction, in the other the deliverance of Jerusalem is predicted.

It must be granted at the outset that these observations more or less accurately describe the surface appearance of this part of the book of Isaiah. The difficulties suggested are not entirely of the critics' own making, but represent a real problem inherent in the discourses themselves. The only question is whether the hypothesis of the composite character of these chapters is the most natural way of explaining the peculiarities, and whether it does actually explain them. We have no right to resort to this hypothesis so long as the possibility remains open that the extraordinary phenomena of the prophecy reflect an uncommon historical situation. Let us remember how apparently conflicting elements entered into the divine procedure with which the prophet was confronted and the confusing scenes of which were prefigured in the discourses. Jehovah's plan involved the defeat of Judah, the Egyptians and the Assyrians alike, and at the same time the deliverance of Jerusalem, yet again so that the corrupt leaders residing in the capital should fall and the remnant survive. Now it is to be expecteda priorithat in a prophetic forecast of this necessarily complicated process the various factors entering into its solution should likewise appear with a certain bewildering effect. Assuming that Sennacherib's campaign actually followed the course and had the issue which the Biblical records require us to believe it did, it cannot be denied that divine providence worked here in a mysterious way and brought into play for the achievement of its purpose the strangest possible contrasts. Why should not something of this mystery pertaining to the real drama that ensued, have clung to the shadow it threw before itself in the mind and words of Isaiah?[110] To this must be added as a second consideration that some of the discourses in question are of a highly imaginative cast; indeed, show internal evidence of having been conceived by the prophet in the form of visions. Although nobody at the present day will be inclined to revive the theory of Hengstenberg, who found in the visionary state of the organ of revelation the key to the solution of all the riddles of prophecy, yet we are inclined to believe that the modern tendency is to err equally much in the opposite extreme, by entirely neglecting this element and making the prophet altogether a man of calm reasoning and sober reflection.[111] If this element had any share in the shaping of the prophecies before us, this would result in making them a more than ordinarily exact counterpart of the impending crisis itself with all its paradoxical mystifying features.[112]

As regards more particularly the sudden transition from threatening to promise, Giesebrecht has taken pains to show that this is not a characteristic of genuine pre-exilic prophecy, but a sign of later redaction.[113] He admits, however, that in the application of this canon to the prophetic writings two exceptions should be allowed. It does not apply to the promissory conclusion a prophet may have appended to his book as a whole: because in this case there was evidently no danger of breaking the force of the previous announcement of calamity, which spoke strongly enough for itself; and because it was self-evident that the promise referred to a future generation. Giesebrecht himself makes this exception cover, among others, such passages as Amos 9:8, seq., Hosea 14:2, seq., which, as shown above, are excised by more radical critics.[114] The consideration is obviously an important one to keep in mind in discussing the entire subject, and its bearing need perhaps not be restricted to the formal conclusion of a book or collection of prophecies. It will have to be admitted that, whereas in oral discourse a frequent unmediated transition from rebuke to promise might easily have destroyed the effect of the prophetic preaching, the situation became essentially different as soon as the prophet sat down to commit his message to writing. For this very act signified that no longer his contemporaries alone were addressed, but later readers likewise; and the danger that the present generation might take refuge from the threatening in the promise was comparatively remote. Still, so far as Isaiah 28-31 are concerned, no mere appeal to a literary arrangement by the prophet in writing down his discourses will fully explain the phenomena.[115] More perhaps than in any other section of Isaiah's book, what we read in these chapters impresses us not as a literary composition, but as a faithful reproduction of oral discourse delivered in the heat of the moment and still retaining all the vividness and directness that are apt to characterize oral speech. More applicable to the present case is a second restriction allowed by Giesebrecht. It relates to passages in which the change from a tone of denunciation to one of promise is obviously intended to produce a specific rhetorical effect. Although the sudden contrasts of shade and light are undoubtedly due to the inward commotion, with its rapid alternation of opposite feelings, into which the vision of Jehovah's mysterious work threw the prophet's mind, yet this does not exclude that at the same time a distinct purpose embodied itself in the form thus assumed by his discourses. That such was actually the case seems to be implied by chapter 29:9-12. The opening words, "Be ye amazed and wonder," are most naturally understood of the effect produced by the preceding Ariel-discourse with its paradoxical contents. The critics who eliminate from this Ariel-prophecy and from the surrounding discourses all references to the deliverance of Jerusalem, deprive themselves of the possibility of explaining how Isaiah's message, in such reconstructed form, could call forth the amazement here attributed to his hearers. Neither the announcement of calamity by itself, nor the promise of escape by itself was calculated to excite wonder, for both were sufficiently familiar, the former from Isaiah's own repeated declarations, the latter from their optimistic views of the future, in which the secret alliance with Egypt had confirmed them. But both elements combined and intermingled and submitted to them in bold antithesis—this could not fail to make them wonder and stare at the mysterious message.[116] "The vision of the whole," the prophet significantly says with a fine allusion to the complex bewildering character of the scenes just depicted, "the vision of the whole has become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed." And to indicate that the judicial darkening of their minds cooperated with the inherent strangeness of the prophecy in mystifying them, the figure receives a new turn in verse 12, where the vision is compared to a book that is delivered to him "that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned," i.e., unable to read.[117]

What has been said has perhaps in a measure prepared us to view the dualistic and uneven character of the discourses in question without prejudice to their possible unity. The critics, however, contend that the text as now constituted presents not merely bold contrasts and sudden transitions, but absolute contradictions. As this is a question of exegesis, it can only be determined by examining the passages somewhat in detail. The points where the prophecy suddenly leaps from threat into promise and where the critics accordingly locate the editorial seams, are, apart from chapter 28:5, already discussed, chapter 29:7 or 8, 16, 30:18, 31:5, whilst Chapters 32 and 33 present features assigning them a position by themselves. We propose to inquire with reference to each of these passages what verdict a cautious exegesis leads one to pronounce on the alleged composite character of their environment.

Chapter 29:1-8, then, is made by Hackmann and Cheyne, in its original Isaianic form, a prophecy of judgment, pure and simple, without the least gleam of hope of a final deliverance. As will be seen in the table appended below,[118] Duhm's analysis leads to a different result, in which the element of promise is retained.[119] When a critic of Duhm's boldness refrains from applying a principle recognized elsewhere by himself, the protest raised against it by the text must be more than ordinarily emphatic. An insuperable obstacle in the way of Hackmann's and Cheyne's division lies in verse 6, "It shall be at an instant suddenly she shall be visited of Jehovah of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a devouring fire."[120] This verse, it should be observed, is thoroughly Isaianic, both in its general tone and in its single expressions, so that there can be no question about its belonging to the original discourse.[121] Hackmann and Cheyne recognize this and leave it intact. But it is equally certain, though perhaps not so immediately apparent, that this verse will not bear any other than a promissory interpretation. The attempt to turn itin malam partemdoes violence to the words. The phrase, "in an instant suddenly," can only serve to introduce a mysterious, supernatural interposition of Jehovah, something unexpected and unprepared for. How lame to apply this to the capture of the city and to make it characterize the latter as sudden, after all the concomitants of a lengthy siege have just been elaborately depicted![122] On the other hand, how striking and appropriate this same phrase, if intended to express the sudden miraculous reversal of Jehovah's attitude toward the city, first reducing her to that extremity of humiliation in which she shall speak out of the ground and her speech be low out of the dust, and then at once turning against his own instruments, her enemies, to make them as passing chaff, a vanishing dream and vision of the night (verses 5, 7)! But not only is verse 6 unambiguous, the preceding context also contains intimations that the siege of Jerusalem tends to a crisis not of destruction, but of wonderful deliverance. Not much weight can be attached, to be sure, to the interpretation of Ariel as "lion of God," on the basis of which many find even in verses 1 and 2 the implied prediction that the besieged city will, by triumphant escape from her danger, approve herself God's lion. The objection to this is that the figure of the lion would assign an active share to the Jerusalemites themselves in the repulsion of the enemy, whereas the whole context emphasizes the exclusive agency of Jehovah in saving the city.[123] Much more to the point for our purpose is the fact that Jehovah compares the siege He is planning against Jerusalem to that once laid by David to the fortress of the Jebusites.[124] For, inasmuch as the latter did not result in the destruction of the city, but in her elevation to the seat of God's sanctuary and the capital of David's kingdom, so likewise the warfare of Jehovah against her will ultimately issue in the purification and glorification of Zion. The whole comparison rests on the profound thought that God must conquer Jerusalem anew because she has become His enemy: only this time His campaign is a more complicated one than that of David. Something higher than physical possession is aimed at and this explains why Jehovah's method involves the paradox of two apparently contradictory movements, of first bringing the Assyrian army before her walls, and then suddenly undoing His own work by the destruction of its instruments and the salvation of the city.

A further instance against the critical division of this prophecy is found in the discrepancy of the concrete results obtained by the various critics. Four partitions at least have been proposed. Leaving those of Duhm and Stade, who both adhere to the promissory interpretation of the section, out of account,[125] we still have Hackmann and Cheyne, who, while agreeing in the opinion that the passage bears the evidence of composite character on its very face by the presence of mutually destructive threatenings and promises, yet differ in important details as to which words belong to either category. It is in regard to verses 6 and 8 only that these critics coincide, both regarding the former as a prediction of judgment, the latter as an editorial accretion of promissory import. In regard to verses 5 and 7, they take directly opposite ground, Hackmann thinking it possible to save the Isaianic authorship of these verses by understanding them in an unfavorable sense as descriptive of the multitude of the besieging enemies, Cheyne judging this a forced and untenable exegesis (a point on which most will agree with him[126]), and on this ground assigning both to the post-exilic writer. Where the judgment as to the most general meaning of the component parts of a prophecy is so uncertain, the verdict of irreconcilable dualism is scarcely calculated to inspire confidence.

We pass on to chapter 29:15-24. There the peculiar case presents itself that one single verse only of the original Isaianic prophecy has been permitted to stand by the supplementer. Everything after the words, "Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from Jehovah, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?" must be denied to the prophet, because it plainly implies the coming regeneration of things. Now no imaginable reason can be discovered why the later writer, who elsewhere is supposed to have dealt quite fairly with Isaiah's material, sometimes to the extent of adopting it entirely and only adding an equal quantum of his own, and who carried through this method of saving as much as possible even at the cost of joining together palpable contradictions, should in this particular instance have cut short the original so as to leave scarcely more than its opening words. What followed in the genuine discourse, if this was a pure prediction of judgment, must have been equally suitable for preservation as 29:6 or 30:14, 17. And why, we may further ask, did the later writer, after first amputating well-nigh the whole body of this ominous message to substitute a more favorable one, mar the latter, contrary to his usual method, with new threatenings conceived by himself? It will be observed that verses 21, 22, introduce a note entirely lacking in the other alleged appendices which are throughout of an exclusively consoling character. Hackmann seems to have felt this, for he maintains that the context requires the identification of "the tyrant" and "the scorner" with the foreign enemies of Israel, as also the identification of "the meek" and "the poor among men" with Israel as a whole.[127] A single glance at verse 21 shows the impossibility of this, for those "that cause a man to sin in a cause, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just with a thing of nought" are undoubtedly transgressors within the circle of Israel.[128] That immediately afterwards Jacob as a whole is spoken of as sharing in the promise proves nothing to the contrary, for this is precisely the Israel from whose midst the scorner had ceased and all they that watch for iniquity have been cut off, the Israel of the remnant (cf. chapter 1:21-26).

But, it is said, everything from verse 16 onward betrays its secondary character in that it does not fulfill the expectation of a severe arraignment of the Egyptophile politicians awakened by the preceding verse. "We expect to hear how Yahwe will bring to naught their counsel, and before all the world subject them to the deepest contumely. But no! it is of Israel's approaching regeneration that we are told, and this is apparently intended for an entirely different class of persons, viz., the oppressed and miserable" (Cheyne, p. 193). This representation, however, fails to do justice to the somewhat subtle but none the less real and profound connection of the prophet's thought. The foolish perversity of those who endeavored to hide their intriguing with Egypt from Jehovah (i.e., from Isaiah) finds a fitting rebuke in the figure of the clay denying understanding to the potter. The very ingenuity wherewith they try to deceive Jehovah is derived from Him, the Creator, who must therefore be all-knowing and all-wise Himself. So far the thought is characteristically Isaianic, as a comparison with chapter 31:1, 2, convincingly shows.[129] At all events, then. verse 16 will have to be recognized as genuine, and this once given what follows in the subsequent verses attaches itself in a perfectly natural manner. What Isaiah condemns in the politicians is not merely the preposterous attempt to keep their secret scheming from the knowledge of Jehovah, but, as Ewald has strikingly observed, even more than this he condemns their pusillanimity and suspicion regarding Jehovah's power to bring the threatening crisis in Judah's fate to a successful issue. Deep-rooted unbelief made them scorn the prophet's counsel to seek their strength in quietness and confidence, instead of which they chose to rely on their own petty diplomacy. This underlying conceit of being better masters of the situation than Jehovah, more powerful than He to control the forces of history and guide them to the goal of Judah's deliverance, this, as the figure of the potter and the clay already intimates, constitutes for Isaiah the supreme folly of their line of action. What more effective exposure of the inherent smallness of such human policy could have suggested itself to the prophet's mind than to place it in vivid contrast with the all-embracing, world-renewing work of Jehovah, which is on the point of turning mountain-forests into fruitful fields and fruitful fields into mountain-forests, revolutionizing all those present conditions they strive to manipulate, and by its mere prospect making all worldly politics appear pitiful in the extreme?[130] Thus it appears how unfounded the charge that verse 16 seq., turn aside from the course marked out for the prophecy by its opening words and in a disconnected way join to the announcement of woe the picture of regeneration. The latter is not in the first instance brought in for its own sake, but for the very purpose of effecting, what Cheyne professes to miss, the subjection of the wily politicians to the deepest contumely. Nor is the prediction of their approaching ruin entirely lacking in the sequel, for, as has been shown above, it is referred to in verses 20, 21.

The section just considered is important also because it disposes effectually of the assertion that the discourses of Chapters 28-31 in their present form do not clearly distinguish between the subjects to whom the threats and those to whom the promises apply. Here such a distinction is drawn with the utmost clearness desirable, for, on the one hand, we have the scorners, those that watch for iniquity, that make man an offender in a cause, lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just with a thing of naught, and, on the other hand, the meek and the poor among men.

The next seam the critics locate between verses 17 and 18 in chapter 30, the latter verse being drawn to the subsequent consoling prophecy, and in this way a sharp unmediated contrast between it and the foregoing made out. The proposed rendering is: "Therefore Jehovah is eagerly waiting that He may be gracious unto you, and is rising that He may have mercy upon you, for Jehovah is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for Him." Duhm ridicules the attempts of commentators to force an opposite meaning upon the words. I cannot convince myself that the above interpretation is sufficiently free from objections to justify such an attitude. For on this view Nbl loses all connection with what precedes. Jehovah's determination to leave only the smallest of remnants (verse 17) can never yield the ground for his impatience to show grace (verse 18). It is hard to understand how the editor, who made the seam, could so stultify himself as to unite two direct opposites, after this naive fashion by a "therefore." Duhm has felt this, for he suggests that the writer intended the Nbl to connect with his own previous interpolation, chapter 29:16 seq. This surely is a desperate remedy, inasmuch as all the other alleged supplements are interlaced at the point of insertion with the Isaianic material, and have no such backward reference to a remote discourse. To this must be added that Nbl would make no natural connection with chapter 29:24. The question also arises whether hbxy and Mwry make a suitable parallelism when thus rendered. If Jehovah is eagerly waiting to show grace, He cannot at the same moment be rising to bestow mercy; the former presupposes a cause for delay, such as would prevent the instantaneous action expressed by the latter. Duhm, to be sure, translates hbxy by "is full of impatience" but this is too free a rendering in which the element of "waiting" is unduly obliterated. In view of all this, we may well fall back upon Dillmann's exegesis, which understands Nbl as coordinated with the same word in verse 13 and with Nb-l( in verse 16, and renders: "Therefore (your iniquity being such) Jehovah will delay in being gracious to you, and will keep aloof from having mercy upon you: for Jehovah is a God of judgment; blessed are all they that wait for him." But if this be the most plausible interpretation, there can be no reason any longer to complain of abruptness in the transition; the thought that Jehovah's interposition will tarry naturally paves the way for the consoling reflection that ultimately it must come for such as wait for Him and convey the blessings enumerated in the sequel.

Some additional features in the prophecy, verses 19-26, should be noted as bearing on the question at issue. The conversion of the people in Zion and Jerusalem is distinctly made, in verse 19, the concomitant of their gracious visitation by Jehovah, which meets the charge that nowhere a moral motive is supplied for the change from threatening to promise. The most obvious connection, further, prevails between verses 20, 21, on the one hand, and verses 10, 11, of the preceding, undoubtedly Isaianic, prophecy on the other hand. As there the people are accused of unwillingness to receive Thora and of a desire to banish Jehovah from their sight, so here the prophet describes a condition in which the people will have their eyes constantly fixed upon their Teacher (Sgl.) and listen attentively to his instructions.[131]

Chapter 31:1-9 is that part of the group of prophecies now under discussion to which the critics most confidently appeal in support of their theory. It is said to reveal evidence of the most clumsy mechanical composition even to the eye of the untrained reader. In verses 1-3 the Egyptian alliance is denounced and its utter failure through the destruction of both Egyptians and Judeans predicted. Then follows the magnificently conceived figure of verse 4, in which Jehovah is compared to a lion growling over his prey, undismayed at the shouting of the shepherds summoned against him, majestically, conscious that none can prevent him from seizing it. "So will Jehovah of hosts come down to fightagainst Mount Zion andagainstthe hill thereof," unconcerned about what help the politicians may summon to save the country from the judgment He has determined to inflict through the Assyrians. Thus far all is of one tenor, threatening without qualification. "But at verse 5, " says Cheyne, "the scene is abruptly shifted. Like flying birds Yahwe will protect His city. Repent then, ye Israelites. For ye know that in that day men's idols will be useless. Yea, Assyria will fall by no human warrior's sword, or panic-stricken will take to flight. Thus saith the God who hath a fire in Zion. This may not be very consecutive, but so much at least is clear—that it accords with a passage which we have recognized as a later addition to the woe upon Ariel, viz., 29:7, 8. To the self-confident politicians it can have had no meaning; or, if it had, the meaning can only have served to lull them to sleep." In view of all which Cheyne concludes that the original woe was supplemented in post-exilic time by a late writer, whose work begins at verse 5b. The words, "like fluttering birds," still belong to Isaiah and must have been originally followed by "so shall the inhabitants of Jerusalem fly" (or, flutter in anxiety).[132]

The main question raised by these statements is whether the two figures of the lion seizing his prey and the sheltering birds are so absolutely discordant as to forbid our ascribing verse 4 and verse 5 to the same author. The former describes Jehovah's attitude toward Jerusalem as one of fierce anger, the latter as one of the most tender maternal solicitude and protection. At first sight the contrast seems indeed to amount to a plain contradiction. It is undoubtedly for the purpose of avoiding this that some expositors attempt to read into verse 4 a favorable meaning instead of the ominous one which the import of the figure so obviously requires. It is proposed to render: "So shall Jehovah of hosts come down to fightupon(instead ofagainst) Mount Zion," and to find in this the thought that He will no more allow his city to be taken from Him than a lion would give up a lamb that it had seized as its prey.[133] But how incongruous in this case the figure is to the idea intended to be conveyed by it! The lion growling over the lamb in the role of its defender! This difficulty is of course removed by making the Assyrian the prey to seize which Jehovah descended upon Mount Zion and which He will not permit the Egyptian or Judean armies to take from Him. Even so, however, the objection remains that l( )bc means everywhere else "to fight against."[134] And, since on this view it was more important to state upon whom than from where Jehovah makes his attack, we would expect the prophet to say: "So shall Jehovah of hosts come down to fight against the Assyrians." There is no escape then from the conclusion that verse 4 speaks of a campaign of Jehovah to be conducted against Jerusalem,[135] in which the city is to be seized by Him as His prey. In so far the critical interpretation is undoubtedly correct. This, however, by no means proves the correctness of the further inference that the prophet in uttering these words meant to imply the fall of Jerusalem. We have no right to press the figure to the extent of making it say that, as the lion seizes the lamb to devour it, so Jehovah will take the city for the purpose of destroying it. The point of comparison is according to the context strictly limited to this, that Jehovah proceeds to inflict upon Jerusalem a judgment which will put her at His mercy, and that He will not let the Egyptian alliance interfere with this. Now it is plain that, thus understood, ver. 4 describes not the ultimate purpose or issue of the judgment, but only the first step in its execution, that of reducing the capital to the utmost extremity through the Assyrian army. Whether this first step is to be followed in the prophet's expectation by the fall of Jerusalem or her deliverance cannot be determined from verse 4 alone, but must remain an open question to be answered by the context. Verse 5 brings the answer by saying that after thus having reduced the city to the condition of a helpless victim, Jehovah will next proceed to protect, deliver, pass over and preserve it. Instead, then, of two contradictory statements, concerning the outcome of the judgment, we evidently have the description of two successive steps in the divine treatment of Jerusalem; and all we need do is to ask whether the prophet helps us to understand the adaptation of this twofold procedure to the final accomplishment of Jehovah's purpose. This we learn from verses 6-8, where first the aim of the whole process of judgment is expressed in hortative language: "Turn ye unto him from whom ye have deeply revolted, O children of Israel," and next the two motives which may in the future be expected to induce this conversion are stated, viz., the recognition of the uselessness of idols and the acknowledgment of Jehovah's exclusive activity in salvation as manifested in the miraculous overthrow of the Assyrian: "For in that day every man shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold. ... Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword not of man and the sword not of men shall devour him." It will further be observed that the two motives here brought into play correspond precisely to the two successive methods of the divine procedure described in verses 4 and 5. The conviction of the vanity of the idols is to result from Jehovah's closing in upon Jerusalem after the failure of all foreign help. The acknowledgment of God's exclusive activity in salvation is to result from his sudden deliverance of the city at the last moment. It is clear, therefore, that the prophet conceives of the two sharply contrasted attitudes which Jehovah will assume toward Jerusalem as governed by a higher unity of design, and in so far not merely free from contradiction but carefully adjusted to one another with reference to the effect intended to be produced, the conversion of the people. The underlying thought is the same as in chapter 29:1-8 : Jehovah is to wage war against Jerusalem, a war not of extermination, but of conquest, a war which will give Him possession of the city in the highest spiritual sense, and which must necessarily consist of two distinct movements, one destroying Israel's false confidence, the other disclosing to her the true source of security, the Assyrians to be in the former movement the instrument, in the latter the victims of the divine strategy.[136] Cheyne's observation that our passage resembles closely the second part of the Ariel prophecy is entirely correct. Only the cause of this resemblance is not to be sought in the supplementing of the two original woes by a late writer. The prophecies agree because they both apply to the reading of coming events the same profound knowledge of the principles on which the divine procedure is conducted. It is this inspired philosophy of history which enables Isaiah to discover and proclaim consistency of purpose where the critics find nothing but confusion and contradiction.

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