The Modern Hypothesis and Recent Criticism of the Early Prophets
Volume 2(TOC)
The Modern Hypothesis and Recent Criticism of the Early Prophets
We have endeavored to show that with reference to Isaiah 28-31 the main argument on which the critics base their theory of the composite nature of these sections, viz., the obvious dualism of the contents, breaks down before a careful exegesis. So far as the dualism exists it was found to bear evidence of a higher unity of design, the contrasts involved proved capable of harmonious interpretation as coordinated and mutually supplementary parts of one program of judgment. Although in several respects closely related to the preceding discourses, Chapters 32-33 differ from them by the absence of theunmediatedcontrast between threatening and promise which plays so large a part in the discussion of Chapters 28-31. Owing to the elimination of this factor, the critical treatment of these remaining two chapters has been on the whole more free from attempts at analysis: the Isaianic authorship is denied, but the uniform character, if not the actual unity of composition, mostly upheld. Duhm is the only critic who carries the disintegrating process over into chapter 32 for the purpose of separating between genuine and spurious elements. He gives verses 1-5 to Isaiah, makes verses 6-8 late, and separates verses 9-14 from verses 15-20, yet without detriment to the Isaianic origin of the two last-mentioned pieces. This adherence to the divisive principle has in the present case at least the advantage of saving a good deal of the contents of our chapter to the prophet, as may be seen from the fact that Hackmann, who abandons this principle in reference to verses 1-8, also denies the genuineness of the entire section, thus keeping as Isaianic only verses 9-20, and even that with hesitation. Cheyne declares the whole chapter post-exilic, dividing it into the three parts, verses 1-8, 9-14, 15-20. Chapter 33 is considered a unit by most critics.[137]
To view the present criticism of chapter 32 in its proper light it should be remembered that the original attack upon this chapter derived its main force from the assumption of the genuineness of the Messianic prophecies in chapters 9 and 11, and of the promissory material in Chapters 28-31. Said Stade: "A greater difference as to power of poetic representation than exists between 9:5, 6, 11:1, 9 (cf. also 29:17-21) on the one hand, and chapter 32:1-8 on the other hand, I cannot conceive." And again: "If we wish to form an idea of the person and work of Isaiah, we must do so on the basis of chapters 22, 28-31. ... I hope I have shown that in the figure reconstructed from chapters 22, 28-31 there is no place for the features gathered from chapters 32, 33. " Still further: "The prospect that Jerusalem is to be laid waste cannot be reconciled with Isaiah's ordinary expectation of the future."[138] Now Hackmann and Cheyne no longer believe in the genuineness of these prophecies in Chapters 9-11, 28-31, and protest against finding there the historical lifelike Isaiah. Hence, while adhering to Stade's conclusion, they must deny themselves the use of his principal argument. Under these circumstances it might not seem unreasonable to expect that criticism would reverse its former judgment. If the Messianic picture of 32:1-8 was rejected because of its soberness in comparison with the glowing colors of Chapters 9 and 11, why, now that the latter have been recognized as laid on by a later hand, are not the restraint and simplicity observable in chapter 32 allowed to count in favor of Isaianic authorship? If chapter 32:9-20 was denied a place among the genuine oracles of the Sennacherib-crisis because verse 14 foretells a long desolation of Jerusalem, thus contradicting the prospect of immediate deliverance held forth in Chapters 28-31, then this very feature ought now to strengthen the case of its genuineness with those who assume that Isaiah expected during that crisis the fall and destruction of the city precisely as here announced. So it would be indeed if modern criticism contented itself with being purely historical and with putting the sole question whether a certain prophecy can be fitted into the writer's general outlook upon the future at a given time. In reality, however, the decisive considerations with the critics lie not in the historical background, but in the religious ideas of the prophecy. Let it agree ever so well with what is known concerning the course of events in Isaiah's time and the attitude assumed toward them by the prophet, this will not save its genuineness in case the theological conceptions and general religious atmosphere on the principles of evolution require a later origin. Historically speaking, nothing more in harmony with the attitude of Isaiah, as understood by the critics themselves, could be conceived than the prophecy in verses 1-4, nothing could be made to fit more admirably into their own construction of the prophet's message in 701 than the gloomy words of verse 14. But all this can have no weight so long as the reflective and didactic tone and contents of verses 4-8 are felt to "belong to an advanced stage of national development, when ethical terminology had become a subject of study and the idea of a moral (as opposed to a merely ceremonial) reformation had sunk deeply into the minds of the faithful;" or so long as the derivation of the national renewal from the outpouring of the Spirit (verse 15), instead of a spontaneous moral act, is believed to indicate that "we are listening to none of the primitive prophets, but to one of the ablest disciples of that great prophet of the Spirit, Ezekiel."[139] The similarity of these and other religious ideas to those characteristic of the exscinded sections in chapters 28-31 furnishes an irresistible motive for the rejection of chapter 32.[140] Discounting this and leaving out of consideration for the present the linguistic phenomena, what remains of the critical argument will be seen to lack all convincing force. First the indefiniteness of the reference to "kings" and "princes" is appealed to as proving that the writer lived in a kingless age, and deemed it necessary to intimate that the institution of the kingdom would be restored in the future.[141] It is plain, however, from the whole statement that the emphasis rests not on the fact that there will be a king, but exclusively on the manner in which he will exercise his rule; and this in itself suggests a contrast between him and the imperfect king of the writer's present. Besides, if there was no king, there certainly were Myr# in the post-exilic times; which proves that every thought of a restoration of extinct offices was foreign to the author's mind. The anarthrous form of the nouns is most naturally explained from this, that, in harmony with the context, the idea of a thorough national reform filled the prophet's soul, so that not the concrete personality of the Messiah, but the abstract quality of his reign as the main force in insuring the perfect society acquired importance. Hence the absence of the personal definiteness found in the descriptions of Chapters 9 and 11 and the coordination of the Messiah and his associates in the government, "the princes."[142] And, inasmuch as the preceding discourses were directed rather against the Judean magnates than against the king, it was to be expected that the emphasis should be equally distributed here and the princes receive even greater prominence than the ideal king.[143] On the other hand, a post-exilic writer, to whom the kingdom as such possessed the absorbing interest of a thing belonging to the Messianic future, would hardly have exercised such restraint of the imagination as to dwell exclusively on its ethical significance.[144]
No more conclusive than this are the undoctrinal arguments used to discredit the Isaianic origin of verses 9-20. These may be reduced to two heads: the alleged vagueness and the alleged imitative character of the discourse. In substantiation of the former charge, it is said, for example, that, whereas the prophecy begins with reproving the women for their false security, this purpose is immediately lost sight of and a general destruction announced in terms lacking all specific reference to the women's fate. The answer to this is obvious: verses 12-14, in depicting the desolation of pleasant fields, fruitful vines, houses of joy and palaces, are meant as a solemn warning to the women that the immediate and visible sources of their comfort, which for the present still enable them to ignore the coming danger, will fail. It is true the general situation which occasioned the prophecy is not sharply outlined, we do not learn in what precisely the reprehensible feeling of ease and confidence of these women manifested itself; but what is indefinite to us may have been to the prophet and his public perfectly clear and specific because defined by the circumstances under which it was spoken. The vagueness is no greater than, e.g., that of chapter 18, the genuineness of which is questioned by nobody; the only difference is that there we are fortunately able, on the basis of other prophecies, to reconstrue the situation, whilst here we lack the data for doing this.[145]
As to the imitative character of the style of this section, nothing less than unmistakable dependence upon post-Isaianic passages or erroneous reproduction of Isaianic material would be decisive here, since it is absolutely impossible to determine how far a writer may or may not be capable of repeating with slight variations the thought or expression of some former discourse. Suppose it were proven that verse 9 imitates Genesis 4:23, or Amos 6:1; no reason is conceivable why the imitator should not be Isaiah.[146] Much has been made of the dependence of verse 15 on 29:17, orvice versa. Duhm thinks that our passage is a mistaken quotation of the older passage in chapter 29. The change of Lebanon into garden-land and of garden-land into forest is in chapter 29 used as a figure to describe thereversalof existing conditions. According to Duhm, the writer of 32 misunderstood this, and interpreting the words in question of araisingof all conditions to a higher plane, thus gave expression to the essentially different thought, that the wilderness will become garden-land and the garden-land forest. Even if this interpretation of verse 15 by Duhm were correct, it would by no means follow from this that what we have before us is a case of mistaken quotation. There is nothing unworthy of the prophet in the idea that he himself gave this new and suggestive turn to words used on a previous occasion. That the coming revolution of things would at the same time raise life to higher potentialities was a thought of sufficient importance to deserve explicit statement. The proposed exegesis is, however, far from necessary or even natural. To us it seems that the writer of 32:15 meant to express the thought thus imputed to him as little as it is meant to be expressed in 29:17. He could not well place the "forest" (r(y) above the "garden-land" (lmrb). The former is rather the wild forest in contrast with the cultivated soil, and that the writer puts lmrb above r(y is shown conclusively by the substitution for the latter of rbdm in verse 16 : "Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness shall abide in the fruitful field."[147] Consequently it is safe to assume that his words imply no more than a reversal of existing conditions, a result still further confirmed by the fact that according to verse 16 the rbdm = r(y remains, whereas on the view imputed to him by Duhm all rbdm would be changed into lmrb.[148]
If thus nothing can be discovered in chapter 32 inconsistent with Isaiah's authorship, there are, on the other hand, some features which seem positively to exclude post-exilic origin. It is incredible, in view of all we know of that period, that one of its writers should have foretold the total destruction of Jerusalem, and that Mlw( d( "for ever." Nor is it easy to explain how a later author could risk such a definite prediction as that contained in the words, "for days beyond a year" (verse 10).[149] Here, as elsewhere, it is highly significant that none of the critics has ventured to fix the alleged post-exilic date of the prophecy with any degree of definiteness. It is not sound criticism to abandon a date which invests the oracle with at least a certain amount of historical meaning in order to set it adrift upon the mostly unknown sea of the post-exilic period.[150]
The same may be said in reference to chapter 33. Without the slightest violence, the facts and conditions here presupposed can be made to fit into what we know about the course of events in, and immediately before the year 701. From a combination of the account in 2 Kings 18:13-19:37 (= Isaiah 36-37) and the Assyrian records it appears that after some sort of understanding had been reached between Sennacherib and Hezekiah and a tribute paid by the latter, the Assyrian king for some reason changed his mind, broke the agreement and renewed hostilities. Chapter 33:1 refers to this treachery on the part of Sennacherib. Verse 7 seq.speak of the embassy of peace sent to Lachish (2 Kings 18:14) and of the renewed havoc wrought by the invaders in the already devastated land. Verse 14 alludes to the severe threats of ruin for the sinners in Jerusalem with which Isaiah had constantly interwoven his promise of ultimate deliverance. Verse 18 finally mentions the payment of the tribute. This is a chain of correspondences as strong as can be supplied for any prophecy with an historical background, and must be considered the weightiest evidence in favor of the genuineness of our chapter. To this view of the matter indeed two objections will be raised: first, that the Assyrian inscriptions know nothing of such a course of events as is here assumed with a renewal of hostilities after Hezekiah had first capitulated and agreed to pay a tribute of submission; and secondly, that the narrative in 2 Kings 18:13-19:37 has long been known to be a composite piece in which not successive developments in the Sennacherib-campaign are described, but three different and in some points contradictory versions given of the same occurrences. Consequently, it is claimed, we are not justified in creating a historical milieu for Isaiah 33 by making 2 Kings 18:13-16 descriptive of the first stage of Sennacherib's proceedings, instead of, what criticism has proven it to be, a compact account, and that the most reliable of the three accounts here conglomerated, covering the whole campaign. Against the former of these two objections we must urge that there is more than blind faith in the Biblical representation to make us doubt the accuracy of the Assyrian record. We have reason to surmise that some such version of events as is reflected in Isaiah 33 must stand nearer to the historical reality. In more than one respect Sennacherib's own statement gives rise to this presumption. It represents Hezekiah's tribute as sent through an envoy to Nineveh, whereas as a matter of fact it was rendered at Lachish (2 Kings 18:14).[151] While this is already an indication that the payment belongs to an earlier stage of the campaign than the king would have us believe, inasmuch as he marches from Lachish to Libna,[152] still further plausibility is given to such a view by what is related concerning King Padi of Ekron. This prince had been deposed by the anti-Assyrian party and delivered for safe-keeping to Hezekiah at Jerusalem. Now Sennacherib tells us that Padi was brought out of Jerusalem and replaced on his throne apparently before the final attempt on Jerusalem occurred. And that this is not inserted in the account proleptically, but in its proper chronological position, follows from the fact that the gift to Padi of part of the territory conquered from Judea is afterwards mentioned as preceding the measures taken against Jerusalem. Padi's release from his prison in Jerusalem presupposes a submission of Hezekiah at a comparatively early stage of the campaign and a consequent suspension of hostilities against Judah. Thus the sequence of 2 Kings 18:16, 17, is confirmed, and it becomes probable that the payment of the tribute has been transferred from the middle to the end of the campaign for the express purpose of covering up the miscarriage of the later expedition against the Judean capital. That this is a reasonable interpretation of the facts, and one which may well be reached without undue harmonistic bias, will be seen from its adoption by Wellhausen.[153]
If thus the historical character of the sequence of events assumed in 2 Kings 18, verses 13 and 17, appears to rest on a sufficiently firm basis, the further question as to the literary unity or compositeness of the narrative there becomes immaterial for the genuineness of Isaiah 33. Let us suppose that two accounts of the same episode are interwoven in Kings (one consisting of chapter 18:17-19:9a, the other of 19:9b-35, discounting later glosses and insertions). This would be inconsistent with the Isaianic authorship of Isaiah 33, only if it could be proven that the writer of this chapter had before him the unified account and treated its component parts as successive steps in the history of the year 701. Cheyne, indeed, claims that our prophecy, though late, was nevertheless written to fit the assumed situation of the Sennacherib crisis, and that the author drew the view of the order of events which underlies his composition from the narrative in 2 Kings 18:13-19:37.[154] But of suchliterarydependence there is not a trace. It is impossible so much as to infer from chapter 33 that the writer followed a history in which Sennacherib was said to have sent twice to Hezekiah demanding the surrender of the city. All he assumes is that first some sort of pacification had been reached between Hezekiah and the Assyrian king and that afterwards the latter perfidiously renewed the hostilities. There is no evidence whatever that this information was derived from reading the account in 2 Kings. On the contrary, the terms in which the conduct of the Assyrians is characterized are much more vivid than would have been suggested by a mere literary reproduction and reading between the lines of the verses in Kings. But we may go further than this. If the fictitious situation of Isaiah 33 is artificially constructed out of the composite narrative in Kings, how is it to be explained that no allusion to the twofold message of Sennacherib appears therein? Why does the author, who so sharply distinguishes between the first attack of the Assyrians on Judah and the later one, so entirely blend together the two stages of the later attempt upon the capital, which his source taught him to distinguish? So long as this question is not answered the dependence of Isaiah 33 on the redaction of the book of Kings must be held not only unproven, but also highly improbable.
In view of what has been said it is fair to assume that on purely historical grounds no one would have seriously called in question the genuineness of our prophecy. That, nevertheless, the present drift of criticism is toward the denial of this is plainly due to doctrinal considerations. The following are the reasons enumerated by Cheyne to prove the post-exilic standpoint of the writer. The liturgical tendency which crops out in verse 2 in the self identification of the speaker with his people, showing that not only the germ of a Church, but a Church itself existed; the prophecy is the prayer or meditation of a righteous people, and no attempt is made to bring sinners to repentance or to terrify them by warnings; the writer reveals great enthusiasm for religious services (verse 20); has a sensuous conception of the divine presence in Zion (verse 14); betrays acquaintance with the Psalms, and, since no part of the Psalter has yet been shown to have a pre-exilic basis, this proves his post-exilic date; his Messianic belief is vague and his conception of Jerusalem's enemies indistinct and un-Isaianic.[155] Of these criteria the majority will be immediately recognized as instances of the application of the evolutionary principle to the criticism of Isaiah. The arguments from verses 2 and 20 will lack all force for one who believes that there was a church-nation in Isaiah's time, and that the prophet could delight in its religious assemblies. There are examples in undisputed Isaianic discourses where the prophet identifies himself with the nation (cf. 1:9, 6:11, 8:10, 14:32, 17:14, 22:4). As to the writer's acquaintance with the Psalter, it is certainly not over-conservative to adhere to the belief that a solid stock of the Psalter existed toward the close of the eighth century,[156] and that the modern view concerning the late origin of the Psalms is nothing but a corollary of the theory of development. The vagueness of the Messianic belief expressed in verse 17 ought to weigh little or to weigh on the other side with Cheyne, who himself inclines to the rejection of the more concrete pictures of Chapters 9 and 11. But it cannot even be made to count against the traditional view which retains the latter as Isaianic. The personal Messianic conception, if it enter into verse 17 at all, and not simply King Hezekiah be referred to, is introduced here as a subordinate element by way of contrast with the humiliation the present king had been made to undergo.[157] The generalizing terms in which Jerusalem's enemies are spoken of in verses 3 and 12 are not essentially different from those employed in Chapters 8:9, 10, 14:26, 27, 17:12-14, and simply show that Isaiah had grasped the antithesis between the world and the kingdom of Jehovah, and realized the typical import of the Assyrian crisis. Cheyne himself believes that the post-exilic writer enlarged upon the extant Isaianic prophecies because he regarded them as having a still unexhausted validity, and because to him and others the overthrow of Sennacherib had become typical of the great future judgment. This proves that the typical interpretation is not superimposed on the prophecy, but suggested by the words themselves. If, however, there are sufficient historical grounds on which to affirm the Isaianic authorship, its denial on account of the typical import alone would be unjustified. What ground have we to assume that Ezekiel must have been the first to frame the dogma of a final world-attack upon Jerusalem, and that this dogma cannot have its roots in Isaiah, except thea prioriground that early prophecy is too naively bound up in the present, too humanly limited, to combine in one perspective the issues immediately impending with those of a remote future?[158] The only two features which remain after the subtraction of all this, and which, if correctly interpreted by the critics, would certainly betray affinity with post-exilic Judaism are the alleged absence of the demand for repentance and the sensuous conception of the divine presence in Zion found in verse 14. But in regard to the former, we may answer that verse 14 proves the intensely ethical spirit of ancient prophetism not to be wanting here. The sinners in Zion, it is true, are represented as first wakening to a sense of the divine righteousness and of their own delinquency through the judgment, but from the writer's standpoint this in itself is evidence of their confirmed wickedness, a conception characteristically Isaianic. The prophet on his part is keenly conscious of the preponderance of the evil element among his people before the judgment arrives.[159] What more stringent rebuke of sin and what more urgent call to repentance can be imagined than such a prediction of the fiercest of judgments, the exposure of the wicked to their own conscience? And what could be more in harmony with the import of the other prophecies in Chapters 28-31 than this distinction of a double purpose in the divine overruling of the crisis, the punishment of Assyria together with the punishment of Judah? The only difference is that in the discourses spoken before the invasion the sharp edge of the prophet's denunciation is turned more directly against his obdurate countrymen, whilst here in the midst of the calamity and under the fresh impression of the Assyrian perfidy, the foreign foe comes in for the first and larger share of the invective. Finally, the view that verse 14b refers to a visible manifestation of God in fire, instead of being a mere figurative description of the ceaseless activity of the divine righteousness, has been first proposed by Duhm, who compares a passage in the book of Enoch, chapter 14:15, seq.[160] This is a case of undue forcing of the literal meaning of words, analogous to the one we have observed on chapter 2:1. Undoubtedly the passage is dependent on Psalms 15:1, where the absence of the notion of fire puts the figurative intent beyond question. The latter is also favored by the numerous instances in which Isaiah in undisputed passages represents the divine holiness as a devouring fire (cf. 1:25, 31, 5:24, 25, 9:19, 29:6). It is true, this figure here associates itself for Isaiah with the thought of Jehovah's dwelling among Israel on Zion, and assumes the specific form that those who reside in the center of the theocracy are most exposed to the consuming power of his ethical nature. But this imposes no necessity to think of a physical visible phenomenon terrible in proportion to its local nearness. Nothing more is meant than that close association with the central institutions symbolizing Jehovah's kingship over Israel requires special purity of life. This is precisely the same thought which has found classical expression in the account of the vision of chapter 6.[161]
Here as well as in reference to chapter 32:9-20 the critics are unable to fix upon any definite post-exilic date at which the writing of the prophecy becomes intelligible. And yet its terms are such that circumstances of the most concrete kind must have furnished the occasion for its composition. Duhm alone has ventured a specific dating. He would have us think of the conquest of Jerusalem by Antiochus Eupator about the year 162 B.C. But the two situations differ in important particulars. According to Isaiah 33, the country and outlying cities have been laid waste by the enemy, but the capital has not been touched as yet. In the year 162, on the other hand, Zion itself was compelled to capitulate and the treachery of the Syrians consisted in reducing its strongholds contrary to the promise of the king (cf. 1 Maccab 6:18-62). Of the payment of a tribute at that particular time nothing is recorded. It is also doubtful whether the troops collected by Antiochus from "other kingdoms and from the islands of the sea" could be fitly designated, "a people of a deep speech that thou canst not perceive; of a strange tongue that thou canst not understand" (verse 19).
Our discussion up to this point has been concerned with the internal character of the disputed prophecies themselves. We have examined at some length the phenomena which are believed to point to editorial expansion of an original Isaianic stock, and have endeavored to show their inadequacy for establishing this view and the possibility of interpreting the prophecies from the standpoint that Isaiah wrote the entire collection. The matter, however, admits of being considered from two other sides. We may ask in the first place whether those sections of the present group of prophecies which even the critics retain are, as they stand in the critical reconstruction of the genuine Isaianic text, free from all promissory, eschatological material. And secondly the question may be put what light the other groups of admitted Isaianic discourses shed on the point at issue—whether the prophet faced the crisis of Sennacherib's campaign with or without the confidence that Jehovah would work salvation for His people.
In connection with the first inquiry, three passages come under consideration, Chapters 28:16; 23:18; 30:27-33. Of these 28:16 is above all critical suspicion; the two others, though denied to the prophet by Cheyne, are still considered Isaianic by Duhm; 28:25-29 also by Hackmann, who, however, protests against assigning this section to the Sennacherib-period. This protest is a virtual confession that a prophecy whose genuineness is not subject to reasonable doubt must be removed from its present position among the adjoining Sennacherib-discourses, before the recent hypothesis of the purely denunciatory character of these discourses can be consistently carried through. In other words, the critical exegesis of the acknowledged Isaianic parts of Chapters 28-31 is irreconcilable with the plain sense of a prophecy equally entitled to recognition, but whose testimony is summarily disposed of by transferring it to some other undefined period of the prophet's life. The burden of this characteristic Mashal is the very opposite of what the critics make out to have been the burden of Isaiah's message in the crisis under discussion. It is none other than that Jehovah "pursues in His judgment a positive purpose of salvation, the building of His kingdom."[162] Jehovah, who has instructed the husbandman to plow, not forever, but only until the ground shall be prepared for receiving the seed, and to treat with discrimination the various kinds of grain harvested from it, so as to beat out fitches and cumin with a staff or rod, whilst upon the bread-corn the sledge and cartwheel may be turned, yet with moderation lest they grind it—Jehovah, who has taught all this, cannot Himself pursue any less careful or discriminating method in His husbandry with Israel. To the plowing of His judgments also there must be a limit because out of the present empirical Israel a future ideal Israel must be produced by means of "the holy seed" (6:13); and now that the climax of His work,[163] the final gathering in of the harvest has arrived, He proceeds to separate the chaff from the wheat of His people, but in such a careful and judicious manner that none of the latter is injured in the least.[164] The thoughts thus elaborated are in full harmony with the view that Isaiah expected, on the one hand, that Sennacherib would bring Jerusalem to the verge of ruin, but, on the other hand, viewed the whole process of judgment as governed by the principle of salvation and not of destruction.[165]
Chapter 30:27-33 differs from the section just discussed in that the overthrow of the Assyrian is here explicitly announced and placed in the foreground. As above Hackmann, so in the present case Cheyne protests in advance against admitting its testimony for determining the attitude of Isaiah during the Sennacherib-campaign: "If it be really Isaiah's work it must belong to a later period than the preceding discourses." He then proceeds to argue against the Isaianic authorship with reasons largely derived from the linguistic phenomena. The few other considerations adduced are either based on the evolutionary theory, or apply in the well-known way a previously fixed standard of the prophet's capabilities in a psychological or literary respect. Of the former nature is the statement that verse 29 makes mention of a religious festival-song, and, for Isaiah, betrays too strong a sympathetic interest in festival processions. The reference to the Passover-celebration in this verse springs rather from a historical than from a liturgical motive, the deliverance from Assyria being compared to that from Egypt of which the Passover was the memorial-feast. Unless the connection between Passover and exodus bea priorideclared late, there is nothing in the sentiment expressed impossible or unnatural to Isaiah. That the phrase, "Jahve's name" (verse 27), is un-Isaianic and late can be maintained only after the unwarranted excision of chapter 18:7, already touched upon, and it may be doubted whether a late writer would so easily have represented the theophany as coming "from afar." The features taken exception to on psychological and aesthetic grounds are the excessive bitterness felt by the writer toward the Assyrian and the little poetic restraint exercised in the portrayal of his destruction. Cheyne thinks that a comparison of our prophecy from this point of view with chapter 18 reveals a great difference, telling strongly against the genuineness of the former. This, however, overlooks the fact that in chapter 18 not the overthrow of the Assyrian in itself, but Jehovah's intention to bring about this overthrow, unaided by any human power, is the central thought of the discourse, whilst here the punishment of Judah's enemies is dwelt upon for its own sake. Once granted that Isaiah could, from religious and patriotic motives, contemplate the Assyrian's fall with satisfaction, no fault can be found with the form in which the judgment-scene is here depicted. Due allowance must be made for the grandly poetic manner in which the whole is conceived from which, rather than from an overflow of bitter feeling, theverveand the detailed character of the description must be explained. After all, Cheyne himself remarks that Isaiah's statement in chapter 18:6 is "awful," so that, as far as the sentiment embodied in both passages is concerned, the difference appears a relative one, and there is no occasion to find the one expressive of righteous resentment, the other of "vindictive pleasure." Some of the denunciations hurled by the prophet against the sinners in Zion might otherwise be criticized on the same ground.[166]
The third passage of promissory import as yet untouched by the critical analysis is chapter 28:16. In view of its implications it may well create surprise that no one has hitherto pointed to it with suspicion. But the verse is too firmly embedded in the context to allow of the easy operation whereby the two relatively independent sections, 28:23-29 and 30:27-33, are removed; verse 17 presupposes it and verse 17 itself is an integral part of the prophecy of threatening, consequently must be Isaianic on the critical view. Where analysis gives out, however, it still remains possible to bring the objectionable verse into harmony with the hypothesis by means of a peculiar interpretation. Hackmann, in a statement already quoted in another connection,[167] attempts to do this. He thinks that the passage with many other prophetic passages has shared the fate of being exploited by the traditional exegesis in the interest of the Messianic theology, but that the simple sense as determined by the context is sufficiently plain. This sense he paraphrases as follows: "Ye have placed your confidence in the alliance with Egypt in which ye deem yourselves secure: but this policy is carried on in deceit and falsehood (the negotiations were kept secret as well from Assyria as from Jahve and His prophet, and besides may have involved many a questionable manipulation on the part of the grandees); Jahve, on the contrary, makes the foundation trust in himself, in the exercise of which righteousness and judgment, honest discharge of your obligations (as tributary to Assyria) are to be binding, until Jahve's providence brings deliverance; ye abandon the only secure basis of trust in Jahve and of honest dealing and rely on Egypt with the aid of fraud and dissimulation—by doing this ye have sealed your fate."[168]
But whatever may be the case elsewhere, it is certain that in the present instance the so-called Messianic interpretation (in the wider sense) has more to support it in the words themselves than Hackmann allows. The divine act spoken of must be something more than the laying down of an abstract principle on which to suspend the fate of the Judeans. Not the hypothetical appointment, but the real establishment of a place of security is referred to. This follows from the description given of the foundation-stone. It is said to have been laid "in Zion," a statement which would be without significance unless the firmness of the foundation and the immunity of Zion in the coming crisis were in some sense interdependent. The preciousness of this stone laid in Zion is further emphasized, which again shows that it possesses a positive value in the prophet's estimation on account of the glorious structure surely to be raised on it. The same conclusion must be drawn from the fact that to faith in the foundation laid there is attached the promise of security. If trust in Jehovah still remains in the prophet's view the proper frame of mind, if there are still, as his words imply, those who exercise it, and if it still guarantees them safety, then the impending judgment must necessarily have its reverse side of protection and deliverance. Hackmann's paraphrase fails to do justice to all these features. They can be satisfactorily explained on no other view than that verse 16 actually alludes to Zion's escape from the Assyrian attack through a divine interposition, the certainty of this escape being given in the necessity of Zion's continued existence for the accomplishment of Jehovah's purpose. It is true the prophet affirms this truth not for its own sake: he describes the divine method of salvation simply to bring out by way of contrast that the measures adopted by the politicians are utterly worthless and to emphasize that the nature of Jehovah's plan, as requiring faith, precludes their sharing in its benefits. The whole statement is obviously turned against the rulers of Jerusalem and the Nbl which opens verse 16 has its usual ominous sense. Nevertheless, the very manner in which it is turned against them implies that some positive provision for the preservation of Zion has been made. It is only in verse 17, where the further construction of the building on the foundation already laid is spoken of, that the statement assumes the conditional form. Not the stone is the test-principle, but righteousness and judgment appear as the line and plummet by which Jehovah determines who will become citizens of the new Zion in process of construction.
Having thus seen that in two places the discourses of Chapters 28-31 reflect the prophet's confidence in the preservation of Zion as the goal of the approaching judgment, we must next inquire what presumptive evidence to strengthen this conclusion may be gathered from other Isaianic prophecies. The utterances of Chapters 28-33 are not the only material concerned with the events of the year 701 that has come down to us from the pen of Isaiah. There are several prophecies scattered throughout the book which, with more or less agreement among scholars, are recognized as genuine and either belonging to the same period or at least looking forward to its developments. In reviewing these pieces, two questions should be kept in mind: 1. Did the prophet foresee that the Assyrian army would be overtaken by disaster? 2. Did he expect this catastrophe before or after the conquest of Jerusalem by the enemy?
We begin our investigation with Chapters 7 and 8. Here it is plain and now well-nigh universally recognized, that the sign of Immanuel (apart from its more remote Messianic implication, with which we have not here to deal) is intended as a pledge of deliverance to Judah. But the question is to what the deliverance promised in this name refers. Is it confined to the collapse of the Syro-Ephraimitic confederacy against Judah, or does it include also salvation from some later and more dangerous crisis? The recent critics, Duhm, Hackmann and Cheyne, think that no more is implied in the name Immanuel than that, as over against Syria and Ephraim, God will be on the side of Judah. The sign actually given does not essentially differ from the sign originally offered and, like the latter, is a sign of encouragement to Ahaz and the Judeans. Within a year mothers will call their children then born Immanuel in view of the destruction of Judah's allied enemies. This restriction of the meaning of the sign is undoubtedly calculated to satisfy the modern desire for straightforwardness and simplicity in the prophetic thought. But it is open to serious objections on exegetical grounds. First of all it compels those who hold it to excise chapter 7:15 as a gloss because here a further development, the devastation of Judah, is associated with the person of Immanuel, so that His significance appears to extend beyond his birth and name-giving to His subsequent experience. And it should be observed that there is nothing in the phraseology of this verse why it should be suspected: the case is entirely one of ruling out a subsequent statement by interpretation of what precedes. Still further this view neglects the obvious change in the prophet's tone, taking place in verses 13, 14, in response to the attitude assumed by the king. It is impossible that, after having solemnly announced the principle, "if ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established," the prophet should take no cognizance of the unbelief so clearly revealed in Ahaz's words, and repeat his original message as if nothing had intervened. The wording of verses 13, 14, moreover, the "hear ye now," the reference to "the wearying of God," the ominous Nbl, all lead us to expect something quite different. Again, the view in question knows not what to do with verse 17. It is impossible to take this verse as the beginning of a new prophecy uttered on a later occasion, for it is much more clearly marked off from verse 18 than from verse 16. Hence nothing remains but to declare it an editorial insertion intended to link together two prophecies of different dates. But here also it must be noted that, inasmuch as the verse contains nothing suspicious on the ground of style and language, its sacrifice is plainly due to the exigencies of this novel exegesis. And even though one were to overlook all this, verses 18-20 are at all events directed against Judah.[169] This entails the necessity of assuming that between the dates at which verses 16 and 18 seq. were severally spoken a crisis had occurred in the affairs of Judah, whereby the prophet was led to substitute threatening for encouragement. But why should the occurrence of such a crisis at this point have been left unrecorded? Are we at liberty to ignore the plain indications in the text that the crisis was reached when Ahaz refused the sign, and then to postulate one afterwards, where there is no basis for it in the narrative? The same question applies to Hackmann, who places the turning-point between 8:4 and 5.[170]
If, then, Immanuel marks not only by his infancy the deliverance of Judah from Ephraim and Syria, but also by his early youth the invasion of Judah itself, it becomes necessary, in order to insure the promissory import of the sign at its end, that to these two there be added a third stage in the significance of his career, a stage in which his name will be ultimately verified by the escape of Judah from the Assyrian danger. In chapter 7, it is true, the prophecy stops short of the unfolding of this last idea, although it is not obscurely intimated that, in consequence of the destiny expressed in his name, the calamities that befall him must issue for his good. In chapter 8:9, 10, however, the prophet supplements this deficiency and explicitly states that the counsel of the peoples and far-off countries must come to naught because God is with the remnant of Judah in accordance with the sign given.[171] Of the critics at least Duhm and Cheyne[172] acknowledge the Isaianic character of these two verses. Says the latter: "If they are not by Isaiah, they are a good imitation of his style. Certainly their energy is worthy of Isaiah. Nor is the phraseology unlike his. The ideas, too, are not alien to Isaiah."[173] But they refuse to be guided by the passage in their interpretation of the name Immanuel, on the ground that here it is an editorial addition and forms no part of the original discourse. We are constrained to believe that the main motive for this assumption lies in the exegesis forced upon chapter 7 and in the determination to deny every meaning of the name Immanuel extending beyond the events of the year 734. Whosoever does not approach the text with this preconceived view will find its use in both verses 8 and 10 perfectly natural. In the former verse it is introduced partly to emphasize the glaring contradiction between Judah's ultimate destiny of deliverance and its nearer devastation by the enemy, partly to strike the keynote for the exultant strain of verse 9, whilst in verse 10 it fitly closes this strain as a single full-sounding peal of triumph. Taking it as a whole, the prophet could not have more characteristically expressed his belief in the continuity of the divine purpose of salvation through all the successive stages of Judah's impending judgment. But even if the name Immanuel in verses 8 and 10 were proven a later gloss, the remaining oracle of verses 9, 10, would still testily that Isaiah foresaw during the Syro-Ephraimitic crisis the frustration of Assyria's plan. For there is no sufficient reason to assume with Giesebrecht and Cheyne that these verses were added at a later date by Isaiah himself for the purpose of supplementing the foregoing prophecy against Judah with a more hopeful view. They stand among utterances which all without exception belong to the neighborhood of 734. That the transition from verse 8 to verse 9 is psychologically quite conceivable has been shown above. The yb of verse 11 makes sufficient connection with what precedes, on the view that verses 9, 10, express a confidence peculiar to Isaiah and the small circle of his friends as distinguished from the trembling mass of the people, the possession of which confidence the prophet justifies with an appeal to a revelation expressly sent by Jehovah to warn him against participation in the irreligious fear of the others. And, as Duhm has already observed, the connection which verse 11 would make with verse 8 is by no means so much preferable to this, as to furnish an argument for the elimination of verses 9 and 10 from the original context.[174] The fact remains, therefore, that we have here an early witness to the Isaianic character of the doctrine of Judah's deliverance. And, though it is not expressly stated that the enemy's counsel will be brought to naught before Zion is conquered, nevertheless the terms used, taken in connection with the statement of verse 8, that the invasion will reach "to the neck," rather favor this interpretation.
The fact that Isaiah as early as 734 predicted the ultimate defeat of the Assyrian attack upon Judah speaks in favor of the genuineness of the disputed sections of Chapters 28-33. A belief thus firmly held and triumphantly expressed is not likely to have been given up by a prophet of the temper of Isaiah at the very time when history was about to put its correctness to the test. If the critics desire to be thorough in their removal of the promissory element from the prophecies of Isaiah, they should attack this element in its root in Chapters 7 and 8. In point of fact, an attempt has been made in this direction by Prof. F.C. Porter, in an article published in vol. 14 of theJournal of Biblical Literature(1895). In order to avoid the difficulties which appear to him connected with the ordinary view, as well as those besetting the modern exegesis of Duhm, Hackmann and Cheyne, the author suggests that the name Immanuel be understood as expressing "not the prophet's faith, but the false faith, the ungrounded confidence of the king and the people." "It is a name," he says, "which a Jewish woman soon to give birth might naturally give to her son, but which the experiences of such a son even in his earliest infancy would contradict." The sign would then consist "not in the name nor in the lot of the boy, but in the relation of the two, in the contradiction of the name by the lot." Prof. Porter's further statement and defense of this theory are instructive from more than one point of view. Over against Duhm, Hackmann and Cheyne his position is strong, because it avoids the mutilation of the text of chapter 7 by the arbitrary rejection of verses 15 and 17. If one of the two sides of the sign is to be sacrificed, to do so in the purely exegetical way proposed by Prof. Porter with the effect of eliminating the promise is certainly preferable to doing it by critical means with the opposite effect of removing the threatening. But what we are most concerned with at the present moment is the extent to which the author has been influenced in reaching this conclusion by his general conception of the early prophetic standpoint. The first and chief argument he urges in support of his view is "that Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah and Jeremiah are not to be regarded as the authors, but rather as the critics of the national, or so-called Messianic hope." In other words, Prof. Porter has felt and justly felt that the hitherto universally accepted exegesis of Chapters 7 and 8 is inconsistent with the modern conception of prophetism, and that the novel way in which the most recent criticism has endeavored to remove the contradiction has been unsuccessful; that accordingly, another interpretation is called for to effect a thorough and permanent reconciliation. It must be even acknowledged that the view commended by him for this purpose is in the highest degree ingenious. Nevertheless, we do not believe that it will stand either the historical or the exegetical test. How could Isaiah, with his undoubtedly profound diagnosis of Ahaz's character, expect from the king a state of mind in which he would ascribe his deliverance to Jehovah? Ahaz's fault did not consist, as Prof. Porter attempts to make out, in false confidence, but in unbelief. He relied rather upon the power of the Assyrian than upon Jehovah as the national God. The contrary cannot be proven from the admonition to fear Jehovah in chapter 8:13, 14, for the opposite of fear which is here condemned consists not in false confidence, but in neglect of Jehovah, in the despising of the waters of Shiloh that go softly (verse 6). And if Ahaz was not subject to unbelief, why did Isaiah offer a sign at all? Further, even to Prof. Porter's exegesis, chapter 8:9, 10, remains a barrier which only critical excision can remove. In view of all this we prefer to retain the traditional exegesis of Isaiah 7 with its distinction of three stages in the career of Immanuel, and must insist upon it that the difficulties which it places in the way of the modern theory still await a satisfactory solution.[175]
Cheyne has briefly commented upon Prof. Porter's exegesis in theJournal of Biblical Literaturefor 1897 (p. 131). He considers the difficulties in the way of accepting it insuperable, and professes unwillingness to face its ulterior critical consequences. Unfortunately Cheyne has, as he himself states on this occasion, refrained from setting forth any positive or constructive view of the development of Isaiah's expectations of the future. He intimates that, if attempting a sketch of this kind, he would take a different course from that of the German scholars. His construction would start from the most probable critical facts and explain Isaiah's apparent inconsistencies by the help of history and psychology. This is a thoroughly sound principle, and it would be most interesting to have the result of its application by Cheyne. We believe, however, that when the help of history and psychology is not scorned out of partiality to the modern hypothesis, there are no sufficient critical grounds to abandon the unity and genuineness as a whole of Isaiah 28-33.
Chapter 14:24-27 is best assigned to the period of Sargon.[176] Here again the overthrow of the Assyrian is distinctly foretold. Nor does it remain doubtful whether the prophet places this event before or after the fall of Jerusalem. Even if one were to follow Duhm and Cheyne in excising verse 25b, "then shall his yoke depart from off them and his burden depart from off their shoulder," there would still be the significant statement in verse 25a to the effect that the predicted catastrophe is to befall the enemy in Jehovah's land and upon Jehovah's mountains. This is not merely emphasized, as Duhm thinks, because it must appear that Jehovah and no other god has vanquished Assyria; the thought is clearly implied that Jehovah will not permit that which is his own to be wrested from Him by the invader. To what an extent this conviction of Isaiah was independent of the immediate political outlook appears from a comparison of this prophecy with chapter 20. In the latter, probably belonging to the same time, the prophet shows himself fully aware that the end of the Assyrian's victorious advance is not yet in sight. The Egyptians and all the inhabitants of the Philistine coast-land will be led captive in his train. But this does not for a moment shake his belief in Judah's ultimate escape. Why, then, should Isaiah have allowed this constant element to drop out of his message in the later period, when, so far as we know, he had no such positive assurance that the supremacy of Assyria was still indefinitely to be continued?
The last passage dealing with our subject and dating from before the time of Sennacherib is chapter 17:12-14. I see no reason to separate these verses from the preceding prophecy on Damascus and Ephraim, for the progress of thought is precisely the same as that in Chapters 7 and 8. But no matter whether, adhering to this connection, we date the oracle from before 732, or with Cheyne from before 723, in either case it proves that at a comparatively early date Isaiah foretold the miscarriage of the Assyrian attack upon Judah.[177] A special feature is the suddenness of the blow here predicted: between evening and morning the enemies are swept away. As has been observed, this feature is likewise characteristic of the discourses in Chapters 28-33, so that it supplies a link of connection between the two. As in the preceding instance, the judgment upon Assyria is thought of as coupled with salvation for Judah. The triumphant tone of verse 14 admits of no other interpretation than that the oppressed will survive the oppressor.
Now it might be said that the prophecies just reviewed, while conclusive for the earlier period, do not prove Isaiah to have cherished similar expectations as late as the reign of Sennacherib. We are, however, able to trace the presence and vitality of the idea in question up to the very eve of the delivery of the discourses in Chapters 28-33. Chapter 10 and chapter 18 are by an increasing number of scholars assigned to the Sennacherib-crisis. It is uncertain which of these two prophecies is prior in time. But in all likelihood both still precede the utterances of Chapters 28-31.[178] In both the prophet speaks of a judgment on the Assyrian as imminent. In both also this judgment is expected in the form of a direct divine interposition.[179] Here, then, we have evidence that still immediately before the developments reflected in Chapters 28-31 the prophet's mind was powerfully stirred by the prospect of the Assyrian's punishment. Is it possible to believe that all of a sudden this expectation was obliterated from the consciousness of Isaiah, so that he could pass through a period of great tension and almost feverish productivity without betraying by a single word what had but a little while before claimed his supreme interest? If this can be believed, every idea of continuity in the prophet's thinking and feeling may as well be dismissed. The discovery that against his counsel and behind his back an alliance with Egypt was being concluded, will not of itself account for so radical a change of outlook. For Isaiah had never conditioned his prediction of the enemies' downfall on abstention from such an alliance, not even when the offer of it was definitely made. In chapter 18 he contents himself with announcing to the Egyptians that it is unnecessary, because Jehovah alone will work the deliverance. Had the matter presented itself as conditional to his mind, it would have been necessary to state this here in precise terms. On the other hand, if the prophecy is clothed in absolute terms, and if it embodied to Isaiah a fundamental principle, the principle of the supremacy of Jehovah's purpose in regard to Israel over the plan of the Assyrian, then we must even go one step further and say: It was impossible for a man of Isaiah's temper to revoke the same or let it pass out of notice in silence. The only psychologically conceivable and theologically consistent attitude to take, in case the maturing of an alliance threatened to interfere with the divine plan, was to declare that the unbelieving promoters of the scheme would perish, that the Egyptian help would utterly fail and that after all the purpose of Jehovah alone would stand. And this is precisely the train of thought we have found to prevail in the discourses of Chapters 28-32.
Hackmann is the only writer who has as yet attempted to correlate the negative results of the criticism of Isaiah 28-31 with the data furnished by the other prophecies, so as to outline a sketch of the development of the prophet's predictions concerning the future from the beginning till the end of his activity. It is interesting to notice how this acute critic meets the difficulty here confronting him. The two factors entering into the problem are, on the one hand, the positive assurances of Chapters 8, 10, 14, 17, 18, 20, that Judah will be rescued; on the other hand, the equally positive predictions in Chapters 28-31 (as reconstructed by the critics) that even Jerusalem will fall into the enemies' hands. Hackmann removes the contradiction in a twofold manner. First, he rules out chapter 8:9, 10, and 14:12-14 as un-Isaianic. These, it will be observed, are the passages where the deliverance of Judah is most unambiguously associated with the destruction of the enemy. In regard to chapter 18, it must be remembered that the critics amputate verse 7 on account of its Deuteronomistic implications. Even so, however, the clear meaning remains that the ruin which Jehovah is preparing for the Assyrian aims at the deliverance of his people. For this the Egyptian alliance was intended, and the prophet represents God's plan as rendering the latter superfluous. it is here that Hackmann resorts to his second means of escape from an unwelcome conclusion. He so interprets the figures of verse 4, 5, that the element of unconditional promise disappears Jehovah is waiting and looking on from His dwelling place because Judah has not yet been properly educated in the Assyrian affliction, nor has yet sufficiently learned her true dependence on God. Unfortunately this exegesis is excluded by the manner in which the prophet himself works out the figure. What Jehovah waits for is not a condition of ripeness in the Judeans, but in the Assyrians, the moment at which the latter's plan will be on the point of bearing fruit. The whole thought of the conditionality of the divine purpose is imported into the chapter from without.
The adjustment of chapter 10 is attempted partly by critical, partly by exegetical means. This is the piece which, Hackmann concedes, lends a semblance of support to the traditional view. In its present form it undoubtedly conveys the thought that the Assyrian's destruction serves the double purpose of punishing his arrogance and of delivering the Judeans. But this, according to Hackmann, is a misunderstanding arising from reading the prophecy (verses 5-19) in the light of the much later appendix (verses 20-27). The latter alone is responsible for the combination of the two above-mentioned ideas. On the contrary, verses 5-19, when interpreted by themselves, are not concerned with the destiny of Jerusalem, but exclusively with the fate of the Assyrian. The latter's sin does not consist in having overstepped the divinely set limits of his career by attacking Jerusalem, but in the boastful spirit in which he has performed his mission. Notbefore, butafterJerusalem has been conquered will the enemy be checked and rebuked. "The whole work of Jehovah," in verse 12, includes the delivery of the capital into the Assyrian's hands. Thus there is not a word of comfort for the Judeans in the whole prophecy. Hackmann endeavors to commend this exegesis by the general consideration that, after having repeatedly and emphatically announced the fall of Jerusalem, Isaiah could not in the moment of danger itself revoke all his threatenings simply because Hezekiah had at the eleventh hour been compelled by the failure of his own plans to throw himself upon the help of Jehovah.[180]
It is not necessary to insist for the refutation of this view upon the integrity of chapter 10 as a whole. The argument may with greater briefness and more apologetic weight be based on what Hackmann and the other critics admit to be Isaianic material, verse 5-19. Beforehand, however, it should be noticed, how Hackmann approaches chapter 10, from the supposition that the dispute about Chapters 28-31 has been already decided in favor of the composite character of these chapters. On this supposition Isaiah had in all his utterances of the Sennacherib-crisis subsequent to chapter 18 predicted nothing but ruin to Jerusalem, and Hackmann is, of course, justified in asking whether under such circumstances the prophet could suddenly at the last moment change his message to one of promise. In other words, the combined force of the critically manipulated sections of Chapters 28-31 is brought to bear upon chapter 10, and is allowed to influence the exegesis. The result will be totally different, if, not prejudging the case of Chapters 28-31, but admitting the element of promise there as possibly genuine, we examine chapter 10:5-19 on its own merits. Though Hackmann correctly affirms that in this section the central idea is the fate of Assyria, and not the future of Jerusalem, yet the prophet could scarcely avoid revealing indirectly what issue from the impending crisis he expected for the city. The first sin laid to the Assyrian's charge is that, instead of merely despoiling the nation, against which Jehovah sent him, he plans its extirpation. This places the limit to which Jehovah desires His instrument to go in afflicting Judah, this side the destruction of Jerusalem, which would have been equivalent to extirpation. When in the boastful speech put into the mouth of the great king the climax of the latter's presumption is found in this, that he thinks to conquer Jerusalem as easily as the other cities enumerated, this already indicates that to the prophet the recognition of the uniqueness of Jehovah was associated with the protection of Mount Zion. Not the invasion of the Judean country, but the attack upon the capital excites Isaiah's indignation, and this because it is inspired on the Assyrian's part by a belief in the superiority of himself and his gods over Jehovah. Though not absolutely necessary, it is most natural to ascribe to the prophet the opinion that the king will be unable to make good his boast.[181] Finally, the phrase, "all his work on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem" (verse 12), suggests the idea of a punitive treatment issuing not into the negative result of destruction, but in the positive one of reformation. If Cheyne were right in combining 14:24-27 with 10:13, 14, this would furnish additional proof that the catastrophe is expected before the Assyrian will have succeeded in taking Jerusalem.
A few words should be said regarding chapter 22. It has been urged that the contents of verses 1-14 can be better explained if only the threatening sections of Chapters 28-31 are Isaianic, than in case the entire complex of these discourses must be considered genuine.[182] It has further been claimed that the captivity of Shebna predicted in verse 18 cannot have been expected by the prophet as an isolated event, but must have been thought of as comprised in the captivity of the entire city.[183] In view of the uncertain exegesis of verses 1-14, and the difficulty of determining the exact situation there presupposed, as well as the point of time at which to place it, no sweeping conclusions on either side can be safely drawn from this passage. Expositors are not even agreed whether the tenses in verses 3-13 are prophetic or historical perfects, relate to the future or to the past. While some affirm the former, others the latter, of late a third view has been proposed by Hackmann, who would take verses 2b-5 as prediction, and the remainder as descriptive of what had already occurred. Without entering upon a discussion of the merits of these various views, we may note a few points. First, if verse 5 were to be taken as predictive (Cheyne: "A day of tumult, etc., has in store Jehovah of Hosts;" similarly Hackmann), and the words were spoken after the siege of Jerusalem had been raised by the Assyrian troops (cf. verses 1, 2, 13), it would follow that Isaiah even at that moment still expected that the enemy would return and the end would be the fall of the city, and this would contradict the hopeful passages of Chapters 28-31, and in so far prove the latter spurious. Neither of these two assumptions, however, seems to be necessary or even probable. The feasting on the housetops of verse 1 must be the same as that referred to in verse 13, and, inasmuch as the latter was inspired by the sentiment, "tomorrow we die," it describes not the joy of unexpected deliverance, but the wild orgies of despair.[184] The Assyrian troops are still before the city. Consequently verse 5 may be translated in the present tense: "This is a day of tumult, etc." Or, if the future be insisted upon, even this does not necessarily exclude the genuineness of the promissory sections in Chapters 28-31. In view of the anxious crisis still to be gone through, Isaiah might well speak of an approaching day of tumult and trampling and confusion, while nevertheless believing in the ultimate deliverance of the city. There is nothing in the terms used which suggests that Jerusalem must be taken, for in verse 4 "the destruction of the daughter of my people" refers to the past, to the devastated Judean country. Secondly, as regards verses 6-14, that these are retrospective follows both from the use of the tenses and from the words )whh Mwyb in verse 12. The prophet here speaks after the enemy has departed. But the form in which his threatening is clothed in nowise compels us to think that an impending destruction of the city was in his mind. The sentence, "Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die," is entirely general in its tone.[185] Thirdly, it is exceedingly difficult to imagine how Isaiah, after having unremittingly represented the coming crisis as involving the destruction of Jerusalem, could, after the event had proved him mistaken, coolly claim that it had been intended to produce conversion (verse 12). The critically reconstructed text of Isaiah 28-31 certainly does not read as a preparation for a call to repentance. It strikes the note of absolute reprobation. Its terms are such as to leave no room for the inexpiable sin as a still higher stage of iniquity. After the issue had given the lie to Isaiah's dismal forebodings and justified the optimism of the politicians, the prophet must have possessed more than ordinary naiveté, if he expected the words of verse 14 to be taken for anything else than the impotent threat of a deluded visionary. On the other hand, the interpretation of Chapters 28-31 in their integrity, not only leaves room for, but distinctly brings out the thought, that Jehovah's wonderful dealings with Jerusalem are intended to lead to her conversion. Finally, that Isaiah expected the banishment of Shebna to be brought about as a result of the conquest of Jerusalem and in connection with a general captivity of the people, the words give us no right to infer.