BS 
 
 o OLIN S 
 
 -^ 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 924 068 646 854 
 
 J^^^. <i^-^^ 
 
THE PROPHETS OF ISEAEL 
 
 THEIR PLACE IN HISTOET 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924068646854 
 
THE 
 
 PROPHETS OF ISRAEL 
 
 THEIR PLACE IN HISTORY 
 
 TO THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY B. O. 
 
 ^XQ\i '§zdmi& 
 
 BY 
 
 W. ROBERTSON SMITH, LL. D. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 72 FIFTH AVENUE 
 1895 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Lectures contained in this volume were delivered 
 last winter to large popular audiences in Edinburgh 
 and Glasgow, at the invitation of an influential com- 
 mittee of gentlemen interested in the progress of Biblical 
 study. The Lectures were to some extent planned as a 
 sequel to a course delivered in the same cities in the 
 previous winter, and published last year under the title 
 of The Old Testament in the Jewish Church. The primary 
 design of that course was to expound, in a manner 
 intelligible to persons unacquainted with Hebrew, the 
 problems and methods of modern criticism of the Old 
 Testament, and so to enable the laymen of Scotland to 
 follow with intelligence the controversy then occupying 
 the Courts of the Free Church as to the right of criticism 
 to assert itself within the Churches of the Westminster 
 Confession. So far as the Church Courts are concerned, 
 that controversy has for the present been abruptly 
 terminated, by what may fairly be called an act of 
 violence, and without a legal decision being obtained 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 from the General Assembly of the Church on questions 
 which certainly cannot be permanently disposed of until 
 they have been exhaustively considered in their relation 
 to the doctrine of the Protestant Churches on the one 
 hand, and to the laws of scientific inquiry and the evi- 
 dence of historical fact upon the other. Ecclesiastical 
 leaders have always been prone to flatter themselves 
 that questions of truth and Christian liberty can be set 
 at rest by an exertion of authority ; but those who love 
 truth for its own sake cannot acquiesce in this easy 
 method ; and not in Scotland alone, but in all Protestant 
 Churches of English tongue, it is becoming yearly more 
 manifest that thoughtful and earnest students of the 
 Bible will continue to examine the history of revelation 
 for themselves, and wiU not rest satisfied with conclu- 
 sions that do not commend themselves to the scientific 
 as well as to the religious consciousness. 
 
 For the popularisation of science in all its branches, 
 which is so characteristic of our age, has accustomed 
 men to examine the foundations of current beliefs, and 
 to acquiesce in no results that have been reached or are 
 defended by methods which science condemns. Histori- 
 cal science in particular has made vast strides ; in every 
 part of history traditional ideas have been upset, and old 
 facts have been set in a new Hght. Even schoolbooks are 
 no longer content to transcribe ancient sources, but seek 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 to interpret them on scientific and critical principles. 
 The records of our religion are historical documents, 
 and they claim the same treatment which has been so 
 fruitfully applied to the other sources of ancient history. 
 They claim it all the more because the supreme religious 
 significance of this history gives it an interest to which 
 no other part of ancient history can pretend. 
 
 In point of fact the Bible has not been neglected 
 in the general progress of historical study. A vast 
 amount of genuine work has been done in this field, 
 and, though much still remains for future research, 
 many new results of the highest importance have been 
 reached on which scholars are practically agreed. But 
 unhappily the fruits of modern BibLcal study are still 
 very little accessible to the general reader. Many of 
 them are only to be found in learned books, encumbered 
 with technicalities and written in foreign languages, or, 
 if translated, translated into that peculiar jargon which 
 only translators venture to call English. And in general 
 the best results of modern research must be sought in 
 so great a variety of books, and are often expressed in 
 so controversial a form, that it is difficult for the ordinary 
 reader to follow them and combine them into an intel- 
 ligible whole. It is far easier for the English reader to 
 gain a just view of the present state of inquiry in 
 Greek or Eoman history and literature than to learn 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 what modern scholarship has done for the history and 
 literature of the Hebrews. And yet it is manifestly 
 absurd to think that the very best use of the Bible can 
 be made by those who read it for the nourishment of 
 their religious life, so long as the history of the revela- 
 tion which it contains is imperfectly understood. In 
 the interests of religion, as well as of sound knowledge, 
 it is of the highest importance that everything which 
 scholarship has to tell about the Old and New Testa- 
 ments should be plainly and fully set before the intel- 
 ligent Bible reader. The timidity which shrinks from 
 this frankness, lest the untrained student may make a 
 wrong use of the knowledge put into his hands, is 
 wholly out of place in Protestant Churches, and in 
 modern society, which refuses to admit the legitimacy 
 of esoteric teaching. 
 
 The Lectures now laid before the public are designed 
 as a contribution to the popularisation of modern 
 Biblical science. They cover but a small part of the 
 Old Testament field, and they purposely avoid the tone 
 of theological controversy. There are, indeed, many 
 questions relating to the prophets and their work on 
 which controversial feeling is still keen ; but the most 
 hotly discussed of these lie in great part outside the 
 period, closing with the end of the eighth century B.C., 
 which the present volume deals with ; and where this 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 is not the case I have sought to keep my discussion as 
 close as possible to the historical facts, without raising 
 dogmatic issues, which for the most part have really 
 very little to do with the proper function of the his- 
 torical interpreter. It is impossible to deal ffankly 
 with any Biblical problem without saying many things 
 which may challenge opposition ; but where the pur- 
 pose is to give real help to Bible students, and not to 
 advance the interests of a theological party, the contro- 
 versial method should always be avoided, for the ques- 
 tions of modern controversy are generally derived from 
 mediaeval rather than Biblical thought. 
 
 The period with which this volume deals is that of 
 the earliest prophetic literature, and therefore presents 
 the prophetic ideas in their least complex form. Some 
 readers may be surprised at the very small amount of 
 developed theology which these ideas contain; the 
 elements of prophetic religion in the eighth century 
 before Christ are marvellously simple in comparison 
 with the range of conceptions with which the modern 
 theologian is accustomed to operate, and which are often 
 traced back to the earliest Old Testament times. It 
 must, however, be remembered that the theological 
 thought of the Hebrews underwent a great development 
 after the time of Isaiah; the principles of the oldest 
 prophecy are germinal principles, which unfolded them'^ 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 selves gradually and led to results which, though now 
 familiar to every one, were not contemplated by the 
 earlier teachers of Israel. It would have been easy to 
 pause from time to time and point out the line of 
 development connecting the truths of the earliest pro- 
 phetic religion with New Testament doctrine; but to 
 do so within the space of a single volume would 
 have unduly straitened the exposition of what the first 
 prophets actually taught, and were understood to mean 
 by their contemporaries. If occasion offers I hope to 
 be able at a future time to continue the history through 
 the subseq^uent stages of prophetic teaching ; but to mix 
 all stages together and read later views of truth into 
 the earlier teaching is not likely to produce anything 
 but confusion. There is a religious as well as an liis- 
 torical gain in learning to read every part of the 
 Bible in its original and natural sense. Much unneces- 
 sary exacerbation of dogmatic controversy would be 
 avoided if theologians were always alive to the fact 
 that the supreme truths of religion were first promul- 
 gated and first became a living power in forms that are 
 far simpler than the simplest system of modern dogma. 
 The habit of reading more into the utterances of 
 the prophets than they actually contain is partly due 
 to dogmatic prepossessions, but partly to a lack of 
 historical criticism. The notion which has proved most 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 fatal even in modern times to a right understanding of 
 the prophets is the notion of the later Jews that all the 
 prophets are interpreters of the Pentateuch, which either 
 as a whole or at least in its most essential parts is sup- 
 posed to be older than the oldest prophetical books. 
 This opinion has only of late years been radically sub- 
 verted by the demonstration — for such I venture to call 
 it — that the Priestly Legislation did not exist before the 
 Exile. I know that this conclusion of criticism is not 
 universally received among scholars, but it makes way 
 daily, and at least it can no longer be disputed that the 
 ideas of the prophets do not presuppose those of the 
 priestly parts of the Pentateuch. So much will be ad- 
 mitted even by scholars like Noldeke, who do not accept 
 the whole results of that construction of the history of 
 the Pentateuch which is generally associated with the 
 name of Graf, and has been mainly worked out and 
 established in detail by Kuenen in Holland and Well- 
 hausen in Germany. That 1 accept the leading critical 
 conclusions of the newer school of criticism will be 
 evident to the reader of this volume; my reasons for 
 doing so are abeady before the public. But I trust that 
 it will be found that what I have to say with regard to 
 the progress of the prophetic teaching is not dependent 
 on any evidence or argument that lies outside of the 
 prophetical books themselves, and the indisputable 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 facts of contemporary history. It is indeed from the 
 study of the prophets that some of the strongest argu- 
 ments for the late date of the Priestly Legislation are 
 derived; and^ though I deem it right to advertise the 
 reader of the critical views which underlie my exposi- 
 tion, I trust that it will not be found that these views 
 have been allowed to give undue bias to my treatment 
 of historical facts. 
 
 At the same time it is to be observed that recent 
 advances in Pentateuch criticism have thrown a vast 
 amount of light on the development of prophetic 
 thought, especially by clearing away false assumptions 
 that hampered historical exposition. The foundation of 
 a truly historical view of the prophets was laid by 
 Ewald, and what has been effected since his time has 
 mainly been due to the new historical matter derived 
 from the Assyrian monuments, and to the influence of 
 the school of Graf. The first to attempt a connected 
 history of the religion of Israel on the premisses of the 
 newer criticism was Professor Kuenen, the value of 
 whose writings is admitted by candid inquirers of every 
 school. His Godsdienst, however, does not go very 
 fully into the main questions that occupy this volume, 
 and his work on the Prophets is so essentially a con- 
 troversial essay that I have seldom found occasion to 
 use it for my present purpose. I have derived more 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 assistance from Duhm's Theologie der PropTuten — a work 
 always stimulating and interesting if often too fine- 
 drawn and doctrinaire — but especially from the writings 
 of my friend Professor Wellhausen. The first volume 
 of Wellhausen's Geschichte, and the very remarkable 
 article Israel in the new edition of the Encydopmdia 
 JBritannica, contain most important contributions to 
 prophetic theology, my obligations to which I am the 
 more anxious to acknowledge because other features in 
 the writings of this scholar have received too exclusive 
 attention from his critics. Taken as a whole, the 
 writings of Wellhausen are the most notable contri- 
 bution to the historical study of the Old Testament 
 since the great works of Ewald, and almost every part 
 of the present Lectures owes something to them. 
 
 I shall not attempt to signalise in detail my obliga- 
 tions to other scholars subsequent to Ewald; the 
 material for this volume is largely derived from aca- 
 demical lectures written during a long course of years, 
 and a great amount of re-reading, which I did not care 
 to undertake, would have been necessary in order to 
 furnish the present Lectures with full references to all 
 the authors to whom I am indebted. The references 
 incorporated in the Notes have a more limited object, 
 being mainly designed to guide students who may use 
 my book as an introduction to the subject, to call 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 attention to works that are indispensable or might easily 
 be overlooked, and to indicate where full discussions 
 may be found on questions that I am obliged to treat 
 perfunctorily. Besides such references the notes con- 
 tain a good deal of illustrative matter of a somewhat 
 miscellaneous kind, including some things specially 
 designed to make the book more usefiil to academical 
 students and a few observations which may, I hope, be 
 of interest to fellow- workers in Biblical science. 
 
 I have only to add that the Lectures, as now printed, 
 are considerably expanded from the form in which they 
 were originally delivered. 
 
 W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 
 Edinburgh, 3i Ap-il 1882. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LEOTUEE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Israel and Jehovah ' . . . .1 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 Jehovah and the Gods of the Nations . . 47 
 
 LECTUEE III. 
 Amos and the House of Jehu . . .90 
 
 LECTUEE IV. 
 
 Hosea and the Fall op Ephraim . , .144: 
 
 LECTUEE V. 
 
 The Kingdom of Judah and the Beginnings of 
 
 Isaiah's Woek . . . .191 
 
 LECTUEE VL 
 The Eaeliee Peophecies of Isaiah . . . 235 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTUEE VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3.4IAH AND MiCAH IN THE EeIGN OF HeZEKIAH . 279 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 The Deliverance feom Assyeia , . . 317 
 
 Notes and Iu,ustrations . • . • ^ 375 
 
 Index . . . . . .441 
 
LECTUEE T. 
 
 ISRAEL AND JEHOVAH. 
 
 The revelation recorded in the Bible is a jewel which 
 God has given to us in a setting of human history. 
 The love of God to His people now is the continuation 
 of the love which He showed to our fathers ; and Chris- 
 tianity, like all else that is of value in the spiritual 
 possessions of mankind, is an inheritance the worth and 
 permanence of which have been tried by the experience 
 of generations. Such treasures are not won without 
 effort and battle. What is appropriated easily is as 
 easily lost, and the abiding possessions of humanity 
 consist of truths that have been learned by laborious 
 experiences, relations that have been knit and strength- 
 ened by long habit, and institutions that have been 
 shaped and polished by the friction of prac;tical use. A 
 religion fit to be a part of actual life cannot be exempt 
 from this law, and revelation itself has become a force 
 in human conduct only by first becoming a factor in 
 human history. It was not enough that God should 
 declare His will and love to man. The declaration 
 required to be incorporated with the daily lessons of 
 
THE LA WS OF NA TURE 
 
 ordinary life, to be woven into the personal experience 
 of humanity, to become part of the atmosphere of moral 
 and intellectual influences which surrounds every man's 
 existence, of which he is often as little conscious as of 
 the air he breathes, but without which spiritual life 
 would be just as impossible as physical life is under an 
 exhausted receiver. 
 
 It is often remarked upon as a strange thing that 
 Jesus was born so late into the world, that Christianity 
 has been permitted to spread through slow and imper- 
 fect agencies from so narrow a centre as Judsea, and 
 that the divine wisdom deemed it fitting to prepare the 
 way for the world-wide religion of Jesus by that long 
 series of rudimientary revelations, addressed to a single 
 nation, of which the Hebrew Scriptures form the record. 
 The slowness of the moral process by which God's will 
 for our salvation realises itself on earth, the incomplete 
 establishment of the moral kingdom of God in the 
 midst even of professing Christians, and the fact that 
 for long ages the power of revealing love seemed to pass 
 by the greater mass of mankind altogether, and to deal 
 very tardily and partially even with the chosen nation 
 of Israel, appear hard to reconcile with the sovereignty 
 of the divine purpose and the omnipotence of the divine 
 working. It would serve no good purpose to deny that 
 there is a difficulty in understanding these things, but 
 the difficulty lies less in the facts to be explained than 
 in the limited point of view from which finite creatures 
 contemplate the work of an infinite and eternal being. 
 
AND OF GRACE. 
 
 That the eternal and infinite God has anything to do 
 either in the way of nature or of grace "with the finite 
 world of time is a mystery which we cannot hope to 
 comprehend ; but in itself it is not more surprising that 
 revelation follows th.e laws of historical progress than 
 that a law of continuity runs through the succession of 
 physical phenomena. The difference between nature 
 and grace is not that nature follows fixed laws and that 
 grace breaks through them ; there are laws in the moral 
 world as well as in the material cosmos, and the sove- 
 reignty of revealing grace does not lie in the arbitrary 
 quality of the acts in which it is manifested, but in its 
 dominion over the moral order of things to which the 
 physical order is subservient. In revelation God enters 
 into personal relations with man; but these personal 
 relations would not be spiritually valuable unless they 
 were constituted, maintained, and perfected by the same 
 methods as the personal relations of a man to his fellows. 
 According to the doctrine of the Old Testament the 
 whole work of revelation and salvation rests on the 
 fact that man was created in the image of God, and so 
 is capable of entering into intelligent moral relationship 
 with his heavenly father. But even in the sphere of 
 ordinary human life the filial relation is one that has a 
 gradual growth. The mere physical fact of parentage 
 is but a small element in tlie meaning of the words 
 father and son ; the greater part of what these words 
 involve, as used between a loving father and son, lies in 
 the relation of affection and reverence, which is not of 
 
VIEW OF THE 
 
 mere physical origin, but grows tip with the growth and 
 training of the child. Thus the analogies which the 
 Bible itself presents as our guides in understanding the 
 work of divine grace lead us to expect that revelation 
 must have a history, conformed to the laws of human 
 nature, and limited by the universal rule that every 
 permanent spiritual and moral relation must grow up 
 by slow degrees, and obey a principle of internal 
 development. 
 
 The older theology was not sufficiently attentive to 
 this truth. It had indeed learned from the parables of 
 the Gospel that the growth of the kingdom of God is 
 similar to the development of a great tree from a small 
 seed ; but it did not fully realise that this analogy not 
 only affirms the contrast between the small beginnings 
 and ultimate world-wide scope of the kingdom of grace, 
 but teaches us to look on the growth as subject to an 
 organic law similar to the physical law of development 
 in a living germ. The very idea of law as applied to 
 the course of history has been clearly grasped and fruit- 
 fully worked out only in recent times, and therefore it 
 is not surprising thSt even those theological schools 
 which made a serious effort to understand the suc- 
 cessive stages of God's saving dealings with man did 
 not get much beyond the notion of a mechanical 
 series of covenants or dispensations.'' And in parti- 
 cular almost all speculation on this topic, down to 
 quite a recent date, fell into the cardinal mistake 
 of over-estimating the knowledge of divine things 
 
LECT. I. OLDER THEOLOGY. 5 
 
 given to the earliest recipients of revelation. The 
 fact that the work of salvation is one from first to 
 last, that Christ is the centre of all revelation and the 
 head of all redeemed humanity, led to the idea that 
 from the first the faith of the Old Testament believers 
 looked to a personal Messiah as distinctly if not as 
 clearly as the faith of the New Testament Church. 
 
 This assumption involved the study of the old 
 dispensation in extraordinary difficulties. The Old 
 Testament contains no explicit declaration in plain 
 words of the cardinal New Testament truths about 
 Christ, and it was therefore necessary to suppose that 
 the men of the Old Covenant possessed, in addition to 
 the written Word, certain traditional conceptions about 
 the coming Saviour, which gave them a key to the 
 symbolism of the sacred ordinances, and enabled them 
 to draw a meaning from the language of the Prophets 
 and the Psalms which does not lie on the surface of the 
 words of Scripture.^ This theory arose naturally enough 
 in the ancient Church, which held that a similar state 
 of things continued under the Christian dispensation, 
 and tha,t the help of ecclesiastical tradition was still 
 necessary to understand the mysteries which formed 
 the really valuable teaching of the New Testament as 
 well as of the Old. But when the Protestant Church 
 broke with the doctrine of ecclesiastical tradition, and 
 sent every man to Scripture to edify himself by the 
 plain sense of the holy oracles, it was a strange incon- 
 sistency to continue the figment of a hidden sense and 
 
METHOD OF i.ect. i. 
 
 a traditional interpretation as applied to the old dispen- 
 sation. Far from reading in the words of t]ie prophets 
 a profounder sense that lay beneath the surface, the 
 Hebrews, as their history abundantly proves, coiild 
 hardly be taught to accept the simple and literal 
 lessons inculcated upon them line by line, and enforced 
 by providential discipline as well as by spoken words. 
 It is plain that the very elements of spiritual faith were 
 still but half learned by a nation that made continual 
 relapses into crass and immoral polytheism, and the 
 elementary character of much of the prophetic teaching 
 is not to be explained as vailing a hidden sense, but 
 simply by the fact that the most elementary teaching 
 was still not superfluous in the spiritual childhood of 
 the people of God. 
 
 This is the true state of the case, and perhaps the 
 chief reason why people are still unwilling to admit 
 that it is so is a fear that, by stripping the prophecies 
 of their supposed mysteriousness, we shall destroy their 
 interest and value for the Christian dispensation. Such 
 a fear is altogether groundless. It would be absurd 
 to expect to find in the Old Testament truth »that is 
 not in the New. The real use of the record of the 
 earliest stages of revelation is not to add something 
 to the things revealed in Christ, but to give us that 
 (dear and all-sided insight into the meaning and prac- 
 tical worth of the perfect scheme of divine grace which 
 can only be attained by tracing its growth. A mechan- 
 ism is studied by taking it to pieces, an organism 
 
LECT. 1. THESE LECTURES. 7 
 
 miist be stvidied by watching its development from the 
 simplicity of the germ to the final complexity of the 
 finished structure. Or, to put the thing under a more 
 familiar analogy, the best way to understand the full- 
 grown man is to watch his growth from childhood up- 
 wards, and the childhood of the Church shows us in 
 simple and elementary expression the same principles 
 which are still active in the full manhood of the 
 Christian dispensation. 
 
 It would be easy to illustrate this argument by 
 additional analogies, biit it will be more profitably 
 elucidated in the actual study of the prophets and their 
 work, to which we are to proceed during the hours we 
 spend together. In these Lectures I propose to adopt 
 the simplest and most straightforward historical treat- 
 ment. I shall take up the prophetic writings in the 
 order of their date, and look at them in connection with 
 what is known of the prophet and his times, just as one 
 does with any other ancient book. Instead of asking 
 at the outset what the prophet has to teacli us, I shall 
 inquire what he desired to teach his own contem- 
 poraries to whom his message was directly addressed. 
 In this way we shall get at the plain meaning of his 
 words, and what is still more important, we shall learn 
 something of his place and function in the unity of the 
 divine work of revelation. "We shall see the principles 
 of revealing and redeeming grace shaping themselves 
 from age to age in living contact with the life and needs 
 of successive generations, and thus I hope we shall 
 
8 OBJECTIONS OF lect. i. 
 
 attain a more reasoned assurance of the consistency and 
 supernatural wisdom of God's saving dealings in all 
 ages, while at the same time the study of each divine 
 word as it first came home to the immediate necessities 
 of the people of God will make it easier for us to apply 
 the same word to the support of our own spiritual life. 
 The details of this practical application of course belong 
 to the preacher or to the devotional reader, and not to 
 the expositor of the Old Testament history. On the 
 province of the preacher I do not propose to trench, but 
 I hope that we shall be able to reach the point of view, 
 and appreciate the methods and principles, from which 
 the study of the prophecies can be profitably under- 
 taken with the design of personal edification. 
 
 There is, however, one question of a general nature 
 to which it may be well to devote a few words before 
 we enter on this course of historical inquiry. The 
 justification of the general conception of the method 
 of revelation which I have just indicated must ulti- 
 mately lie in the proof that it is consistent with 
 historical facts. The doctrine of an organic develop- 
 ment in the plan of revelation and redemption, 
 analogous to the gradual education of a son by his 
 father, can be established or refuted only by inquiring 
 whether the analogy is justified by the actual course of 
 liistory in the pre-Christian childhood of the people of 
 God. But the whole conception of a progressive reve- 
 lation worked out in special dealings of God with the 
 people of Israel is often represented by modern thinkers 
 
LECT. 1. THE MODERN SCHOOL. 
 
 as involving something inconsistent -with the univer- 
 sality of the divine purpose. There is a large and 
 thoughtful school of modern theologians, fully possessed 
 with the idea of a divine education of mankind, and 
 ready to do sincere homage to the teaching of Christ, 
 which yet refuses to believe that God's dealings with 
 Israel in the times before Christ can be distinguished 
 under the specific name of revelation from His provi- 
 dential guidance of other nations. They contend, and 
 so far they are undoubtedly right, that God prepared 
 all nations, and not the Jews alone, for the reception of 
 the truth as it is in Jesus ; but they also maintain that 
 there was no specific difference between the growth of 
 divrae truth in Israel and the growth of truth among 
 other nations. The prophets who were the organs of 
 God's teaching in Israel appear to them to stand on 
 the same line with the other great teachers of mankind, 
 who were also searchers after truth, and received it as 
 a gift from God. 
 
 In one point of view this departure from the usual 
 doctrine of Christians is perhaps less fundamental than 
 it seems at first sight to be. For, as a matter of fact, it 
 is not and cannot be denied that the prophets found for 
 themselves and their nation a knowledge of God, and 
 not a mere speculative knowledge, but a practical fellow- 
 ship of faith with Him, which the seekers after truth 
 among the Gentiles never attained to. This, at least, is 
 sufficiently proved by the fact that the light which went 
 forth in Christ Jesus to lighten the Gentries did proceed 
 
 2 
 
10 MEANING OF lect. i. 
 
 from the midst of the Old Testament people. But 
 behind this there appears to lie a substantial and prac- 
 tical difference of view between the common faith of 
 the Churches and the views of the modern school of 
 which I speak. The difference is generally expressed 
 by saying that the modern theologians deny the super- 
 natural ; but I do not think that this phrase expresses 
 the real gist of the point at issue. The practical point 
 in all controversy as to the distinctive character of the 
 revelation of God to Israel regards the place of Scrip- 
 ture as the permanent rule of faith and the sufficient 
 and unfailing guide in all our religious life. When we 
 say that God dealt with Israel in the way of special 
 revelation, and crowned His dealings by personally 
 manifesting all His grace and truth in Christ Jesus the 
 incarnate Word, we mean that the Bible contains within 
 itself a perfect picture of God's gracious relations with 
 man, and that we have no need to go outside of the Bible 
 history to learn anything of God and His saving will 
 towards us, — that the whole growth of the true religion 
 up to its perfect fulness is set before us in the record of 
 God's dealings with Israel culminating in the mani- 
 festation of Jesus Christ. There can be no question 
 that Jesus Himself held this view, and we cannot 
 depart from it without making Him an imperfect 
 teacher and an imperfect saviour. Yet history has 
 not taught us that there is anything in true religion to 
 add to the New Testament. We still stand in the 
 nineteenth century where He stood in the first; or 
 
LECT. I. SPECIAL REVELATION. 11 
 
 rather He stands as high above us as He did above His 
 disciples, the perfect Master, the supreme Head of the 
 fellowship of all true religion. 
 
 It is a bold thing, therefore, to aiJirm that we have 
 any need to seek a wider historical foundation for our 
 faith than sufficed Him whose disciples we are. And I 
 apprehend that the apparent difficulty of the supposition 
 that the whole course of revelation transacted itself in 
 the narrow circle of a single nation is not so great as it 
 appears at first sight. For it is not necessary to suppose 
 that God gave no true knowledge of Himself to seekers 
 after truth among the Gentiles. The New Testament 
 affirms, on the contrary, that the nations were never left 
 without some manifestation of that which may be known 
 of God (Eom. i. 19 ; Acts xvii. 27) ; and the thinkers of 
 the early Church gave shape to this truth in the doctrine 
 of the X0709 o-Trejo/iaTtKo? — the seed of the Divine 
 Word scattered through all mankind. 
 
 But, while aU right thoughts of God in every nation 
 come from God Himself, it is plain that a personal 
 knowledge of God and His wiU — and without personal 
 knowledge there can be no true religion — involves a 
 personal dealing of God with men. Such personal 
 dealing again necessarily implies a special dealing with 
 chosen individuals. To say that God speaks to all men 
 alike, and gives the same communication directly to all 
 without the use of a revealing agency, reduces religion 
 to mysticism. In point of fact, it is not true in the case 
 of any man that what he believes and knows of God has 
 
12 THE POSITIVE ELEMENT lect. i. 
 
 come to him directly through the voice of nature and 
 conscience. All true knowledge of God is verified by 
 personal experience, but it is not exclusively derived 
 from such experience. There is a positive element in 
 all religion, an element which we have learned from 
 those who went before us. If what is so learned is true 
 we must ultimately come back to a point in history 
 when it was new truth, acquired as all new truth is by 
 some particular man or circle of men, who, as they did 
 not learn it from their predecessors, must have got it by 
 personal revelation from God Himself. To deny that 
 Christianity can ultimately be traced back to such acts 
 of revelation, taking place at a definite time in a definite 
 circle, involves in the last resort a denial that there is 
 any true religion at all, or that religion is anything more 
 than a vague subjective feeling. If religion is more 
 than this, the true knowledge of God and His saving 
 will must in the first instance have grown up in a definite 
 part of the earth, and in connection with the history of 
 a limited section of mankind. For if revelation were 
 not to be altogether futile it was necessary that each 
 new communication of God should build on those which 
 had gone before, and therefore that it should be made 
 within that society which had already appropriated the 
 sum of previous revelations. Some true knowledge of 
 God might exist outside of this society, but at all events 
 there must have been a society of men possessed of the 
 whole series of divine teachings in a consecutive and 
 adequate form. And under the conditions of ancient 
 
LECT. I. IN RELIGION. 13 
 
 life tins society could not be other than a nation, for 
 there was then no free communication and interchange 
 of ideas such as now exists between remote parts of the 
 globe. Until the Greek and Eoman empires broke up 
 the old barriers of nationality, the intellectual and moral 
 life of each ancient people moved in its own channel, 
 receiving only slight contributions from those outside. 
 There is nothing unreasonable, therefore, in the idea that 
 the true religion was originally developed in national 
 form within the people of Israel ; nay, this limitation 
 corresponds to the historical conditions of the problem. 
 But at length a time came when the message of revela- 
 tion was fuUy set forth in Christ. The coming of 
 Christ coincided under divine providence with the 
 breaking down of national barriers and the establish- 
 ment of a cosmopolitan system of politics and culture 
 under the first Eoman emperors, and so Christianity was 
 able to leave the narrow field of Old Testament develop- 
 ment and become a religion not for one nation but for 
 aU mankind.^ 
 
 It would seem, then, that the distinctive character 
 claimed by the Biblical revelation, and expressed in the 
 creed of the Churches by the doctrine that the Bible is 
 the supreme and sufficient rule of faith and life, ulti- 
 mately resolves itself into something which is quite 
 capable of verification. It will not be denied that the 
 knowledge of God reached by Gentile nations was frag- 
 mentary and imperfect, that there was no solid and 
 continuous progress in spiritual things under any heathen 
 
14 QUESTION OF 
 
 LECT. I. 
 
 system, but that the noblest religions outside of Christi- 
 anity gradually decayed and lost whatever moral powei 
 they once possessed. If the religion of the Bible can 
 be shown to have run a different course, — if it can be 
 shown that in it truth once attained was never lost and 
 never thrust aside so as to lose its influence, but that in 
 spite of all impediments the knowledge of God given to 
 Israel moved steadily forward tUl at last it emancipated 
 itself from national restrictions, and, without changing 
 its consistency or denying its former history, merged in 
 the perfect religion of Christ, which still satisfies the 
 deepest spiritual needs of mankind, — then, I apprehend, 
 the distinctive claims of the Bible and the religion of the 
 Bible are set upon a broad and safe basis, and the reve- 
 lation of the Old and New Testament may fairly claim 
 to be the revelation of God to men in a special and 
 absolute sense. It is not necessary to encumber the 
 argument by comparing the way in which individual 
 divine communications were given to Israel with the 
 way in which the highest thinkers of other nations came 
 to grasp something of spiritual truth. The mode of 
 God's communication to man is a matter of detail ; the 
 essential advantage claimed by the religion of the Bible 
 does not lie in details, but in the consistent unity of 
 scheme that runs through its whole historical develop- 
 ment, and gives to each part of the development a 
 share in the unique character that belongs to it as a 
 whole. 
 
 To thoughtful minds it has always been a matter of 
 
LECT. I. THE SUPERNA TURAL. 15 
 
 supreme interest to realise what proof of the truth and 
 sufficiency of the Christian religion can be adduced 
 apart from the internal impress of genuineness which it 
 produces on the believing mind. The external evidences 
 of religion have been very variously set forth, and per- 
 haps no one statement of them has ever been quite 
 satisfactory. In recent times the whole question has 
 assumed a new and startling aspect, through the attacks 
 chat have been made on the old favourite evidence from 
 miracle. Instead of accepting the miracles as a proof 
 of Christianity, a large number of men, who are neither 
 unthoughtful nor irreverent, have come to regard the 
 miraculous narratives of the Bible record as a chief 
 difficulty in the way of its acceptance. It is felt that 
 the reality of these miracles is the very thing in the 
 teaching of Scripture which it is most difficult to prove ; 
 and, so long as no deeper evidence can be offered of the 
 truth of the Christian religion than is given by the old 
 argument that it is attested by miracle, the objection is 
 ready that this, far from being a distinctive peculiarity 
 of one religion, is a prerogative to which all religions 
 lay claim. Indeed, most of the arguments which make 
 men unwilling to allow to the Bible the character of 
 the record of a special revelation resolve themselves 
 into objections to the idea that the narratives of a 
 supernatural character which the Bible contains are 
 different from the miraculous narratives found in other 
 ancient histories. And in like manner it is contended 
 that it is impossible to prove that the truths preached 
 
16 QUESTION OF lect. i. 
 
 by the prophets came to them in any other way than 
 the truths proclaimed by Gentile teachers. 
 
 I am not prepared to deny that these objections 
 may be put in a form which has great force against 
 many current apologetical arguments, but they do not 
 go to the root of the matter. There is an external evi- 
 dence of the truth of the Biblical revelation which lies 
 behind the question of the supernatural as it is usually 
 stated, an evidence which lies, not in the miraculous 
 circumstances of this or that particular act of revelation, 
 but in the intrinsic character of the scheme of revela- 
 tion as a whole. It is a general law of human history 
 that truth is consistent, progressive, and imperishable, 
 while every falsehood is self- contradictory, and ulti- 
 mately falls to pieces. A religion which has endured 
 every possible trial, which has outlived every vicissitude 
 of human fortunes, and has never failed to re-assert its 
 power unbroken in the collapse of its old environments, 
 which has pursued a consistent and victorious course 
 through the lapse of eventful centuries, declares itself 
 by irresistible evidence to be a thing of reality and 
 power. If the religion of Israel and of Christ answers 
 these tests, the miraculous circumstances of its pro- 
 mulgation need not be used as the first proof of its 
 truth, but must rather be regarded as the inseparable 
 accompaniments of a revelation which bears the histori- 
 cal stamp of reality. Occupying this vantage-ground, 
 the defenders of revelation need no longer be afraid to 
 allow free discussion of the details of its history. They 
 
LECT. I. THE SUPERNATURAL. 17 
 
 are not bound to start, as modern apologists too often 
 do, with preconceived notions as to the kind of acts 
 by which God made His presence and teaching known 
 in Bible ages — they can afford to meet every candid 
 inquirer on the fair field of history, and to form their 
 judgment on the actual course of revelation by the 
 ordinary methods of historical investigation. 
 
 It is on these lines that I ask you to join me in the 
 inquiry on which we are about to enter, — not in a spirit 
 of controversy, or with preconceived notions as to what 
 must be the course and manner of a true revelation, 
 but with a candid resolution to examine the documents 
 of the Old Testament religion, and see whether they 
 actually possess that evidence of consistent, progressive, 
 and indestructible truth which entitles them to be re- 
 ceived as embodying a scheme of Divine teaching. In 
 a brief course of lectures our attention must necessarily 
 be confined to one corner of this great subject, to a brief 
 period of the history of Eevelation and a very small 
 part of the Old Testament documents. But the period 
 and the books with which we shall be occupied are, in 
 many respects, the most important that the Old Testa- 
 ment student has to deal with. They are very little 
 understood by ordinary Bible readers, and yet they form 
 the key to aU the chief problems of Old Testament study, 
 and without understanding them no one can hope to make 
 real progress in the knowledge of the Old Testament as a 
 whole. The work of the prophets of the Assyrian and 
 Babylonian periods falls in the most critical stage of the 
 
18 THE PERIOD lect. i. 
 
 history of the religion of Israel,— when, humanly speak- 
 ing, it seemed far from improbable that that religion 
 would sink to the level of common Semitic heathenism, 
 and perish, like the religions of other Semitic peoples, 
 with the political fall of the nation that professed it. 
 It was the work of the prophets that averted such a 
 catastrophe, drawing forth with ever -increasing clear- 
 ness the elements of moral and spiritual truth which 
 were well-nigh lost in the corruptions of the popular 
 worship, holding up a conception of Jehovah's holy 
 purpose and saving love to Israel in which even the 
 utter ruin of the Hebrew state appeared as part of a 
 gracious plan, and so maintaining the faith of Jehovah 
 unbroken and victorious when every other part of the 
 inheritance of Israel was swept away by the ruthless 
 tide of Assyrian and Chaldtean conquest. Nowhere in 
 the Old Testament history is the victory of true religion 
 over the world, its power to rise superior to all human 
 vicissitudes and bestow a hope and peace which the 
 world cannot take away, so clearly manifested as in this 
 great achievement of the prophetic word. In the long 
 struggle with the empires of the East the Word of 
 Jehovah was tried as gold in the furnace, and its be- 
 haviour under this crucial test is the best demonstration 
 of its incorruptible purity and enduring worth. But 
 there is another reason which gives this part of the 
 history of the Old Covenant a central importance to the 
 Biblical student. The Assyrian and Babylonian period 
 is the age of written prophecy, the only age in which 
 
tECT. I. OF THE PROPHETS. 19 
 
 the whole movements of Israel's spiritual life can be 
 closely studied in the writings of the very men who 
 directed them. The period between Amos and the 
 return is the golden age of Old Testament literature, 
 which stands before us in contemporary records more 
 clearly and fully than any other considerable period of 
 Hebrew history. And for this period, too, we now 
 possess in the Assyrian inscriptions a most valuable 
 mass of contemporary illustration from the records of 
 the foreign nation with which Israel's history was most 
 closely involved, — a new source of light which, by a 
 singular and admirable providence, has been put at 
 our command at the very moment when the progress of 
 Biblical study has concentrated the prime attention of 
 aU scholars on the prophets and their times.* 
 
 And now I trust that enough has been said to justify 
 the choice of our subject, to give at least an initial con- 
 ception of its importance, and to define the point of 
 view from which I design to consider it. Let us turn 
 without further preface to the matter in hand, and 
 begin by assuring ourselves in a rapid historical survey 
 that we possess a sufficiently cle^ conception of the 
 field in which the prophets laboured, and the political 
 and reKgious condition of the people to whom they 
 spoke. 
 
 We have already had occasion to note that the con- 
 ception of a personal revelation of God to man, which 
 underlies the scheme of Biblical religion in both Testa- 
 ments, implies that God approaches man in the first 
 
20 JEHOVAH LECT. i. 
 
 instance in the way of special dealing with chosen 
 individuals. According to the Old Testament prophets, 
 the circle chosen for this purpose is the nation of Israel, 
 the only nation, as Amos expresses it, among all the 
 families of the earth which Jehovah knows in a personal 
 way (Amos iii. 2). To the prophets, then, the nation of 
 Israel is the community of the true religion. But it is 
 important to observe how this is put. Amos does not say 
 that Israel knows Jehovah, hut that Jehovah knows or 
 personally recognises Israel, and no other nation. The 
 same idea is expressed by Hosea in figures drawn from 
 domestic life. Israel is Jehovah's spouse (chaps, i. to 
 iii.), or His son (chap. xi. 1). Thus the basis of the 
 prophetic religion is the conception of a unique relation 
 between Jehovah and Israel, not, be it observed, indi- 
 vidual Israelites, but Israel as a national unity. The 
 whole Old Testament religion deals with the relations 
 between two parties — Jehovah on the one hand, and 
 the nation of Israel on the other. Simple as this con- 
 ception is, it requires an effort of attention to fix it in 
 our minds. We are so accustomed to think of religion 
 as a thing between individual men and God that we 
 can hardly enter into the idea of a religion in which a 
 whole nation in its national organisation appears as the 
 religious unit, — in which we have to deal, not with the 
 faith and obedience of individual persons, but with the 
 faith and obedience of a nation as expressed in the func- 
 tions of national life. We shall have frequent oppor- 
 tunity as we proceed to familiarise ourselves with this 
 
AND ISRAEL. 21 
 
 fundamental Old Testament conception in its practical 
 aspects. For tlie present it may suffice to illustrate it 
 by a single example. In the New Testament dispensa- 
 tion every believer is regarded as a son of God. Under 
 the Old Covenant it is the nation of Israel that is 
 Jehovah's son. There are two questions, then, which 
 lie at the root of all study of the prophetic teaching — 
 "Who is Israel ? and who is Jehovah ? 
 
 The history of the ancient world, so far as it exists 
 for us, was transacted within a narrow strip of the earth's 
 surface, running eastward from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific, so as to include the lands easily accessible from 
 the Mediterranean waters and the countries of Southern 
 Asia as far as India and China, but excluding the great 
 mass of Africa and the northern parts of Europe and 
 Asia. Even this small world was again cut in two by 
 the great mountains and deserts that divide Eastern and 
 Western Asia, and the far East which lay beyond these 
 boundaries was practically an isolated part of the globe. 
 Tlie geography of the Bible, as contained in the tenth 
 chapter of Genesis, extends from Tarshish in the West — 
 the Spanish settlements of the Phoenicians in the region 
 of Cadiz — to the Eastern lands of Persia and Media 
 lying between tlie Caspian and the Persian Gulf And 
 here again we have a further limitation to make. The 
 nations of Europe had not yet begun to play an inde- 
 pendent part in the drama of universal history. To the 
 Hebrews the lands that gird the Northern and Western 
 Mediterranean were known as the Isles or rather Coasts 
 
22 GEOGRAPHY OF 
 
 of the Sea — a vague designation, derived, no doubt, from 
 the Phoenician mariners who skirted their shores without 
 penetrating into the interior. Thus, at the epoch with 
 which we are concerned, the main movements of Western 
 civilisation lay between the mountains of Media and 
 the Libyan desert, the shores of the Levant and the 
 Persian Gulf. In the eastern and western (Quarters of 
 the region so defined lie two great alluvial countries, 
 fertilised by mighty rivers, and producing the means of 
 life in such abundance that they not only sustained a 
 teeming population, but supplied their inhabitants with 
 that superfluity of natural wealth which is the first 
 condition for the growth of material civilisation. Egypt 
 on the Nile, Babylonia and Assyria in the Euphrates 
 and Tigris valleys, were marked out by nature as the 
 seats of populous cities and great empires, strong enough 
 to defy or subdue their neighbours, and rich enough to 
 cultivate the arts of life. The bridge between these 
 two great civilisations was the land which we call 
 Syria, extending from the Euphrates to the Egyptian 
 frontier, from the Mediterranean to the deserts of 
 Northern Arabia. Syria, as well as the huge peninsula 
 of Arabia, which bounded it on the south-east, and 
 which in its northern parts was habitable only by 
 nomads, was occupied by branches of the great family 
 which we call Semitic. In language, and presumably 
 also in race, the Semites of Syria and Arabia were 
 closely related to the main stem of the Assyrians and 
 Babylonians. They had also many kinsmen in the 
 
LECT. I. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 23 
 
 Delta of Egypt, but the Egyptian civilisation acknow- 
 ledged no brotherhood with them, and held itself aloof 
 from its Eastern neighbours (Gen. xliii. 32). 
 
 The natural features of Syria were not favourable to 
 the growth of a great and united nation fit to meet on 
 equal terms with the empires on each side of it. For a 
 time, indeed, a powerful people, called Hittites in the 
 Bible, but better known from the Egyptian and Assyrian 
 monuments, where they appear as Khita and Khatti, 
 occupied the part of Syria between the Orontes and 
 the Euphi'ates, and from their capital of Carchemish 
 (Jirb4s on the Euphrates) seem to have extended their 
 influence far into Asia Minor;^ But the prime of the 
 Hittite monarchy was earlier than the period with which 
 we are immediately concerned, perhaps indeed earlier 
 than the settlement of the Hebrews in Canaan. It is 
 possible that they were not of Semitic stock, and they 
 hardly come within the sphere of the Biblical history. 
 Apart from this mysterious people, the inhabitants of 
 Syria (I still use the word in the ordinary English sense, 
 including Palestine) were broken up into a multitude 
 of small nations, as was natural from the deserts and 
 mountains that divided the land. By their language 
 these nations can be arranged in two groups, according 
 as they spoke Aramaic or dialects belonging to the 
 Hebrew stock. In the English Bible Aramaic is called 
 Syriac (2 Kings xviii. 26 ; Dan. ii. 4 ; Ezra iv. 7), and 
 when Syria or SjTians are mentioned we are not to 
 think of modern Syria, but of the land and people of 
 
24 THE ARAMAEANS. lect. i. 
 
 Aramaic tongue. The Aramseans of the Bible were 
 partly settled in Mesoi^otanua, partly west of the 
 Euphrates as far as Damascus and the borders of 
 Canaan. They formed a number of small states, of which 
 Damascus was from the time of Solomon the most im- 
 portant, at least in relation to Israel, exercising the 
 hegemony over a considerable district to the north-west 
 of Canaan. 
 
 Between the Aramseans and Egypt, again, we find a 
 number of small nations speaking a language distinct 
 from Aramaic, in several dialects sufficiently close to 
 one another to be mutually intelligible, — Canaanites, 
 Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and finally 
 Israelites, all gathered in the narrow isthmus of habit- 
 able land between the Mediterranean and the Desert, 
 which, from Damascus and Hermon southwards, forms 
 the only passage between the two great seats of civilisa- 
 tion and empire on the Euphrates and the Nile. The 
 whole habitable area of this isthmus, which on the 
 south is separated from Egypt by a tract of desert, is 
 very small. It may be roughly compared in length and 
 breadth with Northern England from the Humber to 
 the Scottish border, but even this measurement includes 
 great tracts either wholly desert, or, like the wilderness 
 of Judsea, capable of supporting only a scanty popula- 
 tion of herdsmen. From north to south it is split up 
 the centre by the great natural depression of the Jordan 
 valley and the Dead Sea, the surface of the latter lying' 
 a quarter of a mile below the Mediterranean. To the 
 
LECT. I. PALESTINE. 25 
 
 east of this valley, or rather trough, lies a tableland 
 gradually merging into wild desert ; to the west are the 
 mountains of Palestine, intersected by fertile valleys, 
 which in the north are wide and numerous, and slope 
 westward in long glades towards the Mediterranean,* 
 while further south the maritime plain is wider, but 
 the mountains are stony and sterile, and the valleys 
 often narrow defiles, till at length the cultivable land 
 passes into bare steppe, and finally into absolute desert. 
 Even in its geographical features this narrow region 
 has a singular interest. It is almost an epitome of the 
 ancient world, where the ocean and the desert, the pas- 
 tures of the wilderness and the terraced vineyards of 
 sunny hills, the cedars, fir-trees, and rhododendrons of 
 Lebanon, the cornfields of Jezreel and the oak-clad 
 glades of Tabor, the shores of the Lake of Galilee bright 
 with shrubbery of oleander, the hot cane brakes and 
 palm groves of Jericho, represent in brief compass 
 almost every variety of material condition which enters 
 into the development of Eastern antiquity. But a more 
 important influence on the history of Palestine lay in 
 the fact that it was the bridge between the East and the 
 West. Before the opening up of the Eed Sea and the 
 Indian Ocean as a water-way, aU the through traffic of 
 the world necessarily crossed it, or passed along the 
 edge of the adjoining deserts. And, in close connection 
 with this, the cities of the Phoenician coast became the 
 central emporia of the world. It was Phoenician sailors 
 who opened up the Western waters, extending their 
 
26 THE PHCENICIANS lect. i. 
 
 voyages as far as the tin mines of Cornwall, and tapping 
 the trade of inland Europe by their stations on the Gulf 
 of Lyons, and at the mouths of the great rivers of 
 Eussia. How Tyre was the very centre of the world's 
 commerce, drawing riches on all sides from the furthest 
 lands, we still read in Ezekiel xxvii. 
 
 The Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon, who held so 
 important a place in the ancient world, were only one 
 branch of the so-called Canaanites or Amorites (the two 
 names are practically interchangeable)," who at the 
 earliest date for which we have precise information not 
 only occupied Palestine west of the Jordan, but had 
 extensive eastern settlements in Bashan and Gilead. 
 Their language, which was nearly the same as the 
 Hebrew of the Bible, marked them off alike from the 
 Aramaeans who lay to the north and from the Arabs of 
 the southern and eastern desert. They were an agri- 
 cultural and trading people, with walled towns and 
 considerable material civilisation, but politically weak 
 from their division into a multitude of petty states, each 
 with its own kinglet or aristocratic senate, and morally 
 corrupted by a licentious religion, in which drunken 
 carousals and the grossest sexual excesses were practised 
 in honour of the gods. These gods, which were wor- 
 shipped under a multitude of local forms, had a twofold 
 type — male and female. The male god of any com- 
 munity was its Ba'al (lord or owner) ; the correspond- 
 ing female deity was 'Ashtoreth. The one was often 
 identified with the sun, the other with the moon. In 
 
LECT. I. AND THEIR RELIGION. 11 
 
 general terms it may be said that the Canaanites looked 
 on their deities as productive powers — givers of life, 
 fertility, and increase. Just as physical life is divided 
 into two sexes, they thought that the divine productive 
 power was male and female ; and, assigning to this sexual 
 analogy a great and literal prominence in all the observ- 
 ances of worship, their religion easily ran into sensu- 
 ality, and lent its countenance to every form of immo- 
 rality, if only performed at the sanctuary and the sacred 
 feasts. Instead of affording a sanction to sobriety and 
 domestic purity, the exercises of Canaanite religion gave 
 the rein to the animal nature, and so took the form of 
 Dionysiac orgies of the grossest type. Through the 
 Phoenicians the practices of Canaanite worship were 
 carried across the sea and introduced to the Western 
 nations, and wherever they came they formed an element 
 of pollution, a blacker spot even in the darkness of 
 heathenism. 
 
 The situation of Palestine naturally exposed it to 
 invasion from different sides. The early campaigns of 
 the Egyptians in this quarter do not concern our pre- 
 sent purpose, and the western movements of Babylonia 
 and Assyria were later than the Canaanite period. But 
 apart from these, the • Aramteans from the north, the 
 Arabs from the south and east, were constantly pressing 
 on the land. The relation of the Northern Arabs to 
 Palestine has been much the same in all ages. Their 
 hordes make periodical descents on the cultivated land, 
 which are easily repelled by a good and strong govern- 
 
28 THE HEBRE IV NA TIONS. lect. i. 
 
 ment, but prove successful when the settled inhabitants 
 are weakened by divisicjn and misrule. So, in ancient 
 times, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other tribes 
 overran the land from time to time. The Amalekites 
 seem at one time to have ranged freely as far as the 
 mountains of Ephraim ; and the population of the east, 
 but especially of the south, in the wilderness or steppe 
 of Judaea, contained an important Arab element in 
 Biblical times. Indeed the large population of Judah, 
 which gave that tribe such a preponderance in the time 
 of David, was due, as can still be proved from the 
 Biblical genealogies, to a fusion between the pure 
 Judseans and other families of nomad origin.^ 
 
 More lasting in their results were the migrations 
 of a group of small nations which came from the 
 direction of Aram, and acknowledged kindred to one 
 another. They were four in number— Ammon, Moab, 
 Edom, and Israel. The Ammonites and Moabites 
 settled to the east of the Dead Sea, on the verge of the 
 great desert, taking the place of the aboriginal Zam- 
 zummim and Emim (Deut. ii. 10, 20), but not interfer- 
 ing with the Canaanites proper. The Edomites found 
 a seat to the south of the Dead Sea, where they con- 
 quered or absorbed the early troglodyte inhabitants 
 (Horim). They were a wilder, less settled race than 
 their northern cousins, and appear to have approached 
 much more closely to the Arabic type. Their land, as it 
 is described in Gen. xxvii. 39, was " far from the fat 
 places of the earth and from the dew of heaven aibove." 
 
LECT. I. ISRAEL. 29 
 
 They lived by their sword — that is, by robbery — and the 
 importance of their position lay in the fact that the 
 caravan routes from Arabia and the Red Sea to Gaza 
 and the other mercantile towns of the coast passed 
 thro'ugh their territory.^ The fourth nation, Israel, 
 found no fixed abode, and, crossing the southern desert, 
 dwelt for a time on the borders of Egypt, where they 
 continued to live a pastoral nomadic life, and, though 
 acknowledging a certain dependence on the Pharaohs, 
 never came into close contact with Egyptian culture.^ 
 Their most intimate relations at this time were with 
 Arab tribes, and, when the Egyptians oppressed them and 
 tried to break them to forced labour on public works, 
 it was among the Arabian Kenites that Moses, the 
 leader of Israel's flight, found help and counsel.'''' Once 
 more crossing the desert, the tribes of Israel appeared 
 after long wanderings on the eastern frontier of Pales- 
 tine. It was only by the sword that they could win a 
 place of rest ; but, respecting their cousins in Edom, 
 Moab, and Ammon, they fell on the Amorites, east of 
 the Jordan, and, after occupying their seats, crossed the 
 river and established themselves in Western Palestine, 
 not by one sustained and united effort, but by a multi- 
 tude of local campaigns, in which each tribe generally 
 fought for its own hand.'^ A war of emigrants for the 
 possession of territory is always bloody, and this war 
 was no exception to the rule. Whole communities of 
 Canaanites were exterminated in the long struggle, for 
 the Israelites, as weU as their foes, were fighting for 
 
30 THE AGE OF 
 
 existence, and the " ban " by which a hostile commu- 
 nity was devoted to utter destruction was an institu- 
 tion of. Semitic warfare which the' Israelites had in 
 common with the kindred nations — for example, with 
 Moab.^^ But the Canaanites were not exterminated. 
 On the Phoenician coast their force was unbroken, and 
 many strong places even in the centre of the land 
 remained unsubdued till the time of the Davidic king- 
 dom. Such were the mountain fastness of Jerusalem, 
 long esteemed impregnable, and a whole series of walled 
 cities on the edge of the fertile plain of Jezreel, where, 
 in fact, after the first tide of victory was stayed, the 
 tribe of Issachar sank into the condition of a tributary 
 (Gen. xlix. 15). The struggle lasted for generations 
 before all the Israelites found a fixed abode ; the 
 Danites, for example, are still found ranging the land 
 as an armed horde in the days of the grandson of Moses 
 (Judges xviii.), when they at last found a settlement at 
 the base of Mount Hermon. In the days of Deborah 
 and Barak the Canaanites were near re-establishing their 
 mastery at least over Northern Palestine, and the tribes 
 of Israel were too little at one to make common front 
 against them. But, on the whole, Israel maintained its 
 superiority, and the large Canaanite poprdation which 
 still survived in all parts of the land was gradually re- 
 duced to vassalship. To a certain extent the two nation- 
 alities began to fuse and form intermarriages, as was not 
 difficult, since both spoke one language. Once at least we 
 find an attempt to form a mixed Hebrew and Canaanite 
 
LKCT. I. THE JUDGES. 31 
 
 state, for Shecliem, which was then a Canaanite city with 
 a Canaanit« aristocracy of the Bn§ Hamor family, was 
 the centre of the short-lived kingdom of Abimelech, 
 who himself apparently was a Canaanite on the mother's 
 side. Though the adventurer Abimelech failed to esta- 
 blish a dynasty, the temporary success of the experi- 
 ment shows how far the original antagonism of race had 
 been softened, and the condemnation pronounced by 
 the moral sense of the Hebrews on the slaughter of the 
 tributary Gibeonites by Saul proves that the Israelite 
 aristocracy and their Canaanite subjects began to feel 
 themselves united by the bonds of common humanity. 
 And so, in the age of the Judges, it might readily 
 appear that this invasion was to run the same course 
 as so many other incursions from the desert into a land 
 of higher civilisation, and that the conquerors would 
 gradually become assimilated to the conquered, from 
 whom the Hebrew nomads on their first introduction to 
 settled life and agricultural pursuits had everything to 
 learn. At the close of the period of the Judges the 
 greater part of the Israelites had quite lost their pastoral 
 habits. They were an agricultural people living in 
 cities and villages, and their oldest civil laws are framed 
 for this kind of life. All the new arts which this com- 
 plete change of habit implies they must have derived 
 from the Canaanites, and as they learned the ways of 
 agricultural life they could hardly fail to acquire many 
 of the characteristics of their teachers. To make the 
 transformation complete only one thing was lacking — 
 
32 JEHOVAH, THE lect. i. 
 
 that Israel should also accept the religion of the abori- 
 gines. The history and the prophets alike testify that 
 to a great extent they actually did this. Canaanite 
 sanctuaries became Hebrew holy places, and the vile- 
 ness of Canaanite nature-worship polluted the Hebrew 
 festivals. For a time it seemed that Jehovah, the 
 ancestral God of Israel, who brought their fathers up 
 out of the house of bondage and gave them their goodly 
 land, would be forgotten or transformed into a Canaanite 
 Baal. If this change had been completed Israel would 
 have left no name in the world's history; but Providence 
 had other things in store for the people of Jehovah. 
 Henceforth the real significance of Israel's fortunes lies 
 in the preservation and development of the national 
 faith, and the history of the tribes of Jacob is rightly 
 set forth in the Bible as the history of that divine dis- 
 cipline by which Jehovah maintained a people for 
 Himself amidst the seductions ot Canaanite worship 
 and the ever-new backslidings of Israel. 
 
 To understand who Jehovah was, and what He was 
 to Israel, we must return to the deliverance of the 
 Hebrew tribes from Egyptian bondage, to which later 
 ages looked back as the birth of the nation. In the 
 land of Goshen the Hebrews had not even a vestige of 
 national organisation. The tribes into which they were 
 divided acknowledged a common ancestry, but had no 
 institutions expressive of the unity of race ; and, when 
 Moses called them to a united effort for liberty, the 
 only practical starting-point for his work was an appeal 
 
lECT. I. GOD OF ISRAEL. 33 
 
 to the name of Jehovali, tlie God of their fathers. It is 
 not easy to say how far the remembrance of this God 
 was a living power among the Hebrews. The Semitic 
 nomads have many superstitions, but little religion. The 
 sublime solitudes of the desert are well fitted to nourish 
 lofty thoughts about God, but the actual life of a wan- 
 dering shepherd people is not favourable to the formation 
 of such fixed habits of worship as are indispensable to 
 make religion a prominent factor in everyday life. 
 It would seem that the memory of the God of the 
 Hebrew fathers was little more than a dormant tradi- 
 tion when Moses began his work; and among the 
 Israelites, as among the Arabs of the desert, whatever 
 there was of habitual rehgious practice was probably 
 connected with tribal or family superstitions, such as 
 the use of teraphim, a kind of household idols which 
 long continued to keep their place in Hebrew homes. 
 The very name of Jehovah (or lahw^, as the word 
 should rather be pronounced) became known as a name 
 of power only through Moses and the great deliverance. 
 At any rate it would be a fundamental mistake 
 to suppose that the traditional faith in an ancestral 
 God, round which Moses rallied his brethren, included 
 any developed metaphysical conceptions such as we 
 associate with the idea of a spiritual God. Not the 
 nature of the Deity, but His power and will to help 
 His people were the points practical to the oppressed 
 Hebrews. A living God, according to a conception 
 
 never fully superseded in the Old Testament, must 
 3 
 
34 MOUNT SINAI. lect. i. 
 
 have a kingly seat on earth where He showed Himself 
 to men, and this seat, it would seem, an ancient tradi- 
 tion placed on Mount Sinai, which still appears in the 
 Song of Deborah as the place from which the divine 
 majesty goes forth in thunderstorm and rain to bring 
 victory to Israel. It would be a profitless task to 
 attempt to analyse this conception, and seek a symbolic 
 meaning in the poetic language in which it is clothed. 
 The Israelites thought in poetic figures, and we must 
 take their thoughts as they themselves present them. 
 The storm that broke on the ntountains of Sinai and 
 rolled across the desert in fertilising showers made the 
 godhead of Jehovah real to them; the thunder was 
 His voice of majesty, the voice of the same God who 
 wrought the great deliverance at the Eed Sea, and 
 beyond this they did not care to go. The new message 
 that Moses brought to his brethren was not an abstract 
 revelation of Jehovah's spiritual attributes, but an 
 assura,nce of His personal interest in Israel, and a pro- 
 mise of effectual help. The proraise was fulfilled in a 
 marvellous display of Jehovah's saving strength ; and, 
 when the proud waters rolled between the Hebrews 
 and the shattered power of the Egyptians, Israel felt 
 that it was a nation, the nation of Jehovah. 
 
 I have explained in a former course of lectures " that 
 the ordinances of the Pentateuch, in which tradition 
 has accustomed us to seek the forms under which the 
 great idea of Israel, the people of Jehovah, was organised 
 during the wilderness wanderings, are really of very 
 
LECT. I. THE PENTATEUCH. 35 
 
 various dates, and that the law of Israel did not take 
 final shape till after the Babylonian captivity. The Pen- 
 tateuch as we now have it is not the immediate record 
 of the institutions of Moses, but the last codification of 
 the divine teaching begun by Moses, and carried on and 
 perfected through many centuries by the discipline 
 of history and the word of the prophets who took up 
 Moses' work. The sacred writers of the Old Testament 
 were so deeply convinced of the imity and consistencj'' 
 of all Jehovah's teaching that they did not attempt to 
 leave an historical record of its several stages. In 
 every age their one concern was to set forth a clear 
 testimony to the whole truth of God as they themselves 
 knew it. It did not seem important to them to dis- 
 tinguish the very words of Moses from the equally 
 authoritative additions of later organs of revelation. 
 Thus it is difficult for us to determine with precision 
 how far Moses in person carried the work of giving to 
 Israel divine ordinances fitted to express the new-born 
 consciousness that Israel was the nation of Jehovah. 
 We may be sure, however, that his work was carried 
 out on practical lines. The ordiaary judges of the 
 people were still the elders, or, as an Arab would call 
 them, the sheikhs of the several tribes and sub-tribes ; 
 and this fact implies that Moses did not cancel the old 
 customary laws which already existed as the basis of 
 tribal justice.^* But the new circumstances of Israel, 
 and, above all, the new sense of national unity, which 
 was no longer a mere sentiment of common ancestry, 
 
36 I AH WE QEBAOTHj lect. i. 
 
 created a multitude of new questions. On these Moses 
 had to decide, and he sought the decision from Jehovah, 
 whose ark now led the march of Israel. It is only 
 on the march and in time of war that a nomad 
 people feels any urgent need of a central authority, and 
 so it came about that in the first beginnings of national 
 organisation, centering in the sanctuary of the ark, Israel 
 was thought of mainly as the host of Jehovah. The 
 very name of Israel is martial, and means " God (El) 
 fighteth," and Jehovah in the Old Testament is Iahw& 
 Qebdoth, the Jehovah of the armies of Israel. It was 
 on the battlefield that Jehovah's presence was most 
 clearly realised ; but in primitive nations the leader in 
 time of war is also the natural judge in time of peace, 
 and the sanctuary of Jehovah, where Moses and the 
 priests, his successors, gave forth the sacred oracle, was 
 the final seat of judgment in all cases too hard for the 
 ordinary heads of the Hebrew clans. 
 
 It must, however, be observed that the idea of 
 executive government as we understand it is quite 
 unknown to the inhabitants of the desert. The business 
 of a judge, among the Hebrews as among the Arabs, 
 was to declare the law when consulted, not to enforce 
 it, or even to offer a decision that was not asked. This 
 principle held good alike in criminal and civil cases, 
 and the foundation of what we caU criminal law was 
 the right of self-help on the principle of exact retalia- 
 tion.^^ Thus Israel entered Canaan without any de- 
 veloped system of national government. As the tribes 
 
LECT. I. JEHOVAH OF HOSTS. 37 
 
 moved off from the central camp where the ark stood, 
 and won themselves dwelling-places in different quarters 
 of the land, often separated by districts which the 
 Canaanites still held, their feelings of national unity 
 ceased to find any regular expression, the Hebrew 
 federation became weaker and weaker, and there was 
 no central authority to enforce the duties of political 
 and religious unity. 
 
 Now, it followed from the circumstances of the 
 Exodus that these two unities necessarily went together. 
 Jehovah was essentially the God of the whole nation, 
 not of individual families ; every act of worship to 
 Jehovah, every approach to the sacred judgment-seat 
 at the sanctuary, was an expression of national feeling, 
 which lost the best part of its meaning when the 
 Israelite forgot the bonds of national unity that had 
 been knit at the Eed Sea and in the wilderness. But, 
 in fact, the Mosaic sanctuary soon lost much of its 
 central importance. It was fixed on the first entrance 
 into Canaan at the headquarters of the armed force of 
 Israel, originally at Gilgal, afterwards at Shiloh, in the 
 land occupied by the strongest and most martial of the 
 Hebrew clans, the great tribe of Ephraim. The disper- 
 sion and isolation of the tribes, therefore, brought it 
 about that Shiloh became the local sanctuary of Ephraim, 
 and was not regularly visited by the more distant tribes. 
 This, indeed, did not imply that the other tribes ceased 
 to do sacrifice to Jehovah, whose altars of earth or un- 
 hewn stone were seen in aU corners of the land, while 
 
38 JEHOVAH AND THE lect. i. 
 
 in many places a priesthood claiming kinship with 
 Moses administered the sacred oracle as his successors. 
 But such local worship necessarily came into contact 
 with the Canaanite service of Baal ; and, apart from the 
 fact that the luxurious festivals of the latter had a 
 natural attraction for the sensuous Semitic nature of 
 the Hebrews, there was a more innocent motive which 
 tended to assimilate the two worships. The offerings 
 and festivals of Jehovah were acts of homage in which 
 the people consecrated to Him the good things of His 
 bestowing. These were no longer the scanty products 
 of pastoral life, but the rich gifts of a land of corn and 
 wine, which the Canaanites had taught the Hebrews to 
 cultivate. Thus the religious feasts necessarily assumed 
 a new and more luxurious character, and, rejoicing before 
 Jehovah in the enjoyment of the good things of Canaan, 
 the Israelites naturally imitated the agricultural feasts 
 which the Canaanites celebrated before Baal. It is not 
 therefore surprising that we find many indications of a 
 gradual fusion between the two worships ; that many of 
 the great Hebrew sanctuaries are demonstrably identi- 
 cal with Canaanite holy places ; that the autumn feast, 
 usually known as the Feast of Tabernacles, has a close 
 parallel in the Canaanite Vintage Feast ; that Canaanite 
 immorality tainted the worship of Jehovah; and that at 
 length Jehovah Himself, who was addressed by His wor- 
 shippers by" the same general appellation of Baal or 
 Lord which was the ordinary title of the Canaanite 
 nature-god, was hardly distinguished by the masses who 
 
LECT. I. GODS OF CANAAN. 39 
 
 worshipped at the local shrines from the local Baalim of 
 their Canaanite neighbours.^^ 
 
 The growth of this religious syncretism not only 
 threatened to sap the moral strength of the Hebrews, 
 but boded entire extinction to the national feeling which 
 had no other centre than the religion of Jehovah. And 
 so in the providence of God it was by a series of im- 
 perious calls to united national effort that Israel was 
 prevented from wholly forgetting Jehovah. Every in- 
 vasion which woke the dormant feeling of patriotism 
 woke at the same time something of the old faith. 
 There was no patriotic fire in the religion of the Baalim, 
 which had not even stimulated the Canaanites to united 
 struggle against their Hebrew conquerors. In battle 
 and in victory Jehovah was still the ancestral God, 
 shaking the earth and dissolving the mountains as He 
 marched from the desert of Seir to deliver His people 
 (Judges v.). Hence it is that in the time of the Judges 
 every revival of the religion of Jehovah is connected 
 with the wars in which the Hebrews succeeded in main- 
 taining their ground against numerous invading foes. 
 
 It is plain, however, that the religion of Jehovah 
 could not always stand still at the point which it had 
 reached in the vnldemess. It was not enough to have 
 one religion for times of patriotic exaltation, and another 
 for daily life. A God who dwelt afar off in Sinai and 
 only came down to Canaan in the day of battle was not 
 sufficient for human needs. It was necessary that the old 
 religion should become master of the new and altogether 
 
40 JEHOVAH AND THE lect. i. 
 
 changed life of the Hebrews in their new seats. Jehovah 
 and the Baalim had to contend for sovereignty in the 
 ordinary existence of the Hebrews, when the simplicity 
 of the desert had inevitably given way to the progress 
 of material civilisation in a rich and cultivated land. 
 
 And here we must ask what was the essential differ- 
 ence between Jehovah and the Baalim, which had to be 
 preserved amidst all changes of circumstances if Jehovah 
 was still to maintain His individuality ? In the first 
 place, as we have seen, Jehovah represented a principle 
 of national unity, while the worship of the Baalim was 
 split into a multitude of local cults without national 
 significance. But this would have been an empty 
 difference if there had been nothing behind. National 
 unity is a meaningless thing unless the nation feels 
 that it is united for some common task. Now Jehovah 
 represented to Israel two of the greatest blessings that 
 any people can enjoy, blessings for which it is well 
 worth while to unite in sustained and strenuous effort. 
 The first of these was liberty, for it was Jehovah that 
 brought Israel forth from the house of bondage; the 
 second was law, justice, and the moral order of society, 
 for from the days of Moses the mouth of Jehovah was 
 the one fountain of judgment. So in the Ten Words, 
 the fundamental document of the religion of the Old 
 Testament, the claim of Jehovah to the exclusive wor- 
 ship of Israel is based on the deliverance that made 
 Israel a free people, and issues in the great laws of 
 social morality. The cause of Jehovah in Israel was 
 
LF.CT. I. CODS OF CANAAN. 41 
 
 the cause of national freedom and social righteous- 
 ness, and the task of the religion of Jehovah was to set 
 these fast in the land of Canaan in a society which ever 
 looked to Jehovah as its living and present head. 
 
 The idea of righteousness is of course familiar to every 
 one as a cardinal Old Testament conception. The idea 
 of liherty may sound less familiar, but only because it 
 has two aspects, which are covered by the conceptions 
 of deliverance and peace. Thus, when the Psalmist 
 speaks of righteousness and peace kissing each other 
 (Psalm Ixxxv. 10), he expresses precisely the ideal of 
 the religion of Jehovah which we are now considering. 
 At the very close of the Old Testament dispensation the 
 same ideal meets us in the song of Zachariah, " That we 
 being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might 
 serve Him in holiness and righteousness before Him all 
 our days." Here indeed we have one more idea, that of 
 holiness, which will come prominently before us as our 
 argument advances, but which it would be premature to 
 dwell on at present. The holiness of Israel is in fact a 
 summary expression for the conception that the whole 
 national vocation of Israel is a religious vocation dis- 
 charged by a worshipping people, inasmuch as the 
 Judge, Lawgiver, and King of Israel is none other than 
 Israel's God. 
 
 Every true thought contains a deeper meaning and 
 involves more important consequences than can be seen 
 at once. And this is especially the case with religious 
 truth, which presents itself in the first instance in the 
 
42 JEHOVAH THE CHAMPION lect. i. 
 
 form not of general propositions but of direct personal 
 experience. The early Hebrews did not thiak about 
 Jehovah; they believed in Him, and experienced the 
 reality of His sovereignty in the great things which He 
 did for His people. Thus it was only by slow degrees 
 and in connection with the historical experiences of the 
 nation that the whole meaning of His religion, the full 
 difference between Him and the gods of the nations, 
 came to be realised, or that the Israelites learned all 
 that was implied in their vocation as the people of 
 Jehovah. In the first generations after the conquest 
 the great practical question, as we have already seen, 
 was whether Israel would continue in any sense to 
 retain that consciousness of national unity which, in the 
 absence of all political centralisation, had no other 
 raUying-point than the faith of Jehovah. We have 
 seen, too, that the struggle for freedom against successive 
 attacks of powerful enemies was the means used by 
 Providence in the age of the Judges to preserve at once 
 national feeling and national faith in Jehovah. Jehovah 
 in this period appears pre-eminently as the champion of 
 Israel's freedom, the divine King to whom Israel owes 
 national allegiance, and whose majesty is dishonoured 
 when His servants pay tribute and homage to other 
 nations and their gods. The foreign invaders of Israel 
 encroach on Jehovah's sovereignty, and thus are His 
 enemies too. So He goes forth and rallies His armies, 
 the armies of Israel, around Him, calling them to help 
 Jehovah against the mighty (Judges v. 23). And when 
 
LECT. I. OF ISRAEL. 43 
 
 the victory remains witli Israel the song of triumph ends 
 with the prayer, " So let all thine enemies perish, 
 Jehovah ; but let them that love Thee be as the sun 
 when he goeth forth in his might." 
 
 At this stage of Israel's religion, pictured most 
 clearly in the Song of Deborah, the presence of Jehovah 
 with His people was quite fully realised only in the hour 
 of battle and victory. The ark itself, the visible token 
 of the angel, or rather embassy of Jehovah, sent by Him 
 to direct the march of His people and subdue the 
 Canaanite before them (Exod. xxiii. 20 seq^. ; Num. x. 33 ; 
 Judges ii. 1), was rather the sanctuary of the host than 
 of the settled nation, and after it was iixed at Shiloh 
 became, as we have seen, little more than the local 
 shrine of the tribe of Ephraim. In the Song of Deborah 
 Jehovah has not yet a fixed seat in the land of Canaan, 
 but goes forth from ■ Sinai to help His people in their 
 distress. Hence the establishment of local sanctuaries 
 of Jehovah, at Dan, at Ophrah, and at other points 
 throughout the land during the period of the Judges, 
 must not be looked upon as essentially a retrograde 
 movement. It is true that these local shrines exposed 
 Jehovah -worship to the great danger of taking up 
 Canaanite elements and assimilating itself to the worship 
 of the Baalim, and thus it is easy to understand that 
 from one point of view the age of the Judges may be 
 represented as one of continual backsliding. But, on 
 the other hand, these local shrines brought Jehovah 
 nearer to the daily life of the people. He came down. 
 
& 
 
 44 THE AGE OF lect. i. 
 
 as it were, from Sinai and took possession of Canaan as 
 the suzerain to whom the people in every corner of the 
 country did homage for the good things of Jehovah's 
 land. At the close of the period of the Judges the 
 religion of Jehovah is thoroughly identified with the 
 possession of Palestine. " They have driven me out this 
 day," says David, " from being attached to the inherit- 
 ance of Jehovah, saying. Go serve other gods." In other 
 words, banishment from Canaan is now conceived as 
 banishment from the service of Jehovah, and the reli- 
 gion of Jehovah has become part of daily national life. 
 Thus we see that the long struggle that was inevitable 
 when the religion of Jehovah went forth from the desert 
 and came into contact with the life of the larger world 
 was not in vain. The crisis was sharp, and Israel had 
 not passed through it unscathed; but in the end 
 Jehovah was still the God of Israel, and had become the 
 God of Israel's land. Canaan was His heritage, not the 
 heritage of the Baalim, and the Canaanite worship 
 appears henceforth, not as a direct rival to the worship 
 of Jehovah, but as a disturbing element corrupting the 
 national faith, while unable to supplant it altogether. 
 This, of course, in virtue of the close connection between 
 religion and national feeling, means that Israel had now 
 risen above the danger of absorption in the Canaanites, 
 and felt itself to be a nation in the true sense of the 
 word. We learn from the books of Samuel how this 
 great advance was ultimately and permanently secured. 
 The earlier wars recorded in the book of Judges had 
 
LECT. I. THE JUDGES. 45 
 
 brought about no complete or lasting unity among the 
 Hebrew tribes. But at length a new enemy arose, more 
 formidable than any whom they had previously en- 
 countered. The Philistines from Caphtor, who, like the 
 Israelites, had entered Canaan as emigrants, but coming 
 most probably by sea had displaced the aboriginal 
 Awim in the rich coastlands beneath the mountains of 
 Judah (Deut. ii. 23 ; Amos ix. 7), pressed into the heart 
 of the country, and broke the old strength of Ephraim 
 in the battle of Ebenezer. This victory cut the Hebrew 
 settlements in two, and threatened the independence of 
 all the tribes. The common danger drew Israel together. 
 They found a leader in the Benjamite Saul, whom 
 Jehovah Himself designated as the king of Israel by 
 the mouth of the prophet Samuel. The resistance 
 which Saul first organised in the difficult hill country 
 of his native tribe was conducted with varying fortune, 
 but not without success. Saul himself fell in battle, 
 but his work was continued by Abner in the north, 
 while in the south David consolidated his power as king 
 of Judah without disturbance from the Philistines, 
 whose suzerainty he was content to aclcnowledge till 
 his plans were ripe. When David was accepted as king 
 of aU Israel, and by a bold stroke found a capital in the 
 centre of the land in the strong fortress of Jerusalem, 
 till then deemed impregnable, Israel met the invader on 
 more than equal terms, and the Hebrews became masters 
 where a few years before they had been servants. 
 
 It was Jehovah who had given them this victory, 
 
46 BEGINNING OF 
 
 and, what was more than any victory, had at length 
 given permanent expression to the unity of the nation 
 by placing at their head a king who reigned as the 
 anointed of the Lord. The first crisis was past, and 
 thenceforward Israel could never forget that it was one 
 nation, with a national destiny and a national God. 
 
LECT. 11. THE KINGSHIP. 47 
 
 LECTUEE 11. 
 
 JEHOVAH AND THE GODS OF THE NATIONS. 
 
 In last Lecture we followed the history of Israel and 
 Israel's religion down to the consolidation of the state 
 under Saul and David. Throughout the period of the 
 Judges, neither the nationality of Israel nor the reli- 
 gion of Jehovah stood on a sure footing. The tribes of 
 Israel were broken up into isolated fractions, and often 
 seemed on the point of absorption among the Canaan- 
 ites ; and the religion of Jehovah in like manner, which 
 lost the best part of its original meaning when divorced 
 from the idea of national unity, threatened to disappear 
 in the Canaanite Baal worship before it could succeed 
 in adapting itself to the change from nomad to agricul- 
 tural life. Both these dangers were at length sur- 
 mounted, and, whatever physical and political circum- 
 stances may have conspired towards the result,^ it was 
 the faith of Jehovah that united the Hebrews to final 
 victory, and Jehovah who crowned His gift of the 
 goodly land of Canaan by bestowing on Israel a king to 
 reign in His name, and make it at length a real nation 
 instead of a loose federation of tribes.^ And so the reli- 
 
48 RELIGIOUS UNITY lect. ii. 
 
 gion of Jehovah was not only a necessary part of the state, 
 but the chief cornerstone of the political edifice. To 
 Jehovah Israel ovi^ed, not only the blessings of life, but 
 national existence and all the principles of social' order ; 
 and through His priests, His prophets, but above all 
 His anointed king. He was the source of all authority, 
 and the fountain of all law and judgment in the land. 
 
 In principle, this paramount position of Jehovah 
 the God of Israel was never again disputed. The 
 kingdom of David was torn asunder, and new dynasties 
 reigned in Northern Israel. But the kings of Ephraim, 
 not less than the house of David, reigned in Jehovah's 
 name, and derived their autliority from Him (1 Kings 
 xi. 31 seg. ; 2 Kings ix. 3). The sanctuaries founded 
 by Jeroboam were sanctuaries of the God who brought 
 up Israel out of the land of Egypt (1 Kings xii. 28) ; 
 and even Ahab, who provoked so bitter a religious 
 conflict by making room in Samaria for the Baal of his 
 Tyrian queen, did not give up the religion of his ances- 
 tors; for it was Jehovah's prophets whom he consulted 
 in time of need, and Jehovah was the God whose sus- 
 taining help and loftiness he acknowledged in giving 
 names to his sons. In the north not less than in the 
 south to forsake Jehovah was a crime against the state, 
 and the technical expression for treason was to abjure 
 God and the King (1 Kings xxi. 13). 
 
 In virtue of their common religion the Israelites of 
 the north and south retained a sense of essential unity 
 in spite of political separation and repeated wars ; and 
 
OF ISRAEL. 49 
 
 it was felt that the division of the tribes was inconsistent 
 with the true destiny of Jehovah's people. We shall 
 have repeated opportunity to observe how this feeling 
 asserts itself in the teaching of the prophets, but it was 
 a feeling in which all Israelites participated, and which 
 had at least as great strength in Ephraim as in Judah. 
 The so-called Blessing of Moses (which does not itself 
 claim this name, but on the contrary bears clear internal 
 marks of having been written in the kingdom of 
 Ephraim) remembers Judah with affection, and prays 
 that he may be strengthened against his enemies, and 
 again restored to union with his brethren (Deut. xxxiii. 7). 
 But while the religion of Jehovah had thus acquired 
 a fixed national character, it would be a great mistake 
 to suppose that it already presented itself to the mass 
 of the people, as it did to the later Jews, as something 
 altogether dissimilar in principle and in details from 
 the religions of the surrounding nations. The Jews 
 after the exile not only had a separate religion, but a 
 religion which made them a separate nation, distinct 
 from the Gentiles in all their habits of life and thought. 
 In old Israel it was not so. The possession of a national 
 God, to whom the nation owed homage, and in whose 
 name kings reigned and judges administered justice, 
 was not in itself a thing peculiar to Israel. A national 
 religion and sacred laws are part of the constitution of 
 every ancient state, and among the nations most nearly 
 akin to the Hebrews these ideas took a shape which, 
 so far as mere externals were concerned, bore a close 
 
5) COMMON FEATURES lect. ii. 
 
 family likeness to the religion of Jehovah. Among the 
 Semitic peoples it is quite the rule that each tribe or 
 nation should have its tribal or national God. This of 
 course does not imply a monotheistic faith ; the Am- 
 monite who worshipped Milcom, the Moabite who as- 
 3ribed his prosperity to Chemosh, did not deny tire 
 existence of other supernatural beings, who had power 
 to help or hurt men, and were accessible to the prayers 
 and offerings of their worshippers. But the national 
 god in each case was regarded as the divine lord, and 
 often as the divine father, of his nation, while other 
 deities were either subordinate to him, or had the seat 
 of their power in other lands, or, in the case of the gods 
 of neighbouring nations, were his rivals and the enemies 
 of his people. He was therefore the god to be looked 
 to in all national concerns ; he had a right to national 
 homage, and, as we learn expressly, in the case of 
 Chemosh, from the stone erected by Mesha to com- 
 memorate his victories over Israel, national misfortune 
 was ascribed to his wrath, national success to his 
 favour.^ It was he too that was the ultimate director of 
 all national policy. Mesha teUs us that it was Chemosh 
 who commanded him to assault this or that city, and 
 who drove out the king of Israel before him mviu" 
 liim to see his desire on all his enemies. The parallel- 
 ism with the Old Testament extends, you see, not only 
 to the ideas but to the very words. But the parallelism 
 is not coniined to such near cousins of the Israelites 
 as the Moabites. Equally striking analogies to Old 
 
LECT. 11. OF SEMITIC RELIGION. 51 
 
 Testament thoughts and expressions are found on the 
 Phoenician monuments. As the kings of Israel ascribe 
 their sovereignty to the grant of Jehovah, so the king of 
 Gebal on the great monument of Byblus declares that 
 it was the divine queen of Byblus who set him as king 
 over the city. As the psalmist of Ps. cxvi. says, " I take 
 up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of 
 Jehovah," so this heathen king is figured standing 
 before the goddess with a cup in his hand, and exclaim- 
 ing, "I call upon my lady the sovereign of Gebal, because 
 she hath heard my voice, and dealt graciously with me." 
 And just as the prayer for life and blessing to the king 
 of Israel in Psalm Ixxii. is a prayer for a king judging 
 in righteousness, the Phcenician goddess is invoked to 
 bless lehawmelek, king of Gebal, and give him life 
 and prolong his days in Gebal, because he is a just 
 king, and to give him favour in the eyes of gods and 
 men.* 
 
 It would not be difficult to add to these analogies 
 even from the scanty materials at our command, con- 
 sisting mainly of a few weather-worn inscriptions hewn 
 by the command of ancient kings. But it is not 
 necessary to do so ; I have quoted enough to show that 
 the characteristic conception of Jehovah as the national 
 God of Israel is reproduced with very similar features, 
 expressed in very similar language, in the religions of 
 the surrounding nations. The most important point to 
 carry with us is the bearing of these observations on 
 the current conception of the Hebrew theocracy. The 
 
52 THE HEBREW 
 
 word theocracy, wliich has had such vogue among 
 Christian theologians, is the invention of Josephus, who 
 observes in his second book against Apion (chap, xvi.) 
 that, while other nations had a great variety of institu- 
 tions and laws, some states being monarchies, others 
 oligarchies, and others again republics, Moses gave to 
 his nation the unique form of a theocracy, assigning all 
 authority and power to God, teaching the Israelites to 
 look to Him as the source of all blessings to the nation 
 or to individuals, and their help in every distress, making 
 all the virtues, as justice, self-command,, temperance, and 
 civil concord, parts of piety, and subjecting the whole 
 order of society to a system of divine law. Nothing 
 gives so much currency to an idea as a happy catch- 
 word, and so people have gone on to this day using the 
 word theocracy, or God-kingship, to express the differ- 
 ence between the constitution of Israel and all other 
 nations. But in reality, as we now see, the word 
 theocracy expresses precisely that feature in the religion 
 of Israel which it had in common with the faiths of the 
 surrounding nations. They too had each a supreme 
 god, whose favour or displeasure was viewed as the 
 cause of all success or misfortune, and whose revela- 
 tions were looked to as commands directing all national 
 undertakings. This god was conceived as a divine king, 
 and was often invoked by this name. Moloch, or 
 Milcom, for example — the name of the god of the 
 Ammonites — is simply the word king, and t^he Tyrian 
 sun-god in like manner was called Melkarth, "king of 
 
LECT. 11. THEOCRACY. 53 
 
 the city." The human king reigned by the favour and 
 gift of his divine Lord, and, as we see from the stone of 
 Gebal, the exercise of kingly justice was under the special 
 protection of the godhead. Perhaps the most character- 
 istic expression of the theocratic idea is the regular 
 payment to the sanctuary of tithe, or tribute, such as 
 human kings claimed from the produce of the soil (1 
 Sam. viii. 15, 17) ; for this was an act of homage 
 acknowledging the god as the sovereign of the land. 
 But the tithe is not confined to Israel. It is found 
 among other nations, and in Tyre was paid to the divine 
 king Melkarth.^ 
 
 The religious constitution of Israel, then, as laid 
 down by Moses and consolidated in the institution of 
 the kingship, was not the entirely unique thing that it 
 is frequently supposed to be. Indeed, if Moses had 
 brought in a whole system of new and utterly revolu- 
 tionary ideas he could not have carried the people with 
 him to any practical effect.. There was a great difference 
 between the religion of Israel and other religions ; but 
 tliat difference cannot be reduced to an abstract formula ; 
 it lay in the personal difference, if I may so speak, 
 between Jehovah and the gods of the nations, and all 
 that lay in it only came out bit by bit in the course of 
 a history wliich was ruled by Jehovah's providence, and 
 shaped by Jehovah's love. 
 
 From these considerations, we are able to understand 
 what is often a great puzzle to Bible readers, the way, 
 namely, in which the Old Testament, especially in its 
 
54 JEHOVAH AND lect. il 
 
 earlier parts, speaks of the gods of the nations. 
 Jehovah is not generally spoken of in the older parts of 
 the Hebrew literature as the absolutely one God, but 
 only as the one God of Israel ; and it is taken to be 
 quite natural and a matter of course that other nations 
 have other gods. The prophets, indeed, teach with 
 increasing clearness that these other gods are, in point 
 of fact^ no gods at all, mere idols, dead things that 
 cannot help their worshippers. But this point of view 
 was not clearly before the mind of all Israelites at all 
 times. Another and no doubt an older habit of thought 
 does not say that there is no god except Jehovah, but 
 only that there is none among the gods like him (Exod. 
 XV. 11). According to the words of Jephthah (Judges 
 xi. 24), the natural order of things is that Israel should 
 inherit the land which Jehovah has enabled them to 
 conquer, while the invader who attempts to encroach on 
 this inheritance ought to be content with the lands 
 which Chemosh his god has given him. And David 
 takes it for granted that a man who is excluded from 
 the commonwealth of Israel, "the inheritance of 
 Jehovah," must go and serve other gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 
 19). In trubh, the great deliverance which manifested 
 Jehovah to the Hebrews as their king and Saviour 
 did not necessarily and at once compel them to deny 
 the existence of other superhuman beings capable oi 
 influencing the affairs of mankind. A man might 
 believe firmly in Jehovah, Israel's God, and feel secure 
 in His strength and love, without being drawn into the 
 
OTHER GODS. 55 
 
 train of reflection necessary to carry the conviction that 
 those who were not the people of Jehovah had no 
 divine helper at all. It was not every one who could 
 rise with the prophet Amos to the thought that it was 
 Jehovah's supreme providence which had determined 
 the migrations of all nations just as much as of Israel 
 (Amos ix. 7). It is not therefore surprising that the 
 mass of the people long after the time of David held the 
 faith of Jehovah in a way that left it open to them to 
 concede a certain reality to the gods of other nations. 
 The ordinary unenlightened Israelite thought that 
 Jehovah was stronger than Chemosh, while the Moahite, 
 as we see from the stone of Mesha, thought that Che- 
 mosh was stronger than Jehovah ; but, apart from this 
 difference, the two had a great many religious ideas in 
 common, and, but for the continued word of revelation 
 in the mouths of the prophets, Israel's religion might 
 very well have permanently remained on this level, and 
 so have perished with the fall of the Hebrew state. 
 
 We see, then, that it was not the idea of the theocracy 
 that gave to the religion of Israel its unique character. 
 It is well to observe that the same thing may be said 
 of the sacred ordinances which are so often thought of 
 as having been from the first what they undoubtedly 
 became after the time of Ezra, a permanent wall of 
 separation between Israel and the Gentiles. To discuss 
 this subject in detail it would be necessary to trace the 
 history of the ritual laws of the Pentateuch. This I 
 have done, to a certain extent, in a previous course of 
 
56 THE ORDINANCES lect. ii. 
 
 lectures, and I sliall not repeat what I then said. But 
 in general it must be observed that to the ordinary 
 Israelite the most prominent of the sacred observances 
 previous to the exile must have seemed rather to con- 
 nect his worship with that of the surrounding nations 
 than to separate the two. Israel, like the other nations, 
 worshipped Jehovah at certain fixed sanctuaries, where 
 He was held to meet with His people face to face. The 
 method of worship was by altar gifts, expressive of 
 homage for the good things of His bestowal, and the 
 chief occasions of such worship were the agricultural 
 feasts, just as among the Canaanites.® The details of 
 the ceremonial observed were closely parallel to those 
 still to be read on Phoenician monuments. Even the 
 technical terms connected with sacrifice were in great 
 part identical. The vow (nMer), the whole burnt offer- 
 ing (kdl'il), the thank-offering (shdem), the meat-offering 
 (minhath), and a variety of other details appear on the 
 tablet of Marseilles and similar Phcsnician documents 
 under their familiar Old Testament names, showing that 
 the Hebrew ritual was not a thing by itself, but had a 
 common foundation with that observed by their neigh- 
 bours.'^ And no hesitation was felt in actually copy- 
 ing foreign models. When Ahaz took the pattern of 
 a new altar from Damascus, he simply followed the 
 precedent set by Solomon in the building of the temple. 
 The court with its brazen altar and lofty columns 
 (Jachin and Boaz), the portico (2 Kings xxiii. 11 — not 
 suburbs, as the Authorised Version has it), the orna- 
 
LECT. II. OF WORSHIP. 57 
 
 ments, chased or embossed in gold, the symbolic palm- 
 trees, and so forth, are all described or figured on 
 Phoenician inscriptions and coins.* 
 
 Again the approach of the worshipper to his God in 
 sacrifice and offering demands, as its necessary comple- 
 ment, a means by which the response of the deity can 
 be conveyed to His people. Among the Hebrews the 
 answer of Jehovah to the people's supplications was 
 given by the priestly lot and the prophetic word. But 
 here again the vast difference between the revelation 
 of Jehovah and the oracles of the nations lies in what 
 Jehovah had to say, rather than in the external manner 
 of saying it. The holy lot is of constant occurrence in 
 ancient religions ; ^ there were prophets of Baal as well 
 as prophets of Jehovah ; and the official prophets, con- 
 nected with the sanctuary, were, according to the testi- 
 mony of Jeremiah and Micah, often not distinguishable 
 from sorcerers — a fact quite inexplicable if there had 
 been a broad acknowledged difference in externals 
 between their functions and those of the prophets of the 
 heathen. In point of fact, we find Saul and his servant 
 going to Samuel with a trifling present, just as in other 
 early nations. 
 
 In every way, then, the attempt to reduce the 
 difference between the early religion of the Hebrews 
 and that of other nations to broad tangible peculiarities 
 that can be grasped with the hand breaks down. It 
 was Jehovah Himself who was different from Chemosh, 
 Moloch, or Melkarth ; and to those who did not Icnoio 
 
 4 
 
58 THE KNO WLEDGE lect. n. 
 
 Jehovah, to use the expressive prophetic phrase, there 
 was no insurmountable barrier between His wor- 
 ship and heathenism. Even the current ideas of the 
 Hebrews about unseen things were mainly the common 
 stock of the Semitic peoples, and nothing is more cer- 
 tain than that neither Moses nor Samuel gave Israel 
 any new system of metaphysical theology. In matters 
 of thought as well as of practice, the new revelation of 
 Jehovah's power and love, given through Moses, or 
 rather given in actual saving deeds of Jehovah which 
 Moses taught the people to understand, involved no 
 sudden and absolute break with the past, or with the 
 traditions of the past common to Israel with kindred 
 nations. Its epoch-making importance lay in quite 
 another direction — in the introduction into Israel's 
 historical life of a new personal factor — of Jehovah 
 Himself as the God of Israel's salvation. Jehovah, as 
 the prophet Hosea puts it, taught Israel to walk, holding 
 him by the arms as a parent holds a little child ; but 
 the divine guidance fitly characterised in these words 
 is something very different from such a course of lec- 
 tures on dogmatics as is often thought of as the sub- 
 stance of Old Testament revelation. Again to borrow 
 the language of Hosea, Jehovah drew Israel to Him by 
 human ties, by cords of love; the influence of His 
 revelation in forming the religious character of the 
 nation was a personal influence, the influence of His 
 gracious and holy character. It was from this personal 
 experience of Jehovah's character, read in the actual 
 
LECT. II. OF JEHOVAH. 59 
 
 history of His dealings with His people, that the great 
 teachers of Israel learned, but learned by slow degrees, 
 to lay down general propositions about divine things. 
 To suppose that the Old Testament history began with 
 a full scheme of doctrine, which the history only served 
 to illustrate and enforce, is to invert the most general 
 law of G-od's dealings with man, whether in the way of 
 nature or of grace. 
 
 Unless we keep this principle clearly before our 
 minds, the whole history of the divine teaching contained 
 in the Old Testament wiU be involved in hopeless con- 
 fusion ; and therefore it will not be amiss to devote a 
 few sentences to show in detail how impossible it is to 
 place the original peculiarity of Israel's religion in any- 
 thing of the nature of abstract theological doctrine. For 
 this purpose I may select two principal points, which 
 are always held to be cardiaal features in a spiritual 
 theology, the doctrine of the unity and absolute spiritual 
 being of God, and the doctrine of the future state and 
 retribution in the world to come. Ko question has been 
 more discussed by writers on the Old Testament than 
 the monotheism of the Hebrews. Was the doctrine of 
 monotheism an inheritance from the patriarchs ? or was 
 it introduced by Moses ? or did it come to the front for 
 the iirst time in the days of Elijah ? or was it, in fact, 
 not precisely formulated till the time of Jeremiah ? 
 
 That these questions can be asked and seriously 
 argued by scholarly inquirers is, at any rate, sufficient proof 
 that the older parts of the Bible do not give to the abstract 
 
60 HEBREW 
 
 doctrine of monotheism the importance that it possesses 
 to our minds. To the early Hebrews the question which 
 we view as so fundamental, and which was, in fact, felt 
 to be fundamental by the later prophets, seems hardly 
 to have presented itself at all. For the practical pur- 
 poses of religion, the thesis that there is no god who can 
 compare with Jehovah appeared as sufficient as the more 
 advanced doctrine that there is no god except Him. 
 As long as the Israelites, with Jehovah at their head, 
 were absorbed in the conflict for freedom against other 
 nations and their gods, there was no practical interest 
 in the question whether the foreign deities had or had 
 not metaphysical existence. The practical point was 
 til at Jehovah proved Himself stronger than they by 
 giving Israel victory over their worshippers. And, in 
 fact, it required a process of abstract thought, not at all 
 familiar to early times, to deny all reality to deities 
 which in many cases were identified with actual con- 
 crete things, with the sun, for example, or the planets. 
 Even in the latest stages of Biblical thought the point of 
 view which strictly identifies the heathen gods with the 
 idols that represented them, and therefore denies to them 
 all living reality, varies with another point of view which 
 regards them as evil demons (1 Cor. viii. 4 seq. ; x. 20 szgX 
 Nor is it at all clear that in the earliest times the 
 difference between Jehovah and other gods was placed 
 in His spiritual nature. The Old Testament word 
 which we translate by spirit (rti^A) is the common word 
 for wind, including the "living breath" (?'tt"A. of life, 
 
LECT. II. MONOTHEISM. 61 
 
 Gen. vi. 17), and so used of the motions of life and the 
 affections of the soul. Now, observation of human life 
 taught the Hebrews to distinguish between man's flesh, 
 or visible and tangible frame, and the subtile breath or 
 spirit which animates this frame. It was in the fleshy 
 body that they saw the difference between man and 
 God. " Hast Thou eyes of flesh," says Job, " or seest 
 Thou as man seeth " (Job x. 4). " The Egyptians are 
 men and not God, and their horses flesh and not spirit " 
 (Isa. xxxi. 3). These passages are the clearest expres- 
 sions of the spirituality of the godhead which the Old 
 Testament contains, and you observe that they are not 
 directed to distinguish between the true God and false 
 gods, but to characterise the godhead in its difference 
 from human nature. It is, in fact, the divine working, 
 rather than the divine nature, that the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures regard as spiritual — that is, as possessing a subtile 
 and invisible character, comparable with the mysterious 
 movements of the wind. The common doctrine of the 
 Old Testament is not that God is spirit, but that the 
 spirit of Jehovah, going forth from Him, works in the 
 world and among men. And this is no metaphysical 
 doctrine ; it simply expresses that difference between 
 divine and human agency which must be recognised 
 wherever there is any belief in God, or at least any 
 belief rising above the grossest fetichism. That the 
 early Israelites possessed no metaphysical doctrine of 
 the spirituality of Jehovah, conceived as an existence out 
 of all relation to space and time, is plain from the fact 
 
62 HEBREW lect. ii. 
 
 that the Old Testament never quite stripped off the idea 
 that Jehovah's contact with earth has a special relation 
 to special places — that the operations of His sovereignty- 
 go forth from Sinai, or from Zion, or from some other 
 earthly sanctuary, where He is nearer to man than on 
 unconsecrated ground. It is true that this conception 
 generally takes a poetical form, and did not to the 
 prophets appear irreconcilable with the thought that it 
 is impossible to escape from Jehovah's presence (Amos 
 ix. 1 se^. ; Ps. c.xxxix. 7), that heaven and the heaven 
 of heavens cannot contain Him (1 Kings viii. 27) ; that 
 He sits on the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants 
 are as grasshoppers (Isa. xl. 22). But the figures of 
 early poetry express the actual thoughts of the people 
 who use them ; and there can be no question that, by 
 the ordinary Israelite, the local relation of Jehovah to 
 the land and sanctuaries of Israel, the idea of His march 
 from "Sinai in the thunderstorm that announces His 
 approach, were taken with a degree of literality that 
 would have been impossible if Moses had already 
 given to the people a metaphysical conception of the 
 divine being. As for the common notion that the name 
 Jehovah expresses the idea of absolute and unconditioned 
 existence, that is a mere fiction of the Alexandrian 
 philosophy, absurdly inconsistent with the whole lan- 
 guage of the Old Testament, and refuted even by the'' 
 one phrase Jehovah of hosts — the Jehovah of the armies 
 of Israel.''" Even the principle of the second command- 
 ment, that Jehovah is not to be worshipped by images, 
 
lECT. II. MONOTHEISM. 63 
 
 which is often appealed to as containing the most char- 
 acteristic peculiarity of Mosaism, cannot, in the light of 
 history, be viewed as having had so fundamental a place 
 in the religion of early Israel. The state worship of 
 the golden calves led to no quarrel between Elisha and 
 the dynasty of Jehu ; and this one fact is sufficient to 
 show that, even in a time of notable revival, the living 
 power of the religion was not felt to lie in the principle 
 that Jehovah cannot be represented by images. 
 
 It was as a living personal force, not as a meta- 
 physical entity, that Jehovah was adored by Israel, 
 and so a living faith was possible in spite of much 
 vagueness and vacillation upon the very points in the 
 conception of the Godhead which, to our habit of 
 mind, seem most central. In truth, metaphysical specu- 
 lation on the Godhead as eternal, infinite, and the like, 
 is not peculiar to the religion of revelation, but was 
 carried by the philosophers of the Gentiles much further 
 than is ever attempted in the Old Testament. 
 
 The other point to which I have referred, the views 
 of the Hebrews as to the state after death and future 
 retribution, may be disposed of more briefly. Apart 
 from the doctrine of the resurrection, of which nothing 
 is heard till the later books of the Old Testament, the 
 religion of the Hebrews has to do with this life, not 
 with a life to come, as, indeed, was inevitable, seeing that 
 the religious subject, the object of Jehovah's love, is, in 
 the first instance, the nation as a whole, individual 
 Israelites coming into relation with their God as mem- 
 
64 SHEOL. LECT. II. 
 
 bers of the nation sharing in His dealings with Israel 
 quA nation. After death man enters the shadowy realm 
 of Sheol, where the weak and pithless shades dwell 
 together, where their love, their hatred, their envy are 
 perished, where small and great are alike, and the ser- 
 vant is free from his master (Eccles. ix. 4 seg. ; Job. iii. 
 ] 3 seg.), where there is no more remembrance of God, and 
 none can praise His name or hope for His truth (Ps. 
 vi. 5; Isa. xxxviii. 18). There is nothing in these 
 conceptions which partakes of the character of revela- 
 tion ; they are just the same ideas as are found among 
 the surrounding nations. The very name of shades 
 (Eephaim) is common to the Old Testament with the 
 Phoenicians ; and, when the Sidonian king Eshmunazar 
 engraved on his sarcophagus the prayer that those who 
 disturbed his tomb might " find no bed among the 
 shades," he used the same imagery and even the same 
 words as are employed in the books of Isaiah and 
 Ezekiel in describing the descent into Sheol of the kings 
 of Babylon and Egypt (Isa. xiv. 9, 18 seg. ; Ezek. xxxii. 
 25).''^ In accordance with this view of the state of the 
 dead, the Hebrew doctrine of retribution is essentially 
 a doctrine of retribution on earth. Death is itself a 
 final judgment ; for it removes man from the sphere 
 where Jehovah's grace and judgment are known. Here, 
 then, even more clearly than in the other case, it is 
 plain that the religion of the Hebrews does not rest on 
 a philosophy of the unseen universe. The sphere of 
 religion is the present life, and the truths of religion 
 
LECT. II. RETRIBUTION. 65 
 
 are the truths of an everyday experience in which to 
 Hebrew faith Jehovah is as living and personal an actor 
 as men are. His"agency in Israel is too real to invite 
 to abstract speculation ; all interest turns, not on what 
 Jehovah is in Himself, or what He does beyond the 
 sphere of the present national life, but on His present 
 doings in the midst of His people, and the personal 
 character and dispositions which these doings reveal. 
 
 Now, to all early nations religion is an intensely 
 real thing. The primitive mind does not occupy itself 
 with things of no practical importance, and it is only in 
 the later stages of society that we meet with traditional 
 beliefs nominally accepted by every one, but practically 
 regarded by none, or with theological speculations 
 which have an interest to the curious but are not felt 
 to have a direct bearing on the concerns of life. In the 
 earliest stages of the religion of any nation we may 
 take it for granted that nothing is believed or practised 
 which is not felt to be of vital importance for the 
 nation's wellbeing. There is no remissness, therefore, in 
 religious duty, no slackness in the performance of sacred 
 rites. This principle holds good for ancient Israel as 
 well as for other ancient nations. The prophets them- 
 selves, amidst all their complaints against the people's 
 backsliding, bear witness that their countrymen were 
 assiduous in their religious service, and neglected nothing 
 which they deemed necessary to make sure of Jehovah's 
 help in every need. The Israelites, in fact, had not 
 reached the stage at which men begin to be indifferent 
 
66 JEHOVAH AND lect. ll. 
 
 about religion, and if Jehovah had been such a god as 
 Baal or Chemosh, content with such service as they 
 exacted from their worshippers, there' would have been 
 no ground to complain of their fidelity to His name or 
 their zeal for His cause. 
 
 But here we come back to the real difference 
 between the religion of Jehovah and the religion of 
 the nations, which, as we have just seen, cannot be 
 sought in the external forms of the Old Testament 
 worship, or in a system of abstract monotheistic theo- 
 logy. That difference lies in the personal character of 
 Jehovah, and in the relations corresponding to His 
 character which He seeks to maintain with His people. 
 Properly spealdng, the heathen deities have no personal 
 character, and no personal relations to their wor- 
 shippers. They were, indeed, conceived as a kind of 
 persons, as capable of anger and of pleasure, as hunger- 
 ing and fed by sacrifices, as showing affection to their 
 worshippers, who were often looked on as their sons and 
 daughters, and so forth. But character in the sense of 
 a fixed and independent habit of will was not theirs. 
 The attributes ascribed to them were a mere reflex of 
 the attributes of their worshippers, and what character 
 they had was nothing else than a personification of the 
 character of the nation that acknowledged their lord- 
 ship. Heathen religions were by no means without 
 moral value in giving fixed expression to national cha- 
 racter, and adding a sacred sanction to the highest 
 national conception of right and wrong. But they 
 
LECT. II. OTHER GODS. 67 
 
 had no effect in developing character.. The god always 
 remained on the same ethical level with his people. 
 His virtues were their virtues, and their imperfections 
 were his also. The god and the people therefore never 
 parted company. It was not difficult to M'orship and 
 serve him aright, for he asked no more than popular 
 sentiment approved. The heathen nations, says Jere- 
 miah, never gave up their gods, which yet are no gods 
 (Jer. ii. 11). In point of fact, there was no motive to 
 give up a religion wliich had no higher moral standard 
 and no higher aims than those of the worshippers them- 
 selves. The god and the people kept together because 
 they formed a natural unity, because the deity had no 
 independent will, and at most was conceived as being 
 sometimes temporarily estranged from his people for 
 reasons not clearly distinguishable from the caprice of 
 an Eastern despot. 
 
 Not so Jehovah. He approved Himself a true God 
 by showing throughout the history of Israel that He 
 had a will and purpose of His own — a purpose rising 
 above the current ideas of His worshippers, and a wUl 
 directed with steady consistency to a moral aim. 
 Jehovah was not content to receive such service as it 
 was easy and natural for the people to perform, and to 
 give them such felicity as they themselves desired. 
 All His dealings with Israel were directed to lead the 
 people on to higher things than their natural character 
 inclined towards. To know Jehovah and to serve Him 
 aright involved a moral effort — a frequent sacrifice of 
 
68 JEHOVAH'S CONTROVERSY lect. ii. 
 
 natural inclinatioji. It was an eas}' thing to acknow- 
 ledge the Divine King of Israel in the day of battle 
 when He led His armies on to victory ; and it is not 
 difficult to undi rstand that in the prosperous days of 
 David the Hebrews could rejoice before Jehovah, and 
 find nothing burdensome in His service. But very 
 different experiences awaited the nation in the ages that 
 followed — when Israel was divided against itself, when 
 its rulers were drawn into the larger stream of politics 
 by the forward movement of the great empire on the 
 Tigris, and when the old social system, based on peasant 
 proprietorship, began to break up and left a dangerous 
 gulf between the rich nobles and the landless or im- 
 poverished classes. 
 
 Every change in the old national life, every dis- 
 order in society or in the state, opened a new religioiis 
 problem — a new question, that is, as to the reason why 
 Jehovah suffered such evils to befall His people. To 
 the unthinking masses these things were only a proof 
 that Jehovah was temporarily estranged, and did not 
 lead them to doubt that He could be won back to them 
 by greater zeal in acts of external worship which might 
 with advantage be made more effective and splendid 
 by taking hints from their heathen neighbours. But 
 though the sacrifices were redoubled and the feasts 
 thronged with eager worshippers, all this brought no 
 help to Israel. The nation sank continually lower, and 
 Jehovah still stood afar off ; to the common judgment 
 He seemed to have forsaken His land. 
 
LECT. II. WITH HIS PEOPLE. 69 
 
 Under such trials a heathen religion which was 
 capable of no higher hopes than were actually enter- 
 tained by the mass of the Hebrews would have declined 
 and perished with the fall of the nation. But Jehovah 
 proved Himself a true God by vindicating His 
 sovereignty in the very events that proved fatal to the 
 gods of the Gentiles. Amidst the sceptical politics of 
 the nobles and the thoughtless superstition of the 
 masses He was never without a remnant tliat read the 
 facts of history in another light, and saw in them the 
 proof, not that Jehovah was powerless or indifferent, but 
 that He was engaged in a great controversy with His 
 people, a controversy that had moral issues unseen to 
 those who knew not Jehovah and neglected the only 
 service in which He was well pleased. When Jehovah 
 seemed furthest off He was in truth nearest to Israel, 
 and the reverses that seemed to prove Him to have 
 forsaken His land were really the strokes of His hand. 
 He desired mercy and not sacrifice, obedience rather 
 than the fat of lambs. While these things were wanting 
 His very love to Israel could only show itself in ever- 
 repeated chastisement, till the sinners werfe consumed 
 out of His land and His holy will established itself in 
 the hearts of a regenerate people. Jehovah's purpose 
 was supreme over all, and it must prove itself supreme 
 in Israel though the Hebrew state perished in hopeless 
 conflict with it. He who redeemed His nation from 
 Egypt could redeem it from a new captivity ; and, if 
 Israel would not learn to know Jehovah in the good 
 
70 JEHOVAH THE GOD lect. ii. 
 
 land of Canaan, it must once more pass through the 
 desert and enter the door of hope through the valley of 
 tribulation. Such is the prophetic picture of the con- 
 troversy of Jehovah with His people, the great issues 
 of which are unfolded with increasing clearness in the 
 successive prophetic books. 
 
 I am afraid that this long discussion has proved a 
 somewhat severe tax on your attention, but the results 
 to which it has led us are of the first importance, and 
 will help us through all our subsequent course. Let 
 me -repeat them very briefly. The primary difference 
 between the religion of Israel and that of the sxirround- 
 ing nations does not lie in the idea of a theocracy, or in 
 a philosophy of the invisible world, or in the external 
 forms of religious service, but in a personal difference 
 between Jehovah and other gods. That difference, 
 again, is not of a metaphysical but of a directly practical 
 nature ; it was not defined once for all in a theological 
 dogma, but made itself felt in the attitude which 
 Jehovah actually took up towards Israel in those his- 
 torical dealings with His nation to which the word of 
 the prophets supplied a commentary. Everything that 
 befell Israel was interpreted by the prophets as a work 
 of Jehovah's hand, displaying His character and will — 
 not an arbitrary character or a changeable will, but a 
 fixed and consistent holy purpose, which has Israel for 
 its object and seeks the true felicity of the nation, but 
 at the same time is absolutely sovereign over Israel, 
 and will not give way to Israel's desires or adapt itself 
 
OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 71 
 
 to Israel's convenience. No other religion can show 
 anything parallel to this. The gods of the nations are 
 always conceived either as arbitrary and changeful, or 
 as themselves subordinate to blind fate, or as essenti- 
 ally capable of being bent intov sympathy with what- 
 ever is for the time being the chief desire of their 
 worshippers, or, in some more speculative forms of 
 faith, introduced when these simpler conceptions broke 
 down, as escaping these limitations only by being raised 
 to entire unconcern in the petty affairs of man. In 
 Israel alone does Jehovah appear as a God near to man, 
 and yet maintaining an absolute sovereignty of will, a 
 consistent independence of character. And the advance 
 of the Old Testament religion is essentially identified 
 with an increasing clearness of perception of the things 
 which this character of the Deity involves. The name 
 of Jehovah becomes more and more fuU of meaning as 
 faith in His sovereignty and self-consistency is put to 
 successive tests in the constantly changing problems 
 presented by the events of history. 
 
 Now, when we speak of Jehovah as displaying a 
 consistent character in His sovereignty over Israel, we 
 necessarily imply that Israel's religion is a moral 
 religion, that Jehovah is a G-od of righteousness, whose 
 dealings with His people foUow an ethical standard. 
 The ideas of right and wrong among the Hebrews are 
 forensic ideas ; that is, the Hebrew always thinks of the 
 right and the wrong as if they were to be settled before 
 a judge. Eighteousness is to the Hebrew not so much 
 
72 RELIGION AND lect. it 
 
 a moral quality as a legal status. The word " righteous " 
 {^addiJf) means simply "in the right," and the word 
 "wicked" {rasha') means "in the wrong." "I have 
 sinned this time/' says Pharaoh, "Jehovah is in the right 
 (A.V. righteous), and I and my people are in the wrong 
 (A.V. wicked)," Exod. ix. 27. Jehovah is always in the 
 right, for He is not only sovereign but self-consistent. 
 He is the fountain of righteousness, for from the days 
 of Moses He is the judge as well as the captain of His 
 people, giving forth law and sentence from His sanctu- 
 ary. In primitive society the functions of judge and 
 lawgiver are not separated, and reverence for law has 
 its basis in personal respect for the judge. So the just 
 consistent will of Jehovah is the law of Israel, and it is 
 a law which as King of Israel He Himself is continu- 
 ally administering.^^ 
 
 l^ow, in every ancient nation, morality and law 
 (including in this word traditional binding custom) are 
 identical, and in every nation law and custom are a 
 part of religion, and have a sacred authority. But in 
 no other nation does this conception attain the precision 
 and practical force which it has in the Old Testament, 
 because the gods themselves, the guardians of law, 
 do not possess a sharply-defined consistency of charac- 
 ter such as Jehovah possesses. The heathen gods are 
 guardians of law, but they are something else at the 
 same time; they are not wholly intent on righteous- 
 ness, and righteousness is not the only path to their 
 favour, which sometimes depends on accidental partial- 
 
MORALITY. 73 
 
 ities, or may be conciliated by acts of worship that have 
 nothing to do with morality. And here be it observed 
 that the fundamental superiority of the Hebrew religion 
 does not lie in the particular system of social morality 
 that it enforces, but in the more absolute and self-con- 
 sistent righteousness of the Divine Judge. The abstract 
 principles of morality — that is, the acknowledged laws 
 of social order — are pretty much the same in all parts 
 of the world in corresponding stages of social develop- 
 ment. Heathen nations at the same general stage of 
 society with the Hebrews will be found to acknowledge 
 all the duties of man to man laid down in the deca- 
 logue ; and on the other hand there are many things in 
 the social order of the Hebrews, such as polygamy, 
 blood revenge, slavery, the treatment of enemies, which 
 do not correspond with the highest ideal morality, but 
 belong to an imperfect social state, or, as the gospel puts 
 it, were tolerated for the hardness of the people's hearts. 
 But, with all this, the religion of Jehovah put morality 
 on a far sounder basis than any other religion did, 
 because in it the righteousness of Jehovah as a God 
 enforcing the known laws of morality was conceived as 
 absolute, and as showing itself absolute, not in a future 
 state, but upon earth. I do not, of course, mean that 
 this high view of Jehovah's character was practically 
 present to all His worshippers. On the contrary, a 
 chief complaint of the prophets is that it was not so, or, 
 in other words, that Israel did not know Jehovah. But 
 the higher view is never put forth by the prophets as a 
 
74 RELIGION OF lect. it 
 
 novelty ; they regard it as the very foundation of the 
 religion of Jehovah from the days of Moses downwards, 
 and the people never venture to deny that they are 
 right. In truth they could not deny it, for the history 
 of the first creation of Israel, which was the funda- 
 mental evidence as to the true character of Jehovah's 
 relations to His people, gave no room for such mytho- 
 logical conceptions as operate in the heathen religions 
 to make a just conception of the Godhead impossible. 
 Heathen religions can never conceive of their gods as 
 perfectly righteous, because they have a natural as well 
 as a moral side, a phj'sical connection with their wor- 
 shippers, physical instincts and passions, and so forth. 
 The Old Testament brings out this point with great 
 force of sarcasm when Elijah taunts the prophets of 
 Baal, and suggests that their god may be asleep, or on a 
 journey, or otherwise busied with some human avoca- 
 tion. In fact, all this was perfectly consistent with the 
 nature of Baal. But the Hebrews knew Jehovah solely 
 as the King and Judge of Israel. He was this, and this 
 alone ; and therefore there M'as no ground to ascribe to 
 Him less than absolute sovereignty and absolute right- 
 eousness. If the masses lost sight of those great 
 qualities, and assimilated His nature to that of the 
 Canaanite deities, the prophets were justified iu remind- 
 ing them that Jehovah was Israel's God before tliey 
 knew the Baalim, and that He had then showed Him- 
 self a God far different from these. 
 
 But religion cannot live on the mere memory of the 
 
tECT. II. THE PROPHETS. 75 
 
 past, and the faith of Jehovah had to assert itself as the 
 true faith of Israel by realising a present God who still 
 worked in the midst of the nation as He had worked of 
 old. No nation can long cleave to a God whose pre- 
 sence and power are not actually with them in their 
 daily life. If Jehovah was Israel's God, He must manifest 
 Himself as still the King and the Judge of His people, 
 and these names must acquire more and more full 
 significance through the actual experience of deeds of 
 sovereignty and righteousness. Without such deeds no 
 memory of the days of Moses could long have saved 
 the God of the Hebrews from sinking to the level of the 
 gods of the nations, and we have now to see that such 
 deeds were not wanting, and not without fruit for the 
 progress of the Old Testament faith. 
 
 Before the time of Amos, the father of written 
 prophecy, the record of Israel's religious life is too 
 fragmentary to allow us to follow it in detail. Of the 
 history of religion between Solomon and Ahab we know 
 next to nothing. In the greater Israel of the North, 
 which in these ages was the chief seat of national life, 
 a constant succession of revolutions and civil wars 
 obscures aU details of internal history. The accession 
 of the powerful dynasty of Omri, which regained in 
 successful war a good part of the conquests of David — 
 it was Omri, as we know, that reduced Moab to the 
 tributary condition spoken of in 2 Kings iii. 4^^ — restored 
 the northern kingdom to fresh vigour ; and it is character- 
 istic of the close union between national life and the 
 
76 THE HOUSE OF OMRI. 
 
 religion of Jehovah which was involved in the very 
 principles of the Hebrew commonwealth that the 
 political revival was the prelude to a great religious 
 movement. We know from the stone of Mesha that the 
 war of Israel with Moab appeared to the combatants as 
 a war of Jehovah with Chemosh. The victory, there- 
 fore, could not fail to give a fresh impulse to the 
 national faith of the Hebrews. Now Omri, who imitated 
 the conquests of David, followed also the Davidic 
 policy of close union with Tyre, so obviously advan- 
 tageous to the material interests of a nation which was 
 not itself commercial, and could find no market for its 
 agricultural produce except in the Phcenician ports. 
 The marriage of Ahab with a Tyrian princess was also 
 a direct imitation of the policy of Solomon's marriages ; 
 and in building and endowing a temple of Baal for his 
 wife Ahab did no more than Solomon had done without 
 exciting much opposition on the part of his people. 
 But now there were men in Israel to whom every act 
 of homage to Baal appeared an act of disloyalty to 
 Jehovah, and Elijah openly raised the question whether 
 Jehovah or Baal was God. There was no room for two 
 gods in the land. 
 
 As Ahab had no intention of giving up the worship 
 of Jehovah when he gratified Jezebel by establishing a 
 service of Baal, we may be sure that to him the conflict 
 with Elijah did not present itself as a conflict between 
 Jehovah and Baal. Hitherto the enemies of Jehovah 
 had been the gods of hostile nations, while the Tyrian 
 
LECT. II. AHAB AND ELIJAH. 77 
 
 Baal was the god of a friendly state. To the king, as 
 to many other persecutors since his day, the whole 
 opposition of Elijah seems to have taken a political 
 aspect. The imprisonment of Micaiah shows that he 
 was little inclined to brook any religious interference 
 with the councils of state, and the prophetic opposition 
 to Jezebel and her Baal worship was extremely em- 
 barrassing to his political plans, in which the alliance 
 with Tyre was obviously a very important factor. On 
 his part, therefore, the severe measures taken against the 
 prophets and their party simply expressed a determina- 
 tion to be absolute master in his own land. The pre- 
 vious history of the northern tribes proves that a strong 
 central authority was not at all popular with the nation. 
 Ancestral customs and privileges were obstinately main- 
 tained against the royal will, as we see in the case of 
 Naboth ; and the same case shows that the Tyrian in- 
 fluence encouraged the king to deal with this obstinacy 
 in a very high-handed way. • Elijah did not at first find 
 any sustained popular support, but no doubt as the 
 struggle went on, and especially after the judicial 
 murder of Naboth sent a thrill of horror through the 
 land, it began to be felt that he was pleading the cause 
 of the ancient freedoms of Israel against a personal 
 despotism ; and so we can understand the ultimate 
 success of the party of opposition in the revolution of 
 Jehu, in spite of the fact that only a small fraction of 
 the nation saw the religious issues at stake so clearly 
 as Elijah did. From the point of view of national 
 
78 ELIJAH AND 
 
 politics the fall of the house of Ahab was a step in the 
 downfall of Israel. The dynasty of Jehu was not nearly 
 so stronsj as the house of Omri : it had little fortune 
 in the Syrian wars till Damascus was weakened by the 
 progress of Assyria, and Hosea, writing in the last days 
 of the dynasty, certainly did not judge amiss when he 
 numbered the bloodshed of Jezreel among the fatal sins 
 of the people, a factor in the progress of that anarchy 
 which made a sound national life impossible (Hosea i. 4 ; 
 vii. 7), In this respect the work of Elijah foreshadows 
 that of the prophets of Judah, who in like manner had 
 no small part in breaking up the political life of the 
 kingdom. The prophets were never patriots of the 
 common stamp, to whom national interests stand higher 
 than the absolute claims of religion and morality. 
 
 Had Elijah been merely a patriot, to whom the state 
 stood above every other consideration, he would have 
 condoned the faults of a king who did so much for the 
 greatness of his nation ; but the things for which Elijah 
 contended were of far more worth than the national 
 existence of Israel, and it is a higher wisdom than that 
 of patriotism which insists that divine truth and civil 
 righteousness are more than all the counsels of state- 
 craft. Judged from a mere political point of view 
 Elijah's work had no other result than to open a way 
 for the bloody and unscrupulous ambition of Jehu, and 
 lay bare the frontiers of the land to the ravages of the 
 ferocious Hazael ; but with him the religion of Jehovah 
 had already reached a point where it could no longer be 
 
LECT. 11. THE HOUSE OF AHAB. 79 
 
 judged by a merely national standard, and the truths of 
 which he was the champion were not the less true be- 
 cause the issue made it plain that the cause of Jehovah 
 could not triumph without destroying the old Hebrew 
 state. Nay, without the destruction of the state the 
 religion of Israel could never have given birth to a 
 religion for all mankind, and it was precisely the in- 
 capacity of Israel to carry out the higher truths of 
 religion in national forms which brought into clearer 
 and clearer prominence those things in the faith of 
 Jehovah which are independent of every national con- 
 dition, and make Jehovah the God not of Israel alone 
 but of all the earth. This, however, is to anticipate 
 what will come out more clearly as we proceed. Let 
 us for the present confine our attention to what Elijah 
 himself directly saw and taught.^* 
 
 The ruling principle in Elijah's life was his con- 
 suming jealousy for Jehovah the God of hosts (1 Kings 
 xix. 14) ; or,. to put the idea in another and equally 
 Biblical form, Jehovah was to him pre-eminently a 
 jealous God, who could endure no rival in His land or 
 in the affections of His people. There was nothing 
 novel in this idea; the novelty lay in the practical 
 application which gave to the idea a force and depth 
 which it had never shown before. To us it seems 
 obvious that Ahab had broken the first commandment 
 in giving Baal a place in his land, but to Ahab and the 
 mass of his contemporaries the thing could hardly be 
 so clear. There are controversies enough even among 
 
80 THE WORK 
 
 modern commentators as to the exact force of the 
 " before me " of the first commandment ; and, even if 
 we are to suppose that practical religious questions were 
 expressly referred to the words of this precept, it would 
 not have been difficult to interpret them in a sense that 
 meant only that no other god should have the pre- 
 eminence over Israel's King. But no doubt these things 
 were judged of less by the letter of the decalogue than 
 by habitual feeling and usage. Hitherto all Israel's 
 interest in Jehovah had had practical reference to His 
 contests with the gods of hostile nations, and it was one 
 thing to worship deities who were felt to be Jehovah's 
 rivals and foes, and quite another thing to allow some 
 recognition to the deity of an allied race. But Elijah 
 saw deeper into the true character of the God of Israel. 
 Where He was worshipped no other god could be ac- 
 knowledged in any sense. This was a proposition of 
 tremendous practical issues. It really involved the 
 political isolation of the nation, for as things then stood 
 it was impossible to have friendship and alliance with 
 other peoples if their gods were proscribed in Israel's 
 land. It is not strange that Ahab as a politician fought 
 with all his might against such a view ; for it contained 
 more than the germ of that antagonism between Israel 
 and all the rest of mankind which made the Jews 
 appear to the Eoman historian as the enemies of the 
 human race, and brought upon them an unbroken suc- 
 cession of political misfortunes and the ultimate loss of 
 all place among the nations. It is hard to say how far 
 
OF ELIJAH. 81 
 
 tlie followers of Elijah or indeed the prophet himself 
 perceived the full consequences of the position which 
 he took up. But the whole history of Elijah testifies 
 to the profound impression which he made. The air of 
 unique grandeur that surrounds the prophet of Gilead 
 proves how high he stood above the common level of 
 his time. It is Jehovah and Elijah not against Ahab 
 alone, but against and above the world. 
 
 The work of Elijah, in truth, was not so much that 
 of a great teacher as of a great hero. He did not 
 preach any new doctrine about Jehovah, but at. a criti- 
 cal moment he saw what loyalty to the cause of Jehovah 
 demanded, and of that cause he became the champion, 
 not by mere words, but by his life. The recorded 
 words of Elijah are but few, and in many cases have 
 probably been handed down with the freedom that 
 ancient historians habitually use in such matters. His 
 importance lies in his personality. He stands before 
 us as the representative of Jehovah's personal claims 
 on Israel. The word of Jehovah in his mouth is not 
 a word of doctrine, but of kingly authority, and to him 
 pre-eminently applies the saying of Hosea : " I have 
 hewed them by the prophets ; I have slain them by the 
 word of My mouth : and My judgments were as the light 
 that goeth forth " (Hosea vi. 5).^^ 
 
 This view of the career of Elijah, which is that 
 naturally derived from the Biblical narrative, is pretty 
 much an exact inversion of the common representation 
 of the function of the propliets. The traditional view 
 
82 THE WORK 
 
 which we have from the Eabbins makes the prophets 
 mere interpreters of the Law, and places the originality 
 of their work entirely in their predictions. In that 
 case Elijah would be the least original of prophets, 
 for he gave no Messianic prediction. But in reality 
 Jehovah did not first give a complete theoretical know- 
 ledge of Himself and then raise up prophets to enforce 
 the application of Ihe theoretical scheme in particular 
 circumstances. That would not have required a pro- 
 phet ; it would have been no more than is still done 
 by uninspired preachers. The place of the prophet is 
 in a religious crisis where the ordinary interpretation 
 of acknowledged principles breaks down, where it is 
 necessary to go hack, not to received doctrine, but to 
 Jehovah Himself The word of Jehovah through the 
 prophet is properly a declaration of what Jehovah as 
 the personal King of Israel commands in this particular 
 crisis, and it is spoken with authority, not as an in- 
 ference from previous revelation, but as the direct 
 expression of the character and will of a personal God, 
 who has made Himself personally audible in the pro- 
 phet's soul. General propositions about divine things 
 are not the basis but the outcome of such personal 
 knowledge of Jehovah, just as in ordinary human life 
 a general view of a man's character must be formed by 
 observation of his attitude and action in a variety of 
 special circumstances. Elijah's whole career, and not 
 his words merely, contained a revelation of Jehovah to 
 Israel — that is, made them feel that through tliis man 
 
OF ELIJAH. 83 
 
 Jehovah asserted Himself as a living God in their 
 midst. 
 
 We had occasion to observe in the course of last 
 Lecture that all genuine religious belief contains a 
 positive element — an element learned from the ex- 
 perience of former generations. And so it will be found 
 that all great religious reformations have their roots in 
 the past, that true reformers do not claim to be heard 
 on the ground of the new things they proclaim, but 
 rather because they alone give due weight to old truths 
 which the mass of their contemporaries cannot formally 
 deny, but practically ignore. And they do so with jus- 
 tice, for all genuine religious truth is personal truth, and 
 personal truth has always a range far transcending the 
 circumstances in which it was originally promulgated 
 and the application to which it was originally confined. 
 So it was with Elijah. The God whom he declared to 
 Israel was the God of Moses — the same God, declaring 
 His character and will in application to new circum- 
 stances. Elijah himself is a figure of antique simplicity. 
 He was a man of Gilead, a native of that part of the 
 land of Israel which had still most affinity with the old 
 nomadic life of the age of Moses, and was furthest re- 
 moved from the Tyrian influences to which Ahab had 
 yielded. It is highly characteristic for his whole stand- 
 point that in the greatest danger of his life, when the 
 victory of Jehovah on Mount Carmel seemed to be aU 
 in vain, he retired to the desert of Sinai, to the ancient 
 mountain of God. It was the God of the Exodus to 
 
84 THE NAZARITES. lect. ii. 
 
 whom he appealed, the ancient King of Israel in the 
 journeyings through the wilderness. In this respect 
 Elijah shows his kinship to the Nazarites, a very 
 curious and interesting class of men, who first appear 
 in the time of the Philistine oppression, and who, some 
 generations later, are mentioned by Amos side by side 
 with the prophets (Amos ii. 11, 12). The cultivation of 
 the vine is one of the most marked distinctions between 
 nomadic and sedentary life. Nomads and half-settled 
 tribes have often a certain amount of agricultural know- 
 ledge, raising occasional crops of corn, or at all events 
 of edible herbs. But the cultivation of the vine de- 
 mands fixed sedentary habits, and all Semitic nomads 
 view wine-growing and wine-drinking as essentially 
 foreign to their traditional mode of life.^^ Canaan, on 
 the contrary, is pre-eminently a land of the grape, and 
 the Canaanite worship was full of Dionysiac elements. 
 Wine was the best gift of the Baalim, and wine-drinking 
 was prominent in their luxurious worship. The Nazarite 
 vow to abstain from wine, which in the earliest case, 
 that of Samson, appears as a life-long vow, was un- 
 doubtedly a religious protest against Canaanite civilisa- 
 tion in favour of the simple life of ancient times. This 
 appears most clearly in the case of the Eechabites, who 
 had received from their father Jonadab the double pre- 
 cept never to drink wine, and never to give up their 
 wandering pastoral life for a residence in cities (Jer. 
 XXXV.). We have no evidence that Elijah had a personal 
 connection with the Eechabites ; but Jonadab was a 
 
LECT. II. THE PROPHETIC GUILDS. 85 
 
 prominent partisan of Jehu, and went with him to see 
 his zeal for Jehovah when he put an end to Baal and 
 his worshippers (2 Kings x. 15 seq^. We see, therefore, 
 that one element, and not the least popular, in the move- 
 ment against Baal was a reaction in favour of the primi- 
 tive simplicity of Israel in the days hefore it came into con- 
 tact with Canaanite civilisation and Canaanite religion. 
 Another seat of the influence of the movement was 
 the prophetic guilds. Elijah himself, so far as we can 
 judge, had little to do with these guilds ; but his suc- 
 cessor Elisha, who had the chief share in giving 
 political effect to his ideas, found his closest followers 
 among the "sons of the prophets." The idea of 
 " schools of the prophets," which we generally connect 
 with this Biblical phrase, is a pure invention of com- 
 mentators. According to all the laws of Semitic 
 speech the sons of the prophets were not disciples of a 
 school, but members of a guild or corporation,^'' living 
 together in the neighbourhood of ancient sanctuaries, 
 such as Gilgal and Bethel, and in all likelihood closely 
 connected with the priests, as was certainly the case in 
 Judah down to the extinction of the state (Jer. xxix. 
 26, cf. XX. 1, 2 ; Lam. ii. 20, etc.). The prophets of 
 Jehovah and the priests of Jehovah were presumably 
 associated much as were the prophets and priests of 
 Baal. It would be a great mistake to suppose that 
 wherever we hear of prophets or sons of prophets — that 
 is, members of prophetic guilds — we are to think of men 
 raised as high above their contemporaries as Elijah, 
 
86 PROPHETS {NEBIIM). lect. ii. 
 
 Amos, or Isaiah. The later prophets, in our sense of the 
 word, were in constant feud with the common prophets 
 of their day, whose profession was a trade, and whose 
 oracles they condemn as mere heathenish divination im- 
 plying no true knowledge of Jehovah. The very name 
 and idea of the prophet (ndht) are common to Israel 
 with its heathen neighbours, as appears, not only from 
 the existence of prophets of Baal in connection with 
 Jezebel's sanctuary, but from the fact that the Assyrians 
 had a god Nebo, whose name is essentially identical 
 with the Hebrew nabi, and who figures as the spokes- 
 man of the gods, the counterpart of the Greek Hermes.'^ 
 The first appearance of companies of prophets is in the 
 history of Samuel and Saul (1 Sam. x. 3, 10 seq.), where 
 they are found engaged in the worship of Jehovah 
 under circumstances of physical excitement closely 
 parallel to what is still seen among the dervishes of 
 the East, and occasionally among ourselves in times 
 of strong religious feeling.-'^ Excitement of this sort 
 is often associated with genuine religious movements, 
 especially among primitive peoples. Like all physical 
 accompaniments of religious conviction, it is liable to 
 strange excesses, and may often go along with false 
 beliefs and self- deluding practices; but religious 
 earnestness is always nearer the truth than indiffer- 
 ence, and the great movement of which Elijah was the 
 head found large support among the prophets of 
 Jehovah. Yet we nmst not forget that physical 
 enthusiasm is a dangerous ally to spiritual faith. The 
 
NABOTH. 87 
 
 revolution of Jehu, which Elisha set on foot with the 
 aid of the prophetic guilds, used means that were far 
 removed from the loftiness of Elijah's teaching, and under 
 the protection of Jehu's dynasty the prophetic guilds 
 soon sank to depths of hypocrisy and formalism with 
 which Amos disclaimed all fellowship (Amos vii. 14). 
 
 One feature in the teaching of Elijah still remains, 
 which was perhaps the most immediately important of 
 all. The divine denunciation of the fall of Ahab's 
 house had its basis, not in the worship of Baal, but in 
 the judicial murder of Naboth (1 Kings xxi.) ; and 
 Wellhausen has given deserved prominence to the 
 observation of Evvald, that this act of injustice stirred 
 the heart of the nation much more deeply than the 
 religious policy of the house of Omri (2 Kings vi. 32 ; 
 ix. 25 se,c[). Naboth's offence was his obstinate adhesion 
 to ancient custom and law, and the crime of Ahab was 
 no common act of violence, but an insult to the moral 
 sense of all Israel. In condemning it Elijah pleaded the 
 cause of Jehovah as the cause of civil order and right- 
 eousness ; the God as whose messenger he spoke was 
 the God by whom kings reign and princes decree 
 justice. The sovereignty of Jehovah was not an empty 
 thought ; it was the refuge of the oppressed, the suppo.rt 
 of the weak against the mighty. "Without this it would 
 have been nothing to declare war against the Tyrian 
 Baal ; if Jehovah claimed Israel as His dominion, in 
 which no other god could find a place. He did so because 
 His rule was the rule of absolute righteousness. 
 
88 THE HOUSE lect. ii. 
 
 It would have been well for the house of Jehu if 
 in mounting the throne of Ahab it had learned this 
 lesson. But the dynasty which began in treachery and 
 bloodshed, which profaned the great work of Elijah by 
 making it the instrument of a vulgar ambition, rooted 
 Baal out of the land without learning to know the true 
 character of Jehovah. The second crisis in the religion 
 of Israel was not without its wholesome issues. The 
 faith of Jehovah was never again assailed from without, 
 but within it grew more and more corrupt. Priests and 
 prophets were content to enjoy the royal favour without 
 remembering that Jehovah's cause was not victorious 
 in the mere extirpation of Baal, and the nation returned 
 to the service of Jehovah without learning that that 
 service was worthless when it produced no other fruits 
 than a constant succession of feasts and offerings. And 
 meanwhile the inner state of Israel became daily more 
 desperate. The unhappy Syrian wars sapped the 
 strength of the country, and gradually destroyed the 
 old peasant proprietors who were the best hope of the 
 nation. The gap between the many poor and the few 
 rich became wider and wider. The landless classes were 
 ground down by usury and oppression, for in that state 
 of. society the landless man had no career in trade, and 
 was at the mercy of the land-holding capitalist. It was 
 of no avail that the Damascene enemy, lying as he did 
 between Israel and Assyria, was at length compelled to 
 leave Samaria at peace, and defend his own borders 
 against the forward march of the great Eastern power, 
 
LECT. II. OF JEHU. 89 
 
 or that the last kings of the house of Jehu availed 
 themselves of this diversion to restore the external 
 greatness of their empire, not only on the Syrian 
 frontier, but by successful campaigns against the 
 Moabites. Under Jeroboam II. the outward state of 
 Israel appeared as brilliant as in the best days of old, 
 and the wealth and splendour of the court seemed to 
 the superficial observer to promise a long career of 
 prosperity ; but, with all these outward signs of fortune, 
 which the official organs of religion interpreted as sure 
 proofs of Jehovah's favour, the state of the nation was 
 rotten at the core ; there was no truth or mercy or 
 knowledge of God in the land. A closer view of the 
 condition of Israel at this epoch must, however, be 
 reserved for our study of the prophets who have left the 
 record of it in their written books — Amos of Tekoah 
 and Hosea ben BeeiL 
 
90 AMOS AND THE lect. hi. 
 
 LEG TUBE III. 
 
 AMOS AND THE HOUSE OF JEHU. 
 
 The century during which the house of Jehu reigned 
 over Israel is handled very briefly in the epitome of the 
 history of Ephraim preserved to us in the book of 
 Kings. It was in its first part a time of wars and 
 troubles, in which the house of Joseph mauitained 
 itself with dif&culty against the power of Damascus. 
 The Aramaeans, supported by the Ammonites, devas- 
 tated the lands east of the Jordan with circumstances 
 of barbarity which were still fresh in the memory of 
 the Hebrews when Amos wrote (Amos i. 3, 13 ; 
 2 Kings X. 32 stg). The frontier land of Gilead, which 
 appears in Genesis xxxi. as the sacred boundary 
 between Jacob and the Aramaean, had most to suffer, 
 but the whole kingdom was more than once in the 
 sorest straits (2 Kings xiii. 3 seg-. ; Amos iv. 10). 
 The Israelites played a manful part in the unequal 
 struggle, and at length, as we read in 2 Kings xiii. 5, 
 Jehovah " gave to them a deliverer, and they went forth 
 from under the hand of Syria, and the children of 
 Israel dwelt in their tents as beforetime." The 
 
i^ECT. III. HOUSE OF JEHU. 91 
 
 " deliverer," as we row know, can be no other than 
 the host of the Assyrians, who began to make expedi- 
 tions in the direction of Damascus under Shalmaneser 
 II., and received tribute from Jehu in one of the first 
 years of his reign (B.C. 842). To us it seems plain enough 
 that the forward movement of a great empire boded 
 inevitable destruction to all the minor states of Syria 
 and Palestine, and that the advance of the Assyrians 
 could not be checked till they came to measure them- 
 selves with the other great power that was seated on 
 the Nile. At iirst, however, the Hebrews had very 
 little conception of the power and plans of so remote a 
 nation. The earliest historical allusions to the enemy 
 that held Damascus in check are so vague that we , are 
 led to suppose that the very name of Assyria was 
 unknown to the mass of the Hebrews ; ^ and the tribute 
 of Jehu seems to have been offered to the conqueror 
 of Hazael without being extorted by armed force. 
 Damascus barred the road from the Tigris to Palestine, 
 and till Damascus fell the successes of Assyria served 
 to give Israel a needful breathing time. "We cannot 
 foUow in detail the wars between the Aramaeans and 
 the Great King ; but it is plain that they ultimately 
 broke the power of Damascus. The Israelites, so long 
 put on their defence, were able to assume the aggres- 
 sive, and under Jeroboam II. the old boundaries of the 
 land were restored, and even Moab once more became 
 tributary (2 Kings xiv. 25 ; Amos vi. 14).^ The defeat 
 of Moab at this time appears to be the subject of the 
 
92 THE PROPHECY OF lect. lit. 
 
 ancient fragment, Isaiah xv., xvi., now incorporated as 
 a quotation in the book of Isaiah, which represents the 
 fall of the proud and once prosperous nation as a proof 
 of the helplessness of its gods, who can give no answer 
 to their worshippers.^ To Israel, on the contrary, their 
 victory was a new proof of Jehovah's might, and we 
 learn from 2 Kings xiv. 25 that King Jeroboam was 
 encouraged in his successful wars by the word of 
 Jehovah, spoken through the prophet Jonah of Gath- 
 hepher. It has been conjectured that part of the 
 prophecy of Jonah is preserved in the passage quoted 
 by Isaiah, who expressly tells us (xvi. 14) that it is 
 a word spoken by Jehovah against Moab long ago 
 (A.V. " from that time "). There is, however, nothing 
 in the prophecy which implies that its author belonged 
 to the invading nation. He seems rather to watch the 
 fall of Moab from a neutral position, and the only 
 verses which are not taken up with a description of the 
 calamity suggest rather that the writer was a Judaian. 
 The Moabites are described as fleeing southward and 
 taking refuge in the Edomite capital of Sela, whence 
 they are exhorted to send tokens of homage to the 
 Davidic king in Jerusalem, Edom's overlord, entreat- 
 ing his protection and mediation (xvi. 1, 3, 4), while 
 this exercise of mercy towards the fallen is recom- 
 mended as a worthy deed, tending to confirm the just 
 rule of the house of David. We must not, however, 
 linger over this prophecy, which is too fragmentary to 
 be interpreted with certainty when we have so little 
 
LECT. III. ISAIAH XV., XVI. 93 
 
 kuowledge of its history. The glimpse which it gives 
 us of one sitting in truth in the tent of David, searching 
 out justice and prompt in righteousness, will prove 
 valuable when we come to be more closely concerned 
 ■with the Southern Kingdom ; but under the dynasty of 
 Jehu our chief interest still lies in the North, whose 
 monarchs overshadowed the Davidic kings as the cedar 
 of Lebanon overshadows the thistle that grows at its 
 foot (2 Kings xiv. 9). After the victories of Jeroboam 
 the house of Ephraim enjoyed external prosperity for 
 a whole generation ; wealth accumulated and luxury 
 increased. It seems, however, that the .advantages of 
 this gleam of fortune were reaped almost exclusively 
 by the aristocracy. The strength of old Israel had lain 
 in the free agricultural class, who formed the national 
 militia, and in peace and war gathered round the here- 
 ditary heads of their clans as their natural leaders. 
 We must suppose the life of Israel in its best times to 
 have been very similar to what is still found in secluded 
 and primitive Semitic communities, where habits of 
 military organisation are combined with simplicity of 
 manners 'and steady industry. The Israelites were an 
 isolated people, and became so in an increasing degree 
 as the doctrine of Jehovah's jealousy made it more diffi- 
 cult for them to enter into alliance with other states 
 (Deut. xxxiii. 28 ; Num. xxiii. 9). To maintain their 
 position amidst hostile nations, their superiority over 
 the subjugated Canaanites, it was necessary for them to 
 observe a sort of standing military discipline. Among 
 
94 THE DECLINE 
 
 all Semitic tribes which have successfully asserted their 
 independence in similar circumstances we find an 
 almost ascetic frugality of life, such as becomes men 
 who are half soldiers half farmers. Custom prescribes 
 that the rich should live on ordinary days as simply 
 as their poorer neighbours ; there is no humiliating 
 interval between the several classes of society. The 
 chiefs are the fathers of their clan, receiving a prompt 
 and child-like obedience in time of war, administering 
 justice with an authority that rests on custom rather 
 than on force, and ' therefore obeyed and loved in pro- 
 portion as they are themselves true to traditional usages. 
 The power of custom is unbounded, and notwithstand- 
 ing the strong sense of personal dignity common to 
 all free men, which in the oldest Hebrew laws finds its 
 expression in the entire absence of corporal punish- 
 ments, individual liberty, as we understand it, is 
 strictly confined by the undisputed authority of usage 
 in every detail of life. A small nation so organised 
 may do great things in the Semitic world, but is very 
 liable to sudden collapse when the old forms of life 
 break down under change of circumstances. Eastern 
 history is full of examples of the rapidity, to us almost 
 incredible, with which nations that have grown strong 
 by temperance, discipline, and self-restraint pass from 
 their highest glory into extreme corruption and social 
 disintegration.* 
 
 Now, in Israel, under Saul and David, the kingship 
 was only the natural development and crown of the old 
 
OF EPHRAIM. 95 
 
 tribal system. But with Solomon the transition to the 
 vices of Oriental despotism began to be felt. In 
 Northern Israel, though not in Judah, Solomon sub- 
 stituted government by officials of the Court for the 
 ancient aristocratic organisation, and his levies of 
 forced labour and other innovations also tended directly 
 to break down the old estate of Israel's freemen. The 
 rebellion under Jeroboam was beyond question a con- 
 servative revolution, but with the rise of the house of 
 Omri the policy of Solomon reappears at the Northern 
 Court, and we have seen what deep offence Ahab gave 
 by his" high-handed interference with ancient custom 
 and privilege.^ Under the dynasty of Jehu the old 
 order of things may have had a temporary victory, but 
 certainly not a lasting one. A. dynasty founded by 
 bloodshed and perfidy was not likely to be more faithful 
 to ancient law and custom, more jealous of the rights 
 of subjects, than the house of Omri. But, above all, the 
 long unhappy wars with Damascus, with the famines 
 and plagues that were their natural accompaniments 
 (Amos iv.), exhausted the strength and broke the inde- 
 pendence of the poorer freemen. The Court became 
 the centre of a luxurious and corrupt aristocracy, which 
 seems gradually to have absorbed the land and wealth 
 of the nation, while the rest of the people were hope- 
 lessly impoverished. The old good, understanding 
 between classes disappeared, and the gulf between rich 
 and poor became continually wider. The poor could 
 find no law against the rich, who sucked their blood by 
 
96 THE WORSHIP OF THE lect. in. 
 
 usury and eveiy form of fraud (Amos ii. 6, 7; iv. 1; 
 viii. 4, etc.) ; civil corruption and oppression became 
 daily more rampant (Amos iii. 9 seq^., and passim). The 
 best help against such disorders ought to have been 
 found in the religion of Jehovah, but the official organs 
 of that religion shared in the general corruption. Into 
 this point we must look with some fulness of detail, as 
 it is of the first consequence for the understanding of 
 many parts of Amos and Hosea. 
 
 "We have already seen that the revolution inaugur- 
 ated by Elijah and Elisha appealed to the conservatism 
 of the nation. It was followed therefore by no attempt 
 to remodel the traditional forms of Jehovah worship, 
 which continued essentially as they had been since the 
 time of the Judges. The golden calves remained undis- 
 turbed, though they were plainly out of place in the 
 worship of a Deity who had so markedly separated 
 himself from the gods of the nations ; and with them 
 there remained also many other religious institutions 
 and symbols — such as the Ashera or sacred pole at 
 Samaria (A.V. " grove," 2 Kings xiii. 6) — which were 
 common to Israel with the Canaanites, and in their 
 influence on the popular imagination could only tend to 
 efface true conceptions of the God of Elijah, and drag 
 Him down again to the level of a heathen deity. Tet 
 the sanctuaries which contained so many elements 
 unfavourable to a spiritual faith were still the indispen- 
 sable centres of national religion. True religion can 
 never be the affair of the individual alone. A right 
 
LECT. Ill, NORTHERN SANCTUARIES. 97 
 
 religious relation to God must include a relation to our 
 fellow-men in God, and solitary acts of devotion can 
 never satisfy the wants of healthy spiritual life, which 
 calls for a visible expression of the fact that we worship 
 God together in the common faith which binds us into 
 a religious community. The necessity for acts of public 
 and united worship is instinctively felt wherever reli- 
 gion has a social influence, and in Israel it was felt the 
 more strongly because Jehovah was primarily the God 
 and King of the nation, who had to do with the indivi- 
 dual Israelite only in virtue of his place in the common- 
 wealth. It was in the ordering of national affairs, the 
 sanctioning of social duties, that Jehovah made Himself 
 directly present to His people, and so their recognition 
 of His Godhead necessarily took a public form, when 
 they rejoiced before Him at His sanctuary. The 
 Israelite could not in general have the same personal 
 sense of Jehovah's presence in his closet as when he 
 " appeared before Him " or " saw His face " at the 
 trysting-place where He met with His people as a king 
 meets with his subjects, receiving from them the 
 expression of their homage in the usual Oriental form 
 of a gift (Exod. xxiii. 15, 17), and answering their 
 devotion by words of blessing or judgment conveyed 
 through the priest (Dent. x. 8 ; xxxiii. 8, 10). It was 
 at the altar that Jehovah came to His people and 
 blessed them (Exod. xx. 24), and acts of worship at a 
 distance from the sanctuary assumed the exceptional 
 character of vows, and were directed towards the 
 
n THE WORSHIP OF THE lect. iii. 
 
 sanctuary (1 Kings viii.), where in due time they should 
 be supplemented by the payment of thank-offerings. 
 How absolutely access to the sanctuary was conceived 
 as the indispensable basis of all religion appears from 
 the conception that Jehovah cannot be worshipped in 
 foreign lands (1 Sam. xxvi. 19) ; that these lands are 
 themselves unclean (Amos vii. 17) ; and that the cap- 
 tives in Assyria and Egypt, who cannot offer drink- 
 offerings and sacrifices to Jehovah, are like men who 
 eat the unclean bread of mourners " because their food 
 for their life is not brought into the house of Jehovah " 
 (Hosea ix. 4). So too when Hosea describes the coming 
 days of exile, when the children of Israel shall remain 
 for many days without king or captain, without sacrifice 
 or maggeha (the sacred stone which marked the ancient 
 sanctuaries), without ephod (plated image), or teraphim 
 (household images), he represents this condition as a 
 temporary separation of Jehovah's spouse from all the 
 privileges of wedlock.® 
 
 While the sanctuaries and their service held this 
 position, every corruption in the worship practised at 
 them affected the religion of Israel at its very core. 
 The worship at the sanctuaries was guided by the 
 priests, whose business it was to place the savour of the 
 sacrifice before Jehovah, and lay whole burnt-offerings 
 on His altar (Deut. xxxiii. 10). The personal interests 
 of the priests lay all in the encouragement of copious 
 gifls and offerings ; and, as the people had the choice of 
 various sanctuaries — Bethel, Gilgal, Dan, Mizpah, Tabor, 
 
LECT. III. NORTHERN SANCTUARIES. 99 
 
 Shechem, etc. (Amos v. 5 ; Hosea v. 1 ; vi. 9, where for ly 
 consent read at Shechem) — and pilgrimages to distant 
 shrines were a favourite religious exercise (Amos v. 5 ; 
 ■viii. 14), the priesthoods of the several holy places were 
 naturally led to vie with one another in making the 
 services attractive to the masses. The sacred feasts 
 were occasions of mirth and jollity (Hosea ii. 11), where 
 men ate and drank, sang and danced, with unrestrained 
 merriment. The poet of Lament, ii. 7 compares the din 
 in the temple at Jerusalem on a great feast day to the 
 clamour of an army storming the town. It is easy to 
 judge what shape the rivalry of popular sanctuaries 
 would take under these circumstances. The great 
 ambition of each priesthood was to add every element 
 of luxury and physical enjoyment to the holy fairs. 
 The Canaanite ritual offered a model only too attractive 
 to the Semitic nature, which knows no mean between 
 almost ascetic frugality and unrestrained self-indulgence, 
 and Amos and Hosea describe drunkenness and shock- 
 ing licentiousness as undisguised accompaniments of 
 the sacred services (Amos ii. 7, 8 ; Hosea iv. 14). The 
 prosperous days of Jeroboam II. gave a new impulse to 
 these excesses ; feasts and sacrifices were more frequent 
 than ever, for was it not Jehovah, or rather the Baalim — 
 that is, the local manifestations of Jehovah under the 
 form of the golden calves — who had given Israel the 
 good things of peace and plenty (Hosea ii. 5 segi.) ? The 
 whole nation seemed given up to mad riotousness under 
 the prostituted name of religion : " whoredom and wine 
 and must had turned their head " (Hosea iv. 11). 
 
100 JUDICIAL FUNCTIONS lect. in. 
 
 In order, however, fully to appreciate the corrupting 
 influence of these degraded holy places and their 
 ministers, we must remember that in the ancient con- 
 stitution of Israel the sanctuary and the priesthood had 
 another function even more important than that con- 
 nected with feasts and joyous sacrifices. Since the 
 days of Moses it had been the law of Israel that causes 
 too hard for the ordinary judges, who decided by 
 custom and precedent, must be brought before God for 
 decision (Exod. xviii. 19). lu the oldest part of the 
 Hebrew legislation the word which our version renders 
 "judges" properly means "God" (Exod. xxi. 6; xxii. 
 8), and to bring a case before God means to briug it to 
 the sanctuary. It was at the door-post of the sanctuary 
 that the symbolic action was performed by which a 
 Hebrew man might voluntarily accept a life-long 
 service ; it was God speaking at the sanctuary who was 
 appealed to in disputed questions of property. " If 
 one man sin against another," says Eli, quoting it would 
 seem, an old proverb, "God shall give judgment on 
 him." This judgment Was the affair of the priests, who 
 sometimes administered the " oath of Jehovah," which 
 was accepted as an oath of purgation (Exod. xxii. 11) ; 
 in other cases the holy lot of the Urim and Thummim 
 was appealed to ; but in general no doubt the priests 
 acted mainly as the conservators of ancient sacred 
 law ; it was their business to teach Jacob Jehovah's 
 judgments and Israel His law (Deut. xxxiii. 10), and in 
 better days it was their highest praise that they dis- 
 
LECT. III. OF THE PRIESTS. 101 
 
 charged this duty without fear or favour, that they 
 observed Jehovah's word and kept His covenant without 
 respect to father or mother, brethren or children {jhid. 
 ver. 9). Those days, however, were past. Under the 
 kingship the judicial functions of the priests were 
 necessarily brought into connection with the office of 
 the sovereign, who was Jehovah's representative in 
 matters of judgment, as well as in other affairs of state 
 (2 Sam. viii. 15 ; xiv. l7 ; 1 Kings iii. 28). The priests 
 became, in a sense, officers of the Court, and the chief 
 priest of a royal sanctuary, such as Amaziah at Bethel 
 (Amos vii. 10, 13), was one of the great officials of state. 
 (Compare 2 Sam. viii. 17 seq^., where the king's priests 
 already appear in the list of grandees.) Thus the 
 priesthood w«re naturally associated in feelings and 
 interests with the corrupt tyrannical aristocracy, and 
 were as notorious as the lords temporal for neglect of 
 law and justice. The strangest scenes of lawlessness 
 were seen in the sanctuaries — revels where the fines 
 paid to the priestly judges were spent in wine-drinking, 
 ministers of the altars stretched for these carousals on 
 garments taken in pledge in defiance of sacred law 
 (Amos ii. 8 ; comp. Exod. xxii. 26 seg). Hosea accuses 
 the priests of Shechem of highway robbery and 
 murder (Hosea vi. 9, Heb^ ; the sanctuary of Gilead was 
 polluted with blood, and the prophet explains the 
 general dissolution of moral order, the reign of lawless- 
 ness in all parts of the land, by the fact that the priests, 
 whose business it was to maintain the knowledge of 
 
102 HEBRE W CONCEPTION lect. hi. 
 
 Jehovah and His laws, had forgotten this holy trust 
 (Hosea iv.). 
 
 The whole effect of the unfaithfulness of the priests 
 upon national morality and the sense of right and wrong 
 cannot be appreciated without some explanation of the 
 point of view under which the early Hebrews looked 
 upon sin. We have already had occasion to see that in 
 early nations the idea of law, or binding custom, is co- 
 extensive with morality, and that, among the Hebrews 
 in particular, right and wrong are habitually viewed from 
 a forensic point of view. This, of course, influences the 
 notion of sin. The fundamental meaning of the Hebrew 
 word kata, to sin, is to be at fault, and in Hebrew, as in 
 Arabic, the active (causative) form has the sense of miss- 
 ing the mark (Judges xx. 16) or other object aimed at. 
 The notion of sin, therefore, is that of blunder or derelic- 
 tion, and the word is associated with others that indicate 
 error, folly, or want of skill and insight (1 Sam. xxvi. 
 21). This idea has various applications, but, in par- 
 ticular, a man is at fault when he fails to fulfil his 
 engagements, or to obey a binding command ; and in 
 Hebrew idiom the failure is a " sin," whether it be wil- 
 ful failure, or be due to forgetfulness, or even be altogether 
 involuntary. Jonathan's infringement of his father's 
 prohibition and curse in 1 Sam. xiv. was not less a 
 " sin " in this sense because he did not know what Saul 
 had enjoined. In two respects, then, the Hebrew idea 
 of sin, in its earlier stages, is quite distinct from that 
 wliich we attach to the word. In the first place, it is 
 
OF SIN. 103 
 
 not necessarily tliought of as offence against God, but 
 includes any act that puts a man in the wrong with those 
 who have power to make him rue it (2 Kings xviii. 14). 
 " What is my sin before thy father," says David, " that 
 he seeks my life ?" (1 Sam. xx. 1). " That which was 
 torn of beasts," says Jacob to Laban, " I brought not to 
 thee ; I bore the loss of it " — literally, I took it as my 
 sin (Gen. xxxi. 39). If David dies, says Bathsheba, 
 without providing against the succession of Adonijah, 
 " I and my son Solomon shall be sinners " (1 Kings i. 
 21). In the second place, the notion of sin has no 
 necessary reference to the conscience of the sinner, it 
 does not necessarily involve moral guilt, but only, so to 
 speak, forensic liability. In two ways, however, the 
 Hebrew notion of sin comes into relation with religion. 
 In the first place, the lively sense of Jehovah's presence 
 in Israel as a King, who issues commands to His people 
 and does not fail to enforce them, gives prominence to 
 the conception of sins against Jehovah. In by far the 
 greatest proportion of passages in the older parts of the 
 Bible where such sins are spoken of, the reference is to 
 religious offences, to the worship of false gods or of 
 Jehovah Himself in ways not acceptable to Him, to 
 disobedience to some particular injunction — as in the 
 case of Saul's failure to fulfil his commission against 
 Amalek — or neglect to discharge a vow (1 Sam. xiv. 38 ; 
 Judges xxi. 22). Offences which we should call moral, 
 such as polytheism, stand on the same level with dis- 
 obedience to purely ritual customs, such as eating the 
 
104 CORRUPTION OF lect. hi. 
 
 flesh of animals whose blood has not been offered to 
 Jehovah (1 Sam. xiv. 33 seg), or with such an offence 
 against popular feeling as David's numbering of the 
 people (2 Sam. xxiv. 17). In cases like the last the sin 
 is not clearly felt to be such until misfortune follows, 
 and this habit of judging actions by subsequent events, 
 which plainly might give rise to very distorted views of ' 
 right and wrong if guided only by popular feeling, 
 became, under the spiritual guidance of the prophets, 
 a chief means to produce juster and deeper views of 
 Jehovah's holy will. But, in the second place, offences 
 of man against man came to be viewed as religious 
 offences, inasmuch as Jehovah is the supreme judge 
 before whom such cases come for decision (Judges xi. 27 ; 
 1 Sam. ii. 25). The whole sphere of law in Israel is 
 Jehovah's province, and He is the vindicator, not only 
 of His own direct commands, but of all points of social 
 order regulated by traditional law and custom. Thus, 
 in virtue of the coincidence of law and custom with 
 moral obligation, Jehovah, in His quality of judge, has 
 to do with every part of morals, and all kinds of sin in 
 Israel come before His tribunal. Jehovah has many 
 ways of vindicating the right and punishing sinners, for 
 He commands the forces of nature as well as presides 
 over the visible ordinances of judgment in Israel. But 
 it was to the judgment-seat at the sanctuary that the 
 man who felt himself wronged naturally turned for 
 redress, and the man who knew he had done wrong 
 turned for expiation, which was granted by means of 
 
LECT. III. THE PRIESTHOOD. 105 
 
 sacrifice (1 Sam. iii. 14 ; xxvi. 19), or on a money 
 payment to the priests (2 Kings xii. 16), the latter being 
 regarded in the light of a fine, which was naturally held 
 to wipe out the offence in a state of society when all 
 breaches of law, except wilful bloodshed, were cancelled 
 by payment of a pecuniary equivalent. When the priests, 
 therefore, began to view the sins of the people as a 
 regular and desirable source of income, as we learn from 
 Hosea iv. 8*that they actually did in the times of that 
 prophet, the whole idea of right and wrong was reduced 
 to a money standard, and the moral sense of the com- 
 munity was proportionally debased in every relation of 
 life. 
 
 The shortcomings of the priesthood might, in some 
 measure, have been supplied if the prophets, whose 
 influence with the masses was doubtless still great, had 
 retained aught of the spirit of Elijah. But prophecy 
 had sunk to a mere trade (Amos vii. 12). Hosea brackets 
 prophet and priest in a common condemnation. In 
 the fall of the priesthood the prophet shall fall with 
 him (Hosea iv. 5). 
 
 Was everything then lost which Elijah had con- 
 tended for ? Was there nothing in the nation of Jehovah 
 to distinguish it from other peoples, except that pre-emi- 
 nence in corruption against which Amos calls the heathen 
 themselves as witnesses (Amos iii. 9 se^.) ? In reading 
 the prophetic denunciations of the kingdom of Jeroboam 
 we might almost deem that it was so ; and there can 
 be no question that the inner decay of the state had 
 
 6 
 
106 ISRAEL NOT 
 
 gone so far that it was impossible to restore new and 
 healthy life to the existent body politic. But, on the 
 one hand, it must be remembered that Amos and Hosea, 
 in virtue of their function as preachers of reformation, 
 and uncompromising exposers of eveiy abuse, necessarily 
 give exclusive prominence to the evils of the state, and, 
 on the other hand, it is to be observed that Amos at 
 least speaks almost solely of the corruption of the 
 wealthy and ruling classes, whose vices in an Eastern 
 kingdom are far from a true index to the moral condi- 
 tion of the poorer orders. Amos by no means regards 
 the sinners of Jehovah's people (chap. ix. 10) as co- 
 extensive with Israel. He likens the impending judg- 
 ment to the sifting of corn in a sieve, in which no good 
 grain falls to the ground. There was still a remnant in 
 Ephraim that could be compared to sound corn ; and, 
 though all the sinners must perish, Jehovah, he tells us, 
 will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob (ver. 8). 
 
 This, it may be at once observed, is a characteristic 
 feature of all Old Testament prophecy. The prophets 
 have much to say of the sins of Israel, sins so aggra- 
 vated that Jehovah can no longer pass them by ; but 
 they never despair of Jehovah's good cause in the midst 
 of the nation, or hold that all His goodness and grace 
 have been lavished on Israel to no purpose. Amidst 
 the universal corruption there remains a seed of better 
 hope, some tangible and visible basis for the assurance 
 that Jehovah will yet shape from the remnant of the 
 reprobate nation a people worthy of His love. This 
 
LECT. III. WHOLLY CORRUPT. 107 
 
 conviction is not expressed in the language of modern 
 sentimental optimism, which will not give up all hope 
 even of the most depraved men. The prophets were not 
 primarily concerned with the amendment of individual 
 sinners ; it was the nation that they desired to see fol- 
 lowing righteousness and the knowledge of Jehovah, 
 and they were too practical not to know that the path 
 of national amendment is to get rid of 'evil-doers and put 
 better men in their place (comp. Jer. xiii. 23, 24). But 
 this they feel is not a thing impossible ; there is a true 
 tradition of the knowledge and fear of Jehovah in the 
 land, though it has no influence on the actual leaders of 
 the state ; and in appealing to this higher conception of 
 duty and faith they feel that their words are not spoken 
 to the winds, but that they are advocating a cause which, 
 sustained by Jehovah's own hand, must ultimately 
 triumph in that very community which at present seems 
 so wholly given up to evil. So, when Elijah complains 
 that he is left alone in his jealousy for Jehovah God of 
 hosts, the divine voice answers him that, in the sweeping 
 judgment to be executed by the swords of Jehu and 
 Hazael, he will spare seven thousand men, all the knees 
 which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which 
 hath not kissed him. (In 1 Kings xix. 18, for "Yet I 
 have left" read "And I wiU leave," comp. 2 Kings xiii. 7.) 
 The clearest proof that Jehovah's work in time past 
 had not been without fruit in Israel lies in the high and 
 commanding tone that prophets like Amos assume. 
 "When they speak of the omnipotent Jehovah, the 
 
108 RELIGIOUS STANDARD lect. in. 
 
 Creator of heaven and earth, the Lord of all nations, to 
 "whose supreme purpose of righteousness all nature and 
 all history must bend, they confess themselves to be 
 speaking truths that the mass of their countrymen ignore, 
 but never claim to be preachers of a new or unheard-of 
 religion. If it sometimes appears that they treat Israel 
 as sunk below the level even of heathen nations, it is 
 elsewhere plain that they measure the people of Jehovah 
 by a standard which could not be applied to those who 
 have never known the living God. The keynote of the 
 prophecy of Amos lies in the words of chap. iii. 2, "You 
 only have I known of all families of the earth ; there- 
 fore I will punish you for all your iniquities." The 
 guilt of Israel is its declension, not from the common 
 standard of other nations, and not from a new standard 
 now heard of for the first time, but from a standard 
 already set before them by the unique Jehovah who 
 had made this nation His own. For the right under- 
 standing of the prophets, it is plainly of the highest 
 importance to realise, with some precision, what this 
 standard was. 
 
 Up to quite a recent date it was commonly assumed 
 that this question presented no difficulty ; the laws of 
 the Pentateuch, fully written out by Moses and con- 
 tinuously preserved from his days, were held to have 
 been the unvarying rule of faith and obedience before 
 as after the Exile. In the present day this easy solu- 
 tion of the problem can no longer be accepted by his- 
 torical students. The prophets before the Exile never 
 
LECT. III. OF THE PROPHETS. 109 
 
 appeal to the finislied system of the Pentateuch. The 
 older historical books do not appeal to it ; and in fact 
 the several parts of these books can be classed in dis- 
 tinct groups, each of which has its own standard of 
 religious observance and duty according to the age at 
 which it was composed. The latest history in the 
 books of Chronicles presupposes the whole Pentateuch ; 
 the main thread of the books of Kings accepts the 
 standard of the book of Deuteronomy, but knows 
 nothing of the Levitical legislation ; and older narratives 
 now incorporated in the Kings— as, for example, the 
 histories of Elijah and Elisha, which every one can see 
 to be ancient and distinct documents — know nothing of 
 the Deuteronomic law of the one altar, and, like Elijah 
 himself, are indifferent even to the worship of the golden 
 calves. These older narratives, with the greater part of 
 the books of Samuel and Judges, accept as fitting and 
 normal a stamp of worship closely modelled on the 
 religion of the patriarchs as it is depicted in Genesis, 
 or based on the ancient law of Exod. xx. 24, where 
 Jehovah promises to meet with His people and bless 
 them at the altars of earth or unhewn stone which 
 stand in all corners of the land, on every spot where 
 Jehovah has set a memorial of His name. And in 
 like manner, as I have shown at length in a former 
 course of Lectures, the sacred laws of Israel which 
 the earlier history acknowledges are not the whole 
 complicated Pentateuchal system, but essentially the 
 contents of that fundamental code which is given in 
 
no RELIGIOUS STANDARD lect. m, 
 
 Exod. xxi.-xxiii. under the title of the Book of the 
 Covenant/ 
 
 The limits of the present Lectures forbid us to enter 
 on a detailed inquiry as to how much of the Penta- 
 teuchal law was already known to Amos or Hosea, and 
 it would be unreasonable to ask you to take on trust 
 results of other men's researches which you have had 
 no opportunity to test. We must rather ask whether 
 there is not some broad practical method by which we 
 can get as near the truth as is necessary for our pur- 
 pose, without committing ourselves to details that 
 must be settled by the minute inquiries of scholars 
 specially equipped for the task. If I. have succeeded 
 in carrying you with me in the course which we have 
 already traversed, I do not think that we shall find 
 this to be impossible. We have not hitherto had the 
 help of any detailed results of Pentateuch criticism, 
 and yet by simply concentrating our attention on un- 
 deniable historical facts, and giving them their due 
 weight, we have been able to form a consistent account 
 of the progress of the religion of Jehovah from Moses 
 to Elijah. We have not found occasion to speak of 
 Moses as the author of a written code, and to inquire 
 how much his code contained, because the history itself 
 makes it plain that his central importance for early 
 Israel did not lie in his writings, but in his practical 
 office as a judge who stood for the people before God 
 and brought their hard cases before Him at the sanc- 
 tuary (Exod. xviii. 19 ; xxxiii. 9 sej-)- I* is this func- 
 
LECT. HI. OF THE PROPHETS. Ill 
 
 tion of Moses, and not the custody of the written word, 
 which appears in the oldest history as carried on by his 
 successors, and Israel knew Jehovah as its Judge and 
 Lawgiver, not because He had given it a written Torah, 
 but because He was still present to give judgment in 
 its midst. So again we have not found occasion to 
 dwell en the legislation at Mount Sinai, as if the cove- 
 nant ratified there were the proper beginning of Israel's 
 life as the people of Jehovah ; for the early history 
 and the prophets do not use the Sinaitic legislation 
 as the basis of their conception of the relation of 
 Jehovah to Israel, but habitually go back to the 
 deliverance from Egypt, and from it pass directly to 
 the wilderness wandering and the conquest of Canaan 
 (Josh. xxiv. 5 seg., 17 se%. ; Amos ii. 10 ; Hosea ii. 15 ; 
 xi. 1 ; xii. 9, 13 ; Jer. xi. 4). We are thus dispensed 
 from entering into knotty questions as to the date 
 of the several parts of the Sinaitic legislation, simply 
 because the events of the year spent at Sinai are 
 not those which have practical prominence in the 
 sequel. And so again, when we came to speak of 
 Ehjah, we found it unnecessary to ask what novelty his 
 work exhibited in comparison with Pentateuchal laws 
 that may be supposed to have existed in his time, 
 because the practically epoch-making significance of 
 his stand against Baal is rendered clear by the fact that 
 in the time of Solomon the introduction of foreign 
 worships under similar circumstances passed without 
 popular challenge, and that in Judah Solomon's sane- 
 
112 RELIGIOUS STANDARD lect. iii. 
 
 tuaries dedicated to heathen gods were left untouched 
 till long after the time of Elijah (2 Kings xxiil 13), 
 and must therefore have been tolerated even by Ahab's 
 contemporary Jehoshaphat, who passed for a king of 
 indubitable orthodoxy. Facts like these are landmarks 
 in the history which we cannot afford to overlook, and 
 which veracity forbids us to explain away, and such 
 facts, rather than traditional or hypothetical assump- 
 tions as to the date of the Pentateuch, are our best key 
 to understand the actual condition of the people to 
 whom the prophets spoke. In truth those who hold 
 the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and yet 
 desire to do justice to the history are compelled to 
 admit that it was practically a buried book, many of 
 its most central laws being quite ignored by the best 
 kings and the most enlightened priests. They were 
 equally ignored by the prophets, as we shall see 
 more clearly in the sequel, and so for the historical 
 study of the prophets and their work we must leave 
 them on one side, and direct our attention to things 
 that can be shown to have had practical place and 
 recognition in Israel. In other words, the history and 
 the prophets are not to be interpreted by the Penta- 
 teuch, but they themselves must be our guides in 
 determining what constituted the sum of the extant 
 knowledge of Jehovah in the time to which they 
 belong. 
 
 In the first place, then, it is perfectly clear that 
 the great mass of Levitical legislation, with its ritual 
 
LECT. Ill, OF THE PROPHETS. 113 
 
 entirely constructed for the sanctuary of the ark and 
 the priests of the house of Aaron, cannot have had 
 practical currency and recognition in the Northern King- 
 dom. The priests could not have stultified themselves 
 by accepting the authority of a code according to which 
 their whole worship was schismatic ; nor can the code 
 have been the basis of popular faith or prophetic doc- 
 trine, since Elijah and Elisha had no quarrel with the 
 sanctuaries of their nation. Hosea himself, in his hitter 
 complaints against the priests, never upbraids them as 
 schismatic usurpers of an illegitimate authority, but 
 speaks of them as men who had proved untrue to a 
 legitimate and lofty office. The same argument proves 
 that the code of Deuteronomy was unknown, for it also 
 treats all the northern sanctuaries as schismatic and 
 heathenish, acknowledging but one place of lawful 
 pilgrimage for all the seed of Jacob. It is safe, there- 
 fore, to conclude that whatever ancient laws may have 
 had currency in a written form must he sought in other 
 parts of the Pentateuch, particularly in the Book of 
 the Covenant, Exod. xxi.-xxiii., which the Pentateuch 
 itself presents as an older code than those of Deutero- 
 nomy and the Levitical Legislation. In fact, the 
 ordinances of this code closely correspond with the 
 indications as to the ancient laws of Israel supplied by 
 the older history and the prophets. Quite similar, 
 except in some minor details which need not now 
 delay us, is another ancient table of laws preserved in 
 Exod. xxxiv. These two documents may be taken as 
 
114 THE OLDEST LA WS lect. iii. 
 
 representing the general system of sacred law which 
 had practical recognition in the Northern Kingdom, 
 though the very fact that we have two such documents 
 conspires with other indications to make it probable 
 that the laws, which were certainly generally published 
 by oral decisions of the priests, were better known by 
 oral tradition than by written books. Neither Amos 
 nor Hosea alludes to an extant written law (Hosea 
 viii. 12 is mistranslated in A.V.), though this fact 
 does not prove that written laws did not exist, but only 
 that they had not the same prominence as in later 
 times. 
 
 Jehovah, however, instructed His people and re- 
 vealed His character to them quite as much by history 
 as by precept, and the recollection of His great deeds 
 in times gone by forms the most frequent text for pro- 
 phetic admonition. I have alreadj' remarked that the 
 extant historical narratives fall into several groups, 
 each of which is closely akin to the Book of the Cove- 
 nant, to the Deuteronomic code, or to the finished Pen- 
 tateuch (or, if you please, the Levitical legislation) 
 respectively. In the Northern Kingdom, where the 
 Deuteronomic and Levitical legislations had no recog- 
 nition, it may safely be assumed that the parts of the 
 historical books- which are akin to these, and judge the 
 actions of Israel by the standard which they supply, 
 were also unknown. This would exclude those sections 
 of the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua which are 
 plainly by the same hand as the Levitical laws, and a 
 
LECT. III. AND HISTORIES. 115 
 
 considerable number of passages in the Deuteronomic 
 style, chiefly comments on the older narrative or 
 speeches composed in the usual free manner of ancient 
 historians, which are found here and there in the other 
 historical books. The main thread of the books of 
 Kings, as distinguished from the author's extracts 
 from earlier sources, must of course be set aside, since 
 the history of Kings goes down to the close of the 
 Judsean Kingdom, and is written throughout from the 
 standpoint of Josiah's reformation, which took place 
 long after the fall of the kingdom of Ephraim. 
 
 It is important to indicate these deductions in a 
 general way, but for our present purpose it is unneces- 
 sary to follow them out in detail, because, speaking 
 broadly, they affect the interpretation rather than the 
 substance of the history. In the time of Amos and 
 Hosea the truest hearts and best thinkers of Israel did 
 not yet interpret Jehovah's dealings with His people in 
 the light of the Deuteronomic and Levitical laws ; they 
 did not judge of Israel's obedience by the principle of 
 the one sanctuary or the standard of the Aaronic ritual; 
 but they had heard the story of Jehovah's dealings with 
 their fathers, and many of them, perhaps, had read it in 
 books, great part of which is actually incorporated in 
 our present Bible. Take, for example, the history of the 
 Northern Kingdom as it is given in the Kings. No 
 attentive reader, even of the English Bible, can fail to 
 see that the substance of the narrative, all that gives it 
 vividness and colour, belongs to a quite different species 
 
lis THE OLDEST 
 
 of literature from the brief chronological epitomes and 
 theological comments of the Judsean editor. The story 
 of Elijah and Elisha clearly took shape in the Northern 
 Kingdom ; it is told by a narrator who is full of per- 
 sonal interest in the affairs of Ephraim, and has no idea 
 of criticising Elijah's work, as the Judaean editor 
 criticises the whole history of the North, by constant 
 reference to the schismatic character of the northern 
 sanctuaries. Moreover, the narrative has a distinctly 
 popular character ; it reads like a story told by word of 
 mouth, full of the dramatic touches and vivid presenta- 
 tions of detail which characterise all Semitic history 
 that closely follows oral narration. The king of Israel 
 of whom we read in 2 Kings viii. 4 was, we may be sure, 
 not the only man who talked with Gehazi, saying, " Tell 
 me, I pray thee, all the great things that Elisha hath 
 done." By many repetitions the history of the prophets 
 took a fixed shape long before it was committed to 
 writing, and the written record preserves all the essen- 
 tial features of the narratives that passed from mouth 
 to mouth, and were handed down orally from father to 
 child. The same thing may be said of the earlier 
 history, which in all its main parts is evidently the 
 transcript of a vivid oral tradition. The story of the 
 patriarchs, of Moses, of the Judges, of Saul, and of 
 David is still recorded to us as it lived in the mouths 
 of the people, and formed the most powerful agency of 
 religious education. Even the English reader who is 
 unable to follow the nicer operations of criticism may 
 
LECT. III. HISTORIES. 117 
 
 by attentive reading satisfy himself that all the Old 
 Testament stories which have been our delight from 
 childhood for their dramatic pictorial simplicity belong 
 to a different stratum of thought and feeling from the 
 Deuteronomic and Levitical laws. They were the 
 spiritual food of a people for whom these laws did not yet 
 exist, but who listened at every sanctuary to Jehovah's 
 great and loving deeds, which had consecrated these 
 holy places from the days of the patriarchs downwards. 
 Beersheba, Bethel, Shechem, Gilgal, and the rest, had 
 each its own chain of sacred story, and wherever the 
 Israelites were gathered together men might be heard 
 " rehearsing the righteous deeds of Jehovah, the righteous 
 deeds of His rule in Israel " (Judges v. 11). A great 
 part of the patriarchal history — almost all, indeed, that 
 has not reference to Abraham and Hebron — is gathered 
 in this way round northern sanctuaries or round Beer- 
 sheba, which was a place of pilgrimage for Northern 
 Israel (Amos v. 5 ; viii. 14); and the special interest 
 which the narrative displays in Eachel and Joseph is 
 an additional proof that Ave still read it very much as 
 it was read or told in the house of Joseph in the days 
 of Amos and Hosea. 
 
 There are two chapters in the Bible which can be 
 pointed to as specially instructive for the way in which 
 the Israelites of the North thought of Jehovah and His 
 reign in Israel. One of these is the so-called blessing 
 of Moses in Deut. xxxiii., which plainly belongs to the 
 Northern Kingdom, because it speaks of Joseph as the 
 
118 THE BLESSING lect. iii. 
 
 crowned one of his brethren (ver. 16 ; A.V. separated 
 from his brethren), and prays for the reunion of Judah 
 to the rest of Israel (ver. 7). The other is Josh, xxiv., 
 a narrative connected with Shechem, which speaks 
 without offence of the sacred tree and sacred stone that 
 marked this great northern sanctuary, and is therefore 
 quite ignorant of the Deuteronomic law. The chapter 
 gives a rdsumi of the history of Israel and the patriarchs 
 in the mouth of Joshua, which is in fact the closing 
 summary of a great historical book, known as the 
 Elohistic history, to which large parts of the Penta- 
 teuchal narrative are referred by critics ; and taken with 
 the Blessing of Moses it shows us better than any other 
 part of Scripture how thoughtful and godly men of the 
 Korthern Kingdom understood the religion of Jehovah 
 though they knew nothing of the greater Pentateuch al 
 codes. In the Blessing of Moses the religion of Israel 
 is described in a tone of joyous and hopeful trust — the 
 glory of Jehovah when He shined forth from Paran and 
 came to Kadesh full of love for His people, the gift of 
 the law through Moses as a possession for the congrega- 
 tion of Jacob, the final establishment of the state when 
 there was a king in Jeshurun uniting the branches of 
 the people, and knitting the tribes of Israel together 
 (ver. 5). The priesthood is still revered as the arbiter 
 of impartial divine justice. The tribes are not all 
 prosperous alike ; Simeon has already disappeared from 
 the roll, and Eeuben seems threatened with extinction ; 
 but the princely house of Joseph is strong and victorious, 
 
OF MOSES. 119 
 
 and round the thousands of Manasseh and the myriads 
 of Ephraim the other tribes still rally strong in Jehovah's 
 favour. "There is none like unto the Godof Jeshurun, 
 who rides on the heavens for thy help, and in His 
 loftiness on the skies. The God of old is thy refuge 
 and the outspreading of the everlasting arms ; He 
 drives out the enemy before thee, and saith, Destroy. 
 Then Israel dwells secure ; the fountain of Jacob flows 
 unmixed in a land of corn and wine, where the heavens 
 drop down dew. Happy art thou, Israel ; who is like 
 unto thee, a people victorious in Jehovah, whose help 
 is the shield, whose pride is the sword, and thy foes 
 feign before thee, and thou marchest over their high 
 places." * This is still the old warlike Israel, secure in 
 the help of the God of heaven, whose presence is alike 
 near in the day of battle and in the administration of a 
 righteous law. In Josh. xxiv. the picture has another 
 side. The God who has done these great things for 
 Israel is a holy and a jealous God ; He will not forgive 
 His people's sins. It is no easy thing to serve such a 
 God, for He must be served with single heart. The 
 danger of departing from Him lies in two directions. 
 On one hand Israel is tempted to fall back into the 
 ancient heathenism of its Aramaean ancestors (vers. 
 2, 15); on the other hand it is drawn away by the gods 
 of the Amorites. Such were, in fact, the two great 
 influences with which the religion of Jehovah had to 
 contend through all the history of Israel, and both had 
 a strange attraction, for they made no such demands on 
 
120 AMOS OF LECT. III. 
 
 their worshippei'S as the holy and jealous Jehovali, 
 " Ye cannot serve Jehovah, for He will not forgive your 
 sins ; if ye forsake Him and serve foreign gods, then He 
 will turn and do you hurt, and consume you after He 
 hath done you good." These words might serve as the 
 epitaph of the Hebrew state in the destruction towards 
 whicl" i*" was hastening in the last days of the house of 
 Jehu, and M'ith them the history of Israel might have 
 closed, but for the work of a new series of prophets, 
 which built up another Israel on the ruins of the old 
 kingdom. The founder of this new type of prophecy 
 is Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa.* 
 
 The iirst appearance of Amos as a prophet is one 
 of the most striking scenes of Old Testament history 
 His prophecy is almost wholly addressed to IsTorthern 
 Israel, and the scene of his public preaching was the 
 great royal sanctuary of Bethel, the chief gathering- 
 point of the worshippers of Ephraim. But he appeared 
 in Bethel as a stranger, and had nothing in common 
 with the prophetic guild which had long had its seat 
 there. His home was in the kingdom of Judah, not in 
 any of the great centres of life, but in the little town of 
 Tekoa,^" which lies some six miles south of Bethlehem 
 on an elevated hill, from which the eye ranges north- 
 M'ard to Bethlehem and the Mount of Olives, while 
 eastward the prospect extends over rugged and desolate 
 mountains, through the clefts of which the Dead Sea 
 is visible, with the lofty tableland of Moab in the far 
 distance. Though it stand.s on the very edge of the 
 
LECT. III. TEKOA. 121 
 
 great wilderness, the spot itself is fruitful, and pleasant 
 to the eye. Its oil, according to the Mishna, was the 
 Lest in the land [Man. viii. 3), and in the middle ages 
 its honey passed into a proverb (Yakiit s.v^. But 
 immediately beyond Tekoa all agriculture ceases, and 
 the desert hills between it and the Dead Sea offer only 
 a scanty subsistence to wandering flocks. Amos him- 
 self was not a husbandman, but "a shepherd and a 
 gatherer of sycamore figs'' (vii. 14 sey.), the coarsest 
 and least desirable of the fruits of Canaan. He was 
 nurtured in austere simplicity, and it was in the vast 
 solitudes where he followed his flock that Jehovah 
 said to him, "Go prophesy to my people Israel." It 
 was a strange errand for the unknown shepherd to 
 undertake ; for the prophet was not a preacher in the 
 modern sense, whose words are addressed to the heart 
 of the individual, and who can discharge his function 
 wherever he can find an audience willing to hear a 
 gospel that speaks to the poor as well as to the great. 
 Jehovah's word was a message to the nation, a.nd above 
 all to the grandees and princes who were direccly 
 responsible for the welfare and good estate of Israel. 
 But the summons of Jehovah left no room for hesita- 
 tion. " The Lord roareth from Zion, and sendeth forth 
 His voice from Jerusalem, and the pastures of the 
 shepherds mourn, and the top of Carrnel withereth. . . . 
 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people 
 not be afraid? shall there be evil in the city and 
 Jehovah hath not done it ? Surely the Lord Jehovah 
 
122 AMOS AT lect. hi. 
 
 will not do anything, but He revealeth His secret to His 
 servants tlie prophets. The lion hath roared, who will 
 not fear ? the Lord Jehovah hath spoken, who can but 
 prophesy ?" (i. 2 ; iii. 6-8). The caU of Amos lay in 
 the consciousness that he had heard the voice of Jehovah 
 thundering forth judgment while all around were deaf 
 to the sound. In this voice he had learned Jehovali's 
 secret — not some abstract theological truth, but the 
 secret of His dealings with Israel and the surrounding 
 nations. Such a secret could not remain locked up 
 within his breast — "the Lord Jehovah hath spoken, 
 who can but prophesy ?" Aud so the shepherd left his 
 flock in the wilderness, and, armed with no other cre- 
 dentials tlian the word that burned within bin), stood 
 forth in the midst of the brilliant crowd that thronged 
 the royal sanctuary of Bethel, to proclaim what Jehovah 
 had spoken against the children of Israel (iii. 1). 
 
 Before we examine more fully the contents of this 
 word, it will be convenient to complete the brief record 
 of the prophet's history as it is given in the seventh 
 chapter of his book. Amos had many things to say to 
 the nation and its rulers, but they all issued in the 
 announcement of swift impending judgment. The sum 
 of his prophecy was a death-wail over the house of 
 Israel : — 
 
 The virgin of Israel is fallen, she cannot rise again : 
 She is cast down upon her land, there is none to raise her np. 
 
 (v. 2.) 
 
 This judgment is the work of Jehovah, and its cause is 
 
BETHEL. 123 
 
 Israel's sin. "You only have I known of all the 
 families of the earth ; therefore will I punish you for 
 all your iniquities." In the characteristic manner of 
 Eastern symbolism, Amos expressed these thoughts in 
 a figure. He saw Jehovah standing over a wall with a 
 plumb-line in His hand. Jehovali is a builder, the fate 
 of nations is His work, and, like a good builder. He works 
 by rule and measure. And now the great builder speaks, 
 saying, " Behold I set the plumb-line — -the rule of divine 
 righteousness — in the midst of Israel ; I will not pass 
 them by any more ; and the high places of Isaac shall 
 be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid 
 waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam 
 with the sword." However little the audience under- 
 stood of the prophet's harangue, the last words were 
 intelligible enough. It was not the first time that a 
 prophet had foretold the fall of a northern dynasty ; 
 the conspiracy that set Jeroboam's ancestor on the 
 throne received its first impulse from Elijah's sentence 
 on the murderer of Naboth (2 Kings ix. 25 seg.). The 
 priest Amaziah, who was responsible for the order of his 
 sanctuary, at once took alarm, and sent to the king the 
 report of what he concluded to be a new conspiracy. 
 " Amos," he said, " hath conspired against thee in the 
 midst of the house of Israel ; the land cannot bear all his 
 words." The audacious speaker must be silenced, but 
 usage and the traditional privilege of the prophets made 
 the priest reluctant to use force against one who spoke 
 in the name of Jehovah. The great man seems, in fact, 
 
124 AMOS AND lect. hi. 
 
 to have looked on the Judfeau intruder with something 
 of the same contempt which tlie captains of the host at 
 Eamoth Gilead felt for the "madman" that brought 
 Elisha's message to Jehu (2 Kings ix. 11) ; the freedom 
 allowed to the prophets was in good measure due to the 
 conviction that they could do little harm unless they 
 had stronger influences at their back. " Get thee hence, 
 seer," he says, " flee into the land of Judah, and there 
 earn thy bread, and prophesy there.^-' But prophesy no 
 more in Bethel, for it is a royal sanctuary and a royal 
 residence." To Amaziah Amos seemed half an intriguer, 
 half a fanatic — a man whose prophesying was a trade, 
 and who had made a bold stroke for notoriety in the 
 hope, perhaps, that the Court would buy him off. Nay, 
 says Amos, " I am no prophet, nor a son of the prophets 
 [that is, no prophet by trade like the JSfebUm of Bethel] . . . 
 Jehovah took me as I followed the flock, and Jehovah 
 said to me. Go prophesy against my people Israel. Now, 
 therefore, hear thou the word of Jehovah. Thou sayest. 
 Prophesy not against Israel, and preach not against the 
 house of Isaac. Therefore, thus saith Jehovah, thy wife 
 shall be prostituted in the city, and thy sons and thy 
 daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be 
 divided by the line ; and thou shalt die in an unclean 
 land, and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of 
 his land." The judgment denounced on Amaziah com- 
 prehends only the usual incidents of the sack of a city 
 in those barbarous times ; and Amos, it is plain, does 
 not hurl a special threat against the priest, but merely 
 
AMAZIAH. 125 
 
 repeats his former prediction of the faR of the nation 
 before the invader, with the assurance that Amaziah 
 shall live to see it accomplished. To so precise an 
 intimation there was nothing to add. Amos, no doubt, 
 was compelled to yield at once to superior force ; and 
 the fact that his book, as we possess it, is a carefully 
 planned composition, in which this historical incident 
 holds the central place, followed as well as preceded 
 by prophecies, shows that he effected his escape, retiring 
 no doubt to Judah, where he placed on permanent 
 I'ccord the words of Jehovah which the house of Israel 
 refused to heed. As his prophesying was not a pro- 
 fession, he had not ceased to be a shepherd in fulfilling 
 his divine mission ; and, though the mediaeval Jewish 
 tradition which showed his gi'ave at Tekoa was certainly 
 apocryphal, it may be presumed that he returned to his 
 old life, and died in his native place. 
 
 The humble condition of a shepherd following his 
 flock on the bare mountains of Tekoa has tempted 
 many commentators, from Jerome downwards, to think 
 of Amos as an unlettered clown, and to trace his "rus- 
 ticity " in the language of his Ijook. To the unprejudiced 
 judgment, however, the prophecy of Amos appears one 
 of the best examples of pure Hebrew style. The lan- 
 guage, the images, the grouping are alike admirable ; 
 and the simplicity of the diction, obscured only in one 
 or two passages by the fault of transcribers (iv. 3 ; ix. 
 1),^^ is a token, not of rusticity, but of perfect mastery 
 over a language which, though unfit for the expression 
 
126 THE STYLE 
 
 of abstract ideas, is unsurpassed as a vehicle for im- 
 passioned speech. To associate inferior culture with 
 the simplicity and poverty of pastoral life is totally 
 to mistake the conditions of Eastern society. At the 
 courts of the Caliphs and their Emirs the rude Arabs of 
 the desert were wont to appear without any feeling of 
 awkwardness, and to surprise the courtiers by the finish 
 of their impromptu verses, the fluent eloquence of their 
 oratory, and the range of subjects on which they could 
 speak with knowledge and discrimination.^^ Among 
 the Hebrews, as in the Arabian desert, knowledge and 
 oratory were not affairs of professional education, or 
 dependent for their cultivation on wealth and social 
 status. The sum of book learning was small ; men of 
 all ranks mingled with that Oriental freedom which is so 
 foreign to our habits ; shrewd observation, a memory 
 retentive of traditional lore, and the faculty of original 
 reflection took the place of laborious study as the ground 
 of acknowledged intellectual pre-eminence. In Hebrew, 
 as in Arabic, the best ■waiting is an unaffected transcript 
 of the best speaking ; the literary merit of the book of 
 Genesis, or the history of Elijah, like that of the Kit&b 
 el Aghdny, or of the Norse Sagas, is that they read 
 as if they were told by word of mouth ; and, in like 
 manner, the prophecies of Amos, though evidently re- 
 arranged for publication, and probably shortened from 
 their original spoken form, are excellent writing, because 
 the prophet writes as he spoke, preserving all the effects 
 of pointed and dramatic delivery, with that breath of 
 
LECT. ni. OF AMOS. 127 
 
 lyrical fervour which lends a special charm to the 
 highest Hebrew oratory. Semitic authorship never 
 becomes self-conscious without losing its highest quali- 
 ties, the old dramatic and lyric power gives way to 
 artificial conceits and affected obscurities. Ezekiel is 
 much more of a bookman than Amos, but his style is 
 as much below that of the shepherd of Tekoa as the 
 rhetorical prose of the later Arabs is below the simplicity 
 of the ancient legends of the desert. 
 
 The writings of Amos, however, are not more con- 
 spicuous for literary merit than for width of human 
 interest based on a range of historical observation very 
 remarkable in the age and condition of the author. 
 There is nothing provincial about our prophet ; his 
 vision embraces all the nations with whom the Hebrews 
 had any converse ; he knows their history and geography 
 with surprising exactness, and is, in fact, our only 
 source for several particulars of great value to the his- 
 torian of Semitic antiquity. The rapid survey of the 
 nations immediately bordering on Israel — Aram - Da- 
 mascus, Philistia,Edom,Ammon,Moab — is full of precise 
 detail as to localities and events, with a keen appreci- 
 ation of national character. He tells how the Philis- 
 tines migrated from Caphtor, the Aramaeans from Kir 
 (ix. 7). His eye ranges southward along the caravan 
 route from Gaza through the Arabian wilderness (i. 6), 
 to the tropical lands of the Cushites (ix. 7). In the west 
 he is familiar with the marvels of the swelling of the 
 Nile (viii. 8 ; ix. 5), and in the distant Babylonian east 
 
128 WIDE KNO WLEDGE lect. hi. 
 
 he makes special mention of the city of Calneh (vi. 2, 
 comp. Gen. x. 10). His acquaintance with the condition 
 of Northern Israel is not that of a mere passing observer. 
 He has followed with close and sympathetic attention 
 the progress of the Syrian wars (i. 3, 13 ; iv. 10), and 
 all the sufferings of the nation from pestilence, famine, 
 and earthquake (chap. iv.). The luxury of the nobles of 
 Samaria (vi. 3 seq}), the cruel sensuality of their wives (iv. 
 1 sey.), the miseries of the poor, and the rapacity of their 
 tyrants (iii. 6 seq^. ; viii. ^seq), the pilgrimages to Gilgal 
 and Beersheba (v. 5 ; viii. 14), are painted from the life, as 
 well as the ritual splendour and moral abominations of 
 the sanctuary of Bethel. It is obviously illegitimate 
 to ascril^e this fulness of knowledge to special revela- 
 tion ; Amos, we may justly conclude, was an observer 
 of social and political life before he was a prophet, and 
 his prophetic calling gave scope and use to his natural 
 acquirements. The source of Amos's knowledge of 
 nations and their affairs is of secondary consequence, 
 but the critic will observe that his geographical horizon 
 corresponds with those parts of Genesis x. which 
 may plausibly be assigned to that oldest stratum of 
 the Pentateuchal narrative which we have already 
 spoken of as substantially representing the historical 
 traditions of Israel at the time when he lived.-'* The 
 exact details which he possesses as to Israel and im- 
 mediately surrounding districts point rather to personal 
 observation ; but long journeys are easy to one bred in 
 the frugality of the wilderness, and either on military 
 
LECT. III. OF AMOS. 129 
 
 duty, such as all Hebrews were liable to, or in the 
 service of trading caravans, the shepherd of Tekoa 
 might naturally have found occasion to wander far 
 from his home. 
 
 The prophetic ■work of Amos, forming, as it does, a 
 mere episode in an obscure life, is sharply distinguished, 
 not only from the professional activity of the prophetic 
 guilds which lived by their trade, but from the lifelong 
 vocation of men like Isaiah and Jeremiah, who received 
 the divine call in their youth, and continued their work 
 for many years, receiving new revelations from time to 
 time in connection with the changing events among 
 which they lived. Amos is a man of one prophecy. 
 Once for all he has heard the thunder of Jehovah's 
 shout, and seen the fair land of Canaan wither before 
 it. The roar of the lion, to which he compares the voice 
 that compelled him to prophecy, is the roar with which 
 tlie beast springs upon its prey (comp. iii. 8 witli iii. 4) ; 
 it is not Israel's sin that brings him forward as a 
 preacher of repentance ; but the sound of near destruc- 
 tion encircling the land (iii. 11) constrains him to blow 
 the alarm (iii. 6), and stir from their vain security the 
 careless rioters who feel no concern for the ruin of 
 Joseph (vi. 1 seg). 
 
 We have seen from the words he addressed to 
 Amaziah that Amos looked for the fall of Israel before 
 its enemies witliin his own generation ; in the figure of 
 the roar of the lion, which is silent till it makes its 
 .spring, he seems to imply that the destroying power 
 7 
 
130 PROPHECY OF lect. hi. 
 
 was already in motion. Wliat this power was Amos 
 expresses with the precision of a man who is not dealing 
 with vague threats of judgment, but has the destroyer 
 clearly before his eyes. " Behold, I raise up against you 
 a nation, house of Israel, and they shall crush you 
 from the frontier of Hamath " on the north " to the 
 brook of the Arabah," or brook of willows, a stream 
 flowing into the Dead Sea, which separated Jeroboam's 
 tributary Moab from the Edomites (vi. 14 ; comp. Isa. 
 XV. 7). The seat of the invader is beyond Damascus, 
 and thither Israel shall be carried captive (v. 27). It 
 is plain, therefore, that Amos has Assyria in his mind, 
 though he never mentions the name. It is no unknown 
 danger that he foresees ; Assyria was fully within the 
 range of bis political horizon ; it was the power that 
 had shattered Damascus by successive campaigns fol- 
 lowing at intervals since the days of Jehu, of which 
 there is still some record on the monuments, one of 
 them being dated B.C. 773, not long before the time 
 when, so far as we can gatlier from the defective chron- 
 ology of 2 Kings, Amos may be supposed to have 
 preached at Bethel. When the power of Damascus was 
 broken, there was no barrier between Assyria and the 
 nations of Palestine ; in fact, the breathing space that 
 made it possible for Jeroboam II. to restore the old 
 borders of his kingdom was only granted because the 
 Assyrians were occupied for a time in other directions, 
 and apparently passed through a period of intestine dis- 
 turbance which terminated with the accession of Tiglath 
 
LECT. III. THE ASSYRIANS. 131 
 
 Pileser II. (b.c. 745). The danger, tlierefore, was visible 
 to the most ordinary political insight, and what requires 
 explanation is not so much that Amos was aware of it 
 as that the rulers and people of Israel were so utterly 
 blind to the impending doom. The explanation, how- 
 ever, is very clearly given by Amos himself. The source 
 of the judicial blindness of his nation was want of know- 
 ledge of the true character of Jehovah, encouraging a 
 false estimate of their own might. The old martial 
 spirit of Israel had not died, and it had not lost its 
 connection with religious faith and the inspiriting words 
 of the prophets of the old school. Elisha was remem- 
 bered as the best strength of the nation in the Syrian 
 wars — "the chariots and horsemen of Israel" (2 Kings 
 xiii. 14). The deliverance from Damascus was " Jeho- 
 vah's victory" {ibid. ver. 17), and more recently the 
 subjugation of Moab had been undertaken in accordance 
 with the prophecy of Jonah. Never had Jehovah been 
 more visibly on the side of His people. His worship 
 was carried on with assiduous alacrity by a grateful 
 nation. Sa.crifices, tithes, thank-offerings, spontaneous 
 oblations, streamed into the sanctuaries (Amos iv. 4 s«g.). 
 There was no question as to the stability of the newly- 
 won prosperity, or the military power of the state (vi. 
 13). Israel was once more the nation victorious in 
 Jehovah, whose help was the shield, whose pride was 
 the sv/ord (Deut. xxxiii. 29). Everything indeed was 
 not yet accomplished, but the day of Jehovah's crown- 
 ing victory was doubtless near at hand, and nothing 
 
132 AMOS'S CONCEPTION lect. hi. 
 
 remained but to pray for its speedy coining (Amos 
 V. 18)." 
 
 We see, then, that it was not political blindness or 
 religious indifference, but a profound and fanatical faith, 
 that made Israel insensible to the danger so plainly 
 loomins on the horizon. Their trust in Jehovah's 
 omnipotence was absolute, and absolute in a sense 
 determined by the work of Elijah. There was no 
 longer any disposition to dally with foreign gods. There 
 was none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rode on 
 the heavens for His people's help. That that help 
 could be refused, that the day of Jehovah could be 
 darkness and not light, as Amos preached, that the 
 distant thunder-roll of the advance of Assyria was the 
 voice of an angry God drawing nigh to judge His people, 
 were to them impossibilities. 
 
 Amos took a juster view of the political situation, 
 because he had other thoughts of the purpose and 
 character of Jehovah. In spite of their lofty concep- 
 tions of the majesty and victorious sovereignty of 
 Jehovah, the mass of the people still thought of Him 
 as exclusively concerned with the affairs of Israel. 
 Jehovah had no other business on earth than to watch 
 over His own nation. In giving victory and prosperity 
 to Israel He was upholding His own interests, which 
 iiltimately centred in the maintenance of His dignity 
 as a potentate feared by foreigners and holding splendid 
 court at the sanctuaries where He received Israel's 
 homage. This seems to us an extraordinary limitation 
 
LECT. 111. OF JEHOVAH. 133 
 
 of view on the part of men who recognised Jehovah as 
 the Creator. But, in fact, heathen nations like the 
 Assyrians and Phoenicians had also developed a doctrine 
 of creation without ceasing to believe in strictly national 
 deities. Jehovah, it must be remembered, was not first 
 the Creator and then the God of Israel. His relation to 
 Israel was the historical foundation of the religion of 
 the Hebrews, and continued to be the central idea in all 
 practical developments of their faith. To Amos, on the 
 other hand, the doctrine of creation is full of practical 
 meaning. '' He that formed the mountains and created 
 the wind, that declareth unto man what is His thought, 
 that maketh the morning darkness and treadeth on the 
 high places of the earth, Jehovah, the God of hosts is 
 His name " (iv. 13). This supreme God cannot be 
 thought of as having no interest or purpose beyond 
 Israel. It was He that brought Israel out of Egypt, 
 but it was He too who brought the Philistines from 
 Caphtor and the Aramaeans from Kir (ix. 7). Every 
 movement of history is Jehovah's work ; it is not 
 Asshur but Jehovah who has created the Assyrian 
 empire, and He has a purpose of His own in raising up 
 its vast overwhelming strength and suspending it as a 
 threat of imminent destruction over Israel and the sur- 
 rounding nations. To Amos, therefore, the question is 
 not what Jehovah as King of Israel will do for His 
 people against the Assyrian, but what the Sovereign of 
 the World designs to effect by the terrible instrument 
 which He has created. The answer to this question is 
 
134 THE SINS OF 
 
 the " secret of Jehovah," known only to Himself and 
 PTis prophet ; and the key to the secret is Jehovah's 
 righteousness, and the sins, not of Israel alone, but of the 
 whole circle of nations from Damascus to Philistia, which 
 the advance of Assyria directly threatens. In the first 
 section of his book Amos surveys each of these nations 
 in succession, but in none does he find any ground to 
 think that Jehovah will. divert the near calamity. The 
 doom is pronounced on each in the same solemn for- 
 mula : " For three transgressions of Damascus and for 
 four" — that is, according to Hebrew idiom, for the multi- 
 plied transgressions of Damascus — •" I will not turn it 
 aside." The " it " is a transparent aposiopesis, for the 
 picture of the terrible Assyrian is constantly before the 
 prophet's eyes. 
 
 Now, it is plain that the sins for which Damascus, 
 Ammon, Moab, and the rest are judged cannot be 
 offences against Jehovah as the national God of Israel. 
 Amos teaches that heathen nations are to be judged, not 
 because they do not worship Israel's God, but because 
 they have broken the laws of universal morality. The 
 crime of Damascus and Ammon is their inhuman treat- 
 ment of the Gileadites ; the Phoenicians and Philistines 
 are condemned for the barbarous slave-trade, fed by 
 kidnapping expeditions, of which Tyre and Gaza were 
 the emporia. In the case of Tyre this offence is aggra- 
 vated by the fact that the captives were carried off in 
 defiance of the ancient brotherly alliance between Israel 
 and the Phceuiciau city ; and in like manner the sin of 
 
THE NATIONS. 135 
 
 Edom is the uurelentiug blood- feud with which he 
 follows his brother of Judah. These are the common 
 barbarities and treacheries of Semitic warfare ; and it 
 is as such that they are condemned, and not simply 
 because in each case it is Israel that has suffered from 
 them. Moab is equally condemned for a sin that has 
 nothing to do with Israel, but was a breach of the most 
 sacred feelings of ancient piety — the violation of the 
 bones of the king of Edom.'" 
 
 As Amos teaches that Jehovah's wrath falls on the 
 heathen nations, not because they are heathen and do 
 not worship Him, but because they have broken the 
 universal laws of fidelity, kinship, and humanity, so He 
 teaches that Israel must be judged and condemned by the 
 same laws in spite of its assiduous Jehovah worship. 
 The sinners of Israel thought they had a special security 
 in their national relation to Jehovah, in the fact that He 
 was worshipped only in their sanctuaries. Nay, says 
 Amos, He will make no difference between you and 
 the children of the Cushites, the remotest denizens of 
 the habitable world (ix. 7). Jehovah is the high judge 
 of appeal against man's injustice, and He is a judge 
 who cannot be bribed or swayed by personal influences 
 (iii. 2). " I hate, I despise your feast days ; I take no 
 pleasure in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer 
 nie whole burnt-offerings with your gifts of homage I 
 will take no pleasure in them, and I will not look upon 
 your fatted thank-offerings.-''' Take away from Me the 
 noise of thy songs ; I will not hear the melody of thy 
 
136 THE SINS OF 
 
 viols. But let justice flow like waters and righteous- 
 ness as an unfailing stream " (v. 21 seq^. Israel is 
 impartially condemned by the same laws that condemn 
 its neighbours, and for offences patent to the universal 
 moral judgment, as appears particularly at iii. 9, where 
 the grandees of Ashdod and Egypt are summoned 
 to appear before Samaria and bear witness against the 
 disorder and oppression that fill the city. 
 
 "We see, then, that to Amos the forward march of 
 the Assyrian is a manifestation of Jehovah's universal 
 justice on principles applicable to all nations, the fall 
 of Israel is but part of the universal ruin of the guilty 
 states of Palestine. But, though Jehovah in revealing 
 Himself to Israel does not divest Himself of His 
 supreme character as the universal judge. He has rela- 
 tions with Israel which are shared by no other nation, 
 and these relations involve special responsibilities, and 
 give a peculiar significance to the development of His 
 purpose as it regards His chosen people. It is on this 
 special aspect of the impending judgment that Amos 
 concentrates his attention after the general introduction 
 in chapters i. and ii. of his prophecy. As the fall of 
 Israel is part of the common overthrow of the Pales- 
 tinian states, Judah and Ephraim are alike involved, 
 Jerusalem as well as Samaria must fall before the 
 destroyer (ii. 4, 5).^^ What Amos has to say to Israel is 
 addressed to the whole family that Jehovah brought up 
 out of Egypt (iii. 1), and they that are at ease in Zion 
 are ranked with the self-confident princes of Samaria 
 
LECT. III. JUDAH AND EPHRAIM. 137 
 
 (vi. 1). But the sin and fate of Judah are very briefly 
 touched. The centre of national life was not in the 
 petty state of Judah, but in the great Northern Kingdom. 
 Though the restoration of the Davidic monarchy is the 
 ideal of Amos (ix. 11), as in another sense it had been 
 the ideal of the greatest monarchs of Ephraim (supra, 
 p. 76), he does not treat the larger Israel of the north 
 as a schismatic state. Eevolt from the house of David 
 and the sanctuary of Jerusalem is no part of Ephraim's 
 sin, and the prophet addresses himself more directly to 
 the house of Joseph, not because the sins of Joseph and 
 of Judah were essentially distinct, but because the house 
 of Joseph was still the foremost representative of Israel. 
 The fundamental law of Jehovah's special relations 
 to Israel as they bear on the approach of the Assyrian 
 is expressed in a verse which I have already cited. 
 " You only have I known of all the families of the 
 earth ; therefore I will punish you for all your iniqui- 
 ties " (iii. 2). To know a man is to admit him to your 
 acquaintance and converse. Jehovah has known Israel 
 inasmuch as He has had personal dealings with it. The 
 proof of this is not simply that Jehovah brought up His 
 people from Egypt and gave them the land of Canaan 
 (ii. 9, 10), foj- it was Jehovah who brought up the 
 Philistines from Caphtor and the Aramaeans from 
 Kir (ix. 7) although tliey knew it not. But with 
 Israel Jehovah held personal converse. " I raised up 
 of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for 
 Nazarites " (ii. 11). " The Lord Jehovah will not do 
 
138 HOW JEHOVAH IS lect. iit 
 
 anything without revealing His secret to His servants 
 the prophets '' (iii. 7). This is the real distinction 
 between Israel and the nations — that in all that 
 Jehovah did for His people in time past, in all that He 
 is purposing against them now, He has been to them 
 not an unknown power working by hidden laws, but 
 a God who declares Himself to them personally, as a 
 man does to a friend. And so the sin of Israel is not 
 merely that it has broken through laws of right and 
 wrong patent to all mankind, but that it has refused 
 to listen to these laws as they were personally ex- 
 plained to it by the Judge Himself. They gave the 
 Nazarites wine'to drink, and commanded the prophets 
 not to prophesy (ii. 12). And now every good gift of 
 Jehovah to Israel is but a new reason for dreading His 
 judgment, when Israel has refused to hear how He 
 means them to use His gifts. The princes of Zion and 
 Samaria are at ease and unconcerned. What ! says the 
 prophet, is not Israel the chief of nations ? Is there 
 from Calneh and Hamath to the Philistine border a 
 single kingdom broader or better than your own ? 
 " Therefore ye shall go into captivity with the first that 
 go captive " (vi. 1 stg'). 
 
 As the privilege of Israel is that ,aU Jehovah's 
 favours are accompanied and interpreted by His per- 
 sonal revelation, the special duty of Israel is to seek 
 Jehovah. Thus saith Jehovah to the house of Israel, 
 " Seek me and live " (v. 6). " To seek God " is the old 
 Hebrew phrase for consulting His oracle, asking His help 
 
TO BE SOUGHT. 139 
 
 or decision in difficult affairs of conduct or law (Gen. 
 XXV. 22; Exod. xviii. 15; 2 Kings iii. 11; viii. 8); and 
 by ancient usage Jehovah was habitually sought at the 
 sanctuary, though the phrase is equally applicable to 
 consulting a prophet. In fact, the offerings of the 
 sanctuary may be broadly divided into two classes, 
 those which express homage and thanksgiving (minhah, 
 sMlem), and those which were presented in connection 
 with some request or inquiry. In the latter class the 
 burnt-offering is most conspicuous. But Amos refuses 
 to acknowledge this way of seeking God. " Seek ye 
 not Bethel, and come not unto Gilgal, and pass not over 
 the border to Beersheba ; for Gilgal shall go captive, and 
 Bethel shall come to nought. Seek Jehovah, and live ; 
 lest He break forth like fire in the house of Jacob, and it 
 devour and there be none to quench it in Bethel " (v. 5, 
 6). The multiplication of gifts and offerings is but 
 multiplication of sin ; the people love to do these things, 
 but Jehovah answers them only by famine, blasting, and 
 war (chap. iv.). He is not to be found by sacrifice, for 
 in it He takes no pleasure ; what Jehovah requires of 
 them that seek Him is the practice of civil righteousness. 
 When Amos represents the national worship of 
 Israel as positively sinful, he does so mainly because it 
 was so conducted as to afford a positive encouragement 
 to the injustice, the sensuality, the barbarous treatment 
 of the poor, to which he recurs again and again as the 
 cardinal sins of the nation. The religion of Israel had 
 become a religion for the rich, the priests and the 
 
140 THE SINS OF 
 
 nobles were linked together in unrighteousness, and the 
 most flagrant scenes of immorality and oppression were 
 seen at the sacred courts (ii. 7, 8). Amos never speaks 
 of the golden calves as the sin of the northern sanc- 
 tuaries, and he has only one or two allusions to the 
 worship of false gods or idolatrous symbols. The Guilt 
 of Samaria, spoken of as a concrete object in viii. 14, is 
 probably the Ashera of 2 Kings xiii. 6, which had a 
 connection with the moral impurities of Canaanite 
 religion ; and in Amos v. 26 there is a very obscure 
 allusion to the worship of star-gods, which from the 
 connection cannot have been a rival service to that of 
 Jehovah, but probably attached itself in a subordinate 
 way to the ofiBces of His sanctuary.^^ Once, and only 
 once, in speaking of leavened bread as burned on the 
 altar, does the prophet appear to touch on a ritual 
 departure, of Canaanite character and presumably 
 Dionysiac significance, from the ancient ritual of Exod. 
 xxiii.. 18.^" But these points are merely touched in 
 passing. The whole ritual service is to Amos a thing 
 without importance in itself The Israelites offered no 
 sacrifice in tlie wilderness, and yet Jehovah was never 
 nearer to them than then (v. 25 compared with ii. 10). 
 The judgment of Jehovah begins at the sanctuary (ix.l 
 seq^. ; iii. 14), because the sanctuaries are the centre of 
 Israel's religious life and so also of its moral corruption. 
 The palace and the temple stood side by side (vii. 13), 
 and they fall together (iii. 14, 15 ; vii. 9) in the 
 common overtlirow of the state anc' its religion. 
 
ISRAEL'S RELIGION. 141 
 
 If we ask what Amos desired to set in the place 
 of the system he so utterly condemns, the answer is 
 apparently very meagre. He has no new scheme of 
 church and state to propose — only this, that Jehovah 
 desires righteousness and not sacrifice. Amos, in fact, 
 is neither a statesman nor a religious legislator ; he 
 has received a message from Jehovah, and his duty is 
 exhausted in delivering it. Till this message is received 
 and taken to heart no project of reformation can avail ; 
 the first thing that Israel must learn is the plain con- 
 nection between its present sin and the danger that 
 looms on its horizon. If two men walk together, says 
 Amos, you know that they have an understanding ; if 
 the lion roars he has prey within liis reach ; if the 
 springe flies up from the ground, there is something in 
 the noose ; if the springe catches the bird it must have 
 been rightly set (iii. 3 seq.). And so, let Israel be assured, 
 the advance of Assyria and the sin of Israel hang to- 
 gether in Jehovali's purpose, and the man who knows the 
 secret of Jehovah's righteousness cannot doubt that the 
 approacliing destruction is a sentence on the nation's 
 guilt. To produce conviction of sin by an appeal to 
 the universal conscience, to the known nature of Jehovah, 
 above all to the already visible shadow of coming events 
 that prove the justice of the prophetic argument, is the 
 great purpose of the prophet's preaching. 
 
 That that judgment will be averted by the repent- 
 ance of those who rule the affairs of the nation Amos 
 has no hope. The doom of the kingdom is inevitable. 
 
142 ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 and the sword of Jehovah shall pursue the sinners even 
 in flight and captivity till the last of them has .perished. 
 What Amos means by the total destruction of the 
 sinners of Jehovah's people (ix. 1-10) is of course to 
 be understood from his view of Israel's sin as con- 
 sisting essentially in social offences inconsistent with 
 national righteousness. He does not mean by the word 
 " sinner " the same thing as modern theology does. The 
 sinners of Israel are the corrupt rulers and their asso- 
 ciates, the unjust and sensual oppressors, the men who 
 have no regard to civil righteousness. The total destruc- 
 tion of these is the first condition of Israel's restoration, 
 for even in judgment Jehovah has not cast off His 
 people, and, though He could easily destroy the land by 
 natural agencies or burn up the guilty nation in a sea 
 of flame (vii. 1 seg), He chooses another course, and 
 carries His people into captivity, that He may sift them 
 while they wander through the nations as corn is sifted 
 in a sieve, without one sound grain falling to the ground. 
 And so when all the sinners are consumed His hand 
 will build up a new Israel as in the days of the first 
 kingdom. The fallen tent of David shall be restored, 
 and the Hebrews shall again rule over all those vassal 
 nations that once were Jehovah's tributaries. Then the 
 land inhabited by a nation purged of transgressors shall 
 flow with milk and wine. " And I will restore the 
 prosperity of My people Israel, and they shall build 
 waste cities and dwell therein, and plant vineyards and 
 drink the wine thereof, aud make gardens and eat the 
 
LECT. III. OF AMOS. 143 
 
 fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, 
 and they shall no more be plucked out of their land 
 which I give unto them, saith Jehovah thy God." 
 
 These are the closing words of the prophecy of 
 Amos, and here we must pause for the present, reserving 
 the remarks which they suggest till we can compa,re 
 them with the picture of the restoration of Israel set 
 forth a little later by his immediate successor Hosea. 
 
144 HOSEA AND THE lect. iv. 
 
 LECTUEE IV. 
 
 HOSEA AND THE FALL OF EPHEAIM. 
 
 The prophetic work of Amos, which we exarained in 
 last Lecture, falls entirely within the prosperous reign 
 of Jeroboam II. Hosea began to prophesy in the same 
 reign, as appears not only from the title of his book, 
 but from the contents of the first two chapters. " Yet 
 a little while," says Jehovah in Hosea i. 4, " and I will 
 punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed of Jezreel" — 
 that is, for the slaying of the seed of Ahab — " and will 
 cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel." 
 But Hosea continued his ministry after the prediction 
 of judgment on the descendants of Jehu had been ful- 
 filled, and the latter part of his book contains unmis- 
 takable references to the state of anarchy into which 
 the Northern Kingdom fell on the extinction of the last 
 great dynasty that occupied the throne of Samaria. 
 Before we address ourselves, therefore, to the study of 
 his life and prophecies it will be convenient to take a 
 rapid survey of the history of Ephraim after the death 
 of Jeroboam, and in order to gain a clear A'iew of the 
 sequence of events it is indispensable to say a few 
 
tECT. IV. FALL OF EPHRAIM. 145 
 
 words on the tangled chronology of the period, which is 
 usually interpreted in a way that does no small violence 
 to the Biblical narrative. 
 
 According to the chronology which has passed into 
 general currency from the Annals of Archbishop Ussher, j 
 and is represented on the margins of most English 
 Bibles, the death of Jeroboam was followed by an in- 
 terregnum of eleven years, after which his son Zachariah 
 reigned for six months, when he was slain by Shallum. 
 The Bible knows nothing of this interregnum, but on 
 the contrary informs us in the usual way that Zachariah 
 reigned in his father's stead (2 Kings xiv. 29). The 
 coronation of Zachariah must in fact have followed as 
 a matter of course, since his father died in peaceable 
 possession of the throne. Even if revolt broke out 
 immediately on this event, the party which sided with 
 the old dynasty would at once recognise the legal heir 
 as king, and, as it is admitted that Zachariah did mount 
 the throne, if only for six months, we cannot doubt that 
 he would date his accession from the time when he 
 became king de jure. And apart from this it is quite 
 inconceivable that an interregnum of eleven years, with 
 the stirring incidents inseparable from a prolonged 
 period of civil war, could be passed over in absolute 
 silence by the Biblical narrative. 
 
 Whence, then, do Archbishop TJssher and other 
 chronologists derive their eleven years of interregnum ? 
 From the death of Solomon to the fall of Samaria the 
 history of the books of Kings forms a double line. 
 
146 CHRONOLOGY OF THE lect. iv. 
 
 Dates are determined in the one line by years of the 
 kings of Ephraini, in the other by years of the kings 
 of Judah, and as the author of our present book of 
 Kings used separate sources for the history of the two 
 kingdoms we must assume, at all events provisionally, 
 that the two lines of chronology were originally dis- 
 tinct. In point of fact they are not merely distinct, 
 but of unequal length, as may be shown by the following 
 simple calculation. According to the Judsean line 
 there are just 480 years from the founding of Solomon's 
 temple to the return from Babylonian exile, B.C. 535. 
 According to the Northern reckoning the fall of Samaria 
 took place in the 241st year from the revolt against 
 Jeroboam, or in the 278th year of the temple. Counting 
 then up the Judaean line and down the other we get 
 for the date of the fall of Samaria B.C. 737. On the 
 other hand, if we start from the statement of 2 Kings 
 xviii. 9, that Samaria fell in the sixth year of Hezekiah, 
 remembering that he reigned twenty-nine years in all, 
 and that his death fell 160 years before the restoration, 
 we get for the date of Samaria's fall B.C. 719. In 
 other words, the Judsean line is about twenty years longer 
 than the ISTorthern one. It is in order to get over this 
 discrepancy without admitting any error in the two 
 sets of numbers that chronologists assume the long 
 interregnum after Jeroboam II.'s death, and another 
 period of anarchy somewhat later.^ But in point of 
 ftict to invent an interregnum of which the history does 
 not speak is quite as serious a liberty witli tlie text as 
 
LECT. IV. NORTHERN KINGDOM. 147 
 
 to suppose that there is some error in the numbers. 
 On the other hand, to suppose that the numbers have 
 been corrupted in transmission, and to introduce arbi- 
 trary corrections — as was done, for example, by the late 
 George Smith, who gives Jeroboam II. fifty-one years 
 instead of forty-one, and Pekah thirty instead of twenty 
 — is thoroughly unsatisfactory. The facts justify us in 
 saying that the chronology as we have it cannot be right ; 
 but they do not justify us in amending it at our own 
 hand and by purely conjectural methods. And when 
 we look at the thing more closely we are led to ask, 
 not whether this or that particular number is corrupt, 
 but whether the early Hebrews had a precise chronology 
 dating every event by the years of the reigning king. 
 As the history now stands we have an exact date for the 
 accession of each monarch, but events happening in the 
 course of a reign are habitually undated. No date of 
 the Northern history prior to the fall of Samaria is given 
 by the year of the reigning king of Ephraim, and in 
 the history of Judah, till the time of Jeremiah, almost 
 all events, dated by years of the kings of Jerusalem, 
 have reference to the affairs of the temple (1 Kings vi. 
 37, 38 ; xiv. 25, 26 ; 2 Kings xii. 6 ; xviii. 13 seg. ; xxii. 
 3 ; xxiii. 23). In the temple archives, therefore, a system- 
 atic record of dates seems to have been kept, but the 
 system did not extend to general affairs ; Amos, for 
 example, does not date his prophecy by the year of 
 King Uzziah, but says that it was " two years before 
 the earthquake." Where there is no precise system by 
 
148 CHRONOLOGY OF THE lect. iv. 
 
 which events are regularly dated, a reckoning hy round 
 numbers can hardly be avoided ; and on sucli a system 
 the most natural unit in estimating long periods is not 
 the year but a round period of years taken to represent 
 a generation. Traces of this way of counting are common 
 enough in early history, and among the Hebrews the unit 
 was taken at forty years — forty, in fact, being a common 
 round number in antiquity.^ The whole early chron- 
 ology of the Hebrews is measured by this unit. Forty, 
 twenty, and eighty are constantly-recurring numbers ; the 
 period from the Exodus to the founding of the temple is 
 480 years, or twelve forties, and an equal period extends 
 from the latter event to the return from exile, while 
 240 years is the duration of the Northern Kingdom. 
 
 But again, when we analyse the 480 of the Judsean 
 genealogy and the 240 of the Northern Kingdom, we 
 find that each is naturally divided into three equal 
 parts, and in each case the commencement of the second 
 third is given by a date which is not due to the 
 redactor of the books of Kings, but stood in the original 
 sources from which he worked. The second third of 
 the Judtean line begins with the year of Joash's reforms 
 in the temple, and ends with the death of Hezekiah. 
 In the Northern line the second period of 80 years 
 precisely corresponds with the duration of the Syrian 
 wars, which began four years before the death of Ahab. 
 These cannot be mere coincidences ; they are part of a 
 system, and, when taken with other details which can- 
 not be dwelt on here, they seem to show that the 
 
LECT. IV. BOOKS OF KINGS. 149 
 
 chronology on each line was constructed on the method 
 of genealogies, and reduced to years by what a mathe- 
 matician might call a method of interpolation, — that is, 
 by starting with certain fixed dates, which were taken as 
 the great divisions of the scheme, and then filling up the 
 intervals in an approximate way from a rough knowledge 
 of the loDtrer or shorter duration of the several reigns. 
 The scheme as a whole, at least as regards Judah, appears 
 to have been worked out after the Exile, since it reckons 
 back from the date of the return. It has also been 
 shown by a critical argument, supported by observation 
 of the Septuagint text, that the 480 years from the 
 Exodus to the temple were added to the text of 1 Kings 
 vi. after the Exile. Of course a chronology framed in 
 this way can make no claim to be absolutely exact, and 
 it ceases to be surprising that the two lines for Ephraim 
 and Judah are not precisely correspondent. The whole 
 body of dates except the few that are derived from the 
 original sources are to be regarded as nothing more than 
 an approximate and partly conjectural reconstruction of 
 the chronology, which we cannot hope to render more 
 exact without the help of records lying outside of the 
 Bible. 
 
 Of late years, however, such external aid has turned 
 up in the records of the Assyrian kings. Unlike the 
 Hebrews, the Assyrians were exact chronologers. They 
 had considerable astronomical knowledge, and thus had 
 learned to keep a precise record of years. As Eoman 
 chronology is based on the list of consuls, or as the 
 
150 CHRONOLOGY OF THE lect. iv 
 
 Mhenians named each year after the so-called Archon 
 Eponymus, so in Assyria there was a high official 
 appointed annually who gave his name to his year of 
 office. The list of these eponyms or date-giving officials 
 has fortunately been preserved in a number of copies, 
 and, as a note of royal expeditions and the like stands 
 opposite each name, it forms, in conjunction with other 
 monuments, a complete key to Assyrian chronology, the 
 accuracy of which has been verified by numerous tests, 
 on which it is unnecessary to enlarge. The lower part 
 of the Eponym Canon runs parallel with the Canon of 
 Ptolemy, which is one of the chief bases of ancient 
 chronology, and in this way it becomes possible to 
 express the Assyrian dates with reference to the 
 Christian era. 
 
 Now the Assyrian annals mention Jehu as paying 
 tribute to Shalmaneser B.C. 842, and Menahem is men- 
 tioned B.C. 738, 104 years later. It can be shown that 
 this tribute of Jehu must have fallen in one of the first 
 years of his reign, and as the sum of the reigns from 
 Jehu to Menahem inclusive is just 112 years, according 
 to the Bible, the Assyrian records confirm the general 
 accuracy of the Northern line of chronology for this 
 period, and completely justify us in our refusal to allow 
 the eleven years' interregnum of the Ussherian chron- 
 ology. It ought, however, to be observed that these re- 
 sults do not afford any guarantee that the details of the 
 Bible chronology, even in Northern Israel, are more than 
 approximate, or weaken the force of thp. argument that 
 
LECT. IV. BOOKS OF KINGS. 151 
 
 the original reckoning was in round numbers. Tor 
 there is every reason to believe that the old history of 
 the Northern prophets, from which the editor of the 
 books of Kings worked, gave eighty years for the Syrian 
 wars ; arid, with this datum and a generation of prosperity 
 under Jeroboam II., the editor could not fail to give a 
 tolerably correct estimate of the length of the period in 
 question. For the period between Menahem and the 
 fall of Samaria the Biblical chronologer seems to have 
 had less full guidance from ancient sources. For, accord- 
 ing to the monuments, Samaria was besieged dr. B.C. 722, 
 so that the reigns of the last three kings of Samaria, which 
 the Bible estimates at thirty-one years, must be reduced 
 by one half* The practical result of this inquiry is that 
 the decline of Israel, after the death of Jeroboam, was 
 much more rapid than appears from the usual chron- 
 ology, and instead of occupying sixty years to the fall of 
 Samaria, was really complete in less than half that time. 
 This rapid descent from the prosperity of the days of 
 Jeroboam throws a fresh light on the predictions of 
 speedy destruction given by Amos and Hosea. 
 
 Let us now, with the aid of the amended chronology, 
 take a rapid view of the successive steps in the fall of 
 the kingdom of Samaria. On the death of Jeroboam II., 
 liis son Zacliariah succeeded to the throne, but after six 
 months lost his kingdom and his life in the conspiracy 
 of Shallum. The assassin assumed the royal dignity, 
 but was not able to maintain it, for he was immediately 
 attacked by Menahem, and perished in turn. Menahem 
 
152 THE LAST YEARS lect. iv. 
 
 established liimself on the throne after a ferocious 
 struggle (2 Kings xv. 16). The success, however, was 
 not due to his own prowess, but to the assistance of Pul, 
 king of Assyria, to whom he gave a thousand talents, 
 raised by a tax on the great men of the country, " that 
 his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in 
 his hand " (2 Kings xv. 19). Menahem reigned, there- 
 fore, as an Assyrian vassal, and so within a few months 
 after Jeroboam's death his dynasty was extinguished, 
 and the foe, whose approach Amos foresaw, had laid his 
 strong hand on Israel, never again to relax his grasp. 
 On the death of Menahem, the flame of civil war broke 
 out once more. His son Pekahiah was assassinated 
 after a short reign, and the throne was occupied by a 
 military adventurer named Pekah, supported by a band 
 of Gileadites. Pekah allied himself with Eezin of 
 Damascus, and formed the project of dethroning Ahaz, 
 king of Judah. Ahaz appealed to Tiglath Pileser, who 
 marched westward, led the Damascenes captive, as 
 Amos had foretold, and also depopulated Gilead and 
 Galilee. In this disastrous war Pekah had lost his 
 prestige, and, though the Assyrians seem to have left 
 him in power, he was presently attacked and slain by 
 Hoshea, the son of Elah. He in turn had to reckon 
 with the Assyrian, and had to pay a subsidy and yearly 
 tribute as the price of his throne. But Hoshea was 
 eager to cast off the yoke, and sought help from the 
 king of Egypt, M-ho had begun to bid against Assyria 
 for the lordship of the mountains of Canaan, which 
 
LECT. IV. OF SAMARIA. 153 
 
 formed the natural barrier between the great powers of 
 the Nile and the Tigris. This defection sealed the 
 doom of Samaria. The Assyrians again invaded the 
 land ; after a prolonged and desperate resistance, the 
 capital was taken, and the Israelites were carried 
 captive to the far East, new populations being brought 
 from Babylon and other districts to take their place. 
 It appears from the Assyrian monuments that a vassal 
 kingdom existed in Samaria after this deportation, 
 which no doubt was only partial, and it is not improbable 
 that it was ruled by princes of Hebrew race for half 
 a century longer ;^ while we know that Jehovah worship 
 did not altogether cease in the land, and was even 
 accepted in a corrupt form by the new colonists (2 Kings 
 xvii. 24 seq^. ; 2 Kings xxiii. 15 ; Jer. xli. 5). But the 
 distinctive character of the nation was lost ; such 
 Hebrews as remained in their old land became mixed 
 with their heathen neighbours, and ceased to have any 
 share in the further history of Israel and Israel's religion. 
 "When Josiah destroyed the ancient high places of the 
 Northern Kingdom he slew their priests, whereas the 
 priests of Judsean sanctuaries were provided for at 
 Jerusalem. It is plain from this that he regarded the 
 worship of the Northern sanctuaries as purely heathenish 
 (comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 20 with ver. 5), and it was only 
 in much later times that the mixed population of 
 Samaria became possessed of the Pentateuch, and set 
 up a worship on Mount Gerizim in imitation of the 
 ritual of tlie second temple. We have no reason to 
 
 * See page 439. 
 
154 HO SEA, SON lect. iv. 
 
 think that the captive Ephraiinites were more able to 
 retain their distinctive character than their brethren 
 who remained in Palestine. The problem of the lost 
 tribes, which has so much attraction for some speculators, 
 is a purely fanciful one. The people whom Hosea and 
 Amos describe were not fitted to maintain themselves 
 apart from the heathen among whom they dwelt. 
 Scattered among strange nations, they accepted the 
 service of strange gods (Deut. xxviii. 64), and, losing 
 their distinctive religion, lost also their distinctive ex- 
 istence. The further history of the people of Jehovah 
 is transferred to the house of Judah, and with the fall 
 of Samaria Northern Israel ceases to have any part in 
 the progress of revelation. 
 
 Hosea, or Hoshea, as the name should rather be 
 written, is the last prophet of Ephraim.^ Unlike Amos, 
 he was himself a subject of the Northern Kingdom, as 
 appears from the whole tenor of his book, and especially 
 from vii. 5, where the monarch of Samaria is called 
 " our king." Like Amos, he is mainly concerned with 
 the sins and calamities of the house of Joseph ; but, 
 while Amos speaks from observation which, with all 
 its closeness, is that of an outsider, whose personal life 
 lay far from the tumults and oppressions of the Northern 
 capital, Hosea views the state of the kingdom from 
 within, and his book is marked by a tone of deep pathos, 
 akin to that of Jeremiah, and expressive of the tragic 
 isolation of the prophet's position in a society corrupt to 
 the very core and visibly hastening towards dissolution. 
 
LECT. IV. OF BEERI. 155 
 
 Amos could deliver his divine message and withdraw 
 from the turmoil of Samaria's guilty cities to the silent 
 pastures of the wilderness ; but the whole life of Hosea 
 was bound up with the nation whose sins he condemned 
 and whose ruin he foresaw. For him there was no 
 escape from the scenes of horror that defiled his native 
 land, and the anguish that expresses itself in every 
 page of his prophecy is the distress of a pure and gentle 
 soul, linked by the closest ties of family affection and 
 national feeling to the sinners who were hurrying Israel 
 onwards to the doom he saw so clearly, but of which 
 they refused to hear. And so while the work of Amos 
 was completed in a single brief mission, the prophecies 
 of Hosea extend over a series of terrible years. The 
 first two chapters of his book are dated from the reign 
 of Jeroboam, the gala-days of the nation (ii. 13), when 
 the feast-days, the new moons, and the Sabbaths still 
 ran their joyous round, and the land was rich in corn 
 and wine and oil, in store of silver and gold (ii. 8). 
 But the later chapters of the prophecy speak of quite 
 other times, of sickness in the state which its leaders 
 vainly sought to heal by invoking the help of the 
 "warlike king" [A.V. King Jareb] of Assyria (v. 13), 
 of civil wars and conspiracies, of the assassination of 
 monarchs, of new dynasties set up without Jehovah's 
 counsel, and powerless to better the condition of the 
 nation (vii. 7 ; viii. 4), of a universal reign of perjury 
 and fraud, of violence and bloodshed (iv. 1, 2). These 
 descriptions caiTy us into the evil times that opened 
 
156 THE MINISTRY lect. iv. 
 
 with the fall of the house of Jehu ; hut the actual 
 captivity of Israel is still in the futiire (xiii. 1 6) : even 
 in the closing chapter of his book Hosea addresses a 
 cation which has not come to open breach with the 
 Assyrians, but cherishes the vain hope of deliver- 
 ance through their help (xiv. 3). Gilead and Galilee, 
 which were depopulated by Tiglath-Pileser in his ex- 
 pedition against Pekah (B.C. 734), are repeatedly referred 
 to as an integral part of the kingdom (v. 1 ; vi. 8 ; 
 xii. 11), and it is therefore probable that the work of 
 Hosea was ended before that event, and that the prophet 
 was spared the crowning sorrow of seeing with his own 
 eyes the fulfilment of the doom of his nation.^ 
 
 There is no reason to believe that Hosea, any more 
 than Amos, was connected with the recognised prophetic 
 societies, or ever received such outward adoption to 
 office as was given to Elisha. At chapter iv. 5 he 
 comprises priest and prophet in one condemnation. 
 Israel is undone for lack of knowledge, for the priests 
 whose office it was to teach it have rejected the know- 
 ledge of Jehovah, and He in turn will reject them from 
 their priesthood. They shall fall, and the prophet shall 
 fall with them in the night, their children shall be 
 forgotten of Jehovah, and their whole stock shall 
 perish.* Thus Hosea, no less than Amos, places himself 
 in direct opposition to all the leaders of the religious 
 life of his nation, and like his Judtean compeer he had 
 doubtless to reckon with their hostility. " As for the 
 prophet," he complains, " a fowler's snare is in all his 
 
LKCT. IV. OF HOSEA. 157 
 
 ways, and enmity in the house of his God" (ix. 8). 
 To discharge his ministry year after year amidst such 
 opposition was a far harder task than was appointed to 
 Amos. Even Amos was constrained to exclaim that in 
 times so evil the part of a prudent man was to hold his 
 peace (Amos v. 13). But Amos at least could shake 
 the dust off his feet and return to his kindred and his 
 home ; Hosea was a stranger among his own people, 
 oppressed by continual contact with their sin, lacerated 
 at heart by the bitterness of their enmity, till his reason 
 seemed ready to give way under the trial. " The days 
 of visitation are come, the days of recompense are 
 come, Israel shall know it ; the prophet is a fool, the 
 man of the spirit is mad for the multitude of thine 
 iniquity and th& great hatred " (ix. 7). The passionate 
 anguish that breathes in these words gives its colour to 
 the whole book of Hosea's prophecies. His language 
 and the movement of his thoughts are far removed from 
 the simplicity and self-control which characterise the 
 prophecy of Amos. Indignation and sorrow, tender- 
 ness and severity, faith in the sovereignty of Jehovah's 
 love, and a despairing sense of Israel's infidelity are 
 woven together in a sequence which has no logical plan, 
 but is determtued by the battle and alternate victory 
 of contending emotions ; and the swift transitions, the 
 fragmentary unbalanced utterance, the half- developed 
 allusions, that make his prophecy so difficult to the 
 commentator, express the agony of this inward conflict. 
 Hosea, above all other prophets, is a man of deep 
 
158 CHARACTER lkct. iv. 
 
 affections, of a gentle poetic nature. His heart is too 
 true and tender to snap the bonds of country and 
 kindred, or mingle aught of personal bitterness with 
 the severity of Jehovah's words. Alone in the midst 
 of a nation that knows not Jehovah, without disciple 
 or friend, without the solace of domestic affection — for 
 even his home, as we shall presently see, was full of 
 shame and sorrow — he yet clings to Israel with inextin- 
 guishable love. The doom which he proclaims against 
 his people is the doom of all that is dearest to him on 
 earth ; his heart is ready to break with sorrow, his very 
 reason totters under the awful vision of judgment, his 
 whole prophecy is a long cry of anguish, as again and 
 again he renews his appeal to the heedless nation that 
 is running headlong to destruction. But it is all, in 
 vain. The weary years roll on, the signs of Israel's 
 dissolution thicken, and still his words find no audience. 
 Like a silly dove fluttering in the toils, Ephraim turns 
 now to Assyria, now to Egypt, " but they return not to 
 Jehovah their God, and seek not Him for all this." 
 Still the prophet stands alone in his recognition of the 
 true cause of the multiplied distresses of his nation, 
 and still it is his task to preach repentance to deaf 
 ears, to declare a judgment in which only himself 
 believes. And now the Assyrian is at hand, sweep- 
 ing over Canaan like a fatal sirocco. " An east wind 
 shall come, the breath of Jehovah ascending from the 
 wilderness, and his spring shall become dry and his 
 fountain shall be dried up ; He shall spoil the treasure 
 
LBcr. IV. OF HOSE A. 159 
 
 of all precious jewels. Samaria shall be desolate, for 
 she hath rebelled against her God : they shall fall by 
 the sword : their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and 
 their women with child shall be ripped iip " (xiii. 15). 
 
 And yet, when all is lost, the prophet's love for 
 guilty and fallen Israel forbids him to despair. For 
 that love is no mere earthly affection. It is Jehovah's 
 love for His erring people that speaks through Hosea's 
 soul. The heart of the prophet beats responsive to the 
 heart of Him who loved Israel when he was a child and 
 called His son o;it of Egypt. " How can I give thee up, 
 Ephraira ? How can I cast thee away, Israel ? My 
 heart burns within Me, My compassion is all kindled. 
 I will not execute the fierceness of My wrath ; I will 
 not turn to destroy thee ; for I am God and not man, 
 the Holy One in the midst of thee" (xi. 8). How this 
 invincible love shall triumph even in the utter fall of 
 the nation Hosea does not explain. But that it will 
 triumph he cannot doubt. In the extremity of judg- 
 ment Jehovah will yet work repentance and salvation, 
 and from the death-knell of Samaria the accents of 
 hope and promise swell forth in pure and strong 
 cadence in the last chapter of the prophecy, out of a 
 heart which has found its rest with God from all the 
 troubles of a stormy life. "I will heal their back- 
 sliding, I will love them freely: for Mine anger is 
 turned away from him. I will be as the dew to Israel : 
 he shall bud forth as the lily and strike his roots as 
 Lebanon. . . . Who is wise, and he shall understand 
 
160 THE KNOWLEDGE lect. iv. 
 
 these things ? prudent, and he shall know them ? For 
 the ways of Jehovah are right, and the just shall walk 
 in them ; but the transgressors shall fall therein." 
 
 Hosea is a man of emotion ratlier than of logic, a 
 poet rather than a preacher, and the unity of his book 
 is maintained through the sudden transitions and swift 
 revulsions of feeling characteristic of his style, not by 
 a well-planned symmetry of argument such as we find 
 in Amos, but by a constant undercurrent of faith in the 
 identity of Jehovah's love to Israel with that pure and 
 unselfish affection which binds the prophet himself to 
 his guilty and fallen nation. Jehovah is God and not 
 man, the Holy One in the midst of Israel. But this 
 does not mean that the heart of Jehovah has no like- 
 ness to that of man. His righteousness is not an 
 impersonal unlovable thing with which His reasonable 
 creatures can have no fellowship, and which they can- 
 not hope to comprehend. Where Amos says that 
 Jehovah knows Israel, Hosea desires that Israel should 
 know Jehovah (ii. 20 ; iv. 1, 6 ; vi. 3 ; viii. 2 ; xiii. 4). 
 And this knowledge is no mere act of the intellect ; to 
 know Jehovah is to know Him as a tender Father, who 
 taught Ephraim to walk, holding them by their arms, 
 who drew them to Himself with human cords, with 
 bands of love (xi. 1 se^.). In chap. vi. 6 the know- 
 ledge of God is explained in a parallel clause, not by 
 " mercy," as the Authorised Version renders it, but by 
 a word (li6sed)^ corresponding .to the 'L&tm pietas, ov 
 dutiful love, as it shows itself in acts of kindliness and 
 
LECT. IV. OF JEHOVAH. 161 
 
 loyal affection. It is qLuite characteristic of the differ- 
 ence between the two prophets, that in Amos this word 
 Mse,d or kindness never occurs, while in Hosea it not 
 only expresses the right attitude of man to God, hut 
 kindness and truth, kindness and justice, are the sum 
 of moral duty (iv. 1 ; x. 12 ; xii. 6). Amos in such a 
 case would speak of justice alone ; his analysis of right 
 and wrong pierces less deeply into the springs of 
 human action. For the kindness of which Hosea 
 speaks is no theological technicality ; it is a word of 
 common life used of all those acts, going beyond the 
 mere norm of forensic righteousness, which acknowledge 
 that those who are linked together by the bonds of per- 
 sonal affection or of social unity owe to one another more 
 than can be expressed in the forms of legal obligation. 
 
 In primitive society, where every stranger is an 
 enemy, the whole conception of duties of humanity is 
 framed within the narrow circle of the family or the 
 tribe ; relations of love are either identical with those 
 of kinship or are conceived as resting on a covenant. 
 " Thou shalt show kindness to thy servant," says David, 
 " for thou hast brought thy servant into a covenant of 
 Jehovah with thee." And so in Hosea the conception 
 of a relation of love and kindness between man and 
 God goes side' by side with the conception of Jehovah's 
 covenant with Israel (vi. 7 ; viii. 1). Jehovah and 
 Israel are united by a bond of moral obligation,— not 
 a mere compact on legal terms, a covenant of works, 
 as dogmatic theology would express it, but a bond of 
 
162 JEHOVAH'S COVENANT lect. iv. 
 
 piety — of fatherly affection on the one hand, and loyal 
 obedience on the other. Jehovah and Israel form as 
 it were one community, and liiaed is the bond by which 
 the whole community is knit together. It is not neces- 
 sary to distinguish Jehovah's Msed to Israel which we 
 would term his grace, Israel's duty of Tiesed to Jehovah 
 which we would call piety, and the relation of liised 
 between man and man which embraces the duties of love 
 and mutual consideration. To the Hebrew mind these 
 three are essentially one, and all are comprised in the 
 same covenant. Loyalty and kindness between man 
 and m^an are not duties inferred from Israel's relation 
 to Jehovah, they are parts of that relation ; love to 
 Jehovah and love to one's brethren in Jehovah's house 
 are identical (compare iv. 1 with vi. 4, 6). To Hosea, 
 as to Amos, justice and the obligations of civil righteous- 
 ness are still the chief sphere within which the right 
 knowledge of Jehovah and due regard to His covenant 
 are tested. Where religion has a national form, ajid 
 especially in such a state of society as both prophets 
 deal with, that is necessary ; but Hosea refers these 
 obligations to a deeper source. Israel is not only the 
 dominion but the family of Jehovah, and the father- 
 hood of God takes the place of his kingly righteousness 
 as the fundamental idea of Israel's religion. Jehovah 
 is God and not man, but the meaning of this is that 
 His love is sovereign, pure, unselfish, free from all im- 
 patience and all variableness as the love of an earthly 
 father can never be. 
 
OF LOVE. 163 
 
 This fundamental thought of Hosea, that the rela- 
 tion between Jehovah and Israel is a relation of love 
 and of such duties as flow from love, gives his whole 
 teaching a very different colour from that of Amos. 
 Amos, as we saw, begins by looking on Jehovah as the 
 Creator and God of the universe, who dispenses the lot 
 of all nations and vindicates the laws of universal 
 righteousness over the whole earth ; and, when he pro- 
 ceeds to concentrate attention on his own people, the 
 prophet stiU keeps the larger point of view before the 
 mind of his hearers, and treats the sin and judgment of 
 Israel as a particular caseunder the general laws of Divine 
 government, complicated by the circumstance that 
 Jehovah knows Israel and has personal commuidcations 
 with it in which no other nation shares. Hosea has no 
 such universal starting-point ; he deals with the sub- 
 ject not from the outside inwards but from the heart 
 outwards. Jehovah's love to His own is the deepest 
 thing in religion, and every problem of faith centres in 
 it. To both prophets the distinction which we are 
 wont to draw between religious and moral duties is un- 
 known ; yet it would not be unfair to say in modern 
 language that Amos bases religion on morality, while 
 Hosea deduces morality from religion. The two men 
 are types of a contrast which runs through the whole 
 history of religious thought and life down to our own 
 days. The religious world has always been divided 
 into men who look at the questions of faith from the 
 standpoint of universal ethics, and men by whom moral 
 
164 AMOS AND HOSEA lect. iv, 
 
 truths are habitually approached from a personal sense 
 of the grace of God. Too frequently this diversity of 
 standpoint has led to an antagonism of parties in the 
 Church. Men of the type of Amos are condemned as 
 rationalists and cold moderates ; or, on the other hand, 
 the school of Hosea are looked upon as enthusiasts and 
 unpractical mystics. But Jehovah chose His prophets 
 from men of both types, and preached the same lesson 
 to Israel through both. 
 
 To Amos and Hosea alike the true standard of re- 
 ligious life is the standard of conduct. The state of the 
 nation before its God is judged by its actions ; and the 
 prevalence of immorality, oppression, and crime is the 
 clearest proof that Israel has departed from Jehovah. 
 The analysis of Amos stops at this point ; he does not 
 seek into the hidden springs of Israel's sin, but simply 
 says. Without a return to civil righteousness, which 
 you are daily violating, you can find no acceptance 
 before Jehovah. Hosea, on the contrary, with his 
 guiding principle of a relation of love between Jehovah 
 and Israel, pierces beneath the visible conduct of the 
 nation to the disposition that underlies it. Amos had 
 said. Cease your jitual service, and do judgment and 
 justice (Amos v. 24) ; Hosea says, " I desire love and 
 not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt 
 offerings " (Hosea vi. 6). Amos judges the moral offences 
 of Israel as breaches of universal law aggravated by the 
 possession of special privilegea ; Hosea judges them as 
 proofs of a heart not true to Jehovah, out of sympathy 
 
LECT. IV. CONTRASTED. 165 
 
 with His character, and ungrateful to His love. Ac- 
 cordingly, while Amos deals mainly with Israel as a 
 state, Hosea habitually thinks of Ephraim as a moral 
 individual, and goes back again and again to the history 
 of the nation, treating it as the history of a person, and 
 following its relations to Jehovah from the days of the 
 patriarch Jacob (xii. 2, 3, 12), through the deliverance 
 from Egypt onwards (xii. 13 ; xi. 1 seg.). He dwells 
 with special interest on the first love of Jehovah to His 
 people when He found Israel like grapes in the wilder- 
 ness (ix. 10), when He knew them in the thirsty desert 
 (xiii. 5), before the innocence of the nation's childhood 
 "was stained with the guilt of Baal-peor, and its early 
 love had vanished like the dew of dawn, or like the light 
 clouds which hang on the mountains of Palestine in the 
 early morning and dissolve as the sun gets high (vi. 4). 
 Hosea's allusions to the past history of Israel are intro- 
 duced in unexpected ways, and are often difficult to 
 understand. Sometimes he seems to refer to narratives 
 which we no longer possess in the same form (ix. 9 ; 
 X. 9) ; but their general drift is always the same — to 
 vindicate the patient consistent love of Jehovah to His 
 nation, and to display Ephraim's sin as a lifelong course 
 of spurned privileges and slighted love. It is this 
 thought of the personal continuity of Israel's relations 
 to Jehovah that leads the prophet to speak of God's 
 dealings with Jacob ; for Jacob is, in fact, the nation 
 summed up in the person of its ancestor (comp. Heb. 
 vii. 10). And so the whole history, from the days of 
 
166 THE LOVE lect. iv, 
 
 the patriarchs downwards, is the history of a siogle 
 unchanging affection, always acting on the same 
 principles, so that each fact of the past is at the same 
 time a symbol of the present (ix. 9), or a prophecy of 
 the future (ii. 15 ; compare Josh. vii. 24). It is worth 
 remembering, in connection with Hosea's frequent use 
 of the early history, that in last Lecture we saw reason 
 to believe that the sanctuaries of Northern Israel, to 
 which he belonged, were the special home of the greater 
 part of the patriarchal history, as it is still told in the 
 book of Genesis ; and it is hardly disputable that some 
 episodes in that history personify the stock of Israel or 
 individual tribes, and so treat them as moral individuals, 
 much in the same way in which Hosea treats Ephraim. 
 The blessing of Jacob ascribes a personal character to 
 Eeuben, Levi, and Simeon, which is the character of the 
 tribes, not of individual sons of Jacob, and refers to 
 narratives which there are the very strongest reasons 
 for regarding as allegories of historical events subse- 
 quent to the settlement of the Hebrews in Canaan. 
 This consideration enables us to see that the allegorical 
 treatment of Jehovah's relations to Israel in the book of 
 Hosea would appear much less strange and puzzling to 
 his contemporaries than it does to a modern reader. 
 Their current' habits of thought and expression made 
 this way of teaching easy and natural.-"' 
 
 Since Hosea everywhere concentrates his attention 
 on the personal attitude and disposition of Ephraim 
 towards Jehovah, as constituting the essence of the 
 
LECT. IV. OF JEHOVAH. 167 
 
 national sin, he is led to look at the sins of the people's 
 worship much more closely than Amos does. Amos 
 contents himself with noting the acts of injustice and 
 immorality that were done in the name of religion, 
 and with urging that no ritual service can be accept- 
 able to Jehovah M'here civil righteousness is forgotten. 
 Beyond this he shows a degree of indifference to all 
 practices of social worship which is not uncharacteristic 
 of an inhabitant of the desert. But when Israel's 
 relation to Jehovah is conceived as a personal relation, 
 the intercourse of Jehovah with His people at the 
 sanctuary naturally assumes a much larger significance. 
 Acts of worship are the direct embodiment of the 
 attitude and feelings of the worshipper towards his 
 God, and in them Hosea finds the plainest exhibition 
 of Ephraim's unfaithfulness. It is necessary to look 
 somewhat closely at the way in which this point is 
 developed. In speaking of Ephraim's connection with 
 Jehovah in the language .of human relationship, it was 
 open to the prophet to make use of various analogies. 
 Jehovah was Israel's King, but this image did not adapt 
 itself to his idea.^^ He required a more personal relation, 
 such as is supplied by the analogy of domestic life. 
 The idea of a family relation between Jehovah and 
 Israel appears in the book of Hosea in two forms. On 
 the one hand Ephraim is Jehovah's son (xi. 1), and this 
 is the predominant figure in the latter part of the book. 
 But in the first three chapters, which present the prophet's 
 allegory in its most complete and original form, the 
 
1G8 PERSONIFICATION lect. i\. 
 
 nation or land of Israel (i. 2; ii. 13) appears as Jehovah's 
 spouse. The two figures are intimately connected, 
 indeed in chapter i. they occur combined into a single 
 parable. For, according to a common Hebrew figure, a 
 land or city is the mother of its inhabitants, or, by 
 a slight variation of the symbolism, the stock of a 
 family or clan is personified as the mother of the mem- 
 bers of the clan (2 Sam. xx. 19 ; Ezek. xix. 2 ; Hosea 
 iv. 5). The mother is the ideal unity of land and 
 nation, having for her children the actual members of 
 tlie nation as they exist at any particular time. Jehovah, 
 therefore, is at once the father of His people, and the 
 husband of their ideal mother. We are not to suppose 
 that Hosea invented either form of this image. That 
 the deity is the father of his worshippers, that the tribe 
 springs from the stock of the tribal god, who is wor- 
 shipped as the progenitor of his people, is a common 
 conception in heathenism (comp. Acts xvii. 28). In 
 Num. xxi. 29 the Moabites are called the sons and 
 daughters of Chemosh, and even Malachi calls a heathen 
 woman " the daughter of a strange god " (Mai. ii. 11). 
 I'roper names expressive of this idea are common 
 among the Semites, a familiar instance being Benhadad, 
 "son of the god Hadad." But in heathenism it is 
 to be observed that god-sonship has a physical sense ; 
 the worshippers are of the stock of their god, who 
 is simply their great ancestor, "and so is naturally 
 identified with their interests, and not with those of any 
 other tribe. In Israel, however, the idea of Jehovah's 
 
OF ISRAEL. 169 
 
 fatherhood could not take this crass form in the mind 
 of any one who rememhered the history of Jehovah's 
 relations to His people. The oldest forefathers of the 
 Hebrews in their original seats beyond the Euphrates 
 were not the people of Jehovah, but served other gods 
 (Josh. xxiv. 2), and Jehovah's relation to Israel is not 
 of nature but of grace, constituted by the divine act of 
 deliverance from Egypt. And so, according to Hosea. 
 Jehovah does not love Israel because he is His son, but 
 took him as His son because He loved him (xi. 1). 
 The same contrast between natural and positive religion 
 is expressed in the conception of Jehovah's covenant 
 with His people ; for a relation resting on a covenant is 
 not natural but moral. There was no covenant between 
 Moab and Chemosli, but only a natural kinship quite 
 independent of Moab's conduct. But in Israel the re- 
 ' jection of Jehovah's covenant suspends, and but for 
 sovereign love would cancel, the privileges of sonship. 
 The sonship of Israel, therefore, must find its expression 
 in filial obedience, and from this point of view the sin 
 of the people is that they have ceased to take heed 
 to Jehovah (iv. 10) and hearken to Him (ix. 17). 
 Ephraim is not a wise son (xiii. 13). Jehovah has 
 spoken much to him by the ministry of His prophets 
 (xii. 10), but though He should write for him a myriad 
 of precepts, they would seem but a strange thing to this 
 foolish child (viii. 12). 
 
 But though Hosea dwells on the sonship of 
 Ephraim with great tenderness, especially in speaking 
 
170 ISRAEL AS lect. iv. 
 
 of the childhood of the nation, the age of its divine 
 education (xi. 1 seq^, this analogy does not exhaust the 
 whole depth of Israel's relation to Jehovah. In ancient 
 society the attitude of the son to the father, especially 
 that of the adult son employed in his fathers business, 
 has a certain element of servitude (Mai. iii. 17). The 
 son honours his father as the servant does his master 
 (Mai. i. 6. ; Exod. xx. 12). Even now among the Arabs 
 the grown-up son and the slave of the house do much 
 the same menial services, and feel much the same 
 measure of constraint in the presence of the head 
 of the house. It is only towards his little ones 
 that the father shows that tenderness which Hosea 
 speaks of in describing the childhood of Ephraim. And 
 so the whole fulness of Jehovah's love to His people, 
 and the way in which Israel has proved unfaithful to 
 that love, can be fitly brought out only in the still more 
 intimate relation of the husband to his spouse. 
 
 In looking at the allegory of Jehovah's marriage 
 with mother-Israel, or with the mother-land, we must 
 again begin by considering the current ideas which 
 served to suggest such a conception. Alike in Israel 
 and among its heathen neighbours, the word Baal, that 
 is " Lord " or " Owner," was a common appellative of 
 the national Deity. Instead of the proper names com- 
 pounded with Jehovah, which are common from the 
 time of Elijah, we frequently find in old Israel forms 
 compounded with Baal which are certainly not 
 heathenish. When we meet with a son of Saul named 
 
LECT. IV. JEHOVAH'S SPOUSE. 171 
 
 Ish-Baal, a grandson Meri-Baal, both names meaning 
 "Baal's man," while David in like manner gives to 
 one of his sons the name of Beeliada, " Baal knoweth," 
 we may be sure that Baal is here a title of the God of 
 Israel.^^ In Hosea's time the worshipping people still 
 addressed Jehovah as Baali, "my Lord," and the 
 Baalim of whom he often speaks (ii. 13 ; xiii. 1, 2) are 
 no other than the golden calves, the recognised symbols 
 of Jehovah. Now, among the Semites the husband is 
 regarded as the lord or owner of his wife (1 Pet. iii. 6), 
 whom in fact, according to early law, he purchases from 
 her father for a price (Exod. xxi. 8 ; xxii. 17).-'^ The 
 address Baali is used by the wife to her husband as 
 well as by the nation to its God, and so in an early 
 stage of thought, when similarities of expression con- 
 stantly form the basis of identifications of idea, it lay 
 very near to think of the God as the husband of the 
 worshipping nationality, or of the mother-land.''* It is 
 not at all likely that this conception was in form original 
 to Hosea, or even peculiar to Israel ; such developed 
 religious allegory as that which makes the national God, 
 not only father of the people, but husband of the land 
 their mother, has its familiar home in natural religions. 
 In these religions we find similar conceptions, in which, 
 however, as in the case of the fatherhood of the deity, 
 the idea is taken in a crass physical sense. Marriage of 
 female worshippers with the godhead was a common 
 notion among the Phoenicians and Babylonians, and in 
 the latter case was connected with immoral practices 
 
172 ISRAEL AS 
 
 akia to those that defiled the sanctuaries of Israel in 
 Hosea's day.^^ It even seems possible to find some trace 
 in Semitic heathenism of the idea of marriage of the 
 Eaal with the land which he fertilises by sunshine and 
 rain. Semitic deities, as we saw in Lecture I. (p. 26), 
 are conceived as productive powers, and so form pairs 
 of male and female principles. Heaven and Earth are 
 such apair,as is well known from Greek mythology; and, 
 though Baal and 'Ashtoreth are more often represented 
 as astral powers (Sun and Moon, Jupiter and Venus), 
 it is certain that fertilising showers were one manifesta- 
 tion of Baal's life-giving power. Even the Moham- 
 medan Arabs retained the name of Baal (5a7) for land 
 watered by the rains of heaven. The land that brings 
 forth fruit under these influences could not fail to be 
 thought of as his spouse; and, in fact, we have an 
 Arabic word (^aihary) which seems to show tlmt the 
 fertility produced by the rains of Baal was associated 
 with the name of his wife "Ashtoreth.-"" If this be so, it 
 follows that in point of form the marriage of Jehovah 
 with Israel corresponded to a common Semitic concep- 
 tion, and we may well suppose that the corrupt mass of 
 Israel interpreted it in reference to the fertility of the 
 goodly land, watered by the dews of heaven (Deut. xi. 
 11), on principles that suggested no higher thoughts of 
 God than were entertained by their heathen neighbours. 
 This argument is not a mere speculation ; it gives us 
 a key to understand what Hosea tells us of the actual 
 religious ideas of his people. For we learn from him 
 
LECT. IV. JEHOVAH'S SPOUSE. 173 
 
 that the Israelites worshipped the Baalim or golden 
 calves under just such a point of view as our discussion 
 suggests. They were looked upon as the authors of the 
 fertility of the land and nothing more (ii. 5) ; in other 
 words, they were to Israel precisely what the heathen 
 Baalim were to the Canaanites, natural productive 
 powers. We have already seen that a tendency to 
 degrade Jehovah to the level of a Canaanite Baal 
 had always been the great danger of Israel's religion, 
 when the moral fibre of the nation was not hardened 
 by contest with foreign invaders, and that in early times 
 the reaction against this way of thought had been 
 mainly associated with a sense of national unity, and 
 with the conception of Jehovah as the leader of the 
 hosts of Israel. These patriotic and martial feelings 
 were still strong during the Syrian wars ; and in the 
 time of Amos, in spite of the many Canaanite corrup- 
 tions of the sanctuaries, Jehovah was yet pre-eminently 
 the God of battles, who led Israel to victory over its 
 enemies. But a generation of peace and luxury had 
 greatly sapped the warlike spirit of the nation, while the 
 disorders of the state had loosened the bonds of national 
 unity. The name of Jehovah was no longer the rally- 
 ing cry of all who loved the freedom and integrity 
 of Israel, and the help which Ephraim had been wont 
 to seek from Jehovah was now sought from Egypt 
 or Assyria. Jehovah was not formally abjured for 
 Canaanite gods; but in the decay of all the nobler 
 impulses of national life He sank in popular conception 
 
174 ISRAEL THE SPOUSE lect. iv, 
 
 to their level ; in essential character as well as in name 
 the calves of the local sanctuaries had become Canaanite 
 Baalim, mere sources of the physical fertility of the 
 land. And that this view of their power was embodied 
 in sexual analogies of a crass and physical kind, such 
 as we have found to exist among the heathen Semites, 
 is proved by the prevalence of religious prostitution and 
 widespread disregard of the laws of chastity, precisely 
 identical with the abominations of 'Ashtoreth among 
 the Phoenicians, and accompanied by the same symbol- 
 ism of the sacred tree, which expressed the conception 
 of the deity as a principle of physical fertility (Hosea iv. 
 13 seq). 
 
 Thus, in looking at Hosea's doctrine of the marriage 
 of Jehovah with Israel, we must remember that the 
 prophet was not introducing an entirely new form of 
 religious symbolism. The popular religion was full of 
 externally similar ideas ; the true personality and moral 
 attributes of Jehovah were lost in a maze of allegory 
 derived from the sexual processes of physical life ; and 
 the degrading effects of such a way of thought were 
 visible in universal licentiousness and a disregard of 
 the holiest obligations of domestic purity. In such cir- 
 cumstances, we might expect to find the prophet casting 
 aside the whole notion of a marriage of Jehovah, and 
 fulling back like Amos on the transcendency of the 
 Creator and Euler of the moral universe. But he does 
 not do so. Instead of rejecting the current symbolism 
 he appropriates it ; but he does so in a way that lifts it 
 
OF JEHOVAH. 175 
 
 wholly out of the sphere of nature religion and makes 
 it the vehicle of the profoundest spiritual truths. 
 Jehovah is the husband of His nation. But the essential 
 basis of the marriage relation is not physical, but moral. 
 It is a relation of inmost affection, and lays upon the 
 spouse a duty of conjugal fidelity which the popular 
 religion daily violated. The betrothal of Jehovah to 
 Israel is but another aspect of the covenant already 
 spoken of ; it is a betrothal "in righteousness and in judg- 
 ment, in kindness and in love," a betrothal that demands 
 the true knowledge of Jehovah (ii. 19, 20). A union in 
 which these conditions are absent is not marriage, but 
 illicit love ; and so the Baalim or local symbols of 
 Jehovah, with which the nation held no moral fellow- 
 ship, worshipping them merely as sources of physical 
 life and growth, are not the true spouse of Israel; they 
 are the nation's paramours, and their worship is infidelity 
 to Jehovah. There is no feature in Hosea's prophecy 
 which distinguishes him from earlier prophets so sharply 
 as his attitude to the golden calves, the local symbols 
 of Jehovah adored in the Northern sanctuaries. Elijah 
 and Elisha had no quarrel with the traditional worship 
 of their nation. Even Amos never speaks in condem- 
 nation of the calves. But in Hosea's teaching they 
 suddenly appear as the very root of Israel's sin and 
 misery. It is perfectly clear that in the time of Ilosea, 
 as in that of Amos, the popular worship was nominally 
 Jehovah worship. The oath of the worshippers at Gil- 
 gal and Bethel was by the life of Jehovah (iv. 15) ; the 
 
176 HOSEA AND 
 
 feasts of the Baalim were Jehovah's feasts (ii. 11; 13, ix. 
 5) ; the sanctuary was Jehovah's house (ix. 4), the sacri- 
 fices His offerings (viii. 13). But to Hosea's judgment 
 this ostensible Jehovah worship is really the worship 
 of other gods (iii. 1). With the calves Jehovah has 
 nothing in common. He is the living God (i. 10), the 
 calves are mere idols, the work of craftsmen (xiii. 2) ; and 
 the nation which calls the work of its hands a god 
 (xiv. 3) breaks its marriage vow with Jehovah and 
 loves a stranger. 
 
 If the prophecy of Hosea stood alone it would be 
 reasonable to think that this attack on the images of 
 the popular religion was simply based on the second 
 commandment. But when we contrast it with the 
 absolute silence of earlier prophets we can hardly accept 
 this explanation as adequate. Amos is as zealous for 
 Jehovah's commandments as Hosea ; and, if the one 
 prophet condemns the worship of the calves as the 
 fundamental evidence of Israel's infidelity, while the 
 other, a few years before, passes it by in silence, it is 
 fair to conclude that the matter appeared to Hosea in a 
 much more practical light than it did to Amos. Our 
 analysis of Hosea's line of thought enables us to 
 understand how this was so. Amos judges of the reli- 
 gious state of the nation by its influence on social rela- 
 tions and the administration of public justice. But 
 Hosea places the essence of religion in personal fidelity 
 to Jehovah and a just conception of His covenant of 
 love with Israel. The worship of the popular sanctuaries 
 
LECT. IV. THE CALF- WORSHIP. 177 
 
 ignored all this, setting in its place a conception of the 
 Godhead which did not rise above the level of heathen- 
 ism. The attachment of Israel to the golden calves was 
 not the pure and elevated affection of a spouse for her 
 husband. It was in its very nature a carnal love, and 
 therefore its objects were false lovers, who had nothing 
 in common with the true husband of the nation. Hosea 
 does not condemn the worship of the calves because 
 idols are forbidden by the law ; he excludes the calves 
 from the sphere of true religion because the worship 
 which they receive has no affinity to the true attitude 
 of Israel to Jehovah. By this judgment he proves the 
 depth of his religious insight ; for the whole history of 
 religion shows that no truth is harder to realise than 
 that a worship morally false is in no sense the worship 
 of the true God (Matt. vi. 24 ; vii. 22). 
 
 As we follow out the various aspects </f Hosea's 
 teaching we see with increasing clearness that in all its 
 parts it can be traced back to a single fundamental idea. 
 The argument of his prophecy is an argument of the 
 heart, not of the head. His whole revelation of Jehovah 
 is the revelation of a love which can be conceived under 
 human analogies, and whose workings are to be under- 
 stood not by abstract reasonings but by the sympathy 
 of a heart which has sounded the depths of human 
 affection, and knows in its own experience what love 
 demands of its object. One of the first points that 
 struck us in Hosea's impassioned delineation of Israel's 
 infidelity, in the inward sympathy with which he mourns 
 
178 PERSONAL HISTORY lect. iv. 
 
 over his nation's fall, yet holding fast the assurance that 
 even in that fall the love of Jehovah to His people 
 shall find its highest vindication, was that Jehovah's 
 affection to Israel is an affection that burns within the 
 prophet's own soul, which he has not learned to speak of 
 by rote but has comprehended through the experience 
 of his own life. It is a special characteristic of the 
 Hebrew prophets that they identify themselves with 
 Jehovah's word and will so completely that their person- 
 ality seems often to be lost in His. In no prophet is 
 this characteristic more notable than in Hosea, for in 
 virtue of the peculiar inwardness of his whole argument 
 his very heart seems to throb in unison with the heart 
 of Jehovah. Amos became a prophet when he heard 
 the thunder of Jehovah's voice of judgment; Hosea 
 learned to speak of Jehovah's love, and of the workings 
 of that love in chastisement and in grace towards 
 Israel's infidelity, through sore experiences of his own 
 life, through a human love spurned but not changed to 
 bitterness, despised yet patient and unselfish to the end, 
 which opened to him the secrets of that Heart whose 
 tenderness is as infinite as its holiness. 
 
 In the first chapters of the book of Hosea the faith- 
 lessness of Israel to Jehovah, the long-suffering of God, 
 the moral discipline of sorrow and tribulation by which 
 He will yet bring back His erring people, and betroth 
 it to Himself for ever in righteousness, truth, and love, 
 are depicted under the figure of the relation of a 
 husband to his erring spouse. This parable was not 
 
LECT. IV. OF HOSEA. 179 
 
 invented by Hosea ; it is drawn, as we are expressly 
 told, from his own life. The Divine Word first became 
 audible in the prophet's breast when he was guided by 
 a mysterious providence to espouse Gomer, the daughter 
 of Diblaim, who proved an unfaithful wife and became 
 the mother of children born in infidelity (i. 2, 3). The 
 details of this painful story are very lightly touched ; 
 they are never alluded to in that part of the book which 
 has the character of public preaching — in chapter i. the 
 prophet speaks of himself in the third person ; and as 
 Hosea gave names to the children of Gomer, names of 
 symbolic form, to each of which is attached a brief 
 prophetic lesson (i. 4, 5; 6, 7; 8 seq^, it is plain that 
 he concealed the shame of their mother and acknow- 
 ledged her children as his own, burying his bitter 
 sorrow in his own heart. But this long-suffering 
 tenderness was of no- avail. In chapter iii. we learn 
 that Gomer at length left her husband, and fell, under 
 circumstances of which Hosea spares the recital, into a 
 state of misery, from which the prophet, still following 
 her with compassionate affection, had to buy her back 
 at the price of a slave. He could not restore her to her 
 old place in his house and to the rights of a faithful 
 spouse ; but he brought her home and watched over 
 her for many days, secluding her from temptation, with 
 a loyalty which showed that his heart was still true to 
 her.^'^ These scanty details embrace all that we know of 
 the history of Hosea's life ; everything else in chapters 
 i. and iii, together with the whole of chapter ii., is pure 
 
180 PERSONAL HISTORY lect. iv, 
 
 allegory, depicting the relations of Jehovah and Israel 
 underthe analogy suggested by the prophet's experience, 
 but working out that analogy in a quite independent 
 ■way. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how any sound judg- 
 ment can doubt that Hosea's account of his married life 
 is literal history ; it is told with perfect simplicity, and 
 yet with touching reserve. We feel that it would not 
 have been told at all, but that it was necessary to 
 explain how Hosea became a prophet, how he was led 
 to that fundamental conception of Jehovah's love and 
 Israel's infidelity which lies at the root of his whole 
 prophetic argument. Those who shrink from accepting 
 the narrative in its literal sense are obliged to assume 
 that Hosea was first taught by revelation to think of 
 Jehovah's relation to Israel as a marriage, and that then, 
 the better to impress this thought on his auditors, he 
 translated it into a fable, of which he made himself the 
 chief actor, clothing himself with an imaginary shame 
 which could only breed derision. But in truth, as we 
 have already seen, the history of Hosea's life is related 
 mainly in the third person, and forms no part of his 
 preaching to Israel It is a history that lies behind his 
 public ministry ; and we are told that it was through 
 his marriage with Gomer-bath-Diblaim — whose very 
 name shows her to be a real person, not a mere allegory 
 — that Hosea first realised the truths which he was 
 commissioned to preach. The events recorded in chap. i. 
 are not Hosea's first message to Israel, but Jehovah's 
 
OF HOSEA. 181 
 
 first lesson to the prophet's soul. God speaks in the 
 events of history and the experiences of human life. 
 He spoke to Amos in the thundering march of the 
 Assyrian, and he spoke to Hosea in the shame that 
 blighted his home.^* 
 
 Apart from the still surviving influence of the old 
 system of allegorical interpretation, which, though no 
 longer recognised in principle, continues to linger in 
 some corners of modern interpretation, the chief thing 
 that has prevented a right understanding of the opening 
 chapters of our book is a false interpretation of chap. i. 2, 
 as if Hosea meant us to believe that under divine com- 
 mand he married' a woman whom he knew from the 
 first to be of profligate character. But the point of the 
 allegory is that Gomer's infidelity after marriage is a 
 figure of Israel's departure from the covenant God, and 
 the struggle of Hosea's affection with the burning sense 
 of shame and grief when he found his wife unfaithful 
 is altogether inconceivable unless his first love had 
 been pure, and full of trust in the purity of its object. 
 Hosea did not understand in advance the deep prophetic 
 lesson Tvhich Jehovah desired to teach him by these sad 
 experiences. It was in the struggle and bitterness of 
 his spirit in the midst of his great unhappiness that he 
 learned to comprehend the secret of Jehovah's heart in 
 his dealings with faithless Israel, and recognised the 
 unhappiness of his married life as no meaningless 
 calamity, but the ordinance of Jehovah, which called 
 him to the work of a prophet. This he expresses by 
 
182 THE CALL lect. iv. 
 
 saying that it was in directing him to marry Gomer 
 that Jehovah first spoke to him (comp. Jer. xxxii. 8, 
 where in like manner the prophet tells us that he recog- 
 nised an incident in his life as embodying a divine word 
 after the event). It was through the experience of his 
 own life, which gave him so deep an insight into the 
 spiritual aspect of the marriage tie, that Hosea was able 
 to develop with inmost sympathy his doctrine of the 
 moral union of Jehovah to Israel, and to transform a 
 conception which in its current form seemed the very 
 negation of spiritual faith, full of associations of the 
 merest nature worship, into a doctrine of holy love, freed 
 from all carnal alloy, and separating Jehovah for ever 
 from the idols with which His name had tUl then been 
 associated. 
 
 The possession of a single true thought about Jeho- 
 vah, not derived from current religious teaching, but 
 springing up in the soul as a word from Jehovah Him- 
 self, is enough to constitute a prophet, and lay on him 
 the duty of speaking to Israel what he has learned of 
 Israel's God. But the truth made known to Hosea 
 could not be exhausted in a single message, like that 
 delivered to Amos. As the prophet's own love to his 
 wife shaped and coloured his whole life, so Jehovah's 
 love to faithless Israel contained within itself the key 
 to all Israel's history. The past, the present, and the 
 future took a new aspect to the prophet in the light of 
 his great spiritual discovery. Hosea had become a 
 prophet, not for a moment, but for all his life. 
 
LECT. IV, OF HOSEA. 183 
 
 "We have already seen that the greater part of the 
 book of Hosea, from chap. iv. onwards — the only part 
 that has the form of direct address to his people — 
 appears to date from the period of increasing anarchy, 
 while the briefer prophecies in chap, i., associated with 
 the names of Gomer's three children, belong to the reign 
 of Jeroboam II. It would seem, therefore, that Hosea 
 was conscious of his prophetic calling for some years 
 before he appeared as a public preacher ; and this fact 
 we can well understand in a nature so poetically sensi- 
 tive, and in connection with the personal circumstances 
 that first made him a prophet. But it was impossible 
 for him to be altogether silent. He felt that he and 
 his family were living lessons of Jehovah to Israel, and 
 in this feeling he gave to the three children symbolical 
 names, to each of which a short prophetic lesson was 
 attached. In this he was followed by Isaiah, whose 
 sons, Mahar-shalal-hasli-baz and Shear-jashub, also bore 
 names expressive of fundamental points in the prophet's 
 teaching. 
 
 The eldest of Gomer's sons was named Jezreel. 
 " For yet a little while," saith Jehovah, " and I will 
 punish the house of Jehu for the sin of Jezreel, and will 
 cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. And 
 in that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley 
 of Jezreel" — the natural battlefield of the land. To 
 Hosea, as to Amos, the fall of the house of Jehu and 
 the fall of the nation appear as one thing ; both pro- 
 phets, indeed, appear to have looked for the overthrow 
 
184 HO SEA'S VIEW OF THE lect. iv. 
 
 of tlie reigning dynasty, not by intestine conspiracy, as 
 actually happened, but at the hand of the destroying 
 invader. It was fitting, tlierefore, that the great sin of 
 the reigning dynasty should hold the first place in the 
 record of the nation's defection. To Hosea that sin begins 
 with the bloodshed of Jezreel, the treacherous slaughter 
 of the house of Ahab. The very existence of the ruling 
 dynasty rests on a crime which cries for vengeance. 
 
 That Hosea judges thus of a revolution accomplished 
 with the active participation of older prophets is a fact 
 well worthy of attention. It places in the strongest 
 light the limitations that characterise all Old Testament 
 revelation. It shows us that we can look for no 
 mechanical uniformity in the teaching of successive 
 prophets. Elisha saw and approved one side of Jehu's 
 revolution. He looked on it only as the death-blow to 
 Baal worship ; but Hosea sees another side, and con- 
 demns as emphatically as Elisha approved. In the 
 forefront of his condemnation he places the bloodshed, 
 still unatoned, which, according to the view that runs 
 through all the Old Testament and was familiar to every 
 Hebrew, continued to cry for vengeance from generation 
 to generation. But we must not suppose that in Hosea's 
 judgment all would have been well if the house of Omri 
 had retained the throne. The ISTorthern kingship in 
 itself, and quite apart from the question of the parti- 
 cular dynasty, is a defection from Jehovah — "They have 
 made kings, but not by Me ; they have made princes, 
 and I knew it not " (viii. 4) ; " Where now is thy king 
 
LECT. IV. NORTHERN KINGSHIP. 185 
 
 to save thee in all thy cities, and thy judges, of whom 
 thou saidst, Give me a king and princes ? I gave thee 
 a king in Mine anger, and take him away in My wrath " 
 (xiii. 10, 11). The kingdom of Ephraim, in all its 
 dynasties, rests on a principle of godless anarchy. 
 What wonder, then, that the nation devours her judges 
 Hke a fiery oven : ^° all their kings are fallen (vii. 7), the 
 monarchy of Samaria is swept away as foam upon the 
 water (x. 7). The ideal which Hosea holds up in con- 
 trast to the unhallowed dynasties of the North is the 
 rule of the house of David. In the days of restoration 
 the people shall inquire after Jehovah their God, and 
 David their king (iii. 5). Now, it is not surprising 
 that Amos, who was himself a man of Judah, should 
 •represent the re-establishment of the ancient kingdom 
 of David as part of the final restoration ; but when 
 Hosea, a Northern prophet, gives utterance to the same 
 thought, he places himself in striking contrast to all his 
 predecessors, who never dreamed of a return of Ephraim 
 to the yoke cast off in the days of the first Jeroboam. 
 No doubt there were many things which made such a 
 thought natural, at least in the days of anarchy that 
 followed the death of Jeroboam II. The stability of 
 the Davidic throne stood in marked contrast to the civil 
 discords and constant changes of dynasty to which the 
 prophet so often alludes ; and, though he speaks of 
 Judah as sharing Israel's sin and Israel's fall (v. 5, 10, 
 13, 14 ; viii. 14), Hosea regards the corruption of the 
 Southern kingdom as less ancient (xi. 12 ; Seh., xii. 1) 
 
186 THE RETURN TO lect. iv. 
 
 and deep-rooted (iv. 15), and, in his earlier prophecies 
 at least, excludes Judah from the utter destruction of 
 the Noi-th. When Jehovah's mercy is withdrawn from 
 Israel He will yet save Judah, though not hy war and 
 battle as in days gone by (i. 7). Hosea is so essentially 
 a man of feeling, and not of strict logic, that it would 
 be fruitless to attempt to form an exact picture of his 
 attitude to Judah, expressed as it is in a series of brief 
 allusions scattered over a number of years. In his last 
 picture of Israel's restoration the house of David is not 
 mentioned at all, and images of political glory have no 
 place in his conception of the nation's true happiness. 
 One part of the ideal of Amos is the resubjugation 
 of the heathen once tributary to David ; he looks for a 
 return of the ancient days of victorious warfare. But 
 Hosea has altogether laid aside the old martial idea 
 as we found it expressed in Deut. xxxiii. The fenced 
 cities of Judah are a sin, and shall be destroyed by fire 
 (viii. 14). The deliverance of Judah is not to be 
 wrought by bow or sword (i. 7) ; repentant Ephraini 
 says, " We wUl not ride upon horses " (xiv. 3). His 
 picture of the future, therefore, lacks all the features 
 that give strength to an earthly state ; it reads like a 
 return to Paradise (ii. 21 seg. ; xiv.). In such a picture 
 the kingship of David is little more than a figure. The 
 return of David's kingdom, as it actually was, would by 
 ho means have corresponded with his ideal ; but the name 
 of David is the historical symbol of a united Israel. 
 To Hosea the unity of Israel is a thing of pro- 
 
LECT. IV " DA VID THEIR KING." 187 
 
 found significance. His whole prophecy, as we know, 
 is penetrated by the conception of the people of 
 Jehovah as a moral person ; the unity of Israel and 
 the unity of God are the basis of his whole doctrine 
 of religion as a personal bond of love and fidelity. Thus 
 the political divisions of Israel on the one hand, and 
 on the other the idolatry which broke up the oneness of 
 Israel's God, are set forth by Hosea as parallel breaches 
 of covenant ; when he mentions the one he instinctively 
 joins the other with it (viii. 4 ; x. 1 seq^) In contrast to 
 this twofold defection and division " Jehovah their God 
 and David their king " appear in natural connection. 
 
 One sees from all this that in Hosea's hands the old 
 national theory of the religion of Jehovah is on the 
 point of breaking up, and that new hopes take its place. 
 This was indeed inevitable. The ideal of a victorious 
 and happy nation, dwelling apart in a goodly land and 
 secure from invasion in Jehovah's blessing on its war- 
 like prowess, as we find it in the prophecies of Balaam 
 or the Blessing of Moses, was hopelessly shattered by 
 the first contact with a great conquering empire such 
 as Assyria. Amos was the first to realise that the 
 advance of Assyria meant the ruin of Israel as it 
 actually was, but he did not see that the new move- 
 ments of history meant more than speedy captivity, 
 that Israel could never again be restored on its old 
 footing. To him it still seems possible that the rem- 
 nant of the nation, purified by sifting judgment, may 
 return to Canaan and restore the ancient kingdom of 
 
188 HOSEA'S 
 
 David. His picture of the ]ast daj^s is no more than a 
 glorified imnge of the best days of the past, when the 
 flow of Jehovah's blessings, victory in war and pros- 
 perous seasons in time of peace, is renewed in fuller 
 measure to a nation purged of sinners. The realism of 
 this picture has no counterpart in Hosea's eschatology. 
 The total dissolution of national life which he foresees 
 is not a mere sifting judgment, but the opening of an 
 altogether new era. Hosea never draws a distinction 
 between the sinners who must perish in captivity and 
 the righteous remnant which shall return. To him 
 Ephraim is not a mingled society of the righteous and 
 the wicked, but a single moral person which has sinned 
 and must repent as one man. Amos does not look for 
 national repentance ; the wicked remain wicked, and 
 perish in their sins, the righteous return in their old 
 righteousness, and so the new Israel is just a continua- 
 tion of the old. But to Hosea the repentance of the 
 nation is a resurrection from the dead. " Come and 
 let us return to Jehovah,' for He hath torn and He will 
 heal us ; He hath smitten and He will bind us up. 
 After two days will He revive us, in the third day He 
 will raise us up, and we shall live before Him" (vi. 1 seg. ; 
 xiii. 14). Even Ephraim's hard heart cannot for ever 
 resist Jehovah's love. " He will allure her and lead her 
 into the wilderness '' of exile " and stpmh to her heart " 
 (ii. 14). The desolate valley of Achor shall be to her 
 the gate of hope, and there " she shall answer as in the 
 days of her youth and the day when she came up out 
 
LECT. IV. ESCHATOLOGY. 189 
 
 of the land of Egypt " (ii. 15). When His people are 
 scattered in- exile Jehovah shall roar like a lion, and 
 the wanderers shall come fluttering to His call like a 
 bird from Egypt, like a dove from the land of Assyria 
 (xi. 10, 11). The purpose of the judgment is not penal ; 
 it is meant to teach them that Jehovah alone is the 
 hushand 6f Israel, and the giver of those good things 
 which in their blindness she esteemed the gifts of the 
 Baalim (ii. 5 seq^. Taught by adversity, Ephraim shall 
 acknowledge that neither the alliance of strange em- 
 pires, nor his own prowess, nor his vain idols can give 
 deliverance ; " Asshur shall not save us, we will not 
 ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the 
 work of our hands, Ye are our gods ; for in Thee the 
 fatherless findeth mercy." And so at length all Israel 
 shall be saved ; but in this redemption every feature 
 of the old nation has disappeared — its state, its religion, 
 its warlike might, its foreign policy, king and prince, 
 sacrifice and sanctuary, images (ephod) and teraphim. 
 The very face of nature is changed ; the wild beasts of 
 the field, the fowls of heaven, the creeping things of 
 the earth are at peace with Jehovah's people ; sword and 
 battle are broken out of the earth that they may lie 
 down safely (ii. 18). Jehovah alone remains over- 
 shadowing Israel and Israel's land with His infinite 
 compassion (xiv. 7). And then the voice of Ephraim 
 is heard, " What have I to do any more with idols ? I 
 answer and look to Him ; I am as a green fir-tree, from 
 me is Thy fruit found." 2» 
 
190 HOSEA. LECT. IV. 
 
 It is no mere accident that Hosea in this closing 
 picture returns to the image of the evergreen tree which 
 played so large a part in that nature-religion whicli it 
 was his chief work to contend against. In translating 
 religion into the language of the most spiritual human 
 affections, Hosea fixed for ever the true image of reli- 
 gious faith ; and we still find in his book a fit expres- 
 sion of the profoundest feelings of repentant devotion — 
 a delineation of Jehovah's forgiving love which touches 
 the inmost chords of our being. But to Hosea the 
 worshipping subject the object of God's redeeming 
 grace is the nation in its corporate capacity, not a true 
 person but a personified society. So long as the indi- 
 vidual side of religion fails to receive that central place 
 which it holds in the Gospel it is impossible to repre- 
 sent the highest spiritual truth without some use of 
 physical analogies ; and this shows itself in the most 
 characteristic way when the book of Hosea closes with 
 an image derived from mere vegetative life. The true 
 goal of Hosea's ideas lay beyond his own horizon, in a 
 dispensation when the relation of the redeeming God 
 to every believing soul should have all that tenderness 
 and depth of personal affection with which he clothes 
 the relation of Jehovah to Israel.^^ 
 
MCI-. V. ISAIAH. 191 
 
 LECTUEE V. 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH AND THE BEGINNINGS OE 
 ISAIAH'S WOKK.^ 
 
 We have now reached the point in the Old Testament 
 history at which the centre of interest is transferred 
 from Ephraim to Judah. Under the dynasties of Omri 
 and Jehu, the Northern Kingdom took the leading part 
 in Israel ; even to the Judsean Amos it was Israel far ■ 
 excellence. Judah was not only inferior in political 
 power, but in the share it took in the active movements 
 of national life and thought. In tracing the history of 
 religion and the work of the prophets, we have been 
 almost exclusively occupied with the North ; Amos 
 himself, when charged with a message to the whole 
 family that Jehovah brought up out of Egypt, leaves 
 his home to preach in a Northern sanctuary. During 
 this whole period we have a much fuller knowledge of 
 the life of Ephraim than of Judah ; the Judsean history 
 consists of meagre extracts from official records, except 
 where it comes into contact with the North, through 
 the alliance of Jehoshaphat with Ahab ; through the re- 
 action of Jehu's revolution in the fall of Athaliah, the 
 
192 EPHRAIM lect. v. 
 
 last scion of the house of Ahab, and the accompanying 
 abolition of Baal worship at Jerasalem, or, finally, 
 through the presumptuous attempt of Amaziah to mea- 
 sure his strength with the powerful monarch of Samaria. 
 While the house of Ephraim was engaged in the great 
 war with Syria, Judah had seldom to deal with enemies 
 more formidable than the Philistines or the Edomites ; 
 and the contest with these foes, renewed with varying 
 success generation after generation, resolved itself into 
 a succession of forays and blood-feuds such as have 
 always been common in the lands of the Semites (Amos 
 i.), and never assumed the character . of a struggle for 
 national existence. It was the Northern Kingdom that 
 had the task of upholding the standard of Israel : its 
 whole history presents greater interest and more Iieroic 
 elements ; its struggles, its calamities, and its glories 
 were cast in a larger mould. It is a trite proverb that 
 the nation which has no history is happy, and perhaps 
 the course of Judah's existence ran more smoothly than 
 that of its greater neighbour, in spite of the raids of the 
 slave-dealers of the coast, and the lawless hordes of the 
 desert. But no side of national existence is likely to 
 find full development where there is little political 
 activity ; if the life of the North was more troubled, 
 it was also larger and more intense. Ephraim took the 
 lead in literature and religion as well as in politics ; it 
 was in Ephraim far more than in Judah that the tradi- 
 tions of past history were cherished, and new problems 
 of religion became practical and called for solution by 
 
LECT. V, AND JUDAH. 193 
 
 the word of the prophets. So long as the Northern 
 Kingdom endured Judah was content to learn from it 
 for evil or for good. It would be easy to show in detail 
 that every great wave of life and thought in Ephraim 
 was transmitted with diminished intensity to the 
 Southern Kingdom. 
 
 In many respects the influence of Ephraim upon 
 Judah was similar to that of England upon Scotland 
 before the union of the crowns, but with the important 
 difference that after the accession of Omri the two 
 Hebrew kingdoms were seldom involved in hostilities. 
 At the first division of North and South, upon the death 
 of Solomon, the house of David was disposed to treat 
 the seceding tribes as rebels, and the accumulated wealth 
 and organised resources of the capital enabled Heho- 
 boam for a time to press hard upon his rival.^ The in- 
 vasion of Shishak, in which Eehoboam was impoverished 
 and severely chastised, restored the natural balance of 
 things, and soon after we find Asa, king of Judah, 
 reduced to the necessity of calling on the Syrians to 
 help him against Baasha ; but the house of Omri culti- 
 vated friendly relations with the Davidie kings. Jeho- 
 shaphat was the ally of Ahab and his sons, and an ally 
 on inferior terms, bringing a contingent to their aid in 
 the Syrian and Moabite wars. From this time forward 
 the North and the South seem to have felt that they 
 had common interests and dangers ; indeed, when the 
 power of Damascus was at its height Judah as well as 
 Ephraim suffered from the inroads of Hazael (2 Kings 
 
194 HISTORY 
 
 xii. 17 seg'.). The wanton attempt of Amaziah to pro- 
 voke a conflict with King Joash, about the close of the 
 Syrian period, ended in humiliation ; but Joash made 
 no attempt to incorporate Judah in his dominions, and 
 the popular rising which cost Amaziah his life prob- 
 ably expressed the dissatisfaction of his subjects with 
 his presumptuous policy. Amaziah was succeeded by 
 Uzziah, whose long and prosperous reign appears to 
 have corresponded pretty exactly with that of Jeroboam 
 II. The current chronology, which obscures this cor- 
 respondence, is certainly corrupt, and we shall not be 
 far wrong if we ■ view Uzziah and Jotham as the con- 
 temporaries of Jeroboam II. and Menahem, while Ahaz 
 of Judah came to the throne soon after Menahem's 
 death, and saw the greater part of the wars which began 
 with the invasion of Tiglath Pileser and closed with the 
 fall of Samaria.^ The date of Hezekiah's accessiou is 
 much disputed by chronologers ; but he appears to have 
 taken the sceptre before the fall of Samaria, while the 
 greater part of his reign certainly falls after that event. 
 Thus, speaking broadly, we may say that in the time of 
 Hosea and Amos, under Kings Uzziah and Jotham, Judah 
 was at peace with Israel, and still free from implication 
 in the stream of larger politics. Ahaz, on the contrary, 
 was attacked by Pekah and Eezin, and to escape this 
 danger accepted the position of an Assyrian vassal ; but 
 his land was not yet brought into direct contact with 
 Assyria. Under Hezekiah the Assyrian armies were 
 close to Judah, conducting operations, not only against 
 
,.. LECT. V. OF JUDAH. 195 
 
 Samaria, but against other neighbouring states, so as to 
 become a source of imminent danger to Judah itself, 
 which could only hope for safety by patiently fulfilling 
 the duties of a vassal state, and rejecting every tempta- 
 tion to chafe under the Assyrian yoke ; but meantime 
 it had become plain that Egypt was the ultimate goal 
 of the Assyrian operations in. Palestine. Egyptian 
 diplomacy was busy in the Palestinian states, with 
 tempting promises to encourage revolt against the em- 
 pire of the Tigris. Judah had to choose between abso- 
 lute political quietude, accepting the present situation 
 as it stood and leaving the great struggle to be fought 
 out by otliers, and the task of entering for the first time 
 into the movements of an imperial policy, in which the 
 principal actors were great empires altogether diffei-ent 
 from the petty states with which it had formerly had 
 to do. The alternative was pregnant with important 
 issues, not only for the political existence of the little 
 nation, but for the religion of Jehovah, and to indicate 
 the religious solution of the problems of this crisis was 
 the work of the greatest of Judsean prophets, Isaiah the 
 son of Amos. The famous expedition of Sennacherib, 
 which marks the culminating point of his prophetic life, 
 fell in the year 701 B.C., twenty years after the capture 
 of Samaria and thirty -three after the expedition of 
 Tiglath Pileser against Pekah and Eezin, which gave 
 occasion to the first important series of Isaiah's pro- 
 phecies. To the student of prophecy these years are the 
 most important in the Old Testament history, and as 
 
196 THE KINGDOM lect. v, 
 
 such they claim from us a very careful study ; but to 
 understand them aright ifc will be necessary to go back 
 to the epoch of prosperity running parallel to the reign 
 of Jeroboam II., and consider the political and religious 
 position of Judah in the reign of Uzziah. Amos, it will 
 be remembered, flourished under this king, and the call 
 of Isaiah, described in chapter vi. of his book, took place 
 in the year of Uzziah's death. Our business, therefore, is 
 to examine the state of things in the Southern Kingdom 
 at the time when Amos and Hosea were prophesying 
 in the North, and at the commencement of Isaiah's 
 ministry. 
 
 From the overthrow of Athaliah to the accession 
 of Ahaz and the acceptance by him of the position of 
 an Assyrian vassal is something more than a century. 
 It was, on the whole, a century of material progress, of 
 political stability, and of successful war. Two kings 
 indeed, Joash and Amaziah, met a violent death ; but, 
 while in the North the assassination of a monarch was 
 always followed by a change of dynasty, the people of 
 Judah remained constantly attached to the house of 
 David, and the order of succession was never broken. 
 The judgments passed upon the character of Judsean 
 sovereigns in the book of Kings have almost exclusive 
 reference to their actions in regard to the affairs of 
 public worship ; but the stability of the dynasty is the 
 best proof that the generally favourable estimate of 
 their conduct was borne out by the opinion of their 
 contemporaries. Their religious policy, indeed, may be 
 
LECT. V. OF JUDAH. 197 
 
 fairly assumed to be typical of the general principles of 
 their rule. These principles were conservative ; the 
 eon followed in the footsteps of his father (2 Kings xv. 
 3 ; xvi. 3) ; and so, if no high ideal was aimed at, there 
 were at least no new and crying abuses to excite dis- 
 content. The conservative character of the Judsean 
 state is readily explained from the history of the house 
 of David. The earliest political unity in Israel was not 
 the nation, but the tribe or its subdivision the clan. 
 The heads of clans and communities w^ere the hereditary 
 aristocracy, the natural leaders in peace and in war ; 
 and we have already seen that this form of organisation 
 is that which history proves to be most conducive to 
 stability and good order among Semitic peoples {supra, 
 p. 93 seq.). The natural aim of a strong monarchy, ruling 
 over a confederation of tribes, is to break down the tribal 
 system, and bring all parts of the kingdom more directly 
 under the control of the capital ; while the natural 
 conservatism of the individual provinces opposes this 
 process, and seeks to limit the power of the king to the 
 supreme command in war, and the office of deciding 
 appeals laid before him in peace. In the Northern 
 Kingdom, as we have further seen, the overthrow of 
 the old tribal system was already part of Solomon's 
 policy, and the more powerful of the kings of Ephraim 
 appear, in like manner, to have laboured in the direction 
 of centralisation and political absolutism. Prolonged 
 and exhausting wars naturally favoured this policy, but 
 at the ruinous cost of breaking up old social bonds and 
 
198 JUDAH UNDER 
 
 opening a fatal gulf between the aristocracy of the court 
 and the mass of the people. In Judah the course of 
 events was different. In his own tribe Solomon ap- 
 pointed no such provincial governors or tax-gatherers 
 as excited the discontent of Northern Israel with his 
 rule, — moved perhaps by the example of his father 
 David, who, after the revolt of Absalom, in which Judah 
 was the first to rise and the last to return to obedience, 
 appears to have deemed it necessary to treat his own 
 tribe with special favour, and recognise its willing sup- 
 port as the chief prop of his throne. The Judaeans 
 remained loyal to Eehoboam, because their prejudices 
 and ancestral usages had not been violated like those 
 of the North ; and when the kingdom was practically 
 narrowed to a single tribe, and could no longer pretend 
 to play the part of a great power, neither policy nor 
 interest urged the Davidic kings to startling innovations 
 in government. Thus the internal condition of the state 
 was stable, though little progressive ; the kings were 
 fairly successful in war, though not sufficiently strong 
 to maintain unbroken authority over Edom, the only 
 vassal state of the old Davidic realm over which they 
 still claimed suzerainty, and their civil administration 
 must have been generally satisfactory according to the 
 not very high standard of the East ; for they retained 
 the affections of their people, the justice and mercy of 
 the throne of David are favourably spoken of in the old 
 prophecy against Moab quoted in Isaiah xv. xvi., and 
 Isaiah contrasts the disorders of his own time with the 
 
LECT. V. KING UZZIAH. 199 
 
 ancient reputation of Jerusalem for fidelity and justice 
 (i. 21). This reputation hardly proves that any very 
 ideal standard of government was reached or aimed at, 
 but we may conclude that ancient law and usage were 
 fairly maintained, and that administrative or judicial 
 innovations, which irritate an Eastern people much more 
 than individual miscarriages of justice, were seldom 
 attempted. The religious conduct of the house of 
 David followed the same general lines. Old abuses 
 remained untouched, but the cultus remained much as 
 David and Solomon had left it. Local high places were 
 numerous, and no attempt was made to interfere with 
 them ; but the great temple on Mount Zion, which 
 formed part of the complex of royal buildings erected 
 by Solomon, maintained its prestige, and appears to 
 have been a special object of solicitude to the kings, 
 who treated its service as part of their royal state. 
 
 It is common to imagine that the religious condition 
 of Judah was very much superior to that of the North, 
 but there is absolutely no evidence to support this 
 opinion. Throughout the Old Testament history the 
 abuses of popular worship are brought into prominence 
 mainly in connection with efforts after reform. In 
 Judah there was no movement of reform to record be- 
 tween the time of Joash, when the Tyrian Baal was 
 abolished, and the time of Hezekiah, who acted under 
 the influence of Isaiah. Thus, in the narrative of Kings, 
 the history of religion remains an absolute blank during 
 the century with which we are particularly concerned, 
 
200 RELIGIOUS CONDITION lect. v. 
 
 and it is only just before Hezekiah arose that the his- 
 torian finds it necessary to call unfavourable attention 
 to the fact that Ahaz sacrificed on the high places, on 
 the hills, and under every green tree. His predecessors 
 had undoubtedly done the same, for they accepted the 
 high places as legitimate ; the guilt of Ahaz is not 
 measured by his deflection from the standard of his 
 ancestors, but by his refusal to rise to the higher stand- 
 ard which prophets like Isaiah began to set forth. 
 There can be no question that the worship of the 
 Judaeau sanctuaries was as little spiritual as that of 
 the Northern shrines. Isaiah has as much to say against 
 idols as Hosea. " Their land," he says, " is full of idols; 
 they worship the work of their own hands" (ii. 8). 
 And these idols were not new things ; the brazen ser- 
 pent, destroyed by Hezekiah, was worshipped as the 
 work of Moses, which certainly implies a cultus of 
 immemorial antiquity. In detail, no doubt, there was 
 considerable difference between the idolatry of tlie 
 North and the South. We read of a brazen serpent, 
 but not of golden calves as symbols of Jehovah ; nor 
 does the name of Baalim, by which the latter were 
 known in Ephraim, appear in Isaiah or Micah. The 
 association of the Godhead with symbols of natural 
 growth and reproductive power, which proved so fatal 
 to religion and morality in the North, was not lacking : 
 in Judah as in Israel the people worshipped under ever- 
 green trees — the Canaanite symbol of the female side 
 of the divine power ; and the ashera, which has the 
 
OF JUDAH. 201 
 
 same meaning, was found in Judsean as in IsTorthern 
 sanctuaries (Isa. i. 29 ; xvii. 8 ; Micah v. 14, where 
 for groves read asheras). Other Canaanite elements were 
 not wanting ; the worship of Adonis or Tammuz, for 
 which we have direct evidence in the last days of Jerusa- 
 lem (Ezek. viii. 14), appears to be already alluded to by 
 Isaiah. But on the whole it is probable that the popu- 
 lar religion was not so largely leavened with Canaanite 
 ideas and Canaanite immorality as in the North ; there 
 is nothing in the prophecies of Isaiah and Micah corre- 
 sponding to the picture of vile licentiousness under the 
 cloak of religion dr^wn by Amos and Hosea. This, 
 indeed, is what we should expect ; for in the popula- 
 tion of Judeea the fusion of Canaanite and Hebrew 
 elements was not so great as in Ephraim and Manasseh; 
 in Southern Judah the chief non-Hebrew element was 
 of Arab stock ; and the great sanctuaries of the South 
 do not appear to have been to the same extent as in the 
 North identical with Canaanite holy places. Judah, more- 
 over, was a much poorer country than Ephraim ; there 
 was less natural wealth, and apparently the whole con- 
 ditions of life were simpler and more primitive ; so that 
 we should naturally expect to find less sympathy with the 
 luxurious Canaanite worship, but at the same time more 
 relics of the ancient superstitions of the Hebrews before 
 Moses. These, again, can hardly have been without 
 affinity to the original beliefs of the incorporated Arab 
 elements, and a variety of circumstances make it prob- 
 able that a species of fetichism or totemism was largely 
 
 10 
 
202 RELIGIOUS CONDITION lect. v. 
 
 current in Judali as in the neighbouring desert. Such 
 ancestral superstitions are probably alluded to in Amos 
 ii. 4, and their nature is illustrated in the worship of 
 family gods, in the form of unclean animals, described in 
 Ezek. -viii. 10 seg. One of the most characteristic proofs 
 of the prevalence of the lowest superstitions is the 
 frequent reference made by the Judsean prophets to 
 various forms of magic and divination, such as the con- 
 sultation of familiar spirits through " wizards that peep 
 and mutter" — a kind of ventriloquists (Isa. viii. 19, 
 comp. xxix. 4).* The practice of divination was not con- 
 fined to the masses. Isaiah rQpkons " the cunning 
 magician and the man skilled in enchantments " along- 
 side of the captains and counsellors as recognised props of 
 the state (iii. 3) ; while Micah characterises the ordinary 
 prophets as diviners (iiL 7, 11, comp. v. 12). Isaiah 
 represents these superstitious practices as of foreign, in 
 part of Philistine, character (ii. 6) ; and, when we take 
 along with this the undisturbed existence of the sanc- 
 tuaries built by Solomon for his foreign wives, we must 
 conclude that the opposition to distinctively foreign 
 elements which characterises the worship of Ephraim 
 from the time of Elijah was not so strongly marked in 
 the religious practices of Judah. Under the dynasty of 
 Jehu Jehovah had nominally undivided allegiance from 
 the house of Ephraim ; foreign elements were eschewed, 
 and the superstitions incorporated with the ritual of 
 the sanctviaries, which led Hosea to declare that the 
 popular religion was not Jehovah worship at all, 
 
LECT. V. OF JUDAH. 203 
 
 were those indigenous to the land of Canaan. In Judah 
 the influence of the work of Elijah had been only 
 indirectly felt; the nation had passed through no 
 such great crisis as the long battle of the Northern 
 prophets with the house of Ahab ; and thus the preva- 
 lent superstitions were partly of a different character 
 from those we meet with in Ephraim, and partly indi- 
 cated a less hopeless condition of religious life, because 
 a higher ideal of Jehovah worship had never been so 
 distinctly set before the mass of the people. All this, 
 of course, must be understood as not excluding a great 
 influence of the North on the minor kino'dom. On the 
 one hand it is clear that Amos had thoroughly assimi- 
 lated the teaching of Elijah, while Isaiah and Micah 
 appropriate the teaching of Hosea on the subject of 
 idolatry. In truth, everything that we possess of the 
 sacred literature and history of the North lias been 
 conveyed to us through Judeean channels. On the 
 other hand, the growing corruption of Ephraim in 
 religion and social order was full of peril to Judah. 
 Hosea warns the Judseans against participation in the 
 guilt of Israel (iv. 15), and Micah tells us that the 
 transgressions of Israel were found in his own land 
 (i. 13, comp. vi. 16). 
 
 The material prosperity of Ephraim in the last gen- 
 eration of the house of Jehu had its counterpart, as we 
 have already seen, in the condition of Judah under 
 Uzziah. Edom was again reduced to subjection, and 
 thus the harbour of Elath on the Eed Sea came into 
 
204 PROSPERITY OF lect. v. 
 
 the possession of the house of David, which at the 
 same time obtained the control of the important cara- 
 van route from Sela to Southern Arabia (2 Kings xiv. 
 7, 22). These successes gave Judah an important com- 
 mercial position, and led to the formation of a fleet 
 (Isa. ii. 16) and a great development of wealth (Isa. ii. 
 7). The resources of the monarchy were enlarged, and 
 its warlike strength was increased by the multiplication 
 of chariots and horses (Isa. ii. 7 ; Micah i. 13 ; v. 10 ; 
 comp. Hosea i. 7 ; viii. 14). But to a nation situated like 
 the Hebrews the sudden expansion of commerce brought 
 grave social dangers. Society was constructed on the 
 basis of a purely agricultural life, the merchants of 
 early times were not Hebrews, but Canaanites, who had 
 a trading quarter of their own at Jerusalem (Zeph. i. 11, 
 where for merchant read Canaanite). The newly-de- 
 veloped trade could not but fall largely into the hands 
 of the grandees and courtiers, and the wealth they accu- 
 mulated changed their relations to the commonalty, and 
 gave them opportunity for the exactions and injustice 
 from which, in Eastern society, the wealthy seldom 
 keep themselves pure. Hosea complains that in Eph- 
 raim commerce, deceit, and oppression went hand in 
 hand (xii. 7), and in Judah the case was not otherwise. 
 The centralisation of large capital in a few hands led 
 to the formation of huge estates, the poorer landowners 
 being either bought out when they fell into the power 
 of their creditors, or ejected by violence and false judg- 
 ment (Isa. V. 8 ; Micah ii. 2, 9). Judicial corruption 
 
LECT. V. UZZIAH'S REIGN. 205 
 
 increased ; every man had his price (Micah iii. 11), and 
 the poor in such a state of things could do nothing 
 against the tyrants who, in the forcible phrase of Micah, 
 " stripped the skin from off them, and their flesh from 
 off their bones " (iii. 2). These evils, no doubt, assumed 
 an intenser form after the calamitous war with Pelcali 
 and Rezin had spread desolation in the land, and when 
 the burden of taxation, which in the East always falls 
 heaviest on the poor, was increased by the tribute to 
 Assyria ; and it is to this later time that the most 
 melancholy prophetic pictures of the state of Judah 
 apply. But the fatal degeneracy of the higher classes, 
 unequal distribution of wealth, oppression of the poor, 
 corrupt luxury, and the like are dwelt on in the earliest 
 utterances of Isaiah (chaps, ii.-v.), at a time when the 
 external prosperity of the nation was still uninterrupted. 
 Isaiah began his work in the year of TJzziah's death, 
 and when he accepted the task of a prophet he already 
 pictures his nation as so corrupt that it could be puri- 
 fied only by a consuming judgment. 
 
 The year of TJzziah's death cannot be determined 
 with precision. The present chronology gives to his son 
 Jotham a reign of sixteen years, which in all probability 
 is a good deal too much. But at all events Isaiah 
 began to prophesy some years before 734 B.C., and 
 his influence was at its height during the expedition of 
 Sennacherib in 701, so that his career covers a period 
 of some forty years at the least. More happy in his 
 work than Amos and Hosea, he succeeded during this 
 
206 CAREER AND 
 
 i 
 
 long period in acquiring a commanding position in the 
 state. In the time of Hezekiah, plans which it was 
 known he would condemn were carefully concealed from 
 him by the politicians he opposed (Isa. xxix. 15) ; and 
 in the day of Jerusalem's sorest trouble the king and 
 his people sought from him the help which only the 
 word of Jehovah could supply. Though we are not 
 expressly told so in the narrative of Kings, there can be 
 no doubt that it was he who inspired Hezekiah's plans 
 of reformation in the national worship, and at his death 
 he left behind him a prophetic party so strong that 
 the counter-reformation of Manasseh was only carried out 
 by the aid of bloody persecution. And, though his 
 work thus seemed for a time to be undone, its influence 
 was not extinguished. It is the teaching of Isaiah that 
 forms the starting-point of the book of Deuteronomy, 
 and of the reformation of Josiah, of which that book was 
 the programme ; and thus the ideas of the great prophet 
 continued to exercise a decisive intluence on the 
 affairs of Judah more than a century after they were 
 first proclaimed. In truth, the whole subsequent history 
 of the Hebrew people bears the impress of Isaiah's 
 activity. It was through him that the word of prophecy, 
 despised and rejected when it was spoken by Amos 
 and Hosea, became a practical power not only in the 
 state but in the whole life of the nation. We can 
 readily understand that so great a work could not have 
 been effected by an isolated mission like that of Amos, 
 or by a man like Hosea, who stood apart from all the 
 
LECT. V. INFLUENCE OF ISAIAH. 207 
 
 leaders of his uation, and had neither friend nor disciple 
 to espouse his cause. Isaiah won his commanding posi- 
 tion, not by a single stroke, but by long-sustained and 
 patient effort. His work must have commenced when 
 he was still a young man, and it was continued into 
 old age with the same unfailing courage which marks 
 his first appearance as a prophet. The work of a pro- 
 phet was the vocation of his life, to which every energy 
 was devoted ; even his wife is called the prophetess 
 (viii. 3) ; his sons bore prophetic names, not enigmatic 
 like those given by Hosea to Gomer's children, but 
 expressing in plain language two fundamental themes 
 of his doctrine — the speedy approach of judgment by 
 hostile invasion (Maher-shalal-hash-baz, viii. 3), and the 
 hope of return to Jehovah and His grace by the remnant 
 of the nation (Shear-jashub, vii. 3 ; the name is trans- 
 lated in X. 21). The truths which he proclaimed he 
 sought to make immediately practical in the circle of 
 disciples whom he gathered round him (viii. 16), and 
 through them to prepare the wayfor national reformation. 
 And in this work he was aided by personal relations 
 within the highest circles of the capital. Uriah, the 
 chief priest of the temple, was his friend, and appears 
 associated with him as witness to a solemn act by which 
 he attested a weighty prophecy at a time when king and 
 people had not yet learned to give credence to his words 
 (viii. 2). His own life seems to have been constantly 
 spent in the capital ; but he was not without support in 
 the provinces. The countryman Micah, who prophesied 
 
208 ISAIAH AND lect. v. 
 
 in the low country on the Philistine border near the begin- 
 ning of He zekiah's reign, was unquestionably influenced 
 by his great contemporary, and, though his conceptions 
 are shaped with the individual freedom characteristic 
 of the true prophet, and by no means fit mechanically 
 into the details of Isaiah's picture of Jehovah's approach- 
 ing dealings, the essence of his teaching went all to 
 further Isaiah's aims. Thus Isaiah ultimately became 
 the acknowledged head of a great religious movement. 
 It is too little to say that in his later years he was the 
 first man in Judah, practically guiding the helm of the 
 state, and encouraging Jerusalem to hold out against the 
 Assyrian when all besides had lost courage. Even to 
 'the political historian Isaiah is the most notable figure 
 after David in the whole history of Israel. He was the 
 man of a supreme crisis, and he proved himself worthy 
 by guiiling his nation through the crisis with no other 
 strength than the prophetic word. His commanding 
 influence on the history of his nation naturally suggests 
 comparison with Elisha, the author of the revolution 
 of Jehu, and the soul of the great struggle with Syiia. 
 The comparison illustrates the extraordinary change 
 which little more than a century had wrought in the 
 character and aims of prophecy. Elisha effected his 
 first object — the downfall of the house of Ahab — by 
 entering into the sphere of ordinary political intrigue ; 
 Isaiah stood aloof from all political combinations, and 
 his influence was simply that of his commanding cha- 
 racter, and of the imperial word of Jehovah preached 
 
LECT. V. ELISHA. 209 
 
 ia season and out of season with unwavering constancy. 
 Elisha in his later years was the inspiring spirit of a 
 heroic conflict, encouraging his people to fight for free- 
 dom, and resist the invader by armed force. Isaiah 
 well knew that Judah had no martial strength that 
 could avail for a moment against the power of Assyria. 
 He did not aim at national independence ; and, rising 
 above the dreams of vulgar patriotism, he was content to 
 accept the inevitable, and mark out for Judah a course 
 of patient submission to the foreign yoke, in order that 
 the nation might concentrate itself on the task of inter- 
 nal reformation till Jehovah Himself should remove the 
 scourge appointed for His people's sin. In this concep- 
 tion he seized and united in one practical aim ideas 
 which had appeared separately in the teaching of his 
 predecessors, Amos and Hosea. Amos had taught the 
 salvation of a righteous remnant in a nation purified by 
 judgment, Hosea had pointed out that warlike effort and 
 political combinations could not help Israel, which 
 must seek its deliverance in repentance and reliance 
 on Jehovah's sovereignty. "With Isaiah the doctrine of 
 the remnant becomes a practical principle ; the true 
 Israel within Israel, the holy seed in the fallen stock of 
 the nation, is the object of all his solicitude. Living in 
 the very midst of the winnowing judgment which Amos 
 had seen approaching from afar, he sought to give the 
 vital elements of the nation a centre round which they 
 could rally, and a task of internal reformation couformed 
 to the duty of national repentance. This alone was 
 
210 THE WRITINGS lect. v. 
 
 Israel's wisdom ; Jehovah's power and Jehovah's spirit 
 must accomplish the rest without help from the arm of 
 flesh. In the supreme crisis of the Assyrian wars 
 Isaiah was not less truly the bulwark of his nation than 
 Elisha had been during the Syrian wars. But his hero- 
 ism was that of patience and faith, and the deliverance 
 came as he had foretold, not by political wisdom or 
 warlike prowess, but by the direct intervention of 
 Jehovah. 
 
 When we endeavour to trace the history of Isaiah's 
 prophetic activity by the aid of his own writings, we 
 are met by the difficulty that his book is not 
 arranged in strict chronological order. Thus the in- 
 augural vision in which he received his consecration as 
 Jehovah's messenger to Judah is not the first but the 
 sixth chapter of the book ; or again chap, xx., which is 
 dated from the year of the capture of Ashdod by the 
 general of Sargon, i.e. B.C. 711, would j.n chronological 
 order-stand after chap, xxviii., which speaks of the king- 
 dom of Ephraim as still in existence. It is plain, then, 
 that the book as it stands is in a somewhat disordered 
 state. Presumably Isaiah himself issued no collected 
 edition of all his prophecies, but only put forth from 
 time to time individual oracles or minor collections, 
 which were gathered together at a later date, and on 
 no plan which we can follow. Some of the prophecies 
 bear a date, or even have brief notes of historical ex- 
 planation ; others begin without any such preface, and 
 their date and occasion can only be inferred from the 
 
OF ISAIAH. 211 
 
 allusions they contain. We cannot even tell when or 
 by whom the collection was made. The collection of 
 all remains of ancient prophecy, digested into the four 
 books named from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the 
 Twelve Minor Prophets, was not formed till after the 
 time of Ezra, two hundred and fifty years at least after 
 the death of Isaiah. In one of these four books every 
 known fragment of ancient prophecy had to take its 
 place, and no one who knows anything of the collection 
 and transmission of ancient books wUl think it reason- 
 able to expect that the writings of each separate 
 prophet were carefully gathered out and arranged to- 
 gether in such a way as to preclude all ambiguity as to 
 their authorship.^ If every prophecy had had a title 
 from the first the task of the editor would have been 
 simple ; or if he did not aim at an exact arrangement 
 we could easily have rearranged the series for ourselves. 
 But there are some prophecies, such as those which 
 occupy the last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah, which 
 have no title at all, and in some other cases there is con- 
 clusive evidence that the titles are not original, because, 
 in point of fact, they are incorrect. In the absence of 
 precise titles giving names and dates to each separate 
 prophecy, an editor laboiiring after the time of Ezra 
 would be quite as much at a loss as a modern critic, if 
 he made it his task to give what is now called a critical 
 edition of the remains that lay before him. But 
 ancient editors did not feel the need of an edition 
 digested according to the rules of modern literary 
 
212 THE WRITINGS 
 
 ■workmanship. Their main object was to get together 
 everything that they could find, and arrange their 
 material in volumes convenient for private study or use 
 in the synagogue. In those days one could not plan 
 the number of volumes, the number of letters in a 
 page, and the size and form of the pages, with the 
 freedom to which the printing press has accustomed 
 us ; the cumbrous and costly materials of ancient books 
 limited all schemes of editorial disposition. In ancient 
 books the most various treatises are often comprised in 
 one volume; the scribe had a certain number of skins, 
 and he wished to fill them. Thus, even in the minor 
 collections that fell into the hands of the editor of the 
 prophets, a prophecy of Isaiah and one from another 
 source might easily occupy the same roll ; copies were 
 not so numerous that it was always possible to tell by 
 comparison of many MSS. what pieces had always 
 stood together, and what had only come together by 
 accident ; and so, taking all in all, we need not be sur- 
 prised that the arrangement is imperfect according to 
 our literary lights, but wUl rather expect to find much 
 more serious faults of order than the lack of a just 
 chronological disposition. If the present book of Isaiah 
 has itself been made up from several MSS., a conclusion 
 which the lack of chronological order renders almost 
 inevitable, we must deem it probable that at the end 
 of some of these MSS. prophecies not by Isaiah at all 
 may have been written in to save waste of the costly 
 material ; and so, when the several small books came to 
 
LECT. V. OF ISAIAH. 213 
 
 be joined together, prophecies by other hands would 
 get to be embedded in the text of Isaiah, no longer to 
 be distinguished except by internal evidence. That 
 what thus appears as possible or even probable actually 
 took place is the common opinion of modern critics. 
 We must not accept tliis opinion without examination, 
 and we cannot now pause to go over every chapter of 
 the book in detail ; but, on the other hand, we cannot 
 hope to get a just picture of Isaiah's life and work 
 without keeping our minds open to the possibilities 
 now suggested. Instead of taking up his prophecies 
 in the order in which they now stand, we must look 
 for internal evidence to connect each oracle with one 
 or other part of his career. Those sections of the 
 book which cannot be read in clear connection with 
 any part of the prophet's life and times must provision- 
 ally be set on one side. Even if they are Isaiah's they 
 can have but secondary importance for our present 
 business, which is to study the prophetic word in the 
 light of the history of the prophet's own times; and in 
 fact the more clearly we come to see that the rest of 
 the book is full of references to present history the 
 more shall we be disposed to ask whether these 
 prophecies too have not an historical setting of their 
 own, but one which belongs to a later stage of the Old 
 Testament progress. It may be well to say at once 
 that most parts of the book of Isaiah whose authorship 
 is disputed have a plain connection with the Chaldtean 
 period. Whether this connection is of a kind which 
 
214 PERIODS OF 
 
 jusLifies us in holding tliat they were written in that 
 period is a question which almost every critic answers 
 in the affirmative, but which cannot be profitably dis- 
 cussed in these Lectures, because the discussion involves 
 an historical study of the age of the Exile. The critical 
 problems of Isaiah belong to the history of prophecy 
 under the Chaldsean empire, and even those scholars 
 who still believe that the whole book is from the pen 
 of Isaiah ascribe the prophecies against Babylon to his 
 old age, after his active life was over, so that it at least 
 can be completely studied without them. And it is 
 further agreed that these prophecies had no part in 
 the gi'eat influence which Isaiah exerted on the im- 
 mediately subsequent age, so that for the whole study 
 of the Old Testament religion before the Exile we lose 
 nothing by leaving them out of account. 
 
 The period of Isaiah's ministry falls into three 
 parts : — (1) The time previous to the Syro-Ephraitic 
 war, when Judah enjoyed external peace and apparent 
 prosperity ; (2) The troubles under the reign of Ahaz, 
 when the land was invaded by Pekah and Eezin, and 
 the Judeean monarch became a vassal of Assyria to 
 obtain the help of Tiglath Pileser; (3) The time of 
 Assyrian suzerainty, when Judah's growing impatience 
 of the yoke at length led the nation to intrigue with 
 Egypt, and exposed it to the vengeance of Sennacherib. 
 The last section of the prophet's life culminates in the 
 great invasion and marvellous deliverance of the year 
 701 B.C. We may not in every case be able to give a 
 
LECT. V. ISAIAH'S MINISTRY. 215 
 
 precise chronological view of the progress of the 
 prophet's work, but at least we may hope to distribute 
 his prophecies under these three periods, and to gain 
 an approximate conception of the order of those which 
 belong to the last and longest of the three, especially 
 by comparing the many historical allusions with the 
 Assyrian monuments. Without going into detail at the 
 present stage of the discussion, it may be convenient to 
 indicate broadly some conclusions to which we are led 
 by this method. 
 
 In the first place, then, it is plain that the general 
 survey of the state of Judah given in chap. i. cannot 
 belong to the first period of Isaiah's work, for it repre- 
 sents the land as reduced to the utmost distress by 
 foreign invasion. It must have been chosen to open 
 the book on account of its general character, and so 
 displaced from its proper chronological setting. On 
 the other hand, the prophecy which begins, with a 
 separate title, at chap. ii. 1 belongs to the earliest part 
 of Isaiah's ministry. Here there is no allusion to 
 present wars, and at ii. 16 the ships of Tarshish appear 
 as one of the glories of the nation. But Elath, the only 
 Judaean harbour, was taken in the war of Pekah and 
 Eezin, and the Syrians (or Edomites) continued to hold 
 the town long after (2 Kings xvi. 6). This prophecy, 
 or at least a connected series of prophecies which pre- 
 sumably were published by Isaiah in a single book, goes 
 on to the end of chap, v., and there is great prob- 
 abilitv that ix. 8 to x. 4 originally formed part of the 
 
216 PERIODS OF 
 
 close of this publication. So common an accident as 
 the displacement of part of a manuscript would suffi- 
 ciently account for the transposition of these verses to 
 their present place. 
 
 The account of the inaugural vision of the prophet 
 in chap. vi. does not belong to Isaiah's first published 
 work, but stands at the head of a new seiies of pro- 
 phecies dating from the great trouble at the commence- 
 ment of Ahaz's reign. There is no reason to doubt 
 that this arrangement is due to Isaiah himself. He 
 might have many reasons for not speaking of the vision 
 at the time when it occurred, and its contents form a 
 very appropriate introduction to the series of prophecies 
 which it now precedes, extending from vii. 1 to ix. 7. 
 The prophecy of the downfall of Damascus (xvii. 1-11) 
 plainly belongs to the same period. All the remaining 
 parts of the book appear to be subsequent to the 
 Assyrian intervention (b.c. 734). Most of them refer 
 more or less clearly to successive stages in the progress 
 of the Assyrians, which in the present state of our 
 knowledge must often remain obscure. They cannot 
 have been all published at once, and probably Isaiah 
 himself, in reducing selections of his prophecies to 
 writing from time to time, united oracles of various 
 date. Chap, xxviii., for example, must have been first 
 spoken before the fall of Samaria, but as we now read 
 it it is closely connected with several following 
 chapters which seem to be of later composition. For 
 our present purpose it is enough to regard all the 
 
LECT. V. ISAIAH'S MINISTRY. 217 
 
 prophecies of Isaiah's third period as one group, without 
 attempting at this stage to arrange them more exactly. 
 The parts of the book which do not fall under any one 
 of the three groups now spoken of, and which, as already 
 explained, I shall pass over altogether, are the prophecies 
 against Babylon, xiii. 1 to xiv. 23 ; xxi. 1-10 ; ® the very 
 remarkable and difficult section, chaps, xxiv. to xxvii. ; 
 the prophecy against Edom, chap, xxxiv ; and the great 
 prophecy, chaps, xl. to Ixvi., which is separated from the 
 rest of the book by an historical section, certainly not 
 written by Isaiah himself. There are also two lyrical 
 chapters, xii. and xxxv., of which the latter seems to 
 go with chap, xxxiv. Both are so unlike the style of 
 Isaiah that it will be prudent to pass them over also.'' 
 
 Although Isaiah did not publish the account of the 
 vision in which he received his prophetic consecration 
 until the second period of his work (chap, vi.), it is 
 reasonable that we should take it first. In the year of 
 Uzziah's death, he tells us, he saw Jehovah seated on a 
 lofty throne, while the skirts of His kingly robes filled 
 the palace. Jehovah's palace is the common name of the y 
 great temple at Jerusalem, and the features of the temple 
 are reproduced in the vision. There was an altar (ver. 6), 
 a threshold (ver. 4, where for fosts of the door read sockets 
 of the thresholds), and a cloud of smoke fiUing the house 
 during the adoration of the seraphim, like the smoke of 
 incense or sacrifice during ordinary acts of worship. In 
 the earlier history of the temple the Debir or Holy of 
 Holies appears not to have been shut off by doors from 
 
218 ISAIAH'S 
 
 the holy place (1 Kings vi. 21 as contrasted with ver. 31), 
 and in like manner Isaiah's palace forms one great hall, 
 so that the prophet standing at the door, where he felt 
 the rocking of the thresholds at the thunder of the 
 Trisagion, could see the seat of Divine majesty within. 
 Yet the palace of Isaiah's conception is not the earthly 
 temple but the heavenly seat of Jehovah's sovereignty. 
 The lofty throne of Jehovah takes the place of the ark, 
 and the ministers of the palace are not human priests 
 but fiery beings, — the seraphim. It is plain that the 
 very idea of the dwelling-place of Jehovah involves to 
 human minds the aid of figure and symbol ; it cannot be 
 realised at all except under images derived from visible 
 things. The scenery of Isaiah's vision is of necessity 
 purely symbolical, and the form of the symbol was 
 naturally determined by the old Hebrew conception 
 of the sanctuary as God's palace on earth, while the 
 additional feature of the fiery, winged seraphim appears 
 to have been suggested by a current conception analogous 
 to that of the cherubim. The Old Testament contains 
 more than one trace of weird personification of atmo- 
 spheric or celestial phenomena. The cherubim are 
 possibly a personification of the thunder cloud, and the 
 seraphim of the lightning.® But the origin of the scenery 
 is immaterial for the ideal meaning of Isaiah's vision ; 
 • temple and seraphim are nothing more than the 
 necessary pictorial clothing of the supreme truth that 
 in this vision his soul met the Infinite and Eternal face 
 to face, and heard the secrets of Jehovah's counsel 
 
LECT. V. VISION. 219 
 
 directly from His own mouth. ISTor can it be of 
 importance to us to determine how far the description 
 is conscious poetry, and how far the pictures described 
 passed without any effort of thought or volition before 
 his inward eye. Even in the highest imaginiags of 
 poetical genius this question would be hard to answer ; 
 much less can we expect to be able to analyse the 
 workings of the prophet's soul in a supreme moment of 
 converse with God. 
 
 In some quarters a great deal too much stress has 
 been laid upon the prophetic vision as a distinctive 
 note of supernatural revelation. People speak as if the 
 divine authority of the prophetic word were somehow 
 dependent on, or confirmed by, the fact that the prophets ' 
 enjoyed visions. That, however, is not the doctrine of 
 the Bible. In the New Testament Paul lays down the 
 principle that in true prophecy self-consciousness and 
 self-command are never lost — the spirits of the prophets 
 are subject to the prophets (1 Cor. xiv. 32). In like man- 
 ner the prophets of the Old Testament never appeared ' 
 before their auditors in a state of ecstasy, being thus 
 clearly marked off from heathen soothsayers, who were 
 held to be under the influence of the godhead just in 
 proportion as they lost intelligent self-control. And, 
 as the true prophets never seek in heathen fashion to 
 authenticate their divine commission by showing them- 
 selves in a state of visionary ecstasy, so also they do 
 not record their visions as a proof that they are in- 
 spired. They knew very well that vision and ecstasy 
 
220 THE NATURE 
 
 were comnion in heathenism, and therefore could prove 
 no commission from Jehovah (Jer. xxiii.) ; and so, as we 
 have seen, Isaiah did not even publish his inaugural 
 vision at the time, but reserved it till his ministry had 
 been public for years. Moreover, the Hebrews were 
 aware that the vision, in which spiritual truth is clothed 
 in forms derived from the sphere of the outer senses, is 
 not the highest method of revelation. In the twelfth 
 , chapter of Numbers, which belongs to the part of the 
 Pentateuch composed before the rise of written prophecy, 
 Moses, who received his revelation in plain words not 
 involved in symbolic imagery, is placed above those 
 prophets to whom Jehovah speaks in vision or in 
 dream. This view is entirely conformed to the con- 
 clusions of scientific psychology. Dream and vision are 
 nothing more than a peculiar kind of thought, in which 
 the senses of the thinker are more or less completely 
 shut to the outer world, so that his imagination moves 
 more freely than in ordinary waking moments among 
 the pictures of sensible things stored up in the memory. 
 Thus, on the one hand, the images of fancy seem to 
 stand out more brightly, because they are not contrasted 
 with the sharper pictures of sense-perception, while, on 
 the other hand, the power of the will to conduct thought 
 in a predetermined dii'ection is suspended, or so far 
 subdued that the play of sensuous fancy produces new 
 combinations, which appear to rise up of themselves 
 before the mind like the images of real things before 
 the physical senses. The ultimate elements of such a 
 
OF VISIONS. 221 
 
 vision can include nothing absolutely new ; the concep- 
 tions of which it is built up are exclusively such as are 
 supplied by previous waking experience, the whole 
 novelty lying in their combination. So far, therefore, 
 as its structure is concerned, there is no essential differ- 
 ence between a vision and a parable or other creation 
 of poetic fancy ; and this is as strictly true for the 
 visions of the prophets as for those of other men, so 
 that it is often difficult to say whether any particular 
 allegory set forth by a prophet is visionary or not — that 
 is to say, we often cannot tell whether the prophet is 
 devising an instructive figure by a deliberate act of 
 thought, or whether the figure rose, as it were, of itself 
 before his mind in a moment of deep abstraction, when 
 his thoughts seemed to take* their own course without a 
 conscious effort of will. 
 
 In the experience of the greatest prophets visions 
 were of very rare occurrence. Isaiah records but one 
 in the course of forty years' prophetic work. As a rule, 
 the supreme religious thought which fills the prophet's 
 soul, and which comes to him not as the result of argu- 
 ment but as a direct intuition of divine truth, an imme-- 
 diate revelation of Jehovah, is developed by the ordinary 
 processes of the intellect. There is nothing rhapsodical 
 or unintelligible in the prophetic discourses ; they address 
 themselves to the understanding and the heart of every 
 man who feels the truth of the fundamental religious 
 conceptions on which they rest. But all thought about 
 transcendental and spiritual things must be partly 
 
222 THE PROPHETIC lect, v. 
 
 carried out by the help of analogies from human life 
 and experience, and in the earKer stages of revelation, 
 before the full declaration of God in His incarnate Son, 
 A the element of analogy and symbol was necessarily 
 larger in proportion as the knowledge of God's plan was 
 more imperfect. The prophets, as we are taught in the 
 first verse of the Epistle to the Hebrews, saw only frag- 
 mentary parts and individual aspects of divine truth. 
 This is not a peculiarity of early revelation alone ; it 
 applies equally to early thought about the things of 
 nature, which in like manner reveal themselves only in 
 isolated aspects to the primitive observer, so that all 
 thought is in its beginnings fragmentary, and, being so, 
 requires to bridge over gulfs by the aid of analogy and 
 figure, in a way which in later ages is mainly confined 
 to the poetic imagination. And for this reason early 
 thought is less clearly self-conscious than the scientific 
 reasonings of later time. The thinker loses himself in 
 liis thought, and seems to be swept on by his own ideas 
 instead of ruling and guiding them. The further back 
 we can go in the history of human ideas the more closely 
 do we approach a stage in which all new intellectual 
 combinations are expressed in symbol, and in which the 
 symbol, instead of being used only for purposes of illus- 
 tration, is the necessary vehicle of thought. At this 
 stage new ideas appear, not as logical inferences, but as 
 immediate intuitions, in which the volition of the thinker 
 has little or no share ; and when such symbolic views 
 of abstract or spiritual things rise before the mind in a 
 
VISION. 223 
 
 moment of deep abstraction, as they most naturally do, 
 they may without impropriety be called visions, though 
 they are not necessaiily associated with the symptoms 
 of ecstasy in the strict sense. It is thus easy to under- 
 stand that vision, in the sense now defined, was a pre- 
 dominant characteristic of the earliest stages of pro- 
 phecy, as Num. xii. seems to imply, but that it fell 
 more and more into the background with the great 
 prophets of the eighth century, as their conceptions of 
 spiritual truth became more articulate and wider in range. 
 For purposes of exposition it was still necessary to 
 make a large use of symbol and analogy, but vision 
 begins to merge more and more into conscious parable, 
 till at length in the teaching of Jesus we reach a stage 
 where vision altogether disappears in direct communion 
 with the Father, and parable is no longer a means of 
 thinking out religious problems, but simply a method 
 of bringing truth home to popular understanding. At 
 every stage, however, in the history of prophecy the 
 spiritual value of vision is precisely the same as that of 
 parable, and is proportioned to the measure in which 
 the symbolic picture presents spiritual things under a 
 true analogy. Whether the prophet merely set forth 
 in symbolic form truths which he had reached in another 
 way, or whether he consciously devised a symbol, in 
 order to have the aid of analogy to bridge over gaps in 
 his view of divine things, or whether the symbol rose 
 up before his mind without a conscious effort of the 
 intellect, does not affect its value as a vehicle of spiritual 
 
224 THE HOLINESS lect. v. 
 
 truth. The value of the symbol or vision depends 
 simply on the fact that in one or other way he was 
 guided to the use of imagery fitted to give larger and 
 deeper views of spiritual realities. 
 
 Of the spiritual realities impressed on Isaiah's miad 
 in his great vision, and which continued to exercise a 
 profound influence on his whole career, the first is the 
 holiness of Jehovah. The notion of holiness belongs to 
 the ancient stock of common Semitic conceptions, being 
 expressed in all the Semitic languages by the same root 
 (B'lp). The etymological idea of the root is obscure. 
 If the Arabic commentaries on the Koran may be 
 believed, it is that of distance or separation ; but the 
 word was so early appropriated to a special religious 
 sense that its primary notion can no longer be traced 
 with certainty.' The traditional etymology seems, how- 
 ever, to be so far justified by usage. To the Semite 
 everything divine is also holy, and in this connection 
 the word does not in its earliest use seem to convey any 
 positive conception, but rather to express the distance 
 and awful contrast between the divine and the human. 
 The supreme Godhead of Jehovah is expressed in 1 Sam. 
 ii. 2 by saying, " There is no holy one like Jehovah ; 
 yea, there is none beside Thee." " I am God, and not 
 man," says Hosea ; " the Holy One in the midst of thee" 
 (xi. 9). Holiness, in fact, is the most comprehensive 
 predicate of the Godhead, equally familiar to the Hebrews 
 and their heathen neighbours. The "holy gods" is a 
 standing designation of the Phoenician deities, as we 
 
OF JEHOVAH.- 225 
 
 learn from the monument of Eslimunazar ; and so the 
 word in its original use cannot have conveyed any idea 
 peculiar to the religion of Jehovah. Its force lay in its 
 very vagueness, for it included every distinctive cha- 
 racter of Godhead, and every advance in the true know- 
 ledge of God made its significance more profound ; thus 
 the doctrine of Jehovah's holiness is simply the doctrine 
 of His true Godhead. When the first sound that Isaiah 
 hears in the heavenly temple is the Trisagion of the 
 seraphim — 
 
 " Holy, ioly, holy is Jehovah, of Hosts ; 
 All that the earth contains is His wealth," 
 
 we see that Isaiah does not find the starting-point of his 
 prophetic work in the contemplation of any one attribute ■ 
 of Jehovah — His universal justice, as it is set forth by 
 Amos, or His love, as developed in the teaching of Hosea 
 — but in the thought that all the predicates of true God- 
 head are concentrated in Jehovah, and in Him alone. 
 
 The prophets who preceded Isaiah did not preach a 
 doctrine of abstract monotheism, they did not start from 
 the idea that there can be only one God ; but, looking 
 at Jehovah, Israel's God, as He was actually known to 
 His people, they interpreted His being and character 
 in a way that placed a great gulf between Him and 
 the nature-gods of the heathen. Thus the Godhead of 
 Jehovah as taught by the prophets meant something 
 quite different from the godhead or holiness attributed 
 to idols or to heathen deities. There was no longer any 
 11 
 
226 THE HOLY ONE lect. v. 
 
 meaning in, applying tlie same terms to both ; Jehovah 
 alone was holy, or, what is practically the same thing, 
 He alone was God in the true sense of these words. It 
 is this truth which forms the foundation of Isaiah's 
 teaching. The whole earth is full of the signs of Jeho- 
 vah's sovereignty ; He dwells on high, exalted over all 
 (xxxiii. 5) ; He reigns supreme alike in the realm of 
 nature and the sphere of human history ; and the crash 
 of kingdoms, the total dissolution of the old order of 
 the Hebrew world, which accompanied the advance of 
 Assyria, is to the prophet nothing else than the crowning 
 proof of Jehovah's absolute dominion, asserting itself in 
 the abasement of all that disputes His supremacy. The 
 loftiness of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness 
 of men shall be bowed down, and Jehovah alone shall 
 be exalted in that day (ii. 17). 
 
 But with all this Isaiah does not cease to regard 
 Jehovah's kingship as essentially a kingship over Israel. 
 At first sight this may seem to us a strange limitation 
 on the part of one who declares that all that the earth 
 contains is Jehovah's wealth ; but in reality the limita- 
 tion gives to his doctrine a concrete and practical force 
 otherwise unattainable. The kingship of Jehovah is to 
 our prophet not a mere figure but a literal truth, and so 
 His kingdom can only consist of the nation whose affairs 
 He administers in person, whose human rulers reign as 
 His representatives, and which receives its law and 
 polity from His mouth. To Isaiah, therefore, Jehovah 
 is not simply the Holy One in an abstract sense ; He is 
 
OF ISRAEL. 227 
 
 the Holy Being who reigns over Israel ; or, to use the 
 prophet's favourite phrase, " The Holy One of Israel." 
 "When the idea of holiness is thus brought into connec- 
 tion with Jehovah's relation to His people, it becomes 
 at once a practical factor in religion ; for in the ordinary 
 language of the Hebrews holiness was not limited to the 
 Deity, but could also be predicated of earthly things 
 specially set apart for Him. The sanctuary was a holy 
 place, the religious feasts were holy seasons, material 
 things were consecrated or rendered holy by being appro- 
 priated to use in the worship of the Deity, or presented 
 to the sanctuary. And in like manner holiness could 
 be predicated of persons ; the prophet who stood in a 
 particular relation of nearness to the Godhead was " a 
 holy man of God" (2 Kings iv. 9) ; the ordinary Israelite 
 was not holy in this sense, but at least he was con- 
 secrated, or made holy, by special ceremonies before 
 engaging in an act of sacrificial worship (1 Sam. xvi. 5) ; 
 and the same expression is used of the ceremonial puri- 
 fication employed to purge away those impurities which 
 excluded an Israelite from participation in holy func- 
 tions (2 Sam. xi. 4). 
 
 In all this, you observe, there is nothing proper to 
 spiritual religion, nothing that goes beyond the sphere 
 of the primitive conceptions common to the Israelites 
 with their heathen neighbours. Holy places, things, or 
 times are such as are withdrawn from common use and 
 appropriated to a religious purpose, and in like manner 
 holiness, as ascribed to persons, is no moral attribute ; 
 
228 ISAIAH'S DOCTRINE lect. v. 
 
 it refers only to the ritual separation from things com- 
 mon and unclean, without which the worshipper dare 
 not approach the divine presence. Holiness and immo- 
 rality might even go side by side ; the " holy women " 
 (kedesJiot) o'i the Canaanite religion, found also in the 
 popular Hebrew shrines, were Hierodouloi consecrated 
 to immoral purposes. But when the teaching of the 
 prophets brought Jehovah's holiness into sharp contrast 
 with the pretended godhead of the BaaHm, the holiuess 
 of Jehovah's people could not but in like manner take^ a 
 sense different from that which prevailed in heathenism. 
 So already in Amos the licentious practices of the 
 Hierodouloi are said to profane Jehovah's holy name 
 (Amos ii. 7). But with Isaiah this transformation of 
 the notion of Israel's holiness has a wider scope. He 
 does not develop the idea in special connection with 
 distinctively religious acts. The holiness of Israel 
 rather depends on the thought that Israel, iu all its 
 functions, civil as well as religious, is Jehovah's people, 
 Jehovah's property (His vineyard, as he puts it iu chap, 
 v.), the immediate sphere of His personal interest and 
 activity. Thus the whole land of Judah, but more 
 especially Jerusalem, the centre of the state, is, as it 
 were, a great sanctuary, the holy mountain of Jehovah 
 (xi. 9), and within this holy mountain everytliing ought 
 to be ordered in conformity with His sanctity. The 
 requisites of ceremonial sanctity fall altogether into the 
 background ; the task of Israel as a holy nation is to 
 give praoticnl recognition to Jehovah's holiness — that is, 
 
LECT. V. OF HOLINESS. 229 
 
 to acknowledge and reverence His Godhead, in those 
 moral characters which distinguish Him from the idols 
 and false gods (viii. 13; xxix. 23). According to Isaiah, 
 " the knowledge and fear of Jehovah " (xi. 2) are the 
 summary requisites for the right ordering of the state of 
 Israel ; where these are supreme the conditions of Israel's 
 holiness are satisfied. The ideal condition of Jehovah's 
 holy mountain is one in which the earth is fuU of the 
 knowledge of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea (xi. 
 9). And, conversely, where these things are lacking, 
 where the homage due to Him is shared by idols, where 
 heathen divinations are looked to instead of " the reve- 
 lation and the testimony " of Jehovah (viii. 20), where 
 injustice and oppression flourish in defiance of the right- 
 eous king of Israel, the holiness of His people is 
 changed to uncleanness, and cannot be restored save by 
 fiery judgment purging away the filth of the daughters 
 of Zion and the bloodguUtiness of Jerusalem (iv. 3, 4). 
 
 It is easy to see that in this view of the religious 
 problem of his times, Isaiah builds on the foundations 
 laid by his predecessors Amos and Hosea. But his 
 treatment of the problem is more comprehensive and 
 all-sided. The preaching of Amos was directed only 
 to breaches of civil righteousness, and supplied no 
 standard for the reformation of national worship — it 
 left even the golden calves untouched. Hosea, on the 
 other hand, has a clear insight into the right moral 
 attitude of the religious subject to God ; but that sub- 
 ject is to him the personified nation, sinning and repent- 
 
230 THE TASK OF 
 
 ing as one man, and therefore he has no practical sug- 
 gestions applicable to the actual mixed state of society; 
 his prophecy leaves an unexplained hiatus between 
 Israel's present sin and its future return to Jehovah. 
 Isaiah, on the contrary, finds in Jehovah's holiness a 
 principle equally applicable to the amendment of the 
 state and the elevation of religious praxis, an ideal 
 which supplies an immediate impulse to reformation, 
 and which, though it cannot be fuUy attained without 
 the intervention of purging judgments, may at least 
 become the practical guide of those within Israel who 
 are striving after better things. In every question of 
 national conduct presented by the eventful times in 
 which he lived Isaiah was ready with clear decisive 
 counsel, for in every crisis Israel's one duty was 
 to concentrate itself on the task of shaping the internal 
 order of the state in conformity with the holy character 
 of Jehovah, and to trust the issue to His sovereignty. 
 
 In very truth the task of internal reform was more 
 than sufficient for one generation. The whole order of 
 the state was glaringly at variance with right concep- 
 tions of Jehovah; or, in the language now famUiar to us, 
 tlie actual life of the nation was not holy but unclean. 
 A strong sense of this uncleanness was the feeling which 
 sprang to the prophet's lips when he first saw the vision 
 of Jehovah's holiness — " Woe is me ! for I am undone ; 
 for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst 
 of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the 
 King, Jehovah of hosts." On the old ritual view of 
 
LF.CT. V. INTERNAL REFORM. 231 
 
 holiness there was fatal danger in contact with holy 
 things to any one ceremonially unclean. But the 
 impurity of which Isaiah speaks is impurity of lips — 
 that is, of utterance. In Hebrew idiom, a man's words 
 (deharl'm) include his purposes on the one hand, his 
 actions on the other, and thus impurity of lips means 
 inconsistency of purpose and action with the standard 
 of divine holiness. The prophet himself suppKes the 
 translation of his metaphor at iii. 8 — "Jerusalem is 
 ruined and Judah is fallen, for their tongue and their 
 doings are against Jehovah of hosts, to provoke the 
 eyes of His glory," and the expansion of this sen- 
 tence forms the main burden of his first great dis- 
 course to the house of Israel (chap. ii. sej.). There 
 is, however, a special reason why, in this vision, the 
 uncleanness of the people is particularised as un- 
 cleanness of lip. The vision is Isaiah's consecration as 
 Jehovah's messenger, and for the discharge of such a 
 function " pure lips " (Zeph. iii. 9) are necessary. But 
 Isaiah feels himself to be personally involved in the 
 impurity or unholiness of his people ; his own lips are 
 impure and unfit for personal converse with Jehovah. 
 And so the act of consecration is symbolically repre- 
 sented as the purging of his lips by contact with a glow- 
 ing stone taken from Jehovah's sacred hearth. " Lo, 
 this hath touched thy lips," says the ministering seraph, 
 " and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." 
 The form of this visionary transaction is suggested by 
 the old familiar symbolism of ceremonial holiness. Id 
 
232 P URIFICA TION 
 
 primitive religious thought, the idea of godhead is spe- 
 cially connected with that of fresh unfading life, and 
 the impurity or unholiness which must he kept aloof 
 from the sanctuary is associated with physical corrup- 
 tion and death. Fire and water, the pure and life-like 
 elements, man's chief aids in combating physical corrup- 
 tion, are the main agents in ceremonies of ritual sancti- 
 fication (Num. xxxi. 23 ; this passage belongs to the 
 later legislation, but the antiquity of the principle appears 
 from Josh. vi. 19, 24). But fire is a more searching prin- 
 ciple than water. Fiery brightness is of old the highest 
 symbol of Jehovah's holiness, and purification by fire 
 the most perfect image of the total destruction of im- 
 purity. To Isaiah, of course, the fire of Jehovah's 
 holiness is a mere symbol. That which cannot endure 
 the fire, which is burned up and consumed before it, is 
 moral impurity. " Wlio among us shall dwell with de- 
 vouring fire, who among us shall dwell with everlasting 
 burninfjs 1 He that walketh in righteousness and 
 speaketh uprightly, that shaketh his hands from hold- 
 ing of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of 
 blood [consenting to bloodshed], and shutteth his eyes 
 from beholding [delighting in] evil ; he shall dwell on 
 high ; his place of defence shall be the munitions of 
 rocks, his bread shall be given him, his water shall be 
 sure " (xxxiii. 14 seg). That which can endure the fire 
 is that which is fit to enter into communion with 
 Jehovah's holiness, and nothing which cannr/t stand this 
 test can abide in His sanctuary of Israel. Thus the fire 
 
LECT. V. BV FIRE. 233 
 
 which touches Isaiah's lips and consecrates him to pro- 
 phetic communion with God has its counterpart in the 
 fiery judgment through which impure Israel must pass 
 tUl only the holy seed, the vital and indestructible ele- 
 ments of right national life, remain. As silver is purified 
 by repeated smeltings, so the land of Judah must pass, 
 not once, but again and again through the fire. " Though 
 but a tenth remain in it, it must pass again through the 
 fire" (vi. 13), till all that remain in Zion are holy, " even 
 every one that is ordained to life in Jerusalem, when 
 Jehovah shall have washed away the filth of the 
 daughters of Zion, and purged the bloodshed of Jeru- 
 salem by the blast of judgment, and the blast of burning" 
 (iv. 4 seg'.). 
 
 That this is the law of Jehovah's holiness towards 
 Israel is revealed to the prophet as soon as his own lips 
 are purged. For the prophetic insight into Jehovah's 
 purpose is the insight of spiritual sympathy, and thus, 
 as soon as his sin is taken away and his own life pene- 
 trated by the power of the divine holiness, he who had 
 before heard only the awful voice of the seraphim shak- 
 ing the very threshold at which he stood, and filling his 
 heart with terror at the unendurable majesty of the 
 Most High, hears the voice of Jehovah Himself asking, 
 "Whom shaR I send, and who will go for us?" and replies 
 without fear, " Here am I; send me." But from the first 
 he is made to know that his mission cannot bear sudden 
 fruit, that no swift and superficial repentance can cor- 
 respond to Jehovah's plan. He is sent to men who shall 
 
234 EARLIER PROPHECIES lect. v, 
 
 be ever hearing, but never understand ; ever seeing 
 Jehovah's work, but never recognising its true import ; 
 whose heart (or intelligence) becomes more gross, their 
 ears more dull, their eyes veiled with thicker clouds of 
 spiritual blindness under the prophetic teaching, who 
 refuse to turn and receive healing from Jehovah till 
 cities lie waste without inhabitants, and houses with- 
 out inmates, and the land is changed to a desert by 
 invading foes. And yet Isaiah knows from the first that 
 this consuming judgment at the hand of the Assyrians 
 moves in the right line of Jehovah's purpose of holiness. 
 The axe is laid at the root of the tree, and the present 
 state, corrupt beyond the reach of partial remedies, 
 must be hewn to the ground. But the true life of Israel 
 cannot perish. " Like the terebinth and the oak, whose 
 stock remains when they are hewn down," and sends 
 forth new saplings, so " the holy seed " remains as a 
 living stock, and a new and better Israel shall spring 
 from the ruin of the ancient state. 
 
 Such are the first principles of Isaiah's teaching as 
 he presents them in describing his vision of consecra- 
 tion. Their development and application in his public 
 ministry must be reserved for another Lecture. 
 
I.ECT. VI. OF ISAIAH. 235 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 THE EARLIER PROPHECIES OP ISAIAH. 
 
 We found in last Lecture that the arrangement of the 
 extant collection of Isaiah's prophecies points to the 
 conclusion that the prophet, at different times in his 
 life, put forth several distinct volumes embodying the 
 sum of certain parts of his oral teaching. In the case 
 of Amos and Hosea it is not clear that anything of 
 this kind took place, and as regards Amos we may 
 take it as certain that his book was not written till his 
 whole message to Israel had been delivered and re- 
 jected. Isaiah, on the other hand, used the publication 
 of his past prophecies as an agency supplementing his 
 continued oral work. He was not left to the same 
 isolation as Amos and Hosea. At an early period of 
 his ministry we find him surrounded by a circle of dis- 
 ciples, to whom it would appear that his written pro- 
 phecies were in the first instance committed (viii. 16) ; 
 and in this way he was able to influence a wider 
 circle than he could have reached by mere oral preach- 
 ing. The adoption of this method of teaching by books^, 
 and even, it would seem, by placards fixed in some 
 
236 ISAIAH'S PROPHETIC lect. vi. 
 
 public place (viii. 1 ; xxx. 8)/ implies the existence of a 
 considerable reading public ; and it may be noticed, as 
 an interesting illustration of this fact, that the recently- 
 discovered inscription in the rock-cut tunnel of Siloam, 
 piobably dating from the lifetime of Isaiah, is no offi- 
 cial record, but seems to have been carved by the work- 
 men on their own account. Eeading and writing must 
 therefore have been pretty common accomplishments 
 (comp. Isa. xxix. 11 seq?), and the well-timed publi- 
 cation of connected selections of prophecy, disseminated 
 by the friends of Isaiah, had no doubt much to do with 
 the solid and extensive influence which he gradually 
 acquired. We must not suppose that Isaiah's publi- 
 cations were mere fly-sheets containing single oracles. 
 Each of them was manifestly a well-planned digest of 
 the substance of teaching which, in its first delivery, 
 may have occupied several years ; chaps, ii. - v., for 
 ex ample, with the connected passage ix. 8 to x. 4, cover 
 all the prophet's teaching before the war of 734, and 
 can hardly have been published till the outbreak of 
 that war, to the first stage of which some of the allu- 
 sions appear to point. The gravity of the crisis 
 made it natural for Isaiah to make a special effort to 
 lead his nation to form a just estimate of its religious 
 significance, and this he could best do by recalling in 
 summary form the substance of the lessons which year 
 after year he had been laying before them. A book 
 written in this way became something more than a 
 series of skeleton sermons : it took the shape of a pro- 
 
LECT. VI. PUBLICATIONS. 237 
 
 phetic commentary on the political events, tlie social 
 and religious phenomena, of a certain period of Judah's 
 history, in which predictive announcements were 
 mingled with historical retrospect. The peculiarities 
 of Hebrew grammar and prophetic style often make it 
 difficult to distinguish between narrative and predicr 
 tion, and the difficulty is increased by the fact that pre- 
 dictions referring to the near future were sometimes 
 fulfilled before they were set forth in a book. If the 
 highest object of the prophet had been to show that he 
 could foresee future events, he would no doubt have 
 been careful to draw a sharp line between the predic- 
 tive and retrospective parts of his writings ; but in 
 reality prediction was only one element in the work of 
 explaining to the nation what Jehovah's present deal- 
 ings meant, and how He desired them to be laid to 
 heart. It would have been mere pedantry to sacrifice 
 this object to that of recording each prediction exactly 
 as it was first made. When historical events had 
 thrown new light on auy part of the prophet's argu- 
 ment, he used that new light in its proper place, and 
 thus, on the whole, though many parts of Isa. ii.-v. are 
 no doubt in the main a good deal older than the com- 
 mencement of Ahaz's reign, we must take this section 
 of Isaiah's prophecies as practically representing the 
 stage to which his prophetic argument had advanced, 
 after a good many years of prophetic work, about the 
 beginning of the war with Pekah and Eezin, or, which 
 *o [he same thing, about the time of the accession of Ahaz. 
 
238 _ BEGINNING OF lect. vi. 
 
 The situation of the kingdom when this book ap- 
 peared is clearly described by the prophet in his per- 
 oration, but to the English reader the sense of this pas- 
 sage is somewhat obscured not only by the transposition 
 of ix. 8-x. 4 from its proper place, but by the inaccurate 
 translation of many of the tenses as futures instead of 
 perfects, so that the Authorised Version puts as predic- 
 tion statements which are really descriptive of the pre- 
 sent condition of affairs. To restore the order and the 
 ' sense we must read ix. 8 s&q^. immediately after v. 25, 
 so as to form a series of four strophes, describing in as- 
 cending series the evils that had already fallen on the 
 Hebrews, and each closing with the words, " For all this 
 His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched 
 out still." The final judgment therefore lies still in the 
 future, the Assyrians are the instruments destined to 
 accomplish it, and their approach is pictured in the pre- 
 dictive passage, v. 26-30, with which the book closes. 
 
 King Jotham, the last of a series of strong and 
 generally successful princes, had died at a critical 
 moment, when Pekah and Eezin were maturing their 
 plans against his kingdom. The opposing parties in 
 Northern Israel suspended their feuds to make common 
 cause against Judah (ix. 21), and the proud inhabitants 
 of Samaria hoped by this policy to more than restore 
 the prestige forfeited in previous years of calamity (ix. 
 9, 10). At the same time the Syrians began to operate 
 in the eastern dependencies of Judah, their aim being 
 to possess themselves of the harbour of Elath on the 
 
LECT. VI. THE REIGN OF AHAZ. 239 
 
 Eed Sea, while the Philistines attacked the Judseans in 
 the rear, and ravaged the fertile lowlands (ix. 12 ; 2 
 Kings xvi. 6). A heavy and sudden disaster had 
 already fallen on the Judsean arms, a defeat in which 
 head and tail, palm-branch and rush — that is, the highest 
 officers and the common multitude of the host — ^had been 
 mowed down in indiscriminate slaughter (ix. 14).^ 
 Ahaz was no fit leader in so critical a time ; his character 
 was petulant and childish, his policy was dictated in the 
 harem (iii. 12). Nor was the internal order of the state 
 calculated to inspire confidence. Wealth, indeed, had 
 greatly accumulated in the preceding time of prosperity, 
 but its distribution, as we saw in last Lecture, had been 
 such that it weakened rather than added strength to the 
 nation. The rich nobles were steeped in sensual luxury 
 (v. 11 s&q)), the Court was full of gallantry, and feminine 
 extravagance and vanity gave the tone to aristocratic 
 society (iii. 16 seg. ; comp. iii. 12, iv. 4), which, like the 
 TwbUsse of France on the eve of the Eevolution, was ab- 
 sorbed in gaiety and pleasure, while the masses were 
 ground down by oppression, and the cry of their dis- 
 tress filled the land (iii. 15 ; v. V). AU social bonds 
 were loosed in the universal reign of injustice, every 
 man was for himself and no man for his brother (ix. 19 
 sec[^. The subordination of classes was undermined 
 (iii. 4, 5), things were tending to a pass when ere long 
 none would be found willing to accept a post of autho- 
 rity, or to risk his own substance for the good of the 
 state (iii. 6 seq^. 
 
240 BEGINNING OF 
 
 We must not suppose that to ordinary political 
 observers at the time these internal wounds of the state 
 appeared so aggravated and so patent as Isaiah repre- 
 sents them. The best Oriental administrations permit 
 abuses which we would think intolera.ble, and in par- 
 ticular the wrongs and sufferings of the poor make little 
 noise, and find no ready access to the supreme seat ot 
 government. The attention of the rulers was doubtless 
 directed almost exclusively to the dangers that menaced 
 from without ; their schemes of deliverance took the 
 shape of warlike preparations, or were already turned 
 to the project of an alliance with Assyria. As yet they 
 saw no cause for despondency ; the accumulated re- 
 sources of the nation were not exhausted, and the cha- 
 racteristic Hebrew obstinacy, which in later times more 
 than once plunged the Jews into hopeless struggle with 
 irresistible antagonists, was backed up by false religious 
 confidence. The idols of which the land was full had 
 not lost their reputation ; Isaiah alone foresaw the 
 approach of the hour of despair when these vain de- 
 liverers should be confronted with stern realities (x. 10, 
 11), when the nations and their gods, from the Euphrates 
 to the Mediterranean, should go down before the brute 
 force of the Assyrian hosts, when men should cast their 
 idols to the moles and to the bats, before the terror of 
 Jehovah when He cometh to shake the earth (ii. 21). 
 To the mass of Israel, the contrast which Isaiah draws 
 b(!tween Jehovah and the idols did not exist ; the idols 
 themselves were associated with the sanctuaries of the 
 
i.ECT. VI. THE REIGN OF AHAZ. 241 
 
 national Deity, and men fancied, as the house of Eph- 
 raim fancied in the days of Amos, that Jehovah had no 
 part in the calamities that befell His land ; that though 
 He was inactive for the moment, He must soon interpose, 
 and could only interpose on behalf of Judah. But to 
 Isaiah, these supposed tokens of Jehovah's temporary 
 inactivity had quite an opposite sense : thej' proved that 
 the King of Israel had risen for judgment, and would no 
 longer pass by the sins of the state. "Jehovah setteth 
 Himself to plead, and standeth up to judge His people ; 
 Jehovah will enter into judgment with the elders of His 
 people, and the princes thereof, for ye, have eaten up the 
 vineyard, the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What 
 mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind 
 ihe faces of the poor ? saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts " 
 (iii. 13 seci). " The vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is 
 the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant 
 planting : and He looked for judgment, but behold blood- 
 shed ; for righteousness, but behold a cry " (v. 7). Once 
 and again does Isaiah expose the strange delusion which 
 could see no connection between the sins of the state 
 and the threatening conjunction of foreign powers, 
 the insensate conduct of the nobles who went on their 
 course of lawlessness and riot without turning their eyes 
 to the work of Jehovah or regarding the operation of 
 His hands (v. 12). The whole perceptions of these men 
 were radically perverted : they called evil good and good 
 evil, they put darkness for light and light for darkness, 
 bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter (v. 20). Far from 
 
242 JEHOVAH EXALTED lect. vi. 
 
 reading the lesson of Jehovah's displeasure, written so 
 plainly on the page of contemporary events, they longed 
 for His interposition as the cure for all their troubles. 
 " Let Him make speed," they said, " and hasten His work 
 that we may see it, and let the purpose of the Holy One 
 of Israel draw nigh that we may know it." Thus, in 
 their blindness to all moral distinctions and to all the 
 signs of the times, they went on courting destruction, 
 " drawing guilt upon themselves with the cords of their 
 vain policy, and sin as it were with a cart rope." In 
 their own conceit they were full of political wisdom 
 (v. 21), but they had no eyes for the cardinal truth 
 which Isaiah saw to outweigh every principle of earthly 
 politics — that Jehovah was the one dispenser of good 
 and evil to Israel, and that the law of His rule was the 
 law of holiness and righteousness ; " They had cast away 
 the revelation of Jehovah of hosts, and despised the 
 word of the Holy One of Israel " (v. 24). And now this 
 whole fabric of sin and self-delusion must perish in 
 a moment utterly, like chaff and stubble at the touch 
 of fire (v. 24). " Sheol [the under world] hath enlarged 
 its maw and opened its mouth without measure, and 
 her glory and her multitude and her pomp and the 
 joyous ones of Zion shall descend into it. And the 
 mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man 
 shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be 
 humbled. And Jehovah of hosts shall be exalted in 
 judgment, and the Holy God shall be sanctified in 
 righteousness " (v. 14 scj.). Jehovah shall be exalted, 
 
IN JUDGMENT. 243 
 
 for it is at His call that the messengers of destruction 
 ate hastening towards the doomed nation. Past and 
 present warnings have been alike despised. What 
 larael has already suffered has brought no fruit of re- 
 pentance, and Jehovah's wrath is still unappeased. And 
 now " He lifts up a standard to far nations and hisses to 
 them from the ends of the earth, and behold thej'^ come 
 with speed swiftly. None is weary, and none stumbleth 
 among them ; they slumber not nor sleep ; the girdle 
 of their loins is not loosed, nor the latchet of their shoe 
 broken. Their arrows are sharp, and all their bows 
 bent; their horses' hoofs are like the flint, and their 
 chariot wheels like the whirlwind. Their roar is like 
 the lioness, they roar like young lions, moaning and 
 seizing the prey and carrying it off safe, and none can 
 deliver." The roar of the lion marks the moment of his 
 spring, the sullen moaning that follows shows that the 
 prey is secured. Judah lies prostrate in the grasp of 
 the Assyrian, and over all the land no sound is heard 
 but the deep growl of brutal ferocity as he crouches over 
 the helpless victim. " In that day he shall moan over 
 Judah like the moaning of the sea, when the mariner 
 looks for land, but lo, darkness hems him in, and light 
 is turned to darkness by the clouds " (v. 26-30). 
 
 This picture of judgment, you observe, has all the 
 precision due to the fact that Isaiah is not describing 
 an unknown danger, but one very real and imminent — 
 the same danger which Amos had seen so clearly a 
 generation before. The intervention of Assyria in the 
 
244 JEHOVAH EXALTED lect. vi. 
 
 affairs of the Palestinian states could not in the nature 
 of things involve anything less than a complete dissolu- 
 tion of the old balance of power, and of the whole poli- 
 tical system. There was nothing in the circle of the 
 nations round about Judah which could offer successful 
 resistance to the well-directed force of a great and 
 disciplined martial power, and the smallest acquaint- 
 ance with the politics of Assyria was sufficient to prove 
 that the absorption of the Mediterranean seaboard by 
 that empire was only a question of time, and could in 
 no case be very remote. The politicians of Judah were 
 blinded to this truth by tlieir characteristic Semitic 
 vanity, by the truly Oriental indolence which refuses 
 to look beyond the moment, but above all by a false 
 religious confidence. The kind of Jehovah worship 
 which had not learned to separate the God of Israel 
 from idols, which left men to seek help from the work 
 of their own hands, was only possible to those who 
 knew as little about the world as about Clod. A just 
 estimate even of the natural factors of the world's history 
 would have shown them that the Assyrian was stronger 
 than the idols, though it needed a prophet's faith to 
 perceive that there was a God in Israel to whose com- 
 mands Assyria itself was constrained to yield uncon- 
 sciotis obedience. But, in truth, the leaders of Judah 
 dared not face the realities of a situation which broke 
 through all their established ideas, which offered no 
 prospect but despair. Isaiah had courage to see and 
 proclaim the truth, because he was assured that amidst 
 
IN JUDGMENT. 245 
 
 the crash of nations Jehovah's throne stood unmoved, 
 and He was exalted when all was abased. 
 
 The whole meaning of the impending crisis is 
 fiummed up by the prophet in a sentence already quoted : 
 'Jehovah of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and 
 the Holy God shall be sanctified in righteousness." 
 But to understand the scope ef the judgment, the plan 
 of the righteousness here spoken of, we must be on our 
 guard against taking these terms in such a technical 
 sense as they bear in modern theology.* When Isaiah 
 speaks of Jehovah's righteousness, he does so because 
 he thinks of Jehovah as the King of Israel, discharging 
 for His peojDle, either directly or through His human 
 vicegerent, all the ordinary functions of civil govern- 
 ment. Jehovah's righteousness is nothing else than 
 kingly righteousness in the ordinary sense of the word, 
 and its sphere is the sphere of His literal sovereignty — 
 that is, the land of Israel. Jehovah's great work of 
 judgment by the hand of the Assyrians has for its 
 object precisely the same things as a good and strong 
 human judge aims at — not the transformation of the 
 hearts of men, but tlie removal of injustice in the state, 
 the punishment of offenders, the re-establishment of 
 law and order, and the ultimate felicity of an obedient 
 nation. " I will again bring my hand upon thee," says 
 Jehovah, " smelting out thy dross as with lye, and 
 taking away aU thine alloy ; and I will make thy 
 judges to be again as aforetime, and thy counsellors as 
 at the beginning' ; thereafter thou shalt be called the 
 
246 SIN AND lect. vi. 
 
 city of righteousness, the faithful city" (i. 25, 26). No 
 doubt when Isaiah limits the divine purpose to the 
 restitution of Jerusalem as it had once been, we must 
 remember that the days of David were idealised in the 
 nation's memory. It is the virtues of ancient Jerusalem 
 that are to be reproduced without its long-forgotten 
 faults ; but for all that it is plain that the ideal is 
 simply a state perfectly well ordered — ^not a heavenly 
 state, in which every individual is free from all sin in 
 the New Testament sense of the word. It is such an 
 ideal as would be actually realised if the judges and 
 counsellors of the nation again were what they ought 
 to be in a land whose king is the Holy One of Israel.^ 
 
 The limitation of Isaiah's conception of the divine 
 judgment leads us at once to observe the corresponding 
 limitation in his use of the words sin, sinners, and the 
 like. Sin, as we have seen in a former Lecture (p. 102 
 j seq), is to the Hebrew any action that puts a man in the 
 wrong with one who has the power to make him rue it. 
 Sin against Jehovah, therefore, is such conduct as He 
 must take cognisance of in His quality of king and 
 supreme judge in Israel, not sin in the New Testament 
 sense, but on the one hand offences agaiust social 
 righteousness and equity, and on the other hand idol- 
 atry, which is the denial of Jehovah's true kingship. 
 Hence the prophet has no doctrine of universal sinful- 
 ness. The Israelites are divided into two classes — the 
 righteous, who have nothing to fear from Jehovah, and 
 the wicked, whom His presence fills with terror (xxxiii. 
 
i.ECT. VI. JUDGMENT. 247 
 
 14). Weal to the righteous, who shall eat the fruit of 
 their doings ; woe to the wicked, because the deserv- 
 ing of his hands shall be rendered to him — is the law of 
 Jehovah's justice (iii. 10, 11) ; and when it is executed 
 in all its fulness the ideal of His sovereignty is fully 
 realised. The redemption of Zion is conceived in the 
 same plain sense: "Zion shall be redeemed by judg- 
 ment, and those in her that return by righteousness " 
 (i. 27). The redemption is not the spiritual deliver- 
 ance of the individual but the deliverance of the state, 
 wliich can only be accomplished by purging out the 
 sinners and their sin, and bringing back the remnant of 
 tlie nation to obedience and right worship. If more 
 than this were meant there would be no truth in Isaiah's 
 representation of the fall of the might and independence 
 of tbe state before Assyria as the means of redemption. 
 But when we take the prophet's doctrine as he sets it 
 forth himself, without complicating it by importing 
 ideas from a later stage of revelation, the force of his 
 argument at once becomes plain. The first condition 
 of social reformation was the downfall of the corrupt 
 rulers. While they held the reins there could be 
 no hope of amendment, and in the approach of the 
 Assyrians Isaiah sees the appointed means to level their 
 pride and tyranny with the dust. And in like manner 
 the first condition of true worship and homage to 
 Jehovah was that men should recognise the nothingness 
 of the idols, which the Assyrians in all their campaigns 
 broke down or carried away captive. 
 
248 THE SPRING 
 
 Thus Isaiah looks forward without fear to the day 
 when all the might of Judah shall be brought low, 
 when great and fair houses shall be without inhabitant 
 (v. 9), when wandering shepherds shall range at will 
 over the rich corn-land and fertile vineyards of Judah 
 (v. 17). He does so because Jehovah rules as Israel's 
 king in the midst of judgment, and rules in grace for 
 the remnant of Israel (iv. 2). In the day of utmost 
 distress, when the land is shorn of all the artificial 
 glories of man's making, "the spring of Jehovah* shall 
 be the beauty and the wealth, the fnrit of the land shall 
 be the pride and the ornament of them that are escaped 
 of Israel " (iv. 2). Once more, as in the old days, the 
 Hebrews shall recognise the fruits of the land of Canaan, 
 the simple blessings of agricultural life, as the best 
 tokens of Jehovah's goodness, the best basis of a happy 
 and God-fearing life, and shall cease to regret the lost 
 splendours of the time when the land was full of silver 
 and gold, of horses and chariots, and all the apparatus 
 of human luxury and grandeur. All that remain in 
 Zion shall be holy, for the filth of the daughters of Zion 
 and the blood-guiltiness of Jerusalem have been purged 
 away by the fiery blast of judgment. Jehovah Himself 
 shall overshadow His people, protecting them from all 
 ill. His glory, manifested in smoke and cloud by day, 
 in flaming fire by night, shall rest like a canopy over 
 Mount Zion. He shall be their shadow by daytime 
 from the heat, their hiding-place and covert from storm 
 and from rain (iv. 3 se^.). 
 
OF JEHOVAH. 249 
 
 The picture of Israel's restoration, we observe, 
 has none of that full precision of detail with which 
 the prophet describes the present, or delineates the 
 approaching judgment. The method of Jehovah's 
 ideal government is as yet all vague; the grand but 
 undefined image of overshadowing glory expresses no 
 more than the constant presence and all-sufficient 
 help of the King of Israel. And this is the law of 
 all prophecy. It is a great fallacy to suppose that 
 the seers of Israel looked into the far future with the 
 same clear perception of detail which belongs to their 
 contemplation of present events. The substance of 
 Messianic prophecy is ideal, not literal ; the business 
 of the prophet is not to anticipate history, but to sig- 
 nalise the principles of divine grace which rule the 
 future, because they are eternal as Jehovah's purpose. 
 True faith asks nothing more than this : it is only un- 
 belief that inquires after times and seasons, that claims 
 to know not only what Jehovah's purpose is as it bears 
 on the practical questions of the present, but how it 
 will shape itself to needs and circumstances stiU re- 
 mote. The law of prophetic revelation is that already 
 laid down by Amos ; the Lord Jehovah does nothing 
 without revealing His secret to His servants the prophets. 
 He deals with them as a prudent king does with a 
 trusty counsellor. He never leaves them in the dark 
 as to the scope and meaning of His present action, and 
 He opens the future as far as is requisite to this end, 
 but not further. 
 
 12 
 
250 THE WAR WITH lect. vi. 
 
 The vain confidence of the rulers of Judah described 
 by Isaiah in his first prophetic book, was rudely shaken 
 by the progress of the war with Pekah and Eezin. 
 " It was told the house of David, saying, Syria is con- 
 federate ^ with Damascus. And the heart of the king 
 and the hearts of his people were moved as the trees of 
 the wood are moved by the wind " (vii. 2). The plan 
 of the confederates was directed to the entire destruc- 
 tion of the Davidic dynasty, and a new king of Judali 
 had already been selected in the person of a certain 
 " son of Tabeel " (vii. 6). The allies obtained important 
 successes, the Syrians in particular making themselves 
 masters of the port of Elath. But an attempt to talce 
 Jerusalem failed, and though Ahaz was hard pressed on 
 every side, his position could not be called desperatu 
 while he still held the strongest fortress of Palestint\ 
 On the part of the king and his princes, however, un- 
 reasoning confidence had given place to equally unrea- 
 soning panic. They saw only one way of escape, namely, 
 to throw themselves on the protection of Assyria. They 
 were well aware that the only conditions on which this 
 protection would be vouchsafed were acceptance of the 
 Assyrian suzerainty with the payment of a huge tribute, 
 and an embassy was despatched laden with all tlie 
 treasures of the palace and the temple, to announce 
 that the king of Judah regarded himself as " the servant 
 and the son " of Tiglath Pileser (2 Kings xvj. 7 se^.). 
 The ambassadors had no difficulty in attaining their 
 object, which perfectly fell in with the schemes of the 
 
LECT. VI. PEKAH AND REZIN. 251 
 
 Great King. The invincible army was set in motion, 
 Damascus was taken and its inhabitants led captive, 
 and Gilead and Galilee suffered the same fate. At 
 Damascus Tiglath Pileser received the personal homage 
 of Ahaz, whose frivolous character was so little capable 
 of appreciating the dangers involved in his new obliga- 
 tions that he returned to Jerusalem with his head full of 
 the artistic and religious curiosities he had seen on his 
 journey. In a national crisis of the first magnitude he 
 found no more pressing concern than the erection of a 
 new altar in the temple on a pattern brought from 
 Damascus (2 Kings xvi. 10 seg). The sundial of Ahaz 
 (2 Kings XX. 11), and an erection on the roof of the 
 temple, with altars apparently designed for the worship 
 of the host of heaven (2 Kings xxiii. 12),^ were works 
 equally characteristic of the trifling and superstitious 
 virtuoso, who imagined that the introduction of a few 
 foreign novelties gave lustre to a reign which had fooled 
 away the independence of Judah, and sought a moment- 
 ary deliverance by accepting a service the burden of 
 which was fast becoming intolerable. The Assyrians 
 had no regard to the welfare of their vassals. The prin- 
 ciple of the monarchy was plunder ; and Ahaz, whose 
 treasures had been exhausted by his first tribute, was 
 soon driven by the repeated demands of his masters to 
 strip the temple even of its ancient bronze-work and other 
 fixed ornaments (2 Kings xvi. 17 seq.). The incidental 
 mention of this fact in a fragment of the history of the 
 temple incorporated in the book of Kings is sufficient 
 
252 A TTITUDE lect. \i, 
 
 indication of the straits to which the Kingdom of Judah 
 was reduced. The time was not far off when the rapa- 
 city of the Assyrian could no longer be satisfied, and his 
 plundering hordes would be let loose upon the land. 
 
 At the moment when Ahaz and his panic-stricken 
 counsellors were framing the desperate resolution of 
 entrusting the state to the tender mercies of the Great 
 King, Isaiah was the only man in Judah who retained 
 his composure and his faith. He had long foreseen that 
 judgment was inevitable, and he knew that the disasters 
 of the Syro-Ephraitic war were only the prelude of a 
 greater catastrophe in which the scourge of Assyria 
 must fall on Judah and Ephraim alike. He had pro- 
 claimed these truths when no one else perceived the 
 danger, and the publication of the first volume of his 
 prophecies was almost coincident with the sudden 
 collapse of national confidence. But to Isaiah the 
 downfall of the sinners of Judah was not more certain 
 than the indestructibility of the holy seed, the deliver- 
 ance of those who were ordained to life in Jerusalem. In 
 the moment of panic it was this side of prophetic truth 
 that asserted its supremacy, and it did so in the form of 
 absolute assurance that the scheme of Pekah and Eezin, 
 which aimed at nothing less than the dissolution of the 
 Judsean monarchy, could not succeed. " Take heed," 
 he said to Ahaz, " and be still ; fear not because of these 
 two smoking ends of firebrands, in the hot rage of Eezin 
 with Syria and the son of Eemaliah. -"Whereas they 
 plot mischief against thee, saying, Let us go up against 
 
LFCT. VI. OF ISAIAH. 253 
 
 Judah, and strike terror into it, and conquer it for 
 ourselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king in it ; 
 thus saith the Lord Jehovah, It shall not stand, and it 
 shall not come to pass. For the head of Syria is 
 Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Eezin, and the 
 head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria 
 is the son of Eemaliah. If ye will not believe, ye shall 
 not be established " (vii. 4-9). 
 
 In translating this prophecy I follow the best recent 
 commentators in rejecting as irrelevant the clause which 
 in the Hebrew text stands at the end of verse 8, breaking 
 the parallelism and weakening the force of the contemp- 
 tuous allusion to Eezin and Pekah. The historical 
 reference of the interpolated clause has become clear to 
 us from the Assyrian monuments. When the Kingdom 
 of Ephraim fell before Shalmaneser and Sargon, the 
 Assyrians set up a vassal kingdom in Samaria (supra, 
 p. 153), which is mentioned on the monuments for the 
 last time a little less than sixty-five years after the date 
 of Isaiah's prophecy to Ahaz. After that time we find 
 the district of Samaria administered by an Assyrian pre- 
 fect. It is plain that a reference to this change — which 
 had no bearing on the fortunes of Judah or the history 
 of Israel's religion — is quite out of place in the prophet's 
 argument ; it could afford no ground for his confidence, 
 no consolation to Ahaz's fears. When Isaiah bids 
 Ahaz consider that the whole strength of his enemies 
 has ho better front than the two half- consumed and 
 smouldering firebrands, Pekah and Eezin, and then adds, 
 
254 ISAIAH AS 
 
 " If ye will not have faith ye shall not be established," 
 he plainly contrasts the mere human leaders of Ephraim. 
 and Damascus with the strength of Jehovah, the King of 
 Israel. The same thought recurs at viii. 12, "Speak 
 not of conspiracy [or formidable alliance] when this 
 people speaks of conspiracy ; and fear not what they 
 fear, neither be ye afraid. Sanctify Jehovah of hosts, 
 and let Him be your fear and let Him be your dread." 
 
 * 
 
 The strength of Judah lies in its divine king, against 
 whom man can do nothing ; and lack of faith in Him 
 can alone imperil the continuance of the state. 
 
 The delivery of this divine message to Ahaz marks 
 an epoch in the work of Isaiah and in the history of 
 Old Testament prophecy. In it Isaiah first appears as 
 a practical statesman, no longer speaking of sin, judg- 
 ment, and deliverance in broad general terms, but 
 approaching the rulers of the state with a precise 
 direction as to the course they should hold in a par- 
 ticular political juncture. The older prophets of Israel 
 down to the time of Amos were habitually consulted on 
 affairs of state. In all matters of difficult decision " the 
 mouth of Jehovah " was appealed to ; it was not doubted 
 that He was with His people, that the cause of Jehovah 
 was the cause of the nation, and that He was ever ready 
 with prophetic counsel when man's wisdom failed. The 
 influence of a great prophet like Elisha was therefore 
 an influence directly political ; in the period of the 
 Syrian wars Elislia was the very soul of the struggle 
 for independence. Jehovah and His people were still 
 
i.FXT. VI. A STATESMAN. 255 
 
 allied in a common cause, and the word of the prophet 
 was accepted and obeyed accordingly. The doctrine of 
 Amos and Hosea broke through the ancient faith in the 
 unity of Jehovah's will with the immediate political 
 interests of the nation. As the God of righteousness, 
 they taught, Jehovah had nothing but chastisement to 
 offer to an unrighteous nation ; as a God of holy and 
 jealous love He could not accord the privileges of a 
 true spouse to a faithless people. The cause of Jehovah 
 was for the present entirely divorced from the interests 
 of Israel's political prosperity ; the sinners of His people 
 must be destroyed, or, on Hosea's view, Israel must pass 
 through a moral resurrection before the union of the 
 God with His nation could be restored and the felicity 
 of the Hebrew state again become the central object of 
 Jehovah's solicitude. The picture of a nation victorious 
 and happy in Jehovah, which in the Blessing of Moses 
 appears as realised, or at least in the course of realisa- 
 tion, in the events of present history, becomes to Amos 
 and Hosea an ideal of the future, between which and 
 the sin and misery of the present there yawns a great 
 gulf, bridged over only by faith in the ultimate victory 
 of righteousness and love. The breach between Jehovah 
 and His people brings with it the suspension of prophetic 
 guidance in the present difficulties of the state. The 
 new prophecy has no counsel or comfort to offer to the 
 corrupt rulers, whom Jehovah has not appointed and 
 whose acts He does not recognise. When the people go 
 with their flocks and herds to seek Jehovah they shall 
 
256 CONTINUITY OF lect. vi. 
 
 not find Him, He hath withdrawn Himself from them 
 (Hosea v. 6). In the day of judgment "they shall 
 wander from sea to sea, and run to and fro from north 
 to south to seek the word of Jehovah, hut they shall 
 not find it" (Amos viii. 11 seg). There were still pro- 
 phets enough in Israel and in Judah who were ready 
 with pretended divine counsel, but the prophets of the 
 new spiritual school do not recognise them ; they are not 
 true prophets but diviners (Micah iii.). The dissever- 
 ance of true prophecy from the political questions of 
 the day is absolute ; the faith that looks forward to a 
 future redemption casts no light upon the affairs of the 
 present ; of them it can only be said that Jehovah has 
 rejected His people (Isa. ii. 6), and that the cup of judg- 
 ment must be filled up before brighter days dawn. 
 
 The position of Amos and Hosea is also the position 
 of Isaiah in the prophecies that precede the campaign 
 of Pekah and Eezin. Like his predecessors, he speaks 
 both of mercy aud of judgment ; but the vision of judg- 
 ment fills the immediate horizon, the picture of mercy 
 lies all in the future, and its purely ideal outlines stand 
 in the sharpest contrast with the historical realities of 
 the present. The assurance of Israel's redemption rests 
 on an act of pure faith ; there is nothing to bear it out 
 in Jehovah's present relations to His people. The work 
 of mercy is not yet seen to be going on side by side 
 with the work of judgment. 
 
 This complete dissociation of the two sides of 
 Jehovah's dealings with Israel belongs, it is plain, 
 
LECT. VI. JEHOVAH'S WORK. 257 
 
 to the fragmentary and imperfect character which in 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews is attributed to all Old 
 Testament prophecy. There is a want of unity in the 
 prophetic argument. When we are told by Amos that 
 the overthrow of the Hebrew state by the Assyrians 
 has for its purpose the destruction of the sinners of 
 Jehovah's people, iu order that the righteous may 
 remain and form a new and better Israel, we naturally 
 ask how this separation of the righteous from the wicked 
 can be effected in accordance with the ordinary laws of 
 history. Or when Hosea predicts that the remnant of 
 Israel scattered in Egypt and Assyria shall hear and 
 answer the call of Jehovah in the day of restoration, 
 the question forces itself upon us how that measure of 
 the knowledge of Jehovah which the possibility of such 
 a return implies can be kept alive in the midst of exile. 
 To such questions Amos and Hosea supply no answer ; 
 they never tell us how the work of judgment is to be 
 limited in order that the subsequent redemption may 
 remain an historical possibility. And yet it is plain 
 that there must be a continuity in Jehovah's work, and 
 that in the midst of judgment the course of events must 
 be so shaped as to give a basis and starting-point for 
 the future work of grace. Provision nmst be made for 
 the unbroken preservation of God's cause in Israel. 
 The new Israel has its roots in the old ; the new work 
 of grace rests on the same principles with the great 
 things which Jehovah did for His people in the past, 
 and the work of judgment cannot sever this connection. 
 
258 CONTINUITY OF lect. vi. 
 
 It is this principle which comes to the front in that 
 second great group of Isaiah's prophecies to which chap, 
 vi. serves as a preface, and which contains in chaps, vii.- 
 ix. 7 the summary account of his teaching in the crisis 
 of the Syro-Ephraitic war. The question which Isaiah 
 proposes in vi. 11 is the key-note of this teaching. 
 What are the limits prescribed to the impending judg- 
 ment by the purpose that underlies it ? The certainty 
 of Jehovah's plan of grace involves the certainty that 
 He will preserve to Judah in the coming disaster all 
 that is necessary to make its realisation a practical 
 possibility, and in this certainty the limits and measure 
 of the judgment are prescribed. Hence the funda- 
 mental thesis expressed in vi. 13 ; the stock of the 
 people of Jehovah is imperishable, the holy seed retains 
 its vitality through all the work of judgment. In other 
 words, the community of God's grace in Israel can never 
 be extinguished. Within the corrupt mass of Judah 
 there ever remains a seed of true life, a precious 
 remnant, the preservation of which is certain. Beyond 
 this the prophet sets no limit to the severity of the 
 troubles through which tlie land must pass. In the 
 first years of Isaiah's ministry this principle seemed to 
 slumber ; it was not wholly forgotten, for in chap. iv. it 
 is the remnant ordained to life in Jerusalem that appears 
 as constituting the commonwealth of the redeemed in 
 the final glory ; but it is not brought into practical con- 
 nection with the events of the present. But in the day 
 of Judah's calamity, when kings and princes trembled 
 
LECT. VI. JEHOVAH'S WORK. 259 
 
 for the endurance of the state, the doctrine of the 
 remnant became immediately practical in the prophetic 
 argument that, because the community of Jehovah is inde- 
 structible, the state of Judah and the kingdom of the house 
 of David cannot be utterly overthrown. 
 
 "We shall best understand the bearings of this pro- 
 position, and the validity of the argument on which 
 it rests, by comparing it with the prophecy of total 
 captivity made by Jeremiah a century later. Both 
 prophets start from the same inflexible conviction of 
 the sovereignty of Jehovah's purpose ; both are per- 
 suaded that the sphere of that purpose is the nation of 
 Israel, and its goal the establishment in the land of 
 Canaan of a nation conformed to Jehovah's holiness. 
 But at this point the teacliing of the two prophets 
 diverges. Isaiah is convinced that the dissolution of 
 the political existence of Judah is inconsistent with the 
 accomplishment of the divine purpose. Jeremiah, on 
 the other hand, regards the temporary suspension of the 
 national existence in the land of Canaan as the neces- 
 sary path to the future glory. According to Isaiah, the 
 holy seed must remain rooted in Canaan, and must 
 remain under the headship of the house of David. 
 According to Jeremiah, Jerusalem and the cities of 
 Judah shall be desolate, without inhabitant, and the 
 kingdom of the house of David shall come to an end, 
 not for ever, but till the day when Jehovah again 
 gathers His captives. Each prophet was borne out by 
 the events of the immediate future. Isaiah continued 
 
260 ISAIAH AND lect. vi. 
 
 to affirm the inviolability of Jerusalem through all the 
 dangers of the Assyrian invasion, and the event justified 
 his confidence. Jeremiah foretold the captivity of 
 Jerusalem, and Nebuchadnezzar accomplished his pre- 
 diction. But we should do little justice to the sacred 
 wisdom of the prophets if we regarded the fulfilment 
 of their predictions as relieving us from all further 
 inquiry into the reason why they took such widely 
 divergent views of the method of Jehovah's sovereignty. 
 When we look at Isaiah's prophecies more closely we 
 see that in every one of them he directly connects the 
 Assyrian judgment with the inbringing of the final 
 glory. The maintenance of the continuity of Judah's 
 political existence appears to him the necessary con- 
 dition of the future redemption. To Jeremiah this 
 necessity no longer exists ; to him it appears possible, 
 while to Isaiah it seems impossible, that the religion of 
 Jehovah can survive the faU of the state. This differ- 
 ence of view is not arbitrary, and is iiot to be referred 
 to an unintelligible secret of divine providence ; it rests 
 on a difference in the religious condition of Israel at the 
 times of the two prophets. 
 
 We have already seen, in speaking of the fall of 
 Northern Israel {mpra,^. 154), how the history of the Ten 
 Tribes, after the fall of Samaria, proves that the religion 
 of Jehovah, as it existed in Ephraim in the eighth cen- 
 tury, was not able to survive in exile from the land of 
 Canaan. The continued existence of a religion implies 
 the maintenance of a religious community, united by 
 
LECT. VI. JEREMIAH. 261 
 
 acts of worship, and handing down the knowledge of 
 God from father to son by inculcation not only of reli- 
 gious doctrine but of religious praxis. At the time 
 when Samaria fell these conditions could not be ful- 
 filled beyond the limits of the land of Canaan. Hosea 
 expressly states that all religious observances were 
 necessarily suspended in the exile of Israel. The feasts, 
 the sacrifices, and all the other recognised elements of 
 the worship of Jehovah demanded access to the sanc- 
 tuary. When this was denied the whole life of the 
 nation became unclean (Hosea ix. 3 scg^ ; and Israel 
 was divorced from Jehovah (chap. iii.). The relapse of 
 the Ten Tribes into heathenism was the inevitable con- 
 sequence of their exile ; nay, even the remnant that 
 remained in Canaan was unable to maintain any con- 
 sistent tradition of Jehovah worship in the dissolution 
 of the independent monarchy, which had till then been 
 universally regarded as the visible representation of Jeho- 
 vah's sovereignty. The national religion of Judah was 
 not more advanced than that of Ephraim. There, also, 
 the ideas of the state and the religious community were 
 inseparable ; and, though isolated prophets could see that 
 the elements of religion were independent of the tradi- 
 tional sanctuaries and their ritual, there was no com- 
 munity of men confirmed in these ideas, who could have 
 held together in captivity, and nurtured their faith in 
 Jehovah by spiritual exercises, unsupported by those 
 visible ordinances which demanded regular access to 
 the holy places of Canaan. In Judah as in Ephraim 
 
262 ISAIAH AND lect. vi. 
 
 captivity and the dissolution of the state could have 
 meant nothing else than relapse into heathenism, and 
 the total obliteration of faith in Jehovah's kingship. In 
 the time of Jeremiah all this was changed, and changed 
 mainly by the virork in which Isaiah was the chief in- 
 strument. The abolition of the provincial high places 
 had taught religion to dispense with constant oppor- 
 tunity of access to the sanctuary ; the formation of a 
 consolidated prophetic party, which was the great work 
 of Isaiah's life, provided a community of true faith able 
 to hold together even in times of persecution, and con- 
 scious that its religion rested on a different basis from 
 that of the idolatrous masses ; and the accumulation of 
 a sacred literature, of which only the iirst beginnings 
 existed when Isaiah rose, kept the knowledge of Jehovah 
 alive in the Exile, supplied materials for religious in- 
 struction, and permitted the development of the syna- 
 gogue service, in which the captives found opportunity 
 for those visible acts of united worship without which 
 no religion can subsist. Thus the faith of Jehovah sur- 
 vived the Exile, and was handed down from father to 
 son in the Chaldaean dispersion in a waytliat would 
 have been impossible in the Assyrian period ; and so we 
 see that Isaiah and Jeremiah measured the conditions, 
 each of his own time, with equal accuracy, when the 
 older prophet taught that the preservation of the com- 
 munity of Jehovah's religion^ involved the preservation 
 of the Judaean state, and his successor looked forward 
 to captivity as the only means of liberating the true 
 
LECT. VI. JEREMIAH. 263 
 
 faith from entanglement with a merely political Jehovah- 
 worship. 
 
 I have asked you to consider the bearings of Isaiah's 
 doctrine of the indestructibility of the Jewish state in 
 the light of later history and prophecy, because in this 
 way we not only see why the doctrine was true and 
 necessary in the prophet's own time, but also learn that, 
 as the divine purpose moved onwards, the community 
 of grace came to ^exist under new conditions, which 
 made the preservation of the kingdom of Judah no 
 longer a matter of religious necessity, or, in other words, 
 no longer a matter of faith. This, however, is a view of 
 the case which goes beyond what was revealed to Isaiah. 
 His faith in the preservation of Jerusalem and the 
 Davidic kingdom amidst the troubles of the Syrian and 
 Assyrian wars was not the special application of a 
 general principle of religious truth, which he had grasped, 
 and was able to express, in a form independent of the 
 concrete circumstances of his age and nation. The pro- 
 phets, as we have once and again had occasion to 
 observe, saw only individual aspects and particular 
 phases of divine truth ; they apprehended the laws of 
 Jehovah's dealings with men, not in their universal 
 form, but in the particular shape applicable to present 
 circumstances ; and therefore they were altogether un- 
 conscious of the limitations of the principles of faith 
 which they proclaimed. When we should say that, in 
 order to preserve alive the knowledge and fear of the 
 true God and maintain the continuity of Jehovah's pur- 
 
264 ISAIAH AND THE lect. vi. 
 
 pose on earth, it was necessary that the kingdom of 
 Judah should be saved through the Assyrian troubles, 
 till the spiritual preaching of the prophets had formed 
 a society within Israel in which true religion could be 
 preserved even in exile, Isaiah says simply and with- 
 out limitation that the sphere of Jehovah's purpose and 
 the Kingdom of Judah are identical. Jehovah sits as 
 King in Zion (viii. 18). His supreme purpose is to 
 remodel the kingdom of Judah as a holy kingdom, and 
 He will not suffer the hostile efforts of any nation to 
 impede the development of this design. This view is 
 altogether remote from the theory of the popular religion 
 that the political interests of Israel and the interests 
 of Jehovah's kingdom are always identical, that the 
 mere fact that Jehovah is Israel's God secures His 
 help in every emergency. On the contrary, all the evils 
 that have befallen and are still to befall the state are 
 Jehovah's work, but amidst these it remains true that 
 Jehovah has a purpose of grace towards His nation, and 
 that He will not suffer the enemies whose attacks He 
 himself directs to do anything inconsistent with that 
 purpose. And therefore the first duty of the rulers of 
 Jadah is to make no vain attempt to resist Jehovah's 
 chastisement, but to submit to it with patience, and in 
 the faith that He will bring the troubles of the nation 
 to an end in His own way and in His own good 
 time. The true policy of Judah is " to take heed 
 and be quiet" (vii. 4). The safety of the kingdom 
 depends on the maintenance of an attitude of faith ; 
 
LECT. VI. ASSYRIAN ALLIANCE. 205 
 
 " If ye will uot have faith, ye shall not endure " 
 (vii. 9). 
 
 The chief practical object of Isaiah at this time was 
 to prevent the scheme of alliance with Assyria. He 
 saw plainly that Assyria was the real danger to all the 
 Palestinian states ; Damascus and Ephraim were mere 
 smouldering firebrands. Confident upon grounds of 
 faith that their immediate enterprise could not lead to 
 the dissolution of the Judsean Kingdom, Isaiah also saw 
 that Pekah and Eezin were not likely to trouble Judah 
 in the future. It was indeed as clear as day that the 
 Assyrians would not suffer extensive schemes of con- 
 quest to be carried on by their own rebellious vassals. 
 If Ahaz had not called in the aid of Tiglath Pileser, his 
 own interests would soon have compelled the Assyrian 
 to strike at Damascus ; and so, if the Judsean king had 
 had faith to accept the prophet's assurance that the im- 
 mediate danger could not prove fatal, he would have 
 reaped all the advantages of the Assyrian alliance with- 
 out finding himself in the perilous position of a vassal to 
 the robber empire. As yet the schemes of Assyria hardly 
 reached as far as Southern Palestine. Even Pekah was 
 left upon his throne when Damascus was led captive, 
 and so, if Isaiah had been followed, Judah would at all 
 events have had twelve years of respite before she met 
 Assyria face to face ; and what might not have been 
 accomplished in these years in a nation once more 
 obedient to the prophetic word ? The advice of Isaiah, 
 therefore, displayed no less political sagacity than eleva- 
 
266 ISAIAH AND THE lect. vi. 
 
 tion of faith ; but it could not approve itself to a king 
 who had neither courage nor faith to accept the pro- 
 phet's assurance that Jehovah would secure the defeat 
 of Pekah and Eezin without the aid of the politicians of 
 Judah. In vain did Isaiah seek to convey to the pusill- 
 animous monarch some part of his own confidence by 
 encouraging him to ask from Jehovah a sign or pledge 
 of His help. Ahaz would ask nothing ; he would not 
 put Jehovah to the proof (vii. 12). The Assyrian alli- 
 ance was finally determined on, and Judah was at 
 once hopelessly involved in the toils of the empire of 
 the Tigris. 
 
 Isaiah received the refusal of Ahaz as the loss of a 
 great opportunity, a deliberate thwarting of Jehovah's 
 counsel. The house of David, he says, are not content 
 to try the patience of man by their silly obstinacy ; they 
 must, forsooth, try God's patience too. The phrase is 
 characteristic of the intense realism with which he con- 
 ceived the religious situation. Never for a moment 
 doubting the final execution of Jehovah's purpose, he 
 yet saw quite clearly that that purpose must be realised 
 along the lines of the historical movement of the time, 
 and that the conduct of Ahaz interposed a new difficulty, 
 and must of necessity lead to new and perilous compli- 
 cations. The first result of the Assyrian intervention 
 must be the fall of Pekah and Eezin, and this could 
 not be delayed more than two or three years. Before a 
 child born in the following spring was of age to say, 
 " My father," and " My mother," or to distinguish good 
 
LECT. VI. ASSYRIAN ALLIANCE. 267 
 
 and evil (vii. 16 ; viii. 4), the land whose two kings had 
 filled Ahaz with terror should be forsaken, the riches of 
 Damascus and the spoil of Samaria should be taken away 
 before the king of Assyria. And then Judah's turn 
 must come. " Jehovah shall bring upon thee and upon 
 thy father's house such days as have not been since the 
 time when Ephraim broke off from Judah" (vii. 17). 
 For with the fall of Northern Israel, and the acceptance 
 by Judah of the position of a vassal, the last barrier 
 interposed between the empires of the Tigris and the 
 Nile would have disappeared. A prolonged conflict 
 must ensue between the two great powers, and their 
 hosts shall swarm over the land of Judah like clouds of 
 noxious insects (vii. 18 seq.), and lay the whole country 
 utterly waste. The strongholds of Judah shall lie in 
 ruins like the old hill-forts of the Amorites after the 
 Hebrew conquest (xvii. 9).'' Even the operations of 
 agriculture shall become impossible : briers and thorns 
 shall cover the whole face of the land, and the fair hill- 
 sides now crowned with terraced vineyards or blooming 
 under careful tUlage shall fall back into jungle, where 
 sheep and oxen roam unchecked, where no human foot 
 penetrates save that of the archer pursuing the gazelle 
 or the mountain partridge. Bread shall be hardly 
 known to the scanty remnant of the Judseans (vii. 22), 
 honey and sour milk shall be the chief articles of diet, 
 and human life shall be reduced to its most primitive 
 elements.® 
 
 Thus far Isaiah does no more than describe the 
 
2G8 RESULTS OF THE lect. vi. 
 
 natural consequences of Ahaz's foolish policy. His 
 anticipations of evil show a clear appreciation of the 
 dangers of the situation ; hut they are of the nature of 
 a shrewd political forecast rather than of exceptional 
 prediction, and as the future actually shaped itself his 
 worst anticipations were not realised. The fall of 
 Samaria did not come so soon as he expected (viii. 4), 
 the conflict of Assyria and Egypt was deferred, and 
 when it actually took place, thirty years later, the field 
 of battle was in the extreme south of Palestine, and 
 more in Philistine than in Judsean territory. The land 
 suffered grievously from the armies which the Assyrian 
 directed against Egypt, but the distress never reached 
 the pitch which Isaiah feared. It is well to note these 
 facts, for they show us that the prophetic predictions, 
 even when they applied to the near future, were not 
 always fulfilled in that literal way for which some 
 theologians think it necessary to contend. And, as 
 Isaiah did not lose his credit as a true prophet when it 
 became plain 'that he had overstated the immediate 
 danger, we are justified in believing that, in the age 
 when prophecy was a living power, the hard-and-fast 
 rule of literal interpretation which is the basis of so 
 much modern speculation about the prophetic books 
 was not recognised. It was understood that the pro- 
 phets speak in broad poetically effective images, the 
 essential justice of which is not affected by the con- 
 sideration that they are not exactly reproduced in the 
 future, so long as they embody true principles and 
 
LECT. VI. ASSYRIAN ALLIANCE. 269 
 
 indicate right points of view for the direction of con- 
 duct. In the case before us the practical object of 
 Isaiah was to inspire new faith where aU trust in the 
 God of Israel seemed to be paralysed by terror. Ahaz 
 had refused to put Jehovah to the proof ; the oracles of 
 the sanctuary and the vulgar herd of prophets were 
 silent. Men knew no better counsel than to turn, as 
 Saul had done in the moment of his despair, to the 
 lowest forms of divination, to the peeping and mutter- 
 ing wizards, the ventriloquists who pretended to raise 
 the shades of the dead that they, forsooth, might give 
 help to the living. But to Isaiah it appeared that 
 Jehovah had never been more clearly manifested as the 
 living King of Israel. In the days of false prosperity 
 it could be said with truth that He had cast off His 
 people (ii. 6) ; then indeed there was no present token 
 of the sovereignty of the holy God in a nation where 
 everything that was inconsistent with His rule was 
 suffered to run its course unchecked. But now the 
 signs of Jehovah's presence and personal activity were 
 plain. He had risen to shake the earth, and the lethargy 
 that had so long covered the circle of Palestinian states 
 was dispelled. On all sides the nations were astir, 
 girding themselves for battle, knitting secret alliances, 
 forging plans of defence against the approach of the 
 Assyrian; and above all this turmoil Jehovah sat 
 supreme. As the might of the heathen went down 
 before the irresistible conqueror, as their plans were 
 broken and their proud words of confidence brought to 
 
270 IMMANUEL : 
 
 nought, each day made it more clear that there was no 
 god but the God of Israel. The religions of the world 
 were on their trial, and the verdict is pronounced by 
 Isaiah in the words, "With us is God" (Isa. viii. 10). 
 
 What is the evidence on which Isaiah bases this 
 verdict ? We are all, I suppose, more or less accustomed 
 to fancy that in Bible times the truths of religion 
 were brought home to men's minds by evidence of a 
 more tangible kind than in the present day. The 
 ordinary method of dealing with the historical evidences 
 of Christianity encourages the notion that the most 
 serious difficulty of belief lies in the fact that we are 
 separated by so many centuries from the time when 
 God actually proved Himself a living God and the God 
 of salvation ; and we fancy that, if we had lived in the 
 days of the prophets and seen with onr own eyes the 
 things that Jehovah wrought then, it would have been 
 easy to believe, or rather impossible not to do so, be- 
 cause the supernatural in those days was as palpable to 
 the senses as natural phenomena are now. An examina- 
 tion of the grounds which led Isaiah to declare that God 
 was with Israel shows how erroneous this idea is. The 
 events that gave him assurance of a present God were 
 the same events that filled Ahaz with despair. It was 
 indeed abundantly clear that the gods of the nations 
 were naught, for none of them could save his worshippers 
 from the Assyrian. But where was the proof that Israel 
 was in a better case ? The men of Judah might well 
 say, as Gideon had said in the days of Midianite oppres- 
 
LECT. VI. « WITH us IS god:' 271 
 
 sion, "If Jehovah be with us, why then is all this 
 befallen us, and where be all His miracles which our 
 fathers told us of, saying, Did not Jehovah bring us up 
 from Egypt ? but now Jehovah hath cast us off." To 
 the spirit that will not believe except it see signs and 
 wonders the natural inference from the Assyrian victory 
 was that Asshur and not Jehovah was the God who 
 ruled on earth. But to Isaiah divine rule means the 
 rule of holiness. Judgment and mercy are equally valid 
 proofs of the sovereignty of Jehovah in Israel. Where 
 Amos had said, Jehovah knows Israel alone of all 
 nations, therefore He punishes their sins, Isaiah inverts 
 the argument and says. Because Jehovah punishes His 
 people's sins there is verily a living God in Israel. 
 Ahaz had refused to ask a pledge of Jehovah's interest 
 in His people ; but Jehovah Himself supplies that pledge 
 in the swift approach of the calamity which Ahaz's 
 rebellion entails. 
 
 The circumstance that Isa. vii. 14 seg. is applied 
 in Mat. i. 23 to the birth of our Saviour has too often 
 served to divert attention from the plain meaning of the 
 sign or pledge which the prophet sets before the men of 
 Judah. It is perfectly certain that the New Testament 
 writers, in citing passages from the Old, do not always 
 confine themselves to the original reference of the words 
 they quote. The Old Testament Scriptures were an 
 abiding possession of the Church. Their meaning was 
 not held to have been exhausted in the events of past 
 history ; tliey all pointed to Christ, and every passage 
 
272 IMMANUEL : 
 
 that could be brought into relation with the Gospel 
 history might, it was felt, be legitimately adduced in 
 that connection. The New Testament writers therefore 
 do not help us to understand what a text of Isaiah meant 
 to the prophet himself, or to those whom he personally 
 addressed. They tell us only what it meant to the 
 first generation of Christianity. The discussion of this 
 secondary sense lies altogether beyond our present pur- 
 pose. As historical students of prophecy, we have only 
 to ask what the prophet designed to convey to his own 
 contemporaries ; and to them, it is clear, he offered a pre- 
 sent token of Jehovah's presence, and of the truth of the 
 prophetic word in its reference to current events. That 
 token was not a miraculous conception. The word which 
 the English version renders "virgin" means, strictly 
 speaking, nothing else than a young woman of age to be 
 a mother. On the person of the future mother Isaiah 
 lays no stress ; it does not appear that he pointed his 
 hearers to any individual. He says only that a young 
 woman who shall become a mother within a year may 
 name her child " God with us." Por, before the babe 
 begins to develop into intelligent childhood, the lands of 
 Pekah and Eezin shall be laid waste, and Judah as well 
 as Israel shall be stripped of all its artificial wealth, and 
 reduced to wild pasture ground, whose inhabitants feed 
 on sour milk and honey.® In the collapse of all human 
 resources, in the return of the nation to that elemental 
 form of life in which the creations of human skill and 
 industry no longer come between man and his Maker, 
 
LECT. VI. " WITH us IS GOD." 273 
 
 it will become plain that there is a God in Israel. " In 
 that day man shall look unto his Maker, and his eyes 
 shall be turned to the Holy One of Israel. And they 
 shall not look to the altars, the work of their hands, 
 neither shall they turn to that which their own fingers 
 have made, to the asherim and the sun-pillars " (xvii. 7, 
 8). To put the thought in modern language, the proof 
 that God is with Israel, and with Israel alone, lies in 
 this, that no other conception of godhead than that of 
 the Holy God preached by Israel's prophets can justify 
 itself as consistent with the course of the Assyrian 
 calamity. The world is divided between two religions, 
 the religion that worships things of man's making, and 
 the religion of the Holy One of Israel. Judah is called 
 to choose between these faiths, and its rulers have 
 chosen the former. Their trust is in earthly things ; — 
 be these chariots and horses, strong cities and munitions 
 of war, commercial wealth and agricultural prosperity, 
 carnal alliances and schemes of human policy, or idols, 
 altars, and sun -pillars, is alike to Isaiah's argument. 
 Whien Jehovah rises in judgment all these vain helpers 
 are swept away, and the Holy One of Israel alone 
 remains. The plans of earthly policy which Aha.z and 
 his counsellors had matured with so much care are 
 likened by the prophet to the Adonis gardens^" or pots of 
 quickly withering flowers, which the ancients used to set 
 at their doors or in the courts of temples : " Because thou 
 hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not 
 been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore thou 
 
 13 
 
274 THE PROPHET AND lect. vi. 
 
 shalt plant Adonis gardens, and set them with strange 
 slips. In the day that thou hedgest in thy plants, in the 
 morning that thou makest thy seed to bud, the harvest 
 is vanished in a day of grief and of hopeless sorrow " 
 (xvii. 10 seq^. ' 
 
 Meantime, the duty of the prophet and his disciples 
 is to hold themselves aloof from the rest of the nation, 
 to take their stand on the sure word of revelation, and 
 patiently await the issue. " Jehovah hath laid His strong 
 hand on me, and taught me not to walk in the way of 
 this people, saying. Speak not of confederacy where this 
 people speaketh of confederacy, and fear not what they 
 fear, neither be ye afraid. Sanctify Jehovah of hosts 
 Himself, and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your 
 dread. And He shall prove a sanctuary [asylum], but a 
 stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence to both the 
 houses of Israel, a gin and a snare to the inhabitants of 
 Jerusalem." " Bind up God's testimony, seal the revela- 
 tion among my disciples. And I will wait for Jebovah 
 that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I 
 win look for Him" (viii. 11 seg'.). The circle that 
 gathered round Isaiah and his household in these evil 
 days, holding themselves apart from their countrymen, 
 treasuring the word of revelation, and waiting for Je- 
 hovah, were indeed, as Isaiah describes them, " signs and 
 tokens in Israel from Jehovah of hosts that dwelleth in 
 Mount Zion." The formation of this little community 
 was a new thing in the history of religion. Till then no 
 one had dreamed of a fellowship of faith dissociated 
 
HIS DISCIPLES. 275 
 
 from all national forms, maintained without the exercise 
 of ritual services, bound together by faith in the divine 
 word alone. It was the birth of a new era in the Old 
 Testament religion, for it was the birth of the conception 
 of the Church,, the first step in the emancipation of 
 spiritual religion from the forms of political life, — a step 
 not less significant that all its consequences were not 
 seen till centuries had passed away. The community 
 of true religion and the political community of Israel 
 had never before been separated even in thought ; now 
 they stood side by side, conscious of their mutual an- 
 tagonism, and never again fully to fall back into their 
 old identity. 
 
 Isaiah, indeed, and the prophets who followed him 
 were still far from seeing how deep was the breach 
 between the physical Israel and the spiritual community 
 of faith. To them the dissociation of these two quali- 
 ties appeared to be merely temporary ; they pictured 
 the redemption of Israel as the vindication of the 
 true remnant in a day of national repentance, when the 
 state should accept the prophetic word as its divine 
 rule. For the order of salvation is first light and then 
 deliverance. In the depth of Israel's despair, when men 
 walk in darkness, hardly bested and hungry, ," they shall 
 curse their king and their god, and look upward " 
 (viii. 21). As their eyes turn to Him whom they cast 
 off for the things they now curse as false helpers, the 
 darkness is lifted from the land. " She who is in an- 
 guish shall not be in darkness." The work of redemp- 
 
276 THE MESSIANIC lect. vi. 
 
 tion begins where the desolation of Israel by Assyria 
 began, in the northern lands of Galilee by the shores of 
 the Lake of Tiberias (ix. 1). But all Israel shares the 
 great deliverance, in which the yoke of Assyria is 
 broken, and Jehovah's zeal for His people manifested 
 in a glorious redintegration of the Davidic kingdom. 
 " The people that walk in darkness have seen a great 
 light : they that dwell in the land of deep shade, upon 
 them hath the light shined. Thou hast made the glad- 
 ness great, ^^ Thou hast increased their joy ; they joy 
 before Thee according to the joy in harvest, as men 
 are glad when they divide the spoil. For Thou hast 
 broken the yoke of his burden, the rod of his back, the 
 staff of his oppressor, as in the day of [battle with] 
 Midian. For the greaves of the warrior that stampeth 
 in the fray, and the garments rolled in blood, shall be 
 cast into the fire as fuel for the flame. For to us a 
 child is born, unto us a son is given ; and the govern- 
 ment shall be on his shoulder, and his name shall be 
 called Wonderful Counsellor — God, the mighty One — 
 Everlasting Father — Prince of Peace, for the increase 
 of the government, and for peace without end, upon the 
 throne of David, and upon his kingdom ; to confirm it 
 and to establish it in judgment and in righteousness, 
 from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of Jehovah of 
 hosts will perform this " (ix. 2-7). 
 
 In these words the picture of Israel's final glory 
 assumes a much preciser form than in the earlier pro- 
 phecy of chap. iv. There is stiU a large element of 
 
LECT. VI. DELIVERANCE. 277 
 
 figure and symbol, so iised as to show tliat the prophet 
 does not possess a detailed revelation of the process of 
 the work of salvation, but is guided, as was the case in 
 the earlier predictions, by general principles of faith, 
 too large to be immediately translated into the language 
 of literality. But he has now gained a clearer view of 
 the nature and limits of the work of judgment than was 
 expressed in chaps, ii. and iii., and the new light shed 
 on the present casts its rays into the future. The 
 turning-point of Israel's history is the destruction of 
 the power of the Assyrian oppressor, and with this 
 deliverance the Messianic days begin. To Isaiah, 
 therefore, the law of Jehovah's kingship is still the 
 same as in ancient days. The new salvation is parallel 
 to the great things which God did for His people in 
 times of old, when the victories of Israel over such 
 enemies as Midian were recognised as victories of 
 Jehovah, and proved the chief means of confirming the 
 national faith. But now the deliverance is no tem- 
 porary victory over a mere Arab horde, but the final 
 and complete discomfiture of the great power which 
 represented all that man could do against the kingdom 
 of Jehovah. The blood-stained relics of the struggle 
 are cast into the fire. War has ceased for ever, and the 
 reign of perpetual peace begins under a child of the 
 seed of David, whose throne is established in righteous- 
 ness and for evermore. In this last conception we meet 
 for the first time with the idea of a personal Messiah. 
 In chap. iv. it was Jehovah's glory, manifested in fire and 
 
278 THE MESSIAH. 
 
 cloud, that overshadowed and protected the ransomed 
 nation. Now this image is translated into a new and 
 more concrete form. The establishment and enlarge- 
 ment of the divine kingdom is committed to a human 
 representative of Jehovah's sovereignty, and it is in 
 a fresh scion of the house of David that Israel finds 
 the embodiment of more than human wisdom, divine 
 strength, and an everlasting reign of fatherly protection 
 and peace. The further examination of these Messianic 
 ideas must, however, be deferred till we can compare 
 the prediction now before us with the later prophecies 
 in which Isaiah recurs to the same subject. 
 
THE REIGN OF HEZEKIAH. 279 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 ISAIAH AND MICAH IN THE REIGN OF HEZEKIAH.^ 
 
 The reign of Ahaz was not a very long one ; he did not 
 live to see the revolt of Hoshea and the fall of Samaria. 
 The last rebellion of Northern Israel was not an isolated 
 rising ; it was accompanied or followed by a general 
 revolt of all the Syrian principalities from Philistia in 
 the south to Hamath and Arpad in the north. Hoshea, 
 as we know, was encouraged by the hope of support 
 from So (Sewe), king of Egypt (2 Kings xvii. 4), and 
 this monarch, the Sebech of the Assyrian monuments, 
 was in fact concerned with the whole movement that 
 threatened the Assyrian supremacy in the districts west 
 of the Euphrates. The interference of Egypt at this 
 juncture is explained by the fact that, for some time 
 before, that country had been much divided and weak- 
 ened by contests between an Ethiopian dynasty in the 
 upper country and the princes of the Delta. But the 
 Ethiopians at last prevailed, and under Sebech Egypt 
 and Ethiopia formed a single power, able to devote itself 
 to foreign affairs. After taking Samaria, Sargon in 
 B.C. 720 reduced the Philistine cities, and, advancing to 
 
280 CAMPAIGN OF lect. tii, 
 
 Eaphia (now Eafah) oa the border of the desert on the 
 short caravan road from Egypt to Gaza, encountered and 
 defeated Sebech.^ The victory vs^as not pursued into 
 Egypt itself, but it secured the subjection of Syria, and 
 for some years the only operations of Sargon in the west 
 of which we hear were directed against Arab tribes. 
 But in B.C. 711, nine years after the battle of Eaphia, 
 Ashdod was once more in revolt under a king named 
 Yaman. The Egyptians of course were again pulling 
 the strings, and the affair must have been regarded as 
 serious, for Sargon speaks of it at length in several of 
 his inscriptions. He acted with great promptitude, 
 crossing the Tigris and Euphrates while the waters were 
 still in flood, and advancing with the characteristic 
 rapidity which forms a chief feature in Isaiah's descrip- 
 tion of the Assyrian armies (Isa. v.) " In the anger 
 of my heart," says Sargon, according to Oppert's 
 translation {R.P. vii. 40 ; ix. 11), " I marched against 
 Ashdod with my warriors, who did not leave the trace 
 of my feet." The Egyptians were far from exhibiting 
 equal energy. All through the history of this period 
 their policy was made up of large promises and small 
 performance ; they were always stirring up plots against 
 their Eastern rivals, but never ready when the moment 
 for action came ; and Isaiah fitly sums up their conduct 
 in the two words " turbulence and inactivity " (xxx. 7). 
 In the present instance, they left Ashdod to its fate, and 
 Pharaoh was glad to make his peace with Sargon by 
 surrendering Yaman, who had taken refuge in Egypt. 
 
LECT. VII. SARGON AGAINST ASHDOD. 281 
 
 This campaign has a special interest for us, because 
 it is referred to in the first prophecy of Isaiah after the 
 Syro-Ephraitic war, the date of which is altogether 
 undisputed. In the year of the siege and capture of 
 Ashdod, so we are told in chap, xx., Isaiah, under 
 Divine command, put off the sackcloth from his loins 
 and the shoe from his foot, and continued for three years 
 to walk naked and barefoot, as a sign and token upon 
 Egypt and Ethiopia. Even so, he explained, Egypt and 
 Ethiopia shall be led captive by the king of Assyria, 
 naked and barefoot, to the shame of all who looked to 
 them for help. " Then the inhabitants of this coast 
 shall say. So have they fared to whom we looked and 
 to whom we fled for help to be delivered from the king 
 of Assyria ; and how can we escape ? " The only point 
 in this chapter that demands explanation is the three 
 years' continuance of the prophet's symbolic action, 
 which plainly implies that for three years the lesson 
 still required to be enforced. Here the annals of Sar- 
 gon come to our help. The siege of Ashdod, as we 
 have seen, fell in 711, and for the next two years 
 Sargon was wholly engrossed by a revolt of the Baby- 
 lonians under Merodach Baladan. It was this, perhaps, 
 that prevented him from pressing forward against Egypt 
 as Isaiah had expected him to do on the fall of Ashdod. 
 At all events, the revolt of Babylon gave hopes of 
 independence to Assyria's western vassals, for we are 
 told in the Annals that the kings of Cyprus, who had 
 previously refused tribute, voluntarily submitted them- 
 
282 ISAIAH IN THE i-ect. vii. 
 
 selves when they heard of the humiliation of Merodach 
 Baladan. Cyprus, the Phoenicians, and the Philistines 
 were closely connected in trade and politics ; so it 
 appears that in the third year of Isaiah's symbolical 
 conduct the Palestinian nations gave up all further 
 hope of escape from the Assyrian yoke. It is true that 
 this result had not come about in the way that Isaiah 
 anticipated ; but his assurance that their efforts after 
 independence were hopeless had none the less justified 
 itself, and there was no further motive for continuing 
 the sign by which he had confirmed it. 
 
 From this date to the death of Sargon (B.C. 705) 
 things appear to have remained quiet in Palestine ; but 
 before we pass on to the reign of Sennacherib, we are 
 called to examine more closely the attitude and fortunes 
 of Judah and the activity of the prophets during the 
 events already described. In the wars of 722-720 
 against Samaria and the Philistines, the Judseans seem 
 to have had no direct part ; they still adhered to 
 Assyria, as was natural enough, since Philistia and 
 Ephraini had been dangerous enemies but a few years 
 before. To this date Isa. xxviii. can most naturally be 
 assigned. The prophet looks forward to the fall of 
 Samaria, when the proud crown of the drunkards of 
 Ephraim shall be trodden under foot, and the glory of 
 Samaria pass as a fading flower ; and still he sees in 
 the near catastrophe but a fresh pledge of the approach 
 of the day when Jehovah shall be the crown and pride 
 of the remnant of His people, giving "the spirit 'of 
 
LECT. VII. REIGN OF SARGON. 283 
 
 justice to him who sitteth for justice, and of valour to 
 them that turn hack hattle from the gate." He at least 
 has not lost faith or changed his hope during the ten 
 years that have elapsed since he withdrew from puhHc 
 life with his disciples, to wait for better days ; the pur- 
 pose of Jehovah has been deferred, but not abandoned, 
 and in the new crisis Isaiah sees Him rising up to 
 accomplish it in His ancient might, as that was dis- 
 played at Baal-Perazim and Gibeon (2 Sam. v. 20 se^- ; 
 Josh. X.). Thus, in spite of the threatening aspect of 
 the present, Jehovah's purpose appears to Isaiah as a 
 purpose of grace to Israel — but of grace that can only 
 be realised by those who are willing to yield obedience 
 to the Divine precepts. The condition of deliverance 
 is still national repentance, and from this the rulers of 
 Judah and the of&cial heads of Judah's religion (ver. 7) 
 are far removed. The chiefs of the people are Hke men in 
 the last stage of a drunken debauch (vers. 7, 8), incapable 
 of listening to sane counsel, deaf to Jehovah's words 
 when He declares to them by His prophet where rest for 
 the weary and refreshing for the exhausted nation are to 
 be found (ver. 12). In this prophecy Isaiah does not 
 again detail, what he had explained at length before, 
 the course in which these blessings are to be found. 
 But throughout life he pointed steadily to the establish- 
 ment of civil justice and the abolition of the idols as the 
 things most necessary, and we may safely conclude that 
 in these respects there was as yet no real amendment. 
 The '■ scornful men " who guided the helm of the state 
 
284 THE PARABLE OF lect. vii. 
 
 were absorbed in schemes which left no room for the 
 thought that the fate of kingdoms is governed by 
 Jehovah's providence, and by the supremacy of His 
 holy will. They had made lies their refuge, and hid 
 themselves under falsehood. They had made their 
 covenant with death and Sheol — that is, with the fatal 
 power of the Assyrian — and trusted that when the " over- 
 flowing scourge," the all -destroying invasion, passed 
 through it should not reach them. Isaiah had no share 
 in this illusion. He saw that the present state of 
 things was intolerable and could not last ; " the bed 
 was too short for a man to stretch himself on it, the 
 coverlet too narrow for a man to wrap himself in it " 
 (ver. 20). The Assyrian alliance must soon be dissolved. 
 " Your covenant with death shall be annulled, your 
 agreement with Sheol shall not stand ; when the over- 
 flowing scourge passeth through, ye shall be trodden 
 down by it." Once and again the invading host shall 
 pass through the land and smite its inhabitants (ver. 19). 
 So long as the policy of irreligion lasts, it can only serve 
 to prolong the bondage of the nation (ver. 22). Jehovah's 
 purpose is now decisive and final (ver. 22) ; the mea- 
 sure of strict justice shall be applied to those who have 
 mocked at judgment and righteousness (ver. 17). In 
 the universal overthrow there is but one thing fixed and 
 immutable : " Jehovah hath laid in Zion a stone, a 
 stone of proof, a precious corner-stone of sure founda- 
 tion ; he that believeth shall not make haste" (ver. 16). 
 Those who have faith in the sovereign providence that 
 
LECT. VII THE HUSBANDMAN. 285 
 
 rules in Israel, and is surely working out Jehovah's 
 counsel, can await the future with patience ; they, and 
 they alone, for " hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, 
 and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place." It is 
 stni the old faith in the inviolability of Zion, the pro- 
 phetic confidence in the continuity of Jehovah's purpose, 
 that forms the root of Isaiah's hope ; but now more 
 clearly than before the prophet lays the basis of this 
 faith in the doctrine of an all-embracing divine ordi- 
 nance, the same ordinance that rules the actions of 
 every-day industry. The wisdom that tells the husband- 
 man how to plough and sow, which directs the daily 
 labours of agricultural life, is also a part of Jehovah's 
 teaching (vers. 24-29). And the same God, " wonderful 
 in counsel and excellent in practical wisdom," who 
 prescribes the order of common toil, rules in the affairs 
 of the state and lays down the inviolable laws of Israel's 
 happiness. 
 
 The argument from the operations of husbandry 
 with which Isaiah closes this prophecy is too character- 
 istic to be passed over without further remark. To 
 recognise its full force we must remember that aU such 
 operations were guided by traditional rules which no 
 one dreamed of . violating. These rules were the 
 law of the husbandman, and like all traditional laws 
 among ancient nations they had a sacred character. 
 Every one understood that it was part of religion to 
 observe them, and that it would be in the highest 
 degree unlucky to set them aside. The modern mind is 
 
286 THE PEASANTS lect. vii. 
 
 disposed to laugh at such ideas, but Isaiah takes them 
 in all seriousness. In the sedulous observance of the 
 traditional lore which expressed the whole wisdom of 
 the peasant, and was reverently accepted as a divine 
 teaching, the husbandman brought his religion into the 
 daily duties of his humble toil, and every operation became 
 an act of obedience to God. And thus his life appears 
 to the prophet as a pattern for the scornful rulers of 
 Judah. They too in their seat of judgment and govern- 
 ment have a divine law set before them, in the observ- 
 ance of which the felicity of the nation lies. But they 
 refuse to learn. The incessant prophetic inculcation of 
 " command upon command, rule upon rule, here a little 
 and there a little " — in brief, the attempt to make the 
 word of God the practical guide of every action — seems 
 to them only fit for babes (ver. 9). But Jehovah will 
 not suffer His lessons to remain unlearned. What they 
 •refuse to hear at the mouth of the prophet they must 
 learn from the harsher accents of the Assyrian tyrant. 
 " With barbarous lips and in a strange tongue will He 
 speak to this people '' (ver. 11). Thus the doctrines of 
 divine chastisement and divine grace are gathered up 
 into one larger doctrine of Jehovah's teaching to Israel. 
 The word of the prophet and the rod of the Assyrian 
 are conjoint agencies, working together for the in-brino-- 
 ing of a time when, as the prophet elsewhere expresses 
 it, the land shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, 
 when the practical rules of conduct which He dictates 
 shall be as supreme in the administration^ of the state 
 
LECT. VII. AND THE PRINCES. 287 
 
 as in the ordering of the daily tasks of the husband- 
 man. 
 
 The way in which the rulers of Judah are addressed 
 in this prophecy appears to show that, in spite of the 
 increasing sufferings which the Assyrian exactions 
 imposed on the poorer classes — for these in the East 
 are the taxpayers — the princes still found their account 
 in the maintenance of the settlement effected by Ahaz. 
 Isaiah does not blame them for their acquiescence in a 
 position of political nonentity ; he certainly would not 
 have encouraged them to cast in their lot with Samaria ; 
 but he urges that the sins which have proved the ruin 
 of Samaria will be their ruin too. The accession of 
 Hezekiah, it is plain, had done nothing for the cure of 
 the internal wounds of the state ; all social disorders 
 were as rampant as at the outbreak of the Syro-Ephraitic 
 war ; the Assyrian suzerainty was tolerated for no 
 other reason than that it maintained the governing 
 classes in their positions, and enabled them to continue 
 their course of riot and oppression. This picture of the 
 state of Judah receives independent confirmation from 
 the earlier part of the book of Micah,^ which also dates 
 from the days of the last struggle of Samaria, as we 
 learn from a comparison of Micah i. with Jer. xxvi. 18. 
 Micah was a man of Moresheth Gath, a small place, as 
 Jerome tells us, near Eleutheropolis on the Philistine 
 frontier, and the proximity of his home to one part of 
 the field of war helps to explaia his keen interest in the 
 progress of the Assyrian arms. At all events, the crisis 
 
288 MICAH OF lect. vii. 
 
 which drew Isaiah from his retirement to proclaim to 
 Judah the lesson preached by the impending ruin of 
 Ephraim, called forth the countryman Micah to give a 
 like warning. In the storm that was ready to burst 
 upon Samaria he beheld Jehovah going forth from His 
 heavenly palace, and marching over the mountains of 
 Palestine in righteous indignation to visit the sins of 
 Jacob. Samaria shall become a heap of the field ; the 
 stones of her fortifications shall be rolled down into the 
 valley, her graven images dashed to pieces. But Judah 
 too has shared the sin of Samaria, and the same judg- 
 ment menaces Zion (L 1-9). It is the cities of his own 
 district that are in immediate danger (i. 10-15) — a 
 natural thought, since they lay next to the scene of war 
 in Philistia; but the centre of Judah's sin is the capital ; 
 and the evil that has come down from Jehovah already 
 stands at the gate of Jerusalem (i. 5, 9, 12). The sins 
 which Micah has in view are the same as those signalised 
 by Isaiah : on the one hand, a religion full of idolatry 
 aud heathenish sorceries (iii. 7 ; v. 12 seg-.), a spurious 
 confidence in Jehovah, which has no regard to His 
 moral attributes, and is bolstered up by lying oracles 
 (ii. 11; iii. 5, 11, comp. Isa. xxviii. 7), while it refuses to 
 hear the warnings of true prophecy (ii. 6; iii. 8, comp. Isa. 
 xxviii. 9 scg) ; on the other hand, the gross corruption 
 and oppressions of the ruling classes, who "build up 
 Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with iniquity " 
 (iii. 10). But Micah depicts the sufferings of the 
 peasantry at the hands of their lords from much closer 
 
LECT. vii. MORESHETH GATH. 289 
 
 personal observation than was possible to Isaiah as a 
 resident in the capital. He speaks as a man of the 
 people, and reveals to us, as no other prophet does, the 
 feelings of the commonalty towards their oppressors. To 
 the peasantry the nobles seem to have no object but 
 plunder (ii. 1 seq). The poorer agriculturists are daily 
 stripped of their houses and holdings by violence or 
 false judgment. The true enemies of the people are 
 their own rulers (ii. 8),* and the prophet contemplates 
 with a stern satisfaction, which doubtless found an echo 
 in many breasts, the approach of the destroyer who 
 shall carry into exile "the luxurious sons" (L 16) of 
 this race of petty tyrants, and leave them none "to 
 stretch the measuring line on a lot in the congregation 
 of Jehovah " (ii. 5). " Arise," he cries, " and depart, for 
 this is not your place of rest." 
 
 The strong personal feeling which Micah displays 
 towards the governing classes gives a peculiar turn to 
 his whole prophecy. Isaiah speaks as severely of the 
 sins of the nobles, but never, as Micah does, from the 
 standpoint of a man of the people. Isaiah's own circle 
 belonged to the upper classes; the chief priest of the 
 temple was his friend ; and an aristocratic habit of 
 thought appears in more than one of his prophecies. 
 His doctrine of the indestructibility of Zion as the 
 condition of the continuity of the national existence of 
 Judah seems to indicate that the capital and the Court 
 appeared to him as the natural centre of the true 
 remnant. There is nothing democratic in his picture of 
 
290 THE PROPHECY lect. vii. 
 
 Israel's restoration ; lie looks for the ameudment of the 
 ruling classes (i. 26), who retain their old place in the 
 reconstruction of the state (chap, xxxii). Micah, on 
 the contrary, conceives the work of judgment essentially 
 as a destruction of the government and the nobles. The 
 race of the unjust aristocrats shall be rooted out of the 
 land (ii. 5) ; the proud and guilty capital shall be 
 ploughed as a field ; Jerusalem shall become as heaps 
 and the mountain of the temple as the heights of the 
 forest (iii. 12) ; the judge or king of Israel shall suffer 
 the last indignities at the hand of the enemy (v. 1 ; 
 Heh., iv. 14). It has often been supposed from these 
 predictions that Micah, unlike Isaiah, looked forward to 
 a total captivity ; and that his words were referred by 
 the Jews themselves to the Babylonian exile, appears 
 from the fact that at an early date the gloss, " and shalt 
 come even to Babylon," was inserted in iv. 10.^ But a 
 closer examination does not bear out this view. When 
 the aristocrats are carried captive " the congregation of 
 Jehovah " remains in the land (ii. 5). The glory of Israel 
 is not banished from Canaan, but takes refuge in Adul- 
 1am, as in the old days, when a band of freebooters and 
 broken men contained the true hope of the nation (i. 15). 
 The days of David, when the ruler of Israel came forth 
 from Bethlehem, a town too smaU. to be reckoned as a 
 canton in Judah (v. 2), the times of " the first kingdom," 
 when Jerusalem itself was but a hill fort, " a tower of 
 the flock " (iv. 8), appear to Micah as the true model 
 of national well-being ; the acquisitions of later civilisa- 
 
LECT. VII. OF MICAH I.-V. 291 
 
 tion and political development, horses and chariots and 
 fenced cities — always associated with tyranny in the 
 minds of the common people — are stamped hy him as 
 sins, and shall be utterly abolished in the days of 
 restoration (i. 13 ; v. 10, 11).* Hence, though Micah no 
 less than Isaiah recognises Zion as the centre of Je- 
 hovah's sovereignty, from which divine instruction and 
 decisions shall go forth in the days to come to all the 
 surrounding nations, who shall lay aside their weapons 
 of war and make Jehovah the arbiter of their strifes 
 (iv. 1 seg[), the fall of the Zion of the present, the city 
 built up by bloodshed and guilt, the strong fortress of 
 Israel's oppressors, appears to our prophet as a necessary 
 step in the redemption of the nation. The daughter (or 
 population) of Zion must pass through the pangs of 
 labour before her true king is born ; she must come 
 forth from the city and dwell in the open field ; there, 
 and not within her proud ramparts, Jehovah will grant 
 her deliverance from her enemies. For a time the land 
 shall be given up to the foe, but only for a time. Once 
 more, as in the days of David, guerilla bands gather 
 together to avenge the wrongs of their nation (v. 1). A 
 new David comes forth from little Bethlehem, and the 
 rest of his brethren return to the children of Israel — 
 that is, the kindred Hebrew nations again accept the 
 sway of the new king, who stands and feeds his flock in 
 the strength of Jehovah, in the majesty of the name of 
 Jehovah his God. Then Assyria shall no longer insult 
 Jehovah's land with impunity. The national militia, 
 
292 MICAH AND THE 
 
 again numerous and warlike as of old, lias no lack of 
 captains to meet the invader, and the tide of battle shall 
 be rolled back into the land of Mmrod, which the sword 
 of Israel shall lay waste. The remnant of Judah shall 
 flourish in the midst of the surrounding peoples, like 
 grass fertilised by the waters of heaven, that tarry not 
 for man nor wait for the sons of men. Judah shall be 
 among the nations irresistible as a lion among flocks of 
 sheep ; for its strength comes down from Jehovah, like 
 dew from the skies, and all false helpers, strongholds 
 and chariots, enchantments and graven images, asherim 
 and mag^ehoth, are swept away. And Jehovah will 
 execute judgment in wrath and fury on the nations that 
 refuse obedience (v. 2-15). 
 
 It is interesting to observe that according to Jer. 
 xxvi. 19 the prophecy of Micah produced a great 
 impression on his contemporaries. And this is not 
 strange ; for he spoke to the masses of the people as 
 one of themselves, and his whole picture of judgment 
 and deliverance was constructed of familiar elements, 
 and appealed to the most cherished traditions of the 
 past. David, as it is easy to recognise from the 
 narrative of the books of Samuel, was the hero of the 
 common people ; and no more effective method of 
 popular teaching could have been devised than the 
 presentation of the antique simplicity of his kingdom 
 in contrast to the corruptions of the present. Thus 
 Micah's teaching went straighter to the hearts of the 
 masses than the doctrine of Isaiah, which at this time 
 
LECT. vn. DA VIDIC KING. 293 
 
 was still working only as a leaven in a small circle. 
 Isaiah's work, in truth, was the higher as it was the more 
 difficult ; it was a greater task to consolidate the party 
 of spiritual faith, and by slow degrees to establish its 
 influence in the governing circle, than to arouse the 
 masses to a sense of the incongruity of the present state 
 of things with the old ideal of Jehovah's nation. But 
 both prophets had their share in the great transforma- 
 tion of Israel's religion which began in the reign of 
 Hezekiah and found definite expression in the reforma- 
 tion of Josiah. It is Micah's conception of the Davidic 
 king which is reproduced in the Deuteronomic law of 
 the kingdom (Deut. xvii. 14 s&g), and his prophecy of 
 the destruction of the high places (v. 13), more directly 
 than anything in Isaiah's book, underlies the principle 
 of the one sanctuary, the establishment of which, in 
 Deuteronomy, and by Josiah, was the chief visible mark 
 of the religious revolution which the teaching of the 
 prophets had effected. 
 
 These remarks, however, threaten to carry us too 
 far out of the course of the history which we are pursu- 
 ing. Let us return to Judah and its rulers as they 
 were on the eve of Samaria's calamity, when Micah was 
 preaching the fall of the corrupt nobles, and Isaiah was 
 appealing to the grandees of the capital to be warned 
 by the fate of their compeers in Samaria. At the time, 
 we may well suppose, the words of Micah found no 
 audience beyond his own district, and the prophecy of 
 Isaiah xxviii. was little heeded, so that, if we may 
 
294 THE REIGN lect. vii. 
 
 judge from the present arrangement of his hook, he 
 deemed it fitting to repuhlish it many years later as a 
 seasonable introduction to a collection of prophecies o^ 
 the time of Sennacherib. But the events that followed 
 proved that Isaiah's foresight was sound. The sum of 
 his warning had been, " Be ye not mockers, lest your 
 fetters be made strong." Judah refused his admonition, 
 and the Assyrian bondage became every year more 
 grievous. The tone of chap. xx. makes it hardly 
 questionable that ten years later, in 711 B.C., the 
 Judaeans took a lively and favourable interest in the 
 uprising of Philistia, which, by its close connection 
 with Egypt on the one hand and Phcenicia on the 
 other, as well as by the physical advantages of its posi- 
 tion in the rich Mediterranean coast-land, was marked 
 out as the natural focus of Palestinian revolt. The 
 pressure of the foreign yoke caused ancestral enmities 
 to be forgotten, and Judah leaned more and more to the 
 scheme of an Egyptian alliance embracing all the 
 Syrian states. Sargou himself, on a cylinder which 
 repeats the main facts of the war of 711, already 
 described from his Annals, tells us that the tributary 
 states of Judah, Edom, and Moab, were speaking 
 treason and beseeching the alliance of Egypt, and many 
 recent inquirers have supposed that at this time Heze- 
 kiah and his people broke out into open revolt, and 
 shared the miseries of the war that ensued. This con- 
 jecture has considerable interest for the interpretation 
 of Isaiah's prophecies. The prophet was not an ordinary 
 
OF SARGON. 295 
 
 preacher; his voice was mainly heard in great political 
 crises, and in uneventful times he might well be silent 
 for years. But in the day of danger, when Jehovah 
 was pre-eminently at work, the fundamental law of 
 prophecy came into play : " The Lord Jehovah doeth 
 nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants 
 the prophets." If Judah was actively engaged in the 
 war of 71 1, and was reduced by force, it is scarcely doubt- 
 ful that the book of Isaiah must preserve some record 
 of the fact ; and so the latest English commentator, 
 Mr. Cheyne, developing the suggestions of Professor 
 Sayce and other Assyriologists, proposes to ascribe to 
 this period, not only chaps, x. 5 to xi. 16, but chaps, i., 
 xiv. 29-32, xxii., xxix.-xxxii. If we accept this view 
 we must conclude that Judah had a very large share in 
 the campaign of 711, that the whole land was overrun 
 by the enemy and the provincial cities taken and 
 burned (i. 7), that Jerusalem itself was besieged (xxii.) 
 ■ — in short, that Judah suffered precisely in the same 
 way and to the same extent as under the invasion of 
 Sennacherib ten years later. But, more than this, we 
 must conclude that Isaiah held precisely similar lan- 
 guage in the two cases,— that under Sargon, as under 
 Sennacherib, he taught that the Assyrian might indeed 
 approach and lay siege to Jerusalem, but Jehovah in 
 the last extremity would Himself protect His holy 
 mountain and strike down the invader, and that he 
 did this in the second invasion without making any 
 reference back to the events of the siege which had called 
 forth similar predictions ten years before. 
 
296 PROPHECIES OF THE lect. vii. 
 
 The mere statement of this hypothesis is, I think, suffi- 
 cient to show its extreme improbability. History does 
 not repeat itself exactly, and even if the two invasions 
 of the hypothesis ran a similar course, as up to a certain 
 point they might well do, they must have had very 
 different issues. If Jerusalem was besieged in 711 the 
 issue certainly was the submission of Hezekiah and his 
 return to obedience. And if this were so, it is highly 
 improbable that he would have been allowed to restore 
 the Judtean fortresses, and regain so large a measure of 
 military strength as is implied in the fact that ten 
 years later he was the most important member of the 
 rebel confederation. On the contrary, the fact that the 
 campaign of 711 was essentially a camjjaign against 
 Ashdod, Judaea not being so much as named in the 
 account of it in the Annals, while that of 701 was as 
 essentially a campaign against Judaea, in which the 
 Philistines played quite a subordinate part, seems to be 
 clear evidence that, though Hezekiah may for a moment 
 have thought of revolt on the earlier occasion, he did 
 not take an active part in the war. The extraordinary 
 rapidity of Sargon's movements, specially emphasised 
 on the monuments, enabled him to crush Ashdod before 
 the Egyptians could send aid to their allies, and no 
 doubt nipped in the bud all schemes of revolt on the 
 part of the neighbouring states. That this was the 
 actual course of events is further clear from Isa. xx. 
 The language of the prophet must have been very 
 different if at this time Judah had been actively 
 
LECT. VII. REIGN OF S4RG0N. 297 
 
 engaged on the side of Ashdod. And finally, it can 
 hardly be supposed that the book of Kings would have 
 been altogether silent on the subject, if Sargon as well 
 as Sennacherib had besieged Jerusalem and captured 
 the cities of Judah. But the attempt of the Assyrio- 
 logists to find in 2 Kings xviii. 13 seq. some trace of an 
 earlier invasion which has got mixed up with that of 
 Sennacherib is altogether chimerical. Everything in the 
 narrative of Kings is either borne out by the monuments 
 of Sennacherib, or is altogether inapplicable to the 
 expedition of Sargon. Sennacherib tells only of his 
 successes, not of his ultimate retreat and the escape of 
 Hezekiah, and so his account corresponds only with 2 
 Kings xviii. 13-l7a. But everything spoken of in these 
 verses agrees exactly with. the Assyrian record.'^ 
 
 If we are compelled to reject the theory of an in- 
 vasion of Judsea under Sargon, the only prophecy in 
 Mr. Cheyne's list which can be held to be earlier than 
 the reign of Sennacherib appears to be that extending 
 from X. 5 to xi. 16, which sets forth with greater com- 
 pleteness than any other single discourse preserved to 
 us the whole views of Isaiah concerning the mission of 
 Assyria as an instrument of Jehovah's anger, the 
 ultimate fate of the robber empire, and the future glory 
 of Jehovah's people. The destruction of Samaria, the 
 final captivity of Northern Israel — which the prophet 
 does not seem to have contemplated in the discourses 
 of the reign of Ahaz — and the thorough subjugation of 
 all Syria and Northern Palestine, which were stripped 
 
 14 
 
298 THE PROPHECY lect. vii. 
 
 by Sargon of the last shadow of independence, were 
 events that could not fail to produce a deep impression 
 in Judah ; and, while others stood aghast at the terrible 
 portent which had changed the whole face of the 
 Hebrew world, Isaiah — who had not lost confidence in 
 the ultimate victory of Jehovah's cause, or ceased to 
 associate that victory with the preservation through all 
 trouble of the visible kingdom of Jehovah in Israel, 
 which had its centre on Mount Zion — could hardly fail 
 to feel it necessary to restate his view of the future of 
 Judah in a form that took account of recent events. 
 The great prophecy of chaps, x. and xi. corresponds to 
 this description. The cardinal thoughts are the same 
 as in chap, xxviii. ; * but the date is after the fall of 
 Samaria, the destruction of the principalities of Syria, 
 such as Hamath and Arpad, which we know to have 
 taken place at the same time with the final subjugation 
 of Ephraim, is alluded to as a recent event (x. 9), and 
 the immediate historical background of the prophecy is 
 the total revolution which the successes of Assyria and 
 the policy of captivities en masse (x. 13) had worked in 
 all the countries between Judaea and the Euphrates. 
 It is difficult for us to conceive the terror which these 
 events must have inspired among the petty nations of 
 Palestine, who for centuries past had gone on their way, 
 each walking in the name of its god (Micah iv. 5), and 
 fancying itself secure in his help from any greater 
 danger than was involved in tlie usual feuds with its 
 neighbours. To Isaiah, however, the progress of tlie 
 
i-ECT. vii. OF ISAIAH X. XL 299 
 
 Assyrian had no terrors and brought no surprise. There 
 was neither strength nor permanency in the idolatrous 
 kingdoms, which one after another had fallen before the 
 all-conquering power. So far as they were concerned, 
 Assyria was irresistible ; its mission upon earth, con- 
 iided to it by Jehovah Himself, was to prove that there 
 was no God but the Holy One of Israel. But Jehovah's 
 kingdom and Jehovah's citadel of Zion stood in a very 
 different position. The Assyrian in his greatest might 
 is but the rod of Jehovah's anger ; and though he knows 
 not this, but deems that the strength of his own hand 
 has gotten him the victory, and that he can deal with 
 Jerusalem and her idols at his will as he has done with 
 Samaria and her idols, it is as impossible for him to lift 
 himself up against Jehovah as for the axe to boast 
 itself against him that heweth therewith, or for the rod 
 to shake the hand that wields it. It is indeed plain 
 that the pride of the Assyrian will not acknowledge this 
 limitation of his might, and that his all-devouring greed 
 will soon carry him onwards to open assault on Judah, 
 which as yet is itself unconscious of its high destiny, 
 still "leaning on him who smites it" — that is, as appeared 
 in chap, xxviii., still depending on that treaty of tri- 
 butary alliance which, Isaiah saw, coiild not be long 
 observed. But when the crisis comes, when Jehovah 
 has accomplished His whole work on Mount Zion and 
 on Jerusalem, He will punish the proud heart and stout 
 looks of the king of Assyria, and it shall be seen that 
 the conqueror who has removed the bounds of nations 
 
300 THE PROPHECY lect. vii. 
 
 and gathered all the earth as a man gathers eggs from 
 a deserted nest, where there is none that moves a wing 
 or opens the mouth or peeps, is powerless before the 
 walls of Jehovah's citadel. Thus, as King Sargon con- 
 tinued his career of universal conquest, the history of 
 the world appeared to Isaiah to converge towards one 
 great decision, when all other nations should have dis- 
 appeared from the struggle, and the supreme world- 
 power should come face to face with the God who has 
 founded Zion as His inexpugnable sanctuary. This 
 thought shaped itself to the prophet's mind in the 
 picture of a great invasion, in which the Assyrian 
 advances through the pass of Michmash, in the fulness 
 of his arrogancy and might, sweeping the helpless 
 inhabitants before him till he stands upon the broad 
 ridge of Scopus looking down upon Jerusalem from the 
 north, and shakes his hand in contemptuous menace at 
 the mount of the daughter of Zion. Then Jehovah 
 arises in His might and prostrates the proud host, as 
 a mighty forest falls before the axe of the woodman. 
 Compare xiv. 24-27. 
 
 The fall of the Assyrian closes the first act of the 
 divine drama as it unfolds itself before the spiritual 
 eyes of the prophet, and this great deliverance seals the 
 repentance of Jehovah's people. "In that day the 
 remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of 
 Jacob shall no more again stay upon him that smote 
 them ; but shall stay upon Jehovah the Holy One of 
 Israel in truth" (x. 20). The judgment is past, and 
 
LECT. VII. OF ISAIAH X. XI. 301 
 
 days of blessing begin. The Davidic kingdom starts 
 into new life, or, as the prophet expresses it, a new 
 sapling springs from the old stock of Jesse, on whom 
 the spirit of Jehovah rests in full measure, as a spirit 
 of wisdom, heroism, and true religion, who rules in the 
 fear of Jehovah, his loins girt about with righteousness 
 and faithfulness, doing justice to the poor without 
 respect of persons, and consuming the evildoers out of 
 the land by the sovereign sentence of his lips, till crime 
 and violence are no longer known in Jehovah's holy 
 mountain, and the land of Israel is full of the knowledge 
 of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea. No figure is 
 too strong to paint this reign of peace and order. The 
 wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall 
 lie down with the kid, and the sucking child shall play 
 on the hole of the asp. It would be puerile to take 
 these expressions literally, and the prophet himself 
 interprets his figure when he represents the abolition of 
 all hurt and harm as the fruit of just judgment and 
 pure government. 
 
 The blessings of this Messianic time belong, in the 
 first instance, to Israel alone ; the other nations share 
 in them only in so far as they seek arbitration and 
 guidance from the kingly house of Jesse, which stands 
 forth as a beacon to the surrounding peoples. But the 
 restoration of Israel is complete. Jehovah wiU gather 
 back the remnant of His people, scattered iu Egypt and 
 Assyria and all the four corners of the earth, opening a 
 way before the returning exiles by drying up seas and 
 
302 MESSIANIC lect. vii. 
 
 rivers, as in the day when Israel came up out of Egypt. 
 Judah and Ephraim shall no more be foes, and their 
 united armies shall restore the ancient conquests of 
 David. On the west they shall swoop down victoriously 
 on Philistia ; to the east they shall spoil the children of 
 the desert ; and Edom, Ammon, and Moab shall return 
 to their old obedience. 
 
 The connection of ideas in this prophecy is so clear, 
 and it sets forth with so much completeness Isaiah's 
 whole view of Jehovah's purpose towards Judah, that 
 we may regard it as a typical example of what is usually 
 called Messianic prediction. The name Messiah is 
 never used in the Old Testament in that special sense 
 which we are accustomed to associate with it. The 
 Messiah (with the article and no other word in apposi- 
 tion) is not an Old Testament phrase at all, and the 
 word Messiah (Mashi^h) or "anointed one" in the 
 connection " Jehovah's anointed one " is no theological 
 term, but an ordinary title of the human king whom 
 Jehovah has set over Israel. Thus the usual way in 
 which the time of Israel's redemption and final glory is 
 called the Messianic time is incorrect and misleading. 
 So long as the Hebrew kingdom lasted, every king was 
 " Jehovah's anointed," and it was only after the Jews 
 lost their independence that the future restoration could 
 be spoken of in contrast to the present as the days of 
 the Messiah. To Isaiah the restoration of Israel is not 
 the commencement but the continuation of that personal 
 sovereignty of Jehovah over His people of which the 
 
PROPHECY. 303 
 
 Davidic king was the recognised representative. As the 
 holy seed which repeoples the land after the work of judg- 
 ment is done is a fresh growth from the ancient stock 
 of the nation (vi. 13), so too the new Davidic kingship 
 is a fresh outgTOwth of the old stem of Jesse. We are 
 apt to think of the days of the Messiah as an altogether 
 new and miraculous dispensation. That was not Isaiah's 
 view. The restoration of Jerusalem is a return to an 
 old state of things, interrupted by national sin. " I will 
 restore thy judges as at the first, and thy councillors as 
 at the beginning ; afterward thou shalt be called the city 
 of righteousness, the faithful city " (i. 26). And so when 
 we examine the picture presented in chap. xi. with care, 
 and make allowance for traits so plainly figurative as 
 the lion which eats straw like the ox, the seas and rivers 
 dried up to facilitate the return of the exiles of Judah, 
 we find but one fundamental difference between the old 
 and the new Israel : the land shall be full of the know- 
 ledge of Jehovah, and shall enjoy the happiness which 
 in all ages, past as well as future, has accompanied 
 obedience to the laws of its Divine King. And this 
 obedience again is not taken in a New Testament sense, 
 as if it rested on a new birth in every heart. Obedience 
 to Jehovah as a King is not the affair of the individual 
 conscience, but of the nation in its national organisa- 
 tion ; the righteousness of Israel which Isaiah con- 
 templates is such righteousness as is secured by a 
 perfectly wise and firm application of the laws of civil 
 justice and equity. It is this which gives so much 
 
304 THE KING OF lect. vii. 
 
 importance to the person of the future king. It is the 
 exercise of his functions that abolishes crime and 
 violence, and makes the land which he governs worthy 
 to be called Jehovah's holy mountain. Thus the 
 cardinal point in the prophecy is the equipment of the 
 Davidic king for the perfect exercise of his task by the 
 spirit of Jehovah which rests upon him. But even 
 here the prophet does not bring in any absolutely novel 
 element, marking off the future felicity of Israel as a 
 new dispensation. That good and strong government 
 was the fruit of Jehovah's spirit poured upon the 
 king of Israel was the ancient faith of the Hebrews. 
 So we read that a divine spirit, or the spirit of 
 Jehovah, descended first on Saul and afterwards on 
 David at their respective anointings (1 Sam. x. 6, 10 ; 
 xvi. 13, 14), as in earlier times the same spirit came 
 upon the judges of Israel and strengthened them for 
 their deeds of heroism (Judges iii. 10 ; vi. 34 ; xi. 29). 
 Isaiah himself does not confine this operation of the 
 spirit to the king of the future. In the day of deliverance 
 Jehovah shall be for a spirit of judgment to him that 
 sits for judgment, and of might to them that turn back 
 the battle in the gate (xxviii. 6). All power to do 
 right and noble deeds is Jehovah's gift, and the opera- 
 tions of His spirit are everywhere seen where men do 
 great things in the strength of true faith. And so the 
 indwelling of this spirit in the Davidic king does not 
 constitute an absolutely new departure in the kingship, 
 or offer anything inconsistent with the conception that 
 
LECT. VII. THE FUTURE. 305 
 
 Jehovah will restore the judges of Jerusalem as they 
 were in the beginning. The new thing is the complete-' 
 ness with which this divine equipment is bestowed, so 
 that the king's whole delight is set on the fear of 
 Jehovah, and his rule is wise and just, without error or 
 defect of any kind. 
 
 But does not such an indwelling of the divine 
 spirit, "it may be asked, imply that the new king 
 must be more than human ? Does not Isaiah him- 
 self regard his rule as eternal, and bestow upon him 
 in ix. 6 names that imply that he is God as well as 
 man ? In looking at this question, we must not allow 
 ourselves to be influenced by the fuller light of the 
 Christian dispensation which we possess, but which 
 Isaiah had not. To us it is clear that the ideal of a 
 kingdom of God upon earth could not be fully realised 
 under the forms of the Old Testament. The dispensa- 
 tion of the New Testament is not a mere renewal of the 
 days of David in more perfect form. The kingdom of 
 God means now something very different from a restora- 
 tion of the realm of Judah, and a resubjugation of 
 Philistia and Edom, Ammon and Moab, under a sove- 
 reign reigning visibly on Zion ; and its establishment on 
 earth was not, and could not be, the fruit of any such 
 outward event as the destruction of the' Assyrian 
 monarchy. The very fact that Isaiah did not foresee 
 this, that it was still possible for him immediately to 
 connect the glory of the latter days with the fall of 
 Assyria, and to speak of it as a restoration of the peace. 
 
306 THE KING OF lect. vii. 
 
 the independence, the political supremacy of the land 
 of Judah, is enough to show that the lineaments of 
 his future king are not yet identical with the image of 
 the New Testament Christ. The question, then, which 
 we have to consider is whether Isaiah looked forward 
 to a time when an immortal God-man shorild sit on the 
 earthly Ziou and use his divine strength and wisdom to 
 make the Hebrew race happy and victorious over their 
 neighbours. And to this question I think the answer 
 must be in the negative. We believe in a divine and 
 eternal Saviour, because the work of salvation, as we 
 understand it in the light of the New Testament, is 
 essentially different from the work of the wisest and 
 best earthly king. Isaiah's ideal is only the perfect 
 performance of the ordinary duties of monarchy : for this 
 end he sees a king to be required who reigns in Jehovah's 
 name, and in the strength of His Spirit, but there is no 
 proof and no hkelihood that he thought of more than 
 this. It is by no means clear that he looks for an ever- 
 lastmg reign of one king, or indeed that he ever put to 
 himself the question whether the new offshoot from the 
 root of Jesse is to be one person or a race of sovereigns. 
 It is the function and equipment of the kingship, not 
 the person of the king, that absorbs all his attention. 
 And though the names of the child who is to be born to 
 Israel wonderfully foreshadow New Testament ideas, 
 there is no reason to think that they denote anything 
 metaphysical. The king of Israel reigns in Jehovah's 
 name. In. him Jehovah's rule becomes visible in Israel, 
 
LECT. VII. THE FUTURE. 307 
 
 and his great fourfold name speaks rather of the divine 
 attributes that shine forth in his sovereignty, than of 
 the transcendency of a person that is God as well as 
 man. The prophet does not say that the king is the 
 mighty God and the everlasting Father, but that his 
 name is divine and eternal, that is, that the divine 
 might and everlasting fatherhood of Jehovah are dis- 
 played in his rule.^ That the person of the Messiah 
 has not that foremost place in Isaiah's theology which 
 has often been supposed appears most clearly from the 
 fact that in his later utterances he ceases to speak of 
 the rise of a new king. In the prophecies of the time 
 of the war with Sennacherib he says only that the 
 king shall reign for righteousness and princes rule for 
 justice, that the churl shall no more be called princely, 
 and the man of guiles a gracious lord. The right men 
 shall be at the head of the state, and their authority 
 shall bring protection and refreshing to the distressed 
 (xxxii. 1 seq) ; Jerusalem's princes and judges shaU be 
 such as they were in the good old days (i. 26). So 
 long as the throne was filled by a king like Ahaz, or 
 while his successor was stiU in the hands of a corrupt 
 nobility, the contrast of the present and future kingship 
 was a point to be specially emphasised ; but when there 
 was promise of better days, when a vizier like Shebna 
 had to give way to a man whom Isaiah esteemed so 
 highly as Eliakim (xxii. 15 seq.), and the king himself 
 began to rule on sounder principles, the sharpness of 
 this contrast disappeared, and the prophet spoke rather 
 
308 ISAIAH'S 
 
 of the glorious Jehovah Himself, who, above and through 
 the earthly sovereign, was the true Judge, Lawgiver, 
 King, and Saviour of Israel 
 
 To realise what Isaiah looked to when he described 
 a state of things in which the laud of Israel should be 
 full of true religion, or, as he expresses it, of practical 
 knowledge of Jehovah, it is well to remember how in 
 chap, xxviii. he presents the daily toil of the husband- 
 man as itself regulated by divine revelation. The 
 Hebrew state consisted essentially of two classes, the 
 peasants and the governors or nobles. Husbandry on 
 the one side, good government aud justice on the other, 
 are the twin pillars of the state, and for prince and 
 peasant alike the knowledge of Jehovah means the 
 knowledge of the duties of his vocation as sacred rules 
 enforced by divine sanction and blessed by divine grace. 
 Well-ordered and peaceful industry on the one hand, 
 strict and impartial justice on the other, are the marks 
 by which it is known that Jehovah's law is supreme in 
 Israel ; and He Himself crowns such obedience by 
 blessing the fruits of the land, by giving unfailing 
 direction in every time of need, and protecting the 
 righteous nation from every enemy. Compare xxx. 
 18 scg. 
 
 Such is Isaiah's conception of the ideal of the in- 
 ternal order of the state, and his view of the foreign 
 relations of Israel is not less plain and practical It 
 contains, as we have seen, two elements, the subjugation 
 of the vassal nations which in old days did homage to 
 
LECT. VII. IDEAL. 309 
 
 David, and the establisliment of a kind of informal 
 headship over more distant tribes who seek arbitra- 
 tion and direction from Jerusalem. The first of these 
 elements is easy to understand. The new kingdom 
 cannot fall short of the glories of David's reign, and 
 Amos had already predicted that, in the last days, the 
 house of Israel should possess the remnant of Edom 
 and all the nations that in doing homage to Israel had 
 acknowledged the sovereignty of Jehovah. Less than 
 this, indeed, could not be regarded as sufficient to 
 establish the peace and security of the Hebrews, who 
 in every generation had been harassed by the enmity 
 of Philistia and Edom, of Ammonites and Moabites. 
 The other element in like manner contains no new 
 thought. It is expressed in a passage which is now 
 read in the books both of Isaiah and Micah (Isa. ii. 2 
 scq^. ; Micah iv. 2), and which, if it has a right to stand 
 in both places, and has not rather been transferred from 
 Micah to the text of Isaiah, must be a quotation from 
 an older prophet. For Isaiah ii. was written long be- 
 fore Micah i.-v. ; and Micah, on the other hand, is cer- 
 tainly not quoting Isaiah." But, in truth, the thought 
 that when justice and mercy rule on the throne of 
 David foreign nations shall willingly bring their feuds 
 before it for arbitration is expressed in the old pro- 
 phecy, Isa. xvi. {supra, p. 92). This is far from imply- 
 ing a world-wide sovereignty of Israel ; tlie thought 
 covers no more than that kind of influence which a just 
 and strong government always obtains among Semitic 
 
310 ISAIAH'S LECT. vii. 
 
 populations in its neighbourhood, which we ourselves, 
 for example, exercise at the present day among the 
 Arabs in the vicinity of Aden. The interminable feuds 
 of tribes, conducted on the theory of blood-revenge, 
 which makes no conclusive peace possible while either 
 side has an outstanding score against the other, can 
 seldom be durably healed without the intervention of a 
 third party who is called in as arbiter, and in this way 
 an impartial and wise power acquires of necessity a 
 great and beneficent influence over all around it. Such 
 an influence Israel must obtain when the knowledge and 
 fear of Jehovah are established in the midst of the land. 
 And now, in conclusion, the practical simplicity 
 and apparently restricted scope of Isaiah's ideal must 
 not cause us to undervalue the pure and lofty faith on 
 which it rests. A too prevalent way of thinking, which 
 is certainly not Biblical, but which leavens almost the 
 whole life of modern times, has accustomed us to 
 regard religion as a thing by itself, which ought indeed 
 to influence daily life, but nevertheless occupies a 
 separate place in our hearts and actions. To us the 
 exercises of religion belong to a different region from 
 the avocations of daily life ; God seems to us to stand 
 outside and above the world, which has laws and an 
 order of its own, in which it costs us a distinct effort to 
 recognise the evidence of a personal providence. When 
 we are dealing with the world we seem to have turned 
 our backs upon God, and when we look to Him in the 
 proper exercises of religion we strive to leave the world 
 
LECT. vii. IDEAL. 311 
 
 behind us. Hence our whole thoughts of God are 
 dominated by the contrast of the natural and the super-* 
 natural ; the miracles by which God approves Himself 
 as God seem to us to have evidential force only in so 
 far as they break through the laws of nature. To us, 
 therefore, the ideal of an existence in fuU converse with 
 God is apt to present itself as that of a new world in 
 which everything is supernatural, a heaven in which 
 the tasks of common life have no more place, and the 
 natural limitations of earthly being have disappeared. 
 The time when faith shall have passed into sight seems 
 to us to be necessarily a time in which everything is 
 miraculous, in which life is a dream of the fruition of 
 God. To such a habit of thought the ideal of Isaiah 
 is necessarily disappointing, and tHat not so much on 
 account of the unquestionable imperfection of the Old 
 Testament standpoint which considers the Divine King- 
 ship only in reference to the nation of Israel, as on 
 account of the realism which represents the state of per- 
 fected religion as consistent with the continuance of 
 earthly conditions and the common order of actual life. 
 But in reality it is just this realism which is the 
 greatest triumph of Isaiah's faith. For him that con- 
 trast of th« natural and supernatural which narrows all 
 the religion of the present has no existence. He knows 
 nothing of laws of nature, of an order of the world 
 which can be separated even in thought from the con- 
 stant personal activity of Jehovah. The natural life of 
 Israel is already, if I may use terms which the prophet 
 
312 ISAIAH'S VIEW OF lect. vii. 
 
 would have refused to recognise, as thoroughly pene- 
 trated by the supernatural as any heavenly state can 
 be. It is not in the future alone that the Holy One of 
 Israel is to become a living member in the daily life of 
 His people. To him who has eyes to see and ears to 
 hear the presence and voice of. Jehovah are already 
 manifested with absolute and unmistakable clearness. 
 It requires no argument to rise from nature to nature's 
 God ; the workings of Jehovah are as palpable as those 
 of an ordinary man. In the time of future glory His 
 presence cannot become more actual than it is now ; it 
 is only the eyes and ears of Israel that require to be 
 opened to see and hear what to the prophet is even now 
 a present reality. 
 
 With all its faults, the old popular religion of Israel 
 \ had one great excellence : it made religion an insepar- 
 able part of common life. The Hebrew saw God's 
 hand and acknowledged His presence in his sowing 
 and his reaping, in his sorrows and his joys. The rules 
 of husbandry were Jehovah's teaching, the harvest 
 gladness was Jehovah's feast, the thunderstorm Jeho- 
 vah's voice. It was the armies of Jehovah that went 
 forth to battle, the spirit of Jehovah that inspired the 
 king, the oracle of Jehovah that gave forth law and 
 judgment. This simple faith was obscured and threat- 
 ened with utter extinction by the intrusion into the 
 life of the nation of new and heterogeneous elements, 
 by the gradual dissolution of the ancient balance of 
 society, and above all by the advent of the Assyrian, 
 
LECT. VII. THE SUPERNATURAL. 313 
 
 who swept away in the tide of conquest the whole 
 traditional life of the conquered nations. Then it was 
 that the prophets arose to preach a kingdom of Jehovah 
 supreme even in the crash of nations and the dissolution 
 of the whole fabric of society. But the very cardinal 
 point of their faith, which alone gave it value and 
 power, was the doctrine that the God who reigned in 
 the storm that raged round Israel was no new deity, but 
 the ancient God of Jacob ; the kingdom of the future 
 was one with the kingdom of the past, and the task of 
 that divine grace in which they never ceased to trust 
 was not to set a new religion in the place of the old, 
 but to re-establish the ancient harmony of religion and 
 daily experience, and make common life as full of 
 Jehovah's presence as it had been in times gone by. 
 To this end a work of judgment must sweep away all 
 that comes between man and his Maker. The sins of 
 Israel are the things that hide Jehovah from its eyes, 
 and from this point of view idols and idolatrous s;iiic- 
 tuaries stand on one line with wealth and luxury, 
 fortresses and chariots, everything that can hold man's 
 heart and prevent it from turning in every concern 
 directly to the Holy One of Israel. To the prophet all 
 these things are emptiness and vanity. The one thing 
 real on earth is the work of Jehovah in relation to His 
 people. To Isaiah, therefore, the supernatural is not 
 something added to and differing from the common 
 course of things. Everything real is supernatural, and 
 supernatural in the same degree. "Where we contrast 
 
314 ISAIAH'S VIEW OF lect. vii. 
 
 the supernatural and the natural, Isaiah contrasts 
 Jehovah and the things of nought. To him the faU of 
 Assyria by the strote of the Holy One of Israel is just 
 as supernatural and just as natural as the previous 
 conquests of the Great King ; he sees the hand of Jeho- 
 vah working alike in both, and both exemplify the 
 same principle of the absolute sovereignty of the King 
 who reigns in Zion. From our point of view the picture 
 drawn in chaps, x. and xi. is apt to seem a strange 
 mixture of the most surprising miracle and the most 
 prosaic matter of fact. The Assyrian falls by no human 
 sword, and presently the men of Judah are engaged in 
 the petty conquest of Philistia or Edom. Or again, in 
 chap. XXX., the light of the Holy One of Israel flashes 
 forth from Zion, Jehovali causes His glorious voice to 
 be heard and scatters His enemies with flame of a de- 
 vouring fire, with crashing storm and hail ; and when 
 the tempest is past we see the cattle feeding in large 
 pastures, the oxen and the asses that plough the ground 
 eating savoury provender winnowed with the shovel 
 and the fork. But to Isaiah the miracles of history 
 and the providences of common life bring Jehovah 
 alike near to faith. His religion is the religion of the 
 God without whose will not even a sparrow can fall 
 upon the ground, the God whose greatness lies in His 
 equal sovereignty in things small and vast. 
 
 The first requisite to a better understanding of the 
 religion of the Bible is that we should learn to enter 
 with simplicity into this point.of view, and to this end 
 
LECT. VII. THE SUPERNATURAL. 315 
 
 we must remember above all things that the Bible 
 knows nothing of that narrow definition of miracle 
 which we have inherited from mediaeval metaphysics. 
 When Isaiah draws a distinction between Jehovah's 
 wonders and the things of daily life he thinks of some- 
 thing quite different from what we call miracle. " For- 
 asmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth, 
 and with their lips do honour Me, but have removed 
 their heart far from Me, and their fear towards Me is a 
 precept of men learned by rote : therefore behold I 
 will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, 
 even a marvellous work and a miracle, and the wisdom 
 of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding 
 of their prudent men shall be hid " (xxix. 13, 14). A 
 marvel or miracle is a work ■ of Jehovah directed to 
 confound the religion of formalism, to teach men that 
 Jehovah's rule is a real thing and not a traditional 
 convention to be acknowledged in formulas learned by 
 rote. And the mark of such a work is not that it 
 breaks through laws of nature — a conception which had 
 no existence for Isaiah — but that all man's wisdom and 
 foresight stand abashed before it. The whole career of 
 Assyria is part of the marvel that confounds the hypo- 
 crisy and formalism of Judah ; even as the prophet 
 speaks the work is already begun and proceeding to its 
 completion. And therefore it was of no moment to 
 Isaiah's faith whether his picture of the sudden down- 
 fall of the enemy before the gates of Jerusalem was 
 fulfilled, as we say, literally. The point of his prophecy 
 
 i 
 
S16 MIRACLE. 
 
 was not that the deliverance of Judah should take place 
 in any one way, or with those dramatic circumstances 
 of the so-called supernatural which a vulgar faith 
 demands as the proof that God is at work. In truth 
 the crisis came, as we shall see in next Lecture, in a 
 form far less visibly startling than is pictured in chap. 
 X. ; but it was none the less true that Jehovah so 
 worked His supreme will that man's wisdom was con- 
 founded before it, that it was made manifest to the eyes 
 of Israel that Jehovah reigns supreme and that there 
 is no help or salvation save in Him. And in this sense 
 the age of miracle is not past. All history is full of 
 like proofs of divine sovereignty and divine grace, when 
 in ways incalculable, and through combinations that 
 mocked the foresight and policy of human counsellors, 
 God's cause has been proved indestructible, and the 
 faith in a very present God and Saviour which Isaiah 
 preached has come forth in new life from the wreck of 
 societies in which religion had become a mere tradition 
 of men. 
 
LECT. vni. DEATH OF S ARGON. 317 
 
 LECTUEE VIII. 
 
 THE DELIVERANCE FEOM ASSYRIA.'' 
 
 Between the Syro-Ephraitic war and the accession of 
 Sennacherib to the throne of Nineveh the power of 
 Assyria had been steadily on the increase. The energy 
 and talent of Sargon, devoted to the consolidation rather 
 than the unlimited extension of his empire, effectually 
 put down every movement of independence on the part 
 of subjects and tributaries, and even the united realm 
 of Egypt and Ethiopia no longer ventured to measure 
 its strength with his. The nations groaned under a 
 tyranny that knew no pity, but they had learned by 
 repeated experience that revolt was hopeless while the 
 reins of empire were held by so firm a hand. At length, 
 in the year 705, Sargon died, and the crown passed to 
 his son, Sennacherib. A thrill of joy ran through the 
 nations at the fall of the great oppressor (Isa. xiv. 29). 
 In a few months Babylon was in full revolt, the Assy- 
 rian vassal king was overthrown, Merodach Baladan — 
 either the old adversary of Sargon, or a son of the same 
 name — assumed the sovereignty, and for two years 
 (704-3), according to the canon of Ptolemy, the Assyrian 
 
318 EMBASSY OF lect. viii. 
 
 kingship in Chaldaea was interrupted. The rebel king 
 sought alliances far and wide ; the monuments tell us 
 that he fonnd support in Elam (the region to the east 
 of the lower Tigris, now part of Khuzistan), among the 
 Aramaeans of Mesopotamia, and among the Arab tribes, 
 and that two campaigns were occupied in reducing the 
 revolt in these districts. But the plan of Merodach 
 Baladan had not been limited to Chaldaea and the neigh- 
 bouring regions. The far West was equally impatient 
 of Assyrian rule with the eastern provinces, and the 
 first hope of the Babylonian leader was to raise the 
 whole empire in simultaneous insurrection from the 
 shores of the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. It is 
 to this date that we must refer his embassy to Heze- 
 kiah spoken of in 2 Kings xx. (Isa. xxxix), for which 
 the sickness of the king of Judah can have been no 
 more than the formal pretext, since we are told that 
 Hezeldah "hearkened to the ambassadors," and dis- 
 played before them the resources of his kingdom. Such 
 a reception given to a declared rebel against Assyria 
 could have but one meaning. It meant that the 
 king of Judah was more than half inclined to join 
 the revolt. Merodach Baladan, in fact, had not mis- 
 judged the feelings of the Palestinian nations. The 
 Philistine states especially, the old hotbed of revolt, were 
 in a ferment of exultation at the news of Sargbn's death, 
 and already committed to war, and the contagion of 
 their enthusiasm had reached Judah. Hezekiah, how- 
 ever, does not seem to have engaged himself to imme- 
 
LECT. VIII. MERODACH BALADAN. 319 
 
 diate action. He was not disposed to advance without 
 the aid of Egypt, and the diplomacy of the Pharaohs 
 moved slowly. But while the king hesitated, Isaiah 
 had at once taken up his position. At the first news 
 of the attitude of the Philistines he had sounded a note 
 of warning in the brief prophecy preserved in xiv. 29- 
 32. " Eejoice not, all Philistia, that the rod that smote 
 thee is broken ; for from the root of the serpent shall 
 come forth a basilisk, and its fruit shall be a flying 
 dragon." Sennacherib, that is to say, will prove an 
 enemy still more dangerous than his father. The cities 
 of Philistia are doomed, " for a smoke cometh out of the 
 north " — the cloud that marks the approach of the 
 Assyrian host — " and there is no straggler in his bands." 
 But if Judah hold the safe course, and eschew all con- 
 nection with foreign schemes of liberation, the destruc- 
 tion shall not be suffered to affect Hezekiah, or disturb 
 the" peace of the poorest in his land (xiv. 30). What 
 answer then should be made to the ambassadors of the 
 nation which solicits the Judsean alliance ? " That 
 Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in it His afSicted 
 people shall find shelter." ^ 
 
 Thirty years had passed since Isaiah first struck this 
 very note of warning and of hope in his famous inter- 
 view with Ahaz, at a time when the leaders of Judah 
 were as eager to commit themselves to the Assyrian 
 tutelage as they now were impatient to throw it off. 
 The new generation which had grown up in the interval, 
 and now held the reins of the state, had seen greater 
 
320 ATTITUDE lect. viii. 
 
 changes take place in their own lifetime than had 
 passed before all the generations of their fathers from 
 the time of Solomon downwards. Judah was like a 
 ship that had lost its rudder, drifting at the mercy of 
 shifting winds. Every ancient principle of national 
 policy had disappeared or been reversed. No one knew 
 whither the state was tending, or what results might 
 flow from the new alliance with Philistia and Egypt, so 
 contrary to all the traditions of past history, which the 
 king and his counsellors were disposed to welcome as 
 offering at least a hope of momentary relief from a 
 bondage that had become intolerable. During these 
 thirty years Isaiah alone had remained ever constant to 
 himself, alike free from panic and flattering self-delusion, 
 unshaken by the successes of Assyria, assured that no 
 political combination which lay within the horizon of 
 Judaean statesmanship could stem the tide of conquest, 
 but not less assured that Jehovah's kingdom stood im- 
 movable, the one sure rock in the midst of the surging 
 waters. An attitude so imposing in its calm and stead- 
 fast faith, and justified by so many proofs of true insight 
 and sound political judgment, could not fail to secure 
 for Isaiah a deep and growing influence. He no longer, 
 as in the days of Ahaz, confronted the king as a mere 
 isolated individual, whose counsels could be contemptu- 
 ously brushed aside. The prophetic word had become 
 a power in Jerusalem, and though the " scornful men," 
 who despised Jehovah's word and trusted in oppression 
 and crooked ways (xxx. 9-12), were still predominant in 
 
LECT. VIII. OF ISAIAH. 321 
 
 the counsels of state, they were afraid openly to chal- 
 lenge the opposition of Isaiah until the nation was too 
 deeply committed to draw back. Their plans of revolt 
 were matured in all secrecy ; they hid their counsel deep 
 from Jehovah and kept their actions in the dark — so 
 Isaiah complains — saying, Who seeth us and who 
 knoweth usi (xxix. 15). The prolonged wars of Sen- 
 nacherib in the east gave them time to ripen their 
 plans in private negotiation with Egypt. An embassy 
 was sent to Zoan with a train of camels and asses bear- 
 ing a rich treasure as the best argument to secure the 
 assistance of Pharaoh (xxx. 1-6). The delay which 
 attended these negotiations was in itself sufficient to 
 ruin the prospects of the conspirators, for it gave Sen- 
 nacherib time to crush the Babylonians and their allies 
 in detail, before the flame of war broke out in the west. 
 Even the common political judgment must justify Isaiah 
 when he pointed out that the strength of the Assyrian 
 was in no sense broken by the death of Sargon, and 
 that the inertness of the Egyptians gave no promise of 
 effectual help (xxx. 7). When Sennacherib had secured 
 his eastern provinces, and at last moved westward 
 (701 B.C.), the allies had effected as good as nothing. 
 No Egyptian army was yet in the field. The Philistines 
 had risen in conjunction with Hezekiah, and King Padi 
 of Eki'on, the vassal of Sennacherib, had been laid in 
 chains in Jerusalem ; the Phcenician cities were also in 
 revolt, but no scheme of joint action was prepared, and 
 the Great King advanced victoriously along the Mediter- 
 
 15 
 
322 ISAIAH AND THE lect. viii. 
 
 ranean coast. The first blow fell upon Tyre, Zidon, and 
 
 the minor Phoenician ports, and, when they were reduced, 
 
 the Samaritans,* Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and 
 
 even a part of the Philistines, hastened to bring gifts 
 
 and do homage to the conqueror. Still continuing his 
 
 march along the coast, Sennacherib successively reduced 
 
 Ashkelon and the other maritime cities of Philistia ; and, 
 
 having thus thrown his force between the Palestinian 
 
 rebels and their tardy allies of Egypt, he was able to turn 
 
 his arms inland against Ekron and Judaea without fear 
 
 of their forces effecting a junction with Tirhakah. Tir- 
 
 hakah, in fact, had already begun to move, and sent an 
 
 army to the relief of Ekron, but it was defeated at 
 
 Eltekeh,^ and compelled to retire without effecting its 
 
 purpose. From this moment the fall of Ekron was 
 
 assured, and the Judseans, who had been the soul of the 
 
 revolt in Southern Palestine, had no human hope of 
 
 deliverance from the Great King. The crisis had arrived 
 
 which Isaiah had so long foreseen ; the last act of the 
 
 Divine judgment had opened, and all eyes could now see 
 
 the madness of a policy which had sought help and 
 
 counsel from man and not from God. 
 
 During the three years of suspense that intervened 
 
 between the embassy of Merodach Baladan to Heze- 
 
 kiah and the defeat of the forces of Egypt and Ethiopia 
 
 at Eltekeh, Isaiah had never wavered in >his judgment 
 
 on the insensate folly of the rulers of Judah. When 
 
 the secret of the negotiations with Egypt, so long hid 
 
 with care from Jehovah and His prophet, was at length 
 * See page 439. 
 
LECT. viii. EGYPTIAN ALLIANCE. 323 
 
 divulged, and the whole nation was carried away by a 
 tide of patriotic enthusiasm, his indignation found utter- 
 ance in burning words. The political folly of the scheme 
 was palpable ; the enthusiasm with which it was greeted 
 was mere intoxication (xxix. 9). Yet it was not for 
 miscalculating the relative strength and readiness of 
 Egypt and Assyria that Isaiah blamed his countrymen, 
 but for entering at all into a calculation which left 
 Jehovah out of the reckoning. " Woe to them that go - 
 down to Egypt for help, and stay on horses and trust in 
 chariots because they are many, and on horsemen be- 
 cause they are a great host ; but they look not to the 
 Holy One of Israel, neither do they consult Jehovah. 
 Yet He is wise, and bringeth evil, and will not call back 
 His words, but will rise against the house of evildoers 
 and the help of them that work iniquity. The Egyptians 
 are men and not God, and their horses flesh and not 
 spirit : Jehovah stretcheth forth His hand, and the helper 
 stumbleth, and he that is holpen falls, yea, all of them 
 shall fail together " (xxxi. 1 segi). Their plans had left 
 out of account the one factor that really makes history, 
 the supreme purpose and will of the Holy One of Israel. 
 A judicial blindness seemed to cover the eyes of Judah. 
 Jehovah had poured upon them a spirit of deep sleep ; 
 His revelation had become a sealed and illegible book 
 to the nation which called itself Jehovah's people, but 
 refused to hear His counsel (xxix. 10 se$.). He had 
 long since set before His people the path of true deliver- 
 ance. " Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, By returning and 
 
324 ISAIAH WAS NOT lect. viii. 
 
 rest ye shall be saved ; in quietness and confidence shall 
 be your strength : but ye would not." The rest and 
 quietness which Isaiah prescribes are not the rest of 
 indolence ; he calls on Israel to abjure the vain bustle 
 of foreign politics and put their trust in Jehovah ; but 
 faith in Jehovah brings its own obligations, — conformity 
 to Jehovah's law, the establishment of religion as a 
 practical power in daily life, and not as a mere precept 
 of men learned by rote. To think that the divine wrath 
 expressed in the continuance of Assyrian oppression can 
 be escaped where these conditions are ignored is to 
 reduce Jehovah to the level of man ; it is not against 
 Assyria but against Jehovah Himself that the plans of 
 Judah are directed. " Out on your perversity," he cries ; 
 " shall the potter be esteemed as the clay, that the thing 
 made should say of him that made it, He made me not ? 
 or the thing framed of him that framed it, He hath no 
 understanding?" (xxix. 16). Not by such vain rebellion 
 against the Maker of Israel can peace and help be found. 
 Jehovah's salvation must be sought in His own way, 
 and when it comes it shall sweep away not only the 
 foreign tyrant, but the idolatry and traditional formalism 
 of the masses, the oppressive and untruthful rule of the 
 godless nobles (xxxi. 7 ; xxxii. 1 seq!). 
 
 To a superficial view the teaching of Isaiah in this 
 juncture may seem to present the aspect of political 
 fatalism. The apparent patriotism of his opponents 
 enlists a ready sympathy, and the prophet's declaration 
 that it was vain to attempt anything against the 
 
LECT. VIII. A FA TALIST. 325 
 
 Assyrian till Jehovali Himself rose to bring deliverance 
 is very apt to be confounded with the vulgar type of 
 Oriental indolence, which identifies submission to the 
 divine will with a neglect of the natural means to a 
 desired end, leaving the means and the end alike to the 
 sovereignty of fate. Such a view altogether mistakes 
 the true point of Isaiah's argument. He does not refuse 
 the use of means, but condemns the choice of means 
 that are necessarily inadequate because they ignore the 
 conditions of Jehovah's sovereignty. If the plans of 
 Hezekiah and his princes had succeeded, they would 
 still have contributed nothing to the true deliverance of 
 Judah. To be freed from Assyria only that the rulers 
 of the land might continue their oppressions uncon- 
 trolled, that religion might go on in its old round of 
 formal observances which had no influence on conduct, 
 that the credit of the idols might be re-established, and 
 the true word of Jehovah still treated with contumely, 
 would have been no benefit to the land. Isaiah was 
 not the enemy of patriotic effort, but only of the spurious 
 patriotism that identifies national prosperity with the 
 undisturbed persistence of cherished abuses ; he did not 
 value political freedom less than his countrymen did, 
 but he valued it only when it meant freedom from 
 internal disorders as well as from foreign domination, the 
 substitution for Assyrian bondage of the effective 
 sovereignty of Jehovah's holiness. 
 
 And so the criticism which Isaiah directed against 
 the policy of Egyptian alliance was not merely negative. 
 
326 THE SALVATION lect. vm. 
 
 As a true prophet he could not preach the vanity of mere 
 human helpers without at the same time unfolding the 
 all-sufficiency of the divine Saviour. The crisis which 
 the folly of the rulers had brought upon the nation had 
 to Isaiah a meaning of mercy as well as of judgment, for 
 mercy and judgment meet in those supreme moments 
 of history when the wisdom of the wise and the under- 
 standing of the prudent are confounded before Jehovah's 
 counsel, when the arm of flesh is broken, and the might 
 of Jehovah stands revealed to every eye. The impend- 
 ing destruction of the human helpers of Judah, the 
 confusion that awaits those who put their trust in 
 idols and in that religion learned by rote (xxix. 13) of 
 which the idols were a part (xxxi. 7), the disasters 
 which are prepared for the armies of Hezekiah (xxx. 17), 
 the overthrow of citadel and fortress, and the desolation 
 of the fruitful land (xxxii. 9 seg'.), are so many steps 
 towards the great turning-point of Israel's history, 
 when all the delusive things of earth that blind men's 
 eyes to spiritual realities are swept away, and Jehovah 
 alone remains as the supreme reality and the one help 
 of His people. " In that day shall the deaf .hear the 
 words of the book [of revelation, xxix. 11], and the eyes 
 of the blind shall see out of darkness and out of 
 obscurity. And the afflicted ones shall renew their joy 
 in Jehovah, and the poor among men shall rejoice in 
 the Holy One of Israel. For the tyrant is brought to 
 nought, and the scorner is consumed, and all that 
 watched for iniquity are cut off, that make men to 
 
LECT. viii. OF ISRAEL. 327 
 
 sin by their words, and lay a snare for liim that judgeth 
 in the gate, and undo him that is in the right by empty 
 guiles." Jehovah's deliverance, you observe, is not 
 limited to the overthrow of the Assyrian ; its goal is 
 the establishment of His revelation as the law of Israel, 
 and especially as alawthat restores justice in the land and 
 enables the poor and oppressed to rejoice in their divine 
 King. " Therefore, thus saith Jehovah, who redeemed 
 Abraham, unto the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now 
 be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale ; for 
 when his children see it, even the work of My hands 
 in the midst of him, they shall sanctify My name and 
 sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the 
 God of Israel. And they that erred in spirit shall 
 come to understanding, and they that murmured shall 
 learn instruction " (xxix. 18-24). 
 
 Thus the words of stern rebuke which Isaiah con- 
 tinued to direct against the princes and their carnal 
 policy (chaps, xxix.-xxxii.) are mingled with pictures of 
 salvation, in which the main ideas are those already 
 developed in earlier prophecies, but set forth with a 
 depth of sympathy and tender feeling to which none of 
 the earlier prophecies attain. The prophet's fire had not 
 been quenched, but his spirit was chastened and his 
 faith mellowed by the experience of forty years spent in 
 waiting for the salvation which Judah's unbelief had so 
 long deferred. One can see that the old man had begun 
 to live much in the future, that he was glad to look 
 beyond the present, and delight himself in the imager, 
 
328 THE BLESSEDNESS lect. viii. 
 
 of peace and holiness that lay on the other side of the 
 last and crowning trouble which the nation had so 
 wantonly drawn upon itself Jehovah is ready with 
 grace and help at the first voice of repentant supplica- 
 tion. " He waiteth long that He may be gracious unto 
 you ; He lifteth Himself on high that He may have 
 compassion upon you, for Jehovah is the God of judg- 
 ment ; blessed are all they that wait for Him. Nay ! 
 weep no more, people of Zion, that dwellest in 
 Jerusalem ; He will surely be gracious to thee at the 
 voice of thy cry, even as He heareth it He will answer 
 thee. And when the Loid giveth you the bread of 
 adversity and the water of afHiction, yet shall not thy 
 Eevealer be hidden any more, but thine eyes shall 
 see thy Eevealer; and thine ears shall hear a word 
 behind thee saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when 
 ye turn to the right hand or to the left. Then ye shall 
 defile the silver plating of your graven images, and the 
 golden overlaying of your molten images ; thou shalt 
 cast them away as a foul thing ; thou shalt say to it, 
 Get thee hence. Thus He shall give the rain of thy seed 
 that thou sowest the ground withal, and bread of the 
 increase of the earth, and it shall be rich and full ; in 
 that day shall the cattle feed in large pastures. . . . 
 Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of 
 the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, in 
 the day tliat Jehovah bindeth up the hurt of His people 
 and healeth the stroke of their wound" (xxx. 18, sej.). 
 In th"se pictures of assured prosperity in a nation that 
 
LECT. VIII. OF THE LAST DA YS. 329 
 
 has cast aside its idols to seek deliverance and continual 
 guidance from the true Teacher, Isaiah dwells again and 
 again, and with a fulness which we are apt to think 
 disproportionate, on images of fertility and natural 
 abundance, of plenty and contentment for man and 
 beast, when streams flow on every mountain (xxx. 25), 
 when Lebanon is changed to a fruitful field, and the 
 fruitful field of to-day shall be esteemed as a forest 
 (xxix. 17). There is true poetical pathos in these 
 images of rural peace and felicity, drawn by an old man 
 whose life had been spent in the turmoil of the capital, 
 in the midst of the creations of earthly pride, where the 
 works of man's hands disguised the simple tokens of 
 Jehovah's goodness. But the emphasis which Isaiah 
 lays on the gifts of natural fertility has more than a 
 poetic motive. From the days of his earliest prophecies 
 he had pointed to the " spring of Jehovah," the God- 
 given fruits of the earth, as the true glory of the remnant 
 of Israel, — the best of blessings, because they come 
 straight from heaven, and are the true basis of a peace- 
 ful and God-fearing life (chap. iv.). And so he draws 
 once more the old contrast between the immediate 
 prospect of a land desolated by invading hosts, when the 
 pleasant fields and the fruitful vineyards lie waste, 
 when the gladsome houses of the joyous cities of Judah 
 are covered with thorns and briers, when the citadel is 
 forsaken and the turmoil of the city changed to silence, 
 when ruined fortress and tower are the haunt of the 
 wild asses, a pasture for flocks, and the days of Israel's 
 
330 THE CRISIS OF THE lect. viii. 
 
 restoration, " when the spirit is poured upon us from on 
 high, and the wilderness" shall be a fruitful field, and the 
 fruitful field be counted for a forest." To Isaiah the 
 fertility of the land is a spiritual blessing, the token of 
 acceptance with Jehovah, the seal of the return of the 
 nation to the paths of righteousness and true obedience. 
 The desert is transformed to fertility, for judgment 
 dwells in it, and righteousness abides in the fruitful 
 field. " And the effect of righteousness shaU be peace, 
 and the reward of righteousness quietness and security 
 for ever. And My people shall dwell in a peaceable 
 habitation and in sure dwellings and in quiet resting- 
 places." " Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, 
 sending forth the feet of the ox and the ass " to tread in 
 the seed. Blessed is Israel, when the turmoil of the 
 present has passed away for ever, and all corners of the 
 land are again the scene of the yearly routine of simple 
 husbandry (xxxii. 12, stg). 
 
 There is a tinge of weariness, an earnest longing 
 after rest, in these idyllic pictures, but Isaiah did not 
 suffer them to withdraw his attention from the pressing 
 questions of the present. Step by step he watched the 
 progress of events. While all around him were still 
 steeped in careless security, while the feasts still ran 
 their round, and more than one year passed by and 
 brought no tidings of the approach of Sennacherib, he 
 continued to send forth words of warning. Jehovah 
 Himself is preparing the onslaught. He will camp 
 against Zion round about, and build siege -works and 
 
LECT. viii. WORLD'S HISTORY. 331 
 
 forts against the city of David, and the deliverance shall 
 not come till Jerusalem is humbled to the dust, and her 
 plaintive cry seems to rise from the depths of the earth 
 like the voice of a ghost. But in the last extremity her 
 help is sure, and her adversaries vanish as chaff before 
 the wind. " She shall be visited of Jehovah of hosts 
 with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, 
 with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire. 
 And the multitude of all the nations that fight against 
 Ariel — the hearth of God — even all that fight against 
 her and her munition, and they that distress her, shall 
 be as a dream, a vision of the night" (xxix. 1 seq}). 
 Thus assured of the limits of the appointed judgment, 
 Isaiah follows with calmness the gradual evolution of 
 Jehovah's purpose. The Assyrian is drawing nigh to 
 discharge his last commission, to complete the work of 
 judgment, and then to disappear for ever. The great- 
 ness of the crisis and the lofty eminence of faith from 
 which Isaiah looks down upon it declare themselves in 
 an expansion of the prophetic horizon. The impending 
 decision is not merely the turning-point of Israel's 
 history, it is the crisis of the history of the world ; the 
 future not of Judah alone, but of all the nations, from 
 Tarshish in the Mediterranean West, and Meroe in the 
 distant South, to the far Eastern lands of Elam, hangs 
 upon the approaching conflict. On every side the 
 nations are mustering to battle ; Assyria, on its part, is 
 gathering the peoples of the East (xviL 12 ; xxii. 6 ; 
 xxix. 7) ; on the Nile swift messengers are hurrying to 
 
b32 THE ADVANCE lect. viii. 
 
 and fro tetwixt Ethiopia and Egypt (xviii. 2) ; and the 
 centre of all this turmoil is Jehovah's mountain land of 
 Judah. For Jehovah hath sworn that in His land the 
 Assyrian shall be broken, and on His mountains He will 
 tread him under foot. " This is the purpose that is 
 purposed upon the whole earth, and this is the hand 
 that is stretched out upon all nations" (xiv. 24-27). 
 And so the prophet calls upon all the inhabitants of the 
 world to watch for the decisive moment, the signal of 
 Jehovah's visible intervention, when the ensign is lifted 
 up on the mountains, and the trumpet blast proclaims 
 the great catastrophe. Meanwhile Jehovah in His 
 heavenly dwelling-place looks down at ease upon the 
 gradual ripening of His purpose, as the skies seem lazily 
 to watch the ripening grapes on a clear bright day in 
 the hot autumn. "For before the vintage, when the 
 blossom is over and the flower gives place to the ripen- 
 ing grape. He shall cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, 
 and the branches shall He hew away." Thus surely and 
 without interruption shall the Assyrian mature his plans 
 of universal conquest, till Jehovah Himself strikes in, 
 and the invincible armies of Nineveh are left together to 
 the fowls of the mountains and to the beasts of the 
 earth ; and the vultures shall summer upon their 
 carcasses, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter 
 upon them. Then shall Mount Zion, the place of the 
 name of Jehovah of hosts, be known to all the ends of 
 the earth, and from far Ethiopia tribute and homage shall 
 flow to Jehovah's shrine (xviii. 4-7). 
 
r.ECT.viii. OF SEFNACHERIB. 333 
 
 Thus, while Isaiah does not cease to concentrate his 
 chief attention on Israel, or to regard the restoration and 
 true redemption of the ancient people of Jehovah as the 
 central feature of the Divine purpose, the largeness of 
 the historical issues involved in the downfall of the 
 supreme world-power carries the prophetic vision far 
 beyond the narrow limits of Judah, and in the destruc- 
 tion of the Assyrian tyrant the King of Israel declares 
 Himself Lord of all the earth. And so when Babylon 
 had fallen (xxiii. 13), and Sennacherib at length began his 
 destroying march upon the western provinces, Isaiah 
 followed his progress with absorbing and almost sympa- 
 thetic interest. First he announces the speedy discom- 
 fiture of the Arab tribes ; within a short year all the 
 glory of Kedar shall be consumed, and the remnant of the 
 bowmen of the desert shall be few (xxi. 13 &&g). And 
 next, as we know was the actual course of events, the 
 stroke shall fall on the proud city of Tyre, the mart of 
 nations, whose merchants are princes, and her traffickers 
 the honourable of the earth ; for Jehovah of hosts hath 
 purposed to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring 
 into contempt all the honourable of the earth (chap, 
 xxiii.). And still the career of the destroyer has not 
 reached its end : " Behold Jehovah rideth upon a swift 
 cloud, and cometh unto Egypt, and the idols of Egypt 
 shall be moved at His presence, and the heart of Egypt 
 shall melt in the midst thereof." The strength of 
 Pharaoh is brought to nought, and the wisdom of his 
 counsellors is changed to folly ; the land is divided 
 
334 CONVERSION OF lect. viii. 
 
 against itself and passes under the hand of a cruel Lord 
 — the merciless king of Assyria (chap. xix.). It is 
 Jehovah Himself that leads the armies of Mneveh in 
 this career of universal conquest, paralysing the arms 
 of their enemies ; all the nations must be abased before 
 Him, the strength of the world must be laid low, that 
 His majesty may be exalted and every land do homage 
 to Him. The crowning decision has assumed propor- 
 tions so vast that its issue can be nothing less than the 
 siibjugation of the inhabited world to Jehovah's throne. 
 For the desolation of the kingdoms is no longer, as it 
 had appeared to earlier prophecy, a mere work of judg- 
 ment on a godless world. To them as well as to Judah, 
 if not in so exalted a sense, the judgment is the prelude 
 to a great conversion. Tyre shall be forgotten for seventy 
 years — the period, as the prophet explains it, of a single 
 reign — and then Jehovah shall visit her in mercy, and 
 she shall return to her merchandise and her gains, no 
 l6nger to heap up treasure in the temple of Melkarth, 
 but to consecrate her wealth to Jehovah, and supply 
 abundance of food and princely clothing to the people 
 of Israel that dwell in His presence. 
 
 We see from this detail that Isaiah still pictures 
 the conversion of the nations under the limitations 
 prescribed by the national idea of religion, which the 
 Old Testament never wholly laid aside, which could 
 not indeed be superseded in an age to which all cosmo- 
 politan ideas were utterly foreign. But, while Isaiah 
 was unable to conceive of the conversion of foreign 
 
LECT. VIII. TYRE AND EGYPT. 335 
 
 nations to Jehovah in any other form than that of 
 homage done to the Divine King that reigned on Zion, 
 and tribute paid to His court, we should greatly err if 
 we imagined that this conception sprang, as has some- 
 times been supposed, from mere national vanity. The 
 subjection of the nations to Jehovah's throne, and the 
 share which they thus obtain in the blessings of peace 
 and good governance that are ministered by His sovereign 
 word of revelation (ii. 2 seg.) is no grievous bondage, 
 but their best privilege and happiness, their redemption 
 from the cruel yoke which pressed so heavily on all the 
 earth. This appears most clearly in the prophecy of 
 the conversion of Egypt in chap. ocix. On no land do 
 the evils of a selfish and oppressive government weigh 
 so grievously as on the valley of the Mle, where the 
 very conditions of life and the maintenance of the 
 fertility of the soil depend on a continual attention to 
 the canals and other public works, the condition of 
 which has, in all ages, been the best criterion of a strong 
 and considerate administration.* This characteristic fea- 
 ture of the economy of the nation does not escape Isaiah, 
 for the lofty spirituality of his aims is always combined 
 with a penetrating insight into actual historical condi- 
 tions. Under the cruel king whose advent dissolves 
 the government of the Pharaohs, and sets free the 
 intestine jealousies of the Egyptian nornes, the prophet 
 describes the canals as dried up, and all the industries 
 that depended on them as paralysed. Then the Egyp- 
 tians shall cry unto Jehovah because of their oppressors, 
 
336 CONVERSION OF lect. viii. 
 
 and He shall send them a saviour and a prince, and He 
 shall deliver them. " And Jehovah shall be known to 
 Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know Jehovah on that 
 day, and shall do worship with sacrifice and oblation, 
 and shall vow vows to Jehovah, and perform them." 
 Then all the lands of the known world from Egypt to 
 Assyria shall serve the God of Jacob. " Israel shall be 
 the third with Egypt and Assyria, even a blessing in 
 the midst of the earth, whom Jehovah of hosts shall 
 bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria 
 the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance." 
 Never had the faith of prophet soared so higb, or ap- 
 proached so near to the conception of a universal religion, 
 set free from every trammel of national individuality. 
 For now the history of the world had narrowed itself to 
 a single issue; the fate of all nations turned on the 
 decisive contest between the Assyrian and the God of 
 Zion ; and it was plain that Jehovah's kingship in Israel 
 was naught unless it could approve itself by arguments 
 that spoke to all the earth.° 
 
 If the vindication of the divine mission of the pro- 
 phets of Israel must be sought in the precision of detail 
 with which they related beforehand the course of coming 
 events, the hopes which Isaiah continued to preach 
 during the victorious advance of Sennacherib must be 
 reckoned as vain imaginations. The great decision 
 which shall call back the earth to the service of the 
 true God is still an object of faith, and not an accom- 
 plished reality. The Assyrians passed away, and new 
 
LECT. VIII. EGYPT AND ASSYRIA. 337 
 
 powers rose upon the ruins of their greatness to repeat 
 in other forms the battle of earthly empire against the 
 Kingdom of God. As Babylonia and Persia, Greece and 
 Eome, successively rose and fell, the sphere of the great 
 movements of history continually enlarged, till at length 
 a new world went forth from the dissolution of ancient 
 society, the centre of human history was shifted to 
 lands unknown to the Hebrews, and its fortunes were 
 committed to nations still unborn when Isaiah preached. 
 Not only have Isaiah's predictions received no literal 
 fulfilment, but it is impossible that the evolution of the 
 divine purpose can ever again be narrowed within the 
 limits of the petty world of which Judah was the centre 
 and Egypt and Assyria the extremes. Fanciful theorists 
 who use the Old Testament as a book of curious 
 mysteries, and profane its grandeur by adapting it to 
 their idle visions at the sacrifice of every law of sound 
 hermeneiities and sober historical judgment, may still 
 dream of future political conjunctions which shall restore 
 to Palestine the position of central importance which it 
 once held as the meeting-place of the lands of ancient 
 civilisation ; but no sane thinker can seriously imagine 
 for a moment that Tyre will again become the emporium 
 of the world's commerce or Jerusalem the seat of 
 universal sovereignty. The forms in which Isaiah 
 enshrined his spiritual hopes are broken, and cannot 
 be restored ; they belong to an epoch of history that 
 can never return, and the same line of argument which 
 leads us reverently to admire the divine wisdom that 
 
338 THE FULFILMENT lect. viii. 
 
 chose the mountains of Palestine as the cradle of 
 true religion at a time when Palestine was, in a very 
 real sense, the physical centre of those movements 
 of history from which the modern world has grown, 
 I'efutes the idea that the Kingdom of the living God can 
 again in any special sense be identified with the nation 
 of the Jews and the land of Canaan. These indeed are 
 considerations which have long been obvious to all but 
 a few fantastic Millenarians, whose visions deserve no 
 elaborate refutation. But even serious students of 
 Scripture do not always clearly realise the full import 
 of the failure of the literalistic view of prophecy ; and 
 the doctrine of literal fulfilment, rejected in principle, is 
 still apt to exercise a fatal influence on the details of 
 prophetic exegesis. If we repudiate tlie dream of an 
 earthly Millennium, with Jerusalem and a Jewish re- 
 storation as its centre, we have no right to reserve for 
 literal fulfilment such details of the prophecies as seem 
 more capable of being reconciled with the actual march 
 of history, or to rest the proof of the prophets' inspira- 
 tion on the literal realisation of isolated parts of their 
 pictures of the future, while it is yet certain that as 
 a whole these pictures can never be tra,nslated into 
 actuality — nay, that there is boundless variety and 
 discrepancy of detail between the pictures contained in 
 the various prophetic books, or even between those 
 drawn by the same prophet at different periods of his 
 career. 
 
 The perception of these difficulties, which can escape 
 
LECT. VIII. OF PROPHECY. 339 
 
 no thoughtful reader of the prophecies, has therefore 
 long formed the chief support of the figurative or alle- 
 gorical school of exegesis, which, not only in the Old 
 Catholic and Mediaeval Churches, but in modern Pro- 
 testantism, may claim to be viewed as the official type 
 of prophetic exegesis. It is plain, however, that this 
 method of exegesis labours under precisely the same 
 difficulties when applied to prophecy with those which 
 have caused its general abandonment as regards other 
 parts of Scripture. The general law of allegorical in- 
 terpretation, as developed in the ancient Church, is that 
 everything which in its literal sense seems impossible, 
 uutrue, or unworthy of God must be rescued from this 
 condemnation by the hypothesis of a hidden sense, 
 which was the real meaning of the inspiring Spirit, and 
 even of the prophet himself, except in so far as he was 
 a mere unintelligent machine in the hand of the re- 
 vealer. Now, it is certainly true, as we saw in a former 
 Lecture (supra, p. 221 seg.), that all early thought about 
 abstract and transcendental ideas is largely carried out 
 by the aid of figure and analogy, and that general 
 truths are apprehended and expressed in particular and 
 even accidental forms. But this is something very 
 different from the doctrine of a spiritual sense in the 
 traditional meaning of the word. It means that the 
 early thinker has apprehended only germs of universal 
 truth, that he expresses these as clearly as he can, and 
 that the figurative or imperfect form of his utterance 
 corresponds to a real limitation of vision. That is not 
 
340 THE FULFILMENT lect. viii. 
 
 the principle of current allegorical exegesis, which holds 
 rather that the obscurity of form is intentional, at least 
 on the part of the revealing Spirit, and so that the true 
 meaning of each prophecy is the maximum of New 
 Testament truth that can be taken out of it by any use 
 of allegory which the Christian reader can devise. Such 
 a method of exegesis is purely arbitrary; it enables 
 each man to prove his own dogmas at will from the Old 
 Testament, and leaves us altogether uncertain what the 
 prophets themselves believed, and what work they 
 wrought for God in their own age. All this uncertainty 
 disappears when we read the words of the prophets in 
 their natural sense. The teaching of Isaiah, the greater 
 part of which has now fallen under our survey, is the 
 very reverse of unintelligible, if we consent to under- 
 stand it by the plain rules of ordinary human speech, 
 and in connection with the life of his own age. We 
 do not need to carry with us to the study of the prophet 
 any formulated principles of prophetic interpretation ; 
 the true meaning of his words unfolds itself clearly 
 enough as soon as we realise the historical surroundings 
 of his ministry, and the principles of spiritual faith, or, 
 in other words, the conception of Jehovah and the laws 
 of His working, which dominated all Isaiah's life. The 
 kingship of Jehovah, the holy majesty of the one true 
 God, the eternal validity of His law of righteousness, 
 the certainty that His cause on earth is imperishable 
 and must triumph over all the wrath of man, that His 
 word of grace cannot be without avail, and that the 
 
LECT. viii. OF PROPHECY. 341 
 
 community of His grace is the one thing on earth that 
 cannot be brought to nought, — these are the spiritual 
 certainties the possession of which constituted Isaiah a 
 true prophet. Everything else in his teaching is nothing 
 more than an attempt to give these principles concrete 
 shape and tangible form in relation to the problems of 
 his own day. The practical lessons which he drew from 
 them for the conduct of Israel were in all respects 
 absolutely justified. At every point his insight into the 
 actual position of affairs, his judgment on the sin of 
 Judah and the right path of amendment, his perception 
 of the true sources of danger and the true way of 
 deliverance, had that certainty and clear decisiveness 
 which belong only to a vision purged from the delusions 
 of sense by communion with things eternal and in- 
 visible. But when he embodied his faith and hope in 
 concrete pictures of the future, these pictures were, from 
 the necessity of the case, not literal forecasts of history, 
 but poetic and ideal constructions. Their very object 
 was to gather up the laws of God's working into a single 
 dramatic action, — to present in one image, and within the 
 limited scene of action that lay before the Hebrews, the 
 operation of those divine forces of which Isaiah had 
 only apprehended the simplest elements, and which 
 since his day have expanded themselves, in new and more 
 complex workings, through all the widening cycles of 
 history. In such dramatic pictures it is only artistic or 
 poetical truth that can be looked for. The insight of 
 the prophet, like that of the unprophetic dramatist, vin- 
 
342 THE FULFILMENT lect. viii. 
 
 dicates itself in the delineation of true motives, — in the 
 representation of the actual forces that rule the evolu- 
 tion of human affairs, — not in the exact reproduction of 
 any one stage of past or future history. Actual history, 
 as we know, is far too complex a thing to make it 
 possible to isolate any one part of its action and de- 
 lineate it literally in perfectly dramatic form ; and just 
 as every drama of human life maintains its ideal truth 
 and perfection, as an exhibition of historical motives, 
 only by abstracting from many things that the literal 
 historian must take account of, so the drama of divine 
 salvation, as it is set forth by the prophets, gives a 
 just and comprehensive image of God's working only by 
 gathering into one focus what is actually spread over 
 the course of long ages, and picturing the realisation of 
 the divine plan as completed in relation to a single 
 historical crisis. 
 
 The supreme art with which the great prophets of 
 Israel apply these laws of poetic or ideal truth to the 
 dramatic representation of the divine motives that 
 govern the history of Israel was no doubt in great 
 measure the unconscious and childlike art of an age in 
 which all lofty thought was still essentially poetical, and 
 the reason was not yet divorced from the imagination. 
 And yet I think it is plain from the very freedom with 
 which Isaiah recasts the details of his predictions from 
 time to time, — adapting them to new circumstances, in- 
 troducing fresh historical or poetic motives, and cancel- 
 ling obsolete features in his older imagery, — that he him- 
 
lECT. VIII. OF PROPHECY. 343 
 
 self drew a clear distinction between mere accidental 
 and dramatic details, whicli lie knew might be modified 
 or wholly superseded by the mawh of history, and the 
 unchanging principles of faith, which he received as a 
 direct revelation of Jehovah Himself, and knew to be 
 eternal and invariable truth. Jehovah and Jehovah's 
 purpose were absolute and immutable. Through all the 
 variations of history He was the true asylum of His 
 people, and in Him the victory of faith over the world 
 was assured. The proof that this faith was true and aU- 
 sufficient was not dependent on the completeness or 
 finality of the divine manifestation that vindicated it 
 iii any one crisis of history. Isaiah's faith was already 
 victorious over the world, and had proved itself a source 
 of invincible steadfastness, of peace and joy which the 
 world could not take away, when it raised him high 
 above the terrors and miseries of the present, and filled 
 his mouth with triumphant praises of Jehovah's salva- 
 tion in the depth of Judah's anguish and abasement. 
 There was no self-delusion in the confidence with which 
 he proclaimed Jehovah's victory amidst the crash of the 
 Palestinian cities and the advance of Sennacherib from 
 conquest to conquest. For, though the victory of divine 
 righteousness came not at once in that complete and 
 final form which Isaiah pictured, it was none the less a 
 real victory. When the storm rolled away, the word of 
 Jehovah and the community of the faith of Jehovah 
 still remained established on Mount Zion, a pledge of 
 better things to come, a living proof that Jehovah's 
 
344 THE INVASION lect. viii. 
 
 kingdom ruleth over all, and that thougli His grace 
 tarry long it can never come to nought, and must yet go 
 forth triumphant to ail the ends of the earth. 
 
 When we learn to seek the true significance of the 
 work of the prophets, not in the variable details of their 
 predictions, bxit in the principles of faith which are com- 
 mon to all spiritual religion, and differ from the faith 
 of the New Testament only as the unexpanded germ 
 differs from the full growth, we see also that the com- 
 plete proof of their divine mission can only be found in 
 the efficacy of their work towards the maintenance and 
 progressive growth of the community of spiritual faith. 
 It is the mark of God's word that it does not return to 
 Him void, that in every generation it is not only true 
 but fruitful, that by its instrumentality things spiritual 
 and eternal become a power on earth, and an efficient 
 factor in human history. Thus we have seen how the 
 ministry of Elijah was taken up and continued by Amos, 
 how the word of Amos and Hosea, despised and rejected 
 by the men of Ephraim, yet formed the basis of the 
 teaching of the Judjeau prophets, Isaiah and Micah. 
 But it was the special privilege of Isaiah that, unlike 
 his immediate predecessors, he was permitted to enter 
 in no small degree into the fruit of his own labours, and 
 that the patient endurance of forty years was at last 
 crowned by his personal participation in a victory of 
 faith which produced wide and lasting effects on the 
 subsequent course of Old Testament history. 
 
 As soon as he had secured his position on the coast. 
 
OF JUDAH. 345 
 
 Sennacherib felt himself free to direct part of his forces 
 against King Hezekiah.^ One by one the fortresses of 
 Judah yielded to the foe (2 Kings xviii. 13). Sennach- 
 erib claims on his monuments to have taken forty-six 
 strong cities and 200,000 captives. " Your country," says 
 Isaiah,'^ " is desolate, your cities burned with fire : your 
 land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is de- 
 solate, as in the overthrow of Sodom. And the daughter 
 of Zion is left as a hut in a vineyard, as a lodge in a 
 garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city" (Isa. i. 7). As 
 yet, however, there was no movement of true repentance. 
 There was indeed a great external display of eagerness 
 for Jehovah's help : solemn assemblies were convened in 
 the courts of the temple, the blood of sacrifices flowed 
 in streams, the altars groaned under the fat of fed beasts, 
 and the blood-stained hands of Jerusalem's guilty rulers 
 were stretched forth to the sanctuary with many prayers 
 (i. 11 seg). Against these outward signs of devotion, 
 accompanied by no thought of obedience and amend- 
 ment, Isaiah thundered forth the words of his first 
 chapter. Jehovah's soul hates the vain religion of 
 empty formalism. " When ye spread forth your hands, 
 I will hide mine eyes from you : yea, when ye make 
 many prayers, I will not hear : your hands are full of 
 blood. Wash you, make you clean ; turn away the evil 
 of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; 
 learn to do well ; follow judgment, correct the oppressor, 
 give justice to the fatherless, plead for the widow." 
 Even now it is not too late to repent. " If ye be willing 
 
 16 
 
346 SIEGE AND SURRENDER lect. viii. 
 
 to obey, ye shall eat the fruit of the land. But if ye refuse 
 and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword : for the 
 mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it." Always practical 
 and direct in his admonitions, Isaiah concentrates his 
 indignation on the guilty rulers, and announces their 
 speedy fall as the first step to restoration (i. 23 seq^ ; 
 one in especial, the vizier Shebna, he singles out by 
 name, and declares that he shall be hurled from his post 
 and dragged captive to a distant land (xxii. 15 seg'.). 
 For the moment these denunciations had no recognised 
 effect; but already Isaiah felt himself master of the 
 situation, and so sure was he that the march of events 
 would set his party at the helm of the state that he 
 even proceeded to nominate " Jehovah's servant," Elia- 
 kim, the son of Hilkiah, as the successor of the wicked 
 minister (xxii. 20 seq^. Meantime a strong Assyrian 
 column advanced against the capital, and the affrighted 
 inhabitants found the city in no fit state of defence. 
 Some hasty preparations were made, which are graphi- 
 cally described in Isaiah xxii. The armoury wiis ex- 
 amined, the walls of the city of David were found to be 
 fuU of breaches, and houses were pulled down that the 
 material for needful repairs might be quickly available, 
 and a store of water was accumulated in a new reservoir 
 between the two walls at the lowest part of the town. 
 But no confidence was felt in these provisions ; there 
 was no calm and deliberate courage to abide the issue. 
 Many of the nobles fled from the danger (xxii. 8), and 
 those who remained knew no better counsel than to 
 
LECT. VIII. OF JERUSALEM. 347 
 
 drown their cares in wine, and spend in riot the i'ew 
 days of respite that remained to them. " Jehovah 
 of hosts called to weeping, and to mourning, and to 
 baldness, and to girding with sackcloth : and behold 
 joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating 
 flesh and drinking wine : let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we die." Nevertheless, it would appear from 
 the monuments of Sennacherib that Hezekiah resolved 
 to stand the siege ; and it was not till the operations of 
 the assailants had made some progress that he made 
 his submission as recorded in 2 Kings xviii. 14. All 
 his treasures were surrendered to the Assyrian, the 
 captive Padi of Ekron was delivered up, and large por- 
 tions of Judsean territory were detached and given over 
 to Philistine princes of the Assyrian party ; but Heze- 
 kiah was left upon his throne ; perhaps, indeed, Sen- 
 nacherib thought this the safest course to adopt, as it is 
 very clear from the whole tenor of Isaiah's prophecies 
 that Hezekiah was not a man of much personal strength 
 of character, and had during the previous years been 
 little more than a passive instrument in the hand of 
 Shebna and the other princes. No doubt, provision 
 was made for a change of administration, and the party 
 of war was effectuallj' superseded ; for a little later we 
 actually iind Eliakim in place of Shebna in the posses- 
 sion of the dignity for which Isaiah bad marked him 
 out (2 Kings xviii 37). 
 
 Notwithstanding the hard conditions laid upon 
 Hezekiah, these changes were, in a certain sense, of 
 
348 DANGERS OF lect. viii. 
 
 good omen for the future of tlie state. The party which 
 had so long resisted all internal reformation had heen 
 hurled from power, the delusive visions of a brilliant 
 foreign policy were dissipated, and the influence of the 
 prophetic party, which took for its maxim the reform of 
 religion, the abolition of idolatry, and the administra- 
 tion of equal justice to rich and poor, was greater than 
 at any previous moment. But, on the other hand, the 
 land was exhausted by the disastrous progress of the 
 war, and by the enormous sacrifices which had been 
 demanded as the price of peace. The Assyrian yoke 
 pressed more heavily than ever upon Judah ; and, 
 though the nation was at length convinced that Isaiah's 
 words were not to be despised, the course of events 
 which had justified his foresight was by no means cal- 
 culated to inspire that buoyancy and confidence of faith 
 which were necessary to unite all classes in a vigorous 
 and successful effort to reorganise the shattered life of 
 the nation on higher principles than had been followed 
 in time past. True religion cannot live without the 
 experience of gi'ace, and as yet Jehovah had shown 
 all the severity of His judgment, but little or nothing 
 of His forgiving love. This onesidedness, if I may so 
 call it, of the historical demonstration of His effective 
 sovereignty in Israel was fraught with special danger 
 in a community like that of Judah. Where religion 
 was so intimately bound up with the idea of nationality, 
 the depression of all the energies of national life, in- 
 volved in the abject humiliation of the land before the 
 
LECT. viii. THE SITUA TION. 349 
 
 Assyrian, could not fail to prove a great stumbling- 
 block to living faith ; and to this must be added the 
 marked tendency to a brooding melancholy which 
 characterises the Hebrew race, and in later ages of 
 oppression exercised a stifling influence on the reli- 
 gion of the Jews, changing its joy to gloom, and trans- 
 forming the gracious Jehovah of the prophets into the 
 pedantic taskmaster of Rabbinical theology. When 
 we remember what Judaism became under the Persian 
 and Western Empires, or what strange developments 
 of cruel superstition and gloomy fanaticism displayed , 
 themselves a generation after Isaiah, in the reign of 
 King Manasseh, we can form some conjecture as to 
 the dangers which true religion would have run if 
 Sennacherib had retired victorious, and Judah had been 
 left to groan under a chastisement more grievous than 
 had ever before fallen on its sins. But the divine 
 wisdom decreed better things for Jehovah's land. 
 
 The submission of Hezekiah and the fall of Ekron 
 had not completed Sennacherib's task. Some strong 
 places on the Philistine frontier of Judah, such as 
 Lachish and Libnah, still held out, and Tirhakah was 
 not disabled by the defeat of the army he had sent to 
 the relief of Ekron. On the contrary, Sennacherib now 
 learned that the king of Ethiopia was marching against 
 him in person (2 Kings xix. 9), and that the most serious 
 part of the campaign was yet to come. Under these 
 circumstances he began to feel that he had committed 
 a grave strategical error in allowing Hezekiah to retain 
 
350 TREACHERY OF lect. viii. 
 
 possession of the strongest fortress in the land. It 
 cost the treacherous Assyrian no difficulty to devise a 
 pretext for cancelling the newly-ratified engagement ; 
 and, while the siege of Lachish occupied the main army, 
 a great officer was sent to Jerusalem to charge Hezekiah 
 with complicity with Tirhakah, and to demand the sur- 
 render of the city. The troops that accompanied Eab- 
 shakeh were not sufficient to enforce submission ; the 
 Assyrians supposed that intimidation and big words 
 would be sufficient to overawe the weak king of Judah. 
 But Hezekiah was now in very different hands from 
 those which had conducted his previous conduct. At 
 this critical moment Isaiah was the real leader of 
 Judah, and the confidence of Zion was no longer set on 
 man but on God. At length the prophet knew that the 
 turning-point had come, the false helpers had perished, 
 and Jehovah was near to deKver His people. " Be not 
 afraid," he said to Hezekiah, " of the words that thou 
 hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of 
 Assyria have blasphemed Me. Behold, I will send a 
 blast against him, and he shall hear a rumour and return 
 to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the 
 sword in his own land." Against such confidence the 
 menaces of Kabshakeh were of no avail. The populace, 
 which he hoped to enlist on his side, stood firm by 
 Hezekiah and Isaiah, and he returned to his master 
 without accomplishing anything.* 
 
 Hezekiah's refusal was of course equivalent to a 
 renewed declaration of war. But Sennacherib's hands 
 
LECT. VIII. THE ASSYRIAN. 351 
 
 were too full in the quarter where he awaited the 
 advance of Tirhakah to allow him at once to detach a 
 force sufficient for the reduction of a great city like 
 Jerusalem. Again he had recourse to menaces, and 
 again Isaiah responded in tones of confident assurance 
 and scornful indignation against the presumption that 
 dared to challenge Jehovah's might. " The virgin the 
 daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee 
 to scorn ; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her 
 head at thee. "Whom hast thou reproached and blas- 
 phemed ? and against whom hast thou exalted thy 
 voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against 
 the Holy One of Israel." The Assyrian boasts that his 
 own power has subdued the nations. "Nay," says Isaiah, 
 "hast thou not heard that it was I that ordained it 
 from afar, and that of old I formed it ? now have I 
 brought it to pass, that thou shouldest lay waste fenced 
 cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants 
 were of small power, they were dismayed and con- 
 founded : they were as the grass of the field or the green 
 herb, like grass on the housetops and blasted corn. Thy 
 rising up and thy sitting down are before Me ; ^ I know 
 thy going out and thy coming in, and thy rage against 
 Me. Because thy rage against Me and thy tumult is 
 come up unto Mine ears, I will put My hook in thy 
 nose, and My bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee 
 back by the way in which thou earnest. . . . And the 
 remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall 
 again take root downward and bear fruit upward : for 
 
352 RETREAT OF lect. viii. 
 
 out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they 
 that are escaped out of Mount Zion : the zeal of 
 Jehovah of hosts shall do this " (2 Kings xix. 21 seg. ; 
 Isa. xxxvii.). Isaiah's confidence was not misplaced. 
 A great and sudden calamity overwhelmed the army of 
 Sennacherib (2 Kings xix. 35), and he was compelled to 
 return to his own land, leaving Jerusalem unmolested.^" 
 Of the details of the catastrophe, which the Bible nar- 
 rative is content to characterise as the act of God, the 
 Assyrian monuments contain no record, because the 
 issue of the campaign gave them nothing to boast of ; 
 but an Egyptian account preserved by Herodotus 
 (ii. 141), though full of fabulous circumstances, shows 
 that in Egypt as well as in Judaea it was recognised as 
 a direct intervention of divine power. The disaster did 
 not break the power of the Great King, who continued to 
 reign for twenty years, and waged many other victorious 
 wars. But none the less it must have been a very 
 grave blow, the effects of -which were felt throughout 
 the empire, and permanently modified the imperial 
 policy ; for in the following year Chaldsea was again 
 in revolt, and to the end of his reign Sennacherib never 
 renewed his attack on Judah. 
 
 The retreat of the Assyrian was welcomed at Jeru- 
 salem with an outburst of triumphant joy, the ex- 
 pression of which may be sought with great probability 
 in more than one of the hymns of the Psalter, especially 
 in Psalm xlvi. The deliverance was Jehovah's work. 
 He had returned to His people as in the days of old, and 
 
LECT. VIII, SENNACHERIB. 353 
 
 the burden of Judah's song of thanksgiving was, 
 " Jehovah of hosts is with us, the God of Israel is our 
 high tower." And the God who had wrought such 
 great things for His people was not the Jehovah of the 
 corrupt popular worship, for He had refused to hear the 
 prayers of the adversaries of the prophet, but the God 
 of Isaiah, whose name or manifestation the prophet had 
 seen afar off drawing near in burning wrath and thick 
 rising smoke, his lips full of angry foam and his tongue 
 like a devouring fire, and his breath like an overflowing 
 torrent reaching even to the neck, to sift the nations in 
 the sieve of destruction, to bridle the jaws of peoples, 
 and turn them aside from their course (xxx. 27 seq^. 
 The eyes of the prophet had seen the salvation for 
 which he had been waiting through so many weary 
 years ; the demonstration of Jehovah's kingship was the 
 public victory of Isaiah's faith, and the word of spiritual 
 prophecy, which from the days of Amos downward had 
 been no more than the ineffective protest of a small 
 minority, had now vindicated its claim to be taken by 
 king and people as an authoritative exposition of the 
 character and will of the God of Israel. 
 
 The acknowledged victory of Isaiah's doctrine con- 
 ained an immediate summons to a practical work of 
 T'lformation, and prescribed the rules to be followed in 
 the reconstitution of the shattered fabric of the state, 
 which was the first concern of the government when 
 the invader eracuated the land. It would be of the 
 highest inlerejt to know in full detail how Hezekiah 
 
354 LAST WORDS lect. viii. 
 
 addressed himself to this task, and how Isaiah employed 
 his well-won influence in the direction of the work. 
 Unfortunately the history of the kings of Judah is 
 almost wholly silent as to the last years of Hezekiah, 
 and we have no prophecy of Isaiah which serves to fill 
 up the blank. The record of the prophet's work closes 
 with the triumphant strains of the thirty-third chapter, 
 written perhaps before the catastrophe of Sennacherib, 
 but after the result was already a prophetic certainty, 
 because Judah had at length bent its heart to obedience 
 to Jehovah's word. In this most beautiful of all Isaiah's 
 discourses the long conflict of Israel's sin with Jehovah's 
 righteousness is left behind ; peace, forgiveness, and holy 
 joy breathe in every verse, and the dark colours of pre- 
 sent and past distress serve only as a foil to the assured 
 felicity that is ready to dawn on Jehovah's land. " Ha, 
 thou that spoilest and thou wast not spoiled, that robbest 
 and they robbed not thee ; when thou makest an end of 
 spoiling thou shalt be spoiled ; when thou ceasest to rob 
 they shall rob thee. Jehovah, be gracious unto us ; we 
 have waited for Thee : be Thou our arm every morning, 
 our victory also in the time of trouble. At the noise of 
 the tumult the peoples fled ; at the lifting up of Thyself 
 the nations are scattered. . . . Jehovah is exalted ; for 
 He dwelleth on high : He hath filled Zion with judg- 
 ment and righteousness. Then shall there be stability 
 of thy seasons, plenitude of victory, wisdom, and know- 
 ledge : the fear of Jehovah shall be thy treasure. . . . 
 Hear, ye that are afar off, what I have done; and, ye that 
 
LECT. VIII. OF ISAIAH. 355 
 
 are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion 
 are afraid ; fearfulness hath surprised the godless men. 
 Who among us shall dwell with devouring fire? who 
 shall dwell with everlasting burnings ? He that walketh 
 in righteousness and speaketh upright things ; he that 
 despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands 
 from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from 
 hearing of blood and shutteth his eyes from looking on 
 evil ; he shall dwell on high : his place of defence shall 
 be the munitions of rocks : his bread shall be given him ; 
 his water shall be sure. Thine eyes shall behold the 
 King in His beauty : they shall see a land that reaches 
 far. Thy heart shall muse on the past terror ; where is 
 he that inscribed and weighed the tribute ? where is he 
 that counted the towers ? . . . Look upon Zion, the city 
 of our solemn feasts : thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a 
 peaceful habitation, a tent that shall never be removed. 
 . . . For there shall Jehovah sit in glory for us ; but 
 the place of broad rivers and streams " — that is, the place 
 of the overflowing empires of the Tigris and the Nile — 
 " no galley with oars shall go therein, neither shall gallant 
 ship pass thereby. For Jehovah is our Judge, Jehovah 
 is oui" Lawgiver, Jehovah is our King ; He will save 
 us. . . . And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick : 
 the people that dwell therein are forgiven their iniquity." 
 And so Jehovah's word to Isaiah ends, as it had begun, 
 with the forgiveness of sins. " Lo, this hath touched thy 
 lips ; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin 
 purged " (vi. 7). " The people that dwell therein are 
 
356 LAST IVORDS lect. viii. 
 
 forgiven their iniquity." The goal of prophetic religion 
 is reached when Israel, as a nation, is brought nigh to 
 God in the same assurance of forgiveness, the same 
 freedom of access to His supreme holiness, the same joy- 
 ful obedience to His moral kingship, that made Isaiah a 
 true prophet, and sustained his courage and his faith 
 through the long years of Israel's rebellion and chastise- 
 ment. 
 
 The cxilminating points of the world's history are 
 not always those which are inscribed in boldest charac- 
 ters in the common records of mankind. The greatest 
 event of all history, the crucifixion and resurrection of 
 Jesus, has scarcely left a trace in the chronicles of the 
 Roman empire, and in like manner only a faint and 
 distorted echo of the retreat of Sennacherib is heard 
 beyond the narrow field of Judsean literature. The 
 mere political historian of antiquity might almost refuse 
 a place in his pages to a reverse which barely produced 
 a momentary interruption in the victorious progress of 
 the Assyrian monarchy. And yet the event, so incon- 
 siderable in its outward consequences, has had more 
 influence on the life of subsequent generations than all 
 the conquests of Assyrian kings ; for it assured the per- 
 manent vitality of that religion which was the cradle of 
 Christianity. When Sennacherib's messenger approached 
 the walls of Jerusalem with the summons of surrender, 
 the fate of the new world, which lay in germ in Isaiah's 
 teaching, seemed to tremble in the balance. "The 
 children were come to the birth, and there was not 
 
LECT. viii. OF ISAIAH. 357 
 
 strength to bring forth " (Isa. xxxvii. 3). Jehovah sup- 
 plied the lacking strength, and the new community of 
 prophetic faith came forth from the birth -throes of 
 Zion (comp. Micah v. 3). But very soon it became 
 manifest that this new born community of grace, the 
 holy remnant, the fresh offshoot of the decaying stock 
 of Israel, was not identical with the political state of 
 Judah. Isaiah himself was far from suspecting this 
 truth. All his prophecies are shaped by the assumption 
 that in the future, as in the past, the people of Jehovah 
 and the subjects of the Davidic monarchy must continue 
 to be interchangeable ideas. The vindication of Jeho- 
 vah's sovereignty was in his mind inseparable from 
 such a national conversion as should stamp the impress 
 of Jehovah's holiness on all the institutions of national 
 life. This point of view is as plainly dominant in his 
 latest prophecy as in his earliest discourses. The rulers of 
 Zion, who dwell in the full blaze of Jehovah's consuming 
 holiness, must be men whose hands are clear of bribes, 
 who refuse to hear suggestions of crime, or to open their 
 eyes to plans of iniquity. The salvation of God's people 
 is manifested in the stability of national welfare, the 
 regular succession of the natural seasons and unbroken 
 victory going side by side with wisdom and knowledge 
 and the fear of Jehovah. Hence the prophetic ideal 
 of a redeemed nation contained, as has been already 
 indicated, the outlines of a scheme for the reorganisation 
 of national life, but of a scheme which, even at the out- 
 set, was found to be encompassed with unsurmountable 
 
358 THE REFORMS lect. viii. 
 
 practical difficulties. A radical renovation of society 
 cannot be effected througli the organs of national action, 
 for a nation has no personal identity or invariable fixity 
 of purpose ; and the momentary impression of the great 
 deliverance, when, for an instant, aU Israel seemed to 
 bend as one man before Jehovah's will, could not secure 
 a permanent and unfailing concentration of every class, 
 in its own place in society, towards the realisation of the 
 prophetic ideal. The effective regeneration of society, as 
 the gospel teaches lis, must necessarily begin with the 
 individual heart, and the true analogy of the workings 
 of the kingdom of God is not found in the forms of 
 earthly government, but in the hidden operations of a 
 pervading leaven. Such a leaven did indeed exist in 
 Isaiah's day, but it was not co-extensive with tlie nation 
 of Judah ; it consisted of the comparatively i'ew whose 
 adherence to spiritual religion was an affair of settled 
 conviction, and not a passing impulse determined by one 
 of those rare junctures when the power of spiritual things 
 sliows itself for an instant with all the palpable reality 
 of a phenomenon of sense. It is not the law of divine 
 providence that such visible manifestations of the hand 
 of God, vouchsafed as they are only in supreme crises, 
 should continue permanently, and supersede the exercise 
 of the faith that endures as seeing that which is invis- 
 ible ; and nothing short of a continued miracle could 
 have held the nation as a nation in that frame of repent- 
 ance and new obedience which seemed to be universal 
 in the first burst of exultation at Jehovah's victory. 
 
LECT. VIII. OF HEZEKIAH. 359 
 
 The reforms which Hezekiah was able to in- 
 troduce touched only the surface of national life ; a 
 radical amendment of social life, even as regarded the 
 administration of equal and impartial justice, and the 
 establishment of kindlier relations between the rich and 
 poor, — ^points which Isaiah had always emphasised as 
 fundamental, — lay altogether beyond their scope. In 
 this- respect the utmost that was accomplished was a 
 temporary mitigation of crying abuses. It was less 
 difficult to work a change in those parts of the visible 
 ordinances of religion which were plainly inconsistent 
 with prophetic teaching. The abolition of idolatry, 
 or at least of its more public and flagrant manifestations, 
 was undoubtedly attempted ; indeed we might be led 
 to infer from the prominence assigned to Hezekiah's 
 religious reforms in the history of Kings that some 
 movement in this direction may have been made in the 
 earlier part of his reign. But it is quite clear from the 
 prophecies of Isaiah that Hezekiah was wholly in the 
 hands of the adversaries of the prophetic party till the 
 last period of the Assyrian war ; not till after his first 
 surrender and the discomfiture of the politicians of 
 whom Shebna was the leader could it be said of 
 Hezekiah, in the language of 2 Kings xviii, 5, 6, that 
 he trusted in Jehovah and clave to Him. Even in the 
 discourses of the reign of Sennacherib Isaiah speaks of 
 the abolition of the idols as a thing still in the future 
 (xxx. 22 ; xxxi. 7), so that any earlier work of reforma- 
 tion, such as may possibly have been suggested by the 
 
360 REFORM OF lect. viii. 
 
 lesson of Samaria's fall, as it was enforced by the con- 
 temporary prophecies of Isaiah and Micah, can at best 
 have been only imperfect and transitory. The character 
 which Hezekiah bears in history and the reforms con- 
 nected with his name really refer to the years that 
 followed the victory of Isaiah. 
 
 Isaiah had never ceased to declare that the rejection 
 of the idols must be one of the first-fruits of Judah's 
 repentance, but he did not attempt to indicate a scheme 
 of reformed worship to take their place. The idols 
 shall be cast away when the eyes of the nation are 
 turned to the Holy One of Israel, and His voice is 
 heard behind them to guide all their goings. To Isaiah, 
 in truth, ritual worship had very little significance. 
 He certainly did not distinctly look forward to its com- 
 plete abolition, for he speaks of the Egyptians as serv- 
 ing Jehovah by sacrifice, and even of altar and ma^^ha, 
 such as characterised the common provincial shrines 
 of Judah, erected within Egypt in token of homage to 
 Jehovah (xix. 19, 21). And in like manner the solemn 
 feasts at Jerusalem — from which a figure is derived in 
 XXX. 29 — are assumed to continue in the days of Israel's 
 redemption (xxxiii. 20). But, on the other hand, he not 
 only represents the sacrifice of guilty hands as unaccept- 
 able to Jehovah (chap, i.), but there is never the slightest 
 indication that repentance and obedience require to be 
 embodied in acts of ritual worship in order to find 
 acceptance with God. There is not a line in all the 
 prophecies that have come before us which gives the 
 
LECT. VIII. WORSHIP. 361 
 
 slightest weight to priesthood or sacrifice. N"ay, iii 
 xvii. 8 the altars as well as the asherim and the sun- 
 pillars appear as things of man's making that come 
 between Israel and its God. It is not the temple that 
 is the glory of the new Jerusalem and the seat of 
 Jehovah's presence ; the true meaning of Jehovah's 
 residence on Zion lies in the fact that the capital is the 
 centre of His effectual kingsliip in Judah ; and even 
 the name of the " hearth of God," which Isaiah bestows 
 on the holy city, and not on the sanctuary alone, has 
 rather reference to the consuming fire of the divine 
 holiness than to altar or sacrificial flanie. If Jerusalem 
 appears to Isaiah as the centre of that sanctity which 
 belongs to all Jehovah's "holy mountain land," and as 
 the point of assembly where His people meet before 
 Him, the meaning of this conception is that in Jeru- 
 salem Jehovah holds His kingly court, and that from 
 Zion His prophetic word goes forth to guide His subjects. 
 Thus, while Isaiah insists on the removal from religion 
 of things that hide the true character of Jehovah, he 
 has no positive views as to the institution of a reformed 
 worship : the positive task on which he always lays 
 stress is the purification of the organs of judgment and 
 administration, so that the leaders of the state may 
 be able to dwell safely in the consuming fire of 
 Jehovah's holiness. 
 
 Isaiah had looked for the spontaneous repudiation 
 of the idols in an impulse of national repentance which 
 needed no official decree to guide it ; the reforms of 
 
362 ABOLITION OF 
 
 Hezekiah were the act of the government in a nation 
 not wholly converted to Jehovah ; and, in the absence 
 of that pure spontaneity which the prophets regard as 
 the true spring of right religion, they miist have been 
 directed to an asternal aim, the establishment of a fixed 
 type of official worship. The attempt was confronted 
 from the first by a formidable difficulty : the idols, the 
 sun-pillars, the asherim, the sacred trees, and all the 
 other pagan or half-pagan symbols, so plainly inconsist- 
 ent with the prophetic faith, were of the very substance 
 of Israel's worship in the popular sanctuaries. So much 
 was this the case that Isaiah, as we have just seen, was 
 practically indifferent to all forms of cultus : the social 
 exercises of his faith as described in Isa. viii. 16 seq^. were 
 altogether of another kind, anticipating the worship of 
 the New Testament Church. Hezekiah could not pro- 
 pose to himself, and Isaiah had never formally contem- 
 plated, the entire abolition of the traditional ritual ; and 
 yet it was scarcely possible to introduce any effective 
 reform without a great limitation, an almost radical 
 subversion, of the ancient shrines. But at this point 
 the zeal of Hezekiah was powerfully aided, and the 
 plan of reformation practically determined, by the fact 
 that almost every considerable provincial town of Judah 
 had been ruined by the armies of Sennacherib. The 
 local Baalim of the high places had been of no avail to 
 save their worshippers ; their shrines were burned or 
 laid waste, and in many cases, no doubt, in accordance 
 with the common practice of the Assyrians, the idols 
 
LECT. VIII. THE HIGH PLACES. 363 
 
 had been carried away to grace the triumph of Senna- 
 cherib. This destruction of the strongholds and sanc- 
 tuaries of the land corresponded in the most marked 
 way with the predictions of Micah, the influence of 
 which on the conduct of Hezekiah is expressly attested 
 in the book of Jeremiah. Micah, it is true, had not 
 exempted the fortress and sanctuary of Zion from the 
 universal destruction ; his picture of the future left no 
 room for any vestige of the ancient ritual ; to him the 
 Zion of the latter days is a religious centre, not as a 
 place of worship, but as the seat of Jehovah's throne 
 and of a revelation of law and judgment. But for the 
 mass of the people the temple of Zion had received a 
 new importance in connection with the effectual proof 
 of the inviolability of Jehovah's holy mountain. They 
 were unable to separate the idea of holiness from its 
 traditional association with observances of ritual service, 
 and the natural or even inevitable interpretation of the 
 lesson written on the blackened ruins of the provincial 
 holy places was that the " mountain of the house " was 
 the true sanctuary of Judah's worship. ^^ Thus the 
 scheme of Hezekiah necessarily assumed, with more or 
 less explicitness, the form of a superseding of the pro- 
 vincial shrines and the centralisation of worship in the 
 temple of Jerusalem, purged from heathenish corrup- 
 tions. At first this change would not appear very 
 startling or difficult to carry out, for Sennacherib had 
 left the provinces a desert (Tsa. i. 7 ; xxxiii. 8, 9), and 
 his monuments aver that 200,000 of their inhabitants 
 
364 THE REACTION lect. viii. 
 
 were carried off as slaves. Judah and Jerusalem were 
 for the moment almost identical ideas, and the sphere of 
 Hezekiah's reforms was perhaps confined to the im- 
 mediate vicinity of the capital. Even here there was 
 one strange omission in his work. The shrines of 
 foreign deities which had stood around Jerusalem since 
 the days of Solomon were for some reason left untouched 
 — probably because of privileges of worship that could 
 not be refused to the Phoenicians and other aliens, who 
 occupied in the capital a quarter or suburb called the 
 Maktesh (Zeph. i. 11) ; and in the sequel these shrines 
 exercised more influence on Judsean religion than they 
 had ever done before.^* 
 
 Thus the visible impulse of the great victory of 
 Isaiah's faith appeared to have exhausted itself in a 
 scheme of external reform which fell far short of giving 
 full expression to the spirituality of prophetic teaching, 
 and, carried out as it was by the authority of the govern- 
 ment rather than by the spontaneous impulse of the 
 whole nation, was sure to lead to the reaction that 
 always follows on the enforcement by external authority 
 of principles not thoroughly understood or sympathised 
 with. As the nation feU back into the grooves of its 
 old existence, ancient customs began to reassert their 
 sway. The worship which the prophets condemned and 
 which Hezekiah had proscribed was too deeply inter- 
 woven with all parts of life to be uprooted by royal 
 decree, and the old prejudice of the country folk against 
 the capital, so clearly apparent in Micah, must have 
 
LECT. viii. UNDER MANASSEH. 365 
 
 co-operated -with superstition to bring about the strong 
 revulsion against the new reforms which took place 
 under Hezekiah's son, Manasseh. A bloody struggle 
 ensued between the conservative party and the followers 
 of the prophets, and the new king was on the side of 
 the reaction. Perhaps in this struggle the motives of 
 the unpopular faction were less pure, as their aims were 
 certainly less ideal, than Isaiah's. There were worldly 
 interests involved in the policy of religious centralisa- 
 tion which claimed to represent the spiritual aspirations 
 of the prophets ; and the priests of Jerusalem, whose 
 revenues and influence were directly concerned, were 
 at no time the most unselfish of reformers. Thus we 
 can well suppose that the religious war which ensued 
 ■ had on both sides a demoralising tendency ; a contest 
 as to forms of worship and ecclesiastico-political organi- 
 sation is seldom for the advantage of spiritual faith. No 
 great prophet arose as the champion of Hezekiah's re- 
 forms ; and the one voice of lofty faith which speaks to 
 us from these disastrous days, in the last two chapters of 
 the book of Micah,^^ is the voice of a man who belongs to 
 neither of the contending factions, and feels himself alone 
 in Judah, as Isaiah had never been, in a society where all 
 moral corruption is rampant, where justice, honesty, and 
 truth are unknown, where the good man is perished out 
 of the earth, and there is none upright among men, 
 where the son dishonoureth his father, and the daughter 
 riseth up against her mother, where the nearest friend 
 cannot be trusted, where a man dare not speak freely 
 
306 THE REACTION lect. viii. 
 
 even to the wife of his bosom. And yet in a certain 
 sense religious earnestness was deeper than before. The 
 reaction had brought back all the old corruptions, but 
 not the old lightness of heart with which Israel rejoiced 
 before its God in every holy place. The terrible experi- 
 ences of the Assyrian wars had left behind them a 
 residuum of gloomy apprehension. If Jehovah's deliver- 
 ance was forgotten by the men who no longer clave to 
 the faith of Isaiah, the terrors of his wrath, as they had 
 been experienced in the ravages of Sennacherib and 
 perhaps in subsequent calamities — for in Manasseh's 
 time the Assyrians again became lords of the land — 
 still weighed upon the nation, and gave a sombre tinge 
 to all religion. In this respect .Judah did not stand 
 alone. To all the Palestinian nations the Assyrian 
 crisis had made careless confidence in the help of their 
 national deities a thing impossible. As life was em- 
 bittered by foreign bondage, the darker aspects of 
 heathenism became dominant. The wrath of the gods 
 seemed more real than their favour ; atoning ordinances 
 were multiplied, human sacrifices became more frequent, 
 the terror which hung over all the nations that groaned 
 under the Assyrian yoke found habitual expression in 
 the ordinances of worship; and it was this aspect of 
 heathenism that came to the front in Manasseh's imita- 
 tions of foreign religion. 
 
 Tims once more, and within a few years of Isaiah's 
 great victory, the national ideal of Jehovah worship had 
 broken down, and the old controversy of Jehovah with 
 
LECT. VIII. UNDER MANASSEH. 367 
 
 His people was renewed, but with other and deeper 
 issues, in the development of which a new race of 
 prophets w aj to take part. So far as appeared on the 
 surface of Judeean society the results of the Assyrian 
 judgment and the prophetic preaching that interpreted 
 it had been purely negative. The old joyous religion 
 of Israel had broken down, but the faith of Isaiah had 
 not taken its place. The glad confidence in Jehovah, 
 making it an easy thing to obey His precepts and a 
 privilege to be called by His name, which Isaiah had 
 continually set forth as the right disposition of true 
 religion, was lost in gloomy superstition. The grace of 
 Jehovah, so often manifested in the past history of 
 Israel, was forgotten (Micah vi. 4 seg'.), and His name 
 had become a name of terror, not of hope. This was 
 the true secret of Manasseh's polytheism. He sought 
 other gods, not because Jehovah was powerless, but 
 because he despaired of securing His help (comp. Jer. 
 xliv. 18 ; Ezek. viii. 12). But beneath all this it is not 
 difficult to see that a real advance had been made, and 
 that the basis was laid for a new development of 
 spiritual truth which should carry the religion of Israel 
 another stage towards its goal in the religion of Christ. 
 The. failure of Hezekiah's plans of reformation in- 
 volved more than a merely negative result. And it 
 did so in two ways. In the first place, it became 
 manifest that to purge the religion of Judah from 
 heathenish elements it was necessary that the whole 
 notion of sacrificial worship should undergo a radical 
 
368 THE CODE OF lect. vni. 
 
 change. The code of Deuteronomy, which must be 
 regarded as in great measure a product of reflectioa on 
 the failure of Hezekiah's measures, starts from the 
 observation that it is impossible to get rid of Canaanite 
 elements of worship until sacrifice and ritual observances 
 are confined to one sanctuary, and that this again is 
 impossible till the old principle is given up that all 
 food, and especially every animal slain for a feast, is 
 unclean unless presented at the altar. By dissociating 
 the ideas of slaughter and sacrifice, which till then had 
 been absolutely indistinguishable and expressed by a 
 single word, the law of Deuteronomy revolutionised the 
 religion of daily life, and practically limited the sphere 
 of ritual worship to the pilgrimage feasts and other 
 occasions of special importance. This principle found 
 no complete access to the mass of the people so long as 
 the Kingdom of Judah stood ; but it put in a tangible 
 and easy shape at least one aspect of the prophetic 
 teaching that the religion of ordinary life does not con- 
 sist in ritual, but in love to God and obedience to Him, 
 and so prepared many in Israel to maintain their faith 
 in Jehovah in the approaching dissolution of national 
 existence, when ritual service was not merely restricted 
 in scope but altogether suspended. From one point of 
 view the law of the single sanctuary seems a poor out- 
 corne for the great work of Isaiah, and yet when it was 
 construed in the M^ay set forth in Deuteronomy it 
 implied a real step towards the spiritualisation of all 
 the service of God, and the emancipation of religion 
 
LECT. viii. DEUTERONOMY. 369 
 
 from its connection witli the laud and holy places of 
 Canaan {swpra, p. 262). That the movement which 
 finds expression in Deuteronomy became strong enough 
 under Josiah to lead to a second and more effective 
 suppression of the high places was not in itself a matter 
 of great importance, for the new reformation was not 
 more permanent in genuine results of a visible character 
 than that of Hezekiah ; but the spiritual power that 
 lay behind the political action of Josiah is not to be 
 measured by visible and immediate results. The book 
 of Deuteronomy could not have touched the conscience 
 of the nation even in a momentary and superficial way 
 unless there had been many in Judah who sympathised 
 with the spirit of that prophetic teaching to which the 
 new code strove to give expression under forms which 
 were indeed, as the sequel proved, too strait for its 
 spiritual substance. The introduction now prefixed to 
 the Deuteronomic code shows clearly that it was by 
 spiritual motives, derived from the prophetic teaching, 
 that the new system of ordinances was commended to 
 Israel ; the great limitation of visible acts of worship 
 presented itself to thoughtful minds not as a narrowing 
 of the sphere of religion but as a sublimation of its 
 contents. Jehovah requires nothing of His people but 
 " to fear Jehovah thy God, to walk in all His ways, and 
 to love and serve Him with all thy heart and all thy 
 soul " (Deut. X. 12). 
 
 Thus we see, in the second place, that behind the 
 legal aspect of the movement of reformation, as it is 
 
370 DEUTERONOMY. lect. viii. 
 
 expressed in the Deuteronomic code, there lay a larger 
 principle, which no legal system could exhaust, and 
 which never found full embodiment till the religion of 
 the Old Testament passed into the religion of Christ. 
 The failure of Hezekiah's attempt to give a political 
 expression to the teaching of Isaiah must have thrown 
 back the men who had received the chief share of the 
 prophet's spirit upon those unchanging elements of 
 religion which are independent of all political ordinances. 
 The religious life of Judah was not wholly absorbed in 
 the contest about visible institutions, the battle between 
 the one and the many sanctuaries. The organised pro- 
 phetic party of Isaiah, which still found its supporters 
 in the priesthood as it had done in the first days of that 
 prophet's ministry, may soon have begun to degenerate 
 into that empty formalism which took for its watchword 
 " the Temple of Jehovah," against which Jeremiah 
 preached as Isaiah had preached against the formalism 
 of his day (Jer. x. 4). In Jeremiah's day the doctrine 
 of the inviolability of Zion became in fact the very 
 axiom of mere political Jehovah-worship. That has 
 always been the law of the history of religion. What 
 in one generation is a living truth of faith becomes in 
 later generations a mere dead formula, part of the reli- 
 gion learned by rote with which living faith has to do 
 battle upon new issues. But even in the darkest hours 
 of Israel's history the true faith of Jehovah was never 
 left without witness, and the men to whom Isaiah's 
 teaching was more than a formula, the community of 
 
JEREMIAH. 371 
 
 those that waited for Jehovah in a higher sense than 
 the mass even of the so-called party of pure wor- 
 ship, withdrew more and more from all the forms of 
 political religion to nourish their religious life in exer- 
 cises purely spiritual, and to embody their hope of 
 Jehovah's salvation in thoughts that stretched far 
 beyond the limits of the old dispensation to days when 
 Jehovah's precepts should be written on every heart 
 (Jer. xxxi.). And in this new development of prophetic 
 thought, of which Jeremiah is the great representative, 
 standing to the second stage of the history of prophecy 
 in much the same relation as Amos and Hosea stood to 
 the first, the deeper, though misdirected, sense of guilt 
 so characteristic of the gloomy days of Judah's de- 
 cadence became an important element. The sense of 
 sin was not extenuated, but it was interpreted aright 
 and conquered by a new and profounder conception of 
 redeeming grace, in which the idea of the spiritual as 
 distinguished from the natural Israel, the servant of 
 Jehovah, whose sufferings are the path of salvation, 
 takes the place of the older and more mechanical notion 
 of judgment on the wicked and salvation to the righteous 
 (Isa. xl. seq^. 
 
 But to develop these and all the other ideas that 
 come before us in the great prophecies of the Chaldsean 
 period, to trace the course of the new religious issues 
 that shaped themselves in the decline and fall of the 
 Judsean Kingdom, and finally in exile and restoration, 
 would be a task as large as that which we have already 
 
372 MICAH VI. 
 
 accomplished, and must be reserved for a future oppor- 
 tunity. Meantime, the record of the first period of 
 prophetic religion may fitly close with the words in 
 which the solitary voice crying^ out of the darkness of 
 Manasseh's reign sets forth the sum of all preceding 
 prophetic teaching, and gathers up the whole revealed 
 win of Jehovah in answer to the false zeal of the 
 immoral bigotry of the age. 
 
 " my people, what have I done unto thee ? and 
 wherewith have I wearied thee ? testify against Me. 
 For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and 
 redeemed thee out of the house of bondage, and I sent 
 before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. . . . Where- 
 with shall I come before Jehovah, and bow myself be- 
 fore the high God? Shall I come before Him with 
 burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old ? Will Jehovah 
 be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands 
 of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my 
 transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my 
 soul ? He hath showed thee, man, what is good, and 
 what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do judgment, 
 and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy 
 God?" (Micah vi. 2 sej.). 
 
 It is no mere religion of legal obedience that these 
 words proclaim. Jehovah requires of man not only to 
 do but to love mercy. A heart that delights in acts of 
 piety and loving-kindness, the humility that walks in 
 lowly communion with God, — these are the things in 
 which Jehovah takes pleasure, and this is the teaching 
 
LECT. -viii. CONCLUSION. 373 
 
 of the law and the prophets, on which our Lord Himself 
 has set His seal (Matt. xxii. 37 seg.). 
 
 Thus in the deepest darkness of that age of 
 declension which sealed the fate of ancient Israel, when 
 the true prophet could no longer see any other end to 
 the 4egenerate nation than a consuming judgment that 
 should leave the land of Canaan a desolation and its 
 inhahitants a hissing and a reproach among the nations 
 (Mic. vi. 16), the voice of spiritual faith rises high above 
 all the limits of the dispensation that was to pass away, 
 and sets forth the sum of true religion in words that can 
 never die. The state of Israel perished ; the kingdom 
 of Judah and all the hopes that had been built upon it 
 crumbled to the dust ; but the word of the God of Israel 
 endureth for ever. 
 
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Lecture I. 
 
 Note 1, p. 4. — With all its defects, the Federal theology of 
 Cocceius is the most important attempt, in the older Protest- 
 ant theology, to do justice to the historical development of 
 revelation. See Diestel's essay in Jahrb. f. d. Theol., vol. x. pp. 
 209-276, and the hriefer discussion in his Gescldchte des AUeii 
 Testamentes in der christliclien Kirche (Jena, 1869). The first 
 conception, however, of the Bible record as the history of true 
 religion, of the adoption and education of the Church from aj;e 
 to age in a scheme of gradual advance, appears pretty distinctly 
 in Calvin ; and the method of Calvinistic theology, in which all 
 parts of the plan of grace are considered in dependence on the 
 idea of the sovereign Divine Providence, made it natural for 
 theologians of his school to busy themselves with the demon- 
 stration of the historical continuity of revelation. So long, 
 however, as it was attempted to find the law of this continuity 
 by speculative and dogmatic methods rather than by ordinary 
 historical investigation, no result really satisfactory could he 
 reached. In this connection a reference may be added to the 
 History of Redemption of Jonathan Edwards. 
 
 Note 2, p. 5. — In illustration of the position taken up by 
 the older Protestant divines, I may refer to Witsius's treatment 
 of the Protevangelion, Gen. iii. 14 seq., in his CEconomia Faedermn, 
 lib. iv., cap. 1. After deducing from the words addressed^ to 
 the serpent the principal theses of systematic theology, includ- 
 ing the doctrines of Saving Faith, Sanctification, and the Resur- 
 rection of the body, he remarks (§ 26) that it was not unreason- 
 able that so large a range of doctrines should be summed up in 
 a few enigmatic words. The splendour of midday was not 
 appropriate to the first dawn of the day of grace ; " and besides, 
 
376 ASSYRIAN SOURCES. lect. j. 
 
 God did not even then withdraw revelations of Himself from our 
 first parents, but by frequent instruction and gracious illumina- 
 tion of their minds expounded to them the things that concern 
 faith and piety. And it is fair to suppose that they treasured 
 up this promise of salvation in particular, thought over it with 
 care, and expounded it in frequent discourse to one another and 
 their children." In other words, they received from the Eevealer, 
 and handed down to their posterity, a traditional exposition of 
 the words of Scripture. 
 
 Note 3, p. 13. — The great empires of the East overran 
 foreign countries, reducing them to subjection, or even trans- 
 planting their inhabitants to new seats, but made no attempt to 
 break down differences of national custom between the several 
 parts of their realm, or to assimilate the conquered peoples to a 
 single cosmopolitan type. The motley character of the great 
 Persian empire, for example, is strikingly illustrated in the 
 picture drawn by Herodotus (vii. 61 sej.) of the various contin- 
 gents that served in the army of Xerxes, each in its own 
 national garb. In contrast with the earlier empires the kingdom 
 of the Greeks appears to the prophet Daniel, as " diverse from 
 all kingdoms, devouring the whole earth, treading it down, and 
 breaking it in pieces" (Dan. vii.). And so King Antiochus, who 
 sought to Hellenise his subjects, is spoken of as " changing times 
 and laws " {Ibid. ver. 25). But the first thoroughgoing and suc- 
 cessful attempt to create an empire possessing an organic unity, 
 with a cosmopolitan civilisation and institutions displacing the 
 old varieties of local custom and law, was the monarchy of Csesar. 
 See Mommsen's History, bk. v. ch. 11. 
 
 Note 4, p. 19. — A large mass of translations from Assyrian 
 and Babylonian texts is now accessible to the English reader, in 
 numerous separate publications, such as those of the late G. 
 Smith, in the Trdnsactiuns of the Society of Biblical Archceology, 
 and in the somewhat unequal but very convenient collection 
 published by Messrs. Bagster under the title of Records of the Past. 
 In this collection the volumes with odd numbers (i. to xi.) con- 
 tain the Assyrian texts. There can be no question that the 
 sense of a great nuiny texts, especially simple historical narratives, 
 has been determined with sufficient certainty to afford the 
 greatest assistance in the study of the Bible history ; and most 
 fortunately the Assyiian chronology, as determined in particular 
 by the Eponym Canon {supra, p. 150), is one of the most certain as 
 
THE HITTITES. 377 
 
 it is one of the most important of the new discoveries. But, on 
 the otlier hand, many details even of historical texts are too 
 imperfectly understood to justify the large conclusions too often 
 built on them, and, above all, the reading and identification of 
 proper names in certain ways of writing them — for in Assyrian 
 character the same sounds may be written in different ways, and 
 the same character may have different sounds — are often highly 
 precarious. The doubts that still attach to many things which 
 have been accepted, often on the faith of a single Assyriologist 
 who does not himself distiuguish his facts from his conjectures, 
 have been very forcibly set forth, though perhaps with an extreme 
 of scepticism, by Prof. v. Gutschmid in his Neue Beitrage, Leipzig, 
 1876, and a more popular demonstration of the amount of 
 imcertainty still attaching to the translations of historical texts 
 will be found in the recent brochure of M. A. Delattre, Les 
 inscriptions historiques de Ninive et de Babylone (Paris, 1879). 
 In truth, there are few Assyriologists in Europe whose tact, 
 caution, and general knowledge of the Semitic dialects entitle 
 them to speak with authority upon problems far more difficult 
 than those, for example, of the Phcenioian inscriptions, where our 
 best orientalists are often not ashamed to confess themselves at 
 a loss. The very nature of the material often compels the 
 translator to guess at the general import of a mutilated text or 
 at the true sense of a word. It is fair, indeed, to remember that 
 the vast extent of the material now available and the great 
 sameness of style and expression which characterises Assyrian 
 historical documents often counterbalance these difficulties. As 
 regards the application of Assyrian results to the Old Testament, 
 it is too often forgotten that the frnits of Assyrian study can be 
 of no substantial use to the Biblical student except in connection 
 with a critical study of the Hebrew sources. 
 
 As I am not able to make independent use of the cuneiform 
 monuments, I do not venture to build upon them in the present 
 volume except where the sense seems to be thoroughly made 
 out by the consent of the best scholars. 
 
 Note 5, p. 23. — On the Hittites see Mr. Cheyne's article in 
 the ninth edition of the Encyclupmdia Britannica. On the 
 identification of Carehemi'sh with the modern Jirbas (Yaklit ii. 
 668) — that is, the Syriac Agropos, Gteek Eij/^wttos, 'Qpiairos — see 
 G. Hoffmann, /Syr j'sc/ic AHen Ptrsischer Mdrtyrer (1 880), p. 1 61 seq. ; 
 Delitzsch, Wo lay das Paradies? (1881), p. 265 seq. The name 
 
378 ISRAEL IN 
 
 lerabolns given by some travellers is false. The town lay on 
 the west side of the Euphrates opposite D§r Kinnisr^. The 
 passage of Stephanus Byzantius, quoted by Hoifmann, which says 
 that Oropus was formerly called TeA/iT^o-o-ds, presumably pn 
 E'D, not only confirms the identification with Carchemish, but 
 shows that the latter is a Semitic word, " castle of Mtsh." 
 
 Note 6, p. 26. — See Wellhausen, /a/iri. /. rf. Theol.,YoL xxi. 
 p.602 ; Meyer in Stade's Zeitschrift,\ol. i. p. 122 ; Stade, Gcsc/iic/tie, 
 p. 110. An essay by Steinthal, Z. f. Volkerpsychologie, voL xii. 
 p. 267, is referred to by the last two writers. 
 
 Note 7, p. 28. — See especially Wellhausen, De Gentihus et 
 Familiis Judceis, Gott., 1870, and Geschichte, vol. i. p. 225 seq., for 
 the analysis of the genealogy of the originally nomad elements 
 of Judah, the Hezronites. The great clan of the Kalibbites 
 (Caleb) belonged to this branch of the population of Southern 
 Judsea. For the Amalekites and their original connection with 
 Mt. Ephraim, see Judges v. 14; xii. 15; Noldeke, Ueber die 
 Amaleldter, u.s.w., Gott., 1864. 
 
 Note 8, p. 29. — As we shall hear of these routes again in 
 connection with the history of Judah, I may here refer to 
 Pliny's account of the great incense road from Thomna to Gaza 
 {H. N. xii. 14), and the discussion in Sprenger's Alte Geographic 
 Arahiem, Bern, 1875, p. 141 seq. On this inland route the 
 Edomite capital of Petra was a station. The incense trade, it 
 must be remembered, was of enormous importance in ancient 
 times from the use of frankincense in all temples. ^ 
 
 Note 9, p. 29. — The land of Goshen did not belong to the 
 Delta proper, wliich never can have been given up to a shepherd 
 tribe, and would not have suited their way of life. In all ages 
 nomadic or half nomadic tribes, quite distinct from the Egyptians 
 proper, have pastured their flocks on the verge of the rich lands 
 of the Delta. The Eastern shepherd or herdsman does not base 
 his conception of good pasture ground on anything like an 
 English meadow, and it is not necessary to suppose that the 
 south-eastern borders of the Delta were much more fertile in the 
 days of Moses than they are now. That the Israelites at this 
 time came under any considerable influence of Egyptian 
 civilisation must appear highly improbable to any one who 
 knows the life of the nomads of Egypt even in the present day, 
 when there is a large Arab element in the settled population. 
 It is impossible here to enter into details on the supposed traces 
 
LECT. I. EGYPT. 37y 
 
 of Egyptian culture and religion in the institutions of Israel ; but 
 it may safely be affirmed that they are far fewer than is often 
 stated, and that those which are beyond question cannot be traced 
 back to the oldest times, and may with great probability be held 
 to have come in for the most part, not from Egypt direct, but 
 through the Phoenicians. 
 
 Note 10, p. 29. — The important assistance rendered to Israel 
 by the Kenites comes out clearly in the oldest parts of the 
 Pentateuchal narrative. Compare Exod. xviii. and Num. x. 29 
 uq., with Judges i. 16 ; iv. 11 ; 1 Sam. xv. 6. 
 
 Note 11, p. 29. — The classical passage in this connection 
 is Judges i. ; comp. Josh, x^'iii. 14 seg. ; Judges xvii. 1 sej. See 
 especially Graf, Der Stamm Simeon, Meissen, 1866. 
 
 Note 12, p. 30. — On the stone of Dibon, which records the 
 victories of King Mesha (2 Kings iiL) over the Israelites, we 
 read that he slew the whole inhabitants of Nebo, seven thousand 
 in number, for they were devoted by the ban to Ashtar-Kamosh 
 — a deity related to the god Chemosh, who is repeatedly men- 
 tioned in the Bible. 
 
 Note 13, p. 34. — See The Old Testament in the Jewish 
 Church (1881), especially Lectures xL and xii. It may be 
 convenient to repeat that the three main masses of legislation 
 still distinguishable in the Pentatench are — (1) The Book of the 
 Covenant, as it is generally called, Exod. xxi.-xxiii., a primitive 
 legislation designed for a very simple state of agricultural society, 
 and corresponding in its precepts with the traces of the actual 
 usage and law of Israel found in the history of the age of the 
 Judges and the earlier monarchy. (2) The Deuteronomic Code, 
 Deut. xii.-xxvi., in which the laws of the Book of the Covenant 
 are recast with special reference to the limitation of ritual 
 worship to a single sanctuary. This limitation is introduced as 
 a new thing. It was unknown up to the time of Isaiah and 
 Hezekiah, but was formally accepted as law when the 
 Deuteronomic code was promulgated as binding in the great 
 reformation of the reign of Josiah. The code must have been 
 written between this date (b.c. 621 or 622) and the reforms 
 which Hezekiah adopted after the retreat of Sennacherib in 
 B.C. 701 (see Lect. viii.). (3) The Priestly or Levitical Legislation, 
 composed after the book of Ezekiel and adopted as the law of the 
 New Jerusalem (in conjunction with the rest of the Pentateuch) 
 under Ezra, B.C. 445. See Neh. viii. sej. 
 
380 THE KINGSHIP lect. ir. 
 
 Note 14, p. 35. — The main passage for the way in which 
 Moses organised the administration of justice in Israel is Exod. 
 xviii. Compare 0. T. in Jewish Ghurck, p. 334. 
 
 Note 1 5, p. 36. — "Every Arab tribe," says Burckhardt, "has 
 its chief sheikh, and every camp is headed by a sheikh, or at least 
 by an Arab of some consideration ; but the sheikh has no actual 
 authority over the individuals of his tribe. . . . Should a dis- 
 pute happen between two individuals the sheikh will endeavour 
 to settle the matter ; but if either party be dissatisfied with his 
 advice he cannot insist upon obedience. The Arab can only be 
 persuaded by his own relations ; and if they fail war commences 
 between the two families and all their kindred respectively. . . . 
 In fact the most powerful Aeneze chief dares not inflict a trifling 
 punishment on the poorest man of his tribe without incurring 
 the risk of mortal vengeance from the individual and his rela- 
 tions The prerogative of the sheikhs consists in leading 
 
 their tribe against the enemy ; in conducting negotiations for 
 peace or war; in fixing the spot for encampments; in entertaining 
 strangers of note, etc., and even these privileges are much limited." 
 — Bedouins and Wahahys, 8vo ed., p. 115 seq. 
 
 Note 16, p. 39. — See 0. T. in Jewish Church, p. 225 seq., 
 p. 257 and note (Shechem in the time of Abimelech was a 
 Canaanite town), p. 78 seq. ; and infra, Lect ii. note 6. 
 
 Lecture II. 
 
 Note 1, p. 47. — On the one hand, the great Phoenician 
 trading cities, with the usual jealousy of commercial monopolists, 
 were little disposed to form a close and equal union with any 
 outside their own circle. Nor were they disposed to warlike 
 operations to extend their territory. Carthage, it will be 
 remembered, neither made the natives Carthaginians nor even 
 sought to make them subjects till a comparatively late date. 
 See Mommsen's History of Rome, bk. iii. chap. 1. The jealousy 
 and political inertness of the Phoenicians had two results. It 
 long prevented the Hebrews from becoming a trading people, 
 and so saved them from rapid social changes which would greatly 
 have endangered their old life and religion ; and, on the other 
 hand, it left them free to deal as they could with the Canaanites 
 of the interior. Even in the interior the Canaimites continued 
 to be the trading class, and, as the Hebrews occupied the land, 
 
LECT. II. IN ISRAEL. 381 
 
 became more and more exclusively traders. Between traders 
 arid cultivators of the soil there was a natural class-antagonism, 
 •which no doubt helped to maintain the distinct character of 
 Israel. On the other hand, the Israelites of the frontier, in 
 Judah and beyond the Jordan in Gilead, evidently retained not 
 a little of the ancient nomad habits, and in part were closely 
 allied with other tribes of the wilderness. Thus we find from 
 time to time expressions of that characteristic distaste for the 
 ease and luxuries of settled life which belongs to the genuine 
 Bedouin. The Nazarite vow against drinking wine and the laws 
 of the Eechabites are cases in point. And the Bechabites, like 
 the Nazarites, were on the side of the old Jehovah worship, and 
 against the Canaanite Baal. 
 
 Note 2, p. 47. — That the institution of the kingship was a 
 necessary step in the development of national unity, and therefore 
 also in the progress of the religion of Jehovah, is often overlooked 
 under the too exclusive influence of 1 Sam. viii. ; x. 17-27 ; xii. 
 But it is always a mistake to estimate the real significance of 
 events in ancient history by the speeches — never literally 
 reported and often used as a convenient and, on ancient literary 
 methods, legitimate vehicle for reflections of a later age influenced 
 by changed circumstances — which are now interwoven with the 
 context of the narrative, instead of allowing ourselves to be 
 guided by the historical context of events ; and as a matter of 
 fact no one can doubt that the institution of the kingship was a 
 great blessing to Israel, putting an end to the state of anarchy 
 which the book of Judges justly represents as most unfavourable 
 to religious progress. Nor is it less clear that Israel from the 
 first recognised this blessing as a special gift of Jehovah, who 
 sanctioned the kingship by bestowing His spirit on the king 
 (1 Sam. x. 6 ; xvi. 13). In the Blessing of Moses the kingship 
 is represented as the crowning gift of Jehovah, by which the 
 branches of the nation and the tribes of Jacob were united 
 together (Deut. xxxiii. 5). Modem criticism has made all this 
 much more plain by pointing out that there are two distinct but 
 parallel accounts of the choice of Saul, the older version being 
 preserved in 1 Sam. ix. ; x. 1-16 ; xi. (omitting v. 14). After his 
 unction Saul returns to his father's house, awaiting the opportunity 
 indicated iu x. 7 ; after about a month (so the LXX. in xi. 1), 
 this opportunity arises in the invasion of Nahash, and the 
 sovereignty which Saul had assumed on this occasion in viitue 
 
382 TITHES. 
 
 of a divine impulse (xi. 6), is solemnly confirmed after the 
 victory. The detailed proof of the separate character and greater 
 antiquity of this form of the narrative nmy be foimd iu Bleek's 
 Einleitung, 4th ed., by Wellhausen, p. 210 seq., with which com- 
 pare the corresponding discussion in Wellhausen's Text der BUcher 
 Samiielis. It is to be noted that the attacks on Samuel so 
 current in the older sceptical school (see, for example, Volney^s 
 Histoire de Samuel), derive t]ieir whole plausibility frnm the one- 
 sidedness of the current uncritical treatment of the history. 
 
 Note 3, p. 50. — The English reader will find an account of 
 this celebrated monument, now in the Louvre, and the translation 
 of the inscription whicli it bears, in an article [by Professor 
 W. Wright of Cambridge], printed in the North British Reviero, 
 October 1870, or in Dr. Giusburg's Moabite Stone (2d ed. 1871), 
 where an account is also given of the literature of the subject. 
 Dr. Ginsburg's version is reprinted in Records of the Past, vol. xi. 
 p. 165. See also Dr. A. B. Davidson in the B. and F. Ev. 
 Review, 1871. 
 
 Note 4, p. 51. — The history of this celebrated monument 
 and a list of the literature connected with it are to be found in 
 the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars I., torn, i., p. 1 seq. 
 (Paris 1881). The inscription dates from the Persian period. 
 
 Note 5, p. 53. — On tithes in antiquity outside Israel see 
 the essays of Selden and Hottinger, Spencer, Leg. Rit. Ileb., 
 lib. iii. c. 10 ; Winer, s.v. " Zehnten," Ewald, AlterthUmer, p. 398 
 (Eng. tr., p. 300) ; Knobel on Lev. xxvii. 30 seq. The practice 
 of paying tithes to the gods was widely diffused, both in the 
 form in which it appears in Gen. xiv. 20, where tithes are paid 
 from booty (which in Greece was the commonest case), and in the 
 shape of a regular tribute on the products of agriculture, trade, or 
 the like. It is sufficient for the present purpose to indicate the 
 prevalence and scope of tithes among Semitic nations or in 
 regions of Semitic influence. Here it is to be noted first that 
 tithes were paid to the king (as in 1 Sam. viii.) according to the 
 ancient Babylonian law revived under Alexander (Aristot. (Econ., 
 ii. p. 1352 b of the Berlin ed. ; comp. p. 1345 seq.). Next, as 
 regards tithes to the gods, it is attested by Diodorus, xx. 14, that 
 the Carthaginians as a Tyrian colony paid tithes to the Tyrian 
 sun-god Melkarth or Herakles, the divine king of the city ; and 
 in like manner Hercules was the god to whom the Romans paid 
 tithes (Diodor., iv. 21; Plut., Mor. ii. 267 E; compare the 
 
LECT. II. SACRED FEASTS. 383 
 
 authorities collected by Wyttenbaoh in his index to Plut., Mor. 
 B.v. 'HpaKXris). Among the Arabs of the frankincense country 
 tithes of this product were paid to the priests of the sun-god 
 Sabis (PI n. x i. 32). Among the Arabs, says the scholiast to 
 Harith (MoaL, ed. Arnold, p. 186), " men used to vow " — just as 
 Jacob vowed at Bethel — " If God gives me a hundred sheep I 
 will sacrifice one in every ten." The discharge of this vow was not 
 enforced, and often " his soul grudged what he had vowed, and 
 he would hunt a gazelle and substitute it for the sheep that 
 were due" (cf. Mai. i. 14). The tax on the produce of their mines 
 paid by the Siphnians at Delphi (Hdt. iii. 57 ; Pausan. x. 11.2) 
 may be plausibly ascribed to Phoenician influence, and tithes 
 are also an institution in various parts of Asia Minor, where we 
 know the influence of Semitic religion to have been very great ; 
 e.g., in Lydia there was a tithe on cattle (Nic. Damasc. in Miillor's 
 Fragm. Hist. Gh:, iii. 371). The mention of the Kabirl also 
 speaks for a Semitic element m the sacrifice of tithes or firsts 
 fruits — note the connection of the two ideas — by the Pelasgi 
 mentioned by Dion. Hal., A. B. i. 23. 
 
 Note 6, p. 56. — In the oldest legislation (Exod. xxiii, 14 
 seq.; xxxiv. 18 seq.) the three annual feasts are (1) the feast of 
 unleavened bread, (2) the feast of harvest, (3) the feast of in- 
 gathering (of autumn fruits). The two first mark the beginning 
 and end of the corn-harvest ; compare Deut. xvi. 9 ; Lev. 
 xxiii. 10. Thus the agricultural reference of all these feasts is 
 clear, and they are to be compared with similar agricultural 
 festivals and ofierings of first-fruits among other ancient nations. 
 Pliny, for example, says of the ancient Eomans that they would 
 not even taste the new corn or wine till the priests had tasted 
 the first-fruits {H. N. xviii. 2) and — to take an instance from 
 Semitic races — a feast of first-fruits in the month of May was 
 celebrated according to En-Nedim by the heathen Harranians 
 (Chwolson , Ssabier, ii. 2 5 ; Fihrist, ed. Flilgel, p. 3 2 2). See Spencer, 
 Op. cit, lib. iii cap. 8, 9. To trace correspondences in detail 
 between the Hebrew feasts and those of the surrounding nations 
 is not so easy. The occasions of the Hebrew festivals are those 
 naturally suggested by the course of the seasons of husbandly, 
 while at an early date we find among their neighbours feasts 
 determined rather by astronomical considerations, and having 
 reference to the worship of the heavenly bodies ; such, for 
 example, as the Tyrian feast of the awakening of the sun 
 
384 THE SABBATH. 
 
 (Herakles), Jos. Ant., viii. 5, 3. This feast, however, is said to 
 have heen first instituted by Hiram, and it is probable that in 
 general agricultural festivals were older than astronomical ones. 
 Thus, in Judges ix. 27 we find a Canaanite vintage feast cor- 
 responding to the Hebrew feast of ingathering, which ia the 
 early books appears as the principal yearly feast, or at least as 
 the pilgrimage feast, when men had leisure to visit distant 
 shrines (1 Kings xii. 32). Ewald {Ant., E. T. p. 351, comp. 
 Z.f. d. Kunde des Morgenlandes, iii. 419), who conjectures that a 
 spring and an autumn feast were known to the Hebrews before 
 the time of Moses, points to the fact that according to tlie 
 soholion cited in last note, the Arabs paid tithes in the month 
 Rajab, and that the Arabs had of old two sacred months 
 — Moharram, the first month from autumn, and Rajab, the 
 seventh. See, however, Sprenger in Z. D. M. (?., 1859, p. 134 
 seg. ; Leben Moharn/med' s, iii, 516 seq. ; Dozy, Israeliten te Melcka, 
 p. 138, from which it will be seen that there is still consider- 
 able obscurity about the holy seasons of the heathen Arabs. 
 The ancient holiness of Rajab as a sacrificial season (see Lane 
 s. v) is the best established point, and as this month corresponds 
 to the Hebrew Nisan, the sacrifices then ofl^ered may be taken 
 as a probable parallel to the paschal sacrifices of the Hebrews. 
 
 That there were great similarities in the method of celebra- 
 tion between the feasts of the Hebrews and their heathen neigh- 
 bours is clear from the Bible, especially from the undoubted 
 fact of the admixture of elements of Baal worship with the 
 service of Jehovah. The custom of holding feasts in tents or 
 booths (Hosea xii. 9) reappears in the Babylonian Saccea and 
 elsewhere in the East ; see Movers, Phcenizier, i. 483 seq. Again, 
 the Hebrew technical term mVJJ reappears in the worship of 
 the Tyrian Baal, 2 Kings x. 20. The description of Syrian 
 festivals given by Posidonius (Miiller, Fragmenta, iii. 258), the 
 copious eating and drinking, the portions carried home, the 
 noisy music, recalls forcibly what we read of the Hebrew feasts 
 (I Sam. i. 14 ; 2 Sam. vi. 19 ; Lam. ii. 1, etc.). 
 
 In addition to the great yearly feasts, Hosea ii. 13 specially 
 designates the Sabbath and the New Moon as occasions of festal 
 joy. The latter of these was also a sacred season among the 
 Phoenicians celebrated by special offerings, Corp. Inscr. Hem., pars 
 i. cap. 2, No. 86. The Sabbath, on the other hand, as a day of 
 joy, stands in marked contrast to the unlucky seventh day of the 
 
LECT. II. THE NAME JEHOVAH. 385 
 
 Babylonians, on whicli see Sayce in Records of the Past, i. 164 ; 
 vii. 157 seq. The relation of the Hebrew Sabbath to the 
 planetary week of the Babylonians, in whicli the seventh day is 
 connected with Saturn, is still far from clear. The week is 
 perhaps originally nothing else than the fourth part of a luna- 
 tion. Thus among the Harranians, if we may believe En- 
 Nedim, four days in each month were suitable for sacrifices, 
 and to these belonged the new moon, the first quarter, and the 
 twenty-eighth day. (Chwolson, ii. 8 ; Fihrist, ed. Fl., 319.) 
 
 Note 7, p. 56. — The literature of the sacrificial tablet of 
 Marseilles is cited, and the inscription itself published with a 
 commentary in Schroder's Phonizisohe Sprache, p. 237 seq. It 
 contains an account of the dues in money or in parts of the 
 victim to be paid to the priest for every kind of sacrifice. A 
 fragment of a similar tablet from Carthage may be found in the 
 same work, or in Davis, Carthage and her Bemains^ p. 296 seq. 
 
 Note 8, p. 57. — See in particular the inscription of lehaw- 
 melek (G. I. S., p. i. cap. 1. Art. 1, where the king records the 
 erection of a brazen altar, of golden chased work, and of a 
 portico and columns. The aspect of a Phcenician temple, with 
 its court and portico and a lofty obelisk or sun-pillar, is best 
 seen on the coin of Byblus, figured Hid. p. 6, and in Kenan's 
 Miss, de Phe7ncie, -p. 177. The brazen altar recurs in the Sardo 
 trilinguis (Schroder, p. 249 ; Levy, Pliiin. Stiid., iii. 40). The 
 palm-tree or palm-branch found among the temple ornaments is 
 one of the commonest of Phoenician symbols. See, for example, 
 the woodcuts in Renan's Mission, p. 651 seq.; the woodcut from 
 Yfirtin, Survey of Western Palestine, i. 259, and the coins figured 
 by Schrodgr, Plate xviii. 10-14. Compare further Old Test, in 
 J. Oh., p. 248 and note 2 there. For the classes of ministers in 
 a Phoenician sanctuary, see G. I. S., No. 86. 
 
 Note 9, p. 57. — See Old Test, in J. Gk, p. 285 and note 
 4 there. 
 
 Note 10, p. 62. — The ancient exegesis of Exod. iii. 14 flowed 
 in two main channels. The Hellenistic tradition, attaching 
 itself to the rendering of the LXX., iyo e'ifu 6 oiv . . . 6 oiv 
 aTricrraXKe /xe, finds the meaning of the ineifable name in the 
 absolute being and aseit?/ of God ; the Palestinian tradition, on 
 the other hand, understands the name of God's eternity and 
 immutability. The former view is untenable on linguistic 
 grounds, for the Hebrew substantive verb has not the sense of 
 
 2 C 
 
386 THE NAME 
 
 metaphysical entity, and the imperfect IIMX does not mean / 
 wm, but / will he, [something]. This the Palestinian exegesis 
 recognised (Aq., Theod.), and, taking the verb, not in the abstract 
 metaphysical sense of the Hellenistic interpretation, but in the 
 simpler sense of actuality (Daseyn), which it certainly has, at 
 least in later Biblical Hebrew, they seem to have got the notion 
 of eternity by rendering / will be in existence, I will not cease to 
 be. In that case the whole clause must be rendered [My name 
 is] I will be, [that is] / who will he. As A. ben Ezra puts it, "ICK 
 rT'nx is an explanatory apposition to n^ns. This view of the 
 grammatical structure of the clause has been recently supported 
 by Mr. W. A. Wright (Joiir. Phil, iv. 70) and Wellhausen 
 {Z.f. d. Th., xxi. 540), who, however, do not object to retain 
 the present tense, which I think is impossible in such a connec- 
 tion and with the substantive verb. For my own part, I doubt 
 if even the notion of actuality, as we find it in the Hebrew of 
 Ecclesiastes, can be given to the substantive verb in such an 
 early passage. The sense of iTTIN is not so much I exist or / 
 loill exist as 1 will be it — an incomplete predication. On this 
 view the predication, incomplete in the simple nUT' or IIMN, is 
 completed in the fuller n^HS "IK'S nTIS. This clause may cer- 
 tainly be grammatically rendered Be I what I may — a view 
 adopted and grammatically justified with his usual wealth of 
 illustration by Lagarde, Psalt. Hieron., p. 156 sej. To the pass- 
 ages from various languages which he cites — the Biblical ones 
 are Gen. xliii. 14 ; 1 Sam. i. 24; xxiii. 13 ; 2 Sam. xv. 20 ; 
 Zech. X. 8 ; Ezek. xii. 25 — I add in illustration of the idiom, 
 Deut. ix. 25 ; Exod. iv. 13 ; xvi. 23 ; xxxiii. 19 ; Esther iv. 16 ; 
 Mishna, Shah. xiv. 4 KBinj NSIDi DN; Freytag, Prov. "Ar., i. 339, 
 No. 212, Ujlus heith tajlus ; Tabary, iii. 93,1. 3, qataltu man 
 qataltu. The great difficulty in the view of Professor Lagarde, 
 and indeed in almost every view except that of A. ben Ezia, is 
 that the meaning of the full iTTIK ^E'^5 ITTIK disappears in the 
 shorter form nTlN or nin\ the whole clause being essential to 
 the sense. In a paper in Brit, and For. Ev. Rev., Jan. 1876, I 
 proposed to meet this difficulty by following out the hint given 
 by R. Jehuda Hallevy (Kusari, ed. Cassel, p. 304), who explains 
 rrriK to mean " I will be present to them when they seek me," 
 and appeals to ver. 12, "I will be with thee," in support of this 
 interpretation. In truth this divine I loill he rinc;s throug'u 
 the whole Bible in varying form (Gen. xxvi. 3 ; Josh. i. 5 ; 
 
LSCT. 11. JEHOVAH. 387 
 
 Judges vi. 16 ; Jer. xxiv. 7; Zeoh. ii. 5 [9]; viii. 8, etc.) Is there 
 not a presumption tliat this oft-repeated I will he is akin to the 
 rrriK of ver. 14, and that the latter must also mean, not / will 
 exist, but I will he — something which lies implicitly on the mind 
 of him who uses the name ? In this case it is possible with E. 
 Jehuda and A. ben Ezra to take the n\nx ICS as an apposition, 
 but it seems more reasonable to think that the added nTIS IB'X, 
 I will he what I will he, expresses more distinctly the fact that the 
 predicate is vague. The construction, in fact, is in principle 
 analogous to the well-known idiom 3;DE'n J)DE' to express the 
 indefinite subject. The relative clause is without emphasis — as 
 appears from the parallels cited above, and the s.nse is not that 
 God reserves for His own arbitrinm to determine what He will 
 be, but simply that what He will be to His people He will he, 
 will approve Himself to be, without faU. The vagueness is 
 inevitable, for no words can sum up all that Jehovah will be to 
 His people ; it is enough for them to know that He will be it 
 (comp. Isa. Ixiv. 3 ; Lam. iii. 23). On this view the clause is 
 exactly parallel to Exod. xxxiii. 19, which does not mean that 
 God vsdll choose the objects of His grace arbitrarily, but that to 
 those to whom He is gracious — who they are is left vague — He 
 will be gracious. I am disposed to think that this exegesis of 
 the passage is as old as Hosea iii. 9, where the words, " I will not 
 be for you," seem to be chosen in direct contrast to the promise, 
 " I will save Judah in the quality of lahwe their God." It 
 must of course be remembered that Exod. iii. 14 does not give 
 the original sense of the name lahw^, which is still obscure 
 (0. T. in J. Gh., p. 423 ; compare Delitzsch, Wo lag das Para- 
 dies ? p. 158 seq., and the reply of Tiele, Theol. Tijd., 1882, p. 262 
 seq.), but an adaptation of the name, so that we need not be sur- 
 prised to find a little awkwardness in the expression. 
 
 Note 11, p. 64. — This monument may now be seen in the 
 Louvre. " Let them," says Eshmunazar, " have no bed with 
 the shades, and let them not be buried in a grave, nor let there 
 be to them son or seed in their stead, and let the holy gods 
 deliver them into the hand of a powerful kingdom ... let 
 them have no root downward or fruit upward (comp. Isa. 
 xxxvii. 31), nor any comeliness among the living under the sun." 
 — G. I, S., lit supra. No. 3. The Authorised Version of the Bible 
 unfortunately obliterates the characteristic ideas of the " under- 
 world" (Sheol) and the " shades" (Kephaim). In Isa xiv. 9, for 
 
388 THE WORD 
 
 example, the former word is rendered "hell," and the latter 
 " dead." 
 
 Note. 12, p. 72. — A reference may here be added to the latest 
 discussion of the derivatives of the root QDK by Prof. Kautzsch 
 of Tubingen {Festeinladung, 6 Mdrz 1881), who concludes that 
 the fundamental idea of the root is conformity to a norm. Even 
 this, perhaps, is too wide, and does not lay sufficient weight on 
 the distinctly forensic element which the author recognises as 
 preponderant in the earlier Hebrew writings. The roots pTi 
 and W^ are correlatives, and ought to be taken together. All 
 the other uses of the derivatives of QDK may, I think, be 
 traced from the primitive forensic sense ; but the more complex 
 developments belong to a later period than that covered by the 
 present volume. Prof. Kautzsch is certainly right in declining 
 to start from the very doubtful considerations of etymology often 
 put in the front, and especially from the obscure Arabic phrase 
 rumh gadq. 
 
 Note 13, p. 75. — The Biblical narrative is here supple- 
 mented by the " Moabite Stone" erected by King Mesha. 
 
 Note 14, p. 79. — The sources for the history of Elijah are 
 not all of one date, and do not all reproduce with equal imme- 
 diacy the aspect in which his work presented itself to his con- 
 temporaries. See Wellhausen's edition of Bleek's Einleitung, 
 and the article Kings, Books of, in the forthcoming volume of 
 the Encyclopcsdia Britannica. 
 
 Note 15, p. 81. — In Hosea vi. 5 for niS T'DSe'D read with 
 LXX. -I1K3 •'LJDE'O. 
 
 Note 16, p. 84. — On wine and wine-drinking among the 
 Arabs before Islam, see especially I. Guidi, Delia Sede primitiva 
 dei popoli Semitici (Rome, 1879), p. 43 seq. Like all barbarians, 
 the Arabs were fond enough of getting drunk, but wine was a 
 foreign and costly luxury, and the opposition to its use found 
 distinguished advocates before Mohammed. Among the Naba- 
 tseans of the Syrian desert, according to Diodorus (xix. 94, 3), it 
 was a law neither to sow nor to plant any fruit-bearing plant, 
 nor to use wine, nor to construct a house, and death was the 
 penalty of disobedience. See also Ammianus, xiv. 4. 
 
 Note 1 7, p. 85. — SeeG. Hoffmann, Verhandlungender Kirclien- 
 versammlung zu Ephesus, etc., Kiel, 1873, p. 89 ; "har naggdrS 
 is not the son of a carpenter, but a carpenter as member of the 
 incorporation." The current notion that the prophets were not 
 
LECT. II. NABI. 389 
 
 a guild is derived from too exclusive attention to the prophets 
 of the school that arose with Amos and expressly disclaimed 
 connection with the established guilds. In Jerusalem, as we see 
 from Jeremiah, the prophets were under a certain official control 
 on the part of the priests. 
 
 Note 18, p. 86. — The etymological sense of the Hebrew 
 nahl is much disputed. It must be observed that there is 
 nothing in extant Hebrew literature by which it can be deter- 
 mined, for Exod. iv. 16 ; vii. 1 ; Jer. xv. 19, cannot be taken as 
 giving the meaning of the word, or as proving that it ever 
 meant a speaker or interpreter in general, but only as evidence 
 how the function of the prophet in relation to God was con- 
 ceived among the Israelites. Nabt, in the Old Testament, 
 always has the technical sense of a prophet, and the other 
 derivatives of the root {nibha and hithnahbe, prophesy) are 
 denominatives formed from naM. The word, in short, has no 
 root in Hebrew of the historical period, and we must suppose 
 either that it has survived from very remote antiquity or that 
 it is a loan word. It is not, however, like Mhen, " priest," a 
 common Semitic term ; the other Semitic dialects have certainly 
 borrowed it from the Hebrews (Noldeke, Gesch. d. Qorans, p. 1). 
 Thus it belongs to an isolated sphere of Semitic religious life ; 
 and as the Nebi'lm were common to Israel and the worshippers 
 of Baal, while according to 1 Sam. ix. 9 nabi superseded the 
 old Hebrew term rd'eh after the time of Samuel, it is hardly 
 likely that the word is older than the settlement of the Hebrews 
 in Canaan. This circumstance, taken with the fact that the 
 root is not otherwise found in Hebrew, certainly favours the 
 view of several recent inquirers that the name is of Canaanite 
 origin. In this case the etymology becomes comparatively un- 
 important, and in any case the origin of the name lies too 
 remote from the historical development of Hebrew prophecy to 
 be of value in illustration of the conception of a prophet among 
 the Israelites. 
 
 As regards the meaning of the root, it is hardly doubtful 
 that the ultimate stem is NB with the notion of protnmon 
 (Fleischer in Delitzsch's Genesis, 4th ed. p. 552), and so the Taj 
 el'Anh (i. 131) remarks that naba'a'ala, in the sense of hojama 
 viatalaa, is interchangeable with nabaha and nabaa. But 
 this fundamental idea not only divided itself under a variety 
 of triliteial roots ; the root naba'a itself, according to the Arabic 
 
390 THE WORD NABI lect. ii. 
 
 lexicographers, has very various meanings, among which it ia 
 difficult to find one that can be regarded as central. Thus, 
 when Kuenen (Onderzodc, ii. 3 ; comp. Godsdienst, chap. iii. nute, 
 and Prophets, p. 42) selects the notion of bubbling up, and 
 regards the prophet as one who bubbles up under inspiration, 
 this hj'pothesis has no more value than that of a guess guided 
 by the particular development of the root idea found in ']23 and 
 5J33. The most interesting etj'mological question is whether 
 ndht may not originally mean simply a "speaker" or "herald" 
 of God. This view is supported mainly from the Arabic by 
 Ewald (Propheten, i. 7), Fleischer (ut supra), and many others, 
 while Hupfeld (Z. f. d. K. des Morgenl, iii. 40) and Riehm {Mess. 
 Weiss., p. 21), also starting from the Arabic, take the view, less 
 accordant with the grammatical form of the word, that the nabi 
 is one to whom God whispers His revelation. Kuenen (Prophets, 
 p. 42), in opposing the argument from the Arabic, goes so far as 
 to say that the Arabic verb is probably derived from nabt, 
 and so is a Hebrew loan word. I presume that he does not 
 mean to deny that there is a real Arabic root naba'a with the 
 sense of prominence, impetus, etc., but only refers to the use of 
 Conjugations II., IV., in the sense of " tell" (akhbara), and to the 
 nom. act. of Conj. I. explained by Ichabar, news. And no doubt 
 the usage of the Koran is to reserve these words for divine or 
 supernatural communications, and Ragheb, cited at length in the 
 TAj el ''Ai'As, explains that nab' is not to be used of auy khabar, 
 but is confined to announcements that are valuable and promote 
 knowledge and are certain truth, like the word of God and His 
 prophet. Yet it seems impossible to treat Conj. II. as a mere 
 theological term derived from the Hebrew. Even in the Koran 
 (Ixvi. 3) it is used in a wider sense, and, what is more important, 
 it is so found in old Arabic, e.g. in'Antara {Moall., 1. 61 of Arnold's 
 ed., or 1. 68 of Ahlwardt's Divans, p. 48). This circumstance 
 adds importance to the fact that in Assyrian nabU means to 
 "announce," Delitzsch, Ass. Lesestiicke, 2d ed. (1878), p. 3. 
 Nab'at, " a gentle sound" (Harith, Moall, 1. 11, and Tdj el ^ArUs 
 i. 131, /ooQ, is also an old word. It cannot, however, be said 
 that the sense " speaker," or " newsbringer," is as yet established 
 as the etymological meaning of nahi. 
 
 Note 19, p. 86. — From 1 Sam. x. 5, 10 seq. ; xix. 20 seq., we 
 see that the vebt'hn at their first appearance in Israel formed 
 bands or companies. Their "prophesying" was a joint act; 
 
THE NEBIIM. 391 
 
 Samuel, in xix. 20, stands presiding over them, precisely like the 
 sheikh in a %ihr of Dervishes, further, these exercises were 
 sometimes gone through in sacred processions, sometimes at a 
 fixed place, as at the Nainth at Eamah, which ought probably to 
 be rendered "dwellings" — a sort of coenobium. They were 
 accompanied by music of a somewhat noisy character, in which 
 the hand-drum and pipe played a part, as was otherwise the case 
 in festal processions to the sanctuary (2 Sam.vi. 5 ; Isa. xxx. 29). 
 Thus the religious exercises of the prophets seem to be a develop- 
 ment in a peculiar direction of the ordinary forms of Hebrew 
 worship at the time, and the fact that the "prophesying" was 
 contagious establishes its analogy to other contagious forms of 
 religious excitement. That Saul under the influence of these 
 exercises stripped ofi' his clothes, and so joined in the prophesy- 
 ing, is precisely identical with what Ibn Khallikan (ed. Slane, 
 p. 610 ; Eng. Tr. ii. 538) relates of K^kubury, that he used, 
 under the influence of religious music, to become so excited as to 
 pull off part of his clothes. It does not seem that at this early 
 time the prophetic exercises necessarily involved any gift of pro- 
 phecy in the ordinary sense of the word, but it was recognised 
 that "a divine spirit" {r'A'^h Hoklm) came upon those who par- 
 ticipated in them ; Saul was, as an Arab would now say, malbAs. 
 The connection of music with the prophetic inspiration is still 
 found in the time of Elisha (2 Kings iii. 15). 
 
 The exercises of the prophets of Baal, as described in 1 Kings 
 xviii., were much more violent and ecstatic. They correspond 
 exactly with the later descriptions of the fantastic enthusiasm of 
 the wandering priests of the Syrian goddess given by Apuleius, 
 Metavi. lib. viii., and Lucian, Asinus, c. 37. These priests cor- 
 respond to the kelabim (literally " dogs") of the Phoenician sanc- 
 tuaries (6'. /. S., No. 86), and of Dent, xxiii. 18, who again are 
 the same with the kedesMm of 1 Kings xv. 12 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 7. 
 At the time of Josiah's reformation these wretched creatures had 
 dwellings in the temple. 
 
 Lecture III. 
 
 Note 1, p. 91. — The vagueness of 2 Kings xiii. 5 is not an 
 isolated phenomenon. Amos never mentions the Assyrians by 
 name, thougli he plainly alludes to them, as at vi. 14. So, too, 
 
392 ISAIAH XV. XVI. lect. in. 
 
 Wellhatisen (Bleek's Eiiil., 4tli ed. p. 251 seg.) remarks that the 
 cause of the siidden raising of the siege of Samaria (2 Kings vii. 
 6) can have been nothing else than an invasion of the Damascene 
 territory by the Assyrians ; but the Hebrew narrator plainly did 
 not know this. 
 
 Note 2,p.91. — The "torrent of the'Afabah,"in Amos vL 14, 
 is identical with the brook of the 'Arabim, or willows (Arabic 
 gharab; Celsius, Hierobot, i. 304 seq. ; I can testify from personal 
 observation that a tree of this name is still common in the Zor 
 of the Jordan valley), the southern boundary between Moab and 
 Ammon. The sea of the'Arabah in 2 Kings xiv. 25 is, of course, 
 the Dead Sea, the 'Arabah (A. V. " Wilderness") being the great 
 depressed trough in which the Jordan flows and the Dead Sea lies. 
 
 Note 3, p. 92. — Isaiah closes his citation with the words : 
 " This is the word that Jehovah spake concerning Moab long 
 ago. And now within three short years [comp. xxi. 16] the 
 glory of Moab shall be brought to contempt," etc. Isaiah pre- 
 sumably cited the old prophecy at some period of revolt against 
 Assyria, most likely in the great rising against Sennacherib, 
 when, however, Moab made voluntary submission after the fall 
 of the Phcenician cities {supra, p. 322 ; G. Smith, Hist, of Senna- 
 cherib, p. 55). That the prophet quoted by Isaiah is Jonah is a 
 conjecture of Hitzig [Des pro]ih. Jonas Oralcel iiher Moab, u.s.w., 
 1831 ; Der Prophet Jesaia, 1833, p. 178 seq). See also Cheyne's 
 Prophecies of Isaiah. 
 
 Note 4, p. 94. — I transcribe, by way of illustration, a pass- 
 age from Sprenger's Alte Geographic Arabiens, p. 213, referring 
 to the Druses. " The government is a patriarchal aristocracy. 
 The common people are distinguished by industry, the here- 
 ditary aristocracy by chivalry and disinterestedness, and both by 
 a frugality bordering on asceticism. The individual is lost in 
 the tribe, and within the community a rigid observance of the 
 laws of morality is enforced. . . . The people have the most 
 absolute confidence in their leaders, who are not without educa- 
 tion, and obey their smallest sign. ... By such institutions the 
 Druses have been able to effect brilliant military successes, and 
 fill their neighbours with a sort of superstitious belief that 
 they are invincible. . . . There have always been such tribes with 
 military organisation in Arabia, and such are still the Dhu 
 Mohammed and Dhu Hoseyn spoken of by Maltzan." See 
 Maltzan, Reisen in Arubien, ii. 404 seq. 
 
SOLOMON. 393 
 
 Note 5, p. 95. — Saul governed essentially as a Benjamite, 
 and his court consisted, at least mainly, of men of his own tribe 
 (1 Sam. xxii. 7). David's original policy was more enlarged. 
 He chose a capital with no tribal connection, formed a foreign body- 
 guard, and showed no exceptional favour to his own tribe, as is 
 clear from the fact that the men of Judah were the first to rebel 
 under Absalom, and the last to return to obedience. In fact, 
 David had to win them over by a promise that he would in 
 future recognise their position as his brethren (2 Sam. xix. 1 2, 
 13). Under Solomon the Judieans continued to enjoy special 
 favour. They did not share the discontent of Northern Israel, 
 and the chief mark of their favoured position is that, in 1 Kings 
 iv. 7 seg'., Judah is exempted from the system of non-tribal 
 government — essentially for purposes of taxation — applied in 
 the other parts of Canaan. It is quite clear, too, from 1 Kings 
 V. 13 ; xi. 28 (where for charge read burden, with reference to 
 the forced labour employed in the repair of the city of David) 
 that Solomon did not exempt Israelite.s from forced labour, as 
 2 Chron. viii. 9 supposes. The system of government by rulers 
 of provinces — that is, the system of centralisation, destructive of 
 old tribal organisation — reappears in the time of Ahab (1 Kings 
 XX. 14 seq.). The word "provinces" is rather Aramaic than 
 Hebiew, which may point to an iniiuenoe of foreign models on 
 the organisation of the state. 
 
 Note 6, p. 98. — See on all these points Old Test, in J. Gh., 
 Lect. viii., p. 223 seq. 
 
 Note 7, p. 110. — See 0. T. m /. Ch., Lect. xi., p. 336 seq. 
 
 It is strdnge that a sound Hebraist like Prof. W. H. Green 
 (Presb. Iiev.,ni. 123) should still njaintain that Exod. xx. 24 refers, 
 not to co-existing sanctuaries in Canaan, but to altars succes- 
 sively reared at different places in the wilderness, and even 
 assert that the Authorised Version " in all places " does not 
 accurately represent the Hebrew. The Authorised Version is 
 perfectly accurate, and the idiom quite common, Exod. i. 22 ; 
 Deut. iv. 3 ; 1 Sam. iii. 17 ; Jer. iv. 29 ; Ewald, ie/w-J., 290 c. 
 But the climax of absurdity is reached when Prof. Green regards 
 this law, with its express provision that if an altar is built of 
 stone it shall not be of hewn stone, as referring to the earth 
 with which the frame of the brazen altar was filled. So, again, 
 it is suggested that Exod. xxii. 30 may have been a law only fnr 
 the wilderness journey, when all Israel was encamped in the 
 18 
 
394 AMOS. LECT. III. 
 
 vicinity of tlie tabernacle. But it is certain that there was no 
 regnlar sacrificial observance in the wilderness (Amos v. 25 ; 
 Jer. vii. 22), and the whole law to which Exod. xxii. 30 belongs 
 is on the face of it a law for Canaan ; the offering of the firstlings 
 on the eighth day is only part of an ordinance embracing also 
 the first-fruits of cereals and liquors (ver. 29). How Prof. Green 
 can possibly deny that the asylum in Exod. xxi. 12-14 is the 
 altar, and that in Deuteronomy the idea of asylum-cities is 
 separated from connection with the sanctuary, I do not under- 
 stand. 
 
 Note 8, p. 11 9. — For the interpretation of this most im- 
 portant chapter see especially, in addition to the commentaries 
 on Deuteronomy, Graf, Der JSegen Mose's, Leipzig, 1857 ; WeU- 
 hausen, Geschichte, i. 266, 376. lu verse 2 the text must be 
 corrected as suggested by Ewald, Gesch., ii 280, so as to read, 
 " came to (from ?) Meribath Kadesh." 
 
 Note 9, p. 120. — With the exception of Vater's Amos 
 (Halle, 1810) and the lengthy work of G. Baur (Giessen, 1847), 
 the recent commentaries on Amos are incorporated in books on 
 the prophets in general or on the minor prophets. Among 
 modern English works Prof. Gandell's Amos in the Speakm^s 
 Commentary closely follows Dr. Pusey's Minor Prophets. The 
 prophet is also included in the second volume of Heilprin's 
 Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews QHew York, 1880). Of 
 German commentaries those of Ewald, Keil, and SchmoUer (in 
 Lange's Bihehmrh) are translated. The most influential modem 
 commeHtaries have been those of Ewald {Propheten, vol. 1), and 
 Hitzig in his Klelne Propheten, of which the last edition by 
 Steiner (1881) contains little new matter of consequence. Of 
 the older commentaries that of Le Mercier (Mercerus) is the 
 most valuable. There have been a good many recent discussions 
 of individual questions, especially of the difficult passage, v. 26, 
 which will be alluded to below. See also the section on Amos 
 in Duhm's Theologieder Propheten (Bonn, 1875) ; an essay, con- 
 taining a great deal that is arbitrary, by Oort, Theol. Tijdsch, 
 1880, p. 1 14 seq. ; Noldeke's valuable article in Schenkel's Bibel- 
 lexikon; and the excellent remarks of Wellhausen, .Ewct/c. Brit., 
 xiii. 410. I have not seen Juynboll, Disp. de Amoso, 1828. 
 
 Note 10, p. 120. — If we could venture to suppose that 1 
 Chron. ii. 24, iv. 5 refer to the settlement of Judah before the 
 Exile, we should gather that the ancient inhabitants of Tekoa 
 
LECT. III. TEKOAH. 395 
 
 were not pure Hebrews, but belonged to the Hezronites, nomads 
 from the desert who had settled down in the southern part of 
 the land of Judah. In this case we should have an interesting 
 line of connection between the kinship of Amos and the Kenite 
 family of the Rechabites, who gave tlieir support to Jehu in the 
 interests of ancient nomadic simplicity. The analysis of Well- 
 hausen, however, T)e Gentitms et Familiis Judceis, 1870, makes 
 it probable that the connection of the Hezronites with the dis- 
 trict of Bethlehem began after the Exile, when their older seats 
 in the south had been occupied by the Edomites. On Tekoa 
 and the surrounding district see especially the preface to 
 Jerome's Gomm. in Amos; Eeland, Patesiwia, vol. ii. p. 1028; 
 Tobler, Denlcblatter aus Jenisalem, 682 seq. ; Robinson, Biblical 
 Researches, 2d ed. p. 486 ; Stickel, Das Buck Hiob, p. 269 seq., 
 whose remarks on the active movements of oomiuerce in this 
 district serve, as Kuenen has pointed out (Onderzoek, ii. 335), to 
 throw light on the range of the prophet's historical and geogra- 
 phical knowledge. The idea that Amos belonged to the Northern 
 Kingdom and to some other and unknown Tekoa (Gratz, Oort, 
 ut supi-a) is quite arbitrary. That Amos has a thorough know- 
 ledge of the Northern Kingdom proves nothing. Oort's most 
 striking argument is derived from the mention of sycamore cul- 
 ture as the prophet's occupation. The chief home of this tree 
 was certainly in the plains, especially in the low country on the 
 Mediterranean coast (1 Kings x. 27 ; compare the notice of a 
 great sycamore grove between Rafah and Gaza in YUkftt, ii. 796) ; 
 and Jerome (on Amos vii.) already remarks that it did not exi.st 
 in the wilderness of Tekoa, and conjectures that the bramble is 
 meant. According to Tristram (Land of Israel, p. 34), it seems 
 only to be found " on the sea-coast, where frost is unknown, or in 
 the still warmer Jordan valley." It is, however, rather daring to 
 affirm that the sycamore can never have grown in the vicinity of 
 Tekoa or between Tekoa and the Dead Sea, as it was certainly 
 widely distributed in Palestine. Compare on the whole subject 
 Celsius, Hierob., i. 310; Gesenius, !rhes., s.v. ; Winer, s.v. "Maul- 
 beerfeigenbaum " ; and especially Warnekros in Eichhorn's JReper- 
 torium, xi. 224 seq. That Amos was a Judsean is clear from the 
 way in which he alludes to the .sanctuary of Zion, i. 2. 
 
 Note 11, p. 124. — The phrase "eat bread" for "earn one's 
 bread" is common to Hebrew and Arabic. See De Goeje's 
 glossary to the Bib. Geog. Arab. (vol. iv. p. 180). Mokaddasy 
 
396 DA Y OF lect. hi. 
 
 says, "I am not one of those wlio eat their loaf by their know- 
 ledge." Thus Amaziah distinctly treats prophecy as a trade by 
 which men live. 
 
 Note 12, p. 125. — That the text in both these passages is 
 corrupt hardly admits of doubt. With regard to iv: 3 this is 
 generally admitted ; for ix. 1 see Lagarde, Anm. zur Gr. Ueb. d. 
 Proverhien, p. v. In some other places there are irregular spell- 
 ings (vi. 8 ; viii. 8 ; v. 1 1 ; comp. WeUh. in Bleek, p. 633), which 
 must rather be put to the account of transcribers than taken as 
 indications of dialectic peculiarities of the prophet, and probably 
 there may be one or two other passages where LXX. has pre- 
 served better readings, but Oort {ut supra) goes too far in the 
 numerous corrections he introduces. The text is on the whole 
 in an unusually good state, nor can I see that there is evidence 
 of such extensive interpolations as Duhm, Oort, and even Well- 
 hausen assume (infra, note 18). 
 
 Note 13, p. 126. — An interesting example of this will be 
 found in Ibn Khallik^n's article on Ibn al-Kirrlya (p. 121, or i. 
 236 seq. of the English translation). 
 
 Note 14, p. 128. — On the origin and date of the several 
 parts of this tableau of the geography (not the ethnography) of 
 the Hebrews see, in addition to the commentaries, De Goeje in 
 the Theol. Tijdschrift, 1870, p. 233 seq., and Wellhausen in 
 Jahrb. f. D. Theol, 1876, p. 395 seq. The problems of the 
 chapter are still far from being conclusively solved, and De 
 Goeje, for example, is disposed to regard the parts of the chapter 
 which are not from the hand of the main author as later 
 additions. But it is more probable that Wellhausen is right in 
 assigning them to the earlier history JE. The verses which he 
 regards as most ancient are 8-19, 21, 25-30. The distant 
 northern nations of Japhet mentioned in the later part of Gen. 
 X. are not known to Amos. 
 
 Note 15, p. 132. — The current idea that the day of 
 Jehovah is primarily a day of judgment, or assize-day, is con- 
 nected with the opinion that the earliest prophecy in which the 
 idea occurs is that of Joel. See, for example, Ewald, Propheten, 
 i. 90 seq. But if the book of Joel, as there is reason to believe 
 (see Encyc. Brit, s.v.), is really one of the latest prophetical books, 
 Amos V. 18 is the fundamental passage, and here the idea 
 appears, not as peculiar to the prophet, but as a current popular 
 notion, which Amos criticises and, so to speak, turns upside down. 
 
LECT. in. JEHOVAH. 397 
 
 The popular idea in question cannot have been that of a day of 
 judicial retribution; tlie day wliich the men of Ephraim ex- 
 pected must have been a day of national deliverance, and, from 
 the whole traditions of the warlike religion of old Israel, presum- 
 ably a day of victory like the "day of Midian " (Isa. ix. 4). The 
 last cited passage shows that among the Hebrews, as among the 
 Arabs, the word "day" is used in the definite sense of "day of 
 battle." Illustrations of the Arabic idiom have been collected 
 by Gesenius on Isa. ix. and Sohultens on Job, p. 54, to which 
 may be added a reference to the section on the "Days of the 
 Arabs" in the '2H of Ibn 'Abd Eabbih, Egyptian ed., iii. 60 
 sej. The "days" of the Arabs often derive their name from a 
 place, but may eqiTally be named from the combatants, e.g., 
 "tiie days of Tamim against Bekr" ('//cd, p. 80). By taking the 
 day of Jehovah to mean His day of battle and victory we gain 
 for the conception a natural basis in Hebrew idiom. The same 
 idea seems still to preponderate in Isa. ii., and is quite clearly 
 seen in many later prophecies. That the day of Jehovah's 
 might is not necessarily a day of victory to Israel over foreign 
 powers, but a day in which His righteousness is vindicated 
 against the sinners of Israel as well as of the nations, is the 
 characteristic prophetic idea due to Amos, and from this thought 
 the notion of the day of judgment was gradually developed. 
 
 Note 16, p. 135. — Offences against the dead appear to 
 antiquity as among the gravest breaches of natural piety, as is 
 well known from the story of Antigone. The same feeling 
 finds frequent expression in the Old Testament (Deut. xxi. 23 ; 
 Josh. X. 27 ; Ps. Ixxix. 2, 3 ; Jer. xxxvi. 30). The feeling is 
 connected with the doctrine of the Underworld — "All the kings 
 of the nations lie in glory, every one in his own house ; but 
 thou art cast out of thy grave like a worthless sapling — the slain 
 are thy covering, pierced through with the sword, who go down 
 to the stones of the pit — like a carcase trodden lender feet" 
 (Isa. xiv. 19). The curse of Eshmunazar on those who disturb 
 his grave {supra, p. 387) is a pertinent illustration.. Compare 
 also the account in Jos. Ant, xvi. 7, of the portents which 
 deterred Herod from his attempt to violate the grave 'of David, 
 and of the costly monument that he erected by way of expia- 
 tioai. The attempt was deemed so unseemly that the eulogist of 
 Herod, Nicolaus of Damascus, omitted to record it in his historj'. 
 
 Note 17, p. 135. — The tablet of Marseilles seems to show 
 
398 TEXT OF lect. hi. 
 
 that among the Phcenicians the whole burnt-offering was used 
 especially in supplicating the favour of the deity, or Rs an excep- 
 tional thankoflfering (Schroeder, (yp. cit). So it appears also in old 
 Israel (Judges xi. 31 ; 1 Sam. vii. 9 ; 2 Sam. xxiv. 25). Thus 
 Amos means that Jehovah will not pay regard even to those 
 offerings which were regarded as of special importance and efficacy. 
 Note 18, p. 136. — Duhm, Tluologie der Propheten, p. 119, 
 followed by Oort, ut supra, p. 116, proposes to reject Amos 
 ii. 4, 5, as a Deuteronomistio interpolation. But it is plain that 
 Amos could not have excepted Judah from the universal ruin 
 which he saw to threaten the whole land, or at all events such 
 exception would have required to be expressly made on special 
 grounds. Such grounds did not exist ; for in vi. 1 the nobles 
 of Judah and Samaria are classed together, and both kingdoms 
 are mentioned in vi. 2. Comp. iii. I, where aU who came up 
 from Egypt are included. Nor is there anything suspicious in 
 the language used about Judah. "To reject the Torah of 
 Jehovah " is a pre-Deuteronomic phrase, Isa. v. 24, comp. Hosea 
 ii. 4, "thou hast rejected knowledge;" and "the statutes of God 
 and His Torah " appear together just as in our passage in the 
 undoubtedly ancient narrative, Exod. xviii. 1 6. See also Deut. 
 XXX. 10. In all these parallel passages the reference is to 
 ordinances of civil righteousness, and such, probably, are meant 
 by Amos. It is therefore a second, though not unconnected, 
 offence that the men of Judah have been led astray by the 
 deceitful superstitions practised by their ancestors. This again 
 is quite a natural accusation, for in Josh. xxiv. ancestral super- 
 stition appears as one of the two great temptations leading the 
 people away from Jehovah. The worship of the brazen serpent 
 is an instance in point, and Ezek. viii. 10, 11 is a clear proof of 
 the survival of primitive totemism in the last days of the king- 
 dom. The connection makes it jjrobable that Amos views these 
 superstitions as producing moral obliquity. That, however, is 
 in the highest degree natural. Observations in all parts of the 
 world show that totemism is directly connected with peculiar 
 systems of social ethic, and particularly with such practices as 
 are condemned in Lev. xviii., and were still common in the time of 
 Ezekiel (xxii. 10, 11). Comp. Journ. of Philology, vol. ix. pp. 94, 
 97. Duhm further proposes to reject as later additions iv. 13 ; 
 v. 8 seq. ; ix. 5, 6, and in this he is followed not only by Oort,- 
 but by Wellbausen, Geschichte, i. 349 seq., who compares these 
 
LECT. III. AMOS. 399 
 
 passages to the lyrical intermezzi celebrating Jehovah as Lord of 
 the Universe, which characterise Isa. xl.-lxvi., and aij^iies that 
 Jehovah's all-creating power acquires a sudden prominence in 
 the Exilic literature ; Jehovah becomes Lord of the World when 
 the realm of Israel falls to pieces. It may be conceded that 
 these verses are not closely connected with the movement of the 
 prophet's argument in detail ; but they are thoroughly appro- 
 priate to its general purport. To Amos Jehovah is not merely 
 the God of Israel, and Wellhausen has himself observed that the 
 prophet studiously avoids the use of this familiar title. It is 
 true that the universal Godhead of Jehovah appears to Amos 
 rather as a sovereignty over all -mankind than as a sovereignty 
 over the mere powers of nature. He uses nature as a factor in 
 history as a means of dealing with man ; and this agrees with 
 the older account of creation in Gen. ii. But undoubtedly 
 Amos teaches that all nature is at Jehovah's command for the 
 execution of His moral purpose (vii. 4 ; ix. 2 seq., etc.), and thus 
 it is natural that the prophet should make occasional direct 
 appeal to that lordchip over nature which is the clearest proof 
 that Jehovah's purpose is wider and higher than the mass of 
 Israel supposed. That such appeal takes an ejaculatory form is 
 not surprising under the general conditions of prophetic oratory, 
 and in each case the appeal comes in to relieve the strain of 
 intense feeling at a critical point in the argument. It is cer- 
 tainly possible that v. 8, 9 originally stood in direct connection 
 with iv. 13 ; but even this transposition rests too much on 
 merely subjective arguments to claim general acceptance. 
 
 Note 19, p. 140. — In this verse there are two disputed 
 points. The first is with reference to the tense of DflXK'JI. See, 
 besides the commentaries, Merx in the Bibel-lex. s. v. " Chiun " ; 
 Graf in Merx's Archiv, ii 93 seq. ; Kleinert, Das Deuteronomium 
 (1872), p. Ill; Smend, Moses apud Prophetas, p. 23 seq. ; Driver, 
 Hebrew Tenses, 2d ed. p. 167 ; and references to discussions of 
 the point in Holland in Oort, ut supra, p. 145. The question is 
 whether (a) Amos in this verse describes the idolatry of the 
 wilderness (so Hitzig, De Goeje, Kuenen, Merx, Keil, and others), 
 or (b) describes the present services of the Israelites as consist- 
 ing of a carrying about of certain idolatrous objects in sacred 
 procession (so Kamphausen, Schultz, etc.), or (o) predicts that 
 they shall liave to carry these things away into captivity (so 
 Rashi, Ewald, etc.). The question of the consecution of tenses is 
 
400 SIKKUTH lect. hi. 
 
 complicated by tlie fact that tte preceding verb is an inteiToga- 
 tive, and thus De Goeje in support of bis view appeals to Job 
 xxviii. 21, HDpJJil, wbicb, however, is no exact parallel. An 
 allusion to the sins of Israel in the wilderness would be 
 singularly out of place in this connection. Amos, like the other 
 older prophets, regards the wilderness journey as a time when 
 Jehovah's favour was specially manifested (ii. 10), and his argu- 
 ment is that this favour was enjoyed without sacrifice. Compare 
 the argument of the Clementine Homilies (iii. 45), that " God did 
 not desire sacrifices, for He slew those, who lusted after the taste 
 of flesh in the wilderness." (Lightfoot, Golossiaus, p. 373.) In 
 point of fact there is no close*syntactical connection between 
 V. 26 and v. 25, and the force of the consecutive Waw is rather to 
 be determined by Tlvjni following, which is a true future. Thus 
 the captivity of the idols seems to be alluded to, as in Isa. xlvi. 
 1,2. It was a known practice of the Assyrians to carry off the 
 palladia of vanquished cities, and the captives are here repre- 
 sented as compelled to bear them. 
 
 If, now, the allusion is to religious institutions of the pro- 
 phet's own time, it is still a difficult question what these were. 
 What is plain is that the allusion is to astral worship, and to 
 idols, the work of man's hands. The verse contains two imique 
 words ni3D (A. V. taiernacle), and )V3 (A. V. Ghiun). Are these 
 common or proper names ? As regards the first the whole 
 weight of the early versions supports the English version, and, 
 as the form in m from ^30 may be an abstract used as a con- 
 crete, there is no difficulty in supposing a reference to the well- 
 known portable chapels or tabernacles of Phoenician worship 
 (Diod. XX. 14, 65 ; comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 7, where we read of 
 women who wove tents for the Ashera), and it is not necessary 
 with Ewald to compare the" Syriac selcMtha, "post." With 
 regard to the second word, however, where the Septuagint intro- 
 duces a problematic. Raiphan, or Eephan, there is an early vari- 
 ation of the tradition. Whether the Raiphan of the oldest 
 version is a synonym of Saturn, borrowed from the Egyptians, is 
 highly doubtful ; it may be a mere error, and Theodotion does 
 not take the word as a proper name. But the Syriac and 
 perhaps the Tgm. do take it so, and both Jewish and Syriac 
 expositors identify it with Keiwan, Saturn. According to Abul- 
 walid, most Jewish interpreters took this view, though he himself 
 prefers the opinion, essentially that of most recent commentators, 
 
LECT. IV. AND CHIUN. 401 
 
 that the word is like njttD, a pedestal. The great difficulty is 
 that the name Keiwftn is not Semitic (see Fleischer in Levy, 
 Chald. Woii., i. 428), but probably Persian. So too, when 
 Schrader {Stud, und Krit., 1874, p. 324 seq.; Kiehm's Handw., 
 i. 234 seq.) will have it that mSD is Sakknth, an epithet of 
 the god Adar, we are met by the difficulty that' this also ia no 
 Semitic name, but so-called Accadian (Delitzsch in the German 
 transl. of Smith's Genesis, p. 274). It is hardly credible that 
 elements of Eastern religion not common to all Semites could 
 have been established in Israel at the time of Amos, or that the 
 Adrammelech (Adar), the introduction of whose worship is re- 
 corded in 2 Kings xvii. 31, was known before that time under 
 a non-Semitic name ; while, on the other hand, the identification 
 of IV3 with Keiwan naturally suggested itself when that name 
 of Saturn became current ; but this interpretation can hardly 
 have existed when the pronunciation expressed by the Massorets 
 was adopted. That our word may be the source of the Greek kiwv 
 is suggested by Hitz. in loc. and Lagarde, Abliundlungen, p. 13. 
 
 Note 20, p. 140. — See 0. T. in J. Oh., Lect. xi. p. 341, and 
 note 7. 
 
 Lecture IV. 
 
 Note 1, p. 145. — The chronological discussions which I 
 have felt it necessary to introduce in one or two places in these 
 Lectures start chiefly from the results obtained by Noldeke, 
 Uutersudiungen zur Kritih des AUen Testaments: " 4, Die Chrono- 
 logie der Richterzeit," and Wellhausen, JahrHb. /. Deutsche Theo- 
 logie, 1875, p. 607 seq. (compare Bleek'e Einleitung, 4th edition, 
 p. 264 seq. ; Geschichte, i. 287 ; and Krey, Zeitseh. f. Wiss. TheoL, 
 1877, p. 404 seq.). The observation of the trisection of the 480 
 and 240 periods of Jiidah and Ephraim, by which I confirm the 
 systematic character of the chronology already pointed out by 
 these scholars, was first published in the Journal of Philology, x. 
 209 seq., to which I refer for various details. In several notes 
 to the present volume I have endeavoured to carry further the 
 argument there opened. The material for the Assyrian syn- 
 chronisms is excellently brought together by G. Smith, The 
 Assyrian Eponym Canon, where also an account will be found 
 of various proposals for harmonising the dates. Another attempt 
 is that of Oppert, Salomon et ses successeurs, 1877. I do not 
 
 2 D 
 
402 CHRONOLOGY lect. iv. 
 
 accumulate references to other ■works, because it appears certain 
 that the first basis of a sound treatment of the problem is the 
 recognition of the fact long ago pointed out by Ewald, that the 
 synchronisms of Judah and Israel are not independent chrono- 
 logical data {infra, note 2). The first chronologer who has 
 used the Assyrian data in a thoroughly critical spirit is therefore 
 Ewald's scholar WeUhausen. The ordinary schemes of harmo- 
 nists are mere guesswork. For students who desire to look into 
 the subject for themselves, and are not yet familiar with the 
 literature, I may add a reference to Soaliger's Thesaurus Terrv- 
 porum; Ussher's Annals of the h^orld, 1658 (preceded by the Latin 
 Annales, 1650-54) ; and G. Syncellus, Bonn ed., i. 388 seq., where 
 the famous Canon of Ptolemy is preserved. 
 
 Note 2, p. 146. — In fixing on this particular means of 
 harmonising the two liues chronologers were guided by the so- 
 called synchronisms or cross references which in the present 
 text of the books of Kings occur as the beginning of each reign, 
 to the effect that A, kiug of Judah, came to the throne in such 
 a year of B, king of Israel, or vice versa. Jeroboam II. is said 
 to have begun his reign in the 15th year of Amaziah, and his 
 son Zachariah succeeded in the 38th year of Azariah. Thus the 
 interval between the two accessions is 52 years, instead of 41, 
 which is explained by assuming an interregnum of 1 1 years. On 
 the other hand, we are told that Amaziah lived 15 years after the 
 death of Jehoash orthe accession of Jeroboam, and yet the accession 
 of Amaziah's son Azariah is placed in the 27th year of Jeroboam (2 
 Kings XV. 1). In other words, the synchronisms themselves are 
 not exact, and the right to use them as a key to the chronology 
 becomes doubtful. In fact, when we go over the whole series of 
 synchronisms, as has been done at length by WeUhausen (Jahrb. 
 f. D. TheoL, 1875, pp. 607 seq), we are forced to the conclusion 
 that they are not iudej^endent data, furnishing additional material 
 for the chronological scheme, but have simply been added by a 
 later hand, who calculated them out so as to harmonise as he best 
 could the already discrepant lines of the Judeean and Northern 
 chronology. This view was expressed by Ewald {Geschichte, iii. 
 464), and subsequent inquiry has fully confirmed its correct- 
 ness ; for not oaily are the synchronisms full of such inconsist- 
 encies as were inseparable from the task of harmonising two 
 spts of data that do not agree, but an exact examination of the 
 text shows that they are inserted in such a way as to disturb the 
 
OF KINGS. 403 
 
 natural construction of tte sentences in which they occur. See 
 Wellhausen, ut mpra, p. 611. For chronological purposes, 
 therefore, it is not only legitimate, but imperative, to ignore 
 these synchronisms, and for simplicity's sake I have passed them 
 by in the text of my Lecture. There are only two synchronisms 
 of which account must be taken, viz. the contemporaneous ac- 
 cession of Jehu and Athaliah, and the siege of Samaria from the 
 fourth to the sixth year of Hezekiah. 
 
 Note, 3, p. 148. — On forty as a round number see Gesenius, 
 Thesaurits, p. 1258 seq. ; Lepsius, Chr. der Aegypt, i. 
 
 Note 4, p. 151. — The precise year of the fall of Samaria is 
 still open to dispute. The siege began under Shalmaneser, while 
 the conquest is claimed by Sargon. The data which determine 
 Sargon's first year have given rise to considerable discussion, and 
 are difficult to harmonise. See Schrader, K. A. T., p. 158 seq. ; 
 Oppert in Records of the Past, vii. 22, 28, Smith ; Assyrian 
 Eponym Canon, pp. 125, 129, 174 ; the criticism of v. Gutschmid, 
 Neue Beitrage,\01 seq. ; and Schrader again in K. G.F.,^. 313 seq. 
 It seems pretty certain, however, that Sargon came to the throne 
 in 722, and reckoned 721 as his first year. He records the 
 siege and capture of Samaria together, as happening in the 
 beginning of his reign, apparently distinguishing this from his 
 first year, when he was occupied with a revolt in Babylonia. 
 This leaves it uncertain whether he records the capture in the 
 first year of the siege or the siege in the year of capture, but the 
 extreme limits for the commencement of the siege are 724 and 
 72^, assuming always that the latter year is that of Shalmaneser's 
 death. Now, it is noteworthy that in 720 Sargon was in Syria 
 and Palestine meeting a revolt supported by the Egyptians, in 
 which Samaria is mentioned as taking part, and, on the other 
 hand, that 2 Kings xvii. 4 seq. seems to place the defeat and 
 capture of Hoshea before the three years' siege. This would fit 
 very well with the hypothesis that the fall of Samaria took place 
 in two acts, the first falling in 722 and the second in 720. If 
 we do not accept this solution we must suppose that a revolt 
 broke out in Samaria immediately after its capture, of which the 
 Bible tells us nothing. Were it possible to go by a tablet in the 
 Louvre, aided by a conjecture of v. Gutschmid {«< supra), based 
 on the variations which Assyriologists themselves have given in 
 the rendering of an obscu.rs word, we might even place Shal- 
 maneser's death and the commencement of the siege in 721 ; but 
 
404 DATE OF lect. iv. 
 
 this seems hardly possible in view of the line, indicating a change 
 of rule, placed in the Eponym Canon before 722. The year 721 
 would lend itself to the theory of Sayce and others, that 2 
 Kings xviii. 9, 13 are to be harmonised by making the latter 
 verse refer to an expedition in 711 ; but that theory has so 
 many other difficulties that it cannot be allowed to influence the 
 dates with which we are now concerned. 
 
 Note 5, p. 153. — See Schrader in Jahrbh. f. prot. Theol, 
 1875, p. 329 seq., and in particular A. v. Gutschmidt, Neue 
 Beitrdge, p. 143 seq. 
 
 Note 6, p. 154. — The literature upon the book of Hosea is 
 in large part the same with that upon Amos, but there are 
 several special German commentaries of recent date, by Sinison 
 (1851), "Wiinsche (1868), and Nowack (1880). The last-named 
 gives a very complete view of recent discussions. There is also 
 a very excellent old commentary by Pococke (1685). Further 
 references to books are given in Encijc. Brit.,xn. 298, where also 
 some notices of the traditions about the prophet may be found. 
 Many parts of the book of Hosea are very imperfectly understood, 
 and this not merely from the intrinsic difficulties of the prophet's 
 style, but from the fact that the text is often manifestly corrupt. 
 
 Note 7, p. 156. — In the title to Hosea's prophecy i. 1, his 
 date is given by the reigning kings of Judah and Israel. He 
 prophesied, we are told, (1) in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, 
 and Hezekiah ; (2) in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, 
 king of Israel. As Jeroboam died probably in the lifetime of 
 Uzziah, and certainly long before the accession of Ahaz, these 
 two periods do not coincide, and it .can hardly be thought that 
 they are both from the same hand or of equal authority. As 
 the first part of the book was certainly written under Jeroboam 
 II., and Hosea himself would not date by the kings of a foreign 
 realm, it seems natural to suppose with Ewald and other scholars 
 that the date by Jeroboam is original, but stood at first as a 
 special title to chaps, i. ii., or to these chapters along with chap, 
 iii., and that the special title was generalised by a later hand, 
 which inserted the words, " Uzziah, etc., kings of Judah and in 
 the days of." The later editor or scribe caniiot have been a man 
 of Ephraim, and perhaps was the same who penned the identical 
 date prefixed to the book of Isaiah. In this case he must have 
 lived a considerable time after Hosea, for the title of Isa. i. 1 
 can hardly be older than the collection of Isaiah's prophecies in 
 
LECT. IV. HOSEA. 405 
 
 tlieir present form (see p. 2 1 5 seg.), and we are hardly entitled 
 to accept his statement as proving more than that he knew 
 Hosea to have been a contemporary of Isaiah. If the' title were 
 correct, Hosea, on the common chronology, must be held to have 
 continued to prophesy for a period of some sixty years. This 
 difficulty, indeed, is now removed by the shortening of the last 
 period of the history of Ephraim, which we have seen to be 
 demanded by the Assyrian synchronisms. But the fact still 
 remains that there is nothing in the book of Hosea that points 
 to the reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah, or justifies the later title. 
 Some writers indeed, including Dr. Pusey, suppose that the 
 Shalman of x. 14 is Shalmaneser IV., the successor of Tiglath 
 Pileser. But of this there is no proof Dr. Pusey's theory is 
 that Beth Arbel is the Arbela in the plain of Jezreel known to 
 Eusebius, and that it was sacked by Shalmaneser when he first 
 received Hoshea's submission at the beginning of his reign. But 
 a town in this quarter, important enough to be used to supply 
 a figure for the fall of Samaria, could hardly have remained 
 ■without mention in the historical books, and it does not appear 
 that Hoshea ventured to resist Shalmaneser at the time referred 
 to. Hosea is fond of historical allusions, and does not confine 
 himself to such as lie near at hand. There was another Arbela 
 known to Eusebius (Onum., ed. Lagarde, p. 214), east of the 
 Jordan near Pella, which might conceivably have been reached 
 by Shalmaneser III. This combination has been suggested by 
 Schrader (K. A. T., p. 283), who, however, himself admits its very 
 problematic character, and offers the more plausible alternative 
 that Shalman may have been a Moabite king, a sovereign of 
 Moab of that name (Salamanu), actually appearing on the monu- 
 ments (comp. Smith, Epotiym Ganon, p. 124). An episode in the 
 ferocious wars of Gilead, spoken of by Amos, may indeed very 
 well be referred to, and in any case the allusion is too obscure to 
 be used to fix the date of any part of Hosea's prophecies. 
 
 Note 8, p. 156. — The general sense of this passage has been 
 best illustrated by Wellhausen, Geschichte, i. 141, who is ctrtainly 
 right in saying that the direct address to the priests dots not 
 begin with verse 6, but must include verse 5. In spite of the 
 objection taken by Nowack, there is no difficulty in understand- 
 ing DN (A. V. mother) of the stock or race of the priests, 2 Sam. 
 XX. 19 ; Ezek. xix. 2 ; Arabic, ^immali. But to gain a proper 
 connection between ver. 5 and ver. 4 is more difficult, and 
 
40G HOSEA IV. 
 
 seems to require a slight readjustment of the text. The lines on 
 ■which this must proceed have heen clearly laid down by Well- 
 hausen. Hosea in ver. 4 suddenly breaks off in his rebuke oi 
 the nation at large, " Yet let no man accuse and no man rebuke 
 for ..." What follows must be to the effect that the real 
 blame in the matter lies with the priests, whose destruction is 
 then announced in ver. 5 following. It is they who, by reject- 
 ing the knowledge of Jehovah which they were set to teach, 
 have banished that knowledge from the land. But the reading 
 which Wellhausen accepts, V1D33 ^DJ/I, " for my people is like 
 its priests," is not satisfactory : C^na and D'1D3 are not synonyms, 
 and the conjectured reading not only leaves an unexplained fnj^ 
 at the end, but does not do justice to the circumstance that, in 
 order to get a natural transition to ver. 5, the clause must be 
 addressed to the priests and the concluding word a vocative. This 
 requisite of a plausible conjecture is in so far met by Heilpiin's 
 1''3'^D^ 1D3;1, " thy people are like its accusers, O priest." But 
 the priests were judges, not accusers, and the people at large could 
 hardly be called the priest's people. Eather the people of the 
 priest must be the priestly caste or clan, and this points to the 
 very slight correction i^ na for '3''"1D3, " thy people have rebelled 
 against me, O priest." The corruption might easily arise, espe- 
 cially with smptio defectiva, under the influence of the preceding 
 3"1\ Perhaps, indeed, it would be enough to change the point- 
 ing and simply read, " Thy people are as mine enemies, O priest " 
 (1 Sam. ii. 10). 
 
 Note 9, p. 160. — The etymological relations of "IDn are 
 obscure. In Syriac we find two words hesda : the first, written 
 according to Bar Hebraius with hard d, means " reproach," the 
 latter with ruhhalclia, hesdha, is the Hebrew IDfl. The aspiration 
 is exactly the opposite of what we should expect, especially as 
 the hard form seems to correspond with Arabic hasad, envy. The 
 sense " reproach " or " shame " in Hebrew (Lev. xx. 1 7 ; Prov. 
 xiv. 34) may safely be regarded as an Aramaism ; and in all 
 probability the two like-sounding words are etymologically dis- 
 tinct ; the one corresponds to the Arabic root HSD, the other to 
 HSEID, in which the idea of friendly combination appears to lie, 
 in correspondence with the fact that in Hebrew IDn is the virtue 
 that knits together society. It is noteworthy that hashada has 
 a special application, in the phrase hashadA lithu, to the joint 
 exercise of hospitality to a guest. 
 
LECT. IV. GENESIS XXXIV. XLIX. 407 
 
 It ouglit never to be forgotten that in Hebrew thongbt there 
 is no contrast such as is drawn in certain schools of theology 
 between justice, equity, and kindness. Kindness and truth are 
 the basis of society, and righteousness — even forensic righteous- 
 ness — ^involves these, for it is the part of good government not 
 to administer a hard-and-fast rule, but to insist on considerate 
 and brotherly conduct. If we forget this we shall not do justice 
 to the emphasis laid by the prophets on civil righteousness. 
 Compare, for example, 2 Sam. xiv. 
 
 Note 10, p. 166. — The difliculties which surround the literal 
 interpretation of Gen. xxxiv. are in part so obvious that they 
 were felt even by the old interpreters. The latest stage of 
 inquiry into the meaning of the chapter may be studied in 
 Wellhausen's Gompositioib des Hexateuchs {Jahrh f. Deutsche 
 Tlieol., vol. xxi. p. 435 seq.), Dillmann's Genesis, and Kuenen's 
 essay in Thfol. Tijdfchrifl, 1880, p. 257 seq., and leads to the 
 result that the narrative, as it now stands, has passed through a 
 complicated history which need not occupy us here. It is plain 
 that the two individuals Simeon and Levi could not take and 
 destroy a city ; that in verse 30 Jacob speaks of himself, not as 
 an individual, but as a community, " I am a few men ;" and 
 that in Gen. xlix. 6 he speaks of his sons as tribes, for two men 
 do not form an "assembly" (isnp)- -As regards what is said of 
 Reuben in Gen. xxxv. 22 ; xlix. 4, it is to be observed that the 
 Hebrews undoubtedly were accustomed to state facts as to the 
 relationships and fusion of clans or communities under the 
 figures of paternity and marriage ; and this plan inevitably led 
 in certain cases to the figurative supposition of very strange 
 connections. A clear instance of such figurative use of marriage 
 with a father's wife is found in 1 Chron. ii. 24, as the text has 
 been restored by Wellhausen after the LXX. (De Gentibus, etc., 
 p. 14) ; and the story of the birth of Moab and Ammon, as 
 well as of the elements of the tribe of Judah spoken of in 
 Gen. xxxviii. (see Encyc. Brit., 9th ed., article Judah), may be 
 probably explained in a similar way. The form of the figure 
 was probably not repulsive when first adopted, as marriage with 
 a stepmother is a Semitic practice of great antiquity, and at 
 one time was known to the Israelites {Journ. of Phil., vol. ix. 
 pp. 86, 94 ; 0. T. in J. Church, p. 438). The precise meaning 
 of the deed of Reuben is, however, obscure. The tribes of Bilhah 
 were subordinate branches of the house of Joseph, and perhaps 
 
4n8 ALLEGORY OF 
 
 some combination against the unity of Israel and the hegemony 
 of Joseph may be alluded to. That these historical allegories 
 turn largely on marriage and fathership is not unworthy of note 
 in connection with Hosea. 
 
 Note 11, p- 167. — That ''^^5 in Hosea xiii. 10 either stands 
 for or must be corrected into IT'S is the almost unanimous 
 opinion of ancient and modern inteipreters, from the LXX. down- 
 wards. The prophet, therefore, does not say, " I will be thy 
 king," but "Where now is thy king?" 
 
 Note 12, p. 171. — Compare Noldeke in Z.B.M.G., xv. 809, 
 Wellhausen, Text der Biicher Hamuelis, p. 30 s«j. Beeliada of 1 
 Chron. xiv. 7 is the same as Eliada of 2 Sam. v. 16 or as 
 Jehoiada. 
 
 Note 1 3, p. 1 7 1 . — For the meaning of the word mohar, dowry, 
 and the corresponding verb, see Hoffmann's Bar All, 5504, 
 where the corresponding Syriac word denotes " what the son-in- 
 law gives to the parents of the bride." In the same sense the 
 Syrians say nn"l3 njD 130, he espoused his daughter, lit. bought 
 her from him (Bernstein, Ghrest., p. 37). The Hebrew word 
 eres, "betroth" (Exod. xxii. 15, Hosea ii. 16), properly means to 
 barter or hire, so that eris in Palestinian Syriac is a farmer 
 (Lagarde, Semitica, i. 50). In Exod. xxii. the primitive sense is 
 still felt, as also in 2 Sam. iii. 14, where eres is construed as a 
 verb of buying with the preposition 3. Note also the law of 
 Exod. xxi. referring to a secondary wife, where the provision that 
 the marriage is not dissolved at the close of seven years may be 
 directed against the principle of temporary marriages as practised 
 among the Arabs {nikalm 'I mut'ati : Mowatta, iii. 24 ; Bokh&ii, 
 Bulstk ed., vi. 124 ; Ibn Khallikan, Slane's transl. iv. 36). For 
 our present purpose it is impoitant to note thai this view of 
 marriage explains how Hosea had to buy back his wife (iii. 2). 
 This would constitute a new betrothal, and so Jehovah betroths 
 Israel to Himself anew (ii. 19). 
 
 Note 1 4, p. 171 . — The variation of the form of the metaphor, 
 in which the spouse of Jehovah is now the land (Hosea i. 2), now 
 the stock of the nation (ii. 2 seq.), belongs to the region of 
 natural symbolism, in which land and nation form a natural 
 unity. The nation, as it were, grows out of the land on which 
 it is planted (tiosea ii. 23 ; Amos ix. 15) ; the living stock of the 
 race has its roots in the land, and is figured as a tree (Isa. vi. 1 3 ; 
 xvi. 8 ; Hosea xiv. 5, 6 ; Num. xxiv. 6, etc.). From this point 
 
MARRIAGE. 409 
 
 of view the multiplication of tlie nation is just one aspect of the 
 productivity of the land, and it is indifferent whether we say 
 that the deity marries the land and so makes it productive, or 
 marries the stock of the nation. In Semitic heathenism, in fact, 
 'Ashtoreth the spouse of Baal is not so much connected with the 
 earth as with the stock of the earth's vegetation. Her symbol is 
 the sacied tree, the Arabic 'athary is the palm tree planted on 
 the bdl land, and the same conception of the sacred tree was 
 found in the popular wor.«hip of Israel (Hosea iv. 1 3). The 
 heathenish element in these conceptions is the constant reference 
 to natural productivity, the identification of the godhead with a 
 natural fertilising principle. Hosea entirely strips off this con- 
 ception. The heaven - watered land of Israel and its goodly 
 growth are Jehovah's gift (Hos. ii. 8, 22, 23), not his offspring. 
 But all analogy leads us to believe that the physical use of the 
 symbolism of marriage was the earlier, and without this sup- 
 position the details of the allegory can hardly be explained. 
 Even in Isaiah (iv. 2) the spring of Jehovah is analogous to the 
 Arabic bdl (Lagarde, fiemitica, i. 8), and must be interpreted, not 
 in a moral sense, but of the natural products of Jehovah's land. 
 Note 15, p. 172. — In Euting, Punische Steine (1871) p. 15, 
 we find a woman's name ^jjantJnS; " ^^ esjioused of Baal." Eor 
 Babylon and parallel examples from other nations see Herodot. 
 i 181 sej. See also Jos., Ant, xviii. 3 § 4. 
 
 Note 16, p. 172. — On the Arabic hdl see Wetzstein in Z. 1). 
 M. G., xi. 489 ; Sprenger, ibid, xviii. 300 seq. ; Lagarde, Semitica, i. 
 p. 8. The glossaries to De Goeje's Beladsori and to the Bt'b. Geng. 
 Ar. supply examples. The term is also Talniudic. But for the 
 illustration of the conception of the marriage of the deity with 
 his land, it is more important to look at the term ''athai-y or 
 'aththary, for which see Lane s. v. ; Prof. W. Wright in Trans. Bib. 
 Arch., vi. 439 ; Lagarde in Nachr. K.G.W. Gott. 1881, p. 396 seq. ; 
 and in particular the glossary to Beladsori s. v. bdl. The con- 
 nection of 'athary with 'Ashtoreth seems to have been first 
 observed by G. Hoffmann. The land of Baal, or the growth 
 springing from such land, fertilised by the Tains of Baal, bears a 
 name derived from 'Ashtoreth, and this appears to be a clear 
 enough indication of the ancient prevalence of the ideas touched 
 on in the text. 
 
 Note 17, p. 179. — One or two corrections are necessary in 
 the English version of Hosea iii. in order to bring out the full 
 
410 TEXT OF 
 
 sense. In verse 1 , read " Go and love once more a woman 
 beloved of a paramour, and an adulteress." It is the same faith- 
 less wife to whom Hosea is still invited to show Ms affection. 
 The TIJ? qualifies the main verb, not the "]? ; comp. for this 
 construction Cant. iv. 8. The grape cakes in the end of the 
 verse (not " flagons of wine ") are a feature of Dionysiac Baal- 
 worship (0. T. ill J. Oh., p. 434). In ver. 3 the sense seems to 
 be that for many days she must sit still, not finding a husband 
 (Jer. iii. 1) — not merely as A. V., not marrying another, but not 
 enjoying the rights of a lawful wife at all — while at the same 
 time Hosea is " towards her," watching over and waiting for her 
 (the phrase is as 2 Kings vi. 1 1 ; Jer. xv. 1 ; comp. Hosea i. 9). 
 
 Note 18, p. 181. — The true sense of this narrative was, I 
 believe, first explained by Ewald. The older literal interpreta- 
 tion, in the form still maintained by Dr. Pusey, was offensive 
 to every sound moral sense. The idea that a di^'ine command 
 could justify a marriage otlierwise highly improper, and that tlie 
 offensive circumstances magnify the obedience of the prophet, 
 substitutes the nominalistic notion of God for that of Scripture. 
 In addition to Ewald's exposition, the remarks of Wellhausen in 
 Bleek, Einl., p. 406 seq., well deserve perusal. See also Encijc. 
 Brit., xii. 297, fur an indication of the various interpretations that 
 have been offered, and Nowack, op. cit., p. xxxvi., for a catalogue 
 of recent Continental literature on the question. 
 
 Note 19, p. 185. — A remark may here be offered on the 
 difficult passage, vii. 5 seq. The prophet is describing the 
 wickedness of the king, princes, and people as a hot fever, an 
 eager and consuming passion, which burns up the leaders of the 
 nation, and makes Ephraira like a cake not turned, and so 
 spoiled by the fire. In v. 5 this figure is mingled with that of 
 the heat of intoxication. " In the day of our king the princes 
 • were sick with the heat of wine, they stretched out their liands 
 with scorners " or reckless despisers of right. Tlie figure here 
 is quite similar to Isa. xxviii. 1 seq. In the folloMang verse we 
 must plainly read i3"ip, " For their inward parts are as a 
 furnace," with the same enallage numeri as in "[lifD for ISBiD in 
 ver. 5 ; or, as is suggested by Schorr (in Heilprin, ii. 145), v\o 
 may read D3"lp (many supposed wiallages are probably corrup- 
 tions of text, and "itJ'D in old writing can as well be plural as 
 singular). The following words DniNa U2)> may be di'fended 
 from Jer. ix. 8 [Heb. ix. 7] laiX D''B''' 13"lp3, to which the con- 
 
LECT. IV. HO SEA. 411 
 
 Btruction stands related as n^T ^J? "h D''B' to 3^ ^JJ? 13T D''K'. It 
 will then be a circumstantial clause. The prophet is speaking 
 of a wicked project of king and princes in which they join, 
 hands with impious men in the intoxication of their evil pas- 
 sions, and proceeds, " for their inward part is as a furnace, when 
 their heart is in their guiles." [There is, however, a good deal 
 that is attractive in Schorr's proposal to read D3 lya, " their 
 heart burns within them."] In what follows, Houbigant long 
 ago thought of [Cj; (perfect) for [{}", laut neither he, nor 
 Wiinsche, who follows him, saw that ]{£'< is simply an obsolete 
 orthography for the imperfect [B'j;'!, like ^rh for loyi). Psalm, 
 xxviii. 8, so that the passage is to be explained by Deut. 
 xxix. 20 [JJe6. 19]. Thus the verse goes on, "their anger 
 DnaX as Tgm. Syr.) smokes all the night, in the morning it 
 flames forth like blazing fire." 
 
 Note 20, p. 189. — I adhere, though not without some 
 hesitation, to the "h of the Massoretic text of Hosea xiv. 8 and 
 the traditional view that the prefixed D"'^DX indicates Ephraim 
 as the speaker, as against the IP of the LXX., which has found 
 favour with many recent writers. The elliptical indication of 
 the change of speaker, though unique, is not incredible, for it 
 causes no insuperable obscurity. But in this view I think it is 
 qiute necessary to regard the whole verse r.s spoken by Ephraim. 
 The first "liN, indeed, on this view, marks an emphasis wiiich we 
 would not express in English ; but precisely in the pronominal 
 expression or suppression of emphasis Hebrew and English 
 difi^er greatly. The main difiiculty in the LXX. reading seems 
 to me to be much greater than any that attaches to the other 
 view. The comparison of Jehovah to a fir-tree is not only with- 
 out parallel, but in strange contrast to all prophetic thought. 
 The evergreen tree is in Semitic symbolism the image of recep- 
 tivity, of divinely nourished life, not of quickening power. 
 Ephraim bears fruit to Jehovah, not Jehovah to Ephraim. More- 
 over, the " answering" in our verse corresponds to that of ii. 15. 
 
 Although the rendering "cypress" for "fir-tree" has of late 
 become so common, I hesitate to adopt it for two reasons. (1) 
 Ebiisus, the modern Iviza, is according to the coins DEJ'3 ''X = 
 O'tfTlD ''X, and what this means appears from the Greek 
 niTDoSo-at (see Schroder, Fhoii. Sjir., p. 99). (2) The Berosh is 
 according to Scripture the characteristic tree of Lebanon along 
 with the cedar. Now it is true that the cypress occurs on 
 
412 ISAIAH. LECT. V. 
 
 Lebanon in association with the cedar, but a species of Ahies ia 
 equally cbaracteristic of these mountains, at a lower altitude, 
 and to judge from its present frequency must have always been 
 a prominent feature in the forests. 
 
 Note 21, p. 190. — According to most recent critics, the 
 prophecy in Zechariah ix.-xi. ought to come in here to close the 
 prophetic record of the Northern Kingdom ; but Stade, in his 
 essay on " Deuterozecharia," in the Zeitsclirifl fur alttestament- 
 liche Wissenschaft (not yet completely published), and in the 
 Giessner Ludwigstag Programm, 1880, following Vatke and a 
 few others, has put this question in a new light, and assigns 
 Zech. ix.-xiv. to a very late date. That Ewald's view of Zech. 
 xii.-xiv. is untenable, and that these chapters at least are post- 
 Exilic, has been my conviclion for many years. Stade seems to 
 have shown that the same thing holds good for ix.-xi. 
 
 Lecture V. 
 
 Note 1, p. 191. — The literature of the book of Isaiah, with 
 which we shall be mainly occupied in the next four Lectures, 
 is enormous ; for an account and estimate of the commentators 
 it is enough to refer to Mr. Cheyne's tenth essay appended to 
 his Prophecies of Isaiah, 1881. This exceedingly useful book 
 gives the English reader so complete a view of the present state 
 of the exegetical questions connected with Isaiah that a general 
 reference to it may take the place of many notes on individual 
 points which would otherwise have called for remark. The 
 book is indispensable to every one who has not access to a full 
 library of Continental exegesis, while, on the other hand, those 
 who have themselves worked in the same field will best appre- 
 ciate the exhaustive studies witnessed to on every page. In 
 addition to otlier help which these Lectures derive from it, I 
 o.ught here to acknowledge repeated obligations to the translation 
 for felicitous phrases. On the other hand, it will appear by 
 and by that I am in very many cases at variance with Mr. 
 Cheyne as regards the order and date of the several prophecies, 
 a point on which he seems to have been misled by the Assyri- 
 ologists. Of modern foreign commentaries, those of Gesenius, 
 Ewald, Hit/.ig, and Delitzsch may be chiefly recommended to 
 the student. The learned commentary of Dr. Kay offers little 
 
LECT. V. CHRONOLOGY. 413 
 
 assistance in the mainly historical objects contemplated in the 
 present Lectures. For the historical exegesis of the Prophet, the 
 labours of Ewald are the necessary starting-point of every 
 student, though in part now antiquated by Assyrian researches. 
 The student should not overlook the contributions of Lagarde 
 in Ms ProphetcB Chaldaice, p. il., and in his Semilica, I. 
 
 Note 2, p. 193. — This is the natural inference from the 
 fact that for a time Jeroboam retired from Shechem to Penuel 
 beyond the Jordan (1 Kings xii. 25). 
 
 Note 3, p. 194. — For the chronology of Ahaz's predecessors 
 we must take as our point of departure the campaign of Tiglath 
 Pileser against Pekah and Eezin B.C. 734. At this time Ahaz 
 was king of Judab. Further we know that Menahem was still 
 alive B.C. 738 (xupra, p. 150), while 2 Kings xv. 37 shows that 
 Pekah was king and had begun to attack Judah before the death 
 of Ahaz's father Jotham. Ahaz, therefore, must have come to 
 tlie throne between 738 and 734 ; and, as it is hardly to be 
 supposed that the Syro-Ephraitio war was prolonged more than 
 0111 or two years before the Assyrians interfered, the date of 
 Jutham's death may be taken approximately as b.o. 735, so that 
 734 would count as the first year of Ahaz. Now reckoning 
 backwards we And that the Judsean chronology assigns to the 
 reigns from Athaliah to Jotham inclusive, 6 + 40 + 29 + 52+16 
 = 143. The northern chronology gives for the same period 102 
 years of the dynasty of Jehu, 10 of Menahem, and some 3 
 years more up to the expedition of Tiglath Pileser — in all about 
 115 years. The Assyrian monuments {supra, p. 150) show 
 that this reckoning is right within a few years, but if anything 
 is rather too long than too short, so that the Judeean chronology 
 of the period is out by about 30 yeai*s. The discrepancy may 
 be so far reduced by assuming that part of Jotham's reign fell 
 in his father's lifetime, as we know that he acted as vizier while 
 Uzziah was a leper (2 Kings xv. 5). But even this does not put 
 all right, and is at best a mere hypothesis, which finds a very 
 uncertain stay in the supposed Assyrian reference to Azariah or 
 Uzziah B.C. 740. In reality it seems probable that the necessar}' 
 shortening of Judaean reigns must be sought at more than one 
 part of the period with which we are dealing, and that the error 
 is distributed between the 69 years of Joash and Amaziah and 
 the 68 of Uzziah and Jotham. For Amaziah, Uzziah's father, 
 WHS contemporary with King Joash of Israel, and his defeat by 
 
414 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 that monarch peems to have fallen near the close of Amaziah's 
 reign. At least it is a highly plausible conjecture of WeOhausen 
 {Z. j. d. Theol., 1875, p. 634) that Amaziah's murder in a popu- 
 lar rising was due to the discontent produced by his absurd 
 challenge to Joash and the misfortunes that followed. In this 
 case the first year of Uzziah cannot have fallen, anything like 
 so late as the 1 5th year of Jeroboam II., to which the present 
 Judaean chronology appears to assign it (6 + 40 + 29 = 75 = 28 
 + 17 + 16 + 14). But, on the other hand, the campaign of 
 Joash against Jerusalem must have fallen in his later prosperous 
 years. [The three campaigns of Joash against Syria must be at 
 the end of his reign, since it was left to his son to improve his 
 victories.] Thus we are led to conclude that Uzziah came to 
 the throne about the same time with Jeroboam II. The rest of 
 the error belongs to the prosperous days of Uzziah and Jotham, 
 which may very well be reduced by 15 or 16 years, and yet 
 leave time for the great internal changes alluded to in the early 
 chapters of Isaiah. 
 
 Tae chr:)nology from B.C. 734 downwards offers a much 
 more complicated problem, for here we have to deal with a 
 multitude of discordant data. According to the present chrono- 
 logy of the book of Kings, Manasseh's accession opens the last 
 third of the second 480 years of Israel's history, and so falls 160 
 years before the return or 110 before the destruction of the 
 temple in the 11th year of Zedekiah (b.c. 586). For the last 
 part of these 110 years we have a sure guide in the chronology 
 of the book of Jeremiah, in which the reckoning by years of 
 kings of Judah is adopted, and checked by another reckoning 
 by years of Jeremiah's ministry, and by a third by years of 
 Nebuchadnezzar, whose dates are known by the Canon of 
 Ptolemy (Syncelliis, p. 388). Now, the book of Kings divides 
 
 the 110 years as fuUows : — 
 
 Manasseh 
 
 Amon 
 
 Josiah . 
 
 Jehoiakim 
 
 Zedekiah 
 
 55 
 2 
 31 
 11 
 11 
 
 The 11 years of Zedekiah are certain from Jer. xxxii. 1 ; 2 
 Kings x.xv. 8. Further, 
 
 4 Jehoiakim = 23 Jeremiah (Jer. xxv. 1). 
 
 13 Josiah = 1 Jeiemiah (Jer. xxv. 3). 
 
LECT. V. OF JUDAH. 415 
 
 Therefore 1 Jelioiakim = 20 Jeremiali = 32 Josiah. ; tliat is, 
 Josiah. reigned 31 years as stated in Kings. But now, 
 if Jehoiakim really reigned 11 years, 21 JelLoiakim= 10 
 Zedekiali=18 Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxxii. 1), and so 4 
 Jehoiakim = 1 Nebuchadnezzar, an equation actually given 
 in the Hebrew text of Jer. xxv. 1, but rightly wanting in 
 the Septuagint. For in reality 4 Jehoiakim is, according to 
 Jer. xlvi. 2, the year of the battle of Carchemish, when Nabo- 
 polassar was still on the throne, but in his last year (Berosus ap. 
 Jos., c. ' Afion. i. 1 9). Hence we must conclude that the first year 
 of Nebuchadnezzar — that is, the first year which began in his 
 reign — was really the lifth of Jehoiakim, and that the latter 
 reigned not 11 but 12 years. ^ The 12 years of Jehoiakim 
 seem also to be confirmed by Ezek. i. 1 sej., which Wellhausen 
 uses to support the current chronology. According to Ezekiel, 
 the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity (i. 2) is the 30th }'ear of 
 another unnamed era. It appears from xxiv. 1, where the ninth 
 year is the ninth of Zedekiah, that Ezekiel counts as the fiist 
 year of captivity the first year of Zedekiah — that is, the first year 
 that began in exile. Thus the first year of the anonymous era 
 will be the 1 8th of Josiah if Jehoiakim reigned 1 1 years, but 
 the 19th if he reigned 12. As the 18th year of Josiah is 
 that of his" great reformation, it would appear that Ezekiel 
 reckons from that event. His era is the era of reformed wor- 
 ship. But in that case it seems a mistake to assume, as Well- 
 hausen does («i s-apni, p. 623), that the 18th year would be the 
 first of the reformed era. If the first year of captivity is the 
 first that began in captivity, the first year of reformation must 
 be that which began afLer the reformation, or the 19th of 
 Josiah. It is indeed piobable, since Ezekiel reckons by Baby- 
 lonian months, and so begins the year in the spring, that his 
 
 1 It will not flo to get over this argiuiient by supposing tliat the 
 fourth year of Jehoicikim was reckoned from autumn, and that thus, if 
 thf battle of Carcliemi Ji fell in late auturan, part of that year on the 
 .Tndsean reckoning might still coincide with Nebuchadnezzar's first year 
 reckoned from the following Easter. For the ninth month of Jeremiah's 
 cnlendar is a winter month, Jer. xxxvi. 9, 22, showing that he reckons 
 by Babylonian years, beginning in spring. To suppose that Jeremiah 
 habitually mixed np two calendars is altogether ont of the qnestiou. 
 Besides, it is highly improbable that the encounter of Necho and 
 Nebuchadnezzar on the Euphrates took place in late autumn, as the rivei 
 can be forded in siunmer. 
 
416 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 first year begins with Josiali's reformed passover. But if so, the 
 spring era was already in use in Josiali's time in priestly circles 
 (comp. 2 Kings xxii. 3, LXX.), and so, in spite of 2 Kings xxiii. 
 23, which, belongs to the editor, not to the sources, and therefore 
 has no chronological authority, that passover must have fallen in 
 the 19th year of the king. For it is to be noted that it is 
 always in priestly circles or in connection "with events of the 
 temple that a reckoning by years of the king is found. The 
 assignation of 1 1 years to Jehoiakini instead of 1 2 may be a 
 mere oversight, the Hebrew chronicler supposing that Nebuchad- 
 nezzar commanded at Carchemish as king. It may, however, be 
 systematic, as the number 11 is the key to the last 110 years of 
 the kingdom (Maiiasseh, 55; Amon-|- Josiah = 33). In any 
 case it would have the effect of disordering by one year any 
 calculations as to > ar ier dates. 
 
 Let us now go back to the time of Hezekiah. Taking the 
 reigns from Maiiasseh to Zedekiah inclusive at 110 years, and 
 that of Hezekiah at 29, we get 1 Hezekiah = B.C. 724 ; but 
 allowing one more year for Jehoiakim the date is 725. But for 
 the reign of Hezekiah we have the following synchronisms : — 
 
 (1) 2 Kings xviii. 9 ; 4 Hezekiah = the year of the com- 
 
 mencement of the siege of Samaria = B.C. 724-722 
 by the Assyrian monuments. 
 
 (2) 2 Kings xviii. 13; 14 Hezekiah = the year of Senna- 
 
 cherib's invasion = B.C. 701 by the monuments. 
 These dates are quite inconsistent with one another, and the 
 question arises which we shall take as our guide. Let lis begin 
 with (1). It is plain that, according to the received chronology, 
 this date is at least one year out ; but if we introduce the cur- 
 re.otion already found requisite for Jehoiakim it is probably 
 exact {supra, p. 403). In other words, if this date is original and 
 accurate, the book of Kings is probably right — certainly not 
 more than two years wrong — in assigning 29 -t--55-)-2 = 86 
 years to Hezeliiah, Manasseb, and Amon taken together. There 
 is therefore high probability that (1) is an independent and 
 valuable datuui, and that the sum of the years of Hezekiah, 
 Maiiasseh, and Anion is also accurately known. And in general 
 this result is borne out by the statement of Jer. xxvi. 1 8, that 
 Micah, who predicts the fall of Samaria, prophesied under 
 Hezekiah, a statement inconsistent with synchronism (2), which 
 makes Ahaz be still on the throne when Samaria was captured. 
 
OF JUDAH. 417 
 
 When we pass now to (2) we are encountered by a very 
 complex problem ; for tte statement that Sennacherib attacked 
 Samaria in Hezekiah's fourteenth year is closely connected with 
 the assignation to that prince of a total reign of 29 years. The 
 connection is as follows : — At 2 Kings xx. 1 we learn that 
 Hezekiah's sickness took place about the time of the Assyrian 
 invasion, and at verse 6 we find that after this sickness Hezekiah 
 lived 15 years. Now 29=14+15, which at first sight seems 
 to bear out (2). A closer examination, however, shows that 
 there is something wrong. Merodach Baladan, whose embassy is 
 placed after Hezekiah's sickness, was no longer king in B.C. 701, 
 and the history contains internal evidence (ver. 6) that Hezekiah's 
 sickness fell before the expedition of Sennacherib. One, there- 
 fore, of the numbers 14, 15, 29 is certainly false, and has been 
 calculated from the other .two. In that case we have three 
 possibilities, (a) 14 and 29 are right and the 15 is wrong. If 
 so, Manasseh came to the throne in 686, and not in 695 as the 
 received chronology states. In this there is no intrinsic im- 
 probability, for to make that king begin the third section of the 
 480 years from Solomon's temple seems to be certainly a part of 
 the artificial chronology. But in that case it is very singular 
 that the artificial chronology should have found its end served 
 by a date for Manasseh which is indeed false, but combined with 
 29 and with 2 Kings xviii. 9 gives a date almost, if not quite, 
 exact for the fall of Samaria. Such a coincidence could only 
 be the result of design, and the design js an incredible one, for 
 it implies knowledge of the true Assyrian chronology and a 
 determination to fix the fall of Samaria (a non-Juda;an date) 
 correctly, at the expense of the date 701, which directly affected 
 Judah. (6) 14 is right and 29 is wrong, and derived from a 
 combiaiation of the 14 with 15. In this case a similar argument 
 applies. The false 29, and the artificial (but independent) date 
 for Manasseh combine to give the true date for the fall of 
 Samaria. And neither (n) nor (6) gives the least clue to the 
 reason of the discordant data (1) and (2). (c) There remains a 
 third hypothesis, viz. that 15 and 29 are the dates from which 
 the 14 has been derived, and this view, I think, enables us to 
 give a tenable hypothe.sis for the whole system of numbers. 
 
 To develop it, I return to the assumptions already foimd 
 probable, that the fourth year of Hezekiah coincides with the 
 first year of the siege of Samaria, and that Hezekiah, Manasseh, 
 19 " 
 
418 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 and Amon togefher reigned 86 years. I do not assume that 
 tlie years of each king are truly known, for the accession of 
 Manasseh seems to be an artificial date. But it is highly prob- 
 able that the true reign of each of these kings was once known. 
 For in the time of Uzziah dates were not yet popularly reckoned 
 by years of kings (Amos i. 1), while this reckoning appears 
 under Hezekiah. This does not seem to be accident. The sun- 
 dial of Ahaz, as well as his interest in star worship, point to the 
 fact that astronomy (combined, of coiiirse, with superstition) was 
 one of his foreign tastes, and it is impossible that he could have 
 dealt with astronomy without feeling the need for a more exact 
 calendar on the Assyrian model. It seems also that the reckon- 
 ing by years of kings really went by the Assyrian Calendar from 
 the time of Josiah downwards. If so, the time, of Ahaz or 
 Hezekiah is almost the only one at which it could have been 
 introduced. I apprehend, then, that from the time of Ahaz 
 downwards there was an exact record of years reigned, such as 
 there is no trace of at an earlier date, except in concerns of the 
 temple (the latter probably reckoned by the Phoenician Calendar ; 
 see Dillmann's essay in Monatb. Berl. Ac, 27 Oct. 1881). 
 Again, though the book of Kings in its present form dates from 
 the Exile, or indeed, as regards the schematised chronology, from 
 after the restoration, the main stock of it is certainly earlier even 
 in its redaction, and so might well contain the true years for 
 Hezekiah and his successors. If so, the schematiser of the 
 chronology would not change more than was necessary, and if he 
 lengthened Manasseh's reign would correspondingly shorten 
 Hezekiah's. Thus it is intelligible that the fourth year of 
 Hezekiah comes in at the true date, or, at least, within a year 
 or two. We may assume, therefore, that the choice of the 
 number 29 was not arbitrary. But now again it is the inde- 
 pendent judgment of critics that, in its present form, 2 Kings 
 xviii. 13-xx. 19, with the exception of the remarkable verses 
 xviii. 14-16 (not found in the parallel passage in Isaiah), belongs 
 to a pretty late date (Wellhausen, in Bleek, § 131), or at least was 
 retouched after the fall of the kingdom. In that case it is easy 
 to understand how the fourteenth year of Hezekiah may be an 
 insertion or correction made on the presupposition that Heze- 
 kiah's sickness corresponded with the year of Sennacherib's 
 invasion, It is not quite certain that this even requires us to 
 hoJd the 15 to be part of the original tradition, for Jerome 
 
LECT. V. OF JUDAH. 419 
 
 gives an interpretation of Isa. xxxviii. 10 which makes the 
 sickness fall at the bisection of Hezekiah's days, and it is prob- 
 able that this explanation was traditional. 
 
 The foregoing argument is undoubtedly of a very hypotheti- 
 cal character, biit it seems to show that at all events it is possible 
 to explain (2) from (1), but not vice versa; and this, combined with 
 the argument from the date of Micah, and the fact that (1) gives 
 a date for the siege of Samaria as accordant with the monu- 
 ments as we can possibly expect, seems to entitle us to give it 
 the preference. Hezekiah's first year is thus fixed for 725 (724). 
 It does not follow that Manasseh's first year was 695, for that is 
 a schematised date, and there is force in Wellhausen's argument 
 that the strength of the prophetic party in Judah at the time of 
 the reaction under Manasseh makes it probable that Hezekiah 
 reigned some considerable time after the defeat of Sennacherib. 
 
 If the first year of Hezekiah was 725, Ahaz's reign is 
 shortened to some ten years. But his 16 years will not fit with 
 either (1) or (2) ; and, though the ages given to him and Hezekiah 
 at their accessions rather demand a lengthening than a shorten- 
 ing of his reign, it is difficult to assign much value to these, 
 when numbers so much more essential to be remembered are 
 indubitably most corrupt. 
 
 Note 4, p. 202. — The nature of this divination by means of 
 familiar spirits, as the wizard or Baal Ob pretended, is seen from 
 the narrative of the witch of Endor. In reality, the perform- 
 ance was a form of ventriloquism, and the Ob or familiar spirit 
 seemed to speak from beneath the ground or out of the stomach 
 of the diviner. The Greeks called such diviners iyyaa-Tpi/j-vdoi, 
 tyyacTTpiTai, arepvofiavrei-s, EvpuKAtts or EvpvKXelSaL, and their 
 father Enrycles was said to prophesy truly " by the dwmnn that 
 was within him," Schol. on Arist., Vespcn, 984 (1019); lamblichus 
 cited by Lagarde, Abhandlnvgen, p. 189. In Syriac these sub- 
 terranean spirits are called Zalchlri, and the conception is well 
 illustrated in the second Syriac romance of Julian the Apostate, 
 published by Hoffmann (Julianos der ahtriiniiige, Leyden, 1880, 
 p. 247), translated by Nbldeke. Z. V. M. G., xxviii. 666 seq. 
 See also Noldeke's note. 
 
 Note 5, p. 211. — Compare 0. T. in J. Gh., Lect. iv. p. 109 
 seq. ; Leot. vi. p. 159 seq. 
 
 Note fl, p. 217. — Mr. Cheyne, mainly following Kleinert in 
 2'hco.. Stud, u. Krit., 1877, p. 174 seq., defends the authorship 
 
420 DATES OF lect. v. 
 
 of Isa. xxi. 1-10 by Isaiali, arguing that the ideas and phraseology 
 are Isaiah's, that the second part of the prophecy seems to have 
 been written at a distance from Babylon, with the fate of which 
 the prophet expresses a certain sympathy, and that the reference 
 may therefore be to the siege of Babylon by Sargon in 709, to 
 which date Mr. Cheyne assigns the expedition of Merodach 
 Baladan to Hezekiah. I do not think that these argumciua 
 have all the weight claimed for them. There is good reason for 
 holding that the embassy of Merodach Baladau fell in the reign 
 of Sennacherib {infra, Lect. VIII.), and it seems impossible to 
 question that the destruction of Babylon, spoken of in ver. 2 as 
 effected by Elam and Media, must be the capture of the city by 
 Cyrus. The prophecy, therefore, belongs to the Chaldsean cycle. 
 Note 7, p. 217. — It may here be convenient to give in con- 
 nected form the chronological order of the chief prophecies, 
 according to the results of the following Lectures. Of course, 
 there is necessarily a large element of hypothesis in the details. 
 First Period. — From the year of Uzziah's death to the 
 outbreak of the Syro-Ephraitic war. Chaps, ii.-v., and 
 probably (as Ewald conjectures), ix. 8 — x. 4, the latest 
 part of this collection dating apparently from the first 
 epoch of the war, circa 735 b.o. 
 Sbcoud Period. — Prophecies at the time of Ahaz's resolu- 
 tion to do homage to Assyria, and during the ensuing 
 campaign of Tiglath Pileser (7 34 B.C.). Chaps, vii. 1 — ix. 
 7 (chap, vi., recording Isaiah's first vision, seems to have 
 been published as a preface to this collection). Chap, 
 xvii. 1-1 1 seems also to date from the same period. 
 Third Period. — The time of Assyrian domination. 
 
 (a) Prophecies apparently occasioned by the impend- 
 ing fall of Samaria, 722-720 B.C., or restating the 
 prophet's position after that event. Chap, xxviii. 
 (before the fall of Samaria) ; chap. x. 5 — xi. (after 
 that event). 
 (i) At the time of the revolt of Ashdod, 711 B.C. 
 
 Chap. XX. 
 (c) Under Sennacherib : — (1) During the first movements 
 of revolt in Philistia, 704 B.C. Chap. xiv. 29-32. 
 (2) Prophecies addressed to Judah while the plan 
 of revolt was ripening, 704-701 B.C. Chaps, xxix.- 
 xxxii. (3) Against the other nations in revolt agaiiif t 
 
LEcr. V. ISAIAH'S PROPHECIES. 421 
 
 Assyria. Chap. x.\i. 11-17, Duma and the nomads 
 of the Syro-Arahian desert; chap, xxiii., Tyre; 
 chap, xviii., Ethiopia ; chap, xix., Egypt, The re- 
 issue of the old prophecy against Moab, chaps, xv. 
 xvi., may belong to the same period. (4) During 
 the campaign in Judtea, 701 b.c. Chaps, i., xxii. (5) 
 In the last stage of the campaign, after the fall of 
 the party opposed to Isaiah. Chaps, xxxvii. 6, 7 ; 
 xxxvii. 21-35 ; xxxiii. (6) Chaps, xiv. 24-27 ; xvii. 
 12-14, seem to belong to this period, but their 
 exact position in it is uncertain. 
 Irregular as the arrangement of these prophecies seems to be, 
 it is not without a principle. Chap. i. seems to have been 
 prefixed as a general introduction to the whole book, for 
 which its contents well fit it. With this exception, the part 
 of the book that precedes the large Babylonian prophecy of 
 chaps, xiii. xiv. is well arranged, apart at least from the trans- 
 position of ix. 8 — X. 4. It contains two sections which Isaiah 
 himself may have published very much as they stand, followed 
 by a great and self-contained prophecy against Assyria, which 
 might well be chosen as the close of a first attempt at a collected 
 edition of some of Isaiah's principal pieces. Again, from chap, 
 xiii. to chap, xxiii. we have a collection of prophecies which, 
 with the exception of chap, xxii., are all directed against foreign 
 nations. As it now stands, this collection contains also Baby- 
 lonian prophecies, and so must be of Exilic or pos1>Exilic date. 
 But the main part of it may well be of earlier collection, and 
 chaps, xiii., xiv. 1-23, perhaps do not properly belong to it at all. 
 Finally, from chap. xxix. onward we have prophecies of the time 
 of Sennacherib addressed to Judah. That xxviii., which dates 
 from an earlier period, is associated with these is explicable 
 from the subject, and it is not unlikely that Isaiah himself may 
 have published it as a preface to the later prophecies with which 
 it is now associated. The chief breaches of chronological order 
 are entirely due to the plan adopted of putting the prophecies 
 against foreign nations together, as was also done in the collec- 
 tion of the oracles of Jeremiah. A study of the varying order 
 of the .several parts of the last-named book in the Hebrew and 
 LXX. respectively is the best exercise by which one can convince 
 oneself that the order in which a collection now stands cannot 
 be held to afford any sure clue to the chronological order. 
 
422 NOTION OF lect. vi. 
 
 Note 8, p. 218. — See Cheyne on the passage, and, as regards 
 tlie Cherubim, his article in Encyc. Brit., s.v., where references 
 to the relevant literature are collected. If the Seraphim are a 
 personification of the lightning flash they have some analogy to 
 the Phosnician f\^ (G. I. S., p. 38). 
 
 Note 9, p. 224. — On the idea of holiness a great deal has 
 been written. I need only refer to two of the most recent 
 discussions. Duhm (Theologie der Propheten, p. 169 sfq.) lays 
 particular emphasis on the relation of the idea to the worship of 
 God. The idea is cesihetic ; Jehovah's majesty presents itself as 
 holiness to the worshipper in the act of worship. It would be 
 more correct to say that the idea of consecration to God is a 
 religious or SBsthetic and not strictly an ethical idea ; it becomes 
 ethical in the prophets because religion becomes ethical. In the 
 elaborate article on the notion of holiness in the Old Testament 
 in Baudissin's IStudien, part ii. (1878), there is a useful collection 
 of material. The most important thing in it, as Noldeke 
 observes in his review of the book {Lit. Caiitralbl., 1879, No. 12), 
 is the part devoted to show that the notion of holiness has not 
 the primary sense of purity. It may be now held as agreed 
 among scholars that the Arabic words on which this idea was 
 based are taken from the Greek kciSos. That the word is old 
 Arabic in the sense of holy seems clear from Kuds as the name 
 of two mountains in Arabia (YS,kut iv. 38, seq^. ; see also Noldeke, 
 I. c.) ; but its use in the Koran is influenced by Judaism ; the 
 word seems almost to have disappeared from the ordinary 
 Arabic vocabulary, and the explanation of the commentators 
 on Sur. ii. 28 that kadasi.t, fi 'I aid, like sabahafi 'I ard, means 
 "to go far off" (Ibn SaM, Egn. ed., i. 59), does not go for 
 much. So Noldeke judges that the arguments from Arabic for 
 the sense of " depart " require confirmation. The Aramaic 
 Kdasha, an earring, literally a " holy thing," that is, no doubt, 
 an amulet (comp. the lehdshhn or amrdets as articles of finery, 
 Isa. iii. 20), is noteworthy. The remarks on the idea of holiness 
 in the text of this Lecture are exclusively based on the earlier 
 parts of the Old Testament down to the time of Isaiah. 
 
 Lecture VI. 
 
 Note 1, p. 236. — In viii. 1 for roll read tablet. That a 
 tablet inscribed in large letters to catch the eye of every one is 
 
HOLINESS. 423 
 
 meant is tlie plausible explanation of Ewald, Proplieien, i. 8. A 
 facsimile of the Siloam inscription, with commentary, etc., will 
 appear in the forthcoming part of the Oriental series of the 
 Palseographical Society. 
 
 Note 2, p. 239. — The explanation of ix. 14 given in the 
 following verse is regarded as a later and inaccurate gloss by 
 most recent critics. 
 
 Note 3, p. 246. — On this topic, and in general on Isaiah's 
 theocratic ideal, see Wellhansen, GescMchte, i. 431 seq. 
 
 Note 4, p. 248.— The HDS (A. V. Branch) of Isa. iv. 2 is 
 not, as in Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15, a sprout from the stock of 
 David, but, more generally, that which Jehovah causes to spring 
 forth, viz. from the land, as appears from the parallel "the 
 fruit of the land." This, I think, excludes all reference to the 
 king of chap, xi., such as is still thought of by Lagarde, Semi- 
 tica, i. 8 seq., in spite of his apt illustration from Semitic 
 heathenism, where Baal's land is, like the land of Canaan, such 
 as derives fertility from the rains of heaven, not from irrigation 
 (comp. Hosea ii. 21). The word nj3S is best rendered, I think, 
 by " .spring " in the old English sense of young, fresh growth (as 
 in Shulvspeare's poems). This enables us to keep up the connec- 
 tion with the cognate verb, as in Zech. vi. 1 2 (" the man whose 
 name is Spring and from under him it shall spring up," that is, 
 wherever he treads fresh life and growth follow), as well as to 
 feel the identity of the word in such a passage as Psalm Ixv. 10, 
 " Thou blessest the springing thereof." 
 
 Note 5, p. 250. — In justification of the Authorised Version 
 in this rendering see Lagarde, Semitica, i. 13. 
 
 Note 6, p, 251. — Compare Ewald, Geschichte, iii. 664 ; and 
 on 2 Kings xvi. 1 8, to which allusion is made a few lines down 
 the page, see ibid., p. 667. 
 
 Note 7, p. 267. — This verse, certainly mistranslated in the 
 Authorised Version, may run, " In that day shall his strong 
 cities be like the deserted places of forest and hill-top, which 
 were left desert before the children of Israel." Possibly, how- 
 ever, we should correct by the aid of the Septuagint (Lagarde, 
 Semitica, i. 31) "the deserted places of the Hivite and the 
 Ainorite.'' 
 
 Note 8, p. 267. — Flesh is never a common article of food 
 with the peasantry of Syria. Bread and other cereal prepara- 
 tions with milk, generally eaten sour, and dibs, or grape honey, 
 
424 THE SIGN IN lect. vi. 
 
 are the ordinary diet, as Seetzen, for example, found in the 
 Hauran {Reisen, i. 48 ; comp. Prov. xxvii. 27 ; Burckiiardt, 
 Travels in Syria, 1822, p. 293). Where there is much cultiva- 
 tion of cereals the supply of milk is of course correspondingly 
 limited. According to Isaiah vii. 22, the whole land of Judah 
 shall become free pasture ground, with the result that the kine 
 and ewes shall yield abundance of milk, and the man who has a 
 young cow and two sheep shall have abundance of milk for his 
 family, but no bread or wine. As the vineyards are the first 
 thing to be destroyed, requiring as they do the most sedulous 
 cultivation, the honey mentioned by Isaiah is doubtless natural 
 honey, such as John the Baptist found in the desert, or Jonathan 
 in the woods. As the wild bee frequents desert places, swarm- 
 ing in the woods or in the rocky sides of deep watercourses, the 
 abundance of honey is another indication of the desolation of 
 the land. At vii. 15 the true rendering is that the child whose 
 infancy falls at the time of the destruction of Damascus shall 
 eat butter and honey when he is of age to distinguish the good 
 from the bad. That is, when his infancy begins to pass into 
 rational childhood the land shall be already reduced to the state 
 of depopulation described in verses 21 seq^. 
 
 Note 9, p. 272. — The view that the sign given by Isaiah 
 refers in its original sense to the birth of our Lord is still 
 upheld by Dr. Kay, and some remarks on the subject, with refer- 
 ence to his argument, may not be out of place. Tlie first point 
 is the meaning of the word riDPj? ''alniah, rendered ■n-ap^evos by 
 the oldest version, and " virgin " in the A. V. The word is 
 not a very common one, though rather commoner than the 
 masculine ''dem, a young man or lad, of which it is the regular 
 feminine. This fact is alone sufficient to show that virginity is 
 not the radical idea, and a comparison with the Arabic and 
 Aramaic leaves no doubt that both in. the masculine and the 
 feminine the meaning is a young person of marriageable age. 
 There is in fact another and common word for a virgin (bethHtah). 
 Even the latter word can be used of a young bride (Joel i. 8), 
 and when the idea of virginity is to be made prominent it is not 
 out of place to express it more directly (Gen. xxiv. 16 ; Judges 
 xxi. 12). But is it then at least the case- that usage limits the 
 word \ihnah to a virgin ? The word only occurs six times apart 
 from our passage ; twice it is used of a grown-up girl still unmar- 
 ried (Gen. xxiv. 43 ; Exod. ii. 8), twice it seems to be used of 
 
ISAIAH VII. 425 
 
 the. slave girls of Solomon's harem (Cant. i. 3 ; vi. 8). In Prov. 
 XXX. 19 Dr. Kay feels the force of the argument against his 
 view so much that he backs up his appeal to Hengstenberg by 
 the suggestion that the passage is allegorical ; Ps. Ixviii. 25 may 
 be fairly taken with the two passages first quoted. On the 
 whole the evidence does not bear out the supposition that 
 virginity is an essential in the notion ; though a marriageable 
 girl naturaUy stands distinguished from a married woman, and 
 thus Isaiah probably means a young woman who has not yet 
 been a mother. But this suits the acceptation of the passage 
 which we have adopted. The prophet's point is that before a 
 woman presently to be married can have a child emerging from 
 babyhood certain things will occur. That this is at all events 
 the correct determination of the date which he has in view (viz. 
 the following year) is absolutely clear. Fur the same date is 
 given again in the parallel prophecy viii. 3, 4, by a similar and 
 quite unambiguous sign. 
 
 The objection to all this is mainly that the sign offered by 
 Jehovah must be of a grander and miraculous character. But 
 what is the nature of a prophetic " sign " ? Another " sign " 
 given by Isaiah is his walking naked and barefoot for three 
 years (xx. 3) ; he and his children are living signs to Israel 
 (viii. 18). So, too, in Ezek. iv. 3 ; xii. 6, 11 ; xxiv. 24, 27, 
 the signs are mere symbolic actions or God-given pledges for the 
 fulfilment of His word. They are, as it were, seals set to pro- 
 phecy, by which its truth can be put to the test in the future. 
 What Dr. Kay further urges for the Messianic references from 
 combination with Isa. ix. 7, Micah v. 3, is plainly not demon- 
 strative, for the combination is not indicated in the Bible itself. 
 
 Note 10, p. 273. — See Ewald on the passage, and Lagarde, 
 Semitica, 131 seq., where the identity of Na'aman with Adonis 
 is ably maintained. Note further that the river now called the 
 Nahr Na'm&n is the ancient Belus, which seems to confirm the 
 view that Na'mftn is a divine name. 
 
 Note 11, p. 276. — I here follow what I may call the cer- 
 tain correction made independently by Selwyn and Studer. 
 
 Lecture VII. 
 
 Note 1, p. 279. — At this point the Assyrian records begin 
 to be of the highest service for the history of Tsi'ael and of 
 
426 RAPHIA. lect. vii. 
 
 Isaiah's work. I shall not refer to them at each point, hut it 
 will he convenient to indicate where English translations of 
 them may be found. The Annah of Sargon, translated hy M. 
 Oppert, are given in B,ec. of the Past, vol. vii., the inscription on 
 his palace at Khorsabad, ibid., vol. ix., and other inscriptions of 
 the same reign in vol. xi. The Koyunjik cylinder, chiefly 
 relied upon by those who refer several prophecies of Isaiah to 
 a supposed invasion and siege of Jerusalem by Sargon, is trans- 
 lated by George Smith, Eponym Canon, p. 129 (Assyrian Dis- 
 coveries, p. 289). It is, unhappily, in a very fragmentary 
 condition. For the whole question of the relations of Judah 
 with Sargon, as reflected in the prophecies of Isaiah, it is enough 
 to refer to Mr. Cheyne's Prophecies of Isaiah, under chaps, i., 
 I. XX., but especially in his introduction to chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix., 
 where the literature of the subject is fully cited. It will be 
 seen in the text of this Lecture that I am unable to follow the 
 conclusion which has recommended itself to Mr. Cheyne on the 
 basis of suggestions by Dr. Hinoks, Prof. Sayce, and other 
 Assyriologists. Mr. Cheyne's commentarj' should be taken along 
 with his article Isaiah, in the Encyc. Brit., ninth ed., vol. xiii. 
 In regard to the bearing of the narrative of Kings on this 
 question, the most satisfactory discussion is that of Wellhausen 
 in his edition of Bleek's Eiiddtun/j (1878), p. 254 seg., and 
 again in Encyc. Brit., vol. xiii. p. 414. 
 
 Note 2, p. 280. — Ratia is called Rafeh by Mr. Chester 
 [Palestine Surrey ; Special, Papers, p. Ill), and Bir RefEl in 
 Baedeker's flajirfftoo/c to Palestine, Route 11. The true Arabic 
 name, however, is Rafah (Yakut, ii. 796 ; Istakhry and Mokad- 
 dasy scepius; Makrizy, Hilaf wa-Athar, i. 189). Yakftt places it 
 eighteen miles from Gaza, at the termination of the sandy desert, 
 with a great sycamore grove three miles on the Gaza side of it. 
 It was, and still is, regarded as the frontier between Egypt and 
 Syria (Istakhry, p. 45). The latest notice of the place is in the 
 Archduke Ludwig Salvator's Garavnn Route (Eng. Tr. 1881, p. 
 54), with a^■iewof the columns that mark the site of an ancient 
 temple. 
 
 Note 3, p. 287. — The difficulties of interpretation that 
 encompass the book of Micah, and the very corrupt state of some 
 parts of the text, are well known, and have received special 
 attention from various critics since the publication of the Covi- 
 mentarius in Valicinium Micliai of Taco Roorda (1869). Not- 
 
LECT. vii, MIC AH. 427 
 
 withstanding the discussion by Stade in his Zeitschrift for 1881, 
 I still think that chaps, i.-v. form a single -vvell-connected book. 
 The question of chaps, vi.vii. does not belong to the subject of 
 the present Lecture. At the same time, it will be seen in Note 
 
 5 that the text of Micah i.-v. has suffered from interpolation, 
 and it is an open question whether, besides the passages there 
 spoken of, ii. 12, 13 does not break the connection and at least 
 require to be transposed. There is, however, nothing in the 
 thought of these verses which is not perfectly congruous with 
 chap, v., and Ewald's suggestion that they are inserted as a 
 specimen of false prophecy is therefore untenable. The false 
 prophets of Micah's time flattered the rulers and supported the 
 status quo, while the verses in question give precisely Micah's 
 idea of a rejuvenescence of the mass of the nation under 
 Jehovah and Jehovah's king — a popular, not an aristocratic 
 conception. 
 
 Note 4, p. 289. — In Micah ii. 8, and similarly in Isa. xxx. 
 33, the punctuation pTOflX is not meant to be a variation of 
 PIDDN, but expresses a different exegetical tradition, in which the 
 phrase is explained from Ijid, " over against." In Isaiah both 
 traditions (and so both pronunciations) are ancient, but that with 
 
 6 probably more ancient (LSX., Aq., Sym., Theod., Syr.). The 
 conflate rendering of the Targum expresses both. In Micah 
 the weight of tradition is for H (Aq., Hieron., Tgm., as against 
 Sym. and perhaps LXX. ; Syr. thinking of the root j<po). The 
 variation can be traced down into the time of the pointed text ; 
 see Cod. PeUop., edited by Strack, where in each place a later 
 hand has put 6 for 4. The passage, then, is one in which there 
 was an early divergence of tradition, and in which therefore we 
 are throwai back on the consonantal text, which probably had 
 originally no 1. But the opposition of vers. 7, 8 is that of sharp 
 contrast, which suggests that we should begin with a pronoun 
 DHXI. Combining this conjecture with Roorda's riobty for 
 
 no^iV, the latter of which gives no good sense, and omitting one 
 of the four consecutive mems (Dlp^ for Q^lp''.) or reading DCiip* 
 for DDlpn^ (which, though less likely, is certainly possible, 01s. 
 § 68, h), we get the sense, " But ye are to My people as a foe 
 rising up against one that is at peace with him ; ye strip off the 
 cloak from them tliat pass by securely, averse from [not tliiuk- 
 ing of] war." Por ^^8< we probably should read rms, the final 
 
428 MICAH. LEc-r vii. 
 
 n having disappeared in that following, and the garment meant 
 is probably the hairy mantle which, as worn by the prophets, 
 was doubtless the garment of the simpler classes. Of interpre- 
 tations retaining the present text the most ingenious is certainly 
 that of Abulwalld (col. 764), who anticipates Roorda in taking 
 
 pionx as " against." The almost total neglect of this greatest 
 of mediseval Hebraists by expositors subsequent to Gesenius is 
 much to be deplored. 
 
 Note 5, p. 290. — The words P33'iy 0X31 are rejected as 
 a gloss by Noldeke in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexihon, iv. 214 (1872), 
 and by Kuenen, Theol. Tijdsch., 1872, p. 291. Kuenen forcibly 
 points out that a precisely similar gloss has been introduced by 
 the LXX. in ver. 8. That the words are no part of the original 
 context appears, I think, very clearly from the sense. To say 
 that the daughter of Zion shall be delivered in Babylon from 
 the hand of all her enemies gives no good sense. "We can 
 speak of deliverance from captivity, but not of deliverance in 
 it. On the other hand, to say that the population of Zion shall 
 be delivered in the field, i.e. in the open country, agrees, as is 
 shown in the text of the Lecture, with the context and the 
 general tenor of Micah's thought. The words " And thou shalt 
 come unto Babylon " cannot, however, be the only interpolation 
 in chap, iv., for the impossibility of reconciling vers. 11-13 with 
 ver. 10 is plain. According to ver. 10 Zion shall be captured 
 by the enemy, and this agrees witl. iii. 12. But in the follow- 
 ing verses the besieging hosts of many nations are broken 
 beneath the walls of Jerusalem. The force of tMs difficulty 
 has been recognised by most recent writers on the question, by 
 Oort (Theol. Tijdsch, 1872, p. 507) ; Kuenen {ibid., 1872, p. 
 62 — in the later paper already cited he endeavours to meet the 
 difficulty) ; Wellhausen (Bleek's Einl, 4th ed., p. 426) ; Stade 
 {Z.f. AT. W., 1881, p. 167) ; and Steiner {ad l). The solutions 
 proposed are various, but the simplest seems to be that of Oort, 
 who treats vers. 11-13 as an interpolation. In accepting Oort's 
 view thus far, I by no means agree vnth his general treatment 
 of the passage, which, as Kuenen has remarked (J,, c), has no 
 necessary connection with the genuineness of the verses in 
 question. Stade, who separates out the whole pericope, iv. 11- 
 V. 4 {Heb., V. 3) as a separate prophecy, seems to me to miss the 
 point of the prophet's thought. 
 
 Note 6, p. 291. — The sinfulness of these things is el^e\^here 
 
LECT. VII. SARGON. 429 
 
 emphasised by the prophets, inasmuch as they are earthly things 
 ■which come between man and Jehovah (Isa. ii.). But the thought 
 of Micah goes further than this. Hosea had taught that Judah 
 shall not be delivered by horses and horsemen, but also not by 
 weapons of human war (i. 7 ; ii. 18). Micah, though he looks 
 forward to a reign of peace among the nations, thinks of Judah 
 as delivered by the sword (v. 6). His objection to fortresses and 
 horses is not an objection to war. Nor is it a mere objection 
 to the misuse of these things. They are themselves out of place 
 in restored Israel. This is parallel to Deut. xvii. 16, where 
 the multiplication of horses is spoken of as a fault in the king. 
 Horses and chariots were in fact in ancient times the counter- 
 part of the standing armies and artillery of which free peoples 
 in modern times have been naturally jealous as dangerous to 
 liberty. And the maintenance of the royal establishment of 
 horses was accompanied by oppressive exactions, as we see from 
 1 Kings xviii. 5, and the mention of the first grass crop as the 
 " king's mowings " in Amos vii. 7. 
 
 Note 7, p. 297. — A few words may here be added on the 
 special points in the prophecies assigned by Mr. Cheyne to the in- 
 vasion of Sargon, which he lays stress on as hardly consistent with 
 a reference to the wars of 701. On chap. i. the argument that 
 there are no points of contact between this prophecy and those 
 ■ composed with reference to Sennacherib's invasion is not valid 
 if we distinguish in that campaign two periods, one before 
 Hezekiah's submission, and another after the shameless breach of 
 faith of which Sennacherib was guilty, in demanding the sur- 
 render of the fortress of Zion, after he had come to terms with 
 Hezekiah. That the sketch of the moral and religious con- 
 dition of Judah will not apply to Hezekiah's time is also an 
 assumption based on the view that the reforms of that king 
 preceded the repulse of Sennacherib, which is, at all events, 
 very doubtful (see Lect. VIII.). In chap. xxii. " the severe tone of 
 the prophecy " is again to be explained by referring it to the 
 siege in the first part of the campaign, when Hezekiah made 
 submission to Sennacherib. In chaps, xxix.-xxxii. Mr. Cheyne 
 himself does not seem to reject the reference to Sennacherib, in 
 spite of his remark at p. 155, that they "were evidently 
 delivered at various stages of the Assyrian intervention under 
 Sargon." See his notes on xxx. 29, 3.3. 
 
 Note 8, p. 298. — Several points of contact between Isa. x. xi. 
 
430 MESSIANIC lect. \ii. 
 
 and Isa. xxviii. (x. 12 : xxviii. 21 ; x. 23 : xxviii. 22; x. 26; 
 xxviii. 15, 18) have been pointed out byEwald and Cheyne, and 
 to these may be added x. 20 : xxviii 15 ; xi. 2 : xxviii. 6. In 
 their whole conception, indeed, the two chapters are most closely 
 allied, the essential points of difference being (a) that in the one 
 Samaria has fallen, in the other is only about to fall ; (J) that 
 chap, xxviii. is mainly addressed to the godless rulers, while 
 chaps. X. xi., in which very little reference is made to the sin of 
 Judah, seem rather to be a word of comfort to the true remnant 
 — primarily we may suppose to Isaiah's own circle. The thought 
 that Judah and Assyria cannot long remain on terms appears 
 already in xxviii. 20, and, taken with the lesson of the fall of 
 Samaria, would easily lead to the thought of the decisive con- 
 test of chap. X., without the intervention of any actual war 
 between Judah and Israel. Further, that chap. xi. was written 
 at a considerably earlier date tlian the prophecies of the reign 
 of Sennacherib seems probable from the prominence given in 
 the former chapter to the new Davidic kingship, in that con- 
 trast to the old monarchy which disappears in later prophecies. 
 The chief reason why many coumaentators feel themselves 
 obliged to refer x. xi. to a time of actual war is the extraor- 
 dinary vividness and detail of the description of the approach 
 of the Assyrian through the pass of Michmash. We know, 
 however, that Sennacherib's advance was not made by this road, - 
 which disposes at all events of the still not quite abandoned 
 theory of a vaticinium ex eventu. Moreover, if Isaiah wrote this 
 prophecy, as has also been supposed by some, when the Assyrian 
 was abeady close at hand, he could not have chosen this route 
 for his description, for it must have been plain from the 
 beginning of the campaign that Sennacherib's plan was to 
 advance by the sea-coast. In any case, therefore, the picture is 
 an ideal one, and Isaiah gives it the most impressive form pos- 
 sible by depicting an advance from the North by way of Scopus. 
 His thought is that from the conquered land of Samaria the 
 Assyrian will move on against Jerusalem ; his progress is south- 
 wards in steady course, and this determines the details. 
 
 Note 9, p. 307. — The first and last of the foiir names 
 bestowed on the child of Isa. ix. 6 certainly do not imply any- 
 thing that involves a transcendental personality. The king who 
 is equipped as is described in chap. xi. may well be called 
 " Wonderful Counsellor " (these words are to be united in a 
 
LECT.viii. PROPHECY. 431 
 
 single idea as in QHK N"lD, Gen. xvi. 12), and " Prince of Peace." 
 Tlie interpretation of tie tMrd name is disputed. It is some- 
 times taken to mean " Father of booty," but at all events the 
 phrase " everlasting mountains " (Hab. iii. 6) shows that it has 
 not the transcendental idea of eternity. The words in Hebrew 
 which we render by eternity mean only a duration the com- 
 mencement or completion of which lies in the mist of extreme 
 remoteness, or is not contemplated by the speaker. "God the 
 mighty one," construed as an apposition, is a quite unique name, 
 such appositional forms not occurring in pure Hebrew names of 
 persons (Olshausen, Sprachlehrbueh, p. 613). If we rendered it 
 " God is the mighty one," it would be parallel to siich names as 
 Elnaam, " God is graciousness ;" Eliphelet or Elphelet, " God is 
 deliverance ;" Joah, "Jehovah is a brothsi'." But, according to 
 Hebrew idiom, a being in whom is God's name is one through 
 which God manifests Himself to men, and so the prophet prob- 
 ably means this wondrous name to describe the manifestation 
 of Jehovah's kingship through His human representative. It is 
 through the New Testament that we learn that a complete and 
 adequate manifestation of God to man can only be made through 
 a God-man. 
 
 Note 10, p. 309. — The relation of these two passages has 
 been so often and fully discussed that it is needless to go into it 
 again. It seems to be quite clearly made out that Micah does 
 not quote from Isaiah, but also there are no indications in the 
 context that he quotes from any one at all, while the idea that 
 the passage stands in Isaiah as the text for the remarks that 
 follow is somewhat arbitrary and hardly borne out by the con- 
 text. The opening words at Isa. ii. 2 show that the passage as 
 it stands in Isaiah is di'i'orced from its original connection, and 
 it has just enoui,'h of apparent bearing on ii. 5 to make it pos- 
 sible that a copyist inserted it at that place. 
 
 Lecture VIII. 
 
 Note 1, p. 317. — The Assyrian inscriptions bearing on this 
 revolt are given in G. Smith's posthumous Hiatory of Sennacherib, 
 1878; Eponym Canon, ^. 131. See also -Alexander Polyhistor, 
 ap. Euseb., Chron., ed. Schoene, vol. i. p. 27 ; G. Syncellus (Bonn 
 ed.), vol. i. p. 391. The Assyrians ruled Babylon by means 
 of a' vassal king, and so the two years " without a king" in the 
 
432 SENNACHERIB'S lect. viii. 
 
 Canon given by Syncellus are those of Merodacli Baladan's revolt. 
 His embassy to Judah can hardly fall later than 704. 
 
 Note 2, p. 319. — The title prefixed to this prophecy (xiv. 
 28) refers it to the year of Ahaz's death. In that case Ahaz 
 must be the fallen oppressor of the Philistines, and Hezekiah 
 the new and more terrible conqueror, and this view is supported 
 by those who accept the title {e.y., Delitzsch, ad he), by reference 
 to the victories of Hezekiah over the Philistines, 2 Kings xviii. 
 8. But in ver. 31 the destroying force is unquestionably the 
 Assyrian, as Delitzsch himself admits, and thus the title breaks 
 the unity of the oracle. If Hezekiah continued a dominion 
 over the Philistines commenced in the reign of his father, both 
 must have done so as agents of the Assyrian. There is no trace 
 of this, and in any case such a supremacy could hardly have 
 afforded the motive for our prophecy. It is possible that 
 Hezekiah's operations in Philistia were connected with the rising 
 against Sennacherib, when he seems to have been accepted as 
 head of the Philistine revolt, and held Padi the Assyrian vassal- 
 king of Ekron as a captive. Or more probably the reference in 
 Kings is to operations undertaken after the defeat of Senna- 
 cherib to recover the districts which, as we learn from the 
 monuments, Sennacherib in the first prosperous part of his 
 expedition detached from Judah and handed over to the 
 sovereigns of Ashdod, Ekron, and Gaza. Before the war with 
 Sennacherib, at all events, it was with Assyria, not with Hezekiah, 
 that the Philistines had to reckon, and it is to Assyria that the 
 prophecy clearly points. The titles of prophecies have by no 
 means the same authority as the text ; they axe often demon- 
 strably incorrect and mere late conjectures. In the present case 
 the conjecture may have been founded on the Rabbinical 
 exegesis expressed, as Bochart has noticed, in the Targum, which 
 makes the root of the serpent (Nahash) mean the stock of Jesse, 
 according to the well-known identification of Jesse with the 
 Nahash of 2 Sam. xvii. 25. K the prophecy refers to the death 
 of an Assyrian monarch, it is Sargon, not Shalmaneser, who must 
 naturally be thought of. 
 
 Note 3, p. 322. — The Altaku of the monnments (in the 
 neighbourhood of Tamna or Timnath) is generally and plausibly 
 identified with the Eltekeh of Josh. xix. 44 ; xxi. 23, of which 
 nothing further is known, except that it lay like Timnath in 
 Danite territory. 
 
LECT. vin. CAMPAIGN. 433 
 
 Note 4, p. 335. — It was, I think, a saying of Napoleon, that 
 under a good government the Delta encroaches on the desert, 
 while under a bad government the desert encroaches on. the 
 Delta. Not only are the public works, the great canals, apt to 
 fall into ruin under a bad government, but the peasantry, having 
 no security for the enjoyment of the fruit of their labour, will 
 not do their part. Thus every traveller by the overland route 
 to India must have been struck with the small amount of culti- 
 vation along the banks of the great freshwater canal. The 
 water was there, provided at the cost of many thousand lives, 
 but there was not such confidence in the equity of Ismail 
 Pasha as to encourage cultivators to risk their capital in 
 improvements which might be rendered worthless in a moment 
 by a rise in the water-rate or by the water being cut off. The 
 real cure for the miseries of Egypt is still a government in 
 which the people can have sufficient confidence to venture to 
 help themselves, and to utilise the vast number of small hoards 
 now lying buried in the earth or in holes in the walls of houses. 
 It is not free institutions, but a just and firm administration 
 that is beneficial to the East. 
 
 Note 5, p. 336. — On the discussion as to the authorship of 
 Isa. xix. 16-25 see Cheyne's introduction to the chapter; Kuenen, 
 Onderzoek, ii. 74. The passage may have been retouched, and at 
 least the variants on the name of the city in ver. 18 (city of 
 destruction, city of the sun, city of righteousness) may have 
 something to do with the Onias temple at Leontopolis ; but that 
 an interpolation in favour of this sanctuary could have entered 
 the Hebrew text, as Hitzig and Geiger suppose, is hardly possible. 
 And the allusion to the consecrated mafgeba, ver. 19, is quite 
 inconsistent with a date subsequent to the reformation of Josiah 
 and the acceptance of the Deuteronomic law of worship. 
 
 Note 6, p. 345. — The variety of opinion as to the history 
 of the relations of Assyria to Judah, to which reference has been 
 made in the notes on last Lecture, is nowhere more remarkable 
 than in the accounts given by difi'erent historians and expositors 
 of Sennacherib's campaign in Judah. The opinion which 
 distinguishes two invasions under Sargon and Sennacherib 
 respectively has been already discussed and rejected. On the 
 other hand, the theory of Professor Eawlinson that Sennacherib 
 was twice in Judgea (b.c. 701, and again b.o. 699), that 
 Hezekiah's surrender and tribute belong to the first occasion and 
 
434 SENNACHERIB'S lect. viii. 
 
 - 
 
 the great deliverance to the second {Ancient Monarchies, ii. 165), 
 has no basis whatever except pure conjecture. Sennacherib 
 seems to have been in c[uite a different quarter in the latter year 
 (Smith, History of Sennacherib, p. 87). It is therefore necessary 
 to place both the surrender and the deliverance of Jerusalem, m 
 recorded in Kings, in the campaign of 701. The first part of 
 the campaign, in which the Assyrians were victorious, is de- 
 scribed in Kings exactly as on the monuments (see Encyc. Brit., 
 xiii. 414). That Sennacherib does not relate the calamity which 
 subsequently befell his host and compelled him to retire is quite 
 what we should expect from the exclusively boastful style of the 
 Assyrian monuments, and his record is manifestly imperfect, for 
 it does not tell how Sennacherib settled matters with Tirhakah 
 or mention the conclusion of peace with him. Further, the 
 immediate outbreak of a fresh rebellion in Babylon and the fact 
 that Sennacherib did not again appear to make war on Egypt 
 are clear proofs that his retreat was inglorious, in spite of the 
 spoU he carried home from Judah. But it is arbitrary in 
 Schrader and Duncker to sujDpose that the battle of Eltekeh was 
 really the last event in the campaign, and was a virtual defeat. 
 That battle was merely due to an attempt to raise the siege of 
 Ekron, and the operations farther south at Libnah and Lachish 
 must have occurred subsequently. It is plain, too, from the 
 Egyptian tradition given in Herodotus that the Egyptians had a 
 knowledge of the campaign and defeat of the Assyrians, but did 
 not ascribe it to their own prowess. It is very probable that 
 the mice which figure in the legend in Herodotus are a symbol 
 of pestilence (Hitzig, Oesch. d. V. Israel, p. 125, 222 ; Urgeschichte 
 der Philistiier, p. 201 ; Wellhausen on 1 Sam. vi. 4), in which 
 case the Egyptian mythus points to the true account as given in 
 the Bible. 
 
 Note 7, p. 345. — The first chapter of Isaiah must have 
 been written at this time. It cannot well belong to the Syro- 
 Ephraitic war, which, when the theory of invasion under Sargon 
 is rejected, is the only other date that comes into consideration ; 
 for then the distress had not reached such a pitch as Isaiah 
 describes. The points of contact with the contemporary chap, 
 xxii. are . manifest. The wicked rulers of chap. i. are the 
 associates of Shebna in chap. xxii. Even the many sacrifices of 
 i. 11 seq. reappear at xxii. 13, for at that time feast and sacri- 
 fice were identical ; and the comparison of the two texts throws 
 
LECT. VIII. CAMPAIGN. 435 
 
 an instructive light on the popular worship as it displayed itself 
 among Isaiah's opponents. The reading which I have adopted 
 in i. 7 is that of Ewald, Lagarde, Cheyne, and others. 
 
 Note 8, p. 350. — Eabshakeh's attempt to gain the populace 
 to his side was perhaps suggested by the course of the previous 
 siege when, as Sennacherib relates, the garrison of Jerusalem 
 "inclined to submission" (Smith, Sennacherib, p. 63 ; Duncker, 
 ii. 365). 
 
 Note 9, p. 351. — I here follow the brilliant correction of 
 Wellhau.sen (Bleek's Einleitung, p. 257), which has found 
 general acceptance. 
 
 Note 10, p. 352.' — I cannot see that the Bible narrative, as 
 Mr. Cheyne supposes, implies that the calamity attacked a part 
 of Sennacherib's army lying before Jerusalem. It seems to 
 have been the main body of the host that suffered, presumably 
 on the borders of Egypt, as we leain from the monuments that 
 Sennacherib took Lachish, from the siege of which he sent his 
 last summons to Hezekiah. 
 
 Note 11, p. 36:-). — The idea of the one sanctuary, the place 
 chosen by Jehovah out 'of aU the tribes of Israel to put His 
 name there, and at which alone Israel's homage can be accept- 
 ably offered, is formulated in the book of Deuteronomy — espe- 
 cially in chap. xii. — and is presupposed in the Priestly Legisla- 
 tion. In the latter it appears as a fized idea, traditionally 
 established, and no longer requiring explanation or justification. 
 Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that the fundamental idea 
 of the Priestly Legislation is not the unity of the sanctuary but 
 the prerogative of the Aaronic priesthood and ritual. The 
 sanctuary at which these are found is the only true sanctuary, 
 because only at it can Jehovah be approached through thf 
 mediators, and under the ceremonial forms, apart from which He 
 is either altogether inaccessible, or manifests Himself only in 
 wrath. Of this point of view there is absolutely no trace in 
 the history before the Exile ; it appears exclusively in the priestly 
 parts of the Hexateuch and in the Chronicles, and this is one of 
 the most notable general facts which combine with a multitude 
 of special arguments to establish the post -Exile date of the 
 Priestly Legislation. For nothing is historically more certain 
 than that the doctrine of the exclusive privilege of the priest- 
 hood of Aarou, in the sense of the Priestly Legislation, did not 
 yet exist at the time when Josiah brought up the priests of the 
 
436 THE ONE lect. viii. 
 
 high places to Jerusalem and nourished them on. the unleavened 
 bread of the sanctuary along with their "brethren" of the 
 house of Zadok, or even at the time of Ezekiel, to whom the 
 privilege of the Zadokites is still a law for the future, not a 
 fixed religious principle of the past. In the book of Deutero- 
 nomy, on the other hand, the unity of the sanctuary stands by 
 itself, and rests on argument derived from the prophets of the 
 eighth century. To the Deuteronomist, as to the prophets, it 
 appears as an essential of true religion to maintain the separa- 
 tion between the worship of Israel and the worship of the 
 Canaanite holy places. Jehovah is to be worshipped in a single 
 sanctuary of His own choosing, in order that His service may be 
 kept free from heathenish elements. In this argument the 
 question of the hierarchy has no place : the law of Deuteronomy 
 is a solution of the problem, which became practical after the 
 victory of Isaiah, how the national worship can be reorganised 
 so as to answer the conditions of sacrificial cultus, while yet 
 excluding all danger of Canaanite influence. The lines in 
 which the solution is sought are not, however, explicitly sug- 
 gested either by Isaiah or Micah, neither of whom draws an 
 express contrast between the legitimate altar and the provincial 
 holy pilaces. Between the prophetic condemnation of the 
 popular worship and the Deuteronomio plan of worship central- 
 ised in one sanctuary a link is wanting, and that link is found in 
 the shape assumed by Hezekiah's reforms under the special 
 conditions of the land at the time when the provincial 
 sanctuaries had been destroyed by Sennacherib. Hezekiah's 
 reforms were not permanent because they were largely guided 
 by temporary circumstances. The Deuteronomic code endeavoiirs 
 to develop an adequate and permanent scheme for the whole 
 worship of Israel, in which the principle of centralisation is 
 carried out in all its consequences, and adapted to every require- 
 ment of social life. See the argument for this in detail, 0. T. in 
 J. Gh., Lect. xii. 
 
 Here, however, the question arises, how far the religious 
 pre-eminence which was thus accorded to Zion corresponded 
 with tendencies already at work before the catastrophe of Senna- 
 cherib, and which might have ultimately produced the same 
 resulteven in other circumstances. We have first to consider 
 the attitude taken up towards Zion by the prophets. According 
 to Amos i. 2, Jehovah roars from Zion and sends forth His 
 
LECT. VIII. SANCTUARY. 437 
 
 voice from Jerusalem. Zion, therefore, to this Judsean prophet 
 is already the centre of Jehovah's self-manifestation. But the 
 prophetic doctrine of Jehovah's manifestation in judgment has 
 nothing to do with His appearance to His people in their acts of 
 worship. To Amos the organs of Jehovah's intercourse with 
 His people are not the priests, but the prophets and Nazaiites 
 (ii. 12). Jehovah's relation to " His people Israel " is that of 
 the supreme judge : not the temple but the tent of David occu- 
 pies the central place in his picture of restoration ; the future 
 glory of Jerusalem consists in its restoration to the position of 
 a great capital, the centre of a dominion embracing the vassal 
 nations, " over whom Jehovah's name was called " in the days of 
 David. The last expression shows most clearly how little the 
 idea of worship at the sanctuary of Jerusalem has to do with 
 Amos's notion of the religious importance of Zion ; the subjects 
 of the house of David are, as such, subjects of Jehovah. We 
 shall not err, then, if we say that to Amos Zion is the seat of 
 divine manifestation because it is the seat of the Davidic king- 
 dom. Precisely in the same way the tent of David appears in 
 a position of central^ importance in the old projohecy, Isa. xvi. 
 It is in this relation also that Zion holds a central place in the 
 ideal of Isaiah and Micah. Jehovah manifests Himself on Zion, 
 not at the altar but on the throne of judgment. And so in 
 Isa. xix. the conversion of Egypt is followed by the worship of 
 Jehovah, not at the altar of Jerusalem, Taut within the land of 
 Egypt itseK. The tributary homage of Tyre and Ethiopia 
 (Isa. xviii. 7 ; xxiii. 1 8) is paid to the capital of Jehovah's king- 
 dom, and enriches the inhabitants of Jerusalem, not the priests. 
 Had the priests been meant in Isa. xxiii. 18, the prophet would 
 have said, "them that stand, before Jehovah." At the same 
 time it is obvious that the temple had necessarily a great pre- 
 eminence over all other holy places because it was the royal, 
 and so in a sense the national, sanctuary. This comes out most 
 clearly in the old war-hymn for a king of Judah, Ps. xx. 
 Another point which doubtless had great weight with the masses 
 was the presence of the ark in Zion. That the ark was the 
 token of Jehovah's presence was the ancient belief of Israel, and 
 appears in a striking way in 2 Sam. xv. 25. On the old view 
 the ark was the sanctuary of the armies of Israel, which led 
 them to battle, and the words of David in the passage just cited 
 are noteworthy as forming in a certain sense the transition from 
 
438 HOLINESS lect, vin. 
 
 this view to that embodied in Solomon's temple, that Jehovah 
 has now taken up His permanent dwelling-place in the seat of 
 kingship. In this there lies a real step towards religious cen- 
 tralisation — only, we know that no inference was practically 
 drawn from it for the abolition or linxitation of local worship. 
 All that is historically certain is that the autumn feast at Jeru- 
 salem, and perhaps the passover there, became great pilgrimage 
 feasts. In this sense Isaiah himself seems to recognise Jerusalem 
 as the religious centre of the land (xxx. 29 ; xxxiii. 20), and 
 here we must, no doubt, seek another practical facilitation of 
 the centralisation of worship. But the prophets lay no weight 
 on the ark as the central point of Jerusalem's holiness. To 
 Isaiah the whole mountain land of Israel, but especially the 
 whole plateaii of Zion, is holy (xi. 9 ; iv. 5). The code, as dis- 
 tinguished from the framework, of Deuteronomy never mentions 
 the ark ; according to Jeremiah the ark of the covenant of 
 Jehovah is a thing of no consequence. In the days of Israel's 
 repentance it shall not be sought for or repaired, biit " Jerusalem 
 shall be called Jehovah's throne " (iii. 1 7). Thus it is still as the 
 seat of Jehovah's kingship that Jerusalem has central religious 
 importance ; the political not the priestly ideal is that which 
 prevails among all the prophets before Ezekiel. 
 
 Note 12, p. 364. — Ashtoreth, Moloch or Milcom, and 
 Chemosh, in whose worship similar elements prevailed with 
 those of Moloch worship (2 Kings iii. 27), and who was also 
 associated with Ashtoreth, as we learn from the compoiind 
 Ashtar-Kemosh of the stone of Mesha, are the deities mentioned 
 in connection with' these sanctuaries in 1 Kings xi., 2 Kings 
 xxiii. 13. And in the time from Manasseh onwards, Moloch- 
 worship and worship of the " queen of heaven " appear as 
 prominent new features of Judah's idolatry. It is also prob- 
 able that the local high places took on their restoration a 
 more markedly heathenish character than before. Isaiah and 
 Micah do not speak in detail of Canaanite abominations in 
 Judah, such as are mentioned for Ephraim in Amos and Hosea, 
 while the book of Deuteronomy regards the high places as purely 
 Canaanitish. This is very natural, for Sennacherib's invasion 
 must have led captive a larger proportion of the higher than of 
 the lower classes, and the latter, no doubt, were more mixed 
 with Canaanite elements, the Israelites having long been a sort of 
 aristocracy in the land {Horhn, or freemen). Compare Jer. v. 4. 
 
LECT. viii. OF ZION. 439 
 
 Note 13, p. 365. — Evfald is douMless riglit in asisigning 
 these chapters to the reign of Manasseh. The times are worse 
 than those of Micah i.-v., but the religion of Judah has lost its 
 old naive, joyful character. Without any true sense of sin, there 
 is a strong sense of Jehovah's displeasure, a readiness to make 
 any sacrifice — even that of the firstborn son — to appease His 
 "wrath. Then, too, the statutes of the house of Omri are kept 
 (vi. 16). These are precisely the notes of the reign of Manasseh 
 as described in Kings. One correction, however, must be made 
 on Ewald's view. Wellhausen's argument that the prophecy 
 breaks off abruptly at vii. 6, and that the following verses are 
 written from the standpoint of Babylonian exile (Bleek's Einl., 
 p. 425 seq.), will, I think, when carefully weighed, be found to 
 be conclusive. The enemy of vii. 10 cannot be the heathenish 
 party in Judah ; the restoration looked forward to is not a turn 
 of affairs in a still existing kingdom of Judah, but the recall of 
 the nation from banishment in Egypt and Assyria. The situa- 
 tion is no longer, as in the previous prophecy, one of prevailing 
 national sin, the judgment on which cannot long be delayed, 
 but a situation of present calamity and darkness, the punishment 
 of past sins which are acknowledged by a penitent nation. 
 
 P. 153. — The existence of a vassal kingdom of Samaria 
 has again become doubtful, or has even been given up by As- 
 syriologists, as it appears that the name read Usimurun and 
 identified with Samaria ought to be Samsimurun. See Sohrader, 
 Ahh. Berl. Ah., 1879; Delitzsch, Paradiea, p. 286; Noldeke, 
 Z.D.M.O., 1882, p. 178. In consequence of this new reading, 
 the word Samaritans, at p. 322, line 8, should also be omitted. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adonis, 201 ; gardens of, 273. 
 
 Ahab, 48, 76 seq. 
 
 Alaz, 200, 239; alliance with Assyria, 
 250 seq.; his idolatrous buildings, 
 251 ; refuses to hear Isaiah, 266, 
 
 Allegorical interpretation of prophecy, 
 339. 
 
 Amaziah, priest of Bethel, 101, 123 
 seq.; king of Judah, 194. 
 
 Aniorites, 26. 
 
 Amos of Tekoah, 120 ; at Bethel, 122 
 seq.; his style, 125 seq.; his range 
 of knowledge, 127 seq.; prophecy 
 of Assyrian conquest, 129 seq. ; 
 his doctrine of Jehovah, 132 seq.; 
 prophecies against foreign nations, 
 134 ; against Israel, 135 seq. ; duty 
 of Israel, 138 ; sins of Israel, 139 ; 
 eschatology, 142, 186; contrasted 
 with Hosea, 160 seq., 163, 187; 
 influence on Isaiah, 209*; does not 
 condemn the calf -worship, 175 seq.; 
 commentaries on, 394 ; supposed 
 interpolations in, 398 seq.; Amos v. 
 26 discussed, 399 seq. 
 
 Aramaeans, 23 seq. 
 
 Ark and its sanctuary, 36 seq., 437. 
 
 Ashdod,280; Isaiah's prophecy against, 
 281 
 
 Ashera (sacred pole), 96, 292, 362. 
 
 Ashtoreth, 26, 172. 
 
 Assyria, war with Damascus, 91 ; in 
 the book of Amos, 130 ; relations 
 to Judah, 194 seq., 250 seq., 294 
 seq., 321 seq., 366. 
 
 Assyrian inscriptions, 19, 376 seq.; 
 chronology, 150. 
 
 Baal, 26, 38 ; TyrianBaal (Melkarth), 
 48, 52 seq., 76 ; prophets of, 57, 
 20 
 
 391 ; Dionysiac worship of, 84, 
 140; Land of, 172; Baal=hus- 
 band, 171. 
 
 Bdl and 'Atkary, 172, 409. 
 
 Byblus or Gebal, 51. 
 
 Calves, golden, symbols of Jehovah, 
 
 175 seq. 
 Canaanites, 24, 26 ; relations to Israel, 
 
 30 seq.; in Jerusalem 204. 
 Carchemish, 23, 377 seq. 
 Chej-ne, Mr., on the prophecies of the 
 
 reign of Sargon, 295 seq. 
 Chronology of the Hebrew kingdoms, 
 
 145 seq., 402, 413 seq. 
 Church, birth of the idea of, 275. 
 
 Damascus, wars with Israel, 90 seq., 
 131 ; with Assyria, 91, 130. 
 
 Davidio kingship, 45 seq. ; in the pro- 
 phecy of Amos, 137, 186 ; in Hosea 
 185 seq.; in Isaiah, 301, 309 seq., 
 in Micah, 291. 
 
 Day of Jehovah, 131 seq., 396. 
 
 Deuteronomic law influenced by Micah, 
 293 ; relation to Hezekiah's reform- 
 ation, 363 seq. 
 
 Development of revelation, 8 seq. 
 
 "Dogs," 391. 
 
 Ecclesiastical tradition, 5. 
 
 Edom, 28 seq., 135, 192, 203, 322. 
 
 Egypt, 22 ; united to the throne of 
 Ethiopia, 279 ; its part in Hebrew 
 politics, 280 seq., 294 seq., 319, 
 321 seq., 349. 
 
 Ekron, siege of, by Sennacherib, 822. 
 
 Elath, 203, 215, 238, 250. 
 
 Eliakim, 307, 346 seq. 
 
 Elijah, 76 seq. 
 
442 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Elijah and Blislia, history of, 116. 
 Elisha, 85, 87, 131, 208. 
 Eltekeh (Altalcu), battle of, 322. 
 Ephod (plated image), 98. 
 Eponym Canon, 150. 
 
 Feasts, religious, 38, 383 seq. 
 Fedural theology, 375. 
 Fir-trees, 411. 
 
 Forty as round number, 148, 403. 
 Future state, docti'ine of, 63 seq. 
 
 Geogbaphioal knowledge of the He- 
 brews, 21 seq.; of Amos, 127 seq. 
 Gomer bath Diblaim, 179 seq. 
 
 Mesed (pietas) explained, 160 aeq., 
 406. 
 
 Hezekiah, his early years^ 287 seq. ; 
 receives ambassadors of Merodaoh 
 Baladan, 318 ; intrigues with Egypt, 
 321 ; attacked by Sennacherib, 345; 
 surrenders, 347 ; encouraged to re- 
 sist by Isaiah, 350 ; his weak charac- 
 ter, 347 ; his reformation, 359 seq. 
 
 Hierodouloi, 228. 
 
 High places, abolition of, 362 seq. 
 
 Historical books of 0. T., 109, 114 
 seq. 
 
 Hittites, 23, 377 seq. 
 
 Holiness, conception of, 224, 422; as 
 developed by Isaiah, 225 seq. ; of 
 the land of Israel, 228 seq.; sym- 
 bolism of fire and water, 232. 
 
 Hosea, date of, 144, 155 ; belonged 
 to Northern Kingdom, 154; attitude 
 to the priests, 113, 156 ; isolation 
 of, 157 ; his prophecy of judgment, 
 158; his doctrine of Jehovah's love, 
 159 seq.; of His covenant, 161; 
 Fatherhoood of Jehovah, 167 seq.; 
 treats Ephraim as a moral individual, 
 165, 190 ; his references to past 
 history, 165 ; contrasted with Amos, 
 160, 163, 186 ; his allegory of son- 
 ship and marriage, 167 seq.; his 
 attitude to the golden calves, 175 
 seq.; his personal history, 179 seq.; 
 his condemnation of the revolution 
 of Jehu, 183 seq.; restoration of 
 
 Davidic monarchy, 185 ; his escha- 
 
 tnlogy, 187 seq.; title of his pro- 
 
 ih-y, 404. 
 Hosea iv., 4 seq,, 405 ; chap. vii. 5, 
 
 410 ; chap. xiv. 8, 411. 
 Hoshea, king of Samaria, 152, 279. 
 
 Imabe-worship, 175 seq. ; 240. 
 Immanuel (God with us), 270, 
 
 271 
 
 Inscriptions : Moabite (Mesha), 50, 382 ; 
 Phoenician (Gebal), 51, (Sidon) 64, 
 (Marseilles) 56 ; of Siloam, 236. 
 
 Isaiah, 205 seq.; his influence, 206 seq., 
 320, 350 ; compared with Elisha, 
 208 ; with Amos and Hosea, 209 
 seq., 229 seq., 254 seq.; with Jere- 
 miah, 259 seq.; with Micah, 289 
 seq.; order of his book, 210 ; critical 
 questions, 213 seq.; periods of his 
 ministry, 214 ;. inaugural vision, 
 217 seq.; doctrine of Jehovah's holi- 
 ness, 224 seq.; his lips purged, 230 
 seq.; doctrine of the remnant, 209, 
 234, 258 ; use of writing as a vehicle 
 of teaching, 235 seq.; his first pro- 
 phetic book, 236 seq.; condemnation 
 of the unrighteous nobles, 241, 233 
 seq., 346 ; doctrine of Jehovah's 
 kingly righteousness, 226, 245 ; 
 earliest eschatologioal Ideal, 248 ; 
 first appearance as a practical poli- 
 tician, 254 ; doctrine of inviolability 
 of Jerusalem, 258 seq. ; opposition 
 to Assyrian alliance, 265 seq.; his 
 interpretation of the Assyrian ad- 
 vance, 269 seq.; " God with us," 
 270 seq.; formation of » prophetic 
 party, 207 seq., 274 ; Messianic 
 teaching, 276 seq., 301 ley.; prophecy 
 against Ashdod, 281 ; prophecies 
 on the eve of Samaria's fall, 282 
 seq.; argument from husbandry, 
 285 ; picture of the career and fall 
 of Assyria, 297 seq.; his definition 
 of miracle, 315 ; prophecy upon the 
 death of Sargon, 319 ; prophecies 
 under Sennacherib, 322 seq.; univer- 
 salism, 331 seq. ; conversion of 
 Ethiopia, 332; of Tyre, 334; of 
 
INDEX. 
 
 443 
 
 ■ Egypt and Assyria, 335 seg. ; pro- 
 pliecies during the invasion oF Judah, 
 345 «ej.; E^aiust Sliebna, 346 ; en- 
 courages Hezekiali, 350 seq.; his 
 great victory, 352 seq.; last words 
 of Isaiah, 354 seg. 
 
 Isaiah i., 215, 345 ; ii.-v., 215, 236 
 seq.; vi., 217 se?.; vii. 1-ix. 7, 258 
 seq.; ix. 8-x. 4, 215, 238 ; x. 5-xi. 
 16, 297 seq.i xiv. 24-27, 300 ; xiv. 
 29 sp?., 319; xv. xvi., 92: xvii., 
 273, 331; xviii., 331 sej ; xix., 
 333, 335 ; xx., 281 ; xxi. 1-10, 420; 
 xxi. 13 seg., 333 ; xxii., 346 se^.; 
 xxiii., 333 seq.; xxviii., 282 se,q.; 
 xxix. - xxxii;, 307, 314, 322 seq. ; 
 xxxiii., 364 seq. ; xxxvii., -351 seq. 
 
 Israel in Egypt, .29 ; in Canaan, 30 
 «ej. ; early religion, 32 seq.; con- 
 solidated into a kingdom, 45, 47 ; 
 division of the kingdom, 48 ; tribal 
 organisation, 93 ; ancient life, 94 ; 
 social decay, 88, 95 seq.; early ideal 
 of, as a warlike kingdom victoiious 
 in Jehovah, 119 ; Israel Jehovah's 
 spouse, 170 seq.; unfaithfulness of, 
 176 seq. 
 
 Jehovah (lalnvi^) God of Israel, 20, 
 32 seq.; Syncretism with Baal, 38, 
 173 ; God of the armies of Israel 
 (lahwe Cebaoth), 39, 42, 62, 76, 
 131 ; His attributes, 62 ; God of 
 . righteousness, 71 seq., 245 seq. ; a 
 jealous God, 79, 119 ; His love to 
 Israel, 159 seg.; His covenant, 161 ; 
 holiness of, 224 seq.; the Holy One 
 of Israel, 227 ; Jehovah and the 
 idols, 240 ; His spirit, 304 ; mean- 
 ing of the name, 385 seq. 
 
 Jehoshaphat, 112. 
 
 Jehu, house of,, 88, 95, 183 seq. 
 
 Jeroboam II., 89, 92 seq. 
 
 JirbSs, 377. 
 
 Joiiadab the Rechabite, 84. 
 
 Judah, foreign eiemeniis in, 28, 201 ; 
 histoiy of, after the schism, 191 
 seq.; inferiority to Ephraim, 192 
 seq.; in Blessing of Moses, 118; 
 suffers from Hazael, 193 ; relations 
 
 to Assyria, 194 seq.; character of 
 the Jud^an monarchy, 196 seq.; re- 
 ligious condition, 199 seq.; prosper- 
 ity under Uzziah, 203 seq.; social 
 disintegration, 204 seq.; sins of the 
 nobles, 241, 287 seq.; under Heze- 
 kiah,- 294 seq., 318 seq. 
 
 KenU'ES, 29. 
 
 Manasseh, reaction under, 206, 365. 
 
 Marriage, religious synibolism of, 171 
 seq. 
 
 Menaheni, 151 seq. 
 
 Merodach Baladan, 281, 317 seq. 
 
 Messiah, 302 seq. 
 
 Micah, 287 seq.; prophecy against 
 Samaria, 288 ; description of the 
 sins of Judah, 288 seq.; the wrongs 
 of the peasantry, 289 ; democratic 
 character of his prophecy, 290 ; fall 
 of Jerusalem, 291 ; the new David, 
 291 ; great influence of Micah, 292 
 seq., 363 ; interpolations in Micah, 
 427 seq. 
 
 Micah ii. 8 emended, 427; Micah vi. 
 vii., 365, 372, 439. 
 
 Miracle, 315. 
 
 Moab, 24, 28 ; religion of, 50 ; wars 
 with Northern Israel, 75 ; subdued 
 by Jeroboam II., 91 ; ancient pro- 
 phecy against (Isa. xv. xvi), 92 seq.'j 
 in the prophecy of Amos, 135 ; in 
 Assyrian period, 294, 322. 
 
 Monotheism, 54, 59 seq., 225 seq. 
 
 Moresheth Gath, 287. 
 
 Moses, 32 seq.; his work, 35 seq.; as 
 judge or lawgiver, 110 seq.; Blessing 
 of (Dent, xxxiii.), 49, 117 seq. 
 
 Naeoth, murder of, 77, 87. 
 Nazarites, 84, 137 seq., 437. 
 
 Omei, house of, 75 seq., 95. 
 
 Palestine, physical features of, 24 
 seq.; inhabitants, 26, 28 ; conquest 
 by Hebrews, 29 seq. 
 
 Patriarchs, history of, 116, 166. 
 
 Pekah, 152, 194, 250. 
 
 Pentateuch contains strata of very 
 
444 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 different dates, 108 seq.; oldest laws, 
 113 seq. 
 
 Philistines, 45, 134, 137 ; wars with 
 Judah, 192, 239 ; with Assyria, 
 279 se?., 294, 318, 322. 
 
 Phoenicians, 22, 25 sal-; their religion, 
 26 sen.; influence of their art in the 
 Temple, 56, 385. 
 
 Priests of the northern sanctuaries, 
 98, 100; corruption of in eighth 
 century, 101. 
 
 Prophetic party of Isaiah, 207 seq^., 
 27 i, 320 ; its victory, 348 seq.; its 
 decadence, 370 ; proplietic predic- 
 tion, interpretation of, 268, 336 seq. 
 
 Prophets, their work, 69 seq. ; Rab- 
 binical conception of, 82 ; sons of 
 (prophetic guilds), 85 seq.; con- 
 trasted with diviners, 219 seq.; the 
 name nalA, 389 seq. 
 
 Psalm xlvi., 352. 
 
 Eapuia, 280, 426. 
 
 Religion, the subject of, in 0. T., is 
 the nation of Israel, 20 ; religion 
 and morality, 72 seq.; chief merit of 
 the popular Hebrew religion, 312 ; 
 true and false religion, 273. 
 
 Remnant, prophetic doctrine of, 106 
 seq., 209, 234, 258. 
 
 Rephaim (shades), 64. 
 
 Revelation, development of, 3 seq. ; 
 objections to doctrine of special 
 revelation in Israel, 9 seq.; answer 
 to these objections. 11 seq.; evidence 
 of the truth of the Bible revelation, 
 16. 
 
 Righteousness, 71 seq., 245, 388. 
 
 Sabbath, 384. 
 
 Samaria, Ashera in, 140 ; siege of, 151, 
 
 403 ; vassal kingdom in, 153. 
 Samaritans, 153. 
 Sanctuaries, loe"!, 37, 43 ; their ritual 
 
 and priesthood, 97 seq. ; places of 
 
 judgment, 100 seq.; in Judah, 19!' 
 
 seq.; abolished, 362, 
 
 Sargon, king of Assyria, 279 seq., 294 
 seq.; his death 317. 
 
 Saul, 45, 381, 391, 393. 
 
 Sebech or So, 279 seq. 
 
 Semitic races, 22 ; their religion, 50 
 seq. ; characteristics of their litera- 
 ture, 126. 
 
 Sennacherib, 297, 317 seq., 345 seq. 
 
 Seraphim, 218. 
 
 Shechem, 31, 99, 118. 
 
 Sin, early Hebrew conception of, 102 
 seq.; in Isaiah, 246 seq. 
 
 Sinai, seat of Jehovah, 34, 39 ; legisla- 
 tion at, 111. 
 
 So, king of Egypt, 279. 
 
 Solomon, heathen shrines of, 76, 111, 
 202, 364 ; despotism of, 95, 198. 
 
 Sonship, doctrine of, in Old Testa- 
 ment, 20, 167 seq. 
 
 Spirit, 60 seq.; of Jehovah, 304 seq. 
 
 Supernatural, prophetic view of the, 
 310 seq. 
 
 Sycamore, 395. 
 
 Syria or Aram, 22 seq. ; wars with 
 Israel, 88, 90 seq. See Damascus. 
 
 Tekoa, 120, 394. 
 Teraphim, 33, 98. 
 Theocracy, 51 seq. ; origin of the 
 
 name, 52 ; among heathen Semites, 
 
 62 seq. 
 rirhakah, 322, 349. 
 Tithes, 53, 382 seq. 
 Tyre, Isaiah's prophecy concerning, 
 
 333, 334. 
 
 UniAH, the friend of Isaiah, 207. 
 Urim and Thummim, 100. 
 Uzziah, 194, 203 seq. 
 
 Vision, prophetic, 219 seq. 
 
 WiBE, 388. 
 
 Zeohariah ix.-xiv., 412. 
 
y 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 AN IMPORTANT WORK. 
 
 'ESUS CHRIST: A History of Our Saviour's Per- 
 son, Mission, and Spirit. By Pere Didon, O. P. With an In- 
 troduction by His Eminence James, Cardinal Gibbons, 
 Edited by Rt. Rev. Bernard O'Reilly, D. D. : D. Lit/ 
 (Laval). Profusely illustrated with Maps, Photogravure re- 
 productions of Celebrated Paintings by the Old Masters, and 
 Woodcuts of Scenes in the Holy Land, engraved from Sketches 
 made by our own Artists. 
 
 Complete in Two Large Octavo Volumes of about 500 pages each, hand- 
 somely bound in Extra Cloth, with embellished cover. Price, in box, $7.50. 
 Sold only by subscription. 
 
 The original edition of Fere Didon's great work in the French language 
 has already reached a sale of more than Twenty Editions. Not in many 
 years has a similar book been published that has attracted more attention 
 abroad, or been received by the foreign reviewers with such enthusiastic and 
 unstinted praise. The work of Pere Didon is commended to all— Roman 
 Catholics or Protestants — as being one of the most powerful and intensely 
 interesting contributions to Ecclesiastical Literature tfiat have appeared in 
 recent years. 
 
 " Most heartily do we congratulate the author on his having sought to render 
 attractive and pleasing for the cultivated ijublic of our day the life of Our Lord Jesus 
 Chrisr, without either changing or abbreviating the text of the Gospels. People in 
 France had become most unreasonably infatuated with the * German critical science.* 
 We must, therefore, feel grateful to P6re Didon for the patience he has had to read the 
 lucubrations of the German professors, and for his having made the acquaintance of the 
 German universities. This fact gives great weight to his testimony in the estimation of 
 an immense number of readers, who, deeming that this Life of Christ is on a level with 
 the exigencies of 'contemporary criticism,' will thus read without prepossession this 
 beautiful work, all irradiated with the pure light of the Gospel." — Kevue Bihlio- 
 gra-Phique et Littdraire. 
 
 "To write for those who believe, is well; but' to write for those who do not believe, 
 or who are troubled with doubts — who are either indifferent or hostile — is much better. 
 These are the persons who will be attracted and captivated by P^re Didon's 'Jesus ' 
 Christ.' " — Le Gaulois. 
 
 ** This work, so long and carefully prepared and so much spoken of in advance, has 
 had from its first appearance a splendid success. This success is well deserved. 
 Polemics, the refutation of rationalistic criticism, take up a relatively small place, and 
 the author is to be warmly congratulated thereupon. A Life of Christ, in accordance 
 with the views of such cntics, would have been read by but a small number of persons. 
 The broad and imposing plan on which Pere Didon conceived his work will secure to 
 him daily thousands upon thousands of readers. The literary form given to the book 
 is worthy, of the subject. The diction is elevated, like the thoughts it clothes."— ^^. 
 vue Bibliographique Unwerselie. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
o 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 UR HEREDITY FROM GOD. Consisting of 
 Lectures on Evolution. By E. P. Powell. Fourth edition. 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 
 
 " It is written in a simple^ homely, fresh, and piquant style, that will engage the 
 interest of every intelligent reader. Even diose who have prejudged the matter in 
 debate, if they once begin to read, will find it hard to stop; and when they reach the 
 end, if they do not make an unconditional surrender, they will find that some of their 
 heavy guns are missing, a good deal of their light artillery, and a great deal of their 
 useless baggage of contempt and scorn for doctrines which they did not understand." — 
 Christian Register. 
 
 " Mr. Powell traces the rise of intelligence and morals out of and above all preced- 
 ing developments, until he reaches the great questions of God and immor^ity. As a 
 statement of the process of conviction by which the doctrine of evolution is established 
 for the development of physical life the work is entitled to confidence, and will interest 
 and instruct its readers." — Boston Herald. 
 
 *' An earnest and profound thinker, Mr. Powell is a logical, forcible, and brilliant 
 writer as well. It is safe to say that no one of the very numerous works which of late 
 years have sought to demonstrate the unknowable, unprovable mysteries of which 
 Darwin and Spencer are the chief apostles and jetiunciators, has done so in more lucid, 
 scholarly fashion." — New Orleans Times- Democrat. 
 
 ** All parts of the book are instructive, and while they instruct they never fail to 
 interest. The driest facts of the evolution problem ..are made plain, and happily illus- 
 trated ; but it is in such chapters as close the work that the interest culminates and 
 the purpose of the work is seen. No one will regret owning and reading Mr. Powell's 
 v/OTK."— Boston New Ideal. 
 
 iTTUDIES IN HEGEL S PHILOSOPHY OF RE- 
 
 *^ LIGION. With an Appendix on Christian Unity in America. 
 By J. MacBride Sterrett, D. D., Professor of Ethics and 
 Apologetics in the Seabury Divinity School ; author of " Reason 
 and Authority in Religion." Second edition. i2mo. Cloth, 
 $2.00. 
 
 "Professor Sterrett's * Studies ' are well written and careful. . . . If one wishes to 
 know about Hegel on the Philosophy of Religion, there is really no better book than 
 the present. ... It gives an excellent general view of the Hegelian position." — 
 London Saturday Review. 
 
 "A book for study and prolonged consideration. No one can read it without 
 receiving much intellectual and spiritual stimulus." — Bibliotkeca Sacra. 
 
 " The American book I hold worthy of a place beside Lujxr Mundi. It gives the 
 logical method which Lux Mundi applies in a less technical and more popular tseat- 
 ment They are studies at first hand, . . . earnest and noble, and offer noble aid to 
 thought that would climb the loftiest and most difficult steep of knowledge. The path 
 they trace is clear to the peak." — Rev. R. A. Holland, D, D., in The Living Church. 
 
 " Dr. Sterrett is far more than a slavish expositor. . . . We cordially commend it 
 as giving to the general reader a valuable idea of the great German's memod in philos- 
 ophy, as well as initiating him into the latter's treatment of some of the most important 
 departments of human thinking." — London Literary World. 
 
 " Dr. Sterrett has given to the elucidation of Hegel those literary and critical 
 abilities which make his book a valuable contribution to Itheology. No one can lead 
 it without profit. Dr. Sterrett is a helpful guide. He is careful, honest, frsuik, and 
 ^c^o\2s\y**— The Standard of the Cross and the Church. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO.. 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
A 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO.*S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 WASHINGTON BIBLE-CLASS. By GAit 
 
 Hamilton. Large i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "The author of this book needs no introduction to American readers. But we will 
 venture to say that she has never before shown greater brilliancy, intellectual grasp, 
 and critical acumen than in tliis collection of papers, which were originally read in 
 Washington last winter, before a Bible-class composed of prominent women of that 
 city. As we have already intimated, this book will be sternly criticised by many; but 
 in freshness of analysis it takes its place as one of the most important of the more re- 
 cent contributions to biblical literature." — Nl"w York 'Jribut.e. 
 
 " That these lectures are interesting, even entertaining — that, more than that, they 
 are stimulating and suggestive — need hardly be said. They are by Gail Hamilton; 
 that is enough. It is a book of fragments, mteresting, entertaining, stimulating, sug- 
 gestive, and useful, but still of fragments."— CArzls^:«?i Union. 
 
 '* She has at least one merit — she is never dull. Whether her readers agree with 
 her or not, they are interested. The volume gives the reader a very clear idea of the 
 religious discassion of the day, and marks the wide divergence from the older teach- 
 ings of theology." — Chuago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 " The whole book is overflowing with fresh, often original thought, and with deep, 
 devout feeling, and the style is crisp, pungent, occasionally caustic, but always firm, 
 confident, and compelling attention if not convictions." — Chicago Times. 
 
 " That the volume is fresh, bright, and sparkling, goes without saying, and it will 
 be enjoyed by those who have kept abreast of the result of modem biblical criticism, 
 and will be found deeply suggestive and profitable by those who have not." — Boston 
 Traveller. 
 
 'J^HE HOPE OF THE GOSPEL. By George 
 ■*■ MacDonald, author of " Unspoken Sermons," " Robert Fal- 
 coner,'' etc. r2mo. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 "George Mac Donald began life as a preacher; and always, whether in sermon 
 or story, he IS a preacher yet. He is also one of the most fervent of preachers. . . In 
 respect to simplicity, vitality, and directness of style, these sermons might be studied 
 with special profit. ' — Advance. " 
 
 "These sermons are marked by that same broad and all-embracing charity which 
 has charactenzed the writer's works of fiction." — San Francisco Evening Post. 
 
 "In homely language, which is a sure means to much the heart, the author delivers 
 his message, du-ect and plain as an every-day duty, but winged with tlie fervor of truth- 
 ful utterance." — thiladelphia Ledger. 
 
 n^ORAL TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE. By Ara- 
 -''^ BELLA B. Buckley, author of "The Fairy-Land of Science," 
 " Life and her Children," etc. i2mo. Cloth, 75 cents. 
 
 " A little book that proves, with excellent clearness and force, how many and strik- 
 ing are the moral lessons suggested by the study of the life history of the plant or bird, 
 beast or insect." — London Saturday Review. 
 
 "This is a charming little book, and may be commended to those who are anxious 
 to know how far the acceptance of the latest and most uncompromising scientific theo- 
 ries IS consistent with a belief in God and in personal immortality. . . . The book is 
 admirably written, and is full of accurate knowledge clearly and simply stated. Every 
 thoughtful and sincere reader must acknowledge its value and charm."— Charleston 
 News and Courier. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO/S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 'J^HE GREAT ENIGMA. By William Samuel 
 -» Lilly. 8vo. Cloth, $4.00. 
 
 " An important contribution to the apologetics of theism. . . , This great argu- 
 ment, which involves a critical examination of some of the main currents of modern 
 speculative thought, is presented with rare dialectical skill. ... A powerful book." — 
 London Times. 
 
 "This volume is delightfully complete in the whole and in the parts, in form and 
 substance. . . . The author has finished his sentences and his argument, and rounded 
 up his work with an ideal index and a full summary of his line of thought, a very great 
 aid to the ordinary reader in the attempt to master an extended and subtle discussion. 
 He has his reward in the effectiveness of the book, which is a strong, ingenious, and very 
 destructive inquiry into the current atheistic and agnostic philosophies as religions. 
 . . . He makes no extravagant claim for the Bible nor for Christian theology, and he 
 does not lay so much stress on the pustulates and conclusions of Christian science or 
 Christian philosophy as the supreme needs and responsibilities of human life. . , . 
 We understand that Mr. Lilly is a Roman Catholic There is nothing in his book to 
 suggest any Roman limitations to his Catholic faith. He has done great good service 
 (0 the cause of right thinking and right living." — New York Independent 
 
 " The author of this volume is an Englishman of recognized standing in the in- 
 tellectual world, and the book shows that he has an uncommonly strong mind. . . . 
 The plan of the volume includes first an effort to show that in good logic there are but 
 two possible answers, besides theism, to the great enigma of life and its outcome, 
 one being atheism and the other agnosticism. These are studied ably and at length." 
 — Boston Congregationalist. 
 
 IV 
 
 HY NO T, AND WHY. Short Studies in Church^ 
 majtskip. By the Rev. William Dudley Powers. Second 
 edition. i2mo. Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 " ' Take heed unto thyself and to the doctrine.* An admirable gentleness and 
 broadness of spirit characterize this litttle work, whose authur is the well-known and 
 much-esteemed rector of St Andrew's I hurch, this city. . . There is not a sen- 
 tence between the covers which does not breathe of charitableness toward those who 
 hold beliefs other than the writer, and love toward all faith that is earnest and honest, 
 under whatever name." — Richmond Times 
 
 " The author's purpose seems to be controversial; it is really constructive. . . . 
 It is to be hoped that this excellent tractate may go to a third and many more editions." 
 — Philadelphia Church Standard. 
 
 IV. 
 
 HY WE BELIEVE THE BIBLE. An Hour's 
 
 Reading for Busy People. By J. P. T. Ingraham, S. T. D. 
 i6mo. Cloth, 60 cents. 
 
 "Dr. Ingraham has here attempted to give in the categorical form a very con- 
 densed summary of the reasons for receiving Holy Scripture It is impossible, in a 
 work of this scope, to do more than to state dogmatically- conclusions and facts. This 
 has been fairly done in the volume. ... It prepares the ^ound for honest inquiry, 
 and will enable any one whose general belief has been disturbed to see where the 
 difficulty lies " — The Churchman. 
 
 " Our author is practical ; he does not take up with theories. He has produced a 
 book that pastors and teachers will find of great use. It will be helpful to hundreds 
 of young men, and save them from misconceptions." — Baltimore A nterican. 
 
 " A perfect handbook of biblical lore and religious information, spread out in a 
 plain, simple story." — Si. Louis Republican. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
H 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 PVOLUTION OF MAN AND CHRISTIAN- 
 
 J~^ ITY. New edition. By the Rev. Howard MacQueary, 
 
 With a new Preface, in which the Author answers his Critics, 
 
 and with some important Additions. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 
 
 " This is a revised and enlarged edition of a book published last year. The author 
 
 reviews criticisms upon the first edition, denies that he rejects the doctrine of the in- 
 
 camation, admits his doubts of the physical resurrection of Christ, and his belief in 
 
 evolution. The volume is to be marked as one of the most profound expressions of the 
 
 modern movement toward broader theological positions." — Brooklyn limes. 
 
 *' He does not write with the animus of the destructive school; he intends to be, 
 and honestly believes he is, doing a work of construction, or at least of reconstruction. 
 He writes with manifest earnestness and conviction, and in a style which is always 
 clear and energetic.*' — Ckurckman. 
 
 Y STORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. By Dr. John William 
 Draper. i2mo. Cloth, $i.75> 
 
 " The key-note to this volume is found in the antagonism between the progressive 
 tendencies of the human mind and the pretensions of ecclesiastical authority, as de- 
 veloped in the history of modern science. No previous writer has treated the subject 
 from this point of view, and the present monograph will be found to possess no less 
 originality of conception than vigor of reasoning and wealth of erudition." — New York 
 Tribune. 
 
 yj CRITICAL HISTORY OF FREE THOUGHT 
 -^ IN REFERENCE TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 By Rev. Canon Adam Storey Farrar, D. D., F. R. S., etc. 
 i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 
 
 " A conflict might naturally be anticipated between the reasoning faculties of man 
 and a religion which claims the right, on superhuman authority, to impose limits on 
 the field or manner of their exercise. It is the chief of the rnovcments of free thought 
 which it is my purpose to describe, in their historic succession, and their connection 
 with intellectual causes. We must ascertain the facts, discover the causes, and read 
 the moral." — The Author. 
 
 CREATION OR EVOLUTION? A Philosophical 
 Inquiry. By George Ticknor Curtis. T2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 
 
 ** A treatise on the great question of Creation or Evolution by one who is neither a 
 naturalist nur theologian, and who does not profess to bring to the discussion a special 
 equipment in either of the sciences which the controversy arrays against each other, 
 may seem strange at first sight; but Mr. Curtis will satisfy the reader, before many pages 
 have been turned, that he has a substantial contribution to make to the debate, and that 
 his book is one to be treated with respect. His part is to apply to the reasonings of the 
 men of science the ri^d scrutiny with which the lawyer Is accustomed to test the value 
 and pertinency of testimony, and the legitimacy of inferences from established facts." 
 — New York Tribune. 
 
 " Mr. Curtis's book is honorably distinguished from a sadly too great proportion of 
 treatises which profess to discuss the relation of scientific theories to religion, by its 
 author's thorough acquaintance with his subject, his scrupulous fairness, and remark- 
 able freedom from passion." — London Literary World. 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. New York 
 
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 New Volumes in the International Education Series. 
 
 PDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANJD- 
 -'—^ POINT. By Alfred Fouill^e. Translated and edited, 
 with a Preface, by W. J. Greenstreet, M. A., St. John's Col- 
 lege, Cambridge ; Head Master of the Marling School, Stroud. 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 FouilMe's work is a timely and valuable contribution to the discussions of some of 
 the important educational questions that are at present claiming attention in both this 
 country and Europe. 
 
 ^YSEMTATIC SCIENCE TEACHING. A Man- 
 
 ^^ ual of Inductive Elementary Work for all Instructors in Graded 
 and Ungraded Schools^ the Kindergarten^ and the Home. By 
 Edward Gardnier Howe. i2mo. Cloth, Si. 50. 
 
 A thoroughly practical and reliable guide to elementary instruction in science has 
 long been a desideratum, and this work, embodying the results of fourteen years of 
 actual classroom tests, will satisfactorily meet sucli a demand. The volume gives a 
 general outlme of work for the first three years. 
 
 ^HE ED UCA TION OE THE GREEK PEOPLE, 
 
 -* and its Influence on Civilization, By Thomas Davidson. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "This work is not intended for scholars or specialists^ but for that large bcdyof 
 teachers throughout the country who are trying to do their duty, but are suffering from 
 that want of enthusiasm which necessarily comes from being unable clearly to see the 
 end and purpose of their labors, or to invest any^ end with sublime import. T have 
 sought to show them that the end of their work is the redemption of humanity, an 
 essential part of that process by which it is being gradually elevated to moral freedom, 
 and to suggest to them the direction in which they ought to turn their chief efforts. If 
 I can make even a few of them feel the consecration that comes from single-minded 
 devotion to a great end, I shall hold that this book has accomplished its purpose." 
 — A uthor's Preface. 
 
 HE EVOLUTION OF THE MASSACHU- 
 SETTS PUBLIC-SCHOOL SYSTEM. A Historical 
 Sketch in Six Lectures. By George H. Martin, A. M., Super- 
 visor of Public Schools, Boston, Massachusetts. i2ino. Cloth, 
 $1.50. 
 
 The public discussion that arose from Professor Martin's papers upon the topic 
 treated in this work will make the complete collection of the essays of much interest to 
 a large circle of readers. In the present volume the author aims to show the evolu- 
 tionary character of the public-school history of the State, and to point out the lines 
 along which the development has run and the relation throughout to the social environ- 
 ment, and incidentally to illustrate the slow and irregular way by which the people 
 under popular governments work out their own social and intellectual progress. 
 
 r 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Recent Volumes of the International Seientifie Series. 
 
 A 
 
 HISTORY OF CRUSTACEA, By Rev. Thomas 
 
 R. R. Stebbing, M, a., author of *' The Challenger Amphipoda," 
 
 etc. With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 
 
 " Mr. Stebbing's account of ' Recent Malacostraca ' (soft-shelled animals) is practi- 
 cally complete, and is based upon the solid foundations of science. The astonishing 
 development of knowledge in this branch of natural history is due to the extension of 
 marine research, the perfecting of the microscope, and the general diffusion of informa- 
 tion regarding what has been ascertained concerning the origin of species. . . . This 
 volume is fully illustrated, and contains useful references to important authorities. It 
 is an able and meritorious survey of recent Crustacea." — Philadelphia Ledger. 
 
 TTANDBOOK OF GREEK AND LATIN PA- 
 ■» -» LMOGRAPHY. By Edward Maunde Thompson, D. C. L., 
 Principal Librarian of the British Museum. With numerous 
 Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 
 
 " Mr. Thompson, as principal librarian of the British Museum, has of course had 
 Very exceptional advantages for preparing his book. . . . Probably all teachers of the 
 classics, as well as specialists in palseographjy, will find something of value in this sys- 
 tematic treatise upon a rather unusual and difficult study." — Review of Reviews. 
 
 " Covering as this volume does such a vast period of time, from the beginning of the 
 alphabet and the ways of writing down to the seventeenth century, the wonder is how, 
 within three hundred and thirty-three pages, so much that is of practical usefulness has 
 been brought together."— JVipw Verh Times. 
 
 M 
 
 'AN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD. By G. 
 
 Frederick Wright, D. D., LL. D., author of " The Ice Age in 
 North America," " Logic of Christian Evidences/' etc. With 
 numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 
 
 " The author is himself an independent student and thinker, whose competence and 
 authority are undisputed." — Mew York Sun. 
 
 ** It may be described in a word as the best summary of scientific conclusions con- 
 cerning the question of man's antiquity as affected by his known relations to geological 
 time." — Philadelphia Press. 
 
 DACE AND LANGUAGE. By Andr^ Lefevre, 
 
 -* *- Professor in the Anthropological School, Paris. i2mo. Cloth, 
 $1.50. 
 
 " A most scholarly exposition of the evolution of language, and a comprehensive 
 account of the Indo-European group of tongues." — Boston A dveriiser. 
 
 y A welcome contribution to the study of the obscure and complicated subject with 
 which it deals." — San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 *' One of the few scientific works which promise to become popular, both with 
 those who read for instruction and those who read for recreation." — Philadelphia Item, 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
T 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 HE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION, (Egypt and 
 
 CHALDiEA.) By Prof. Maspero. Edited hy the Rev. Prof. 
 
 Sayce. Translated by M, L. McClure. With Maps and over 
 
 470 Illustrations. Quarto. Cloth, $7.50. 
 
 "The most complete account of ancient Egypt ever published." — Chicago Herald, 
 
 " Professor Maspero's intimate acquaintance with Egypt and its literature, and the 
 
 opportunities offered him by his position for several years as director of the Bulak 
 
 Museum give him a unique claim to speak with authority on the history of the Nile 
 
 Valley." — New York Sun. 
 
 P 
 
 OFULAR ASTRONOMY: A General Description 
 
 of the Heavens, By Camille Flammarion. Translated from 
 the French by J. Ellard Gore, F. R. A. S. With 3 Plates 
 and 288 Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, $4.50. 
 
 " M. Flammarion has produced a work that charms while it interests. He has 
 classified astronomy so perfectly that any person of ordinarji] intelligence may learn 
 from this book practically all that the men in the observatories know."— A^fw York 
 Times. 
 
 "The fullest and most elaborate compendium of popular astronomy. . . , The 
 book might reasonably be pronounced the most desirable of its kind." — New York 
 Sun. 
 
 L 
 
 IFE OF SIR RICHARD O WEN. By Rev. Rich- 
 ard Owen. With an Introduction by T. H. Huxley. 2 vols. 
 i2mo. Cloth, $7.50. 
 
 " The value of these memoirs is that they disclose with great minuteness the daily 
 labors and occupations of one of the foremost men of science of England." — Boston 
 Herald. 
 
 ' A noteworthy contribution to biographical literature. ' — Philadelpkia Press, 
 
 D 
 
 BAN BUCKLAND. The Life and Correspond- 
 ence of William Buckland, D. D., F. R. S., sometime Dean 
 of Westminster, twice President of the Theological Society, and 
 first President of the British Association. By his Daughter, 
 Mrs. Gordon. With Portraits and Illustrations. 8vo. Buck- 
 ram, $3.50. 
 
 " Next to Charles Darwin, Dean Buckland is certainly the most interesting person- 
 ality in the field of natural science that the present century has produced." — London 
 Daily News. 
 
 " A very readable book, for it gives an excellent account, without any padding or 
 unnecessary' detail, of a most original man." — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 

 ^