YALE UNIVERSITY
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THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

TI^ PRORHETS OF ISRAEL
AND
THEIR PLACE IN HISTORY

By the Same Author
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE
JEWISH CHURCH
New and Enlarged Edition
Demy Svo. Price 108. 6d. Bound in Cloth

THE RELIGION OF THE SEMITES
THE FUNDAMENTAL INSTITUTIONS
Second Edition
Revised and Enlarged by the Author
' Demy 8vo. Price 15s. net. Bound in Cloth

THE
PROPHETS of ISRAEL
AND
THEIR PLACE IN HISTORY
TO THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY B.C.

By the late Vf, ROBERTSON SMITH. M.A... LL.D.
ft '"
^ PROFESSOR OF ARABIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

WITH INTRODUCTION AND ADDITIONAL NOTES BY
THE REV. T. K. CHEYNE, M.A., D.D.
ORIEL PROFESSOR OF THE INTERPRETATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE AT OXFORD,
CANON OF ROCHESTER

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK r
1902

Pullished 1SS2
Second Edition, with Introduction and Notes by Rev. T. K. Cheyne,
published zSgj
Reprinted June iSgy, February 1902

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Introduction . . . . . .vii
Author's Pbeface ..... zlix
LECTURE I.
Israel and Jehovah .. . . . . 1
LECTURE II.
Jehovah and the Gods of the Nations . . 47
LECTURE III.
Amos and the House of Jehu . . . 90
LECTURE IV.
Hosea and the Fall of Ephbaim . . .144
LECTURE V.
The Kingdom of Judah and the Beginnings of
Isaiah's Woke . . . * .191

CONTENTS.

LECTURE VI.
PAGR
The Earlhir Prophecies of Isaiah . . .235

LECTURE VII.
Isaiah and Micah in the Reign of Hezekiah . 279
LECTURE VIII.
The Deliveeanoe from Assyria . , 317

Notes and Illustrations • , . , 375

Index

443

INTBODUCTION.

It is not too much to say that the present.' work;
though it only now appears in a second editions has.
achieved one of the greatest known literary successes
in the department of theology. It was, on its first
appearance, eagerly bought and as eagerly read, and,
though it has long been out of print, the demand for
it has never ceased. The beloved and admired author
resisted the temptation of simply reprinting it, and
hoped — but hoped in vain — for leisure and strength to
revise it. It would, no doubt, have cost him more
labour than the companion- volume of Lectures, which
he issued in a conscientiously revised edition in 1893,
for reasons which the reader who is unfamiliar with
the subject will see when he has finished this Intro
duction. And precisely for this reason I lament, as
much as any young student, that it was not vouchsafed-
to the highly gifted author to revise his own work.
And now that the publishers have determined on

viii INTRODUCTION.

re.-issuing the book, and have requested me, as an old
friend of the author, to undertake the editorship, I
must ask the forbearance of the reader if the result
should in any respect disappoint him. For it is no
easy task to adapt a work first published in 1882 to
the wants of the present generation of students.1
It was clearly out of my power to divine the
changes which the author would have introduced into
the text. In their original form, the Lectures are not
only a monument of a stirring crisis in the Church
to which he belonged, but a persuasive presentation
of a view of the earlier prophets and their times,
which may still be assimilated with great advantage
by students. With a few trifling exceptions, there
fore, about which no well-informed editor could have
the least doubt, the form of the Lectures remains
unaltered. Nor have I either altered or added to the
notes without some good reason. To a large extent
the additions consist of references to recent works,
including those masterly Burnett Lectures, the second
edition of which, revised by the author, appeared in
1894. These additions are marked by square brackets.
Lastly, as regards the present Introduction, two objects
have been before me, — first, I have sought to give
1 The reader may be glad to compare these Lectures with a volume
of excellent lectures (German) on the same subject, but more com

prehensive, by Prof. Cornill (1894).

INTRODUCTION. ix

some idea of the present position of the criticism of
the earlier prophets ; and, next, I have ventured to indi
cate some statements in these. Lectures, which, though
natural to the author in 1882, would scarcely have been
re-published by him unaltered at the present time. I
will now proceed at once to the former part of my duty.
I would beg leave, at the outset, to caution the
student against identifying the author too closely
with the results which he sets forth. In reading
these Lectures it is of great importance to remember
the date at which they were composed, and the rest
lessly progressive intellect of this brilliant and, fearless
scholar. It is surely most improbable that " one who
was in the van of progress when Hexateuch criticism
first began to be fully discussed in England would
have been in the rear when the turn of the prophetic
literature came."1 In fact, these striking Lectures
on the Prophets seem to me to bear somewhat the
same relation to a potential but never written Intro
duction to the Study of the Prophets as that borne
by the first edition of vol. i. of Kuenen's Inquiry to
the second. By the time that the name of Kuenen
had become widely known in this country, that f air-
1 I venture to quote from my Introduction to the Book of Isaiah
(p. xiii), because of the kindly and approving words which appeared in
p. 412 (Notes to Lecture V.) of the first edition of this work, but
which are in this edition not reproduced.

INTRODUCTION.

minded scholar had already revised and largely re
constructed his criticism of the Hexateuch. In other
words, from being a " moderate " he had become an
" extreme " critic, according to what was the English
theological standard during the seventies. Thanks,
however, in no slight degree to Robertson Smith, the
position in Hexateuch criticism adopted by Kuenen
(who, like Wellhausen, was one of his personal friends)
came to be regarded by many English students first as
possibly and then as probably right. In other words,
in this particular case, "extreme" criticism became
— I know not which term to prefer — " moderate " and
" sound." If Robertson Smith had lived, and had
possessed the requisite leisure for a thorough inquiry,
I have no doubt that he would have as much surprised
lay-readers by his revised views on the Prophets as
Kuenen must have surprised them by his changed
views on the Hexateuch. And yet it was impossible
that either Kuenen or Kobertson Smith should really
have changed. There is but one kind of criticism
known to science — that which leaves no problem till
it has been thoroughly examined, and which con
tinually advances to fresh tasks. There are some
critics who have greater versatility than others in
adapting methods to problems ; some who have greater
freedom from apologetic considerations than others;

INTRODUCTION.

some who. have a keener sense of the development
of language or of ideas, or a greater ability in formmg
a generally consistent historical picture than others ;
that is all the difference between them. In other
words, the antithesis between "moderate" and "ex
treme " criticism ought to give way to that between a
more and a less complete and thorough criticism. Of
a truly complete and thorough criticism, Kuenen, till
his lamented death, was one of the leading representa
tives. And thoroughness is certainly the characteristic
of Robertson Smith's best critical work.
But thoroughness is a relative term, and in 1882 it
was not possible for any one to see as clearly as ten
years later. - The true pioneers of a corrected criti
cism of the Prophets are neither Kuenen nor Robert
son Smith, but Wellhausen and Stade in their re
spective works on the history of the people, of Israel.
to which various valuable research-articles of Stade,
and, since 1892, the Minor Prophets of "Wellhausen
have to be added. Of the latter work, it may safely
be said that, with the exception of Duhm's Isaiah,
and, some will add, Giesebrecht's Jeremiah,1 no book
of equal importance for the critical study of the
Prophets has been produced in Germany for many a
1 A book which, from its cautious application of the newer critical
principles, will be specially useful in England.

xii INTRODUCTION.

long year. Unfortunately, though the criticism shows
increased thoroughness, the presentation of its grounds
is not as complete as could be wished. The1 arguments
are somewhat carelessly hinted, rather than set forth
with the full cogency of which they are often capable.
It is therefore highly desirable that earnest students
should be pointed to such a careful work as Kuenen's
Inquiry into the Origin and Collection of the Boohs of the
Old Testament (1885-87). It cannot, of course, repre
sent the actual state of criticism in 1895, but there
is no recent book whieh equally well initiates the
reader into the processes of scientific criticism, the
results which have been gained, and the problems
which await a fuller solution. I speak of Kuenen's
work as a whole, because, though it is the second
volume which students of the Prophets primarily
require, the remainder of the work will need to be
from time to time consulted. Well-considered and
approximately final decisions on the non-prophetic
writings cannot but have a certain weight in our
discussion of prophetic problems. The charges of
arbitrariness, and of treating as axiomatic conclusions,
which are but rash forecasts, would not probably be
hurled so often against the most progressive critics
if the authors of these charges had passed through a
more rigorous critical training themselves.

INTRODUCTION. xiii
It is to Kuenen, then, that the student may reason
ably turn for preliminary critical hints ; and here is
one hint which he gives on a subject of far-reaching
importance. It is that we cannot presume that any
pre-exilic prophetic writings have been handed down
to us in their integrity. The exile was a literary as
well as a political catastrophe, and the fragments of
the early literature had to be pieced together or even
re-cast by the literary skill of editors. Now, " between
the exilic and the post-exilic period a deep cleft exists,
and the study of the narrative books has shown us
that, in spite of, or rather in consequence of, its respect
for the past, Judaism devoted its attention to filling
up this cleft by the editorial modification of the
ancient records."1 It stands to reason that the
necessary supplementing of the ancient fragments
must have been done in the spirit of the times of
the editors, and we may therefore be sure that there
will, in general, be sufficient evidence of the date
of the inserted passages. Now and then, indeed,
hesitation may be not unreasonable. The editors
were earnest students of the fragmentary records of
the past, and may be presumed to have possessed
sometimes considerable literary and imitative talent.
They may, to some extent, have caught an early
1 Kuenen, Mrileitung, ii. 20 (§ 40).

xiv INTRODUCTION.

style and manner, and the ideas which they express
may be the legitimate developments of ideas of the
original writers. Still, upon the fact of editorial
manipulation there can be no doubt, and we ought
to read the Prophets with this fact in full view.1 More
especially should we be on our guard when we find
warnings in an early Prophet which can only be
understood as referring to the Babylonian exile, or ex-
hortatipns which lose all their point unless explained
from what we know of the spiritual history of the
postrexilie community.
It is upon this ground that I have ventured to
say elsewhere that " we can no longer assume that
a prophecy is Isaianic unless it contains something
flagrantly opposed to this assumption (such as the
mention of Cyrus or an Aramaic loan-word), but have
simply to consider to what period the circumstances
presupposed, the beliefs and ideas, and the literary
phenomena (including rhythm) most naturally assign
it." And I have urged that "this can be done much
better now than at any previous time, owing to our
fuller knowledge of the history of Old Testament
literature and of Israelitish religion."2 We have, in
fact, already re-constructed that history to such an
1 Of. Cheyne, Prophecies of Isaiah* pp. 228-231.
a Introduction to the Book of Isaiah (1895), Prologue, p. xxi.

INTRODUCTION. xv
extent that when a passage of prophecy is before us
we can, after a study of the three points referred to,
by uniting in friendly conference, determine within
certain limits the period to which the passage (if it be
not altogther too short or too vague) belongs.
IL
It is now time to mention some of the results of this
virtually new critical point of view which best deserve
acceptance, and briefly to indicate their bearinga
Those which relate to the Minor Prophets will almost
all be found in the work of Wellhausen already referred
to, which, in spite of its too great conciseness in argu
ment, is distinguished by caution and soundness of
judgment (for other critics, see Kuenen, whose discus
sions are perfect models of fairness). In the Book
of Amos the most important later insertions are (a) the
cognate doxologies in iv. 13 ; v. 8, 9 ; ix. 5 6 ; and (b)
the appendix in ix. 11-15, to which ix. 8-10 must be
added as the link between the threatenings pronounced
upon Israel in ix. 1-4, 7, and the idealistic conclusion.
Both on the ground of phraseology and on that of
ideas these passages must be assigned to a late editor,
who had the same conceptions of the divine nature, and
the same notions of the age widely called Messianic,

INTRODUCTION.

as the later writers in general. His phraseological
affinities are the closest to the Second Isaiah, to the
Book of Job, and to the close of Joel. Among minor
insertions may be mentioned (c) Am. i. 2, a most in
teresting passage, which, like ix. 13, has played a great
part in the controversy as to the date of Joel ; l (d) ii 4,
5, a cold, vague, and conventionally expressed passage
which greatly weakens the effect of the splendid
composition in which it is inserted, but is thoroughly
intelligible as a post-exilic work ; (e) v. 26, of which no
explanation can be given which suits the authorship of
Amos (see p. 399 ff.) ; (/) viii. 11, 12, the language and
ideas of which are alike unsuitable to the context (it
is a gloss on "faint for thirst," ver. 13).2 Robertson
Smith's judgment upon some of these passages (ii 4, 5,
and the doxologies) was favourable to the authorship
of Amos in 1882. But his argument (notes on
Lecture ILL) for retaining ii. 4, 5, seems to be beside
the mark. No one supposes that Amos " excepted
Judah from theyuniversal ruin." Equally inconclusive
is the same scholar's reasoning on the doxologies. Of
1 The case for the late date of this passage is so strong that one
is surprised to find Wellhausen accepting it in 1892 without question.
On some views which have been held as to the relation of Am. i. 2, to
Joel iii. 16, see Kirkpatrick, Doctrine of the Prophets (1892), and G. B.
Gray's artiole in the Expositor, 1893, pp. 208-225.
a 'With all his reluctance to admit later insertions, Konig frankly
admits that there seems to be one here.

INTRODUCTION.

course, the ideas on Jehovah's lordship over nature,
which we find in the Second Isaiah, are, in part, the
development of germs in the earlier Prophets. And,
though Kuenen also, in 1889, rejected (but not with
absolute confidence) the insertion-theory in its earlier
form, this only shows the characteristic cautiousness of
this critic, and his as yet imperfect application of his
new critical principles. In his section on the Book of
Amos he speaks of the " possibility " of late insertions ;
but, according to his principles, he should have said the
"probability." Now, if there are late insertions any
where in Amos, the passages referred to must be among
them. It remains for some later critic to work out
the criticism of Amos and the other Minor Prophets
in detail from this point of view, so far^ as it is
applicable. Meantime, those who wish for a specimen
of the highest prophetic idealism, and the most intense
prophetic faith in divine righteousness, should read
the Book of Amos, omitting these extremely doubtful
passages. Amos will become one of the most wonder
ful figures in the Biblical portrait gallery.
In the Book of Hosea we naturally expect to see
numerous signs of later editing. The abruptness of
style characteristic of chaps, iv.-xiv. made it easy for
editors to work in fresh passages, and the imperfect
and probably often scarcely legible state in which the

INTRODUCTION.

early records were transmitted may have made it
sometimes necessary for them to piece together, and so
inevitably to misrepresent, the scanty relics of Hosea.
In the present work, the most probable late insertions
can alone be referred to. The clearest of all are
(a) i. 10-ii 1 [ii. 1-3]; (6) "and David their king,"
iii. 5; (c) viii 14; and (d) xiv. 1-9 [2-10]. The first
of these passages (a) interrupts the prophecy of judg
ment, which (apart from i. 7, on which see below)
extends from i 2 to ii 15 (Heb. ii 17). It implies
that the Israelites are already in a foreign land, and
gives an at any rate premature promise of an increase
in their numbers and a restoration to Palestine. The
mention of Judah is also very strange ; indeed, Judah
is even placed before Israel. The phraseology, too, is
peculiar? and the imagery in i 10 [Heb. ii. 1] reminds
us of two probably very late passages: Isa. x. 22;
xlviii 19. In the second (5), the combination of the
worship of Jehovah, and of the ideal Davidic king, is
not in the spirit of Hosea any more than the parallel
statement in Jer. xxx. 9 is in that of Jeremiah.1 To
believe that Hosea would refer to the ideal king at
all is difficult, considering his attitude towards kingship
1 It is probable, however, that the insertion in Hos. iii. 5, though
late, is of earlier date than Jer. xxx. 9 (see Giesebrecht on Jer.),
just as Hos. i. 10 [ii 1] is probably of earlier date than the two
parallel passages in Isaiah (see my Introd. to Isaiah, p, 51).

INTROD UCTIOM

altogether;1 to believe that he would call this ideal
king "David" is still more difficult (cf. Ezek. xxxiv.
23, 24; xxxvii 24). The third passage (c) is not in
the style of the preceding prophecy; indeed, it is
identical with the second half of Am. ii 5.2 The
fourth (d), which, from the tenderness of its spirit and
the pictorial character of the style of vers. 5-8 is so de
servedly admired, is akin both in language and imagery
and in ideas to writings of the age which begins
with Jeremiah, and which, among later works, includes
the Song of Songs. An allusion like that in ver. 3 a to
Isa. xxx. 16 is quite compatible with this. A similar
combination of promises on the part of Jehovah, and
penitential prayers on that of "Ephraim," is given in
Jer. xxxi 10-20. The spirituality of the tone of
vers. 1-3 is, indeed, surprising (contrast the picture
in Hos. v. 6). The whole passage is certainly more
attractive than the appendix to the Book of Amos.
But, to understand Hosea aright, we must omit it To
have added anything to the stern warning in xiii 16
would have robbed it of half its force.
1 It is noteworthy that Konig, who, in general, accepts any possible
answer to critical objections, fully admits, even against Kuenen, that
Hosea regarded the first establishment of regal government as "an
aberration of Jehovah's people " {Ernlettumg, p. 310, § 61, 1). - On
Hosea's position, see Wellhausen's Prolegomena, E.T., p. 417 (with
note). 2 Observe in particular that "his Maker" is a late phrase (see the
evidence in my Introd. to Isaiah, p, 93), On Am. ii, 5 see above.

INTROD UCTION.

Four other passages are hardly less clear, especially
the first two, though the arguments are unavoidably
less varied, and, in so far, to those who have not been
prepared by a gradual initiation into the phenomena
of the prophetic literature, less convincing. These are —
(d) i 7; (e) iv. 15 a; (f) v. 15-vi 4; (g) vi 11-vii 1
(parts). The first (a) is the only later insertion
recognised by Kuenen in 1889. It appears to be an
allusion to the tradition of the overthrow of Sennacherib
given in Isa. xxxvii 36, and celebrated in Psalms xlvi
and xlviii The spirit is that of the Psalms (Ps. xx. 7 ;
xxxiii 7 ; xliv. 6 ; cxlvii 10) ; see also the reference to
horses as unsafe objects of trust, in the appendix to
Hosea (xiv. 3 a), a parallelism already noticed in Lecture
IV. The statement that Jehovah will have compassion
on the house of Judah seems contradicted by v. 10, 12,
14. The second (e) is ascribed to the late editor of
Hosea, on the ground of the weakness of the style
("let not Judah incur guilt"), and on that of the
implied favourable opinion of Judah (cf. i 7).
The third (/) is certainly not without points of contact
with the preceding and the following passages: — "I
will tear and go away," says Jehovah in ver. 14 ; " I will
go away " and " he hath torn " point back to this in v. 15
and vi. 1 respectively ; while, " after two days," in vi. 2,
may possibly be an allusion to " shall abide many days "

INTRODUCTION.

in iii 4. So, too, the writer prepares the way for the
expressions "piety" (or "kindness") and "knowledge
of God" in vi. 6 by introducing the same phrases in
vi. 3 and vi. 4 respectively. But how imperfect is
the connection produced I Looking first at the
connection with the sequel, we notice that the
perfects in vi 5 are most naturally taken as historical
We have scarcely a right to translate with Guthe,
" This being the case, I must hew them in pieces by
the prophets;" the writer almost certainly means,
Because of past acts of guilt (referred to in a
lost passage) Jehovah, by prophets like Elijah and
Elisha, announced his purpose of judgment. And
turning next to the connection with the preceding
paragraph, we are struck by its unnaturalness. In
v. 14, we are told that Jehovah has torn Israel and
Judah in pieces ; he is in terrible earnest. In v. 15,
however, we hear that he still hopes that his people
will acknowledge their guilt. This is in itself perhaps
conceivable, but is it intelligible that such an earnest
expression of faith and zeal as that in vi. 1-3 should
have been introduced by Hosea only to be branded by
him (in the name of Jehovah) as superficial ? To most
open-minded readers there will appear to be something
artificial in this; the writer fails to realise what was
natural and possible in the times of Hosea. Taking.

INTRO D UCTION.

this passage in connection not only with xiv. 1-8 (9),
but with vi. 11-vii 1 (g), we cannot avoid pronouncing
it a late insertion. The writer is really thinking, not
of Hosea's times, but of his own. He intends a useful
lesson to be drawn from it by his own generation — a
lesson such as is suggested in a passage of one of the
late didactic psalms (Ps. lxxviii. 34-37). Perhaps, too,
comparing xiv. 1-3, we may say that the writer attaches
importance to the initiation of public acts of repentance
by the religious authorities. In vi. 1-3, Israel takes the
first step in its repentance, and is repelled. But in xiv.
1-3, the writer and teacher who (honestly) assumes the
character of Hosea gives Israel notice when it is time
to approach Jehovah with resolutions of amendment.
(g) The words, " When I turn back the captivity of my
people, when I heal Israel," are evidently a comforting
insertion, perhaps designed to define the sense of the
"harvest" of Judah, which Hosea (if he wrote vi 11 a)
meant in an unfavourable sense. The phrase, " To turn
the captivity of . . ," is characteristically late.
Hosea, like Amos, gains by this more thorough
criticism. He becomes a stronger man than we fancied.
He has, no doubt, hopes for Israel to which Amos was
a stjranger, but he is not quite so much a prey to moods
as used to be thought ; he can acquiesce more readily
in the acknowledged will of his God.

INTRODUCTION. xxiii

With regard to the Book of Micah, it is becoming
more and more doubtful whether more than two or three
fragments of the heterogeneous collection of fragments
in chaps, iv.-vii can have come from that prophet.
In 1889 Kuenen, whose extreme caution in dealing
with Amos and Hosea gives special weight to his
decision, pronounced that vi-vii 6 was most probably
written under Manasseh, and not by Micah, while vii
7-20 (adopting Wellhausen's original view) belongs
probably to the exile. As to chaps, iv. 6-v. 15,
Kuenen maintained its composite origin, iv. 9-10
(except the words " and thou shalt go to Babylon " in
iv. 10), v. 1-6, v. 7-9, and v. 10-15 (in its original
form) being the work of Micah, the rest that of a later
editor or editors. With regard to iv. 1-4, he considered
vers. 1-4, and Isa. ii 2-4, to be two independent copies
of the same original, and that original to be the work
of a prophet older than both Isaiah and Micah. Even
in chaps, i-iii, which he admitted to be, as a whole,
Micah's work, he found one later insertion, viz.,
ii 12, 13. With these conclusions Wellhausen in 1892
largely agrees. He thinks, however (following Giese-
brecht), that the appendix is still more probably post-
exilic ; the antithesis is not merely between Zion and
Babylon, but between Zion and the entire heathen
world, and it is not the exiles who are brought back

INTRODUCTION.

from Chaldsea in vii 12, but the Jews of the Dispersion
from the whole world. He declines to assign more than
vi 1-8 to the reign of Manasseh, and suspects that
it may be rather older ; in either case, it may possibly,
he thinks, be Micah's work As to iv. 1-4 (5), he
rejects the once favourite view that it is a very old
prophecy, and agrees with Stade as to its late date. In
iv. 6-v. 15 he is willing to ascribe iv. 9, 10 (except the
reference to Babylon), iv. 14, and v. 10-14, to the time
of Micah, but not with any dogmatic positiveness ; x
indeed, iv. 9, 10, as a whole, may almost more pro
bably be later. Turning next with some curiosity to
Konig (1893), one finds2 that even this great church-
critic admits that ii 12, 13, is an editorial insertion.
Characteristically enough, however, he pronounces an
exilic or post-exilic date " unacceptable." It is certain,
however, that, unless criticism is to take many retro
grade steps, the situation, the phraseology, and the ideas
are not pre-exilic (cf. Stade in his Zeitschrift for 1881,
p. 162 seq.). Nor is Konig's reply to the criticisms of
recent workers any more up to date. He thinks it
enough to answer Stade's plausible observation that
these chapters refer not to some definite nation or
nations, but vaguely to " many peoples," by a reference
(from Giesebrecht) to Isa. viii 9 ; xxix. 7 ; Jer. iii 17.
1 On Mic. iv. 10 see below, p. 480. » Einleitung, p. 328 (§ 63, 1 0).

INTRODUCTION.

But in iv. 10 he recognises a later insertion, only it is
not to be exilic or post-exilic, but from the last years
before the exile. On vi 1-vii 6 (7) he agrees with
Kuenen and Ewald ; he also assigns, in agreement with
Ewald, but not with Kuenen, vii. 8-20 to the same
period of persecution, which so deeply needed a divine
message of encouragement.
To Professor Driver's remarks1 on the analysis of
Mica*h ii iv.-v., and vi.-vii, a detailed reply is unneces
sary. However fair from the point of view adopted
in the Introduction, they will not satisfy students
who have been trained in the not less cautious but
(in the sense already defined) more thorough school of
Kuenen, and who can therefore realise the broader
point of view of Stade and Wellhausen. The remarks
may, indeed, be chiefly intended to prevent students
who are new to criticism from ascribing finality to
any results as yet reached. The author is doubtless
well aware of the provisionalness of recent criticism
of the prophets, and may think that some of
Stade's disciples are too loud in their praises of
their master. For my own part, I only wish that I
could hear these praises ; I can only hear from most
English scholars what appears to me scarcely generdus
censure. 1 Introduction, pp. 307-313.

xxvi INTRODUCTION.

Professor Driver is, in fact, not very far from the
point where our common friend Robertson Smith was
in 1882. The Micah-criticism of the latter scholar,
though somewhat bolder than that of Driver, Konig,
and Wildeboer to-day, is still strongly marked by pro-
visionalness. Naturally enough ; for he wrote only one
year after Stade's great pioneering article in his
Zeitscfmfi} The next scholar who takes up Micah
from Stade's point of view, and does not shrink
from the labour of putting down all the data, will
have a fine opportunity of distinguishing himself.
Meantime, so far as I can see, WeHhausen's con
clusions, though not in all points final, are better
founded than the scantiness of his notes might some
times lead one to suppose. The bearings of these on
the history of Israelitish religion are far from slight.
The result of this recent criticism on Robertson
Smith's finely drawn sketch of the prophecy of Micah
may, I fear, be disappointing. His own skilful pen
could, no doubt, have mitigated this impression, for
the later period of the history of Israel gains by
1 See also Robertson Smith's article " Micah " in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica (1883). My own small book on Micah (1882) is open to
the- same objection ; the last edition (1895), however, is to some
extent brought up to date. It is more surprising that Wildeboer,
approaching the subject at a later stage of the critical movement,
while accepting Stade't fundamental principle (the editorial activity
of the Sopherim) should still have been so timid in applying this
principle. See Die LiMeratw des A.T., 1895, p. 154 seq.

INTRODUCTION.

Micah's apparent loss. The age of Hezekiah is de
prived of the two great Messianic prophecies in iv.
1-5 and v. 2-5,1 but these same prophecies help to give
definiteness to the thoughts of a period which has
been unduly depreciated. Robertson Smith's capital
argument against the view that Micah expected a
total captivity of Judah needs but little modification,
though we cannot now be sure that he, the peasant-
prophet, gave as high a place to Zion in his pictures of
the future as the author supposed.
The fourth prophet, whose reputed works contribute
material for these Lectures, is Isaiah — that is, the
true Isaiah of Jerusalem, not the so-called' " second," or,
as Matthew Arnold called him, the Babylonian Isaiah.
And here I would most sincerely urge the reader not
to trouble himself with these pages till he has done
justice to the views expressed by the author. For,
though I will only lay stress on what appear to me
to be the most probable of the results of recent
criticism, yet the reader may at first be disappointed
at their seemingly subversive character. Subversive,
indeed, they are not, except in a good sense; but to
readers who have not assimilated the virtually nev%-
1 On iv. 1-4 (5) see my Introduction to Isaiah, pp. 9-16 ; on v. 2-5
Micah (in Cambridge School and College Bible) ad loe With Roorda
I read Beth-Ephratah (so independently Wellhausen). In v. 2 there
is an allusion to Isa. vii. 14. v ' c

INTRODUCTION.

critical principles spoken of, and who are not quick
at recombining fresh results into a new historical
picture, they may for a time appear so. Moreover, I
have myself a tender feeling towards old views which
I held myself for so many years, and am not un
willing that young students should, at any rate for
a time, hold them. If, however, the reader has
something of the deep reverence for truth which
the author himself possessed, then I earnestly advise
him not to be deterred from passing beyond the
Robertson Smith of 1882. It is certain that such a
student will gain more than he loses. The wisest
scholars assure us that truth heals the wounds that
she has herself caused ; and it appears to me at least
that Isaiah becomes more intelligible and in some
sense greater through the transference of some of his
supposed utterances to unknown writers of a much
later but not less important age.
At this point the student may be advised to consult
some conspectus of the passages most commonly re
ferred to in Isaiah ; he will find one ready to his hand
in note 7 on the fifth of these Lectures. The use of
this will be in summarising the critical tradition which
has obtained some degree of fixity, but which now
needs a careful testing. Through a long course of
years I have myself endeavoured to pass this new

INTRODUCTION

tradition through the crucible, with regard both to
the true and to the " second " Isaiah. My intermediate
results on the former were given in the Jewish Quar
terly Review for July 1892, and those on the latter in
the same Review for July and October 1891. These
are superseded, however, by those given in an Introduc
tion to the Booh of Isaiah (1895), an attempt at
analytic criticism, to which is added an appendix
containing the undoubted portions of the two chief
prophetic writers in a translation. That this book,
like that of Duhm, which appeared in 1892, will
contribute to carry 'the criticism of Isaiah some
steps further, the writer confidently hopes. It is at
any rate thoroughgoing; and the writer's habit of
constantly correcting his own results by those of
fellow-workers (especially Duhm), will, he hopes,
have preserved him from any flagrant blunder or
gross improbability. It may be permissible to add
here a sentence from the opening address to the
reader: — "Alas that Robertson Smith is not here
to test, or assist the author in testing, the criticism of
this volume ! He would not have done it hastily, for no
one knew better than he the respect which is due to
all patient and original work. . . . But he would
certainly not have been more content with my work
than with his own. He would have given not merely

INTRODUCTION.

acute but fruitful suggestions, clearing up difficulties,
and applying the comparative method in new direc
tions." Before proceeding further, it may be useful to in
dicate the passages which four able critics whose
names sound well in England have felt obliged to
withdraw from the traditional writings of Isaiah of
Jerusalem. The critics selected are Ewald (1866),
Kuenen (1889), Dillmann (1890), and Konig (1893).
To have passed over Ewald would have been impos
sible, because, again and again, this great though not
faultless scholar came to conclusions which were in
advance of his times. Without him Stade, Well
hausen, and Duhm would not have reached their
present positions; and I, too, have towards him
the loyalty of a disciple to a master. Kuenen, from
his combined freedom and caution, and his high
position as a critic even in England, could not be
omitted. But he seems to have wanted more time
to recast thoroughly his older views on Isaiah in the
light of that newer criticism of which Stade has
been the chief pioneer. His statement of principles
is more satisfactory than his application of them.
Dillmann, whose name is not less honoured than
Kuenen's, is a critic of wide range, and his fairness
in recognising elements of truth in the work of his

INTRODUCTION.

juniors deserves warm recognition. But, partly from
the timidity of age, and partly perhaps from loyalty to
Ewald, he could not as a rule see whither the data which
he has amassed should lead him, and too rarely reached
anything better than an unsatisfactory compromise.
Konig is such a deep student of the facts of the
Hebrew language that his critical conclusions possess a
special interest, yet his criticism is disappointing even
on the linguistic side. He attaches too much weight
to certam grammatical phenomena which might con
ceivably be due to editors or scribes, and which first
obtain a high degree of importance when confirmed by
a large examination of words and phrases. Whenever
critical grasp is required he fails us. How mechanical,
for instance, is his treatment of Isaiah xxiii, the whole
of which has to be late because the word Kasdvm
("Chaldeans") occurs in ver. 13; whereas there are
several indications in that verse that, at any rate as it
now stands, it is not by the author of the preceding elegy.
These are the questionable passages in the traditional
writings of Isaiah of Jerusalem, with the names
of the respective critics who deny them to that
prophet : —
(a) iv. 5 5,6,Dillmann. (6) xi. 10-xii 6, Kuenen, Konig;
xii, Ewald, Dillmann. (c) xix. 18, Konig; xix. 18 6,
Dillmann. (d) xxi 11, 12, and 13, 14, Ewald, Dill-

INTRODUCTION.

mann (older prophecies adopted by Isaiah).1 (e) xxiii.
1-14, Ewald (the work of a younger contemporary and
disciple of Isaiah),2 Konig; xxiii. 15-18, Ewald, Kuenen,
Dillmann (a later appendix). (/ ) xxxii, xxxiii, Kuenen
(probably pre-exilic), Konig (at any rate post-Isaianic),
xxxiii, Ewald (the work of a disciple of Isaiah).3
Let us take these in order, (a) That vers. 5, 6 are
post-exilic was shown long ago by Stade. The evidence
for the late origin of ver. 5 a is as strong as that for the
late date of ver. 6; ver. 5 6 must be considered by
itself and explained as a gloss.4 But we cannot separate
vers. 5 a, 6 from vers. 2-4, even if, as a last resource,
we rearrange vers. 2-4, as Stade has done with
a boldness of which the author of these Lectures
would hardly have approved. The ideas and ex
pressions of the whole passage are alike charac
teristically late, and suggest the only possible theory
that Isaiah iv. 2-6, is a consolatory appendix such

1 The new tradition accepts a similar view for ii. 2-4 and xv. 1-xvi. 12.
2 Dillmann prefers to suppose an Isaianio original, worked over by a
later editor.
3 Dillmann admits only that the form belongs to a disciple ; the
basis, however, is a prophecy of Isaiah.
4 The words explain the "creation" of the cloud over the temple.
The "canopy" {huppah) is the bridal canopy; the worshipping com
munity is the bride, Jehovah i3 the bridegroom. Jehovah is also
king, the temple-mount is his throne. The "glory" {cf. Isa. xxiv.
23, R.V., marg.) of the bridegroom and the bride needs this canopy
of cloud. So Duhm.

INTRODUCTION.

as the post-exilic editors loved to give1 to pre-exilic
fragments, especially when these were of a threatening
import, (b) Here, too, a post-exilic origin is certain.
The use of the phrase "the remnant of his people"
for the exiles of Israel and Judah has been sufficiently
shown by Giesebrecht2 to be a sure sign of late
origin. Nor is it hard to recognise in vers. 10-16
the hopes and aspirations, and to some extent the
phraseology, characteristic of post-exilic times. It
is equally clear that the rhythmical poverty of xi.
9-16, and the weakness and conventionality of the
bits of song in chapter xii. are inconsistent with
the authorship of Isaiah. (c) Konig sees rightly
that Trix- 18 can only refer to Jewish colonies
in Egypt, and refrains from the arbitrary supposition
that Isaiah was supernaturally informed of the future
establishment of such colonies. But he does not see
how the late writer of ver. 18 can also have written
vers. 19, 20. I trust that his difficulty has been removed
in the recent Introduction to Isaiah, p. 106 seq. The
objection that the passage must be early because of the
mention of a sacred macceba (i.e., pillar) is a familiar
one (cf. note 5 on Lecture VIII.). If it could be sus
tained, it would only show that the passage was pre-
1 We have already found this in Amos, Hosea, and Micah, and again
and again criticism finds parallels in Isaiah.

2 Beiirdge zwr Jesaia-Kritik (1890), p. 38 seq.

INTRODUCTION.

Deuteronomic, not that it was Isaianic. But it cannot
be said that the objection is a sound one. Our old
mechanical division of the history of cultus into pre-
and post-Deuteronomic has long since broken down.
" The passage may be quite naturally referred to the
period when there was a compromise between the
prophets and the legalists; in shortj it may quite
well be post-Deuteronomic. For, though the letter of
the law in Deuteronomy is violated, the spirit is not." J
Nor must we confine our attention to the magceba.
An altar is also referred to, and one can hardly believe
that Isaiah would have spoken of an altar thus
respectfully2 (see i 11). It may have been possible
in 1889 for Kuenen to accept vers. 16-25 as Isaianic,3
but the doubtfulness with which he speaks shows
that the question has already passed into a new
phase, and if the master had had time to apply his
principles more consistently he would almost certainly
have re-considered his older decision. The only field
for debate, as it seems to me, is in xix. 1-14. That
this passage is not earlier than the time of Esarhaddon
and Assurbanipal is now on historical grounds certain;
1 Introduction to Isaiah, p. 101.
2 Note that Hosea couples "sacrifice and macceba" with "ephod
and teraphim" among the objects which the Israelites will have to
dispense with in their exile (Hos. iii. 4).
g, ii. 68 f.

INTRODUCTION.

but the poverty and imitativeness of the style justify
us in referring it to the post-exilic age, and by
preference to the period between Cambyses and Xerxes.
A still later period is excluded by the coldness of the
tone.1 (d) The view adopted from Ewald by Dillmann
is historically untenable, nor does the language at all
favour a period even as late as Isaiah. Historically,
the earliest conceivable age is that of Assurbanipal,
but the Aramaic colouring of the passages referred to
points rather, at earliest, to the age of Nebuchadnezzar.2
(e) That chapter xxiii as it now stands is post-exilic is
beyond reasonable doubt. That vers. 1-14 and vers. 15-
18 are from different hands is also at once clear. The
only question is, whether there is sufficient reason to
suppose an Isaianic basis. I have lately answered this
in the affirmative.3 But it is rather against this view
that it has the support of Dillmann, who seems to
younger scholars to be too much inclined to pro
visional compromises. (/) That chapter xxxiii., in
spite of some phraseological points of contact with
Isaiah, is post-exilic, no longer admits of doubt.4
Heartily as all reverent minds must desire to accept
1 Into: Is., pp. 114-119. Winckler (1895) independently refers
xix. 1-14 to the time of Esarhaddon {Gesch. Isr., i. 100),
'Op. tit., -p. 130 f.
» Op. tit,., pp. 139-144.
1 Op. tit., pp. 163-180.

INTROD UCTION.

the historical exposition of this chapter given in the
eighth of these Lectures, the arguments against it seem
overwhelmingly strong. The linguistic and phrase
ological evidence is here remarkably full. One indirect
consequence of this is (as Dalman has not failed to
notice) to cast great doubt on the pre-exilic origin of
Psalms xlvi. and xlviii With chapter TTnriij we must
couple xxxii. 9-20, which is also late both in language
and in ideas. The only reasonable doubt is with
regard to xxxii 1-8, of which Duhm still claims the
first five verses for Isaiah, without (as it seems to me)
offering any valid reasons for his analysis.
Of passages of Isaiah not questioned by the four
critics mentioned above, but strongly doubted either
by Duhm and by myself, or by one of us, I will only
mention (a) certain passages in x. 5-34, which appear
to have been inserted by a late editor, partly to connect
imperfect fragments of Isaiah, and partly to adapt the
work as a whole to the eschatological requirements of
post-exilic times;1 (6) xxix. 5, 7, 8, which appears to
have been inserted late to mitigate the sternness of
the woe pronounced on Jerusalem, which, the prophecies
being regarded as having a post-exilic as well as a
pre-exilic reference, depressed pious Jews in later

p. tit., pB. 48-S7.

INTRODUCTION. xxxvii
times ; x (c) xxix. 16-24, a passage apparently intended
for quite a different class of persons from those ad
dressed in the preceding prophecy;2 and (d) xxx.
18-26, a passage cognate with (6), on the happy
consequences of Judah's regeneration.3 Except as to
(b), Duhm and the present writer are agreed on these
passages. A right decision on the matter is of the
utmost importance for the due comprehension of
Isaiah; but I must refer the reader to the detailed
arguments in my Introduction. With regard to (6),
I think myself, with Haekmann, that, on grounds both
of style and of ideas, the passage is distinctly non-
Isaianic. It seems most unlikely that the Prophet
should have suggested two different interpretations of
the name " Ariel," one of which would strongly tend
to destroy the effect of the other. The doubted
passage seems also inconsistent with the stern threats
of judgment upon Jerusalem in chapters vi. and
xxii; nor is it probable that Isaiah, like much
later prophets, anticipated a day when a horde of
nations should assemble to besiege Jerusalem. The
question can only be argued profitably by those who
have assimilated the principles of the school of Stade
1 Op. tit, pp. 188-190.
2 Robertson Smith's exposition of xxix. 16 (see p. 324) is hardly
natural, but is unavoidable on the old view of the section. See
Intr. Is., pp. 190-196. » Op. tit., pp. 197-199.

INTRODUCTION.

and Wellhausen, and who, in considering the prophecies
in the Book of Isaiah, ask themselves, not, Is there any
reason why this or that prophecy should not be by
Isaiah, but, What is the period in which, by historical or
social situation, language, rhythm, and ideas, the com
position of the prophecy can most easily be understood ?
The other critical questions which most call for
discussion by scholars who are sound on first principles
are those connected with ix. 2-7 (1-6) and xi 1-9.
Robertson Smith has already remarked that "the
person of the Messiah has not that foremost place
in Isaiah's theology which has often been supposed"
(Lecture VII.) ; and the result of denying his author
ship, not only of xxxii. 1-8 (the poorest of the
personal Messianic passages in Isaiah), but the justly
admired prophecy of the "king with the four names"
(G. A. Smith), and of the "shoot from the stock of
Jesse," involves nothing less than the abandonment
of Isaiah's claim to be a preacher of the Messiah.
Human frailty would gladly clutch even at straws,
and hope, that this conclusion may be avoided. All
the comfort that I can offer is that, though, so far
as the contents are concerned, the composition of
these two prophecies can most easily be understood
in the post-exilic age, yet the phraseological data are
not on the whole markedly inconsistent with the

INTRODUCTION. xxxix
authorship of Isaiah. Nor would I be understood
to assert that Isaiah's imagination was at all times
closed to idealistic pictures, but I think that he
rigorously restrained his idealism ; and in the two
most idealistic passages1 which are certainly his
(xiv. 32 ; xxviii. 16), it is not a future scion of the
house of David, but Jehovah himself, upon whom
his hopes for Jerusalem's future are based. Nor iS|,
there any mention of the ideal king in Isa. ii 2-4,
which Duhm (contrary to the general opinion of
critics) claims for Isaiah, but which is, as Stade,
Guthe, Hackmann, Winckler, Toy, and myself hold is,
not only not Isaiah's, but undoubtedly post-exilic.
Upon the late date of these fine passages, however,
I lay no stress. Those who will may assign them
(including ii. 2-4 and xxxii. 1-8) to Isaiah's old age,
a period of which I cannot profess to know anything.
But I do most earnestly protest against the gratuitous
accusation that critics of the newer school under-rate
the power of great creative personalities. I am sure
that I, at least, have proved that I am well aware
of the "Alpine peaks of personality" which "break
the monotony of normal evolutional progress." 2 Such
1 Duhm, however, denies xiv. 28-32 to Isaiah.
* Whitehouse, Review of Cheyne's Introduction to the Book of
Isaiah in Critical' Bewtie, 1895 (July), p. 230.

INTROD UCTION.

charges ought not to be brought against men who
have long since made the historical study of antiquity
their life-work. The danger is, not that some theory
of evolution should blind the eyes of mature his
torical students, but that the relics of a worn-out
form of the belief in the supernatural should hinder
even good scholars from assimilating and applying
sound principles of criticism, and from forming a
historically consistent picture of the development of
religious thought and belief in Israel.
To sum up. The present work is important, not
so much as giving established facts, but as enabling
us to see the classical prophetic age as it appeared
to an eminent student and teacher in a somewhat
earlier phase of study. Just as it is still useful to
read voL i of Ewald's History, though, as a whole,
it is now antiquated, so it is still abundantly worth
while to read these Lectures, because of the truth
which they so vividly present in the midst of in
evitable error, and because of the high moral earnest
ness and the educational talent of the author. The
gulf between the ancients and ourselves will never
be entirely filled up, and there is much which can
be almost better learned from the books of an earlier
generation. It is also undeniable that there are
still respected scholars who occupy more or less

INTRODUCTION. xii

fully the same position as the author, though it may
be questioned how long they will continue to do so.
On these grounds, it is not unnatural that ordinary
students should begin their critical course by adopting
Robertson Smith's position; and, provided that they
keep their minds open, and try to realise (as I believe
that our friend would have done) the newer point
of^view, I heartily commend this book to their use.
In the preceding section, I have endeavoured, so
far as space allowed, to show by examples the ad
vance which some of the hardest workers in this
field believe themselves to have made since 1882.
in.1
It was one conspicuous excellence of Robertson"
Smith that he was a " whole man," that there was
no gulf between his critical and his theological views.
In an age of transition, it is not surprising if students
do not always see the theological modifications which
necessarily follow- from their critical theories on the
Scriptures. This was not the case with the gifted
scholar whom we have lost, and I venture to think
that the theological reasoning on revelation in the
present volume is both clearer and more effective
1 The student may here compare Nowack's little tract on the
growth of Israelitish religion (1895).

xiii INTRODUCTION.

than most that has up to this time been offered
by church-writers, both north and south of the
Tweed. Hence, however, arises a new danger. The
exposition of the author's theological views in these
Lectures may possibly be regarded as a final utterance.
Would Robertson Smith in 1894 (the year of his
lamented death) have desired this? I greatly doubt
it. In theology, as well as in criticism, he had
great potentialities, and could as -well have filled
the office of a professor of theology as of the Semitic
languages. That the fundamental ideas of his re
ligious thinking must have remained unaltered, I do
not presume to doubt; but in the working out of
those ideas modifications may reasonably be antici
pated. Prof. Lindsay's sketch, so sympathetic and
competent, of his friend's earlier teaching on the
" doctrine of Scripture " x (Expositor, Nov. 1894) seems
to me not to allow room enough for, the process of
theological expansion.
The criticisms which these remarks introduce are
offered with the utmost diffidence. It is not perhaps
very surprising if some expressions were used in 1882
which in 1895 may seem to require qualification,
and if some inferential readings of history should
1 The present writer has offered a friendly criticism of some
points in this article in the Expositor for December 1894.

INTRODUCTION. xliii
need modification in the light of recent criticism. Let
me say, at the outset, that Robertson Smith's method
of teaching, both critically and theologically, seems
to me a sound one. " Instead of asking at the outset
what the prophet has to teach us," he says, " I shall
inquire what he desired to teach his own con
temporaries," and he adds that he hopes thus to
" hjarn something of [the prophet's] place and function
in the unity of the divine work of revelation " (p. 8).
But a little further on we find expressions used here
and there which might easily be taken to imply a
view of religion inconsistent with that which the
author so earnestly held, and the reader may be
cautioned against such a misinterpretation. So keen
a critic as Robertson Smith would most likely have}*
smoothed away these apparent inconsistencies.
Passing on to the large Mosaic question, which
Lectures like the present could not altogether pass
over, it is surely more than probable that the
author would have re-written the statements respect
ing, Moses on pp. 32-36. Equally certain is it that he
would have altered the passage on p. 40, which begins,
" So in the Ten Words, the fundamental document of
the religion of the Old Testament." It is a pity that
we have no record of his later views of the Decalogue
of Ex. xx. Its date, he told us in 1888, is " a matter

xliv INTRODUCTION.

of minor importance for the historian." 1 The author's
name, of course, does not matter ; indeed, was there an
author? But surely the age matters. Kuenen and
Wellhausen place the Decalogue of Ex. xx. in the time
of Manasseh; it seems, at any rate, to be, in contra
distinction to the older Decalogue of Ex. xxxiv., a
product of the prophetic school of thought. It is
more than probable that Robertson Smith would have
materially altered this passage. All honour to him
for the caution of his early statement ! What Church
man does not feel on this point the (in a certain sense)
subversive character of later critical results? But
what careful student can fail, sooner or later, to pass
to the side of the two critics mentioned? Here is,
kindeed, a test of critical consistency. Happily we
are not asked to believe either in Moses or in the
Decalogue. Truth in this case can have no great
difficulty in healing the wounds she has inflicted!
It was, however, a boon to many of the hearers
and readers of these Lectures to learn that "neither
Moses nor Samuel gave Israel any new system of
metaphysical theology." Before Robertson Smith
spoke out, liberal-minded students were still under the
1 English Historical Review, 1888, p. 352. That the writer's article
"Decalogue," in the Encyclopaedia Britarmica is relatively so very
conservative is not surprising, considering its date (1877), and the cir
cumstances under which it was written.

INTRODUCTION. xiv
influence of Ewald, whose abstract reading of the
"teaching" of Moses has been justly described by
Dorner (an unprejudiced witness) as an unhistorical
violation of the great principle of development. And
whatever view be held as to questions of dogmatic
theology, we still agree that " it was from the
personal experience of Jehovah's character, read in
the actual 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 " (p. 59). Unfortunately, the very
next sentence suggests the misleading idea that those
"general propositions" are what we are wont to call
"doctrines," and the reference to Moses on p. 58 is
very confusing.
On p. 47 (Lect. II.) there is, doubtless by a mere
slip, a relic of older critical views in the passage
which begins, "The religion of Jehovah, which lost
the best part of its original meaning . . . threatened
to disappear . . . before it could succeed in adapting
itself to the change from nomad to agricultural life."
This part of the work may profitably be compared
with the corresponding part of Wellhausen's History
of Israel and Judah. There may be a doubt as to the
right reconstruction of the period of Amos and Isaiah.
There can at the present day be none among

xlvi INTRODUCTION.

competently taught students as to the outlines of
the period covered in Lecture II. A few questionable
statements, which would presumably have been
reconsidered by the author, should not prevent us
from recognising the progressive tone of the great
teacher who addresses us. How suggestive are the
pages on the prophet Elijah ! But would the author
have retained, in a second edition, the statement (p. 83)
that "the God whom he declared to Israel was the
God of Moses " ? If the God of Moses was a national
God (p. 37), the God of Elijah is supernational ; Elijah
is the true predecessor of Amos, who can hold ,his
head up even in the prospect of the ruin of his
people. Israel may die, but Jehovah cannot.
With Lecture III. we enter on a field largely affected
by the criticism of the writings of the Prophets. As
has been already remarked, the pictures here given
of the life and work of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and
Micah, will probably need considerable readjustment to
later critical results. The result will, as I think, be a
historical sketch in which progress or development is
more clearly visible than in that which Robertson Smith
tentatively gave in 1882, and such a sketch is one of
the greatest desiderata of Biblical study. The modifica
tions will doubtless, if my forecast is correct, be the
largest in the period dealt with in Lectures VII.

INTRODUCTION. xlvii
and VIII., because of the overwhelming importance
of the criticism of Isaiah. I admit that Robertson
Smith's view in 1882 is what all lovers of the
Old Testament would (if they could forget the claims
of criticism) wish to be true, because it invests
Isaiah and his ministry with a luminous splendour
that warms the heart and lifts the imagination. But
unless what seems altogether inconceivable should
come to pass, and some great critic, with the help (as
our conservative friends may suggest) of unexpected
archaeological discoveries, should transform the whole
aspect of the Isaianic question, proving that Ewald's
and Robertson Smith's partly intuitive reconstruc
tion of history is also in accordance with historical
facts, I see no chance that the Ewaldian view of things,;
will be maintained. I fear, too, that the history of
Old Testament religious ideas will have to pass through
far-reaching changes. I fear it, for I know that there
is no pain equal to that of reconstructing even an
outlying part of the theological fabric. Still we have
no occasion to despond, much less to attempt, to hinder
critical progress. The author of these Lectures would
earnestly assure us that candid and religious students
will in course of time be thoroughly reconciled to such
changes. It is for the republic of scholars, however, to
decide these questions, in so far as they are concerned

xlviii INTRODUCTION.

with literary and historical criticism ; and I trust that
these Lectures, so honestly thought out, and so admir
ably expressed, may induce many to qualify themselves
to share, even if it be only on a humble scale, in the
debates of this republic.
T. K CHEYNE

Rochester, August 26, 1895.

*»* The alterations that have been made in the Text of these
Lectures occur on pp. 121, 153, 179, 253, 254, 279, 280, 281, 317,
322. In the Notes some trifling deletions have been silently made ;
additions and alterations have been indicated by square brackets.

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

1 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 will 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 light. 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 mterest 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 Biblical 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 Roman history and literature than to learn

Iii 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. liii

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 frankly
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
mediseval 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 modem
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-

liv 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 subsequent stages of prophetic teaching ; but to rnW
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 his
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. Iv
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 I 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 already 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

Ivi 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 wbich 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. Ivii
assistance from Duhm's Theologie der Propheten — a wbrk
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 Uncyclopeedia
Britannica, 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 wiishfull 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 subiect to call

lviii 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 useful 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, 3d April 1882.

LECTURE I.
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 wof| '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 frigljp^n of practical 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 NATURE

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 Judaea, and
that the divine wisdom deemed it fitting to prepare the
way for the world-wide religion of Jesus by that long
series of rudimentary 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 mcomplete
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.

user. i. 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 the 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 perfeeted-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 the 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 mct. i.

mere physical origin, but grows up with the growth and
training of the child. Thus the analogies which the
Bible itseK 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 that 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.1 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

lkct. 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 coining 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.2 This theory arose naturally enough
in the ancient Church, which held that a similar state
of things continued under the Christian dispensation,
and that the help of ecclesiastical tradition was stiU
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

a traditional interpretation as applied to the old dispen
sation. Far from reading in the words of the prophets
a profounder sense that lay beneath the surface, the
Hebrews, as their history abundantly proves, could
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
clear 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

THESE LECTURES.

must be studied 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, but 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 teach 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
history 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 modem thinkers

user. i. THE MODERN SCHOOL. 9
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
divine 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 Gpd.
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 Gentiles did proceed

10 MEANING OF lect. t.
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 affirm 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 itseK 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 mamfestation of that which may be known
of God (Rom. i. 19 ; Acts xvii. 27) ; and the thinkers of
the early Church gave shape to this truth in the doctrine
of the Xoyo? a-TrepfiamcSs-r-the seed of the Divine
Word scattered through all mankind.
But, while all right thoughts of God in every nation
come from God HimseK, it is plain that a personal
knowledge of God and His will — 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 K 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 tme 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 consecutiye and
adequate form. And under the conditions of ancient

lect. i. IN RELIGION. 13
life this 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 Roman empires broke up
the old barriers of nationality, the intellectual and moral
IKe 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 fully 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
all mankind.3 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

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, — K 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 till 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 trath. 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 thoughfeftil minds it has always been a matter of

lect. I. THE SUPERNATURAL. 15
supreme mterest 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 seK- 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 itseK
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 Revelation 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 all 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 Semitie peoples,
with the political faU 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 mamtaining 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 Chaldsean 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 mamfested as in this
great achievement of the prophetic word. In the long
straggle 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

lect. 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
all scholars on the prophets and their times.4
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 clear conception of the
field in which the prophets laboured, and the political
and religious 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, but that Jehovah knows or
personally recognises Israel, and no other nation. The
same idea is expressed by Hosea in figures drawn from
domestic Hfe. 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

lect. I. AND ISRAEL. 21
fundamental Old Testament conception in its practical
aspects. For the 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 x
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.
The 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 the 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 lect. i.
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 GuK. 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
Hfe in such abundance that they not only sustained a
teeming population, but suppHed 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 Hfe. 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 caU 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 civiHsation 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, caUed 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 Euphrates, and from their capital of Carchemish
(JirMs on the Euphrates) seem to have extended their
influence far into Asia Minor.5 But the prime of the
Hittite monarchy was earHer than the period with which
we are immediately concerned, perhaps indeed earHer
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 EngHsh 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 caUed
Syriac (2 Kings xviii. 26 ; Dan. ii. 4 ; Ezra iv. 7), and
when Syria or Syrians 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 Aramaeans of the Bible were
partly settled in Mesopotamia, 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 Aramaeans and Egypt, again, we find a
number of smaU nations speaking a language distinct
from Aramaic, in several dialects sufficiently close to
one another to be mutuaUy intelligible, — Canaanites,
Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and finally
IsraeHtes, 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 whoHy desert, or, Hke the wilderness
of Judaea, capable of supporting only a scanty popula
tion of herdsmen. From north to south it is spHt up
the centre by the great natural depression of the Jordan
vaUey 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, Hes a tableland
gradually merging into wild desert ; to the west are the
mountains of Palestine, intersected by fertile vaUeys,
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 vaUeys
often narrow defiles, till at length the cultivable land
passes into bare steppe, and finaUy 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 GaHlee 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 Red 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 PHOENICIANS lect. i.
voyages as far as the tin mines of Cornwall, and tapping
the trade of inland Europe by their stations on the GuK
of Lyons, and at the mouths of the great rivers of
Russia. 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-caUed Canaanites or Amorites (the two
names are practically interchangeable),6 who at the
earHest 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 civiHsation, but poHtically weak
from their division into a multitude of petty states, each
with its own kinglet or aristocratic senate, and morally
corrupted by a Hcentious reHgion, 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 cAsht5reth. The one was often
identified with the sun, the other with the moon. In

lect. i. AND THEIR RELIGION. 27
general terms it may be said that the Canaanites looked
on their deities as productive powers — givers of Hfe,
fertiHty, and increase. Just as physical Hfe 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 aU the observ
ances of worship, their reHgion easily ran into sensu-
aHty, and lent its countenance to every form of immo-
raKty, K only performed at the sanctuary and the sacred
feasts. Instead of affording a sanction to sobriety and
domestic purity, the exercises of Canaanite reHgion 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 poUution, a blacker spot even in the darkness of
heathenism. The situation of Palestine naturaUy 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 Aramaeans from the north, the
Arabs from the south and east, were constantly pressing
on the land. JFhe relation of the Northern Arabs to
Palestine has been much the same in aU ages. Their
hordes make periodical descents on the cultivated land,
which are easily repeUed by a good and strong govern-

28 THE HEBREW NATIONS. lect. i.
ment, but prove successful when the settled inhabitants
are weakened by division 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 especiaUy of the south, in the wilderness or steppe
of Judaea, contained an important Arab element in
BibHcal times. Indeed the large population of Judah,
which gave that tribe such a preponderance in the time
of David, was due, as can stiU be proved from the
Biblical genealogies, to a fusion between the pure
Judaeans and other families of nomad origin.7
More lasting in their results were the migrations
of a group of smaU 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 wUder, 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. xxvu. 39, was " far from the fat
places of the earth and from the dew of heaven above."

lect. I. ISRAEL. 29
They Hved 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
through their territory.8 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 Hve a pastoral nomadic Hfe, and, though
acknowledging a certain dependence on the Pharaohs,
never came into close contact with Egyptian culture.9
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 pubHc works,
it was among the Arabian Kenites that Moses, the
leader of Israel's flight, found help and counsel.10 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 estabHshed themselves in Western Palestine,
not by one sustained and united effort, but by a multi
tude of local campaigns, in which each tribe generaUy
fought for its own hand.11 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 IsraeHtes, as weU as their foes, were fighting for

30 THE AGE OF lect. i.
existence, and the " ban " by which a hostile commu
nity was devoted to utter destruction was an institu
tion of Semitic warfare which the IsraeHtes had in
common with the kindred nations — for example, with
Moab.12 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 waUed
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 straggle lasted for generations
before all the IsraeHtes found a fixed abode ; the
Danites, for example, are stiU found ranging the land
as an armed horde in the days of the grandson of Moses
(Judges xvui.), 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 Httle at one to make common front
against them. But, on the whole, Israel maintained its
superiority, and the large Canaanite population which
stiU survived in aU parts of the land was graduaUy re
duced to vassalship. To a certain extent the two nation-
aHties 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

lect. i. THE JUDGES. 31
state, for Shechem, which was then a Canaanite city with
a Canaanite aristocracy of the Bne" Hamor family, was
the centre of the short-Hved kingdom of Abimelech,
who himseK apparently was a Canaanite on the mother's
side. Though the adventurer Abimelech faUed 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 IsraeHte
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 civiHsation, and that the conquerors would
graduaUy become assimilated to the conquered, from
whom the Hebrew nomads on their first introduction to
settled Hfe 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 Hving in
cities and viUages, and their oldest civfl laws are framed
for this kind of Hfe. AU the new arts which this com
plete change of habit impHes they must have derived
from the Canaanites, and as they learned the ways of
agricultural Hfe 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 reHgion of the abori
gines. The history and the prophets aHke testify that
, to a great extent they actuaUy did this. Canaanite
sanctuaries became Hebrew holy places, and thfe vile-
ness of Canaanite nature-worship poUuted the Hebrew
festivals.' i 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 Hes
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
HimseK amidst the seductions of Canaanite worship
and the ever-new backsHdings of Israel.
To understand who Jehovah was, and what He was
to Israel, we must return to the deHverance 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 caUed them to a united effort for Hberty, the
only practical starting-point for his work was an appeal

lect. i. GOD OF ISRAEL. 38
to the name of Jehovah, the God of their fathers. It is
not easy to say how far the remembrance of this God
was a Hying power among the Hebrews. The Semitic
nomads have many superstitions, but Httle reHgion. The
subHme soHtudes of the desert are weU fitted to nourish
lofty thoughts about God, but the actual Hfe of a wan
dering shepherd people is not favourable to the formation
of such fixed habits of worship as are indispensable to
make reHgion a prominent factor in everyday Hfe.
It would seem that the memory of the God of the
Hebrew fathers was Httle more than a dormant tradi
tion when Moses began his work; and among the
IsraeHtes, 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 Iahwe, as the word
should rather be pronounced) became known as a name
of power only through Moses and the great deHverance.
At any rate it would be a fundamental mistake
to suppose that the traditional faith in an ancestral
God, round which Moses ralHed 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 wiU to help
His people were the points practical to the oppressed
Hebrews. A Hving God, according to a conception
never fuUy superseded in the Old Testament, must
c

jiftvivary of f-C'X.

34 MOUNT SINAI. lect. l
have a kingly seat on earth where He showed HimseK
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 symboHc
meaning in the poetic language in which it is clothed.
The IsraeHtes thought in poetic figures, and we must
take their thoughts as they themselves present them.
The storm that broke on the mountains of Sinai and
roUed 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 deHverance at the Red 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
assurance of His personal mterest in Israel, and a pro
mise of effectual help. The promise was fulfiUed in a
marveUous display of Jehovah's saving strength ; and,
when the proud waters roUed 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 18 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 wUderness wanderings, are reaUy of very

lect. i. THE PENTATEUCH. 35
various dates, and that the law of Israel did not take
final shape tiU 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 discipHne
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 unity and consistency
of aU Jehovah's teaching that they did n"0t 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 equaUy
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 Hues. The ordinary judges of the
people were still the elders, or, as an Arab would caU
them, the sheikhs of the several tribes and sub-tribes ;
and this fact impHes that Moses did not cancel the old
customary laws which already existed as the basis of
tribal justice.14 But the new circumstances of Israel,
and, above aU, the new sense of national unity, which
was no longer a mere sentiment of common ancestry,

86 IAHWE CEBAOTHj 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 Iahwe
Cebddth, the Jehovah of the armies of IsraeL It was
on the battlefield that Jehovah's presence was most
clearly reaHsed ; 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 aU 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 retaHa-
tion.15 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 stiU 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 poHtical
and reHgious unity.
Now, it foUowed from the circumstances of the
Exodus that these two unities necessarily went together,
Jehovah was essentiaUy the God of the whole nation,
not of individual famiHes; 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
IsraeHte forgot the bonds of national unity that had
been knit at the Red Sea and in the wUderness. 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, originaUy at GUgal, afterwards at ShUoh, 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 Shnoh 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 Hfe, but the rich gKts of a land of com and
wine, which the Canaanites had taught the Hebrews to
cultivate. Thus the reHgious feasts necessarily assumed
a new and more luxurious character, and, rejoicing before
Jehovah in the enjoyment of the good things of Canaan,
the IsraeHtes naturaUy 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,
usuaUy known as the Feast of Tabernacles, has a close
paraUel in the Canaanite Vintage Feast ; that Canaanite
immoraHty tainted the worship of Jehovah ; and that at
length Jehovah HimseK, who was addressed by His wor
shippers by the same general appeUation 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 BaaHm of
their Canaanite neighbours.16
The growth of this reHgious syncretism not only
threatened to sap the moral strength of the Hebrews,
but boded entire extinction to the national feeHng which
had no other centre than the reHgion of Jehoyah. 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 whoUy forgetting Jehovah. Every in
vasion which woke the dormant feeHng of patriotism
woke at the same time something of the old faith.
There was no patriotic fire in the reHgion of the BaaHm,
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 reHgion 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 reHgion of Jehovah
could not always stand still at the point which it had
reached in the wUderness. It was not enough to have
one reHgion for times of patriotic exaltation, and another
for daUy Hfe. 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
reHgion should become master of the new and altogether

40 JEHOVAH AND THE lect. l
changed Hfe of the Hebrews in their new seats. Jehovah
and the BaaHm had to contend for sovereignty in the
ordinary existence of the Hebrews, when the simpHcity
of the desert had inevitably given way to the progress
of material civiHsation in a rich and cultivated land.
And here we must ask what was the essential differ
ence between Jehovah and the BaaHm, which had to be
preserved amidst aU changes of circumstances i£ Jehovah
was stiU to maintain His individuaHty ? In the first
place, as we have seen,' Jehovah represented a principle
of national unity, whUe the worship of the BaaHm was
spHt into a multitude of local cults without national
significance. But this would have been an empty
difference K 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 weU
worth whUe 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 reHgion of the Old
Testament, the claim of Jehovah to the exclusive wor
ship of Israel is based on the deUverance that made
Israel a free people, and issues in the great laws of
social moraHty. The cause of Jehovah in Israel was

lect. i. GODS OF CANAAN. 41
the cause of national freedom and social righteous
ness, and the task of the reHgion of Jehovah was to set
these fast in the land of Canaan in a society which ever
looked to Jehovah as its Hving and present head.
The idea of righteousness is of course familiar to every
one as a cardinal Old Testament conception. The idea
of liberty may sound less famiHar, 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 lxxxv. 10), he expresses precisely the ideal of
the reHgion 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 deHvered 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 wiU come prominently before us as our
argument advances, but which it would be premature to
dweU 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 reHgious 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 especiaUy the case with reHgious
trath, which presents itseK 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 think about
Jehovah; they beHeved in Him, and experienced the
reaHty 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 reaHsed, or that the IsraeHtes learned aU
that was impHed in their vocation as the people1 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 aU poHtical centraHsation, 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 feeHng 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 aUegiance, 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 raUies 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 with Israel the song of triumph ends
with the prayer, " So let aU thine enemies perish, 0
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 fuUy realised only in the hour
of battle and victory. The ark itseK, 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 u. 1), was rather the sanctuary of the host than
of the settled nation, and after it was fixed at Shiloh
became, as we have seen, Httle 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 estabHshment 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 essentiaUy 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 BaaHm, 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 baeksHding. But, on
the other hand, these local shrines brought Jehovah
nearer to the daily Hfe of the people. He came down,

44 THE AGE OF

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
reHgion 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 reH
gion of Jehovah has become part of daily national Hfe.
Thus we see that the long struggle that was inevitable %
when the reHgion of Jehovah went forth from the desert
and came into contact with the Hfe 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 stiU 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, whUe unable to supplant it altogether.
This, of course, in virtue of the close connection between
reHgion and national feeHng, means that Israel had now
risen above the danger of absorption in the Canaanites,
and felt itseK 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 earHer wars recorded in the book of Judges had

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, Hke the
IsraeHtes, had entered Canaan as emigrants, but coming
most probably by sea had displaced the aboriginal
Awim in the rich coastiands beneath the mountains of
Judah (Deut. n. 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
aU the tribes. The common danger drew Israel together.
They found a leader in the Benjamite Saul, whom
Jehovah HimseK designated as the king of Israel by
the mouth of the prophet Samuel. The resistance
which Saul first organised in the difficult hiU country
of his native tribe was conducted with varying fortune,
but not without success. Saul himseK feU in battle,
but his work was continued by Abner in the north,
whUe in the south David consoHdated his power as king
of Judah without disturbance from the Philistines,
whose suzerainty he was content to acknowledge tiU
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,
tiU 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 lect. i.
and, what was more than any victory, had at length
given permanent expression to the unity of the nation
by placmg 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 if'was one
nation, with a national destiny and a national God.

THE KINGSHIP. 47

LECTU4RE II.
JEHOVAH AND THE GODS OP THE NATIONS.
In last Lecture we foUowed the history of Israel and
Israel's reHgion down to the consoHdation of the state
winder Saul and David. Throughout the period of the
Judges, neither the nationaHty of Israel nor the reH
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 reHgion of Jehovah in Hke manner, which
lost the best part of its original meaning when divorced
fronvthe idea of national unity, threatened to disappear
in the Canaanite Baal worship before it could succeed
in adapting itseK to the change from nomad to agricul
tural Hfe. Both these dangers were at length sur
mounted, and, whatever physical and poHtical circum
stances may have conspired towards the result,1 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.2 And so the reU-

48 RELIGIOUS UNITY lect. ii.
gion of Jehovah was not only a necessary part of the state,
but the chief cornerstone of the poHtical edifice. To
Jehovah Israel owed, not only the blessings of Hfe, but
national existence and aU the principles of social order ;
and through His priests, His prophets, but above all
His anointed king, He was the source* of aU 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 authority from Him (1 Kings
xL 31 seq. ; 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 reHgious
conflict by making room in Samaria for the Baal of his
Tyrian queen, did not give up .the reHgion 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 reHgion the IsraeHtes of
the north and south retained a sense of essential unity
in spite of political separation and repeated wars ; and

lect. ii. 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 itseK in the teaching of the prophets, but it was
a feeHng in which aU IsraeHtes participated, and which
had at least as great strength in Ephraim as in Judah.
The so-caUed Blessing of Moses (which does not itseK
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 reHgion 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 reHgions of the surrounding nations. The Jews
after the exile not only had a separate religion, but a
reHgion which made them a separate nation, distinct
from the Gentiles in aU their habits of Hfe 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 itseK a thing pecuHar to Israel. A national
reHgion 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
D

50 COMMON FEATURES lect. ii.
famUy likeness to the reHgion 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 MUcom, the Moabite who as
cribed his prosperity to Chemosh, did not deny the
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 aU 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 bis wrath, national., success to his
favour.8 It was he too that was the ultimate director of
aU national poHcy. 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, giving
him to see his desire on aU his enemies. The paraUel-
ism with the Old Testament extends, you see, not only
to the ideas but to the very words. But the paraUeHsm
is not confined to such near cousins of the IsraeHtes
as the Moabites. EquaUy striking analogies to Old

lect. ii. 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 caU upon my lady the sovereign of Gebal, because
she hath heard my voice, and dealt graciously with me."
And just as the prayer for Hfe and blessing to the king
of Israel in Psalm lxxn. is a prayer for a king judging
in righteousness, the Phoenician goddess is invoked to
bless Iehawmelek, king of Gebal, and give him Hfe
and prolong his days in Gebal, because he is < a just
king, and to give him favour in the eyes of gods and
men.4 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 simUar features,
expressed in very similar language, in the reHgions 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 . lect. ii.
word theocracy, which has had such vogue among
Christian theologians, is the invention of Josephus, who
observes in his second book against Apion (chap, xvi.)
that, whUe other nations had a great variety of institu
tions and laws, some states being monarchies, others
oHgarchies, and others again republics, Moses gave to
his nation the unique form of a theocracy, assigning aU
authority and power to God, teaching the Israelites to
look to Him as the source of aU blessings to the nation
or to individuals, and their help in every distress, making
aU the virtues, as justice, seK-command, temperance, and
civU 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 aU other
nations. But in reality, as we now see, the word
theocracy expresses precisely that feature in the reHgion
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 aU success or misfortune, and whose revela
tions were looked to as commands directing aU national
undertakings. This god was conceived as a divine king,
and was often invoked by this name. Moloch, or
MUcom, for example — the name of the god of the
Ammonites — is simply the word king, and the Tyrian
sun-god in Hke manner was called Melkarth, " king of

lect. ii. 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 soU (1
Sam. viu. 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.5
The reHgious constitution of Israel, then, as laid
down by Moses and consoHdated 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 reHgion of Israel and other reHgions ; but
that difference cannot be reduced to an abstract formula ;
it lay in the personal difference, K I may so speak,
between Jehovah and the gods of the nations, and aU
that lay in it only came out bit by bit in the course of
a history which 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
earHer parts, speaks of the gods of the nations.
Jehovah is not generally spoken of in the older parts of
the Hebrew Hterature 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 aU, mere idols, dead things that
cannot help their worshippers. But this point of view
was not clearly before the mind of aU IsraeHtes at aU
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, whUe 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 truth, the great deHverance which mamfested
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 ol
influencing the affairs of mankind. A man might
beHeve firmly in Jehovah, Israel's God, and feel secure
in His strength and love, without being drawn into the

lect. ii. 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 aU. 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 aU 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 IsraeHte thought that
Jehovah was stronger than Chemosh, whUe the Moabite,
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 reHgious ideas in
common, and, but for the continued word of revelation
in the mouths of the prophets, Israel's religion might
very weU have permanently remained on this level, and
so have perished with the faU 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 weU 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 waU of
separation between Israel and the GentUes. To discuss
this subject in detaU 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 shaU not repeat what I then said. But/
in general it must be observed that to the ordinary
IsraeHte 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 Hke 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 gKts, 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.6 The detaUs of
the ceremonial observed were closely paraUel to those
still to be read on Phoenician monuments. Even the
technical terms connected with sacrifice were in great
part identicaL The vow (ne~der), the whole burnt-offer
ing Qcalil), the thank-offering (sMlem), the meat-offering
(wmitoA)/and a variety of other detaUs appear on the
tablet of MarseiUes and similar Phoenician documents
under their famUiar Old Testament names, showing that
the Hebrew ritual was not a thing by itseK, but had a
common foundation with that observed by their neigh
bours.8 And no hesitation was felt in actuaUy copy
ing foreign models. When Ahaz took the pattern of
a new altar from Damascus, he simply foUowed the
precedent set by Solomon in the buUding 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 aU described or figured on
Phoenician inscriptions and coins.9
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 suppHcations 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 Hes in what
Jehovah had to say, rather than in the external manner
of saying it. The holy lot is of constant occurrence in
ancient reHgions ;10 there were prophets of Baal as weU
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 inexpHcable K 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 reHgion of the Hebrews
and that of other nations to broad tangible peculiarities
that can be grasped with the hand breaks down. It
was Jehovah HimseK who was different from Chemosh,
Moloch, or Melkarth ; and to those who did not know

58 THE KNOWLEDGE lect. ii.
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 weU 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 Hfe of a new personal factor — of Jehovah
HimseK 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 Httle chUd ; 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 formmg the reHgious 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. n. OF JEHOVAH. 59
.  ,  1  . 
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 fuU scheme of doctrine, which the history only served
to illustrate and enforce, is to invert the most general
law of God'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 wUl be involved in hopeless con
fusion ; and therefore it wUl not be amiss to devote a
few sentences to show in detail how impossible it is to
place the original peculiarity of Israel's reHgion 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 cardinal 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. No 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 first 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 itseK at aU. For the practical pur
poses of reHgion, 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
that Jehovah proved HimseK stronger than they by
giving Israel victory over their worshippers. And, in
fact, it required a process of abstract thought, not at aU
familiar to early times, to deny aU reaHty 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 BibHcal thought the point of
view which strictly identifies the heathen gods with the
idols that represented them, and therefore denies to them
aU living reaHty, varies with another point of view which
regards them as evU demons (1 Cor. vin. 4 seq. ; x. 20 seq.).
Nor is it at aU 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 (ruah) is the common word
for wind, including the "living breath" (rifh of life,

MONOTHEISM. 61

Gen. vi. 17), and so used of the motions of Hfe and the
affections of the soul. Now, observation of human Hfe
taught the Hebrews to distinguish between man's flesh,
or visible and tangible frame, and the subtUe 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 spirituaHty 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 subtUe
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 beHef in God, or at least any
beHef rising above the grossest fetichism. That the
early IsraeHtes possessed no metaphysical doctrine of
the spirituality of Jehovah, conceived as an existence out
of aU relation to space and time, is plain from the fact

62 HEBREW lect. n.
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
generaUy takes a poetical form, and did not to the
prophets appear irreconcUable with the thought that it
is impossible to escape from Jehovah's presence (Amos
ix. 1 seq. ; Ps. cxxxix. 7), that heaven and the heaven
of heavens cannot contain Him (1 Kings viu. 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 IsraeHte, 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 HteraHty that
would have been impossible K Moses had already
given to the people a metaphysical conception of the
divine being. As for the common notion Uhat the name
Jehovah expresses the idea of absolute and unconditioned
existence, that is a mere fiction of the Alexandrian
phUosophy, 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.11 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 Hght of
history, be viewed as having had so fundamental a place ;
in the reHgion of early IsraeL The state worship of
the golden calves led to no quarrel between EHsha and
the dynasty of Jehu ; and this one fact is sufficient .to
show that, even in a time of notable revival, the Hving
power of the reHgion was not felt to He in the principle
that Jehovah cannot be represented by images.
It was as a Hving personal force, not as a meta
physical entity, that Jehovah was adored by Israel,
and so a Hving 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 Hke,
is not pecuHar to the reHgion of revelation, but was
carried by the philosophers of the GentUes 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 tiU the later books of the Old Testament, the
reHgion of the Hebrews has to do with this Hfe, not
with a Hfe to come, as, indeed, was inevitable, seeing that
the reHgious subject, the object of Jehovah's love, is, in
the first instance, the nation as a whole, individual
IsraeHtes coming into relation with their God as mem-

64 SHEOL. lect. ii.
bers of the nation sharing in His deaHngs with Israel
qud nation. After death man enters the shadowy realm
of She&l, where the weak and pithless shades dweU
together, where their love, their hatred, their envy are
perished, where smaU and great are alike, and the ser
vant is free from his master (Eccles. ix. 4 seq. ; Job. iii.
13 seq), where there is no more remembrance of God, and
none can praise His name or hope for His truth (Ps.
vi. 5 ; Isa. xxxvni. 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
(Rephaim) 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 She61 of the kings
of Babylon and Egypt (Isa. xiv. 9, 18 seq. ; Ezek. xxxii
25).1S In accordance with this view of the state of the
dead, the Hebrew doctrine of retribution as essentiaUy
a doctrine of retribution on earth. Death is itseK 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 reHgion of the Hebrews does not rest on
a phUosophy of the unseen universe. The sphere of
reHgion is4 the present life, and the truths of reHgion

lect. ii. RETRIBUTION. 65
are the truths of anysyeryday experience in which to
Hebrew faith Jehovalfik as Hving and personal an actor
as men are. His agency in Israel is too real to invite
to abstract speculation ; aU interest turns, not on what
Jehovah is in HimseK, or what He does beyond the
sphere of the present national Hfe, but on His present
doings in the midst of His people, and the personal
character and dispositions which these doings reveal
Now, to aU 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
beHefs nominaUy accepted by every one, but practicaUy
regarded by none, or with theological speculations
which have an interest to the curious %Mk are not felt »
to have a direct bearing on the concerns of life. In the
earHest stages of the reHgion of any nation we may
take it for granted that nothing is beHeved or practised
which is ' not felt to be of vital importance for the
nation's weUbeing. There is no remissness, therefore, in*
reHgious duty, no slackness in the performance of sacred
rites. This 'principle holds good for ancient Israel as
weU as for other ancient nations. The prophets them
selves, amidst aU their complaints against the people's
backsHding, bear witness that their sountrymen were
assiduous in theirreligious service, and neglected nothing
which they deemed necessary to make sure of Jehovah's
help in every need. The IsraeHtes, in fact, had not
reached the stage at which men begin to be, indifferent '

66 JEHOVAH AND lect. ii.
about reHgion, and K 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 fideHty to His name or
their zeal for His cause.
But here we come back to the real difference
between the reHgion of Jehovah and the reHgion 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 Hes in the personal character of
Jehovah, and in the relations corresponding to His
character which He seeks to maintain with His people.
Properly speaking, the heathen deities have no personal
character, and no personal relations to their wor-
sliippers. 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 wUl 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. n. 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 worship 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. n. 11). In point of fact, there was no motive to
give up a reHgion which 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 wiU, and at most was conceived as being
sometimes temporarUy estranged from his people for
reasons not clearly distinguishable from the caprice of
an Eastern despot.
Not so Jehovah. He approved HimseK a true God
by showing throughout the history of Israel that He
had a wUl and purpose of His own — a purpose rising
above the current ideas of His worshippers, and a wiU
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 feHcity as they themselves desired.
All His deaHngs 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 incHnation. It was an easy 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 understand 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
foUowed — when Israel was divided against itseK, when
its rulers were drawn into the larger stream of poHtics
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 Hfe, every dis
order in society or in the state, opened a new reHgious
problem — a new question, that is, as to the reason why
Jehovah suffered such evUs 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, aU this brought no
help to Israel. The nation sank continuaUy lower, and
Jehovah stiU 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 reHgion which was
capable of no higher hopes than were actuaUy enter
tained by the mass of the Hebrews would have declined
and perished with the faU of the nation. But Jehovah
proved HimseK a true God by vindicating His
sovereignty in the very events that proved fatal to the
gods of the GentUes. Amidst the sceptical poHtics of
the nobles and the thoughtless superstition of the
masses He was never without a remnant that read the
facts of history in another Hght, 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 weU pleased. When Jehovah
seemed furthest off He was in trath nearest to Israel,
and the reverses that seemed to prove Him to have
forsaken His land were reaUy the strokes of His hand.
He desired mercy and not sacrifice, obedience rather
than the fat of lambs. WhUe these things were wanting
His very love to Israel could only show itself in ever-
repeated chastisement, tiU the sinners were consumed
out of His land and His holy wUl established itseK in
the hearts of a regenerate people. Jehovah's purpose
was supreme over aU, and it must prove itseK 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, K
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 vaUey 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
wUl help us through aU our subsequent course. Let
me repeat them very briefly. The primary difference
between the religion of Israel and that of the surround
ing nations does not He in the idea of a theocracy, or in
a phUosophy of the invisible world, or in the external
forms of reHgious 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 aU in a theological
dogma, but made itseK felt in the attitude which
Jehovah actuaUy took up towards Israel in those his
torical deaHngs with His nation to which the word of
the prophets suppHed a commentary. Everything that
befeU Israel was interpreted by the prophets as a work
of Jehovah's hand, displaying His character and wiU —
not an arbitrary character or a changeable wUl, but a
fixed and consistent holy purpose, which has Israel for
its object and seeks the true feHcity of the nation, but
at the same time is absolutely sovereign over IsraeL
and wUl not give way to Israel's desires or adapt itself

lect. ii. OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 71
to Israel's convenience. No other religion can show
anything paraUel 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-
aUy capable of being bent into 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 Hmitations 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 mamtaining an absolute sovereignty of wUl, a
consistent independence of character. And the advance
of the Old Testament reHgion is essentiaUy 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 full 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 reHgion is a moral
reHgion, that Jehovah is a God of righteousness, whose
deaHngs 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 K they were to be settled before
a judge. Righteousness is to the Hebrew not so much

72 RELIGION AND lect. il
a moral quality as a legal status. The word " righteous "
(gaddify) means simply "in the right," and the word
"wicked" (roZshaf) 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 seK-consistent.
He is the fountain of righteousness, for from the days
of Moses He is the judge as weU 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 wiU of Jehovah is the law of Israel, and it is
a law which as King of Israel He HimseK is continu-
aUy administering.13
Now, 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 moraHty. And here be it observed
that the fundamental superiority of the Hebrew reHgion
does not He in the particular system of social moraHty
that it enforces, but in the more absolute and seK-con-
sistent righteousness of the Divine Judge. The abstract
principles of moraHty. — that is, the acknowledged laws
of social order — are pretty much the same in aU parts
of the world in corresponding stages of social develop
ment Heathen nations at the same general stage of
society with the Hebrews wiU be found to acknowledge
aU 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 moraHty, 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 aU this, the religion of Jehovah put moraHty
on a far sounder basis than any other reHgion did^
because in it the righteousness of Jehovah as a God
enforcing the known laws of moraHty 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 practicaUy
present to aU 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. ii.
novelty ; they regard it as the very foundation of the
reHgion of Jehovah from the days of Moses downwards,
and the people never venture to deny that they are
right. In trath 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 mythor
logical conceptions as operate in the heathen religions
to make a just conception of the Godhead impossible.
Heathen reHgions can never conceive of their gods- as
perfectly righteous, because they have a natural as well
as a moral side, a physical 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 was no ground to ascribe to
Him less than absolute sovereignty and absolute right
eousness. If the masses lost sight of those great
quaHties, and assimilated His nature to that of the
Canaanite deities, the prophets were justified in remind
ing them that Jehovah was Israel's God before they
knew the BaaHm, and that He had then showed Him
seK a God far different from these.
But reHgion cannot Hve on the mere memory of the

lect. ii. THE PROPHETS. 75
past, and the faith of Jehovah had to assert itseK as the
true faith of Israel by realising a present God who stiU
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 actuaUy with them in their
daUyHfe. If Jehovah was Israel's God,He must manKest
HimseK as stiU the King and the Judge of His people,
and these names must acquire more and more fuU
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 reHgious Hfe is too
fragmentary to aUow us to foUow it in detaiL Of the
history of reHgion 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 Hfe,
a constant succession of revolutions and civU wars
obscures aU detaUs 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 Hi. 414 — restored
the northern kingdom to fresh vigour ; and it is character
istic of the close union between national Hfe and the

76 THE HOUSE OF OMRI. lect. ii.
reHgion of Jehovah which was involved in the very
principles of the Hebrew commonwealth that the
poHtical revival was the prelude to a great reHgious.
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 faU to give a fresh impulse to the
national faith of the Hebrews. Now Omri, who imitated
'the conquests of David, foUowed also the Davidic
poHcy of close union with Tyre, so obviously advan
tageous to the material interests of a nation which was
not itseK commercial and could find no market for its
agricultural produce except in the Phoenician ports.
The marriage of Ahab with a Tyrian princess was also
a direct imitation of the poHcy of Solomon's marriages ;
and in buUding and endowing a temple of Baal for his
wKe 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 estabHshing a
service of Baal, we may be sure that to him the conflict
with EHjah did not present itseK as a conflict between
Jehovah and BaaL Hitherto the enemies of Jehovah
had been the gods of hostUe 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 EHjah seems to have taken a poHtical
aspect The imprisonment of Micaiah shows that he
was Httle inclined to brook any reHgious interference
with the councUs of state, and the prophetic opposition
to Jezebel and her Baal worship was extremely em
barrassing to his poHtical 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 aU popular with the nation.
Ancestral customs and privUeges were obstinately main
tained against the royal wUl, 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. EHjah did not at first find
any sustained popular support, but no doubt as the
struggle went on, and especiaUy after the judicial
murder of Naboth sent a thrUl 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 smaU fraction of
the nation saw the reHgious* issues at stake so clearly
as EHjah did. From the point of view of national

78 ELIJAH AND lect. ii.
politics the faU of the house of Ahab was a step in the
downfaU of Israel. The dynasty of Jehu was not nearly
so strong as the house of' Omri ; it had Httle fortune
in the Syrian wars tiU 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 Hfe impossible (Hosea i. 4 ;
viL 7), In this respect the work of Elijah foreshadows
that of the prophets of Judah, who in like manner had
no smaU part in breaking up the poHtical Hfe of the
kingdom. The prophets were never patriots of the
common stamg, to whom national interests stand higher
than the absolute claims of reHgion and morality.
Had EHjah 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 poHtical point of view
EHjah'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 reHgion of Jehovah
had already reached a point where it could no longer be

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
reHgion of Israel could never have given birth to a
reHgion for aU 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 aU the earth. This, however, is to anticipate
what wUl come out more clearly as wej proceed. Let
us for the present confine our attention to what Elijah
himseK directly saw and taught.15
The ruling principle in EHjah's Hfe was his con
suming jealousy for Jehovah the God. of hosts (1 Kings
xix. 14) ; or, to put the idea in another and equaUy
BibHcal 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
appHcation 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 lect. ii.
». 
-4.  '
modern commentators as to the exact force of the
" before me " of the first cginmandment ; and, even if
we are to suppose that pracflcal reHgious 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 feeHng and usage. Hitherto aU 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 aUow some
recognition to J the deity of an alHed race. But EHjah
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 reaUy involved the
poHtical 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 poHtician fought
with all his might against such a view ; for it contained
more than the germ of that antagonism between Israel
and aU the rest of mankind which made the Jews
appear to the Roman historian as the enemies of the
human race, and brought upon them an unbroken suc
cession of political misfortunes and the ultimate loss of
aU place among the nations. It is hard to say how far

lect. ii. OF ELIJAH. 81
the foUowers of EHjah or indeed the prophet himself
perceived the fuU conseqjfences of the position which
he took up. But the wllfle history of EHjah testifies
to the profound impression which he made. The air of
unique grandeur that surrounds the prophet of GUead
proves how high he stood above the common level of
his time. It is Jehovah and. EHjah not against Ahab
alone, but against and above the world.
The work of EHjah, 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 Hfe. The recorded
words of EHjah are but few, and in many cases have
probably been handed down with the freedom that
ancient historians habituaUy use in such matters. His
importance lies in his personaHty. 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 Hght
that goeth forth" (Hosea vi 5).16
This view of the career of EHjah, which is that
naturaUy derived from the Biblical narrative, is pretty
much an exact inversion of the common representation
of the function of the prophets. The traditional view

82 THE WORK lect. ii.
which we have from the Rabbins makes the prophets
mere interpreters of the Law, and places the originaHty
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 reaHty
Jehovah did not first give a complete theoretical know
ledge of HimseK and then raise up prophets to enforce
the appHcation of the theoretical scheme in particular
circumstances. That would not have required a pro
phet ; it would have been no more than is stiU done
by uninspired preachers. The place of the prophet is
in a reHgious crisis where the ordinary interpretation
of acknowledged principles breaks down, where it is
necessary to go back, not to received doctrine, but to
Jehovah HimseK. 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 wiU of a personal God,
who has made HimseK personaUy 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 Hfe
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 this man

lect. ii. OF ELIJAH. 83
 IF 
Jehovah asserted HimseK as a Hving God in their
midst. We had occasion to observe in the course of last
Lecture that aU genuine reHgious beHef contains a
positive element — an element learned from the ex
perience of former generations. And so it wUl be found
that aU great reHgious 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 formaUy
deny, but practicaUy ignore. And they do so with jus
tice, for aU genuine reHgious truth is personal truth, and
personal truth has always a range far tianscending the
circumstances in which it was originaUy promulgated
and the appHcation to which it was originaUy 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 wUl in appHcation to new circum
stances. EHjah himseK is a figure of antique simpHcity.
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 Hfe 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 Hfe, 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
joumeyings through the wUderness. In this respect
EHjah shows his kinship to the Nazarites, a very
curious and interesting class of men, who first appear
in the time of the PhiHstine oppression, and who, some
generations later, are mentioned by Amos side by side
with the prophets (Amos H. 11, 12). The cultivation of
the vine is one of the most marked distinctions between
nomadic and sedentary IKe. Nomads and haK-settled
tribes have often a certam amount of agricultural know
ledge, raising occasional crops of corn, or at aU events
of edible herbs. But the cultivation of the vine de
mands fixed sedentary habits, and aU Semitic nomads
view wine-growing and wine-drinking as essentially
foreign to their traditional mode of Hfe.17 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 gKt of the Baalim, and wine-drinking
was prominent in their luxurious worship. The Nazarite
vow to abstain from wine, which in the earHest case,
that of Samson, appears as a Hfe-long vow, was un
doubtedly a reHgious protest against Canaanite civilisa
tion in favour of the simple Hfe of ancient times. This
appears most clearly in the case of the Reehabites, who
had received from their father Jonadab the double pre
cept never to drink wine, and never to give up their
wandering pastoral Hfe for a residence in cities (Jer.
xxxv.). We have no evidence that EHjah had a personal
connection with the Reehabites ; 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 simpHcityof Israel in the days before it came into con-
met with Canaanite civUisation and Canaanite religion.
Another seat of the influence of the movement was
the prophetic guUds. EHjah himself, so far as we can
judge, had Httle to do with these guilds ; but bis suc
cessor EHsha, who had the chief share in giving
poHtical 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 BibHcal 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,18 living
together in the neighbourhood of ancient sanctuaries,
such as Gilgal and Bethel, and in aU HkeHhood 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. H. 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 guUds — 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 (nahi) 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 essentiaUy identical
with the Hebrew nabi, and who figures as the spokes
man of the gods, the counterpart of the Greek Hermes.19
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
paraUel to what is stUl seen among the dervishes of
the East, and occasionaUy among ourselves in times
of strong reHgious feeHng.20 Excitement of this sort
is often associated with genuine reHgious movements,
especiaUy among primitive peoples. Like aU physical
accompaniments of reHgious conviction, it is Hable to
strange excesses, and may often go along with false
beHefs and seK- deluding practices ; but reHgious
earnestness is always nearer the truth than indiffer
ence, and the great movement of which EHjah was the
head found large support among the prophets of
Jehovah. Yet we must not forget that physical
enthusiasm is a dangerous ally to spiritual faith. The

lect. ii. NABOTH. 87
revolution of Jehu, which EHsha set on foot with the
aid of the prophetic guilds, used means that were far
removed from the loftiness of EHjah's teaching, and under
the protection of Jehu's dynasty the prophetic guUds
soon sank to depths of hypocrisy and formaHsm with
which Amos disclaimed aU feUowship (Amos vn. 14).
One feature in the teaching of Elijah still remains,
which was perhaps the most immediately important of
aU. 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
WeUhausen has given deserved prominence to the
observation of Ewald, that this act of injustice stirred
the heart of the nation much more deeply than the
reHgious poHcy of the house of Omri (2 Kings vi 32 ;
ix. 25 seq.). 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 aU IsraeL In condemning it EHjah 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 support
of the weak against the mighty. Without this it would
have been nothing to declare war against the Tyrian
Baal ; K Jehovah claimed Israel as His dominion, in
which no other god could find a place, He did so because
His rule was the rale of absolute righteousness.

88 THE HOUSE lect. ii.
It would have been weU 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 reHgion
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 daUy more
desperate. The unhappy Syrian wars sapped the
strength of the country, and graduaUy 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 capitaHst. It was
of no avaU that the Damascene enemy, lying as he did
between Israel and Assyria, was at length compeUed 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 avaUed
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 brilHant 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 aU 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 Been.

90 AMOS AND THE

LECTURE 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 maintained
itself with difficulty 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 stiU fresh in the memory of
the Hebrews when Amos wrote (Amos L 3, 13 ;
2 Kings x. 32 seq.). The frontier land of GUead, 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 xui. 3 seq.; Amos iv. 10).
The IsraeHtes played a manful part in the unequal
straggle, and at length, as we read in 2 Kings xiii. 5,
Jehovah " gave to them a deHverer, and they went forth
from under the hand of Syria, and the chUdren of
Israel dwelt in their tents as beforetime." The

lect. iii. HOUSE OF JEHU. 91
"deHverer," as we now 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 aU the minor states of Syria
and Palestine, and that the advance of the Assyrians
could not be checked tiU they came to measure them
selves with the other great power that was seated on
the NUe. At first, however, the Hebrews had very
little conception of the power and plans of so remote a
nation. The earHest historical aUusions 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 ; x 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 tiU Damascus feU the successes of Assyria served
to give Israel a needful breathing time. We cannot
foUow in detaU 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).2 The defeat
of Moab at this time appears to be the subject of the

92 THE PROPHECY OF lect. hi.
ancient fragment, Isaiah xv., xvi., now incorporated as
a quotation in the book of Isaiah, which represents the
faU of the proud and once prosperous nation as a proof
of the helplessness of its gods, who can give no answer
to their worshippers.3 To Israel, on the contrary, their
victory was a new proof of Jehovah's might, and we
leam 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 teUs 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 impHes 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 Judaean.
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 faUen is recom
mended as a worthy deed, tending to confirm the just
rule of the house of David. We must not, however,
Hnger over this prophecy, which is too fragmentary to
be interpreted with certainty when we have so Httle

lect. iii. ISAIAH XV., XVI. 93
knowledge of its history. The gHmpse which it gives
us of one sitting in trath in the tent of David, searching
out justice and prompt in righteousness, wUl prove
valuable when we come to be more closely concerned
with the Southern Kingdom ; but under the dynasty of
Jehu our chief interest stUl Hes 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 Hfe of Israel in its best times to
have been very simUar to what is stiU found in secluded
and primitive Semitic communities, where habits of
military organisation are combined with simpHcity of
manners and steady industry. The IsraeHtes 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. -rvm. 9). To maintain their
position amidst hostUe nations, their superiority over
the subjugated Canaanites, it was necessary for them to
observe a sort of standing mUitary discipline. Among

94 THE DECLINE lect. iii.
aU Semitic tribes which have successfuUy asserted their
independence in simUar circumstances we find an
almost ascetic frugaUty of Hfe, such as becomes men
who are half soldiers haK farmers. Custom prescribes
that the rich should Hve on ordinary days as simply
as their poorer neighbours ; there is no humUiating
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
aU free men, which in the oldest Hebrew laws finds its
expression in the entire absence of corporal punish
ments, individual Hberty, as we understand it, is
strictLy confined by the undisputed authority of usage
in every detaU of Hfe. A smaU nation so organised
may do great things in the Semitic world, but is very
Hable to sudden coUapse when the old forms of life,
break down under change of circumstances. Eastern"
history is fuU of examples of the rapidity, to us almost
incredible, with which nations that have grown strong
by tenrperance, discipline, and seK-restraint pass from
their highest glory into extreme corruption and social
disintegration.4 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 poHcy 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 privUege.5 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, aU, 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 graduaUy 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 guK between rich
and poor became continuaUy wider. The poor could
find no law against the rich, who sucked their blood by

96 THE WORSHIP OF THE lect. hi.
usury and every form of fraud (Amos H. 6, 7; iv. 1 ;
vni. 4, etc.) ; civil corruption and oppression became
daUy more rampant (Amos Hi. 9 seq., and passim). The
best help against such disorders ought to have been
found in the reHgion of Jehovah, but the official organs
.of that reHgion shared in the general corruption. Into
this point we must look with some fulness of detaU, 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 EHjah and EHsha appealed to the conservatism
of the nation. It was followed therefore by no attempt
to remodel the traditional forms of Jehovah worship,
which continued essentiaUy 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
himseK from the gods of the nations ; and with them
there remained also many other reHgious 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. Yet
the sanctuaries which contained so many elements
unfavourable to a spiritual faith were still the indispen
sable centres of national religion. True reHgion can
never be the affair of the individual alone. A right

lect. iii. NORTHERN SANCTUARIES. 97
reHgious relation to God must include a relation to our
fellow-men in God, and soHtary acts of devotion can
never satisfy the wants of healthy spiritual Hfe, which
caUs for a visible expression of the fact that we worship
God together in the common faith which binds us into
a reHgious community. The necessity for acts of public*
and united worship is instinctively felt wherever reH
gion has a social influence, and in Israel it was felt the
more strongly because Jehovah was primarUy the God
and King of the nation, who had to do with the indivi
dual IsraeHte 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 HimseK
directly present to His people, and so their recognition
of His Godhead necessarily took a pubHc form, when
they rejoiced before Him at His sanctuary. The
IsraeHte 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 gKt (Exod. xxiii 15, 17), and answering their
devotion by words of blessing or judgment conveyed
through the priest (Deut. 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
o

98 THE WORSHIP OF THE lect: in.
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 aU reHgion appears from
the conception that Jehovah cannot be worshipped in
foreign lands (1 Sam. xxvi. 19) ; that these lands are
themselves unclean (Amos vn. 17) ; and that the cap
tives in Assyria and Egypt, who cannot offer drink-
offerings and sacrifices to Jehovah, are Hke men who
eat the unclean bread of mourners " because their food
for their Hfe is not brought into the house of Jehovah "
(Hosea ix. 4). So too when Hosea describes the coming
days of exUe, when the chUdren of Israel shaU remain
for many days without king or captain, without sacrifice
or macceba (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 aU the
privUeges of wedlock.6
WhUe the sanctuaries and their service held thisi
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. xxxui. 10). The personal interests
of the priests lay aU in the encouragement of copious
gifts and offerings ; and, as the people had the choice of
various sanctuaries — Bethel, GUgal, Dan, Mizpah, Tabor,

lect. iii. NORTHERN SANCTUARIES. 99
Shechem, etc. (Amos v. 5; Hosea v. 1; vi. 9, where for by
consent read at Shechem) — and pUgrimages to distant
shrines were a favourite reHgious exercise (Amos v. 5 ;
vni 14), the priesthoods of the several holy places were
naturaUy led to vie with one another in making the
services attractive to the masses. The sacred feasts
were occasions of mirth and joUity (Hosea ii. 11), where
men ate and drank, sang and danced, with unrestrained
merriment. The poet of Lament, u. 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 frugaHty and unrestrained self-indulgence,
and Amos and Hosea describe drunkenness and shock
ing Hcentiousness 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 H. 5 seq) ? The
whole nation seemed given up to mad riotousness under
the prostituted name of reHgion : " whoredom and wine
and must had turned their head " (Hosea iv. 11).

100 JUDICIAL FUNCTIONS lect. iii
In order, however, fuUy 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). In 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 bring it to
the sanctuary. It was at the door-post of the sanctuary
that the symboHc action was performed by which a
Hebrew man might voluntarUy 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 EH, quoting it would
seem, an old proverb, "God shaU 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. xxu. 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. hi. 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 (ibid.
ver. 9). Those days, however, were past. Under the
kingship the judicial functions of the priests were
necessarUy brought into connection with the office of
the sovereign, who was Jehovah's representative in
matters of judgment, as weU as in other affairs of state
(2 Sam. viii 15 ; xiv. 17 ; 1 Kings Hi. 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 vn. 10, 13), was one of the great officials of state.
(Compare 2 Sam. vin. 17 seq., where the king's priests
already appear in the Hst of grandees.) Thus the
priesthood were naturaUy associated in feeHngs 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
¦f 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. xxH. 26 seq). Hosea accuses
the priests of Shechem of highway robbery and
murder (Hosea vi. 9, Heb) ; the sanctuary of GUead was
poUuted with blood, and the prophet explains the
general dissolution of moral order, the reign of lawless
ness in aU parts of the land, by the fact that the priests,
whose business it was to maintain the knowledge of

102 HEBREW 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 moraHty 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 moraHty, and that, among the Hebrews
in particular, right and wrong are habituaUy viewed from
a forensic point of view. This, of course, influences the
notion of sin. The fundamental meaning of the Hebrew
word hata, 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 dereHc-
tion, and the word is associated with others that indicate
error, folly, or want of skUl and insight (1 Sam. xxvi.
21). This idea has various appHcations, but, in par
ticular, a man is at fault when he faUs to fulfil his
engagements, or to obey a binding command ; and -in '
Hebrew idiom the faUure is a " sin," whether it be wil; '
ful faUure,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 earHer stages, is quite distinct from that
which we attach to the word. In the first place, it is

lect. iii. OF SIN. 103
not necessarUy thought 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 xviU. 14).
" What is my sin before thy father," says David, " that
he seeks my Hfe ?" (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 " — HteraUy, 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 shaU 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 HabUity. In two ways, however, the
Hebrew notion of sin comes into relation with reHgion.
In the first place, the Hvely sense of Jehovah's presence
in Israel as a King, who issues commands to His people
and does not faU to enforce them, gives prominence to
the conception of sins against Jehovah. In by far the
4greatest proportion of passages in the older parts of the
Bible where such sins are spoken of, the reference is to
reHgious offences, to the worship of false gods or of
Jehovah HimseK 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 xxL 22). Offences which we should caU 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 seq), or with such an offence
against popular feeHng as David's numbering of the
people (2 Sam. xxiv. 17). In cases Hke the last the sin
is not clearly felt to be such until misfortune foUows,
and this habit of judging actions by subsequent events,
which plainly might give rise to very distorted views of
right and wrong K guided only by popular feeHng,
became, under the spiritual guidance of the prophets,
a chief means to produce juster and deeper views of
Jehovah's holy wUl. But, in the second place, offences
of man against man came to be viewed as reHgious
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 aU points of social
order regulated by traditional law and custom. Thus,
in virtue of the coincidence of law and custom with
moral obHgation, Jehovah, in His quaHty of judge, hag
to do with every part of morals, and aU 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 weU 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. Hi 14; xxvi. 19), or on a money
payment to the priests (2 Kings xH. 16), the latter being
regarded in the Hght of a fine, which was naturaUy held
to wipe out the offence in a state of society when all
breaches of law, except wilful bloodshed, were canceUed
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 proportionaUy debased in every relation of
Hfe. The shortcomings of the priesthood might, in some
measure, have been suppHed K the prophets, whose
influence with the masses was doubtless stUl great, had
retained aught of the spirit of EHjah. But prophecy
had sunk to a mere trade (Amos vH. 12). Hosea brackets
prophet and priest in a common condemnation. In
-the faU of the priesthood the prophet shaU faU with
.him (Hosea iv. 5).
, « Was everything then lost which EHjah 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 caUs the heathen
themselves as witnesses (Amos Hi 9 seq) ? 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

106 ISRAEL NOT

gone so far that it was impossible to restore new and
healthy Hfe to the existent body poHtic. 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 faUs to the ground. There was still a remnant in
Ephraim that could be compared to sound corn ; and,
though aU the sinners must perish, Jehovah, he tells us,
wiU not utterly destroy the house of Jacob (ver. 8).
This, it may be at once observed, is a characteristic
feature of aU Old Testament prophecy. The prophets
have much to say of the sins of Israel, sins so aggrat
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 aU 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 wUl 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 wiU not give up aU 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 evU-doers and put
better men in their place (comp. Jer. xin. 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 whoUy given up to evU. 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 wiU spare seven thousand men, aU 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 Hes in the high and
commanding tone that prophets Hke Amos assume.
When they speak of the omnipotent Jehovah, the

108 RELIGIOUS STANDARD lect. hi.
Creator of heaven and earth, the Lord of aU nations, to
whose supreme purpose of righteousness aU nature and
aU 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
reHgion. 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 Hving God. The keynote of the
prophecy of Amos Hes in the words of chap. Hi. 2, " You
only have I known of aU famUies of the earth ; there
fore I wUl punish you for aU your iniquities." The.
guUt 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, fuUy 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 ExUe. In the present day this easy solu
tion of the problem can no longer be accepted by his
torical students. The prophets before the ExUe never

lect. iii. OF THE PROPHETS. 109
appeal to the finished 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
reHgious 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 EHjah and EHsha, which every one can see
to be ancient and distinct documents — know nothing of
the Deuteronomic law of the one altar, and, Hke EHjah
himseK, 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 modeUed on the
reHgion 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 aU comers of the land, on every spot where
Jehovah has set a memorial of His name. And in
Hke manner, as I have shown at length in a former
course of Lectures, the sacred laws of Israel which
the earHer history acknowledges are not the whole
compHcated Pentateuchal system, but essentiaUy the
contents of that fundamental code which is given in

,110 RELIGIOUS STANDARD lect. iii.
Exod. xxi-xxiH. under the title of the Book of the
Covenant.7 The Hmits of the present Lectures forbid us to enter
on a detaUed 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 detaUs 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
afready traversed, I do not think that we shaU find
this to be impossible. We have not hitherto had the
help of any detaUed 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 reHgion of Jehovah from Moses
to EHjah. 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 He in his writings, but in his practical
office as a judge who stood for the people before God
and broughtttheir hard cases before Him at the sanc
tuary (Exod. xviii 19 ; xxxiii 9 seq). It 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 stiU present to give judgment in
its midst. So again we have not found occasion to
dweU on the legislation at Mount Sinai, as K the cove
nant ratified there were the proper beginning of Israel's
Hfe 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 habituaUy go back to the
defiverance from Egypt, and from it pass directly to
the wUderness wandering and the conquest of Canaan
(Josh. xxiv. 5 seq., 17 seq. ; Amos u. 10 ; Hosea H. 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
" Elijah, 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 practicaUy 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 simUar circumstances passed without
popular chaUenge, and that in Judah Solomon's sane-

112 RELIGIOUS STANDARD lect. hi.
__ _ .
tuaries dedicated to heathen gods were left untouched
tiU long after the time of EHjah (2 Kings xxiii 13),
and must therefore have been tolerated even by Ahab's
contemporary Jehoshaphat, who passed for a king of
indubitable orthodoxy. Facts Hke 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
tcf 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 compeUed to
admit that it was practicaUy a buried book, many of
its most central laws being quite ignored by the best
kings and the most enlightened priests. They were
equaUy ignored by the prophets, as we shaU 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-1;
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 theWfirst place, then, it is perfectly clear that
the great mass of Levitical legislation, with its ritual

lect. iii. 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 EHjah and EHsha had no quarrel with the
sanctuaries of their nation. Hosea himself, in his bitter
complaints against the priests, never upbraids them as
schismatic usurpers of an Ulegitimate 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 aU the northern sanctuaries as schismatic and
heathenish, acknowledging but one place of lawful
pilgrimage for aU the seed of Jacob. It is safe, there
fore, to conclude that whatever ancient laws may have
had currency in a written form must be sought in other
" parts of the Pentateuch, particularly in the Book of
the Covenant, Exod. xxi- xxiii., which the Pentateuch
itseK 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 suppHed by
the older history and the prophets. Quite simUar,
except in some minor detaUs which need not now
delay us, is another ancient table of laws preserved in
Exod. xxxiv. These two documents may be taken as
H

» 114 » THE OLDEST LA WS lect. hi.
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 generaUy pubHshed
by oral decisions of the priests, were better known by
oral tradition than by written books. Neither Amos
nor Hosea aUudes to an extant written law (Hosea
vm. 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 already remarked that the
extant historical narratives faU 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, K 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. hi. 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 earHer sources, must of course be set aside, since
the history of Kings goes down to the close of the
Judaean Kingdom, and is written throughout from^bhe
standpoint *of Josiah's reformation, which took place
long after the faU 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 foUow them out in detaU, 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 deaHngs with His people in
the Hght of the Deuteronomic and Levitical laws ; they
did not judge of Israel's obedience by the principle of
, Jfche one sanctuary or the standard of the Aaronic ritual;
-but they had heard the story of Jehovah's deaHngs 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 EngHsh Bible, can faU to
see that the substance of the narrative, alrShat gives it
vividness and colour, belongs to a quite different species

116 <• THE OLDEST lect. hi.
of Hterature from the brief chronological epitomes and
theological comments of the Judaean editor. The story
of Elijah and EHsha clearly took shape in the Northern
Kingdom ; it is told by a narrator who is fuU of per
sonal interest in the affairs of Ephraim, and has no idea
of criticising EHjah'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 Hke a story told by word of
mouth, fuU of the dramatic touches and vivid presenta
tions of detaU which characterise aU Semitic history
that closely foUows 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, aU the great things that EHsha 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 oraUy from father to
chUd. The same thing may be said of the earHer*,;
history, which in aU 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 stUl recorded to us as it Hved in the mouths
of the people, and formed the most powerful agency of
reHgious education. Even the English reader who is
unable to follow the nicer operations of criticism may

lect. iii. HISTORIES. 117

***

by attentive reading satisfy himseK that aU the Old
Testament stories which have been our deHght from
chUdhood for their dramatic pictorial simpHcity 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, GUgal, and the rest,jlmd
each its own chain of sacred story, and wherever the
IsraeHtes 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 aU, 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 pUgrimage for Northern
Israel (Amos v. 5 ; viH. 14); and the special interest
which the narrative displays in Rachel and Joseph is
an additional proof that we stiU 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 speciaUy instructive for the way in which
the IsraeHtes of the North thought of Jehovah and His
reign in IsraeL One of these is the so-called blessing
of Moses in Deut. xxxHL, which plainly ^belongs to the
Northern Kingdom, because it speaks of Joseph as the

118 THE BLESSING lect. hi,

crowned one of his brethren (ver. 16 ; A.V.
from Ms 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 re'sume' 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
Northern Kingdom understood the religion of Jehovah
though they knew nothing of the greater Pentateuchal
codes. In the Blessing of Moses the reHgion 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 fuU of love for His people, the gift of
the law through Moses as a possession for the congrega
tion of Jacob, the final estabHshment 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 isvstiU revered as the arbiter
of impartial divine justice. The tribes are not all
prosperous aHke ; Simeon has already disappeared from
the roU, and Reuben seems threatened with extinction ;
but the princely house of Joseph is strong and victorious,

lect. iii. OF MOSES. 119
and round the thousands of Manasseh and the myriads
of Ephraim the other tribes stiU raUy strong in Jehovah's
favour. "There is none Hke unto the God of 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 dweUs secure ; the fountain of Jacob flows
unmixed in a land of corn and wine, where the heavens
drop down dew. Happy art thou, 0 Israel ; who is Hke
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." 8 This is stiU the old warlike Israel, secure in
the help of the God of heaven, whose presence is aHke
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 wUl 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 Hes in two directions.
On one hand Israel is tempted to faU 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 aU the history of IsraeL, and both had
a strange attraction, for they made no suoli demands on

120 AMOS OF lect. m.
their worshippers as fche holy and jealous Jehovah.
" Ye cannot serve Jehovah, for He wiU not forgive your
sins ; K ye forsake Him and serve foreign gods, then He
wiU turn and do you hurt, and consume you after He
hatin done you good." These words might serve as the
epitaph of the Hebrew state in the destruction towards
which it was hastening in the last days of the house of
Jehu, and with them the history of Israel might have
closed, but for the work of a new series of prophets,
which bunt up another Israel on the ruins of the old
kingdom. The founder of this new type of prophecy
is Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa'.9
The first appearance" of Amos as a prophet is one
of the most striking scenes of Old Testament history.
His prophecy is almost wholly addressed to Northern
Israel, and the scene of his pubHc 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 Hfe, but in the Httle town of
Tekoa,10 which Hes some six mUes southT'bf Bethlehem
on an elevated hill, from which the eye ranges north
ward to Bethlehem and the Mount of OHves, 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 stands on the very edge of the

lect. iii. TEKOA. 121
great wUderness, the spot itseK if fruitful, and pleasant
to the eye. Its oU, according to the Mishna, was the
best in the land (Men. viu. 3), and in the middle ages
its honey passed into a proverb (Yakut s.v). But
immediately beyond Tekoa aU agriculture ceases, and
the desert hUls between it and the Dead Sea offer only
a scanty subsistence to wandering flocks. Amos him
seK was not a husbandman, but "a shepherd and a
cultivator11 of sycomore figs" (vH. 14 seq), the coarsest
and least desirable of the fruits of Canaan. He was
nurtured in austere simplicity, and it was in the vast
soHtudes where he foUowed 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 weU as to the great.
Jehovah's word was a message to the nation, and above
aU to the grandees and princes who were directly
responsible for iihe weKare 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 Carmel withereth. . . .
ShaU a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people
not be afraid? shaU there be evU in the city and
Jehovah hath not done it ? Surely the Lord Jehovah

122 AMOS AT lect. iii.
wiU not do anything, Lint He revealeth His secret to His
servants the prophets. The Hon hath roared, who will
not fear ? the Lord Jehovah hath spoken, who can but
prophesy ?" (i 2 ; Hi. 6-8). The caU of Amos lay in
the consciousness that he had heard the voice of Jehovah
thundering forth judgment whUe aU around were deaf
to the sound. In this voice he had learned Jehovah's
secret — not some abstract theological trath, but the
secret of His deaHngs with Israel and the surrounding^
nations. Such a secret could not remain locked up
within his breast — "the Lord Jehovah hath spokeu,
who can but prophesy ?" And so the shepherd left his
flock in the wUderness, and, armed with no other cre
dentials than the word that burned within him, stood
forth in the midst of the brilHant crowd that thronged
the royal sanctuary of Bethel, to proclaim what Jehovah
had spoken against the chUdren of Israel (iii 1).
Before we examine more fully the contents of this
word, it wUl 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 aU issued in the
announcement of swKt impending judgment. The sum
of his prophecy was a death-waU 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 up.
(v- 2)
This judgment is the work of Jehovah, and its cause is

lect. iii. BETHEL. 123
Israel's sin. "You only have I known of aU the
families of the earth ; therefore wiU I punish you for
aU your iniquities." In the characteristic manner of
Eastern symbolism, Amos expressed these thoughts in
a figure. He saw Jehovah standing over a waU with a
plumb-line in His hand. Jehovah is a buUder, the fate
of nations is His work, and, Hke a good buUder, He works
by rule and measure. And now the great builder speaks,
saying, " Behold I set the plumb-line — the rale of divine
righteousness — in the midst of Israel ; I wUl not pass
them by any more ; and the high places of Isaac shaU
be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shaU be laid
waste, and I wUl rise against the house of Jeroboam
with the sword." However Httle the audience under
stood of the prophet's harangue, the last words were
inteUigible enough. It was not the first time that a
prophet had foretold the faU 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 seq). 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 hie 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 aU bis
words." The audacious speaker must be silenced, but
usage and the traditional privUege 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 Judaean intruder with something
of the same contempt which the captains of the host at
Eamoth GUead felt for the "madman" that brought
EHsha's message to Jehu (2 Kings ix. 11) ; the freedom
aUowed to the prophets was in good measure due to the
conviction that they could do Httle harm unless they
had stronger influences at their back. "' Get thee hence,
0 seer," he says, " flee into the land of Judah, and there
earn thy bread, and prophesy there.12 But prophesy no
more in Bethel, for it is a royal sanctuary and a royal
residence." To Amaziah Amos seemed haK an intriguer,
haK 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 bytrade Hke the NelMm, of Bethel] . . .
Jehovah took me as I foUowed 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
shaU be prostituted in the city, and thy sons and thy
daughters shaU faU by the sword, and thy land shaU he
divided by the line ; and thou shalt die in an unclean
land, and Israel shaU 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

lect. hi. AMAZIAH. 125
repeats his former prediction of the faU of the nation
before the invader, with the assurance that Amaziah
shaU Hve to see it accomplished. To so precise an
intimation there was nothing to add. Amos, no doubt,
was compeUed to yield at once to superior force ; and
the fact that his book, as we possess it, is a carefuUy
planned composition, in which this historical incident
holds the central place, foUowed as weU as preceded
by prophecies, shows that he effected his escape, retiring
no doubt to Judah, where he placed on permanent
record 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 grave at Tekoa was certainly
apocryphal, it may be presumed that he returned to his
old IKe, and died in his native place.
The humble condition of a shepherd foUowing 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 book. 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 aHke admirable ;
and the simpHcity of the diction, obscured only in one
or two passages by the fault of transcribers (iv. 3 ; ix.
1 1),M is a token, not of rusticity, but of perfect mastery
over a language which, though unfit for the expression

126 THE STYLE lect. iil
of abstract ideas, is unsurpassed as a vehicle for im
passioned speech. To associate inferior culture with
the simpHcity and poverty of pastoral Hfe is totaUy
to mistake the conditions of Eastern society. At the
courts of the CaHphs and their Emirs the rude Arabs of
the desert were wont to appear without any feeHng 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.1'1 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
aU 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 inteUectual pre-eminence. In Hebrew,
as in Arabic, the best writing is an unaffected transcript .
of the best speaking ; the Hterary merit of the book of
Genesis, or the history of EHjah, Hke that of the Kit&b
il Aghdny, or of the Norse Sagas, is that they read
as K they were told by word of mouth ; and, in Hke
manner, the prophecies of Amos, though evidently re
arranged for pubHeation, and probably shortened from
their original spoken form, are exceUent writing, because
the prophet writes as he spoke, preserving aU the effects
of pointed and dramatic deUvery, with that breath of

lect. iii. OF AMOS. 127
lyrical fervour which lends a special charm to the
highest Hebrew oratory. Semitic authorship never
becomes seK-conscious without losing its highest quaH-
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 bis style is
as much below that of the shepherd of Tekoa as the
rhetorical prose of the later Arabs is below the simpHcity
of the ancient legends of the desert.
The writings of Amos, however, are not more con
spicuous for Hterary 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 aU 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, PhiHstia,Edom,Ammon, Moab — is fuU of precise
detaU as to locaHties and events, with a keen appreci
ation of national character. He tells how the PhUis-
tines migrated from Caphtor, the Aramaeans from Kir
(ix. 7). His eye ranges southward along the caravan
route from Gaza through the Arabian wUderness (i 6),
to the tropical lands of the Cushites (ix. 7). In the west
he is famiHar with the marvels of the swelling of the
NUe (viu. 8 ; ix. 5), and in the distant Babylonian east

128 WIDE KNOWLEDGE 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 foUowed with close and sympathetic attention
the progress of the Syrian wars (i 3, 13 ; iv. 10), and
aU the sufferings of the nation from pestUence, famine,
and earthquake (chap. iv.). The luxury of the nobles of
Samaria (vi. 3 seq), the cruel sensuaHty of their wives (iv.
1 seq), the miseries of the poor, and the rapacity of their
tyrants (iii. 6 seq. ; viii. 4 seq), the pUgrimages to GUgal
and Beersheba (v. 5 ; viii. 14), are painted from the Hfe, as
weU as the ritual splendour and moral abommations of
the sanctuary of Bethel. It is obviously illegitimate
to ascribe this fulness of knowledge to special revela
tion ; Amos, we may justly conclude, was an observer
of social and poHtical Hfe 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 wiU 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 substantiaUy representing the historical
traditions of Israel at the time when he Hved.16 The
exact detaUs 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 frugaUty of the wilderness, and either on miHtary

lect. iii. OF AMOS. 129
 1 ;
duty, such as aU Hebrews were Hable to, or in the
service of trading caravans, the shepherd of Tekoa
might naturaUy have found occasion to wander far
from his home.
The prophetic work of Amos, forming, as it does, a
mere episode in an obscure Hfe, is sharply distinguished,
not only from the professional activity of the prophetic
guUds which Hved by their trade, but from the lifelong
vocation of men Hke Isaiah and Jeremiah, who received
the divine caU 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 aU he has heard the thunder of Jehovah's
shout, and seen the fair land of Canaan wither before
it. The roar of the Hon, to which he compares the voice
that compeUed him to prophecy, is the roar with which
the beast springs upon its prey (comp. Hi. 8 with Hi. 4) ;
it is not Israel's sin that bimgs him forward as a
preacher of repentance ; but the sound of near destruc
tion encircHng the land (Hi. 11) constrains him to blow
the alarm (Hi 6), and stir from their vain security the
careless rioters who feel no concern for the ruin of
Joseph (vi. 1 seq).
We have seen from the words he addressed to
Amaziah that Amos looked for the faU of Israel before
its enemies within his own generation ; in the figure of
the roar of the Hon, which is sUent tiU it makes its
spring, he seems to imply that the destroying power

130 PROPHECY OF lect. hi.
was already in motion. What 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, 0 house of Israel, and they shaU crash you
from the frontier of Hamath " on the north " to the
brook of the Arabah," or brook of wUlows, 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 shaU 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 his poHtical 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 stUl some record on the monuments, one of
them being dated B.C. 773, not long before the time
when, so far as we can gather 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 bis 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
PUeser IH. (b.o. 745). The danger, therefore, was visible
to the most ordinary poHtical 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 himseK. The source
of the judicial bHndness 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 reHgious faith and the inspiriting words
of the prophets of the old school. EHsha 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 deHverance 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. Sacrifices, tithes, thank-offerings, spontaneous
oblations, streamed into the sanctuaries (Amos iv. 4 seq).
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 sword (Deut. xxxni 29). Everything indeed was
not yet accompHshed, 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 coming (Amos
v. 18).16 We see, then, that it was not poHtical bHndness or
reHgious indifference, but a profound and fanatical faith,
that made Israel insensible to the danger so plainly
looming on the horizon. Their trust in Jehovah's
omnipotence was absolute, and absolute' in a sense
determined by the work of EHjah. There was no
longer any disposition to daUy with foreign gods. There
was none Hke 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 Hght, as Amos preached, that the
distant thunder-roU 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 poHtical 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 stiU 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
ultimately 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. iii. OF JEHOVAH. 133
of view on the part of men who recognised Jehovah as
the Creator. But, in fact, heathen nations Hke the
Assyrians and Phoenicians had also developed a doctrme
of creation without ceasing to beHeve 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 reHgion of
the Hebrews, and continued to be the central idea in aU
practical developments of their faith. To Amos, on the
other hand, the doctrine of creation is fuU 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 PhiHstines 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 wiU 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 lect. hi.
the " secret of Jehovah," known only to HimseK and
His 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 PhUistia, 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 wiU 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
pHed transgressions of Damascus — " I wiU 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 moraHty. The
crime of Damascus and Ammon is their inhuman treat
ment of the GUeadites ; the Phoenicians and PhiHstines
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 Phoenician city ; and in Hke manner the sin of

lect. iii. THE NATIONS. 135

Edom is the unrelenting 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.17
As Amos teaches that Jehovah's wrath faUs on the
heathen nations, not because they are heathen and do
not worship Him, but because they have broken the
universal laws of fideHty, 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 wUl 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
(Hi 2). " I hate, I despise your feast days ; I take no
pleasure in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer
me whole burnt-offerings with your gifts of homage I
wiU take no pleasure in them, and I wiU not look upon
your fatted thank-offerings.18 Take away from Me the
noise of tjhy songs ; I wUl not hear the melody of thy

136 -THE SINS OF lect. hi.
viols. But let justice flow Hke 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 in. 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 appHcable to aU nations, the fall
of Israel is but part of the universal ruin of the guilty
states of Palestine. But, though Jehovah in revealing
HimseK to Israel does not divest HimseK 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 responsibiHti.es, 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 H. of his prophecy. As the faU of
Israel is part of the common overthrow of the Pales
tinian states, Judah and Ephraim are aHke involved,
Jerusalem as weU as Samaria must faU before the
destroyer (n. 4, 5).19 What Amos has to say to Israel is
addressed to the whole famUy that Jehovah brought up
out of Egypt (Hi 1), and they that are at ease in Zion
are ranked with the seK-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 IKe 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. Revolt 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 essentiaUy distinct, but because the house
of Joseph was stUl 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 aU the families of the
earth ; therefore I will punish you for aU your iniqui
ties " (Hi. 2). To know a man is to admit him to your
acquaintance and converse. Jehovah has known Israel
inasmuch as He has had personal deaHngs 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), for it was Jehovah who brought up the
PhiHstines from Caphtor and the Aramaeans from
Kir (ix. 7) although they 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 " (H. 11). " The Lord Jehovah wUl not do

138 HOW JEHOVAH IS lect. in.
anything without revealing His secret to His servants
the prophets" (Hi. 7). This is the real distinction
between Israel and the nations — that in aU that
Jehovah did for His people in time past, in aU 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 HimseK to them personaUy, 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 aU mankind, but that it has refused
to Hsten to these laws as they were personaUy ex
plained to it by the Judge HimseK. They gave the
Nazarites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets
not to prophesy (ii. 12). And now every good gKt 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 gKts. 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 PhUistine border a
single kingdom broader or better than your own?
" Therefore ye shall go into captivity with the first that
go captive " (vi. 1 seq).
As the privUege 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 Hve " (v. 6). " To seek God " is the old
Hebrew phrase for consulting His oracle, asking His help

lect. in. TO BE SOUGHT. 139
or decision in difficult affairs of conduct or law (Gen.
xxv. 22 ; Exod. xviH. 15 ; 2 Kings Hi. 11 ; viii. 8) ; and
by ancient usage Jehovah was habituaUy sought at the
sanctuary, though the phrase is equally appHcable to
consulting a prophet. In fact, the offerings of the
sanctuary may be broadly divided into two classes,
those which express homage and thanksgiving (minhdh,
sMlem), and those which were presented in connection
with some request or inquiry. In the latter class the
bumt-offering is most conspicuous. But Amos refuses
to acknowledge this way of seeking God. "Seek ye
not Bethel, and come not unto GUgal, and pass not over
the border to Beersheba ; for GUgal shaU go captive, and
Bethel shaU come to nought. Seek Jehovah, and Hve ;
lest He break forth Hke fire in the house of Jacob, and it
devour and there be none to quench it in Bethel " (v. 5,
6). The multipHcation of gKts and offerings is but
multipHcation 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 civU 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 sensuaHty, the barbarous treatment
of the poor, to which he recurs again and again as the
cardinal sins of the nation. The reHgion of Israel had
become a reHgion for the rich, the priests and the

140 THE SINS OF lect. iii.
nobles were Hnked together in unrighteousness, and the
most flagrant scenes of immoraHty and oppression were
seen at the sacred courts (H. 7, 8). Amos never speaks
of the golden calves as the sin of the northern sanc
tuaries,20 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 viH. 14, is
probably the Ashera of 2 Kings xiH. 6, which had a
connection with the moral impurities of Canaanite
religion ; and in Amos v. 26 there is a very obscure
aUusion 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 offices of His sanctuary.21 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.
xxHi 18.88 But these points are merely touched in
passing. The whole ritual service is to Amos a thing
without importance in itseK. The IsraeHtes offered no
sacrifice in the wUderness, and yet Jehovah was never
nearer to them than then (v. 25 compared with H. 10).
The judgment of Jehovah begins at the sanctuary (ix. 1
seq. ; in. 14), because the sanctuaries are the centre of
Israel's reHgious Hfe and so also of its moral corruption.
The palace and the temple stood side by side (vii 13),
and they faU together (Hi. 14, 15; vn. 9) in the
common overthrow of the state and its reHgion.

lect. iii. 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 deHvering it. TiU this message is received
and taken to heart no project of reformation can avaU ;
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 understandmg ; K
the Hon roars he has prey within his reach ; if the
springe flies up from the ground, there is something in
the noose ; K the springe catches the bird it must have
been rightly set (Hi 3 seq). And so, let Israel be assured,
the advance of Assyria and the sin of Israel hang to
gether in Jehovah's purpose, and the man who knows the
secret of Jehovah's righteousness cannot doubt that the
approaching destruction is a sentence on the nation's
guUt. To produce conviction of sin by an appeal to
the universal conscience, to the known nature of Jehovah,
above aU 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 wUl 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 lect. hi.
and the sword of Jehovah shaU pursue the sinners even
in flight and captivity tiU 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 civU 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 easUy destroy the land by
natural agencies or burn up the guUty nation in a sea
of flame (vn. 1 seq), He chooses another course, and
carries His people into captivity, that He may sKt them
whUe they wander through the nations as corn is sKted
in a sieve, without one sound grain falling to the ground.
And so when aU the sinners are consumed His hand
wiU build up a new Israel as in the days of the first
kingdom. The faUen tent of David shaU be restored,
and the Hebrews shaU again rule over aU those vassal
nations that once were Jehovah's tributaries. Then the
land inhabited by a nation purged of transgressors shaU
flow with milk and wine. " And I wiU restore the
prosperity of My people Israel, and they shaU buUd
waste cities and dweU therein, and plant vineyards and
drink the wine thereof, and make gardens and eat the

*.

lect. iii. OF AMOS. 143
fruit of them. And I wiU plant them upon their land,
and they shaU 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 tiU we can compare
them with the picture of the restoration of Israel set
forth a Httle later by his immediate successor Hosea.

144 HOSEA AND THE lect. iv.

LECTURE IV.
HOSEA AND THE FALL OF EPHRAIM.
The prophetic work of Amos, which we examined in
last Lecture, faUs 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 Httle whUe," says Jehovah in Hosea i 4, " and I wUl
punish the house of Jelm 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
fiUed, and the latter part of his book contains unmis
takable references to the state of anarchy into which
the Northern Kingdom feU on the extinction of the last
great dynasty that occupied the throne of Samaria.
Before we address ourselves, therefore, to the study of
his Hfe and prophecies it wUl be convenient to take a
rapid survey of the history of Ephraim after the death
of Jeroboam, and in order to gam a clear view of the
sequence of events it is indispensable to say a few

lect. iv. FALL OF EPHRAW. 145
words on the tangled chronology of the period, which is
usually interpreted in a way that does no smaU violence
to the BibHcal narrative.1
According to the chronology which has passed into
general currency from the Annals of Archbishop Ussher,
and is represented on the margins of most EngHsh
Bibles, the death of Jeroboam was foUowed 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 K 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 dejure. And apart from this it is quite
inconceivable that an interregnum of eleven years, with
the stirring incidents inseparable from a prolonged
period of civU war, could be passed over in absblute
sUence by the BibHcal narrative.
Whence, then, do Archbishop Ussher and other
chronologists derive their eleven years of interregnum ?
From the death of Solomon to the faU of Samaria the
history of the books of Kings forms a double Hne.

146 CHRONOLOGY OF THE lect. iv,
Dates are determined in the one Hne by years of the
kings of Ephraim, 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 aU events provisionaUy,
that the two Hnes of chronology were originaUy dis
tinct. In point of fact they are not merely distinct,
but of unequal length, as may be shown by the foUowing
simple calculation. According to the Judaean Hne
there are just 480 years from the founding of Solomon's
temple to the return from Babylonian exUe, B.c. 535.
According to the Northern reckoning the faU of Samaria i
took place in the 241st year from the revolt against
Jeroboam, or in the 278th year of the temple. Counting
then up the Judaean Hne and down the other we get
for the date of the faU of Samaria B.c. 737. On the
other hand, K we start from the statement of 2 Kings
xviH. 9, that Samaria fell in the sixth year of Hezekiah,
remembering that he reigned twenty-nine years in aU,
and that his death feU 160 years before the restoration,
we get for the date of Samaria's faU B.o. 719. In
other words, the Judaean Hne is about twenty years longer
than the Northern one. It is in order to get over this
discrepancy without admitting any error in the two
sets of numbers that chronblogists assume the long
interregnum after Jeroboam IL's death, and another
period of anarchy somewhat later.2 But in point of
fact to invent an interregnum of which the history does
not speak is quite as serious a Hberty with the 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 habituaUy undated. No date of
the Northern history prior to the faU of Samaria is given
by the year of the reigning king of Ephraim, and in
the history of Judah, tiU the time of Jeremiah, almost
aU 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 ; xviU. 13 seq. ; xxH.
3 ; xxin. 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 by round
numbers can hardly be avoided ; and on such 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.8 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 exUe, while
240 years is the duration of the Northern Kingdom,
But again, when we analyse the 480 of the Judaean
genealogy and the 240 of the Northern Kingdom, we
find that each is naturaUy 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 Judaean line begins with the year of Joash's reforms
in the temple, and ends with the death of Hezekiah.
In the Northern Hne 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 Hne was constracted on the method
of genealogies, and reduced to years by what a mathe
matician might caU a method of interpolation, — that is,
by starting with certain fixed dates, which were taken as
the great divisions of the scheme, and then fining up the
intervals in an approximate way from a rough knowledge
of the longer 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 ExUe, 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 ExUe. 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 Roman
chronology is based on the Hst of consuls, or as the

150 CHRONOLOGY OF THE lect. iv

Athenians named each year after the so-called Archon
Eponymus; so in Assyria there was a high official
appointed annuaUy who gave his name to his year of
office. The Hst 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 Hke 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 faUen 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 Hne of chronology for this
period, and completely justify us in our refusal to aUow
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 detaUs of the
Bible chronology, even in Northern Israel, are more than
approximate, or weaken the force of the argument that

BOOKS OF KINGS. 151

the original reckoning was in round numbers. For
there is every reason to beHeve 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 ; and, with this datum and a generation of prosperity
under Jeroboam II., the editor could not faU to give a
tolerably correct estimate of the length of the period in
question. For the period between Menahem and the
faU of Samaria the BibHcal chronologer seems to have
had less fuU guidance from ancient sources. For, accord
ing to the monuments, Samaria was besieged cir. 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.4 The practical result of this inquiry is that
the decHne 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 faU of
Samaria, was reaUy complete in less than haK 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 faU of
the kingdom of Samaria. On the death of Jeroboam II,
his son Zachariah succeeded to the throne, but after six
months lost his kingdom and his Hfe in the conspiracy
of ShaUum, 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 himseK 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 civU 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 GUeadites. Pekah aUied himseK with Rezin of
Damascus, and formed the project of dethroning Ahaz,
king of Judah. Ahaz appealed to Tiglath PUeser, who
marched westward, led the Damascenes captive, as
Amos had foretold, and also depopulated GUead and
GaHlee. 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, who 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 IsraeHtes were carried
captive to the far East, new populations being brought
from Babylon and other districts to take their*place.6
Sargon, it is true, only claims to have carried away
27,280 of the inhabitants of Samaria, but these, of course,
belonged to the ruling class ; what remained was but Hke
the bad figs of which Jeremiah speaks (Jer. xxv. 8),
without savour or beauty. It is also true 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 xxHi 15; Jer. xii. 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 reHgion.
When Josiah destroyed the ancient high places of the
Northern Kingdom he slew their priests, whereas the
priests of Judaean 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 rain. 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 the second temple. We have no reason to
* See page 439.

154 HOSEA, SON lect. i v.
think that the captive Ephraimites were more able to
retain their distinctive character than their brethren
who remamed 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. xxviu. 64), and, losing
their distinctive reHgion, 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.6 Unlike Amos,
he was himself a subject of the Northern Kingdom, as
appears from the whole tenor of his book, and especiaUy
from vii 5, where the monarch of Samaria is caUed
" 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 aU
its closeness, is that of an outsider, whose personrl Hfe
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 deUver his divine message and withdraw
from the turmoU of Samaria's guilty cities to the sUent
pastures of the wUderness ; but the whole IKe 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 itseK in every
page of his prophecy is the distress of a pure and gentle
soul, Hnked by the closest ties of famUy affection and
national feeHng to the sinners who were hurrying Israel
onwards to the doom he saw so clearly, but of which
they refused to hear. And so whUe 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 (H. 13), when
the feast-days, the new moons, and the Sabbaths stiU
ran their joyous round, and the land was rich in corn
and wine and oU, in store of sUver and gold (H. 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 civU 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 ; viH. 4), of a universal reign of perjury
and fraud, of violence and bloodshed (iv. 1, 2). These
descriptions carry us into the evU times that opened

156 THE MINISTRY lect. iv.
with the faU of the house of Jehu ; but the actual
captivity of Israel is stiU in the future (xiii 16) : even
in the closing chapter of his book Hosea addresses a
nation which has not come to open breach with the
Assyrians, but cherishes the vain hope of deHver-
ance through their help (xiv., 3). Gilead and GaHlee,
which were depopulated by Tiglath-PUeser in his ex
pedition against Pekah (b.c. 734), are repeatedly referred
to as an integral part of the kingdom (v. 1 ; vi. 8 ;
xH. 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.7
There is no reason to beHeve 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 EHsha 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 wiU reject them from
their priesthood. They shaU faU, and the prophet shaU
faU with them in the night, their chUdren shaU be
forgotten of Jehovah, and their whole stock shaU
perish.8 Thus Hosea, no less than Amos, places himseK
in direct opposition to aU the leaders of the reHgious
life of his nation, and Hke his Judaean compeer he had
doubtless to reckon with their hostiHty. " As for the
prophet," he complains, " a fowler's snare is in aU his

lect. 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 evU 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, tiU 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 the 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 simpHcity and seK-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 infideHty are
woven together in a sequence which has no logical plan,
but is determined by the battle and alternate victory
of contending emotions ; and the swKt transitions, the
fragmentary unbalanced utterance, the half- developed
aUusions, that make his prophecy so difficult to the
commentator, express the agony of this inward conflict.
Hosea, above aU other prophets, is a man of deep

158 CHARACTER lect. 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 shaU 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 aU in
vain. The weary years roU on, the signs of Israel's
dissolution thicken, and stUl his words find no audience.
Like a siUy dove fluttering in the toUs, Ephraim turns
now to Assyria, now to Egypt, " but they return not to
Jehovah their God, and seek not Him for aU this."
StUl the prophet stands alone in his recognition of the
true cause of the multiplied distresses of his nation,
and stUl it is his task to preach repentance to deaf
ears, to declare a judgment in which only himseK
beHeves. And now the Assyrian is at hand, sweep
ing over Canaan Hke a fatal sirocco. " An east wind
shaU come, the breath of Jehovah ascending from the
wUderness, and his spring shaU become dryland his
fountain shaU be dried up ; He shaU spoil the /treasure

lect. iv. OF HOSEA. 159
of aU precious jewels. Samaria shaU be desolate, for
she hath rebeUed against her God : they shaU faU by
the sword : their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and
their women with chUd shaU be ripped up " (xiH. 15).
And yet, when aU is lost, the prophet's love for
guilty and faUen 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 chUd and
caUed His son out of Egypt. " How can I give thee up,
Ephraim? How can I cast thee away, Israel? My
heart burns within Me, My compassion is aU kindled.
I wiU not execute the fierceness of My wrath ; I wUl
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 shaU triumph even in the utter faU of
the nation Hosea does not explain. But that it will
triumph he cannot doubt. In the extremity of judg
ment Jehovah wUl yet work repentance and salvation,
and from the death-kneU of Samaria the accents of
hope and promise sweU 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 aU the
troubles of a stormy Hfe. "I wUl heal their back-
sHding, I wUl love them freely: for Mine anger is
turned away from him. I wUl be as the dew to Israel :
he shaU bud forth as the Hly and strike his roots as
Lebanon."'. . , Who is wise, and he shaU understand

160 THE KNOWLEDGE lect. iv.
these things ? prudent, and he shaU know them ? For
the ways of Jehovah are right, and the just shaU walk
in them ; but the transgressors shaU faU therein."
Hosea is a man of emotion rather 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 feeHng characteristic of his style, not by
| a weU-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 guUty 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 feUowship, and which they can
not hope to comprehend. Where Amos says that
Jehovah knows IsraeL Hosea desires that Israel should
know Jehovah (H 20 ; iv. 1, 6 ; vi. 3 ; viii. 2 ; xiii 4).
And this knowledge is no mere act of the inteUect ; 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 HimseK with human cords, with
bands of love (xi 1 seq). In chap, vi 6 the know
ledge of God is explained in a paraUel clause, not by
" mercy," as the Authorised Version renders it, but by
a word (hdsed)9 corresponding to the LatHy nietas, or
dutiful love, as it shows itself in acts of kinmmess and

lect. iv. OF JEHOVAH. 161
loyal affection. It is quite characteristic of the differ
ence between the two prophets, that in Amos this word
hesed or kindness never occurs, whUe in Hosea it not
only expresses the right attitude of man to God, but
kindness and truth, kindness and justice, are the sum
of moral duty (iv. 1 ; x. 12 ; xH. 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 technicaHty; it is a word of
common Hfe used of aU those acts, going beyond the
mere norm of forensic righteousness, which acknowledge
that those who are Hnked 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 famUy 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 Msed is the bbnd by which
the whole community is knit together. It is not neces
sary to distinguish Jehovah's hesed to Israel which we
would term his grace, Israel's duty of hesed to Jehovah
which we would caU piety, and the relation of hised
between man and man which embraces the duties of love
and mutual consideration. To the Hebrew mind these
three are essentiaUy one, and aU are comprised in the
same covenant. Loyalty and kindness between man
and man 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 civU righteous
ness are still the chief sphere within which the right
knowledge of Jehovah and due regard to His covenant
are tested. Where reHgion has a national form, and
especiaUy in such a state of society as both prophets
deal with, that is necessary ; but Hosea refers these
obHgations to a deeper source. Israel is not only the
dominion but the famUy of Jehovah, and the father
hood of God takes the place of his kingly righteousness
as the fundamental idea of Israel's reHgion. Jehovah
is God and not man, but the meaning of this is that
His love is sovereign, pure, unselfish, free from aU im
patience and aU variableness as the love of -an earthly
father can never be.

lect. iv. 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 aU 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 case under the general laws of Divine
government, compHcated by the circumstance that
Jehovah knows Israel and has personal communications
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 reHgion, and every problem of faith centres in
it. To both prophets the distinction which we are
wont to draw between reHgious and moral duties is un
known ; yet it would not be unfair to say in modern
language that Amos bases reHgion on morality, whUe
Hosea deduces moraHty from reHgion. The two men
are types of a contrast which runs through the whole
history of reHgious thought and IKe down to our own
days. The reHgious world has always been divided
into men w|k> 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 habituaUy 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 aHke the true standard of re
Hgious Hfe is the standard of conduct. The state of the
nation before its God is judged by its actions ; and the
prevalence of immoraHty, 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 civU righteousness, which
you are daUy 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 underHes it. Amos had
said, Cease your ritual 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 privileges ; Hosea judges them aa
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, whUe Amos deals mainly with Israel as a
state, Hosea habituaUy 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
foUowing its relations to Jehovah from the days of the
patriarch Jacob (xH. 2, 3, 12), through the deHverance
from Egypt onwards (xH. 13 ; xi 1 seq). He dwells
with special mterest on the first love of Jehovah to His
people when He found Israel Hke grapes in the wUder
ness (ix. 10), when He knew them in the thirsty desert
(xin. 5), before the innocence of the nation's chUdhood
was stained with the guilt of Baal-peor, and its early
love had vanished Hke the dew of dawn, or Hke 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 aUusions 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 Hfelong course
of spurned privUeges and sHghted love. It is this
thought of the personal continuity of Israel's relations
to Jehovah that leads the prophet to speak of God's
deaHngs 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 single
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 (H. 15 ; compare Josh. vn. 24). It is worth
remembering, in connection with Hosea's frequent use
of the early history, that in last Lecture we saw reason
to beHeve 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 stiU 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
Reuben, 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 aUegories of historical events subse
quent to the settlement of the Hebrews in Canaan.
This consideration enables us to see that the aUegorical
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.10
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 himseK with noting the acts of injustice and
immorality that were done in the name of reHgion,
and with urging that no ritual service can be accept
able to Jehovah where civU righteousness is forgotten.
Beyond this he shows a degree of indifference to aU
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 naturaUy assumes a much larger significance.
Acts of worship are the direct embodiment of the
attitude and feeHngs 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.11 He required a more personal relation,
such as is suppHed by the analogy of domestic Hfe.
The idea of a famUy relation between Jehovah and
Israel appears in the book of Hoseain 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
aUegory in its most complete and original form, the

168 PERSONIFICATION lect. iv.
 J 
nation or land of Israel (i. 2 ; H. 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 symboHsm, the stock of a
famUy 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 chUdren the actual members of
the 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 xvH. 28). In
Num. xxi. 29 the Moabites are caUed the sons and
daughters of Chemosh, and even Malachi calls a heathen
woman " the daughter of a strange god " (MaL ii 11).
Proper names expressive of this idea are common
among the Semites, a famiHar 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 naturaUy
identified with their interests, and not with those of any
other tribe. In Israel, however, the idea of Jehovah's

lect. iv. OF ISRAEL. 169
fatherhood could not take this crass form in the mind
of any one who remembered 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
deHverance 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 reHgion
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 Chemosh, 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 privUeges 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 (xHi 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
fooHsh chUd (vHi. 12).
But though Hosea dwells on the sonship of
Ephraim with great tenderness, especiaUy in speaking

170 ISRAEL AS lect. iv.
 *  , 
of the chUdhood 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, especiaUy
that of the adult son employed in his father's business,
has a certain element of servitude (MaL Hi. 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 Httle ones
that the father shows that tenderness which Hosea
speaks of in describing the chUdhood 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 stiU more
intimate relation of the husband to his spouse.
In looking at the aUegory 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. AHke in Israel
and among its heathen neighbours, the word Baal, that
is " Lord " or " Owner," was a common appeUative 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," whUe David in Hke manner gives to
one of his sons the name of BeeHada, " Baal knoweth,"
we may be sure that Baal is here a title of the God of
Israel.12 In Hosea's time the worshipping people stiU
addressed Jehovah as BaaH, "my Lord," and the
BaaHm of whom he often speaks (H. 13 ; xHi. 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 wKe (1 Pet. Hi. 6),
whom in fact, according to early law, he purchases from
her father for a price (Exod. xxi. 8 ; xxu. 17).18 The
address Baali is used by the wife to her husband as
weU 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 nationaHty, or of the mother-land.14 It is
not at aU likely that this conception was in form original
to Hosea, or even peculiar to Israel ; such developed
reHgious aUegory as that which makes the national God,
not only father of the people, but husband of the land
their mother, has its famiHar home in natural religions.
In these reHgions 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 lect. iv.
akin to those that defiled the sanctuaries of Israel in
Hosea's day.15 It even seems possible to find some trace
in Semitic heathenism of the idea of marriage of the
Baal 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 isweU 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 Hfe-giving power. Even the Moham
medan Arabs retained the name of Baal (ba'l) for land
watered by the rains of heaven. The land that brings
forth fruit under these influences could not faU to be
thought of as his spouse; and, in fact, we have an
Arabic word (fathary) which seems to show that the
fertiHty produced by the rains of Baal was associated
with the name of his wife 'Ashtoreth.16 If this be so, it
foUows that in point of form the marriage of Jehovah
with Israel corresponded to a common Semitic concep
tion, and we may weU suppose that the corrupt mass of
Israel interpreted it in reference to the fertiHty 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
reHgious ideas of his people. For we learn from him

lect. iv. fEHOVAH'S SPOUSE. 173
that the IsraeHtes worshipped the BaaHm or golden
calves under just such a point of view as our discussion
suggests. They were looked upon as the authors of the
fertiHty of the land and nothing more (n. 5) ; in other
words, they were to Israel precisely what the heathen
BaaHm 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 reHgion,
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 stiU 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 warHke 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 aU 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 formaUy abjured for
Canaanite gods; but in the decay of aU the nobler
impulses of national Hfe He sank in popular conception

174 ISRAEL THE SPOUSE lect. iv
to their level ; in essential character as weU as in name
the calves of the local sanctuaries had become Canaanite
BaaHm, mere sources of the physical fertiHty 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 reHgious 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 fertUity (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
reHgious symboHsm. The popular reHgion was fuU of
externaUy similar ideas ; the true personaHty and moral
attributes of Jehovah were lost in a maze of aUegory
derived from the sexual processes of physical Hfe ; and
the degrading effects of such a way of thought were
visible in universal Hcentiousness and a disregard of
the hoHest obHgations 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
falling back Hke Amos on the transcendency of the
Creator and Ruler of the moral universe. But he does
not do so. Instead of rejecting the current symboHsm
he appropriates it ; but he does so in a way that Hfts it

lect. iv. OF JEHOVAH. 175
whoUy out of the sphere of nature reHgion 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 fideHty which the popular
reHgion daUy 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 BaaHm or local symbols of
Jehovah, with which the nation held no moral fellow
ship, worshipping them merely as sources of physical
Hfe 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 earHer prophets so sharply
as his attitude to the golden calves, the local symbols
of Jehovah adored in the Northern sanctuaries. Elijah
and EHsha 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 Hosea,
as in that of Amos, the popular worship was nominally
Jehovah worship. The oath of the worshippers at GU
gal and Bethel was by the IKe of Jehovah (iv. 15) ; the

176 HOSEA AND lect. iv.
feasts of the BaaHm were Jehovah's feasts (ii 11; 13, ix.
5) ; the sanctuary was Jehovah's house (ix. 4), the sacri
fices His offerings (viH. 13). But to Hosea's judgment
this ostensible Jehovah worship is reaUy the worship
of other gods (Hi. 1). With the calves Jehovah has
nothing in common. He is the Hving God (i 10), the
calves are mere idols, the work of craftsmen (xiii. 2) ; and
the nation which caUs 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 reHgion was simply based on the second
commandment. But when we contrast it with the
absolute sUence of earHer prophets we can hardly accept
this explanation as adequate. Amos is as zealous for
Jehovah's commandments as Hosea ; and, K the one
prophet condemns the worship of the calves as the
fundamental evidence of Israel's infideHty, whUe the
other, a few years before, passes it by in sUence, it is
fair to conclude that the matter appeared to Hosea in a
much more practical Hght than it did to Amos. Our
analysis of Hosea's Hne of thought enables us to
understand how this was so. Amos judges of the reH
gious state of the nation by its influence on social rela
tions and the administration of pubHc justice. But
Hosea places the essence of reHgion in personal fideHty
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 aU 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 reHgious insight ; for the whole history of
reHgion shows that no truth is harder to reaHse than
that a worship morally false is in no sense the worship
of the true God (Matt. vi. 24 ; vii. 22).
As we foUow out the various aspects of 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
infideHty, in, the inward sympathy with which he mourns
M

178 PERSONAL HISTORY lect. iv.
over his nation's faU, yet holding fast the assurance that
even in that faU the love of Jehovah to His people
shaU 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 Hfe. It is a special characteristic of the
Hebrew prophets that they identify themselves with
Jehovah's word and wiU 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
Hfe, 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 wUl 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. rv. OF HOSEA, 179
invented by Hosea; it is drawn, as we are expressly
told, from his own Hfe. The Divine Word first became
audible in the prophet's breast after he had been led by
a mysterious providence to espouse Gomer, the daughter
of Diblaim, who proved an unfaithful wKe and became
the mother of children born in infidelity (i 2, 3). The
detaUs of this painful story are very Hghtly touched ;
they are never aUuded to in that part of the book which
has the character of pubHc preaching — in chapter i the
prophet speaks of himseK in the third person ; and as
Hosea gave names to the chUdren of Gomer, names of
symboHc 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 avaU. In chapter Hi. 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 foUowing
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 stiU true to
her.1T These scanty detaUs embrace aU that we know of
the history of Hosea's Hfe ; everything else in chapters
i and Hi., together with the whole of chapter ii, is pure

180 PERSONAL HISTORY lect. iv.
aUegory, depicting the relations of Jehovah and Israel
under the 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 Hfe
is Hteral history ; it is told with perfect simpHcity, and
yet with touching reserve. We feel that it would not
have been told at aU, 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 infideHty which Hes at the root of his whole
prophetic argument. Those who shrink from accepting
the narrative in its Hteral 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 himseK the
chief actor, clothing himseK with an imaginary shame
which could only breed derision. But in trath, as we
have abeady seen, the history of Hosea's Hfe is related
mainly in the third person, and forms no part of his
preaching to IsraeL It is a history that Hes behind his
pubHc 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 aUegory
— that Hosea first reaHsed 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

lect. iv. OF HOSEA. 181
first lesson to the prophet's souL God speaks in the
events of history and the experiences of human Hfe.
He spoke to Amos in the thundering march of the
Assyrian, and he spoke to Hosea in the shame that
bHghted bis home.18
Apart from the stUl surviving influence of the old
system of aUegorical 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. L 2,
as K Hosea meant us to beHeve 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
aUegory is that Gomer's infideHty after marriage is a
figure of Israel's departure from the covenant God, and
the straggle 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 which Jehovah desired to teach him by these sad
experiences. It was in the straggle 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 deaHngs with faithless Israel, and recognised the
unhappiness of his married Hfe as no meaningless
calamity, but the ordinance of Jehovah, which caUed
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 Hke manner the prophet tells us that he recog
nised an incident in his Hfe as embodying a divine word
after the event). It was through the experience of his
own IKe, 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 aU carnal aUoy, and separating Jehovah for ever
from the idols with which His name had tiU then been
associated. The possession of a single true thought about Jeho
vah, not derived from current reHgious 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, Hke that
deHvered to Amos. As the prophet's own love to his
wife shaped and coloured his whole Hfe, so Jehovah's
love to faithless Israel contained within itself the key
to aU Israel's history. The past, the present, and the
future took a new aspect to the prophet in the Hght of
his great spiritual discovery. Hosea had become a
prophet, not for a moment, but for all bis Hfe.

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,
whUe the briefer prophecies in chap, i, associated with
the names of Gomer's three chUdren, 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 pubHc preacher ; and this fact
we can weU understand in a nature so poeticaUy sensi
tive, and in connection with the personal circumstances
that first made him a prophet. But it was impossible
for him to be altogether sUent. He felt that he and
his famUy were Hving lessons of Jehovah to Israel, and
in this feeHng he gave to the three chUdren symboHcal
names, to each of which a short prophetic lesson was
attached. In this he was foUowed by Isaiah, whose
sons, Mahar-shalal-hash-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 Httle whUe," saith Jehovah, " and I wiU
punish the house of Jehu for the sin of Jezreel, and wiU
cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. And
in that day I wUl break the bow of Israel in the vaUey
of Jezreel" — the natural battlefield of the land. To
Hosea, as to Amos, the fall of the house of Jehu and
the faU of the nation appear as one thing ; both pro
phets, indeed, appear to have looked for the overthrow

184 HOSEA'S VIEW OF THE lect. iv.
of the reigning dynasty, not by intestine conspiracy, as
actually happened, but at the hand of the destroying
invader. It was fitting, therefore, 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
weU worthy of attention. It places in the strongest
Hght the Umitations that characterise aU Old Testament
revelation. It shows us that we can look for no
mechanical uniformity in the teaching of successive
prophets. EHsha 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 emphaticaUy as EHsha approved. In the
forefront of his condemnation he places the bloodshed,
stUl unatoned, which, according to the view that runs
through aU the Old Testament and was famiHar to every
Hebrew, continued to cry for vengeance from generation
to generation. But we must not suppose that in Hosea's
judgment aU would have been weU K the house of Omri
had retained the throne. The Northern 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 aU its
dynasties, rests on a principle of godless anarchy.
What wonder, then, that the nation devours her judges
Hke a fiery oven : 19 aU their kings are fallen (vH. 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 unhaUowed 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 (Hi. 5). Now, it is not surprising
that Amos, who was himseK a man of Judah, should
represent the re-estabHshment 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 himseK in striking contrast to aU 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 suph a
thought natural, at least in the days of anarchy that
foUowed the death of Jeroboam II. The stability of
the Davidic throne stood in marked contrast to the civU
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 faU (v. 5, 10,
13, 14 ; vui. 14), Hosea regards the corruption of the
Southern kingdom as less ancient (xi 12 ; Heb., xH. 1)

186 THE RETURN TO mct. iv.
and deep-rooted (iv. 15), and, in his earlier prophecies
at least, excludes Judah from the utter destraction of
the North. When Jehovah's mercy is withdrawn from
Israel He wiU yet save Judah, though not by war and
battle as in days gone by (i. 7). Hosea is so essentially
a man of feeHng, 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 aU, and images of poHtical 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 shaU be destroyed by fire
(viH. 14). The deHverance of Judah is not to. be
wrought by bow or sword (i 7) ; repentant Ephraim
says, " We wUl not ride upon horses " (xiv. 3). His
picture of the future, therefore, lacks aU the features
that give strength to an earthly state ; it reads Hke a
return to Paradise (H. 21 seq. ; xiv.). In such a picture
the kingship of David is Httle more than a figure. The
return of David's kingdom, as it actuaUy was, would by
no 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 " DAVID 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 bis whole doctrine
of reHgion aa a personal bond of love and fideHty. 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 paraUel breaches
of covenant ; when he mentions the one he instinctively
joins the other with it (viH. 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 aU this that in Hosea's hands the old
national theory of the reHgion 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 rain of Israel as it
actuaUy 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 stiU seems possible that the rem
nant of the nation, purified by sKting judgment, may
return to Canaan and restore the ancient kingdom of

188 HOSEA'S lect. iv.
David. His picture of the last days is no more than a
glorified image 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 fuUer
measure to a nation purged of sinners. The reaHsm of
this picture has no counterpart in Hosea's eschatology.
The total dissolution of national Hfe 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 shaU 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 wiU
heal us ; He hath smitten and He wiU bind us up.
After two days wUl He revive us, in the third day He
wiU raise us up, and we shall Hve before Him" (vi. 1 seq. ;
xiH. 14). Even Ephraim's hard heart cannot for ever
resist Jehovah's love. " He wUl aUure her and lead her
into the wUderness " of exile " and speak to her heart "
(H. 14). The desolate valley of Achor shaU be to her
the gate of hope, and there " she shaU 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 shaU roar Hke a Hon, and
the wanderers shaU come fluttering to His call Hke a
bird from Egypt, Hke 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
husband of Israel, and the giver of those good things
which in their blindness she esteemed the gifts of the
BaaHm (H. 5 seq). Taught by adversity, Ephraim shaU
acknowledge that neither the aUiance of strange em
pires, nor his own prowess, nor his vain idols can give
deHverance ; " Asshur shaU not save us, we wUl not
ride upon horses, neither wiU 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 aU Israel
shaU be saved ; but in this redemption every feature
of the old nation has disappeared — its state, its reHgion,
its warlike might, its foreign poHcy, king and prince,
sacrifice and sanctuary, images (ephod) and teraphim.
The very face of nature is changed ; the wUd 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 He
down safely (H. 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." *>

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 which 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 stiU find in his book a fit expres
sion of the profoundest feelings of repentant devotion —
a deHneation 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 itseK in the most
characteristic way when the book of Hosea closes with
an image derived from mere vegetative Hfe. The true
goal of Hosea's ideas lay beyond his own horizon, in a
dispensation when the relation of the redeeming God
to every beHeving soul should have all that tenderness
and depth of personal affection with which he clothes
the relation of Jehovah to Israel.21

ISAIAH. 191

LECTURE V.
THE kingdom of jtjdah and the beginnings of
isaiah's wokk.1
We have now reached the point in the Old Testament
history at which the centre of mterest 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 Judaean Amos it was Israel par
excellence. Judah was not only inferior in poHtical
power, but in the share it took in the active movements
of national Hfe and thought. In tracing the history of
reHgion and the work of the prophets, we have been
almost exclusively occupied with the North; Amos
himseK, when charged with a message to the whole
famUy that Jehovah brought up out of Egypt, leaves
his home to preach in a Northern sanctuary. During
this whole period we have a much fuUer knowledge of
the Hfe of Ephraim than of Judah ; the Judaean 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 faU of AthaHah, the

192 EPHRAIM lect. v.
last scion of the house of Ahab, and the accompanying
aboHtion of Baal worship at Jerusalem, or, finaUy,
through the presumptuous attempt of Amaziah to mea
sure his strength with the powerful monarch of Samaria.
WhUe the house of Ephraim was engaged in the great
war with Syria, Judah had seldom to deal with enemies
more formidable than the PhiHstines 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 heroic
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 fuU development where there is Httle poHtical
activity; K the Hfe of the North was more troubled,
it was also larger and more intense. Ephraim took the
lead in Hterature and reHgion as weU as in poHtics ; 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 caUed 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 evU or for good. It would be easy to show in detaU
that every great wave of Hfe 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 hostiHties.
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 Reho-
boam for a time to press hard upon his rival.2 The in
vasion of Shishak, in which Rehoboam 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 Davidic kings. Jeho
shaphat was the ally of Ahab and his sons, and an aUy
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 weU as
Ephraim suffered from the inroads of Hazael (2 Kings
N

194 HISTORY lect. v.
xH. 17 seq). 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 poHcy. 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 shaU not be
far wrong if we view Uzziah and Jotham as the con
temporaries of Jeroboam II. and Menahem, whUe 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 PUeser and closed with the
faU of Samaria.8 The date of Hezekiah's accession is
much disputed by chronologers ; but he appears to have
taken the sceptre before the faU of Samaria, whUe the
greater part of his reign certainly faUs 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 impHcation
in the stream of larger poHtics. Ahaz, on the contrary,
was attacked by Pekah and Rezin, 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 itseK,
which could only hope for safety by patiently fulfilHng
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 poHtical quietude, accepting the present situation
as it stood and leaving the great struggle to be fought
out by others, 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 different
from the petty states with which it had formerly had
to do. The alternative was pregnant with important
issues, not only for the poHtical existence of the little
nation, but for the reHgion of Jehovah, and to indicate
the reHgious solution of the problems of this crisis was
the work of the greatest of Judaean prophets, Isaiah the
son of Amos. The famous expedition of Sennacherib,
(vbich marks the culminating point of his prophetic Hfe,
feU in the year 701 B.C., twenty years after the capture
of Samaria and thirty -three after the expedition of
Tiglath PUeser against Pekah and Rezin, 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 it wiU be necessary to go back
to the epoch of prosperity running paraUel to the reign
of Jeroboam II., and consider the poHtical and reHgious
position of Judah in the reign of Uzziah. Amos, it wiU
be remembered, flourished under this king, and the caU
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 AthaHah 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
poHtical stability, and of successful war. Two kings
indeed, Joash and Amaziah, met a violent death ; but,
whUe in the North the assassination of a monarch was
always foUowed 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 Judaean
sovereigns in the book of Kings have almost exclusive
reference to their actions in regard to the affairs of
pubHc 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 reHgious poHcy, indeed, may he

lect. v. OF JUDAH. 197
fairly assumed to be typical of the general principles of
their rule. These principles were conservative; the
son foUowed in the footsteps of his father (2 Kings xv.
3 ; xvi 3); and so, K no high ideal was aimed at, there
were at least no new and crying abuses to excite dis
content. The conservative character of the Judaean
state is readUy explained from the history of the house
of David. The earHest poHtical unity in Israel was not
the nation, but the tribe or its subdivision the clan.
The heads of clans and communities were the hereditary
aristocracy, the natural leaders in peace and in war ;
and we have abeady 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 aU parts of the kingdom more directly
under the control of the capital ; whUe 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
poHcy, and the more powerful of the kings of Ephraim
appear, in Hke manner, to have laboured in the direction
of centraHsation and political absolutism. Prolonged
and exhausting wars naturaUy favoured this poHcy, but
at the ruinous cost of breaking up old social bonds and

198 JUDAH UNDER lect. v.
opening a fatal guK 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 Rehoboam, because their prejudices
and ancestral usages had not been violated like J those
of the North ; and when the kingdom was practicaUy
narrowed to a single tribe, and could no longer pretend
to play the part of a great power, neither poHpy nor
interest urged the Davidic kings to startHng innovations
in government. Thus the internal condition of the state
was stable, though Httle 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 whiph they
BtUl claimed suzerainty, and their civU administration
must have been generaUy 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 fideHty 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
iniovations, which irritate an Eastern people much more
thai individual miscarriages of justice, were seldom
attanpted. The reHgious conduct of the house of
Darid foUowed the same general lines. Old abuses
remained untouched, but the cultus remained much as
Dav.d and Solomon had left it Local high places were
nunsrous, and no attempt was made to interfere with
then; but the great temple on Mount Zion, which
formsd part of the complex of royal buildings erected
by Solomon, maintained its prestige, and appears to
havebeen a special object of soHcitude to the kings,
who teated its service as part of their royal state.
Itis common to imagine that the reHgious condition
of Jiiah was very much superior to that of the North,
but here is absolutely no evidence to support this
opinio. Throughout the Old Testament history the
abuses of popular worship are brought into prominence
mainl; in connection with efforts after reform. In
Judahthere was no movement of reform to record be-
tweenthe time of Joash, when the Tyrian Baal was
aboHsed, and the time of Hezekiah, who acted under
the inuence of Isaiah. Thus, in the narrative of Kings,
the hitory of religion remains an absolute blank during
the catury 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 caU unfavourable attention
to the fact that Ahaz sacrificed on the high places, en
the hUls, and under every green tree. His predecessors
had undoubtedly done the same, for they accepted the
high places as legitimate ; the guUt of Ahaz is rot
measured by his deflection from the standard of nis
ancestors, but by his refusal to rise to the higher stand
ard which prophets Hke Isaiah began to set foth.
There can be no question that the worship of the
Judaean sanctuaries was as Httle spiritual as thai of
the Northern shrines. Isaiah has as much to say aganst
idols as Hosea. " Their land," he says, " is full of i ols;
they worship the work of their own hands " (H 8).
And these idols were not new things ; the brazen ser
pent, destroyed by Hezekiah, was worshipped as the
work of Moses, which certainly impHes a cults of
immemorial antiquity. In detaU, no doubt, then was
considerable difference between the idolatry o the
North and the South. We read of a brazen se lent,
but not of golden calves as symbols of Jehovah
does the name of BaaHm, by which the latter
known in Ephraim, appear in Isaiah or Micah,
association of the Godhead with symbols of n;ural
growth and reproductive power, which proved sc fatal
to reHgion and moraHty in the North, was not lacing:
in Judah as in Israel the people worshipped undei sver-
green trees — the Canaanite symbol of the femal side
of the divine power ; and the ashera, which hs the

nor
were The

OF JUDAH. 201

same meaning, was found in Judaean as in Northern
sanctuaries (Isa. i 29 ; xvH. 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. viH 14), appears to be already aUuded to by
Isaiah. But on the whole it is probable that the popu
lar reHgion was not so largely leavened with Canaanite
ideas and Canaanite immoraHty as in the North ; there
is nothing in the prophecies of Isaiah and Micah corre
sponding to the picture of vUe Hcentiousness under the
cloak of reHgion drawn by Amos and Hosea. This,
indeed, is what we should expect ; for in the popula
tion of Judaea 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 Hfe were simpler and more primitive ; so that
we should naturaUy expect to find less sympathy with the
luxurious Canaanite worship, but at the same time more
reHcs of the ancient superstitions of the Hebrews before
Moses. These, again, can hardly have been without
affinity to the original beHefs of the incorporated Arab
elements, and a variety of circumstances make it prob
able that a species of fetichism or totemism was largely

202 RELIGIOUS CONDITION lect. v.
current in Judah as in the neighbouring desert. Such
ancestral superstitions are probably aUuded to in Amos
H. 4, and their nature is iUustrated in the worship of
famUy gods, in the form of unclean„animals, described in
Ezek. viH. 10 seq. One of the most characteristic proofs
of the prevalence of the lowest superstitions is the
frequent reference made by the Judaean prophets to
various forms of magic and divination, such as the con
sultation of famUiar spirits through " wizards that peep
and mutter" — a kind of ventriloquists (Isa. viii 19,
comp. xxix. 4).4 The practice of divination was not con
fined to the masses. Isaiah reckons "the cunning
magician and the man skiUed in enchantments " along
side of the captains and counseUors as recognised props of
the state (Hi. 3) ; whUe Micah characterises the ordinary
prophets as diviners (iii 7, 11, comp. v. 12). Isaiah
represents these superstitious practices as of foreign, in
part of Philistine, character (H. 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 EHjah was not so strongly marked in
the religious practices of Judah. Under the dynasty of
Jehu Jehovah had nominaUy undivided aUegiance from
the house of Ephraim ; foreign elements were eschewed,
and the superstitions incorporated with the ritual of
the sanctuaries, which led Hosea to declare that the
popular religion was not Jehovah worship at aU,

lect. v. OF JUDAH.

were those indigenous to the land of Canaan. In Judah
the influence of the work of EHjah 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 reHgious Hfe, because
a higher ideal of Jehovah worship had never been so
distinctly set before the mass of the people. AU this,
of course, must be understood as not excluding a great
influence of the North on the minor kingdom. On the
one hand it is clear that Amos had thoroughly assimi
lated the teaching of EHjah, whUe Isaiah and Micah
appropriate the teaching of Hosea on the subject of
idolatry. In truth, everything that we possess of the
sacred Hterature and history of the North has been
conveyed to us through Judaean channels. On the
other hand, the growing corruption of Ephraim in
religion and social order was full of perU to Judah.
Hosea warns the Judaeans against participation in the
guUt of Israel (iv. 15), and Micah teUs 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 Red 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. H. 16) and a great development of wealth (Isa. n.
7). The resources of the monarchy were enlarged, and
its warlike strength was increased by the multipHcation
of chariots and horses (Isa. H. 7 ; Micah i 13 ; v. 10 ;
comp. Hosea i. 7 ; viii. 14). But to a nation situated Hke
the Hebrews the sudden expansion of commerce brought
grave social dangers. Society was constructed on the
basis of a purely agricultural Hfe, 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 faU 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 centraHsation of large capital in a few hands led
to the formation of huge estates, the poorer landowners
being either bought out when they feU into the power
of their creditors, or ejected by violence and false judg
ment (Isa. v. 8 ; Micah H 2, 9). Judicial corruption

lect. v. UZZIAH'S REIGN. 205
increased ; every man had his price (Micah Hi. 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 " (Hi. 2). These evUs, no doubt, assumed
an intenser form after the calamitous war with Pekah
and Rezin had spread desolation in the land, and when
the burden of taxation, which in the East always faUs
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 earHest
utterances of Isaiah (chaps. H.-v.), at a time when the
external prosperity of the nation was stiU uninterrupted.
Isaiah began his work in the year of Uzziah's death,
and when he accepted the task of a prophet he afready
pictures his nation as so corrupt that it could be puri
fied only by a consuming judgment.
The year of Uzziah's death cannot be determined
with precision. The present chronology gives to his son
Jotham a reign of sixteen years, which in aU probabUity
is a good deal too much. But at aU 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 lect. v.
long period in acquiring a commanding position in the
state. In the time of Hezekiah, plans which it was
known he would condemn were carefuUy concealed from
him by the poHticians 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 influence on the
affairs of Judah more than a century after they were
first proclaimed. In trath, 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 Hfe of the nation. We can
readUy understand that so great a work could not have
been effected by an isolated mission Hke that of Amos,
or by a man like Hosea, who stood apart from aU the

lect. v. INFLUENCE OF ISAIAH. 207
leaders of his nation, 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 stiU a young man, and it was continued into
old age with the same unfaiHng 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 wKe is caUed the prophetess
(viii. 3) ; his sons bore prophetic names, not enigmatic
Hke those given by Hosea to Gomer's chUdren, but
expressing in plain language two fundamental themes
of his . doctrine — the speedy approach of judgment by
hostUe invasion (Maher-shalal-hash-baz, viH. 3), and the
hope of return to Jehovah and His grace by the remnant
of the nation (Shear-jashub, vn. 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 (viH. 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
(viH. 2). His own IKe 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 PhUistine border near the begin
ning of Hezekiah's reign, was unquestionably infiuenced
by his great contemporary, and, though his conceptions
are shaped with the individual freedom characteristic
of the true prophet, and by no means fit mechanicaUy
into the detaUs of Isaiah's picture of Jehovah's approach
ing deaHngs, the essence of his teaching went aU to
further Isaiah's aims. Thus Isaiah ultimately became
the acknowledged head of a great reHgious movement.
It is too Httle 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 poHtical 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 himseK worthy
by guiding his nation through the crisis with no other
strength than the prophetic word. His commanding
influence on the history of his nation naturaUy suggests
comparison with EHsha, the author of the revolution
of Jehu, and the soul of the great straggle with Syria.
The comparison iUustrates the extraordinary change
which little more than a century had wrought in the
character and aims of prophecy. EHsha effected his
first object — the downfaU of the house of Ahab — by
entering into the sphere of ordinary poHtical intrigue ;
Isaiah stood aloof from all poHtical combinations, and
his influence was simply that of his commanding cha
racter, and of the imperial word of Jehovah preached

lect. v. ELISHA. 209
in season and out of season with unwavering constancy.
EHsha 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
weU knew that Judah had no martial strength that
could avaU 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 itseK on the task of inter
nal reformation tiU 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
poHtical combinations could not help Israel, which
must seek its deHverance in repentance and reHance
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 faUen stock of
the nation, is the object of aU 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 raUy, and a task of internal reformation conformed
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 accompHsh 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
EHsha had been during the Syrian wars. But his hero
ism was that of patience and faith, and the deHverance
came as he had foretold, not by poHtical 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 in chronological
order stand after chap. xxvHL, which speaks of the king
dom of Ephraim as stUl in existence. It is plain, then,
that the book as it stands is in a somewhat disordered
state. Presumably Isaiah himseK issued no coUected
edition of aU his prophecies, but only put forth from
time to time individual oracles or minor coUections,
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

lect. v. OF ISAIAH. 211
aUusions they contain. We cannot even teU when or
by whom the coUection was made. The coUection of
aU remains of ancient prophecy, digested into the four
books named from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the
Twelve Minor Prophets, was not formed tiU 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 coUection
and transmission of ancient books wiU think it reason
able to expect that the writings of each separate
prophet were carefuUy gathered out and arranged to
gether in such a way as to preclude all ambiguity as to
their authorship.5 If every prophecy had had a title
from the first the task of the editor would have been
simple ; or K he did not aim at an exact arrangement
we could easUy 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 aU, and in some other cases there is con
clusive evidence that the titles are not original, because,
in point of fact, they are mcorrect. In the absence of
precise titles giving names and dates to each separate
prophecy, an editor labouring 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 caUed 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 Hterary

212 THE WRITINGS lect. v.
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
Hmited aU schemes of editorial disposition. In ancient
books the most various treatises are often comprised in
one volume ; the scribe had a certam number of skins,
and he wished to fiU them. Thus, even in the minor
coUections that feU into the hands of the editor of the
prophets, a prophecy of Isaiah and one from another
source might easily occupy the same roU ; copies were
not so numerous that it was always possible to teU by
comparison of many MSS. what pieces had always
stood together, and what had only come together by
accident ; and so, taking aU in aU, we need not be sur
prised that the arrangement is imperfect according to
our Hterary Hghts, but wiU 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 itseK 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 aU
may have been written in to save waste of the costly
material ; and so, when the several smaU 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 distmguished except by mternal evidence. That
what thus appears as possible or even probable actuaUy
took place is the common opinion of modern critics.
We must not accept this opinion without examination,
and we cannot now pause to go over every chapter of
the book in detaU ; 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 possibiHties
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 Hfe and times must provision-
aUy be set on one side. Even K they are Isaiah's they
can have but secondary importance for our present
business, which is to study the prophetic word in the
Hght 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 fuU of references to present history the
more shaU 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 weU to say at once
that most parts of the book of Isaiah whose authorship
is disputed have a plain connection with the Chaldaean
period. Whether this connection is of a kind which

214 PERIODS OF lect. v.
justifies us in holding that 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 ExUe. The critical
problems of Isaiah belong to the history of prophecy
under the Chaldaean empire, and even those scholars
who still beHeve that the whole book is from the pen
of Isaiah ascribe the prophecies against Babylon to his
old age, after his active Hfe 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 great influence which Isaiah exerted on the im
mediately subsequent age, so that for the whole study
of the Old Testament reHgion before the ExUe 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 Rezin, and
the Judaean monarch became a vassal of Assyria to
obtain the help of Tiglath PUeser; (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 Hfe culminates in the
great invasion and marvellous deHverance 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, especiaUy
by comparing the many historical aUusions with the
Assyrian monuments. Without going into detaU 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. H. 1 belongs to the earliest part
of Isaiah's ministry. Here there is no aUusion 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
Rezin, 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 pubHshed by Isaiah in a single book, goes
on to the end of chap, v., and there is great prob
ability that ix. 8 to x. 4 originaUy formed part of the

216 PERIODS OF lect. v.
close of this pubHeation. 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 pubHshed
work, but stands at the head of a new series 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 himseK 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. AU 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 aU pubHshed at once, and probably Isaiah
himseK, in reducing selections of his prophecies to
writing from time to time, united oracles of various
date. Chap. xxvHi, for example, must have been first
spoken before the faU 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 aU 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 shaU pass over altogether, are the prophecies
against Babylon, xiH. 1 to xiv. 23 ; xxi. 1-10 ; 8 the very
remarkable and difficult section, chaps, xxiv. to xxvH. ;
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 himseK. There are also two lyrical
chapters, xH. and xxxv., of which the latter seems to
go with chap, xxxiv. Both are so unHke the style of
Isaiah that it wUl be prudent to pass them over also.r
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 teUs us, he saw Jehovah seated on a
lofty throne, whUe the skirts of His kingly robes filled
the palace. Jehovah's palace is the common name of the
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 posts of the door read sockets
of the thresholds), and a cloud of smoke filling the house
during the adoration of the seraphim, Hke the smoke of
incense or sacrifice during ordinary acts of worship. In
the earHer history of the temple the Debir or Holy of
HoHes appears not to have been shut off by doors from

218 ISAIAH'S lect. v.
the holy place (1 Kings vi. 21 as contrasted with ver. 31),
and in Hke 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
reaHsed at aU except under images derived from visible
things. The scenery of Isaiah's vision is of necessity
purely symboHcal, and the form of the symbol was
naturally determined by the old Hebrew conception
of the sanctuary as God's palace on earth, whUe 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 Hghtning.8 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 trath 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. Nor 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 voHtion before
bis inward eye. Even in the highest imaginings 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 seK-consciousness and
seK-command are never lost — the spirits of the prophets
are subject to the prophets (1 Cor. xiv. 32). In Hke 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 inteUigent 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 weU that vision and ecstasy

220 THE NATURE lect. v.
were common in heathenism, and therefore could prove
no commission from Jehovah (Jer. xxiu.) ; and so, as we
have seen, Isaiah did not even pubHsh his inaugural
vision at the tune, but reserved it tiU his ministry had
been pubHc 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 symboHc 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, whUe, on
the other hand, the power of the wUl to conduct thought
in a predetermined direction 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 Hke the images of real things before
the physical senses. The ultimate elements of such a

lect. v. OF VISIONS. 221
vision can include nothing absolutely new ; the concep
tions of which it is buUt up are exclusively such as are
suppHed 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
aUegory set forth by a prophet is visionary or not — that
is to say, we often cannot teU whether the prophet is
devising an mstructive figure by a deHberate act of
thought, or whether the figure rose, as it were, of itseK
before bis mind in a moment of deep abstraction, when
his thoughts seemed to take their own course without a
conscious effort of wUl.
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 reHgious thought which fiUs 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 inteUect. 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 trath of the fundamental reHgious
conceptions on which they rest. But aU 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 earHer stages of revelation,
before the fuU declaration of God in His incarnate Son,
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
appHes equaUy to early thought about the things of
nature, which in Hke 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 himseK in
his 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 aU new inteUectual
combinations are expressed in symbol, and in which the
symbol, instead of being used only for purposes of iUus
tration, is the necessary vehicle of thought. At this
stage new ideas appear, not as logical inferences, but as
immediate mtuitions, in which the voHtion of the thinker
has Httle or no share ; and when such symboHc views
of abstract or spiritual things rise before the mind in a

lect. v. VISION. 223
moment of deep abstraction, as they most naturally do,
they may without impropriety be caUed visions, though
they are not necessarily 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 earHest stages of pro
phecy, as Num. xii seems to imply, but that it feU
more and more into the background with the great
prophets of the eighth century, as their conceptions of
spiritual trath became more articulate and wider in range.
For purposes of exposition it was stUl 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 reHgious problems, but simply a method
of bringing trath 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 symboHc picture presents spiritual things under a
true analogy. Whether the prophet merely set forth
in symboHc 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
inteUect, does not affect its value as a vehicle of spiritual

224 THE HOLINESS lect. v,
trath. 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 reaHties impressed on Isaiah's mind
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 aU the Semitic languages by the same root
(enp). The etymological idea of the root is obscure.
If the Arabic commentaries on the Koran may be
beHeved, 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.9 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 earHest 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,
H. 2 by saying, " There is no holy one Hke 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, equaUy familiar to the Hebrews
and their heathen neighbours. The "holy gods" is a
standing designation of the Phoenician deities, as we

lect. v. OF JEHOVAH. 225
learn from the monument of Eshmunazar ; and so the
word in its original use cannot have conveyed any idea
peculiar to the reHgion 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 doctrme of Jehovah's holiness is simply the doctrme
of His true Godhead. When the first sound that Isaiah
hears in the heavenly temple is the Trisagion of the
seraphim —" Holy, holy, 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 aU 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 actuaUy 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
p

226 THE HOLY ONE

meaning in applying the same terms to both ; Jehovah
alone was holy, or, what is practicaUy 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 dweUs on high, exalted over aU
(xxxni. 5) ; He reigns supreme aHke 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 itseK in
the abasement of aU that disputes His supremacy. The
loftiness of man shaU be humbled, and the haughtiness
of men shaU be bowed down, and Jehovah alone shaU
be exalted in that day (H. 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 aU that the earth
contains is Jehovah's wealth ; but in reaHty 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 Hteral 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
poHty 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 reHgion ; for in the ordinary
language of the Hebrews holiness was not Hmited to the
Deity, but could also be predicated of earthly things
speciaUy set apart for Him. The sanctuary was a holy
place, the reHgious 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 Hke 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 IsraeHte
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 IsraeHte from participation in holy func
tions (2 Sam, xi. 4).
In aU this, you observe, there is nothing proper to
spiritual reHgion, nothing that goes beyond the sphere
of the primitive conceptions common to the IsraeHtes
with their heathen neighbours. Holy places, things, or
times are such as are withdrawn from common use and
appropriated to a reHgious purpose, and in Hke 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. HoHness and immo-
raHty might even go side by side ; the " holy women "
(kedeshot) of the Canaanite reHgion, 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 holiness
of Jehovah's people could not but in Hke manner take a
sense different from that which prevaUed in heathenism.
So already in Amos the Hcentious practices of the
Hierodouloi are said to profane Jehovah's holy name
(Amos H. 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 reHgious acts. The hoHness of Israel
rather depends on the thought that Israel, in aU its
functions, civU as weU as reHgious, is Jehovah's people)
Jehovah's property (His vineyard, as he puts it in chap.
v.), the immediate sphere of His personal interest and
activity. Thus the whole land of Judah, but more
especiaUy 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 everything ought
to be ordered in conformity with His sanctity. The
requisites of ceremonial sanctity faU altogether into the
background; the, task of Israel as a holy nation is to
give practical recognition to Jehovah's hoHness — that is,

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
hoHness 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 hoHness 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 reHgious
problem of bis times, Isaiah builds on the foundations
laid by his predecessors Amos and Hosea. But his
treatment of the problem is more comprehensive and
aU-sided. The preaching of Amos was directed only
to breaches of civil righteousness, and suppHed 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 lect. v.
ing as one man, and therefore he has no practical sug
gestions appHcable 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 hoHness a
principle equaUy appHcable to the amendment of the
state and the elevation of reHgious praxis, an ideal
which suppHes 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 Hved Isaiah was ready with clear decisive
counsel, for in every crisis Israel's one duty was
to concentrate itseK 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 trath 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 famiHar to us,
the actual Hfe of the nation was not holy but unclean.
A strong sense of this uncleanness was the feeHng which
sprang to the prophet's Hps when he first saw the vision
of Jehovah's hoHness — " Woe is me ! for I am undone ;
for I am a man of unclean Hps, and I dweU in the midst
of a people of unclean Hps, for mine eyes have seen the
King, Jehovah of hosts." On the old ritual view of

lect. v. INTERNAL REFORM. 231
hoHness there was fatal danger in contact with holy
things to any one ceremoniaUy unclean. But the
impurity of which Isaiah speaks is impurity of Hps —
that is, of utterance. In Hebrew idiom, a man's words
(debwrvm) include his purposes on the one hand, his
actions on the other, and thus impurity of Hps means
inconsistency of purpose and action with the standard
of divine hoHness. The prophet himseK suppHes the
translation of his metaphor at Hi. 8 — "Jerusalem is
ruined and Judah is faUen, 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. H. seq). There
is, however, a special reason why, in this vision, the
uncleanness of the people is particularised as un-
cleanness of Up. The vision is Isaiah's consecration as
Jehovah's messenger, and for the discharge of such a
function " pure Hps " (Zeph. Hi 9) are necessary. But
Isaiah feels himseK to be personaUy involved in the
impurity or unhoHness of his people ; his own Hps are
impure and unfit for personal converse with Jehovah.
And so the act of consecration is symbolicaUy repre
sented as the purging of his Hps by contact with a glow
ing stone taken from Jehovah's sacred hearth. " Lo,
this hath touched thy Hps," 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 famiHar symboHsm of ceremonial hoHness. In

232 P URIFICA TION

primitive reHgious thought, the idea of godhead is spe-
ciaUy connected with that of fresh unfading Hfe, and
the impurity or unhoHness which must be kept aloof
from the sanctuary is associated with physical corrup
tion and death. Fire and water, the pure and Hfe-like
elements, man's chief aids in combating physical corrup
tion, are the main agents in ceremonies of ritual sanqti-
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 hoHness, and purification by fire
the most perfect image of the total destraction of im
purity. To Isaiah, of course, the fire of Jehovah's
hoHness is a mere symbol. That which cannot endure
the fire, which is burned up and consumed before it, is
moral impurity. " Who among us shaU dweU with de
vouring fire, who among us shall dweU with everlasting
burnings ? 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 bis eyes
from beholding [delighting in] evU ; he shaU dweU on
high ; his place of defence shaU be the munitions of
rocks, his bread shaU be given him, his water shaU be
sure " (xxxiii. 14 seq). That which can endure the fire
is that which is fit to enter into communion with
Jehovah's hoHness, and nothing which cannot stand this
test can abide in His sanctuary of IsraeL Thus the fire

BY FIRE. 233

which touches Isaiah's lips and consecrates him to pro
phetic communion with God has its counterpart h| the
fiery judgment through which impure Israel must pass
tiU only the holy seed, the vital and indestructible ele
ments of right national Hfe, remain. As sUver 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), tiU aU that remain in Zion are holy, " even
every one that is ordained to IKe in Jerusalem, when
Jehovah shaU 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 seq).
That this is the law of Jehovah's hoHness towards
Israel is revealed to the prophet as soon as his own Hps
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 Hfe pene
trated by the power of the divine hoHness, 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 HimseK asking,
' "Whom shaU I send, and who wUl go for us?" and repHes
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 swKt and superficial repentance can cor
respond to Jehovah's plan. He is sent to men who shaU

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 veUed with thicker clouds of
spiritual blindness under the prophetic teaching, who
refuse to turn and receive healing from Jehovah tiU
cities He 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 Hne of Jehovah's purpose of hoHness.
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 Hfe 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
Hving stock, and a new and better Israel shaU 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 appHcation in his pubHc
ministry must be reserved for another Lecture.

lect. vi. OF ISAIAH. 235

LECTURE VI.
THE BAELIEE PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH.
We found in last Lecture that the arrangement of the
extant coUection of Isaiah's prophecies points to the
conclusion that the prophet, at different times in his
Hfe, put forth several distinct volumes embodying the
sum of certam 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 tiU his
whole message to Israel had been deHvered and re
jected. Isaiah, on the other hand, used the pubHeation
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.
pubHc place (viii 1 ; xxx. 8),1 impHes the existence of a
considerable reading pubHc ; and it may be noticed, as
an interesting iUustration of this fact, that the recently-
discovered inscription in the rock-cut tunnel of SUoam,
probably dating from the Hfetime of Isaiah, is no offi
cial record, but seems to have been carved by the work
men on their own account. Reading and writing must
therefore have been pretty common accompHshments
(comp. Isa. xxix. 11 seq), and the weU-timed pubH
eation of connected selections of prophecy, disseminated
by the friends of Isaiah, had no doubt much to do with
the soHd and extensive influence which he graduaUy
acquired. We must not suppose that Isaiah's pubH-
cations were mere fly-sheets containing single oracles.
Each of them was mamfestly a weU-planned digest of
the substance of teaching which, in its first deHvery,
may have occupied several years ; chaps. H. - v., for
example, with the connected passage ix. 8 to x. 4, cover
aU the prophet's teaching before the war of 734, and
can hardly have been pubHshed tiU the outbreak of
that war, to the first stage of which some of the aUu-
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 reHgious
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 poHtical events, the social
and reHgious 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 predic
tion, and the difficulty is increased by the fact that pre
dictions referring to the near future were sometimes
fulfiUed 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
reaHty 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 Hght on any part of the prophet's argu
ment, he used that new Hght in its proper place, and
thus, on the whole, though many parts of Isa H.-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 practicaUy 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 Rezin, or, which
is the same thing, about the time of the accession of Ahaz.

238 BEGINNING OF

The situation of the kingdom when this book ap
peared is clearly described by the prophet in his per
oration, but to the EngHsh 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 seq. immediately after v. 25,
so as to form a series of four strophes, describing in as
cending series the evils that had already faUen on the
Hebrews, and each closing with the words, " For aU this
His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched
out still." The final judgment therefore Hes stiU in the
future, the Assyrians are the instruments destined to
accompHsh 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
generaUy successful princes, had died at a critical
moment, when Pekah and Rezin were maturing their
plans agamst 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 poHcy 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
Red Sea, whUe the PhiHstines attacked the Judaeans in
the rear, and ravaged the fertile lowlands (ix. 12 ; 2
Kings xvi. 6). A heavy and sudden disaster had
already faUen on the Judaean arms, a defeat in which
head and taU, 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).2
Ahaz was no fit leader in so critical a time ; his character
was petulant and chUdish, his poHcy 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 seq), the Court was full of gaUantry, and feminine
extravagance and vanity gave the tone to aristocratic
society (iii 16 seq. ; comp. Hi 12, iv. 4), which, Hke the
noblesse of France on the eve of the Revolution, was ab
sorbed in gaiety and pleasure, while the masses were
ground down by oppression, and the cry of their dis
tress fiUed the land (Hi. 15 ; v. 7). AU social bonds
were loosed in the universal reign of injustice, every
man was for himself and no man for his brother (ix. 19
seq). The subordination of classes was undermined
(Hi. 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 (Hi 6 seq).

240 BEGINNING OF lect. vl
We must not suppose that to ordinary poHtical
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 intolerable, and in par
ticular the wrongs and sufferings of the poor make Httle
noise, and find no ready access to the supreme seat of
government. The attention of the rulers was doubtless
directed almost exclusively to the dangers that menaced
from without ; their schemes of deHverance took the
shape of warlike preparations, or were afready 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 reHgious
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 reaHties (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
between Jehovah and the idols did not exist ; the idols
themselves were associated with the sanctuaries of the

lect. 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 befeU 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 : they proved that
the King of Israel had risen for judgment, and would no
longer pass by the sins of the state. "Jehovah setteth
HimseK to plead, and standeth up to judge His people ;
Jehovah wiU enter into judgment with the elders of His
people, and the princes thereof, for ye have eaten up the
vineyard, the spoU of the poor is in your houses. What
mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind
the faces of the poor ? saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts "
(Hi. 13 seq). " 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 radicaUy perverted : they caUed evil good and good
evU, they put darkness for Hght and Hght for darkness,
bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter (v. 20). Far from
Q

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 aU 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 aU moral distinctions and to aU the
signs of the times, they went on courting destruction,
" drawing guilt upon themselves with the cords of their
vain poHcy, and sin as it were with a cart rope." In
their own conceit they were full of poHtical wisdom
(v. 21), but they had no eyes for the cardinal trath
which Isaiah saw to outweigh every principle of earthly
poHtics — that Jehovah was the one dispenser of good
and evU to Israel, and that the law of His rule was the
law of hoHness 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, Hke 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 shaU be brought down, and the mighty man
shaU be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shaU be
humbled. And Jehovah of hosts shaU be exalted m
judgment, and the Holy God shaU be sanctified in
righteousness " (v. 14 seq). Jehovah shaU be exalted,

lect. vi. IN JUDGMENT. 243
for it is at His caU that the messengers of destruction
are hastening towards the doomed nation. Past and
present warnings have been aHke despised. What
Israel has already suffered has brought no fruit of re
pentance, and Jehovah's wrath is still unappeased. And
now " He Hfts up a standard to far nations and hisses to
them from the ends of the earth, and behold they come
with speed swKtly. 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 aU their bows
bent ; their horses' hoofs are like the flint, and their
chariot wheels Hke the whirlwind. Their roar is Hke
the Honess, they roar like young Hons, moaning and
seizing the prey and carrying it off safe, and none can
deHver." The roar of the Hon marks the moment of his
spring, the suUen moaning that foUows shows that the
prey is secured. Judah Hes prostrate in the grasp of
the Assyrian, and over aU the land no sound is heard
but the deep growl of brutal ferocity as he crouches over
the helpless victim. " In that day he shaU moan over
Judah Hke the moaning of the sea, when the mariner
looks for land, but lo, darkness hems him in, and Hght
is turned to darkness by the clouds " (v. 26-30).
This picture of judgment, you observe, has aU 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 poH
tical system. There was nothing in the circle of the
nations round about Judah which could offer successful
resistance to the weU- directed force of a great and
disciplined martial power, and the smaUest acquaint
ance with the poHtics 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 poHticians of Judah were
blinded to this truth by their characteristic Semitic
vanity, by the truly Oriental indolence which refuses
to look beyond the moment, but above aU by a false
reHgious 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 Httle about the world as about God. 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
scious obedience. But, in truth, the leaders of Judah
dared not face the reaHties of a situation which broke
through aU their estabHshed ideas, which offered no
prospect but despair. Isaiah had courage to see and
proclaim the truth, because he was assured that amidst

lect. vi. IN JUDGMENT. 245
the crash of nations Jehovah's throne stood unmoved,
and He was exalted when aU was abased.
The whole meaning of the impending crisis is
summed up by the prophet in a sentence already quoted :
"Jehovah of hosts shaU be exalted in judgment, and
the Holy God shaU be sanctified in righteousness."
But to understand the scope of 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 people, either directly or through His human
vicegerent, aU the ordinary functions of civU 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 Hteral 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 atj — not the transformation of the
hearts of men, but the removal of injustice in the state,
the punishment of offenders, the re-estabHshment of
law and order, and the ultimate feHcity of an obedient
nation. " I wUl again bring my hand upon thee," says
Jehovah, " smelting out thy dross as with lye, and
taking away aU thine aUoy ; and I wUl make thy
judges to be again as aforetime, and thy counsellors as
at the beginning ; thereafter thou shalt be caUed the

246 SIN AND lect. vi.
city of righteousness, the faithful city " (i. 25, 26). No
doubt when Isaiah Hmits the divine purpose to the
restitution of Jerusalem as it had once been, we must
remember that the days of David were ideaHsed in the
nation's memory. It is the virtues of ancient Jerusalem
that are to be reproduced without its long-forgotten
faults ; but for aU that it is plain that the ideal is
simply a state perfectly weU ordered — not a heavenly
state, in which every individual is free from aU sin in
the New Testament sense of the word. It is such an
ideal as would be actually reaHsed K the judges and
counseUors of the nation again were what they ought
to be in a land whose king is the Holy One of Israel.8
The Hmitation of Isaiah's conception of the divine
judgment leads us at once to observe the corresponding
Hmitation in his use of the words sin, sinners, and the
Hke. Sin, as we have seen in a former Lecture (p. 102
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 agamst Jehovah, therefore, is such conduct as He
must take cognisance of in His quaHty of king and
supreme judge in Israel, not sin in the New Testament
sense, but on the one hand offences against 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 IsraeHtes are divided into two classes — the
righteous, who have nothing to fear from Jehovah; and
the wicked, whom His presence fiUs with terror (xxxni.

lect. vi. JUDGMENT. 247
14). Weal to the righteous, who shaU eat the fruit of
their doings ; woe to the wicked, because the deserv
ing of his hands shaU be rendered to him — is the law Of
Jehovah's justice (Hi. 10, 11) ; and when it is executed
in aU its fulness the ideal of His sovereignty is fully
reaHsed. The redemption of Zion is conceived in the
same plain sense : " Zion shaU be redeemed by judg
ment, and those in her that return by righteousness "
(i. 27). The redemption is not the spiritual deHver
ance of the individual but the deHverance of the state,
which can only be accompHshed by purging out the
sinners and their sin, and bringing back the remnant of
the nation to obedience and right worship. If more
than this were meant there would be no trath in Isaiah's
representation of the faU of the might and independence
of the state before Assyria as the means of redemption.
But when we take the prophet's doctrine as he sets it
forth himself, without compHcating 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 downfaU of the corrupt
rulers. WhUe 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 Hke 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 aU their campaigns
broke down or carried away captive.

248 THE SPRING lect. vi.
Thus Isaiah looks forward without fear to the day
when aU the might of Judah shaU be brought low,
when great and fair houses shaU be without inhabitant
(v. 9), when wandering shepherds shaU range at wiU
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 aU the artificial'
glories of man's making, "the spring of Jehovah4 shall
be the beauty and the wealth, the fruit 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 shaU recognise the fruits of the land of Canaan,
the simple blessings of agricultural Hfe, as the best
tokens of Jehovah's goodness, the best basis of a happy
and God-fearing Hfe, and shaU cease to regret the lost
splendours of the time when the land was full of sUver
and gold, of horses and chariots, and aU the apparatus
of human luxury and grandeur. AU that remain in
Zion shaU be holy, for the filth of the daughters of Zion
and the blood-guUtiness of Jerusalem have been purged
away by the fiery blast of judgment. Jehovah HimseK
shaU overshadow His people, protecting them from aU
Ul. His glory, manifested in smoke and cloud by day,
in flaming fire by night, shaU rest Hke a canopy over
Mount Zion. He shaU be their shadow by daytime
from the heat, their hiding-place and covert from storm
and from rain (iv. 3 seq).

lect. vi. OF JEHOVAH. 249
The picture of Israel's restoration, we observe,
has none of that fuU 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 aU vague; the grand but
undefined image of overshadowing glory expresses no
more than the constant presence and aU-sufficient
help of the King of Israel. And this is the law of
all prophecy. It is a great faUacy to suppose that
the seers of Israel looked into the far future with the
same clear perception of detaU which belongs to their
contemplation of present events. The substance of
Messianic prophecy is ideal, not Hteral ; the business
of the prophet is not to anticipate history, but to sig-
naHse 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
wUl shape itseK to needs and circumstances stUl re
mote. The law of prophetic revelation is that already
laid down by Amos ; the Lord Jehovah does nothing
.without reveaHng His secret to His servants the prophets.
He deals with them as a prudent king does with a
trusty' counseUor. 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.

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 Rezin.
" It was told the house of David, saying, Syria is con
federate 6 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 " (vH. 2). The plan
of the confederates was directed to the entire destruc
tion of the Davidic dynasty, and a new king of Judah
had already been selected in the person of a certain
" son of Tabeel " (vH. 6). The allies obtained important
successes, the Syrians -in particular making themselves
masters of the port of Elath. But an attempt to take
Jerusalem faUed, and though Ahaz was hard pressed on
every side, his position could not be caUed desperate
while he stUl held the strongest fortress of Palestine.
On the part of the king and his princes, however, un
reasoning confidence had given place to equaUy unrea
soning panic. They saw only one way of escape, namely,
to throw themselves on the protection of Assyria. They
were weU 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 the
treasures of the palace and the temple, to announce
that the king of Judah regarded himself as " the servant
and the son " of Tiglath PUeser (2 Kings xvi. 7 seq).
The ambassadors had no difficulty in attaining their
object, which perfectly feU 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 GUead and GaHlee suffered the same fate. At
Damascus Tiglath PUeser received the personal homage
of Ahaz, whose frivolous character was so Httle capable
of appreciating the dangers involved in his new obHga-
tions that he returned to Jerusalem with his head full of
the artistic and reHgious 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 seq). 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 xxHi 12),6 were works
equaUy 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 deHverance 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 ATTITUDE lect. vi
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
counseUors 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 faU on Judah and Ephraim aHke. He had pro
claimed these truths when no one else perceived the
danger, and the pubHeation of the first volume of his
prophecies was almost coincident with the sudden
coUapse 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 Hfe 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 Rezin,
which aimed at nothing less than the dissolution of the
Judaean 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 Rezin
with Syria and the son of RemaHah. Whereas they
plot mischief against thee, saying, Let us go up agamst

lect. 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
shaU not come to pass. For the head of Syria is
Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin, and the
head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria
is the son of RemaHah. If ye wiU not beUeve, ye shaU
not be estabHshed " (vH. 4-9).
In translating this prophecy I foUowthe best recent
commentators in rejecting as irrelevant the clause which
in the Hebrew text stands at the end of verse 8, breaking
the paraUelism and weakening the force of the contemp
tuous aUusion to Rezin and Pekah. The historical
reference of the interpolated clause is somewhat obscure.
It was a mere critical error which bade us beUeve that
when the northern kingdom feU before Shalmaneser and
Sargon, the Assyrians set up a vassal kingdom in Samaria
(see p.253, note 5), which was mentioned on the Assyrian
monuments for the last time a little less than sixty-five
years after the date of Isaiah's prophecy to Ahaz. Pro
bably the scribe referred to the colonization of Samaria
by one of the Assyrian kings. It must be 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 no better front than the
two haK-consumed and smoulderingfirebrands,Pekah and

254 ISAIAH AS lect. vi.
 :  ii 
Rezin, and then adds, " If ye wUl not have faith ye shaU
not be estabHshed," 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 vHL 12, "Speak not of conspiracy (or formidable
alHance) 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 Hes 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 deUvery 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 deHverance 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 poHtical juncture. The older prophets of Israel
down to the time of Amos were habituaUy consulted on
affairs of state. In aU 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 faUed. The
influence of a great prophet Hke EHsha was therefore
an influence directly poHtical ; in the period of the
Syrian wars EHsha was the very soul of the struggle
for independence. Jehovah and His people were stUl

lect. 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 wUl with the immediate poHtical
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 privUeges of a
true spouse to a faithless people. The cause of Jehovah
was for the present entirely divorced from the interests
of Israel's poHtical 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 feHcity
of the Hebrew state again become the central object of
Jehovah's soHcitude. The picture of a nation victorious
and happy in Jehovah, which in the Blessing of Moses
appears as reaHsed, or at least in the course of reaUsa-
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
guK, 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 shaU

256 CONTINUITY OF , . lect. vi.
 y*. 
 ¦¦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, but they shaU
not find it " (Amos viH. 11 seq). There were stiU 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 Hi). The dissever
ance of true prophecy from the poHtical 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 fiUed 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 Rezin. Like his predecessors, he speaks
both of mercy and of judgment ; but the vision of judg
ment fiUs the immediate horizon, the picture of mercy
Hes aU in the future, and its purely ideal outlines stand
in the sharpest contrast with the historical reaHties of
the present. The assurance of Israel's redemption rests
on an act of pure faitn ; 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 deaHngs with Israel belongs, it is plain,

lect. vi. JEHOVAH'S WORK. 257
'  Sk 
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 destraction of the sinners of
Jehovah's people, in order that the righteous may
remain and form a new and better Israel, we naturaUy
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 shaU hear and
answer the call of Jehovah in the day of restoration,
the question forces itseK upon us how that measure of
the knowledge of Jehovah which the possibiHty of such
a return impHes can be kept aHve in the midst of exile.
To such questions Amos and Hosea supply no answer ;
they never teU us how the work of judgment is to be
Hmited in order that the subsequent redemption may
remain an historical possibUity. 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 must 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 Hmits prescribed to the impending judg
ment by the purpose that underHes it ? The certainty
of Jehovah's plan of grace involves the certainty that
He wUl preserve to Judah in the coming disaster aU
that is necessary to make its reaUsation 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 aU 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 Hfe, a precious
remnant, the preservation of which is certain. Beyond
this the prophet sets no limit to the severity of the
troubles through which the land must pass. In the
first years of Isaiah's ministry this principle seemed to
slumber ; it was not whoUy forgotten, for in chap; iv. it
is the remnant ordained to Hfe 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 shaU best understand the bearings of this' pro
position, and the vaHdity 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 estabHshment in the land of
Canaan of a nation conformed to Jehovah's hoHness.
But at this point the teaching of the two prophets
diverges. Isaiah is convinced that the dissolution of
the poHtical existence of Judah is inconsistent with the
accompHshment 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 shaU be desolate, without inhabitant, and the
kingdom of the house of David shaU come to an end,
not for ever, but tUl 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 inviolabUity of Jerusalem through aU 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 Httle justice to the sacred
wisdom of the prophets if we regarded the fulfilment
of their predictions as reUeving us from aU 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
poHtical existence appears to him the necessary con
dition of the future redemption. To Jeremiah this
necessity no longer exists ; to him it appears possible,
whUe to Isaiah it seems impossible, that the reHgion of
Jehovah can survive the faU of the state. This differ
ence of view is not arbitrary, and is not to be referred
to an unintelHgible secret of divine providence ; it rests
on a difference in the reHgious condition of Israel at the
times of the two prophets.
We have already seen, in speaking of the fall of
Northern Israel (supra, p. 154), how the history of the Ten
Tribes, after the faU of Samaria, proves that the reHgion
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 impHes
the maintenance of a reHgious community, united by

lkct, vi. JEREMIAH. 261
acts of worship, and handing down the knowledge of
God from father to son by inculcation not only of reH
gious doctrme but of religious praxis. At the time
when Samaria feU these conditions could not be ful
fiUed beyond the Hmits of the land of Canaan. Hosea
expressly states that all religious observances were
necessarUy suspended in the exUe of Israel. The feasts,
the sacrifices, and aU the other recognised elements of
the worship of Jehovah demanded access to the sanc
tuary. When this was denied the whole Hfe of the
nation became unclean (Hosea ix. 3 seq) ; and Israel
was divorced from Jehovah (chap. Hi). The relapse of
the Ten Tribes into heathenism was the inevitable con
sequence of their exUe ; 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 tiU then been
universaUy regarded as the visible representation of Jeho
vah's sovereignty. The national reHgion of Judah was
not more advanced than that of Ephraim. There, also,
-the ideas of the state and the reHgious community were
inseparable ; and, though isolated prophets 6ould see that
the elements of reHgion were independent of the tradi
tional sanctuaries and their ritual, there was no com-
miuxity 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 obHteration of faith in Jehovah's kingship. In
the time of Jeremiah aU this was changed, and changed
mainly by the work in which Isaiah was the chief in
strument. The aboHtion of the provincial high places
had taught reHgion to dispense with constant oppor
tunity of access to the sanctuary ; the formation of a
consoHdated prophetic party, which was the great work
of Isaiah's Hfe, provided a community of true faith able
to hold together even in times of persecution, and con
scious that its reHgion rested on a different basis from
that of the idolatrous masses ; and the accumulation of
a sacred Hterature, of which only the first beginnings
existed when Isaiah rose, kept the knowledge of Jehovah
aHve in the ExUe, suppHed materials for reHgious 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 reHgion can subsist. Thus the faith of Jehovah sur
vived the ExUe, and was handed down from father to
son in the Chaldaean dispersion in a way that 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 reHgion involved the preservation
of the Judaean state, and his successor looked forward
to captivity as the Only means of Hberating the true

lect. vi. JEREMIAH. 263
faith from entanglement with a merely poHtical Jehovah-
worship. I have asked you to consider the bearings of Isaiah's
dpctrine of the indestructibiHty of the Jewish state in
the Hght 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 gcaqe came to exist under new conditions, which
made the preservation of the kingdom of Judah no
longei a matter of reHgious 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 kingdpm amidst the troubles of the Syrian and
Assyrian wars was not the special appHcation of a
general principle of reHgious trath, 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 deaHngs with men, not in their universal
form, kit in the particular shape appHcable 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 Goi 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,
tiU the spiritual preaching of the prophets had formed
a society within Israel in which true reHgion could hi
preserved even in exUe, Isaiah says simply and with
out Hmitation that the sphere of Jehovah's purpose and
the Kingdom of Judah are identical. Jehovah sits as
King in Zion (viH. 18). His supreme purpose ii to
remodel the kingdom of Judah as a holy kingdom/ and
He wiU not suffer the hostUe efforts of any nation to
impede the development of this design. This view is
altogether remote from the theory of the popular reHgion
that the poHtical interests of Israel and the interests
of Jehovah's kingdom are always identical, that tie
mere fact that Jehovah is Israel's God secures Eis
help in every emergency. On the contrary, aU the erils
that have befaUen and are stiU to befaU the state/are
Jehovah's work, but amidst these it remains true chat
Jehovah has a purpose of grace towards His nation/ and
that He wUl not suffer the enemies whose attacks He
himseK directs to do anything inconsistent witlj that
purpose. And therefore the first duty of the refers of
Judah is to make no vain attempt to resist Jehovah's
chastisement, but to submit to it with patience, knd in
the faith that He wiU bring the troubles of the/nation
to an end in His own way and in His own good
time. The true poHcy of Judah is "to tale heed
and be quiet" (vii 4), The safety of the iingdom
depends on the maintenance of an attitude tf faith :

lect. vi. ASSYRIAN ALLIANCE. 265
"If ye wiU not i have faith, ye shaU 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 aU 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 Judaean Kingdom, Isaiah also saw
that Pekah and Rezin 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 rebeUious vassals.
If Ahaz had not caUed in the aid of Tiglath PUeser, his
own interests would soon have compeUed the Assyrian
to strike at Damascus ; and so, K the Judaean king had
had faith to accept the prophet's assurance that the im
mediate danger could not prove fatal, he would have
reaped aU the advantages of the Assyrian alliance with
out finding himseK 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, K Isaiah had been foUowed, Judah would at aU
events have had twelve years of respite before she met
Assyria face to face ; and what might not have been
accompHshed in these years in a nation once more
obedient to the prophetic word ? The advice of Isaiah,
therefore, displayed no less poHtical sagacity than eleva-

266 ISAIAH AND THE lect. vi.
tion of faith ; but it could not approve itseK 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 Rezin without the aid of the poHticians of
Judah. In vain did Isaiah seek to convey to the pusfll-
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 (vH. 12). The Assyrian alli
ance was finaUy determined on, and Judah was at
once hopelessly involved in the toUs of the empire of
the Tigris.
Isaiah received the refusal of Ahaz as the loss of a
great opportunity, a deHberate thwarting of Jehovah's
counsel. The house of David, he says, are not content
to try the patience of man by their sUly obstinacy ; they
must, forsooth, try God's patience too. The phrase is
characteristic of the intense reaHsm with which he con
ceived the reHgious situation. Never for a moment
doubting the final execution of Jehovah's purpose, he
yet saw quite clearly that that purpose must be reaHsed
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 perUous compK-
cations. The first result of the Assyrian intervention
must be the faU of Pekah and Rezin, and this could
not be delayed more than two or three years. Before a
chUd bom in the foUowing spring was of age to say,
" My father," and " My mother," or to distinguish good

lect. vi. ASSYRIAN ALLIANCE. 267
and evU (vii 16 ; 5 viii 4), the land whose two kings had
fiUed Ahaz with terror should be forsaken, the riches of
Damascus and the spoU of Samaria should be taken away
before the king of Assyria. And then Judah's turn
must come. " Jehovah shaU bring upon thee and upon
thy father's house such days as have not been since the
time when Ephraim broke off from Judah" (vH, 17).
For with the faU 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
NUe would have disappeared. A prolonged conflict
must ensue between the two great powers, and their
hosts shaU swarm over the land of Judah Hke clouds of
noxious insects (vii 18 seq), and lay the whole country
utterly waste. The strongholds of Judah shaU He in
ruins Hke the old hUl-forts of the Amorites after the
Hebrew conquest (xvH. 9).r Even the operations of
agriculture shall become impossible : briers and thorns
shaU cover the whole face of the land, and the fair hUl-
sides now crowned with terraced vineyards or blooming
under careful tillage shaU faU back into jungle, where
sheep and oxen roam unchecked, where no human foot
penetrates save that of the archer pursuing the gazeUe
or the mountain partridge. Bread shaU be hardly
known to the scanty remnant of the judaeans (vH. 22),
honey and sour milk shaU be the chief articles of diet,
and human Hfe shaU be reduced to its most primitive
elements.8 Thus far Isaiah does no more than describe the

268 RESULTS OF THE lect. vi.
natural consequences of Ahaz's foqUsh poHcy. His
anticipations of evU show a clear appreciation of the
dangers of the situation ; but they are of the nature of
a shrewd poHtical forecast rather than of exceptional
prediction, and as the future actuaUy shaped itseK his
worst anticipations were not reaHsed. The faU of
Samaria did not come so soon as he expected (viii 4),
the conflict of Assyria and Egypt was deferred, and
when it actuaUy took place, thirty years later, the field
of battle was in the extreme south of Palestine, and
more in Philistine than in Judaean 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 weU to note these
facts, for they show us that the prophetic predictions,
even when they appHed to the near future, were not
always fulfiUed in that Hteral 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 beHeving that, in the age
when prophecy was a Hving power, the hard-and-fast
rule of Hteral 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 poeticaUy 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
sUent. 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 Hving. But to Isaiah it appeared that
Jehovah had never been more clearly manifested as the
Hving 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 wa3 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 dispeUed. On aU sides the nations were astir,
girding themselves for battle, knitting secret aUiances,
forging plans of defence against the approach of the
Assyrian; and above aU this turmoU 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 : lect. vi.
nought, each day made it more clea? that there was no
god but the God of Israel. The reUgions 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 aU, I suppose, more or less accustomed
to fancy that in Bible times the truths of reHgion
were brought home to men's minds by evidence of a
more tangible kind than in the present day. The
ordinary method of deaHng with the historical evidences
of Christianity encourages the notion that the most
serious difficulty of beHef Hes in the fact that we are
separated by so many centuries from the time, when
Sod actuaUy proved HimseK a Hving God and the God
of salvation ; and we fancy that, K we had Hved in the
days of the prophets and seen with our own eyes the
things that Jehovah wrought then, it would have been
easy to beUeve, 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 ideals. The
events that gave him assurance of a present God were
the same events that fiUed 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 aU this
befaUen 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 wfll not beHeve 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 equaUy vaHd
proofs of the sovereignty of Jehovah in Israel. Where
Amos had said, Jehovah knows Israel alone of aU
nations, therefore He punishes their sins, Isaiah inverts
the argument and says, Because Jehovah punishes His
people's sins there is verily a Hving God in Israel.
Ahaz had refused to ask a pledge of Jehovah's interest
in His people ; but Jehovah HimseK suppHes that pledge
in the swift approach of the calamity which Ahaz's
rebellion entaUs.
The circumstance that Isa. vH. 14 seq. is appHed
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 ; they aU pointed to Christ, and every passage

272 IMMANUEL ; lect, vl
that could be brought into relatiaL 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 himseK, or to those whom he personaUy
addressed. They teU us only what it meant to the
first generation of Christianity. The discussion of this
secondary sense Hes 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 trath 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 shaU become a mother within a year may
name her chUd " God with us." For, before the babe
begins to develop into inteUigent chUdhood, the lands of
Pekah and Rezin shall be laid waste, and Judah as weU
as Israel shall be stripped of aU its artificial wealth, and
reduced to wUd pasture ground, whose inhabitants feed
on sour milk and honey.9 In the coUapse of aU human
resources, in the return of the nation to that elemental
form of Hfe in which the creations of human skUl and
industry no longer come between man and his Maker,

lect. vi. " WITH US IS GOD." 273
it wiU become plain that there is a God in Israel. "In
that day man shaU look unto his Maker, and his eyes
shall be turned to the Holy One of Israel. And they
shaU not look to the altars, the work of their hands,
neither shaU they turn to that which their own fingers
have made, to the asherim and the sun-pUlars " (xvii 7,
8). To put the thought in modern language, the proof
that God is with Israel, and with Israel alone, Hes in
this, that no other conception of godhead than that of
the Holy God preached by Israel's prophets can justify
itseK as consistent with the course of the Assyrian
calamity. The world is divided between two reUgions,
the reHgion that worships things of man's making, and
the reHgion of the Holy One of IsraeL Judah is caUed
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 poHcy, or idols,
altars, and sun -piUars, is alike to Isaiah's argument.
When Jehovah rises in judgment aU these vain helpers
are swept away, and the Holy One of Israel alone
remains. The plans of earthly poHcy which Ahaz and
his counseUors had matured with so much care are
Hkened by the prophet to the Adonis gardens10 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
s ' , V

274 THE PROPHET AND lect. vi.
shalt plant Adonis gardens, and set them with strange
sHps. 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
HimseK, and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your
dread. And He shaU 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 wiU wait for Jehovah
that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I
wUl look for Him" (viH. 11 seq). The cfrcle that
gathered round Isaiah and his household in these evU
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 dweUeth in
Mount Zion." The formation of this Httle community
was a new thing in the history of reHgion. Till then no
one had dreamed of a fellowship of faith dissociated
%

lect. vi. HIS DISCIPLES. Wb
from aU 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 reHgion, for it was the birth of the conception
of the Church, the first step in the emancipation of
spiritual reHgion from the forms of poHtical Hfe, — a step
not less significant that aU its consequences were not
seen tUl centuries had passed away. The community
of true reHgion and the poHtical 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 fuUy to faU back into their
old identity.
Isaiah, indeed, and the prophets who foUowed him
were stiU far from seeing how deep was the bread
between the physical Israel and the spiritual community
of faith. To them the dissociation of these two quaH-
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 Hght and then
deHverance. In the depth of Israel's despair, when men
walk in darkness, hardly bested and hungry, " they shaU
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 shaU not be in darkness." The work of redemp. X4i,

276 THE MESSIANIC lect. vi.
tion begins where the desolation of Israel by Assyria
began, in the northern lands of GaHlee by the shores of
the Lake of Tiberias (ix. 1). But aU Israel shares the
great deHverance, in which the yoke of Assyria is
broken, and Jehovah's zeal for His people mamfested
in a glorious redintegration of the Davidic kingdom.
" The people that walk in darkness have seen a great
light : they that dweU in the land of deep shade, upon
them hath the Hght shined. Thou hast made the glad
ness great,11 Thou hast increased their joy ; they joy
before Thee according to the joy in harvest, as men
are glad when they divide the spoU. 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 roUed in blood, shaU be
cast into the fire as fuel for the flame. For to us a
chUd is born, unto us a son is given ; and the govern
ment shaU be on his shoulder, and his name shaU be
caUed Wonderful CounseUor — 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 estabHsh it in judgment and in righteousness,
from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of Jehovah of
hosts wUl perform this " (ix. 2-7).
In these words the picture of Israel's final glory
assumes a much preeiser form than in the earHer pro
phecy of chap. iv. There is stUl a large element of

lect. vi. DELIVERANCE. 277
figure and symbol, so used as to show that the prophet
does not possess a detaUed revelation of the process of
the work of salvation, but is guided, as was the case in
the earHer predictions, by general principles of faith,
too large to be immediately translated into the language
of HteraHty. But he has now gained a clearer view of
the nature and limits of the work of judgment than was
expressed in chaps. H. and Hi, and the new Hght shed
on the present casts its rays into the future. The
turning-point of Israel's history is the destraction of
the power of the Assyrian oppressor, and with this
deHverance the Messianic days begin. To Isaiah,
therefore, the law of Jehovah's kingship is stiU the
same as in ancient days. The new salvation is paraUel
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 aU that man could do against the kingdom
of Jehovah. The blood-stained reHcs of the straggle
are cast into the fire. War has ceased for ever, and the
reign of perpetual peace begins under a chUd of the
seed of David, whose throne is estabHshed 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, manKested in fire and

278 THE MESSIAH. lect. vi.
cloud, that overshadowed and protected the ransomed
nation. Now this image is translated into a new and
more concrete form. The estabHshment and enlarge
ment of the divine kingdom is committed to a human
representative of Jehovah's sovereignly, 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 tUl we can compare
the prediction now before us with the later prophecies
in which Isaiah recurs to the same subject.

lect. vii. THE REIGN OF HEZEKIAH. 279

LECTURE VIL
ISAIAH AND MICAH IN THE REIGN OF HEZEKIAH.1
The reign of Ahaz was not a very long one ; he did not
Hve to see the revolt of Hoshea and the faU of Samaria.
The last rebeUion of Northern Israel was not an isolated
rising ; it was accompanied or foUowed by a general
revolt of aU the Syrian principaHties from PhUistia 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 xvu. 4), and
this monarch, the Sabe* of the Assyrian, and (perhaps)
the Sbabaka2 of the Egyptian monuments, was a
friend of the anti-Assyrian movement 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 weakened
by contests between an Ethiopian dynasty in the
upper country and the princes of the Delta. But the
Ethiopians at last prevaUed, and under Shabaka 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. vii.
Raphia (now Rafah) on the border of the desert on the
short caravan road from Egypt to Gaza, encountered and
defeated Sab'e*.3 The victory was 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 agamst 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 whUe the waters were
stUl 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 Peiser's trans
lation (Keilimschr. Bibl. H. 65), "I gathered not my
whole army ; with my soldiers (alone) I went against
Ashdod." The Egyptians were far from exhibiting
equal energy. AU through the history of this period
their poHcy was made up of large promises and smaU
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 shaU be led captive by the king of Assyria,
naked and barefoot, to the shame of aU who looked to
them for help. "Then the inhabitants of this coast
shaU say, So have they fared to whom we looked and
to whom we fled for help to be deHvered 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 symboHc action,
which plainly impHes that for three years the lesson
stiU required to be enforced. Here the annals of Sar
gon eome to our help. The siege of Ashdod, as we
have seen, feU in 711, and for the next two years
Sargon was whoUy engrossed by a revolt of the Baby
lonians under the Chaldean prince Merodach Baladan.
This may have prevented him from going against Egypt
as Isaiah had expected him to do on the fall of Ashdod.
At aU 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 lect. vii.
selves when they heard of the humiHation of Merodach
Baladan. Cyprus, the Phoenicians, and the PhiHstines
were closely connected in trade and politics; so it
appears that in the third year of Isaiah's symboHcal
conduct the Palestinian nations gave up aU 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 bis assurance that their efforts after
independence were hopeless had none the less justified
itseK, 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
caUed 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 PhiHstines, the Judaeans seem
to have , had no direct part ; they stiU adhered to
Assyria, as was natural enough, since PhiHstia and
Ephraim had been dangerous enemies but a few years
before. To this date Isa. xxviu. can most naturaUy be
assigned. The prophet looks forward to the faU of
Samaria, when the proud crown of the drunkards of
Ephraim shaU be trodden under foot, and the glory of
Samaria pass as a fading flower ; and stiU he sees in
the near catastrophe but a fresh pledge of the approach
of the day when Jehovah shaU 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 back battle 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 pubHc
Hfe 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
accompHsh it in His ancient might, as that was dis
played at Baal-Perazim and Gibeon (2 Sam. v. 20 seq. ;
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 reaHsed by those who are willing to yield obedience
to the Divine precepts. The condition of deHverance
is stiU national repentance, and from this the rulers of
Judah and the official heads of Judah's reHgion (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 Hstening 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 blessmgs are to be found.
But throughout Hfe he pointed steadily to the estabHsh
ment of civU justice and the aboHtion 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 Hes 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 aU- destroying invasion, passed
through it should not reach them. Isaiah had no share
in this Ulusion. He saw that the present state of
things was intolerable and could not last ; " the bed
was too short for a man to stretch himseK on it, the
coverlet too narrow for a man to wrap himseK in it "
(ver. 20). The Assyrian alliance must soon be dissolved.
"Your covenant with death shaU be annuUed, your
agreement with Sheol shaU not stand ; when the over
flowing scourge passeth through, ye shaU be trodden
down by it." Once and again the invading host shaU
pass through the land and smite its inhabitants (ver. 19).
So long as the poHcy of irreHgion 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 shaU be appHed 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 beHeveth shaU not make haste " (ver. 16).
Those who have faith in the sovereign providence that

lbct. vn 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 shaU sweep away the refuge of Hes,
and the waters shaU overflow the hiding-place." It is
stUl 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 aU-embracing divine ordi
nance, the same ordinance that rules the actions of
every-day industry. The wisdom that teUs the husband
man how to plough and sow, which directs the daUy
labours of agricultural Hfe, is also a part of Jehovah's
teaching (vers. 24-29). And the same God, " wonderful
in counsel and exceUent in practical wisdom," who
prescribes the order of common toU, 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 fuU 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 Hke all traditional laws
among ancient nations they had a sacred character.
Every one understood that it was part of reHgion 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 aU 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 reHgion into the
daily duties of his humble toU, and every operation became
an act of obedience to God. And thus his Hfe 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 feHcity of the nation Hes. But they
refuse to learn. The incessant prophetic inculcation of
" command upon command, rule upon rule, here a Httle
and there a Httle " — 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 wUl
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 Hps and in a strange tongue wUl 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-bring
ing of a time when, as the prophet elsewhere expresses
it, the land shaU be fuU of the knowledge of Jehovah,
when the practical rules of conduct which He dictates
shaU be as supreme in the administration of the state

lect. vii. AND THE PRINCES. 287
as in the ordering of the daUy 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 stiU found their account
in the maintenance of the settlement effected by Ahaz.
Isaiah does not blame them for their acquiescence in a
position of poHtical 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 wiU be their ruin too. The accession of
Hezekiah, it is plain, had done nothing for the cure of
the internal wounds of the state ; aU 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 earHer part of the book of Micah,4 which also dates
from the days of the last straggle of Samaria, as we
learn from a comparison of Micah i with Jer. xxvi 18.
Micah was a man of Moresheth Gath, a smaU place, as
Jerome teUs us, near EleutheropoHs on the Philistine
frontier, and the proximity of his home to one part of
the field of war helps to explain his keen interest in the
progress of the Assyrian arms. At aU events, the crisis

MICAH OF lect. vii.

which drew Isaiah from his retirement to proclaim to
Judah the lesson preacbed by the impending ruin of
Ephraim, caUed forth the countryman Micah. to give a
Hke 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 shaU become a heap of the field; the
stones of her fortifications shaU be roUed down into the
vaUey, her graven images dashed to pieces. But Judah
too has shared the sin of Samaria, and the same judg
ment menaces Zion (i 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 PhiHstia; but the centre of Judah's sin is the capital;
and the evU 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 reHgion fuU of idolatry
and heathenish sorceries (Hi 7 ; v. 12 seq), a spurious
confidence in Jehovah, which has no regard to His
moral attributes, and is bolstered up by lying oracles
(H. 11; Hi. 5, 11, comp. Isa. xxvUi. 7), whUe it refuses to
hear the warnings of true prophecy (H. 6; Hi 8, comp. Isa.
,xxviii 9 seq); on the other hand, the gross corruption
and oppressions of the ruling classes, who "buUd up
Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with iniquity"
(Hi. 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 tons, 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 (H. 1 seq). The poorer agriculturists are daUy
stripped of their houses and holdings by violence or
false judgment. The true enemies of the people are
their own rulers (H. 8),8 and the prophet contemplates
with a stern satisfaction, which doubtless found an echo
in many breasts, the approach of the destroyer who
shaU carry into exUe " the luxurious sons " (i 16) of
this race of petty tyrants, and leave them none " to
stretch the measuring Hne on a lot in the congregation
of Jehovah " (H. 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 indestructibiHty 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 ; he looks for the amendment of the
rising classes (i. 26), who retain their old place in the
reconstruction of the state (chap. xxxH). Micah, on
the contrary, conceives the work of judgment essentiaUy
as a destraction of the government and the nobles. The
race of the unjust aristocrats shaU be rooted out of the
land (ii 5) ; the proud and guilty capital shaU be
ploughed as a field ; Jerusalem shaU become as heaps
and the mountain of the temple as the heights of the
forest (Hi. 12) ; the judge or king of Israel shaU suffer
the last indignities at the hand of the enemy (v. 1;
Heb., iv. 14). It has often been supposed from these
predictions that Micah, unHke Isaiah, looked forward to
a total captivity ; and that his words were referred by
the Jews themselves to the Babylonian exUe, appears
from the fact that at an early date the gloss, " and shalt
come even to Babylon," was inserted in iv. 10.6 But a
closer examination does not bear out this view. When
the aristocrats are carried captive " the congregation of
Jehovah " remains in the land (H. 5). The glory of Israel
is not banished from Canaan, but takes refuge in Adul-
lam, 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 itseK was but a hUl fort, " a tower of
the flock " (iv. 8), appear to Micah as the true model
of national well-being ; the acquisitions of later civUisa-

lect. vii. OF MICAH I.-V. 291
tion and poHtical development, horses and chariots and
fenced cities — always associated with tyranny in the
minds of the common people — are stamped by him as
sins, and shaU be utterly aboHshed in the days of
restoration (i 13 ; v. 10, ll).7 Hence, though Micah no
less than Isaiah recognises Zion as the centre of Je
hovah's sovereignty, from which divine instruction and
decisions shaU go forth in the days to come to aU the
surrounding nations, who shaU lay aside their weapons
of war and make Jehovah the arbiter of their strifes
(iv. 1 seq), the faU 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 dweU in the open field ; there,
and not within her proud ramparts, Jehovah will grant
her deHverance from her enemies. For a time the land
shaU be given up to the foe, but only for a time. Once
more, as in the days of David, guerUla bands gather
together to avenge the wrongs of their nation (v. 1). A
new David comes forth from Httle Bethlehem, and the
rest of his brethren return to the chUdren 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 shaU no longer insult
Jehovah's land with impunity. The national miUtia,

292 MICAH AND THE lect. to.
again numerous and warlike as of old, has no lack of
captains to meet the invader, and the tide of battle shaU
be roUed back into the land of Nimrod, which the sword
of Israel shaU lay waste. The remnant of Judah shaU
flourish in the midst of the surrounding peoples, Hke
grass fertilised by the waters of heaven, that tarry not
for man nor wait for the sons of men. Judah shaU be
among the nations irresistible as a Hon among flocks of
sheep ; for its strength comes down from Jehovah, like
dew from the skies, and aU false helpers, strongholds
and chariots, enchantments and graven images, asherim
and macgeboth, are swept away. And Jehovah wUl
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 famUiar 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 simpHcity 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. vii. DA VIDIC KING. 293
was stUl working only as a leaven in a smaU circle.
Isaiah's work, in truth, was the higher as it was the more
difficult ; it was a greater task to consoHdate the party
of spiritual faith, and by slow degrees to estabHsh 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 reHgion 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 seq), 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 estabHshment of which, in
Deuteronomy, and by Josiah, was the chief visible mark
of the reHgious 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 faU of the corrupt nobles, and Isaiah was
appeaHng to the grandees of the capital to be warned
by the fate of their compeers in Samaria. At the time,
we may weU suppose, the words of Micah found no
audience beyond his own district, and the prophecy of
Isaiah xxviH. was Httle heeded, so that, K we may

294 THE REIGN lect. vii.
judge from the present arrangement of his book, he
deemed it fitting to repubHsh it many years later as a
seasonable introduction to a coUection of prophecies of
the time of Sennacherib. But the events that foUowed
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 Hvely and favourable interest in the
uprising of PhUistia, which, by its close connection
with Egypt on the one hand and Phoenicia on the
other, as weU 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 aU the
Syrian states. Sargon himseK, on a cylinder which
repeats the main facts of the war of 711, already
described from bis Annals, tells us that the tributary
states of Judah, Edom, and Moab, were speaking
treason and beseeching the aUiance 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

lect. vii. OF SARGON. 295
preacher; his voice was mainly heard in great poHtical
crises, and in uneventful times he might weU be sUent
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 711, 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 EngHsh 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, xxH, xxix.-xxxH. 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 itseK was besieged (xxH)
— in short, that Judah suffered precisely in the same
way and to the same extent as under the invasion of
Sennacherib ten years later.8 But, more than this, we
must conclude that Isaiah held precisely simUar 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 HimseK 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 caUed
forth simUar 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 itseK exactly, and even K the two invasions
of the hypothesis ran a simUar course, as up to a certain
point they might weU 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 K this were so, it is highly
improbable that he would have been aUowed to restore
the Judaean fortresses, and regain so large a measure of
mUitary strength as is impHed 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 essentiaUy a campaign against
Ashdod, Judaea not being so much as named in the
account of it in the Annals, whUe that of 701 was as
essentiaUy a campaign agamst Judaea, in which the
PhiHstines played quite a subordinate part, seems to be
clear evidence that, though Hezekiah may for a moment
have thought of revolt on the earHer occasion, he did
not take an active part in the war. The extraordinary
rapidity of Sargon's movements, speciaUy emphasised
on the monuments, enabled him to crash Ashdod before
the Egyptians could send aid to their aUies, and no
doubt nipped in the bud aU 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 K at this time Judah had been actively

lect. vii. REIGN OF SARGON. 297
engaged on the side of Ashdod. And finaUy, it can
hardly be supposed that the book of Kings would have
been altogether silent on the subject, if Sargon as weU
as Sennacherib had besieged Jerusalem and captured
the cities of Judah. But the attempt of the Assyrio
logists to find in 2 Kings xviH. 13 seq. some trace of an
earHer 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 inappHcable to the
expedition of Sargon. Sennacherib teUs only of his
successes, not of his ultimate retreat and the escape of
Hezekiah, and so his account corresponds only with 2
Kings xviH. 13-l7a. But everything spoken of in these
verses agrees exactly with the Assyrian record.9
H we are compeUed to reject the theory of an in
vasion of Judaea under Sargon, the only prophecy in
Mr. Cheyne's Hst which can be held to be earHer 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
aU Syria and Northern Palestine, which were stripped

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, whUe 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 aU
trouble of the visible kingdom of Jehovah in Israel/
which had its centre on Mount Zion — could hardly faU
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. xxvHi. ;10 but the date is after the faU of
Samaria, the destraction of the principaHties 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 aUuded 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 poHcy of captivities en masse (x. 13) had worked in
aU 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 itseK secure in his help from any greater
danger than was involved in the usual feuds with its
neighbours. To Isaiah, however, the progress of the

lect. vii. OF ISAIAH X. XI. 299
Assyrian had no terrors and brbught no surprise. There
was neither strength nor permanency in the idolatrous
kingdoms, which one after another had faUen before the
aU-conquering power. So far as they were concerned,
Assyria was irresistible ; its mission upon earth, con
fided to it by Jehovah HimseK, was to prove that there
was no God but the Holy One of Israel. But Jehovah's
kmgdom 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 wUl as he has done with
Samaria and her idols, it is as impossible for him to Hft
himseK up against Jehovah as for the axe to boast
itseK 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 wUl not acknowledge this
Hmitation of his might, and that his aU-devouring greed
wUl soon carry him onwards to open assault on Judah,
which as yet is itseK unconscious of its high destiny,
stiU "leaning on him who smites it" — that is, as appeared
in chap. xxvHi, stiU depending on that treaty of tri
butary aUiance which, Isaiah saw, could not be long
observed. But when the crisis comes, when Jehovah
has accompHshed His whole work on Mount Zion and
on Jerusalem, He wUl punish the proud heart and stout
looks of the king of Assyria, and it shaU be seen that
the conqueror who has removed the bounds of nations

300 THE PROPHECY lect. vii.

and gathered aU 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 aU other nations should have dis
appeared from the straggle, and the supreme world-
power should come face to face with the God who has
founded Zion as His inexpugnable sanctuary. This
thought shaped itseK 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 tUl 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 faU of the Assyrian closes the first act of the
divine drama as it unfolds itseK 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 shaU no more again stay upon him that smote
them ; but shaU 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 Hfe, or, as the prophet expresses it, a new
sapling springs from the old stock of Jesse, on whom
the spirit of Jehovah rests in fuU 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 evUdoers out of
the land by the sovereign sentence of his Hps, tUl crime
and violence are no longer known in Jehovah's holy
mountain, and the land of Israel is fuU of the knowledge
of Jehovah as the waters coyer the sea. No figure is
too strong to paint this reign of peace and order. The
woK shaU dweU with the lamb, and the leopard shaU
He down with the kid, and the sucking chUd shaU play
on the hole of the asp. It would be puerUe to take
these expressions HteraUy, and the prophet himseK
interprets his figure when he represents the aboHtion of
aU 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 in Egypt and
Assyria and aU the four comers of the earth, opening a
way before the returning exUes by drying up seas and

302 MESSIANIC lect. vii.
rivers, as in the day when Israel came up out of Egypt
Judah and Ephraim shaU no more be foes, and their
united armies shaU restore the ancient conquests of
David. On the west they shaU swoop down victoriously
on PhUistia ; to the east they shaU spoU the chUdren of
the desert ; and Edom, Ammon, and Moab shaU 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 usuaUy
caUed 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 aU, and the
word Messiah (Mashiah) 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
caUed 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 outgrowth 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 Jemsalem is a return to ' an
old state of things, interrupted by national sin. " I wUl
restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counciUors as
at the beginning ; afterward thou shalt be caUed the city
of righteousness, the faithful city " (i 26). And so when
we examine the picture presented in chap. xi. with care,
and make aUowance for traits so plainly figurative ¦ as
the Hon which eats straw Hke the ox, the seas and rivers
dried up to facUitate the return of the exUes of Judah,
we find but one fundamental difference between the old
and the new Israel : the land shaU be full of the know
ledge of Jehovah, and shaU enjoy the happiness which
in aU ages, past as weU 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 K 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 appHcation of the laws of civU
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 aboHshes crime and
violence, and makes the land which he governs worthy
to be caUed 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 Hi. 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 deHverance
Jehovah shaU 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). AU 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 wiU 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 deUght is set on the fear of
Jehovah, and his rale 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
seK regard his rule as eternal, and bestow upon him
in ix. 6 names that imply that he is God as weU as
man? In looking at this question, we must not aUow
ourselves to be influenced by the fuUer Hght 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 fuUy reaHsed
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
PhUistia and Edom, Ammon and Moab, under a sove
reign reigning visibly on Zion ; and its estabHshment 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 stUl possible for him immediately to
connect the glory of the latter days with the faU of
Assyria, and to speak of it as a restoration of the peace,

306 THE KING OF lect. vii.
the independence, the poHtical 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 should sit on the
earthly Zion 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 Hght of the New Testament, is
essentiaUy 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 likelihood that he thought of more than
this. It is by no means clear that he looks for an ever
lasting 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 aU his attention.
And though the names of the chUd who is to be bom 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 weU 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.11 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 prophepies of the time
of the war with Sennacherib he says only that the
king shaU reign for righteousness and princes rule for
justice, that the churl shaU no more be caUed princely,
and the man of guiles a gracious lord. The right men
shall be at the head of the state, and their authority
shaU bring protection and refreshing to the distressed
(xxxH 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 fiUed by a king Hke Ahaz, or
whUe his successor was stiU in the hands of a corrupt
nobiHty, the contrast of the present and future kingship
was a point to be speciaUy emphasised ; but when there
was promise of better days, when a vizier Hke Shebna
had to give way to a man whom Isaiah esteemed so
highly as EHakim (xxii 15 seq), and the king himseK
began to rule on sounder principles, the sharpness of
this contrast disappeared, and the prophet spoke rather

ISAIAH'S lect. vii.

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 land of Israel should be
full of true reHgion, or, as he expresses it, of practical
knowledge of Jehovah, it is weU to remember how in
chap. xxvHi he presents the daUy toU of the husband
man as itseK 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 and justice on the other,
are the twin piUars of the state, and for prince and
peasant aHke the knowledge of Jehovah means the
knowledge of the duties of his vocation as sacred rales
enforced by divine sanction and blessed by divine grace.
WeU-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 HimseK 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 seq. 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 establishment 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 faU 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 aU 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 PhUistia and Edom, of Ammonites and Moabites.
The other element in Hke manner contains no new
thought. It is expressed in a passage which is now
read in the books both of Isaiah and Micah (Isa. H. 2
seq. ; Micah iv. 2), and which, K 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 H. was written long be
fore Micah i-v. ; and Micah, on the other hand, is cer
tainly not quoting Isaiah.12 But, in trath, 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 ; the 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 whUe either
side has an outstanding score against the other, can
seldom be durably healed without the intervention of a
third party who is caUed 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 estabHshed in the midst of the land.
And now, in conclusion, the practical simpHcity
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 BibHcal, but which leavens almost the
whole Hfe of modern times, has accustomed us to
regard reHgion as a thing by itseK, which ought indeed
to influence daUy Hfe, but nevertheless occupies a
separate place in our hearts and actions. To us the
exercises of reHgion belong to a different region from
the avocations of daUy Hfe ; 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 reHgion 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 HimseK
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 itseK as that of a new world in
which everything is supernatural, a heaven in which
the tasks of common Hfe have no more place, and the
natural Hmitations of earthly being have disappeared.
The time when faith shaU have passed into sight seems
to us to be necessarily a time in which everything is
miraculous, in which Hfe is a dream of the fruition of
God. To such a habit of thought the ideal of Isaiah
is necessarUy 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 reHgion as consistent with the continuance of
earthly conditions and the common order of actual Hfe.
But in reaHty it is just this reaHsm which is the
greatest triumph of Isaiah's faith. For him that con
trast of the natural and supernatural which narrows aU
the reHgion 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 Hfe of
Israel is already, K 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 Hving member in the daUy Hfe 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 reaHty.
With aU its faults, the old popular reHgion of Israel
had one great exceUence : it made reHgion an insepar
able part of common Hfe. 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
Hfe of the nation of new and heterogeneous elements,
by the gradual dissolution of the ancient balance of
society, and above aU by the advent of the Assyrian,

lect. vii. THE SUPERNATURAL. 313
who swept away in the tide of conquest the whole
traditional Hfe 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 reHgion in the place of the old,
but to re-estabHsh the ancient harmony of religion and
dafly experience, and make common Hfe as fuU of
Jehovah's presence as it had been in times gone by.
To this end a work of judgment must sweep away aU
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 sanc
tuaries stand on one Hne 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 aU
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 stroke 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 aHke 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 faUs by no human
sword, and presently the men of Judah are engaged in
the petty conquest of PhiHstia or Edom. Or again, in
chap, xxx., the Hght of the Holy One of Israel flashes
forth from Zion, Jehovah causes His glorious voice to
be heard and scatters His enemies with flame of a de
vouring fire, with crashing storm and haU ; 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 Hfe bring Jehovah
aHke near to faith. His reHgion is the religion of the
God without whose wiU not even a sparrow can faU
upon the ground, the God whose greatness Hes in His
equal sovereignty in things smaU and vast.
The first requisite to a better understanding of the
reHgion 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 aU things that the Bible
knows nothing of that narrow definition of rniracle
which we have inherited from mediseval metaphysics.
When Isaiah draws a distinction between Jehovah's
wonders and the things of daily Hfe he thinks of some
thing quite different from what we caU miracle. " For
asmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth,
and with their Hps 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
wiU proceed to do a marveUous work among this people,
even a marveUous work and a miracle, and the wisdom
of their wise men shaU perish, and the understanding
of their prudent men shaU be hid " (xxix. 13, 14). A
marvel or miracle is a work of Jehovah directed to
confound the reHgion of formaHsm, to teach men that
Jehovah's rule is a real thing and not a traditional
convention to be acknowledged in formulas learned by
rota 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 aU 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 formaHsm of Judah; even as the prophet
speaks the work is afready begun and proceeding to its
completion. And therefore it was of no moment to
Isaiah's faith whether his picture of the sudden down-
faU of the enemy before the gates of Jerusalem was
fulfiUed, as we say, HteraUy. The point of his prophecy

316 MIRACLE. lect. vii.
was not that the deHverance 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 wiU 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. AU history is full of
Hke proofs of divine sovereignty and divine grace, when
in ways incalculable, and through combinations that
mocked the foresight and poHcy of human counseUors,
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 Hfe from the wreck of
societies in which reHgion had become a mere tradition
of men.

lect. viii. DEATH OF SARGON. 317

LECTURE VIII.
THE DEUVEEANCE FBOM ASSYEIA.1
Between the Syro-Ephraitic war and the accession of
Sennacherib to the throne of Nineveh the power of
Assyria had been steadUy on the increase. The energy
and talent of Sargon, devoted to the consoHdation rather
than the unlimited extension of his empire, effectuaUy
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 whUe 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 thriU of joy ran through the
nations at the faU of the great oppressor (Isa xiv. 29).
In a few months Babylon was in fuU revolt, the Assy
rian vassal king was overthrown, Merodach Baladan—
the same Chaldean upstart who opposed Sargon — .
again 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 teU us
that he found 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 Hmited to Chaldaea and the neigh
bouring regions. The far West was equaUy 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 GuK. 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
Hezekiah "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 haK incHned to join
the revolt. Merodach Baladan, in fact, had not mis
judged the feelings of the Palestinian nations. The
PhUistine states especiaUy, the old hotbed of revolt, were
in a ferment of exultation at the news of Sargon'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 himseK 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 whUe 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. "Rejoice not, 0 all PhiHstia, that the rod that smote
thee is broken ; for from the root of the serpent shaU
come forth a basilisk, and its fruit shaU be a flying
dragon!" Sennacherib, that is to say, wiU prove an
enemy stUl more dangerous than his father. The cities
of PhiHstia 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 K Judah hold the safe course, and eschew aU con
nection with foreign schemes of Hberation, the destrac
tion shaU 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 soHcits the Judaean alliance? "That
Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in it His afflicted
people shaU find shelter." 2
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

ATTITUDE lect. viii.

changes take place in their own Hfetime than had
passed before aU the generations of their fathers from
the time of Solomon downwards. Judah was Hke a
ship that had lost its rudder, drifting at the mercy of
shifting winds. Every ancient principle of national
poHcy had disappeared or been reversed. No one knew
whither the state was tending, or what results might
flow from the new alliance with PhUistia and Egypt, so
contrary to aU the traditions of past history, which the
king and his counseUors were disposed to welcome as
offering at least a hope of momentary reHef from a
bondage that had become intolerable. During these
thirty years Isaiah alone had remained ever constant to
himseK, alike free from panic and flattering seK-djlusion,
unshaken by the successes of Assyria, assured that no
poHtical combination which lay within the horizon of
Judaean statesmanship could stem the tide of conquest,
s*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 poHtical judgment, could not faU 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 aU 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 us ? (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 whiph
attended these negotiations was in itseK sufficient to
ruin the prospects of the conspirators, for it gave Sen
nacherib time to crush the Babylonians and their allies
in detaU, 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 aUies 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 Ekron, the vassal of Sennacherib, had been laid in
chains in Jerusalem ; the Phoenician cities were also in
revolt, but no scheme of joint action was prepared, and
the Great King advanced victoriously along the Mediter-

322 „ ISAIAH AND THE lect. viil
ranean coast. The first blow feU upon Tyre, Zidon, and
the minor Phoenician ports, and, when they were reduced,
the kings of the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and
e/en of a part of PhUistia, hastened to bring gifts
and do homage to the conqueror. StUl continuing his
march along the coast, Sennacherib successively reduced
Ashkelon and the other maritime cities of PhUistia ; and.,
having thus thrown his force between the Palestinian
rebels and their tardy aUies of Egypt, he was able to turn
his arms inland agamst 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,3 and compeUed to retire without effecting its
purpose* From this moment the faU of Ekron was
assured, and the Judaeans, who had been the soul of the
revolt in Southern Palestine, had no human hope of
deHverance from the Great King. The crisis had arrived
which Isaiah had so long foreseen ; the last act of the
Divine judgment had opened, and aU eyes could now see
the madness of a poHcy 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 foUy 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 349.

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 poHtical foUy 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 bis countrymen,
but for entering at aU 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 evU, and wUl not caU back
His words, but wUl rise against the house of evUdoers
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 faUs, yea, aU of them
shaU faU together " (xxxi. 1 seq). Their plans had left
out of account the one factor that reaUy makes history,
the supreme purpose and wUl 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 iUegible book
to the nation which caUed itself Jehovah's people, but
refused to hear His counsel (xxix. 10 seq). He had
long since set before His people the path of true deHver
ance. " Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, By returning and

324 ISAIAH WAS NOT lect. viii.
rest ye shaU be saved ; in quietness and confidence shaU
be your strength : but ye would not." The rest and
quietness which Isaiah prescribes are not the rest of
indolence ; he caUs on Israel to abjure the vain bustle
of foreign poHtics and put their trust in Jehovah ; but
faith in Jehovah brings its own obHgations, — conformity
to Jehovah's law, the estabHshment of reHgion as a
practical power in daUy Hfe, 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 HimseK that the plans of
Judah are dfrected. " Out on your perversity," he cries ;
" shaU 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 rebeUion
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 shaU sweep away not only the
foreign tyrant, but the idolatry and traditional formaHsm
of the masses, the oppressive and untruthful rule of the
godless nobles (xxxi. 7 ; xxxH. 1 seq).
To a superficial view the teaching of Isaiah in this
juncture may seem to present the aspect of poHtical
fatalism. The apparent patriotism of his opponents
enHsts a ready sympathy, and the prophet's declaration
that it was vain to attempt anything against the

lect. viii. A FATALIST. 325
Assyrian tiU Jehovah Himself rose to bring deHverance
is very apt to be confounded with the vulgar type of
Oriental indolence, which identifies submission to the
divine wiU with a neglect of the natural means to. a
desired end, leaving the means and the end aHke to the
sovereignty of fate. Suph 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
stiU have contributed nothing to the true deHverance of
Judah. To be freed from Assyria only that the rulers
of the»1and might continue their oppressions uncon-
troUed, 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-estabHshed, and
the true word of Jehovah stiU 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 poHtical freedom less than his countrymen did,
but he valued it only when it meant freedom from
internal disorders as weU as from foreign domination, the
substitution for Assyrian bondage of the effective
sovereignty of Jehovah's hoHness.
And so the criticism which Isaiah directed against
the policy of Egyptian alliance was not merely negative.

326 THE SALVATION lect. viii.
As a trae prophet he could not preach the vanity of mere
human helpers without at the same time unfolding the
aU-sufficiency of the divine Saviour. The crisis which
the foUy of the rulers had brought upon the nation had
to Isaiah a meaning of mercy as weU 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 reHgion 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 (xxxH. 9 seq), are so many steps
towards the great turning-point of Israel's history,
when.aU the delusive things of earth that blind men's
eyes to spiritual reaHties are swept away, and Jehovah
alone remains as the supreme reaHty and the one help
of His people. " In that day shaU the deaf hear the
words of the book [of revelation, xxix. 11], and the eyes
of the blind shaU see out of darkness and out of
obscurity. And the afflicted ones shaU renew their joy
in Jehovah, and the poor among men shaU rejoice in
the Holy One of Israel. For the tyrant is brought to
nought, and the scorner is consumed, and aU that
watched for iniquity are cut off, that make men to

lect. viii. OF ISRAEL. 327
r
sin by their words, and lay a snare for him that judgeth
in the gate, and undo him that is in the right by empty
guUes." Jehovah's deHverance, you observe, is not
Hmited to the overthrow of the Assyrian ; its goal is
the estabHshment of His revelation as the law of Israel,
and especiaUy 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 shaU not now
be ashamed, neither shaU his face now wax pale ; for
when his chUdren see it, even the work of My hands
in the midst of him, they shaU sanctify My name and
sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shaU fear the
God of Israel. And they that erred in spirit shaU
come to understanding, and they that murmured shaU
leam instruction " (xxix. 18-24).
Thus the words of stern rebuke which Isaiah con
tinued to direct against the princes and their carnal
poHcy (chaps. xxix.-xxxii) are mingled with pictures of
salvation, in which the main ideas are those already
developed in earHer prophecies, but set forth with a
depth of sympathy and tender feeHng to which none of
the earHer prophecies attain. The prophet's fire had not
been quenched, but his spirit was chastened and his
faith meUowed by the experience of forty years spent in
waiting for the salvation which Judah's unbeHef had so
long deferred. One can see that the old man had begun
to Hve much in the future, that he was glad to look
beyond the present, and deUght himseK in the images

328 THE BLESSEDNESS lect. viii.
of peace and hoHness that lay on the other side of the
last and crowning trouble which the nation had so
wantonly drawn upon itseK. Jehovah is ready with
grace and help at the first voice of repentant suppHca-
tion. " He waiteth long that He may be gracious unto
you ; He Hfteth HimseK on high that He may have
compassion upon you, for Jehovah is the God of judg
ment; blessed are aU.they that wait for Him. Nay!
weep no more, 0 people of Zion, that dweUest in
Jerusalem ; He wiU surely be gracious to thee at the
voice of thy cry, even as He heareth it He wiU answer
thee. And when the Lord giveth you the bread of
adversity and the water of affliction, yet shaU not thy
Revealer be hidden any more, but thine eyes shaU
see thy Revealer; and thine ears shaU 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 shaU
defile the sUver 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 shaU give the rain of thy seed
that thou sowest the ground withai and bread of the
increase of the earth, and it shaU be rich and fuU ; in
that day shaU the cattle feed in large pastures. . . .
Moreover, the Hght of the moon shaU be as the light of
the sun, and the Hght of the sun shaU be sevenfold, in
the day that Jehovah bindeth up the hurt of His people
and healeth the stroke of their wound " (xxx. 18, seq).
In these pictures of assured prosperity in a nation that

lect. viii. OF THE LAST DA YS. 329
has cast aside its idols to seek deHverance 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 shaU be esteemed as a forest
(xxix. 17). There is trae poetical pathos in these
images of rural peace and feHcity, drawn by an old man
whose Hfe had been spent in the turmoU 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 fertiHty has more than a
poetic motive. From the days of his earHest 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 Hfe (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 He waste*
when the gladsome houses of the joyous cities of Judah
are covered with thorns and briers, when the citadel is
forsaken and the turmoU of the city changed to silence,
when ruined fortress and tower are the haunt of the
wUd 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 wUderness shaU be a fruitful field, and the
fruitful field be counted for a forest." To Isaiah the
fertiHty 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 fertiHty, for judgment
dweUs 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 shaU dweU in a peaceable
habitation and in sure dwellings and in quiet resting-
places." " Blessed are ye that sow beside aU waters,
sending forth the feet of the ox and the ass " to tread in
the seed. Blessed is IsraeL when the turmoU of the
present has passed away for ever, and aU corners of the
land are again the scene of the yearly routine of simple
husbandry (xxxii 12, seq).
There is a tinge of weariness, an earnest longing
after rest, in these idyUic 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. WhUe aU around him were stiU
steeped in careless security, whUe the feasts stUl 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
HimseK is preparing the onslaught. He wiU 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 shaU
not come tiU Jerusalem is humbled to the dust, and her
plaintive cry seems to rise from the depths of the earth
Hke 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 aU the nations that fight against
Ariel — the hearth of God — even aU that fight against
her and her munition, and they that distress her, shaU
be as a dream, a vision of the night" (xxix. 1 seq).
Thus assured of the limits of the appointed judgment,
Isaiah foUows 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 aU 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 (xvii 12 ; xxH. 6 ;
xxix. 7) ; on the NUe swKt messengers are hurrying to

332 • THE ADVANCE lect. viii.
and fro betwixt Ethiopia and Egypt (xviH. 2) ; and the
centre of aU this turmoU is Jehovah's mountain land of
Judah. For Jehovah hath sworn that in His land the
Assyrian shaU be broken, and on His mountains He wUl
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 aU nations" (xiv. 24-27).
And so the prophet calls upon aU the inhabitants of the
world to watch for the decisive moment, the signal of
Jehovah's visible intervention, when the ensign is Hfted
up on the mountains, and the trumpet blast proclaims
the great catastrophe. MeanwhUe 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 shaU cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks,
and the branches shaU He hew away." Thus surely and
without interruption shaU the Assyrian mature his plans
of universal conquest, tiU Jehovah HimseK 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 aU the beasts of the earth shaU winter
upon them. Then shaU Mount Zion, the place of the
name of Jehovah of hosts, be known to aU the ends of
the earth, and from far Ethiopia tribute and homage shall
flow to Jehovah's shrine (xviH. 4-7).

lect. viii. OF SENNACHERIB. 333
Thus, whUe 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 destrac
tion of the Assyrian tyrant the King of Israel declares
HimseK Lord of aU the earth. And so when Babylon
had faUen (xxHi 13), and Sennacherib at length began his
destroying march upon the western provinces, Isaiah
foUowed his progress with absorbing and almost sympa
thetic interest. First he announces the speedy discom
fiture of the Arab tribes ; within a short year aU the
glory of Kedar shaU be consumed, and the remnant of the
bowmen of the desert shaU be few (xxi 13 seq). And
next, as we know was the actual course of events, the
stroke shaU faU 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 aU glory, and to bring
into contempt aU the honourable of the earth (chap.
xxiii). And stUl 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
shaU be moved at His presence, and the heart of Egypt
shaU melt in the midst thereof." The strength of
Pharaoh is brought to nought, and the wisdom of his
counsellors is changed to foUy ; the land is' divided

334 CONVERSION OF lect. viii.
against itseK and passes under the hand of a cruel Lord
— the mercUess king of Assyria (chap. xix.). It is
Jehovah HimseK that leads the annies of Nineveh in
this career of universal conquest, paralysing the arms
of their enemies ; aU 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
subjugation of the inhabited world to Jehovah's throne.
For the desolation of the kingdoms is no longer, as it
had appeared to earHer prophecy, a mere work of judg
ment on a godless world. To them as weU as to Judah,
K not in so exalted a sense, the judgment is the prelude
to a great conversion. Tyre shaU be forgotten for seventy
years — the period, as the prophet explains it, of a single
reign — and then Jehovah shaU visit her in mercy, and
she shaU return to her merchandise and her gains, no
longer 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 dweU in His presence.
We see from this detaU that Isaiah stUl pictures
the conversion of the nations under the Hmitations
prescribed by the national idea of reHgion, which tiie
Old Testament never whoUy laid aside, which could
not indeed be superseded in an age to which aU cosmo-
poHtan ideas were utterly foreign. But, whUe 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 i£
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 (H. 2 seq) is no grievous bondage,
but their best privilege and happiness, their redemption
from the cruel yoke which pressed so heavUy on aU the
earth. This appears most clearly in the prophecy of
the conversion of Egypt in chap. xix. On no land do
the evils of a selfish and oppressive government weigh
so grievously as on the vaUey of the NUe, where the
very conditions of Hfe and the maintenance of the
fertiHty of the soU depend on a continual attention to
the canals and other pubHc works, the condition of
which has, in aU ages, been the best criterion of a strong
and considerate administration.4 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 nomes, the prophet
describes the canals as dried up, and aU the industries
that depended on them as paralysed. Then the Egyp
tians shaU cry unto Jehovah because of theiroppressors,

336 CONVERSION OF lect. viii.
and He shaU send them a saviour and a prince, and He
shaU deUver them. " And Jehovah shaU be known to
Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know Jehovah on that
day, and shaU do worship with sacrifice and oblation,
and shaU vow vows to Jehovah, and perform them."
Then aU the lands of the known world from Egypt to
Assyria shaU serve the God of Jacob. " Israel shaU 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 high, or ap
proached so near to the conception of a universal reHgion,
set free from every trammel of national individuaHty.
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 itseK by arguments
that spoke to aU the earth.5
If the vindication of the divine mission of the pro
phets of Israel must be sought in the precision of detaU
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 shaU caU back the earth to the service of the
true God is stUl an object of faith, and not an accom-
pHshed 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
Rome, successively rose and fell, the sphere of the great
movements of history continuaUy enlarged, tiU 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 stUl unborn when Isaiah preached.
Not only have Isaiah's predictions received no Hteral
fulfilment, but it is impossible that the evolution of the
divine purpose can ever again be narrowed within the
Hmits 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
hermeneutics and sober historical judgment, may stUl
dream of future political conjunctions which shaU restore
to Palestine the position of central importance which it
once held as the meeting-place of the lands of ancient
civiHsation ; but no sane thinker can seriously imagine
for a moment that Tyre wUl 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 Hne 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
trae reHgion 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,
refutes the idea that the Kingdom of the Hving 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 aU but
a few fantastic MUlenarians, whose visions deserve no
elaborate refutation. But even serious students of
Scripture do not always clearly reaHse the fuU import
of the faUure of the HteraHstic view of prophecy ; and
the doctrme of Hteral fulfilment, rejected in principle, is
stUl apt to exercise a fatal influence on the detaUs of
prophetic exegesis. If we repudiate the dream of an
earthly MUlennium, with Jerusalem and a Jewish re
storation as its centre, we have no right to reserve for
Hteral fulfilment such detaUs of the prophecies as seem
more capable of being reconcUed with the actual march
of history, or to rest the proof of the prophets' inspira
tion on the Hteral reaUsation of isolated parts of their
pictures of the future, whUe it is yet certain that as
a whole these pictures can never be translated 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. 839
no thoughtful reader of the prophecies, has therefore
long formed the chief support of the figurative or aUe-
gorical school of exegesis, which, not only in the Old
CathoHc 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 appHed to prophecy with those which
have caused its general abandonment as regards other
parts of Scripture. The general law of aUegorical in
terpretation, as developed in the ancient Church, is that
everything which in its Hteral sense seems impossible,
untrue, 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 himseK, except in so far as he was
a mere miinteUigent machine in the hand of the re
vealer. Now, it is certainly true, as we saw in a former
Lecture (supra, p. 221 seq), that aU 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 Hmitation of vision. That is not

340 THE FULFILMENT lect. viii.
the principle of current aUegorical exegesis, which holds
rather that the obscurity of form is intentional, at least
on the part of the reveaHng 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 aUegory which the Christian reader can devise. Such
a method of exegesis is purely arbitrary; it enables
each man to prove his own dogmas at wUl from the Old
Testament, and leaves us altogether uncertain what the
prophets themselves beHeved, and what work they
wrought for God in their own age. AU 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 faUen under our survey, is the
very reverse of uninteUigible, K we consent to under
stand it by the plain rules of ordinary human speech,
and in connection with the Hfe 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 itseK clearly
enough as soon as we reaHse 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 aU Isaiah's Hfe. 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 avaU, and that the

lect. viii. OF PROPHECY. 841
community of His grace is the one thing on earth that
cannot be brought to nought, — these are the spiritual j
certainties the possession of which constituted Isaiah a
trae 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
bis own day. The practical lessons which he drew from
them for the conduct of Israel were in aU 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 trae sources of danger and the true way of
deHverance, 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 Hteral 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
Hmited 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 aU 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, Hke that of the unprophetic dramatist, vin-

342 THE FULFILMENT lect. viii.
dicates itself in the deHneation of trae 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 Hterally in perfectly dramatic form ; and just
as every drama of human IKe maintains its ideal truth
and perfection, as an exhibition of historical motives,
only by abstracting from many things that the Hteral
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 actuaUy spread over
the course of long ages, and picturing the reaUsation 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 aU lofty thought was stUl essentiaUy 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 detaUs 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. vm. OF PROPHECY. 343
seK drew a clear distinction between mere accidental
and dramatic details, which he knew might be modified
or whoUy superseded by the march 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 trath. Jehovah and Jehovah's
purpose were absolute and immutable. Through aU the
variations of history He was the trae 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
finaHty of the divine manifestation that vindicated it
in 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 fiUed
his mouth with triumphant praises of Jehovah's salva
tion in the depth of Judah's anguish and abasement.
There was no seK-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, itwas none the less a
real victory. When the storm roUed away, the word of
Jehovah and the community of the faith of Jehovah
stUl remamed estabHshed on Mount Zion, a pledge of
better things to come, a Hving proof that Jehovah's

344 THE INVASION lect. viii.
kingdom raleth over aU, and that though His grace
tarry long it can never come to nought, and must yet go
forth triumphant to aU the ends of the earth.
When we learn to seek the true significance of the
work of the prophets, not in the variable detaUs of their
predictions, but in the principles of faith which are com
mon to aU spiritual reHgion, and differ from the faith
of the New Testament only as the unexpanded germ
differs from the fuU 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 instrumentaHty things spiritual
and eternal become a power on earth, and an efficient
factor in human history. Thus we have seen how the
ministry of EHjah 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 Judsean prophets, Isaiah and Micah.
But it was the special privUege of Isaiah that, unlike
his immediate predecessors, he was permitted to enter
in no smaU 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,

lect. viii. OF JUDAH. 345
Sennacherib felt himseK free to direct part of his forces
against King Hezekiah.6 One by one the fortresses of
Judah yielded to the foe (2 Kings xviH. 13). Sennach
erib claims on his monuments to have taken forty-six
strong cities and 200,000 captives. " Your country," says
Isaiah,7 " 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
yek however, there was no movement of true repentance.
There was indeed a great external display of eagerness
for Jehovah's help : solemn assembHes 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 guUty rulers
were stretched forth to the sanctuary with many prayers
(i 11 seq). 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 reHgion of
empty formaHsm. " When ye spread forth your hands,
I wiU hide mine eyes from you : yea, when ye make
many prayers, I wiU not hear : your hands are full of
blood. Wash you, make you clean ; turn away the evU
of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evU ;
learn to do weU ; foUow 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

346 SIEGE AND SURRENDER lect. viii.
to obey, ye shaU 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 guUty rulers, and announces their
speedy faU as the first step to restoration (i 23 seq) ;
one in especial, the vizier Shebna, he singles out by
name, and declares that he shaU be hurled from his post
and dragged captive to a distant land (xxii. 15 seq).
For the moment these denunciations had no recognised
effect; but already Isaiah felt himseK 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," EHa-
kim, the son of HUkiah, 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-
caUy described in Isaiah xxH. The armoury was ex
amined, the waUs of the city of David were found to be
full of breaches, and houses were puUed down that the
material for needful repairs might be quickly avaUable,
and a store of water was accumulated in a new reservoir
between the two waUs 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 (xxH. 3), and
those who remained knew no better counsel than to

lect. viii. OF JERUSALEM. 347
drown their cares in wine, and spend in riorj the few
days of respite that remained to them. "Jehovah
of hosts caUed 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 tiU the operations of
the assaUants had made some progress that he made
his submission as recorded in 2 Kings xviH. 14. AU
his treasures were surrendered to the Assyrian, the
captive Padi of Ekron was deHvered up, and large por
tions of Judaean 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 effectuaUy superseded ; for a little later we
actuaUy find EHakim in place of Shebna in the posses
sion of the dignity for which Isaiah had marked^ him
out (2 Kings xviii 37).
Notwithstanding the hard conditions laid upon
Hezekiah, these changes were, in a certain sense, of

348 DANGERS QF lect. viii.
good omen for the future of the state. The party which
had so long resisted all internal reformation had been
hurled from power, the delusive visions of a brilHant
foreign poHcy were dissipated, and the influence of the
prophetic party, which took for its maxim the reform of
reHgion, the aboHtion 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 heavUy 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 aU classes in a vigorous
and successful effort to reorganise the shattered Hfe of
the nation on higher principles than had been foUowed
in time past. True reHgion cannot Hve without the
experience of grace, and as yet Jehovah had shown
aU the severity of His judgment, but Httle or nothing
of His forgiving love. This onesidedness, K I may so
caU it, of the historical demonstration of His effective
sovereignty in Israel was fraught with special danger
in a community Hke that of Judah. Where T'eHgion
was so intimately bound up with the idea of nationaUty,
the depression of all the energies of national Hfe, in
volved in the abject humUiation of the land before the

lect.vih. THE SITUATION. 349
Assyrian, could not faU to prove a great stumbling-
block to Hving 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 reH
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
ind 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 trae religion would have ran K
Sennacherib had retired victorious, and Judah had beeh
left to groan under a chastisement more grievous than
had ever before faUen on its sins. But the divine
wisdom decreed better things for Jehovah's land.
The submission of Hezekiah and the faU of Ekron
had not completed Sennacherib's task. Some strong
places on the Philistine frontier of Judah, such as
Lachish and Libnah, stiU held out, and Tirhakah was
not disabled by the defeat of the army he had sent to
the reHef of Ekron. On the contrary, Sennacherib now
learned that the king of Ethiopia was marching agamst
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 aUowing Hezekiah to retain

350 TREACHERY OF msct.vih.
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, whUe the siege of Lachish occupied the main army,
a great officer was sent to Jemsalem to charge Hezekiah
with compHcity with Tirhakah, and to demand the sur
render of the city. The troops that accompanied Rab-
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 eome, the false helpers had perished,
and Jehovah was near to deUver 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 wiU send a
blast against him, and he shaU hear a rumour and return
to his own land, and I wUl cause him to faU by the
sword in his own land." Against such confidence the
menaces of Rabshakeh were of no avaU. The populace,
which he hoped to enHst on his side, stood firm by
Hezekiah and Isaiah, and he returned to his master
without accompHshing anything.8
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 aUow him at once to detach a
force sufficient for the reduction of a great city Hke
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 chaUenge 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 smaU power, they were dismayed and con
founded : they were as the grass of the field or the green
herb, Hke grass on the housetops and blasted corn. Thy
rising up and thy sitting down are before Me ; 9 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 wiU put My hook in thy
nose, and My bridle in thy Hps, and I wUl 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 shaU do this" (2 Kings xix. 21 seq.;
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 compeUed to
return to his own land, leaving Jerusalem unmolested.10
Of the detaUs 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
(H. 141), though fuU of fabulous circumstances, shows
that in Egypt as weU 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
poHcy ; for in the foUowing year Chaldaea 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 probabUity
in more than one of the hymns of the Psalter, especiaUy
in Psalm xlvi11 The deHverance 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 marofestation the prophet had
seen afar off drawing near in burning wrath and thick
rising smoke, his Hps fuU of angry foam and his tongue
Hke a devouring fire, and his breath Hke an overflowing
torrent reaching even to the neck, to sift the nations in
the sieve of destraction, 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
pubHc 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 wUl of the God of Israel.
The acknowledged victory of Isaiah's doctrine con
tained an immediate summons to a practical work of
reformation, and prescribed the rules to be foUowed in
the reconstitution of the shattered fabric of the state,
which was the first concern of the government when
the invader evacuated the land. It would be of the
highest interest to know in fuU detaU how Hezekiah

354 LAST WORDS lect. viii.
addressed himseK to this task, and how Isaiah employed
his weU-won influence in the direction of the work.
Unfortunately the history of the kings of Judah is
almost whoUy sUent 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 thfrty-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 aU 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 foU to the assured
feHcity that is ready to dawn on Jehovah's land. " Ha,
thou that spoUest and thou wast not spoiled, that robbest
and they robbed not thee ; when thou makest an end of
spoiling thou shalt be spoUed ; when thou ceasest to rob
they shaU 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 Hfting up of ThyseK
the nations are scattered. . . . Jehovah is exalted ; for
He dweUeth on high : He hath filled Zion with judg
ment and righteousness. Then shaU there be stabiHty
of thy seasons, plenitude of victory, wisdom, and know
ledge : the fear of Jehovah shaU be thy treasure. . . .
Hear, ye that are afar off, what I have done; and, ye that

lect. vm. OF ISAIAH. 355
are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion
are afraid ; fearfulness hath surprised the godless men.
Who among us shaU dweU with devouring fire? who
shall dweU 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
evU ; he shaU dweU on high : his place of defence shaU
be the munitions of rocks : his bread shaU be given him ;
his water shaU be sure. Thine eyes shaU behold the
King in His beauty : they shaU see a land that reaches
far. Thy heart shaU 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 shaU see Jerusalem a
peaceful habitation, a tent that shaU never be removed.
. . . For there shaU 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 NUe —
" no gaUey with oars shaU go therein, neither shaU gaUant
ship pass thereby. For Jehovah is our Judge, Jehovah
is our Lawgiver, Jehovah is our King ; He wUl save
us. . . . And the inhabitant shaU not say, I am sick :
the people that dweU 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
Hps; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin
purged" (vi 7). "The people that dweU therein are

356 LAST WORDS lect. viii.
forgiven their iniquity." The goal of prophetic reHgion
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 hoHness, the same joy
ful obedience to His moral kingship, that made Isaiah a
trae prophet, and sustained his courage and his faith
through the long years of Israel's rebeUion and chastise
ment. The culminating 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 aU history, the crucifixion and resurrection of
Jesus, has scarcely left a trace in the chronicles of the
Roman empire, and in Hke manner only a faint and
distorted echo of the retreat of Sennacherib is heard
beyond the narrow field of Judaean Hterature. 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 Hfe of subsequent generations than aU
the conquests of Assyrian kings ; for it assured the per
manent vitaHty of that reHgion which was the cradle of
Christianity. When Sennacherib's messenger approached
the waUs 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
chUdren were come to the birth, and there was not

lect. viii. OF ISAIAH. 357
strength to bring forth " (Isa. xxxvH. 3). Jehovah sup
pHed 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
mamfest that this new bom community of grace, the
holy remnant, the fresh offshoot of the decaying stock
of IsraeL was not identical with the poHtical state of
Judah. Isaiah himseK was far from suspecting this
truth. AU 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 hoHness on aU the institutions of national
Hfe. This point of view is as plainly dominant in his
latest prophecyas in his earHest discourses. The rulers of
Zion, who dweU in the full blaze of Jehovah's consuming
hoHness, 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 mamfested in the stability of national weKare, 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 akeady
indicated, the outlines of a scheme for the reorganisation
of national Hfe, 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 through the organs of national action,
for a nation has no personal identity or invariable fixity
of purpose ; and the momentary impression, of the great
deHverance, when, for an instant, aU Israel seemed to
bend as one man before Jehovah's wUl, could not secure
a permanent and unfaUing concentration of every class,
in its own place in society, towards the reaUsation of the
prophetic ideal. The effective regeneration of society, as
the gospel teaches us, must necessarily begin with the
individual heart, and the true analogy of the workings
of the kmgdom 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 the nation
of Judah ; it consisted of the comparatively few whose
adherence to spiritual reHgion was an affair of settled
conviction, and not a passing impulse determined by one
of those rare junctures when the power of spiritual things
shows itseK for an instant with all the palpable reaHty
of a phenomenon of sense. It is not the law of divine
providence that such visible manKestations 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 Hfe; a
radical amendment of social Hfe, even as regarded the
administration of equal and impartial justice, and the
estabHshment of kindHer 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 accompHshed was a
temporary mitigation of crying abuses. It was less
difficult to work a change in those parts of the visible
ordinances of reHgion which were plainly inconsistent
with prophetic teaching. The aboHtion of idolatry,
or at least of its more pubHc and flagrant manKestations,
was undoubtedly attempted ; indeed we might be led
to infer from the prominence assigned to Hezekiah's
reHgious reforms in the history of Kings that some
movement in this direction may have been made in the
earHer part of his reign. But it is quite clear from the
prophecies of Isaiah that Hezekiah was whoUy in the
hands of the adversaries of the prophetic party tiU the
last period of the Assyrian war ; not till after his first
surrender and the discomfiture of the poHticians of
whom Shebna was the leader could it be said of
Hezekiah, in the language of 2 Kings xvni, 5, 6, that
he trusted in Jehovah and clave to Him. Even in the
discourses of the reign of Sennacherib Isaiah speaks of
the aboHtion of the idols as a thing stUl 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 faU, 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 reaUy refer to the years that
foUowed 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
shaU 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 aU their goings. To Isaiah,
in trath, ritual worship had very Httle significance.
He certainly did not distinctly look forward to its com
plete aboHtion, for he speaks of the Egyptians as serv
ing Jehovah by sacrifice, and even of altar and macceba,
such as characterised the common provincial shrines,
of Judah, erected within Egypt in token of homage to
Jehovah (xix. 19, 21). And in Hke 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 (xxxiH. 20). But, on the other hand, he not
only represents the sacrifice of guUty hands as unaccept
able to Jehovah (chap, i), but there is never the sHghtest
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 aU the
. prophecies that have come before us which gives the

lect. viii. WORSHIP. 361
sHghtest weight to priesthood or sacrifice. Nay, in
xvn. 8 the altars as weU as the ashe-rim and the sun-
piUars 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 Hes in the fact that the capital is the
centre of His effectual kingship in Judah ; and even
Hhe 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
hoHness than to altar or sacrificial flame. If Jerusalem
appears to Isaiah as the centre of that sanctity which
belongs to aU 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, whUe Isaiah insists on the removal from reHgion
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 dweU safeiy in the consuming fire of
Jehovah's hoHness.
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 lect. viii.
Hezekiah were the act of the government in a nation
not whoUy converted to Jehovah ; and, in the absence
of that pure spontaneity which the prophets regard as
the true spring of right reHgion, they must have been
directed to an external aim, the estabHshment of a fixed
type of official worship. The attempt was confronted
from the first by a formidable difficulty : the idols, the
sun-pUlars, the asherim, the sacred trees, and aU the
other pagan or haK-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
practicaUy indifferent to aU forms of cultus : the social
exercises of bis faith as described in Isa. viH. 16 seq. were
altogether of another kind, anticipating the worship of
the New Testament Church. Hezekiah could not pro
pose to himseK, and Isaiah had never formaUy contem
plated, the entire aboHtion of the traditional ritual ; and
yet it was scarcely possible to introduce any effective
reform without a great Hmitation, an almost radical
subversion, of the ancient shrines. But at this point
the zeal of Hezekiah was powerfully aided, and the
plan of reformation practicaUy determined, by the fact
that almost every considerable provincial town of Judah
had been ruined by the armies of Sennacherib. The
local BaaHm of the high places had been of no avaU 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 destraction ; 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 reHgious 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 inviolabUity of Jehovah's holy mountain. They
were unable to separate the idea of hoHness 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.12 Thus the
scheme of Hezekiah necessarily assumed, with more or
less expHcitness, the form of a superseding of the pro
vincial shrines and the centraHsation of worship in the
temple of Jerusalem, purged from heathenish corrup
tions. At first this change would not appear very
startHng or difficult to carry out, for Sennacherib had
left the provinces a desert (Isa. i 7 ; xxxiH. 8, 9), and
his monuments aver that 200,000 of their inhabitants

364 THE REACTION lect. viii.
were carried off as slaves. Judah and Jerasalem 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 privUeges of worship that could
not be refused to the Phoenicians and other aHens, who
occupied in the capital a quarter or suburb caUed the
Maktesh (Zeph. i. 11) ; and in the sequel these shrines
exercised more influence on Judaean reHgion than they
had ever done before.13
Thus the visible impulse of the great victory of
Isaiah's faith appeared to have exhausted itseK in a
scheme of external reform which feU far short of giving
fuH expression to the spirituaHty 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 foUows 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 aU parts of Hfe 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 foUowers
of the prophets, and the new king was on the side of
the reaction. Perhaps in this straggle 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 poHcy of reHgious centraHsa-
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 weU suppose that the reHgious war which ensued
had on both sides a demoraHsing tendency ; a contest
as to forms of worship and ecclesiastico-poHtical 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,14 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 aU
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 fatherland the daughter
riseth up against her mother, where the nearest friend
cannot be trusted, where a man dare not speak freely

366 THE REACTION lect. viii.
even to the wKe of his bosom. And yet in a certam
sense reHgious earnestness was deeper than before. The
reaction had brought back aU the old corraptions, but
not the old Hghtness 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 deHver
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 —
stUl weighed upon the nation, and gave a sombre tinge
to aU reHgion. In this respect Judah did not stand
alone. To aU the Palestinian nations the Assyrian
crisis had made careless confidence in the help of their
national deities a thing impossible. As Hfe 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 multipHed, human sacrifices became more frequent,
the terror which hung over aU 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 reHgion.
Thus 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 was to take part. So far as appeared on the
surface of Judaean 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
privUege to be caUed by His name, which Isaiah had
continually set forth as the right disposition of trae
religion, was lost in gloomy superstition. The grace of
Jehovah, so often manifested in the past history of
IsraeL was forgotten (Micah vi 4 seq), 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.
xHv. 18 ; Ezek. vHi. 12). But beneath aU 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 trath which should carry the reHgion of Israel
another stage towards its goal in the reHgion of Christ
The faUure 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
manKest that to purge the reHgion of Judah from
heathenish elements it was necessary that the whole
notion of sacrificial worship should undergo a radical

368 THE CODE OF lect. viii.
change. The code of Deuteronomy, which must be
regarded as in great measure a product of reflection on
the faUure 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 tUl the old principle is given up that aU
food, and especiaUy every animal slain for a feast, is
unclean unless presented at the altar. By dissociating
the ideas of slaughter and sacrifice, which tiU then had
been absolutely indistinguishable and expressed by a
single word, the law of Deuteronomy revolutionised the
reHgion of daUy Hfe, and practicaUy Hmited the sphere
of ritual worship to the pUgrimage 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 reHgion of ordinary Hfe 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
come for the great work of Isaiah, and yet when it was
construed in the way set forth in Deuteronomy it
impHed a real step towards the spiritualisation of aU
the service of God, and the emancipation of reHgion

lect. viii. DEUTERONOMY. 369
from its connection with the land and holy places of
Canaan (supra, 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 poHtical 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 itseK to thoughtful minds not as a narrowing
of the sphere of reHgion but as a subHmation of its
contents. Jehovah requfres nothing of His people but
"to fear Jehovah thy God, to walk in aU His ways, and
to love and serve Him with aU thy heart and aU 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
2a

370 DEUTERONOMY. lect. viii.
expressed in the Deuteronomic code, there lay a larger
principle, which no legal system could exhaust, and
which never found fuU embodiment tiU the reHgion of
the Old Testament passed into the reHgion of Christ.
The faUure of Hezekiah's attempt to give a poHtical
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
reHgion which are independent of aU poHtical ordinances.
The reHgious Hfe of Judah was not whoUy absorbed in
the contest about visible institutions, the battle between
the one and the many sanctuaries. The organised pro
phetic party of Isaiah, which stUl 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 formaHsm which took for its watchword
"the Temple of Jehovah," against which Jeremiah
preached as Isaiah had preached against the formaHsm
of his day (Jer. x. 4). In Jeremiah's day the doctrine
of the inviolabUity of Zion became in fact the very
axiom of mere poHtical Jehovah-worship. That has
always been the law of the history of religion. What
in one generation is a Hving trath of faith becomes in
later generations a mere dead formula, part of the reH
gion learned by rote with which Hving faith has to do
battle upon new issues. But even in the darkest hours
of Israel's hjstory 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

lect. viii. JEREMIAH. 371
those that waited for Jehovah in a higher sense than
the mass even of the so-caUed party of pure wor
ship, withdrew more and more from all the forms of
poHtical reHgion to nourish their reHgious Hfe in exer
cises purely spiritual, and to embody their hope of
Jehovah's salvation in thoughts that stretched far
beyond the Hmits 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 spfritual 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 aU the other ideas that
come before us in the great prophecies of the Chaldaean
period, to trace the course of the new reHgious issues
that shaped themselves in the decline and faU of the
Judaean Kingdom, and finaUy in exUe and restoration,
would be a task as large as that which we have already

372 MICAH VI. lect. viii,
accomplished, and must be reserved for a future oppor
tunity. Meantime, the record of the first period of
prophetic reHgion may fitly close with the words in
which the soHtary voice crying out of the darkness of
Manasseh's reign sets forth the sum of aU preceding
prophetic teaching, and gathers up the whole revealed
wUl of Jehovah in answer to the false zeal of the
immoral bigotry of the age.
" 0 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 shaU 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 ? WUl Jehovah
be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands
of rivers of oU? ShaU I give my firstborn for my
transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my
soul? He hath showed thee, 0 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 seq).
It is no mere reHgion of legal obedience that these
words proclaim. Jehovah requires of man not only to
do but to love mercy. A heart that deHghts in acts of
piety and loymg-kindness, the humUity 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 HimseK
has set His seal (Matt. xxH. 37 seq).
Thus in the deepest darkness of that age of
declension which sealed the fate of ancient Israel, when
ihe trae prophet could no longer see any other end to
the degenerate nation than a consuming judgment that
should leave the land of Canaan a desolation and its
inhabitants a hissing and a reproach among the nations
(Mic. vi 16), the voice of spiritual faith rises high above
aU the Hmits of the dispensation that was to pass away,
and sets forth the sum of trae reHgion in words that can
never die. The state of Israel perished ; the kingdom
of Judah and aU the hopes that had been buUt upon it
crumbled to the dust; but the word of the God of Israel
endureth for ever.

NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS.

Lecture I.
Note 1, p. 4. — With all its defects, the Federal theology of
Cocceins 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 briefer discussion in his Geschichte des Alten
Testamentes in der christlichen 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 age
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 foi
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 be
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 (Economia Fcederum,
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, Sanctificatian, and the Eesur
rection of the body, he remarks (§ 26) that it was not unreason
able that so large a range of doctrines should' Tie 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. i.
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 Revealer,
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 seq.) 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 Caesar.
See Mommsen's History, bk. v. cb, 11.
Note 4, p. 19. — Translations from Assyrian and Babylonian
texts are now easily accessible, especially in that unequal col
lection, Records of the Past (1873-1881). [A second series
appeared in 1886-1892 under the editorship of Prof. Sayce. The
original series is a monument of the zeal of the late Dr.
Birch, the Egyptologist. Readers of German will not fail to
consult also the Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, edited by Prof.
Schrader, which began in 1889.] There can be no question
that the sense of, a^great many 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 Assyrian chronology, as determined by the
Eponym Canon (supra, p. 150), is one of the most certain as

lect. i. ASSYRIAN SOURCES. 377
it is one of the most important of the new discoveries. But, on
the other hand, many details are too imperfectly understood to
justify the large conclusions too often built on them [and it is
certain that many of the conjectures on Old Testament subjects
offered by Assyriologists have been hindrances and not helps
to historical inquiry. A younger school of students of the
cuneiform texts has, however, arisen, which, as was to be expected,
deserves and has received the confidence of Biblical critics, in so
far as it recognises the established principles of philology and of
historical criticism. And if it is still desirable that Assyriolo
gists should take counsel somewhat oftener with Biblical critics,
and acquaint themselves with the critical progress made (partly
by the help of archaeology) from decade to decade, it is equally
to be wished that Biblical critics should seek for a deeper and a
more interior knowledge of Oriental and especially Assyrian
archaeology. For a fuller treatment of this subject, see Driver,
Contemporary Review, March 1894 ; Cheyne, Nineteenth Century,
April 1894 ; and (continuation) New World, June 1894 Prof.
Sayce's popular work entitled The Higher Criticism and the
Verdict of the Monuments is in many respects grievously unfair,
and, apart from its far-reaching misrepresentation of the character,
methods, and results of present-day criticism, suffers from a total
absence of justificatory notes. In these respects it compares
unfavourably with Prof. Schroder's book on the Cuneiform
Inscriptions and the Old Testament (quoted by some writers as
K.A.T.), the second edition of which has been translated by
Prof. Whitehouse (2 vols., 1885). A third German edition of
this work is expected shortly. It is difficult to emphasize too
strongly the need of careful criticism in the use of Assyriological
data, especially in view of the inexact and highly uncritical
statements which fill so large a place in the recent writings of
Prof. Sayce.
The author of these lectures would have been the right
person to throw himself into the breach in defence of sound
method and the continuity of critical progress. Nor would
he have found it difficult to reply to the article entitled " Archae
ology v. the Higher Criticism," Contemporary .Review, October
1895. It may suffice here to refer the reader to the works of the best
German archaeologists (including Fritz Hommel, whom Prof. Sayce

378 THE HITTITES. lect. i.
misrepresents), to Franz Delitzsch's article on Sayce in Zt. f.
Ki/rchUche Wissenschaft, 1888, pp. 124-126, and to the articles
by English critics mentioned above ; see also Cheyne, Founders
of Old Testament Criticism (1893), pp. 231-241, and "The
Archaeological Stage of Old Testament Criticism," Contemporary
Review, July 1895, pp. 89-102, also a review of Prof. Sayce's
recent work, The Higher Criticism, &c, in the Critical Review,
1894, by Prof. A. A. Bevan of Cambridge.]
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 [ — the form of the name,
however, is of slight authority, and has some misleading associa
tions — consult, with caution, "Wright, The Empire of the Hittites
(1884; ed. 2, 1886). Cf. also Hirschfeld, "Die Felsenreliefs in
Kleinasien und das Volk der Hittiter" (Abh. Berl. Ak., 1887) ;
M'Curdy, Hist., Proph., and the Monuments, pp. 190-205 ; and
a remark in ReHgion of the Semites," p. 10, from which it is
plain that the author was sceptically disposed towards the
theory of the "Hittite" origin of certain famous monuments
(see Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art, vol iv.). Whether,
like Prof. W. M. Ramsay, he would at last have surrendered
to this attractive theory, it is, of course, impossible to say.
One word of caution may be added, especially to readers of
Prof. Sayce's interesting works, viz., that on the Biblical
notices of the Hittites, it is only an investigator who is in
touch with the literary and historical critics of the Old
Testament who can be safely heard.] On the identific
ation of Carchemish with the modern JirbSs (Y&kat ii.
688) — that is, the Syriac Agr6p6s, Greek zipmrit 'Qpuir6s — see
G. Hoffmann, Syrische Akten Persischer Martyrer (1880), p. 161 seq. ;
Delitzsch, Wo lag das Parodies ? (1881), p. 265 seq. The name
Jerablus given by some travellers [cf. Sayce, Eng. Hist.
Rev., Jan. 1888, p. 109, note] is incorrect. The town lay on the
west side of the Euphrates opposite D§r KinnisrS. The passage
of Stephanus Byzantius, quoted by Hoffmann, which says
that Oropus was formerly called Te\/i7i<r<r6s, presumably 7J1
{••£, not only confirms the identification with Carchemish, but
shows that the latter is a Semitic word, " castle of Mtsh."

lect. i. ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 379
Note 6, p. 26. — See Wellhausen [art. "Moab," Encycl.
Brit.9 ] ; Meyer in Stade's ZeUschrift, vol. i. p. 122 ; Stade,
Geschichte, p. 110 ; [Budde, Urgeschichte, p. 346. Kittel, however
(History, i. 22), doubts whether both names have precisely the
same signification, and M'Curdy (History, Prophecy, and the
Monuments, i. 160, 406 seq.) holds that " in the Old Testament
the two names answer to two distinct peoples, though it is
impossible as yet to say with certainty how far the one was
removed from the other in point of origin and date of settle
ment." A renewed inquiry is desirable.]
Note 7, p. 28. — See especially Wellhausen, De Gentibus et
Familiis Judmis, Gott, 1870, and Prolegomena,3 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
Judaea. For the Amalekites and their original connection with
Mt. Ephraim, see Judges v. 14; xii. 15; Noldeke, Ueber die
AmaleMter, 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
(ff. N. xii. 14), and the discussion in Sprenger's A Ite Geographic
Arabiens, 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, which 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

380 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. lect. i.
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
seq., 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, xviii. 14 seq. ; Judges xvii. 1 seq. 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 iii.) 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. [See Driver, Text of Sam., Introd., p. Ixxxvii]
Note 13, p. 34. — See The Old Testament in the Jewish
Church (1881), especially Lectures xi and xii It may be
convenient to repeat that the three main masses of legislation
still distinguishable in the Pentateuch 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.o. 621 or 622) and the reforms
which Hezekiah adopted after the retreat of Sennacherib in
B.o. 701 (see Lect, viii.). (3) The Priestly or Levitical Legislation,
composed after the book of EzeMel and adopted as the law of the
New Jerusalem (in conjunction with the rest of the Pentateuch)
under Ezra, b.o. 445. See Neh. viii. seq.

lect. ii. THE PENTATEUCHAL LEGISLATION. 381
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 Church, p. 334 [ed. 2, p. 339].
Note 15, 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 Bettle 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 Wdhabys, 8vo ed., p. 115 seq.
Note 16, p. 39.— See 0. T. in Jewish Church,2 p. 240 seq.,
p. 269 and note (Shechem in the time of Abimelech was a
Canaanite town), p. 68 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 Httle 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 Canaanites continued
to be the trading class, and, as the Hebrews occupied the land,

382 THE KINGSHIP IN ISRAEL. lect. il
became more and more exclusively traders. Between traders
and 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 Reehabites are cases in point. And the Reehabites, 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). Modern 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 in 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 virtue

lect. ii. TITHES. 383
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 may be found in
Wellhausen's Comp. des Hex., p. 243 seq., with which compare
the discussion in his Text der Biicher Samuelis, [and in the Intro
ductions of Kuenen and Driver.] It is to be noted that the
attacks on Samuel so current in the older sceptical school (see
e.g., Volney's Histoire de Samuel), derive their whole plausibility
from the one-sidedness of the current uncritical treatment of
the history. Note 3, p. 50. — For an account of this celebrated monument,
now in the Louvre, and a translation of the inscription which it
bears, see an article [by Prof. W. Wright of Cambridge], printed
in the North British Review, October 1870, and compare Dr. A.
B. Davidson in the B. and F. Ev. Review, 1871. [For the
purposes of the student, Dr. Driver's transcription, translation,
and compact commentary (Notes on Text of Samuel, Introd.,
p. lxxxv. sqq.) is indispensable.]
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 Hotti Tiger, Spencer, Leg. Rit. Heb.,
lib. iii c. 10 ; Winer, s.v. " Zehnten," Ewald, Alterthiimer, p. 398
(Eng. tr., p. 300) j 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. QScon.,
iip. 1352 6 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; Hut., Mor. ii 267 E; compare the

384 SACRED FEASTS. lect. ii.
authorities collected by Wyttenbach in his index to Plut., Mor.
s.v. 'H/oaKA.iJs). Among the Arabs of the frankincense country
tithes of this product were paid to the priests of the sun-god
Sabis (Plin. xii. 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 Mutter's
Fragm. Hist. Gr., iii. 371). The mention of the Kabiri also
speaks for a Semitic element in the sacrifice of tithes or first-
fruits — note the connection of the two ideas — by the Pelasgi men
tioned by Dion. Hal., A. R. i. 23. [Cf. Rel. of the Semites,2 p. 245 f.]
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 offerings of first-fruits among other ancient nations.
Pliny, for example, says of the ancient" Romans that they would
not even taste the new corn or wine till the priests had tasted
the first-fruits (ff. 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. 25, ; Fihrist,ecL Fliigel, p. 322). See Spencer,
Op. cit, Kb. 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 husbandry,
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

lect. ii. SACRED FEASTS. 385
(Herakles), Jos. Ant., viii. 5, 3. This feast, however, is said to
have been 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 in 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), 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 the
scholion 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. G., 1859, p. 134
seq. ; Leben Muhammad, iii 516 seq. ; Dozy, IsraeUten te Mekka,
p. 138, from which it will be seen that there id 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 offered may be taken
as a probable parallel to the paschal sacrifices of the Hebrews. [A
different view was offered by Wellhausen in Prolegomena, 1883,
p. 105, but in the preface, dated May 17, 1883, he accepts the
argument of Robertson Smith.]
That there were great similarities between the feasts of the
Hebrews and their heathen neighbours is clear from the un
doubted 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, Phoenimer, i 483 seq.
Again, the technical term mxj? reappears in the worship of
the Tyrian Baal, 2 Kings x. 20. The description of Syrian
festivals given by Posidonius (Muller, Fragmenta, iii. 258), the
copious eating and drinking, the portions carried home, the
noisy music, recalls forcibly what we read of the Hebrew feasts
(1 Sam. i. 14 ; 2 Sam. vi. 19 ; Lam. ii. 7, etc.).
Besides the great yearly feasts, Hosea ii. 13 specially
mentions the Sabbath and the New Moon. The latter of these
was also a sacred season among the Phoenicians celebrated by
special offerings, C J. S. pars i cap. 2, No. 86. The Sabbath, as
2 b

386 THE NAME JEHOVAH. lect. ii.
a day of joy, contrasts with the unlucky seventh day of the
Babylonians, on which see Sayce in R. P., i. 164 ; vii. 157 [Lotz,
De Historid Sabbati (1883)]. The relation of the Sabbath to the
planetary week of the Babylonians, in which 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. — [In Rel. of Semites? p. 236 f., shelem is taken
as an ordinary festal sacrifice, and minha as a cereal oblation.]
Note 8, p. 56.-[See Religion of the Semites? pp. 217,237,435.]
The sacrificial tablet of Marseilles 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.
Note 9, p. 57. — See in particular the inscription of Iehaw-
melek (C. 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 Phoenician temple, with
its court and portico and a lofty obelisk or sun-pillar, is best
seen on the coin of Byblus, figured ibid. p. 6, and in Renan's
Mission, p. 177. The brazen altar recurs in the Sardo trilinguis
(Schroder, p. 249 ; Levy, Phon. Stud., iii. 40). The palm-tree or
palm-branch found among the temple ornaments is one of the
commonest of Phoenician symbols. See the woodcuts in Renan's
Mission, p. 651 seq. ; the woodcut from Yarun, Survey of W.
Palestine, i. 259, and the coins figured by Schroder, Plate xviii
10-14. Compare further 0. T. J. O.,2 p. 260 and note 1 there. For
the classes of ministers in a Phoenician sanctuary, see C. I. S., No. 86.
Note 10, p. 57. — See Old Test, im, J. Ch.,i p. 292 and note.
Note 11, p. 62. — [On Iahwe Qeba6th, see Kautzsch in Stade's
Zeitschrift, 1886, pp. 17-22.] The ancient exegesis of Exod. iii. 14
flowed in two main channels. The Hellenistic tradition, attaching
itself to the rendering of the LXX., £yd> el/ii 6 &v . . . S &v
oirto-TaXice /te, finds the meaning of the ineffable name in the
absolute being and aseity 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

lect. ii. THE NAME JEHOVAH. 387
metaphysical entity, and the imperfect PWIR does not mean /
aim, but I will be [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] I who unit be. As A. ben Ezra, puts it, "WK
pins is an explanatory apposition to HTIN. This view of the
grammatical structure of the clause has been recently supported
l>y Mr. W. A. Wright (Jour. Phil., iv. 70) and Wellhausen
(Comp. des Hex., p. 72), 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 rpilN is not so much I exist or I
will exist as I will be it — an incomplete predication. On this
view the predication, incomplete in the simple fTW or HTIN. is
completed in the fuller riTIK 1K>N iTDK- This clause may cer
tainly be grammatically rendered Be I what I may — ar view
adopted and grammatically justified with his usual wealth of
illustration by Lagarde, Psalt. Hieron., p. 156 seq. 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, Shab. xiv. 4 ND-irti XSim DN; Freytag, Prov. Ar., i. 339,
No. 212, Ujlus heith tajlus ; Tabary, iii 93, 1 3, qataltm mam,
qataltu. The great difficulty in the view of Professor Lagarde,
and indeed in almost every view except that of A ben Ezra, is
that the meaning of the full PITIX "IB>K nTlK disappears in the
shorter form iTTlK or iTirP, the whole clause being essential to
the sense. In a paper in Brit, and For. Ev. Rev., Jan. 1876, 1
proposed to meet this difficulty by following out the hint given
by R. Jehuda Hallevy (Kusari, ed. Cassel, p. 304), who explains
ifTIK 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 will be rings through
the whole Bible in varying form (Gen. xxvi 3 ; Josh, i 5 ;

388 THE NAME JEHOVAH. lect, ii.
Judges vi. 1 6 ; Jer. xxiv. 7 ; Zech. ii. 5 [9] ; viii 8, etc.) Is there
not a presumption that this oft-repeated I will be is akin to the
JITIX of ver. 14, and that the latter must also mean, not I will
exist, but I will be — something which lies implicitly on the mind
of him who uses the name ? In this case it is possible with R.
Jehuda and A. ben Ezra to take the DV1K IB-'X as an apposition,
but it seems more reasonable to think that the added rPflK W,
I will be what I will be, expresses more distinctly the fact that the
predicate is vague. The construction, in fact, is in principle
analogous to the well-known idiom JJDtyn JJDB> to express the
indefinite subject. The relative clause is without emphasis — as
appears from the parallels cited above, and the sense is not that,
God reserves for His own arbitrium to determine what He will
be, but simply that what He will be to His people He will be,
will approve Himself to be, without fail 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. lxiv. 3 ; Lam. iii 23). On this view the clause is
exactly parallel to Exod. xxxiii. 19, which does not mean that
God will 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 Iahwe their God." It
must of course be remembered that Exod. iii 14 does not give
the original sense of the name Iahwe, which is still obscure,
but an adaptation of the name, so that we need not be surprised
to find a little awkwardness in the expression. [So Smend, A. T.
Rel.-gesch., p. 21 ; but see Marti, A. Kayser's Theol. des A.T.,
p. 57.] Note 12, 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."
— C. I. S., ut supra, No. 3. The Authorised Version of the Bible
unfortunately obliterates the characteristic ideas of the " under
world" (She61) and the "shades" (Rephaim). In Isa. xiv. 9, for

lect. ii. THE WORD NABl. 389
example, the former word is rendered "hell," and the latter
"dead." Note 13, p. 72. — A reference may here be added to the latest
discussion of the derivatives of the root CDK by Prof. Kautzsch
of Tubingen (Festeinladung, 6 Mtim 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 PT£
and JJitn 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 cadq. [On the Hebrew usage, see Smend, A. T. Rd.-gesch.,
p. 410 sqq.]
Note 14, p. 75. — The Biblical narrative is here supple
mented by the " Moabite Stone " erected by King Mesha.
Note 15, 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 ov, Encycl. Britanniea.9
Note 16, p. 81.— In Hosea vi 5 for TIN "VDS&J'D read with
LXX. mitt n2SB>D- [So also Targ., Pesh.]
Note 17, p. 84. — On wine and wine-drinking among the
Arabs before Islam, see especially I. Guidi, Delia Sede primitwa
dei popoU SemMici (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-
taaans 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 8 p. 8 5. — See G. Hoffmann, Verhandbmgen der Kirchen-
versammlung m Ephesus, etc, Kiel, 1873, p. 89 ; "bar naggari
is not the son of a carpenter, but a carpenter as member of the
incorporation." The current notion that the prophets were. not

390 THE WORD NSbI. lect. ii.
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 19, p. 86. — The etymological sense of the Hebrew
nabt 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 {nibba and hithnabbe, prophesy) are
denominatives formed from nabt. 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 kdhen, " 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'im were common to Israel and the worshippers
of Baal, while according to 1 Sam. ix. 9 nabt 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 protrusion
(Fleischer in Delitzsch's Genesis, 4th ed. p. 552), and so the Tdg
el ' Arils (i 131) remarks that naba'a 'ala, in the sense of ftajama
watalaa, is interchangeable with nabaha and nabaa. But
this fundamental idea not only divided itself under a variety
of trilateral roots ; the root naba'a itself, according to the Arabic

lect. ii. THE WORD NABI. 391
lexicographers, has very various meanings, among which it is
difficult to find one that can be regarded as central. Thus,
when Kuenen (Onderzoek,1 ii. 3 ; comp. Godsdienstj chap. iii. note,
and Prophets, p. 42) selects the notion of bubbling up, and
regards the prophet as one who bubbles up under inspiration,
this hypothesis has no more value than that of a guess guided
by the particular development of the root idea found in "pi and
5D1. The most interesting etymological question is whether
nabt may not originally mean simply a "speaker" or "herald"
of God. This view is supported mainly from the Arabic by
Ewald (Prophets, Introd.), Fleischer (ut supra), and many others,
while Hupfeld (Z.f. d. K. des. Morgenl., iii. 40) and [G. Hoffmann
{Z. A. T. W., iii 87 sqq.)\ also starting from the Arabic, take the
view, less accordant with the grammatical form of the word, that
the nabt is one to whom God whispers His revelation. Kuenen
(Prophets, p. 42), in opposing tjhe 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
now,, act. of Conj. I. explained by khabar, news. And no doubt
the usage of the Korfin is to reserve these words for divine or
supernatural communications, and Ragheb, cited at length in the
Taj el 'Arte, explains that nab' is not to be used of any khabar,
but is confined to announcements that are valuable and promote
knowledge and are certain truth, like the word of God and His
prophet. Vet it seems impossible to treat Conj. II. as a mere
theological term derived from the Hebrew. Even in the Koran
(lxvi. 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 noM, means to
"announce," Delitzsch, Ass. Lesestiicke, 2d ed. (1878), p. 3.
Nab'at, " a gentle sound" (Harith, Moall, 1. 11, and Taj el 'Arils
i 131, foot), is also an old word. It cannot, however, be said
that the sense " speaker," or " newsbringer," is as yet established as
the [primary] meaning of nabt. [This is all that Kuenen now says.]
Note 20, p. 86. — From 1 Sam. x. 5, 10 seq. ; xix. 20 seq., wa
see that the nebt'tm at their first appearance in Israel formed
bands or companies. Their "prophesying" was a joint act;

392 THE NEBIIM. lect. iii.
Samuel, in xix. 20, stands presiding over them, precisely like the
sheikh in a zikr of Dervishes. Further, these exercises were
sometimes gone through in sacred processions, sometimes at a
fixed place, as at the Naioth at Raman, 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 off 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 Kukubury, 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&ah- elMmi) came upon those who par
ticipated in them ; Saul was, as an Arab would now say, malb&s.
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,
Metam. lib. viii., and Lucian, Asinus, c. 37. These priests cor
respond to the kelabtm (literally " dogs") of the Phoenician sanc
tuaries (C. I. S., No. 86), and of Deut. xxiii. 18, who again are
the same with the kedeshtm of 1 Kings xv. 12 ; 2 Kings xxiii 7.
At the time of Josiah's reformation these wretched creatures had
dwellings in the temple. [Cf. 0. T. J. 0.,* p. 365.]
Lecture HI.
Note 1, p. 91. — The vagueness of 2 Kings xiii. 6 is not an
isolated phenomenon. Amos never mentions the Assyrians by
name, though he plainly alludes to them, as at vi 14. So, too,

lect. iii. ISAIAH XV. XVI. 393
Wellhausen (Comp. des Hexateuch, p. 287 seq.) remarks that the
cause of the sudden 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 'Arabah," in Amos vi. 14,
is identical with the brook of the 'Arabim, or willows (Arabic
gharah; Celsius, Hierobot., i 304 seq. ; I can testify from personal
observation that a tree of this name is still common in the Z6r
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 Phoenician 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 proph. Jonas Orakel iiber Moab, u.s.w.,
1831; Der Prophet Jesaia, 1833, p. 178 seq.). See also Cheyne's
Prophecies of Isaiah, [and Introd. to Isaiah, p. 87 seq.}.
Note 4, p. 94. — I transcribe, by way of illustration, a pass
age from Sprenger's Alte Geographie 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 Arabien, ii 404 seq.

394 SOLOMON. lect. hi.
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 12,
13). Under Solomon the Judaeans 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 seq., 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 Israelites 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
Hebrew, which may point to an influence of foreign models on
the organisation of the state.
Note 6, p. 98.— See on all these points Old Test, in J. Ch.?
p. 238 seq.
Note 7, p. 110.— See 0. T. in J. Ch.f p. 340 seq.
It is strange that a Hebraist like Prof. W. H. Green (Hebrew
Feasts, pp. 33 f., 223) should still maintain that Exod. xx. 24
refers, not to co-existing sanctuaries in Canaan, but to altars
successively 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, Lehrb., 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 for
the wilderness journey, when all Israel was encamped in the

lect. iii. AMOS. 395
vicinity of the tabernacle. But it is certain that there was no
regular 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. 119. — For the interpretation of this most im
portant chapter see especially, in addition to the commentaries
on Deuteronomy, Graf, Der Segen Mose's, Leipzig, 1857 ; Well
hausen, Prolegomena, E.T., pp. 134, 344. In verse 2 the text
must be corrected as suggested by Ewald, Gesch., ii. 280, so as to
read, "came to (from ?) Meribath Kadesh" [cf. LXX.].
Note 9, p. 120. — With the exception of the works of Vater
(1810), Gustav Baur (1847), [and J. H. Gunning (1885)], the
recent commentaries on Amos are incorporated in books on the
prophets in general or on the minor prophets. [Among modern
English works Prof. Davidson's two essays on Amos in the
Expositor for 1887, and Prof. Driver's article "Amos" in Smith's
D.B.,2 most deserve attention. The latter has a full bibliography.]
The most influential modern commentaries have been those of
Ewald (Propheten, vol. i), and Hitzig in his Kleine Propheten
(4th edition, by Steiner, 1881), [to which that of Wellhausen
(1892) may now be added]. 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 Theologie der Propheten
(Bonn, 1875), [and Smend's A. T. Rel.-gesch.] ; an essay, containing
a great deal that is arbitrary, by Oort, Theol. Tydsch., 1880, p.
114 seq. ; Noldeke's valuable article in Schenkel's Bibellexikon ;
and the excellent remarks of Wellhausen, Hist of Isr. and Judah,
pp. 81-87. 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
were not pure Hebrews, but belonged to the Hezronites, nomads

396 TEKOAH. lect. hi.
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 Reehabites, who gave their support to Jehu in the
interests of ancient nomadic simplicity. The analysis of Well
hausen, however, De Gentibus et FamiUis 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,
see Robinson, Biblical Researches, 2d ed. p. 486 ; Stickel, Das
Buck Hiob, p. 269 seq., whose remarks on the active movements of
commerce in this district serve, as Kuenen has pointed out
(Emleitung, ii. 342), to throw light on the range of the prophets
historical and geographical knowledge. The idea that Amos
belonged to the Northern Kingdom and to some other and un
known Tekoa (Gratz, Oort, ut supra) is quite arbitrary. That
Amos has a thorough knowledge of the Northern Kingdom proves
nothing. Oorfs most striking argument is derived from the
mention of sycomore culture as the prophets occupation. The
chief home of this tree was certainly in the plains, especially in
the low country on the coast (1 Kings x. 27 ; compare the
notice of a great sycomore grove between Rafah and Gaza in
YSkut, ii. 796); and Jerome (on Amos vii.) already remarks that
it did not exist in the wilderness of Tekoa, and conjectures that
the bramble is meant. According to Tristram, it is 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 sycomore can never have grown in the vicinity of Tekoa
or between Tekoa and the Dead Sea, as it was certainly widely
distributed in Palestine. That Amos was a Judaean is clear from
his allusion to the sanctuary of Zion, i. 2 [if this is really his work].
Note 11, p. 121. — [" Cultivator3 ; Amos need not have been
merely a poor " gatherer " of sycomore figs. D7E (LXX. Kvlfav;
Vulg. velHcans) is best rendered " one who nips " (or pinches). In
1893 Prof. Henslow exhibited before the Linnean Society one of the
instruments still in use for nipping the sycomore fig. This fruit is
infested with the insect called Sycophaga crassipes, and till the "eye"
or top is cut off, and the insects have escaped, the fig is inedible].
Note 12, p. 124. — The phrase "eat bread" for "earn ones'
bread" is common to Hebrew and Arabic. See De Goeje's

lect. iii. DAY OF JEHOVAH. 397
glossary to the Bib. Geog. Arab. (vol. iv. p. 180). Mokaddasy
says, "I am 'not one of those who eat their loaf by their know
ledge." Thus Amaziah distinctly treats prophecy as a trade.
Note 13, 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. %ur Gr. Ueb. d.
Proverbien, p. v. In some other places there are irregular spellings
(vi. 8 ; viii. 8 ; v. 11 ; Comp. Wellh. 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 preserved better readings,
but Oort (utsupra) goes too far in the numerous corrections he intro
duces. The text is on the whole in an unusually good state, nor can
I see [1882] that there is evidence of such extensive interpolations
as Duhm, Oort, and even Wellhausen assume (infra, note 18).
Note 14, p. 126. — An interesting example of this will be
found in Ibn Khallikan's article on Ibn al-Kirriya (p. 121, or i.
236 seq. of the English translation).
Note 15, 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. Tydschrift, 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. [Cf. Dillmann's Genesis, 1892.]
Note 16, 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, Prophets,
e.t. i 111 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.

398 D4 Y OF JEHOVAH, lect. hi.
The popular idea in question cannot have been that of a day of
judicial retribution; the day which 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 Schultens on Job, p. 54, to which
may be added a reference to the section on the "Days of the
Arabs" in the 'Ikd of Ibn 'Abd Rabbih, Egyptian ed., iii 60
seq. The "days" of the Arabs often derive their name from a
place, but may equally be named from the combatants, e.g.,
"the days of Tamim against Bekr" ('Ikd, -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 17, 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 under 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
tion. The attempt was deemed so unseemly that the eulogist of .
Herod, Nicolaus of Damascus, omitted to record it in his history.
Note 18, p. 135. — The tablet of Marseilles seems to show

lect. iii. TEXT OF AMOS. « ' 399
that among the Phoenicians the whole burnt-offering was used
especially in supplicating the favour of the deity, or as an excep
tional thankoffering (Schroeder, op. 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 effi
cacy. Note 19, p. 136. — [There is more to be learned from the
author when he is wrong than from the rank and file of theo
logians when they are right. This note is therefore retained ;
though, to hold the same views now with equal confidence
would be scarcely possible.] Duhm, Theologie der Propheten, p. 119,
followed by Oort, ut supra, p. 116, proposes to reject Amos
ii. 4, 5, as a Deuteronomistic 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 togeiher, and both kingdoms
are mentioned in vi 2. Comp. iii 1, where all 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. 16. 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 probable 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

400 * TEXT OF AMOS. lect. iii.
¦*\r-K  ; 
are cof^4miied 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 Wellhausen, Prolegomena,3 p. 436, n, 1, who compares these
passages to the lyrical intermezzi celebrating Jehovah as Lord of
the Universe, which characterise Isa. xl.-lxvi, and argues 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 mpral purpose (vii. 4 ; ix. 2 seq., etc.), and thus
it is natural that the prophet should make occasional direct
appeal to that lordship 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. [See, however, Introd.]
Note 20, p. 140. [Cf. p. 175 seq.— It is doubtful whether
this can -be maintained on the theory of the integrity of the text
of Amos. In iii. 14, the altars of Bethel appear to be regarded
as the chief causes of Samaria's guilt, and in viii. 14 we even find
the phrase, " They that swear by the Guilt of Samaria," which,
on the analogy of Hos. x. 10, most naturally means the *' golden
calf " of Bethel. . These passages, to which Prof. Davidson adds
two less certain ones, " appear," as that scholar says, " to carry
in them a formal repudiation of the calves" (Expositor, 1887,
1, p. 175). It is probable, however, that the author's exegetical
instinct is correct. Prof. Davidson and the author are doubtless
both right in what they affirm. Amos cannot think that his

lect. iii. SIKKUTH AND CHIUN. * 401
<  ... 
awful Jehovah is fitly symbqjized by a ste%^ but it was
practically not important to him to attack IsraeHtish image-
• worship for the reason mentioned by the author on p. 176. The
passages quoted by Prof. Davidson, which may appear to refute
the author's view, a.re among those which advanced criticism
recognises as wholly or in part interpolated.]
Note 21, p. 140. — In Am. v. 26, there are two disputed points.
The first is with reference to the tense of DDNB'll. See, on
this point, Driver, Hebrew Tenses, §119o, [and note references
to earlier writers in Driver's art. " Amos " in Smith's D.B.?
near end. Assuming the genuineness of this grammatically
ambiguous and in its historical allusions extremely obscure
verse, we may state the question thus : — It is debateable]
c whether (a) Amos 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 consisting
of a carrying about of certain idolatrous objects in sacred
procession (so Kamphausen, Schulte* etc.), or (c) predicts that
they shall have to carry these things away into captivity (so
Rashi, Ewald, etc.). The question of the consecution of tenses is
complicated by the fact that the preceding verb is an interroga
tive, and thus De Goeje in support of his, view appeals to Job
xxviii 21, nO^SUi, which, however, is 'rrb exact parallel. An
allusion to the sins of Israel in the wilderness would be
singularly out of place in this connection. Amos, like the qther
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, Colossians, £.*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 ">nhin 1 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
t r^ * 2 o

.402 SIKKUTH AND CHIUN* lect. iv.
idols, the work of man's hands. The verse contains two unique
words nl3d (A V. tabernacle), aThd )VD (A. V. Chiun). Are tifese
common or proper names? As regards the first the wholea
weight of the early versions supports the English version, andjlf'
as the form in D1 from "pD 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 sekkttha, "post." With
regard to the second word, however, where the Septuagint intro
duces a problematic Raiphan, or Rephan, there is artlSarly 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 -witlX^Keiwdn, Saturn. According to Abul-
walid, most Jewish interpreters took this view, though he himself
prefers the opinion, essentially that of most recent commentators,
[previous to Sehrader's K. A. T.\ that the word is like ni'DD, a
pedestal. [The author added some criticisms of Sehrader's view
(Guneif. Inscr., ii. 142\Jjhat Sakkuth and Kaiwan are names of
Babylonio- Assyrian dmies. But, though even at a later date (0.
2J. J.C.,2 p. 294) he adhered to the rendering "the shrine of your
(idol) king and the stand of your images," it is practically
certain that ]i*3, and at any rate not improbable that fllDD, is a
divine name. Even Tiele, who rejects Sehrader's Sakkuth,
inclines to accept Kaiw&n {Geschiedenis, 1893, p. 315), while Well
hausen {Die kl. Proph., p. 82), Baethgen (Beitrage, p. 239),
KautzscHjGuthe, and the Revised Version, accept both divine
names. .The Persian Keiwttn, to which Robertson Smith refers,
is a loan word (see Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 114 ; Delitzsch, Ass. ff.
W.B., p. 321). There is, however, one real objection to Sehrader's
view; it is suggested by the author himself on p. 140, viz., that the
worship referred to, " from the connection, cannot have been a
rival service to tha#> of Jehovah." Amos does not accuse his
countrymen of the worship of foreign gods ; outwardly, he says,
. they are only too zelflous for Jehovah. But the reply to this is,
that there are critical grounds for supposing that the book of

lect. iv. CHRONOLOGY. 403
Amos has received interpolations. Wellhausen is of opinion
that in the place now occupied by v. 26 there stood originally
some terrible threatening, which would naturally lead on to
v. 27. In his translation he gives this view of the connection,
" Therefore will I . . . and will carry you away beyond Damascus,
saith Vahwe the God Sebaoth." That the text of the inter
polated passage has also been touched, seems to him equally
clear. Of 3313 D3»I3?V, he says- that this is " too much of a
good thing"; 3313 must be a gloss to JV3,' and DS'D^X a gloss to
D3WN. And since }V3 must at any rate be Kevan, J113D will
also presumably be a divine name, for which he refers to Sehrader's
K.A.T. He has no doubt that the tenses are futures. This seems
to the present writer reasonable (see Introduction). Prof. G. A.
Barton's too ingenious view (Oriental Studies, Philadelphia, 1894),
deserves chronicling : " The prophet evidently refers to a cultus
which was at least possible in Israel, and I can hardly think
that it was not already present ... In one of the letters from
Jerusalem [el Amarna] there is mention of a city Beth-ninib, the
name of which is evidence that in very early times the worship
of Ninib or Saturn found its way to Palestine."]
Note 22, p. 140.— See 0. T. J. 0.,s p. 345 ; Religion of the
Semites,3 p. 220, note ^. Lecttjke 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,
Untersuchungen zur Kritik des Alten Testaments : " 4, Die Chrono-
logie der Richterzeit," and Wellhausen, Jahrbb. f. Deutsche Theo
logie, 1875, p. 607 seq. (compare Bleek's Einleitung, 4th edition,
p. 264 seq. ; Geschichte, i 287 ; and Krey, Zeitsch. f. Wiss. Theol.,
1877, p. 4D4 seq.). The observation of the trisection of the 480
and 240 periods of Judah 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 ac-

404 CHRONOLOGY. lect. iv.
cumulate 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 Wellhausen. [Cf. also Ruhl's essay, Deutsche Zt.
f. Geschichtswissenschaft, xii. 44-76.] The ordinary schemes of har
monists are mere guesswork. Students who desire to look into
the subject for themselves, may be referred to Scaliger's Thesaurus
Temporum; Ussher's Annals of the World, 1658 (preceded by the
Latin Annates, 1650-54) ; and G. Syncellus, Bonn ed., i. 388 seq.,
for the Canon of Ptolemy. [Cf. also Schrader, Cuneif. Inscr.,
ii. 161-175.] Note, 2, p. 146. — In fixing on this particular means of
harmonising the two lines 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, king 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 11 years. On
the other hand, we are told that Amaziah lived 15 years after the
death of Jehoash, or the 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 Wellhausen (Jahrb.
f. D. Theol, 1875, pp. 607 seq.), we are forced to the conclusion
that they are not independent 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 Judaean and Northern
chronology. This view was expressed by Ewald (History, iv.
21), and subsequent inquiry has fully confirmed its correct
ness ; for not only are the synchronisms full of such inconsist
encies as were inseparable from the task of harmonising two
sets of data that do not agree, but an exact examination of the
text stows that they are inserted in such a way as to disturb the

lect. iv, OF KINGS. 405

natural construction of the sentences in which they occur. See
Wellhausen, ut supra, 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,
Thesaurus, 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
Saigon's first yeair have given rise to considerable discussion, and
are difficult to harmonise. See Schrader, Guneif. Inscr., ii. 94 ;
Opperfc in Records of the Past, vii. 22, 28 ; Smith, Assyrian
Eponym Canon, -pp. 125, 129, 174 ; the criticism of v. Gutschmid,
Neue Beitriige,lOl seq. ; and Schrader again in K. G. F., p. 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,
Thin 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
722, 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' sie%e. 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 {ut supra), based
on the variations which Assyriologists themselves have given in
the rendering of an obscure word, we might even place Shal
maneser's death and the commencement of the siege in 721 ; but

406 DATE OF

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. — [In an inserted slip the author thus corrects
his own temporary error.] The existence of a vassal kingdom of
Samaria has again become doubtful, or has even been given up
by Assyriologists, as it appears that the name read Usimurun
and identified with Samaria ought to be Samsvmurun. See
Schrader, Abh. Berl. Ah, 1879 ; Delitzsch, Parodies, p. 286 ;
Noldeke, Z. D. M. G., 1882, p. 178 ; [Halevy, Revue des dudes
juimes, 1881,' p. 12 ; Schrader, Cuneif. Inscr., i. 151].
Note 6, p. 154. — Among special commentaries on Amos are
these of Simpson (1851), Wunsche (1868), and Nowack (1880).
There is also a very excellent old commentary by Pococke (1685).
Further references to books are given in Encyc. Brit. xii. 298.
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. — Hosea prophesied, we are told (Hos. i 1),
(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 ia 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 cannot 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. 407
^ — i  i — _ — _  .
their present form (see p. 215 seq.), 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 he used to supply
a figure for the fall of Samaria, could hardly have remained
without mention in the historical books, and it does hot 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 {Onom., ed. Lagarde, p. 214), east of the
Jordan near Pella, which might conceivably have been reached
by Shalmaneser IIL This combination has been suggested by
Schrader (Own. Inscr., ii. 139), who, however, himself admits its
very problematic character, and offers the more plausible alter
native that Shalman may have been a Moabite king, a sovereign
of Moab of that name (Salamanu), actually appearing on the monu
ments (comp. Smith, Eponym Canon, 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, Prolegomena, E. T., p. 138, who is
certainly right in saying that the direct address to the priests does
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, vmvmah. But to gain a proper
connection between ver. 5 and ver. 4 is more difficult, and

408 HOSEA IV. lect. iv.
seems to require a slight readjustment of the* textj The lines on
which this must proceed have been clearlj/laid Aown 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, VHD33 ''DJJI, " for my people is like
its priests," is not satisfactory : O'lrD and D^DS are not synonyms,
and [Wellhausen's theory forces him {Prol. I. c.) to omit] \rfti
at the end, and 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 Heilprin's
lUHDS "]DJ>1. "thy people are like its accusers, O priest." But1
the priests were judges, not accusers, and the people at large could
hardly be called the priest's people. Rather the people of the
priest muBt be the priestly caste or clan, and this points to the
very slight correction *3 V1D for ^HDS. " thy people have rebelled
against me, 0 priest." The corruption might easily arise, espe
cially with scriptio defectiva, under the influence of the preceding
3"V. Perhaps, indeed, it would be enough [to correct (comparing
1 Sam. ii. 10)], "Thy people are as mine enemies, O priest."
[Wellhausen now reads as above, but adds JD^jn " 0 priest."]
Note 9, p. 160. — The etymological relations of 1DI1 are
obscure. In Syriac we find two words hesda : the first, written
according to Bar Hebraeus with hard d, means " reproach," the
latter with rukkakha, hesdha, is the Hebrew IDII. 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. 17 ; 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
HSHD, in which the idea of friendly combination appears to lie,
in correspondence with the fact that in Hebrew "TDn is the virtue
that knits together society. It is noteworthy that hashada has
a special application, in the phrase hashad4 lahu, to the joint
exercise of hospitality to a guest.

lect. iv. GENESIS XXXIX'. XLIX. 409
It ought never to be forgotten that in Hebrew thought 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 difficulties 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 Composition des Hexateuchs, p. 47 seq., Dillmann's
Genesis, and Kuenen's essay [translated in Budde's edition of
selected Abhandlungen, pp. 255-275], 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, "lams few men ;" and
that in Gen. xlix. 6 he speaks of his sons as tribes, for two men
do not form an " assembly " 6npX -A-s 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 (Kinship im, Arabia, p. 86,
sqq.; 0. T. im, J. Church? p. 370, note). 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

410 ALLEGORY OF lect. iv.
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 VIK in Hosea xiii. 10 either stands
for or must be corrected into iTX is the almost unanimous
opinion of ancient and modern interpreters, 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.D.M.G., xv. 809,
Wellhausen, Text der Biicher SamueUs, p. 30 seq., [Driver, Samuel,
p. 195 seq). 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 AU, 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"13 HID "13D, he espoused his daughter, lit. bought
her from him (Bernstein, Chrest., p. 37). The Hebrew word
eres, "betroth" (Exod. xxii 15, Hosea ii 16), properly means to
barter or hire, so that erts 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 (nikahu 'I mut'ati : Mowatta, iii. 24 ; Bokh&ri,
Bulak ed., vi 124 ; Ibn Khallikan, Slane's transl. iv. 36). For
our present purpose it is important to note that 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 (Hosea 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. 13 ;
xvi. 8 ; Hosea xiv. 5, 6 ; Num. xxiv. 6, etc.). From this point

lect. iv. MARRIAGE. 411
of view the multiplication of the 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 sacred tree, the Arabic 'athary is the palm tree planted on
the bd I land, and the same conception of the sacred tree was
found in the popular worship of Israel (Hosea iv. 13). 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 bd I (Lagarde, Semitica, 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 $>jQriE>-|N, " the espoused of Baal." For
Babylon and parallel examples from other nations see Herodot.
i 181 seq. See also Jos., Ant., xviii. 3 § 4.
Note 16, p. 172. — On the Arabic bd I see Wetzstein in Z. D.
M. G., xi 489 ; Sprenger, ibid, xviii. 300 seq. ; Lagarde, Semitica,!.
p. 8. The glossaries to De Goeje's BelMsori and to the Bib. Geog.
Ar. supply examples. The term is also Talmudic. 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 'athary 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 BelMsori 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 rains 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. [See further Religion of the Semites? pp. 97-102.]
Note 17, p. 179. — One or two corrections are necessary in
the English version of Hosea iii. in order to bring out the full

412 TEXT OF lect. iv.
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 his affection.
The ivy qualifies the main verb, not the "p ; 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. im, J. Ch., 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. —[Cf. Encyc. Brit, xii 297.] The true sense
of this narrative was, I believe, first explained by Ewald, [but
has been most clearly brought out by Wellhausen]. The older
literal interpretation is morally impossible ; while the idea that
a divine command could justify a marriage otherwise highly im
proper, and that the offensive circumstances magnify the obedience
of the prophet, substitutes the nominalistic notion of God for that
of Scripture. [See Wellhausen, Die kl. Proph., p. 103 ff., and note
the unnecessary qualification on p. 104, note 1. The name Jezreel
has as much of the nature of a curse as Lo Ruhamah and Lo Ammi.
We have no reason to doubt that Hosea became conscious of his
wife's infidelity and of his call before the birth of his first son.]
Note 19, p. 185. — The prophet, in vii. 5 seq., describes 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 Ephraim 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 hands
with scorners " or reckless despisers of right. The figure here
is quite similar to Isa. xxviii. 1 seq. In the following verse we
must plainly read 13"]i3, "For their inward parts are as a
furnace," with the same enallage numeri as in "]&B for 13E>D in
ver. 5 ; or, with Schorr (Heilprin, Historical Poetry, ii 145), we
may read D31p (many supposed enallages are probably corrup
tions of text, and *|K>D in old writing can as well be plural as
singular). The following words D31K3 D3? may be defended
from Jer. ix. 8 [Hob iy 7] "OIK OW 13np3, to which the con-

lect. rv. HOSEA. '413
struction stands related as *13"| 7J? 3? D1^ to J? ?J> "\T\ D'B>. 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 *I5?3, " their
heart burns within them."] In what follows, Houbigant long
ago thought of JtJ»J? (perfect) for jt»>i, but neither he, nor
Wiinsche, who follows him, saw that JB* is simply an obsolete
orthography for the imperfect fEtyi, like 10? for 1DJ??, Psalm
xxviii. 8, so that the passage is to be explained by Deut. xxix.
20 [Heb. 19]. Thus the verse goes on, "their anger (DD98 as
Tgm. Syr.) smokes all the night, in the morning it flames forth
like blazing fire." [See also Wellhausen and Kautzsch- Guthe
(in Die heil. Schrift des A. T., hrsg. von E. Kautzsch, 1894)].
Note 20, p. 189. — I adhere, though not without some
hesitation, to the i? of the Massoretic text of Hosea xiv. 8 and
the traditional view that the prefixed D'HBN 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
quite necessary to regard the whole verse as spoken by Ephraim.
The first 'IN, indeed, on this view, marks an emphasis which we
would not express in English ; but precisely in the pronominal
expression or suppression of emphasis Hebrew and English
differ greatly. The main difficulty 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. 1 5.
Although the rendering " cypress " for " fir-tree " has of late
become so common, I hesitate to adopt it for two reasons. (1)
Ebusus, the modern Iviza, is according to the coins DK>3 iN =
D'tiDS 'N, and what this means appears from the Greek
Uirvovo-ai (see Schroder, Phon. Spr., p. 99). (2) The Ber6sh is
according to Scripture the characteristic tree of Lebanon along

414 ISAIAH. lect. v.
with the cedar. Now the cypress is [at any rate at present not
indigenous] on Lebanon, but a species of Abies is very
characteristic of these mountains, and to judge from its present
frequency must have always been a prominent feature in the
forests. Note 21, p. 190. — According to [many] 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 Z. A. T. W., 1881-1882, 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 conviction for many years.
Stade seems to have shown that the same thing holds good for
ix.-xi. [A similar but less radical conclusion was reached by the
editor in 1879. "Both Zech. ix.-xi and xii-xiv., in their
present form, proceed from a post-exilian writer. He was not,
however, the same who wrote Zech. i-viii, but lived nearer to
the apocalyptic age. In the former part, he availed himself
largely of a pre-exilian prophecy or prophecies ; in the latter he
depended more upon himself." {Theological Review, 1879, p.
284 f.). The essay here partly summarised was read before the
Taylerian Society in 1879, and printed in the Jewish Quarterly
Review for 1889, pp. 76-83, cf. Cheyne, Founders of Old Testament
Criticism, p. 320 ; Driver, Introduction, p. 328. See also Cheyne,
Introd. to Isaiah, p. 159j where Zech, ix 1-8 is made con
temporary with Alexander's siege of Tyre.]

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. An account and estimate of the older commentators
is given in Mr. Cheyne's tenth essay in voL ii of his Prophecies of
Isaiah, 1880-1881. [The author here added a generous eulogy of
this work, which need not be repeated. Since the lectures were
delivered, the aspect of Isaiah criticism has materially altered, as
has been pointed out in the Introduction. Without ingratitude
to earlier works, we must now chiefly devote ourselves to present-
day workers, for an estimate of whom it may be allowable to

lect. v. CHRONOLOGY. 415
refer to portions of the editor's Introduction to Isaiah. Among
these, two may be specially mentioned here, Prof. Driver and
Prof. G. A. Smith, the former for his handbook to Isaiah,
the latter for his volumes on Isaiah in the Expositor's Bible)
The student should not overlook the contributions of Lagarde
in his Prophetm Chaldaice, p. xlix. sq., and in his Semitica, I.
Note 2, p. 193. — This is the natural inference from the
feet 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
PUeser against Pekah and Rezin b.o. 734. At this time Ahaz
was king of Judah. Further we know that Menahem was still
alive B.C. 738 (supra, 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
the throne between 738 and 734 ; and, as it is hardly to be
supposed that the Syro-Ephraitic war was prolonged more than
one or two years before the Assyrians interfered, the date of
Jotham'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 find that the Judaean 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 Judaean chronology
of the period is out by about 30 years. 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 necessary
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,
was contemporary with King Joash of Israel, and his defeat by

416 CHRONOLOGY lect. v.
that monarch seems to have fallen near the close of Amaziah's
reign. At least it is a highly plausible conjecture of Wellhausen
(Z.f. 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 15th 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.
The chronology 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 (Syncellus, p. 388). Now, the book of Kings divides

the 110 years as follows : —

Manasseh

55

Amon

2

Josiah .

31

Jehoiakim

11

Zedekiah

11

The 11 years of Zedekiah are certain from Jer.

Kings xxv. 8. Further,

xxxii 1 ; 2

4 Jehoiakim = 23 Jeremiah (Jer. xxv. 1).
13 Josiah = 1 Jeremiah (Jer. xxv. 3).

lect. v. OF JUDAH. 417

Therefore 1 Jehoiakim = 20 Jeremiah = 32 Josiah; that is,
Josiah reigned 31 years as stated in Kings. But now,
if Jehoiakim really reigned 11 years, 21 Jehoiakim =10
Zedekiah =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. Apion. i 19). Hence we must conclude that the first year
of Nebuchadnezzar — that is, the first year which began in his
reign — was really the fifth of Jehoiakim, and that the latter
reigned not 11 but 12 years.1 The 12 years of Jehoiakim
seem also to be confirmed by Ezek. i. 1 seq., which Wellhausen
uses to support the current chronology. According to Ezekiel,
the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity (i 2) is the 30th year of
another unnamed era. It appears from xxiv. 1, where the ninth
year is the ninth of Zedekiah, that Ezekiel counts as the first
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 18th of Josiah if Jehoiakim reigned 11 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 (ut supra, 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 after the reformation, or the 19th of
Josiah. It is indeed probable, since Ezekiel reckons by Baby
lonian months, and so begins the year in the spring, that his
1 It mil not do to get over this argument by supposing that the
fourth year of Jehoiakim was reckoned from autumn, and that thus, if
the battle of Carchemish fell in late autumn, part of that year on the
Judaean reckoning might still coincide with Nebuchadnezzar's first year
reckoned from the following Easter. For the ninth month of Jeremiah's
calendar is a winter month, Jer. xxxvi. 9, 22, showing that he reckons
by Babylonian years, beginning in spring. To suppose that Jeremiah
habitually mixed up two calendars is altogether out of the question.
Besides it is highly improbable that the encounter of Neoho and
Nebuchadnezzar on the Euphrates took place in late autumn, as the rivei
can be forded in summer. 2d"

418 CHRONOLOGY

first year begins with Josiah's reformed passover. But if so, the
spring era was already in use in Josiah'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 11 years to Jehoiakim instead [of 12 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 (Manasseh, 55; Amon + Josiah = 33). In any
case it would have the effect of disordering by one year any
calculations as to earlier dates.
Let us now go back to the time of Hezekiah. Taking the
reigns from Manasseh 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 us 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 cor
rection 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 + 55 + 2 = 86
years to Hezekiah, Manasseh, and Amon taken together. There
is therefore high probability that (1) is an independent and
valuable datum, and that the sum of the years of Hezekiah,
Manasseh, and Amon is also accurately known. And in general
this result is borne' out by the statement of Jer. xxvi 18, 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.

lect. v. OF JUDAH. 419
When we pass now to (2) we are encountered by a very
complex problem ; for the 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 is an incredible one, for
it implies knowledge of the true Assyrian chronology and a
determination to fix the fall of Samaria (a non- Judaean 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
combination 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 (a) 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 hypothesis for the whole system of numbers.
To develop it, I return to the assumptions already found
probable, that the fourth year of Hezekiah coincides with the
first year of the siege of Samaria, and that Hezekiah, Manasseh,

420 CHRONOLOGY lect. v.
and Amon together reigned 86 years. I do not assume that
the 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 course, 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 DiBmann's essay in Monatsb. 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, Comp. des Hex., p. 290 ff), or'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
hold the 15 to be part of the original tradition, for Jerome

OF JUDAH. 421

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, but 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. [For a conspectus of dates from 1 Jehu
= 1 Athaliah to the Fall of Samaria according to Ussher on the one
hand and four recent critics on the other, see Driver, Isa., p. 13.]
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 iyycurrplpveoL,
iyyaarptrai, arepvoixavreis, EwpwcAeii or Eupt/KAetSoi, and their
father Eurycles was said to prophesy truly " by the dayman that
was within him," Schol. on Arist, Vespm, 984 (1019) ; Iamblichus
cited by Lagarde, Abhandhmgen, p. 189. In Syriac these sub
terranean spirits are called ZakMrS, and the conception is well
illustrated in JuUanos, ed. Hoffmann, p. 247, and Z. D. M. G.,
xxviii. 666 seq. [Schwally (Z. A. T. W., xi. 179) quotes Iamblichus,
the Babylonian, as saying, iyyaarplixveoi...Vafiv\<!>vu>i %aK%oipav
A,woKa\ov<riv, and infers that the Syriac ZakkurA was not
a Hebrew, but a Babylonian loan-word (the phonetic laws of
Syriac would require d for z). Cf. also Rel. of the Semites? p. 198.]

DA TES OF lect. v.

Note 5, p. 211.— Compare 0. T. in J. Ch.? Lect. iv. p. 101
seq. ; Lect. iv. p. 172 seq.
Note 6, p. 217. — [The view maintained by Prof. Cheyne
{Proph. Isa.) and Prof. Driver (Isaiah, p. 96), mainly following
Kleinert, has been abandoned by both scholars.] There is good
reason for holding that the embassy of Merodach Baladan fell in
the reign of Sennacherib (infra, Lect. VIII.), and it seems im
possible 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 phraseology and the singular phenomenon
of a twofold consciousness (see vers. 6-9) are also adverse to
Isaiah's authorship.] The prophecy, therefore, belongs to the
Chaldaean 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.
Second 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. 1-11 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).
(b) 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 against

lect. v. ISAIAH'S PROPHECIES. 423
Assyria. Chap. xxi. 11-17, Duma and the nomadB v
of the Syro- Arabian 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 Judaea, 701 b.o. 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
himseK 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 standB, this collection contains also Baby
lonian prophecies, and so must be of Exilic or post-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.

424 NOTION OF lect. vi.
Note 8, p. 218.— See Cheyne on the passage, and, as regards
the 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 Phoenician ^en (C. I. S., I. p. 38). [Of. also Nowack, Hebr.
Archaologie, pp. 23, 38 seq)
Note 9, p. 224. — On the idea of holiness a great deal has
been written. Duhm {Theologie der Propheten, p. 169 seq.) lays
particular emphasis on the relation of the idea to the worship of
God. The idea is (esthetic ; 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 aesthetic 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 Studien, part ii (1878), there is a useful collection
of material. The most important thing in it, as Noldeke
observes in his review of the bodk(Lit. Centralbl., 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 koSos. That the word is old
Arabic in the sense of holy seems clear from Kuds as the name
of two mountains in Arabia (Yakut 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 kadasa fi 'I art}, like sabahafi 'I ard, means
"to go far off" (Ibn Sa'ud, 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
Kdashb,, an earring, literally a " holy thing," that is, no doubt,
an amulet (comp. the leTtashtm or amulets 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. [See also
Religion of the Semites? pp. 140-142 ; Davidson, Ezekiel, p.
xxxix. f. ; Smend, A. T. Religionsgeschichte, pp. 333-338. David
son remarks that, whatever the original physical idea was, the
term "holy" was early felt to express the general notion of god
head ; hence its elasticity.]

lect. vi. HOLINESS. 425

Lecture VL
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
meant is the plausible explanation of Ewald. A facsimile of
the Siloam inscription, with translation, &c, will be found in
[Driver's Notes on the Text of Samuel, Introd.].
Note 2, p. 239. — ix. 15 is an inaccurate gloss on ver. 14.
Note 3, p. 246. — On this topic, and in general on Isaiah's
theocratic ideal, see Wellhausen, Prolegomena, E.T., p. 415 seq.
Note 4, p. 248.— The TOX (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 I1DX is best rendered, I think,
by " spring " in the old English sense of young, fresh growth (as
in Shakspeare'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 lxv. 10,
" Thou blessest the springing thereof."
Note 5, p. 250. — In justification of the Authorised Version
in this rendering see Lagarde, Semitiea, i. 13.
Note 6, p. 251. — Compare Ewald, History, iv. 169.
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,
Semitiea, i 31) "the deserted places of the Hivite and the
Amorite." [So Cheyne, Duhm, Kautzsch-Guthe.]
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,

426 THE SIGN IN lect. vi.
are the ordinary diet, as Seetzen, for example, found in the
Hauran (Reisen, i. 48 ; comp. Prov. xxvii 27 ; Burckhardt,
Travels im, 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 [in the Speaker's Commentary] and some re
marks on the subject may not be out of place. The first point
is the meaning of the word Titi?)} 'almah, rendered irdpOevos by
the oldest version, and "virgin" in the A V. The word is
not a very common one, though rather commoner than the
masculine 'diem, 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 (hethMah).
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 'almah to a virgin 1 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

lect. vil ISAIAH VII. 427
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 naturally 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. For 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 " J 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.
[Prof. A. A Bevan illustrates by a non-miraculous "sign" of
the coming of Mohammed, referring to a child, told by Ibn
Hisham {Jewish Quarterly Review, vi. 220 ff.).]
Note 10, p. 273. — See Ewald, on the passage, and Lagarde,
Semitiea, i 31 seq., where the identity of Na'aman with Adonis
is ably maintained. Note further that the river now called the
Nahr Nacm&n is the ancient Belus, which seems to confirm the
view that Na'man is a divine name. [So Cheyne, 1880. Places
bearing this name occur in the list of Thothmes III., at Karnak.]
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 Israel and of

428 RAPHIA. lect. vii.
Isaiah's work. I shall not refer to them at each point, but it
will be convenient to indicate where English translations of
them may be found. The Annals of Sargon are given in Rec. of
the Past, vol. vii, the Khorsabad inscription, 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 translated by George Smith, Eponym Canon, p. 129. [For
better translations, see Keilmschriftliche BibUothek, Bd. ii.]
It is, unhappily, in a very fragmentary condition. For the
whole question of the relations of Judah with Sargon, as re
flected in the prophecies of Isaiah, it is enough to refer to
Mr. Cheyne's Prophecies of Isaiah, under chaps, i, x., xx., but es
pecially 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 [1880] on the
basis of suggestions by Dr. Hincks, Prof. Sayce, and other
Assyriologists. Mr. Cheyne's commentary 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 Die Comp. des Hex., p. 290 seq. [and again in Israel and
Judah, p. 105 seq. See also Cheyne's Introduction, 1895, pp.
212-237 ; and cf. Driver, Isaiah, his Life and Times'].
Note 2, p. 279.— [The identification of Sewe" (So) or Sab'e"
with Shabaka, accepted by the author and by most, seems precari
ous. Sab'e is not called by Sargon " King of Egypt." He may
have been only a petty Egyptian king. See Winckler, Unter-
suchungen, p. 94 ; Steindorff in Beitrttge zur Assyriologie, i 339.]
Note 3, p. 280.— Rafia is called Rafeh by Mr. Chester
(Palestine Survey; Special Papers, p. Ill), and Bir Ref& in
Baedeker's Handbook to Palestine, Route 11. The true Arabic
name, however, is Rafah (Yakut, ii. 796 ; Istakhry and Mokad-
dasy soepius; Makrizy, Hitat wa-Athdr, i. 189). Yakut places it
eighteen miles from Gaza, at the termination of the sandy desert,
with a great sycomore grove three miles on the Gaza side of it.
It was, and still is, regarded as the frontier between Egypt and
Syria (Istekhry, p. 45). There is a notice of the place in the
Archduke Ludwig Salvator's Caravan Route (E.T. 1881, p. 54), with
a view of the columns that mark the site of an ancient temple.

LECT. VII. MICAH.

Note 4, p. 287.— Contrary to Stade in his Zeitschrift for 1881,
I still think that chaps, i-v. form a single well-connected book.
The question of chaps, vitvii. does not belong to the subject of
the present Lecture. At the same time, it wfll 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 flattered the rulers and supported the status quo, while
these verses give Micah's idea of a rejuvenescence of the mass of
the nation under Jehovah and Jehovah's Tring — a popular, not an
aristocratic conception. [But see Introd., and cf. Kuenen,
Eimlj ii. 361, 362 (on Stade's hypothesis).]
Note 5, p. 289. — In Micah ii 8, and similarly in Isa. xxx.
33, the punctuation ?1DJ")N is not meant to be a variation of
?i»riN, but expresses a different exegetical tradition, in which the
phrase is explained from ?1D, " over against." In Isaiah both
traditions (and so both pronunciations) are ancient, but that with
6 probably more ancient (LXX., Aq., Sym., Theod., Syr.). The
conflate rendering of the Targum expresses both. In Micah
the weight of tradition is for -6, (Aq., Hieron., Tgm., as against
Sym. and perhaps LXX. ; Syr. thinking of the root jod)- The
variation can be traced down into the time of the pointed text ;
see Cod. Petrop., 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 thrown 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
DFIN1. Combining this conjecture with Roorda's n'oVsj' for
nD?B>, tne latter of which gives no good sense, and omitting one
of the four 'consecutive mems (Mp^ for 0£ip*) or reading OOijji?
for DpipO? (which, though less likely, is certainly possible, Ols.
§ 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 that pass by securely, averse from [not think
ing of] war." For "HK we probably should read TWIN, the final

430 MICAH. lect. vii.

D 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 Abulwalid (coi 764), who anticipates Roorda in taking
JIDHK.as "against." The almost total neglect of this greatest
of mediaeval Hebraists by expositors subsequent to Gesenius is
much to be deplored.
Note 6, p. 290.— [So independently, Cheyne, Micah (1882),
ad loe] The words (533 -|jj TX&Tt are rejected as a gloss by
Noldeke in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexikon, iv. 214 (1872), and by
Kuenen, Theol. Tijdseh., 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. [It remains possible, however,
that a post-exilic editor may have expressed himself in this
awkward way (cf. Isa. Iii. 5). And, after all, it was in Babylon
and not in Judah that the people of Zion were delivered " from
the hand of their enemies." The phraseology, too, is not in all
points classical.] 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 with iii. 12. But in the follow
ing verses the besieging hosts of many nations are broken
beneath the walls of Jerusalem. The force of this difficulty
has been recognised by most recent writers on the question, by
Oort {Theol. Tijdseh., 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 1.). 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

lect. vii. SARGON. 431
view thus far, I by no means agree with his general treatment
of the passage, which, as Kuenen has remarked (I. 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 prophets thought. [For Kuenen's view on Robertson
Smith's and on the editor's analysis of chap, iv., see Emleitung,
ii 362. Cf. also Introduction.]
Note 7, p. 291. — The sinfulness of these things is elsewhere
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, thougn 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 modem 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 8, p. 295. — [Prof. Sayce's continued assertion of the
historical theory here controverted by the author (see The Times
of Isaiah, Religious Tract Society), long after it had been
abandoned by Assyriologists and by Biblical critics, makes it not
unseasonable to reprint this argument, which, if not absolutely
decisive (see the reply in the editor's Prophecies of Isaiah? ii. 183
seq.), is on the whole sound. That there are passages in dis
courses generally ascribed to Isaiah which would be most easily
explained on the assumption that Sargon really invaded Judah
was admitted by the fair-minded Dillmann (Jesaia, p. 197) ; but
this cannot outweigh the considerations so ably urged by the
author, nor make up for the want of clear historical evidence.
And a more searching analysis of Isaiah may be found to lead to

432 SARGON. lect. vii.
results which greatly diminish, or even altogether remove,
the exegetical difficulty referred to above. As the author
has mentioned the present writer's name so prominently, the
latter may fairly quote some lines from his present opinion of
Prof. Sayce's theory. "This reading of history, though at first
attractive even to the cautious Schrader, appears to be a mistaken
one. At the very least, the date of the supposed invasion pro
posed by Prof. Sayce must be too late. Not 710 but 720 would
have to be the date. . It is not inconceivable that the title of
Sargon ('the suhduer of Yaudu, whose situation is remote')
gives an exaggerated but not wholly untrue impression of Sargon's
achievements in Palestine in the year of the battle of Raphia ;
but later than this we could not put an invasion ....
Schrader did, in fact, in 1872, admit an invasion of Judah by
Sargon in 720 b.c. Still, it was justly pointed out by other
scholars that, without some distinct Assyrian confirmation
of this view, it could not be defended with any confidence, and
Winckler has shown that it is not impossible that the Yaudu
spoken of may be identical with the Ya'di OlK») of N. Syria,
which was tributary to Tiglath Pileser." (Introd. to Isaiah, p. 3 f.)]
Note 9, 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 TH-ng
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

lect. vii. MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 433

delivered at various stages of, the Assyrian intervention under
Sargon." See his notes on xxx.- 29, 33.
Note 10, p. 298.— Several points of contact between Isa. x. xi.
and Isa. xxviii (x. 12 ; xxviii. 21 ; x. 23 ; xxviii. 22 ; x. 26 ;
xxviii. 15, 18) have been pointed, out by Ewald and Cneyrie, 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 ; (6) 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- p,ny actual war
between Judah and Israel. Further, that chap. xi. was written
at a considerably earlier date than 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 commentators feel themselves
obliged to refer x., xi., to a time of actual war, is the vividness
of x. 28-32. We know, however, that Sennacherib's advance was
not made by this road, which disposes at all events of the theory
of vaticinium ex eventu. Moreover, if Isaiah wrote this prophecy
when the Assyrian was already 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 11, p. 307. — The first and last of the four names
Isa. ix. 6, certainly do not imply anything that involves a trans
cendental personality- The king of xi. 1-5 may well be called
"Wonderful Counsellor" (these words are to be united in a
2 E

434 MESSIANIC PROPHECY. lect. viii.
single idea as in Q1N sn&, Gen. xvi. 12), and " Prince of Peace."
The interpretation of the third 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, Sprachlehrbuch, p. 613). If we rendered it
" God is the mighty one," it would be parallel to such names as
Elnaam, " God is graciousness ;" Eliphelet or Elphelet, " God is
deliverance ;" Joah, " Jehovah is a brother." But, according to
Hebrew idiom, a being in whom is God's name is one through
which God manifests himself to men, and so this wondrous name
may be meant to describe the manifestation of Jehovah's
kinship 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 12, p. 309. — [The discussion of these two passages has
passed into a new phase since 1882. See Cheyne, Introd. Is.,
pp. 9-16, where recent literature is cited.] 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 context. The opening words at Isa. ii
2 show that the passage as it stands in Isaiah is divorced from its
original connection, and it has just enough of apparent bearing
on ii 5 to make it possible that a copyist inserted it there.

Lecture VIII.
Note 1, p. 317. — The Assyrian inscriptions bearing on this
revolt are given in G. Smith's posthumous History of Sennacherib,
1878 ; Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, Bd. ii. 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 Canon given by Syncellus are those of

lect. viii. SENNACHERIB'S CAMPAIGN. 435
Merodach 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.g., Delitzsch, ad loe), 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 himseK 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 are ofter demon
strably incorrect and mere late conjectures. In the present case
we detect the Rabbinical exegesis expressed 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 [where LXX. Luc. rightly reads UaaaC\.
If the prophecy refers to the death of an Assyrian monarch, it is
Sargon, not Shalmaneser, who must naturally be thought of.
[Cf. Driver, Isaiah, p. 87 ; Cheyne, Introd., p. 80 sqq)
Note 3, p. 322. — The Altaku of the monuments (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 Dan-
ite territory. [See G. A. Smith, Hist Geography, p. 286, note 1.]

436 SENNACHERIB'S lect. viii.
 \ 
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,1 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 macceba, ver. 19, is quite inconsist
ent with a date subsequent to the reformation of Josiah and the ac
ceptance of the Deuteronomic law of worship. [SeeIntrod.,p.xliv.]
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 different 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 Rawlinson that Sennacherib
was twice in Judaea (b.o. 701, and again B.C. 699), that
Hezekiah's surrender and tribute belong to the first occasion and

lect. viii. CAMPAIGN. 437
the great deliverance to the second (Ancient Monarchies, ii. 165),
has no basis whatever except pure conjecture. Sennacherib
seems to have been in quite 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, as
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
spoil he carried home from Judah. But it is arbitrary in
Schrader and Duncker to suppose 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, Gesch. d. V. Israel, p. 125, 222 ; Urgeschichte
der Philistiier, p. 201 ; Wellhausen on 1 Sam. vi. 4), in which
case the Egyptian mytiius points to the true account as given in
the Bible. [Cf. Cheyne, Introduction, p. 233.]
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
ill seq. reappear at xxii. 13, for at that time feast and sacri
fice were identical ; and the comparison of the two texts throws

438 SENNACHERIB'S CAMPAIGN. lect. viii.
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. — Rabshakeh's attempt to gain the populace
was perhaps suggested by the course of the previous siege when,
as Sennacherib relates, the garrison of Jerusalem " inclined to sub
mission" (Smith, Sennacherib, p. 63 ; Duncker, ii. 365).
Note 9, p. 351. — I here follow the brilliant correction of
Wellhausen (Bleek's Emleitung, p. 257).
Note 10, p. 352. — I cannot see that the Bible narrative
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, presumbly on the borders of Egypt, as
we learn from the monuments that Sennacherib took Lachish,
from the siege of which he sent his last summons to Hezekiah.
[So Prof. G. A. Smith. Friedr. Delitzsch, however, maintains
that the calamity befell the detachment which came to besiege
the capital (art. " Sanherib " in Herzog's Encyclopadie a). For a
full discussion, see Cheyne, Introd. to Isaiah, p. 226, seq)
Note 11, p. 352. — [A historically safer view is sought for by
Cheyne, Origin of the Psalter, pp. 163-166.]
Note 12, p. 363. — The idea of the one sanctuary is formu
lated in Deuteronomy — especially in chap. xii. — and is pre
supposed in the Priestly Legislation (P). In the latter it appears
as a fixed idea, traditionally established, and no longer requiring
justification. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that the
fundamental idea of P. 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 the
meditators, 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 Aaron, in the sense of the Priestly Legislation, did not
yet exist at the time when Josiah brought up the priests of the

lect. viii. THE ONE SANCTUARY. 439

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 places. Between the prophetic condemnation of the
popular worship and the Deuteronomic 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 endeavours
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. Ch^ 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
result even 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

440 THE ONE SANCTUARY. lect. viii.
voice from Jerusalem. Zion, therefore, to this Judaean 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 Nazarites
(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 prophecy, Isa. xvi
It is in this relation also that Zion holds a central place in the
ideal of Isaiah and Micah. Jehovah manifests HimseK 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, but within the land of
Egypt itseK. The tributary homage of Tyre and Ethiopia
(Isa. xviii. 7 ; xxiii. 18) 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 beHef 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

lect. viii. HOLINESS OF ZION. 441
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 limitation 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 himseK 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 plateau 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, but " Jerusalem
shall be called Jehovah's throne " (iii 17). 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 13, 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 compound
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 {Hortm, or freemen). Compare Jer. v. 4.

442 HOLINESS OF ZION. lect. viii.
Note 14, p. 365. — Ewald is doubtless right in assigning
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 EM.,
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. [See
Introduction, p. xxxiii. sqq)

INDEX.

Atoms, 201 ; gardens of, 273.
Ahab, 48, 76 seq.
Ahaz, 200, 239; alliance with Assyria,
250 seq.; his idolatrous buildings,
251 ; refuses to hear Isaiah, 266.
Allegorical interpretation of prophecy,
839.
Amaziah, priest of Bethel, 101, 123
seq.; king of Judah, 194.
Amorites, 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, 395 ; supposed.
interpolations in, 399 seq.; Amos v.
26 discussed, 401 seq.
Alamseans, 23 seq.
Ark and its sanctuary, 36 seq., 440.
Ashdod,280; Isaiah's prophecy against,
281
Ashera (sacred pole), 96, 292, 362.
Ashtoreth, 26, 172.
AsByria, 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,

391 ; Dionysiac worship of, 84,
140; Land of, 172; Baal=hus-
band, 171.
Ba'l and 'Athary, 172, 411.
Byblus or Gebal, 51.
Calves, golden, symbols of. Jehovah,
175 seq.
Canaanites, 24, 26 ; relations to Israel,
30 seq.; in Jerusalem 204.
Carchemish, 23, 378.
Cheyne, Mr., on the prophecies of the
reign of Sargon, 295 seq.
Chronology of the Hebrew kingdoms,
145 seq., 404, 415 seq.
Church, birth of the idea of, 275.
Damascus, wars with Israel, 90 seq.,
131 ; with Assyria, 91, 130.
Davidic 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., 397.
Deuteronomic law influenced by Micah,
293 ; relation to Hezekiah's reform
ation, 363 seq.
Development of revelation, 3 seq.
"Dogs," 392.
Ecclesiastical tradition, 5.
Edom, 28 seq., 135, 192, 203, 322.
Egypt, 22 ; united to the throne of
Ethiopia, 279 ; its part in Hebrew
polities, 280 seq., 294 seq., 319,
321 seq., 349.
Ekron, siege of, by Sennacherib, 322.
Elath, 203, 215, 238, 250.
Eliakim, 307, 346 seq.
Elijah, 76 seq.

444

INDEX.

Elijah and EHsha, history of, 116.
Elisha, 85, 87, 131, 208.
Eltekeh (Altaku), battle of, 322.
Ephod (plated image), 98.
Eponym Canon, 150.
Feasts, religious, 38, 384 seq.
Federal theology, 375.
Fir-trees, 411.
Forty as round number, 148, 405.
Future state, doctrine of, 63 seq.
Geographical knowledge of the He
brews, 21 seq.; of Amos, 127 seq.
Gomer bath Diblaim, 179 seq.
Sesed (pietaa) explained, 160 seq.,
' 408.
Hezekiah, his early years, 287 seq.
receives ambassadors of Merodach
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 hooks of O. T., 109, 114
seq.
Hittites, 23, 378.
Holiness, conception of, 224, 424; 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 escna-
tology, 187 seq.; title of his pro
phecy, 406.
Hosea iv., 4 seq., 407 ; chap. vii. 5,
412 ; chap. xiv. 8, 413.
Hoshea, king of Samaria, 152, 279.
Image-worship, 175 seq. ; 240.
tmmanuel (God with us), 270, 271
seq.
Inscriptions: Moabite (Mesha), 50, 383 ;
Phoenician (Gebal), 61, (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.; doctrme 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 eschatological ideal, 248 ;
first appearance as a practical poli-"1
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 a prophetic
party, 207 seq., 274 ; Messianic
teaching, 276 seq., 301 seq.; prophecy
against Ajshdod, 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.

446

Egypt and Assyria, 335 seq.; pro
phecies during the invasion of Judah,
!' 345 seq.; against Shebna, 346 ; en
courages Hezekiah, 350 seq.; his
great victory, 352 seq.; last words
of Isaiah, 354 seq.
Isaiah* i, 215, 345; ii-v., 215, 236
seq.; vL, 217 seq.; vii. 1-ix. 7, 258
seq.; ix. 8-x. 4, 215, 238 ; x. 5-xi.
16, 297 seq.; xiv. 24-27, 300 ; xiv.
29 seq., 319 ; xv. xvi., 92 ; xvii.,
273, 331; xviii, 331 seq.; xix.,
333, 335 ; xx., 281 ; xxi. 1-10, 420 ;
xxi. 13 seq., 333 ; xxii., 346 seq.;
xxiii., 333 seq.; xxviii., 282 seq.;
xxix. - xxxii., 307, 314, 322 seq.;
xxxiii, 354 seq. ; xxxvii., 351 seq.
Israel in Egypt, >29 ; in Canaan, 30
seq.; 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 victorious
in Jehovah, 119; Israel Jehovah's
spouse, 170 seq. ; unfaithfulness of,
176 seq.
Jehovah (Iahwe') God of Israel, 20,
32 seq.; Syncretism with Baal, 38,
173 ; God of the armies of Israel
* (Iahwe Cebaoth), 39, 42, 62, 76,
131 ; His attributes, 62 ; God of
1 , righteousness, 71 seq., 245 seq. ; a
jealous God, 79, 119 ; His love to
Israel, 159 seq.; 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, 386- seq.
Jehoshaphat, 112.
Jehu, house of, 88, 95, 183 seq.
Jeroboam II., 89, 92 seq.
Jirbas, 377.
Jonadab the Eechabite, 84.
Judah, foreign elements in, 28, 201 ;
history 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 Judaean monarchy, 196 seq.; re
ligious condition, 199 seq.; prosper
ity under TJzzuth, 203 seq.; social
disintegration, 204 seq.; sins of the
nobles, 241, 287 seq.; under Heze
kiah, 294 seq., 318 seq.
Kenites, 29.
Manasseh, reaction under, 206, 365.
Marriage, religious symbolism of, 171
seq.
Menahem, 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, 429; Micah vi
vii, 365, 372, 442.
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.;
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 (Deut. xxxiii), 49, 117 seq.
Naboth, murder of, 77, 87.
Nazarites, 84, 137 seq., 440.
Omri, 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

446

INDEX.

different dates, 108 seq. ; oldest laws,
'113 seq.
Philistines, 45, 134, 137 ; wars with
Judah, 192, 239; with Assyria,
p9 seq., 294, 318, 322. '
' Phoenicians, 22, 25 seq.; their religion,
26 seq.; influence of their art in the
Temple, 56, 386.
Priests of the northern sanctuaries,
98, 100; corruption of in eighth
century, 101.
Prophetic party of Isaiah, 207 seq.,
27 '4, 320 ; its victory, 348 seq. ; its
decadence, 370; prophetic predic
tion, interpretation of, 268, 336 seq.
Prophets, their work, 69 seq.; Bab-
binical conception of, 82 ; sons of
(prophetic guilds), 85 seq.; con
trasted with diviners, 219 seq.; the
name naJA, 390.
Psalm xlvi, 352 (note).
Eaphia, 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.
Kemnant, prophetic doctrine of, • 106
seq., 209, 234, 258.,y
Bephaim. (shades), 64.
Eevelation, 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, 1 6.
Righteousness, 71 seq., 245, 389.
Sabaka, King of Egypt, 428.
Sabbath, 385.
Samaria, Ashera in, 140 ; siege of, 151,
403 ; vassal kingdom in, 153.
Samaritans, 153.
Sanctuaries, local, 37, 43 ; their ritual
and priesthood, 97 seq.; places of
judgment, 100 seq. ; in Judah, 199
seq.; abolished, 362.

Sargon, king of Assyria, 279 seq., 294
seq.; his death 317.
Saul, 45, 382; 392, 394.
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, l0§,
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 seqt
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,
52 seq.
Tirhakah, 322, 349.
Tithes, 53, 382 seq.
Tyre, Isaiah's prophecy concerning,
333, 334.
Uriah, the friend of Isaiah, 207.
Urim and Thummim, 100.
Uzziah, 194, 203 seq.
Vision, prophetic, 219 seq.
Wine, 388.
Zechariah ix.-xiv., 412,

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