YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

THE PROPHETS AND PROPHECY
IN ISRAEL.
AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ENQUIRY,

BY
DE A^ KUMElf,
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LEYDEN.

TRANSLATED PEOM THE DUTCH BY

THE EEV. ADAM MILEOY, M.A.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY J. MUIR, ESQ., D.C.L.

LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1877.

TO
lo^n Pair, «sq„ §.C.f.,
THIS TREATISE ON
THE PROPHETS AND PROPHECY IN ISRAEL'
IS DEDICATED,
AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM AND FRIENDSHIP,
BY
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

Apart from my wish to acknowledge publicly the efforts of
Dr Muir to further theological intercourse between England
and Holland, there was for myself a specific reason why I
should dedicate to him this book in particular. It was
he who induced me to write it. Having had his atten
tion drawn by ReVille's articles in the " Revue des Deux
Mondes " on the second volume of my " Historisch-kritisch
Onderzoek," he consulted me regarding a translation into
English of the first, the introductory, chapter. Our corres
pondence on that subject soon led him, as well as myself, to
the conviction that such a translation would not answer the
purpose intended. The various questions raised by Israelitish
prophecy are, in that chapter, rather indicated than conclu
sively settled. For the complete information of the reader
much more is required than is there given, or needed to be
given in an introduction to the criticism of the prophetical
books of the Old Testament. When we were agreed on this
point, I was asked by Dr Muir whether it did not fall within
the scope of my studies to work out the chapter in question
on a broader scale, or rather to discuss Israelitish prophecy
and the diverse theories regarding its origin and character in
an independent treatise. We exchanged thoughts on the
requirements which such a work would have to meet. The
idea became more and more attractive to me. Finally, I un
dertook its realisation.
In writing the book, I have kept in view the needs of the

PREFACE.

English public. I imagined to myself readers who did not
favour the modern, organic view of prophecy, but who, at the
same time, were not disinclined to become acquainted with it
and to weigh its claims. I have, therefore, throughout taken
as my point of departure the traditional — which at the same
time still continue to be the most widely diffused — ideas,
subjected them to a severe objective criticism, and proceeded
to build upon the results which were thus obtained. At the
same time, I have endeavoured to proceed methodically, and
to justify step by step the course of the investigation.
In order not to limit needlessly the circle of my readers, I
have shunned all display of erudition, have left unnoticed
many particulars, which invited to further inquiry, but contri
buted little to the chief object, and have uniformly studied
simplicity and perspicuity. Consequently readers of ordinary
education will, though they have not undergone a theological
training, be able to use my book with profit, if they are not
destitute of interest in the subject.
2d March 1875.

I have now little to add to the preceding. I must
express my thanks to the Rev. A. Milroy for the care which
he has bestowed upon my work, and in particular for pointing
out some slips in the original which have been corrected in
the English edition without being specially mentioned. When
I wrote my book, Vol. V. of the " Speaker's Commentary "
(Isaiah and Jeremiah) had not yet appeared, and when Vol.
VI. (Ezekiel, Daniel, and the minor prophets) was published,
the first half of the translation had been already printed. Both
volumes would have afforded me ample materials for discus
sion and refutation ; 1 but I thought myself obliged to refrain
i Compare " Theol. Tijdschrift " for 1875, pp. 567—576 ; for 1876 pp
498-507.

PREFACE. . Vll
almost entirely from noticing them. It did not form part of my
plan fully to adduce and criticise either all the explanations of
the separate prophecies, or the proofs in favour of the tradition
regarding their origin, brought forward by modern apologists.
That is evident at once from the size of my book. Its merits,
if it has any, consist just in this, " that it sums up, as it
were, in a nutshell the modern view of the subject, and the
grounds on which it rests" (Academy, 1876, p. 238). The re
futation of all sorts of opinions, ancient and modern, which
differ from that view, might easily have diverted attention from
what is and ought to be the chief matter — viz., the mainten
ance and application of the true method, and the exposition of
the historical view as a whole.
It would afford me the greatest satisfaction if, by the read
ing of this book, the circle of the friends of that historical
view should become extended in England. To complete the
Old Testament science, contributions are needed from all
quarters, for still " the harvest is plenteous, and the labourers
are few." And to the religious life it can be only a gain when,
dogmatic notions having been set aside, the genuine and actual
Israelitish prophecy becomes known and appreciated.
A. KUENEN.
UtJi July 1876.

INTEODUCTION.

Professor Ktjenen is already known to the English students
of theology by the translation of his " Religion of Israel "
which has recently been published (1 873-1 875).1 In that
work the rise and development of the Hebrew religion is
treated at length, and with great ability, from the point
of view of the most advanced modern criticism. The
object of the work of which a translation is now offered
to the public is more limited, as although it embraces a
sketch of the history of the Hebrew ideas regarding the
Deity, it is mainly concerned with a survey and examina
tion of the phenomena connected with prophecy. It will
be seen from the author's preface under what circumstances
he undertook the preparation of the treatise. It had be
come important in the existing condition of Biblical criticism
in this country, that the prophets and their work should
be made the subject of a special investigation, and be ex
hibited in their true light. It is well known to all persons
interested in theology that the alleged fulfilment of the pre
dictions contained in the prophetical writings of the Old
Testament is one of the principal proofs by which the divine
origin and infallible authority of the book of which they form
a part, are regarded by modern apologetical writers of the
orthodox school as being established. The knowledge of the
future which prophets displayed is such, they maintain, as
could not be explained on natural principles: it is too precise,
detailed, and manifold to have proceeded from human fore
sight or calculation, and can only be accounted for on the
supposition that it has been derived from a supernatural
source. The possessors of such miraculous knowledge must
therefore, it is concluded, have been the inspired messengers
1 In Messrs "Williams & Norgate's Theological Translation Fund Library.
b

X INTRODUCTION.
of God, and all that they uttered in their prophetical capacity
must be considered as bearing the stamp of divine authority.
And since among their other prophecies we find numerous
and manifest predictions of a future Messiah who was to
appear among the Jews, their writings furnish us with a por
tion of the evidence on which our belief in the divine origin
of the Christian dispensation is founded.
As these conclusions have never yet, so far as I am aware,
been subjected to a thorough and systematic examination,
it appeared to be of the utmost importance that the grounds
on which such supernaturalistic views are based by those who
maintain them, should be considered in detail, and that their
sufficiency or otherwise to sustain the structure which is
built upon them, should be ascertained. The results of the
investigation instituted with this view by Professor Kuenen
are detailed in this volume. His treatise appears to me to
present a clear, complete, and masterly survey of all the
branches of the subject the discussion of which is necessary
to enable the reader to form a judgment on the great question
raised, to demonstrate satisfactorily the insufficiency of the
grounds on which the supernatural character of prophecy
has been assumed, and to justify the conclusion that the
phenomena can be accounted for, — without a resort to the
supposition of any miraculous intervention — by the genius
and the peculiar religious character of the Hebrews, as
developed by their history and fortunes, and acted upon
by the circumstances of the times in which the prophets
lived. An outline of the course of the enquiry will be found
in the tables of the contents of the several chapters whicli
follow the author's preface. But although a o-ood idea of
the line of argument pursued by Dr Kuenen may be obtained
by this means, it may not be superfluous for me to offer
another and in some respects more detailed and connected
summary of the course and the substance of the author's
demonstration of the conclusions at which he has arrived.
In the first Chapter the author shows that, in the existing
diversity of the views entertained by the different schools of
theological enquiry, a fresh examination of the character of
prophecy is now required. According to the orthodox or
traditional view, which is still the most common, the prophets

INTRODUCTION. SI
were the messengers of God, and though they primarily spoke
to the Hebrews, their preaching concerned the entire human
race, being closely connected with Christianity, and having
with gradually increasing clearness and fulness foretold the
future advent and character of the Redeemer. According to
the historico-critical or organic view, on the other hand, pro
phecy proceeds, indeed, from God, as being, like other human
achievements, the result of powers bestowed by Him, but is
not the less the work of man, and is the highest utterance of
the Hebrew spirit ; and although it contains no prediction of
Christian facts, it yet prepares the way for Christianity.
Opinions being thus divided, there is a necessity for further
investigation ; for the maintainers of the last-mentioned or
modern view have not yet thoroughly controverted the
arguments of theorthodox school, or fully vindicated the
legitimacy of their own theory, while, on the other hand, the
traditional view is at present in process of dissolution. Its partial
and incomplete character is now admitted on all sides ; and
the dates and interpretation of various prophecies which were
formerly received are now abandoned. It is observed that the
habit, hitherto common among the supernaturalists, of looking
at the prophecies with reference to their supposed fulfilment,
instead of regarding them in the light of their time, and of
events contemporaneous with their composition, leads to
incorrect judgments ; and a perception of this has led the
supernaturalists themselves to a modification of their view of
prophecy as prediction, as is shown by a reference to writings
of different orthodox authors.
In his second Chapter the author, without formally contro
verting the opinions of the school to which he is opposed,
describes the method which he intends to pursue in his own
investigations as an historical one. The object which he
proposes to himself is to ascertain the real and proper sense
of the utterances of the prophets according to their gram
matical interpretation, and without any regard to the mean
ing assigned to them in the New Testament ; since to
regard the New Testament explanation as binding would
involve a dogmatic assumption at variance with the author's
method. The sources of information about the prophets
and prophecy are then described as threefold : — 1st,

Xli INTRODUCTION.
the writings of the prophets themselves; 2d, the historical
accounts of what the prophets did and said ; and 3d, narra
tives of divine revelations alleged to have been made to
different personages. The first of these sources, in which we
hear the prophet himself express his ideas, is the ' most valu
able of all. The age of these documents must be determined,
as far as possible, both by external and internal evidence ;
of which the internal is the more important, while the evi
dence of age furnished by the titles, or headings of the pro
phecies, is not always to be depended upon. As regards the
second source of information, — since the authors of the histori
cal books of the Old Testament were not eye- and ear-witnesses
of what they record, and since many of the narratives rest
on writings or traditions of uncertain age, — we can have no
assurance that the acts or utterances of the prophets' which
they record are correctly represented. In reference to the
third source of information, or the revelations alleged in
the historical books to have been vouchsafed to different
historical personages, we have no certainty that such divine
communications were ever made ; or, in other words, that
they are not the mere expressions of the historian's own
religious conceptions. Hebrew prophecy must therefore be
studied in its unimpeachable sources — the writings of the
prophets themselves. The author then discusses the ob
jections to this course.
The third Chapter contains an introductory view of the
prophets and their work. The prophets constituted a separate
class, or a social order more or less distinct. Their common
Hebrew appellation was " Nabi," a word which does not
signify prophet in the sense of a foreteller of the future,
though its holder did predict things to come ; but according
to the derivation regarded as probable by the author, means
a person under the influence of strong emotion, presumed
to result from the agency of a higher power. They were
also called seer and gazer (Roeh and Chozeh), and designated
also by other names or titles. In the days of Samuel, there
existed an association of prophets, of which he was recognised
as the head, and which probably continued to exist after his
time • and this may have been only one of several such. We
find similar fraternities in the time of Ahab, over which Elijah

INTRODUCTION. Xlll
and Elisha presided : and their continuance is pre-supposed in
the reply of Amos to the high priest Amaziah, from which it
also appears that there were prophets unconnected with those
associations ; and, in fact, the greater part of the prophets
known to us seem to have held an independent position.
The prophets, however, it appears, were divided among them
selves, and when consulted about any matter, sometimes
gave opposite counsels. How is this to be explained ? Not
by the supposition that there were ordinary and extraordi
nary prophets, as is maintained by Dr Payne Smith, since
they all regarded themselves as inspired by Jahveh. Prophecy
was, in fact, a very diversified phenomenon, and the impres
sion which it made corresponded to that diversity. Opposition
to the words of the prophets was far from being rare. Though
they were reverenced, none of them were implicitly obeyed ;
they were freely judged, were sometimes withstood to the
face, and even subjected to ill treatment. The contradiction
which they experienced was inevitable, for the opposition
between different members of their body continued at least
from the eighth century B.C. downwards. The people could
not simply obey, even if they bad so wished. They had to
make a choice, to accept the one prophet and reject the
other. But could there be any difficulty in making a choice ?
could not any sincere man distinguish between the true and
the false prophet ? Here we must seek to discover whether
the enquirer had any aids to guide him. The book of
Deuteronomy prescribes that a prophet who incited his
countrymen to idolatry should be stoned, even though the
sign or wonder to which he had appealed should come to pass ;
and that a prophet, whose prediction was not fulfilled, should
be put to death. Assuming (what, however, the author does
not admit) that these enactments existed before the seventh
century B.C., the application of the latter of the two prescrip
tions was attended with difficulties; and if the prophets' pre
dictions referred to the distant future, what judgment could,
in the meantime, be formed of him ? Nor was the indefinite
ness of the law remedied by any recognised custom. The
result of the enquiry is that all the prophets were, in theory,
regarded as divinely commissioned; but they were, in practice,
obeyed only by those who agreed with them in tendency.

Xiv INTRODUCTION.

Having treated of the prophets in general, the author
proceeds to speak of the writers of the prophetical books, or
canonical prophets, as they may be called. These were often
in conflict with the other members of their class. The
explanation of this will be given afterwards. The earlier
prophets did not record their addresses in writing — the later
did. Some of the written prophecies appear never to have
been spoken ; but in the case of those which were spoken,
the writing down did not precede, but followed, the oral
delivery. Reasons are assigned for believing that the spoken
word was not literally reproduced in writing, but was
more or less modified according to circumstances. This is
confirmed by the account given in Jer. xxxvi.
Chapter fourth treats of the conviction which the Israel
itish prophets had with regard to their divine commission.
Their writings differ in language and style, and bear
the stamp of their individual characters, which were in
fluenced more or less by the age in which they lived.
The later among them sometimes imitate and borrow from
their predecessors. At the same time, the prophets are
conscious of possessing a divine commission, and constantly
express this conviction, as is shown in some detail. This
remarkable belief is not fully explained in their writings.
An account is then given of the methods in which these divine
revelations are described as being given, especially visions,
some of which are merely the drapery in which the prophets
chose to present their ideas. Prophecy is conceived of by
them as the work of the Divine Spirit ; and in the more
recent books, the Divine will is described as being communi
cated through the agency of angels. Are we then to acquiesce
in the assurances of the Israelitish prophets in regard to the
origin and authority of their preaching ? Although we throw
no doubt on their good faith, we cannot admit their divine
commission on the simple authority of their assertions.
Some reasons are assigned for holding that we are not shut
up to the dilemma of either admitting their word as true, or
branding them as deceivers. Further enquiry into the pro
phetical phenomena is therefore necessary. The object of
our study must be that which the prophets designate as the
" word of Jahveh " which they claim to have received ; and

INTRODUCTION. XV
our first enquiry must be whether the predictions of the
prophets have been fulfilled, and if so, within what limits.
The author divides the prophecies into unfulfilled and ful
filled, and treats these two classes in the following chapters
(v. -viii.).In the fifth Chapter, he commences his examination of those
coming under the former category. After stating the difficulties
connected with the treatment of his subject, arising from the un
certain or disputed sense and age of the prophecies, he proceeds
to state his opinion of the age of the several prophetical books,
and of the parts of those books which are not all the work of
one and the same author. He next, with a view to his proposed
examination, divides the predictions of all the different prophets
into three groups, of which the first, referring to the heathen
nations, is then discussed. He shows in succession that the
speedy destruction of the eities of the Philistines, and the
occupation of their country by the Israelites, was not fulfilled
as foretold by the prophets, whose meaning is misunderstood by
those who represent the present condition of the coast of Philistia
as the event contemplated in their predictions. 2. The author
maintains that the predictions of Amos, the oldest Zechariah,1
Joel, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, regarding the destruction of
Tyre, were not fulfilled, as the city was captured neither
by Shalmanezer nor by Nebuchadrezzar, the long siege eon-
ducted by the latter not having ended, even according to the
acknowledgment of Ezekiel himself, in the manner which he
expected.2 That a destruction of Tyre at any period in the
distant future was not intended, is shown by a passage of
1 For the reasons stated in p. 105 f., the author does not here take into
account the propheey of Isaiah xxiii. See on the subjeet of it the " Les
Prophetes" of Prof. Reuss, vol. I, p. 295, note 1, and 298, note 14._
2 Compare the remarks of Prof. Reuss on the subject of Ezekiel's pro
phecy in vol. ii. of " Les Prophetes," p. 93, note 2. " Nothing is known of
the capture of the city. The text (Ezek. xxix. 18) seems to insinuate, that
the enterprise {of Nebuchadrezzar] failed. In order to spare the prophet
the reproach of having been deceived in his predictions (ch. xxvi. — xxviii.),
it has been supposed that Tyre fell into the hands of the Chaldeans, but
that the inhabitants had previously placed their treasures in a place of
safety, so that the booty obtained was small. Such subterfuges are
ridiculous. Tyre resisted Alexander also, and existed still in the time of
the crusades ; and Egypt did not become a desert, nor did Nebuchadrezzar
conquer it. . . . The prophecies ought, and are able, to legitimate them
selves in their ideal sense. It is quite wrong to judge them according to
ihe concrete facts of history."

XVI INTRODUCTION.

Ezekiel, where he declares that the punishment of Israel's
neighbours, including the Tyrians and Sidonians, whose destiny
had been announced just before, shall precede the return of the
Israelites to their native land, where they should dwell in
safety, because judgment had been executed on all the neigh
bouring nations who spoiled them. 3. The prophecy of
Jeremiah regarding Damascus was not fulfilled. 4. Further,
the predictions regarding the fates of Moab and Ammon, and
5, of Edom, have not been accomplished in the sense in
which they were intended by the prophets. 6. As regards
the verification of Isaiah's prophecies concerning Egypt, com
plete certainty cannot be attained : at best, the fulfilment was
only partial. The predictions of Jeremiah and Ezekiel
regarding the same country are contradicted by the accounts
of Herodotus ; and although they are expressly confirmed by
Josephus, his testimony appears to deserve no credit, and to
be merely an inference from the prophecies themselves. 7.
Isaiah and Micah do not predict the fall of Assyria. In the
prophecies of the former, in fact, a belief in the continued
existence of that kingdom is implied. Nahum and Zephaniah
do, indeed, foretell the destruction of Niniveh ; but the result
did not fully correspond to their anticipations, as the ruin of
the city was, indeed, completed in a comparatively short
time, but still not immediately. The author here takes the
opportunity of combating the views of those writers who
think that such discrepancies between the terms of a prophecy
and the circumstances of its fulfilment detract nothing from
its truth and accuracy. The prophet, they affirm, looked into
the future in such a way, that in his prospect the distances
disappeared, and the successive circumstances were blended
together so as to cause a foreshortening of the more distant
parts of the future. This theory of the perspective character
of prediction is variously conceived by different writers.
The author denies that the prophets conceived the facts
otherwise than they represented them ; and combats the idea
that the mode and period of the realisation of prophecy were,
in all cases, matters of indifference, whereas these are often
points of importance in the view of the prophets themselves.
8. The predictions regarding the fall of Babylon were not
fulfilled at an early period to the extent, which the prophets

INTRODUCTION. XV'ii
expected. 9. The fall of the Persian monarchy is not referred
to by the prophets properly so called, while the announce
ments in the book of Daniel, though represented in the form
of prophecy, are in reality, in part, vaticinia post eventurn ;
in so far as they related to events subsequent to the writer's
age, they were not realised.
Chapter sixth refers to the unfulfilled predictions against
Israel, which are divided into five groups. 1. Neither Amos
nor Hosea expected the ruin of the kingdom of Judah ; but
both were convinced that the kingdom of the ten tribes was
doomed. But Amos had no clear conception of that destruction,
and expected it to occur much sooner than it did. Hosea is
more definite, but his predictions were not fully realised by the
result. 2. The prophets of the Assyrian period. The author of
Zechariah ix. — xi. does not refer to the overthrow of Judah,
and it is more than doubtful if he expected that of the king
dom of the ten tribes. The prediction of Micah regarding the
fall of Jerusalem was not fulfilled at the period when he,
according to the opinion of Jeremiah's contemporaries, seems
to have expected that it would take place. Isaiah, on the
contrary, was assured that Jerusalem would be spared.
His predictions against Ephraim and Judah were not literally
fulfilled. 3. The Chaldean period. Habakkuk and Joel,
who probably belong to the reign of Zedekiah, do not antici
pate the destruction of Jerusalem ; and the author of Zecha
riah xii. — xiv. expects that, though the city shall be taken
and plundered, and half depopulated, the residue of the people
shall be spared, and better times begin to dawn. These pro
phets, therefore, nearly coincide with Hananiah the Gibeonite,
the antagonist of the views of Jeremiah. The last-named
writer, as is well known, expected the ruin of Jerusalem, the
extinction of the kingdom of Judah, and the captivity of its
inhabitants ; and his predictions were, generally speaking,
realised ; as was also the case with those on the same subject,
in the book of Ezekiel, who follows Jeremiah. The vague
anticipations of the post-exilic prophets are such that uo
specific answer can be given to the question whether they
were fulfilled or not.
Chapter seventh treats of the unfulfilled predictions re
garding the future of Israel. None of those which relate

XVlll INTRODUCTION.
to the restoration of that people have been realised. The
system of Chiliasm, or the expectation of a millennium, when
all such prophecies shall be fulfilled, involves, in fact, a confes
sion that they remain as yet unaccomplished. Their spiritual
fulfilment in Christianity is something quite different from
what the prophets contemplated. These prophecies are then
considered under six heads : — 1. The return of Israel out of
captivity. This restoration turned out to be far less glorious
and important than had been anticipated ; and a complete
realization of the promise was therefore predicted by the post
exilic prophets, and still later by Daniel. 2. The reunion of
Ephraim and Judah. This was expected by Hosea and the
author of Zechariah ix. — xi., probably by Amos, and partially
at least as regards Ephraim, by Isaiah, and is distinctly pre
dicted by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. But during and after the
captivity the Ephraimites are generally left out of view ; and
that the two parts of the nation were never re-united under
one king in their native land does not require to be proved.
3. The continued rule of a king or kings of the house of David
over Israel was predicted by Amos and Jeremiah, and Hosea
and Ezekiel express themselves in the same sense. It is
clear that the prince announced by Ezekiel is merely a king
of the ordinary kind. The author of Zechariah ix. — xi. also
announces the appearance of a king, first victorious in war,
but afterwards pacific. Micah too expects that a prince of
a similar character shall arise in Bethlehem. And Isaiah
anticipates the advent of an eminent monarch who is
to be of the family of David, and in whom all the highest
characteristics of a perfect ruler shall be combined, but
whom we are not to regard as a supernatural personage.
These last prophecies evidently announce something more
than a happy period of limited duration. They foretell, for
Israel, an endless age of blessedness, either under one prince
or a succession of monarchs. Zechariah is the only one of
the post-exilic prophets who refers to the restoration of the
Davidic dynasty, and it is probable that he understood the
man whose name is Branch, to whom he refers, as the first
of a series of rulers belonging to that family. The second
or Babylonian Isaiah says nothing of the restoration of the
rule of David's house, but transfers the task and the glory of

INTRODUCTION. XIX
David's descendant to others, to the flower of Israel, whom
he designates as " the servant of Jahveh." The author then
vindicates the sense which he attaches to the last-mentioned
phrase, which, as he holds, does not denote the Messiah.
And this applies also to the book of Daniel, as the " one like
to a son of man" there introduced, represents the Israelitish
nation. 4. The unfulfilled prophecies regarding the spiritual
and material welfare of the restored Israel are then taken up.
These relate, on the one hand, to the people's knowledge
of Jahveh, their fidelity to him, their obedience to his
commands, and their spiritual intuition; and on the other
hand, to the peace and security whicli they should enjoy,
to the fruitfulness of their land, the increase of their numbers,
their greater longevity, and the improvement of the natural
conditions under whicli they were to live. These pro
phecies, including those with which the book of Ezekiel
concludes, are not to be spiritualised, but to be taken
essentially in a literal sense. 5. The predictions regarding
the subjection of the heathens to Israel, which are to be
found in the books of Amos, Micah, both Isaiahs, and Daniel,
and the conversion of the Gentiles to the service of Jahveh,
as anticipated by Micah, Isaiah, Zephaniah, and above all,
by the second Isaiah, are then recapitulated. 6. It is
distinctly predicted by all the prophets that the Israelites,
when once restored to their native country, should con
tinue there for ever undisturbed. It appears on a
review of the prophecies discussed in this chapter, that the
expectations which they hold out have been contradicted
by the event in every particular. The return of the cap
tives was far from answering to the brilliant expectations
formed of it ; Judah and Ephraim were never re-united ; the
restoration of the Davidic monarchy was never attempted ;
neither in a spiritual nor in a material point of view did the
condition of the Israelites who returned to Judea ever
correspond to the glowing pictures of the prophets ; nor was
the sovereignty of Israel over the nations, or the conversion
of the latter to Jahvism, ever realised. Some, however,
may urge that the realisation of these predictions is only
postponed, and is therefore still future. But this view is
untenable. It is clear that the prophets had no certain

XX INTRODUCTION.
insight into the future ; for none of them had any expecta
tion of the calamities by which Israel was to be afflicted
after its partial restoration. They never anticipated the
subjection of their countrymen to Alexander the Great and
his successors, and afterwards to the Romans, and their
second great exile, which began in 70 A.D., and still con
tinues. Whoever still looks forward to the res.toration of
Israel expects something quite different from what the pro
phets anticipated and announced.
The prophecies of Daniel here receive a separate treatment
in an Appendix. At the end of Chapter fifth the author
had stated the reasons which exist for believing that this
book does not really bear the date of 530 B.C., which is
claimed for it by the traditional view, but must be brought
down to the year. 165 B.C., in the reign of Antiochus
Epiphanes ; and had given some account of the prophecies
which it contains. He now treats the predictions contained
in Chapter ninth, of which a revised translation is given.
Perceiving that the prophecy of Jeremiah regarding the restora
tion of Israel after seventy years, had not received the expected
fulfilment, the writer of the book of Daniel understands the
seventy years to have been intended for seventy year-weeks,
i.e., four hundred and ninety years, at the end of which he
expects that the golden age of Israel shall dawn. This
period of four hundred and ninety years he divides into three
parts ; the first, of seven weeks or forty-nine years ; the
second, of sixty-two weeks or four hundred and thirty-four
years ; and the third, of one week or seven years. In order
that the commencement of the seventy year-weeks should
correspond with the seventy years of Jeremiah, we have
naturally to assume that the forty-nine years begin with the
date of Jeremiah's prophecy, and end with the appearance of
"an anointed one, a prince," by whom Professor Kuenen under
stands Cyrus, who, in the second Isaiah, is called the anointed
of Jahveh ; or, with the promulgation of his edict in favour of
the Jews. The second period is that of the sixty-two weeks,
or four hundred and thirty-four years, " troublous times,"
in which Jerusalem was to be built. Dr Kuenen rejects
the interpretation of the text given in the English authorised
version that seven weeks, in addition to sixty -two weeks,

INTRODUCTION. XXI
should elapse before the appearance of " Messiah the Prince." 1
If this had been the sense, why should the seven weeks and the
sixty-two weeks have been separately specified ? The author
also rejects the translation "Messiah the Prince;" for, as
there is no article before either term, the words must be ren
dered " an anointed, a prince." He further affirms that
the opinion that " Messiah " was the universally received
appellation of the future king of David's family, finds no
support in the Old Testament. Dr Kuenen therefore rejects
the Messianic interpretation of the verse as unfounded. The
events of the last week are understood to be the murder of
the high -priest Onias (" an anointed one is cut off, and there
is none [no anointed one] for him"), the capture and plunder
ing of Jerusalem by the army of Antiochus Epiphanes in
169 and 167 B.C., and the suspension of the temple worship
in the middle of the week, 167 B.C. Most of the events to
which the book of Daniel refers were already past at the
time when it was written, and in regard to those whicli were
then still future, the death of Antiochus, and the events
introducing the new epoch which was to follow, the result
did not correspond to his expectations.
The author now comes, in Chapter eighth, to the fulfilled
prophecies, which must be examined before a final judgment
can be formed of the claim of the prophets to an infallible fore
knowledge. Unfulfilled predictions cannot be reconciled with
mechanical divine inspiration; but even when a fulfilled predic
tion has been proved to have preceded the event, its realisation
may be explained either from divine inspiration, or from the
prophet's right discernment of the course of events, or from
the influence of his prediction on the conduct of those to
whom it was known, or from accident. If, in any case, a
choice is made between these solutions, it ought to be justified
by reasons. Then the uncertainty in regard to any particular
prophecy when viewed by itself, may be removed by regard
ing it in connection with other predictions ; for if the latter
1 This verse (the 25th) is similarly understood in Bunsen's "Bibelwerk,"
where the German translation may be thus rendered: — "And thou must
know and understand that from the going forth of the edict to restore and
build Jerusalem to an anointed, a prince, are seven year-weeks. And sixty-
two year-weeks long shall the city be restored and built, with streets and
moats, although in a troublous time."

XXII INTRODUCTION.
exclude the supernatural explanation, the question arises
whether that explanation is absolutely required in the case of
the fulfilled anticipations. Particular cases are then dis
cussed. Isaiah prophesied that the hostile designs of the
kings of Syria and Israel against Judah should fail, and that
those two kingdoms themselves should be ruined in a
few years. This prediction was partly fulfilled, and partly not
realised. Damascus was, indeed, taken and depopulated, and
the Syrian kingdom incorporated with the Assyrian empire ;
but Damascus was not destroyed, and the kingdom of Israel
continued to exist for about twenty years longer. Super
natural revelation is therefore not to be thought of here ; and
Isaiah's confidence in Jahveh, and his correct discernment of
the political situation, account for his anticipations. Amos had
predicted that the Syrians should be carried away to Kir.
The second book of Kings records that this actually took place.
Have we not then here a proof of the prophet's supernatural
knowledge? As in another passage Amos mentions Kir as the
original home of the Syrians, the idea of the prophecy in the
first passage is satisfied by supposing him to mean that the
people who had come thence should cease to rule in Syria, and
that that country should revert to the condition in which it
was before these foreign invaders arrived. But further, it is
uncertain whether the mention of Kir in the passage referred
to of the book of Kings, is not a subsequent addition ; as the
word (Kirah) is wanting in the oldest and best MSS. of the Greek
version of the Old Testament. Further, this prophecy is one
of a series regarding the neighbours of Israel, some of which
at least were not fulfilled. How can the latter fact be ex
plained if, in the instance before us, the prediction was divinely
inspired ? The important prophecy of Isaiah, that Jerusalem
should not fall into the hands of the Assyrians, is next
considered. The author denies that its fulfilment requires
us to ascribe a supernatural knowledge of the future to
Isaiah. He had predicted that there should be a siege of
Jerusalem (ch. xxix. 1-8, etc.1), but in ch. xxxvii. 33 he
1 See also Professor Reuss, " Les Prophetes,'' on this passage ; and the
same author's remarks on Isaiah xxxvii. 7, where he says in note 18 : "This
passage contains two very special and very positive predictions, — first, that
Sennacherib shall renounce his project of invading Egypt on receiving

INTRODUCTION. XX1U
declares that there shall be none. And the deliverance of
Jerusalem from danger was not immediate, as appears to be
implied at least in the narrative following the prediction.
Isaiah himself seems to anticipate some delay, as he pre
dicts that the sowing and reaping of the land would not
be resumed till the third year. There would thus be an
interval between the prophecy and the total destruction of
Sennacherib's army ; but then one of the supports of the
interpretation of the prediction as supernatural is removed.
And further, we have no certainty regarding the time, place,
and manner in which the hostile army was destroyed ; and
it cannot have been of that decisive character described in
the Old Testament. The conclusion which Dr Kuenen draws
is, that Isaiah's prediction was founded on his belief that
Israel was the chosen people of Jahveh, and Zion his dwell
ing-place. In order to justify his assurance, the prophet must
have seen a possibility of Sennacherib being compelled to
return without having effected his object. This possibility
was converted into a probability, nay, a certainty, by the
dangers connected with that monarch's expedition to a dis-
certain intelligence, which, according to the sequel of the narrative, is that
of the approach of Tirhakah, the king of Ethiopia ; and, secondly, that
Sennacherib shall be assassinated in his own country. He was actually so
assassinated, but a long time afterwards, see ver. 38." [In note 39 on this
verse (the 38th) Prof. Reuss observes, that as ancient writers assign eighteen
years "as the duration of Sennacherib's reign, his death cannot have
occurred till long after his expedition to Palestine."] " It should be
remarked, that these two predictions are included among the traditions col
lected by the author of the Appendix [Isaiah xxxvi. —xxxix.]. The genuine
discourses of Isaiah confine themselves to generalities, xxx. 33 ; xxxvii.
29, 34. Another tradition ascribes the retreat of Sennacherib to the
pestilence by which his army was decimated, xxxvii. 86." On Isaiah
xxxvii. 22 — 29, Dr Reuss remarks in note 25, " The poetical piece which
follows is a genuine composition of the prophet. In no way is it the work
of the writer of the Appendix. It bears evident traces of the well-known
style of Isaiah ; and far from defining the historical occurrences as the
author of the Appendix — seeing that he lived long afterwards — has been
able to do, it keeps to the generalities of the ideal perspective, as the
prophets are accustomed to do." On the verse, xxxvii. 29, he observes :
" In all this there is no mention either of pestilence, or of assassination, or of
Tirhakah." Dr Reuss (note 33) has a difficulty in persuading himself that
the rest of the discourse, (xxxvii. 30 — 35), as it is given here, is a con
tinuation of the poetical piece which precedes. He considers it to be an
amplification from the pen of the writer of the Appendix, who also wrote
verses 6, 7, and 21. Other commentators, however, he remarks, attach verses
30 — 32 to the prophetical poem which precedes. On verse 30 he observes,
(note 34), that it is the fact that the Assyrians did not retreat till after
wards, as we know from Herodotus that they first penetrated into Egypt.

XXIV INTRODUCTION.
tant country, which were enhanced by the power of his
enemy (Egypt allied with Ethiopia), and by the disposition
of his own vassals to revolt. Even when the danger was at
the highest, Isaiah was confident of the issue, and persuaded
Hezekiah and his people to resist. That perseverance made
deliverance possible. Isaiah by his faith saved Judah. No
supernatural explanation of his prophecy is required. And
when we consider that others of Isaiah's predictions were not
fulfilled, this negative is changed into a positive conclusion,
and the supernatural explanation becomes inadmissible. And
this result is also otherwise supported. Nine prophecies
of Jeremiah, considered by Tholuck to have been fulfilled,
are next specified in order, and the facts in regard to
each are examined, with the result that, in the author's
opinion, their fulfilment, when shown to have occurred,
cannot, in any of the instances, be regarded as proving super
natural foreknowledge on the prophet's part. In some of the
cases the predictions were recorded or revised after the event ;
or the issue was such as Jeremiah might foresee to be
inevitable or probable, or it was promoted by the influ
ence which the tenor of his prophecy had on the minds
of his countrymen ; 1 or the prediction was not literally
fulfilled. Jeremiah's prophecy, that the captivity of the .
Israelites in Babylon would last for seventy years, is in
this chapter discussed at length (p. 309 ff.). The author's
conclusion is, that the commencement of the captivity cannot
be placed before 597 B.C.; and if the return of the captives
be held to have occurred in 536 B.C., the exile lasted for
sixty-one years, thus nine years short of the seventy
predicted. This prophecy was therefore fulfilled, but not
literally : not to insist on the fact, that seventy was pro-
x The difference between the anticipations of Isaiah and Jeremiah regard
ing the fate of Jerusalem, which in both instances the author considers to
have had an influence on the conduct of their countrymen, — is very remark
able, and is thus noticed by Prof. Tiele in his " Vergelijkende Geschiedenis
der oude Godsdiensten," vol. L, p. 771 : " He (Jeremiah) saw deliverance
only in a speedy end, and in this, that as many as possible of the adorers of
Jahveh should be spared. In this he acted in a quite opposite way from
Isaiah in the days of Hezekiah, but the altered circumstances sanctioned his
mode of action, and the issue justified it." See further on in Chapter ix.
the remarks made by the author on the different modes in which the several
prophets regarded the relation of their countrymen to Jahveh ; and the vary
ing prominence which they assigned to the distinct elements in that relation.

INTRODUCTION. XXV
bably meant an a round sum.1 It must also be observed that
if Jeremiah's predictions are considered to have been divinely
inspired, we must deny divine authority not only to his
antagonist Hananiah, but also to Habakkuk, to the author
of Zechariah xii. — xiv., and to Joel. The psychological ex
planation relieves us from this difficulty, and enables us to
do justice to all the sincere prophets. The prophecies of
Ezekiel, in so far as they coincide with those of Jeremiah,
require no further remark. But he has some peculiar to
himself, which foretell particulars such as before the event he
could only have known by supernatural inspiration. But
the same prophet elsewhere expresses expectations on other
subjects which never were realised. How is this to be
reconciled with his supposed prescience in the former cases ?
Does it not involve an inexplicable enigma? In reality, how
ever, the passages first referred to contain no real predictions.
Whatever Ezekiel may have spoken before the destruction of
Jerusalem, the prophecies which we now possess were written
down after that catastrophe, and expressed in terms conform
able with the facts known to the writer. Such procedure is
inconsistent with our modern notions of literary good faith ;
but it was not uncommon in ancient times, and specifically
in Israel, as is shown by the cases of the book of Daniel and
chapters 1. and li. of Jeremiah. Provided his thoughts pro
ceeded, as he supposed, from a divine source, Ezekiel felt
himself at liberty to give expression to them in such a manner
as the interests of his readers seemed to demand.2
Having thus, in the eighth chapter, shown that many
of the prophecies were never fulfilled, and that the fulfil
ment of the rest does not imply any supernatural know
ledge on the part of those who uttered or recorded them,
the author seeks in Chapter ninth an explanation of the fact
1 Dr Rowland Williams (as the author notices) was inclined to regard
the prediction in both places where it occurs (Jer. xxv. 11, 12, and xxix.
10), as an interpolation by the later readers of Jeremiah ; while Hitzig
and Graf think that there is an interpolation in chapter xxv. only; and
with them the author ia inclined to agree. In accordance with the latter
view, Prof. Reuss in his work " Les Prophetes," vol. i., p. 502, puts verses
llb — 14a of chapter xxv. in italics, and between brackets, as interpolated ;
and vindicates this course in a noie, p. 503.
2 Compare the observations on the passages in question in " Les Pro
phetes," by Prof. E. Reuss, vol. ii. p. 81, note 4, and p. 105, note 1.
a

XXVI INTRODUCTION.
that the prophets should have represented their own sub
jective conceptions as stamped with divine authority. As we
have already seen, he rejects, as untenable, the dilemma pro
posed by some, that if the prophets were not supernaturally
inspired, they were deceivers. He remarks, first, that the
prophecies were all conditional ; and, secondly, that the ex
pectations of the prophets were not always uniform, but.
varied according to their moods, or according to circumstances;1
— a fact which would probably become more apparent if we
possessed their addresses in the very form in which they
were delivered, and could always arrange them chronologi
cally ; and of which instances are found in the twenty-fifth and
thirty-seventh chapters, and in other texts, of Jeremiah ; and
which we have no reason to suppose was a thing peculiar to
that prophet. Prediction, however, was not the main object
of the prophets. Their real business is not to declare what
shall happen, but to insist upon what ought to be done.
They were above all censors of morals, and preachers of
repentance. Prophecy was the means which they employed,
and they regarded it as warning and encouragement. But
prediction was not merely of secondary importance in the
prophets' view, it was moreover determined by their con
ception of Jahveh's nature and attributes, in accordance
with which they were convinced that He must necessarily
act. The theology of the prophets is then more fully ex
plained. They regarded Jahveh as the Holy One, who
hallows Israel, and claims that Israel shall hallow him,
both by reverential awe and by conformity with his moral
commands, by confiding in him exclusively, by refraining
from self-exaltation, and by contempt of human power.
They condemned foreign alliances, the construction of
fortresses, the employment of horsemen, and represented
Jahveh as the humiliator of all that was proud and lofty.2
1 Compare the remark of Professor Reuss, " Les Prophetes," on Micah ii.
12, 13 : — " The sentiment of retributive justice, which demanded a striking
chastisement of evil, and the patriotic hope which believed in the high
destinies of Israel, balanced each other in the souls of the prophets and
continually produced these apparent contradictions."
2 See Isaiah ii. 12-17; and compare the conception which Herodotus enter
tained of the Deity, as described in Stein's edition of that author, Einleitunc,
p. xxxvii., or in Abicht's edition (Einl. p. 18), and especially the passage
there referred to, vii. 10, of the historian : " 'Opas ra iTepexovra £w« is nepav-

INTRODUCTION. XXVII
The Holy One of Israel is at the same time righteous, reward
ing goodness and punishing wickedness by recompences of
a material or physical character. This, however, does not
imply that the prophets did not sometimes feel that this be
lief, which was a corollary from their conception of the divine
character, was often inconsistent with the experience of life.
But thev were convinced that the divine righteousness would
be ultimately vindicated by every man receiving his due ;
and hence they attached little importance to the consistency
of their own predictions, which they were sure would be ful
filled in some way, and at some time or other. The fact that
the different prophets were not identical in their views, and
that even when at one in their conceptions of Jahveh 's right
eousness, and the relations of the chosen people to Him, they
might yet differ in opinion regarding the moral condition of
their countrymen, would lead them to different expectations
concerning the future lot of the latter, and so explain the
discrepancies more or less striking which we find to exist
between them. The confidence with which they predicted
the future is thus explained by its being a result of their
strong religious convictions. They knew that Jahveh was the
Holy and Righteous One, and they had, therefore, no doubt
as to the manner in which he would deal with his people.1
vol o Bebs, otide £$ (j>avTa£ec6ai, rh de trp.ucpa obbev p.iv Kvlfa ; bpgs 5e ihs is ofroj-
fiara Tct peyiara aid Kal SevSpea to, TotaDra airoffK-^irrei. ra /3eXea. iptXiei. yap 6
6eos to. inrepe'xovra iravTa KoXodeiv . . . od yap eg. ippoveetv /xeya 6 Beds &\Xov %
iuivrbv. See also Col. Mure's "History of the Language and Literature of
Ancient Greece," iv. 368. In the Rigveda, vi. 47, 16, the god Indra is
characterised as a " hater of the prosperous man," who, however, may per
haps be understood as being arrogant and presumptuous, and as indifferent
to the service of the god.
1 Professor Reuss also, in his important work " Les Prophetes," which has
been already several times quoted, treats (Introduction, pp. 5-50) of the
history of prophecy, of the canonical prophets, their theology, their ideas
regarding the relation of their nation to Jahveh, and of the future destiny
which awaited it, and of their predictions generally. This survey well
deserves perusal. Dr Reuss's point of view is somewhat more conservative
and apologetic than that of Professor Kuenen ; but in his judgment regard
ing the predictive element in prophecy he essentially coincides with the
latter. The following remarks on this subject are translated from p. 46 :
" First of all, it is proper to recognise the fact that here we have nowhere to
do with special predictions relating to contingent events. Whatever an ill-
advised exegesis may have said and may still say on the subject, prophecy
keeps to generalities. All the features of detail which it embraces are sub
ordinated to the idea which has inspired it, which has given rise to the
picture, and become, so to speak, incarnate there. The examples to the

XXVIII INTRODUCTION.
Independently of its high importance as affording an ex
planation of the predictive element of prophecy, the striking
picture which Dr Kuenen gives in this chapter of the religious
character of the prophets, of their strong convictions of the
nature and action of the Deity, and of their confident
assurance of their own allotted function as the interpreters of
his will, authorised to announce his deci-ees, forms an in
teresting and valuable contribution to our knowledge of the
spiritual history of mankind, and finds its higher counterpart
in the phenomena of Christianity.
Chapter tenth treats of the prophets and prophecy as they
are represented in the historical books of the Old Testament.
To an enumeration of these prophets, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha,
&c, and a sketch of such of their predictions as have been
recorded (including some of those of Isaiah which are mentioned
in the second book of Kings), together with an account of their
fulfilment, the author adds a summary, with elucidations, of
the various narratives in which Jahveh himself is introduced
as announcing the future of his people, either immediately to
themselves or to their representatives, or through the medium
of persons who are not characterised as prophets.
In Chapter eleventh an inquiry is instituted into the char
acter of the narratives specified in Chapter tenth. The author
arrives at the conclusion that they are not trustworthy, for the
following reasons — 1st, that the books in which they are found
were not composed by contemporaries of the events recorded,
but are of a date posterior to the fulfilment of the predictions
contrary, which some like to adduce, only prove one thing, viz., that
science has but slowly come to discover either the natural sense of such
and such a passage, or the bearing of such and such an historical allusion,
or the value of such and such a, phrase, or finally, the condition of rela
tive integrity in which such and such a passage exists. Thus when one
prophet makes Jehovah say that he has called his son out of Egypt, we see
by the context that the past fortunes of the Israelitish nation are referred
to, and not the future time, or the infant Jesus. When another designates
Cyrus by name as the liberator of Israel, we are certain that that author
was a contemporary of this king of Persia, and that he did not live two
centuries before him. When a third predicts that the servitude of Israel
should last seventy years, and that after that Babylon should be destroyed
and that the positions of the parties should be changed, one understands
ilat we have here a round number, and not a specific calculation to be veri
fied. In other places, the hands of strangers have introduced into the texts
notes intended to define future events. Next, when regarded more closely all
the predictions of the prophets are found to be conditional ; their realization
in fact, depends on the nation itself, on its moral and religious dispositions.''

INTRODUCTION. XXIX
which they report, and cannot be considered as embodying
in an unaltered form the substance of older works ; 2dly,
that they present accounts which are often mutually dis
crepant ; and, 3dly, that the sentiments which they ascribe
to the piophets are similar to one another in style and lan
guage, and are such as belong to a later age, and bear the
stamp of the historian's own mode of thinking.1 The represen
tation given of the prophets in the historical books is further
shown to be untrustworthy, on the ground that it is irrecon
cilable with all that we know of the canonical prophets —
i.e., of those whose writings we possess in the prophetical
books ; for, while the former are described as exercising
miraculous powers, and as uttering predictions extending far
beyond their own political horizon, as well as minute and
specific in their terms, the same cannot be predicated of the
latter; and we cannot suppose that the former possessed a
supernatural power and insight which were denied to the
latter. Having thus reached the conclusion that the repre
sentation of the prophets and prophecy in the historical
narrative of the Old Testament is not trustworthy, the author
proceeds, in Chapter twelfth, to explain and vindicate the
result at which he has arrived, by an account ofthe origin, cha
racter, and tendency of the historical books. The history of
the Israelitish monarchy was first written in the earlier pro
phetical, and in the Deuteronomic spirit — and embodied in a
work which was compiled in, or shortly after, the captivity.
1 Some similar remarks are made by Col. Mure in his " History of the
Language and Literature of Ancient Greece," vol. v., p. 148, on the
speeches which Thucydides puts into the' mouth of the persons who figure
in his narrative : — " But while any such individuality of character is chiefly
confined in all the speeches to these general features, all are pervaded by a
common mannerism, and seasoned by common peculiarities of thought and
expression, reflecting a corresponding community of origin. The same
moral and political maxims, the same flowers of sophistical rhetoric,
reappear, often in identically the same terms, in the mouths of different
persons. When we further observe, that many of these idiomatic passages
also recur in the parts of the historian's text where he speaks in his own
person, the inference becomes unavoidable that they reflect the genius of
Thucydides rather than that of the officiating orator. It might perhaps, by
a stretch, be assumed, that some of his favourite rhetorical phrases may
have been really common to his fellow-Athenians, to Pericles, Nicias,
Alcibiades and the nameless 'Athenian envoys.' But they could hardly have
been equally so to a number of speakers, not only of different characters,
but of different tribes aud dialects: Spartans, Syracusans, Boeotians,
Mytilenseans."

XXX INTRODUCTION.
The same history was subsequently related anew in the
priestly spirit after the reformation of Ezra and Nehemiah.
As regards the prophets it is remarked that they were
not only preachers of religion, but that by writing the his
tory of their nation, they preserved the remembrance of the
past, and expounded the lessons which it seemed to them to
convey. But, as the author convincingly shows, in the case
even of eye-witnesses, and still more of those who are not
such, the subjectivity (i.e., the natural and acquired character)
of the historian, especially if he has a particular aim,
exercises an important influence on his narration of events.
This was especially the case in ancient times, and in
Israel as well as among other nations. Among that people
historians thought more of the spirit and tendency of
what they wrote than of the truth of their representation,
and the accuracy of the details which they communicated.
In their view the facts were regarded only as a means, while the
lesson to be conveyed was the real end which they kept in view.
Instances of this are then given, and the same influences, as
the author remarks, may be presumed to have been at work
in other cases. The narratives regarding the prophets con
tained in the historical books of the Old Testament having
thus been written with the view of enforcing religious truths
which the writers considered as all-important, and not with
the aim of furnishing an accurate representation of the events,
are to be looked upon as edifying and instructive composi
tions, and not as being throughout historically trustworthy.
The accounts which they give of prophets and prophecy are
not to be received as reproducing the real facts. If this be
so, then this representation of the prophets and prophecy
in the historical narratives of the Old Testament is not a
testimony regarding, but is itself one of the fruits of, the
real Israelitish prophecy.
The author next proceeds, in Chapter thirteenth, to consider
the objection that the New Testament writers are all opposed to
the conclusions at which he has arrived, since they hold that
the Old Testament is an inspired book, invested with divine
authority, and that the prophets are gifted with infallible
foreknowledge, as is proved by the agreement between their
utterances and specific historical facts. The force of this

INTRODUCTION. Xxxi
objection must, however, as he remarks, depend upon the
value attached to the interpretations of the prophecies given
by the New Testament writers. And here it is to be
observed that the authority of the New Testament can apply
only to the comparatively small number of prophecies which
are referred to in it ; and, further, that we have to consider
whether the exegetical procedure of all the New Testament
writers was the same, and whether they interpreted particu
lar passages in their proper sense, or merely employed them
homiletically ; and again, whether their interpretations can
claim authority in the domain of scientific research. Dr
Kuenen goes on to show that the exegetical procedure of the
New Testament writers does not satisfy the requirements of
critical science, as, 1 st, they generally employ not the original
Hebrew text, but a translation of it which often either imper
fectly reproduces or misrepresents the sense of the original ;
2dly, they quote so freely, that their deductions from the
Old Testament text cannot command general assent, as is
shown by examples ; and, 3dly, they interpret according to
the sound, without reference to the connection of ideas, or
the standpoint of the original writer ; so that their exegesis
does not conform to those rules of sound exposition which
are now universally recognised, and are from their nature
indisputable. This, also, is illustrated by a selection of
instances. Here are discussed those psalms which are called
Messianic, both, 1st, those which celebrate the power and
greatness of the king of Israel, and which, notwithstanding
the ideal elements which they contain, must be explained
historically, as addressed to real kings ; and, 2dly, those
which in the New Testament are applied to the suffering
Messiah, but which in reality refer to the griefs of the poets
themselves, or of those of kindred sentiments with them, who
had no features in common with the glorious Davidic kings
of the prophets. The historical and the Messianic interpreta
tions of these Psalms are thus irreconcilable ; and as the
former alone is true, the latter is untenable. As a result of
the preceding enquiry, the author concludes that the traditional
conception of Old Testament prophecy as a testimony to the
Christian Messiah, which gradually grew more specific and
distinct, is repeatedly contradicted by scientific exegesis, and

XXXII INTRODUCTION.
as a whole refuted. The real expectations of the Old Testa
ment prophets regarding the future of Israel pointed to some
thing entirely different.
In Chapter fourteenth, after some preliminary observations,
the author proceeds to describe and to explain the actual rela
tion of the New Testament to the prophecies of the Old. He
shows that the New Testament writers, instead of directing
their attention to the expectations of the ancient prophets as a
whole, choose freely from among those anticipations, and inter
pret and develop them in a spiritual sense. They throw
into the background the national, particularistic, and material
elements in the predictions, and dwell with sympathy on their
universalistic and spiritual side. Though the pre-eminence
of Israel is acknowledged, the heathen are considered to
share fully in their privileges. Although material as well
as spiritual wellbeing is promised to the true Israel, it is
the latter which is brought into the greatest prominence.
To believers are promised forgiveness of sins, the imparta-
tion of the Divine Spirit, an intimate union with God, and
personal immortality, — a belief in which is ascribed to the
Old Testament writers. The New Testament writers, if we
except the author of the Revelation, were opposed to the
doctrine of a millennium ; they did not share in the belief
entertained by the prophets of the future restoration of
Israel's glory. The founder of Christianity was the centre of
the faith of the Christians, who formed a portraiture of their
master made up of features found in the Old Testament, —
but which there stand in no connection with each other, —
by applying to him the predictions regarding the future king
of David's race, and the restorer of his throne and dominion,
and the texts concerning the combination of the kingly and
priestly office in Melehizedek ; by seeing in him a prophet,
and the suffering servant of Jahveh described by the second
Isaiah, as well as the afflicted righteous man, whose voice is so
often heard in the Psalms. The author remarks on the
importance of the last two classes of passages, which he
regards as having reconciled the Christians to the suffering
and death of their lord, as having convinced them that this
termination of his earthly career had been divinely ordained
as a condition of his glorification, and as having promoted

INTRODUCTION. XXX111
their reception of the doctrine that his passion had an
expiatory efficacy. How then are we to explain this
apparently strange relation of the New Testameut to the
ideas of the Old ? How is it that, on the one hand, we
find a constant employment of conceptions and expressions
borrowed from the prophetu, and on the other hand as con
tinual deviations from their proper meaning, and a changed
manner of looking at things ? Whence so great freedom
along with such manifest dependence ? The answer is, that
the Christianity of the New Testament is a more highly
developed form, or rather, it is the completion, of the religion
of Israel. The former at once attaches itself to the old
covenant, and rises above it. Prophecy is the basis on which
the new structure is built. It indicated the direction in which
religious truth was to be further developed. In this connection
of the two religions is to be found, at the same time, the
explanation of the peculiar relation in which Jesus and the
apostles stand to the ideas, especially to the anticipations or
predictions, of the prophets. From the time of Malachi to
the rise of Christianity, a modification of views, a spiritual
development, had been going forward in Israel. The utter
ances of the prophets and psalmists were involuntarily inter
preted according to the standard of the new ideas and
requirements. Men applied the ancient sacred writings to
themselves, and to the wants of the moment, in a way which
was possible only in an uncritical age. An interpretation of
Scripture, whereby what may be called a second sense was
attributed to it, arose and prevailed at the time when Jesus
appeared, and as a consequence it enabled the first Christians
to accept him as the Messiah. His influence, and that of the
religion which he preached, affords a further explanation of
the view which his disciples took of the Old Testament ideas
and expectations. They collected from the ancient Scriptures
all that they found most beautiful and noble in them,
divested it of the elements which were unsuited to their pur
pose, formed of it one whole, which they presented as the
fulfilment of what the former generations had expected.
They loved to continue associated with the past, and to feel
themselves in harmony with the prophets and psalmists,
whom they reverenced as the interpreters of God to their

XXXIV INTRODUCTION.
forefathers. The new spirit arrayed itself in the old forms,
and knew not, or scarcely knew, that it was destroying them.
The same phenomenon occurs whenever a higher or a different
form of religion is developed from one already existing ;
and has, as its consequence, the growth of allegorical
exegesis, in the widest sense of a free method of inter
preting Scripture. Jesus and his apostles were preachers of
religion, and the use which they make of Scripture must be
judged of from that point of view. From their affinity in
spirit with the pious of former ages, they discovered in their
words all that lay involved in them, but which had remained
hidden from other minds less sympathetically attuned. They
found also in Scripture things which it did not contain ;
or which at most existed there only in germ. Where the
one case occurs, and where the other, must be determined
by scientific exegesis, the methods of which have been
gradually perfected, and the results of which are certain, and
which must therefore guide our judgments.
In his fifteenth and concluding Chapter, the author treats of
the place ofthe Israelitish prophets in the religious development
of mankind. Though some of the results of his preceding
inquiry might, he observes, have had the appearance of de
priving the prophets of the honours accorded to them by past
ages, yet this appearance was deceptive, as the investigation
had not merely made us better acquainted with their true
character, but also taught us to esteem them more highly.
He then proceeds to trace the growth of prophecy, which he
regards as springing from a twofold source, viz., first the
soothsaying practised by the a.ncient seers (Roeh), and the
ecstatic excitement peculiar to the early Nabis, both of which
elements became combined in the prophets of Jahveh, who,
under the guidance of Samuel, gradually dropped their lower
characteristics, and underwent an ethical and religious
development derived from the inspiring and hallowing influ
ence of Jahvism. This form of religion was not based
upon the Pentateuch, the redaction of which, in its present
shape, was posterior to the canonical prophets ; and although
the impulse to the entire development was given by Moses,
yet the ideas of the prophets were, in a large measure, origi
nal. The belief in Jahveh as a holy God, who prescribes

INTRODUCTION. XXXV
moral commands, was handed down to them from Sinai ;
but they both applied, extended, and purified the moral law,
and gradually formed a higher and more spiritual conception
of Jahveh himself, and finally attained to the height of
ethical monotheism. This process was, of course, a gradual
one. From the eleventh to the ninth century B.C., the pro
phets were moving forward ; but even at the latter period
they had not reached their goal. Samuel's Jahvism con
tained the germs of a higher development, but stood far
below the pure and spiritual conviction which prophecy was
one day destined to reach. The ideas of Nathan and Gap,
Solomon, Ahijah the Shilonite, Elijah and Elisha, are then
characterised. In the period immediately preceding the
appearance of Amos, the change in conceptions which had
long before been in preparation was greatly matured, most
probably by prophets ; and in the eighth century B.C., we see
the result in the existence of a higher and purer idea than
had before prevailed of Jahveh's nature ; and ere long he
came to be regarded as the one living and true God. With
this development and purification of ideas was connected the
rise of a prophetical literature, by means of which its authors
sought to give wider currency to their new and higher
thoughts. At the same time the ecstasies and visions which
had formed the natural or material basis of prophecy,
retired more and more into the background : its distinctive
characteristic is not to be found in these phenomena, but in
the spirit which gave rise to them, as well as controlled
them. The monotheism of the prophets of the eighth cen
tury b.c. has as yet scarcely stepped across the line which
separates the worship of one single god from the adoration
of the only God ; but it gradually advanced to absolute
monotheism. The author here completes his historical survey
of prophecy, by explaining more fully than he had before
done, the relation of the canonical prophets to those com
monly spoken of as false prophets, whose preaching corres
ponded to the popular wishes, and with whom the mass of
the people consequently sided, while they often opposed and
persecuted the canonical prophets. How, then, are we to
judge of these two classes ? The author, after examining the
views of Kohler on this subject, comes to the conclusion that

XXXVI INTRODUCTION.
the so-called " false prophets " were, in general, quite honest,
and convinced of their own calling by Jahveh ; but they
differ from the canonical prophets in their degree of religious
development ; the former, or a portion of them, retaining
nearly the characteristics of the ancient soothsayers, while
the latter, having struggled forward in advance of their nation,
and their professional brethren, oppose the popular spirit and
its organs, and form the flower, or the spiritual aristocracy,
of Israel. Even the " false prophets " do not appear to have
remained altogether stationary ; those against whom Jere
miah contends seem to occupy a higher position than the
contemporaries of Micah and Isaiah. But the distance be
tween the two classes continued always to be the same, the
better class subordinating their national feeling to their
religion, and the morally inferior class allowing their religion
to be dominated by their national feeling. The latter, there
fore, expected the divine protection in cases where the former
were too much conscious of the national sins to dare to hope
for it ; for in moral earnestness and depth of piety the
canonical prophets stood far higher than those whom they
opposed. The final conclusion at which the author arrives is this :
The estimation in which the prophets should be held ought
not to rest upon the expectations which they uttered regard
ing the future, how highly soever we may value the ideals
which inspired their predictions, and the spirit which they
reflect. These predictions, as has been shown, remained in
the great majority of cases unfulfilled. Nor can it be truly
asserted that the action of the prophets in general advanced
the political welfare of the Israelitish nation. On the
contrary, founded as it was on an enthusiastic and indiscriminat
ing assumption that they were interpreters of the divine will,
it frequently exercised a prejudicial influence on public
order and public policy.1 They did not even succeed in
1 The author quotes here a passage from Bluntschli's " Altasiatische
Gottes-und Welt-ideen." Professor Tiele, in his " Vergelijkende Geschie-
denis der Oude Godsdiensten," i. 789 f., expresses himself somewhat strongly
regarding the prophets, thus : " Their moral was not less one-sided than
their religious doctrine. In their estimation, nothing was of any value.
Everything looked black. Whatever was not specifically religious, and
gave occasion to abuse, among.other things all social enjoyment, and com
merce itself, was at once and unconditionally condemned by them. Wound

INTRODUCTION. Xxxvii
largely imbuing their countrymen with their own religious
principles. In estimating their action, we must take a higher
standpoint than the national one, and regard their contribu
tion to the spiritual development of our race as its most im
portant result. Ethical monotheism is their creation. They
have themselves ascended to the belief in one only, holy and
righteous God, who realizes his will, or moral good, in the
world, and they have, by preaching and writing, made that
belief the inalienable property of humanity. It was not an
intellectual or philosophical system, but a religious belief,
which they presented. The God of the prophets bore a very
different character from that of the Deity of the philosophers
of Greece and Rome. Holiness, righteousness, and mercy
constituted the very nature of the former, while it is very
doubtful whether the same conception of the Supreme Being
could have arisen out of the data furnished by Pagan thought.
The influence of philosophy would have been always more
negative ; it undermined polytheism, but it did not show, at
least, that it could build anything better on its ruins. That
better thing was produced by Israelitish prophecy, and com
pleted by Jesus, the greatest of the prophets.
The preceding summary which I have written to recom
mend the study of Professor Kuenen's book, may suffice to
give some, though a very inadequate, idea of the course and
substance of his argument, the full merit and cogency of
which can only be understood from the perusal of the work
itself. Its leading ideas, as concerns its central subject, may
be recapitulated as the following : Is-'raelitish prophecy
was not a supernatural phenomenon, derived from divine
inspiration; but was a result of the high moral and reli
gious character attained by the prophets whose writings
have been transmitted to us. This moral and religious
character was itself the slowly matured growth of ages,
up in their solitary meditations to a fanatical zeal, they saw everything
covered with dark shadows, and did not sufficiently regard the bright side
of things. They had the defect of all penitential preachers, that they shot
beyond their mark, and by their exaggerated complaints and accusations,
which found no echo in men's consciences, rather embittered them than bet
tered them. Their words caused trembling and terror, rarely amendment."

XXXVIII INTRODUCTION.
the seers and soothsayers in whom the first beginnings
of prophecy were manifested, having stood on a much lower
spiritual level, and entertained a less worthy conception of
Jahveh's nature and attributes, than were eventually reached
by their successors. The latter were persuaded that Jahveh
was a holy and righteous God, who must necessarily reward his
faithful and obedient servants with earthly prosperity, and
punish with temporal sufferings those who forsook him and
transgressed his commandments. They consequently predicted
• evil as the certain lot of the offenders, unless they repented, and
a happy future for the righteous, if they continued to do well.
At the same time the prophets were convinced that Israel
was Jahveh's chosen people, and they therefore conceived
that a most glorious future awaited a portion, at least,
of this favoured nation. These were the ideas which in
spired, and found expression in, their prophecies. But pre
diction was not in reality regarded by them as their principal
function ; and they did not attach primary importance to the
literal and immediate fulfilment of their promises and threaten
ings, being convinced that at some time and in some way or
other the divine decrees which they announced would be sub
stantially accomplished. They were above all preachers of
righteousness. Their predictions being thus, according to Dr Kuenen's
view, nothing better than fallible anticipations of the manner
in which they considered that the Deit}' must, as a necessary
consequence of his character, as they conceived it, deal with
the subjects of his government, it is not surprising that —
however acute, however far-sighted, however experienced men
they may have been, and however plain the course and
tendency of events may in any case have appeared to every
intelligent observer, — in the great majority of instances these
expectations should not have been realised. And in those
cases where the prophecies were fulfilled (and where it is shown
that the prediction was committed to writing before the event),
their accomplishment, if not accidental, must be attributed
either to the prophet's sagacity or to the influence of hi3
words upon the conduct of those to whom they were
addressed. The supposition that the prophets were in any
such cases supernaturally inspired is totally irreconcilable

INTRODUCTION. xxxix
with the fact that their predictions were in so many other
instances falsified by the event. The real significance of the
prophets as moral and religious teachers, and the importance
of their preaching as a preparation for Christianity, have been
sufficiently indicated above.
The ample and satisfactory proofs which Professor Kuenen
has adduced in support of his conclusions must, I think, produce
a powerful effect on all candid enquirers who study them with
care and attention, and tend to bring about in the minds of
thoughtful men a great change of opinion in regard to the
authority and the character of the Scriptures, whether of the
Old or of the New Testament. Investigations such as the
present, must show that while a great and peculiar value is
attributed to the Bible, that high estimation must, if we
accept the results of modern criticism, be henceforward based
in grounds different from | those on which it has here
tofore been considered to rest. Hitherto the authority of the
Scriptures has been considered to be founded not only on the
moral and spiritual excellence which commend them to men's
reason and conscience, but also on their supposed supernatural
inspiration. In so far as the proof in favour of the latter ground
of their authority is regarded as based upon the miraculous
character of prophecy (and at present I am concerned with no
other proof), this divine authority of the Scriptures must
be denied ; and their claim to form, or to aid in forming,
the rule of life, must in future be considered by rea
sonable men as reposing on other foundations. However
reluctant they may be to relinquish traditional views, and to
break with the past, unprejudiced men must, I think, begin
to perceive that there is no department of knowledge, of
thought, or of belief, which remains stationary, but that in
all there is a ceaseless advance, a constant ripening of ideas,
an ever fuller recognition of just principles. In regard to
physical science, this progress has long been manifest, and is
never disputed. But recently the advance in the application
of just methods of enquiry to subjects other than physical, to
all the varied problems of human history, has issued in
important and satisfactory results. From the influence of
these new laws of investigation, the history of religion cannot
remain exempted. To claim such exemption for the religion

xl INTRODUCTION.
of the Old and New Testaments ought to be esteemed
equivalent to an admission that its peculiar claims to a
distinct charactei- and a supernatural authority could not
stand the test of impartial and intelligent enquiry. But if
such enquiry be allowed, all well-established conclusions,
such as those brought out in the present volume, must also
be accepted.
The translation has been revised by myself, and has had
throughout the benefit of Professor Kuenen's suggestions.
I have also to thank him for reading over, and proposing
some alterations iu, the summary of his work contained in
thh Introduction.
J. MUIR.
Ediinbukgh, December 1876.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.,  pp. 1—20
THE SEASONABENESS OF A NEW INVESTIGATION" CONCERNING THE PROPHETS
AND THE NATURE OF PROPHECY IN ISRAEL.
Different ideas about the Israelitish prophets and their action, p. 1. The
common view : the prophets, having been sent by God, predict the
coming of the Christ in a manner wliich becomes gradually more distinct
and specific, pp. 1 — 4. The attractiveness of this theory, p. 4. The
organic view stands in opposition to this, pp. 4, 5. Can a new investi
gation be expected to help us in deciding this controversy? p. 5. The
supporters of the organic view have not yet fulfilled their duty, p. 6.
The traditional view is in a state of dissolution, pp. 6, 7. Its defenders
acknowledge the incompleteness of the common view wliich regards
prophecy as prediction, pp. 7 — 9. Exegetical objections are brought
against the alleged predictions, pp. 9, 10. The standpoint of fulfilment
which is taken, leads to incorrect judgments, pp. 10, 11. This objection
maintained and enforced by a quotation from Dr Kueper, pp. 11, 12.
Supernaturalism modified and limited by its adherents themselves, pp.
12 — 14. Their ideas about the limits of prediction; the rule of N-itzsch,
pp. 14, 15. Application of that rule to 1 Kings xiii., p. 15 ; to the
prophecies in the Book of Daniel, pp. 15 — 17 ; in particular to Dan. xi.
pp. 17 — 19. Further signs of dissolution, pp. 19, 20. A fresh inves
tigation therefore seasonable on every account, p. 20. Transition to the
question as to the method, p. 20.

CHAPTER II.,  pp. 21—38
THE METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION CONCERNING THE PROPHETS AND
PROPHECY IN ISRAEL.
The subject of this chapter; the description of the method pursued by the
author, no criticism of the divergent opinions of others, p. 21. Gram
matical interpretation of the utterances of the prophets, p. 22 ; of those
also which are quoted and applied in the New Testament ; the latter
course vindicated against possible objections, pp. 22 — 25. Classification
of the materials existing in the Old Testament itself, p. 25.
I. Writings of Prophets.— The boundaries of this group, pp. 26, 27. These
d

xiii CONTENTS.
writings form the most valuable testimonies regarding the prophets,
p. 27. Their age must be determined by historical criticism, pp.
27, 28 ; in applying this criticism we must be on our guard against
assigning too high a value to the tradition contained in the headings,
28—31.
II. Narratives about the prophets. — Their absolute trustworthiness is not
certain, they are therefore to be used with caution, pp. 31 — 33.
III. Divine revelations incorporated in the historical narratioes. — The possi
bility that the writers have uttered their own conviction in this form
exists and prevents us from placing full reliance on this group of testi
monies, pp. 33 — 37. We must therefore begin with the writings of the
prophets, p. 37. A first disadvantage in this mode of procedure can
not be removed, p. 37. A second disadvantage is met by the provisional
description of Israelitish prophecy in Chapter III., pp. 37, 38.
CHAPTER III.,  pp. 39—67
INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS AND THEIR WORK IN ISRAEL.
From numerous passages it is plain that the prophets in Israel formed a
separate order, pp. 39 — 41. How did such an order originate? For
obtaining an answer to this question, the names which the prophets
bear are first considered, p. 41. Explanation of nabi and the verbs
derived from that word, pp. 41, 42 (Refutation of Payne Smith, p. 42,
n. 6). Explanation of seer and gazer, and of the use of these words, pp.
43 — 45. Further names, p. 45. The question first proposed is not
answered by the inquiry as to the names, p. 45. The associations of
prophets, p. 46. According to a narrative of Amos they still exist in
the reign of Jeroboam II., p. 47. Inferences from that narrative : there
are prophets who do not belong to any association, pp. 47, 48 ; the
prophets are divided amongst themselves, pp. 48, 49. The explanation
of this latter fact by Payne Smith, pp. 49, 50. In how far this expla
nation merits approval, pp. 50 — 53 ; the reasons why it cannot be ad
mitted as a whole, pp. 53, 54. Prophecy a very diversified phenomenon :
the Israelite had to make a choice between the mutually conflicting
tendencies, pp. 54, 55. The legal enactments about the prophets, Deut.
xiii. 1 — 5. ; xviii. 9 — 22, pp. 55, 56. Their disputed age and the dif-
culty in applying them, pp. 56, 57. Was it the case that what was
lacking in the law was supplied by custom ? The temple-police from the
time of Jehoiada, pp. 57, 58. The judicial proceedings against Jeremiah,
chapter xxxvi. ; his persecutors and his protectors, pp. 58 — 60. Result
of this part of the investigation, p. 60. The contest of the canonical
prophets with their fellow-prophets, pp. 60, 61.— Particulars regarding
the canonical prophets ; the symbolical actions, in reality, and as
drapery, pp. 61, 62. The prophetical literature, p. 62. The earliest
prophets did not write, pp. 62, 63. The writing of the prophecy, is
subsequent to the oral delivery of it, p. 63. Relation of the written to
the spoken word ; the literal agreement of the two improbable for more
than one reason, pp. 63 — 65, and is specifically excluded by Jer. xxxvi.

CONTENTS. xliii
pp. 65, 66. The committal to writing of the prophecies is a turning-
point in the history of prophecy, pp. 66, 67. Transition to the study of
the prophetical literature, p. 67.
CHAPTER IV.,  pp. 68-97
THE CONVICTION OF THE ISRAELITISH PROPHETS WITH REGARD TO THEIR
DIVINE COMMISSION.
The prophets differ from each other in style and language, pp. 68, 69. The
form of their discourse alters in the course of time, pp. 69, 70. They
are, according to the opinion of some, dependent on the Law, and they
are beyond all doubt dependent on one another, and borrow from one
another, pp. 70 — 74. Alongside of these phenomena stands the assevera
tion of all the prophets that their word is the word of Jahveh, pp. 74, 75,
with which statement both the use of the first person in their writings
and the opposition sometimes appearing between them and their Sender,
are in accordance, pp. 75, 76. What is the judgment which we are to
form regarding this conviction of the prophets of Jahveh ? Their own
explanations give some light indeed, but not sufficient, pp. 76, 77. Il
lustration of these explanations, pp. 77, 78, particularly of what they
contain concerning the prophetical visions, p. 78; some of these must be.
regarded as freely chosen drapery, pp. 79 — 81 ; the actual visions were
beheld in a state of ecstasy, pp. 81 — 83. The proposition that Jahveh
uniformly revealed himself to the prophets in visions, p. 83 ; it contains
indeed some truth, but yet cannot be fully assented to, pp. 83 — 85.
What follows from the rejection of this proposition ? pp. 85, 86. The
prophets, inspired by the spirit of Jahveh, pp. 86, 87. The angels as
agents between Jahveh and his messengers ; criticism of the accounts
regarding them, pp. 87 — 90. Result of the whole inquiry, pp. 90, 91.
We cannot simply acquiesce in the asseverations of the Israelitish pro
phets : for various reasons a further investigation is absolutely necessary,
pp. 91 — 93. It must consist in an express examination of "the word of
Jahveh," pp. 93, 94, and specifically of the predictions, presented as
such, p. 94. The reasons why the predictions must, in the first place, be
studied, and studied in reference to their fulfilment, pp. 94 — 96. Divi
sion of the predictions into unfulfilled and fulfilled, and why precedence
is given to the former, p. 97.
CHAPTER V.,  pp. 98—147
THE UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES.
A. — Ihe Destinies ofthe Heathen Nations.
Difficulties connected with the investigation : the uncertainty of the exegesis ;
the extent and consequences of the uncertainty, pp. 98, 99 ; difference
of opinion regarding the age of the books and the prophecies, pp. 99,
100 ; the author's own opinion on these points, pp. 100, 101. Division
of the predictions into three groups, p. 101.

xllV CONTENTS.
Arrangement of the threatenings against the heathen, pp. 101, 102. The
Philistines. — The judgment announced upon them was not realised, nor
was the fruit thereof enjoyed by Israel, pp. 102—104. The Phoenicians.
— The prophecies against them were not executed by the Assyrians,
pp. 104—106, -nor by the Chaldeans, pp. 106—108. The testimony of
Ezekiel himself on this point, and rejection of the common opinion re
garding the fulfilment, pp. 108—111. Damascus.— Jeremiah's predic
tion of its destruction not yet realised, pp. Ill, 112. Ammonites and
Moabites. — The later desolation of their territory is no fulfilment of the
prophecies against them, pp. 112—114. The Edomites.— The earlier
and the later predictions regarding them, pp. 114 — 116. The com
parison of these predictions with the fortunes of the Edomites leads to
a negative result as regards the realisation, pp. 116-120. Egypt and
Ethiopia. — The predictions of Isaiah and their fulfilment, pp. 120, 121 ;
those of Jeremiah and Ezekiel (pp. 122, 123) are contradicted by the
records of ancient history, pp. 123, 124 ; they are, on the other hand,
confirmed by Flavius Josephus, pp. 124, 125, but his account plainly
appears to be utterly undeserving of belief, and to be merely an infer
ence from the prophecies themselves, pp. 125 — 129. The Assyrians. —
Isaiah and Micah do not announce the destruction of the Assyrian
kingdom, pp. 129^180 ; Nahum and Zephaniah do so indeed, but the
fall of Nineveh does not fully correspond with their expectation, pp.
130—132. Can the difference be explained from the peculiar manner
in which the prophets see the future ? The affirmative answer to this
question, given by Velthusen and others, cannot be adopted, pp.
132—136. The Chaldeans. — Interpretation of the predictions regard
ing the desolation of Babylon, pp. 136 — 139, and inference with respect
to its realisation, p. 139. The Persian Monarchy.- — Its overthrow is
not announced by the post-exilic prophets, pp. 139 — 141. Transition to
the discussion of the Book of Daniel, p. 141. Interpretation of the
four universal empires in Dan. ii. and vii., pp. 141 — 143 ; interpreta
tion of Dan. viii., p. 143, and of Dan. x. — xii., p. 144. Inferences with
regard to the origin of the Book, pp. 145 — 147. Reference made to
the discussion of other parts in the subsequent chapters, p. 147.

CHAPTER VI.,  pp. 148—185
THE UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
B.- — The Judgments against Israel.
The prophets must be treated in chronological order, and can be separated
into five groups, pp. 148, 149. Amos and Hosea. — How the difficulties
involved in the treatment of the unfulfilled predictions can be met pp.
149, 150. The judgment of Amos upon the state of the kingdom of
Ephraim, and his prophecy of the deportation, pp. 150 — 153. Com
parison of Amos with Hosea, who came forward some years after him
pp. 153, 154. Hosea's expectations regarding the kingdom of Judah

CONTENTS. xlv
pp. 154, 155, and the kingdom of Ephraim, not only in chaps, i. — iii.,
pp. 155, 156, but in chaps, iv. — xiv., pp.. 156, 157. The deportation to
Assyria and to Egypt, pp. 157 — 159. Result with regard to Amos
and Hosea, pp. 159, 160.
The prophets of the Assyrian period. — The announcement of Judah's over-~~\
throw is wanting in Zech. ix. — xi., pp. ljiO, 161. Micah's anticipa
tions. Elucidation of them from Jer. xxvi., pp. 161, 162. Micah's own
words agree with the interpretation given there, pp. 102, 163. Micah
iv. 10 is wrongly adduced in favour of another view, pp. 163 — 165.
Some additional remarks suggested by Jer. xxvi., p. 165. The differ
ence between Micah and Isaiah, pp. 16j>, 166. How the latter
expressed himself about the kingdom of Ephraim ; the chronology in
chap. vii. 9, pp. 166 — 168. His expectation regarding the lot of Judah
at the time of the Syrian-Ephraimite war, pp. 168 — 170. His confid
ence in the preservation of Jerusalem, p. 170. Did he foresee the \
Babylonish captivity? pp. 170, 171. 
7 he prophets of the Chaldean period. — The day of Jahveh, according to
Zephaniah (and in earlier and later prophecies), pp. 171, 172. What
other prophets must be consulted, pp. 172, 173. Anticipations of
Habakkuk, p. 174 ; of the unknown author of Zech. xii. — xiv., pp. 174,
175 ; of Joel, pp. 175, 176. Comparison of their anticipations with
those of Hananiah the Gibeonite, pp. 176, 177 ; and, on the other
hand, with those of Jeremiah, pp. 177 — 179.
The prophets of the exile. — The two parts of Ezekiel's prophecies, pp. 179,
180. The partial judgment in the second Isaiah and his contemporaries,
pp. 180, 181 (on the age of Is. xl. — Ixvi., p. 181, note 5).
The post-exilic prophets. — Survey of their announcements of punishment, pp.
182, 183. Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, pp. 183, 184. The question
whether the issue has confirmed them is not an historical one, pp.
184, 185.

CHAPTER VII.,  pp. 186—275.
THE UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
C. — The Future of Israel.
Not one of the, prophecies regarding Israel's future glory has been fulfilled,
p. 186. Acknowledgment of this in Chiliasm, and some remarks upon
this system, pp. 186, 187. The spiritual fulfilment of the prophecies in
Christianity, pp. 187, 188. Division of the materials, pp. 188, 189.
I. The return of Israel out of captivity.— slow the Israelites regarded the
captivity, and why they must have expected the return, pp. 189—191.
Anticipations of Amos and the prophets of a later date, pp. 191—193.
What conception did the prophets of the captivity form of the return ?
pp. 193, 194. Disappointment of their expectation, and the influence
of that on the later prophets : the latter anticipate the complete realisa
tion of Jahveh's promises, pp. 194 — 196.

xlvi CONTENTS.
II. The re-union of Ephraim and Judah.— What we find in the writings of
the prophets of the eighth century on this subject, pp. 196 — 198. The
anticipations of Jeremiah different in some respects, pp. 198, 199.
His younger contemporaries, pp. 199, 200. In and after the captivity,
the prophets lose sight of the Ephraimite exiles, pp. 200—202.
III. The dominion ofthe House of David. — Reasons for not noticing till now
tT this element of the prophetical expectation, pp. ^202, .203. The natural
' foundation of the expectation that the Davidic dynasty would be per
manent, p. 203. More than this is not announced by Amos, pp. 203,
204, or by Jeremiah in chap, xxiii., with which the later addition in
Jer. xxxiii. entirely agrees, pp. 204 — 206. Different view taken of
Jer. xxiii. in Zech. iii. and vi., pp. 206, 207. Other utterances of
Jeremiah, of Hosea, of Ezekiel, pp. 207—209. Ezekiel's ordinances re
garding the prince of Israel, p. 209. — Transition to the prophecy of the
appearance of a Davidic king, pp. 210, 211. Interpretation of Zech.
ix. 9, p. 211 ; of Micah v. 1 ff, pp. 211—213 ; of Is. ix. 6, 7, pp. 213,
214 ; and xi. 1 — 5, pp. 215, 216. Result with regard to these three
prophets, pp. 2_16^_217. Explanation of Zechariah's utterances con
cerning the Branch, pp. 217 — 219 . — The Babylonian Isaiah is silent
about the king of David's race, and transfers a part of his task to the
servant of Jahveh, i.e., to the flower of Israel, pp. 219 — 221. This
interpretation of the formula, " the servant of Jahveh," defended, pp.
LI 1221 — 223. In the Book of Daniel also the Davidic King is wanting,
( jpp. 223, 224. Inferences from the fact that the expectations regarding
(David's dynasty gradually retire into the background, p. 224.
IV. Ihe spiritual and material welfare ofthe restored Israel. — The numerous
utterances of the prophets on these subjects, and , the difficulties
associated with the interpretation, p. 225. The order to be followed in
treating these subjects, pp. 225, 226. Survey of the predictions of
spiritual felicity, pp. 226 — 228. The material blessings : peace and
safety ; expectations of the prophets in general, and of Ezekiel in
particular, pp. 229 — 281. Fruitfulness of the land, and abundance of
food and drink, pp. 231, 232. The temple-stream, in Zech. xii. — xiv.,
in Joel, and in Ezekiel, pp. 232 — 234. Multiplication of the Israelites;
lengthening of the term of their lives and increase of their number, pp.
234 — 236. — Features which appear only in some of the prophets. The
transformation of nature in Is. xi., pp. 236, 237 ; the new heavens and
the new earth in the second Isaiah, pp. 237, 238. The anticipations of
Ezekiel : defence of the literal interpretation, pp. 238 — 240 • the
anticipations themselves, and their peculiar character, pp. 240 — 242.
V. Israel and the heathen. — The two kinds of expectations regarding them
and their close affinity, pp. 242, 243. Dominion of Israel over the
heathen, according to Amos, p. 243 ; according to the oldest,
Zechariah, p. 244 ; and according to the later prophets, pp. 244 —
246. Transition to the expectation of the conversion of the
heathen, p. 246. Interpretation of Ts. ii. 2 — 4 ; Micah iv. 1 — 4, pp.
246, 247; of the kindred utterances in Isaiah, pp. 247—249- of
Zephaniah's prophecy, p. 249 ; of Jeremiah's expectations, pp. 249 —

CONTENTS. xlvii
251 ; of Zech. xiv. 16— 18, p. 251 ; of some later oracles, pp. 251, 252 ; of
Mai. i. 11, which is wrongly supposed to be parallel, pp. 253, 254. —
Separate treatment of the second Isaiah, p. 254. The glorification of
the servant of Jahveh the means for converting the heathen, pp. 254,
255 other, yet closely allied representations, pp. 255, 256. The servant
of Jahveh as a preacher to the heathen, pp. 256 — 258.
VI. The undisturbed continuance of Israel in. the land of their habitation. —
Why attention is still directed to this point, p. 258. According to none
of the prophets is the return followed by any new captivity, pp. 258
— 260. The post-exilic prophets expect the complete fulfilment of
Jahveh's promises, pp. 260, 261. Inference : the prophecies of Israel's
restoration can no longer be realised in that sense in which they were
intended, pp. 261, 262.
Appendix. — Some parts of the book of Daniel must be treated separately, p.
262. Dan. ix. ; amended translation of verses 24 — 27, pp. 262 — 264.
The meaning of this prophecy as a whole, pp. 264, 265. The probable
point of commencement of the seventy year-weeks, p. 265. Method of
the interpretation, pp. 265, 266. The last year-week, 170—163 B.C.,
pp. 266, — 268. Refutation of the traditional interpretation of the words
referring thereto, pp. 268, 269. The preceding seven and sixty-two
year-weeks, pp. 269, 270 ; incorrectness of the Messianic interpretation,
pp. 270, 271. It is not recommended even by chronology, pp. 271, 272.
According to the other view, the chronology of the author of the book
of Daniel is incorrect, but in that there is nothing surprising, pp. 272,
273. Relation of the book of Daniel to the earlier prophets, pp. 273,
274. Expectations regarding the approaching commencement of the
age of felicity, p. 274. The fulfilment did not come to pass, and is now
no longer possible, pp. 274, 275.

CHAPTER VIII.,  PP- 276—331
THE FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
The questions which are raised by Chapters v.— vii., p. 276. Before these
questions can be answered, the fulfilled predictions must be studied, pp.
276, 277 ; in this study the results of the preceding inquiry must be
taken into account, pp. 277, 278. What prophecies are to be examined
in this chapter, and how they are to be arranged, pp. 278, 279.—
Isaiah's predictions regarding the destiny of the confederate Syrians
and Ephraimites partly fulfilled, pp. 279—282. The earlier prophecy
of Amos concerning the deportation of the Arameans to Kir; its actual
meaning ; the reading of 2 Kings xvi. 9, pp. 282—285. Action of
Isaiah before and during the invasion of Judea by Sennacherib, pp.
285, 286. The narrative in 2 Kings xviii.— xx. ; Isaiah xxxvi.— xxxix.,
pp. 286—289. Survey of the contents, pp. 289—291. Genuineness of
the second address of Isaiah introduced into that narrative, pp. 291—
293. Inquiry as to the fulfilment of the promise given in that address,

xlviii CONTENTS.
and as to the trustworthiness of 2 Kings xix. 85, 36, pp. 293 — 297.
Conclusion with regard to, the origin of Isaiah's expectations, pp.
297, 298, not overthrown by Micah iv. 10, pp. 298, 299. — The
fulfilled prophecies of Jeremiah according to the enumeration and
arrangement of Tholuck, pp. 299 — 802. Objections against his
view : the oracles of Jeremiah were not committed to writing
immediately after having been delivered, but at a later period, pp. 303,
304 ; the death of Hananiah, Jer. xxviii., has no force as proof, pp.
304, 305 ; the prophecies regarding Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, pp. 305,
306 ; the expectation about the destruction of the kingdom of Judah,
pp. 306 — 308 ; spuriousness of the prophecy against Babylon in Jer. 1.,
li., pp. 308, 309 ; the prediction of the duration of the captivity, inter
pretation of its meaning, and inquiry as to the fulfilment, pp. 309 —
814 ; criticism of Dan. i. 1, and of the conclusion deduced from it, pp.
314,315; the moral influence of Jeremiah's prophecy, pp. 315, 316.
Different view of the Chronicle-writer, p. 316, and of the Deutero-
Isaiah, pp. 316—319. Conclusion with regard to Jeremiah's foreknow
ledge, pp. 319, 320. — Survey of Ezekiel's fulfilled predictions, pp. 320 —
824. They do not admit of being explained psychologically, p. 324, but
at the same time do not support supernaturalism, pp. 324, 325.
Criticism of the dates given in the headings of Ezekiel's prophecies, pp.
826, 327. The fulfilled predictions were not committed to writing till
after the realisation, pp. 327 — 329. Removal of objections against this
result, pp. 829, 330. Some remarks upon the fulfilment of the post
exilic prophecies, p. 331.

CHAPTER IX.,  pp. 332—364
THE PREDICTION OF THE FUTURE AND THE RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF THE
PROPHETS OF JAHVEH.

The unfavourable judgment of the Israelitish prophets, which, as is asserted,
results from their unfulfilled predictions, is in itself unworthy of accep
tance, and is moreover refuted by their further preaching, pp. 332, 333.
Preliminary observations on the conditional character of their pre
dictions, pp. 333, 334, in connection with the theory of Bertheau
founded upon that character, pp. 334 — 336, and on the alternation in
the anticipations of one and the same prophet, specifically of Jeremiah,
pp. 336—344. How, according to the prophets themselves, must their
predictions be judged ? p. 344. Their aim is the conversion of Israel ;
the prediction of the future is subordinate to that object, pp. 344 — 346.
This prediction is moreover dependent upon the ideas entertained by
the prophets regarding Jahveh's nature and attributes, pp. 346, 347.
Sketch of these ideas, in particular regarding Jahveh's righteousness,
evident in his dealings with nations and individuals, pp. 347 — 353.
Criticism of these ideas, first of those concerning true confidence in
Jahveh, pp. 353, 354 ; afterwards of the prophets' doctrine of retribu-

CONTENTS. xlix
tion: it is contradicted by experience, p. 354; it is Jn vain attempted
to maintain it, either by limiting the utterances of the prophets to
extraordinary dispensations of Jahveh, pp. 354—356, or by applying
them exclusively to Israel's fortunes, and the manner in which these
fortunes were ruled, pp. 356—359. If the doctrine of retribution held
by the prophets cannot be accepted, their expectation concerning the
future must also be incorrect, p. 359. In the dependence of this
expectation upon the ideas regarding Jahveh and his attributes is found
the interpretation both of the alternation which is observable in it, pp.
359, 360, and of the disagreement of the prophets with each other, pp.
360 — 362. Moreover, in those who held this view of the character and
aim of prediction, the presentation of it as the ' ' word of Jahveh," is in
all respects natural, pp. 362 — 364. The further development of these
thoughts reserved, p. 364.

CHAPTER X.,  pp. 365—385
THE PROPHETS AND PROPHECY IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT.
The necessity and the requirements of the investigation as to the prophets
and prophecy in the historical narratives of the Old Testament, p. 365.
Survey of the contents of these narratives, in which those concerning
Moses need not be included, pp. 365 — 367. Balaam, pp. 367, 868. The
prophets of the period of the Judges, pp. 368, 369. Samuel, p. 369.
David's contemporaries, pp. 369, 370. Ahijah the Shilonite, p. 370.
The two prophets in 1 Kings xiii., p. 370. Jehu, the son of
Hanani, pp. 370, 371. Elijah, Elisha, and their contemporaries,
pp. 371, 372. Jonah, son of Amittai, pp. 372, 373. Isaiah and
his successors, p. 373. The prophets in the second book of Chronicles,
pp. 378, 374. The impression which all these narratives leave,
pp. 374, 375. The accounts regarding Jahveh's revelations are
parallel with these narratives, and must therefore be now considered,
pp. 375, 376. The paradise-promise does not belong to them, pp. 376,
377 ; the blessing and curse of Noah do, pp. 377, 378. The promises
to the patriarchs, particularly Gen. xii. 2, 3, and the kindred passages,
pp. 378 — 380. The benedictions of Isaac and of Jacob, p. 380 ; Gen.
xlix. 10, pp. 380, 381. The Mosaic time as a fulfilment of the promises
to the patriarchs, p. 382. Revelations of Jahveh in the time of the
Judges, pp. 382, 383 ; to Solomon, p. 383 ; to Jehu, pp. 383, 384.
Conclusion : in the historical narratives of the Old Testament Jahveh
himself, whether represented by the prophets or not, appears as acting
and speaking, pp. 384, 385.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XL,  pp. 386-404
Continuation — DOUBTS REGARDING THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PRO
PHETS AND PROPHECY IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES OP THE OLD
TESTAMENT.
The inquiry as to the trustworthiness of the narratives included in chapter x.
is absolutely necessary, pp. 386, 387, but has its peculiar difficulties,
p. 387. Against these narratives may be urged, in the first place, their
later origin, pp. 387 — 390 ; in the second place, their mutual discre
pance, e.g., of the narratives regarding Balaam, pp. 390 — 392 ; regard
ing Samuel, pp. 392, 393 ; regarding Elijah and Elisha, pp. 393 — 396.
In the third place, in the addresses of the prophets contained in the
historical books, the hand of the authors of these books is not to be
mistaken, pp. 396 — 400. Moreover, the representation of the prophets
which the historical narratives give us, is in itself incredible, because
it is irreconcilable with the picture which the prophetical literature pre
sents to us, pp. 400 — 402. The discrepance cannot be explained chrono
logically, pp. 402 — 404. A choice must be made between the two
representations, as a matter of course in favour of the representation
given in the prophetical literature, p. 404.

CHAPTER XII.,  pp. 405—446
Continuation — the representation of the prophets and prophecy in
THE NARRATIVES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT HISTORICALLY EXPLAINED.
The result of the inquiry in chapter xi. cannot be accepted so long as no
explanation is given of the representation of the prophets in the histori
cal narratives of the Old Testament, pp. 405, 406. Furthur study of
these narratives is thus necessary, p. 406. The prophetical and the
priestly historical narratives in the Pentateuch, pp. 406 — 408. In
other books also of the Old Testament the one of these groups is found
alongside of the other, pp. 408 — 409. The earlier historical books or
"former prophets," pp. 409, 410. Whether these were written by
prophets remains doubtful, notwithstanding the testimony of the
Chronicle-writer adduced to show that they were, pp. 410 — 412 ; but
most certainly they are written in a prophetical spirit, p. 413, specifi
cally in the spirit of the Deuteronomic legislation, pp. 413, 414.
They are thereby distinguished from the books of Chronicles, pp.
414 — 416. The priestly narratives are the more recent, even in the
Pentateuch, pp. 416, 417. The prophetical narratives are partly older
than Deuteronomy, partly are written under the influence of that book,
pp. 417—419. The two kinds of narratives alternate with each other,
e.g., in the history of the life of Solomon, 1 Kings ii. — xi., pp. 419 — 423,
as they do elsewhere, e.g., in 1 Sam., pp. 423, 424. Traces of the

CONTENTS. li
participation of the schools of the prophets in the historiography,
pp. 424 — 426, and in still earlier times in the preservation of tradition,
and re-casting it in a poetical and religious mould, pp. 426, 427.
Collection of historical ballads composed in a religious spirit, pp.
427, 42S.
The preceding investigation shows, in the first place, that the prophets
acted as historians also for the benefit of their people, pp. 428, 429 ; in
the second place, that they made the history of Israel what it now is,
p. 429. The influence of the individuality of the historian on his
representation of the facts, pp. 429, 430, particularly in Israel, pp.
430, 431. This influence pointed out in the narratives of the Chronicle-
writer, pp. 431, 432; in the priestly narratives of the Pentateuch,
pp. 432, 433 ; in the Deuteronomic accounts, with which we can com
pare the earlier prophetical narratives, pp. 433 — 435. This same in
fluence must be supposed in the older prophetical narratives also,
pp. 435, 436. Conclusion : The representation given of prophets and
prophecy in the historical narratives of the Old Testament is a fruit of
Israelitish prophecy, p. 436. Illustration of this from the account of
the anointing of David by Samuel, pp. 437, 438 ; and from Judges x.
6 — 16, pp. 438, 439. In other narratives, also, the tradition can and
must be distinguished from the prophetical recasting, pp. 489, 440,
e.g., in what is communicated regarding Huldah's prophecy, p. 440 ;
regarding Isaiah's promises and threatenings to Hezekiah, p. 441 ;
regarding Nathan's promises about the house of David, pp. 441 — 443.
The origin of the historical narratives thus fully accounts for their
partly unhistorical character, pp. 443, 444. The result thus obtained
is applicable to those narratives also with which it cannot be brought
into connection here, pp. 444, 445, and fully justifies the preference
formerly given to the testimony of the prophetical literature, pp.
445,446.

CHAPTER XIII.,  pp. 447—496
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY.
A. — The Unhistorical Explanation.
An appeal is made to the New Testament against the results which have
been obtained, p. 447. Why this appeal must be considered by us,
pp. 447, 448. Reference is specifically made to the recognition of the
supernatural origin of prophecy by the New Testament writers, p. 448,
and to the fulfilment of prophecy in the person and work of Jesus,
p. 449. The importance of these objections depeuds upon the value
which is assigned to the exegesis of the New Testament writers, pp.
449, 450. The study of this exegesis is, moreover, indispensable in
order to establish our judgment regarding the traditional view of pro
phecy (pp. 2 — 5), p. 450. Further recommendation of this study, with

lii CONTENTS.
reference also to the passages of the New Testament which here come
under our notice, and to the use which is commonly made of these
passages, pp. 450 — 453.
The New Testament citations do not satisfy the requirements of grammati
cal and historical exegesis, and fail to do so in three respects, as shall
presently be shown by a number of instances, pp. 453, 454.
1. The citations are taken from the Greek translation of the Old Testament.
This is now universally acknowledged, pp. 454, 455, and frequently
results in the quotation being incorrect, p. 455. Examples : Heb. xii.
6 ; Matt. xv. 9, pp. 455, 456 ; Heb. i. 6 ; Gal. iii. 8, pp. 456, 457 ;
Heb. x. 5—7, p. 457 ; Acts xv. 16, 17, pp. 457, 458.
2. The citations are frequently very free, the deviations from the original
remarkable, pp. 458, 459. Examples : Rom. ix. 33 ; x. 11 ; 1 Pet. ii.
6, pp. 459, 460 ; Rom. x. 6—8, p. 460 ; Rom. xi. 2—4, pp. 460, 461 ;
Rom. xi. 26, 27, pp. 461, 462 ; 1 Cor. xiv. 21, pp. 462, 463 ; 2 Cor.
vi. 18, p. 463 ; Eph. iv. 8, pp. 463, 464. Other instances, p. 464, n. 2.
3. The passages of the Old Testament are often interpreted according to the
sound, ungrammatically and unhistorically, pp. 464, 465. Examples :
Heb. iii. 7— iv. 10, pp. 465—469 ; Heb. ii. 6—8, pp. 469, 470 ; Heb.
ii. 13, p. 470 ; i. 10—12, p. 470 ; 1 Cor. ix. 9, pp. 470, 471 ; Rom. x.
6—8, pp. 471, 472 ; Gal. iii. 16, pp. 472, 473 ; Matt. i. 22, 23, pp.
473—475 ; Matt. ii. 15, p. 475 ; Matt. ii. 17, 18, p. 476 ; Matt, xxvii.
9, 10, pp. 476 — 478. Second series of examples, taken from the use
made of the Psalms, p. 479. Two groups of Psalms which are applied
to the Messiah, p. 479. The quotations from the Psalms of the first
group, Ps. ii., pp. 480, 481 ; Ps. ex., p. 481 ; Ps. xlv., pp. 481—483.
The quotations from the Psalms of the second group, Ps. xvi., pp. 483,
484 : Ps. xxii., p. 484 ; Ps. xl., p. 484 ; Ps. xli., pp. 484, 485 ; Ps. lxix.,
p. 485 ; Ps. cix., pp. 485, 486 ; Ps. cxviii., p. 486.
Conclusion from the preceding demonstration, p. 487.
Consequences, 1st, with regard to the Messianic Psalms. What Psalms are
properly so named, pp. 487 — 489. The judgment which must thus be
formed regarding the regal psalms, p. 489, and regarding the Messianic
passion-psalms and the different theories proposed for justifying the
citations made from them in the New Testament, pp. 489 — 494. Result
regarding the Psalms and prophecy, p. 494. 2d, with regard to the
traditional view of the course of Messianic prophecy, pp. 494 — 496.

CHAPTER XIV.,  pp. 497—548.
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY.
B. — The Spiritual Fulfilment.
How far we have already advanced in the inquiry as to the fulfilment of the
prophecies in the person and the work of Jesus, pp. 497 — 499, and the
course which will now be further pursued, p. 499.
The relation of the New Testament to prophecy described. The national

CONTENTS. liii
and particularistic elements of prophecy retire into the background in
the New Testament, pp. 499 — 501 ; this is particularly the case with
Paul, pp. 502, 503 ; the materialistic side also of the promise is left
unnoticed, pp. 503, 504. On the other hand, attention is directed by
preference to the spiritual blessings promised through the prophets,
to the forgiveness of sins, pp. 504, 505 ; the outpouring of Jahveh's
spirit, pp. 505, 506 ; the intimate union of the believers with God, pp.
506, 507 ; personal immortality, pp. 507, 508. It follows from all this
that Chiiiasm finds no support in the New Testament, pp. 508, 509. —
Various types and representations of the Old Testament are in the New
Testament regarded as Messianic, and thus applied to Jesus, p. 510.
First of all, the announcement of a king from David's race, pp. 510 —
512, although many prophecies regarding him are passed over in silence,
and others are interpreted spiritually rather than literally, pp. 512 —
514. But other types are connected with that of the king, pp. 514,
515. The prophet is seen in Jesus. John the Baptist was also regarded
as a prophet, specifically as the second Elijah, and Is. xl. 3 — 5 was also
applied to him, pp. 515 — 519. But at the same time this title is
assigned to Jesus in accordance with Deut. xviii. 18, pp. 518, 519 ; as
also according to Is. Ixi. 1, 2, pp. 519, 520. The servant of Jahveh is
further recognised in him, pp. 520, 521. (Once all these types are
associated in one sentence of the New Testament, pp. 521, 522.) The
suffering servant of Jahveh also is brought into connection with Jesus,
pp. 522 — 525, as also the righteous sufferer in the Psalms, p. 525.
Influence of this use of the Old Testament on the development of the
ideas regarding the suffering and dying of the Christ, pp. 525 — 527,
and regarding the forgiveness of sins thereby procured, pp. 527 — 529.
— Finally, attention must yet be paid to the title, " the Son of Man,"
which probably was first employed by Jesus, p. 529, and the significa
tion of which does not admit of being determined with certainty,
p. 529. It is in all likelihood borrowed from Dan. vii., pp. 529 — 531.
But it does not thence follow that it may be viewed as denoting the
congregation of God, pp. 531, 532. Conjectures with regard to the
purpose with which Jesus employed it, pp. 532, 533.
The relation of the New Testament to prophecy explained. The Christian
religion is the completion of Israel's religion, p. 534. Jesus attaches
himself, not to the priests, nor to the legal tendency, but to the
prophets, pp. 534 — 537. This fact contains the explanation of which
we are in search, p. 537. Supernaturalism is not able to give it, pp.
537, 538. The progressive development of the expectations regarding
the future must also be acknowledged to be opposed to this theory,
pp. 538 — 540 ; this development at the same time governed the view
taken of the promises of the prophets, so that what could be called
"the second sense of Scripture" gradually arose, pp. 540, 541. This
prevailed among the contemporaries of Jesus, and was further developed
by him and the first preachers of the Gospel, pp. 541, 542. Something
similar — in other words, the allegorical interpretation of Scripture —
occurs on every occasion when a new form of religion is developed

liv CONTENTS.
from one already existing, pp. 542, 543. The interpretation of the
prophecies is thus an essential part of the task of Jesus and the Apostles
as preachers of religion, pp. 543, 544, and should never have been esti
mated from the point of view of scientific exegesis, pp. 544, 545. The
difference between the explanations and applications made by the
various writers of the New Testament, pp. 545, 546. The manner in
which Jesus uses the Old Testament Scripture is perfectly in harmony
with the place which he occupies far above his disciples, pp. 547, 548.

CHAPTER XV,  pp. 549-593.
THE PLACE OF ISRAELITISH PROPHECY IN THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF
MANKIND.
Specification of the purpose of this final survey, pp. 549, 550. Description
and estimation of prophecy in Deut. xviii., p. 550, wherewith utter
ances of the prophets themselves agree, pp. 550, 551. The opposition
between the prophet of Jahveh and the soothsayer was formerly less
absolute, pp. 551, 552. This is evident, 1st, from the use of the name
" seer," and from the manner in which the seer is described, pp,
552 — 554; 2d, from the name "nabi," which is most probably of
Canaanitish origin, pp. 554, 555. What representation we are in accord
ance with this to form of the origin of prophecy, pp. 555 — 558, and
in what relation the two elements (" seer" and " nabi ") stood to each
other, p. 558. The further development of prophecy a fruit of Jahvism.
According to the traditional view, under Jahvism must be understood
the whole of the Mosaic legislation which we now possess, p. 559.
Wherein, according to this view, the work of the prophets consisted,
pp. 559 — 561. Why this view must be rejected, pp. 561, 562. The
character of Jahvism at the time that prophecy arose, and the reforma
tion which the prophets effected therein, pp. 562, 563. The fuller
exposition of this is rendered difficult by the character of the historical
narratives of the Old Testament, yet not impossible, pp. 563, 564.
Sketch of Samuel's character and work, pp. 564, 565 ; the standpoint
of David's contemporaries, Nathan and Gad, pp. 565, 566 ; the reign of
Solomon, pp. 566, 567 ; Ahijah the Shilonite and his successors in the
kingdom of Ephraim ; their relation to the steer-worship, pp. 567—
570 ; purification of the Jahveh-idea in the ninth century B.C., pp. 570,
571. The rise of a prophetical literature, pp. 571 — 573. Retrospective
glance over the whole development, and preliminary estimation of it,
pp. 574, 575. The real judgment must, however, be still preceded by
a view of the prophets in their relation to the people as a whole, pp.
575, 576, and to the leaders of the people, the so-called false prophets,
pp. 576, 577. The latter more particularly described in the words of
Dr K. Kbhler, who represents them as the organs of the popular spirit,
and derives true prophecy from special revelation, pp. 577 — 579.
Wherein his view differs from the traditional one, and how it is justi-

CONTENTS. ly
fied in doing so, pp. 579, 580 ; in what respects it corresponds to, and
differs from, the reality, p. 580. Criticism of his judgment regarding
the " false prophets," p. 581. How these prophets must be really
regarded, pp. 582, 583, and what contrast must be substituted for that
of Dr K. Kbhler, pp. 583 — 685. Supernaturalism inadmissible in any
one of its forms, p. 585.
Estimation of prophecy. After re-asserting that the prophets must not be
judged by their expectations and the realisation thereof, pp. 585 — 587,
nor by the influence which they exercised on Israel's national develop
ment, pp. 587, 588, ethical monotheism is named as their contribution to
the spiritual growth of our race. Not only the nature of their struggle,
p. 589, but also its issue, gives them a claim to our reverence and grati
tude, pp. 590, 591. Prophecy is, in truth, a unique phenomenon ; its
permanent significance still for us also, pp. 591—593.

ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.

Page 4, note 6, add " Acts xvii. 28."
„ 13, line 19, add " the " before " mind."
„ 16, line 2, add " of the truth " after " proof."
,, 23, last line of text, for colon after " way," substitute comma.
„ 54, line 28, for " combatted," read " combated."
,, 59, note 4, for Jer. "xxvii., xxviii.," read "xxxvii., xxxviii."
„ 63, line 33, add " the " before " influence."
„ 65, line 5, add " The written discourses can be nothing else than a
recasting of what they had delivered orally."
„ 73, note 3, for " lxxxix.," read " xxxix."
„ 77, note 1, line 4, for " Mai. iv. 2," read " Mai. iv. 5."
„ 79, note 3,/or " Ezek. xxxviii.," read " xxxvii."
„ 83, note 7, after " Ezek. xxxiii.," add " 7."
„ 119, note 3,/or § 2 read § 9.
„ 142, at the end of note 2, add " Chap. v. 30 ; vi. 1."
„ 170, note 5,/or " 2 Kings xx. 14-17," read " 14-19."
„ 229, note 1,/or " Zech. vii.," read " Zech. viii."
„ 291, note 5, line 3,/or " hand," read " land."
,, 334, note 4, for " Israe," read " Israels."
„ 485, note 1,/or " Ps. xl." read " Ps. xli."
„ 486, note 2, for " 2 Pet.," read " 1 Pet."
„ 504, note 6, for " Is. lix. 26—" read "20—,"
„ 566, line 33, for " God," read " god."
„ 577, line 27, for "seer," read "steer."

CHAPTER I.
THE SEASONABLENESS OF A NEW INVESTIGATION CONCERNING
THE PROPHETS AND THE NATURE OF PROPHECY IN
ISRAEL.
Who were the prophets, what was prophecy in Israel ?
It does not seem unreasonable to expect that we should
receive one and the same answer to these questions, let us
address them to whom we may. We stand at a sufficient
distance from the prophets to be able to judge them impar
tially ; the writings which can put us in a position to form
such a judgment are in the hands of all. There thus seem
to be no insurmountable obstacles in the way of our forming
a conception of the work of the prophets which shall be, not
only incontestably just, but also universally accepted.
But still, even in our day, the ideas concerning Israelitish
prophecy are widely divergent, and the extreme views on
the subject are even directly opposed to each other. It is
true indeed that at present scarcely a single trace can be dis
covered of depreciation or misconstruction. The charges
which, more than a hundred years ago, were here and there
brought against the prophets of Israel, are all silenced. In high
estimation of their aim and their work all are agreed. But
on all other points what a difference of conception ! If it
were not that we heard everywhere the same names, we
should almost doubt if it was one and the same subject which
was described to us in its origin and development, its histori
cal significance and permaaent worth.
Let us first recall to mind the traditional view, and let us
recall it in that form in which it still continues to be held by
the great majority of Christians.
What need is there to remind the reader of that which
every one knows, that the prophets of Israel live still, in the
A

2 I.  SEASONABLENESS OF THE ENQUIRY.
grateful remembrance not only of their own people, but of
universal Christendom as well ? In all quarters their names
are mentioned with reverence and admiration. While an
acquaintance with the great men of classical antiquity remains
confined to the more highly educated, — Samuel and Elijah,
Isaiah and Jeremiah, are familiarly known in all circles of the
Christian community. A high rank is assigned to them, a
great and permanent importance attributed to their work, by
all without distinction. But we have now to do with the
grounds on which, according to the common view, this esti
mation rests ; and with regard to these grounds there can be
no room for the slightest doubt. The prophets are God's
ambassadors and interpreters, prophecy is the voice of God
himself. They arose indeed in Israel, and to Israel their
preaching was addressed, yet it concerned in truth the whole
of mankind, for it too was connected with the great plan of
redemption which comprehends all races, and is thus in
separably connected with Christianity. The Christians of the
present day, following in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul,
acknowledge of course that the Old and New Testament are
in more than one respect contrasted with each other. With
him they distinguish between the service of the letter and
the service of the spirit,1 and they maintain that justifica
tion by faith has taken the place of justification by the
works of the law.2 But this partial contrast does not,
according to their conviction, at all invalidate the essential
unity of the purpose of God for the redemption of mankind.
For just as Christianity brings it to pass that the requirement
of the law is fulfilled in them who walk not after the flesh
but after the spirit,3 so conversely the Gospel is not wanting
in the Old Testament. The way is there prepared for it —
nay, it is there actually present, viz., in prophecy and in the
prophets. The title which is given to one of them, Isaiah, as
author of chapters xl.-lxvi, of the prophecies attributed to him,
the title, namely, of the evangelist of the Old Testament, may
justly be claimed by them all. Already in Paradise, immedi
ately after the fall, the promise is announced by God himself.4
The manner of its fulfilment is afterwards defined with
ever-increasing clearness and fulness. Abraham receives the
1 2 Cor. iii. 6. 2 Gal. ii. 14, sq. » Rom. viii. 4. « Gen. iii. 15.

COMMON VIEW OF OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY. 3
assurance that in him and in his seed shall all the families of
the earth be blessed.1 This promise was kept in remembrance
by the patriarch himself and hy his descendants. Jacob has it
in view when in his dying moments he proclaims through the
spirit of prophecy that " the sceptre shall not depart from
Judah, nor the staff of the leader from between his feet until
Shiloh come." 2 In the Mosaic time also the thought of him
who should save Israel and bless mankind is revived. Balaam,
rapt in spirit, beholds " the star out of Jacob," and " the
sceptre out of Israel;"3 the lawgiver himself in his farewell
address makes mention of " a prophet like unto him," whom
Jahveh i would raise up from the midst of Israel, and to
whom the people ought to listen.5 Some centuries after, these
expectations begin to centre upon David and his family. It
was the Prophet Nathan who foretold to him that his throne
would endure for ever, and gave him an intimation of one of
his posterity to whom Jahveh would be a father, even as he
would be a son to Jahveh.6 When David composed some of
his psalms, he saw in spirit the glory, but, at the same time,
the sufferings which must precede the glory of that descend
ant ; or, according to others, they were mirrored by anticipa
tion in the vicissitudes of his own life, and in the poetical
description which he gave of these vicissitudes.7 So also the
hope of his appearing continued to be cherished among the
pious in Israel. It was again and again revived by the dis
asters which befell Israel, especially after the disruption of
Solomon's kingdom. But it was peculiarly the task of
the prophets to awaken this hope, and at the same time to
define it more exactly. The figure of the son of David was
delineated by them with outlines which grew gradually more
distinct, his great work of redemption was described with
more exactness. Thus the task of bearing witness to his
divine nature and vicarious sufferings was assigned to Isaiah; 8
1 Gen. xii. 3, and other places. 2 Gen. xlix. 10. 3 Num. xxiv. 17.
4 It is now almost universally acknowledged that Yahweh is the true
pronunciation of the proper name which the God of Israel bears in the
Old Testament. Jehovah is an impossible form, and has arisen through a
misunderstanding. We would very willingly have accepted the rendering
of it by " the Lord," or " the Eternal," were it not that such a rendering is
apt to lead to the mistaken notion that Jahveh is a title and not a proper name.
6 Deut. xviii. 15-18. 6 2 Sam. vii. 14. 7 Ps. xvi., xvii., lxix., ex., etc.
8 Is. ix. 6, 7 ; xi. 1-5 ; lii. 13 ; liii. 12.

4 I.  SEASONABLENESS OF THE ENQUIRY.
Micah announced his birth at Bethlehem ; 1 Hosea, his flight
to Egypt;2 while Messianic prophecy reached its highest
point in the prediction of the year of the birth of Christ by
Daniel.3 But after the Babylonish captivity also, this hope
constituted the main theme of the preaching of the prophets,
and received its last and completing expression from Malachi,
who foretold the signs of his appearing, especially the com
ing of the second Elijah.4
Such in its main features is the traditional conception of
Israelitish prophecy. It would indeed be a superfluous task
to illustrate its peculiar attractiveness and grandeur. The
appearance of the Christ, linked intimately with the preceding
ages — nay, with the beginning of the history of our race ;
Jahveh " revealing his secret counsel to his servants the
prophets;"5 the clouds which enveloped the great plan of
salvation gradually dispelled and succeeded by the clear light ;
— who cannot but be affected by the grandeur of this concep
tion ? We are not surprised that its supporters are ardently
devoted to it, and at first regard every other conceptioii of the
office of the prophets as high treason, and reject it with disdain.
Least of all can they feel themselves attracted by that far
different view which is announced as the historico-critical, also
as the organic. We need not here, at the outset, show in
detail how it contradicts the traditional view in many
particular points ; for its divergence with regard to the origin
and character of prophecy is of infinitely more importance
than this contradiction ; and on account of this divergence it
is wont to be branded as denial and unbelief. To express the
matter briefly, prophecy is, according to this new view, a
phenomenon, yea one of the most important and remarkable
phenomena, in the history of religion, but just on that
account a human phenomenon, proceeding from Israel,
directed to Israel. From God ? yes, undoubtedly, for " from
him are all things, and we in him," " in him we live, and
move, and have our being;"6 but not the less from man,
specifically from Israel, the highest utterance of the Israelitish
spirit. A testimony, therefore, not as out of heaven to us,
but a testimony to men's need, and to Israel's peculiar destina-
i Micah v. 1. 2 Hos, xi. 1. s rjan- jx. 24-27,
4 Mai. iii. 1 ; iv. 5, 6. 6 Amos ix. 7. 6 1 Cor. viii. 6.

RECENT VIEW OF PROPHECY: FRESH DISCUSSION NECESSARY. 5
tion, to " seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him,
and find him."1 A preparation for Christianity? Yes; but
in another sense than that which tradition means by these
words — no prediction of facts in the life of the Christ, but
a preparation of the soil, out of which Christianity was to
spring, the prelude to the new religious creation which man
kind owe to Jesus of Nazareth.
But it is unnecessary to pursue the contrast farther, we
have as yet to do only with the main point, which has already
been clearly indicated. We ask now, are matters to remain
in this position 1 Are the supporters of the two opposing
conceptions to leave each other in peace, and only to take
care that they each keep their own method of viewing
prophecy unsullied ? Or does the opposition, of which I have
just spoken, show the necessity of a new investigation con
cerning the prophets and prophecy in Israel ?
This question is not so strange as may perhaps at first sight
be imagined. It is true that so long as no unanimity has been
attained there appears to be a necessity for further investiga
tion. For surely difference of opinion is in itself a proof that
something is still wanting to the certainty of the resultsattained.
But this rule, stated thus generally, cannot be universally ap
plied. For there are disputed questions from a renewed discus
sion of which little or nothing is to be expected ; their decision
must be left to time. Does then the controversy concerning
the origin and character of Israelitish prophecy belong to this
class ? For my own part I have no hesitation in answering
in the negative. It is an historical problem. Every one
knows the sources which must be consulted for its solution.
Nay, it is closely connected with the deepest needs and the
most important interests of mankind ; and are we not all
agreed that these have nothing to fear from the truth ? And
can either the one side or the other afford to be unprepared
to seek after the truth ? Besides, are there not disadvantages
so unmistakeable involved in the strife of religious opinions
that every attempt to bring the controversy, on any particular
points, to a decision bears with it its own recommendation ?
It is desirable, however, not to treat such a question as this in
the abstract, but to keep in view the opinions themselves which
1 Acts xvii. 27.

6 I. — SEASONABLENESS OF THE ENQUIRY.
are opposed to each other, as well as their respective defenders.
The writer of this work does not require to say on which
side he is to be found. His sympathies for the historico-
critical or organic theory are well known. He will not,
therefore, be suspected of partiality when he deliberately de
clares that the supporters of that theory have still a debt to
discharge to the opposite supernatural school. It is true that
the former have clearly stated the arguments on which their
method of viewing prophecy rests ; but they have not yet
fully expressed their sentiments concerning the phenomena
which are adduced in favour of supernaturalism. There is
no lack of defences of supernaturalism ; it is the criticism of
supernaturalism itself and of the supports on which it
rests, that it is not yet completed, and for this very reason the
just claims of the newer conception of prophecy have not yet
been vindicated in such a way as it is desirable in its own
interest that they should be. Is it not perhaps in consequence
of this that some of its supporters do not maintain it in a
thorough and consistent manner, and in their description of
Israelitish prophecy introduce features which are borrowed
from the traditional theory, or at least, find tliere alone their
proper place ? Be this as it may, it is quite clear that it is
the duty of its representatives fully to establish its legiti
macy, if that be possible. They must not allow even the
appearance to attach to them of slighting their numerous and
powerful opponents, or of shrinking from the conflict on the
ground which the latter had selected. The more thoroughly
the advocates of the new theory discharge their duties, the
wider will the circle of its friends become. It is only after
every obstacle has been removed, that a just verdict can be
pronounced on the assertion made on its behalf, that it is
as grand and attractive, that it has as great significance and
value for the religious life of man as the traditional view
which it endeavours to set aside.
So much for the one party ; let us now ask if the duty
rests also on the other to pay attention to such a new investiga
tion ? Is the supernaturalist to listen to the argument of his
opponents, and to weigh the objections which they bring
against him ? Most undoubtedly. He who denies this, shows
by his denial that he is merely a stranger in Jerusalem. The

MODIFICATION IN THE ORTHODOX VIEW. 7
reconsideration of the orthodox view is a matter of urgent
necessity — there can be no difference of opinion on that point,
but only on the limits within which it is to take place. Or
we may say rather, that the dissolution of the traditional
theory is already in rapid progress. It is with it as with a
beleaguered fortress ; it has not yet been abandoned or formally
surrendered, but the enemy enters unopposed by more than
one breach, and some of its main bulwarks are either de
fended no longer, or defended very feebly. The history of
theology, during the last few years, speaks with no bated or
uncertain voice. The supporters of supernaturalism them
selves come forward as witnesses for the necessity of a refor
mation of their system.
As an assertion such as this requires to be corroborated by
the documents themselves, we invite the reader's attention to
what they teach us.
It is agreed at once on all sides that the traditional theory
of Israelitish prophecy is partial and incomplete. It is pro
perly a sub-division of a more comprehensive theory, which
has for a long time prevailed, both among Jews and Christians,
and even finds its expression in the form of speech commonly
employed to designate it. Prophecy is prediction, the office
of the prophet is to announce the secrets of the future. H.
Witsius (1636-1708), whom we may safely regard as the
representative of the moderate orthodoxy of his day, sees
the characteristic of the prophet in the fact that he " is
endowed with the knowledge of hidden things, whether of the
past, or also of the present ; but especially of hidden things of
the future." 1 If this definition were still universally sub
scribed to, then the view which regards the prophets as
witnesses respecting Christ and Christianity would rest at
least upon an undisputed foundation. But the very contrary
is the fact. It may even be asserted, without incurring the
charge of very great exaggeration, that the description of the
prophets which was formerly quite current, is now no longer
maintained by anyone. " That method of viewing prophecy,
which puts emphasis merely on its predictive side, is a very
inaccurate and contracted representation, and is rejected by
1 " Miscell. Sacr." Libri iv., torn. i. 7.

8 I.  SEASONABLENESS OF THE ENQUIRY.
the best writers on the subject, however much they may differ
on other points." x
We may give some farther quotations to show that this
assertion is not too strong. Professor Payne Smith recognises
prediction as an essential element of prophecy, but holds
at the same time that " it is possible, that the wonderful
series of absolute predictions respecting the person and offices
of the Saviour may have led in many minds to too complete
an identification of prophecy with the fore-telling of future
events."2 He warns us against the danger that " this too exclu
sive consideration of fulfilled prediction . . . makes us perhaps
put too much out of sight, the influence exerted by prophecy
upon the Jews> its preparation for Christ's spiritual teaching,
and the testimony it bears to many cardinal truths, both of
Christianity, and also of natural religion."3 Hence also he tells
us "it will be manifest that it (i.e., prophecy), is by no means
to be confounded with prediction. It was but a part of the
office of the prophets to foretell certain necessary facts, and
particulars with respect to Christ." 4 And still further, " the
prophet was one in whom God spoke. He was God's repre
sentative, whose business it was chiefly to speak, but often
also to act for God. And plainly this is something far wider
than the mere foretelling of future events." 5
Bishop Wilberforce expresses himself still more strongly.
" We shall have poor and unworthy conceptions concerning
the mighty office of the prophets of Jehovah, so long as we
confound them with the tribe of the mere predictors of the
future. Such a prescience was indeed often imparted to the
prophet to qualify him for his office. But (first), it was the
accident, not the essence of his office. ... If he did predict,
he did it to shake some ungodly heart with terror — or to
build up some faithful soul in hope." 6
Every one knows that the path trodden by these English
divines has been paved by the theologians of the Continent.
We need not therefore show by express quotations that, on
1 Eev. W. G. Elmslie in " The British and Foreign Evangelical Review,"
New Series. No. VI, April 1872, p. 327.
2 " Prophecy, a preparation for Christ " (the Bampton Lectures for 1869.
p. 44.
3 /. c, same page. 4 p. 33.
5 I. c, p. 41. 6 " Heroes of Hebrew History," p. 9.

EXEGETICAL OBJECTIONS TO THE COMMON VIEW. 9
this side of the channel, the necessity of this most important
modification of the common conception of prophecy is
universally recognised. But if this be the case, why pause
any longer in presence of this difficulty ? Since it is evident
that the difficulty is acknowledged as real, and that all are
quite ready to remove it, what is simpler than to complete
the common conception of prophecy, and, in consequence, to
understand prediction as a single department of the office of
the prophet ? Something would certainly be gained by this
step — but still not enough ; for against the recognition of
that one department, there are still some objections remaining
whose relative weight is again acknowledged by the
supernaturalists themselves.
First of all, the importance of some of the predictions which
collectively constitute the thread of prophecy rests on opin
ions concerning the antiquity of the books of the Old Testa
ment which have long been regarded by very many as
untenable, while the common explanation of a still greater
number is disputed in different quarters. The former of these
observations applies to such predictions as those ascribed to
Balaam and Daniel, the latter to the Messianic expectations
which are supposed to be discovered in Genesis, and to not
a few prophecies in the other books. It is quite true indeed
that these divergencies in the determination of dates and
these new interpretations are branded as the results and the
proofs of unbelief ; but this judgment has too much the
appearance of a subterfuge, to be regarded as having any
solid foundation. If the objections against the tradition
respecting the origin of the books, and against the traditional
explanation of the prophecies had nothing to rest upon, would
it not then be quite sufficient to show, once for all, that
such was the case, and thus put an end to all contradiction ?
But the opposite is the fact. None of the newer critics or
expositors consider themselves defeated by the supporters of the
earlier conception of prophecy. On the contrary, the ideas
of the " unbelievers " find acceptance more and more with
men whose sympathy for the old is beyond suspicion, and
who, on this very account, abandon the disputed territory
unwillingly, and only step by step. Every deviation from
the traditional view numbers some or even many adherents

10 I.  SEASONABLENESS OF THE ENQUIRY.
among those who are generally its ardent defenders. It is
true there are some of them who continue to maintain the
contest on all points ; but what wan-ant have we that their
perseverance is not to be regarded as obstinacy in the main
tenance of opinions which have become antiquated ? At any
rate, it is a very suspicious fact that the basis itself on which
the current theory of the prophets and their office rests is
evidently disputed ground.
To this we must add, in the second place, that the choice
of the stand-point on which the defenders of that current
theory have planted themselves is justly liable to doubt.
That position is, in a word, ihe stand-point of fulfilment.
The Christian, in the full possession of the salvation brought
to him by Christ, looks back on the ages which preceded
the appearance of Jesus, and now discovers everywhere
preparation, intimations, and promises of that which has
become his portion. Let us assume that in no single instance
is he deceived, and that the indications which he observes are
all, without destinction, intended just as he understands them.
But even in that case it is undeniable that he begins with a
supposition which is, at all events, somewhat arbitrary. The
conviction that the prophets were the heralds of Christianity
does not rest on an impartial comparison of their utterances
with history, but is a settled conviction with him beforehand.
In other words, that which could have real worth only as the
result of a calm and many-sided investigation, is first assumed
provisionally, and afterwards verified, it is true, but not in
such a way as to win our confidence. If it were, a priori,
certain that the prophets prepared and announced Christianity
to us, then assuredly we would be contented ; but if this a
priori certainty do not exist, then we cannot be satisfied.
Let it not be forgotten here that the standard which we are
in the habit of applying in estimating the prophets and their
work is not allowed in any other department of inquiry. The
universal rule which we follow in judging of things of the
past is, that we place them in the light of their ti/rne. That
is only fair and impartial. If the inquiry be afterwards made
as to what further significance these things possess at present,
and for ourselves at the, same time, why should not that
inquiry be freely permitted ? But to put this last foremost,

ORTHODOX ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS. 1 1
and to do it in such a manner that the principle of judging
things " d'apres la date," is altogether lost sight of, cannot
admit of any justification whatsoever.
The usual answer to these difficulties is well known.
When in the study of prophetical literature, we do our best
to put Christianity provisionally aside, and to place ourselves
on the stand-point of the original hearers or readers, then it
is said we wilfully shut out the light which would illuminate
us ; it is as if we preferred to remain in the dim twilight,
after the day has fully dawned. But a narrow and in
adequate conception of prophecy lies at the foundation of
reasoning such as this. He who connects it so closely with
the events to which it has relation overlooks a considerable
portion of its significance and value. The prophecy con
sidered in itself is one thing, its comparison with the —
real or supposed — fulfilment is another and different thing.
Is it the case that prophecy exists merely, or even mainly,
for the sake of the issue ? Is it properly intended to serve
as a standard for judging the event ? History forbids us to
ascribe this to it as its aim. For it teaches us, in a way that
cannot be gainsaid, that the belief is not ihe fruit of such a
comparison, but that on the contrary those who already enter
tained the belief have observed the connection between the
event and the prediction. If prophecy was designed to
awaken belief, then it has missed its aim, for the existence of
the belief has clearly been the indispensable condition of
the rise of the perception that the event was foretold. But
though the case were otherwise, still it could not be permitted
thus to link the prophecy and the result so firmly to
each other. Centuries had to elapse before the possibility
existed of comparing the former with the latter. Nay,
according to the common belief, a portion of prophecy still
awaits its fulfilment. Has it been a dead letter during all
that time ? Has it no value whatever for the contemporary,
or in general for the generations which have not lived to see
its accomplishment ? And, if it has, is not then the contem
plation of prophecy from the stand-point of fulfilment, in any
case, one-sided and incomplete 1
The supernaturalists themselves will hardly be able to deny
the justice of this objection. Dr Kueper, the author of a

1 2 I. — SEASONABLENESS OF THE ENQUIRY.
monograph on " The prophecy of the old Testament," which
may be regarded as the model of the modern orthodox views
on this subject, thus expresses himself: — "Apart from its
fufilment, prophecy possesses a significance and a worth for
purposes of warning and consolation, and since its fulfilment
depends on various circumstances which cannot now be un
folded, prophecy and its accomplishment must be more accu
rately distinguished than has generally been done. Even
according to more than one passage of the New Testamerrt
(1 Pet. i. 12 ; 1 Cor. x. 11), it is only when prophecy has
become fact that the object which the spirit of prophecy had
in view can be pointed out with certainty. While we have
before us the Old Testament prophecy as a whole, and view
it in the light of the New Testament fulfilment, we are
in a position  to observe its truth also in the
details which it beforehand proclaimed. The older theology
has, therefore, with great acuteness, endeavoured to show
clearly the accuracy of the prediction, aud even still such
attempts are not unfrequently made with a practical and
apologetic aim. But though this treatment of prophecy is
quite justifiable, yet it is clear that in many respects it no
longer meets the requirements of the present state of science.
Besides, from the nature of the case, it is one thing to regard
prophecy from the stand-point of fulfilment, and another to
accompany it on its onward march, and watch its develop
ment from the stand-point of history. And if it should
happen that many a detail thus contemplated presents itself
in another light, this only makes it more evident how won
derfully rich and varied is the matter of prophecy, and how
high its significance is for all times."1
The reader will doubtless agree with me that far more
results from that which is here granted as true and plain than
Dr Kueper himself is willing to deduce from it. But how
ever narrow the limits within which they are confined his
concessions involve already a thorough modification of the
traditional conception. The works of the conservative writers
1 " Das Prophetenthum des A. Bundes, iibersichtlich dargestellt." (Leipzig
1870), pp. 89, 90 ; compare p. 470. See also E. Riehm, " Zur Charakter-
istik der mess. Weissagung und ihres Verhaltnisses zu der Erfiillunff''
(Stud. u. Krit. 1865, p. 1 sq., 425 sq.; 1869, p. 209 sq.) ¦ especially the intro
duction, 1865, p. 9-13.

OPINIONS OF KUEPER, HOFMANN, DUESTERDIECK. 1 3
on the subject of prophecy present us with very much to
this effect. Without renouncing supernaturalism, but, on
the contrary, in order the better to maintain it, they try to
moderate or amend it, and they connect with it views which
evidently have nothing in common with genuine supernatural
ism, or even, according to our way of looking at things, are in
direct conflict with it. Thus, for example, in the most recent
times attention has been very eagerly fixed both on the inti
mate connection between prophecy and history, and on the
moral character of prophetic inspiration. The former is
done by Professor J. C. K. Hofmann of Erlangen, who brings
prophecy and the divine revelation given in the facts of his
tory into immediate connection with each other ; that which
history signifies, and that which it hides within itself, are
revealed and explained by the prophets as the interpreters of
God.1 The ethical side of Israelitish prophecy is illustrated
by many ; very expressly by F. Duesterdieck.2 He indicates
the points of contact with the divine revelation existing in
the moral nature of man and in mind of the believing
Israelite,1, as the. conditions on which the reception or as
similation of that revelation depends. According to him,
the prophet is by his natural qualities prepared beforehand
to understand the voice of God, he is influenced by the
circumstances of the times in which he lives, he is formed
by the reading and contemplation of the law and the writ
ings of his predecessors. These conditions and influences
are, in truth, of the highest importance, and, we need
scarcely say, are recognised by the defender of the organic
theory, are employed by him in his explanation of pro
phecy, and are taken into account in his estimation of it.
The opportunity of describing them more closely will therefore
be presented to us in natural course at a later stage. At present
we have only to note one fact, that they are recommended to our
consideration from that side, by the men who defend the super
natural origin of prophecy. Is not that circumstance in the
highest degree worthy of remark? In truth, it means no
thing less than a shifting of the centre of gravity of the
1 Weissagung und Erfiilling im Alten und im Neuen Testamente. Ein
theologischer Versuch." (Nordlingen, 1841-1844.) Compare also "Der
Schriftbeweis. Ein theologischer Versuch." (Nordlingen, 1852-1855.)
2 " De rei propheticae in V. T. quum universae turn Messianae natura
ethica. (Gbtt. 1852.)"

14 I.  SEASONABLENESS OF THE ENQUIRY.
conception. Just as, formerly, it was the divine factor in pro
phecy which was placed in the foreground, so now it is the
human which occupies that position. The theory of me
chanical inspiration — formerly regarded and prized as the
sure guarantee of the higher origin of prophecy — now gives
satisfaction no longer, or rather it is in process of being under
mined by its own acknowledged defenders ; it has in their esti
mation, become a phantom, from which they shrink in alarm.
Meanwhile this appears still much more plainly from
the position which many supernaturalists assume with regard
to the argument from prediction. There can be no doubt
that Dr Payne Smith expresses the opinion which was for
merly general when he states that " the bearers of the mes
sage (i.e. a message from God) must have some proof to give
that they really are God's messengers ; and no proof can be
sufficient except it be supernatural. The two supernatural
proofs offered in the Bible are miracle and prediction."1 Now
in accordance with this we would expect that the writers of
the same school would lay all stress on the supernatural cha
racter of the prediction. In proportion as.it is made more
evident that the knowledge of the prophets could not have
been obtained in the natural way, in the same proportion does
the proof of their divine mission gain in force. Nevertheless,
natural as this expectation seems, the facts do not correspond
with it. We find, on the contrary, that expositors, otherwise
orthodox, assign to prediction certain limits which they think
it cannot overpass. The famous theologian Nitzsch laid down
the rule that prediction must not disturb history,2 or in other
words, that it must not remove man's ignorance concerning
the issues of his actions, with which his responsibility stands
or falls. It seems very difficult to reconcile some predictions
in the Bible with this rule, such as, for instance, Samuel's
foretelling that David should be king in the room of Saul,3 and
Isaiah's that Hezekiah would recover from his illness and
live fifteen years longer.4 Yet in spite of this, the rule is
accepted by such men as Hengstenberg, Havernick, Caspari,
and Tholuck.5 Does not that suffice to show that the divines
1 L. c. pp. 42, 43. 2 " System der Christi. Lehre," sect. 35.
3 1 Sam. xvi. 1-13. 4 2 Kings xx. 6 ; Is. xxxviii. 5.
5 Tholuck, " Die Propheten und ihre Weissagungen" (2 Aufl. Gotha,
1867) p. 105.

ALTERED ATTITUDE OF ORTHODOXY TOWARDS PREDICTION. J 5
of the present day have a very lively perception of difficulties
which formerly were not felt at all ? It surely cannot have
been through mere caprice that they have abandoned, or at
least, in a remarkable degree, weakened one of the two main
proofs for the truth of the theory which they maintain.
But perhaps it may be imagined that the rule of Nitzsch
was a rash concession to the opponents of the supernatural
character of prophecy, and will be retracted as soon as it is
clear that the biblical predictions do not adapt themselves to
it ? By no means. The rule has been meant in all earnest
ness, and has also been applied by the great majority of those
who have approved of it. We give some examples to illustrate
this. While Jeroboam the son of Nebat is engaged in offering
sacrifices on the altar which had been erected by him at
Bethel, a prophet from Judah appears and foretells the
desecration of that altar by a descendant of David named
Josiah. So runs the narrative in the first book of Kings.1
Is this prediction, whose clearly supernatural character strikes
us at once, thankfully accepted and boldly used for the dis
comfiture of the " unbelievers ? " No, not at all. The
orthodox expositors think themselves on the contrary bound to
defend, or rather to excuse the announcement of such a
speciality as the proper name of a king who was not to reign
till 350 years afterwards. For this purpose Keil directs
attention to the meaning of the name Josiah, " Jahveh estab
lishes " or " supports," which seems to him to stand in close
connection with the act here attributed to this descendant of
David 2 — a connection which many readers will certainly be
unable to perceive. However, by this way of viewing it, the
prediction still continues to exist. On the other hand, Dr
Kueper maintains that 1 Kings xiii. was re-edited after
Josiah's reformation, and that advantage was taken of the
opportunity thus afforded to insert the proper name of the
king in the narrative.3
The position which the expositors of this school occupy
with regard to the book of Daniel is quite as remarkable.
1 Chap. xiii. 2.
2 " Bibl. Commentar iiber das A. Testament," von Keil und Delitzsch, ii.
3, p 151, f.
8 " Das Prophetenthum des A. Bundes," pp. 113, 446.

16 I.  SEASONABLENESS OF THE ENQUIRY.
Kueper recalls with gratification the fact that Calvin believed
he had in the prophecies of Daniel a proof of God's word of
greater strength than mathematicians possess for the correct
ness of their propositions ; and that, in the judgment of
Newton, the rejection of Daniel was the same as the under
mining ofthe Christian religion -,1 but this does not prevent
him from embracing a conception of Daniel's predictions, by
which that very characteristic is lost which Calvin and
Newton admired so much and prized so highly.' Following
for the most part in the track of Keil and Kranichfeld, he
repeatedly explains away those details in the predictions which
the earlier expositors deemed one of the main proofs of their
divine origin. He regards the details not as an exact
announcement of the events of the future, but as a symbolic
expression of general truths, as an " exemplification " of the
way in which the kingdom of God is developed on earth.
Thus, to take an instance, it is denied that the famous pro
phecy, Dan. ix. 24-27, declares precisely the year of the coming
ofthe Christ. "It must," Kueper writes, "be said with Cocceius
that it is not probable that God would make belief dependent
on chronology." " The fundamental idea of Daniel that Israel
must wait and be tried for a long time after the captivity, is
expressed and embodied as a settled divine decree in the
seventy weeks of years ; we cannot succeed in deducing
therefrom the events of the following centuries, and the year
in which they are to happen. Just as formerly the seventy
years of Jeremiah were somewhat general, so the seventy
weeks of years, or multiples of seven in Daniel, are still
more general, because they are intended to describe a space
of time centuries in length. Its course was also in details
dependent on conditions and circumstances which always,
according to prophecy itself, belonged to the domain of human
freedom ; as it is clear that the last week cannot be regarded as
strictly chronological, so it is also evident that the preceding
weeks of years cannot be judged by the standard of chrono
logy and history. Scripture prophecy has here also no
resemblance to heathen soothsaying which determines cen
turies beforehand the day and hour ; and, though it is true,
1 I. c. p. 397.

DANIEL S PROPHECIES EXPLAINED AWAY. 1 7
that, as a guide for the succeeding ages of the history of
Israel, it descends to particulars, yet the course of the events, and
especially the dawn ofthe Messianic period, remains shrouded
in darkness." 1 Such is the language of one who is not an
opponent but a defender of the prophecy of the Old Testa
ment. What a distance between his position and that of the
earlier orthodoxy !
Perhaps the difference is nowhere brought out more plainly
than in the interpretation and criticism of the eleventh
chapter of Daniel. The older expositors regarded that
chapter as the strongest proof for the divine origin of pro
phecy ; and, on their standpoint, they were fully justified
in so regarding it. Let it be remembered that, for instance
in verses 5-20, the most important events iu the history of the
kingdoms of the Lagidse and the Seleucidfe are communicated
to us, just as in verses 21 ff. we have a description of the
reign of Antiochus Epiphanes in which the minor details also
are not wanting. According to chap. x. 1, the whole of this
prophecy belongs to the third year of the Persian King
Cyrus (536 B.C.), and therefore all those events are announced
from two to nearly four centuries beforehand. Dr Kueper
acknowledges this, but, with undisguised regret. " While the
prediction of the four empires and of the seventy weeks of years
is already of a more special kind than elsewhere belongs
to prophecy, it assumes here (in Dan. xi.) such a special
character that it can be illustrated from the successive events
among the Persians and the Greeks, especially from the par
ticular details of the contest between the Seleucidse and the
Ptolemies. In this fact one of the main proofs has been dis
covered for the later, Maccabean origin of Daniel. It must
be granted that no portion of biblical prophecy bears such a
resemblance to anticipated history as this does ; but there
has, at the same time, been too great a tendency on the
part of the defenders of the genuineness of the book,
to lay stress upon the exact historical accomplishment of
particular points, and to see in that a proof of its truth."2
Kueper now attempts to show that the expectations which
we find expressed in the fifth and subsequent verses were
either not at all realised in, actual history, or at least not so
1 I. c, p. 376 ; compare also p. 364, etc. 2 I. c, p. 392.
B

18 I.  SEASONABLENESS OF THE ENQUIRY.
exactly as is generally supposed. In a word, in order to
maintain the prophecy, he deprives it of that very element
which constituted its value, in the opinion of a former genera
tion. In this way the positions of the combatants are
reversed. The most powerful weapon in the hand of former
apologists has its edge blunted, or is even kept out of
sight by their followers, from an apprehension that it
may be used with good effect against them. But Kueper
goes still farther. He is evidently afraid that the exegesis
of Keil and Kranichfeld will not fully accomplish its proper
purpose ; and so, at the close, he thinks it not impos
sible that criticism must be called on to give some help in
this matter. We quote his own words. " It is proved that
the book of Daniel was, at a later period, repeatedly recast.
From the prayer of the three men in the fiery furnace, from the
history of Susanna, and of Bel and the Dragon in Babylon, which
are incorporated in the Septuagint translation, it is clear that
additions had been already made before the revolt of the
Maccabees (?). The possibility must therefore be admitted
that the Hebrew text of Daniel also, and, in particular the
eleventh chapter, contains such additions. The genuineness
of the book, as a whole, specifically of the portions which
point with certainty to the time of the captivity, is quite
reconcilable with this admission. If it was only at a later
period that the book of Daniel was admitted into the Canon,
and if it had till that time been rather handed down in secret,
as may also be inferred from the repeated mention of the
sealing up of the prophecy, then such additions, composed, as
Oehler also supposes, for the purpose of comforting the com
munity in their sore oppressions, might find ready and general
acceptance. Nevertheless " — and here Kueper seems again
to shrink from the bold step which he was on the point of
taking — " nevertheless, if we take into consideration the
essential unity of the book, and other reasons drawn from the
Masoretic text, then we certainly believe that there is no
sufficient ground for this supposition, but rather that a care
ful exposition will be able still better than before to bring the
apparently (!) special nature ofthe prediction into harmony with
the characteristics which biblical prophecy elsewhere exhibits."1
1 I. c, p. 395.

OTHER SIGNS OF MODIFICATION IN THE TRADITIONAL VIEWS. 1 9
The grounds for this belief are not mentioned, but it is
certain it rests mainly on the conviction that the eleventh
chapter of Daniel presents a difficulty which must be removed
in the one way or the other. If exegesis does not succeed,
then criticism must come to the rescue ; one of the two is
bound to perform the work. Kueper . reverts to the subject
once more in the very last page of his book. He refers there
to a new commentary on Daniel, that of Zbckler, " in which "
— and it is the only thing that he has to tell us about that
book — "there is a defence of the opinion already mentioned
by us, with regard to the eleventh chapter of Daniel, that in
verses 5-39 some historical additions are introduced which
belong to the time of the Maccabees." J He might have men
tioned yet another predecessor, the chronologist Bosanquet,
who even ventures to separate the original prophecy from
the more recent supplements.2
Thus the point of the argument from prediction is broken
off. That argument may still pass current in. its old form
among the laity, but among theologians, even among those
whose orthodoxy is unimpeachable, it has, in so far as it is
not altogether discarded, acquired an entirely different position
and signification. The great shock which their confidence has
received is manifest still farther from the fact that they no
longer test the intrinsic value of their means of defence with
the necessary care, but eagerly grasp at everything which seems
to offer any support to them. Is that too strong an asser
tion, when we see that Tholuck, for instance, in determining
the limits of the prescience of the prophets, refers to the
presaging dreams and predictions in the writings of
Ennemoser, Passavant, and Horst,3 and that others adduce
magnetic clairvoyance as an analogy ? We need not pause
here to enquire whether men like Bunsen, men who recognise
no specific difference between the revelation which God has
made to Israel, ';and that which he has made to other nations,
are entitled to connect the visions of the prophets with
phenomena of the kind referred to ;4 but the supernaturalist,
1 See the " Nothwendige Berichtigungen," p. 540.
2 " Messiah the Prince, or the Inspiration of the Prophecies of Daniel"
(2d ed. London, 1869), p. 90, f. where chap. x. 1, 15— xi. 1 ; xi. 5-35
are noted as interpolations of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.
3 /_ c p_ 105, f. 4 " Gott in der Geschichte " I., 148-152.

20 I. — SEASONABLENESS OF THE ENQUIRY.
by appealing to them, actually denies that which he is
regarded as defending. If he still remained as firm in the
faith as his predecessors, he would assuredly guard against
bringing into the arena of conflict facts so dubious, and oft-
times so suspicious, for the purpose of upholding the extra
ordinary revelations of God.
But enough to justify my assertion, that the defenders of
the traditional view of the prophets and of prophecy in
Israel, have of all men the least right to object to a
re-examination of the documents in the case, as being, for
them, superfluous. In fact, a renewed investigation is
recognised by them as absolutely necessary ; and may there
fore be acknowledged as of universal interest.
There is need of a renewed investigation — undoubtedly !
But he who offers himself as the guide in it, has already
admitted that he has taken the side of one of the contending
parties — where then is his impartiality ? what is the value
of that inquiry of which the issue is determined before
hand ?
The sequel of my treatise must itself answer this objection.
It cannot be imputed to the writer as a fault, that his
investigation has led him to a definite conclusion, still less
that he is not afraid here, at the beginning, to express it
openly — fairness required even that he should not fail to
make such an avowal. Impartiality can go hand in hand
with a very decided conviction, just as, conversely, timidity
in drawing a conclusion, can be the concomitant of a method
which is anything but impartial. But let the reader him
self judge, whether the way along which I wish to guide him
be rightly chosen, and lead straight to the reality. The
question concerning the method is of sufficient importance to
require a separate chapter for its consideration.

CHAPTER II.
THE METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION CONCERNING THE
PROPHETS AND PROPHECY IN ISRAEL.
Most of the questions which occur with regard to the method
are exceedingly simple, and require merely to be stated with
exactness, in order to be answered without difficulty.
The reader can judge for himself if this essential condition
be here observed. He cannot apply the criterion too strictly ;
for the slightest error in the method often involves the most
fatal consequences. The neglect of a single distinction which
the nature of the subject requires, throws the door wide
open for all manner of false conclusions. The greatest possible
caution is therefore here a duty.
While I state, and, so far as necessary, justify, my own
conception of the method, I abstain from criticising the
divergent opinions of others. Not, certainly, because I regard
these as insignificant, or of subordinate importance. The
contrary is the fact. We need only open some of the most
recent studies on Israelitish prophecy, as, for instance, the
writings or treatises of Kueper, Payne Smith, Stanley
Leathes, and Valeton,1 in order to be at once convinced of
that fact. But to controvert directly the errors which I
think these scholars have committed, could not fail to lead
to great prolixity, and, at the end, would accomplish nothing
more than could be done by the simple positive exposition of
another and a better method. This method must be such as
to recommend itself to the reader, and, as it were, compel him to
follow the author on the road which he has chosen. If it does
not make this impression, then certainly the proof that others
have wandered from the right path, would be of little avail.
1 Kueper and Payne Smith, see pages 11 and 8 ; Rev. Prof. Stanley
Leathes, " The Witness of the Old Testament to Christ" (Boyle Lecture for
1868) ; Prof. Dr J. J. P. Valeton, " De Profetie in Israel" (Protestantsche
Bijdragen onder redactie van Dr D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, 1870, f.)

22 II.  METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION.
I state therefore what, in my opinion, results from the
nature of the subject itself.
It is an historical investigation for which we are prepar
ing. That involves in it that all dogmatic pre-suppositions
are set aside — that we continually consult the documents,
and allow ourselves to be guided exclusively by their well-
guaranteed testimonies.
It is therefore our first duty to understand accurately the
utterances of the Israelitish prophets, and the narratives
regarding them. In other words — we explain them accord
ing to the well-known and universally accepted rules of strict
grammatical interpretation. There does not exist one single
valid or even apparent reason for departing from the
exegesis which is pursued with the most satisfactory results
in all other cases.
We steadfastly adhere to this rule also in explaining those
texts of the Old Testament which the New Testament writers
quote, and apply in a particular sense. The assumption that
their interpretation is, in every case, the true one, and that it
necessitates a deviation from the result of the grammatical
investigation as often as the two come into collision, — this
assumption admits of no justification whatever.
It is, as we may see at once, opposed to the premises from
which we started ; because it can rest only on a definite
theory regarding the inspiration and the consequent infalli
bility ofthe writers of the New Testament. Those alone who
acknowledge this — and who, instead of limiting inspiration
and infallibility to the domain of religious truth, extend them
so far that they comprehend also the interpretation —
they alone have a right to assume that the New Testament
citation must be regarded as an authentic explanation of the
prophetical utterance. But that is, beyond all doubt, a dog
matic assumption. We protest against the Jewish exegete
when he follows blindly the Talmud and the Rabbis, against
ihe Roman Catholic theologian, when he bases his exposition
on the decrees of the Church, and the agreement of the
Fathers — how, therefore, unless we mete with two measures,
can we ourselves ascribe decisive authority to the New Testa
ment interpretation or application ?
But even they who think themselves obliged and entitled to

NEW TESTAMENT QUOTATIONS FROM THE PROPHETS. 23
adopt this principle, must approve of our allowing, in the first
instance at least, exegesis to have its free course, and of our
accepting, though it should be only provisionally, the results
which it presents. For it is not to be assumed a priori,
that the writers of the New Testament, when quoting the pro
phets, expressly intended to explain their words grammatically.
I am not alluding here to the possibility of those words
expressing two or more different meanings — to acknowledge
that such is the case is the same as giving up, or at least
evading, the grammatical interpretation, which ascribes more
than one meaning to the words in those cases alone, in which
the authors have designedly expressed themselves in a manner
admitting a double sense. There is something else which has
here to be remarked. There are two modes of employing the
words of a writing recognised as sacred — an historical and a
homiletic. Either it is my definite purpose to show clearly what
the writer himself has said and meant, or, without troubling my
self at all about that, I apply his words to objects and circum
stances which he never thought of, but which, in a greater or
less degree correspond with that which induced him to utter
or write down his words. The more familiar we are with the
sacred writings and the more vividly their utterances pre
sent themselves to our minds, the more manifold will be the
free or homiletic use of those writings. We sometimes avail
ourselves almost involuntarily of bible words to express
thoughts which, as we very well know, were altogether
strange to the scriptural writer whom we quote. Now it is
an ascertained fact, of which no person entertains any doubt
whatever, that the Apostles, "knowing the holy scriptures
from childhood," 1 again and again clothe their thoughts in
biblical language, use Old Testament parallels, and introduce
the prophets and psalmists as speakers in order to illustrate the
truth which they are announcing.2 It is not always easy to
point out where they use them in the latter way : and where,
1 2 Tim. iii. 15. , ,
2 " The way in which the Old Testament is quoted in the second chapter
of St Matthew makes it plain that they (i.e., the Apostles and Evangelists)
oftentimes applied it very much as we might apply some phrase or appro
priate words from Shakespeare or any other well-known author rather for
the sake of illustrating their own narrative than elucidating the original
text." Stanley Leathes, " The Witness of the Old Testament to Christ.
p. 29, sq.

24s II. — METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION.
on the other hand, they adduce their testimony by way of
proof. Much less is this the place to mark the boundaries
between those two classes of quotations — or to investigate
the rules by which we might be able to distinguish between
them.1 It is, at present, enough for us to know that besides
the historical, the homiletic use also of the prophecies occurs
in the books of the New Testament ; for it thence follows,
that we can never be, a priori, certain that we have in the
New Testament citation an explanation (in the proper
sense of that term) of the utterance of the prophet. We
must therefore always begin by consulting the Old Testament
text itself. Its historical sense is one of the elements which
we must take into consideration, in determining the character
and real purpose of the New Testament citation. If we
allowed the latter, at once, to pass for an authentic explana
tion, then we would incur the danger of getting on a wrong
track, and of recommending, on the authority of the apostles,
what they never in the least intended.
If it were our purpose to investigate this subject fully,
then we would have to add more than one particular to what
we have already stated. We would, in that case, especi
ally require to notice both the custom which the New Testa
ment writers have of using, in their citations, the Greek
version of the Old Testament, a version which is so often
inexact, nay altogether erroneous ; and, further, the undeni
able fact that they wrote principally for the use of their
Jewish contemporaries, and so were obliged, purposely or
undesignedly, to adapt themselves to the interpretation of the
Old Testament which was current among them, if they really
wished that their appeal to the Holy Scriptures received by
both parties should be recognised as well-founded. It is at
once obvious that an acknowledgment of these facts also is
inconsistent with our submitting to the authority of the New
Testament writers in the explanation of the utterances of the
prophets. But it seems unnecessary to dwell longer on this
subject. The independence for which we plead is, properly,
the direct consequence of the considerations from which we
1 The reader will find some particulars on this subject in Chapters xiii. and
xiv., where also the use made of the Greek translation of the Old Testa
ment will be treated.

INDEPENDENT INTERPRETATION OF THE PROPHECIES. 25
started iu the first chapter. It there appeared clearly to us
that, in order to understand and estimate the prophets and
prophecy aright, we must not plant ourselves on the stand
point of fulfilment. But that is the very thing which is
done, or at least is meant to be done, by those who reverence
and unhesitatingly follow the New Testament as a rule in ex
plaining the predictions of the prophets. Even though that
rule were infallible, yet they who rigidly adhere to it would be
liable to a charge of one-sidedness, and must obtain incomplete
results. If the apostolic interpretation be correct, then it
will certainly justify itself when we compare it afterwards
with its object. If we are in earnest in our desire to pre
judge nothing, then in no case can we, at the beginning of
our investigation, assume as proved that which can be evident
only as its result.
We therefore consult the books of the Old Testament, and
these alone. How highly soever both the New Testament and
the later Jewish writings may be esteemed as aids, they do not
belong to the sources.
But it is absolutely necessary that we should take a closer
view of the Old Testament sources of information regarding
the prophets and prophecy, and endeavour to determine their
relative value more accurately ; for they do not all stand on
the same footing, they do not all possess the same degree of
certainty. There are even distinctions of the very highest
importance to be made here, which may exercise a decisive
influence on the farther course of our investigation.
What materials does the Old Testament afford us for cha
racterising the work of the prophets and the nature of prophecy
in Israel? They may be conveniently arranged in three
groups or classes, the boundaries of which can be marked out
naturally. We find, namely, in the Old Testament,
1st. Writings of prophets.
2d. Historical accounts regarding what the prophets have
done and spoken.
3d. Words of God addressed to historical personages, and
incorporated in the narratives concerning them.
In regard to each of these groups we must here make such
remarks as are required, in order to enable us to form a well-
founded judgment on its value.

26 II.  METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION.
1st. We mentioned the prophetical literature in the first
place. Every one knows what is meant by that term. The
Hebrew Old Testament consists of three portions — the Law,
the Prophets, and the Writings. It is " The Prophets" which
are to be considered here, but yet not all the books which
were received into that second portion of the Jewish Canon.
For it contained both the older historical books (Joshua,
Judges, Samuel and Kings), indicated by the common appella
tion of Prophetes priores, and the prophetical writings pro
perly so called (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve
minor prophets, forming together one collection), usually
called the Prophetce posteriores. These latter constitute the
prophetical literature in the stricter signification, and are here
placed in our first group. I do not mean by this to assert
that the historical books are unjustly ascribed to prophets,
and have no right to bear the name under which they
appear in the Old Testament ; on the contrary, we shall by
and by see clearly that this tradition about their origin is, in
its main points, at least, fully confirmed by their contents,
but it is only in the Prophetce posteriores that the prophets
come before us in their character as prophets. What they
have been — not as historians — but as prophets, we must ascer
tain from the books in which their prophetical preaching is
communicated to us by themselves.
But do we not find such books also beyond the second
portion of the Jewish Canon ? In the translations of the Old
Testament, the book of Daniel has been transferred from the
third to the second portion — not without reason, inasmuch
as that writing, speaking generally, bears the same character
that we just now observed in the writings of Isaiah, Jere
miah, etc. We can, therefore, at least provisionally, admit
also the book of Daniel into our first group. But some of the
Psalms have an equal claim to be placed in that class. As
a rule, there is a plain and obvious distinction between the
Psalm and the prophetical address. The outburst of pious
feeling in a song of praise or lamentation is a different thing
from the discourse intended to admonish or arouse, which the
prophet delivered in the hearing of the people or committed
to writing. But just as the prophet sometimes assumes the
part of the psalmist, so does the poet occasionally come for-

AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PROPHECIES. 27
ward in a character almost prophetical, when, for instance, he
admonishes, or casts a glance into the future, and more or
less copiously and expressly gives utterance to his expecta
tions regarding it. Such prophetical psalms, or verses of
psalms, may thus have a claim to be regarded as belonging to
the prophetical literature. They are, however, of very small
extent, when compared with the prophetical books themselves,
and, besides, are less original. They naturally, therefore,
occupy a subordinate position.
With regard to the documents which belong to this first
class, there arise now different and sometimes very intricate
questions, all of them subdivisions of this one main question :
viz., From whom have they proceeded, and to what period do
they belong? That is the point which we have first of all
to investigate, and to investigate not merely with regard to
each book as a whole, but also with reference to the separate
prophecies, nay, even verses and words, which now compose
such a book. Suppose that we have succeeded in attaining
to certainty regarding the author and the age of the par
ticular prophecy, then it becomes for us an authentic source
regarding the object of our investigation. In such a case,
its testimony is unimpeachable, so far as it goes. The highest
point that we can aim at, in a historical investigation, is then
reached, we hear the prophet himself express his ideas, and
we accept, of course, unhesitatingly and unreservedly the
testimony which he thus delivers concerning himself.
But the condition on which that gratifying prospect was
made dependent appears again to render it illusory. Whence
are we to obtain that requisite antecedent certainty with
regard to the author and the age of the several prophecies ?
It is the task of historical criticism to give us it, if possible.
This is not the place for entering upon a full description of
its method, but I cannot omit noticing one single disputed
point. It is agreed that the critic, in his investigation
regarding the origin of the documents, must consult alike
the tradition about their descent, and the contents and the
form, of the pieces themselves. We may express the matter
thus — he neglects the external as little as the internal
criticism. But in what relation does the former stand to
the latter ? This question when put so generally, hardly

28 II. — METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION.
admits of an answer ; for the historical accounts of the origin
of the documents are of very different intrinsic value, and the
force of the argument from the form and contents of the com
positions themselves is sometimes quite satisfactory, at other
times, again, is worth very little. A testimony from the imme
diate circle of the author of a document is invaluable; the guess
of one who is at a great distance from that author signifies
little or nothing. One single unmistakeable allusion to a
well-known historical fact can at once put an end to all
uncertainty concerning the age of a writing; while conversely,
amongst many circumstances mentioned, sometimes not one
is found which admits of only one interpretation, and so leads
to a definite conclusion. It is only after the most careful con
sideration of the absolute and relative value both of the
external and the internal evidences which have to be regarded
in any particular case, that their mutual relation admits of
being settled, and the preponderance assigned to the one or
the other.
So long as we treat the question proposed in the abstract,
we cannot get, farther than this general rule ; but when we
limit it to the prophetical books of the Old Testament, we
need not any longer express ourselves in such an indefinite
manner. The only historical testimonies which we possess
with regard to the origin of these books are contained in the
titles, which are placed either at the head of a single prophecy
or of a collection of prophecies. They are, as is well known,
more or less full, and also very different as regards their con
tents.1 But whatever their contents may be, the first ques
tion is always this — from whom and in what time did
they originate ? The value which we must ascribe to them
necessarily depends on the answers given to that question.
These answers are of very different import. Yet if the grounds
on which they rest are narrowly regarded, we soon see that
1 Some titles contain nothing more than the name of the prophet (Obad.
v. 1 ; Hab. i. 1, iii. 1 ; Mai. i. 1) ; others contain besides the name of his father
or even of his birth-place (Joel i. 1 ; Nahum i. 1) ; others again mention
dates, and that in a very different manner (Is. i. 1 ; Jer. i. 1-3 ; Ezek. i. 1, sq.,
&c). Many books have merely one title, at the beginning ; but frequently
the separate prophecies are provided either with dates (Jer., Ezek. passim)
or only with headings (Is. ii. 1, xiii. 1, &c). The indication of the object
or the contents of the prophecy is also very common (Is. ii. 1, xiii. 1, xv. 1,
&c, &c).

AGE OF THE TITLES TO THE PROPHECIES. 29
with regard to that point we are wandering in the dark.
The only thing that is certain, altogether certain, is that the
titles constitute an integral part of the prophetical writino-s,
in their collected form, as we now possess them. If they
were of a more recent date than the formation of that collec
tion, if they had been added to it only at a .later period,
they would either have been wanting in the Greek version of
the prophets or would have been there of a different purport.
But if we except Jeremiah, whose oracles are arranged quite
differently in the translation and in the original, and leave out
of consideration the minor variations which everywhere ap
pear, then the titles are the same in both. We must, there
fore, assume that they go back to the time of the collectors
of that portion of the Old Testament. Everything beyond
this — every exacter determination either of their age or of
their author — is incapable of proof; it is a conjecture which
may be more or less probable, but still a mere conjecture.
If any impartial man will deliberately weigh the grounds on
which these exacter determinations are urged, he will be con
vinced of the truth of this assertion. But it follows thence,
at once, that the so-called internal criticism takes precedency
as regards the prophetical books. It decides also concerning
the value, and consequently concerning the probable age, of
the tradition (or of the conjecture?) which we find in the
titles. If any one asserts that this tradition has come down
from the immediate circle of the prophet, or that the title has
been placed by the prophet himself at the head of the single
oracle or collection of oracles ; if, in order to recommend that
opinion, he appeals to analogy, perhaps also to other argu
ments, we shall — that is, if his demonstration has any force —
be happy to agree with him, when the prophecy (or the col
lection of prophecies) itself puts no difficulty in the way of
our doing so ; but if such a difficulty present itself, how can
we ascribe decisive weight to such considerations?
It may perhaps seem strange that we have set forth so
fully a truth so elementary ; but it is only the uninitiated
who will be astonished at this. For it is manifest that many
attribute to the titles of the prophecies, or of the prophetical
books, a value which is out of all proportion to anything
which is actually established concerning their origin. The

30 II.  METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION.
criticism which does not follow them unconditionally is stig
matized as " negative" and " hypothetical." Those who use
this language begin by presupposing the correctness of the
titles, or rather they assume it as already proved. The greatest
improbabilities even are occasionally accepted, in order to
maintain their credibility. The writers referred to at the same
time boast that they start from the facts, and thus are build
ing on a firm foundation. As if the authenticity or the
high antiquity, and, as a consequence of that, the correctness
of the title were not as much an hypothesis as the contrary
supposition! As if the words — "Oracle concerning Babylon
which Isaiah the son of Amos saw" (Is. xiii. 1) were any
thing more than a statement regarding the fact which we are
engaged in investigating ! I select this example purposely,
because it is but lately that, on account of that statement,
the prophecy to which it refers has been put, as it were, on
the rack. It is evident, one would think, that Babylon means
here the capital city of the Babylonish or Chaldaean empire,
and that the whole oracle has reference to its imminent over
throw and to the humiliation of the Chaldaean king.1 In like
manner, it seems almost unmistakeable that Is. xiv. 24-27,
being directed against Assyria, does not cohere with what
precedes, and that thus the "oracle against .Babylon " does
not reach farther than chap. xiv. 23. The supposition that
Babylon — in the title and in the oracle itself — is named as
the second city of the Assyrian kingdom, and as one of the
residences of the Assyrian king ; that the prophecy is directed
against Assyria, and extends from chap. xiii. 2, to chap. xiv.
27, is in direct conflict with the evidence. Nevertheless it is
hotly defended, because it makes it possible to ascribe the
oracle to the contemporary of Hezekiah, and thus to give
the title its due, as the expression is.2 The illusion in
which the defender of this opinion lives and moves appears
clearly in the course of his argument. " We know," he
writes, " that even in this case of the plays of Shakespeare, in
our own living language, and little more than two hundred
years old, we are guided far more by a W.S. on the title-page,
1 If even the whole prophecy were not perfectly unambiguous, still
Is. xiii. 19, would at once remove all uncertainty.
2 " Jewish History and Politics in the time of Sargon and Sennacherib."
By Sir E. Strachey, Bart. (2d Edit. 1874), p. 154, f.

NOTICES OF PROPHETS IN THE HISTORICAL BOOKS. 31
and by other external helps, than by any internal criticism,
in deciding on the genuineness ofthe text."1 As if, forsooth,
Is. xiii. 1, which may have been written just as well in the
fifth or fourth as in the eighth century B.C., could be men
tioned in the same breath with " the old title-page."
But enough about this question, the fuller treatment of
which would be here out of place. The reason will gradually
become more evident why I could not pass it by altogether
in silence. There is hardly any more fatal error in the
domain of historical criticism than the misconception against
which I have thought it incumbent on me to warn the reader.
The phenomena on which internal criticism builds its con
clusions, are, not always indeed, but still frequently, of such
a nature, that their reality cannot be subject to any doubt. We
should in many cases be at once agreed on their demonstrative
force, if the asserted " fact " did not intervene, as a disturb
ing element. It must, therefore, from the very first be
clearly shown, or rather indicated, for the matter speaks for
itself, how little right it has to bear that name.
If these observations on historical criticism and its possible
aberrations should have awakened the fear lest the condition
on which the fruitful use of the prophecies depends should not
at times be fully satisfied, that of course detracts nothing
from the value which the prophetical literature possesses
as a testimony at first hand. It cannot therefore be a
matter of surprise that we have assigned to it the highest
rank. The nature of the difference between it and the other
two groups of testimonies may already in some measure be
inferred from what precedes, but requires still to be expressly
shown. 2d. The narratives in the Old Testament concerning what
the prophets did and said are very numerous and sometimes
very copious. It is sufficient to refer here to the history of
Samuel in the first of the books called after him, to that of
Elijah and Elisha in first and second Kings, to so many pro
phetical addresses communicated to us in these and in other
historical books. If we were quite certain that the authors
of these books accurately reproduced the sayings and doings
of the prophets of whom they narrate, we should in that case
1 L. c, p. 175.

32 II.  METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION.
scarcely, or not at all, require to distinguish their communi
cations from the proper prophetical literature. For it is of
course pretty much a matter of indifference to us, whether the
prophet's address be recorded by the prophet himself, or be
recorded by another, but with literal accuracy. But
we do not possess this certainty. The authors of the
historical books of the Old Testament were no eye-and-
ear witnesses of the events which they relate to us.. Their
narratives extend over periods of very long duration, those of
the writer of Kings over more than four centuries. In the
most favourable case, it is only the very latest of their com
munications that rest on what they themselves had experienced
and witnessed. For all that preceded they must have de
pended either on the written accounts of others, or on oral
tradition. Those predecessors undoubtedly stood nearer to
the facts than they did, but — how near? That they were
eye-and-ear witnesses is not only incapable of proof, but also
improbable, nay more than that even, as shall be clear to us
afterwards.1 In the end, therefore, the narratives of the his
torical books, even those taken over from other quarters, rest on
oral tradition. The discourses of the prophets, too, which the
authors weave into their narratives must have been borrowed
from that source. Was that tradition in every respect trust
worthy ? Had it in the course of time undergone no altera
tion of any kind ? Was it reproduced by the writers just as
they had received it ? or was it not perhaps modified more or
less under the influence of their personal convictions ? We
have here questions which are not airy creations of the brain,
difficulties which we do not invent out of mere caprice, but
which we meet with on our path, and which we must re
move before we can with confidence make use of the state
ments of the historical writers. And still I have not said all.
We took it just now for granted that the narrator had the
benefit of a tradition, but it is not certain that he was always
so fortunate. It is also conceivable that the recollection of what
the prophet had spoken on this or that occasion had died
away, after a shorter or longer time. It is even far from im
probable that this occurred frequently: the address of the
prophet was according to the narrative itself, sometimes
1 See Chaps, x.-xii., below.

UNCERTAINTY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT NARRATIVES. 33
directed to a few, or only to a single auditor.1 Beyond all
doubt the narrator might in such cases have preserved silence;
nobody obliged him to communicate what he did not know.
But it was very natural that he should attempt to fill up' the
hiatus which occurred in the tradition, if some other before
him had not already endeavoured to do so. For more than
one reason it might seem to him desirable, nay absolutely
necessary, to communicate something more than the bare fact
that the prophet had raised his voice. It is universally
acknowledged that the ancient historians used great freedom
in this matter : the speeches which Herodotus, Thucydides,
and Livy put into the mouths of their heroes are the pro
ductions of those authors themselves, being fabricated with
more or less talent, in accordance with the character of the
persons speaking and the circumstances of the time. Though
it be left in the meanwhile altogether undetermined, whether
or not the historians of Israel proceeded in this way, yet there
is the possibility of their having done so. That is the only
thing to which I wished just now to point. More than that
is not necessary in order to dispose us to use caution while
consulting their testimony. Before it can be thought worthy of
being placed on an equality with the written notes of the pro
phets themselves about their preaching, the proof — let it be
well observed — the proof, I say, must be furnished, that it
has undergone no deterioration under the disturbing influence
to which it was exposed.
3d. Very much the same thing is true of the narratives of
the historians concerning the divine revelations made to
historical personages. In the accounts found in Genesis,
Jahveh speaks to Abraham and the rest of the patriarchs,
either to give them his commands, or to disclose to them the
future. In the books also which treat of the history of the
succeeding ages, we meet with similar promises and threaten
ing^. Jahveh reveals himself on several occasions to Solo-
mon.2 When Jehu has executed the judgment on Ahab's house,
Jahveh saith to him, " Because thou hast done well in execut
ing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the
house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy
1 See, for example, 2 Sam. xxiv. 11-14 ; 1 Kings xi. 29-39.
2 1 Kings iii. 5-14; vi. 11-13; ix. 2-9.
C

34 II.  METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION.
children to the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of
Israel." 1 The great similarity between such utterances and
those which we receive from the mouth of the prophets, is at
once apparent. If we could be sure that the patriarchs,
Solomon, Jehu, and so many others, had heard those words
of God, just as the historian delivers them to us, then they
stand on exactly the same footing as the revelations in which
the prophets gloried. "If we could be sure;" but is there then
the very slightest ground for entertaining any doubt on that
point ? Does it not betray an excessive scepticism if we desire
any other proof of the reality of such divine promises or
threatenings than the testimony of the historian ? These
questions are not unnatural. The ordinary reader of the
Bible can suppose, if necessary, that the narrators have acted
with a certain degree of freedom in reporting the words of
historical personages : — what obligation had they, for example,
to reproduce word for word a conversation between Jacob
and Laban ? 2 He thinks it, however, much less probable
that they followed the same method, even with regard to the
addresses of the prophets ; and it seems to him almost incon
ceivable that they should have allowed themselves to intro
duce Jahveh himself as the speaker, without being quite cer
tain of their facts : — such a fabricated word of God is surely
nothing short of impiety ! This conception, I repeat, is not
unnatural, but yet it is not just. We ought much rather to
reflect that such like fictions even now are very far from
being uncommon, and, in no way whatever, do they redound
to the prejudice of those who employ them. How often even
yet in our own day also does the preacher introduce God
as the speaker, and make him proclaim his will, declare his
promises, and threaten with his wrath. This manner of
expression may, no doubt, be nothing more than a mere form
of phraseology, in which case it deserves the sternest reproba
tion ; but in the case of many, it bears witness to a firm and
immovable faith, and is accompanied by deep reverence for
him in whose name they make bold to speak. We do not
therefore think of blaming them for the liberty which they
allow themselves, but as little do we implicitly accept their
statements as being the very word of God. Their subjective
» 2 Kings x. 30. 2 Gen. xxxi. 26, sq.

WORDS ASCRIBED TO JAHVEH IN THE HISTORICAL BOOKS. 35
conception of that word, to which we willingly pay all
respect, has no binding authority for us. The application of
this analogous case to the passages of the Old Testament,
which we are now treating, seems obvious. Or is it perhaps
thought to be too venturesome to attribute such a mode of
speech to the ancient Israelites ? That objection can be
removed without the least difficulty. It is historically certain
that the Semitic nations in general, without any scruple,
bring on the scene the deitj^ himself, and speak of his disposi
tions, motives, and determinations, with a simplicity and a
freedom which often fill us with amazement. This fact does
not require to be illustrated by any examples so far as regards
the Musulmans. If, while granting it in their case, it should
be maintained that it is not allowable to apply their manner
of speaking and thinking to explain the phenomena which
appear in the Old Testament, since that peculiarity of theirs
may have been the result of the direct or indirect influence
of the Old Testament itself, I then appeal to a witness of an
older date. Mesha, king of Moab, the contemporary of Ahab
and his successors, gives an account of his deeds in the inscrip
tion on the lately discovered memorial stone. He there, again
and again, makes mention of Chemosh, the god of the Moab-
ites, as if it could not for a moment be doubted that he
possessed full competence to speak in the name of that
deity. It is Chemosh who has delivered him out of the
hand of all his enemies, Chemosh who was angry against
Moab and his land, Chemosh who, in his (Mesha's) days,
said, " I will have regard to him and his house, and Israel
goeth to destruction," Chemosh who gave to him (Mesha) the
command, "Go hence and make thyself master of Nebo."1 It
is as if we heard an Israelite speak, except that he would
have spoken, not of Chemosh, but of Jahveh. Whatever
happens, in nature and in history, is Jahveh's doing; whatever
may be deduced therefrom, by legitimate inference, is Jahveh's
word or command. We give a single instance by way of
illustration. Saul lays himself down to sleep in the cave in
which David and his men have sought refuge. One of the
band is ready at once with the explanation of that fact —
1 See the well-known monographs on the Moabite stone by Clermont
Ganneau, Noldeke, Schlottmann, and others.

36 II. — METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION.
" Behold the day," so says he to David, " of which Jahveh
said unto thee, Behold I deliver thine enemy into thine hand,
that thou mayest do unto him as it shall seem good in thine
eyes." x If the Israelitish historians looked at the events of
the past in the same way, they could scarcely fail at times to
introduce Jahveh himself as the speaker. On the stand
point which they occupied, that is in no way too great a
freedom, but the simple expression of a conviction, the justice
of which they never for a moment doubt. Nevertheless my
meaning would be altogether misunderstood if it were thought
that I hereby wished, as by one blow, to set aside the state
ments regarding Jahveh's promises and threatenings which we
meet with in the Old Testament. It was my sole object to
point out that they are capable also of being understood
otherwise than as the simple expression of the historical
reality. That simple possibility is sufficient to prevent us
placing complete confidence in statements of that character.
Apart even from the dangers to which the tradition concerning
Jahveh's revelations was exposed, like every other, we miss
the certainty that Jahveh's word possesses that objectivity
with which it is arrayed in the historical narrative ; perhaps
it is nothing more than the expression of the historian's view
— a view deserving of the highest respect, but still subjective.
This doubt must, if possible, be removed before we can use
the testimonies of the third class for the purposes of our
investigation. The inference lies before us. It would be dreadfully rash,
and altogether premature, to seek already to decide the
various questions which arise with regard to the narratives
about the prophets, and about Jahveh's revelations. But for
the very reason that they must in the meanwhile remain
unanswered, they make the greatest possible caution our
duty. If we do not wish to peril the accuracy of the results
of our investigation, from the very beginning, then we must
study the subject of Israelitish prophecy in its genuine,
unimpeachable sources — that is, in the prophetical literature.
Here we have firm ground under our feet. Here alone can
we find, what we absolutely require to prevent us from mak
ing mistakes in the criticism, and in the use, of the narratives
1 1 Sam. xxiv. 4, cf. chap. xxvi. 8.

PROPHETICAL BOOKS MUST BE STUDIED BEFORE HISTORICAL. 37
at second hand — a criterion for distinguishing between history
and a tradition more or less unhistorical — between facts and
subjective convictions.
Thus then the way which we have to follow is pointed
out. We open the books of the prophets, and let them bear
witness regarding their authors. It is only after having done
this, that we take cognisance of what others report to us con
cerning the prophets, or of what they bring forward as a
revelation from Jahveh. It will then appear clearly of itself
whether we can place reliance on them, or whether, not
capriciously, but proceeding upon the knowledge now gained,
we must sift the accounts concerning the prophets and
prophecy, and recognise them as only in part historical.
This method has undoubtedly certain disadvantages. The
order of chronology would require us to treat, first, the pro
mises made by Jahveh to the patriarchs and other historical
personages, then the work of the older prophets as it is
described to us by the Israelitish historians, and, only in the
last place, the preaching of the prophets who have themselves
come forward as writers. It seems a proceeding of doubtful
propriety to depart from that chronological order, because, in so
doing, we lose sight at the same time, not only ofthe succession,
but thereby also of the internal connection of the phenomena.
But we shall have to submit to that, at least at first. For
it is just the question, if that succession be correctly pre
sented in the Old Testament, as it lies before us. This we
are, d priori, as little entitled to assume as we are to deny
it. It is one of the many points concerning which we wish
to obtain certainty. But then we must begin by examining
those links in the chain which lie before our eyes in their
original form. To adhere to the order which is followed in
the Old Testament itself would be equivalent to a precipitate
decision of the weighty problems which we shall be in a
position to solve only at the close of our investigation.
There is still another disadvantage connected with our
method, to which, however, a remedy can be applied. If we
follow the order observed in the Old Testament, we then be
take ourselves to the study of the prophetical books provided
with a previous knowledge of the character and the work of
the prophets, which we have obtained mainly from the

38 II.  METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION.
accounts given by the historians. Samuel, Nathan, Elijah,
and Elisha, are no longer strangers to us, and they help us to
understand Isaiah and Jeremiah. Many a particular in the
writings of the last mentioned prophets remains inexplicable
to us, until it is explained from the narratives concerning
their predecessors. In one word — if we at once take up the
prophetical books themselves, we deliberately deprive our
selves of a commentary which is often indispensable. We
have not yet, if I may be allowed the expression, discovered our
exact position. But would it be absolutely impossible to remove
this difficulty out of the way ? In my opinion, it would not.
There is nothing to hinder us from first making provisionally,
by way of introduction to our proper investigation, a rough
sketch of the nature of Israelitish prophecy, and, while we
are doing so, from making use at the same time of the
accounts given by the historians, if we only do this with the
necessary caution, and prejudge nothing. We must therefore,
in the first instance, leave the more or less doubtful points
with which we come into contact, altogether undetermined.
That sketch will therefore necessarily be here and there
incomplete ; but nevertheless it will be of service to us in the
subsequent investigation, and the opportunity will be afforded
afterwards of filling in what is wanting and completing it in
every respect.
It will thus be only the , most general outlines of a de
scription and history of Israelitish prophecy that will be
presented to the reader in the following chapter. The
introductory and provisional character of that chapter will
oblige me to leave many an important question unanswered,
nay, even untouched ; but it will allow me also to study
brevity. The small compass of my sketch may of itself have
the effect of confining within their proper limits any expecta
tions that may be entertained concerning its importance.

CHAPTER III.
INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS AND THEIR WORK IN
ISRAEL.
The contemporaries of Jeremiah were highly offended at that
prophet, because he dared to proclaim the overthrow of the
kingdom of Judah, and the dispersion of its inhabitants.
They think that, whatever may happen, the continuance of
the present order of things is a matter of certainty — " the
law1 shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from
the wise, nor the word from the prophet."2 Those three
— the priest, the wise, and the prophet — are, in their esti
mation, the pillars of the state, and are as immoveable as
they are indispensable. The opponents of Jeremiah did
not stand alone in cherishing that conviction. Ezekiel as
sumes it as held by his hearers when, in order to give them
a deep impression of the tremendous overthrow which is
impending, he cries out — " Mischief shall come upon mischief,
and rumour shall be upon rumour, and they shall (in vain)
seek a vision of the prophet, and the law shall perish from
the priest, and counsel from the ancients."3
These testimonies are important, the more important be
cause they show us, not the personal opinion of this prophet J
or of that, but the popular conception. They teach us that ;
in Israel the prophets also assumed a position of their own, j
and had a specific task to fulfil equally with the priests of
Jahveh and the wise men or ancients. The proverb which
Jeremiah gives us literally, and to which Ezekiel alludes,
would never have come into common use unless the prophets
1 In Hebrew thorah, i.e. teaching, instruction. The oral decisions which
the priests gave concerning points of law, worship, ceremonial purity, &c,
are thus called here : cf. Deut. xxxiii. 10, and numerous parallel passages.
There is no allusion here to the written law.
2 Jer. xviii. 18. 3 Ezek. vii. 26.

40 III.  INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
also had constituted a separate class, and formed a social order
more or less distinct. This inference is, in truth, fully
established and placed beyond all doubt by various narra
tives belonging to different times.
The manner in which mention is made here and there in
the prophetical literature, not of a single prophet, but of " the
prophets," and in which judgment is passed upon them as a
class, leads us, of itself, to conjecture that they in some way or
other formed a certain corporation. Thus Micah proclaims a
word of Jahveh against " the prophets," who, as he there
adds, " make his people err." " The seers," so he concludes
his denunciation, " shall be ashamed, and the diviners shall
blush."1 Isaiah names " the prophet"2 also with the priest,
and makes elsewhere mention of men
" Who to the seers say ' see not,'
And to the beholders of visions, ' behold not right things,
Speak to us smooth things,
Behold for us deceits.' " 3
In an enumeration of all that is regarded in Jerusalem and
Judsea as " stay and staff," which we find in another of his
prophecies, besides the mighty man, the man of war, the
judge and the ancient, " the prophet" also occurs.* One of
Jeremiah's denunciations is addressed to " the prophets ; " 5
and more than once he mentions in succession " Israel's kings,
princes, priests, and prophets.6 The combination " priest and
prophet" recurs with him on almost every page.7 The priests
and prophets appear on one occasion in his life as acting in
concert.8 The letter which he sent to Babylon is addressed
" to the elders which were carried away captives, and to the
priests and to the prophets and to all the people whom
Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to
Babylon."9 Though some of these expressions, perhaps, admit of a dif
ference of interpretation, yet more than one account in the
historical books is quite unambiguous. When Josiah wishes
to introduce the book of the law which had been found in the
1 Mic. iii. 5, 7. 2 Is. xxviii. 7. 8 Is. xxx. 10.
4 Is. iii. 1,2. B Jer. xxiii. 9. 6 Jer. ii. 26 ; xxxii. 32 ; cf. xiii. 13.
i Jer. iv. 9 ; v. 31 ; vi. 13, &c. 8 Jer. xxvi. 7, 8, 11, 16.
9 Jer. xxix. 1.

THE NAME NABI. 41
temple he summons an assembly of the men of Judah and
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, of the priests and ihe prophets
and all the people.1 Some centuries earlier, king Ahab as
sembles the prophets, four hundred in number, before begin
ning, along with Jehoshaphat, the war against the Syrians.2
In the persecution which his wife, Jezebel, had raised, a
hundred prophets were concealed in a cave and thus pre
served alive by the pious Obadiah.3 Every one remembers
how frequently " the sons of the prophets" appear in the nar
ratives concerning Elisha — at Gilgal, at Beth-el, at Jericho,
perhaps in other places also, they form separate associations,
which are evidently under the direction of Elisha.4 Two
centuries earlier, there was a similar association, not of the
sons of the prophets, but of prophets, near Ramah, the dwell
ing-place of Samuel, who occasionally took up his residence
among them.5
The manner in which we are to conceive of the origin,
the organisation, and the continued existence of such a pro
phetic order, or guild, is at first anything but clear. Let us
attempt to form a conception of it by combining the widely
scattered traits.
Let us begin with that which most readily presents itself to
our notice — the name by which the prophets in Israel are
wont to be designated. The common word is Nabi. It
might perhaps be desirable to keep this original designation
untranslated, for there can be no doubt that it expresses an
other meaning than the word " prophet," which we are in the
habit of employing in conformity with the Greek translation :
undoubtedly the Nabi foretells the future, but that he does
foretell it, is not indicated by the name which he bears.
While there exists no difference of opinion on this point, there
is less unanimity among etymologists when the object in view is
to determine what the signification ofthe word Nabi actually is.
Authorities entitled to respect maintain that it is an active
participle, and translate it by "spokesman."6 But the pas
sages of the Old Testament, to which they appeal in support
1 2 Kings xxiii. 2. 2 1 Kings xxii. 6, sq.
3 1 Kings xviii. 4, 13. 4 2 Kings ii. 3, sq. ; iv. 38 ; v. 22 ; vi. 1.
6 1 Sam. x. 5, 10-12 ; xix. 20-24.
6 See especially Fleischer in Delitzsch's die Genesis (3rd Aufl.), p. 634, ff.

42 III.  INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
of this interpretation, do not really recommend it.1 Instead
of Nabi being derived from the Arabic verb (naba'a), it is
much more probable that the Arabic verb is, on the contrary,
derived from Nabi — the Arabians having in this, as in so
many other cases, borrowed the word from the Jews.2 The
opinion of those who explain Nabi by bubbling up —
boiling up — is more worthy of acceptance. According to this
view, he owed his name to the impression which was made
by his appearance, especially by his speaking : his vehement
gestures, the gushing current of his speech, suggested a foun
tain violently bubbling up.3 The word itself does not pro
perly imply, but still it suggests at once, that this strong
emotion has a higher, a divine origin : the excited state in
which he appears must receive its explanation, not from the
inmost recesses of the Nabi's own spirit, but from the work
ing of the supernatural might on him or in him. What that
supernatural might may be, is, in the meantime, left undeter
mined. In the Old Testament the Nabi, as might be ex
pected, is generally the organ of Jahveh ; but " prophets "
of Baal and of Ashera occur also.4 And we see in that
fact an incidental proof that we were right in rejecting
" spokesman " as the interpretation of the word ; for while
such an appellation would not have been unsuited to the
"prophet" of Jahveh, at least in later ages, when he scarcely
ever came forward but as a speaker, yet the " prophet " of
Baal would hardly, or at least would with great looseness of
expression, have been called the " spokesman '' of Baal.8 The
form also of the Hebrew verbs which signify " to prophesy,"
quite agrees with the etymology which is here defended.6
1 Exod. vii. 1 ; cf. iv. 16 ; Jer. xv. 19. According to these passages
the Nabi is, as it were, the mouthpiece of Jahveh, the organ by which Jah
veh speaks. But it is very far from following thence that Nabi is the
same as " spokesman." Aaron is called the Nabi of Moses in the same me
taphorical sense in which Moses is called the Elohim (god) of Aaron.
2 Compare Noldeke, Gesch. des Qorans, s. 1, n. 1.
3 See my Hist. Krit. Onderz. &c, II. 3, 4, and Payne Smith, I.e., p. 53.
4 1 Kings xviii. 19 ; 2 Kings x. 19 ; Jer. ii. 8 ; xxiii. 13.
6 Compare the description of the behaviour of the prophets of Baal at the
sacrifice on Carmel. 1 Kings xviii. 25-29.
6 " To prophesy " would, in all likelihood, have been denoted by verbs in
the active form, if ' ' nabi " had corresponded to ' ' spokesman." Such, however,
is not the case. The two verbs which occur in the Old Testament are both
of the middle or reflexive form, and are beyond all question derivatives of

OTHER NAMES OF THE PROPHET. 43
The prophets are called also seers. There are properly two
different Hebrew appellations which are rendered by that one
word in the translations. The one, Roih, points apparently
to the clear, profound, insight which is peculiar to the prophet
as distinguished from other men ; the other, Chpz^h, is de
rived from a verb whicli frequently denotes the ecstatic
gazing of the prophet, and alludes thus to the visions which
" nabi." These forms are nibba (Niph'al) and hithnabbe" (Hithpa"el.) Dr
Payne Smith (I.e., pp. 53 seq.) is of opinion that they differ in signification
in this respect — that the Niph'al denotes " the real prophetical gift," the
HithpaM " the mere acting the prophet." That distinction is altogether
arbitrary, and is refuted even by the texts which he himself quotes, and still
more so by some others which he passes over in silence. The proof is as
follows : —
1st. The Niph'al form which, indeed, very frequently denotes "the real
prophetical gift " is also applied by Jeremiah to the prophets whose mission
by Jahveh, and whose inspiration by Jahveh, he denies in as strong terms
as it is possible to use. See Jer. chaps, xiv. 14, 16 ; xx. 6 ; xxvii. 10 ; and
elsewhere. 2nd. On the other hand, the HithpaM form is used concerning prophets
of whose real prophetical gift the writer does not for a moment doubt. To
show that this is the case, let us look first of all at Jer. xxvi. 20, a decisive
instance which has altogether escaped the notice of Payne Smith : then let
us examine also the texts to which he himself refers — Num. xi. 25-27 ; 1
Sam. x. 5, sq. ; 2 Chron. xx. 37 ; Ezek. xxxvii. 4, 9, 10, 12. That the
seventy elders were, properly speaking, designated in order to assist Moses
in the government is perfectly true, but in the passage of Numbers referred
to, " hithnabbe " does not in the least imply that they therefore merely acted
the prophet ; as soon as the spirit of Jahveh comes upon them, they pro
phesy in the proper sense of the word. So also with regard to the prophets
in 1 Sam. x., although they deliver no prophetical discourse, a circumstance,
however, which is not indicated by the form of the verb. The conjecture
that Eliezer, in 2 Cbron. xx. 37, " was not himself inspired," but " brought
a prophetic message merely to Jehoshaphat," has no foundation to rest on.
Finally, as regards Ezek. xxxvii., " hithnabbe- " means here nothing else
than to speak or command as a prophet, therefore in the name of Jahveh.
That this takes place in a vision, has nothing to do with the point which we
are discussing.
3rd. The passages which are adduced in order to prove that " hithnabbe" "
is used in an unfavourable sense, prove nothing of the kind whatever.
Ahab, we are told, uses the hithpa"el form iu 1 Kings xxii. 8, 18, because he
does not in his heart believe in the divine inspiration either of the four hun
dred prophets or of Michaiah ben Jimlah ; but the historian himself uses the
Hithpa"el form in the tenth verse and, merely for the sake of variety, the
Niph'al form in the twelfth verse. As little is "hithnabbe" employed, Jer.
xxix. 26, " in a bad sense, of a false and wicked sham, a blasphemous pre
tence." It is true that " raving and prophesying" stand there in immedi
ate juxtaposition, but that decides nothing, because it is evident from other
passages also that the prophetical ecstasy produced on those who witnessed
it the impression of raving madness. (2 Kings ix. 1 1, cf. Hosea ix. 7.) The
" prophesying " of Saul, 1 Sam. xviii. 10, is no " imitation of the prophetic
excitement (!)," but the result.of the supernatural operation of " an evil spirit
from God."

44 III.  INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
fall to his lot. They differ, therefore, nearly as Seer and
Gazer. A remarkable archaeological note in the first
book of Samuel x teaches us that in earlier ages, before the
introduction of the monarchy, Roe'h was the common name
employed in every-day life, as, for instance, in the saying,
" Let us go to the Roe'h," which in later ages was changed
into, " Let us go to the Nabi." " For he who is now called
the Nabi, was beforetime called the Roe'h." We shall have
to recur to that narrative in order to show its importance for
the history of Israelitish prophecy ; at present I merely draw
attention to the fact that, in accordance with it, Samuel is else
where also called the Roe'h,2 but that, in opposition to that same
narrative, in other Old Testament writings, the title Nabi is
already employed with reference to the ages before Samuel.3
The author of the note referred to is perfectly right in so
far, that Nabi came gradually more and more into use, and
finally became the common official title. Along with it, the
terms Roe'h and Chozdh were then employed, without
attention being paid to the distinction which originally
existed between these two appellations, and between both and
Nabi. That conclusion follows of itself from some passages
which we lately consulted for another purpose.4 We else
where find the same person called by turns Nabi and Roe"b.
or Choze"h, as Samuel,5 Jehu ben Hanani,6 Iddo.7 The
The state of the case is simply this: "hithnabbe" denotes to come for
ward, to act, or to speak as a prophet. It is altogether a neutral expression,
and teaches us nothing whatsoever concerning the source of the phenomena
which it indicates.
The motives which have led Dr Payne Smith to make his distinction, or
at least cause him to ascribe so high a value to it, will afterwards appear.
See below, pp. 49, ff.
1 1 Sam. ix. 9.
2 1 Chron. ix. 22 ; xxvi. 28 ; xxix. 29 ; but he is called the Nabi in 2
Chron. xxxv. 18.
3 Gen. xx. 7 (cf. Psa. cv. 15; 1 Chron. xvi. 22) ; Num. xii. 6 ; Deut. xiii.
1, sq., xviii. 15, sq., xxxiv. 10 (cf. Hosea xii. 14) ; Judges iv. 4 ; vi. 8 ; also
1 Sam. iii. 20.
4 Micah iii. 5, 7 ; Isaiah xxx. 10, compare also xxix. 10, where however
"the prophets" and "the seers " do not belong to the original text.
6 See note (2) on this page.
6 Compare 1 Kings xvi. 7, 12, with 2 Chron. xix. 2. It is quite
unnecessary to assign, with Payne Smith, I. c, p. 46, n. 1, a higher rank to
Jehu than to his father Hanani, because the former is in 2 Chron. xix. 2,
called Chozdh, while the latter in 2 Chron. xvi. 7, 10, is called Eoeh;
the writer of Chronicles uses the different appellations indiscriminately. Cf.
note 2, and the following.
7 Compare 2 Chron. xii. 15, with xiii. 22.

MUTUAL RELATION OF THE SEVERAL NAMES. 45
expressions, "king's seer," "David's Seer,"1 cannot well mean
anything more than that the prophet, who is thus denoted,
was in the king's service, or stood in very close relation to
him. The expression has certainly no reference to the visions
which were vouchsafed to him.2
There were, besides, other names or titles of the prophets
in use in Israel in earlier or later times ; but. it seems super
fluous here to enumerate them all. They are, for the most
part, metaphorical expressions such as " watchman,"
" messenger," &c, which indicate the relation in which the
prophet stood to Jahveh, or the office which he held in the
Israelitish state. The only point that deserves still to be
mentioned is that the prophet often bears the title " man of
God," especially in the historical books 3 — a new proof that in
the popular belief, relation to the divinity constituted the
essence of the prophet. Though that belief may be more
clearly expressed by one name than by another, yet it is the
conviction which lies at the root of them all.
How is the existence in Israel of a prophetical guild or order
to be explained? Such was the question which we had proposed
as requiring an answer. Our investigation concerning filenames
does not bring us much nearer the solution of the problem, on
the contrary those names appear to denote gifts or privileges
altogether personal, which from their very nature must have
been confined to a few, while, nevertheless, they are borne by
very many who even, as we plainly saw before, form frater
nities or associations. Is not that fact more than singular ?
Other phenomena may perhaps bring us further. It is
indeed self-evident that we cannot as yet reach the end at
which we aim — it is only at a much later period that we shall be
able to discover the real essential character and internal history
of Israelitish prophecy. But in the meantime we may succeed
in illustrating, from the prophetical and historical books, the
1 2 Sam. xxiv. 11, " the prophet Gad, David's seer." 1 Chron. xxi.
9; xxv. 5. 2 Chron. xxix. 25 ; xxxv. 15.
2 The reason why the title "king's prophet" does not occur, is obvious.
The genitive governed by prophet denotes commonly the divinity by whom
he is inspired.
8 E.g., 1 Sam. ii. 27 ; ix. 6-8-10. 1 Kings xii. 22, &c, &c. This name
is almost always assigned to the older prophets. I would say, always,
were it not that Hauan ben Jigdaliah, Jer. xxxv. 4, makes perhaps an
exception.

46 ITI.  INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
position of the prophets in Israel, their relation to one another,
the popular notions regarding them, and other points, and thus
be ableto shed some light at leaston the questionabove proposed.
Let us first consider the associations of the prophets which
have been already mentioned. The accounts regarding them
are plainly fragmentary ; their organisation is nowhere ex
pressly described, much less is their history narrated ; they
are mentioned only incidentally. In the days of Samuel, a
colony of prophets was settled in the immediate neighbour
hood of Ramah, its members practised music and song, and
ecstatic excitement seems to have been a very frequent pheno
menon among them. Samuel often took up his abode with
these prophets, and was recognised as their head.1 We do
not know whether similar colonies of prophets existed else
where than at Ramah, and as little do we know whether that
one which plays a part in the history of Saul and David, con
tinued to exist after Samuel's death. It may however be
assumed as probable that it did continue. The silence of the
historical books presents no objection against that view, for
the simple reason that they mention the associations of the
prophets only when the course of events naturally requires
them to be mentioned. This is the case in the reign of
Ahab. We already know him as a persecutor of "the sons
of the prophets," as they are now called.2 If this appellation
makes it probable that they, as in former times, nay more
even than in former times, lived under the superintendence or
direction of one, or more than one, highly honoured prophet,
that probability is fully confirmed by the narratives of their
relation to Elijah, and especially to Elisha.3 We further per
ceive, incidentally, that they had meals in common,4 and in like
manner it is clear that some of them at least were married.5
From that time the writers of the historical books are silent
concerning the schools of the prophets. The supposition,
however, that they still continue to exist, not only in the
kingdom of Ephraim, but also in Judah, is in the highest
1 All this follows from 1 Sam. x. 5, 10-12 ; xix. 18-24.
2 See p. 41.
3 See 1. c, and also 2 Kings ix. 1-3. It is not said of the disciple of the
prophets who comes forward as an actor in 1 Kings xx. 35-43, that he was
executing the commands of Elijah.
i 2 Kings iv. 38-44. 6 2 Kings iv. 1-7.

ASSOCIATIONS OF THE PROPHETS. 47
degree probable.1 That continued existence is in fact pre
supposed in a remarkable incident in the prophetical career
of Amos, which, it would appear, has been rescued from
oblivion by himself. In the reign of Jeroboam II., about the
beginning of the eighth century, B.C., he was preaching in the
immediate vicinity ofthe temple at Beth-el. Amaziah, the high
priest of that sanctuary was greatly offended at such a
proceeding. He sent an account of what had taken place to
Jeroboam, and warned Amos to leave Beth-el. " Seer," he
said, " away, get thee gone to Judah (thy native, land),
eat there bread, and there prophesy." That sounds like a
reproach that Amos gained a livelihood by prophesying, which
he therefore, according to the priest, should exercise in his
own country rather than out of it. Amos also understood it
in this sense, as is evident from his answer, " I am no prophet
nor prophet's son, but an herdsman, and I gather wild figs ;
but Jahveh took me from behind the flock, and Jahveh said
to me — go, prophesy to my people Israel." The assertion
" I am no prophet nor prophet's son," scarcely admits of any
other interpretation than that there were still existing, even
in those days, associations of prophets, to which however
Amos will not consent to be regarded as belonging.
But the important communication of Amos well deserves
our further consideration. I have to call attention to two
inferences which may legitimately be drawn from it. It shows
us, in the first place, that there were prophets who formed no
part of an association, or at least did not regularly reside in
one of the colonies of the prophets. We find that fact
established from other quarters. The great majority of the
prophets, whose names we know, appear to have held an in
dependent position. Elijah, for example, generally remained
concealed, and came forth from his lurking-place into public
suddenly, as cjrcumstances required.2 Elisha dwelt some
times, indeed, but not always, among the sons of the
prophets.3 Others also, such as Nathan, Gad, Ahijah the
Shilonite, Jehu ben Hanani, do not come before us as members
of an association, and there is no real ground for the supposi-
1 Dr J. C. Matthes, " De Pseudoprophetismo Hebraeorum " (L. B. 1859),
p. 105 sq., and Payne Smith, 1. ft, pp. 154-156, are both of this opinion.
2 See e.g. 1 Kings xvii. 1, xviii. 1., xxi. 17, seq. 2 Kings i. 3.
3 2 Kings ii. 25.

48 III.  INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
tion that their connection with others has been left unnoticed
merely by accident. The prophets also whose writings we
possess come forward on an independent footing — they live as
ordinary citizens,1 and lead, as a rule, a wedded life.2 They
had their disciples, trusty friends or helpers, but the relation
in which these stood to them seems to have been altogether
voluntary and personal.3 We need scarcely say, that there is
in all that nothing surprising. The prophets could never
form a caste, a rigidly exclusive corporation. The phenomena
which were manifested in the associations of the prophets,
could also occur beyond them, and gave to him or to her in
whom they appeared the right to the title of Nabi. The
members of the guild themselves could not hinder such free
prophets, if I may so call them, for these members too claimed
for themselves the name of prophet, not on account of what
they had learned in the schools, but because they stood in
close relation to Jahveh, and experienced occasionally or con
stantly the influence of Jahveh's spirit. What right therefore
had they to deny to others who gloried in the same privilege,
that title which they themselves had assumed ?
More difficulty is presented by the second fact which
we have further to deduce from the narrative of Amos.
What is his motive for repudiating, with such vehemence, the
title of " prophet " which Amaziah gives him ? Why should
he think it a disgrace for him to bear it ? It is clear he con
curs in the reproach which the priest at Bethel had insinuated.
He cannot but acknowledge that many prophets by pro
fession, degraded their calling by making it a mere means of
gaining a livelihood. He thinks it important to distinguish
himself, as clearly as possible, from such men. He stands
not on the same footing with them, but opposed to them.
He is, therefore, a prophet opposed to the prophets. If
this were a solitary instance of such a fact, it would even
1 Jer. xxxvii. 12, contains probably an allusion to the landed property
of the prophet in the neighbourhood of Anathoth.
2 The unwedded life of Jeremiah is explained by the peculiar circum
stances of the time. Jer. xvi. 1, sq.
3 This is true not merely of the relation between Isaiah, and Uriah, and
Zechariah, who are employed by him as witnesses, and called "disciples
of Jahveh," but also of the much more intimate connection between
Jeremiah and Baruch, Jer. xxxvi., xliii. 3, 6, 7 ; it is evident from Jer.
xlv. how highly the prophet esteemed the voluntary services of his helper.

WERE THERE TWO KINDS OF PROPHETS ? 49
then be most remarkable. But it is not a solitary instance.
Such an antagonism appears clearly, on investigation, to have
been very common. It frequently happened that the prophets
of Jahveh were divided among themselves. When consulted
about one and the same thing, they sometimes give diametric
ally opposite counsels ; each one giving his own as " Jahveh's
word." We recall the contest between the four hundred
prophets and Michaiah ben Imlah, in presence of Ahab and
Jehoshaphat.1 We do not speak too strongly, when we say
that the men whose oracles we possess in the Old Testament,
constantly combat " the prophets," that is the prophetical
guild, and pass upon them a very unfavourable verdict.2 It
was but natural that they, on their part, should return with
interest the accusations made against them : a man such as
Hananiah, the Gibeonite, did not certainly judge Jeremiah
more leniently than Jeremiah judged him.3
The seeming strangeness of such a fact would be at once
explained, if we could admit the validity of the distinction
which is commonly made, and which recently has been ex
pressly elaborated and defended by Dr Payne Smith.4
According to his view, the title Nabi is assigned in the Old
Testament to two classes of men, which we must be specially
careful not to confound with each other. The common
" prophets," called also " sons of the prophets," who were
numerous and active in the different periods of Israel's
history, and who formed the associations or schools of the
prophets, he compares to the members of the clerical order in
a Christian nation. Just as the worthy Christian ministers
have been called to their office " of God," or by " God's Holy
Spirit," so were also these Israelitish prophets called ; but it
was as little the task of these prophets, as it is of our clergy
men or preachers, to reveal new truths to the people. They
limited themselves to maintaining and recommending the
Mosaic laws, to contending against the backslidings of their
contemporaries, and to the promotion of their moral and
1 1 Kings xxii. ...
2 See the passages referred to in page 40, likewise Zeph. iii. 4a ; Zech. xm.
2-6 ; Ezek. xiii. 1, to xiv. 11, xxii. 25, 28.
3 Compare Jer. xxviii. .
4 See the work already referred to, pp. 114, sq., 128, sq., to which I must
refer the reader for the further development of the ideas given m the text.
D

50 III.- — INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
spiritual life. However important and holy that work might
be, an extraordinary or supernatural inspiration by the Spirit
of God was no more required then than it is now for its
accomplishment. We are not therefore to ascribe such an in
spiration to these prophets. But the similarity between them
and Christian ministers extends still further : they too might
succumb under the temptations to which their office exposed
them. Men, even, who had never received the inward call, could
procure admission into their circle. We need not therefore
be surprised that the Old Testament gives us examples of the
one class as well as of the other. Even the growing degen
eracy of the schools of the prophets, of which, also according
to Dr Payne Smith, the words of Amos just referred to, bear
witness, is, however sad, not surprising. Now the extraor
dinary messengers of Jahveh, men who consequently were
endowed with extraordinary gifts, must be clearly distin
guished from such a class of prophets. It was their specific
calling to reveal Jahveh's will and counsel, and thus to build
on the foundation which their predecessors had laid. Is it
any wonder that they stood far above the great mass of those
who bore the same official title, and that, from time to time,
they found it necessary openly to oppose them ? But those
members of the same profession themselves must have usually
acknowledged the superiority of these privileged persons. It
was only in the days of decline which preceded the downfall
of the kingdom of Judah, that the ordinary Nabi arrogated to
himself the same rank that a Jeremiah occupied by right, and
even grew bold enough to withstand him to the face "in the
name of Jahveh."
Thus far Dr Payne Smith, who must be allowed the merit
of having presented the traditional opinions on this subject
in a very persuasive manner, and of having supported them
by new proofs. What explanation of the conflict between the
prophets should be substituted in place of this theory is a point
which must, in the meanwhile, be left entirely undetermined.
It is only after we have learned thoroughly the nature of
Israelitish prophecy that we shall be in a condition to give
the true solution of that phenomenon. But even at present,
it can be shown that the view of Dr Payne Smith is un
successful ; nay, the proof of this must now at once be given.

DANGERS CONNECTED WITH THE PROPHETICAL OFFICE. 5 1
His representation which, in the main features, agrees with
the common conception, and is recommended besides by its
apparent simplicity, places us in fact on a wholly wrong
position, from which we can obtain nothing but an unjust
idea of prophecy. It is an obstacle which must be removed
before we can reach the reality.
Let us begin by referring to some particulars which may
be accepted without alteration. It is true that the propheti
cal office brought with it its own peculiar temptations. The
Nabi was thought to proclaim " the word of Jahveh," and
was consequently consulted by those who desired to become
acquainted with it.1 The priest also revealed the will of
Jahveh, especially by the Urim and Thummim — the sacred
lot.2 The nature of the case would certainly point out in
most instances to which of the two recourse must be had ;
but there do not. seem to have been any fixed rules on this
subject, so that it often depended on the circumstances, and
on the opinion of the individual, whose intervention he should
call in.3 In any case it was far from an uncommon practice
for men to repair to the prophet, in order to learn from him
the decision of Jahveh, whether concerning public or private
affairs. It needs no demonstration to show that the popular
conviction which is reflected in that practice was flattering to
the prophet himself, and could not but make his office to be
coveted in the eyes of many an ambitious person. But was
it not therefore to be expected that some who lacked the
inward call would seek that office ? Even the superstition
which attributed to the prophet, not merely knowledge of the
future, but also the power of determining its course, may
have proved an attraction for some. Ahab, for example,
holds Elijah as well as Michaiah ben Imlah responsible for
their predictions of misfortune.4 The widow of Zarephath
and the Shunamite lay the blame of the disasters which befel
them on the mighty prophets with whom they had come in
1 1 Sam. ix. 7 ff. ; 1 Kings xiv. 1 ff. ; 2 Kings xix. 1 ff. ; xx. 12-20 ; Jer.
xxi., xxxvii., xxxviii.
2 See my " Godsdienst van Israel," i. 99-102 (pp. 96-100, English transla
tion). 3 It is sometimes doubtful to whom the inquirer repaired in order " to ask
of Jahveh," — to the prophet or to the priest. See 2 Sam. xxi. 1.
4 1 Kings xviii. 7 ff. ; xxi. 20 ; xxii. 8, 18, 26-28.

52 III.— INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
contact.1 One of Ahab's successors threatens Elisha with
death, because he had not averted the siege of Samaria and
all the misery which that siege entailed.2 Certainly these
instances show also that the exercise of the prophetical ofiice
might sometimes be dangerous ; but the dangers, inseparable
from every high position, usually intimidate only men of
weak minds, and form an additional incentive for those who
are conscious of their own powers.
Could the prospect too of pecuniary advantage have seduced
some, who had not the inner fitness, to assume the upper
robe of hair, the external mark of the prophet 1 8 That is not
probable. It is true the people who came to consult the
prophets brought them presents ;4 and the pious, even with
out any special inducements, thought it their duty to aid
them as much as possible, and to contribute to their means of
livelihood ; 6 but it does not appear that these emoluments
were considerable, and such as to make the prophetical office
an object of desire for the avaricious. But, granting all that,
the poor among them — and that there were such appears clearly
from two instances 6 — were placed, by such acts of beneficence,
in a position of dependence on those on whose bounty they
had to live. We cannot be surprised that there were some
for whom the temptation was too strong, and who therefore
lowered themselves to become the obedient servants of their
distinguished or powerful patrons.
Besides we must not forget that the association of prophets,
from the very fact that it was an association, was exposed,
like every other, to the danger of degenerating. How easily
does routine creep into such societies, and assume the place
1 1 Kings xvii. 17 ff. ; 2 Kings iv. 22 ff.
2 2 Kings vi. 31. According to the common opinion it is Jehoram who
speaks here ; but it is much more probable for various reasons that the
siege of Samaria happened under Jehoahaz the son of Jehu. See chap. xi.
of this work.
3 Zech. xiii. 4. The hairy mantle of Elijah (2 Kings i. 8, cf. ii. 8, 13, 14;
1 Kings xix. 13) and of John the Baptist (Matt. iii. 4) was therefore the
distinctive garb of the prophets. Isaiah, as it appears, went generally clad
in a loose upper robe, such as the Israelites wore in days of mourning. Is.
xx. 2.
4 1 Sam. ix. 7, ff., cf. 1 Kings xiv. 2, 3.
6 2 Kings iv. 8, ff., cf. 42-44. It may perhaps be inferred frpm the
23d verse that it was the custom to present gifts to the prophet on the Sab
bath or the new moon.
6 2 Kings iv. 1-7 ; vi. 1-7.

THE PROPHETS ALL INTERPRETERS OF JAHVEH'S WILL. 53
of the spiritual forces which had called these communities into
life, and had at first roused them into activity ! The danger of
such a result was here especially great. If genuine inspira
tion be wanting, and yet is regarded as indispensable, how
easily do men come to substitute for it artificial excite
ment, or to feign the enthusiasm which they do not
possess !
Thus far therefore we have been able to accompany Dr
Payne Smith, but here we must part. The distinction be
tween the ordinary and the extraordinary Nabi, as he repre
sents it, is altogether unsupported by the facts ; and so too is
the comparison which he makes between the ordinary prophets
and the clerical order in modern society. If it had been their
task to instruct the people, and that regularly, surely a clear
indication of such a fact would appear somewhere or other ;
but in vain do we search for a single trace of such a function.
The prophets and, at a later period, the prophets' sons, were
not scattered through the land, like the scribes after the
time of Ezra, but abode together in their settlements. There
they were occupied with their exercises of music and song.
There is nothing whatever to show that, as they passed
through the surrounding district, they had anything to do
with the edification or instruction of the people. Least of
all, as already has been made plain to us, does the name
which they bear show that such was their office. Nabi is
the man inspired by the divinity, not the instructor of others.
What was expected of the prophet and sought from him is
briefly and justly expressed in the verse of Jeremiah, which
served us for a starting point — " The word shall not depart
from the prophet." As the elders give counsel, and the
priest pronounces his legal decisions, so the prophet proclaims
the word — of course the word of Jahveh. It is characteristic
that that is not once said, so much was it held as self-evident
that the Nabi was the organ of the deity who inspired him.
It is in fact inconceivable that such a title should have been
given to men who at the same time were declared not to
possess that which gave them their right to bear it.
It is not difficult to discover the motives which have led
Dr Payne Smith — and so many others before him — to the con
ception which they have formed. They would like at once

54 III.  INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
to limit and sharply to define the domain of the supernatural.
They place the great majority of the Nebiim on the outside of
that domain, in order to be able the better to uphold the divine
mission and inspiration of the small number, especially of the
prophets whose writings have been preserved to us in the
Old Testament. But the passages which lie before us frus
trate any such attempt. According to the conviction of the
Israelites — of the contemporaries of the prophets as well as
of the writers of the Old Testament — all prophecy is a super
natural phenomenon resulting from and explained by the
working of Jahveh's spirit. It is we who — whether rightly
or wrongly will be seen afterwards — distinguish so rigorously
the word of particular prophets, specifically the written pro
phecies, from the utterances of their contemporaries, and
especially from those of their opponents. In the Old Testa
ment itself that boundary line is not thus drawn.1 The pro
phets, in the days of Samuel, may have bowed before him,
their leader ; the sons of the prophets, in the days of Ahab and
his successors, may have bowed before Elijah and Elisha, and
acknowledged their superiority, but this was not a conse
quence of any consciousness on their part that they did not
belong to the number of those who were inspired by Jah
veh's spirit. Does not Elisha, too, always call Elijah his
"father?" And are we to suppose that the four hundred
prophets who assemble around Ahab and Jehoshaphat, think
that their word is not at all " the word of Jahveh ?" The
contrary is most clearly evident. So is it also in later
times. The prophets who are combatted by Micah, Isaiah,
and Jeremiah, are not at all inclined to retire before
them ; they rather retort on their assailants the charges
which these bring against them. Here, therefore, the ex
planation proposed by Dr Payne Smith is, in any case, unsuc
cessful. No, if we are to abide faithfully by the testimony of the
records, then we must acknowledge that the distinctions, so
simple in appearance, by the help of which the phenomena
are arranged and explained, are the creations of tradition,
and are maintained in its interests. Israelitish prophecy was
1 The attempt to show it in the words which denote the work of the pro
phet is a failure also. See p. 42, note 6.

LAWS REGARDING THE PROPHETS. 55
in reality a very diversified phenomenon, and the impression
whicli it made corresponded to its internal variety. Oppo
sition to the word of the prophets was far from being a rare
occurrence. How great soever the reverence may have been
which the Israelites showed to the prophets, they were still
in no way inclined to submit implicitly to the authority of
any one of them. They judge them freely, withstand them
sometimes to the face, nay, they are not afraid to use force
against them. The prophet is " a sign that is spoken against,"
nay, that must be spoken against, for just as on that occasion,
in the reign of Ahab, the " yea" of the one prophet stood
opposed to the " nay" of the other, so did it continue to be
opposed, at least from the eighth century before our era, not
as an exceptional instance, but almost as a general rule. The
Israelites could not simply obey, even if they had so wished ;
they must make a choice — must accept the one Nabi and
reject the other.
" But," it may perhaps be asked, " was that a matter of
so great difficulty ? was it not clearly manifest beforehand
what the issue of their deliberations must be ? It is true the
Israelites had to make a choice, but it was a choice, as with
ourselves, between light and darkness, truth and falsehood,
good and evil, so that every man who sincerely intended to
choose rightly ran no risk of making a mistake." The matter
is frequently presented in such a form. Very well ! let us
be at the pains to inquire if such a mode of viewing the sub
ject corresponds to the reality.
We begin by consulting the Mosaic law. It was, according
to the common opinion, the rule of faith and conduct for the
Israelites, and would, therefore, be first of all resorted to in
the perplexity in which they were involved by the contest
between the prophets. And, in reality, the book of Deuter
onomy contains two directions which come before us here for
consideration. The one is to the effect that the prophet who
incites his fellow-citizens to serve other gods, is guilty of a
capital crime, and must be stoned to death, even though the
sign or wonder come to pass, to which he has appealed in
confirmation of his word, because the fulfilment was not to
be regarded, in that case, as a proof of his having been sent
by Jahveh, but as a trial to which Jahveh subjected his

56 III.  INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
people.1 The other enactment stands in still closer connec
tion with the subject with which we are at present occupied.
After the legislator has admonished the Israelites to listen,
not to the soothsayers and wizards, but to the prophets whom
Jahveh would raise up from among them, he prescribes that the
prophet who shall speak in the name of Jahveh, a word which
Jahveh has not put in his mouth, or who shall speak in the
name of other gods, shall be punished with death. There
after he proceeds thus : — " And if thou say in thine heart,
how shall we know the word which Jahveh hath not spoken ?
When a prophet speaketh in the name of Jahveh, if the thing
follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which Jahveh
hath not spoken."2 The criterion which the legislator here
gives is clear : the prediction which is not fulfilled is not from
Jahveh, even though it be uttered in his name. Are we
entitled also to take this conversely, and to say, the fulfilment
of the prediction is the proof that it has proceeded from the
inspiration of Jahveh ? It is probable that the legislator
would have answered this question in the affirmative, with this
reservation, however, that the prophet had spoken in Jahveh's
name, and for the promotion of Jahveh's worship.3
Did these enactments give the Israelite that which he re
quired, in order to enable him to choose a side in the conflict
between the Jahveh prophets, and to make no mistake in
distinguishing the true from the pretended prophets ? It
must not, first of all, be lost sight of that very many in our
day deny that Moses is the author of Deuteronomy, the book
in which we find the two enactments. They maintain
that this portion of the legislation was reduced to writ
ing in the seventh century before our era, and was intro
duced by Josiah in the eighteenth year of his. reign. For my
own part, I have no hesitation in adopting this opinion. The
opportunity of stating the grounds on which it rests will
naturalby occur in the sequel of our investigation, and will
then be taken advantage of; but at the present stage, we
need not involve ourselves in that dispute. The opinion at
variance with the traditional view would not indeed have
1 Deut. xiii. 1-5.
2 Deut. xviii. 9-22. Along with the great majority of expositors, I apply
this passage to the prophets in general. I shall afterwards revert to this
point. 3 Cf. Deut. xiii. 2, 3.

THE LEGAL ENACTMENTS AND THE DEMANDS OF PRACTICE. 57
been brought forward if it had been plain, from unambiguous
instances, that the laws of Deuteronomy, especially those two
which we are at present considering, had been observed be
fore Josiah's reformation. But there is, in truth, no evidence
whatever to that effect. We search in vain in the prophetical
and historical books for a single trace of the practical influ
ence of the legal enactments which I have just mentioned.
But let us assume for the moment that they were in exist
ence, and were not unknown to the Israelite. I remark, in
the second place, that even if such was the fact, they were
not fitted to rescue him from his perplexity. He could,
without any difficulty, distinguish between the prophets of
Jahveh and those of the other gods — that the latter were
not to be followed was self-evident, and did not need to be
prescribed by the legislation. It was in making the choice
among the prophets of Jahveh that the difficulty lay. The
law referred the Israelite to the issue ; but all kinds of ex
ceptions could be made in the application of this criterion, as
shall be shown afterwards.1 And, besides, how was he to
judge concerning the prophet, before the facts had decided ?
If he predicted events which could come to pass only in the
distant future, or of which a succeeding generation only could
be the witness, what judgment, in that case, were his cotem-
poraries in the meantime to form regarding him? It is
further to be noticed, in the third place, that the legislator
does not point out by whom his law is to be applied and
enforced. He addresses himself to Israel, altogether gener
ally ; to the entire community, if the reader will, but just
on that account to no one in particular. This is a
great and essential want in a practical point of view. If a
judge is nowhere indicated to investigate the complaint
against the prophet, and to pass sentence upon him, of what
avail was it to inquire into the nature of his preaching and to
make a complaint against it ?
Was it the case that this defect in the law was supplied
by custom ? Did there exist a tribunal acknowledged
through use, which took cognisance of the accusations against
the prophet, and listened to his defence? As often as he
entered into the temple at Jerusalem, and preached there—
1 See Chap, ix., below.

58 III.  INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
which was far from being a rare occurrence — he came under
the jurisdiction of the priesthood. From the days of Je
hoiada onwards, there were some priests expressly charged
with the maintenance of order within the sanctuary, with the
temple-police.1 It was their duty to take the .oversight of
all who came forward as prophets on their domain, and to
put them in prison, or the stocks, in case of their miscon
duct.2 So we read in a letter which was received at
Jerusalem in the reign of Zedekiah. But a complaint is
made in that same document that the priests had made no use
of this power of theirs against Jeremiah.3 Indeed the
authority here referred to was properly concerned only with
maintaining order and quiet in the temple. These were, in
very many cases, preserved better when the prophet was left
unmolested than when it was attempted to make him be
silent. In so far as the maintenance of order was concerned,
the true prophets might easily be held to be as dangerous as
their opponents, if not even more dangerous. The power of
the priests has therefore properly little or nothing to do with
the question treated in the Deuteronomic laws, and, besides,
it did not extend farther than the temple walls.
Another communication in the book of the prophecies of
Jeremiah, sheds more light on our subject.4 When he had
announced the approaching destruction of Jerusalem and the
temple, he was seized by the priests, the prophets, and the
whole people, and called to account for his bold language.
How dared he to prophesy, in the name of Jahveh, that the
sanctuary in Jerusalem would be as that of Shiloh, and that
the city would be laid waste and bereft of inhabitants ? The
princes of Judah, on learning what is taking place, proceed
from the king's palace to the temple, where they sit down to
take cognisance of the complaint against Jeremiah. It is
brought forward by the priests and prophets — Jeremiah has
perpetrated an impious deed in speaking against the city
chosen by Jahveh, and has therefore rendered himself guilty
of death. The prophet's vindication of himself is simple —
Jahveh has sent him to prophesy thus against city and
temple ; he has said nothing more than he was inspired by
1 2 Kings xi. 18. 2 Jer. xxix. 26, cf. ; Acts iv. 1 ; v. 24, 26.
3 Jer. xxix. 27. 4 Jer. xxvi. 1-19.

TREATMENT OF JEREMIAH AND OTHER PROPHETS. 59
Jahveh to speak. The princes of Judah are satisfied. " This
man is not worthy to die, for he hath spoken to us in the
name of Jahveh our God." The asseveration of Jeremiah is
thus acknowledged by them as true, but on what ground ? It
is not clear that they required anything more than the
unambiguous and re-iterated assertion of the prophet himself,
to which, however, his accusers gave no credit. The elders
also, who now speak in favour of Jeremiah, bring forward no
proofs for the truth of the prophet's own testimony. They re
mind the assembly that Micah had formerly spoken in the same
way against Jerusalem and the temple,1 and that Hezekiah,
far from punishing him on that account, had humbled himself
and besought Jahveh's mercy. It was in this manner that
the word of Jeremiah also should now be received. That
which the accusers of the prophet denied is clearly assumed
here as proved, that he was the messenger of Jahveh. The
decision of the princes recommends itself to our full sympa
thy, and so also the plea of the elders. But it cannot escape
our notice, that there was here no regular trial, and that the
criterion supplied by the law is in no way whatever taken
into consideration. It cannot be asserted that this incident
shows that the indefiniteness of the legal prescriptions was
removed by consuetudinary law.
Hence, also, it happened that on other occasions the result
was far from being so favourable to Jeremiah and those of
kindred sentiments with him. Uriah, the son of Shemaiah,
who prophesied against city and temple, " according to all
the words of Jeremiah," was brought back by king Jehoia
kim to Jerusalem from Egypt, where he had sought refuge,
and was slain with the sword.2 " But," it is added, " the
hand of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, was with Jeremiah that
they should not give him into the hand of the people to put
him to death."3 In truth, the question on most occasions was,
whether the prophet had protectors powerful enough to ensure
his safetyagainst the attempts of thosewho were exasperated by
his preaching. If any one wishes to be convinced of this, let him
read the account of Jeremiah's fortunes during the siege of Jeru
salem by Nebuchadrezar.4 The dominant party protected and
1 Micah iii. 12. 2 Jer. xxvi. 20-23. 3 Jer. xxvi. 24.
4 Jer. xxvii., xxviii.

60 III.  INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
favoured their own prophets, and imposed silence on those
who opposed their policy. The position is precisely the same
as existed formerly under Ahab, who committed Michaiah
ben Imlah to prison, because his prediction did not agree
with the king's wishes.1 So, too, after the death of Gedaliah,
the people consult Jeremiah about the course they should
now adopt. But when he, in opposition to the wishes of the
leaders, dissuades them from the flight to Egypt, as being
opposed to Jahveh's will, they refuse to submit, and ascribe
his word to the instigation of Baruch.2 Personal sympathies
and antipathies decide as to the reception that will be ac
corded to the prophet and his preaching.
We shall return afterwards to many particulars which at
present we have merely glanced at. The only point of im
portance, in the meanwhile, was to form a conception of the
relation which the Israelites held to the prophets who ap
peared among them. Unless I am mistaken, that object has
been attained. They stand before us now with tolerable dis
tinctness — the prophets of Jahveh : the most of them closely
connected with one another, and forming a kind of guild,
some few assuming a more isolated position ; all recognized
in theory as organs of Jahveh, as inspired by Jahveh's spirit,
as proclaiming Jahveh's word ; but, in practice, applauded and
obeyed only by those with whom they agreed in tendency,
while they were rejected or even persecuted by the rest.
Such is the actual position according to the historical docu
ments themselves. Let us begin by acknowledging it ; we
shall not till afterwards come to the explanation.
One fact, which came before us in the course of this investi
gation, deserves to be once more brought prominently for
ward, and to be kept in remembrance. The authors of the
prophetical books incorporated in the Old Testament can in
no wise be regarded as representatives of the prophetical
guild of their time. Some of them express no opinion what
ever concerning their fellow-prophets, and, therefore, it re
mains, in the first instance, undetermined how they regarded
them ; but the rest who make known their sentiments about
" the prophets," pass a very unfavourable judgment upon
1 1 Kings xxii. 8, 18, 26-28. 2 Jer. xiii. -xliii. 3.

SYMBOLICAL ACTS OF THE PROPHETS. 6 ]
them.1 They may be characterised as the opposition party
in the prophetical guild. The reason why they assumed that
position cannot as yet be explained ; but their comparative
isolation is so remarkable a fact that we must keep it clearly
in view from the commencement, and bear it in mind as we
prosecute our investigation.
While we, always provisionally, were regarding Israelitish
prophecy as a whole, we find that light has at the same time
been shed on the work and character of the men with whom
we especially wished to become more closely acquainted — the
canonical prophets, as we may call them, in distinction from
the others. There are still some observations to be made
regarding them, which will be of service to us in the future,
and which, therefore, find their proper place in this intro
ductory chapter.
We know already that those prophets also proclaimed " the
word of Jahveh " to the people, or to those who came to consult
them ; but sometimes it was not enough for them to utter
that " word" — they likewise presented it in a visible form.
For this purpose they availed themselves of symbolical actions.
If we rely upon the narratives which have come down to
us, we must assume that those symbols occupied a large and
important place in their preaching. Sometimes, indeed, it
remains doubtful whether the symbolism which we find de
scribed in some of the prophetical books, is a mere literary
form or is truly a piece of historical reality. Two examples will
illustrate this. Hosea speaks of a marriage into which he
entered with an unchaste woman, named Gomer, and of the
three children who were born of that union.2 According to
some, this must be understood literally, and agreeably to this
view the prophet actually contracted such a marriage, and
gave to the children who were born to him symbolical names,
for the instruction of his people ; others are of opinion that
Hosea sets before us here an allegory, and, in this form of his
own selection, makes manifest both the sin and the future fate
of Israel. The latter view is, in my judgment, strongly recom
mended by the words of the prophet himself.3 Jeremiah
makes mention of a girdle which he hid by the Euphrates,
1 See the passages quoted p. 40, notes 1, ff, and p. 49, note. 2. 2 Hos. i.
3 Hos. i. 2 ; iii. Compare my Hist. krit. Onderzoek, &c, ii. 40, 317 f.

62 III. — INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
and afterwards brought back.1 With regard to this account,
also, there is the same difference of opinion ; that which is
regarded by some as the relation of an actual occurrence, is
regarded by others as an allegory. There are more narratives
of the same kind, the proper import of which is doubtful. But
there are others with regard to which there is not the least un
certainty. Thus it will be recollected how Samuel makes his
rent mantle a symbol ofthe rending of the kingdom from Saul;2
how Ahijah, the Shilonite, divides his garment into twelve
parts, and gives ten of them to Jeroboam, in token that ten of
the twelve tribes of Israel would acknowledge him as king ;3
how Jeremiah, by the breaking in pieces of an earthen vessel,
represents, figuratively, the overthrow of the kingdom of
Judah ;4 and how, on another occasion, he appears in the temple
with a yoke on his neck, the symbol of subjection to the
Chaldaeans, which is as symbolically broken by Hananiah,
his opponent.5 That the prophets made use of such means
can need no justification ; for just as these symbols, in by far
the most cases, were eminently fitted to depict the truth
which stood before the prophet's eyes, so in general represen
tations of that nature agreed with the taste "of the Orientals,
and imparted, therefore, no little force to the impression which
the preaching of the prophets made upon them.
Of still more importance is another means which is em
ployed by our canonical prophets, in addition to oral addresses,
and for the better attainment of their object. They have not
merely uttered the "word of Jahveh," but they have also reduced
it to writing. The proofs lie before us. But our authorities
permit us to go somewhat further, and to define more exactly
the relation in which the speaking and the writing of the
prophet stood to each other.
That the prophet of Jahveh is not, if I may so express
myself, by nature a writer, is a fact which is clearly apparent.
The spoken word has the priority in more than one sense.
If we leave Moses, the law-giver, out of account here, as it is
only fair to do, then we must acknowledge, on the ground of
the facts themselves, that the prophets had laboured for cen
turies in Israel before one of them wrote down " the word of
1 Jer. xiii. s 1 Sam. xv. 27, 28. 3 1 Kings xi. 29, ff .
4 Jer. xix. a Jer. xxviii.

SPOKEN AND WRITTEN PROPHECIES. 03
Jahveh " for his people. It is not quite settled to what
epoch the oldest of our prophetical writings should be
assigned. All are agreed that Amos belongs to the reign of
Jeroboam II, to about the beginning of the eighth cen
tury before our era. Many hold his prophecies to be the
oldest of all that we possess, and on good grounds ; but,
according to some, his book is preceded in order of time
by that of Joel, a contemporary of Joash, king of Judah
(878-838 B.C.), others place Obadiah still earlier, under Joram
ben Jehoshaphat (893-885 B.C.) Nevertheless, be that as it
may, two centuries at any rate — according to others, even three
centuries — undoubtedly elapsed between Samuel (+1100 B.C.)
and the earliest portion of prophetical literature that has been
preserved. The supposition that older prophecies once existed
in writing but are now lost, has nothing to recommend it.
The committing of Jahveh's word to writing marks therefore
a later stage in the history of prophecy.
The spoken word claims the priority in yet another sense,
inasmuch as it does not appear to have been the case that the
prophets ever wrote down their oracles first, and thereafter
read them in public. There are indeed some prophecies
which, it is almost certain, were never orally delivered ; for
example, those against the heathen, as well as remonstrances,
like those of Ezekiel, wliich are not addressed to any particu
lar audience, but are evidently intended to be read and
pondered ; yet these oracles, for the very reason that they
never were delivered, are no exceptions to the rule just
stated, that the writing never preceded the oral delivery. We
deduce this rule both from the fact that the prophet is nowhere
represented to us as reading what he had previously written,
and also from the nature of prophecy. The Nabi is, and
cannot but be, an improvisatore. He acts and speaks under
influence of the moment, seized suddenly by the spirit of
Jahveh, which is said to fall or spring upon him. The sup
position that he had calmly considered his addresses is hardly
to be reconciled with the enthusiasm to which he owes his
name, the supposition that he had committed them to writing
and read them in public can in no way whatever be reconciled
with it.
It follows from this, that the written prophecy, when

64 III.  INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE PROPHETS.
it was not, as in the cases just mentioned, intended from the
beginning to be read, can never be anything else than the
reproduction of the spoken word. ' But how is that to be
understood? Are we to understand by it ' that the prophet
reproduced literally what he had delivered before his audi
ence ? or has he gone to work here with more or less free
dom? Without any hesitation, I pronounce for the latter
alternative. In the first place, literal reproduction of the spoken word
was an impossibility, in by far the greater number of in
stances. How could the prophet have been in a condition to
remember the very words which he had used, when he stood
among the people ? When the feelings of the auditors had
been aroused by his address, they would frequently interrupt
him with shouts of approbation or disapprobation : how could
that be reproduced exactly as it had occurred ? Without a
continually repeated miracle that was in truth almost always
impracticable. In the second place, what motive could the prophet have
for confining himself to the literal reproduction of his address?
The spoken word had attained its aim, or it had not ; the
writing of it was a new act, undertaken with a view to other
persons, and to their peculiar needs. It would frequently
have been unsuitable to write for them in their circumstances
the very same thing which had formerly been spoken for the
benefit of those who were then present. During the interval
of time which had elapsed between the speaking and the writ
ing, the circumstances had perhaps more or less changed.
May the prophet not have taken that change into account?
There is, in truth, not a single conceivable reason why we
should be obliged to ascribe to him such a scrupulosity.
In the third place, all that has been advanced is confirmed
by the form of the prophetical literature. Its productions
are not all of the same character, in so far as regards the
form ; nevertheless, in the great -majority of cases, they are
elaborated with care, some of them even with great art.
We shall return to this subject afterwards. Let it suffice for
the present to recall to mind that, in most prophecies, the
poetical rhythm — the so-called parallelism of the members
of the verse — is strictly attended to, that many are divided

jeremiah's prophecies written down By baruch. 65
into strophes or couplets, and that in some the ending or the
beginning of a strophe is marked by a repetition of the same
verse.1 It is utterly inconceivable that the prophets should
have spoken in a form marked by such careful considera
tion. Finally, we have in the Old Testament one narrative con
cerning the written redaction of the prophetical addresses. It
is contained in Jer. xxxvi. Far indeed from contradicting or
weakening the result of the foregoing reasoning, it tends to
make the difference between the spoken and the written word
considerably greater than we should have presupposed it.
Jeremiah had been labouring as a prophet for twenty-three
years, before he thought of committing his oracles to writing.
After the lapse of that time — it was in the fourth year of the
reign of Jehoiakim— he received from Jahveh the command
to take a book-roll, and to write in it all the words which
Jahveh had put into his mouth against Israel, and against
Judah, and against all the nations; it might be that the men
of Judah, hearing what Jahveh purposed to do unto them,
would repent, and thus avert the threatened evil (w. 1-3).
Jeremiah summons his servant Baruch, dictates to him all
the words that Jahveh had spoken unto him, and orders him
to read them, in the temple, to the multitude there assembled
(vv. 4-7). Jehoiakim is told of that public reading, orders the
roll of Baruch to be brought to him, and consigns it to the flames
(w. 20-26). Thereafter, at the command of Jahveh (vv. 27-31),
Jeremiah took another roll, gave it to Baruch, and dictated to
him " all the words of the book which Jehoiakim had
burned ; also there were added besides unto them many other
like words." The circumstance, mentioned last, is not the
least remarkable of the points in that narrative ; if what
Jeremiah had to do had been to reproduce literally his
addresses to the people, then no such supplement could have
been admitted. But besides all this, let both the interval
of twenty-three years and the service rendered by Baruch
be taken into consideration. We could easily imagine
the prophets as keeping an accurate register of the revelations
which were made to them — in other words, we could regard
the prophetical writings as the diaries of their preaching, which
1 Amos i., ii. ; Is. ix. 7— x. 4 ; Hab. ii. 6-20, are instances of this last.
E

66 III. — introductory view of the prophets.
they had themselves kept. The testimony of Jeremiah goes
against such an idea. A specific inducement* was needed in
order that he should commit his oracles to writing. That
which he commanded to be written must have been fitted for
the auditory that Baruch would find in the temple, and can
not therefore, for this reason alone, have been a literal repro
duction of those discourses which he had formerly delivered.
Can the book-roll, which was written in the fourth year of
Jehoiakim, have well contained anything else than a survey of
Jeremiah's work as a prophet, arranged, it might be, in chrono
logical order ? At that time the co-operation of Baruch was
simply mechanical ; but now that he knew how Jeremiah
regarded the written prophecies, what would hinder him on
another occasion to work in a more independent manner, and
to commit to writing himself either the narrative of Jeremiah's
fortunes, or some of his later addresses themselves ? In pro
portion as the prophets themselves exercised less care in pre
serving in a literal form the discourses spoken by them, in
the same proportion was greater scope for free reproduction
afforded to the redactors of their preaching — the collectors of
the prophetical writings. It is true that, from the nature of
the case, Jer. xxxvi. can give us no assistance in answering
the various questions to which it gives occasion, but that
chapter certainly makes it incumbent on us to state them, and
to have regard to them in the explanation of the prophecies.
But enough for the present concerning the prophetical
literature and its relation to the preaching of the prophets.
I shall add only one remark further, which forces itself upon
us as we consider the facts to which I have just adverted.
At first the prophets did not write — afterwards they did.
They had laboured for centuries in Israel, before they made
use of that means. We shall have opportunity afterwards of
showing more fully the causes which, in the beginning of the
eighth century, led them to adopt that course, and the conse
quences which their coming forward as writers justifies us in
drawing with regard to the nature of their work. At present
I must limit myself to pointing out the fact, that so impor
tant a change in their manner of working did take place.
Their character, therefore, did not, as centuries elapsed, con
tinue, in all respects, the same. Israelitish prophecy is no

FURTHER COURSE OF THE INVESTIGATION. 67
stationary phenomenon, it has its history — a thought pregnant
with results, which here can be only mentioned, but which
will afterwards be found most serviceable.
We shall not, however, allow this part of our subject any
longer to detain us. According to the plan previously laid
down, we henceforth devote all our attention to the canonical
prophets. We will first of all listen to the testimony which
they bear concerning themselves and their relation to Jahveh
who sent them. The study of their prophetical self-conscious
ness transports us at once to the heart of our subject, and for
this, as well as for many other reasons, has full right to take
precedence of other topics.

CHAPTER IV.
THE CONVICTION OF THE ISRAELITISH PROPHETS WITH REGARD
TO THEIR DIVINE COMMISSION.
When we take up the prophetical literature, and peruse its
various productions in their order, we notice immediately that
it has an entire agreement, in one respect, with every other
literature, which, as is the case here, has not sprung into
existence suddenly, but has been, so to say, in course of composi
tion for ages in succession. When we compare the prophetical
writings with each other, a great difference of language and
style becomes apparent. Even the earliest expositors of the
Old Testament had observed that fact, and directed the
attention of their readers to it. Jerome, the church father,
frequently gives very just intimations concerning the charac
teristics of particular prophets, for example, regarding the
abrupt style of Hosea. In the middle ages it was universally
acknowledged, more on the ground of Jerome's authority,
than as a result of independent observation, that each prophet
had his own peculiar manner of speaking and writing. The
Protestant theology did not exactly favour the recognition of
such facts, as it attended rather to the unity of the whole
Bible, and thus to the mutual agreement of its component
parts, than to the individuality of the several authors.
Nevertheless that also was not denied by the orthodox pro
testant theologians. Witsras, for example, writes thus : 1
" Let it be borne in mind that the diction of the prophets
varies widely, according to the difference, not only of the
subjects, but also of the writers. When Jeremiah relates the
events of his time, he writes in another style than when he
predicts, or bewails the sad fate of his people. Isaiah far
•excels all the others in the elevation of his language." He
1 L. c. Lib. i., cap. xi., § 11.

DIFFERENCE OF THE PROPHETS IN LANGUAGE AND STYLE. 69
afterwards proposes the question, how that variety is con
sistent with the operation of the Holy Spirit, which all the
prophets alike experienced ? " It need not be assumed that
the Spirit communicated to each of them every particular
word that he was to say or write, in such a way that the
action of the prophet's mind was of absolutely no service in the
consideration and arrangement of the words. How, in that
case, could the style vary according to the natural character
and the training of the prophets ? Let it rather be held that
the Holy Spirit acted in a rational way with rational beings,
and, adapting himself to the character of every writer,
employed the natural endowments of each, and made them
serviceable for the object he had in view, in such a way that
they, speaking in accordance with their natural character,
were so guided by the Holy Spirit, that they did not deviate
from what he intended. In consequence of this, Isaiah spake
in one way, Ezekiel in another, but both from God."
It will not be necessary to add much to these remarks.
The difference is so great, that it does not disappear even in
a translation, and can at once be ascertained by anyone. It
comes out in a particularly clear manner, in the modes and
turns of expression repeatedly employed by some prophets,
while they are not once met with in the others. Thus there
are, for example, many peculiar expressions which are used
again and again by Ezekiel, and by him alone. Jahveh
addresses him by the name " son of man " nearly one hundred
times ; he repeatedly receives the command " to set his face
against," Sec, and he calls Israel " house of rebelliousness."
The individuality of the rest of the prophets may be some
what less sharply marked, but is nevertheless distinctly
recognisable. It is self-evident that the personal characteristics of the
prophet, which are reflected in his manner of writing, are
influenced by the period in which he lives. Now it is uni
versally acknowledged, that language and style undergo
changes more or less important in the course of centuries.
We therefore expect that we shall find the proofs of such
changes in the prophetical writings also ; and the fact fully
responds to that expectation. The language of the prophets
in the Chaldean and Persian periods is a good deal less pure

70 IV.  THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
and forcible than that of their predecessors in the eighth
century, B. c. What a difference, for example, between the
language of Isaiah and that of Ezekiel ! The influence of the
period to which he belongs shows itself likewise in the style
of the prophet. It cannot well be merely a matter of
accident, nor can it be explained simply from the individu
ality of the writers, that the poetical rhythm is so much more
strictly attended to in the earlier prophecies, than in the
more recent, nay, that in the latter it is sometimes altogether
wanting. It is as if the later prophets rise, only in excep
tional cases, to those flights of eloquence which characterize, as
if by nature, the earlier seers. It need scarcely be said, how
ever, that we have to do here with a relative difference. The
time in which the prophets live, influences them all in one and
the same direction; but the one prophet is much more influenced
by it than the other. The nature of the one yields to the
force of the circumstances, that of the other reacts against
it. Thus, for example, Habakkuk and Jeremiah are nearly
contemporaries ; nevertheless there is a very remarkable
distinction in form between the two prophets. As regards
the form, Habakkuk is much more of a poet than Jeremiah ;
the last chapter of his oracles contains a hymn, which is
characterised as much by its sublimity, as by its faultless
rhythm. With this reservation, however, it can be testified
of the prophets also, that, as writers, they are the children of
their time.
Even on a cursory perusal of the prophetical writings)
another phenomenon presents itself to us, which, like the
difference in language and style just noticed, deserves to
engage our attention for a few moments, before we pass on to
our proper subject. Writers who labour among one people,
and in one spirit, will naturally take knowledge of each
other's work, and show the influence of that knowledge in
what they themselves produce. The Israelitish prophets are
no exception to this general rule ; their oracles afford proof
that the one knew and imitated the other.
Before, however, we discuss their mutual dependence, let
us say a single word concerning the degree of their inde
pendence as a body. According to the traditional view, the
Mosaic law is some centuries older than the oldest of the

RELATION BETWEEN THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 71
prophetical books. Hence it is commonly assumed, that the
prophets had read and meditated upon the Pentateuch, and
the points of contact between their writings and the Mosaic
ordinances and narratives are explained by supposing that
they followed what they had found there. This method of
viewing the facts is applied, not only to the passages in which
an acquaintance with the history of the patriarchal and
Mosaic times is discernible,1 but also to the prophetical utter
ances of religious and moral import, to which parallels, as is often
the case, can be adduced from the Pentateuch, especially from
the book of Deuteronomy.2 Nevertheless it cannot be assumed
as proved, that such is, in truth, the relation in which the
prophets stand to the books of Moses. The remark that was
formerly made with regard to the fifth book,3 applies also to
the rest. According to the judgment of many, they belong
to a later period, and they are, partly coeval with the writ
ings of the canonical prophets, partly also of a somewhat more
recent date. Accordingly, in the estimation of those who
adopt that opinion, the mutual relation of the Law and the
Prophets is altered — the former becomes dependent on the
latter. The independence and originality are, as it were,
transposed, and are no longer assigned to the Pentateuch, but
to the prophetical literature — a most important inversion of
the order of things. It would however be premature, at our pre
sent stage, either to accept, or to reject it. We shall have an
opportunity, and also be better prepared, to take up the dis
cussion of this important question, at a later stage. At pre
sent we confine ourselves to that which is not disputed ; and
therefore leave also the relation between the prophets and the
authors of the psalms, in the meantime undetermined ; for
the same difference of opinion presents itself with regard to
their relation, as exists with regard to that between the
Law and the Prophets.
That some of the prophets are dependent on others of their
number is doubted by none ; it is only concerning the degree
of that dependence that any difference of opinion is shown.
The very smallest agreement between two prophets, for
1 See Amos ii. 9, 10 ; iv. 11 ; v. 25, 26 ; Hos. xii. 4, 5, 13 ; Micah vi. 5,
&c. &c.
2' CI e.g., Micah vi. 8, with Deut. x. 12, 13. 3 See p. 56.

72 IY.  THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
example, the use of the same or nearly the same word, is
explained by many as resulting from the one having imi
tated the other. If that explanation be the true one, then
all independence must be denied to the younger prophets,
then their writing must have consisted in combining and blend
ing together detached passages which they had read in their
predecessors. It is indeed strange, that such a conception
could have entered into the minds of learned men, who, in
other respects, are not lacking in reverence for the Israelitish
prophets. Many similarities must rather be regarded as
accidental coincidences, many others as involuntary
reminiscences of what had formerly been read or heard. This
latter case, however, shows of itself that the prophet was not
unacquainted with his predecessors. That appears still more
clearly from the numerous passages whose striking agreement
admits of no other explanation than direct imitation or
borrowing. When the words
" Jahveh shall from Zion roar,
And from Jerusalem shall utter his voice."
occur both in Amos1 and in Joel,2 no' one will imagine this
occurrence to be accidental. One of the two prophets has
adopted them from the other. Similar instances present
themselves from time to time. From the store of unam
biguous examples, which is considerable, I give some of the
most striking.
Let Isaiah ii. 2-5, and Michah iv. 1-5 be compared. It is
at once plain, that the two passages are, at the beginning,
almost the same ; it is only towards the end that a difference
is shown. The beautiful description of the universal peace
in Micah v. 4, " They shall sit every man under his vine and
under his fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid, for the
mouth of Jahveh of hosts hath spoken," is wanting in Isaiah ;
yet that which the latter writes in v. 5, agrees so closely
with that which follows in Micah (also in v. 5), that it is
certain the two verses cannot have originated independently
of each other. We may suppose either that Isaiah adopted
this prophecy from Micah, or that Micah borrowed it from
Isaiah, or — and this is by far the most probable — that both
follow one and the same model. In any case, borrowing has
1 Chap. i. 2. 2 Chap. iii. 16.

MUTUAL DEPENDENCE OF THE PROPHETS. 73
here been practised, whether by one of the two prophets, or
by both. Something of the same kind may, with great
probability, be assumed, with regard to "the oracle against
Moab " in Isaiah xv., xvi. The last two verses (chap. xvi.
13, 14), must be regarded as a postscript added by Isaiah to
an older prophecy. The distinction drawn between the time at
which Jahveh first announced the judgment concerning Moab,
and the present time,1 wherein the term is fixed for the fulfil
ment of that threatening, is obvious at once. Now Isaiah
does not expressly say, that the first announcement was made
through another prophet, and as little does he give us to
understand, that he himself is the author of the oracle whose
realization he expects ; but when we take into account that
Isaiah xv. 1 — xvi. 12, differ in language and manner from
Isaiah's prophecies, then we do not hesitate to understand his
testimony in vv. 13, 14, in such a way as that he there
distinguishes himself from the author of the preceding verses.
He thus applies in this case also the method which he
employs in chap. ii. 1-5, only on a larger scale. This is the
more remarkable, because Isaiah belongs to the older pro
phets, and least of all borrows from others on account of
poverty. We are not surprised then to find the more recent
prophets following in the same track. This is universally
acknowledged as regards Jeremiah. The comparison of his
prophecies against the heathen with the models which the
prophet had before him, shows clearly, how he now some
times imitated them, then again adopted portions of them.2
In his turn Jeremiah is now sometimes imitated by Ezekiel,
at other times again is, as it were, commented on by him.
We may be satisfied with these proofs — a few out of very
many — the more readily, because the conclusion to which they
lead us is established by the express testimony of the pro
phets themselves. Ezekiel refers, in no ambiguous terms, to
that which Jahveh had spoken " in old time by his servants
the prophets of Israel.8 Zechariah reminds his contemporaries
1 This opposition does not very clearly appear in the Authorised version
but is evident when we translate (v. 13), " This is the word that Jahveh
spake concerning Moab long ago (v. 14), but now speaketh Jahveh, saymg,
&c. 2 Compare the Commentators on Jer. xlviii. and xlix. 7-22.
3 Chap, xxxviii. 17, compare lxxxix. 8.

74 IV.  THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
of the preaching of the older prophets, and warns them not to
fall into the sin of their fathers, who, to their hurt, had given
no heed to the threatening.1 Daniel, as we read in the book
called after him,2 discovers in the (prophetical) writings, the
number of the years which must elapse, according to the
prediction of Jeremiah, before the ruins of Jerusalem were
restored, while his prophecy of the seventy year-weeks s rests
wholly on that which his predecessor had uttered regarding
the seventy years of the servitude of Judah.4
The case admits of no doubt — the canonical prophets
are mutually allied and are closely connected with one an
other. The one may stand more by himself, the other may
be more dependent upon his predecessors, collectively they
all form, as it were, one school, or they may be likened to
the links of one chain.
The phenomena with which we have thus far become
acquainted, are anything but exceptional. Was it really
necessary then to spend time in considering them ? If our
investigation had been concerned with any other subject, we
might have passed them by, but in the study of the propheti
cal writings we could not leave them unnoticed. Here they
are coupled with the derivation of the prophetical word from
another source than the ordinary human knowledge of the
prophets themselves. Israelitish prophecy comes forward
with a claim to divine origin and divine authority. The
canonical prophets, all without distinction, are possessed hy
the consciousness that they proclaim the word of Jahveh, and
express that conviction, on frequent occasions, and in the
most unambiguous manner.
Wherefore should we furnish an express demonstration of
that which nobody doubts ? He who is familiar with the
prophetical writings will grant at once that such a conviction
is universal, and is everywhere either expressed in so many
words or involuntarily manifested. In the beginning of
Isaiah's prophecies we find the exclamation —
" Hear 0 heavens ! and give ear 0 earth !
For Jahveh hath spoken —
I have nourished and brought up children,
And they have transgressed against me." 5
Chap. i. 4. 2 Chap. ix. 2. 3 Chap. ix. 24-27.
Jer. xxv. 11, 12 ; xxix. 10. 6 Isa. i. 2.

PROPHETS INTRODUCE JAHVEH AS SPEAKER. 75
And Malachi closes his admonitions with the prediction,
" Behold I (Jahveh) send you Elijah the prophet, before the
coming of the great and dreadful day of Jahveh, and he shall
turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of
the children to the fathers, so that I (Jahveh) may not come
and smite the land with a curse."1 The first and the last
word of the collection of the prophetical books are words of
Jahveh ; from the beginning to the end he is introduced as
speaker by men who are persuaded that they can come
forward as his interpreters. The separate addresses of the
prophets are designated in the titles as " the word of Jahveh
that came to." .... Again and again the stream of the
prophetical discourse is interrupted by such phrases as,
" Thus saith Jahveh," or " Thus hath Jahveh spoken," or
" utterance of Jahveh," 2 and many others of the same im
port. But the better way will be for the reader to open the
prophetical writings — in what place is a matter of indifference
— he will find everywhere the confirmation of the fact to
whicli our attention has now been directed.
That fact will be put in a clearer light by two particulars,
which in appearance are at variance with each other, but
which are really in harmony. The first which deserves our
attention is that the first person singular frequently denotes in
the prophetical writings not the prophet who speaks or writes,
but Jahveh. It is superfluous to adduce instances ; every page
of the prophetical literature furnishes them in great number.
That use of the first person is frequently accompanied by the
mention of Jahveh's name,3 which, strictly speaking, would be
then only perfectly suitable when the prophet was bearing
witness regarding him, or was speaking about him. It is
thus most clearly evident that the prophet identifies himself
with his sender^ — that he is thoroughly convinced that he is
" the mouth of Jahveh." 4
Nevertheless — and this is the second particular which I
had in view — the prophet sometimes places himself over
against Jahveh, and specifically makes a distinction between
1 Malachi iv. 5, 6.
2 In Hebrew ne'um, properly a participle passive, which may also be trans
lated " oracle."
3 See e.g., the closing verses of Malachi just quoted.
* Compare Jer. xv. 19 ; Exod. iv. 16 ; vii. 1.

76 IV.  THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
his own wishes and thoughts and those of his sender. But
let the manner in which this is done be carefully marked.
The prophet acknowledges that he would gladly speak other
wise than Jahveh prescribes to him. He lays all stress on
the fact that his heart rises up against the severe words
which are often put in his mouth. If he could yield to the
love which he bears to Israel, or consult his own interest, he
would speak of prosperity and peace, and not of danger and
judgment. It is in Jeremiah especially that we meet with
such assurances, which sometimes pass into bitter complaints,
nay, into imprecations upon the lot to whicli he has been sub
jected. But, nevertheless, the distinction which we find drawn
in such passages is, in fact, in perfect harmony with the identifi
cation of the prophet with Jahveh, to which we first drew
attention. For, let it not be forgotten, in those struggles
of which the prophets speak, Jahveh is the conqueror at the
end. The conflict has been already fought out, when they
make mention of it in their discourses or their writings.
They have yielded to his superior might, and they stand be
fore us now as the interpreters of a will which is not their
own, but to which, compelled by the force of the truth, they
have submitted themselves. Thus, then, even there, where
the prophet and his sender could least of all be identified,
the prophetical word is the word of Jahveh.
This self-consciousness of the Israelitish prophets is a fact of
the very greatest importance. We see here men who can
find no words sufficient to declare the might and majesty of
Jahveh ; who have a deep and lively feeling of their own
utter nothingness before him, and, nevertheless, in spite of
the distance which separates them from him, declare emphati
cally that they know his counsel* and speak his word. It is
true, indeed, that we find the same conviction amongst the
other nations of ancient times as well ; the prophets of Israel
do not stand alone in the belief that a higher power inspires
them, and communicates to them what they must proclaim ;
but such a circumstance does not diminish our interest in
that conviction. There is, besides, in the manner in which it
is expressed here in Israel, and specifically in the conception
of Jahveh's nature and attributes with which it is associated,
something that is in itself peculiar, and which compels our

MEANING AND SOURCE OF THEIR SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 77
reverence and redoubles our attention. Nothing is, therefore,
more natural than that we should extend our investigation
further, with the view of fully comprehending, if that be pos
sible, a phenomenon so important. What did the prophets
mean, when they declared that it was the word of Jahveh
which they proclaimed? Whence the certainty with which
they came forward as the interpreters of the god of Israel ?
These are the questions which we must endeavour to answer
out of their own writings.
Let me at once plainly declare, that the study of the pro
phetical literature does not bring us so far as we could, in
fact, wish with regard to these points. More than one ques
tion will remain unsolved at the close. The prophets indicate
their conviction in a roundabout way rather than explain it,
or reveal the ground on which it rests. Still even that
negative result has its value, and we obtain besides intima
tions which are not devoid of importance.
The prophets are sent by Jahveh, and. that for the purpose of
speaking those words which they deliver to their people.
This formula, (which is employed by Jeremiah especially1) is
the most general expression ofthe prophetical self-consciousness.
Wherein this mission consists, or how the prophet obtains
the certainty of it, is of course not thereby explained. - It
remains even undetermined, whether we are to think of one
sending once for all, or rather of a commission renewed, as
often as the occasion arises, for delivering some particular
mandate of Jahveh. But on that point we shall have more
to say immediately.
Somewhat less general seems the assurance of the prophet
that he has heard or seen that which he publishes to Israel.
The former of these expressions occurs, comparatively speak
ing, but seldom,2 unless, indeed, it be in connection with the
visions which we shall immediately have to describe more
1 See Jer. i. 7 ; vii. 25; xix. 14 ; xxv. 4, &c, &c. ; and in contrast thereto
Jer. xiv. 14, 15 ; xxiii. 21, 32, &c, &c. Compare also Is. vi. 8 ; Ezek. ii.
3. 4 ; iii. 6 (and in contrast thereto xiii. 6) ; Is. xiii. 19 ; xlviii. 16 ; Ixi. 1 ;
Hag. i. 12 ; Zach. ii. 8, 9, 11 ; iv. 9 ; vi. 15 ; vii. 12 ; Mai. iv. 2. A parallel
passage is Hag. i. 13, where the prophet is called "Jahveh's messenger,"
the same name that is given elsewhere in the Old Testament to the higher
beings who deliver or execute Jahveh's commands.
2 Jer. xlix. 14 ; Is. xxi. 10.

78 IV.  THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
minutely, and in whicli the voice of Jahveh is usually repre
sented as being heard. In so far, however, as " the word of
Jahveh/' which the prophet utters, is to be regarded as having
been previously heard by him, we find this idea on every page
of the prophetical writings. Still, it is not said how the mes
senger of Jahveh heard the word of his sender, nor on what
evidence he recognised it. As little is this evident from the
passages in which we read that Jahveh discloses his counsel
to the prophet, or reveals himself to him, or uncovers his ear,
in order, namely, to make a communication to him.1 The
same phrases are employed with regard to men in their mutual
relations, and express, in another form, the same thought
which is involved in " the word of Jahveh."
The passages are numerous in which mention is made of
what the prophets saw, or of what Jahveh showed them. The
name Choze'h, which is assigned to them also in the pro
phetical writings, is, as has already been observed,2 most pro
bably derived from this " seeing." Prophecy in general is
denoted by various appellations, which all have the significa
tion of "something seen."3 This is not uncommon in the
titles, as " the vision of Isaiah," " of Obadiah," " the book of
the vision of Nahum."4 But the prophets themselves also
use these words. Thus Ezekiel writes — ¦" They shall (in
vain) seek a vision from the prophet"5 — while in the similar
passage of Jeremiah, to which he here refers — " The word
shall not perish from the prophet." 6 In Hosea Jahveh testi
fies that he " has spoken to the prophets, and has multiplied
the vision."7 Micah speaks of " a night without vision," as of
a time in which there is no answer from God.8 Other pas
sages are just as unambiguous.9
1 Amos iii. 7 ; Is. xxii. 14 ; Dan. ii. 22, 28, 29, 47; x. 1 ; compare 1 Sam.
ii. 27 ; iii. 7, 21 ; ix. 15 ; 2 Sam. vii. 27,
2 See p. 43.
3 They are in Hebrew chizzayon, machazeh, chazon, chazuth, mar'eh and
mar'ah. 4 Is. i. 1 ; Obad. verse 1 ; Nah. i. 1. 6 Chap. vii. 26. e Chap, xviii. 18.
7 Chap. xii. 11 (in the Heb., but verse 10, auth. ver.) 8 Chap. iii. 6, 7.
9 See further, for chazon, Is. xxix. 7 ; Jer. xiv. 14 ; xxiii. 6 ; Ezek. vii.
13 : xii. 22-24, 27 ; xiii. 16 ; Hab. ii. 2, 3 ; Dan. i. 17 ; viii. 1, 2, 13, 15,
17, 26 ; ix. 21, 24; x. 14; xi. 14. For chazuth, Is. xxi. 2 ; xxviii. 18;
xxix. 11 ; Dan. viii. 5, 8. For chizzayon, Is. xxii. 6 ; Joel iii. i. ; Zech.
xiii. 4. For machazeh, Ezek. xxiii. 7. For mar'eh and mar'ah, Ezek. viii. 4,
and elsewhere ; Dan. viii. 16, and elsewhere.

THE PROPHETICAL VISIONS. 79
But our authorities allow us to go still further, and to
penetrate deeper into the character of these visions. The
prophets speak of them, not merely in general expressions,
but they also describe them, sometimes, indeed, with great
fulness. In Isaiah (chap, vi.), Jeremiah (chap. i. 4-19), and
Ezekiel (chaps, i.-iii.), such a " vision" precedes the entrance
upon the prophetical career ; in that vision the summons of
Jahveh comes to them, and they receive the indication, alike
of the task which is laid upon them and of the lot which they
have to expect. Who does not remember the sublime scene,
so strikingly depicted by Isaiah ? The descriptions of the
two other prophets cannot stand a comparison with it, but,
at the same time, they descend not less into details. The
visions of which Amos speaks,1 and a second vision mentioned
by Jeremiah,2 are more simple. These are the only visions
with which we meet in the pre-exilic prophets. In Ezekiel,
Zaehariah the son of Iddo, and Daniel, descriptions of this
kind are far more numerous and circumstantial.3
We have therefore a superabundance of narratives ; yet
there is a difference of opinion with regard to the use which
we are to make of them. It seems indeed the simplest way of
all, to understand the communications of the prophets as being
the pure expression of reality, and thus to believe that their
description of what they saw and heard, is strictly accurate
both as to the matter and the manner. Any other view seems
even capricious and unfair : what reason have we to
question the historical fidelity of the prophets ? But let us
not be deceived by mere appearances! The observation which
was made in the previous chapter about the spoken and the
written prophetical word,4 applies also to the present case.
It is for a definite purpose that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel
give a narrative of what took place when they were called ;
their account of it is a portion of the writing which they
penned for the benefit of their contemporaries, and with a
view to their wants. They were no more bound to describe,
with strict accuracy, how they were consecrated to their
office, than they were either able or obliged to reproduce, in
1 Chap. vii. 1-3, 4-6, 7-9 ; viii. 1-3 ; ix. 1. 2 Chap. xxiv.
3 Ezek. viii. ff ; xxxviii. 1-14 ; xl. ff; Dan. vii., viii., x. ff ; Zech. i.-vi.
4 See pp. 64-67.

80 IV.  THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
their writings, word for word, what they had spoken to the
people at an earlier or a later period. The prophets were, in
general, free in the choice of the forms which they should
adopt. They could declare " the word of Jahveh," simple
and unadorned, but they might also clothe it in such a garb
as their own taste and the wants of their hearers or readers
seemed to require or to recommend. " The word of Jahveh "
which Nathan had to deliver to David was the severe con
demnation of the crimes committed by him, and the
announcement of the righteous punishment. It lay with
himself to determine whether he would declare that " word,"
as Elijah, for instance, delivered his message before Ahab,1 or
whether he should rather do it in the strikingly beautiful par
able of the rich and the poor man.2 In like manner the
prophets might not merely give a visible form to their
thoughts — the thoughts of Jahveh — in a symbolical action,
but it was also quite within their option to present them in
vivid colours in the (fictitious) narrative either of an emblematic
deed, or of a vision. Some instances of the former have
already been adduced.3 There was no single valid reason
why they should abstain from the latter — the clothing of the
word of Jahveh in the form of a vision.
We are therefore entitled, nay obliged, to ask whether
they have also made use of this freedom which they possessed ?
The answer does not seem doubtful. The visions which even
so early a writer as Amos sketches for us, give us rather the
impression of a well-considered visible representation of his
conception of the fate which Israel had to expect, than of a
faithful reproduction of the images which he had beheld
whilst in an ecstatic state.4 The elaborate, and even rather
overcharged pictures also of Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel,
must probably be regarded as products of art. One remark
able proof in favour of this view will be immediately con
sidered — the important part which the angels play in these
more recent visions.5 But apart from that, these pictures
1 1 Kings xxi. 17, ff. 2 2 Sam. xii. 1-6. 3 See page 61.
4 Thus, for example, Amos viii. 1-3, is founded on a play of words.
"Summer fruit" (kaitz), and "end" (ketz), have in Hebrew almost the
same sound. Can the said passage well be anything else, than a repre
sentation of this accidental agreement which has been observed by the
prophet ? 5 See further on pp. 87, f.

I VISIONS AS FORMS FOR PRESENTING IDEAS. 81
exhibit features which are in the highest degree natural and
appropriate, when regarded as freely chosen allegorical drapery,
but which present great difficulties, or even involve impossi
bilities when regarded as having been seen by the prophets
exactly as they describe them to us. When Jeremiah speaks of
" a seething pot which was turned to him from the north," we
understand his meaning, a meaning which he himself more
over explains in the words immediately following — •" out of
the north shall the evil boil forth against all the inhabitants
of the land."1 But what conception can we form of a vision
in which the prophet could determine that such was the posi
tion or direction of the pot ? To mention one instance more,
how could Daniel, standing by the river Ulai, see that " the
little horn of the he-goat waxed exceeding great toward the
south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land "
(Palestine).2 On the other hand, these words are perfectly
clear, when understood as the drapery of the idea that one of
the later kings (viz., Antiochus Epiphanes) of the kingdom
founded by Alexander the Great, was displaying his power
or causing it to be felt, in the direction of Egypt, Babylonia,
and Palestine.
With regard to each vision, therefore, we must inquire, how
we are to regard it — as reality, or as fiction. Further, even
when the probability is in favour of the former view, it cannot
at once be assumed as proved that the description corresponds,
in all respects, to the vision which the prophet had seen. It
is much more likely, from the nature of the case, that he
freely reproduced, giving greater clearness and completeness to
the picture, according as the circumstances of the time, and
the needs of those for whom he wrote, required. It follows
from this that our knowledge of the prophetical visions is
now somewhat less extended and certain, than at first seemed
to be the case. Many of the accounts cannot serve us at all
as sources of information, and many of the rest must be
used with caution. The main point, however, with which
we have here to do is established : the prophets, if not all,
at least the greater number of them, saw visions; in
1 Jer. i. 13, 14, with a slight alteration in the reading of v. 14 (taphuach
for tippathach) in consequence of which the same verb will be used here as
in v. 13.
2 Dan. viii. 9, compare v. 2. F

82 IV.  THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
particular, they must, according to the concurrent testimonies
of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, have obtained by means of
a vision the certainty that Jahveh had appointed them to
speak in his name to Israel. This fact will have to be
accepted, even if all the descriptions of prophetical visions
could be regarded as fiction, for the fiction must in that case
presuppose the reality. The prophets could use this form
only when they themselves and their hearers were con
vinced that Jahveh made known his will, or revealed the
secrets of the future, in visions. But we can advance a step
farther. The character of those visions also admits of being
determined with certainty. They are beheld by the prophet
while he is in a state of trance or ecstasy. All the repre
sentations coincide in fact with each other, and therefore with
•the reality, in this, that the prophets behold and hear things
which cannot be discerned by the bodily eye and ear : it is
supersensuous forms, images and voices, which they mention
in their descriptions. Jahveh seated on a lofty throne in the
heavenly temple, surrounded by the Seraphim, who praise
him in the anthem, " holy, holy, holy ; " the altar erected in
that temple ; the touching of Isaiah's lips with a live coal
taken from that altar by one of the Seraphim — all that does
not belong to common reality. The prophet was in a state
of ecstasy when he perceived these things, heard the words
which were addressed to him, and declared himself ready on
his part to fulfil the commission with which he was charged.
It need scarcely be said, that the call which was addressed
to the prophet in such a condition, was for him as real as
anything which he perceived with the bodily eye and heard
with the bodily ear. According to his inmost conviction, it
was Jahveh who showed him these things, whose voice he
heard, whose promises were re-echoed in him ; but at the
same time, he knew well, that all this was visible and audible
to himself alone. Though such a vision was not accorded to
him in solitude, and in midnight stillness, yet those who stood
around him would witness nothing of it ; they would observe
nothing but that the prophet, blind and deaf to all that was
happening about him, was brought into contact with a higher
world. It is the condition which is referred to in the sayings
of Balaam, in the words : —

HENGSTENBERG ON THE FORM OF REVELATION. 83
" Thus speaketh he who heareth the words of God,
Who beholdeth the vision of the Almighty,
Who lieth prostrate, with his eyes opened." 1
But if, founding upon these facts, we should proceed to
assume as a rule, that Jahveh's revelations were all, without
distinction, conveyed in this form to the prophet, we should
not only be going too far, but we should even come in conflict
with the testimony of the historical documents. Yet this rule
has been laid down by eminent theologians. Hengstenberg,
who, in the first edition of his " Christologie des A. Testa
ments," taught that the prophet was in an altogether uncon
scious state, when he received the divine revelations, modified
this opinion in the second edition, but still maintained in
that also, that the vision was the proper form of revelation.2
Haevernick,3 Keil,4 and others reject his opinion, in so far as
he maintained that the intellectual consciousness of the pro
phet was temporarily weakened or suspended while Jahveh
ma.de his will known to him ; but at the same time they
teach that " the word of God is communicated to the prophet
by means of inward intuition, of a spiritual perception."
Hengstenberg5 sees in this view, and not without reason,
an inconsistency: if that "inward intuition," that "spiritual
perception " is to be understood seriously, if it is anything
more than a mere phrase, then it involves also that the revel
ation possesses an ecstatic character. We can pass judgment
on the two representations, that of Hengstenberg and that of
Haevernick-Kiel at the same time : the one stands or falls
with the other.
They are not altogether without some foundation. The
repeated mention of " the visions " to which our attention has
already been directed,6 cannot be accidental. The use of that
word in the sense of " revelation " or " prophecy " is impor
tant. Hengstenberg, therefore, does not neglect to refer to it.
He appeals also further to the comparison of the prophet to
a watchman : 7 for just as a watchman, stationed on a height,
1 Num. xxiv. 4, compare verse 16. 2 See I. c, iii. 2, p. 158, ff.
3 " Handb. der hist. Krit. Einl. in das A. T.," ii. 2, p. 36, ff.
4 " Lehrb. der hist. Krit. Einl. in die Kanon. und apocryph. Bucher des
A. T.," 2d Aufl., S. 196, f. See also Oehler, " Theol. des A. T.," ii., 186-
190. Kueper " Das Prophetenthum des A. Bundes," p. 51, ff., diverges still
further from Hengstenberg.
6 L. c, p. 181. 6 See p. 78.
7 Mic. vii. 4 ; Jer. vi. 17 ; Ezek. iii. 17 ; Ezek. xxxiii.

84 IV.  THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
looks forth into the distance, and announces at once what he
discovers, so the prophet also stands on the watch, and com
municates to his people what Jahveh shows him. This image
is actually used in that sense on one occasion by the prophet
Habakkuk ; J generally, however, nothing more is meant by
the comparison, than that the prophet cares for his people,
and warns them against threatening dangers ; the word itself
does not imply that he stands on the watch for Jahveh's re
velations. But it is hardly worth while to dispute about the
matter, because although to the texts in which the word
" vision " occurs, there were added also the passages in which
the prophets are called " watchmen," yet the inference of
Hengstenberg would not be justified. It is not shown
that " the vision " was the form, the only form, of the
divine revelation for the Israelitish prophets, or rather
.'the contrary is clear. ^The ecstatic state is not the rule,
but the exception, in the life of the Israelitish prophet.
Hengstenberg already exaggerates somewhat, when he deduces
from the narratives about the prophets at Ramah, the con
temporaries of Samuel and Saul,2 that the prophets fell, so
to say, from one ecstasy into another ; but his main fault is
that he sees the distinguishing characteristic of the later pro
phecy also depicted in what took place then and there,/ That
is directly opposed to the impression which the writings of
the prophets make upon us. The difference between the
prophetical literature and the revelation to the prophets,
would certainly have been very great, if the revelation was
communicated to them while they were in a state of trance.
I Where we discover clear marks of reflection, deliberation, and
study, may we not confidently infer there the absence of
I ecstasy ? Let it be considered besides, that the prophets are
not in the habit of appealing to the visions as to the only or
usual means by which the word of Jahveh came to them.
We remember that when Jeremiah is called to account con
cerning one address which had given offence, he does not refer
to that one vision in which that specific word of Jahveh was
communicated to him, but to the relation in which he stands
1 Hab. ii. 1, compare the use of chaz6n in verses 2, 3. To some extent
parallel is Is. xxi. 6, ff.
2 Sam. x. 5, 6, 10—13 ; xix. 18—24. See p. 46.

THEIR CERTAINTY NOT FOUNDED ON VISIONS. 85
to Jahveh, his sender.1 In other words, he is conscious that
Jahveh has called him, and sent him to Israel, and that the
announcement of judgment, which had exasperated his hearers,
is the word of Jahveh. His vindication of himself testifies
strongly to that inward certainty ; and in so far as he himself
was concerned, no more was necessary ; but for the sake of
his hearers, and in the interests of his own personal safety, he
would certainly have appealed to the ecstasy in which he had
learned Jahveh's will, if such an ecstasy had preceded. Let the
reader judge for himself, if the dispute between Jeremiah and
Hananiah 2 does not necessarily lead to the same conclusion.
The distinction which the former makes between those who
prophesy prosperity, and those who prophesy adversity
disappears, if the prophet's own judgment is excluded, and his
task is limited to the faithful reproduction of that revelation
which has been made to him while he was in a state of
trance. The object of Hengstenberg and his followers is perfectly
intelligible. They endeavour to point out a fixed form in
which the word of Jahveh came to the prophet, and to point
this out in such a way that there cannot be the slightest
difficulty in distinguishing this word of Jahveh from the re
sults to which the prophet's own reflection had led him and
the thoughts which had sprung up in. his own mind. But
the testimony of the authentic documents of Israelitish pro
phecy does not establish their theory. The certainty whiclf
the prophets felt may sometimes have been based on the pre
ceding ecstacy or internal vision ; that such was always the
case is not by any means evident. So often as the vision
must be regarded as the freely chosen drapery of the prophet's
thoughts, we ought even altogether to reverse the relation.
The vision is not then the ground of the self-consciousness of
the prophets, but the use which they make of the vision is
the consequence of that self-consciousness.
By the rejection of this theory nothing essential is in truth
lost for us, as will be evident for two reasons. The certainty
which the ecstacy could have given to the prophet was first
of all purely subjective : he alone knew that he had witnessed
a vision, and that he proclaimed the revelation which had
1 See pp. 58, f. 2 Jer. xxviii. 7—9

86 IV. — THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
been made to him in that manner. We can have no control
over the one or the other, but must accept both on his testi
mony. In the second place, a specific supernatural character
can in no wise be ascribed to the trance ; its divine origin is
not at all self-evident. Phenomena of that nature were far from
uncommon in ancient times and in the middle ages, and
occur even at the present day. It is true that for a long
time people had no hesitation in ascribing them to super
natural influence. They seemed so singular and extraordinary
that this explanation forced itself quite naturally on men's
minds. What could not be derived from God was therefore
regarded as a display of the power of the devil. But we now
no longer occupy that standpoint. Ecstasy is now accurately
studied, compared with other affections allied to it, and is
explained from the human organism itself, specifically from
the nervous system. It may be — on that point I determine
nothing at present — that the trances of the Israelitish prophets
were of a nature altogether different : but that must be proved
separately ; for ecstasy in itself is no supernatural pheno
menon. It does not therefore advance us a step in determin
ing the origin of Old Testament prophecy.
It becomes gradually more and more evident that I had
some reason, at the beginning of this investigation, to warn
the reader against exaggerated expectations concerning the
results which it would yield. But we are not yet at the end.
According to the uniform representation of our prophetical
authorities — and, I may at once add, of the historical books
of the Old Testament as well — there is an indissoluble con
nection between prophecy and the spirit of Jahveh. They
are related to each other as effect and cause. The prophet is
" the man of the spirit." x "I will," so Jahveh speaks in the
well known prophecy of Joel, " pour out my spirit upon all
flesh, and (in consequence of that) your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see visions."2 If the wish of Moses,
" would God that all the people of Jahveh were prophets,"
was to be fulfilled, then, as it is expressed immediately after
wards, must " Jahveh put his spirit upon them." 3 One of
the prophets testifies — " The spirit of the Lord Jahveh is
1 Hos. ix. 7 2 Joel ii. 28. 3 Num. xi. 29 ; compare ver. 25.

PROPHECY AND THE SPIRIT OF JAHVEH. 87
upon me, because Jahveh hath anointed me to preach good
tidings unto the meek, he hath sent me to bind up the
broken-hearted." x These utterances, to which many others
might be added,2 agree perfectly with the representation of
Jahveh's spirit and its effects, which we find throughout the
whole of the Old Testament. The Israelites were accustomed
to attribute to the spirit of Jahveh the sudden outbursts of
men's enthusiasm, strength, and courage,3 no less than the more
permanent qualities of wisdom 4 and artistic skill ; 5 nothing
was more natural than that they should apply this view also
to prophecy, and regard, as an effect of the spirit of Jahveh,
not merely the ecstasy of the prophet and his transient en
thusiasm, but also the invincible might which upheld him in
the struggle.6 Still this conception does not bring us any
further in the explanation of the consciousness of the prophets,
in regard to their relation to Jahveh. It is again a roundabout
intimation of that consciousness, but throws no light upon its
origin and nature. "The spirit of Jahveh" is, for the Israelite,
the sum of all the influences which proceed from Jahveh.
According to a more mechanical view, " the hand of Jahveh "
is substituted for that expression, — a formula which is some
times also used in connection with prophecy.7 The very
fact of the word of the prophet being put on an equality with
the word of Jahveh of itself implies that the spirit of Jahveh
inspires him, and that he stands under the hand, that is, under
the power of Jahveh. We might therefore be prepared to find
that these expressions would be used with regard to him.
The conception that the spirit of Jahveh is the factor in
prophecy, is accompanied by another idea in some propheti
cal books, I mean in the more recent. Here Jahveh em
ploys the angels to make his will known to the prophets, in
particular to explain to them what they had beheld in a
1 Is. Ixi. 1.
2 Num. xxiv. 2 ; 1 Sam. x. 6, 10 ; xix. 20, ff.; 2 Kings ii. 9, 15 ; 2 Chron.
xv. 1 ; xx. 14 ; xxiv. 20 ; Neh. ix. 30 ; Ezek. xi. 5 ; Micah iii. 8 ; Zach. vii.
12. 3 Judges vi. 34 ; xi. 29 ; xiii. 25 ; xiv. 6, 19 ; xv. 14 ; 1 Sam. xi. 6, etc.
4 Gen. xli. 38 ; Is. xi. 2.
5 Exod. xxxi. 3 ; xxxv. 31.
0 See especially Micah iii. 8.
7 1 Kings xviii. 46 ; 2 Kings iii. 15 ; Ezek. i. 3 ; iii. 14 ; viii. 1 ; xxxiii.
22.

88 IV.  THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
vision. The perusal of a single chapter of Daniel, or of the
youngest Zechariah,1 gives us at once an idea of the office
which the angels fulfil. The older theologians did not hesitate
to understand such descriptions in a literal sense. They thus
— in so far as their attention was directed to the fact that
the angels appear first in the later prophetical writings,2 —
assumed that Jahveh at first revealed himself immediately to
his messengers, but, in subsequent ages, employed the inter
vention of angels. Why he did so is a circumstance which,
when regarded from their point of view, admitted of no
explanation. But, in spite of that, it could have actually
occurred, and might also be accepted as a fact by us, if there
were not very weighty reasons for doubting the objective
character of those visions, and thus also of the angels who
appear in them. The visions here referred to are specifically
tliose of the most recent prophets, which are, with great pro
bability, regarded as allegories, as visible representations of
the prophetical ideas. They are, on the whole, far too
detailed and too much elaborated, some of them even too fan
tastic and far-fetched, to be accepted as the genuine products
of ecstasy. On the other hand, they are quite in harmony
with the supposition that those prophets, in F conformity
with their own taste and that of their contemporaries, have
made, as it were, a pictorial representation of that which they
had to communicate to them. In these circumstances the
appearance of the angels in their visions is also at once
explained. Or rather, the conception of those visions as
allegorical pictures, derives new support from the manner in
which the angels therein perform their part. Is it not a
most remarkable fact, that they appear as the messengers of
Jahveh to the prophets at the very time in which, as is
universally acknowledged, belief in angels began to occupy a
larger place in the religious convictions of the Israelites?
How natural was it that the prophets should then occasionally
introduce the heavenly spirits who surround Jahveh's throne
as agents intervening between him and his human mes
sengers ! This is now, in a very striking manner, confirmed
1 See, e.g., Dan. vii. 15 ff., x., or Zech. ii.
2 Witsius, I.e., i.,-27 sq., pays no attention to this circumstance, but then
he does not confine himself to the prophets in the stricter sense.

ANGELS IN THE PROPHETIC VISIONS. 89
by some minor details, which properly admit of only one
interpretation, and now find here their proper place. Among
the many narratives of the books of Kings, which make men
tion of prophets and prophetical revelation, there is only one
in which an angel is spoken of as an agent between Jahveh and
the prophet, viz., 1 Kings xiii., a chapter which, for other
reasons as well, is classed among the very latest portions of the
history of the Kings.1 Another fact is still more remarkable.
We have two accounts of the numbering of the people under
David, and its consequences, one in 2 Sam. xxiv., which was
written before the Babylonish captivity, another in 1 Chron.
xxi., written after the exile. The latter is not derived from
other sources, but is a remoulding of the former. Now, in
the later narrative, an angel communicates Jahveh's command
to the prophet Gad, while the earlier author is not only
silent concerning that angel, but thinks it even superfluous
to mention expressly that the message of Gad to David was
put in his mouth by Jahveh.2 If he had not thought that
this was self-evident; then he would have written, " And the
word of Jahveh came to Gad." The Chronicle writer ex
presses this same conviction in the forms of his time, thus
— "And the angel of Jahveh commanded Gad to say to
David." There is yet one other narrative to which I wish
to direct attention. It performs for us a double service, since
it not only justifies us in regarding some visions as allegori
cal drapery, but it also shows clearly how it happened that a
part came to be assigned to the angels in the revelation of
Jahveh to the prophets. In contradiction to the four hun
dred prophets who had encouraged Ahab to go up to Bamoth
in Gilead, Micaiah, the son of Jimlah, announces that Israel
will there be defeated and that Ahab will be slain.3 The
king sees in that prediction, so directly opposed to the word
of the rest, a new proof that Micaiah has an ill will against
hun.4 This prophet now proceeds to explain why it was that
the four hundred prophets gave that pernicious counsel, as it
seemed to him.5 " I saw," so he spake, " Jahveh sitting on
1 See 1 Kings xiii. 18, and p. 15, above.
2 Compare 2 Sam. xxiv. 18, with 1 Chron. xxi. 18.
3 1 Kings xxii. 17. 4 Ibid. v. 18.
6 Ibid. vv. 19-23. The Authorized version renders incorrectly, m v. 21
" a spirit." In the original it is " the spirit," i.e., the spirit of Jahveh or
the spirit of prophecy.

90 IV.  THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him, on
his right hand and on his left. And Jahveh said, Who shall
persuade Ahab, that he may go up, and fall at Ramoth in
Gilead ? And one said on this manner, and another said on
that manner. Then came forth the spirit, and he stood before
Jahveh and said, I will persuade him. And Jahveh said
unto him. wherewith ? And he said, I will go forth, and I
will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And
he (Jahveh) said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also :
go forth and do so ! Now therefore, behold, Jahveh hath put
a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and
Jahveh hath spoken evil concerning thee." This speech of
Micaiah is perfectly plain and need give no offence, if we
may regard it as an allegory, that is, if the vision has not
been actually beheld, but is a creation of the prophet's fancy. It
expresses, in that case, his conviction that Jahveh — " who
forms the light and creates darkness, who makes peace and
creates evil, who does all things," 1 — has ordained the prediction
of the four hundred prophets in order to accomplish Ahab's
destruction. All the rest is then the drapery, it is no reality.
In fact, what else could such a consultation in the council of
heaven be ? Can " the spirit" be anything but a personification,
and therefore a thing which Micaiah could not have seen ? In
deed, the deeper the insight that we gain into the character of
the entire representation, the clearer does its allegorical charac
ter become. But just for that reason it shows us still further
how easily the idea could arise of introducing the angels as
announcing Jahveh's will to the prophets. " The spirit" of
Jahveh is here represented in the concrete, and thus takes a
place at once among " the host of heaven." Whoever, during
and after the time of the captivity, wished to express vividly
his conviction that Jahveh leads and inspires the prophet,
was naturally led to describe him as employing his heavenly
messengers. We thus obtain here again the same result to
which we were led previously : the intervention of the angels
is no explanation of the confidence with which the prophet
comes forward as the interpreter of Jahveh, but is a conse
quence of it. The main point which remains to us is, that
the prophet is fully convinced that he is impelled by Jah-
1 Is. xlv. 7.

EXPLANATION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF ANGELS. 91
veh's spirit, and that he speaks Jahveh's word. He feels
himself the confidential servant of Jahveh, as it is expressed
by Amos, as it were, in the name of all : " Surely the Lord
Jahveh will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets." 1 We have there, then, the fact from
which we have to start in our further investigation, and of
which we must never lose sight.
For it is a matter of course that we cannot abstain from
prosecuting that further inquiry. The problem is only now
distinctly proposed ; a beginning has still to be made with
the solution of it. Or is it considered that we ought simply
to acquiesce in the assurances of the Israelitish prophets with
regard to the origin and authority of their preaching ? They
who give us this advice, give it certainly not from thoughtless
ness or indolence. They would think that they acted wrongly
if they refused to give credence to the prophets. They advert
with all emphasis to the moral character of those men.
Their antagonists even have done justice to their disinterested
ness and the purity of their aims ; their whole life testifies
that they were thoroughly in earnest regarding the reverence
of Jahveh and the submission to his will, on which they
insist in their preaching. What then gives us a right to
call in question their solemn declarations ? Does it not be
tray an unjust and insulting distrust, if we proceed to test
and rigorously scrutinize these declarations as if they proceeded
from men whose good faith we may, with impunity, suspect ?
Have the prophets deserved such treatment at our hands ?
Let us keep in mind, too, that more than one of them has
sealed with his blood the testimony which he bore con
cerning the relation in which he stood to Jahveh.
It does not, in truth, enter into our minds to throw any
doubt on the good faith of the Israelitish prophets. Never
theless it is a mistake to suppose that an appeal to that good
faith can suffice. The dilemma, " messenger of God or
deceiver," seems very simple, but is in fact very superficial.
Two or three centuries ago, it was allowable to state the
problem in that manner ; in the present day we should
merely betray our own ignorance if we continued to adhere
to that formula as expressing the only alternative. Our
1 Amos iii. 7.

92 IV.  THE PROPHETS' CONVICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES.
circle of vision has been greatly extended, especially in
the last hundred years. ¦ Nations and religions, of which for
mer generations' knew scarcely anything, have been brought
within the circle of our view, and been made the subjects of
profound study. The firm foundations of a comparative his
tory of religions have been laid. The development of psy
chology has kept pace with the extension of our historical
knowledge. Experience has taught that, in all other cases,
we accomplish nothing, nay, we cause fearful confusion, by
assuming the dilemma, " divine truth or human imposture :"
and yet are we to be tied down to that for all time, when we
have to deal with the religion of Israel? Let us rejoice that
this sad necessity has no existence.
But it is really not even necessary to call in the aid of
these general considerations. We do not require to go
beyond the limits of the Old Testament in order to be con
vinced that the reality cannot be compressed within the strait-
jacket into which the system we are discussing would seek to
force it. We have shown already in a former chapter,1 that,
in Israel other gods also, besides Jahveh, had their prophets.
I have made repeated mention of the mutual strife of the
Jahveh-prophets themselves.2 Shall we now simply assume
it as proved, that divine inspiration remained limited to the
men whose writings we possess, and consequently look upon
all the others as cunning impostors ? Are we justified in
passing such a sentence ? And yet we must do so, if we
determine, either to admit, on the word of the prophets, their
claim to divine authority as valid, or to reject it as a pre
sumptuous pretension. Undoubtedly, we have here a difficult
problem before us. Evidently Micaiah, the son of Jimlah,
was already brought by it into a state of perplexity. He does
not however venture to decide that the prophets of Ahab
were impostors, or to deny that they spake by the spirit of
Jahveh. According to him " that spirit " has gone forth, and
"has become a lying spirit in the mouth ofthe king's advisers."3
Certainly no one will regard this utterance as a solution of
the problem ; but still it may serve as a proof that there is
here a problem to be solved, or, in other words, that we may
not, without farther investigation, accept the testimony of the
1 See p. 42. " See pp. 40, 49, 60 f. 3 1 Kings xxii. 22.

NECESSITY FOR FURTHER ENQUIRY. 93
self-consciousness of the Israelitish prophets, and — much less
— summarily reject it.
There is yet another reason, quite sufficient in itself, why we
cannot suffer ourselves to approve the demand to acknowledge
the canonical prophets, without further investigation, as the
messengers of God. We are wont to bring the Old and New
Testaments into connection with each other, and to regard
them as one whole. Hence we involuntarily identify com
pletely "the God of Israel," in whose name the prophets
speak, with " the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," 1
and regard and reverence him as the one true God. The
translations of the Old Testament, in which the proper
noun Jahveh is understood as a common noun, and
is rendered by " the Lord," " 1'Eternel," contribute to
that conception. What truth it contains will afterwards
appear ; nothing can be farther from my intention, than to
overlook it, or to throw it in the shade ; but it is not the
proper course to begin with the identification of which I have
just spoken. To do so would be to assume as proved that
which must first be investigated. Nevertheless it is plain
that this colossal assumption forms the foundation of that
dilemma, in presence of which it is sought to place us. Is it
not the fact that the dilemma disappears immediately on our
making a distinction between " Jahveh " and God — a dis
tinction which, in the first instance, must certainly be made ?
Once more, by admitting that distinction we bind ourselves to
nothing. It may subsequently become clear, that the divinity
whom the prophets called Jahveh, is the same with Him
whom we acknowledge and serve, or, to express it otherwise,
that their conception of the Supreme Being does not differ
from ours : only we must not, a priori, determine that such
is the case. We must keep ourselves free, and thus at the
same time guarantee the independence of our investigation :
for to its independence does it not owe all its value ?
But in what shall that investigation, of which we have from
time to time spoken, consist ? To what end is it to be
directed, and what course should it pursue ?
The prophets speak "the word of Jahveh." That then is the
object of our study. What they lay before us as such, we must
1 Rom. xv. 16, &c.

94 IV.  THE prophets' conviction about themselves.
examine from different points of view, and test by all the means
that are at our disposal. It is only by pursuing this course,
that we can form to ourselves a well-grounded judgment upon.
the character and origin of that word, and upon the authority
that the prophets themselves desire that others should ascribe
to it. That study, it is obvious, must be many-sided and
impartial: Thus far there is no difficulty, no difference of opinion ;
but the question, with which we begin, what point of
view are we first to select ? is not so simple. Would it not be
possible to allow the prophets themselves to answer it ; to allow
them to decide what is the main thing in their preaching, and
thus to determine on what our estimation of " the word of
Jahveh " must be founded ? We could in any case make the
trial, and, in the first instance, study their writings, keeping
this question in view. Nevertheless there are weighty reasons
why we do not adopt that method, but rather determine our
selves what at first shall be the main point of our investiga
tion. The question as to whether the prophecies have been
fulfilled, and if so, within tuhat limits, must, in the first
instance, be placed in the fore-ground. Why that may be
said to be absolutely necessary, may easily be shown.
We know already the two principal theories regarding
Israelitish prophecy,1 and remember what an important place
the prediction of the future holds in the one, the supernatural
view. In that we find all at once an intimation which we
cannot neglect. But besides it is in no way accidental that,
in the estimation of the supernaturalists, prediction occupies
that place of honour. In assigning to it such a position,
they are far from lightly esteeming the great religious and
moral truths which the prophets have proclaimed. On the
contrary, they value them highly, more highly perhaps than
they do the most of the predictions ; but as it is their object
to prove the supernatural origin of prophecy, they have of
course to appeal always, not to its moral and religious con
tents, but to the predictions and their fulfilment. And they
are perfectly justified in doing so. The purity and elevation
of the prophetical ideas, regarded entirely in themselves, can
not establish the supernatural inspiration of prophecy ; at
1 See pp. 1 — 4.

enquiry as to the fulfilment of prophecy. 95
least they cannot do so in our days, when every educated
man knows how much that is excellent is to be found in the
sacred books, or to put it more generally, in the literature of
the other nations of antiquity. The proposition that the moral
and religious contents of the books of the Old Testament
stand higher than those of any other pre-christian literature,
can be defended ; but to ascribe to these books, on that
ground, another origin, an origin specifically distinct, not
human but divine, would be in fact nothing more than a
mere arbitrary assertion, whicli could not be justified on
reasonable grounds. It is not, therefore, strange, it is rather
most natural, that the appeal to the predictions should play
so important a part in the contest for and against super
naturalism. If we are in earnest in the wish to obtain
certainty with regard to the point about which this conflict
is waged, then we must also follow that direction, and place
in the foreground the question, "Fulfilled or not fulfilled?"
How many a discussion is interminably carried on, without
yielding any definite result, because the contending parties
have not grasped the main question, or have too speedily let it
slip ! If we wish to escape that danger, then we must from
the beginning confine ourselves to the decisive point, accord
ing to which all the rest must ultimately be regulated. A
definite and unambiguous result can be obtained only by pur
suing the course just now pointed out, which we have thus
to take and to follow to the close. We shall afterwards enquire
expressly whether we have done justice to the prophets by
the choice of that method. It may possibly be true that
they required another kind of appreciation than that which
depends on the comparison of their predictions with the result,
so that we shall have been unfair to them in measuring them
by that standard. If that prove to be the case, then the
opportunity is still available for us to correct the error, and to
employ the test which they themselves acknowledge as valid.
This much is certain, that they who acknowledge the
supernatural origin of prophecy will not complain of such a
method of conducting the investigation. Let one of them
bear witness, as if in the name of them all. Dr Kueper writes
thus r1 — " The claims of prophecy are more distinctly verified
1 L. c, pp. 30, 31.

96 IV.  THE prophets' conviction about themselves.
by the result of the prediction " (than by miracles). (Com
pare Deut. xviii. 21, 22) . . . "In the truth of the predic
tion, established by the result, lies the standard by which it
is to be judged ; the prophets sent from God are thereby
distinguished from those who express merely the thoughts of
their own hearts. It may be a question whether there does
not exist, even according to Scripture, a natural divination ;
Ezekiel in particular does not by any means represent the
heathen soothsaying as mere deception (chap. xxi. 21);
nevertheless the Old Testament, especially the second part of
Isaiah, and Daniel, lays stress upon the fact that the God of
Israel alone, in contradistinction to the false gods, is able to
reveal the future long beforehand, and that he, just on
that account, is clearly shown to be the living God " (Is. xli.
21 ; xliii. 9 ; xliv. 25 ; xlv. 21 ; Dan. i., ii., v.) . . . " The sup
position that the word of God spoken by the prophets, is fulfilled,
is entirely in accordance with the spirit of the Old Testament.
Every one must perceive that the question as to the possibility
of definite predictions does not apply to the true prophets as
they are depicted to us in Scripture, while a whole series of
very definite predictions can, moreover, be pointed to, which
criticism is unable to set aside.'' So sure of his cause does
the supernaturalist feel. He cannot then have any objection
to our accepting battle on the ground which he himself has
appointed. It may serve still further to recommend the study of the
predictions, that it leads us to traverse the whole field of
prophetical preaching, and to obtain for ourselves a complete
survey of it — such a survey, indeed, as we must wish to get.
Whoever collects the prophetical ideas, and arranges them
into a system, dissociates them, at the same time, from the form
in which they were delivered : at least he runs the risk of
giving abstractions in place of the reality. In the predic
tions, on the contrary, the prophetical conception of Jahveh's
attributes and government of the world lies before us in the
concrete. While we thus study the predictions from the
point of view of' their fulfilment, we become acquainted, at
the same time, with the religious belief of the prophets and
their conceptions regarding the world, and we prepare the
way for their subsequent exposition.

unfulfilled prophecies to be first treated. 97
The natural result of our method is the division of the
predictions into unfulfilled and fulfilled. They are therefore
arranged in those two classes (in chapters v.-vii., and in
chapter viii.). I do not deny that such a separation has
difficulties of its own connected with it. The boundary line
cannot always be drawn with certainty. Many prophecies
clearly seem to be partly fulfilled and partly unfulfilled.
Such a division of them, moreover, compels us occasionally to
dissever what is closely related, or contemporaneous. But
these difficulties are unavoidable. Since we have resolved,
for satisfactory reasons, to seek for certainty, first of all with
regard to the fulfilment, we must acquiesce in the results which
necessarily flow from our resolution. It follows, also, natu
rally from our plan, that the unfulfilled predictions should
come first. They are not only the most numerous, but, as
regards the supernatural origin of prophetical knowledge,
they also lead us at once to the object of our search — viz., a
positive and indisputable conclusion. The realisation of a
prophecy admits, in most cases, of more than one explana
tion ; the unfulfilled prediction can never be derived from
supernatural revelation.1 1 See on this subject chapter viii.

CHAPTER V.
THE UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES.
a. — The Destinies of ihe Heathen Nations.
At the beginning of the journey which we are about to
undertake, let us survey the difficulties which we shall
encounter on our way. They are sufficiently numerous and
weighty to dishearten us, at least at the outset.
Our investigation is, in great part, exegetical. In order to
be able to test the utterances of the prophets by the facts, so
as to arrive at any satisfactory result, we must, first of all,
determine their meaning. With regard to that, however,
there prevails very often uncertainty, or at least difference of
opinion. How could it otherwise be possible that a number
of passages which we, without the least hesitation, place in
the class of the unfulfilled prophecies, are adduced by others
as clear proofs of the most entire agreement between the pre
dictions and the facts ? Or, to present the case still more
strongly, how otherwise could the fact be explained that Dr
Kueper is of opinion that he can dispose of the " unfulfilled
prophecies " in less than three pages,1 while they occupy, in
this work, three entire chapters ? Will it be necessary for
us to fight our way all along, and expressly to defend our
interpretation of every prediction against those who reject it
and substitute for it another — nay, often every man his
own? That would be a fatiguing task, and would require
much more space than can be allotted to this portion of our
investigation. But can we, then, on the other hand, ignore
those explanations which differ from ours, and tacitly take
for granted the correctness of our own view ? Frequently,
nay, usually, such a course must be adopted ; but the defect
thereby occasioned is greater in appearance than in reality.
If I were applying to the utterances of the Israelitish prophets
& method of interpretation which was different from the usual
1 See the work above referred to, pp. 458-460.

DIFFERENCES REGARDING SENSE AND AGE OF PROPHECIES. 99
one, and deserved to be styled comparatively new or unknown,
then it would be incumbent upon me to establish its claim to
correctness, and, on the other hand, to refute the more common
view. But such is not the state of the case. It is the other
interpretations which have need of express justification. It
is they which rest on a deviation from principles everywhere
else recognised as valid. Theories and rules, of which, in truth,
the sole recommendation is that they save the infallibility of
the prophets, govern only too often the expounder in deter
mining either the sense of the prophecy, or its relation to the
historical reality. What object would it serve to enter upon
the discussion of such theories and rules, or on each occasion
to rebut their application to the several predictions ? The
same end is reached, by a much shorter way, through the
simple exposition of the actual state of the case. The
correctness of my view, as a whole, acquires besides a strong
confirmation from the mutual agreement of its several parts ;
from which it clearly results that, if another meaning is to be
ascribed to the prophets than that which is here attributed
to them, then we must, not on one occasion only, but time
after time, depart from the natural sense of the words. Let
the survey which is presented in this and the two following
chapters itself furnish the proof of this assertion. The facts
themselves must speak. It will only be in exceptional cases
that we shall justify the manner in which they are here pre
sented, and criticise the interpretations of others which are at
variance with our own.
Another difficulty arises from the conflicting opinions con
cerning the age of the prophetical books, or of particular
prophecies. Thus far, we have not required to choose a side
in that controversy. In what is to follow also, the force of
the demonstration will frequently be clearly seen to be inde
pendent of the dates concerning which a difference of opinion
exists. Such, however, is not always the case. And even
in those instances in which, if absolutely necessary, we could
have left the age of the predictions undetermined, it is useful,
for the proper understanding of their import, to assign to them
the place which they occupy in the historical development.
With this view, I shall therefore at once express the opinion I
should form of the manner in which the remains of the propheti-

100 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
cal literature ought to be chronologically arranged. The reader
will at once perceive that our arrangement occasionally varies
from the tradition which rigorously keeps to the headings of
the books. If I wished to give a complete vindication of my
arrangement, and to answer every objection which has been,
or can be, urged against it, then not only would the limits
assigned to this book be far exceeded, but the questions
also with which we are at present principally occupied
would run a risk of being left in the back-ground. The
literary criticism of the prophetical books cannot be treated
in a cursory manner. That criticism, therefore, I shall not
attempt. But at the same time, it is my intention to state
briefly the motives which have led me to differ from the
traditional views, and to show occasionally the real value of
the objections which have been offered against such a devia
tion. A suitable opportunity for doing so will be afforded when
we come, in the course of our investigation, to speak of the
main import of a prophecy whose age is disputed. For is it
not precisely on account of another conception of its historical
meaning, that the tradition with regard to its origin is
rejected ? It is thus in every respect a natural method of
proceeding to combine with the explanation of the pro
phetical utterances, a brief indication of their probable age.
The following, then, is the order in which the prophets
must have succeeded each other. To the first half of the eighth
century before our era, belong Amos, Hosea, and the author
of Zech, ix.-xi. The time when Micah and Isaiah flourished,
is in the second half of the same century ; a considerable
portion of the book named after the latter must, however, be
denied to be his work. Not only the historical chapters
xxxvi. -xxxix., but also the whole of the second half, chaps.
xl.-lxvi ; and besides, in the first half, the prophecies in chap.
xiii. 1 — xiv. 2 3 ; xxi. 1-10; xxiv. — xxvii., and xxxiv., xxxv. —
must be assigned to others. No prophetical documents have
been preserved to us from the first half of the seventh century,
but on the other hand the Chaldean period, which begins
about the year 625 B.C., is peculiarly rich in its remains. We
assign to that period, and in the following order, the
prophets Nahum, Zephaniah, Jeremiah (from 626 till
after 586 B.C.), Habakkuk, the author of Zech. xii. -xiv., Joel,

PROPHECIES TREATED ACCORDING TO THEIR SUBJECTS. 101
Obadiah, and Ezekiel, which last, as is well known, was
carried away captive from Jerusalem with King Jehoiachin,
and, five years afterwards, came forward as a prophet among
the exiles in Babylonia. Not long before, and immediately
after, the end of the Babylonish captivity, the prophecies were
written which, as has just been remarked, were, at a later
period, wrongly ascribed to Isaiah. Contemporaneous with
them is the oracle against Babylon in Jer. ]., li. Haggai and
Zechariah, that is the writer of Zechariah i. — -viii., fulfilled their
task after 520 B.C., among those of the captivity who had
returned to Judea. Malachi prophesied about a century later.
The book named after Daniel is of a much more recent date,
having been written shortly after the commencement of the
Maccabean revolt, in the year 165 before the Christian era.
The materials which all these books present to us, admit of
more than one mode of arrangement and treatment. The sim
plest method of all would certainly be to examine the prophets
one by one, and in pursuing this course we would naturally
follow the chronological order. In that case, however, I should
necessarily be involved in repetitions, because, as is well known,
the prophecies very frequently agree not only in their subject,
but also in their contents. I therefore give the preference to
another arrangement. We divide the whole of the predic
tions into three great groups, and proceed to examine these
in succession. To the first group, I assign the prophecies
regarding the destiny of the heathen nations ; the second con
tains the predictions concerning the judgments pronounced
upon Israel ; while in the third we collect together the
expectations of the prophets with regard to Israel's future.
If I am not deceived, this plan bears with it its own justifica
tion. The only question that may be asked is — Why do the
prophecies regarding the heathen come first ? It is because
their explanation furnishes results which are even less
ambiguous than those afforded by the predictions concerning
Israel. As in all other subjects, so also in this, it is advisable
to ascend from the least controvertible to the more involved
problems. When we combine the predictions concerning the destinies
of the heathen, and form them into one group, we but follow
the example which is given by some of the prophets them-

102 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
selves. To begin with the oldest of them : — Amos threatens,
one after another, six neighbouring nations, the Syrians, the
Philistines, the Tyrians, the Edomites, the Ammonites, and
the Moabites ; x after which he addresses himself to Judah,
and finally to Israel.2 A similar but more complete series is
furnished by Jeremiah, in the 25th chapter of his oracles.3
The judgment pronounced upon the nations, which is there
intimated merely in general terms, is more exactly described in
chapters xlvi. — xlix., to which the announcement of Babylon's
fall (chaps, l.-li.), is added as an appendix, by Jeremiah him
self, according to some, by a younger prophet, according to
others. The order of succession in these chapters is as
follows : — Egypt, the Philistines, Moab, Ammon, Edom, the
Kedarites and Hazor, Elam. An arrangement of the nations
which is different still, is adopted by Ezekiel, the entire second
part of whose book (chap. xxv. — xxxii.) is devoted to the
announcement of their fate. After he has briefly treated of
Ammon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines in chapter xxv., he
dwells longer upon Tyre (chap. xxvi. 1 — xxviii. 19), casts
simply a glance at Sidon (chap, xxviii. 20 — 24), and closes
his survey with a series of predictions regarding , Egypt
(chaps, xxix. — xxxii.).
It will be noticed that these examples, precisely on account
of their mutual difference, leave us altogether free to adopt
our own arrangement. We shall fix our attention first on
Israel's neighbours, then on the great monarchies with which
Israel came into contact in the course of its history, Egypt,
Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and the kingdom of Alexander
the Great and his successors. In that way, we need not
leave a single prediction of any importance undiscussed. Let
it be taken into consideration, however, in reading the survey
which now follows, that some prophecies concerning the future
of the heathen are not treated here, but in chapter vii.,
because they are inseparably connected with the expectations
of the prophets regarding the future of Israel which are there
set forth.
The prophets are unanimous in announcing the destruction
of the cities of the Philistines. Amos expects it on the
ground of their hostility towards Judah, specifically on ac-
1 Amos i. 3— ii. 3. 2 Amos ii. 3-5 ; 6-16. 3 vv. 18-26.

PROPHECIES AGAINST THE PHILISTINES. 103
count of their selling to the Edomites the prisoners of war
taken from Judea.1 They are reproached by Joel with a
similar crime.2 Ezekiel finds a new cause of complaint
against them in their conduct at the capture of Jerusalem by
Nebuchadrezzar.3 Though they give no specific account of
the sins of which the cities of the Philistines had been guilty,
the oldest Zechariah,4 Zephaniah,6 and Jeremiah,6 are at one
with their predecessors in predicting their entire destruction.
In what manner, and by what agent, that doom is to be
accomplished, Irt not told us in so many words, although
whenever Isaiah and Jeremiah make mention of an enemy
out of the north,7 they intimate, in no doubtful manner, that
they are thinking, the former of the Assyrians, the latter of
the Chaldeans. This is in itself, without going further, suf
ficient to prove that the more recent apologists have not the
slightest right to represent, as they are wont to do, the
present destruction of the cities of Philistia as being the ful
filment of the prophetical predictions. Gaza is in existence
still ; Askelon was a city of some considerable note, at least
in the time of the crusades : would not that be in direct
conflict with the expectations of Israel's seers ? Even in those
cases where no limit is specified, the judgment contemplated
is plainly one that would be executed soon. When delayed
for a long period, it ceased to be a judgment, especially in
such cases as we find in Amos and Ezekiel, where a specific
sin is mentioned as the reason of Jahveh's displeasure. But
it is not at all necessary to call in the aid of such general
considerations. The punishment of the Philistines takes
place, according to the prophets, in the interest of Israel. It
is against the people of Jahveh that they have transgressed ;
it is the people of Jahveh, therefore, that shall reap the fruits
of their destruction, take possession of their territory, and in
corporate the remnant of them with themselves. In other
words, with the prophets the lot of the Philistines forms a
contrast to that of the Israelites. In the prophecy of Isaiah,
which has just been mentioned, Zion, founded by Jahveh,
and a safe refuge for the poor of his people, stands in oppo-
1 Amos i. 6-8.
2 Joel iv. 4-8, where they are mentioned along with Tyre and Sidon.
3 Ezek. xxv. 15-17. 4 Zech. ix. 4-7. 5 Zeph. ii. 4-7.
6 Jer. xlvii. 7 Isaiah xiv. 29-32, especially v. 31 ; Jer. xlvii. 2.

104 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
sition to Philistia, whose inhabitants perish by famine and
sword, while the smoke out of the north lays waste the land.1
The same prophet expects that the reunited tribes " shall fly
upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west,"2 that
is, shall extend their dominion in that direction, and make
the Philistines subject to them. Zechariah expresses himself
just as unambiguously. The end of the punishment will be
that " Also he (the Philistine) will be left for our god
" And shall be as a (subjugated) tribe in Judah,
" And Ekron as the Jebusites."3
In this way, the prophet adds, an end shall be made to the
hostile attacks on Judah's territory.4 Zephaniah also keeps
his eye fixed on the time in which the remnant of Judah s
house shall feed their flocks on the plains of Philistia, and lie
down to rest at evening in the houses of Askelon.5 When
we, as is only fair, take into consideration the poetical form
of all these predictions, we can then say, that they not only
breathe the same spirit, but also agree in their tenor. But
it is just as cle'ar, that their meaning is wholly misunder
stood by those who represent the present condition of the
coast of Philistia as being their fulfilment. It is true,
indeed, that scarcely any traces remain of the very ancient
glory of the five cities. They have shared in the same fate
that has smitten the whole of Palestine. They have been
laid desolate or have gradually decayed ; after Jerusalem,
indeed, but still like her, they too have fallen. But is that
then the fate which the prophets had contemplated for Israel's
hereditary foe ? Their defenders might at least show so much
respect for them as not to attribute to them any opinion
which is in irreconcilable conflict with their real meaning.
Amos makes Tyre, the capital of the Phenicians, follow the
Philistines. Both nations have been guilty of the same tres
pass against Israel ; but, in the case of the Phenicians, the
offence is aggravated by their not having been mindful of the
brotherly covenant with Israel. Therefore Jahveh shall cast
a fire within the walls of Tyre which shall devour her palaces.6
The oldest Zechariah also fortells that her strong walls and
1 Isaiah xiv. 30-32. 2 Isaiah xi. 14. 3 Zech. ix. 7.
4 Verse 8. 6 Zeph. ii. 7. 6 Amos i. 9, 10.

PROPHECIES AGAINST TYRE. 105
her treasures shall not avail her ; the Lord will take possession
of her, and will hurl her wealth into the sea, while she her
self is burned.1 These predictions, it will be observed, ar
altogether indefinite. Later prophets take them up anew, and
define them more exactly ; and first of all, Isaiah in the " oracle
concerning Tyre," which occupies a whole chapter in the col
lection of his prophecies.2 Its purport is perfectly plain.
Tyre and Sidon lose their power and their freedom ; their in
habitants are urged to save themselves by flight ; the colonies
withdraw from the dominion of the mother-country ; for
seventy years Tyre is forgotten, but after that period her
trade revives, the gains of which, however, shall not be for her
own advantage, but "for them that dwell in Jahveh's pre
sence to furnish abundant food and splendid clothing." We
might hope that we should be able to attain to certainty with
regard to the realisation of such a description as is here
presented : facts like those announced here cannot pass away
without leaving some traces ; if the expectation of the pro
phet has been fulfilled, then the memory of the fulfilment
must have been preserved. But when we continue our
investigation, we find that we are on this occasion disappointed
in our hope of obtaining positive results. Doubts have
been raised against the authenticity of the whole oracle, but
especially of the postscript concerning the restoration of Tyre
after seventy years. Difference of opinion also continues to
prevail concerning the proper meaning of the prophecy.
According to some it was written with reference to the
designs of Shalmaneser King of Assyria, against Tyre, and
announces to him the success of his attempts ; others are of
opinion that Isaiah expects that the judgment of Jahveh on
the haughty mercantile city will be executed by the Chaldeans.
We must choose between these two interpretations, before we
can attain to certainty with regard to the seventy years. The
supporters of the one, as well as of the other, appeal to the
thirteenth verse, in which the name of the Chaldeans occurs ;
but almost every expositor has his own method of settling the
sense of the verse.3 Such being the state of the case, it does
1 Zech. ix. 2-4. 2 Isaiah xxiii.
3 Compare Rev. T. K. Cheyne's " Notes and Criticisms on the Hebrew Text
of Isaiah," pp. 22—26.

106 V. — UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
not appear advisable to introduce the "oracle concerning
Tyre " into the number of our proof-passages. There exist,
as shall presently be shown, predictions regarding the
fate of that and of the other Phenician cities which are
altogether unambiguous ; and to these we prefer to devote
all our attention. Let this one point only be noted, in order
to prevent misunderstanding. Shalmeneser did not conquer
Tyre. The only witness whom we are able to consult
with regard to his undertaking,1 mentions nothing more than
that the Assyrian king blockaded the city for five years ;
nothing whatever appears of a submission of Tyre following
thereon, or even of a cessation of its commerce, and as little,
which indeed follows as a matter of course, of its restoration
after seventy years.2 Though it be granted, therefore, that the
prophecy of Isaiah refers to another conquest than that which
was predicted by Ezekiel, a century and a half later, still
we do him no injustice if we pay no further attention to his
expectations. Ezekiel, whom I have just named, had the prophets Joel
and Jeremiah for his immediate predecessors in announcing
the overthrow of the Tyrians and Sidonians. Joel, after
having first predicted the return of those who had been
carried away captive from Judah and Jerusalem, and the judg
ments against the nations by which they had been overcome,3
speaks with indignation of the conduct of the Philistines and
Phenicians, who had helped the conqueror in the sale of his
booty : Jahveh will requite them for their base action and will
cause their sons and their daughters to be sold to the distant
Sabeans ; and thus will they be paid back in their own
coin.4 A change must have occurred in the relations between
1 Menander, as quoted by Josephus, " Ant.," ix. 14, § 2.
2 As little did Sargon make himself master of Tyre, although the powerful
commercial city seems to have acknowledged his supremacy, and to have
paid him tribute. Compare Schrader, die Keilinschriften und das A.T.,
p. 76 f.
3 Joel iii. 1-3, Auth. ver. (iv. 1-3 Heb.). It is especially on account of
these verses that I am now of opinion that Joel must be placed in the be
ginning of the sixth century B.C. The captivity of which he here speaks
can be no other than that of the year 597 B.C., as is shown by Dr H Oort in
the ." Godg. Bijdr." for 1866, pp. 760-73. Perhaps the first part of the
book, chap. i. 1 — ii. 27, dates from an earlier period, and Joel has thus, not
altogether unjustly, obtained a place among the older minor prophets.
4. Joel iii. 4-8.

EZEKIEL'S PROPHECY AGAINST TYRE. 107
Judah and its neighbours, shortly after this oracle was uttered.
In one of the first years of Zedekiah's reign, the kings of Tyre
and of Sidon were among those who sent ambassadors to
Jerusalem, in order to concert a common revolt against
Nebuchadrezzar.1 Jeremiah takes advantage of their presence
to make known to those two kings, and in like manner also
to Edom, Moab, and Ammon, that there remained nothing else
for them than submission to the Chaldean monarch : if they
do not adopt that course voluntarily, then Jahveh will
afflict them with the sword, hunger, and pestilence, until he
have consumed them by his (Nebuchadrezzar's) hand.2 Accord
ing to this prediction, the Phenicians had their fate in their
own hands, and could not escape destruction, if they opposed
themselves to Nebuchadrezzar. Now Ezekiel, who in general
agrees very closely with Jeremiah, is also of the same opinion on
this subject. His copious prophecy against Tyre, followed by
a brief announcement of Sidon's fall,3 is beyond all doubt one
of the most remarkable passages of the prophetical literature.
The song of lamentation over Tyre (chap, xxvii.) especially is
an invaluable document for the archaeologist. But it is not
from that point of view that we now regard this prophecy.
We are inquiring as to the expectations concerning the destiny
of Tyre, of which it bears witness, in order to compare them
with the result. The exegetical inquiry will not detain us
long, for, as has been already said, Ezekiel makes known his
meaning in a manner altogether unambiguous. He expresses
himself so in one of the last months of the year 586 B.C., the
year of Jerusalem's fall, while the impression produced by the
tidings communicated to him regarding the hostile attitude
of the Phenicians towards Israel was still fresh.4 What he
predicts for Tyre is nothing less than entire destruction. The
many nations that march against her to battle " shall destroy
her walls, and break down her towers." Jahveh " shall sweep
away her dust — the layer of earth on which her houses and
gardens were placed — and make her a bare rock." Thus she
shall become " a place where men spread nets in the midst
1 Jer. xxvii. 1-3. " The beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim " is men
tioned in the first verse by mistake. From verses 3, 12, 20, and chap, xxviii.
1, it is clearly evident that Zedekiah is intended.
2 Jer. xxvii. 4-8.
3 Ezek. xxvi. 1— xxviii. 19. and verses 20-23. 4 Ezek. xxvi. 2.

108 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
of the sea." s The multitude of nations that execute this
judgment are led by Nebuchadrezzar, the king of kings. He
shall lay siege to the city, and finally " shall enter in through
her gates, as men enter into a conquered town." Then
plundering and devastation follow, until Tyre has ceased to
exist. In order to show how completely she would disappear,
the prophet once more makes use of the image which he had
already employed, " Jahveh shall make her a bare rock, she
shall be a place where men spread out nets." To this he now
adds, — " she shall not again be built, for I, Jahveh, have
spoken it." 3 And subsequently — " Jahveh makes her a
desolate city, as the cities which are not inhabited."4 Besides,
in the song of lamentation for the destruction of Tyre's com
merce (chap, xxvii.) and in the address to the Tyrian king
(chap, xxviii. 1-19), there is not a single word alluding to
mitigation or delay of the sentence ; on the contrary, there are
more traits than one which make it as clear as noonday that
the prophet is perfectly in earnest in his gloomy predictions
concerning the fate of the flourishing and haughty merchant-
city. Now, to what extent did the result correspond to these
expectations, and, at the same time also, to those of Ezekiel's
predecessors? It is certain that Nebuchadrezzar besieged
Tyre, and that the siege lasted for thirteen years in suc
cession 5 — probably from 585 till 572 B.C. That he captured
ihe city, is nowhere mentioned. It is true, indeed, it is as
little said, that he had to depart leaving his object unaccom
plished. It is thus not only possible, but even probable,
that Tyre capitulated, and wholly or partially lost her inde
pendence ; but of her being laid waste, or of the destruction,
or even the decay of her trade, there is no evidence whatever.
On the contrary, Tyre still remained, even under the Persian
dominion, a powerful and wealthy merchant-city, as may
plainly appear, for example, from the accounts of her partici
pation in the expedition of Xerxes against Greece.
But we do not need to content ourselves with the silence
of the ancients regarding the conquest of Tyre. As regards
1 Verses 4. 5. 2 Verses 7-10. 3 Verses 11-14. * Verse 1 9.
6 Philostratus and Menander, as quoted by Josephus, " Jew. Ant." x. 11,
§ 1. " Cont. Ap." i. 21.

EZEKIEL'S PROPHECY AGAINST TYRE NOT FULFILLED. 109
the issue of Nebuchadrezzar's enterprise against her, we can
consult a contemporary whom no one certainly will reject as
a witness in this inquiry — the prophet Ezekiel himself. We
have a series of prophecies from him against Egypt (chaps.
xxix. — xxxii.), to which we shall soon return. They date from
the years 587 and 586 before our era. To the first of these
(chap. xxix. 1-16) a postscript is added by the prophet him
self (verses 17-21), which, as is clear from the heading,
was written in the year 570 B.C. It is sufficiently remark
able to be given here in full : " Son of man " — so Jahveh
speaks to his servant — " Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Baby
lon, has caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre ;
every head is bald, and every shoulder peeled ; yet he and
his army have received no wage from Tyre for the service
which he has (they have ?) served against her. Therefore
thus saith the Lord Jahveh, Behold I give to Nebuchad
rezzar, the king of Babylon, the land of Egypt, that he may
take away her abundance, and carry off her booty, and
plunder her treasures, and it (the land) shall be for wages to
his army. As his wages, for which he hath served, I have
given him the land of Egypt, for they (Nebuchadrezzar and
his army) have done it for me, saith the Lord Jahveh." 1
We have there, as it seems, an oracle wholly unambiguous.
It is not told us in so many words how the siege of Tyre
ended ; Ezekiel could take it for granted that his contempo
raries, for whom he wrote in the first instance, knew that
very well. Nevertheless this much is plain, that Nebuchad
rezzar did not " enter in through the gates of Tyre as men
enter into a conquered city," 2 and that as little did his troops
carry away the wealth of Tyre and plunder her merchandise.3
In other words, Ezekiel himself declares here that his expecta
tions concerning the fate of Tyre were not realized. The
testimony of the facts is, as it were, superfluously con
firmed by the prophet.
And yet people are accustomed to reckon the oracle against
Tyre among the fulfilled predictions ! The method pursued
in order to accomplish this is arbitrariness itself.4 Ezekiel
1 Ezek. xxix. 17-20. 2 Ezek. xxvi. 10. 3 Ezek. xxvi. 12.
4 See, for example, Dr A. Keith, Evidence of the Christian Religion derived
from the literal fulfilment of Prophecy\(Zlth ed.), pp. 487 — 496 ; and compare
my Hist. Krit. Onderzoek, vol. ii. 281.

110 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
speaks of " many nations " that Jahveh will cause to come
up against Tyre,1 and means by that an army composed of
various nations, the army of Nebuchadrezzar, whom — as if it
were his object to guard against the misconception of that ex
pression — he calls " the king of kings." 2 Nevertheless those
"many nations" are understood by the apologists as the enemies
which have assailed Tyre successively in different centuries.
If the Chaldeans occupy the first place among them, the Greeks
also, who inflicted such a tremendous blow on the city under
Alexander the Great, must have been intended by the prophet,
as were also the races which afterwards fought for its pos
session, on to the age of the Crusades. It is true that Tyre
is at present an insignificant fishing village, but can this be
regarded as the fulfilment of Ezekiel's prediction ? Is> it not
clear as day that it announces the overthrow of the Pheni
cians as being close at hand ? Is the name of Nebuchadrezzar
mentioned in it without any object ? If the prophecy itself
left room for any doubt with regard to Ezekiel's meaning,
then such a doubt would necessarily be removed by the post
script at least — a postscript which properly belongs to the
whole of the prophecies against the neighbouring tribes. It
stands there written in so many words, that the punishment
of Israel's neighbours, including also the Tyrians and Sidonians,
whose destiny has been announced just before, shall precede
the return of the Israelites to their native land ; they shall
dwell there in safety, because Jahveh will have executed
judgments on all those of the surrounding nations who spoiled
them.3 Can it be denied, with any show of reason, that the
result has contradicted this prediction ?
But one difficulty may perhaps still linger in the reader's
mind. One of my main proofs may awaken suspicion in him,
not because it seems too weak, but just because it appears so
strong. How — he may ask — how by any possibility can
Ezekiel come forward as a witness against the realisation of
his own prophecy ? Must there not be some misunderstand
ing at work here? If he, in the year 570 B.C., had really
come to see that his prediction of sixteen years before was not
fulfilled, then surely he could not acknowledge that himself!
Let it be considered, also, that he puts forward no mere con-
1 Ezek. xxvi. 3. 2 Ezek. xxvi. 7. 3 Ezek. xxviii. 24-26.

EZEKIEL S TESTIMONY REGARDING HIS OWN PROPHECY. Ill
jectures, which he could afterwards retract, concerning the
destiny of Tyre and Sidon, but introduces Jahveh himself as
declaring, in the most unambiguous words, what shall cer
tainly come to pass. If, then, after some years, it was plain
to him that Nebuchadrezzar's enterprise had had a different
issue, in that case — yes, in that case, he must have begun to
doubt the divine origin of his previous prophecy, and have
removed it from the collection of his oracles. Or, if he did
not adopt that course, then he ought surely to have offered a
satisfactory explanation of the opposition between the reality
and God's threatening, instead of acknowledging that opposi
tion, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
This argument admits of no reply, if we assume that
Ezekiel entertained the same conception of the character
and origin of prophecy that, at a later period, became the
prevailing one among Jews and Christians. But it is at once
evident that we are not entitled to make this assumption.
The prophecy against Tyre, and the subsequent postscript,
when viewed in their mutual connection, show clearly
that Ezekiel did not countenance that conception. In what
respects he deviated from it, will appear to us plainly in a
following chapter.1 He has expressed himself without any
ambiguity, and may claim that his testimony be accepted by
us as it stands, however strange it may seem to us. We may
in no case assign to his words any other than their natural
sense, because we otherwise see no chance of making them
agree with our conception of his prophetical gift.
Almost all the prophecies concerning Syria have relation
more or less to the war of the confederate Syrians and
Ephraimites against Judah, and can be better treated in
another connection.2 One prophecy regarding Damascus
stands more by itself. It is from the pen of Jeremiah.3 He
expects that Nebuchadrezzar shall execute judgment on that
city also, in like manner as he has done on other nations and
cities. " Her young men shall fall in her streets, and all
the men of war shall be destroyed on that day, saith Jahveh
of hosts. And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus,
1 See Chap. ix.
2 See Chap. viii. Where I shall also discuss Amos i. 3-5, in order not to
separate prophecies of a like kind.
3 Jer. xlix. 23-27.

112 V. — UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.

&

and it shall consume the palaces of Benhadad." 1 Nothing-
is known to us of the fulfilment of this prophecy — by
Nebuchadrezzar, who in Jeremiah uniformly appears as the
agent who executes the judgments of Jahveh.2 We do not
even know what can have given occasion to the prophet to
expect that the Chaldean monarch should turn his weapons
against the Syrians, who at first had joined him.3 It is
however open to us to assume — though our only reason for
it be the prophecy of Jeremiah — that the Damascenes
did revolt against Nebuchadrezzar, and were punished by
him. But what judgment are we to form about the words of
the prophet which immediately precede, and which in the
usual translation are thus rendered — " How is the city of
praise not left, the city of my joy ! " The meaning of the pro
phet is not altogether certain ; but it may be taken as probable,
that he here introduces the cities of Syria as the speakers, and
puts into their mouths the agonising question : " why might
not Damascus have remained, our ornament and our glory ?" 4
In that case he conceived that the capture of the city would
have, as its result, its permanent desolation — and that
although Damascus exists and flourishes to the present day,
as the seat of the Turkish Pacha, and a city of more than a
hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. It cannot, to say
the least, surprise us that Dr Keith passes over in silence the
prophecy against Damascus.
Without dwelling upon the few utterances regarding the
Kedarites and other Arabian tribes,5 of whose fortunes little
or nothing whatever is known to us, let us direct our atten
tion to the two kindred nations of Moab and Ammon, which
in the Old Testament itself also are frequently joined. Thus,
for example, they appear together in the prophecies of Amos,6
1 Ibid, vv. 26, 27 ; the latter verse is, in part, parallel with Amos i. 4.
2 Jer. xlvi. 1, 2, 13 ; xlix. 28-30 ; and xxv. 15-26.
3 2 Kings xxiv. 2 ; Jer. xxxv. 11. Let it be observed that the Syrians
are not mentioned in Jer. xxvii. 3.
4 The majority of the more recent expositors interpret v. 25 : " How is
she not forsaken (or desolate) ! " in the sense " how greatly is she forsaken ! "
Graf (Der Proph. Jeremia, p. 572 f.), is of opinion that' the meaning is this —
" Ah, would that she were not forsaken, the glorious city," etc. The inter
pretation on which the opinion stated above regarding the fulfilment rests,
is indeed the weakest that the words of the prophet in any way admit.
6 Isa. xxi. 13-17 ; Jer. xlix. 28-33 ; compare xxv. 24, 25.
6 Amos i. 13-15 ; ii. 1-3.

PREDICTIONS REGARDING MOAB AND AMMON. 113
Zephaniah,1 Jeremiah,2 and Ezekiel.3 If we add to these
farther, an oracle of Ezekiel concerning Ammon,4 the song of
lamentation over Moab by Isaiah6 — or borrowed by him
from an older prophet — and the announcement by an unknown
prophet of punishment about to overtake the same people,3
we have then named all the predictions concerning these two
nations. When we compare them with each other, it is at
once evident, that the colours are not, in all, of the same
shade of darkness ; but the main import is one and the same
— the two nations shall both be driven away or extirpated,
and their cities shall be laid waste. This fate has, in fact,
overtaken them, as Dr Keith,7 following in the footsteps of
others, lias shown : the Ammonites and the Moabites no
longer exist as nations ; them former territory is full of ruins.
The apologist just mentioned sees in that circumstance a
clear confirmation of the divine authority of Old Testament
prophecy. He dwells with pleasure on the agreement between
the narratives of travellers and the several details of the
threats uttered by the prophets. The conclusion, for example,
of the chapter on Ammon is characteristic — " ' East of
Assalt,' including Ammon, are thirty ruined or deserted
places, of which the names are given in Dr Smith's Arabic
Lists, only two being marked as having any inhabitants (in
1834) ; one of which, El Fuliais, we were informed, was also
since deserted." 8 Does it not seem as if the author is
delighted at that desolation, and confidently expects the intel
ligence that this single desolated city, too, has been entirely
bereft of its inhabitants ? In that way, the misgovernment
of the Turks, and the ferocity of the Beduins become sup
ports to our belief in the divine authority of the Scriptures.
But there are other and more weighty objections against this
view, as a whole. What Amos and the later prophets pre
dict is something entirely different from that which is now
clearly seen to have happened. It cannot be determined with
\ 1 Zeph. ii. 8-11. 2 Jer. xlviii. ; xlix. 1-6. 3 Ezek. xxv. 1-7, 8-11.
\ 4 Ezek. xxi. 33-37 ; Heb. (verses 28-32, A. v.)
6 Isa. xv., xvi ; compare p. 73.
15 Isa. xxv. 10-12. Isa., chapters xxiv. — xxvii., form a whole, and seem to
have been written in the first half of the Babylonish captivity. Compare
my " Hist. Krit, Onderz." ii. 144—151. We shall afterwards return to these
chapters. 7 I. c, pp. 260-74, 275-97. 8 I. c, p. 274.
H

114 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
absolute certainty when the desolation of the country of Moab
and Ammon began, but so much is certain, that they were
still inhabited and flourishing up to the seventh century of
the Christian era. Now this is in complete opposition to the
anticipations of the prophets. They do not expect that Moab
and Ammon shall in the course of ages lose their national
existence along with, or even after, Israel, but that Israel
shall be a witness of the destruction of their enemies, and
shall reap' the fruits of that destruction. This is already in
some measure involved in a prophecy of Isaiah,1 which, as it
concerns the future of Israel, will be considered further on,
but still, may be used here provisionally. It is to the effect
that the men of Ephraim and Judah reunited and restored to
their native land, " shall lay their hand upon Edom and
M&ab and that the sons of Ammon shall obey them." Ezekiel
also expects, as we have just remarked,2 that the humiliation
of Israel's neighbours, among whom he reckons also the
Moabites and the Ammonites, shall precede the return of the
people to Canaan. But it is Zephaniah especially who
expatiates unambiguously on this point. " As truly as I
live, saith Jahveh, Moab shall be as Sodom, and the sons of
Ammon as Gomorrah, overgrown with nettles, and a place of
salt-pits, and a desolation for ever ; the residue of my people
shall spoil them, and the remnant of my nation shall inherit
them. This shall come upon them for their pride, because they
have reproached and magnified themselves against the people
of Jahveh of hosts." 3 Let these words be weighed with all
due attention. The prophecy that Israel shall appear as the
inheritor of Moab and Ammon, of itself absolutely forbids us
to see the realisation of what Zephaniah expected, in
the ruin of those nations six centuries after the second
destruction of Jerusalem. How can the fate which overtook
the Moabites and Ammonites in reality, be brought into
connection with the single motive which Zephaniah here
adduces for their punishment ?
The numerous predictions concerning Edom admit of being
conveniently divided into two groups. The first embraces
1 Isa. xi. 14.
2 Ezek. xxviii. 24-26, See p. 110. The same opposition between the
destiny of Israel and Moab is seen in Isa. xxv. 1 0.
3 Zeph. ii. 9, 10.

PROPHECIES AGAINST EDOM. 115
the pre-exilic documents, proceeding from Amos,1 Isaiah,2 Jere
miah,8 and Joel.4 They contain, in general, the announce
ment that the Edomites shall be punished for their unbrotherly
conduct towards Israel, and that the punishment shall be the
desolation of their country and of their principal cities. Jere
miah enters most into details, and includes in his announce
ment of punishment an older prophecy against Edom, the
same that, not long after him, was repeated and elaborated
by Obadiah.5 The predictions, dating from the Babylonish
captivity and the period after the restoration of the
Jewish state, form a second group. They are distinguished
from the earlier oracles most of all by the spirit of
greater enmity towards Edom which appears in them.
How this had arisen can be shown with absolute cer
tainty. At the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar
the Edomites made common cause with the Chaldeans and
insulted and maltreated their kinsmen in their deep abasement.
That fact is testified by the poet who writes the fourth of
the Lamentations6 and by the author of Psalm cxxxvii. ; by
the latter in these words — " Remember, Jahveh, against the
Edomites, the day of Jerusalem, when they said, lay her bare,
lay her bare down to the foundations."7 But the prophets
themselves do not leave us in uncertainty with regard to the
origin of their indignation against Edom. 01 adiah expressly
mentions it, probably while the impression produced by the
occurrence was still fresh.8 In like manner, also, Ezekiel,9
who afterwards expanded10 the brief prediction of punish
ment which he wrote immediately after the fall of Jerusalem.
In the same spirit, during the Babylonish captivity, two
anonymous prophets express themselves, whose predictions
have been introduced into the collection of Isaiah's oracles.11
1 Amos i. 11, 12.
2 Isaiah xxi. 11, 12. That Edom is meant here is evident from the fact
that the voice which the prophet answers calls to him from Seir. Instead of
Edom he writes Dumah, a word formed by the transposition of the letters of
" Edom ;" it signifies silence, and thus agrees with the contents of the pro
phecy, which really gives no answer to the (supposed) question from Seir.
3 Jer. xlix. 7-22 ; compare xxv. 21 ; xxvii. 3.
4 Joel iii. 19. As to the age of this prophecy, see p. 106, note 3.
6 See p. 73. 6 Lam. iv. 21, 22. 7 Ps. cxxxvii. 7.
8 Obad. vv. 10-14, 16. 9 Ezek. xxv. 12-14. 10 Ezek. xxxv.
11 Isaiah xxxiv. and lxiii. 1-6. We shall afterwards point out the grounds
on which chapters xl.-lxvi. of this book, to which portion the latter prophecy

116 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
The one especially, the author of Isaiah xxxiv., xxxv., paints
in lively colours the desolation of the land of Edom ; fearful
is " the day of Jahveh's vengeance, the year of recompences
for the controversy of Zion ;" the country of Edom, bereft of
its inhabitants, and transformed into a wilderness, serves as
an abode for ever for all manner of ravenous beasts.1 From
the latest of the prophecies concerning Edom we hear still
the echoes of these tones. If the mountainous region of the
Edomites had become a waste, when Malachi wrote, yet they
flattered themselves that they would be successful in building
up again the ruined cities. Jahveh answers them by the
mouth of the prophet that their labour would be in vain —
" They shall build, but I will throw down, and men shall call
them, ' land of wickedness,' and ' the people against whom
Jahveh hath indignation for ever.' "2
Now, how does the case stand with regard to the fulfil
ment of these expectations ? The judgment against the Edom
ites was certainly not executed before the captivity ; we have
the later prophecies to prove that. The ambassadors of
the king of the Edomites took part in the consultation about
a rising against Nebuchadrezzar in the beginning of Zedekiah's
reign.3 Some years later, as we saw, they turned against
Judah, and co-operated in the humiliation of Judah and
destruction of Jerusalem. To the question whether they were
not shortly afterwards punished in their turn by the Chal
dean monarch, we must answer in the negative. At least
such punishment had not taken place when Ezekiel committed
to writing his prophecy addressed "to the mountains of Israel."4
At that time the Edomites were foremost among the neigh
bouring tribes that had taken possession of a part of Judah's
belongs, have been denied to belong to Isaiah, and transferred to the period
of the captivity. Isaiah xxxiv. and xxxv. form parts of a whole, and depict
partly the judgment of Jahveh against the heathen in general (chap, xxxiv.
1-4) and Edom in particular (vv. 5-17), and partly the glorious return of
the Israelites to their native land. Their removal to a foreign country,
and their abode in it, are not here foretold — as would have been the case
if Isaiah were the author — but are presupposed. The prophet addresses him
self (e.g. chap. xxxv. 3 ff.) not to a people dwelling along with him in Judea,
but to the exiles, in order to encourage and comfort them by the prospect
of the approaching deliverance. In addition to this, both language and style
differ from those of Isaiah. Compare my " Hist. Krit. Onderz." ii. 151-154.
1 Isaiah xxxiv. 9-17. 2 Mai. i. 2-4.
3 Jer. xxvii. 3. 4 Ezek. xxxvi. 1-15.

PROPHECIES AGAINST EDOM. 117
territory, and had made tliere, as they thought, a permanent
settlement. There is here no humiliation, but, on the contrary,
an extension of power.
By this course of events the pre-exilic prophecy of Joel
in particular was contradicted. We find in him an unmis-
takeable contrast between the destiny of (Egypt as well as)
Edom and that of Jerusalem. " Edom," he says,1 " shall be
a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children
of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their
land.2 But Judah shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem
from generation to generation." It was the very opposite
that happened, in and after 586 B.C. : Jerusalem was depopu
lated, while Edom's territory remained unviolated.
The second group of prophetical utterances concerning
Edom will occupy us somewhat longer. It strikes us at once
that, in this case also, the prospect opened up has, in one
point of view, remained unrealized. For the prophets expect
that the punishment of Edom shall precede, or at least be
simultaneous with, the restoration of Israel. Such is the
expectation of Obadiah, who presents in a most distinct man
ner the contrast between Jacob and Esau.3 The author of
Isaiah xxxiv. places the description of the judgment against
Edom immediately before his description of the return of the
exiles. Ezekiel also has the same conception, as is clearly
manifest from the three prophecies in which he treats of the
destiny of Edom.4 But the result has not corresponded with
this expectation,5 at least so far as we know. And is it not
almost inconceivable, that a catastrophe, in a certain sense
important, which had befallen Israel's hereditary enemies,
should be mentioned nowhere either in the prophetical or his
torical writings ?
1 Joel iii. 19, 20.
2 That is in the land of the Edomites themselves. What the prophet refers
to is uncertain, but our knowledge of the changing relations of the Judeans
to their neighbours is so incomplete that this uncertainty cannot surprise us.
3 See especially vv. 17, 18, 21.
4 From chap. xxv. 12-14 (which should be viewed in connection with
chap, xxviii. 24-26, the postscript to the collective prophecies against the
neighbours of Israel), chap. xxxv. and xxxvi. 1-15.
5 Isaiah also shared in this expectation (as is plain from the passage already
adverted to, chap. xi. 14), as well as Amos, who expects that the conse
quence of Israel's restoration will be, in the first place, that they " should
possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations over which the name of
Jahveh" — as that of their conqueror — " is proclaimed" (chap. ix. 12).

118 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
We are at least acquainted with the condition into which the
Edomites were brought, nearly a century after the end of the
captivity, somewhere about the year 430 B.C. The prophet
Malachi introduces Jahveh as speaking thus — " I hated Esau,
and I made his mountains a wilderness and (gave) his heri
tage to the jacJcals ofthe desert?'1 This cannot be understood
of the natural condition of the tracts inhabited by Edom on
Mount Seir, although they were, in fact, very barren and un
attractive compared with those of Israel,2 because the prophet
speaks of a condition which the Edomites could hope to alter.
" Whereas they say," so we read in verse 4th, " we are broken
in pieces, but we shall again build up the ruined places," — these
are words which could have no meaning, if, in the preceding
verse, the common, and from its very nature the unimprov
able, condition of their country had been described. We
may go even further, and, with some recent expositors,3
infer from these words that the Edomites had suffered greatly
not long before, probably in the war between the Persians
and- the Egyptians. Only on this supposition do we under
stand their expectation that they will succeed in repairing
the damage referred to. Nevertheless, we know nothing
further of this catastrophe. Malachi is the only one, who,
at least, alludes to it.4 But however terrible we mav
conceive it to have been, it is very difficult to regard it
as the accomplishment of the predictions of the Israelitish
prophets. This is indeed manifest already from what has
been just said concerning the dates which they assigned
for the execution of the judgment. But the later history
of the Edomites also forbids us to regard the misfortune
which befel them in the time of Malachi, as decisive. About
1 Mai. i. 3.
2 Gen. xxvii. 39, 40, where the usual renderings need to be amended.
We shall return to this passage further on.
3 Jahn, Hitzig, Kcehler.
4 This is undoubtedly an objection against the interpretation of Malachi
i. 2-4, here maintained. The question occurs to me whether the prophet may
not refer to the desolation of Edom's territory, which was foretold by all
the earlier prophets, and therefore, according to his conviction, determined
in the counsels of Jahveh. The meaning of ver. 3 would thus be, " I have
appointed his mountains to become a wilderness, and I have destined his
heritage for the jackals of the desert." The retort of the Edomites in ver. 4
may then be described thus — " Even if we shall be broken in pieces, yet we
shall succeed in rebuilding the ruins " — whereon Malachi answers, that for
them there is no restoration to be thought of.

LATER HISTORY OF THE EDOMITES. 119
the middle of the second century before our era, they in
habited the southern portion of Judea, and were in possession
of Hebron, among other places.1 Judas Maccabseus made
war upon them, and inflicted on them some severe blows.2
They found a still more formidable enemy in John Hyrcanus,
who completely subdued them about 130 B.C., compelled
them to adopt the rite of circumcision, and incorporated them
into the Jewish state.3 Their subsequent history is well
known. Antipater, the servant, and soon the master of
the weak Hyrcanus II., and the father of Herod the Great,
was an Idumean (or Edomite) ; and thus in the person
of Herod and in his posterity Esau ruled over Jacob.
During the Jewish war (66-70 AD.) the Idumeans took
an active part both in the struggle against Borne, and in
the terrible civil quarrels by which the unfortunate Jewish
nation was then rent asunder. A consequence of this was,
that Idumea was laid waste by Simon, son of Gioras, the
head of one of the factions.4 The nation of the Edomites is
mentioned no more after the destruction of Jerusalem (70 A.D.) :
it was partly incorporated with the Jewish nation, partly
blended with other Arabian tribes. Meanwhile their former
capital, Selah,5 and a great part of their ancient territory, had
already, many centuries before, passed into other hands. In
the accounts of the wars carried on by the successors of
Alexander the Great, Petra (that is, the rock, the Greek
translation of Selah 6) appears as the capital of the Nabath-
eans, which it continued to be from that time.7 The
wonderful ruins of Petra, which were first visited by European
travellers in this century, bear witness to the flourishing con
dition of that city during the Grecian period. They have no
connection with the Edomites, on which account it is not proper
to adduce them as evidences of the judgment executed on that
1 1 Mace. iv. 61 ; v. 65 ; 2 Mace. x. 15.
2 See the passages referred to in the previous note.
3 Flavius Josephus, " Ant." xiii. 9, § 1 ; xv. 7, § 2.
4 Josephus, " Wars of the Jews," iv. 9, § 5-7.
0 It is mentioned 2 Kings xiv. 7 (compare 2 Chron. xxv. 11, 12) ; Is.
xvi. 1.
0 Diodorus Siculus, xix. 95-98.
7 A part of Arabia is called after this city Arabia Petrsea ; the kings of
this district bore the name of Aretas (Hareth), which we know also from
the New Testament.

120 V. — UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
nation, as the apologists are wont to do.1 These are, beyond
all doubt, noteworthy vicissitudes. It may especially be
regarded as remarkable that the Edomites, probably of their
own accord, extended themselves in the direction of Judasa,
and so endeavoured to better their condition, while, at a later
period, that very migration caused them the loss of their inde
pendent existence as a nation. Of an entirely different nature,
but not less astonishing, is the revolution in their lot effected
by the exaltation of Antipater and his family. By that
means they became, in reality, the sovereign people, a dis
grace which the Jews were unable for a single moment to
forget. When now, after vividly representing all those facts
to our minds, we look back upon the prophecies of the Old
Testament, is it really possible that we should still in sober
earnest enter upon a controversy with regard to their fulfil
ment ? Is it not undeniable that the fortunes of Edom would
have been as astonishing to the Israelitish prophets, if they
could have witnessed them, as they appear now to us ? And
at more than one conjuncture in Edom's history, would not
their disappointment have equalled their amazement ? As we
compare the destiny of the descendants of Esau and of Jacob,
where do we discover that sharply-defined contrast in
which all the prophetical portraitures of the future of both.
from the first to the last, issue ?
The survey of the prophetical expectations regarding the
destiny of Israel's neighbours has been brought to a close.
In accordance with the plan previously announced, we now
take cognisance of the predictions concerning the destiny of
the great monarchies with which Israel came into contact in
the course of its history. Egypt, with its neighbouring
country Ethiopia, here takes precedence.
We dwell merely for a moment on the views which Isaiah
entertained with regard to the future of both these countries.
What he announces regarding their conversion to the worship
of Jahveh 2 shall not escape our notice at a subsequent stage.3
We have here to limit ourselves to his ex-pectations concern
ing the judgment which is to come upon them. The predic
tion 4 is quite unambiguous that the King of Assyria, accord -
-1 Amongst others, " Keith," I.e., p. 310, ff.
2 Isa. xviii. 7 ; xix. 16-25. 3 See below, Chap. vii. 4 Isa. xx.

ISAIAH S PROPHECIES REGARDING EGYPT. 121
ing to the heading of the prophecy, Sargon, shall carry the
inhabitants of Egypt and Ethiopia away ignominiously out of
their land. On the other hand, it is doubtful what the
prophet means in the " oracle concerning Egypt," which
immediately precedes this prediction in the collection of his
divine utterances.1 He foresees fearful civil contentions, and,
as their final result, the subjection of the Egyptians to " a
hard master," "a strong king."2 The most obvious supposi
tion is that the Assyrian king, Sargon, is here intended.
According to this interpretation, the two prophecies are
parallel, and the one (chap, xix.) only goes somewhat further
than the other (chap, xx.), for it not only announces a suc
cessful invasion of Egypt by the Assyrians, but also that
they should rule over that land. It cannot, as yet, be deter
mined with complete certainty how far the one and the other
expectation became historically verified. It is indeed in
ferred, not unjustly, from the prophecy of Nahum that Thebes
was besieged and taken by the Assyrians ; 3 but we do not
know whether the deportation of a part of its citizens, which
Nahum mentions, was of such importance that it can be
regarded as the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy (chap, xx.), nor
whether it was followed by a temporary subjection of the
whole country to the Assyrian sway. However, even though
we should so understand the testimony of Nahum, yet the
result would still have only in part corresponded with the
prediction of Isaiah ; because he expects that Sargon shall
subdue Egypt, and carry away a part of the population. It
is not clear that any such thing happened. In the inscrip
tions of Sargon mention is made, indeed, of victories over
Egyptian armies (in Palestine), but not of the subjugation of
Egypt. The supposition that he was the conqueror of Thebes *
is thus devoid of all foundation, hay, falls entirely to the
ground, after the discovery of an inscription of Assurbanipal,
in which he, the son of Esarhaddon, and great-grandson of
Sargon, boasts that he had captured that city, and had thereby
gained a great booty.5
1 Isa. xix. 1-15. 2 Verses 1-4. 3 Nahum iii. 8-10.
4 This supposition is found in Sir E. Strachey's " Jewish History and
Politics in the Times of Sargon and Sennacherib," p. 213.
5 Schrader, " Die Keilinschriften und das A. Testament," p. 288, ff. ;
" Eecords of the Past," vol. i. ; " Assyrian Texts," p. 65. The doubts

122 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
We can state our judgment concerning the predictions of
the Chaldean period with greater confidence. Joel limits
himself to the affirmation that Egypt would be laid waste,
as well as Edom, without saying by whom this would be
done.1 Jeremiah and Ezekiel express themselves much more
distinctly. The former expected, after the decisive battle at
Carchemish (Circesium), that the victorious Nebuchadrezzar
would invade Egypt and subdue that country.2 When,
some years later, after the murder of Gedaliah, he had
removed to Egypt, along with the remaining inhabitants of
Judsea, that expectation had evidently not yet been realised.
Egypt had not, indeed, recovered from the blow which she
had received at Carchemish, but as little had she ceased to
contend against the Chaldean monarchy, as, among other
things, the events immediately preceding the fall of Jerusalem
may show.3 Nevertheless Jeremiah clung to the convic
tion that the judgment against Egypt was merely delayed.
Immediately after reaching Tahpanhes, he announced to his
fellow-exiles that Nebuchadrezzar, the servant of Jahveh,
would set up his throne in Egypt, and would put part of
the inhabitants to death, and lead away part of them as
captives ; 4 that, on the same occasion, punishment would be
executed on the Jews who had settled there,5 while the
death of the king then reigning, Hophra (Apries), would be
the sign that both threatenings would be unsparingly carried
out.6 I have already remarked that Ezekiel is in the habit
of following Jeremiah closely. That same phenomenon pre
sents itself here also, as clearly appears from an entire collec
tion of oracles against Egypt, which closes the series of his
predictions regarding the destiny of the nations.7 They
are five in number, and date from the tenth to the twelfth
year of Ezekiel's captivity — that is, from the time that
Nebuchadrezzar laid siege to Jerusalem till shortly after
he had taken it.8 In the twenty-seventh year they were
brought forward in my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," ii. 359, n. 9, against the
supposition that Nahum had in his view a conquest of Thebes by the
Assyrians, must give way before this inscription.
1 Joel iii. 19. 2 jer. xivi. 13.28.
3 The siege of Jerusalem had to be temporarily raised, in consequence of
an expedition undertaken by Hophra. Compare Jer. xxxiv. 21 ; xxxvii. 5.
4 Jer. xliii. 8-13. 5 Jer. xliv. 12-14, 27. 6 Jer. xliv. 29, 30.
7 Ezek. xxix. -xxxii.
8 See the dates in chaps, xxix. 1 ; xxx, 20 ; xxxi. 1 ; xxxii. 1, 17.

JEREMIAH AND EZEKIEL ON EGYPT. 123
completed by a postscript occasioned by the result of Nebu
chadrezzar's attempt against Tyre.1 It is plain that the
expectations of the prophet had undergone no change worth
mentioning in that interval of time. He is convinced that
Egypt shall be conquered, plundered, and depopulated by
Nebuchadrezzar.2 He expects, besides, that King Hophra
shall perish in the struggle against the Chaldeans.3 After
forty years the kingdom of Egypt shall be restored, but shall
not recover its former power and prosperity.4 Such are the
ideas which, in the prophecies referred to, are elaborated by
Ezekiel often in a very striking form.
It seems a priori incredible that a difference of opinion
should exist concerning the realisation of these expectations.
Facts so important as those which are announced by both
prophets, but especially by Ezekiel, if realised, could not pos
sibly have remained unnoticed, or have passed away without
leaving a trace. We have therefore simply to inquire what
the ancient writers communicate to us regarding the fortunes
and condition of Egypt during the first half of the sixth
century B.C., in order to be able at once to determine whether
the result corresponded with the prediction of the prophet.
And yet the contest regarding this question apparently so
simple still continues. Can it be the case then that historical
testimonies are altogether awanting ? or are they so opposed
to each other that we are obliged to hesitate in making a
choice between the conflicting accounts ? According to my
conviction, both these questions must be answered in the
negative, and the matter would have been decided long ago,
if deeply rooted prejudices had not opposed the acceptance of
the result to which impartial investigation necessarily leads.
Of that, let the reader himself judge !
Herodotus, the father of history, gives a pretty full account
of Pharaoh Hophra, whom he calls Apries.5 He was, next to
Psammetichus, his ancestor, the most prosperous of the
Egyptian kings ; he reigned twenty-five years, undertook an
1 Chap. xxix. 17-21, or chaps, xxix. 17 — xxx. 19, if it may be thought
that chap. xxx. 1-19 is not to be regarded as the sequel of the first prophecy
— that is, of chap. xxix. 1-16. See pp. 108, ff.
2 See, e.g., chap. xxix. 8-11, 19, 20 ; xxx. 4, 10, 11, 23, 25, 26 ; xxxii. 3,
9, 10-12, 18.
3 Chap. xxx. 24; xxxi. 18 ; xxxii. 31, 32.
4 Chap. xxix. 12-16. 5 Lib. ii. 161, sqq.

124 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
expedition against Sidon, and engaged the Tyrians in a naval
battle. His expedition against Cyrene was the cause of his
fall. The Egyptian forces, which he had despatched against
that city, were defeated, and, on their return to their native
country, attributed their defeat to the king, who, as they
thought, had sent them to be killed, in order to rid himself
of his warlike countrymen, while he retained by him the
foreign mercenary troops. An insurrection broke out.
Amasis, who was commissioned by the king to suppress it,
placed himself at the head of the insurgents, defeated the
mercenary forces, took Apries prisoner, and, after some
hesitation consented to his death. Notwithstanding the
defects which marred the character of Amasis, his reign was,
on the whole, very fortunate. Under his government
(568-526 B.C.), the kingdom even reached a state of prosperity
which had hitherto been unknown. These accounts of Hero
dotus, which are fully corroborated by those of the other
ancient writers, are, as is at once obvious, in some points, in
direct opposition to the expectations of the two Israelitish
prophets. Hophra did not fall in the war against
Nebuchadrezzar, Egypt did not for forty years remain a
wilderness, and afterwards revive as a kingdom of the second
rank. But besides, the narrative of Herodotus leaves no
room for a temporary subjection of the Egyptians to the
Chaldeans, or even for a successful invasion of their country
by Nebuchadrezzar. How could Hophra have been able to
undertake an expedition against Cyrene in 569 B.C., if in or
after 570 B.C., he had been defeated by Nebuchadrezzar?
For in this year, the 27th of Ezekiel's captivity, the conquest
of Egypt by the Chaldeans had not yet, according to this
prophet himself, taken place.1 Is it not absurd to suppose
that it happened immediately thereafter, still in 570 B.C.,
and, in the following year, had been already forgotten ?
What is there now to be placed against this ? A narrative
by Flavius Josephus in his " Antiquities of the Jews."2 We
have, as is well known, a pretty full account of the murder
of Gedaliah and the subsequent events, in the book of the
prophecies of Jeremiah.3 Josephus has that account before
him, and follows it closely. From it also he takes the pre-
1 Ezek. xxix. 17-21. 2 " Ant." x. 9, § 7. 3 Jer. xl.-xliv.

HERODOTUS AND JOSEPHUS ON EGYPT. 125
diction thajt Nebuchadrezzar shall conquer Egypt, shall put
some of the Jews who had taken refuge there to death, and
lead others away captive.1 "And this," he proceeds to say,
" came to pass. For in the fifth year after the destruction of
Jerusalem, which is the twenty -third year of the reign of
Nebuchadrezzar, he made an expedition against Coele-Syria,
took possession of that country, and afterwards attacked the
Ammonites and Moabites. When he had subdued those
nations, he fell upon Egypt in order to subjugate it. He put
to death the king who was then reigning, and after having
set up another, he brought back with him as prisoners
the Jews dwelling there, and carried them to Babylon."
Josephus wrote the " Antiquities " about the end of the
first century of the Christian era. His accounts of events
which happened seven hundred years before, have of course
no value, save only when they are derived from competent
older historians. The question therefore is, whether this
account also has been obtained from such trustworthy sources ?
Immediately before his narrative about Nebuchadrezzar,
the Jewish historian appeals to Berosus of Babylon, and
also to other ancient authorities ; but it appears clearly, on
investigation, that these predecessors do not render him any
service here, in the account which has just been given. The
quotations from Berosus 2 contain nothing which can serve to
prove that the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel have been
fulfilled. It is true that Berosus expresses himself as if
already in the lifetime of Nabopolassar, Egypt belonged to
the Chaldean empire, and was governed by a Chaldean satrap ;
but, even though this were not altogether unhistorical, it
could never be regarded as a realisation of predictions which
were all, without exception, written after the period of which
Berosus is here speaking.3 What Josephus himself gives,
just before, as the contents of the narrative of Berosus, that
the Babylonian (Nebuchadrezzar) became master of Egypt,
Syria, Phoenicia, and Arabia, must be explained from the words
of the Chaldean historian which follow that statement, and
gives us thus no right to suppose that he had recorded an
1 See the passages quoted at p. 122, notes 4, 5, and 6.
2 " Contra Apion " i. 19, 20. " Ant." x. 11, § 1.
3 That is, after the battle of Carchemish in which, according to his
representation, the Egyptians who had rebelled were defeated.

126 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
actual conquest of Egypt. In the following chapter,1
Josephus appeals to the Phoenician archives, for confirmation
of the narrative of Berosus — but only in so far as regards the
subjugation of Syria and all Phoenicia. Another authority
is now brought forward, Megasthenes, who is said to have
shown in the fourth book of his Indian history that
Nebuchadrezzar surpassed Hercules by his valour and his
great exploits, because he had subdued the greater part of
Libya and Iberia.2 This is so evidently rhetorical exaggera
tion, that it cannot properly be used for establishing an
historical fact. There is nothing besides, which Josephus
confirms by an appeal to his authorities ; bnt then also there
was certainly nothing more to be found in them. Josephus
has evidently confirmed his own narratives by their authority
as often as he saw a chance of doing so. His silence with
regard to Berosus (and Megasthenes), in the place where he
mentions the conquest of Egypt and the death of Hophra,
must be regarded as a sufficient proof that those authors made
no mention of such events.
But may he not have obtained them from other sources of
information ? In that case, it is impossible to say from what
source. This supposition therefore has no ground to rest on.
It is infinitely more probable that Josephus found the events
in question in the prophecies of Jeremiah. What was pre
dicted there, must, according to him, have taken place, and
could thus, with safety, be introduced into the historical
narrative. This method is, in no way whatever, surprising —
much rather is it a natural result from the dogmatical pre
misses from which Josephus set out,3 and on which so many
before and after him have proceeded. Do we not see, even in
our own day, a Marcus von Niebuhr 4 adding a fourth to the
three well-known wars of Nebuchadrezzar against Egypt,
simply and solely, because such a fact is necessary for the
fulfilment of the prophecy of Ezekiel ? 5 It is, in fact, well-
known that in other cases, Josephus uses quite as great
1 " Contra Apion " i. 20.
2 A similar statement is made " Ant." x. 11, § 1, except that there the
third book of the Indica is mentioned.
3 See e.g., "Ant."x. 8, § 2, 3.
4 " Gesch. Assurs u. Babels," S. 216, f.
6 Ezek. xxix. 17 — xxx. 26.

UNTRUSTWORTHINESS OF JOSEPHUS. 127
freedom as this.1 The question can only be whether there
are reasons for attributing to him the application of the same
method in this instance also. For doing so we have the
following grounds : —
a. That he himself expressly declares, that he sees the
fulfilment of Jeremiah's prediction, or rather of God's
revelation to Jeremiah, in the events which he
narrates ;
b. The mention of Coele-Syria, the Ammonites and the
Moabites, whose punishment by Nebuchadrezzar is
likewise announced by Jeremiah ; 2
c. The remarkable circumstance, that, in his polemic
against Apion, he mentions, indeed, the conquest of
Egypt by the Persians and the Macedonians, but does
not mention its conquest by Nebuchadrezzar,3 even
although that also would have served to refute the
assertion of Apion, that Egypt had been always
independent. But in this treatise, he could not use
the prophecy as a source of historical information — a
procedure which he can readily have allowed himself
to adopt in the " Antiquities," when the course of his
narrative presented any inducement.
Should we not in truth be amply justified in using much
stronger language ? There occur in the narrative of Josephus
two particulars at least, which are positively untrue. That
the Egyptian king (Hophra), was put to death by Nebuchad
rezzar is refuted by the narrative regarding Amasis given by
Herodotus — about 45 Ob.c. — a narrative, the trustworthiness of
which is doubted by no one. That the Chaldeans conquered
Egypt in the year 581 B.C., is irreconcilable with the testimony
of Ezekiel, from which it is evident that that conquest had not
yet taken place in the year 570 B.C., and with the account of
Josephus himself,4 that Nebuchadrezzar besieged Tyre for
thirteen years — probably from 585 to 572 B.C.: the invasion
of Egypt cannot surely be regarded as an episode of that
1 E.g., "Ant." xi. 1, § 2, where he states as a fact what is merely a
conjecture of his own, that Cyrus had read the prophecies of Isaiah, and
ibid. xi. 8, § 5, where he invents, if not the whole account of the meeting of
Alexander and the High Priest Jaddua, yet certainly the communication of
the prophecies of Daniel to the Grecian conqueror.
2 Jer. xlviii. ; xlix. 1-7, 23-27. 3 " Contra Apion" ii. 11. 4 See p.
108, note 5.

128 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS
siege ! The fact is, that the Jewish historian has adopted
both these particulars from Jeremiah — the first from chap.
xliv. 29, 30 ; the second from the appendix to Jeremiah's
prophecies in which the carrying into captivity of a certain
number of Jews is mentioned as having taken place in the
twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar} What then is the
use of spending further time upon the narrative of Josephus ?
We catch him here, as it were, in the very act, and cannot
doubt a moment longer as to the source, and consequently,
the worthlessness, of his account.
If Flavius Josephus is not to be trusted with regard to
matters which he represents to us, in so many words, as
having actually happened, much less can he be appealed to
in favour of the fulfilment of the prophecies having a
wider range than the predictions of Jeremiah, which were
present to his mind. The forty years' desolation of Egypt,
and the subsequent partial restoration which Ezekiel men
tions, find no support even in Josephus. Whoever com
pares the accounts which the ancients give concerning
Amasis with these predictions, must certainly come to the
conclusion that the future of Egypt was concealed from
Ezekiel, and that the reality did not even remotely cor
respond to his postulates. It is with nothing better than
miserable subterfuges that this conclusion is met. Nay, no
scruple is felt in doing violence to the plain meaning of the
prophet's words, in order to bring them, at least in some degree,
into agreement with the facts. Thus, Marcus von Niebuhr 2
makes the forty years' desolation of Egypt begin with the
battle of Carchemish (604 B.C.), in opposition, on the one
hand, to the facts, because from 604 to 564 B.C. Egypt was
anything but desolate ; on the other hand, to Ezekiel himself,
to whose mind, in the year 587 B.C.,3 the desolation of Egypt
1 Jer. lii. 30. In the preceding verse, the 18th year of the same reign was
named. The (second) carrying into captivity referred to there took place
after the capture of Jerusalem. The identification of the fifth year after
that capture with the 23d of Nebuchadrezzar rests therefore in like manner
on Jer. lii. Further, it is not at all said in this passage, that Nebuchadrezzar
brought his captives from Egypt to Babylonia : this is a combination of
Josephus. 2 L. c. pp. 71, 90.
3 The prophecy of the forty years, chap. xxix. 12-16, belongs to the year
587 B.C., according to the heading in ver. 1.

isaiah's predictions regarding Assyria. 129
appeared to be still altogether future, and, as indeed is
self-evident, was to be preceded by the conquest of the
country, which, according to his own testimony, had yet,
in the year 570 B.C., to take place.1 Others see the real
isation of the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel in the
internal decline of the Egyptian kingdom, which made its
subjection to the Persians in 526 B.C. possible, as if the
words of the two prophets admitted of such an interpre
tation. But enough has now been said on this subject. Dogmatical
reasons may for a time prevent the acceptance of the result
which we have obtained, but that result itself defies all
reasonable contradiction, and will in the end be generally
received. Let the reader himself be the judge if this be too
bold an assertion.
Assyria occupies a large space, not only in the history of
'Israel, but also in prophecy. The prophets of the eighth
century before our era are unanimous in expecting that the
judgment upon their apostate nation shall be executed by the
Assyrians. But this point will be more fully discussed further
on. Our present object is to inquire what idea they had formed
to themselves of the future fortunes of Assyria. Isaiah is the first
whom we can expect to express himself on this subject. He
announces, as is well known, that the plans of the Assyrians
against Jerusalem shall be frustrated, and their armies utterly
destroyed in Judea.2 His remarkable predictions concerning
them are indissolubly connected with his conception of the
judgment against Judah, and shall thus be considered when
that subject comes before us. But what is to happen after
that, according to Isaiah ? To that question we receive no
answer. The overthrow of the Assyrian kingdom is not pre
dicted by the prophet. He does not say a single word about
that when he foretells the return of the Israelites to their
native country.3 Nay, a belief in the continued existence of
Assyria is actually implied in his ideas of the future of Israel.
What else can be the meaning of his expectation that there
shall one day be an highway from Egypt to Assyria, and that
1 Chap. xxix. 17—21.
2 Isaiah x. 12, 16-19, 25-34; xiv. 25; xxix. 7, 8; xvii. 13,_ 14. All
these passages will be illustrated in chap. viii. 3 Isaiah xi. 11, ff.
I

130 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
both these kingdoms shall unite with Israel in the worship of
Jahveh ? " Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the
work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance" — thus,
according to the prophet, shall Jahveh speak on that day.1
But such being the case, it cannot have formed any part of
his expectations that the Assyrian empire would be replaced
by another.
We are the less surprised at this, when it clearly appears
that his contemporary Micah entertains the same view. More
than one feature in his description of the future has not as
yet been sufficiently explained ; but so much is certain, that
he imagines the reign of the Messiah to be contemporaneous
with the Assyrian kingdom. " When," — so he describes the
Messianic period,2 — " when the Assyrian shall come into our
land, and shall tread our soil,3 then shall we raise against him
seven shepherds and eight princes from among the men ; they
shall depasture the land of Assyria with the sword, and the
land of Nimrod with the edge of the sword,4 and they shall
deliver us 5 from the Assyrian when he cometh into our land
and treads on our borders." These words admit of only
one interpretation. Micah never thought of the complete
overthrow of the Assyrian monarchy, he even supposes that,
in the future, it will still continue to cherish the same hostile
designs against Judah that it had entertained in the reign of
Hezekiah. The agreement of Isaiah and Micah in this conception of
Assyria's future gives great probability to the opinion of those
who place the prophet Nahum about a century later. His
" oracle concerning Nineveh '' contains, it is true, some things
which might seem to have been written while the impression
produced by the invasion of Sennacherib was yet fresh, and
therefore still in the reign of Hezekiah ;6 yet it is not unnatural
that the tyrannical acts of the Assyrians towards Judah should
1 Isaiah, xix. 23-25. 2 Micah v. 4, 5.
3 This is the proper reading, according to Roorda, " Comment, in Vat.
Michae ad h. 1.," instead of our palaces.
4 According to the common reading, in the entrances or gates thereof. But
compare Roorda on the place, and Rowland Williams, " Hebr. Prophets,"
i. 188. 6 Here also I follow Roorda. The common reading has — and he shall deliver
us. ° Nahum i. 9, 11-14 ; ii. 1, 14.

PREDICTIONS OF THE FALL OF NINEVEH. 131
present themselves with renewed clearness to the mind of the
prophet, now that they were, according to his conviction, soon
about to suffer the merited punishment of all their sins. And
this conviction itself is best explained by our supposing it to
have been formed when the Medes were prosecuting their
enterprises against Nineveh under their kings, Phraortes or
Cyaxares — that is, in the year 638 or 634 B.C.1 Even a
later date still might be assigned, and Nahum might be placed
immediately before the conquest of Nineveh by the con
federate Medes and Babylonians, probably in 605 B.C.2 It
is not necessary, for our purpose, to enter more deeply
into this chronological question, because it is an undeniable
fact that Nahum foretells the destruction of Nineveh, and
describes it as if it were already taking place.3 We find the
same expectation in his contemporary Zephaniah. The uni
versal judgment which he announces shall fall on Nineveh
too ; the mighty city, which prides herself on her strength,
shall become a desolation, dry as a wilderness ; flocks lie
down on the place where she stood ; her ruins serve as a
dwelling for the bittern and the night-owl.4
History has set its seal on these anticipations. We all
have a vivid recollection how, but a few years ago, Nineveh
was exhumed as if from her grave. Her exact situation even
was unknown for centuries in succession. There was but
one respect in which the predictions of Nahum and Zephaniah
were not confirmed by the issue. Nineveh was depopulated
and became a desolation, in a comparatively brief space, but
still not at all at once. Strabo 6 indeed relates that Ninus
(Nineveh) disappeared immediately after the subversion of the
Assyrian kingdom ; and Xenophon, with the ten thousand
Greeks, could, in the year 401 B.C., pass by her remains
without even perceiving that he was in the neighbourhood of
ancient Nineveh.6 She must thus have sustained at once a
decisive and irreparable blow by the rise of Babylon, but she
1 This is the view of Ewald and Hitzig.
2 Compare Rowland Williams, I.e., i. 431, ff.
3 See especially Nahum ii., iii., the whole of which should be read, in
order duly to estimate the graphic talent of the prophet.
4 Zeph. ii. 13-15.
6 Lib. xvi. 1 (Ed. Tauchn., vol. iii., 334).
6 "Anab.,"Lib. iii. 4, §7-12.

132 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
was not altogether annihilated. She is mentioned by Tacitus a
and Ammianus Marcellinus,2 writers who are more to be
relied on than Lucian of Samosata, when he writes, evidently
in an exaggerated and poetical strain : " Ninus is now ruined,
and there no longer remains even a trace of her ; nay, no one
can tell the spot on which she once stood." 3
I would probably not have called attention to this differ
ence between the prophecy and the reality, if the exaggera
tion of the apologists had not rendered it necessary to do so.
When they assert that the prophecies have been fulfilled
exactly and literally, and thence deduce far-reaching con
sequences, we cannot rest satisfied with the general agree
ment between the prediction and the historical fact, but must
note also, along with that, the deviation in details, as often
as such a deviation is actually apparent.
Nevertheless, it must not be concealed that, according to
the judgment of many, such deviations as we believed we had
observed in this case, detract nothing from the truth and
accuracy of prophecy. It is characteristic, so they assert, of
the peculiar manner in which the prophet looked into the
future, that in his prospect the distances should, as it were,
disappear. The historian shows us the course of an affair,
the separate links in the chain of events — in one word, the
historical process. In the prophet's intuition, the successive
circumstances are blended together, and there is no distinc
tion perceptible between the beginning and the final result.
Thus, for instance, in the prediction of Nineveh's fate in
Zephaniah : the centuries which intervened between her total
destruction and the conquest by the confederate Medes and
Babylonians, are not taken into consideration by the prophet ;
her slow decline, ending in total extinction, finds no place in
his portraiture of the future ; the fatal blow which was
inflicted upon her is conceived and represented by him as her
complete annihilation.
The present seems to me the most suitable place to explain
this whole theory more clearly, and thereafter expressly to
form a judgment on it. This might properly have been
1 " Annal.," Lib. xii., 13. 5 Lib. xxiii., 6.
3 " Contempl.," cap. 23. Compare M. von Niebuhr, " Gesch. Assurs u.
Babels," p. 203.

PERSPECTIVE CHARACTER OF PREDICTIONS. 133
done at an earlier period, for this theory is applied to the great
majority of the predictions wliich have been treated of in the
present chapter, and arranged in the class of those which are
unfulfilled. But it seemed preferable first to take cognisance
of some of those prophecies, and thereafter of the hypothesis,
by the aid of which it is attempted to remove, or at least to
explain, the opposition between their contents and the histori
cal reality.
It is of importance, in the first instance, to determine
what is properly intended by that theory. A comparison
of the writings of its defenders with each other shows
at once that they differ among themselves, specifically on
one point. According to Velthusen, whose treatise on this
subject l has formed an epoch, the prophets describe the
future in perspective — that is, almost as they would have
represented it in a drawing. His opinion seems to be that
the prophets themselves were not unconscious of the differ
ence between the picture which they drew and the actual
course of events. Such was at least the case with Virgil, to
whom he refers. That poet knew very well that the histori
cal figures had stood in another order, and in another relation
to each other than that in which iEneas beholds them.2 This
much is certain, that many who have embraced the opinion
of Velthusen have thus understood and developed his theory.3
It is scarcely necessary to say that we cannot agree with
them. In no way whatever is it manifest that the repre
sentation of the facts in prophecy deviates from the concep
tion formed by the prophets themselves. What possible
motive could they have to depict the future — let it be care
fully observed not on canvas, but in words — otherwise than
they conceived it ? A distinction of that nature is arbitrary,
and is evidently invented merely to save the infallibility of
the prophets.
The case becomes quite different when it is granted that the
representation of the prophets and their conception coincide
with each other. We confine ourselves henceforward to those
1 " De optica rerum futurarum descriptione, in Comment. Theol., edd.
Velthusen, Kuinoel et Ruperti," vol. vi., 75—116. Compare the explanation
of Isa. lxiii. 1-6, in the same vol., pp. 117-194.
2 " jEneid," lib. vi. 752, sqq.
3 E.g., Hengstenberg, Christol. des A. T., iii., 2 pp. 185 ff.

134 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
who are agreed on this point. They differ from each other in
details. Kueper, for instance, thinks it is scarcely correct to
affirm that prophecy represents the future in perspective.
But yet he too is of opinion "that the prophets describe
things according to a summary intuition, such as they shall be
when the climax is reached, without any indication of the
separate parts of the gradual succession of the single facts,
and of the times and transitions which intervene between the
present and the distant future." x The most recent writer
also on this subject, W. G. Elmslie, is only half satisfied with
the theory of Velthusen.2 He not only expressly rejects the
idea that the prophets have depicted the future otherwise
than as it was presented to their minds,3 but is at the same
time of opinion that the peculiarity of their portraiture is
imperfectly characterised by calling it "perspective." For
they not only make events, which are separated by wide in
tervals of time, to follow each other immediately ("timeless
succession," " perspective superposition ") ; but they besides
bring such facts into causal connection with each other, nay,
combine them into a whole, or allow them to coalesce.
(" involution ").4
It is not necessary for our object to take any further
notice of these points of difference which occur in the work
ing out of the one theory. It may, in general, be granted
that the phenomenon itself which is here presented, is correctly
described. That is to say: when we compare the predictions
with the facts, we must acknowledge that they frequently
stand to each other in that relation which Elmslie, for instance,
alleges. But what follows from that fact ? It follows, we
should think, that there exists a very essential difference be
tween the issue and the prophecy, or, in other words, that the
prophecy has not been fulfilled. But this is the very thing
which the apologists deny. In their view, the difference re
ferred to does not invalidate the worth and the divine origin
of prophecy ; it is, and continues to be, an announcement of
the reality", real prediction, although fulfilled in a form and
at a time different from what the prophecy itself led us to
1 L. c, p: 71.
- The Perspective in Prophecy, " British and Foreign Evangelical Review,"
No. lxxx. (April 1872), pp. 326-347.
3 L. c, p. 340, ff. 4 I. c, p. 330, ff.

CRITICISM OF VELTHUSEN'S THEORY. 135
expect. With what right is this assertion made ? — that is the
question on wliich ultimately everthing hinges.
But this question is answered as soon as it is proposed. In
vain do we ask the defenders of the theory which we are con
sidering, for positive proofs in support of their assertion. It is
a settled point with them that the predictions, all without
exception, have been fulfilled ; it is only the manner of their
fulfilment that is, for them, a subject of investigation. Ful
filled exactly and literally, or in another form and at another
period, but still ahuays fulfilled — that is their system, in few
words. It does not require to be shown at length that this
system is for us utterly unsatisfactory, or why it is so. From
the historical stand-point on which we have placed ourselves,
we perceive nothing to recommend such a view. The case
would no doubt be different if the form and the period of the
realisation were always a matter of indifference, or, at least,
of subordinate importance ! But the very opposite is the
truth. Of course, in history the same result can sometimes
be obtained in more than one way, either all at once or as
the issue of a long process ; but then in the former case, it
bears another character than it does in the latter. One con
quered city is depopulated by the enemy, and levelled to the
ground ; another does not recover from the blow which has
been inflicted upon it, gradually loses its resources and its in
habitants, and finally ceases to exist ; in this way the condition
of both is ultimately one and the same, yet every one will
certainly acknowledge that a very essential difference remains
here, both as regards the temper of the one conqueror and
that of the other, and as regards the impression which the
fate of the two cities makes upon their citizens and the rest
of the world. It is hardly necessary to apply this to the
predictions of the prophets. It is judicial punishments which
they announce. But the destiny of the heathen nations loses
that character, when slow decay takes the place of sudden
destruction. Surely none of those who witnessed that decay
could regard it, as the prophet wished it to be regarded, as the
execution of a sentence pronounced by Jahveh. This reason
ing, with the necessary modifications, is fully applicable to the
promises of future prosperity. The sequel of our investigation
will of itself make that clear. How then can it be wished to

136 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
force upon us the belief that prophecies, the aim of which has
not been accomplished, have yet been fulfilled ?
We arrive by another road at the same conclusion with
regard to the invalidity of the theory now under discussion.
The " perspective " character of prophecy is often spoken of,
as if it were one of its invariable features. This, however,
is absolutely contrary to the fact. It is with this, as with
the position that beholding, inner intuition, is the fixed form of
prophetical revelation. It appeared evident to us before that
the supporters of this view attribute to all prophecies what
is applicable only to very few ; 1 the same thing happens in this
case which is closely akin to the former. The reader of this
chapter does not require any proof that the distinction be
tween earlier and later, or, to speak more generally, that fixed
dates are not wanting in the prophecies. The prophets thus
.show that they perceive very well that dates are anything
but indifferent. In a number of prophecies the cardinal
thought itself stands or falls with the succession of events
therein announced. For example, is the judgment upon one
or other heathen nation promised to the people of Israel, and
represented as the reparation of the wrongs which they had
endured, then the possibility of such a prophecy being realised
ceases from the moment that Israel loses its national existence,
and thus can no longer reap the fruits of the destruction of
its enemies. When we assert, therefore, that prophetical
prediction is, as it were, raised above any conditions of time,
and that its fulfilment is independent of the form with which it
is invested, the prophets themselves directly oppose us. It is
clear that they attributed weight, nay, sometimes great weight,
to that which is called unimportant, or even altogether in
different, in order to uphold the opinion that they could in
fallibly anticipate the future.
We shall not, therefore, allow ourselves to be diverted from
our course by the theory now discussed. It owes its existence
to the belief in the supernatural origin of prophecy, but can
not set aside the facts which the unprejudiced consideration
of the contents of prophecy places before our eyes.
The foregoing remarks simplify our task with regard to
the prophecies against Babylon and the Chaldean kingdom.
1 See p. 83 ff. above.

PREDICTIONS OF THE FALL OF BABYLON. ] 37
Nebuchadrezzar, " the servant of Jahveh," entrusted with the
execution of his judgments against Judah ; the deportation to
Babylon as a punishment for the sins of the people ; the
return to their native country agreeably to the promises of
Jahveh — all this is reserved for a subsequent chapter. We
confine ourselves here to the predictions concerning the
destiny of Babylon itself, and of the monarchy of which it
was the capital. The age of most of those prophecies is, up
to the present day, a very disputed' point. It is agreed that
Habakkuk wrote before the fall of Jerusalem. The tyrannical
acts of the Chaldeans had made so deep an impression upon
him,1 that already, at the time when they still stood at the
summit of their power, he holds their humiliation as alto
gether certain, and communicates, as by anticipation, the
taunting song which those who had been conquered by the
Babylonians would raise, when their oppressors were in their
turn chastised.2 On the other hand, opinions are divided
concerning the origin of the prophecies directed against
Babylon which are found among the oracles of Isaiah and
Jeremiah, namely, Isa. xiii. 1 — xiv. 23; xxi. 1-10; xxiv. —
xxvii. ; the passages in Isa. xl. — Ixvi.3 in which the destiny of
Babylon is predicted ; and Jer. 1., li. Nevertheless it is not
absolutely necessary for our object to make a choice between
the two opinions on this point which mainly attract notice.
Whether these prophecies be assigned to Isaiah and Jeremiah,
or be placed in the years which preceded, or immediately
followed, the return from the captivity, the question always
remains, Has the destiny of Babylon corresponded to the
expectations which are there expressed ? To the treatment
of that question, therefore, we proceed at once.
" Babylon is fallen, is fallen ! " Such is the cry which
the author of one of these prophecies hears when, at the
command of Jahveh, he has ascended his watch-tower and
looks out for the things that shall come.4 We find the same
conviction also in the other passages, frequently associated
both with the announcement that the Medes and Persians
shall conquer the mighty city,5 and with the idea that its
1 Compare Hab. i. 2-17. 2 Hab. ii., iii., especially ii. 6, f.
3 Among others, chap. xlvi. 1, 2 ; xlvii. 1—3, 5—16. 4 Isa. xxi._9, a.
5 Isa. xiii. 17 ; xli. 2, 3, 25, and elsewhere in chap. xl. — Ixvi. ; Jer. li. 11,
28, compare 20-24.

138 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES ; THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
calamity is the humiliation and the confusion of its gods.1
Thus far the agreement between the prediction and the issue
is perfect. But some prophecies go farther in announcing
the judgment. The writer of Jer. 1., li., expresses at the very
beginning his expectation that " out of the north there shall
come up a nation against Babylon which shall make her land
desolate, and none shall dwell therein ; they shall flee, they
shall depart, both man and beast."2 Again and again he
repeats this announcement, now in one form, now in another.
Thus he speaks to the Chaldeans : " Your mother " — mean
ing by that expression the nation as a whole — " your mother
shall be sore confounded ; she that bare you shall be ashamed ;
behold, she is the smallest of the nations, her land a wilder
ness, a dry land, and a desert. Because of the wrath of
Jahveh it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly deso
late ; every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished,
and hiss at all her plagues." 3 And this is repeated more
than once in the sequel of the detailed oracle.4 With this
writer the author of Isa. xiii. 1 — xiv. 25 entirely agrees, as
when, for instance, he predicts : " It (Babylon) shall never
be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to
generation ; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there ;
neither shall the shepherds make their fold there : but the
jackals shall lie there, and the owls fill their houses ; the
ostriches shall dwell there, and the satyrs dance ; wild beasts
shall howl in the palaces thereof, and dogs in the luxurious
dwellings ; and her time is near to come, and her days shall
not be prolonged." 5 These last words cannot be allowed
to escape our notice. They place beyond all doubt, what
indeed might be inferred merely from the course of the whole
prophecy, that the prophet does not speak of a far distant
future, but of the fate which Babylon has to expect after her
conquest by the Medes. Almost superfluously, he declares,
1 Isa. xxi. 9 6 ; xxiv. 20, 21 ; xlvi. 1, 2 ; xlvii. 12, ff. Jer. 1. 2 ; li. 44,
47, 52.
2 Jer. 1. 8. 3 Jer. 1. 12, 13.
4 Jer. 1. 15 (the walls of Babylon are thrown down) ; 21, 26 (destroy her
utterly [make her cherem] that nothing of her be left) ; 38 (the waters of
Babylon are dried up); 39, 40 (entire destruction of the city, as of Sodom
and Gomorrah), 45 ; li. 13 (thine end is come) ; 25, 26 (an everlasting
desolation ;) 29, 36, 37, 42, 43, 58 (destruction of the walls of Babylon).
' Isa. xiii. 20-22. Compare also Isa. xxv. 2 ; xxvi. 5.

PROPHECIES AGAINST BABYLON HOW FAR FULFILLED. 139
just as the writer of Jer. I, li., that it shall be with her as
when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.1
These predictions have not been all fully realised, even at
the present time, more than two thousand 3rears after they
were written. It is long since ancient Babylon ceased to
exist, but the not unimportant city of Hillah, and various
villages, partly occupy the site on which it formerly stood,
and Arabian tribes are accustomed to encamp among its
ruins.2 But suppose that it were (now) otherwise, or
became so after some centuries more had elapsed, even
in that case we should still have to rank the predic
tions of Babylon's desolation and entire destruction among
the unfulfilled prophecies. Babylon had still a whole
history after 538 B.C., the year of its conquest by
Cyrus. Already in the reign of Darius, son of Hystaspes,
it was strong and powerful enough to offer resistance for a
long time to the Persian forces ; nay, the king would have been
baffled before its walls, if the stratagem of Zopyrus had not put
him in possession of the city.3 Alexander the Great conceived
the design of raising it( to be the capital of the Grecian
empire. It was one of the distinguished cities of the kingdom
of the Seleucidse, although the neighbouring Seleucia became
now a formidable rival to it, so that henceforward it sank more
and more into decay. We know from the New Testament of
" the elect sister (congregation) in Babylon." 4 But enough ;
it matters little, so far as the question at issue is concerned,
whether some centuries could still be added to these six.
The facts, of which I reminded the reader, are more than
sufficient to prove that the sentence of extermination which
the prophets had pronounced against Babylon was not exe
cuted. The plain meaning of the prophets is misapprehended,
if the lingering process of decay through which the mighty city
passed is represented as the fulfilment of their threatenings.
The Chaldean monarchy was succeeded by the Persian.
The rise of the latter is hailed with high gratification in the
1 Isa. xiii. 19 ; Jer 1. 40.
2 See the note of Rev. T. K. Cheyne, " The Book of Isaiah chronologically
arranged," p. 137.
3 " Herodotus," Lib. iii. 150 sqq. Compare M. Duncker, " Gesch. des
Alterthums.," ii. 559-563.
4 1 Pet. v. 13.

140 V. — UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
last portion of the oracles assigned to Isaiah (chap. xl. — Ixvi.)
Its founder Cyrus is called there, " the anointed of Jahveh,"
and is described as the executor of Jahveh's purpose, as well
with regard to Babylon as to the Jewish exiles, and the
restoration of Jerusalem.1 We shall, at a later period, inquire
how far he corresponded to the expectations which concerned
Israel itself; that he conquered Babylon indeed, but did not
doom it to destruction, has but just now been already made
clear to us. During the first century after the establishment
of the Persian kingdom, some prophets still appeared in
Judsea, Haggai, Zechariah (chaps, i— viii.), and Malachi.- It
would not have been unnatural for them to have expressly
declared their views concerning the further fortunes of a
monarchy to which Israel was indebted for the restoration of
its national existence, and to which it continued to remain in
subjection. This however they have not done, at least not in
terms so unambiguous as to enable us to test the prophetical
utterances by the historical reality. Haggai announces that
within a short time, heaven and earth, the sea and the dry
land shall be shaken by Jahveh : the result of this shaking;
which extends to all nations, shall be, that the best portion
of them will visit the temple at Jerusalem.2 In another
passage, he predicts that Jahveh shall overthrow the throne
of kingdoms, and destroy the strength of the kingdoms of
the nations : the horses and their riders shall fall down, every
one by the sword of his brother.3 These prophecies certainly
have reference to the destiny of the heathen, and in so far
to that of the Persians also ; but Haggai has to do, properly
speaking, only with the future of Israel. He says nothing
whatever concerning the manner in which this shall be
brought to pass. Jahveh shall bless his people and make his
temple glorious, but he does not tell us what way he will
take to accomplish this object. The anticipations of Zechariah
are almost as indefinite. Let the reader, in order to be con
vinced of this, peruse the vision of the four horns and four
carpenters,4 and that of the four chariots,5 in which almost
everything occurs, that the prophet mentions concerning the
1 See Isa. xliv. 28 ; xlv. 1, where the name Koresh occurs ; further Isa.
xli. 2, 3, 25 ; xliv. 26, 27 ; xlv. 2 ff., xlvi. 11 ; xlviii. 14, 15.
2 Hagg. ii. 6, 7. 3 Hagg. ii. 22.
4 Zech. i. 18-21. » Zech. vi. 1-8.

PROPHECIES OF DANIEL. 141
destiny of the heathen. Malachi confines himself exclusively
to combating the malpractices and errors of his contemporaries.
We thus seek, in vain, in these prophets, for predictions
concerning the termination of the Persian monarchy. It
seems indeed that this most important fact lay beyond the
range of their vision. Or is the state of the case otherwise ?
Are they silent about the destruction of the Persian kingdom,
and the empire founded by Alexander the Great, for the reason
that another had already spoken before them ? Many answer
this question in the affirmative, having in view the book
of Daniel, which, in their judgment, was written by the
prophet of that name, as early as the reign of Cyrus.1 We
actually find there all, and more than all, that we sought.
We find recorded in that book not only the appearance of
Alexander on the scene, but also his death, and the events
which followed upon his death, and that too, at times, in
minute detail. Let us begin by taking notice of the predic
tions which have direct reference to the destiny of the heathen
nations ; all that exclusively concerns Israel and its future, is
reserved for a subsequent chapter.
On two occasions Daniel announces the succession of four
monarchies, or rather on the first occasion, it is revealed to
Nebuchadrezzar in a dream which Daniel afterwards inter
prets ; 2 some years later, he himself beholds the four beasts,
symbols of the same four kingdoms, which were formerly
denoted by the parts of the image in Nebuchadrezzar's
dream.3 To the question, as to what monarchies are
meant, here, different answers have always been given.
If, however, as is only reasonable, we follow the in
dications which the author himself gives, then no doubt
remains as to his meaning. The four kingdoms are the
Babylonian, the Median, the Persian, and the Grecian (that
of Alexander the Great and his successors). Let the
1 The latest of Daniel's revelations (chaps, x. — xii.), is placed in the third
year of the reign of Cyrus, that is, his reign over Babylon (chap. x. 1).
The others fall under the reign of Belshazzar (chaps, vii. 1 ; viii. 1), and of
Darius the Mede (chap. ix. ). If Daniel was carried away captive to Baby
lon in the third year of Jehoiakim (chap. i. 1-4), he was already far advanced
in years when Babylon was taken by the Persians. On that ground the
assumption is made, that he can not well have outlived Cyrus (+ 529 B.C.).
8 Chap. ii. 31-35, 36-45.
3 Chap, vii., especially vv. 2-7, compare vv. 17, 19-22, 23-27.

142 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
following remarks serve to illustrate the different parts of
this series.
Daniel himself says that the first monarchy is the Baby
lonian.1 That therefore requires no further proof. There is,
in truth, no other that can be meant, for the kingdom of
Nebuchadrezzar was still in existence, and could not there
fore be left unmentioned, even when the second revelation
concerning the four monarchies took place.2
The Babylonian monarchy is succeeded by the Median, and
this again by the Persian, so that these two last must be
regarded as the second and the third respectively. It is said,
in so many words, that Darius the Median obtained the king
dom after the death of Belshazzar.3 In the headings of the
revelations, which are chronologically arranged, the Babylonian
is followed by the Median and then by the Persian kingdom.4
In one of those revelations, of which we shall have more to say
immediately, the Medes and Persians are joined, but the
Medes are uniformly mentioned first, and are expressly said
to have come up before the Persians.5 The more minute
description, in both the revelations, of the second and third
kingdoms agrees completely with the assumption that they
are no other than the Median and the Persian.6
The fourth kingdom, therefore, must thus be the Grecian or
Macedonian, which not only according to history, but also
according to the book of Daniel, succeeded the Persian
monarchy.7 Indeed, everything combines to recommend this
interpretation of the fourth kingdom. It is in harmony with
1 Chap. ii. 38.
a Chap. vii. 1. The Belshazzar mentioned here is, according to chap. v.
2, 11, 13, 18, 22, 30, the son of Nebuchadrezzar. After his death, the
government passed into the hands of the Medes.
3 Chap. v. 30 ; vi. 1. 4 Chaps, vii. 1 ; viii. 1 ; ix. 1 ; x. 1.
6 Chap. viii. 3. Por further details on the whole representation in
Dan. viii., see below, p. 143.
6 The second kingdom is said to be " lower (smaller) than the first,"
while of the third it is said that it " shall bear rule over the whole earth "
(ehap. ii. 39.) This is correct, if the second monarchy is the Median, and
the third the Persian ; it is incorrect, if the second is identified with the
kingdom of Cyrus. No certain inferences with regard to the second king
dom can be deduced from chap. vii. 5. What is said in chap. vii. 6 con
cerning the third agrees with our view : the four heads are the four
Persian kings (chap. xi. 2) ; the four wings refer to the extension of the
Persian kingdom ; the last words allude to its power : " and dominion was
given to it " (to the third beast, the panther).
i See chap. viii. 20, 21 : xi. 2, 3.

THE FOUR MONARCHIES IN DANIEL. 143
the description given of that kingdom in both revelations.1
It is required by the undeniable fact that the fourth kingdom
in the book of Daniel appears as the last, and is immediately
succeeded by that of the Messiah,2 which, according to other
and unambiguous passages, follows at once the tyrannical pro
ceedings of Antiochus Epiphanes, one of the kings of the
Grecian or Macedonian monarchy.3
Without expressing an opinion as yet on this expectation,
let us first collect the further declarations of the writer on the
future destiny of the heathen nations.
In chap. viii. he portrays the Medo-Persian kingdom under
the image of a ram with two unequal horns, which come up
the one after the other, the greater after the smaller.4 This
ram was attacked and overthrown by a he-goat, that is, the
Medo-Persian monarchy is destroyed by Alexander the Great.5
The great horn of the he-goat is broken, and four others come
up in its place : the kingdom of Alexander is after his death
separated into four kingdoms.6 Out of one of those four
horns a smaller horn comes forth, the symbol — as is clear
from the writer's own explanation — of Antiochus Epiphanes,
whose measures against the temple and the worship of the
God of Israel are plainly and exactly pointed out.7 The
time, during which the temple is desecrated, is fixed at 2300
evenings and mornings, that is at 1150 days.8 Antiochus
himself shall be struck by a divine judgment (" without
[human] hand.") 9
1 Let the reader notice the agreement between chap. vii. 7, and chap.
viii. 5 — 8, 21 ; xi. 3 ; and also the circumstance that the fourth beast
differs from the three that went before, chap. vii. 7b, 23; as well as the
parallelism between chap. ii. 41 — 43, and chap. viii. 22 ; xi. 4, 6, 17.
2 Chap. ii. 34, 35, 44, 45 ; vii. 13, 14, 23—27. The question as to whether
a personal Messiah is announced here, is left, in the meantime, undetermined.
In place of " the kingdom of the Messiah," I could also have written " the
dominion of Israel."
3 See chap. viii. 17, 19, 23, and xi. 21 — 45 (a description of the reign of
Antiochus Epiphanes), in connection with the immediately following pas
sage, chap. xii. 1 — 3 (the resurrection of the dead and the glorification of the
pious). 4 Chap. viii. 3, 4, 20. 6 Chap. viii. 5—7, 21.
6 Chap. viii. 8, 22. The four kingdoms are that of the Seleucidae, that
of the Lagidae, that of Cassander (Macedonia, Thessaly, Greece), and that of
Lysimachus (Asia Minor, Cappadocia, and Thrace).
7 Chap. viii. 9—14, 23—26.
8 Chap. viii. 14, 26. In the English version the " evening-morning" of
v. 14 is incorrectly replaced by " day." That the evenings and mornings
are to be counted separately, and thus the 2300 " evening-mornings" are
equal to 1150 days, is evident from v. 26. 9 Chap. viii. 25.

144 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIONS.
The predictions contained in chap. x. — xii. are, in many
respects, parallel with those now mentioned. Cyrus, in
whose reign the revelation is placed,1 is to be followed by
three other Persian kings.2 Of the fourth king it is
said, that " he having become strong through his riches,
shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia."3 The establish
ment of Alexander's kingdom, and its division into four
smaller kingdoms, follow immediately thereafter.4 Attention
is now directed, more particularly, to two of these divisions,
the southern (Egypt) and the northern (Syria). Some re
markable facts in their history are indicated in a few touches,
and indicated in such a way that no reader, who is acquainted
with that history, can fail at once to understand what event
is intended.5 Yet more minute and distinct is the por
traiture of Antiochus Epiphanes. The first three portions of
it agree completely with the known fortunes and acts of
that king ;6 on the other hand, the fourth and last expresses
an expectation concerning his end, to which the historical
reality does not correspond.7 Further, we do not discover in
history the events which, in the prophecy, are represented as
following immediately on the death of the tyrant,8 nor are
the dates, which close the whole revelation, quite in accord
ance with the chronology, which we ascertain from other
sources.9 1 Chap. x. 1. 2 Chap. xi. 2. 3 I. c. 4 Chap. xi. 3, 4.
6 Let chap. xi. 5 be compared with the accounts regarding Ptolemy, son
of Lagus, and Seleucus Nicator ; v. 6 with those regarding Ptolemy Phila-
delphus and Antiochus II. ; vv. 7 — 9 with the fortunes of Ptolemy Euer-
getes ; vv. 10 — 19 with those of Antiochus the Great ; v. 20 with the account
in 2 Mace. iii. regarding Seleucus Philopator.
6 These are contained in chap. xi. 21 — 24, 25 — 28, 29 — 39. The agree
ment with the facts does not require to be shown, as it is denied by none.
7 Chap. xi. 40 — 45, to be compared with 1 Mace. vi. 1 — 16. It is plain from
the latter passage that Antiochus, after a rather long illness, died in Persia.
On the contrary, it is predicted in Dan. xi. 40 — 45, that he should find his
end in Palestine, "the goodly land," v. 41; "the goodly mountain of
holiness," v. 45 ; and should find it at the very moment in which he seemed
to have attained the object of all his wishes. This quite agrees with the
expectation that he " shall be broken without (human) hand," chap. viii. 25.
8 Chap. xii. 1-3, to which verses we shall recur in another connection.
9 There are mentioned in succession 3£ years (v. 7), 1290 days (v. 11),
and 1335 days (v. 12). The three intervals have reference to the period
which was to elapse between the desecration of the temple at Jerusalem
and the dawn of better times. In chap. viii. 14, 26, 1150 days were assigned
for the duration of that period. According to 1 Mace. i. 54, iv. 52, there
was an interval of exactly three years, that is (3 x 354 + 30=,) 1092 days

CONCLUSIONS FROM THE PROPHECIES IN DANIEL. 145
I have purposely heaped all these facts together, as it
were, because they must be viewed in their mutual connec
tion, and then also they readily find their proper explanation.
When, in accordance with the traditional theory, we assign
the book of Daniel to the year 530 B.C., our endeavour to
give an account of the phenomena which therein present
themselves, is scarcely even half successful. The author of
that book, as we saw, knows accurately the history of Alex
ander the Great and his successors, particularly that of the
Lagidae and the Seleucidae ; in a special manner, the fortunes
of Antiochus Epiphanes and that prince's measures against the
Israelitish religion, stand clear and distinct before his eyes.
This knowledge has been obtained by him either in the usual
way or in a supernatural manner ; if the former alternative be
true, then he was a contemporary of Antiochus Epiphanes, if
the latter, then he may have lived under Cyrus, or even
earlier ; in the abstract, the one is as possible as the other.
But it now is evident, further, — First, that the writer has no
knowledge of events which happened in the very last years
of Antiochus Epiphanes, or of the place and manner of his
death, or of the occurrences which took place after his death ;
but, on the contrary, with regard to all these things, gives
utterance to expectations which were contradicted by the
issue. He predicts that 1150 days, or even more, shall
elapse between the desecration of the temple and the restora
tion of the worship ; that Antiochus Epiphanes shall be taken
away, in Palestine, by a divine judgment ; that thereafter the
resurrection of the dead and the universal empire of Israel
shall follow. His conception of the succession of the mo
narchies leaves no room for the Boman empire, which yet
undoubtedly took the place of that of Alexander and his suc
cessors. No demonstration is needed to show that the writer's
ignorance of these facts is at once explained, if we assume
that he wrote in the reign of Epiphanes, and that in the year
165 B.C. But how can that ignorance be made to agree with
the supposition that he was enlightened by supernatural reve
lation with regard to all the preceding matters ? Did that
between the first sacrifice offered on the heathen altar erected by Anti
ochus and the purification of the temple by Judas Maccabaeus. We shall
revert in Chap. vii. to this difference also, which could not be left altogether
unmentioned here. K

146 V.  UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES : THE HEATHEN NATIO NS
revelation begin to fail him at a certain point ? Is it possible
to form any rational conception of such a thing ?
Along with this, let it be taken into consideration, secondly,
that the writer's knowledge of the course of the history before
Alexander the Great is not only incomplete, but defective and
partly inaccurate. He knows only of four Persian kings, and
thrusts in the Median monarchy between the Babylonian and
the Persian. Nay, he is in error even with regard to the
Babylonian kings, of whom the last is, according to him,,
Belshazzar, the son, and, as it appears, the successor of Nebu
chadrezzar,1 to whom — we may notice in passing — he is in the
habit of giving the later form of the name, Nebuchadnezzar,
the use of which by a contemporary is, in every respect,
surprising.2 On the supposition that the author of Daniel wrote
in the year 165 B.C., all this in the highest degree natural.
In that case it was quite to be expected that only some main
points from the remote past should be clearly present to his
mind, and that in some particulars his representation of them
should be confused. But how does the matter stand if we
make him a contemporary and witness of the facts with
which he shows that he is not acquainted ? The traditional
theory concerning the author and the age of the book of
Daniel at once fails when we apply this standard. It is
inconsistent with the most unambiguous phenomena which
present themselves in that book.
Thus there exists no reason why we should modify the
result to which the perusal of Haggai and Zechariah had led
us. That the Persian monarchy should perish and be suc-
1 See Dan. v., especially verses 2, 11, 13, 18, 22, 30; vi. 1 (v. 31, Auth.
Ver.). That Belshazzar appears here as the last king of the Chaldean
empire, has been shown in my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," ii. 447 — 49. Compare
Baruch i. 11. 12.
2 Attention has already been directed to this point in my " Hist. Krit.
Onderz.," ii. 459. Dr Pusey ("Daniel the Prophet," 3d ed., p. Ixvii. f.)
acknowledges that Nebuchadrezzar is the original form, but assumes that
the softer form with n must have already begun in the lifetime of the king ;
he refers further to the use of the softer form in the books of Kings and in
Ezra. On the monuments, however, the form with r occurs exclusively
(Schrader in Zeitschr. der D. M. G., xxvi. 124 — 126). If anywhere, we
would have expected it in a book written by Nebuchadrezzar's minister of
state, and specifically in the edict, Dan. iii. 31 — iv. 34 ; Heb. (iv. 1 — 37, A uth.
Ver.). The form with n would, of course, if it stood alone, prove nothing ;
but, taken in connection with all the other phenomena, it contributes its
share to the evidence against the high age of the book of Daniel.

AGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 147
ceeded by another, is an idea wliich is not found in Israelitish
prophecy. What appears in the book of Daniel regarding
that, and still later events, is, as regards one portion, not
prophecy, but history, which in consequence of the drapery is
represented as prediction, while as regards another portion, it
is, in truth, an announcement of the future, to wliich, how
ever, the issue does not correspond.
Of more importance than this result itself is the view of
the book of Daniel which is comprehended in it. Objections
against this view may readily occur to the reader, to which
he finds no answer in what precedes. He can, therefore,
suspend his judgment until we have examined the book of
Daniel from other points of view also. We shall yet have
occasion to deal with it more than once, and shall have the
opportunity of testing anew the conclusion which has at pre
sent been provisionally reached, and also of confirming its
correctness.

CHAPTER VI.
THE UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
b. — The Judgments against Israel.
According to the proposed order of treatment, the prophecies
relating to the people of Israel follow those which concern the
heathen nations. I have already said x that the former admit
of being separated into two groups. The first comprises the
predictions regarding the judgments denounced against Israel.
The course which we have to follow in this chapter lies
plainly marked out before us. It is certain that the great
majority of the prophets announced Jahveh's judgments upon
the people whom he had chosen. If some of them are alto
gether silent with regard to these judgments, their silence can
be easily explained. Thus, for example, the solitary prophecy
of Nahum which we possess is devoted to the prediction of
Nineveh's overthrow ; Obadiah is wholly under the influence
of the impression made by the deeds of violence which the
Edomites had committed, and is occupied exclusively with the
punishment of the perpetrators ; some prophecies, belonging
to the days which immediately preceded the release from
captivity, are limited to the announcement of that great fact.
All the rest of the prophets depict, some more, others less,
fully, the judgments which should be executed on or among
their people. It may be said of the most of them, that such a
representation constitutes the chief matter of their preaching.
It is only natural that we should hear each of them separately.
In that way, another fact besides will of itself come to light.
The prophecies regarding the judgments show clear marks of
mutual agreement ; but, along with that, a difference also has
to be noticed. The representation is modified in details, and
1 See above, p. 101.

REMARKS ON THE PREDICTIONS OF JUDGMENT. 149
is plainly subject to the influence of the changing circum
stances of the time. It does not become us to determine
anything on that point, a priori; but we ought certainly to
choose such a method as will enable us at once to perceive
the progression in the announcement of the judgments, if
such a progression really exists. But for this end, we have
only to follow the chronology, and hear the prophets in their
order. Our survey will gain in conciseness and clearness if we
combine those among the prophets who were contemporaneous,
and thus treat, in succession, Amos and Hosea ; the prophets
of the Assyrian period (the author of Zech. ix.-xi., Micah, and
Isaiah) ; the prophets of the Chaldean period (Zephaniah, Hab
akkuk, the writer of Zech. xii. -xiv., Joel, and Jeremiah) ;
Ezekiel and the rest of the prophets during the captivity ; and
the post-exilic prophets.
We open the prophecies of Amos, but meet there at once
with phenomena which oblige us to make a general observa
tion before we proceed to the further consideration of our
subject. According to the title of this chapter, the unful
filled prophecies alone are treated in it. This division of the
whole of the prophecies rests on the supposition that, after
deducting those which are unfulfilled, there remain some
which have actually been accomplished. But when, keeping
this division in view, we peruse the oracles of Amos, and, as
will be clear afterwards, those of the subsequent prophets, we
are perplexed at every step. It is as if they refused to allow
themselves to be arranged in this manner in two sharply
defined groups. Some take their place, as of their own
accord, either on the one or the other side of the line of
demarcation ; but with regard to not a few we continue to
hesitate. They are in a certain sense fulfilled, but yet in an
other respect they are unfulfilled ; and, to make the difficulty
still greater, many of them scarcely present themselves as predic
tions, but rather as earnest reproaches or severe threatenings.
It is obvious that all this difficulty is of a temporary nature.
It does not prevent us, in any degree, from understanding
Israelitish prophecy, and forming for ourselves a definite con
viction with regard to its origin. On the contrary, when we
reach that subject, in the course of our investigation, this state

150 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS: JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
of the prophecies in reference to the judgments will be cal
culated to render us important services. The difficulty, there
fore, properly speaking, presses only on the method which we
now employ, on the standard of which we make use ; and yet
we cannot lay aside this standard, which, as the reader may
remember,1 we adopted for very weighty reasons. There
remains, therefore, no other course open to us but to pro
ceed as we began. At the same time, however, we shall
guard against a rigorous separation of the predictions which
alone properly claim to be considered at present, but which
are so interwoven with the rest in the prophetical books
themselves that they do not well admit of being disjoined
from them. We shall therefore always keep our attention
directed to the unfulfilled prophecies, but yet shall also men
tion in this chapter those predictions to which the issue has
corresponded, either in whole or in part, and shall not neglect
to indicate the prophetical utterances which, for whatever
reasons, can scarcely, or not at all, admit of being judged by
the relation in which they stand to the later historical facts.
There is also another advantage connected with this com
bination. This chapter, in which the prophets come before
us one by one and in chronological order, becomes, by that
means, at the same time a succinct history of their preaching
in Israel, at least of the threats of punishment addressed to
their nation, which occupy so important a place in their entire
work, and shed so much light over their religious and moral
convictions. In was in the reign of Jeroboam II., about the year 800
B.C., that Amos, an inhabitant of Tekoa in Judea, appeared
as a prophet in the kingdom of the ten tribes. By the suc
cessful wars and vigorous government of that king, Israel had
attained to a high degree of prosperity and wealth ; but
judged from a moral and religious point of view, the state of
the kingdom left much to be desired. The poor were
oppressed and the victims of extortion. The sensual worship
of the nature-gods numbered many adherents. There was no
lack of noisy festivals and loud songs in honour of Jahveh,
but the people did not trouble themselves about his com
mands, and imposed silence on those who ventured to urge
1 See above, pp. 95—97.

JUDGMENTS THREATENED BY AMOS. ] 51
them to obedience to his will.1 Is it surprising that
Amos, called to be a prophet in these circumstances,
raises his voice in severe reproaches, and predicts to the
people a mournful future ? He directs his attention, only
in passing, to his native country, the kingdom of Judah.
He is not blind to the sins which are committed there also,2
and announces that Jahveh will cast a fire upon Judah
which shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem ;3 but he seems
to expect that such a severe chastisement will be sufficient to
bring the inhabitants of the southern kingdom to repentance,
and that the extinction of Judah's national existence will
not be required for that purpose. In his prophecy of Israel's
restoration, he mentions the " falling tabernacle of David," " of
which the breaches shall be closed up, and the ruins raised,
when it is built as in the days of old," 4 which implies that
the dynasty of David, in however sunken a condition, shall
continue to exist at the time when the better days will dawn.
The prospects which the prophet descries for the kingdom of
the ten tribes are much more unfavourable. If we were
asked, what are the judgments against that kingdom which
he expects, we might answer, what are the judgments that
he does not expect ? For as, before he came forward as a
prophet, calamities of all kinds had already smitten " the
house of Joseph," without, however, effecting the change for
which, they were sent,5 so also in the future the apostate
nation shall not be spared one single description of suffering.6
But again and again Amos reverts to the sorest punishment
which could be imagined, the people's being carried captive
to a foreign country. " Israel shall surely go into captivity
forth of his land."7 In another passage, he says, " I (Jahveh)
will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,"8 and
once more — " I will shake the house of Israel to and fro
1 These statements can be deduced from the following utterances of Amos
quoted in the order of the chapters : Chap. ii. 6 — 8, 11, 12 ; iii. 10 ; iv. 1 ;
v. 7, 10, 11, 12, 21—23 ; vi. 4—6, 12* ; viii. 4—6, 10.
2 Chap. ii. 4 ; compare vi. 1 and the mention of Beersheba, v. 5 ; viii. 14.
3 Chap.ii. 5. 4 Chap. ix. 11. 6 Chap. iv. 6—11.
0 Besides the passages quoted in the notes immediately following, see
chap. ii. 13—16 ; iii. 11—15 ; iv. 2, 3 ; v. 1—3, 16, 17 ; vi. 8—11 ; vii.
1—6 ; viii. 3, 9—14 ; ix. 5.
7 Chap. vii. 17 ; compare chap. v. 5, where the same thing is said of Gilgal.
8 Chap. v. 27.

152 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS: JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
among all nations, like as corn is shaken to and fro in a
sieve."1 The promise that Jahveh " shall bring back the cap
tivity of his people Israel,"2 is founded, of course, on the same
conception of the nation's future. The higher classes who
now indulge in revelry and excess shall first be smitten
by this judgment.3 If, however, the question is asked,
whether the prophet had formed to himself a clear con
ception of the realisation of this threatening, which agreed
with the subsequent, reality, we must return an answer
in the negative. It was, as may be remembered, the
Assyrians who, about eighty years after the appearance of
Amos, conquered Samaria, and carried into captivity the
flower of the citizens of the kingdom of Ephraim. Now with
regard to the Assyrians, Amos nowhere names them, but yet
alludes to them on one occasion when he mentions a nation
that Jahveh shall raise up, and which shall afflict Israel from
" Hamath to the brook, of the wilderness " (from the northern to
the southern boundary).4 But it is not said here that this people
is destined by Jahveh to deprive Israel of its national exist
ence ; it is rather mentioned as one of the many means which
he shall employ in order to punish the apostates. And as regards
the time when his threatenings should be realised, nothing is
plainer than that Amos imagined it to be close at hand. He
announces in the same breath -that " the high places of Israel
shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shallbe laid waste,"
and that Jahveh " shall rise against the house of Jeroboam
with the sword."5 There may have been a misunderstanding,
or even a malevolent perversion of his words, when it was
told to the king that the prophet had dared to predict that
Jeroboam would die a violent death,6 still it is plain that, in
the opinion of Amos, the overthrow of the kingdom coincides
with the overthrow of the reigning dynasty. This follows also
from his answer to Amaziah, the priest of the royal sanctuary
at Bethel, who had forbidden him to prophesy on his terri
tory. " Thou shalt," so Amos says to him, " thou shalt die
in an unclean land " — to which he immediately adds — " and
Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land."7 This
1 Chap. ix. 9. 2 Chap. ix. 14. 3 Chap. vi. 7.
4 Chap. vi. 14. 5 Chap. vii. 9. 6 Chap. vii. 11.
7 Chap. vii. 17.

HOSEA COMPARED WITH AMOS. 153
deportation must happen in the time of the generation then
living, if Amaziah is to be one of the victims. For another
reason also, we cannot ascribe to Amos any foreknowledge of
the future. He has not yet given up all hope that Israel
shall be brought to repentance, either in consequence of
Jahveh's reiterated threatenings, or by suffering the first of
the judgments to be executed upon them. " Seek the good
and not the evil, that ye may live, and so Jahveh, the god of
hosts, shall be with you, as ye say. Hate the evil, and love
the good, and establish judgment in the gate : it may be that
Jahveh, the god of hosts, will be gracious unto the remnant
of Joseph."1 If the prophet is in earnest in what he says
here — and how can we have any doubt of his sincerity ? —
then he can have had no certainty with regard to the future
course of Israel's fortunes, though it be true that, for the
most part, he does not venture to hope, and scarcely doubts
any longer, that the extreme inflictions which he from time
to time anew depicts, are indispensable.
It is of the greatest importance to compare these anticipa
tions of Amos with those of Hosea. The relation of the one
to the other comes out clearly in the fact that the Assyrians,
who are not named by the former, are repeatedly mentioned
by the latter. This seems to indicate that the prophecies of
Hosea are further developed and more precise than those of
Amos. This conclusion is in complete accordance with the
time at which they respectively lived. The herdsman of Tekoa
did not, so far as we know, survive Jeroboam II., the only-
sovereign of the kingdom of the ten tribes who is mentioned
in the title of his book.2 Hosea was later. Although the
heading of his book, which makes his labours extend to the
reign of Hezekiah, must be regarded as an imitation of the
title of the prophecies of Isaiah, and consequently as a later
addition ; and although the absence of any allusion to the
Syrian-Ephraimite war (741 B.C.) seems to justify the
supposition that he had disappeared from the stage of history
before that most important event ; yet even in that case the
period of his activity falls between the years 775 and 745
1 Chap. v. 14, 15 ; compare also viii. 11, 12, although the hunger and
thirst for the word of Jahveh described there can scarcely be regarded as the
beginning of repentance, on account of verses 13, 14.
2 Amos i. 1.

1 54 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT OF ISRAEL.
B.C., that is about a quarter of a century later than that of
Amos.1 The position of affairs therefore to which he alludes
is also different. Thus he mentions the disorder and dynastic
ehanges which began with the death of Jeroboam I.,2 and
political parties, of which one inclined to Assyria, while the
other sought support from the Egyptians against the exten
sion of the Assyrian power.3
But let us consider the conception which Hosea formed
of the judgment against his nation — for that he expects
a judgment follows naturally from his most unfavourable
opinion of Israel's religious and moral condition, and is clearly
perceived as soon as we become acquainted with his pro
phecies. He was a citizen of the Ephraimite kingdom, and his
attention is almost exclusively occupied with it : still he does
not pass by Judah in silence. In his expectations concerning
the future of this kingdom, hope and fear seem to contend with
each other for precedence. On the one hand, his opinion of
Judah is more favourable than that which he forms of Israel.
Thus it is said : " I will no more have mercy upon the house
of Israel that I should pardon them ; but I will have mercy
upon the house of Judah, and will save them by Jahveh
their god :"4 with which utterance others coincide.5 But, on
the other hand, he has also serious complaints to make
against Judah, and places it more than once on the same
level as Ephraim. Jahveh shall pour out his wrath like
water upon Judah also. The complaint applies to Judah
also that its goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early
dew, which soon vanisheth ; the palaces of Judah shall be
consumed by Jahveh's fire ; he has a controversy with
Judah, so that Jacob — or all Israel — must be recompensed
according to his doings.6 Nevertheless, he must still have
expected that the extreme severity would not need to be
applied to Judah. When he announces that " in the last of
1 See the fuller development of this point in my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.,"
II. 312—315. See Chap. iii. 4 ; vii. 7 ; viii. 4 ; x. 3, 15 ; xiii. 10, 11.
8 Chap. v. 13 ; vii. 11 ; viii. 9 ; xii. 2, Heb. (xii. 1, Auth. Ver.)
4 Chap. i. 6, 7.
6 Chap. iv. 15, perhaps also xii. 1, Heb. (xi. 12, Auth. Ver,) but the mean
ing of this verse is very doubtful.
6 Chap. v. 5, 10—14; vi. 4—11 ; viii. 14 ; x. 11 ; xii. 3 ; Heb. (2, Auth.
Ver.).

HOSEA S ANTICIPATION  CHAPS. I.-III. 155
the days " the children of Israel — that is the ten tribes —
shall repent and seek Jahveh their god, and David their
king,1 it is implied therein that the kingdom of Judah shall
then be still existing, and shall be governed by the
descendants of David.2 We derive the same conclusion from
another prophecy which looks forward to the re-union of
Israel (Ephraim) and Judah, after the dispersion of Israel, but
not that of Judah, had been predicted.3 Let it be remem
bered that Amos also proclaims only to the kingdom of the
ten tribes the deportation to foreign parts. It will imme
diately be evident to us that Isaiah also shares the same
view. Hosea's expectations regarding the destiny of Ephraim,
which have just been made use of for the purpose of com
parison, well deserve our express consideration. He has
nowhere stated them in a systematic manner. Hosea is a
poet, and again and again allows himself to be carried away
by his feelings, whether he describes the sins of his nation
and the judgments which must follow these sins, or depicts
the joyful future which shall afterwards dawn. Such
descriptions cannot be taken in a literal sense. The con
tinual change of figures in his language, indeed, of itself,
forbids us to do so. As little can we proceed upon the
supposition that the prophet is uniformly consistent with
himself; least of all in a poet is such perfect consistency
to be looked for. Still, when we peruse and re-peruse
the prophecies of Hosea, we succeed in discovering in
them some leading ideas which recur repeatedly and plainly
form the ground of his conviction. It is a settled point
with him that the Ephraimite kingdom shall be uprooted,
and Ephraim himself go into captivity. In the allegorical
narrative with which the series of his oracles opens, the
children born of the marriage between the prophet — repre
sentative of Jahveh — and the unchaste woman — Israel —
receive symbolical names, which express the future rela
tion of Jahveh to Israel. The names are, Jizreel ("God
1 Chap. iii. 5. 2 See below, Chap. vii.
3 Chap. ii. 1, 2 ; Heb. (i. 10, 11, Auth. Ver.), compared with Chap. i.
2-9. The words " They shall come up out of the land," refer to the
pilgrimages to the common sanctuary, which shall be made from every part
of the land.

156 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
scatters : " an allusion, at once, to the well known valley
of that name, and to the atrocities committed there by Jehu,
when he founded his own dynasty and extirpated that of
Omri), Lo-ruchama (" the uncompassionated "), and Lo-ammi
("not my people").1 The rejection of Israel is clearly
expressed in this symbolism. The temporary disruption of
the relation between Jahveh and Israel is proclaimed, in an
equally unambiguous manner, in Hosea's second allegory.
It is there said that "the children of Israel shall abide
many days without a king and without a prince, without
a sacrifice and without a memorial pillar, without an ephod
and teraphim," until they "return and seek Jahveh." %
Hosea does not say here in what place Israel is to spend
these "many days," whether within Canaan or beyond it.
That is to him, in a certain sense, a matter of indifference or
of subordinate importance : the repentance of Israel is the
essential point, and this repentance cannot be brought about
unless the nation be, for a time, bereft of everything on which
it now relies and prides itself. The form in which he
clothes this conviction is connected with the image which he
had just before employed,3 and, for that reason, cannot be
regarded as the main point.
We open the second part of the prophecies of Hosea (chaps.
iv. — xiv.), and enquire whether that temporary extinction of
the kingdom of the ten tribes, with its consequences, be not
there more circumstantially stated and defined. In a certain
sense it is. The prophet names the countries to which his
fellow-countrymen shall be carried captive, Assyria and
Egypt. We give his own words. " Now," so one prediction
runs, " now will he (Jahveh) remember then- (the Ephraimites')
iniquity, and visit their sins; they shall return to Egypt." i
In the following chapter we read : " They (the Israelites)
shall not dwell in Jahveh's land, but Ephraim shall retum
to Egypt, and shall eat unclean things in Assyria." 5 And a
little further on : " Egypt shall gather them up, Mdph
(Memphis) shall bury them."6 With the threatening just
mentioned of a deportation both to Egypt and to Assyria
corresponds the promise — " they shall come, fluttering with
1 Chap. i. 4, 5, 6, 9. 2 Chap. iii. 4, 5. » Chap. iii. 1—3.
4 Chap. viii. 13. 5 Chap. ix. 3. « Chap. ix. 6.

THE EGYPTIAN CAPTIVITY ACCORDING TO HOSEA. 157
fear as a bird, out of Egypt, and, as a dove, out of the land
of Assyria, and I, saith Jahveh, will place them in their
houses." l
These passages admit of only one interpretation, and are
abundantly illustrated by the circumstances of the time. We
have already called to our recpllection that there existed in
Israel, in the days of Hosea, an Egyptian and an Assyrian
party. The prophet condemns, as strongly as possible, this
inclination to connection with the foreigner, because he deems
it at variance with the relation between Israel and Jahveh.
How natural, therefore, that he should commit to both of those
heathen kingdoms the execution of the punishment decreed
against Israel ! There is perfect correspondence between the
evil committed and the punishment ordained on account of it,
only, when the fact clearly appears, that the two powers on
which Israel, disregarding Jahveh, places its reliance, bring
not help, but destruction. Yet there are expositors who adopt
a different interpretation of Hosea's prediction. They take
what he says concerning the deportation to Assyria in its
natural signification ; but they understand the predictions
concerning the captivity in Egypt in a metaphorical sense.
According to them, Hosea will have meant that a new
Egyptian slavery was reserved for Israel, which, of course,
would have to be endured in a foreign country, but not
precisely in Egypt. They think that in this way they
can restore the harmony between the anticipations of the
prophet and history, whicli knows indeed an Assyrian but
not an Egyptian captivity. But how arbitrary is this
interpretation ! We need only re-peruse the utterances of the
prophet in order to be convinced that they do not at all admit
of such an explanation.
On the other hand, it cannot be denied that this interpre
tation finds some support in another passage in Hosea which
I designedly mention now for the first time. It occurs in the
same prophecy which, as we have just seen, is closed by the
promise of a return out of Egypt and Assyria. After Hosea
had brought to remembrance the release from Egyptian
slavery and the further proofs of Jahveh's love to Israel, he
thus proceeds, — " he (Israel) shall not return into the land of
1 Chap. xi. 11.

158 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
Egypt, but Asshur, he shall be his king, because they (the
Israelites) refuse to return (or, to repent)." 1 Is it not said
here, in so many words, that there is indeed an Assyrian, but
not an Egyptian captivity, close at hand ? and must we not
therefore interpret the other utterances of the prophet in the
same way ? As regards this latter question, we can consent
to interpret them in that way only when those other passages
admit of such an interpretation. But now, when it clearly
appears that they do not admit of it, we must refrain from
every attempt to force upon them a meaning different from that
which they plainly have. But, it will be said, in that case
the prophet contradicts himself. Certainly he does, and con
tradicts himself so directly that we have reason to be amazed
at it. Many expositors endeavour to remove the contradic
tion by a different reading or interpretation of chap. xi. 5.
They omit the negative, or understand the verse as asking a
question ; so that it is made to intimate just the reverse of
what we first thought that we had found in it. But the
difficulty is not to be removed in this manner. The verse
clearly contains a contrast between Egypt and Asshur. Why
otherwise is there, in the second half, the peculiar construc
tion — " Asshur, he shall be his king ? " It thus appears that
the common reading and interpretation must remain un
touched. May it not be the case that the difficulty which
they present is not so great as it seems to be at first?
Certainly, if the future was presented . clearly, and in sharp
outlines, to the mind of Hosea, as the messenger ' of Jahveh,
then the fact that he denies here what he affirms there is
more than strange. But if his conception was less definite,
if he was in uncertainty as regards the execution of Jahveh's
judgments, then such a contradiction as is here presented can
be easily explained. In that case, at one time a carrying
away to Egypt ; at another the captivity in Assyria, could
have appeared to him the most probable. Might it not also
have actually been the case that now the one power and now
the other power threatened the Ephraimite kingdom ? Besides,
the asseveration of Hosea that Israel shall not return into
Egypt has now a very definite meaning in the connection in
which it occurs. Egypt was mentioned just before as the
1 Chap. xi. i.— 4 (recollection of the past) ; 5 (announcement of the future).

ASSYRIAN CAPTIVITY WORSE THAN EGYPTIAN. 15i>
land in which Israel had dwelt when a child, and had heard
Jahveh's call. When it is said afterwards — "he shall not
return into the land of Egypt," the meaning of this expres
sion will certainly be that Israel, after its repeated apostasy,
must no more reckon on an abode in a foreign land which
would come to an end in the same manner as the Egyptian
captivity. Let us only read further. Hosea opposes Asshur
to Egypt, and opposes him as being the more severe master,
because the reason assigned for the subjection of the Israelites
to him, and not to the Egyptian, is that " they refuse to
return." The prophet is thinking, of course, on their return,
or, as we would say, on their conversion, to Jahveh. But the
play on the words is at the same time evident — " they shall not
return . . . because they refuse to return." The Assyrian
slavery is therefore clearly, in this connection, the heavier
punishment, which Israel has brought upon itself by its im
penitence. The sequel of the prophecy confirms us in the
opinion that such is the meaning which Hosea intends to
convey. It is only towards the end of the chapter that
Jahveh recedes from his severe sentence, and declares that he
shall even still, in spite of all that has taken place, show
compassion.1 It is thus seen that the prophet does not con
tradict himself, if, as is only fair, we regard his intention
more than the words which he employs. His assurance that
Israel " shall not return into the land of Egypt," does not
absolutely exclude the deportation of a portion of the people
into that land, and does not prevent him from announcing, in
the same prophecy, the return of those who were carried away.2
It does not need to be expressly shown that the issue of
our inquiry into Hosea's expectations confirms the result
which we had obtained with regard to Amos. Neither of
the two prophets expects the destruction of the kingdom of
Judah. Both are convinced that the kingdom of the ten tribes
is destined to come to an end. But Amos has as yet no clear
conception of that extinction, and, besides, expects it to take
place much earlier than it actually happened. The predictions
of Hosea are, it is true, more definite than those of his pre-
1 Let chap. xi. 6 — 11 be read as a whole, and let special attention be paid
to the turn in verse 8, where Jahveh's pity opposes, as it were, the execu
tion of the doom of destruction.
2 In the passage already mentioned, chap. xi. 11.

160 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
decessor, but failed, no less than they, to be fully confirmed
by the historical reality. Some Israelites may have fled into
Egypt, in order to escape the vengeance of the Assyrians, but
of Israelites being carried thither as prisoners, and of an
Egyptian captivity, which Hosea, however, undoubtedly
announces, history knows nothing.
On the boundary line between our first and second group
stands the author of Zechariah ix. — xi., a contemporary of
both Hosea and Isaiah. A very brief notice of him is all
that is required, because he does not enter into details with
regard to the judgment. The two passages which together
form the eleventh chapter, must not be regarded as prediction,
but in great measure as a poetical and allegorical description
of the present,1 and thus do not come within our plan.2 The
other two prophecies (chap. ix. and chap, x.) treat chiefly of
the restoration of Israel, and will find their proper place, there
fore, in a subsequent part of our investigation. Nevertheless
they contain some materials from which we can gather what
conception of the judgment the writer must have formed.
He makes no mention of ihe overthrovj of Judah. On the
contrary, his prediction regarding the advent of the Prince of
Peace presupposes the existence of that kingdom, and of
Jerusalem, its capital.3 It is true that immediately there
after freedom and compensation for their suffering are pro
mised to prisoners, but these prisoners are clearly distin
guished from the nation as a whole, because it is Judah and
Ephraim themselves who, by the help of Jahveh, shall effect
their deliverance.4 In the second prophecy, also, (which,
however, contains more than one obscure trait,) exiles are
mentioned whom Jahveh shall bring back into their own
land. Yet they do not belong to Judah, but, as the prophet
expressly declares, to Ephraim.5 In saying this, however,
1 Compare my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," ii. 381-383.
2 We shall return, in the thirteenth Chapter, to chap. xi. 12, 13. Com
pare Matthew xxvii. 9, 10.
3 Zech. ix. 9, 10. 4 Zech. ix. 11—17.
5 Zech. x. 6-12. The reading of verse 6 is uncertain. It is either, " And
I will bring them back," or, "and I will make them dwell" (establish
them); so that the Dutch State version, "and I will settle them again"
— and still more clearly the English authorised version, " and I will bring
them again to place them" — combine the two interpretations between which
we have to choose. But whichever of the two we choose, the " bringing

ANTICIPATIONS OF THE EARLIEST ZECHARIAH. 161
we have not yet said enough. It is more than doubtful
if this prophet expected, as Amos and Hosea did, the extinc
tion of the kingdom of the ten tribes. The passage, from
which we must infer his opinion on this point,1 belongs to
the years which intervened between the carrying away of the
inhabitants of the Trans-Jordanic region by Tiglath-Pileser
(739 B.C.),2 and the fall of Samaria (719 B.C.). There is not
one single allusion made to this latter event. The prophet
indeed expects the return of the exiles, partly out of Egypt,
partly out of Assyria,3 but he announces, at the same time,
that Jahveh shall bring them " into the land of Gilead and
of Lebanon " — that is, into those very regions of which the
population had been carried away by the Assyrian king.4
He could not have expressed himself thus if he had been
convinced that the entire overthrow of the Ephraimite king
dom, and the temporary captivity of the whole of Ephraim,
must precede the return, which is to be coincident with the
humiliation of Egypt and Assyria.8 Could it, then, have
been possible that the author of Zech. ix. — xi. had been so
deeply impressed with the partial deportation which he had
witnessed, that he thought the end of the misery had come
already, and now began to look forward to the fulfilment of
Jahveh's promises ? The phenomena which presented them
selves to us in our study of Amos,6 lead us to answer this
question in the affirmative.
The difference which exists among the prophets of whom
we have hitherto treated, in no way affords ground for doubt
ing the correctness of our interpretation ; because, in the
reign of Hezekiah also, the immediate future of the kingdom
of Judah is otherwise regarded by Micah than by his contem
porary Isaiah.
In the interpretation of Micah's prophecies we can avail
ourselves of an aid which we cannot employ with regard to
back" refers in any case to Ephraim only, and not to Judah also. See
verses 7-12, where Judah would have been named as well as Ephraim, if its
citizens had also been in captivity.
1 Zech. x. 2 2 Kings xv. 29. 3 Zech. x. 10.
* Ibid., 10*. The last words of this verse, " and it (this land) shall not
be sufficient for them," denote that the number of those who return shall
exceed the number of those who were carried away — the natural result of
the increase announced in verses 7, 8.
5 Zech. x. 11. c See pages 152 f.
L

162 VI. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
other old Testament documents. In the judicial proceedings
against Jeremiah, which we have already described,1 his
friends refer to the precedent afforded about a hundred years
earlier, in the case of Micah and the pious Hezekiah, in whose
reign the former came forward as a prophet. Micah had pre
dicted the desolation of Jerusalem and the temple, and the
king, far from attributing this to him as an offence, had,
along with his people, besought Jahveh, whereupon " Jahveh
had repented him of the evil which he had pronounced."2
From this narrative it is evident in the first place that
Micah's threatening had made a deep impression, and had not
been forgotten above a century afterwards in the capital of
Judah, which certainly would not have been the case if
other prophets had announced the same judgment before him,
or along with him. In the second place, the narrative of
Jeremiah shows us that his contemporaries applied the predic
tion of Micah — not to events which were then, in Jehoiakim's
reign (608-597 B.C.), still future; but to disasters which would
have befallen Jerusalem at a much earlier period, if the threat
ening had not been recalled at the prayer of Hezekiah.
Finally, we may, without rendering ourselves liable to the
charge of too great rashness, perceive from this narrative,
what was the nature of the impression which Micah's pre
diction made on those to whom it was addressed ; for, though
it be not indeed altogether certain, yet it is exceedingly prob
able that " the elders of the land " were well informed, and
gave a true report of that impression. Of how great
importance such a testimony is to us, is at once obvious.
Generally we are left to ourselves in the study of the
Old Testament prophecies. In this particular case we
have indeed no authentic interpretation, but still we
have a commentary so ancient and proceeding from sources
so competent, that we should deviate from it only with
reluctance. But in truth there is nothing in the oracles of Micah which
have been preserved to us, that affords a reason for any other
understanding of the matter of his preaching. He passes a very
unfavourable judgment upon the moral and religious condition
1 See Jer. xxvi., and above, p. 58. f.
2 Jer. xxvi. 18, 19.

MICAH ON THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 163
of Judah, especially of its princes and leaders, and of the capital
in which they dwelt.1 Hence it is that after having in a single
word announced the impending desolation of Samaria,2 he at
once turns to " his people," the men of Judah, and predicts to
them the approach ofthe well-merited punishment.3 His threat
enings become ever more and more severe, and finally reach
their climax in this apostrophe addressed to the leaders of
Israel — " Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a
field, and Jerusalem shall become ruinous heaps, and the
temple-mountain as the high places of the forest." 4 It was
these words which were quoted by the elders of Judah in
vindication of Jeremiah, and quoted, as is evident at once,
exactly in the same sense in which they had been recorded
by him. " The elders of Judah " have also judged correctly
on this point — that Micah speaks of a judgment which should
befall Jerusalem in the reign of Hezekiah. We have already
observed that the prophet has no doubt as to the continued
existence of the Assyrian monarchy, and expects a contest
between it and the restored Israel.5 We must therefore
surely assume that he expects the execution of the preceding
judgment from the Assyrians. The reproach also, addressed
to the chief men of Jerusalem, that the city would be changed
into a ruinous heap for their sake, makes us hesitate to ascribe
to Micah the idea, that this destiny would not overtake
Jerusalem, till a considerable time — about a hundred and
fifty years — afterwards.
There occurs, however, in the following chapter of the
prophecies of Micah, one expression which seems to overthrow
at once this reasoning. The prophet addresses himself there
to the citizens of Jerusalem, and asks them, ironically, where
fore they make so great lamentation ? Have they not among
them a king and their counsellors ! Why then are they seized
with pangs as a woman in travail ?6 Immediately thereupon
he adopts another tone, and tells them that they have only
too much reason to be disturbed and to lament :
1 Chap, i, 56, where Jerusalem, according to an amended reading, is called
" the sin of Judah," as Samaria is called " the transgression of Israel," ii. 1,
2 ; iii. ; vi. 9-12 ; vii 1-6.
8 Chap. i. 6-8. 3 Chap. i. 9 ff. ; compare ii. 3-5.
4 Chap. iii. 12. 6 See above p. 130.
6 Micah iv. 9.

164 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
" Be in pain and bring forth, 0 daughter of Zion !
For now shalt thou go forth out of the city
And dwell in the fields,
And go to Babylon :
There shalt thou be delivered,
There shall Jahveh redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies." *
It is the italicized words in the fourth line of the quota
tion that I had in view just now, for they announce a carry
ing away to Babylon, or, in other words, the Babylonish
captivity, which was out of the question till after the over
throw of the Assyrian monarchy, and which accordingly did
not begin till a century and a half after Micah.
Let us not be deceived by appearances ! If Micah wrote
the words referred to, then he must have intended by them
¦ — not the Chaldean monarchy, of which he knows nothing,
but — Babylon, as the capital of one of the provinces of
the Assyrian kingdom. It is therefore in any case an
Assyrian captivity which he announces. This has been
correctly seen by many of the more recent expositors.2
Every other interpretation of his words involves him in self-
contradiction. Hence it follows that the question, whether
the prophet himself has named Babylon in this place, lies
beyond the inquiry as to the limits of his foreknowledge, and
is important only from a historical point of view. It was
certainly very natural that the later readers of the prophecies
of Micah should apply them to the disasters of their own
time, and here or there make the prophet's meaning, as they
thought, come out somewhat more clearly. The conjecture
therefore is not unnatural, that one of those readers should
have added the verse in which Babylon is named, or at least
the second half of it.3 Perhaps we do not require even to go
this length. Just as two verses before, the words "out of
Babylon " are interpolated in the Greek translation,4 so the
tenth verse may have been completed by the one clause,
" and thou shalt go to Babylon." There would, in that case,
remain for the prophet himself the expectation that Jerusalem
1 Micah iv. 10.
2 Not only by Hitzig and Eoorda, but also by the orthodox Caspari
("Ueber Micha den Morashtiten und seine prophet. Schrift." P. 165 — 183.)
8 Rowland Williams, Hebr. Prophets, 1. 150, 185 ; de Goeie in the "Theol.
Tijdschr.," VI. (1872), p. 282.
* Mic. iv. 8b.

THE REFERENCE TO BABYLON IN MICAH'S PROPHECY. 165
should fall into the hands of the enemy (Assyria), and the
citizens, expelled from the city, should dwell in the open fields,
where Jahveh should intervene on their behalf, and deliver them
out of the power of the enemy. This expectation harmonizes
indeed with the further contents of Micah iv. and v., but
seems less darkly coloured than the denunciation against
Jerusalem above referred to, which we know also from Jere
miah. But let it not be forgotten that here, in chapter iii.,
the prophet has in view the sinful leaders of the people, and
announces to them the calamity which Jahveh shall bring
upon the capital for their sake, while there, in chapters iv.
and v., he has to do with the people themselves and with
their enemies, the Assyrians. That these enemies shall be
abased, and their plans ultimately miscarry, is no less certain
to him, than that the great men of Jerusalem shall be
punished.1 After this digression let us return still for a little to the
contemporaries of Jeremiah. They see in Micah the organ of
Jahveh ; his prophecy is Jahveh's word. They cannot there
fore form any other opinion than that Jahveh retracted his
threatening, and think this the more reasonable as they know
— or at least are persuaded — that Hezekiah prayed that the
judgment might be averted. This view of theirs is neither
supported nor contradicted by the prophecies of Micah. These
prophecies teach us that he encountered much opposition
among the people, while other prophets who flattered the
passions of the masses, were listened to with applause.2
But the possibility remains that the popular disposition altered
at a later period. The denunciation itself is moreover very
positive. It purports, not that Jerusalem may indeed be
sometime laid waste, but that it shall be laid waste. Then
the elders of Judah do not assert that the prediction of Micah
was conditional, but that " Jahveh repented him of the evil
which he had pronounced." We shall afterwards inquire
into the value of this conception. It can, from the nature of
the case, find no support in the oracles of Micah.
As little can it be clear from these oracles, whether the
1 See the further development of these ideas in the " Theol. Tijdschrift,"
VI. (1872), pp. 285—302.
2 Chap. ii. 6, 11-13 ; iii. 5—8.

166 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
announcement of the fall of Jerusalem was a thing so bold
and exceptional, as we thought it must be, judging from the
lively remembrance of it which still continued among the
contemporaries of Jeremiah. We see indeed that it was
directly opposed to the predictions of " the prophets '' who
are combated by Micah ; but there may have been some,
beyond that circle, who stood by him. Whether this was
the case must of course appear clearly only from other sources.
Now it so happens that the single prophet, whom we can
compare with Micah, does not share in his sombre anticipa
tions. Isaiah is fully assured that Jerusalem shall be
spared. We shall have to recur to this important fact in
another connection, but the proof may at this stage be given
that, with regard to this point, Micah and Isaiah differ from
each other.
Let us first cast a single glance at the expectations of
Isaiah, as regards the kingdom of the ten tribes. During
the war, waged against Judah by Syria and Ephraim, he
predicted to Ahaz that " the land of whose two kings he was
afraid — the land of Bezin (Syria), and of Pekah (Ephraim), —
would be forsaken," before the child, whose birth he had just
announced, before Immanuel, knew to refuse the evil and to
choose the good — that is before he had come to the years of
discrimination.1 In so far as Ephraim was concerned, this
prediction was not literally fulfilled. Tiglath-pileser did
indeed, as I mentioned shortly before, conquer and depopulate
a part of northern Palestine (739 B.C.), but the land of
Pekah was not " forsaken " within the limit fixed by Isaiah,
within four years or thereabouts.2 That desolation did not
happen till twenty years afterwards, when Samaria was
captured, and the flower of Ephraim was carried into cap
tivity. That such would be the final result had been, in that
interval, more than once declared by Isaiah.3 But even in
these prophecies there appears one point which is not con
firmed by the result. " The spoil of Samaria is brought to
the king of Assyria," not before, but after a son of the
1 Is. vii. 16.
2 The passage itself, vv. 14 — 16, shows most plainly that the prophet's
definition of the time must be thus understood. Other interpretations will
be considered in a subsequent chapter.
3 Chap. xvii. 1-11 ; viii. 4; ix. 7 — x. 4; xxviii. 1-4.

ISAIAH'S PROPHECY REGARDING THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 167
prophet, born during or shortly after the war, could say —
father or mother.1
We must still dwell for some moments on one particular
point in this group of Isaiah's oracles. According to the
common text, he has specified the number of years within
which Ephraim is to lose its national existence. The plans
— so he speaks to Ahaz — the plans of Bezin and Pekah to
dethrone the Davidic dynasty, and to establish a certain Ben-
Tabeal as king over Judah, shall miscarry ; " for the head of
Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Bezin, and
within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken,
and be no more a nation; and the head of Ephraim is
Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Bemaliah's son (Pekah)." 2
The leading idea of the prophet is clear : Bezin and Pekah have
their own territory ; they rule at Damascus and Samaria, over
Syria and Ephraim, and have no control over Judah. The
announcement of Ephraim's fall, in the midst of the develop
ment of this thought, sounds very singular ; occurring here,
it quite interrupts the context. But the limit named
therein is, moreover, at variance with the expectation which
Isaiah expresses in this same prophecy, that the land of Pekah
would be forsaken within four or five years.3 There is thus
every reason to believe that announcement to be an addition
by a later hand. In that case, however, there remains still
one difficulty. At what time, and for what purpose, was this
gloss written ? It is conjectured that it alludes to the colo
nisation of the territory of the ten tribes by the Assyrians,
which may certainly, with some justice, be regarded as the
decisive blow given to their existence as a nation. But
whence, then, are the threescore and five years got? The
second book of Kings ascribes the importation of foreign
•colonists to the conqueror of Samaria,4 and its testimony is
confirmed by the Assyrian monuments.5 Of course the author
of the gloss cannot have thought of this colonisation; it
took place about twenty years after Isaiah's conversation
with Ahaz. But, according to a later account, Ezar-Haddon
1 Chap. viii. '4. 2 Chap. vii. 7— 9a. 3 Chap. vii. 16.
4 See 2 Kings xvii. 24, where " the king of Assyria" can be no other
-than Shalmaneser, who is spoken of in vv. 1—6. _ The verses 7—23 have
been inserted by the latest editor of the Books of Kings.
6 Schrader, "Die Keihnschriften u. das A. T.," p. 162 ff.

168 VI. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS: JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
(681 — 668 B.c.) had continued the work of his predecessor,
and had planted military colonies in the cities of Samaria.1
If it is allowable to assume that the gloss refers to this event,
then the " threescore and five years " are probably correct ;
indeed, it is perfectly natural that they should be correct, for
the addition has been made by some one who had witnessed
the arrival of the foreign colonists, and considered it to be an
event sufficiently remarkable to justify his insertion of a pre
diction referring to it, in the oracle of Isaiah. That the
prophet himself should, as some think, have announced that
event, is a supposition altogether inadmissible. He would, in
that case, have expressed himself otherwise, and certainly
would not have interrupted the course of his own address by
the insertion of a circumstance, which is there altogether out of
place. But it is time that we consider the prophecies of Isaiah
regarding Judah ; his gaze is and continues to be directed
to that kingdom ; it is only in passing that he occupies him
self with Ephraim. These prophecies admit of being arranged
in three groups, corresponding to the three periods into which
the entire career of the prophet may be divided.
Before and during the war waged against Judah by the
allied Syrians and Ephraimites, Isaiah expects that his native
country shall be visited by a severe judgment, the just retri
bution for the many transgressions of which it has been
guilty. He does not, in the earliest of his oracles,2 explain
yet precisely how and by whom it will be executed ; in
passages of a somewhat later date he names the Assyrians, or
at least points to them in an unambiguous manner.3 The
most definite representation of the manner in which Judah is
to be chastised, is given by him in the same prophecy from
which I lately derived the announcement of the impending
1 Ezra iv. 2. The objections of Schrader (" Stud. u. Krit.," 1867,
p. 497 f.), have been afterwards withdrawn by himself. See the work just
referred to (" Die Keilinsch."), p. 244, f.
2 Chap, ii.— iv.
3 This last is done in chap. v. 26 — 30. The agreement between the last
words of chap. v. 25, and chap. ix. 12, 17, 21 ; x. 4, has induced Ewald and
others to connect these passages, and to determine the order of succession as
follows : chap. v. 25 ; ix. 8 — x. 4 ; v. 26 — 30. According to this conjec
ture, chap. v. 25 — 30, does not refer exclusively to Judah, which, however,
is the case if we regard these verses as the continuation of chap. v. 1 — 24.

ISAIAH'S EXPECTATIONS REGARDING JUDAH. .169
fall of Samaria.1 Its contents have been very correctly
summarised by one of the latest expositors in these words :
" Assyria and Egypt shall make Judah their battle-field, and
destroy every vestige of cultivation." 2 This shall happen
luithin a few years, because Immanuel, whose birth is to take
place immediately, must, in his tender youth, eat milk and
honey, for the reason, as is afterwards expressed, that " all
who are left in the land shall eat milk and honey," on account
of the want of other food which the wasted land does not
afford.3 Such a hostile encounter between Egypt and Assyria
was not improbable. But it did not take place. In the
reign of Ahaz, and also during the first half of the reign of
Hezekiah, Judah continued to be exempt from an Assyrian
invasion. Isaiah does not say what is the fate that would over
take Jerusalem, during the period of desolation which
he foresees ; but this silence of itself shows that he did
not think of the capture and destruction of that city and
the temple. "Jahveh of hosts who dwelleth on Mount
Zion," 4 is the expression which he uses in one of the
oracles under this group ; an incidental intimation at least
that at that time also he must have been firmly persuaded of
the inviolability of the fortress to which so high honour had
been allotted. He expresses this idea, in so many words,
in a prophecy which, according to the heading, belongs to the
year in which Ahaz died,5 but is assigned by many expositors
to the time of the struggle against Syria and Ephraim. His
words are, " Jahveh hath founded Zion, and there shall the
poor of his people find refuge."6 The meaning of this ex
pression is plain, and is still further illustrated by the con
trast which we find here drawn between the fate of the
Philistines and that of the capital of Judah.7
The prophecies of Isaiah which belong to the first half
of Hezekiah's reign form together a second group. They
furnish little for our present purpose. The vices which the
prophet notices among the inhabitants of Judea, especially
among the great, force upon him the conviction that a
1 Chap. vii. 17—25. 2 Cheyne, " The Book of Isaiah," p. 25.
3 The reference of chap. vii. 22 to verse 15 is unmistakeable.
4 Chap. viii. 18. 6 Chap. xiv. 28.
6 Chap. xiv. 32. 7 Compare above, p. 103 f.

170 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
judgment is absolutely necessary.1 He expects that the
Assyrians shall execute it.2 But it will not go the length of
utter destruction. Jahveh has laid in Zion for a foundation
a stone, a tried and precious corner-stone ; he that believeth
shall not lose courage.3 These are, as will be noticed, the same
ideas that we have already met with in the previous group.
In like manner also, Isaiah maintains his consistency in the
memorable prophecies which he uttered in reference to Heze-
ziah's defection from the Assyrians and Sennacherib's invasion
of Judea. His confidence in the deliverance of Jerusalem
from the threatening danger is unwavering.4 This, however,
is not the place to. illustrate the utterances which testify to
this fact. True, rebuke is not wanting in them, promise is
occasionally interchanged for denunciation, but still they can
not be assigned to the class of prophecies announcing judg
ment. We therefore leave off here, to resume the subject at
a later period, in the treatment of the fulfilled oracles. Our
object in the view at present taken of the prophecies of
Isaiah, has been attained, if the reader clearly sees the differ
ence between him and Micah.
Before we take leave of Isaiah, there is still one difficulty
to be removed which has perhaps occurred to some readers.
While the prophet has remained steadfast in his belief that
Jerusalem shall be delivered out of the hand of Sennacherib,
lias he not, at the same time, announced its capture and the
depprtation of its citizens by ihe Babylonians ? Ought
not this to be noted, were it for no other purpose than to re
move erroneous judgments regarding the Assyrian predic
tions ? It is a fact that such an announcement of the Baby
lonish captivity is ascribed to Isaiah ;5 but it occurs, not
among his prophecies, but in a narrative which is found quite
in its proper place in the Second Book of Kings, and which
1 Chap, xxviii. 5-29. The prophecy clearly appears, from vv. 1-4, to
have been written shortly before the fall of Samaria (719 B.C.).
2 V. 11.
3JV. 16. Isaiah most probably refers to the rook on which the temple of
Jahveh was founded, and which, perhaps, was revered as a sacred stone in
earlier times. It is plain, from his own words themselves, that he is not
thinking of a person : king Hezekiah or the Messiah. The object of trust
which he insists upon is Jahveh himself.
4 Chap. xxix. 7, 8 ; xxx. 17 ff. ; xxxi. 5—9 ; xxxiii. 10—12 ; x. 12 ff. ;
xvii. 12 —14 ; compare xxxvii. 21 — 35.
5 2 Kings xx. 14 — 17 ; Isaiah xxxix. 1 — 8.

THE DAY OF JAHVEH IN ZEPHANIAH. 171
has been introduced from that book into the collection of
Isaiah's oracles.1 If this narrative required to be assigned to
Isaiah himself, then the prophecy communicated in it could
not be allowed to remain without discussion here. But it
cannot be assigned to Isaiah. We have here therefore a nar
rative about Isaiah, which will have to be considered, along
with other narratives of a like nature, in a subsequent
chapter. The universal judgment which is expected by Zephaniah,
shall, as we formerly saw,2 strike not only the surrounding
nations and the Assyrians, but also Israel. The prophet de
scribes it in very general terms,3 so much so, indeed, that up
to the present day there has been a dispute about the ques
tion to what enemies he referred : to the Scythians who
wandered through Asia in the reign of Josiah, and also
threatened Judea, or to the Chaldeans, who appeared on the
stage of history not very long afterwards? Perhaps, in
answer to this question, it may with equal justice be said
that he referred to both or that he referred to neither. Be
cause though the circumstances of Zephaniah's times may have
induced him to come forward as a prophet and afterwards as
a writer, yet he does not confine himself to them ; they are
to him at most the presages of the future which he expects,
and yet would so willingly avert in the interests of his
nation. It is the day of Jahveh which he describes.4 That
formula is as little the invention of Zephaniah, as is the con
ception which it expresses. Already at a comparatively early
period people in Israel must have looked forward to a " day,"
either a day in the strict sense, or a period of somewhat
longer duration, in which Jahveh would, as it were, make him
self known and his power felt in a clearer and more striking
manner than the common course of things allowed, and which
therefore was called " the day of Jahveh." It would be a
day of retribution and vengeance for the enemies of Jahveh.
The people imagined that the other nations would then
receive their merited reward, and would undergo the
righteous punishment for the suffering which they had caused
1 Isaiah xxxvi. — xxxix. are, as is well known, not only parallel to, but
frequently identical with, 2 Kings xviii. 13 — xx. 19.
2 Above, p. 102 ff. 3 Zeph. i. 4—9, 10—18 ; iii. 1—7.
4 Chap. i. 7, 14—16 ; ii. 2, 3.

172 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
to Israel. The contemporaries of Amos therefore longed for'
the dawning of this "day."1 But Amos himself and the
prophets in general do not approve of that view. The justice
of Jahveh would, according to them, punish also the sins of
his chosen people, " the day of Jahveh " would be for Israel
also a fearful judgment-day.2 They describe it as a day of
terror. Natural phenomena, each more fearful than the pre
ceding, announce it, or its approach. The darkening of sun,
moon, and stars ; blood, fire, and pillars of smoke in the
heavens ; earthquake and flood ; all imaginable disturbances
of the regular course of things, unite to distinguish " the day
of Jahveh's vengeance"3 from other days, and to mark it as the
day on which his awful majesty should be fully revealed.4 It
would betray but a small degree of poetical feeling, if we under
stood all these figures literally. But the prophet is perfectly
in earnest as regards the main thought : that Jahveh's justice
shall once be seen and felt by friend and foe. That then is
what Zephaniah, who might be called the prophet of the judg
ment day, expects and makes clear. His eye is not directed
to any single fact, and as little to any particular nation.
While he, on the one hand, predicts a universal destruction of
man and beast, a second deluge as it were5, he discloses, on
the other, a prospect of deliverance, at least for " all the meek
of the land."6 The question as to whether these expectations
were fulfilled, is, from its very nature, incapable of being
answered with certainty. The business of Zephaniah is not
to predict that which shall be, but to depict that which can
not fail to happen, unless the people repent and forsake their
sins. The study of the writings of the prophets who lived in the
middle of the Chaldean period promises us more important
results. It will be remembered that the battle of Carchemish
(604 B.C.) laid Asia, as far as the boundaries of Egypt, open
to Nebuchadrezzar ; that Judea was compelled to submit to
him not long afterwards ; that the defection of Jehoiakim was
1 Amos v. 18 ff.
2 See for instance, Isaiah ii. 12 ; Joel i. 15 ; ii. 1, 11, 31 ; Ezek. xiii.
5, &c. 3 Isaiah xxiv. 8.
4 Isaiah ii. 19—21 ; Amos viii. 9, 10 ; ix. 5 ; Joel ii. 2, 10, 30, 31 ; iii. 15 ;
Hab. iii. 3 ff, ; Isaiah xiii. 10, 13 ; xxiv. 18—20, 23 ; xxxv. 1—5.
5 Zeph. i. 2, 3. 6 Zeph. ii. 1—3.

THE PROPHETS OF THE CHALDEAN PERIOD. 173
punished by the carrying away of his successor Jehoiachin
and many Jews of rank (597 B.C.), and that the rebel
lion of the king then appointed, Zedekiah — a rebellion under
taken in reliance on the help of Egypt — issued in the fall of
the whole kingdom, and the destruction of city and temple.
This would therefore be a time of great excitement, in which
the prophets had at least no lack of inducements to make
themselves heard. Jeremiah, who had already come forward
twenty-three years before the battle of Carchemish, and lived
through the whole of the Chaldean period, gives us a lively
representation of the share which the prophets took in the
guidance of political affairs, and of the contest which he had
to wage against many of their number. But, in addition to
Jeremiah, we possess also three prophetical documents, of
small compass, but unquestionable importance, which owe
their origin to the circumstances of this time. They are
Habakkuk ; chapters xii. — xiv. of the book named after
Zechariah ; and Joel, at least the present redaction of his
prophecy, in which an earlier oracle seems to have been
incorporated.1 The precise time in which these documents
originated does not admit of being defined with certainty,
but the probability is in favour of their belonging to the
reign of Zedekiah.2 We proceed here upon that supposition,
because it appears to us to throw most light upon the expec
tations of these prophets, and we do so with the greater con
fidence as our conclusions would not require to undergo any
essential alteration, although it should be thought necessary
to make the time in which they lived some years earlier.3, ,
1 See above, p. 106, note 3.
2 Compare on Habakkuk my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," II. 365—367 ; on Zech.
xii. — xiv. the same work, II. 385 — 391 ; on Joel, see above, p. 106.
3 On the other hand, the author of Zech. xii. — xiv. would be altogether
misplaced here if he was not a different person from the prophet Zechariah
ben Iddo who appears in Ezra v. 1 ; vi. 14, and to whom Zech. i. — viii. is very
justly assigned. But it is clear that Zech. chaps, xii. -xiv. no more proceed
from the latter than do chapters ix. — xi. (of which we shall treat more parti
cularly in chapter vii.). The principal proofs are chap. xii. 7, 10, 12 ; xiii.
1, (where the family of David is mentioned by itself, and mentioned always
in the foremost place, undoubtedly because it is still reigning) ; chap. xiii. 2,
(where the continued existence of idolatry is pre-supposed) ; chap. xiii. 2 — 6,
(a passage wliich is based on a very unfavourable judgment of the prophetical
order as a whole, which would not be at all surprising under the latest princes
of the kingdom of Judah, while, so far as we know, there was not the least
occasion for forming such a judgment about 520 B.C.) ; chap. xiv. 18, 19,

174 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
Connected with the interpretation of both of Habak
kuk's prophecies (chapter i., ii., and chapter iii.) there
are peculiar difficulties, into the details of which we can
not here enter. But so much is clear, that the announce
ment of the judgment against the Chaldeans constitutes its
chief contents. The prophet describes the atrocities of which
they are guilty ; x complains that Jahveh allows them to go
unpunished,2 and receives as Jahveh's answer that judgment
shall speedily be executed upon them.3 These words are of
course tidings rich in comfort and encouragement for the
inhabitants of Judea, to whom they have to be communi
cated by Habakkuk.4 But has the prophet then nothing else
to announce to them ? Does deliverance alone await them,
and not also punishment for the transgressions which they
have committed ? Habakkuk seems to refer in a few words
to the sins of his own nation ; 5 he mentions also in passing
the disasters which shall befall Judea before the judgment
is executed on the Chaldeans ; 6 but the punishment of the
Chaldeans themselves remains throughout the chief matter for
him ; he does not seem to have even a suspicion that they are
appointed by Jahveh to abase Judah still more deeply, and
finally to remove it from the roll of nations. In vain do we
attempt to thrust the fall of Jerusalem anywhere into his
prophecies. Habakkuk has not even a faint presentiment of
it ; or rather he denies distinctly that such a catastrophe
should be admitted into Jahveh's purposes.
It is in the same spirit that the unknown writer of Zech.
xii. — xiv. expresses himself. He agrees with Habakkuk in
(where Egypt is evidently represented as an independent kingdom, not a
province of the Persian empire) ; chap. xii. 11 ; xiv. 5, (where we have allu
sions to the mourning for the death of Josiah, and to the earthquake in the
reign of Uzziah (Amos i. 1), allusions which would be much more naturally
made before the captivity than after it). Besides, there is not in chaps.
xii. — xiv. a single sign of the capture and destruction of Jerusalem in 586
B.C., although the author, as will be evident immediately, in his description
of Jerusalem's future destiny, could have, nay, must have, continually
alluded to them, if these events had been known to him. The writer of
chaps, xii. — xiv. also may very possibly have been called Zechariah, as that
name is given in the Old Testament to twenty different persons, and thus
must have been very common, which will account for these chapters being
combined with chaps, i. — viii. and ix. — xi.
1 Hab. i. 9-11 ; compare 14-17. 2 Chap. i. 12, 13.
3 Chap. ii. 1—3 ; compare above, p. 137. 4 Chap. ii. 2.
6 Chap. i. 2-4. " Chap. iii. 16, 17.

HABAKKUK AND THE AUTHOR OF ZECHARIAH XII.  XIV. 17 5
this respect at least, that he prefers to devote his attention to
the punishment of the heathen, and to the joyful future of
Judah. Before the better times dawn, however, the people of
Jahveh have still to endure heavy trials, but when the distress
has reached its climax, then comes also the deliverance. The
most interesting feature to us here is the writer's firm confi
dence that Jerusalem shall not give way before the attack of
the heathen which she has to expect. " Jerusalem shall
abide established upon her foundations " is the expression in
the first prophecy.1 Her inhabitants have, it is true, sinned
grievously, but they shall also humble themselves most deeply,2
obtain forgiveness on their prayer,3 and be farther defended
and blessed by Jahveh.4 In the third prophecy (chap, xiv.),
the author explains still more precisely his conception of the
deliverance of Jerusalem. The nations assemble against her
for battle, the city is taken and plundered, the half of the
population is carried away into captivity, but " the residue of
ihe people shall not be cut off from the city," because, at this
very moment, Jahveh appears, to fight against the nations,
and the better time dawns in which Jerusalem, regenerated
and sanctified, is recognised even by the heathen as the
central point of Jahveh's worship.5 We shall return to these
joyful prospects afterwards, but they required to be mentioned
here in order that it might appear clearly and distinctly that
their realisation is, according to the writer, not to be preceded
by the temporary extinction of Judah's national existence.
According to his expectation, that disaster will appear to be
most imminent, but yet it will be averted by the intervention
of Jahveh. Joel, who for the rest shows great formal agreement
with Zech. xii. — xiv.,6 stands perhaps yet somewhat closer to
Habakkuk than the author of these chapters, as regards his
conception of Jerusalem's destiny. We know already that
the second part of his prophecies especially gives evidence
of being a product of the Chaldean period, and thus claims-
1 Chap. xii. 6. 2 Chap. xii. 10-14.
a Chap. xiii. 1. 4 Chap. xii. 8.
6 Chap. xiv. 2., (description of the fate which befalls Jerusalem); 3-7,
12-15, (description of the appearance of Jahveh and its results) ; 8-11,
16-21, (description of the renewed Jerusalem).
6 Compare Joel ii. 30, 31; iii. 2, 9-15, with Zech. xii. 2-9; xiv. 1-5, 6-11.

176 VI. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
our consideration here. The deportation of a part of the
inhabitants of Judah in the year 597 B.C. has taken place
when Joel comes forward. Indeed it is first of all on that
account that Jahveh will, according to his conviction, visit
with retribution both those who were the principal offenders
in that act of violence, and the neighbouring tribes which
assisted them.1 The scene of that judgment which extends
to all nations is placed by the prophet in the valley near Jeru
salem, which he, from this its destination, calls " the valley
of Jehoshaphat " (Jahveh is judge).2 By no one word does
he intimate that Judah also shall be stricken by that judg
ment. On the contrary, " Jahveh shall roar out of Zion and
utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the
earth shall shake, and Jahveh shall be a refuge for his people,
and a stronghold for the children of Israel. So shall ye
know that I, Jahveh, am your God, dwelling on Zion, my
holy mountain, and Jerusalem shall be holy, and there shall
no strangers pass through her any more." 3 Here, as will be
remarked, the repetition of the event which forced Joel to
speak is denied in unambiguous terms : no second carrying
away shall succeed the one which happened in 597 B.C.
On this point then there is mutual agreement among the
three prophets whose oracles we have consulted. We should
have to acknowledge this, even if we were unable to elucidate
it more particularly. But we do not need to omit that
illustration ; for we can compare these prophets with others,
their contemporaries, and we discover, then, both such an
affinity and such a difference as might be expected in the
given circumstances.
It is clear, in the first place, that after the carrying away
in 597 B.C., patriotism inspired many prophets not only with
the wish, but also with the positive expectation, that the
plundered vessels of the temple, and the captives themselves,
would within a short time be restored to Jerusalem. In the
book of Jeremiah there enters on the stage, as their represen
tative, Hananiah, the Gibeonite, who was not afraid to
announce that within two years the sacrilege committed by
Nebuchadrezzar would be repaired.4 Their word found ready
1 Joel iii. 1-8. 2 Chap. iii. 2, 9-15.
3 Chap. iii. 16, 17. 4 Jer. xxviii. 1-4.

JEREMIAH IN CONFLICT WITH HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 177
acceptance with the people and their leaders. The powerful
party which had already contemplated a rising against the
Babylonians in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah,1 and
which managed to gain its object in the ninth year of his
reign, saw in those prophets men of kindred sentiments with
themselves, and gladly permitted themselves to be encouraged
and stimulated by their exhortations. We intend further on
to return to Hananiah and his supporters ; but we already
know enough to afford us an explanation of the success with
which they met. The course which they followed was, in
the estimation of by far the great majority of their contem
poraries, the truly national one. In that case can it surprise
us to find again this tendency, moderated and modified, in
Habakkuk, the writer of Zech. xii. — xiv., and Joel ? In
dignation for wrong endured, aspiration after independence of
foreign sway, confidence in Jahveh's power and Jahveh's
readiness to fight for Israel : are these sentiments which are
altogether to be reprobated ? And if they are not, why then
should we refuse to acknowledge their powerful influence in
the writings of the prophets whom we have just named?
Shall that which we gladly notice and applaud in Isaiah deserve
to be blamed in them, or even denied to them by a forced
exegesis of their words ?
We are the less justified in doing this, when it now, in the
next place, becomes plain that Jeremiah who differs from them,
stands alone, or at least almost alone in his conception of the
destiny of his people. The difference between him and Habak
kuk is of course in itself no reason why we should begin to doubt
the correctness of our explanation of their words ; we have
already, on a former occasion, noted a similar difference
among contemporaries. Habakkuk, or Joel, and Jeremiah may
just as well have contradicted each other, as Isaiah and
Micah. Let us further place clearly before our minds what
Jeremiah expects. That can be comprised in a few words :
he expects the extinction of the kingdom of Judah, the
destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, the captivity of the
Jews in a foreign land.2 We shall afterwards develop all
1 Jer. xxvii. On verse 1, see above, p. 107, note 1.
2 These sombre anticipations are the counterpart of Jeremiah's most
unfavourable judgment concerning the religious and moral condition of the
kingdom, a judgment which in no way requires to be confirmed by reference
M

178 VI. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS': JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
that more in detail ; at present we may be satisfied with this
brief summary, of the correctness of which besides no doubt
is entertained by any one. Let us further bear in mind that
Jeremiah's expectations must have had, and, as a matter of fact,
did have a decisive influence on his position as a citizen of the
state. At all times, even still during the last siege of Jeru
salem, he preached submission to Nebuchadrezzar, and is a
sworn enemy to every attempt to restore Judah's independence.
No one can deny that he herein followed the voice of his
conscience ; but as little can it surprise us that his conduct
was severely condemned by many, and that he himself was
called a betrayer of his native country. Such being the
case, we can all the better understand how he trod his path
alone. We read of a certain TJrijah ben Shemaiah, " that he
prophesied against city and land, according to all the words
of Jeremiah," but we read also that, by command of king
Jehoiakim, he was put to death.1 Expectations, similar to
those that we meet with in Jeremiah, are in the second Book
of Kings attributed to the prophetess Huldah,2 who was con
sulted by Josiah, after the finding of the book of the law in
the temple. Assuming that they are rightly attributed to
her — an assumption which in the meantime we leave unde
termined — we have still a right to speak of Jeremiah's isola
tion, especially when we think of the years of Zedekiah's
reign when men's feelings were excited even more than
previously by the affront that they had shortly before
endured, and by the misfortunes of the captives. The com
plaints are pathetic which Jeremiah pours forth against the
difficult and thankless task which has been laid upon him by
Jahveh. He curses the day of his birth,3 he desires nothing
better than to retire and keep silence, but Jahveh is too
strong for him, and he must go forward, let the cost be what
it may.4 So speaks the man who must fulfil alone the duty
to which he believes he had been called. Some nobles
afforded him protection,6either because theyhad been altogether
to single passages. He is pre-eminently the preacher of repentance among the
prophets. How hard his reproaches sounded in the ears of his contemporaries,
we learn e.g., from Jer. vii. and xxvi.
1 Jer. xxvi. 20-23. 2 2 Kings xxii. 12—20.
6 Jer. xx. 14—18. 4 Jer. xx. 7—9.
6 Jer. xxvi. 24, compare 17 — 29.

EZEKIEL'S EXPECTATIONS REGARDING THE FUTURE. 179
¦converted to his views, or because the policy of submission
and peace which he recommended seemed to them the best ;
but they could not in the end lay the storm which arose
against Jeremiah. Men who pursued the same course with
him, and in the name of Jahveh proclaimed the same view of
the course of events, there were none : a new proof there
fore that Habakkuk and the two prophets whose sentiments
were akin to his, entertaining, as they did, the expectations
which we ascribe to them, were suited to the time in which
we have placed them. They dissent from Jeremiah, but then
he is a solitary combatant, on a post that is well-nigh lost. In
that position we shall at a later period purposely contemplate
him. His expectations were, generally speaking, realised,
and therefore do not require to be more fully discussed at
present. Ezekiel too may be passed by in this chapter almost in
silence. He came forward as a prophet six years before the
fall of Jerusalem,1 and the entire first half of the book of his
oracles (chaps, i. — -xxiv.) belongs, according to the headings,2 to
the reign of Zedekiah. It is occupied almost exclusively
with the judgment against Judah and Jerusalem, and would,
in so far, be quite in its proper place here. But we know
already that Ezekiel is accustomed to follow Jeremiah,
and agrees with him, in all particulars, in his view of the
moral and religious condition of the nation, and of the
necessary results of that condition. That general rule finds
confirmation here also. Ezekiel's anticipations concerning
the kingdom of Judah and its capital, are, like those of
Jeremiah, confirmed by the result. We shall return to them
afterwards, and also to the predictions of particulars which
have so properly attracted the notice of all who have studied
the subject of Israelitish prophecy.
The same prophet who so emphatically threatens in chaps.
i. — xxiv., adopts an entirely different tone in the last part of
his book (chaps, xxxiii. — xlviii.). The preacher of repentance
is here succeeded by the preacher of consolation. It is pro
spects of restoration, prosperity, and splendour which he
discloses. The reason is apparent. The last part (as shown
1 Ezek. i. 1, 2.
2 Chap. viii. 1 ; xx. 1 ; xxiv. 1.

180 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
again by the dates which it gives x) belongs to the years of
the captivity of the whole nation (586 B.C., and after). The
catastrophe had taken place and would now bear its fruits. It
is not probable that Ezekiel already saw the favourable results
of the judgment, and was convinced that he spake to a con
verted Israel. No, but he speaks throughout concerning
an altered people. Because, just as it was a firm belief with
his predecessors, so is it also with him, that the judgment must
accomplish its end. Jeremiah, adopting this view, goes so
far as, already in the beginning of Zedekiah's reign, to take
for granted that there is a great difference between the Jews
who were carried away to Babylon with Jehoiachin and their
brethren who were left in Judea.2 It is not because these
captives were actually better, or had already become better by
their brief captivity, but because they were bearing the punish
ment which, for the others, was still future. In like manner,
also Ezekiel, who otherwise had, in truth, no reason to be
satisfied with his fellow captives,3 can proceed, in chapters
xxxiii. — xlviii., upon the supposition that Israel had become
a different people in the foreign country where they were,
and ripe for a better future. On that account, there
is no place for announcement of punishment in those
chapters. As little do we seek or find it in the prophecies which
were written towards the end of the Babylonish captivity.
Some, comparatively few in number, are exclusively occupied
with the judgment against Babylon — from which point of
view we have already considered them 6 — and with the
liberation of Israel. But in the author . of Isaiah xl.— Ixvi.
also, we miss the announcement of the judgment against
Israel. There was another mission committed to him, which
is at once declared in the opening words, " Comfort ye, com
fort ye my people!"7 In saying so, however, we do not
mean that this prophet could speak only of restoration and
welfare. The people among whom he dwelt was composed
of very dissimilar elements. Besides the true servants of
1 Chap, xxxiii. 21 ff., compare xl. 1.
2 Jer. xxiv.
3 He calls them " the rebellious house," chap. ii. 5, 8 ; iii. 9, 26, 27, and
elsewhere ; also xliv. 6. See further, especially xx. 30-40.
6 P. 136 ff. 7 Isaiah xl. 1.

ANTICIPATIONS OF THE BABYLONIAN ISAIAH. 181
Jahveh,1 he knows Israelites who rest contented with the
mere rites of the worship of Jahveh,2 and others still who
serve strange gods, and admit of being addressed as "apostates"
and " wicked." 3 It is implied in the nature of the case that
the blessing and prosperity which Jahveh is preparing for
his people are not intended for the latter. The prophet even
says so expressly : they shall be witnesses of the benefits
which Jahveh bestows upon them that are his, but they
themselves shall have no share therein ; the portion which
awaits them is rather the sword and misery of every descrip
tion.4 It will not be expected that we should enter upon
an express inquiry into the fulfilment of these announce
ments : they are the counterpart of the promises which the
prophet utters ; the simple expression of his belief in Jahveh's
holiness and justice which, of course, shall not falsify them
selves even at the period when he prepares to redeem Israel
from captivity, and cause the new era to dawn. " There is
no peace (or prosperity) to the wicked " — is not the predic
tion of a single specific fact, but the expression of a religious
belief which is beyond the control of history. The reader will
readily concur with me in this, as well as in the further assertion
that such threatenings in no wise conflict with the position
advanced above, that in the Babylonian Isaiah, we find no
announcement of the judgment against Israel. The message
which he has to deliver to his people, or more specifically, to
all who in truth, and not merely in name, belong to that
people, is thus summed up by himself in the opening of his
addresses : " Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto
her that her warfare is accomplished ; for her iniquity is
pardoned, for she hath received of Jahveh's hand double
for all her sins." 6
1 They are mentioned, chap. liv. 17 ; lvi. 6 ; lxiii. 17 ; lxv. 8, 9, 13 — 15 ;
Ixvi. 14. Of "the servant of Jahveh" in the singular number we shall
speak afterwards.
2 See, for example, chap, xlviii. 1, 2 ; lviii. 1 ff.
3 For instance, chap. xlvi. 5—12 ; lxv. 1—7, 11—15 ; Ixvi. 3—5, 17, 18.
Compare also the almost identical closing verses of the three parts, each of
nine chapters, into which the whole collection can be divided, chap, xlviii.
22 ; lvii. 21 ; Ixvi. 24.
4 See the passages referred to in preceding note, and also chap. 1. 11 ;
lvii. 12, 13.
6 It need scarcely be said that this relation of Isaiah xl.— Ixvi. to the pro
phecies which denounce judgment, affords a very strong proof against the pre-

182 VI. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL
The preaching of the prophets after the exile is founded on
the same religious convictions as that of their predecessors.
The covenant-relation between Jahveh and Israel, and the
indissoluble connection between sin and adversity, are acknow
ledged by the former no less than by the latter. But circum
stances have changed, and the old truth demands now a new
application. Judgment has been executed on the apostate
Israel. The people have lived in captivity for about half a
century, and had to dispense with the benefits of a proper
national existence of their own. That time of heavy trial is
now at an end. A new Jewish state, or, if the reader prefer,
a Jewish community, is settled on its native soil. It is true,
indeed, that there is not yet any reason for gladness ; the
condition of those who have returned is, in many respects, sad,
and must become altogether different when the glorious promises
of Jahveh shall receive their fulfilment. On that fulfilment,
therefore, the view of the faithful remains fixed. It is not
always easy for them to endure the long delay : sometimes
tormenting doubt assails them. Naturally, therefore, their
attention is directed to the religious and moral condition of
the restored nation. So much shortcoming is to be found in
that also. May not that be one of the causes why the reali
sation of the divine promises is so long delayed ? Can Jahveh
allow the indifference and disobedience of so many to go un
punished? Thus, therefore, they continue still awaiting the
judgments of the Bighteous One at the very time that they,
with earnest longing, are looking for the advent of that pros-
exilic origin of those chapters. If Isaiah, Hezekiah's contemporary, was the
author of them, then it would throughout, or at least repeatedly, have clearly
appeared that the punishment of Israel was still future. The translators
of the Dutch State version felt this, and therefore rendered chap, xliii. 28 :
" Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary, and give Jacob to
the curse, and Israel to reproaches." But the connection requires the inter
pretation of the English authorised version — " Therefore I have profaned
the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel
to reproaches." The other passages also in which it has been thought that
the announcement of a judgment against Israel is to be found, teach the very
opposite, that it has been already executed or still continues. See Is. xiii.
14 ; xliii. 8—12 : xlvi. 1, 2 ; xlviii. 3 ff., 17 ; L. 1—3 ; lxiii. 18 ; compare
lxiv. 9, 10, passages which H. A. Hahn (in Drechsler"s Isaiah iii. pp. xvii. f.)
adduces, but at the same time is obliged to pervert, in order to make them
serve his object. From whatever point of view we regard Isaiah xl. — Ixvi.,
it always appears plain that those prophecies suit no other time than the
Babylonish captivity, and differ very essentially from the genuine oracles of
Isaiah. See above, pp. 166 ff., and further, the sub-divisions of chapter vii.

EXPECTATIONS OF THE POST- EXILIC PROPHETS. ] 83
perity which He has promised. But the judgments which
they expect are only partial; the nation has already undergone
its sentence, and shall, when ripe for them, enjoy Jahveh's
blessings. A few citations from the prophets who lived after the exile
may furnish the proof that their ideas are correctly represented
in the preceding lines.
As may be remembered, Haggai had at heart the rebuilding
of Jahveh's temple at Jerusalem. In the first of his addresses
that have been preserved to us, he starts from the temporary
distress with which the returned exiles had to contend. The
failure of crops and the famine which afflicted them were sent
upon them by Jahveh as a consequence of his displeasure at
their negligence. As soon as they should put their hand to
the work, better days would speedily dawn.1
Zechariah, his contemporary and ally, opens the series
of his visions with an emphatic reference to the preaching of
" the former prophets." Their threatenings were realised, as
the fathers themselves, to whom they were directed, had
acknowledged in deep penitence. Therefore let the present
generation take warning from them. " Turn ye unto me,
and I will turn unto you, saith Jahveh of hosts." 2 In a
more detailed address,3 the prophet answers, in the same
spirit, the question whether the fast-days, which had been
instituted in remembrance of the capture and destruction of
Jerusalem, should still be observed. He discloses the prospect
of better times, in which their sorrow should be changed into
joy. But his promises are conditional. Their realisation is
always dependent on the practice of justice and upright
ness ; a repetition of the sins of their fathers would now also
lead to such lamentable disasters as those which were com
memorated in the fast-days to which they referred.4
Malachi, who prophesied probably about a century after the
return, does not doubt the realisation of Jahveh's promises ;
but all around him, and in different circles, he discovers much
that is wrong, and many abuses. He urges the people to
reformation with all earnestness, while he threatens the stiff-
necked with Jahveh's anger. Let his denunciation of the
1 Hagg. i. Compare ii. 10—19. 2 Zech. i. 2—6. 3 Zech. vii., viii.
4 See especially chap. vii. 4 — 14 ; viii. 16, 17.

184 VI.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL.
careless priests,1 and of the neglect in bringing in the tithes,2
be regarded from this point of view. Two other addresses are
still more closely connected with our subject. In the one,3
he answers those who uttered complaints against the delay of
God's judgments. They say, " Every one that doeth evil is
good in the sight of Jahveh, and he delighteth in them. Or
where (otherwise) is the God of judgment ? " Malachi assures
them that the judgment-day shall come, to the confusion of the
sorcerers, the adulterers, the false swearers, those who oppress
the hireling, the widow, and the fatherless, who wrong the
stranger, and fear not Jahveh. Against all these Jahveh him
self shall appear as " a swift witness." In the other prophecy i
he refutes those who complained that there was no profit in
serving Jahveh, and in humbling themselves before him,
nay, who called the rebellious happy : for were not the
wicked built up, and did not those escape who tempted
Jahveh ? Malachi does not deny that there is some ground
for this complaint, but he refers to the day of the judgment,
in which it will be easy to discern " between the righteous
and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that
serveth him not." On that day, unto them that fear Jahveh's
name, the sun of righteousness shall arise, while the rebellious
shall be consumed. The number of the latter is so great, that
the prophet Elijah must be sent before " the great and dread
ful day of Jahveh." " He shall turn the heart of the fathers
to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers,"
so that Jahveh may not come and smite the land with a
curse. It is usual to apply this prophecy specifically to the work
of John the Baptist. We shall afterwards inquire with what
propriety this is done. Our present concern is simply to form
an accurate conception ofthe relation of Malachi to the prophets
who lived before the exile. If I am not mistaken, it is as clear
as possible that the conception just stated is in exact accordance
with the truth. However severe he may be in his judgment
of the sins of the people and their leaders, however strong his
conviction that the pious alone shall have a portion in Jahveh's
promises, Malachi does not think that a judgment is yet
1 Mai. i. 6— ii. 9. 2 Chap. iii. 7—12.
3 Chap. ii. 17— iii. 6. " Chap. iii. 13— iv. 6.

CHARACTER OF THE POST-EXILIC PROPHECY. 185
required to be executed on the whole of Israel. He expects
— to express it in one word — a judgment-day similar to that
of the popular Christian theology, in which the pious will
receive the reward of their faithfulness, and the wicked the
punishment of their sins. He is confident, moreover, that
Jahveh will prepare his people for that day, so that it may
bring, not ruin, but happiness. The question as to the
fulfilment or the non - fulfilment of these prophecies is
one which, properly speaking, cannot be entertained. The
day of judgment, considered in itself as an independent
fact, is of course still future ; and in so far the prediction of
Malachi remains still unfulfilled. But the righteousness of
God, or rather the moral order of the world, which is the
expression of that righteousness, is, and continues to be,
unchangeably the same. Spiritualised, conceived of according
to its idea, the prophecy of Malachi is always in process of
realisation. As soon as " the pious " and " the wicked "
appear, instead of " Israel " and " the Gentiles," as is the
case in prophecy after the exile, the question as to the fulfil
ment of the judgments announced is transferred to other
ground — from the domain of history to that of religious and
moral experience.

CHAPTER VII.
THE UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
c. — The Future of Israel.
My task in the present chapter will, in one sense, be easier
than it has been in the last two. Before entering upon the
proper subject of these, a separation had to be made between
those prophecies which had, and those which had not, been
fulfilled. This was no easy task, especially in the sixth
chapter. At present, in treating of the predictions which
have reference to the restoration of Israel, I am happily
released from that labour. No separation is necessary here ;
not one of them has been realised.
That seems a bold assertion, and yet it is the simple truth.
We need only take all those prophecies for what they pro
fess to be, in order to be convinced that they have been con
tradicted by the result, not only in details but altogether.
Our survey will of itself afford proof of this, even though
attention is not on all occasions directed to the oppo
sition between the expectation and the reality. Nay, that
opposition is, in this case, so palpable that even among those
who most strenuously maintain the divine authority of the
prophetical writings, there are found some who freely ac
knowledge it. In their opinion the prophecies now referred
to shall be realised some time, which of course implies that
they are not realised as yet. The return of the whole of
Israel to their native country, Israel's supremacy over the
nations of the earth, in a word, its glory — all this must yet,.
on the authority of the prophecies, be expected to take place,
and shall become reality only in the last days. The expecta
tion of all these events has been designated by a technical
term, Chiliasm, properly the desire of the millennium, which

PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON CHILIASM. 187
is announced in the Revelation of St John / or more gene-
rally, the hope of the literal fulfilment of the Old Testament
prophecies of felicity.
We shall make a point of recurring to this Chiliasm in the
sequel of our inquiry ; but it may be useful at present to take
account of the way in which it must be judged. The
criticism to which it is open is twofold. It may be asked, in
the first place, whether the expectations of the Chiliast have
probability in their favour ? No one will be forward to
assert that such is the case. Neither the settlement of the
Jews in Palestine, nor the subjection of the other nations to
their supremacy, is indicated by the present condition of the
civilised world, or can result from that condition, in a natural
way. Besides, the permanent supremacy of a single nation
seems almost irreconcilable with the spiritual nature of Chris
tianity. These considerations, however, make very little
impression on the Chiliasts themselves, since they, at least if
they understand what is in the interest of their own case,
will look for the realisation of their anticipations, not from
the natural development of affairs, but from the absolute
miraculous power of God. On that account also, it is, in the
second place, absolutely necessary to test Chiliasm by the
prophecies on which it asserts itself to be built. Do the
Chiliasts rightly imagine that the predictions of the prophets
are still capable of being realised? Or, which comes to
the same thing, if the millennium should ever dawn, will
the anticipations of the prophets be thereby ratified ?
These are questions, a reply to which is attended with no
insuperable difficulties. This chapter may furnish some con
tributions to such a reply, without the author being required
to show expressly how the matter stands with regard to the
possibility of a fulfilment which is still future. The facts them
selves, as it seems to me, speak with sufficient plainness.
The assertion, however, that the prophecies regarding Israel's
future have not been realised, will suggest to most readers
another difficulty. It will be said to me in objection — Is
not Christianity the realisation of these predictions?
Through ages in succession this has been assumed as
proved. But when we examine more closely the current
1 Rev. xx. 1 — 7.

188 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
opinions on this subject, it becomes at once evident that
the realisation which was meant is of a peculiar character.
Men did not disguise from themselves that the prophecies
of the Old Testament required to be spiritualised before they
¦could be regarded as having been accomplished in the New.
It was therefore taught further, that they were more than ful
filled, or, in other words, that the reality under the New Testa
ment Dispensation far surpassed the expectations under the
Old. Do these positions do justice to the proper meaning of
the prophets ? Do their anticipations remain intact when
they are thus spiritualised, or when their fulfilment is
thought to be comprised in the blessings which Christianity
has conferred ? Was this spiritualisation justified ? Was it
compatible with the reverence which is due to the meaning of
the prophets ? These questions also must be kept in view
by the reader as he peruses this chapter. It will gradually
of itself become manifest to him how they must be answered.
For the rest, it is our intention, at a subsequent stage of the
inquiry, to consider separately the actual relation between
prophecy and Christianity.
There is still one question to be considered before we begin
the investigation itself : in what manner are we in this chap
ter to arrange the abundant materials ? We might here also
observe the chronological order, as we did in the treatment
of the prophecies denouncing judgment. In a certain sense,
indeed, we cannot neglect doing so, for we must always pro
ceed in such a manner that the modification or development
ofthe anticipations of the prophets — if any such took place —
shall not escape our notice. But it does not hence follow
that we must once more hear the prophets in their order.
That would become wearisome by its monotony, because the
conceptions which they form of Israel's future have, in spite
of their mutual difference, much in common, and are, so to
say, fashioned according to one and the same pattern. There
is thus nothing to prevent us from considering these funda
mental features one by one, and for the rest, as we view each
of them separately, to take notice of the chronological succes
sion of the prophets. We are in no danger of overlooking
anything essential, if we attend to the following constituent
elements of the prophetical expectations : —

CLASSIFICATION OF THESE PROPHECIES. 189
1. The return of Israel out of captivity ;
2. The reunion of Ephraim and Judah ;
3. The supremacy of ihe house of David ;
4. The spiritual and material welfare of the restored
Israel ;
5. The relation between Israel and the Gentiles ;
6. Israel's undisturbed continuance in the land of their
habitation.
There is one deviation from this order of treatment which
it is impossible to avoid. It is in the case of the book of
Daniel. The expectations expressed in it fit into this scheme
only in part. In so far as they clearly do so, we shall men
tion them under their proper class ; but there will still be
some left which will require to be considered separately. We
intend to do so in an appendix. It is only in this way
that both the agreement and the difference between the
book of Daniel and the older prophetical books will appear
clear and distinct.

I. — The Return of Israel out of Captivity.
We remember what an important position ihe deportation
of Israel to a strange land occupies among the punishments
threatened by the prophets. We have already remarked that
it was the severest threatening which they could utter ; but
a somewhat fuller consideration of the subject will not be
superfluous. In ancient times, country and people were
identified in a much greater degree than at the present day.
It was only by very weighty and pressing reasons that an
individual was induced to remove beyond the boundaries of
the land in which he had been born. Banishment was
equivalent to being cut off from the community, the deport
ation of the whole nation, to the extinction of the national
existence. In Israel also, as well as elsewhere, the connec
tion was intensified and hallowed by religion. Canaan was
the land which Jahveh had given to Israel.1 Still more im
portant is the fact that Jahveh dwelt in Canaan, specifically
1 So it appears already in the Decalogue, Ex. xx. 12, and further passim
in the Old Testament.

190 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
on Mount Zion, in the temple which had been built there in
obedience to his command. Canaan is thus "Jahveh's land,"1
all that lies beyond is called " unclean land." 2 Consequently,
the worship of Jahveh was made, at least in some instances,
almost dependent on residence in Canaan. In one of the
narratives in the first book of Samuel, David curses those
who " drive him out from abiding in the inheritance of Jahveh,
while they say to him : Go hence ; serve other gods." 3
Here, as will be noticed, the service of Jahveh is thought to
be incompatible with wandering about beyond his inheritance.
The request which Naaman makes to Elisha belongs to the
same circle of ideas : " Let there, I pray thee, be given to thy
servant two mules' burden of earth, for thy servant will
henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice unto other
gods, but unto Jahveh," 4 in whose honour Naaman purposes
to build an altar in Syria — but with earth carried with him
out of Canaan. I have purposely selected these very signi
ficant passages in order to show clearly what deportation from
his native land involved to an Israelite. It is true all did
not adopt the manner of thinking of which the texts just
quoted testify ; but even the most highly developed saw an
irreparable injury to the religious life also, in removal to a
foreign country. This of itself properly implies that the Israel
itish prophets cannot have expected any other than a tempo
rary exile ; Israel, transferred permanently to another country,
would, in their estimation, have lost both its nationality and
its religion. How could they have imagined that Jahveh had
ordained that doom for his chosen people ? But there was
yet another reason why the prophets must have regarded the
captivity as merely temporary. They viewed punishments in
general, and this punishment in particular, as a means of cor
rection; and, since it was applied by Jahveh, as an efficient
and successful means to that end. What had not been effected
by the disasters with which he bad formerly visited Israel,
would now be accomplished in a foreign country : viz., the
conversion of the nation, or rather, of a part of the nation,
from which a new people of Jahveh could be developed. On
this point no one of the prophets has any doubt, although,
1 Hos. ix. 3. 2 Amos vii. 17.
3 1 Sam. xxvi. 19. 4 2 Kings, v. 17.

PROPHETS EXPECTED A TEMPORARY EXILE ONLY. 191
as might be expected, one lays more stress than another on
this salutary result of the judgment. No one puts it so much
in the foreground as Isaiah, who even gave to one of his sons
the symbolical name Shear-jashfib, so that it might be obvious
to all that one of the fundamental ideas of his preaching was :
" a remnant is converted." x But the return of Israel to their
native land is inseparable from that conversion. How closely
the two things are connected is superabundantly clear, from the
fact which has been already stated,2 that both are denoted in
Hebrew by one and the same word. " When the cause
ceases, then the effect also ceases : " when the transgressions,
which had been the cause of Israel's exile, have been expiated
by humiliation and repentance, and have been forgiven by
Jahveh, then the exile itself also comes to an end. Israel
turns in repentance to Jahveh ; but Jahveh's dwelling-place
is Canaan ; the return thither cannot therefore fail to come.
The preceding view, in which I have endeavoured to intro
duce no single idea which is not expressed in the writings of
the prophets themselves, makes us expect to find the antici
pation of a return from exile in all of them who either
look forward to, or look back upon, a deportation. Such we
actually find to be the case. The difference which we
remark with regard to this point finds its natural explanation
in the different circumstances of each time. Some speak
with reference to one or another partial deportation which
had already taken place, others refer to the captivity of the
whole nation, which they had either announced themselves,
or had known from their own experience ; but all look for
ward with eager longing and with confidence to the reparation
of that dreadful disaster.
It is not really necessary to establish the truth of what has
now been stated by a multitude of references ; for Israel's
return is presupposed in all that the prophets declare concern
ing the future glory of their nation. Still it appears advisable
to adduce at least a few proof-passages.
We can at once borrow one from Amos. "I shall," so
Jahveh speaks, " cause the lot of my people Israel to change,
and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them, and

1 Is. vii. 3 ; compare iv. 3, ff ; vi. 13 ; x. 21, ff., etc.
2 Above, pp. 157 ff.

192 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof;"1 in
that favourable change of condition the return of those who
had been carried away must, as is clear from what pre
cedes,2 be comprised. With regard to Hosea, we know already
that he announced the return of the Israelites from Egypt
and Assyria, the lands of their captivity.3 The author of
Zech. ix. — xi. agrees almost verbally with him.4 We may
remember that Isaiah does not predict the overthrow of the
kingdom of Judah ; he knows of no other captives than the
inhabitants of the kingdom of the ten tribes, and furthermore
the Judeans who on various occasions had been carried away
from their native country. ' He is certain that Jahveh shall
assemble them all from the four corners of the earth in order
to bring them back to their own land.5 Micah, who has
formed a different conception of the future of Jerusalem, is
quite at one on this point with his great contemporary. The
population of Jerusalem shall abandon the city, and dwell in
the open field ; but there they shall be delivered, and redeemed
by Jahveh out of the hand of their enemies. Thereafter we
find them again in Judea, where they triumphantly repulse the
attacks of the Assyrians.6 This prophet had already on a former
occasion, amplifying an old oracle which he adopts, written
these words: "In that day, saith Jahveh, will I assemble her
that has wandered, and I will gather her that is scattered
abroad, and her that I have afflicted. Then make I her that
wandered a remnant, and her that was driven away a strong
nation, and Jahveh shall reign over them on Mount Zion,
from henceforth even for ever." 7 That Joel 8 and Jeremiah9
express the same expectation, needs no proof. The latter
specifies even the duration of the Babylonish servitude, in the
well-known prophecy concerning the seventy years of the
captivity, which we shall afterwards purposely consider from
1 Amos ix. 14. According to the more usual interpretation — " I will
bring again the captivity of my people Israel." But the Hebrew expression
signifies in general to turn the destiny of any one, to restore his previous
condition, to give him back his former prosperity. See this shown in " Theol.
Tijdschrift," VII. (1873), pp. 520—524.
2 Amos. ix. 7 — 9. 3 Hos. xi. 11 ; see above, p. 156, ff.
4 Zech. x. 10, compare vv. 8, 9 ; ix. 11, 12. 6 Is. xi. 11, 12.
6 Mic. iv. 10 ; v. 2, ff. See above, p. 162, ff.
7 Mic. iv. 6, 7. 8 Joel iii. 1—7.
9 Jer. iii. 14, 18, and passim.

GLORIOUS RETURN OF THE EXILES. 193
another point of view.1 When Jerusalem had been taken and
laid waste, the hope of restoration continued still to live.
Obadiah gives utterance to it,2 and which of the prophets of
the exile is silent regarding that hope, which formed the
key-note of their preaching ? 3
Most of the prophets are silent regarding the manner in
which the return is to take place : it is sufficient for them to
know that Jahveh will bring his people again to their native
land. But this of itself properly implies the belief, which is
also developed more fully by ' some, that the return of the
exiles shall clearly appear to be ihe work of Jahveh. Not by
stealth, but gloriously and amid the most evident tokens of
Jahveh's presence and protection, Israel begins and completes
the journey to Canaan. The descriptions of that march are
clearly poetical and hyperbolic ; it would be a misapprehen
sion of the meaning of the authors if we understood them
literally ; but they were undoubtedly in perfect earnest in
the expectation of a triumphal march. The writer of Is.
xxxiv., xxxv. describes to us an entire transformation of the
desert through which Israel pursues its journey — the people
find there in superabundance everything that they require —
through the wilderness there runs a highway which may not
be trodden by the unclean, nor rendered unsafe by any
ravenous beast.4 All this is poetry, but the poetical embel
lishment of an idea which is a firm conviction of the prophet,
and which is thus formulated in the last verse of his oracle :
" The ransomed of Jahveh shall return and come to Zion with
shouting; everlasting joy shall be upon their head; they
shall obtain joy and gladness, while sorrow and sighing shall
flee away." 5 We find this idea, again, in another form, in
the author of Is. xl. — Ixvi. Alluding to the exodus out of
Egypt, he announces : " Ye shall not go out (of Babylon)
with haste, nor go by flight, for Jahveh goeth before you,
and the God of Israel bringeth you together." 6 This pro-
1 Jer. xxv. 11, 12 ; xxix. 10. 2 Obad. vv. 17—20.
3 Among them also is the author of Isaiah xxiv. — xxvii., whose prophecy
issues in the announcement of the universal return, Is. xxvii. 12, 13. See
also Is. xiv. 1, 2, which clearly belongs to a prophet who lived during the
exikj since he announces that " Jahveh will again choose Israel and set
them in their own land," without having previously made mention of the
deportation. Compare my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," etc., II. 154 — 157.
4 Is. xxxv. 1 — 9. 5 Is. xxxv. 10. 6 Is. lii. 12.
N

194 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
phet says, in so many words, that the desert will afford to
the Israelites everything that they can desire, so that they
may see and acknowledge " that the hand of Jahveh hath
effected this (the deliverance), and the Holy One of Israel
hath performed it." 1 He returns more than once to the
proofs of Jahveh's faithful care, which shall accompany the
people on their journey.2
A return of Jewish exiles did, as we know, take place after
the capture of Babylon by Cyrus. That this return did not
correspond to the expectations of the prophets, and that, in
particular, the condition of those who had returned formed a
sharp contrast to their predictions, may now at once be
assumed as proved, and will appear still more clearly in the
sequel. I would meanwhile remind the reader of one single
striking fact. Fifteen years after the settlement of the colony
in Judea, Zechariah the prophet utters the following com
plaint : " 0 Jahveh of hosts, how long wilt thou not have
mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Judah, against
which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten
years ? " 3 So far was the promise of Jahveh from having
been then fulfilled, that a prayer could be uttered to turn
aside his wrath ! Nevertheless the Jews did not doubt of
the realisation of those predictions. It never entered into
their minds to regard the prophets who had delivered them,
as false teachers, or to suspect them of exaggeration. But
how then was this belief of theirs to be reconciled with the
reality ? They had to choose one of two suppositions. They
could assume either that the return which the prophets had
predicted was still altogether future, or that the settlement in
Judea must be regarded as a beginning of the realisation of
ihe prophecy. As might be expected, this dilemma is no
where stated in the Old Testament itself, much less discussed ;
but at the same time it is sufficiently evident from the writ
ings of the prophets after the exile that they adopted the
latter hypothesis. Not in the Israelites who are still dis
persed, but in the inhabitants of Judea, not in Babylonia or
elsewhere beyond the boundaries of Canaan, but in Jerusalem,
they see the centre or core of Israel. Thither, therefore, shall
1 Is. xli. 17—20. 2 Is. xliii. 19, 20 ; xlviii. 21 - xlix. 10, 11.
3 Zech. i. 12, compare vii. 5.

THE RETURNED EXILES HEIRS OF THE PROMISE. 195
the rest return. By accessions from other quarters, the Jews
shall be mightily augmented, and finally correspond to that
ideal of a restored Israel, which had been formed by the
prophets who lived before and during the captivity.
That such is really the post-exilic conception, is much more
clearly shown by a perusal of the writings of that period than
from single texts. Let attention be especially directed to the
prophecies of Zechariah. He announces, for instance, the
increase of the population of Jerusalem, and incites the Baby
lonian Jews to hasten thither, and so to share the glorious
future which awaits the abode of Jahveh.1 But in fact all his
predictions proceed upon this supposition. The community
of Jerusalem, represented in the vision by the high priest
Joshua, is cleansed from its sins ; 2 Zerubbabel, its head,
receives the most glorious promises;3 above all, "the Branch,"
the ruler of Israel — of whom we shall treat more fully imme
diately — shall come forth from among them.4 The author of
the book of Daniel also discloses to the Jews in Palestine the
prospect of better times, as our subsequent investigation will
place beyond all doubt.
The length at which I have dwelt on this point may
perhaps occasion some surprise ; but it is not difficult to show
that the question whether the prophecy had or had not
reached the first stage of fulfilment was of great importance
for the Israelites themselves. The inhabitants of Judea
must have highly prized the honour of being regarded as the
legitimate heirs of the promise. There were likewise some
Jews left in their native country after the fall of Jerusalem
in 586 B.C., who flattered themselves with the hope that the
restoration of Israel would begin with or from them. They
said — " Abraham was only one man, and yet he inherited the
land ; but we are many ; the land shall be given to us for an
inheritance." 5 The prophet Ezekiel opposes that pretension
emphatically, and even with some vehemence.6 At that time,
when the captivity had merely begun, the flower of Israel was
thought to be living in a foreign country, as, in fact, those who
had been carried away constituted the most developed part of
1 Zech. ii., especially vv. 6 ff. 2 Zech. iii.
3 Zech. iv. 4 Zech. vi. 9—15.
6 Ezek. xxxiii. 24. 6 Vv. 25—29.

196 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
the nation. It was gross presumption on the part of those
who had been left, to imagine that they were the nation. But
when, fifty years afterwards, those who had been carried
away, at least a portion of them, had returned, the nation's
centre of gravity was also transferred from Babylon to Judea.
This change in the condition of things was too momentous
to be allowed to pass without our notice. And, apart
from this point, if our remarks on Chiliasm, in the introduc
tion to this chapter, be remembered, then, in reference to that
subject also, it will readily be granted that the question which
we have been discussing is not one of indifference. If the
Chiliasts even now maintain that the return of Israel to
Palestine is still wholly future, they contradict — of course
unconsciously — the explanation of the old prophecies which
is presented in the Old Testament itself.
II. — The Re-union of Ephraim and Judah.
The disruption of the kingdom of Solomon, although
demanded at the moment itself by the circumstances, and not
unserviceable, on the whole, for Israel's peculiar develop
ment, could yet, at a later period, and in reference to its
political consequences, be rightly regarded as a national
calamity. We are not therefore surprised to find that the
hope of the re-union of the two kingdoms was introduced into
the prophetical anticipation of the restoration of Israel. The
form of the expectation was determined by the circumstances
of the time, as the following survey will show.
The prophets of the eighth century before the Christian
era, who knew the kingdom of Ephraim from their own per
sonal observation, pronounced a very unfavourable judgment
upon its religious and moral condition, and were better
pleased, on the whole, with the condition of Judah. We
have already seen how this judgment is reflected in their
expectations concerning the destinies of the two kingdoms;
but their conception of the future is, in its turn, dependent
on those expectations. Amos has most probably assumed
that the Ephraimites who have escaped from the judgment,
and have been brought back to Canaan by Jahveh, would
join themselves to Judah, under the rule of the Davidic

OLDER PROPHECIES OF THE RE-UNION OF THE TRIBES. 197
dynasty, for which he expects a period of renewed splendour.1
This prophet does not enter into any further details. We
find the same is the case with Hosea. In the last strophe of
his book, which is devoted to the description of the future
happiness, he is occupied exclusively with Ephraim,2 but he
had previously expressed the expectation that the ten tribes
would be again united with Judah. This is implied in his
prophecy that the children of Israel, after having been
deprived for many days of the guidance of statesmen and
priests, " shall repent and seek Jahveh their god, and David
their king." 3 But he says besides, in so many words, that
" the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be
gathered together, and appoint one head over themselves,
and shall come up out of (all corners of) the land (to the
sanctuary)." 4 What he intends by the appointment of one
head, is not evident all at once ; but the re-union of the two
kingdoms is here clearly predicted. The author of Zechariah
ix. — xi. goes, in a certain sense, still farther. It is as if he
cannot imagine any other than the one great Israel, to which
Ephraim belongs as well as Judah. He speaks as if the dis
ruption were already healed. The king who enters into
Zion " shall reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the
extremities of the land," that is over the same territory that
had been under the sceptre of David.6 It is here tacitly
understood that the wall of partition between the two king
doms is removed, and in other passages, the same thought is
expressed by the simultaneous mention of both ; what is said
of Ephraim applies also to Judah, and conversely.6 This
combination is doubly important as occurring in a prophet
who had witnessed the war between the two kindred
' kingdoms, and who regarded the rupture of their " brother
hood" as the greatest punishment ordained for them by
Jahveh.7 Isaiah also had gained the same experience.
1 See Amos ix. 10 (the sinners die by the sword, the rest are preserved) ;
verse 11 (raising of the falling tabernacle of David) ; verse 14 (return
of the captives).
2 Hos. xiv. 2—9 (Israel, v. 2 Heb. (v. 1, Auth. Ver.) is, according to v. 9
(8, Auth. Ver.), Ephraim, as is customary with this prophet).
3 Hos. iii. 5. 4 Hos. i. 11.
6 Zech. ix. 10t>- 6 Zech. ix. 10a. 13—17 ; x. 6.
7 Zech. xi. 14. Whoever considers attentively the use which has thus
far been, and is still to be, made of Zech. ix.— xi., will not require any further

198 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
Indignation at the attack on Judah and the Davidic dynasty
by Pekah and Rezin perhaps made it easy for him to
acquiesce in the prospect of the overthrow of the Ephraimite
kingdom ; but his interest in that portion of Israel was not
thereby extinguished. He believes in the conversion of
a part, at least, of the Ephraimites,1 and, as we have already
noticed, in their return to the land of Canaan.2 He proceeds
to say after that, "the envy of Ephraim shall depart, and
the hostilely disposed of Judah shall be rooted out ; Ephraim
shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not be hostile to
Ephraim." 3 They then further wage war together against
their neighbours, and reduce them under their sway.4
Such were the ideas of the prophets who had known the
kingdom of Ephraim while still in its prime, or had witnessed
its overthrow. About a century after them, Jeremiah
appears. Is it not a very remarkable fact that he is much
more leniently disposed towards the Ephraimites than he is
towards his contemporaries, the citizens of the kingdom of
Judah ? Various causes may have co-operated in leading him
to that judgment ; among them, also the fact that the citizens
of the northern kingdom had, at that time, been already so
long in captivity, which, according to Jeremiah's firm convic
tion, must have produced a favourable effect on their religious
condition. But, however this may be, in connection with
this disposition of the prophet we are not surprised to find
that, in his prophecies concerning Israel's restoration, he
expressly mentions the Ephraimites. Thus, for instance, in
one of his earliest oracles — which was uttered in the reign of
Josiah,5 although it, as well as the rest, was not recorded in writ
ing till the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim — after having
shown that the sins of Judah even surpass those of Israel, he
turns himself toward the north, at the command of Jahveh,
proof of the statement, that these three chapters belong to the eighth
century B.C., and can have been assigned to the post-exilic author of Zech.
i. — viii. only by some misunderstanding. The writer of chapters ix. — xi. takes
for granted throughout, the existence of the kingdoms of Ephraim and
Judah, and also in his expectations concerning the future, agrees with the
prophets who belong to the eighth century. See further my " Hist. Krit.
Onderz.," II. 380—385.
1 Is. xvii. 4 — 11. 2 Is. xi. 11, 12, and above, p. 192.
3 Is. xi. 13. t i Is. xi. 14.
' Jet, iii. 6 — iv. 2.

JEREMIAH'S ANTICIPATIONS REGARDING EPHRAIM. 199
and calls the captives of Ephraim to repentance. If they listen
to that call, then Jahveh shall take them " one out of each
city, and two out of each family," and shall bring them to
Zion.1 When they have multiplied there, and Jerusalem has
become, in the full sense of the term, Jahveh's throne,2 then
" in those days the house of Judah shall be joined to the
house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land
of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance
unto your fathers." 3 It will be remarked that here priority
is assigned to Ephraim in more than one respect. We again
find the same conception, though less fully worked out, in
a later prophecy, in which Ephraim is called " the first-born
of Jahveh,"4 who humbly confesses his guilt,6 and shares along
with Judah in Jahveh's blessings.6 Let it be remembered
also that the new covenant to which the prophet looks
forward with joyful expectation, is entered into by Jahveh
" with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah."7 It
is in reference to the Ephraimites also, that the beautiful
promise is written, " Behold I will gather them out of all
countries whither I have driven them  And they shall
be my people, and I will be their God. And I will give
them one heart and one way, that they may fear me all days,
for the good of them and of their children after them. And
I make with them an everlasting covenant that I will not
turn away from them to do them good ; and I put my fear
in their heart that they may not depart from me." 8
Jeremiah's contemporaries among the prophets had not all
of them a specific inducement to show clearly their agreement
with these expectations concerning the Ephraimites ; but
their silence is no contradiction. As often as that silence is
broken, it is evident at once that Ephraim is not forgotten,
and that its union with Judah continues to be an essential
element in the hope of Israel's restoration. Obadiah names
" the house of Joseph " along with the house of Jacob,9 and
1 Jer. iii. 6—11 (the comparison) ; 12—15 (the call and the promises to
the captives of Israel).
2 Jer. iii. 16, 17. We shall return to these verses afterwards.
3 Jer. iii. 18. * Jer. xxxi. 1—9. 6 Jer. xxxi. 18 ff.
0 Jer. xxxi. 23 ff. ; 27 ff. 7 Jer. xxxi. 31—34.
8 Jer. xxxii. 37—40. That the prophet thinks here of Ephraim as well
follows from vv. 30, 32.
9 Obad. verse 18.

200 VII. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
means by it most probably the tribes which together consti
tuted the northern kingdom. Ezekiel enters more into details.
According to him, the Israel of the future consists of the
twelve tribes, each of which is to receive its own territory,1
just as one of the gates of Jerusalem is named after each of
them.2 But in addition to this, he devotes a separate prophecy
to the reunion of the two kindred kingdoms.3 The joining
of two sticks appears here as the symbolic representation of
the fusion of the two kingdoms — " I make them one nation
in the land (Canaan), upon the mountains of Israel, and one
king shall reign over them all, and they shall not again
be two nations, neither shall they be divided into two
kingdoms." 4 When united, they enjoy also the spiritual
and material blessings which Jahveh bestows upon his people.5
We have now arrived at a turning-point in the history of
this expectation. The prophets who flourished towards the
end of the Babylonish captivity, and lived to see the issuing
of the decree which gave permission for the return, make no
express mention of the Ephraimites. They too are perhaps
intended when the author of Isaiah xl. — xlvi. mentions
" Israel," " Jacob," and " the tribes of Israel ; " at the same
time, no stress whatever is laid on their participation
in the future felicity. This silence is not unnatural. The
return to their native country is, for the prophets here
referred to, a pre-eminently practical and real affair, a vital
question. But as such it concerned the captives from Judah,
among whom they lived, and not the Ephraimites, who dwelt
at a great distance from them, and who, so far as we know,
maintained no intercourse whatever with their brethren. So
long as the prophets regarded the matter from the practical
point of view, they also limited themselves to the Jewish
population of Babylonia. Still more must the Ephraimites
fall into the background when a return had taken place, a
return, however, not of the twelve tribes, as had been
announced, but of some members of the tribes of Judah, Ben
jamin, and Levi.6 The new colony regarded itself as the re-
1 Ezek. xlvii. 13, 21 ; xlviii. 1—7, 23—29. » Ezek. xlviii. 30—34.
3 Ezek. xxxvii. 15—28. 4 Ezek. xxxvii. 22. 6 Ezek. xxxvii. 23—28.
6 Ezra ii. ; Neh. vii. Compare my " Godsdienst van Israel," II. 86 vv.
103 v. (" The Religion of Israel "—Williams & Norgate— vol. II., p. 177 ff.
and p. 202 ff.)

DECLINE OF THE HOPE OF EPHRAIM'S RETURN. 201
presentative of the whole of Israel} If that implied on the
one hand that the past was neither forgotten nor denied, it
must be regarded, on the other, as a proof that those who re
turned entertained a high self-esteem, and did not think they
were absolutely in want of the other tribes. The longer the
separation continued, the greater of course became the differ
ence between the kindred peoples, and the less were the
inhabitants of Judea inclined to declare themselves, as it
were, incomplete, and to make the improvement of their con
dition dependent upon the accession of the Ephraimites. We
expect, therefore, to find the hope of reunion become gradu
ally weaker ; and this expectation is realised. Zechariah,
who is characterised in general by a close adhesion to his
predecessors,2 speaks on one single occasion conoerning the
deliverance of the captives of the northern kingdom. "It
shall come to pass that as ye, 0 house of Judah and house of
Israel, have been a curse among the heathen, so will I set you
free, and ye shall be a blessing : fear not ; let your hands
be strong." 3 But this expectation cannot have occupied
much room in the -mind of Zechariah himself. In the
other passages in which he describes the future, he makes
mention only of Judah.4 In Haggai, Malachi, and the
author of Daniel, we do not find a single trace of the
ten tribes. And when we observe how the writer of the
Book of Chronicles speaks concerning them,5 and still more
how he omits their history in his narrative,6 we cannot regard
the silence of these prophets as accidental. They may have
believed, on the ground of the older predictions, that the
Ephraimites were destined to take once more their former
position, but that anticipation possessed no attractions for
them, and in consequence became gradually fainter. If the
authority of the prophetical writings had not opposed such
an idea, the conviction would then readily have been enter
tained, that the ten tribes had forfeited their claims to the
realisation of Jahveh's promises.
A remarkable phenomenon is thus presented here. The
1 Ezra ii. 2 ; vi. 17.
2 Compare my "Hist. Krit. Onderz.," II. 379, n. 1.
3 Zech. viii. 13. 4 Zech. ii. 12. 6 e.g., 2 Chron. xiii. 3—18.
6 Compare my "Hist. Krit. Onderz.," I. 317 v.

202 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
prophetical predictions not only remain unfulfilled, but also
gradually lose the ground on which, received into the popu
lar belief, they could continue to live. The course of events
first contradicts the prophecy and afterwards causes it almost
to pass into oblivion.
III. — The Supremacy of the House of David.
In the passages which we have noticed, we found occa
sional mention of David and his dynasty. None of my
readers will be surprised at my devoting a separate para
graph to the expectations of the prophets regarding them.
On the contrary, many may have asked themselves why
I did not begin with the prophecies relating to the house
of David. Such a course would undoubtedly have been in
accordance with the view most commonly held of the pre
dictions of the prophets. These predictions are, as is well
known, called the Messianic expectations or prophecies, an
appellation founded on the idea that the Messiah, that is, the
Anointed, the King of David's race, is the central point of
the anticipations of the future. Were that the case, it
would have been an absolute duty to direct attention, in
the first place, to that Messiah. But such is not the case.
rThe word " Messiah " is not used in the Old Testament,
| in any one instance, to denote a descendant of David who
shall reign over Israel restored. And, what is more impor
tant, in more than one prophetical description of the future,
such a son of David does not appear at all, while in many
others he in no wise assumes the first place, or is even men
tioned only incidentally. Such being the case, it would have
been wrong to follow the traditional view, instead of letting
ourselves be guided by the phenomena in the study of
which we are engaged. In other respects also we must
divest ourselves of the current notions on this subject. For
reasons which readily present themselves to the mind, the
prophetical utterances concerning David and his race are
partly understood in a wrong sense, and partly overlooked,
so that an unprejudiced investigation brings to light facts
which must at first appear to the reader as very singular.
Hence it follows that here, more even than elsewhere, the

EXPECTED FUTURE REIGN OF DAVID'S HOUSE. 203
correctness of my conception, deviating as it does from the
common one, must be expressly shown.
The king, who has won his dignity either by his own
merits or by the favour of circumstances, naturally wishes it
to remain hereditary in his family. We should take for
granted that this was the case also with regard to David,
though we knew nothing more about him than that he was
acknowledged as king by the whole of Israel, after the un
successful attempt of Saul to found a dynasty. According
to the narratives given in the historical books of the Old
Testament, he received from the prophet Nathan the positive
assurance that Jahveh would hear his request, and would
establish the monarchy in his family.1 We shall afterwards
inquire what truth there is in this. Such a promise is in no
way surprising. And even though it had never been uttered,
still the hope of the permanency of David's dynasty would
gradually become firmer after that dynasty had continued for
many decades, while in the northern kingdom one royal
family was deposed and succeeded by another. It may be
of some service, in considering the expectations of the pro
phets, to keep this, their natural basis, in mind.
Some of the prophets announce, in fact, nothing else, or
nothing more, than that the family of David shall continue
to reign over Israel. The family of David : that is, as it has
been hitherto, so shall it also be in the future : one Davidic
king shall be regularly succeeded by another. We should
of our own accord understand this to be the meaning of the
prophets ; but some of them intimate plainly that they are to
be understood in this sense, and in no other.
The prediction of Amos, with which we formerly became
acquainted,2 is still somewhat indefinite. After having an
nounced the extirpation of the sinners, he writes : " On that
day will I (Jahveh) raise up the tabernacle of David that is
falling, and will close up its rents, and I will raise up (restore)
its wasted parts, and I will build it, as in the days of old." 3
" The tabernacle of David " is, of course, the house of David,
to which the restoration of its former glory is thus promised
1 2 Sam. vii. 8—16 ; 1 Chron. xvii. 7—14. Compare Ps. lxxxix. 4, 5,
20 ff. (3, 4, 19 ff., Auth. Ver.).
2 See above, p. 151. 3 Amos ix. 11.

204 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
here. In accordance with this, the prophet predicts in
the following verse that they — the Davidic kings, or the
Israelites led by them — " shall possess as heirs the remnant
of Edom and all the nations over which Jahveh's name (as
that of their conqueror) is proclaimed ;" 1 just as their ancestor
David had swayed the sceptre over all the neighbours of
Israel. In no way whatever is it plain that the prophet is
thinking of one special king of David's family. Much less
can that have been the opinion of Jeremiah. He rebukes, in
one of his addresses, " the shepherds that feed the people of
Jahveh," and immediately annexes to. the rebuke this pro
phecy : " I (Jahveh) will gather the remnant of my flock out
of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring
them again to their pastures, and they shall be fruitful and
increase ; and I will set up shepherds over them vjho shall feed
them; and they (the flock) shall fear no more, nor be dismayed,
neither shall they be lost, saith Jahveh." 2 The shepherds
are the kings, so that Jeremiah here expresses the expectation
that Israel shall, in the future, be governed by princes (in the
plural), who shall be very favourably distinguished from the
Davidic kings under whose reign he is living. We shall very
soon see what is the relation between this prophecy and the
following verses ; but let us previously direct our attention
to another prophecy which illustrates the one just mentioned.
We there find the following promises in succession : " Thus
saith Jahveh, David shall never want a man to sit upon the
throne of the house of Israel." 3 And once more : " If ye
can break my covenant with day and night . . . then shall
also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he
should not have a son to reign upon his throne." i Imme
diately thereupon Jahveh promises that he " shall multiply the
seed of David his servant, and the Levites who serve him," as
the stars of heaven.5 Finally, there is further the promise
that Jahveh shall never " cast away the seed of David, so
that he will not take any of his seed to be rulers (in the
plural) over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." 6 These
declarations are altogether unambiguous ; the prophet who
makes them does not expect one single king of David's
1 Amos ix. 12. 2 Jer. xxiii. 3, 4. 3 Jer. xxxiii. 17.
4 Ibid., vv. 20, 21. 6 Verse 22. " Verse 26.

ORACLES OF AMOS AND JEREMIAH. 205
family, but an unbroken succession of Davidic kings. Let it
be further observed, that he speaks in the very same manner
concerning the Levitical priests as he does concerning the
descendants of David 1 — ¦ surely a proof that the latter present
themselves to his mind as princes succeeding each other.
But by whom has this prophecy been written ? It stands in
the name of Jeremiah, and is, moreover, still attributed to
him by some expositors of the present day ; 2 but others dis
cover in it ideas, and especially forms of expression, which
are not characteristic of Jeremiah, and therefore maintain it
to be an addition by some other person.3 They assume that
a later prophet in the time of the Babylonish captivity ex
panded the oracle of Jeremiah,4 first, by repetition of a pro
mise which he found in another passage of that prophet ; 6
and, secondly, by a fuller illustration and elaboration of its
contents.6 For my own part, I hold the latter opinion to be
the more probable, but, at the same time, think that we are
fully entitled to regard this later prophet as a very competent
expositor of Jeremiah. I have no hesitation, therefore, in
ascribing the expectations regarding the permanency of the
Davidic dynasty, which we have heard him express, to
Jeremiah also, with whose predictions about the " shep
herds," from which we started, they in truth altogether
harmonise. We have thus prepared the way for a right understanding
of the words which immediately follow the prediction about
the shepherds just mentioned (Jer. xxiii. 3, 4,), and which
appeared to the later prophet from whom the second half of
Jer. xxxiii. is derived, important enough to be repeated and
commented on. While doing so, he made at the same time
some slight changes in the expressions of his predecessor,
for which reason we begin by putting the two passages in
parallel columns and comparing them.
i Vv. 17, 18 ; 21 ; 22 ; 24.
2 Among others, by K. H. Graf, Jeremiah, pp. 421 ff.
3 Compare my " Hist Krit. Onderz.," II. 204 f., and the writers quoted
there. In the Greek version of Jeremiah, chap, xxxiii. 14 — 26 does not
appear. 4 Jer. xxxiii. 1-13.
6 Chap, xxxiii. 14 — 16, to be compared with chap, xxiii. 5, 6.
6 Chap, xxxiii. 17—26.

206 VII. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
[ Jer. xxiii. 5, 6. Jer. xxxiii. 15, 16.
. Behold^the days come, saith Jah- In those days, and at that time,
I veh, thatl raise unto David a right- will I cause a branch of righteous-
eous branch, and he shall reign as a ness to sprout forth unto David, and
I king and be prosperous, and shall he shall execute judgment and right-
eiecute judgment and righteousness eousness in the landr In those days
| in the land. In his days shall Judah shall Judah be delivered and Jeru-
be delivered and Israel shall dwell in salem shall dwell in safety, and it is
/ safety, and this is his name whereby this (=this is the name) whereby she
he shall be called, Jahveh our right- shall be called, Jahveh our righteous-
eousness. ness.
In the reading of Jer. xxiii. it remains doubtful to whom the
symbolic name "Jahveh our righteousness" is assigned, whether
' to " the righteous branch " or to Israel ; the words equally
i admit of either application. But in Jer. xxxiii. " Jerusalem"
I is substituted for " Israel," and at the same time the masculine
, pronoun is changed into a feminine. In the latter passage
, therefore " Jahveh our righteousness " is an appellation of
Jerusalem ; but then too in the former, it is an appellation of
' Israel. Hence it follows that, at present, treating as we are
' of the dynasty of David, we need not concern ourselves
/ further with that appellation.1 On the other hand, we seek
here an answer to the question, what does Jeremiah mean by
( the " righteous branch," or " branch of righteousness 1" Does
( he think of one single descendant of David, or of David's
posterity in general ? The Hebrew word (tsemach) is a col
lective noun, and thus favours the latter interpretation. This
/ is besides in harmony with the immediately preceding pro
phecy of Jeremiah about the " shepherds," and, as we saw
just now, with the old commentary which we have before us
in the second half of Jeremiah xxxiii. We cannot therefore
have any hesitation : Jeremiah is throughout self-consistent,
and shows here also that he expects the maintenance of the
Davidic dynasty and at the same time its regeneration, in
consequence of which it produces righteous kings.2
The grounds on which this conclusion rests are so firm
1 See thus below, section iv. of this chapter.
2 Compare Graf as above; pp. 303 — 305. The common explanation finds
support in the words, " and he (tsemach) shall reign as king," which seem
to refer to one individual. But the prophet could also have expressed
himself thus if tsemach was regarded by him as a collective noun. Because,
although he thought then on kings, yet at any given time, there would
be only one king reigning. See the explanation of Jer. xxx. 21 on the
following page.

JEREMIAH ON THE CONTINUANCE OF DAVID'S DYNASTY. 207
that it is proof against an objection, the comparative weight of
which, however, cannot be denied. It is taken from the
prophecies of the post-exilic Zechariah, who on two occasions
makes mention of the " branch " (tsemach), and does so in\T
such a way as to show clearly that he is thinking of one \
specific person} It is undeniable that he has before his
mind the oracle of Jeremiah, but is it his intention to explain
it \ and, if so, is that explanation correct ? It may indeed
be the case that Zechariah uses the words of his predecessor,
but uses them as a vehicle for his own thoughts. And it is also
possible that he is mistaken in his interpretation of Jeremiah's
prediction. We cannot therefore in consequence of his
utterances — to which we shall shortly return — allow ourselves
to abandon that explanation of the prophecy of Jeremiah to
which we were obliged to give the preference.
According to the analogy of that prophecy we now explain
another also, of the same author, which otherwise leaves room
for a difference of interpretation. After having announced the
restoration of Israel, Jeremiah thus proceeds : "And his (Israel's)
lord shall be from himself, and his ruler shall come forth from
the midst of him, and I will cause him to draw near, and he
shall approach unto me ; for who would (otherwise, i.e., if I
did not expressly give permission) pledge his heart (i.e., risk his
life) to approach unto me ? saith Jahveh." 2 The main ideas
of the prophet are obvious at once : Israel shall be governed
not by strangers but by a native king ; that king shall stand
in the closest relation to Jahveh, and have free access to him,
as if he were at the same time a priest. If we did not
know from other passages that Jeremiah expected such
Israehtish kings, we might readily imagine that one single
ruler was mentioned in this prophecy ; but with the know
ledge we have gained, we maintain that here also he
thinks of the regenerated dynasty of David, and expresses
characteristics which shall be applicable to each of the kings
which it produces.
We feel the greater confidence in proposing this interpre
tation, since it is clear ^hat it finds support in a preceding
verse of the same prophetical discourse. Jeremiah foretells
1 Zech. iii. 8 ; vi. 12. 2 Jer. xxx. 21.

208 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
that the Israelites shall no more be subject to strangers, but
" they shall serve Jahveh their God, and David their king
whom I will raise up unto them." 1 When the prophet wrote
these words he had most probably before his mind the
utterance of Hosea, with which we are already acquainted,
"Afterwards shall the children of Israel return and seek
Jahveh their god, and David their king." 2 On two occasions
besides in the Old Testament we find the same expectation )n
the same form, and in both cases in Ezekiel. To his denun
ciation of the shepherds of Israel he appends the promise, " I
(Jahveh) will set up one shepherd over them (the sheep), who
shall feed them, even my servant David ; he shall feed them,
and he shall be their shepherd ; and I, Jahveh, will be
their God, and my servant David prince among them." 3 In
another passage in which he announces the reunion of Judah
and Ephraim, he predicts first that " one king shall be king to
them all," 4 and afterwards more definitely ; " And David
my servant shall be king over them, and they all shall have
one shepherd ; " 5 a prediction which a moment later is thus
expanded : " they shall dwell therein fin Canaan), they and
their children and their children's children for ever ; and my
servant David shall be prince over them for ever." 6 It is
obvious that all these passages require one and the same in
terpretation : but what is that interpretation ? It has been
thought that the prophets, and specifically Ezekiel, may have
expected the return of David to life :7 but of this there is no
evidence whatever. If they had wished to express that notion,
they would certainly have chosen different and wholly unam
biguous terms. The idea of the resurrection of the dead was,
in my view, altogether unknown to them ; but, even accord
ing to the opinion of those who ascribe to them a know
ledge of it, it was not so common that it could be denoted by
the merest hint. We must therefore interpret the words
otherwise, and understand them, either of a second -David : a
king like to him in power, talent, &c; or of the Davidic house.
This latter explanation most readily presents itself.8 In
1 Jer. xxx. 9. 2 Hos. iii. 5. 3 Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 24.
4 Ezek. xxxvii. 22. 6 Verse 24. e Verse 25
7 Hitzig, "der Prophet Ezekiel," p. 265 f.
8 Compare 1 Kings xii. 16 ; Ps. cxxxiii. 2 (Aaron=the high priests of
Aaron's race.)

THE PRINCE OF ISRAEL ACCORDING TO EZEKIEL. 209
Hosea it is the only one possible, since he conceives, as we
formerly saw,1 the dynasty of David to be still seated on the
throne. But in like manner also in the case of Jeremiah,
who indeed shows distinctly that he expects kings of David's
family. And as regards Ezekiel, it will shortly be clear to us
that this explanation is in entire harmony with the ideas
which we find him express in other passages.
It may have been already observed that on two occasions he
gives to "David, Jahveh's servant," the title of prince (Heb.
Nasi).2 We find this " prince" again in Ezekiel's description of
the new Israelitish state,3 to which we shall, further on, direct
our attention as a whole.4 When we consider everything that
the prophet says regarding him, we can then see in him merely
a king like all other kings ; he is not unjust and covetous as
the princes that reigned over Israel before him ;5 but, in all
other respects, he is similar to them. He has his appointed
revenues,6 he defrays the expenses of a part of the offerings,7
he himself offers even sin-offerings,8 he is supposed to have
sons to whom he can resign a part of his territory, the same
as he can to his servants, on the condition that it returns to
him in the year of release ; 9 it is expressly enjoined that he
may not appropriate any of the people's land.10 All this is
perfectly unambiguous. Ezekiel does not think of one single
prince, but he gives rules in general for " the prince in the
new Israelitish state," that is for those who shall there attain in
succession to the rank of prince. In his description he takes for
granted that there will be such a prince in the regenerated
theocracy. And he could do this because he had previously
announced that " David, Jahveh's servant," would appear as
such. It is thus, at the same time, plain that the explanation
which we gave of that earlier prediction is the correct one.
If the prophet had thought of one single king, a second
David, then he would undoubtedly have assigned to him a
position in the Israelitish state altogether different from that
of a distinguished and highly honoured official such as " the
prince " is depicted in Ezek. xl. — xlviii.
1 Above, pp. 154 f. '* Ezek. xxxiv. 24 ; xxxvii. 25.
3 Ezek. xl. — xlviii. 4 See below, § iv. of this chapter.
6 Ezek. xlv. 7, ff. 6 Ezek. xlv. 7 ; xlviii. 21, 22.
7 Ezek. xlv. 17. 8 Ezek. xlv. 22 ; xlvi. 4, 12.
9 Ezek. xlvi. 16, 17. 10 Ezek. xlvi. 18.
O

210 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
The prophecies not yet discussed in which Ezekiel expresses
his expectations concerning the house of David, confirm the
result already attained, or at least are not opposed to it. To
a severe denunciation of Zedekiah,1 the prophet appends the
promise that Jahveh shall plant a twig of the cedar (i.e., a
descendant of the house of David) upon a high mountain,
where it shall grow into a goodly tree in which the birds
nestle.2 The family of David has thus still a future and shall
reign : more than this is not said here ; the appearance of
one single king must have been regarded as the realisation
of the prophecy, but equally so, the restoration and continu
ance of the royal dynasty. The same is the case also in
another oracle in which, in like manner, the humiliation of
Zedekiah is followed by " the coming of him who has the
right," that is, who is qualified to assume the kingly dignity.3
The prophet does not enter into details ; the explanation of
his words also is not quite certain ; but that which most
readily presents itself to the mind is to suppose here an allu
sion to the same future of the house of David, of which he
had previously prophesied.4 The idea which he formed
of it must be learned by us from the other, less indefinite,
passages which were explained above.
Hitherto we have found no one prophetical utterance which
contains more than the expectation of the permanency or the
restoration of the dynasty of David. But, at the same time,
it was plain to us that Jeremiah and Ezekiel individualise,
as it were, that expectation, and express themselves in such a
way that their words could apply as well to one single Davidic
king as to each one of the Davidic kings. This is the more
natural because their predecessors had already prophesied of
one such king, and that without indicating that they regarded
him as one of many or as the first of a whole series. Was
jit then their opinion that that king would remain the
I only one ? Did they assign to him a reign without end ?
• From the silence which those prophets maintain with
regard to this point, we cannot answer these questions with
1 Ezek. xvii. 1—10 (the riddle) ; 11—15 (the explanation) ; 16—21
(the explanation more fully illustrated).
2 Ezek. xvii. 22—24. 3 Ezek. xxi. 32, Heb. (v. 27, Auth. Ver.)
4 Compare also Ezek. xxi. 31 (26 Auth. Ver.) with xvii. 24 ; the contrast
there is altogether the same as here.

MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS IN THE STRICTER SENSE. 211
certainty. Besides, it is not by any means settled that they
had one and the same opinion on this subject. Let us,
however, hear and consider their own words ; it is only after
having done so that we can endeavour to form an opinion
about what they themselves have either left altogether un
settled, or at least in regard to which they have not expressed
themselves in an unambiguous manner.
The first prophet who comes under our notice here is the
oldest Zechariah, the writer of chaps, ix. — xi. After having
foretold the humiliation or the subjugation of the neighbouring
nations, and the safety of Judah from their attacks,1 he thus
addresses Jerusalem : " Bejoice greatly, 0 daughter of Zion !
shout, 0 daughter of Jerusalem ! behold, thy king cometh
unto thee ; righteous and triumphant is he ; lowly and riding
upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. And I (Jahveh)
will cut off the war-chariot from Ephraim, and the war-horse
from Jerusalem, the battle-bow also shall be cut off; and he
shall speak peace to the nations, and his dominion shall be from
sea to sea, and from the river to the limits of the land." 2
The meaning of the prophet admits of no doubt. The king of
whom he speaks shall first carry on war against the enemies
of Judah ; after that, he returns in triumph 3 to his capital ;
but, as is plain from his entrance itself, never again to march
forth to war. He is seated upon an ass, the animal distinc
tive of a time of peace ; he exhibits himself, not as a stern
and haughty warrior, but as one of that humble or lowly class
whom the prophets were accustomed to protect against their
oppressors.4 The carrying on of war has now therefore come
to an end for ever. The king of Judah speaks peace to the
nations, and exercises his dominion undisturbed over the ex
tensive region which David had formerly ruled.6
Between this anticipation and the expectations of Micah
more than one point of contact is to be observed. It will be
1 Zech. ix. 1—8. 2 Zech. ix. 9, 10.
3 So the word ought to be rendered instead of " having salvation," or
" saving himself," which the Hebrew cannot possibly signify. Translated
literallyitwould.be "saved," namely in the struggle against the enemy,
therefore remaining the conqueror in that. The same position also is
referred to by the preceding predicate, "righteous," i.e., declared by
Jahveh's sentence to be in the right, as was evident from the issue of the war.
4 Compare my " Godsdienst van Israel," I. 67 v., English translation, I.,
pp. 61—63.
6 This part of the prophecy has been already illustrated, pp. 160 f.

212 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
remembered that he announces the desolation of Jerusalem,
and makes the better times for Judah begin in that humilia
tion.1 In connection with this, he expects the king over all
Israel, to come, not out of Jerusalem, for that shall perhaps be
still a heap of ruins,2 but out of "the house of Ephrath,"
that is, out of the family of the Ephrathites, which was
settled at Bethlehem, and from which David had formerly
sprung.3 But here are the very words of the prophet, with
the necessary explanations : "And thou, house of Ephrath,
little (scarcely large enough) to be among the thousands (the
families) of Judah, out of thee shall come forth unto me one
(destined) to be ruler in Israel, whose outgoings are from of old,
from the days of antiquity.4 Therefore shall he (Jahveh) give
them (the men of Judah, especially the inhabitants of Jeru
salem) over (to their enemies) until the time when the mother
(of that ruler) shall have brought forth, and the remnant
of his brethren (who have proceeded, like him, from the
tribe of Judah) shall repent along with the children of Israel
(the Ephraimites). And he (the ruler) shall stand (take his
station) and feed in the strength of Jahveh, in the majesty of
the name of Jahveh his god, and they shall dwell (peace
fully), for then shall he be great unto the limits of the land,
and that shall be peace. . . ." 5 But I need not write out
the remainder of the prophecy, because we know already that
Micah expects a renewed attack of the Assyrians after the
return of the whole of the Israelites into their native country,
but is at the same time convinced that it shall be repelled and
avenged.6 What he means by the words " and that shall be
peace," is evident also from the sequel of this same propheti-
1 See above, pp. 161 ff., and p. 192. " Micah iii. 12.
3 Instead of " Bethlehem Ephrathah " in Micah v. 2, we must read " Beth-
Ephrathah," i.e., house or family of Ephrath, or the Ephrathites (compare
1 Sam. xvii. 12 ; Ruth i. 2). See this shown by T. Roorda, " Comment, in
Vat. Mich.," p. 91 sqq.
4 Literally " from the days of eternity ; " but Micah does not mean this in
an absolute, but only in a relative, sense, just as he uses the same words, in the
same relative sense, in chap. vii. 14, 20. " The house of Ephrath " was
indeed one of the smallest, but, at the same time, one of the oldest families.
After having adverted to that insignificance, Micah call* the attention of
his readers to that high antiquity also. With "outgoings" in the plural
may be compared the Latin " origines alicujus."
5 Micah v. 1-4 (2-5 A. V.) Compare my remarks in the " Theol. Tijdschr.,"
vi. (1872), p. 292. f., 300 f.
6 See above, p. 130.

THE MESSIAH IN CHAPTER IX. OF ISAIAH. 213
cal discourse.1 Such a period of universal peace is portrayed
also in the beautiful oracle which both Micah and Isaiah
have borrowed from an older prophet.2 It is therefore essen
tially the same image, that namely of the Prince of peace,
which is present to the mind both of Zechariah and Micah.
Bicher, and comprising many more characteristics, is the
representation of the king from David's family which Isaiah
gives us. All the qualities which serve for ornaments to a
ruler are found united in him. Let us again listen to the
prophet himself, and let us' first of all hear the prediction
which he utters while the war was being carried on against
Judah by the confederate Syrians and Ephraimites.3 To the
northern regions of Palestine, which were then already occupied
by the Assyrians, or were to fall into their hands within a
short time, he announces the restoration of their former
prosperity. Their oppressors shall be destroyed in a battle
terrible as that of Gideon against the Midianites. " For," so
Isaiah goes on to say, " unto us a child is born, unto us a son
is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and
his name shall be called wonderful-counsellor, mighty god,
divider of spoil, prince of peace; to the increase of the
government and peace there is no end, on the throne of
David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to support it
with judgment and justice, from henceforth even for ever.
The zeal of Jahveh of hosts will perform this." The prophet
speaks as if the birth of that king already belonged to the
past ; but this is to be explained by the firmness of his belief
and the liveliness of his imagination, which place the future
before his eyes as if it were already present. He does not
say expressly that this king shall be a scion of the Davidic
family; still this is undoubtedly his meaning, as may be
deduced both from the mention of David's throne and king
dom, and from a later prophecy which we shall notice imme
diately. The name which he assigns to the future ruler is to
be regarded as an attempt to comprise his eminent qualities
within as brief space as possible. That brevity is gained at
the expense of clearness, can hardly surprise us. The first and
the last of the four members of which the name consists, are
i Micah v. 9, 10 (10, 11 Auth. Ver.).
2 Micah iv. 3, 4 ; Is. ii. 4. 3 Is. ix. 6, 7 ; (5, 6 Heb.)

214 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
unambiguous. The second (" mighty god "), viewed in itself,
might have afforded some ground for the conjecture that a
supernatural ruler was present to the mind of the prophet ;
and that the more because the same name is employed else
where to denote Jahveh.1 But this conjecture is not con
firmed : all the other features point to a king of human
origin. We are obliged, therefore, to maintain that Isaiah
wishes to bring out as strongly as possible how greatly
the ruler whom he expects shall excel all common princes in
majesty, and therefore describes him as a mighty god among
the children of men. With the same intention the author of
Zeeh. xii. — xiv., for example, writes that " the tottering ones
among the citizens of Jerusalem shall be as David, and the
house of David as God, as the angel of Jahveh before them." 2
The preposition " as," which this prophet employs, is naturally
omitted by Isaiah, since he gives nothing more than the name
which is bestowed upon the new king, in order to express the
qualities which are seen in him : that name itself is a com
parison. The third member (literally " father of spoil," that
is, spoil-divider) is explained otherwise by many : their
explanation is " father of eternity " or " everlasting father ; "
and they discover in that the idea that the expected king
shall be for a lengthened period the father or benefactor of his
people. But it is very doubtful whether the two Hebrew
words can express this meaning.3 My interpretation is re
commended both by the following or last member, " prince
of peace," and by the connection of the discourse. For
the hope of the destruction of the Assyrians, which Isaiah
had just before expressed, must rest on the expectation that
Israel shall be led by the king whom he describes immedi
ately afterwards : " For unto us a child is born, unto us a
son is given." It is therefore not more than natural that
this child is also portrayed as a triumphant warrior. When
a period of undisturbed peace follows, just as in Zech., chap.
ix., the end of the war, then the spoil-divider becomes prince
of peace.
1 Isa. x. 21 ; compare Deut. x. 17 ; Jer. xxxii. 18.
2 Zech. xii. 8.
s The second word, which must frequently be translated by " eternity,"
has undoubtedly also the signification of spoil, e.g., Gen. xlix. 27b ; Zeph.
iii. 8 ; and in Isaiah himself, chap, xxxiii. 23, Authorised Version — " prey."

THE MESSIAH IN ISAIAH'S ELEVENTH CHAPTER. 215
The subsequent portion of the prophecy needs no elucida
tion. The only question that can still be asked is, What
does the prophet mean when he says that the king shall
establish and maintain his kingdom "from henceforth, even
for ever ? " But we would rather defer answering this ques
tion until we shall have taken cognisance of the later pro
phecy of Isaiah which has been mentioned already, and which
is clearly seen, at the first glance, to be parallel with that
which we have just been discussing.1 After the prophet has
announced Jahveh's judgment upon the haughty Assyrians,2 he
describes the future which after that shall dawn upon Israel.
First of all, he mentions the appearance of a king of the
family of Jesse : " There shall come forth a sprout out of the
stem of Jesse, and a shoot shall grow out of his (Jesse's)
roots." Just as Micah goes back to " the house of Ephrath,"
so Isaiah here goes back to Jesse, that is, to the earliest, and ..
as yet undistinguished, beginnings of the Davidic house. In
this way it appears the more plainly that Jahveh raises up
this future ruler ; his power appears unmistakeably, alike in
the humiliation of the mighty, and in the exaltation of the
lowly. In the sequel of the prophecy, also, the ruling idea is,
that the descendant of Jesse is indebted to God for everything. '
It is said : " The spirit of Jahveh shall rest, upon him, the
spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and
courage, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jahveh.
And he shall have pleasure in (or feel himself attracted by)
the fear of Jahveh, and he shall not judge after the sight of
his ejres, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. Thus
shall he with justice judge the lowly, and with equity give
sentence in behalf of the oppressed in the land ; he shall
smite the land with the rod of his mouth, and with the
breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked; and righteousness
shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of
his reins." 3 This description, which needs no illustration, is
followed by the celebrated picture of the universal harmony
in nature : the wolf dwelling with the lamb, and the leopard
lying down beside the kid.4 That transformation is accom
panied by the moral regeneration of Israel : " They shall not
1 Isa. xi. 1—5. 2 Isa. x 5—34.
3 Isa. xi. 1—5. i Isa. xi. 6 — 8.

216 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
do evil, nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the land l
shall be full of the knowledge of Jahveh, as the waters cover
the sea." 2 And then the prophet returns once more to the
king who is expected by him. " In that day," he writes,
" shall the offspring of Jesse,3 which stands there as an ensign
for the peoples, be resorted to for counsel by the nations, and
his resting-place (or residence) shall be (full of) glory." 4 In
other words, while the descendant of David rules over his
own people with righteousness, he is, at the same time, an
oracle for the other nations, and the presence of their envoys
confers splendour upon his dwelling-place. For the rest we
already know by what deeds his reign shall be characterised.
The predictions which follow immediately, concerning the
return of the captives, and the reunion of Ephraim and Judah,
have been previously discussed.5
When we consider these prophecies of Zechariah (ix. — xi.),
Micah, and Isaiah together, it is clear at once that they con
tain much more than the announcement of a happy period
which, after having endured for a longer or shorter space,
shall come to an end, and be succeeded by less prosperous
times. No ; the age which they foretell is endless ; when
once it has dawned, it continues on undisturbed ; everything
that is now taking place is destined and calculated to prepare
for it, while that age itself is the destination of Israel.
" From henceforth, even for ever," is David's kingdom estab
lished and maintained. It would, therefore, be in irrecon
cilable opposition to the meaning of the prophets if we
supposed that the king whom they announce shall be suc
ceeded by princes of a baser quality. If he has descendants
and successors, then they are necessarily like to him, the in
heritors both of his virtues and of his prosperity. There is
properly nothing to prevent us from ascribing such an ex
pectation to the prophets : nay, more, Zechariah and Micah
do not give us the smallest reason to understand their mean
ing otherwise. The king whom they announce is described
1 " The land," and not " the earth,'' as is clear from the preceding words,
" all my holy mountain."
2 Isa. xi. 9.
3 We find in the text "the root of Jesse," which is explained as " the
shoot out of the root of Jesse " (ver. 1). A bold mode of expression ! The
text is perhaps corrupt, and instead of " root," " shoot " ought to be read.
4 Isa. xi. 10. 6 See above, pp. 192 and 198.

DURATION OF THE MESSIANIC REIGN. 217
as one of the children of men, but therefore seems also, of
necessity, to partake of mortality, the lot of them all. In
Isaiah, also, he is no supernatural being. Nevertheless his
appearance is accompanied, as we have seen, by very im
portant changes in the world. The beasts of prey lay aside
their savage nature, and dwell in concord with the cattle and
the human beings that they formerly sought to seize. In the
same way the prophet could imagine that human life also
should then, in that new period, have an altogether different
career. The removal of mortality forms no greater revolution
in the course of earthly events than the removal, for instance,
of the enmity between man and the serpent. It is thus
possible that Isaiah attributed an endless reign to the king
himself whom he expected, so that he himself would estab
lish and maintain David's kingdom " from henceforth, even
for ever." Still the prophet does not expressly declare that
he wishes to be understood in this sense. A different ex
planation of his words is consequently not excluded. And,
after a calm consideration of the reasons for and against, we
shall probably agree with the opinion of one of the latest
expositors, who, in a note to the words just quoted (" from
henceforth, even for ever "), says : " Either the Messiah shall
be immortal, comp. xxv. 8, a Babylonian prophecy, or,
more probably, that nothing shall interrupt the regular suc
cession ofthe kings of his house, comp. 2 Sam. vii. 13."1
It is therefore clear that there exists no essential difference
between these prophets and the two representatives of the
Chaldean period, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, with whose predic
tions concerning the royal house of David we are already
acquainted. It only remains for us now to show how the
expectations of these older prophets were understood after the
captivity. This can be done in a few words, as the plan of
the present work forbids us to go beyond the limits of the
Old Testament, save in exceptional cases. Haggai, Malachi,
and the author of the book of Daniel, make no mention
whatever either of the restoration of the Davidic dynasty, or
of the one conspicuous descendant of David. The only one
who, in this respect, walks in the footsteps of his predecessors
is Zechariah (chaps, i. — viii.). It is not undesignedly that I
1 Cheyne, I. c, p. 34.

218 VII. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
have at once brought him into connection with those
predecessors, for his dependence on their prophecies is
undeniable, and appears clearly, at the very first glance,
from the form with which he invests his anticipations. The
symbolical announcement of the removal of the sins of
Israel, in which the high priest Joshua appears as the repre
sentative of the people, contains, among other things, the
promise that Jahveh " will bring forth his servant, the
Branch." 1 In the original, the word is " tsemach," with
which we have become acquainted in Jeremiah,2 from whom
Zechariah, beyond all doubt, borrows it. But he either
understands it in a way different from that in which we
thought it required to be understood, or- — for this also is
possible — he uses it in another sense than that in which,
even in his view, it was employed by Jeremiah. At any
rate, the additional words " my servant " prove that he is
thinking of one individual, one single descendant, therefore, of
David's family. For the rest, he does not, in this prophecy,
enter into details with regard to him. The quotation from
Micah, with which it is closed,3 of itself proves, even to
superfluity, that he has before his mind the blessings which
were connected by the former prophets also with the restora
tion of the Davidic dynasty. In another oracle, his expec
tation is somewhat more fully elaborated, and, though
borrowed from the prophet's predecessors, is, at the same
time, clearly seen to possess characteristic features of its
own. By command of Jahveh, he makes a crown out of
the gold and silver which some Babylonian Jews had
brought to Jerusalem, and places it upon the head of Joshua,
the high priest. On that occasion, he delivers to him this
word of Jahveh — " Behold a man whose name is Branch, he
shall grow up out of his place and shall build the temple of
Jahveh. He shall build the temple of Jahveh and he shall
wear the decoration, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and
he shall be a priest upon his throne, and a counsel of peace
(or peaceful consultation) shall exist between them both
(i.e., between the king, Branch, and the priest)." 4 Here
1 Zech. iii. 8. 2 See above, p. 206.
3 Zech. iii. 10 ; compare Micah iv. 4.
4 Zech. vi. 12, 13. Others translate the last words thus : " There shall
also be a priest on his throne, and peaceful deliberation shall exist between

THE BRANCH OF DAVID IN i^CHARIAH III. AND VI. 219
also, as will be noticed, there is the announcement of one
single king. To judge by the name which he bears, he shall
be one of David's descendants, but at the same time he shall
be invested with the priestly dignity ; nay, Joshua, the high
priest, is his representative, and receives the crown destined
for him. In any case, therefore, the descendant of David is
placed in the background. Did Zechariah expect the appear
ance of this ruler within a comparatively short period ? We
should conclude that he did so from the task which he
assigns to him, the rebuilding of Jahveh's temple. A new
period evidently begins with him : as little here, as in the
earlier prophets, is the " Branch " a transitory phenomenon,
an episode in Israel's history. Whether or not it may be
thence inferred that Zechariah assigns to the Branch himself an
endless reign, must again be left undetermined by us, because
the prophet does not express himself on that point. Pro
bably, however, that is not his conception : " the man whose
name is Branch " will, no doubt, have been regarded also by
him as the first of an unbroken succession of rulers like to
him. I might have here closed the review of the expectations of
the prophets concerning the dynasty of David. No prophetic
utterance of any importance has remained unmentioned. But
I think I must still keep the reader's attention fixed for some
moments on the same subject. The reason why this is neces
sary will be plain immediately.
I noticed just now in passing that Zechariah is the only
post-exilic prophet who makes mention — and that even only
cursorily — of the restoration of the house of David. The
silence of the others is even in itself noteworthy, but acquires
double significance now when we can show that, in the case
at least of some of them, it is not accidental. Let us first
consider the Babylonian Isaiah, the author of chaps, xl. — Ixvi.
On one single occasion he mentions David's name, and that
in connection with the promises of Jahveh to him and his
them both." This interpretation has in its favour the words "between
them both," which suggest to us rather two persons than two offices of the
same person ; but the order of the words in the Hebrew and the well known
sympathy of Zechariah for the priesthood recommend the other explanation.
Compare my "Godsdienst van Israel," ii. 116 f. (English translation, ii.
pp. 213 f.)

220 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
family. He says to the captives — " If you turn your eyes
to Jahveh and betake yourselves to him, then shall your soul
live, and he shall make with you an everlasting covenant
(and give you) the sure mercies shoiun to David."1 Does the
prophet mean, as some are of opinion, that the promises made
to David shall then be realised? that, in other words, his
family shall in the future be raised again to the throne ?
This is improbable. He is speaking to the captives and
announces what Jahveh shall give to them. Hence also after
having reminded them of the fact that the nations were sub
jected to David by Jahveh, he addresses himself anew to the
Israelites, and promises to them that their exaltation to glory
by Jahveh shall have as its result the adhesion of unknown
peoples.2 The prophet's meaning, therefore, is that the bless
ings formerly promised to David shall now be bestowed on
the whole of Israel : power, dominion, and splendour become
their portion in the future of which he speaks. Here, then,
the very remarkable phenomenon presents itself, that the
expectations concerning the dynasty of David become dis
joined from their proper object, and are transferred to the
whole people. If this happened only in this place, we should
not have thought ourselves justified in deducing general con
sequences from it ; but it is not done here only : in other
places also the second Isaiah transfers both the task and the
splendour of David's descendants to others, and these the
better portion, the flower of the Israelitish people, whom he
is accustomed to denote by the name of the servant of
Jahveh. He himself gives us clearly to understand that he
means by this name Israel or Jacob.3 At the same time, it
follows from the description of " the servant of Jahveh " that
by this name are denoted only those Israelites who respond to
Jahveh's free grace and to their calling.4 Especially does it
apply to those who proclaim Jahveh's will and counsel, that
is, to the prophets.5 Now it is said of that true Israel that
it has the mission " to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to
1 Isa. lv. 3. 2 Isa. lv. 4, 5.
3 Isa. xli. 8 ; xiii. 19-24 ; xliv. 1, 2, 21 ; xlv. 4 ; xlviii. 20 ; xlix. 3.
4 See e.g. Isa. xiii. 1-7 ; xlix. 1-7, and in the following chapters the con
trast between the "servants of Jahveh" and the apostates or indifferent,
Isa. liv. 17 ; lvi. 6; lxiii. 17; lxv. 8, 9, 13-15 ; Ixvi. 14.
6 Isa. xliv. 26 ; xlviii. 16 ; 1. 4—10 ; Ixi. 1—3.

THE SERVANT OF JAHVEH IN ISAIAH XL.  XLVI. 221
bring back the preserved of Israel," x or, as it is elsewhere
expressed, " to open the blind eyes, to bring out those who
are bound from the prison, and those who have sat in dark
ness from the dungeon."2 This is not the only, it is not
even the principal task of " the servant of Jahveh ; " he has
besides, as we shall see afterwards, a vocation to fulfil as
regards the heathen world. But inasmuch as the restoration
of Israel is committed to him, as it is in the two passages
just quoted, therefore he assumes, in so far, the position which
the king of the family of David occupies in the earlier pro
phets. Also as regards the glory which he has to expect, the
servant of Jahveh is the counterpart of the son of David.
This will of itself be obvious to us, when we consider, as we
shall do immediately, his influence upon the heathen.3 We
may now already have become convinced that the king of
the family of David does not disappear, as if by 'accident, in
the prophecies of the Babylonian Isaiah : he is there replaced
by another.
But it would justly cause surprise if I left the matter here,
and passed over in silence the objections which are urged
against this view. There still continue to be many who
identify " the servant of Jahveh " with the descendant of
David of the older prophets, or at least are of opinion that
the Babylonian Isaiah, in some particular places, specifically
in the celebrated passage Isa. lii. 1 3 — liii. 1 2, denotes by that
appellation one single person who, in that case, can, it is said,
be none other than the expected king of David's family. The
decision of this dispute depends altogether on the stand-point
which we occupy. Every one who submits to the authority of
the New Testament must take the side of those who contend for
the Messianic interpretation of the passage now mentioned,
and of sundry other passages relating to " the servant of
Jahveh." 4 But in our present inquiry the exegetical argu
ments are exclusively to be taken into consideration. Now
these arguments favour most strongly the interpretation which
I defend. It is the prophet himself who informs us that " the
servant of Jahveh " is a title of honour of Jacob or Israel,
1 Isa. xlix. 6»- ' 2 Isa. xiii. 7. 3 See below, § v. of this chapter,
4 See Matt. xii. 18-21 ; viii. 17 ; Acts viii. 32, 33 ; 1 Pet. ii. 22-24 ; and
below, Chapters xiii. and xiv.

222 VII.— UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
and how we in his spirit are to determine what is compre
hended in that idea.1 This is done in a manner so unam
biguous, that there remains properly no room for denial or
doubt. Hence the collective interpretation of the phrase is now
almost universally acknowledged as being well founded. But,
it is asserted, this does not exclude the supposition that Isaiah
has now and then one single person in view, who is pre
eminently the flower of Israel, or, to use the expression of
Delitzsch,2 the summit of the pyramid of which the whole
Israelitish people forms the broad basis. And in truth it is
undeniable that " the servant of Jahveh " is sometimes de
scribed as if he were one individual, and nowhere so strongly
as in Isa, lii. 1 3 — liii. 1 2. But if " the servant " is, according
to the prophet himself, a collective term, then surely we must
assume that he has there no one person in view, but con
sciously individualizes " the servant," as one person, and in
order to depict his destiny in vivid colours, describes him as
an individual. This is the only view which is in harmony
with the facts as they lie before us. Moreover there are not
wanting features, even in that passage, which prove that the
prophet has really before his mind, not one individual, but a
category or group of men. Once in it a pronoun in the plural
number is used in reference to "Jahveh's servant;"3 more
than once the particulars which the prophet mentions must
be distributed among the different persons who together
constitute the collective number.4 But though it were
granted for a moment, that one individual was meant in Is.
hi. 13 — liii. 12, yet it would even then be absolutely inad
missible to identify him with the future king of the family of
David. Because, first, in that passage also, as everywhere
1 See the passages referred to, p. 220, notes 3 and 5, and the commentaries
upon them.
2 Der Prophet Jesaia (Bibl. Comment, iiber das A. Testament iii. 1).
p. 414.
3 These last words of Isa. liii. 8, literally translated, run thus, "For the
sin of my people there is a plague for them," i.e., " on account of the sin
of my people they are plagued or stricken."
4 This is the case with chap. liii. 9, where the burial of "the servant" is,
not foretold, but mentioned, when viewed in connection with v. 10,
where it is said of him, " he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days,
and the work of Jahveh shall prosper by his hand." Compare also v. 8
(" the servant cut off out of the land of the living "), with v. 11 (recompence
is made to him for the toil and the suffering which he had to endure).

THE SERVANT OF JAHVEH AND THE MESSIAH. 223
else in the fortieth and subsequent chapters of Isaiah, " the
servant of Jahveh " is already present ; 1 secondly, in no way
whatever does the prophet intimate that he is speaking about
a descendant of David ; and thirdly, what he communicates re
garding the destiny of " the servant " does not admit of being
harmonized with the description of the scion of David given
by Isaiah and Micah. These considerations are so conclusive,
that the dissimilarity of the two representations is placed be
yond all doubt. They have nothing more in common than
the two points to which attention has been already directed
(p. 220 f). But then also it is certain that "the servant of
Jahveh " is not the Messiah ; he comes forward in his stead.
A somewhat similar phenomenon is presented in the
book of Daniel. It cannot become plain to us till
afterwards, that the passages in which some have thought
that they found the Messiah denoted by this his name,
do not make even the most distant allusion to him.
On the contrary, it must be observed here, that the
writer not only leaves the son of David unmentioned,
but substitutes another in his place. The reader will re
member the vision in which the four successive universal
monarchies are represented under the image of as many beasts
that rise out of the abyss.2 After judgment has been executed
upon the fourth beast — the Grecian monarchy, more speci
fically Antiochus Epiphanes — there appears " with the clouds
of heaven one like to a son of man " before the throne of the
Eternal : " To him is given dominion, and glory, and royal
power, and all people, nations, and languages, shall bow down
before him : his dominion is an everlasting dominion which
passeth not away, and his kingdom is imperishable." 3 Who
is it that is meant here ? The usual answer is : the Messiah,
the descendant of David, who had been formerly announced.
But this explanation, although capable of being reconciled
with the author's own words, if that were necessary, is yet in
1 The suffering of "the servant" is partly past, partly it still continues,
his glory is future. The prophet assumes this stand-point uniformly in
chaps, lii. 13 — liii. 12. Beyond all doubt, therefore, we have to seek for
" the servant " among his contemporaries. Besides he directly addresses
him in chap. lii. 14.
2 Dan. vii. Compare above, pp. 141 — 143, where also attention was
directed to the agreement between chaps, vii. and ii.
3 Dan. vii. 13, 14.

224 VII. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
no way whatever recommended by them. Because when the
angel who explains the vision to Daniel has, at the close of
his explanation, arrived at the scene which is sketched in the
thirteenth and fourteenth verses, he expresses himself thus :
" And the kingdom, and the power, and the greatness of the
kingdoms under the whole heavens, shall be given to the
people of ihe saints of ihe Most High ; his kingdom is an
everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall bow down before
him and be subject to him."1 In other words, as the four
beasts represent heathen kingdoms, so the form " like a son
of man " represents the Israelitish nation : it receives the
dominion. That the nation, in its turn, shall be governed by
a king, the descendant of David, is certainly possible, but the
writer does not say so, either here or anywhere else, and least
of all is it to be inferred from the symbolism employed by
him. In the person of the son of man the Israelitish people
are crowned.
If I am not mistaken, our view of the second Isaiah and
of the book of Daniel establishes the general observation with
which this paragraph commenced. If the expectation of a
descendant of David formed the centre-point of Israel's antici
pations of the future, then it would necessarily appear every
where, or could be absent only by accident. But we have seen
plainly that the contrary is the case. Isaiah, chaps, xl. — Ixvi.,
and the book of Daniel, are full of predictions regarding Israel's
glory : but they do not name the Messiah ; nay, more, they
transfer his work and his glory to the people, or to a portion
of the people. This is in the highest degree natural, if the
hope of his appearance be something incidental. In that case,
as it was a product of the circumstances of the time, of the
fact of the prophets having lived under the dynasty of David,
so also could it be modified with those circumstances, or even
altogether disappear, without the cardinal matter being lost.
But how can this phenomenon be accounted for, if the son of
David is the proper object of the prophetic expectation?
We were, therefore, not in error when, acknowledging the
great importance of the utterances regarding the Davidic
dynasty, we yet thought we had no right to concede to them
the foremost place. 1 Dan. vii. 27.

BLESSINGS AWAITING THE RESTORED ISRAEL. 225

IV. — The spiritual and material welfare of restored Israel.
The prophets, with a predilection easily explicable, expati
ate upon the blessings which Jahveh shall bestow upon his
people, after they have returned from captivity. What subject
could possess greater attractions for them 1 What other gave
so ready an opening for poetic expatiation and ornament ?
We are therefore by no means surprised at the wealth of
material which is available for us in the treatment of this
portion of our survey. But that very abundance brings with
it its own peculiar difficulties. We may not overlook any
thing which is at all of importance, and yet, on the other
side, we must continue to study brevity. It is not easy to
satisfy both of those demands. Another difficulty arises from
the poetical character of the descriptions of Israel's future
given by the prophets. We must of course take that into
account, and guard against a plain and literal conception of
what the seers of Israel have expressed in figurative language
more or less elevated : but not less do we require to beware
of spiritualising or explaining away their expectations. Will
it always be our good fortune to succeed in drawing, with
certainty, the boundary line between the literal and the
figurative interpretation ?
We wish at least to make the attempt to overcome these
difficulties. We can have no better aid in so doing than to
compare the prophecies with each other, a procedure which
the method followed here involves of itself. That which re
mains doubtful, so long as we keep our attention fixed on one
single oracle, is frequently settled at once, when we illus
trate the one from the other.
In the heading of this section, I have mentioned first the
spiritual and then the material welfare of restored Israel. If
we were to regard exclusively the space occupied by the
description of each, we should rather give precedence to the
material blessings. But we do not adopt this course for
several reasons. Spiritual prosperity is less adapted for copi
ous description than material well-being ; there is not there
fore much implied in the fact that the latter occupies so
much larger a space than the former. Besides, we must not
P

226 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
forget that the close connection between restored Israel and
Jahveh is taken for granted by the prophets, even in those
places in which they do not expressly mention it, or at least
do not enlarge upon it. Let the reader remember the
remarks which we formerly made 1 on the connection between
conversion and returning : the captives who have returned to
their native land have experienced the salutary influence of
Jahveh's chastisement, and are thereby cured of their former
backslidings. It is thus really self-evident that their religious
and moral condition corresponds to the demands of Jahveh.
But let us examine in what manner the prophets, on different
occasions, bear express testimony to this, and what comes
mainly into the foreground in their indications concerning
this subject.
Hosea, who delights to represent the relation between
Jahveh and Israel as a marriage, avails himself of the same
figure also in describing the future. " I (Jahveh) will
betroth thee unto me for ever : yea, I will betroth thee unto
me in righteousness, aud in judgment, and in loving-kindness,
and in mercies ; so will I betroth thee unto me in faithfulness,
and thou shalt know Jahveh." 2 There is an entire agreement
between this promise of Jahveh and the dispositions which
the prophet elsewhere ascribes to the people after it had
repented and been restored ; as, for instance, where Israel
declares that it will no longer place its confidence in Assyria
nor on war-horses, nor will desire to worship the work of its
hands as gods ; 3 or where it is introduced as saying, " After
two days (i.e., after a short time) will he revive us, in the
third day he will raise us up, so that we may live in his
presence. Thus let us observe, let us strive to know Jahveh :
sure as the morning dawn is his rising, and he shall come to
us as the rain, as the latter rain which pours down upon the
earth."4 It is essentially the same ideas which we find in
the successors of Hosea. Isaiah mentions, besides the know
ledge of Jahveh, the unblamable relations of the restored
Israelites with one another. They " shall not hurt nor
destroy in all my holy mountain ; for the land shall be full
of the knowledge of Jahveh, as the waters cover the sea." 5
1 See above, pp. 190 ff. 3 Hos. ii. 21, 22, Heb. (19, 20, Auth. Ver.)
" Hos. xiv. 4, Heb. (3, Auth. Ver.) 4 Hos, vi 2, 3. 6 Is. xi. 9.

PROPHECIES OF ISRAEL'S SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 227
In another passage, he declares that they who have been left
in Jerusalem, who have escaped from the judgment and have
been enrolled unto life, shall be called holy, that is,
dedicated to Jahveh, because all uncleanness and blood-
guiltiness shall be purged away by the spirit of Jahveh, the
spirit of judgment and of destruction.1 According to
Zephaniah, truth and uprightness are the most obvious
characteristics of the people who have been purified by
Jahveh's judgments. " I will also leave in the midst of
thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the
name of Jahveh. The remnant of Israel shall not do
iniquity, nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be
found in their mouth ; for they shall feed and lie down,
while none shall make them afraid." 2 His younger con
temporary, the author of Zech. xii.— -xiv., shows that the sin
and uncleanness which still cleave to the house of David and
the citizens of Jerusalem, shall in the future be purged
away : a fountain shall be opened for both, for washing away
sin and for purification ; 3 idolatry and false prophecy, the
product of the spirit of uncleanness, shall be then rooted
out ; 4 thus shall all Jerusalem and Judea, with everything
that is found therein, be dedicated to Jahveh, and become his
dwelling-place, as formerly the temple alone had been, from
which the Canaanite — the merchant — is now excluded.5 On
the other hand, in Joel, the emphasis is laid on the abundant
outpouring of Jahveh's spirit, the spirit of genuine pro
phetical inspiration. Who knows not his beautiful predic
tion : "Afterward, I (Jahveh) will pour out my spirit upon
all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see
visions. Yea, upon the servants and the hand-maids in
those days will I pour out my spirit." 6 This prediction
again is closely allied to that of Jeremiah concerning the new
covenant which Jahveh will make with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah,7 The past shall then be
forgotten : " I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remem-
' Is. iv. 3, 4. Compare also the song of praise of those to whom grace
has been shown by Jahveh, in Is. xii.
2 Zeph. iii. 12, 13. 3 Zech. xiii. 1. 4 Ibid. vv. 2—6.
6 Zech. xiv. 20, 21. 6 Joel iii. 1, 2, Heb. (ii. 28, 29, Auth. Ver.)
7 Jer. xxxi. 31—34.

228 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
ber their sin no more." An entirely changed state of things
comes into existence. The covenant made at Sinai is
repealed. Jahveh now " puts his law in the inward parts of
the Israelites, and writes it in their hearts." Now " they teach
Ho more every man his neighbour, saying know Jahveh, for
they shall all know him from the least of them unto the
greatest of them." 1 We hear the echo of these striking words
in the book of Jeremiah's spiritual kinsman, Ezekiel,
although the contrast between the Sinaitic and the new
covenant is not so fully brought out by him as by his pre
decessor. After the Israelites have returned from captivity,
and have cleansed their native land from all traces of idolatry,
Jahveh "gives to them one heart,2 and puts a new spirit
within them ; he takes the stony heart out of their flesh, and
gives them an heart of flesh, so that they may walk in his
statutes, and keep his ordinances and do them, in order that
they may be his people and he may be their God." 3 In
another passage the same promise is repeated with the
addition : " And I (Jahveh) will put my spirit within you,
and so cause you to walk in my statutes, and keep my judg
ments, and do them." 4 The closing verse of the celebrated
prophecy of Israel's resurrection contains the same promise —
" I shall put my spirit in you that ye may Hve, and I shall
place you in your own land." s That the revivifying of the
dry bones which Ezekiel so strikingly describes in this pro
phecy, is a symbol which represents the restoration of Israel's
national existence, may now be regarded as settled. The
prophet is not thinking of the return of the slain to life ; he
himself tells us that in so many words.6 But since his
explanation of the vision is closed with the words just
quoted, it is clearly shown that in the estimation of Ezekiel
also, the political restoration and the spiritual regeneration of
Israel are inseparable.
1 Jeremiah expresses the same expectation symbolically when he declares
that the restored Jerusalem shall be called " the Throne of Jahveh " (chap.
iii. 17), and thus shall have no more need of the ark of the covenant (v. 16),
or when he assigns to the future Israel the name " Jahveh (is) our righteous
ness" (chap, xxiii. 6), which a later prophet transfers to Jerusalem (chap.
xxxiii. 16, and above, p. 205 f.)
2 The change of a single letter gives us what is probably the right read
ing — ' another heart " — corresponding to " a new spirit."
3 Ezek. xi. 19, 20; compare xiv. 11, and the exhortation, xviii. 81.
4 Ezek. xxxvi. 26—28. 6 Ezek. xxxvii. 14. « Ibid. vv. 11—13.

PROMISE OF PEACE AND SAFETY. 229
But this may suffice as a description of the spiritual side of
the anticipations of the prophets as to the future of their
people, i An examination of the later writings would add no
new characteristics to those already given.1 We shall require to
dwell longer on the prophetical descriptions of the material
prosperity of the Israelites, the true meaning of which will
besides have to be maintained occasionally against interpre
tations differing from our own.
Bestored Israel enjoys peace and safety. The reader will
remember that the King, of David's family, who reigns over
the people of Jahveh, is portrayed as a prince of peace, or
denoted by that appellation,2 and will thus expect to find this
feature appearing also in the descriptions of Israel's condition.
Nor is this expectation disappointed. The classical passage
is the well-known prediction which we read in Micah, the
greater part of it also occurring in Isaiah : — " He (Jahveh)
shall judge among many peoples, and rebuke strong nations
even to afar ; and they shall beat their swords into plough
shares and their spears into sickles ; nation shall no longer
lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war
any more ; and they shall sit every man under his vine and
under his fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid, for the
mouth of Jahveh of hosts hath spoken it."3 If emphasis is
here laid on the universality of the peace, in other passages
prominence is given to the idea that Israel shall enjoy
this peace : war-chariots, horses, strongholds, — which were
always disapproved of by the prophets as tokens of want of
trust in Jahveh, — shall be done away in the future, and
shall not be desired again by the people,4 because Israel is
safe under the powerful protection of Jahveh. For, " thus
saith the Lord Jahveh, When I shall have gathered the
house of Israel from the nations among whom they were
scattered, then shall I glorify myself in them (that is, by the
deliverance and the return of the Israelites), in the sight of
the heathen, and they shall dwell in their land that I have
1 Compare Isa. lx. 21 ; lxv. 25b ; Zech. vii. 3. The author of Isa. xxiv. —
xxvii. describes the regenerated Israel as " righteous and keeping truth "
(chap. xxvi. 2), and affirms that their sins are forgiven (chap, xxvii. 9).
2 Zech. ix. 9, 10 ; Micah v. 5 ; Isa. ix. 6, and above, pp. 211 ff.
3 Micah iv. 3, 4 ; Isa. ii. 4.
4 Hos. ii. 18*; Micah v. 10, 11, 14*; Isa. ix. 7.

230 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
given to my servant, to Jacob ; and they shall dwell safely
therein, and build houses, and plant vineyards, and dwell
safely, inasmuch as I have executed judgments on all their
neighbours who robbed them, and these shall know that I,
Jahveh, am their (the Israelites) god." x Ezekiel speaks here
specifically of Israel's neighbours, that is, ofthe nations against
whom the preceding prophecies are directed.2 The nations at
a greater distance have not so plainly experienced the might
of Jahveh, and thus are not afraid to essay an attack upon
the people whom he has restored. Thus Israel's safety is
still threatened after the return, but it is not really disturbed,
for immediately after the enemy has crossed the borders of
Canaan, Jahveh interposes and destroys them. It is this
expectation which is developed by the prophet in a very full
prophecy,3 a prophecy which stands almost alone in the Old
Testament. It is addressed to Gog, in the land of Magog,
the prince of the nations Bosh, Meshech, and Tubal, which
are not elsewhere brought into connection with Israel, just as
it is here only that their common leader appears. He forms
the plan of marching against Israel at the head of an innumer
able host ; he is joined by other and commercial nations, who
are certain of his triumph and eager for plunder. But imme
diately after he has arrived in Canaan, he is smitten by the
wrath of Jahveh, and annihilated with all his forces. The
spoil which falls into the hands of Israel is immense ; the
number of the slain is incalculable, and the bodies are all
buried for fear of the pollution of the land ; the impression
made on the neighbouring nations by this terrible judgment
is profound.4 The prophet himself intimates that this violent
attack on the returned captives had been already mentioned
by his predecessors.6 But we find no such utterances in the
prophecies which have descended to us, unless we may assume
that Ezekiel applies to events which even for him were still
in the future, the predictions of the conflicts of the heathen
with Israel before its dispersion, and, a fortiori, before its
restoration, because they had not been realised at the begiu-
1 Ezek. xxviii. 25, 26. 2 See above, p. 110, and elsewhere.
3 Ezek. xxxviii., xxxix.
4 See e.g. chap, xxxix. 7, 11-16, 21-29.
6 Chap, xxxviii. 17, compare xxxix. 8.

PROMISE OF FERTILITY AND ABUNDANCE. 231
ning of the captivity.1 The cardinal thought, however,
which is expressed by Ezekiel in this altogether peculiar form,
the inviolability of the restored Israel, or Jahveh's care for
the safety of his people, would undoubtedly have obtained the
concurrence of all the rest of the prophets. One of them,
Micah, even expresses it in his own way when he predicts
that the attempt of Assyria to cross Israel's boundaries after the
restoration of the Davidic government, shall not only be frus
trated but shall also be punished by the desolation of the
land of Assyria.2 The difference between this representa
tion and that of Ezekiel is too great to admit of their being
identified, but they both agree entirely in the cardinal idea
just mentioned.
We shall immediately, when we discuss the relation of Israel
to the heathen, find an opportunity of illustrating and complet
ing this part of our survey. At present we may proceed to
state as the second blessing ordained by Jahveh for his people,
the fruitfulness of ihe land and ihe abundance of food and
drink. Express mention of this blessing is made by Amos,
the earliest of our witnesses. At the same time in which
the falling tent of David is raised up, " the plowman shall
overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that
soweth seed, and the mountains shall drop new wine, and all
the hills shall melt . . . They (the Israelites) shall plant
vineyards and drink the wine thereof, make gardens and eat
the fruit of them." 3 There is no doubt as to what the
prophet really meant. The new wine which drops from the
mountains, the plougher who overtakes the reaper, the
treader of grapes who overtakes the sower of seed : we have
there poetical figures employed by him — but employed by
him in order to express that abundant provision will be
made for the corporeal wants of restored Israel. If it
formerly had been not seldom harassed by drought, locusts,
and famine, in the days which were to come, such hke
plagues would no more appear, and uninterrupted plenty
would be their portion. The same expectation is cherished
by Hosea. According to him, Jahveh makes a covenant
1 In that case we might suppose that such passages as Zech. xii., xiv ;
Joel iii. were present to his mind.
a Micah v. 4, 5, Heb. text, (verses 5, 6, Auth. Ver.).
3 Amos ix. 13, 14.

232 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
with the beasts of the field, the fowls of heaven, and the
creeping things of the ground,1 so that they may not trouble
his people nor destroy their stores. Heaven and earth (the
sunshine, the rain, and the fertility of the ground) co-operate
to multiply corn, new wine, and oil.2 The same blessings which
Jahveh had formerly withdrawn from the Israelites in order
to bring them to repentance,3 are now bestowed upon them
in the most liberal manner. Somewhat similar is the mean
ing of the prophet when at the close he introduces Jahveh as
saying, " I will be as the dew unto Israel, and he shall
blossom as the lily and strike out his roots as Lebanon. His
branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive
tree, and his fragrance as Lebanon. They that dwell under
his shadow shall return,4 grow corn and flourish as a vine,
his (Israel's) renown shall be as the wine of Lebanon."8 This
again is poetry ; and it would be folly to understand every
expression literally, but it would be quite as much a misap
prehension of Hosea's meaning if we transferred to the
spiritual domain what is here said of Israel's prosperity.
According to his expectation, the people shall possess and
enjoy in abundance every thing that it needs and can desire,
and shall be everywhere renowned as an example of Jahveh's
generous care. Such is also the anticipation of Jere
miah. The mountains of Samaria are planted with
vines and produce fruit abundantly.6 The whole of the
descendants of Jacob " shall flow together to (the enjoyment
of) Jahveh's blessings, (of) corn, new wine, and oil, (of) sheep
and cattle ; and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and
they shall no more languish. Then shall the virgin rejoice
in the dance, and the young men and the old together ; for
I (Jahveh) will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort
them, and bestow upon them gladness for their sorrow. And
I (Jahveh) will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness,
and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness." 7
But why should I transcribe more proof passages ? We
already know enough of the expectations of the Israelitish
prophets to be assured that they all have either expressly
i Hos. ii. 18. 2 Hos. ii. 21, 22. 3 Hos. ii. 8, ff.
4 Or "shall again grow corn." 6 Hos. xiv. 6 — 8, Heb. (5-7, Auth. Ver.)
6 Jer. xxxi. 5. 7 Jer. xxxi. 12 — 14.

THE STREAM OF LIVING WATER FROM JERUSALEM. 233
mentioned or tacitly taken for granted the abundance of
" corn, new wine, and oil." 1 One of the images which they are
accustomed to employ may further be briefly illustrated here.
The second Zechariah foretells that " in that day " — that is
when Jahveh shall have destroyed the enemies, and assumed
the sole government, of his people — " living waters shall go
out from Jerusalem ; half of them toward the Eastern Sea
(the Dead Sea) and half of them toward the Western (the
Mediterranean) Sea : in summer and in winter shall they
flow." 2 The purpose which those streams are to serve is
intimated by the prophet, when a moment afterwards he
writes : " The whole land from Geba to Bimmon, south
of Jerusalem, shall be changed, and become like the plain (of
Jordan)." 3 As that plain owed its fertility to the river
which watered it, so shall also the stream of living waters
which goes out from Jerusalem, irrigate in an easterly and
westerly direction the land that was naturally parched,
and promote a luxuriant vegetation. Of course the business
of the prophet is with that fertility, and not with the stream
which produces it ; the stream is noticed merely as a means.
The same thing is true of Joel's prediction, the first half of
which is almost parallel with that of Amos,4 and the second
half agrees with the announcement of Zechariah : " In that
day the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills
shall flow with milk, and all the streams of Judah shall flow
with water, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of
Jahveh, and shall water the acacia valley " 6 (probably in the
neighbourhood of Jerusalem). We must form a somewhat
different judgment concerning the more copious prophecy of
Ezekiel.6 With him also the stream goes out from the
temple,7 and brings with it fertility and abundance. On both
its banks " grow all (kinds of) fruit trees, whose leaves fade
not and whose fruits are never consumed, and which bring forth
new fruit from month to month ; because the waters of the
stream come forth out of the sanctuary; and the fruit shall
serve for food, and the leaf for medicine."8 But the description
1 Compare Zech. ix. 7. Isa. xxxii. 15-20 ; lxii. 8, 9 ; lxv. 9 f., 13 f.,
21-23 ; Zech. viii. 12, f., &c.
2 Zech. xiv. 8. 3 Zech. xiv. 10, 4 Amos ix. 13*-
6 Joel iii. 18. 6 Ezek. xlvii. 1-12. 7 Ibid., vv. 1, 2, 12.
8 Ibid., v. 12 ; comp. v. 7.

234 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
of the place where the brook rises, of its increasing depth,
of the abundance of fish which it contains,1 is so exact and
detailed, that the prophet evidently thought of an actual
stream. This is pointed at in the prophet's expectation that
the waters of the Eastern (or Dead) Sea shall be healed by
the brook which runs into them.2 This feature, borrowed
from the reality, forbids us to conceive of the brook itself as
being merely a symbol of fertility. Ezekiel is therefore here,
as, in truth, he is also elsewhere in his prophecies, more
realistic than his predecessors : their poetry becomes, in his
hands, prosaic matter-of-fact.
The hope of the multiplication of the Israelites is closely
allied to these expectations concerning their future condition.
Apart from the book of Daniel — of which more will be said
afterwards — once in the prophetical literature we find the ex
pectation expressed, that the slain Israelites shall return to life
in order to share in the future prosperity.3 The anonymous
author knows very well that " the dead do not revive, nor
do the shades rise ; " 4 but yet, at the same time, he ardently
wishes that Jahveh would make an exception in favour of
" his dead." The rest of the prophets do not participate in
this expectation ; but they entertain no doubt that the people,
gathered together by Jahveh himself out of all the places of
their captivity and placed in circumstances so favourable, will
be a numerous people, and gradually become more so. Some
of them expressly direct attention to that point. This is
done by the post-exilic Zechariah, with specific reference to
Jerusalem. He writes, that in the future " Jerusalem shall
lie open (without walls and gates) on account of the multi
tude of men and cattle therein." Then, Jahveh saith, " I will
be unto her for a wall of fire round about, and will be for a
glory in the midst of her." This remarkable increase of the
population is explained by the concourse of Israelites who till
then were living in exile, but who, after the execution of
judgment upon their oppressors, would flock in great numbers
to the temple-city.5 The same prophet expects, further, that the
inhabitants of Jerusalem shall attain to a great age — a blessing
1 Ezek. vv. 1, 2, 3-5, 9, 10. 2 Ibid., verse 8.
3 Isa. xxvi. 19. 4 Ibid., verse 14.
6 Zech. ii. 8-13, Heb. (4-9, Auth. Ver.). Compare viii. 7. 8

POPULOUSNESS OF RESTORED ISRAEL. 235
which, as will be remembered, was always highly prized by the
Israelites, and which, therefore, we are not surprised to see
introduced into the representation of the future felicity.
" Thus saith Jahveh of hosts, there shall yet old men and old
women sit in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with
his staff in his hand, because his days are many. And the
streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in
the streets thereof." x The second Isaiah had already pro
phesied in the same spirit. " There (at Jerusalem) shall be
no more an infant of (only) few days, nor an old man who
filleth not up his days, for (he who dies as) a child dies an
hundred years old, and the sinner (who dies) an hundred
years old, is cursed " — that is, is deemed to be smitten by the
curse and cut off on account of his sin, if he does not reach a
greater age.2 The anonymous writer who has just been
quoted — the author of Isaiah xxiv. — xxvii. — had gone
still further ; in the blissful age which is about to come,
Jahveh will not only wipe away tears from every face, but
" will also annihilate death for ever." 3 The majority of the
prophets, however, do not enter into such particulars, but
confine themselves to the announcement that Jahveh shall
multiply his people, either already during the captivity, or
after their return, especially by the accession of those who
had at first been left behind in foreign countries. Thus
Jeremiah supposes, as we have already remarked,4 that some
chosen out of various lineages and families shall constitute
the first population of Jerusalem ; when they " have multi
plied and increased," then Judah joins with Israel, and they
come together out of the north, to the land that had been
given for an inheritance unto their fathers.6 The grandest
conception of the arrival of those brethren from distant
countries is formed by the second Isaiah. The messen
gers of Jahveh go forth to the most remote nations, and there
proclaim his glory ; the consequence of which is, that all
those nations bring the Israelites dispersed among them, to
Jerusalem, " upon horses, in chariots, in litters, upon mules
and upon dromedaries," as a present to Jahveh.6 In another
passage he exclaims : " Lift up thine eyes (0 Jerusalem), look
1 Zech. viii. 4, 5. 2 Isa. lxv. 20. 3 Isa. xxv. 8.
4 P. 199. 6 Jer. iii. 14, 16, 18. 6 Isa. Ixvi. 19, 20.

236 VII. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
in all directions, and see : they- are all gathered together, and
they come to thee ; thy sons come from afar, and thy daugh
ters are borne on the arm." 1 Again, it is the heathen who
conduct them, and, as we shall more particularly see imme
diately, bring still other gifts to Jahveh besides this costly
present.2 The points which we have mentioned hitherto are common,
if not to all, at least to the most of the prophets ; but some
of them, in addition, introduce into their description of the
future state of the people particulars which we do not find in
the others. To this class belongs the celebrated description
in Isaiah of the great revolution wliich shall take place in
the brute creation : " The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the panther lie down with the kid ; and the calf and the
young lion and the fatling together, while a little child shall
lead them ; and the cow and the she-bear shall feed, their
young ones shall lie down together ; and. the lion shall eat
straw like the ox ; and the sucking child shall play beside
the hole of the adder, and the weaned child shall stretch out
the hand to the lurking-hole of the basilisk." 3 There are
properly no sufficient reasons why this prophecy should be
understood figuratively. It is followed immediately, it is true,
by the announcement of the moral renovation which Israel
shall undergo,4 but it is not clear that this was already pre
sent to the mind of the prophet when he described the undis
turbed concord in nature. Analogies for such anticipations
are not wanting in the Old Testament.5 The Babylonian
Isaiah also seems to have understood the prophecy of his
great predecessor literally ; he adopts it in part, and does so
in such a way that it does not occur to us to interpret his
words spiritually. He writes that " the wolf and the lamb
shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the
bullock ; and as for the serpent — dust shall be its food ; they
shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith
1 Isa. lx. 4 ; comp. verse 9. 2 Ibid., vv. 5, ff.
3 Is. xi. 6-8. 4 Is. xi. 9.
6 According to Gen. i. 30, beasts at first fed only on herbs. From Gen.
vi. 12, 13, the transgression of this original ordinance appears to be assumed
as one of the causes which led to the general deluge ; it is also only after the
deluge that man receives express permission to use animal food (Gen. ix. 3,
compared with i. 29).

NEW CREATION OF NATURE ACCORDING TO ISAIAH. 237
Jahveh." 1 The last words seem here to refer to the ravenous
beasts mentioned just before, and the meaning of the prophet
appears to be, that the peace and concord on Jahveh's
holy hill shall not be disturbed even by the beasts of the
field. That we are justified in ascribing such highly-pitched
expectations to the second Isaiah at least, is shown also by
other expressions of his which have been preserved to us.
The prediction that the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall attain
such an extreme old age 2 is preceded by the announcement :
" Behold, I (Jahveh) create new heavens, and a new earth ;
and the former things shall not be thought of any more, nor
come into mind." 3 There is a retrospective glance at this
again in the promise afterwards made : " Like as the new
heavens and the new earth, which I make, continue before
me, saith Jahveh, so shall your seed and your name con
tinue." 4 When it is perceived how the prophet himself
brings this new creation into the very closest connection with
the state of Israel and of Jerusalem,5 we are tempted to see in
these words nothing more than an oriental hyperbole, which
would in that case denote a complete revolution in the
political circumstances which then existed ; but in that
way we would dilute the actual meaning of the prophet. He
can scarcely indeed have thought of an entire renovation of the
whole existing state of things, but he could never have used
poetical expressions which actually signify something of that
kind, if he had not been of opinion that the deliverance and
exaltation of Israel would be accompanied by radical alterations
in the course of nature, all of which would, as is self-evident,
further the interests of Jahveh's elect people. He himself
has not said, and therefore we cannot determine, how far that
change would proceed ; but this circumstance detracts nothing
from the certainty of our interpretation, which is besides con
firmed also by other passages. In the prophetical descriptions
too of the judgment upon the enemies of Israel, there is not
only mention made of signs in heaven which shall announce
or accompany the appearance of Jahveh,6 but sometimes also
1 Is. lxv. 25. * See above, p. 234 f. 3 Is. lxv. 17.
4 Is. Ixvi. 22. s See especially Is. lxv. 18, ff.
6 Joel ii. 30, 31 ; iii. 15 ; Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8 ; Is. xiii. 10 ; compare above,
p. 171 f.

238 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
the destruction of the existing order of things is spoken of,
the rolling up of the curtains of heaven, and other similar
images besides.1 We would again be wrong if we should
understand this literally, but still it shows clearly how great
the dimensions were which the change expected by the pro
phets had assumed in their eyes. Had not the first Isaiah
already expressed the expectation that "in the day in which
Jahveh should bind up the breach of his people, and heal the
stroke of their wound, the light of the moon would be as the
light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold [as the
light of the whole week] \ " 2 In other words, all nature is
subject to Jahveh, and is subservient to his plans relative to
Israel ; her operations are modified or intensified, as it seems
good to Jahveh, in view of the wants of that people.
The expectations of Ezekiel also have been introduced into
our sketch of Israel's spiritual and material welfare, in so far
as they agree in their main features with those of the other
prophets ; but Ezekiel has, besides, his own anticipations
which do not admit of being comprehended in the ordinary
scheme, and yet in all respects deserve to be known. We
find them especially in the last nine chapters (xl.-xlviii.) of
his prophetical book. Ezekiel treats there, in succession, of
the temple of Jahveh,3 the regulation of the public worship,4
and of the land of Canaan and its division among the twelve
tribes of Israel.5 He gives partly a description of what had
been shown to him in the vision with regard to various points,
and partly discourses and exhortations addressed to the people,
and relating to the realisation of his plans. The prophet's
aim in all this is perfectly clear. He wishes the Israelites,
after their return to their native land, to carry into execution
the ordinances which he communicates to them in the name
of Jahveh. With regard to the building and regulation of
the temple he says so himself in so many words ; 6 but all
the rest also is intended either as a prophecy of what Jahveh
will bring to pass,7 or as a rule for the whole people, for the
1 Is. xxxiv. 4 ; li. 6.
2 Is. xxx. 26. The last words are wanting in the Greek version, and are
probably a later addition.
3 Ezek. xl. 5— xliii. 12. 4 Ezek. xliii. 13— xlvi. 24.
' Ezek. xlvii., xlviii. e Ezek. xliii. 10, 11.
7 See, for instance, the description of the temple-fountain, Chap, xlvii.
1-12.

PROPER EXPLANATION OF EZEKIEL XL.  XLVIII. 239
priests and for the prince, whose rights and duties are de
tailed by him. The chapters mentioned have only to be read
in order to produce in the mind of any unprejudiced person,
the conviction that such is their object. An entirely
different conception of them has, however, been formed, both
in ancient and modern times, and they have been regarded as
a symbolical or allegorical description of the future theocracy.
The main objection against the literal explanation has been
that the captives, when they did return, did not guide their
proceedings at all by the ordinances of Ezekiel ; nay, in so
far as we know, did not even think of their obligation to
carry them into execution. That fact is undeniable, but what
does it prove against the literal interpretation of Ezekiel's
prophecies ? The termination of the captivity did not at all
correspond to the expectations which he entertained regarding
it. To mention only one thing : it was not the twelve tribes
that returned, but some families of Judah, Benjamin, and
Levi. Although they knew Ezekiel's book, and had no
doubt of his having been sent by Jahveh — yet they could
not think of carrying his regulations into effect, since they
had evidently been written with reference to a state of
matters altogether different. They probably thought that, as
Jahveh had delayed the full realisation of his promises, so the
application of his ordinances concerning the regulation of the
temple, the public worship, and the theocracy, must also in the
meantime be deferred. The fulfilment of Ezekiel's wishes,
therefore, continued for them to be something only to be
realized in the future. If Christian expositors could have ac
cepted the same view, they would never have departed from
the natural interpretation. But that was by no means the case.
The permanent existence of the temple, the Levitical priest
hood, the sacrifices, the division of Canaan among the twelve
tribes, &c, were things altogether irreconcilable with their
conception of the true theocracy. It was really on this ground
alone that they denied that Ezekiel had meant all this
literally — as if it was permitted to the expositor to pervert
his author so as to make him give, expression to ideas in
accordance with the expositor's own opinions ! Ezekiel's
attachment to the temple and to the worship, to Jahveh's
" statutes and laws," and, in general, to the priestly concep-

240 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
tion of Jahvism, is so clearly apparent, that the attempt to
bring him into agreement with our more spiritual view of
religion may be called desperate. To this must be added that
the allegorical interpretation of Ezek. xl. — xlviii. necessarily
suffers shipwreck on one of two rocks. If it be applied only
to the main points, then it gives no reason whatever for
Ezekiel's copiousness, and for his entering into minute details ;
then, in other words, by far the greatest portion of his de
scription must be regarded as superfluous ornament. If, on the
other hand, it attempt also to explain the more minute
features and interpret them spiritually, then the allegorical
interpretation falls of itself into the grossest arbitrariness,
and, contrary to the intent of its supporters, makes the
prophet ridiculous. Without the slightest hesitation, therefore,
I choose the side of those who contend for the literal interpre
tation of his prophecy.
The object which we have in view does not require us to
analyse the whole of it : the extent of the new temple,
the form of the altar for burnt-offerings, the commands
about offerings and festivals, the ordinances relating to the
ceremonial purity of the priests, the sons of Zadok, may
be passed over in silence ; it is sufficient for us to know
that Ezekiel expressly treats of all these points. Let us
remember, besides, that he prescribes rules regarding the
prince also who shall reign over restored Israel.1 It then only
remains for us to take a closer view of his expectations con
cerning the settlement of the Israelites in the land of Canaan.
He first defines the boundaries of the land which is to be in
habited by them ; 2 these agree, in part, with the limits assigned
in the Mosaic law,3 but yet are described independently of
of that law. It is then prescribed that the strangers who have
joined themselves to the Israelites shall receive an inheritance
with them, and shall receive it in the portion of the tribe in
which they are settled.4 After that, the abodes of the several
tribes are marked out. Parallel lines are drawn from west
to east across the whole country, which divide it into nearly
equal strips.' Seven of these, beginning at the north and
coming southwards, are assigned to the tribes of Dan, Asher,
i Above, p. 209. 2 Ezek. xlvii. 13-20.
3 Num. xxxiv. 1-4. 4 Ezek. xlvii. 21-23.

EZEKIEL ON ISRAEL'S SETTLEMENT IN CANAAN. 241
Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim, Beuben, and Judah.1 The
next strip, as we shall immediately see more fully, is reserved
for Jahveh and his representatives. The five remaining
strips are destined for Benjamin, Simeon, Issachar, Zebulon,
and Gad.2 The regulations regarding the portion of Jahveh
are as follows : — A square of twenty-five thousand reeds in
breadth and length, forming the centre of that strip, is
assigned for public worship and its requirements, and is again
divided into three rectangles. The uppermost, or northern
rectangle, twenty-five thousand reeds long and ten thousand
reeds broad, is destined for " the sons of Zadok," who, accord
ing to Ezekiel, are alone qualified to discharge the priestly
functions ; in the middle of this rectangle the temple is placed.
The second, of the same dimensions as the first, is to be
inhabited by the rest of the sons of Levi. There remains
now a rectangle twenty-five thousand reeds long and five
thousand broad. The central portion of this, a square of five
thousand reeds in length and breadth, is occupied by the holy
city (four thousand five hundred reeds long and broad) and
the open space which surrounds it. The two remaining rec
tangles to the east and the west of the city — each ten thousand
reeds long and five thousand broad — are cultivated, and their
produce is devoted to the support of the sanctuary.3 But, as
will be remembered, the whole of the strip between Judah on
the north and Benjamin on the south is not entirely taken up by
the square of twenty-five thousand reeds in length and breadth ;
there is land left on both sides of it. Ezekiel assigns this to
the prince,4 who, as has been formerly observed, provides for
his own maintenance, and defrays the expense of a part of the
offerings, from its produce. In each of the four sides of the
holy city three gates are placed, which are named after the
twelve tribes. But while Manasseh and Ephraim are reckoned
separately in the division of the country, they are here com
bined under the one name Joseph, in order that Levi also
may be able to give his name to one of the gates.5 The
whole description is closed by the announcement that in that
day the city should be called, Jahveh is there.6
1 Ezek. xlviii. 1-7. 2 Ezek. xlviii. 23-28.
3 Ezek. xlviii. 8-20. * Ezek. xlviii. 21, 22.
5 Ezek. xlviii. 30-34. ° Ezek. xlviii. 35.

242 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
This picture must indeed make a strange impression on
the modern reader : but we need not expatiate on that point.
So much is clear, that Ezekiel is perfectly in earnest in the
expectation which he here utters. What would otherwise
have induced him to describe everything so exactly, and
in such detail ? It is equally obvious that the condition here
depicted is in accordance with the wishes of the prophet.
He has his own ideas of order and regularity ; it is a neces
sity with him to count and measure ; straight and parallel
lines are, in his view, the characteristics of the ordinances
and regulations of Jahveh. What we should almost designate
as fantastic is evidently in complete accordance with his
ideals. We undoubtedly acted in his spirit, when we granted
to his description of the renewed theocracy a place in the
paragraph which is devoted to the expectations entertained
regarding the spiritual and material welfare of Israel; but still
it is not strange that we saw ourselves under the necessity
of assigning to him in that paragraph a separate place.
V. — Israel and ihe Heathen.
Jahveh the god of Israel : such was the fundamental
conviction of the Israelitish prophets ; and the mighty influ
ence which it exercised upon their whole mode of thinking,
as well as upon their expectations concerning the future,
requires certainly no demonstration. Our preceding survey
may be regarded as a continuous commentary on this idea.
And yet we have not discussed that part of prophecy which
throws most light on this point — the predictions concerning
the future relation between Israel and the heathen. There
are two representations which we distinguish from each other
without the least difficulty ; nay, might easily be led to
regard as quite different in character. The one is, that the
foreign nations shall be subjected to Israel ; the other, that
the foreign nations shall be converted, and shall acknowledge
and serve Jahveh. But how great soever the difference
between these two expectations may appear to us, they
coalesce, as it were, in the consciousness of the Israelitish
prophet, because Jahveh is the god of Israel, and Israel the
people of Jahveh. Whoever reverences Jahveh, honours

AMOS ON THE SUBJECTION OF ISRAEL'S NEIGHBOURS. 243
also his people ; and, conversely, whoever acknowledges
Israel's sovereignty, pays homage also to the power of Israel's
god. The correctness of this view will become still more
evident in the course of our survey. If we allow ourselves to
be guided by the data of the prophetical literature itself, we
must first fix our attention on Israel's dominion over the
foreign nations.
Amos, the oldest of our witnesses, mentions it. He writes
that Jahveh shall restore the fallen dynasty of David to
its former splendour, " that they (i.e., the kings of David's
family or the Israelites led by them) may inherit the rem
nant of Edom and all the nations over whom his (Jahveh's)
name (as that of their conqueror) is proclaimed." 1 This is,
as will be seen, purely a political expectation. The express
mention of the Edomites is undoubtedly connected with the
still unavenged grounds of complaint against that people to
which the prophet had previously referred.2 The " calling of
Jahveh's name " can hardly signify anything more, in this
connection, than the proclamation of his sovereignty over
those other nations also. The acknowledgment of it is, for
the rest, entirely coincident with their subjection to Israel,
and has as yet no religious significance. Our judgment
would have to be altogether different, if the text which
the Greek translator had before him could be regarded
as the original one. With him the prediction runs thus :
"that the residue of men may seek after (the Lord), and
all the nations upon whom my name is called ; " and it
is in this form that we find it again in the Acts of the
Apostles, where, in the account of the first synod at Jeru
salem, it is put into the mouth of James.3 But the reading
of the Greek translator cannot bear comparison with the
Masoretic or common text of the Old Testament. He has
made a mistake with regard to one letter, and, in consequence
of that, has put " seek after " instead of " inherit ; " and,
further, by incorrect vocalisation, he has changed " Edom "
into " men." The erroneousness of his reading is plain at
once from this, that " the nations over whom Jahveh's name
is proclaimed" necessarily form a part of "the residue of
men," and therefore could not be mentioned separately.
1 Amos ix. 12. 2 Amos i. 11. 3 Acts xv. 16, 17.

244 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
Hosea, the immediate successor of Amos, need not detain
us : he makes no mention of Israel's sovereignty over the
other nations. On the contrary, the oldest Zechariah
expresses an expectation which at once reminds us of the
prediction which has just been considered. His description
of the judgment to be executed upon the neighbouring tribes
is closed with the announcement that the Philistine shall be
cleansed from his blood-guiltiness, and impurity ; then " shall
also he be left for our God, and shall be as a (subject) race in
Judah, and Ekron as the Jebusite,"1 who, as will be remembered,
continued, long after the conquest of Jebus by David, to exist
as a subjugated, but yet, to a certain extent, independent
tribe iii Israel.2 The main idea is still the same here as with
Amos : the subjection to Israel of a neighbouring and hitherto
hostile people ; but it is plain at the same time how very
readily that subjection might be regarded as a bringing to
Jahveh. The Philistines are not only left for the God of
Israel, but are also cleansed from their sins before they come
into closer relation to him. A conversion in the proper
sense of the word may not yet be meant here; the way
leading to the anticipation of it is, however, already half
traversed. Let us now observe that this anticipation of Israel's
sovereignty over other nations continued always to exist,
although, as was to be expected, it became modified from time
to time according as the political circumstances altered. Thus
Isaiah expects that the reunited Judeans and Ephraimites shall
subdue the Philistines, spoil the sons of the East, and
extend their dominion over the Edomites, Moabites, and
Ammonites.3 According to Micah restored Israel shall not
only be safe from the Assyrians, but shall also chastise them
in their own country.4 Two centuries later, the Babylonian
Isaiah gave a glowing description of the homage that would
be paid to the Israelites by the heathen. He writes : — " The
products of Egypt, and the wares of Ethiopia and the Sabeans,
men of stature, shall come over unto thee (Zion or Israel),
and they shall be thine ; after thee shall they go, in chains
1 Zech. ix. 7.
2 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 18 ; 1 Kings ix. 20, 21 ; Ezra ix. 1, 2
3 Is. xi. 14. 4 Mic. v. 5, 6.

HOMAGE PAID TO ISRAEL BY THE HEATHEN. 245
shall they march on ; in thy presence shall they bow down
themselves, and to thee shall they make supplication." x In
another passage Jahveh saith, " I will lift up my hand to
the nations, and set up mine ensign to the peoples that
they may bring thy sons in their bosoms, and carry thy
daughters on the shoulder. And kings shall become thy
foster-fathers, and their queens thy nursing-mothers, they
shall bow down their faces to the earth before thee, and
lick the dust of thy feet. Thus shalt thou know that I am
Jahveh, and that they who hope in me are never ashamed." 2
Similar expectations are worked out, in a manner still
much more detailed, in a subsequent prophecy, the whole of
which ought to be perused.3 That this prophecy has been
written by a poet, and that thus every feature must not be
understood literally, is indeed self-evident ; but if the prophet
has not written down meaningless phrases, he must have
intended to convey the idea that the visible protection which
Jahveh affords to Israel in the future, shall compel the
nations to pay homage and to minister to them. Let the
reader carefully consider such utterances as these : —
" Strangers shall build thy (Zion's) walls, and their kings
shall minister unto thee, for in my wrath have I smitten thee,
and in my favour have had mercy upon thee." 4 And again :
" For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee
shall perish, and the nations shall be utterly wasted." 5 But
the whole prophecy is properly a continuous proof that the
second Isaiah is perfectly in earnest as regards the expectation
of Israel's supremacy. We shall see immediately how this
expectation is connected in his case with the anticipation of
the Jahveh worship being propagated among the heathen.
Even in the latest of the prophetical writings, the exalta
tion of Israel to the throne of the world is announced with
undiminished confidence. The reader will remember my
previous remarks concerning the Son of Man in the book of
Daniel.6 He will thus also know in how strong and unam
biguous expressions the subjection of " all kingdoms " to " the
people of the saints of the Most High " is there foretold, and
1 Is. xlv. 14. 2 Is. xlix. 22, 23.
3 Is. lx. 1-17 ; compare Ixvi. 19, 20. 4 Is. lx. 10.
6 Is. lx. 12. 6 See above, pp. 223, f.

246 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
how all peoples, nations and languages shall bow before the
Son of Man, the representative of Israel. Prophecy continued
to be, to the close, consistent with itself in the expectation of
such a future.
We should, however, be in danger of forming an incorrect
judgment regarding that anticipation, if we did not bear in
mind the connection, wliich has been already pointed out,
between subjection to Israel and the acknowledgment of
the supreme power of Jahveh. These two ideas are, as we
have seen, inseparable. It does not, however, follow from
this that they have been held by all prophets in equally high
estimation, and have been placed in the same mutual relation.
With one prophet, the supremacy of Israel is the natural result
of the homage paid by the nations to the majesty of Jahveh,
which is regarded as the principal matter ; with another, on the
contrary, the acknowledgment of Jahveh's supreme power
seems to be highly valued, chiefly because it leads to
the glory of Israel. Sometimes with the same prophet the
one point of view alternates with the other. We wish at
present to notice those prophetical utterances in which most
emphasis is laid on the religious side of the relation of the
heathen to Israel, but while doing so we shall find from time
to time opportunity of observing how this is incapable of
being separated from the more political view.
No one certainly will be surprised that we start from the
celebrated and beautiful prophecy which, originating probably
with an older prophet, has been adopted both by Isaiah and
Micah. It is there said 1 — " In the last of the days shall the
mountain of Jahveh's temple be established on the top of the
mountains, and be higher than the hills, and peoples shall
flow unto it. And many nations shall go and say: Come, let
us go up to the mountain of Jahveh, to the temple of the
God of Jacob, that he may teach us of his ways, and we may
walk in his paths, for out of Zion goeth instruction, and the
word of Jahveh from Jerusalem." We already know what
follows : it is the announcement of the universal peace,
which I have noticed in another connection.2 There can
scarcely be a difference of opinion concerning the meaning
of the prophecy here transcribed. The prophet may be
1 Is. ii. 2-4 ; Mic. iv. 1-5. 2 Above, p. 229.

CONVERSION OF EGYPT AND ASSYRIA. 247
understood to have meant figuratively what he says about
the exaltation of Zion on the top of the mountains ; at any
rate his object is merely to indicate the higher dignity of the
temple-mount, and the universal acknowledgment of that
dignity : the place to which all go up in order to pray and
offer sacrifice must of course be so situated as to be a conspic
uous object to all. On the other hand, the pilgrimage to the
temple on Zion must be understood literally. The heathen seek
there Jahveh, instruction, that which proceeds from his priests,
the word, that which is uttered by his prophets ; but they
seek him there, because they are convinced that he dwells on
Mount Zion, and reveals himself to those who seek him there. '
We should deprive the prophecy of its meaning and force if
we attempted to explain it spiritually, and to remove from
the scene which it discloses to us the temple, the very centre
of the theocracy.
Micah limits himself to the adoption of this utterance, and
does not return, in the course of his prophecies, to the antici
pation therein revealed. In Isaiah, on the contrary, we find
more than one prediction which may be regarded as an echo
of the words adopted by him from his unknown predecessor.
Thus he announces that the Ethiopians shall bring presents to
Jahveh of hosts, and bring them to the place which bears his
name — to Mount Zion.1 The connection in which this
announcement appears renders it probable that the defeat of
the Assyrians, effected by the intervention of Jahveh,, shall be
the means of inducing the Ethiopians to show this mark of
homage. The prophet cherishes a similar expectation with
regard to Egypt. " There shall," he writes, " be five cities in
the land of Egypt, speaking the language of Canaan, and
swearing by Jahveh of hosts." 2 Jahveh shall also have an
altar in the midst of Egypt, and a pillar on the border of
that land — signs of the relation in which the God of Israel
shall stand to the Egyptians : when they cry, He shall send
them a saviour, and deliver them.3 And — Isaiah continues: —
" Jahveh shall be known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians
shah know Jahveh on that day ; and they shall serve him
with sacrifice and meat-offering, and shall vow vows unto
Jahveh, and perform them." 4 The expectation of the prophet
1 Is. xviii. 7. 2 Is. xix. 18. 3 Ibid., vv. 19, 20. 4 Ibid., v. 21.

248 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
rises still higher : " On that day shall there be a highway
out of Egypt to Assyria ; Assyria shall have intercourse with
Egypt, and Egypt with Assyria, and Egypt shall serve
(Jahveh) with Assyria. On that day shall Israel be the^
third (in the alliance) with Egypt and with Assyria, a
blessing in the midst of the land, wherewith Jahveh of hosts
blesseth in these words : Blessed be Egypt, my people, and
Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance." 1
Objections which must be acknowledged to have a certain
weight, have been alleged against the genuineness of that
part of the prophecy concerning Egypt, from which all these
quotations are taken. Still they are not sufficient.2 It is not
the weakest evidence in favour of its being a production of
Isaiah which is obtained from the closing verses ; must they
not have been written at a time when Assyria and Egypt
were contending with each other for the mastery 1 If they
are of a later date, then it must be assumed, at least, that
their author has transferred himself to the stand-point of
Isaiah — just as he has made Isaiah's idiom his own, and
imitates it. It seems hazardous to ascribe to the supposed
interpolator so much deliberation and art.
The genuineness of another of Isaiah's prophecies, which
occurs at the close of the oracle concerning Tyre,3 seems to me
to be less certain. The announcement of the deep humilia
tion of the mighty merchant city is there followed, as I
have already noticed, by the prediction of her restoration
" after seventy years." 4 Her position then, however, will be
entirely different from what it had been formerly. If before
she had conducted her commerce for her own advantage,
after Jahveh shall have visited her, " her gain and her hire
shall be consecrated to Jahveh ; it shall not be treasured nor
laid up ; her gain shall be for them who dwell (or who are
seated) before Jahveh's countenance, for rich food and for
sumptuous clothing." 6 The probable meaning is, that the
riches of Tyre shall flow into the treasury of the temple of
Jahveh, and be used for the benefit of the priesthood. But
it rather surprises us to find such an expectation in a prophet
like Isaiah, who elsewhere shows little interest in the lot of
1 Ibid., vv. 23-25. 2 Compare my " Hist. krit. Onderzoek," ii. 74 f.
z Compare above, p. 105 f. 4 Is. xxiii. 17. 6 Ibid., v. 18.

ZEPHANIAH S EXPECTATIONS REGARDING THE HEATHEN. 249
the priests of Jahveh. And further, it does not escape our
notice that a conversion of the Tyrians themselves is not
taught here ; the business of the prophet is more with their
gains than with themselves. This too does not harmonise
with the ideas which we find in Isaiah. We are therefore
inclined to regard this part at least of the prophecy against
Tyre as a later postscript, and to assign it to the post-exilic
period. Zephaniah occupies a much higher stand-point. Already
in his prophecies announcing judgments, he sketches,
with a single touch, the impression which the punishments
ordained by Jahveh shall make upon the heathen. After
having threatened Moab and Ammon, he proceeds to say:
" Terrible is Jahveh unto them ; for he destroyeth all the
gods of the earth, and before him bow down, everyone
from its place, all the islands of the nations." x We cannot,
however, determine from these words how far the anticipations
of the prophet reach. The sequel shows that it is something
more than a transient alarm which he here desciibes, because
the whole denunciation of judgment is closed with this pre
diction : " Then will I (Jahveh) give to the nations other,
pure, lips,2 that they may all call upon the name of Jahveh,
and serve him with one consent." 3 Scarcely anywhere in
the old Testament is the expectation of a conversion of the
nations more clearly expressed. As the announcement of
Israel's future4 formerly considered led us to form a high
opinion of Zephaniah's moral ideal, so this prophecy of his
regarding the heathen testifies to his very catholic view of
Jahvism. Nor are the traces of such a view wanting in Jeremiah,
whose anticipations of the future of the heathen are,
however, less clear, perhaps for the very reason that he
takes into account the conditions which the heathens them
selves will require to fulfil before Jahveh can enter into a
closer relation with them. But let us bring together the
different utterances of this prophet. The announcement of the
1 Zeph. ii. 11. 2 Literally " turn to the nations pure lips."
3 Zeph. iii. 9.
4 Ibid., 11 — 14, and above, p. 227. The meaning of v. 10 is uncertain;
but it probably refers to the Israelites dispersed in distant countries.

250 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
judgment upon Moab,1 Ammon,2 and Elam 3 is closed by him,
with the promise that Jahveh, "in the last of the days" (or
" afterwards "), " shall change 4 the destiny of those nations."
He does not here explain more explicitly of what nature this
restoration shall be ; but we elsewhere find him expressing
the expectation that, after the return of Israel to their native
country, when all Jerusalem shall be called the throne of
Jahveh, "all the nations shall flow together into it (to pay
homage) to the name of Jahveh." 5 In accordance with this,
it is foretold, in the closing verse of the same prophecy, that
" nations shall bless each other in him (Jahveh), and in him
shall they glory," 6 that is, they shall employ the name of
Jahveh in their benedictions of each other, and shall glory in
the relation in which they stand to him. It is the blessing
which Jahveh has bestowed upon his own people which
makes such a deep impression upon the heathen. On the
one hand, that dazzling revelation of Jahveh's power inspires
them with fear. Jahveh is represented as saying — " She
(Jerusalem) shall be to me a name of joy, a praise, and an
honour before all the nations of the earth, because they shall
hear of all the good that I do unto them (the Israelites), and
they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and all the
happiness that I bestow upon her (Jerusalem)." 7 But, at the
same time, it brings them to repentance. "Jahveh," the
prophet exclaims, — " my strength, and my fortress, and my
refuge in the day of distress, to thee shall nations come from
the utmost ends of the earth, and say : Our fathers have
inherited only lies (false gods), vanity, and among them
there is none that brings help. Shall man make gods unto
himself? And (if he should do so) then they are no-gods.
Behold, therefore, I (Jahveh) cause them to know, this time,
yea, cause them to know, my might and my strength, so that
1 Jer. xlviii. 47. 2 Jer. xlix. 6.
3 Jer. xlix. 39. It is doubtful whether Jer. xlvi. 26 also contains a pro
mise of restoration to Egypt. Compare Graf on the passage.
4 In the Hebrew, it is the same expression as in Amos ix. 14. Compare
above, p. 192, note.
5 Jer. iii. 17. There follows : "Neither shall they walk any more after
the obduracy of their evil heart." According to most expositors, this refers
to the heathen ; but it is more probable that Israel is the subject. Com
pare again Graf on the passage.
0 Jer. iv. 2. 7 Jer. xxxiii. 9.

ANTICIPATIONS OF JEREMIAH AND ZECHARIAH. 251
they may acknowledge that my name is Jahveh." 1 All this
has a pretty positive sound. But Jeremiah does not disguise
from himself the fact that the heathen will not readily come
to those better views. Therefore we find him declaring, with
regard to the neighbours of Judah : " After that I (Jahveh)
have plucked them out (of their land), I will again show com
passion to them, and will bring them again every man to his
heritage, and every man to his land. If they will then
learn the ways of my people, so that they shall swear by my
name, ' as true as Jahveh liveth,' as they have taught my
people to swear by Baal, then shall they be built up in the
midst of my people. But if they do not hear, then I will
pluck up such a people, so that I will pluck it up and cast
it to the ground, saith Jahveh." 2 We must therefore under
stand that this condition is presupposed by Jeremiah, even
where he does not expressly mention it, and that thus the
confluence of the nations to Jerusalem is always dependent
upon their ability and readiness to understand the significa
tion of Jahveh's benefits to his people, and to make the
application of it to themselves.
It deserves to be noticed that in Jeremiah's contemporary,
Zechariah the author of chaps, xii. — xiv., the possible unwill
ingness of the heathen to join themselves to Israel is also taken
into consideration. The prophet predicts that the remnant of
the nations who have marched against Jerusalem, and have
there been stricken by the judgment, " shall go up from year
to year to worship the King Jahveh of hosts, and to keep
the feast of tabernacles." 3 If there should be any who
refrain from undertaking this pilgrimage, Jahveh shall punish
them by withholding rain from them ; while the Egyptians,
whose country is fertilised by the Nile, and therefore does
not need rain, shall be visited with other plagues.4
We shall now notice briefly the prophets of the captivity.
Ezekiel says nothing about the conversion of the heathen.
The expectations of the second Isaiah have much that is
peculiar to themselves, and require a separate discussion.
The author of Isaiah xxiv. — xxvii. is principally engaged with
the judgments of Jahveh, but yet mentions also a feast which
1 Jer. xvi. 19-21. c Jer. xii. 15-17.
3 Zech. xiv. 16. * Zech. xiv. 17, 18.

252 VII. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL S FUTURE.
he shall prepare " on this mountain (Zion) for all nations;" he
shall there " take away the veil which covers the face of all
peoples, and the covering that is spread over all nations,"
that is, will bring all their sorrow to an end ; then death is
forever annihilated, and every tear is wiped away".1 It is, as
will be noticed, material blessings which are here promised,
but still they are promised " to all peoples." Their union
with Israel is herein presupposed, because, at the same time,
Jahveh "shall take away the reproach of his people," and
execute judgment without mercy upon the Moabites, who
had either transgressed too heinously or refused to be con
verted.2 There is, therefore, in this prophet also, along with
much that is peculiar, an agreement with the idea which we
found in Jeremiah. In like manner, the youngest Zechariah
(the author of chaps, i. — viii.) follows in the track of his prede-.
cessors. When the glorious promises made by Jahveh to
Israel shall have been fully realised, and consequently the
fast-days turned into festivals, then — he writes: — " there shall
come peoples and the inhabitants of many cities. The inhabi
tants of the one city shall go to the other, saying, ' Let us
certainly go to entreat the face of Jahveh; and to seek
Jahveh of hosts. I will go also !' And thus many peoples
and strong nations shall come to seek Jahveh of hosts in
Jerusalem, and to entreat the countenance of Jahveh. Thus
saith Jahveh of hosts : in those days shall ten men out of
all languages of the nations take hold of the skirt of him
that is a Jew, and say to him : we will go with you ; for we
have heard that God is with you."3 We have there beauti
ful, elevating, anticipations which are all the more valuable
from the depressing circumstances of the time in whicli,
though they did not then originate, they were yet held fast.
We can easily understand that the prophet who believed in
such a future of the temple at Jerusalem, himself burned
with zeal for its rebuilding, and succeeded in imparting his
own enthusiasm to others. Haggai, his ally, expresses his
expectations in less striking forms, but is otherwise of one
mind with him in the main point.4 On the contrary,
Malachi finds no inducement to express himself on the future
1 Is. xxv. 6—8"- 2 Is. xxv. 8b 10—12.
3 Zech. viii. 20—23. 4 Hag. ii. 7-9.

MALACHI S JUDGMENT REGARDING THE HEATHEN. 253
¦ relation of the heathen to Israel. It is true that the trans
lation of his prophetical book contains an utterance, in which
it is foretold that homage shall speedily be rendered to Jahveh
by the nations, but in the original there stands something
different. It is said there1 — " From the rising of the sun to
its going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in
every place incense is offered unto my name, and a pure
meat offering; for my name is great among the Gentiles."
Even the reader who does not understand Hebrew may per
ceive that this rendering is more correct than the common
one, by comparing it with a subsequent verse. 2 As it is there
written : " For I (Jahveh) am a great king, and my name is
dreadful among the Gentiles;" so also in what precedes,
Jahveh appeals, in opposition to the irreverent conduct of the
priests, not to that which shall sometime be, but to the homage
which is now already shown to him among the nations. But
what, then, is that homage ? Some are of opinion that the
prophet is thinking of the dispersed Jews ; but could it
then already (before the end of the fifth century) be said that
they dwelt everywhere among the Gentiles ? And even if it
could, did they present to Jahveh incense and pure meat
offerings ? No oblation was offered to Jahveh, as we know,
beyond the temple at Jerusalem. The opinion, therefore, is
rather to be accepted that Malachi is thinking of the zeal and
sincerity with whieh the nations served their gods ; that he,
convinced of the unity of Jahveh, regards their worship as
being properly destined and intended for the one true God ;
and, in accordance with this view, holds up the devotion of
those Gentiles, to the priests of Jahveh, to put them to shame.
It may be alleged against this interpretation, that such a
view of the Gentile world, though it is indeed met with in
the speech of the Apostle Paul on the Areopagus,8 is not found
in any other place in the Old Testament ; but this objection
is not decisive. The older prophets who had to contend
with all their might against idolatry, naturally looked only
at the contrast between it and Jahvism ; but in the days
of Malachi the supremacy of monotheism was undisputed
among the Jews. The worship of the Gentile gods could
therefore be regarded then from another point of view, and
i Mai. i. 11. 2 Mai i. 14. 3 Acts xvii. 23.

254 VII..  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
even anything in it which was well intended could be recom
mended to Israel for imitation.
As in the previous section we had to assign to Ezekiel a
place by himself, so here the second Isaiah has a claim to be
considered separately. As regards the future sovereignty of
Israel over the nations, he agrees, as we have already seen,1
with the other prophets, if indeed his expectation is not still
more intense than theirs. It may, therefore, be said to be
doubly remarkable that in the same prophet — or at least in
the same division of the book named after Isaiah — ideas are
expressed or, if it be preferred, indications are given regarding
the propagation of Jahvism among the Gentiles, which excite
our admiration on account of their universalistic tendency.
But let us take cognisance of the facts themselves.
The servant of Jahveh, who, in the fortieth and subsequent
chapters of Isaiah, repeatedly comes forward as acting, and is
also introduced as speaking, is no longer a stranger to us.2
We remember the task which he had to fulfil among, and for
the benefit of, his own people. Not less clearly is a mission
assigned to him by the prophet with regard to the gentiles.
But it is not so easy to determine the nature of the influence
which he exercises upon them ; for we find two views of it,
the mutual connection of which is not at once obvious.
In one series of passages ihe glorification of the servant
appears as the means which Jahveh employs in order to make
a deep impression upon the gentiles, to fill them with aston
ishment or admiration, and thus to induce an union with
Israel. Thus, for instance, at the close of an address which
is put into the mouth of the servant of Jahveh : " Thus saith
Jahveh, the Bedeemer and the Holy One of Israel, unto him
who is contemned in soul, whom the people abhor, the servant
of rulers, to him kings shall look up with awe, and princes shall
stand up and bow themselves down, because of Jahveh who
is faithful, and because of the Holy One of Israel, who hath
chosen thee." 3 And still more clearly does this appear in
the beginning of the celebrated passage which describes the
sufferings of the servant of Jahveh : " Behold, my servant
shall be prosperous, he shall be exalted, shall be high and
distinguished. According as many were astonished at thee —
1 See above, p. 244, f. " See above, pp. 220—223. 3 Is. xlix. 7.

THE HEATHEN AND THE SERVANT OF JAHVEH. 255
so deformed, beneath the human, was his visage, and his form
less than that of the sons of men — so shall he make many
nations exult, and kings shall shut their mouths before him ;
for that which had not been told them shall they see, and
that which they had not heard shall they observe." x That
will happen, because, as it is expressed towards the end
of this prophecy : " Jahveh shall give him (the servant)
a portion among the mighty, and he shall divide the spoil
with the strong"2 — words which perhaps must be understood
figuratively, but which even then denote that the servant of
Jahveh shall be glorified in a manner obvious to all.
What appears in these two passages as the consequence of
the exaltation of Jahveh's servant, is elsewhere brought into
immediate connection with the restoration of Israel, or of
Zion. Then indeed " shall darkness cover the earth, and
gross darkness the peoples, but over thee (Zion) shall Jahveh
arise (as a light), and above thee shall his glory be seen.
And nations shall go to thy light, and kings to the bright
ness of thy rising." 3 There is nothing surprising in this
agreement ; for if there is no essential difference between " the
servant of Jahveh " and the true Israel, his exaltation coin
cides with that of the whole people, and vice versd.
In yet other passages it is Jahveh himself who is the object
of the homage of the Gentiles, it is his temple which is the
goal of their pilgrimages ; but what impels them thither is,
again, the restoration and glory of Israel, in which Jahveh
has displayed in a dazzling manner his power and faithful
ness. Thus, after having shown the fulfilment of his pro
phecies, Jahveh calls to the Gentiles : " Turn unto me,
and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God,
and none else. By myself I have sworn ; righteousness
hath gone forth out of my mouth, and a word which shall
not be turned aside : before me shall every knee bow, by me
every tongue shall swear ! Men shall say : Only in Jahveh
have we salvation and strength ; to him shall men come,
while all who are incensed against him shall be put to shame.
In Jahveh shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall
glory." 4 In these last words the prophet returns to the
1 Is. lii. 13—15. 2 Is. liii. 12.
3 Is. lx. 2, 3 ; compare also chap. lv. 3-5 (above, p. 219 ff.)
4 Is. xlv. 22—25.

256 VII.— UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
national standpoint, which he appeared for some moments to
have forgotten ; but yet only in appearance, for in truth it is
the realisation of Jahveh's promises to Israel which leads the
nations to the acknowledgment of his might and majesty.
And so also is it elsewhere, in three or four passages, which
it is not necessary to transcribe here.1 How inseparable the
salvation of Israel and homage paid to Jahveh are, in the
mind of the prophet, is shown finally, in the very clearest
manner, by this utterance which is immediately preceded by the
announcement of the restoration of Israel: " This one shall say,
I am Jahveh's, and that one shall call by the name of Jacob, and
another shall engage himself to Jahveh,2 and use the name of
Israel as a surname." 3 In other words, it is the same persons
who devote themselves to the service of Jahveh, and who
have been so deeply impressed by the blessing bestowed upon
his people, that they use the name of Israel as a title of
honour, and desire for each other the privileges of Israel.
Thus far we have found in the second Isaiah merely
parallel representations which contain one and the same
thought, though expressed in different forms. But in
another series of passages an active part is assigned to the
servant of Jahveh, and he comes forward as ihe preacher of
the true religion among the nations. Let it be remembered 4
that he is not unfrequently described as a prophet, as a con
fidential minister and interpreter of Jahveh, in accordance
with the fact that the prophets occupied a foremost place
among the faithful servants of Jahveh. In this character
he now shows himself also to the Gentiles. Let the reader
carefully consider the following utterances. Jahveh is repre
sented as saying : " Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine
elect in whom my soul is well-pleased ; I put my spirit upon
him : judgment shall he preach to the nations. . . . He shall not
faint nor be crushed till he have established judgment on ihe
earth, and the dwellers on the sea-coasts wait for his instruc
tion."5 In perfect agreement with this, the servant of Jahveh
addresses himself to the Gentiles : " Hearken unto me,, ye
dwellers on the sea-coasts, and listen ye nations that are far
' Is. li. 4, 5 ; lvi. 7, 8 ; Ixvi. 18, 23.
2 Literally " shall-mark his hand with (or, write upon his hand), for
Jahveh.'' 3 Is. xliv. 5. 4 Compare above, p. 220, f. 6 Is. xiii. 1, 4.

RELATION OF JAHVEH'S SERVANT TO THE HEATHEN. 257
off," after which he describes how he was called by Jahveh,
and the lot which had befallen him. In this address the two
fold task of the servant is next described thus : " It is too
little that thou shouldst be my (Jahveh's) servant to raise up
the tribes of Jacob, and to bring back the redeemed of Israel;
therefore have I appointed thee for a light of the nations, that
my salvation may reach unto the end of the earth." 1 This
again is in entire accordance with the preceding description, in
which Jahveh says to the servant : " I have called thee in
righteousness, and hold thy hand and keep thee, and set thee
for a covenant of the people, for a light of the nations." 2
But is there in truth anything different taught here than
is taught in the passages which represent the glory of Jahveh's
servant as the turning-point in the disposition of the nations
towards Jahveh and his people ? Is not the servant of
Jahveh " a light of the nations " just through the vicissitudes
which he experiences, and which have made so deep an im
pression upon the spectators ? Such questions have been
asked, and attention has besides been called to the fact —
which indeed is undeniable — that the supposed prophetical
mission of the servant is referred to only on two occasions,
while, on the contrary, his exaltation and the influence which
proceeds from it, are treated repeatedly and in the most un
ambiguous manner. Notwithstanding this, I am of opinion
that this conception of Isaiah's meaning must be rejected
as incorrect. It is quite true that the ideas of the prophet
on this subject are not fully developed. Whether he has
formed in his own mind a clear conception of the manner in
which the servant of Jahveh shall labour among the heathen,
is more than doubtful. But still the indications which he
gives cannot be reasoned away. The servant of Jahveh —
who, it must not be forgotten, is a prophet of Jahveh — comes
forward in his prophetical character also among the Gentiles,
The influence which he exercises is certainly in part mechani
cal, but at the same time is ethical. We are accustomed to
place the one in opposition to the other. The second Isaiah
does not do that, and, further, he had no need to do so, inas
much as the exaltation of the servant of Jahveh, although
the work of Jahveh, is yet founded on the moral and religious
1 Is xlix. 6. 2 Is. xiii. 6.
R

258 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
state of the servant himself1 The prophet could thus expect
that the servant of Jahveh would labour in the same spirit
and in the same direction in which his fortunes should, in
accordance with the will of Jahveh, exercise an influence
upon the Gentiles.
VI. The undisturbed continuance of Israel in the land
of their habitation.
The question may perhaps be asked why is attention still
fixed upon this point ? Has it not already been clearly seen
by us that the Israelites would enjoy peace and security after
their return to their native country ? 2 Undoubtedly it has,
and the subject which I wish now to bring before the reader
is immediately connected with what was then set forth ;
but still it must be disjoined from it, and treated separately,
because it is of so great importance in itself, and places the
whole of the prophetical expectations in their true light.
It is well known that the return of Israel out of captivity
is for the great majority of the prophets a future event,
which they foretell with more or less of detail, or— what is
true especially of the prophets of the exile — pourtray in
colours more or less brilliant. But all those predictions agree
in regarding the return of Israel as final and definitive. Their
settlement in Canaan is to be followed by no «ewj dispersion.
On the contrary, one ofthe characteristics ofthe new condition
of things which begins with their return, is precisely this, that
endeavours on the part of the enemies of Israel to destroy
once more their national existence, shall either entirely cease,
or, if they are attempted, shall result in the disappointment
and humiliation of those who make them.
The very earliest of the prophets known to us unambigu
ously expresses this view. His description of the return and
of the fertility of Canaan is followed immediately by the
words, "And I (Jahveh) will plant them (the Israelites) in
their land, and they shall not again be plucked up ou,t of
their land, which I have given them, saith Jahveh, thy
god." 3 All the prophets are at one with Amos on this
point. The only difference is that some express or even
1 See especially Is. liii. 4 ff. 2 See above, pp. 229—231. 3 Amos ix. 15.

ANTICIPATED FUTURE FELICITY OF ISRAEL. 259
elaborate this idea, while others presuppose it, or limit them
selves to a single indication regarding it. In Hosea, Jahveh
declares that he shall make a covenant with Israel " even for
ever." x "I will" — so runs his promise in the oldest Zechariah2
— " I will encamp before my dwelling against (every hostile)
army, against every one who passeth through and cometh
back, and no exactor of tribute shall pass through their land
any more, for now I have seen with mine eyes (the calami
ties of Israel or the oppressive acts of the enemy)." The
government of the future king of Israel has, according to
Isaiah,3 no end ; it endures " from henceforth even for ever."
In like manner Micah announces that Jahveh shall reign on
Mount Zion " from henceforth even for ever," over the
Israelites, brought back to their native land by .him.4 In the
numerous and detailed prophecies of Jeremiah regarding Israel's
restoration there is nowhere a place for the thought that this
restoration is nothing more than temporary, and shall be followed
by a new captivity. Having referred to the regular course of
the heavenly bodies, Jahveh there declares : " If these stead
fast ordinances shall depart from before me, then the seed of
Israel also shall cease from being a people before me for
ever."5 With this harmonises the expectation already known
to us, that the kings of the house of David and the Levitical
priests shall discharge their functions uninterruptedly and for
evermore.6 According to Joel, "Judah shall be inhabited for
ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation." 7 His
contemporary also, the second Zechariah, conceives of the
regenerated Jerusalem as imperishable, when he writes —
" They (the Israelites) shall dwell in it, and there shall be no
more a curse, and Jerusalem shall dwell in safety." 8 We
need not stop to consider Ezekiel. With him also there is
nowhere any room for the1 idea that the new theocracy, the
regulation of which he so fully describes, should be destined in
its turn to be destroyed. Though it is almost superfluous to do
so, I may remind the reader of his oracle concerning Gog,9
rnd of this one statement out of many — " The nations
shall acknowledge that I, Jahveh, do sanctify Israel, when
1 Hos. ii. 19. 2 Zech. ix. 8. 3 Is. ix. 7. 4 Micah iv. 7
6 Jer. xxxi. 35, 36; compare chap. xxx. 8, 9.
0 Jer. xxxiii. 17—26 ; compare above, p. 204 f. 7 Joel iii. 20.
8 Zech. xiv. 11. " Ezek. xxxviii. f. and above, p. 230 f.

260 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them (Israel) for ever
more."1 Finally, the prophets also who appeared towards
the end of the Babylonish captivity are altogether of one
mind with their predecessors as regards this point. It may
even be asserted that they cast from them as far as possible
every thought of a repetition of the suffering which they
themselves had experienced. Let us hear, for instance, this'
address to Jerusalem : " Arouse thee, arouse thee, array thy
self in thy strength, 0 Zion ; array thyself in thy splendid
robes, 0 Jerusalem, thou holy city ! For henceforth there shall
no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean;" 2 or
this emphatic assurance — " Jahveh hath sworn by his, right
hand, and by his strong arm, never will I any more give thy
corn to be meat for thine enemies, nor shall strangers drink
thy new wine, for the which thou hast laboured."3 But let
the reader simply peruse again the predictions which have
been previously quoted in this chapter.4
Now, a partial return of the Jews to their native country did
indeed, as we all know, take place in the year 536 B.C. In
what manner was this event regarded by the later prophets ?
We have already seen that they looked upon it as the
beginning of the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies.8 It
was not ihe return which the earliest prophets had
announced : the difference between their expectations and.
the historical reality was too great for any man to entertain
that notion. But those previous anticipations had begun
to be realised, and what was lacking in that realisation would
very soon be supplied. This is the unanimous conviction of
all the post-exilic prophets, from Haggai down to the author
of the book of Daniel ; and therefore, in accordance with this
conviction, none of these prophets announces a new captivity.
There is no vestige of an expectation that those who had
returned should once more be compelled to abandon their
native soil. Let only the attempt be made to force that
idea anywhere into the post-exilic prophecies, and it will be
seen that it is impossible to do so. They are all essentially
in harmony with the prediction- — in form so peculiar — of
the book of Daniel, that the fifth or Israelitish universal
i. Ezek. xxx. vii. 28. 2 ts. iii. i. 3 Is, \^i a
1 See especially p. 231 f. 6 Above, pp. 194—196.

ANTICIPATIONS OF ISRAEL'S FELICITY NOT FULFILLED. 261
monarchy shall endure " for ever, even for ever and ever." l
The dawning of the age of felicity is still in the future,
but the time of preparation has begun. No new beginning
requires to be made. The fulfilment of the prophecies shall
be the completion of the work of which the foundation has
been laid by Zerubbabel and Joshua, in and after the year
536 B.c.
The importance of the whole of this survey is at once
obvious. It now clearly appears, in a manner which is
indisputable, that we were justified in ranging the pro
phecies regarding the future of Israel under " the unfulfilled
predictions." The reality has contradicted the expectation
with regard to every particular which is advanced in those
prophecies. The return of the captives formed a sharp con
trast to the brilliant anticipations of the prophets ; the
re-union of Judah and Ephraim never took place at all ; the
restoration of the Davidic monarchy was not once attempted ;
neither in the material nor spiritual domain did the condition
of those who returned correspond to the lofty expectation ;
and no one can pretend to say that the sovereignty of Israel
over the nations, or the accession of the Gentiles to Jahvism,
are events which have ever been realised. We see here facts
against which all arguments are shattered. But if it should
still be asserted that the realisation of all these predictions was
only delayed, and postponed, and if, in support of this assertion,
appeal should be made to the post-exilic prophets who have
viewed the matter in this light, then how are we to judge con
cerning the events of the five centuries after Malachi? con
cerning the subjection, first to Alexander the Great and his
successors, and afterwards to the Romans ? above all, con
cerning the second great exile of Israel, which began in the
year 70 A.D., and continues to the present day? These are
facts which none of the prophets has contemplated ; not even
(in the year 165 B.C.) the author of the book of Daniel, who,
though he knows the Grecian domination from his own
experience, yet does not even suppose that it will be followed
by a Boman oppression, much less that the latter will end in
a new dispersion of all Israel. The time is now past for
speaking of a postponed realisation of the promises. Who-
1 Dan. vii. 14, 18, 27 ; ii. 44.

262 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
ever, at the present time, still expects the restoration of the
Israelitish nation, as the prophets have described it, expects
another thing altogether than that which they announced.
They predicted the termination, the glorious termination, not
of the present, but of the former captivity of the Israelites.
The existing state of things, of which we all are witnesses, is
in irreconcilable opposition to their expectations. No one
can appeal to their authority, either to recommend or to
justify his fancies concerning the future of Israel as a people.
Appendix. — I just now mentioned a point about which
the same ideas are expressed in the book of Daniel as in the
older prophetical writings ; and more than once, in the
course of our study, I was able to call attention to the
agreement between the author of Daniel and his prede
cessors.1 But that writer has also expectations peculiar to
himself, which do not run parallel with the anticipations of
the rest of our witnesses, and consequently could not be
introduced into our survey without violating its unity.
This will surprise no one who takes into consideration the
time in which the writer lived, and the circumstances of an
altogether extraordinary character under which he wrote.
On the other hand, these individual features deserve our
fullest attention. I need not therefore offer any further
justification for here combining, and, in so far as may be
necessary, explaining them.
The peculiarity of the predictions of the book of Daniel
comes out perhaps most strongly in the ninth chapter. We
start from that, the rather because it will show us at the
same time the process by which the expectations of the
author were formed.
In the. first year of the reign of Darius the Mede, Daniel
read in " the scriptures," that, in the oracle of Jeremiah,2
seventy years were appointed for the ruins of Jerusalem, i.e.,
the restoration of the city was announced to take place after
the lapse of that period.3 He turns himself in prayer to God,
confesses the sins of his people, and entreats for compassion.^
Thereupon Gabriel appears, and declares that he has been
sent by God to enlighten the prophet.5 The oracle which'he
i See p. 223 f., p. 245. 2 Jer. xxv. 11, 12 ; xxix. 10.
3 Dan. ix .1, 2. 4 Vv. 4—19. 6 T>. 20-23.

DANIEL'S INTERPRETATION OF JEREMIAH'S LXX. WEEKS. 263
communicates is most closely connected with the prophecy
of Jeremiah, which was mentioned in the beginning of the
chapter. Its object evidently is to show how that word of
God concerning the seventy years was intended, and in what
sense it is to be realised. But now it substitutes for the
seventy years, seventy year-weeks (i.e., four hundred and
ninety years). Is the writer then of opinion that the pre
diction of Jeremiah would not be (or had not been) fulfilled
after seventy common years? Undoubtedly he is. And
this judgment does not surprise us, if it be the case that he
knew what happened at the end of the captivity in and
after the year 536 B.C. We have already seen that, accord
ing to the prophet Zechariah, the wrath of Jahveh continued
to rest upon Israel even after the settlement of the new colony
in Judea.1 Proceeding upon that same conviction, our author
could arrive at the conclusion that the prediction of Jeremiah
must be differently understood ; that Jeremiah had spoken
not of common, but of sabbath-years, or year-weeks. But
let us now hear how that view is presented by the angel in
Dan. ix. The amended translation of his words is as
follows : —
(V. 24). Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people
and the holy city, in order to complete the apostasy and to
fill up the measure of sins ; in order to expiate the trans
gression and to bring in everlasting righteousness ; in order to
confirm vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy.
(25). Know then and understand: from the going forth of a
word to restore and to build Jerusalem till an anointed one,
a prince, shall be seven weeks ; and for sixty-two weeks
shall it be restored and re-built, with streets and moats,
and that in troublous times. (26). And after the sixty-
two weeks shall an anointed one be cut off, and there
is none for him ; and the city and the sanctuary shall be
profaned by the people of a prince who shall come, and
whose end is in the overflowing ; and on to the end there is
war, a determined measure of desolations. (27). And one
week shall confirm the covenant for the most, and the middle
of the week shall cause sacrifice and oblation to cease, and
upon the end of the astounding abomination, and till the
1 See above, p. 194.

264 VII. — UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
decreed destruction, it (the destruction) is poured out upon
that which astoundeth.
There is more than one expression in this oracle which
causes great difficulty to the expositors, and which, after all
the labour expended on its explanation, continues to be of
doubtful meaning; but the intention of the whole is plain, and
indeed would never have been misapprehended, if dogmatic
considerations had not obscured the judgment. Jeremiah had
announced the restoration of Jerusalem after seventy years.
It is thus a priori probable, that, according to the author of
Daniel, the golden age of Israel would dawn after the lapse of
the seventy year-weeks, or 490 years, whicli he substitutes
for the seventy years. This is actually expressed in an un
ambiguous manner in verse 24 : in the seventy year- weeks
the unrighteousness (of the enemies of Israel) shall reach
its climax j1 at the end of that period, " eternal righteous
ness" shall be "brought in," "and the prophecy (of Israel's
felicity) be confirmed (by the issue)." After it has thus
been declared what the final result of the entire development
shall be, the course of the events during the seventy year-
weeks is more minutely described in verses 25 — 27. For that
purpose they are divided into three parts, of seven weeks,
of sixty-two weeks, and of one week, which together make up
the whole (7 + 62 + 1 = 70). It is obvious that these
sub-divisions follow each other in the order here indicated.
At the end of the seven weeks stands " an anointed one, a
prince " (ver. 25a) ; during the sixty -two weeks Jerusalem is
rebuilt (ver. 25b) ; the remaining last week is treated of most
fully (vv. 26, 27), and treated in such a way that it is first
said what shall take place in the beginning of that week
(v. 26) ; after that, what must happen during the whole week,
and what shall begin to take place in the middle of that week
(v. 27). In the closing words, which are very obscure, there is
mention made of " destruction " or " overthrow," but neither
the "everlasting righteousness," nor the "confirmation of vision
and prophet," nor the " anointing of a most holy," (all which
were named in v. 24), is more minutely described. The writer
has thus evidently thought it sufficient to mention those pro
mises of felicity at the beginning, and then, further, limited
1 Comp. Dan. viii. 23.

EXPLANATION OF DANIEL'S LXX. YEAR-WEEKS. 265
himself to the description of what — especially during the
seventieth week — should precede their fulfilment.
But what is the point of departure? Where do the
seventy year-weeks begin? The writer answers (v. 25),
"from the going forth of a word to restore and to build
Jerusalem." It is not said from whom that word goes forth ;
and just because of that, it most readily occurs to the mind
to think of Jahveh,1 but also specifically of that word
of Jahveh to which the whole prediction is attached,
that is of the prophecy of Jeremiah relating to the
re-building of Jerusalem.2 In this way moreover the
beginning of Daniel's seventy year-weeks coincides with the
commencement of Jeremiah's seventy years — which certainly
is most natural, not to say, absolutely necessary. It may be
said to be very singular that the defenders of the genuineness
of the book understand by " the going forth of a word," the
later promulgation of a royal decree, either that of Cyrus
(536 B.C.), or of Artaxerxes Longimanus (457 B.C.) ;3 because
it would thence follow that Daniel had been enlightened by
God as regards the duration and course of a certain interval,
but had been left in uncertainty with respect to the beginning
of that period. Was not the whole revelation, in that way,
rendered illusory ?
Let us now endeavour to determine more exactly the three
subdivisions of the period of seventy year-weeks. Before doing
so, however, I may observe, that we must, in this attempt, pro
ceed much more upon ihe facts which the writer gives than upon
the dates which he assigns to them. These latter would
very easily lead us on a wrong track ; because we are not sure
that the author follows the same chronology as that which has
now been fixed for us by the scientific study of history. He
may have thought that some periods were of shorter or longer
duration than they were in reality. Nay, there is no proba
bility in the expectation that his reckoning should exactly
coincide with ours. If the author, as has already clearly
appeared to us to be the case,4 wrote his book in the year
1 Compare in v. 23 — " at the beginning of thy prayer a word (or com
mandment) went forth," namely, from Jahveh.
2 Therefore to Jer. xxv. 11, 12 ; xxix. 10, already mentioned above
p. 262, note 2, or to chap. xxx. 18; xxxi. 38, which are of a later date.
3 Compare Ezra i. 1-4 ; vii. 12-26. 4 Pp. sib, f.

266 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
165 B.C., how could he determine accurately what space of
time separated him, for example, from the end of the
Babylonish captivity ? Was it not therefore very likely that
he would be mistaken in defining that interval ?
Let us inquire then whether the facts which are presented
in the oracle afford us the certainty which we seek. The
last year-week seems to be the least doubtful. " The middle
of that week shall cause sacrifice and oblation to cease"
(v. 27). This evidently refers to the suspension of the public
worship in the temple of Jerusalem, in the month Chisleu
(December) of the year 167 B.C., which is also mentioned
elsewhere in the book of Daniel ¦} and, a thing which especially
deserves our attention, there also the space of three-and-a-half
years ( = the half of a year- week) precedes the time of the
end,2 as here it precedes the close of the seventieth, or last
year-week. This combination is confirmed by the further
fact that, in Dan. ix. 27, as in other places also, the
" astounding abomination," i.e., the little altar intended for
the offerings to Jupiter Capitolinus, which was placed on the
altar of burnt-offerings by command of Antiochus Epiphanes,
is brought into immediate connection with the suspension of
public worship.3 Further, everything that is told us in
verses 26, 27 ofthe last year-week coincides with the sup
position that the middle of this last year- week falls in
December 167 B.C., and therefore its beginning in June 170
B.C. At the beginning of those seven years, "an anointed
one is cut off, and there is none (anointed one) for him," —
the high priest Onias II [. is murdered at Antioch in 170 B.C.;4
so long as he lived, he was undoubtedly the lawful high
priest in the estimation of the pious Jews ; they cannot
well have acknowledged Jason, who replaced him as early as
174 B.C., and who in his turn was expelled by Menelaus in
171 B.C. There was thus from 170 B.C. no high priest, a fact
which the writer indicates in his note — enigmatical on account
of its brevity — " and there is none for him." After having
mentioned the death of Onias, the author thus proceeds :
"and the city and the sanctuary shall be profaned by
1 Chap. vii. 25 ; viii. 11, 12 ; xi. 31. 2 Chap. vii. 25 ; xii. 7.
3 Compare chap. viii. 13 ; xi. 31 ; xii. 11.
4 2 Mace. iv. 29 — 38. The author of Daniel also alludes to this fact, chap.
xi. 22.

EVENTS OF THE LAST YEAR-WEEK. 207
the people of a prince who shall come." Jerusalem was
actually taken and plundered by the army of Antiochus
Epiphanes, once in 169 B.C., and again in 167 B.C.1 That
this monarch is here designated as "the prince who shall
come," cannot surprise us in the least, since his appearance
has been already expressly announced in chapters vii. and viii.
The words which follow also, "and his end is in the over
flowing," refer to Antiochus, and specifically to the divine
judgment upon him which the writer expects.2 The closing
words of verse 26, " and on to the end there is war, a deter
mined measure of desolations," need hardly any explanation :
it is perfectly obvious that they describe to us the disturbances
and battles which harassed Judea from 169 B.C., and especially-
after 167 B.C. There thus remains only the beginning of
v. 27, "and one week shall confirm the covenant for many,"
or, according to others, " for one week, he (the prince that
shall come) shall confirm the covenant for many." "The
covenant " is probably the covenant between Jahveh and
his people. Elsewhere also the author expresses the con
viction that the hostile measures of Antiochus had, contrary
to his intention, the effect of confirming the worship of
Jahveh.3 Thus the description of the seventieth year- week corresponds
in all its various features with the history of the years 1 70 —
163 B.C. There is only one point of difference. After the
last week has elapsed — not earlier, but also not later — the
author expects the destruction of the " astounding abomina
tion," v. 27b, and contemporaneously with that the dawning
of Israel's golden age (v. 24). In reality, the temple at Jeru
salem was purified, not three and a half but three years after
the suspension of the public worship ; 4 but neither at that
time, nor half a year later, did that great revolution in favour
of the Jews, which is here announced, take place. This rela
tion of the prediction to the reality finds its satisfactory
explanation exclusively in the supposition that it had been
written after the cessation of the daily sacrifice (Decem
ber 167), and before its restoration (December 164). Other
1 1 Mace. i. 20-28 ; 29 ff. ; 2 Mace. v. 1-20.
- Dan. viii. 25 (compare "the end" in vv. 17-19). 3 Chap. xi. 82, 33.
4 Compare 1 Mace. iv. 52, with i. 54, 59.

268 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
passages allow us to determine still more exactly the time at
which the book was composed, and to assign it to the year
165 B.c. 1
The traditional interpretation of Dan. ix. 26, 27, is, on the
other hand, irreconcilably opposed on all points to the words
of the writer. It sees in the "anointed one," v. 26, Jesus,
and finds here the announcement both of his atoning death,
and of the capture and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in
the year 70 A.D. But every one sees that the text does not
permit such an explanation. In verse 26th the cutting off of
an anointed one and the profanation (or destruction) of city
and temple are mentioned in immediate juxtaposition, and both
these events are placed after the sixty-two weeks, which come
after the first seven, that is, in the beginning of the seventieth
week, the middle of which is first mentioned in verse 27th.
According to the Messianic interpretation, verse 26th refers
to the death of Jesus, which happens in the middle of the
last year-week ; and to the destruction of Jerusalem, which
took place thirty-five years after ihe last year-week ! The
words, " and there is none for him," are perverted to : " and it
(i.e., his death) is not for him " (but for others) — a meaning
which they never can have. Contrary to the evidence, more
over, the words " and his end " are made to refer, not to " the
prince who shall come," but to the city and temple, which,
besides, is contrary to all rules of grammar. As regards the
close of verse 26th, and the beginning of verse 27th, let the
reader consult on these words the defenders of the Messianic
interpretation, who manifestly do not know what to make of
the facts mentioned there. " Causing sacrifice and oblation
to cease" (verse 27) is regarded by them as the result of the
expiatory death of Jesus, which has rendered the sacrifices
superfluous and powerless. Nevertheless the writer does not
name the expiatory offerings at all, and, according to the
parallel passages,2 he evidently refers to the suspension of the
daily morning and evening sacrifices ; these were not abolished
in the middle of the seventieth year-week, but were regularly
offered until the year 70 A.D.; if the author had meant that
1 See above, p. 145 f. The beginning of the Maccabaean rising lies already
behind the author, according to chap. xi. 34.
2 Dan. viii. 11 ; xi. 31 ; xii. 11.

EVENTS OF THE LXIX. FIRST YEAR-WEEKS. 269
those sacrifices would have no more virtue, he would un
doubtedly have said so, and not have asserted that the
middle of the week " would make them cease." But we have
already said enough upon this subject. It is in fact astonish
ing that the Messianic interpretation of verses 26 th, 27th,
though abandoned by J. C. K. Hofmann, Delitzsch, and other
defenders of the genuineness of the book — still continues to
find supporters, nay, is even maintained by Dr Pusey in a tone
of triumph.1 I have not disguised the uncertainty and the
difficulties which still remain on our view, but it least of all
becomes the defender of the traditional interpretation to
make merry with them. The smallest of the forced explana
tions which he allows to himself outweighs all our difficulties
combined. We now turn a few steps back on our way, and inquire
what the oracle contains regarding the preceding sixty-nine
weeks. " From the going forth of a word to restore and to
build Jerusalem to an anointed one, a prince, are seven
weeks" (verse 25). That is to say, from the oracle 'of
Jeremiah till Cyrus, forty-nine years elapse. Cyrus is also
called the anointed of Jahveh in the second Isaiah ; 2 the
seven year-weeks which here precede (is it his appearance as
king of the Persians ? or the promulgation of his edict in
favour of the Jews ?) agree very well with the actual
chronology ; immediately after him the writer mentions the
rebuilding of Jerusalem, which in truth proceeded from him.
The second half of verse 25 th treats of the sixty-two weeks
which now follow. Of course it contains no complete history
of them. Everything it contains is comprised in the
restoration and building up of Jerusalem, but in troublous
times. If the author characterises all that period — of
434 years — as a troublous or straitened time, he does so
with a view to the future, which, according to his conviction,
awaits the city. The lot of Jerusalem had, in truth, been
much subject to vicissitudes, still years of repose and com
parative prosperity had not been wanting. But the most
flourishing state to which she had attained might, when
compared with her destination, be left out of account ;
1 Daniel the Prophet (3d edition, 1869), p. 164 ff., especially p. 228 f.
2 Is. xlv.'l.

270 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
for had not one slavery ceased only to make room for
another ?
Although we may think that the author could have
said something more concerning those seven weeks and sixty-
two weeks, yet the little that he does say presents no real
difficulties in the way of the interpretation. The Messianic
view, on the contrary, sees itself here also compelled to do
violence to the text, in order to maintain itself. The
supporters of that view translate verse 25 th differently,
and their translation runs thus : " From the going forth of a
word to restore and to build Jerusalem till Messiah, the
Prince, are seven weeks and sixty-two weeks — it (Jerusalem)
is restored and built up with streets and moats, and
that in troublous times." The slightest consideration is
sufficient to show that this interpretation is untenable. If
the author had wished to say that sixty-nine year-weeks
must elapse before the coming of Messiah, the Prince, he
would also have written that, and would not have mentioned
seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. In order to justify that
division, it is assumed1 that the period of seven weeks must
exhibit a character essentially different from that of the
sixty-two weeks : the restoration of Jerusalem in troublous
times shall already have been fully accomplished during the
seven weeks. But no one can get this meaning out of verse
25th. If — in opposition to the accents, that is, to the
punctuation of the original — the " seven weeks and sixty-two
weeks " be combined, then the second half of the verse
stands altogether by itself, without any connection with that
which goes before — which constitutes a new objection against
the whole of this interpretation. If, however, in spite of
this, that second half is brought into connection with the
first, then it is self-evident that the restoration of Jerusalem
in the troublous times must extend over the 7 + 62 weeks,
and not merely over the seven weeks. What could possibly
justify us in limiting that restoration to the first-mentioned
period, that of seven weeks ? To this must be added still
further, that " Messiah, the Prince," is an utterly inde
fensible translation. The words are — "an anointed, a
prince " — without the article. It is asserted, indeed,
1 See, e.g., Dr Pusey I.e., p. 174 f.

MESSIANIC INTERPRETATION OF DANIEL IX. 25. 27 1
that " anointed " (mashiach, Messiah) was the universally
received appellation of the approaching king of David's
family ; but this assertion is untrue : no one trace of any
such use of this word can be pointed out anywhere in the
Old Testament. And still this catalogue of errors is not
complete. The mention of the sixty-two weeks in the beginning
of the 26 th verse, proves, in the first place, that this period
stands by itself in the 25 th verse also : if the seven weeks and
the sixty-two weeks are to be combined there, then sixty-nine
weeks would have been mentioned in the 26th verse. Then,
further, the 26th verse states that after the lapse ofthe sixty-
two year-weeks, "an anointed (mashiach, without the
article) is cut off." It seems clear as noon-day that this is a
different person from "an anointed, a prince," in the 25th
verse. What man ever expresses himself thus : "till A. B.
are 7 + 62 weeks," and immediately thereafter, " after 7+62
weeks A. B. is cut off ? " Why is it not said at once that A. B.
will be cut off after 7 + 62 weeks ? To that must now be
added, both that the writer himself clearly designates tiuo
persons, by writing first mashiach nagid, thereafter mashiach
alone, and that the second mashiach could not have been
without the article, if the person designated by it had been
already mentioned. In short, here also one exegetical blunder
is heaped upon another in order to maintain the traditional
interpretation. On the other hand, the supporters of that interpretation
appeal to its perfect agreement with the numbers in Daniel's
prophecy. The most of them assume the edict of Artaxerxes I.
in favour of Ezra,1 issued in 458 or 457 B.C., to be the point
of departure. In this way the beginning of the seventieth
year-week will fall in 25 or 26 A.D., in which year it is
assumed — though in opposition to the most recent scientific
investigations 2 — that Jesus, or his forerunner, John the
Baptist, appeared. The death of Jesus is then placed three
and a-half years later, in the middle of the seventieth year-
week. But now the destruction of Jerusalem, which the
writer — according to the interpretation of his words now under
1 Ezra vii. 12—26.
2 See especially Th. Keim, " Gesch. Jesu von Nazara," I. 615-33 ; III.
479—502.

272 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS : ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
consideration — places in the seventieth year-week, occurs in
reality thirty-eight or thirty-seven years later ! Surely this
one fact is, in itself, sufficient to confirm our judgment upon
the value of the chronological argument. Although we
should accept the altogether arbitrary interpretation of verse
26th and 27th, there yet remains so great a difference !
The choice of the point of departure has been already dis
cussed.1 Truly, the result obtained by the forced interpre
tation of the oracle does not reward the trouble.
We on our side readily grant, that our interpretation of
Dan. ix. 24 — 27 does not agree fully with the chronology
any more than it rests upon it. But this signifies, in other
words, that the writer of the book of Daniel had formed
another conception of the duration of the different periods
than we hold at the present day. The prophecy of Jeremiah
dates from the fourth year of Jehoiakim, 604 B.C.2 The
writer places Cyrus seven year-weeks after that, i.e. in 555
B.C. This is tolerably accurate. If it be assumed that he was
thinking of a later oracle of Jeremiah (see note 2), then the
seven year- weeks bring us to the year 544, or 537 B.C.,
that is, still nearer to the issuing of the edict in favour of
the Jews, 536 B.C. Up to this point therefore, there is no
difficulty. But now the interval between Cyrus and the
death of Onias III., comprising in fact 385 years,3 is esti
mated by the writer as being sixty-two year-weeks, that is,
434 years. We cannot reconcile this difference. It is true
indeed that the difficulty is at once removed, and the chrono
logy brought into perfect order, by the supposition that the
seven year-weeks do not precede the sixty-two, but run parallel
with them ; 4 but that supposition, although approved of by
eminent expositors, seems to be irreconcilable with the
words of the author, and cannot therefore be admitted.
1 See p. 265.
2 That is, if the author had in view Jer. xxv. 11, 12 ; see v. 1 of that
chapter. On the other hand chap. xxix. dates from a period subsequent to
597, probably 593 B.C. ; chapters xxx., xxxi., from the year of the destruction
of Jerusalem, 586 B.C.
3 That is, if we reckon from 555 to 170 B.C. If we count from 544 or 537
B.C., the interval is 374 or 367 years.
4 From 604 to 170 B.C., there are 434 years, that is 62 year- weeks ; while
between 586 and 537 B.C. there intervene precisely 49 years, that is 7 year-
weeks.

GENESIS OF DANIEL'S ORACLE, IX. 24  27. 273
The genesis of the whole oracle is however placed in the
clearest light precisely by means of this difference. The
violent acts of Antiochus Epiphanes led the writer of the
book of Daniel to the conviction that now the measure of
the abominations of the Gentiles was at last full, and the
golden age of Israel would immediately dawn. He thought
that Jeremiah could not have spoken of seventy years, for, if
he had, would not his prediction have been fulfilled ? The
opinion, that seventy sabbath-years, or year-weeks, had
been meant, forced itself upon him, and in connection with
this, the belief that that period was now drawing to a
close. All the rest followed now as a matter of course.
The interval between the death of Onias III. and the
desecration of the temple at Jerusalem comprises three-and-
a-half-years : thus the beginning and the middle of the last
year-week were both pointed out, and at the same time, it
was certain that the joyful future of Israel would begin three-
and-a-half years after the profanation of the temple. But
then also in the yearthat Onias died (170 B.C.) sixty-nine year-
weeks must have elapsed since the prediction of Jeremiah,
and these were again divided into seven, and sixty-two year-
weeks, in the way already known to us. How natural is it,
that this chronology should not fully correspond to the reality !
The characteristic of the book of Daniel consists therefore
in this feature, that in it the prediction of the future is
founded upon the writer's interpretation of the oracle of Jere
miah. The idea which the author forms of that future is the
product of his meditation upon the older prophecies, of his
inquiry into " the Scriptures." 1 And this is true not only
of the one prediction in chap. ix. 24 — 27, but of the whole
of his expectations. His interpretation of the seventy years
of Jeremiah is " Tide's mere " of his whole book. All the
predictions which occur in it correspond, in the leading-
features, with that conception of the future, of which the
ninth chapter of Daniel shows us the origin. The half year-
week, borrowed from Jeremiah, reappears again and again in
different forms, and occasionally with slight modifications ; 2
1 Dan. ix. 2.
2 Dan. vii. 25 ; xii. 7 ; compare viii. 14, 26 ; xii. 11, 12 (1150, 1290
and 1335 days). s

274 VII.  UNFULFILLED PREDICTIONS ; ISRAEL'S FUTURE.
the conviction that the measures of Antiochus Epiphanes
" complete the apostasy " or " the transgression," and thus
immediately precede the commencement of the time of felicity
pervades the entire book.1
The reader can have now no difficulty in connecting what was
previously said concerning the prophecies of Daniel 2 with our
present view, and in thus gaining a complete idea of the ex
pectations of the author. I merely mention further that he de
scribes the overthrow of Antiochus Epiphanes more expressly
in chapter xi. than in chapters ii., vii., viii., ix., but in
the first-mentioned chapter he shows also all the more
clearly that this event is for him still future, and that
he had formed to himself an idea of it which was contra
dicted by the reality.3 The opposition between the history,
and his expectations of the events immediately following the
death of Antiochus, is equally palpable. He imagines that
the sovereignty of Israel shall then commence, and further
develops this idea in the last chapter of his book. We there
read that at that time, when Antiochus " comes to his end,"4
Israel shall pass through a terrible crisis, days of trouble
such as it has never known ; but Michael the archangel shall
have regard to the interests of Israel, and the people are deli
vered, that is all those who not in name merely, but in truth
belong to the people of Jahveh, " whose names are found
written in the book " (chap. xii. 1 ). Then many of the dead
awake, some to everlasting life, others to everlasting abase
ment (verse 2), while the teachers of the people, who have
shown an example of fidelity to Jahveh, and have led others
to imitate them, shall receive their reward, and shine as the
stars (verse 3). In this manner then is opened the new epoch
in the history of mankind which the writer expects. " The
everlasting life " to which the " many " awake, is the perma
nent sovereignty which he had already promised to " the
people of the saints of the Most High."8
In order to remove the opposition between these anticipa
tions and the historical reality, it has been asserted that the
1 Dan. vii. 8 f., 21 f., 25 f. ; viii. 9—14, 23—25 ; xi. 21 ff.
2 See above, pp. 141—147.
3 Dan. xi. 40 — 45 compared with chap. ii. 34 f., 44 f., vii. 8—11, 24—
26 ; viii. 9—14, 23—26 ; ix. 26, 27.
4 Dan. xi. 45. 5 Dan. vii. compare above, pp. 145 — 147.

DANTEL HAD IN VIEW THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE. 275
author here casts a glance into the far distant future which
even now has not dawned. But the text rebuts any such
explanations. The writer knows no interval between the
death of Antiochus, which is the end of the Grecian monarchy,
and the exaltation of Israel above all nations, peoples, and
languages. The prophecies of the glory of Israel have not
been fulfilled, and can no more be realised. This conviction,
which was forced upon us in the study of the writings of the
older prophets, is corroborated, in every respect, by the con
tents of the book of Daniel.

CHAPTEE VIII.
THE FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
Our survey of " the unfulfilled predictions " of the Israelitish
prophets has been brought to a close. If I may allow my
self to entertain the supposition that it has, as a whole,
convinced the reader, then it will have clearly appeared to
him that the prophets, not on one or two occasions, but
repeatedly, nay, in so far as regards the future of their people,
have throughout, opened up prospects to which the reality
has not corresponded. He cannot certainly rest contented
simply with that result. He will remember that these same
prophets came forward in Israel with the assurance that they
proclaimed " the word of Jahveh." The very predictions,
which have been contradicted by the result, are by them
attributed to Jahveh. How is this to be explained ? Did
those men arrogate to themselves a position which did not
belong to them, or were they the victims of self-delusion ?
We have here very natural questions, the answers to which,
as it would seem, scarcely admit of being postponed. I can
not however yet proceed to discuss them. The very heading
of Chaps, v. — vii., is based upon the assumption that besides
the unfulfilled there are also fulfilled predictions. We found
also such prophecies in the course of our inquiry ; but though
that had not been the case, we should still be convinced of
their existence : for how could the Israelitish prophets have
acquired that reputation for foreknowledge which they pos
sess in so large a measure, if the issue had not, actually and
frequently, corresponded to their expectations ? But if there
are then such fulfilled predictions, it follows also as a matter
of course, that we must take cognisance of them before we
can draw up our final verdict with regard to the sending of
the prophets by Jahveh. We might justly be charged with

THE MODE OF TREATING THE SUBJECT. 277
onesidedness, nay, with intentional injustice, if we, though it
were even only provisionally, formed a judgment, before such
important testimonies had been heard and weighed.
But what course of procedure shall we now adopt ? Shall
we confine ourselves, in this chapter, to enumerating and
illustrating the realised prophecies, as we have done in
chaps, v. — vii. with the unfulfilled predictions? The main
tenance of impartiality seems indeed to prescribe that method ;
but it has this great disadvantage that it does not advance us
one step in what properly constitutes our object — namely, to
obtain a just conception of Israelitish prophecy. Instead of
simply adopting that course, we must now endeavour at the
same time to give unity to the results of our investigation,
or, in other words, in our study of the fulfilled prophecies, to
take account throughout of what results directly from the
opposition between the reality and so many other predictions.
The case stands thus : the question before us requires us
to make a distinction which was briefly noticed at the
end of the fourth chapter, but which now can, and must,
be more fully justified. Certain conclusions may, at once,
without further reasoning, be drawn from the unfulfilled
predictions. They are utterly irreconcilable with the tra
ditional view of the divine inspiration of the prophets ;
and therefore this conception may, without further argu
ment, be regarded as altogether untenable. But the
testimony of the realised prophecies is far from being so
unambiguous. From the nature of the case, the agreement
between the prediction and the event admits of more than
one explanation. It must first be proved that the prediction
actually preceded the event. If that proof is given, the
agreement itself can be derived either from the divine inspira
tion of the prophet, or his right discernment of the course of
events, or the influence which the prophecy itself exercised
on the dispositions and actions of those who became
acquainted with it — if, for this possibility also cannot be
excluded, it is not to be regarded as accidental. It is obvious
indeed, that we must not proceed in an arbitrary manner in
choosing between these various explanations : it must be
shown distinctly on every occasion, on what ground we
prefer the one to the other, or indeed — for this case also may

278 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
occur — refrain from making any definite choice. In deciding,
we must be guided by a careful consideration of the prophecies
themselves and of their historical back-ground.
As we have already in the sixth chapter arranged the prophets
chronologically, and listened to them in the order of time, so that
we might be in a position to understand aright the prophecies
of judgment which were there discussed, so shall we also now
place their fulfilled predictions in the framework of their time,
in order to comprehend their value, and to obtain hght with
regard to their origin. But this historical investigation will
frequently fail to lead us to the point which we wish to reach :
in more than one case it does not suffice to remove uncer
tainty. We may therefore, without any hesitation, take into
account also what was formerly made clear to us with regard
to the realisation of the other expectations of these same
prophets. We cannot assume the appearance of being still
ignorant of these men and their anticipations. How should
we be justified in thus limiting ourselves ? If we wish not
merely to collect, but also to comprehend, the facts, then we
must neglect no single phenomenon which gives, or promises
to give, light. And who does not recognise, that the uncer
tainty, which still remains with regard to this or that expec
tation, so long as it is viewed in itself alone, often vanishes
just then, when we bring it into connection with other, less
ambiguous, utterances of the same author ? If these should
exclude the supernatural explanation, then the question which
is presented to us for answer is this : is that explanation
absolutely required by the fulfilled expectations ? are they an
insoluble enigma, unless they are derived from divine
inspiration ? The problem then which we have to solve will,
in the present chapter, frequently be reduced to that form.
We shall follow, as I have said, the order of time ; but it
will not be necessary once more to go through the whole
series of the prophets. It so happens, that it is just the
three great prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, who
offer for our consideration the greatest number, and the most
noteworthy, of the realised predictions. The rest easily admit
of being brought into connection with theirs — especially with
those of the first two — and of being discussed in combination
with them.

MISSION OF ISAIAH TO AHAZ. 279
It is self-evident that it must be our endeavour to be com
plete ; still it is very possible that the reader will search in
vain, in this chapter, for some predictions which he thought
he should find treated here. If that disappointment relates
to the prophecies which appear in the historical books of the
Old Testament, then let him remember, that these will, in
accordance with our plan, be discussed further on ; if, on the
other hand, he misses some predictions contained in the pro
phetical books, then he may take it for granted, that, according
to my view, they require to be regarded differently, and
either have been already discussed in chaps, v. — vii., or will
be treated in a subsequent chapter on " the New Testament
and the Old Testament prophecy." In order however to
avoid even the appearance of caprice or partiality, I wish to
discuss expressly all the passages which have been collected
by Tholuck l as proofs of the fulfilment of Old Testament
prophecy, or, if this be not done, to give, in the notes, the
reasons why they are passed over in silence.
Isaiah, the son of Amos, had for some years already been
discharging the functions of a prophet, when the Syrian-
Ephraimite war, for which preparation had been made
during the reign of Jotham, broke out in one of the earliest
years of his successor, Ahaz.2 Bezin of Damascus and Pekah
of Israel formed an alliance against the kingdom of Judah,
and aimed at nothing less than the dethronement of Ahaz,
for whom they wished to substitute a certain Ben-Tabeal as
their vassal.3 Their enterprise presented immediately such a
formidable aspect, and was at first crowned with such success,
that Ahaz and his people feared the worst.4 Isaiah then
received from his Sender the command to go into the presence
of the king, and announce to him the miscarriage of the
1 The parts of this work—" Die Propheten und ihre Weissagungen " (2e
Aufl., Gotha, 1867), which chiefly come before us here— are § 11, " Die

PradNamen-   ,......, .,,...., .
105-134), with which § 10, " Die prophetische Weissagung " (p. 78— lOo)
ought to be compared. See also Kiiper, I.e., pp. 441 — 460, and H. Graetz,
" Geschichte der Juden," i. 371—378, where an excursus is devoted to— Die
Bewahrung und Erfiillung der Weissagungen der israelitischen Propheten.
Attention is given, in the sequel of this chapter, to all passages of any import
ance, quoted in this most recent plea (1874) in favour of the foreknowledge
of the prophets. .
2 2 Kings xv. 37 ; xvi. 5-9, 17, 18. 3 Is. vii. 6. Is. vu. 2.

280 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
design of the allied Syrians and Ephraimites.1 It is not
expressly said that the prophet delivered this message to
Ahaz, but it may however be assumed as certain that he did
so. If the king then showed plainly that he gave no credence
to the prediction of Isaiah, we can understand, in that case,
why the prophet urged him to ask a sign from Jahveh, his
god; a sign in the depth (in the under-world) or in the height.2
This proffer testifies undoubtedly to the faith of Isaiah in the
certainty of his prophecy, and to his immovable confidence in
the help of Jahveh. We cannot, however, deduce more than this
from what he said. Ahaz refused to ask such a sign, probably
because he did not wish to bind himself in any way to the
prophet, so that Isaiah was not put to the proof which he
had declared himself prepared to submit to. He then gave
a sign himself, and that in these words which have formed
such a fertile subject of debate : " Behold, the damsel becomes
pregnant, and beareth a son, and she shall call his name
Immanuel (with us is God). Milk and honey shall he eat
until he knows to reject the evil and choose the good. For
before the boy knows to reject the evil and choose the good,
the land, whose two kings thou fearest, shall be forsaken." 3
It is at once obvious that this latter event, and much more
so, the birth of Immanuel which precedes it, is expected by
the prophet within a very short time. If any doubt could
still exist on this point, it would be removed by the almost
contemporaneous prophecies which we now proceed to consider.
In chapter viii. we read that Isaiah, by command of Jahveh,
gave to a child that was born to him the symbolical name :
Maher-shalal-chash-baz, that is, " hasty spoil, speedy prey " :
" for," so it is said, " before the boy shall know to cry my
father, or my mother, the wealth of Damascus and the spoil
of Samaria shall be brought before the king of Assyria." 4
About the same time the prophet announced that Damascus
would be bereft of its inhabitants, and would become a ruinous
heap ; that the cities beyond the Jordan would be laid waste,
1 Is. vii. 3 — 9. We have already (p. 167, f.) discussed verse 8, so that we
need not now consider it further.
2 Is. vii. 10, 11. Probably verse 11* must be read thus : "Make it deep
down to the underworld, or high upwards," i.e., specify a sign where thou
wilt, in hell or in heaven.
3 Is. vii. 14—16. 4 Is. viii. 1—4.

ISAIAH'S PROPHECIES ABOUT SYRIA AND EPHRAIM. 281
and that the stronghold (= Samaria) would be removed
from Ephraim, and the kingdom out of Damascus ; while the
remnant of the Syrians would suffer the same fate as the
glory of Israel.1
These passages leave no doubt with regard to the meaning
of Isaiah. After the lapse of a few years, the total ruin of
Syria and Israel will have been accomplished.. As the name
of his son denotes the destiny which shall overtake the two
kingdoms at the hands of the Assyrians, so is " Immanuel "
the symbolical expression of the succour which Jahveh shall
afford to Judah against the two allied powers. Therefore the
birth of Immanuel is called a sign, just as Isaiah himself and
his children are "for signs and for wonders in Israel;"2 because
their symbolical names indicate what Jahveh designed for
his people.3 Everything hinges on ihe name Immanuel, not,
as was formerly thought, on the birth of that child, or on the
pregnancy of its mother. The prophet does not even remotely
indicate that this will be, in any respect, different from the
common course of nature. Neither does the circumstance
that he shall feed upon milk and honey distinguish him from
the other inhabitants of Judea ; on the contrary, it is said of
all that are left that they shall eat milk and honey,4 and shall
do so in consequence of the miserable condition of their
country during the years of Immanuel's childhood. For the
prophet expects that Judea shall be the theatre of a conflict
between Egypt and Assyria, and shall suffer terribly under
it, so that agriculture will be stopped, and the rearing of
cattle in the uncultivated fields alone be profitable. It shall
be a time such as Judah had not experienced since the dis
ruption of the kingdom after the death of Solomon.6 What
was thus at first said regarding Immanuel alone is afterwards
extended to the whole people.
It cannot now be a matter of difficulty for us to form a
well-founded judgment upon the fulfilment of these prophecies
of Isaiah. One part of them has, another part has not, been
realised. Damascus was taken and depopulated by Tiglath-
Pileser, the Syrian kingdom was incorporated with the Assyrian
1 Is. xvii. 1—3. 2 Is. viii. 18.
3 Compare besides Is. viii. 3, also chap. vii. 3 (Shear jashub = a remnant
is converted), and the name Isaiah (salvation of Jahveh) itself.
4 Is. vii. 22. 6 Is. vii. 17—25.

282 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
monarchy. Pekah also felt the rod of the Assyrian, and had
to resign to him a portion of his territory. All this took
place within the limit fixed by Isaiah. But, in contrast with
this, we find not only that Damascus was not destroyed, but
that the kingdom of Israel continued still to exist for about
twenty years, and that the desolation of Judea by the Assyrian
and Egyptian armies did not take place. The conclusion
hardly requires to be stated. Supernatural revelation is not
to be thought of here : it is not needed in order to explain
the one part of the prophecy, while it would render the other,
the unfulfilled part, an insoluble enigma. On the other
hand, the supposition, that to an immovable confidence in the
inviolability of Zion, the city in which Jahveh dwelt, Isaiah
joined a clear discernment of the political situation of those
days, accounts fully for his anticipations. No extraordinary
acuteness was at all necessary in order to see that the Assyrian
monarch would not permit the formation of one powerful con
federacy extending from Libanus to Egypt. If the enterprise
of Bezin and Pekah was instigated or supported by Egypt — •
a thing far from improbable * — then it was the more to be
expected that Tiglath-Pileser would frustrate and punish
it. The attitude of Ahaz also may show us that the expecta
tions of Isaiah were founded on the historical situation. It
will be remembered that he had called in, and paid dearly for,
the help of Tiglath-Pileser. His eye and that of the prophet are
both directed to one point, Nineveh ; but while the timid king
expects help from that quarter against the enemies who were too
strong for him, the courageous prophet sees in the Assyrian only
the instrument which Jahveh employs in order to chastise
the presumptuous attack upon his people and sanctuary.
Still more remarkable than the prophecy of Isaiah concern
ing the destiny of Damascus, is, in appearance, that of his
predecessor, Amos. It would be written about half a century
before the Syrian-Ephraimite war, but is, nevertheless, more
exact, in one point, at least, than that of Isaiah, who lived in
the time of that war. Jahveh is represented as saying that,
on account of the transgressions of Damascus, the punishment
threatened against her shall not be turned aside. One of
1 Compare above, p. 157, and for the reign of Hosea, the last monarch of
the kingdom of the ten tribes, 2 Kings xvii. 4.

AMOS ON THE FATE OF THE ARAMEANS. 283
those sins is expressly mentioned : " They (the Syrians) have
threshed Gilead with threshing-wains of iron," that is, have
been guilty of fearful cruelties in their wars in the region
beyond Jordan.1 " So will I therefore," Jahveh proceeds to
say, "throw a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall
devour the palaces of Benhadad. And I will break the bar
of Damascus, and root out the inhabitants from the plain of
Aven, and the sceptre-bearers from the house of Eden, and
the people of Aram, shall be carried away into Kir, saith
Jahveh." 2 The main point in this prediction, as bearing
upon the object we have in view, is the last part. The
writer of Kings tells us that Tiglath-Pileser hearkened to
the request of Ahaz, "went up against Damascus, subdued
it, and carried it (i.e., carried the inhabitants) to Kir, and
put Bezin to death." 3 Not only the captivity of the Damas
cenes, but the district into which the Assyrian transported
them, is thus so long before pointed out by the prophet.
Here, at least, the very nature of the prediction seems to
exclude every other explanation than that of a supernatural
communication. That the Assyrians should extend their
sway over Syria and Palestine ; that, in accordance with their
custom, they should transfer a portion of the inhabitants of
those countries to other quarters ; all this could easily have
been anticipated by Amos;4 but how could he know that
the people of Aram wTould be sent just to Kir ?
Nevertheless we see again in this case also how easily we
may allow ourselves to be deceived by appearances. For
it is plain that Amos really intended something else than to
point out the place in which the Arameans would have to
settle. In the last page of his book we find a sentence which
is evidently connected with his prophecy against Damascus.
He is there combating the Israelites, who, on the fact of
Jahveh having redeemed them from Egypt, built the
hope that he would permanently help them, and permit
them to continue in the land which he had bestowed upon
them. "Are ye not as the sons of the Cushites unto
1 Compare Judges viii. 16 ; 2 Sam. xii. 31 ; from which passages it is clear
that the Israelites themselves, at least in former ages, subjected their ene
mies to treatment equally inhuman.
2 Amos i. 3 — 5. 3 2 Kings xvi. 9.
4 He predicts captivity also to the Ammonites (chap. i. 15).

284 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
me? Have I not brought up the sons of Israel out of
Egypt, and (i.e., but likewise) the Philistines out of Caphtor,
and the Arameans out of Kir ? " J When, therefore, the de
portation of the Arameans to Kir is announced in the pro
phecy previously discussed, the meaning of this phrase is, in
other words : their rule in the country which they at present
possess, shall come to an end ; they shall return to the land
from which they had originally come. In the mind of Amos,
therefore, Kir is something different from the accidental
destination of the Aramean prisoners ; their deportation
thither is, according to him, determined by their previous
history, and has at the same time an evident symbolical
signification. The idea which Amos expresses in his predic
tion is fully satisfied, if the Arameans cease to be the ruling
nation in Damascus, and these regions revert to the condition
in which they were before the arrival of the foreign invaders.
But, further, if the Arameans actually came from Kir, in that
case their transportation thither could no longer be regarded
as a mere arbitrary procedure on the part of Tiglath-Pileser ;
the Assyrian monarch had then a specific reason for transferring
them to Kir and nowhere else, the same reason which led
Amos to point it out to them as their destined place of
abode. Understood in this sense, the agreement between
the prophecy and the historical fact still continues to be a
most remarkable coincidence, but it ceases to be an inexplic
able miracle.
But enough has not yet been said. It is, to say the least,
uncertain whether the inhabitants of Damascus were actually
transported to Kir. The mention in the narrative, which I
have just now quoted from the second book of Kings, of the
place to which the Damascenes were carried away, so far from.
being necessary, is in some degree perplexing. Nobody would
imagine that anything was wanting, though the passage ran
thus : " And he (Tiglath-Pileser) went up against Damascus,
and took and depopulated it, and put Bezin to death." The
question thus arises, whether it may not be that the single
word Kirah (to Kir) was originally a marginal note taken from
Amos i. 5, and afterwards inserted in the text. I would not,
however, have proposed this question, obvious as it really is,.
1 Amos ix. 7.

SECOND PERIOD OF ISAIAH'S PROPHETICAL CAREER. 285
if the word referred to had not been wanting in the Greek
version of the Old Testament, at least in the oldest and best
manuscripts.1 Can this omission be regarded as accidental ?
Is it not rather highly probable that this version has pre
served to us the most ancient reading?
I may, finally, remind the reader that the prophecy of
Amos against Damascus does not stand alone. It is the first
in a series of predictions regarding the neighbours of Israel,
some of which at least have not been confirmed by the result.2
This fact is in perfect harmony with that explanation of the
first-mentioned prediction founded on natural grounds ; but
how can the opposition between prophecy and history in the
other oracles be explained, if, judging by the appearance, we
derive the first from supernatural inspiration ? If we be
right in doing this, must not the same theory be applicable
to the entire series of prophecies ? With the greater confi
dence, therefore, we rely upon the result obtained with regard
to Amos i. 3 — 5.3
We now approach a second, and not less important period
in the prophetical career of Isaiah. After Ahaz, sorely
pressed by the Assyrians and Ephraimites, had applied to
Tiglath-Pileser with the prayer : "lam thy servant and thy
son (protege'), save me" 4 : Judah was a dependant and a
tributary of the Assyrians. At first Hezekiah acquiesced in
that relation ; but he eagerly looked for an opportunity of
throwing off the yoke, and at last renounced his allegiance.
1 Namely, in the Codex Vaticanus, and other MSS. referred to by Holmes
and Parsons ad. h. I. The Alexandrian manuscript has here, as elsewhere,
been corrected according to the common reading of the original. The con
jecture of Rowland Williams ("Heb. Prophets," I. 42), that "to Kir," in
Amos i. 5, is an addition made by a later editor of the prophecies of Amos,
in conformity with the result, lacks the support wliich my supposition
derives from the Greek text of 2 Kings xvi. 9, and does not do justice
to Amos ix. 7.
2 Compare the remarks in pp. 102 ff., upon the prophecies against the
Philistines, Phenicians, Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites. '
3 I need only notice in passing the assertion of Graetz (I.e., pp. 372 f.)
that the earthquake mentioned in Amos i. 1 ; Zech. xiv. 5, must have been
predicted by Amos two years before it happened (chap. ii. 13 — 16 ; iii.
12 — 15). It is certainly told us, and quite truly, that he actually came
forward as a prophet two years before that event (chap. i. 1) ; but that he
then predicted it is by no means clear, and least of all from the verses
referred to of chaps, ii. and iii., which, even according to Graetz himself,
were written after the earthquake.
4 2 Kings xvi. 7.

286 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
That bold step brought him and his kingdom to the brink of
destruction; but, in the very hour of danger, Isaiah showed
himself in all his greatness.
In the book named after him, we find various prophecies
introduced which have reference to the memorable contest
between Hezekiah and the Assyrians ; but, from the nature
of the case, they give us only a partial knowledge of
the course of events. In order to understand them aright,
and with the help of the intimations which they afford, to
extend and to free from foreign elements our conception of
the course of the facts, we absolutely require an historical
frame in which the prophecies may be placed. But this
want also is provided for : the second book of Kings con
tains a copious narrative of the events — a narrative which is
also inserted in the collection of the prophecies of Isaiah.1
It is at once seen to form a favourable contrast to the
generally meagre accounts of political occurrences. Isaiah
himself comes forward as an actor in it,2 and thus far also, it
promises us the very thing which we were seeking.
It is obvious, however, that we cannot adopt this narra
tive without some previous inquiry. Such a step is forbid
den by the importance itself of its contents ; while it would,
moreover, be opposed to the rule to which we have attended
throughout, in this part of our study, namely, to borrow our
materials from the prophets themselves, and not from the
narratives about them. But that antecedent criticism will
very soon clearly appear to be anything but superfluous, and
therefore it needs no further justification.
More than one question which arises, with regard to the
narrative in second Kings, has long ago been answered with
sufficient certainty. The careful comparison of the two
redactions demonstrates that the one in Isa. xxxvi. — xxxix. is,
in every respect, inferior to the other. The hymn of Heze
kiah,3 taken from some other source — probably from a
collection of sacred songs — is an important addition, for
which the redactor deserves our thanks ; but, for the rest, it
is evident that he has allowed himself to use great liberties,
1 2 Kings xviii. 13 — xx. 19 ; Isa. xxxvi. — xxxix.
2 2 Kings xix. 2, ff. ; 20, ff. ; xx. 1, ff. ; 14, ff.
3 Isa. xxxviii. 9-20. The heading in verse 9 at once reminds us of the
headings of the Psalms.

THE NARRATIVE IN II. KINGS AND IN ISAIAH. 287
and has, here and there, even mutilated the narrative which
he had before him, by transposition and abridgement.1 The
purity and originality of the text in second Kings, even in
themselves, render it probable that the narrative is in its
natural place there, and therefore has been borrowed from
the history of the kings by the collector of Isaiah's pro
phecies, and not, conversely, taken from the book of Isaiah
by the author of that history. Closer investigation fully
establishes the correctness of this inference. We cannot
conceive the passage, 2 Kings xviii. 13 — xx. 19, as wanting
in the book of Kings ; in other words, we cannot suppose
that that book ever existed without such accounts of the
reign of Hezekiah as there appear. They show, besides,
sufficient agreement, in form and contents, with other narra
tives in first and second Kings to justify us in regarding
them as essential and original portions of those books. But
we may even go farther. The paragraphs which tell us of
the healing of Hezekiah,2 and the embassy of the Babylonian
king, Merodach Baladan,3 have so close a resemblance, in so
far as character and form of expression are concerned, to the
very latest pieces in the books of Kings, that we have no
hesitation in ascribing them, along with these pieces, to one
author, and that the last redactor of those books.4 Such
being the case, it follows therefore at the same time, that the
narrative, in its present form, belongs to the sixth century
before our era, or, in other words, is about a hundred and fifty
years later than the events which it records.
Up to this point we move on firm ground. But the ques
tions in which we are most interested are not yet answered.
We may, for the moment, pass over the two paragraphs just
mentioned, concerning the healing of Hezekiah and the
embassy of Merodach Baladan : they will have to be discussed
in a subsequent chapter, along with the other accounts of the
prophets and their work. We would rather at present
wish to obtain certainty with regard to what preceded
1 Compare especially Isa. xxxviii. 1-8, 21, 22, with 2 Kings xx. 1 — 11,
and further my Hist. Krit. Onderz. ii. 92-96, where the two texts are com
pared verse by verse with each other.
2 2 Kings xx. 1—11 ; Isa. xxxviii. 1—8, 21, 22.
3 2 Kings xx. 12 — 19 ; Isa. xxxix.
4 Compare Schrader in de Wette's Einl. i. (8th ed., 1869), p. 355.

288 VIII. —FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
these occurrences ; namely, the campaign of Sennacherib,
with all its attendant circumstances.1 The narrative of that
campaign undoubtedly makes a .very favourable impression ;
it is animated and vivid, entering into particulars, and
apparently written, if not by an eye-witness, at least by a
well-informed author.2 We are thus inclined, at first, to
follow blindly the guidance of this writer. But still that
must not be done. His communications, however precious,
must be used with the necessary caution. It is, in the
first place, undeniable that they do not give us, what we
should certainly have obtained from an eye-witness, a clear
insight into the progress and mutual connection of the facts.
Difficulties of all kinds, as will immediately be evident to us,
are left unsolved.3 In the second place the chronology is not
accurate : the author places the campaign of Sennacherib in
the fourteenth4 year of Hezekiah, that is, in 714, or accord
ing to another reckoning, in 711, B.C. But at that time
Sargon was still reigning ; Sennacherib did not ascend the
throne till 705 B.C.; his expedition against Egypt and Judah
must, most probably, be placed in the year 701 B.C., so that,
instead of the fourteenth, the twenty-seventh year of the
reign of Hezekiah ought to have been named. It is impossible
to imagine that we have here an error of a copyist (compare
note 4, below) ; but how, then, can a blunder so remarkable
have originated with regard to such an important fact ?
Could there also have been, in the fourteenth year of Heze
kiah, an Assyrian invasion, with which a subsequent invasion,
that conducted by Sennacherib, is here confounded ? This is a
conjecture which receives support from two quarters. In one
of his inscriptions, Sargon boasts of having subdued the
1 2 Kings xviii. 13 — xix. ; Isa. xxxvi., xxxvii.
2 Let attention be given e.g. to 2 Kings xviii. 14 — 16 (the amount of the
tribute imposed upon Hezekiah) ; 19 ff. (various particulars in the addresses
of the Assyrian envoys) ; xix. 20 — 34 (detailed prophecy of Isaiah).
3 This is acknowledged, among others, by Sir B. Strachey, Jewish History
and Politics, &c, p. 307 — an acknowledgment the more deserving notice, as
that author is inclined to ascribe the historical narrative in Isa. xxxvi — xxxix.
to the prophet himself (p. 302, f.). Would that we were only so fortunate
as to possess the account of such a competent eye-witness !
4 2 Kings xviii. 13 ; Isa. xxxvi. 1, with which 2 Kings xx. 6a ; Isa. xxxviii.
5, agree, because, as Hezekiah reigned twenty-nine years (2 Kings xviii. 2),
the promise that his life would be prolonged for fifteen years must have
been given in the fourteenth year of his reign. That promise is made in the
year of Sennacherib's campaign, according to 2 Kings xx. 6b = xix. 34.

THE ASSYRIAN ARMIES IN JUDEA. 289
kingdom of Judah.1 Victories, of whicli the Assyrian
envoys vaunt in presence of the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
were gained, not by Sennacherib, but by Sargon.2 It appears,
in fact, therefore to be the case, that two different events
have coalesced into one, in the narrative in second Kings.
An attempt has even been made to point out two different
accounts in it, the one being the account of the military
expedition of Sargon, the other of that of Sennacherib.3 This
attempt, however, does not seem to have been successful, but
it has shown still more clearly than before, that the narrative
contains data mutually conflicting, and leaves more than
one question unsolved. In these circumstances, nothing
remains for us but to acknowledge, that this narrative is
separated from the events themselves by a certain interval.
It may be older, much older even, than the accounts which
the last redactor has himself committed to writing ; the
author may have had the advantage of an unadulterated
tradition, and perhaps of some authentic documents, but still
he was not a contemporary. His communications must,
therefore, be carefully weighed one by one, and can be
accepted as correct only when they receive support from other
sources of information.
The reason why all this has been so expressly brought out,
will be evident immediately. The judgment which we form of
the prophecies of Isaiah and their fulfilment depends in fact
entirely upon the relation in which we place ourselves to the
narrative in 2 Kings, which relation is, in its turn, determined
by the result of our inquiry into the time in which the author
lived. The contents themselves of the narrative require only
to be recalled to memory by a brief sketch. Which of us
has them not vividly before his mind ? Sennacherib enters
Judea at the head of a numerous army. One after another
the fortified cities fall into his hands. The battle with Egypt,
1 Schrader, die Keilinschriften u. das A. T., p. 254, ff. ; A. H. Sayce, in
the undermentioned dissertation, p. 18, f. This is fully confirmed by the
later discoveries of G. Smith, see his Assyrian Discoveries (1875).
2 Schrader, I.e. p. 201, f. ; Sayce, I.e. p. 23, f.
3 Sayce, Critical Examination of Isaiah xxxvi. — xxxix., on the basis of
recent Assyrian discoveries, in the Theological Review, No. XL. (Jan. 1873),
pp. 15—31. T

290 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
the powerful ally of Hezekiah,1 has still to be fought, but the
heart of the king of Judah is already stricken with terror.
While Sennacherib was besieging Lachish, a fortress of Judea,
on the way to Egypt, an embassy came to him from
Hezekiah. The Jewish monarch confessed his offence, declared
his readiness to pay the fine which might be imposed upon
him, and actually collected the three hundred talents of silver
and the thirty talents of gold which the Assyrian prince
required from him.2 Did Sennacherib, after the past had thus
been atoned for, make new and much heavier demands, without
any cause being given for this by Hezekiah ; or, on the other
hand, had Hezekiah departed from that complete submission
which he had declared himself ready to make ? The narrative
leaves us in uncertainty on these points. This alone is certain,
that not long afterwards the representatives of the Assyrian
monarch appeared before Jerusalem with a formidable force,
and demanded the surrender of the city. The importance
which they attached to a speedy compliance with their
demand, is evident from the fact that they endeavoured by
cogent argument to convince the courtiers of Hezekiah who
came to parley with them, of the impossibility of offering
effectual resistance, and indeed even attempted to persuade
the citizens of Jerusalem who witnessed the interview, to
abandon Hezekiah to his fate, if he should be foolish enough
to reject the capitulation.3 When their demand was never
theless refused, and tidings of that refusal reached Sennacherib,
who, in the meantime, had departed from Lachish and was
besieging Libnah, he made still another attempt to dissuade
Hezekiah from his purpose of defence. In a haughty epistle
1 The alliance with Egypt is repeatedly mentioned, and severely con
demned, by Isaiah. See especially xxix. 15, 16 ; xxx. ; xxxi. 1— xxxii. 8.
2 2 Ki. xviii. 14 — 16. This account does not appear in the parallel narra
tive, Isaiah xxxvi. Was it omitted by the redactor of Isaiah, chaps, xxxvi —
xxxix., as being rather dishonouring to Hezekiah? It is generally supposed
that it was. But it ought to be noticed 1st. that the name of Hezekiah is
written differently in vv. 14 — 16 from what it is in v. 13, and w. 17 ff.,
not Hizkijdhu but Hizkijah ; 2nd. that in the sequel there is no reference
whatever to the submission of Hezekiah, and the fine paid by him, not even
in 2 Ki. xix. 8 (Is. xxxvii. 8), for this may refer to Chap, xviii. 17,
(Is. xxxvi. 2). I do not venture to deduce any specific inferences from
these facts, but I thought attention should be called to them. The tribute
paid by Hezekiah is also mentioned on the Assyrian monuments.
(" Schrader," I.e., p. 197, f.)
3 2 Ki. xviii. 17—37 (Is. xxxvi. 2—22).

ISAIAH CONSULTED BY HEZEKIAH. 291
he reminded him of the conquests of the Assyrian kings, and
asked him if he presumed to promise himself a better fate
than that which had overtaken all those princes and countries ? x
The historian declares in plain language the reason which
induced Sennacherib to repeat his demand instead of
immediately commencing hostilities : tidings had reached
him that Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, had marched to attack
him.2 It was in these circumstances then that Isaiah was sum
moned to give his opinion on the course which Hezekiah
should pursue, and on the result of the undertaking of
Sennacherib. It was in conformity with the word of Jahveh
announced by him, that the representatives of Sennacherib
were sent back without attaining the object of their mission,
and that the second summons also was unsuccessful. There is
no reason whatever for entertaining any doubt on these
points ; but the question as to how Isaiah expressed himself
on those two occasions demands an express investigation.
The second and fuller address which the historical narrative
puts into his mouth,3 can stand the test in every respect.
The character of its language is that of Isaiah, its contents,
as we shall see immediately, agree in the main points with
the contents of his prophecies which were delivered at that
time, while there does not appear to be any cause for
suspecting that the former have been derived from the
latter. On the contrary, the first 4 and shorter utterance
with regard to the destiny of Sennacherib is much more
specific than any other prediction of the prophet, while,
on the other hand, it is in entire accordance with that
which the same narrator tells us in a historical form
regarding Sennacherib.5 After all the preceding considera-
1 2 Ki. xix. 1 — 7 (rejection of the demands of the Assyrian envoys) ;
8 — 13 (renewed attempt of Sennacherib). Compare Is. xxxvii. 1 — 7, 8 — 13.
2 2 Ki. xix. 9 ; Is. xxxvii. 9.
3 2 Ki. xix. 20—34 ; Is. xxxvii. 21—35.
4 2 Ki. xix. 6, 7 ; Is. xxxvii. 6, 7.
6 We give here the two passages : " Behold I arouse a spirit within him
(Sennacherib), and he hears a rumour, and returns to his own land, and I
cause him to fall by the sword in his own hand." 2 Ki. xix. 7 ; Is. xxxvii.
7). "And Sennacherib king of Assyria went and returned _ and dwelt in
Nineveh. And while he was worshipping in the temple of Nisroch, his god,
Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, smote him with the sword." (2 Ki.
xix.1 36, 37 ; Is. xxxvii. 37, 38).

292 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
tions, it follows, as a matter of course, that we do not
take this utterance into account in our further inquiry.
The word of Jahveh which Isaiah announced after the
letter of Sennacherib had been received, is directed partly to
the Assyrian king himself, and partly to Hezekiah. Jerusalem,
it is said, laughs at the threats of Sennacherib: He exalts him
self in pride against Jahveh, instead of considering that he is
indebted to him for all his victories. For that self-exaltation
Jahveh shall punish him. " I will," he saith, " put my hook
into thy nose, and my bridle into thy lips, and I will turn
thee back by the way by which thou hast come." The
prophet then addresses Hezekiah and his subjects. Their
complete deliverance would not yet at once begin : in the
current year, and in the following one, they would still have
to feed themselves with the corn which would grow of itself
in the uncultivated fields : not till the third year would they
be able to sow and reap regularly. But though their
deliverance was thus delayed, they might remain calm. The
remnant of the Israelites would become the germ of a flourish
ing people ; the restoration of the nation would proceed from
Jerusalem. It therefore had nothing to fear from Senna
cherib. "He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an
arrow therein ; he shall not approach to it with shields, nor
cast up a bank against it. By the way that he came shall he
return ; but into this city shall he not come, saith Jahveh." x
This prophecy is, on the one hand, far too independent and
peculiar to admit of being regarded as an imitation of other
genuine oracles of Isaiah. The sowing and reaping first in
the third year 2 is not found again elsewhere in the prophet,
and as little, the prediction that matters would not go
the length of an actual siege of Jerusalem.3 Isaiah had on the
contrary previously announced that the Assyrian army would
completely invest and blockade the capital, nay occasionally
he seems even to intimate a partial conquest of Jerusalem.4
These points of difference cannot be reconciled with the sup
position that the author of the historical narrative has placed
our oracle in the mouth of Isaiah. In that case he would
1 2 Ki. xix. 20—34 (Is. xxxvii. 21—35).
2 2 Ki. v. 29 (Is. v. 30). 3 2 Ki. v. 32 (Is. v. 33).
1 Compare Is. xxix. 1 — 8 ; xxx. 19, 20 ; xxxi. 4, 5 ; xxxii. 14 ; also xxii.
1 — 14, a prophecy, however, which is interpreted in different ways.

ISAIAH'S ANSWER COMPARED WITH OTHER PROPHECIES. 293
certainly have adapted himself much more closely to the
genuine oracles.
But, on the other hand, it agrees in the main points with
those genuine oracles. The prophet has always remained
consistent with himself in the expectation that the attack of
the Assyrians would terminate in bitter disappointment, nay,
in their utter destruction. Let the reader peruse, for example,
the well-known denunciation of punishment directed against
the pride of the Assyrians, contained in the tenth chapter of his
oracles,1 or these words in a closely related passage : — " I
(Jahveh) will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my
mountains tread him under foot ; then shall his yoke depart
from off them (the people of Judah), and his burden be removed
from off their shoulders." 2 He elsewhere compares the issue
of the projects of the Assyrians against Jerusalem to the
awaking of a hungry man who has dreamt that he has eaten,
or of a thirsty man who has dreamt that he has drunk, and
then with pain becomes conscious of the reality.3 In another
passage still, we find the prediction that the Assyrians shall
be as many waters which shrink back at the command of
Jahveh, as chaff which is carried away by the whirlwind.
" In the evening-tide, behold, there is dismay (among the
Jews) ; before the morning he (the Assyrian) is no more.
This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them
that rob us." 4
The question now is, How are we to judge of the fulfil
ment of these predictions ? Does that fulfilment really require
us to assign a supernatural foreknowledge to Isaiah ?
Many do not hesitate to answer this question in the affirma
tive. Delitzsch 6 writes : " We who perceive something more
than an oratorical figure in the prophetic expression, ' thus saith
Jahveh/ hear in this the language of a man who was raised
above the level of that which is naturally possible, and to
whom God, the creator of history, had imparted his secret
counsel." But how is this to be reconciled with the fact
which Delitzsch acknowledges immediately afterwards, and
which we ourselves have just noticed, that Isaiah, although
1 See e.g. vv. 12, 16—19, 25—34. 2 Isa. xiv. 25.
3 Isa. xxix. 7, 8. 4 Isa. xvii. 13, 14. See also chap. xxxi. 8, 9.
6 " Der Prophet Jesaia," p. 367 f.

294 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
always convinced that Sennacherib would be baffled before
Jerusalem, yet cherished other expectations with regard to
the siege of that city, at an earlier period, than he did at a
later ? Delitzsch calls this a " mounting upwards " of pro
phecy ; but that is an " oratorical figure," by which we must
not allow ourselves to be led on a wrong track. It still
continues to be a fact that Isaiah, in his message to Heze
kiah, denies what he had previously asserted. How is this
to be brought into unison with his initiation into the hidden
plans of God ? In the same degree as this modification
. of the prophet's expectations appears to us to be natural,
when we regard his knowledge as proceeding from the
course of events, is it inexplicable, when we interpret
literally his expression, " thus saith Jahveh."
But besides this, doubts which we cannot lightly set aside,
now arise with regard to the realisation of the prophecy.
The opinion that the prediction of Isaiah has been confirmed,
as it were, by God himself, is undoubtedly supported by the
manner in which the destruction of the Assyrians is com
municated to us in the historical narrative. Immediately
after the account of the message of the prophet to Hezekiah,
it is said : "(And it came to pass that night), and the angel
of Jahveh went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians
an hundred fourscore and five thousand men, and when men
arose early in the morning, behold, they were all lifeless
corpses. And Sennacherib, king of Assyria, broke up his
camp, marched away, and returned and dwelt at Nineveh."1
This narrative leaves on the reader the impression that the
announcement of the divine judgment was immediately fol
lowed by the execution ; for even though the words, " and it
came to pass that night," be omitted, still " the angel of
Jahveh" appears on the stage to confirm the prophecy of
Isaiah ; and if these words are regarded as a genuine portion
of the text of the narrative, the impression is still stronger.
Nevertheless the event cannot have happened in that
manner. Let the reader consider, on the one hand, that
when Sennacherib summoned the capital, for the second time,
he was encamped, not before Jerusalem, but before Libnah ;
1 2 Kings xix. 85, 36 (Isa. xxxvii. 36, 37). The words " and it came to
pass that night " do not occur in the text of Isaiah.

DESTRUCTION OF THE ASSYRIAN ARMY. 295
and on the other, that Isaiah himself does not at all antici
pate such a speedy accomplishment, as is evident from his
prediction that the sowing and reaping would not commence
till the third year.1 It is, therefore, universally assumed that
a certain interval elapsed between the prophecy of Isaiah and
the total destruction of Sennacherib's army ; but in that case
one of the supports of the view which regards the prophecy
as a supernatural fact, falls to the ground.
But we must attend not only to the position, but also to
the contents of the narrative regarding the destruction of
Sennacherib's army. " The angel of Jahveh," who here
appears as the agent, points to a plague which broke out
among the Assyrians ;2 but if we ask where and when this
happened, we receive no reply. Delitzsch is of opinion that
the words " in that night " must refer to the first night after
the Assyrian army appeared before Jerusalem.3 That the
catastrophe took place there, is, he thinks, evident from the
unambiguous predictions of Isaiah himself, in which Judea is
named as the place of Sennacherib's humiliation.4 Here,
then, the truth of the prophecy is not proved from the
history, but, on the contrary, the history is constructed on
the basis of the prophecy. Thenius,5 and Professor G Bawlin-
son,6 to whose opinion Delitzsch here opposes his own, can,
at least, adduce historical testimonies in favour of their view.
According to them, Pelusium was the place where the disaster
occurred. The expedition of Sennacherib was directed against
Egypt : the report of the approach of Tirhakah 7 w ill have
incited him to march thither with all speed ; according to
Flavius Josephus,8 Berosus related that Sennacherib waged
war on all Asia and Egypt ; finally, Herodotus learned from
the Egyptians that, at the prayer of the priestly king Sethos,
the Arabians under Sennacherib were arrested at Pelusium,
and had to retreat without effecting their object, because the
1 2 Ki. 'verse 29 ; Is. verse 30.
a Compare Exod. xii. 23 ; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16 ff.
3 " Der Prophet Jesaia," p. 370 ; 2 Kings xix. 35 (Isa. xxxvii. 36) refers
in that case to vv. 33, 34 (Isa. vv. 34, 35).
4 Especially from Isa. x. 32 — 34 ; xiv. 25.
6 " Die Bucher der Kbnige," p. 399. G " Five Monarchies," ii. 445.
7 2 Kings xix. 9 (Isa. xxxvii. 9).
8 " Antiq.," X. 1, § 4. The passage of Berosus himself is unfortunately
lost, but Josephus gives the chief purport of it.

296 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
mice had gnawed the strings of their bows.1 If, as is generally
assumed, the mice are a symbol of the plague, then, according
to Herodotus, that pestilence broke out at Pelusium. The
narrative of Sennacherib himself — which betrays, only too
plainly, the inclination to represent the expedition against
Palestine and Egypt as having been successful — is not opposed
to this view. According to that narrative, the Egyptians
will have suffered a defeat at Altaku (Eltekeh ?), from which,
however, the Assyrians gain no spoil, nor derive any advan
tage ; for they do not penetrate into Egypt, and very soon
commence their return march.2 Some reverse or other must,
therefore, have befallen them after that victory at Altaku ;
and why not, according to the account given by Herodotus,
on the confines of Egypt ? Be that as it may, the disaster,
which may have overtaken them in the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem, could never have been of that decisive and com
plete character which we should readily ascribe to it from
the account in the Old Testament. The number of one
hundred and eighty-five thousand dead men is also undoubt
edly an exaggeration. There is still something more. We
had just now a difficulty in acknowledging the entire authen
ticity of the answer which Isaiah is represented as .having
given to the messengers sent by Hezekiah ; 3 but with so
much the greater confidence do we assume as an historical
fact, what is there predicted concerning Sennacherib, that he
" shall hear a rumour and (in consequence of that) shall
return to his own land." Beference is unquestionably made
here to the rumour of an insurrection in another part of the
extensive kingdom of Assyria, as more than one did break
out in Sennacherib's reign, and naturally would break out on
the opportunity afforded by the reverse which he sustained
in the war against Egypt. A new element thus appears in
the fact which we are engaged in investigating, and it is
evident, more clearly even than before, that the narrative in
2 Kings is incomplete, and consequently gives a different
impression from that which most probably we should have
obtained from the occurrence itself. Perhaps the more exact
particulars were unknown to the narrator himself; but, in
1 "Hist. Krit. Onderz.," II. 141. 2 " Schrader," l.c., p. 171 ff.
3 2 Kings xix. 6, 7 (Isa. xxxvii. 6, 7).

GROUNDS OF ISAIAH'S CONFIDENCE. 297
any case, he leaves them unmentioned, in order to fix atten
tion exclusively on what, in his estimation, is the main point
¦ — the intervention of Jahveh in the struggle of Assyria
against Israel. While he is endeavouring to place that in
the clearest possible light, there evidently occurs to his mind
one of Isaiah's prophecies which I recently quoted : " In the
evening-tide, behold, there is dismay ; before the morning,
he (the Assyrian) is no more."1 I do not dispute that the
writer is entitled, in perfect accordance with his aim, thus to
express himself; but I must indeed object, when his words
are understood in a sense totally different from that which he
intends ; when the formula of his religious belief is regarded as
an exact impress ofthe historical reality, while it still cannot be
denied that it lends no countenance to such a view, and leaves
unanswered all those questions concerning time, place, and cir
cumstances, which we usually raise with regard to that reality.
We are now, if I am not deceived, prepared to draw the
conclusion. The question wre ask is this, is the complete
self-confidence with which Isaiah announces the failure of
Sennacherib's enterprise altogether inexplicable, unless we
suppose that the future was revealed to him in a supernatural
manner ? My answer is in the negative. That confidence
rests properly on the conviction that Israel has been chosen
by Jahveh, and Zion is his dwelling-place. But in order to
continue to hold that belief, and to express it with boldness,
at a given time, the prophet must see clearly and distinctly
the possibility that Sennacherib might return without accom
plishing his purpose. That possibility, however, was present,
and present in such a manner that, under the influence of
Isaiah's religious confidence, it must become probability, nay,
certainty, for him. The dangers inseparable from every cam
paign in a distant land, were, in this specific case, more
than doubled by the power of the enemy against whom the
enterprise, in the first place, was directed (Egypt allied with
Ethiopia), and by the inclination of the vassals of the Assy
rian monarchy in the east (Media and Babylonia) to separate
themselves from Nineveh — an inclination which was certainly
as well known in Judea as in Egypt. With Isaiah's behef
in the inviolability of the national existence of Israel, all
1 Isa. xvii. 14.

298 VIII. — FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
these circumstances became so many presages of Sennacherib's
approaching retreat. According as the facts became more
distinctly disclosed, so also did his idea of the future become
more definite. But he always, and not least when the danger
had reached its highest point, expressed his confident trust
with clearness and power. It was he who persuaded Heze
kiah and his people to persevere when the superficial spectator
deemed resistance desperate. That perseverance made the de
liverance possible. If Hezekiah had yielded to Sennacherib's
repeated summons, the fate of .his kingdom would have been
sealed. Isaiah, by his faith, saved Judah, and confirmed the
truth of his own apophthgem — " If ye do not hold fast (con
fide), ye shall not stand fast." 1
The supernatural explanation of the prophecy of Isaiah
is not required by the facts. Farther than this our conclu
sion does not extend. But if now we take into consideration
besides, what has already become plain to us regarding the
relation which the predictions of Isaiah bear to the facts,2
then that negative is changed into a positive conclusion. In
other words, it then clearly appears that the supernatural
explanation is not only superfluous, but also inadmissible.
Let us not neglect to notice how this conclusion is con
firmed specifically by the ideas entertained by Isaiah, and his
contemporary Micah, concerning the destiny of the Assyrian
monarchy. In contradistinction from Nahum and Zephaniah,
who prophesied a century after them, they proceed on the
supposition that Assyria shall continue to exist.3 This sup
position is very natural, if their expectations regarding the
future are dependent on the facts which they see before them
in the present ; but it is more than singular, nay, it is alto
gether inexplicable, if the veil which keeps the future hidden
was, in their case, withdrawn.
1 Chap. vii. 9b. The paranomasia, in the original, is in this way, in some
degree at least, rendered.
2 See e.g., above, p. 102, ff., and elsewhere. The result obtained there is
not overthrown by the appeal of Tholuck (pp. 117 — 119) to Is. xx.; xvi. 14;
xxi. 16. The assertion that the predictions contained in these passages
were strictly fulfilled, rests on no historical testimony whatever; it is simply
a postulate of Tholuck's theory. Compare above, pp. 120 — 121, 112 — 114.
We shall inquire, in a subsequent chapter, on the prophets in the historical
books, whether Isaiah did indeed foretell, according to 2 Kings xx. 6;
Is. xxxviii. 5. that fifteen years should be added to the life of Hezekiah.
(Tholuck, p. 116, f.). 3 See above, pp. 129, 130.

tholuck's survey of Jeremiah's predictions. 299
But would not Micah's prophecy of the deportation of
the inhabitants of Jerusalem to Babylon 1 overthrow all this
reasoning, and prove that he at least saw farther, and tran
sported himself into a time in which the Assyrian kingdom
had fallen, and had been succeeded by the Chaldean ? We
know the answer already,2 and we merely remind the
reader of it here because the defenders of supernaturalism
are accustomed, even still, to appeal to that prediction of
Micah.3 If the prophet did mention Babylon — which is very
doubtful — he mentioned it certainly not as the capital of
a new empire, but as a city belonging to the Assyrian
monarchy. Though Micah may have formed another concep
tion of the immediate future of Jerusalem than Isaiah, as
indeed we have already seen clearly that he did, yet he is
entirely in accordance with him in the expectation that Assyria
shall be a witness of Israel's restoration.

In discussing the fulfilled predictions of Jeremiah, we
desire to follow Tholuck.4 His survey, which is intended to
prove that " prophetical prediction constantly precedes the
successive stages of history as it develops itself," shall be first
presented in its main features, in order to be thereafter subjected
to a careful criticism. For the sake of perspicuity, I divide
that survey into smaller portions, which we can afterwards
examine one by one.
I. Jeremiah had scarcely come forward as a prophet in the
thirteenth year of Josiah (626 B.C.), when he threatened his
people with the appearance of an " enemy out of the north."5
This enemy can be none other than the Chaldeans, who, it is
true, had not yet made themselves independent of Assyria,
and as yet appeared not in the least dangerous to the kingdom
of Judah, but who nevertheless must be meant by Jeremiah,
because in his later prophecies he describes the Chaldeans in
1 Mic. iv. 16.
2 See above, pp. 161, ff. ; the remarks made there (p. 170, ff.) on Is. xxxix.
(2 Kings xx. 12 — 19) are applicable here also.
3 Tholuck, Die Propheten, p. 88, f. Compare also Graetz, I.e., 1. 374.
4 See Die Propheten, p. 121 — 125, compared with p. 94, f ., Ill-— 114.
6 Chap. i. 13, 14 ; iv. 5—7, 13, 15—17, 29 ; v. 6, 15—17 ; vi. 1—5,
22—25. Graetz, I.e., I. 375, agrees with Tholuck in the interpretation of
these passages.

300 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
the same way as he had described the northern enemy in the-
earlier predictions ; x there was, besides, no other power then
in existence which he could indicate in this way ; least of all
could he have thought of the Scythians, who had abandoned
Palestine, five years before his appearance as a prophet, and
had no intention whatever of returning thither.
II. In his earliest addresses, Jeremiah mentions besides a
punitive judgment which the Egyptians should execute on the
apostate kingdom of Judah. " Also the sons of Noph
(Memphis) and Tahpanhes shall depasture the crown of thy
head."2 That prophecy was fulfilled about twenty years
later, when Pharaoh Necho defeated and slew Josiah in the
valley of Megiddo, and subjugated his kingdom.3
III. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, Necho was defeated
at Carchemish by Nebuchadrezzar. Shortly before and after
that important event, which was very soon followed by the sub
jection of Judah to the Chaldeans, Jeremiah announced, in the
most unambiguous terms, the desolation of Jerusalem, of the
temple, and of all Judea.4
IV. To the same year, the fourth of Jehoiakim, the
celebrated prophecy of the seventy years belongs. Nebuchad
rezzar, so it is said,5 shall reduce under his power Judah and
the neighbouring nations : " all that land shall be for a
desolation and a wilderness, and all these nations shall serve
the king of Babylon seventy years. But when the seventy
years are fulfilled, Jahveh shall visit upon the king of Baby
lon, and upon that people (the Chaldeans) their sins, and upon
the land of the Chaldeans, and make it a perpetual wilderness."
Jeremiah is evidently altogether certain of the length of this
period, just as it is his firm conviction, that Nebuchadrezzar,
in spite of all opposition, shall obtain and keep the territory
assigned to him by Jahveh. In the beginning of Zedekiah's
reign, he announces to the ambassadors of Edom, Moab, Ammon,
Tyre, and Zidon, who had met at Jerusalem, that the attempt
of those tribes to extricate themselves from the dominion of the
Chaldeans would be in vain : " they shall serve the king of
Babylon, his son, and his son's son, until the time of his land
1 Compare especially K. H. Graf, Der Prophet Jeremia, pp. 16 — 19.
2 Jer. ii. 16. 3 2 Kings xxiii. 29, ff.
4 Jer. vii., f., e.g., viii. 1 ; xxvi. 5 Jer. xxv. 9 ff.

JEREMIAHS FULFILLED PREDICTIONS. 301
also has come, and many nations and great kings shall make
him their servant." x At the same time he exhorted the
Jewish captives in Babylon, by a letter, to reconcile them
selves to their destiny. For not till " seventy years have
been fulfilled for Babylon, shall Jahveh visit them, and
fulfil to them his promise to bring them back to Jerusalem." 2
It has been erroneously imagined that these " seventy years "
may be understood as indicating simply a long period. It
was evidently the intention of Jeremiah to specify the exact
duration of the captivity ; and this was also the view which
was taken of his prediction at a very early period.3 It is
besides fully confirmed by the result, for between the fourth
— or, according to another Old Testament account,4 the third,
— year of Jehoiakim and the return, sixty-eight years actually
elapsed, or according to another calculation, that of Hengsten
berg, precisely seventy years.
V. The occurrence also, of which we have an account in
Jer. xxxvi., belongs to the fourth year of Jehoiakim.5 The
prophecies of Jeremiah which Baruch had written from his
dictation, were publicly read in the temple, brought under
the notice of the king, and destroyed by him, but afterwards
written out anew. On that occasion the prophet foretold to
the king that " he would have none who should occupy the
throne of David, and that his dead body would be thrown
out, and exposed in the day to the heat, and in the night to
the cold." G " After a reign of eleven years," — Tholuck
writes — " Jehoiakim fell into the hands of the Chaldeans, and
died a miserable death (597 B.C.)."
VI. He was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin whose mother
stood at his side. To them the prophet brings this word of
Jahveh, "Sit down in lowliness, for your splendid crown
falls from your head ; the cities of the south are shut up, no
man openeth them ; Judah is carried away captive, wholly
carried away captive." 7 After a reign of three months,
1 Jer. xxvii. 1 ff. 2 Jer. xxix. 10.
3 Ezra i. 1 ; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21 ; Zech. i. 12. 4 Dan. i. 1.
6 v. 1. The public reading takes place, according to v. 9, in the ninth
month of the fifth year of Jehoiakim, but Tholuck (p. 112), assumes with
Movers (" Die Phbnizier " II. 1, p. 423), that this month coincides with
December of the year in which Nebuchadrezzar had gained the victory at
Carchemish. 6 Jer. xxx?i. 30. T Jer. xiii. 18, 19.

302 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
the young prince with his mother was transported to
Babylon.1 VII. In the reign of Zedekiah, the preaching of Jeremiah,
who (compare iv.) recommended submission to Nebuchad
rezzar, and earnestly warned against revolt, encountered
opposition from the most of the prophets of those days.
Jeremiah therefore wages a continual war against them. His
encounter with Hananiah the Gibeonite (Jer. xxviii.), is well
known, at the end of which he announced to him a speedy
death which was to happen in that same year. Hananiah
did actually die in that year in the seventh month.2
VIII. It is, perhaps, under the impression produced
by this occurrence, that Zedekiah resolves not immedi
ately to execute the plans of rebellion against Babylon,
and he himself visits that city.3 We have already seen
how Jeremiah, at that time, exhorted the captives in
Babylon (compare iv.). To complete what was there said,
we may add that, at the same time, he committed to writing
his expectations regarding the fall of Babylon,4 and caused
that prophecy to be read, in the neighbourhood of Babylon,
by one of the princes who accompanied Zedekiah.5
IX. A few years later Hophra mounts the throne of Egypt,
a warlike prince ; who at once shows himself inclined to
resume the war with the Chaldeans. Zedekiah, urged by
his courtiers, seeks his help and throws off the yoke of
Nebuchadrezzar. Jeremiah continues self-consistent in his
stern disapprobation of this step, and in predicting that
Judah shall thereby bring on herself the extinction of her
national existence.6 Zedekiah is powerless to submit anew to
the Chaldeans, in accordance with his advice : the urgency of
the princes and prophets to persevere in resistance is too
strong for him. The prophecy of Jeremiah is realised. The
Egyptian troops sent to relieve Zedekiah are defeated ; Jeru
salem is taken, the temple burned, and the remnant of the
population of Judea carried away prisoners.
We have now reached the end of Tholuck's survey. I have
presented it to the reader not only for its own sake, but also
i 2 Ki. xxiv. 8, 15. 2 jer. xxviii. 17.
3 Jer. li. 59. 4 Jer. 1. 1— li. 58. 5 Jer. li. 59—64.
0 See among other passages Jer. xxi. and xxxvii. f.

CRITICISM OF THOLUCK'S VIEWS. 303
in order that he may learn from it, how strongly the super
natural view of prophecy recommends itself at the first
glance. He involuntarily asks himself what can be adduced
against these facts ? On closer investigation, one or more
things may perhaps have to be set aside ; but is not the series
which still remains more than sufficient to confirm the
correctness of Tholuck 's view as a whole ?
Such indeed seems to be the case. And yet it is from no
caprice, that here also we refuse to submit. We cannot do
otherwise. Tholuck adopts a course in which he has been
preceded and followed by many others ; he leaves out of
reckoning a number of facts which are of the very greatest
moment, and consequently assigns to others an importance
which, on closer consideration, it is evident that they do not
possess. The prophecies which remain to us are certainly very
remarkable, but they do not justify the inference which has
been deduced from them. We now proceed to develop these
positions more at length.
1st. Tholuck tacitly assumes that we possess the prophecies
of Jeremiah in the very same form in which they were
publicly uttered by him, from the thirteenth year of the
reign of Josiah downwards. This however is not the case.
The contrary clearly appears from a narrative proceeding
from Jeremiah himself, or from Baruch his assistant, which
has been inserted in Jer. xxxvi. It was not till the fourth
year of Jehoiakim, twenty-three years after his appearance as
a prophet, that he caused his oracles to be committed to writ
ing by Baruch.1 Now it is certainly possible, in the abstract,
that Jeremiah could even then reproduce literally what he
had said in the preceding years ; but it is, at the same time,
exceedingly improbable that he was in a condition to do so.
And besides, such a verbal reproduction would have been
superfluous, nay, utterly at variance with the object which he
had in view. He wished, by the public reading of his pro
phecies in the temple, to bring the Judeans to repentance ;2 but
then the exhortations and warnings must also be so formulated
that they would admit of being applied to the position in
which his countrymen were at the time. The book-roll
written by Baruch might indeed reproduce faithfully the main
1 Compare above, pp. 65 — 67. * Jer. xxxvi. 3, 5 — 7.

304' VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
contents of the earlier addresses, but not the references to
place and time which they embraced ; Jeremiah might, nay,
must omit these.
Begarded from this point of view, the predictions concerning
the " enemy out of the north " lose the miraculous character
which Tholuck seems to regard as constituting their chief value.
It is the most probable supposition that they originally referred
to the Scythians, whose predatory incursions in and around
Palestine are, on good grounds, assigned to a later period than
that in which Tholuck is inclined to place them.1 But as these
predictions were read in the temple of Jerusalem, in the
fourth or fifth year of Jehoiakim, they would necessarily
be transferred by the hearers to the Chaldeans. It does not
however in any way follow from this, that Jeremiah had
prophesied regarding them at a time when they had not yet
appeared upon the stage of history. In truth there is nothing
at all to show that he did. It is not the rise of the enemy
out of the north, but his appearance in Judea, and the
punitive judgment which he shall execute there, that is fore
told by the prophet.
That single utterance also concerning Egypt,2 on which
Tholuck lays stress, assumes another aspect, as soon as we
consider that it was committed to writing in the fourth year
after the battle of Megiddo. But besides, Tholuck takes a
wrong view of it. It refers, not to the future, but to the
past. The prophet reminds his hearers, how the people of
Israel, in spite of their close relation to Jahveh, were
frequently — as a punishment for their apostasies — treated as
aliens and slaves, and appeals, among other instances, to
the evil which the Egyptians had inflicted upon the people
of Jahveh.3 The hearers of Baruch probably applied this also
to the victory gained by Necho, but when the prophet
uttered the address in the reign of Josiah, he could not have
thought of that Egyptian monarch.
2nd. No one will certainly ascribe decisive weight to the
narrative of Jeremiah's encounter with Hananiah the
Gibeonite, which is recorded in the twenty-eighth chapter.
1 Compare my "Hist. Krit. ODderz.," &c, II. 176 f., and above, p. 171.
2 Jer. ii. 16.
3 See vv. 14, 15, and the commentary of Graf on the passage.

PROPHECIES ABOUT HANANIAH, JEHOIAKIM, & JEHOIACHIN. 305
Many a threatening of the wrath of the deity, such as we
find there, has been ratified by the issue in as striking a
manner, either because it produced a deep impression on the
imagination of him whom it concerned, or by accident, as it
is called.1 Such announcements are preserved in memory,
just in those cases when they are confirmed by the facts,
while if the event is different, they speedily pass into oblivion.
Who would then, from this one account, venture to deduce
consequences which would lead him, elsewhere, into great
perplexity? Besides we have no certainty that the agree
ment between Jeremiah's prediction and the result was so
striking as it now appears to us. The narrative which lies
before us was composed not immediately after the encounter,
but after Hananiah's death which is mentioned in the last
verse. Even if it were written by Jeremiah himself,2 still it
has not been preserved to us in its original form, as the
manner of writing the proper names, and other deviations
prove.3 We therefore do not know whether the death of
Hananiah in that year was in fact foretold in terms so un
ambiguous. 3d. The assertions of Tholuck regarding the fate of
Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin teach us how absolutely necessary
it is to submit to a rigid test the proofs in favour of the fore
knowledge of the prophets. If we may proceed on the
historical accounts about these kings, then the former, after
having been the vassal of Nebuchadrezzar for three years,
rebelled against him. The consequence of this step was that
Chaldean forces, aided by auxiliary troops from the neigh
bouring tribes, invaded his kingdom, and disturbed the last
years of his reign. Nebuchadrezzar does not seem to have
then had an opportunity of punishing him more severely, and
subduing him altogether. At least we do not read that he
conquered Jerusalem or dethroned Jehoiakim. On the con
trary it is said that " Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and
Jehoiachin, his son, reigned in his stead." But at the very
time when this happened, the Chaldean monarch must
have already been on the march against Judea. For three
1 Compare my "Hist. Krit. Onderz.,'' &c, II. 196. Matthes, "De
jpseudoproph. Hebrseorum," pp. 66, ff.
2 See v. 1. "In this year— spake Hananiah to me," &c.
3 See my "Hist. Krit. Onderz.," &c, ii., pp. 197.
U

306 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
months later Jehoiachin saw himself necessitated to open the
gates of Jerusalem to the Chaldean besiegers, and the punish
ment for Jehoiakim's revolt was inflicted upon him, his
mother, and a large portion of the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
who were all carried away to Babylon.1 This narrative
given in 2 Kings is confirmed, in its main features, by
the historical allusions in the prophecies of Jeremiah,
while it is not contradicted by them in any one point ;
on that account therefore, but not less also because of its
internal probability, it may be regarded as perfectly trust
worthy. What right, then, has Tholuck to assert that
Jehoiakim " fell into the hands of the Chaldeans, and died a
miserable death ? " This is nowhere related, and was not
once predicted by Jeremiah. He had in fact only announced
that Jehoiakim should have no honourable burial,2 or, as it is
elsewhere expressed,3 that " he should be buried with the
burial of an ass, dragged forth and cast far without the gates
of Jerusalem." That this actually happened may be assumed
as probable, for the very reason that the predictions of
Jeremiah, of so positive a character, have been preserved ;
but it is not proved that the Chaldeans, who knew nothing
of Jeremiah, subjected the dead body of their rebellious vassal
to such ignominious treatment. Why may we not rather sup
pose that the inhabitants of Jerusalem, embittered against
the covetous and unjust king,4 had taken upon themselves
the execution of the judgment threatened by Jeremiah ? But
however this may be ; after Jehoiakim had revolted from
Nebuchadrezzar and had not been punished by him, the pro
phet could easily foresee, that his consort and his son would
suffer the fate which would have been assigned to himself, if
death had not intervened. The prophecy contained in Jer.
xiii. does not therefore require to be explained on supernatural
principles. 4th. The same observation is true of that whole circle of
predictions to which Jer. xiii. belongs. It is indeed very
remarkable that, from the fourth year of the reign of
1 2 Ki. xxiv. 1 — 17, from which 2 Chron. xxxvi. 5 — 10 differs only in so
far as Jehoiakim also is described as having been carried away captive (w.
6, 7). We shall immediately return to this divergence.
2 Jer. xxxvi. 30 ; see above, p. 301. 3 Jer. xxii, 19.
4 Jer. xxii. 13—17.

JEREMIAHS VIEW OF NEBUCHADREZZAR'S TASK. 307
Jehoiakim, Jeremiah saw in Nebuchadrezzar "the servant
of Jahveh," the agent who was to execute Jahveh's judg
ments. We have already seen on what grounds that con
viction really rested.1 In the eyes of the prophet, Judah
is, in the highest degree, culpable ; immorality, idolatry,
and mere outward worship of Jahveh extort from him
continually the bitterest complaints and reproaches. It
is with him thus a firm conviction that the righteous
retribution cannot fail to come. But then indeed he
must also assume that Nebuchadrezzar has been ordained
by Jahveh to execute it. After the battle of Car
chemish he was evidently the destined ruler of Western
Asia. Accordingly Jeremiah announces his victories, and
exhorts his fellow-countrymen to bow themselves beneath
Jahveh's rod, and not to withstand " the servant of Jahveh."
It is well known that this exhortation found no acceptance ;
that Jehoiakim threw off the yoke of the Chaldeans, and
that Zedekiah, urged on by his courtiers, planned in the very
beginning of his reign,2 the revolt which he carried into effect
in his ninth year. Very naturally Jeremiah condemned these
designs in the severest terms, and opposed them with all his
might. Even during the siege of Jerusalem, he persevered
in his opposition, and urged his countrymen to submission, in
a manner which could scarcely be approved of, if his convic
tion had rested on any other basis. The facts have justified
him, and shown that submission to the foreign ruler was the
only means whereby Judah's national existence could be
saved. But was this a matter so difficult to be perceived ?
Was there not rather a great measure of political and religious
blindness needed in order to believe, with Jehoiakim, Zedekiah,
their princes and prophets, that Judah would be victorious in
the struggle with her more powerful adversary ? Let it be
once more repeated : the difference between Jeremiah's
anticipations of the future, and those of his opponents was
not founded on the greater or less clearness of their insight
into the political condition of those days, but on the differ
ence of religious and moral development which existed between
them, and of which their judgment on the claims of Judah
to Jahveh's favour was the natural result. But the effect of
i See above, p. 177, note 2. 2 Jer. xxvii.

308 VIII. — FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
this difference was that Jeremiah saw things as they really
were, while the opposite party yielded themselves to all kinds
of illusions. We willingly give Jeremiah the credit which is
due to him on that account ; but it is impossible for us to
see the proof of the divine origin of his expectations in the
fact that they were realised.
5th. But how then is his prophecy about the duration of
the captivity to be explained ? Before answering this ques
tion we must direct attention to one particular in Tholuck's
survey. He ascribes the prophecy against Babylon1 to
Jeremiah, and thus assumes that the prophet, in the fourth
year of the reign of Zedekiah, wrote down his ideas regarding
the fate which that kingdom had to expect, and communicated
them to Seraiah at least, when the latter was about to
accompany the king on his journey to Babylon.2 When I
treated previously of the realisation of this prophecy, I could
leave the question of its authorship undetermined.3 It then
appeared clearly that it makes no distinction between the
capture and the destruction of Babylon, and, in so far, must
be ranked among the unfulfilled prophecies, whether it be
ascribed to Jeremiah or to a younger prophet. But in the
former case, the opposition between the prediction and the
issue becomes still stronger ; because the author of Jer. I, li.
expects that the judgment will be executed on Babylon within
a short time.4. Such an expectation, entertained in the fourth
year of Zedekiah, would have been a mistake. We should,
notwithstanding this, feel ourselves obliged to ascribe the
prophecy to Jeremiah, if it otherwise showed itself to be his
production. But that is not the case. The historical situa
tion which it presupposes is not that of the beginning of the
sixth century B.C. The author, too, does not live within, but
out of Palestine, probably in the immediate neighbourhood of
Babylon.6 In addition to this, such a prediction of Babylon's
fall does not at all fit into the circle of ideas in which
1 Jer. 1. 2— li. 58. 2 Jer. li. 59—64*.
3 See above, pp. 136—139.
* Jer. li. 33, compared with the calls to flee out of Babylon in chaps. 1. 8,
16,28; li. 6,45.
6 Israel is in captivity according to Jer. 1. 4 — 7, 19, 20, 33, 34 ; li. 34,
35 ; the enemies of Babylon are addressed as being present, Jer. 1. 3, 9, 14
—16, 26, 27, 41—44 ; li. 11, 12, 27, 29.

THE PROPHECY AGAINST BABYLON IN JEREMIAH L., LI. 309
Jeremiah moved at that time, in the fourth year of the reign
of Zedekiah. We know already that, about this time, he
urged submission to Nebuchadrezzar, and maintained unceasing
opposition against the prophets who preached rebellion, and
who announced the immediate return' of the captives carried
away in 597 B.C. But surely he could not, in that case,
have, at the same time, written down a prophecy like that
in chapters 1. and li., in which there is not a single word of
repentance and submission, and, on the contrary, the destruc
tion of the haughty capital, and the liberation of the captive
Israelites are depicted as being close at hand. " If Jeremiah
had written the oracle against Babylon, especially the repeated
announcements of the approach of her enemies, and the calls
to forsake her and flee ; if, in a document of that compass, he
had introduced no single exhortation to patience, no single
warning against overstrained hopes — would he not then have
contradicted himself to the face, and exposed himself to the
just censure of the prophets whom he combated ? " *
, Nevertheless I by no means deny that Jeremiah ascribed
then, in the first years of Zedekiah, as he had done before,
only a temporary supremacy to the Chaldeans, and hoped for
better times to Israel. We now proceed to inquire in what
form he has clothed these expectations.
6th. According to the common opinion, which is also
maintained by Tholuck, Jeremiah intended, in the well-known
prophecy of the seventy years, to specify the exact duration
ol the Babylonish captivity, and the issue has fully corres
ponded with the declaration which he makes. There are
however weighty objections against the two subdivisions of
this proposition.
a. The seventy years occur twice in Jeremiah, once in
chap, xxv., a prophecy which belongs to the fourth year of
Jehoiakim, and again in chap, xxix., a letter to the captives
in Babylon, which was sent probably eleven years later, in
the fourth year of Zedekiah, or at least about that time.
This repetition is regarded as proving that Jeremiah foresaw,
1 See my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," &c, II. 232.
2 Jer. xxv. 11, 12 ; xxix. 10. No difference of opinion exists about the
date of chap. xxv. ; chap. xxix. belongs, according to vv. 1—3, to the first
years of Zedekiah ; the comparison of chap, xxviii. 1 with li. 59 leads to the
supposition expressed in the text.

310 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
not merely a long-continued captivity in general, but a slavery
of exactly seventy years. But such a view is unjust. If
Jeremiah had wished to state the definite duration of the
Chaldean rule, he would not have named, in his letter, the
very same number that he had given in his prophecy eleven
years before. He could repeat his previous announcement
without alteration only if it was his sole object to
express the idea, that a long time, more than a genera
tion, must elapse, before Israel could be restored. This
conclusion receives confirmation from two quarters. The
captives in Babylon reproduce the main purport of Jeremiah's
letter to them, in the following words : " he sent unto
us to Babylon saying — a long time has to elapse " 1—
without mentioning the number of years itself, which they
therefore do not appear to have understood literally, or at
least did not regard as the main point. The prophet
himself announces elsewhere — but in an address which
apparently belongs to the same fourth year of Zedekiah, in
which he wrote his letter — that the nations then subjected to
Nebuchadrezzar would serve that king, his son, and his grand
son. 2 This agrees very well with the servitude of seventy years,
if we understand the two prophecies as denoting indeterminate
periods. If we do not so understand them, they are then
utterly incapable of being reconciled with each other, and
moreover the last mentioned prophecy becomes directly con
tradicted by the facts. Nebuchadrezzar was, in 561 B.C.,
succeeded by his son Evil-merodach, who, after two years,
was put to death by his brother-in-law Neriglissar.
Laborosoarchod, the son of Neriglissar, ascended the throne
four years afterwards (555 B.C.) ; he reigned however only
for nine months, when Nabonedus or Nabunita usurped
the supreme power, which he held till the destruction of the
Chaldean monarchy (538 B.C.). This Nabunita did not
belong to the family of Nebuchadrezzar.3 The time fixed by
1 Jer. xxix. 28. 2 Jer. xxvii. 7.
3 Such is the account given by Berosus (p. 68, Ed. Richter), who calls
him one of the inhabitants of Babylon, and states that he had taken part in
the conspiracy against Laborosoarchod, and was appointed by his fellow-
conspirators to take the place of that monarch. It is self-evident that the
statement of Herodotus (I. 188) can have no weight as opposed to this
account by one who was a native of the country and possessed of accurate
information. According to the Grecian historian, Labynetus (Nabunita) is

JEREMIAH S PROPHECY OF THE DURATION OF THE CAPTIVITY. 311
Jeremiah, therefore, in the words ; " the king of Babylon, his
son and his grandson," if understood literally, reaches no
farther than to 555 B.C. — when seventeen years had still to
elapse before the commencement of the reign of Cyrus over
Babylon, and the end of the captivity. In truth, the
apologists should have thought twice before putting in the
foreground the strict fulfilment of the prophecies as the
criterion of their value. That Jeremiah in the year 595 B.C.
had no knowledge of the succession of the kings of Babylon
till 538 B.C., is certainly the most natural thing in the world :
nobody a priori expected the contrary, or could think of re
proaching the prophet with this ignorance. It is the apologists
who, through their zeal for the supernatural interpretation of
prophecy, make Jeremiah appear to have arrogated to him
self that foreknowledge, and to stand before us put to shame,
when it is now seen clearly, that he did not possess it.1
In the foregoing demonstration I have proceeded on the
supposition that Jeremiah did actually predict the seventy
years' servitude, and that on two occasions, once in chap. xxv.
and again in chap. xxix. Objections however have been
offered against this view. Dr Bowland Williams is inclined
to assign the whole prediction to the later readers of the
prophecies of Jeremiah.2 But if that were the case, how are
we to account for the number seventy ? Instead of that
round number, an interpolator would rather have given
accurately the true duration of the captivity. Besides, there
is nothing whatever in chap. xxix. to justify the supposition
the son of Labynetus and Nitocris, and there is no mention made of either
Nebuchadrezzar or Belshazzar. It is therefore a singularly unfortunate idea
of Dr Payne Smith (The Holy Bible, &c, Vol. V., p. 460, f.) to adduce the
erroneous and defective account of Herodotus as a proof of the realisation of
Jeremiah's prediction.
1 In support of his opinion that the seventy years of Jeremiah are intended
to indicate the precise duration of the captivity, Tholuck appeals (p. 114 f.)
to Is. xxiii. 15 ; asserting that what is said there must have reference to the
condition of Tyre during the Chaldean supremacy, and that it was very
nearly realised, because the Chaldean kings, reckoning from Nebuchadrezzar
to the death of Nabunita, reigned sixty-six years. But, in this assertion,
the fact is overlooked that Nebuchadrezzar, in no case, obtained possession
of Tyre in the beginning of his reign. The city had certainly not fallen
into his hands before 572 B.C. ; between that year and the end of the
Chaldean monarchy only thirty-four years elapsed. See p. 106, ff. Be
sides, the whole interpretation of Is. xxiii. on which Tholuck's proof rests,
has been already shown to be very doubtful. Compare above, p. 105, ff.
2 "The Hebrew Prophets," II. 183, 239, f.

312 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
of interpolation. There is, in any case, much more appear
ance of truth in the opinion of Hitzig x and Graf,2 that
Jeremiah himself inserted in the letter to the captives the
fixed period of seventy years which would have to elapse
before their deliverance, and that some one else introduced
it into chap. xxv. also. The text of this chapter — the
Hebrew especially, but the Greek also, though in a less degree
— is undoubtedly corrupted in various places by glosses.
Besides the prediction of the end of the Chaldean servitude is
not quite in its right place in an announcement of the judg
ment which was to be executed by the Chaldeans on Judah
and other kingdoms. For these reasons, I also think that
the repetition of that prediction is exceedingly doubtful.
But in an investigation regarding both the proper meaning of
the prophet and the realisation of his prediction, it seemed to
me advisable to take as a basis the common text, the genuine
ness of which is not doubted by Tholuck and those who think
with him. If I had considered the prediction in chap. xxix.
exclusively, the problem would have been simplified, but the
solution would have been the same.
b. Of still greater importance is the question whether the
prediction of Jeremiah, whatever its intention may be, is fully
corroborated by the facts. They who answer it in the
affirmative place the commencement of the captivity in the
fourth or third year of the reign of Jehoiakim (604 or 605
B.C.), and its termination in 536 B.C., so that really there
remains no difference worth mentioning between the period
assigned by Jeremiah and the historical reality. When, how
ever, we examine this calculation more narrowly, it is clearly
seen to rest on incorrect premises.
It was in the year 604 B.C. that Jeremiah for the first
time mentioned the seventy years. He says himself in so
many words at what time they would commence. " I will,"
saith Jahveh, "take all the families of the north and
Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and bring
them against this land and against the inhabitants thereof,
and against all these nations round about, and will utterly
destroy them (make them cherem), and make them desolation
1 " Der Prophet Jeremia erklart " (2 Aufl.), p. 187, f.
2 "Der Prophet Jeremia erklart," p. 325, ff.

WAS THE PROPHECY OF THE 70 YEARS CAPTIVITY FULFILLED ? 3 1 3
and hissing and perpetual ruins. And I will destroy from
among them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness. .
And this whole land shall be ruins and desolation, and all
these nations shall serve the king of Babylon for seventy
years." 1 When we compare this oracle with the course of
events which is known to us, it is really clear at once that
this course did not altogether correspond to the view formed
by Jeremiah. He evidently expects that Nebuchadrezzar will
at once inflict a fearful blow on Judah and the neighbourino;
nations, and that the period of their subjection to his
sovereignty shall at the same time begin. But things did
not thus turn out. Jehoiakim, by his voluntary submission,
averted the first violent attack of the Chaldean power.
Afterwards he himself revolted, in consequence of which the
first deportation, took place in 597 B.C., and this was followed,
in 586 B.C., after the rebellion of Zedekiah, by the second
deportation and the destruction of the city and temple.
This course of events was not foreseen by Jeremiah in 604
B.C. We must also add that as he had formed an idea of
the commencement of the period of seventy years different
from that which the reality has presented, so also had he
formed an equally erroneous idea of its termination. This
has been shown already, and does not require to be again
proved.2 Where now does the period announced by Jeremiah begin in
reality ? This question does not admit of being answered with
indisputable certainty, because history and the view of the pro
phet do not altogether correspond to each other. The beginning
of the seventy years cannot however be placed before the first
deportation (597 B.C.). Let the reader once more peruse the
strong expressions which Jeremiah employs ! Understood
literally, they properly apply much better even to the year
when Jerusalem was destroyed, 586 B.C. But if we see in
them the prophetic description of the state of things which
began with the submission of Jehoiakim — probably 603 B.C.
— we then do not at all do justice to their meaning. In
597 B.C., Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Chaldean
king, and the flower of the population of Judea was, with
Jehoiachin and his mother, carried away captive. Then,
1 Jer. xxv. 9—11. 2 See above, pp. 198, f. ; 204, f., &c.

314 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
but most certainly not earlier, the Babylonish captivity
commenced. If the year 536 before our era is the terminus ad quern,
then the captivity lasted sixty-one years. Others place the
return of the captives in 538 B.C., and thus arrive at a period
of fifty-nine yea,rs. In either case the difference between the
prophecy and the reality is too great to allow us to speak
about strict fulfilment.
Our conclusion would necessarily be quite different, if any
distinguished Jews had been transported to Babylon so soon
as in 605 B.C. That such an event really happened is
assumed on the authority of the book of Daniel, which begins
with the words: "In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakvm
. . . came Nebuchadnezzar . . . unto Jerusalem, and besieged
it." x As the result of that siege, Jehoiakim himself, and,
along with him, a number of members of the royal family, are
supposed to have been carried away into " the land of Shinar." 2
The second book of Chronicles confirms this account, inasmuch
as we there read that Nebuchadnezzar "bound him (Jehoiakim)
in chains in order to carry him to Babylon " 3 — a design, which,
in the opinion of the writer, he most probably carried into
effect. But it is an established fact that this so-called first
deportation did not take place. It is not mentioned either
in the second book of Kings or in the appendix to Jeremiah's
prophecies.4 What is more : Jeremiah himself knows no
earlier deportation than that of Jehoiachin in 597 B.C. It
surely will not be assumed that he passed any event of such
importance over in silence ? Though he must also have men
tioned it elsewhere, yet he could not at least have been silent
regarding it in his oracles which belong to Jehoiakim's fourth
year, in chap. xxv. therefore. But, on the contrary, he has
nothing else to speak of but a judgment still future. A year
later, in Jehoiakim's fifth year, the punishment is still im
pending.5 Before this testimony of a contemporary, the
accounts in second Chronicles and Daniel should necessarily
1 Dan i. 1. 2 Ibid., verse 2. 3 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6.
4 See 2 Kings xxiii. 36 — xxiv. 7, and the enumeration of the captives in
Jer. lii. 28-30.
5 Jer. xxxvi. 9 . In the ninth month of that year a fast is proclaimed
and Baruch reads the prophecies of Jeremiah in the temple, in the hope
that " the house of Judah would hear all the evil which Jahveh purposed to
do unto them, and be converted and obtain forgiveness." (Ibid., verse 3.)

THE PROPHECY FULFILLED, BUT NOT LITERALLY. 315
give way, even if they otherwise appeared to deserve con
fidence. With the greater readiness we set them aside, now
that, from other quarters also, there arise so many insuper
able objections against their credibility.1
The result therefore which has been already expressed
remains unshaken : the prophecy of the seventy years of
captivity cannot be regarded as literally fulfilled prediction.
But may it not still be regarded as fulfilled prediction ? Un
doubtedly it may. The restoration of Israel indeed, in 536 B.C.,
in no degree corresponded to the lofty expectations of Jeremiah,
but certainly the foundation of a new Jewish state was laid in
that year. But this realisation of the prophetical prediction
can no more be regarded as a miracle than the confirmation
by facts of his announcement of judgment to which I have
already (4th) called attention. The hope of a return home
did not need to be awakened by Jeremiah. In the beginning
of Zedekiah's reign it was so lively even among the captives
in Babylonia, that he thought himself obliged to repress them.2
But he tried to moderate their hope, not to extinguish it :
the time would come, however considerable the period which
might have to intervene, when it would be realised by
Jahveh.3 He expressed himself in the same spirit, when,
after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the whole nation was
carried away into captivity.4 His promises made at that
time a deeper impression, because they were pronounced after
the realisation of the threatenings which he had formerly
uttered. They were accordingly held in remembrance. What
we saw before with regard to Ezekiel is true of the pious
exiles in general : they viewed their sojourn in a foreign land
as provisional : their eye remained directed to Jerusalem and
to the signs of the times, which seemed to announce the
dawning of a new day. Immediately after the appearance of
Cyrus (558 B.C.), the conjecture will have been awakened
^.mong them, that he was the deliverer of Israel who had
been appointed by Jahveh. Every new victory gained by
him confirmed that presentiment; and when Cyrus, in 538
B.c, conquered Babylon, it became certainty. It was a
1 Compare my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," II. 166 f., 446 f.; K. H. Graf, die
gesch. Biicher des A. T., p. 182.
3 Jer. xxix. 4 ff. 3 Ibid., verse 10, ff. 4 Jer. xxx.— xxxiii.

316 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
matter of course that the Persian conqueror became aware of
this, and it was only natural that he hastened to respond to
the expectation which the Jewish exiles cherished regarding
him. He proceeded to assume the honourable part which
was contemplated for him by the Jewish nation the more
readily, because the satisfaction of their wish was also
demanded by political reasons. Judea lay on the borders of
Egypt, a country which certainly was then already partly
dreaded, and partly coveted, by the newly established Persian
monarchy. It was thus in the interest of Cyrus to people
that province with men who owed everything to the Persians,
and had everything to fear from their enemies : he could
place implicit reliance on their fidelity. In the permission to-
return which was granted by Cyrus there is thus nothing
whatever that can surprise us. Given the wish of the Jews
to see their native land again, and their confidence in the
fulfilment of that wish, and then all the rest follows as a matter
of course. But that confidence was, though not altogether, yet
certainly in a great measure, the work of Jeremiah. By its-
moral influence, his prophecy of Israel's restoration effected,
or at least very powerfully promoted, that restoration itself.
The Chronicle-writer certainly meant something different
when he wrote l that " in the first year (of the reign) of
Cyi%us, king of Persia (over Babylon), in order to fulfil the
word of Jahveh by the mouth of Jeremiah, Jahveh stirred
up the spirit of Koresh," viz., to issue the edict in favour of
the Jews. On his religious standpoint, he does not trouble
himself about the immediate causes of the fact which he
relates : Jahveh has freed Israel, and thereby has set the seal
on the promise which he had made by the mouth of Jere
miah ; this is sufficient for him. The psychological explana
tion which we seek, and in this case also find, does not of"
course exclude that religious view, but completes it. And
this is true not only of the Chronicle-writer, but also of those
who lived at the time when Babylon was conquered by Cyrus
and when his edict was issued, especially of the second Isaiah,
the author of chapters xl.- — Ixvi. It is a well-known fact that
he appeals repeatedly and with special emphasis to the fulfil
ment of Jahveh's prophecies, as a sufficient proof of the
1 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, and, from the same author, Ezra i. 1.

THE SECOND ISAIAH AND THE PREDICTIONS OF JEREMIAH. 3 1 7
omniscience and omnipotence of Jahveh.1 What prophecies
presented themselves to his mind, when he did so, does not
admit of being always determined with certainty. From the
appearance of Cyrus and the revolt of the Persians against
the Medes (558 B.C.) till the time when he wrote, immedi
ately before the conquest of Babylon (538 B.C.), about twenty
years had already elapsed. If, as was just now assumed as
probable, the hope in the triumph of Cyrus and in the
liberation of the Jews through his intervention, was at once
awakened and openly expressed in the year 558 B.C. (after
the revolt of the Persians) — whether by the Babylonian
Isaiah himself, or by men of kindred sentiments — then he
could, so many years later, point already to these predic
tions and their almost complete fulfilment. But with still
greater right could he hold up the prophecies of Jeremiah
before the worshippers of the idols, and challenge them to
produce any such proofs of the foreknowledge of their gods.
Undoubtedly he thinks then of these older oracles also when
he mentions what Jahveh has announced, " long before " and
" from ancient time," by his servants the prophets.2 How
ever this may be, nothing is more natural than that the
course of events confirmed him in the belief of Jahveh's
omnipotence and omniscience, and thus, at the same time,
inspired him with firm confidence in the future. Proceeding
on the twofold supposition that the Israelitish prophets were
the interpreters of Jahveh, and that Jahveh, the only true
God, governed the world with a view to, and in the interest
of, " Israel his servant, and Jacob whom he had chosen," he
must have written exactly as he does write, about Cyrus and
his victories, the destiny which Babylon had to expect, and
the future of Israel. The reality remained, as we formerly
saw,3 far below his expectations, and thus forbids us to
1 Let the reader, bearing this in mind, peruse Isa. xl. — xlviii. as a whole,
and especially chap. xli. 1—7, 21—29 ; xiii. 9 ; xliii. 8—13 ; xlv. 19—21 ;
xlvi. 8 — 13 ; xlviii.
2 Chap. xlv. 21 ; xlvi. 9, 10. Where the prophet elsewhere looks back to
the beginning of the captivity, he uses the same expressions, chap. xiii. 14 ;
lvii. 11 ; lviii. 12.
3 See above, pp. 137, ff. ; 194 ; and elsewhere. The opinion of Graetz (I.e.
p. 375, 1), who arranges these prophecies rather among those which have
been fulfilled, and regards them as clear proofs of the " foresight" (Vorschau)
of the Israelitish prophets, does not require to be refuted at length. The
desolation of Babylon, he writes, would not have happened if Nabonedus

318 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
acknowledge the suppositions on which he proceeds, as being
well-founded. We can no more adopt his ideas regarding the
divine inspiration of the prophets, as they appear there, than
his conception of the government of the world. From our
standpoint, the natural — historical, and psychological — con
nection of the facts, takes the place of the immediate interven
tion of Jahveh. Consequently we must, as it were, translate
the utterances of the second Isaiah into another language —
out of the Semitic into the Japhetic, as Bunsen expresses it.
But that translation we are able to make : these utterances
contain nothing possessing the character of fact for which we
are not able fully to account on our view of the connection
of the events.
If we had, on the contrary, to assign these utterances to
the contemporary of Hezekiah, they would always be enig
matical, nay, altogether inexplicable. It is indeed very
singular that the opposite opinion still continues to find
defendants. It is self-evident that if Isaiah, the son of Amoz,
foretold not only the Babylonish captivity but also the libe
ration of the Jews by Cyrus, he possessed a foreknowledge
more than human ; and, in the contest on behalf of Jahveh
and against the idols, he could, with the fullest right, appeal
to this prediction, as soon as it was confirmed by the issue.
Before that time he could not, of course, do so : what man
proves his gift of prediction by an appeal to the supposed
fulfilment of his anticipations ? How could Isaiah, about
700 B.C., triumphantly maintain the omniscience of Jahveh,
on the ground of facts which were to take place 150 or
160 y,ears afterwards? Yet this is the part which the
defenders of the unity of the book of Isaiah force him to
play.1 I have used the expression " force him " intentionally,
had submitted voluntarily and become the vassal of Cyrus : how could the
prophets know that he would not do this ? This argument proceeds on the
supposition that Babylon was laid waste by Cyrus ; where is such a state
ment to be found ? " Least of all," he continues, " could it be expected
that Cyrus would let his eye fall on the insignificant little band of
Jews- who were lost in the crowd of nations subdued by him, as a drop
of water is lost in the sea." But what if this insignificant little band
of Jews turned to Cyrus, and brought its concerns under his notice ? That
step was surely indicated, nay, imperatively demanded, by the circum
stances. 1 Of course this is done only from want of consideration. The writer of
the article Isaiah in Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible " says, in a note on

DEDUCTIONS REGARDING ISAIAH XL.  LXVI. 319
for the passages themselves protest loudly against such a
conception of the historical standpoint of the author. He
does not foresee the captivity, but he lives in the captivity,
and addresses the captives as his contemporaries. The appear
ance of Cyrus and his first victories over the Medes and their
vassals, over the Lydians, over Nabunita himself, do not for
him belong to a distant future, but to the past. Babylon has
not yet fallen into the hands of the Persian conqueror, but
its subjection is imminent. Such is the basis on which the
author of Isa. xl. ff., I do not say, places himself, but on
which he actually stands. Flavius Josephus could overlook
this, and, proceeding on the tradition which assigned these
chapters also to Hezekiah's contemporary, could arrange the
facts in his own way, and explain^ the favourable disposition
of Cyrus from his astonishment at oracles so old and so true.1
In his days criticism had not yet been born, and exegesis was
in its infancy. But what was permissible to him is now no
longer allowed. We must examine more keenly, and dis
criminate more accurately. In this case, at least, the truth
then becomes at once apparent, that the author of Isa. xl. ff.,
wrote shortly before the termination of the Babylonish cap
tivity ; he looks back upon Jeremiah, and is the living and
irrefragable proof of the moral influence which the prophecies
of that great predecessor had exercised upon contemporaries
and posterity.
I have now placed my view over against that of Tholuck,
and I calmly leave to the reader to make his choice between
the two. I shall only make one observation more. In
a previous chapter we took cognisance of the expectations
of the prophets who were contemporaries of Jeremiah.2
These seemed to us to be capable of a psychological explana-
the passages quoted above (I. 886, n.c.) : " It is difficult to acquit the
passages above cited of impudent, and indeed suicidal mendacity, if they
were not written before Cyrus appeared on the political scene." This diffi
culty is, as we have seen, imaginary. The writer does not perceive that,
on the other hand, the Isaian authorship of chaps, xl., ff., involves an inex
plicable difficulty.
1 " Ant.," xi. 1, § 1, 2. To a certain extent the Jewish historian could
appeal on this point to Ezra i. 2 — 4, inasmuch as the author of this narra
tive also had before him Isa. xl., ff., and ascribes to Cyrus expressions
borrowed from these chapters. Compare my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," II.
101, f..
2 See above, p. 174. ff.

320 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
tion, just as above we thought that we could give account of
Jeremiah's anticipations without being obliged to have recourse
to the theory of "mechanical inspiration. In other words : our
theory is plainly applicable to the mutually opposed predic
tions which lie before us in the Old Testament ; and is not
that fact its best recommendation ? Let us not forget :
if we think ourselves necessitated to derive the prophe
cies of Jeremiah from the supernatural communications
supposed to have been granted to him, then we must, on the
other hand, deny, not only in the case of Hananiah the
Gibeonite, but also in the case of Habakkuk, of the author of
Zech. xii. — xiv., and of Joel, that they had received any
revelations from God, and we must stigmatise the confidence
with which they, too, appeal to such, as being either self-
deception or imposture. The psychological explanation, and
it alone, releases us from this painful obligation, and permits
us to do justice to all sincere prophets of Jahveh, without our
being required to disguise the opposition existing between
their several convictions.

If Jeremiah stood almost alone in Jerusalem in the reign
of Zedekiah, he had in Babylonia an advocate of kindred
opinions in the person of Ezekiel, who had been carried
thither as a captive in the year 597 B.C., and who, according
to the heading of his book,1 came forward, five years after
wards, as a prophet. The predictions regarding the fate of
Jerusalem and of Zedekiah, which appear in the first half of
that book (chaps, i. — xxiv.), are, in general, parallel with
those of Jeremiah uttered during the last years of Judah's
national existence, and, in so far as they are parallel, have
been already explained by the preceding investigation.2 They
rest, in fact, just like those of Jeremiah, upon an exceedingly
unfavourable judgment of the religious and moral condition
of the inhabitants of Judea.3 In consequence of this judg
ment, Ezekiel also sees — and herein he coincides still with
Jeremiah — in the schemes of revolt from Nebuchadrezzar an
1 Ezek. i. 2. 2 See specifically on this point, pp. 306 — 308.
3 The prophet is, from chap. viii. and onwards, engaged almost throughout
in depicting and rebuking the sins of Judah, sometimes with a specific view
to his contemporaries, sometimes, more generally, to the people of Israel.

THE PREDICTIONS OF EZEKIEL AND OF JEREMIAH. 321
opposition to the decree of Jahveh ; he most sternly disap
proves of these plans, and regards it as beyond a doubt that
they shall issue in the total destruction of the State.1 How
peculiar, soever, the form may be in which Ezekiel utters the
expectations entertained by him, yet in so far as they coin
cide with those of Jeremiah in their contents, they have been
already sufficiently illustrated.
But it will not have escaped the notice of the reader that,
in what has just been said, the agreement between Ezekiel
and Jeremiah has been twice, in some degree, restricted.
Indeed, the book of the prophecies of Ezekiel contains also,
especially in the first half (chaps, i. — xxiv.), predictions to
which nothing corresponding is to be found in Jeremiah.
These occupy an important place among the proofs of the
supernatural origin of the prescient insight possessed by the
Israelitish prophets. In Tholuck, also, they stand promi
nently forward.2 I shall lay them before the reader, more
fully than they are communicated by him, in order thereafter
to subject them to a strict investigation.
The predictions to which I allude, refer, in the first place,
to the fate of Zedekiah. By command of Jahveh, Ezekiel
prepares for himself the equipment of a captive, and removes
it to another place in the sight of his countrymen. In the
evening he makes, in their presence, an opening in the wall
of his house, through which he himself goes out ; at the same
time he covers his face, so that he does not see the ground.
The signification of this transaction is explained to him on
the following morning : " As I have done " — so he is charged
by Jahveh to say to his fellow-exiles — " so shall it be done
unto them (the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea in gene
ral) : as prisoners shall they go away into captivity. And the
prince who is among them shall take (his equipment) upon
his shoulder in the twilight, and shall go forth ; they shall
dig through the wall to open an outlet for him ; his face
shall he cover that he may not see the ground with his eye.
And I (Jahveh) will spread my net over him, and he shall be
taken in my snare ; and I will bring him to Babylon, to the
land of the Chaldeans, but that land he shall not see, and
there he shall die." 3 The fate of Zedekiah corresponded
1 See e.g. chap. xvii. 11—21. 2 I.e., pp. 107—109. 3 Ezek. xii. 3—13.
X

322 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
with this prediction, even to the minutest particulars. When
the hope of the relief of Jerusalem had fled, he endeavoured,
along with some trusty followers, to save himself during the
night by flight. But the Chaldeans pursued him, captured
him in the plain of Jericho, and brought him to Biblah, in
the land of Hamath. He was there arraigned before Nebu
chadrezzar. The sons of the unfortunate prince were slain
before his eyes ; and then he himself was deprived of sight,
and conveyed to Babylon.1
Another prediction regarding Zedekiah is somewhat less
detailed, but still in the highest degree remarkable. After
having represented his perfidy symbolically,2 the prophet in
plain terms announces the fate which awaits him : " He has
rebelled against Nebuchadrezzar, by sending his ambassadors
into Egypt, that they (the Egyptians) might give him horses
and much people : shall he prosper ? shall he escape that
doeth such things ? to break a covenant and yet escape ? As
truly as I live, saith the Lord Jahveh, in the land of the
king who had made him king, and whose oath he has vio
lated, whose covenant he has broken, beside that king, in the
midst of Babylon, he shall die." 3 The aid which the Egyp
tian prince shall send him, during the siege of Jerusalem, is
of no avail,4 because the violation of the covenant sworn in
the name of Jahveh must be avenged : " he (Jahveh) shall
spread his net over him (Zedekiah), and take him in his
snare, and bring him to Babylon, and there enter into judg
ment with him for the breach of faith which he hath com
mitted against him (Jahveh)." 5
Ezekiel's anticipations of the future, with regard to the
fate of Jerusalem also, are very deserving of notice. Tholuck
directs attention to chap, xxi., where the prophet represents
Nebuchadrezzar as standing at a point where two roads sepa
rate, and considering which road he should take, that to
Jerusalem, or that to Babbath- Ammon. The lot decides that
he shall march against Jerusalem, which is now actually
besieged. It is taken ; the king, too, suffers the punishment
which had been destined for him ; and thereafter the judg-
1 Jer. xxxix. 4 — 7 ; lii. 7 — 11 ; 2 Kings xxv. 4 — 7.
2 Eze~k. xvii. 1—10. 3 Ibid., vv. 15, 16.
* Ibid., v. 17. 6 Ibid., vv. 18—20.

EZEKIEL ON THE FATE OF ZEDEKIAH AND JERUSALEM. 323
ment is also executed on the Ammonites.1 The chapter whicli
contains these particulars is without date, but the one imme
diately preceding is assigned to the seventh year of Ezekiel's
captivity,2 when there were still two years to run to the
beginning of the siege of Jerusalem, and four to the fall of
the city. But the precise period in which his anticipation
would be realised was shown to the prophet in Babylon by
Jahveh. In the ninth year, on the tenth day of the tenth
month, he received the command to write down that day,
" because on this same day the king of Babylon has encamped
against Jerusalem." 3 That same date is given in the account
of the reign of Zedekiah.4
There is another revelation parallel to this last. On the
day just named,5 Ezekiel's wife died. By command of Jahveh
the prophet refrained from all signs of mourning, and he
announced to his fellow-exiles that the fall of the city and
temple would so prostrate them, that they in like manner
would refrain from lamentations and wailings. The prophet
was thus an example to them of the speechless anguish which
was in store for them ; and he had also to continue to be
such, because he might not open his mouth until the day on
which the capture of Jerusalem should be made known to
the exiles by a fugitive from that city.6 In a later chapter
we find the following narrative, which has a direct reference
to this command : " On the fifth day of the tenth month of
the eleventh 7 year of our captivity, there came unto me one
that had escaped out of Jerusalem, with the tidings : ' The
city is taken.' And the hand of Jahveh was upon me in the
evening, afore he that was escaped came, and he (Jahveh)
had opened my mouth until he (the fugitive) came to me in
the morning." 8 It will be remembered that, with the Israel-
i Ezek. xxi. 23—27 (18—22, Auth. Ver.). On v. 32 (27, Auth. Ver.), see
above, p. 210.
2 Ezek. xx. 1. s Ezek. xxiv. 1, 2.
* 2 Kings xxv. 1 ; Jer. lii. 4 ; compare xxxix. 1.
5 At least if Ezek. xxiv. 15 ff. is synchronous with w. 1 — 14.
6 Ezek. xxiv. 26, 27.
7 " The eleventh year" should be read instead of " the twelfth year."
Jerusalem was taken on the 9th day of the 4th month of the 11th year
(Jer. lii. 6), so that if we amend the text, there still remain six months for
the journey of the fugitive— a period more than sufficient. Compare Ezek.
xxvi. 1.
8 Ezek. xxxiii. 21, 22.

324 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
ites, the day began in the evening. The prophet, therefore,
did indeed remain dumb until the day on which the fugitive
reached him, but — a fact which, properly speaking, was never
announced in chap, xxiv. — was informed of his arrival by
divine revelation some hours before.
We have now laid before the reader the predictions of
Ezekiel, which no one will indeed be surprised to find are
usually adduced as proofs of the supernatural foreknowledge
of the prophet. They evidently do not stand on the same
footing as the rest of the fulfilled prophecies : Ezekiel receives
divine revelations also about particulars which are subordinate
and, in themselves, matters of indifference ; he foresees and
announces the accidental. But, it will be said, so much
the more plainly does it appear that here, at least, every
attempt to explain prophecy on natural principles must
necessarily fail : let the trial be only made to deduce the
prediction regarding the fate of Zedekiah from Ezekiel's own
reflection and power of combination !
Assuredly I shall here carefully refrain from any such
attempts ; and yet I cannot grant that the supernatural
explanation is, in this case, the only one possible. It seems
rather to come, on various points, into conflict with undeniable
facts. It is, at the very first, surprising that the prophet who
here seems to give clear tokens of a foreknowledge so extra
ordinary, utters elsewhere expectations regarding the destiny
of the heathen nations, and the future of his own people,
which are entirely contradicted by the course of events.1 Is
it not exceedingly singular that God has left his prophet in
ignorance of matters so important as the conquest of Tyre by
Nebuchadrezzar, and the issue of that monarch's wars against
Egypt, and at the same time has revealed to him the fact
that Zedekiah would be deprived of sight, and the day on
which the siege of Jerusalem should begin ? But the pheno
menon presented here must really be yet otherwise charac-
1 See this shown in chaps, v. — vii., especially p. 238, ff. Tholuck includes
{p. 125 ff.) the predictions of Jeremiah and Ezekiel concerning Egypt and
Phoenicia in the class of fulfilled prophecies ; though he does not disguise
that, in doing so, he anticipates that section of his inquiry in which the un
fulfilled predictions are treated. The refutation of his proof is given in
¦chap. v. See especially pp. 106 — 111, pp. 122 — 129.

PECULIARITY OF EZEKIEL'S PREDICTIONS. 325
terized. Ezekiel is not only ignorant ofthe course of mundane
events, he also represents that course incorrectly, and writes
down as " the word of Jahveh " predictions to which the
issue has not corresponded. How are we to reconcile with
this the prescience which he seems to manifest in the passages
of which we are now treating? Does Jahveh reveal, at one
time, truth, at another time, error ?
The supernatural theory has thus been already shown to
be insufficient : it explains some passages, but makes of others
an inexplicable enigma. Supposing it granted that we could
not further explain the fulfilled predictions of Ezekiel, yet,
even on this ground, we should be compelled to object to the
view which attributes them to supernatural revelation. We
should then rather be obliged to place them in the category
of those enigmatical phenomena which are comprised under
the names " presentiment " and " magnetic vision." Tholuck
adduces a single instance of this kind — which appears to
him to be perfectly credible — by the side of which the fore
knowledge that Ezekiel seems to manifest, vanishes into
nothing.1 Such facts are not usually regarded as proofs of
divine inspiration. What right then have we to regard them
as such in the case of Ezekiel, who yet shows clearly, in other
instances where he also comes forward as a prophet or inspired
man, that he does not know the future ?
But the whole of this argument proceeds on a supposition
which shall immediately be seen to be incorrect. I said,
" supposing it granted that we could not further explain the
fulfilled predictions of Ezekiel : " but the truth is, that we
really can explain them. Almost as soon as we look at
them for this purpose, we discover a number of particulars
which necessitate us to form a judgment on the predictions
referred to altogether different from that which we entertained
when we looked at them only superficially.
We have, on more than one occasion, been convinced of the
great importance of the distinction between the spoken and
the written prophetical discourse ; 2 but nowhere does this
importance appear more clearly than in the question which we
are now discussing.
The prophecies of Ezekiel are not all furnished with dates :
1 L. c. p. 106 f. 2 See pp. 64—67 and 303 f.

326 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
in the first half of his book (chaps, i. — xxiv.), we find only
four, in which the fifth, sixth, seventh, and ninth year of the
captivity of Jehoiachin (and Ezekiel) are mentioned in succes
sion.1 If we can assume that these headings indicate exactly or
approximately the time at which all the prophecies by which
they are each respectively followed, were uttered, then chapters
i. — vii. belong to the fifth, viii. — xix. to the sixth, xx. — xxiii.
to the seventh, and chap. xxiv. to the ninth year. The two
predictions regarding the fate of Zedekiah will, in that case,
date from the sixth year (592-1 B.C.), while the description
of the siege of Jerusalem will have been committed to writing
in the seventh year (591-0 B.C.). In order to recommend this
view, reference is made to the fact that mention is made, on
several occasions, in this first half of the book of Ezekiel, of
visits paid to him by the elders of Israel : 2 the discourses
which have been preserved are the addresses themselves which
the prophet delivered to them, and must thus be assigned to
the date which is specified for these meetings in the house of
Ezekiel. We may suffer all this to pass without objection, until it
appear plainly that such cannot be the case. But, in truth,
unambiguous facts forbid us to assign the prophecies in ques
tion to the years mentioned above or to nearly corresponding
dates. For
1st. In chap. xvii. Zedekiah's revolt from Nebuchadrezzar
and his covenant with Egypt are — not announced as future,
but — presupposed. This comes out with sufficient clearness
even in the riddle which the prophet here propounds,3 but is
expressed quite unequivocally in v. 1 5 : " He has rebelled
against him (Nebuchadrezzar), by sending his ambassadors into
Egypt that they (the Egyptians) might give him horses and
much people." Now it is perfectly true that Zedekiah had
already concerted plans for rebellion before the ninth year of
his reign ; but he had not carried them into effect ; and in
the account given by Jeremiah of these earlier plans, there is
nothing communicated to us of a covenant (or even of
negotiations) with Egypt.4 The conclusion is obvious : Ezek.
1 Chaps, i. 2 ; viii. 1 ; xx. 1 ; xxiv. 1.
2 Chaps, viii. 1, and xx. 1 (specification of time likewise), and chap. xiv. 1.
3 Ezek. xvii. 7.
* An ambassador of the Egyptian king does not appear among the envoys

THE DATES IN EZEKIEL, I.  XXIV. 327
xvii. was not written between the two dates which are
indicated by the headings in chapters viii. 1 ; and xx. 1.
2nd. As little does the second half of chap. xxi. date from
the seventh year (591-0, B.C.), which is named in the heading
of chap. xx. The commencement of the threatening against
Ammon runs : " Thus saith the Lord Jahveh to the sons of
Ammon, and to their reproach," x that is, " with regard to the
reproachful speeches uttered by them." We learn the mean
ing of this from the prediction of Ammon's overthrow, which
stands first in the series of Ezekiel's prophecies against the
heathen.2 It is altogether parallel with the threatening in
chap, xxi., but plainer with regard to that "reproach." The
Ammonites — so the prophet assures us — have exulted over
the fall of Jerusalem and the sanctuary of Jahveh, and
rejoiced at the humiliation inflicted upon Israel ; therefore
shall Jahveh stretch out his arm against them, and give
them up to pillage. Again, the conclusion is not for a moment
doubtful : the second part of chap. xxi. cannot have been
written before 586 B.C. The hostile disposition of the
Ammonites must first have been made manifest in deeds,
before Ezekiel could announce to them the punishment which
would be inflicted on that account. In the years in which
they were still conspiring with the Jews against Nebuchad
rezzar,3 such a threatening would have been absurd.
There is nothing that can be adduced in opposition to
these facts : the predictions in question do not belong to the
years in which the headings seem to place them.4
But what then are we to think ? In what manner is the
contradiction, which we here encounter, to be solved ?
There is only one hypothesis which gives light here. I
of foreign princes to whom Jeremiah addresses his warning discourse (Jer.
xxvii. 3). Egypt is not mentioned in the whole chapter, which would be
inexplicable, if the prophets had incited to the rebellion, looking to Egypt
for assistance (vv. 9, 10, 14 — 18).
1 Ezek. xxi. 33, Heb. (28 Auth. Ver).
'' Ezek. xxv. 1 — 7 ; compare above, pp. 112 — 114.
3 Compare Jeremiah xxvii. It may be inferred from Zeph. ii. 8 — 11,
that the Ammonites (and Moabites) had also previously uttered arrogant
language against Judah ; but the rebuke of Ezekiel belongs, in any case, to
a later period, and does not need to be illustrated from other quarters, when
his own utterances explain it.
4 On chap. xix. 14, a verse which leads to the same conclusions, see my
" Hist. Krit. Onderz. " II. 302, n. 11.

328 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
present it with some hesitation, because appearances are
against it. Many will at once be inclined to reject it as — a
subterfuge, by the help of which I try to escape from the
dogmatical conclusions to which the literally-fulfilled pro
phecies' of Ezekiel ought to have led. But this prospect must
not restrain me. The difficulties are there and do not admit
of being evaded. I leave it to the reader himself to judge
whether the solution which I present to him is not the only
one possible. If it is the only one, then it must be accepted,
in spite of the appearances which plead against it.
The passages of Ezekiel explained above contain no real
predictions. Whatever he may have spoken to his fellow-
exiles in the years preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, he
has written the prophecies which we now possess, after that
catastrophe, without troubling himself in the least about
literal reproduction of his oral preaching.
It is perfectly certain that the book of the prophecies of
Ezekiel forms one whole, systematically planned; it is not a
collection of loose documents, dating from different years,
but the product of literary art. The three parts (chaps, i.
— xxiv., xxv. — xxxii., xxxiii. — xlviii.), each delineate to us
one side of Ezekiel's prophetical action ; the announce
ment of the judgment on Israel, the prediction of the destiny
of the nations, the prophecy of Israel's blissful future. They
are most closely connected with each other, especially the first
and the third parts. The introduction to the last mentioned
(chap, xxxiii.) begins with a general view of the office and
duties of the prophet, just as what are properly the pro
phecies of judgment in the first part (chaps, iv. — xxiv.) are
preceded by a paragraph of like tendency.1 To this there
is attached a vindication of the righteousness of Jahveh,
entirely parallel to what was said on that subject in the first
part.2 Then follows the narrative concerning the coming of
the fugitive from Jerusalem, which refers to the close of that
same first part.3 Finally, there is besides, in the same
chapter, a notice of the manner in which Ezekiel was
received by the captives, in accordance again with what
1 Chap, xxxiii. 1 — 9; iii. parallel with 16 — 21.
* Chap, xxxiii. 10 — 20; parallel witb xviii., xiv. 12 — 23.
3 Chap, xxxiii. 21, 22 ; parallel with xxiv. 25 — 7, compare p. 323, f.

CHAPS. I. -XXIV. WRITTEN DOWN AFTER THE FULFILMENT. 329
had been formerly said on the same point.1 In the sequel
the announcement of prosperity to "the mountains of
Israel" (chap, xxxvi. 1 — 15), for example, is a counter
part of the denunciation addressed to these same moun
tains (chap. vi.). There is, to express the matter briefly,
such a close internal connection between chaps, i. — xxiv.
and chaps, xxxiii. — xlviii., that the redaction of the first
chapters cannot be separated from that of the last by any
considerable interval. In other words, chapters i.- — xxiv. can
not have been committed to writing in the years mentioned in
the headings, but must have been written at the same time
or nearly so as chaps, xxxiii. — xlviii., which were not com
pleted till in or after the twenty-fifth year of Ezekiel's
captivity.2 Now, it is certainly conceivable that Ezekiel remained
quite faithful to history and chronology, in the composition of
his book, and therefore reproduced his older oracles exactly
as they had been uttered by him many years before ; but it
is evident that he did not think himself obliged to follow
such a course. The reader will remember the remarks lately
made on chaps, xvii. and xxi., and must at once apply them
to chap, xii., which is very closely akin to chap, xvii.3
Let him farther consider the visits of the elders of Israel
which are occasionally mentioned in the first part : they be
long manifestly to the literary drapery.4 The prophet
evidently does not at all concern himself with the historical
reality : for the benefit of his readers, to admonish and arouse
them, he sketches with the utmost possible freedom a picture
of his former labours, which must form a harmonious and
striking whole in order to effect its object. That requisite it
fully satisfies, but does not reproduce the facts exactly as
they happened.
Though it may be impossible to reconcile such a method
of procedure with our notions of literary good faith, yet it
was not uncommon in ancient times, and specifically in Israel.
1 Chap, xxxiii. 23 — 29, a prophecy intimately connected with the arrival
of the fugitive, is followed immediately by chap, xxxiii. 30 — 33 parallel with
chap. ii. 2—7.
2 Chap. xl. 1. According to chap. xxix. 17, the postscript to the pro
phecies against Egypt, chap. xxix. 17 — 21, was written two years later.
3 Above, p. 326 f.
4 Compare my "Hist. Krit. Onderz.," II. 297 f.

330 VIII.  FULFILLED PREDICTIONS.
Just as well as the authors of the book of Daniel, and of Jer.
1., li., for example, could put their own expectations into the
mouth of older prophets, so could Ezekiel also allow himself, in
the interest of his readers, to deviate from the reality, and to
group his facts in such a way as he thought serviceable
for attaining the object which he had proposed to himself.
Besides, the supposition that he did proceed thus is in entire
conformity with what we know of his method as a writer.
Let the reader recall to his recollection the inquiry formerly
instituted, as well with regard to the symbolical actions, as
with regard to the visions of the later prophets and the
part which the angels fulfil in them.1 Ezekiel, with full con
sciousness of what he is doing, makes a very ample use of
the right to clothe his ideas in this freely chosen form. Pro
vided only that the thoughts which he presents proceed from
the spirit of Jahveh, he expresses them without any hesita
tion in such a way as the interests of his readers seem to
demand, without troubling himself about the misconception
which may, and indeed must, be produced from understand
ing his words literally.
The application of all this to our present subject is obvious.
We express ourselves too weakly when we say that we have no
certainty that Ezekiel predicted the fate of Jerusalem and
of Zedekiah so long before and so exactly. We must go
farther, and assert that the influence of the events themselves
on' the later redaction of the predictions can be here and
there pointed out with the finger, and, according to analogy,
must be everywhere assumed to exist. In so far as the
prophecies of Ezekiel differ essentially from those of the
earlier and later prophets in their character and their fulfil
ment, they are not real predictions, but historical reminiscences
in a prophetical form, vaticinia post eventum?
1 See above, pp. 61, ff. ; 80—82, 88—91.
" Following the steps of Ewald ("Prophet, des A. B.," II. 202—218)
and Hitzig (" Der Prophet Ezechi'el," p. vii., ff.), I have expounded and
defended this view of the book of Ezekiel in my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.,"
II., '295 — 306. J. Fiirst agrees with that view in the chief points, in his
" Gesch. der Bibl. Literatur," II.. 610, ff. L. Zunz goes much further:
first in his " Gottesd. Vortriige der Juden" (1832), pp. 157—162, and now
lately in the " Zeitschrift der D. Morgenl. Qesellschaft," vol. xxvii.
676 — 681, 688, he endeavours to make it probable that Ezekiel should be
brought down to the Persian period, more definitely to the years 440 —
400 B.C. This is not the proper place for judging this opinion.

EXPECTATIONS OF THE POST-EXILIC PROPHETS. 331
Our investigation regarding the fulfilled prophecies is here
with brought to a close. The promise given in p. 279 has been
performed. The proofs discussed by Tholuck are not taken
from prophets later than Ezekiel. He does, indeed, remark
farther, that the exact prediction of the fortunes of the Lagidse
and Seleucidse in Dan. viii. and xi., ff, should not, in his
view, present any sufficient objection against the exilic origin
of the book of Daniel ¦} but, for the rest, he does not deny
that this book is later, and that both these chapters contain
no real prophecies, but a history of the past in the form of a
prediction. Our investigation led to the same result,2 so that
we do not need to dwell further on the book of Daniel. As
little do we need to notice the post-exilic prophets Haggai
and Zechariah ; because the assertion of Graetz 3 that their
predictions regarding the glory of the second temple and the
union of many Gentiles with Israel 4 have been " literally
fulfilled," needs no express refutation. The accession of
many proselytes from Syria, the countries on the Euphrates,
Asia Minor, Greece, and Bome, however remarkable, is no
realisation, at least no literal realisation, of the expectations
of those prophets : let the reader only observe the manner in
which they represented the future to themselves.5 The partial
agreement between their anticipations and the subsequent
reality — as part of which we now also reckon Christianity and
its propagation among the heathen — is not, on this account,
in any degree accidental. There is an inward connection
between the immoveable faith of men like Haggai and Zecha
riah, and the victories which their religion gained in a gra
dually widening circle. Their confidence might be called
the prophecy and the guarantee of the triumph of Judaism.
But this is something different from what Graetz means :
as proofs of the superhuman prescience of the Israelitish
prophets, the passages to which he appeals have no value
whatever. We therefore now hasten to sum up, in a following chapter,
the result of the whole inquiry into the relation between
prophecy and the reality.
1 I.e., p. 109. 2 See above, pp. 141—147, 262—275.
3 L.c., p. 376. * Hagg. ii. 6—9 ; Zech. vi. 15 ; viii. 20—23.
5 See Hagg. ii. 6, 21, 22 ; Zech. vi. 12, 13, 15 (" and they who dwell far
off shall come and build in Jahveh's temple"), viii. 14, 15, 19.

CHAPTEB IX.
THE PREDICTION OF THE FUTURE AND THE RELIGIOUS BELIEF
OF THE PROPHETS OF JAHVEH.
We now return to the point to which I have already directed;
attention at the commencement of the previous chapter.
According to their own solemn and reiterated assurance,
the canonical prophets speak " the word of Jahveh." And yet
with regard to the future both of the heathen nations and of
their own people, they utter predictions which have not been
realised. It is true indeed that there are, on the other hand,
prophecies to which the issue has corresponded, but it
appeared clearly to us, in the study of these fulfilled predic
tions, that they could by no means be regarded as decisive
evidence of the supernatural origin of the knowledge possessed
by the prophets, while, on the other hand, such an origin is
directly contradicted, nay, expressly excluded, by the unful
filled predictions.
Were then, it may be asked, the Israelitish prophets
deceivers ? They put themselves forward as interpreters of the
divinity, while it is plain from the contents of their addresses,
that they gave expression merely to their own subjective,
fallible conception of the future course of events ! Their
" thus saith Jahveh," far from inspiring us with reverence,
makes us suspicious of their good faith, and casts a dark
shadow over their whole work.
Is this then the only conclusion which remains for us ? It
is frequently represented to be so ; and especially by those
who, on whatever grounds, deny the correctness of the results
which we have obtained. The consequence to which our
view must, as they assert, necessarily lead, is even one of
their main proofs against the truth of that view. But we
must not allow ourselves to be alarmed. It is perfectly true
that to represent the Israelitish prophets as deceivers is as

RESULT OF THE PRECEDING ENQUIRY. 333
absurd as it is offensive ; we oppose such an opinion with all
the strength of our conviction ; we must be wilfully blind, if
with their writings before us, we dare pass such a judgment
upon them. But I also deny in the very strongest terms,
that the result of the preceding investigation should drive us
to any such conclusion. The dilemma which is held up to
us — either interpreters of God in a supernatural sense, or
deceivers — must even in itself inspire us with suspicion by
its absolute character, and moreover falls to the ground as soon
as we study further the prophetical writings. To that further
study we therefore now proceed. I have from the beginning
warned the reader against the error of supposing that the
criticism of the predictions was identical with a complete
estimation of the contents of the prophetical literature.1 It
thus follows naturally that we should not confine ourselves to
that criticism, but should now, from other points of view as
well, survey the field which lies before us.
Before proceeding to do so, I would make two remarks,
which have .reference to predictions in general, and which, on
that very account, could find no place either in chapters v. —
vii., or in chapter viii., where the predictions were considered
one by one. They will serve at the same time to round off
our previous investigation, and to prepare for what is to
follow. I wish, first of all, to direct attention to the conditional
character of the prophetical predictions. Sometimes there
can be no doubt with regard to that. When the prophet
himself says : " unless ye repent, then, &c," or conversely :
"if ye obey my exhortations, then, Sac," — in all these and
such like cases the condition is plainly presented, and the
result of compliance or the contrary as plainly shown. But
proof exists that the positive prediction also — especially the
announcement of judgment, and of course also the promise-
was regarded as conditional. The prophets and their hearers
proceed on the supposition that every change in the religious
and moral condition of men has, as its immediate result, a
corresponding modification of Jahveh's disposition and pur
poses. A most remarkable example of this has already come
before us.2 The — very positive — announcement of the fall
1 See above, pp. 94—97, f. s See above, pp. 161—167.

334 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
of Jerusalem by Micah was, in the judgment of Jeremiah's
contemporaries, revoked, because the pious Hezekiah and his
people had humbled themselves and deprecated Jahveh's wrath:1
Now there is nothing to be discovered in the prophecy of
Micah which would lead us to interpret it, more than any other
prediction, as conditional. We must therefore of course assume
that, according to the conviction of Jeremiah's defenders, every
prophecy admitted of being retracted : and that such was
really the case can also be shown. "Jahveh," so say these
defenders, " repented him of the evil which he had pronounced
against them (Hezekiah and his people)." This is not the
exception, but the rule : it belongs to Jahveh's nature thus to
reconsider the resolution which he has formed and made
known to Israel. He is merciful, gracious, of great kindness,
long suffering, and repenteth him of the evil (announced by
him).2 But on the other hand also : he is righteous, and if
those favoured by him do not respond to his goodness, then
he repents him of the benefit promised to them. The one is
the counterpart of the other. Jeremiah, too, therefore connects
the two truths most closely in the following remarkable
utterance : " The one moment I (Jahveh) speak against a
nation, or against a kingdom, that I shall extirpate, over
throw, and destroy it ; but that nation against which I have
spoken turns from its wickedness, then I repent of the evil
that I purposed to do unto it. The other moment I speak
to a nation, or to a kingdom, that I shall plant and build it
up ; but it does evil in mine eyes, and hearkens not to my
voice, then I repent of the good wherewith I had said I
would benefit it." 3
The question still remains, what value are we to assign to
these prophetic ideas, and whether we can adopt them as
they are here presented ? They have, as was to be expected,
attracted, in no small degree, the attention of those who have
treated expressly the question of the fulfilment of Old Testa
ment prophecy. Their great importance for the solution of
this question has been especially shown by Bertheau.4 He
1 Jer. xxvi. 18, 19, compare Micah iii. 12.
2 Joel ii. 13 ; Jonah iv. 2, compare Jer. xiii. 16 , Exodus xxxii. 12, 14.
3 Jer. xviii. 7 — 10.
4 See his treatise : " Die alttestamentliche Weissagung von Israe

CRITICISM OF BERTHEAU'S VIEWS. 335
has no hesitation in assuming these prophetical utterances as
the simple expression of the (objective) reality. It is, accord
ing to him, undeniable that the predictions of the prophets
have not been fulfilled, and unreasonable to expect that they
shall now be still realised ; nevertheless they have announced
the counsel of God, in the most proper sense of the word, in
relation to Israel and to the heathen. But then the fulfil
ment of God's plans was, and always continued to be, depen
dent on man's freedom, on Israel's conversion, and on the
readiness of the Gentiles to join themselves to the people of
Jahveh. As often as the conditions laid down remained
unsatisfied — and it was a rare exception indeed when they
were satisfied — the counsel of God could not be realised, and
thus the prophecy also remained unfulfilled. In one word,
the Old Testament prophecy is not the description of the
future course of events, but the authentic declaration of God's
design regarding them.
For the great majority of my readers the mere statement
of this theory will be at the same time its refutation. In
truth, the omnipotence and omniscience of God are sur
rendered in order to save the supernatural prescience of the
prophets. As thus stated, Bertheau's view would be rejected
by the prophets themselves. Whenever it had become clear
to them that a choice must be made between God and man,
that wrong was being done to God's infinite dignity and per
fection for their benefit, then they would not have hesitated
for a moment, but would have joined with Isaiah in declaring :
" the pride of the sons of men shall be bowed down, and the
loftiness of men shall be made low, and Jahveh alone shall
be exalted on that day." x They were, in truth, convinced
both of Jahveh's immutability, and of man's powerlessness to
determine the course of his government of the world. It is
a prophet who puts these words into the mouth of Balaam :
God is not a man, that he should lie,
Nor a son of man, that it should repent him :
Shall he say aught, and not perform it ?
Speak, and not bring it to pass ? 2
Beichsherrlichheit in seinem Lande," in vols. iv. and v. of the " Jahrbucher
fiir Deutsche Theologie," especially iv. 335 ff.; v. 486 ff., 536 ff.
1 Is. ii. 17. 2 Numbers xxiii. 19.

336 IX. — PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
And again it is in a prophet that we find the follow
ing utterance : " your plans are not my plans, and my
ways are not your ways, saith Jahveh : as the heavens
are high above the earth, so are my ways high above
your ways, and my plans above your plans."1 It is
by no means my opinion that these passages annul those
formerly quoted, in which repentance is attributed to Jahveh,
or even furnish a proof that these latter are not meant
seriously or literally. In a historical investigation like this,
such a mode of reasoning would be utterly out of place. I
only wished to call attention to the fact that the theory of
Bertheau, while it claims to be founded on the Old Testament,
comes into conflict with many passages of the Old Testament
itself, and indeed offends the religious consciousness of some
pious Israelites. Much less can it satisfy us. We can
scarcely do any thing else than regard the — expressed or
understood — conditional character of prophetical prediction
as a proof of its human origin. But we shall not anticipate
our further investigation ; we shall very soon return to this
most important point.
The alternation in the anticipations of one and the same
prophet is most intimately connected with the conditional
character of the prophecies. I speak of " alternation " not
of " development " or " increasing clearness." These too are
not wanting,2 and would probably appear still more plainly,
if we possessed the prophetical addresses in the very form in
which they were delivered orally, and could besides always
arrange them with certainty in their chronological order.
But at present I have something different in view. The
same calamity is, to the same people, represented at one time
as inevitable, at another as capable of being averted by con
version and devotion to Jahveh. Among the Israelitish
prophets, Jeremiah is the only one of whom we possess a
biography, or at least something which resembles a biography.
But it is precisely in him that this alternation appears very
strongly, and that in such a way, that it can scarcely be
regarded as anything else than the revelation of the alternat
ing moods of the prophet's mind.
Let the twenty-fifth and thirty-sixth chapters of Jeremiah
1 Is. lv. 8, 9. 2 See above, pp. 292, 293.

ALTERNATIONS IN JEREMIAH'S EXPECTATIONS. 337
be compared. Both belong to the fourth year of the reign
of Jehoiakim.1 According to the one, the punitive judgment
cannot possibly be longer deferred : for twenty-three years
Jeremiah had preached to his people the word of Jahveh •
other men of God also had, without ceasing, exhorted to
repentance ; all had been in vain ; Judah had not hearkened
to Jahveh, but had provoked him by its godlessness ; now
therefore the hour of recompense also had struck.2 But at
the same time the prophet receives this command from
Jahveh : " Take thee a book-roll, and write therein all the
words that I have spoken unto thee concerning Israel, and
concerning Judah, and concerning all the nations, from the
day on which I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah
even unto this day. It may be that the house of Judah
will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them ; that
they may return every man from his evil way, and that I may
forgive their transgression and their sin."3 A year afterwards,
Jeremiah expresses the same hope, in a conversation with
Baruch : " It may be they will pour forth their supplication
before Jahveh, and will return, every one from his evil
way, for great is the anger and the fury that Jahveh hath
announced against this people."4
This example by no means stands alone. Chapters vii. and
xxvi. of Jeremiah's prophecies likewise belong to the reign
of Jehoiakim. The prediction of judgment is here expressly
said to be conditional. Jeremiah is to proceed to the temple,
and there speak what Jahveh shall put into his mouth, with
out keeping back anything : " perhaps they will hearken, and
turn every man from his evil way, and I repent of the evil
which I purpose to do unto them because of the wickedness
of their doings."5 In agreement with this, the widely diverse
consequences which obedience and disobedience to Jahveh
respectively involve, are sketched in the sequel.6 " If ye " —
so the promise runs — " positively amend your ways and your
doings ; if ye do justice between a man and his neighbour,
oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, shed
no innocent blood in this place, and walk not after other
i Jer. xxv. 1 ; xxxvi. 1. 2 Jer. xxv. 3 — 8.
3 Jer. xxxvi. 2, 3. 4 Jer. xxxvi. 7.
6 Jer. xxvi. 1—3. 6 Jer. xxvi. 4—6, and parallel to that, vii. 3—15.
Y

338 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
gods to your hurt, then will I cause you to dwell in
this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers,
from eternity even to eternity." x But it is still, as if
Jeremiah himself did not believe in the possibility of
these exhortations being followed and carried out ; for to
the sketch of the sins of which Judah is guilty, he adds :
" Because ye do all these deeds, saith Jahveh, and I,
from the early morning onward, have spoken unto you, but
ye heard me not, and have called you, but ye answered not
— therefore will I deal with this house which is called by my
name, wherein ye trust, and with the place which I gave to
you and to your fathers, even as I have dealt with Shiloh."2
And a few moments later, Jahveh forbids him to pray for his
people, for " I will not hear thee ; "3 nay, he foretells to him,
" thou shalt speak all these words unto them, but they will
not hearken to thee, and call unto them, but they will not
answer thee."4
The impossibility of the judgment being averted is here
grounded on the evidently incurable impenitence of the
people ; if Judah were willing to hear, then the punishment
might still be averted, but it is certain that Judah will not
hear. If even this view is not quite in harmony with the
hope expressed so clearly in the beginning of the same pro
phetical discourse, much less is the latter reconcilable with
the conviction, that the overthrow of Judah has been already
irrevocably determined, on account of the transgressions of
Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah. Jeremiah expresses that
conviction in chapters xiv. and xv., which again belong to the
reign of Jehoiakim,5 and the contents of which may be thus
reproduced : Want and misery prevail everywhere in Judea ;
if the sins of the people are the cause of that misery, then let
Jahveh show mercy ; but his will is now to punish, and he
forbids the prophet to pray for his fellow-countrymen ; Jere
miah casts the blame on the prophets who lull the people
asleep, whereupon Jahveh announces to them the same
punishment as that which shall also strike the people. Jere
miah now ventures to intervene with a prayer for the deliver
ance of his people, but Jahveh assures him that even the
i Jer. vii. 5—7. 2 Jer vii. 13, 14. 3 jer. yji. 16.
4 Jer. vii. 27. i Compare my "Hist. Krit. Onderz." II. 189, f.

VARIATION IN JEREMIAH S PROPHECIES. 339
prayer of Moses and Samuel would not avert the judgment,
and that the sin of Manasseh, in which Judah had persevered,
should not escape the merited punishment.1 The expressions
are altogether unequivocal : "I make them to be a terror to
all the nations of the earth, because of Manasseh, son of
Hezekiah, king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem.
For who shall have pity upon thee, Jerusalem ? and who
shall bemoan thee ? and who shall go aside to ask after thy
welfare ? Thou hast forsaken me, saith Jahveh, and art gone
backward ; therefore do I stretch out my hand against thee,
and destroy thee ; I have become weary of repenting " (that
is, of reconsidering my threatenings of punishment).2
A sharp contrast to this prophecy is presented by another,
which is likewise assigned to Jeremiah, and is even referred
by many expositors to the reign of Jehoiakim.3 It contains
an emphatic exhortation to fidelity in the observance of the
commandment regarding the sabbath, followed by the most
glorious promises. " If ye," saith Jahveh, " diligently hearken
unto me, and bring in no burden through the gates of this city
on the sabbath day, and hallow the sabbath day by doing no
work therein, then shall there enter through the gates of this
city kings and princes seated on the throne of David, riding
in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of
Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city shall
continue to eternity. . . . But if ye will not hearken unto me
to hallow the sabbath day, and to bear no burden, and not to
enter in on the sabbath day through the gates of Jerusalem,
then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, which shall
devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and shall not be quenched." 4
As will be observed, the promise here is quite as positive as
the threatening. If Jahveh had prescribed nothing else than
the sanctification of the sabbath, and no single transgression
had yet been recorded in the catalogue of Judah's sins, the
prophet could scarcely have expressed himself more strongly.
If the words quoted indeed proceed from him, then it must
be assumed that he wrote them down when he was wholly
impressed with the sanctity of the sabbath rest ; that having
remarked the manifold violations of this one commandment,
1 Jer. xiv. 1 — xv. 10. 2 Jer. xv. 4—6.
3 Jer. xvii. 19—27. 4 Jer. xvii. 24, 25, 27.

340 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
he for the moment makes everything dependent upon it. In
a man of a sensitive and excitable nature like Jeremiah, such
a temporary one-sidedness can easily be understood ; he
neither is, nor does, anything by halves. But such alterna
tions seem to be altogether inconsistent with the strictly-
objective conception of the expression, " thus saith Jahveh."
We cannot, however, forbear stating that the authenticity of
this sabbath-prophecy, though acknowledged by almost all
expositors, is in truth doubtful. Geiger1 and Bowland
Williams 2 have referred to the close agreement between the
demands made here and the spirit of the post-exilic period,
and have thence concluded that the paragraph was introduced
into the roll of Jeremiah's oracles in order to recommend the
reformation of Ezra and Nehemiah. Probably they have
right on their side. But if we agree with them, it is not
because Jeremiah discloses other anticipations here than he
does elsewhere, but because such a high estimation of one
single ritual prescription can hardly be reconciled with the
rest of his utterances regarding the will of Jahveh.3
Under the reign of Zedekiah, also, the prophet manifests
the same inconsistency which we have thus far remarked in
him. Sometimes he appears not yet to have given up all
hope : if the Jews who are left, with their king at their
head, would be willing to remain subject to Nebuchadrezzar,
then they have nothing further to fear from him : " serve the
king of Babylon and ye shall live ! Wherefore should this
city become a ruin?"4 Because, in general, "the nations
which bow their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon
and serve him, those nations will I (Jahveh) let remain in
their own land, and they shall till that land, and dwell
therein." 5 Even during the last siege of Jerusalem, he thinks
it still possible to avert the catastrophe. So at least we
understand his promise to Zedekiah : " Thou shalt not die
by the sword ; in peace shalt thou die, and according to the
burnings of thy fathers, the former kings who have gone
before thee, shall they make a burning for thee also, and
1 " Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel," p. 95 ff.
2 " Hebrew Prophets," II. 155 ff.
3 See e.g. Jer. vii. 5, ff., 22, 23. On the other hand, Jer. xvii. 19—27
agrees with Isa. lvi. 1 — 7, and numerous passages of Ezekiel.
4 Jer. xxvii. 17. 6 Jer. xxvii. 11.

COULD JERUSALEM'S DESTRUCTION BE AVERTED ? 341
at the same time they shall lament thee, saying, ' Ah, Lord !'
for I have spoken a word, saith Jahveh."1 The fulfilment
of the promise depends upon a condition which is not ex
pressed, at least in the text as it is now, the condition,
namely, that Zedekiah should submit to Nebuchadrezzar.2
But if Zedekiah resolved to adopt this course, and in conse
quence of doing so, died, and was mourned, as king, then
Jerusalem also must be spared. Jeremiah, therefore, at that
time, regarded this result as still possible ; nay, some months
later, he had not altogether abandoned this hope. He then
answered Zedekiah, when that prince asked him to declare to
him the word of Jahveh : " If thou goest out to the princes
of the king of Babylon, then shall thy soul live, and this city
shall not be burned with fire, and thou shalt live, and thine
house. But if thou goest not out to the princes of the king
of Babylon, then shall this city be given into the hands of
the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and thou
shalt not escape out of their hand." 3 But with these pro
phecies we find others alternating, in which the fatal issue is
depicted, in unambiguous terms, as being altogether inevi
table. This is done in the answer given by Jeremiah to the
messengers who had been sent to him by Zedekiah, the whole
of which should be read.4 The deliverance of Jerusalem is
not thought of here for a moment ; there is merely a prospect
of escaping with life opened to those who leave the city,
and go over to the Chaldean besiegers.5 "I have," saith Jahveh,
" set my face against this city for evil and not for good ; into
the hand of the king of Babylon shall it be given, and he
shall burn it with fire."6 Quite as positive is the denun
ciation which Jeremiah uttered, when the siege of Jerusalem
was raised for a time, and the Chaldean army had marched
to meet Pharaoh Hophra.7 This passage is remarkable also
for another reason. The besieged had just before been guilty
of scandalous perfidy; the promise to set free their male
and female slaves, which had been made in the time of
distress, had been retracted by them when the danger was
passed. Jeremiah now announces the fall of Jerusalem on
i Jer. xxxiv. 4, 5. 2 Seemy "Hist. Krit. Onderz.," II. 201 f. (N. 14).
3 Jer. xxxviii. 17, 18. 4 Jer. xxi. 1—10. 5 Jer. xxi. 9.
6 Jer. xxi. 10. 7 Jer. xxxiv. 12 — 22.

342 IX.- — PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
the ground of the perjury of its inhabitants. It is, therefore,
self-evident that he thinks that fall inevitable. But is it not
very remarkable, in connection with all that precedes, that
here all stress is laid on this one fact, and the rest is lost
sight of? The indignation which is shown there tends to the
honour of the prophet ; but is it not at the same time a
striking proof that his subjectivity has an essential influence
upon the contents of his predictions ? Is it not as if in this
elevation and depression, in this alternation of hope and fear,
we hear the beating of his human heart ?
I have not yet mentioned the prophecy which, from the
point of view now chosen, is the most important of all.1 It
is probably the oldest of Jeremiah's predictions belonging to
the reign of Zedekiah, and therefore precedes chronologically
all the utterances which have just been discussed.2 A com
paratively favourable judgment is pronounced here regarding
the captives who had been carried away shortly before; in
any case, a happy future awaits them, because Jahveh
shall have mercy upon them, and bring them back into their
land.3 On the contrary, the sentence passed on those who
were left is very severe. They are compared to the bad figs
that could not be eaten, which Jeremiah declares that he had
seen in the vision. " As with the bad figs, which are not eaten
because of their badness, so shall I," saith Jahveh, " deal with
Zedekiah king of Judah, and with his princes, and with the
residue of Jerusalem which has been left in this land, and
with them who dwell in the land of Egypt. I will appoint
them to be a terror and a plague to all the kingdoms of the
earth, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in
all the places whither I shall drive them. And I will send
against them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, till
they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them
and to their fathers."4 Let the reader compare with this
passage the almost contemporaneous prophecies already dis
cussed ! Is it possible to explain the difference here pre
sented otherwise than from the — very natural — ebb and flow
in the temper and in the judgment of the prophet himself?
1 Jer. xxiv.
2 Jer. xxiv. 1 : " Jahveh showed me . . . after Nebuchadrezzar king of
Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah," &c.
3 Jer. xxiv. 4—7. 4 Jer. xxiv. 8—10.

PROPHECY THE RESULT OF THE PROPHETS' SUBJECTIVITY. 343
It would be in the highest degree unjust to reproach him for
the weakness and the one-sidedness which he has in common
with all men. It is not, therefore, for the purpose of placing
him in an unfavourable light that we have brought out
their influence on the form and contents of his predictions.
No ; our indication of this influence is directed against
those who refer to God the prophecy as it tliere lies
before us. In truth, they know not what they do.
They ought, out of reverence for God's perfection, not to
make him responsible for the natural results of man's limited
nature. There is no other prophet but Jeremiah whom we can
thus accompany step by step in his career. The proof that
the prophets in general spoke under the impression of the
moment, and judged the same state of things at one time
more, and at another less, favourably — that proof cannot be
given. But there is nothing whatever wdiich would lead us
to see in Jeremiah an exception to the rule. What, there
fore, we have plainly seen in him, we apply to the others
also. We shall be answerable also for the conclusion which
results directly from this application. If prophecy shows, in
this way, marks of the subjectivity of the prophets, then they
must have been conscious of it, at least to a certain extent.
If they have in reality spoken in indignation or in anger, or
under the impression produced by one specific fact, they will
also have remembered this at a later period, and have judged
their own 'word accordingly. In this way some light begins
already now to dawn upon a phenomenon to which I formerly
referred.1 We heard Ezekiel himself acknowledge that his
announcement of the fall of Tyre was not confirmed by the
issue. That seemed to us irreconcilable both with the in
fallibility of prophecy, and with the assurance of the prophet
that he announces the word of Jahveh, and nothing else.
That is quite true ; but what if it now appears plainly that
Jeremiah also introduces into the collection of his oracles
expectations which are at variance with each other, and
assigns the one as well as the other to Jahveh ? What if he
calls that the " word of Jahveh " which was manifestly sug
gested also by the circumstances, and coloured by the temper,
i See above, pp. 108—111.

344 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
of the moment ? But we shall return immediately to the
declaration of Ezekiel now indicated.
We now widen the circle of our investigation. We have
already too long confined our attention exclusively to the pre
dictions and their realisation. We began with the study of
them, not because the prophetical writings themselves led us
to adopt such a course, but because we ventured to think
that that investigation would lead us to clear and indisputable
results, both in regard to the prophecies themselves, and
especially in reference to the current theories concerning their
origin. We see no reason to complain of this course of our
study. The motives which led us to make that choice seem
valid, and the results which we have obtained are not
despicable. But we are now bound to hear the prophets
themselves also regarding our arrangement of the materials.
They must tell us whether we do them justice, when we place
their predictions and the fulfilment of these predictions in
the foreground. We wish to learn from them in what
relation their predictions stand to the whole of their preach
ing and work. Our study of this point shall certainly not
lose anything by the fact that we only begin it now, after we
have taken cognisance of the contents of the prophecies and
of their relation to the historical reality.
We can here proceed on an observation which has already
forced itself upon us, while we were discussing the prophecies
regarding the judgment upon Israel.1 To the question,
" fulfilled or not fulfilled," we received from time to time no
clear or unambiguous answer. Nay, what is of greater
significance, more than one paragraph of the prophetical
writings, which yet treats of the future, scarcely admits of
being regarded as prediction. This would be wholly inex
plicable, if prediction had been the chief object of the
prophets. On the other hand such a phenomenon is in the
highest degree natural, if they had another task, a different
aim. But such is indeed the case. Their business is not
to communicate what shall happen, but to insist upon that
which ought to happen. The maintenance of the Jahveh-
worship as they comprehended it — that is what they had in
view in the whole course of their activity.
1 See above, pp. 149 f.

&

PREDICTION NOT THE PROPHET'S MAIN OBJECT. 345
No objection is really entertained by any one against this
general description of the aim of the prophet's work. It
cannot be asserted in sober earnest that the prophets
appeared among their people in order to satisfy curiosity — or,
if the reader prefer, the interest — felt regarding the future :
their, discourses do not, by any means, convey such an
impression. Every page of their writings shows them to
have been censors of morals and preachers of repentance.
They themselves say so ; Micah, for example, when contrast
ing the tendency of his own work with that of the prophets
whom he combats, thus characterises it : " But I am full of
power, of the spirit of Jahveh, the spirit of judgment and
courage, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel
his sin." 1 Jeremiah, in his turn, lays down this general
rule : " The prophets who have been before me from ancient
times till now, have prophesied to many lands and mighty
kingdoms of war, misfortune, and pestilence,"2 or, in other
words, they were preachers of judgment, and in so preaching,
they fulfilled the task committed to them, and furnished the
proof that they had been sent by Jahveh. It is here taken
for granted that the religious and moral condition, both of the
Gentiles and of Israel, was very defective and insulting to
Jahveh. Whoever perceived and expressed that truth ; who
ever consequently announced the judgment of Jahveh in its
different forms, — that man, just by that characteristic, was
shown to be the interpreter of Jahveh. On the contrary, the
prophet who prophesied of prosperity (that is, who did not
insist on conversion, and expected no punishment) would be
known to have been sent by Jahveh only when his word had
come to pass.3 So Jeremiah speaks, of course in the firm
conviction that such a joyful message would be contradicted
by the issue, to the shame of him who had delivered it.
The inference from this does not seem doubtful. The pre
diction of the future possesses a secondary importance for the
prophets themselves. It is not the end at which they aim,
but the means which they employ. In their spirit, it must
be regarded as threatening or promise, as impressive warning
or powerful encouragement.
For the present, I refrain from giving any fuller specification
1 Micah iii. 8. 2 Jer. xxviii. 8. 3 Jer. xxviii. 9.

346 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
of this result. It is evident, at a glance, that it is capable of
two interpretations : the prediction may be intended strictly
and literally, notwithstanding the subordinate position
assigned to it, or it may also be understood less rigidly and
strictly, for the very reason that it is not the principal point.
Which of these two views is the true one cannot appear
clearly till afterwards.
I now remark farther that prediction is not only of
secondary importance for the prophets themselves, but is also
dependent on something else, if, indeed, it is not derived from
someihimg else. Its contents are determined by the concep
tion which the prophet has formed of Jahveh's nature and
attributes. How could it be otherwise ? Jahveh can do
nothing which is opposed to his nature ; but again, con
versely, he must do that which results from his nature. We
have there propositions, of which every believer will approve,
and to which undoubtedly the prophets also assented. Their
conception of the future therefore was always dependent on
their conviction regarding Jahveh's nature. It was indeed
possible that they might know, by supernatural revelation,
more of the future than could be deduced by legitimate
inference from their ideas regarding the nature of Jahveh ;
but it was impossible that the matter of their predictions
could ever be opposed to their concept of God — if I may be
allowed to employ here this philosophical term.
As regards this point, however, we must not remain
satisfied with an appeal to the nature of the case. It appears
further positively, that prediction is dependent on the way
in which the prophets regard Jahveh's nature and attributes.
This is apparent first of all, from the mutual agreement of the
two ; that which Jahveh, according to the prophets, shall do,
is in perfect harmony with that which, according to their
conviction, he is ; but it is apparent no less from the con
ditional character of the predictions to which I lately directed
attention. The realisation of the threatenings and promises
is, we saw, made (or at least thought) to be, dependent on the
moral condition of those to whom they were directed. Jahveh
is always self-consistent, but, for that very reason, he retracts his
promises and threatenings as soon as the state of things has
become different in consequence of conversion or apostasy; if he

PREDICTION DEPENDENT ON PROPHET'S IDEA OF GOD.. 347
did not act thus, he would, according to the conviction of the
prophets, cease to be righteous. In other words, the realisa
tion of the prophecy is always dependent on Jahveh's nature.
Must not then its purport also be determined by that nature ?
It is at least the most obvious course to assume provisionally
that such is the case. Let me add to these considerations, in
the last place, that the alternation or dissimilarity also of the
prophetical predictions seems to indicate that they are dependent
on something else. It is at least explained at once and per
fectly, when we regard these predictions as postulates, as the
application to specific persons, conditions, and occurrences of a
universal rule, of a certain firm conviction regarding Jahveh's
relation to Israel, or to men in general. But I reserve
till a later time the farther development of this idea, which
would lead us too far from our present subject.
Enough has been already said to convince us of the high
importance, nay, of the absolute necessity, of an inquiry into
the theology of the prophets, if I may, for the sake of
brevity, thus designate their ideas about Jahveh, his nature,
his attributes, and the manner in which they are revealed in
the government of the world. It is obvious that we have
enough for our object, when we know the chief points, and
that we do not need to involve ourselves in the study of th
particulars, for example, of the peculiar opinions of this
or that prophet. We have besides only to occupy our
selves with those attributes of Jahveh which exercise a
direct influence on the government of the world ; all that
lies beyond cannot of course have produced any effect on the
expectations of the prophets. Let the following brief sketch
be regarded from this point of view.
The prophets' conception of Jahveh's nature can be most
easily deduced from their doctrine about the position of
Jahveh in reference to Israel. Jahveh has placed himself in
a particular relation to Israel, he has redeemed that people
out of Egypt, established them in Canaan, and has con
tinuously revealed himself to Israel. His power extends
farther, and embraces all mankind as well as the entire
natural world ; but in this wider domain he shows himself
the same as in his guidance of Israel, in which narrower
sphere he merely exhibits more distinctly his nature and his

348 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
attributes. In so far as he makes upon the people chosen by
him demands different from those made upon the rest of the
nations, these requirements result directly from the covenant
into which he has entered with Israel.
Jahveh is the holy one (" Kadhosh.") Whatever this
attribute may have been originally,1 it has become with the
prophets a moral quality. It is not to be regarded as one of
the many excellences of Jahveh, but rather as the funda
mental character of his nature. It is thus also self-evident
that it is no inactive attribute, but manifests itself powerfully
in the outer world. As the Holy one
Jahveh hallows Israel,
And he claims to be hallowed by Israel. These two ideas
do not admit of- being rigorously kept distinct, but it will be
conducive to perspicuity to develop them separately.
The hallowing of Israel by Jahveh consists in his choosing
that people out of, and separating them from, the other
nations, and dedicating them to his service.2 But this
service again is in accordance with his holy nature. He is
worshipped by means of sacrifices and festivals in the temples
and sanctuaries consecrated to him. The prophets however
attribute little value to these solemnities and to external
worship in general.3 On the other hand they insist on purity
of conduct, on honesty, on righteousness, practised towards
the poor and the weak also, on love manifested in acts.4
Obedience to Jahveh's will, hearkening to his instruction
(" thorah," commonly rendered by " law,")5 consists, according
to them, in the performance of these virtues..
The hallowing of Jahveh by Israel is reverential awe
towards him, the fear of his name.6 That these dispositions
should be converted into deeds, into a life, in short, in accord
ance with Jahveh's moral commands, is a matter of course.
1 See this subject more fully discussed in chap. xv.
2 Amos ii. 9, 10 ; iii. 1 ; Hos. xi. 1 ; xii. 9 ; xiii. 4 ; Is. i. 4 (the Holy One
of Israel) &c, &c.
3 Amos v. 21—23 ; Hos. vi. 6 ; Is. i. 11—14 ; Micah vi. 6—8 ; Jer.
vii. 21—23.
4 See the passages quoted in my " Godsdienst van Israel," I. 65, note 1.
(I. 60, 1st note, English Translation), and especially Amos v. 14, 15 ; Hos.
x. 12 ; xii. 7 ; Is. i. 16, 'l 7 ; Micah vi. 6—8.
6 See I c, vol. I., p. 60, f. (vol. I. pp. 55, 56, English Translation).
6 Is. viii. 13 ; xxix. 23.

PECULIARITIES IN THE PROPHETS' IDEA OF GOD. 349
It might have seemed superfluous to direct attention expressly
to this, if the prophetical conception of awe for Jahveh, and
of truly reverential trust in him, had not possessed
characteristics peculiar to itself. One of these cannot
remain unnoticed here. Jahveh requires that Israel should
acknowledge him in all his majesty, and . confide exclusively
in him. All that resembles self-exaltation and reliance on
their own strength is sin in the eyes of Jahveh. Let the
reader regard from this point of view the prophets' dis
approbation of the building of fortresses, of the procuring of
cavalry, of covenants with foreign nations ; and similarly,
especially in Isaiah, the war waged against all that is eminent,
high, and powerful.1 These ideas are based upon an opposi
tion which we can very well understand, though it is one
which we are not accustomed to make. We look upon
wealth and power as gifts of God, the possession of which
may indeed lead to self-exaltation, but still does not always
produce that result, and is therefore, in itself, innocent. The
prophets go further. In their view, human power stands
opposed to that of Jahveh, and he is served by the con
tempt of that power. The experiences gained in Israelitish
society have undoubtedly contributed to the rise and develop
ment of this idea. It was in the higher classes that the
prophets found the most to blame ; it is the sins of these
classes against which their denunciations of punishment are
chiefly directed ; with the simple and lowly their preaching
found in general much more acceptance. This could not
possibly fail to exercise an influence upon their judgment of
the qualities and prerogatives which distinguished the great
from the small. But in addition to this, there was also
their conception of Jahveh's nature. It has often been said
that theism almost always inclines either to deism or to
pantheism. There can be no doubt of the direction in which
the prophets' conception of God leans ; it is towards deism,
towards the separation of God and nature, of God and
mankind. It was — it may be said — an important part of
their office to be on the watch, and warn, against the identi
fication of these two. Is it any wonder that they fell
i Compare my " Godsdienst van Israel," I. 39—43, 67—69 (I. 36—39,
61—63, English Translation).

350 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
occasionally into the opposite extreme, and thought that the
glorification of Jahveh lay in man's powerlessness, humilia
tion, and helplessness ? But whatever opinion may be formed
regarding the causes from which this peculiarity of the
prophetical mode of thinking is to be explained, so much is
certain that we were not at liberty to overlook it. A know
ledge of the opposition, which runs through the prophets'
mode of thinking, is absolutely indispensable for the right
conception and estimation of it.
The Holy One of Israel is at the same time the righteous.1
Jahveh rewards goodness and punishes wickedness. That
this is the conviction of the prophets needs no proof. It will
also, expressed thus generally, hardly meet with any contra
diction, because it coincides with the recognition of a moral
government of the world. But what ideas did the prophets
entertain regarding the nature of that reward and that
punishment? We have here a very important question, to
which we desire, especially with an eye to our present
purpose, an unequivocal answer. But it cannot be difficult
to find such an answer. Submission to the prescriptions of
Jahveh is, according to the prophets, rewarded by material
blessings, and, on the contrary, disobedience to them is pun
ished by material calamities. According to the traditional
view, their preaching is founded on the Mosaic law. If this
is true, then, at least, they will not have had any doubt at all
regarding this connection, for it is taught in the Law as
clearly as possible. Already in the Ten Commandments, a
long life in the land given by Jahveh is said to be the
reward of him who honours his parents.2 But above all in
Lev. xxvi. and in Deut. xxviii., xxx., prosperity and adversity
are placed over against each other as the consequences,
appointed by Jahveh, of loyalty and disloyalty to him.3 The
defenders of the authenticity of the Pentateuch gladly direct
attention to the numerous prophetical utterances which agree
with these threatenings and promises. In so far they are
right, as the prophets have indeed represented in the same
1 " The holy god sanctifies himself by (shows himself holy in) righteous
ness." Is. v. 16.
2 Exod. xx. 12 ; Deut. v. 16.
3 See especially the parallel passages, Lev. xxvi. 3 — 13 ; Deut. xxviii. 1 —
14; and on the other side, Lev. xxvi. 14—39 ; Deut. xxviii. 15—68.

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF JAHVEH. 351
way the reward of piety and the punishment of disobedience.
No doubt can be entertained on this point. Isaiah describes
the commission which Jahveh gives to his prophets, in this
manner : " Say, with the righteous it is well, for the fruits of
their deeds they enjoy. Alas ! with the godless it is ill, for
recompense of what he does is given to him."1 The pro
phecies of judgment, and the announcement of prosperity,
which the preceding chapters of this work adduce, at least in
their main features, can be regarded as the commentary on
this commission. We have still a very clear recollection of the
manner in which Jahveh's anger becomes manifest in all
kinds of physical disasters : drought, failure of crops, famine,
pestilence, disasters in war, and captivity, are the punish
ments appointed by him. On the other hand he blesses his
own with abundance of corn, wine, and oil, spares and pro
longs their life, grants them victory in battle against their
enemies, and reduces these foes under their sway. The
quotation of any passages is here entirely superfluous ; every
page of the prophetical writings furnishes numerous examples.
We have only to state that there is no reason to regard
either the threatenings or the promises of the prophets as
figurative; and as little to see in the disasters and blessings
of which they hold out the prospect, nothing more than types,
vivid representations of the general notions, designated by
the terms bad fortune and good fortune. Of course every
thing is not to be literally understood. The prophets are
poets, and the plain prosaic interpretation does them injustice.
But they are perfectly in earnest in their doctrine about the
connection between the moral condition and the worldly
fortunes of the Israelites. We are not at all justified in trans
ferring to an entirely different, to a spiritual sphere, either
their threatening of punishment, or their announcement of
felicity. The righteousness of Jahveh, the nature and manifestation
of which I have just described, is announced by the prophets
with reference to an entire nation. They address themselves,
at least as a rule, not to single individuals, but to Israel.
In accordance with this, the punishments which they an
nounce are national calamities, the rewards which they
1 Is. iii. 10, 11.

352 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
promise are national blessings. But, however deeply pene
trated with a sense of the unity of the Israelitish nation and
the joint responsibility which connected all its members,
they yet never, failed to notice the immense difference which
presented itself to view within the limits of that one whole.
What influence had this on their conception of Jahveh's
rewards and punishments? Their representation is, in
general, this : the judgment shall overtake and destroy the
godless ; Jahveh's faithful servants shall be spared ; the future
felicity is destined exclusively for those who shall devote
themselves to Jahveh with all their heart. It could scarcely
escape their notice that this distinction, however natural and
just, presented great difficulties if viewed in the light of
actual experience : in how many instances were the innocent
struck along with the guilty by the national calamity ! This
is not the place to give a full exposition of the manner in
which the prophets thought on the whole of this problem.
That it really was a problem, on the stand-point assumed
by them, we may learn from Ezekiel. He, as is well
known, expressly declares his conception of the righteousness
of Jahveh.1 His utterances have a very positive sound. He
teaches that there is the most absolute agreement between a
man's moral condition, as that exists at any given moment,
and Jahveh's determinations regarding him. The righteous
man shall live, that is, shall not be afflicted by the judgment
which strikes the wicked ; but his virtue is of no avail to
others, not even to those who are most closely related to him,
and profits himself only so long as he perseveres in it. So also
on the other hand : the godless man shall die, that is, shall
perish in the judgment ; but his children shall not participate
in his misfortune, unless they deserve such a doom by their
own wickedness ; and if he himself turns from his sin, then
his wickedness is no more remembered, and the punishment
is averted from him. What the prophet is thinking of when
he places " life " and " death " over against each other in
these prophecies, we may learn especially from the first of
them.2 When, he saith, a land sins against Jahveh, and is
punished by him — with the sword, famine, noisome beasts,
or pestilence — then shall righteous men, such as Noah,
1 Ezek. xiv. 12—23 ; xviii.; xxxiii. 10—20. 2 Ezek. xiv. 12—23.

THE PROPHETIC IDEAS AND THE REALITY. 353
Daniel, and Job, who dwell in that land, " deliver their
own souls," that is, shall escape all these punishments, shall
not lose their life through them ; but even their sons and
daughters shall not be spared. It is thus apparent that
Ezekiel is thinking of physical calamities, sent by Jahveh,
and makes every man's share in them dependent upon the
manner in which he conforms to the moral requirements of
Jahveh. But is it not therefore also as clear as noon-day
that his utterances are nothing more than the necessary
corollaries of the dogma once assumed? They are certainly
not derived from experience. That bore witness to the fact
which the Israelites expressed in their proverb : " the fathers
eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." 1
Ezekiel opposes this proverb with all the force of which he is
capable ; it sounds as blasphemy in his ears ; he places in
opposition to it the most positive asseverations of the contrary.
But he does not refute it. His whole demonstration amounts
merely to declaring that it can not be true. But what, if it
nevertheless is true ?
I have here fallen involuntarily into a criticism of one of
the most important elements of the prophetical conviction.
Indeed, we cannot withdraw ourselves from that criticism.
But I must be permitted to make a single remark upon the idea
of the prophets regarding confidence in Jahveh, and true rever
ence for him, before we proceed to examine, with the requisite
fulness, their conception of Jahveh's righteousness. I have
already indicated, in my exposition of those ideas, that they
do not agree with ours.2 The greatness of the difference is
striking. How is it to be explained ? Was the divine govern
ment really another thing for the Israelites than it is for us, so
that they were bound to neglect what we could not disregard
without tempting God ? Was there really, at that time,
another rule for estimating power, greatness, and distinction,
than holds good with us ? Or have we here to do with a
subjective conviction of the prophets, which we can respect,
it is true, but not approve ? The latter supposition is,
beyond all comparison, more probable than the former ; but
as I can imagine that this will not be universally acknow
ledged, we shall, in the meantime, suspend our judgment on
i Ezek. xviii. 2. 2 Above, p. 349.

354 IX. — PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
the point. The ideas entertained by the prophets regarding
the righteousness of Jahveh can, from their nature, be much
more easily tested, than their mode of thinking about the
character of genuine trust in God. Both run in lines so
parallel, that the rejection of the former must, of itself, lead
to the condemnation of the latter, while, conversely, the
acceptance of the first will result in the recognition of the
second. We proceed, therefore, to pass a judgment upon the
doctrine of the prophets regarding Jahveh's rewards and
punishments, in the conviction that it will shed light also on
the other point now discussed.
Without the slighest hesitation, I express my opinion of
this doctrine. While paying homage to the earnestness of
the prophets' conception of the righteousness of Jahveh, we
must positively deny its truth. We do so on the ground of
experience : for experience, in the most unequivocal manner,
contradicts the assertion, that the outward fortune either of a
nation or of the individual, is determined by the moral con
dition of the one or the other. It teaches that God causes
his sun to rise on the good and the bad, and sends rain on
the just and the unjust. That the sword, the famine, the
noisome beast, or the pestilence should spare the pious and
strike the godless — of such a condition of things experience
knows nothing, absolutely nothing.
But, it may perhaps be asked, is this a refutation of the
doctrine of the prophets ? They have not, surely, announced
that, universally and in every case, the outward condition of
nations and men affords a standard for judging of their rela
tion to Jahveh and his will ? If their preaching is under
stood in this way, then their meaning is misapprehended in
two respects. First of all, by inverting their assertion : they
prophesy that Jahveh shall punish and reward in this manner,
by calamities and prosperity, but in saying so they do not
mean that every calamity or every blessing is to be regarded
as the manifestation of his anger or of his approbation. In the
second place, the prophets do not treat of the laws which Provi
dence follows in determining the destinies of mankind, but of
the special guidance of Israel by Jahveh. Surely it will not be
asserted, that what is true of the latter, must also necessarily
be applicable, to the full extent, to the former wider domain !

THE PROPHETS DOCTRINE OF RETRIBUTION. 355
These objections must be weighed with all the exactitude
possible. The importance of the question with which we are
engaged is unmistakably great. We owe it, in justice to the
prophets, both to reproduce their view with perfect precision,
and to be on our guard not only against incorrect representa
tion, but also against involuntary misconception.
As regards the first objection to our view, we must acknow
ledge at once, that it is not always permissible to invert
the proposition which is placed before us for judgment, and in
this way to test it. But, in this specific case, the prophets
themselves at least would not object to our adopting such
a course ; or rather they set us the example of doing so.
Let the reader examine how Amos regards the disasters by
which Israel had been already smitten at the time in which he
prophesied.1 Famine, drought, blight, mildew, and locusts,
pestilence and earthquake, had succeeded each other ; in the
view of the prophet they were so many punitive judgments,
intended — but unsuccessfully, as appeared by the result — to
bring Israel to repentance. So speaks one of the oldest pro
phets. But the post-exilic Haggai does not judge otherwise.
Drought and stunted growth make the harvest of his contem
poraries a failure ; it is because they are negligent in build
ing the temple, " therefore the heaven withholds the dew,
and the earth her fruits." 2 Indeed, we cannot be surprised
to find the prophets expressing themselves in this manner.
If they had made the distinction, which the apologists of
the present day force upon them, if they had thus assumed
two categories of national disasters — the common disasters
and those appointed by Jahveh as punishments — then they
must have expressly said so, and they could not have
abstained from declaring their opinion regarding these com
mon disasters. These latter calamities could not, in that case,
be regarded as proofs of Jahveh's displeasure. But what
judgment, then, was to be formed regarding them ? This
question could the less be suffered to remain unanswered,
because the people knew nothing of that distinction, and
therefore must have thought that, when the prophets spake
of famine, pestilence, &c, they were referring to the same
phenomena which every one at that time knew by his own
1 Amos iv. 6—11. 2 Hag. i. 5—11.

356 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
experience. This farther consideration also must not be over
looked : although in our days the misfortunes which the
prophets threaten, may have become comparatively rare, then
and in Israel, they were only of too frequent occurrence. It
was therefore next to impossible to understand the language
of the prophets otherwise than we do, when we find in it the
expression of what they held as being the universal rule.
The remarks made above serve also, in part, to refute the
second objection ; for the prophets speak too much in general
terms to admit of our regarding them as having thought of
the special dispensations of Jahveh with regard to Israel, and
of them alone. But there are still other reasons which
render it impossible to accept such a view. The prophets
pass judgment on the heathen also; to them also they announce
the judgments of Jahveh. In doing so, they at first place
themselves entirely on the Israelitish stand-point, and make
the future of the heathen dependent on their conduct
towards Israel. It might therefore be asserted that, in these
predictions also, they express not their conception of the moral ,
government of the world, but their belief regarding what
Jahveh will do exclusively in the interest of Israel. But
this position cannot be maintained. Amos, whose horizon is
still somewhat limited, who announces the judgments of God
only to the neighbours of Israel, yet includes among the
sins whose punishment he expects, one transgression also
which was committed, not against Israel, but by Moab
against Edom.1 Isaiah, as we formerly saw, is repeatedly-
occupied with the Assyrians, and in like manner also with
Egypt and Ethiopia. Jeremiah embraces a still wider circle
in his threatenings, especially in chap. xxv. It is, in truth,
the universal system of divine government which is described
by these prophets, and by the others along with them. Israel
always continues, in their view, to be the pivot around which
history revolves. But this does not imply that those dis
pensations of Jahveh's which concern Israel, and have Israel in
view, constitute a separate system in the midst of the general
government of the world. Of such a dualism, of such an
imperium in imperio, there is nowhere any evidence what-
1 Amos ii. 1 ; while in chap. i. 3, 6, 9, 11, 13, reference is made to the
conduct of the neighbouring tribes towards Israel.

APPLICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF RETRIBUTION. 357
ever. We should force upon the prophets ideas altogether
strange to them, if we were to distinguish the moral order of
the world in general from the order wliich they describe.
But supposing the case were otherwise, what would be
gained by showing that the prophets made such a distinc
tion ? Can it be asserted in sober earnest, that the agree
ment between men's lot in life and their moral state,
which existed nowhere else, was actually met with in Israel1?
It is really superfluous to enlarge on this question ; because
an answer in the affirmative would involve in it that, in con
sequence of the peculiar relation between Jahveh and Israel,
the course of nature was modified, not occasionally, but
uniformly, in so far as it had an influence on Israel's lot.
That no trace of such modification anywhere appears, does not
require to be declared. Indeed it is plain, on the contrary,
that in Israel also a striking contrast was frequently remarked
between men's moral state and their lot in life. We mention
only a few of the numberless texts which refer to this point.
The popular proverb to which I have already called attention
was : " The fathers eat unripe grapes, and the children's teeth
are set on edge." The prophet Jeremiah does not venture to
deny the truth of this saying — which he yet could have done,
and must have done, if everyone had received a reward
according to his works. On the contrary, according to him,
the proverb was true for ihe present, but a time would come
when it would be used no more, for then " every one shall
die for his own iniquity, and every man who eateth
sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge." 1 When
the same Jeremiah exhorted his fellow exiles in Egypt to
abstain from idolatry, the assembled multitude said to him
in reply : " As for the word which thou hast spoken unto us
in the name of Jahveh, we do not hearken unto thee.
Bather we will certainly fulfil the word which has gone
forth out of our mouth, and burn incense in honour of the
Queen of heaven, and pour out drink-offerings unto her, as
we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes,
in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem : then
were we satisfied with bread, and were prosperous, and saw
no evil. But since we have left off to burn incense in
1 Jer. xxxi. 29, 30.

358 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
honour of the Queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offer
ings unto her, we have wanted everything, and have been
consumed by the sword and by the famine." 1 On his side,
Jeremiah sees in the desolation of Judea the punishment
appointed by Jahveh for the nation's idolatry ; 2 but he is
unable to reply to the reasoning of his opponents. Indeed he
could not assert that the generation then living were more
culpable than their forefathers. The reformation of Josiah —
to which event the Egyptian exiles allude, when they speak
of the cessation of the offerings in honour of the Queen of
heaven — had actually effected a great improvement ; and yet
it had been followed by a series of disasters which reached
their climax in the utter extinction of the kingdom of Judah.
We are of course far from approving the view of history
taken by Jeremiah's opponents, and from ascribing, with
them, the misfortunes of Israel to the anger of the Queen of
heaven. What we assert is merely that they, on their stand
point, are not in the wrong, and that Jeremiah cannot appeal
to the facts in favour of his view. But does not all this
imply that even in the history of the Israelitish people,
search was made in vain for that agreement between the
outward lot and the relation to Jahveh, which the prophets
regarded as the manifestation of Jahveh's righteousness ? If
anyone still entertains a doubt on this subject, let him recall
to mind the complaints about the prosperity of the godless
and the calamities of the righteous with which the Psalms
overflow, or the book of Job, the theme of which is
precisely the suffering of the pious, or finally, the assevera
tion of the Preacher that " all things come alike to all, to the
righteous and the godless, to the good, and to the clean, and
to the unclean, to him who sacrificeth and to him who
sacrificeth not : as is the good so is the sinner, he who
sweareth, as he who feareth an oath." 3 Malachi had to con
tend with people who declared : " Everyone who doeth evil
is good in the eyes of Jahveh, and in them he delighteth ; " 4
" we call the proud happy ; yea, they who work wickedness
are built up ; although they tempt God, yet they escape." 5
1 Jer. xliv. 15-18. 2 Ibid., vv. 20-23.
3 Eccles. ix. 2, compare verse 11. 4 Mai. ii. 17.
6 Mai. iii. 15.

PREDICTION AND ITS PREMISES. 359
No one certainly will wish to defend the disposition to which
these complaints testify ; but even the men most greedy of
material rewards could not have uttered them, if harmony
between men's moral state and their lot in life had been,
in Israel, anything more than a mere postulate of faith.
Again the prophet does not attempt to show the groundless
ness of these complaints, but refers to " the day of Jahveh,"
when even those who now thought themselves wronged
"should see the difference between the righteous and the
godless, between him who serveth God and him who serveth
Him not." x
The exceptions which could be alleged against our judgment ~
on the prophets' conviction regarding the righteousness of
Jahveh, are now clearly seen to be without foundation. That
judgment itself, therefore, remains intact. We are now fully
justified in bringing it into connection with the results of
our previous investigation. How perfectly it agrees with
these results is obvious at once. To express it briefly : the
prophetical prediction of the future now presents itself to us
as the necessarily incorrect conclusion drawn from premises
which themselves were only half correct. It now no longer
surprises us that the investigation, instituted in chapters
v. — vii., led to so negative a result. We might have fore
told that such would be the case, if we had begun by study
ing the prophets' way of thinking concerning Jahveh's
government of the world. Now the conclusion formerly
obtained is explained, and thus at the same time confirmed,
by the result of that study.
This result gives, moreover, a satisfactory explanation of
two phenomena, to which we have previously referred, but
which we could not at that time quite clear up.
The points to which I allude are these. When we
make the prophetical predictions subordinate to the re
ligious convictions of the prophets, it becomes intelligible
to us, in the first place, how they could attach so little value
to their own consistency. It would, indeed, be more than
singular that they should have disclosed, at one time one
prospect of the future, and at another time a different one, or
even — as for example Ezekiel 2 — should have simply retracted
1 Mai. iii. 18. 2 Chap. xxix. 17—21 ; compare pp. 110, 111, and 343.

360 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
prophecies formerly uttered, if they had seen, in the announce
ment of what was to happen, their own proper office, or even
an essential part of their office. On the other hand, this
variation can be easily explained, if it is properly the right
eousness of Jahveh, which they preach and apply. In that
case the fulfilment of their predictions can be, to themselves,
to a certain extent, matter of indifference ; that is to say, the
fulfilment in this or that specific form, at that specific time.
It is to them a settled truth that Jahveh is righteous, and
not less, that at some period his righteousness shall be revealed
in a dazzling and unmistakable manner ; but how and when
this revelation shall take place, is a question of subordinate im
portance. Just as in the case of Jeremiah and Malachi,1 they
appeal from the present, in which the distinction between the
righteous and the godless often fails to be discerned, to the
future, when this distinction would be obvious to all ; so also,
when their anticipations were not realised, they will have
easily satisfied themselves with the thought that the fulfil
ment would doubtless occur at a later period. fn truth it
makes a very essential difference, whether any event is esti
mated in and on account of itself, or as ihe form in which
something else is revealed. In the first case, its non-realisa
tion is a bitter disappointment, and, for him who announced
it, a painful humiliation ; but this bitterness and this pain
are not felt when recourse is at once had to the conviction :
if it is not fulfilled now, then it will be fulfilled at a later
time ; the righteousness of Jahveh endures, and must posi
tively some time come to light.
In the second place, the disagreement of the prophets with
each other finds its natural explanation in the fact, that the
prediction was dependent on the religious conviction of the
prophets. It has already become clearly apparent to us that
the Israelitish prophets of Jahveh, on more than one occa
sion, stood opposed to each other. The most of our canonical
prophets had again and again to contend anew against fellow-
prophets who, as well as they, bore the name of nabi,
and announced the word of Jahveh, and were moreover com
monly reverenced by the people as the interpreters of the
deity in a far higher degree than they themselves were.
1 See above, pp. 357 ff.

EXPLANATION OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE PROPHETS. 361
The " yea " of the one was opposed to the " nay " of the
other, and conversely.1 But this is not all ; the canonical
prophets themselves also differ from each other ; Isaiah and
Micah are. not at one with regard to the destiny which
awaits Jerusalem ; Jeremiah sees the future of the kingdom
of Judah in much darker colours than either Habakkuk,
or Joel, or the author of Zechariah xii. — xiv.2 I have
already remarked that the conflict between the canonical
and the so-called false or lying prophets is accounted for very
imperfectly, or rather not at all, if we regard all the latter,
without distinction, as cunning impostors, who passed them
selves off as interpreters of Jahveh for the sake of gain or
other base motives.3 Much less does the mutual difference
between the canonical prophets admit of being cleared up
this manner. On the other hand, both that conflict and that
difference are at once explained when we take into account
the influence of the prophetical conception of Jahveh's
character and attributes. For it results from the nature of the
case that even they, who agreed perfectly in their ideas of these
attributes, would sometimes differ from each other in the judg
ment which they formed of the religious and moral condition
of their contemporaries, and then of course also in the expecta
tions which they entertained with regard to their future. It
is one rule which they apply, but not with the same result,
because their estimation of the object which falls under the
rule is not the same. The difference becomes still greater,
when the rule itself which is applied is not altogether the
same. And such a case is actually presented here. All the
prophets, without distinction, believed both in the election of
Israel by Jahveh and in the holiness and righteousness of
Jahveh ; but, very naturally, the relation between these two
convictions was not exactly the same with the one as with
the other. One placed the election in the foreground, and
made the revelation of Jahveh's righteousness subordinate to
it ; or, what amounts to the same thing, conceived of it as
especially operative against the enemies of Israel. Another, on
the contrary, took the holiness of Jahveh as his starting-point,
and came to the conclusion that even the chosen people should
not be spared. Any farther development of these ideas seems
i See pp. 48 ff. 2 See pp. 164 f., 169 f., 174 ff., 307 ff. 3 See p. 92.

362 IX.  PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
superfluous. When, in a former chapter, I noted the differ
ence between Jeremiah and his contemporaries, I remarked
that it directly indicated a difference of judgment regarding
the condition in which Judah then was.1 That was, in
another form, the same opinion which I at present defend.
That the one found that condition tolerable, while the other
judged it so unfavourably, arose really from the fact that with
the first Jahveh's holiness and righteousness were tempered
by his relation to Israel, while the second, just reversely,
was firmly convinced that Jahveh must be manifested as the
Holy and Bighteous above all to the covenant-people. The
two modes of looking at the subject, which I have here con
trasted with each other as sharply as possible, had of course
each its own shades, and could thus come into combination
with each other in very different ways, so that our view
accounts not only for the directly conflicting predictions, such
as those of Hananiah and Jeremiah, but also for the less
striking divergences which present themselves to our notice
when we compare the canonical prophets with each other.
Frequently the difference is clearly seen to be of such a kind
that we should be very unwilling to make a choice between
them ; sometimes again we choose our side with ease, and
unhesitatingly call the one judgment superficial or one-sided,
the other unexceptionable and correct. But even in the
latter case we disapprove without condemning — that is,
without assailing the moral character of those whose estima
tion of the circumstances we reject. It is indeed no small
recommendation of our view that it relieves us from the duty
of passing upon men of whom we know nothing evil — a
sentence which leaves nothing good remaining in them.
And yet I have not stated the chief recommendation of that
view. The principal difficulty itself which was mentioned in
the beginning of this chapter, but which then had to be left
unsolved, is now removed, as with one stroke, by this view
of the prophetical predictions. The great self-confidence with
which the prophets published their threatenings and promises
as the " word of Jahveh," is now no longer an enigma to us.
If their predictions had had no foundation in their religious
belief, then in order to utter them in Jahveh's name, they would
1 See pp. 172—179 ; compare 306, ff.

PREDICTION THE RESULT OF RELIGIOUS CONVICTION. 363
have required a definite warrant, and one, so to say, renewed
on every occasion. If this warrant was not forthcoming, they
would then either have had to announce their expectations
as their personal anticipations, or would have been guilty of
presumption, if they had, notwithstanding, prefaced them with
their " thus saith Jahveh." But the matter assumes a different
aspect now that the prediction of the future also may, on good
grounds, be regarded as a result of the religious conviction of
the prophets. It could now be no object of doubt for them
selves. It must have been as certain to them as their
religious belief itself, which had grown along with their
whole inner life, and had become inseparable from it. The
" thus saith Jahveh " must have flowed from their mouth
quite involuntarily and naturally, for did they not know that
Jahveh the God of Israel was the Holy and Bighteous ?
Even the disappointment of the expectations thus expressed
could not perplex them or make them doubt of their being
in the right ; because, as we recently remarked,1 they limited
that disappointment, at once and as of course, to the form of
their anticipations, and remained as firmly convinced as
before of the truth of the matter itself.
We must not disguise from ourselves the importance of
these views. They involve nothing less than a revolution in
our understanding of Israelitish prophecy. In a former
chapter we dwelt on the form of the prophetical revelation,
on the calling of the prophets, on their visions, and on the
(objective) marks of their having been sent by Jahveh. The
extreme difficulty of proceeding upon these things was already
clear to us then : the ground on which we had hoped to find
firm footing seemed from time to time to reel beneath us.2
We now think ourselves justified in going further and stating
the proposition : whatever final judgment may be pronounced
upon these phenomena, the key to the interpretation of
prophecy is certainly not to be found in them. It plainly
appears to be a peculiar form in which the inner life of the pro
phet revealed itself. The earnestness and the warmth of his
religious and moral conviction — that is the chief matter. It
is that which makes the true prophet, because it accounts for
the confidence with which he comes forward as an interpreter
1 See above, p. 360. 2 See above, pp. 77, ff.

364 IX. — PREDICTION AND THE BELIEF OF THE PROPHETS.
of Jahveh. It defines the rank which each nabi occupies by
right in the guild to which he belongs. Our judgment
regarding them cannot be made to depend upon the visions
which they had in common, and which, moreover, at a later
period were employed as literary drapery, nor upon the
realisation of their predictions, which indeed was something
purely incidental : it can rest on nothing else than on the
measure of depth and purity which we assign to their
religious belief, when we compare them with their contem
poraries. We seek in vain for another criterion, in vain for a
better standard, by which to compare the prophets with each
other. I confine myself, for the present, to the indication of
these ideas. The difficulties which our inquiry had suggested
could not be allowed to remain altogether unsolved, and are
now actually removed. It becomes us to rest content with
this result for the present. Afterwards, when our whole
subject has been discussed, I shall return to the points here
indicated, and endeavour to show fully and clearly their
importance for the correct explanation of Israelitish prophecy.

CHAPTEB X.
THE PROPHETS AND PROPHECY IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
A part of our programme is now finished. We have studied
the canonical prophetical literature from one specific point of
view, have afterwards surveyed it from other points, and finally
have determined, at least provisionally, the result of that
inquiry. But at this stage we are not yet, by any means, at
the end of our task. Besides the prophets whose writings
we possess, many others came forward in Israel, of whom
the historical books of the Old Testament give us an account.
We must become acquainted with these men also ; of them,
too, we must form a judgment. But the criticism of the
sources must precede the formation of that judgment. For,
as we have already noticed,1 we are not certain that the words
and actions of these prophets have been handed down to us
quite truthfully in the historical books. It is obvious at once
that, on account of this uncertainty, a troublesome and difficult
piece of work is laid upon us ; but we cannot think of seek
ing to escape from it. The narratives concerning the prophets
and their labours, given by the Israelitish historians, demand
the most accurate study, both on their own account and in
their connection with the prophetical literature. It would
be as inexcusable to accept them indiscriminately as it would
be to reject them without examination. The very uncertainty
which cleaves to them compels us to seek a solution.
We shall begin at once by reminding the reader of the
contents of these narratives. It will be allowable, in doing
so, to have regard to the necessary brevity, as the texts are
in the hands of every one, and, in general, do not require any
detailed illustration.
But we here immediately meet with a slight difficulty.
I See above, pp. 31 ff., 33 ff.

366 X.  THE PROPHETS IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
Where is such a review to begin ? The answer would require
to be : with Samuel, if we allowed ourselves to be guided
entirely by a well known annotation in the first book called
after him,1 according to which the appellation " prophet " was
not in use before the reign of Saul, but " seer " was employed
instead. But it is doubtful if we should attribute so
much importance to this difference of title. If we did so,
we should also come into conflict with the evidence of other
Old Testament passages, and be chargeable with the appear
ance at least of incompleteness. For the present, there
fore, we shall not trouble ourselves about this annotation,
to which, however, we shall require to return in another
connection. But what then is to be our point of de
parture ? The patriarchal, or pre-Mosaic period, in which no
Israehtish people yet existed, is excluded as a matter of course,
although, on one single occasion, the title of " nabi " 2 is given
to one of the patriarchs, viz., to Abraham. This is clearly a
figurative use of that appellation, which need the less detain
us, because we shall have to examine, in the present chapter,
the accounts given concerning the revelations to the patriarchs.
But Moses himself : is he not one, and indeed the most
eminent of all the prophets with whom the historical books
of the Old Testament make us acquainted ? In a certain
sense, he is. Here and there he is called a " nabi," 3 or
placed on the same footing with prophets.4 It is certain,
however, on the other hand, that an altogether exceptional
rank is assigned to him among, or even above, the prophets.6
He assumes a peculiar position also inasmuch as the writing
in which, besides his laws, his prophecies also have been
communicated to us, is assigned to him by tradition, as
its author. It does not therefore seem advisable to intro
duce him into the circle of our investigation, which is,
besides, wide enough already. The inquiry regarding the
prophets and prophecy in Israel must not expand into fa
history of Israel's religion. For the sake of completeness, it
1 1 Sam. ix. 9. 2 Gen. xx. 7.
3 Deut. xviii. 15, 18 ; xxxiv. 10—12. Hos. xii. 14, Heb. (13, Auth. Ver.)
1 Jer. xv. 1. Ps. xcix. 6.
6 Compare Num. xi. 24 — 29 ; xii. 6 — 8, and the passages in which Aaron
comes forward as the interpreter or prophet of Moses, Exod. iv. 15, 16 ;
vii. 1.

PROPHECIES OF BALAAM. 367
may be merely mentioned here that there is interwoven with
the Mosaic legislation more than one prophetical discourse,
which lays before Israel the promises and threatenings of
Jahveh, and makes the future of the nation dependent upon
the fidelity with which they shall follow the commands of
Jahveh,1 while both " the song " and " the blessing " of Moses
which are introduced into Deuteronomy2 bear a predictive
character. But the reasons which oblige us to assign a separate place
to Moses, do not apply to his contemporary Balaam, whom
we therefore mention here first, in the chronological order.
He is nowhere called " prophet " in the Old Testament ; on
one occasion, indeed, he is termed " the soothsayer ;" 3 but
still it is testified of him in the most unambiguous terms that
he spake the word of Jahveh.4 In highly poetic language
he repeatedly blesses the nation of Israel and announces its
. grand destination 5 — as that first began to be realised in the
reign of David. It is not from any caprice that our thoughts
are directed to that monarch specifically, without excluding on
that account the succeeding kings. David is suggested to
us, because Balaam knows that Israel shall be ruled by a
king ; 6 he announces that he shall be higher than Agag7 — a
name which, perhaps, was borne by all the princes of the
Amalekites, but at least by that one prince who was taken
prisoner by Saul, and was put to death by Samuel;8 he pre
dicts that Amalek shall utterly perish,9 and that the
Moabites, " the sons of the war-tumult," 10 and the Edomites
shall be subjected to Israel,11 events which did not take
place till the time of David, or even later ;12 finally, he makes
1 See, among other passages, Exod. xxiii. 20 — 33 ; Lev. xxvi., and also
the two introductions to the Deuteronomic legislation, chap. i. ff., and v. ff.,
as well as the addresses with which it is closed, chaps, xxviii., xxix., xxx.
2 Deut. xxxii. 1—43 and xxxiii.
3 Josh. xiii. 22. 4 Num. xxiii. 5, 16, etc.
6 Num. xxiii. 9—11, 21—24 ; xxiv. 5—9, 17—19.
6 Num. xxiv. 7 (also xxiii. 21 ?). 7 Ibid.
8 1 Sam. xv. 9 Num. xxiv. 20.
10 Num. xxiv. 17. According to the common rendering: " the children of
Seth," but see Jer. xlviii. 45, according to which passage the text in Num
bers must be amended. The title, whatever the explanation of it may be,
refers to the Moabites.
11 Num. xxiv. 17—19.
12 On Amalek, see 1 Sam. xxx. 16 ; according to 1 Chron. iv. 42, 43, the
last remnant of this people was not destroyed till the days of Hezekiah. The

368 X  THE PROPHETS IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
mention of the conquests of the Assyrians, and discloses, in
prospect, the judgment which shall overtake them also.1 If
Balaam's prophetic glance is thus in nowise bounded by the
horizon of the Mosaic time, his fortunes also are altogether
extraordinary. Who does not remember how Jahveh made
hislwill known to him directly, and what befell him on his
way to Balak ? 2
In the farewell speeches of Joshua,3 we hear the echo of
the addresses which Moses had delivered to Israel shortly
before his death. For the rest, no single prophet comes for
ward in the book named after him. The . curse pronounced
against him who should venture to rebuild Jericho,4 an
imprecation which was afterwards fully verified by the
result,8 is uttered b}- the leader himself. There is as little
mention of prophets in the period immediately succeeding
his death. Deborah is called a " prophetess," 6 but she
belongs properly to the Judges of Israel. The triumphal song
which was sung by her and Barak,7 is occupied not with the
future, but with the past. Before Gideon undertakes the
office of Judge, Jahveh sends a prophet in order to direct
attention to the cause of the nation's misery, their apostasy
from the service of Jahveh ; 8 it is not mentioned that
he also announced the deliverance. But from this period
begins, in the historical books of the Old Testament, the •
series of predicting prophets, if I may so denote the most
obvious feature of their work. A man of God, whose name
we do not know, reproves Eli, the priest at Shiloh, for his
slackness in restraining the transgressions of his sons, Hophni
and Phineas, and foretells to him not only the death of
these two sons on one day, but also the humiliation of his
house, and the rise of " a faithful priest, who shall do accord
ing to that which is in the heart and in the soul of Jahveh,
for whom Jahveh shall build a sure house (that is, in whose
victories gained by David over Moab and Ammon are mentioned 2 Sam.
viii. 2, 3, 14.
1 Num. xxiv. 21—24. 2 Num. xxii. 9—12, 20, 22—35.
3 Josh, xxiii., xxiv. 4 Josh. vi. 26.
6 1 Kings xvi. 34. 6 Judg. iv. 4. 7 Judg. v. 1.
8 Judg. vi. 8 — 10. Bertheau is wrong in finding a prophetical address
also in chap. ii. 1—5. The "messenger of Jahveh" mentioned in verse 1,
is, according to the usage of the language, " the angel of Jahveh." See
below.

SAMUEL, NATHAN, AND CAD. 309
family he shall make the priesthood hereditary), and who
shall walk before the face of Jahveh's anointed for ever." The
remaining descendants of Eli shall come to this priest (and his
successors) with the humble petition for any office, the scanty
revenues of which might keep them from dying of hunger.1
Every one knows the events by which, in succession, this
prediction was realised : the death of Hophni and Phineas in
the battle against the Philistines, the murder of the priests
at Nob, the deposition of Abiathar, and the elevation of
Zadok to be head of the priesthood in the temple of Jerusalem.2
It is told of Samuel, in the beginning of the history of his
public life, that " he grew, and Jahveh was with him, and let
none of all his words fall to the ground," 3 i.e., confirmed
them all by the result. Numerous proofs of this confir
mation are furnished in the narratives about him. He
announces the approaching execution of the judgment on
Eli's house;4 the deliverance of Israel from the Philistine
oppression, a deliverance which thereupon commences imme
diately, when Jahveh's thunder scatters the hostile bands ;5
the exaltation of Saul to be king ;e his rejection by Jahveh,
and the appointment of David to succeed him on the throne. 7
The evening before the battle on Gilboa, in the dwelling of
the Witch at Endor, Samuel's shade appears in order to fore
tell that Saul and his sons shall fall by the sword of the
enemy ; an event which actually happened.8 How " Jahveh
was with Samuel " appeared clearly also in the national
assembly, in which he resigned his office of Judge, when his
words were corroborated by the sudden bursting forth of a
thunderstorm.9 The principal events in the life of David also were
announced beforehand by prophets : the death of the child
which Bath-sheba had borne to him, and the family disasters
which should befall him afterwards, by Nathan ;10 the pesti
lence by which Israel should be afflicted as a punishment for
the census ordered by David, by Gad.11 The former also
i 1 Sam. ii. 27—36. 5 1 Sam. iv. 11 ; xxii. 6—23 ; 1 Kings ii. 27.
3 1 Sam. iii. 19. 4 1 Sam. iii. 11— 14.
6 1 Sam. vii. 3 ff., 10, 11. 6 1 Sam. x. 1 ff.
7 1 Sam. xiii. 10—14 ; xv. 16 ff. ; xvi. 1—12.
8 1 Sam. xxviii. 16— 19; xxxi. 9 1 Sam. xii. 17, 18.
io 2 Sam. xii. 1—25. n 2 Sam. xxiv. ; 1 Chron. xxi.
2 A

370 X.  THE PROPHETS IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
foretold to him that the sovereignty should be hereditary in
his family, and that Solomon should build the temple.1
It would seem that under the reign of Solomon the pro
phets appeared less on the foreground. It is only towards
the end of his reign that one of them appears on the stage of
history, Ahijah the Shilonite, who announces to Jeroboam
the son of Nebat, that after Solomon's death he should reign
over ten of the twelve tribes.2 When Jeroboam had, at a
later period, incurred the displeasure of Jahveh, it was the
same Ahijah who foretold to his consort not only the death
of her child, the sick Abijah, but also the destruction of the
whole royal house, nay, even the deportation of Israel out of
their country, as a punishment for their continuing in the sin
of Jeroboam.3 But this latter prophecy is preceded chronologically by
other predictions. Without dwelling upon Shemaiah who, by
command of Jahveh, arrested the attempts of Rehoboam to
subject the ten tribes,4 we at once fix our attention upon that
remarkable chapter, 1 Kings xiii. Two unnamed prophets
come forward here as interpreters of Jahveh. The one, from
Judah, announces the desecration of Jeroboam's altar by a
descendant of David, named Josiah, and as a sign of the
truth of this prediction, declares that that altar shall be
immediately rent asunder.6 The sign was realized immedi
ately ; three centuries and a half afterwards, the prophecy
itself was fulfilled.6 The other prophet, who dwelt at
Bethel, foretells to the man of God from Judah, that his body
shall not be buried in the sepulchre of his fathers, and as this
prophecy was fulfilled on the self-same day, under altogether
extraordinary circumstances, he establishes the truth of what
the deceased had predicted with reference to the altar of
Jeroboam at Bethel, and the sanctuaries " in the cities of
Samaria." 7
Like that of Jeroboam, the dynasties of Baasha and of
Omri had also their prophets of misfortune. The doom which
1 2 Sam. vii. ; 1 Chron. xvii. 2 1 Kings xi. 29—39.
3 1 Kings xiv. 1 — 16, to be compared with vers. 17, 18 ; chap. xv. 25 — 30.
4 1 Ki. xii. 22—24 ; 2 Chron. xi. 1—4. 6 1 Ki. xiii. 2, 3.
e 1 Ki. xiii. 5 ; 2 Ki. xxiii. 15, 16.
7 1 Ki. xiii. 20—23 (compare verse 24, ff.), and 30, 31. Compare 2 Ki.
xxiii. 17 — 19.

ELIJAH AND ELISHA. 371
had been announced to the former by Jehu, the son of Hanani,
was executed upon his son Elah by Zimri.1 After a reign
of only seven days, Zimri was supplanted by Omri, who
overcame his rival Tibni, and succeeded in getting himself
acknowledged king over the whole realm, and in maintaining
the power which he had gained. It was under the kings of
his race, under his son Ahab, and his grandsons Ahaziah and
Jehoram, that first of all Elijah, and after his ascension to
heaven, Elisha, gained for themselves imperishable renown, as
champions of the worship of Jahveh, and as the interpreters
of his will. We need here advert only to the main points in
the copious narratives regarding them : the details are known
to every one. The three years' famine, which afflicts the
country in the reign of Ahab, is announced by Elijah.2 Dur
ing this period, his own means of subsistence are provided in
a miraculous manner ; 3 after its expiration, he gains, by the
help of Jahveh, a brilliant victory in the contest against the
priests of Baal, and the rain comes down at his pra}rer.4
Shortly thereafter a manifestation of Jahveh is vouchsafed to
him on Horeb,5 and the exaltation of Jehu to be king- of
Israel, and of Hazael to be king of Damascus, is announced to
him beforehand.6 The narrative of his work breaks off here,
but an anonymous prophet comes in his place, who foretells
to Ahab his two victories over the Syrians ; 7 the compassion
shown by him afterwards is severely reprobated by another
anonymous prophet.8 But when Ahab, instigated by Jezebel,
had been guilty of taking away Naboth's life, and had taken
possession of his vineyard, it is again Elijah who announces
to him the extirpation of his house, his own violent death,
and the ignominious end of Jezebel.9 When Ahab humbled
himself in consequence of this announcement, the destruction
of his dynasty was postponed, and information of that respite
was communicated to Elijah.10 Still the historian does not
neglect to call attention to the fact, that the threatening of
punishment against Ahab himself— which was once more
repeated by Micaiah son, of Imlah shortly before its fulfil-
1 1 Ki. xvi. 1—4, compare vv. 8—14. 2 1 Ki. xvii. 1.
3 1 Ki. xvii. 4 1 Ki. xviii. 6 1 Ki. xix. 1, ff.
e 1 Ki. xix. 15—18. 7 1 Ki. xx. 13, ff., 28, ff. 8 1 Ki. xx. 35—43.
» 1 Ki. xxi. 17—24. 10 1 Ki. xxi. 27—29.

372 X.  THE PROPHETS IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
ment * — was verified by the issue,2 just as afterwards Jezebel
was stricken by the judgment which Elijah had foretold to
her.3 In like manner, according to the word of the same
prophet, the sickness of Ahaziah terminated in his death.4
This is the last prediction of Elijah which is recorded in the
Old Testament ; it is followed immediately by the account of
his ascension to heaven in the sight of Elisha, who hence
forth takes his place as the head of the prophets of
Jahveh.5 The history of Elisha is an uninterrupted series of miracu
lous deeds,6 which he performs partly for the benefit of the dis
ciples of the prophets and in the interest of his people, partly
for the maintenance of Jahveh's honour and for the punish
ment of those who mocked him or his messenger. The pre
diction of the future is an essential element in many of these
recitals of miracles. It was in conformity with the word of
Jahveh spoken by him, that the kings of Israel, Judah, and
Edom were delivered from the hazardous position in which they
were placed in their expedition against Mesha, king of Moab ;7
that Samaria, when besieged by the Syrians, was rescued from
the threatened destruction, and that righteous punishment
overtook the mocker, who attempted to turn the prophet's pre
diction into ridicule ; 8 that Hazael made himself master of
the throne of Syria, and that defeat after defeat was inflicted
by him and his son Benhadad upon Israel in the reign of
Jehu and Jehoahaz ; 9 and finally, that Joash the son of
Jehoahaz waged a successful war against the Syrians, and
paved the way for the prosperity which the nation enjoyed
in the reign of Jeroboam II.10 Jehu, the founder of this new
dynasty, was anointed to be king by one of the disciples of ihe
prophets, sent by Elisha, and was assured beforehand of the
successful issue of his enterprise against the house of Omri.11
From this time, the accounts given by our historians of
the prophets and their predictions become more scanty. It
is mentioned in a single word that the promises of Jahveh,
which Jonah, son of Amittai, had delivered, were verified by
1 1 Ki. xxii. 17—28. s 1 Ki. xxii. 38, compare 2 Ki. ix. 25, 26.
3 2 Ki. ix. 30—37. 4 2 Ki. i. 14—16, compare verse 17.
6 2 Ki. ii. 1^18. e 2 Ki. ii. 19— viii. 15.
7 2 Ki. iii. 16—19. 8 2 Ki. vi. 24— vii. 20.
9 2 Ki. viii. 7—15. 10 2 Ki. xiii. 14—19. " 2 Ki. ix. 1—10.

JONAH, ISAIAH, AND HULDAH. 373
the victories of Jeroboam II.1 It is the same Jonah who
plays the chief part in the book called after him, and which
has been incorporated in the collection of the twelve minor
prophets. Who does not know the narrative of his wonderful
fortunes ? It will be further remembered, that the averting
of Jahveh's threatened punishments by the repentance of
those against whom they were directed, is the leading idea of
the unknown writer.2 His narrative stands altogether by
itself among the writings of the prophets, or indeed in the
Old Testament, and is therefore mentioned here only for the
sake of completing our survey : I wish, at a later stage, to
show the true signification of that book.
We have already discussed, in part, the account which is
given us a few chapters further on (2 Kings xviii. — xx.) of the
action of Isaiah during the reign of Hezekiah.3 It must now
be further mentioned, first, that the prophet, according to the
author of that narrative, predicted to Hezekiah his approach
ing recovery from a dangerous illness, and the addition of
fifteen years to his life, and confirmed the truth of this pro
phecy by a sign — the retrogression of the shadow on " the
degrees of Ahaz ; " 4 and, secondly, that after Merodach-Baladan,
who was then king of the Babylonian realm, had sent an
embassy to him to assure him of his friendship, the prophet
announced to Hezekiah that all his treasures and his de
scendants should be carried into Babylon.5 This threatening,
in a modified form, was repeated and expanded by anonymous
prophets under Manasseh, the successor of Hezekiah,6 as it
was afterwards by the prophetess Huldah, who gave, as her
reply to the messengers of Josiah, that the destruction of
Judah and Jerusalem was irrevocably determined, but would
not be executed till after the death of Josiah.7
The accounts given by the Chronicle- writer regarding the pro
phets and their work have been pointed out in the notes, in so
far as they are parallel with those of the older books. He com
municates, however, in addition, some particulars about them
i 2 Ki. xiv. 25.
2 Jonah iv. 2. Compare my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," II. 412 ff.
8 On 2 Ki. xix. 6, 7 (Isa. xxxvii. 6, 7) compare above, p. 291.
4 2 Ki. xx. 1—11 (Isa. xxxviii.) 6 2 Ki. xx. 12— 19 (Isa. xxxix.).
« 2 Ki. xxi. 10—15 ; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 10, 18, 19.
7 2 Ki. xxii. 12—20 ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 20—28.

374 X.  THE PROPHETS IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
which are not given in these books ; and he even mentions
prophets of whom we know nothing whatever from other
sources. On the other hand, he passes by in silence some of
those who belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes, as he
confines himself to the fortunes of Judah. The following is
a summary of the communications which are met with in his
books alone : — Shemaiah comes forward as a prophet, not
only at the beginning of Behoboam's reign, but also later, in
order to announce Shishak's invasion of Judea ¦} Jehu, son
of Hanani, who, according to the First Book of Kings, was a
contemporary of Baasha, is the interpreter of Jahveh's dis
pleasure at the alliance of Jehoshaphat with Ahab ;2 Je
horam, son of Jehoshaphat, receives a letter from Elijah, in
which the painful sickness which is to prove fatal to him is
foretold.3 It is only in Chronicles that mention is made of
Azariah, son of Oded-f and Hanani? in the reign of Asa ; of
Jahaziel6 and Eliezer7 contemporaries of Jehoshaphat ; of
Zechariah, son of Jehoiada8 under Joash, and of anonymous
prophets in the reign of Amaziah.9 It is mostly short
addresses, announcements of doom, threatenings or promises,
which are communicated to us by these men. That they
were established by the facts, in so far as the case required,
is on each occasion either expressly mentioned or tacitly
understood. Let the reader consult the passages themselves.
The historical books, which give us information regarding
the return from the captivity and the later fortunes of the
Jews, furnish us with little or nothing for our present pur
pose. The only prophets whom they name are Haggai,
Zechariah, and some contemporaries of Nehemiah. It is told
of the first two, that they energetically promoted the rebuild
ing of the temple ; 10 of the others that they opposed
Nehemiah and attempted to undermine his authority.11 These
particulars are remarkable, but they are not of the same
character with the work of the prophets in the pre-exilic
period, as that is depicted to us in the Old Testament. For
1 2 Chron. xii. 5—8. 2 2 Chron. xix. 1—3.
3 2 Chron. xxi. 12 — 15. We shall afterwards return to the chronological
difficulty which is here presented.
4 2 Chron. xv. 1 ff. 6 2 Chron. xvi. 7—10.
6 2 Chron. xx. 14—17. 7 Ibid., vv. 35—37.
8 2 Chron. xxiv. 20 ff. 9 2 Chron. xxv. 7 ff, 14 ff.
w Ezra, v. 1 ff ; vi. 14. u Neh. vi. 10—14.

REVELATIONS MADE BY JAHVEH HIMSELF. 375
it is impossible to deny that the narratives of the Books of
Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, in which the prophets of
Jahveh come forward as actors and speakers, show great
mutual agreement, and leave one and the same impression on
the reader. What that impression is, scarcely requires to be
described. For that which may perhaps be less obvious to some
when they read the Old Testament itself, — since the accounts
referred to do not always succeed each other, but are inter
rupted by other narratives, — is now clearly presented to the
mind, after we have gone through them all at the same time.
This is also the reason why we have combined them in so
brief a sketch, and have connected them in one — for the
rest, rather dry — survey. Who now can fail to be struck by
the complete agreement between the predictions of these
prophets and the historical reality? Who does not agree
that a foreknowledge altogether extraordinary is ascribed to
these men ? Who does not perceive that the deeds which
they perform are in harmony with the knowledge which they
exhibit, and testify directly to the supernatural character of
their work in Israel?
Before we develop these thoughts more fully, we wish to
expand the circle of our view, and to introduce into it a
number of facts which may be said to border upon the work
of the prophets, and indeed are so closely related to it that
the question may have been more than once suggested,
whether they too should not have been placed in the survey
of the actions and words of the prophets which has been
laid before the reader. For it is clear, when we go through
the historical books of the Old Testament, that the predic
tions which are put into the mouth of the prophets regarding
the future course of Israel's fortunes do not stand alone.
Close by the stream of prophetic prediction there flows
another which moves in the same direction, and now and
then mingles its waters with it. Jahveh himself discloses the
future of his people, either by revealing himself immediately
to them or their representatives, or by the mouth of persons
who are not represented to us as prophets, and who do not
even bear that name, but who nevertheless speak as
temporary organs of Jahveh. What is meant here will be
best shown by the narratives themselves, which I again

376 X.  THE PROPHETS IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
bring under the notice of the reader in chronological order. I
thus fulfil, at the same time, my promise to revert to the divine
revelations in the narratives regarding the patriarchal age ; for
there is no reason why we should not begin at as early a
period as possible, in this part of our investigation. It will
even very soon be clear to us that the phenomena with which
we are concerned, present themselves especially in the first
book of the Bible, which we now at once proceed to
open. Though we do not look for any predictions regarding
Israel and its destination in the chapters of Genesis whicli
precede those (xii — 1.) containing the biography of the
patriarchs, yet we find there something which at least pre
pares the way for them. Already, in the second narrative of
the creation,1 a promise of Jahveh is supposed to be read,
which should be thus interpreted. Jahveh-God utters there
the curse upon the serpent, and adds to the curse these
words : — " I will put enmity between thee and the woman,
and between thy seed and her seed ; this (seed) shall lie in
wait for thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for his (that
seed's) heel."2 But the expositors, who find a spiritual con
flict and its issue here indicated, translate otherwise : " the
posterity of the woman shall crush thy head, and thou shalt
crush his heel." In this way it becomes possible for them to
explain the passage thus: Between man and the principle of
evil (or Satan) shall be waged a war which shall terminate
in the entire defeat of the evil principle (or the Evil One),
but shall inflict a dangerous wound on man himself. But
it is obvious that the verb " to crush " is not suitable
here, as it cannot be used of the bite of the serpent ; that
the spiritual interpretation gives no account of the conflict,
not only between the woman and her offspring and the ser
pent, but also between that offspring and the offspring of the
serpent; that, finally, this spiritual interpretation has not the
very slightest foundation in the text of the narrative. The ser-
1 Gen. ii. 4 ff.
2 Gen. iii. 14, 15. The signification " to lie in wait for,'' or "to seek to
strike," is assigned to the Hebrew verb (shuph) according to the Sept. and
Targum of Onkelos. It is thus allied to shaaph, which occurs in Amos ii, 7,
Ps. lvi. 2, lvii. 4, and signifies " to snort, to fall upon." The corresponding
Arabic verb signifies, in the 5th form, "to lift up the head and raise up the
eyes," and in the 8th form, " to look out towards with uplifted head."

THE PARADISE-PROMISE : NOAH'S BLESSING. 377
pent is — a serpent and nothing more.1 The punishment pro
nounced on it is executed upon the real serpents, which, in
fact, " go upon their belly, and eat the dust of the earth all
the days of their life."2 Finally, the conflict, which is so
picturesquely represented to us in the curse on the serpent,
is nothing else than the perpetual battle between man and
his dangerous creeping enemy, which is indeed fought in such
a way that man aims his attack at the head of the serpent,
while it tries to strike the man in the heel. Gen. iii. 15,
when thus interpreted, has no connection with our subject,
and must lose the name of "Protevangelium" or " Paradise-
promise," which it owes to the traditional but positively
incorrect view.
In the sequel of the narrative which serves for an intro
duction to the history of the patriarchs, a trait occurs which
is rightly understood as referring to Israel's destination.
When Noah, after being mocked by his son Ham, is taken
under the charge of Shem and Japheth, he pronounces the
curse, not as might be expected upon Ham, but upon Ham's
son Canaan, and blesses both his other sons in this wise :
" Blessed be Jahveh, the god of Shem,
And let Canaan be a servant to them !
May God enlarge Japheth,
So that he may dwell in Shem's tents,
And let Canaan be a servant to them ! " 3
When it is considered that Canaan represents his descendants,
that is, the inhabitants of the land of Canaan,4 no hesitation
will be felt in granting that Shem appears here as the
ancestor of Israel, a nation which, at a later period, subdued
the Canaanites. With reference therefore to that people,
Jahveh is here called " the god of Shem," or what amounts
to the same thing, Shem is the elect of Jahveh. It is
1 It is said to be "more subtle than any beast of the field" (Gen. iii. 1),
and is cursed " above all cattle and above every beast of the field" (vs. 14).
2 Compare Micah vii. 17 ; Is. lxv. 25.
3 Gen. ix. 25 — 27. In verse 26, the words are, " be a servant to them"
because Shem's posterity also is kept in view. In verse 27, there is great
similarity in sound between " may enlarge " and " Japheth " in the original ;
in " may he dwell," the subject is not God, but Japheth ; his dwelling in
Shem's tents is the result of the enlargement whicli was promised to him,
and certainly involves participation in the blessings of Shem. The transla
tion, " and let him dwell in tents of name," or " of renown," is at variance
with the context.
4 Compare Gen. x. 15 — 19.

378 X.  THE PROPHETS IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
merely a hint which is here given, but a hint which will be
forthwith elucidated in the narratives about the forefathers
of Israel.
Many particulars in these narratives, directly connected
with our subject, would well deserve to be fully explained :
but at present our chief concern is to obtain a view of
the thread of prediction, which runs through these narratives ;
and this object will be best gained by our not dwelling on
the single prophecies longer than is absolutely necessary. We
shall, moreover, at a later stage, return to some of the most
important. From the very beginning, a numerous posterity, and the
possession of the land of Canaan as an inheritance, are pro
mised to the patriarchs by Jahveh himself. The promises
referring to these subjects readily admit of being divided into
two groups, which are indicated in the note below.1 The
promises of the second group are distinguished from those
of the first, not only by their characteristic use of certain
words,2 but by the express mention of kings who shall come
forth out of Abram and Jacob, and by the change of their
names into Abraham and Israel.3 Although Ishmael, the
son of Hagar, Abraham's first-born, is, according to these
passages, placed below Isaac the son of Sarah, yet a
numerous offspring and an extensive territory are promised
to him also for the sake of Abraham.4
There is one promise which interpreters usually separate
by a very sharp line of demarcation from those made by God
in regard to Israel's settlement in Canaan. It is a promise
which is from time to time repeated, and which, according to
the usual translations of Genesis, and a well known citation
in the New Testament,6 purports that all the families of the
earth (or all the nations of the world) shall be blessed in the
patriarch, to whom Jahveh speaks, or in his seed, or also, in
1 To the first group belong Gen. xii. 7 ; xiii. 14 ff ; xv. 5 ff, 13—16 ;
xviii. 10 ff ; xxvi. 24 ; xlvi. 3, 4 ; to the second, Gen. xvii. and xxxv. 9 — 15.
2 The author of the narratives of the second group is the so-called Elohist,
who places the revelation of the name " Jahveh " in the Mosaic period, and
does not use that name in his accounts of earlier ages. In Gen. xvii. 1,
" Jahveh" should most probably be changed into "Elohim" (God).
3 Gen. xvii. 6 ; xxxv. 11 ; xvii. 5 ; xxxv. 10.
4 Gen. xvi. 10—12 ; xvii. 18—21.
5 Gal. iii. 8. Compare Acts iii. 25.

THE PROMISES TO THE PATRIARCHS EXPLAINED. 379
him and in his seed.1 In these words, theologians find the
idea that the blessings bestowed on Abraham and his
posterity should at some time be extended to the other
families and nations ; in other words, that they should
obtain a share in the spiritual blessings which originally
were enjoyed by the chosen of Jahveh alone. But the
independent expositor is utterly unable to grant that such
is the meaning of the passages in Genesis, which have been
referred to. If the author had wished to say, "the nations
of the earth shall be blessed," he would have used a different
form of the verb.2 The words must be translated, "the
families of the earth (or the nations of the earth) shall bless
themselves (or one another) with Abraham," that is, shall
wish for themselves, or for one another, the blessing which
Jahveh bestowed upon hiin.3 He shall be so prosperous, his
posterity shall be so numerous and fortunate, that nothing
better or higher can be imagined than the enjoyment of what
he or his race possesses.4 This is undoubtedly a comprehensive
promise. It stands, according to the writer himself, in close
connection with Abraham's fidelity to Jahveh, which, as it
became more conspicuous, had also a claim to larger recom
pense.5 But it is not of another kind than the promises
regarding the descendants of the patriarchs and their settle
ment in Canaan, with which we first became acquainted.
Whoever finds in it, not something more, but something of an
1 The promise is made to Abraham, Gen. xii. 2, 3 ; xviii. 18 ; xxii.
16 — 28 (once "in thee," once "in him," and once "in thy seed"); to
Isaac, Gen. xxvi. 3, 4 ("in thy seed") ; to Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 13 — 15 ("in
thee and in thy seed "). The five passages differ further, inasmuch as in
the 3d and 4th, another form (hithpael) of the Hebrew verb, " to bless," is
used than that (niphal), which occurs in the 1st, 2d, and 5th.
2 The pual form which is altogether unequivocal, and is far from being
uncommon in the Old Testament. (Judges v. 24 ; 2 Sam. vii. 29 ; Ps. cxii.
2 ; cxxviii. 4 ; Pro. xx. 21 ; xxii. 9 : and in the participle, Num. xxii. 6 ;
Deut. xxxiii. 13 ; 1 Chron. xvii. 27 ; Job. i. 21 ; Ps. xxxviii. 22 ; cxiii. 2).
3 In this way the Niphal and Hithpael forms receive their proper
power (compare for the latter, Deut. xxix. 18 ; Is. lxv. 16 ; Jer. iv. 2 ;
Ps. Ixxii. 17) ; and also the usual meaning of the phrase is retained, of which
meaning Gen. xlviii. 20 gives unequivocal evidence. " To bless in," or
" with anyone," signifies to wish for one's self or for others the blessing
which the person in question enjoys.
4 For this reason, Abraham is called, Gen. xii. 2, a blessing, i.e., a person
whose name serves as a formula of blessing. Compare the use of " curse "
in Num. v. 21, 27 ; Jer. xxiv. 9 ; xxv. 18 ; xiii. 18.
5 Compare Gen. xviii. 19 ; xxii. 16 ; xxvi. 5.

380 X.  THE PROPHETS IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
altogether different nature, forces upon the writer of Genesis
ideas which are in truth foreign to him.
The reader needs only to be reminded in passing, that as
Jahveh declared the destination of the patriarchs and their
posterity, so also he directed their fortunes, and made known
to them his will, for the most part in dreams.1 But the fact
deserves special mention that Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, on
their death-beds, or at least towards the time of their
departure, declare to their sons or descendants the determina
tions of Jahveh concerning the future. Of this character we
must consider the benedictions to be, which are put into their
mouths, blessings parallel to those uttered by Noah, on which
we have already dwelt. Thus Isaac blesses Jacob and Esau
in Jahveh's name — at least if the prediction which he
addresses to Esau may be characterised by the name of
blessing.2 Thus too, Jacob adopts Manasseh and Ephraim,
sons of Joseph, into the class of his own sons, and announces
that Ephraim shall be more numerous and powerful than
Manasseh.3 Thus, further, Jacob reveals to his sons " what
shall happen to them in the last of the days," and describes
their future relation to each other, and the situation of the
territory which the tribes called after them should occupy.4
Thus, finally, Joseph, before his death, confirms the promise
of God, that he should lead the Israelites out of Egypt, and
bring them into Canaan.5
Perhaps my brief summary of the contents of " the blessing
of Jacob " will excite a certain surprise in the minds of some of
my readers. It may be thought that by far the most important
prophecy which it contains, the announcement of the coming
of Shiloh, the prince of peace from the tribe of Judah, seems
to have been passed over in silence. As commonly trans
lated, the 10th verse is to this effect : " The sceptre shall not
depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet,
until Shiloh come, and to him shall the nations be obedient."
1 Gen. xx. 6 ff ; xxxi. 10, 11, 24, 29 ; xxxvii. 5 ff, &c.
2 Gen. xxvii. 27—29, 39, 40 (cf, xxv. 23, 27—34). Expositors are
now almost agreed that the translation of verse 39 should be, " away from
the fatness of the earth shall thy dwelling-place be, and destitute of the dew
of heaven from above." What follows iu verse 40 entirely agrees with that
which history teaches of the Edomites' manner of life, and their changing
relations to Israel.
3 Gen. xlviii. 1—20. 4 Gen. xlix. 1—28. 6 Gen. 1. 24, 25.

EXPLANATION OF GENESIS XLIX. 1 0. 381
If this interpretation of the original were correct, then this
part of the blessing would indeed have deserved separate
mention. It would, in that case, reach further than the rest
of the benedictions, and would disclose, besides, a prospect
of the subjection of " the nations " to Shiloh, which would
far surpass in importance the main subject, the settlement of
the tribes in Canaan and their condition in that country.
But it is impossible to approve of this common translation.
Both in the preceding and in the following verses (verses 8,
9, and verses 11, 12), the poet treats of the tribe of Judah,
its political preponderance, and the fertility of its territory.
The surmise thus suggested that verse 10th has also reference
to the same subject, is fully confirmed by its contents. Shiloh
is, beyond all doubt, the well-known town of that name, the
seat of the ark of Jahveh during the period of the Judges.
The translation of verses 8 — 10 must run thus :
Thou art Judah,1 thee shall thy brethren praise ;
Thy hand is upon the neck of thine enemies :
Before thee shall the sons of thy father bow down.
A lion's whelp is Judah :
From the prey, my son, thou hast arisen ;
He has crouched and lain down as a lion
And as a lioness : who shall raise him up ?
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
Nor the leader's staff from between his feet,
Until he comes to Shiloh 2
And peoples are subject unto him.
The meaning evidently is, that Judah shall go on, as he has
begun, shall continue to show himself a commander and leader,
shall neither rest nor lay down the leader's staff until he
finally enters into Shiloh, and until there, at the common sanc
tuary, the rest of the tribes acknowledge his supremacy, and
pay homage to him as their chief. The idea, indicated in the
third line, is thus more fully worked out here. The poet
doubtless cherishes great expectations regarding the tribe of
Judah, but still remains within the circle to which his other
benedictions are confined.3
1 That is, the praised one. The meaning is, the reality shall correspond
to thy name.
2 Or " enters into Shiloh.'' Compare 1 Sam. iv. 12, where the two words
occur, connected in the same manner.
3 The judgment which may be passed on the interpretation here pre
sented is not dependent upon the answer to the question about the origin
of Gen. xlix. 1 —28. For my own part, I have no hesitation in regarding

382 X.  THE PROPHETS IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
So wide, then, is the space which prediction, uttered by
Jahveh himself, or in his name, occupies in the narratives
about the patriarchs. When we pass from Genesis to the
subsequent books, we see, as was to be expected, an altera
tion in this respect. The period of the partial fulfilment now
begins. It is from this point of view, therefore, as will be
remembered, that the calling of Moses, the deliverance of
Israel out of Egypt, the fortunes of the people in the wilder
ness, and their settlement in Canaan also are regarded. It
is unnecessary to quote passages. As regards Moses himself,
every one knows that Jahveh speaks with him " mouth to
mouth," and that he " beholds the appearance of Jahveh " l
— in contradistinction, however, from all his contemporaries
¦ — so that what was not uncommon in the patriarchal period
is vouchsafed to him as an exception. Moses is the mediator
between Jahveh and Israel. He stands also on the same
footing as the patriarchs in this respect, that before his death
he not only comes forward as an earnest preacher of repent
ance, but also reveals the future of Israel and the destiny of
the several tribes.2
The immediate communications of Jahveh are still less
frequent in the narratives which have reference to the for
tunes of Israel after the conquest of Canaan. We are told
that, when the tribes neglected to conquer completely the terri
tory assigned to them, " then the angel of Jahveh came
up from Gilgal to Bochim." 3 He reminded the people- of
the injunctions regarding their relation to the Canaanites,
and foretold that the transgression should not remain un
punished ; that Jahveh would not drive out the heathen, so that
they would become enemies to Israel, and their gods prove a
snare to Israel. In this manner, at the beginning of the periods
of the Judges, their history is described, at least in its main
features, by the messenger of Jahveh. Not dissimilar is the
account which precedes, and serves for an introduction to, the
narratives about the Judges, Jephthah and Samson.4 When the
children of Israel were oppressed by the Ammonites and by
the Philistines, they confessed their guilt before Jahveh and
that passage as the work of a poet who lived in the last years of the period
of the Judges. Compare " Theol. Tijdschrift," VI. (1872), pp. 663—668.
1 Num. xii. 8. 2 Compare above, p. 367.
3 Judges ii. 1 — 5. 4 Judges x. 10 — 16.

JAHVEH S APPEARANCES TO SOLOMON. 383
besought his compassion. Jahveh replies that he has already
repeatedly delivered them, and now refuses again to inter
vene, telling them that they can seek help from the
idols to whose service they have addicted themselves.
The Israelites have nothing to allege against this sentence,
but still repeat their prayer, and purify themselves from
the service of the idols. " Then the soul of Jahveh
could not endure the misery of Israel," and, as the sequel
shows, he raised up to them a deliverer in the person of
Jephthah. Wo now pass over a very considerable period — which, how
ever, occupies a correspondingly larger space in our survey ofthe
work of the prophets — and thus come to the reign of Solomon.
According to the accounts given in 1st Kings, Jahveh appears
to him on three occasions in order to unfold to him, as it were,
the plan according to which he should govern. When he had
made known his wish to rule his people justly, by the help
of Jahveh, the assurance is given to him that his prayer is
heard, and that wealth and a long life shall be bestowed upon
him in addition.1 The narrative of the building of the temple
is interrupted by the statement that Jahveh said to Solomon :
" Concerning this house which thou art building, if thou wilt
walk in my statutes, and execute my judgments, and keep
all my commandments to walk in them, then will I perform
my word unto thee which I spake unto David thy father,
and I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not
forsake my people Israel."2 A similar revelation is made to
him after the completion of the great work, except that more
express reference is now made to the consequences which
disobedience to Jahveh would entail ; for if Israel turned
aside from following him, they would be driven out of
their land, and the temple would be laid desolate on account
of their sins.3"
There is once more a long interval, and then we hear again
the echoes of Jahveh's voice. Jehu has rooted out the house
of Omri, and executed a fearful slaughter among the worship
pers of Baal. " Then said Jahveh to Jehu, because thou hast
i 1 Ki. iii. 5—14 (2 Chron. i. 7—12).
2 1 Ki. vi. 11—13 (wanting in 2 Chron.).
3 1 Ki. ix. 2 -9 (2 Chron. vii. 12—22).

384 X.  THE PROPHETS IN THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
duly executed what is right in mine eyes, and hast done
unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine
heart, therefore shall sons of the fourth generation of thy
descendants be seated on the throne of Israel." 1 It scarcely
requires to be said that the issue set the seal on this
prophecy.2 Our survey of the divine revelations which were made to the
forefathers of Israel or to Israel itself, without the interven
tion of the prophets, is now brought to a conclusion. Is a long
demonstration still needed to prove that these revelations show
a very close affinity with the discourses of the prophets which
are transmitted to us in the same historical books ? The
agreement is so great that, as I already remarked, we actually
do not know sometimes with which of the two categories we are
dealing. The address of " the angel of Jahveh " at Bochim
might as well have been spoken by a prophet, and is indeed
put into the mouth of a prophet by one of the latest exposi
tors.3 They are the same ideas which in the book of Judges
are uttered in the first instance by a prophet, and afterwards by
Jahveh himself.4 Thenius5 and Bawlinsons observe in notes
on the promise to Jehu, which has just been mentioned, that it
was delivered "probably by the mouth of Elisha," — a conjecture
which is not supported by the text, but which is in so far very
reasonable, that similar promises or threatenings also are else
where uttered, not by Jahveh himself, but by the prophets
in his name. It is then assuredly not by accident that the
revelations of Jahveh and the addresses of the prophets are
found, as it were, to alternate. The former are the rule
before prophecy exists, or at least is established in Israel, and
become the exception when the envoys of Jahveh follow each
other in regular order. The vacant space between David's
contemporaries, Gad and Nathan, and Ahijah the Shilonite,
the prophet who consecrated Jeroboam to his office, is filled
by the predictive dreams which are vouchsafed to Solomon.
But enough has already been said to enable us to draw our
conclusion. According to the historical books of the Old
1 2 Kings x. 30. 2 2 Kings xv. 12.
3 Judges ii. 1 — 5, and above p. 368, n. 8.
* Compare Judges x. 10 — 16 with vi. 8 — 10.
6 " Die Bucher der Konige," p. 320.
6 " The Holy Bible with Commentary," Vol. III. 54.

DO THEY DESCRIBE THE PROPHETS AS THEY WERE? 385
Testament, Jahveh himself comes forward as an actor and a
speaker in the history of Israel, and of the patriarchs, Israel's
forefathers. Sometimes he intervenes immediately, and we
hear, as it were, his own voice ; at other times he employs
the agency of his servants the prophets ; but it is always
Jahveh himself who stands before us as acting and speaking.
No essential distinction is made between the Sender and those
sent by him. For this reason their deeds reveal a super
natural might, their words a supernatural foreknowledge, the
might and foreknowledge of Jahveh himself.
Such, then, is the conception of the prophets and of pro
phecy which is found in the historical narratives of the Old
Testament. No doubt will be entertained concerningv the
correctness of our representation — the less so, because it is
confirmed by various particulars which appear in these same
narratives.1 But with the more seriousness therefore have
we to consider the question, whether or not this conception is
historical ? The two following chapters are devoted to the
answering of this question.
1 Attention may shortly be directed here to one of these particulars. The
function of the priestly oracle or of the sacred lot is perfectly analogous to
that of the prophets in the historical books. The Septuagint reading of
1 Sam. xiv. 41 sheds the necessary light on the mode of conducting the
former. Compare my " Godsdienst van Israel," Vol. 1. 100 ff. (" Religion
of Israel," Vol. I., 96 ff.). It brings what is hidden to light with unerring
certainty, and gives infallible indications with regard to the future, as is clear
from Josh. vii. ; 1 Sam. x. 20—24 ; xiv. 36 ff. ; xxiii. 2 ff., 9 ff. ; xxx. 7 ff.,
&c. It is sometimes doubtful whether it is a prophet or the priestly oracle
that is consulted — e.g., 2 Sam. xxi. 1. This is, also, in fact, a matter of
indifference to the historian, because it is always Jahveh himself who makes
known his will, whether by the prophet or by the priest.

2 B

CHAPTER XI.
CONTINUATION. DOUBTS REGARDING THE REPRESENTATION
OF THE PROPHETS AND PROPHECY IN THE HISTORICAL
NARRATIVES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
Is the representation of the prophets and prophecy, given in
the narratives of the Old Testament, historical or not ? Such
was the question proposed at the close of the last chapter. It
is a question of the utmost importance, although it is too
often entertained in a less serious spirit than it deserves.
The common Bible reader can hardly be blamed for accepting
as pure history what is laid before him as such ; but such a
simple belief is inexcusable in a scientific investigation. For
that, a strict criticism of the tradition is not only permissible,
but also obligatory. And yet how often do we see it either
neglected or carelessly undertaken ! No one can be ignorant
of the fact that objections have been brought forward against
the credibility of the narratives in question, but people
think themselves quite able to set aside some of them,
and then it is readily assumed that the remainder will not be
found to rest on any better foundation, and, in view of the
possibility that the contrary may turn out to be the case,
comfort is found in the thought that the incorrectness or un
certainty of this or that particular does not throw doubt on
the main point on which, properly speaking, everything
depends. Are not all the Israelitish historians, it is asked,
unanimous in regard to that point ? Is not the direct and
immediate revelation of Jahveh brought out with equal clear
ness in them all ? Is it not everywhere vividly depicted
to us ? By considerations such as these men try to quiet
their own minds and the minds of others. And further they
acquire from these considerations the boldness to fashion to
themselves, from the very narratives of the Old Testament, an

PLAN OF ENQUIRY IN THIS CHAPTER. 387
image of Israelitish prophecy, and to bring this with them to the
study of the writings of the prophets. The current view of
the nature of prophetical revelation is really derived from the
historical books, and applied to the prophetical literature.
We have guarded ourselves against this last error, because it
appeared plainly to us, at the beginning, that the accounts of
the historians offered less certainty than the testimonies of the
prophets themselves.1 But of course we cannot let the ques
tion remain in this state. On the contrary, the circumspec
tion which we then observed, compels us now to go further ;
and, whatever may be neglected by others, not to rest on our
part, until we know what we are to hold regarding the repre
sentation of the Israelitish historians.
This is certainly a very comprehensive and exceedingly
difficult task. The survey given in chapter x. contains a
very great number of narratives and shorter accounts. They
claim, one by one, a full and accurate investigation. With
regard to not a few of them, important questions of all kinds
arise, which are more easily proposed than answered. In
attempting elsewhere to discuss, as they deserve, some of
the most important narratives, I endeavoured to be as brief
as possible, and yet could not avoid devoting to each one
individually an article of some extent.2 It is self-evident that
we cannot adopt this method here. We must, whether we
will or not, treat here, in a more general way, the questions
which present themselves. It will be only occasionally that
we shall be able to permit ourselves, by way of example, to
illustrate more expressly some single narrative. But not
withstanding this necessary limitation, we hope to attain our
object. Even the facts of a more general nature, to which
we confine ourselves, speak loudly and distinctly. It is only
essential that we should form an accurate conception of
them, and accept, without reservation, whatever follows
therefrom. The order which is adopted, for that end, in this
and the following chapter, may be left to bear with it its own
justification. 1 See above pp. 32 f.
2 See the journal " ' Nieuw en Oud' for interpreting, the contents and the
spirit of the Bible," for 1860 and following years.

388 XI.  OBJECTIONS TO THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
As soon as we consider, with an unprejudiced eye, the
narratives about the prophets and prophecy, and the writings
in which they appear, certain phenomena present themselves
which authorise the question, whether these narratives do
really bring with them a sufficient guarantee of their truth ?
Attention has already been directed to some of them, when
we vindicated our plan of making the prophetical literature
our starting point ; but it is only now that they can be fully
exhibited and placed in their true light.
It is evident, in the first place, that the accounts embraced
in our investigation, far from having been composed by con
temporaries, date all, without exception, from the period
when the prophetical predictions, with which they make us
acquainted, had been fulfilled. This is universally acknow
ledged with regard to the great majority of them, but it
cannot admit of a doubt in respect to one single narrative.
Proceeding upon what is assented to by everyone, let us show
that this rule is applicable to all the accounts which are
included in our survey.
The books of Chronicles were written after ihe Babylonish
captivity. According to my own conviction, they cannot
be older than the middle of the third century before our era ;
but this point we may leave at present undetermined. No
one places them before the time of Ezra, in whom many see
the author of these books. Between the writer and the most
recent prophecies which he alone mentions, there intervenes,
therefore, a period of at least three centuries.
The last fact, which is communicated to us in the books of
Kings, is the liberation of the exiled king, Jehoiachin, from
his prison by Evil-Merodach, the successor of Nebuchadrezzar
(561 B.C.).1 Even those who see in this account a later
addition,2 acknowledge that the redactor of these books wrote
in the time of the Babylonish captivity. Let the reader
bring into connection with this admitted fact, some of the pre
dictions communicated to us by this writer ! It now be
comes plain that the account of the two unnamed prophets,
contemporaries of Jeroboam I., was written after the reforma
tion of Josiah ; that the prediction of Ahijah to Jeroboam's
1 2 Kings xxv. 27—30.
2 K. H. Graf, " die gesch. Bucher des A. T." p. 110, with whom others agree.

PROPHECIES WRITTEN AFTER THEIR FULFILMENT. 389
wife was recorded in writing after the deportation of the ten
tribes ; as the announcement that the descendants of Jehu,
to the fourth generation, should occupy the throne of Israel,
was written down after the murder of Zachariah by Shallum,1
and the prophecy of Huldah concerning the judgment upon
the kingdom of Judah, after the death of Josiah and the fall
of Jerusalem.2 We must be on Our guard against too
hasty inferences, but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact
itself. The age of the books of Judges and Samuel is not so
undisputed as the period in which the author of Kings lived.
There is very much to be said in behalf of the unity of the
final redaction of all these writings. But even those who do
not accept this unity must grant that the books of Samuel
were written after the rise of an independent kingdom of
Judah,3 and that the Assyrian captivity is mentioned in
Judges.4 If we wished to enter more into details, the proofs of
a later origin of both books would become greatly multiplied;5
but what is stated above is sufficient for our present purpose.
It is now clear — to mention some one point- — that the
writer of the book of Judges lived long after the end of the
period of the Judges, and that Samuel had been dead at
least a century, when the accounts which we possess regard
ing his prophetical career, received their present form.
Finally, as regards the Pentateuch, it has already become
evident to the reader again and again, that the tradition
which assigns the five books to Moses, appears to me to be
untenable. I shall, in the following chapter, come back upon
one of the principal objections to it. I merely remark here
that ihe settlement of ihe Israelites in Canaan, though, as is
self-evident, still represented as a future event in the addresses
and laws which are ascribed to Moses, is, in more than one
1 2 Kings xv. 10.
2 1 Kings xiii ; xiv. 6 — 16 ; 2 Ki. x. 30 ; xxii. 15 — 20 ; all these accounts
are mentioned in chapter x.
3 1 Sam. xxvii. 6. 4 Judges xviii. 30.
6 " The book of the upright," into which the lamentation over Saul and
Jonathan was introduced, belonged to the sources from which the compiler of
the books of Samuel drew his materials (2 Sam. i. 18). A very consider
able period must have elapsed before so widely different accounts of Saul's
elevation to be king, and of David's magnanimity to Saul, as lie before us
in 1 Sam. viii. — xii. and xxiv., xxvi., could have been formed. These are
merely two proofs out of very many which might have been adduced.

390 XI.  OBJECTIONS TO THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
place,1 so clearly presupposed, that the reader asks himself,
how by any possibility the books in which such accounts
appear, could be assigned to a writer who did not live to
witness that settlement ? We need not, for the present, go
further. In judging such narratives as those contained in
Num. xxii. — xxiv.,2 and the predictions made to the
patriarchs,3 it is just the chief question whether they were
not in truth committed to writing after the passage across
the Jordan, and not before it. If the former be the case,
these accounts also form no exception to the rule which I
have just laid down; they were written not before, but
after the fulfilment.
The question, however, remains whether the interval of
time, occasionally of considerable length, between the origin of
the books and the facts with which they make us acquainted,
really furnishes a ground for doubt. It may be said that the
historical books were, indeed, not put into their present form
until so late a period, but had not the authors older — why
not even contemporary — documents at their command, and
did they not often transfer these to their pages unaltered ?
What should hinder us from applying this to their com
munications about the prophets also ? and if we do so, does
not the first objection fall to the ground altogether?
In the abstract this argument no doubt claims considera
tion ; but when we look closely at the narratives referred to,
it becomes evident at once, that they cannot be maintained
in this way. They exhibit, on the contrary, in a greater or
less degree, all the characteristics of later accounts. To
these belongs — and thus we come to the second ground of
doubt — their mutual discrepance. We do not at present
take into consideration the minor variations which present
themselves when we compare the narratives of the Chronicle-
writer with those of his predecessors, for example, that of 1
Chron. xxi. with 2 Sam. xxiv. There are points of difference
of much more importance. The reader will remember the
particulars concerning Balaam and his predictions, which, in
the previous chapter, we borrowed from Num. xxii. — xxiv. It
1 Compare my "Hist. Krit. Onderz.," &c, I. 22—27. Among the
clearest passages are Gen. xxxvi. 31 ; Exod. xv. 13, 17 ; Lev. xxvi. 34, 35 ;
Num. xv, 32 ; Deut. iii. 14.
* See above, pp. 367 f. 3 Ibid, pp. 377, ff.

CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS ABOUT BALAAM. 391
is self-evident that they can be accepted as historical only if
they can abide the test of a rigorous investigation. But
we encounter difficulties, both when we compare the three
chapters in question with other narratives, and when we
consider carefully their contents themselves. It is true, the
main substance of what they communicate to us regarding
Balaam is confirmed by three accounts which we find else
where ¦} but in opposition to this stands the fact, that in the
Pentateuch itself,2 and in the book of Joshua,3 an altogether
different representation of Balaam's person and fortunes is
given, which can in no way whatever be brought into agree
ment with Num. xxii. — xxiv. Here we read that after
having uttered his predictions, Balaam "returned to his
place;"4 there that he dwelt among the Midianites, and lost
his life in the war which was waged against them. Here, it
is Balak, the king of Moab, who summons him to curse Israel ;
there it is said, that by his word, the Midianite damsels
seduced the Israelites to apostasy from Jahveh. There was
evidently more than one tradition in circulation about the
part played by Balaam, and also about the people to whom
he had stood in relation. On a careful perusal of Num. xxii.
this conjecture is confirmed. Here it is Balak who is the
actor, just as in the two following chapters. But, singularly
enough, he makes " the elders of Midian " partakers with
him in his dread of Israel,5 and along with his ambassadors,
the elders of Moab, " the elders of Midian," also are once
mentioned,6 while in the very next verse, as afterwards, the
Moabite elders alone appear.7 It is as if by way of con
cession to the other tradition which connected Balaam with
the Midianites, that the latter are mentioned jnst twice —
very probably not by the narrator himself, but by a later
editor who revised his account. This phenomenon again does
not stand by itself; Num. xxv. is based upon a narrative,
according to which Israel participates in the idolatry of the
Moabites, and in the unchaste worship of their deity Baal-
1 Deut. xxiii. 5, 6 ; Josh. xxiv. 9 (which passages however differ from
Num. xxii.— xxiv. in this, that they lay great stress on the inclination of
Balaam himself to curse Israel) ; Micah vi. 5.
2 Num. xxxi. 8, 16. 3 Josh. xiii. 22. 4 Num. xxiv. 25.
6 Num. xxii. 4. 6 Num. xxii. 7.
7 Num. xxii. 8, 14, 21 ; compare xxiii. 6, 17

392 XI.  OBJECTIONS TO THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
Peor.1 In the revision, however, the Moabites are replaced
by the Midianites, and the latter have become so much the
principal personages, that they are marked out for punishment
as the only guilty people;2 just as in like manner in the
account of the war of extermination waged against them, the
responsibility for Israel's transgression is laid upon them, and
on their adviser Balaam.3 Thus the main point in the
narrative given in Num. xxii. — xxiv., the connection of
Balaam with Balak, is directly contradicted by other accounts.
Besides, — apart from what has been already observed about the
Midianites having been interpolated, — that narrative is now
clearly seen not to be from one hand. The last sayings of
Balaam 4 combine so loosely with those which precede, that
they can hardly be ascribed to the original author, while the
well-known episode of Balaam's ass5 harmonises badly witii
what precedes, and lies likewise under the suspicion of
having been added at a later period.6
It is thus evident that the important narrative given in
Num. xxii. — xxiv. does not at all present that certainty which
we may reasonably desire in an historical statement. As
little do the accounts of Samuel, in the first of the books
named after him, correspond to this requirement. To the
questions how Samuel succeeded in his attempts to raise
Israel out of its humiliation, and to deliver it from the
oppression of the Philistines ; what part he took in the
election of Saul to be king, and on what grounds he after
wards broke with Saul, and deemed him unworthy to found
a dynasty — to these questions we find in ] Sam. vii. ff, at
every step, two answers which absolutely exclude each other,
in the estimation of every unprejudiced person.7 When we
1 Num. xxv. 1-5 ; compare Deut. iv. 3.
2 Num. xxv. 6-15 ; 16-18. 3 Num. xxxi. 16.
4 Num. xxiv. 20-24. 6 Num. xxii. 22-25.
6 Balaam had (verse 20) gone on the journey in accordance with the com
mand of God, and yet God's anger is kindled because he went with the
envoys (verse 22). If vv. 22 — 35 were from the original author, then
proper reason would have existed for the emphatic warning in verse 35,
which is not now the case.
7 The following passages are at variance with each other : — 1 Sam. vii. 13,
14, and ix. 16 ; x. 5 ; xiii. 19-23 ; — 1 Sam. viii. ; x. 17-27; xii. and ix. 1 —
x. 16, while still a third representation really serves as a basis to chap. xi. ;
— 1 Sam. xiii. and xv. See this more fully shown in my " Hist. Krit.
Onderz.," i. 227-229.

CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS REGARDING SAMUEL. 393
free ourselves altogether from the authority of the letter, we
succeed, though not without difficulty, in forming a probable
representation of the succession and true character of the
events. But to maintain the narratives as they lie before
us, is a thing not once to be thought of. And that the
less, because the phenomena, which they present to us,
recur in other accounts of 1 Samuel, namely, in the narratives
about David's coming to the court of Saul, about David's
flight, about his residence at the court of Achish, and about
the manner in which he spared Saul's life.1 With regard to
these particulars also, the one narrative stands opposed to the
other, and that in such a way that the thought of harmonis
ing the conflicting traditions cannot be entertained. It is
therefore plain that the compiler of the books of Samuel had
widely varying accounts before him, and that, being unable to
make a choice between them, he placed, in accordance, indeed,
with the Semitic method of writing history, the mutually
conflicting narratives alongside of each other, without, at least
as a general rule, altering any thing in them. In adopting this
method, he has done us a great service. We have now at our
disposal the same materials for constructing history which he
could employ. But as he did not succeed in combining them
into a harmonious whole, so we also fail to do so. The particu
lars on which everything hinges in the investigation which we
now institute, remain doubtful. The historical reality, which
is the very thing we wish to know, lies far behind the
narratives, can be gathered from them merely approximatively,
and can be reproduced only in its main features.
When we pass from Samuel to his great successors in the
tenth and ninth centuries B.C., to Elijah and Elisha, we meet,
not indeed with the same, but still with as suspicious pheno
mena. The letter of Elijah to Jehoram, king of Judah, which
the writer of the Chronicles communicates to us,2 has either
been invented, or — for even this supposition has been re
sorted to — was written by Elijah from heaven. Accord
ing to the older accounts, he had departed from the stage of
history and been succeeded by Elisha as early as in the reign
l See my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," pp. 227-231, where 1 Sam. xvi. and xvii. ;
1 Sam. xviii. — xx. ; 1 Sam. xxi. 11-16 and xxvii ff. ; 1 Sam. xxiii. 19 — xxiv.
23, and xxvi. are compared with each other.
2 2 Chron. xxi. 12—15.

39-t XI.  OBJECTIONS TO THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
of Jehoshaphat, the father of Jehoram ; 1 in order to deny
this, recourse must be had to a very forced and unnatural
interpretation of tliese accounts.2 But, it may be said, we
can, without any great loss, give up this one narrative of
the Chronicle-writer, which stands altogether by itself; the
books of Kings are our chief source of information regarding
Elijah and Elisha ; if the narratives which we find there are
removed beyond reasonable doubt, nothing more is left for us
to wish. These narratives, however, are far from satisfying
this condition. Thus it has been rightly observed that the
commands which Elijah receives at Horeb 3 raise expectations
in the reader's mind to which the sequel of the narrative does
not correspond. The prophet does indeed attach Elisha to
his person, and thus marks him out as destined to occupy his
place,4 but he neither anoints Hazael to be king of Damascus,
nor Jehu to be king of Israel ; the former act is performed by
Elisha,5 the latter by one of the disciples of the prophets, act
ing under Elisha's orders.6 It is thus plain that the writer
— I had almost said, considering the plan and character of his .
beautiful narrative, the poetical narrator — of 1 Ki. xvii. —
xix. arranges the events and persons in a chronological con
nection different 7 from that adopted by the compiler of 2 Ki.
1 When Jehoshaphat took part with the Kings of Israel and Edom in the
expedition against the Moabites, Elisha was already acting as a prophet
(2 Kings iii. 11 ff.) The narrative of that expedition follows the account of
Elijah's ascension (2 Ki. ii. 1- — 18) and of the miracles with which Elisha
commenced his career as the successor of Elijah (vv. 19 — 25).
2 Prof. Rawlinson (" The Holy Bible," &c, III., 328 cf. 4, 11) supposes
that 2 Kings ii. has been placed earlier than the order of time would warrant,
and that Elijah was still alive when the expedition against Moab took place;
accordingly he translates 2 Kings iii. 11, " who pours water on the hands of
Elijah." But if the author had wished to express this, he would have
written the participle instead of the past tense (ha -jotse'k instead of asher-
jatsak). Now it is quite evident that he regards Elisha as the successor of
Elijah. And this is also, beyond all doubt, the opinion of the author of 2
Kings ii. , Let the reader consider vv. 9 ff, and vv. 15—18, 19 — 22, 23 — 25.
The position of chap. ii. thus perfectly corresponds with the contents of
that chapter, and the hypothesis of Rawlinson, invented for the sake of the
Chronicle- writer, is thereby refuted.
3 1 Ki. xix. 15—18.
4 1 Ki. xix. 19 — 21. The expression in verse 16 (" Elisha shalt thou
anoint to be prophet in thy room ") is another objection against the
hypothesis of Prof. Rawlinson which was combated in note 2.
5 2 Ki. viii. 7—15. 6 2 Ki. ix. 1 ff.
7 Let the reader not neglect to observe that not only in 1 Ki. xix. 15, 16,
hnt also in verse 17 Elisha is mentioned after Hazael and Jehu, and, at least
in verse 17, also executes after them, Jahveh's punitive judgment upon Israel.

CRITICISM OF THE ACCOUNTS REGARDING ELIJAH & ELISHA. 393
ii. 8 ff., who makes all the great actions of Elisha precede the
extirpation of the house of Omri by Jehu, and the elevation
of the latter to the throne (2 Ki. ix., x.). That the arrange
ment of the facts, which results from the above-mentioned
commands to Elijah, is something more than an inference
rashly drawn and resting on the too literal interpretation of
the words of the historian, is clear also from other sources.
The death of Elisha occurs in the reign of Joash,1 that is
forty-five years after Jehu ascended the throne, and as many
years more as had already elapsed since the commencement of
the reign of Joash.2 His prophetical career thus extended
over a period of about fifty years under Jehu and his
dynasty. If he had already come forward as a prophet in
the reign of Jehoram, Jehu's predecessor, which in itself is
not likely, then certainly his acts done in Jehoram's reign
could have been only the prelude to those which he performed
afterwards. And yet, as I have already remarked, the com
piler of 2 Ki. ii. ff, places all the narratives about him before
the account of Jehu's revolt, so that for all that period of
fifty years there is nothing left to record of him but the
mention of his last sickness and his death. Such an arrange
ment of the events is certainly improbability itself ; when
modified according to the indication which, as we thought,
was found in the commands given to Elijah at Horeb, it
becomes much more credible. But can we allow ourselves so
great freedom with regard to the narratives in 2 Kings ? Do
they admit, without violence and caprice, of being transferred
to another period than that in which the compiler has placed
them ? Without hesitation, I answer these questions in the
affirmative. There can be no doubt that the most of the
accounts of Elisha's acts are very imperfectly connected with
each other,3 and are characterised by an entire absence of
> 2 Ki. xiii. 14—19.
2 Jehu became king in 884 B.C., and reigned 28 years ; Jehoahaz, in 856
B.C., and reigned 17 years, therefore till 839 B.C. (2 Ki. x. 36 ; xiii. 1).
3 The statement that the bands of the Syrians came no more into the
land of Israel (2 Ki. vi. 23), is immediately followed by the account of the
siege of Samaria by the Syrians (2 Ki. vi. 24 ff.), just as the account of the
healing of Naaman (2 Ki. v.), which represents to us (vv. 6, 7) Israel as
being subject to Syria, and leads us to expect the most favourable dis
position of the Syrian court towards Israel, is followed immediately by the
statement that the Syrians are unceasingly making predatory incursions

396 XI.  OBJECTIONS TO THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
historical precision. They mention " the king of Israel,"
" the king of Syria," without the addition of their names,1
and on one occasion Benhadad, without it being clear which
Syrian king is intended, whether the older or the younger
monarch of that name.2 This shows, on the one hand, that
these accounts date from a later period, and, on the other, it
emboldens us to place them where they appear to us best to
fit in. To that must be added that the political situation,
which is presupposed in the most of the narratives about
Elisha, did exist under Jehu and Jehoahaz, but not under
Jehoram, and that the relation of the prophet to " the king
of Israel" becomes altogether inexplicable if we think that
Jehoram is thereby intended.3 In short, however bold it
may appear, we are, in truth, fully justified in rejecting, in so
far as this point is concerned, the representation of Elisha's
proceedings which the compiler of Kings gives us, and in
substituting another in its room. But it is obvious that
narratives, with regard to which we must allow ourselves so
great freedom, lack entirely the characteristics of contem
poraneous documents, and, so to say, take their place, of their
own accord, in the category of the later, and only in part
historical, accounts.
The study of the narratives themselves fully confirms this
judgment regarding their age ;4 but, agreeably to the plan of
this survey, we do not enter into details. With regard to
into Canaan (2 Ki. vi. 8 ff.). According to 2 Ki. v. 27, Gehazi is punished
with life-long leprosy, but, 2 Ki. viii. 1 — 6, he has familiar intercourse with
the king of Israel.
1 See 2 Ki. v., vi. 8 — 23 ; 24 — vii. 20. The remark made in the text is,
of course, not applicable to 2 Ki. iii. and viii. 7 — 15.
2 2 Ki. vi. 24. The elder Benhadad appears in 1 Ki. xx. ; 2 Ki. viii. 7, 9 ;
the younger, son of Hazael, the murderer of the forementioned Benhadad,
in 2 Ki. xiii. 3, 24, 25. It is generally inferred from 2 Ki. vi. 32, that
"the king of Israel" in this narrative is Jehoram, the son of Naboth's
murderer ; but Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, may just as well be intended ;
how justly Jehu might be called " the murderer" is shown by 2 Ki. ix., x. ;
compare Hos. i. 4. If, however, the writer had Jehoram in view, it would
merely follow that he was under a mistake. In the reign of that king,
Israel was not in the condition described to us in 2 Ki. vi. 24 — vii. 26.
3 2 Ki. iv. 13 ; vi. 8 ff., 21 ; viii. 4 ff. ; which passages suppose that the
prophet is on good terms with the king, and has much influence with him.
The narrative 2 Ki. vi. 24 — vii. 20, is an exception to the rule, which can be
easily explained.
4 Compare, as regards the accounts about Elisha, my article in
" Nieuw en Oud," 1871, pp. 391 — 426, where also the particulars just
touched upon above are more fully handled.

THE SPEECHES IN CHRONICLES ARE THE AUTHOR' S OWN. 397
the accounts given in the historical books about the prophets
and prophecy, there is still a general remark to be made,
which is connected with the two previous observations. It
was plain to us, firstly, that the historical books in which
the accounts appear, were composed long after the events of
which they testify had happened ; secondly, that the narra
tives about the prophets, themselves contain elements at
variance with each other, and thus stand at a considerable
distance from the persons whom they describe to us ; we now
observe, in the third place, that many of these narratives
betray their later origin by their language, style, and
contents, and most probably owe their present form
only to the redactors of the books in which we find
them. Let us attend, in the first place, to the Clironicle-writer.
The similarity which the addresses put by him into the
mouth of the prophets show, both to each other and to the
discourses of the other persons whom he introduces as speak
ing, is universally acknowledged.1 It is equally obvious that
all these speeches, the shorter and the longer alike, possess in
language and manner the characteristics of the author him-
self. But even as regards the contents, the agreement is
almost always striking. Azariah, the son of Oded, speaks
about the religious condition of the kingdom of Israel, and
about the indissoluble connection between faithfulness to
Jahveh and prosperity, and between apostasy from his worship
and adversity, altogether in the manner of the Chronicle-
writer who communicates his speech to us.2 These pheno
mena, viewed in their mutual connection, scarcely leave room
for more than one explanation. What older accounts regard
ing the pre-exilic prophets were available to the Chronicle-
writer cannot be determined, but it is altogether certain that
the speeches which he makes them utter are his own work,
as well as the letter of Elijah, which we mentioned above,
1 Compare my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," I. 320 n. 6.
2 2 Chron. xv. 1 ff., and the commentary of Bertheau on the passage.
Bertheau rightly remarks that the speech of Azariah presupposes, not one
individual period, but the whole, of the history of Israel, " and that in so
far as the Chronicle-writer could survey it, for it appears clearly from
this speech itself, that he reproduces, in his own fashion and in his own
words, the speech of the ancient prophet."

398 XI.  OBJECTIONS TO THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
and which in like manner contains more than one expression
by which we recognise the Chronicle- writer at once.1
What has been said above is, with the modifications de
manded by the nature of the case, fully applicable also to
the author of the book of Kings. The predictions of Ahijah
about Jeroboam, of Jehu about Baasha, of Elijah about Ahab,
and of Elisha's messenger about the house of Omri,2 agree
with each other in the use of a number of expressions, for
the most part very characteristic. To be convinced of this,
the reader only requires to peruse them in succession.3 " In
the abstract, it is certainly possible that the later prophets
have imitated Ahijah, but in all likelihood such is not
the case, because, 1st, the older prophets were not in the
habit of committing their oracles to writing ; we do not find
a single instance of their having done so before the eighth
century — or, if Joel might have been a contemporary of Joash,
king of Judah— before the middle of the ninth century;
2dly, the imitation would have been here very slavish, and
often not much more than a repetition of what had been
previously said. Bather than attribute so little originality
to men like Jehu ben Hanani, Elijah, and Elisha (by whose
commission the disciple of the prophets speaks in 2 Ki. ix.),
we would ascribe the similarity of their addresses to tradi
tion and to the writer." The question, then, still remains,
Who is this writer ? is he the compiler of the Book of Kings
himself, or may he be an author who lived long before him ?
Our answer must be : If he was not that compiler himself,
he was certainly one of his immediate predecessors, a man
who occupied the same standpoint as he did. In reading the
prophetical utterances communicated by him, we again and
again come upon ideas wliich we are unable to refer to the
time in which they are represented as having been expressed,
and to regard as being in the spirit of the older prophets, but
with respect to which we know, on the other hand, that they
were cherished by the historian and those of like sentiments
1 Compare Graf, "Die gesch. Bucher des A. T.," p. 146 f. To the in
stances mentioned by him may be added the word rekksh (2 Chron. xxi. 14)
which occurs also in 1 Chron. xxvii. 31 ; xxviii. 1 ; 2 Chron. xx. 25 : xxi. 17 ;
xxxi. 3 ; xxxii. 29 ; xxxv. 7 (Ezra i. 4, 6 ; viii. 21 ; x. 8).
2 1 Ki. xiv. 6—16 ; xvi. 2—4 ; xxi. 20—24 ; 2 Ki. ix. 6—10.
3 Compare my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," I. 279, n. 4, from which the words
which follow in the text are borrowed.

THE PREDICTIONS EXPRESS THE HISTORIANS' OWN VIEWS. 399
with him. Ahijah the Shilonite manifests a reverence for David
and his race, and for the temple of Solomon, which is incom
patible with the revolt of the ten tribes, and the approval of
that revolt by Ahijah himself.1 Still less ambiguous on this
point is the testimony of 1 Ki. xiii., the story of the two
unnamed prophets, from Judah and from Bethel. We hear
the latter speak of " all the temples of the high places
in the cities of Samaria," 2 while it appears that
that city was not built till half a century afterwards;3
the expression is a very late one, and occurs in other
places only where the author of the book of Kings him
self speaks.4 As this author betrays himself here by a
single phrase, so we recognise him, elsewhere in the narrative,
by the thoughts which he expresses. The judgment therein
pronounced about Jeroboam and his measures regarding the
public worship is that of the historian himself ; 5 it is alto
gether in the spirit of the reformation of Josiah, whose name,
as we may remember, is mentioned in the narrative ; 6 before
the time of Hezekiah, who first attempted the reformation,7
which was effected by Josiah a century afterwards, we no
where discover in the histor}' — which is not to be confounded
with the historical narratives8 — any trace of the belief that
no offering was to be made outside of the one sanctuary, the
temple of Jerusalem ; and yet the stern disapprobation of the
conduct of Jeroboam is based upon that belief.9
I have purposely dwelt at somewhat greater length on the
books of Kings, without indeed exhausting the matter for
remark,10 because they contain precisely the most important
i 1 Ki. xi. 32, 33t>, 34, 36, 38>>, 39. 2 1 Ki. xiii. 32.
3 1 Ki. xvi. 24. 4 2 Ki. xvii. 24, 26 ; xxiii. 19.
6 See the passages in my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," I. 270, n. 15.
6 1 Ki. xiii. 2. 7 2 Ki. xviii. 4.
8 The account, in Joshua xxii., of the misunderstanding between the
transjordanic and the other tribes rests on the supposition, that the laws
concerning the one sanctuary (Lev. xvii. ; Deut. xii., &c.) existed at the
time of the settlement in Canaan, and had become familiar to the minds of
the Israelites, but on that account cannot be regarded as historical.
9 Especially in verse 32. The curse pronounced against the altar (verse 2)
may have originally stood in connection with the height and the form
which Jeroboam gave to it, at variance with the enactment in Exod. xx.
24 — 26. But as it occurs here, immediately after 1 Ki. xii. 26 — 33, it must
undoubtedly be regarded as a condemnation of Jeroboam's form of worship
as a whole.
10 On 2 Kings xviii. — xx., see above pp. 286 ff.

400 XI.  OBJECTIONS TO THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
predictions, with regard to which we would, first of all, desire
to obtain certainty : a narrative such as we have just con
sidered, that given in 1 Kings xiii., is of the very greatest im
portance for the knowledge of prophecy, and must be, for valid
reasons, either absolutely acknowledged as history, or rejected
as unhistorical, before we can reach our goal. The accounts in
the books of Samuel and Judges are both less numerous and of
less decisive importance, so that we do not require to occupy
ourselves with them at present. Moreover, the most of them
do not here come so prominently into consideration. We
have already seen that the accounts regarding Samuel are
self-contradictory.1 That implies that they are not from one
hand, and therefore also have not been written by the latest
author, but have been adopted by him without any, or with
very little, alteration. In general, the redactor appears much
less on the foreground in the books of Samuel than in Kings ;
it is no wonder therefore that we do not recognise him at all
so plainly in the prophetical addresses of the former as in
those of the latter books. The book of Judges has much
greater agreement with the book of Kings ; but then in that
book also we again perceive at once an intimate affinity between
the views entertained by the writer himself and the several
prophetical discourses which he communicates to us.2
No one certainly will doubt the importance of the objections'
to which, as is evident from the preceding pages, the repre
sentation given of the prophets and prophecy in the historical
books is liable. We would, however, readily attach less
weight to these objections, if the representation referred to
was in itself credible. But the opposite is the case. It
is,N we should rather say, overwhelmed with insuperable
difficulties. The actions and predictions of the prophets in the historical
books have a supernatural character. Is that feature then to
be regarded as the chief objection connected with them ? By
no means. Our inquiry is in fact concerned with the very
question, whether the asserted immediate intervention of
i Above, pp. 392 f.
2 Compare the passages considered in our survey (pp. 368, 382, ff.) with
the introduction of the author himself, Judges ii. 6 — iii. 6, and the kindred
remarks which precede the accounts of the several Judges.

THE CHIEF OBJECTION SPECIFIED AND ESTIMATED. 401
Jahveh in the guidance of Israel's fortunes can be considered
as historical or not. In that inquiry, therefore, we can pro
ceed as little upon the supposition of the truth, as of the
falsity, of supernaturalism. Still the chief objection is most
closely connected with the supernatural character of the pro
phets and their predictions, because it lies in the difference
between the canonical prophets and the prophets in the
historical narratives of the Old Testament — in other words,
in the fact that the latter stand at as great a distance from
the former, as the supernatural from the natural.
No one indeed will think of denying that difference. It
has already become clearly obvious to every one who has
thus far followed the course of our investigation. In the
prophetical literature we find no single trace of the miracles
which occupy so large a space in the biographies of many
prophets, especially of Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha. On the
contrary, that which the prophets themselves communicate to
us, directly or incidentally, concerning the relation in which
they stood to the people and to their opponents, distinctly
excludes the supposition that they had supernatural powers at
their command. The fortunes, for example, of Jeremiah — the
prophet whom we know best — become, on this supposition, a
perpetual enigma. But however important this difference
may be, it is overshadowed by that which exists between
their respective predictions. Those of the prophets of the
historical books extend far beyond their political horizon, are
characterised by definiteness and accuracy, enter into the
more minute particulars, and are all, without distinction,
strictly fulfilled. On the other hand, the predictions of the
canonical prophets — but it is unnecessary to carry out the
antithesis. It is absolute and complete. The facts, with
which we became acquainted in chapters v. — viii., speak
loudly and unequivocally.
Are we simply to allow so great a difference to remain as
it is ? Can we not only recognise the canonical prophets as
real historical characters, as it is indeed self-evident that we
must, but may we also regard the prophet of the historical
books in the same light ? Or is the latter specifically
excluded by the former ?
There is one way in which the defence of the representa-
2 c

402 XI.  OBJECTIONS TO THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
tion given in the historical books may be attempted. The
defenders may try to show that this representation does not
run parallel to the testimony of the prophetical literature, and
thus does not require to agree with it; in that case, the differ
ence, instead of being an objection against, becomes rather a
proof of, the fidelity of the Israelite historians. Now, such a
demonstration seems capable of being easily furnished.
We have already dwelt expressly on the points which dis
tinguish the one group from the other.1 Speaking generally,
the prophets of the historical books precede, in order of time,
the canonical prophets. Only some few of them (Jonah ben
Amittai, Isaiah, Huldah) belong to the eighth and seventh
centuries B.C., and were thus contemporaries of the men whose
oracles we possess. The great majority of them are older, and
are representatives of that period in the history of Israelitish
prophecy, when the custom of committing the spoken word to
writing did not yet exist. That the introduction of this
custom denotes a modification in the character of the propheti
cal work we have also formerly observed.2 Elijah and Elisha
are essentially different men from Hosea and Micah, for
instance. Is not this undeniable difference more than suffi
cient to account for the distinction which presented itself to
us when we compared the sources of information ? " Other
times, other manners," and, we may add, other needs. Was
Jahveh bound to reveal himself in one and the same way in
the successive periods of Israel's history ?
In this manner the attempt might be made to maintain,
at the same time, the two conflicting representations of the
action of the Israelitish prophets. There is, however, little
reflection needed to convince us that success is not to be
obtained in this way. At the very first, it seems suspicious
that the few prophets of the eighth and seventh cen
turies, of whom the historical books give an account, stand
in power and foreknowledge on the same footing — not, as we
should expect, with the canonical prophets, but with their
predecessors, who are described to us in the narratives con
cerning the previous ages. It is true, indeed, that it is only a
few particulars which are communicated to us regarding them,
but these few speak, plainly. Let the reader remember the
1 See p. 62 f., 66. 2 See I.e.

FAILURE OF THE ATTEMPT AT EXPLANATION. 403
sign which Isaiah gives to Hezekiah, and his predictions about
the lengthening of the life of that king, and the deportation
of his posterity to Babylon ; x and further, the prophecy of
Huldah about the destruction of the kingdom of Judah.2
There is really nothing more needed to enable us to perceive
that the proposed solution is unsuccessful. But besides, in
that solution, stress is laid, in a very one-sided manner,
exclusively on the changes which prophecy underwent in the
course of time, and its essential unity is altogether over
looked. The prophets of all ages have this in common, that
they come forward as interpreters of Jahveh, and announce his
" word." There is certainly not the very slightest ground
for the conjecture that this " word of Jahveh" may have borne
another character in the eighth and subsequent centuries, than
it did in those which preceded. If it was thought — quite arbi
trarily, indeed — that such a difference might be assumed, it
would then surely consist in this, that " Jahveh's word," when
it was not only uttered, but also committed to writing, was, in
a more proper sense even than before, the word of Jahveh.
That is to say, the chronological explanation of the distinction
between the canonical prophets and those of the historical
books, implies that the former must have manifested a higher
degree of foreknowledge than the latter, while the very opposite
appears to be the case.
The conclusion is not for a moment doubtful. The two
representations of prophecy which lie before us in the Old
Testament do not admit of being reconciled. A choice must
be made between ihe two.
The justice of this conclusion is, in a certain sense, acknow
ledged by all. There is no one who allows the divergent
representations to stand alongside of each other unrecon
ciled. Every one agrees that they cannot possibly differ
from each other except in unessential points or in form.
Consciously or unconsciously, therefore, the attempt is
made to shape the one according to the other, until they
have become essentially one. In this way the defenders
of the traditional view of the Israelitish prophets and
their work act, when, proceeding upon the historical
narratives, they place the canonical prophets in the frame-
1 See above, p. 373. 2 See above, p. 373.

404 XI.  OBJECTIONS TO THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
work which they found there provided, and consequently
attribute characteristics to the " word of Jahveh " spoken by
them which, in reality, it does not possess. We do not
require to express once more an unfavourable opinion of that
method ; yet the striving after unity, after harmony between
the two representations, must command our approval. Nay,
we would join in the effort, if we saw a chance of reconciling
the irreconcilable.
We therefore repeat what we have already said, a choice
must be made. But to that we can at once add, that the
choice no longer needs to be made ; the case has been already
decided. They alone who do not yet see the facts plain and
distinct before them, can hesitate, or still continue to seek after
means for reconciling the two representations. He, who knows
the real state of the question, asks or doubts no longer. The
testimony which the canonical prophets deliver concerning
themselves, is, from its own nature, irrefragable ; the narra
tives of third parties, even though they were also ear-and-eye'
witnesses, can never be so. Least of all can the historical
narratives of the Old Testament maintain the contest against
the authentic sources of information. If the writings to
which they belong had originated at the time in wliich the
work of the Israelitish prophets was carried on ; if the narra
tives themselves corroborated each other, and mutually agreed ;
if they, in form and contents, were manifestly independent of
the subjective views of the later writers who transmit them to
us, in that case — yes, in that case — we should perhaps hesi
tate before we expressed our judgment. But the proof has
been given in this very chapter that the reality corresponds to
no one of these suppositions. We may not, therefore, waver ;
our conclusion must be :
The representation of the prophets and of prophecy in ihe
narratives of the Old Testament is not historical.

CHAPTER XII.
CONTINUATION. THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PROPHETS AND
PROPHECY IN THE NARRATIVES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
HISTORICALLY EXPLAINED.
The representation of the prophets and of prophecy in
the narratives of ihe Old Testament is not historical.
I dare not expect an immediate assent to this negative
conclusion, even from those who have followed with approval
the demonstration given in chapter xi.
In spite of the objections brought forward, the testimony
of the historical books of the Old Testament continues to
be too powerful for them. Do not the accounts — they will
say — which these books give about the prophets and their
work, agree with each other in the great essential point, and
are they not moreover corroborated by what is communicated
to us regarding Jahveh's own intervention in the direction of
Israel's fortunes ? Let it be granted that objections more or
less weighty can be alleged against many of the narratives ;
nay, let it be freely acknowledged that these objections are
not fanciful, and do not admit of being removed ; yet is it not
the fact, on the other hand, that the accounts of the Old
Testament historians point, as it were, in one direction, and
corroborate each other, at least in that one point with which
we are concerned ? Whence this agreement ; whence, to
speak more generally, all these narratives themselves, if they
are not rooted in — the historical reality ? How do you account
for their origin, while you deny to them this indispensable
foundation ?
These questions are not unnatural, and we cannot close
our ears against the justice of the demand which is therein
expressed. In truth, in every historical inquiry the question
ultimately comes to be, what view of the facts best accounts

406 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
fm- the historical documents which lie before us, for their
origin and for their contents ? These documents always form
the test. If proceeding upon that view of the historical
reality, to which we had given the preference, we succeed in
explaining these documents, then, but not till then, have
we proved the correctness of the conclusion. As regards the
narratives about the prophets, so long as we get no farther
than the negation, not historical ; and have given no answer
to the question, but what then ? we can hardly expect, and
certainly do not ask that our conclusion be accepted.
But I think I am able to satisfy that demand. It seems
to me that the proof can be given, that the conclusion we
have drawn from the investigation briefly comprised in
chapter xi., is in perfect harmony with the history of the
historical books of the Old Testament, and becomes cor
roborated by it. Of course conviction on this point is not to
be attained without once more inspecting those books. Still
this is only in appearance a deviation from our subject. So
far from its being, so in reality, the consideration of the
Israelitish historical literature from the specific point of view
which we now choose, could not have been omitted, although
it had been less imperatively demanded by the investi
gation on which we have now entered ; it belongs, beyond
all doubt, to our task, if we wish to become fully acquainted
with Israelitish prophecy, and are unwilling to lose a single
ray of that light which the Old Testament itself sheds upon
it. I do hot need immediately to explain how this is to be
understood ; it will very soon become evident to us.
We choose our point of departure' in the phenomena which
present themselves to us when we read the Pentateuch with
attention, and specifically in that most remarkable fact which
even a man like Delitzsch, in spite of his conservative
tendencies, and of his predilection for the authenticity of the
Mosaic writings, has been obliged to acknowledge. In the
introduction to his widely read Commentar iiber die Genesis,
following the example of many others, he directs attention 1
to the alternating use of the two names Jahveh and God
(Elohim), from Gen. i. to Exod. vi. He shows that, on the
supposition of these chapters being from one hand, it has
1 Pp.29f. of the 3d edition.

TWO SORTS OF NARRATIVES IN THE PENTATEUCH. 407
been attempted in vain to explain this alternation from the
difference in signification between the two names — a differ
ence which he yet, as a matter of course, freely acknowledges.
He comes, finally, to the conclusion that this alternation
must be owing to a difference in the authorship. "It is,"
he writes,1 "probable that, in Gen. i. to Exod. vi., we have
before us two different modes of historical composition," — the
Elohistic and the Jahvistic. It is in fact evident, apart from
the use of the divine names, that the Elohistic portions are
clearly distinguished from the Jahvistic, among other points, by
peculiarities of language and style. " It appears thus actually
to be the case, that two distinct streams of historical writing
run through the whole of the Pentateuch, which admit of being
distinguished, as far as Exod. vi., by the different use of the
divine names, and by other peculiarities connected with it."
When we follow attentively the course of these streams, we
arrive — still according to Delitzsch — at this representation of
the origin of the Mosaic writings. " Some man such as
Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, wrote — after Israel's
settlement in Canaan — the great (Elohistic) work, which
begins with Gen. i. 1, and introduced into it the Book of
the Covenant, and a short account of Moses' last addresses.
... A second person, such as Joshua, who was a prophet, and
spoke as a prophet, or one of the elders, on whom the spirit
of Moses rested, and many of whom outlived Joshua, com
pleted this work . . . and introduced into it the whole of
Deuteronomy (written by Moses), by the study of which
book he had moulded himself." 2
We do not require to express our opinion at present on the
particulars of this theory of Delitzsch. He has well per
ceived and expounded the essential point to which we wish,
in the first instance, to confine ourselves. The Penta
teuch has been written partly in a priestly, partly in a
prophetical spirit — but in that case, it has certainly also been
written partly by priests, partly by prophets. If, for the
present, we separate these two component parts only in the
mass, and leave the subdivisions out of view, then there
belong to the priestly documents not only the laws in the
second half of Exodus (chaps, xxv. — xxxi., xxxv. — xl.),
1 P. 36 f. 2 Ibid., p. 38.

408 XII. — ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
in Leviticus, and Numbers, but also the allied historical
narratives, both in Genesis and in the first half of Exodus and
in Numbers. On the other side, we have the prophetical
narratives, which even in Genesis are characterised by the
use of the name Jahveh, and are scattered in various parts
of Exodus and Numbers, with the Book of the Covenant in
corporated in them (Exod. xx. — xxiii.), and almost the whole
of Deuteronomy. For the correctness of this division as a
whole — we shall very soon return to the particulars —
Delitzsch comes forward as a witness, at once competent and
above suspicion.
It will be seen at the very first that these ideas regarding the
distinction in character between the materials composing the
Pentateuch are incompatible with the tradition about its Mosaic
origin. Indeed this origin has been, as we saw, in a great
measure surrendered by Delitzsch, who maintains it only as
regards the Book of the Covenant and Deuteronomy. But
we shall very soon examine this point more fully. At pre
sent we confine ourselves to the phenomenon which has been
so justly placed by Delitzsch in the foreground, viz., the two
historiographical streams, the prophetical and, alongside of
that, the priestly conception and description of the history of
Israel. That is a fact of the very greatest importance, and
may be called the key to the explanation of the historical
literature of Israel. Because, as was to be expected, it is not
confined within the limits of the Pentateuch ; elsewhere also
in the Old Testament the two streams flow side by side. It
is on this point that, starting from " the books of Moses," we
wish at present to fix our attention.
The books, which follow each other in our common edi
tions of the Bible, and are usually comprised under the col
lective title of " the historical books " — from Joshua to
Esther inclusive — are, in the Hebrew text of the Old Testa-
mant, separated by their position into two groups. Joshua,
Judges, Samuel, and Kings belong to the second division of
the Old Testament, named the Prophets, and together con
stitute a subdivision called the former Prophets ; the well-
known prophetical books, with the exception of Daniel,
belong to the second subdivision, the latter Prophets. On
the other hand, the Books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah,

SACERDOTAL AND PROPHETICAL HISTORY. 409
and Esther are incorporated in the third division of the
Old Testament, which bears the name of " the Writings " or
" the sacred Writings." This is not the place fully to account
for this arrangement of the historical books, It is un
doubtedly connected with the time in which they originated;
" the Prophets " are, speaking generally, older than " the
Writings," and already formed a completed collection at a
time when the whole of the latter did not yet exist. What
strikes us most at present is that the arrangement in two
different divisions coincides with a difference in spirit and
character. The Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings
are called " the former Prophets," and are in fact prophetical
in their origin and tendency ; the other historical books,
namely the Chronicles — to which, for our present object, we
can confine ourselves — are not included among "the
Prophets," and indeed do not belong to them ; they are
written in a priestly spirit and strain.
In the further development of the first of these proposi
tions we are somewhat embarrassed by the Book of Joshua,
because it is very closely connected with the Pentateuch,
and is more nearly akin to it than to the following books
from Judges to Kings. What is true of this last collection
does not apply fully to Joshua. It will therefore be better
to pass this book over in the first instance, and to come back
upon it shortly when we once more proceed to examine the
Pentateuch. The reasons which induced the compilers of the Old Testa
ment canon to place the older historical books among " the
Prophets," can no longer be determined with absolute cer
tainty. Was it the case that they attended more to the
contents than to the character of these books ? Might the
determining motive have been that the actions and the words
of the prophets occupy so large a space in these books, speci
fically in Samuel and Kings ? It is not improbable that such
were their reasons. But still we are permitted to approve of
and to welcome that arrangement, because it at the same time
does full justice to the spirit of these historical books. In
truth, that spirit manifests itself at once in the fact that they
place the work of the prophets of Jahveh so much in the fore
ground, and make the prophets come forward as the principal

410 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
persons in more than one period of the history of Israel. This
would certainly not have been the case if these writers had
been political men, royal annalists for instance, such as acted
under David, Solomon, and Hezekiah, and probably also under
the rest of the kings.1 Even they could not have been silent
about the prophets ; they exercised too great an influence on
the course of public affairs to be thus passed over. But it is
as good as certain that they would have been less copious in
their communications regarding them, and especially that
they would have frequently placed them in another light than
that in which they now appear. The figures of Samuel,
Nathan, Ahijah, Elijah, and Elisha could have been depicted,
as we now behold them standing before us, only by prophets,
or at least by prophetical men, penetrated with the propheti
cal spirit, and moulded by it.
By prophets, or at least by prophetical men : is not, it may
be asked, this last clause superfluous? Why not simply
assume that the authors of the books from Judges to Kings
were actually prophets ? There is, indeed, no single valid
objection against such a supposition ; but just because
it is a "' supposition," and nothing more, I think it safer to
express myself less definitely. That the Israelitish prophets
always acted as historians, at least from the time of David
to the termination of the kingdom of Judah, has been usually
regarded as a conclusion which could be drawn with certainty
from the books of Chronicles. The Chronicle-writer does, in
fact, at the end of the biography of particular kings, fre
quently name "the words of" one or another prophet, in
which his readers will be able to find mentioned either all the
acts of that king, or the rest of his acts which have not been
introduced into the Chronicles.2 Thus, according to the usual
interpretation of these references, the biography of David
— to mention some instances — would have been written by
Samuel the seer, Nathan the prophet, and Gad the seer;3
1 The Hebrew official title is mazkir, and occurs in 2 Sam. viii. 16 ; xx.
24 ; 1 Ki. iv. 3 ; 2 Ki. xviii. 18, 37.
2 See the complete list of these references of the Chronicle-writer in my
" Hist. Krit. Onderz.," I., pp. 306, ff. The passages in which prophets are
named in connection with the biography of the kings are 1 Chron. xxix.
29 ; 2 Chron. ix. 29 ; xii. 15 ; xiii. 22 ; xx. 34 ; xxvi. 22 ; xxxii. 32 ;
xxxiii. 18, 19.
3 1 Chron. xxix. 29.

WHO WERE THE AUTHORS OF THE HISTORIES ? 411
that of Solomon by Nathan, Ahijah, and Jedi (Iddo ?) ; J that
of Jehoshaphat by Jehu, the son of Hanani.2 If this could
be assumed as proved, it might be inferred from it, without
hesitation, that the prophets had made it a rule to put down
in writing an account of every important event which
happened in their days. But has the Chronicle-writer in
truth intended to say what has been read in his words ? On
one occasion he asserts, quite unequivocally, that Isaiah has
written the acts of Uzziah, the first and the last 3 — without,
however, referring to that writing, so that it is neither
evident that he himself had seen it, nor that he supposes it to
be known and available to his readers ; but on every other
occasion in which he appears to name prophets as biographers
of the kings of Judah, he means, according to the interpreta
tion of the passages which best merits adoption, something
essentially different. He is, I mean, in the habit of referring
either to " the book of the kings of Israel and Judah," 4 or to
" the words of" one or another prophet; nowhere does he
mention the two together ; 5 the particulars, for which he
refers to that " book of the kings of Israel and Judah," are
of the same nature as those which, according to other passages,
appear in " the words " of the prophets.6 All this gives rise to
the supposition that these " words " have not an independent
existence alongside of " the book of the kings," but are very
closely connected with it. The writer does, in fact, tell us
that "the words of Jehu ben Hanani have been introduced
into the book of the kings of Israel," 7 and mentions else
where " the vision of Isaiah ben Amoz in the book of the
1 2 Chron. ix. 29. 2 2 Chron. xx. 34. 3 2 Chron. xxvi. 22.
4 This title, with insignificant variations, occurs in 2 Chron. xvi. 11;
xx. 34; xxiv. 27; xxv. 26;' xxvii. 7; xxviii. 26; xxxii. 32 ; xxxiii. 18;
xxxv. 27 ; xxxvi. 8.
6 The single exception to this rule (2 Chron. xxxiii. 18, 19) is one only in
appearance. For, instead of " the words of Chozai," we should read, with
the Septuagint, " the words of the seers " [as is done in the Authorised Ver
sion]. It is plain, then, from verse 19, that these "words" contained
particulars concerning the idolatry of Manasseh, while verse 18 shows that
they were introduced into " the book of the kings."
6 Let the reader compare with each other the passages referred to in p.
410, n. 2 ; and p. 411, n. 4. It would in vain be attempted to ascribe
other contents to " the words" of the prophets than to " the book of the
kings." As these " words " contain political details, so this book also treats
of the prophets and their work.
i 2 Chron. xx. 34.

4 1 2 XTI.  ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
kings of Israel and Judah." 1 We have, on account of the
facts of Which the reader has just been reminded, to see in
this, not the exception but the rule. " The words " of the
prophets are sections, paragraphs as it were, furnished with a
title of their own, in " the book of the kings of Israel and
Judah." It is only on this supposition that the references of
the Chronicle-writer are fully explained. Now it is certainly
possible, even according to this opinion, that these sec
tions were written by — or at least ascribed to — those prophets
whose names stood above them. In favour of this view, an
appeal could even be made to the statement quoted above,
that Isaiah wrote the acts of Uzziah.2 But such an interpre
tation is not necessary. The expression, " the words of A. B.
the prophet," can, according to the idiom of the author, also
signify " the narrative concerning A. B. the prophet." " The
words " of particular kings are mentioned repeatedly, by
which nothing else can be meant than the " account of that
king," the things which befel him ; in one word, his history.
The same is true of the formulas, " the prophecy," and " the
vision " of particular prophets. The heading, " the prophecy
of Ahijah the Shilonite, might, for example, be placed over
1 Ki. xi. 2G — 40 ; "the vision of Isaiah ben Amoz," above
2 Ki. xviii. 13 — xix. ; although Ahijah wrote nothing what
ever of the first passage, and Isaiah only one part (chap. xix.
20 — 34) of the second. It follows from all this, that the
Chronicle-writer does not come forward as a witness in favour
of the assertion, that it belonged to the function of the
prophets to write the history of their people. There is
nothing to hinder us from assuming that many of them did so.
If the Chronicle-writer was well informed, Isaiah, to give a
special instance, wrote an account of the acts and fortunes of
Uzziah. Many chapters of the book of the prophecies of
Jeremiah can also contribute to prove that the prophet occa
sionally either committed to writing, with his own hand, the
most important incidents of his life, or took care that this
should be done by one of his disciples. But these facts,
however great their importance may be, do not form a fixed
rule. We cannot go further than to consider it to be very
probable that the prophets took a share in writing history.
1 2 Chron. xxxii. 32. 2 % Chron. xxvi. 22.

DEUTERONOMIC STANDPOINT OF THE HISTORIANS. 413
We should not have been justified in passing over in silence
the communications of the Chronicle-writer concerning the
literary activity of the prophets ; but, as regards our object, it
is pretty much a matter of indifference whether we assign the
authorship of the books from Judges to Kings to the prophets
themselves, or rather to their disciples and to persons of kindred
sentiments. In either case, that which appears to us to be the
chief matter is accounted for — viz., the sp>irit in which these
books are written — the peculiar view of the direction of Israel's
fortunes, which is conspicuous in them — in one word, the
pragmatism of the authors. In order to become acquainted
with this character ofthe books, we have, of course, in the first
place, to attend to those passages in which the authors speak
in their own persons, and indicate the point of view from
which they contemplate the facts. Intimations with regard
to this occur, scattered here and there, in their writings ; on a
few occasions, the manner in which the writers looked at the
events is more fully expounded.1 These more detailed con
templations are distinct and unambiguous. It is beyond dis
pute that we find in them the prophetical interpretation of the
destiny, the transgressions, and the fate of Israel. It was
for the same truths, which are here maintained and illus
trated from the history of the nation, that the prophets of
Jahveh in Israel wrought and contended.
But we can give greater definiteness to this result. However
close their mutual connection and affinities, the prophets of
Jahveh have still their individual characteristics, and admit of
being combined in different groups according to the character of
their preaching. The seventh century had other requirements
than the eighth, and apprehended the one truth in another
manner than the preceding age had. Would it be also possible
to define the group to which the prophetical historians belong ?
We might already gather that from the time in which they
lived,2 but it appears moreover quite distinctly from their
own words. They are men of kindred sentiments with Jere
miah. Their standpoint can be still more particularly
described as Deuteronomic. Every one knows that, in the
Deuteronomic exhortations and laws, the relation of Israel to
Jahveh is, in some degree, otherwise apprehended, and the
1 Judges ii. 6— iii. 6; 2 Ki. xvii. 7—23, 34—41. 2 See above, p. 388, f.

414 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
worship of Jahveh by Israel otherwise regulated, than we find
them to be both in the Book of the Covenant (Exod. xxi. — ¦
xxiii.) and in the ceremonial or priestly laws. In particular,
along with the adoration of Jahveh alone, the worship of
Jahveh in the one sanctuary is placed in the foreground, and
earnest warnings are given against the custom of the Canaan
ites who had their " high places " everywhere, and offered
sacrifices upon them.1 But it is this very standpoint that the
latest authors of the prophetical histories occupy. This is true
specifically of the author of the book of Kings. It can be
said, without the slightest exaggeration, that for him Deuter
onomy is the standard by which he measures the kings of
Israel and Judah. What he emphatically blames in the great
majority of them, and again and again brings forward as the
cause of the misfortunes, both of the ten tribes and of
Judah, is just this, that they both tolerated or favoured
idolatry, and maintained or restored the " high places." 2
The agreement between these verdicts and the fundamental
ideas of Deuteronomy — an agreement which naturally shows
itself also in the style of writing — is so striking that many of
those who regard the author of Deuteronomy as a contem
porary of Josiah, identify him with the latest redactor of the
books of Kings.3 But we do not require to go further
into this subject at present. Let it merely serve as a
proof of the intimate connection between the spirit of the
prophetical historian and the Deuteronomic legislation. The
significance of that fact will, I may add, be soon shown still
more at length.
With the prophetical narratives, we must now — were it
only to give us assurance that we are on the right way —
compare the Chronicles, which, as we saw, were not included
among " the prophets " by the compilers of the Old Testament
canon. The difference between these two classes of writings be-
comes immediately quite obvious, even on a superficial observa
tion. Without wishing to decide whether the Chronicle writer
belonged to the priests, or rather to the Levites, we conclude
1 Compare my " Godsdienst van Israel," I. 432 ff. (Vol. ii. pp. 23 ff. Eng
lish translation).
2 See the passages referring to this point in my " Hist. Krit. Onderz.," I.
270. 3 Thus Graf, Colenso, and others.

HOW THE CHRONICLES REPRESENT MEN AND THINGS. 4] 5
at once that he was a minister of the temple at Jerusalem.
There is really no one who gainsays this. Proofs of all kinds
too many almost to enumerate, place this beyond all reasonable
doubt. His silence regarding the kingdom of the ten tribes,
his evident predilection for religious ceremonies, the copious
ness of his communications about priests and Levites — all this
shows that his heart is devoted to the temple and the temple-
worship.1 His pragmatism also is in perfect harmony with
this fact. It does not need to be said that this pragmatism
stands in no opposition whatever, at least in no absolute opposi
tion, to that of his prophetical predecessors. Besides the belief
in the election of Israel by Jahveh, and all which that implies,
he has the doctrine of rewards and punishments in common
with them.2 But in his hands everything is modified and
coloured after his own peculiar fashion. The temple-minister
appears everywhere consistent with himself. Let the reader
notice, for example, how he regards the revolt of the ten tribes,
and what judgment he forms about their divine worship.3 Let
it be remarked further how he elaborates and applies the above-
mentioned doctrine of rewards and punishments : the strictness
with which he makes punishment follow transgression, and,
conversely, restoration follow repentance,4 distinguishes him,
in a very essential manner, from the prophets, and is charac
teristic of the influence which his office exerts upon his views
of things. For can it be by mere accident that the priest in
these matters descends to minute points, whilst the prophet
confines himself to the maintenance of the truths of the faith
in their great features ? It rather seems to us most natural
that something formalistic is mingled even in his conception
1 Compare again my "Hist. Krit. Onderz.," I. 317 ff.
2 See above pp. 350 ff.
3 2 Chron. xi. 15 ; xiii. 4 ff. ; xxv. 7 (compare my " Hist. Krit.
Onderz.," I. 328 f.).
4 Strengthened by the Levites, and the pious Israelites, who had aban
doned the kingdom of Jeroboam I., Rehoboam and his subjects serve Jahveh
three years (2 Chron. xi. 17 ; xii. 1), during which period they enjoy great
prosperity (2 Chron. xi. 17 — 23 ; xii. 1). Thereafter they forsake Jahveh,
for which they are punished by the invasion of Shishak, in the fifth year of
Rehoboam (chap. xii. 1 — 5). Humiliation follows upon this punishment
(verse 6), and the promise of restoration again follows this humiliation
(verses 7, S), and the result corresponds with the promise (verses 12, 13).
The history of the most of the kings of Judah is composed in accordance
with this scheme. Thus we immediately have that of Asa (chaps, xiv., xv.).
For more instances see I.e. pp. 330 — 332.

416 XII. — ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
of Jahveh's righteousness. Is it not just the attachment to
the external and to the form, which, in Israel too, distinguishes
the priests from the prophets?
Thus, then, the history of the Israelitish monarchy was
first written in the prophetical, or, to speak more precisely, in
the Deuteronomic spirit, in or shortly after the Babylonish
captivity ; and was, at a later period, related anew in the
priestly spirit, after the great reformation of Ezra and
Nehemiah. In the historiography of. this period, the priests
were subsequent to the prophets. In the Pentateuch (and
in the book of Joshua), the priestly and the prophetical
narratives are found alongside of each other. Can they be
in these books contemporaneous, as Delitzsch, for instance,
would have them to be ?x or can the priestly " stream " be even
older than the prophetical ? The first supposition is altogether
undeserving of adoption, especially iu the form in which it is ,
defended by Delitzsch : it entirely fails to do justice to the
numerous phenomena which compel us to place the final
redaction of the Pentateuch (and Joshua) very long after the
time of Moses.2 But the second, though it is still maintained
by the majority of critics, is also indefensible. The grounds
on which it has been assumed hitherto that the priestly —
from Gen. i. to Exod. vi., the Elohistic — narratives and laws
constitute the real kernel of the Pentateuch (and Joshua),
are utterly insufficient. There is every reason for regarding
them, on the very contrary, as being the later and the latest
portions of the Pentateuch (and the book of Joshua). The
comparison of the Deuteronomic laws and historical narra
tives on the one hand, and of the priestly legislation
and historiography on the other, shows in the very
clearest manner that the latter are subsequent to the
former. An investigation of the particulars, in which
of course we cannot here engage, establishes what we
might expect on the ground of analogy. The prophetical
conception and description of the patriarchal period, of
the work of Moses, and of the settlement of Israel in
Canaan, precedes the priestly in chronological order. The
latter is the revision of the former in a priestly spirit, which,
excepting that there, is a difference to the disadvantage
1 See above, p. 407. 2 See above, pp. 389, f.

JAHVISTIC AND DEUTERONOMIC LAWS AND NARRATIVES. 4] 7
of the Chronicle-writer, shows great agreement with the
conception of the latter.1
We have hitherto confined ourselves to distinguishing,
quite in general, the prophetical and the priestly historio
graphy ; and it has now become evident to us with how
much justice the distinction is made. We must now proceed
further, and expressly devote ourselves to taking a closer view
of the prophetical narratives. In doing so, it becomes evident
at once that though they show a mutual affinity, and thus
are rightly combined and placed collectively over against the
priestly narratives ; yet they also differ again from each
other. Here too we can start from the Pentateuch. Its
prophetical elements clearly form two groups, which we may
conveniently call the Jahvistic and the Deuteronomic. The
points of distinction between the latter and the former have
been already pointed out.2 To what was said before it must
now be added, that the Deuteronomic group is the younger.
To a certain extent, this is universally acknowledged. Many
laws of the Book of the Covenant (Exod. xxi. — xxiii.)
reappear in Deuteronomy, but generally so modified and re
cast, and enforced by such reasons, that the Deuteronomic
edition is at once clearly seen to be the later.3 In the same
way the recapitulation of the history of the journey through
the desert, in the opening chapters of Deuteronomy, pre
supposes the prophetical narratives on the same subject in
Exodus and Numbers. These narratives are, in Deuteronomy,
sometimes modified in a remarkable manner.4 In different
parts of the book of Joshua, the later additions, allied in
form and contents to Deuteronomy, can be distinguished,
without any difficulty, from an older prophetical narrative.5
The prophetical portion of the Pentateuch (and Joshua)
1 Compare my " Godsdienst van Israel," II. 65—83, 96—102. (Vol. II.
pp. 157—173, 192—201, English translation).
2 Above, p. 413.
3 Compare, e.g., Exod. xxi. 1 — 6 with Deut. xv. 12—18 ; Exod. xxiii. 10,
11 with Deut. xv. 1—11 ; Exod. xxiii. 8 with Deut. xvi. 19, 20, &c. ; Graf,
" Die gesch. Bucher des A. T.," pp. 19 — 24.
1 Compare, e.g., Deut. i. 9—18 with Exod. xviii. 19-26 ; Num. xi. 11—29 ;
Deut. i. 20—46 with Num. xiii., xiv. ; Deut. iv. 9—14 ; v. 19, ff. Heb. (22
ff., Auth. Ver.) with Exod. xix., xx. ; Deut. ix. 7 — x. 11 with Exod. xxxii.—
xxxiv. ; Graf, I.e., pp. 9 — 19.
5 Compare my "Godsdienst van Israel," I., 450. (Vol. II., pp. 39 f.,
English translation.)
2 D

418 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
plainly consists thus of two layers, of which the lower, or
more ancient, is the Jahvistic ; the upper, or more recent, is
the contribution of the Deuteronomist.
The foregoing view of the prophetical documents and their
mutual relation is quite independent of our ideas about the
time in which the Jahvistic and the Deuteronomic elements
were written. It can be assented to by critics who differ
very much from each other in determining the age of these
constituent parts. But they who take this view generally
combine it with the position that the Jahvist wrote in the
eighth, and the Deuteronomist in the second half of the
seventh century B.C. Indeed the proofs in favour of these
dates are very strong, and the last mentioned date especially
is recommended by reasons drawn from all quarters.1 We
have no hesitation, therefore, in adopting it as our own. Our
further investigation will, of itself, still more recommend it.
It already finds some support in what has just been said. For
is it not remarkable that it is precisely with Deuteronomy
that the prophetical authors of Judges and Kings who wrote
in, or shortly after the Babylonish captivity, show the
greatest agreement ? In the prophets of the eighth century,
in Amos and Hosea, in Isaiah and Micah, we discover no
trace of any influence exercised by that book ; in the
prophetical literature of the close of the seventh century, in
the writings of Jeremiah, for example, we see that influence
very distinctly. How natural is this, if Deuteronomy was
given to the world just at that time ! After it had appeared
and had been introduced by Josiah, it must indeed have
made itself powerfully felt. The Deuteronomic colouring of
the " former Prophets " finds its explanation at once in the
time in which they originated. They did not arbitrarily
attach themselves to one particular portion of the Mosaic
law — that law lying before them as a whole — but they based
their view of Israel's past on that redaction of the Mosaic
legislation, which had sprung shortly before their day out of
the necessity of the time, and had been adopted by the leaders
of the people.
But just as Deuteronomy has not thrust aside the previous
1 Compare my "Hist. Krit. Onderz.," I. 149-152, and " Godsdienst van
Israel," i. 423 ff. (vol. II., pp. 15 ff., English translation).

JAHVISTIC NARRATIVES IN THE HISTORICAL BOOKS. 419
prophetical legislation and historiography, so neither have the
Deuteronomic redactors of the historical books substituted
their own conception and description of the past for those of
their prophetical predecessors. In these books we still
possess also the older prophetical narratives which answer to
the Jahvistic documents in the Pentateuch. In the opinion
of some, we could go further and say, that they have, partly
at least, a common origin with the Jahvistic documents and
have proceeded from the same pen. The arguments to which
these writers appeal are for the most part derived from the
language, and on this account alone are less calculated to
be expounded and estimated here. Besides, the question of
authorship is for us one of subordinate importance, compared
with the inquiry, whether two such layers as we noticed in
the Pentateuch, can be distinguished also in the historical
books. Now, if the question be put thus generally, it can be
answered without any hesitation in the affirmative. The
separation of the constituent parts of these books cannot be
effected everywhere with the same certainty. It is further
improbable that they stand everywhere in the same relation
to each other. But nothing is clearer than that here and
there older prophetical narratives, almost or altogether
unaltered, have been introduced by the later redactor.
It would be desirable, if this mode of compiling the
historical books could be made evident by some instances,
and if, by way of example, one or more of the older documents,
and alongside of them the additions of the later prophetical
author, were laid before the reader. But, even without doing
so, we can easily form a conception of the mutual relation of
the two layers. Let us take, for example, the narratives
concerning the reign of Solomon in 1 Kings ii. — xi. If it
were our object to make a complete analysis of these chapters,
we should require to direct attention to the repetitions which
occur in them, and to the accounts which in some respects do
not altogether agree with each other. They furnish the proof
that the author (or authors) has (or have) drawn from more
than one source. But this we can let alone for the present.
That which now especially interests us is the pragmatism of
the writer (or writers). How is the person of Solomon por
trayed, how are his tendencies judged, what is the view taken

420 XII. — ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
of the connection between his reign and the events which
preceded and followed it ? It is not difficult to perceive that
no single answer can be given to these questions. Judgments
of two different kinds alternate with each other. Their
mutual relation may be thus described. The one, evidently
the older author, is highly prepossessed in favour of Solomon,
describes his riches and prosperity with undisguised partiality,
and represents them as proofs of Jahveh's favour and ap
probation. The other does not directly contradict all this,
but still does not fully assent to it ; his eyes are open to the
dangers to which such tendencies as that of Solomon exposed
himself and his people ; he inserts here and there a reserva
tion, or an earnest warning, and ends by exhibiting to us the
reverse side of the whole picture. It is in itself indeed con
ceivable that one and the same author, himself divided be
tween admiration and disapproval, should adopt the one and
the other tone alternately ; but when we see how they are
interchanged in 1 Kings ii. — xi., it is clear that such is not
the case, and that we have actually here two conceptions be
fore us, coming from two prophetical authors who do not
altogether occupy the same stand-point. We give a few
instances by way of proof. We no sooner look at the
last injunctions of the dying David, than we perceive that
they lack unity. The earnest exhortation to live faith
fully in accordance with the law of Moses, and thus to ensure
the fulfilment of Jahveh's promises,1 has no connection what
ever with what follows. It has evidently been interpolated by
some one, who felt — not without cause — that something was
wanting in the words of David, and supplied that want in
his own spirit. The following chapter furnishes us with a
second instance. The author who committed to writing the
narrative of Solomon's dream,2 saw nothing strange or wrong
in the sacrifice at Gibeon. He calls with satisfaction the
high-place there "the great high-place," and mentions the
" thousand burnt offerings which Solomon offered upon that
altar." 3 If he had regarded that sacrifice as illegal, he
certainly would not have associated the revelation of Jahveh
with it. It is therefore a different author who prefaces the
whole narrative with an apology for Solomon's conduct and a
1 1 Kings ii. 3, 4. 2 1 Kings iii. 4-15. s Ibid, verse 4.

VARYING JUDGMENTS ON SOLOMON. 421
censure of the whole worship on the high places.1 Perhaps
this writer has also modified, in some degree, the conclusion
of Jahveh's address to Solomon.2 Nor has he suffered the
prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the temple 3 to remain
untouched ; it even seems to have been, in great measure,
added by him. But we recognise him especially in the
account which follows of a second revelation of Jahveh to
Solomon.4 The chief thing in it is the very grave doubt
whether Solomon and his descendants shall continue to be
faithful to Jahveh, and whether the temple, which has now
been completed, shall be preserved by him. If ye and your
sons turn aside from me and serve other gods, then — it is
said5 — "will I root Israel out from off the face of the land
which I have given them, and the temple which I have
hallowed to my name, will I cast away from my sight, and
Israel shall be a proverb and a jeer among all the nations.
And this temple shall become a ruinous heap,6 and every one
who passeth by it shall be astonished and shall hiss at it, and
men shall say, wherefore hath Jahveh done thus to this land
and to this temple ? And men shall answer, because they
forsook Jahveh, their God, who led their fathers out of the
land of Egypt, and attached themselves to other gods, and
worshipped and served them, therefore hath Jahveh brought
upon them all this evil." With this the narrative ends.
The other possibility, that Solomon and the kings after him
would correspond to the requirement of Jahveh, is neither
enlarged upon nor even again taken up. It is as if such a
possibility was out of the question. Is not this an unequivocal
indication of the time in which the author of the narrative
lived ? Could he have written it in this manner, if he him
self had still trusted or even hoped that Israel's national
existence and Jahveh's dwelling-place would be preserved?
It is a mistake to think that such ideas were current in
Israel before the seventh century B.C., or so far back even as
i Ibid., w. 2, 3.
2 In verse 14, namely, the lengthening of Solomon's life is made to depend
upon a condition : " and if thou walkest in my ways, keeping my statutes and
commandments, as thy father David did walk, then," &c. This is in the
manner of chapter ii. 3, 4, and not in harmony with the conception of the
older author.
3 1 Kings viii. 22-61. * 1 Kings ix. 1-9. 5 Ibid., vv. 7-9.
c According to an amendment of the original.

422 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
the days of Solomon. It is a just and shrewd remark of
Graf,1 that the account — which we also have discussed on
more than one occasion — of the judicial procedure against
Jeremiah,2 is irreconcilable with the supposition that such
threatenings as are here addressed to Solomon, were, then, in
the reign of Jehoiakim, recorded in writing and open to be
read by every one. The defenders of the prophet would
certainly not have required to appeal to a single utterance of
Micah, which was speedily retracted, if, according to exist
ing historical documents, the entire destruction of Jahveh's
dwelling had been from the very commencement regarded and
represented as being in all respects a possible event. The
whole passage, which we are now discussing, belongs to the
latest expansion of the biography of Solomon, and is thus,
with the fullest justice, distinguished from its original
redaction. Similar remarks are readily suggested to us by the close of
Solomon's biography.3 The author has connected and, as far
as possible, harmonised, his communications with the preceding
narrative, by deducing, at the beginning, the transgressions of
Solomon from his marriage with foreign wives, and transferring
them to the time of his old age.4 But from the threatenings
of punishment which follow these statements,6 and still more
from the accounts given about the adversaries of Solomon, it
is distinctly manifest that this is nothing more than a har-
monistic representation of the author, a concession on his part
to his predecessors, who had depicted Solomon as a pattern
of wisdom, and an object of Jahveh's favour. What is told us
about Hadad the Edomite gives us the impression that Solomon
must have suffered much annoyance from him, certainly not
only towards the end of his reign.6 Of Bezon it is
said expressly that he was Israel's enemy " all the days of
Solomon." 7 The account of Jeroboam and his meeting with
Ahijah 8 at once discloses to us what we certainly should not
have expected after reading the preceding chapters, that the
renowned administration of the great king had roused much
discontent and bitter feeling, and had driven, even in his life-
1 " Die gesch. Bucher des A. T.," p. 103. 2 Jer. xxvi.
3 1 Kings xi. 1—40. i Ibid., vv. 1—6
5 Ibid., vv. 9—13. 6 Ibid., vv. 14—22.
7 Ibid, vv. 23, 24. s Ibid, vv. 25—40.

CONFLICTING NARRATIVES REGARDING SAUL. 423
time, a portion of his subjects into revolt. As I have already
remarked, the author to whom we are indebted for these
precious disclosures, makes every possible effort to avoid con
tradicting, while he seeks to complete, the older accounts.
In truth, however, his standpoint is different from that of the
authors of these narratives. He is of kindred sentiments with
the Deuteronomist, who, in the law regulating the duties of a
king,1 borrows from the person of Solomon the traits by whicli
he depicts the Israelitish king, who does not correspond to the
will of Jahveh.2 If he had designed the entire picture, it
would have been coloured quite differently from what it now
is ; it would form a consistent whole, and — a considerably
less brilliant whole.
To this one instance others might be added, from which it
would at the same time be plain that the mutual relation of
the successive laj'ers of the prophetical historiography is by no
means the same everywhere. The conflicting accounts in
1 Samuel, to which attention has already been directed in
another connection,3 have certainly not had their origin in the
same period. In the beautiful narrative of Saul's visit to
Samuel, and his being anointed to be king,4 we see, without
hesitation, the older prophetical conception, which has been con
nected with the later, or, as others represent the matter, has
been taken over by the author of the later conception, and,
as it were, fitted into his framework. In this later represen
tation the desire for a king is severely censured as a departure
from Jahveh, and the dark side of the monarchy is forcibly
placed in the foreground.5 In the older, there is acknowledg
ment of the authority of Samuel, but also of the divine calling
of the king ; in the later, there is throughout a sharp contrast
between the prophet and the king, which is altogether in
favour of the former.6 In the older — we might thus be able
to illustrate, and at the same time to explain, the mutual
relation between the two narratives — in the older, a contem-
1 Deut. xvii. 14—20.
2 Compare on this subject my "Hist. Krit. Onderz.," I., 149, f.
3 Above, p. 393. 4 1 Sam. ix. 1— x. 16.
5 1 Sam. viii. ; x. 17 — 26 ; xii.
6 The exaggerated description of Samuel's merits in 1 Sam. vii. 13, 14, is
at variance with the passages mentioned in note 4, but may very well
have been written by the later author of 1 Sam. viii., &c.

424 XII. — ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
porary of Uzziah is speaking ; in the later, one of the seers
who lifted up their voice against Manasseh.1
But enough to show that, in the " former Prophets," we are
fully justified in making a distinction between the later and
the older prophetical historiography. They permit us to
ascend still higher and, as it were, to cast a glance at least
into the workshops in which tradition was fashioned. I
allude to some traces of the participation of the schools of ihe
prophets in forming that representation of the past, which
is given in the historical books. They show themselves
especially in the narratives about Elijah and Elisha. The
account of Elijah's ascension2 has most probably been
derived from the tradition of the schools at Beth-el and
Jericho, the disciples of which play a part in it. The
miraculous deeds of Elisha are partly placed in the circle of
the sons of the prophets — his multiplication of the widow's ¦
oil,3 his making the mess of wild gourds wholesome,4 his
satisfying many with a small quantity of bread,5 and his
recovering the sunk axe.6 Is it not a very natural supposi
tion that the narratives about these incidents were propagated
in the same circles ? So also the accounts in which Elisha's
servant — certainly also one of the sons of the prophets —
appears as an actor,7 or Gehazi, likewise a servant of the
prophet, occupies a not always honourable position : 8 what is
communicated to us to the disadvantage of the latter has
evidently an admonitory tendency, as if it was directed
against the dangers to which the follower of the prophet was
exposed ; 9 a very natural thing if this narrative also lived in
the schools of the prophets before it was recorded in writing !
From the same point of view still, we may consider two
other narratives. Unconditioned obedience to Jahveh's com
mand the duty of the prophet : these words might be put as
a heading not only above the account which tells us how one
of the sons of the prophets was punished with death for refus
ing to inflict a wound, according to the command of Jahveh,
on one of his companions,10 but also above the middle portion
1 2 Kings xxi. 10 ff. 2 2 Kings ii. 1—18. 3 2 Kings iv. 1—7.
i Ibid., vv. 38—41. 6 Ibid., vv. 42—44. e 2 Kings vi. 1—7.
7 Ibid., vv. 8—23. 8 2 Kings iv. 8—37 (compare viii. 1—6) ; v.
9 2 Kings, v. 20—27. 10 1 Kings xx. 35, 36.

RISE OF TRADITION IN THE SCHOOLS OF THE PROPHETS. 425
of the narrative, already discussed, concerning the prophet
from Judah and the one from Bethel, the contemporaries of
Jeroboam I.1 The tendency of the latter narrative I formerly
explained in these words : 2 " The man of God from Judah —
so the writer repeatedly teaches us3 — has received from
Jahveh a specific and unambiguous command : he must,
without tasting anything at Beth-el, return homewards by
another road than he had at first taken. The temptation to
transgress this command now assails him. At first he with
stands it manfully. Hear his answer to Jeroboam : ' If thou
wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee,
neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place.' 4 He
has already commenced his homeward journey, when he is
overcome by fatigue. He sits down under an oak, and there
he is found by the prophet out of Beth-el.5 He begins by
rejecting the invitation of the latter.6 But now temptation
in another form allures him : Satan arrays himself as an
angel of light ; the old prophet pretends that a messenger
from Jahveh has commissioned him to take to his own house
the man of God from Judah ; the latter rashly gives credence
to this assurance ; Jahveh has not recalled his command, and
yet the prophet acts at variance with it. Severe punishment
immediately follows this disobedience. Jahveh announces it
by the mouth of the old prophet, and on the same day it is
also executed. If we regard these several details in their
mutual connection, we do not hesitate to describe the inten
tion of the narrator as follows : He wishes to exhort the pro
phets to implicit obedience to the command of Jahveh, to
warn them against the temptation to deviate therefrom, and
to direct their attention to the dangers to which every case of
disobedience exposed them. We might call this portion of 1
Kings xiii. a fragment of a Mirror for Prophets. There are
more narratives in the books of Kings which deserve this
title,7 among which there is one at least which manifests
great agreement with 1 Kings xiii.8 Would it be rash
1 1 Kings xiii. 7—30.
2 In the Journal " Nieuw en Oud," 1869, pp. 470, 471.
3 1 Kings xiii. 8, f., 16, f., 21, f. i Ibid., verse 8.
5 Ibid., verse 14. ° Ibid., verses 16, 17.
7 Reference is made here to 2 Kings vi. 8 — 23 ; iv. 8 — 37 ; v., which
passages have been lately mentioned. 8 1 Kings xx. 35, 36.

426 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
to suppose that they have sprung from the schools of the
prophets ? I do not mean that 1 Kings xiii., as it now lies
before us, originated there. In its present form that chapter
is evidently the work of the latest redactor of the books of
Kings, who introduced it into this part of his work with a
special aim.1 But we may conjecture that its present form
was preceded by an older redaction, which had for its
principal subject, not Jeroboam and his altar, but the pro
phet, his transgression, and his end. This older form of the
narrative would have been produced in the schools of the
prophets. It was precisely in these schools that the exhorta
tion therein expressed was needed. The particular form also
in which the second and severest temptation assails the man
of God from Judah, the deceitful appeal to a revelation of
Jahveh, transports us into the schools of the prophets — in
which ' revelations ' at variance with each other could not
have been wanting, and therefore the admonition was very
suitable, in no case to deviate from ' the word of Jahveh '
which each had received for himself."
We should nevertheless, in all probability, form too low an
estimate of the influence of the schools of the prophets, if we
limited it to the propagation of narratives with which they
themselves were mixed up and concerned. It is true we
possess but very meagre information about these institutions,
and are limited to conjectures as regards their action. But
the little which is certain leads us, nevertheless, to assign to
them an important share in the formation of Israel's national
tradition. " It shall come to pass " — so Samuel says to
Saul 2 — " when thou art come thither to the city, that thou
shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the
high place, and before them shall go forward harp, drum,
flute, and cithern, while they prophesy" (that is, give vent to
their prophetical enthusiasm). Certainly we are not to
regard the particulars communicated to us here as form
ing an exception to the rule. On the contrary, music will
have uniformly played an important part in the associations
of the prophets. Now music and song go always together.
We therefore presume that the prophets glorified Jahveh in
songs. Why not also that some of those songs were com-
1 Compare above, p. 399. 2 1 Sam. x. 5.

TWO COLLECTIONS OF HISTORICAL LAYS. 427
posed by themselves? The triumphal ode on the victory
over Jabin and Sisera is ascribed to Deborah,1 "the pro
phetess,"2 while the close affinity between poetry and
prophecy will surely be denied by none. Is not the written
prophetical discourse rhythmical and poetical? There is
thus nothing against, but rather everything in favour of, the
supposition that poetry had zealous students in the schools
of the prophets. But might we not then assume that the
history of Israel frequently furnished these poets with
material for their lays ? There was nothing more natural
than that they, in glorifying Jahveh, should recall the memory
of events, such as the departure out of Egypt, the march
through the Bed Sea, the conquest of the Transjordanic
region, and of Canaan, and thus, at the same time, endeavour
to rouse the national spirit. We freely acknowledge that
these are nothing more than conjectures ; but have they
not historical probability in their favour ? Is there any
other conception of the action of the schools of the prophets
which better merits adoption than this ?
But let us now leave the region of conjecture, and recall
to mind that there existed in Israel at least two, and
perhaps more collections, into which either historical lays
alone, or historical lays along with others, were introduced,
the Book of the wars of Jahveh? and the Book of Hie upright}
Besides the poetical pieces, of which it is expressly asserted
that they were borrowed from one of these books, perhaps
other poems also, which we now read in the Old Testament,
have been taken from them.5 It is clear, both from the
remains which have been preserved to us, and from the titles
1 Judges v. 1. According to Graetz, " Gesch. der Juden," I., p. 114,
n. 1, this heading rests on a mistake, and the song has been composed, not
by Deborah herself, but by one of her contemporaries ; the translation in
verse 7 ought to be, " until that thou, Deborah, didst arise, that thou didst
arise a mother in Israel." This opinion seems to me to be very well worthy'
of adoption. But Judges v. 1 preserves its value as a testimony regarding the
connection between poetry and prophecy. (Compare also Graetz, p. Ill, f.)
2 Judges iv. 4. 3 Num. xxi. 14.
4 Joshua x. 13 ; 2 Sam. i. 18. The Hebrew term sdpher ha-jashdr may
signify "the book of the right1' (e.g., in Jahveh's eyes), or "of the right
man," of him who is as he ought to be. Perhaps jashdr has been selected as
a title (just as jeshurun in Deut. xxxii. 15 ; xxxiii. 26), because it has some
letters in common with Israel, and may be thought to explain that proper
name. 6 E.g., Exod. xv. ; Judges v. ; Ps. xviii., &c.

428 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES. .
of the two collections, that they were compiled, not merely
in the interest of history, but also with a national-religious
aim. By whom else — let us repeat the question — could
they have been compiled if not by prophets, or — which
comes to the, same thing — by men inspired with their spirit?
It is, indeed, an exceedingly natural supposition that the
songs, which had both arisen and had at first been 6rally
transmitted in the associations or schools of the prophets,
were committed to writing in the same circles, at a subse
quent period, when literary activity began to spread. We can
not determine, with certainty, when this took place. These
collections may very probably have been begun, although
not definitively completed, in the eighth century B.C., or,
perhaps, still earlier. But the work of clothing tradition in a
poetical garb, and the recitation of the historical ballads with
the accompaniment of music, had undoubtedly been then
practised for a considerable time. Although, from the absence
of historical records, we are unable to define the limits of
that earlier period, or to penetrate more deeply into the
character of the work which was then accomplished, it is not,
in itself, unimportant to know that such a period preceded
the redaction of the older prophetical narratives, and that in
all probability, even then, the prophets of Jahveh already
gave the tone.
We have performed a long journey, and, if I do not
altogether deceive myself, have had before us a number of
very important facts. But it is therefore now time to pause,
and to take account of what we have observed. It, indeed,
seems already as if the thread of the investigation, in which
we were engaged, had long slipped from our hands.
This, however, is only in appearance. The results
obtained in this chapter are most closely connected with the
question to which we are seeking an answer.
They tend, in the first place, to complete our knowledge
of the prophets and their work in Israel. Hitherto we had
beheld them acting only, or at least principally, as preachers
of religion. It has now become evident to us that they
laboured, in another way also, for the same end. They pre
served for their people the remembrance of the past, and

THE TASK OF THE HISTORIAN. 429
interpreted the lessons which that past conveyed. That lay,
as we can now easily perceive, altogether in their way. In
their addresses they refer, not on a single occasion, but
repeatedly, to history. They could not, however, there enter
into particulars, or they had to confine themselves to bringing
prominently into view some striking features. The demands
of the present were too urgent to permit them to go further.
But what they had to neglect as preachers to the people,
they accomplished in another capacity. The service which
they thus performed for Israel was inestimable. Who have
obtained more profit from their narratives — the contem
poraries whose wants they had in view, or the posterity
whose wishes they, as it were, anticipated, — does not admit
of being determined. They have obtained the most indis
putable claims on the gratitude of both.
We should so judge, even if the prophets had confined
themselves to preserving and recording in writing the his
torical traditions. But they have done more. They have —
to express it in one word — given to Israel its history. The
illustration and development of this proposition will show us,
at the same time, from what second point of view the
results, obtained in this chapter, are to be regarded as
important. There is an error with which we all begin, and which
we unlearn only with difficulty. We demand from the
historical writer — most of all from the eye- and ear-witness,
but yet from him also who stands at a greater distance
from the facts — that he shall exactly reproduce the reality,
and we imagine that nothing can be easier for him than to
satisfy this demand. To express it more briefly : we
regard the historical writer as a funnel through which the
facts flow to us. Hence, whenever it is clear that he has not
answered this expectation, we are ready to accuse him, either
of ignorance — which, in order to be justified, ought to
have been openly acknowledged — or of bad faith and
wilful deception. It is only gradually that we come to
perceive that we had been requiring what was impossible.
When our eyes have been once opened, the unreasonableness
of the demand with which we had begun, seems to us
palpable, and we can scarcely forbear smiling at our own sim-

430 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
plicity. Is it not, in fact, as clear as noon-day, that, even of
the circumstances which we ourselves have witnessed, we can
give nothing more than our own conception ? and that this
conception is determined and governed not only by the cir
cumstances themselves, but also by our own development, by
our own convictions, wishes, and sympathies; in one word —
by our whole personality ? Yet in the case which I have here
supposed, the chances are very favourable : the historical
writer can hardly be more than an eye-witness. But let an
interval, shorter or longer, be placed between him and the
facts of which he gives an account ; let it be assumed that he
has to enlighten his readers, not concerning facts which are
indifferent, but on a subject which inspires himself with the
most lively interest ; let it be conceived that he writes, not as
an individual, but as a representative of the order, or class to
which he belongs ; let it be supposed, finally, that, in com
posing his narrative, he has a definite aim in view, which he
would not, for anything the world could give, wish to miss ;
let these conditions be granted, and will it be imagined that
his representation can possibly be a faithful impress of the
reality ? Of the two factors which are engaged in the forma
tion of every narrative concerning the past, the reality and
the narrator's subjectivity, the former is, in a noticeable degree,
weakened by the growing distance in time, while the influ
ence of the latter is increased in a still greater measure.
Must not this then, in very many cases, become predominant?
What I have presented here as a pure supposition is ap
plicable to the ancient, and specifically to the Israelitish
historians, or rather to them before all others. In our days,
the individuality of the historical writer is held in check, as it
were, by public opinion. This demands from him truth,
nothing but truth, and shows itself severe in the maintenance
of this requirement, and in the punishment of every sin
against it. In antiquity, in Israel as well as elsewhere, the
case was different. The historian could then move much
more freely. Attention was directed more to the spirit in
which he wrote, and to the tendency of his narrative, than to
the truth of the entire representation, and to accuracy in the
details. Historical writing was still in its infancy. If we,
as is only fair, proceed upon the facts themselves, and leave

THE METHOD OF THE PRIESTLY HISTORIANS. 431
out of account what may appear to us to be desirable, we
must affirm that what we now would call the sole end was
then viewed as a means, and, conversely, that what we, at
most, could consider as an incidental advantage, was then
regarded as the principal object. The object was, to express
it in one word, the training of the reader in this or that
religious or political direction. In the estimation of the
writer, the account of what had occurred was subordinate to
that end, and was therefore, without the least hesitation, made
to subserve it.
I spoke just now of the facts by which we must allow our
selves to be guided in judging of the character of Israelitish
historiography, to the exclusion of what we ourselves might
think desirable. We have in truth become acquainted with
them already, but it will certainly not be a superfluous work
to combine them once more, to adduce some examples for
illustration, and thus to bring out more clearly their proper
significance. We arrive at a definite conclusion soonest with regard to
the priestly historiography in Israel, because we ourselves
still possess in great part the very materials which were at its
disposal, and thus can point out, as it were with the finger,
the manner in which it has altered them. In order to make
its method distinctly visible by a very striking example, I
have already referred elsewhere x to the narrative of the
Chronicle-writer, regarding the elevation of Joash to the
throne of his fathers, which, as is plain from the contents
themselves, is nothing else than a recasting of the older
account, which lies before us in the second Book of Kings.2
How great liberties has the later author here allowed him
self! Instead of the royal bodyguard which performed
the chief part, according to 2 Kings xi., he has substituted
the priests and Levites, whom the older narrative does
not mention at all. He carefully removes every appearance
of the pollution of the temple by strangers. The covenant
between Jahveh, the king, and the people becomes, with the
1 " De godsdienst van Israel," I. 26 (I. 24, English Translation) ; com
pare my article : " Eene omwenteling in het koninkrijk Juda," in " Nieuw
en Oud," for 1869, pp. 89—108.
2 2 Chron. xxii. 10 — xxiii. 11, and 2 Kings xi. Compare the commen
taries of Thenius and Bertheau.

432 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL. NARRATIVES. j
priestly author, a covenant between Jehoiada., the people, and \
the king.1 But enough : if anyone desires more particulars,
let him consult as carefully as possible the two narratives
themselves. The result, which his comparison will furnish,
may be freely used by him as a standard for judging the
Chronicle-writer, because he elsewhere uses his sources of
information in the very same way as he does here.2 In his
hands history is, in the most proper sense of the word, made
to serve the purpose of glorifying the temple and the temple
ministers, and of awakening the religious feeling of his
readers. Is it really necessary still to vindicate expressly the applica
tion of this result to the accounts given by the same author
regarding the prophets and their work? One of these ac
counts has already clearly appeared to us to be unhistorical.3
They are all more or less suspicious, because the persons
whose words they communicate, express themselves in the
language of the historian.4 We are thus fully justified in
assuming that in these accounts he continues to be consistent
with himself. Here also he has his readers in view, and
makes it his object to strengthen in them the conviction that
Jahveh is a righteous judge, and to educate them in fidelity
to his service. He puts his own conception of the course of
events, and of the tendency of the divine government, into
the mouth of the prophets whom, on the ground of tradition,
he represents as coming forward before the kings or the
people. This is the only view which is in accordance with
his character as a historian, and with the narratives them
selves.5 The Chronicle-writer does not stand alone. The authors
of the priestly narratives in the Pentateuch had preceded him
in the very free treatment of tradition, and of the accounts
of their prophetical predecessors. But I cannot at present
pursue this subject further.6 Because we must not forget
1 Compare 2 Chron. xxiii. 16 with 2 Kings xi. 17.
2 E.g., 1 Chron. xiii., xv. xvi., compared with 2 Sam. vi. ; 1 Chron. xxi.
compared with 2 Sam. xxiv. ; 2 Chron. vii. 1 — 3 compared with 1 Kings
viii. 54 ff. ; 2 Chron. viii. 12 — 15 compared with 1 Kings ix. 25, &c, &c.
3 Above, pp. 393, f. 4 Above, p. 397.
5 Compare above, pp. 414, ff.
6 Compare my " Godsdienst van Israel," ii., 65—83, 96—102 (English
Translation, vol. ii., 157—173, 192—201).

THE PROPHETICAL HISTORIANS AND THEIR SOURCES. 433
that the prophetical histories most nearly concern us here.
We now therefore turn to the consideration of their contents.
Our task now at once becomes less simple. The assistance
of which we could avail ourselves in forming a judgment of
the priestly narratives in Chronicles and the Pentateuch, here
deserts us. It is only in exceptional cases that we can com
pare the prophetical narratives with the accounts on which
they are wholly or partially founded. Consequently our
conclusion of itself becomes less definite and firm. Let us,
however, proceeding with caution, try how far we can succeed.
I mentioned just now, as an exception to the rule, the cases
in which we can compare the later prophetical narrators with
their predecessors and authorities. The reader knows already
what accounts I had then in view. He will remember that
we not only find occasionally in the historical books, the later
narratives or remarks alongside of the older,1 but that we can
also avail ourselves of a later independent redaction of some
facts of which the older prophetical representation has been
preserved : what is narrated in the books of Exodus and
Numbers regarding Israel's abode in the wilderness, is partially
repeated by the Deuteronomist in the addresses which serve as
an introduction to his legislation.2 The first-mentioned inserted
narratives and remarks of themselves furnish the proof that
the later prophetical author goes to work with great freedom.
Let the reader remember what the Deuteronomic writer adds
to the older accounts about Solomon, and how his judgment
concerning that king is therein reflected. Shall we now
assume that in doing so, he simply allows himself to be
guided by what he found in his sources of information ? In
that case we should have to suppose, that the particulars
which he communicates to us had by some accident remained
unknown to his predecessor, or had been omitted by him.
What a singular circumstance have we here ! The narrative
of Jahveh's second revelation to Solomon 3 — which, if it ac
curately reproduces the actual circumstances, must have been
put into writing by Solomon himself, or by his command —
was for ages in succession unknown to any one, and is ex
humed by a writer with whose manner of thinking it from
1 Above, pp. 419 ff. 2 Above, p. 417, n. 4.
3 l Kings ix. 1 — 9 ; compare above, pp. 420 ff.
2 E

434 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
first to last coincides ! Is there any man who can reconcile
himself to such a gross improbability? Every thing is in
favour of the view, that the narrative now referred to, and
the others which are on the same footing with it, are not only
as regards the form, but also as regards the contents, the work
of the Deuteronomic redactor. While he therewith enriches
the older narrative, he in no ways disowns his prophetical
character. His eye is fixed upon the readers for whom his
work is designed. It is his own personal conviction which
he wishes to imprint upon their hearts : the revelation of
Jahveh to Solomon is the freely chosen drapery of his religious
conception. The modified repetition in the book of Deuteronomy, of
the earlier narratives, speaks no less distinctly ; although the
author of that book can generally do full justice to the differ
ing view which he takes of the men and events by confining
himself to slighter alterations. How little he considers
himself bound by the authority of his predecessors is at once
evident in the first chapter, where he combines in one single
picture the narrative of the appointment of the judges by
Moses, and another account relating to the seventy elders who
receive a portion of the spirit of Jahveh which rests upon
him.1 His reverence for Moses— and not either a more ac
curate account or a better tradition — leads him to represent
the sending of the spies to Canaan, as the result of a request
which the people made to that effect, while, according to the
earlier narrative, it was planned and executed by Moses him
self, and that at the command of Jahveh.2 In like manner
he communicates to us that Jahveh had become angry with
Moses on account of (or because of the guilt of) the Israelites
— a particular which does not appear in the older account.8
But let the reader himself compare the parallel passages.4
He will very soon be convinced that the Deuteronomist not
only recasts in his own mould the narratives of his pre-
1 Deut. i. 9 — 18, compared with Exod. xviii. 13 — 26, and Num. xi. 14 — 17.
Compare Graf, " die gesch. Biicher des A. T.," p. 16.
2 Compare Deut. i. 22 with Num. xiii. 2.
3 Compare Deut. i. 37, 38 ; iii. 23—26 ; iv. 21, with Num. xiii., xiv., also
with Num. xx. 1 — 13, which passage, however, appears to be later.
4 See also the treatise of Dr W. H. Kosters " de historie-beschouwing van
den Deuteronomist " (Leiden, 1868.)

CHARACTER OF THE PROPHETICAL NARRATIVES. 435
decessors, but takes the liberty also of making all those
expansions and modifications, whicli appear to him to be
necessary for the object which he has in view. We do
not mean to impute this to him as a fault : what right have
we to prescribe to him how he is to conceive and execute his
task ? But this much is self-evident : since it is now clear
from the documents themselves, that he did not think himself
bound by tradition, we, on our part, cannot regard the par
ticulars which he presents to us, as an enrichment of our his
torical knowledge. They teach us who the Deuteronomist
was, how he thought, what object he had in view in writing :
the reality they do not reproduce.
But, as I have already said, it is only in exceptional cases
that the mutual comparison of the earlier and later
documents lends us its important services in forming a
judgment of the prophetical narratives. Ought we, however,
on this account, to abstain from forming an opinion ? It
seems to me that analogy gives us light enough. The method
followed by the priestly authors in the books of Chronicles,
and in the Pentateuch, of itself awakens the suspicion that
their prophetical predecessors will have allowed free play to
their subjectivity : why should the latter have imposed on
themselves rigid conditions, while the former plainly appear
to move so freely ? This suspicion now becomes fully con
firmed by the facts which have just been called to recollec
tion. Wherever we can check the prophetical authors, we
see them following a method similar to that which, at a later
period, was applied by the priests and Levites. For the
latter, we feel less sympathy. The motives which governed
them in recasting and expanding the older narratives are
neither so noble nor so purely religious. But this should not
prevent us acknowledging that their manner of treatment
does not differ essentially from that of the prophetical authors.
If the Deuteronomic reconstruction of the earlier narrative was
less thorough-going than, for instance, that of the Chronicle-
writer, the explanation of this circumstance is simply that
the Deuteronomist stood nearer to his predecessors than the
Chronicle-writer to the "former prophets." It is nothing
more than a difference in degree, for which the circumstances
at once account. The priestly and the prophetical historians

436 XII. — ORIGIN OF THE PROPHETICAL NARRATIVES.
agree in this, that history is for them a means, not an end ;
and that thus they have no scruple in allowing their own
convictions and wishes to exercise an influence on their
representation of the past.
Now, if this is clear beyond dispute, as often as an oppor
tunity is afforded us of employing the earlier documents
themselves for the purpose of comparison, surely we must
assume that it will be true in those cases also where we
cannot make use of that expedient. There is nothing what
ever which gives us a right to make a sharp distinction, for
instance, between the Deuteronomic and the Jahvistic
narrator, and to ascribe to the latter another method than
that which was applied by the former. In his case too, and
in the case of the older prophetical historians in general,
there thus existed the same disposition to subordinate facts to
ideas that we have found in their successors. The narratives
are, in the first place, a reflection and striking representation
of the religious belief of their authors, and only in the second
place are they testimonies regarding the historical reality.
This reality is nowhere to be found perfectly pure and unmixed
in these narratives, in so far as they are anything more than
dry chronicles ; it is always, though in a greater or less degree,
coloured by the subjective conviction of the narrator. All
this, as is self-evident, is not only also applicable, but is
especially applicable, to the accounts of the work of the older
prophets, and of Jahveh's revelations to the men of ancient
time. It is precisely in these accounts that the authors must
have expressed their view of the manner in which Jahveh
guided the fortunes of Israel ; nowhere did it find a more
appropriate place than here. But if these things are so, then
also — and this is the result of our whole demonstration —
the representation given of the prophets and prophecy in the
historical narratives of the Old Testament is no testimony
regarding, but is itself one of the fruits of the real Israelitish
prophecy. Before we once more present in combination all that has
already been adduced in favour of this proposition, we may
be permitted to illustrate it by a few examples. It cannot be
our purpose to gain the reader over as if by surprise. He
must know what is involved in the proposition which is

ACCOUNT OF DAVID'S ANOINTING UNHISTORICAL. 437
placed before him. And this is shown much better by a
couple of instances than by a long course of reasoning.
According to a well-known narrative in 1 Samuel, after
Saul had been rejected, David was designated and anointed
by the prophet Samuel to be king of Israel, before he had
had an opportunity to distinguish himself, and while he was
still feeding his father's flocks.1 The religious conviction on
which this account is based might be expressed by us in
these words: it was Jahveh who chose and raised up David to
be the king of Israel. That the prophets thought thus, needs
no proof; that we agree with them, is self-evident. But with
us this conviction would be altogether independent of the
manner in which David was raised to the throne. Even if
he had attracted attention to himself by his heroic deeds, and
had furnished the proof that he was the man to make Israel
great and mighty, even then also we should call him the
prince designated by God, and his appearance a providential
dispensation. But with the Israelitish prophet, the convic
tion regarding the selection of David became, as a matter of
course, transformed into a fact. At one definite moment
David must be pointed out by Jahveh himself in the most
unambiguous manner as the future successor of Saul.
That is the origin of the narrative which we are discussing.
Samuel acts in it as Jahveh's representative, or rather,
Jahveh himself acts, and employs the prophet as his half un
willing instrument. David, the chosen one, is not only the
youngest of the sons of Jesse, but also for the moment still
so insignificant, that his father does not think of sending for
him out of the field until Samuel shows that he wishes it :
so entirely is the choice exclusively the work of Jahveh !
This anointing of David by the prophet cannot be regarded
as an actual occurrence. Along with the appearance at the
court of Saul, which is immediately connected with it,2 it is
distinctly excluded by the narrative of David's combat with
Goliath, from which it is clear that Saul does not know him,
that he himself is in no way conscious of his grand destina
tion, that his brothers — in the midst of whom he is said to
1 1 Sam. xvi. 1 — 13, continuation of 1 Sam. xv., and introduction to
1 Sam. xvi. 14—23.
2 1 Sam. xvi. 14—23.

438 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE PROPHETICAL NARRATIVES.
have been anointed x — know nothing whatever of it.2 This
judgment is confirmed by a number of other proofs.3 We are
glad of that for David's sake : his position at the court of
Saul becomes false and unbearable, if from the very beginning
he had to regard himself as a pretender to the crown. " If
we acknowledge 1 Sam. xvi. as historical, we must assume
that David, while he was an honourable man, and conducted
himself as such, carried about with him the feeling that he
was an intriguer. Let it not be said that David required
only to wait till the will of God should be realised. For is
it not plain that he did not do so 1 But, moreover, how was
it possible that he could do so ? Was it in his power to
know the future, and yet to act as if he did not know it ?
We can really go still further. If David knew his destina
tion, and yet at first refused to become the king's son-in-law,4
his conduct was characterized by feigned humility. If he
knew what issue God had destined, he acted foolishly and
unjustifiably, nay, as a betrayer of his country, when he fled
to Achish, the Philistine king.5 The more clearly we place
before ourselves David's position and state of mind, the more
distinctly evident does it becomes to us that where God thus
interferes in the course of events, be it even by merely raising,
in a mechanical way, the veil which conceals the future, at that
point history ceases ; because human freedom and responsi
bility are then out of the question  " But enough to
make it manifest that the rejection of the account of David's
anointing as an historical fact, which is required by the narra
tives, is, from a psychological point of view, not merely recom
mended, but a matter of absolute necessity. In the narrative
with which we are engaged, we neither can nor may see
anything else than the palpable expression of the prophetical
view of the manner in which Jahveh directs the fortunes of his
people. It is no testimony regarding Samuel the prophet,
but the garb in which a prophetical conviction is arrayed.
The book of Judges furnishes us with a second instance.
1 1 Sam. xvi. 13.
2 See 1 Sam. xvii., especially, w. 26 f., 28 f., 55—58.
3 Compare my article, "David aan het hof van Saul" in "Nieuw en
Oud," Vol. VI. (1864), PP- 55—73. The sentences, quoted above imme
diately afterwards, occur there, p. 72 f.
4 1 Sam. xviii. 18, 23. 6 1 Sam. xxi. 10 ff., xxvii. 1 ff.

STORY OF JEPHTHAH UNHISTORICAL. 439
The reader will remember the account given by the author of
the circumstances which, according to him, preceded the appear
ance of Jephthah.1 Did Jahveh actually reveal himself to
Israel in such a manner as is there told us ? We have, at the
very first, some difficulty in receiving as reality the very anthro
pomorphic representation of Jahveh's character, which the
account gives us. But passing over this : how can such a
conversation as this have taken place ? How shall Jahveh
have spoken to Israel, and Israel to Jahveh ? We are not
at liberty to substitute for Israel their elders or representa
tives, and for Jahveh one of his prophets : if the writer had
meant that, he would have said it, and would necessarily
have described the whole transaction in a different manner.
The conclusion must be : what is here narrated is no historical
fact. Or rather, to express it positively : it is the author
of Judges who is speaking here, and who prefaces the last
part of his book by a new introduction, but — and here is the
only difference between this passage and the general intro
duction, chap. ii. 6 — iii. 6 — clothes it now in the freely chosen
form of a dialogue between Jahveh and Israel. It is thus no
account of a revelation made by Jahveh to his people at that
specific conjuncture, but the expression, in a striking form, of
the conviction entertained by the prophetical writer regarding
the divine direction of Israel's fortunes.
In these two instances there remains absolutely no historical
fact, after we have separated the prophetical ideas. This is
also the case elsewhere, or at least the residuum of fact is very
small. The rule, however, is, that the events themselves must
— or at least can readily — be accepted as reality, and that
they have merely been placed by the prophetical author in a
specific light, brought into a providential connection, con
ceived and represented in a religious aspect. We have, for
example, absolutely no right to deny that David caused Israel
to be numbered, and that a pestilence broke out while the
census was in progress f that a famine of three years' dura
tion prevailed in the reign of Ahab ; 3 that Ahijah, Jehu ben
1 Judges x. 6 — 16 ; above p. 382, f.
2 2 Sam. xxiv. ; 1 Chron. xxi. ; compare " Nieuw en Oud," 1870, pp. 505
—525. 3 1 Kings xvii. 1 ; xviii. 1.

440 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE PROPHETICAL NARRATIVES.
Hanani, Elijah, and Elisha laboured in the kingdom of the
ten tribes, and that they wrought in the direction which
characterises them also in the narratives in which they appear
as actors. It is impossible to give general rules for the
separation of historical, less historical, and altogether unhis
torical elements ; but in many particular cases, criticism will
attempt this division with a favourable result — if it only
chooses the point of view which is indicated to it by our
preceding investigation.
Some instances may here also supply the necessary illus
tration. There can be no doubt that Josiah sent messengers
to consult the prophetess Huldah, after Hilkiah had found
the book of the law in the temple.1 The manner in which
she is indicated by the narrator shows that he was well
informed.2 We thus also willingly believe that Huldah, by
her answer, confirmed the contents of the book of the law,
and strengthened Josiah in his design of carrying it into
effect. But it is very improbable that she expressed herself
according to the tenor of the answer which we now have.
She represents the destruction of the kingdom of Judah as
inevitable, and expects no other result from the penitence of
Josiah than the postponement of the catastrophe till after his
death. Truly a sad encouragement to the king in the difficult
task which he was about to undertake ! On this occasion, at
least — so we should be inclined to judge — the veil which
hides the future had no need to be lifted up. But Huldah
did not speak in this way — at any rate if her advice
was followed by Josiah. He puts his hands manfully
to the work, and with untiring exertion brings it to a close.
His enterprise against Necho bears witness to the greatness of
his excitement.8 He expected, without doubt, to preserve his
people also by executing the commands of Jahveh. It be
came evident only afterwards that he could not have averted
the mischief. The redactor of the books of Kings expresses
that by anticipation, in the answer of Huldah, in whose address
distinct traces of his peculiar modes of expression occur.
1 2 Kings xxii. 12—20 ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 20—28.
2 2 Kings, verse 14 ; 2 Chron., verse 22.
3 2 Kings xxiii. 29 ; 2 Chron. xxxv. 20 ; compare my " Godsdienst van
Israel," I. 451-^53 (41—43, Vol. ii., English Translation).

CRITICISM OF SOME PROPHETICAL NARRATIVES. 441
Nearly the same remarks apply to the well-known predic
tions of Isaiah regarding the recovery of Hezekiah, and the
deportation of his posterity to Babylon.1 It is very probable
that the prophet encouraged the sick king, gave him hopes of
recovery, and indicated the proper remedies to be applied.
But as to the lengthening of his life by fifteen years precisely,
not less and also not more — can it be thought likely that
Isaiah knew that such should be the case, and comforted
Hezekiah with that prospect? May such an — unreasonable
and unnecessary — deviation from the common course of things
be acknowledged by us as a fact, on the authority of a writer
who lived more than a century after Hezekiah's death ? 2
Nothing seems plainer than that the author of the books of
Kings, who makes no distinction between the prophet and
his sender, has worked up the tradition concerning the cure
of Hezekiah into a picture in which Jahveh himself appears
acting as Lord of life and death — just as in the narrative
immediately following, he makes himself known as the omnis
cient One, before whom the distant future lies disclosed. There
is no real connection between the reception of the — positively
historical — embassy of Merodach-Baladan by Hezekiah, and
the captivity of his descendants in Babylon ; but nothing is
more natural than that at a later period, post factum, the
early contact of Judah and Babylon was found to be remark
able, and that the prediction of the final issue was associated
with it. Isaiah himself, as clearly appeared to us formerly,
cherished expectations altogether different.
Will not also the beautiful narrative about David's dealings
with Nathan concerning the building of the temple 8 be first
perfectly explained, when we can regard it as a free manipula
tion, in a prophetical spirit, of an old tradition ? Attention
has been directed elsewhere to the contradiction between the
beginning and the sequel of the narrative : the building of
the temple, which at first was condemned as being opposed
to the wish of Jahveh, is afterwards regarded as an honour
able task, and as a privilege for the descendant of David who
1 2 Kings xx. 1 — 11, 12 — 19 ; Is. xxxviii. ; xxxix.
2 In Hezekiah's song of thanksgiving, Is. xxxviii. 9 — 20, no allusion is to
be found to the extraordinary promise, which, according to the narrative,
he had received.
3 2 Sam. vii.; 1 Chron. xvii.

442 XII. — ORIGIN OF THE PROPHETICAL NARRATIVES.
shall perform it.1 From that fact it follows at once, that we
have here no account from the first hand before us ; but for
the same reason it follows also that the address of Nathan can
be no more literally authentic than the prayer of David. The
opposite view would imply, in truth, that they themselves
had provided for the recording of their words in writing —
which certainly may be said to be in the highest degree im
probable. It is therefore a later writer, who places himself
upon the stand-point first of the prophet, and afterwards of the
king, but who, as was to be expected, in doing so loses sight
neither of the experience which he had derived from the past,
nor of the anticipations which were thereby opened up. Indeed,
it is not difficult to recognise here the hand of such a writer.
It is seen at the very first in the promise which Nathan
delivers to David.2 The temple is mentioned there only in
passing.3 The chief matter is the contrast between the period
of the judges, which was full of vicissitudes and often disas
trous, and the steadfastness of the Davidic dynasty, which
course was also a blessing for the people. . The prophetical
author is already acquainted with several Davidic kings,
among them some also who had forsaken Jahveh,4 but, at the
same time, he has learned from experience, that Jahveh does
not altogether withdraw his favour from them, and that he
punishes with gentleness the family which he had chosen.
So also the David who, in the second part of the narrative,
pours out his heart before Jahveh,5 is not the real, but the
ideal David, as he lived in the mind of the prophets of the
eighth century. The historical David could not have pos
sessed such an absolute certainty regarding the future of his
1 Compare my " Godsdienst van Israel," i. 327, f. (vol. i. p. 329, f. En
glish Translation.)
2 2 Sam. vii. 8—16 ; 1 Chron. xvii. 7—14.
3 2 Sam. verse 13 ; 1 Chron. verse 12. In the latter book it is mentioned
also in verse 14, but in the purer text of 2 Sam., verse 16, it is not Jahveh's
but David's house which is spoken of.
4 2 Sam., verse 14 (omitted in 1 Chron., verse 13). It will be remarked
that I understand "thy seed" in verse 12, ff. as a collective, in spite of verse
13, which seems to refer to Solomon alone. Indeed this verse is a paren
thesis which could very well be dispensed with, and which perhaps was
inserted when the promise concerning the Davidic dynasty was brought
into connection with the design of David to build a temple. All the rest
not only can, but must be applied to the whole lineage of David. See also
verse 18, ff.
B 2 Sam. vv. 18—29 ; 1 Chron. vv. 16—27.

RESULTS OF THE PRECEDING DEMONSTRATION. 443
house as lies at the foundation of this prayer.1 The ideas
which are here uttered regarding the election and privileges
of Israel, and about the unity of Jahveh, are those of the
prophets just mentioned. The supposition that one of them
introduces David as speaking, and indicates to the Israelites
the point of view from which they must regard both their
relation to Jahveh and the rule of David's descendants — that
supposition accounts for every particular, and is not burdened
with a single essential difficulty.
I think I may trust that my opinion has now been suffi
ciently illustrated. But — is it also proved ? According to
my view, the proposition which was expressed above (p. 436.)
contains nothing more than what flows directly from the facts
previously stated. We have only to recall them to remem
brance, and to bring them into connection with each other,
in order to see at once that they issue in that conclusion.
In this and the preceding chapter it is proved : —
That the prophetical narratives form a portion of writings,
the authors of which stood at a distance from the facts which
they communicate to us ; —
That they are frequently at variance with each other, and
thus, at the utmost, can be regarded as historical only in
part ; —
That many of these narratives, including the words of the
prophets incorporated in them, are not only the work of the
later prophetical authors as regards the form, but fully agree
with the mode of thinking of these authors, as regards the
contents. It was evident to us, further, from the documents them
selves, that while the prophetical historians sketched the past
of Israel, they not only felt themselves compelled to labour
for the religious education of Israel — a thing which results at
once from their stand-point — but they thought themselves
also justified in making their description of Israel's fortunes
subordinate and subservient to that object. The considera
tions which would restrain us from treating history in such
a manner, or would impede us in doing so, had for them no
existence. We were convinced, finally, that the materials which were
1 Compare 2 Sam. xv., ff. and xx.

444 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE PROPHETICAL NARRATIVES.
available to them — those especially which the earlier pro
phetical authors could use — must have allured them, as it
were, to embody in their narratives their own religious views.
The tradition of the schools of the prophets had preceded
them in embellishing and elaborating more than one feature
in the life of the prophets. In the same schools the popular
tradition was treated poetically and religiously. Moreover,
that popular tradition itself — at least if it followed in Israel
the laws which governed its development elsewhere — would
not even at first be a mere expression of the reality, but would
magnify and modify it, and give it a supernatural colouring. The
prophets therefore trod a beaten path, when they gave free reins
to their belief, and used history as a vehicle for their own ideas.
Whoever seriously considers all this, cannot, in my opinion,
entertain any doubt. Our inquiry was directed to the origi/n
of the representation of the prophets and prophecy which lies
before us in the historical narratives of the Old Testament.
We admitted that the validity of our objections against that
representation should not be acknowledged until we had
succeeded in showing, in a satisfactory manner, how it arose.1
That requirement has now been satisfied. Israehtish pro
phecy itself, especially the labour which it bestows on the
history of Israel, fully explains the descriptions which we
could not allow to be regarded as reality.
If any one still doubts, let him take an instance anywhere,
and test our result by bringing it into connection with the
narratives for which it has to account. As often as we have
expressly discussed one of these narratives, in the course of
our investigation, the result has been satisfactory. A com
plete examination of all is not to be thought of ; 2 but it
would only tend to corroborate what is already established.
Even the most enigmatical accounts receive the necessary light
when they are viewed from the stand-point which we have
adopted. The predictions of Balaam, for instance, conceived
of as products of the Mosaic time, are not only opposed to
analogy, but are also partly unintelligible and purposeless.3
1 Above, p. 405, f . 2 Compare above, p. 387.
3 The predictions of Balaam concerning Israel's future are uttered in the
hearing of — Balak and the Moabite elders. But many of these prophecies
(e.g. Num. xxiv. 17 — 19 ; 20 — 24) would have been altogether unintelligible
even to the Israelites themselves.

ESTIMATION OF THE RESULT OBTAINED. 445
The narrative, of which they constitute the main substance,
gives rise to objections which, on the supposition that it con
tains pure history, can in no way be removed.1 But place the
narrative and also the predictions in the eighth century before
our era, and both are completely elucidated, and furnish invalu
able contributions to our knowledge of the ideas which were
then current in Israel.2 So is it also with the book of Jonah :
when, in accordance with the indications which the book
itself gives us, we assign it to a post-exilic author, a contem
porary of Ezra and Nehemiah, and see in him not a writer of
history, but a teacher of his people, for whom Jonah ben
Amittai is nothing more than a means ; one who — to express
it in one word — presents to us, not an account of anything
that actually happened, but a parable in the form of an his
torical narrative, — when we do this, the book from beginning
to end is explained. The historical interpretation on the
contrary — but surely it is unnecessary to examine it once
more ! It is now a long time since it has become hard for
its defenders to kick against the pricks.3
A further item might yet be added to our demonstration.
The proof can be furnished that the freedom which we ascribe
to the prophetical historian is supported by analogy in a still
larger measure than has now been made clear to us. But
enough has been said for our purpose. We have already
seen that the recognition of an essential difference between
the prophets and the prophecies of the historical books on the
one hand, and the canonical prophetical literature on the
other, is beset with insuperable objections, and in connection
with that, we pointed out that such a difference is really
accepted by none.4 The reader now knows, how it is removed
by us. Before the canonical prophets, those of the historical
books must give way. The narratives regarding the latter
retain their value, but not as documents of pure history.
For us their character is altered. They take their legitimate
place in the history of prophecy, as an expression of the
i Compare H. Oort, " Disp. de pericope Num. xxii. 2 — xxiv. Hist. Bileami
continente," p. 51 — 81.
* See Ibid., p. 88, ff., 110, ff.
3 Compare my "Hist. Krit. Onderzoek,'' &c, vol. ii., 405 — 415, and
" Godsdienst van Israel," ii., 149, f. (vol. ii., 243, f. English Translation).
4 Above, pp. 400—404.

446 XII.  ORIGIN OF THE PROPHETICAL NARRATIVES.
spirit of their authors. They teach us much less concerning
the past than we at first supposed. But we readily ac
quiesce in this disappointment of our expectations. Be
cause what we now deduce from them is indeed reality ;
what they formerly seemed to offer us had no claim to that
appellation. In the fancied knowledge of history we have
become poorer ; with the facts we are better acquainted.

CHAPTEB XIII.
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY.
A. — The Unhistorical Explanation.
We have again reached a resting-point. Starting from an
express examination of the fulfilled and unfulfilled prophecies
(chapters v. — viii.), we came, at least provisionally, to a
definite result with regard to the prophets themselves and
their work (chapter ix.). It subsequently became evident to
us that the prophets and prophecy are indeed differently
represented in the historical narratives of the Old Testament ;
but at the same time that this representation, far indeed
from necessitating a modification of our conception, must
give way to the view which we adopted, and, when histori
cally explained, serves to recommend it (chapters x. — xii.).
But now that we have advanced so far, an objection is
alleged against us, weighty' enough, as is asserted, to lead to
the rejection of the result which we have obtained. The
enti/re New Testament is held up before us, and it is thought
that our conclusions are at once overthrown, as by one blow.
At the beginning of our investigation, we, without any
hesitation, rejected the demand to take the New Testament
for our point of departure in the study of the prophecies.
But that does not prevent us from taking cognizance of it
now. It is even a necessity for us to place in the clearest
light the relation which our view of Israelitish prophecy has
to that of Jesus and the apostles. And though this were
not the case, yet from the moment that an attempt is made
to refute us by an appeal to their authority, we are bound to
listen, and either to defend ourselves or to yield. This latter
alternative, however, is to be adopted only when the former
is clearly seen to be an impossibility. For we are now no
1 Above pp. 22—25.

448 XIII. -r— NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD.— I.
longer free. We have, proceeding by the legitimate way,
obtained definite results, and we cannot surrender them until
it is distinctly shown that they are untenable. It is not we
who have arbitrarily formed a certain conception, which we,
as arbitrarily, could exchange for a different one. No ! we
keep our position, like a soldier at his post, by the facts
which we have seen and felt, until we are convinced that we
are in the wrong. In those who attempt to drive us from
it we see our opponents, unless they should succeed in show
ing us that we had allowed ourselves to be deceived by
appearances. But let us hear what those opponents allege against us.
There are two facts especially to which they direct our atten
tion. They are closely connected with each other, but yet
admit of being separated.
It is, im, the first place, the common conviction of all the
writers of the New Testament, that the Old Testament is in
spired by God, and is thus invested with divine authority.
The remark made, as it were in passing, in a passage of the
fourth Gospel, that " the scripture cannot be broken,"1 is as
sented to by all the writers without distinction. In accord
ance with this they ascribe divine foreknowledge to the
Israelitish prophets. And far indeed from limiting this fore
knowledge to generalities, and thus depriving it of all its im
portance, they refer us repeatedly to the agreement between
specific prophetical utterances, and single historical facts, and
have no hesitation in declaring their conviction, both that
the prophet spoke of these specific facts, and that they,
under God's direction, occurred "in order that the word
of the prophet might be fulfilled." It is unnecessary to
support these statements by quoting passages : such passages
are, as every one knows, very numerous, and they will come,
as a matter of course, under our view in the sequel of our
investigation. Here then is, at the very beginning, a first objection which
the New Testament places in our way. Its judgment con
cerning the origin and nature of the prophetical expectations,
and concerning their relation to the historical reality, may be
regarded as diametrically opposed to ours.
1 John x. 35.

OBJECTIONS DRAWN FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT. 449
But supposing it to be granted that this contradiction
could be weakened, or its importance removed, then the ob
jection would still remain, in the second place, that the actual
fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecy lies before us in the
New Testament. In a former chapter, we examined the ful
filled predictions, and were then of opinion that the great
majority of them could be explained on psychological grounds.
But can a similar attempt be made, with any hope of success,
with regard to the prophetical expectations which have been
realised in the person, the work, and the fortunes of Jesus ?
Does not the entire New Dispensation form, as it were, the-
divine seal attesting the anticipations of the prophets, as
regards the future of Israel and of all mankind ? Critical
objections are of no avail here. Although the prophecies
were denied to be the works of those men whose names they
bear, or were assigned to a much later period than that in
which the historical narrative places them, yet chronologically
they precede the establishment of Christianity and the birth
of Jesus. But if that be the case, is not the cause thereby
decided in their favour ? Is not their supernatural origin
then proved by the facts themselves ? r
The two objections are, as it will be noticed, not of the
same character ; the first is more of a dogmatic, the second
of an historical nature ; the latter is thus also quite inde
pendent of the stand-point which is taken, and must be con
sidered by all without distinction — which cannot be said of
the former. But, on the other hand, the two objections are
indissolubly connected. The Old Testament prophecies can be
regarded as being fulfilled by and in the New Testament, only
when the New Testament view and interpretation of prophecy
is regarded as correct. If, on the contrary, our rejection of
the New Testament method of interpretation is necessary, and
1 See this idea more fully developed and employed to maintain super
naturalism by Prof. Stanley Leathes, both in " The witness of the Old
Testament to Christ " (the Boyle Lectures for 1868) and in " The religion of
the Christ, its history and literary development considered as an evidence of
its origin " (The Bampton Lectures for 1874). Those who know the real
state of the question do not need to be informed expressly that the
Lecturer, while declaring that he leaves undetermined the traditional
ideas about the age and meaning of the documents, yet takes these for
granted throughout, so that no single adherent of the historico-critical
interpretation can assent to his argument. Compare " Theol. Tijdschrift "
for 1869, pp. 445—451.
2 F

450 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD. — I.
rightful, the complaint that the New Testament is not taken
into account in our enquiry into the realization of prophecy,
falls to the ground. Everything, therefore, depends upon
the estimation which is formed of ihe manner in which the
writers of the New Testament have viewed and understood ihe
prophecies. If we succeed in forming a well-founded judg
ment on this point, we shall know also what weight ought to
be assigned to the objections just mentioned.
The study of the exegesis of the New Testament authors
is important also from another point of view. It does not
stand alone. It has had great influence on that current con
ception of the prophecies of which we reminded the reader at
the very beginning of our investigation.1 Our final decision
with regard to that conception, which has not yet been
arrived at, will be determined, not indeed altogether, but still
in some measure, ¦ by our relation to the New Testament.
We have thus an additional reason for defining that relation
with the utmost possible accuracy.
It thus becomes evident at the outset, that we as little
think of slighting the objections derived from the New Testa
ment, as we are inclined to yield to them without further
discussion. On the present occasion also, we wish to deliber
ate calmly, to look at the facts one by one, and to come to a
decision without undue haste. Our opponents indeed will not be
satisfied with this deliberate mode of procedure. If we listen
to them, the question which is here presented is exceedingly
simple and capable of an immediate decision. Everything
depends on our making a choice. We must either abandon
our own view of the work of the Israelitish prophets, or, if
we are unable to take that step, we must deny all value to
the twofold testimony of the New Testament, even to the life
and the word of Jesus. There is no third course.
Against such absolutism we cannot earnestly enough pro
test. It has indeed an air of determination and decision :
accept or reject ! no half measures, no tergiversation ! But in
truth such a demand is, in this as in other cases, a sign of super
ficiality and narrowness of view. Those who make it, simply
neglect all sorts of distinctions, which are of much import
ance with a view to the final decision. It cannot be thought
1 Above, pp. 1 — 4.

OUR DUTY IN REFERENCE TO THE OBJECTIONS. 451
an unprofitable task briefly to justify this opinion. If I
should succeed in doing so, the reader will be the more inclined
to give attention to the subsequent investigation.
Let him therefore, first of all, place once more before
his mind what is required of us, when we are called upon
to abandon the view of the work of the Israelitish prophets
which was formerly expounded. Is it in our power to
make this surrender ? Was not that conception founded
upon the facts themselves, which do not admit of being
reasoned away ? There is, moreover, no proportion between
the demand made upon us and the argument to which our
opponents appeal. The great majority of the prophecies,
which have clearly appeared to us to be contradicted by the
issue, deal with matters altogether outside of the New Testa
ment, and are not even incidentally touched upon in it. And
yet shall we be obliged, without having heard one single
objection, to sacrifice our interpretation of these prophecies
and our judgment about the relation in which they stand to
the reality ? The demand is in fact absurd. If the New
Testament compels us to retrace our steps, its authority can
in no case reach farther than the — comparatively few — pro
phecies to which it extends ; the predictions, concerning which
it says nothing whatever, remain altogether unaffected by it,
along with all the consequences which flow from them.
We ask, in the second place, if it deserves approval that in
the treatment of this question the New Testament is regarded
as one indivisible whole ? Are the different writers perfectly
alike as regards their appeal to the prophecies and their
judgment as to the realization of them ? It is of course pos
sible that they are so, but it has not as yet been proved.
Nay, it appears even that our opponents themselves are not
fully convinced of that unanimity. They at least take the
liberty of passing over some particular interpretations of pro
phetical utterances, which the Evangelist Matthew and the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews propose to us, and of
omitting them in their own conception of the process of the
revelation of the future by the prophets. This is reasonable
only when it is permitted to regard such interpretations as
the individual opinions of the authors in question. If, on
the contrary, the whole New Testament forms one single

452 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD.— I.
authority, such distinctions admit of no justification what
ever. There is, finally, still a third point to which we must
attend. I have already adverted, in the early part of
this work, to the difference between the .interpretation and
the application, between the exposition properly so called
and the homiletic employment of the passages of the
Old Testament.1 That difference is universally acknow
ledged, so that we may count upon the assent of all
when we wish to see it taken into consideration in our
present inquiry also. This, too, is beyond contradiction that
fixed rules must be followed, that no caprice can be allowed,
in deciding about what the New Testament writer intended
with his quotation. But is this universally acknowledged
rule always followed in practice ? Are the grounds on
which the one citation is regarded as an authentic inter
pretation, the other as a homiletic application of the passage
ofthe Old Testament, always objective in their character?
We may be allowed to doubt of this. In two successive
chapters of the Gospel according to Matthew, a passage from
Isaiah2 and another from Hosea3 are quoted, the former pre
ceded by the formula : " Now all this was done, that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet,
saying ; "4 the latter by the words : " that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying."5 No
thing is therefore more manifest than that the Evangelist puts
the two prophecies on the same footing, and brings them in
the very same manner into connection with the person and
the fortunes of Jesus. Nevertheless, the Messianic interpre-
. tation- of Isaiah's prophecy is, on the authority of the New
Testament, maintained as the only true one, while scarcely
anybody thinks of viewing the passage of Hosea also, as a
prediction regarding the child Jesus. Is this consistent, on
the stand-point on which our opponents place themselves?
Have they not, by such a procedure, forfeited their right to
demand submission to the New Testament ?
There is still something else to be added, of which, how
ever, the real significance and force cannot be recognised till
1 Above, p. 23, f. 2 Is. vii. 14 ; Matt. i. 23.
3 Hos. xi. 1 ; Matt. ii. 15. i Matt. i. 22. '•> Matt. ii. 15.

ARE NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS AUTHORITIES IN EXEGESIS? 453
afterwards ; it can at present be merely indicated. Our
opponents acknowledge, by word and deed, that the writers
of the New Testament have frequently no intention what
ever of explaining the prophetical utterances which they
quote. But at the same time, they maintain that these
writers generally give us the authentic interpretation of the
passage of the Old Testament. For that very reason they
demand that our conception should give way to theirs, that
the view which they entertain should be substituted for that
which we have arrived at. In one word ; the New Testa
ment has, for them, authority in the domain of exegesis.
Does this, however, result from the nature of the case ? Is
that the ground on which the writers of the New Testa
ment are at home ? They are popular teachers, founders or
preachers of a new religion. Does this imply that in the
domain of scientific research — for to that the exposition of
the Old Testament belongs — they proclaim infallible truth ?
Or do we not rather confuse things dissimilar in their nature,
when we assign to them the function of deciding upon gram
matical and historical questions? It is sufficient for me at
present to have put these questions. What the answer must
be, will become evident to us afterwards.
It is now time to begin the inquiry itself. The New
Testament has been placed before us, and we have been
asked, on account of it, to reconsider the results which we
had gained. It has already become evident to us that our
relation to that demand is determined by the judgment which
has to be passed upon the exegesis of the New Testament
writers. We proceed, therefore, to test that exegesis, and to
do so first of all by viewing it in the light of the scientific
method. Are the quotations drawn from the Old Testament
by the writers of the New, of such a nature that we can ac
knowledge them as an exegetical authority ? The answer,
for which I shall immediately adduce the proofs, is, as decided
as it can be — certainly not. These citations do not satisfy
the requirements of the grammatical and historical interpreta
tion. If we are in earnest in the maintenance of these re
quirements, it is impossible for us to assign any authority to
the New Testament authors in this domain. Because : —
1st, they generally use not the original text, but a trans-

454 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD. — I.
lation which often reproduces the original either imperfectly,
or entirely misrepresents it ;
2d, they often quote so freely that the results which they
deduce from the text of the Old Testament can have no claim
to universal assent ;
3d, they interpret, not unfrequ entry, according to the sound,
without troubling themselves about the connection of the
ideas, or the stand-point of the original writer ; in one word,
unhistorically. I now proceed to establish these three propositions by the
needful examples. I say, by examples, because I do not
at all intend to treat the subject exhaustively ; such a course
is by no means required for the object which we now have in
view : one single sufficient instance would in itself be fatal
to the opinion of those who oppose us with the New Testa
ment ; much more then the numerous passages which we
shall go through. I select these examples from the whole of
the New Testament : the difference between the New Testa
ment authors, which has just been noticed, does not require
to be taken into consideration here; we shall afterwards recur
to that point in so far as is necessary. There is still some
thing further which we must defer to a later stage. It is
not our business at present to form, a just estimate of the use
made of the Old Testament in the writings, of the New.
Can that use afford ground for modifying or rejecting the
results previously obtained ? Can the writers of the New
Testament make a claim to exegetical authority ? These are
the questions to which we confine ourselves in the first in
stance, and to which we seek an unambiguous answer. For
that reason also, the matters on which the answer depends
have been formulated as sharply as possible in my
three propositions. I would rather be chargeable with
the appearance of undue severity towards the writers of the
New Testament, than by placing their exegesis at once in the
proper light, contribute to occasion a misunderstanding with
regard to its scientific value. Before its actual importance can
be pointed out, its imagined authority must be overthrown.
1. The text of the Old Testament is, as a rule, quoted in
the New Testament according to the Greek translation,
commonly called the Septuagint. This fact no longer re-

NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS GENERALLY QUOTE SEPTUAGINT. 455
quires any proof. Any one may convince himself of it, for
instance, by a glance at Mr Turpie's tables in his work " The
Old Testament in the New." 1 There exists then with re
gard to this point also no difference of opinion worth mention
ing. A German scholar, who has subjected the whole of the
citations in the epistles of Paul to a very exact examina
tion, comes to the conclusion that an unacquaintance with the
Septuagint is shown in only two of the eighty-four, while of
the remaining eighty-two there are only twelve which vary
essentially from the said translation.2 Another, whose book
is itself a continuous proof that he would gladly give a
different testimony — begins by acknowledging " that the Old
Testament citations are for the most part either borrowed
word for word from the Septuagint, or at least agree with
that translation. The passages which are evidently taken
directly from the Hebrew text form a minority which is hardly
worth noticing (sind in einer fast verschwindenden Mino-
ritat)." 3
If, now, the Greek translation was an accurate reproduction
of the original, or if, where it varies, it followed a better text
than that which has been preserved to us in the manuscripts
and editions, this use of it would be nothing surprising, or
would even testify to the accuracy of the New Testament
writers. But the contrary is true. In the two hundred and
seventy-five passages of the New Testament which contain
citations from the Old Testament, of course only a compara
tively small portion of the Old Testament occurs. Yet we
notice in them more than one divergence of the Septuagint
from the original, which either is of very doubtful value or
merits distinct disapproval, whether it be that the translator
had an incorrect text before him, or that he did not under
stand his original, and therefore gave a wrong rendering of it.
To the first category belong, for example, Heb. xii. 6 and
Matt. xv. 9 (Mark vii. 7). The first passage runs thus :
"for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth
every son whom he receiveth ; " the original is : " for whom
1 Williams and Norgate, 1868.
2 De V. T. locis a Paulo apostolo allegalis scripsit Ae. F. Kautzsch (Lips.
1869). See Ibid., p. 109, f.
3 E. Bohl, Forschunqen nach einer Volksbibel zur Zeit Jesu (Wien, 1873),
p. 1.

456 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD. — I.
Jahveh loveth he chasteneth, even as a father the son in whom
he delighteth." x The Greek translator read the same con
sonants as now, but with different vowels (ceeb ibstead of
ceao). Was this also a more correct reading ? Probably
not : the comparison of Jahveh to a father is not only attrac
tive, and beautiful, but is also required or presupposed by the
subsequent words "the son in whom he delighteth." ' Isaiah had
said of his contemporaries : "and their fear toward me (Jahveh)
is a precept of men which they have been taught."2 The Greek
translator read the word signifying is, by the change of a single
letter, as vanity, and then rendered the passage somewhat more
freely : " but in vain do they worship me, teaching men's com
mandments and doctrines." The forced combination of the
words proves of itself that he was mistaken — although the
thought wliich he makes the prophet utter is in no way at vari
ance with his manner of thinking. The evangelists Matthew
and Mark follow his translation, with this slight alteration at
the close : " teaching doctrines which are commandments of
men." The examples to which I now proceed to direct attention
are of more importance.
In the beginning of his proof of the exalted nature of the
Son of God, the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews quotes
the words : " and let all the angels of God bow down
before him," or " worship him." 3 It has been thought that
these words are found in Ps. xcvii. 7,4 of which the Greek
translation runs : " bow down before him (worship him), all
his angels." But if the author had had these words before
his eyes, he certainly would not have used the conjunction and,
which does not fit into the connection of his discourse, and is
therefore without doubt borrowed from the text which he
followed. His citation is taken literally from the Greek ver
sion of Deut. xxxii. 43, that is, from an addition therein'
made to the Hebrew text of " the song of Moses," the spuri-
ousness of which is, according to the vast majority of critics,
quite certain.
The promise to Abraham : " with thee (making use of thy
name) shall all the peoples of the earth bless themselves " (or
1 Pro. iii. 12. 2 Is. xxix. 13.
3 Heb. i. 6. 4 So e.g., Mr Turpie, I.e. p. 159. '

GREEK TRANSLATION OF AMOS IX. 11. 457
each other)1 is understood differently by the Greek translator,
who renders it thus : " in thee shall all the peoples of the
earth be blessed." The Apostle Paul adopted this interpreta
tion from him,2 and thus naturalised it in the Christian
world. The poet who composed Psalm xl. wrote, according to the
Hebrew text : " In sacrifice and meat-offering thou (Jahveh)
hast no pleasure ; ears hast thou bored for me " (verse 7,
6, Auth. Ver.), meaning thereby that God had bestowed upon
him organs to understand and receive his will. It is not
improbable that the Greek translator understood the true
meaning, and gave a correct rendering, of this verse. But in
that case the text of his version has been corrupted by one
of the earliest transcribers, for in all manuscripts it now runs :
" offerings and gifts thou hast not desired, but a body hast
thou prepared me." 3 In the Epistle to the Hebrews the
same reading is followed,4 and is presupposed in the explana
tion which the writer appends to his quotation.5
One instance more, and we may regard this point as
settled. Every reader of the Bible must be struck with the
great difference between an utterance of Amos, at the end of
his prophetical book, and the citation of the passage
in; the speech which, according to the Acts of the
Apostles, was spoken by James at the synod at Jerusalem.*
The cause of the variation has already been shown : 7 the
Greek translator, from whom the quotation in the Acts is
borrowed, has, by supplying the wrong vowels, read one
word Edom as adam (man), and consequently rendered " the
residue of men," instead of the " residue of Edom ; " he has
further read a letter incorrectly in the Hebrew verb which
signifies " to inherit," so that he thought he recognised in it
the verb meaning "to seek." This double mistake readily
1 Gen. xii. 3, compare xviii. 18. See the explanation of these passages
above, pp. 378—380.
2 Gal. iii. 8.
3 The text now runs : . . . . ovx -ndeK^o-as, o-S>pa d£ Karnprlaa pot. But
¦/jOeMja-as aupa may very well be an error in writing for -i)8e\ri<ras Onla
(writing the c twice, and changing ti into p).
4 Heb. x. 5—7.
6 See verse 10 : "By which will we are sanctified by the offering of the
body of Jesus Christ once (i.e., once for all)."
6 Amos ix. 11, 12 ; Acts xv. 16, 17. 7 Above, p. 243.

458 XIII. — NEW TESTAMENT AND PROEHECIES IN THE OLD. — I.
explains the whole difference. Its importance is at once
apparent to every one who reads the discourse of James as a
whole ; for he wishes to show that the prophets had already
announced what had now actually taken place : God has
looked upon the heathen, and chosen from among them a
people for Himself.1 According to the Greek version, Amos
does really reveal the prospect of such a future ; but the
original cannot be understood in this sense. It speaks
merely of the restoration of the Davidic dynasty, and of the
extension of its rule over the surrounding peoples, first of all
over Edom, and then over the nations over which the name
of Jahveh — as that of their conqueror — is proclaimed. All
attempts to explain away this difference must, from their
very nature, prove a failure. The opinion that the
Septuagint may have reproduced a purer text than the
Massoretic is not worthy of a serious refutation.2
2d, The citations from the Old Testament are only in rare
cases literally exact. They almost always vary less or more
from the Greek version, which evidently was present to the
mind of the New Testament writer, without thereby always
coming nearer to the Hebrew text. It would be absurd to
complain of this freedom in quoting. The authors of the
New Testament were under no obligation to reproduce
verbally what they read in the Old Testament, if they only
expressed the same thoughts which were there presented.
We can the less think of blaming them for the deviations
which they allowed themselves to make, when we consider
that, if not always, yet certainly on many occasions, they
quoted from, memory. We have our Bible beside us ; we
} Acts xv. 14 15, compare verse 19.
At the close of this paragraph, I may be allowed to quote the words of
a witness who is above suspicion — Prof. Dr J. H. Kurtz. He proposes the
question, if the Greek translator has correctly reproduced Ps. xlv. 7 (6
Auth. Ver.), and thereon observes : " It is true that the writer of the
epistle to the Hebrews has quoted and made use of the passage according to
the rendering which he had before him in the Septuagint. But still this
does not prove the indubitable correctness of that rendering. For the New
Testament authors in general, and the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews in
particular, take their Old Testament proof passages and confirmatory citations
always from the Septuagint, even ivhen, as beyond all dispute is frequently the
case, the passage in question is an inaccurate and erroneous translation, and
make corrections only where such a false rendering would establish some
thing wrong also for the objects which they contemplate." (Zur Theol. der
Psalmen (Dorpat, 1865), p. 53 n.)

INACCURATE CITATIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 459
have only to take it up. In their days it was otherwise. It
is, to say the least, doubtful, whether they all, without
exception, possessed a complete copy of the Holy Scriptures.
The comparing of the original with the translation, which we
make without the least trouble, was certainly for the most of
them exceedingly difficult, if not impracticable.
It is not, therefore, to those numerous divergences, which
have little or no effect upon the meaning of the citation, that
1 wish to direct attention. But along with these, others of
a less innocent nature occur. The alterations introduced,
designedly or undesignedly, by the New Testament writers
are often very essential. They affect the thought of the Old
Testament author, substitute something else in its stead, give
it a specific direction, or limit it in such a way that it is
made to apply to one single object. It was with regard to
such modifications that I thought myself justified in asserting
that they cannot but exert an influence on the judgment
formed regarding the inferences which are deduced from the
citation. For him who adheres strictly to the original, these
inferences have no force as proofs.
Examples may be borrowed from the most of the books of
the New Testament. Not to fatigue the reader needlessly, I
shall confine myself to some instances from the Pauline
Epistles, which I shall illustrate so far as is necessary ; the
rest, which I leave the reader himself to investigate more
minutely, I shall refer to in a foot-note.
"He who trusteth shall not flee away." These words of
Isaiah,1 rendered in the Septuagint, "he who trusteth shall
not be ashamed," we find quoted twice by Paul,2 and once
again in the first epistle of Peter ; 3 but on each occasion
with a small, but very significant, addition, " he who trusteth
in Him shall not be ashamed." The passage is found in this
form in many manuscripts of the Septuagint also, on which
account some are of opinion that the Greek translator him
self added the words " in Him ; " 4 but it is a much more pro
bable supposition that they have found their way into these
manuscripts from the New Testament. Be this as it may,
the words " in Him " make it possible to understand the
1 Chap, xxviii. 16" 2 Rom. ix. 33 ; x. 11.
3 1 Pet. ii. 6. 4 E.g., Kautzsch, I. c., p. 81.

460 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD.  1.
trusting, of which the prophet speaks, as trusting in the
Christ ; if they are omitted, then, of course, he means trust
ing in Jahveh. The application of the passage quoted stands
and falls with the alteration which Paul has either intro
duced himself, or has borrowed from the Septuagint.
In the same epistle to the Eomans, Paul, while engaged in
comparing the righteousness which is of the law with the
righteousness whicli is of faith, borrows a description of the
latter from the book of Deuteronomy.1 With what right he
does so we leave at present undetermined ; we have now only
to attend to the freedom of his citation. Two variations
especially come there under our notice. Paul writes : " Who
shall ascend into heaven ? " while the original has : " Who.
shall ascend for us into heaven, and take it (the command
ment), and proclaim it to us, so that we may perform it ? "
The words which the apostle leaves out would, of course,
have prevented him from explaining the words which he
adopts in the manner following : " that is, to bring the Christ
down." In the original, there follows (verse 13) ; " Neither
is it (the commandment) beyond the sea that thou shouldest
have to say : who shall cross over the sea for us, and take it
(the commandment) for us, and proclaim it to us, so that we
may perform it ? " The words corresponding to these, given
by Paul, are : " (nor say in thy heart) who shall descend into
the abyss ? that is to bring up Christ from the dead " (or
because this would be the same as denying that Christ had
been already raised or awakened from the dead). The
remark made above is true also with regard to the words
which the apostle leaves out. But besides this, in place of
crossing over the sea, he has put descending into the abyss,
a conception altogether different, on which, however, the use
which Paul makes of the words of the law-giver absolutely
depends : if he had adhered to the original, the application of
the passage to the resurrection of the Christ from the dead
would have been out of the question.
Of less importance, but still very remarkable, is the free
quotation of a passage from the biography of Elijah. The
complaint of the prophet, that God's messengers have been
killed and his altars overthrown, so that he alone has been
1 Deut. xxx. 11—14; Rom. x. 6—8.

FREE QUOTATIONS IN PAUL'S EPISTLES. 461
left, is answered by Jahveh commanding him to anoint
Hazael to be king of Syria, Jehu to be king of Israel, and
Elisha to be a prophet. " It shall come to pass," so it is said
further, " that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall
Jehu slay ; and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu
shall Elisha slay. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel,
all knees that have not bowed before Baal, and every mouth
which hath not paid homage to him."1 The meaning is not
for a moment doubtful : the judgments to be executed by
Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha, of course strike the wicked: "all
the sinners of my people," saith Amos, " shall die by the
sword;"2 only those faithful to Jahveh, seven thousand in
number — a round sum of course — shall be spared, and shall
remain after the punishment has been executed. But of this
narrative Paul takes the first verse, the complaint of Elijah,
and the last, the prophecy concerning the sparing of the
seven thousand, and cites them in such a way that he brings
the two into immediate connection with each other.3 For in
place of " I will leave," he writes : " I have reserved to my
self seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee before
Baal." Elijah complains : " I am left alone ;" God replies :
thou art mistaken, there are still seven thousand faithful men
remaining. Of this opposition, or, if it be preferred, of this
correction of Elijah, there is no trace to be found in the
original. True, the inference may also be derived from it that
Elijah was not the only servant of Jahveh, and had therefore
been guilty of exaggeration in his despondency ; but, in the
quotation as given by Paul, this stands in the foreground as
the real chief matter. It deserves also to be noticed, that the
interpretation of the Apostle has not been without influence
on the modern translations of the Old Testament ; among
other instances, in the Dutch States Bible and the English
Authorised Version, the address of Jahveh to Elisha is — at
variance with the grammar and connection — rendered thus :
" yet I have left."
In the following chapter of the Epistle to the Bomans,
Paul quotes a prophecy of the second Isaiah, which runs
thus : " There shall come a redeemer for Zion and for them
who turn away from their transgressions in Jacob, saith
1 1 Kings xix. 14 — 18. 2 Amos ix. 10. 3 Rom. xi. 2 — 4.

462 XIII. — NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD.  1.
Jahveh. And as for me, this is my covenant with him, saith
Jahveh. . . ."x Partly in consequence of his following the
Septuagint, these words are thus reproduced by the Apostle :
" There shall come out of Zion the Bedeemer ; he shall turn
away transgressions from Jacob. And this is unto them the
covenant on my part. . . ." 2 The difference is, as will be per
ceived, not unimportant ; yet it is thrown into the shade by a
second deviation. In the prophet the mention of the covenant
between Jahveh and his people is followed by these words :
" My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have
put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out
of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's
seed, saith Jahveh, from henceforth and for ever." All this
is left out by Paul, and instead of it we find the following
description of the covenant : " when I shall take away their
sins" — words which are borrowed from the Greek translation
of another prophecy which has been introduced into the book
of Isaiah.3 Of course the question is not whether the
Apostle is justified in indicating the forgiveness of sins as
being the substance of the covenant of grace. We can assent
to this with all our heart, but at the same time deny that he
is entitled to appeal to the words of the prophet in support
of that opinion.
Paul is equally free in applying an utterance of Isaiah re
garding the Assyrians to the phenomena which manifested
themselves in the earliest Christian congregations, specifically
at Corinth. Israel — so we read in the prophet — would not
listen to Jahveh ; " therefore with stammering lips and in
another tongue will he speak to this people, to whom he
had said, ' This is the resting-place ! Cause now him that is
weary to rest ! And this is the refreshing ! ' Yet they would
not hear."4 Because this obstinacy was repeatedly displayed,
therefore Jahveh would now employ other and stronger
measures, and proclaim his will by the Assyrians, for to them
the prophet's words apply. The Apostle sees in the " speak
ing with tongues" a counterpart of the means then used by
God, and allows himself, in connection therewith, to modify
somewhat the words of Isaiah, so that their fitness to be
1 Is. lix. 20, 21. 2 Rom. xi. 26, 27.
3 Is. xxvii. 9. 4 Is. xxviii. 11, 12.

FREE QUOTATIONS IN PAUL'S EPISTLES. 403
applied to that phenomenon may be more distinctly obvious.1
Nevertheless the leading idea is still preserved in the passao-e
so modified. But when he closes his citation with the
words : " and yet for all that they will not hear me, saith the
Lord" — he altogether reverses the idea of Isaiah, in whose
prophecy the disobedience does not follow Jahveh's speaking
in another tongue, but precedes it, and is the cause of it.
Paul deviates here not only from the original, but also from
the Greek translation.
I wish to show, in the words of Mr Turpie, how the case
stands with regard to a subsequent citation. In the Second
Epistle to the Corinthians the following words, among others,
occur, as if borrowed from the Old Testament : " And I will be
a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty."2 Mr Turpie is very justly of
opinion that when Paul wrote these words, he was thinking
— not of any one utterance of Jeremiah,3 or of Ezekiel,4 but
— of 2 Sam. vii. 14, where Jahveh says of David's posterity :
" I will be to him for a father, and he shall be to me for a
son." "The nearest is 2 Sam. vii. 14, from which it differs
in being stated directly, not objectively, and plurally, not
singularly, and also in adding %a\ 8wyor,r'epas ' and daughters.'
Now it may be objected that 2 Sam. was said of Solomon,
whereas Paul is not speaking of him at all. In answer to
this let it be sufficient to state that Paul applies generally
what is there stated particularly, and that, for whatever
reason such language was used in that instance, for the same
could it be used in any other application ; in other words, if
God addressed these words to Solomon on condition of his
obedience, on fulfilment of the same conditions, could not the
same language be applied?"5 I do not now discuss the
value of this reasoning. That it is required is a sufficient
proof of the very great freedom with which the Apostle here
quotes the Old Testament.
Finally, let me adduce one instance more from the Epistle
to the Ephesians. " Unto every one of us in particular "— so
we read- there — " is given the grace according to the measure
of the gift of the Christ.'' The writer wishes to explain this
i 1 Cor. xiv. 21. 2 2 Cor. vi. 18. 3 Jer. xxxi. 1, 33.
4 Ezek. xxxvi. 28. 5 L. c. p. 63.

464 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD. — I.
" gift of the Christ," more fully. Therefore these words follow :
" Wherefore he saith (or, wherefore it is thus said in Scripture),
when he ascended up on high he led captive a captivity,.
he gave gifts unto men." x This citation is borrowed from
the Greek version, in which the first half is read exactly in
this way, except the change of the second person into the
third, which was required in the Epistle by the connection.
But the second half of the verse runs in the translation, as in
the original: " Thou hast taken gifts among the men," that is,
received gifts from the men in token of homage. The ex
positors strive to show that the idea of the Psalmist is not
modified, but more fully elaborated and developed in the
Epistle : the gifts are received in order to be again given
away. Singular reasoning, when it is considered that it is
the gifts of God or of the Christ of which the writer is treat-
ing. But let us grant that the citation can in this way be
justified ; nevertheless, as a citation, it is more than free.
Enough has already been said to put the justice of the
second proposition beyond reasonable doubt.2 We come
now to a still more important point, the criticism of the
exegetical method of the New Testament writers.
3d. Before entering upon the subject of this section, I may
be permitted once more to remind the reader of the limits
within which the investigation in this chapter is confined.
It is not our object, at this stage, to give the reader a com
plete insight into the use which the writers of the New Testa
ment make of the Old, and thus to enable him to form a fair
1 Eph. iv. 8, compare Ps. lxviii. 19 (18).
2 Let the reader compare, in addition to the above, Matt. i. 23, and
Is. vii. 14 (the 3d per. pi. instead of the 3d per. sing, of the original, or the
2d per. sing, of the Septuagint) ; Matt. ii. 6, and Micah v. 1 (more than
one divergence, especially that at the beginning concerning the smallness of
Bethlehem) ; Matt. xi. 10, and Mai. iii. 1 (addition of " before thy face,"
and change of "before me" into "before thee"); Matt. xxvi. 31 [Mark
xiv. 27], and Zech. xiii. 7 (" I will smite the shepherd," instead of "smite
ye," or "smite thou the shepherd") ; John ii. 17, and Ps. lxix. 10 (9), (in
the original, " has consumed me ; " in the citation [according to the oldest
and best MSS.] " will consume me ") ; Acts i. 20a, and Ps. lxix. 26 (25)
("their dwelling" is changed into "his dwelling"): Acts ii. 17, 18, and
Joel ii. 28, 29 (the citation has "in the last days," for "afterward;" in
verse 18, " the men-servants and the maid-servants " are changed, whether
or not according to the Septuagint, into " my men-servants and my maid
servants.") ; Acts vii. 43, and Amos v. 27 (" beyond Babylon" has taken
the place of "beyond Damascus").

PSALM XCV. IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 465
estimate of it. Before we can reach that point, we must first
know with what right their exegesis is put in opposition to
ours, and the demand is made that ours must give way to
theirs, or adapt itself to it. We can, of course, listen to that
demand only if it clearly appears that their interpretation of
Scripture is both of the same description as ours and superior
to it. If, on the contrary, it can be proved that in many cases,
the New Testament exegesis does not correspond to those
rules of sound exposition whieh are universally reeognised,
and are from their nature indisputable, it is surely out of our
power to comply with such a demand. But sueh a proof
can in fact be given. The writers of the New Testament do
not trouble themselves about laws, of the validity of which no
one among us has any doubt. The examples will demonstrate
this. I say examples, because here again completeness is not
to be thought of. I shall first take some instances from the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and from some other books of the
New Testament, in order thereafter to direet attention speci
fically to the use which is made here and there of the so-called
Messianic Psalms.
If we wish to become acquainted with the method of the
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, it will be expedient to
begin by attending to his explanation of Ps. xcv., an explana
tion which he puts forward not incidentally, but expressly.
This psalm itself appears to us simple and clear. The poet
calls upon himself and his people to raise a song of praise in
honour of Jahveh, and to worship Him (verses 1 — 6). For
Jahveh is not only " our maker " (verse 6), but also, " our
God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of
his hand " (verse 7a). When he had written down these
words, he recollected how ill Israel had up to the present
time responded to this care of Jahveh. Hence the first ex
clamation of warning : " to-day if ye would hear his voice ! "
(verse 7b), and then the more detailed elaboration of that wish
with his eye on the lessons taught by history (verses 8 —
H):—
Harden not your heart, as at Meribah,
As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
Where your fathers tempted me,
Yea, proved me, and saw my deeds ;
2 G

466' XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — I.
Eorty years long1 I loathed that generation,
And I said, they are a people erring in heart,
And they know not my ways ;
Therefore I sware in my wrath,
They shall certainly not enter into my resting-place !
Here the poet breaks off. He does not think it necessary to
make the application : it was obvious. All that he utters in
verses 8 — 11, relates to the Israelites in the wilderness;
for they suffered the punishment here referred to; against
them was directed the threatening confirmed by an oath,
that they should not enter into Jahveh's resting-place, the
land of Canaan, but should die in the wilderness.2 But if
they were punished so severely, the contemporaries of the poet
could not delude themselves regarding the fate which awaited
them, if they, in their turn, were stiff-necked and disobedient.
Let us now consider how these verses of the psalm are
understood and applied in the epistle to the Hebrews.3 Let
me assume that the reader has once again attentively perused
the whole argument of the writer. It will then have become
evident to him that it is very involved, and it will certainly
no longer surprise him that it has already cost the expositors
much toil and trouble. Nevertheless, we can still succeed in
following the course of the thoughts, and in discovering
therein these several stages, which I wish to indicate, and,
at the same time, to judge from the point of view of modern
exegesis. 1 . The psalm is assigned to David.4 Such is also the case
in the heading prefixed to the Greek translation, but not in
the original. To this last we adhere. In the psalm nothing
whatever can be pointed out which favours the supposition of
its Davidic origin. It is, beyond all doubt, a post-exilic
poem. Were it not that the writer to the Hebrews followed
here — as everywhere else — the Septuagint version, no one
would have thought of assigning an earlier date to the psalm.
2. While in the psalm — see above — the Israelites in the
wilderness are clearly distinguished from the poet's contem-
1 In the Epistle (chap. iii. 9), these words are connected with those which
precede, while those which follow are introduced by " wherefore." But in
iii. 17, we find, " with whom was he angry forty years long ? "
2 Compare Num. xiv. 21 — 25, 28 — 35 ; Deut. i. 34 — 36, passages which
the poet undoubtedly had in view.
8 See Heb. iii. 7 — 11 (the citation), 12 — iv. 10 (the interpretation and
application). 4 Heb. iv. 7.

PSALM XCV. IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 467
poraries, to whom he addresses the warning : " If, to-day, ye
would hear his voice ! harden not your hearts ! " — in the
epistle to the Hebrews, this distinction disappears. There is
here a parallelism throughout between the Israelites in the
wilderness and the persons to whom the poet speaks. The
exhortation addressed to the latter was delivered to the
former also ; the promises and threatenings intended for the
former were applicable also to the latter.1
This is a point of the very greatest importance — the real
key to the writer's exegesis. But that its importance may
be more clearly perceived, let the reader take, in connection
with it, the two following closely allied observations.
3. The persons whom the poet addresses are, of course, his
contemporaries, or more generally, his countrymen. But
according to the writer to the Hebrews, the psalm was
written for Christians, at least, for those among them to
whom his epistle is addressed.2 This, indeed, cannot surprise
us. The Holy Ghost speaks in this psalm j 3 God opens in it
a new epoch, in which entrance into his rest is once again
granted.4 The more in earnest the writer is in this assur
ance, the less difficulty he also sees in transferring — not
circuitously, as we should do, but — directly, the Words of the
psalm to the Christians.
4. The rest or resting-place which the psalmist mentions
can be none other than the land of Canaan ; the oath of
Jahveh, which the poet knew from the narrative in the book
of Numbers, was sworn with exclusive reference to the
entrance into that land. But the writer of the epistle to the
Hebrews understands this " rest " differently. God calls it
" my rest." In consequence of this, it is brought into con
nection with his resting after the six days' creation ; s partici
pation therein — or, in other words, the entrance upon a life
of blessedness with God — still continues to belong to the
future, after Israel, under the command of Joshua, has
entered into Canaan ; 6 the Christians also, who now con
stitute "the people of God," may hope for it.7 The close
connection between this view and the two preceding points
1 This is evident from the whole demonstration, especially from chap. iv.
12 3 9 10.
' 2~Chap.' iii.' 12, 13 ; iv. 1 ff. 3 Chap. iii. 7. 4 Chap. iv. 7.
5 Chap. iv. 3", 4. 6 Chap. iv. 8. 7 Chap. iv. 6», 9, 10.

468 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD— I.
(2 and 3) is quite obvious. As soon as the writer proceeded
to apply to the Israel of a later period, and to Christians also,
the words, " they shall not enter into my rest," or rather, the
promise of which this threatening is the reverse side, he
must understand " the rest of God " in a different, a spiritual
sense. But conversely also : as soon as a higher, spiritual
signification is assigned to " the rest of God," it is an obvious
course to make the promise of entrance into this rest (and
therefore its reverse side also, the threat of exclusion from
that rest) refer no longer to the contemporaries of Moses
alone, but also to the generations following.
5. We thus, especially by combining the last three points,
arrive at the following representation of what the writer to
the Hebrews found expressed in Ps. xcv., and endeavours to
impress upon the readers of his epistle. The person of the
poet, David, his contemporaries, the circumstances in which
the psalm was written, are matters which, for him, all recede
into the background. The poem contains the words of God,
intended not for one period, but for all ages, most of all for
them who lived in the time of the fulfilment of the pro
phecies, for Christians. Full of this idea, the writer over
looks the distinctions which are made in the psalm ; they
have for him no existence. The whole psalm — including that
which is introduced into it as a wrord of God concerning the
contemporaries of Moses — is prophetical. On that account, this
word acquires greater dimensions, and allusions are found in
it to promises, the full realisation of which was still future
when the epistle was written. The readers could apply to
themselves the warnings contained in the psalm, but so also
could they do with regard to the promises of bliss which it
supposes, as they are there presented. The promise of
entrance into God's rest is applicable to them ; but so also is
the threatening that access to it shall be refused to them, if
they, like their forefathers, are disobedient and unbelieving.
Let them therefore, while the " to-day " indicated by God in
the psalm still continues, exhort one another daily, so that none
may become hardened and be struck by the same judgment.1
Thus the writer read and interpreted the Old Testament.
In reverence for his moral earnestness, in sympathy with his
1 Chap. iii. 12—14, &c.

PSALM VIII. IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 469
anticipations of the future, I desire to yield to no one. But
prepossession in favour of his ideas must not be allowed to
affect the impartiality of our judgment upon his exegesis.
So long as we hold by the stable laws of hermeneutics, laws
which are raised above the suspicion of caprice and above
contradiction, we must disapprove of an interpretation such
as he gives. We cannot do otherwise. His deviations
from the clear meaning of the words can be pointed out with
the finger. As exegetes — and it is only in this capacity we
are now judging — we can neither embrace nor excuse such
an interpretation as this, but must openly condemn it.
We can now be briefer regarding other instances of the
same or at least a similar method. It is universally acknow
ledged that the theme of the poet, the author of Ps. viii., is
the littleness and at the same time the greatness of man.
It is also agreed that the words (verse (5 [5] ) : " Thou hast
made him a little less than God," express the idea that man
has been exalted by Jahveh so far above all the rest of crea
tion that there is only a short distance between him and the
divinity. The writer to the Hebrews introduces into his
epistle the verse just quoted along with the verse which
precedes and that which follows it.1 Instead of "a little less
than God," he writes with the Septuagint, " a little less than
the angels." Still this divergence can in itself scarcely be
attributed to him as an error : the Hebrew word (" elohim ")
signifies divinity in general, so that the Greek translation
does not reproduce the meaning of the poet altogether in
correctly, when it substitutes for the deity the higher, divine
spirits — called in the Old Testament itself "the sons of God."2
In any case, it is of more importance that the writer to the
Hebrews, Istly, sees the Messiah in "the man" and "the
son of man," of whom the poet speaks, and 2dly, understands
the words " a little less than the angels," as " having become
for a short time less than the angels." 3 These are two de-
1 Heb. ii. 6—8 = Ps. viii. 5—7 (4—6). 2 Gen. vi. 2 ; Job. xxxviii. 7.
3 This appears in the very clearest manner from the writer's argument in
verses 8b, 9. When he writes: "now we see not yet all things put under
him," Jesus is indicated by the pronoun " him." The next verse is equally
unambiguous. " But (already) we see him who, for a short time, became
less than the angels, Jesus, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory
and honour." In other words, the prophecy of the psalm has been already
fulfilled in part, and therefore shall, without doubt, be altogether realised.

470 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — I,
viations from the meaning of the poet, which as little admit
of being justified as they can be reasoned away by a modified
interpretation of the quotation in the epistle.
In the same chapter the first half of the words of Isaiah :
" Behold, I and the children whom Jahveh hath given me are
for signs and for wonders in Israel because of Jahveh of hosts
who dwelleth on Mount Zion," x is put into the mouth of the
Christ,2 and applied as a proof that " he who sanctifies (Christ),
and they who are sanctified (believers) are all from One (from
God), for which cause he (Christ) does not think it beneath
him to call them " brethren." 3 This is perhaps the strongest
instance in the whole Epistle of quotation according to the
sound. It surely does not require any argument to show
that the words of Isaiah refer to himself and to himself alone.
There are already among the citations in chap. i. of the
Epistle, several which give just cause for objections. Thus
some verses of Ps. cii., which beyond all doubt are addressed
to Jahveh himself, are adduced in proof of the superior dignity
of the Son of God as compared with the angels.4 In this
case it is difficult even to say what has led the writer
to this interpretation. May it have been the word " Lord "
at the beginning of the citation, a word which had gradually
become among Christians the regular title of Jesus ? It has
been adopted from the Greek version and does not occur in
the original.
But if we were to proceed in this way, it might look as if
the Epistle to the Hebrews was the only book of the New
Testament the exegesis of which suggested weighty difficulties.
It does indeed afford numerous and striking instances of in
terpretation which we, from our stand-point, cannot approve ;
yet these are not wanting in other books also.
We find at once that they are not wanting in the writings
of the Apostle Paul. Let us use by way of introduction an
example which seems pre-eminently fitted to teach us, how
Paul viewed the Old Testament, and what influence the point
of view chosen by him had upon his exegesis. As a proof of
his proposition that the congregations should provide for the
support of the preachers of the Gospel, he adduces the pre-
1 Is. viii. 18. 2 Heb. ii. 13.
3 Heb. ii. 11. 4 Heb. i. 10—12 ; Ps. cii. 26—28 (25—27).

Paul's interpretation of scripture. 471
scription of the law : "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that
treadeth out the corn.1 Does he bring this forward as a
striking analogy according to which congregations had to act ?
or as an argument from "the less to the greater" in this way:
if even the ox is not to be deprived of the opportunity of
taking food while he labours, how much less should the man,
who is performing his work, be deprived of it? He does
neither the one nor the other. The Apostle declares expressly
that the legal prescription cannot be apprehended literally,
but must be understood figuratively. " Doth God take care
for oxen ? " — he asks,2 or rather — for according to the rules
of grammar, the meaning of the original is this : " God surely
does not take care for oxen." He thus at the same time
makes us acquainted with the motive which leads him to his
interpretation : in his view the Law is too sacred, too divine,
to admit of his finding in it enactments about such every-day
matters. His conviction about the origin of Scripture leads
him, at least in this case, to a misconception of the historical
meaning of its utterances.3
The well-known allegorical interpretation of the accounts
given in Genesis about Sarah and Hagar4 might serve for
confirmation of this remark. But there are other passages
to be mentioned where the exegesis of the Apostle not only
departs from or rises above the historical meaning, but dis
tinctly contradicts it. Let the reader recall to mind our
previous remarks upon a citation from Deuteronomy in
the Epistle to the Romans.5 The modifications which the
apostle there allows himself to make, are in themselves of
sufficient importance to destroy the demonstrative force of the
citation. But the fundamental idea of his reasoning also
cannot be permitted to stand. The Deuteronomist treats of
" the commandment which Moses this day prescribes to
Israel ; " that commandment must, as is self-evident, be
obeyed ; with almost superfluous reiteration he reminds them
of that very fact three times in succession. It does not need
to be brought down out of heaven and proclaimed to us, that
1 1 Cor. ix. 3, ff.; Deut. xxv. 4. 2 1 Cor. ix. 9.
3 The saying of Philo Alexandrinus (De sacrif. Opp. p. 251) is alto
gether parallel, "because the Law is not for the benefit of irrational animals,
but for the benefit of those who have understanding and reason."
4 Gal. iv. 21—31. 6 Rom. x. 6—8 ; Deut. xxx. 11—14, above, p. 460.

472 XIII.  NEW testament and prophecies in the OLD — I.
we may do it ; it is unnecessary to cross the sea, and fetch
that commandment from thence, and declare it, that we may
do it ; " for the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth,
and in thy heart, in order to do it." On each occasion, Paul
omits these last words, and he could not, in fact, have intro
duced them, because they would have overthrown his whole
demonstration. He had described the righteousness which
is ofthe law, in terms borrowed from the law itself: "the
man who hath done these things shall live in them." 1 In
opposition to that, he places now the righteousness which is
of faith : if here the matter again depended upon the doing,
the whole antithesis was destroyed. Are we then, in order to
acquit the apostle, to take refuge in the assertion that he
does not intend to interpret the passage from Deuteronomy ?
May it not be that he clothes his own ideas in words
borrowed from the Old Testament ? More than one expositor
of note has maintained this opinion. But it does not admit
of being defended. The reasoning of the apostle is meaning
less, if it is not regarded as proving something, and that, the
proposition which immediately precedes : " for Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believeth." 2
With this, not only the folloAving verse, but the whole sub
sequent train of reasoning is connected by a "for." This
" for " has relation to the quotation from Deuteronomy also,
because otherwise Paul does not give what he promises. The
words, " the man who hath done these things shall live in
them," can surely never prove that " Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone who believeth " ? If we
wish to vindicate the Apostle's exegesis, we must give up his
logic ; if we wish to justify his logic, we must abandon his
exegesis. The latter alternative is the only one which is in
accordance with the facts themselves.
" To Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed.
He saith not ' And to his seeds/ as with application to many ;
but as with application to one, 'And to thy seed,' which is
Christ." So Paul writes in the Epistle to the Galatians.3
More than one question arises with regard to these words.
What passage, or passages, of the Old Testament has the
Apostle in view ? He is treating of promises spoken to
1 Rom. x. 5 ; Lev. xviii. 5. 2 Rom. x. 4. 3 Gal. iii. 16.

Matthew's interpretation of isaiah vii. u. 473
Abraham and his seed, given to Abraham and his seed ; he
thinks specifically of one passage in which the words " and to
thy seed " occur. It follows from this that Mr Turpie,1 for
example, is wrong in finding here a quotation from Gen. xxii.
18 ("in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed").
Neither can the passages which are parallel to this2 be intended.
Paul is thinking rather of the promises that the land of Canaan
shall be given for an inheritance to Abraham and his seed}
It follows from this, however, that he understands these
promises in a wider and spiritual signification — a view which
cannot be justified before the tribunal of historical exegesis.
But another difficulty is of more importance. The Apostle
thinks it remarkable that, in the passages of Genesis to
which he refers, Abraham's seed, in the singular, is mentioned,
and proceeds to build an argument upon it. In spite of
all that has been brought forward to recommend or excuse
this interpretation,4 we cannot do otherwise than agree with
Meyer when he calls the conclusion of Paul " purely Babbini-
cal and destitute of any objective force as proof."5 A
plural also could undoubtedly have been employed in
Genesis ; for instance, " to thee and to thy sons." That
this was not done strikes the Apostle as remarkable, and
leads him to make an observation which, as "seed" is a
collective form very frequently used, had better have
remained unwritten.
We shall not now consider that passage in the Epistle to
the Ephesians which was previously discussed,6 so that we
may have room for handling four quotations which occur in
the Gospel according to Matthew. In the first chapter, the
account of Mary's being with child of the Holy Ghost, and of
the announcement to Joseph of the birth of Jesus, is followed
by the well-known reference to the prophecy of Isaiah :
" Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin
1 B.c, p. 11.
2 Abraham alone is spoken of in Gen. xii. 3 ; xviii. 18 ; Isaac's seed in
xxvi. 3, 4 ; Jacob and his seed in xxviii. 13 — 15.
3 Gen. xiii. 15 ; xvii. 8. Thus, following the steps of others, Kautzsch,
I.e., p. 20, f.
4 Especially by Tholuck "das A. T. im N. T." (6thEdition, 1872) pp. 53—66.
6 Krit. exeg. Kommentar iiber das N. T., on the passage.
e Eph. iv. 8 ; Ps. lxviii. 19 (18) ; above, p. 463, f.

474 xiii. — new testament and prophecies in the OLD  1.
shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they
shall call his name Emmanuel (which, being interpreted, is
God with us)." J We have seen already 2 that Isaiah is
speaking 3 about a child which shall soon be born : the deso
lation of the territory of the kings of Syria and Ephraim shall,
according to his expectation, have been fully completed before
Immanuel has reached the years of discernment.4 Moreover,
his birth is announced as a sign which Jahveh shall give to
the king (Ahaz) and his house 5 — which, of course, is utterly
incompatible with the supposition that the prophet has an
eye to a far- distant future. Still this is not all. The
Evangelist finds in Isaiah the prediction that the virgin shall
be pregnant and bear a son. If he had been asked in what
the sign announced by the prophet consisted, he would
undoubtedly have answered : in the birth of Immanuel from a
virgin. He may have been led to this interpretation from
the fact of the Greek translator having substituted the Greek
word parthenos (" virgin ") for the Hebrew ha-'almah (" the
marriageable damsel," or "young woman"). It does not,
however, follow from this that the translator understood the
prophecy of Isaiah in the same way as the Evangelist did ;
much less can the prophet himself have wished to express that
idea. The sign which he mentions consists in this, that a
young woman, who at that moment became (or was) pregnant,
shall be able to give to her child the symbolical name " God
with us ;" or, in other words, in this, that within a year the
condition of the Davidic kingdom shall have experienced such
a change that the joyful mother can express in this form her
belief in Jahveh's presence and help. The comparison of the
parallel passages leaves no doubt as to this being the prophet's
meaning.6 But while elsewhere he gives symbolical names to
his own children, he here speaks quite generally : the damsel
becomes (or is) pregnant, and bears a son, and calls his name
" God with us " — his object being thereby to indicate that
every young mother shall, at the time intimated by him, have
reason to testify her confidence in God's help. In a subse
quent prophecy he resumes this idea, and does it in such a
1 Matt. i. 22, 23. s See above, pp. 166—169.
3 Is. vii. 14. 4 Ibid., verses 15, 16 ; compare verse 22.
6 See verses 13 and 14*. 6 Compare Is. vii. 3 (x. 20, 21) ; viii. 3, 4, 18.

Matthew's interpretation of scripture.

I/O

manner that the interpretation now given is fully confirmed.1
We need not therefore say anything further in order to show
that Matthew's interpretation cannot be vindicated. He not
only severs the prophecy from its historical connection, but
also puts into it a meaning which Isaiah himself never
at all contemplated.2
The quotation to which I now proceed to direct attention,
may be called an abandoned post. For it is universally
acknowledged that the words of Hosea : " Out of Egypt have
I called my son," 3 refer to the deliverance of Israel from the
Egyptian bondage, and contain no prophecy regarding the
return of the child Jesus out of Egypt. Attempts have been
made to justify this citation4 by remarking that Israel is the
type of the Messiah, so that what is true of Israel may be
applied also to the Messiah. But even though it could be
shown that the Evangelist thought he had found in Hosea
such a type, and not a direct prediction, still little would be
hereby gained. For unless typology is to degenerate into
mere caprice, the requirement must be rigorously maintained
that an actual agreement between type and anti-type be
shown, and that everything which is accidental and un
essential be excluded. This condition is not here fulfilled.
As regards Israel, Egypt is the land of servitude ; as regards
the child Jesus, it was a temporary refuge ; the calling out
of Egypt is thus also an entirely different thing with the
Evangelist from what it is with Hosea.
1 Is. viii. 8 — 10. In verse 8 the prophet calls Judea "thy land, 0
Immanuel ! " referring to the promise of deliverance which was implied in
the sign mentioned in chapter vii. 14. Judea shall indeed be overflowed by
the Assyrians, but no apprehensions need be entertained regarding its utter
destruction, because in Judea "Immanuel" has been born. The same
thought is expressed in verse 10, but now with a reference to Pekah and
Rezin : their counsel shall be defeated, their word shall be frustrated, for
(Immanuel) " God is with us."
2 The explanation of Is. vii. 14, defended here, which in the main agrees
with that of T. Roorda, Orientt. i. 130-134 — appears to me to be more
worthy of acceptation than the other non-Messianic interpretations, but
cannot be regarded as beyond all doubt. The negative : the prophet did not
think of the Messiah, is quite certain. To be able to say, with like certainty,
whom he meant by ha-'almah, we would have required to have been our
selves present on the spot. Compare the similar opinion of Diestel in
Knobel, Der Prophet Jesaja, 4te Aufl. p. 70.
3 Hos. xi. 1. The whole verse runs :
" When Israel was a child, I loved him,
And out of Egypt I called my son."
4 Matt. ii. 15.

476 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — I.
We have to make similar observations with regard to
another citation in the same chapter. In the lamentation
caused by the murder of the children in Bethlehem, Matthew
sees the fulfilment of the words of Jeremiah — " A voice was
heard in Bamah, lamentation and bitter weeping ; Bachel
weeping for her children, refused to be comforted because
they were not."1 In the prophecy this mourning has reference
to the depopulation of the land of Israel, in consequence of
the war and deportation into captivity. Bachel is at the
same time also comforted with the prospect of the future
return of her children. Is there anything more than a super
ficial resemblance between this poetical and beautiful concep
tion and the isolated fact to which the Evangelist applies the
words of Jeremiah ?
We shall require to dwell somewhat longer on the use
which the same writer makes of an utterance of the earliest
Zechariah, the author of chapters ix. — xi., whom we already
know as an older contemporary of Isaiah.2 He tells us that
the Jewish chief priests and elders, after Judas had thrown
back to them the thirty pieces of silver, the reward of his
treachery, scrupled to cast them into the treasure-chest, and
instead of doing so, bought the potter's field, to be a burial
place for strangers, for which reason it was called " the field
of blood" unto this day.3 To this he adds: "Then was
fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah, the prophet, say
ing, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of
him that was valued, whom they had valued on the part of
sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field
as the Lord appointed me."4 These words do not occur any
where in Jeremiah ; his name will thus have been mentioned
by mistake for that of Zechariah, in whom we really find an
utterance which, though not exactly the same, yet resembles
this, and is plainly the one here referred to. It forms part
1 Matt. ii. 17, 18 ; Jer. xxxi. 15.
2 See above, p. 197, n. 7, and elsewhere. 3 Chap, xxvii. 3 — 8.
4 Chap, xxvii. 9, 10. The Greek words are rendered literally, and are in
general quite plain. The only doubtful point is the meaning of the words
airb vlQv 'lapaijK, " on the part of sons of Israel." According to Meyer
(on the passage) the reference is to Judas, who had given the chief priests
occasion to fix the price of Jesus at thirty pieces of silver, for which
reason also the article is wanting. Perhaps the meaning is, that the chief
priests acted in the valuation of Jesus as in the name of the Israelites.

ZECHARIAH XI. 12, 13, QUOTED BY MATTHEW. 477
of an allegorical picture,1 a vivid representation of what had
happened in the kingdom of Ephraim about the middle of
the eighth century B.C., in which the prophet comes for
ward as the representative of Jahveh — just as Hosea does
in chapters i. and iii. of his prophetical book, which show
great agreement, as regards form, with this portion of Zecha
riah. We cannot here enter upon an explanation of the par
ticulars of this picture ;2 the last verses especially possess an
interest for us. The prophet — always speaking in the name
of Jahveh — asks to be paid off by the Ephraimites, whose
shepherd he had been ; they give the small remuneration of
thirty silver shekels. Thereupon Jahveh says to him :
" Throw it to the treasure-chest ! A rich recompence which
I have been thought to merit at their hands ! " The prophet
obeys this command : " And I took the thirty shekels of
silver and threw them away in the house of Jahveh to the
treasure-chest."3 Finally, according to the last verse, the
second shepherd's staff also is broken, in token that the
brotherhood between Judah and Israel is severed (and that
the Syrian-Ephraimite war shall now immediately break
out).4 No one will deny that these verses, thus under
stood, cohere well with each other, and afford a very
intelligible meaning. But if the reader will give himself
the trouble of opening the common translation, it will im
mediately be evident to him that mine deviates from it con
siderably. Instead of " to the treasure-chest," he will find
there " for the potter." And, in truth, the Hebrew word
which occurs twice in verse 13 (ha-jotse'r) is the usual word
for " the potter." But it is as clear as day that this word is
out of place here, and gives no sense whatever, — not even
when we try to illustrate it from the particulars which
Matthew communicates to us. For surely it does not
require any proof to show that " to throw for the potter "
cannot signify to employ the thirty shekels, or cause them
to be employed, for the purchase of the potter's field ! Iu
order to bring these words into connection with this
fact, the Evangelist has in truth completely modified them,
1 Zech. xi. 4—14.
2 Compare my " Hist. Krit. Onderzock," II., 381, 382, f.
a Zech. xi. 12, 13. * Zech. xi. 14.

478 XTII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — I.
and written, " and they gave them for the potter's field."
Moreover, the close of verse 13 shows that the supposed
"potter" must be found in "the house of Jahveh." Is
•this not sufficient in itself to convince us that the word so
translated must have another meaning, or — for this also is
possible— must be replaced by another word ? Fortunately,
we do not need to search long for something better. The
consonants in the Hebrew text are perfectly correct; the
vowels, which were not inserted for six or more centuries
after the beginning of our era, alone require to be amended.
For ha-jotsir read ha-jotsdr, which latter form represents the
usual pronunciation of ha-'otsdr, " the treasure-chest." *
Everything is now clear. The treasure-chest is in " the house
of Jahveh ;" the treasure-chest is the natural depository for
the remuneration which the prophet receives as the repre
sentative of Jahveh ; if that remuneration be too insignifi
cant to be carefully laid away within the chest, it must at
least be thrown towards it. All difficulties are thus solved
in such a way by this simple emendation, that its justness is
liable to no doubt. But is not our judgment on Matthew's
exegesis thereby already determined ? It is really self-con
demned by the modifications in the text which it necessitates,
and without which it could never admit of being considered.
But besides this, no explanation, — 'not even Hengstenberg's —
of Zechariah's prophecy, which maintains or implies the cor
rectness of the application made of it by the Evangelist,
can at all be tolerated. It is perfectly perspicuous when
we bring it into connection with the state of the kingdom
of Ephraim about the middle of the eighth century B.C.
with the same circumstances therefore in which Zech.
ix. and x. also find their explanation. It becomes a
series of enigmas, when we abandon the historical ground,
and attribute to the prophet general ideas with which the
use made of his words in Matthew is compatible. If the
rules of exegesis may avail here also, then the interpretation
given by the Evangelist is to be rejected without hesitation,
as being at variance with grammar and with history.
1 Those who know Hebrew do not need to be reminded that the aleph
between two vowels was pronounced as jod, so that ha-'otsdr would sound
ha-jotsdr, and therefore could also easily be so written.
* "ChristoL des A. T.," IN., 1, pp. 410—73.

MESSIANIC PSALMS ACCORDING TO THE N. TESTAMENT. 479
To these instances of the exegesis of the New Testament
writers, I wish to add yet a second series, which shall be com
posed exclusively of their interpretations of the Pscdms, and
specifically of those Psalms which owe the name of Messianic
Psalms partly to the use which has been made of them in
the New Testament.1 The consideration of the quotations
taken from these will not only serve, on the one hand, to com
plete the investigation in which we have just been engaged ;
but will also prepare the way, on the other, for discussing the
prophetical contents of the Psalms, a subject which I have
designedly deferred till now, because it is indissolubly con
nected with the decision upon the value of these citations.
The Psalms which in the New Testament are understood as
prophecies regarding the Messiah, or at least are applied to the
historical Christ, readily admit of being divided into two groups.
To the first group belong the poems in honour of the king
of Israel, whose power and grandeur they depict and celebrate
(Psalms ii., xlv., ex.).
The second group is composed of the Psalms, which,
according to the citations, refer to the suffering Messiah, or
rather, indeed, introduce him as the speaker. We shall
see immediately that the right to be placed in this group is
disputed in the case of more than one Psalm. Still, if we at
present consult the New Testament alone, we must assign to
this group Psalms xvi., xxii., xl., xli., lxix., cix., and, in a
certain sense, Psalm cxviii. also.
Of these Psalms some verses, or occasionally a single verse,
are quoted as a prophecy concerning the Christ, or as con
taining words of the Christ — generally without the difficulties
in the way of such an explanation, which can be drawn from
other parts of the same Psalm, being discussed or removed.
The same objections which I was lately obliged to bring
against more than one interpretation of the prophetical word
are thus frequently — not always, but frequently — applicable
also to the use made of these verses of Psalms.
1 According to the common opinion, Psalms viii., xcv., cii., thequotations
from which in the Epistle to the Hebrews have been already criticised, do
not belong to the Messianic class ; although Psalm viii. is not really viewed
and used in Heb. ii., otherwise than e.g. Ps. xl. in Heb. x. (compare above
p. 455, f.). I must, however, after the few observations in pp. 469, f., omit
any further consideration of this Psalm.

480 XIII. — NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — I.
The Psalms of the first group do not come into considera
tion here so much as those belonging to the second,. The
relative justice of the Messianic understanding of Psalm ii.
and ex. is apparent. It is true that when we read Psalm ii.
without any prepossession, we perceive at once that it is not
an ideal, and a still future, but an actual, king who is cele
brated in it. The opening of the poem was suggested by
what the poet1 saw happening around him, by what he viewed
with his bodily eye (verses ] — 3) :
" Why do the peoples rage,
And the nations meditate vanity ?
The kings of the earth rise up,
And the princes have plotted together
Against Jahveh and against his anointed.2
Let us (they say) burst asunder their bands,
And cast their fetters from us."
In the sequel of the Psalm, also, there is nothing which
would not suit the Israelitish king. In the third strophe
(verses 7 — 9) he himself is introduced as speaking, and these
words among others are put into his mouth : " Jahveh hath
said unto me, 'Thou art my son, to-day have I begotten
thee.' " The twofold use made of these words in the New
Testament 3 must not mislead us into assigning to them a
meaning so exalted that they cease to be a declaration of
Jahveh regarding the theocratic king of Israel.4 The last
verse gives still less ground for such an interpretation.5 We
1 The Psalm is anonymous in the original ; but in Acts iv. 25, David is
named as the author. He who assigns authority to the New Testament in
questions such as this, has of course no choice here. But the Psalm itself
bears witness not for, but against, its Davidic authorship. See especially
H. Hupfeld, " Die Psalmen ubersetzt u. ausgelegt," I. 16 ff.
2 The quotation, according to the Septuagint, in Acts iv. 25, 26, ends
here. 3 In Heb. i. 5 ; v. 5, these words are regarded as an address of God to
his son in his pre-existent state ; in Acts xiii. 33, they are brought into con
nection with the resurrection of Jesus, and therefore understood as the
formula in which the Messianic dignity is conferred upon him. The latter
interpretation (compare Acts ii. 36) is more in accordance with the meaning
of the Psalmist. See the following note.
4 Compare Hupfeld on Psalm ii. 7. We have a parallel passage in Psalm
lxxxix. 27, where Jahveh says of David —
" I will also make him my firstborn,
Supreme over the kings of the earth."
6 The translation " Kiss (or do homage to) the son" is at utter variance
with the grammar. The meaning is stilll doubtful. But that a call to
attach themselves to Jahveh, or to do homage to Jahveh, is required here,
is most clearly evident from the sequel of the verse.

CITATIONS FROM PSALMS II., CX., AND XLV. 481
do not, however, overlook the fact that the poet who composed
the second Psalm, although proceeding upon a reality, yet,
just because he is a poet, rises far above the reality. The
historical king whom he has in view — Uzziah, perhaps ? 1 —
assumes, as it were, larger proportions, and becomes, as
depicted by him, an ideal. Connecting points therefore are
not wanting for applying this poem to the Messiah.
Very much the same is true of Psalm ex., that is, if we
find ourselves at liberty, following the guidance of many of
the more recent expositors, to deny its Davidic authorship,
and assign it to a poet who was not king himself, but who
speaks about and to his king.2 That the priestly dignity
also is assigned to this king (verse 4) cannot lead us to place
him altogether outside of the series of the Israelitish princes.
For it is historically certain that in the first ages of the
monarchy these princes also offered sacrifice and blessed in the
name of Jahveh; functions for which the priests were only at
a later period thought to be exclusively competent.3 In this
psalm, however, least of any, are the poetical and ideal features
wanting, and thus the Messianic interpretation of it very
readily suggested itself.4
The case is somewhat different as regards Ps. xlv. Only
once in the New Testament is a part of it quoted, as addressed
to the Messiah. In his argument to prove the superiority of
the Son of God to the angels, the writer to the Hebrews
appeals to verses 6, 7,5 and these he reproduces according to
the Septuagint, which here agrees with the original, as fol
lows : " Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever ; a sceptre of
righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast
i Compare my "Hist. Krit. Onderzoek," III. 291 f.
2 See Ibid., 259, 292.
3 Compare " De Godsdienst van Israel," I. 336 f., and elsewhere, (in its
English form " The Religion of Israel," I. 137 ff.).
4 It is expressed or understood in Acts ii. 34, 35 ; 1 Cor. xv. 26 ; Heb.
i. 13 ; v. 6 ; vii. 21. Moreover, Jesus proposes the question (Matt. xxii. 44;
Mark xii. 36 ; Luke xx. 42, 43) how David could call the Messiah " Lord,"
if the Messiah was his son ? Here the Davidic authorship of the Psalm is
assumed as well-known, and so also is the Messianic interpretation. But
the question put remains unanswered, so that we do not know how Jesus
himself solved the contradiction which he had observed in the popular
view. 6 Unless otherwise indicated, the verses of the Psalms now quoted are
numbered according to the Authorised Version.
2 H

482 XIII. — NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — I.
loved righteousness, and hated iniquity ; therefore God, thy
God, has anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy
fellows."1 The predicate " God " is assigned to the person
here addressed. Does not this circumstance absolutely forbid
us to see in him an earthly king ? In truth, the question
at first causes us perplexity. We are inclined to answer it in
the affirmative. There are no passages in which the Hebrew
word elohim is clearly applied to man.2 But on the other
hand, it is plain from the sequel, where the king's fellows are
mentioned, that he is an earthly ruler. This is put beyond
dispute by the rest of the psalm. It is a poem written on
the occasion of the king's marriage, and contains various indi
vidual traits which enable us to indicate its age and the name
of the king whom it celebrates : it must have been written
in the kingdom of Ephraim, probably in honour of Jero
boam II.3 But how then are we to decide about the words,
" Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever ? " Attempts
have been made — not without reason as we now know — to
find a better interpretation to these words, but, in my
opinion, they have not succeeded. One single word seems to
have dropped out of the Hebrew. The poet wrote : " Thy
throne God has established for ever and ever."4 In this way
the harmony between the different parts of the psalm is at
once restored. The ideal conception, and so much the more
the Messianic interpretation, which were already contradicted
by the further contents, find now no longer any support even
in verse sixth. It is at the same time very natural and
intelligible that the writer to the Hebrews should have
appealed to that verse in favour of his thesis : considered by
itself, it is a recommendation of his view. The question can
1 Heb. i. 8, 9.
2 On "elohim" in Exod xxi. 6, xxii. 8, 9. see "De Godsdienst van
Israel," I. 495, (in its English form, " The Religion of Israel," II., 83 f.).
Reference might have been more justly made to Ps. lxxxii. 6 (compare
John x. 34). But Hupfeld, in his commentary on this Psalm, has shown it
to be at least very probable that higher beings, the guardian angels of
nations and tribes, are there addressed. Even though this were not the case,
yet Ps. xlv. 6, where " elohim " is the title of one single being, woidd not be
altogether parallel.
3 Compare " Historisch-Kritisch Onderzoek, III., 291. The traits to which
allusion is made in the text are to be found in verse 8 (palaces of ivory),
verse 9 (the king's consort, &c.), verse 16 (the king preceded by his fathers,
and followed by his sons).
4 Compare J. Olshausen, "die Psalmen," p. 201 f.

USE MADE IN THE ACTS OF PSALM XVI. 483
only be, whether it is allowable thus to disjoin a part of a whole
from its connection. This is done elsewhere also by the New
Testament writers. But while, in Psalms ii. and ex. for in
stance, their interpretation of one single verse is not directly
contradicted by that connection, such is certainly the case in
Psalm xlv. The Messianic interpretation of this last poem
does not admit of even a relative justification.
When we proceed to the discussion of the Psalms of the"
second group, we come on much-disputed ground. It is of the
highest importance that we determine our exact position thereon.
One of the first things necessary for attaining this object will
be to keep the different questions duly separate. The ques
tion, therefore, whether these Psalms are Messianic or not,
does not at present come under discussion. We wish now
merely to discover how the New Testament writers use them,
and at the same time to direct our attention to their inter
pretation of the verses which they quote from them. All the
rest I leave alone for the present, to be resumed and settled,
partly still in this chapter, and partly in the next. In this
survey, I follow the order of the book of Psalms.
In the Acts of the Apostles, we find quotations from
Psalm xvi. in two places ; in one, of verses 8 — 11, in another,
of the second half of verse 1 0, and the words are quoted as
having been spoken by David " of (lis) the Christ." x On
both occasions the Greek version is followed, the correctness
of which precisely in verse 1 0 can be fairly questioned. The
original is as follows : —
" Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades,
Thou wilt not suffer thy pious one to see the pit."
According to another reading, "thy pious ones to see the
pit," but the singular agrees better with the first half of the
verse. The Greek translator wrote :
" Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades (or in the power of Hades),
Nor wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption."
And it is precisely on the variations of this translation from
the original that Peter, in the Acts, founds his interpretation.2
In that we are compelled to differ from him : the poet ex-
1 Acts ii. 25—28 ; xiii. 35.
2 Acts ii. 29—31. There, and in chap. xiii. 36, " corruption" (Sw.<p6opa),
is understood in the sense of putrefaction.

484 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — I.
presses his confidence that he shall not die, that God shall
not abandon him to Hades, that he shall not behold the
pit, that is, the grave. On what might happen to him after
his decease, he does not think at all.
The use made of Psalm xxii. gives no occasion for such
remarks. Jesus, when on the cross, adopts as his own the
opening words of the Psalm } the complaint about the part
ing of the garments is brought by an Evangelist into connec
tion with what happened on Golgotha.2 Some words from
the last part are quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews as
words of the Christ.3 In all these cases no deviation from
the words or the meaning of the original is to be seen.
It has already appeared plainly to us how the case stands
with regard to the citation from Psalm xl. in the Epistle to
the Hebrews.4 Besides the deviation from the Hebrew text
which was then discussed, we find yet another verse in which
both the Hebrew original and the Greek translation are
departed from. In both of these the first clause of verse
eighth runs as follows : " In the performance of Thy will I
take delight," whereupon follows very fitly, "and Thy law
is in my inmost parts." But the writer to the Hebrews does
not introduce this second clause, and connects the first with
the preceding verse, in this manner : " Lo, I have come . . .
to perform Thy will, 0 God."5 It would scarcely be worth
while to direct attention to this modification in the arrange
ment of the words, if it was not connected with the use
which the writer makes of this Psalm. In the words, '' Lo !
I have come to perform Thy will," he sees a contrast to the
preceding — " Offerings and gifts thou wouldst not." Thence
flows the decision at which he arrives : " He (the Messiah
speaking in the Psalm) abrogates the first (the offerings) in
order to establish the second (the performance of God's will)."
In the poem itself the antithesis is not so absolute.
According to the fourth Gospel, Jesus saw in the treachery
of one of his apostles the fulfilment of the scripture : " He
1 Matt, xxvii. 46 ; Mark xv. 34 ; compare Ps. xxii. 1.
2 John xix. 24, compare Ps. xxii. 18. The same quotation occurs also
in Matt, xxvii. 35, but only in the " Textus Receptus " and the translations
which follow it. All the old manuscripts leave it out.
3 Heb. ii. 12 ; compare Ps. xxii. 22.
4 Above, p. 457. 6 See not only Heb. x. 7, but also verse 9.

CITATIONS FROM PSALMS XLT. AND LXIX. 485
who eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me."
It is a citation from Psalm xli., where we read : " He who
eateth my bread has used me most treacherously," — at least,
according to the most probable understanding of the words.1
The slight variation — not " my bread," but " bread with me,"
— is plainly used to make the agreement between the com
plaint of the poet, and the event to which it is applied, still
more distinctly visible.
The quotations from Psalm lxix. are comparatively nume
rous. Of verse ninth — " Zeal for thy house hath consumed
me, and the reproaches of them who reproach thee have
fallen on me," the first half is applied to Christ in the gospel
according to John, the second half is similarly applied in the
Epistle to the Romans.2 Further in this epistle verses 22
and 23 are quoted as a curse uttered by David, the fulfilment
of which the apostle perceives in the dullness and obduracy
of his Jewish contemporaries.3 Another trait from the same
imprecation (verse 25), is cited by Peter in the Acts, having
been suggested by what had happened to the traitor.4 Finally,
the words, " thejr hated me without cause," which appear in
the fourth gospel as " written in the law of the Jews," seem
also to be borrowed from the fourth verse.5
Besides the imprecation from Psalm lxix. first mentioned,
there is also a second applied in the Acts to Judas : " Let
another take his office" or " overseership." It is taken from
Psalms cix.6 and belongs there to a whole series of maledic
tions. The quotation rests on the supposition that they are
directed by the poet (or by the Messiah, whom he introduces
as the speaker) against his enemies. It is, however, the question
whether this viewbe the correct one. The poet rather appears in
verses 6 — 1 9 to enumerate the curses which his enemies heap
upon him, for which reason also the third person singular is
used in these verses, while the poet's enemies are always
spoken of in the plural (verses 2—5, 20, 25, 27—29). The
] John xiii. 18, compare Ps. xl. 9.
2 John ii. 17 (with a slight variation, see above, p. 464, n. 2); Rom. xv. 3.
8 Rom. xi. 9, 10.
4 Acts i. 20 (again with a slight variation, above, p. 464, n. 2).
6 John xv. 25. Ps. xxxv. 19, or xxxvii. 19, or cix. 3, might also, however,
be thought of.
6 Acts i. 20 ; compare Ps. cix. 8.

486 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD  1.
poet, however, hurls back upon his haters these maledictions
uttered against him, for to verses 6 — 19 he subjoins :
" Let this be the reward of my adversaries from Jahveh,
And of them who speak evil against my soul."
Or, in other words : that the lot which they wish me may
befall themselves ! Thus the poet is not free from vindictive-
ness ; but he has not been guilty of devising those numerous
and sometimes frightful imprecations which precede. It
needs no proof to show that Peter, as introduced in the Acts
as speaking, would have withheld his quotation, if he had
been acquainted with this interpretation of the Psalm, which,
for the rest, so well deserves to be accepted.1
In conclusion, let me say a single word upon Psalm cxviii.
The speaker in this psalm — is it the people of Israel or one
of their leaders ? — thanks Jahveh for the help accorded to
him. Jahveh has heard him, and has been to him a deliverer
(verse 21). Thereupon follow the well-known words : "the
stone which the builders had despised has become the corner
stone : from Jahveh has this come ; it is a wonder in our
eyes" (verses 22, 23). This figure is repeatedly applied to
Jesus and his rejection by the rulers of the people.2 Not
withstanding this, it may be doubted whether the psalm — I
mean according to the New Testament — can be included among
the Messianic — and that just because we have before us here a
figurative expression which, from its nature, admits of being
applied to more than one person or event. It is on this
account, also, that very many expositors who allow them
selves to be guided by the authority of the New Testament in
their interpretations, deny, in spite of the numerous quota
tions, the Messianic character to this psalm.
As is self-evident, much still remains to be asked with
regard to all the psalms which we have had to introduce into
this series. But before I attempt to solve these questions,
the result of the investigation concerning the exegesis of the
New Testament writers must first be summed up.
1 Let the reader observe also, how, in verses 3—5, the poet contrasts his
own gentle and pacific disposition with that of his enemies. It is almost
inconceivable that he should immediately thereafter burst forth into male
dictions. The want of the words " they say " in the beginning of verse 6 is
no objection. See e.g., Ps. ii. 3.
2 Matt. xxi. 42 (Mark xii. 10, 11 ; Luke xx. 17), Acts iv. 11 ; 2 Pet. ii. 7.

DEDUCTION FROM THE PRECEDING INVESTIGATIONS. 487
The reader who recalls to mind the three propositions with
regard to the citations in the New Testament (p. 453, f), and
now considers that they have been proved, nay, more than
proved, by a number of indisputable examples, must also
acknowledge with me that the exegesis of the writers of the
New Testament cannot stand before the tribunal of science.
To the requirements which we impose, and with the fullest
right, upon the expositor of the Old Testament, and which we
cannot possibly abandon, because they are the result ofthe whole
preceding development of Christian theology — to these require
ments the New Testament interpretations do not correspond.
When we state the question thus, or, in other words, so long
as we regard and judge the authors of the New Testament
solely and only as expositors of the writings of the Old Testa
ment, we stand, in fact, in presence of this dilemma : we
must either cast aside as worthless our dearly-bought scientific
method, or must for ever cease to acknowledge the authority
of the New Testament in the domain of the exegesis of the
Old. Without hesitation we choose the latter alternative.

The conclusion thus arrived at leads in its turn to conse
quences which find their proper place in this chapter.
In the first place, it enables us to form a definitive judg
ment upon the prophetical contents of the Psalms ; it brings
us, in the second place, to a final decision upon the tradi
tional view, previously stated,1 of the gradually ascending
predictions of the Israelitish prophets.
We formerly saw what conception the prophets formed of
the future of their people.2 It would certainly be more than
strange if no sort of trace of their expectations was found in
the book of Psalms. Must not the community of Israel —
from whose bosom the Psalms have proceeded, and who used
them in their assemblies in the temple — have felt an interest
in the promises of the prophets, and longed for their fulfilment ?
It is indeed evident that such was also the case. More than
one psalm, or part of a psalm, is, as it were, the echo of the
1 Above, pp. 2—5. 2 Above, pp. 186, ff.

488 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — I.
prophecies of' Israel's blissful future,1 while in other parts of
the collection we find again the announcement of judgment,
modified according as the standpoint of the poet differs from
that of the prophet.2 Sometimes one single sub-division of
the prophetical expectation is treated poetically, as, for
.example, in Psalm lxxxvii. the idea that Jerusalem shall
become the religious centre of the world. The prophecy also
concerning the permanency of David's dynasty is again taken
up in the Psalms and brought into connection with its later
abasement. The poet who wrote Psalm lxxxix. makes this
the theme of his meditation. He first reproduces its purport
by a few touches, and afterwards in a poetical amplification.3
The portraiture of the misery in which Jahveh's anointed
now lives, passes over into a prayer for the restoration of his
prosperity, and the maintenance of the divine promises.4 A
subject nearly the same is treated in another form in Psalm
cxxxii. The Psalmist recalls to memory what David had
done to augment the glory of Jahveh's worship ; how he had
transferred the ark to Jerusalem, and had prepared a dwelling
for it.5 He then repeats the promises concerning David and
his house.6 In this way he works out the prayer with which
the poem begins : " 0 Jahveh, think upon David, upon all
his afflictions," — a prayer which is afterwards repeated thus :
" For thy servant David's sake turn not away the face of
thine anointed."7
If we place ourselves on the Old Testament stand-point,
or, in other words, attend to the actual aim of the poet and
to that alone, then such Psalms as the two last mentioned
are the genuine Messianic ones. Strictly applied, this appella-
1 Besides the Psalms to be mentioned immediately, see, among others,
Ps. ix. ; x. 14—18; xiv. 7; xviii. 49, 50; xxviii. 8, 9; xxxv. 27, 28;
xlvi.— xlviii. ; li. 18, 19 ; Ixvii. ; lxviii. 29—35 ; lxix. 35, 36, &c.
2 E.g., Ps. xxviii. 3—5 ; xxxv. 19—26 ; 1. 16—22, &c. &c. On a careful
consideration of the passages which are cited in this and the preceding note,
it is plain that we are right in regarding them as the echo or reverberation
of the preaching of the prophets. The originality is on the side of the pro
phets ; the psalmists have appropriated their ideas, which they apply and
elaborate. Compare my Hist. Krit. Onderz., III., 329, f.
3 Ps. lxxxix. 2—4, 19—37.
4 Ps. lxxxix. 38—45, 46—51. 6 Ps. cxxxii. 2—9.
6 Ps. cxxxii. 11 — 18. In accordance with what precedes, the promises
to Jerusalem, Jahveh's dwelling-place, are here fused with those to David
into one whole.
7 Ps. cxxxii. 1, 10.

PSALMS APPLIED TO THE SUFFERING MESSIAH. 489
tion cannot be assigned to Psalms ii. and ex., which we lately
discussed,1 nor to the closely allied Psalms xx., xxi., Ixxii.,
which have not been mentioned hitherto simply because they are
not quoted in the New Testament. The objection to giving
these poems such a title is, that theyare addressed to a real king.
It is true, they proceed upon a very lofty notion of the kingly
office in Israel, of its relation to Jahveh, and of its task among
the people chosen by him. They thus contain also more than
one expression which, understood literally, does not apply to
the historical king ; more than one wish which, certainly
even according to the poet's own conviction, could not be
realised in him. Let Ps. Ixxii. be read from this point of
view. But notwithstanding this, it is not allowable to sever.
these psalms, as it were, from their historical connection, and
to substitute for the real king the ideal king, the expected
Messiah. The poets' own words oppose such a substitution.
That would be a misapprehension of the character of their lan
guage, which is poetical and for that very reason hyperbolical.
On the other hand — it has been already acknowledged above2
— these poetical features are so many points to which the
higher or Messianic interpretation can be attached.
But how, then, are we to judge concerning those Psalms
in which the suffering Messiah, or the Messiah glorified by suf
fering, is supposed to be found ? Everything depends here on
the stand -point on which we place ourselves. If we begin
with the Messianic idea of the prophets, and compare with it
the figure which comes into view in these Psalms, then we
cannot even imagine that they have reference to the expected
king of David's race. Such a conception is opposed, in the
first place, by the undeniable fact that the poets of these
Psalms speak concerning themselves, and now and then —
but this makes no essential difference — concerning them
selves and those who are of kindred sentiments, and who
share their lot. We search in vain in Psalms xvi., xxii., and
the rest which belong to this category, for any single trace
of the change of persons which would have taken place,
if it was not the poet but another who was the subject either
of the whole psalm or a portion of it. To that must be
added, in the second place, that the person of the sufferer in
i Above, p. 480, f . 2 Above, p. 481.

490 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD  1.
these psalms bears no resemblance whatever to the Messiah
of the prophets ; nor is the prophetical Messiah at all like
the sufferer in the psalms. That the latter should be a king,
the ruler over the restored Israel, does not in any way
appear. And, on the other hand, those traits which come
out most strongly in the psalms, — Lthe suffering, the humilia
tion, the mockery — are wanting in the prophetical represen
tation of the Messiah. In one word, they who interpret the
poems of this group historically — and the historical interpre
tation is the only true one — cannot possibly regard them as
Messianic psalms.
But what then, it may be asked, has been the cause of
the Messianic interpretation ? Here the New Testament has
exercised a powerful influence. Particular verses were found
quoted there, as containing words of the Messiah, or predic
tions regarding his lot. Sometimes even an attempt is made
to prove that these verses do not admit of any other than
the Messianic interpretation. After Peter, in the Acts of the
Apostles, has cited Ps. xvi. 8 — 11, as words of David regard
ing the Christ, he proceeds thus : " Men and brethren, I
may freely say unto you of the patriarch David, that
he is both dead and buried, and that his sepulchre is
with us unto this day. He must therefore, since, he
was a prophet, and knew that God had sworn with an
oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins one should sit
on his throne, have foreseen and spoken of the resurrection of
the Christ, that he ' was not left in Hades, neither did his
flesh see corruption.' " x In the same spirit is the explana
tion given by Paul in a subsequent chapter of the same book,
after quoting Ps. xvi. 10 : " For David, after he had served
the will of God, fell asleep in his own generation, and was
gathered to his fathers, and saw corruption ; but he whom
God raised from the dead saw no corruption."2 Such positive
assertions seemed to leave no room for doubt ; surely the
Messianic interpretation is recommended to us here as the
only one possible. But it now became necessary to apply
this interpretation completely, and to establish its relation
to the historical sense of the psalms. Then difficulties were
encountered which were not touched on, much less removed, by
1 Acts ii. 29—31, according to the oldest MSS. 2 Acts xiii. 36, 37.

THEORIES REGARDING THE PASSION-PSALMS. 491
the writers of the New Testament; a quotation of some verses
was all that they gave. There arose thus a great difference
of opinions which have little more than the final result in
common. Some assumed simply that, along with utterances
concerning the poet himself, there are to be found in the
Psalms others which must be applied to the Messiah. Others
supposed that, in the Messianic Psalms, the Messiah is
throughout introduced as the speaker. Others again distin
guished between two kinds of signification in these Psalms,
the historical, which the poet himself had put into them, and
the deeper or hidden sense, the real mind of the Holy Spirit,
in virtue of which the Psalms described not only the frame
of mind of the poet, but also the Christ. To this last mode
of interpretation the typical is closely allied. It sees in the
Messianic Psalms the expression of emotions and thoughts
of the poets themselves, but sees, moreover, in these poets the
types of the Messiah; and that in such a way that, by
virtue of a particular divine appointment, they, while pour
ing out their own feelings, at the same time represent the
Messiah. This idea again admits of being developed in more
than one way, and has indeed been recommended in various
forms. But it is not my plan to make a complete enumeration of
all the theories which have been proposed with regard to the
Messianic Psalms. We already know enough to enable us to
come to a decision upon them. They are altogether attempts
to reconcile the irreconcilable. A choice must in fact be
made here : either the historical or the Messianic interpreta
tion. The attempt is in vain made to unite the one with
the other. It will afterwards become evident that we can
value the New Testament use of the Psalms also. But when,
in order to do justice to that, we read in the Psalms some
thing else and something more than the historical interpreta
tion allows, we do wrong to the poets. If this be once
established, we really do not need to enter into the investiga
tion of all these theories. The one is, in truth, refuted and
condemned by the other ; for they cannot possibly be all, at
the same time, true. Moreover, the great majority of the
objections which put it altogether out of our power to adopt
them, lie on the surface. The supposition, for example, that

492 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD  1.
in a Psalm which throughout expresses the thoughts of the
poet, all at once, and without any previous intimation, the
Messiah begins to speak, stands and falls with the entire
doctrine of mechanical inspiration, of which it is a corollary.
It seems, indeed, exceedingly simple to make the Messiah
himself the speaker ; but before this hypothesis is approved
of, let the so-called Messianic Psalms be read as a whole.
Let it be considered, for instance, that the poet of Ps. xl. tes
tifies regarding himself: —
For evils without number have surrounded me ;
Mine iniquities have laid hold on me,
And I cannot survey them ;
They are more than the hairs of my head,
And my heart hath failed me.1
Let the reader remember the confession in Psalm xli. —
" Heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee." 2 Let the
attempt be made to reconcile the imprecations in Psalm lxix. 8
with the spirit of the Christ. But enough. It is truly
neither by chance nor caprice that this view, in spite of its
simplicity, numbers gradually fewer supporters, and is limited
to a smaller number of Psalms by those who still adhere to
it. There thus remains really nothing but the hypothesis
of the twofold sense in its various shades, under which
head we can bring the typical interpretation also. The
question, of course, is not whether Christians have been right
in observing agreement between the complaints of the pious
poets of Israel, and the suffering of their master. That ques
tion will certainly be answered by us all without hesitation
in the affirmative. But the supporters of the double sense,
and of the typical interpretation, are not satisfied with this.
In their opinion the expressions of the Psalmists are, in some
way or other, something more than the description of what
they themselves experienced and felt. And it is precisely
this something more which they fail to prove. They were
bound to show us that the historical explanation is insuf
ficient, does not do justice to the words, does not exhaust
the meaning of the poet, or of the Holy Ghost who inspires
him. But usually they never attempt this ; and in so far as
they make an effort to show it, it is immediately evident that
they misunderstand the texts, and specifically fail to appre-
1 Ps. xl. 12. 2 Psalm xli. 4b. 3 Psalm lxix. 22—28.

CRITICISM OF THE ORTHODOX INTERPRETATIONS. 493
ciate the poetic diction.1 Moreover, are not both the
hypothesis of the twofold sense, and especially the typical
interpretation, irreconcilable with the facts which were lately
recalled to mind? or does any one see a chance, without
arbitrariness, of applying them to Psalms xl., xli., lxix., even
to those portions which exclude the Messiah as the speaker ?
What may be wanting to this demonstration is supplied
by the history of the exegesis of the Psalms, to which I wish,
at the close, to direct attention in a few words. The well
known Berlin Professor, Hengstenberg, in the first edition of
his Christology of the Old Testament, defended the strict
Messianic interpretation of Psalms xvi., xxii., and some other
passion-psalms. But in the second edition of that work
(1854-57), and in the Commentary on the Psalms (second
edition, 1849-52), the ideal person of the righteous man
takes the place of the Messiah.2 This change of view is by
no means an isolated fact. The Messianic interpretation in the
proper sense of the term is always becoming more limjted as
time advances, and in the case of some theologians of the
orthodox school, seems to be on the point of vanishing
altogether. " Among all the Davidic Psalms there is only one,
namely Psalm ex., in which David, just as in his last words
(2 Sam. xxiii. 1 — 7), casts a glance into the future of his
race, and sees the Messiah objectively before him." So writes
— not this or that adherent of rationalistic criticism — but
Professor F. Delitzsch.3 According to one of those who
think with him, Professor J. H. Kurtz, it is at the present
day universally acknowledged that the Messianic passion-
1 This is true, e.g., of the argument in favour of the Messianic interpre
tation of Psalm xxii., which people are in the habit of deriving from vv.
22 — 31 ; both the thanksgiving and the expectation that the heathen will
share in the deliverance of the poet are regarded as irreconcilable with the
assertion that the latter is speaking about himself. But it is here overlooked
that the poet suffers as a pious servant of Jahveh, that he is one of many,
and utters a common complaint and prayer in their name (v. 4), that his
rescue appears here as the commencement of a new period, in which Jahveh
interests himself in the lot of his own, and vindicates their right.
2 "Die Psalmen" iv. 649, where the subject in Psalms vi., xvi., xxii.,
xxxv., xxxviii., xl., xli., lxix., lxx., lxxi., cii., and cix., is thus defined.
Compare Vol. I. 341 — 44 (on Psalm xvi.) ; II. 7 (on Psalm xxii.), &c. ;
further, " Christol. des A. T." III. 2, p. 90, 148 f., and I. 169, where we
read, " David nowhere treats immediately and exclusively of the suffering
Messiah, as at a later period Isaiah does."
3 " Bibl. Commentar," &c. of Keil and Delitzsch. iv. 1, p. 47.

494 XIII.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE DLD-^I.
psalms must be understood typically — only with regard to
the Psalms descriptive of the glory of the Messiah is the
question, whether they should be understood typically or
rather prophetically, answered, still in different ways.1 He
himself sees, just as Delitzsch, a direct Messianic prophecy
only in Psalm ex., all the other "glory-psalms," as he calls
them (Psalms ii., xvi., xlv., Ixxii.), have reference, first of all,
to a definite king of Israel, David or Solomon, and to the
Messiah only in so far as he was typically represented by
these kings, and as the ideal conception of their sovereignty
became a reality first in him.2 It lias already clearly
appeared that I cannot agree with these ideas. In my view
they represent only half of the truth, or rather still, they
combine arbitrary suppositions with the truth. But com
pared with the view formerly prevailing, they mark an
important advance, and testify loudly of the power of the his
torical interpretation ; of the universal triumph of which, as is
evident also from this approximation to it, no doubt need be
entertained. The result of our investigation therefore is, that the poets
who composed the Psalms, following the prophets, their pre
decessors, have also adopted, applied, and elaborated their
expectations regarding the felicitous future of Israel, without
adding thereto any features altogether new. The New
Testament led expositors to judge otherwise, and brought
about that, as regards the relation of the poets to the
Messiah and his kingdom, all kinds of diverse theories
were devised, for which the New Testament itself cannot be
made responsible, and which, if the signs of the times do not
deceive us, will very soon be matters of history. For us
these theories have even now no longer any value ; as soon as
authority in matters of exegesis ceases to be attributed to
the writers of the New Testament, we have nothing more to
do with the edifice reared on that foundation. The judgment
which we should form on the citations from the Psalms, from
another, the religious, point of view, is reserved for a subse
quent chapter.
There is yet another point which now admits of being at
once disposed of. At the beginning of our investigation I
1 " Zur Theologie der Psalmen " (Dorpat, 1865), p. 8. 2 B.C., p. 9 ff.

CONCLUSION REGARDING THE MESSIANIC PSALMS. 495
reminded the reader of the manner in which the succession
and concatenation of the Old Testament predictions were
usually conceived.1 This traditional interpretation remained
subsequently unnoticed. But those of my readers who kept it
in mind cannot certainly have failed to observe that, in the
course of our inquiry, the most of the links in that chain have
not remained undisturbed. Very many passages which,
according to the common view, contain predictions regarding
the Christ, required, as it seemed to us, a different interpre
tation, through which their Messianic character was either
not at all or only half preserved. Let the remarks be recalled
to mind which were formerly offered on the so-called paradise-
promise,2 on the promises to Abraham and the other patriarchs,3
on Shiloh in " the blessing of Jacob," 4 on the birth of the
Messiah at Bethlehem,6 on Immanuel,6 on the suffering servant
of Jahveh,7 on the "Son of man" and the seventy year-weeks.8
To that let there be added what has just been brought
forward concerning the Messianic Psalms.9 The conclusion
hardly any longer requires to be stated ; the common con
ception of the course of prophetical prediction, far indeed from
being established by, exegesis, is again and again contradicted
by it, and, as a whole, refuted.
An attempt is made to support it by an appeal to the
authority of the New Testament. That appeal cannot be
fully accepted. A number of passages, which, according to
tradition, contain prophecies regarding the Messiah, prophecies
which are indispensable links in the chain of the predictions,
are not explained, nor even mentioned, in the New Testament.
This remark is true ofthe paradise-promise,10 of Shiloh,11 ofthe
seventy year-weeks in Daniel ; 12 in a certain sense also of the
1 See pp. 2—5. 2 P. 376, f. 3 P. 378, f. 4 P. 380, f.
6 P. 212. It follows directly from what was said there that the prophet
was not thinking at all of the birthplace ofthe Messiah.
6 Pp. 166, 169. 7 See pp. 230—223.
8 P. 223 f. ; 262 ff. 9 Pp. 479—491.
10 Although Rev. xii. (see especially verse 9) plainly teaches that the ser
pent of Gen. iii. was identified with the Devil, or at least was regarded as an
instrument of the Devil.
11 It may, however, be inferred from Eev. v. 5 (" the lion of the tribe of
Juda") that the Messianic interpretation of Jacob's blessing upon Judah
(Gen. xlix. 8 — 12) was not unknown to the writer.
12 In 1 Peter i. 10, 11, we find an allusion to the efforts made by the pro
phets to obtain certainty with regard to the period when the Christ should
appear.

496 XIII. — NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — I.
prophecy of Micah about the birth of the Messiah in Beth
lehem, which, properly speaking, is quoted only by the Jewish
chief priests and scribes,1 and by the multitude in the Gospel
according to John.2 But the rest of the predictions are
actually applied to Christ in the New Testament : this has
already become evident to us with regard to the most ; the
few, which I have not yet been able to treat of, shall be dis
cussed in the next chapter. If, therefore, the investigation
now instituted had established the authority of the New
Testament writers as expositors of the prophecies, the tradi
tional conception of the course of prediction would not indeed
have been fully rehabilitated, but still would have been in part
restored. But now also, on the other hand, when it has
become evident to us that the New Testament citations
cannot be maintained before the tribunal of scientific
exegesis, our final verdict upon the common view
need no longer be delayed. That view is altogether
untenable. The real expectation regarding Israel's future
glory lies before us in the Old Testament; no one,
therefore, thinks of denying it ; we are able to follow its
origin and history in all its details ; the one prophecy
supports and explains the other. The traditional Messianic
prophecy is undoubtedly a beautiful whole. As an expres
sion of the belief of Christendom in the unity and regular
development of God's plan of redemption, it preserves its
value for us also and for all subsequent ages. But it forms
no part of the historical reality. One stone after another
must be removed from it, and placed elsewhere. When,
finally, the support which the earliest Christian literature
seemed to offer has fallen away, the whole edifice collapses.
1 Matt. ii. 4 — 6. The same conception of Micah v. 2, forms, however,
the basis of the narratives of Matthew and Luke regarding the birth of
Jesus at Bethlehem.
2 John vii. 42»>

CHAPTER XIV.
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY.
B. — The Spiritual Fulfilment.
The prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled in the New,
specifically in the person and work of Jesus : such was, as
may be remembered, the second objection, on account of
which my view of the work of the Israelitish prophets was
thought undeserving of adoption.1 It was already acknow
ledged that we cannot avoid the consideration of the
difficulty here raised.
Let it, however, be said at once that the force of this
objection has been already broken for us, When we were
preparing to study the prophecies regarding Israel's future
glory, the question was raised whether, in the prosecution of
this study, attention should not be given throughout to the
New Testament ? This was answered in the negative, and
that because even they who defend the supernatural view of
prophecy usually acknowledge that its realisation in the
appearance of Jesus, and in the Christian religion established
by him, bears a peculiar character : in him the promises of the
prophets are fulfilled in a spiritual manner, and, as it is
sometimes put, are more than fulfilled.2 In this way, along
with the agreement, a not unimportant difference between
prediction and result is also recognised. Am I deceived in
supposing that the study of the prophetical predictions in
chapter vii. has already convinced the reader that the
difference referred to is in fact very great and essential, nay,
sometimes resembles opposition and contradiction ? In any
case, when he looks at the facts which have there been
brought into view, he will show himself disinclined to admit
1 Above, p. 449. 2 Above, p. 188.
2 I

498 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
at once, as valid, the- objection derived from the New Testa
ment fulfilment ; it has, at the outset, appearances against it.
But the study also of the exegesis of the New Testament
in the preceding chapter does not leave the asserted realisation
of the prophecies of the Old Testament uncontroverted. We
perceived immediately that the two objections against our view,
borrowed from the New Testament, were very intimately con
nected with each other.1 That fact has now become still
much more distinctly visible. What is wont to be called, in
a single phrase " the realisation of a prophecy," is in truth a
very composite phenomenon. The two terms into wliich it
must first of all be separated — the prediction itself and the
fact in which it is said to be fulfilled — appear indeed to be
simple, but frequently are not so. In the first, the predic
tion, — a clear distinction must be made between the (objec
tively given) text and the (subjective) interpretation of it
adopted by the expositor ; and so also with regard to the last
term, the fulfilment, — from the naked historical fact must be
distinguished the estimation of the fact and the representation
of it built upon that estimate by the historian. It is quite
true that, according as the science of exegesis is more
advanced, the difference between the text itself and the inter
pretation of it becomes smaller; and that according as historio
graphy comes nearer perfection, (not the influence, but) the
prejudicial influence of the historian's personality is lessened.
But in the first century of the Christian era the subjective
factor made itself still powerfully felt, as well in the domain
of the interpretation of Scripture as in that of historical writ
ing. So far as exegesis specifically is concerned, no one
will accuse us of exaggeration when we, after chapter xiii.,
assume it as proved that the New Testament writers have
very frequently read in the prophecies something different
from what they actually contain. These same authors come
forward as witnesses regarding the life of Jesus and the bless
ings which have proceeded from him. How could this,
by possibility, have remained without influence upon their
view of the relation in which the reality stands to the pro
phecy ? Every representation of this relation which follows
theirs must be expressly and carefully tested before it can be
1 Above, p. 449, f.

PLAN OF THE FURTHER INVESTIGATION. 499
adopted. A priori, we are inclined to distrust it, and are
justified, and indeed obliged, to reject the demands which are
made upon us on the ground of it.
But it is unnecessary to expatiate longer on this point, be
cause my sole object is to dispose the reader to weigh my
demonstration in a friendly spirit, and by no means to put a
stop to further investigation. We now, therefore, proceed at
once to study the actual relation of the New Testament to the
prophecies of the Old. We shall do so, at least as a rule,
without involving ourselves in the refutation of views differ
ing from our own. We allow, moreover, the New Testament
itself to speak and testify. It is true, we should also be able
of ourselves to establish the relation referred to by comparing
the two terms. But the manner in which it presents itself now
and to us is, after all, of subordinate importance ; and
besides, the subjectivity of every man has here only too
much room to show itself. The investigation acquires much
greater importance and value if we consult the founder of
Christianity himself, and the first preachers of his religion, and
allow ourselves to be guided by them. How this can be done
without, on that account, abandoning our independence, and
giving up our own judgment, let our investigation itself show.
It can only promote perspicuity, if the course which we
shall follow be at the outset indicated in a few words.
The relation of the New Testament to prophecy will be
first described, and then explained.
It will become evident from this description that the New
Testament writers, very far from binding themselves by the
expectations of the prophets of Israel, choose freely from
among them, and interpret and develop them in a spiritual
sense. It is only in this way that their conviction with
regard to the fulfilment of prophecy could be maintained.
The explanation brings the facts thus noted into connec
tion with the relation in whicli Jesus and the apostles stand
to the entire Old Dispensation, and places these facts in the
light of a universal law which admits of being deduced from
the history of religions.

When we compare Christianity, as it presents itself to us

500 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II,
in the Founder aud in the first preachers of his gospel, with
the predictions of the Old Testament, it becomes at once
evident that they do not agree fully and literally. There is
no similarity and conformity between prophecy and issue.
The difference may be thus expressed : the national, particu
laristic, and material elements in the predictions regarding
the future are in the New Testament thrust into the back
ground, or even distinctly contradicted ; the universalistic
and spiritual side comes into the foreground, and is worked
out with cordial sympathy.
The former of these two propositions will hardly encounter
any opposition. The political restoration of Israel was not
aimed at by Jesus, and as little did his disciples use the
preaching of his religion as a means to that end. If his ap
pearance among the Jewish people may at first, especially
in Galilee, have roused the expectation that subjection to the
Bomans would now come to an end, and that Israel's exalta
tion to universal dominion was at hand,1 such an idea was
from the very beginning contradicted and combated by Jesus,2
and was very speedily altogether disappointed by his suffering
and death. The Christians continue to employ the Old
Testament terms, which had originally a political and national
signification, but they expect that what is expressed by these
terms will not be realised till a later period, and very soon
they cease any longer to expect that realisation at all.3 When
we consider their ideas about the person of Jesus more par
ticularly, as we shall do immediately, this will become in the
clearest way evident to us.
In immediate connection with this point stands their nega
tive relation to the particularism of the prophets. The
latter — as we have already become convinced4 — have no
thought of abandoning Israel's pre-eminence among the
nations ; they maintain it firmly, even while they assign to
the heathen a participation in the Messianic felicity. We again
1 Compare John vi. 15, Matt. xxi. 9, and the parallel passages.
2 Really by the whole of his teaching, so that particular passages do not
require to be quoted. See, among others, Matt. xxii. 16 — 22, with the
parallel passages; and John xviii. 36.
3 See below, and compare, among other passages, Luke i. 32, 33, and
Acts i. 6.
4 Above, p. 242 ff.

THE UNIVERSALISM OF JESUS. 501
find the same representation here and there in the New Testa
ment, especially in the Bevelation : the Gentiles are not ex
cluded — far from that, — but still they are continually dis
tinguished from Israel, and placed beneath Israel.1 But these
cases are exceptions to the rule. Generally, the — truly unmis
takable — historical pre-eminence of the Israelitish nation is
acknowledged, but at the same time it is taught that the
heathen share fully in the privileges of Israel, or even, if that
nation continues to oppose the preaching of salvation, shall take
its place. The Gospel according to Matthew is, not unjustly,
regarded as a product of the Jewish-christian school. Here
then, if anywhere, particularism must have been maintained.
Traces of it, indeed, are not wholly and altogether wanting,2
but the representation of the Jews and heathens as equal
decidedly predominates. Besides this fact itself, the ground
also on which it rests deserves our attention. For it is
inseparable from this other fact, that in the teaching of
Jesus, as it is presented to us in this gospel, participation
in the Messianic salvation is made dependent upon moral
conditions, which from their nature could be fulfilled as well
by Gentiles as by Israelites. It was from the faith manifested
by the Gentile centurion that Jesus took occasion to prophecy,
" Many shall come from the east and from the west, and
shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the king
dom of heaven, but the children of the kingdom shall be
cast into outer darkness : there shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth."3 The parable of the wicked husbandmen is closed
with these words : " He (the lord of the vineyard) will miser
ably destroy those wicked men, and will let out the vineyard
to other husbandmen, who shall render him the fruits in their
seasons." Or, as it is expressed in plain terms: "Therefore
say I unto you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken from
you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof."4
As in this parable it is taught that the Jews shall be re
jected, and the Gentiles occupy their place, so in that of the
labourers in the vineyard, the lesson is given that they who
have been called earlier, and they who have been called later,
shall all be placed upon a level.5
1 Rev vii. 4—8. ¦ Matt. xv. 21—28, xix. 28 ; compare x. 5, 6.
3 Matt. viii. 11, 12. 4 Matt. xxi. 41—43. 6 Matt. xx. 1—16.

502 XIV. — NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD  II.
The relation of the Apostle Paul to the particularistic anti
cipations of his people is especially remarkable. How highly
he values, on the one hand, the privilege of his descent from
the people of God, and how heartily he loves his brethren
according to the flesh, are matters of which scarcely any one
needs to be reminded.1 It does not enter into his imagina
tion to deny the historical preeminence of Israel above the
Gentiles.2 As little does he give up the hope that the
Israelites, who at present are excluded on account of their
rebelliousness, shall afterwards, when they have been roused
to emulation by the conversion of the Gentiles, earnestly
desire a share in the kingdom of God, and thus the divine
promises shall be fully realised.3 But, on the other side, he
opposes emphatically, and from principle, the treatment of
the Gentiles as inferiors. He does not wish that any
burdensome condition or ordinance should be laid upon them
on their reception into the Christian community.4 " Is God,"
he asks, " a God of the Jews only ? is he not of the Gentiles
also ? Yes, of the Gentiles also." 5 He maintains, in the
strongest terms, God's absolute sovereignty, in virtue of
which He can call and exclude whom He will,6 and in
proving this does not scruple to employ passages, the appli
cation of which, by implication, places the Israelitish nation
for the time on the same footing with Esau and Pharaoh.7
It is only presenting the. same ideas in another form, when
he understands the expression, " children of Abraham," in
a spiritual sense, and thus applies it to all wlio possess the
faith of Abraham, whatever their descent may be.s In
accordance with this he calls Christians in general " the
Israel of God," 9 so that all the privileges and promises which
were originally given to Israel, have been transferred to
them. In the same spirit he elsewhere makes a very free
use of a prophecy from Hosea. That prophet had announced
a temporary rejection of Israel, a period in which the position
of the people should correspond to the symbolical names
which he gives his children, Lo-Buchamah (" the uncompas-
1 Rom. ix. 1 — 5, Phil. iii. 4 — 6. 2 Rom. iii. 1 ff., and elsewhere.
3 Rom. xi. 11 ff. 4 Gal. ii. 3, 6. 5 Rom. iii. 29.
6 Rom. ix. 6 ff. * Rom. ix. 10-13, 17. 8 Rom. iv.
9 Gal. vi. 16. Compare the two-fold circumcision, Rom. ii. 25 ff. ; Col.
ii. 11 ; Phil. iii. 3.

PAUL APPLIES OLD TESTAMENT PROMISES TO THE GENTILES. 503
sionated "), and Lo-Ammi (" not my people "). But there
after Jahveh shall again have mercy upon Israel : " in the
place where it was said unto them, 'ye are Lo-Ammi (not my
people),' it shall be said unto them, ' sons of the living God."'1
And in a subsequent prophecy, yet with reference still to the
figure here employed, the words occur: "I will have compassion
upon Lo-Ruchamah, and I will say to Lo-Ammi, ' thou art my
people.' " 2 Both these passages are quoted by Paul, but in
reverse order and with variations in the form.3 But with
him they are made to serve as a proof of the calling of the
Gentiles : " as he hath called us (Christians) also, not out of
the Jews only, but out of the Gentiles also, as he saith also
in Hosea . . ." This citation cannot be defended as regards
the exegesis ; but so much the more clearly does it testify to
the spirit which animates the apostle. According to him, the
characteristic of the time in which he lives consists precisely
in this, that the line of demarcation between Israel and the
Gentiles is obliterated, and the gospel of the righteousness of
God " is clearly seen to be a divine power unto salvation for
every one who believeth, for the Jew first, but equally also
for the Greek." 4
It is already implied in what is said above, that the
prophetical promise of material welfare, which takes for
granted the continued existence of the nation of Israel, does
not come into the foreground in the New Testament. I
purposely do not express myself more strongly. For the
felicity which is there announced as revealed in Christ is not
purely spiritual and heavenly, although the modern reader
of the New Testament involuntarily understands it thus.
" The kingdom of God," or " of the heavens " — two expres
sions which mean precisely the same thing, for the phrase
" the heavens " is, according to the mode of speaking of those
days, " God " — is usually represented in the New Testament
as a state of felicity wliich shall begin, after a short time,
upon earth.5 The Apostle Paul,6 and the writer of the
Apocalypse,7 are at one on this point, although the latter
1 Hos. i. 10 (Heb. ii. 1). 2 Hos. ii. 23 (Heb. ii. 25).
3 Rom. ix. 25, 26. i Rom. i. 16, 17.
6 This is also the doctrine of Jesus in the Synoptical Gospels, although
we cannot here show at length that such is the case.
6 1 Cor. xv. 50 ff. ; 1 Thes. iv. 17, etc. 7 Rev. xxi. 10 ff.

504 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
depicts the heavenly Jerusalem in a way which might readily
appear to the former to be too materialistic.1 The celebrated
utterance of Paul concerning the longing creation,2 evidently
inspired by Isaiah's prophecy about the transformation of
nature,3 furnishes the proof, that, in his view, the earth is the
scene on which the felicity brought by Christ shall be fully
realised. But notwithstanding this it cannot be asserted that
the materialistic elements in the prophetical expectation of
felicity occupy a large share in the spirit of the New Testa
ment writers. It is often perfectly clear that, in their esti
mation, they are nothing more than figures of abundant
spiritual blessings.4 And their realisation is always postponed
entirely to the future, "the age which is coming," in which all
things shall become new, and thus the harmony also between
the outward condition and the inward state shall be perfect.
For the present it is the spiritual blessings, announced by
the prophets of the Old Testament, to which the eye of the
New Testament writers is by preference directed. Among
these the forgiveness of sins stands supreme, as the condition
and foundation of all that is enjoyed by Christians in fellow
ship with Jesus. The full exposition of the doctrine of the
New Testament upon this subject lies beyond the limits of
our plan. It will presently become evident to us how the
forgiveness of sins is brought into connection with the suffer
ing and death of Jesus. At present we have only to note
that the anticipations of a remission of trespasses, disclosed by
the Israelitish prophets, are regarded as having been fulfilled in
the new Covenant. It does not escape the notice of Paul that
David had long before pronounced the man blessed, " whose
transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered, to whom
the Lord imputeth not his sin." 6 How highly he values this
privilege appears plainly in a very characteristic manner, from a
citation we have already regarded from another point of view.6
1 See the previous note. 2 Rom. viii. 19 — 23.
3 Isa. xi. 6 — 8 ; compare above, p. 236.
4 This is true, e.g., of all the passages in which " the kingdom of God"
is represented as a feast or marriage, Matt. viii. 11 ; xxii. 1 ff. ; xxv. 1 ff.
and the parallel passages ; Rev. xix. 6 ff . In the description of the heavenly
Jerusalem also, Rev. xxi. 10 — xxii. 5, everything is not to be understood
literally, but as little is everything to be spiritualised. The line of demar
cation is sometimes difficult to be drawn. 6 Ps. xxxii. 1, 2 ; Rom. iv. 7 8.
6 Isa. lix. 26, 21 ; xxvii. 9 ; Rom. xi. 26, 27 ; compare above, p. 461, f.

THE PROMISE OF FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 505
By combining two different prophetical utterances, the follow
ing sentence is obtained by the apostle : " And this is the
covenant on My part unto them, when I take away their sins."
That the remission of former transgressions is associated with
the establishment of the new covenant between Jahveh and the
children of Israel was in truth an idea not unknown to the
prophets, and appears, among other passages, in Jeremiah's
celebrated oracle concerning the new covenant,1 which has
exercised an influence on Paul's phraseology,2 and is adopted
and commented upon, as a whole, by the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews.3 He appends two remarks to
this prophecy. In the first place, he sees in the announce
ment of a new covenant the condemnation and abrogation of
the old.4 In the second place, he refers emphatically to the
promise of the forgiveness of sins, with which the oracle of
Jeremiah is closed, and deduces from that promise the con
clusion that under the New Testament there is no room for
sin-offerings.5 He had just before deduced the same conclusion
from the fortieth Psalm. The reader knows my objections
against the exegesis of that psalm given by this writer.6 But
the greater the freedom which he here allows himself, the
more distinctly it is shown what it is that he seeks in the
Old Testament Scriptures, and what therein possesses the
greatest attraction for him. Christians " sanctified once for
all by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ," have no
more need of the continued existence of sacrifices ; for which
reason these also are, in the psalm, placed in contrast with
the will of God.7
In the prophecy of Jeremiah there appears yet another
trait which the writers of the New Testament regard as one
of the chief points in the Messianic prediction, and which
they lay hold of and elaborate With evident predilection.
" I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in
their heart " — so says Jahveh by the prophet. Although he
does not say so expressly, yet with him also this alteration
is undoubtedly the result of the fact, that Jahveh pours out
his spirit upon the Israelites — an idea which is worked out
1 Jer. xxxi. 31—34.
2 1 Cor. xi. 25 (compare Luke xxii. 20) ; 2 Cor. iii. 6.
8 Heb. viii. 7—13 ; x. 15—18. 4 Heb. viii. 7, 8", 13.
6 Heb. x. 15—18. 6 Above, pp. 456 f., 484. 7 Heb. x. 5—10.

506 XIV. — NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
in detail in Joel,1 but which is not wanting in other prophets
also.2 The use made of Joel's prediction by Peter in the
Acts is well known.3 As will be remembered, he adduces
the phenomena whieh occurred on the day of Pentecost as a
proof that the realization of God's promises had now com
menced. Paul contrasts the old dispensation with the new,
and characterises the latter — certainly also under the influ
ence of the prophetical utterances just referred to — as " the
ministration of the spirit." 4
The words now quoted are immediately followed in Jere
miah by the promise ; " I will be their God, and they shall
be my people ; " the relation between Jahveh and Israel con
tinues to exist in the future also, more intimate and purer
than before. It is already evident, from what has been just
stated, that the New Testament writers have paid attention
to this promise also, and have seen in the Christian commu
nity the regenerated people of God.s Paul adopts it, more
over, in its entirety, although not from Jeremiah, but from
the admonitory address at the close of the legislation in
Leviticus, where it runs thus : " And I will set my taber
nacle among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I
will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be
my people." 6 We no longer need to say that he transfers
this to the Christians. But what the apostle immediately
adds must not escape our notice. There is first of all an
exhortation to the Christians to separate themselves from
those who are not Christians, and to be on their guard against
defilement ; he borrows it from the second Isaiah, who had
called upon his contemporaries, especially the priests of
Jahveh, to leave Babylon, and to keep themselves clean, in
expectation that Jahveh would place himself at their head,
and bring them back to the land of their fathers.7 In the
1 Joel ii. 28—32.
2 Isa. xxxii. 15, 16 ; xliv. 3 ; Ezek. xxxix. 29 ; Zech. xii. 10. The con
nection between this idea and the thought in Jeremiah appears clearly,
among other passages, from Ezek. xi. 19, 20 ; xxxvi 26, 27.
3 Acts ii. 17—21.
4 2 Cor. iii. 8. Comp. with Jer. xxxi. 32, 33, the contrast drawn in ver. 3.
6 See above, p. 502. Compare the use of the phrase, " the people of
God," in Heb. iv. 9.
6 Lev. xxvi. 11, 12 ; compare Ezek. xxxvii. 27 ; 2 Cor. vi. 16.
7 Is. lii. 11; 2 Cor. vi. 17. The words "and I will receive you," are
either a free summary of Is. lii. 12, or taken from Zeph. iii. 19.

OLD TESTAMENT UNDERSTOOD AS PROMISING IMMORTALITY. 5 07
second place, he connects with this a very free citation, with
which we are already acquainted : " And I will be a father
unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the
Lord, the Almighty." x It is, as will be noticed, merely a
modification of the thought whicli just before had been taken
from Leviticus, but still it is in the highest degree character
istic of the spirit in which the apostle interprets the Old
Testament, and understands how it has been fulfilled by the
New. The relation between God and Christians is the same
as that of Jahveh to Israel, but it has become more indivi
dual, and thus at the same time more intimate. They are,
one by one, sons and daughters of the Father in heaven.
Thus in the freedom with which Paul here treats the Old
Testament promise, is revealed the power of the new spirit
whicli had proceeded from the Christ, and was being pro
pagated by his church.
One trait must still be added to this sketch of the New
Testament conception of the prophetical promises of felicity.
Personal immortality formed no element of the religious con
viction of the prophets, and thus also occupies no place in
their expectations regarding the future.2 But even before
the founding of Christianity, it was acknowledged by the
great majority of the Jews, and that in the form of the
resurrection of the dead, which was expected to occur at
the commencement of the coming age. In this respect
there was no difference between the Jewish belief and that
of the earliest "Christians. It could not fail to happen
that under the influence of this belief many utterances of
the Old Testament would necessarily be understood and in
terpreted in another sense than that which was intended by
the original writers. Clear instances of this are afforded, for
example, in the catalogue of the heroes of faith in the epistle
to the Hebrews.3 The apostle Paul also — and it was to this
point that I wished to call attention now — finds the triumph
over death indicated in the writings of the prophets. After
having expounded his ideas upon the change of the carnal
1 2 Cor. vi. 18. On the relation of these words to 2 Sam. vii. 14, see
above, p. 463.
2 Compare " De godsdienst van Israel," I., 70 f. (I., 64 f. English Transla
tion), and above, p. 234 f.
3 Heb. xi. 13—16, 17—19, 26.

508 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
and mortal body into one which is spiritual and imperishable,
he thus proceeds : " Then shall be brought to pass the saying
that is written, ' death is swallowed up in victory.' 0 death,
where is thy sting ? 0 death, where is thy victory ? " x Two
prophetical utterances2 are here combined, and, their histori
cal sense being set aside, are made applicable to " the annihi
lation of death, the last enemy."3 This is true specifically of
the second saying, borrowed from Hosea, which properly has
reference only to the deliverance of the Ephraimites from the
danger of death. The other prophecy — assigned to Isaiah,
but of a later date4 — discloses in truth the anticipation of a
time in which " Jahveh shall destroy death for ever," and so
" shall wipe away the tears from all faces,5 and shall take
away the reproach of his people from off all the earth." But
this expectation — parallel to the idea which we find else
where, that in the age of felicity the lives of the inhabitants
of Jerusalem shall be lengthened6 — is spiritualised by Paul,
and only after this process is made fit to take its place in
his view of the future.
We have now, if I am not mistaken, a sufficiently clear
conception of the manner in which the earliest Christians
understood the prophetic promises, and of the sense in whicli
they are regarded in the New Testament as having been
fulfilled. Our examination of these points is still, however, far
from complete ; it is not even half accomplished. We have
as yet directed our attention only to the Messianic felicity,
and have left the Messiah himself unnoticed. And yet he is
the centre, if not of the prophetical expectation, yet certainly
of the faith of the Christians. It thus follows, as a matter
of course, that we shall devote all our attention to the con
ception formed of his person in connection with Old Testament
prophecy. But before we proceed to do so, we must pause
for a moment. For already a not unimportant conclusion
admits of being deduced from the preceding investigation,
which finds here its most appropriate place.
We have already formed a judgment upon that view,
1 1 Cor. xv. 54, 55. The reading of Tischendorf is here followed. Com
pare Kautzsch, I.e. p. 106 ff.
2 Is. xxv. 8 ; Hos. xiii. 14. 3 1 Cor. xv. 26.
4 See above, p. 113, n. 6. 6 Compare Rev. vii. 17; xxi. 4.
6 See above, p. 235.

THE NEW TESTAMENT IS ANTICHILIASTIC. 509
which is commonly called Chiliasm.1 It plainly appeared to
us to be at variance not only with the state of the world at
the present day, but also to correspond only in part, or rather
not at all, with the prophecies to which its supporters appeal.
We can now go a step further. The New Testament is anti-
chiliastic. We do not overlook the difference which exists
with regard to this subject, between the different writings.
If they were all like the Bevelation of John, we should
not express ourselves so positively. For in that book —
written before the fall of Jerusalem, in the year 69 of our
era — there is announced, not indeed, of course, the restora
tion, but the continued existence of the nation of Israel and
its capital.2 But this expectation was not realised. It might,
after the year 70 of our era, have been transformed into the
anticipation of the restoration of the Israelitish state, but this
did not take place in the Christian circles from which the books
of the New Testament proceeded ; we nowhere find any trace
of such a resurrection of the Jewish expectation in a new
form. But we do find there phenomena which testify to a
movement in the opposite direction : the national and political
side of prophecy remains unnoticed, and the promise made
to Israel is transferred to the Christian community, con
sisting of Jews and Gentiles. If the question is asked,
whether we hold this New Testament use of the pro
phecies to be exegetically correct, we answer without any
hesitation in the negative : our seventh chapter furnishes the
proof that we must understand these prophecies differently.
But this does not alter the fact that the Christian community
understood the Old Testament prediction in that sense, and
knew and expected no other than a spiritual fulfilment of it.
That fact remains, whatever objections we, as exegetes, may
have to allege against their interpretation. The belief in the
still future, literal fulfilment of the prophecy of Israel's glory
is at variance with the spirit of the New Testament literature
¦ — a return to the stand-point which the prophets themselves
once occupied, but which was abandoned by the Christian
community, and exchanged for another and a higher stand
point, — higher, for the spiritual is superior to the material,
universalism to particularism.
i Above, pp. 186—188, 193 f., 258—262. 2 Rev. xi. 1—13.

510 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.

Of the entire new dispensation Jesus is the centre. Belief
in him was at first the only thing which distinguished the
Christians from the Jews. It continued to be the chief
matter, even when, at a later period, under the influence of
Paul, the difference between Judaism and Christianity had
become greater. It was, therefore, in the representation
which men formed to themselves of the person of Jesus, in
the manner in which they brought his person into connection
with Old Testament prophecy, that the distinctive features of
the earliest Christianity, and its relation to the religion of
Israel, must be revealed in the most complete and most
precise manner. This surely is of itself sufficient to justify
us in collecting all that belongs to this subject, and in endea
vouring to unite the various materials into one whole.
Into one whole ; not, however, in that sense in which
many of my readers may imagine that I. shall attempt to do
this. If their expectation were to be satisfied, the proof
would here have to be given, that the various predictions
regarding the Christ which the Old Testament furnishes are
all introduced into the New Testament, and are quite clearly
seen to be fulfilled in Jesus ; or, conversely, that the pro
phecies which are applied to the Christ in the New Testa
ment mutually agree, and, taken together, reproduce the
essential purport of Israel's expectations regarding the
Messiah. Neither the one nor the other is the case. The
New Testament Christ is another than the Messiah of the
Old Testament. Many features in the image of the latter are
not to be found reproduced in the former ; and he, on the
other hand, exhibits to us characteristics whicli we seek for
in vain in the Old Testament Messiah. The case stands thus :
the writers of the New Testament have seen the Christ in the
Messianic prophecies, but they have seen him elsewhere also.
They recognised him in more than one type which the Old
Testament presented to their view, and they then, very
naturally, regarded these types as mutually agreeing and
essentially one, because they converged, as it were, in the
Christ. The facts themselves, to the consideration of which
we now pass, will show this distinctly.
Our attention is drawn first of all to what is implied in the

IMPORT OF THE TITLE THE CHRIST. 511

title "the Christ," a title which is throughout assigned to
Jesus, and which, with the omission of the article, has already
in the New Testament become a part of his proper name.
" The Christ" is the translation of the Hebrew "ha-masbfach,"
the anointed, an abbreviation of " the anointed of Jahveh,"
the common honorary appellation of the Israelitish king.1
As such, therefore, Jesus also undoubtedly bears the said
title. It is true indeed that the High priest also was
anointed,2" and that the consecration of the prophet to
his office is on a single occasion called his anointing by
Jahveh.8 But this was not thought of in assigning the
title of Christ. This appellation was simply the expression
of the conviction common to the earliest Christians, that the
predictions regarding the king of Israel, descendant of David,
and restorer of David's throne and dominion were fulfilled in
their Master. We read in the Gospels that Jesus was on several
occasions saluted with the title of honour, "son of David."4
From the genealogical lists in Matthew and Luke b it clearly
appears how great was the importance attached to his Davidic
descent. More than one prophecy relating to the king from
David's house is expressly applied to him. In the narratives
of his birth and earliest years he is called the king of Israel,
the successor of his father David.6 His entrance into Jeru
salem is the fulfilment of Zechariah 's prophecy regarding the
coming of Jerusalem's king.7 His appearance realises the
promise made to David that his posterity should occupy the
throne for evermore ; 8 it is the raising up again of David's
tabernacle, announced by Amos ; 9 in his resurrection from
the dead the promise is fulfilled : " I will give you the sure
1 E.g., 1 Sam. ii. 10, 35 ; xii. 3, 5 ; xxiv. 6, 10 ; xxvi. 9, 11, 16, 23 ; 2
Sam. i. 14, 16, 21 ; Ps. ii. 2 ; xx. 6 ; Lam. iv. 20. Cyrus is once called the
anointed of Jahveh, Is. xlv. 1 ; in the book of Daniel, ix. 25, we find " an
anointed, a prince " (compare above, p. 269).
2 See, among other passages, Lev. iv. 3. 5, 16 ; vi. 22; Num. xxxv. 25.
"An anointed," Dan. ix. 26, is the High priest Onias III. (compare above,
p. 266). .
3 Compare 1 Kings xix. 16 (anointing also of Elisha) ; Is. Ixi. 1 (quoted
Luke iv. 18 ; see below, p. 519 f.).
4 Among other passages, Matt. ix. 27 ; xii. 23 ; xv. 22 ; xx. 30, 31 : xxi. 9, 15.
6 Matt, i, 1—17 ; Luke iii. 23—38. Compare Rom. i. 3 ; 2 Tim. n. 8.'
6 Luke i. 32, 69 ; Matt. ii. 2, 5, 6.
7 Zech. ix. 9 ; compare Matt. xxi. 5 ; John xii. 15.
8 Acts ii. 30 ; xiii. 23 ; compare 2 Sam. vii. 12 ; Ps. cxxxii. 11.
8 Acts xv. 16, compare Amos ix. 11.

512 XIV. — NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD  II.
mercies of David." x To him refers what Isaiah had spoken
concerning " the root of Jesse." 2 According to Bevelation,
he is " the root and the race of David." 3
The Christians, of course, freely acknowledged that the
earthly life of their master had not corresponded to the pro
phecy regarding David's descendant. But this did not pre
vent them from applying that prophecy to him. For they were
convinced that he now, after his resurrection, was already,
according to the promise in Psalm ex., seated at the right hand
of God, and had assumed dominion in order to exercise it, at
a later period, upon earth in the sight of all.4 During his
earthly life he was already the anointed of Jahveh ; the con
spiracy of the heads of the Jewisli people, Herod and Pilate,
to remove him out of the way, is the realisation of the
contest against Jahveh and his anointed of which the poet
had spoken in the second Psalm ; s but his resurrection and
glorification are likewise regarded as his elevation to be
Christ, and as the bestowal of the title " Son of God," which
belongs to him in his capacity of king over Israel.6 There
after he himself exercises and communicates to his people that
dominion over the Gentiles which was promised to this king.7
There is thus no doubt that the Christians saw the pro
phecy regarding the Messiah realised in their Master. It can
not, however, be asserted that they were very fond of applying
it to Jesus — which implies that the likeness between him
and the prophetical figure of the Messiah had not made a par
ticularly deep impression upon them. The greater part, and
these the most striking, of the predictions with which we
formerly became acquainted, are left by them unnoticed. In
truth, what is more natural than this ? They saw in Jesus
1 Acts xiii. 34 ; compare Is lv. 3, and what is said on this passage, above,
p. 220, f.
2 Rom. xv. 12 ; compare Is. xi. 10 and above, p. 216, n. 3.
3 Rev. v. 5 ; xxii. 16. According to most expositors, Christ is called " the
root of David " because he is a fresh and vigorous shoot sprung from that
root. Undoubtedly Is. xi. 10 has exercised influence here. See the previous
note. 4 Acts ii. 34, 35 ; 1 Cor. xv. 25 ; Heb. i. 13 ; compare Ps. ex. 1.
5 Acts iv. 25, 26 ; Ps. ii. 1, 2.
6 Acts xiii. 33 ; Ps. ii. 7. Compare above, p. 480, where reference was
already made to Acts ii. 36 and to the different use of this verse of the
Psalm in Hebrews (i. 5 ; v. 5).
7 Rev. ii. 26, 27 ; compare Ps. ii. 8, 9.

PECULIAR EMPLOYMENT OF PSALM CX. 513
the future king, his Messianic dignity was for them a matter
of faith, not of sight. It was in the fourth Gospel — the
spiritual Gospel, as Origen already called it — that the king
ship of Jesus first became present, instead of future, but it
then also lost really all characteristics of the earthly kingship,
and was changed into a dominion of truth and of the spirit.1
If this was the ultimate issue of the development of ideas
upon this point, it does not then surprise us to find the pre
decessors of the fourth evangelist already on the road which
leads to this result. Besides their silence upon many impor
tant Messianic prophecies, to which I have just adverted,
positive, utterances which we meet in their writings must also
be taken into account. We can see that there is a certain
effort to make the prophecy regarding Israel's king pass over
its own boundaries, if I may be allowed the expression.
Some traces of such an effort have already presented them
selves in the preceding survey.2 To these some others can
now be added. We know already that in Psalm ex. the
king of Israel is thus addressed by the poet (verse 4) :
" Jahveh hath sworn and he will not repent :
Thou art a priest for evermore,
After the order of Melehizedek."
We have also seen how this must be understood historically.3
Now it cannot escape our notice that the writer to the Hebrews
borrows just this priestly feature from the Psalm concerning
the king, and works it out with evident predilection.4 This
is not the place to give a full exposition of his view. Let me
mention only this one thing. In the Psalm nothing more
was indicated by the words " in the manner of Melehizedek "
than the union of the kingly and the priestly dignity in one
person. Melehizedek afforded, in the narrative of Genesis, an
historical example of this to the poet. With the writer to
the Hebrews Melehizedek is much more ; he is the type or
1 John xviii. 36, 37.
2 Among these I reckon the use of Zech. ix. 9 in Matthew and John (p. 511,
n. 7) : the representation of the Messiah as the Prince of Peace must indeed
have had the greatest attraction for the Christians. Here also have to be
noted Heb. i. 5 ; v. 5, and, more generally, the numerous passages in which
the appellation " Son of God," originally the honorary title of the theocratic
king, is regarded as indicating the higher origin of Jesus.
3 Above p. 481.
4 Heb. v. 6 ; vii. 17, 21, and the whole proof which is attached to this
quotation.
2 K

514 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
the predecessor of the Christ in various respects.1 The parallel
which he draws seems to us here and there liable to the
charge of being far-fetched and arbitrary. But by its aid he
rises, in his conception of the person and work of Jesus, far
above the figure which Psalm ex., as a whole, presents
to us.
An utterance of Jesus himself, given in the synoptical
gospels, has probably a similar tendency. His question to
the Pharisees upon Psalm ex. 1, presupposes, as we previously
observed,2 on the one hand the Davidic authorship and the
Messianic interpretation of the Psalm ; but, at the same
time, it shows on the other hand that he had noticed a con
tradiction in these popular opinions. Wherein it consisted is
not said, and cannot therefore be determined by us with cer
tainty. But so much seems undeniable, that, according to
Jesus, either the person or the work of the Christ is of a dif
ferent and more exalted nature than is indicated by the com
mon appellation " the son of David." Here also, then, we
have a spiritualising of the Old Testament representation, a
Messiah of a higher order than the one depicted by the prophets.
But these indications are scarcely noticeable compared with
the means which the writers of the New Testament still
further employ in order to purify the prophetical figure of
the Messiah from what was less pleasing therein to them, and
thus to make it essentially alter its character. They associate
with it other Old Testament representations and types, and
by this association they place the idea of the king in an
entirely different light. That is to say, their mode of pro
ceeding presents itself in that aspect to us. They them
selves were not conscious that they were giving a portraiture
of their Master, made up of features which in the Old Testa
ment had no mutual connection. They found these features
united in Jesus, and accordingly they did not doubt that they
were associated in the writings of the prophets also. Here,
above all, it is distinctly evident that belief in Jesus precedes
the interpretation of prophecy, and furnishes the standard by
which that interpretation is regulated.
1 Heb. vii. 1 ff. „
2 Above p. 481, n. 4, where the passages of the Gospel are also pointed

JOHN THE BAPTIST AND THE PROPHECIES. 515
But the passages may speak for themselves. We again set
ourselves to the comparison of the New Testament utterances
with those of the Old. The spiritualising of the prophetical
expectations is a process so remarkable that it deserves to be
pursued even into its details.
In the estimation of his contemporaries and earliest dis
ciples Jesus was a prophet, pre-eminently the prophet. The
significance of this will become the more obvious if we direct
our glance to a collateral subject, and inquire how the relation
of John the Baptist to the prophets of the Old Testament was
conceived of by the Christians.
" He shall go before him (the Lord, the God of Israel) in
the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the
fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the disposition
of the just, in order to make ready for the Lord a prepared
people." In these words the angel Gabriel describes, in the
Gospel according to Luke,1 the office of John and the character
of his work. They are not indeed borrowed literally from
Malachi, but still they reproduce the chief substance of a pro
phecy which we find in him.2 If " the day of Jahveh "
which he announces is to be a blessing to Israel, the beginning
of a period of prosperity, the people must be cleansed from
their sins and unite in the service of Jahveh. In order to
this, there was needed either the return of Elijah, or the
coming of a man such as he had been — for the one as well as
the other may be read in the prophecy of Malachi ; altogether
it is probable that he, in connection with the account of
Elijah's ascension to heaven, expected his personal return to
the earth.3 So much is certain that his words were thus
understood by the contemporaries of Jesus. His apostles
mention it as the universally known conviction of the Scribes
that Elijah must come first (that is, before the appearance of
the Christ).4 But it is not clear that the Christians enter
tained this same view.5 In the address, already quoted, of
1 Chap. i. 17. 2 Compare Mai. iii. 1 ; iv. 5, 6, and above p. 184 f.
3 Compare on this point p. 383, f. In the narrative itself of the Chronicle-
writer which is there discussed, some have found the actual proof that Elijah
continued to prosecute his task as a preacher of repentance after his ascen
sion into heaven. 4 Matt. xvii. 10 ; Mark ix. 11. _
6 This may probably afford an explanation of the negative answer given
.by John to the question whether he was Elijah _; an answer, however, which
"is mentioned only in the fourth Gospel (chap. i. 21).

516 XIV. — NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD  II.
Gabriel to Zechariah, the father of John, in the hymn of
Zechariah himself, and generally in the gospel accounts of the
Baptist and his work, no trace of such a conception is to be
found. And yet such a trace must have been discoverable if
Malachi's announcement was literally interpreted ; for, in that
case, John must have been identified with Elijah. For it is a
settled point with the Christians that the prophecy is fulfilled
in him. Jesus himself seems to have expressed this more than
once. When the Apostles had reminded him of the expecta
tions of the Scribes with regard to Elijah, he let it be under
stood that generally he agreed with them, but he immediately
added : " But I say unto you, that Elijah is come already ;
but they knew him not, and have done unto him whatsoever
they listed." x This can refer to none other than John who
had then already been put to death in prison. On a previous
occasion, Jesus had expressed himself just as unambiguously.
When the disciples, whom the Baptist had sent to him from
his prison, had departed, he began to instruct the assembled
multitude concerning the messenger of repentance. The
people had not deceived themselves when they thought that
they saw in him a prophet : he was a prophet, nay, more
than a prophet. For it was regarding him that the words
were written : " Behold I send my messenger before thy face,
who shall prepare thy way before thee." 2 It is the prophecy
of Malachi, already known to us, which is here applied
to John. The quotation is not literally exact ; 3 in the pro
phet the messenger goes before Jahveh himself, or before the
judgment which is to be executed by him ; in the citation,
by altering the pronoun, the Messiah takes the place of
Jahveh. This change indeed will have to be assigned to the
Evangelist who reports to us the words of Jesus ; a posteriori,
John must certainly have been regarded as the preparer of the
way of the Christ, although he had in fact come forward in
order to announce the near fulfilment of the promise of felicity,
and, with a view to that, to exhort the people to repentance.
But this slight alteration does not affect the main point ;
John is, according to Jesus, the messenger of Jahveh, an
nounced by Malachi. But then, also, he is Elijah the prophet,
1 Matt. xvii. 11, 12 ; Mark ix. 12, 13.
2 Matt. xi. 7—10 ; Luke vii. 24—27. 3 Compare above p. 464, n. 2.

APPLICATION OF ISAIAH XL. 3—5 TO JOHN THE BAPTIST. 517
who is not different from the messenger, either in the pro
phecy,1 or according to Jesus. At least in the first gospel he
acids, in the same address to the people, these words : " For
all the prophets and the law prophesied until John ; and if
ye will receive it, this is Elijah who (according to God's
decree, revealed in the prophecies) should come." 2 " If ye
will receive it : " Jesus certainly does not mean, by the addition
of these words, to make the identification of John and Elijah
dependent upon the pleasure of his hearers. But still it is
evident from this that John was not Elijah himself; in that
case there would have been no question of receiving or not
receiving. It is as if he had said, If ye have the capacity to
understand the prophecy and to form a proper estimate of the
character of John ; if ye know how to discern the signs of
the times, and thus perceive the approach of the kingdom of
God, then ye will grant also that the prediction of Malachi is
fulfilled in the appearance of the Baptist.
In this manner, therefore, in the spirit of Jesus himself,
the person and the work of John were brought into connec
tion with the Old Testament. It may be assumed as
probable that the Baptist himself led the way in doing so,
and therefore imitated Elijah in his outward appearance. The
consciousness that the task, which Elijah performs in Malachi,
was committed to him, might easily lead him to such a
course. If we could accept the account in the fourth gospel,
John will have applied to himself another prophecy also,
which however, though quoted in the earlier narratives, is
not there put into his own mouth.3 It is taken from the second
Isaiah,4 and is connected historically with the expectation
that the Israelitish captives shall speedily return to their native
land. After the prophet has declared that he was sent to
comfort his people and to announce to Jerusalem the end of
her period of punishment,5 he proceeds thus : —
" A voice crieth :
Prepare in the wilderness the way of Jahveh,
Make level in the plain a path for our god !
Every valley must be exalted,
And every mountain and hill be made low ;

i Compare Mai. iii. 1, with iv. 5, 6. 2 Matt. xi. 13, 14.
3 Compare John i. 23 with Matt. iii. 3 ; Mark i. 3 ; Luke m. 4—6.
4 Isa. xl. 3—5. 6 Isa- xl- l> 2-

518 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD  II.
Let the crooked path be made a straight way,
And the mountain ranges a dale !
Then shall the glory of Jahveh be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together ;
For the mouth of Jahveh hath spoken it."
From the words themselves, and from a number of parallel
passages, it is clearly evident that the prophet is here describ
ing the preparation for the triumphal march which Jahveh
shall make at the head of his people, the march from Babylon
to the holy land.1 In the New Testament the whole promise
is understood spiritually, as the announcement of the revela
tion of God's kingdom. In accordance with this, in " the
preparing of Jahveh's way," an indication of the work of the
Baptist was found. A slight misunderstanding also seems to
have contributed to this interpretation. In the translation
given above, the words, " in the wilderness," are connected
with the clause " prepare the way of Jahveh," and not with
the preceding clause, " a voice crieth." That this combina
tion of the words is the true one is obvious at once : " the
wilderness " belongs to the " preparing of the way," just as
much as " the plain " belongs to the " making level a path."
But the Greek translator already wrote not only " a voice of
one crying," but, as it seems, connected therewith the follow
ing words, " in the wilderness." In any case, the evangelists
have so understood his rendering ; and therefore they were
the more readily led to apply the prophecy to John the
Baptist, who had certainly lifted up his voice in the wilder
ness.2 Thus, then, the Christians saw a part, and that a most
important part, of Israelitish prophecy reproduced in John :
the preacher of repentance, the herald of the kingdom of
God, was as it were revived in him. But they brought their
Master also into immediate connection with the prophets who
bore that character. According to the gospels, there were
during the public career of Jesus different opinions current
concerning him. Many thought him — just as they did John
the Baptist 3 — to be a prophet.4 Some judged specifically that
Elijah, Jeremiah, or another of the ancient prophets was resus-
1 Above, p. 193 f.
2 Matt. iii. 1 ; xi. 7 ; Mark i. 4 ; Luke i. 80 ; iii. 2 ; vii. 24.
3 Matt. xiv. 5 ; xxi. 27, and parallel passages.
4 Matt. xxi. 11, 46 ; Mark vi. 15 ; Luke vii. 16 ; John iv. 19 ; ix. 17.

APPLICATION OF DEUTERONOMY XVIII. 15—19 TO JESUS. 519
citated in him.1 The opinion, that he should be the Christ,
stood in opposition to these conceptions.2 " The prophet "
and " the Christ " are even clearly distinguished from each
other in the fourth gospel,8 although, according to another
passage, the Jews, convinced that Jesus was " the prophet
who should come into the world," made ready to proclaim him
as king ; 4 from which it would follow that " the prophet "
and " the Christ " did not differ from each other. The
wavering with regard to the mutual relation of these two
terms is not unnatural, especially in a writing of later date.
If Jesus himself had called himself a prophet ; 5 if he, as
regards the form of his action, had in truth been a prophet,
and had been designated by this title by his followers,6 we
cannot be in the least degree surprised that the Christians
endeavoured to find him again in the Old Testament in this
capacity also. In doing so their eye would necessarily fall
upon a passage of Deuteronomy,7 which is already well known
to us, perhaps indeed the same from which the contempo
raries of Jesus had derived the expectation, that a specific
prophet should come forward, a successor of Moses, whom
they could thus call " the prophet," by preeminence.8 It
has already become evident to us that this passage, inter
preted historically, speaks, not of one single prophet, but of
the prophets in general, or the prophetical order.9 But it
is not understood in this sense, specifically in the Acts of
the Apostles : in the speeches both of Peter and of Stephen
it is quoted as a direct prophecy regarding Jesus.10 We can
not undertake to defend this exegesis. But we unhesitat
ingly confess our sympathy for the conception of the work of
Jesus which is therein expressed. If we, with the figure of
Jesus before us, are called upon to indicate the Old Testa
ment type, to which it shows the greatest resemblance, we
shall without hesitation name the Israelitish prophet.
We are no less struck by another parallel, which, however,
i Matt. xvi. 14 ; Mark viii. 28 ; Luke ix. 19. .
2 See the following verses, Matt. xvi. 15 ; Mark vm. 29 ; Luke ix. 20.
3 John i. 21—25 ; vii. 40, 41. 4 John vi. 14, 15.
6 Matt. xiii. 57 ; Mark vi. 4 ; Luke iv. 24 ; John iv. 44.
e Luke xxiv 19 7 Deut- xvm- 15— ' 19'
8 See the passages quoted, notes 3 and 4 of this page, and further 1 Mace.
TT1V 4-1
»' Above, p. 55 f. 10 Acts iii. 22, 23 ; vii. 37.

520 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
is very closely allied to the one just discussed. It occurs in
Luke, in the narrative of the first preaching at Nazareth, and
is there drawn by Jesus himself.1 When he was to read a
portion of the prophetical writings in the synagogue, he chose
a portion of the second Isaiah, in which the latter thus
describes his own work : " The spirit of the Lord Jahveh is
upon me, because Jahveh has anointed me to bring a glad
message to the meek, he hath sent me to bind up the broken
hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and opening (of
the prison) to them that are bound, to proclaim the year of
Jahveh's good pleasure, and the day of vengeance of our
God, to comfort all who .mourn."2 That the prophet is really
speaking of himself, is obvious at the very first glance, and
is still further confirmed by the sequel, in which, among
other matters, the rebuilding of the desolate cities is men
tioned.3 Did Jesus interpret the prophecy differently ? On
this point the Evangelist leaves us in uncertainty, for he gives
us only the theme of the address which Jesus delivered in con
nection with the passage which he had read : " To-day is this
scripture fulfilled in your hearing." This alone is certain, that
Jesus found himself described in the testimony of the second
Isaiah, or, in other words, that he was conscious that he was
resuming and completing the task of the prophets of Israel.
The commencement of Isaiah Ixi., which has now been
discussed, shows very great agreement with other utterances
of the same author which have reference to ihe servant of
Jahveh, and describe his labours for the benefit of Israel.4
It has been very justly inferred from these passages, that the
second Isaiah is thinking of himself also — and of his contempo
raries among the prophets — when he mentions this "servant of
Jahveh." In other words, this collective appellation embraces
those also who laboured by preaching for Israel's consolation
and restoration.5 It thus results from the nature of the case
that the Christians must have found their Master depicted in
that "servant;" and in thus finding him they were proceeding
1 Luke iv. 16—21.
2 Isa. Ixi. 1, 2. The variations in Luke iv. 18, 19, are, of course, to be
attributed to the Evangelist, who followed the Septuagint freely.
3 Isa. Ixi. 3, 4. 4 See especially Is. xiii. 1 ff. ; xlix. 1 ff.
6 Compare my " Godsdienst van Israel," II., 39 f. (ii. 133 f., English.
Translation), and above, pp. 220-223, 254-258.

COMBINATION OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES. 521
in the same direction as when they brought the prophetical
office into connection with him. In fact, there are com
paratively many passages which bear witness to this identifi
cation. In the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus is called " the
servant of God,"1 " the holy servant of God,"2 for so we
must translate, and not " the Son," " the holy child of God,"
a signification which the Greek word does not possess, at
least in this connection, and in this book.3 With allusion to
the description of "the servant" in Isaiah, he is called " the
holy and the just," or merely " the just."4 Matthew adopts
a part of this description, and sees its fulfilment in the work
of Jesus, specifically in this one feature, that he strictly for
bade those who had been benefited by him to make known
their obligations to him.6 Finally, the right of the apostles
to address their preaching to the Gentiles is deduced from
the word of Jahveh to his servant : " I have set thee to
be a light of the Gentiles, that my salvation should reach
unto the end of the earth."6
We have now approached the passages which set the
suffering servant of Jahveh before our eyes. Before discuss
ing them, however, let me add one more remark, which may
serve more fully to illustrate what precedes. It has been
already observed that the Christians did not consciously bring
other Old Testament representations into connection with the
Messiah-type : for them these representations converged, be
cause they were all seen to be equally realised in their Lord.
We find a remarkable instance of this in the Gospel according
to Matthew. At the transfiguration of Jesus on the mount,
a voice from heaven was, according to him, heard saying,
" This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye
him."7 Three passages of the Old Testament are here joined
together ; along with the Messiah two other types, the same
that we have already become acquainted with, are combined
into one whole. " My Son " is the title of the Messiah
1 Acts iii. 26. 2 Acts iv. 27, 30.
3 Acts iv. 25, compare Luke i. 54, 69.
* Acts iii. 14 ; iv. 30 ; compare Is. liii. 9, 11.
« Matt. xii. 16 — 21 ; compare Is. xiii. 1 — 4.
6 Is. xlix. 6, quoted Acts xiii. 47, with this variation, in which the Greek
translator had led the way : " that thou shouldst be for blessing (or redemp
tion) to the end of the earth."
7 Matt. xvii. 5, and, with slight deviations, Mark ix. 7 ; Luke ix. 35.

522 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD  II.
taken from the second Psalm ; " the beloved (according to
Luke, the elect) in whom I am well pleased," is borrowed
from the description of the servant of Jahveh ; finally, " hear
ye him " is the exhortation which is appended to the announce
ment ofthe prophet in Deuteronomy, chapter xviii.1 In truth, a
striking proof that, on the religious stand-point which was
occupied by the Christians, the lines of demarcation between'
the different representations were for them obliterated, and
everything became merged into one grand figure, of which
they had witnessed the original in Jesus.
But let us return to the " servant of Jahveh." The por
traiture of his suffering and death can least of all be suffered
to escape our notice.
It is especially to the celebrated oracle contained in Is. lii.
13 — liii. 12, that Isaiah, its supposed author, owes the title
of "the Evangelist of the Old Testament." If the later
Christians with one accord saw the image of their Lord de
picted therein, they could appeal to the New Testament in
favour of this interpretation. We have already seen how the
passage must be understood historically.2 " The servant of
Jahveh " is there also, just as elsewhere in the second Isaiah,
a collective term ; this interpretation even finds support in more
than one trait which we meet with here.3 But, on the other
hand, it is undeniable that here more than elsewhere, the
prophet individualises, and thus at the same time idealises ;
he would himself have been the first to acknowledge that
what he asserts regarding " the servant of Jahveh," in the
passage from the thirteenth verse of the fifty-second chapter,
to the twelfth verse of the fifty- third, was fully applicable to
none of those who, taken together, constituted the flower of
Israel. His description and the reality did not perfectly
coincide ; the portion of his description which remained un
realised would almost of necessity be understood as prophecy,
but then also would be applied by the Christians to
Jesus. But let us examine the passages themselves. The words :
1 Compare Dr A. H. Blom, "de leer van het Messiasrijk bij de eerste
Christenen, volgens de Handd. der App.," p. 55. See also Acts iv. 25 — 30 ;
iii. 22, 26.
2 See above, pp. 220-223 ; 254-258.
3 Ibid., p. 222, notes 3, 4, and p. 223, n. 1.

EMPLOYMENT OF ISAIAH LIII. IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 523
" Who hath believed our preaching, and to whom is the arm
(the might) of Jahveh revealed ? " which serve as an introduc
tion to the description of Jahveh's servant in his low estate,1
are applied by the fourth evangelist to the preaching of Jesus,
and by Paul to that of his missionaries : 2 in fact, they contain
a complaint, so general, of Israel's unsusceptibility, and of the
unsuccessful issue of the labours of the prophets, that
they admit of more than one application, and the quotation
can scarcely suffice as a proof that the oracle itself was
interpreted as Messianic.3 The same remark is true of a
saying of Jesus in the gospel according to Luke.4 On the
last evening of his life he said to the apostles : " I say unto
you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in
me, ' and he was reckoned among the transgressors.' For
with me also it is coming to an end." 6 From this it follows
undoubtedly that Jesus observed an agreement between him
self and the sufferer in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and
found in the lot of the latter an indication of what awaited
himself. But more than this does not follow; Jesus does not
quote the words in question as a prediction regarding himself.
On the other hand, we find Isaiah liii. cited in the Acts of
the Apostles as a direct prophecy concerning Jesus. With
regard to verses 7, 8, the Ethiopian chamberlain asks Philip :
" Of whom speaketh the prophet this ? of himself, or of some
other man?" whereupon Philip "opened his mouth, and
began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus." 6
The same judgment about the meaning of the prophecy pro
bably forms the basis of the use which is made of it in the
first epistle of Peter. " Who," it is said there, " did no sin,
neither was guile found in his mouth ; who, when he was
reviled, reviled not again ; when he suffered, he threatened
not, but committed the matter to Him who judgeth right-
i Is. liii. 1. 2 John xii. 38 ; Rom. x. 16.
3 Still much less can this be inferred from Rom. xv. '21 ; compare Ts. lii.
15. Paul here uses the words of the prophet in a purely homiletic manner.
4 Luke xxii. 37 ; compare Is. liii. 12. The parallel passage in Mark xv.
28, must be removed from the text, according to the earliest and best manu
scripts. 6 Others render : " For that also which has reference to me (is written
concerning me) is coming to an end." But see Meyer's Commentary on this
passage. a Acts viii. 32-35.

524 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
eously ; who himself bare our sins in his own body on the
tree, that we, being freed from sin, should live for righteous
ness ; by whose stripes ye are healed."1 The writer would
surely not have recurred again and again to Isaiah liii., if he
had not thought that the image of the Christ in his humilia-
tion was there depicted. The Evangelist Matthew does not
entirely concur with his view of one feature in that chapter.
For he relates that Jesus cured the demoniacs and other sick
persons, and then adds : " that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by Isaiah the prophet : ' He himself took our infirmi
ties upon him, and bare our sicknesses.' " 2 The Evangelist
modifies the text which he quotes, with a view to the appli
cation which he wishes to make of it. This application does
not correspond with the meaning of the prophet. The latter
intends to say that the servant of Jahveh suffers not on
account of his own sins, but on account of those of the erring
people among whom he is living. He bears the sicknesses, he
carries the pains of Israel. The Deutero-Isaiah is thinking
as little of bodily diseases as of their removal} Nevertheless,
this citation also proves that the suffering servant of Jahveh
was identified with the Christ.
After all that has now been said, our judgment upon this
New Testament use of Isaiah Hi. 13 — liii. 12, scarcely requires
to be expressed. Let the reader only recall to mind the re
marks which we formerly made upon " the servant of Jahveh "
as the successor and substitute of the king from the house of
David.4 The place which is filled by this king in the writ
ings of the earlier prophets is no longer occupied by him in
the second Isaiah. But that place does not on this account
remain empty. The king is succeeded by " the servant of
Jahveh." This is not a loss, but a gain. With whatever
ideal features he may be drawn, the Son of David, whom the
prophets describe to us, is not so pure and exalted as the
figure which now comes on the foreground ; the latter is of a
higher ethical and religious standard than the former. " Not
by might, nor by force, but by my spirit : " 5 to this saying of
1 1 Pet ii. 22-24 ; compare Is. liii. 4 (11, 12), 5, 9.
2 Matt. viii. 17 ; compare Is. liii. 4a.
3 Hence the antithesis in verse 4b : " but we thought that he was stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted."
4 Above, pp. 220-223. 5 Zech. iv. 6b.

THE MESSIANIC PASSION-PSALMS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 525
Jahveh in Zechariah the ideal of the prophet of the captivity
corresponds better than that of his predecessors. But when
the Christians made the two types coalesce in one, they were
moving along this same line of development. " Their sin
against exegesis has been a blessing, for the secular image of
the king has thereby become more religious." x In these
words, the truth of which can scarcely be doubted, is to be
found the justification of their use of Scripture from that
point of view, from wliich it should always have been judged.
But we shall soon have more to say on this subject.
In consonance with tliese remarks, we must now do homage
to that same Messianic interpretation of the passion-psalms,
which we formerly could not justify from the exegetical point
of view.2 The pious men, who have poured out their hearts
in these poems, belonged to the flower of Israel, which the
second Isaiah indicated by the appellation, " the servant of
Jahveh." Although, therefore, the Messianic interpretation of
their complaints cannot be vindicated exegetically, it neverthe
less deserves approbation for the reason which has just been
indicated : does it not co-operate in purifying and ennobling the
image of the Messiah ? Above all it has a claim to this praise,
when the essential agreement between those pious sufferers
and Jesus is taken into view, or, in other words, when it is
clearly seen that it is not this or that accidental and subor
dinate circumstance, but the spirit which inspired the psalm
ists, that attracted the attention of the Christians and led
them to apply the poets' words to Jesus. Their right to do
so is supported, not by a single feature, as for example, by
the complaint about the parting of the garments in the
twenty-second Psalm,3 but by the character of the poets, as it
comes out in their complaints and prayers.
It is almost impossible for us to form too high an estimate of
the importance of the application of these passages — not only
of Isaiah liii., but also of the passion-psalms — to the Messiah.
They reconciled the Christians to the suffering and the dying
of their Lord ; they established them in the conviction that
this termination of his earthly life had been willed and or
dained by God ; they led them to see therein the indispensable
1 Dr A. H. Blom, I.e., p. 48. 2 Above, pp. 489 ff.
3 Ps. xxii. 18 ; compare John xix. 24, and above, p. 484, n. 2.

526 XTV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
condition of His glorification, and finally matured their ideas
regarding the fruits of that suffering and dying. In how far
all this is applicable to Jesus himself, does not admit of being
determined with certainty ; but that the suffering righteous
one, depicted in the prophecies and psalms, made a deep impres
sion upon him also, is clearly indisputable. Here too the
passages themselves may be allowed to bear witness.
It is essentially the same thought which we find in the
words of Paul : " I delivered unto you that which I also re
ceived, how that Christ died for our sins according to the
scriptures ; and that he was buried, and that he was raised
up the third day according to the scriptures," 1 and which is
thus expressed in the synoptical gospels : the Christ must suffer,
and die, and after that be glorified, — or, after the event had
occurred, — the Christ must have suffered, and died, and after
that have been glorified.2 For this " must" refers to a divine
decree which was recorded in the Old Testament. But where
in the Old Testament 1 We cannot answer this question with
absolute, certainty. So much is sure, that it is not one single
passage of the Old Testament that is alluded to, because Paul
speaks of " the scriptures" in the plural, that is, of passages
of scripture,3 and in Luke we read that the risen Jesus showed
the necessity of the suffering from " the law of Moses, the
prophets, and the psalms." 4 With so much the greater con
fidence we assume that Isaiah liii. and the passion-psalms are
intended, for in these undoubtedly the suffering, and the dying,
and the glorification of Jahveh's faithful servant are all de
scribed. The same conclusions are perhaps deduced from other
passages also, especially from the historical narratives of the
Old Testament, whicli taught clearly that persecution of the
1 1 Cor. xv. 3, 4.
2 See Matt, xvi., 21 (Mark viii., 31 ; Luke ix., 22); Luke xvii., 25; xxiv.
7, 26, 46, and compare Matt, xvii., 12 (Mark ix., 12); xvii., 22, 23 (Mark
ix., 31 ; Luke ix., 44), where the same thought is expressed in other words.
In the Fourth Gospel chapters iii., 14; xii., 34 ; xx., 9, (in which last passage
there is an express reference to the Scripture) are parallel to the passages
given above.
3 Vpa<p-fi is a single text or passage (Rom. iv., 3 ; ix., 17 ; x., 11 ; xi., 2 ;
James ii., 8, 23 ; John xix., 36, 37, &c.) : by the plural, therefore, are denoted
various passages, agreeing in the announcement of the death and the glori
fication of the Christ.
4 Luke xxiv., 44—47, compare 26, 27.

SUFFERING AND GLORIFICATION OF THE MESSIAH. 527
pious was, not the exception, but the rule.1 Still, even in that
case, the right to apply this rule to the Messiah also is
borrowed from the prophecies which have just been mentioned.
When Paul says specifically that " the resurrection on the
third day was according to 'the scriptures,'" he may have
had in view — besides Ps. xvi.2 — an utterance of Hosea.3 For
this prophet puts into the mouths of the penitent Israelites,
who were returning to Jahveh, the words :
" He (_ Jahveh) will revive us, after two days,
On the third day he will raise us up [cause us to rise from the dead],
And (thereafter) we shall live before his face."
There is nothing that would directly lead us to understand this
of the Messiah. But after the conviction had been established
that Jesus had risen from the dead on the third day, it was an
easy step to bring the words of Hosea into connection therewith.
Instances of as free, or rather arbitrary, exegesis have already
presented themselves to us in Paul also. On the other hand,
the agreement between the three days' sojourn of Jonah in the
fish, and that of Jesus in the heart of the earth, was not re
marked before the time, and by Jesus himself, but by the
latest redactor of the Gospel according to Matthew. 4
We can, with less uncertainty, fix upon the passage whicli
Paul has in view, when he teaches that " Christ died for our
sins according to the scriptures." 5 He had there undoubtedly
Isaiah liii. present to his mind, a chapter in which the suffer
ing ofthe servant of Jahveh is brought into very close con-
1 In Mark ix. 13, Jesus declares : " I say unto you that Elijah has really
come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of
him." That the second Elijah, whose coming Malachi had announced, should
suffer is nowhere taught or even indicated. Must there not then be a refer
ence here to the persecution of the first Elijah, and must not this persecution
have been regarded as a prediction of the lot of the Baptist ? Compare farther
Matt, xxiii., 37 (Luke xiii., 34), which contains an allusion to the lot of the
true prophets, prepared already in verses 29 — 31 ; as on the other hand Luke
vi. 26 does to that of the false prophets.
2 Verses 8—10. Compare above, p. 483 f.
3 Hosea vi. 2. Instead of "revive" the Greek Translator writes "heal,"
a word which agrees very well with the meaning of the prophet. The
application of this verse to the Messiah is therefore not favoured by this
translator. . .
4 Matt. xii. 40— a verse which is wanting in Mark and Luke— is beyond
all doubt an incorrect explanation of "the sign of Jonah" (verse 39 (Luke
xi 29—31) ; Matt. xvi. 4 (Mark viii. 12) ). I may, for the sake of brevity,
refer to Scholten, "het oudste evaDgelie," p. 42; "Hist. krit. ml. tot de
schriften des N. Testaments," pp. 16, 17.
5 See 1 Cor. xv. 3, quoted above.

528 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD  II.
nection with the sins of his people.1 It is Israel's transgressions
which involved him, the righteous one, in pain and humiliation,2
but, on the other hand, his suffering is a blessing for Israel,
for he gave his soul as a sin-offering,3 and
" The chastisement, which should give us peace,
was upon him,
And by his stripes healing has come to us."4
Without any hesitation we adopt the opinion that tliese
intimations regarding the fruits of the suffering which befel
the righteous man, have powerfully co-operated to promote
the reception by the Christians of the conception that
the suffering and death of Jesus had an expiatory efficacy.
It appears, as is well known, in most of the writings of the
New Testament, even in the utterances of the Jesus of the
Synoptical Gospels,5 nay, in the fourth Gospel — at variance
however with historical probability — it is already found ex
pressed by John the Baptist, who with manifest allusion to
Is. liii.,6 points out Jesus to his disciples as "the Lamb of
God who taketh away the sins of the world." 7 This is not
the place to expound the varying New Testament representa
tions of this subject,8 much less to follow out its later develop
ment in the doctrine of the church, a development which was
not completed till the middle ages.9 For our purpose it is
enough to have indicated the influence which the Old Testa-
1 The Pauline expression : " He was delivered on account of our transgres
sions" (Rom. iv. 25) may very likely have been borrowed from the Greek
version of Is. liii. 12, where we read " He was delivered on account of their
iniquities." The Heb. text gives : " and for the transgressors he intercedes."
2 Is. liii., 4, 5a, 6, 8. 3 Ibid., verse 10.
4 Ibid, verse 5b, compare 10, 11.
5 Matt. xx. 28 (Mark x. 45) ; xxvi. 28 (in the parallel passages Mark xiv.
24 ; Luke xxii. 19, 20 ; 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25, the forgiveness of sins does not
occur). 6 Is. liii. 7. 7 John i. 29, 36.
8 Alongside of the representation of Jesus' death, as a sin-offering, stand
those of his life as a ransom, which he pays in order to redeem many from
the power of sin or the devil, (compare n. 5) ; of his blood as that of the — or of
a new — covenant (compare ibid.) ; the assimilation of his sacrifice to that of
the High Priest on the great day of atonement (Epistle to the Hebrews) ;
the comparison of Jesus to the paschal lamb (1 Cor. v. 7 ; John xix. 36, in
connection with other passages of the Fourth Gospel).
9 I need not say that the distinction made in the previous note was not
taken into account by the authors of the ecclesiastical doctrine. It was
their aim to unite the different views and comparisons into one whole. It
was indeed a necessary consequence that what was effected by this mode of
procedure should differ essentially from the doctrine of the New Testament.

THE SON OF MAN IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 529
ment has here also exercised. Let us at the same time notice
also, that when the first preachers of the Gospel ascribe, along
with an atoning, also a sanctifying, power to the suffering and
death of the Lord, they are in like manner following the lead
of prophecy, and indeed once more of Isaiah liii.1 All the
elements of the Christian doctrine of redemption are borrowed
from the scriptures of the Old Testament, and least of all is
the ethical factor found to be wanting there.2
One point of contact between Jesus and the old Testament
prophecy still remains to be examined : the designation, " the
Son of man," which, as we know, is so frequently assigned to
him. It inspires us with more than common interest. If
we are not utterly mistaken, it has been introduced into
Christian phraseology by Jesus himself. At least proofs are
wanting that it was already current among the Jews before
he appeared, and that thus he simply adopted it as he found
it.3 According to the scriptures of the New Testament, it is
repeatedly used by him, and not by other speakers and
writers, save by a rare exception.4
It is thus the more to be regretted, that the determination
of the meaning which Jesus attached to this appellation, is
attended with so great difficulties. Attempts to attain cer
tainty have not been wanting even in recent times. But,
with regard to this point, modern science has not yet attained
a conclusion which compels universal assent. Still we may
not omit to take up the question anew, and to seek for a
solution which may not be altogether unsatisfactory.
The expression " the Son of Man " can scarcely be regarded
in any other light than as a citation, as a reference or allusion.
From the very fact that all without distinction are sons or
children of men, this same formula with the definite article
Us. liii. 11.
2 See further Is. xiii. 1, 4, 6 ; xlix., 1, 6, 7, and above pp. 254—258.
3 The chapters of the Book of Enoch, in which the appellation " Son of
Man" occurs, are of Christian origin. Compare my " Godsdienst van Israel,"
II. 492. (III. 265, English Translation.)
4 "The phrase 'the Son of Man' occurs, not counting the spurious
passages, 85 times, viz. 69 times in the Synoptical Gospels, 12 times in the
Fourth Gospel, and 4 in the other books." (Acts vii. 56 ; Heb. ii. 6 ;
Rev. i. 13 ; xiv. 14 ; in the three last mentioned passages it is without
the article). Quoted from Dr S. Hoekstra, "de benaming 'de zoon des
menschen '," pp. 9, 10.
2 L

530 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
can denote a single individual (or a specific category of indi
viduals) only when the article refers to a son of man who has
been elsewhere named or announced. The obvious course is
to seek in the Old Testament for the explanation of this
reference : anything not taken from that book would have been
altogether unintelligible to at least the great majority of the
hearers of Jesus. But where are we to search in the Old
Testament ? It is here that the uncertainty begins. We are
referred by some to the employment of the title " son of
man " in Ezekiel,1 to Psalm viii., and to the Messianic inter
pretation of this poem in the Epistle to the Hebrews,2 to
Psalm lxxx., where the Israelitish nation is called " a son,"
and, in the sequel " a child of man, made strong by Jahveh."3
But still all this is not sufficiently definite to account for the
use of the formula in the New Testament. More light is
given by a prophecy, already well known to us, in the book
of Daniel. After four beasts have arisen in succession out of
the abyss, which represent as many great kingdoms, there
appears with the clouds of heaven a form like a son of man,
who receives from the Eternal a dominion which shall endure
for ever.4 The New Testament expression " the Son of
Man " can very well be understood as referring to this passage.
And indeed the connection, in which this formula for the
most part occurs, renders it very probable that allusion is
made ' therein to the book of Daniel. For in the New
Testament also " the Son of Man " appears repeatedly " with
the clouds of heaven," or at least in heavenly glory.5 Where,
on the other hand, mention is made of the suffering and death
of " the Son of Man,"6 these may be viewed as the way to
1 Ezek. ii. 1, 3, 6, 8, and on above 90 other occasions Jahveh addresses the
prophet by this appellation.
2 Ps. viii. 4, 5 ; Heb. ii. 6, and above, p. 469 f.
3 See verses 17, 19. Here as in Ezekiel and Ps. viii., the idea of weakness
and insignificance is associated with " son of man :" in the strengthening of
the child of man Jahveh's greatness is revealed, as in Ps. viii. his goodness is
displayed in his care for the poor mortal. i Dan. vii. 13, 14.
6 " The appellation, Son of Man, occurs 38 times in the Synoptical Gospels,
not counting the parallel passages. No fewer than 16 of these passages
treat specifically of the second coming of Jesus, or of something directly
connected therewith." Hoekstra, I.e., p. 19.
6 " Of the 38 passages 15 treat of the Lord's sufferings, death, and
resurrection, which were, according to the counsel of God uttered in the
writings of the Prophets, the way to his Messianic glorification." Hoekstra,
I.e. p. 19,

THE SON OF MAN IN DANIEL. 531
his glorification; or a contrast between the destination of
" the Son of Man " and the lot which befalls him, may have
been present to the mind of the speaker. It does not there
fore surprise us that the immense majority of those who have
inquired into the signification of the title, have brought it
into connection with the seventh chapter of Daniel.
Now we know already what this " one like a son of man "
in the prophecy of Daniel denotes.1 He is the symbol of the
Israelitish nation, of " the people of the saints of the Most
High." Proceeding from this fact, one of the most recent writers
upon the formula before us has defended the position, that in
the mouth of Jesus it indicates the congregation of God, or
rather, more individually, the member of that congregation ;
now and then also Jesus himself, in so far as he is its
head, and himself belongs to it.2 It seems indeed the
simplest way to assume that Jesus has used the expression in
its historical sense ; but on closer investigation, such a sup
position is clearly seen to be contradicted by the facts. Not
only is it certain that " the Son of Man," outside of the
Gospels, denotes Jesus in his Messianic dignity and him alone ;3
not only is it distinctly evident that the Evangelists have
thus understood the formula ;4 but moreover among the utter
ances of Jesus there is not a single one which furnishes the
proof that he distinguishes himself from " the Son of Man,"
or comprises others besides himself in that formula. s The
assertion that it had another signification in the mouth of
Jesus than the Evangelists found in it, rests therefore on no
1 See above, pp. 223 f .
2 See the above quoted monograph of Hoekstra, pp. 39 ff. He had previ
ously acknowledged (pp. 11 ff) that the Evangelists understand the appel
lation as one of the titles of the Messiah.
3 This is beyond doubt as regards Acts vii. 56. But also in Rev. i. 13 ;
xiv. 14, both the derivation from Dan. vii. and the application to Jesus are
perfectly evident.
4 For example, in cases where the personal pronoun "I" or "me" is
replaced by the expression "the Son of Man," or conversely. Compare
among other passages Matt. xii. 32 ; Luke xii. 10, with Mark iii. 28, 29 ;
Matt. xvi. 13, with Mark viii. 27 ; Luke ix. 18, &c, &c.
6 It is true that " Jesus sometimes speaks first about himself, and then,
immediately afterwards, about " the Son of Man " (Hoekstra, pp. 36, 37;.
See Matt. x. 23 ; xix. 28 ; Luke xii. 8 ; ix. 26 (Mark viii. 38) ; Mark xiv.
62, &c. But still this proves merely that the Son of Man is a title, the de
signation of a dignity. So, e.g., a reigning prince might say : " I assure
you that the king shall grant you no grace."

532 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
firm ground. While such a difference of conception may be
quite conceivable in itself, its actual existence is not sufficiently
established. " The Son of Man " is therefore a title which Jesus
gives to himself. Is it, then, the fact that this appellation
possesses quite the same signification as "the Christ" or
" the Son of David ? " But in that case we should have to
suppose that it was a current appellation of the Messiah,
applied by Jesus to himself; for which supposition, however,
no evidence at all exists. Or rather : the earliest Gospels
bear witness in an unambiguous manner against such a use
of the phrase, and therefore also against this being the
meaning of Jesus when he employed the formula.1 No : the
only conclusion which remains is, that Jesus, alluding to
Dan. vii., called himself by this title,' in order to give a hint
regarding his exalted destination, without making a claim
directly to the dignity of Messiah, which, indeed, he could
not appropriate to himself in the sense in which some of the
people wished to bestow it upon him. What was his motive
in selecting just this title, does not admit of being determined
with absolute certainty. Perhaps he was attracted bjr the
contrast, which comes out so strongly in Dan. vii., between
the earthly monarchies, which are symbolised by the wild
and ravenous beasts, and the sovereignty of Israel, of which
the form " like a son of man " is the representative. In that
case, as often as he used this title, the human, as distin
guished from the animal or purely sensuous, occupied the
foreground in his mind. It may also be that, apart from the
further contents of the prophecy, the appellation borrowed
from it awakened in itself his sympathy. " The Son of Man"
stands, it may be thought, in contrast to the Israelite — at
least, in contrast to him who wishes to be nothing but an
1 Specifically Matt. xvi. 13 ff., and parallel passages, which important para
graph furnishes satisfactory proof that Jesus had never yet openly declared
that he was the Messiah, although he had repeatedly called himself " the
Son of Man" — e.g., Matt. viii. 20 ; ix. 6 ; x. 23 ; xi. 19 ; xii. 8, 32 ; &c.
On the other hand, it would follow from John xii. 34 (properly, a reference
not to chap. xii. 23, but to chap. iii. 14 : compare xii. 32) that the Jewish
people in the time of Jesus used the title and applied it to the Messiah.
But the author of this gospel has a dogmatic aim, and goes to work in its
composition with great freedom. As often as there is variance between him
aiid his predecessors, there can be no doubt as to the choice which we should
make.

MEANING OF THE TITLE " THE SON OF MAN." 533
Israelite; "the Son of Man" is a general term for all
children of men, and puts him who is denoted by it in one
category with the rest of mankind •} according to the use of the
phrase in the Old Testament, an allusion may even be found
in it specifically to man's littleness,2 which certainly could
not be said to be alien to the spirit of him who called himself
" lowly of heart."3 It seems scarcely possible to make a
decided choice among these different interpretations. Buf
still, in spite of that, we ought to have no hesitation in including
the use of the phrase " the Son of Man " also among the
proofs of the free, spiritual application of the Old Testament
in the New. This one feature in the prophecy in Daniel
might easily have escaped observation. Adopted by Jesus,
it not merely answered his immediate purpose, but it tended
also of itself to fix attention on what was the highest, and
had the most permanent value in hirn and his work.

Thus, then, by means of the clue which the passages
themselves put into our hand, the relation of the New
Testament to the ideals of the Israelitish prophets has been
exhibited. The task now before us is to explain this
relation. At the first glance it seems in every respect
strange. On the one hand, manifold references to the pro
phets, and a constant use of conceptions and expressions bor
rowed from them ; but, on the other, as numerous deviations
from their proper meaning, and continual transformation of
their mode of looking at things. How does the one thing
cohere with the other ? Whence, alongside of this manifest
dependence, is there so great a freedom, which, although it is
nowhere proclaimed as a principle, is yet not the less real on
that account ?
In order to arrive at a satisfactory solution of this problem,
we must first of all make clear the general relation which
i From this point of view let specifically Mark ii. 27, 28 be considered.
From the general statement, " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man
for the Sabbath," a conclusion regarding " the Son of Man " could not well
be deduced, if "the Son of Man" were not designated by the title which
he bore as being one of the men, to whom that which can be asserted with
regard to man truly applies.
» See above, p. 530. 3 Matt. xi. 29.

534 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
exists between Christianity and Israelitism. It is, indeed,
self-evident that we cannot exhaustively discuss, as it were in
passing, that comprehensive and difficult subject. I must con
fine myself to a few observations and hints. But, in fact, we
are only concerned with the main points.
The Christian religion, as it is known from the books
of the New Testament, is a more highly developed form, or
rather, it is the completion, of Israel's religion.
Let the following remarks serve for the further illustration
of this proposition.
Within the limits of the Old Testament itself a great
difference of spirit and tendency presents itself to notice. As
in Israel the priest, the prophet, and the wise man laboured
side by side, yet not always for the .same object, so in the
collection of Israel's sacred books, the products of their labours
are combined, without, on that account, harmonising with
each other. When we thus take a closer view of the formula
which has just been used — "the completion of Israel's
religion "—it is clearly seen to require a more exact speci
fication. It is obvious at once that it is not the sacerdotal,
nor even the legal tendency, which is followed and further
prosecuted by Jesus. We do not go too far when we term
the character of his religion anti-hierarchical. But it may
be described also as anti-sacerdotal, just because of the
relation in which he places himself to the Law, and speci
fically to its ritual prescriptions. Jesus himself has declared
that he came not to annul the Law or the Prophets, but to
fulfil them.1 It has been assumed, partly on the ground of this
utterance, that there is an opposition between him and the
Apostle, who places the law and faith over against each
other, and calls Christ the end of the law.2 It is true, there
is no single trace of this antithesis to be discovered in the
teaching of Jesus. And yet there is essential agreement
between him and Paul. The law, since it is composed
of very different elements, admits of being regarded from
more than one point of view. Paul is looking at its
imperative form, and at its oppressive ritual prescriptions ;
he sees in it an outward command, with which man cannot
identify himself, and which, therefore, also cannot lead
1 Matt. v. 17. * Gal. iii. 24, 25, &c; Rom. x. 4.

JESUS THE FULFILLER OF THE LAW AND OF PROPHECY. 535
him to his destination. His Master, on the other hand, lays
all stress on the ethical contents of the law. Therefore he
mentions it in the same breath with the prophets, who agreed
with the law, not certainty in care for religious services and
ceremonial purity, but in urging to a holy life, and who,
besides, loved to direct attention to the indissoluble con
nection between the outward act and the disposition of the
heart. Jesus thus attaches himself to " the law and the
prophets." But he declares, moreover, that he has come —
not to let them remain as they are, but — to fulfil them. And
what this means is taught us by the sequel of the discourse
from which this utterance is taken. That discourse extends
the domain of the law to the disposition, recognises this as the
source of the action, and places it therefore higher than the
action.1 It reduces the law to one single commandment —
that of sympathetic and practical love to man.2 It points
to the Father in heaven, and His love, which embraces
all, as the ideal according to which we must form ourselves.3
Certainly, this is a " fulfilling of the law and the prophets ; "
but it is a fulfilment by whicli the law loses all those
characteristics which made Paul become the antagonist of
its perpetual validity.
We therefore in no way exaggerate, when we assert that
Jesus did not attach himself to the legal elements of the
Old Testament. There were not wanting, on the other hand,
points of contact between his teaching and that of the
"wise."4 For like them, did not Jesus also put what is
common to universal humanity in the foreground \ In so far
as the " wise " of his time, the Scribes, did the same, to that
extent he was thus of kindred sentiments with them also.5
Still it cannot be asserted that he appeared among his people
as a preacher of a completed " wisdom," much less that he was
essentially homogeneous with the Scribes. We have already
named the men whose work was taken up, prosecuted, and
finished by him. He is the successor of the prophets, or rather
the completer of prophecy. His contemporaries were not mis-
i Matt. v. 21, ff. 2 Matt. vii. 12. 3 Matt. v. 48.
4 Compare, e.g., Pro. xxv. 21, 22 with Matt. v. 43--18.
5 " Wise" and "disciples of the wise" are the usual names given to the
Scribes in the Talmud. "Compare further my " Godsd. van Israel," II. 224
ff., 507 (III. 27 ff. 278, English Translation).

536 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD  II.
taken when they saw in him a prophet.1 It is true that in
him the greater or less vehemence, the visionary character,
the over-excitement which had characterised the prophets and
their preaching, were not to be found. Compared with the
rushing torrent of their discourse, that of Jesus presents
itself for the most part as a still, clear brook. But over
against this difference, which chiefly regards the form, there
is the greatest internal agreement. Along with the prophets,
Jesus has the consciousness of communion with God, which in
him alone is still more intimate, and altogether undisturbed.
With them he opposes everything which looks like mere
outward worship. From one of them he borrowed the saying
of God : " I will have mercy and not sacrifice ; " 2 from
another, the complaint : " This people honoureth Me with
their lips, but their heart is far from Me ; but in vain they
do worship Me, teaching doctrines which are commandments
of men." 3 In the same spirit which they all showed, he sets
himself against the Pharisaic estimate of Levitical purity ; 4
against the transgression of the commandment of love to
parents for the sake of the temple and in the interest of its
ministers ; 5 against all who neglected the weightiest matters
of the Law, "judgment, mercy, and faith," and vied with
each other in living according to its ritual prescriptions.6 In
one word : the spiritualism and the idealism of Israel's pro
phets are fulfilled in him who preached that God should be
worshipped in spirit and in truth, and who by word and deed
taught his disciples to seek before everything else the kingdom
of God and His righteousness.
All this might be much more fully developed ; but, for the
object which we have in view, we need not go beyond these
main points. For it has now become sufficiently clear to us,
how the religion of Jesus, or, more generally, the earliest
Christianity, at the same time attaches itself to the Old
Covenant, and rises above it. Jesus himself and the first
preachers of the gospel no longer occupy the standpoint of the
1 See above, pp. 518, f. 2 Hos. vi. 6 ; Matt. ix. 13.; xii. 7.
3 Is. xxix. 13 ; Matt. xv. 8, 9 ; Mark vii. 6, 7.
4 Matt. xv. 10-20; Mark vii. 14-23.
8 Matt. xv. 3-6 ; Mark vii. 9-13.
6 Matt, xxiii. 23 ; Luke xi. 42 (" judgment and the love of God ") ; com
pare also Matt. v. 23, 24.

THERE WAS NO LITERAL FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY. 537
writers of the Old Testament. And yet they have not aban
doned the ground of Israel's religion. Prophecy is the basis
on which they build a new structure, or, to express the matter
otherwise, it showed them the direction in which they further
developed religious truth. Without neglecting what the
Old Testament furnished besides, they yet preferred to
attach their preaching closely to prophecy. And they
were fully justified in doing so, for the religion, which they
proclaimed, was the ripe fruit of the tree which had sprung
from this root.
But now in this mutual connection of the two religions,
Israelitism and Christianity, lies at the same time the expla
nation of the use made of Scripture in the New Testament, or
of the altogether peculiar relation in which Jesus and the
Apostles stand to the ideas, especially to the anticipations or
predictions of the prophets.
Let us first call once more before our minds the manner
in which this relation is understood in the ecclesiastical
doctrine, or according to supernaturalism. In a mechanical
manner, and by portions, the future is made manifest to the
prophets or unveiled before the eye of their spirit. The
supernatural origin of their foreknowledge is established, ages
afterwards, by the facts themselves. The coincidence of the
result with the prediction is the decisive proof that the spirit
of Him who governs the world and realises his counsel in
history, formerly inspired the prophets. The strict fulfilment
of their predictions is the divine seal set on the utterance of
their consciousness, that they did not proclaim their own
fancies, but the thoughts of God.
It became evident to us that this theory was in contradic
tion to the facts. We sought in vain for the proofs which
should support it. Not a single one of the so-called "strict ful
filments " can stand the test of a careful investigation, while,
on the other hand, the issue repeatedly contradicts the predic
tions. We need not then expatiate more at length upon that
point. But it does certainly lie in our way, to search after the
causes, why such an attempt to explain the relation between
prophecy and reality must necessarily have proved a failure. In
truth, that is a matter of no great difficulty. The defenders of
the supernatural theory regard and discuss prophecy and fulfil-

538 XIV.— NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD — II.
ment alike as objective and invariable quantities. They do not
take into account spontaneous human activity, the development
of ideas, the influence of subjectivity. In other words, in
judging and estimating historical phenomena, they neglect all
that makes history be what it is. This error cannot indeed
do otherwise than lead to a false result. But on the other
hand also, whoever is on his guard against this error, is on the
way to the true solution. The idea of development — to
which all that I have just mentioned may be reduced — must
be taken up into the circle of our examination, and must
exercise a decisive influence upon it. I now proceed at once
to explain what is meant by this statement.
According to the supernaturalistic theory, prophetical in
spiration ceased at a certain definite period — let us say about
the year 400 B.C., when Malachi disappeared from the stage
of history. From that moment prophetical prediction
remained what it was. It was read and reflected upon, was
more or less correctly understood, but, at the same time, it
underwent itself no change. It was, and continued to be for
the pious Jew, the revelation of what the future should fur
nish, the rule for his expectations, and a rule indeed which
was the more rigid according as the Jew believed more firmly
in the divine origin of the prophetical anticipations, and thus
also in the certainty of their realisation.
With the necessary limitation, we can allow all this to
hold good. If we except the book of Daniel (165 B.C.),
there were in truth no new prophecies introduced into the
collection of the sacred writings. But people are deceived,
if they imagine, that in accordance with this fact the ex
pectations also regarding the future now remained the same
and continued — let it be at one time more, at another less,
exactly, but still continued — to be regulated by the pro
phecies acknowledged as sacred. Never or nowhere has a
sacred book — or a collection of sacred books — stopped or
altogether governed the spiritual development of any people.
However highly such a collection was ranked, how rigidly
soever its right to rule was acknowledged and maintained in
theory, yet in practice deviations were made from it, and
thoughts were entertained, and hopes were cherished, which
either extended beyond, or were in conflict with it. This

THE CENTURIES BEFORE THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY. 539
remark is fully applicable to the Jews also, and to the four
centuries which elapsed between Malachi and the appearance
of Jesus. It has been shown elsewhere that it is very unjust
to regard these centuries as a period of stagnation.1 Not
only did the oral law gradually become extended, and the
Scribes prosecute their work, and the parties (Sadducees,
Pharisees, and Essenes) arise and develop themselves ; not
only did the whole spiritual atmosphere thus undergo most
important changes, which must have had an influence upon
the expectations regarding the future also ; not only was the
hope of Israel's restoration — while' yet the written prophecy
remained always the same — now more, then less, lively,
coloured now in one way, then in another ; but besides this
there were not wanting speculations directly concerning the
future, attempts to fix the ideas entertained regarding it —
attempts which do not afford the least evidence of slavish
subjection to the word of the prophets, or even of a decided
effort to be guided by that word. I allude to the book of
Daniel — something truly altogether different from a copy
of the earlier oracles ! — and to the rest of the apocalypses, as
they are commonly called, which were composed in imitation
of that book, to Enoch, the Jewish Sibyl, the book of
Jubilees or the lesser Genesis, and to the predictions also in
the so-called Psalms of Solomon.2 We do not require to
occupy ourselves here with the contents of these writings,
the exposition of which lies beyond our plan. It is enough
that these books came into existence ; and — a fact which is
universally admitted — contain something different from, and
something more than, what was to be read in the prophetical
literature. In one word : after prophecy had become extinct,
and after the collection of prophetical books had been com
pleted, the expectation regarding the future remained, as it
were, fluid, and continually underwent modifications, which
kept it in agreement with the altered ideas of the people, and
with the changing circumstances of the time. If any one

*s

1 See my " Godsdienst van Israel," chapters ix.-xii.
2 The development of theMessianic expectations, of which these writings
afford evidence, has been frequently described. The most recent work on
the subject is that by Maurice Vernes (" Histoire des idees messianiques
depuis Alexandre jusqu' a 1' empereur Hadrien," Paris 1874). Compare my
review in the " Theologisch Tijdschrift," 1875, pp. 93- 108.

540 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD.  II.
wishes to form to himself some conception of the extent and
significance of this transformation, let him reflect that during
the time of which we are speaking, Judea became a Boman
province, and the belief in personal immortality an element
of Jewish popular conviction.
Let it not, however, be imagined that these modified
expectations and ideals were distinguished from those of
the prophets and psalmists, or were even contrasted with
them. On the contrary, their utterances were interpreted
according to the standard of the new ideas and require
ments, and that in a manner quite involuntary, without
any consciousness of the freedom which was being used. At
the present day, when the laws of the grammatico-historical
interpretation of Scripture are universally known, and are
accepted by all as valid, such a procedure would be very
difficult for many, for some even altogether impossible. But
at that time, long before the science of exegesis was born, it
would be practised very easily. Or rather it could not fail
to take place, just because men regarded the prophecies and
the Psalms as a divine revelation, and therefore also, when
reading them and meditating upon them, applied them to
themselves and to the wants of the moment. It has been
justly observed by one of the most recent writers on the
Theology of the Old Testament, Professor H. Schultz : in
the centuries which preceded the establishment of Christianity,
a new conception of the words of the Prophets and Psalmists
must have been formed, which in distinction from the actual
meaning of these men could be called the second sense of
Scripture.1 It cannot be said with certainty how far this
new interpretation had already proceeded before the appear
ance of Jesus. Schultz does not hesitate to ascribe the
Messianic interpretation as well of Psalms ii., ex., Ixxii., as
of Psalms viii., xvi. ; Isaiah vii. 14 ; Hos. vi. 2, and other
similar passages to the Jews, among whom the prophet of
Nazareth laboured. Although he may have gone too far
in this statement — which is possible, but far from being cer
tain — yet his view as a whole must still be regarded as
perfectly natural and correct, and as an important contribu-
1 " Alttestamentliche Theologie," II., 335 — 339, and more fully in an
article " Ueber doppelten Schriftsinn," (Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1866, I).

CHANGES IN MEN S CONCEPTION OF PROPHECY. 541
tion to the explanation of the use which is made of Scripture
in the New Testament.
The application of all this to the problem with which we
are engaged is surely obvious. It was in the Jewish com
munity, of whose relation to prophecy we were treating, that
Christianity was originally established; it was from its midst
that the first believers and the first preachers of the Gospel
came forth. It was a matter of course that they brought
with them the " second sense of Scripture," just mentioned,
and retained it. We can go farther and say that if they had
continued still to occupy altogether the standpoint of the old
prophets and poets, they would not have accepted Jesus of
Nazareth as the Messiah ; their interpretation — more indi
vidual than national, more spiritual than material, more
universalistic than particularistic — of the sacred writings was
one of the conditions of their attaching themselves to Jesus,
or, in later times, to the community of those who confessed
him. The idea of departing from that interpretation could
not thus occur to them. Moreover, there was no one who
required them to do so. We have there then the relation of
the earliest Christians to the Old Testament ideas and ex
pectations already in part explained. A further explana
tion of it must be derived from the influence of Jesus
himself and of the religion preached by him. The important
question regarding the origin of that religion, we can here
leave altogether undetermined. Whether the Founder of
Christianity be regarded as a son of Israel, or be called in a
metaphysical sense the Son of God, still it will always have to
be acknowledged that his teaching has as much of affinity to
that of Moses and the prophets as it has of difference from it.
The same can be testified of his first followers, even though
they did not become conscious at once, nor all in the same
deoree, of the originality of the Master and of the new
elements in his religion whicli formed its characteristic.
The possibility therefore existed, that Jesus and the earliest
preachers of his Gospel, should have felt the need of distin
guishing their conception from that of their predecessors, or
even of placing it in contrast thereto. But this is merely
an abstraction. They did not think at all of such an opposi
tion. They would indeed have been justified, if they had

542 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD. — II.
referred, at least occasionally, to the contradiction between
the new and the old. But it was rather a necessity for them
to feel themselves one with the leaders of their people in
former ages, and to make this agreement evident to all. In
accordance with this, then, they gather together all that the
spirit of prophecy in Israel had produced which was beautiful
and noble, divest it of the elements, useless for them, with
which it was connected, make of it one whole, and present
the reality as the fulfilment of that which the former gener
ations had expected. They thus proceed in the same direction
in which — as we lately saw — the religious consciousness of
their people had already before their time developed itself. In
spite of the new elements which their view contained, they did
not break with tradition, at least not with that of the pious,
although they, and indeed Jesus himself in particular, had
frequently to oppose that of the schools. And, let it be care
fully observed, this method is with them not the fruit of
deliberation and calculation. They had indeed, as preachers
of the Gospel to Jews and Jewish proselytes, an immediate
interest in showing clearly the agreement of their preaching
with the scriptures, specifically with the prophecies of the
Old Testament. But still it was for them first of all a need
of the heart not to dissociate themselves from the past, but to
continue to join hands with the prophets and psalmists, whom
they reverenced as the interpreters of the God of their fathers.
They therefore also took no account of how far they now and
then diverged from them. The new spirit which lived in
them — and which, be it once more remembered, still wrestled
in the most of them against the superior power cf the old —
the new spirit arrayed itself gladly in the old forms, and
knew not, or scarcely knew, that it was occupied in destroying
them. Thus the phenomenon, which presents itself to us on com
paring the New Testament with the Old, is clearly seen to
be in every way explicable and natural. It would not
surprise us, though it stood altogether by itself. But this
is not the case. It is repeated everywhere, when a higher —
or to speak more generally, another — form of religion is
developed from one already existing. The new form, at
first at least, usually attaches itself to tradition, to the

INVOLUNTARY SPIRITUALIZ A.TION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 543
writings acknowledged as sacred, and endeavours to prove its
identity with them. But, in truth, this identity no longer
exists, at least not fully, and there must therefore be found
in the sacred literature, and developed from it, something
which it either does not contain, or contains but partially, or
only in the germ. Allegorical exegesis — taking this term in
its widest sense, as denoting every free method of interpreting
scripture — allegorical exegesis is the inseparable companion
of the process of the clarification of religious views. Of
course it is not always and everywhere the same : here it
is altogether arbitrary and rash, there natural and almost
legitimate, according as the new view is alien to the old
truth, or is sprung and derived from it. There is, in other
words, in general and excepting a few evidences of approxi
mation, a very great difference between the allegories of Philo
Alexandrinus and tho spiritual interpretation of the prophecies
of the Old Testament by the writers of the New, for the
former was moulded in the school of the Greek philosophers,
and the latter continue to be Israelites. But this difference
does not destroy the analogy. When we have become
acquainted with it, we could, on the ground of the relation
in which the two religions stand to each •other, expect, a
priori, that the Israelitish prophecy would be both employed
and spiritualised in the New Testament in such a way as is
now actually seen to be the case.
The. promise given in the beginning of this chapter has
now been fulfilled. But still it cannot be unprofitable to
give a brief summary of our whole conception, and to bring
out clearly what distinguishes it from the earlier view.
Jesus and the Apostles are preachers of religion. The use
which they make of scripture is a part of this their task, and
must be judged exclusively from that point of view. As
they borrow from nature and daily life the images which they
employ in presenting, developing, and illustrating their ideas,
so also the writings of the Old Testament are for them a mine
of o-old out of which they bring to light treasures known and
unknown, "things new and old."1 Things new as well as
old : that which had acquired clearness and become reality
after the period of the prophets and psalmists, or only in
1 Matt. xiii. 52.

544 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD.  II.
themselves, — that they found already expressed or indicated
in the sacred writings, which from youth they had loved and
reverenced as the records of God's revelation. In virtue
of their affinity in spirit with the pious of former ages,
they discovered in their words what actually lay involved
therein, but which had remained hidden from other minds less
sympathetically attuned. But they found moreover in scrip
ture what it did not contain, or what at most existed there
in germ (implicite). It is the task of scientific exegesis accu
rately to determine where the one case is presented, and where
the other. It cannot withdraw itself from this task, it must
execute it with complete freedom. Its method, like that of
all other sciences, has been perfected and developed in the
course of ages, and now stands firm as a rock. This method
is imperative upon all who practise it, as well when they
themselves interpret, as when they criticise the exposition of
scripture given by others. They have no right to deviate
from it, and there is, in truth, nothing which should urge them
to do so. But though it be granted that the judgment pro
nounced according to this method, may be unfavourable, yet the
manner in which the writers of the New Testament use scrip
ture can still preserve its significance. This does not depend
upon the exegetical correctness or incorrectness of the inter
pretation. In what these authors borrow from the Old
Testament, their own conviction is mirrored. It is not their
agreement with the words of the prophets and psalmists, it is
that conviction itself, which is always the chief object. Even
in cases where they follow a corrupt text and interpret
arbitrarily or according to the sound, their words can have
the highest value as the expression of their belief, or even as
the revelation of a new religious idea.
It was not unnatural, but still it is to be lamented, that
Christian theology did not from the beginning make this dis
tinction. At first, nay for centuries, it thought itself obliged
not to estimate from a religious point of view, but to justify
exegetically, the New Testament citations and interpretations ;
and adopted, moreover, the rules which seemed to flow there
from, in order to enrich its own hermeneutic with them. In
this manner there was produced a singular medley of exact
ness and arbitrariness, of rigour and disorder, I had almost

CHARACTER OF THE ORTHODOX EXEGESIS. 545
said, of prose and poetry. Applications and allusions, which
from their nature were subject to no rule, were systematised.
Homage was rendered to grammar and history, but immediately
after violence was done to all their laws. One hypothesis
after another was arrayed in a scientific garb, and brought
forward, in order to justify what was not produced on the
field of science, and ought never to have been measured
with a standard borrowed from it. In one word, scholasticism
took possession of the utterances of the New Testament
authors, and forced from them theories of which these writers
had never thought, and which therefore could not be placed to
their account. For us, who have perceived that these theories
ultimately rest on the confounding of things dissimilar in
nature, they have of course fallen entirely to the ground. We
can henceforth regard them only as temporary aberrations,
which — a thing also that we must not lose sight of — did good
service in their day. For in this way the Scriptures of the Old
Testament were brought closer to the Christian community, and
became for it the source of abundant edification, which, pro
bably, might not have been enjoyed, or enjoyed in a less degree,
if the historical interpretation had from the beginning exercised
unlimited sway. Now only, after we have learned to keep
separate the scientific judgment and the religious apprecia
tion — now only can the heart receive a beneficial impression,
without the understanding being surrendered as a captive.
For us the value, for example, of the description of Jahveh's
suffering servant, in Is. lii. 13 — rliii. 12, is independent of its
application to Jesus ; we can explain it historically, and still
admire it. But for former generations that was different ;
the impression which they received became immediately trans
muted into a less correct exegesis, and could not be dissoci
ated from that without being wholly lost. In so far, we can
rest satisfied also with the slow progress of science, while at
the same time we rejoice that its full light now shines upon us.
The appreciation from the religious point of view, which I
recommend, must of course be carefully distinguished from
unlimited approval and admiration. It is very far from being
the case, that all citations of the Old Testament in the New
should stand on the same footing. The reader has already
become convinced of this, when, in this and the preceding
2 m

546 XIV. ^-NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD.  II.
chapter, we went through a great number of these quotations.
The writers differ from each other in this respect, and some of
them are not always consistent with themselves. Many ap
plications of Old Testament utterances are in reality nothing
more than arbitrary fancies. On the other hand, there are
others which we have no hesitation in calling strokes of genius.
When — as occurs, for instance, here and there in the Gospel
according to Matthew, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews —
the Old Testament text is torn from its connection and applied
to a subject with which it has nothing in common but the
sound alone, though such a use of Scripture may admit of
being explained and excused, yet there is not the slightest
reason for admiring it. Our admiration is excited only when
the utterances of the Israelitish writers are made the vehicles of
profound or sublime thoughts, which they themselves perhaps
did not put there; but which are nevertheless allied to their
convictions, and form a legitimate continuation or completion
of these. It results, from the nature of the case, that these two
categories of citations cannot be separated from each other by
a sharply drawn line of demarcation. All the quotations,
rather, when regarded from this point of view, form together an
ascending series, and the transition from the one group to the
other is frequently almost imperceptible. And it cannot be
overlooked that in arranging and estimating the citations, the
subjectivity of the modern reader of the New Testament finds
considerable scope. It may easily happen that one reader
will be struck much more than another, either by the actual
agreement between the Old Testament text and the New
Testament interpretation, or by the points of difference which
remain, notwithstanding this agreement. It is on this account
also that we abstain from making any attempt to classify the
citations, and to assign to each New Testament author the
place which should belong to him on account of his use of
Scripture. In regard to this matter let every reader of the
New Testament form his own judgment, and let him at the
same time consider that — as I have but lately observed — the
same judgment cannot be always pronounced upon each
author ; in the writings of Paul, for example, he probably
finds both extremes represented.
An exception seems possible here only with regard to one.

THE APPLICATION OF SCRIPTURE BY JESUS. 547
Not in that sense, however, that we should, on a priori
grounds, be obliged to assign to Jesus infallibility in the use
of the writings of the Old Testament. If we have thus far
drawn no line of demarcation between him and his followers,
but, on the contrary, have discussed his quotations and interpre
tations along with the others which occur in the New Testa
ment, and have judged them by the same standard, we do not
now recede from the position which we have taken. With regard
to the revered Master also must the right of criticism be main
tained. If, as was repeatedly expressed, exegesis is a science,
and its method has only gradually been settled and perfected,
then the possibility of exegetical mistake must be acknow
ledged in the case of Jesus also, unless men should wish — at
variance not only with psychological probability, but also
with facts — to ascribe to him complete knowledge of truth
in every department. That Jesus " must have known the
mind of his heavenly father, which controlled and shaped the
history of the Israelites, to an extent it would be the height
of arrogance for an ordinary interpreter to claim," and that
consequently " we cannot but allow the correctness of the
meanings he assigns to the Old Testament," x is a position
which would involve in it that nature also and history, in
their whole extent, should be considered to have unveiled
their secrets to him. Let us be on our guard against premises
from which such conclusions would flow, What I meant is
gathered, a posteriori, from the accounts of Jesus' teaching.
It is self-evident that in answering the question, how he used
the writings of the Old Testament, we must observe the
greatest caution. His words have been transmitted to us in
another language than that in which he had uttered them ;
the citations in another version than that in which he had
presented them. It is, moreover, not certain that the
narrators have always done him justice, and have not some
times attributed to him their own thoughts. Still, after all,
it is in the highest degree remarkable that the references to
the Old Testament, which the synoptical gospels especially —
that is, the oldest and most faithful — put into the mouth of
Jesus, so extremely seldom draw forth objections, and furnish
such ample material for admiration. The subject is too rich
1 Dr S. Davidson, in The Theological Review, Vol. VIII. (1871), p. 17.

548 XIV.  NEW TESTAMENT AND PROPHECIES IN THE OLD.  II.
to be more than indicated here ; it would demand and deserve
a separate treatise.1 But since the general opinion just
expressed is almost universally assented to, it will be allowed
me to request the reader to observe how strongly the view
defended in this chapter is thereby confirmed in every part.
" How knoweth this man the Scriptures, without having
learned them ? " 2 So should we be inclined to ask, with the
unbelieving Jews, if it plainly appeared that Jesus excelled
in scientific exegesis, and in that department surpassed, for
example, the disciple of Gamaliel and the author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, who was formed in the schools
of Alexandria. But that the mastery belongs to him in the
practical-religious use of Scripture is just what we had
a right to expect. As little as he was equalled in the
domain of religion, even by his most eminent disciples, so
little can we deem it probable that one of them shall have
stood on a level with him in depth of understanding the
Scripture, in the many-sided development of its contents,
and in the application of its thoughts. The manner in which
Jesus uses Scripture stands in the same relation to that of
his followers as his religious genius stands to theirs. Is it
not involved in this, that we have now chosen the true point
of view for judging and estimating that use of Scripture ?
1 Compare Tholuck " Das A. T. im N. Testament," pp. 20—29 ; remarks,
however, which cannot be assented to without limitations ; Dr S. Davidson,
l.e. pp. 12—18.
2 John vii. 15.

CHAPTER XV".
THE PLACE OF ISRAELITISH PROPHECY IN THE RELIGIOUS
DEVELOPMENT OF MANKIND.
At the conclusion of a comprehensive and laborious investi
gation, it is always necessary for us to collect, survey, and
estimate the results which have been obtained. Least of all
can we at present refrain from following such a course. The
way which we have traversed seems, at the first glance, to be
strewed with ruins. Commencing with the most common
view of the labours and merits of the Israelitish prophets, we
could not bring the reality to light without incurring the
appearance of tearing the- statues of these men from the
pedestals on which the belief of ages had placed them. It
was, indeed, at the same time sufficiently evident that,
according to my conviction, this appearance was decep
tive. But a point so important is not disposed of by a few
hints, offered as if in passing. It must be expressly shown
what, on our view, is left of Israelitish prophecy, and what
place it takes in the history both of the people of Israel and,
more generally, in that of religion. Thus to collect and
combine into one whole the results of the investigation which
has been instituted is, in this case, not only a duty, but also a
pleasure. For, in truth, criticism has seldom performed work
which better rewards the toil than the task which it had to
accomplish with regard to the Old Testament. It has speci
fically not only made us better acquainted with the prophets,
but also taught us to estimate them more highly. Looking
at them especially, we may say with Benan — " Jerusalem
has come forth more dazzling and beautiful from the appa
rently destructive labour of modern science. ... It is we
who behold Israel in her true beauty — we, the critics, who

550 XV.  THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
are entitled to say in truth, ' Our feet stand in thy courts,
0 Jerusalem.' " 1
But let the facts themselves speak. Our closing examina
tion has no other object than to set forth clearly their true
significance. I choose for our point of departure a remarkable testimony
regarding prophecy which is recorded for us in the Old Tes
tament itself. The author of Deuteronomy, a contemporary of
Josiah (639-C08 B.C.), makes the lawgiver, whom he through
out introduces as the speaker, address to Israel the very
earnest warning to take no part in the religious practices of
the Canaanites. In doing so he has his eye directed specific
ally to the various kinds of soothsaying, which he therefore
mentions by name. " Everyone who doeth these things is an
abomination unto Jahveh, and because of these abominations,
Jahveh thy god doth drive out these' nations from before thy
face. Thou shalt be perfect with (dedicate thyself wholly to)
Jahveh thy god. For these nations, whose land thou art
inheriting, hearken unto diyiners and soothsayers ; but as for
thee, Jahveh, thy god, doth not suffer thee so to do. A
prophet from the midst of thee, from thy brethren, like unto
me, shall Jahveh thy god raise up unto thee : unto him ye
shall hearken." Then the people are reminded of what
occurred at the giving of the law on Sinai. On that occasion
they had made known their desire to hear no more the voice
of Jahveh, and to see no more the brightness of his glory.
Jahveh had then approved of that wish and said to Moses :
" A prophet will I raise up to them from among their brethren,
like unto thee, and I will put my words in his mouth ; and
he shall speak unto them all that I command him." 2
The sequel of this remarkable passage has no interest for
us at present, and has, moreover, been discussed in another
connection.3 For our business now is with the contrast
between prophecy and divination, which is here so clearly
and sharply formulated. The author of Deuteronomy, who
knew prophecy from tradition and from his own observation,
and indeed may himself have been one of the prophets, utters
1 " Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse," p. 74.
2 Deut. xviii. 9-18. s Above, pp. 55-57.

WHAT WAS PROPHECY ORIGINALLY ? 551
his conviction that the nabi of Jahveh, on the one hand, pro
vided for the wants, for which the Canaanites sought satisfac
tion from their soothsayers, but still, on the other hand,
differed very essentially from the latter, and that because he
was raised up, by Jahveh, spake the word of Jahveh, and de
livered the commands of Jahveh to his people. He stands
not alone in this conviction. We find it again in various
forms in the prophets themselves. In their writings, too, we
find an unceasing warfare against soothsaying, in which the
heathen, among whom it had its home, found as little advan
tage as the Israelites, who adopted it from them.1 Accord
ingly they place those prophets, whom they deny to have been
sent by Jahveh, on the same footing as the diviners and
soothsayers.2 Their own preaching forms a sharp contrast to
the artifices of these men ; a contrast which is either ex
pressed in so many words, or tacitly assumed.3
As testimonies regarding the time to which they belong, these
utterances are irrefragable. The prophets placed themselves
in opposition to the soothsayers, because they, in fact, stood
opposed to them. They expressed nothing more than the
simple reality, which would undoubtedly have made the same
impression upon us, if we could have been witnesses of it.
But yet while we freely acknowledge this, we must at the same
time ask, whether the opposition had been as manifest always
and from the beginning ? We already observed that, according
to the Deuteronomist, the wants, for which the prophets pro
vided, and the soothsayers were thought to provide, were the
same. We heard Micah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel stigmatise
the prophets of their time with the name of soothsayers. The
first mentioned says of Jerusalem, that " her prophets divine
for money." 4 When Isaiah enumerates the persons in whom
1 Hos. iv. 12 ; Zech. x. 2 ; Is. ii. 6 ; iii. 2 (the soothsayer, (which is the
proper rendering of the phrase translated " the prudent" in the Auth. Ver.),
— just as the prophet by profession — one of the pretended supports which
Jahveh shall remove) ; viii. 19 ; xix. 3 (the Egyptian soothsayers) ; Micah
v. 11 (12); Nah. iii. 4 (Assyrian divination) ; Jer. xxvii. 9 (the soothsayers
of the surrounding nations) ; Ezek. xxi. 26 ff., 21 ff. Auth. Ver. (soothsaying
of Nebuchadrezzar) ; Is. xlvii. 9, 12, compare xliv. 25 (of the Chaldeans) ;
Mai. iii. 5.
2 Micah iii. 6-11 ; Jer. xiv. 14 ; xxix. 8 ; Ezek. xiii. 6 ff. ; xxii. 28— pas
sages to which we shall immediately return.
a See especially Isa. viii. 19 ; Micah iii. 6-11 ; and also the other passages
quoted in the two preceding notes. * Micah iii. 11.

552 XV.  THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
Jerusalem and Judah place their trust, he puts " prophet and
soothsayer " immediately alongside of each other.1 But it is
above all when we go back in the history of Israel that the
proofs of original affinity become multiplied. On an earlier
and lower standpoint of development, prophecy is found to
approximate very closely to phenomena from which, at a later
period, it is separated by a wide chasm. There are two lines
by which we can ascend, and by both we arrive at one and
the same result. The name nabi, in the first place, was not
always in use among the Israelites, and, in the second place,
was, adopted by them from the Canaanites. The elucidation
of these facts will be sufficient to make their great import
ance at once obvious.
1st. With regard to the first point we have in the Old
Testament itself an historical annotation which deserves fell our
attention. In one of the narratives contained in 1 Samuel,
the prophet of that name is called " the seer '' (ha-roeh).
This gives the writer occasion to inform us : " Formerly in
Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he said, ' Come,
let us go to the seer.' For he who is now called ' the pro
phet ' was formerly called ' the seer.' " 2 It is well known
that the rest of the Old Testament writers either did not
know this fact, or did not allow themselves to be guided by
it in their mode of expression ; in their narratives some
" prophets " at least appear long before Samuel.3 But still
this inaccuracy, which can be easily explained, in no degree
lessens the value of the annotation in 1 Samuel ix., and cannot
induce us to doubt its correctness, or to deny its universal
validity. We therefore assume that the Israelites who lived
during the period of the Judges called the men, whom they
went to consult about the will or plans of the divinity,
" seers," and that this name was as common among them
at that time, as the title of " prophet " became in later
ages. This phraseology cannot be regarded as accidental. It is
rather a very distinct testimony regarding the character and
action of those to whom it refers. It is a very strong argu
ment in proof of their close affinity with the soothsayers.
For they were called " seers" for no other reason than because
1 Isaiah iii. 2. 2 1 Sam. ix. 9. 3 See above pp. 44 ; 366 ff.

SOOTHSAYERS, SEERS, AND PROPHETS. 553
they were thought to see what for the rest of men was hidden,
the secrets either of the present or of the future. Saul and
his servant go to consult "the seer" about the lost asses, and
do not venture to approach him without a present.1 The
wife of Jeroboam betakes herself to Ahijah in order to obtain
certainty regarding the life of her sick child; and before doing
so provides herself with loaves, cakes, and a jar of honey, in
order to present them to the man of God.2 We have no
more instances than these, but they are not communicated to
us as at all exceptional cases, so that we may confidently
gather from them what must then have been the rule. That,
therefore, for which Micah reproaches the great mass of the
prophets in his day, namely, that they " divined for money,"
was done universally by the earlier seers. Those contempo
raries of Micah, and in like manner also, a century later, the
prophets whom Jeremiah and Ezekiel combat, continued to
occupy the stand-point of their predecessors. Micah and the
rest of the canonical prophets have risen about it. The seer
has become the prophet ; the prophecy of which the written
documents lie before us in the Old Testament, presents itself
as a higher development or an ennobled form of the office of
the seer which was closely akin to soothsaying.
Let us not lose sight here of the fact that, in ancient times,
in Israel as well as elsewhere, different kinds or forms of
soothsaying existed. The various names used in Deuteronomy
and by the prophets, are of uncertain signification, but they
prove, notwithstanding, that the need of certainty and en
lightenment was sought to be satisfied in diverse manners.
Following the footsteps of the ancients themselves, a distinction
is still commonly made between artificial and natural divina
tion, and the latter is generally regarded as being higher than
the former.3 According as this difference of form was greater,
the supposition that the roeh also belonged to the soothsayers
becomes the more worthy of acceptance. He does not need
on that account to have used all the artificial means which
particular classes employed. He may even have been hostile,
for example, to the obdth and the jiddeonim (probably the
necromancers and the wizards endowed with extraordinary
1 1 Sam. ix. 6—10. 2 1 Kings xiv. 1 ff.
3 See, among others, Kiiper, " das Prophetenthum des A. Bundes," pp. 1 ff .

554 XV. — THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
knowledge) who, as we read,1 were removed out of the land
by Saul. Apart from this difference in method — if I may so
express myself — the seer was distinguished from the most of
the soothsayers in that the latter did not serve the god of
Israel, but other gods, and derived from them the powers
which were at their command. We do not mean by this to
assert that such was always the case, or in other words, that
soothsaying was at all times connected with idolatry. In
the Jahvism of the Deuteronomist there is no place for
any form of soothsaying whatever; the prophet is for him
the sole organ of the divinity ; all that lies outside of the
announcement of Jahveh's word is reprobated and rejected as
heathenish. But even then, in the seventh century B.C., and
still more at an earlier period, this view must have been far
from universal. We have, for instance, not the slightest right
to regard as idolaters the prophets to whom Micah's denuncia
tion is addressed, and whom he calls soothsayers. On the
contrary Micah himself testifies of them that. they "leaned
upon Jahveh and said ' is not Jahveh among us ? None
evil shall come upon us.'"2 The same thing is true, if not ,
of all, yet of very many who are combated by Jeremiah and
Ezekiel and branded with the same name. Of this, however,
we shall speak more fully hereafter. For the present, it
is sufficient for me to have directed attention to the very
composite character of the phenomenon which we call " sooth
saying," and to the diversity of the religious convictions with
which it was connected. The position that prophecy must
be regarded as a higher development of the office of the seer —
an office having great affinity with soothsaying — is thereby
at once elucidated and rendered more deserving of acceptance.
2d. I point, in the second place, to the origin of the title
" nabi," and to what is thence derived by legitimate inference.
I can connect the remarks which I make here with what was
formerly brought forward regarding this name.3 As the use
of the term is not confined to the circle of Jahvism, so it
is not, by its etymology, connected specifically with this
form of religion. In other words it is, in the abstract, as
possible that the word nabi has been transferred from the
prophets of Israel to those of Canaan, as that it was borrowed
1 1 Sam. xxviii. 3. 2 Mich. iii. 11. 3 See above, pp. 41, 4

ORIGINAL CHARACTER AND CHANGE OF THE NABI. 555
by the Israelites from the Canaanites. But when we attend
to the nature of the phenomena which are denoted by the
word, and which, according to the accounts given in 1
Samuel, first appeared prominently in the foreground among
the " prophets," in the days of Samuel, then the latter, the
Canaanitish origin of the name, becomes, by far, the most pro
bable. The ecstatic excitement which was aroused by artificial
means, and which sometimes passed into a kind of frenzy, is
quite in its appropriate place in the worship of the nature-
gods, Baal and Ashera, much more so there than in the
adoration of the severe and holy Jahveh. Were it otherwise,
then the nabi of Jahveh would in successive ages have con
tinued to be a nabi, that is to say, all that is denoted by this
name would then have always constituted his chief charac
teristic. But the contrary is true. The ecstatic excitement
in his case gradually retires more into the background, and
finally disappears almost altogether ; a most natural result,
if the nabi has originally grown up on the soil of other re
ligious ideas and practices ; for then, transplanted from this
soil to the ground of Jahvism, he would of necessity gradually
change in character, and ultimately become — what many find,
but incorrectly, indicated even in the name which he bears
— the speaker in Jahveh's name and of Jahveh's words.
It would of course be very desirable that we should be
able to speak with certainty upon such an important question
as this. But from the want of historical accounts we must
rest content with probable conjectures, which have this
recommendation besides, that they give us a satisfactory
explanation of the first appearance of prophecy in Israel.
For in the representation which we have to form of it, the
roe'h, the predecessor of the prophet, finds a place, as well as
the Canaanitish origin of the phenomena to which the name
nabi refers.
During the whole period of the Judges, the Israelites and
Canaanites contended with each other for supremacy. With
this political struggle was coupled the conflict between the
religions of the two parties. In the latter point we find the
same difference of issue as in the former : as Israel sometimes
and in some districts of the land preserved its superiority over
the ancient inhabitants, in other quarters had to give way

55 G XV. — THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
before them, and in others still became blended with them, so
in one place also the Israelitish religion preserved its peculiar
character and maintained its supremacy, while in another it
was almost expelled by the Canaanitish forms of worship,
and in a third coalesced with them, now in one way, now in
another. It was as a duel between the national and the
territorial religion, the issue of which ran parallel with that
of the conflict between the foreign invaders and the original
inhabitants. Towards the end of the period of the Judges,
the national party seems to collect all its powers. Led by
such men as Samuel and Saul, it manifests its importance
much more than formerly, as it now feels itself able, and
therefore also makes ready, to take into its own hands the
direction of affairs. The onward movement is, as was to be
expected, at once political and religious. Prophecy is one of
the forms in which this religious revival shows itself. The
phenomena of ecstatic excitement which had hitherto appear
ed only among the adherents of the gods of the land,, and
certainly had not remained unobserved by the Israelites, pass
over to the servants of the national god Jahveh. Associations
of Jahveh-prophets are formed. They agree with similar
societies among the Canaanites in this respect, that they rouse
the enthusiasm of their members by music and song. In
other respects also there may have been an external resem
blance. But what, takes place among those prophets of
Jahveh is ascribed to the operation of Jahveh's spirit ; it
exists, so to say, for the service of Jahveh, and thus furthers
interest in Jahvism, and the awakening of the national
feeling. What this prophecy would have become, if it had been
left to itself, it is impossible to determine. Perhaps even in
that case the peculiar nature of Jahvism would have eventually
determined the character of the associations of the prophets,
and thus the distance between them and the similar
fraternities on Canaanitish soil, would have gradually become
greater. But to enter upon speculations on this point leads
to no result. For the fact is-, that prophecy — in so far as we
can discover, from the very beginning — was grasped and
guided by a powerful hand. Samuel places himself at the
head of the movement. It is from a narrative in which he

SAMUEL AS THE HEAD OF THE PROPHETIC ASSOCIATION. 557
plays the chief part, and as it were from his own mouth, that
we become acquainted with the existence ofthe association of
prophets in the neighbourhood of Ramah, Samuel's dwelling-
place.1 When the messengers of Saul, in the course of their
search of the fugitive David, proceed to the spot where the
prophets are assembled, they find that Samuel " stands up
right over them," as it is expressed,2 that is, leads their
assemblage. Saul, having arrived some time after, "strips
off his clothes like the rest, and prophesies in like manner,
before Samuel's face." s The seer, the man zealous for Jahveh's
service, shows the enthusiasts the path which they must follow.
Wherein his leading consisted, is not communicated to us :
we possess with regard to his action as a whole only frag
mentary, and moreover mutually conflicting, aocounts. But
we certainly do not deceive ourselves when we form a high
estimate of his influence upon the young associations, and
think we can clearly observe it in the later development of
prophecy. When the phenomena of the state of trance are
no longer regarded by the prophets as the chief matter, and
strenuously furthered ; but then also, in consequence of -this,
become gradually weaker, — when their action takes a more
practical direction, and its ethical and religious element
ultimately maintains the supremacy — does it not then most
readily suggest itself to us, to refer all this to Samuel, and to
give to him, in a great measure, the honour of such a result ?
We shall feel the more justified in doing so, if we at the
same time only keep in view that he could make his influ
ence so powerfully felt, and could accomplish so great things,
because he was the representative of the Jahveh-worship,
specifically of every feature which, at the stage of development
which it had then reached, characteristically distinguished it
from the worship of the nature-gods. If he had attempted
to introduce his personal convictions, it might easily have
happened that his exertions would have been in vain, or that
their fruits would; at least after his death, have been totally
lost. But now when he wrought in one and the same
direction with the spirit which inspired the prophets them
selves, and only held them back with a powerful hand from
what was at variance even with that spirit, he could in truth
1 1 Sam. x. 5, 6. 2 1 Sam. xix. 20. 3 Ibid., verse 24.

558 XV. — THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
give the turn ' and the impulse to the whole subsequent
development. Before we proceed to develop more fully these last ideas,
I may be permitted to direct attention to the mutual rela
tion of the conclusions to which the two facts, placed in
the foreground, have led us. They agree in this respect, that
the natural or material element has preceded the spiritual,
and constitutes its basis ; there is a striking analogy between
the transition from the seer to the prophet, which we first
noted, and the transformation which the Canaanite nabi
underwent in Israel. But they are, at the same time, the
complements of each other. For it now becomes evident that
Israelitish prophecy must be regarded as a stream formed by
the junction of two brooks. The two names, roe'h and nabi,
by which the prophet of Jahveh was still denoted in later
ages,1 point directly to that two-fold origin — the first to the
old Israelitish seer, distinguished from the heathen soothsayer
more by his fidelity to Jahveh than by the nature of his
action, the second to phenomena of ecstatic excitement which
did not proceed from Jahvism itself, but were assimilated by
it from the Canaanitish forms of worship. But we now
dwell no longer upon these first principles. For while we
were tracing the formation of prophecy and determining its
genealogical descent, the conviction must have forced itself
upon us at the same time, that by gazing too long on " seers "
and Canaanitish " nebi'im," we might be in danger of losing
sight of what is and must always be the chief object. Every
thing depends ultimately, not on the raw material out of
which prophecy was built up, but upon the architect who has
made it what it has become — upon Jahvism, under whose
inspiring and hallowing influence the transformation of " seer "
and "nabi" to the prophet whom we know from his own
writings, has taken place. If, following the clue afforded by
the historical documents, we can succeed in learning to
understand that influence, the enigma is solved, the secret is
revealed. Let us at least try how far we can here advance.
If we are to form an accurate conception of the develop
ment of prophecy, we must, first of all, know its point of de
parture. I have repeatedly mentioned Jahvism as the mov-
1 See above, p. 41 ff.

THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 559
ing power of the whole process. But what is meant by this
statement ? At what level did religious ideas and practices
stand in Israel, when the prophets appeared ?
How this question is answered by the traditional school is
well known. It places the prophets on the ground of ihe
Law. The Pentateuch, which existed in its present form at,
or shortly after, the settlement of Israel in Canaan, was not
only known to them, but was also the rule of their whole
action. Not that they confined themselves to the reproduc
tion of the Mosaic prescriptions. Their task extended fur
ther. They brought the commandments of Jahveh to the
remembrance of the frequently backsliding people. They
showed how those commandments should be fulfilled and
applied in the changing circumstances of the time. It was
their vocation to reduce the different laws to their principles,
and to cause these principles to be received into the hearts of
the Israelites. In this manner they maintained the spirit
rather than the letter of the Law. Nay, they sometimes rose
above the letter, when the principles involved required such a
course. The formula, the Law and the Prophets, which we
know from the New Testament, is, according to this view,
exceedingly appropriate. For, in truth, they are both closely
connected, without altogether coinciding. The Law precedes,
the Prophets follow. The former is the basis on which the
latter stand, but on which they also proceed to build further.
They may be called disciples of Moses, but more correctly, his
successors and the contiuuators of his work.
It would be unjust to deny all importance to the task of
the prophets, when it is thus understood and described.
According as the distance between the requirements of the
Law and the practice of the people was greater, their work
also became more difficult and momentous. It would have
been in itself no small credit, in the face of such a nation, and
only too frequently also in the face of its kings and princes,
to represent Mosaism worthily in word and deed. But not
withstanding this, it is still a subordinate part which the
traditional view assigns to the prophets. We can easily per
ceive .why it, at the same time, prefers to bring them into
connection with the future, and to place their testimony con
cerning it, their predictions, in the foreground ; for in and

560 XV.  THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
for the present they had — I mean according to the view
which we are discussing — a comparatively simple work to
accomplish. For surely the Law which now lies before us, and
with the contents of which they had, according to this view,
become completely imbued, contains much more than either
unconnected prescriptions without any reference to the prin
ciples from which they have proceeded, or merely principles
which, so to say, still await their development and application.
The bond which unites the individual enactments into one
system, is, on the contrary, here and there distinctly visible ;
the principles are laid down, but, at the same time, they are
applied in many different ways. If anyone wishes to be con
vinced as to the former point, let him consult Deuteronomy,
especially the introduction to the legislation properly so-called
(chap. v. — xi.) ; and if anyone wishes to see the latter point
established, let him read, for instance, the Book of the Cove
nant (Exod. xxi. — xxiii.), or Lev. xix. To these the
prophets could not add much that was new. " Thou shalt
love Jahveh thy god with all thine heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy might -,"1 it would be very difficult to
base the chief thing in religion more clearly upon principle,
or to express it in purer and more elevated language than is
done in these words of the Deuteronomist. So also many
separate prescriptions of the Law, not only in the chapters
just mentioned of Exodus and Beviticus, but also in Deutero
nomy, are not surpassed by those of the prophets. Even in
spiritualising the prescriptions of the Law, they had been pre
ceded by the Law itself. Does it not speak of a circumcision
of the heart by Jahveh, which shall have as its result that
Israel shall love Him with heart and soul, and thus gain for
themselves life 1 2 And does it not make mention elsewhere
of the uncircumcised heart of the Israelites, which shall be
humbled and converted by judgment ? 3 We could adduce
many other examples. Even the scheme of the prophetical
announcement of the chastising righteousness of Jahveh,
and of the compassion, fraught with blessing, for which it
shall prepare the way, is delineated in the Law.4 Granting
even that to be true, which I expressed lately, that the
1 Deut. vi. 5. 2 Deut. xxx. 6. 3 Lev. xxvi. 41.
4 E.g. in Deut xi. 8 ff.; xxviii.; xxix f.; Lev. xxvi.

THE PROPHETS AND THE LAW. 561
prophets have built further upon the foundation which was
laid before their time, still they have done so according to the
plan which was put into their hands. A most meritorious
work ; we have no wish to deny that ; but a work for which
no extraordinary gifts of intellect or heart were required.1
We should, however, have to acquiesce in this view of the
work of the prophets and in the limited estimation of their
merits which thence results, if history recommended or even
demanded it. But it is already well known to the reader that,
on this point especially, history does not coincide with tradi
tion.2 To express it briefly : for the traditional phrase " the
Law and the Prophets " it substitutes " the Prophets and the
Law." For the final redaction of the present Pentateuch
was preceded chronologically by the entire series of the
canonical prophets. A very considerable portion of the legis
lation, the whole system of sacerdotal or ritual prescriptions
contained in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, was not
reduced to writing till the Babylonish captivity, or afterwards.
Another important part, the Deuteronomic law, dates from
the second half of the seventh century B.C., and is thus
about contemporaneous with Jeremiah. The narratives
regarding the patriarchal and Mosaic times, written in the
spirit of the prophets, are older, but still do not probably
reach a higher antiquity than the eighth century before our
era. Is the Book of the Covenant (Exod. xxi. — xxiii.) a
work of the same period, or is it still older ? We possess no
certain knowledge on this point, but yet we have no right to
separate that collection and the prophetical literature from
each other by a long interval. For the period which precedes
the appearance of the Jahveh-prophets there ultimately
remain only " the ten words," and these not in their present,
but in a more original, form.3 The prophets thus stood on
the soil of Mosaism indeed, but of another Mosaism than that
which we know from the present Pentateuch. When they
1 On that account de Wette could place the task of Israelitish pro
phets on the same footing as that of the preachers in Protestant congrega
tions. See his treatise : " De ratione atque similitudine prophetarum in
V. T. ecclesia et doctorum theologise in ecclesia evangelica." (Opuscc. pp.
169-196.) 2 See above, pp. 389 f., 406 ff.
3 "De Godsdienst van Israel" vol. i. pp. 278 ff. (Vol. i. pp. 282 ff.
English Translation.)
2 N

562 XV. — HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
began their labours only the most rudimentary elements of
that book were in existence, namely, the orally transmitted
reminiscences of the great deliverer of the people from the
Egyptian bondage, and a few commandments in which his
conception of Jahveh's character, and of Israel's relation to
him had found their expression.
It is with some reluctance that I write all this without
developing, or even touching upon, the numerous proofs by
which it is supported. But I must, however, limit myself to
referring to what has been stated on the same subject in
various parts of this work * and especially in another place :2
a deeper investigation of the critical questions — above all of
this problem of exceptional difficulty — would divert our
attention from what must always be the main point here, and
yet would not fully answer the purpose aimed at, since a
discussion whicli should be at all complete is of course not to
be thought of. Meanwhile the reader can himself at once
judge, whether the representation of the work of the prophets,
which results from the critical premises now stated, satisfies
the requirements of probability.
For it is self-evident that the task of the prophets now
becomes entirely different from what it was according to the
traditional conception first described. We must now attribute
to them a much greater degree of originality. It is true
that, according even to the view defended by me, the place
of honour belongs to Moses. He gave the impulse to the
whole subsequent development, when he bound Israel to the
adoration of Jahveh, and expressed once for all the moral
character of the Jahveh-worship in " the ten words." But
it makes certainly, in reference to the prophets, a very great
difference whether we give them the historical Moses, or the
writer of the Pentateuch, as their predecessor. If no such
author preceded them, then, while their work still remains
as it is, they had no model to follow ; then, they themselves
have produced what they seemed at first to have borrowed from
another quarter. On a close examination their work is plainly
seen to have been twofold. Jahveh, a holy god who prescribes
1 See above, pp. 406 ff.
2 Compare " De Godsdienst van Israel," i. 423 ff . ; ii. 89 ff. &c. (Vol. ii.
pp. 15 ff. ; 182 ff. &c, English Translation), and my lecture, on "De vijf
boeken van Mozes" (Leiden, 1872.)

PROGRESS OF PROPHECY. 563
moral requirements : this is the fundamental idea which was
handed down to them from Sinai. They have now, in the first
place, maintained and applied, expanded and purified, Jahveh's
moral law. They have, in the second place, gradually formed
a purer and more spiritual conception of Jahveh himself, and
have finally reached the height of ethical monotheism.
It is of the ultimate result of this twofold work that we
can best judge, or rather it is on that alone that we can form
a sure judgment. In literary documents, whose genuineness
is undisputed, the final outcome lies clearly visible before us,
expressed in words, in so far as- it admitted of being so ex
pressed. With regard to all that serves as a preparation for
it, we must rest contented with the accounts of others. The
want is great and, to a certain extent, irreparable. Our
narrators — the same whose character and method we studied
in chapter xii.- — are only imperfectly informed with regard
to the earlier ages, and do not at all seek to bring out as
distinctly as possible the difference between the past and
the present. At the same time, while describing events of
the past, they never lose sight of the wants and interests of
their own contemporaries. They never hesitate to make the
representation of the character and action of the historical
personages serviceable for the announcement of religious
truth, and for exhorting and comforting their readers. It
results from the nature of the case that in this- way the
portraiture of the early prophets specifically has suffered —
so much so even that a doubt arises in our own minds whether
the narratives regarding them are indeed fitted to make us
acquainted with the reality. But we need not despair on
that point. We might, indeed, do so if the historical writers
had purposely wished to lead us on a wrong track. But
since their habit of blending their own views and wishes with
the representation of the facts is, for the most part, involun
tary, and, for that reason, characterised by great simplicity
(naivete), our chances of getting at the truth are comparatively
favourable. On many occasions the reality glimmers through
the narratives. For the most part they contain, alongside of
the author's view, some features which are unconnected with
his manner of thinking and his object, or are even at varianse
with them. As a matter of course, we first seize upon these

564 XV.  HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
features. We then allow ourselves to be guided by the im
pression made on us by the narratives in their mutual con
nection, and by the particulars which agree with each other.
We thus obtain a whole which is consistent, and therein bears
its own recommendation. For the result of the critical in
vestigation is, on the one hand, that the prophets, from the
eleventh to the ninth century B.C. inclusive, did, in fact, move
forward in the twofold direction just indicated ; on the other
hand, however, it becomes evident that they were at that time
still merely on the way, and had not yet reached the goal.
Let us first place before us the image of Samuel, the seer,
the leader of the association of prophets at Bamah. In the
latest historical narratives, more than one saying is put into
his mouth,1 which would bear testimony to his spiritual
conception of Jahveh and the Jahveh-worship, if it might be
regarded as authentic. But these utterances are, with the
greatest probability, ascribed to the narrator, who recasts, with
great freedom, the data of tradition. It is much safer to trust
to the impression which Samuel's best attested actions make
upon us. Now when we do so, he appears to us as a man
zealous for the worship of Jahveh, and against the service of
the other gods which the people placed alongside of the god
of Israel ; 2 as a man stern and inexorable, who punished the
slightest deviation from what he had prescribed in Jahveh's
name, and admitted no sort of excuse as valid ; 3 as a main-
tainer of that view of Jahveh's character which found its most
complete expression in the dooming or utter destruction of
everything which was thought to withstand him ; * as the
persecutor with fire and sword of the heathen soothsaying.5
In connection with this point, it strikes us that, according to
one of the later accounts, his appearance inspires with terror
even those also who reverence him.6 All these features are
1 See especially 1 Sam. xv. 22, 23, 29 ; xvi. 7 ; and further, the address
in 1 Sam. xii., which attaches itself to the Pentateuch.
2 1 Sam. vii. 3. 3 1 Sam. xiii. 8—14 ; xv. 10 ff.
4 1 Sam. xv. 1 — 3 ; compare 14 ff.; further, verse 33, where we read that
Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the face of Jahveh in Gilgal.
5 1 Sam. xxviii. 3 — that is, if, as is most probable, Saul acted in this
matter in the spirit, and, perhaps, even by the advice, of Samuel.
6 1 Sam. xvi. 4, 5. This little trait sheds light on 1 Sam. vii. 16, 17,
where it is said that Samuel judged Israel ; the severest measures will not
have been wantiDg in his discharge of this function.

THE PROPHETS NATHAN AND GAD. 565
consistent, and lead us to one conclusion— the Jahvism
of Samuel contained in it the germs of a subsequent
higher development ; but it yet stood far below the pure,
spiritual conviction to which prophecy should eventually
rise. ^ How we are to judge in general regarding David himself and
his contemporaries has been shown elsewhere.1 The question
with us at present is whether the prophets who laboured in
his reign occupied a higher standpoint. Their names, Nathan
and Gad, are spoken by us with reverence. The close rela
tion in which they stood to David — of which also the title
" king's seer," which is assigned to Gad,2 bears witness —
brought with it its own peculiar dangers and temptations ;
but still they were not overcome by them. When David had
sinned, neither of them was afraid to rebuke him severely,
and announce to him the punitive judgments of Jahveh.3
This could not but make a deep impression on the people
also, and quicken the conviction that the god of Israel, as the
interpreters of whom these men came forward, was the Holy
and Bighteous One, who was no respecter of persons. It is to
the imperishable honour of Nathan and Gad that they
vigorously maintained this truth, which, in an eastern
monarchy, was so liable to be forgotten. Are we now, in
addition to this, at liberty to assume that they had already
drawn the inferences which resulted from this ethical concep
tion of Jahveh's character ? There is no evidence of such a
thing. The idea of Jahveh which lies at the foundation of
the disapproval of David's numbering the people, and of the
belief that the pestilence which afflicted Israel was to be
regarded as a punishment for the king's transgression,4 — this
idea is neither higher nor purer than the representation which
we considered must be attributed to Samuel. The execution
ofthe seven' sons and grandsons of Saul took place in con
sequence of an oracle, which, as will be remembered, ran
thus : " On Saul and on his house rests a blood-guilt,
1 Compare "De Godsdienst van Israel," i. 321—26 (vol. i., pp. 323—28,
English Translation).
2 2 Sam. xxiv. 11 ; 1 Chron. xxi. 9 ; 2 Chron. xxix. 25.
3 2 Sam. xii. 1 ff . ; xxiv. 11 ff.
* 2 Sam. xxiv. ; 1 Chron. xxi. Compare my article in " Nieuw en Oud,"
1870, pp. 505, ff.

566 XV.  HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
because he slew the Gibeonites."1 Was it a prophet, perhaps
one of the two prophets known to us, who announced this
oracle, and so indicated the means of removing the famine
which now for three successive years had raged in Canaan ?
We do not know it for certain : it is also possible that David
received such an answer from the priestly oracle. But even
in that case this fact remains, that the prophets of Jahveh
did not oppose this conception of his requirements, and
looked on quietly, while the guiltless descendants of Saul
were sacrificed to the superstitious ideas of those days. This
is irreconcilable, not merely with the supposition that they
knew the Deuteronomic laws,2 but also with the opinion that
their ideas about Jahveh, about sin, punishment, and forgive
ness, had already reached a high degree of development. If
this had been the case, it must have been evident in the
religious and moral life of their time, in the conduct of David,
their patron and follower. But now when it is plain that no
such result appeared,3 we can be indebted to them only for
this one thing, that they faithfully maintained the moral
character of Jahveh and his requirements. But was this one
thing not the indispensable condition of every further
development ?
In the history of prophecy, or at least in our knowledge of
that history, the reign of Solomon is an entire blank. The
fact that he — the pupil of Nathan4 — permitted, nay
favoured,5 the worship of the gods of his foreign wives, can
not certainly be regarded as a proof that the prophets in
general saw no evil in that worship. But we surely can
infer from such a fact that Solomon himself had not yet
any idea of monotheism — the acknowledging and adoration
of one only God — and also that this had not been im
pressed upon him by Nathan ; the apostasy from the so-
called monolatry- — the worship of one single God — to the
worship of many gods can psychologically be very easily
1 2 Sam. xxi. 1 — 14. The words quoted occur in verse lb, where for
beth-hadamtm read betho damtm.
2 Deut. xxiv. 16 ; vii 9, 10 (a remarkable modification of Exod. xx. 5-
Deut. v. 9). '
3 Compare my Hk. O.. 265 ff.
4 2 Sam. xii. 25, and the note of Thenius on this verse.
6 1 Kings xi. 1—8, 33.

THE PROPHETS IN THE KINGDOM OF EPHRAIM. 567
explained, but how a monotheist, in the strict sense of the
word, can, along with the only God, pay homage to other
gods, must always remain an inexplicable enigma. The
idolatry of Solomon — of which the visible proofs continued
to exist undisturbed for centuries in succession1 in the
immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem — is thus a strong
evidence of the correctness of our position, that the higher
standpoint was not yet reached at that time, a reason there
fore why we cannot hesitate also to regard the purer ideas,
which are put into his mouth in the narrative of the dedica
tion of the temple,2 as the convictions of the prophetical
historian. I have up to this point made no mention of Ahijah the
Shilonite. It is indeed exceedingly difficult to define with
certainty the point of view which he represents as against
Solomon : the narrative in which he appears has a historical
basis, but does not reproduce his ideas with exactness.3
There is however nothing strange in his stern disapprobation
of the favour shown to the foreign worship : Samuel and,
more generally speaking, all who held fast by the Mosaic
traditions, would have done the same, had they been in
his place. The great question is, on what ground did this
disapprobation rest? Was it on a monotheistic basis, or
rather on the conviction that Israel must worship no other
gods than the god of Israel alone ? The latter supposition is
by far the more probable, in connection not only with what
precedes, but also with the history of religion in the kingdom
of Ephraim, a kingdom which was brought into existence
under the influence of Ahijah, and in which his successors
made their power be so strongly felt. I allude to the wor
ship of the golden image of the steer at Dan and Bethel,
which was immediately introduced by Jeroboam I., and con
tinued to exist as the proper religion of the state for more
than two and a half centuries, on till the commencement of
the Assyrian captivity. It is, as is well known, repeatedly
and most sternly reprobated by the author of the book of
Kino-s. We have formerly seen what standard he employs in
1 2 Kings xxiii. 13.
2 1 Kings viii. 12—21, 23—53, 56—61 ; 2 Chron. vi. 1—11, 14—42. See
especially 1 Kings viii. 27, 39", 41-^3, 60.
3 1 Kings xi. 26—40. Compare above, pp. 398, f.

568 XV.  HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
doing so.1 It is self-evident that not only Jeroboam and his
successors, but their subjects also, judged differently : a form
of Jahveh- worship, at variance with the universal conviction
regarding Jahveh's character and requirements, would never
have been introduced, or at least would never have continued to
be practised, and would not have been tolerated by the whole
nation. On this subject therefore no difference of opinion
can exist. On the other hand, the relation of the Jahveh-
prophets to the golden image of the steer is a much disputed,
and in fact a very disputable point. The author of the book
of Kings informs us that they reprobated the measures of
Jeroboam regarding public worship, and regarded them as
the cause of the fall of his dynasty, and indeed of the des
truction of the kingdom.2 On his standpoint he could not but
believe that : how should the prophet of Jahveh have been
able to approve of what Jahveh himself had already con
demned at Sinai ? But for the very reason that the stand
point of the historian admitted of no other view, the question
presents itself to us,, whether he is to be trusted in regard to
this point, or must not rather be thought to have very freely
reproduced the tradition regarding the earlier prophets, or,
where it was silent, to have completed it in conformity with
his own convictions? So much is certain that he, quite in
accordance with the later view, but at variance with history,
does not allow the worship of the golden image of the steer
to be Jahveh-worship at all, or, in other words, that he places
image worship on the same footing with the worship of false
gods, and puts this judgment into the mouth of Ahijah.3 If in
this he deviates from the reality, what warrant have we that
elsewhere he reproduces it with accuracy? That the prophets
in the kingdom of Ephraim frequently opposed the kings and
effected the ruin of more than one dynasty, may well be
accepted as historical facts. But how many other reasons may
there have been for such a course than the form of worship
which they prescribed in the temples at Dan and Bethel !
The accounts regarding those successors of Ahijah must be
used with great caution, but still they seem to justify the
1 See above, pp. 398, ff., 414, 419, ff.
* 1 Kings xiv. 8, 9, 15, 16 ; xv. 30 ; xvi. 2, 13 ; xxi. 22».
1 Bangs xiv. 9, 15.

THE PROPHETS AND THE WORSHIP OF THE STEER. 569
statement, that their opposition originated from various
causes, and that it would be very wrong to connect them
mainly, much more exclusively, with the form of Jahveh-
worship. Of Jehu ben Hanani nothing more is told us than
that he predicted the fall of the house of Baasha.1 In the
war against Benhadad, king of Damascus, Ahab is encouraged
and supported by an unnamed prophet,2 just as his project to
wrest Jabesh in Gilead from the Syrians is applauded by four
hundred prophets.3 Another one, also unnamed, severely
condemns Ahab's clemency towards Benhadad : he ought, in
accordance with Jahveh's will, to have doomed him to utter
destruction.4 The narratives regarding Elijah and Elisha in
no way give the impression that these great men came
forward as the assailants of the temples at Dan and Bethel.
Elijah, as is well known, contends for Jahveh and against
Baal.5 He reproves Ahaziah, when the latter in his sickness
consults Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron.6 After the murder
of Naboth, he appears to Ahab and announces to him that
Jahveh has rejected his house.7 It is added that in conse
quence of the king's humiliation the execution of this judg
ment was delayed.8 Here, as will be observed, " the sins of
Jeroboam, the son of Nebat," in which, however, Ahab con
tinued during the whole of his life, are thrown quite into the
background, and Elijah, like Nathan and Gad before him,
comes forward to maintain the moral requirements of Jahveh.
Is it improbable that Ahijah, Jehu ben Hanani, and the rest of
Jahveh's prophets also in the kingdom of the ten tribes, took
cognizance of transgressions similar to those of Ahab, and
preferred to make their judgment upon the kings of that
realm dependent on such acts? Such a view of their action
finds much stronger support in the narratives, than that
which supposes them to have maintained continual opposition
to the worship of the golden steer. When we take into
aceount what is communicated to us regarding Jehu and his
descendants, we must speak still more strongly. They all
without distinction maintained the image-worship in Dan
1 1 Kings xvi. 1—7. 2 1 Kings xx. 13 ff., 22 'ff., 28ff.
3 1 Kings xxii. 1 ff. i 1 Kings xx. 35-43.
6 1 Kings xvii., xviii. 6 2 Kings i.
7 1 Kings xxii 20-22. 8 Ibid., vv. 27-29.

570 XV.  HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
and Bethel} Yet it was by the influence of Elisha that
Jehu was placed upon the throne, and this powerful prophet
stood by his successors in their hard struggle against Hazael
and Benhadad.2 If he, or rather if the Jahveh-prophets of
that time, had condemned the image-worship as severely as
the author of the book of Kings, they must have abolished
it, or at least have left no effort untried in order to effect its
discontinuance. But as little in the ninth as in the tenth
century before our era, does any one of them raise his voice
against the religion of the state. The danger that the God
of Israel would be supplanted by the gods of the Phoenicians
was averted by Elijah and his school, and disappeared for
ever on the exaltation of Jehu to the throne. There then is
their great merit and at the same time the proof that they
were not untrue to the tradition of their predecessors. To
have preserved it inviolate in circumstances of so great diffi
culty, was a task as arduous as it was noble. Their honour
does not require us to assign them anything more, and history
too, in so far as we ean see, does not allow us to do so.
The death of Elisha takes place in the time of Joash, pro
bably in one of the earliest years of his reign.3 Between
that period and the appearance of Amos there is an interval
of perhaps fifty years — another blank in the history of
prophecy, for of Jonah ben Amittai we know little more than
the name,4 and from the kingdom of Judah we receive con
cerning that interval no narratives in which the prophets play
a part. How gladly would we receive fuller information with
respect to this period! For during these years there must in
fact have been accomplished a change which might almost be
called a revolution. It had in truth been in preparation for
a long time previously ; it was the ripe fruit of the whole
preceding development. The ethical conception of Jahveh's
nature, maintained, applied, and developed by the prophets,
recognised by them, in the eontest against the nature-gods,
in all its significance and value in a higher degree even than
before, must of itself have led to Jahveh being first exalted
very far above the gods of the other nations, and finally to
1 2 Kings x. 29 ; xiii. 2, 11 ; xiv. 24 ; xv. 9.
2 2 Kings ix. 1 ff., and above, pp. 393-396.
3 2 Kings xiii. 14-19, and above, p. 395. 4 2 Kings xiv. 25.

THE BIRTH OF MONOTHEISM. 571
his being regarded as the only one to whom the name " God "
and the honour of being worshipped belonged. Probably the
disasters which afflicted both kingdoms in the ninth century
B.c, helped to fix attention on the difference between the god
of Israel and the gods of the other nations, and to open men's
eyes to the consequences which thence resulted : x but we
cannot here speak with certainty. It is not a discovery in
the region of philosophy that we are discussing. The
development which we are seeking to trace revealed itself in
purer and more exalted conceptions, but it took place in the
innermost sanctuary of the heart. Now, the meditations of
the pious mind and the silent progress in the development of
religious ideas, from their very nature escape observation, and
are not recorded in the annals of history. This alone is in
contestable : the higher and purer conception of Jahveh's
nature is in existence in the eighth century before our era
and it is prophets of Jahveh who present it, and on the
ground of it combat the sensuous and less developed popular
belief. This fact, taken in connection with the results of our
investigation into the standpoint of the earlier prophets,
scarcely admits of any other interpretation than this : in the
second half of the ninth century, the consciousness of the
peculiar character of their religious belief became awakened
in the most eminent, that is, in the most serious and pious
servants of Jahveh ; the glory of " the Holy One of Israel "
unveiled itself before the eye of their soul ; He s,tood before
them as " the god of the gods and the lord of the lords ; " 2
nay, ere long, indeed, as the only living and true God. The
names of these Jahveh-worshippers have not been handed
down to us. We cannot prove that they belonged to the
prophets and came forward publicly in that capacity. But
still that which was first proclaimed by men like Amos would
surely attain to maturity also in them. We do not hesitate
to regard the prophets as the creators of the higher truth
which found in them its eminent interpreters.
The commencement of the prophetical literature coincides
chronologically with the purification and spirituahsation of
1 Compare "De godsdienst van Israel" I. pp. 367-370 (vol. I. pp.
367-370, English Translation).
2 Deut. x. 17.

572 XV.  HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
the idea of Jahveh. I have already drawn attention to the
fact that the committal to writing of the preaching which
was previously only delivered orally, must be regarded as an
important turning-point in the history of prophecy ; it was
not by accident, or in consequence of changes which had
occurred beyond their circle, but because they proposed to
themselves a different object, that the prophets sought after
different means.1 It ca.nnot now be difficult for us to bring
this modification in the form of their action into connection
with the development which their ideas had undergone. It
is at once self-evident that all did not go together in this
development : the great majority of the people, and indeed,
as we shall see afterwards, of the prophets themselves also,
continued to occupy their former stand-point. Between
Amos and other men of kindred spirit on the one side, and
the Israelitish nation on the other, there yawned a gulf much
deeper and wider than that which had separated the earlier
prophets from their contemporaries. For that reason the
former had not the power, as for instance Ahijah and Elijah
had, to effect a revolution by force, and to dethrone the
reigning dynasty and substitute another in its place ; to
effect that, the support of the people would have been indis
pensable to them, and it is more than doubtful if that support
would have been given. But for that reason also, even if the
power had not been wanting to them, they were necessitated
by principle to refrain from any such attempt : it would not
have brought them a single step nearer to the object which
they had in view, and would have left the moral and religious
condition of the people unchanged. The only means which
they had at their disposal and which promised to them good
results, was to disseminate and recommend their better con
ception of Jahveh's character and worship by force of rational
conviction. What course then more readily presented itself
to them than to employ this means on the largest scale,,
not to confine themselves to the circle which they could reach
with their word, but also to endeavour to exert an influence
beyond that circle, and upon a subsequent generation, by
writing ? Their comparative isolation caused them to look
around for new weapons in the contest for Jahveh ; their
1 See above, pp. 62 f., 66.

STANDPOINT OF THE PROPHETS OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY B.C. 573
choice fell upon a spiritual weapon, because their contest
itself had assumed a more spiritual character.
This must not of course be understood as if the prophets,
after careful consideration, made choice of this means, and
left others unemployed. The fact was that they themselves
had gradually become different and now also naturally
wrought in a different way. The origin of a prophetical
literature would of itself be sufficient to make us perceive the
enormous distance which prophecy has traversed from its
rise till the commencement of the eighth century B.C. The
popular orator and writer stands infinitely higher than
either the old Israelitish roeh or the Canaanitish nabi ; the
latter are sunk, as it were, in the former. The horizon of
the prophet of the eighth century has become widened ; he
surveys and judges the national life in all its compass,
and brings all political affairs into connection with it. It is
only in exceptional cases that he still falls into a state of
trance, and that he has the higher truth revealed to him in
a vision. Calm reflection gradually obtains the mastery.
Already in the eighth century visions are employed as the
drapery of the thoughts which had come to maturity in the
mind of the prophet himself.1 When now we see this
development as a whole before us, we cannot well go wrong
in the explanation of it. We could formerly leave the
question undetermined, whether the ecstasies and visions of
the Israelitish prophets were of a different nature from that
of similar phenomena which occurred elsewhere, and which
are still seen.2 We now without hesitation affirm that the
former did not differ from the latter ; they too belong to the
natural or materialistic basis of prophecy, and therefore also in
course of its development they have gradually retired more into
the background ; the distinguishing characteristic of prophecy
is not to be found in these phenomena, but in the spirit
which partly excited, partly expelled them, or subjected them
to itself. The power and significance of Israel's prophets are
not to be found in their origin, or in anything which is con
nected therewith, or recalls it to recollection, but in their
spiritual life, and the influence which that life exercised upon
the conception of ethical and religious truth.
It does not enter into my plan to write the history of pro-
1 See above, p. 80. a See above, p. 86.

574 XV.'  HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
phetical theology, to follow step by step the further development
of their religious and ethical ideas. The continued study of the
opinions entertained by our canonical prophets, however im
portant in other respects, would certainly open up no new points
of view. After the decisive step was once taken, it followed
of necessity that the coarse entered upon should sooner or later
be traversed to the end.. The monotheism of the prophets of
the eighth century has as yet scarcely stepped across the
line which separates- the worship of one single god, and the
adoration of the only God. But it was implied in the nature
of the case, that it gradually left this line of demarcation
further behind, became widened, as it were, and finally raised
to absolute monotheism,1 The knowledge of the particulars
is not required to enable us to estimate the work of the
prophets as a whole, nor do we need to wait till we gain that
knowledge, in order to express our admiration for what they
have effected in the way now pointed out.
Or would materials for admiration be wanting here ? I
can hardly conceive of any one answering this question in
the affirmative. What the organic, in distinction from the
supernaturalistic, view of prophecy places before our eyes,
may in truth be called a spectacle altogether unique. The
mechanical communications of God have disappeared, and
with them also the progressive unveiling of the secrets of the
future. But in place of these, what a memorable develop
ment ! what a contest for the possession of truth ! It is the
earnestness with which the prophets enter upon their task, the
sincerity with which they believe in Jahveh and in his moral
requirements, which place them in a position not only to
maintain what has been handed down to them, but also to
purify and elevate it. Thus they rise to the knowledge of
what in ancient times remained concealed even from the wise
and prudent. . . .
But before we proceed further in estimating the work of
the prophets from the point of view of the spiritual develop
ment of our race, the preceding historical survey has yet to
be completed. The canonical prophets and their predecessors
stand there too much by themselves. Their relation to the
people and to their colleagues does not come, at least sufficiently,
1 See my article on " Jahveh and the ' other gods ' " in the " Theological
Review" for July 1876, pp. 329 ff., where this view is more fully developed.

OPPOSITION BETWEEN THE PROPHETS AND THE PEOPLE. 575
into view. We know this relation already from our previous
inquiry ; 1 but it is only now that we can fully comprehend
it. It is true that it is usually regarded, on the very con
trary, as an objection against the natural interpretation of
Israelitish prophecy, but it will very soon become evident
to us that it strongly recommends it, and thus further con
solidates the foundation on which our estimation is to rest.
The canonical prophets stand opposed to the Israelitish
people, and the people, on their part, stand opposed to them.
The truth of this twofold statement is, speaking generally,
beyond all doubt. When I was discussing, in Chapter VI.,
the predictions regarding the judgment oa Israel, I had to
make all the canonical prophets, unless in some few excep
tional cases, follow each other in succession. It was as
preachers of repentance that they laboured in Israel. They
did not direct their attacks against this or that transgression,
committed in some circles; they had their serious and indeed, for
the most part, the same, complaints against the moral and reli
gious condition ofthe whole ofthe nation. It was a matter of
course that the people should reply to these accusations with
enmity, if not with mockery and persecution. Sometimes
the opposition to the prophets proceeds from the constituted
authorities, from the king,, the courtiers, or the priesthood.
Elijah, for example, is persecuted by Ahab and Jezebel, but
in the contest against Baal carries along with him a great
part of the people. Amos preaches at Bethel undisturbed,
until Amaziah, the priest, prohibits him from continuing, and
incites the king, Jeroboam II., against him.2 But yet it is just
as often that the opposition proceeds from the people, or that
the people fully concur in it. One of the latest writers on
our subject, whose explanation of this phenomenon we wish
to consider immediately, describes it to us in the following
manner3:  "At the period to which the prophetical addresses
incorporated in the canon of the Old Testament, belong, the
power of the prophets was broken in the kingdom of Judah
also. Their preaching is despised4 and answered with
i See above, pp. 47 f. ; 361 ff., &c. 2 Amos vii. 10—17.
3Dr K. Kbhler, "der Prophetismus der Hebraer und die Mantik der
Griechen," p. 93. 4 Amos vi. 3 ; ix. 10.

576 XV.  HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
mockery 1 ; a pretence is sought to evade their exhortations.2
The prophets are forbidden to speak,3 nay, they have already
begun to be persecuted.4 Even against the royal prophet
Isaiah, Israel shows itself a people hardened in heart and
obtuse in understanding.6 The development of prophecy was,
as it seems, temporarily obstructed by the sanguinary perse
cution of king Manasseh,6 but towards the Babylonish captiv
ity it springs up anew and experiences in Jeremiah a second
period of bloom. But in that prophet, whose life is an unin
terrupted series of sufferings and distresses, the persecution of
true prophecy also reaches its climax in the kingdom of Judah.
Since the time that Jahveh summoned him to preach, he has
become a derision and a mockery,7 he has been cast into
prison, and exposed to the risk of death.8 In the captivity
Ezekiel complains that the words of the prophets find no
credence, because their fulfilment is so long delayed." 9
Let us not, however, for a moment forget that it is the
canonical prophets10 exclusively towards whom the people
assume such an attitude. Besides these there are others who
bear the same official title. Compared with them the canoni
cal prophets constitute a small minority. These others are
honoured and beloved by the people. Their preaching cor
responds to the popular wishes, and finds thus ready accept
ance. But then on the other hand an unceasing warfare is
maintained against them by the canonical prophets. It is
obvious at the first glance that these facts, with the whole of
which we are already acquainted,11 are closely connected. The
great mass of the people honour and reward those other
prophets because they fiud themselves as it were reflected in
their addresses and predictions ; the canonical prophets think
themselves obliged to utter the most earnest warnings against
them, just because they confirm the multitude in their pre
judices and sins. We need only read with a little attention
what the canonical prophets have written concerning these
1 Amos v. 18 ; Is. v. 19 ; xxviii. 10, 22. 2 Is. vii. 12. " Micah ii. 6.
4 2 Chron. xvi. 10 ; xxiv. 20, 21 ; xxv. 16. 6 Is. vi. 9, 10.
6 2 Kings xxi. 16. i Jer. xx. 7.
8 Jer. xx. 1 — 3 ; xxvi. 8 ff . ; xxxvii ; xxxviii. 9 Ezek. xii. 22 ff.
10 This appellation embraces also such men as Micaiah, the son of Imlah
(1 Kings xxii.), and Urijah, the son of Shemaiah (Jer. xxvi.), of whom we
possess no prophecies, but who otherwise stand quite on the same footing
as the canonical prophets.
11 See above, pp. 40, 48 ff., 60 f., 360—362.

DISCORD AMONG THE PROPHETS. 577
men in order to be at once convinced that such is the actual
relation between the two classes. The following words of
Micah, for example,1 are characteristic of the popular pro
phets : — " Is there a man who comes forward boastfully,
And utters falsehood (thinking)
' I shall pour out to you (Israel) wine and strong drink,'
Such a one shall be the orator of this people."
Not less distinct is the accusation which Isaiah makes aeainst o
the people, and indirectly against the prophets: — 2
" They will not hear the instruction of Jahveh,
They say to the seers ' see not,'
And to the beholders of visions 'behold not right things,
Speak to us smooth things,
Behold for us deceits.' "
But this is already sufficient to recall the mutual relations
of the two classes to our remembrance. How they are com
monly explained is well known. The canonical are the true,
their opponents the false prophets. Thus, for instance, the
writer whose words we have just quoted, and whom we now also
wish to hear, says: "One of the most dangerous enemies of
genuine prophecy is its own counterfeit, false prophecy, which
exercised great influence among the people especially in the
degenerate period before the captivity. They are prophets
who, it is true, prophesy in the name of Jahveh,3 but who
probably stand in relation to the false worship of Jahveh as
a power of nature, under the image of a seer. For that
reason also they are said to prophesy in the name of Baal,4
whose prophets are also mentioned elsewhere. 8 In the years
before the captivity they are the organs of public opinion in
the most proper sense of the term. They assure the people
that they are on the right road, and that thus they need fear
no evil.6 They impose no heavy moral requirements, but ap
prove of the people's condition and actions - and do not disturb
them in their sensual enjoyments and excesses,8 to which in
deed they themselves are not averse, for example, to immode-
i Micah ii. 11. ' Is- xxx- 10-
» Jer. xxiii. 31 ; Ezek. xiii. 6, 7 ; xxu. 28.
* Jer ii. 8 ; xxiii. 13. 6 1 Kings xvru. 19.
e Jer vi 14; viii. 11.; xiv. 13, &c. ; Ezek. xiii. 10; xxu. 28.
7 Ezek. xiii. 22. 8 Mich. ii. 11.
2 o

578 XV. — HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
rate drinking1 and to adultery.2 In spite of the credit which
they enjoy among the people, they are always exhibited by
the true prophets as men who are not sent by Jahveh,3 but
who prophesy out of their own hearts,4 and thus lead the
people astray.6 Nay, they are expressly charged with decep
tion from covetousness and pursuit of gain.8 This false
prophecy shows the most striking agreement with heathen
divination, not only in its origin but also in its degeneracy.
... In the decision with which genuine prophecy rejects all
fellowship with this heathen counterfeit of it, the conscious
ness of the sharp contrast between its own characteristics and
everything which is connected with heathenism is forcibly re
vealed." 7 This same contrast indeed comes also clearly out
in the relation between the canonical prophets and the great
majority of the people. " With the Greeks, for example, the
prophet is nothing more than the organ of the popular mind,
for which reason also he must find credence and agreement on
the part of every one who belongs to the people, so that even
they who have outgrown the popular faith still pay heed to
prophecy on account of their fellow-citizens. In Israel, on the
contrary, the general experience is : " Who hath believed our
preaching, and to whom hath Jahveh's arm become manifest?"8
In Israel the prophets are under the necessity of hardening
their faces as a flint, as adamant9 or granite,10 in order not to
be disheartened by the unjust and hostile reception which
awaits them at the hands of the people.11 ... In Israel, two
religious tendencies, which differ, not only formally, but also
essentially, are opposed to each other; the one, the heathenish,
into which the people sink again after every spiritual re
vival, because it is their natural tendency, the other, which
has been implanted in the people by a few creative minds
exclusively, and is now maintained and propagated also by a
similar agency, and just on that account must be called the
revealed." 12 In accordance with these views, the author, from
1 Jer. xxviii. 7. 2 Jer. xxiii. 14 ; xxix. 23.
3 Jer. xiv. 14 ; xxiii. 21 ; xxviii. 15 ; Ezek. xiii. 6, &c,
4 Jer. xiv. 14 ; xxiii. 16 ; Ezek. xiii. 2, 3, 17.
5 Jer. vi. 14 ; viii. 11 ; Ezek. xxii. 28, &c.
6 Ezek. xiii. 19 ; xxii. 25 ; Micah. iii. 5, 11. 7 Kohler I.e. pp. 94, 95.
8 Is. liii. 1. 9 Is. 1. 6, 7. '« Ezek. iii. 8, 9.
11 Compare Matt, xxiii. 3 1 ; Acts vii. 51, 52. 12 Kohler I.e. pp. 93, 94.

DR KOHLER'S THEORY OF PROPHECY. 579
whom these citations are taken, now also declares himself
against the opinion that the Old Testament prophecy must
be regarded as the highest development or the completion of
the prophecy of ancient times.1 For " It could originate only
through divine revelation, that is, it could be developed only
out of a life which was not the natural life of the people, but
which was implanted in the people by some persons endowed
with a creative faculty."2
In the contrast drawn between true and false prophecy,
between divine revelation and Israel's natural development,
this theory agrees with the traditional view. But at the same
time it approximates to the one which has been presented by
me, when it limits the immediate action of God to the separa
tion of Abraham and the forming of Moses, and represents
prophecy as produced therefrom in a natural manner. It is
precisely for that reason that I have presented Dr Kohler's
ideas at so great length. The consideration of them can
teach us, whether we are able to rest satisfied with this
limitation of the theory which formerly prevailed, or whether
we must not rather, for the sake of truth, break with it
altogether. Let us remark, in the first place, that the deviation from
the view formerly prevalent, which Dr Kohler allows himself
to make, is fully justified. He who now still represents our
canonical prophets as the organs of God's spirit, and derives
their word from immediate and continuous divine revelation,
takes upon himself at the same time the obligation of
neutralizing the force of the facts which are brought to light
in Chapters v.— vii. Whoever sees that there is no chance of
doing so, has nothing left but to substitute the mediate for
the immediate, supernatural revelation. If, however, he re
solves to take that step, then he will, as it seems to me, feel
1 Thus Ewald, "die Propheten des A. Bundes," I. p. 19.
2 Kohler le. p. 96. Compare pp. 70 f., where he gives a more detailed
account of his view, as follows : "The original belief in God was kept alive
in one race by an immediate providential act, and was afterwards made
the property of the Israelitish people by a person whose character and work
do not admit of being explained by the antecedent development, and there
fore point back to a creative action on the part of God. From this period
forward the prophets spake out of the " Gemeingeist" of (i.e. the spirit com
mon to) the Israelitish people, but not out of the natural, rather out^ of the
" Gemeingeist" (common spirit) which was implanted in the people oy that
creative personality (Moses)."

580 XV. — HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
himself compelled, as a matter of course, to go still one step
further, and to seek for prophecy an explanation which lies
beyond the traditional conception of " revelation."
For it is obvious, in the second place, that the contrast
which is still made by Dr Kohler also, corresponds only in
part to the reality with which the Old Testament makes us
acquainted. Of the opposition of the people to the canonical
prophets he does not say one word too much ; but yet he
neglects to direct our attention to the other side of that pic
ture. Beverence and submission alternate with enmity and
persecution, or even accompany them. The people have not
cast themselves loose from the prophets to whom they refuse
to listen. They Gannot withdraw themselves altogether from
their influence. They still see in them something different
from an alien power which they would be authorised to set
aside. This is proved by the very passages which are
annexed to the description given above. The refusal of
Ahaz to follow the prophetic word of Isaiah is couched in as
courteous terms as possible.1 Though Hezekiah may, in
opposition to the prophet's counsel, have sought support from
Egypt, yet when Jerusalem is besieged by the Assyrians, he
seeks from him help and comfort.2 Jeremiah is assailed, but
he is also defended, and that successfully ; 8 the princes de
termine to remove him out of the way,- but Zedekiah con
sults and protects him.4 Certainly the preaching of the
prophets excites antipathy, but it has also a hold upon the
people. If it had been otherwise, they could not possibly
have prosecuted their work and have ultimately even over
come the opposition. In one word : however violent the
contest may be now and then, it still is not of that nature
which, according to the common representation, — which is
still that of Kohler, — we should expect it to be. It is
not clear that the prophets represent principles and ideas
which are wholly foreign to Israel's " natural life," that is,
which are imported from without and have no connection
with its national development, There are between them and
their opponents far too numerous points of contact to allow
us to rest content with such an antithesis.
J Is. vii. 12. 2 2 Kings xix. 2 ff. (Is. xxxvii. 2 ff.).
3 Jer. xxvi. 8 — 19. 4 Jer. xxi. 1 — 10; xxxvii., xxxviii.

CHARACTER OF THE SO-CALLED FALSE PROPHETS. 581
Still less can we, in the third place, be satisfied with the
part which, on this view, is assigned to the so-called " false
prophets." In that especially lies the weak point of the whole
theory. We ought to guard against exaggeration, as well on
the one side as on the other. We wish to refrain also from
idealising the "false prophets." We cannot, indeed, keep
out of view that the accusers, whom alone we can hear, very
likely, in their zeal, went too far, and above all were exposed
to the danger of applying to all the complaints which were
true onty of some. But still we shall have to agree that the
wish to please, and the pursuit of gain, were not unknown to
many of the " prophets," and that some of them were not
unjustly charged with intemperance and unchastity. To
acknowledge this, however, is something entirely different
from denying to them all good faith, and from turning them
all, without exception, into unprincipled deceivers. We have
no right whatever to do this. The canonical prophets assure
us that Jahveh had not spoken to these others, and that they
prophesied " out of their own heart " — but who does not
recognise that the case is not therewith settled ? The so-
called " false prophets " asserted just the opposite, and
brought, in their turn, the same charge against their ac
cusers. The "word of Jahveh," announced by the one,
was diametrically opposed to that of the other : they could
not, therefore, on their standpoint, leave the higher com
mission of each other unassailed, but there is nothing to
hinder tcs from acknowledging the good faith of. both. The
supposition that the "false prophets," generally speaking,
were not convinced of their calling, seems, in truth, the
more unreasonable, the more thoroughly we consider it.
What representation can we form of their training, or of their
intercourse with each other, if we thus stamp them as in
tentional deceivers ? Is it conceivable from a psychological
point of view, that this prophetical profession should have
existed for ages in succession, if in its inmost being it was
nothing but lies and hypocrisy ? How can we rest satisfied,
in the case of this phenomenon, with an explanation, which
was applied, it is true, in the last century to heathen sooth
saying, but which, as regards that, is now no longer main
tained by any one ?

582 XV.-^-HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.'
But it is unnecessary to dwell any longer on these general
considerations. For it is self-evident that a view which has
so much against it, falls to the ground as soon as it. becomes
clear that it can be replaced by another which is not beset
with such difficulties, and gives a still better explanation of
facts. But now such a better view does present itself to us.
The so-called false prophets do not differ from their opponents
in that they arrogate to themselves in bad faith what the
latter possess in reality. As regards sincerity of conviction
and good intention, they rather stand — generally speaking —
on a level with them. They make this impression upon us
in the only two, more circumstantial, narratives in which
they appear as, actors. Zedekiah ben Chenaanah, the spokes
man of the four hundred prophets who encourage Ahab and
Jehoshaphat to engage in the contest against the Syrians ; 1
Hananiah the Gibeonite who incites Zedekiah and the people
to bow no longer under the yoke of Nebuchadrezzar,2 — are
men who speak evidently from inward conviction, and are
conscious in themselves that they do indeed announce the
word of Jahveh. But what is more, Micaiah ben Imlah, the
antagonist of the first mentioned prophet, pays indirectly
homage to their sincerity, when he derives their word also
from " the spirit " (of prophecy) — of course without on that
account acknowledging that it was a true word : in accord
ance with the will of Jahveh, this spirit had become a lying
spirit in them.8 The same implied acknowledgment of the
good faith of the " false prophets " is found in Ezekiel where
he represents Jahveh as saying : " If the prophet suffers him
self to be deceived and he speaketh » word (an oracle) then /
Jahveh have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my
hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my
people Israel." 4 It is thus, in fact, not permissible to regard
them as impostors. The explanation of the differences between
them and the canonical prophets must be sought for else
where. The standpoint of religious development is not the
same in both. The canonical prophets have struggled forward
in advance of their nation and of their own fellow.-prophets.
In consequence of this, their view of the state of the people
1 1 Kings xxii. 11, 12, 24. 2 Jer. xxviii.
3 1 Kings xxii. 20-23. 4 Ezek. xiv. 9.

DIFFERENCE OF PRINCIPLE BETWEEN THE PROPHETS. 583
and their expectation regarding Jahveh's dispensations have
become different, and their preaching frequently stands directly
opposed to the popular spirit and its organs — for as such we
have to regard the " false prophets." Thus the canonical
prophets form the flower, or the spiritual aristocracy of Israel.
There is nothing surprising in the antagonism between them
and their contemporaries. It is essentially the same contest
that we can perceive everywhere : we can perceive it in our
selves, between our better self and the lower, more sensual
inclinations ; in the world around us, between the more
highly developed and the great mass which lags behind.
As the religion of the people became modified in the
course of centuries, so also the class of " false prophets "
connected with it could not remain stationary. Some indi
cations of change actually appear : the prophets against
whom Jeremiah contends, seem to occupy a higher position
than the contemporaries of Micah and Isaiah ; their Jahvism
is purer, and thus also their resemblance to the heathen
soothsayers is not so great.1 But it results from the nature
of the case, that we cannot follow this development in its
details. And because genuine prophets also were not stationary,
so in spite of these changes, the relation between the canonical
prophets and their colleagues in function remained essentially
the same. In Jahvism there were from the beginning, and
there always continued to be, two elements intimately con
nected : the religious-ethical and the national element. They
are the two constituent parts which we find united in the
appellation which Jahveh bears in Isaiah : " the Holy One of
Israel." From this combination there results the possibility
of a development in two directions. The Israelite could
either make his religion subordinate to his national feeling,
his patriotism, or let that religion rule over the latter. Now
the first way was followed by the " false prophets ; " on the
second we find the canonical prophets. With the former the
idea stood in the foreground that Jahveh was the deliverer
and protector of Israel, that he would not abandon his people
in the time of trouble, and would make every conflict turn
to their advantage. Therefore the four hundred prophets of
i Compare Matthes, " de pseudoprophetismo Hebraeorum" (L.B. 1859)
pp. 32 ff., 59 ff.

584 XV.  HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
Ahab do not hesitate . to incite their king to the truly
national enterprise which he had planned, the wresting of
Bamoth in Gilead from the Syrians } therefore the contem
poraries of Isaiah promote the alliance with Egypt, the only
means, in their estimation, of becoming free from the Assyrian
bondage;2 therefore Hananiah and those of kindred senti
ments with him preach, both in Judea and in Babylonia,
rebellion against Nebuchadrezzar, in whom they see an enemy
of Israel and of Israel's God.3 These are ideas and wishes
of which those who cherished them had no need to be
ashamed, to which, moreover, — it is almost superfluous to
remind the reader- — the canonical prophets were by no means
strangers. But still with the most of them the reverse side
of the one truth which they firmly held along with their
opponents, stood on the foreground : the God of Israel is the
Holy One. That was the source of the divergent and much
more unfavourable judgment of the moral and religious state
of the people ; the source also of the dark anticipations of the
people's immediate future, of the cry " danger, danger, and no
peace," which forms the key-note of their preaching.4
But if I developed this idea more fully, I should have to
repeat what has been already expounded in another connec
tion.5 We are at present concerned only with the result,
which cannot be doubtful. It is the moral earnestness
combined with deep piety which forms the characteristic
mark of the canonical, as distinguished from the other
prophets. That is to say : if we follow attentively the
contest which they maintain against the people, and especially
against " the prophets," and trace it back to its principles,
we see in them the representatives of the same effort which
we believed that we observed in prophecy from the very
first, and which seemed to us to determine the direction in
which prophecy itself worked and gradually raised Jahvism
1 1 Kings xxii. 6.
2 Is. xxx. 1 ff., where it is not indeed said in so many words, but still it is
indicated, that the alliance with Egypt is approved of by prophets of Jahveh.
3 Jer. xxvii. -xxix.
4 The real complaint of Jeremiah against the prophets is that they
announce peace, or felicity and prosperity, instead of the judgment which
would urge the people to conversion, chaps, vi. 14; viii. 11; xxiii. 17;
xxviii. 9. Compare Ezek. xiii. 10, 16.
5 Above, pp. 360-364.

RESULT OF THE LABOURS OF THE PROPHETS. 585
to a greater elevation. In other words, the view formerly
presented, of the manner in which prophecy was historically
developed, is fully confirmed by the study of the relation
in which it placed itself towards the people and the majority
of the prophets.
But for that very reason it follows also that we can
abandon nothing of that view. We cannot be satisfied with
the limitation of the traditional opinion Which we found in
Dr Kohler. We do not allow ourselves to be deprived of
the belief in God's presence in history. In the fortunes and
development of nations, and not least clearly in those of
Israel, we see Him, the holy and all-wise Instructor of his
human children. But the old contrasts must be altogether
set aside. So long as we derive a separate part of Israel's
religious life directly from God, and allow the supernatural
or immediate revelation to intervene in even one single point,
so long also our view of the whole continues to be incorrect,
and we see ourselves here arid there necessitated to do
violence to the well authenticated contents of the historical
documents. It is the supposition of a natural development
alone which accounts for all the phenomena.
Strengthened in our conviction that we have not erred in
the explanation, we now survey our whole inquiry and sum
up the results.
What did the Israelitish prophets accomplish ? What was
the result of their work, and what value are we to assign to it ?
Ethical monotheism is their creation. They have them
selves ascended to the belief in one only, holy, and righteous
God, who realises his will, or moral good, in the world, and
they have, by preaching and writing, made that belief the
inalienable property of our race.
This declaration is based upon the conviction — which may
here be once more expressed-, but now also for the last time
 that our estimation of the prophets and their work must
not rest on what they expected and uttered regarding the
future. Not that we should lightly esteem their ideals —
that be far from us ! We rank them, on the contrary, very
high, but we do so because of the spirit which is reflected in
them, and because of the religious convictions which they ex-

580 XV.  HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
press. They are, in other words, derived, and they therefore
themselves compel us to go farther, to the source to which
they point back. To this must be added that while these ideals
have indeed many features in common, they yet have marked
points of difference also, so that they afford us still greater
service in judging each prophet in particular, and in compar
ing the one with the other, than in estimating prophecy as a
whole. It would, in the last place, if we allowed ourselves
to be guided by the predictions, be at least an obvious course
to take the fulfilment into consideration at the same time,
and to make our judgment also dependent upon that. For
the sake of justice, but in the interests also of the prophets
themselves, we must refrain from doing so. I say in ihe in
terests of the prophets, because it became most clearly evident
to us that the great majority of their predictions have not
been fulfilled. The immediate future, from which theylookedfor
Israel's restoration, did not bring it. Christianity presented,
in some respects, more than, but, in other respects, the very
opposite of, what they had expected : it cannot be regarded in
anything like the proper sense as the realisation of their antici
pations. Our conclusion would therefore need to be that they
had come short of what they had regarded as their task.
Kindly feeling would impel us to speak of their " pious illu
sions : " in truth merely another way of saying that their
action had no permanent importance and value. But — and
this settles the present point—- for the sake of justice even we
cannot choose this point of view in forming our judgment. We
noticed before that the supporters of the supernaturalistic view
of prophecy lay the chief stress upon the predictions and their
fulfilment. Yery naturally, On their standpoint they indeed
must do so : in the superhuman, in the announcement of the
secrets of the future, secrets which to every other man are
inaccessible, the divine origin of the knowledge ofthe prophets
must come to light in the clearest manner ; on that therefore
their eye is fixed of itself, and they prefer to direct to that
the attention of those whom they wish to gain over to their
view. But from our standpoint this mode of regarding the sub
ject has nothing to justify it. In order to obtain certainty with
regard to the truth of the traditional view, we accompanied the
supernaturalist , on his way,- and subjected, the prophecies, one

THE PROPHETS' INFLUENCE ON THEIR COUNTRY'S INTERESTS. 587
by one, to the test of the requirements to which, according to
him, they should necessarily have corresponded. That inquiry
led us to a negative result, namely, the absence of the super
natural divine inspiration which the knowledge of the hidden
things of the future would presuppose. But at the same time it
opened our eyes for that in which the power and significance
of the prophets lie, for their religion and for their religious
ness. On these points therefore, our final conclusion with
regard to the prophets will also necessarily be based. The
comparison of what they have been, and have done, on this
domain, with what others have effected thereon, must deter
mine the place which belongs to them in the ranks of the
leaders of our race.
There is yet another point of view which was designedly
shunned. There is nothing more natural than the question,
what have the prophets been and what have they done for their
people ? But it would be wrong to stop there : that limitation
would lead to injustice being done to prophecy, It cannot
be asserted that the action of the prophets in general advanced
the welfare of trie Israelitish nation. "For public order and
for policy, prophecy was the most intolerable and destructive
phenomenon that can be imagined. It has been several times
compared to the tribuneship among the Bomans, and the
prophets have been highly extolled as the representatives of
popular right and popular freedom. But it is precisely the
comparison with the tribunes of the people, which shows in
the clearest light how ignorant of state policy and how
dangerous to the state prophecy wag. The tribunes of the
people were at any rate elected magistrates of the plebs, but
every one who felt himself to have the divine call came forward
as a prophet. The tribune had a legal title to his office, and
an authority defined and limited by the law of the state.
The prophet rested exclusively on his own self-appreciation
and enthusiasm; from these alone he derived the impulse
and warrant for his interference ; by these alone he allowed
himself to be guided and circumscribed in his action. There
was thus no fixed external sign by which men could dis
tinguish the genuine from the false prophet. The power of
each one was in proportion to the credence which he found.
The tribune was governed by the consciousness that he' repre-

588 XV. — HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
sented the Boman state, by reverence for the law, and by the
desire to further the general welfare ; the prophet allowed
himself to be led exclusively by his consciousness of God, he
knew no other law than the will of God, and even the
destruction and misery of his native land seemed to him, in
certain circumstances, a righteous punishment inflicted by
God, to whicli men must penitently submit. The tribune
could indeed hinder some acts of the rulers of the state by
his veto, but he could not assume and exercise the executive
power. The prophet, on the other hand, in the firm confidence
that he revealed the will of God, demanded this or that specific
political measure, according as his heart suggested to him, and,
when embittered by opposition, sometimes called to his aid
the passions of the mob in order to carry into effect by
violence the will of God which he had announced." Such is
the judgment of one of the greatest contemporary professors of
political law,1 and although we may mitigate, and still more
limit, his sentence, we dare not pronounce a verdict of acquit
tal. But it is perhaps thought that the loss in the domain
of political life is more than counterbalanced by the spiritual
blessings which the prophets conferred upon their people. In
truth it was the prophets who conquered for Israel its place of
honour among the nations. All that it became arid produced
in the field of religion, it owes mediately to them. But still
they themselves did not succeed in imbuing their people with
their principles. They missed their immediate object. On to
the end of the kingdom of Judah the prophets and those of
kindred spirit, continued to be no more than a party in the state.
It was not by them, but by the priests and the scribes, that
the Jahveh-worship became the property of the Jewish nation.
We no more reproach them for this inability, than we regard
their successors with unlimited admiration for the prosperous
issue which crowned their efforts. But this relation whicli
the work of the prophets had to the temporal prosperity and
the practical wants of their people, does indeed compel us to
take a higher standpoint than the national one in estimating
their action, and to place their contribution to the spiritual
development of our race in the foreground.
1 J. C. Bluntschli, " Alt-asiatische Gottes-und Welt-ideen" (1866), pp.
132 f.

ETHICAL MONOTHEISM THE CREATION OF THE PROPHETS. 589
That contribution is ethical monotheism. It will indeed
be quite superfluous to remind the reader that by these words,
in the present connection, is not meant the intellectual con
viction of God's unity and moral attributes. Our whole pre
ceding examination teaches that the prophets were not
conspicuous as philosophers, but as religious men. By the
formula " ethical monotheism," therefore, as succinct a descrip
tion as possible is given of the peculiar excellence of their
religion. Just on aocount of that, they have, apart from the
result, even for the very nature alone of their struggles, a claim
upon our respectful admiration. Heartfelt trust in God and
moral earnestness : these two things, connected with each
other in the closest manner, inspired them from the beginning,
and sustained them to the end. The relation of Jahveh to
Israel was to them the highest reality ; had it been otherwise,
they could never have come to regard themselves as the
messengers of Jahveh to his people, and to come forward as
the proclaimers of ff the word of Jahveh." But at the same
time they were thoroughly penetrated with reverential fear of
the god. with whom they felt that they themselves, along
with their people, were connected in the closest manner : his
holy will had become the law of their inner life. In the
course of events the temptation was again and again present
ed to them to stand still on the road which they had taken,
or to wander into by-paths. If their belief in Israel's god
had been less deep and firm, if their conception of his require
ments had been less strict, they would have yielded to
those temptations, and either have remained silent or have
accommodated themselves to the will of the multitude and its
powerful leaders. They do not in truth all stand equally
"high : herein also the genuinely human character of the whole
of prophecy is revealed, that the dangers to which it was
exposed in its development can be distinctly pointed out in
the life and in the writings themselves of the prophets. But
yet in the persons of its most eminent representatives, it
overcame first one, then another of the temptations. They
gained the victory, and first secured the worship of Jahveh
ao-ainst extinction and defilement, afterwards developed and
purified it, and finally so ennobled it that it became ethical
monotheism.

'590 XV.  HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
This result itself of their religious and moral life — without
doubt the fruit of a contest often anxious, fruit ripened amid
tears and prayers — makes us all their debtors. Ethical
monotheism has been introduced by Christianity into the
popular thought, and impressed on every one of us, even in
his earliest youth. The privilege therein conferred upon us,
is very readily overlooked, because we have never experienced
the want of it. But it becomes obvious on the slightest re
flection. Honour to those to whom we owe it ! With
respect to what some others have bestowed upon us, it can
perhaps be asserted, not without cause, that it would have
become our property even without them ; it may in a certain
sense be called accidental that they have become our benefac
tors ; even although we conceive them never to have existed, we
should still possess now that Which through them has become
our portion. Thisisnottrue of the ethicalmonotheism,for which
we are indebted to Christianity-, and ultimately to the prophets
of Israel. It is true that even without their aid polytheism
would perhaps have made way for the recognition and the
worship of one only God-. About the beginning of the
Christian era the population of the Boman Empire was pre-.
pared to embrace monotheism ; it was already proclaimed and
current in the schools of the philosophers ; from these it be
gan already to spread, not only among the educated classes,
but also among the Common people.1 But the one God of
heathenism was another than that of Israel ; he was not like
the latter— if I may so express myself — ethical to the very
core. Certainly he had moral attributes also ; in the system
of some philosophers, in that of Plato, for instance, they come
even prominently into the foreground. But it is very doubt
ful whether this Would have been the case also in the popular
belief, even though it were granted that it could have been
developed on the ground of philosophical reflection. But, on
the other hand, holiness, righteousness, mercy, formed the
very nature of the God of the prophets. And — a thing which
above all we must never lose sight of — that which they them
selves possessed, and therefore could awaken in others also,
was religion, no speculation, but a reality of life. The influ-
1 B. Zeller, "die Bntwicklung des Monotheismus bei den Griechen"
(Vortrage und Abhandlungen, 1865, pp. 1 — 29).

PROPHECY A UNIQUE FACT IN HISTORY. 591
ence of philosophy would have been always more negative ;
it undermined polytheism, but it did not show at least that
it could build anything better on its ruins. That better
thing was produced by Israelitish prophecy, and completed
by Jesus, the greatest of the prophets. Because it was
religion, it could, nay, necessarily did, also find acceptance and
become popular property. Because it is the expression of real
moral and religious experience, itcontinues to maintain its value,
however the knowledge of the world and its laws may extend.
The prophetical conception of Jahveh's counsel may be charge
able with limitation arid particularism, in principle it is pure.
Every description of God's moral government of the world,
even the largest and loftiest, is a carrying out, on a broad
scale, of the plan which they had designed.
We return to the point from which we set out in this
closing survey, the testimony of the Deuteronomist regarding
the prophets and their action.1 We could not allow to the
contrast which he draws anything more than a relative
correctness. But when we now 'Contemplate prophecy in
its whole compass, we range ourselves without hesitation on
his side. Yes, truly, the Israelitish prophet is a unique
phenomenon in history. It does not disown its human
origin ; that is borne witness to, both by its gradual ripening
and by many imperfections which cleave to it. Every
attempt to derive it directly and immediately from God must
therefore fail. But yet if we vifew it as one of the many
revelations of man's spiritual life— and surely that life as a
whole points back to God and testifies of Him — then we
cannot estimate it highly enough, and we are right in calling
it unique. Here is a series of men, for whom religion is the
highest thing, and the realization of religion the aim of their
life. Where do you find more earnestness in the conception
of a task so beautiful ? where greater perseverance amid temp
tation and contest ? where heartier love of good and of Him
who works good ? where firmer confidence in the triumph of
truth and right ?
But when we regard the influence which Israelitish pro
phecy has exercised and is still exercising in the world,
1 Above, p. 550.

592 XV.  HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPHECY.
then too, we assign to it a very high place, and bow before the
spiritual might which is therein revealed. It failed in what
might be called its first task, in the conversion of ancient
Israel to the purer conception of Jahveh's nature and service.
It furthermore, like every other historical phenomenon, after
having lived through its period of bloom, gradually decayed
and finally perished. " But " — I may be permitted to repeat
here the words in which I formerly summed up the results
of an examination of the same subject — 1 " every thing does
not perish in one and the same way. There are phenomena
which, after gleaming for a shorter or longer period, disappear
and leave scarcely a trace behind. But that which is essen
tially good and great lives not in vain, and revives again in
a new and more glorious form. This is true, with special
emphasis, of Israelitish prophecy. See what it has effected !
Through the fiery zeal, and unwavering perseverance of the
prophets, the worship of Jahveh, which bore in itself the
germs of so grand a development, was preserved from
destruction. By the prophets it was purified and ennobled
so as to become the spiritual worship. of one only spiritual
being. The prophets awakened and fostered in Israel the
belief in its high destination, and the hope for the future
which was never extinguished. Through that behef and
that hope Israel continued to exist as a people in spite of the
blows which fell upon them and the persecutions which raged
against them. That there existed eighteen centuries ago a
Jewish nation, from which a new religious life could spring,
was the fruit of the work done by the prophets. Then,
when their task had been completed, they had already long-
before disappeared from the stage of history. But did they
not live again in Jesus of Nazareth ? Does not he see his
predecessors in the prophets of Israel ? Does he not borrow
from them some of his leading ideas ? Was not the religious
and moral truth, whioh was announced by him, gained by that
communion with himself, by that listening to the revelation
of God in the pious and pure spirit, of which the prophets
had given the example ? Nay, is not every reformation in
the domain of religion effected by following that path which
they trod, and which, as the pioneers of all, they opened up ?
1 " Nieuw en Oud," vol. vii. (1865) pp. 190-192.

NEW VIEW OF PROPHECY NOT A LOSS BUT A GAIN. 593
'Thus then the crown which a later generation had placed
upon the brows of the Israelitish prophets, is, in our time,
removed ; but stripped of that supernatural halo with which
they glittered, they reveal all the more clearly their own per
sonal greatness. But— we have then no longer in their
prophecies the word of God himself which we, in common
with the Christian Church of all ages, thought that we
possessed in them ? Do not lament that ! Each of their
words that finds an echo in your heart and your conscience —
and their number is great — is to you a word of God. And
what you have, or think you have, less as regards particular
revelations, that surely is more than compensated by the
just insight into the entire action of the prophets. Or do
you know a more glorious spectacle and a stronger proof of
God's wise and loving government of the world, than the
history of Israel's religion, when humanly viewed and
interpreted ? No, even for our religious life we have not
lost but gained by the new view of the prophets and their
work. They have become men. of like passions with us, men
in whose company we can live and struggle, from whom we
can learn to believe with immovable firmness, to hope even
when all is dark around us, to trust the voice of God in our
inmost soul, to speak with boldness and with power. If
these are their permanent claims to our admiration and
reverence, then we do not hesitate also to join in the wish : *
' 0 that all the people were prophets, that Jahveh would
put his spirit upon them ! ' "
1 Num. xi. 29.

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