YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of Estate of Rev.T.P. Patara DJ). This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You may not reproduce this digitized copy ofthe book for any purpose other than for scholarship, research, educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy (or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes. THE LITERATURE AND RELIGION OF ISRAEL Edited by JAMES HASTINGS, D.D. EDITOR'S PREFACE In a series of ten volumes, of which this is the first published, it is proposed to give an account of the Development of Religion in Israel from the Earliest Times down to the Time of Christ. The general plan of the series is to describe briefly the literature itself and its authorship, and to bring out more fully the character of the ideas contained in it, and11); !"• 13 — liii. ig, ix £ CONTENTS CHAPTER V. PAGE Other Anonymous Prophecies of the Exile - - 60 Isaiah xiii. 1 — xiv. 23, xxi. 1-10; Jeremiah 1., li. ; Zechariah ii. 6-13. CHAPTER VI. Haggai and Zechariah - - 65 Haggai, Zechariah i. 1 — ii. 5, iii. 1 — viii. 23. CHAPTER VII. Obadiah - - - - 86 CHAPTER VIII. Malachi - 88 CHAPTER IX. Isaiah lvi. — lxvi. - . . 103 CHAPTER X. The Greek Period Joel, Zechariah ix. — xiv., Jonah, Isaiah xxiv. — xxvii. 114 PART II. Exposition of the Various Doctrines of the Exilic and post-exilic prophets. CHAPTER I. The Nature and Attributes of God „- CONTENTS ' xi CHAPTER II. God and the World, Nature - j^i CHAPTER IV. God and Israel CHAPTER V. Revelation CHAPTER VI. Nature of Man CHAPTER VIII. Righteousness and Sin PAGE CHAPTER III. God and Man, the Gentiles - . 185 192 igg 223 CHAPTER VII. The Normal Religious Life - - 245 257 CHAPTER IX. Rewards and Punishments ... . 2yy CHAPTER X. Atonement and Final Reprobation - 2gs CHAPTER XI. The Future of Israel and the World: the Kingdom of God 335 Xll CONTENTS CHAPTER XII. PAGE The Messiah - 347 CHAPTER XIII. The Individual after Death - - 361 Literature 377 Index of Subjects 381 Index of Scripture Passages - 384 PART I. REVIEW OF THE TEACHING AND WORK OF THE PROPHETS FROM EZEKIEL TO THE CLOSE OF THE CANON. CHAPTER I. THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL AT THE BEGIN NING OF THE EXILE. The selection of a given date as the dividing-point be tween two periods is always in some measure arbitrary and conventional, and the assignment of the Fall of Jerusalem as the beginning of an exilic era is no exception to the rule. Many threads, social, religious, and even political, preserved a continuity between the life of the citizens of the Southern Kingdom and that of the Jews in exile. Moreover, the closing period of the Jewish Mon archy and the Exile really overlapped ; there was a com munity of Jews settled in Babylon several years before the Fall of Jerusalem. The beginning of the Exile, therefore, is rather a period than a point of time; and when we recognise this, it appears that the choice of this period as the opening of a new era is only very slightly arbitrary. There were revolutionary changes which destroyed the old Israel and prepared the way for the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. For the first of these we have to go back about twenty years. The fall of Nineveh and the rise of Babylon marked the end of the old political system of the Israelite world ; the destruction of Jerusalem by the 3 4 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS Chaldeans terminated the Jewish state and the national worship of the Temple ; the Captivity in Babylonia brought large Jewish communities into contact with novel surroundings ; the climate and physical features of the great Babylonian plain with its magnificent rivers instead of the highlands of Judah and the crooked, shallow Jordan ; the society, religion, and politics of a great empire instead of the life of the city state which Judah had become towards the close of its national existence. Nevertheless the religion of the Jews in the early days of the Exile was substantially the religion of ancient Israel in the form it had assumed during the reigns of the last kings of Judah ; so that we must begin our account of the former with a brief sketch of the latter. Religion was universal in Israel ; every one was in some fashion or other religious, as in all peoples at that stage of development. The pre-exilic documents do not speak of men abandoning religion, but denounce them because they forsake Yahweh for some other god. But in spite of this, probably most Israelites remaining in Judah worshipped Yahweh, the God of the land and the people ; although exiles living, so to speak, within the jurisdiction of other gods, might transfer their ecclesias tical allegiance, taking it for granted that religion was territorial. Nevertheless the general worship of Yahweh existed side by side with great variety of faith and practice ; allowing for difference of scale, there was as little uni formity as there is amongst the adherents of Christianity to-day. To many, attendance at Solomon's Temple did not seem incompatible with occasional visits to the shrines of Baal, of the Sun, or of the Queen of Heaven ; just THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL 5 as the English Protestant may attend the Established Church in the morning and a Baptist Chapel in the even ing ; while the devotion of a Romanist to his patron saint does not prevent him from paying a measure of homage to other saints; and there is a kind of Chris tianity which seeks to conciliate the Devil. For the most part the ancient Oriental accepted such eclecticism as legitimate, natural, and obvious. As there was a large range of choice in deities and as to the amount of devotion shown to each, there was much external variety in religion. But, with important excep tions, the spiritual value of the varieties was the same. The religious life of the average man was not seriously affected by the number or the names of the gods he worshipped. Each cult had its devotees, but, as a rule, the quality of their devotion was the same; just as the fervour of Romanist, Anglican, and Methodist evangelists differs rather in externals than in essentials. Before considering the differences between the ordinary varieties of religious life and Revealed Religion we may briefly indicate the features common to them all. All satisfied the conditions laid down by Hebrews 1 for access to God, " He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him " ; religious feeling found expression in prayer and praise, and, with possible exceptions, sacrifice was the supreme act of worship, possessing, as we should say, a special sacramental value. It was believed that super natural beings were numerous ; and that they were good and evil, and it was not held that such beings were either 1 Ch. xi. 6 6 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS under the absolute control of an omnipotent head, nor yet that they were in perfect harmony with one another, " there was war in heaven ".1 In most cases religion had some ethical value ; other things being equal, deities would approve of acts in accordance with the current standards of morality ; but the local character of most deities limited the moral demands of religion to towns, tribes, or nations ; and the belief in evil supernatural beings, and in the imperfect morality of many of the gods, encouraged vice, oppression, and cruelty. Many varieties might be distinguished amongst the worshippers of Yahweh, followers of other gods who paid a minor homage to the God of Israel ; Jews who placed Him first but still only accorded to Him a divided allegi ance ; and devotees whose religious fervour was centred upon Him. But for our purpose we need only consider three varieties of Yahwism : (i.) The traditional religion of Israel; (ii.) The new Eclecticism ; (iii.) The Prophetic Revelation. (i.) The Traditional Religion of Israel. — This stage of the spiritual development of Israel is represented by the older documents used in the composition of the Penta teuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings,2 and is often referred to in the pre-exilic prophets.3 Inasmuch as Israel formed part of an international system, its life was involved in mutual action and re action with the other members of that system, and shared the features enumerated above as common to the religions of the Israelite world 4 at that time. To*many the chief 1 Rev. xii. 7. 2 J, E, and others of the same school and period. 3 Cf. Prof. Kennett's volume in this series. 4 .I.e., Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt. THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL 7 characteristic of the faith of Israel would be that God was worshipped as Yahweh and not as Chemosh, Assur, or Merodach. But there were other distinctive features. Ritual and other institutions derived something from the religious movements of earlier ages, especially from the work of Moses and Samuel. Moreover, the relation of Yahweh to Israel and Palestine had a suggestive history. Yahweh had not always been the God of Israel, the worship of Yahweh was associated with the deliverance from Egypt ; He had chosen Israel and the people had voluntarily yielded their allegiance to Him. Again Israel, until the fall of the Northern Kingdom, was never a homogeneous state under a single government ; its unity was religious rather than political, so that Yahweh was the symbol of unity and brotherhood between a group of kindred tribes. Moreover, Yahweh was not originally the Lord of Pales tine, His home was at Sinai ; He had conquered Pales tine with and for His people. Thus Yahweh had a large moral influence, freedom and spontaneity, wide range of action, detachment from mere local associations, that distinguished Him from a god like Chemosh who formed part of an organic unity with a district and a tribe. On the other hand, the actual Israel of the monarchy was formed by the amalgamation of the Israelites and the Canaanites, with the natural result that Yahweh was sometimes identified and sometimes associated with the Canaanite Baals ; and sometimes there was a tendency to resolve Yahweh into a group of local Baals. Thus the traditional religion of Israel involved enthu siasm for Yahweh, the mutual devotion of Yahweh and Israel, hallowed and exalted by the history of the people 8 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS and the conditions of their national life. This devotion found expression in ritual and sacrifices at many shrines, but according to popular ideas the favour of Yahweh was to be bought with gifts, and Yahweh was the champion of His people apart from their character and conduct. For most men devotion to Yahweh was quite consistent with a secondary recognition of other gods. (ii.) The New Eclecticism. — Towards the close of the monarchy the normal eclecticism of ancient religious life assumed a new character. Many things had been mak ing for uniformity of worship. The Jewish state was almost limited to the city of Jerusalem, and the Temple of Solomon was its one important sanctuary. The high places or country sanctuaries, which had often been the centres of a corrupt eclectic worship of Yahweh and local Baals, had been devastated by foreign invaders and sup pressed by the Jewish kings who were devotees of the Temple. Yahweh, as worshipped on Mount Zion, had alone successfully resisted all His enemies. At the same time He was in danger of becoming the mere local deity of a provincial capital. On the other hand, the people with whom Yahweh was so closely connected was falling to pieces under repeated blows inflicted by foreign conquerors. Again and again whole tribes and clans had been carried away captive, and large districts had been lost to Israel. To many Yahweh seemed discredited and moribund. If men did not actually abandon His worship, they turned to other deities and often assigned a very subordinate place to the God of Israel. If the other local deities of Palestine had also lost prestige, men still worshipped the Divine King, Melech (Moloch) often identified with Yahweh, and often with THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL 9 Milcom of Ammon ; but they also turned to the gods of their conquerors, the Babylonian worship of the heavenly deities and the members of the Egyptian Pantheon. Thus Manasseh worshipped all the Host of Heaven,1 so that Josiah found in the Temple the apparatus for this worship ; and in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem there were those who burned incense " unto Baal, to the Sun, Moon, planets, and all the Host of Heaven " ; and at the gate of the Temple, horses and chariots dedicated to the Sun ; and outside Jerusalem there were ancient sanctu aries of the Zidonian Ashtoreth, the Moabite Chemosh and the Ammonite Milcom, believed to have been built by Solomon.2 In the same way Jeremiah speaks of the kings, princes, priests, prophets and people of Jerusalem as devotees ofthe Sun, Moon, and all the Host of Heaven ; 3 and we gather from the same prophet that the worship of the Queen of Heaven, Ishtar, usually the morning star, Venus, was specially popular in the last days of Jewish independence.4 So too Ezekiel describes various scenes in the courts of the Temple ; an " image of jealousy " ; seventy elders worshipping idols in the form of wall-pictures of creeping things and abominable beasts ; women weeping for Tammuz ; and five and twenty men worshipping the Sun.5 He also tells us of certain elders among the captives who came to inquire of Yahweh, and the word of Yahweh came unto the prophet, "These men have taken their idols into their heart".6 A special form of eclecticism had arisen in Northern 1 2 Kings xxi. 3. 2 2 Kings xxiii. 4 f., n-13. 3 Jer. viii. 1, 2. 4 Jer. vii. 18, xliv. 17 ff. 6 Ezek. viii. 6 Ezek. xiv. 1-3 ; cf. xx. 30 f. IO POST-EXILIC PROPHETS Palestine. After the bulk of the Israelite population had been carried away captive, their place was filled by Gentile immigrants, from various parts of the Assyrian empire. A plague of lions induced the new-comers to add the worship of Yahweh as the local deity to their own tribal cults.1 For this worship of Yahweh they util ised the ancient sanctuaries, the high places and their priests. It is practically certain that a remnant of Israel ites were left in the land, and amalgamated with the Gentile immigrants, so that there came to be in Samaria a community, partly of Israelite origin, and combining the cult of heathen gods with the traditional worship of Yahweh conducted at the ancient sanctuaries by repre sentatives of old priesthoods. This development of the religion of Israel played an important part in the later history. What we have styled the New Eclecticism should, ac cording to all precedent and probability, have been an infallible sign of the impending final collapse of the re ligion of Israel. The national religion seemed on the point of disappearing with the national government, although the worship of Yahweh might have survived for a time as a petty local superstition, on the same level with those of the surrounding tribes. (iii.) The Prophetic Revelation. — The religion of Israel was saved from extinction by the inspired prophets whose work is recorded and whose writings are preserved in the Old Testament. Their teaching was a development of the highest elements in the traditional faith, so that they were the true representatives and successors of Abraham and Moses. 1 2 Kings xvii. 24-41. THE RELIGIONOF ISRAEL II For them, as for other Israelites, the central truth was that Yahweh was the God of Israel, and that Israel was the people of Yahweh ; but in some respects they taught the doctrine with unusual thoroughness. They denounced all forms of eclecticism, Israel must worship Yahweh and Yahweh only, and they must not identify Him with any other God; they must not apply to Him ordinary titles like Baal, "Lord,"1 or Melech, "King,"2 because these titles were also used of the deities of neighbouring peoples. In the same spirit the prophets demanded that idolatry, and magic, together with the unchaste and cruel rites characteristic of many Gentile cults should not be associ ated with the worship of Yahweh. The inspired prophets were also at variance with popu lar views in their teaching as to the method of securing the favour of Yahweh. The people held that His favour could be bought by external ritual, especially by sacri fices ; the prophets taught that these were worthless apart from justice, purity and benevolence. The people be lieved that Yahweh would under all circumstances protect His Chosen Race, and especially that His Temple was the palladium of Jerusalem ; but the prophets declared that He would punish the sins of Israel by the ruin of the nation and the captivity of the people. Some 3 main tain that the prophets altogether repudiated sacrifice and other external observances; and, in any case, they rele- 1 Hosea ii. 16. 2 The comparatively rare use of Melech as a title of Yahweh in the pre-exilic and exilic prophets seems to indicate that it was deliberately avoided. Cf. Boehm, A. T. Unterbau des Reiches Gottes, p. g2. 3 E.g., Smend, p. 167. 12 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS gated ritual to an altogether subordinate position and laid supreme stress on the moral demands of Yahweh. These demands Israel had utterly failed to satisfy, therefore Yahweh would cast them off, and would make the Gentile powers His instruments to chastise His people. Such teaching implied that Yahweh was no mere national deity ; his existence was not bound up with that of Israel. The God who could control Babylon and Egypt, the great powers of the age, was practically omni potent, and therefore the one supreme God. Other deities might disappear when their lands were conquered by the worshippers of other gods, and their peoples carried into captivity ; but the prophets made it clear that Yahweh could exist apart from Israel, from Palestine, from Jeru salem, and from its Temple. It is not yet clear how far the pre-exilic prophets x at tained to any definite conviction that the Chosen People would return to Palestine and resume the worship of Yahweh in a temple at Jerusalem ; nor can we be sure that the Messianic passages found amongst their writings are not later additions — these pictures of an ideal future for Israel under a Righteous King of the House of David may not have been drawn till after the Fall of the Mon archy. What, then, were the expectations of the prophets as to the future of Revealed Religion ? They may have been absorbed in the interests of their own generations, and may not have faced the problems of the future. But the present writer believes that there are sufficient indica tions that the prophetic faith included the restoration of the Chosen People to the Holy Land, and the continuous 1 Cf. Kennett. THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL 1 3 development of Revealed Religion. The principle of the doctrine of Restoration was involved in Isaiah's teaching that the deliverance from Sennacherib was a Divine in tervention in the interests of the true faith. If Israel was the chosen instrument of God's purposes then, it could hardly perish utterly while those purposes remained un accomplished. The doctrine is expressly stated in various passages in the Book of Jeremiah.1 The religious situation shortly after the Fall of Jeru salem was the direct sequel of that which has just been sketched. The Jews were now broken up into four main groups : the communities in Babylonia ; the hybrid popu lation of Samaria ; the remnant in Judah ; and the refugees in Egypt. The last we hear of the Egyptian Jews sug gests that they were for the most part quickly absorbed into the Gentile population.2 The Samaritan eclecticism s would not be immediately affected by the destruction of the Jewish state. The remnant in Judah would be drawn in different directions by two opposing influences ; the neighbouring Samaritans might encourage an adulterated worship of Yahweh, while patriotism, stimulated by local associations and by reminiscences of prophetic teaching, would make for exclusive devotion to the God of Israel. But the most important portion of the Jewish people consisted of the exiles in Babylonia ; these exiles included representatives alike of the conventional religious tradi tion, of the new eclecticism, and of the prophetic Revela tion. Men of all schools, however, would be susceptible ofthe impulse to generous loyalty towards their people in 1 It seems reasonable to admit the Jeremianic origin of some, at any rate, of these passages ; but cf. Kennett. 2 Jer. xliv. 3 Cf. p. 9. 14 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS the hour of misfortune ; they would also be sensible of the confirmation of prophetic teaching by the fulfilment of the predictions ofthe ruin of Judah ; and these two influ ences would combine to keep the Jews faithful to Yahweh, and to lead them to accept Jeremiah and Ezekiel as authoritative exponents of the Divine Will. Ancient religious traditions would lose much of their authority through the failure of local associations. Men whose religion was merely conventional would in some cases attach themselves to the dominant prophetic party ; while in others they would be absorbed in the surrounding Gentile worship. The new eclecticism would often be a stepping-stone to full-fledged heathenism. It seems, however, that the exiles were largely settled in communi ties with municipal autonomy, and the common feeling of these societies would check apostasy. On the other hand, many must have been pressed into the service of the Babylonian government and of private persons, and would often fall away from the faith of Israel.1 1 Cf. the story of Daniel and his companions. CHAPTER II. EZEKIEL. The Book of Ezekiel may still be regarded as one of the fixed points of Old Testament criticism. Attempts have indeed been made to place it in the period immediately following the Exile or even later,1 but so far with very little success. Moreover, the significance of D . . the book for the development of theology Author- would not be seriously affected if it were placed 'P- soon after the Return. That event did not greatly alter the circumstances of the Jewish community in Babylonia ; for them the exile still continued, and the feeble begin nings of a new order in Palestine were .merely an earnest of the real restoration of Israel. We shall treat the contents of the book as the work of Ezekiel between b.c. 593 and 571 ; but our statements as to its teaching would need only slight modification if it were placed somewhat later. Neither do the other critical questions call for special notice. It is possible, perhaps probable, that the book as we have it has been compiled from earlier collec- lZunz, Seinecke, etc., E.B., col. 1460. IS 1 6 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS tions of Ezekiel's prophecies ; 1 and that in the process some additions have been made.2 It is probable that many of the symbolic actions ap parently attributed to Ezekiel were never performed, but merely imagined and described. On the other hand, it does not seem probable that some of the symbolic actions, e.g., the prolonged periods of silence 3 and the lying on one side for 390 days,4 were due to cataleptic seizures.5 But none of these controverted points are important for our purpose, though the suggestion of catalepsy might be regarded either as gain or loss for modern apologetics according to the way in which it was handled. The canonical status of the book is unimpeachable ; the rabbis were contented with the harmonistic efforts to which Gamaliel's contemporary, Hananiah ben Hezekiah, devoted a prolonged seclusion illuminated by 300 measures of oil ; 6 and modern scholars will not wish to exclude Ezekiel either on account of the obscurities connected with the mysterious chariot of Yahweh, or because of the discrepancies with the Pentateuchal law. The Book of Ezekiel falls into four great divisions:, 'Bertholet, Hesekiel, p. xxii., accepts Cornill's view that Ezekiel compiled two successive editions of the book. The suggestion has also been made, in view of the numerous repetitions, that our book is a combination of two parallel editions of the prophecies (Kraetz- schmar, Ezechiel, p. xiii.). 2 Ezekiel's legal section, the Temple and the priesthood in the New Israel, xl.-xlviii., and the Law of Holiness, Lev. xvii.-xxvi., may be regarded as contemporary documents, partly arising out of the same circumstances and based on the same sources, without exactly defining their literary relationship. 3 Ch. iii. 26, xxiv. 27, xxxiii. 22. 4 Ch. iv. 4, 5. 6 So Klostermann; see Skinner, p. 55. 6 Kraetzschmar, p. xiv. EZEKIEL 1 7 (i.) i.-xxiv., Prophecies of Doom delivered before the Fall of Jerusalem in b.c. 586; (ii.) xxv.-xxxii., Oracles against the Nations ; (iii.)xxxiii.-xxxix., pZpf 2 Prophecies of Restoration delivered after the Fall of Jerusalem ; (iv.) xl.-xlviii., Ordinances for Public Worship, etc., in the Restored Israel. The first division, i.-xxiv., opens with a Theophany1 in Chaldea, by the River Chebar, in which the Vision of God is seen upon a throne borne by marvellous living creatures ; " above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone : and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man upon it above. . . . This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh." 2 Ezekiel receives his prophetic commission. Next 3 the siege and fall of Jerusalem are set forth by a series of symbols ; and again 4 the same message is de livered in plain terms. Chapter viii. describes the super stitions practised at Jerusalem even in the Temple itself, the worship of " creeping things and abominable beasts in the chambers of imagery" by seventy elders; the women weeping for Tammuz ; and five and twenty men in the inner court of the Temple worshipping the Sun with their faces to the East and their backs to the Temple. Then5 Destroying Angels slay all the inhabitants of Jerusalem except the faithful worshippers of Yahweh, who receive a mark upon their foreheads. The Glory of Yahweh appears in the Temple— the living creatures are now called Cherubim ; the ruin of the city is again an- 1 Ezek. i.-iii. 2Ezek. i. 26 ff. 3Ezek. iv., v. 4 Ezek. vi., vii. 6 Ezek. ix.-xi. 2 1 8 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS nounced, with a promise of restoration ; and the Glory of Yahweh leaves the Temple by the east gate and departs from Jerusalem. Chapter xii. contains more symbols of the speedy fall of the city, and the exile of the remnant of the population. Next,1 Ezekiel denbunces the prophets and prophetesses and those who consult them. Further prophecies of ruin follow.2 In two striking chapters 3 we have a description of the disloyalty, first of Jerusalem, then of Jerusalem and Samaria throughout their history. The fortunes ofthe last kings of Judah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiachim and Zedekiah, are- depicted under the symbols4 of cedars or vines plucked up and withered, and of the captive whelps of a lioness (Judah) ; there is also a promise that a tender twig from the top of the cedar shall be planted in the mountain of the height of Israel, and become a goodly cedar, i.e., a young scion of the royal house shall become a mighty king of the restored Israel.5 Chapter xviii. contains the celebrated exposition of Ezekiel's doctrine of Retribution.6 In xx. 1-44 the prophet shows how Yahweh has re mained faithful to Israel in spite of Israel's persistent disloyalty. The imminent ruin of Jerusalem and Judah is set forth under yet more symbols.7 A chapter8 is devoted to a 1 Ezek. xiii. 1 - xiv. 11. 2 Ezek. xiv. 12 - xv. 3 Ezek. xvi., xxiii. ; for the sake of clearness the exact order is not followed here and elsewhere ; cf. pp. 29 ff. 4 Ezek. xvii., xix. ' 6 Ezek. xvii. 22-24. 6 See p. 32. ' Ezek. xx. 45 - xxi. 27, xxiv. 1-14. The judgment on Ammon, xxi. 28-32, is suggested by the previous section. 8 Ezek. xxii. EZEKIEL 1 9 wholesale denunciation of princes, prophets and priests, and all classes of the people. The first division closes with the account of the death of Ezekiel's wife.1 The prophet is forbidden to mourn for her, as a symbol that soon the distress at the fall of Jerusalem shall make the people neglect the ordinary funeral customs. The second division, xxv.-xxxii., contains oracles against Ammon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines, Tyre and Zidon, Egypt. References 2 to the restoration of Israel are naturally suggested by the predictions of the ruin of their enemies. The absence of any oracle against Babylon is easily explained by the circumstances. Here we have the great pictures of the wealth and world-wide commerce of Tyre, and the description of the reception of Pharaoh and his army in Sheol by Asshur and the former oppressors of Israel. The conditional character of Old Testament predictions is shown by a comparison of two passages referring to Tyre. Ezek. xxvi. 7-14 declares that Nebuchadrezzar shall capture the city ; but it appears from xxix. 17-20 that Nebuchad rezzar's siege of Tyre was unsuccessful. The prophet does not think it necessary to explain away the failure of his prediction, but promises to give the Chaldean king by way of compensation " the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord Yahweh ". The third division,3 xxxiii.-xxxix., is chiefly occupied with promises of restoration, a restoration, however, accompanied by a winnowing of the people, the punish- 1 Ezek. xxiv. 15-27. 2 Ezek. xxviii. 24-26, xxix. 21. 3 Cf. pp. 32 ff. 20 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS ment of obstinate sinners, and the deliverance of the penitent. To this end Ezekiel himself is a watchman,1 warning all his fellow-countrymen ; those who heed will escape ; those who turn a deaf ear will perish. In spite of past sins, the penitent will be delivered and counted " righteous ".2 The news of the fall of Jerusalem sug gests to the prophet yet another denunciation 3 of the sins of the people, both at Jerusalem and in exile, and of the evil government of the rulers or " shepherds ". But now Yahweh will intervene,4 and grant His people prosperity under a righteous shepherd, " my servant David," a king of the Davidic dynasty, under whom the two divisions of the Chosen People, Judah and Israel, purified from sin, shall be restored to their own land; In this connexion Ezekiel strikes a note which sounds again and again in the later literature ; Edom, " Mount Seir," hoped to profit by the disasters of her kinsfolk, but she shall be laid waste.6 Then 6 the prophet promises that the desolate moun tains of Israel shall again be inhabited. Yahweh for His own name's sake will restore His people, in spite of their sins. He will cleanse them, and will give them a new heart and a new spirit, and cause them to obey Him. Then they will repent.7 In xxxvii. 1-14 we have the vision of the Valley full of Dry Bones, whic^h are clothed with sinews and flesh and skin, and receive breath, so that they stand on their feet, " an exceeding great army," a figure of the resur rection of the nation, and its return to Canaan. 'Ezek. xxxiii. 1-9. 2Ezek. xxxiii. 10-20. 3 Ezek. xxxiii. 21 -xxxiv. 19. 4Ezek. xxxiv. 20-31, xxxvii. 15-28. 6 Ezek. xxxv. 6 Ezek. xxxvi. 7 Cf. pp. 304 f. EZEKIEL 2 1 Then J there is the apocalyptic picture of the distant future when the nations of the earth shall gather under the leadership of Gog to trouble the security of restored Israel. His countless hordes perish in the Holy Land. The section closes 2 with a renewed promise of the return of the exiles. The fourth division, xl.-xlviii., resembles one of the codes of the Pentateuch rather than a section of a prophetical book. It has much in common with the Pentateuchal Law of Holiness? The form and method of these chapters, however, are similar to those of the rest of the book. On a given date, " in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten " [April, B.C. 572], " the hand of Yahweh was upon me, and He brought me thither. In the visions of God brought He me into the land of Israel." An angel shows Ezekiel the plan and dimensions of the Temple.4 Then the Glory of Yahweh appears, coming from the East, and re-enters the Temple, as It had left, by the eastern gate.6 Ezekiel is taken in the spirit into the inner court, and in the presence of the Divine Glory receives the law that the palace and tombs of the kings must no longer be hard by the Temple, as in former times.6 He is shown the 1Ezek. xxxviii. 1- xxxix. 24. 2Ezek. xxxix. 25-29. 3 Leviticus xvii.-xxvi., and connected passages. This Law of Holi ness has sometimes been ascribed to Ezekiel. More probably the two works are both based on the customs of the Jerusalem priesthood towards the close of the Monarchy, possibly in part on written notes of the Temple ritual. * Ezek. xl. ff. 5Ezek. xliii. 1-4. 6Ezek. xliii. 5-12. 2 2 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS dimensions and plan of the altar ; and is told the ritual for the consecration of the altar by the Levitical priests of the House of Zadok.1 He is next directed that the eastern gate of the Temple shall be shut for ever, no one is to pass through it ; but the prince 2 may eat there be fore Yahweh.3 Directions are given as to the ministers of the Temple ; the old custom of employing hieroduli, heathen Temple slaves, is to be done away with ; only Israelites are to be employed in the sacred service. Moreover, the higher offices are to be reserved for the Levitical priests of the House of Zadok, the old Jerusalem priests ; while the Levitical priests from the provinces, the priests of the high places, were only allowed to perform menial duties. Various other regulations for priests are added as to their clothing, food, dues, and such matters.4 This distinction between Zadokite and non-Zadokite priests is a sequel of the suppression of the high places required by Deuter onomy s and carried out by Josiah.6 Deuteronomy enacted that any provincial priest, Levite,7 might come to Jeru salem 8 and be received as a full member of the priesthood of the Temple. Josiah had brought the provincial priests to Jerusalem, and provided for their maintenance out of the Temple revenues, but they had been excluded from priestly duties.9 Ezekiel's proposal is a somewhat one sided compromise between the claims of the two classes i 1 Ezek. xliii. 13-27. 2 Nasi, frOJW 3 Ezek. xliv. 1-3. 1 Ezek. xliv. 14-31. 6Deut. xii. 62 Kings xxii. f. 7 The Deuteronomic term is "the priests the Levites," i.e., the Levitical priests. 8 Deut. xviii. 6-8. 9 2 Kings xxiii. ff. EZEKIEL 23 of priests ; he himself was a member of the House of Zadok. A later section1 gives further regulations as to sacri fices and offerings ; the prince is specially charged with making provision for these. In this connexion there are also exhortations to righteous government ; 2 and regula tions guarding against the permanent alienation of land from the royal house, or from private families.3 These legal details are interrupted by an apocalyptic vision* of the transformation of the land in the ideal future. A great river is to issue from the Temple, and flow eastward, rendering the whole district fertile ; only the marshes are to be left to provide salt. The river is to swarm with fish, and upon its banks shall grow marvel lous trees, bearing fruit every month and having leaves with healing virtues. Finally 5 the land is divided afresh amongst the twelve tribes ; their territory is now limited to Western Pales tine. The land is divided into strips by parallel lines running due east and west, and each tribe, Levi excepted, receives one of these strips. The order from the north ward is as follows : Dan, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim, Reuben, Judah ; the next strip is divided be tween the priests, the Levites, the prince, the Temple, and Jerusalem ; the Temple is placed in the midst, the city being removed somewhat southwards ; then follow strips assigned to Benjamin, Simeon, Issachar, Zebulun and Gad. The idea of this scheme is to preserve the ancient order, subject to the necessity of finding room for 1 Ezek. xiv. g - xlvi. 24. 2 Ezek. xiv. 9. 3 Ezek. xlvi. 16-18. 4 Ezek. xlvii. 1-12. B Ezek. xiv. r-8, xlvii. 13 - xlviii. 35. 24 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS the eastern tribes, keeping the Temple on its old site, and placing it in the centre of the tribes. A noticeable feature is the position of the secular head of the community ; he is no longer " king " but " prince," and his main function is to care for the material needs of the Temple. We know nothing of Ezekiel except from this book. There is no reason to believe that either Josephus 1 or the reporters of various Jewish legends had access to any other source of authentic in formation. The prophet's ministry, as we have said, belongs to the period b.c. 593-571 ; the year of his birth is not given, but he seems to have been born about b.c. 622,2 about the time of Josiah's reforms and the publica tion of Deuteronomy. In his early childhood Judah enjoyed a transient prosperity. Probably the kingdom was still subject to Assyria, but the dying empire held its dependencies with a loose grasp, and Josiah was practi cally independent. The reforms, sealed by a solemn covenant, seemed to have reconciled the Jews to God; there were brightening prospects both in politics and religion, a new heaven and a new earth. Ezekiel, too, was a child of a priestly family of Jerusalem ; and the reforms had made the Temple the only legitimate 1Antt., bk. x., ch. v., states that Ezekiel wrote two books; cf. also ch. vi. and vii. Christian legends made him a worker of miracles, and stated that he met Pythagoras in Mesopotamia and instructed him in the Jewish wisdom. In the Middle Ages his supposed grave near Bagdad was a favourite place of pilgrimage. See Schmalzl, Ezeckiel, p. 4. * His call is dated five years after the captivity of Jehoiachin (597 b.c), i.e., b.c 592, Ezek. i. 2, and he may very well have been about thirty at the time. EZEKIEL 25 sanctuary, and its ministers the sole priesthood. The family and friends of the future prophet would be enthusi astic about the new dispensation ; and Ezekiel, young as he was, may have caught something of their spirit, and felt that he was living in a golden age. Yet the reforms fyad raised new difficulties ; when Josiah suppressed the provincial sanctuaries, the " high places," he had brought their priests to Jerusalem and sought to obtain for them a share in the privileges of the Temple priesthood, a policy which gave rise to bitter disputes.1 But soon the crash came, Josiah fell in the rout at Megiddo, and the new heavens and the new earth tumbled about the ears of the Jerusalem priesthood, and Jerusalem was again and again besieged and taken, and was ruled by the nominees of Egyptian and Babylonian kings. Josiah's religious policy was discredited by the disastrous death of the reforming king, and was succeeded by a violent reaction. Apparently most of the prophets and priests turned away from the teaching of the true pro phets of Yahweh. Amidst this welter of wickedness and misery, with all its disappointment and disenchantment, Ezekiel spent his boyhood and early manhood ; probably his own family remained part of a faithful minority of whom Jeremiah was the spokesman. The teaching and personality of Jeremiah were the most powerful religious influence in the early life of Ezekiel ; " He had," in Jeremiah, " a master interpreting events to him to whose influence every page of his prophecies bears witness ".2 Another set of circumstances, too, powerfully affected him 1 Cf. 2 Kings xxiii. 8 f., Deut. xviii. 6 ff., Ezek. xliv. 10-16. 2CB.S., xix. We doubt whether this applies to xl.-xlviii, 26 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS — his training in the priestly ritual and traditions and his duties as an officiating priest of the Temple.1 In b.c 597 the future prophet's personal circumstances underwent a complete revolution. After the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, he was carried away to Babylonia with the king and most of the better classes of the community. It was a great experience, coming at a critical time ; the young priest, now probably about twenty- five, was at the right age to profit by it, old enough and not too old. He had had time to learn what Jerusalem and the Temple and Jeremiah could teach, and he still had many years before him in which to discover what Babylonia and exile had to teach. He was taken from the seething caldron of Jewish politics in Jerusalem, and placed in the quiet and leisure of one of the little communities of exiles. He could reflect on the meaning of his earlier experiences, and follow the course of events in Judah with the detached and deliberate judgment of a distant spectator. Moreover, the priest of the Jerusalem Temple cannot have been indifferent to the huge temples, the dignified priesthoods, and the magnificent ritual of Baby lonian religion. At last his vivid and fertile imagination, brooding over the problems of his own life and the fortunes of Israel, kindled into the vision of the Chariot and the Cherubim and the shadowy form of Yahweh upborne upon them, and he became conscious of a Divine Spirit possessing him with a message for his fellow-countrymen. While the remnant at Jerusalem were staking everything on a desperate struggle for independence, and the exiles were watching them with anxious sympathy, Ezekiel 1 It has been doubted, on insufficient grounds, whether Ezekiel actually officiated ; cf. p. 24, n. 2. EZEKIEL 2 7 had to declare that these patriotic efforts were futile, Judah must perish on account of her sins. To such a message the exiles were obstinately deaf. At this time the prophet's burden was made heavier by personal sorrow ; he had married, and his wife was " the desire of his eyes " ; they seem to have had no children, and now his wife died suddenly, taken away by a stroke of Yahweh.1 At last there came the long-expected catastrophe, Jerusalem fell ; most of the remnant were carried away into captivity ; the city and the Temple lay in ruins ; and Jeremiah and Ezekiel were justified. The fulfilment of his predictions gave new authority to the prophet ; and set him free to deliver a more welcome message. He could now speak of a coming restoration, and seek to prepare the exiles for their future destiny as the ideal people of God. He could sketch a constitution for the community restored to its ancient home. With these happier visions the book closes. We know nothing of the prophet's end, doubtless he died long before the close of the Exile. One other feature of his career must be mentioned : he was a popular preacher ; his sermons were among the few sensations which relieved the grey monotony of life in exile ; men talked about them as they stood at their doors ; they invited each other to go and hear Ezekiel ; he was " unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument " ; and he had about as much religious in fluence, "they hear thy words," said Yahweh to His prophet, " but they do them not ".2 This slight sketch may help us to understand Ezekiel's 1 Ezek. xxiv. 15-18. 2 Ezek. xxxiii. 30 ff. 28 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS contributions to theology. He was a man of varied gifts and wide experience. He had known the new and the old; the life of pre-exilic Israel, and the beginnings of Judaism which had its roots in the Exile ; Jerusalem and Babylonia. He had lived the sheltered and subordinate life of a son at home, of a disciple of Jeremiah, of a junior in the Temple priesthood ; and he had been torn from such surroundings and called to the lonely and painful eminence of a prophetic mission to the exiles. He was priest, prophet, popular preacher, theologian, author, and man of affairs.1 The place he occupied in the develop ment of the religion of Israel was largely due to the manifold variety of his gifts, activities and opportunities. The importance of Ezekiel mainly arises out of two facts. First, he lived through the great crisis of the fall of Jerusalem and the beginning of the Exile, and lived long enough to look back upon it. His own faith sur vived that crisis, and through him others were enabled to persist. Thus it was largely due to Ezekiel that re vealed religion was not involved in the fall of the Jewish kingdom, but entered on a new stage of development, over which the prophet exercised great influence. Secondly, the priest and the prophet were so nicely balanced in his character and work that he was enabled to mediate between the sacerdotal and the prophetic tendencies in the religion of Israel. " Ezekiel represents a transition and a compromise ; the transition from the ancient Israel ofthe Monarchy to Judaism ; and the compromise between the ethical teaching of the prophets and the popular need for ritual." 2 'Witness xl.-xlviii., the constitution for the New Israel. 2 B.I., p. 221. EZEKIEL 29 Most of Ezekiel's characteristic teaching may be placed under one or other of these two heads. Because he was the prophet of a great transition we have his doctrines of the Continuity of Revelation, the Divine Transcendence, the Individual's relation to God, the Prophetic Ministry to the Individual, Forgiveness and the regenerating work ofthe Spirit. The continuity of Revelation or the persistence of the Divine purpose is a convenient phrase for much that is implied or stated in Ezekiel's writings. The prophet repeats the essential features of the teaching of his pre decessors, especially of Jeremiah, namely, the moral nature of Yahweh and His demand that Israel should honour Him by pure morality and spiritual worship ; the condemnation of the social, political, and religious life of Israel and Judah ; the certainty of Divine judgment ; the promise of a restored Israel, prosperous, in a fertile land, under a righteous king. But such repetition in exile, in Baby lonia, when the Jewish state had ceased to exist, had a new meaning. The prophets had always addressed them selves to the present needs of their people ; in a sense their messages were occasional. It might have been supposed, it was supposed by many, that the message was exhausted with the occasion ; but Ezekiel insists that the principles ofthe prophetic teaching are not invalidated by lapse of time, or change of place, or by great national crises. This idea is illustrated by his reviews of the history of Israel in which he traces the persistence of God in His purpose in spite of the constant recalcitrance of Israel.1 The same idea inspires some of the prophet's 1 Ezek. xvi., xxiii. 30 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS favourite phrases. Ezekiel says repeatedly that Yahweh acts for His Name's sake, and that Israel and all nations may know that He is Yahweh ; in both cases he is using one of Jeremiah's rare phrases as a favourite formula. Again he states more than once that Yahweh will sanctify Himself on or in some person or people.1 The Name of Yahweh is His character, and His re putation, as based on the revelation of His character. His earlier utterances by the prophets and the operations of His Providence had caused His Name to stand for certain religious and moral ideals, manifested within Israel, though not by Israel as a nation. It had been evident that it was Yahweh's purpose to make known these ideals and cause them to be realised. Yahweh acts for His name's sake ; He persists in His purpose and makes His Revelation continuous and permanent because He is consistent with Himself, and finishes what He begins. In the same way, He acts so that men may know that He is Yahweh, Himself, consistent with His former Revelation and Providence ; He sanctifies Himself on men ; He marks Himself out, makes Himself known as the one true God. The doctrine of the Divine Transcendence was also in some measure shaped by the experiences of transition. Ezekiel had known Yahweh as the God of Jerusalem and its Temple ; he came to know Him as God present in Babylonia, and controlling the nations of the earth. So far as theory was concerned, Isaiah and Jeremiah had anticipated him ; but he had put the theory to the test of experience as they had not. He may not have had a 1 Ezek. xxxvi. 23, xxxvii. 28. EZEKIEL 3 1 deeper spiritual fellowship with God, but with his wider experience of men and nations and of the world in general, he had a more awestruck sense of the majesty of God. He was overwhelmed by the Divine Presence as neither Isaiah nor Jeremiah was ; x he constantly hears himself addressed by Yahweh as " Son of Man," " Mere Mortal," and his favourite title for God is " Lord Yah weh ". There is a constant effort in his writings to ex press his sense of the Divine Majesty and to avoid anthropomorphism. In the great vision that accompanied his call, he saw above ,the mysterious living creatures something that seemed like a firmament, and above it " the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone : and upon the likeness of the throne was the like ness as the appearance of a man above upon it ".2 Similarly the Divine Majesty is emphasised by the stress laid upon the necessity of Sanctity, i.e., the separation of clean from unclean, of what is consecrated to the service of God from what is common ; and also by the central position of the Temple and its isolation from the terri tories of the secular tribes in the New Israel. At the same time Ezekiel is fully aware that transcendence is only one aspect of the Divine Nature, " the prophet is far from regarding God as a mere transcendent majesty and abstract omnipotence";3 he enjoys an in timate, though deeply reverential, fellowship with Yah weh, whose " relation to His people or the prophet is not that of one distant or unapproachable".4 Similarly the circumstances bf the Exile favoured the 1 Ezek. i. 28, iii. 15, 23. 2Ezek. i. 22, 26. 3 C.B.S., xxxiii. 4 C.B.S., xxxiv. 32 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS development of the doctrine of individual responsibility. As Dr. Skinner puts it,1 " So long as the Jewish state existed the principle of solidarity remained in force. Men suffered for the sins of their ancestors ; individuals shared the punishment incurred by the nation as a whole. But as soon as the nation is dead, when the bonds that unite men in the organism of national life are dissolved, then the idea of individual responsibility comes into imme diate operation." After the fall of Jerusalem, the Jewish nation no longer existed as a nation ; only scattered individuals were left; if the prophet believed that the religion of Israel was to have a future, and if he had a mission to work for that future, he must take account of these individuals. From among them the new Israel must be built up ; they must be stimulated to faith and hope, else they would lapse into heathenism ; and they must be inspired with true ideals, else they might make the religion of Israel worse than heathenism. Hence Ezekiel, in the celebrated eighteenth chapter and else where,2 declares that individuals will not be hopelessly involved in the ruin of the nation, or in the guilt of their ancestors, or even in the consequences of their own past sins. With the new Israel in prospect each individual may at that moment choose good or evil, and by that choice may determine whether he shall be admitted into the Kingdom of God or excluded from it. The exigencies of a supreme crisis thus led Ezekiel to a formal and explicit enunciation of the principle of individual responsibility. The responsibility of the individual leads at once to the prophetic ministry to the individual. Hence Ezekiel's 1Exp. B., p. 143. 2 Ezek. xxxiii. 10 ff. EZEKIEL T,^ commission to be a " watchman," and to warn the sinner of the consequences of his sin ; and the implied idea that the prophet's preaching will sift his audience, winning individuals though it may fail to dominate the community.1 Again, the appeal to the individual to repent, and the offer of deliverance and a place in a restored Israel, necessarily included forgiveness and regeneration. Ezekiel has not only the obvious and usual teaching that the discipline of suffering leads to repentance,2 but also the characteristic doctrine that God's forgiveness leads men to loathe their past sin.3 In speaking of the work ofthe Spirit in regeneration, Ezekiel partly follows Jeremiah ; and adds the striking figure of the thirty-seventh chapter according to which the army of dry bones represent Israel dead in trespasses and sins and are quickened to new life by the gift of the Spirit. The prophet's teaching on cleansing, forgiveness, and regeneration by the Spirit are summed up in xxxvi. 24-29, of which Dr. Davidson wrote : " This remarkable passage has no parallel in the Old Testament, and reads like a fragment of a Pauline Epistle ".4 Perhaps nothing in the Bible expresses more forcibly the ideas of the wideness of God's mercy and the power of His restoring grace than the passages 6 in which Ezekiel affirms that God will restore not only Jerusalem and Samaria, but even Sodom. Ezekiel's work in effecting a compromise between the priestly and prophetic tendencies is shown by the presence of his teaching as to the importance of ceremonial law side by side in the same book with his endorsement and 1 Ezek. xxxiii. 2 Ezek. xx. 33-44. 3 Ezek. xxxvi. 25-31. "C.jB.S., Iii. 5Ezek. xvi. 53-63 ; cf. Isa. xix. 18-25. 3 34 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS repetition of the ethical and spiritual teaching of the older prophets. He is the first of the prophets to lay stress on the Sabbath,1 the distinction between clean and unclean, profane and sacred. He first idealises2 the Temple, and gives to its services and priesthood a leading place in the new Israel, or, as we should say, in Messianic times. These doctrines are virtually summed up in his state ments about the sanctity, sacredness, or holiness of Israel ; i.e., its consecration to Yahweh by a decent, seemly and orderly worship conducted by priests duly qualified in physique, training and character. The cere monial law, of course, was not new; Ezekiel has much in common with Deuteronomy and the Law of Holiness, and his code is substantially a revision of older customs and traditions. Neither was the compromise new, it had already been promulgated in Deuteronomy, and ratified in solemn covenant by Josiah and the people. But in the Book of Ezekiel this compromise receives the seal of prophetic authority in the name of Yahweh and through the mouth of an inspired teacher who exercised a decisive influence on the spiritual destinies of Israel. We may add two or three characteristic features of Ezekiel's teaching which .hardly fall under the two main heads. He has the remarkable idea that God gave Israel evil statutes as a, punishment for their sin ; 3 he shows a keen interest in the circumstances of foreign nations, the commerce of Tyre and the fertility of Egypt,4 and in his hands we can discern a marked advance in the import ance assigned to angelic ministries.5 His work also JJer. xvii. ig-27 is probably post-exilic. 2Ezek. xl.-xlviii. 3 Ezek. xx. 25. 4 Ezek. xxvi.-xxxi. 5Ezek. i.,ix. EZEKIEL 35 marks the beginning of the transition from prophecy to Apocalyptic ; he not only describes the establishment of the renewed Israel in Palestine under Messianic condi tions, but he also depicts in a more remote time the in vasion of the barbarian hordes of Gog and his allies, and their overthrow on the mountains of Israel.1 Ezek. xxxviii., xxxix. CHAPTER III. THE PROPHET OF THE RESTORATION. Isaiah xl., xii., xiii. io-xlviii., xlix. 14-I. 3, li. 1 -Iii. 12, liv., Iv.1 The whole tenor of these passages shows that they were written towards the end of the Babylonian Captiv ity ; probably not long before b.c. 540. More than forty years had elapsed since the fall of Jerusalem, and about thirty years since the close of Ezekiel's ministry.2 During the interval faith had been kept alive through the memory of the teaching of Ezekiel and Jeremiah and their predecessors ; the records of the prophetic teaching had been studied, edited and copied. As the Jews were shut out from ordinary ecclesiastical and political activ ity, the patriotic enthusiasm of the faithful was largely concentrated on the literature, and the ancient laws and annals were copied afresh in new and enlarged editions. We have few explicit statements as to the religious life of Israel during the captivity, but the surviving literature 1 The title Second Isaiah is often given to this group of passages or to the whole of Isa. xl.-lv., more commonly to Isa. xl.-lxvi. 2 According to the dates given in Ezekiel the latest sections of that book are the Constitution for the New Israel, xl. -xlviii., B.C. 572, and the passage on Egypt, b.c 570. 36 THE PROPHET OF THE RESTORATION 37 and the later development of Judaism show the tenacity with which the exiles clung to the faith of Israel. As far as the Babylonian Jews were concerned the worship of Yahweh had become identified with Revealed Religion as taught by the prophets. Their authority had been vindicated by the fate of Samaria, of Assyria and of Judah. Moreover, the exile had been a time of sifting ; many Jews who were slight and worldly forsook Israel in its dark days, and became merged in the sur rounding heathenism, so that as the years went on the Jewish community in Babylon became purified and ex alted, possessed by a more passionate loyalty to the God who was the rallying point of their national hopes. In other words, Israel was becoming a Church. As yet, however, there was no idea of any permanent separation of religion from politics ; a cardinal article of faith was the restoration of Israel in Palestine as a nation ; and the Jews were keenly alive to the possible bearing of international politics on their hopes. Throughout this period there was an exciting instability in the state of affairs ; the balance of power in the Israelite world had never recovered from the shock sustained through the collapse of Assyria. For the moment Babylon succeeded Nineveh as the supreme power in Western Asia ; but a series of events suggested that another more sweeping revolution was imminent. The New Chaldean Empire was largely the creation of Nebuchadnezzar ; and his death in b.c. 561 prepared the way for its fall, soon after the star of Cyrus 1 rose on the political horizon and bid fair to outshine all other luminaries ; his victories over Astyages of Media 2 and Croesus of Lydia3 promised even ' King of Persia, b.c. 558. 2b.c 550. 3B.c 546. 38 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS greater triumphs. The Jewish exiles watched the career of the conqueror from the East; he seemed about to change the face of the world. What would the new order bring to Yahweh's Chosen People? The answer is given in these chapters, whose contents clearly indicate that they were composed in the closing years of the Exile ; Jerusalem and its Temple, together with the cities of Judah are in ruins ; J those addressed are exiles in Babylonia ; 2 Cyrus is introduced without explanation or description as a great conqueror well known to both the prophet and his audience ; 3 and the writer is preoccupied with Babylon, its attitude towards God's people and its coming doom.4 The chapters are written from the standpoint of the Exile, and do not suggest that the author is living in some other period. The following is a brief survey of the contents ofthe " Second Isaiah ". They fall naturally into two divisions, xl. -xlviii. and xlix.-lv. The first division begins 5 by declaring the Divine purpose to comfort Jerusalem because she has borne the full punish ment of her sins; Yahweh is about to bring back the exiles. He is unique and supreme, the Ruler of the universe ; the nations are as nothing before Him, and what are images ! He is the Creator of earth and heaven ; He brings the princes of the earth to nothing. Why then should Israel say that her cause is forgotten ? Yahweh does not become weary ; His purposes are in scrutable ; He can give strength when natural resources fail. 1 Isa. xliv. 26, xlix. 17-21. 3 Isa. xlviii. 20, Iii. 11. 3 Isa. xliv. 28, xiv. 13. 4 Isa. xliii. 14, xlvii. 1-5, xlviii. 14-20. 5 Isa. xl. f. THE PROPHET OF THE RESTORATION 39 The world is ringing with the exploits of a great conqueror from the East. Yahweh raised him up. To what end ? Is not Israel the chosen servant of Yahweh ? Surely then Yahweh will deliver him, he need not fear. In the hands of Yahweh, Israel shall be a sharp thresh ing instrument to crush its enemies, a fan to scatter them. For His thirsty people Yahweh will make the wilderness a wooded land with streams and springs. As for the gods of the heathen, they are not to be feared, they have neither strength nor knowledge. If they have, let them show it. The conqueror whom Yahweh has raised up and announced is on his way to subdue the oppressors of Israel ; no heathen god can point to any similar achievement. The remaining chapters of this division repeat and amplify the topics of the opening section. Yahweh comes to deliver His people, in spite of apparently in surmountable obstacles, in spite of the heathen powers and their images, in spite of the fear and unbelief of Israel, His servant.1 He alone is God ; the futility of idols is shown by the material out of which they are made, and the process by which they are manufactured.2 Let Israel rejoice that He is forgiven and redeemed.3 Then comes the climax of the first half of the work. Yahweh, the Creator, the inspirer of true prophecy ex pressly declares that Jerusalem, the Temple, and the cities of Judah shall be rebuilt, and speaks of Cyrus by name as His shepherd and His anointed, through whom 1 Isa. xiii. 10 - xliv. 5. 2 Isa. xliv. 6-20. The Servant passages are reserved for separate treatment. 3 Isa. xliv. 21-23. 40 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS Yahweh will subdue nations and kings that Israel may be delivered. Yahweh is the only God, the maker of light and darkness, of peace and calamity. Who can hinder His purposes. As for Bel and Nebo, the gods of Baby lon, they shall soon be captives ; they cannot protect themselves, far less deliver their worshippers.1 Babylon shall go into captivity, in spite of her luxury and com merce, her wisdom and science, and her manifold enchantments.2 Israel, indeed, has been guilty of many sins, and is still obstinate and unbelieving, yet for His name's sake, Yahweh will deliver His people. They may now flee from Babylon, a way will be made for them through the desert. Yet " There is no peace, saith Yah weh, for the wicked ".3 The latter half4 is written in the same spirit, and de livers substantially the same message ; but the tone on the whole is brighter, more assured and restful. The polemic against idols is not renewed, and with it the mention by name of the conqueror Cyrus and of Babylon is dropped. In the opening section 5 Yahweh combats the doubts and misgivings of Israel. In spite of the long-drawn-out miseries of the last days of Jerusalem and of the many years of exile, Yahweh had not forgotten His people. The might of their oppressors should not hinder their deliverance, nay, the nations and their kings should be- 1 Isa. xliv. 24 -xlvi. 13. 3Isa. xlvii. 3Isa. xlviii. 4 Isa. xlix.-lv. (Servant passages excepted as betore). These chapters are sometimes regarded as not strictly part of the same work as xl.- xlviii., but as a sequel composed either by the same or another author ; cf. BJ., p. 187. 5 Isa. xlix. 14 -1. 3. THE PROPHET OF THE RESTORATION 4 1 come the humble servants of their former victims. No one has any rights over Israel which can stand in the way of God's gracious purposes. The Exile was God's punishment of His people's sin ; and He, the ruler of earth and heaven, can redeem them. Once more,1 in a more joyous strain, the prophet an nounces the coming deliverance, and seeks to strengthen the feeble and hesitating faith of his hearers. Let them remember Yahweh's gracious dealings in the days of old, the blessings bestowed on Abraham, the marvels of the Exodus. Earth and heaven may vanish away, but God's faithfulness abides for ever and assures the deliverance of Israel. Why should they fear men, when Yahweh the Creator of heaven and earth is their champion. Their tribulations are a thing of the past ; it is the turn of their enemies to suffer: "I have taken out of thine hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my fury ; thou shalt no more drink it again : and I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee *'.2 Now Yahweh hath bared His holy arm in the eyes of all nations, and all the ends ofthe earth shall see how God delivers His people.3 They may depart from Babylon at their leisure, not in hasty flight, as when their fathers escaped from Egypt ; no mere pillar of fire and smoke guides and protects them ; Yahweh Himself will go before them, and the God of Israel will be their rearguard.4 Again the prophet renews his promises and his appeals. Zion has been desolate and solitary as a forsaken wife ; but Yahweh Cebaoth, her husband, will be her Redeemer.5 1 Isa. li. 1 - Iii. 12. 2 Isa. li. 22. :1 Isa. Iii. 10. 4 Isa. Iii. n f. 5Go'el. 42 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS Her future shall be more glorious than her past : " thou shalt spread abroad on the right hand and on the left, and thy seed shall possess the nations". She need not fear any new calamities like the Captivity. That has been a unique experience, like the Flood : " As I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor- rebuke thee ".1 Henceforward the Divine protection ensures her peace and prosperity. Let God's people trust in Him and forsake their sins, and He will assuredly pardon them, and fulfil His gracious promises. " For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace ; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree ; and it shall be to Yahweh for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." 2 These prophecies might be cited as a striking illustra tion ofthe saying — The world knows nothing of its greatest men. In them the Old Testament Revelation reaches its climax ; yet they are anonymous, and we are not in a position to make even a plausible conjecture as to the name of their author. Their form shows that they were from the first literary compositions, probably read aloud or recited from memory by their composer or his disciples, and also circulated as leaflets or pamphlets. Perhaps the whole set were written continuously and published to gether ; but it is quite as probable that they were com- 1 Isa. liv. g. 2 Isa. Iv. 12, 13. THE PROPHET OF THE RESTORATION 43 posed and published in rapid succession, and then collected into a single work, so that they might be roughly com pared to a series of weekly sermons, lectures, or news paper articles subsequently published in book form. The author belonged to the new generation of Jews who had been born and had grown up in exile in Baby lonia.1 Already the old dispensation was a sacred memory, and distance lent enchant ment to the Temple, to Jerusalem, and to the land of Israel. As he grew to manhood, the future prophet studied the traditions, history, laws, and prophetical writings of his people ; and, untrammelled by the sordid realities which had saddened Isaiah and Jeremiah, he gloried in the lofty ideals of the inspired literature of Israel. The sins which kindled the indignation of former prophets were a reminiscence of ancient history, slight and dim compared to the poignant present experience of national ruin, and of the suffering and humiliation of exile. The Jews in Babylonia had, indeed, sins of their own, but these seemed venial compared with the cruel wrong done to them by their oppressors. In ancient Israel the prophets had been preoccupied by the crimes of the national government and the native aristocracy, but now " the throne of wickedness, . . . which framed mis chief by statute,"2 was seen on a much vaster scale in 1 These chapters are dated towards the close of the Exile by most recent critics, e.g., Dr. Int.6, p. 231 ; Du., p. xiii. ; Kau., p. g6 ; Mar., p. xv. ; Skinner, p. 1. ; G.A.S., p. 20. Ch., P.B., p. 131, assigns xl.-xlviii. to this period, xlix.-lv. to the time of Ezra. The place of composi tion is usually held to be Babylonia, e.g., Kau., Skinner, G.A.S., Ch., but Du. prefers Phoenicia and Mar. (after Ew.) Egypt. 2 Ps. xciv. 20. 44 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS the Chaldean administration, and Jewish superstition seemed trivial compared to the magnificent idolatry of Babylon. This brief survey of the situation will have prepared us for the main points of the prophet's teaching. The Jews asked, what did the victorious advance of Cyrus "" X 63.chiti&r mean for the Chosen People and the Sacred Land of Yahweh. The prophet replied that Yahweh had raised up Cyrus and given Babylon and the nations into his hand, that He might restore Israel to Palestine and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple.1 To this end Cyrus was Yah- weh's Anointed,2 the divinely appointed King,the earthly vicegerent of God. To this end, too, Babylon was to be degraded from the supremacy of the East, and become a conquered, subject city ; while its impotent deities would share its ruin and humiliation.3 This great deliverance had become possible because the sufferings of the Exile had atoned for the sins of Israel. " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accom plished, that her punishment is accepted ; that she hath received at the hand of Yahweh double for all her sins." * Now, therefore, the captives, reconciled to God, released by Cyrus, His chosen instrument, were to return in triumph to Palestine, led by their Divine Shepherd. A smooth and level road would be miraculously prepared for Yahweh and His people, the valleys would be filled in, and the hills levelled, the crooked would be made straight, the rough places plain, and the Glory of Yahweh would 1 Isa. xii. 25, xliv. 28 - xiv. 5, xlviii. 14, 15. 2 Isa. xiv. 1 ; Anointed = mas/»aA, the original of Messiah. 3 Isa. xlvi. 1, 2, xlvii., xlviii. 14. 4 Isa. xl. 1, 2. THE PROPHET OF THE RESTORATION 45 be made manifest to all.1 Fountains would spring up and streams would flow through the waterless deserts, and forests would appear as if by magic to offer their grateful shade to the returning pilgrims.2 They should pass unscathed through terrible dangers : " When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee : when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned ; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee ".3 The return was to be a new and greater exodus.4 The pilgrims would return from the four quarters of the world.5 The prophet is chiefly interested in the Restoration as the great event of the immediate future ; the new dis pensation which it was to inaugurate is only sketched in a vague and fragmentary fashion, igjaei. Israel is forgiven and completely restored to favour with God. " I have blotted out, as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins."6 The Divine Presence is with Israel to strengthen and bless the Chosen Servant of God : " Thou art my servant I have chosen thee and not cast thee away ; fear thou not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I am thy God ; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee".7 Again and again God addresses Israel as His Servant and His Chosen. Yahweh is the King of Israel and " his Redeemer ".s The love of God for Israel is set forth in 1 Isa. xl. 3-11. 2Isa. xii. 17-20. 3 Isa. xliii. 2 ; cf. also xliii. 15-21, xliv. 3, 4, xlix. 9-11, 22-26, lv. 12,. 13. 4 Isa. xlviii. 21, li. 10. 5Isa. xliii. 6, xlix. 12. 6 Isa. xliv. 22 ; cf. lv. 7. "' Isa. xii. 9, 10. 8 Isa. xliv. 6 ; cf. xii. 21. 46 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS striking figures : " Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea, these may forget, yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands."1 "Thy Maker is thy husband." Zion or Israel in captivity has been as a forsaken wife, no better than a widow; but now she is to enjoy all her rights: " with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith Yahweh thy Redeemer . . . the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed ; but My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall My covenant of peace be removed ".2 Yet the pardon and love of God are not due to any merit on the part of Israel ; the prophet speaks strongly of the sins of his fellow-countrymen.3 Like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, he teaches that God redeems Israel "for His name's sake ". " For My name's sake will I defer Mine anger ... for Mine own sake will I do it." 4 Yahweh's Servant, Israel, is blind and deaf, but Yahweh works "for His righteousness' sake," that He may be self- consistent; loyal to His own character, purpose, and promises.5 The home ofthe New Israel is Judah ; Jerusalem and its Temple are to be rebuilt ; the other cities of Judah .are to be restored ; the waste land will again be cultivated,6 and will be occupied by a teeming population. The ex iles will return in such great numbers that the land " will 1 Isa. xlix. 15, 16. 2 Isa. liv. 8, 10. 3 Cf. below, p. 48. 4 Isa. xlviii. 9, 11 ; cf. Iii. 5, xliii. 25. 6 Isa. xiii. 18-20, xiv. 23 ; cf. however xl. 1, and p. 38, a somewhat ¦different view. 6 Isa. xliv. 26-28, li. 3. THE PROPHET OF THE RESTORATION 47 be too strait for its inhabitants ".*¦ Israel shall dwell in peace under the Divine protection, and shall learn Divine truth : " All thy children shall be taught of Yahweh, and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established : thou shalt be far from oppres sion, for thou shalt not fear ; and from terror, for it shall not come near thee."2 This new order is to be eternal.3 It is noteworthy that though we do read of the restora tion of Judah, the prophet is chiefly interested in Jerusa lem ; Zion and Jerusalem constantly stand for the whole people. The Northern Tribes are entirely ignored ; Ephraim and Samaria are not mentioned, and there is no reference to their territory. The unique relation of Israel to Yahweh implied re ligious or ecclesiastical exaltation, and therefore — accord ing to ancient ideas — political supremacy. israei The oppressors of Israel are to be punished ; 4 and the Gentile kings are to be the humble instru ments of the return of the Jews.5 Because the one true God is manifest in Zion, the Egyptians, Ethiopians and Sabeans are to come in chains as suppliants bringing their manufactures and their merchandise as tribute.6 God will bring again the great days of David, when Israel dominated the neighbouring peoples. Only the new do minion shall be on a larger scale : " Thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and a nation that knew not thee shall run unto thee, because of Yahweh thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel ; for He hath glori fied thee".7 'Isa. xlix. 19-21, liv. 1-3. 2Isa. liv. n-17. 3 Isa. xiv. 17. 4Isa. xlix. 26, li. 23. 5 Isa. xlix. 22 f. 6 Isa. xiv. 14. 7 Isa. lv. 4, 5. 48 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS On the other hand, the nations will respect the sanctity of the Holy City : " There shall no more come unto thee the uncircumcised and the unclean ".1 These words need not mean that Gentiles would be altogether ex cluded from Jerusalem ; but that they would only be ad mitted to do homage to Israel and Yahweh. The prophet's faith in this glorious future had to be maintained in the face of sin 2 and unbelief on the part of Unbelief many of his fellow-exiles. Prolonged misfor- amongst tune had made it difficult for the Jews to ex- the Exiles ' pect better times; it seemed as if Yahweh could not or would not Tielp. There seemed no escape from the grip of Babylon : " Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of the terrible one be de livered ".3 The exiles were cowed ; they feared " continu ally all the day because of the fury of the oppressor".4 God seemed far off and indifferent, and Israel complained, " My way is hid from Yahweh, and God neglects to do me justice ".5 Hence the prophet constantly appeals to the might of Yahweh,6 to His love for His people,7 to the proofs of His love that He had given in time past, to Abraham,8 and David,9 and at the Exodus.10 Again and again he bids Israel " Fear not ".n He insists that Yahweh cannot abandon His people to which He is bound by so many ties ; He is their Creator12 and Father;13 He hasthosen14 them. His favour is secured to them 'Isa. Iii. i. 2Isa. xliii. 24, xlviii. 1. 3Isa. xlix. 24, R.V. mg. 4 Isa. li. 13 ; cf. li. 22. 5 Isa. xl. 27. 6 Cf. below, p. 56. 7 Cf. above, p. 45. 8 Isa. xii. 8, li. 2. 9Isa. Iv. 3. 10 Isa. xliii. 16, li. 9, 10. u Isa. xii. 10 and passim. 12Isa. xliii. i. I3Isa. xliii. 6, xiv. n, " my sons ". 14 Isa. xii. g, etc. THE PROPHET OF THE RESTORATION 49 by " a covenant of peace," " an everlasting covenant," 1 and by the oath of Yahweh.2 Above all else, Yahweh styles Himself the Go'el,3 "Redeemer" of Israel, the next kinsman, bound by the blood-bond to stand by his kinsfolk in life and to avenge their death. To an Oriental no other figure could so forcibly express the idea that Yahweh was absolutely certain to intervene on behalf of Israel ; it implied that the redemption of Israel was His first and supreme duty. Unbelief, however, might still harden its heart against the prophet and ask why his assurances should be ac cepted. Hence to obtain credence for his pre- dictions he appeals to the fulfilment of peal to previous predictions inspired by Yahweh, Predic- though not apparently uttered by the prophet himself. It seems that some important events of recent times, probably victories of Cyrus, had been predicted in the name of Yahweh : " I have declared the former things from of old ; yea, they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them : suddenly I did them and they came to pass ".4 This power of Yahweh to predict the future is a leading feature of the prophet's polemic against the gods of Babylon. The deliverance of Israel implied . that Yahweh could overcome the mighty against deities who were reverenced throughout West- Heathen ... « , - .- LrOdS. ern Asia; that the God of a group of petty tribes could cope with the gods who had ruled the fortunes of great empires like Assyria and Chaldea ; the gods of the conquerors who had blotted out Israel and Judah 'Isa. liv. 10, lv. 3. 2Isa. liv. 9. 3Isa. xii. 14, etc. 4 Isa. xlviii. 3 ; cf. the whole passage, 1-11 ; also xliv. 8, xlvi. 10. 4 njO POST-EXILIC PROPHETS from among the nations and carried the peoples away into captivity. The prophet, on the ground of the suc cessful predictions already referred to, insists that Yahweh knew the future as the gods of Babylon did not, and that therefore He was the only true God.1 This contention is also supported by other arguments ; the false gods are identified with their images ; and the prophet urges that wood and stone and gold and silver are not to be com pared with the Creator and Ruler of the Universe.2 He is thus led to develop the doctrine of God, and to formu late monotheism more formally and explicitly than any of his predecessors. Yahweh is the one true God,3 the Creator,4 omnipotent,5 omniscient,6 eternal,7 omnipresent,8 governing all things by His Providence.9 The idea of Yahweh as unique and supreme is also expressed in the titles " the Holy One," 10 or " the Holy One of Israel," u which the prophet borrows from Isaiah. The deliverance and exaltation of Israel would reveal these truths to the Gentiles,12 and lead them to seek the favour of Israel and its God. Not only so, but the pro phet also discerns that monotheism implies an offer of salvation to the whole world.13 " Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth : for I am God, and there is none else. By Myself have I sworn, the word is gone forth from My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." Isa. xii. 21-29, and cf. above, p. 49, n. 4. 2 Isa. xl. 12-26, xlvi. 5-7. 3 Isa. xl. 18, xliv. 6-g, etc. 4 Isa. xl. 26, xliv. 24, etc. 5 Isa. xl. 12-15. 0 Isa. xiv. 21, xlvi. 10. ' Isa. xliv. 6. 8 Isa. Iii. 10. 9 Isa. xii. 4. 10 Qadosh, Isa. xl. 25. " Isa. xii. 14, etc. 12 Isa. xiv. 14-17. '3 Isa. xiv. 22, 23. CHAPTER IV. THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH. Isaiah xiii. 1-4 (5-g); xlix. 1-6 (7-13); I. 4-9 (10, 11) ;' Hi. 13 -liii. 12. These passages present some of the most knotty pro blems of Old Testament Introduction ; almost everything is matter of controversy — date, authorship, relation to the rest of Isaiah xl.-lv., interpretation ; almost every possible view has been held on each of these points. For the purpose of this work it is not necessary to discuss the various views in detail ; a general statement will suffice. These passages form clearly defined sections; if they were removed and the remainder were read by some one who was not acquainted with Isaiah xl.-lv. in its present form, he would not discover that anything was missing. The passages also have in common features not found in the rest of these chapters, notably the description of the suffering, persecuted and martyred Servant of Yahweh as a person. If Isaiah xl.-lv. is a single work, these differ- 1 The verses in brackets are considered by Cheyne to be links written to connect the " Servant passages " proper with the context in which they were inserted. Whether or no this view be adopted, it is convenient to treat these verses with the " Servant passages ". Si 52 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS ences may have been intentionally introduced for the sake of emphasis. It is, however, more generally believed that the Servant passages are independent poems. This theory has many alternative forms; it is still possible that the poems, though independent, were the work of the author ofthe rest of these chapters ; it is more prob able that they were composed by some one else, and either appropriated by the author of Isaiah xl.-lv. or inserted by an editor. The Servant passages, in accord ance with these various theories, have been dated before,1 during,2 or after 3 the Exile. There is equal variety of opinion as to who or what is meant by the Servant of Yahweh. The theories are of three types : the Servant is an actual person, or an ideal person, or personifies a community. From a very early period 4 the passages have been regarded as Messianic, and this view was generally held until the rise of critical exegesis, and is still held by many.5 More recently the Servant has been supposed to be Jeremiah 6 or some late post-exilic scribe." But 'the view is gaining ground that 1 Klostermann, P.R.E., Jesaia, viii., 724; Ewald, ap. C.B.S. 2 Driver, Isaiah (Men ofthe Bible), pp. 176 ff. ; Konig, Einleitung, p. 325 ; Marti, Isaiah, p. 361 ; Skinner, Isaiah, p. lv. (doubfjfiilly) ; G. A. Smith, Exp. B. 3 Cheyne, E.B., Isaiah, 2205; Duhm, Isaiah, xviii., B.C. 450-400. 4 E.g., the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel. s G. A. Smith, D.B. (for Hi. 13 - liii.), Delitzsch. Driver, as above, combines the views that the Servant is Israel and that He is a Messianic ideal. 6 The Servant is identified with "Jeremiah, or some unknown martyr-prophet," by "Grotius, Bunsen, and Ewald " (Delitzsch, Isaiah, Eng. tr., 1877, vol. ii., p. 303). 7 Duhm, Isaiah, xviii. THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH 53 the Servant is the personification of Israel.1 If the Ser vant is a Person, He must be either ideal or idealised ; the difference is not great ; on the one hand, the picture of an ideal prophet, martyr, or Redeemer would neces sarily borrow features from historical individuals ; on the other, an idealised portrait of a real person would become a type and foreshadowing of the Messiah. Compare our Lord's identification of John the Baptist with the ideal figure of the resuscitated Elijah.2 The interpretation of these passages partly determines the view which must be taken as to their authorship ; in the rest of Isaiah xl.-lv. the Servant is expressly identified with Israel.3 If, therefore, the Servant is here a Person and not the nation, we seem compelled to conclude that the Servant passages were originally independent of their present context, and are not the work of the same author ; and vice versa, if Isaiah xl.-lv. is a single work by one writer, the Servant must be Israel throughout. This con clusion also seems to be required by one of the Servant passages themselves. In xlix. 3 we read : " Thou art my Servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified " ; but it is sometimes maintained that " O Israel " is a gloss.4 It need hardly be said that Isaiah xl.-lv. is not neces sarily a single work even if the Servant = Israel through out. At present at any rate the balance of evidence and the weight of authority seem to indicate that the Servant 'Cheyne, P.B., Isaiah, p. 177, "the Genius of Israel"; Marti, Isaiah, p. 360; Skinner hesitates between an ideal Israel and an ideal Israelite (Isaiah, p. 237; cf. p. 39). 2Matt. xi. 14. 3lsa. xii. 8, xliv. 2, etc. 4 E.g., Duhm, in loco. 54 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS passages are an exilic 1 work written by some one other than the author of the rest of Isaiah xl.-lv. ; and that the Servant is Israel. We propose therefore to interpret them from this point of view. The contents of these passages are as follows. The first passage, xiii. i-q,2 follows the introductory state ment of the main themes of Second Isaiah, on e" ' and precedes their subsequent detailed de velopment. The introductory statement concluded with the declaration : " When I look, there is no man ; even among them there is no counsellor, that, when I ask of them, can answer a word. Behold, they are all vanity, their works , are nought ; their molten images are wind and confusion." Then, in what seems to have been originally the next section, Yahweh Himself "goes forth as a mighty man ".3 The effect of the insertion is that when Yahweh looked in vain for " a man " or " counsellor," a prophet to declare His Revelation, He sent His chosen and inspired Servant. The Servant is a quiet teacher, patiently instructing the dull and encouraging the feeble and despondent, delivering 1 The term " exilic " must be understood in an elastic sense, in which the Exile began with the first deportation of captives by Nebuchadrezzar in 597, and continued for some time after the first Return in 586. 2C/. note 2, p. 52. 3 Isa. xii. 28 f., xiii. 13 ; cf. lix. 16, Yahweh "saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor ; therefore his own arm brought salvation unto him" ; and lxiii. 5, " I looked and there was none to help ; and I wondered that there was none to uphold : there fore my own arm brought salvation unto me ". The comparison sug gests that the Servant passages had not yet been inserted in Second Isaiah when lvi.-lxvi. was composed. THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH 55 men from the prison-house of error and despair. The Servant is the herald of a world-wide Revelation ; the Gentiles are to learn true religion, " he shall bring forth judgment unto the Gentiles ".1 His successful persistence in this marvellous task is guaranteed by the support of Yahweh, the Creator of heaven and earth. The Servant shall persevere,2 " till he have set judgment in the earth ; and the isles shall wait for his revelation ... he shall be a light to the Gentiles ". Finally the passage, declares the unique glory of Yah weh as the only source of true prediction. The second passage xlix. 1-13, is inserted between the two main divisions of the Second Isaiah, a position which may indicate that the editor felt it had no special relevance to its new context. The connecting verses,3 however, lead up fairly well to xlix. 14. The Servant, who is now4 expressly identified with Israel, again declares to the Gentile world5 that Yahweh called him from the womb. But he has become discour- 1 From the context "judgment" here means "the righteous prin ciples and methods of the Divine government," true religion on its practical side. 2 Note from R.V. the suggestion of the wording of verses 3 and 4. The Servant is patient of the infirmities of those to whom he ministers ; but he does not, through this ministry, become subject to these infirmities himself. He is not subdued to what he works in ; working amongst sinners, he does not become sinful ; he is not over come of evil, but overcomes evil with good. 3 Cf. note, p. 51. The connexion is further improved by the " But " of the English Versions ; which would be unnecessary in the original Second Isaiah, xlix. 14, following the end of xlviii., but is justifiable in the present context. 4 Isa. xlix. 3. '' Isles, peoples. 56 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS aged : " I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and vanity ". Yahweh again assures him that his mission is not merely to Israel, the nation is not merely elect for its own sake, but he is to be " a light to the Gentiles, the Divine salvation to the end of the earth ".1 The following connecting verses repeat the assurance that Yahweh will support His Servant and deliver His people. The third passage, 1. 4-1 1, follows verses2 which appeal to the destructive might of Yahweh as a proof of His power to deliver Israel. The sequence is appropriate, as the passage declares that the Lord Yahweh will vindi cate His Servant by punishing those who oppose and persecute him. The Servant himself is an assiduous disciple of his Divine Teacher; he patiently endures persecution, and perseveres doggedly in the teeth of opposition. The connecting verses encourage the Servant's ad herents to trust in Yahweh, and declare that his opponents will be punished; thus leading up to li. 1-3, which en courages the righteous to trust in the Divine promise. In the fourth passage,3 Hi. 13 -liii. 12, the faith of Israel issues triumphant from its age-long ordeal, and declares its confidence in the Divine righteousness, in spite of the tragic experiences of life. The exultant notes with which the section opens and closes enable the editor to obtain an appearance of sequence and connexion with the verses between which it is inserted ; but the poem as a whole is a vivid contrast to the cheerful optimism of the latter part of the Second Isaiah. 'Isa. xlix. 6. 2Isa. 1. 2, 3. 3Cf. p. 52. THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH 57 The theme is the exaltation of the humiliated Servant. We have seen him called to a most honourable task, the preaching of the Truth of God to the whole world ; patiently persevering in his vocation in spite of unbelief, contumely, and persecution. Now he touches lower depths and rises to loftier heights. His sufferings are a wonder to all men ; but his final glory is a greater marvel. Misfortune in every form had been with him throughout his career; feeble and unattractive in appearance, dis figured by disease, his claim to a Divine mission had seemed a futile imposture. Calamity and disease, per haps even leprosy,1 marked him out, it seemed, as a sinner, condemned and cursed by God. Later times, how ever, reading his history in the light of its sequel, saw in his agony a vicarious suffering borne for the salvation of the whole world : " Yahweh laid on him the iniquity of us all ".2 The contempt and abhorrence of his contemporaries broke out into persecution, and at last he died the death of a criminal — in reality, he was a martyr, " he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth ".3 But this life-long tragedy had been the working out of a Divine purpose ; his life, both in his living and in his dying, had been provided by God as an atonement for the sins of the world. In a glorious resurrection the Servant of Yahweh shall take his place with mighty conquerors ; ' D^il'bb? ilSp 3^153, R-v- " stricken, smitten of God," may well describe leprosy ; so the Vulgate, a rendering which coupled with the Messianic interpretation did much for the humane treatment of lepers in the Middle Ages. 2 Isa. liii. 6. 3 Isa. liii. 8, 9 are largely unintelligible. 58 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS and rejoice in the achievement of his mission, the re demption of the world. This author also 1 had lived under circumstances which enabled him to idealise Israel as the Servant of Yahweh, i.e., towards the end of the Exile, in some devout Jewish community. He also had been profoundly impressed by the spectacle of the great Gentile states with their teem ing populations, their military power and material re sources, and their brilliant civilisation ; and yet had kept his faith in Yahweh, so that the Divine Revelation seemed a more precious possession for Israel than all the wealth, culture, and glory of Babylon. He was not moved to vindicate the claims of Yahweh ; he took them for granted, probably because he usually lived amongst faithful be lievers. He is interested in the restoration of Israel, but this is not his main theme, because a more marvellous hope had dawned in his soul. He is quite vague as to the time and manner of that restoration, probably because these passages were written somewhat earlier than the rest of Isaiah xl.-lv., before the conquests of Cyrus had given definite shape to the hopes of the Jews. Israel in exile, in the eyes ofthe author ofthe Servant passages, was a witness for God to the Gentiles, despised and persecuted, yet assured of ultimate triumph. He was not concerned with the sins of Israel in times gone by, but rather with the sufferings of faithful Israelites in his own days. Like Job he was perplexed by the suffer ings of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked. To the solution of this problem he applied the idea that Israel was God's witness. He idealises in a series of '/.<¦., like the author of the rest of Isaiah xl.-lv. THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH 59 graphic pictures the character, the mission, and career of his people ; everything is seen in the light of his great inspiration that Israel was to be " a light to the Gentiles," that God's " salvation may be unto the end of the earth ".1 To this end Israel suffers in captivity; its pain and humiliation are for the redemption of the world.2 These Servant poems must not be taken for an exhaus tive and scientific interpretation of the history of Israel ; but the prophet for the moment sees that history as the symbol of the great truth in which he is absorbed. Everything else is forgotten. He thus expresses in the most striking fashion three supremely important doctrines : (i.) Universalism, the true religion, the religion of Yahweh, is for all the world ; (ii.) Vicarious Atonement, the explanation ofthe sufferings of the righteous is that they endure in order that sinners may be saved ; 3 (iii.) The Mission of Israel to the Gentiles, the election of Israel is not merely to privilege, but also to service ; Israel is elect for the sake of the world.4 1 Isa. xlix. 6. 2 Isa. liii. 3 (i.) and (ii.) hold good equally if the Servant is regarded as the Messiah. 4 The views as to the date, etc., of the Servant passages may be variously combined ; e.g., Smend holds that these sections were com posed earlier than the rest of Isaiah xl.-lv. and by a different author. The Servant is Israel, but some features of the picture are drawn from the experiences of a saint and martyr of the period of Jeremiah (pp. 256 ff.). CHAPTER V. OTHER ANONYMOUS PROPHECIES OF THE EXILE. Isaiah xiii. i-xiv. 23, xxi. 1-10; Jeremiah I., li. ; Zechariah ii. 6-13. The Chaldean period possessed a group of great prophets in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the author or authors of the Prophecy of Restoration and of the poems on the Servant of Yahweh. Doubtless they had their associates and imitators ; they no more stood alone than did Luther, Calvin, and Erasmus at the Reformation. A careful examination of the prophetical books discloses a number of passages varying in length from a verse to three or four chapters which are attributed to these unknown speakers or writers. It is often difficult to assign them to any exact date, or even to determine whether they fall into the period of the Exile, or into the Persian or the Greek period or even later; for many of them are brief; their contents are largely of a general character ; and they contain much that is clearly imitation of older work. Here we shall deal with those only which are commonly regarded as exilic ; leaving doubtful passages for a later 60 ANONYMOUS PROPHECIES OF THE EXILE 6 1 chapter.1 The four prophecies dealt with in this chapter seem to indicate an exilic standpoint by their references to captivity and exile, their interest in Babylon, and their hopes of a return, and by the absence of any trace of the circumstances which followed the fall of Babylon and the establishment of the Persian supremacy in Western Asia. The first section 2 consists of two poems on the Day of the Lord, with two additions. The poems may pos sibly be by different authors. The former . poem, xiii. 2-22, begins with an apocalyptic xiii. 1.- picture of God's judgment on the world — the xlv- 23- heavenly bodies are darkened, and earth and heaven are shaken 3 — and passes without any marked transition into a prediction of a complete and final destruction of Baby lon by the Medes. The concluding verses ofthe section, xiv. 22, 23, deal with the same subject, and may be part of the poem. The second poem, xiv. 4b-2i, describes the descent of the King of Babylon into Sheol. He is sub jected to exceptional ignominy in that his corpse is cast forth unburied.4 The close of the poem illustrates the profound impression made upon the Jews by the power and splendour of Babylon ; the children are to be slain lest they should regain possession of the land and cover 1 The following are sometimes assigned to the Exile — Isa. xi. 10-16, xxiii., xxxiv., xxxv., Jer. xxiii. 1-8 (Stade, p. 295), and many other passages, some of which are noticed in the discussion of separate ctrines. 2Assigned to the Exile by Cheyne, P.B., Duhm, L.O.T., Marti, Skinner, G. A. Smith, D.B., and others. In E.B. Cheyne adopts the view that xiv. 4b-2i originally referred to Sennacherib, Babylon in verse 4 being a mistake. He still, however, regards the poem as late. 3 xiii . 10, 13. 4xiv. 19, 20. 62 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS it with cities.1 The two poems are connected by a short prophecy,2 foretelling the restoration of the Israelites to their own land. The second section 3 is a magnificent lyric in which the poet describes himself as overcome with horror at the news of a great catastrophe; a caravan has xxi^-io arrlved announcing the fall of Babylon. It is implied that these are good tidings to the " threshed-out and down-trodden " * people of Yahweh ; yet here again we see how fully the Jews realised the glory of the great Chaldean city. The poet almost for gets the wrongs of his people in his distress at the ruin of the fountain-head of Eastern civilisation. The third section 5 has been provided with a heading ascribing it to the fourth year of Zedekiah, and is fol lowed by a short narrative — Jeremiah in the Jeremiah fourth year of Zedekiah made a copy of his prophecies against Babylon ; gave it to a royal ambassador who was going on a mission to Babylon; 'xiv. 21. zxiv. i-4a. 'Assigned to the Exile by Cheyne, E.B., Duhm, L.O.T., p. 216, Marti, Skinner, G. A. Smith, D.B., and others. 4 Verse 10, P.B. 5 It is generally held that this section is not the work of Jeremiah. It is ascribed to the close ofthe Exile by L.O.T., p. 268 ; Buhl, P.R.E. The tendency of recent criticism is to assign it to a later period. Cornill regards it as one of the latest portions of Jeremiah ; Giese- brecht regards it as post-exilic ; Kautzsch dates it c. B.C. 400 ; Schmidt, E.B., not before B.C. 150. It is possible, as Kautzsch suggests in K.B.W., that it was constructed about 400, on the basis oiferemiah, 2 Isaiah and other exilic oracles. We have dealt with it here be cause its ideas are substantially exilic, though its literary form may be later. ANONYMOUS PROPHECIES OF THE EXILE 63 and bade him throw it into the Euphrates. The editor who combined the prophecy and the narrative, and pre fixed the heading, intended the contents of this manu script to be identified with Jeremiah 1. 1 - li. 58. The only authority for authorship by Jeremiah is the heading ; and this is wrong as to the date, the contents of this prophecy show that it was not composed in the fourth year of Zedekiah. At that time the Temple was standing ; Jeremiah was ministering to the Jews in Jeru salem ; x and he was advising the Jews in Chaldea to settle down quietly and look forward to an exile of seventy years.2 These chapters speak of the destruction of the Temple as an event of the past,3 and urge the Jews to flee at once from Babylon.4 Seeing, therefore, that the heading is mistaken as to the date, we may also set aside its testimony as to authorship, and follow the clear inter nal evidence in ascribing Jeremiah 1., li., to a writer other than Jeremiah. The time indicated cannot be earlier than the close of the Exile, when the prophet had prob ably been dead for some years. As literature these chapters are inferior to the work of Jeremiah, from which they make large quotations. Finally they express a fierce hostility to Babylon to which there is no real paral lel in the genuine utterances of Jeremiah. This long oracle rings the changes on a few ideas which constantly recur ; the imminent and final ruin of Babylon, which is to become a haunt of wild beasts, never again to be inhabited by men ; 5 the escape of Israel from Babylon and its return to the Holy Land.6 'Jer. xxviii. 1. 2Jer. xxix. 3Jer. li. 11. 4 Jer. 1. 8, li. 6. 5 Jer. 1. 11 ff., 39 f., li. 26, 29, 37, 41 ff. 6 Jer. 1. 4 f., etc. 64 POST-EXILIC PROPHETS God's people have been lost sheep, a prey to "all that found them " ; and their enemies have alleged that they were justified in oppressing Israel because of its sins against Yahweh.1 The fall of Babylon is a punishment inflicted on account of the evil done to Zion,2 a view hardly homogeneous with Jeremiah xxv. 9, which speaks of Nebuchadrezzar as the Servant of Yahweh sent by Him to execute His judgment on Israel and its neigh bours.3 This passage, like the preceding,4 illustrates the bitter resentment of the exiles towards the Chaldeans ; a feeling which was doubtless justified by the treatment which they had undergone. The fourth section has been inserted in our Book of Zechariah ; but its standpoint is that of Babylon and the Exile.5 Zion dwells with the daughter of Baby- ii 66-rf 'a 'on an(^ 's urge