ISAIAH. I. Isaiah is the name of the greatest, and both in life and in death the most influential of the Old Testament prophets. We do not forget Jeremiah, but Jere-miah's literary and religious influence is secondary compared with that of Isaiah. Unfortunately we are reduced to infer-ence and conjecture with regard both to his life and to the extent of his literary activity. In the heading (i. 1) of what we may call the occasional prophecies of Isaiah (i.e., those which were called forth by passing events), the author is called " the son of Amoz," and Rabbinical legend identifies this Amoz with a brother of Amaziah, king of Judah; but this is evidently based on a mere etymo-logical fancy. We know from his works that (unlike Jeremiah) he was married (viii. 3), and that he had at least two sons, whose names he regarded as, together with his own, symbolic by Divine appointment of certain decisive events or religious truths—Isaiah (Yesha'-yahu), meaning "Salvation—Jehovah "'; Shear-Yashub, "a remnant shall return"; and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, " swift (swiftly cometh) spoil, speedy (speedily cometh) prey" (vii. 3, viii. 3, 4, 18). He lived at Jerusalem in the " middle " or " lower city" (2 Kings xx. 4), exercised at one time great influence at court (chap, xxxvii.), and could venture to address a king unbidden (vii. 4), and utter the most unpleasant truths, unassailed, in the plainest fashion. Presumably therefore his social rank was far above that of Amos and Micah ; certainly the high degree of rhetorical skill displayed in his discourses implies a long course of literary discipline, not improbably in the school of some older prophet (Amos vii. 14 suggests that "schools" or companies " of the prophets" existed in the southern kingdom). We know but little of Isaiah's predecessors and models in the prophetic art (it were fanaticism to exclude the element of human preparation); but certainly even the acknowledged prophecies of Isaiah (and much more the disputed ones) could no more have come into existence suddenly and without warning than the master-pieces of our own Shakespeare. In The Prophecies of Isaiah by the Rev. T. K. Cheyne, vol. ii. p. 218, a list has been given of the points of contact both in phraseology and in ideas between Isaiah and the prophets nearly con-temporary with him ; Isaiah cannot be studied by himself —he gives much to his successors, but he takes something from his less gifted colleagues.

The same heading already referred to gives us our only traditional information as to the period during which Isaiah prophesied; it refers to Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah as the contemporary kings. It is, however, to say the least, doubtful whether any of the extant prophecies are as early as the reign of Uzziah. Exegesis, the only Safe basis of criticism for the prophetic literature, is unfavourable to the view that even chap. i. belongs to the reign of this king, and we must therefore regard it as most probable that the heading in i. 1 is (like those of the Psalms) the work of one or more of the Sopherim (or students and editors of Scripture) during the Babylonian exile, apparently the same writer (or company of writers) who prefixed the headings of Hosea and Micah, and per-haps of some of the other books.

In fact, the view of HeTigstenberg that the prophecies of Isaiah are arranged chronologically, though not without justification, fails to satisfy the requirements of historical interpretation. Let us put it aside and briefly sketch the progress of Isaiah's prophesying on the basis of philological exegesis, and a comparison of the sound results of the study of the inscriptions. Chap, vi., which describes a vision of Isaiah " in the death-year of King Uzziah," may possibly have arisen out of notes pert down in the reign of Jotham; but for several reasons it is not an acceptable view that, in its present form, this striking chapter is earlier than the reign of Ahaz. It seems, in short, to have origin-ally formed the preface to the small group of prophecies which now follows it, viz., vii. 1-ix. 7. The portions which may presumably represent discourses of Jotham's reign are chap. ii. and chap. ix. 8-x. 4—stern denuncia-tions which remind us somewhat of Amos. But the allusions in the greater part of chaps, ii.-v. correspond to no period so closely as the reign of Ahaz, and the same remark applies still more self-evidently to vii. 1-ix. 7. Chap. xvii. 1-11 ought undoubtedly to be read in imme-diite connexion with chap. vii. ; it evidently presupposes the alliance of Syria and northern Israel, whose destruction it predicts, though opening a door of hope for a remnant of Israel. The fatal siege of Samaria seems to have given occasion to chap, xxviii.; but the following prophecies (chaps, xxix.-xxxii.) synchronize rather with the reign of Sargon than with that of SLalinaneser. Sargon is one of those kings whose influence upon the fortunes of the chosen people was the strongest, however little we might suspect this from the Old Testament records. The truth is that Sargon as well as Sennacherib invaded Judah ; the date of the invasion of the former appears to be 711. Judah had, in fact, joined that unfortunate coalition, another member of which was the Philistian town Ashdod. The record of the vengeance taken upon Ashdod is preserved in the narrative in chap. xx. ; to that upon Judah no distinct reference is made in Isaiah, but no less than five prophecies, or groups of prophecies, are for the first time fully explained when referred to this king's invasion of Palestine (xiv. 29-32, xxix.-xxxii., x. 5-xi. 16, xxii., and probably i.). Sargon was a successful warrior; and his subjugation of Babylonia, revealed to us by the cunei-form monuments, throws a flood of light upon the obscure but striking little prophecy in xxi. 1-10, so often referred, but referred wrongly, to the Babylonian exile. It has always been a difficulty hitherto to understand the depres-sion with which Isaiah announces his tidings (see xxi. 3). But we can now easily realize the apprehensions of a member of one of the smaller states when their chief bulwark against Assyria had fallen. Merodach baladan, as we know from xxxix. 1 (2 Kings xx. 12), had shortly before opened negotiations with Hezekiah. Isaiah had been opposed to a Babylonian alliance, and fecognized the divine necessity of the tyrant-city's fall, but he felt a human sympathy for the smaller states of whose ruin this was but the prelude. This view of the origin of xxi. 1-10 had already suggested itself to the late Mr George Smith (Transactions of Soc. of Biblical Archseology, ii. 329), but was first raised to the rank of a philological certainty by Professor Kleinert in an important paper in the Theolog-ische Studien und Kritiken for 1877 (pp. 174-79). The oracle on the fall of Babylon was soon followed by pro* phetic warnings to the other neighbouring states, Philistia, Egypt, and' Ethiopia, and probably Moab and Arabia, though it is a growing opinion, for which strong philological reasons may be advanced, that the epilogue in xvi. 13, 14 was attached by Isaiah to an oracle in archaic style by another prophet (Isaiah's hand can, however, be traced in xvi. 46, 5). In fact, no progress can be expected in the accurate study of the prophets until the editorial activity both of the great prophets themselves and of their more reflective and studious successors is fully recognized.

Thus we have already met with two great political events (the Syro-Israelitish invasion under Ahaz, and the first Assyrian invasion under Sargon) which called forth the wonderful spiritual and oratorical faculties of our prophet, and quickened that mysterious power of insight into the future which cannot reasonably be denied (to say the least) to simpler ages and races (see Tholuck, Die Propliete.n und ihre Weissagtmgen, Gotha, 1861). A third still more remarkable invasion remains—that of Sennacherib, to which four of the extant prophecies must undoubtedly be referred, viz., chap, xviii., chap. xvii. 12-14, chap, xxxiii., and chap, xxxvii. 22-35 (or at any rate as far as ver. 32). The last of these is specially interesting, as it has evidently not been so elaborately worked up as the rest of Isaiah's prophecies, and seems to correspond more nearly to a spoken discourse. Its incisiveness is exactly what we should expect from the stirring circumstances under which it purports to have been delivered.

A special reference seems needed at this point to one of the two oracles on Egypt which, in the light of Oriental discovery, seems to be rightly ascribed to the period of Sargon—chap. xix. The comparative feebleness of the style warrants a hesitating conjecture that, though the basis of the prophecy is Isaianic (the points of contact with the prophet's acknowledged works are opposed to any other view of its origin), yet in its present form it has undergone the manipulation of a disciple of the prophet. Isaiah's disciples are indeed expressly referred to by the prophet himself as the guardians of one important prophecy (viii. 16); and, granting an editorial activity, it is the most conservative and current view open to us to suppose that the disciples of the prophet were also his first editors. Every one is familiar with the idea of the editorial process through which the historical books of the Old Testament have passed; it would be culpable indolence to neglect the phenomena which record the similar process through which the other books, especially the prophetic, have passed. It should be added, however, that the Isaianic origin of the epilogue in xix. 18-24 (the point of commence-ment of the epilogue is given differently by some) has been frequently called in question. The chief stumbling-blocks are the precise, circumstantial details of the prophecy, which are thought to be not in the manner of Isaiah. In particular the reference to the " city of destruction," 'ir ka-keres (v.L, " city of the sun," 'ir ha-hheres), has awakened suspicion. Accepting (which it is not necessary to do) the various reading, it would be plausible to regard ver. 18 as a fictitious prophecy in the interests of Onias, the founder of the rival Egyptian temple to Jehovah at Leontopolis (in the nome of fieliopolis), Josephus, Antiq., xii. 9, 7.

II. We are now brought face to face with the question whether the whole of the book which now bears the name of Isaiah was really written by that prophet. The question relates to xiii. 2-xiv. 23, xxiv.-xxvii., xxxiv., xxxv., and xl.-lxvi. (xxi. 1-10 must henceforth be excluded, on objective, historical grounds, from the list of doubtful pro-phecies). It is not necessary here to enter into the history of the controversy (the father of which may be said to be the subtle-minded Aben Ezra). Nor will it be necessary to spend much time on the well-worn but inconclusive arguments of the older critics. The existence of a tradi-tion in the last three centuries before Christ as to the authorship of any book is (to those acquainted with the habits of thought of that age) of but little critical moment; —the Sophenm or students of Scripture in those times were simply anxious for the authority of the Scriptures, not for the ascertainment of their precise historical origin. It was of the utmost importance to declare that (especially) I iaiah xl.-lxvi. was a prophetic work of the highest order ; this was reason sufficient (the Sophenm may have had other reasons, such as phraseological affinities in xl.-lxvi., but this was sufficient) for ascribing them to the royal prophet Isaiah. When the view had once obtained currency, it would naturally become a tradition. The question of the Isaianic or non-Isaianic origin of the dis-puted prophecies (especially xl.-lxvi.) must be decided on grounds of exegesis alone. There are indications among critics, bred in very different schools, of a growing percep-tion of this truth. We therefore simply chronicle the fact that the older critics appeal to Ezra i. 2 (interpreted by Josephus, Antiq., xi. 1, 1-2), to the Septuagint version of the book (produced between 260 and 130 B.C.), in which the disputed prophecies are already found, and to the Greek translation of the Wisdom of Jesus, the son of Sirach, which distinctly refers to Isaiah as the comforter of those that mourned in Zion (Ecclus. xlviii. 24, 25). It will be remembered that our prophet himself flourished in the 8th century B.C., and that the Babylonian captivity intervened.

The fault of the combatants (for there has been far too much animosity on both sides) in the controversy as to the origin of what we may call, for brevity's sake, II. Isaiah (including all the disputed prophecies) has been that each party has only seen " one side of the shield." It will be admitted by philological students that the exegetical data supplied by (at any rate) Isa. xl.-lxvi. are conflicting, and therefore susceptible of no simple solution. (In other words, Isa. xl.-lxvi. cannot have been written as it stands either by Isaiah or by a prophet at the close of the exile.) This remark applies, it is true, chiefly to the portion which begins at Hi. 13. The earlier part of Isa. xl.-lxvi. admits of a perfectly consistent interpretation from first to last. There is nothing in it to indicate that the author's standing-point is earlier than the Babylonian captivity. His object is to warn, stimulate, and console the captive Jews, some full believers, some semi-believers, some unbelievers or idolaters. At lii. 13 new phenomena begin to show themselves, indicative, not indeed of a changed standing-point, but at least of another date and pen. No doubt an author may change his style, writing in a different mood ; we must at all events suppose that the author (whoever he may have been) was in a different tone of miud when he wrote so " hardly, obscurely, and awkwardly" (Delitzsch) as in lii. 13-liii. [Ewald is bolder. He traces this passage to an anonymous prophet of the reign of Manasseh, to whom are also due xl. 1, 2 (?) and lvi. 9-lvii. 11 ; and it must be owned that the style of the latter is equally harsh with that of lii. 13, <fcc.] III. But let us devote a somewhat closer attention to the easier and more intelligible portion of the last twenty-seven chapters. It will amply remunerate us ; for there is no more striking specimen of prophetic rhetoric in the Old Testament. More particularly, it will be well to study continuously chaps, xl.-xlviii., which evidently form a section by themselves, introductory to that which begins at chap. xlix. They have one leading idea—the great crisis impending over Babylon and Israel. Babylon and her gods must fall, that Israel may rise again with the glorious function of giving a religion to the world. The develop-ment of this idea is full of contrasts and surprises: the vanity of the idol-gods and the omnipotence of Israel's helper, the sinfulness and infirmity of Israel and her high spiritual destiny, and the selection (so offensive to patriotic Jews, xlv. 9, 10) of the heathen Cyrus as the instrument of Jehovah's purposes, as in fact His Messiah or Anointed One (xlv. 1), are brought successively before us. [The prophet, however, does now and then speak as if Jehovah Himself would interpose to help His people, see xlii. 13, &c] Hence the semi-dramatic character of the style. Already in the opening passage mysterious voices are heard crying, " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people " ; the plural indicates that there were other prophets among the exiles besides the author of Isa. xl.-xlviii. Then the Jews and the Asiatic nations in general are introduced trembling at the imminent downfall of the Babylonian empire. The former are reasoned with and exhorted to believe; the latter are contemptuously silenced by an exhibition of the futility of their religion. Then another mysterious form appears on the scene, bearing the honour-able title of " Servant of Jehovah." Who this personage may be is much disputed, and naturally enough; for while, according to xliii. 1, he may " in some sense be called" Israel, it is clear from xliii. 8 that in another sense he is perfectly distinct from Israel. This is a paradox to which this, the first book as it may be called of the Prophecy of Israel's Restoration, does not supply the key. All that we learn from this portion is that Jehovah has removed the two chief obstacles to Israel's accomplish-ment of its destiny, the one by a free pardon, the other by raising up Cyrus as the instrument of the national regenera-tion.

The section which begins at chap. xlix. is written (a< first, at any rate) in the same delightfully flowing style as its predecessor. We are still among the exiles at the close of the captivity. But the new book has one peculiarity, viz., that Babylon and Cyrus are not mentioned in it at all. [True, there was not so much said about Babylon as we should have expected even in the first book ; the paucity of references to the local characteristics of Babylonia is one of the negative arguments urged in favour of the Isaianic origin of the prophecy.] Israel himself, with all his incon-sistent qualities, becomes the absorbing subject of the prophet's meditations. The section opens with a soliloquy of the " Servant of Jehovah," in which the same paradox meets our view which we discovered in the earlier books; the " Servant of Jehovah " is addressed as Israel, and yet is shortly afterwards distinguished from that people. The immediate prospects of Israel seem now to be overclouded ; but the prophet " bates not heart nor hope." He comforts Zion with the thought of the unchanging love of God : " Can a woman forget her sucking child," &c. (xlix. 1, comp. li. 12, 13). Then his tone rises, Jerusalem can and must be redeemed; he even seems to see the great divine act in process of accomplishment. Is it possible, one can-not help asking, that the abrupt description of the strange fortunes of the " Servant"—by this time entirely personal-ized—was written to follow chap. lii. 1-12 1

The whole difficulty arises from the prevalent assumption that chaps. xl.-lxvi. form a whole in itself. Natural as the feeling against disintegration may be, the difficulties in the way of admitting the unity of chaps. xl.-lxvi. are insurmountable. Even if, by a bold assumption, we grant the unity of authorship, it is plain upon the face of it that the chapters in question cannot have been composed at the same time or under the same circumstances; literary and artistic unity is wholly wanting. But once admit (as it is only reasonable to do) the extension of Jewish editorial activity to the prophetic books, and all becomes clear. Just as the historic records were filled out and adapted to the religious wants of later ages, so too were the prophetic. Orthodoxy loses nothing by the admission ; for why should not the same Spirit of wisdom which, as the church believes, inspired the prophets, have vouchsafed all needful gifts to the " sons of the prophets "—the prophetically-minded Sopherlm? Even the lowest degree of inspiration, as Rudolf Stier remarks, is one of faith's mysteries. But we are not now concerned with orthodoxy, but only with the religious records of the Israelites. The record before us gives no information as to its origin. It is without a heading, and by its abrupt transitions, and honestly pre-served variations of style, invites us to such a theory as we are now indicating.

There are portions of Isa. xl.-lxvi. of Palestinian origin, and some of them composed previously, others subsequently, to the exile. These are partly imbedded in, partly appended to, a work written at the close of the exile by a true though literary prophet, well acquainted with the more archaic and less purely literary prophet Isaiah, but not without numerous peculiarities of his own. These insertions and appendices are seven in number. The first (a) is lii. 13-liii., which, as Ewald (who pointed the way which later critics have to follow) rightly felt, proceeds from a time of per-secution. It should be taken in connexion with (b) lvi. 9-lvii., which is in the same harsh but strong style, and has a large num-ber of distinct historical data. " The strikingly Palestinian char-acter of the scenery in lvii. 5, 6, the presumed reference to perse-cution in lvii. 1, and the correspondence of the sins imputed to the people with pre-exile circumstances," seem to favour a reference to the persecution of Manasseh. (So Ewald, Bleek, and even Luzzatto, wdio ascribes all the rest of the book to Isaiah.) It must be admitted that a religious persecution set on foot by Manasseh is not directly affirmed in the Old Testament; but it is a legitimate inference from a combination of passages, and it were hypercriticism to doubt it. Next comes (c) a short prophecy complete in itself (lvi. 1-8), directed against the Jewish pride of race. The circum-stances presupposed are manifestly neither those of the age of Isaiah nor yet those of the latter part of the exile :—(1) the temple is in existence, ver. 5 ; (2) a special duty is inculcated (Isa. xl. and the following chapters are entirely taken up with infusing a new spirit into the Jews ; the correction of details is left to the future); and (3) this duty is one which was specially enforced in the age of Jeremiah (xvii. 19-27) and in that of Nehemiah (Neh. xiii. 15-22). If we further consider the apprehensions of exclusion from religious privileges expressed by the eunuchs, we can hardly doubt that the period of Nehemiah (when proselytes began to gather to Jerusalem) is that to which this prophecy belongs—a period specially charac-terized by legal rigour (see Neh. xiii.). Another isolated prophecy (d) is chap, lviii. Its practical, hortatory tone reminds us of lvi. 1-8, and the stress laid upon fasting—the true fasting of the heart— points equally to the post-exile period. See Zech. vii. 5 (comp. viii. 19); Joel ii. 12, 13. (It is here assumed that the book of Joel is a work of the Persian period. Nothing but the habit of looking at each book of Scripture separately, instead of in connexion with those of similar style and contents, hinders this theory from attain-ing a more general prevalence.) Whether this prophecy comes from the same author, or simply from the same school, as lvi. 1-8, it is neither possible nor of any importance to determine. From the same school, too, if not from the same author, must have proceeded
(e) chap. lix. It has no distinct connexion wdth chap, lviii., but the tone is similar. The first part of the chapter presents affinities with the book of Proverbs (a favourite subject of study during or after the exile, when, as it would seem, the introductory chapters, with their glowing portraiture of life in a metropolis, were prefixed).





(f) The prophecy in chap, lxiii. 1-6 is one of the most obscure in the prophetic literature. It would indeed not be hopeless to assign a probable date, but this would depend upon a consideration of other prophecies (notably Joel and Malachi), for which we have not space here. Suffice it to point out the eschatological apocalyptic tone which prevails in it. How unlike it is to the honied rhetoric of him whom we are accustomed to call the Second Isaiah : " It is certainly a strange phenomenon, this reference to a great battlefield in Edom, when the grand object of II. Isaiah is to help the Jews to realize their coming deliverance from Babylon. It creates a serious difficulty for those who maintain that II. Isaiah was written at one time and under one set of impressions. The complications of the problems of Biblical criticism are only beginning to be adequately realized" (The Prophecies of Isaiah, ii. 99). At present lxiii. 1-6 is an isolated passage, but it has affinities with lix. 156-20, and with chap, xxxiv., and it is probable that chaps, xxxiv., lix., and lxiii. 1-6 were occasioned by the same contemporary circumstances. The gorgeousness of the theophany reminds us of Ezekiel and of the Apocalypse.

With regard to the rest of chaps, xl.-lxvi., one general remark seems necessary. It is only the inveterate habit of reading lxiii. 7-lxvi. as a work relating to the close of the exile that prevents us from seeing how inconsistent its tone and details are with this presupposition. Ijooking at it with eyes that strive to be impartial, we cannot resist the impression that it has not only come down from the rsstoration period, but that it was written at different parts of that period. Let us pursue the examination of the sections separately.

(g) Chaps, lxiii. 7-lxiv. This consists of " thanksgiving, penitence, and supplication in the name of the pious portion of the Jewish nation.' The tone is exactly that of the Lamentations;
the desolation of the temple and of the Jewish cities (lxiii. 18, Ixiv. 10, 11) is described with all the emotion of an eye-witness. The style of the section is unusually abrupt.

(h) Chap. lxv. The subject-matter is "alternate threatening and promise. Most commentators regard this chapter as the answer
of Jehovah to the [prayer of the] church [in chaps, lxiii., Ixiv.]."
But there are grave objections to this view. "The divine speaker
makes not even a distant allusion to the difficulty stated in the
foregoing prayer." Observe, too, that in chap. Ixiv. the church
speaks as representing the nation, whereas in chap. lxv. the national
union is described as broken by open idolatry. The sins referred
to in vers. 3-5 and 11 are at least in part characteristic of Canaan
rather than Babylonia ; and so also is the reference to the vintage
in ver. 8. On the other hand, there are passages in vers. 11-25
which have been thought to point to the period of the exile,—e.g.,
"that forget my holy mountain " (ver. 11), and the entire descrip
tion of the new Jerusalem. We admit that one of the exiles migb t
have written such passages, but it is more probable that they were
written by one of the returned Jew_s. The actual condition of the
new Judaean state was very far from corresponding to the glorious
predictions of chap. Ix. What more natural than that prophetic
voices should have continued to point to the future for the fulfil-
ment of those predictions ? [Hence we can account for the parallel
between lxvi. 12 and lx. 4. Note in passing that the figure in lx.
16 has received a different application in lxvi. 11 ; the writer o'
chap. lxvi. is familiar with the works of his predecessors, and use
them with freedom.] As to the phrase "that forget my holy mountain," a similar one occurs in ver. 5 of Ps. cxxxvii., which is generally admitted to belong to the restoration period. A phraseological argument for a post-exile date may at any rate be deduced from the words " the God of Amen" (lxv. 16), which point to an age in which liturgical forms containing the word Amen were abundant.

(i) Chap. lxvi. This chapter has peculiar difficulties, and we must take it in two parts, vers. 1-4 (or 1-5) and 5-24 (or 6-24). (1) Verses 1-4 are highly perplexing. Everywhere else in II. Isaiah the existence of a temple is assumed to be a necessity for the highest religious life (see xliv. 28, lvi. 7, lx. 7, lxvi. 20, 21). In these four verses alone the prophet appears to assume a position of hostility both to it and to the sacrificial system. The temple appears to be unbuilt, and the writer to be opposed on principle to its re-erection. It is not at all impossible that a religious Jew should have taken up this position. In the central portion of the book of Enoch the second temple is boldly denounced, and the offerings of those who worshipped in it are called "unclean," on the ground that the rebuilding ought to have been postponed till the kingdom of Israel had been set up in the ends of the earth (lxxxix. 73, xci. 13). If, therefore, we follow appearances, we are bound to regard vers. 1- 4 as a separate fragment, interpolated by the latest editor. The fatal objection to such an hypothesis comes from ver. 5, which unites two phrases peculiar—the one to the section vers. 1-4, the other to the section vers. 6-24. It is evidently a designed link between the two parts of the prophecy in chap, lxvi., and as evi-dently is not the work of a mere manipulating scribe, but of the author. We must therefore interpret vers. 1-4 on the analogy of the famous passage Jer. vii. 22, which seems to discountenance sacrifices altogether, but in reality only condemns them when gone through as mere forms (see Jer. xxxiii. 18). (2) Verses 5-24 con-sist, like chap, lxv., of alternate threatening and promise. The threatening is mainly addressed to the hostile Gentiles, but partly also to the idolatrous Jews ; and the idolatrous practices denounced (ver. 17) are the same as those in lxv. 4, 5 (initiation into heathen mysteries and eating "unclean" food). The temple has been rebuilt, ami the sacrificial system in some form has been restored,— such at least appears the most natural interpretation of the allusions in vers. 6, 20, 21.

On the whole, we seem to be led to the following conclusions with regard to (g), (h), and (i) :—first, that the passage lxiii. 7-lxiv. is entirely distinct from the prophecies in the midst of which it occurs, and that it was probably written early in the exile by one of the Jews left behind in Palestine; and, secondly, that the whole of chaps, lxv. and lxvi. proceed from one author, though they were certainly not written continuously. A comparison of ver. 6 with Joel iii. 12-16, and also of the contexts of both passages, suggests that chap. lxvi. (and consequently lxv.) was written by a contem-porary of Joel (i.e., well on in the Persian period).
As the result of our digression, we are enabled to do better justice to what may be called the second book of the prophecy of Israel's restoration. Chap. Hi. 13-liii. is based upon an early work, descrip-tive, however, as it would seem, not of the martyrdom of an Isaiah or a Jeremiah, but, even in its original form, of an ideal (or, as orthodoxy holds, ideal and historical) personage, the first sketch as it were (Job, in the poem which bears his name, is another) of the Servant of Jehovah. But it is proper to speak here with great hesi-tation. ~So analysis can be skilful enough to bring out a descrip-tion of a mere martyr ; it is simply on linguistic grounds that we assume the existence of this remarkable section in some form or other, but a form not very unlike the present, at a date previous to that of the other portraits of the "Servant." By omitting it, how-ever, we obtain a much improved connexion ; chap. liv. forms the finest of all possible sequels to lii. 9-12. The transition to the next chapter is, it must be confessed, a little abrupt, and indeed the remainder of the book has the appearance of not having been com-pletely worked up; it was the more natural, therefore, for the Sopherim to insert or append to it prophecies mostly of later origin. But no one can fail to observe how greatly chap. lx. gains by being read in connexion with lv. 12, and especially with liv. 1, &c.

In chap. lxi. the '' Servant of Jehovah " appears for the last time (if it be not rather the prophet who is the speaker) ; and chap. Ixii. closes the second book of the prophecy of restoration with the wel-come summons to depart from Babylon.

IV. We have said nothing hitherto, except by way of allusion, of the disputed prophecies scattered up and down the first thirty-nine chapters of the book of Isaiah. It is indeed not absolutely necessary to devote a special survey to them here; the data which they furnish are found (with important additions) in the second part of the book. There is only one of these prophecies (putting aside xxi. 1-10) which may, with any real plausibility, be referred on exegetical grounds to the age of Isaiah, and that is chaps, xxiv.-xxvii. The apparent grounds are (1) that accord-ing to xxv. 6 the author dwells on Mount Zion ; (2) that Moab is referred to as an enemy (xxv. 10); and (3) that, at the close of the prophecy, Assyria and Egypt are men-tioned as the principal foes of Israel (xxvii. 12, 13). But the explanation was long ago seen by Ewald, viz., that the author, being less richly endowed with the prophetic spirit, has interwoven precious fragments of old prophecies. The tone and spirit of the prophecy as a whole point to the same late apocalyptic period to which chap, xxxiv. and the book of Joel in a faint degree, and much more strikingly the last chapter (at any rate) of the book of Zechariah, may unhesitatingly be referred.

A word or two may perhaps be expected on Isa. xiii., xiv., and xxxiv., xxxv. (a suggestion has already been offered with regard to the latter prophecy). These two oracles agree in the elaborateness of their description of the fearful fate of the enemies of Jehovah (Babylon and Edom are merely representatives of a class), and also in their view of the deliverance and restoration of Israel as an epoch for the whole human race. There is also an unrelieved sternness, which pains us by its contrast with Isa. xl.-lxvi. (except passages of this portion which are probably not homo-geneous with the bulk of the prophecy). They have also close affinities with Jer. L, 1L, a prophecy (as Budde has proved on philological grounds) of post-exile origin, but are apparently earlier than that longest and least striking of all the prophecies.

The literary characteristics of the acknowledged pro-phecies of Isaiah have been thus summed up by Ewald :—

'' The thing of chief importance is, that we are wholly unable to name a special peculiarity and favourite manner of style in the case of Isaiah. He is not the specially lyric, or the specially elegiac, or the specially rhetorical aiicf monitory prophet, as, e.g., Joel, Hosea, Micah, in whose writings a special manner is predominant; but every kind of style and every variation of exposition is at his com-mand to meet the requirements of his subject; and this it is which in respect of style constitutes his greatness, as well as generally one of his most prominent excellences. His fundamental peculiarity is only the exalted majestic repose of style, proceeding from the full and sure command of his subject. This repose by no means requires that the language should never be more violently agitated, and not blaze up where the subject demands it; but even the most extreme agitation is bridled by this repose in the background, and does not pass beyond its proper limits, and soon returns with higher self-mastery to its regular flow, not again to leave it, ii. 9—iii. 1, xxviii. 11-23, xxix. 9-14."—The Prophets, Eng. transl., ii. 10, 11.

This representation has sometimes been misused in the interests of a party to show that Isaiah's versatility was absolutely unlimited, and that no conceivable prophecy, in which affinities with Isaiah can be traced, may not have proceeded from his pen. But Isaiah, though more versa-tile than his predecessors (sovra gli altri come ciquila vola), was not unmindful of that " limitation" which, Goethe assures us, is the first sign of mastership. He was not a Proteus, and the characteristics mentioned above by Ewald cannot be transferred without large modifications to the prophecy of Israel's restoration.

We sink to a lower level when we pass to the disputed prophecies interspersed in chaps, i.-xxxix., which can-not lay claim to a high perfection of style, with, however, one exception, and that such a striking one that it is difficult to believe that the passage always occupied its present position. The ode on the fall of the king of Babylon in chap. xiv. 4-21 is as brilliant with the glow of lyric enthusiasm as the stern prophecy which precedes it is, from the same point of view, deficient; it is too faint a eulogy which Ewald gives to it in the words, " a poetical and highly finished lyric." It is in fact worthy to be put by the side of the finest passages of chaps, xh-lxvi.,—of those passages which irresistibly rise in the memory when we think of "Isaiah."—But what shall we say—what language is adequate to the divine beauty of such passages as Handel linked to music almost as divine : " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God"; " He shall feed His flock like a shepherd " ; " He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth " 1 Silver tones of which the ear is never weary; honied rhetoric, which thrills, like a subtle odour, even those who have lost the key to its meaning. It should be remembered, however, that these delightful passages are mostly confined to that part of chaps, xl.-xlvi. which has, on the whole, a literary and aesthetic unity. Among the passages which we have indicated as of doubtful age and origin there are but two which are generally remembered. One of these has apparently been adopted and restricted by the great prophet of chap. xl.-xlviii., and is therefore not abso-lutely an exception. The other has commended itself not so much to the affections as to the imagination of later readers (we refer to the wonderfully picturesque vision in lxiii. 1-6).

V. From a religious point of view there is a wide differ-ence, not only between the acknowledged and (taking them altogether) the disputed prophecies of the book of Isaiah, but also between those of the latter which occur in chaps, i.-xxxix., on the one hand, and the greater and more striking part of chaps, xl.-lxvi., on the other. We may say, upon the whole, with Dr Duhm, that Isaiah represents a synthesis of Amos and Hosea, though not without important additions of his own. Isaiah's "place in the affections of all succeeding generations is due to the fact that he was, perhaps, the first to preach in distinct terms the doctrines of a personal Messiah and of the spiritual brotherhood of all nations. He foresaw that, in the awful ' day of Jehovah' which former prophets had announced, few even of the chosen people should pass the ordeal, and so deep was his conviction of this that he expressed it in the name of one of his sons, Shear Yashub, ' a remnant shall return.' But he was too ' bold,' as St Paul says, to terminate his speculations at so early a point. By com-bining the doctrine of the few that should be saved with that of the necessary triumph of Jehovah's kingdom, he was prepared to receive a new and grand revelation. He saw in prophetic vision an exalted personage ascending the throne of David, who should attract the whole world into voluntary submission to his rule And thus to the twofold elementary doctrine of the sole divinity of Jehovah and the awful strictness of the impending judgment a fellow-truth was added, viz., that of the personal Messiah, which developed finally into the crowning doctrine of the spiritual equality of all nations " (Cheyne, The Book of Isaiah Chronologically Arranged, Introduction, p. xi.).





This very conception, which is, as it were, the blossom of the revelations of the acknowledged portions of Isaiah, is conspicuously wanting in the disputed prophecies; or rather, this particular form of the conception has disap-peared. Not the ideal king of Israel, but a figure vari-ously described, and susceptible (as experience proves) of different explanations, is the centre of the longest and grandest of this cognate group. Who is the " Servant of Jehovah" 1 Certainly not, in the proper sense of the word, the Messiah ; certainly not, in all the extant descrip-tions, an individual. Both these explanations must from the very first be excluded as absolutely opposed to a philo-logical exegesis. The following are, in brief, the leading opinions which have been held :—(l) Hitzig's, that the Jewish people in exile is referred to, as distinguished from the heathen ; (2) that of Paulus and Maurer, that the Ser-vant is the pious portion of the people; (3) that of Gesenius, that the prophetic order is intended; (4) that of Hofmann, combining (2) and (3), that it means Israel, the prophetic people, suffering on behalf of the heathen world; (4) that of Oehler and Delitzsch, that " the conception of the Servant of Jehovah is, as it were, a pyramid, of which the base is the people of Israel as a whole, the central part Israel 'according to the Spirit,' and the summit the person of the mediator of salvation who arises out of Israel." [Delitszch, however, who now traces this historical person, the Christ of the gospels, in the strongly individualizing portrait in chap, liii., formerly considered the subject of that chapter to be the spiritual Israel ; see his article in Zeitschrift fur lutherische Théologie, 1850, pp. 29-42.] This last theory has been advocated on partly new grounds by the writer of this article in his work called The Pro-phecies of Isaiah, ii. 194—200, where it is further admitted that though the Servant of Jehovah, even in the most individualizing passages, is not properly speaking the Messiah, yet there are features in the description borrowed from the earlier portraits of the Messianic king, features which, regarded strictly, may be inconsistent, but which serve to keep up the historical continuity of the announce-ment of salvation. " It was natural and necessary that the die from which the coins with a royal stamp had proceeded should be broken, the royalistic form of the Messianic conception having become antiquated with the hopeless downfall of the kingdom of Judah ; but equally so that fragments of the die should be gathered up and fused with other elements into a new whole."

Among the other characteristic religious peculiarities of the disputed as opposed to the acknowledged prophecies are—(1) the emphasis laid on the uniqueness, eternity, creatorship, and predictive power of Jehovah (xl. 18, 25, xli. 4, xliv. 6, xlviii. 12, xlv. 5, 6, 18, 22, xlvi. 9, xlii. 5, xlv. 18, xli. 26, xliii. 9, xliv. 7, xlv. 21, xlviii. 14); (2) the ironical descriptions of idolatry (Isaiah in the acknow-ledged prophecies only refers incidentally to idolatry), xl. 19, 20, xli. 7, xliv. 9-17, xlvi. 6 ; (3) the personality of the Spirit of Jehovah (mentioned no less than seven times, see especially xl. 3, xlviii. 16, lxiiL 10, 14) ; (4) the influ-ence of the angelic powers (xxiv. 21) ; (5) the resurrection of the body (xxvl 19) ; (6) the everlasting punishment of the wicked (lxvi. 24); (6) vicarious atonement (chap. liii.).

It is unnecessary to do more than chronicle the singular attempts of the Jewish scholar, Dr Kohut, in the Z. D. M. G. for 1876 to prove a Zoroastrian influence on chaps, xl.-lxvi. Were this proved, of course the date of these chapters would be determined. But the baselessness of this hypothesis has been shown by M. de Harlez in the Revue des questions historiques, and by Dr Matthes in the Theologisch Tifdschrift.

There is, however, an equally striking difference among the disputed prophecies themselves, and one of no small moment as a^ subsidiary indication of their origin. We have already spoken of the difference of tone between parts of the latter half of the book ; and, when we compare the disputed prophecies of the former half with the Prophecy of Israel's Restoration, how inferior (with all reverence be it said) do they appear ! Truly " in many parts and many manners did God speak " in this composite book of Isaiah ! To the Prophecy of Restoration we may fitly apply the words, too gracious and too subtly chosen to be translated, of M. Renan, " ce second Isaïe, dont l'âme lumineuse semble comme imprégnée, six cent ans d'avance, de toutes les rosées, de tous les parfums de l'avenir " (L'Antéchrist, p. 464) ; though, indeed, the common verdict of sympathetic readers sums up the sentence in a single phrase—" the Evangelical Prophet." The freedom and the inexhaustibleness of the undeserved grace of God is a subject to which this gifted son constantly returns with "a monotony which is never monotonous." The defect of the disputed prophecies in the former part of the book (a defect, as long as we regard them in isolation, and not as supplemented by those which come after) is that they emphasize too much to a Christian feeling the stern, destructive side of the series of divine interpositions in the latter days. But we will not attempt to exhaust a subject on which any thoughtful reader is competent to speak.


VI. How is it, then, that so many Biblical students (especially in Great Britain and America) still adhere to the view, so profoundly opposed to philological exegesis, that one man wrote the whole of the book of Isaiah ? Partly no doubt from a fear lest, in giving up the view of Isaiah held in the time of Christ, the orthodox theology should be insensibly undermined. The fear was at one time justified, i.e., in the early stages of the critical controversy ; but the fact that orthodox theologians and men of deep Christian faith do hold the composite origin of Isaiah Is a practical proof that the fear is no longer opportune. Another reason is a certain instinctive aversion to the questioning of time-honoured traditions, and an aesthetic abhorrence of disintegration—a bad reason, for (1) ancient traditions are seldom entirely wrong, and it is the element of truth which gives them vitality, and (2) disintegration is only a preliminary to reconstruction. A third reason, often operating in combination with the second, is worthy of all respect. It is that in reading the disputed prophecies, especially those which form the latter part of the book, conservative critics (if we may be allowed the phrase) are conscious of a number of peculiarities both of phraseology and (in chaps xl.-lxvL) of historical allusion which raise associations of the age of Isaiah. We have already referred to the latter class of peculiarities. They are indeed of more importance than the former, which can obviously be explained by the profound influence which so great a prophet as Isaiah must have exercised, and demon-strably did exercise, on his successors. The view which has been indicated above as the most just to exegetical facts, and to what we know from other sources of the editorial activity of the Sopherlm, is that the latter part of the book of Isaiah is of an origin as composite as the former. It is, however, of course our duty to mention the prevalent explanation of the conservative school of critics, viz., that the allusions to the scenery of Palestine and to the religious condition of the Jews of a time prior to the exile are Isaiah's involuntary betrayals of his authorship. It is admitted that there are numerous passages which presuppose the fall of Jerusalem and the residence of the exiles in Babylonia. But it is urged that the other class of passages are so many providentially permitted indications of the true date of the author, who was in reality the subject of an extraordinary ecstatic impulse, which almost, but not altogether, effaced his consciousness of the present. To quote from the same able and interesting sermon referred to above, "The Isaiah of the vexed and stormy times of Ahaz and Hezekiah is supposed in his latter days to have been transported by God's Spirit into a time and a region other than his own.

The voices in his ears are those of men unborn, and he lives a second life among events and persons, sins and suffering, and fears and hopes, photographed some-times with the minutest accuracy on the sensitive and sympathetic medium of his own spirit." The objection is, first, that this theory is extremely artificial; secondly, that the only allusions greatly worth considering occur in masses in those portions only of the second part of Isaiah which, for a combination of reasons, should most probably be separated from the remainder; and thirdly, that this theory does not do justice to those passages which contain indications at once of a Palestinian locality and of a post-exile date.

But if sufficient account has not yet been taken by many anti-traditionalist critics of the data which conflict with the Babylonian origin of Isa. xl.-lxvi. as a whole, it must in fairness be admitted that conservative critics have not adequately appreciated those which make distinctly for a Babylonian origin. Take Isa. xl.-xlviii. by itself (it must be allowed to form a whole), abstracting from all considerations of modem controversy, and no one would dream of assigning it to any other time than the close of the exile, any more than he would of ascribing " By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept" (Ps. cxxxvii.) to the authorship of David. There might have been a case for the Isaianic origin of "Go ye out from Babylon " (xlviii. 20), if the passage had only run, " Behold, in days to come my people shall go forth from Babylon." There might have been a case for such an origin of " Thus saith Jehovah to Cyrus" (xlv. 1), if the passage had but run thus, " Behold the days come that I will raise up a king, Cyrus by name." But no on°. fresh from the perusal of the other great prophetic writings would imagine such a thing as that Isaiah had died to his actual present, and lived again among men still unborn.

A few points of detail have still to be considered.

(a) To the argument from phraseology, on which Knobel in particular has laid great stress in the anti-traditional interest, it is impossible to do justice here. A bare list of names would not be luminous, and the lists given by recent English conservative critics warn us of the difficulty of constructing such catalogues fairly. None of these critics appear quite to understand the object of the appeal to phraseology, or to be aware that the mere peculiarity of a word is not important, unless it points to a different linguistic stage from that of the historical Isaiah, or unless its sense is one that implies a great development of thought. It appears to us indeed that the argument from phraseology is not one of much critical moment; but on this part of the subject we must refer to more special treatises.

(b) Nor can we satisfy ourselves that the existence of parallels botwreen passages of the disputed prophecies and passages of pre-exile prophets—a chief bulwark of the conservative theory as presented by Delitzsch—is a fact of much greater value. In some respects indeed these parallels are most interesting and instructive. They help us to form a fuller idea of the literary and prophetic physiognomy of the prophecies. They show us too "how instinct-ively the prophets formed as it were a canon of prophetic Scrip-tures for themselves, and also how free they were from the morbid craving for originality " But on which side the originality lies it is not always easy for a candid mind to determine ; one must be on one's guard against a prejudice in favour of the more brilliant genius, and against thinking that the more strikingly expressed passage is necessarily the more original. For has not a brilliant genius been known to copy word for word from an extremely ordi-nary writer ? Having said thus much by way of caution, let us add some of the more striking parallels to passages of Isa. xl.-lxvi. in prophets earlier than the close of the captivity.

Isa. xxxiv. 6, 7 ; comp. Jer. xlvi. 10.
Isa xl. 13, 14, ,, Jer. xxiii. 18.
Isa. xl. 18 20, I j
and parallels, i " Isa. xli. 14, )
Isa. xliii. 5, > ,, Jer. xxx. 10, xlvi. 27.
Isa. xliv. 2, J
Isa. li. 15, „ Jer. xxxi. 35.
Isa. lv. 3, ,, Jer. xxxii. 40.
Isa. lvi. 9, ,, Jer. xii. 9.
[sa. Ivii. 9, „ Ezek. xxiii. 40, 41.
Isa. lviii. 7, „ Ezek. xviii. 7, 16.
Isa. li. 19, „ Nah. iii. 7.
Isa. li. 20, ,, Nah. iii. 10.
Isa. Iii. 1, 7, „ Nah. i. 15 (Heb. ii. 1).
Isa. xlvii. 8, 10, ,, Zeph. ii. 15.
Isa. lxvi. 20, „ Zeph. iii. 10.

(c) "With regard to the historical appendix to the first part of the
book of Isaiah (chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix.), we must be, as usual, on our
guard against admitting too simple a solution. Knowing, as we do,
from 2 Chr. xxxii. 32 (comp. ix. 29) that the prophet wrote one,
if not more than one, historical monograph, it would be natural to
assume that this appendix is an extract from that monograph.
When we examine it more closely, however, we see that this cannot
be the case. " This is shown (1) by the variations with which the narrative is repeated in 2 Kings xviii. 13-xx. 19, and which are, generally speaking, very peculiar, and therefore probably more authentic. See especially Isa. xxxviii., noticing the abbreviation of vers. 4 and 5, the addition of the Psalm of Hezekiah, and the wrong position given to ver. 21. (2) By the circumstance that the style of Isa. xxxvi. andxxxvii. (2 Kings xviii.-xix. 37) contains nothing to distinguish it from that of many other portions of the two books of Kings, which are evidently extracted from the royal chronicles, and that the style of Isa. xxxviii. (exeludingthe Psalm) and xxxix. closely resembles that of the final editor of the historical books (Genesis-2 Kings)" (The Book of Isaiah Chronologically Arranged, p. 102). To this it may now be added that the first verse of the narrative contains a glaring mistake (which also profoundly affects the sequel), which can only be accounted for on the supposition that a long period had elapsed since the events referred to. We refer to the substitution of "the fourteenth year (of King Hezekiah)" for "the twenty-seventh," and the confusion of the invasion of Sargon with the later one of Sennacherib (see The Prophecies of Isaiah, vol. i. p. 192, &c). In short, the case of this appendix appeal's to be similar to that of the passage vii. 1-ix. 7, which can be shown to have assumed its present form not till long after the utterance of the prophecies imbedded in it. That the great prophecy enshrined in our historical appendix is in the highest degree Isaianic we have already pointed out; it were to be wished that there were equal grounds "for assuming that the so-called Psalm of Hezekiah were really the work of that pious and literary king. The probability is that we have in this Psalm the work of one of those inspired but less original Sopherim of whom we have spoken above.

(d) Isaiah, it is admitted, was a prophet and an historian ; was he also a psalmist ? His twelfth chapter (if really by him) is in fact a psalm; But Hitzig goes further, and conjectures that Psalms xlvi-xlviii. were composed by our prophet on the successive overthrows of the Syrians, Philistines, and Assyrians (Die Psalmen, i. 255-6). All, however, that can safely be inferred from the parallelisms which Hitzig produces is that the prophecies of Isaiah exercised a strong influence on contemporary or later writers, especially those which dealt with the great turning points in the history of the nations. A still larger harvest of affinities may be reaped in the later psalms, as Canon Elliott has well shown (Speaker's Commen-tary, iv. 506-512), and it will be noticed that only one of them, and that not one of the closest, relates to the acknowledged pro-phecies of Isaiah. Similarity of style is not an infallible proof of unity of authorship.

(e) One of the most important contributions to the right estimate of II. Isaiah (as also of the book of Daniel) has been the discovery of two cuneiform texts relative to the fall of Babylon and the religious policy of Cyrus. The results are not favourable to a mechanical view of prophecy as involving absol ute accuracy of state-ment on points not essentially connected with moral and religious truth. Cyrus appears in the unassailably authentic cylinder in-scription "as a complete religious indifferentist, willing to go through any amount of ceremonies to soothe the prejudices of a sus-ceptible population." He preserves a strange and significant silen ce with regard to Ormazd, the supreme God of Zoroastrianism, and in fact, as Professor Sayce and M. Halevy have shown, cannot have been a Zoroastrian believer at all. "Cyrus, on whom the prophet of Jehovah lavishes such honourable titles,—Cyrus, who, the pro-phet even appears to hope, may be won over to the true faith, is a polytheist and an idolater." On the historical and religious bearings of these two inscriptions the reader must be referred to the essay on "II. Isaiah and the Inscriptions" in the work already several times quoted from. It must be carefully remembered that "the inscription, when rightly understood, is not in conflict with the prophecy, but only with a gloss upon the prophecy," and that our estimate of prophecy must be brought into harmony with facts, not facts with our preconceived theory of prophecy.

In conclusion, it seems not inopportune to remind the student that the investigation of the critical problems of the Old Testament is not mere guess work, but proceeds on the sure basis of comparison and analogy. We have got beyond the stage at wdiich the books of the Old Testament were regarded as so many isolated phenomena, and reached the conception of a literature, with closely related parts, slowly and very gradually brought into its present shape. The coordination in an historical outline of the results already attained would be the most effectual justification of the critical analysis of the Old Testament. It is worse than idle, however, to meddle with analytical work without a preliminary discipline in the disinterested exegetieal study of the texts.

Commentaries, &c—1. On the entire book :—Calvin, Comm. in Jes., 3d. ed., Geneva, 1570 : Vitringa, Comm. in libr. proph. Jesajx, 2 vols., Leeuwarden, 1714-28, and 1724 ; Lowth, Isaiah: a new translation, with a preliminary dissertation and notes, London, 1778 ; Gesenius, Der Pr. Jes. übersetzt, &c, Leipsic, 1821 ; Hitzig, Der Proph. Jes., Heidelberg, 1833 ; Ewald, Die proph. des A. B., 2d. ed., 3 vols., Göttingen, 1867-68 (in course of translation) ; Knobel, Der Pr. Jes., 4th ed. (by Diestel), Leipsic, 1872 ; Drechsler, Der Pr. Jes., 3 vols., Stuttgart and Berlin, 1845-57; Delitzsch, Der Pr. Jes., 3d. ed., Leipsic, 1879 , Nagelsbach, Der Pr. Jes., in Lauge's Bibelwerk, Bielefeld and Leipsic, 1877; Alexander, Com-mentary, ed. Eadie, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1865 ; Kay, in Speaker's Commentary, vol. v., London, 1875 ; Cheyne, The"Book of Isaiah Chronologically Arranged, London, 1870, and The Prophecies of Isaiah, 2 vols., London, 1880-81. 2. On portions of the first part:— Meier, Der Pr. Jes. I. (on chaps, i.-xxiii.), Pforzheim, 1850 ; Roerda, " Annotationes . . , ad vaticinia Jes. i.-ix. 6" (in Juyn-boll's Orientalia, vol. i. p. 67, &c.) ; Stade, De Jes. vaticiniis jEthio-picis diatribe, Leipsic, 1873. 3. On the second part:—Stier, Jesajas nicht Pseudo-jesajas, Barmen, 1850 ; Seinecke, Der Evangelist des alten Testamentes, Leipsic, 1870. 4. On the critical question of the second part:—Delitzsch, "Schlussbemerkungen,"in Drechsler's Com-mentar, Theil iii. ; Rutgers, De echthcid van de twecde gedeelte van Jesaja, Leipsic, 1866 ; Klostermann, Zeitschr. fur lutherischc Theo-logic, 1876, p. 1, &e. 5. Monographs and generally illustrative works: —Hengstenberg,Christologie des alten Testaments, vol. ii. (trans-lated in Clark) ; Strachey, Jewish History and Polities in the Times of Sargon and Sennacherib, 2d. ed., London, 1874, 8vo ; Ncubauer and Driver, The Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah according to the Jewish Interpreters, 2 vols., Oxford, 1877 ; Urwick, The Servant of Jehovah, a Commentary, Edinburgh, 1877 ; Caspari, Beitrdge zur Einleitung in das Buch Jes., Berlin, 1848 ; Payne Smith, The Authenticity and Messianic Interpretation of the Prophecies of Isaiah, Oxford and London, 1862 ; M'Gill, "Critical Remarks on Isaiah, xviii. 1, 2," in Journal of Sacred Literature, 1862, pp. 310-324 ; Cheyne, Notes and Criticisms on the Hebrew Text of Isaiah, London, 1868 ; Lagarde, Semitica, i, Gbttingen, 1878 (pp. 1-32 contain critical notes on Isaiah i.-xvii.). (T. K. C.)


Footnotes

See The Prophecies of Isaiah (1880-81), vol. ii. The View main-tained is that the idolatrous practices referred to, so far as they are distinctively Palestinian, were renewed by some of the Jews on their return to Palestine. We are apt to forget the local character of ancient cults, also the mixed motives of men. The Jews wdio returned, and still more the succeeding generations, cannot have been uniformly as pious and believing as Ezra.

The Rev. G. G. Bradley, Master of University College, Oxford, in an academical sermon on the Book of Isaiah, preached February 18, 1875.

For similar arguments of minor importance, see Cheyne, The Prophecies of Isaiah, vol. ii. pp. xv., 202-