Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/394

 378 ISAIAH &quot;Salvation Jehovah&quot;; Shear-Yashub, &quot;a remnant shall return &quot; ; and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, &quot; swift (swiftly cometh) spoil, speedy (speedily cometh) prey &quot; (vii. 3, viii. 3, 4, 18). He lived at Jerusalem in the &quot;middle&quot; or &quot; lower city &quot; (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 &quot;schools&quot; or companies &quot; of the prophets &quot; 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 Sopheritn (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 Hengstenberg 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 &quot; in the death-year of King Uzziah,&quot; may possibly have arisen out of notes put 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 diate connexion with chap. vii. ; it evidently presupposes the alliance of Syria and northern Israel, whoso 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 Saro;on than with that of Shalmaneser. Sarsxm 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 trutli 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 recognized 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 &amp;gt;Soc. of .Biblical Archaeology, 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 nnd 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 Fropheten und ihre Weissayunyen, Gotha, 1861). A third still more remarkable invasion remains that of Sennacherib, to which four of the extant prophecies must undoubtedly bo 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 lias 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