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I

ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM

ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM

IN THE

AUTHORISED ENGLISH VERSION

WITH
AN INTRODUCTION, CORRECTIONS, AND NOTES

MATTHEW ARNOLD
FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
AND FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE

LONDON
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1883

Printed ly R. & R. Clakk, Edinburgh.

INTRODUCTION.
The time approaches for the revised version of
the Old Testament to make its appearance. Be
fore it comes, let us say to ourselves and say to
the revisers that the principal books of the Old
Testament are things to be deeply enjoyed, and
which haye been deeply enjoyed hitherto. It is
not enough to translate them accurately ; they
must be translated so as also to be deeply enjoyed,
and to exercise the power of beauty and of senti
ment which they have exercised upon us hitherto.
Correct information by itself, as Butler profoundly
says, is " really the least part " of education ; just
as religion, he adds, " does not consist in the
knowledge and belief even of fundamental truths."
No ; education and religion, says Butler, consist
mainly in our being brought by them " to a certain
temper and behaviour." Now, if we are to be
brought to a temper and behaviour, our affections
must be engaged ; and a force of beauLty or of
senjdment is requisite for engaging them.
Correct rendering is very often conspicuously
absent from our authorised version of the Old
Testament ; far more often and far more con
spicuously, indeed, than from our authorised
B

INTROD UCTION.

version of the New. Correct information as to the
meaning, therefore, far oftener fails us in reading
or hearing the Old Testament ; and the need for
revision is great. But what a power is in the words
as they stand, imperfectly as we may often compre
hend them, impossible as it may often be to attach
a clear meaning to them ! It can be said for them,
at any rate, that they connect themselves with
truths which have a surpassing grandeur and worth
for us, and that they lend themselves to the con
nexion with a splendour of march and sound worthy
of the great objects with which we connect them.
Take, for instance, the two short lessons from Isaiah
which we hear in church on Christmas Day. Hardly
any one can feel that he understands them clearly
as he hears them read ; indeed, as they now are, they
cannot be understood clearly. But they connect
themselves strikingly and powerfully with the
great event which the festival of Christmas com
memorates, and they have a magnificent glow
and movement. " For every battle of the warrior is
with confused noise and garments rolled in blood ;
but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire."
No one of us understands clearly what this means,
and indeed a clear meaning is not to be got out of
the words, which are a mistranslation. Yet they
delight the ear, and they move us. Professor
Robertson Smith brings an amended translation :
"For the greaves of the warrior that stampeth
in the fray, and the garments rolled in blood,
shall be cast into the fire as fuel for the flame."
Yes, we understand ; but the charm of the thing
is rudely shaken. Mr. Cheyne brings us a transla-

INTRODUCTION.

tion more close and correct still : " For every boot
of him that trampleth noisily, and the cloak rolled
in blood, are for burning, the fuel of fire." The
charm, has altogether vanished, if we receive these
words to supersede the old words ; the charm has
vanished, never to return.
Mr. Cheyne and Professor Robertson Smith
read their Isaiah in the original Hebrew, and in
the Hebrew they enjoy him. Their translation of
him, like their notes and commentaries on him, are
designed to give correct and exact information as
to his meaning. But such correct information is in
the present case, as Butler has told us, " really the
least part" of the matter ; the main thing is the
effect of a wonderful work of poetry and prophecy
upon the soul and spirit. And this they them- y
selves, as I have said, get by reading it in the ^
Hebrew. But the mass of English readers, who
know no Hebrew, how are they to get as fully as
possible, for their soul and spirit, the effect of this ^
wonderful work ? Granted that they get some of
it even from the present imperfect translation in our
Bibles ; but we must allow that they do not and
cannot get it at all fully. Such translation as that
of which I have quoted specimens above will not
give it them more fully. It will give them more
correct knowledge of Isaiah's meaning ; but his
effect upon their soul and spirit it will even impair,
and render less than it is now. What is to be
done ? Can nothing be done to give it to them
more fully ?
Such is the question which, with the revised
version of the New Testament in my^hands, and

INTROD UCTION.

the revised version of the Old Testament in pro
spect, I keep asking myself about Isaiah. Taking
him merely as poetry and literature, — which is not, ^
I will readily add, to take him in his entirety, — I
consider the question very important. I rate the
value of the operation of poetry and literature upon
men's minds extremely high ; and from no poetry
and literature, not even from our own Shakespeare
and Milton, great as they are and our own as they
are, have I, for my own part, received so much delight
and stimulus as from Homer and Isaiah. To
know, in addition to one's native literature, a great
poetry and literature not of home growth, is an in
fluence of the highest value ; it very greatly widens
one's range. The Bible has thus been an influence
of the highest value for the nations of Christendom.
And the effect of Hebrew poetry can be preserved
and transferred in a foreign language, as the effect
of other great poetry cannot. The effect of
Homer, the effect of Dante, is and must be in
great measure lost in a translation, because their
poetry is a poetry of metre, or of rhyme, or both ;
and the effect of these is not really transferable.
A man may make a good English poem with the
matter and thoughts of Homer or Dante, may
even try to reproduce their metre, or to reproduce
their rhyme ; but the metre and rhyme will be in
truth his own, and the effect will be his, not the
effect of Homer or Dante. Isaiah's, on the other
hand, is a poetry, as is well known, of parallelism ;
it depends not on metre and rhyme, but on a
balance of thought, conveyed by a corresponding
balance of sentence ; and the effect of this can be

INTROD'UCTION.

transferred to another language. Hebrew poetry
has in addition the effect of assonance and other
effects which cannot perhaps be transferred ; but
its main effect, its effect of parallelism of thought
and sentence, can. I ask myself, therefore, this
question : How can the effect of this best of a
great poetry and literature, an effect of the highest
worth and power, an effect which can in a great
degree be preserved in translation, and which our
old version does preserve, but renders imperfectly
— how, to the mass of English people, who do
not know Hebrew, may the effect of Isaiah be so
rendered and conveyed as that they may feel it
most fully ?

First and foremost in importance, for the
attainment of such an end, is this rule : — that the
old version is not to be departed from without
necessity. It comes from a great flowering-time
of our literature, and has created deep and power
ful sentiments ; it is still the prime agent on which
we have to rely for the attainment of our prime
object, that Isaiah may be enjoyed fully. Increase
of knowledge enables us to see mistakes in the old
version and to correct them ; but only mistakes,
real mistakes, should be corrected, and they should
be corrected gently. I once said that I would
forbear to alter the old version of Isaiah where it
made sense, whether the sense made was that of
the original or not. I went too far ; where the
sense given by the old version is another sense
from that of the original, alteration is required.

INTRODUCTION.

But we should use a large and liberal spirit in
judging what constitutes a departure from the
sense of the original. If the general sense is
preserved, we should be satisfied. We should not
regard ourselves as called to a trial of skill in
which he succeeds best who renders the original
most literally and exactly. At least, if we choose
to engage in a trial of skill of such a kind, we
should say to ourselves that all we can hope to
produce in this way is what may be called aids to
the study of Isaiah, — capable of being of great use,
perhaps, to students, but the mass of mankind
are not students, and the mass of mankind
want something quite different. To meet the
wants of the mass of mankind, our trial of skill
must be, to succeed in altering as little as possible
and yet altering enough, and in altering enough
and yet leaving the reader with the impression
that we have not altered at all, or hardly at all.
Only thus can our revised version, under the
actual conditions of the case, have charm ; and it
is essential that it should have charm.
The first chapter of Isaiah really and strictly
requires, for our purpose as thus laid down, three
changes and three changes only. In verse 17,
relieve the oppressed, should be correct the oppressor ;
in verse 25, thy tin, should be thine alloy ; and in
verse 31, for the maker of it, we should read his
work. Two or three other very slight changes
besides may be desirable, in order to bring out the
effect better ; but these are the only changes which
can be called indispensable. To re-write the chapter,
if the reader we have in view is the great public.

INTRODUCTION.

not the sifting and curious student, is fatal. If the
authorised version had succeeded in giving the
chapters which follow as happily as in giving the
first chapter, the task of a reviser would be easy
indeed. But this high standard of success is not
maintained ; and consequently, in the chapters which
follow there is much more need of change than in
the first chapter. Still our rule should always be
to alter as little as possible. What can be gained,
or rather what is not lost, by changing, " But Ahaz
said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord,"
into, " But Ahaz said, I 'will not ask, neither will
I put Jehovah to the test"? Here no change was
needed at all. Where change is needed, our ideal
should be a case such as one which is presented in the
sixteenth verse of the thirtieth chapter, where the
change of a letter'" is all that is required to effect a
needful improvement, and to effect it admirably.
Undoubtedly the use of Jehovah or Jalive,
instead of The Lord, is inadmissible- in a version
intended, not to be scanned by students, but to
be enjoyed by the mass of readers. Jehovah and
Jahve have a mythological sound, and to substitute
them for The Lord disturbs powerful sentiments
long and deeply established already. The Eternal
is in itself a better equivalent than The Lord for
Jehovah; it is adopted in one of the French
versions. And in many of the familiar texts
which a man has present to his mind and habitu
ally dwells upon, he will do well to adopt it ; he
will find that it gives to the text a fuller and
deeper significance. But there are combinations
^ Fly ioxflee.

INTRODUCTION.

to which it does not lend itself without some
difficulty, and to which TJie Lord lends itself belter ;
and at any rate, to banish this accustomed reading,
and to substitute for it everywhere The Eternal,
would be too radical a change. There would be
more loss to the sentiment, from the disturbing
shock caused to it by so great a change, than gain
from the more adequate rendering. ,
The old translators of Isaiah, with the notion
that a prophet is, above everything, a man who
makes supernatural predictions, lean always to the
employment of the future tense ; they use it ex
cessively. But it is unnecessary and pedantic. to
change always, in order to mark that a prophet is
not, above everything, a man who makes super
natural predictions, their future tenses into presents.
The balance of the rhythm is often deranged and
injured by the correction, without any compensating
advantage. For, in truth, the present, the past,
and the future, are all of them natural and legiti
mate tenses of prophecy. Sometimes the prophet
may be said to intend them all, to use them all ;
and often one of them will serve to render him as
well as another. " Therefore my people are gone
into captivity, because they have no knowledge :
and their honourable men are famished, and their
multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore hell
hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth
without measure : and their glory, and their mul
titude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall
descend into it." \ Here preterites, presents, and
futures are mingled together; but the general
¦' Isaiah, v, 13, 14,

INTRODUCTION.

sense is adequately given, and nothing is gained
by endangering the rhythm of these fine verses
through turning all the tenses into presents. But
sometimes the futures of the old version hinder our
adequately seizing the sense, and then they are to
be altered. " Behold, their valiant ones shall cry
without : the ambassadors of peace shall weep
bitterly." ' The magnates of Judah have been
sent to Lachish to make Hezekiab's submission
to Sennacherib ; the ambassadors are returned
and are at the gate of the capital, bringing with
shame and consternation the tidings that the
Assyrian, after accepting their submission and
presents, insists further on the surrender of Jeru
salem. " Behold, Judah's valiant ones cry without :
the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly." The
prophet is not predicting ; he sees and hears the
envoys weeping at the city gate. In a case of
this kind the future tense impairs the effect, and
must be altered.

The first requisite, then, if we are to feel and
enjoy the book of Isaiah aright, is to amend the
authorised translation without destroying its effect.
And the second requisite is to understand the
situation with which the book deals, the facts to
which it makes reference, the expressions which
it employs ; — to do this, and to do it without losing
oneself in details. All sorts of questions solicit
the regard of the student of Isaiah : questions of
language, questions of interpretation, questions of
1 Isaiah, xxxiii, 7.

INTROD UCTION.

criticism, questions of history. The student has
the Assyrian inscriptions offering themselves to
him on one side, and the great controversy as to
the arrangement of the book of Isaiah offering
itself to him on the other. Now, all kinds of
knowledge are interesting, some kinds of know
ledge are fascinating ; and the book of Isaiah
invites us towards kinds of knowledge which are
peculiarly fascinating. Biit there is the same
danger here which there is in the apparatus of
philological study which accompanies and guards
for us, in our boyhood, the entrance upon Greek.
There is the danger of our losing ourselves in pre
liminaries, and of our being brought, by the pursuit
of an impossible perfection, to miss our main
design. Perfection is the ideal, thoroughness in
preparation is most precious. But there is the
danger, also, of forgetting how short man's time
is, how easily he is diverted and distracted from
his real aim, how easily tired. How many boys
learning Greek never get beyond that philological
vestibule in which we are kept so assiduously,
never arrive at Greek literature at all ! The adult
student of Isaiah is exposed to the risk of a like
misfortune. The apparatus to Isaiah is so immense,
that the student who has to handle it is in danger
of not living long enough to come ever to enjoy
the performance of Isaiah himself
Four names stand out from among the names
of Isaiah's commentators. They are all of them
the names of Germans. Mr. Cheyne is the first
Englishman who has given us a commentary on
Isaiah of like seriousness and sound knowledge

INTRODUCTION.

with theirs, and he would himself be the foremost
to profess his obligations to them. The four
Germans are Vitringa, Gesenius, Ewald, Delitzsch ; ^
and of these four, again, two stand out most pro
minently, — Ewald and Delitzsch. Both are in
valuable ; to both we owe all gratitude. Ewald
kindles and inspires us most, Delitzsch instructs
us most. But at what a length he instructs us,
and with what discursiveness 1 Life being so
short as it is, and the human mind so shallow a
vessel, can it be well to make us read a closely-
printed page of imperial octavo about the different
kinds of wounds and their treatment, in connexion
with the "wounds and bruises and putrefying
sores " ^ spoken of by Isaiah ? Can it be neces
sary, in connexion with Isaiah's phrase, " though
your sins be as scarlet," ^ to give us another like
page on the mystical character of red and white
to this sort of effect : " Blood is the colour of fire
and therefore of life ; blood is red, because life is
a fire-process ?"
No, it is not necessary ; and we must be care
ful not to let ourselves be lost in excursions of
this kind. Still, it is very requisite to understand
the situation with which the book of Isaiah deals,
the facts to which it makes reference, the expres
sions which it employs. For instance, the mystic
names of Isaiah's sons, Shear-jashub and Maher-
shalal-hash-baz, are of the very highest significance.
One of them, the name of Shear-jashub, governs
the whole book. Yet not one in twenty among
ordinary readers or hearers of Isaiah knows what
1 Isaiah, i, 6. ^ /fo,/., i, ig.

INTRODUCTION.

they mean. However, the chief drawback to our
right enjoyment of Isaiah is our ignorance of that
whole situation of things which the book supposes,
rather than our ignorance of the meaning of par
ticular expressions. Verses and passages from
Isaiah are far more generally known, and far more
present to the minds of most of us, than passages
from the Greek and Latin classics. But they stand
isolated in our minds, without our having any firm
grasp of the facts to which they refer, or any clear
view of the situation of things which they suppose.
Cultivated people have in general a much clearer
and more connected notion of the important
moments and situations in Greek and Roman
history, — of the Persian war, the rise of Athens,
the Peloponnesian war, the Sicilian expedition, the
Roman Republic, the Punic wars, Csesar and the
Empire, — than they have of the historical moment
and situation with which Isaiah had to deal. But
we cannot appreciate Isaiah unless we have before
our minds this moment and situation.
Its history is well given in Professor Robertson
Smith's recent work on the Prophets ; but our pur
pose requires a narrative which will go into two or
three pages, not a narrative spreading itself through
a series of chapters. Let us try here to sketch
the situation. There is some uncertainty in the
chronology ; the old received dates of the Jewish
kings have in some cases to be corrected from data
furnished by the Assyrian inscriptions. But, at any
rate, the period with which we have to deal is the
last half of the eighth century before Christ. From
750 to 700 B.C. is the period of Isaiah's activity.

INTRODUCTION. 13

The chief countries concerned are Judah, Israel,
Assyria, Syria, Egypt, Ethiopia. Babylon for
most of this period is as yet, though again and
again rising in revolt, a vassal kingdom of Assyria.
The great personages of the history are four suc
cessive kings of Assyria, — Tiglath-pileser, Shal
maneser, Sargon, and Sennacherib ; two successive
kings of Judah, — Ahaz and Hezekiah ; the king
of Syria, Rezin ; Pekah, king of Israel ; the king
of Egypt, whom Isaiah calls by the general
dynastic name of Pharaoh only ; and the king
of Ethiopia. The main events of our fifty years'
period are the conquest of Samaria, the capital
of the kingdom of Israel, by the Assyrians in 721
B.C., and the failure of Sennacherib to possess
himself of Jerusalem in 701.
Of the final scope of Isaiah's ideas, so far as
we can apprehend it, and of the character and
grandeur of his prophetic deliverances, I do not
here speak. Here I only deal with his prophecy
so far as our presentment of the historical situation
requires. Isaiah's centre of action was Jerusalem.
He was of noble, by some accounts of even royal
birth. To his native country of Judah the long
reign of Uzziah, the grandfather of Ahaz, had
been a time of great power, wealth, and prosperity.
The rival kingdom of Israel, under the reign of
the second Jeroboam in part contemporary with
the reign of Uzziah, had likewise been conquering,
rich, and prosperous. Never since the death of
Solomon, and the separation of the ten tribes from
Judah, had the two kingdoms enjoyed so much
prosperity. But when Isaiah began his career.

14 INTRODUCTION.
the tide of the northern kingdom's prosperity had
long since turned. The king of Israel was now
the subordinate ally of the king of Syria ; and
the two kings, fearing extinction by their great mili
tary neighbour on the north, Assyria, which was
pressing hard upon them, desired to unite Syria,
Palestine, and Egypt in resistance to Assyria's
progress, and for this purpose to force the king of
Judah into an alliance with them. At the end of
Uzziah's reign the design was already formed. It
was maturing during the reign of his son Jotham.
And about the year 732 B.C., soon after the acces
sion of Jotham's son, Ahaz, the kings of Syria and
Israel appeared with an army in Judah, resolved
to bend Ahaz to their will.
The outward and seeming prosperity of Judah
had continued until the death of Jotham. On this
outward prosperity the eyes of Isaiah in his early
manhood rested ; but it exercised no illusion upon
him, he discerned its unsoundness. He saw his
country with " an upper class materialised," — an
upper class full of cupidity, hardness, insolence,
dissoluteness. He saw the lower class, the bulk
of the people, to be better, indeed, and more free
from vice than the upper class ; he saw it attached
in its way to the old religion, but understanding
it ill, turning it into a superstition and a routine,
admitting gross accretions and admixtures to it ;
— a lower class, in short, fatally impaired by bad
example and want of leading. Butler's profound
words, so true for at any rate the old societies of
the world, cannot but here rise to the mind : 
" The behaviour of the lower rank of mankind has

INTRODUCTION. 15
very little in it original or of home growth ; very
little which may not be traced up to the influence
of others, and less which is not capable of being
changed by that influence. This being their con
dition, consider now what influence, as well as
power, their superiors must, from the nature of
the case, have over them. And experience shows
that they do direct and change the course of the
world as they please. Not only the civil welfare
but the morals and religion of their fellow-creatures
greatly depend upon them."
In his first deliverances,^ soon after the year
740, Isaiah denounced as unsound the still exist
ing outward prosperity of Judah, his country.
Ahaz came to the throne ; and the young king, and
the governing class surrounding him, now began
freely to introduce from the neighbouring nations
worships and rites, many of which had for their
vicious adopters the attraction of being also dis
solute or cruel orgies. Then fell the blow of
invasion. The kings of Syria and Israel overran
the country of Judah ; and, amid the consternation
pervading Jerusalem, the famous meeting of Isaiah
with Ahaz took place " at the end of the conduit of
the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller's field." ^
Three names, which are to be found in the
chapter relating Isaiah's interview with Ahaz and
in the chapter immediately following it, sum up
for us the judgment of Isaiah upon this emer
gency, and indeed upon the whole troublous future
discovering itself to his thoughts. These three
names are Immanuel, Shear-jashub, Maher-shalal-
' Isaiah, ii-v. ^ Hid., vii, 3.

1 6 INTRODUCTION.
hasJi-baz. Immanuel means, as everybody knows,
" God with us." Shear-jashub and Maher-shalal-
hash-baz are the names of Isaiah's two sons. The
meaning of Shear-jashub is given in a subsequent
chapter : " The remnant shall return." Return,
not in the physical sense, but in the moral, — -be
converted, come to God. The third name, Maher-
shalal -hash -baz, means, " Spoil speedeth, prey
hasteth." Spoil speedeth, prey hasteth. The kingdoms
which the chosen people has made for itself, their
world which now is, with its prosperities, idolatries,
governing classes, oppression, luxury, pleasures,
drunkards, careless women, systems of policy, strong
alliances, shall pass away ; nothing can save it.
Strokes of statesmanship, fluctuations of fortune,
cannot change the inevitable final, result. The pre
sent invasion by Rezin and Pekah is nought. The
kings of Syria and Israel will disappear ; their plans
will be frustrated, their power destroyed. But no '
real triumph is thus won, no continuance secured,
for Judah as it is, for Judah's king and governing
classes as they are. Assyria, the great and colossal
power, the representative and wielder of "the
kingdoms of this world " now, as Babylon and
Rome became their representatives afterwards,—
Assyria is behind. Swiftly and irresistibly this
agent of the Eternal is moving on, to ruin and
overwhelm Judah and Judah's allies. " He shall
pass through Judah ; he shall overflow and go
over."-^ Spoil speedeth, prey hasteth.
And, nevertheless, God is with us. In this
^ Isaiah, viii, 8.

INTRODUCTION. 17
Jerusalem, in this city of David, in this sanctuary
of the old religion, God has been known, righteous
ness loved, the root of the matter reached, as they
never have been in the world outside. The great
world outside has nothing so indispensable to
mankind, no germ so precious to mankind, as the
" valley of vision " has. Therefore " he that be
lieveth shall not take flight ;" there is laid by the
Eternal " in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried
stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation."^
God is with us.
But it is the remnant shall return ; the remnant,
and the remnant only. Our old world must pass
away, says Isaiah to his countrymen ; God is
with us for the making of a new world, but how
few of us may take part in that making ! Only
a remnant! a remnant sifted and purged by sharp
trial, and then sifted and purged afresh ! " Even
if yet there shall be a tenth, it shall return and
shall be burned ; but as a terebinth tree, and as
an oak, whose substance is in them when they are
cut down, so the stock of that burned tenth shall
be a holy seed."^ Against this seed the kingdoms
of the world, the hosts of self-seeking and un
righteous power, shall not finally prevail ; they shall
fail in their attacks upon it, they shall founder.
It shall see a king of its own, who shall reign
not as Ahaz, but "shall reign in righteousness;"
it shall see a governing class, not like the ministers
and nobles of the court of Ahaz, but of whom " a
man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind
and a covert from the tempest;" where "the vile
1 Isaiah, xxviii, 16. ^ Ibid., vi, 13.
C

INTRODUCTION.

person shall no more be called noble, nor the
worker of mischief said to be worthy." It shall
see the lower people with a religion no longer
blind and gross ; " the tongue of the stammerers
shall be ready to speak plainly." ¦'• Amidst such
a society it " shall see the king in his beauty, shall
behold the land spreading very far forth." ^ The
reinnant shall return.
The final scope of these ideas of Isaiah, and
what is really their significance and their greatness,
I do not, as I have said, attempt to discuss here.
But they give us, just as they stand, the clue to
his whole book and to all his prophecy. Let us
pursue our summary of the historical situation with
their aid. They will enable us to make very brief
what remains to be said.
Ahaz heard, but was not convinced. He had
a more short and easy way than Isaiah's. He
put himself into the hands of the king of Assyria.
In 731 B.C. Tiglath-pileser, after chastising the
kingdom of Israel, crushed the kingdom of Syria,
and received the homage of Ahaz at Damascus.
Shalmaneser, Tiglath-pileser's successor, determined
to make an end of the subjected but ever restless
kingdom of Israel, and formed the siege of
Saraaria, which was taken by his successor Sargon
in 721. Three years before this destruction of
the northern kingdom, Hezekiah had succeeded
his father Ahaz upon the throne of Jerusalem.
Hezekiah was a man of piety ; but the governing
class remained as they were before, and controlled
the policy of their country. Judah was tributary to
1 Isaiah, xxxii, i, 2, 5, 4. 2 md., xxxiii, 17.

INTROD UCTION. 1 9
Assyria, and owed to Assyria its deliverance from a
great danger. But the deliverer and his designs were
extremely dangerous, and made Judah apprehen
sive of being swallowed up presently, when its turn
came. The neighbouring countries, — Phoenicia on
the north, Moab, Ammon, and the Arabian nations
on the east, Philistia on the west, Egypt and
Ethiopia on the south, — shared Judah's apprehen
sions. There were risings, and they were sternly
quelled ; Judah, however, remained tranquil. But
the scheme of an anti-Assyrian alliance was
gradually becoming popular. Egypt was the
great pillar of hope. By its size, wealth, resources,
pretensions, and fame, Egypt seemed a possible
rival to Assyria. Time went on. Sargon was
murdered in 705; Sennacherib succeeded him.
Then on all sides there was an explosion of revolts
against the Assyrian rule. The first years of
Sennacherib's reign were spent by him in quelling
a formidable rising of Merodach Baladan, king of
Babylon. The court and ministers of Hezekiah
seized this opportunity for detaching their master
from Assyria, for joining in the movement of the
insurgent states of Palestine and its borders, and
for allying themselves with Egypt.
All this time Isaiah never changed his view
of the situation. The risings were vain, the
Egyptian alliance could not profit. Of his three
great notes he kept reiterating the sternest one,
and insisting upon it : Spoil speedeth, prey hasteth.
He repeated it to Moab and Arabia, to Tyre and
Philistia, to Egypt and Ethiopia. The great
stream of Assyrian conquest will assuredly sub-

INTRODUCTION.

merge you, he said, and you cannot escape from
it. — But of what avail, then, could Egypt and
Ethiopia be to help Judah .-'
Nay, and the stream must overflow Judah also.
In the year 701, Sennacherib, victorious in Baby
lonia, marched upon Palestine. For Judah also was
now the note true : Spoil speedetJi, prey hasteth.
But for Judah Isaiah had those two other notes
besides, constantly alternating with the darker
one ; the notes of God with us and of The
remnant shall return. Higher still those notes
rose when the invader appeared in Judsea, con
fident, overbearing, unscrupulous, perfidious, and
demanded the surrender of Jerusalem. Jerusalem,
so Isaiah prophesied, the invader should never
enter ; a disaster should befall him, he should
return in discomfiture to his own land.
Sennacherib's enterprise against Jerusalem pre
sently failed. His own account of the failure is ,
not the same as the Jewish account : any more
than the account of the battle of Albuera in
Napier's history is the same as the account of it
in the Victoires et Conquites de I'Armie Frangaise.
But from the Assyrian account itself it is suffici
ently manifest that the enterprise failed, and that
Sennacherib returned to his own land unsuccessful.
It was a great triumph for Isaiah. And
undoubtedly it gave him for the moment a com- ¦
manding influence, and contributed not a little
to the final accomplishment of religious reforms
which were dear to his heart. Shall we ask
whether it enabled him to behold a king reigning
in righteousness, and a governing class like the

INTROD UCTION.

shadow of a great rock in a weary land ? Shall
we ask whether he even expected it to enable
him to do this } No ; we will not now pursue
further his own conceptions as to the fulfilment
of his own prophecies, — prophecies " impatient,"
as Davison says, "for the larger scope." We
will not interrogate him as to his own view, as
years rolled on with him, of his splendid promises
of Immanuel and of the Remnant. He had put
his Immanuel too soon by seven centuries. Too
soon by far more than seven centuries had he put
his reign of the saints, for it is not come about
even yet. Men, as has been truly said, " are im
patient, and for anticipating things ;" even great
prophets are " for anticipating things." But with
inspired faith and sure insight Isaiah foresaw
Immanuel and the reign of saints ; he foresaw
and foretold them ; he established the ideal of
them for ever. The movement and upshot of
history has, in part, brought his immortal prophecy
true already, and will unfold its accomplishment
more and more. We do well to love the exalted
belief that in nothing will the prophecy of this sub
lime seer finally fail, in nothing will it come short.
At present, however, I do but give a summary of
the historical situation which ought to be ever pre
sent to our minds in reading Isaiah. I will conclude
the summary by saying that he lived on into the
reign of Hezekiab's son Manasseh, and that he is
said to have been put to death by Manasseh. One
tradition attributes his death to offence given to
the fanaticism of a narrow religiosity by his large
and free language. Whether his death was caused

INTRODUCTION.

by the hatred of a religious party, or by the hatred
of that governing class which in former reigns he
had so unsparingly assailed, we shall never know.
A Puritan terror, an aristocratical terror, a Jacobin
terror,^ — a great soul may easily become an object
of fear and hatred to each and all of them. By
any one of them he may easily perish. In one or
the other of them, probably, Isaiah sank.
The events and personages of the historical
situation of which I have thus given the rapid
summary should be as familiar to us, if we are
ever rightly to enjoy Isaiah, as the events and
personages of those passages of history with
which we are most conversant. 3-
The third requisite for a full enjoyment of
Isaiah is to have the book so arranged that we
can read his prophecies in their right order and
in their right connexion. It is demonstrable that
the book is not so arranged now ; and although
in re-arranging it there is danger of being fantastic
and rash, and many critics have succumbed to this
danger, yet some re-arrangement is absolutely neces
sary, and, if made with sobriety, fairness, modera
tion, and caution, must be of signal benefit.
Whoever has once acquainted himself with
the history of the times during which Isaiah
lived, must be struck with the close connexion
in which his first thirty-nine chapters mostly
stand with that history. They are called forth
by it and turn upon it. The prophet announces
judgments and blessings to come, he delineates

INTRODUCTION. 23
an ideal future ; but the positive history with
which he deals is the history passing before his
eyes, — the names, actors, and events are those of
that history. He does not profess to exhibit the
positive history of future centuries.
In the twenty -seven chapters which conclude
the Book of Isaiah, and in certain chapters
occurring amongst the first thirty-nine, this course
of proceeding is changed. The names, actors,
and events, are no longer contemporary with the
prophet, like Ahaz, Hezekiah, the Assyrian inva
sion ; or else ideal creations like Immanuel. No,
they are actual names and events of a time more
than one hundred and fifty years after Isaiah's
death, — Cyrus, the Medes and Persians, the fall
of Babylon. Instead of insight profound indeed
and most admirable, but still natural, we have
supernatural prediction.
People say : As a fact, supernatural predictions
are not made, names of future actors in human
affairs, details of future events, are not foreknown.
And the conviction of this has led a great and
ever-growing majority of serious critics to conclude
that in our present Book of Isaiah the deliverances
of two distinct prophets have got joined together ;
— the deliverances of one prophet whose centre
was Jerusalem, and who had before his eyes the
events of the year 700 B.C. and of the half
century preceding it, and of another prophet
whose centre was Babylon, and who had before
his eyes the events of a time one hundred and
fifty years later. These critics have been led in
the same way to attribute prophecies in the Book

24 INTRODUCTION.
of Daniel, which were supposed to come from
a Daniel living at the time of the Babylonian
Captivity, to a much later prophet. As a matter
of fact, supernatural predictions are not, it is said,
made. But the point on which I, for my part, de
sire to insist, is a different one. I do not now urge
that supernatural predictions are not, in fact, made,
and that therefore we must separate the latter part of
our Book of Isaiah from the earlier. What I urge is
rather this : by separating the two prophets now
joined together in our Book of Isaiah, and by
letting each prophet deal with his own proper time,
we enable ourselves to feel the Book not less deeply
and fully, but more ; we increase our enjoyment of it.
It is characteristic of the prophet whom we
call Isaiah of Jerusalem to deal with the history
passing before his eyes, and to show his insight
by seizing that history's tendency and sure issue.
His regards are on Jerusalem in the latter half of
the eighth century before Christ ; as the regards
of the prophet who follows him, in the last twenty-
seven chapters of our Book of Isaiah, are on
Babylon about a hundred and sixty years later.
The younger prophet has several differences dis
tinguishing him from the older. The younger
prophet has more copiousness, pathos, and unction
than his predecessor ; he has less fire, energy,
and concentration. He is much more general ;
and he engages in outpourings, for which the stress
of matter and of exposition allows his predecessor
hardly any room. These are in themselves reasons
for separating the two prophets and for reading
each by himself But a reason far more decisive

INTRODUCTION. 25
is supplied by the incomparably greater effective
ness which each will be found to acquire when
read in connexion with his own time. So incom
parably greater does the effectiveness of the elder
prophet, in especial, become, when he is so read,
that the reader who imagined himself to know
Isaiah previously will be astonished and charmed;
he will feel that he now really knows him for the
first time, so new will be his sense of this great
prophet's beauty and power.
In the last twenty-seven chapters of the Book
of Isaiah we are in another world from the world
of the first part. The centre, as I have already
said, is Babylon, not Jerusalem ; the posture of
events, the state of the world, is quite different.
Above all, the prophet's ideal helper, saviour, and
restorer, is different. With the original Isaiah, he
is a prince of the house of David, a rod out of the
stem of Jesse, a Branch of the Eternal beautiful and
glorious; smiting the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips slaying the wicked.
With the prophet of the last twenty -seven chapters
• he is the Servant whom man despiseth, whom the
people abhorreth, the servant of tyrants; who strives
not, nor cries, nor causes his voice to be heard in
the street. The ideal has been transformed.
Now, to my mind it seems a more impressive
thing, as it is certainly a more natural thing, that
the later ideal should have developed itself, with
the change of time and circumstances, out of the
former, and should have come from a later prophet,
than that both ideals should have proceeded from
one and the same prophet. However, it may be

\/

26 INTRODUCTION.
contended, pursuant to the old fashion of explain
ing these things, that Isaiah in a preternatural
way foresaw the state of the world a hundred and
fifty years after his own death, and himself trans
formed his Messianic ideal accordingly. Religious
people, for the most part, are agreed to say that
they are edified by a belief of this sort ; for my
part, I am simply bewildered by it. But still, o"n -
this supposition, the laTe"r matter is at least kept
separate from the earlier, the two are not jumbled
up together. At the end of the thirty-ninth
chapter there is a pause, and then (though without
one of those prefaces which the original Isaiah
is accustomed in a transition of this kind to em
ploy) the Babylonian Isaiah begins. The march
of the work, as regards order, is at least artistically
natural, if we admit this supposition. But who
can suppose that a writer of Isaiah's genius,
whether he had supernatural prevision or not,
would ever have so perverted the march of his
work, have so spoiled it artistically, as to thrust
in suddenly, without any connexion at all, the
thirteenth chapter and the chief part of the chapter
following, about Babylon and the death of Bel
shazzar, in the midst of chapters relating entirely
to Assyria and to a history nearly two hundred
years before Belshazzar's ; and then again abruptly
to return, towards the end of the fourteenth chapter,
to Assyria and the history of the eighth century
before Christ ? The supernatural itself is less
bewildering than a supposition like this, and to
read Isaiah in so perverse an arrangement greatly
impairs one's enjoyment of him.

INTRODUCTION. 27
But how, then, did the two or more prophets
get joined together ? To understand this, we
must keep in mind that the Book of Isaiah did
not assume its present shape until the time of
Ezra, two hundred and fifty years after the date
of the original Isaiah, and nearly a hundred years
after the fall of Babylon. Ezra edited the sacred
books ; and even critics like Delitzsch, who claim
unity of authorship for the whole Book of Isaiah,
admit that there were interpolations in the books
edited by Ezra. Now, in our Book of Isaiah
itself there is one interpolation so remarkable,
that Delitzsch singles it out and enlarges upon it.
At the beginning of the thirty-sixth chapter it is
said that " in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah
Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all
the defenced cities of Judah." But we know that
Sennacherib's invasion took place in the year
701 B.C., and that this year was not the fourteenth
year of Hezekiah but the twenty-third or twenty-
fourth. In the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth
chapters comes the account of Hezekiab's sickness
and of Merodach Baladan's embassy to him to
congratulate him on his getting well. Now, the
fourteenth year of Hezekiah is quite right as the
year of Hezekiab's sickness, for his reign was
twenty-nine years long, and he reigned fifteen
years after his sickness. It is also quite admissible
as the year of the embassy of Merodach Baladan,
who at that time was in revolt against Sargon
and in special need of Hezekiab's friendship.
Therefore, while certainly the narrative in the
thirty-sixth chapter, as this narrative stood origi-

28 INTRO'DUCTION.

nally, cannot have begun with assigning for its
events the date of the fourteenth year of Hezekiah,
the narrative in the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth
chapters may perfectly well have begun in that
manner, for this narrative relates events earlier by
ten or twelve years than the events of the other.
But Hezekiab's sickness and Merodach Baladan's
embassy were required by the arranger in Ezra's
time to stand last, in order to form the transition
to the Babylonian prophecies of the last part
of the Book. The narratives, therefore, were
transposed, and the date was transferred to the
beginning of that narrative which now stood
first, although for that narrative it is clearly
inadmissible. Delitzsch himself receives this ex
planation of the erroneous date as necessary ; and
it is evidence of an arrangement of contents actually
taking place, at the first authoritative editing of the
Book of Isaiah, — an arrangement more or less
plausible, but erroneous.
Plausible it was, at a time when no man
doubted but that a prophet was, above all, one
who utters supernatural predictions, and when the
rules of due sequence and ordinance for a work
of genius might indeed move the maker of it
himself, but were certainly not likely to "trouble
his arrangers. Isaiah had left his sublime de
liverances to fructify in the minds of his disciples.
One disciple, separated by three or four generations
from the master, but living constantly with his
prophecies and nourished upon his spirit, produced
at the crisis of Babylon's fall a prophecy of Israel's
restoration as immortal as Isaiah's own. This

INTRODUCTION. 29
disciple named not himself Whether he intended
his work to become joined with Isaiah's, and to
pass among men with the authority of that great
name, we cannot know. But his contemporaries
joined the disciple's work with the master's, and
by Ezra's time the conjunction was established.
It was a conjunction which that age might
readily make. The younger prophet, as I have
before said, is without somp of the qualities of the
elder ; he is more given to generalities and to out
pouring. Above all, by his time it had become
evident that the prince of the house of David,
the royal and victorious Immanuel, whose birth
Isaiah announced to be imminent, whose child
hood should witness the chastisement of Ephraim,
whose youth the visitation of Judah, but who in
his manhood should reign in righteousness over a
restored and far-spreading kingdom of the chosen
people, — that this Immanuel's date was put too
soon, and that the characters assigned to him
required, I will not say some change, but some
addition. Isaiah himself, however, had given the
sign and uttered the word on which, for this
addition, the insight of his successor seized. " The
meek',' Isaiah in his picture of the ideal future
had said, " shall increase their joy in the Eternal,
and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy
One of Israel."^ The word was here given. Pos
sessing himself of it, the disciple of Immanuel's
prophet fixed the new ideal of the Servant, de
spised and rejected of men, but anointed and
sent "to preach good tidings unto the meek."^
1 Isaiah, xxix, 19. = Ibid,, Ixi, i.

30 INTRODUCTION.
This stricken Servant's work is the condition of the
victorious Immanuel's reign, and must precede it.
The Jewish nation could not receive the trans
formed ideal. Jesus, Christianity, the destruction of
Judaism, were necessary to its triumph. Neverthe
less the unknown prophet of the Babylonian Cap
tivity had announced it ; and there it henceforth
stood, set up for ever. Mansueti possidebunt terram.
The Jewish nation, I say, could not receive the
new ideal. Yet it could not but be profoundly
stirred and transported by this ideal's unknown
promulgator, although without truly comprehend
ing him. It could not but feel the spirit and
power of Isaiah in his disciple. There was the same
irresistible eloquence, the same elate emotion, the
same puissance of faith and joy. Isaiah was his
inspirer among the prophets, his parent source, his
only eqiial. The conjunction of the disciple with
the master easily followed.
Besides this great prophecy of Israel's restoration
after the fall of Babylon, other shorter prophecies
of a similar date were in circulation. Whether
they proceed from the same author as the great
prophecy which fills the last twenty-seven chapters
of the Book of Isaiah, cannot be determined with
certainty. What is certain is, that even those
which do not manifestly give their own date, yet
lend themselves to the circumstances of the younger
prophet's time better than to those of his prede
cessor's time ; that they do not suit, but mar, the
plan of composition which appears to govern the
original Isaiah's Book ; and that they have, besides,
those characters of generality and of outpouring

INTRODUCTION. 31
which mark, as has been already said, the disciple
rather than the original Isaiah. We shall find
that their effect is felt best if we read them as
subsidiary to the great prophecy which ends the
Book, and as, like that prophecy, the work of a
prophet formed upon Isaiah, but living amid other
events, and a century and a half later ; — a prophet
whose centre was Babylon, and who may most
fitly be called Isaiah of Babylon, as the original
Isaiah, whose centre was Jerusalem, may be called
Isaiah of Jerusalem.
The shorter and isolated prophecies had, like
the great prophecy of Israel's restoration which
now ends our Book of Isaiah, the Isaian elo
quence, the Isaian spirit and power. They, too,
associated themselves in men's minds and affec
tions with the original Isaiah's work, and the
arrangers in Ezra's time finally incorporated them
with it. But as these arrangers placed the great
Babylonian prophecy at the end, where Merodach
Baladan's embassy afforded a natural transition to
it, so they placed the isolated prophecies in the
connexion which they thought most natural for
them. One division of the original Isaiah's pro
phecies consisted of Burdens, or oracular sentences
of doom, pronounced against different nations.
Among these burdens was placed the isolated
prophecy having for its title TJte Burden of
Babylon and celebrating the death of Belshazzar.^
Another division of prophecies consisted of Woes
pronounced upon a number of nations ; and here
1 Isaiah, xiii-xiv, 23. Chapter xxi, 1-12 is of like date, and its
present place is due to the same cause.

32 INTRODUCTION,
were inserted those other single prophecies of the
Babylonian epoch for which insertion was desired,
and which seemed to find here their own rubric
and their most suitable place.
Some change of arrangement, then, we find forced
upon us by regard to possibility, to probability, to
the genius and art of the author with whom we
have to deal. We have to detach from Isaiah of
Jerusalem the great prophecy of restoration which
fills the last twenty-seven chapters. We have to
disengage from him, and to read in connexion
with the restoration prophecy, several shorter single
prophecies which are intermingled with Isaiah's
prophecies in the first thirty-nine chapters. To
these shorter prophecies we may give names from
their subject-matter. Taken in the order in which
they now stand in our Bibles, these prophecies are
as follows -.—The King of Babylon (xiii-xiv, 23) ;
The First Vision of Babylon's Fall (xxi, i-io) ;
Early Days of Return (xxiv-xxvii) ; Edom and
Israel (xxxiv, xxxv). Read where they at present
stand, these prophecies interrupt the natural and
impressive march of Isaiah's work, throw the
attentive reader out, confuse and obstruct our
understanding and our enjoyment. Removing
them from the place where they now stand, and
reading them in another connexion, we are
enabled to enjoy much more these prophecies
themselves, and to enjoy much more, also, the
original Isaiah thus disengaged from them.
Re-arrangement to this extent may be called
necessary. One's first impulse naturally is to re
ceive a book as it comes to us, and from all un-

INTRODUCTION. 33
settlement of it one is averse. But we have to
get over this natural conservatism in the present
case, because so much more embarrassment to our
understanding is created, so much more check given
to our full enjoyment of Isaiah, by rejecting all
re-arrangement than by accepting it. Mr. Cheyne,
who was formerly inclined to follow Ewald in all
his temerities, but who in his recent edition of
Isaiah shows a moderation which, like his learning,
deserves cordial acknowledgment, — Mr. Cheyne
seems now disposed to leave The King of Babylon
and The First Vision in the connexion where in
our Bibles they stand. He still sees that prophets
do not supernaturally mention names and incidents
posterior to their own time. He knows that if
Isaiah of Jerusalem wrote The King of Babylon
and Tlie First Vision, then the subject of these
prophecies cannot be Belshazzar and the tak
ing of Babylon by Cyrus. He is disposed to
think, however, that the prophecies may possibly
relate to the rising, in Sargon's time, of Merodach
Baladan against Assyria, and that they may be
left, therefore, to stand with the contemporary
prophecies of Isaiah. But a greater shock is
given to our sense of probability and possi
bility, our enjoyment is more spoiled, by having
to dissociateTlig~exIi6rtation to Elam and Media
from the Medo-Persian troops of Cyrus and to
think it fortuitous, by having to dissociate the
splendid " proverb against the king of Babylon "
from the epoch-making death of Belshazzar, and
to connect it with some unknown incident of an
obscure struggle, than by taking the two prophecies
D

34 INTRODUCTION.
away from Isaiah and attributing them to a
younger prophet. So, too, with Edom and Israel
and with Early Days of Return. Some disturb
ance and shock is given to our feelings by meddling
with the traditional arrangement, and by removing
these prophecies from the place where they stand
now. But nevertheless much more is gained than
lost by doing it. They suit the history of the
sixth century before Christ so much better than
that of the eighth, they are so much less effective
where they stand now than in connexion with
Babylon's fall and the conquests of Cyrus, their
very generality, which makes it not impossible to
assign them to the eighth century, is so alien to
the method ofthe original Isaiah, — that the balance
of effect, the balance of satisfaction, the balance of
enjoyment, is decisively in favour of removing them.
But tradition ought to go for something, and
we should respect it where we can. If, in order
to enjoy fully a great work, it is necessary, on the
one hand, to have our sense of order and possi
bility satisfied, so also is it necessary for our
enjoyment, on the other hand, that we should
read our text with some sense of security. We
are so constituted by nature that our enjoyment
of a text greatly depends upon our having such a
sense of security. This law of our nature Ewald
totally disregards. No one can read Ewald's
Isaiah with a sense of security. Ewald was a
man of genius. He deeply felt Isaiah's grandeur
himself, and he admirably helps us to feel it deeply
too. But he was violent and arbitrary. He freely
alters the text, striking things out when they do not

INTRODUCTION. 35

suit him, and inserting things of his own where he
thinks they will be an improvement. Above all,
he re-arranges the Book of Isaiah from one end
to the other, and literally turns it, as the saying
is, inside out. He is supremely confident in his
own perception and judgment. He will tell you
how many different prophets we hear speaking in
the Burden of Moab, how many they are, and of
what date each of them is, and exactly where each
of them leaves off and the other begins. Like
other critics of his school, like the professors of
the so-called higher criticism generally, after pro
ducing reasonings which do really prove that a
thing might have been so and so, he then jumps
straight to the conclusion that they prove that
so and so it must have been. Often and often one
feels Ewald to be brilliant, ingenious, impassioned,
profound, but not in the least convincing ; and
one reads his Isaiah with a disturbed and uneasy
sense of its being a fantastic Isaiah ; one reads it
without security. This is, as I have already said,
a great drawback upon one's pleasure. It is a
drawback to which the solid English reader is
specially sensible ; and the solid English reader, I
think, is right. But whether he is right or not,
the drawback is strongly felt. Lowth's rashness
in emendation has prevented his great services in
the promotion of a better understanding of Isaiah
from being widely useful. Lowth was a bishop
of the Church of England, a Hebraist, and a man
of fine taste and accomplishments. He had the
qualifications and the authority requisite for pro
pagating in England a truer understanding of

36 INTRODUCTION.
Isaiah, but one cannot say that he has done it.
He failed to do it because of the liberties he
allowed himself to take with his author. Lovers
of their Bible desire, in reading their Isaiah, to
read him with a sense of security.
All meddling with the letter itselx of the text
is, in my opinion, undesirable. The case is one
where the feeling that liberty is taken with the
text does more damage than any amendment of
the text can do good. There has been suggested
a brilliant emendation for a passage in the
twenty-third chapter : to read, at the thirteenth
verse, " Behold the land of the Canaanites" instead
of " Behold the land of the Chaldeans!' I would
resist the temptation of making it. A tolerable
sense can be got out of the reading Chaldeans, and
when once we begin to change the text for the
'sake of bettering, as we think, the sense, where
are we to stop ? Again, in an important passage
of the seventh chapter, the text, as it stands, has
something embarrassing. " For the head of Syria
is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin ;
and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim
be broken, that it be not a people ; and the head
of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria
is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely
ye shall not be established.'" Ewald urges that
the words "And within threescore and five years
shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people,"
are superfluous, and that afterwards one expects
the words, " But the head of Judah is Jerusalem,
and the head of Jerusalem is Jehovah ;" and he
¦' Isaiali, vii, 8, g.

INTRODUCTION. 37
boldly omits the former sentence and inserts the
latter. Other editors who do not follow the
example of his boldness so far as to insert the
new words of Ewald's own invention, yet go so
far with him as to strike out the words which he
condemns as superfluous. But it is better, I think,
to get out of the existing text what meaning can
be got out of it, than to create the sense of inse
curity which comes when the reader perceives the
text to be treated with licence.
The same respect for existing facts, the same
dread of the fantastic, which should govern us in
dealing with the actual text of the prophecies of
Isaiah, should govern us, also, in dealing with
their re-arrangement. Some re-arrangement there
must be ; — this, I think, has been proved and must
be admitted. The balance of enjoyment in read
ing these prophecies, even the balance of security
in reading them, is in favour of it. But the
existing fact goes, after all, for something. The
Book of Isaiah comes to us in an arrangement
which it has had ever since Ezra's time. Probably
the Book must before Ezra's time have already
had its present arrangement in great part, since
that is the most natural reason which we can
suppose for Ezra's adopting it. Portions engaged
with the names and events of a history long pos
terior to that history, with which Isaiah was engaged,
we are compelled to think an appendage to the
original Book, or insertions in it. But that which
remains, when these portions are removed, is the
original Book of Isaiah. At all events, it is safest
for us now to treat it as such. We do well, when

38 INTRODUCTION.
we pass to the body of prophecies concerned with
the very history with which Isaiah was engaged, to
take the text as it stands, the arrangement as it
stands, the history as its stands. Some critics sup
pose an invasion of Judaea by Sargon of which his
tory tells us nothing ; others transfer the opening
chapter to the middle of the Book, because the
history with which the second and following chap
ters deal seems anterior to the history implied in
the first chapter. Sargon may have invaded Judaea;
the first chapter may have originally stood in the
middle of the Book. But it is not necessary to our
adequate understanding of the Book to admit either
conjecture, while to adapt the Book to such conjec
tures is fatal to all secure enjoyment of it. We make
it something fantastic, and it loses power over us.
Until we come to the thirty-sixth chapter, at
any rate, there is no difficulty in receiving the
arrangement of the original Isaiah's prophecies
mainly as it now stands. It is evident that they
were uttered at different times. But we shall read
them most naturally and with most satisfaction, if
we conceive them to have been collected in their pre
sent arrangement by Isaiah. himself in his old age,
and at the moment when his influence was highest,
shortly after the discomfiture of Sennacherib.
The Book falls into several groups or divi
sions, — divisions quite independent, of course,
of the actual distribution into chapters, which
comes to us not from Jewish antiquity at all,
but from the Cathohc Middle Age. The first
chapter, however, is one of the real divisions into
which the Book falls. It is a Prelude, an intro-

INTRODUCTION. 39
ductory piece opening the way and striking the
tone for all which follows, and establishing the
point of view from which Isaiah, about the year
700 B.C., wished the series of his prophecies to be
read and the history of the preceding half century
to be regarded. Then comes a division to which
we may give for title one of the headings here
employed by our Bibles : Calamities coming upon
Judah. This prophecy (occupying chapters ii-v
in our Bibles) belongs to the time of Jotham and
of Isaiah's early career, when Jewish society was
to outward view still prosperous. What follows
next, the Vision, is exactly the sixth chapter in
our version, as the Prelude is exactly the first.
The Vision dates from a yet earlier time than the
prophecy in Jotham's reign, and marks the outset of
Isaiah's public career, his call to deal with the state
of things declared in the prophecy preceding. After
the Vision comes a group of prophecies to which
we may most fitly give the great name ol Immanuel.
Occupying chapters vii-xii in our Bibles, they
date from the reign of Ahaz and from the invasion
of Judah by the kings of Syria and Israel ; they
set forth Isaiah's view of this crisis, and of the
future to follow it. After Immanuel comes a
division of prophecies best designated by Isaiah's
own term, the Burdens; — a series of oracular sen
tences of doom upon the nations engaged in making
the history which the prophet had before his eyes.
Here, as has been already said, the Burden of
Babylon was in Ezra's time inserted. The original
Burdens of our Isaiah begin with the twenty-fourth
verse of the fourteenth chapter, and with a sentence
of doom upon Assyria. They extend through

40 INTRODUCTION.
the nine chapters which in our Bibles follow, but
an insertion has to be disengaged from them : the
Burden of the Desert of the Sea, or first vision of
the fall of Babylon, in chapter xxi.' Between
the Burdens and the succeeding division of pro
phecies, the Woes, comes an insertion^ conceived in
the spirit of these divisions, but with far greater
generality, and pointing, so far as amidst this
generality we can at all make out clearly the
times and events indicated, to a later era, — the era
of Cyrus. The Woes (this title again, like that of
the Burdens, is supplied by a dominating phrase
of Isaiah's own using) — the Woes, of which the
purport is sufficiently explained by the name,
extend from the beginning of our twenty-eighth
chapter to the end of our thirty-third. They are
followed by another insertion,^ of like character
with the insertion which introduces them, and
which should, like that, be separated from them.
This insertion occupies two chapters, the thirty-
fourth and thirty-fifth.
For the division which follows, the natural title
is Sennacherib, since that personage is the main
subject of it. This division contains one of
Isaiah's noblest prophecies, which, together with
the history accompanying it, is repeated in the
Book of Kings with but slight variation. I have
already noticed the demonstrable error of date
which occurs at the outset. Undoubtedly Isaiah
never assigned Sennacherib's invasion of Judah to
the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah. We have
seen how this error was probably caused, and that
1 Verses l-io. 2 Named by me Early Days of Return.
^ Named by me Edom and Israel.

INTRODUCTION. 41
it shows later arrangers to have been busy with
this part of the book. Shall we, with Ewald and
others, retain of this division only Isaiah's famous
prophecy in answer to the threatenings of Senna
cherib, and put aside the rest altogether? We
know, indeed, from the Book of Chronicles that
Isaiah wrote history, and the historical style of
the division in question is worthy of him. On
.the other hand, it is difficult to conceive so great
a master of effect concluding such a whole as that
which he had formed out of the combined series
of prophecies hitherto enumerated, with a mixed
division such as Sennacherib. It is difficult ; and
moreover, in order to admit it, we must further
suppose that Isaiah finally arranged his Book of
prophecies, not about 700 B.C., when he was
seventy years old, but after the death of Senna
cherib in 680 B.C., when Isaiah was ninety. For
the murder of Sennacherib by his sons is mentioned
in the thirty-seventh chapter. To suppose all this
is to suppose things by no means likely ; and their
improbability, joined to the error in date at the
outset, may well make us regard with suspicion
Isaiah's authorship of this division as a whole.
Still it is not absolutely impossible that this part
too should be his ; that at ninety years of age he
should have arranged his prophecies with this
Sennacherib to conclude them, and that the error
of date at the beginning, together with a trans
position of the matters recorded, should afterwards
have crept in. There Sennacherib now stands in
the Book of Isaiah, and it is not absolutely
impossible that Isaiah should have himself put it
there. At any rate we have no more fitting place

42 INTRODUCTION.
to which we may move it. It belongs to his time,
it deals with the men and events of his age and
not with those of the age of Babylon's fall. It is
best to accept it provisionally where it stands, and
to let it conclude the Book of the original Isaiah.
With the fortieth chapter we pass to another age
and world from his, and to prophecies which will
not be attributed to him by any one who has been
enabled to understand rightly the original Isaiah
and his line of prophecy.

Thus, then, I have attempted to answer as
clearly and fairly as I could my own question :
How may we best enjoy Isaiah ? Let me end by
summing up the results reached.
First, we must respect, not in profession only,
but in deed and in truth, the wording and rhythm
of the old version. Such change as the change
of, " Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts,
the mighty One of Israel," i into " Therefore this
is the utterance of the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts,
the Hero of Israel," is not to be thought of In
passages of this kind, indeed, the old version needs
no change at all. Often it needs change, but no
great change. " Before the child shall know to
refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that
thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings." ^
This is intelligible, but it departs too far from the
original. It deserves, however, no such total sub
version as that which Mr. Cheyne inflicts : " Before
the boy shall know how to reject the evil and
choose the good, deserted shall the land become,
1 Isaiah, i, 24. 2 /^-^.^ .^,;i, j5_

INTRODUCTION. 43
at the two kings whereof thou art horribly afraid."
Sometimes the old version is not even intelligible.
" Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered
and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning
hitherto ; a nation meted out and trodden down,
whose land the rivers have spoiled." ' Or again,
in a more celebrated passage : " Nevertheless the
dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation,
when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of
Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward
did rnore grievously afflict her by the way of the
sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations." ^
Passages like these miss at present the right sense
of the original entirely, and they must be recon
structed so far as to enable them to give it. But
even this reconstruction may be effected without
loss of the present fine rhythm and fine diction of
these passages, and must be so effected, if Isaiah
is to be enjoyed.
Secondly, we must know the historical situation
which Isaiah had before him to deal with, and we
must keep it present to our minds. By so doing
we shall much increase our enjoyment of this
greatest of the prophets.
And our sense of that situation, and of Isaiah's
own powerful and characteristic line of prophecy,
will be greatly enhanced if, thirdly, we separate
from the Book of Isaiah one large work now
appended to it, and several short works now mixed
up with it ; and if we then, disregarding the
division into chapters, read what remains as one
combined whole, made up of seven successive pieces,
1 Isaiah, xviii, 2. ^ lUd., ix, I.

44 INTRODUCTION.
as follows : Pi'elude, Calamities for Judah, Vision,
Immanuel, The Burdens, The Woes, Sennacherib.
To publish their Isaiah with this arrangement
is not possible for the company of revisers, how
ever successful may be their translation of him.
And therefore I have thought that the present
volume might be useful. It may be objected that
to correct the translation of Isaiah a skilled Hebraist
is required, and that I am not a skilled Hebraist.
Certainly I am not. But the meaning of Isaiah
has so long been the object of the most minute and
attentive investigation by skilled Hebraists, that
what is required for a work Hke the present is not
so much that its author should himself be a great
Hebraist capable of making fresh discoveries of
his own ; it is rather that he should be Hebraist
enough, and at the same time critic enough, to
follow intelligently the researches of great Heb
raists, and to judge and choose among the results
reached by them. This, to the best of my power,
I have done. I have also sought to exhibit Isaiah
in that arrangement which seems desirable, and
with the historical elucidations which I consider
indispensable. The reader will find that the in
terpretation finally adopted for any passage is, if
necessary, explained, but is not compared with
other rival interpretations, — is not discussed or
defended. The reason is, that my paramount
object here is to get Isaiah enjoyed ; and the
right way to get a great author enjoyed is to
raise not as much discussion as possible over his
meaning, but as little as possible.

ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM.
PREL UDE.
(J-)
I The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he
saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days
of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of
Judah.
2 Hear, O hea-vens, and give ear, O earth ! for
the Lord hath spoken : — " I have nourished and
brought up children, and they have rebelled
against me.
3 " The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his
master's crib : but Israel doth not know, my
people doth not consider."
4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,
a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters :
they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked
the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone
away backward.
5 Why should ye be stricken any more ? ye will
revolt more and more : the whole head is sick,
and the whole heart faint.
6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head

46 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. i, 7-
there is no soundness in it ; but wounds, and
bruises, and putrefying sores : they have not been
pressed, neither bound up, neither mollified with
ointment.
7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned
with fire : your land, strangers devour it in your
presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by
strangers.
8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage
in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,
as a besieged city.
9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a
very small remnant, we should have been as
Sodom, and we should have been like unto Go
morrah.
10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of
Sodom I give ear unto the law of our God, ye
people of Gomorrah !
II To what purpose is the multitude of your
sacrifices unto me ? saith the LORD : I am full of
the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed
beasts ; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks,
or of lambs, or of he goats.
12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath
required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
13 Bring no more vain oblations ; incense is an
abomination unto me ; the new moons and sab
baths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away
with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my soul hateth : they are a trouble unto me ; I
am weary to bear them.

I, 15. PRELUDE. 47
IS And when ye spread forth your hands, I will
hide mine eyes from you : yea, when ye make
many prayers, I will not hear : your hands are
full of blood.
16 Wash you, make you clean ; put away the
evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease
to do evil ;
17 Learn to do well ; seek judgment, correct the
oppressor, judge the fatherless, plead for the
widow.
18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith
the Lord : though your sins be as scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow ; though they be red
like crimson, they shall be as wool.
19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the
good of the land :
20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured
with the sword : for the mouth of the LORD hath
spoken it.
21 H0"W is the faithful city become an harlot ! it
was full of judgment ; righteousness lodged in it ;
but now murderers.
22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed
with water :
23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of
thieves : every one loveth gifts, and followeth after
rewards : they judge not the fatherless, neither
doth the cause of the widow come unto them.
24 Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts,
the mighty One of Israel : — " Ah, I will ease me
of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine
enemies :

48 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. i, 25.
25 "And I will turn, my hand upon thee, and
purely purge away thy dross, and take away all
thine alloy :
26 "And I will restore thy judges as at the first,
and thy counsellers as at the beginning : afterward
thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness,
the faithful city."
27 Zion shall be redeemed through judgment,
and her converts through righteousness.
28 And the destruction of the transgressors and
of the sinners shall be together, and they that
forsake the Lord shall be consumed.
29 For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which
ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for
the gardens that ye have chosen.
30 For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth,
and as a garden that hath no water.
31 And the strong shall be as tow, and his work
as a spark, and they shall both burn together,
and none shall quench them.

II, I. CALAMITIES FOR JUDAH. 49
CALAMITIES FOR JUDAH.
(n-v.)
I The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw con
cerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2 " And it shall come to pass in the last days,
that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be
established in the top of the mountains, and shall
be exalted above the hills ; and all nations shall
flow unto it.
3 " And many people shall go and say, ' Come
ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the
Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and he
will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his
paths :' for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 "And he shall judge among the nations, and
shall rebuke many people : and they shall beat
their swords into plowshares, and their spears into
pruninghooks : nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war any
more."
S O HOUSE of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk
in the light of the Lord 1
6 Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the
house of Jacob, because they be replenished from
the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines,
and they please themselves in the children of
strangers.

so ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. ii, 7-
7 Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither
is there any end of their treasures ; their land is
also full of horses, neither is there any end of their
chariots :
8 Their land also is full of idols ; they worship
the work of their own hands, that which their
own fingers have made :
9 And the mean man boweth down, and the
great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive
them not !
10 Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the
dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of
his majesty !
II The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and
the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and
the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
12 For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be
upon every thing that is proud and lofty, and
upon every thing that is lifted up ; and it shall
be brought low :
13 And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are
high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of
Bashan,
14 And upon all the high mountains, and upon
all the hills that are lifted up,
15 And upon every high tower, and upon every
fenced wall,
16 And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon
all pleasant pictures.
17 And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down,
and the haughtiness of men shall be made low :
and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

II, i8. CALAMITIES FOR JUDAH. 51
18 And the idols he shall utterly abolish.
19 And they shall go into the holes of the rocks,
and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the
Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he
ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
20 In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver,
and his idols of gold, which they made each one
for himself to worship, to the moles and to the
bats ;
21 To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into
the crevices of the crags, for fear of the LORD, and
for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to
shake terribly the earth.
22 Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his
nostrils : for wherein is he to be accounted of?
I For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth
take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the
stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and
the whole stay of water,
2 The mighty man, and the man of war, the
judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the
ancient,
3 The captain of fifty, and the honourable man,
and the counseller, and the cunning artificer, and
the master of the spell.
4 And I will give children to be their princes,
and babes shall rule over them.
S And the people shall be oppressed, every one
by another, and every one by his neighbour : the
child shall behave himself proudly against the
ancient, and the base against the honourable.
6 When a man shall take hold of his brother of
the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing,

52 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. Iii, 7.
be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy
hand :
7 In that day shall he swear, saying, I will not
be an healer ; for in my house is neither bread
nor clothing : make me not a ruler of the people.
8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen :
because their tongue and their doings are against
the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory.
9 The shew of their countenance doth witness
against them ; and they declare their sin as Sodom,
they hide it not. Woe unto their soul ! for they
have rewarded evil unto themselves.
10 Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well
with him : for they shall eat the fruit of their
doings.
II Woe unto the wicked ! it shall be ill with him :
for the reward of his hands shall be given him.
12 As for my people, children are their oppressors,
and women rule over them. O my people, they
which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the
way of thy paths.
13 The Lord standeth up to plead, and standeth
to judge the people.
14 The Lord will enter into judgment with the
ancients of his people, and the princes thereof:
for ye have eaten up the vineyard ; the spoil of
the poor is in your houses.
,5 What mean ye that ye beat my people to
pieces, and grind the faces of the poor ? saith the
Lord God of hosts.
16 Moreover the Lord saith : —
Because the daughters of Zion are haughty.

Ill, 17. CALAMITIES FOR JUDAH. 53
and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton
eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making
a tinkling with their feet :
17 Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the
crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and
the Lord will discover their secret parts.
18 In that day the Lord will take away the
bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their
feet, and their headbands, and their round tires
like the moon,
19 The earrings, and the bracelets, and the muf
flers,
20 The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs,
and the girdles, and the scent -bottles, and the
amulets,
21 The rings, and nose-jewels,
22 The changeable suits of apparel, and the
mantles, and the wimples, and the pockets,
23 The looking-glasses, and the fine linen, and
the hoods, and the vails.
24 And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet
smell there shall be stink ; and instead of a girdle
a rent ; and instead of well set hair baldness ; and
instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth ; and
branding instead of beauty.
25 Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty
in the war.
26 And her gates shall lament and mourn ; and
she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.
I And in that day seven women shall take hold
of one man, saying. We will eat our own bread,
and wear our own apparel : only let us be called
by thy name, to take away our reproach !

54 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. iv, 2.

2 In that day shall the Branch of the Lord be
beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land
shall be excellent and comely for them that are
escaped of Israel.
3 And it shall come to pass, that he that is left
in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall
be called holy, even every one that is written
among the living in Jerusalem ;
4 When the Lord shall have washed away the
filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged
the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by
the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.
S And the LORD will create upon every dwelling
place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a
cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a
flaming fire by night : for upon all the glory shall
be a defence.
6 And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow
in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of
refuge, and for a covert from storm and from
rain.
I NO"W will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of
my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbe
loved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill :
2 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones
thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and
built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a
winepress therein : and he looked that it should
bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild
grapes.
3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men

V, 4- CALAMITIES FOR JUDAH. 55

of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my
vineyard.
4 What could have been done more to my vine
yard, that I have not done in it ? wherefore, when
I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought
it forth wild grapes ?
S And now go to ; I will tell you what I will do
to my vineyard : I will take away the hedge
thereof, and it shall be eaten up ; and break
down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden
down :
6 And I will lay it waste : it shall not be pruned,
nor digged ; but there shall come up briers and
thorns : I will also command the clouds that they
rain no rain upon it.
7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the
house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant
plant : and he looked for judgment, but behold
oppression ; for righteousness, but behold a cry.
8 Woe unto them that join house to house, that
lay field to field, till there be no place, that they
may be placed alone in the midst of the earth !
9 In mine ears saith the Lord of hosts, Of a
truth many houses shall be desolate, even great
and fair, without inhabitant.
10 Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath,
and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.
II Woe unto them that rise up early in the morn
ing, that they may follow strong drink ; that con
tinue until night, till wine inflame them !
12 And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and
pipe, and wine, are in their feasts : but they regard

S6 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. v, 13.
not the work of the LoRD, neither consider the
operation of his hands.
13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity,
because they have no knowledge : and their hon
ourable men are famished, and their multitude
dried up with thirst.
14 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and
opened her mouth without measure : and their
glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and
he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
IJ And the mean man shall be brought down^ and
the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes
of the lofty shall be humbled :
16 But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in
judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified
in righteousness.
17 Then shall the lambs feed after their manner,
and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers
eat.
ig Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords
of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope :
19 That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his
work, that we may see it : and let the counsel of
the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that
we may know it !
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good
evil ; that put darkness for light, and light for
darkness ; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for
bitter !
21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes,
and prudent in their own sight I
22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine,
and men of strength to mingle strong drink ;

v, 23. CALAMITIES FOR JUDAH. 57
23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take
away the righteousness of the righteous from him !
24 Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and
the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall
be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as
dust : because they have cast away the law of the
Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy
One of Israel.
25 Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled
against his people, and he hath stretched forth his
hand against them, and hath smitten them : and
the hills do tremble, and their carcases are as dung.
in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger
is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
26 And he will lift up an ensign to the nations
from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of
the earth : and, behold, they shall come with
speed swiftly.
27 None shall be weary nor stumble among them ;
none shall slumber nor sleep ; neither shall the
girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of
their shoes be broken :
28 Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows
bent, their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint,
and their wheels like a whirlwind :
29 Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall
roar like young lions : yea, they shall roar, and
lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe,
and none shall deliver it.
30 And in that day there shall be roaring over it
like the roaring of the sea : and if one look unto
the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the
light is darkened in the heavens thereof.

58 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. vi, i.

VISION.
(VI.)
I In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the
Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up,
2 and his train filled the temple. Above it stood
the seraphims : each one had six wings ; with
twain he covered his face, and with twain he
3 covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And
one cried unto another, and said : —
Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts : the
whole earth is full of his glory.
4 And the posts of the door moved at the voice
of him that cried, and the house was filled with
smoke. Then said I : —
5 Woe is me ! for I am undone ; because I am a
man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of
a people of unclean lips : for mine eyes have seen
the King, the LORD of hosts.
6 Then flew one of the seraphims unto me,
having a live coal in his hand, which he had
7 taken with the tongs from off the altar : and he
laid it upon my mouth, and said : —
Lo, this hath touched thy lips ; and thine ini
quity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying,
Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ?

VI, 9- VISION, 59
9 Then said I, Here am I ; send me. And he
said : —
Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but
understand not ; and see ye indeed, but perceive
not.
10 Make the heart of this people gross, and make
their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they
see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and
understand with their heart, and convert, and be
healed.
II Then said I, Lord, how long? And he ans
wered : —
Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant,
and the houses without man, and the land be
utterly desolate,
12 And the Lord have removed men far away,
and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the
land.
13 Even if yet in it shall be a tenth, it shall return,
and shall be consumed : but as a terebinth tree,
and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when
they are cut down, so the substance thereof shall
be a holy seed.

6o ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. vn, i.

IMMANUEL.
(VII-XII.)
I And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son
of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that
Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of
Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jeru
salem to war against it, but could not prevail
2 against it. And it was told the house of David,
saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And
his heart was moved, and the heart of his people,
as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
3 Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now
to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub ^ thy son, at
the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the
4 highway of the fuller's field ; and say unto him : —
Take heed, and be quiet ; fear not, neither be
fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking
firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria,
and of the son of Remaliah.
S Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Rema
liah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,
6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and
let us make a breach therein for us, and set a
king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal —
7 Thus said the Lord GOD : It shall not stand,
neither shall it come to pass.
8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the
head of Damascus is Rezin ; and within three-
^ " The remnant shall return.''

VII, 9. IMMANUEL. 61
score and five years shall Ephraim be broken,
that it be not a people,
9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the
head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will
not believe, surely ye shall not be established.
10 Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz,
1 1 saying : Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God ;
ask it either in the depth or in the height above.
12 But Ahaz said: I will not ask, neither will I tempt
13 the Lord. And he said : —
Hear ye now, O house of David ; Is it a small
thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my
God also .''
14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a
sign ; Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear
a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
IS Milk-curd and honey shall he eat, when he shall
know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
16 For before the child shall know to refuse the
evil, and choose the good, the land shall be
forsaken, whose two kings make thee afraid.
17 The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon
thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that
have not come, from the day that Ephraim
departed from Judah ; even the king of Assyria.
18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the
Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the utter
most part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee
that is in the land of Assyria.
19 And they shall come, and shall rest all of them
in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the
rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.

62 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. vii, 20.
20 In the same day shall the Lord shave with a
rasor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the
river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the
hair of the legs : and it shall also consume the
beard.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a
man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep ;
22 And it shall come to pass, for the abundance
of milk that they shall give he shall eat curds :
for milk-curd and honey shall every one eat that
is left in the land.
23 And it shall come to pass in that day, that
every place shall be, where there were a thousand
vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for
briers and thorns.
24 With arrows and with bows shall men come
thither ; because all the land shall become briers
and thorns.
25 And on all hills that are digged with the
mattock, thou shalt not come thither for fear of
briers and thorns : but it shall be for the sending
forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.
I Moreover the Lord said unto me. Take thee
a great tablet, and write in it with pen of the
people concerning Spoil -speedeth -prey -hasteth."'
2 And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record,
Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeber-
3 echiah. And I went unto the prophetess ; and
she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the
Lord to me : —
Call his name " Spoil-speedeth-prey-hasteth."
1 Maher-shalal-hash-b.az.

vm, 4. IMMANUEL. 63
4 For before the child shall have knowledge to
cry. My father, and my mother ! the riches of
Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken
away before the king of Assyria.
S The Lord spake also unto me again, saying : —
6 Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters
of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and
Remaliah's son ;
7 Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up
upon them the waters of the river, strong and
many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory :
and he shall come up over all his channels, and
go over all his banks.
8 And he shall pass through Judah ; he shall
overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the
neck ; and the stretching out of his wings shall
fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel I
9 Associate yourselves, O ye peoples, and ye
shall be broken in pieces ; and give ear, all of ye
of far countries : gird yourselves, and ye shall be
broken in pieces ; gird yourselves, and ye shall be
broken in pieces I
10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to
nought ; speak the word, and it shall not stand :
for "God-is-with-us!"i
II For the LORD spake thus to me with a strong
hand, and instructed me that I should not walk
in the way of this people, saying : —
12 " Say ye not, A confederacy ! wheresoever this
1 Immanuel.

64 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. vm, 13.
people shall say, A confederacy ! neither fear ye
their fear, nor be afraid.
13 " Sanctify the LoRD of hosts himself ; and let
him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14 " And he shall be for a sanctuary ; but for a
stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to
both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 " And many among them shall stumble, and
fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
" Bind up the testimony, seal the law among
16 my disciples !" —
17 And I will wait upon the LORD, that hideth
his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look
for him.
18 Behold, I, and the children whom the Lord hath
given me, are for signs and for tokens in Israel from
the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion !
19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto
them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards
that chirp, and that mutter — should not a people
seek unto their God ? for the living should they
seek unto the dead ?
20 " To the law and to the testimony !" — if they
speak not according to this word, it is because for
them there is no Hght of dawn.
21 And they shall pass along, hardly bestead and
hungry : and it shall come to pass, that when
they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves,
and curse their king and their God ; and shall
look upward,
22 And shall look unto the earth ; and behold

IMMANUEL. 65

trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish ! and
they shall be driven to darkness.
I Nevertheless the dimness shall not remain
unto that which was vexed : as aforetime did
come shame unto the land of Zebulun and the land
of Naphtali, so afterward cometh honour ; to the
way of the sea, beyond Jordan, the border of the
Gentiles.
2 The people that walked in darkness have seen
a great light : they that dwell in the land of the
shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
3 Thou hast multiplied the nation, thou hast
increased the joy : they joy before thee according
to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when
they divide the spoil.
4 For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden,
and the staff of his shoulder, the staff of his
oppressor, as Jn the day of Midian.
S For all the trampling of the warrior with con
fused noise, and the war-cloak rolled in blood —
they shall be for burning and fuel of fire.
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is
given : and the government shall be upon his
shoulder : and his name shall be called Wonderful
Counseller, Mighty God, Everiasting Father, Prince
of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace
there shall be no end, upon the throne of David,
and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to estab
lish it with judgment and with righteousness from
henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD
of hosts will perform this. F

66

ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. ix, 8.

8 The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath
lighted upon Israel.
9 And all the people shall know, even Ephraim
and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in their
pride and stoutness of heart :
10 " The bricks are fallen down, but we will build
with hewn stones : the sycomores are cut down,
but we will change them into cedars " —
II Therefore the LORD shall set up the over-
throwers of Rezin against them, and join their
enemies together ;
12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind ;
and they shall devour Israel with open mouth.
For all this his anger is not turned away, but his
hand is stretched out still.
13 For the people turneth not unto him that
smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of
hosts.
14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel
head and tail, palm -branch and rush, in one
day.
15 The ancient and honourable, he is the head ;
and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.
16 For the leaders of this people cause them to
err ; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
17 Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their
young men, neither shall have mercy on their father
less and widows : for every one is an hypocrite and
an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For
all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand
is stretched out still.
18 For wickedness burneth as the fire : it shall

IX, 19- IMMANUEL. 67
devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in
the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up
like the lifting up of smoke.
19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the
land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel
of the fire : no man shall spare his brother.
20 And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be
hungry ; and he shall eat on the left hand, and
they shall not be satisfied : they shall eat every
man the flesh of his own arm :
21 Manasseh, Ephraim ; and Ephraim, Manasseh :
and they together shall be against Judah. For all
this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is
stretched out still.
10 I Woe unto them that decree unrighteous
decrees, and that write grievousness which they
have prescribed ;
2 To turn aside the needy from judgment, and
to take away the right from the poor of my
people, that widows may be their prey, and that
they may rob the fatherless !
3 And what will ye do in the day of visitation,
and in the desolation which shall come from far ?
to whom will ye flee for help ? and where will ye
leave your glory?
4 Without me they shall bow down among the
prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For
all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand
is stretched out still.
S O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the
staff in mine hand for mine indignation !
6 I send him against an hypocritical nation, and

68 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. x, 7.
against the people of my wrath do I give him a
charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey,
and to tread them down like the mire of the
streets.
7 Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his
heart think so ; but it is in his heart to destroy
and cut off nations not a few.
8 For he saith : " Are not my princes altogether
kings ?
9 " Is not Calno as Carchemish ? is not Hamath
as Arpad ? is not Samaria as Damascus ?
10 " As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the
idols— and whose graven images did excel them
. of Jerusalem and of Samaria —
II " Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and
her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?"
12 Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the
Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount
Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of
the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the
glory of his high looks.
13 For he saith : " By the strength of my hand I
have done it, and by my wisdom ; for I am
prudent : and I have removed the bounds of the
people, and have robbed their treasures, and I
have put down the inhabitants like a valiant
man :
14 " And my hand hath found as a nest the riches
of the people : and as one gathereth eggs that are
left, have I gathered all the earth ; and there was
none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth,
or chirped."
IS Shall the axe boast itself against him that

x, 1 6. IMMANUEL. 69
heweth therewith ? or shall the saw magnify itself
against him that shaketh it ? as if the rod did
shake itself against them that lift it, or as if the
staff did lift that which is no wood 1
16 Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send
among his fat ones leanness ; and under his glory
he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire.
17 And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and
his Holy One for a flame : and it shall burn and
devour his thorns and his briers in one day ;
18 And shall consume the glory of his forest, and
of his fruitful field, both soul and body : and they
shall be as when a sick man fainteth.
19 And the remainder of the trees of his forest
shall be few, that a child may write them.
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the
remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the
house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon
him that smote them ; but shall stay upon the
Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
21 "The -remnant -shall -return,"'- even the rem
nant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
22 For though thy people Israel be as the sand of
the sea, only a remnant of them shall return : a con
sumption is decreed, flooding in with righteousness.
23 For the Lord GOD of hosts shall make a
consumption, even determined, in the midst of all
the earth.
24 Therefore thus saith the Lord GoD of hosts :
O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid
of the Assyrian, when he shall smite thee with a
1 Shear-jashuh.

70 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. x, 25.
rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after
the manner of Egypt.
25 For yet a very little while, and the indignation
shall cease, and mine anger shall be for their
destruction.
26 And the LORD of hosts shall stir up a scourge
for him according to the slaughter of Midian at
the rock of Oreb: and as his rod was upon the sea,
so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt.
27 And it shall come to pass in that day, that his
burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder,
and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall
break because of the fatness.
28 He is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron !
at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages :
29 They are gone over the passage : they have
taken up their lodging at Geba; Ramah is afraid;
Gibeah of Saul is fled.
30 Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim : cause
it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth !
31 Madmenah is removed ; the inhabitants of
Gebim gather their stuff to flee.
32 As yet shall he remain at Nob that day : he
shall shake his hand against the mount of the
daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.
33 Behold ! the Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall lop
the bough with terror: and the high ones of
stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty
shall be humbled.
34 And he shall cut down the thickets of the forest
with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty
one.

XI, I. IMMANUEL. 71

11 I And there shall come forth a rod out of the
stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his
roots :
2 And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon
him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the
spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge
and of the fear of the LORD ;
3 And shall make him of quick understanding in
the fear of the Lord : and he shall not judge
after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after
the hearing of his ears :
4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor,
and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth :
and he shall smite the earth with the rod bf his
mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay
the wicked.
S And righteousness shall be the girdle of his
loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and
the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the
calf and the young lion and the fatling together ;
and a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed ; their
young ones shall lie down together : and the lion
shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole
of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his
hand on the cockatrice' den.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my
holy mountain : for the earth shall be full of the
knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the
sea.

72 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xi, lo.

IO And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse,
which shall stand for an ensign of the people ; to
it shall the Gentiles seek : and his rest shall be
glorious.
II And it shall come to pass in that day, that
the Lord shall set his hand again the second time
to recover the remnant of his people, which shall
be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from
Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and
from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the
islands of the sea.
12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations,
and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and
gather together the dispersed of Judah from the
four corners of the earth.
13 The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and
the adverse ones of Judah shall be cut off : Ephraim
shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex
Ephraim.
14 But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the
Philistines toward the west ; they shall spoil them
of the east together : they shall lay their hand
upon Edom and Moab ; and the children of
Ammon shall obey them.
IS And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue
of the Egyptian sea ; and with his mighty wind
shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall
smite it into seven streams, and make men go over
dryshod.
16 And there shall be an highway for the rem
nant of his people, which shall be left, from
Assyria ; like as it was to Israel in the day that
he came up out of the land of Egypt.

XII, I. IMMANUEL. 73

12 I And in that day thou shalt say : O LORD, I
will praise thee ! though thou wast angry with
me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfort
est me.
2 Behold, God is my salvation ; I will trust, and
not be afraid : for the LORD JEHOVAH is my
strength and my song ; he also is become my
salvation.
3 Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of
the wells of salvation.
4 And in that day shall ye say : Praise the
Lord, call upon his name, declare his doings
among the peoples, make mention that his name
is exalted.
S Sing unto the LORD ; for he hath done ex
cellent things : this is known in all the earth.
6 Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion !
for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst
of thee.

74 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xiv, 24.

THE BURDENS.
(xiv, 24-xxiii.)
14 24 The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying : Surely as
I have thought, so it shall come to pass ; and as
I have purposed, so shall it stand :
25 That I will break the Assyrian in my land,
and upon my mountains tread him under foot :
then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his
burden depart from off their shoulders.
26 This is the purpose that is purposed upon the
whole earth : and this is the hand that is stretched
out upon all the nations.
27 For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and
who shall disannul it ? and his hand is stretched
out, and who shall turn it back ?
28 In the year that King Ahaz died was this
burden : —
29 Give not thyself wholly to joy, Philistia,
because the rod of him that smote thee is broken !
for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a
cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying
serpent.
3° And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and
the needy shall lie down in safety : and I will
kill thy root with famine, and he shall slay thy
remnant.
31 Howl, O gate ; cry, O city ; Philistia, thou art
wholly dissolved ! for there cometh from the

XIV, 32. THE BURDENS, 75
north a smoke, and none is away from his fellow
in his ranks.
32 What shall one then answer the messengers of
the nations ? — That the LORD hath founded Zion,
and it is a refuge unto the poor of his people.
15 I The burden of Moab : —
Because in a night Ar of Moab is laid waste,
and brought to silence ! because in a night Kir
of Moab is laid waste and brought to silence 1
2 He is gone up to Bajith, and to Dibon, the
high places, to weep ! Moab shall howl upon
Nebo, and upon Medeba : on all their heads shall
be baldness, and every beard cut off.
3 In their streets they shall gird themselves with
sackcloth : on the tops of their houses, and in
their streets, every one shall howl, weeping abun
dantly.
4 And Heshbon shall cry, and Elealeh : their
voice shall be heard even unto Jahaz : therefore
the armed soldiers of Moab shall cry out ; his life
shall be grievous unto him.
5 My heart doth cry out for Moab ! his fugitives
shall flee unto Zoar, the heifer of three years old :
for by the mounting up of Luhith, with weeping
shall they go it up ; for in the way of Horonaim
they shall raise up a cry of destruction.
6 For the waters of Nimrim shall be desolate :
for the grass is withered away, the herb faileth,
there is no green thing.
7 Therefore the abundance they have gotten,
and that which they have laid up, shall they carry
away over the brook of the willows.

76 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM, xv, 8.
8 For the cry is gone round about the borders
of Moab ; the howling thereof unto Eglaim, and
the howling thereof unto Beer-elim.
9 For the waters of Dimon shall be full of blood :
for I will bring more upon Dimon, lions upon him
that escapeth of Moab, and upon the remnant of
the land.
16 I Send ye the lamb to the ruler of the land
from Sela to the wilderness, unto the mount of the
daughter of Zion !
2 For it shall be, that, as a wandering bird cast
out of the nest, so the daughters of Moab shall be
at the fords of Arnon.
3 " Take counsel, execute judgment ; make thy
shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday;
hide the outcasts ; bewray not him that wan-
dereth.
4 " Let Moab's outcasts dwell with thee I be thou
a covert to them from the face of the spoiler : for
the extortioner is at an end, the spoiler ceaseth, the
oppressors are consumed out of the land.
5 " And in mercy shall the throne be estabhshed :
and there shall sit upon it in truth, in the taber
nacle of David, one judging, and seeking judg
ment, and hasting righteousness."
6 — We have heard of the pride of Moab ; he
is very proud : even of his haughtiness, and his
pride, and his wrath : but his lies shall not be so.
7 Therefore shall Moab howl for Moab, every
one shall howl : for the foundations of Kir-hare
seth shall ye mourn ; surely they are stricken.
8 For the fields of Heshbon languish, and the
vine of Sibmah : the lords of the heathen have

XVI, 9. THE BURDENS. n
broken down the principal plants thereof, that
came even unto Jazer, that wandered through the
wilderness : her branches were stretched out, they
were gone over the sea.
9 Therefore I will bewail with the weeping of
Jazer the vine of Sibmah : I will water thee with
my tears, O Heshbon, and Elealeh ! for the shout
ing for thy summer fruits and for thy harvest is
fallen.
10 And gladness is taken away, and joy out of
the plentiful field ; and in the vineyards there
shall be no singing, neither shall there be shout
ing : the treaders shall tread out no wine in their
presses ; I - have made their vintage shouting to
cease.
n Wherefore my bowels do sound like an harp
for Moab, and mine inward parts for Kir-haresh.
12 And it shall come to pass, when it is seen that
Moab wearieth himself on the high place, and
cometh to his sanctuary to pray, he shall not
prevail.
13 This is the word that the LORD hath spoken
14 concerning Moab in the former time. But now
the Lord hath spoken, saying : —
Within three years, as the years of an hireling,
and the glory of Moab shall be contemned, with
all that great multitude ; and the remnant shall
be very small and feeble.
17 I The burden of Damascus : —
Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a
city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

78 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xvii, 2.
2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken : they shall
be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall
make them afraid.
3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim,
and the kingdom from Damascus ; and the
remnant of Syria shall be as the glory of the
children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts.
4 And in that day it shall come to pass, that the
glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness
of his flesh shall wax lean.
S And it shall be as when the harvestman
gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his
arm ; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in
the valley of Rephaim.
6 Yet gleanings shall be left in it, as at the
shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in
the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in
the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the
Lord God of Israel.
7 At that day shall a man look to his Maker,
and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One
of Israel.
8 And he shall not look to the altars, the work
of his hands ; neither shall respect that which his
fingers have made, either the groves, or the images.
9 In that day shall his strong cities be as the
ruins in the thickets and in the heights, which
they left because of the children of Israel : and
there shall be desolation.
10 Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy
salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock
of thy strength, therefore thou hast planted a
pleasant planting, and hast set it with strange slips;

XVII, II. THE BURDENS. 79
II In the day thou madest thy plant to grow,
and in the morning thou madest thy seed to
flourish : but the harvest shall be a heap for the
day of wounding and of desperate sorrow.
12 Woe to the multitude of many people, which
make a noise like the noise of the seas ; and to
the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like
the rushing of mighty waters 1
13 The nations shall rush like the rushing of
many waters : but God shall rebuke them, and
they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the
chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like
a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
14 And behold at eveningtide trouble ; and before
the morning he is not ! This is the portion of
them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob
us.
18 I Woe for the land buzzing with wings, which
is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia ;
2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in
vessels of bulrushes upon the waters ! Go, ye
swift messengers, to the nation long-shanked and
smooth, to the people terrible from their beginning
hitherto ; the nation of great might and victorious,
whose land the rivers divide.
3 All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers
on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign
on the mountains 1 and when he bloweth a
trumpet, hear ye 1
4 For so the LORD said unto me : I will take my
rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place like

8o ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xvm, 5.
a clear .heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew
in the heat of harvest.
S For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect,
and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he
shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks,
and take away and cut down the branches.
6 They shall be left together unto the fowls of
the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth :
and the fowl shall summer upon them, and all
the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.
7 In that time shall the present be brought unto
the Lord of hosts of a people long-shanked and
smooth, and from a people terrible from their
beginning hitherto ; a nation of great might and
victorious, whose land the rivers divide, to the
place of the name of the LORD of hosts, the
mount Zion.
19 I The burden of Egypt : —
Behold, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud,
and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of
Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the
heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.
2 And I will set the Egyptians against the
Egyptians ; and they shall fight every one against
his brother, and every one against his neighbour :
city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.
3 And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst
thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof:
and they shall seek to the idols, and to the
charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits,
and to the wizards.
4 And the Egyptians will I give over into the

xix, 5. THE BURDENS. 81
hand of a cruel lord ; and a fierce king shall rule
over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts.
S And the waters shall fail from the sea, and
the river shall be wasted and dried up.
6 The river-streams shall become stinking, the
channels of Egypt shall be emptied and dried up:
the reeds and flags shall wither.
7 The meadow -flats by the stream, by the
mouths of the stream, and every seed-field by the
stream, shall wither, be driven away, and be no
more.
8 The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that
cast angle into the stream shall lament, and they
that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.
9 Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they
that weave cotton, shall be confounded.
10 And the foundations of the land shall be
broken ; all that labour for hire shall be troubled
at heart.
II Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the
counsel of the wise counsellers of Pharaoh is
become brutish! how say ye unto Pharaoh, "I
am the son of the wise, the son of ancient
kings " ?
,2 Where are they? where are thy wise men?
and let them tell thee now, and let them know
what the LORD of hosts hath purposed upon
Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan are become fools, the
princes of Noph are deceived; they have also
seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the
tribes thereof.
,4 The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in
G

82 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xix, 15.
the midst thereof : and they have caused Egypt
to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man
staggereth in his vomit.
IS Neither shall there be any work for Egypt,
which the head with the tail, the palm-branch with
the rush, may do.
16 In that day shall Egypt be like unto women :
and it shall be afraid and fear because of the
shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which
he shaketh over it.
17 And the land of Judah shall be a terror unto
Egypt, every one that maketh mention thereof
shall be afraid in himself, because of the counsel
of the Lord of hosts, which he hath determined
against Egypt.
18 In that day shall five cities in the land of
Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear
to the Lord of hosts ; one shall be called " The
city of destruction of idols."
19 In that day shall there be an altar to the LORD
in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at
the border thereof to the LORD.
20 And it shall be for a sign and for a witness
unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt : for
they shall cry unto the LORD because of the
oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and
a great one, and he shall deliver them.
21 And the LORD shall be known to Egypt, and
the Egyptians shall know the LORD in that day,
and shall do sacrifice and oblation ; yea, they shall
vow a vow unto the LORD, and perform it.
22 And the LORD shall smite Egypt : he shall
smite and heal it : and they shall return even

XIX, 23. THE BURDENS. 83
to the Lord, and he shall be intreated of them,
and shall heal them.
23 In that day shall there be a highway out of
Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come
into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and
the Egyptians shall worship with the Assyrians.
24 In that day shall Israel be the third with
Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the
midst of the earth,
25 Wherewith the Lord of hosts shall bless,
saying : Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria
the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.
20 I In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod
(when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him — the
2 same fought against Ashdod, and took it), at the
same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of
Amoz, saying : —
Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins,
and put off thy shoe from thy foot.
And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
3 And the Lord said : —
Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked
and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder
upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia ;
4 So shall the king of Assyria lead away the
Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives,
young and old, naked and barefoot, even with
their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
5 And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethi
opia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.
6 And the inhabitant of this coast shall say in

84 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xxi, ii.
that day: Behold, so fareth it with our hope, whither
we fled for help to be delivered from the king of
Assyria ; and how shall we escape ?
21 II The burden of Dumah : —
One calleth to me out of Seir : Watchman,
what of the night? Watchman, what of the
night ?
12 The watchman said : The morning cometh, and
also the night ; if ye will inquire, inquire ye :
return, come !
13 The. burden upon Arabia : —
In the desert in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye
travelling companies of Dedanim 1
14 The inhabitants of the land of Tema brought
water to him that was thirsty, they prevented
with their bread him that fled.
IS For they fled from the swords, from the drawn
sword, and from the bent bow, and from the
grievousness of war.
16 For thus hath the Lord said unto me : Within
a year, according to the years of an hireling, and
all the glory of Kedar shall fail ;
17 And the residue of the number of archers, the
mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be
diminished : for the LORD God of Israel hath
spoken it.
22 I The burden of the valley of vision : —
What aileth thee now, that thou art wholly
gone up to the housetops ?
2 Thou that art full of stirs, a tumultuous city.

XXII, 3. THE BURDENS. 85
a joyous city ! thy slain men are not slain with
the sword, nor dead in battle.
3 All thy rulers are fled together, they are bound
— and no bow-shot ! all that are found in thee
are bound together, while that they hasted to flee
afar.
4 Therefore said I : Look away from me ; I will
weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me, because
of the spoiling of the daughter of my people.
S For it is a day of trouble, and of treading
down, and of perplexity, by the Lord GOD of
hosts in the valley of vision, of breaking down the
walls, and of crying to the mountains.
6 And Elam bare the quiver with chariots of
men and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the
shield.
7 And it shall come to pass, that thy choicest
valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen
shall set themselves in array at the gate.
8 And he withdraweth the covering of Judah,
and thou hast looked in that day to the armour
of the House of the Forest ;
9 Ye have seen also the breaches of the city of
David, that they are many: and ye gathered
together the waters of the lower pool ;
10 And ye have numbered the houses of Jerusalem,
and the houses have ye broken down to fortify
the wall ;
II Ye make also a ditch between the two walls
for the water of the old pool ; — but ye have not
looked unto the maker thereof, neither had respect
unto him that fashioned it long ago.
12 And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts

86 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xxii, 13.

call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness,
and to girding with sackcloth :
13 And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen,
and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine ;
let us eat and drink, for to morrow we shall die 1
14 And it was revealed in mine ears by the LORD
of hosts : Surely this iniquity shall not be purged
from you till ye die, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.
15 Thus saith the Lord GOD of hosts : —
Go, get thee unto this treasurer, even unto
Shebna, which is over the house, and say :
16 What hast thou here ? and whom hast thou
here ? that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre
here, as he that heweth him out a sepulchre on
high, and that graveth an habitation for himself
in a rock ?
17 Behold, the LORD will carry thee away with a
mighty captivity, and will surely grasp thee.
18 He will surely violently turn thee and toss thee
like a ball into a large country : there shalt thou
die, and there the chariots of thy glory shall be,
thou shame of thy lord's house !
19 And I will drive thee from thy station, and
from thy state shall he pull thee down.
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I
will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah :
21 And I will clothe him with thy robe, and
strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit
thy government into his hand : and he shall be a
father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the
house of Judah.
22 And the key of the house of David will I lay

XXII, 23. THE BURDENS. 87
upon his shoulder ; so he shall open, and none
shall shut ; and he shall shut, and none shall
open.
23 And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place ;
and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father's
house.
24 And they shall hang upon him all the glory
of his father's house, the offspring and the issue,
all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of
cups, even to all the vessels of flagons.
25 In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall the
nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed,
and be cut down, and fall ; and the burden that
was upon it shall be cut off: for the LORD hath
spoken it.
23 I The burden of Tyre : —
Howl, ye ships of Tarshish ! for it is laid
waste, so that there is no house, no entering
in : from the land of Chittim it is revealed to
them.
2 Be still, ye inhabitants of the isle ! thou whom
the merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea,
have replenished.
3 And by great waters the seed of Nile, the
harvest of the river, was her revenue ; and she
was a mart of nations.
4 Be thou ashamed, O Zidon ! for the sea hath
spoken, even the strength of the sea, saying: I
travail not, nor bring forth children, neither do I
nourish up young men, nor bring up virgins.
5 When that the report cometh unto Egypt, then
shall they be sorely pained at the report of Tyre.

ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xxiii, 6.

6 Pass ye over to Tarshish ; howl, ye inhabitants
of the isle !
7 Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of
ancient days ? whose feet did carry her afar off to
sojourn ?
8 Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre,
the crowning city, whose merchants are princes,
whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth ?
9 The Lord of hosts hath purposed it, to stain
the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt
all the honourable of the earth.
10 Pass through thy land as a river, O daughter
of Tarshish : there is no more band !
II He stretched out his hand over the sea, he
shook the kingdoms : the Lord hath given a
commandment against Canaan, to destroy the
strongholds thereof
12 And he said, Thou shalt no more rejoice, O
thou humbled virgin, daughter of Zidon ! arise,
pass over to Chittim ; there also shalt thou have
no rest.
13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans ! this people
is not, the Assyrian hath made it to be for beasts
that dwell in the wilderness : they did set up the
towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof;
and he brought it to ruin.
14 Howl, ye ships of Tarshish ! for your strength
is laid waste.
IS And it shall come to pass in that day, that
Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to
the days of one king ; after the end of seventy
years shall Tyre sing as an harlot : —

XXIII, 1 6. THE BURDENS. ¦ 89
16 " Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot
that hast been forgotten ; make sweet melody, sing
many songs, that thou mayest be remembered !"
17 And it shall come to pass after the end of
seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and
she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit for
nication with all the kingdoms of the world upon
the face of the earth.
18 And her merchandise and her hire shall be
holiness to the LORD : it shall not be treasured
nor laid up ; for her merchandise shall be for
them that dwell before the LORD, to eat suffi
ciently, and for seemly clothing.

90 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xxvm, i.

THE WOES.
(XXVIII-XXXIII.)
28 I Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards
of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading
flower, which is on the head of the fat valleys of
them that are overcome with wine !
2 Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong
one, which, as a tempest of hail and a destroying
storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing,
shall cast down to the earth with the strong
hand.
3 The crown of pride of the drunkards of
Ephraim shall be trodden under feet.
4 And the glorious beauty, which is on the head
of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as
the hasty fruit before the summer ; which when
he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his
hand he eateth it up.
S In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a
crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto
the residue of his people,
6 And for a spirit of judgment to him that
sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that
turn back the battle at the gate.
7 But these, also, have erred through wine, and
through strong drink are out of the way ; the
priest and the prophet have erred through strong
drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out

xxvm, 8. THE WOES. 91
of the way through strong drink ; they err in
vision, they stumble in judgment.
8 For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness,
so that there is no place clean.
9 " Whom will he teach knowledge ? and whom
will he make to understand doctrine ? them that
are weaned from the milk, and ^drawn from the
breasts ?
10 " For precept must be upon precept, precept
upon precept ; line upon line, line upon line ; here
a little, and there a little."
"II Yea, with stammering lips and another tongue
will he speak to this people !
12 To whom he said : This is the rest wherewith
ye may cause the weary to rest, and this is the
refreshing ; yet they would not hear.
13 But the word of the LORD was unto them
precept upon precept, precept upon precept ; line
upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a
little ; that they might go, and fall backward, and
be broken, and snared, and taken.
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye
scornful men, that rule this people which is in
Jerusalem 1
IS Because ye have said, We have made a cove
nant with death, and with hell are we at agreement ;
when the overflowing scourge shall pass through,
it shall not come unto us : for we have made lies
our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid
ourselves :
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD : Behold, I
lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone,

92 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM, xxvm, 17.
a precious corner stone, a sure foundation : he that
believeth shall not take flight.
17 Judgment also will I lay for a line, and
righteousness for a plummet : and the hail shall
sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall
overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be dis
annulled, and your agreement with hell shall not
stand ; when the overflowing scourge shall pass
through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take
you : for morning by morning shall it pass over,
by day and by night : and it shall be a vexation
only to understand the report.
20 For the bed is shorter than that a man can
stretch himself on it : and the covering narrower
than that he can wrap himself in it.
21 For the LORD shall rise up as in mount
Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of
Gibeon ; that he may do his work, his strange
work ; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.
22 Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your
bands be made strong : for I have heard from the
Lord God of hosts a consumption, even deter
mined upon the whole earth.
23 Give ye ear, and hear my voice ; hearken,
and hear my speech !
24 Is the plowrhan plowing alway to sow ? is he
opening and breaking the clods of his ground ?
25 When he hath made plain the face thereof,
doth he- not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter
the cummin, and cast in wheat in rows, and the

XXVIII, 26. THE WOES. 93
barley in its appointed place and the rie on the
border thereof
26 For his God doth instruct him to discretion,
and doth teach him.
27 For the fitches are not threshed with a thresh
ing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned
about upon the cummin ; but the fitches are beaten
out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.
28 Bread corn is threshed ; howbeit he will not
ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel
of his cart, nor bruise it with his horses.
29 This also cometh forth from the LORD of
hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent
in working.
29 I Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David
dwelt I Add ye year to year ; let them kill the
sacrifices ;
2 Then I will distress Ariel, and there shall be
heaviness and sorrow — and then it shall be unto
me as Ariel.
3 For I will camp against thee round about, and
will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I
will raise forts against thee.
4 And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt
speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be
low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of
a ghost, out of the ground, and thy speech shall
whisper out of the dust.
5 And then the multitude of thine enemies shall
be made like small dust, and the multitude of the
terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away :
yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly.

94 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xxix, 6.
6 Thou shalt be visited of the LORD of hosts
with thunder, and with earthquake, and great
noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of
devouring fire.
7 And the multitude of all the nations that fight
against Ariel, even all that fight against her and
her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a
dream of a night vision.
8 It shall even be as when an hungry man
dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh,
and his soul is empty ! or as when a thirsty man
dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh ; but he awaketh,
and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appe
tite ! so shall the multitude of all the nations be,
that fight against mount Zion.
9 Stand ye still, and wonder ! blind ye your
eyes, and grow blind ! They are drunken, but
not with wine ; they stagger, but not with strong
drink.
[io For the LORD hath poured out upon you the
spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes,
the prophets ; and your rulers, the seers, hath he
covered.
II And the vision of all this is become unto you
as the words of a book that is sealed, which men
deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I
pray thee : and he saith, I cannot ; for it is sealed :
12 And the book -is delivered to him that is not
learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee : and he
saith, I arn not learned.
13 For thus hath the Lord said : Forasmuch as
this people draw near me with their mouth, and

XXIX, 14. THE WOES. 95
with their lips do honour me, but have removed
their heart far from me, and their fear toward me
is taught by the precept of men ;
14 Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a
marvellous work among this people, even a mar
vellous work and a wonder ; for the wisdom of
their wise men shall perish, and the understanding
of their prudent men shall disappear.
15 Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their
counsel from the LORD, and their works are in
the dark, and they say. Who seeth us ? and who
knoweth us ?
16 Surely ye are perverse ! is the potter like as
the clay, for the work to say of him that made
it. He made me not? or for the thing framed
to say of him that framed it, He had no under
standing ?
17 Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon
shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruit
ful field shall be esteemed as a forest ?
18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words
of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see
out of obscurity, and out of darkness.
19 The meek also shall increase their joy in the
Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in
the Holy One of Israel. -
20 For the terrible one is brought to nought, and
the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for
iniquity are cut off:
21 That make a man an offender for a word, and
lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate,
and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.

96 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xxix, 22.
22 Therefore thus saith the LORD, who redeemed
Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob : Jacob
shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face
now wax pale.
23 But when he and his children see the work
of mine hands in the midst of him, they shall
sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of
Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.
24 They also that erred in spirit shall come to
understanding, and they that murmured shall
learn doctrine.
30 I Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD,
that take counsel, but not of me ; and that weave
a confederacy, but not by my spirit, that they
may add sin to sin :
2 That walk to go down into Egypt, and have
not asked at my mouth ; to strengthen themselves
in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the
shadow of Egypt !
3 Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be
your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt
your confusion.
4 For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassa
dors came to Hanes.
5 They were all ashamed of a people that could
not profit them, nor be an help nor profit, but a
shame, and also a reproach.
6 The burden of the beasts of the south : —
" Through the land of trouble and anguish, from
whence come the young and old lion, the viper
and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches

xxx, 7. THE WOES. 97
upon the shoulders of young asses, and their
treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people
that shall not profit them.
7 " For the Egyptians shall help in vain, and to
no purpose ; therefore have I cried concerning
this : Proud Rahab is Shabeth sit-still !"
8 Now go, write it before them in a tablet, and
note it in a book, that it may be for the time to
come for ever and ever.
9 For this is a rebellious people, lying children,
children that will not hear the law of the LORD :
10 Which say to the seers, See not ! and to the
prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak
unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits,
II Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the
path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from
before us !
12 Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel :
Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppres
sion and perverseness, and stay thereon ;
13 Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a
breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall,
whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.
14 And he shall break it as the breaking of the
potters' vessel that is broken in pieces ; he shall
not spare : so that there shall not be found in the
bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth,
or to take water withal out of the pit.
IS For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One
of Israel : In returning and rest shall ye be saved ;
in quietness and in confidence shall be your
strength : and ye would not.
16 But ye said, No ; for we will fly upon horses ;
H

98 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xxx, 17.
therefore shall ye flee : and. We will ride upon the
swift ; therefore shall they that pursue you be
swift.
17 One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one ;
at the rebuke of five shall ye flee : till ye be left
as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as
an ensign on an hill.
18 And therefore will the Lord wait before he
be gracious unto you, and therefore will he delay
before he have mercy upon you : for the LoRD is
a God of judgment : blessed are all they that
wait for him !
19 For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jeru
salem : thou shalt weep no more ! he will be very
gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry ; when
he shall hear it, he will answer thee.
20 And though the Lord give you the bread of
adversity, and the water of afifliction, yet shall not
thy teachers be removed into a corner any more,
but thine eyes shall see thy teachers :
21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee,
saying, " This is the way, walk ye in it," when ye
turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
22 Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven
images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten
images of gold : thou shalt cast them away as a
defiled cloth ; thou shalt say unto it. Get thee
hence.
23 Then shall he give rain for thy seed, that thou
sowest the ground withal ; and bread of the
-increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and

xxx, 24. THE WOES. 99
plenteous : in that day shall thy cattle feed in
large pastures.
24 The oxen likewise and the young asses that
ear the ground shall eat clean provender, which
hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the
fan.
25 And there shall be upon every high mountain,
and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of
waters in the day of the great slaughter, when
the towers fall.
26 Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as
the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall
be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the
day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his
people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from
far, burning with his anger, and the burden there
of is heavy : his lips are full of indignation, and
his tongue as a devouring fire,
28 And his breath as an overflowing stream reach
ing to the midst of the neck, to winnow the nations
with the fan of destruction : and there shall be a
bridle in the jaws of the peoples causing them to err.
29 Ye shall have a song, as in the night when the
holy solemnity is kept ; and gladness of heart, as
when one goeth with a pipe to come into the moun
tain of the Lord, to the mighty One of Israel.
30 And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to
be heard, and shall shew the lighting down of his
arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with
the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and
tempest, and hailstones.

loo ISAIAH' OF JERUSALEM. xxx, 31.
31 For through the voice of the LORD shall the
Assyrian be beaten down, when the LORD shall
smite with a rod.
32 And every stroke of the staff of judgment,
which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be
with tabrets and harps : and in battles of his
brandished arm will he fight against him.
33 For Tophet is ordained of old ; yea, for the
king it is prepared ; he hath made it deep and
large : the pile thereof is fire and much wood ; the
breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstdhe,
doth kindle it.
31 I Woe to them that go down to Egypt for
help ; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots,
because they are many ; and in horsemen, be
cause they are very strong ; but they look not
unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the
Lord !
2 Yet he also is wise, and will bring evil, and
will not call back his words : but will arise against
the house of the evildoers, and against the help of
them that work iniquity.
3 Now the Egyptians are men, and not God ;
and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the
Lord shall stretch out his hand, both he that
helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall
down, and they all shall fail together.
4 For thus hath the LoRD spoken unto me : Like
as the lion and the young lion growling over his
prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth
against him, he will not be afraid of their voice,
nor abase himself for the noise of them : so shall

XXXI, 5. THE WOES.

the Lord of hosts come down to fight for mount
Zion, and for the hill thereof.
5 As birds flying round, so will the LORD of
hosts defend Jerusalem ; defending also he will
deliver it ; and passing over he will preserve it.
6 Turn ye unto him from whom the children of
Israel have deeply revolted !
7 For in that day every man shall cast away his
idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your
own hands have made unto you for a sin.
8 Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword,
not of a mighty man ; and the sword, not of a
mean man, shall devour him : but he shall flee
from the sword, and his young men shall be for
bondsmen.
9 And his rock, it shall pass away for fear, and
his princes shall flee from their ensign, saith the
Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in
Jerusalem.
32 I Behold, the king shall reign in righteousness,
and princes shall rule in judgment ;
2 And a man shall be as an hiding place from
the wind, and a covert from the tempest ; as
rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a
great rock in a weary land.
3 And the eyes of them that see shall not be
dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.
4 The heart also of the rash shall understand
knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers
shall be ready to speak plainly.
S The vile person shall be no more called noble,
nor the worker of mischief said to be worthy.

102 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xxxii, 6.
6 For the vile person doth speak villainy, and
his heart doth work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy,
and to utter error against the LORD, to make
empty the soul of the hungry, and he doth cause
the drink of the thirsty to fail.
7 The instruments also of the worker of mischief
are evil : he deviseth wicked devices to destroy
the poor with lying words, even when the needy
speaketh right.
8 But the noble deviseth noble things ; and
staunch to noble things shall he stand.
9 Rise up, ye women that are at ease ; hear my
voice, ye careless daughters ; give ear unto my
speech !
10 A year and a day, and ye shall be troubled, ye
careless women ! for the vintage shall fail, the
gathering shall not come.
II Tremble, ye women that are at ease ; be
troubled, ye careless ones : strip you, and make
you bare, and gjrd sackcloth upon your loins !
12 They shall beat the breast for the pleasant
fields, for the fruitful vine.
13 Upon the land of my people shall come up
thorns and briers ; yea, upon all the houses of
joy in the joyous city :
14 Because the palaces shall be forsaken ; the
uproar of the city shall be desolate ; the hill and
tower shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild
asses, a pasture of flocks ;
15 Until the spirit be poured upon us from on
high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and
the fruitful field be counted for a forest.

XXXII, i6. THE WOES. 103
16 Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness remain in the fruitful field.
17 And the work of righteousness shall be peace ;
and the effect of righteousness quietness and
assurance for ever.
18 And my people shall dwell in a peaceable
habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet
resting places.
19 And it shall hail, and the forest shall be
brought down ; and the city shall be low, in a low
place.
20 Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that
send abroad the feet of the ox and the ass !
33 I Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not
spoiled ; and dealest injuriously, and they dealt
not injuriously with thee ! when thou shalt cease
to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled ; and when thou
shalt make an end to deal injuriously, they shall
deal injuriously with thee.
2 O Lord, be gracious unto us ; we have waited
for thee ! be thou their arm every morning, our
salvation also in the time of trouble !
3 At the noise of the tumult the peoples fled ;
at the lifting up of thyself the nations were
scattered.
4 And your spoil shall be gathered like the
gathering of the caterpillar: as the running to
and fro of locusts shall men run upon them.
5 The Lord is exalted ; for he dwelleth on
high : he hath filled Zion with judgment and
righteousness.
6 And the stability of thy times shall be wisdom.

104 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xxxiii, 7-
and knowledge, and strength of salvation : the
fear of the LORD is their treasure.
7 Behold, their valiant ones cry without : the
ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.
8 The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man
ceaseth : he hath broken the covenant, he hath
despised the cities, he regardeth no man.
9 The land mourneth and languisheth : Lebanon
is ashamed and hewn down : Sharon is like a
wilderness ; and Bashan and Carmel shake off
their leaves.
10 Now will I rise, saith the Lord ; now will I
be exalted ; now will I lift up myself
II Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth
stubble : your breath, as fire, shall devour you.
12 And the peoples shall be as the burnings of
lime : as thorns cut up shall they be burned in
the fire.
13 Hear, ye that are far off, what I have done !
and, ye that are near, acknowledge my might !
14 The sinners in Zion are afraid ; fearfulness
hath surprised the hypocrites. " Who among us
shall dwell with the devouring fire ? who among
us shall dwell with everlasting burnings ?"
IS He that walketh righteously, and speaketh
uprightly ; he that despiseth the gain of oppres
sions, that averteth his hands from holding of
bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of
blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil —
16 He shall dwell on high : his place of defence
shall be the munitions of rocks : bread shall be
given him ; his waters shall be sure.

XXXIII, 17. THE WOES. 105
17 Thine eyes shall see the king" in his beauty :
they shall behold the land spreading very far
forth.
i8 Thine heart shall meditate the terror. Where
is the assessor? where is the weigher? where is
he that counted the towers ?
19 Thou seest no more the fierce people, the
people of a dark speech that thou canst not
perceive, of a stammering tongue that thou canst
not understand.
20 Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities !
thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation,
a tabernacle that shall not be taken down ; not
one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed,
neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken.
21 But there the glorious Lord will dwell with
us : a place of broad rivers and streams, wherein
shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant
ship pass thereby.
22 For the LORD is our judge, the Lord is our
lawgiver, the Lord is our king ; he will save us.
23 Thy tacklings are loosed ; they hold not firm
their mast, they keep not spread the sail ! — but
then is the prey of a great spoil divided ; the
lame take the prey.
24 And the inhabitant shall not say, " I am sick ! "
the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven
their iniquity.

io6 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. xxxvi, i.

SENNA CHERIB.
(xxxvi-xxxix.)
36 I N0"W" it came to pass in the fourteenth year of
king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria
came up against all the defenced cities of Judah,
2 and took them. And the king of Assyria sent
Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem unto king
Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by
the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of
3 the fuller's field. Then came forth unto him
Eliakim, Hilkiah's son, which was over the house,
and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, Asaph's son, the
4 recorder. And Rabshakeh said unto them : Say
ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king,
the king of Assyria, What confidence is this
5 wherein thou trustest ? I say, sayest thou (but
they are but vain words), I have counsel and
strength for war : now on whom dost thou trust,
6 that thou rebellest against me ? Lo, thou trustest
in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt ; whereon
if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce
it : so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust
7 in him. But if thou say to me, We trust in the
Lord our God : is it not he, whose high places
and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and
said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship
8 before this altar ? Now therefore strike a bargain,
I pray thee, with my master the king of Assyria,
and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou

xxxvi, 9. SENNACHERIB. 107
9 be able on thy part to set riders upon them. How
then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain
of the least of my master's servants, and put thy
trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen ?
10 And am I now come up without the LORD against
this land to destroy it? the LORD said unto me,
Go up against this land, and destroy it.
II Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto
Rabshakeh : Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants
in the Syrian language, for we understand it ;
and speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the
12 ears of the people that are on the wall. But
Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy
master and to thee to speak these words ? hath he
not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall,
that they may eat their own dung, and drink their
own piss with you ?
13 Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud
voice in the Jews' language, and said : Hear ye
the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.
14 Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive
you : for he shall not be able to deliver you.
IS Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord,
saying, the Lord will surely deliver us ; this city
shall not be delivered into the hand of the king
16 of Assyria. Hearken not to Hezekiah ; for thus
saith the king of Assyria : Make an agreement with
me by a present, and come out to me ; and eat
ye every one of his vine, arid every one of his fig
tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his
17 own cistern ; until I come and take you away to
a land like your own land, a land of corn and
i8wine,, a land of bread and vineyards. Beware

io8 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM, xxxvi, 19.

lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying. The LORD
will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the
¦nations delivered his land out of the hand of the
19 king of Assyria ? Where are the gods of Hamath
and Arphad ? where are the gods of Sepharvaim ?
and have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?
20 Who are they among all the gods of these lands,
that have delivered their land out of my hand,
that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of
my hand ?
21 But they held their peace, and answered him
not a word : for the king's commandment was,
saying, Answer him not.
22 Then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that
was over the household, and Shebna the scribe,
and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, to
Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him
37 I the words of Rabshakeh. And it came to pass,
when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his
clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and
2 went into the house of the LORD. And he sent
Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna
the scribe, and the elders of the priests covered
with sackcloth, unto Isaiah the prophet the son of
3 Amoz. And they said unto him : Thus saith
Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of
rebuke, and of blasphemy ; for the children are
come to the birth, and there is not strength to
4 bring forth. It may be the LORD thy God will
hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of
Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living
God, and will reprove the words which the LORD
thy God hath heard ; wherefore lift up thy prayer

XXXVII, 5. SENNACHERIB. 109
S for the remnant that is left. So the servants of
6 king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. And Isaiah said
unto them : Thus shall ye say unto your master,
Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid of the words
that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of
7 the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Be
hold, I will send a breath upon him, and he shall
hear a rumour, and return to his own land ; and
I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own
land.
8 So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of
Assyria warring against Libnah : for he had heard
9 that he was departed from Lachish. And he heard
say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, He is
come forth to make war with thee. And when he
heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying :
10 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah,
saying, Let not thy God, in whom thou trustest,
deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given
II into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold,
thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have
done to all lands by destroying them utterly ; and
12 shalt thou be delivered ? Have the gods of the
nations delivered them which my fathers have
destroyed, as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and
the children of Eden which are in Telassar ?
13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of
Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim,
Hena, and Ivah ?
14 And Hezekiah received the letter from the
hand ofthe messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah
went up unto the house of the Lord, and spread
IS it before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed unto

no ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM, xxxvii, i6.
i6 the Lord, saying : O LORD of hosts, God of Israel,
that dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the
God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the
17 earth : thou hast made heaven and earth. Incline
thine, ear, O LORD, and hear ; open thine eyes, O
Lord, and see : and hear all the words of Sen
nacherib, which hath sent to reproach the living
18 God. Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria
have laid waste all the nations, and their countries,
19 and have cast their gods into the fire : for they
were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood
and stone : therefore they have destroyed them.
20 Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from
his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may
know that thou art the LORD, even thou only.
21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto Heze
kiah, saying : Thus saith the LORD God of Israel,
Whereas thou hast prayed to me against Senna-
22 cherib king of Assyria, this is the word which
the Lord hath spoken concerning him : —
The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised
thee, and laughed thee to scorn ; the daughter of
Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.
23 Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed ?
and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice,
and lifted up thine eyes on high ? even against the
Holy One of Israel.
24 - By thy servants hast thou reproached the Lord,
and hast said : " By the multitude of my chariots
am I come up to the height of the mountains, to
the sides of Lebanon ; and I will cut down the
tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof :

XXXVII, 25. SENNACHERIB.

and I will enter into the height of his border, and
into his garden-grove of pleasure.
25 " I have digged, and drunk water ; and with
the sole of my feet have I dried up all the arms
of rivers of Egypt."
26 Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done
it .¦" and of ancient times, that I have formed it ?
now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest
be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous
heaps.
27 Therefore their inhabitants were of small power,
they were dismayed and confounded : they were
as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as
the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted
before it be grown up.
28 But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and
thy coming in, and thy rage against me.
29 Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult,
is come up into mine ears, therefore will I put my
hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and
I will turn thee back by the way by which thou
camest.
30 And this shall be a" sign unto thee : Ye shall
eat this year such as groweth of itself; and the
second year that which springeth the same: and in
the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vine
yards, and eat the fruit thereof!
31 And the remnant that is escaped of the house
of Judah shall again take root downward, and
bear fruit upward :
32 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a rem-

112 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM, xxxvii, 33.
nant, and they that escape out of mount Zion :
the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.
33 Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the
king of Assyria : He shall not come into this city,
nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with
shields, nor cast a bank against it.
34 By the way that he came, by the same shall
he return, and shall not come into this city, saith
the Lord.
3S For I will defend this city to save it for mine
own sake, and for my servant David's sake.
36 Then the angel of the Lord went forth, and
smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and
fourscore and five thousand : and when they arose
early in the morning, behold, they were all dead
37 corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed,
and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.
38 And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in
the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech
and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword ;
and they escaped into the land of Armenia : and
Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead.
38 I In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death.
And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came
unto him, and said unto him : Thus saith the Lord,
Set thine house in order ! for thou shalt die, and
2 not live. Then Hezekiah turned his face toward
3 the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, and said :
Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I
have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect
heart, and have done that which is good in thy
4 sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. Then came the

XXXVIII, 5. SENNACHERIB. 113
5 word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying : Go, and say
to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of
David thy father : I have heard thy prayer, I have
seen thy tears ; behold, I will add unto thy days
6 fifteen years. And I will deliver thee and this
city out of the hand of the king of Assyria : and
7 I will defend this city. And this shall be a sign
unto thee from the LORD, that the Lord will do
8 this thing that he hath spoken ; behold, I will
bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is
gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees
backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by
which degrees it was gone down.
9 The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when
he had been sick, and was recovered of his sick
ness.
10 I SAID : In the smoothness of my days I shall
go to the gates of the grave ; I am deprived of
the residue of my years.
II I said: I shall not see the LORD, even the
Lord, in the land of the living ; I shall behold
man no more with the inhabitants of the world.
12 Mine age is departed, and is removed from me
as a shepherd's tent ; I have cut off, as a weaver,
my life, as a weaver cutteth off the thread ; from
day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.
13 I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will
he break all my bones : from day even to night
wilt thou make an end of me.
14 Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter :
I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with
I

114 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM, xxxviii, 15.
looking upward : O LORD, I am oppressed ; under
take for me !
IS What shall I say? he hath both promised
unto me, and himself hath done it : I shall go
softly all my years in the contrition of my soul.
16 O Lord, by these things men live, and in all
these things is the life of my spirit I so wilt thou
recover me, and make me to live.
17 Behold, for my peace I had this great bitter
ness I thou hast in love to my soul delivered it
from the pit of corruption : thou hast cast all my
sins behind thy back.
18 For the grave cannot praise thee, death can
not celebrate thee : they that go down into the
pit cannot hope for thy truth.
19 The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as
I do this day : the father to the children shall
make known thy truth !
20 The Lord was ready to save me : therefore
we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments
all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.
21 (For Isaiah had said : Let them take a lump
of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and
22 he shall recover. Hezekiah also had said, What
is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the
Lord ?)
39 I At that time Merodach - baladan, the son of
Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a
present to Hezekiah : for he had heard that he
2 had been sick, and was recovered. And Hezekiah
was glad of them, and shewed them the house of
his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and

XXXIX, 3. SENNACHERIB. 115
the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the
house of his armour, and all that was found in
his treasures : there was nothing in his house,
nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed
them not.
3 Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king
Hezekiah, and said unto him. What said these
men ? and from whence came they unto thee ?
And Hezekiah said. They are come from a far
4 country unto me, even from Babylon. Then said
he. What have they seen in thine house? And
Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house
have they seen : there is nothing among my
S treasures that I have not shewed them. Then
said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the
6 Lord of hosts : Behold, the days come, that all
that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers
have laid up in store until this day, shall be
carried to Babylon : nothing shall be left, saith
7 the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from
thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take
away ; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace
8 of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah to
Isaiah: Good is theword ofthe LORD which thou
hast spoken. He said moreover : Yea, there shall
be peace and truth in my days 1

NOTES. PRELUDE.
(Chapter 1.)
We are to conceive of this prophecy as an introductory
piece, or overture, opening the way and striking the tone
for all that follows, and establishing the point of view
from which Isaiah, about the year 700 b.c, wished the
series of his prophecies to be read and the history of
the preceding half-century to be regarded. The chosen
people had known during this time both prosperity and
adversity, but by neither had it been instructed.
The historical sketch given in the Introduction (pp.
12-21) should be read with attention.
2. The Lord. — In the text, as in our Bibles generally,
this word Lord, when it stands, as here, for Jehovah, or
the Eternal, is printed in capitals; when it stands (as
in verse 24 of this chapter, for instance) simply for the
Hebrew word meaning lord, then it has only its first
letter a capital one. In the notes it will not be necessary
to observe this distinction.
3. Doth not know. — To whom he belongs.
4. Your country is desolate. — Both in the war with
Syria and Israel this had been seen, and it was now
seen again in the invasion of Sennacherib.
8. Lodge in a garden of cucumbers. — Dr. Kitto says : —
"Cucumbers, melons, and similar products are seldom
(in the Holy Land) protected by enclosures, but culti
vated in large open fields, quite exposed to the depre-

ii8 NOTES. 1,9-
dations of men or beasts. To prevent this, a slight
artificial mount is raised, if required, and on this is
constructed a frail hut or booth, such as is used in the
vineyard also, just sufficient for one person, who, in this
confined solitude, remains constantly watching the
ripening crop. Very often has our travelling party
paused on arriving at such melon-grounds to bargain
with the watchman for a supply of his refreshing fruit ;
and on such occasions — often seeing no object around
to a great distance in the plain but this one man and his
solitary shed — we have been most forcibly reminded of
the peculiar appropriateness of the image of desolation
suggested by the prophet."
9. A very small remnant. — " "We came within a very
little of perishing entirely," is all that the prophet here
means. Remnant is not used in the sense in which it is
used in "the remnant shall return" (x, 21).
12. To tread my courts. — To crowd trampling into
God's courts, to attend his services, is not what he
requires. 27. Zion shall be redeemed. — A sifting judgment, and
the estabUshment of righteousness, shall redeem Zion.
2 9. The oaks. — The evergreen oaks of the idolatrous
groves and gardens.

CALAMITIES FOR JUDAH.
(Chapters 2-5.)
This prophecy, following the Prelude, and forming
the real beginning to the Book of Isaiah, belongs to the
time of Jotham and of Isaiah's early career, when Judah
was, to outward view, still prosperous. "We may place
its date about the year 740 b.c.
2. And it shall come to pass, etc. — The prophecy
opens with three verses (2-4) which we find nearly in the
same words in Micah also (iv, 1-3). In each case the

II, 5- NOTES. 119
words are probably a quotation from an older prophet.
They fix the ideal for Zion and its people : after exhibit
ing the ideal, Isaiah proceeds to show how far his
countrymen depart from it.
5. O house of Jacob. — A call from the prophet to his
own people.
6. Thou hast. — The Eternal is addressed.
lb. The east. — "Uzziah had recovered for Judah the
port at the head of the Gulf of Akaba on the Red Sea,
Elath (II Kings, xiv, 22). In his reign and that of his
son Jotham trade from this port on the south-east
brought into Judah wealth, but also foreign manners and
idolatries. In the reign of Ahaz and afterwards there
was a like importation from the north-east, from Syria
and Assyria.
lb. Soothsayers. — The practice of magic was adopted
from the Philistines, whom Uzziah conquered; Judah
grew familiarised with foreigners, and fond of them and
their usages, and came to rely on the same sources of
strength as they.
9. And the mean man, etc. — Men of all conditions,
small and great, betook themselves to idolatry, so as to pro
voke the coming of a day ofthe Eternal, a day of judgment.
13. Upon all the cedars. — The day of judgment is
presented as bringing to nothing all the greatness of
nature, and all the greatness and art of man.
16. Ships of Tarshish. — From the port of Elath
Jewish fleets, in Uzziah's time, traded with Tartessus at
the mouth of the Guadalquivir.
ib. Pleasant pictures. — All sorts of objects of art
pleasant to the eye are included.
3. 3. The master of the spell. — More literally the
master of muttering, one skilled in magical arts and in
cantations. 4. Children to be their princes. — Jotham's son Ahaz
and the insolent young nobles surrounding him are
here indicated.

I20 NOTES. Ill, 6.
6. When a man shall take, etc. — In the miserable
anarchy prevailing, no man is willing to assume headship
and responsibility.
8. Jerusalem is ruined. — Compare Micah, iii, 12 —
" Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be
come heaps." Jeremiah tells us (xxvi, 18,19) that after
this prophecy of Micah the king and people of Judah
" did fear the Lord, and besought the Lord, and the Lord
repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against
them." But in the later years of Hezekiah, when his min
isters and people were seeking the Egyptian alliance, and
the amendment of Judah had proved transitory, the threat
ening pronouncement reappears. See Isaiah, xxxii, 14.
12. Women rule over them. — The youthful, sensual,
and foolish Ahaz was under the influence of the harem.
24. Branding. — Inflicted on the captive by the
conqueror. 4. I. And in that day seven women, etc. — Zion shall
be so desolate of men that its proud daughters, instead
of being wooed, shall compete in wooing, for the sake of
the mere protection of his name, any surviving man that
they can find.
2. The Branch. — See xi, i, and xxxii, i. After the
purging judgment the saved remnant of Israel shall live
under a righteous king, " the fruit of the land," its choice
and blessed product.
5. A cloud and smoke, etc. — A reminiscence of the
protection formerly given to Israel by the pihar of cloud and
pillar of fire in the wilderness, after the escape from Egypt.
5. I. Now will I sing to my wellbeloved. — " I " is the
prophet, " my wellbeloved " is the Eternal, to whom the
prophet sings a parabolic song, supposed to proceed from
the Eternal himself, touching his vineyard, — his chosen
land and people.
10. Bath, homer, ephah. — Hebrew measures. A
bath is from seven to eight gallons. Ten acres, therefore,

V, 17. NOTES. 121
of vineyard were to yield but seven and a half gallons of
wine. An ephah is the tenth part of a homer ; the pro
duce, therefore, was to be but a tenth of the grain sown.
17. The lambs feed after their manner. — "Where once
was Jerusalem, the flocks of strangers shall graze at will,
of strangers who succeed to the possessions of the once-
powerful native lords.
18. Draw iniquity, etc. — Sinners contemptuous and
incredulous of divine judgment are represented as in
their folly dragging eagerly along their iniquity and their
sin, to their ruin.
26. The nations from far. — Assyria and others,
executors of God's judgments.
30. Over it. — Over the invaders' prey, Judah.

VISION.
(Chapter 6.)
I. In the year that king Uzziah died. — This year of
Isaiah's vision and consecration was probably the year
740 B.a Jotham, on account of the leprosy of his
father Uzziah, acted as regent for some years before
Uzziah's death.
ib. His train filled the temple. — The train means the
flowing skirts of God's robes; the temple means the
heavenly temple, not the temple at Jerusalem.
2. Above it stood the seraphims. — The seraphims are
conceived floating above the train of God. How they
are to be imagined is to be gathered from this verse.
The word seraph seems to have generally had the mean
ing of a fiery flying dragon.
13. So the substance thereof shall be a holy seed.— As
life remains in the stump of trees which have been cut
down, and as new shoots spring from it, so from the
stock of the burned and purged tenth of the chosen
people shall come a living growth.

NOTES. VII, 2.

IMMANUEL.
(Chapters 7-12.)
For history see the Introduction. The date of the in
vasion of Judah by the kings of Syria and Israel, and of
Isaiah's meeting with Ahaz, who had succeeded his father
Jotham on the throne of Judah, was probably about 732
B.C. 2. Ephraim. — Of the ten tribes which formed the
northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, Ephraim was
the chief, and it was also the seat of the capital, Samaria.
Its name is therefore often used to designate the whole
northern kingdom.
3. Shearjashub. — The first appearance of this mystic
name. The remnant shall return. For its importance see
the Preface.
6. The son of Tabeal. — Tabeal was probably a Syrian
prince, and his son was a favourite of the two kings,
Rezin and Pekah.
8. And within threescore and five years, etc.— -'Ma.n-y
critics are for omitting this second part of the verse as a
later interpolation. "Whether we omit it or retain it the
passage is not so clearly self- explaining as might be
wished. As it stands it seems to mean : — Judah's
enemies are but a poor pair ; one of them, Ephraim, will
go to pieces within about half a century ; the other is of
like kind.
II. Either in the depth. — Either from the under
world or from the world of air.
12. Behold the virgin, etc. — Immanuel is addressed
in the next chapter (verse 8) as a prince of Judah.
" The virgin," therefore, is to be married to one of the
house of David, and is within a year's time to bear a
prince of Judah. The prince meant cannot be Hezekiah,
for Hezekiah was at the time of this prophecy nearly
grown up.
15. Milk-curd and honey. — See below, 21-25. Ey

VII, i6. NOTES. 123
the time the virgin's child, the young prince of Judah,
comes to years of discretion, warfare shall have made
his country desolate, agriculture shall be abandoned in
Judah, men shall subsist on the produce of their wander
ing herds and on wild honey.
16. Before the child. — Much before the child comes
to years of discretion, at a time quite near, a time only
a year or two hence (see viii, 4), Syria and Israel shall
be conquered by the king of Assyria.
17. The Lord shall bring upon ihee. — The prophet
returns to Judah. Syria and Israel shall be conquered ;
but the chastisement of Judah also shall follow later.
ib. Ephraim departed from Judah. — The separation
of the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel in Rehoboam's
time is meant.
18. The fly, etc.— The lowlands of Egypt, up to the
head ofthe streams ofthe Delta, were the haunt of flies, as
the mountain-lands of Assyria were the haunt of wild bees.
20. Shall the Lord shave with a rasor that is hired.
— The Eternal shall bring his instrument, the king of
Assyria, from beyond the river Euphrates, to inflict upon
Judah conquest, servitude, and dishonour. The shaving
of the head, body, and beard marks the loss of manhood.
21. ^ man shall nourish, etc. — See note on verse 15.
After the conquest, the desolated land shall be used by
its inhabitants merely for pasture and for hunting, not for
agriculture as at present.
23. Silverlings. — The silverling, or silver shekel, was
worth about 2 s. 3d.
8. I. With pen of the people. — In large plain hand
writing, which he who runs may read.
4. Before the child shall have knowledge to cry, —
Within a year or two, before the child presently to be born
can speak plain. See the Introduction. In fact, by
730 B.C., two years from the time when Isaiah spoke,
Tiglathpileser had crushed the kingdom of Syria and
chastised the kingdom of Israel.

124 NOTES. VIII, 6.
6. The waters of Shiloah, — The spring and pool of
Shiloah or Siloah, in the valley on the south-east side of
Jerusalem, is taken to represent the source of refresh
ment and life in the Lord's Zion. The prophecy is
against both Judah and Israel ("both the houses of
Israel," verse 14), but verses 6 and 7 apply particularly
to Israel, ruled by Remaliah's son, Pekah, and in alliance
with Rezin, king of Syria. In verse 8 the prophet
passes to Judah.
9. Associate yourselves, O ye peoples. — The power" of
Assyria, figured by the river Euphrates, shall overflow
Israel and Judah ; but the triumph of the heathen over
the kingdom of the Eternal and his Immanuel shall not
endure. 12. Say ye not, A confederacy. — Do not share in the
panics of your nation about alliances formed against it.
14. ^ sanctuary. — A sanctuary to the prophet himself,
to the "remnant" of the Jewish nation, to the disciples
(see verse 16) ofthe Eternal. The Eternal speaks.
18. Behold, I and the children. — The prophet speaks.
The children are Shear-jashub, "The remnant shall
return," and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, "Spoil speedeth,
prey hasteth.'' See the Preface.
19. That chirp and that mutter. — The low indistinct
voice of the dead whom the wizards profess to raise, and
for whom they speak, is meant.
ib. Unto the dead. — The spirits of the dead which
the necromancers profess to evoke.
9. I. That which was vexed. — The northern border
of the Holy Land on both sides of the Jordan was
most exposed to the invasions of Syria and Assyria, the
great Gentile kingdoms to the north and north-east, and
was naturally the first part of Palestine to suffer. See
II Kings, XV, 29. Tiglath-pileser invaded Naphtali and
Zebulun (answering to what was afterwards Upper and
Lower Galilee), and, to the east of the Jordan, he in
vaded the half tribe of Manasseh, with Gad and Reuben

IX, I. NOTES. 125

and deported the inhabitants of all of them to Assyria.
The affliction which began here, and afterwards spread
farther, shall not, the prophet says, be permanent.
lb. The way of the sea. — The sea is commonly taken
to mean the Sea of Galilee ; but more probably it is
the Mediterranean, with which Zebulun was in contact at
Carmel. Zebulun is spoken of in Genesis (xlix, 13) as a
maritime tribe: — -"Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of
the sea, and he shall be for an haven of ships ; and his
border shall be unto Zidon.''
4. The staff of his shoulder. — The disciplining staff
or rod laid by his oppressor upon Israel's neck,
shoulders, and back.
ib. As in the day of Midian. — In Immanuel's reign
God's people shall be delivered from their conquerors
and oppressors, as Gideon delivered them from the
Arabian tribes of the Midianites. See Judges, vii, viii.
6. His name. — The "name" given to Immanuel
consists of eight appellations, in four pairs.
8. A word into Jacob. — The word is to the whole
people of both Judah and Israel ; but what follows next
applies specially to Israel or Ephraim. Judah comes in
at verse 21.
10. The bricks are fallen down. — Instead of repenting,
Ephraim proposes to restore and augment his worldly
strength by the use of stronger materials.
II. The overthrowers of Rezin. — The Assyrians who
had crushed Rezin of Syria.
14. Palm-branch and rush. — -The handsome palm-
branch is opposed to the valueless rush as the head to
the tail, the honourable to the ignoble.
18. It shall devour the briers and thorns. — Judgment
shall fall first upon individuals (the briers and thorns),
then upon the mass of the nation (the thickets of the
forest). 10. 6. O Assyrian. — So far as to the judgment upon
God's people. But the instrument of this judgment,

126 NOTES. X, 9.

Assyria, far from regarding itself as God's instrument
against Israel and Judah, is proud and self-sufficient, and
shall in its turn be brought low.
9. Is not Calno as Carchemish, etc. — These are vassal
territories of the king of Assyria. Calno, afterwards
Ctesiphon, is on the Tigris, Carchemish (Circesium) on
the Euphrates, Arpad in the neighbourhood of Aleppo,
Hamath (Epiphania) on the Orontes. The king of
Assyria ranks the God of Israel with the gods of these
vassal territories, who have failed to save them.
15. As if the rod, etc. — As it is the living arm wielding
the staff", axe, or saw, and not the instrument itself, which
really does the work, so it is the Eternal wielding his
instrument Assyria, and not Assyria itself, that is to be
magnified. 21. The-remnant-shall-return. — This is the translation
of Shear-jashub, the symbolical name of Isaiah's son.
However numerous be the people of Israel and Judah,
only a remnant of them shall be saved, and shall found
the felicity of the future.
26. Midian at the rock of Oreb, — See Judges, vii, 25.
Assyria shall fall before God's people, as Midian and
Egypt formerly did.
2 7. The yoke shall break, — The remnant, God's true
people, shall be so strong and stout that Assyria's yoke
on their neck shall be burst asunder by their stoutness.
28. He is come to Aiath, etc, — The conquering march
of the Assyrians through Judah, from the north south
wards to Jerusalem, is described Nob, the last-named
place on the conquerors' march, is within sight of
Jerusalem itself.
34. He shall cut down, — "He" is the Eternal. The
thickets are the rank and file of the king of Assyria's
army; Lebanon, with its grand cedars, represents his
mighty men.
11. I. A rod out ofthe stem of Jesse, — The Immanuel
of chapters vii and ix.

XI, 3. NOTES, 127

3. Shall not judge, etc. — Shall not decide and censure
hastily and passionately.
I o. His rest, — The seat and firmly-established throne
of Immanuel. II. To recover the remnant of his people, — The de
portation by Tiglath-pileser of the tribes on the northern
frontier of Palestine has been mentioned in the note to
ix, I. Between that time and the year 700 b.c the
whole population of the northern kingdom had been
deported, after the fall of Samaria.
ib. From Pathros, etc. — Pathros is Upper Egypt; Cush
is Ethiopia-; Elam is Susistan, east of the Tigris; Shinar is
on the Euphrates, and formed part of Babylonia; Hamath
(already mentioned in x, 9) is Epiphania on the Orontes.
ib. The islands of the sea. — The coasts and islands of
the Mediterranean.
15. The tongue of the Egyptian sea. — The tongue or
inlet of sea running up between Egypt and Arabia, the
Gulf of Suez.
ib. The river, — Euphrates. By cutting channels to
carry off its waters men shall be able to cross it dryshod.
12. 4. Among the peoples, — The blessed reign of
Immanuel has carried the knowledge of the Eternal
among all nations.

THE BURDENS.
(Chapters 14, 24-23.)
In the last half of the eighth century before Christ
Palestine and the neighbouring countries repeatedly felt
the arm of Assyria, and such visitations caused Isaiah to
utter his burdens, or oracular sentences of doom, upon
the countries visited. These, as they now stand, we
may suppose him to have collected and republished at
the end of the century, with new touches thrown in, and

128 NOTES. XIV, 29.
with a sentence upon the conquering Assyria itself for
preface. 14. 29. The rod of hitn that smote thee. — Uzziah had
been victorious over the Philistines (II Chron., xxvi, 6),
but in the reign of his grandson Ahaz they in their turn
invaded Judah and occupied sorae of its towns (II Chron.,
xxviii, 18). The power of Judah, "of him that smote
them," had been brought low by the ahiance against
Ahaz of the kings of Syria and Israel. The prophet
warns the Philistines not to be over-elated at Judah's
weakness, for they shall feel the hand of a more formid
able conqueror, Assyria. In fact, Tiglath-pileser at the
end of the reign of Ahaz chastised, we are told, the
Philistines and received their submission. Subsequently
revolting, they were again invaded and chastised by
Tiglath-pileser's successors, Sargon and Sennacherib.
31. O gate. — -The gates of the Philistian fortresses
were famous for their strength.
ib. There cometh from the north. — The well-disciplined
army of Assyria is meant
3 2. What shall one then answer, — This is one of the
touches probably added during Sennacherib's invasion,
when the other Palestinian nations were in communica
tion with Judah as to means of resisting the common foe.
15. I. The burden of Moab, — Tiglath-pileser chastised
the Moabites and received their submission ; and again,
after they had revolted on Sennacherib's accession, the
king of Moab submitted himself to Sennacherib. The
places named in the burden are places belonging to the
Moabites; Ar of Moab (Areopolis) and Kir of Moab
(Kir-hareseth) are their two chief towns.
5. The heifer. — The strong fortress of Zoar, on a hill
near the Dead Sea, is compared to a heifer of three years
old, full of strength and not yet tamed to the plough.
7. The brook ofthe willows. — A brook on the southern
border of Moab, forming the boundary between Moah
and Edom.

XV, 9- NOTES. 129
9. Dimon. — Dimon is the Dibon of verse 2, a place
about an hour's journey off the river Arnon. The b is
changed into m to get the signification of " blood."
16. I. Send ye the lamb, etc. — The fugitives of Moab
have fled as far as Sela (Petra) in Edom. They are
bidden by the prophet to send their tribute of lambs
from thence through the wilderness to Jerusalem, to the
king there, their proper ruler. The Moabites had for
merly been subject to David.
2. The daughters of Moab. — The frightened and
uncertain fugitives shall be at the fords of Arnon, the
river of Moab, like birds cast out of the nest.
3. Take counsel, etc. — This verse and the two verses
following are the appeal which the tribute -bringing
envoys of Moab make to the strong and just ruler of
Jerusalem. 6. We have heard, etc. — This is the prophet's answer
in the name of Judah.
ib.. His lies shall not be so. — Things shall not go as
he falsely vaunts they will.
8. The vine of Sibmah, etc. — The vineyards and wine
of Sibmah in Moab were famous. The cultivation of
the exceUent vine of Moab extended northward and
westward to Heshbon and the Dead Sea. The conqueror
brings it all to an end, whereat the prophet is moved
with pity.
12. The high place. — The high place and sanctuary
of Chemosh the god of Moab.
13. This is the word, etc. — The foregoing prophecy
may be supposed to have been uttered when Moab was
overrun by the armies of Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser,
or Sargon. At the end of the century, after the rising
of Moab against Sennacherib, the prophet repubUshes
his former utterance with a prediction of new and
speedy ruin added.
14. The years of an hireling. — Strictly counted, as a
hireUng counts the time which he has to serve.
K

I30 NOTES. XVII, I.
17. I. The burden of Damascus. — This prophecy
belongs to the time of Tiglath-pileser and his chastise
ment of Syria and Israel.
2. The cities of Aroer. — There were two Aroers in
the territory of the tribes of Israel on the east of Jordan.
As Aroer means laid bare, the name is a symbol of the
desolation of the whole country.
5. Rephaim. — A plain abounding in corn to the
south-west of Jerusalera. Of Israel, as of Judah, there
shall be a remnant saved, a remnant like the few ears of
corn which escape the reaper, like -the few olives which
escape the gatherer.
9. As the i~uins in the thickets and in the heights. —
The cities of Israel shall be as the ruins of the Canaanitish
cities left in the thickets and in the heights after the
conquest of Canaan by the Israelites.
10. Strange slips. — The idolatry of Israel is expressed
under the figure of a planting or garden set with " strange
slips" of divinities adopted frora their heathen neighbours.
12. Woe to the multitude, etc. — The kingdoras of this
world, which now serve as God's instrument for the
punishraent of his people, shall finally perish themselves.
18. I. Woe for the land buzzing with wings, etc.- — •
Compare "the fly that is in the uttermost part of the
rivers of Egypt," vii, 18. The numberless flies of the
rivers of the interior of Africa are meant. The " rivers
of Ethiopia" are the Blue and White Nile; the "land"
is the country between them and to the south of them,
the Meroe of the Greeks, Nubia and Abyssinia. The
king of Ethiopia, Shabak, had dispossessed the Egyptian
king and had retained a preponderance, which in the
last quarter of the eighth century b.c. enabled hira and
his successor to govern the policy of Egypt and of the
princes of the Delta. In the year 720 Shabak, having
joined in the movement against Assyria, was defeated by
Sargon at Raphia in Southern Palestine. His successor
was defeated in the sarae region by Sennacherib nineteen

XVIII, 2. NOTES. 131
years later. The prophecy is probably to be assigned
to this later period. Assyria is too strong for the
Ethiopians, for whora the prophet has clearly a kind
ness ; but the Eternal in his own tirae will bring Assyria
to ruin, and will receive the worship of Ethiopia.
2. Vessels of bulrushes. — Boats raade of papyrus,
used by the dwellers on the Nile.
ib. Go, ye swift messengers. — The prophet sends a
raessage to all the widespread, great, and warUke Ethiopian
people, to the effect that the Eternal is preparing a cure
for the present distress.
ib. A nation long- shanked and smooth. — Herodotus
calls the Ethiopians " the taUest and finest of men," and
mentions also their sraooth and shining skin, due, it was
said, to the water of a certain spring (Herod, iii., 20, 23).
lb. The rivers. — The Blue and White Nile.
4. Like a clear heat — The Eternal lets Assyria ripen
until the hour of its ruin comes.
7. In that time. — See the end of note to verse i.
19. I. The burden of Egypt. — Egypt at this time, as
has been mentioned, felt the pressure of Ethiopia, the suze
rain of the weak princes of the Delta. These princes
shared in the defeats of Raphia in 720, and of Altaku,
or Eltekeh, in 701. It was a time of confusion and help
lessness for Egypt, in spite of its antiquity, civilisation,
and pretensions ; and the Jewish reliance upon Egyptian
power, in the struggle with Assyria, was perfectly vain.
4. A cruel lord. — The king of Ethiopia. The
estabUshment of the first king of the Ethiopian dynasty
had been attended with cruel treatment of the dispos
sessed king of Egypt.
ib. The waters shall fail.— The political confusion in
Egypt brought about anarchy, stoppage, and social
distress. , . ^ .
II. Zoan. — Zoan is Tanis, a chief city of Lower
Egypt, near the Pelusian mouth of the Nile; Noph
(verse 13) is Memphis.

132 NOTES. XIX, 15.
1 5. The head with the tail, etc. — Images for the upper
and lower classes.
1 8. In that day. — For Egypt the final solution shaU
be, as for Ethiopia, conversion to Israel's God, the
Eternal, and peace in that conversion.
23. Shall worship. — The Egyptians together with
the Assyrians shall worship the Eternal.
20. I. Tartan came unto Ashdod. — Tartan is a
military title, like generalissimo. Ashdod, the strong
city of the Philistines, was taken by Sargon's general
about 711 B.C. The reduction and occupation by the
Assyrians of the Palestinian fortresses was preliminary to
the conquest of Egypt. Isaiah foreteUs that conquest,
which was accomplished, however, not by Sargon, but
by Esar-haddon, the son of Sennacherib.
6. Of this coast. — Of Palestine. The court of
Jerusalem and the people of Judah rely upon Egypt
and Ethiopia for aid against Assyria, and Egypt and
Ethiopia are themselves Assyria's prey.
21. II. The burden of Dumah. — Edom or Idumsea
is probably caUed Dumah, silence, by a play of words to
express the desolation coming upon the land. Seir is
the well-known mountain of Edom. We hear of the
Edomites being subdued both by Tiglath -pUeser and
by Sennacherib. 12. The watchman. — The watchman is the prophet
in Jerusalem, answering the appeal of Edom. He sees
but a troubled future for Edom, day breaking for it to
be followed again by darkness and night ; only one
counsel he can give : Return, come ! be converted to the
God of Israel !
13. The burden upon Arabia. — Tiglath-pileser sub
dued the Arab tribes ; Sargon also subdued the nomads
of "remote Arabia which had never before given tribute
to Assyria." Herodotus speaks of Sennacherib as " king
of the Arabians and Assyrians." This prophecy shows

XXI, 1 6. NOTES.

133

us the Arab caravans unable to travel securely for fear
of the soldiery of the invaders. The Dedanim, Tema,
and Kedar are tribes and places of Arabia.
16. The years of an hireling. — See note on xvi, 14.
22. I. The v'alley of vision. — The valley of vision is
Jerusalem, where the prophet's house stood in the lower
town between Mount Moriah and Mount Zion. The
Assyrian is in Palestine, Jerusalem is in danger. The
defences and cisterns of the city are being hurriedly
repaired ; but there is no amendment of life, no serious
ness, and no force. Jerusalem is in gaiety and revel ;
the citizens go up upon their flat roofs for pleasure
parties, or in curiosity about the approaching soldiery of
the invader.
3. All thy rulers. — As if it had already happened,
the prophet sees the disaster sure to befall such a nation
and government as those of Judah in conflict with such
an enemy as Assyria. The prophecy belongs probably
to the time of the projected alliance with Egypt, either
in Sargon's reign or at the accession of Sennacherib.
5. Crying to the mountains. — Cries of despair ascend
ing to the hills which stood about Jerusalem, and echoed
back frora thera.
6. Elam . . . Kir. — Contingents of the Assyrian
array, troops frora Elara or Susistan, a part of Persia,
and from the banks of the river Cyrus in Armenia.
8. He withdraweth. — "He" is the Eternal, who with
draws the covering or curtain frora Jerusalem and lets it
be seen in its weakness.
ib. The House of the Forest. — The arsenal. See I
Kings, vii, 2. It was built by Solomon, and having " four
rows of cedar piUars, with cedar beams upon the piUars,"
was thence caUed " the house of the forest of Lebanon."
15. This treasurer. — The treasurer of the Jewish
king was his chief minister, a high steward, or mayor of
the palace.
; 16. What hast thou herel — The unpopular Shebna

134 NOTES. XXII, 19.
was an alien, with no right in Jerusalem, and no family
stock there.
ig. Shall he pull thee down. — " He " is the Eternal.
20. T will call my servant Eliakim. — A little later
(xxxvi, 3) we find Eliakim in the post of mayor of the
palace, and Shebna in that of scribe or secretary.
24. They shall hang upon him. — All his connexions,
small and great, shall prosper through his rise.
23. I. The burden of Tyre, — Shalmaneser besieged
Tyre, with what final result is not known. In the rising
of the Phcenician cities after Sennacherib's accession
Isaiah saw fresh calamity for Tyre.
ib. Ye ships of Tarshish. — Tarshish, or Tartessus, is
the raining country outside the Straits of Gibraltar, at
the mouth of the Guadalquivir, with which Phcenicia
traded. ib. From the land of Chittim, — The Tarshish fleet is
supposed to have reached Chittim, or Cyprus, on its
voyage home, and there to learn the fall of Tyre.
3. The harvest ofthe river. — The Tyrian traders went
to Egypt for grain.
4. Zidon. — Zidon, the other great Phoenician city,
shares with Tyre the shame of loss of trade and decline.
5- Fgypt. — Egypt, of which Tyre was so good a
customer, shaU grieve at Tyre's fall.
6. The isle. — Tyre was built on an island. The
Phoenicians are bidden to betake themselves" to Tarshish,
now that they have lost Tyre.
10. Pass through thy land as a river. — With Tyre's
fall the band of subjection is loosed for the colonies and
countries dependent on Tyre ; they are free.
II. He stretched out, etc.—"Yi.e" is the Eternal;
Canaan, in the latter part of the verse, is Phoenicia.
13. Behold the land of the Chaldeans. — The Phoe
nicians are told to mark the fate of Babylonia, which in
704 B.C. had risen against Sennacherib, and had just
been subdued by him and heavily punished. The

XXIII, IS. NOTES. 135
prophecy probably dates from Sennacherib's invasion of
Palestine in 701 e.g., after his victory over Merodach-
baladan, king of Babylon.
1 5. Seventy years, according to the days of one king. —
A long uneventful period of subjugation is foretold for
Tyre ; then she shall recover her trade and wealth, but
shall bestow them on the Eternal's service. By the days
of one king is meant the uniform course of life under
one ruler and policy ; by seventy years, as by threescore
and five years (vii, 8) is meant a certain considerable
term of years.
17. Her hire. — The trade of Tyre is signified by this
figure of hire and fornication.

THE WOES.
(Chapters 28-33.)
The Burdens are concerned with foreign nations
mainly ; in the Woes, the prophet comes nearer home,
dealing with the history of the chosen people from the
faU of Samaria in 721 B.C. down to Sennacherib's
invasion in 701 b.c. The prophecy which comes first
belongs clearly to the beginning of this period. The
prophecies which follow cannot be assigned with cer
tainty to any particular year. It is sometimes urged
that they must belong to the early years of the period ;
because they prophesy disaster to Jerusalera, while, at
the end of the period, it is Sennacherib's disaster, not
Jerusalem's, which Isaiah is prophesying. But, on the
one hand, the ruin of the sinful Jerusalem was always an
article of faith with Isaiah, although the insolent and
unrighteous heathen invader may provoke chastisement.
On the other hand, the tone of emotion in these chapters
is such that they may better be referred to the agonising
crisis which followed Sennacherib's ¦ accession in 705
than to any earUer tirae.

136 NOTES, xxvm, I.
28. I. The crown of pride. — The vine-clad hiU of
Samaria, the capital of Ephraim. The rich and beauti
ful vegetation crowning this hill is figured as being at the
same time a crown to the heads of the revelling and
riotous nobles of Ephraim.
7. But these, also, — Not the nobles, priests, and
prophets of Ephraim only, of the northern kingdom, but
those of Judah likewise.
9. Whom will he teach, — The words of the drunken
nobles of Judah to Isaiah. The repetitions in the next
verse are probably meant to reproduce the speech of
drunken raen.
II. With stammering lips. — With speech hard to
catch and indistinctly understood Uke that of these
drunkards, even with the speech of the Assyrian invader.
The Assyrians spoke a Seraitic dialect imperfectly com
prehended by the Hebrews.
15. We have made a covenant with death. — The
alliance with Egypt, which the nobles and court of
Jerusalera were secretly preparing as the means of
deUverance from Assyria, is probably here meant. The
" overflowing scourge " is Assyria.
21. As in mount Perazim, etc. — Two defeats which
David inflicted on the Philistines. See I Chron., xiv,
10-16. ib. His strange work. — The strangeness is in God's
now working the defeat of his own chosen people.
23. Give ye ear, etc. — The prophet concludes with a
parable, illustrating God's ways with his people from the
simple operations of the tiUer of the ground. As the
tiller of the ground is not always ploughing and breaking
it open, so God is not always afflicting and punishing,
but only long enough to prepare his people's hearts to
receive the seed of righteousness.
25. The fitches. — "Fitches" is only an old form of
the word "vetches.''
27.^ The fitches are not threshed. — As the husbandman
has divers modes of treatment, some harder, others

XXIX, I. NOTES. 12,7
gentler, for the different objects of his care, so has God
for his people.
29. I. Ariel. — Ariel, meaning "the Lion of God," is
Jerusalera, the unconquered fortress-city of David.
ib. Add ye year to year.. — Let the year go round
with its feasts and sacrifices ; then shall come a visita
tion from the Eternal upon Jerusalem; but afterwards
it shall be his own Jerusalem again. The date of this
prophecy is between 705 and 701 b.c, during the
revolts and agitations which followed the accession of
Sennacherib, and while the court party at Jerusalera
were secretly planning their alliance with Egypt.
9. Stand ye still and wonder.-— 'Srgo\.ex\. to the poli
ticians and people of Judah, misled by their prophets
and failing to comprehend their situation." The failure
is in the learned ahd unlearned alike.
15. Woe unto them. — The secret planners of the
Egyptian alliance.
1 6. Is the potter like as the clay. — Do these profound
politicians suppose that they and their policy shape the
course of things, not the Eternal ?
17. Lebanon shall be turned. — A little while, and the
Eternal shall change all that state of things which now
is, and which seems permanent ; the forest (Lebanon)
shall becorae field, and the field forest ; in the deaf and
blind (the ignorant coraraon people) shall be awakened
knowledge of the Eternal and joy in him.
20. The terrible one. — The oppressive magnates, the
court and politicians, of Jerusalem, shall pass away.
23. In the midst of him. — By "him " is meant Jacob.
30. 2. Pharaoh. — A general name for each successive
ruler of Egypt, like Ceesar for the ruler of Rome. The
princes of the Delta were Pharaohs. But the over-lord
or suzerain of Egypt was now the Ethiopian Shabatok,
the son of the Shabak who was defeated by Sargon at
Raphia in 720 b.c

138 NOTES. XXX, 4.
4. Zoan . . . Hanes. — Cities of Lower and Middle
Egypt, and residences of princes. Zoan is Tanis, Hanes
is Anusis afterwards Heracleopolis. (See xix. 11.)
5. They were all ashamed. — The princes and ambas
sadors of Judah can get nothing by their journey to
Egypt but shame and disappointment; Egypt is of no
use. 6. The burden of the beasts of the south. — Now
follows, in this and the next verse, an oracular sentence
on the vanity of the embassy to Egypt. The beasts of
the south are the animals of interior Africa.
7. Proud Rahab, — Rahab, meaning /^/ifif, is a Biblical
name for Egypt ; but Rahab, or Egypt the proud, is
really, says the prophet, Shabeth, the sitting-stiU, the
do-nothing. 8. Now go, etc. — The prophet is commanded to
write, and keep for a testimony against his countrymen,
this oracle concerning the folly of their recourse to Egypt.
16. We will fly upon hoises.- — We will have horses
and chariots and the famous Egyptian cavalry.
18. Therefore will the Lord wait. — The day of mercy
cannot arrive until the actual things have passed away,
and the people is purged to a "remnant."
25. The day of the great slaughter. — Compare ii, 12-
1 5. The day of the Lord wiU destroy all in which the
rulers of Judah, as it now is, place their trust. " The
towers fall," but streams of water spring forth in the
hills for the righteous to whom belongs the new world.
29. The holy solemnity. — The Passover.
33. Tophet, — The place of abomination in the valley
of Hinnom, where men burned their children in sacrifice
to Moloch. The Moloch-pile, says the prophet, is ready
for the melech (king) of Assyria.
31. 4. Like as the lion. — Not Egypt shall save
Judah, but the Eternal.
8. Not of a mighty man, etc. — A sword, not of raan
at aU, but of God.

XXXI, 9. NOTES. 139
9. His rock. — The "rock" of the Assyrian is his
king, Sennacherib, who shaU take to flight.
32. I. The king. — God's judgraent accomplished,
the " remnant " established, the Assyrian put to flight,
Immanuel, the saviour king of chapters ix and xi, shall
begin his reign with princes and ministers of his own
stamp. 2. A man. — King and princes shall be the people's
protectors instead of being its oppressors.
3. The eyes of them that see, etc. — The mental and
spiritual deficiencies of the people shall be cured.
9. Rise up, ye women. — Compare the prophet's like
strain sorae forty years earlier, iii, 16.
14. The hill and tower. — Ophel, the fortified south
eastern slope of Mount Moriah, with the watch-tower
thereon. 15. The fruitful field be counted for a forest. — In the
new time the splendour of righteousness shall be such
that what now passes for fruitful field (morally) shall
then seem but forest and wilderness.
19. And it shall hail, and the forest shall be brought
low. — In the tirae of judgment, which must precede
the reign of Immanuel, the now powerful kingdom of this
world, Assyria (described under figure of the " forest,"
x, 34), shall be brought down by the hail-storm of God's
wrath. ib. And the city shall be low. — The same storm shaU
lay low the "city" also, the actual sinful Jerusalem that
rejects God's word.
20. Blessed are ye, etc. — Blessed is "the remnant,"
which after that time of destruction shall have the land
at its free disposal for either tilling or pasture.
33. In this prophecy we are clearly in 701 b.c, at
the moment when the Assyrian invader is encamped in
Judah, ravaging its lands, taking its towns one after the
other, threatening Jerusalem. We have seen the deal-

I40

NOTES. XXXIII, I.

ings of Hezekiah and his court with Egypt. They had
also taken part in the rising of Palestine against Sen
nacherib, so far as to receive from the revolted Ekronites
their king, Padi, who had remained faithful to Assyria,
and to imprison hira at Jerusalem. When Sennacherib
formed the siege of Lachish in Judah, Hezekiah,
alarmed, sent ambassadors to make his submission (II
Kings, xviii, 14-16). Sennacherib received his sub
raission and presents; but iraraediately afterwards,
unwUUng apparently to leave so strong a place as Jeru
salem in the hands of a faithless tributary, he sent a
division of his array thither to deraand its surrender.
Indignation at the invader's violence and perfidy, con
fidence in the future of Zion notwithstanding the doomed
sinners whom the actual Zion contains, are now the
foremost thoughts with Isaiah. See Introduction, p. 20.
I. Woe to thee, etc. — The prophet addresses the
Assyrian invader.
2. Their arm. — Judah's.
4. Your spoil. — The Assyrians are addressed. In
the preceding verse "thyself" is of course the Eternal.
6. Thy times. — Judah is addressed.
7. Their valiant ones.- — These are the magnates of
Judah sent as ambassadors to Sennacherib at Lachish,
and who have discovered that the surrender of Jerusalera
will be required as well as their presents and tribute.
8. The highways lie waste. — Owing to the presence
of the Assyrian host in the country.
ib. He hath broken the covenant. — Sennacherib, after
accepting Hezekiab's submission, had then demanded,
further, the surrender of Jerusalem.
II. Ye shall, etc. — The Assyrians are addressed.
13. Ye that are near. — The prophet now addresses
his own countrymen.
17. Shall behold the land spreading. — Shall see the
borders of the kingdom extended as in the tirae of
David and Solomon.
1 8. The terror.— Oi the Assyrian conquests.

XXXIII, i8. NOTES. 141
ib. Where is the assessor, etc. — Where is now the
foreigner who assessed the tribute, and weighed it when
paid, and who counted the towers of our fortresses in
order to besiege them ?
19. Of a dark speech. — See note on xxvni, 11.
21. A place of broad rivers. — No earthly waters, but
the river of the peace of God. Compare Isaiah lxvi,
12. 23. Thy tacklings are loosed. — Judah is addressed.
After a raoraent of alarra and danger, Judah shall see
the Assyrians in retreat and shall despoil thera.

SENNA CHERIB.
(Chapters 36-39.)
See the introductory note to the last chapter.
36. I. Now it came to pass, etc. — See Introduction,
p. 27 and p. 40, for the reasons for thinking that the
words, " Now it carae to pass in the fourteenth year of
king Hezekiah," ought to stand not here but at the
beginning of chap, xxxviii. The present chapter should
begin : " Now Sennacherib, etc." We are in this chapter
not at the fourteenth year of Hezekiab's reign, but at
the twenty-fourth.
2. Rabshakeh. — This, Uke Tartan in xx, i, is not
the man's own ' name but a titie. Rabshakeh means
" chief officer."
3. Eliakim . . . Shebna. — See xxii, 15-25, and notes.
7. Whose high places. — Hezekiah had put down the
idolatrous worship throughout his kingdom (II Kings
xviii, 4); and the Assyrian treats this as an outrage
upon the God of the land.
ib. Before this altar. — Before the altar in Jerusalem
8. T will give thee. — A sarcasm on the weakness of

142 NOTES. XXXVI, II.
Judah. Even if you give them horses, they have not
soldiers to put upon them.
II. The Syrian language. — Hezekiab's ministers beg
Rabshakeh to speak Araraaic, not Hebrew, that the
coramon people raay not understand them.
ib. That they may eat, etc. — Who have to undergo
siege and its extremities of famine for your pleasure.
17. Until I come, etc, — According to the Assyrian
system, the inhabitants of Judah were to be finally de
ported as those of Israel had been.
1 9. Hamath and Arphad. — See note on x, 9.
ib. Sepharvaim. — Sippara, or the sun-city, in Mesopo
tamia, on the Euphrates.
37. 8. Libnah. — Like Lachish, one of the cities of
Judah. Sennacherib probably moved frora Lachish
hither in order to raeet the array of Tirhakah.
9. Tirhakah. — Sennacherib defeated the array of
Egypt and Ethiopia at Altaku, in the south of Palestine.
But it is doubtful how far his victory was complete ; at
aU events it did not enable him to effect the conquest
of Egypt. Tirhakah, or Taharka, did not corae to the
throne until 692 b.c., so that he is probably here caUed
"king of Ethiopia," as commanding for Shabatok, his
predecessor, the son of Shabak.
12. Gozan and Haran, etc. — Territories and places
of Mesopotamia conquered by Shalmaneser. The
"children of Eden" are the Bit-Adini, or tribe of
Adini; Telassar, or Asshur's HiU, is probably a new
name given to their place of dwelling by the conqueror.
13. Hena and Ivah. — These places cannot be iden
tified, but were probably in Mesopotamia.
24. To the sides of Lebanon. — Lebanon stands for
Israel, the northern kingdora. After felUng and destroy
ing there, the Assyrian invader wiU now pass on to the
hiU of Zion at the farther end of Palestine, and to the
royal palace of the kings of Judah.
25. / have digged, etc. — The Assyrian king's march

XXXVII, 30. NOTES. 143
against Egypt is in the prophet's mind. He makes the
king boast of providing water for his array in crossing
the desert, and of turning the streams which defended
the Egyptian towns.
30. A sign unto thee. — Judah and its king are
addressed. For two years the invader's presence in the
country shall prevent regular cultivation ; then the land
shall be rid of him, and the tiUer of the ground shaU
resume his occupation.
36. Then the angel, etc. — See Introduction, p. 20.
See also. Herodotus, ii, 141, for a different account of
this disaster to Sennacherib's array. According to
Herodotus, the disaster took place at Pelusiura, on the
border of Egypt, and was due to a plague of field raice
devouring the bow-strings, leathern shield-straps, etc., of
the Assyrians.
38. His sons smote him. — As Sennacherib's death
and Esar-haddon's accession did not occur till 680 b.c.
this verse is probably a later addition. But see Intro
duction, p. 41.
38. This chapter relates events which happened in
711 B.C., and should probably, as has been already said,
comraence thus : " Now it carae to pass in the four
teenth year of king Hezekiah, that in those days was
Hezekiah sick unto death."
10. In the smoothness. — In the midst of the even-
flowing, natural course of my days.
16. By these things men live, — By these divine
promises and their fulfilment.
22. What is the sign. — See verse 7.
39. I. Merodach-baladan. — In 7 1 1 b.c. this vassal king
was preparing to revolt against Sargon, and would there
fore gladly seize the opportunity of communicating with
Hezekiah in view of his alliance. In 709 the revolt
was crushed, and the stronghold of the Bit-Yakin, the
children or tribe of Yakin, in Southern Babylonia, into

144 NOTES. XXXIX, 6.
which Merodach-baladan had thrown himself, was
taken and destroyed. But Merodach-baladan escaped,
and in 704 we find hira in revolt against Sennacherib,
and again defeated. " I victoriously entered his palace
at Babylon," says Sennacherib in an inscription, "and
opened his treasures." Merodach-baladan survived,
however, to revolt yet once more against Sennacherib on
the Assyrian king's return from Palestine, and to be
once more defeated.
6. Shall be carried to Babylon. — Nebuchadnezzar's
conquest and Judah's captivity did not corae until 588
B.C., one hundred and twenty years later. The capital
of the great king in 711 was Nineveh. But Babylon
was in Sargon's time a royal residence of the king of
Assyria, and the most famous city in his dominions; when
therefore the vassal king of Babylon visited Hezekiah,
Isaiah might naturally use Babylon, Merodach-baladan's
capital, for the representative city of the great power
threatening Judah's existence.

the end.

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