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FROM THE LIBRARY
dp
JOHN PUNNETT PETERS
YALE 1873

THE

PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH

VOL. II.

By the same Author.

An EXPOSITION of the PROPHECIES and
LAMENTATIONS of JEREMIAH. Forming
new volumes in The Pulpit Commentary. \In prefaratioii.

LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO.

THE

PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH
A NEW TRANSLATION
WITH COMMENTARY AND APPENDICES
BY THE
REV. T. K. CHEYNE, M.A.
RECTOR OF TENDRING, ESSEX, AND MEMBER OF THE OLD TESTAMENT REVISION COMPANY
LATE FELLOW AND LECTURER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
SECOND EDITION
REVISED AND CORRECTED

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1882

(The rights of translation and of reproduction nre reserved)

PREFACE
(REPRINTED IN PART, WITH ADDITIONS).
The present volume supplies in a manner the key to
its predecessor, and the author would fain bespeak for
the series of essays which it contains a specially patient
and candid perusal. They relate to subjects as well
theological as critical ; it is impossible to keep exegesis
and criticism entirely apart from theology. There
are points in the study of Old Testament history and
literature at which the theological or anti-theological
bias of the critic materially affects his results. The
fault of English students generally has been that they
allow too much play to this bias, and of orthodox
students in particular that they unduly restrict the field
of philological inquiry. It is a fault, no doubt, which
can be explained and excused from the history of
English theology, but it is one which urgently needs
rectifying,, and the present work is a conscientious
endeavour to promote this object.
It is with some reluctance that the author has ex
pressed himself so fully in one of the following essays
on his own theological bias (a bias which has been
rigorously confined within the narrowest possible area),
but it seemed expedient to meet any possible suspicion

VI PREFACE.

by a frank preliminary explanation. On the critical
bearings of his exegetical results he has also afforded
such information as was consistent with the limits
originally marked out. He would gladly have had no
limits to regard, gladly have communicated his present
solution (which is not of yesterday) of the complicated
critical problem ; but he has been held back, as has been
explained elsewhere, by a wish to promote disinterested
exegesis (the only safe basis of criticism), and by a
conviction that the problem of Isaiah can only be
definitely solved in connection with those of the pro
phetic literature as a whole. He hopes, nevertheless,
that in more than one of the essays he has made some
real, however small, contributions to that new theory
which must, when thoroughly matured, take the place
of both the prevalent views of the origin of Isaiah, and
which, being just to all the facts revealed by an honest
exegesis, cannot be inconsistent with a scientific ortho
dox theology. A single eye is what the author most
desires for himself and his readers ; it is the talis
man which opens that enchanted chamber, over which
are written the words, 'Be not too bolde' ('Faerie
Queene,' iii. 1 2).
Oxford: November t, 1880.

A few supplementary words may be added with
reference to this new edition. The principal changes in
the second volume will be found at the close of the first
essay, and in the ' Critical Notes ' and ' Last Words.'
Though chiefly concerned with points of detail, the
genuine student is not likely to despise them, consider-

PREFACE. vu

ing the varied interest of the questions raised by the
prophetic writings, and the scanty material which we
have for answering them. The change referred to
in Essay I. consists in the addition of a reply to
Mr. Robertson Smith's objections, in the ' Prophets of
Israel,' to the view adopted in this work of an invasion
of the kingdom of Judah by Sargon. A desire has
also been expressed for the addition of two new essays,
one to contain the author's own provisional explanation
(provisional, because, as Goethe says, ' every solution
of a problem involves a new problem ' ) of the origin
of the Book of Isaiah, and the other on the relation of
the ideas of the Assyrian and Babylonian eras. To
have yielded to this tempting request would, however,
have defeated one of the author's main objects — viz.,
to promote the disinterested study of the exegetical
data of criticism. The order of research ought surely
to be, first the study of exegesis, then the comprehen
sive investigation of critical problems, and lastly the
history both of the literature and of the outer and inner
development of the people of Israel. All that can be
said is, that the wishes of some readers have been partly
gratified by the article ' Isaiah ' in the eighth edition
of the ' Encyclopsedia Britannica,' to which those who
have honestly worked at the exegesis of Isaiah (but
only those) may be safely referred.
With regard to his treatment of the Hebrew text,
the author is sensible that he has sometimes erred on
the side of conservatism ; he has occasionally defended
readings which he now fears may be corrupt. Some
instances of this are pointed out in the Addenda and
Corrigenda in the present volume, which the author

via PREFACE.
trusts will not be overlooked. His principle, however,
still seems to him sound — viz., to follow the received
text as long as it can be plausibly defended (thus
Selwyn's well-known correction of ix. 2 is not adopted,
•though highly plausible, whereas Seeker's and Kroch-
mal's of viii. 12 is).
To be complete, and omit no accessible fact or
reference of importance for a book like Isaiah, is per
haps too high a goal. It has receded somewhat from
the author, now that he is absent (not to use, to-day,
the more natural and sincere word 'exiled') from his
old university. Still there is only one notable omis
sion of which he is conscious (and one both excusable
in itself and only connected with a very small part of
Isaiah), viz. with regard to Dr. Bickell's recent attempt
to arrange the poetical passages of the Old Testament
metrically. Hereafter he hopes to be able to take up
a distinct attitude towards Dr. Bickell's most ingenious
and instructive work. Another remarkable though
mainly popular work. Dr. Kuenen's ' Hibbert Lec
tures,' came to hand too late to be referred to, except
in a foot-note at the end of Essay XI. His too posi
tive rejection of the new results as to Cyrus does not,
however, seem to require a lengthened examination.
M. de Harlez, a critic worthy to be heard on such a
point, also maintains an attitude of opposition; but
his reply to Mr. Sayce in Le Musdon (Louvain, 1882,
PP- 557-570). well-written as it is, fails to upset the
essential part of Mr. Sayce's argument, which has
commended itself to some of the most competent
judges. In conclusion, the author would express the hope

PREFACE. IX
that this new edition of his work may promote the sym
pathetic study of the Scriptures, not only as a record
of revelation, but as a monument of Oriental anti
quity. The Old Testament under the latter aspect is a
fragment of the literature of a small nation wedged in
between peoples far superior to it in age and civiliza
tion, and can only be fruitfully studied in close relation
to the sifted results of Assyriology and Egyptology.
M. Maspero complains that ' les hebraisants rejettent
systdmatiquement I'aide que pourrait leur offrir I'anti-
quitd ^gyptienne et assyrienne ; '^ the author is content
to have laboured in earnest to roll away this reproach,
especially with regard to illustrations from Assyriology.
An accomplished Egyptological student has kindly
contributed to this volume an excursus on the ' Seraph
in Egypt ' (see ' Last Words,' on Chapter VL), which
is well worthy of consideration. To the writer of this,
the Rev. H. G. Tomkins, and also, for useful criticisms
and suggestions, to Dr. H. L. Strack, of Berlin, the
warm thanks of the author are due.

• From a letter printed in ' Biblical Proper Names,' &c., by Rev. H. G. Tomkins,
author of Studies on the Times of Abraham. (London, 1882.)

TENDRING, October If)., 1882.

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA.

»*» The reader is earnestly requested to make the shorter and more necessary of these
corrections with his pencil.

Vol. I.
Page 22, 1. 9, lo. Read (in accordance with crit. note, ii. 134), ' Happy is the
righteous I Well ! '
,, 30. After V. 10 place v. 17, rendering 'And Iambs shall feed upon their wilder
ness, and their ruined places kids shall devour.' In the arrangement of
the verses I now follow Ewald, and in the correction of the text an
anonymous writer in the Journal of Sacred Literature, new series,
vol. iv., pp. 328-343. The codex primarius appears to have had
DrT'DnSln — ^ combination of two readings (comp. crit. note on
Ixi. i) ; a scribe corrected (as he thought) Qin'D '"'° D*nD- The
two other emendations need no defence.
,, 32. OffliV ». 17 (see above).
,, 32, col. I, 1. II. i^o;- ' complimentary '»¦««(;? 'complementary.'
32, ,, 1.28. For ' xeaA.' read ' xea.&.'
„ 53. Insert as note a on ' take for me ' (». 2), ' so Sept., Pesh., Targ.'
,, 60, col. 2, 1. 19. To the passages cited, addidm. 22 (see note).
„ 76. Omit opening words of v. 3, which seem to have arisen out of the closing
words of V. 2 written twice over. Suggested by Dr. Bickell (Carmina
Vet. Test, metrici, p. 201).
,, 76, col. 2, 1. 6 from foot. i^j>- 'Avestor' «aif ' Avesta."
,, 86. /wjer^ as note c on ' the castles thereof ' (i). 22), 'so Pesh., Targ., Vulg.,
Lowth, Houbigant, De Rossi ; text has 'their widows.'
,, 97. (Note on 'the temple,' v. 2). Add, ' Lieut. Conder has discovered large
groups of dolmens and menhirs on the east of the Jordan and of the
Dead Sea, with one of which (at Mush!b!yeh) he identifies Bamoth-
Baal {Palestine Fund Statement, April 1882).'
,, 112, note. Add, ' and Brugsch's translation in his Geschichte Aegyptens, pp.
682-707.'
„ 113, 1. II. For 'twelve' read 'twenty.'
,, 113, note '. Add 'comp. Records of the Past, i. 61 (Annals of Assurbanipal).'
,, 121, col. 1,1. 3. For ' 'Tertanu ' read ' Turtanu ' (as rightly printed in ed. i). A
, possible meaning of the title is 'son of might;' see
Friedr. Elelitzsch, Assyrische Studien, i. 129.
,, 124, 1. g. For jog read 710.
,, 124. Note I should close with the first sentence.
,, 129,1.2. /"ot- 'drawn sword ' rearf ' whetted sword.' (Following Gratz, /'raM^w,
i. 124.)
,, 133, eol. 2, note on 'the old pool.' Omit the words, ' or more probably,' &c.
,, 134, col. I, 1. s. Omit 'xix. 28.'
, , 176, col. 2, 1. 5. After ' opened ' add ' by an introductory religious ceremony.
,, 176, col. 2, 1. 17 ^
,, 178, col. I, 1. ijiFor 'Sennacherib' read ' Sargon.'
„ 178, col. 2, 1. 2 ) „. . - .-.1 „,
20< col I, 1. 6. For ' Rab-sairis ' read ' Rab-saris.' Obs., no Assyrian title at
all resembling this has yet been discovered, and I now
think ' saris ' may have been substituted by the Hebrew
scribe for an obliterated word, which was really, like
' shakeh,' Hebraised from Assyrian.

xii ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA.
Page 210. Insert, as note a on 'when he heard it, he sent ' [v. 9), 'Sept. and 2 Kings
xix. 9, read ' he sent messengers again ' (a better reading).
,, 230, 1. 15. For ' 751 ' read ' 731.'
„ 234, col. I, 1. 3. After 'Sargon' add 'or Esar-haddon.'
,, 266. Insert, as note i on the second 'blind' (v. 19), ' Deaf, Symmachus, i Mb.
Kennicott, i De Rossi (prima manu), Lowth, Gratz.' , ,
,, 283. Insert, asnoteon 'the produce of (v. 19), ' Before, Gratz (reading ^-lO?),
Psalmen, i. 122.'
,, 303. Insert, as note on 'in their perfection' (v. 9), 'Suddenly, Sept., followed
by Pesh., Lowth, Gratz (an easy emendation).'
Vol. II.
,, 17, col. 1, 1. 3 from foot. For ' Ixvi. 3 ' read ' Ixvi. 13.'
,, 18, note K After ' Babylonian MS.' insert • primd manu.'
,, 38, 1.2. For 'Zion' read 'his people.' The same error occurs iu two of De
Rossi's MSS.
,, 38. Insert, as note on 'Jerusalem' (end of v. 9),' Israel, Lowth, adducing two
MSS. A probable correction. Ibn Jannah, according to Gratz, points
out that proper names of kindred meaning are sometimes confounded
by the scribes (comp. my own clerical error above).
,, 40, col. I. 1. II, 12. For 'V. II i' read 'Iiii. 11 i.'
„ 46, col. 1, 1. 7. Insert 'A still closer parallel is Job xx. 3, a reproof of my
shame = a reproof putting rae to shame (Dr. H. L. Strack).'
,, 71. Insert, as note on 'renewal of thy strength' (v. 10), ' Refreshing sufficient
for thee, Lagarde, Klostermann, Gratz (emendation).'
,, 100, note ". Add 'marching on, Vulg., Lowth, Gratz (an easy and probable
emendation).'
,, 121, col. 1!, 1. 15. For 'remains' read ' researches.'
,, i37i 1. 9' After 'like virgo,' add ' (comp. Gen. xxiv. 55, where it is the Sept.
rendering of "iwn)-'
, , 138, note on x. 4. It should be mentioned, however, that Usir (Osiris) has been
found in one Phoenician, and in one Cyprio-Phoenician
proper name (see Corpus Inscr. Semit. i. 68, inscr. 46).
In the same note I have accidentally omitted the most
conspicuous instance of Hebraized Egyptian names, viz.,
Mos'eh (Moses) from jtiesu ' child ' or ' son,' which was
often used as a name in Egypt under the Middle Empire.
,, 14s, 1. II. Add ' Another word illustrated by Assyr. .ra&B ' to place ' is n>i330t3
'store-cities' (Ex. i. 11, &c. ), usually but inaccurately connected
with Aram. DJ3 ' '0 collect."
, , 154. Compare crit. note on li. 6 with Last Words, p. 298 (top).
,, 158, 1. 13. It should have been noted that plt^SJ does occur once, viz., in
Jer. xxii. 3.
,, 160, 1. 8. The note belongs to Ixi. i, not lix. 18. The solution proposed by
Dr. Neubauer, reminds us of a very probable explanation of the
famous SevTepoTrpioTw in Luke vi. i, as a combination of two
readings Seurepw and irpwrw.
,, 161, 1. 26. After 'Vulgate' insert 'and Septuagint, but not St. Jerome's own
Latin translation.'
,, 189, note I. For ' fourth ' read ' fifth.'
,, 224, 1. 9 from foot. To the list of passages add bciii. II, lxiv. 3 i.
,, 224, I. 6 from foot. After ' chap, ii.' add ' verses 10 and 11 of chap, iii.'
,, 224, 1, 4 from foot. For 'They «<7ii 'The first and last of these.'

TABLE OF APPENDICES, ESSAYS, &c.

Vol. I.
On ' Jehovah SabAoth "...
On the Seraphim and the Cherubim
On XLIV. 28, XLV. 4 . . .

PAGES
n-13
40-42
286-287

Vol. II.
On the Land of Sinim .  20-23
Critical Notes  133-162
Essays :
I. The Occasional Prophecies of Isaiah in the Light
of History ........ 165-174
II. The Arrangement of the Prophecies . . . 174-179
III. The Christian Element in the Book of Isaiah . . 179-198
IV. The Royal Messiah in Genesis . . 198-203
V. The Servant of Jehovah . . . . . . 204-210
VI. The Present State of the Critical Controversy . 210-220
VII. Correction of the Hebrew Text . ... 221-226
VIII. The Critical Study of Parallel Passages . . . 226-244
IX. Job and the Second Part of Isaiah : a Parallel • . 244-253
X. Isaiah and his Commentators .... 253-274
XI. II. Isaiah and the Inscriptions  274-280
Last Words on Isaiah  281-301
(See also Addenda .... . . . xi, xii)

ISAIAH.

CHAPTER XLVIII.
Contents. — A recapitulation of the heads of the preceding discourses,
from chap. xl. onwards, closing with a summons to flee from Babylon,
and a solemn declaration excluding the ungodly from a share in the
promises. ' Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the
name of Israel, and have come forth from the waters of Judah ;
who swear by the name of Jehovah, and celebrate the God of
Israel (not in truth and not in righteousness) ; ^ for they call

' O bouse of Jacob . . . ] The
prophet, in the name of Jehovah
(see V. 3), first addresses the Jews
by their natural and as it were secu
lar designation 'the house of Jacob,'
and then subjoins their spiritual or
covenant-name of Israel. But as
both these titles would strictly
speaking include the ten tribes,
and the prophet is specially ad
dressing the Judsean exiles at
Babylon, he adds, and bave come
fortb from tbe waters of Tudab
(comp. Ps. Ixviii. 27, ' ye that are of
the fountain of Israel,' and the
analogous figure in Isa. li. i). 
'Wbo swear by tbe name . . ]
One of the outward marks of an
Israelite (Deut. vi. 13, x. 20). Both
this and the next feature in the
description are elsewhere charac
teristics of true believers (see xiv.
23, xliv. 5). Here the prophet in
troduces them ironically. In the
case of the majority of Israelites,
they are disconnected from a living
faith. Hence the qualifying words

at the close of the verse, not in
trutb and not in rlg-bteousness.
' Truth,' literally ' continuance,' i.e.,
unwavering fidelity (so in xxxviii. 3).
' Righteousness,' i.e. the strict per
formance of their part in the na
tional covenant with Jehovah, espe
cially of the moral duties which
this involved.^ (The root-meaning
is 'to be stifi", tight.') The two
qualities, ' truth ' and ' righteous
ness,' are combined, as in Zech.
viii. 8, I Kings iii. 6.
^ For tbey call tbemselves . . . ]
There is a change of construction,
but the tone and the tendency re
main the same. In v. i the pro
phet seems to be full of praise, but
the closing words make it but too
manifest that the eulogy is ironical.
So here. ' Who are called by the
name of Israel ' corresponds to ' for
they call themselves of the holy
city,' and ' not in truth and not in
righteousness' is parallel to 'Jeho
vah Sabioth is his name.' In v. i
it is mainly formalism, in v. 2 a

' Neither here, nor anywhere in II. Isaiah, does (ddkah ever mean merely,
' truth ' ; nor can this meaning he proved for fedek.
VOL. II. B

ISAIAH.

[chap, xlviii.

themselves of the holy city, and on the God of Israel they lean
—Jehovah Sabaoth is his name— ^ The former things long ago
I announced ; from my mouth they went forth, and I declared
them ; suddenly I wrought, and they came to pass. * Be
cause I knew that thou wast hard, and an iron band thy

narrow 'particularism' or national
ism, which is censured. Formalism
is reprehended by pointing to the
moral requirements of the religion
of Jehovah ; nationalism by ad
ducing that most comprehensive of
the Divine titles, Jehovah Sabdoth
(comp. vi. 3). In paraphrasing v. 2,
we may, without injuring the sense,
return to the construction of v. i.
It is equivalent to saying, ' who ex
press the strongest regard for the
city of the sanctuary, and attach
the highest value to their hereditary
religious privileges, not considering
whom they have for a God, namely,
Jehovah Sabioth, who is thrice
holy (vi. 3), and who ' is exalted in
(or, through) judgment, and shew-
eth himself holy through righteous
ness ' v. 16). [The ' for' at the be
ginning of the verse has been very
variously explained. Some (e.g.
Calv., Kay) regard it as explanatory
of the preceding clause, 'not in
truth' &c. ; as ifthe prophet would
say, ' for they take a pride in the so-
called holy city, but where is their
holiness ? ' According to others
(Alexander, Birks), it introduces
Jehovah's self-justification for still
continuing to plead with his people :
¦ — ' however much individuals have
fallen away, the national privileges
are still unrevoked by God.' Others
again (Vitr., Ew., Del.) take 'for'
in the sense of in fact, immo, f>ro-
fecto, which kT so often has in He
brew.]  Tbe boly city] So Iii.
I ; comp. lxiv. 9. This title of Jeru
salem only occurs elsewhere in the
later books ; see Neh. xi. i, 18,
Dan. ix. 24, Matt. iv. 5, xxvii. 53.
 Tbey lean] Comp. x. 20, ' but
shall rely (lit. stay themselves) upon
Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel,
in trtith.'
' The former tilings • . . ] The

appeal to prophecy is repeated for
the seventh time. — To understand
this and the two next verses, we
must take them in connection with
vv. 6, 7 ; there is an evident con
trast intended. ' The former things '
(see on xli. 22) were predicted to
Israel in order to prevent him from
committing fresh sin through as
cribing Jehovah's wonders to false
gods ; it is an additional character
istic that they were foretold ' long
since.' With regard to the ' new
things,' it is stated that they have
only been announced oi) the very
eve of their accomplishment, for if
they had been predicted centuries
before, Israel would have forgotten
the source of his knowledge, and
would have said, ' It is a trite story,
I know it already' (viz. through
another than the true channel —
either his idol-god, or his natural
powers of calculating the future).
 Suddenly] In both parts of
Isaiah the unexpectedness of the
events, in which prophecy finds its
fulfilment, is emphatically referred
to (comp. xxix. 5, xlvii. 9). Men hear
the prophecy, but it takes no hold
of them ; they do not practically
believe in it. Still the prophecy
has produced this negative result,
that no one can ascribe the event
predicted to any other agency but
the true God.
* Hard] i.e., hard of heart, slow
of understanding (comp. 'obdurate,'
xlvi. 12). It is,''in fact, a prophetic
doctrine that all actual rebellion
against Jehovah is preceded by a
loss of spiritual sensibility. Thus
we read that ' the heart of Pharaoh
grew stifl!", and he did not hearken
unto them ' (Ex. vii. 13) ; that, before
all hope of Israel's conversion is
given up, Jehovah must 'make the
heart of this people fat ' (Isa. vi. 10) •

chap, xlviii.]

ISAIAH.

neck, and thy forehead brass, ^ therefore I announced it to thee
long since, before it came to pass I showed it thee ; lest thou
shouldest say, Mine idol hath wrought them, and my graven
image, and my molten image, hath commanded them. '^ Thou
hast heard it ; see it as a whole ; (and as for you — should ye
not announce it ?) I declare to thee new things from this time,
even hidden things, which thou knewest not. "^ They have
been created now and not heretofore, and before to-day thou
heardest them not, lest thou shouldest say. Behold, I knew

and that in Ezekiel's time ' all the
house of Israel (were) stiff in the
forehead, and hard of heart ' (Ezek.
iii. 7). The ' heart,' as usual in the
Old Testament, is here the organ
of the understanding and of the con
science.  Tby forebead brass]
i.e., thou wast defiant and unap
proachable ; comp. Ezek. iii. 8, g.
A similar figure in a good sense,
1.7. ^ Tberefore I announced it to
tbee] Jehovah speaks as a loving
father to his rebellious child. He
takes the obstinacy of Israel very
calmly ; it is a reason, not for cast
ing him off, but for showing more
kindness. He will at least prevent
him from committing fresh sin by
ascribing Jehovah's mighty deeds
to false gods.  Hatb com
manded them] i.e., ' called them
into being ;' comp. Ps. xxxiii. 9.
° See it as a wbole] Behold
the prediction fully accomplished.
Himpel makes the accusative here
refer to the past history of Israel
as witnessing to a God who fulfils
His predictions.^ This is surely.
inadmissible. ' Thou hast heard it
&c.' can only mean ' See as a whole
that which thou hast heard,' and
the preceding verse shows that
what the Jews had 'heard' was
not their past history, but predic
tions relative to the achievements
of Cyrus.  And as for you . . . ]
This is evidently addressed, not
to the nation in general, but to
the individuals actually around the
prophet. It is thoroughly in the

style of Isaiah, and of the old
prophets in general, who really
uttered their prophecies before com
mitting them to writing. On the
whole, II. Isaiah is both in form and
in style intensely literary ; it is the
more remarkable that the writer
should involuntarily fall into ora
torical turns of expression. 
Should ye not announce It ?]
Ought ye not to make known such
a striking proof of the unique
divinity of Jehovah?— Hitzig, taking
the word ' announce ' in the sense
of 'predict,' which it has in v. 5
and xli. 22, 23, explains, ' Will ye
not predict something yourselves .? '
But the context seems rather to
require an appeal to the conscience
of the idolaters.  Uew tbing-s]
See on xiii. 9.
' Tbey bave been created]
now] i.e., they are now for the
first time brought (or beginning to
be brought) into actual existence —
hitherto they have only had an
ideal life, ' hid in God ' (Eph. iii. 9),
in the Divine counsels (comp.
on xxii. 11). According to Naeg.,
however, (who does not mention
that he is but following Kimchi),
the word ' created ' is equivalent to
' prophesied,' since a word of pro
phecy is in a sense creative (see on
ix. 8), and converts the Divine
counsel from a Xdyor evhiaderos into
a Xo'yoj npo(popiK6s. This is an
unsuccessful attempt to preclude-
the inference which has been
drawn from this passage in favour
of a Babylonian origin of II. Isaiah.

' Theologische Quartalschrift {Kom. Cath.), Tiibingen, 1878, pp. 306-7,
B 2

ISAIAH.

¦ [CHAP. XLVIII.

them. 8 Neither hast thou heard them, neither hast thou
known them, neither did thine ear open heretofore ; for I
knew that thou wast indeed treacherous, and wast called
Rebellious from the womb ? ^ For my name's sake I defer
mine anger, and for my praise I am temperate towards thee,
net to cut thee off. i" Behold, I have refined thee, but ^ not
as silver "¦ ; I have ^ tested thee in the furnace of affliction.
"* Not for silver, Ew. ; not obtained any silver, Ges.
' So Pesh., Targ., Ges., Hitz., Ew., Henderson, Del., Naeg. (mentioned also by
A.E. and Kimchi).— Chosen,, Vulg., the Rabbis, Calv., Vitr., Stier, Weir. (Rashi
renders the clause, 'I chose for thee the furnace of affliction,' but against the
parallelism. )

Dr. Rutgers, with the same object,
attempts to show that there was
nothing in the successes of Cyrus
to justify such language in a pro
phet living at the close of the
Exile. He refers to the (rather
dubious) oracles which are said
(e.g., by Dino, Fragm. 7, and by
Herodotus, i. 53) to have an
nounced the victories of Cyrus.
Dr. Land replies, that it required an
unusual intensity of faith to predict
in such positive terms what we can
now, perhaps, d. posteriori see to
be very natural. Was it not rather
to be apprehended that the Jews
would simply exchange a Chaldean
oppressor for a Persian ? '  Itest
tbou shouldest say ¦ . . ] See
note on ' The former things ' {v. 3).
^ Neither did thine ear open]
A synonym for ' didst thou hear '
(i.e., with the natural, not the
spiritual organ) ; comp. xiii. 19
(where, however, the verb is differ
ent).  ror I knew . . . ] Here
the same reason is given for the
postponement of the prediction of
the 'new things' which has been
urged for the early date of the
announcement of ' the former
things ' (v. 4). There is no incon
sistency, however. It is the ' new
ness,' the unheard-of grandeur, of
the second cycle of predicted events,
which causes the difference in
Jehovah's procedure. Israel was
equally ' hard ' at both periods of
prophecy, but his guilt would have

been greatly increased by denying
the Divine origin of these won-
drously ' new ' facts.  That tbou
wast indeed treacherous] It is
difficult to realise the closeness
of the relation felt by primitive
races to exist between them and
their gods. This, however, is the
basis on which the Biblical doc
trines of the relation between Je
hovah and Israel, and between God
and the Church, are established.
See Mic. iv. 5, and comp. Hos. v. 7,
vi. 7, Jer. iii. 7, 10, Mai. ii. 11. 
Rebellious] The allusion is pri
marily to the provocations of the
Israelites in the wilderness (comp.
Ps. cvi. 7-33).  From tbe womb]
The accents link this with ' Rebel
lious' (in this case render 'art
called ') ; it gives a better sense,
however, to connect it with the
verb. ^ But some objector may ask.
Why has not Jehovah taken sum
mary vengeance on such an im
pious race 1  For my name's
sake, &c. gives the answer. Be
cause it would have compromised
Jehovah in the eyes of the heathen,
who are, in His own good time, to
become subjects of the Divine
King. Comp. Ezek. xx. 9, xxxvi.
21-23. •" I have refined tbee, but not
as silver] The precise meaning
is obscure, ^\^e may, however, at
once dismiss the explanation of
Ewald ('my refining did not result

' Rutgers, De echtheid. enz., pp. 64-68; Land, 'Prof. Rutgers en de tneede
Jesaias ' Thealogisch Tijdsclirift, 1867, p. 202.

CHAP. XLVIII.]

ISAIAH.

" For mine own sake, for mine own sake will I do it ; for
how should it be desecrated ? and my glory I will not give
unto another.
'^ Hearken unto me, O Jacob ; and Israel, my called one ;
I am He, I am the first, I also am the last. '^ It was my
hand also that laid the foundation of the earth, and my right
hand that spread out the heavens ; if I call unto them, they
stand up together. "Assemble yourselves, all of you, and
hear ; who among " them announced these things > He
whom Jehovah hath loved shall perform his pleasure on
« You, not a few Hebr. MSS., Pesh.

in the production of pure metal'),
which is here 'purposeless' (Del.).
(It is not the so-called £eth firetzt,
but the Peth essentia, which we have
here. For the latter, besides xl. lo,
comp. Ezek. xx. 41, 'as a sweet
savour I will accept you gladly.')
But what does 'not as silver' mean?
Not merely 'in a higher sense than
the refining of silver' (Hitz., Del.),
comp. xxix. 9 ; but rather ' not with
such uncompromising severity as
silver,' (so Calv., Vitr., Hengst.).
To have tried Israel 'as silver,'
which, as a psalmist says, is ' puri
fied seven times ' (Ps. xii. 6), would
have been to 'cut off' the nation
entirely (comp. v. 9) ; Jehovah,
therefore, mindful of his covenant,
'reined in' or 'restrained' the
anger due to its iniquity. — The
beauty of the passage, thus ex
plained, shines out the more by
comparison with the application of
the same figure in other prophecies ;
see i. 25, Ezek. xxii. 18-22, Mai.
iii. 3 ; Zech. xiii. 9 is more nearly
in harmony with it.  In the fur
nace of affliction] An allusion to
the ' iron furnace ' of the Egyptian
bondage, Deut. iv. 20. The pro
phets regard Egypt as the type of
all subsequent oppressors.
'^ For boir should it be dese
crated ?] Understand ' my glory,'
by a ' proleptic ellipsis ' ; comp.
Judg. V. 20, 'They fought from
heaven — the stars from their
courses fought against Sisera.'
So Ges., and formerly, Del. (in his

comment on Hab. i. j). Or, though
this is less obvious, supply my name
from V. 9 (with Sept., Vitr., Hitz.,
Del., Naeg.). The verb will suit
equally well with 'name' (comp.
xxiii. 9), and 'glory' (comp. Lev.
xviii. 21, xix. 12, Ezek. xx. 9, xxxvi.
22).  Unto another] i.e., to an
idol-god. So xhi. 8.
12-15 ^ 3)-iij more complete and
more condensed summary of the
chief contents of chaps, xl.-xlvii.
The summons to attend to the new
and grand revelation (comp. xliv. i,
xlvi. 3). ' I am He,' (comp. xliii.
10, 13, 25, xli. 4, xlvi. 4). 'The
First and the Last' (xli. 4, xliv. 6).
The Creator (comp. xl. 12, 22, 26,
28, xiii. 5, xliv. 24, xiv. 12, 18. De
bate on prophecy (comp. xli. i, 22-
28, xHii. 9-12, xliv. 7, 8). Mission
of Cyrus (xli. 2, 25, xliv. 28, xiv.
1-7, 13, xlvi. 11).
^* Assemble yourselves] Ad
dressed to the idola-trous nations
(xliii. 9).  He whom Tehovab
bath loved] Cyrus inherits the
honour conferred on the child
Solomon (comp. the Hebrew of
2 Sam. xii. 34, Del.). There is, it
is true, no verbal parallel for such
a phrase in the preceding dis
courses, but the personal regard of
Jehovah for Cyrus has been clearly
enough expressed (see xiv. 4). 
His arm] The subject is uncertain.
Is it Jehovah? is it Cyrus? Dr.
Weir remarks, with perfect accu
racy, that it is elsewhere God's arm
which the prophet refers to. But

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. XLVIII.

Babylon, and i his arm (shall be)'^ on Chaldsea. '' I, even I,
have spoken ; I have also called him ; I have brought him,
and his way shall be prosperous.
>« Draw near unto me, hear ye this ; (from the beginning
I have not spoken in secret, from the time that it came into
being, there have I been : and now the Lord Jehovah hath
•1 His arm, Hitz., Ew., Naeg.

surely he has not thereby debarred
himself from speaking of the 'arm'
of a human agent ! ('Arm ' = power ;
comp. Job xxxv. 9, 'they cry out by
reason of the arm of the mighty.')
The form of the phrase is no doubt
peculiar. We should have expected
something like 'and the lighting
down of his arm shall be on
Chaldaea' (comp. xxx. 30) ; whereas
all that the text gives us is ' and
his arm Chaldsea.' In spite of v. 9
(see Hebr.), it does not seem very
natural to make the preposition in
the preceding clause operate pro
spectively, and yet, as the text
stands, there is no alternative. The
rendering adopted above seems
on the whole the best. Alt. rend.
may indeed be supported by Ex.
xiv. 31 ('the great hand which
Jehovah did ') but ' his arm ' is not a
satisfactory parallel to 'his pleasure'
— it corresponds better (supplying
' shall be ') to ' shall perform, &c.'
" Here the recapitulation of the
previous discourses is interrupted.
The prophet, in the name of Jeho
vah, is about to put forth his good
tidings in a more striking form than
he has yet given them. But first
he must prepare the minds of his
readers by a pathetic appeal to their
consciences.  Dra^sr near unto
me] Jehovah is still the speaker,
but he addresses, no longer the
heathen (as in v. 14), but the Is
raelites, especially those who are
'far from righteousness' (xlvi. 12).
The main point of his address is in
w. 18, 19. From tbe begrlnnlng-]
The passage thus introduced is
open to various interpretations.
The most probable seems to me to
be this — that from the beginning of
1 /. C. A.

the world (comp. xl. 21, xli. 4) Je
hovah has ' raised up a succession
of prophets, each bearing his own
unambiguous message ; "and now,"
as the prophetic writer subjoins,
Jehovah has crowned his previous
work with this grandest of revela
tions.'^ Compare Calvin's note,
' Testatur Deum ilium qui ab initio
loquutus est, per ipsum loqui. Itaque
sic habendam esse fidem lis quse
nunc Deus per ipsum loquitur, ac
si palam adesset.' — The phrase
'from the beginning' may, how
ever, also be taken as meaning
'from the beginning of that his
torical period to which the fall of
Babylon belongs.' Jehovah cer
tainly claims, according to the
prophet, to have foretold tbe future
from primeval times, but he also
insists repeatedly on the early date
of his predictions respecting Cyrus.
 1 bave not spoken in secret]
' My revelations have not been
obscure and ambiguous like the
heathen oracles.'  From tbe
time that it came into being
. . . ] The subject of the verb is
doubtful. Most expositors think it
to be Jehovah's purpose respecting
Cyrus. In this case, the Divine
speaker declares that not only had
He foretold the Persian victories
(comp. xli. 26), but from the time
that these announcements ' came
into being' (i.e., began to be
fulfilled), ' there (was) He,' as the
director and controller of events.
But is this view quite consistent with
the latter half of the verse, which so
disrinctly refers to prophecy? Is
it not more natural, with Ewald, to
take the words 'there (was) He' as
referring to the succession of pro-
. P- I7S-

CHAP. XLVIII.]

ISAIAH.

sent me and ^ his Spirit " :) " thus saith Jehovah, thy Goel,
the Holy One of Israel, I am Jehovah thy God, he who
teacheth thee to profit, who leaSeth thee by the way thou

" His Word, Targ.

phetic messengers, and as the sub
ject of the verb 'came into being'
to understand ' the earth ' (from v.
13)? ' From the beginning ' will then
mean ' from the beginning of the
world.' It may be noticed in this con
nection that the word-group ' there
I (have been) ' occurs again in the
description of the work of Wisdom
at the creation (Prov. viii. 27). (For
the ellipsis of ' the earth,' comp.
viii. 21, Ps. Ixviii. 15 in the Hebr.)
 And now tbe Ziord Jehovah
bath] Here a fresh speaker is
evidently introduced, though his
speech only extends to the end of
the verse. But who ? According to
Delitzsch, it is the servant of Jeho
vah, who has already been declared
to be divinely ' sent,' and to be in
vested with the Divine Spirit. This
is possible, but not, in my opinion,
probable. A concise and incidental
utterance of this kind seems hardly
consistent with the dignity of this
great personage, while an occa
sional brief reference to himself
is characteristic of the prophetic
writer (comp. xl. 6, xliv. 26, lvii. 21).
So Targ., which interpolates ' the
prophet saith.' There is a partly
similar transition, pointed out by
Del., from Jehovah as a speaker to
the prophet in lxii. 6. — It is difficult
to see how Hitzig, Knobel, and
Naegelsbach can assign the whole
verse to orfe person, and that per
son the prophet (in spite of xiv. 19).
If the latter had only been sent
' now,' how could he have ' spoken
from the beginning ' ?  And bis
Spirit] It has been much debated
whether these words are the subject
(with 'the Lord Jehovah') or the
object of the verb, i.e., whether the
Spirit is the sender or the sent.
The Targ. (most probably), Sept.
(see Dr. Kay's note), and Vulg., fol
lowed by the English and German
versions and by Naeg., take the

former view ; Calvin. Vitr., Del.
and indeed most moderns, the
latter. Grammatically, both ren
derings are equally admissible
(comp. Origen, Works, ed. Lom-
matzsch, iii. 244), though the for
mer is somewhat more obvious.
But as there is no analogy in the
O. T. for the Spirit's being the sen
der of a prophet (in i Kings xxii.
21, 22, ' The Spirit ' of prophecy is
himself sent), and as the Spirit is,
elsewhere in II. Isaiah, distinctly
subordinated to Jehovah (see xliv. 3,
Ixi.i, Ixiii. 10, 11) it seems tome safer
to take the words ' and his Spirit '
= ' with his Spirit ' (for the idiom,
see crit. note on vii. i); Possibly
this particular construction may
have been chosen here to indicate
the personality of the Spirit, for I
cannot but think, with Kleinert
(who, however, makes ' his Spirit '
the subject), that we have both here
and in Gen. i. 2 an early trace of
what is known as the Christian
doctrine of the Holy Spirit. If a
parallel for the claim here put for
ward by the prophet be required,
comp. Hos. ix. 8, 'the man of the
Spirit ' ~ (ivdpcoTTOS 6 Trveu^aro<^6pos.
Sept. (The whole subject of the
O. T. doctrine of the Spirit is
well treated by Dr. Paul Kleinert,
in Jahrbiicher fiir deutsche Theo-
logie, 1867, pp. 3-59.)
17-19 p^ tender complaint that
Israel has not taken the straight
road to peace and righteousness,
but has obliged Jehovah to ' lead
them round' (E.x. xiii. 18), as it
were, by the rough road of chas
tisement.  'Wbo teacheth tbee
to profit] Deep down in human
nature lies the idea of a covenant
between the worshipper and his
god. In return for external service,
the god gives help and protection.
The prophets, with a generous
freedom, retain so much of this

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. XLVIII.

shouldest go. '^ O that thou ^hadst hearkened' unto my
commandments ! then would thy peace « have been « as the
river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea ; '^ and
thy seed would have been as the sand, and the offspring of
thy body as the ''entrails thereof; his name would not be
' Didst hearken, Hitz., Knob., Stier, Del.
B Be, Hitz., Knob., Stier, Del. (the letters leave the point of time uncertain).
* So Rashi, A.E., Ges., Hitz., Naeg., Weir.— AU the old versions agree substan
tially iri rendering ' grains (of sand)' ; so Vitr., Ew., Del.

primitive theory as matches with
the truths revealed to them. Je
hovah's protection is still condi
tional, but the conditions extend to
the inner as well as the outer man.
His terms are therefore more severe
than those of the idol-gods, but the
result justifies their acceptance.
For the idol-gods are, as Jeremiah
puts it (ii. II), 'the not-profitable,'
and similar statements occur in
II. Isaiah (xliv. 9, 10, comp. xiv. 19).
Jehovah, on the other hand, teaches
only what is ' profitable ' (i.e., in a
moral sense, comp. Mic. vi. 8), and
leads in the right way (Ps. xxiii. 3).
 O that thou badst hearkened
. . . ] This is the literal render
ing. Some critics, however, are of
opinion that it does not suit the
context, that it leads rather away
from, than up to, the enlivening
promise which underlies the con
cluding injunction. The same con
struction, they remind us, occurs in
lxiv. I, where all critics are agreed
that the sense is a wish for the
future, and not for the past, and
that the perfect merely expresses
the impatient eagerness of the wish.
But, as Naeg. remarks, the two
passages are not entirely parallel.
The one refers to an action, the
other to a state. A form of expres
sion suitable enough in the one
case would lead to ambiguity or
worse in the other. It is safer to
render as above, and the meaning,
though more subtle, is not inappro
priate. — There is a similar and an
equally touching apostrophe in Ps.
lxxxi. 13-16, where, however, the
construction is different, and we
rnust certainly render, not as Auth.
Vers, and (at least as regards vv.

13, 14) Vulg., ' had hearkened,' 'had
walked,' ' should have subdued,'
&c., but ' would hearken,' ' would
walk,' ' would subdue,' &c.  Tbe
river] i.e., the Euphrates (so
Targ.).  Tby rlg-bteousness]
' Righteousness ' here, as so often
in II. Isaiah, means, not rectitude,
but prosperity, not however pros
perity per se, but as the manifesta
tion of Jehovah's righteousness or
fidelity to His promises.
'^ As tbe sand] Thus the
ancient promises to Abraham and
to Jacob (Gen. xxii. 17, xxxii. 12),
and indeed those recent ones to
Israel himself (xliv. 3, 4), would
have been realised, as it were,
naturally.  As tbe entrails
thereof] i.e., the fishes, which
have their name in Hebr. from
swarming (comp. Gen. i. 20). The
subject in Hebr. is not always the
noun last mentioned ; it must in
this case be supplied from the pre
ceding line. The word for ' entrails '
is the feminine form of that ren
dered 'body'; masculine and femi
nine forms standing together as in
iii. I. — This rend, seems to me now
safer than that of Ew. or of Del.
(The phrase is Spenserian.)  His
name would not be cut off] Not
only would these blessings have
been attained, but Israel's name as
a people would be secured against
extinction for all time.— But is not
this explanation against the spirit
of Old Testament prophecy, which
assumes, like St. Paul, that the
xapio-para of God are irrevocable ?
Are we not therefore driven to
Ewald's way of rendering the pas
sage ? No ; for no people can be
secured in existence beyond that

CHAP. XLVIII.]

ISAIAH.

cut off, nor destroyed from before me. ^° Go ye out from
Babylon, flee ye from Chaldsea ; with a ringing cry announce
ye this and show it ; cause it to go forth even to the end of
the earth ; say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed his servant Jacob.
^' And they thirsted not in the deserts through which he led
them : water from the rock he caused to flow down unto
them ; he clave the rock, and water gushed out. ^^ There is
no peace, saith Jehovah, to the ungodly.

Day of Jehovah which marks off
one ' age ' i^olam or alav) from
another. It is only a moral bond
of union which can so attach Israel
to Jehovah that his existence be
comes absolutely illimitable. For
' the coming age ' (to adopt the late
Jewish phrase) a special promise is
required (see Ixvi. 22). ' Before me,'
i.e., under my care and protection.
— See crit. note.
^^ The prophet, ' becoming in
the Spirit ' (Rev. i. 10), sees the de
struction of Babylon in the act of
accomplishment.  Plee ye . . .]
' Escape for thy life ' (Gen. xix. 17).
At a later period, the prophetic in
junction took a different form : —
' ye shall not proceed in flight '
(lii. 12).  With a ringing cry]
The accents connect these words
with ' announce, tell.' Vitringa, in
deed, thinks this produces an im
probable phrase — ' announce with
the voice of song.' ^utrinnakisnot
properly ' song,' and if the message
were to reach ' the end of the earth,'
a 'ringing cry' would indeed be
necessary. The contents of the
message are the redemption and
return of Israel.  Tehovab bath
redeemed] Not the prophetic
perfect (as in xliii. I, xliv. 22), but
the historical. The Israelites have
now escaped from the fallen city,
and not only so, but received ' the

earnest of their inheritance.' These
great mercies they are to proclaim
far and wide (comp. xii. 4). In
fact, as we know from xiv. 22, ' all
the ends of the earth ' are vitally
interested in the salvation of Israel.
"^ And they thirsted not . . .]
Literalists will remark (as David
Kimchi long ago, with naive as
tonishment, remarked) that no
miracle of bringing water out of
the rock is mentioned in the Book
of Ezra. But the picture is of
course symbolical. Similar figure?
occur in xli. 17-19, xliii. 19, 20,
xliv. 3, 4, but here the emphasis
is laid more on the refreshment
vouchsafed during the homeward
journey, than on the blessedness
reserved for the true Israel after
their resettlement. The prophet
aims at showing that the restora
tion from Babylon was as great a
Divine interposition as the deliver
ance from Egypt (comp. Ex. xvii.
6, Num. XX. 11). — The last words
of the verse remind us of Ps.
Ixxviii. 20, cv. 41 (see Hebr.).
^^ There is no peace . . . }
' Peace' (comp. v. 18) sums up all
the promised blessings ; from these
the ' ungodly,' those who do not
belong to the spiritual Israel, are
self-excluded. The same words
occur, in the manner of a refrain,
in Ivii. 21.

IO ISAIAH. [CHAP. XLIX.

CHAPTER XLIX.
We now enter upon a new section of the prophecy. This is ad
mitted even by those who, denying the unity, deny also the division
of II. Isaiah into three symmetrical books. In it, we hear no more
of the antithesis between Israel and heathenism, no more of Babylon,
no more even of Cyrus. Israel himself, in all his contradictory
characteristics, becomes the engrossing subject of the prophet's medi
tations. His restoration, still future, but indubitable, is celebrated in
Chap. Ix. by an ode somewhat similar to that on the fall of Babylon
in the preceding part But the nearer the great event arrives, and
the more the prophet realises the ideal Israel of the future, the more
he is depressed by the low spiritual condition of the actual Israel.
Strange to say, this combination of apparently inconsistent data — the
splendour of the future and the misery of the present — supplies the
material for a specimen of dramatic description surpassing anything
in the rest of the Old Testament.
The scene with which the section opens is a singularly striking
one. The Servant of Jehovah, wearied, as it seems, with the infatuated
opposition of the majority of the Israelites, turns to the ' countries '
and 'peoples afar off,' and unfolds at length, although not as yet
in all its fulness, his origin and his high mission.
It is true that here, as in the case of the parallel prophecy xiii.
1-7, many critics deny that ' the Servant ' is the speaker, and assign
the soliloquy either to the prophet or to the spiritual Israel. Of these
two theories the former is the more plausible, as it does fuller justice
to the individualising features of the description. It is also confirmed
by Jer. i. 5, where it is said of Jeremiah, that before be came out of
the womb he was ' known,' ' consecrated,' and ' ordained ' of Jehovah.
The drawback, however, to this comparison is that Jeremiah doesTiot,
like the speaker in xlix. i, presume to state this of himself ; it is 'the
word of Jehovah' which 'came to him.' Besides, the greater part
of what the speaker says is so grand and so self-assertive that no
prophet, least of all such a reticent prophet as the author, can be
imagined as uttering it. The latter theory has but one point in its
favour — the second line of v. 3, and this no doubt is at first sight
conclusive. It is opposed however by vv. 5, 6, which unmistakeably
refer to the spiritual Israel, and expressly distinguish it from the
Servant of Jehovah. The only other theory worth mentioning is that
which regards the speaker as that human yet superhuman personage
to whom the latter appellation belongs. All the conflicting data at
once fall into their proper places when we accept this explanation.
Our only reasonable doubt will be connected with the surprising

CHAP. XLIX.] ISAIAH. I I
statement in v. 2, ' Thou art my servant, (thou art) Israel with whom
I will beautify myself.' How can this be? How can the speaker be
destined to bring Israel back to Jehovah, &c., and at the same time
himself be Israel?
One of the earliest as well as latest solutions is that the speaker
is called Israel as being the noblest and truest representative of the
people of Israel. So Ibn Ezra, though the speaker, according to
him, is not the prophet but the Servant ; so too Delitzsch, who con
siders the personal Servant to be as it were the apex of a pyramid,
of which Israel in its entirety forms the basis, and the ideal or
spiritual Israel the centre. So too Vitringa, Naegelsbach, and Birks,
who explain v. 3^ as an allusion to Gen. xxxii. 29, and as meaning,
in the words of the first-named writer, ' Tu es Israel, inter omnes veros
Israelitas unus et solus, qui in te vere exhibiturus es characteres
omnes patris tui Jacobi, qui cum Deo ipso luctatus vicit . . . hac
ipsa de caussa meritus appellari Israel.' This is conceivable, but there
is no other evidence that the first Israel was regarded as typical of the
Messiah, like Adam and David. May not the true explanation be
much simpler? To me it appears not impossible that the occurrence
of ' Israel ' in this passage is an inconsistency. The prophet seems
to be passing gradually from a lower to a higher conception of his
' great argument. ' Originally the Servant of Jehovah was the people
of Israel — sometimes the natural, sometimes the spiritual Israel.
Now, indeed, he has transcended all that is as yet in existence in the
sphere of phenomena, but allows a vestige to remain of his earlier
conception. Strictly speaking, therefore, the title Israel is inappro
priate in this soliloquy. It is interesting, however, as supplying a
link between two conceptions of the mysterious 'Servant.''
Contents. — The Servant's declaration Concerning his intercourse with
Jehovah, his functions, and his experience i^v. 1-13) ; Zion comforted
in her despondency {vv. 14-26).
' Hearken, ye countries, unto me, and listen, ye far-off
peoples : Jehovah hath called me from the womb, from my
mother's lap hath he made mention of my name ; ^ and he
' Hearken, ye countries, unto womb] i.e., I was predestinated to
me . . . ] This is no mere my missionary office. Comp. Jer.
rhetorical phrase. The 'coaxntries' i. 5, Gal. i. 15, and note at end of
and the ' nations ' fell within the chap. xiii.
scope of the Servant's original com- ^ He made my mouth ... J
mission (xiii. i, 4, 6).  From the i.e., he endowed my word with his
1 It is enough to chronicle the suggestion of Gesenius, in his note on v. 3, that the
word ' Israel ' may be an interpolation (hke ' Israel ' and 'Jacob ' in the Sept. of xhi.
i). In the notes to his translation of Isaiah (and ed. 1829) he retracted this view.

12

ISAIAH.

[chap. xlix.

made my mouth as a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand
he hid me ; and he made me a polished shaft, in his quiver
he covered me : ' and he said unto me, Thou art my servant ;
(even) Israel, with whom I will beautify myself. * But T
had said, I have laboured in vain, for nought and for a
breath have I spent my strength ; but surely my right is

own omnipotence, so that it puts
down all opposition, just as his
word. So in li. i6, 'the word of
the Lord, which is put into the
mouth of the Servant, is so living
and powerful, so borne by omnipo
tence, that thereby the heavens are
planted, and the foundations of the
earth are laid.' So too in xi. 4
(see note) it is said of the Messianic
king that ' he shall smite the tyrant
with the sceptre of his mouth.'
Comp. also Heb. iv. 12, Eph. vi.
17, and the passages in Revelation
(i. 16, xix. 15) based upon this
imaginative description of the Ser
vant.  He bid me] The incisive
preaching of the Servant was dis
pleasing to the natural man, who
therefore sought to parry the sword
of the Spirit by the arm of flesh.
Hence not only the ' mouth,' but
the entire person of the preacher
needed the Divine protection. 
And be made me a polished
shaft] The whole soul of the-pro-
phet is absorbed in his message ;
he is all mouth — a 'mouth of God'
(Ex. iv. 16, comp. vii. i). 'Po
lished,' so as to penetrate easily;
comp. Jer. li. 11.
" And he said . . . ] ' And ' is
explanatory. Jehovah tells His
Servant why He watches over him
with such solicitude. It is because
he is His precious instrument, and
because in and through him He
designs to manifest His glory. The
Servant will become the head of a
regenerated and expanded Israel,
which Jehovah will hold forth to
the universe as His fairest prize
(lxii. 3). — The phrase at the end of
the verse is repeated from xliv. 23.
<> But / had said . . . ] ' My
thoughts were very different — ever
ready to sink into dejection and

despair. And if I struggle against
this, the utmost I can reach and
rise to is to cast myself upon God's
judgment, and to leave all in His
hands.' So Dr. Weir. But this is
far from doing justice to the firm
faith of the closing words. The
Servant of Jehovah may indeed
give way to dejection, but only for
a moment. His cry of pain and
astonishment does but show that
he is a man — a historical person,
and is as consistent with a deeply-
rooted faith as the ' Eli, Eli ' of
Ps. xxii. I, Matt, xxvii. 46. Directly
after relieving his feelings by the
cry, ' I have laboured in vain,' he
gives the lie, with a ' but surely,'
to all delusive appearances, and
with the bold declaration, ' my re-
compence is with my God,' appeals
to the impending interposition of
the Divine Judge (comp. xl. 10). —
The scene of this seemingly result-
less labour is evidently Israel, not
the heathen world (see v. 6). In a
subsequent chapter we find Zion
giving utterance to a complaint
corresponding to the exclamation
of the Servant (see on li. 14). 
My right] The expression reminds
us of xl. 27, where Israel com
plains, ' My right has been let slip
by my God.' There, however, the
' right ' is clearly that of an op
pressed nation as against its op
pressors ; here it is the ' right ' of
an envoy from the King of Israel
to be received with heartfelt sub
mission. The work of the Servant
is described under the same figure
of a judicial pleading in 1. 8 
My recompence] What this re-
compence is, will appear in liii.
10-12. (The mention of a ' recom
pence' of itself shows that 'ser
vant' in the phrase 'the Servant

CHAP. XLIX.]

ISAIAH.

with Jehovah, and my recompence with my God. 'And
now Jehovah hath said, he who formed me from the womb to
be a servant unto him, that I might bring back Jacob unto
him, and that Israel might " unto him " be gathered, (for I
am honoured in the eyes of Jehovah, and my God is become
my strength,) " he hath said. It is too light a thing that thou
art unto me a servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and to restore the preserved of Israel ; so I appoint thee the
light of the nations, * to be my salvation •• unto the end of
the earth.
^ Thus saith Jehovah, the Goel of Israel, and his Holy
» So Heb. marg. some MSS., Aquila, Pesh., Targ., Lowth, Vitr.,' Ges., Ew.,Del.,
Naeg., Weir.— Not, Heb. text,' Vulg., Calv., Henderson, Hitz., Hengst., Alexander,
Kay. (The following verb is variously rendered ; see crit. note. )
•> So Sept., Vulg., Vitr., Hengstenberg, Del., Naeg., Weir.— That my salvation
maybe, Ges., Hitz., Ew. (Weir is uncertain).

(literally slave) of Jehovah' has a
special meaning of its own. A
slave can have no recompence.
^ And now Jehovah hatb
said . . . ] 'And' is again ex
planatory. Jehovah rewards the
Servant's recent exercise of faith
by a fresh revelation. But before
announcing it, the Servant joyfully
repeats the facts which have ever
lain deep down in his conscious
ness, though obscured for a mo
ment by despondency, viz. that he
is Jehovah's predestined instrument
for the restoration of the Chosen
People. ' To bring back ' (i.e.,
that I may bring back) at any rate
includes a spiritual reference. See
on xiii. 7, and comp. the use of ' to
return' in I. Isaiah (i. 27, vi. 10, x.
20-22, xxx. 1 5). — Alt. rend, entirely
spoils the symmetry of the verse
(analogous cases in ix. 2, Ixiii. 9).
 ror Z am honoured . . . ]
Lit. ' and, &c.' ; the ' and ' is ex
planatory of the circumstance that
a new Divine revelation has been
accorded to the Servant. He now
feels that he is honoured (the im
perfect tense may be chosen as
being the tense of emotion) in the
eyes of God if not in those of men,
and consequently his despondency
gives place to a sense of an in
dwelling Divine strength.

^ Comp. xiii. 6. it is too light
a thing: ¦ • • ] Even the restora
tion of Israel is a 'light thing' by
comparison with the exalted privi
lege of bringing all mankind to the
knowledge of the true God. 
Tbe tribes of Jacob (i.e., Israel)]
The prophet retains the old-
fashioned phrase, precisely as the
New Testament writers (Matt. xix.
28, Rev. vii. 4). The parallel clause
has simply tbe preserved of
Israel, i.e., those who in I. Isaiah
(e.g., X. 20) are called the ' remnant,'
with reference to the great judg
ment upon Israel.  To be my
salvation] i.e., the bearer of my
salvation (as the Messiah is called
'peace,' i.e., 'the author of peace,'
Mic. v. 5). — Alt. rend, is equally
possible grammatically, and har
monizes better with the theory that
the people of Israel is the speaker.
But the parallelism favours the first
rendering. '-" A further revelation of Jeho
vah, rewarding the revived faith of
his Servant. It is a kind of pre
lude of chap. liii. Nowhere else,
except in that famous chapter, are
the humiliation and subsequent
glorification of this great personage
so emphatically dwelt upon.
' Tbe Goel of Israel] (See on
xli. 14.) Israel and the greatest of

14

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. XLIX.

One, unto him who is ''despised *of souls,"* abhorred of ^ the
people,' a servant of rulers : kings shall see and rise up ;
" Despicable, Calv., Del.
<¦ (n) Of persons, Targ. (virtually), Auth. Vers., Ges., Hengstenberg, Knobel. (?)
In the soul, Calv., Vitr., Ew., Naeg., Weir, (v) As to (his) soul, Hitz., Del. (see cnt.
note). o Peoples, Sept., Saadya, A.E., Kimchi, Luzzatto (as if a collective).

Israel's saplings (liii. 2) are indis
solubly united. Is the 'Servant'
reduced to low estate ? So, too, is
Israel. Is the ' Servant' appointed
for a glorious issue ? Those who
are mystically joined to him shall
share his prosperity.  His Holy
One] ' Holiness ' is closely related
to the idea of strength, comp. xxix.
19.  V^ho is despised of souls]
i.e., whom men heartily despise.
The obscurity of this expression is
- chiefly owing to the circumstance
that the Hebr. has, not 'souls,' but
'soul' (n^esh). ' Despised of soul'
(if we interpret ndfesh as a singular)
may be explained in two ways (see
/3 and y in noted), of which the first
seems to me the more plausible —
comp. the phrase ' desire of soul ' =
' deep desire ' (xxvi. 8), and ' my ene
mies in soul ' = ' my deadly enemies '
(as A. V. Ps. xvii. 9). The soul is
in Biblical language the seat of the
deepest feelings and affections (the
Gemiith), of pleasure and pain,
desire and disgust, love and hate,
admiration and contempt ; con
tempt, in particular, is again con
nected with the soul in Ezek. xxxvi.
5, ' with the joy of a full heart, with
despite of the soul.' On the other
hand, the rend, of those who take
nifesh collectively is recommended
by its accordance with the parallel
members of the verse (' . . . people
. . . rulers '), and by the parallel
passage in Ps. xxii. (a psalm so
strikingly germane to this para
graph and to Isa. liii.), in which
the pious sufferer is called a re
proach of men and despised of
people' (v. 6) ; while the rend, 'per
sons ' is justified by the common
phrase ' every soul ' for ' every per
son,' and by Gen. xii. 5, xiv. 21,
Ezek. xxvii. 13 (where the singular
is used, as here, collectively). Still,

though the parallelism imperatively
demands a collective reference,
' soul ' in the sense of ' person '
seems to me to belong specially to
phases and formulae (see instances
in Lexicon), and to be altogether
too mean a word for those who are
in the position of tyrants. I there
fore agree grammatically with Ge
senius, and exegetically with Ewald.
— The rend, of Hitz. and Del.
means ' whose life is deemed of
little or no value' — the opposite
of Ps. Ixxii. 14 b. (Obs. The
commentators grouped together
above do not always agree in their
exegesis. Thus Knobel, while
rendering as Gesenius, gives an ex
position akin to my own, ' despised
of men, who despise him in the
soul, i.e., heartily.' Vitringa, too,
though he translates as Ewald,
explains substantially as I have
done, ' Contempto fastiditoque i
cujusque desiderio ; quern nemo
concupiscit ; quo nemo delectatur ;
qui cuique fastidio est.' Calvin,
however, with the same version as
Vitr. and Ew., gives a very different
interpretation,' Hoc autemmiseriam
populi auget,' he says (taking the
promise to be addressed to the
people), 'quod "in animi" apud
seipsum contemptibilem esse dicit.')
 The people] Hebr. goy (no
article). The term is here used in
its widest and primary meaning,
'a collection of people,' viz. all
those with whom the Servant has
to do, not merely Jews, and not
merely Gentiles, but all mankind.
Comp. the use of the synonym
{dm) in xl. 7, xiii. 5, Ps. xviii. 28
(26), xxii. 7 (6), and perhaps lxii. 9
(8) ; also the phrase ' righteous
people ' {goy qaddiq), Gen. xx. 4.—
The rendering 'peoples' may be
supported by Job xvii, 6, where

CHAP. XLIX.]

ISAIAH.

15

princes — they shall bow down ; because of Jehovah, in that
he is faithful, and of the Holy One of Israel, in that he chose
thee. ^ Thus saith Jehovah, In the season of favour do I
answer thee, and in the day of salvation I help thee ; and I
'keep thee and appoint thee for a covenant of the people, to
raise up the land, to assign the desolate heritages, ^ saying to
the bondsmen, Go forth, and to those who are in darkness,
Show yourselves. They shall pasture ^ on the ways, and on

*" Form, Ew., Del.

s In all, Sept., Ew.

Job, the typical righteous man,
complains that he is become ' a
byword of peoples ' (plural, not col
lective). The sense is of course
the same, but the rend, adopted is
simpler. — ^Of rulers] Or, para-
phrastically, ' of despots ' (comp.
xiv. 5), for the context shows that
stem, irresponsible heathen lords
are here intended. Obs. the skilful
transition. He whom Jehovah has
honoured with the title of ' Servant '
and the authority of a vicegerent
becomes the slave of Jehovah's
enemies. Yet these very kings
shall have to do obeisance to him
whom they once ' heartily despised '
(comp. V. 23, Ps. Ixxii. 11). 
Because of Jehovah . . . ] These
acts of reverence and homage are
ultimately offered to Jehovah. It
is Jehovah's promise and Jehovah's
election which have been verified
by his servant's glorification.
° Thus saith Jehovah ... J
The prophecy takes up the thread
which has been dropped in v. 7.
The new revelation refers to the
mediatorial position of the Servant
and his spiritual activity. In the
fulness of time, when the ' season '
has arrived for proving to the world
the truth of the declaration in xiii.
I (instead of 'favour' we might
render 'good pleasure'), the Ser
vant of Jehovah shall himself be
' helped,' or ' saved,' and, like the
sufferer in Ps. xxii. {vv. 23-27), be
come the source of help and salva
tion to others.  X answer tbee]
The tense is the prophetic perfect.
 And I . . . the people] Re

peated verbally from xiii. 6 (see
notes). The person addressed is
obviously the same, and is distinct,
in some sense, from the people of
Israel — distinct even from the ' spi
ritual Israel ' which is to take the
place of the unpurified race of the
past.  To raise up the land]
Comp. V. 19 ' thy broken-down
(or, ruined) land.'  To assign]
viz. to the families to which the
respective possessions belonged.
Clearly this function belongs to a
historical person, such as Joshua
was in the past, and Zerubbabel was
destined to be in the future. Here,
as elsewhere, in his picture of the
' Messianic ' future, the prophet
combines events which the reality
of history spreads over long
stretches of time.
^ Obs. it is not the word of Cyrus
(as in xliv. 28), but that of Jehovah
through his servant, which is the
efficient cause of deliverance. 
To the bondsmen] The ' bonds
men ' are the Jews, or, more pro
perly, the Israelites (from whichever
section of the nation). Contrast
xiii. 7 (see note). This portion of
the prophecy {vv. 7-12) belongs
specially to Israel : notice the sig
nificant omission in v. 8 of the
words ' a light of the nations '
(found in xiii. 6).'  Shall pasture
on the ways] Here follows a
digression suggested by the men
tion of deliverance. (Obs. the de
liverance is taken for granted ; the
Divine word ' Go forth ' has a self-
fulfilling power). The digression
describes not merely the comfort

i6

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. XLIX.

all bare hills there is pasture for them : '"they shall not
hunger nor thirst, the ^ mirage and the sun shall not smite
them, for he that hath compassion upon them shall lead them,
and unto springs of water shall he guide them. " And I will
make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be
exalted. '^ Behold, these come from afar ; and behold, these
from the north and from the * south, and these from the land
of Sinim. '^ Ring out, O heavens, and exult, O earth, and
>¦ Glowing heat, Lowth, Ges. (with the ancients).— But see xxxv. 7.
' West, Hebr. text.
of the return -journey (though this
is not excluded), but also the bliss
ful condition of the restored exiles
(comp. on xl. 11). The latter are
compared to a well-tended flock,
which has no temptation to roam,
as it finds pasture ' on the ways '
(i.e., whichever way the sheep turn),
and even on 'bare hills' (comp.
xli. 1 8, Jer. xii. 12) ; in fact, no
' bare hills ' are left.
'" The literal journey homeward,
and the metaphorical journey of life,
shall both be made easy to them.
The misery of intense heat, and
the phenomenon of the deluding
mirage (see on xxxv. 7) which so
often accompanies it, will be equally
unknown in ' the coming age.'
Neither the mirage, nor the sun,
shall smite them. Comp. the pa
rallel passage, Ps. cxxi. 6 (where,
however, the zeugmatic use of the
verb is not absolutely neces
sary). 11-13 '2'j^g prophet is always ho
vering between the near and the
distant future. But as these two
verses clearly show, his conception
even of the near future is modified
by his vision of what is really far
off. He is thinking here of the re
turn of the exiles, but the language
which he uses is by no means ex
hausted by the return of the Jews
from Babylon, though this event
was all that a Jew of ordinary fore
sight living at the close of the Exile
could anticipate.
" My mountains] Not merely
the mountains of Canaan (as xiv.
25), but those of the whole earth ;

it is an assertion of Jehovah's uni
versal lordship.  My big:bways]
See on xl. 4.
1^ The return of the exiles.
Comp. xliii. 5, 6 (with note), where
however, the quarters are given in
a different order. Jerusalem seems
to be here regarded as the centre
of the world (as Ezek. v. 5). 
Come from far] The vagueness
of this term, ' from far,' suggests
that the writer did not origin
ally intend a catalogue of the four
quarters of the world. Taken in
connection, however, with what fol
low, the ' far ' region should be the
west, which is favoured also by
V. la.  From the south] This
rendering seems to be required by
the context : — ' from the north and
from the west ' would be an unna
tural combination. And yet 'the
sea,' which the Hebr. has instead
of ' the south,' in definitions of
place commonly means ' the west.'
The same difficulty occurs in Ps.
cvii. 3, where ' the redeemed ' are
said to be gathered ' from the east,
and from the west, from the north,
and from the sea ' : — here ' the sea '
clearly cannot mean ' the west,' be
cause that quarter has been already
mentioned. Del. (on Ps. I.e.) thinks
' the sea ' means the Mediterranean
about Egypt, i.e., the south-west,
but against the parallelism ; Hitzig
prefers the Erythrean, but against
usage. For a justification of the
rendering 'south,' see crit. note.
 Sinim] See appendix to this
chapter. '^ Ring out, O heavens] In

CHAP. XLIX.]

ISATAH.

17

burst out, O mountains, into a ringing sound, for Jehovah
doth comfort his people, and yearneth upon his afflicted
ones. "And Zion said, Jehovah hath forsaken me, and the Lord
hath forgotten me ! '' Can a woman forget her suckling, so
as not to yearn upon the son of her womb ? Should even
these forget, yet will I not forget thee ! '" Behold, I have
portrayed thee upon the palms of the hands ; thy walls are

ecstatic transport, the prophet calls
upon heaven and earth to sympa
thise. His language reminds us of
the poetry of art, but it is really the
soberest truth (see on xliv. 23).
Too soon, alas ! he is recalled from
anticipations of the future to the
miseries of the present (or, more
correctly, perhaps from the distant
to the near future). Zion and the
Servant stand over against each
other, without having been able to
form an intimate relation. Hence,
the complaint of the Servant, ' I
have laboured in vain' (xlix. 4),
finds a responsive echo in the words
of the personified Zion {v. 14). 
Jehovah bath forsaken me] This
is not an expression of absolute
unbelief; it is the pain of seem
ingly unreturned affection which
borrows the language of scepticism
(comp. xl. 27). The highest act of
faith is to see God with the heart
when all outward tokens of His
presence are removed. There are
times when even the noblest of
mankind are unequal to such an
effort ; even the ' Servant of Jeho
vah' gave way to dejection for a
moment (see on xlix. 4)
'* Can a woman . . . ] Jehovah
meets this wounded heart, not with
harsh censure, not even with a
gentle remonstrance (comp. xl. 28),
but with an assurance of uninter
rupted affection. His loving-kind
ness surpasses that of a father
(comp. on Ixiii. 16) ; it is even more
tender than that of a mother for
her suckling (comp. Ixvi. 3). 
Should even tbese forget] For
Lady Macbeth can say —
VOL. II.

I would, while it was smiling in my face.
Have plucked my nipple from his bone
less gums.
And dashed the brains out.
[Ufacbeth, Act I. Sc. 7.)
^* I bave portrayed tbea] Sept.
i ^a>y paprjo-d <7f. It is of course
implied that the portraiture is in
delible, like the sacred marks of
devotees (see on xliv. 5). With
touching condescension, Jehovah
inverts the usual order. A wor
shipper needs a consecrating mark
to remind him at all times of his
relation to his God. Zion's God,
though not in need of such a re
minder, has condescended, as it
were, to 'grave Jerusalem on the
palms of his hands.'  Dr. Weir
compares Ex. xiii. 9, 16.  Tby
walls] This might mean 'thy
ruined walls,' but as it is the ideal
Jerusalem (see on xl. 9) which is
addressed, it seems better to take
the walls to be those 'great and
high' walls, which exist ideally in
the heavenly Jerusalem. — No better
commentary on this verse can be
given than a passage from the
Apocalypse of Baruch, cap. iv.
Baruch complains of the ruin which
has befallen God's city. The Lord
replies, 'Anne putas, quod ista sit
urbs de qui dixi : super volas ma-
nuum descripsi te ? Non ista aedi-
ficatio nunc aedificata in medio
vestrum, ilia est quje revelabitur
apud me, quae hie praeparata fuit e.\
quo cogitavi ut facerem paradisum,
et ostendi eam Adamo priusquam
peccaret, cum vero abjecit manda-
tum, sublata est ab eo, ut etiam
paradisus . . . Et nunc ecce custo-

i8

ISAIAH.

CHAP. XLIX.]

continually before me. '"' Thy ^ sons make haste ; those who
laid thee in ruins, and those who wasted thee, begin to de
part out of thee. '» Lift up thine eyes round about, and see ;
they are all gathered together, and are come that they may
be thine. As I live, (it is the oracle of Jehovah,) thou shalt
surely clothe thee with them all, as with ornaments, and bind
them upon thee like a bride. " For thy ruined and desolate
places, and thy broken-down land— yea, thou wilt now be too
narrow for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed thee up
will be far away. '^^ The children of thy bereavement shall
yet say in thy ears. The place is too narrow for me ; make
room for me that I may dwell. ^' And thou shalt say in thy
heart. Who hath ' borne me these, seeing I was bereaved
and unfruitful, an exile and removed .' and these, who hath
^ Builders, Sept., Targ., Vulg., Saadya, ancient Babylonian MS., Lowth, La
garde. — Ew., combining both readings [bdndyik and hondyik), has, Soon shall thy
children become (?) thy builders. (There may at least be a play upon words. )
' Begotten, Ges., Ew., Stier (taking the question as referring to the father).

dita est apud me, sicut est para
disus.' (Fritzsche, Libri apocryphi
Vet. Test, p. 655.) See also 4 Ezra
x. 50, &c.
^' Thy sons malce baste . . . ]
The ideal Jerusalem is to be
brought into the region of pheno
mena, not by descent from heaven
(as in Rev. xxi.), but by the labours
of her 'children.' First, Zion is
told, in the verbal form appro
priated to the objective statement
of facts, that her children (comp. lx.
4), ' haste ' (or ' have made haste ')
i.e., run swiftly to her side ; then,
in the emotional or descriptive
tense, that her destroyers 'go forth'
(or 'begin to go forth') from her —
as if they had been all those years
engaged on the task, never able to
sate their fury. The alternative
reading, ' thy builders,' produces a
good antithesis, and agrees well
with V. 19, but not with vv. 20, 21.
1^ lift up thine eyes] The
first half of the verse recurs in lx. 4.
 Thou Shalt clothe thee . .]
The new inhabitants are com
pared to ornaments on a dress
(comp. Zech. ix. 16), and to the
state-girdle worn by a bride over

her robe (Jer. ii. 32, where A.V.
has wrongly ' attire ').
^' The prophet seems to observe
gestures of incredulity. In reply,
he is far from underrating the in
trinsic improbability of the change
(note the triple reference to the low
estate of Zion), and yet he em
phatically maintains its certainty.
The change is to be a Divine
wonder. The desolate land of
Canaan shall have such fertility
restored to it as to support a teem
ing population.  "Will be far
away] The tense is the perfect
of prophetic certitude.
'° The children of thy be
reavement] i.e., those born while
Zion thought herself bereft of all
her children. For the figure,
comp. xlvii. 8. — The new inhabit
ants shall be heard to say, not to
Jerusalem, as Naeg. strangely, but
the one to the other. The place is
too narrow for me. It is the
complaint of an overpopulated
country.  Make room] Lit.,
J move further off;' the same
idiom as in Gen. xix. 9.
" -Who hath borne me these?]
Supposing that the new children

CHAP. XLIX.]

ISAIAH.

19

brought them up } Behold, I was left alone ; these, where
have they been ?
^^Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will lift up
mine hand towards the nations, and set up my banner towards
the peoples, and they shall bring thy sons in the bosom, and
thy daughters shall be carried on the shoulder. ^^ And kings
shall become thy foster-fathers, and their queens thy nursing-
mothers ; with their face to the earth shall they bow down
unto thee, and the dust of thy feet shall they lick ; and thou
shalt know that I am Jehovah, those that hope in whom shall
not be ashamed. ^* Can the prey be taken from the mighty
one, or the " captives of the terrible one " escape ? ^^ For
" So read by Pesh., Vulg., Lowth, Ew., Knob., Weir. — Hebr. text is variously
rendered. Captives of the righteous one, Vitr., Kay; or, of him who has the right
(of possession), Stier. — Captive band of righteous ones, Hitz., Del. — Righteous cap
tives, Naeg. — Booty (?) taken from the righteous one, Ges.

are applying to be adopted by her,
Zion inquires who is their real
mother (so Hitz., Del., Naeg.). Alt.
rend, is in itself improbable, and
is against the Hebrew usage (see
Gen. xvi. i).  An exile and
removed] Here the prophet falls
out of the figure. But he returns
to it directly : ' I was left alone,' i.e.,
I was the sole survivor. The as
tonishment of Zion is caused by
the vast multiplication of the com
paratively few who had gone into
exile. ^^ The explanation of the mystery.
At Jehovah's bidding, but with
hearty compliance on the part of
the Gentiles, the exiled Jews shall
be restored to their homes. There
is evidently an allusion to xi. 11, 12.
 In the bosom] The figure is
suggested by w. 21, for it was the
part of the foster-father to carry the
child in the bosom (sinus) of his
garment. Num. xi. 12 (where the
word for 'bosom,' however, is dif
ferent). ^' Thy foster-fathers] ' Comp.
Num. xi. 12, Esth. ii. 7, but espe
cially 2 Kings X. I, where we read
of those who brought up the seventy
sons of Ahab, which is explained
at V. 6 by the statement that the
king's sons were with the great
men of the city who brought them

up. So in this passage Zion is
described as a sovereign with a
numerous progeny, giving out her
children to such foster-fathers, and
to nurses.' Dr. Weir.  Their
queens] So saroth should be
rendered, as will be clear from
comparing i Kings xi. 3 with Cant.
vi. 8. 5arra:^ =' queen ' in Assy
rian (and Sarah, the proper name,
in Hebrew). By ' queens ' the pro
phet means principal wives. 
Shall tbey bow down] It is the
worship due to God and to the
Church in which God dwells ;
comp. xiv. 14, Rev. iii. 9 b. 
Iiick the dust] i.e., lie down in
the dust (see Ps. Ixxii. 9, and espe
cially Mic. vii. 17), as a token of
submission. '^ But incredulous hearers put
the question. Can the tyrant be
made to disgorge his prey? 
The captives of the terrible one]
' Our present reading gives no good
sense. Vitr. explains ^addiq by
"s»vus ferox," but it is never found
in this sense. Ges. and others
prefer [see above], but besides that
sKbhi cannot well be rendered
" booty," the mention of the right
eousness of Israel is altogether
foreign to the scope of the passage
. . . However unwilling to alter
the present text without manu-

20 ISAIAH. [CHAP. XLIX.
thus saith Jehovah : Even the captives of the mighty one
shall be taken, and the captives of the terrible one shall, escape,
for with him that contendeth with thee I will contend, and thy
children I will save. ^^ And I will cause those that oppress
thee to eat their own flesh, and with their own blood, as with
new wine, shall they be drunken.; and all flesh shall know
that I Jehovah am thy saviour, and that thy Goel is the Hero
of Jacob.
script authority, I must agree with shall be rescued.  / will con-
those who read 'arff instead of tend] The pronoun is very em-
qaddiq. There can be no doubt it phatic. What hope could Zion
was a very old reading. It is, be- have against the gibbor, the ^arlq,
sides, greatly favoured by the next but in God ' ? (Dr. Weir).
verse' (Dr. Weir). The correction "^^ To eat their own flesh]
is also palaeographically a natural Comp. 'they shall eat every one
one. Dr. Kay (see above) takes the flesh of his own arm' (ix. 20),
the 'righteous one' to be Jehovah, a figure for disunion to the point
whose instrument Zion's captor was. of mutual hostility.  The Hero
^^ This almost incredible thing of Jacob] See on i. 24, where the
shall indeed take place ; Israel same rare word (^dbhir) occurs.
Appendix on ' The Land of Sinim ' (CAap. xlix. v. 14).
From all the ends of the earth the scattered IsraeUtes gather to
their home. Among the centres of their dispersion is mentioned
'the land of Sinim (or, of the Sinim).' Who or what is Sinim ? Re
ferring for the views of the older commentators to a famous article
by Gesenius,' and to the dictionaries of the Bible, I will simply state
what seems to me the present state of the controversy.
It is probable, though not certain (considering the vagueness of
the phrase ' from afar ' in the first line), that the prophet intends to
describe the Israelites as flocking from the four quarters of the earth.
If so, the Sinim (for Sinim is obviously the name of a people) will
represent the remote east or west, from the point of view of Babylonia
Hence we may at once dismiss the only people called Sinim else
where in the Old Testament, viz. the Phoenician Sinites of Gen. x.
17, for these (though westward of Babylonia) were too near at hand,
as well as too unimportant a tribe, to be mentioned in this connec
tion. The only claimants remaining (for the Pelusiotes were not a
nation, and are nowhere called Sinim) are the Chinese, who, though
rejected with scorn by Vitringa, have, since the elaborate discussion
by Gesenius, received the general adhesion of commentators. It
must, however, be candidly admitted that the reasoning of Gesenius
falls short of demonstration. His most plausible argument is based
on the Chinese name Thsin, originally belonging to a powerful family
1 Tliesaunis /iiigu. Heh: et Cliald. I'ct. Test. ed. II., torn. ii. (1840), :5. v. Sinim.

CHAP. XLIX.] ISAIAH. 2 1
which, from 246-206 B.C., united the various petty states of China
under their sway, and then (as is supposed) further applied by foreign
nations to the country which this family governed. This, however,
as well as the inference which has been drawn from the similar names
of other much more ancient local dynasties, and from the Chinas of
the Sanskrit Laws of Manu and the Mahabharata, is now known to
be valueless (Strauss ; Richthofen). Still the case of the Chinese
is not desperate. It is historically certain from the Chinese records
that there were foreign merchants in China as early as the loth cent.
B.C., and Chinese merchants in foreign lands as early as the 12th,
and it is probable that direct .commercial relations existed between
China and India, and consequently at any rate direct relations be
tween China and Phcenicia, which will account for the presence of
porcelain-ware with Chinese characters upon it in the Egyptian
Thebes. '
This is substantially the contention of Victor von Strauss-Torney.^
Another eminent scholar, indeed, (Freiherr von Richthofen,) takes
a somewhat different view. The theory of an early intercourse be
tween the Chinese and the peoples of Western Asia does not com
mend itself to him as probable. If there was any such intercourse,
he says, it must have been by sea, and not by land, for the vast high
land of Tibet, with its wild nomadic population, put an effectual
bar to all access from the west.^ A statement like this from such a
competent authority puts an end to the hypothesis of Movers,'' that
Chinese silk was imported to Babylon by land through Phoenician
merchants. And yet is it not conceivable that roving Phoenician
merchants may have reached China in their coasting voyages ? That
the Assyrians, at any rate, arrived in China by sea as far back as
2353 B.C., there is positive traditional evidence, if M. Pauthier's
report may be trusted. In that year, he says, according to Chinese
traditions, an envoy arrived from a far country bearing a wondrous
gift. It was nothing less than ' a divine tortoise a thousand years
old, on the back of which was an inscription in strange characters
like tadpoles, comprising the history of the world from its origin.' A
second embassy is said to have arrived in 1 1 10 b.c, and the historians
afiSrin that it took the envoys a whole year to return to their own
country from Siam by the sea-coast. This, with the fact that they
are called 'the people of the long trailing robes' (a description
quite unsuitable to the costumes of the tropical countries south of
¦ Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of ihe Ancient Egyptians, ist series (Lond.
1837), lii. 106-109.
2 Excursus on ' The Land of Sinim,' in Delitzsch's Jesaia, 2 Aufl., S. 712-715
(3 Aufl., S. 688-692).
3 Col. H. Yule's review of von Richthofen's China, in Academy, xiii. 339.
* Movers, Die Phonizicr, ii. 3, p. 255.

22

ISAIAH. [CHAP. XLIX.

China), and above all the tadpole-characters (which at once suggests
cuneiform writing), leads M. Pauthier to the conclusion, that the nation
to which the envoy belonged was the Assyrian, or the Babylonian.'
It is worth noticing that the king of Assyria in mo would be the
warlike and enterprising Tiglath-Pileser I.
As for the name Sinim, it has been plausibly accounted for by
the frequent use of sjin (nearly =c/z/«), literally ' man,' to describe
persons according to their qualities, occupation, country, or locality.
Hearing the Chinese so often call themselves sjin, it was natural for
foreigners to call them by this name. The form Sinim is accounted
for by the absence of the soft g in Hebrew. With reference to
Gesenius's opinion that the name Sii', tchin, &c., spread over the
East from India, it has been pointed out to me ^ that, according to
R^musat, the Chinese first entered India, not by a direct route, but
from the north-west, and were therefore actually known at any rate
to the peoples dwelling on that side of India before they were known
to the Hindus themselves.
In conclusion, I may remark that it is not necessary to assume
that Jewish exiles actually lived in China when the prophet wrote ;
enough that he knew of (or, as the case may be, foresaw) the exist
ence of a numerous and extensive Diaspora. As a matter of fact,
however, Jewish immigrants from Persia do appear to have entered
China before the Christian era. This is generally recognised as one
result of the intercourse with the [unfortunate Jews at Kai-fung-foo.'
Of the antiquity of this settlement there can be no doubt, and the
inscribed marble tablets which were till lately accessible to all comers
place the immigration at least as far back as the third century B.C.
The synagogue with its tablets has disappeared, and the ' orphan
colony ' is in danger of passing away. Fortunately for us, we can
appeal both to Roman Catholic and to Protestant testimony. The
early Jesuit missionaries were the first discoverers of these Chinese
Jews, and one of them, Father Gozani, took a copy of the inscrip- ¦
tions in the synagogue, which he sent to Rome. The very interesting
memoire of the Jesuits omits to give any direct account of the inscrip
tions ; it contains, however, the following statement : —
Ces Juifs disent qu'ils entrferent en Chine sous la dynastie des Han
pendant le rfegne de Han-ming Ti, et qu'ils venaient de Si-yu, c'est-k-direi
du pays de I'Occident. II parait par tout ce qu'on a pu tirer d'eux que
' Pauthier, Relations politiques de la Chine avec les puissances occidentales (Paris,
1859), pp. 5-8. I am indebted for this reference, which I have of course verified, to
the Rev. R. A, Armstrong, of Nottingham. M. Pauthier's authority as a critic has, I
am aware, been challenged. His interpretation of the Chinese traditions seems to me
very plausible, but is not absolutely essential to my argument.
2 Mr. Armstrong will permit me again to mention his name.
' Kai-fung-foo is the capital of Honan, the most central province of the Chinese
Empire,

CHAP. L.] ISAIAH. 23
ce pays de I'Occident est la Perse, et qu'ils vinrent par le Corassan et
Samarcande. lis ont encore dans leur langue plusieurs mots persans,
et ils ont conserve pendant longtemps de grands rapports avec cet ^tat.
lis croient etre les seuls que se soient ^tabhs dans ce vaste continent.'
Mr. Finn's statement is in complete accordance with the Jesuit
report of the tradition of the date of the settlement. He says, ' Ac
cording to the inscribed marble tablets upon the wa.lls, there may
have been several immigrations of this people into China at different
epochs : — (i) In the Chow dynasty, between a.c. 1122 andA.c. 249 ;
(2) In the Han dynasty, between A.c. 205 and a.d. 220 ; (3) In the
LXV. cycle (a.d. 1163), when they brought a tribute of cotton cloth
to the emperor. There was also their own oral statement to the
Jesuit missionaries, referring their arrival [i.e., that of the ancestors
of the then existing families] to a period shortly after the Roman
dispersion from Jerusalem.' ^
See further Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, ii. 1029 ; L.
Geiger, Ursprung der Sprache, p. 456 ; Egli, Zeitschrift fiir wissen-
schaftliche Theologie, vi. 400, &c. (mainly a criticism upon Gesenius) ;
and a paper by ' E. B.' (dated from Pekin), in Ausland, 1873, p. 267,
&c. (this I only know through the third edition, lately published, of
Delitzsch's Jesaia ; it comes to the purely negative result that the
name Tschina is not at all Chinese). It may be noticed here, that
our form China comes to us from the Malays, as the wise and ad
venturous Marco Polo already knew (The Book of Ser Marco Polo
ed. Yule, Book iii. chap. 4).

CHAPTER L.

Contents. — Israel has been self-rejected ; Jehovah on his part, is willing
and able to redeem, though no human champion answers to his call (vv.
1-3). Then the scene changes. The Servant describes his intimate re
lation to Jehovah, his gift of eloquence, his persecutions, and the stead
fast faith with which he undergoes them (vv. 4-9). The chapter closes
with a solemn contrast and warning {vv. 10, 11).
' Thus saith Jehovah, Where is your mother's bill of
divorce with which I put her away .'' or which of my creditors
1-3 Vitringa and Ewald regard highly plausible, for v. i certainly
these verses as an integral part of looks like a second reply on the
the discourse containing chap. xlix. part of Jehovah to the complaint
As long as we confine our view to of Zion in xlix. 14. On the other
V. I, this theory of theirs seems hand, it should be observed (i)
' ' Memoire sur les Juifs ^tabhs en Chine,' in Lettres idifianies et curieuses, icrites
des missions itrangires, tom. xxiv. (Toulouse, i8ir), pp. 50, 51.
' Finn, The Orphan Colony of Jews in China (Lond. 1872), pp. 6, 7.

24

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. L.

is it to whom I sold you ? Behold, for your iniquities were
ye sold, and for your rebellions was your mother put away.
^ Wherefore, now that I am come, is there no man ? now that
I have called, is there none that answereth ? Is my hand too
short to deliver ? or have I no power to rescue t Behold, by

that chap, xlix falls into two equal
parts, and that the conclusion of
the second of these is, from its
solemnity, perfectly adequate as a
close to the entire prophecy, and
(2) that vv. 2 and 3 are very dif
ferent in tone and purport from
all that precedes. Is it not the
more probable view that v. i con
tains a thought suggested by xlix.
14, subsequently to the final redac
tion of the prophecy? Not being
able to work it into chap, xlix., the
prophet seems to have allowed
himself to give it a new develop
ment (in vv. 2, 3) which would
have been unsuitable to the
original prophecy. — Obs. the Di
vine speaker here addresses the
children of Zion ; in xlix. 14-26, he
confined himself to Zion the mo
ther.  'WTbere is your mother's
bill of divorce . . . ] In Jere
miah (iii. 8) it is said of the 'back
sliding' kingdom of Samaria that
Jehovah 'put her away, and gave
her a bill of divorce,' though a hope
is still held out of her ultimate re
storation. Judah, however, may be
still more easily restored to her
full privileges, for — 'where is her
bill of divorce ? ' There is none ;
Jehovah in his mercy omitted this
formality ; consequently her dis
missal has not the legal value of a
divorce. Obs. marriage is here a
figure of the mystic relation be
tween the Deity and his worship
pers (see Hos. ii. and my notes on
i. 21, xliv. 11).  'Wbicb of my
creditors . . . ] Another figure
condescendingly borrowed from the
experience of human life. From
2 Kings iv. i, Neh. v. 5, it appears
that Plebrew parents, when hope
lessly in debt, were accustomed
to sell their children to their cre
ditors. Such an unqualified sur
render of a man's flesh and blood is

not expressly sanctioned in the
Law (not even in Ex. xxi. 7), but
it was a custom too strong to be
eradicated. Jehovah admits pro
formd that he may have creditors,
but denies that, in pursuance of
this old custom, he has sold the
Jews to any of them : — conse
quently there is none but a moral
bar to their restoration to his favour.
Comp. lii. 3, ' Ye were sold for
nought, and ye shall not be re
deemed with money.  Por your
iniquities were ye sold . . . ]
Israel, then, (represented by Judah,)
has really been ; sold,' has really
been ' put away.' But this is not
by Jehovah's will ; the cause lies in
Israel himself It was a necessary
punishment for Israel's sins, hut
only a temporary one, thanks to
the ' unfailing loving-kindnesses of
David' (lv. 3).
* Most commentators take the
first part of this verse as mention
ing some of the sins which had
led to Israel's temporary rejection.
But it rather expresses Jehovah's
painful surprise that he is not
seconded by any human cham
pion.  Now that I Sim come]
viz. with a call to repentance and
an offer of deliverance. In what
way, it may be asked, can Jehovah
be said to have come.'' The Tar
gum gives an answer, which has
been largely adopted, by inserting
the explanatory words ' in the
prophets.' This view is not in it
self inadmissible (comp. Ixv. i, 2,
Jer. xi. 7), but is very unsuitable to
the context. For the same person
who has ' come,' and who has
' called,' goes on to declare that he
can dry up the sea and clothe the
heavens in mourning : — surely then
he can be none other than Jehovah
in all the plenitude of his per
sonality. Obs. it is Jehovah im-

CHAP. L.]

ISAIAH.

25

my rebuke I can dry up the sea, I can make the rivers a
wilderness, their fish stinking for lack of water and dying for
thirst ; ^ I can clothe the heavens in mourning, and make
sackcloth their covering.
"* The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of dis
ciples, that I may know how to " sustain (.') the weary by a
word : he wakeneth morning by morning, wakeneth to me an
Ges., Del., Naeg., Weir. — Moisten (?), i.e., bedew, refresh,

" So Aquila, Vulg.
Ew., Knob.

mediately who ' comes,' not as re
presented by his Servant (Del.,
Naeg.). The passage is precisely
parallel to lix. i6 (comp. Ixiii. 3, 5),
where Jehovah is represented as
wondering that there was no one
morally qualified to be the national
champion, and as throwing himself
unassisted into the breach on be
half of his people. The rendering
' I have come' is preferable to 'I
came,' because the interposition of
Jehovah is still future, or at any rate
incomplete.  Behold] The usual
word for introducing the descrip
tion of a Divine judgment.  By
my rebuke] ' Rebuke ' is the
term for the opposite of the crea
tive word. Instead of calling into
existence, it sends into non-exist
ence, or at least confines within
bounds (see xvii. 13, li. 20, Ixvi. 15,
Nah. i. 4, Ps. i.x. 5, xviii. 15, civ. 7,
cvi. 9, Matt. viii. 26, Luke iv. 39).
 1 can dry up the sea] $ome,
e.g., Calv., Kay (rendering in the
present tense, ' I dry up '), see in
this and in the next verse a direct
reference to miracles like the di
viding of the Red Sea and the
Jordan, the changing of the Nile-
water into blood, and the darken
ing of the heavens (Ex. x. 21). As,
however, we find similar phrases
elsewhere in descriptions of Divine
interpositions (see Ps. xviii. 15,
Nah. i. 4, Hab. iii. 8, 11, Isa. xiii.
10), it is allowable to interpret
these two verses symbolically. A
secondary reference to the ancient
miracles may of course reasonably
be admitted, God's wonders in the
past being regarded by the pro
phets as typical (see x. 26, xi. 16,

xliii. 16, 17).  The rivers a
wilderness] Imitated in Ps.
cvii. 33.
^ Sackcloth their covering-]
Comp. Rev. vi. 1 2, ' the sun became
black as sackcloth of hair' (the
dress of mourners, Joel i. 8, &c.).
* A fresh prophecy, chiefly in
the form of a soliloquy. Its con
tents remind us of xiii. 1-4, xlix.
1-9 (see especially xlix. 2, 7), except
that there is no reference here to
the evangelisation of the heathen.
If the subject of those two pro
phecies is the Servant of Jehovah,
it follows of necessity that the same
personage is the speaker here. It
would be strange indeed to suppose
that the prophet is the speaker,
' blown in as it were by a snow
storm ' (Hengstenberg). The sec
tion would then stand quite soli
tary, without connection either with
the preceding or the following dis
courses. (Ewald, however, thinks
that Israel is the speaker; Sei-
necke, the pious kernel of the
nation ; Gesenius, Hitzig, Knobel,
the prophet.)  The Iiord Je
hovah] Notice the solemnity of
the introduction ; the same double
name (Adonai Yahveh) occurs three
times afterwards (vv. 5, 7, 9).
— *-The tongue of disciples] i.e.
a facility like that of well-trained
scholars (see viii. 16, liv. 13), full of
their morning lesson, or, as Luther
(ap. Naeg.) puts it, ' lingua discipu-
lata, qu» nihil loquitur, nisi quod k
Deo didicit.' From the occurrence
of the plural (' disciples ') Seinecke
draws an argument in favour of his
view mentioned above ; he com
pares Job xix. II, 'He accounteth

26

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. L.

ear to hearken as disciples, * The Lord Jehovah hath opened
to me an ear, and I have not been defiant ; I have not turned
back. "5 My back I have given to smiters, and my cheeks to
those who plucked out the hair ; my face I have not hidden

me as His enemies ' (Job, according
to Seinecke, being also a collective
personification). It seems to me a
sufficient reply that the picture
which the prophet here gives us is
that of a class of disciples, all with
' wakened ears,' and swift to re
produce their master's instruction,
while in Job the hostility of God
appears to the sufferer in his illu
sion great enough to be expended
on a whole company of His ene
mies.  The weary] A com
parison of lvii. 1 5 shows that here,
as in IVIatt. xi. 28, it is an inward and
spiritual as well as outward and phy
sical weariness which is intended.
 He wakeneth morning by
morning-] The Servant does not
receive revelations like ordinary
prophets in ecstatic moments, in
dreams and visions of the night,
but in his waking hours, and not
only so, but every morning — the
spirit of prophecy abides constantly
upon him (Del.,«Naeg.). Themes-
sage is the same — peace and resto
ration, but it needs daily varying
to meet daily needs. It is hardly
necessary to point out the exquisite
felicity of phrase in this verse.
There are indeed similar expres
sions elsewhere (see i Sam. ix. 1 5,
XX. 2, Job xxxiii. 16), but not equally
poetical.  An ear] It is of
course the inner ear which is meant,
as in xlviii. 8.
^ Hatb opened to me an ear]
The supposed reference to Ex. xxi.
5, 6, Deut. XV. 16, 17, has been de
servedly set aside by recent com
mentators. It is obviously a par
ticular command which is referred
to. The piercing of a slave's ears
made all commands binding for the
rest of his life ; ' defiance ' was ex
cluded ; moral conflict was out of
the question. Besides, the mean
ing of the phrase 'to open the ear'
is determined by v. 4 (comp. xlviii.

8, xiii. 18, 19). The Servant was
not a mechanical organ of revela
tion, but had a spiritual sympathy
with it, even when it told of suffer
ing for himself  / have not
been defiant] I, weak and suscep
tible to pain and reproach as I am,
have not stiffened my back in op
position to duty. (The root-mean
ing is stringere.) The declaration
thus ascribed to the Servant is deci
sive against the ' collective ' theory.
It was the oflfence of Jonah, a type
or symbol of Israel, that he pursued
the very opposite line of conduct
to that which is here described.
Few even io the class of prophets
could take up the words of the
Servant. Jeremiah indeed does
utter a like statement, but, both in
his sufferings and in his deportment,
Jeremiah was a striking type of the
Servant of Jehovah. ' As for me,'
he says, ' I have not withdrawn from
following lovingly after thee' (Jer.
xvii. 6). So, too, the Servant can
declare, ' / have not been defiant,
I have not turned back.' In both
cases, the words are only appro
priate in the mouth of an individual.
^ niy back X bave given . . . ]
He has patiently, willingly endured
humiliation and scorn. So the type
Jeremiah, ' I have been in derision
continually, everyone mocking me '
(Jer. XX. 7). So the pious sufferer,
also (to say the least) a type, in
Ps. xxii. 7, 'All they that see me
laugh to scorn.' So the typical
righteous man in the Book of Job
(xxx. 10), ' They abhor me, they
flee far from me, and withhold
not spittle from my face.'  To
those who plucked out the hair]
Comp. Neh. xiii. 25, 'And I cursed-
them. . . . and plucked the hair
off them.' Of all such expressions
in this section, as even Vitringa
candidly admits, the primary sense
not only may be, but must be, figu-

CHAP. L.]

ISAIAH.

27

from confusion and spitting. ^ But the Lord Jehovah will
help me ; therefore am I not confounded ; therefore have I
made my face as flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
' Near is he that justifieth me ; who will contend with me .¦•
let us stand forth together. Who is mine adversary ? let him
come near unto me. ^ Behold, the Lord Jehovah will help
me ; who is he that can condemn me .'' behold, they shall
all fall to pieces like a garment ; the moth shall eat them.
'" Who is there among you that feareth Jehovah, that hear-
keneth to the voice of his servant .'' He that walketh in dark
ness, and hath no light, let him trust in the Name of Jehovah,
and rely upon his God. " Behold, all ye that kindle a fire

rative, since there is no one in the
religious history of Israel to whom
they can be literally applied.
' ' Against the crowd of mockers
he places Adonai Jehovah ' (Dr.
Weir).  As flint] The same
figure is applied in a bad sense,
Jer. V. 3, Zech. vii. 12; in a good,
Ezek. iii. 9.  X shall not be
ashamed] i.e., not disappointed
(see on hv. 4).
^ He that justifieth me] ' To
justify' in the O. T. almost always
(see on liii. 1 1) means to pronounce
a man righteous, or to prove him so
in act : — Job xxvii. 5 is not funda
mentally an exception. The Servant
of Jehovah speaks of the final stage
of his career in figurative language
as a trial, in which God is the
judge. This is a fresh point in
which he resembles Job. But
whereas Job, the type of a righte
ous man, shrinks in terror from the
issue, the Servant, human and yet
superhuman in nature, has no doubt
as to a favourable result.
^"^ " A short speech, addressed
first to those who fear and obey
Jehovah, and then to those who
resist his will. It is not quite clear
what is the meaning of the words
bis servant. In xliv. 26, they are '
a designation of the prophetic
writer himself, and they may per
haps be so here. This view, it is
true, isolates vv. 10, 11 from the
rest of the chapter, but there is
nothing in these verses directly

referring to the preceding para
graph. There are some very
abrupt transitions in the prophecy
before us, and this may be one of
them. Otherwise we may under
stand ' his servant ' to mean the
servant of Jehovah specially so
called. I incline to the former
theory. The speech of the Servant
in vv. 4-9 is I think, a pure soli
loquy, and belongs not to the
present but to the future — it is
given here by anticipation ; vv. 10,
1 1, on the other hand, are addressed
to the Jews living in Babylon at
the close of the Exile. V. 10 is
spoken by the prophet (so Ibn Ezra),
who, however, soon loses himself
(see V. 11) in his Divine master.
 Tbe nrame of Jehovah] No
mere synonym for ' the Divine cha
racter,' but a symbolic expression
for a special aspect, not to say
' Person,' of the Godhead ; see on
xxx. 27.
'' All ye that kindle a fire]
The meaning of this figure is un
certain. I follow Hitz., Ew., Knob.,
Del., Naeg. in taking the 'fire' to
represent either the rage of unre
strained passion (comp. ix. 18), or
the destruction which the enemies
of Jehovah prepare for his servants.
Others (as Vitr., Lowth, Ges.) re
gard it as a figurative expression
for rebellion against the oppressors
of the Jews. Others again (as Calv.,
Hahn, Birks, Weir) suppose it to
be a domestic fire (xlvii. 14) which

28

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LI.

and '' gird yourself with '' ¦= brands ; get you into the flame
of your fire, and into the brands that ye have kindled. From
mine hand this befalleth you ; in torture shall ye lie down.
i" Set a light to, Pesh., Seeker, Hitz., Ew. (one letter different.)
" Sparks, Kimchi, Calv., Hengst., Hahn, Weir.
iii. 6). ' Gird ' = arm (see on xiv. 5).
So ' facibus pubes accingitur,' Virg.
 Get you into tbe flame] The
destruction they have prepared for
others shall overtake themselves.
 From mine hand] Jehovah
is evidently the speaker.  xn
torture shall ye lie down] Not
merely ' ye shall die in pain ' (as
Ibn Ezra, comp. i Kings ii. 10,
' David lay down with his fathers '),
but 'after death ye shall lie on a
couch of torture.' Vitringa well
compares Luke xvi. 24, ' I am tor
mented in this flame ' ; see fiirther
on Ixvi. 24.

is meant, and take this to be a
figure for all merely human com
forts and supports, corresponding to
the figure of darkness for distress
and perplexity in v. 10. The last-
mentioned view has but a precarious
existence, as it depends on the
dubious rendering ' sparks ' ; the
second strikes me- as too narrow
for the wide symbolism of pro
phecy. The first produces a striking
and natural antithesis (comp. xiii.
16, 17).  Gird yourselves . . . ]
The ' firebrands ' (if we care to
press this detail) may be the calum
nies and anathemas hurled at the
servants of Jehovah (comp. James

CHAPTER LL
Contents. — Instruction for the spiritual Israel (vv. 1-8) ; appeal to the
self-revealing might of Jehovah (vv. 9- 11); Divine expostulation with
Israel for his unbelief (vv. 12-15); address of Jehovah to the Servant
(v. 16) ; encouragement for down-trodden Jerusalem, mingled with a
pathetic picture of her troubles (vv. 17-23).
' Hearken unto me, ye that pursue righteousness, that
seek Jehovah ; look unto the rock whence ye have been
hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye have been dug.
^ Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare
you, for by himself I called him, and I blessed him, and in-

' Hearken unto me . . ] The
prophet is drawing nearer and
nearer to the great central revela
tion (chap, liii.), and summons to his
side the spiritual Israel, for whom
alone, as he has expressly said (see
xlviii. 22), the future blessedness is
reserved.  Righteousness] It
is of course ' righteousness ' m the
objective sense of which he speaks
— a way of life in accordance with
the Divine commands, i.e., 'righte
ous dealing' (Rodwell).  Kook
unto tbe rock . . . ] Unlikely as

the fulfilment of such 'exceeding
great and precious promises ' may
seem, it is not more unlikely than
the original wonder of a great
nation being descended ' from one
man, and him as good as dead '
(Heb. xi. 12). The figure of the
' rock,' thus explained, is natural
enough, without supposing a sur
vival' of a myth like that of
Pyrrha. * By himself] Lit., ' (as) one.'
There are two remarkable verbal
parallels in Ezek. xxxiii. 24 and

CHAP. LI.]

ISAIAH.

29

creased him. ^ For Jehovah doth comfort Zion, doth comfort
all her ruined places, and maketh her wilderness as Eden,
and her desert as the garden of Jehovah ; joy and gladness
shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the sound of music.
'' Listen unto me, * my people,^ and ''my nation,'' give ear
unto me ; for instruction shall go forth from me, and my law
will I fix for the light of the peoples. * Near is my righteous
ness ; gone forth is my salvation ; and mine arms shall judge
the peoples ; for me the countries shall wait, and upon mine

» Ye peoples, very few MSS., Pesh., Lowth, Ges.
ll Venations, few Hebr. MSS.. Pesh., Lowth, Ges,

(Sept. has. Ye kings.)

Mai. ii. 15. The latter indeed
seems to me only a verbal one,
but the former suggests one pos
sible object of the prophet in
adopting this form of words. It
runs thus, ' Son of man, they that
inhabit those ruined places on the
soil of Israel say, Abraham was one,
and he became possessor of the
land : but we, are many, the land
hath been given to us for a posses
sion ' ; i.e., ' if Abraham received
the promise of Canaan, when he
was but one, and when there were
great nations already in possession,
how much more shall we, who are
many, and who are living on the
land of our forefathers, retain a
permanent and growing hold upon
it ! ' No, the prophet replies ; the
true lesson of the solitariness of
Abraham is different. The few
genuine believers, who seek to do
the will of God, are the represen
tatives of Abraham, and the fresh
starting-point for the promise. 
X blessed bim, and Increased
him] The two principal features
of the promises to Abraham (Gen.
xii. 2, 3, xxii. 17 &c.).
' Both comfort] Lit., ' hath
comforted.' The perfect expresses
the self-fulfilling power of the Di
vine word.  As Eden ... as
tbe g-arden of Jehovah] The
occurrence of these phrases is
worth noticing, as it supplies a
subsidiary argument in contro
versies as to the date of certain
books. ' The garden of Jehovah '

occurs only here and in Gen. xiii.
10; 'the garden of Elohim ' (an
other synonym for 'the garden of
Eden') in Ezek. xxviii. 13, xxxi.
8, 9. The garden of Eden itself is
mentioned Gen. ii. 15, iii. 23, 24,
Ezek. xxxvi. 35, Joel ii. 3 ; ' the
trees of Eden,' Ezek. xxxi. 9, 16, 18.
* Iiisten unto me . . . ] Not
' listen unto the instruction which
proceeds from me ' ; this would be
opposed to V. 7 a. The prophet
mentions a second attraction for
Jehovah's true people. It is ' too
light a thing' (xlix. 6) that Zion's
wilderness shall be transformed ;
Jehovah, enthroned anew in Israel,
shall send forth his light and his
truth among the distant nations
(comp. ii. 2). In xiii. 1-4 this
function is ascribed to the personal
Servant, in and by whom Jehovah
works. -^ My righteousness] There is
no occasion to paraphrase this into
'my grace' (Hitz.), or 'my salva
tion ' (Ges.) Both expressions say
too little. Jehovah's 'righteous
ness' means his consistent ad
herence to his revealed line of
action, which involves deliverance
to faithful or at least repentant
Israel, and destruction to those who
thwart his all-wise purposes. ' Mine
arms shall judge the peoples' ex
presses, or at least includes, the
darker side of Jehovah's righteous
ness.  Shall wait] Not ' wait '
as Knobel ; as if the judgment was
simply to fall upon Babylon, and

30

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LI.

arm shall they trust. « Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and
look upon the earth beneath ; for the heavens shall vanish like
smoke, and the earth shall fall to pieces like a garment, and
the dwellers therein shall die " like gnats " ; but my salvation
shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be annulled.
' Hearken unto me, ye who know righteousness, the people
in whose heart is my instruction ; fear ye not frail man's re
proach, and at their revilings be ye not dismayed. * For as
a garment shall the moth eat them, and as wool shall the
worm eat them ; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and
my salvation to successive generations.
' Awake, awake, put on strength, O Arm of Jehovah ;
awake, as in the days of antiquity, the generations of old.
Art thou not it that hewed Rahab in pieces, that pierced
" So De Dieu, Vitr., Lowth, Ges., Hitz., Ew., Weir. — Even so, Versions and
Rabbis, Kay, Naeg. — Thus (with a gesture of contempt), Del.

the oppressed nations were already
longing for its coming. The pro
phet has forgotten Cyrus and
Babylon, and is absorbed by the
thought of the Messianic age. 
Mine arm] i.e., my help, my pro
tection (comp. xxxiii. 2).
" Tbe heavens . . . like a gar
ment] The same figure as in Ps.
cii. 26. Elsewhere the order of the
world is described as everlasting
(Gen. viii. 21, 22, ix. 9-11, xlix. 26,
Ps. cxlviii. 6)..  Kike gnats] A
simile which appears ignoble to us,
but did not so appear to the more
simple-minded Semites. So, in the
first of the Babylonian ' Izdubar'
legends (in the Assyrian version).
We hear of the gods of Uruk
(Erech), during a siege of that city,
being overpowered with fear, and
turning themselves into flies (Trans.
Soc. Bibl. Arch. iv. 268); and the
Korin declares (Sura xiii. 24),
' Verily God is not ashamed to set
forth as well the instance of a gnat
as of any nobler object.' Del.'s ren
dering (comp., besides the passages
quoted by him. Am. iv. 12, Jer. v.
13) is unnatural in so highly-
wrought and poetical a passage.
Besides, as De Dieu long ago
pointed iie+, we desiderate a third

simile to correspond to the smoke
and the garment. Del.'s philo
logical difficulty is obviated by Dr.
Weir (see crit. note).
' A fresh turn in the discourse.
¦  Awake, awake] Who utters
this splendid apostrophe ! — Most
commentators reply, Zion, or the
prophet in Zion's name. There
are two objections to this : (i)
Wherever Zion or the Church is
represented as uttering a cry, it is
in the tone of complaint (see xlix.
14, Ixiii. II, &c., lxiv. i), whereas
this exclamation is in the language
of the boldest faith ; and (2) in v. 17,
Jerusalem (which is here synony
mous with Zion, see lii. i) is re
presented as asleep. Two better
theories are open to us. Looking at
V. 9 alone, and comparing it with
lii. I, it seems natural to regard it,
with Ges., as an e.xhortation of Je
hovah to himself (comp. Judg. v. 12,
' Awake, awake, Deborah'), or, if we
object to a rhetorical formula in so
solemn a passage, as a fragment of
a deliberation ^-ithin the plurality
of the Godhead (comp. Gen. i. 26,
xi. 7). The latter is the form given
to the theory by Prof Birks, who
supposes God the Son to be plead
ing with God the Father for the

CHAP. LI.]

ISAIAH-

through the dragon ? '" Art thou not it that dried up the
sea, the waters of the great flood, that made the depths of the
sea a way for the released to pass over? '"'And the freed
ones of Jehovah shall return and come to Zion with a ringing
sound, and everlasting joy shall be upon their head ; they
shall overtake gladness and joy, sorrow and sighing shall flee
awaj'.'^ ^ Omitted by Ew. (See below. )

renewal of His mighty works. This,
however, is not only expressed in
too theological a way, but is con
trary to the analogy of Scripture ;
it is God the Son (if I may follow
Prof Birks on theological ground),
and not God the Father, who cor
responds to the Arm (as also to the
Name and to the Face) of Jehovah,
but a glance at vv. g b, lo, suggests
another theory in preference. The
solemn appeal which we there find
to God's wonders of old time is
certainly more appropriate to one
who is not a Divine being ; in Ixiii.
1 1 a very similar form of words is
put into the mouth of the people.
Vitringa assigns the apostrophe to
a chorus of doctors (prophets ?) and
saints, ' coetui doctorum sive choro
sanetonim illustrium, ardentium
zelo divinae glorise et salutis ec
clesiae.' I should almost prefer
regarding it as a specimen of the
intercession of the angels called,
in lxii. 6, Jehovah's 'remem
brancers.' The interest of the celes
tial beings in the fortunes of Zion
has been already repeatedly mani
fested (see on xl. 3).  O Arm
of Jehovah] See on xl. 10. 
That hewed Bahab in pieces
. . . ] Comp. Ps. Ix-xxix. 10, ' Thou
hast broken Rahab in pieces as one
that is slain ; thou hast scattered
thine enemies with thy strong arm.'
In both these passages, the exigeti-
cal tradition from the Targum on
wards has taken Rahab (with which
the ' dragon ' of the parallel line is

clearly synoninnous) as a symbolic
expression for Egypt. It has been
pointed out (in note on xxvii. i)
that the phrase has a substratum
in mythology. The great enemy of
Jehovah on earth was described in
expressions coined originally for the
constantly recurring ' war in heaven '
between the powers of light and
darkness. In confirmation of this,
see chap. xv. of the Egyptian Book
of the Dead (Birch's transl. in Bun-
sen's Egypt, vol. vi.), where the sun-
god Ra is addressed thus :
' Hail ! thou who hast cut in pieces the
Scorner and strangled the Apophis ' {i.e.,
the evil serpent).
This suggests the possibility that
in the passage before us the prophet
alludes not only to the fate of the
earthly but to that of the heavenly
Rahab (see on x.\vii. i). The strife
between light and darkness, sun
shine and storm, is always recom
mencing ; in mythic language the
sky-dragon, though killed, returns
to life.^ The Hebrew is not opposed
to such a reference ; it may equally
well be rendered ' that heweth,'
'that pierceth' (comp. on xliii. 16).
The next verse, however, shows
that if there was this reference, it
lay quite in the background of the
prophet's mind.^
^^ And the freed ones . . . ]
The verse occurs with one very
slight variation in xxx-\'. 10. Here
it is clearly not original. Either it
is a quotation by the author, or an
interpolation from the margin. It

1 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 299.
' Steinthal, in his essay on Samson, remarks, ' It is clear how the prophet's con
sciousness passed imperceptibly from the myth into the legend, or, if you prefer to call
it so' [and doubtless the prophet at least would have preferred this], ' hi.story.' (Mar
tineau's translation, appended to Goldziher's Mylliology among the Hebrews, p. 425.)

32

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LI.

'^ I, even I, am your comforter : who art thou that thou
fearest frail man that dieth, and the son of the earth-born who
is given up as grass ; '=> and hast forgotten Jehovah thy maker,
who stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of
the earth, and hast been trembling continually all the day for
the fury of the oppressor, according as he hath taken aim to
destroy .' and where is the fury of the oppressor .' ''' He that
was bent down is quickly released ; he shall not die unto the
pit, neither shall his bread fail, '^ seeing that I Jehovah am
thy God, who stirreth up the sea, so that its waves roar, whose

seems to have been suggested by
the closing word oi v. lo in the
Hebrew, ' the released.' Such sug
gestions were more congenial to a
copyist than to a prophet.
'* X, even X, am your comforter]
This is not, I venture to think, the
answer of Jehovah to the appeal in
V. 9, but a fresh starting point in
the prophecy. The fault which the
Divine speaker reprehends is unbe
lief, whereas vv. 9, 10 shine by the
brightness of their faith. — ' Your
comforter ' alludes to v. 3. Jehovah
first of all addresses Israel in the
plural, as an aggregate of indivi
duals (2 plur. masc), then in the
singular as a living organism (the
fem. gender in v. 12 b personifies
Zion as a matron, the masc. in
V. 13 indicates Israel as Jehovah's
son).  'Who art thou . . . ] 'Why
wilt thou pay more respect to the
futile menaces of man than to the
promises of thy God .' ' Jehovah
chides this unbelief as disobedience,
but with what tenderness ' das
freundlichste Schelten der Liebe,'
Stier) !  Given up] viz., into the
hand of the mower, Death.
'^ Tby maker] With reference
to the nation, comp. xliii. i.  Ac
cording as he bath taken aim
. . . ] The Jews are always on the
tenter-hooks of expectation. When
the ' aiming ' seems to fail, their
spirits rise ; when it promises to
succeed, they fall ; instead of which
they ought simply to ' rest in Jeho
vah.'  'Where is the ftiry • . . ]
Anticipating the sudden destruction

of Babylon. Hence in the next
verse we have the perfect of pro
phetic certitude. It seems strange
to read of the ' fury ' of the Baby
lonians ; see, however, on xlvii. 6.
^^ He that was bent down] i.e.,
by the weight of his fetters, or by
confinement in the stocks (Jer. xx.
2, xxix. 26). Comp. on xiii. 22. 
Vnto the pit] i.e., so as to be cast
into the pit or grave.
'^ 'Who stirreth up ... is Jeho
vah Sabaoth) The same description
is found in Jer. xxxi. 35. — Taking
the opening words in connection
with V. 9 and with Job xxvi. 12, 13
(see on Isa. xxvii. i), it is tempting
to suppose a primary reference to
the upper ocean, the ' waters above
the expanse,' which were the scene
of the contest between Jehovah and
the leviathan (or, sky-dragon). But
the mention of the ' roaring' of the
sea (which does not occur in Job I.e.)
favours the ordinary view that it
is the lower earthly ocean. Comp.
Nah. i. 4, where this, among other
signs of the theophany, is given,
that ' he rebuketh the sea . . . and
drieth up all the rivers.' The figure
in lvii. 20 points in the same direc
tion. The meaning will therefore
be that He who raiseth storms,
alike in the world of nature and of
history, is able to still them, and
that His friends have no cause to
fear. The naine ' Jehovah Sabdoth '
enforces the same lesson. Israel's
God has at his command all the
forces, the potencies, the ' hosts,' of
heaven and earth.

CHAP. LI.]

ISAIAH.

33

name is Jehovah Sabaoth. — '^ And I put my words in thy
mouth, and in the shadow of my hand I covered thee, to plant
the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, and to say
unto Zion, Thou art my people.
"Wake thee up, wake thee up, arise, O Jerusalem, who
hast drunk at the hand of Jehovah the cup of his fury ; the
goblet-cup of reeling hast thou drunken and wrung out.
" There was no guide for her of all the sons that she had
borne, and none taking hold of her hand of all the sons that
she had brought up. " Two are the things which befell thee :
who is there to condole with thee ? desolation and destruc
tion, famine and the sword : " who is there to comfort thee ^?
• So Bottcher (virtually), Lagarde (see crit. note). — In what guise (or, character)
shall I comfort thee ? Hebr. text (?).

'^ And I put my -words . .. . ]
It is difiicult to make out the con
nection here. The preceding verses
are addressed to Zion or Israel, but
this verse can hardly be so, on ac
count of the closing words. Look
at the passage by itself, however,
and all the difficulty vanishes. ' I
put my words in thy mouth ' is pre
cisely parallel to the speech of the
Servant, ' he made my mouth as
a sharp sword ' (viz. by giving me
his own self-realising words), and
the next clause, ' in the shadow of
my hand I covered thee,' is even
verbally almost identical with the
Servant's declaration, ' in the sha
dow of his hand he hid me ' (xlix.
2). The Servant of Jehovah, then,
must be the person addressed. The
sudden change of object is no
doubt surprising, and has to be ac
counted for. My conjecture is that
the verse originally stood in some
other context, and that the para
graph closed — very suitably, as it
seems to me — with v. 15.  To
plant the heavens] i.e., either
' that I may plant,' &c. (so Jerome,
Ew., Del.), or 'that thou mayest
plant' (Calv., Vitr., Hengst, Naeg.).
The analogy of xlix. 8 b favours the
second alternative, whicli is also
more suitable both to the preceding
and to the following statement, ' 1
put my words into thy mouth . . .
to say unto Zion, &c.' The
'heavens' and the 'earth' are the
VOL. II. D

new ones spoken of in Ixv. 17, Ixvi.
22 ; certainly not ' the Israelitish
state' (as Ges., following Ibn Ezra).
The production of this new world
depends on the words of Jehovah
committed to the Servant (comp.
Jer. i. 9, 10). —For the use of the
verb 'to plant,' comp. Dan. xi. 45.
The figure is that of a tent with its
stakes set firmly in the ground
(comp. xl. 22).
^^ 'W'ake tbee up, wake tbee up
. . . ] The prophet) or the chorus
of prophets (comp. on xl. i), or
of angelic ' remembrancers,' salutes
Jerusalem with a cheering cry. In
form it is parallel to the invocation
in V. 9. With delicate thoughtful-
ness, the consolation is prefixed to
the piteous description of Jeru
salem's calamity (' Wake thee . . .
hast drunken . . . hast drained ').
 Tbe goblet-cup . . wrung
out] The combination ' goblet-
cup ' is not a pleonasm ; it vividly
represents the fulness of the mea
sure of Jerusalem's punishment
(comp. xl. 2). ' Reeling ' means the
horror and bewilderment caused by
a great catastrophe (comp. Ps. lx. 3,
Zech. xii. 2). Note the cadence
of the two closing words in the
Hebrew. The whole passage finds
a parallel in Ezek. xxiii. 32-34, comp.
Ps. lxxv. 8 (9).
'^ Notice the elegiac rhythm in
the Hebrew.
'^ Two are the tbinss . , ]

34

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LII.

2" Thy sons are in a swoon ; they lie at the corners of all the
streets, like an antelope in a net, full as they are of the fury
of Jehovah, the rebuke of thy God. 2' Therefore hear now
this, thou afflicted one, and drunken, but not with wine,
='2 Thus saith thy Lord Jehovah, and thy God who is the ad
vocate of his people. Behold, I take out of thy hand the cup
of reeling ; the goblet-cup of my fury, thou shalt not drink it
again ; ^^ and I put it into the hand of those who tormented
thee, who said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may pass over ;
and thou madest thy back as the ground, and as the street
for those that passed over.

i.e., two kinds of evils (comp. xlvii.
9), viz., desolation for the land, and
death for the people. These are
expanded into four, to express their
depth of meaning (' and ' = with —
the V4v of association, see crit. note
on vii. T.) Or, we may explain with
Stier, 'desolation without, and break
ing (so -literally) within — hunger
within, and the sword without'
(comp. Ezek. vii. 15). The elegiac
passage which follows should be
compared with Lam. ii. 11-13, 19,
21 (see also Jer. xv. 5). Jerusalem is
represented as a mother, its inhabi
tants as sons : comp. xlix. 17, 1. i.
^^ like an antelope in a net]
A noble though a tragic figure,
Israel, the mountain-people, is
likened to a gazelle, which all its
swiftness and grace has not saved

from the hunter's snare. — The
fury of Jehovah] What hope,
when 'Jehovah thy God' is 'furious'
against thee? Comp. Rev. vi. 16
'the wrath of the Lamb'' (Dr. Weir).
*' Therefore] Here, as often
elsewhere (e.g., x. 24, xxvii. 9, xxx.
18) the transition from threatening
to promise is marked by 'therefore.'
Jehovah cannot bear to see his
people suffer any longer than is
necessary; 'therefore' he will inter
pose to help them. Brunken, but
not with wine] So xxix. 9.. See
crit. note.
^' VTho said to tby soul . . . ]
A figurative application of a real
custom (Josh. X. 24). There is a
similar but still stronger image in
Ps. cxxix. 3, 'ploughed upon my
back.'

CHAPTER LII.
Contents. — Jerusalem can and must be redeemed (vv. 1-6) ; a dramatic
picture of the redemption itself (z/w. 7-12).
(The chapter should have been ended at v. 12).
' Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion ! put on
thy robes of adornment, O Jerusalem, holy city ! for no more
' Awake, awake] Another and thy robes.  Tby strength]
bracing summons from the Divine Strength returns to Zion when the
representatives (see on li. 17). The Arm of Jehovah is mighty within
first was merely, Stand up ; the her (see li. 9).  Thy robes of
second is, Put on thy strength adornment] i.e., those which be-

CH.\P. LII.]

ISAIAH.

35

shall there come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
^ Shake thyself from the dust ; arise and sit down, O Jerusalem :
* loose thyself from the bonds of thy neck," O captive daughter
of Zion ! ^ For thus saith Jehovah, For nought were ye sold,
and not for money shall ye be redeemed. * For thus saith
the Lord, Jehovah, To Egypt my people went down at the
first to sojourn there, and Assyria oppressed him without
» So Hebr. marg. and most critics. — The bonds of thy neck are unloosed, Hebr.
text, Targ., Kay, Naeg. (This form of the text would have to be put in a parenthesis.)

long to the holy, priestly city. Dr.
Kay aptly quotes the description of
Aaron's robes, Ex. xxviii. 2.  Wo
more shall there come into thee
. . . ] ' Then shall Jerusalem be
holiness, and no strangers shall
pass through her any more ' (Joel
iii. 17). 'Strangers' here = 'enemies,'
those who do not acknowledge Je
hovah for their king. The throng
ing of foreigners announced in chap.
lx. is of quite a different kind. —
Comp. xxxv. 8, Rev. xxi. 27.
^ Shake thyself . . . sit do-wn]
A striking contrast to Babylon,
xlvii. I.
' It might seem as if, Jehovah
willed the perpetual captivity of
his people. Not so. They may
complain that they have been ' sold.'
Jehovah accepts the word, but so
qualifies it as to give it quite a new
meaning.  For nought (gratis,
Vulg.) were ye sold] Jehovah has
received no equivalent for his pro
perty. It is therefore not a sale,
but only a temporary transfer. Je
hovah has accepted no other nation
as his treasure, his peculium (Ex.
xix. 3), his Servant, his agent in
his world-wide purposes of grace.
Your successive captivities have
been a lamentable interruption in
the progress of his work. But at
least they do not prevent him from
receiving you back to your old
place. He took nothing for you
from your so-called 'buyers,' and of
his own free will he can renew your
covenant. Thus the passage is a
further development of 1. i. The
verbally parallel passage Ps. xliv.
12 has quite a different meaning
(see Del. ad loc).

* To Egypt my people . . . ]
This verse seems to give, though
only allusively, a historical explana
tion of the general statement in v.
3. Israel went down to Egypt ' to
sojourn there' by invitation, but
the sacred right of hospitality was
basely violated (we must supply
this from the second half-verse).
 Assyria oppressed hitn] Al
luding not merely to the payment of
tribute (Hitz.), but to the captivities
of Israel, and the desolating inva
sions (comp. chap. i. xxxvii. 30) of
Judah by Sargon and Sennacherib.
This seems the natural meaning ;
the expressions used in v. 5 make
it plain that a new captivity is there
intended. Vitr., however, thinks
'Assyria' includes Babylonia and
the Syro-Macedonian kingdom, re
ferring for the former to 2 Kings
xxiii. 29, and for the latter to Zech.
X. 1 1 (?). The literal interpretation
of 'Assyria,' he says, renders it im
possible to explain the next verse,
and destroys the coherence of the
paragraph with the following con
text (see, however, on next verse).
Dr. Weir, too, is of the same
opinion, so far as Babylonia is con
cerned, on the ground that 'history
mentions no deliverance from As
syria, which can be at all compared
with the deliverance from Egypt.'
This statement, however, comes
into direct collision with the pro
phecy in X. 26 ; and even were it
not so, the question is of oppres
sions rather than of deliverances.
Besides, it is contrary to the custom
of this prophecy to use the name
'Assyria' in the comprehensive
way supposed by Dr. Weir. 
D 2

36

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LII.

cause, 5 And now what have I (to do) here ? is the oracle of
Jehovah ; for my people have been taken away for nought ;
those who rule over him howl (the oracle of Jehovah) ; and
continually, all the day my name is reviled. ^ Therefore my
people shall know my name : therefore (he shall know) in
that day " that I am he that speaketh, ' Here am I. ">
i" For I, the same that promised, am here, Ges.

'Without cause] Lit, 'for nothing.'
This might mean ' without paying
a price' (Knob., Naeg.), but the
connection would be obscured.
^ And now . . . ] The third
great captivity was the Babylonian.
Jehovah is represented, in anthro
pomorphic language, as enquiring
what it was fitting for him, as the
God of Israel, to do at Babylon ;
here implies that he had come
down to see (as Gen. xviii. 21, Ex.
iii. 8, Isa. xxxi. 4). The reply to
his enquiry is involved in lii. 8, 12,
'Jehovah returneth,' 'Jehovah goeth
before you.' — It is only fair to
mention some divergent expositions
of this important passage. ' What
have I to do here ? ' might mean
' What sufficient cause is there for
my remaining inactive in heaven ? '
So Hitzig, whom it is not fair to
answer with a charge of pagan
izing (so Del.) in the face of Gen.
xviii. 21, &c. It might also be
taken in the same sense as v. 3.
The Babylonians had paid no price
to Jehovah for his people ; of what
is he the possessor 'here,' i.e., in
Jerusalem, except a heap of stones
and prowling wild beasts 1 So Nae
gelsbach. 'The same view of the
meaning of ' here ' is advocated by
Himpel, who writes to this effi^ct.'
' The words. What have I here .'
cannot possibly refer to the Baby
lonian Exile. God could not be
said to be present with the Jews in
the Exile ; the misery of their con
dition lay precisely in their sense
of the Divine alienation. They
refer rather to Jerusalem, which
indeed forms the centre of the

description. God must return to
Jerusalem, otherwise his gracious
purposes would be frustrated, but
in its present state He cannot do
so ; therefore Jerusalem must rise
from its humiliation.' '•' True, these
words cannot refer to the Exile, but
they can refer, as remarked above,
to a (symbolic) descent of Jehovah
to judgment. Still the question
might possibly bear Naeg.'s in
terpretation, if the continuation of
the sentence were, ' for Zion is de
spoiled of her children'; but as the
words stand, Jehovah must, I think,
be supposed to be in the place
whither (or, where) his people had
been 'taken away,' i.e., in Baby
lonia.  Taken away] viz., as a
booty (so constantly) ; or it may
mean 'destroyed' (see on liii. 8).
 Por nought] i.e., undeservedly.
The same word as in v. 3, but in a
different sense.  Howl] i.e., tri
umph brutally (it is the oppressors
who are spoken of — see Del.'s note).
" Tberefore] i.e., because my
people is oppressed, and because my
name is reviled.  shall know
my name] i.e., shall know by ex
perience the meaning of my name
Jehovah (comp. on xiii. 8). 'The
allusion to the Egyptian deliverance
is still kept up. Then God revealed
Himself most gloriously as Jehovah
(Ex. iii. 1 5, &c.) ; now He will
again do so ' (Dr. Weir).  He that
speaketh, Here am l] i.e.. He
who answereth their cry by coming
in person to help them. Dr. Weir
compares lviii. 9, ' Then . . . thou
shalt ciy, and he shall say. Here I
am.'

' Theologische Quartalsclirifi, 1878, p. 309. Dr. Himpel is a member of the
Roman Catholic Theological faculty at Tubingen.
2 Though the idiom ' what have I,' ' what hast thou,' is elsewhere a formula of dis
approval (Gesenius on xvii. i). See especially .xxii. ifi.

CHAP. LII.]

ISAIAH.

31

' How comely upon the mountains are the feet of the
bringer of tidings, the proclaimer of peace, the bringer of good
tidings, the proclaimer of salvation, who saith unto Zion, Thy
God hath become king ! * Hark, thy watchers ! they lift up
the voice ; they ring out a cry together ; for they behold eye
to eye " the return of Jehovah to Zion." ' Burst out into
' So Targ. ('bringeth back his Shekinah to Zion '), Kimchi, Hitz., Ew., Luzzatto,
Kay, Naeg. — How Jehovah bringeth back Zion, Vulg., Pesh., Vitr., Ges., Stier, Del.,
Weir.

' The prophet here passes into
an ecstasy. What he sees with the
inner eye, he expresses pictorially.
He has told us already of the ideal
Zion ascending a high mountain,
and acting as herald of the Divine
deliverer. Now he varies the
picture. It is Zion to whom the
herald is seen to come — bounding
over the mountains ' like a roe or
a young hart,' Cant. ii. 8, comp.
2 Sam. xviii. 24-27 Hebr. 'The
feet already give a greeting of
peace, before the mouth utters it '
(Stier). The prophet's fondness for
the mountains reminds us of Eze
kiel's (see Ezek. vi. i and parallel
passages). — Bow comely . . . are
tbe feet of the messenger means
'how welcome is his arrival'
(Lowth), or better still, 'his rapid
approach ' (Dr. Weir). Nahum,
announcing the fall of Nineveh,
has the same image in nearly the
same words, ' Behold upon the
mountains the feet of the bringer
of tidings, the proclaimer of peace,'
i. 15 (ii. I Hebr.). The one pas
sage, or the other, is clearly an
imitation. Comp. also Rom. x. 15,
where the passage of Isaiah is
applied dogmatically, and Eph. vi.
15, where it is alluded to with true
poetic feeling.  ^Wbo saith unto
Zion . . ] His tidings are that
Zion's God has resumed the crown
which he had laid aside (see on
xxiv. 23).
* Hark, thy watchers l] Be
cause the prophets are sometimes
called 'watchmen' (lvi. 10), Jer. vi.
17, Ezek. iii. 17, xxxiii. 7), it has
been supposed by Ges., Ew., Hitz.,
Knob., Del. that the prophets, i.e.,
those of the Exile (see on xl. i), are

here referred to. But (i) this greatly
' mars the unity and beauty of the
scene presented' (Alexander), and
(2) the prophets in question were
(as few but Seinecke will doubt)
in Babylonia, and not in Palestine
(Naeg.). The ' watchers ' are ideal,
supersensible beings, like those
whose voice has been already re
peatedly heard (see on xl. 3), and
wiil shortly be again in lii. 11, 12 ;
they are also referred to in lxii. 6, 7
as Jehovah's ' remembrancers.' So
too the Zion who is addressed is not
the ruined and deserted Jerusalem,
but belongs to the ideal, super
sensible world ; it is the Zion whose
walls are ' continually before' Je
hovah (xlix. 16, comp. on xl. 9).
Faith has brought down the new
Jerusalem to earth  King out a
cry together] i.e., lift up a ' long-
toned cry,' like an Arab watchman
of our day (Thomson).  Eye to
eye] If Jehovah can be said to
have 'eyes' (e.g. Zech. iv. 10, Prov.
V. 21, XV. 3), why not the heavenly
host ? These friendly ' watchers '
note every advance of the kingdom
of God (comp. Luke xv. 10) ; they
see it all ' eye to eye,' as a man
looks into the eye of his friend — so
near are the two worlds of sight and
of faith. Comp. Num. xiv. 14, Ex.
xxxiii. II.  The return of Je
hovah to Zion] This rend, is most
favoured by the context, which
speaks of the return of the exiles
(vv. II, 12), and not of Zion (see
V. i). Jehovah is the leader of the
exile-band (v. 12) ; without Him,
what profit would there be in a
change of abode .' It is the spiritual
banishment of which II. Isaiah so
pathetically complains. Comp. Ixiii,

38

ISAIAH.

[CH.'^P. LII.

a ringing cry together, ye ruined places of Jerusalem ; for
Jehovah hath comforted Zion, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.
'"Jehovah hath bared his holy arm in the eyes of all the
nations ; and all the ends of the earth have seen the salva
tion of our God. " Away ! away ! go ye out thence, touch
not an unclean thing ; go ye out of the midst of her ; purify
yourselves, ye * armour-bearers of Jehovah ! '^ For not in
trembling haste shall ye go out, and not in flight shall ye
proceed ; for there proceedeth before you Jehovah, and your
rear-guard is the God of Israel.
¦> So A. E., Kimchi, Luzzatto, Bunsen. — Most, That bear the vessels of.
17, ' Return, for thy servants' sake.'
Alt. rend, is perfectly possible gram
matically (comp. Ps. Ixxxv. 5 Hebr.),
but, with an eye to the context,
seems to me only admissible if
'bringeth back Zion' be taken as
shortened from ' bringeth back the
prosperity of Zion ' (see crit. note).
° Burst out . . . ] The Hebr.
has two imperatives, ' a combina
tion which occurs elsewhere only
in Ps. xcviii. 4 ' (Alexander). Coin
cidences with Ps. xcviii. (see vv.
2, 3) are also found in the second
half of V, 10 ; the author of that
psalm must indeed have known II.
Isaiah ' by heart.'
'° Hath bared his boly arm]
viz., for action (comp. Ezek. iv. 7,
Ps. lxxiv. 11); alluding to the
sleeveless Eastern dress.
" Away ! away ! . . . ] Almost
the same language recurs in Lam.
iv. 15, but the parallel is purely
verbal — — Thence] Because in this
section (vv. 7-i2)the prophet places
himself in spirit at Jerusalem 
Purify yourselves . . . ] With a
view to the re-establishment of the
religion of Jehovah, the returning
exiles must become legally ' pure '
(comp. Ps. ex. 3, if the text there
be correct), for which — see next
verse — they will have ample time.

By a striking poetic figure they are
called armour-bearers of Jehovah
— this is the meaning which the He
brew phrase constantly has. A ' man
of war ' (and Jehovah is represented
as such in v. 12) could not support
his dignity without an armour-
bearer, and a king, upon solemn
occasions, appears to have had a
troop of armour-bearers (i Kings
xiv. 28). Much more must Jehovah
unto whom, as a Psalmist tells us,
the shields of the whole earth
belong (Ps. xlvii. 10), have a multi
tude of armour-bearers. So else
where (Ixvi. 15, note) He is said
to have (many) chariots. Still, alt.
rend, is perfectly tenable ; ' vessels
of Jehovah ' may exceptionably be
used for ' vessels of the house of
Jehovah ' (Ezra i. 7). The ' bear
ers ' will then be the Levites.
'^ The Exodus from Babylon
was to resemble the first Exodus
only in its nobler circumstances.
Jehovah was again to be the guide
and protector of his people (Ex.
xii. 51, xiii. 21, 22), but that trem
bling baste (Ex. xii. 11) in which
the first Israelites departed was
to be exchanged for a solemn
deliberateness. The prophet thus
modifies the earlier injunction,
' Flee ye from Chaldaea ' (xlviii. 20).

CHAPTERS LIL 13-LIII.
We have already seen (notes on xiii. 1-7, xlix. 1-9) that the author of
II. Isaiah in his moments of highest inspiration conceived of the Servant

CH.4P. LII. 13_LIII.] ISAIAH. 39
of Jehovah as an individual, and that he ascribes to Him a nature which
is (to judge from His acts) at once human and superhuman, though he has,
of course, given no hint of anything like a theory to account for this.
But no passage which we have as yet met with is so strongly individualis
ing 1 in its account of the Servant as the famous chapter on which we are
about to enter. So deep is the impression which it produced on Ewald
that he felt compelled to assign it in its original form to an age of perse
cution (he thought of the reign of Manasseh), and to suppose that it
described the martyrdom '' of one of the leading champions of true or
theistic religion (comp. on lvii. i). The hypothesis possesses a high degree
of plausibility ; it is recommended, not only by the peculiarity of the con
tents, but by the singular linguistic phenomena. The style of 1 1. Isaiah is
in general full and flowing ; the style of this chapter is ' hard, obscure, and
awkward' (Delitzsch), andreminds us in this respect of another famous dis
puted passage, lvi. 9-lvii. 1 1 a, (which indeed Ewald ascribes to the same
author). It is not within my present scope to discuss critical questions of
this sort ; the ordinary view which accepts the continuity of the com
position is not to be too hastily rejected (comp. introduction to lvi. 9, &c.).
The Servant of Jehovah, according to Bleek, is here described in essen
tially the same terms both with regard to his past and to his future, as in
xiii. 1-7, xlix. 1-9. At any rate, it seems highly probable that chap. liii.
existed in some form or other in the time of the author of the Book of
Job, who apparently alludes to it (see below on v. 9).
The importance of this chapter justifies a somewhat fuller commentary
than usual. The ideas are well fitted to arrest the attention, especially
that of Vicarious Atonement, which some have laboured hard to expel
from the prophecy, but which still forces itself on the unbiassed reader r
of this I shall have to speak in a subsequent essay. The style is obscure,
but is sometimes relieved by an exquisite elegiac cadence, faintly per
ceptible even in the poorest translation. To elegance my own version
makes no pretence ; only to fidelity. One word as to the tenses. We
ought clearly to carry either the perfect or the future (the latter would
express the ideality, the prophetic imaginativeness, of the point of view)
throughout vv. 2-10 a. The inconsistent future of the Auth. Vers, in v. 2
comes from the Vulgate (though in v. 26 this version has the perfect).
The Septuagint mostly has aorists (presents twice in v. 4, twice in v. 7,
once in v. 10). Both Sept. and Vulg. strangely give the future in v. 9.
The New Lectionary has familiarised many English readers with the
fact that lii. 13-15 belongs together with chap. liii. The traditional
arrangement is a ' divulsio ' (as Calvin well calls it), which leads the un
tutored reader astray. It separates the theme from its commentary, and
' I agree with Oehler (see my crit. notes on hii. 8, g) that ' the supposed traces of a
collective meaning disappear when they are correctiy interpreted,' (Old Testament
Theology, ii. 426).
^ Saadya thought of Jeremiah, ' and this interpretation is attractive,' remarks Ibn
Ezra, whose development of the comparison is worth reading (see Neubauer and
Driver, The Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah, &c. , pp. 43-44). Grotius (note on hii. i)
remarks, ' H^ notae in leremiam quidem congruunt prius, sed potius sublimiusque,
ssepe et magis K<nii. \iiw, in Christum. ' Bunsen unreservedly adopts the same hypo
thesis in his Bibelwerk. But of what martyr, be he a Jeremiah or an Ignatius, could
it be said that he was ' a guilt -offering ' (liii. 10) ?

40 ISAIAH. [CHAP. LII.
above all prevents the student from getting the right point of view from
which to examine the sequel (see below on vv. 13-16).
Of monographs on this chapter, six have a claim to be mentioned : —
Chr. Dav. Ant. Martini, Commentatio phitologico-critica in locum
JesaicE, lii. 13-liii. 12 ; Rostochiae, 1791.
Franz Delitzsch, ' Die Stellung der Weissagung Jes. lii. I3-Hii-.'
U.S.W. in Zeiischr. fiir luth. Theologie, 1850, pp. 29-42 (an able defence,
since retracted, of the view that the subject of the chapter is the spiritual
Israel). Friedrich Bleek, 'Auslegung des Abschnittes Jes. lii. 13 ff.,' in Theo
logische Studien und Kritiken, 1861, pp. 171-218.
Paul Kleinert, ' Ueber das Subject der Weissagung Jes. hi. 12-Hii. 12,'
ni Theol. Stud. u. Krit, 1862, pp. 699-752.
William Urwick, The Servant of Jehovah. A Commentary, Gram
matical ajtd Critical, upon Isaiah lii. \T,-liii. 12. Edinburgh, 1877.
The Fifty -third Chapter of Isaiah accordingto the Jewish. htterpreters.
Vol. I. Text. By Ad. Neubauer. Vol. II. Translations. By Ad.
Neubauer and S. R. Driver. With an Introduction to the Translations,
by E. B. Pusey, Regius Prof, of Hebrew. Oxford, 1877.
vv. 13-1 5. Jehovah delivers a short but comprehensive oracle on the
wonderful course of his Servant. The predominant idea is that of his com
plete success in his mission, arising from that ' calm, deep wisdom ' which
willingly accepted the vast but inevitable sufferings which lay on his road
to glory. A prospect is held out at the close of the admission of the
Gentiles to a share in his mediatorial gains.
'^ Behold, my servant shall ^ deal wisely " ; he shall be
high and exalted, and lofty exceedingly. '^ According as
» Prosper, Targ., Lowth, Vitr., Ges., Hitz.
" Shall deal wisely] We might ends.  He shall be high . . . ]
add 'and prosperously,' for this idea Notice the accumulation of kin-
is connoted ; in Josh. i. 8, Jer. x. dred verbs. No single expression
21, it even predominates over the seemed strong enough, for Jehovah
original idea of wisdom. Ewald, had decreed to 'super-exalt' him
not amiss, ' wird geschick haben.' (Phil. ii. 9). This suggests another
The rend. ' shall prosper ' is, how- parallel with the Messiah, of whom
ever, a mistake ; the Divine wis- Jehovah says, ' I also will make
dom of the Servant is the source him Firstborn, supreme above the
of his world-conquering faith, and kings of the earth' (Ps. Ixxxix. 27,
the secret of his success (comp. v. Weir). The first and second verbs
II b, and note the connection be- occur in combination again in ii.
tween xiii. i b and 4). The same 12, 13, vi. i,lvii. 15; the second and
verb is applied to the ' righteous third in lvii. 7 (all passages relating
Branch ' (i.e., probably, the Mes- to God or to worship).
siah) in Jer. xxiii. 5. We cannot, "¦ " The exaltation of the Ser-
however, infer from this the identity vant is proportionate to his humilia-
of the two personages. The de- tion.  -were appalled] The
scription ' he shall deal wisely ' word expresses a stupefied surprise,
belongs to any who are endued as of one who beholds a strange
with the Divine Spirit for practical reverse of fortune (i Kings i.x. 8,

CHAP. LII.]

ISAIAH.

41

many were appalled at thee, (so disfigured was his visage from
that of a man, and his form from that of the sons of men,)
" " so shall he -X- many nations '' ; kings shall shut their
mouths because of him ; for that which had not been told
' So shall many nations marvel (exult, Ges. ; start up, Ew.) at him, Sept. — Aquila
and Theodotion, Vulg., A. E., Calv., Vitr., Hengst., Kay, Pusey, Weir, render the
doubtlul verb, 'sprinkle'; Pesh., 'purify'; Symmachus, 'fling away'; Targ., Saadya,
Rashi, 'scatter;' Hitz., Del., Naeg., ' make to start up. '

Lev. xxvi. 32). Here, however, as
the following parenthesis shows,
the comparison of the spectators is
not between what the Servant was
and what he is, but between the
ordinary aspect of a man and the
degraded appearance of the Ser
vant. Who the spectotors are, will
be seen from liii. 1-4.  So dis
figured . . . ] The phrase is a
compound one. ' To such a degree
was his appearance disfigured ; it
was in fact removed thereby from
being that of a man, and his form
from being that of the sons of men.'
The parenthesis contains a remark
of the prophet's ; hence the change
of person (comp. xiii. 20), which
continues naturally, though illogi-
cally, in the next verse. For
striking parallels see 1. 6, Ps. xxii.
6 a, ]oh ii. 12 (Job being a type of
the righteous sufferer).
'^ So shall be ^ many na
tions] A most difficult passage.
The received text has ' So shall he
sprinkle, &c. ,' which, with due regard
to Hebrew usage, can only have the
meaning which is thus expressed
by a Rabbi ' ' (So shall he) expel
and scatter them from his land,
like a man sprinkling water, with
out one drop touching another.'
But a reference to the dispossessing
of the Gentiles by the Israelites
(comp. perhaps liv. 3) is not at all
in harmony with the context. I
see no resource left but to alter the
text, which is at any rate sounder
policy than to impose unphilo-
iogical meanings on the traditional

reading. Two courses are open
to us : to supply words which may
have fallen out, or to emend the un
translatable verb. If after 'sprinkle'
and before 'many nations' we might
insert the words 'pure water upon,'
or 'his blood upon' (alluding to
the sprinkling of the blood of the
sin-offering — see on liii. 10), we
should obtain a really fine sense,
viz., either that the Servant of Je
hovah by a sacerdotal act of puri
fication (Pesh. even renders the
text 'he shall purify') should re
move the distinction between the
true Israel and the Gentiles (comp.
Ezek. xxxvi. 25), or else that he
should, by the offering of himself,
make atonement for the sins of
' many nations.' (Compare Jerome,
below. ^) The context, however, is
decidedly against this view of the
sense ; for it contains nothing to
suggest that the Servant is invested
with sacerdotal functions. If the
text must be altered, it is more
natural to suppose that the verb
between 'so' and 'many nations'
became partly obliterated, and was
then (as such half-effaced words
often were) misread and miscopied.
It seems clear to me that we re
quire a word (such as yatter) ex
pressing the shock of joyful surprise
vi'ith which the nations shall greet
the turn in the Servant's fortunes,
as an antithesis to the shock of
horror in v. 14. (See further crit.
note.)  Kings shall shut their
mouths . . . ] in reverential
acknowledgment of his superior

¦ R. Y'sha'yah ben Mali, translated in The Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah according
to the Jewish Interpreters, by Neubauer and Driver, vol. ii. p. 75. Similarly R. Yoseph
Qara (p. 41), the older Nizzakhon (p. 90), and R. Mosheh Kotien (p. 105).
2 Jerome : ' ipse asperget gentes multas, mundans eas sanguine suo, et in bap-
tisniate Dei consecrans servituti.'

42

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LIII.

them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall
they perceive.
dignity (see Job xxix. 9, xl. 4). ¦ ¦ . ] i.e., events such as it had
Parallel passage, xlix. 7.  That never entered the heart of man to
which had not been told them conceive, much less to talk about.

(CHAPTER LIII.)
Vv. 1-2. The expansion of the preceding sketch begins. 'The com
mentary upon " they were appalled " is given in w. i : a large portion of
the Jews do not believe in the salvation which has appeared. The en
largement of " so disfigured" &c., is given in vv. 2, 3. The cause of the
unbelief is, that the glory of the Servant of God is concealed behind
humiliation, misery, and shame' (Hengstenberg). The paragraph has
this peculiarity that in each verse one word of the first half is repeated
in the second 'who' — 'and not' — 'despised').
' Who believed " that which we heard ° ? and the Arm of
" Our preaching, Luther, Del. — Our prophecy, Ew. — Most, Our tidings ; or. Our
message. ' -Who believed] Before com
pleting his portrait-sketch of the
Servant, the prophet expresses his
painful sense of the incredulity
with which his revelation will be
received. He does not, however,
say, 'Quis credet auditui nostro?'
as Calvin represents him, but
' Quis credidit ? ' He takes his
stand among the Israehtes of a
later age (not among the Gen
tiles, as Rosenmiiller, following
the Rabbis), and hears their peni
tent musings on the national rejec
tion of the prophecies respecting
the Servant, all of which were in
course of coming true. The Gen
tiles believed as soon as they had
heard (lii. 1 5) : Israel had heard
the voice of prophecy, but ' who
believed.'' Hitzig, indeed, objects
that on this view of the passage we
should e.xpect, not 'Who believed,'
but ' Which of us believed,' but the
reference is clear enough from the
pronoun in 'that which we heard.'
He would explain the clause, 'Who,
whether Jew or Gentile, believed
that which we, the prophets, heard

(and announced) from God ? ' No
thing, however, has been said about
the prophets in the context, and
this explanation compfels us to
ascribe a different meaning to the
pronoun ' we ' in successive verses.
On the other hand, the view adopted
suits the context, and is favoured
by the analogy of xiii. 24, lxiv. 5,
both passages embodying the con
fessions of the people. The 'we,'
as I understand it, is dramatic—
The confession, involves, of course,
an unconscious exaggeration (comp.
Ps. xiv. 3, quoted by Hengst.). St.
Paul well interprets, ' Not all hear
kened to the good tidings' (Rom.
X. 16), 'mitissima interpretatio,
inenii propheta conformis' (Vitr.).
 That which we beard] Lit.,
'our hearsay,' or 'our tidings.'
The noun is occasionally used
technically for a prophetic reve
lation (xxviii. 9, 19, Ob. v. i, Jer.
xlix. 14); we might therefore render
'our revelation,' i.e., either, 'the re
velation communicated to us by the
prophet,' or 'the revelation respect
ing us, the Israelites' (comp. xxiii. 5,

CHAP. LIII.]

ISAIAH.

43

Jehovah, unto whom did it become manifest ? ^ P'or he grew
up ^ before us ¦* as a sapling, and as a root out of a parched
ground ; he had no form nor majesty, '^ and if we looked at
him, there was " no sightliness that we should delight in him.
° So Ew. — Before him, Hebr. text.
* That we should look at him, and .
Hitz., Ew.

2 Sam. iv. 4). In either case the
speakers refer to the prophecies
relating to the Servant. [The other
possible explanation, ' that which
we, the prophets heard,' has been
rejected above. It has been adopted,
indeed, by Calv., Vitr., Ges., Stier,
Urwick, but not by Hengst., Ew.,
Del., Naeg.].  The Arm of Je
hovah] For a commentary, see lii.
10 (and comp. note on xl. 10). 
Vnto whom] Lit., 'over whom.'
The ' Arm ' must be ' made bare '
in heaven (comp. xxxiv. 5), and only
a few have eyes to see such supra-
mundane sights, when nothing on
earth seems to suggest them.
^ The explanation of this un
belief.  Por he grew up ... ]
Lit., And . . . ('and' is here, as
often, explanatory). The tense is
the perfect of prophetic certitude ;
all has been finished 'before the
foundatiori of the world' in the
Divine counsels. The metaphors
of V. 2 are often explained of the
pious kernel of the Jewish nation,
called ' the poor ' and ' the needy '
in the Book of Psalms (e.g., xxxvii.
14), and it is clear enough from II.
Isaiah (whatever be its date), that
the faithful were reduced to great
straits among their unbelieving
neighbours. Still the prophecy as a
whole is far from favourable to this
view — it refers not to the type (the
pious kernel of the nation), but to
the antitype (the personal Servant).
 Before us] ' We .had the evi
dence of our senses to justify our
contempt of his person.' The tra
ditional reading does not at all suit
the context. In vv. 2, 3 we have
a picture of the unfavourable im
pression made by the appearance
of the Servant upon his contempo
raries. The suggestion of a con
trast between Jehovah's constant

. . Symmachus, I owth, Vitr., Ges.,
good pleasure in His representative
and the people's misapprehension
of him produces a strangely incon
sistent feature in the picture, and
the more so if we understand ' be
fore him' in the sense which the
phrase usually has elsewhere (see
Gen. xvii. 18, Hos. vi. 2, Jer. xxx.
20), viz., 'under the fostering and
prospering care of Jehovah.' In
fact, we have only to paraphrase
the sentence to see how impossible
it is — 'he grew up in contempt un
der the fostering care of Jehovah.'
Feehng this more or less distinctly,
Lowth, Henderson, Alexander, and
Hahn explain 'him' in the received
reading, of the Jewish people col
lectively. This, however, is ex
tremely harsh.  As a sapling]
For the implied figure, comp. Ps.
Ixxx. 8, 14, 16, 'Thou didst bring
a vine out of Egypt . . . Behold
and visit this vine ... It is burned
with fire, it is cut down.' But from
the root or stock of this outraged
vine (the people), a slender, unat
tractive plant grew up.  A root]
i.e., a sprout from the root, as xi. 10.
Those who understand the Servant
to be the Jewish nation compare
xxvii. 6, ' Hereafter Jacob shall take
root ; Israel shall blossom and
bud.' The same metaphor is used
of the Messiah in chap, xi., but we
must not be too hasty in our de
ductions from this coincidence. 
Wo form nor majesty] None of
that winning grace or imposing
majesty which we should have ex
pected in- a representative of Jeho
vah. The context implies that the
Servant made claims which his
contemporaries rejected.  And If
we looked at bim] ' If we vouch
safed him a glance, our eye found
nothing to tempt us to cultivate his
society.' For the rend. ' looked at

44

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LIII.

' Despised, and ' deserted of men,' a man of pains and familiar
with sickness ! and « as one from whom there is a hiding of
the face « ! despised, and we regarded him not 1 * But surely
< Ceasing to be of men, Symmachus, Vulg., A. E., Kay, Naeg.
' As one that hid his face from us, Sept., Vulg., Rashi, Lowth, Hengst.

him,' Dr. Weir well compares Prov.
xxiii. 31. (Against alt. rend., con
sider (i) the word-play in the Hebr.
in nir'ehii and mafeh, as if ' when
we sighted him, there was no
sightliness,' and (2) the apt remark
of Hengstenberg, ' How could they
have such views of the condition of
the Servant of God, if they over
looked him ? ')
^ A series of short clauses in the
style of exclamations. Despised]
See on xlix. 7.  Deserted of
men] More literally, 'one from
whom men held themselves aloof.
The Book of Job (a fund of paral
lels for II. Isaiah) supplies us with
the best justification of this render
ing. Job, who partly represents the
same conception as the Servant,
mentions this as the crown of his
troubles, ' My intimates hold them
selves aloof (Job xix. 14 ; the
verbal root is the same). See crit.
note. — Obs. Job's troubles are given
as those of a historical person; the
presumption is that the similar suf
ferings of the Servant are described
with the same intention.  A man
of pains] i.e., a man of many pains
(comp. ' a man of reproofs,' i.e.,
' one often reproved,' Prov. xxix. i).
Auth. Vers, has, ' a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief,' for
which comp. E.x. iii. 7 ' For I
know their sorrows' (Ht. pains),
Eccles. vi. 2 'this is vanity and
a sore grief,' lit. sickness). But
it seems better here to keep the
literal rendering, on account of the
next verse (and so, too, in Lam. i.

1 3, where Jerusalem exclaims, ' Con
sider and see if there be pain like
my pain'). Our translators were
probably influenced by Jewish ob
jections to the received Christian
application, such as those of Abar-
banel (see Neubauer and Driver,
op. cit., pp. 159, 160). 'Sickness,'
no doubt, includes ' sorrow,' but it
means something more, viz., the
punishment of sin, just as outward
as well as inward sufferings are im
plied in Ps. xxxviii. 3-7.  Fami
liar with sickness] Here, again,
the Book of Job and a pseilm of
cognate purport supply our best
commentary : ' Lover and friend
hast thou put far from me ; mine
acquaintance — (they are) darkness,'
Ps. Ixxxviii. 18 : comp. Job xvii. 14.
 As one from whom there Is
a hiding of tbe face] Men avoided
him with as much disgust as if he
had a disease like the leprosy.
Comp. Job's complaint, ' They
abhor me, they flee far from me,'
Job xxx. 10 (see also xix. 13-19) ;
and the lamentation of the Jewish
exiles, ' Men cried unto them, Go
aside ! unclean ! go aside ! go
aside!' (Lam. iv. 15); also the
parallel from Wisdom, in Last
Words (on lii. 13, &c.) Against
alt. rend., besides the philological
objection urged by Del., consider
that it directly contradicts a pas
sage in the parallel description of
the Servant's sufferings (1. 6 b). — ;-
Despised] A pathetic repetition in
the manner of Isaiah (Delitzsch,
Isaiah, ii. 134). Comp. v. 7.

vv. 4-6. ' The second subdivision furnishes us with the key to the
sufferings of the Servant of God described previously, by pointing to their
vicarious character' (Hengstenberg). Note the significant emphasis on
the pronouns ' he ' and ' we,' and the elegiac rhythm in the Hebrew.

¦* But surely] Hebr., 'akin ; at
once aflirmative and adversative

(see xlix. 4).^  Our sicknesses
he bore] (The meaning of ' sick-

CHAP. LIII.]

ISAIAH.

45

our sicknesses Jie bore, and as for our pains, he carried them,
and we regarded him as stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
' But he was pierced because of our rebellions, crushed be-

nesses ' has been explained above,
on ' a man of pains.') The mean
ing is, first of all, that the conse
quences of the sins of his people
fell upon him the innocent (comp.
Lam. V. 7, 'Our fathers have sinned,
and are not ; and we have borne
(sabhat) their iniquities ') ; but next
and chiefly, that he bore his unde
served sufferings as a sacrifice on
behalf of his people (see z/. 5 5 ' the
punishment which was for our wel
fare ' ; V. 10 b, ' if he were to lay
down his soul as an offering for
guilt'; V. 12b, 'and for the rebel
lious made intercession ') The pro
noun ' he ' is expressed not merely
to point the contrast between the
Servant's deserts and his fate, but
to draw attention to his person, as
in the cases of Jehovah (xli. 4) and
'Branch' (Zech. vi. 13). — This is
the first of twelve distinct assertions
in this one chapter of the vicarious
character of the sufferings of the
Servant. The verb (nasa) may also
be rendered 'he took away' (as
Mic. ii. 2), and Del. thinks this
meaning is included here, but the
parallel verb (sdbhal), which is
quite unambiguous, is against this
view. That the primary meaning
is 'he took up, bore,' Del. himself
admits, the verb nasa (but not the
verb sdbhal) being a technical term
in the Law for bearing the penalty
of sin. There is apparently an allu
sion to this passage in John i. 29,
where 6 aipaiv should probably be
rendered 'that taketh up (and
expiateth) the sin of the world.' ^
 Stricken, smitten of Cod]
The phrases evidently allude to the
disease of leprosy, which was called
pre-eminently a 'stroke' (Auth. Vers.
'plague,' e.g., Lev. xiii. 3, 9, 20),
and regarded as a punishment for
grievous sin (Num. xii. 9, 10, 2 Kings
XV. 5). An Arabic phrase for a
leper is mukdtal-ullah ' antagonist

of Allah.' (See Wetzstein's note
in Delitzsch's Job, E. T., i. 347.)
Here we are again reminded of
the typical sufferer Job ; only the
account of Job's leprosy is meant
to be taken literally, whereas here
leprosy is a figure for the sufferings
entailed by sin. In Ps. li. 7, leprosy
is a type of sin itself.  of Cod]
belongs logically to all three par
ticiples. ^ But he ... ] In emphatic
contrast to ' and we ' in v. 4, which
again is the antithesis to 'he' in
' he bare': — a regular chain of con
trasts.  Pierced . . crushed]
Both words are passive participles,
and imply that the sufferings volun
tarily undergone by the Servant
ended in death. Literal wounds
are not necessarily referred to.
The same verbs are used by
psalmists in quite a general sense :
Ps. Ixix. 27 (26), xciv. 5, comp. also
Isa. i. 5. The meaning of the
statement, ' He was pierced . . .
for our transgressibns,' is perfectly
clear if the Servant is a person who
devoted his life ' for the many.' If,
however, he be only a personifica
tion of the pious kernel of the
people of Israel, we must make the
rather far-fetched supposition that
the violent deaths of some in
dividuals were imputed, as it were,
to the whole of the believing com
munity, and that they operated
towards the conversion of the rest
of the nation. Whilst, if ' the
Servant' be interpreted to mean
the whole of the people of Israel,
no rational explanation of this pas^
sage seems possible (see Don Isaac
Abarbanel's comment in Neubauer
and Driver, op. cit., p. 177).  The
punishment] Alt. rend, is de
cidedly to be rejected, for though
Hebrew cannot distinguish clearly
between npmpia and KoXaais (Arist.
Rhet., i. 10), the notion of punish-

1 I am glad to notice that Bishop Lightfoot has given his high authority to this
view (On Revision, &c., pp. 141-2).

46

ISAIAH.

[chap. LIII.

cause of our iniquities; the ''punishment of our peace was
upon him, and through his stripes we have been healed.
^ All we like a flock did go astray, we turned every one to
his own way ; and Jehovah made to light upon him the
iniquity of us all.
>• So Vitr.. Hitz., Havernick, Del, Naeg. (note). — Most, chastisement; Vulg.,
disciplina.

ment is the primary one in this word
(musar) ; in its synonym (tokd-
khath) it is only secondary.  Of
our peace] i.e., which led to our
' peace ' (or welfare) ; comp. ' the
reproof of life,' i.e., tending to life
(Prov. XV. 31, Del.).  'We have
been healed] Jerome : ' suo vul-
nere vulnera nostra curavit.' Vit
ringa : ¦' venustissimum o^vpapov!
^ All we . . . ] Consequently
' the Servant ' can hardly be a mere
personification either of the whole
people of Israel, or of its pious
kernel, or even of the body of pro
phets.  Did go astray] The
figure is used by Exekiel of the
Babylonian Exile (chap, xxxiv.),
but here (as in Ps. cxix. 176) it is
the wilderness of sin into which
the whole nation has 'strayed.' 
Made to light upon bim . . ]

Symmachus : KaravTrjcrac eTrolrjo-ev.
As the avenger of blood pursues
the murderer, so punishment by
an inner necessity overtakes the
sinner (Ps. xl. 12, Num. xxxii. 23,
comp. Deut. xxvii. 15); and inas
much as the Servant, by Jehovah's
will, has made himself the sub
stitute of the Jewish nation, it fol
lows that the punishment of the
latter must fall upon him. We
have no right, with Mr. Urwick (p.
191), to find a reference to the im
position of hands on the Sin-offer
ing.  The iniquity] Observe
the singular ; it is the collective
iniquity of the people. We might
also render the ' punishment,' since
the Hebr. 'dvtjn includes both sin
and punishment (see Lam. iv. 6,
Zech. xiv. 19).

vv. 7-9. The cruel treatment of the Servant, and his patient endurance
of it, form the contrast of this paragraph. Meantime his persecutors 'know
not what they do.' Comp. the striking parallel, in 1. 5-9, which is like a
prelude of our prophecy. — Obs., v. 7 and v. 9 each close with the words
' and not ... in his mouth ' ; it is a mark of artistic composition.
' He was treated rigorously, but /le let himself be humbled,
and opened not his mouth ; as the sheep that is led to the

' Treated rigorously] Treated
as slave-drivers (Ex. iii. 7, Job iii.
18), or petulant upstarts (iii. 12),
or hypocritical religionists (lviii. 3),
treat those who have the misfor
tune to be under them.  let
himself be humbled] i.e., suffered
willingly ; see crit. note.  And
opened not his mouth] So in
two psalms of cognate purport it is
said of one who, like the Servant,
sums up and yet transcends the
finest qualities of Israel's charac

ter, ' (I was) as a dumb man that
openeth not his mouth ' (Ps. xxxviii.
14), ' I opened not my mouth, be
cause thou didst it ' (Ps. xxxix. 9).
 As the sheep] 'But I was
like a tame lamb (agnus mansuetus,
Vulg.) that is led to the slaughter.'
So Jeremiah speaks of himself (xi.
19), though he adds (which mili
tates against Saadya's and Bunsen's
view that he is the subject of Isa.
liii.), ' and I knew not that they had
devised devices against me.' There

CHAP. LIII.]

ISAIAH.

47

slaughter, and as an ewe that before her shearers is dumb ;
and opened not his mouth. * ' Through oppression and
through a judgment he was taken away, and " as for his gene
ration who considered that " ' he was cut off out of the land of
' Out of, Vitr., Ges. (in his note, but not his translation), Ew., Hengst., Del.
Naeg. ' So substantially Ges., Ew. , Del. — Who considereth his life-time, Calv., Vitr.,
Kay, Weir; or, his dwelling. Knob. — Who can think out his generation, Hengst.,
Seinecke, Riehm, Naeg.

is nothing to indicate an allusion
to the paschal lamb (a premature
introduction of the typical point
of view). — Delitzsch remarks that
'everything that is said of the Lamb
of God in the New Testament has
its origin in this prophecy.' 
And opened not . . . ] Repeti
tion, as in V. 3.
' A continuation of the descrip
tion of the Servant's sufferings. He
drank his cup to the dregs. No
ignominy was spared. The forms
of justice were indeed observed,
but the judgment or sentence was
really an act of oppression. 
Through oppression and through
a judgment] i.e., through a judg
ment accompanied with oppression,
through an oppressive judgment
(the Vdv is that of association).
So Job iv. 16 'stillness and a voice'
= a still voice, Jer. xxix. 11 'a future
and a hope ' = a hopeful future. —
'Through' (as in v. 5), not 'out of,'
which fails to emphasize the suffer
ings sufficiently. ' Oppression,' lit.,
' restraint ' — the shutting up of the
forces of life. The same Hebr.
word occurs again in Ps. cvii. 39,
'And they were diminished and
bowed down through the oppres
sion of calamity and (through)
misery.' 'Judgment' = sentence, as
in 'judgment of death,' Deut. xxi.
22.  He was taken away] i.e.,
by a violent death ; parallel to
'cut off' in the second half-verse.
Comp. ' If the sword come, and
take him away' (Ezek. xxxiii. 4).
Or, 'taken away' might mean
'released' (Jerome, Rashi, A. E.,
Kimchi, Calv., Vitr., Stier, Hengst.,
Ges. (Commentary, but not The
saurus). But in many of these

cases the rendering seems dictated
by a preconceived notion respect
ing 'the Servant'  And as for
bis generation . . . ] A difficult
passage. First, with regard to the
concluding words. To whom doos -
the pronoun in ' my people ' refer ?
The same pronoun occurs thrice
again in this prophecy, viz., lii. 13,
liii. II, 12. In these verses the
speaker is clearly Jehovah. They
contain respectively the promise
which strengthens the Servant for
his trying mission (lii. 13), and the
promise which rewards its success
ful accomplishment (liii. 11, 12).
The intermediate portion is the
soliloquy either of the people, or of
some individual Israelite, whether
the prophet or another. Which of
these is the speaker in -z/. 8 ? Ac
cording to some (e.g.. Knob, and
Naeg.) the prophet ; according to
Del., any one of the contemporaries
of the Servant. The latter view
seems preferable. The absolute
ness of the self-condemnation of
the Israelites is confirmed by the
statement that not one of the
Servant's generation ' meditated '
on the truth that that Divine envoy's
thread of life was cut short, and
that the 'stroke' of God came upon
him, for the sins of ' my people '
(i.e., of the people to which the
supposed speaker belongs). The
same frivolous inconsiderateness is
pointed to in a subsequent chapter
(lvii. I b, see note) as marking the
height which the national depravity
had reached. In each case, it is
noticed with surprise that, in look
ing back upon the career of the
early deceased righteous, men did
not perceive the lesson of these

48

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LIII.

the living, for the rebellion of my people ' he was stricken .?''
^ And one appointed his grave with the ungodly, and with the
' They were stricken, (virtually) Targ., Ges., Hitz., Knob.— (And) for the stroke
due unto them, Ew., Kleinert. — To whom a stroke was due. Martini, Hengst.

premature removals. The lesson,
it is true, is different ; here it is
this — that such a visitation (the
awfulness of which the Servant's
contemporaries do not underrate,
as they call it ' a stroke ' from
Jehovah's hand) cannot have been
caused by the sins of the Servant
himself, but must have had a
mystic reference to the wickedness
of the people. It is one result of
the general inconsiderateness that,
as the next verse tells us, the grave
of this benefactor of Israel was
assigned among the most profligate
of men. (For the rend. 'generation,'
compare, with Del., Jer. ii. 31, 'O
(men of) this generation ! observe
ye the word of Jehovah.') The
latest explanation — 'Who can think
out and declare the nature and sort
of his posterity?' — is supported
(Naeg.) by Ps. xxii. 30 (31), 'A
seed ( = posterity) shall serve him,
it shall be recounted of the Lord
to the (next) generation,' also by
a similar passage in Ps. Ixxi. 18,
and by Lev. xxiii. 21, 'throughout
your (successive) generations.' Obs.
however, that in the Psalm-passages
there is no pronoun prefixed to
'generation,' and in Leviticus the
word is in the plural. See further
crit. note.  Por the rebellion
of my people] The people, then,
is distinct from the suffering Ser
vant. The only way to avoid this
inference is to read 'peoples' for
' my people' (comp. on .xlix. i), with
Luzzatto, and render 'for the re
bellion of the peoples (to whom the
stroke was due).' Four places, it is
true, are mentioned in the Massora
in which the proposed substitution is
possible, but this passage is not one
of them.  He was stricken] Of
the alternative renderings, that of
Ges. is grammatically the easiest,
but it is against the context. It
may be said, indeed, that the pro
phet forgets himself for once, and

writes as if the Servant were merely
an aggregate of individuals, but this
is not very plausible. Throughout
this chapter the individuality of the
sufferer is rigidly adhered to ; is it
likely that there should be one ex
ception to the rule? (See crit. note.)
° And one appointed bis grave
. . . ] i.e., 'and his grave was ap
pointed' (see Del.'s note). Even
' after his death ' (for these words
qualify both members of the first
half-verse) the people pursued its
benefactor with insults (comp. Jer.
xxvi. 23). He was buried, not with
his family, but with the open de-
niers of God, and with the rich.
Why 'with the rich'? Dr. Weir
points out in reply, that the verse
consists of four clauses, of which
the first and third correspond, and
the second and fourth. It might
be read thus, 'And they assigned
him his grave with the wicked |
though he had done no violence
I And with the rich in his death |
though there was no guile in his
mouth. II' He concludes, therefore,
that by ' the rich ' we are to under
stand 'those who acquired wealth
by guile and other unlawful means,'
and reminds us that ' the poor ' and
'the humble' not unfrequently in
the Psalms stand for 'the righteous'
and 'the upright.' — This, in fact,
seems to have become the tradi
tional interpretation of the verse,
it being assumed that, according
to the experience of the Old Tes
tament writers, riches and wicked
ness, poverty and piety, most com
monly went together. But the in
terpretation is not, perhaps, quite
satisfactory. The use of ' the poor '
synonymously with ' the righteous '
is no doubt established by passages
like Ps. xiv. 5, 6, cxl. 12, 13. But no
such passages can, I think, be ad
duced to prove the synonymousness
of riches and wickedness. In Job
xxvii. 13-19, the description of the

CHAP. LIII.]

ISAIAH.

49

"' rich " after his death," although he had done no injustice, and
there was no deceit in his mouth. '"But it pleased Jehovah to
" Oppressor, Ew. (a sUght emendation), Rodwell.
¦> His grave-mound (lit., 'his mounds'), 3 Hebr. MSS., Zwingli, Lowth, Martini,
Ges. (both in Thesaurus and in Transl. of Isaiah), Ew., Bottcher, Rodwell. (A. E.
also mentions the rendering, which only involves an alteration of a vowel-point).

wicked man (as such) which is clearly
misplaced in our present text) has
a special reference to Job's case ;
and the parallelism of ' the noble '
and ' the wicked ' in Job xxi. 28 has
no doubt a similar ground. The
difficulty may, it is true, be re
moved by supposing that 'the rich'
here referred to are the Baby
lonians among whom the personi
fied people of Israel dwelt during
the Exile. ' By the rich,' says
Yefeth ben 'Ali the Karaite, ' are
meant the powerful men among
the Gentiles who are rich, while
Israel in exile is spoken of as poor
and needy' (Neubauer and Driver,
op. cit., p. 27). But, on the hypo
thesis adopted above, this account
of the Servant has reference to his
treatment by his own people, and
not by the Gentiles, who, indeed,
as lii. 15 shows, were ignorant of
him until his exaltation. I see no
alternative, but either (with Ewald)
to suppose a corruption in the text,
or to conclude that the prophet had
been led to form a more ascetic
view of life (if the phrase may be
used) than the other Old Testa
ment writers, a view reminding us
of one or two passages which have
as peculiar a note in the sayings
of Christ ; see Luke vi. 24, Matt.
xix. 23. (Knobel thinks there is
an implied contrast between the
vv. 10-12. The Divine purpose in permitting these sufferings of the in
nocent Servant, and the Divine decree concerning his recompence. — The
three verses of this paragraph are very skilfully connected. First, each of
them has the word ' his soul ' in the first half-verse. Next, vv. 10 and 1 1
have each of them the word ' he shall see ' immediately after ' his soul.'
Finally, both v.w and -z/. 12 enforce the limitation implied in 'the many.'
There is a further connection both in contents and in phraseology between
this and the second paragraph, which the .student can work out for
himself. . '" It pleased Jehovah . . '. \ the second paragraph closed. It
This was the thought with which was no mere accident, but the de
VOL. II. E

rich Babylonians and the poor
Jewish exiles ; Ibn Ezra had pre
ceded him in this suggestion. This
implies the theory that the Servant
= the pious kernel of the Jewish
people, which cannot hold in face
oi V. 6 ; besides, were the Jewish
exiles literally poorl Gesenius
points out that there is an assonance
in rashd'-, ungodly, and '¦dshir, rich.
This does not explain the difficulty,
but is at any rate against Ewald's
emendation.)  After bis death]
lit., ' in his deaths.' Comp., with
Hengst, Lev. xi. 31, i Kings xiii.
31. The plural 'deaths' is com
monly supposed to be intensive = a
violent death, or to express the
state of death, as ' lives ' for ' the
state of life.' This, however, is, to
say the least, doubtful. On the
reading, see crit. note.  Al
though he bad done no injustice]
So Job xvi. 17, 'Although there is
no injustice in my hands'; Job
vi. 30 (comp. xxvii. 4), 'Is there
iniquity in my tongue ? ' It is of
some slight importance for ascer
taining the date of Isa. hii. that Job
xvi. 17 contains (probably) an allu
sion to this passage, and conse
quently that it was written later : —
at any rate the words in Isa. liii. 9
flow more easily and naturally than
in Job xvi. 17.

50

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LIII.

crush him — ° he dealt grievously " : p if he were to lay down
his soul P as an offering for guilt, he would see a seed, he
° So Bleek, Hofmann. — Most, He made (him) sick ; or. To make (him) sick.
P So Vulg., Ew. (changing one letter). — Thou (O Jehovah !) wert, &c., Auth. Vers.,
De Dieu, Hitz. (substantially), Hofmann, Naeg., Weir. — Most, His soul were to make
an offering for guilt. (The verb in received text may be either 2 masc. or 3 fem. )

liberate will of God that the Servant
should suffer innocently. (Comp.
Ps. xxii. 1 5 i5, ' Thou placest me in
the dust of death.') The deepest
wisdom underlay this apparent con
tradiction. ' If he were thus to
suffer for the guilty, he would be
come the author of a new and
better race.' v. 10 is not a con
tinuation of the soliloquy of the
people, but a reflection of the pro
phet's. See Last Words, at end of
this vol.  If he were to lay
down bis soul . . ] (The phrase
parallel to ndivai ttjv ^vxr]v, John
x. II.) The passage cannot merely
mean that Jehovah would spare the
people of Israel for the sake of its
few pious members (though this is
in itself an unobjectionable idea ;
comp. Gen. xviii. 24, Jer. v. i, Ezek.
xxii. 30). The Servant is a person,
not a personification of the pious
kernel of Israel. His sufferings are
vicarious and voluntary. Hence he
who offers the Servant's ' soul,' or
'life,' as a sacrifice, must be the
Servant himself, and not Jehovah,
as the common reading (see noten)
implies. Jehovah sends the Ser
vant, and the Servant joyfully ac
cepts the mission. He smites, and
the Servant bends willingly to the
blow, ' pours out his soul unto
death,' ' lays it down as an offering
for guilt.' But why is it added, ' as
an offering for guilt ' ? Dr. Ritschl,
in his great work on the doctrine of
Justification,' finds it hard to say.
Yet may it not be one object of the
prophet to show that in the death
of the Servant various forms of
sacrifice find their highest fulfil

ment? 'As in verse 5 the Divine
Servant is represented as a sin-
offering. His death being an expia
tion, so here He is described as a
guilt-offering, His death being a
satisfaction! ^ Guilt-offerings, or
trespass-offerings (as Auth. Vers.
calls them), ' were enjoined in all
cases where the sins which had
been committed allowed of restitu
tion in kind ' ^ ; in other words, in
infractions of the rights of property.
The people of Israel was theoreti
cally ' holy,' i.e., dedicated to God,
but in fact was altogether unholy.
It had therefore fallen under the
Divine displeasure, and its life was
legally forfeited. But, in wrath
remembering mercy, Jehovah sent
the Servant, who oflfered his own
life as a restitution in kind, and a
' satisfaction ' for the broken cove
nant of holiness. There is, how
ever, a difficulty in the statement
that the servant became a guilt-
offering, which ought to be men
tioned. According to the Law, the
guilt-offering was only an atone
ment for the individual presenting
it, never for other people (Luzzatto) :
the sin-offering, of course, might
be offered for others (on the Day of
Atonement). This can only be met
by the hypothesis that the Servant
is in some mystic and yet real sense
identified with Israel ; that he em
bodies all that is high and noble
in the Israelitish character, and yet
transcends it. The prophet him
self, too, gives us a plain hint that
his language is symbolic, and that
more is meant than meets the ear.
For he proceeds to tell us that the

' Die chrislliche Lehre von der Rechtfertig'ung und der Versohnung, ii. 64.
' Urwick, The Servant of Jehovah, p. r5i.
» Cave, Scriptural Doctrine of Sacrifice, p. 478. (On the subject of the 'dshdm,
or guilt-offering, see especially Kalisch, Leviticus, ii. 272-5 ; Ewald, Antiquities of
Israel, pp. 55-66; Riehm, ' Ueber das Schuldopfer,' in Theolog. Studien u. Kriiikev,
1854, p. 93 &c. ; Oehler, Old Testament Theology, ii. 28-34 ; 'Wellhnusen, Gescliichte
Israels, i. 75-77.*

CHAP. LIII.]

ISAIAH.

would prolong days, and the pleasure of Jehovah would pros
per in his hand ; " "» after the travail of his soul he would see
1 On account of, Vitr., Del., Bleek, Urwick ; free from, Ges., Hitz.

Servant shall live long and receive
a glorious reward. (It would be a
still simpler solution to suppose that
the distinction between sin-offer
ing and guilt-offering was not very
clearly drawn when the prophet
wrote ; but this would require us
to adopt the Grafian hypothesis as
to the date of the Levitical legisla
tion. It would be unfair to import
the huge difficulties which beset
this question into the comparatively
simple subject of the exegesis of
Isaiah. See further Last Words.)
 He ivould see a seed . . . ]
It is said in a psalm closely allied
to our prophecy, that, after the de
liverance of the Sufferer, ' A seed
shall serve him' (viz., Jehovah),
Ps. xxii. 30. In this case, the
'seed' means the children of the
converts from heathenism men
tioned in the preceding verse (see
Hupfeld ad loc). Our prophet too
evidently uses ' seed ' in a spiritual
sense of those who are mystically
united to the Servant (or, more
prosaically, his disciples).' Obs.,
the Servant is not merely to leave
¦ a seed behind him, but to ' see it,'
which harmonizes admirably with
the next clause.  He would pro
long days] i.e., he would live
long. This again is of course not
to be taken quite literally. ' Length
of days ' is no doubt frequently
mentioned as a reward of piety
(Deut. vi. 2, Ps. xci. 16, Prov. iii. 2),
but as the Servant has already
passed through death once without
injury to his personality, we may
presume that, like the IVIessiah in
ix. 6 (see note), 'death hath no
more dominion over him.'  The
pleasure of Jehovah . . . ] The
Servant is not to retire henceforth

from the scene of his sufferings ;
he has a work to do in and for his
spiritual posterity and for mankind
in general, and the appellation given
to it supplies a good example of the
interlacing of the parts of this pro
phecy, ' pleasure in the sense of
'purpose' occurring no less than
eight times in II. Isaiah.
" After the travail of his
soul] It is not easy to choose be
tween the different meanings of the
preposition. I have rendered ' after '
on the analogy of Ps. lxxiii. 20, ' As
a dream, after one hath awaked,'
but the local meaning ' away from '
(Num. XV. 24), and the causal ' on
account of,' ' in consequence of (v.
5), are both grammatically possible.
To adopt the last, however, seems
to involve an anticipation of the
' therefore ' in z/. 1 2. ' The travail
of his soul ' = the pain which he felt
in his inmost soul, his spiritual
agony.  He would see satisfy-
ingly] i.e., would enjoy a satis
fying, refreshing view of the pro
gress of the Divine work of salva
tion (Del.). So in Ps. xvii. 15 we
find ' to see God's face ' and ' to be
satisfied,' in parallel lines.  By
bis knowledge] There is a doubt
(which Calvin himself recognises)
as to whether this means ' by the
knowledge of him' or 'by the
knowledge which he possesses.'
Vitr., Hengst., Stier, Naeg., adopt
the former; Ges., Ew., Hitz., Bleek,
Del., Kay, Birks, Urwick, the latter.
Of course, 'knowledge' (in the
deep Biblical sense of the word)
was necessary for the 'justified'
persons spoken of (comp. Jer. xxxi.
34), but it is more obvious, con
sidering the prophetic functions
assigned to the Servant (comp. xiii.

' David Kimchi alludes to this interpretation as current among the Christians in
his time, but rejects it because ' his (Jesus') disciples are nowhere spoken of as either
sons or seeds' (Neubauer and Driver, op. cit., p. 55) ; Mosheh Kohen (ibid., p. 123)
with at Ifast an attempt at philology, on the ground that ' seed is only used (in the Old
Testament) in its literal and primary signification.' But, as Dr. Pusey remarks [ibid.,
p. lviii.), ' Isaiah himself uses the word in a bad sense' (he quotes i. 4, lvii. 4).

52

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LIII.

satisfyingly ; by •¦ his knowledge '' would the righteous one,
my servant, make the many righteous, and of their iniquities
he would take up the load. '^ Therefore will I give him " a
¦¦ The knowledge of him, Vitr., Hengst., Stier, Naeg.
' So Ew., Hitz., Del. As a portion the many, Sept., Targ., Vulg , Vitr., Lowth,
Hengst., Bleek, Kay, Naeg., Weir, Urwick, Rodwell.

I, xlix. 6, 1. 4), to suppose that
' knowledge ' means his insight into
the dealings and purposes of Jeho
vah. It is clear, too, from other
passages (referred to by Del.), that
' knowledge,' in this sense was
reckoned as essential for the national
regeneration (see Mai. ii. 7, ' The
priest's lips shouldkeep knowledge ;'
Dan. xii. 3, where faithful teachers
are described as ' making righteous
(or, justifying) the many' ; and Isa.
xi, 2, where among the seven spirits
bestowed on the Messiah we find
'.the spirit of knowledge'). The
contents of the Servant's knowledge
are, no doubt, the purpose of God
to make the many righteous by
his means. There are two possible
meanings of the phrase ' to make
righteous,' the forensic one of ac
quittal (v. 23, Ex. xxiii. 7) and the
ethical one of imparting or produc
ing righteousness. The latter is
the less common one, the only
other passage which Ges. quotes
for it being Dan. xii. 3. There,
however," the meaning is quite cer
tain, for the ' understanding ones '
who ' make the many righteous ' are
in Dan. xi. 33 said to ' instruct the
many.' In the passage before us,
too, the sense of ' making righteous '
or ' turning to righteousness ' (the
felicitous rendering of Auth. Vers.
in Dan. xii. 3) seems the only suit
able one, for the Servant is not
himself a judge, but a sin-bearer
and intercessor (-z/. 12). He is
called 'the righteous one,' as a
guarantee of his ability for ' making
righteous.'  Tbe many] It is
not absolutely certain whether this
phrase (emphatically repeated in
V. 12) points to the Jews or to the
heathen. As the foregoing prophecy
refers to the Jews, and as the same
phrase is used of the Jews in Dan.
ix. 27, xi. 33, 39, xii. 3, it is safer to

interpret it so here. This will not
exclude the incorporation of more
or fewer of the Gentiles among the
true Israelites (see on xHv. 3-5),
and in fact an enlargement of the
limits of Israel seems required by
the magnificent language oiv. 12 a.
Besides, was not the Servant to be
' the light -of the nations ' as well as
'a covenant of the people' (xhi.
6) ? The phrase ' the many ' seems
intended to imply that not the whole
of the community is benefited by
the saving work of the Servant.
Comp. the use of ' many ' in similar
contexts in Matt. xx. .28, xxvi. 28,
Heb. ix. 28.  And of their ini
quities . . . ] This cannot mean
(for the explanation involves New
"Testament presuppositions) that
the Servant should continue to be
a sin-bearer after his sacrifice ot
himself It is rather an emphatic
reassertion of the vicarious atone
ment as the foundation of his right
eous-making work.
'^ Jehovah himself holds out the ¦
victor's cro\vn with the words —
Tberefore will X give him a por
tion among the great] This is
clearly metaphorical, and as such
is not to be pressed too far. For
who can be 'great' or 'powerful'
enough to share spoil with Jeho
vah's Well-beloved ? It is impos
sible to think of the persons just
described as 'made righteous'
through the Servant, for this ' mak
ing righteous,' together with the
preceding atonement, was the very
fight which the Servant fought and
won. The idea is, no doubt, this,
that, without striking a blow, the
Servant of Jehovah has reached
the same results which others (e.g.,
Cyrus) have reached by sword and
bow ; that, ' through his sacrificial
death, the kingdom of God enters
into the rank of world-conquering

CHAP. LIV.] ISAIAH. 53
portion among the great,'* and with the powerful shall he
divide spoil, because he poured out his soul unto death, and
let himself be numbered with the rebellious, but lie had borne
the sin of many, and for the rebellious made intercession.
powers ' (Hengst.). Thus the Ser- intercession ' (but as the preceding
vant of Jehovah becomes at last and synchronising verb expresses
practically identical with the Mes- a single past act, the rend. ' made
sianic king. — Alt. rend, is opposed intercession ' seems preferable) ;
by the parallel line ; otherwise it certainly not ' shall make interces-
would not be unacceptable (comp. sion ' (Hengst.), which is against
lii. 1 5, xlix. 7).  Poured out bis syntax. The participle of the same
soul] i.e., his life-blood (comp. verb occurs in a different context
Ps. cxli. 8). The prophet again in lix. i6. Notice the emphatic
emphasises the voluntary nature of repetition of ' the rebellious,' those
the Servant's sufferings, made who had merited death by their
intercession] Or, 'kept making apostacy.

CHAPTER LIV.

A RECENT critic (Wellhausen, Gesch. Israels, i. 417 note) has stated that
liv. i-liv. 8 is 'to some e.xtent a sermon on the text lii. 13-hii. 12;' but
he obviously does so in the interests of a theory — viz., that chap. liii. does
not refer to an individual. It is more natural to suppose that chap. liii.
(including lii. 13-15) was inserted by an afterthought, chap. liv. being the
natural sequel of xlix. 17-lii. 12 (just as xhx. 13 follows upon the pre
diction of the return of the exiles in xlix. 12). It cannot be shown that
any of the characteristic ideas of chap. liii. are clearly referred to in
chap. liv. The connection seems the closest with chap. xlix. (see xlix. 6,
8, 18-20, 21, comp. also 1. i), though there is a phraseological parallel in
hi. 9, and the use of the term 'righteousness' in z/. 17 accords with its use
in xiv. 24, 25, 1. 8, but not at all with the sense of ' righteous ' and ' make
righteous' in liii. 11. — The person addressed is, not the ruined city of
Jerusalem, but the ideal Zion (see on xlix. 14), who is practically identical
with the ideal or spiritual Israel. In v. 17 the promises made to Zion are
expressly confirmed to the ' servants of Jehovah,' just as in chap. li. the
prophet addresses alternately the aggregate of believers and the trans
cendental person called Zion.
' Ring out, O barren, thou that hast not borne ; burst forth
into a ringing shout, and cry aloud, thou that hast not travailed ;
for more are the children of the desolate than the children of
^ O barren, tbou that hast not exiles (as xlix. 17). These were
borne] It is like a continuation of at once children of Zion and not
xlix. 21.  More are tbe children children. They were physically
. . . ] Parallel passage, i Sam. ii. 5. and to some extent spiritually
The 'children' referred to are, Israelites, but as long as they
mainly at any rate, the restored were on a foreign soil, and un-

54

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LIV.

the married woman, saith Jehovah. ^ Widen the place of thy
tent, and the curtains of thy habitation let them stretch forth
— hinder it not ; lengthen thy cords, and thy tent-pins make
strong. ^ For on the right and on the left shalt thou break
through; and thy seed shall ^take possession of* nations,
and make desolate cities to be inhabited. * Fear not, for thou
needest not be ashamed : neither be confounded, for thou
needest not blush ; nay, thou shalt forget the shame of thy
maidenhood, and the reproach of thy widowhood thou shalt
remember no more. * For thy husband is thy maker — Je
hovah Sabaoth is his name ; and thy Goel is the Holy One of
" Dispossess, Ges., Hitz.

baptized with the Spirit (xliv. 3),
their union with the ideal Zion
could not be regarded as com
plete. After their restoration, the
spiritual and the literal Zion or
Israel became identical.  The
curtains] i.e., the tent-covering.
lengthen thy cords . . .] The
same figure is applied to the literal
Jerusalem, xxxiii. 20. The point
of both passages is that the ' tent '
should no longer be moved about,
but become a permanent habitation.
Dr. Weir well compares Jer. x. 20,
' My tent is destroyed, and all
my tent-pins are plucked up ; my
children are gone away from me,
and are not ; and there is none to
spread out my tent any more, or to
set up my tent-curtains.'
^ On the right and on the
left] Not merely = ' on the south
and on the north ' (Targ.), but ' on
all hands ' ; comp. the parallel pas
sage in the promise to Jacob, Gen.
xxviii. 14.  Take possession of
nations] i.e., take possession of
their land. There is no occasion,
with Knobel, to restrict the refer
ence to the heathen colonists who
had replaced the Israelites. On the
other hand, I doubt whether it is
equivalent to ' inherit the earth ' (so
Del.). Comparing xlix. 19, 20, I
suppose it to mean that the area
covered by the Jewish race shall
be much larger than of yore, and
that the former lords of the soil (or
their survivors, see ne.xt note) shall

(of their own free-will — see Ixi. 4)
descend to the rank of subjects.
 Desolate cities] Primarily
those of Palestine, comp. xlix. 8,
lviii. 12, Ixi. 4, but possibly includ
ing cities outside Palestine, which
had suffered from the Babylonian
invasions (comp. x. 7, Hab. i. 17),
and been converted into 'heaps'
(xiv. 21, corrected text).
* Needest not] Or, ' oughtest
not.' It is the potential imperfect
in the Hebrew.  Be ashamed]
viz., of thy faith in thy God ; comp.
xiv. 16, 17.  Thy maidenhood]
i.e., the time before the Sinaitic co
venant, by which Israel became the
' bride ' of Jehovah, Jer. ii. 2. The
shame of this period will be the
Egyptian bondage; the reproach
in the next line, the Babylonian
captivity. 5 Thy maker] The Hebr. has
the plural form, 'thy makers,' on
the analogy of Elohim for the one
God (similarly in x. 15 ; comp. Job
xxxv. 10, Ps. cxlix. 2).  Thy
Goel] i.e., the vindicator of thy
family-rights (see on xli. 14). Zion
being of the family of Jehovah
(comp. Eph. ii. 19), her nearest
kinsman (viz., her husband) must
interpose for her rescue.  The
Holy One of Israel] Comp. on
xlix. 7. God of the wbole earth
. . . ] ' Jehovah Sabaoth,' accord
ing to our prophet, means not only
the God of the heavenly hosts, but
the God whose glory fills all crea-

CHAP. LIV.]

ISAIAH.

55

Israel, God of the whole earth is he called. '' For as an out
cast and downcast woman Jehovah hath recalled thee, and a
wife of youth — * can she be rejected *" ? saith thy God. '' For
a little moment did I cast thee out, but with great compassion
will I gather thee ; ' in a gush of wrath I hid my face a mo
ment from thee, but with everlasting loving-kindness will I
have compassion upon thee, saith thy Goel, Jehovah. ' ° For
a Noah's flood ° is this unto me ; whereas I sware that Noah's
flood should no more pass over the earth, so I swear that I
will not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. "" For though
the mountains should remove, and the hills should totter, my
•> So Kimchi, Ew., Luzzatto. — When she is (or, has been) rejected, Targ., Vitr.,
Ges., Del., &c.
« As in the days of Noah, Pesh., Targ., Vulg., some Hebr. MSS., Lowth.

tion, including the earth (comp.
appendix to chap. i.). Hence the
name is a warrant for the restora
tion of Zion, Jehovah SabSoth's
bride. ^ For as an outcast and do^vn-
cast woman ¦ . . ] (There is a
characteristic assonance in the
Hebrew.) Zion is not only Jeho
vah's bride (Jer. iii. 14), but in one
sense ' a wife of youth ; ' see Jer.
ii. 2. Even many an earthly hus
band (how much more, then, Je
hovah !) cannot bear to see the
misery of his divorced wife, and
therefore, at length recalls her ;
'and when his wife is one who
has been wooed and won in youth
(comp. Mai. ii. 14), how impossible
is it for her to be absolutely dis
missed .' ' The second line is hard,
but such appears to be its meaning.
So interpreted, it involves a break
in the parallelism, but only form
ally, not logically. (It is equiva
lent to ' cannot be rejected,' and is
therefore parallel to 'hath recalled
thee '). There is a very similar
way of expressing incredulity with
regard to the absolute rejection of
Israel in Lam. v. 22, ' Except
[which is impossible] thou hast
indeed rejected us, and art wroth
against us very exceedingly ! ' For
the idea of such declarations, see
note on lv. 2 (end). Alt. rend.

would be grammatically easier, if
the -tense were the perfect (which
indeed, the Targum substitutes).
' For a little moment] The
same phrase in xxvi. 20, comp. Ps.
xxx. 5, and Isa. Ixi. 2 (note). 
Gather tbee] i.e., the persons of
thy 'storm-tost' members (v. 11).
° In a. gush of wrath] It was a
'gush,' not a flood, for this takes
time to rise and fall ; a momentary
'gush,' in contrast to the sea-like
(Ps. xxxvi. 6) righteousness ; one
side of which is God's ' everlasting
loving-kindness' for his people.
The assonance in the Heb. phrase
is here inimitable.
" For] Justifying the promise
just given. Yes, it is indeed true,
for the ' calamity ' which is 'over
past ' is in one sense a flood to its
Divine author, — a Noah's flood,
inasmuch as He has sworn that
neither the type nor the antitype
shall be repeated. — Critics have
been unnecessarily perplexed be
cause neither the Elohistic nor the
Jehovistic portion of the narrative
of the Flood mentions an oath.'
But, as Del. on Ps. Ixxxix. 31-38
well points out, there is no oath
recorded in 2 Sam. vii. i2-i6, yet
no one doubts that the oath men
tioned in V. 35 means the promises
therein contained. I conclude
therefore that the prophet refers

^ See Gen. viii. 21, 22 (Jehovistic), and ix. 11 (Elohistic).

56

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LIV.

loving-kindness from thee shall not remove, neither shall my
covenant of peace totter, saith he that hath compassion upon
thee, Jehovah.
'' Thou afflicted, storm-tost, comfortless one ! behold, I
will set thy stones in antimony, and will found thee with
sapphires ; '^ and I will make thy battlements rubies, and thy
gates to be carbuncles, and all thy border to be precious
stones ; '^ and all thy children shall be disciples of Jehovah,
and great shall be the peace of thy children. '^ Through
righteousness shalt thou be established ; be far from ^oppres-
¦> Anxiety, Ges., Hitz., Ew., Del.

either to Gen. viii. 21, or to ix. 11,
and not to a lost portion of the
Jehovistic record, as Kayser con-
jectures.i '° Though tbe mountains . . .]
Mountains are elsewhere the em
blem of the unchangeable, Ps. xxxvi.
6, Ixv. 6. Job, however, knows of
the uncommon phenomenon of a
mountain falling and crumbling
away (Job xiv. 18), and our prophet
has already applied a similar con
tradiction of ordinary experience
to glorify the immutable love of
God (xlix. 15). Stier thinks there
is an allusion to the final destruc
tion of the earth (li. 6) ; but is
not the image more forcible as
explained above ? The striking
parallels, Ps. xlvi. 3, Jer. xxxi. 36,
37 (quoted by Dr. Weir), point in
the same direction. — — IWy cove
nant of peace] ' Peace ' is a very
comprehensive expression (see on
liii. 5), though, when in conjunction
with ' covenant,' its primary mean
ing seems to be 'friendship' ; comp.
Ps. xh. 9, 'the man of my peace'
(Auth. Vers, 'mine own familiar
friend '). The phrase 'my covenant
of peace' occurs again in Num. .xxv.
12 (comp. Mai. ii. 5), Ezek. x.xxiv.
25, xxxvii. 26.  Saith . Je
hovah] A fourth emphatic asser
tion of the Divine origin of the
revelation. "• '^ The glory of the new Jeru
salem. Comp. Tobit xiii. 16, 17,
Rev. x.xi. 18-21.

'^ Thy stones in antimony] A
dark cement would set off the bril
liant stones mentioned directly
afterwards. Antimony (Hebr. puk)
was the black mineral powder with
which the Jewish women painted
the edges of the eyelids. See 2
Kings ix. 30, Jer. iv. 30, i Chron.
xxix. 2 (Q. P. P.), and comp. Qeren-
happiik (i.e., 'horn of eye-paint'),
Job xiii. 14. There is a puydku or
puka mentioned in Assyrian and
Egyptian inscriptions as a product
of the land of Canaan. M. Chabas,
it is true, says it meant, in the
Egyptian text, articles of furniture
made of carved wood ^ ; but there
is no doubt, I believe, of its mean
ing antimony in Assyrian.'
" Border] i.e., either 'domain'
(Del.), or 'outer wall' (Knob.).
'The latter seems more probable,
as we have had the battlements
and the gates mentioned.
'' The spiritual glory of which
these costly buildings are the
symbol.  Disciples of Jehovah]
i.e., prophets in the wider sense
(comp. 1. 4). The same idea as in
Num. xi. 29, Joel ii. 28, 29.
'¦' Jerusalem will then be im
pregnable.  Through right
eousness] i.e., through fidehty to
thy covenant with thy God ; comp.
i. 27.  Shalt tbou be estab
lished] A return to the figure of
building, comp. Prov. xxiv. 3, Num.
xxi. 27 (Weir).  Be far] i.e.,
either 'be far even in thy thoughts,

' Kayser, Das vorexilische Buch der Urgeschichte Israels (Strassburg, 1874), p. 168.
2 Chabas, Etudes sur I'antiguite historigue, p. 274.
» Sayce, Records of tlie Past, v. 42 ; Oppert, Expidition on'Misopotaniie, ii. 349.

CHAP. LIV.]

ISAIAH.

57

sion, for thou neededst not fear, and from ¦= destruction, for it
shall not come nigh thee. '' Behold, should (any) ' stir up
strife,* (it is) not of me, whosoever « stirreth up strife ^ against
thee, shall ^ fall because of' thee. "^ Behold, it is I that
created the smith, who bloweth upon the fire of coals, and
produceth a weapon * for its work ' ; and I that created the
waster to destroy. " No weapon that is formed against thee
shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee
for the judgment shalt thou show to be guilty. This is the
inheritance of the servants of Jehovah, and their righteousness
given by me ; the oracle of Jehovah.
*¦ So virtually, Knobel. — Terror, Ges., Ew., Del., &c.
' So Ew., Kay (as an alt. rend.). — Gather together, A. E., Kimchi, Vitr., Ges.,
Del., Naeg.
B Gathereth together, A. E., &c.
¦^ So Knob., Del., Naeg. — Fall away unto thee, Sept., Vulg., Ges., Hitz., Ew.
¦ As his work, Ew., Weir. — According to his work (or, craft), Vitr., Ges., Hitz.,
Del., Naeg.

comp. xlvi. 12 'ye who are far
from (the thought of Jehovah's)
righteousness ' ; or = ' thou shalt be
far,' the imperative for the future
(see on xxxiii. 20).  Oppression]
This is the sense of the word
'osheq' everywhere else, and also
as I believe, of the feminine form
'dsh'qah (xxxvii. 14, see note), gene
rally quoted for the sense of
' anxiety.' It also suits the parallel
line best.  Destruction] The
well-known sense of m'khittah in
Proverbs (e.g., x. 14) ; see also
Jer. xvii. 17. The ordinary rend.
'terror' does not agree well with
' come to thee.'
'^ Should (any) stir up strife
. ] ' Should any one presume
to molest God's people, he shall
be like a blind traveller, who falls
headlong over an obstacle.' See
crit. note.
'* The secret of Israel's invinci
bility ; all things are the creatures
of Jehovah, and dependent upon
him.  That created the smith]
Similarly Sirach says (xxxviii. i) of
the physician, 'The Lord hath
created him.'  For its work]
viz., destruction. This rend, is
grammatically as good as any
other, and suits the parallel line
best (comp. ' to destroy ').  The
waster] i.e., each of the great con

quering kings, of Assyria, Baby
lonia, Persia, &c. In the same
spirit of unreserved faith, Job says
(xii. 16), ' He that erreth and he
that causeth-to err are Jehovah's.'
" Every tongue . . . shalt
thou show to be guilty] War
is here viewed as a 'judgment of
God ' ; comp. xli. 11 b. I doubt if
I Sam. xiv. 47 is parallel ; we
should probably read, ' he was de
livered' (i.e., was victorious), with
Sept., Ewald, &c. (see Q. P. B.).
 This is tbe inheritance . . .]
' This,' viz., all the blessings which
have been assured to Zion. The
form of this second half of the
verse is evidently designed to close
the prophecy.  The servants of
Jehovah] The members of the
spiritual Israel have now been fully
baptized into the Spirit of their
Head. Each of them is now an
Israel in miniature, and can claim
the promise-laden title of ' Servant
of Jehovah.' (See above, opening
remarks.)  Their righteous
ness] i.e., primarily, as the context
shows, their justification in the eyes
of the world, their success (comp.
xiv. 24, 25, 1. 8, lviii. 8, lxii. I, 2),
though it is also implied that this
outward success is due to Jehovah's
' righteousness.'

58

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LV,

CHAPTER LV.
Contents. — An affectionate invitation to the Messianic blessings
(vv. 1-5) ; an exhortation to put aside all inward obstacles to their enjoy
ment (vv. 6, 7) ; and a renewed confident assurance of the indescribable
glory and felicity which awaits the true Israel (vv. 8-13).
' Ah ! every one that thirsteth — come ye to the waters ; and
he that hath no money ! come ye, buy and eat, yea, come, buy
wine and milk for that which is not money and for that which
is not a price. ^ Why will ye spend money for that which is
not bread, and your earnings for that which cannot satisfy }
Hearken, hearken unto me, and eat ye that which is good,
and let your soul delight itself in fatness. ' Incline your ear,

^ Ah ! every one that thirsteth
. . . ] A cry of pity (see on xvii.
12) wrung from Jehovah by the
indifference of his people to the
promised blessings. Dry as they
are, they are indisposed to come to
the only source from which their
thirst can be quenched. In this
respect they differ from the ' thirsty
one ' of xliv. 3, who opposes no in
ward bar to the relief of his neces
sity. The prophet's invitation is
addressed to all who are conscious
of their need.  Buy wine and
milk] ' Wine and milk ' are not to
be understood merely in a material
sense, as representatives of tem
poral blessings (Ges., Hitz., Knob.);
this is altogether against the con
text, as the following notes will
show. At present it may be enough
to point out the very peculiar word
for ' buy ' (shdbhar), which, alike
by etymology and by usage, can in
strict propriety only be used of
' corn.' Its use here shows that
the food referred to can be called
equally well 'bread' and 'wine and
milk,' i.e., that it belongs to the
supernatural order of things. — It
was this passage which led to the
custom of the Latin churches (but
not the African) of giving wine and
milk to the newly baptized (Jerome,
ad loc). See note on xxv. 6, and
comp. Jer. xxi. 12, Ps. xxxvi. 8,
John vii. 37-39, I Pet. ii. 2, Rev. xxi.

6, xxii. 17.  For that which is
not money . .] To guard against
a literalism similar to that of the
disciples in Matt. xvi. 7. Jehovah
being not merely (as some of the
Jews probably supposed) a mag
nified man, his blessings can only
be obtained for ' that which is not
(i.e., which is different in kind from)
money.' Comp. xxxi. 8, where Je
hovah is called 'one who is not
(i.e., who is specifically different
from) a man.' This 'not-money'
is, as V. 3 instructs us, the hearing
of the inner ear.
^ MTot bread] i.e., even less
satisfying than bread. Amoiig
other oxymora, comp. Deut. xxxii.
21, where Auth. Vers, rightly has,
' that which is not God . . . those
which are not a people,' i.e., which
is (are) conspicuously unworthy of
the name. — —Bat ye] i.e., ye shall
eat.  Delight itself] i.e., luxu
riate ; comp. Ixvi. Ii, Ps. xxxvii. 4,
1 1 (same word), and see on lvii. 4.
^ And X will make an ever
lasting covenant with you] The
new 'covenant' between Jehovah
and Israel is referred to no less
than seven times in 1 1. Isaiah : no
where, expressly at least, in the
rest of the book, and nowhere in
the works of Isaiah's contempo
raries, Amos and Hosea. The idea
of the original covenant, broken by
Israel, and renewed by Jehovah, is

CHAP. LV.]

ISAIAH.

59

and come unto me ; hear, and your soul shall revive : and I
will make an everlasting covenant with you, the loving-kind-

specially characteristic of Jere
miah. In the pre-Jeremian period,
it seems as if the phrase ' covenant
of Jehovah' had been avoided by
the great author-prophets on ac
count of its associations with
heathenism, for the Canaanites
used the phrase largely (comp.
' Baal-b'rith,' Judg. viii. 33, ix. 4 ;
' El-b'rith,' Judg. ix. 46). The oc
currence of the phrase in Isa. xl.-
Ixvi. is certainly difficult to explain
on the assumption that Isaiah was
the author of these chapters. Can
we venture to suppose that Isaiah
foresaw that a time would come
when the phrase ' the covenant of
Jehovah' would lose its original
mythic flavour ? It would seem a
rather forced hypothesis. — ' An
everlasting covenant ' occurs again
in Ixi. 8, and in a different sense in
xxiv. 5 ; also in Jer. xxxii. 40, 1. 5,
Ezek. xvi. 60. It is of course the
'new covenant' of Jer. xxxi. 31-33
that is intended, that ' covenant '
which Jehovah promised to 'put
in Israel's inward parts,' and to
' write it in their hearts.'  The
loving-kindnesses of David] Not
' the mercies of David ' (Auth.
Vers.), for David, representing the
Davidic race, is not a 'stranger
and foreigner,' but a member of
Jehovah's household, his own 'son'
(2 Sam. vii. 14, Ps. ii. 7, Ixxix. 26).
' Of David ' means ' promised to
David ; ' ' the loving-kindnesses of
Jehovah ' is the more natural
phrase, comp. Ixiii. 7, Ps. Ixxxix.
49, cvii. 43, Lam. iii. 22 ('the loving-
kindnesses of David' occurs else
where only in 2 Chron. vi. 42). It
is not necessary to suppose a
zeugma, though a Pauline speech
in the Acts (xiii. 24), in quoting the
passage, inserts the words — not
found in Sept. — 8d>cra> vplv (ra Scria
AauEiS Ta niard) ; the ' covenant '
consists in the 'loving-kindnesses.'
 Of David] In what sense can
Jehovah's ' loving-kindnesses ' be
said to belong to David ? Three

answers may be given : (i) The
most obvious explanation (Ewald,
Delitzsch) is, to understand by
' David ' the founder of the Da
vidic family. The only difficulty
is that the statements of the fol
lowing verse are incongruous with
the character of the historical
David. (2) Not a few interpreters,
both ancient and modern (among
the latter are Rosenmiiller, Stier,
G. F. Oehler, and Dr. Kay) in
terpret the phrase of the Messianic
king, who is mentioned in Jer. xxx.
9, Ezek. xxxiv. 24, 25 (Hos. iii. 5?)
under the name of David. This,
however, seems to be contradicted
(a) by the parallel passage, Ps.
Ixxxix. 49 (which clearly refers to
the 'oath' to the historical David in
2 Sam. vii.), and (b) by the perfect
tenses in v. 4, which (considering
that futures follow in v. 5) ought
not to be interpreted as ' prophetic
perfects.' (3) According to Heng
stenberg (Christology, iii. 346),
David here means the family of
David, ' who, in Ps. xviii., and in
a series of other psalms, speaks
in the name of his whole family.'
Hengstenberg thus admits that the
historical covenant with David is
primarily referred to, but, as the
covenant extended to David's seed,
he maintains that it only attained
complete fulfilment in the Messiah.
Our choice lies, I think, between
this and the first theory. Only, if
we adopt the view that David
means the founder of the Davidic
family, we must assume that it is
not of the historical David that the
prophet is thinking, so mtich as of
an idealized David radiant with the
reflected light and spirituality of
the Messianic age. This assump
tion (which, considering the phe
nomena of the Book of Psalms, we
have a perfect right to make) seems
to be required by the statements
made respecting ' David ' in the
next verse. The attempt of Del.
to apply them literally to the David

6o

ISAIAH.

[chap. lv.

nesses of David — the unfailing ones. * Behold, for a witness
to the peoples I appointed him, a ruler and commander of
the peoples. ^ Behold, people that thou knowest not shalt
thou call, and people that have not known thee shall run
unto thee, because of Jehovah thy God, and for the Holy One
of Israel, inasmuch as he hath glorified thee.
^ Seek ye Jehovah, while he may be found ; call ye upon
preacher of the true religion. That
was the proper work, first of the
personal Servant of Jehovah, and
then through him (liii. ii) of Je
hovah's national Servant, the re
generate Israel (xliii. lo). But
David, and far more Hezekiah and
Josiah, at any rate made a begin
ning, even though at the best it
was a ' day of small things.' And
the peculiarity of II. Isaiah is that
the promises, so imperfectly realised
hitherto, are transferred from the
Messianic king to what we may
call the Messianic people, not in
deed to the people working in its
own strength, but in conjunction
with and in dependence on a per
sonal representative of Jehovah,
who unites in himself the leading
characteristics of king, high priest,
and prophet.' — There seems to be
an allusion to our passage in Rev.
i. 5 (comp. iii. 14), 'from Jesus
Christ the faithful witness' ; Hengst.
compares John xviii. 37, where,
precisely as here, 'witnessing' is
mentioned as the principal function
of Israel's King.  A ruler] Lit.,
'a leader' (ndgid, the same word
as in 2 Sam. vi. 21, Dan. ix. 25).
' People that thou knowest
not . . . ] Almost the same words
are put into the mouth of a per
sonage who embodies a very simi
lar conception to the Servant of
Jehovah, in Ps. xviii. 43 (45 Hebr.).
 Because of Jehovah . . . ]
Repeated almost word for word in
lx. 9.
^ The prophet returns to the
more neutral-tinted present, and
urges his people to make sure that
they are of the true Israel.  ¦

of history is most unsatisfactory.
On the whole, however, I prefer
Hengstenberg's view. There seems
to me to be an evident allusion to
2 Sam. vii. 12-16, where the pro
mises apply equally to David and
to his posterity (ta 13, which inter
rupts the context, is probably a
later insertion). "The same point
of view is still more clearly adopted
in Ps. Ixxxix., of which Koster (ap.
Stier, p. 548) says, ' Fere com-
mentarii instar est ad locum nos
trum — similitudo tanta est, ut pro-
phetam nostrum psalmi hujus
auctorem esse conjicere liceat.' 
The unfailing ones] See Ps.
l.xxxix. 28, ' My loving-kindness '
will I keep for him for ever, and
my • covenant shall be unfailing
(or, faithful) with him ; ' and v. 33,
' Nevertheless my loving-kindness
will I not annul (and take) from
him ; neither will I be untrue to my
faithfulness ; ' and comp. in the
Hebr. 2 Sam. vii. 16. And why
thus faithful, thus unfailing? i.
Because Jehovah's word cannot
be broken (v. 11), and 2. because,
whereas vengeance for sin ends at
the fourth generation, the recom
pence of piety extends to a man's
latest posterity (Ex. xx. 5, 6).
'' For a witness to tbe peoples
I appointed bim] ' I appointed
him ' is a historical perfect ; we
have no right (note the difference
of tense) to regard vv. 4, 5, as 'a
looking forward to the enlarge
ment and completion of the Church
through [the] Christ' (Stier). Of
course, it was not in any high de
gree true of David that he was
'a witness to the peoples,' i.e., a

' Comp. Riehm, Messianic Prophecy (Lond. 1876), pp. 130, 131, who however
rashly denies the personal character of the Servant in the most important passages.

CHAP. LV.]

ISAIAH.

6l

him, while he is near. ' Let the ungodly forsake his way, and
the man of iniquity his thoughts ; and let him return unto
Jehovah, and he will have compassion upon him ; and to
our God, for he will abundantly pardon. * For my thoughts
are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, is
Jehovah's oracle. ^ For (as) the heavens are higher than
the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts. '" For as the rain cometh
down, and the snow from heaven, and thither returneth not,
except it hath watered the earth, and made it bring forth and
sprout, and given seed to the sower, and bread to the eater ;
" so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth ; it
shall not return unto me empty, except it hath accomplished
that which I please, and made to prosper the thing for which
I .sent it. '^ For with joy shall ye go forth, and with peace
shall ye be led, the mountains and the hills shall burst out
before you into a ringing sound, and all the trees of the field
shall clap the hand. '^ Instead of the thorn-bush shall come
'While he may be found] Comp. Obs. rain and snow are treated as
Ps. xxxii. 6. For the ' day of
Jehovah' will be a bitter one for
those who are outwardly or in
wardly his foes (Ixv. 6, 7).  Call
ye upon bim] First for pardon,
and then for a share in the pro
mises ; comp. Jer. xxix. 12-14.
' His way] The ' way' and the
' thoughts,' or purposes, of the un
godly, mean the polytheism and
immorality which marked a large
section of the Jewish exiles. Such
' ways ' and ' thoughts ' tend only to
destruction, but those of Jehovah
(as vv. 8, 9 suggest) to a blessed
ness passing the finite understand
ing (comp. Ps. xxxvi. 5, 6). ' For I
know the thoughts which I have to
wards you, saith Jehovah, thoughts
of peace, and not of evil, to give
you a future and a hope' (Jer. xxix.
II). '" But can such a high ideal as
Jehovah's be realised ? Surely. For
God's purposes whether for inani
mate nature or for man fulfil them
selves. The new figure is suggested
by ' the heavens ' in v. 9.  Thi
ther returneth not] i.e., as vapour
(Gen. ii. 6, Job xxxvi. 27 Del.).

God's angels (similarly Ps. cxlviii.
8, civ. 4), and so Jehovah's ' word '
mv. II (see on ix. 8).
" It shall not . . . ] A mixture
of two statements — 'it shall not
return empty,' and 'it shall not
return till it has done its work.'
'*•'* For] is explanatory ( = 'in
fact ').  Shall ye go forth . . . ]
The passage is generally taken as
a description of the Exodus from
Babylon. But there is no reason
for so limiting the meaning, and the
analogy of chap, xxxv., xl. 11, and
xH. 18, points in another direction.
It is the glorious condition of Israel
after the Return which is here de
scribed (see on chap, xxxv.) The
change is compared to the transi
tion from the wilderness (i.e., the
misery of the Exile) with its mo
notonous dwarf-shrubs to a park of
beautiful trees (comp. xh. 18, 19),
in the midst of which Israel is to
walk ' in solemn troops and sweet
societies ' (as in xxxv. g). Who
the leaders are to be, is not stated.
Perhaps the priests, or perhaps Je
hovah's angels (Ps. xci. 11).
'^ This sympathy of nature

62 ISAIAH. [CHAP. LVI.
up the fir-tree, and instead of the nettle shall come up the
myrtle-tree ; and it shall be unto Jehovah for a monument,
for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off.
(comp. xxxv. I, 2. xliv. 23) is no sign : all poetical figures, like
mere poetical figure, for the prophet Virgil's ' Ipsi laetitii voces ad sidera
continues, And It shall be unto jactant Intonsi montes,' are pre-
Jehovah . for an everlasting sentiments of the Messianic reality.

CHAPTER LVI.

Vv. 1-8. These eight verses form a prophecy in themselves, directed
against the Jewish pride of race. They are primarily addressed to cer
tain foreign converts and (probably) Israelitish eunuchs, who are warmly
commended for their observance of the Sabbath, and promised an
appropriate reward. The prophecy stands out by its practical tone ; as
a rule, II. Isaiah confines itself to correcting the general tone and spirit of
the Jews. The writer of this section presupposes the circumstances of a
period long subsequent to the age of Hezekiah. The Sabbath was not
indeed (as some have supposed) a late adoption from Babylonia, but it
certainly did become much more strictly observed in the Babylonian and
Persian periods — comp. Jer. xvii. 19-27 (with Grafs note), Ezek. xx.
1 1-2 1, xxii. 8, 26, Neh. xiii. 15-22, and contrast the narrative in 2 Kings
xi. 1-16, with that in i Mace. ii. 32-38. This growing strictness evidently
marks a fresh stage in the religious history of the Israelites. As the
sense of the value of prayer increased, it was natural that the Sabbath
should rise in the estimation of the pious, and that the highest title they
could give to the temple should be ' the house of prayer.' The latter
phrase is unique, and reminds us of the later proseiichai, which existed
wherever Jews were to be found in the Roman empire.
' Thus saith Jehovah, keep the law, and practise righteous
ness ; for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness
^ Keep tbe law] ' The law,' i.e.,  My salvation . . . my right-
the objective rule of life, the law of eousness] Comp. li. 5. ' This pas-
Jehovah (as in xiii. I b). The other sage makes it quite evident that
possible rendering, 'justice,' seems "righteousness" in connection with
unsuitable here, as the moral duties " salvation " still retains its proper
specified in v. 2 have a much wider force of righteousness. God's sal-
range than mere 'justice,' and in vation is righteous, not indiscrimi-
fact cover both the tables of the nate. And the grounds on which
Decalogue. The verb, too, with he distinguishes His people from
which the noun is here joined His enemies are not external, but
(shimrU mishpdt) is usually fol- internal. It is the Israel within
lowed, as Dr. Weir remarks, by Israel, the spiritual circumcision,
' statutes,' ' testimony,' ' covenant,' the " holy seed," that He acknow-
&c.  Righteousness] i.e., objec- ledges, vindicates, rescues, glorifies
lively, whatever God commands. . " There is no peace to the

CHAP. LVI.]

ISAIAH.

to become manifest. ^ Happy the mortal who practises this,
and the son of man who taketh hold thereon ; who keepeth
the Sabbath so as not to pollute it, and keepeth his hand,
that it do no evil ! ' And let not the foreigner, who hath
joined himself to Jehovah, speak, saying. Surely Jehovah will
separate me from his people ; and let not the eunuch say.

ungodly." ' (Dr. Weir.) See also
note on xli. 2. Sept. here has to
fXfds fiov.  To become mani
fest] God's gifts are 'reserved
in heaven ' till at the fit moment
the veil of partition is rent in twain.
The same verb as in Uii. i. 
This . . . thereon] i.e., ' the law,'
and ' righteousness,' a further ex
planation of which follows.  Tbe
Sabbath] The Sabbath is the re
presentative of the duties of 'the
first table' (as in Ezek. xx. 11-21).
Contrary to etymology (see Del.'s
note), and contrary to popular usage
(who does not remember Heine's
Prinzessin Sabbath ?), the prophet
treats ' Sabbath ' as if it were of
the masc. gender.  Keepeth bis
band . . . ] A negative description,
suggested by the parallelism of the
Sabbath-observance. It reminds
us of xxxiii. 1 5, only that there a
positive description precedes, which
has here to be supplied mentally.
* The prophet now devotes him
self to remove a misunderstanding.
He insists that the Beatitude of the
preceding verse is universally appli
cable to those who keep God's com
mandments.  And let not the
foreigner . . . ] The anxiety of
these proselytes seems rather un
reasonable, if we remember only
the moderation of the law in Deut.
xxiii. 4-7. It becomes less so, if
we take into consideration the se
vere spirit of the restored exiles
(comp. Neh. xiii.), which doubtless
began to show itself during the
Captivity. The foreigners seem
to have apprehended (such is the
point of view at which the prophet
places himself) that in consequence
of this severity the Deuteronomic

law would be so altered as to ex
clude many who were formerly ad
missible into the community. With
the glories of the Messianic age in
prospect, it must have been miser
able indeed for these earnest con
verts to feel themselves in danger
of exclusion.  And let not tha
eunuch say . . . ] The complaint
of the eunuch is different from that
of the proselyte ; it is that he is ' a
dry tree,' i.e., that he is without that
hope of a quasi-immortality in off
spring, which had, it would seem,
not yet given way to the brighter
hope of personal continuance.
Apparently he takes his exclusion
from the religious community as a
matter of course ; the law in Deut.
xxiii. 2 was clear, and there seemed
no probability of its being miti
gated. But an answer is vouchsafed
to his silent as well as to his spoken
complaint. (I infer from the omis
sion of the clause, found in v. 3,
respecting voluntary adhesion to
Jehovah that the prophet alludes
to Israelitish eunuchs, made such
against their will by heathen tyrants
— ' eunuchs were generally foreign
ers,' ' as Dr. Weir remarks.) The
case of the eunuchs is dealt ^\'ith
first. The decision is : i. that they
shall be admitted to religious com
munion, and 2. that, as a compen
sation for their childlessness, they
shall receive an extraordinary
trophy and monument in the
temple itself What sort of dis
tinction is intended by this? Some
(e.g., Knobel) suppose that it is a
material record. We might think
either of a memorial column, or of
a tablet such as in very ancient
synagogues commemorated the

' Comp. xxxix. 7, Jer. xxxviii. 7, Acts viii. 27 (Dr. Weir thinks the Ethiopian
eunuch in the last passage may have been a Jew ; comp. Acts xi. 20).

64

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LVI.

Behold, I am a dry tree. '' For thus saith Jehovah of the
eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, and choose the things which
please me, and take hold on my covenant, — ^ I give unto
them in my house and within my walls a trophy and a monu
ment better than sons and daughters, I will give to each an
everlasting monument, which shall not be cut off. * And as
for the foreigners that have joined themselves unto Jehovah,
to minister unto him, and to love the name of Jehovah, be
coming his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath so
as not to pollute it, and taketh hold on my covenant : ^ I will
bring them to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in
my house of prayer ; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices
shall be acceptable upon mine altar ; for my house shall be
minister unto bim] Hitz. and
Knobel think servile ministrations
are referred to, such as were per
formed by the Nethinim slaves
(comp. Ezra ii. 43). Usage, how
ever, confines the verb to honour
able functions, especially those of
the priests and Levites ; comp.
Ixi. 6. Dr. Weir appositely refers
to Ixvi. 21, where the addition of
some of the Gentiles to the number
of the priests is spoken of.  His
servants] A lower term than
'ministers,' but joyfully accepted
by the proselytes out of 'love' to
the ' name of Jehovah.'
' make them joyful] A hint
perhaps of the feast described in
xxv. 6.  Xn my bouse of prayer]
Sacrifices continue, but prayer takes
the precedence of them as the dis
tinctive purpose of the temple.
Parallel passage, i Kings viii. 29,
comp. 43, 60.
^ The oracle of the ]Lord, Je
hovah] It is not common to
place such a phrase at the be
ginning of a sentence ; see, how
ever, i. 24, Ps. ex. I, Zech xii. i,
where this or an almost identical
expression is used as an introduc
tion. The combination 'the Lord
(Hebr. Adonai) Jehovah' prepares
us to expect some great and new
revelation. The addition of Gen
tile members to the community of

munificence of individuals.' But
there is a swing about the passage
which rather commends tUe view
that the memorial is a spiritual one
(as in Rev. iii. 12). The prophet's
real meaning is probably closely
analogous to that of another evan
gelical passage (Matt. xxvi. 13),
' Wheresoever this gospel shall be
preached in the whole world, there
shall also this, that this woman hath
done, be told for a memorial of her.'
^ Take bold on my covenant]
Whether circumcision or Sabbath-
observance is the outward sign of
this 'taking hold,' cannot be ab
solutely determined. Here, as in
Ezek. XX. 12, the Sabbath seems to
have stepped into the place of cir
cumcision ; yet in lii. i Ezek.
xliv. 9, circumcision is again re
ferred to with honour.  An ever
lasting monument . . ] Closely
parallel to xiv. i^b.
^ And as for the foreigners]
The proselytes too shall not be left
outside in heathendom ; the joy of
the Shekinah shall be theirs. Comp.
I Kings viii. 41-43, where Solomon
prays that God would ' do accord
ing to all that the stranger calleth
to thee for,' and Ps. cxxxv. 19, 20
(where, after the house of Israel, of
Aaron, and of Levi, ' those that fear
Jehovah' — i.e., the proselytes — are
called upon to bless him).  To

' See Low's Beitrdge ziir jiidischen Altcrthumshnide (Leipz. 1870, 71, i. 28

CHAP. LVI. 9-LVII.] ISAIAH. 65
called a house of prayer for all the peoples. ' The oracle of
the Lord, Jehovah, who gathereth the outcasts of Israel : Yet
more will I gather unto him, besides his own gathered ones.
the true Israel is, however, though the preceding verses are the first-
a great, not by any means a new fruits — 'other sheep which are not of
announcement (see xliv. 5., lv. 5). this flock' (John x. 16). Del. com-
This, along with other peculiarities, pares Ps. xlvii. 9 (10), which, if the
has to be taken into consideration text-reading be correct, is even
in the discussion of the unity of strikingly parallel. The reading of
chaps, xl.-lxvi.  'Wbo gathereth Sept. and Pesh. (' with the people '),
the outcasts of Israel] The phra- however, strikes me as intrinsically
seology reminds us of xi. 12. Comp. more probable; in this case the
also xlix. 5, 6.  Yet more will I passage should be compared with
gather . . . ] Those who are to be Isa. xix. 24.  TTnto bim] viz., unto
gathered are evidently Gentiles, of Israel.
whom the proselytes mentioned in

CHAPTER LVL 9— LVII.

A SUDDEN change in the style warns us that we are about to enter on a
new prophecy, complete in itself, and with no connection (at any rate in
the mind of the original writer of lvi. 9 &c.) with the preceding dis
course. Hengstenberg,' indeed, has tried to evolve a connection (' gather
ing' — see lvi. 8 — must, he remarks, be preceded by 'scattering'), but few
writers will regard his attempt as satisfactory. ' It is absolutely in
credible,' in the opinion of Bleek, ' that the prophet, after the promises
that no evil of any kind should again hurt the people (ch. lv.), that the
time of salvation was quite near, in which even the foreigners among the
people should partake (ch. lvi. i), should now suddenly summon up
foreign nations to devour his people.'
The new prophecy falls into two parts. In the first half (lvi. 9-lvii. 2)
the writer chastises the neglect of duty for profane and extravagant
luxury on the part of Israel's spiritual 'shepherds,' while no one observes
how the righteous are one by one gathered in from a generation fast
ripening for a Divine judgment. In the second half (lvii. 3-21) he turns
to the mass of the people, who mock at the few servants of Jehovah in
their midst. He draws a vivid and appalling sketch of the sombre and
licentious idolatry into which they and their fathers, i\it pre-Exile Israel
ites, have fallen : — on the state of religion among the exiles in Babylon
he preserves a deep silence. At 7/. 1 1 a change in the prophet's tone is
observable. In the name of Jehovah, he remonstrates with his people,
and even partly excuses it. He promises a Divine interposition in its
behalf; and then it will be seen whether the idols can deliver in the
judgment which will overtake all but true believers. The prophecy closes
with that honied rhetoric of which only Hosea and the writer of II. Isaiah
possess the secret. ' Christology of the Old Testament, ii. 176.
VOL. II. F

66 ISAIAH. [CHAP. LVI.
According to Ewald' and Bleek' the whole of this discourse,down to
lvii. II a, is a quotation from an older prophet of the time of Manasseh, or
soon after. The strikingly Palestinian character of the scenery in lvii.
5, 6, the presumed reference to persecution in lvii. i,and the correspond
ence of the sins imputed to the people with pre-Exile circumstances, give
a strong plausibility to this hypothesis. Even Luzzatto " (who ascribes
all the rest of the book to Isaiah) considers the author of this section to
have lived during the reign of Manasseh — vv. i, 2 he considers to be a
funeral song in memory of Isaiah, who, according to the legend, was
sawn asunder by order of Manasseh.
In my former work (/. C. A., p. 201) I attempted to diminish the force
of Ewald's reasoning, and I may now add (i) that it seems to me rather
doubtful (see below) whether lvii. i refers to a violent death by persecu
tion, (2) that the persecution of Manasseh is not directly affirmed in
the Old Testament — it is an inference from a combination of passages,
(3) that, even granting its historical reality, Manasseh's is not the only
persecution which might be alluded to — Gesenius refers to the narratives
of Daniel and his three friends (Dan. iii. vi.). But it does not fall within
the scope of this work to decide questions relative to the higher criticism ;
and I merely mention these conjectures because they embody impressions
which have been felt by most students of Isaiah, whatever be their
attitude towards the tradition of the Synagogue. The style of the former
part of the prophecy by its ' harshness and lapidary brevity ' reminds
Delitzsch of that other most peculiar and isolated passage, lii. 13-hii. It
is doubly remarkable following upon the facile oratory of chaps lv. lvi.
1-8, and not less surprising is the sudden change in the latter part to
rhythmic simplicity and ease.
^ All ye wild beasts of the field, come to devour ; all ye
wild beasts in the forest ! " His watchmen are blind, they
are all of them undiscerning ; they are all of them dumb
^ AU ye- wild beasts] ' My way of expressing that Israel, ut-
flock became food for , every wild terly bereft of his natural defenders,
beast of the field, because there lies at the mercy of the great hea-
was no shepherd ' (Ezek. xxxiv. 8, then empire (Assyria or Babylo-
comp. xxxix. 4). ' Thy prophets, O nia).
Israel, are become like the foxes '" His watchmen are blind
in the deserts' (Ezek. xiii. 4). A . . '. ] i.e., the leaders of the people
closer verbal parallel is Jer. xii. 9 generally, but especially the pro-
(comp. V. 7) : 'Assemble ye all the phets (Ezek. iii. 17, comp. Isa. xxi.
wild beasts of the field; bring them 11 — different word), who are com-
hither to devour.' Comp., too, the pared to ' dumb dogs,' as opposed
imitation in Rev. xix. 17, 18. — The to the faithful shepherd's dogs (Job
'wild beasts' are evidently the xxx. i). We must suppose that the
enemy, and Israel is the flock. prophets referred to were no better
The prophet adopts the strongest than the ancient soothsayers, who
' Die Propheten, iii. 102, 103 ; comp. Ewald's account of the persecution of Ma
nasseh in History of Israel, iv. 211, 212.
2 Introduction to the Old Xeslamenf, ii. 48.
^ II prof eta Isaia (Padova, 1867), p. ^'j'^.

CHAP. LVII.]

ISAIAH.

67

dogs, they cannot bark, " raving, lying down," loving to slum
ber. " But the dogs are greedy, they know not how to be
satisfied, and these, ^ the pastors,'' know not understanding ;
they all of them turn their own way, each after his gain, with
out exception. "^ ' Come ye, let me fetch wine, and let us
carouse with strong drink ; and to-morrow shall be as this
day, beyond all measure great'
LVII. ' The righteous perisheth, and no man taketh it to
heart, and pious men are gathered, none considering that " be-
» Seers that lie down, some MSS., Symmachus, Vulg. (?), Kohut (another reading).
^ Shepherds, Hebr. text.
" Before, Del. — Out of the way of, Kay.

gave oracles respecting the difficul
ties of every-day life, but were silent
on the great moral questions. Be
sides their ' dumbness,' three other
points are mentioned to the dis
credit of the writer's fellow-' watch
men': — I, they are not 'seers'
(khozirri), but ' ravers ' or ' dream
ers ' (hozTm) — they depend on a
mere natural, and sometimes fal
lacious, faculty (Jer. xxiii. 25-28);
2, they keep up the old custom, re
jected by the higher prophets as an
abuse, of taking fees. Num. xxii. 7,
I Sam. ix. 7, Neh. vi. 12, comp.
Mic. iii. 3, Ezek. xiii. 19, xxii. 25 ;
and, 3, they spend their gains in
revelry, comp. xxviii. 7, Mic. ii. 11.
— Obs., no inference can be safely
drawn from this passage as to the
date of the prophecy, since prophets
and elders continued to exist during
the Exile, see Jer. xxix., Ezek. viii.
I, xiv. I, XX. I, xxxiii. 1-9.
" Tbese, the pastors] Or,
' these, pastors as they are.' Some,
rendering ' shepherds,' think we
have here a second figure ; but
this would come in limpingly after
the highly developed simile of the
dogs. It is better to render 'pas
tors,' and regard it as an official
title of the rulers of the people
(comp. Assyrian" t i'-u ' shepherd,'
' prince').  -Without exception]
On the rend., see De Dieu on Ezek.
xxxiii. 2. Same idiom in Gen.
xi.x. 4.
" Come ye ... ] A speech of
one of the self-indulgent ' pastors,'

who invites his fellows to a two
days' banquet. Comp. v. 11, 12,
and especially xxviii. i, 3, 7, which,
by the similarity of its details,
somewhat confirms the theory of
Ewald and Bleek.
' Tbe righteous perisheth] A
concise and vigorous expression,
fitted to stimulate thought. That
the bad pastors should live long
and see good days, while the
righteous (especially among the
pastors or prophets) are prema
turely cut off, is a contradiction
peculiarly great from the Old
Testament point of view (comp.
Eccles. vii. 1 5). ' The righteous,'
in the singular, indicates the few
ness and isolation of these Abdiels.
' Perisheth ' — whether by natural
or by violent means, the word does
not expressly state. ' To perish '
(Hebr. 'dbhadli) properly means ' to
lose oneself,' in other words, ' to
pass out of sight ' ; every one re
members Ps. cxix. 176, where 'lost'
= Hebr. 'obhedh.' The same vague
expression is used in the parallel
passage, Mic. vii. 2 (comp. Ps. xii.
l).  Pious men] Lit., 'men of
piety.' The Hebr. word here ren
dered ' piety' {khisedh) includes both
love to God and love to man ; the
context must decide whether ' piety'
or ' mercy ' is the better English
equivalent. Here the parallel word
'the righteous' is decisive, in spite
of the fact (which warns us against
a mechanical use of the Concord
ance) that in the only other place

68

ISAIAH.

"[chap. lvii.

cause of the evil the righteous is gathered. ^ He entereth
into Peace ; they rest upon their beds, whosoever hath walked
straight before him. ^ But as for you, -approach hither, ye

where the precise Hebrew phrase
occurs (Prov. xi. 17, in the singular)
it means, not ' the pious,' but ' the
merciful.'  Are gathered] Again
a vox media, which includes the
notions of taking away (comp. xvi.
10) and gathering in (as Jacob
' was gathered to his kinsmen,' Gen.
xlix. 33). It is difficult to decide
which of these two notions is pre
dominant here. A comparison of
liii. 8 seems to suggest the former ;
it is natural that the ' servants of
Jehovah' (liv. 17) should suffer with
the Servant, the members with the
Head. There might conceivably
be an allusion to a religious perse
cution, such as that of Manasseh
(see introduction, above). But the
context seems to me to favour the
notion of ' gathering in.' How
could the ungodly, if the deaths of
the righteous were owing to them,
be expected to ' consider ' the
Divine purpose in permitting their
evil deeds ? and does not the ten
der, elegiac tone of v. 2 suit a
natural better than a violent death ?
 Hone considering that] The
form of expression reminds us of
liii. 8. In both passages, the rend.
' for ' seems awkward (see, however,
Naeg.).  Because of the evil]
This premature removal of the
righteous seemed but an ill reward
for such faithful service ; and yet
it was dictated by mercy — as well
towards the godly as towards the
wicked. It delivered the former ( i )
from the sights of horror which
'vexed' and might have polluted
their ' righteous souls,' comp. Wisd.
iv. 14, Dante, Purgat. xiv. in-113,
and (2) from sharing in the retribu
tive calamities impending over the
nation (comp. Gen. xv. 15, 2 Kings
xxii. 20). It warned the latter that
their wickedness was great to be so
punished (for even a few righteous

men can save a city. Gen. xviii. 23-
32), and that a still more severe
punishment was at the door. (Thus
' evil ' has a double meaning). — For
the Hebr. idiom, comp. x. 27, Jer.
xiii. 17, h. 64.'
^ The prophet continues in a
lyric strain. He entereth into
Peace] The grave, or rather the
Underworld, is here styled Peace,
as elsewhere Stillness (Ps. xciv. 17,
cxv. 17). Comp. Job iii. 17. We
might also render ' into a state of
peace' (comp. on xiv. 16). There
is a contrast to the awful troubles
which the survivors have to en
counter (Hengst.).  ITpon their
beds] i.e., primarily their graves ;
comp. the Phoenician inscription
of King Eshmunazar (ed. Schlott-
mann, iv. i &c.), 'the lid of this bed'
(i.e., sarcophagus) ; the word is the
same as here. See also Job xvii.
13 (a different word for bed), and
especially Ezek. xxxii. 25. The
phraseology pf the latter passage
implies a popular notion of a dup
licate grave in the Underworld,
corresponding to the double quasi-
consciousness of the dead body
and the soul or shade (respecting
this see note on Lxvi. 24). It
may be the ' beds ' in the Under
world to which the prophet refers,
and which (whatever the popular
belief was) he, at any rate, would
hardly make contingent on the
possession by these righteous con
fessors of separate graves. Such
an honour was not always granted
to faithful prophets (Jer. xxvi. 23).
 straight before bim] A
phrase quite in the style of the
Book of Proverbs (comp. Prov. iv.
25-27). ^ Approach hither] viz., to hear
your sentence.  Ye sons of a
sorceress . . . ] i.e., having an in
nate inchnation (comp. Ps. \\. 5) to

> Comp. Dr. Land's discussion of this clause in Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1867,
p. 203. To support the Isaianic authorship of this chapter Dr. Rutgers had rendered
' before the calamity ' ; against this, Dr. Land refers to the above-mentioned passages.

chap, lvii.]

ISAIAH.

69

sons of a sorceress ! seed ^ of an adulterer, and thou who
(thyself) committest whoredom."* ** Of whom do ye make
sport? Against whom do ye draw a wide mouth, do ye
make a long tongue .-' Are ye not children of rebellion, a
seed of falsehood ? ' Ye who inflame yourselves "* by the
terebinths,^ under every green tree ; who slay the children
in the torrent- valleys under the rents of the crags ! ^ In the
smooth stones of the valley are thy portion ; they, they are
^ So Piscator, Cocceius, Stier, Hahn, — . . . and of her who committeth whoredom,
Vulg. and most moderns. — Of an adulteress and a harlot, Klostermann (emendation).
• With gods, Sept., Pesh , Targ., Vulg., Vitr., Stier.

break the mystic marriage-tie be
tween Jehovah and his people.
Comp. Ezek. xvi. 44, 45.  And
thou who (thyself) . . . ] The
construction is abruptly changed,
with a striking effect. That innate
tendency of thine has passed into
act ; comp. Matt. xii. 39, xvi. 4,
'adulterous generation.' "The rend.
of Vulg. &c. is awkward ; Kloster-
mann's correction is plausible, but
unnecessary. ^ Of whom do ye make sport?
. . . ] 'Who are they that ye
find a luxurious pleasure in tor
menting ? Men of whom " the
world is not worthy" ! Judge if
ye are not yourselves fitter objects
of scorn.' ' Make sport ' is an un
exampled rendering (see lv. 2, lviii.
14, lxvi. 11), but is required by the
context. * TTe who inflame yourselves
. . . ] Referring to the orgiastic
cults in the sacred groves of Pales
tinian heathenism ' (i. 29, Ezek. vi.
13). We must not, however, press
the details of the description which
follows too far; there is an 'adultery'
of the heart (see on i. 21).  Tere
binths] Comp. Hos. iv. 13, '(They
sacrifice) under oaks and poplars
and terebinths, because the shade
thereof is good.' For the rend.
see Notes and Criticisms, p. 38.
— — TJnder every green tree]

A common formula in the later
books (see i Kings xiv. 23, 2 Kings
xvi. 4, xvii. 10, Jer. ii. 20, iii. 6, 13,
Ezek. vi. 13), also once in the dis
puted Book of Deuteronomy (xii.
2).  'Who slay tbe children]
' Slay ' here = ' sacrifice,' as Ezek.
xvi. 21 (in a similar context). 
In the torrent-valleys] The
dry channels of winter-torrents
(wddys), especially that of Hinnom,
were the scenes of the child-sacri
fices to the 'devouring' Fire-god,
Moloch.^ The wildness of the land
scape perhaps suited such stern
acts, and the action of the torrents
produced an abundance of large
rounded stones (such as are so often
in Ezekiel contemptuously called
gillultm, 'lumps,' i.e. shapeless
masses) for Moloch's altars. — Con
servative critics have with'much rea
son pointed out that the topographi
cal references in this verse suggest
that the prophecy was written in
Palestine rather than in Babylonia.
' I need scarcely say,' observes Dr,
Payne Smith, ' that as there are no
torrents, but only canals, in the flat
alluvial soil of Babylonia, so there
are no torrent-beds there, but that
these form a common feature of
the landscape in Palestine and all
mountainous countries.' ^ See, how
ever, note on xli. 19.
° Tbe smooth stones] The

' See Graf von Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, Heft II. ,
Abhandlung 2.
2 On these child-sacrifices, see Kalisch's Leviticus, i. 365-7.
' Payne Smith, Prophecy a Preparation fo> Christ, p. 319 ; comp. Rutgers, D(
echtheid, enz. p, 90.

76

ISAIAH.

[chap, lvii.

thy lot ; even to them hast thou poured out driiik-offerings,
offered meal- offerings. Should I quiet myself in spite of these

things .'

' Upon a mountain lofty and raised up hast thou placed
thy bed : even thither hast thou gone up to offer sacrifice.
*And behind the door and the post hast thou placed thy
memorial, for apart from me hast thou uncovered, and gone

large smooth stones referred to
above were the fetishes of the pri
mitive Semitic races, and anointed
with oil, according to a widely-
spread custom (comp. Xidoi Xmapoi
lapides uncti, lubricati). It was
such a stone which Jacob took
for a pillow, and afterwards conse
crated by pouring oil upon it (Gen.
xxviii. II, 1 8). 'The early Semites
and reactionary, idolatrous Israel
ites called such stones Bethels (fiai-
TvKoi, BaiTv'Xia, is the Phoenician
form of Bethel with a Greek termi
nation), i.e., houses of El (the early
Semitic -word for God) ; the ' Jeho-
vist' in Gen. /. c. implies that Jacob
transferred the name from the
stone to the place where the Divine
being appeared to him. In spite
of the efforts of the ' Jehovist,' who
desired to convert these ancient
fetishes into memorials of patri
archal history (comp. Gen. xxxi.
45-52), the old heathenish use of
them seems to have continued,
especially in secluded places (comp.
Kuenen's fact-full appendix. Re
union of Israel, i. 390-395). 
Thy portion] Here we begin to
meet with the 2nd pers. fem., Israel
being regarded as the bride of her
God, but at the same time as
having a right of property over
him (it is the idea of the 'covenant'
under another form). With deep
irony, the speaker unfolds how
Israel has exchanged her property
in the Almighty for sinooth, po
lished blocks of stone. ' Portion,'
see Jer. .x. 16, Ps. xvi. 5, lxxiii.
26, cxix. 57, c.xlii. 5 (in all these
passages the term is used of Jeho

vah), and comp. Deut. xxix. 26 (25),
' gods whom they had not known,
and whom he had not apportioned
unto them.'  Hast thou poured
out . . ] Here begins a survey of
Jewish idolatry before the Exile.
 Should X quiet myself ....']
It is an oijtbreak of Jehovah's
grieved love or 'jealousy.' Comp.
Jer. V. 2 (similar phrase in similar
context). ' The heights as well as the
depths are profaned by debasing
rites : the country is ' wholly given
to idolatr)'.' Beware of taking the
description too literally. It is not _
so much the licentious character of
some of the heathen rites which is
referred to, as the debased moral
and spiritual condition connected -
with idolatry.  irpon a moun
tain] Shrines were erected by
preference upon hills ; comp. 2
Kings xvi. 4, Hos. iv. 13, Jer. ii.
20, Ezek. vi. 13. The extent of the
ancient hill-religion may be esti
mated by the number of mazdrs
or tomb-houses, which surmount
almost every conspicuous hill in
Palestine. They are generally
shaded by a great tree, which,
like the mazdr itself, is held sacred ;
' rags and threads hang from its
branches as votive offerings, and
the name of a saint or prophet is
often connected with the spot.' '
 Thy bed] Comp. Jer. iii. 2,
Ezek. xvi., xxiii.
* And behind tbe door . . . tby
memorial] The expressions are
dark. Most recent commentators
(except Ewald) take 'memorial' to
be the formula 'Jehovah is our

' Conder, Quarterly Statements of Palestine Exploration Fund, 1875, p. 39;
neau, La Palestine iiiconnuc (Paris, 1876), pp. 49-52.

Gan-

chap, lvii.]

ISAIAH.

71

up ; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and obtained a contract from
them (i") ; thou hast loved their bed ; ^ thou hast beheld the
phallus.* ^And thou hast travelled to the king with oil, and
hast multiplied thy perfumes, and hast sent thy messengers
afar off, and humbled thyself even to Sheol. '"With the
length of thy journey thou hast wearied thyself ; yet thou hast
not said, It is without result : thou didst get renewal of thy
' (Wherever) thou hast beheld an (idolatrous) monument, Vitr. — Thou hast chosen
a place, Pesh., Targ., Kimchi, Lowth, Ges.

God, Jehovah is one,' which, ac
cording to Deut. vi. 9, xi. 20, was to
be written on the posts of the house
and on the gates ; comp. the use of
'memorial' in Hos. xii. 5. Putting
this ' memorial ' behind the door is
thought to have been a sign of
contempt. But surely this is very
doubtful : the new position of this
object would make it all the more
conspicuous to the inmates of the
house. Besides, is it quite certain
that the direction in Deuteronomy
was so carefully carried out, or even
perhaps intended to be literally
carried out? (I waive questions
of date.) It is safer to return to
the view of the Targum and of
Jerome, viz., that ' memorial ' = idol
(or rather idolatrous symbol— the
phallus). So too Vitr., Lowth,
Ewald, Gratz (comparing the Hebr.
of Ezek. xvi. 17.  Hast beheld
the phallus] i.e., 'didst look at it
with pleasure' (see Del.'s note).
The first alt. rend, will bear the
same meaning (comp. ' thy memo
rial ' in the first verse-half).
^ And tbou hast travelled to
tbe king] There is the same point
in dispute as in viii. 21, xxx. 23,
viz., whether 'king' designates the
heavenly or the earthly ruler. Dr.
Payne Smith (Bampton Lectures
for 1869, p. 323) would settle the
question by reading Pmdlek, 'to
Molech (or Moloch),' but the
phrase 'travelling to Molech' has
no parallel, and a comparison of v.
II, where it is certainly the fear of

man which is rebuked, and of Ezek.
xxiii. 40, where we read of a mes
senger being sent for men from
afar, favours the view that ' king '
here means king of Assyria. It is ¦
that coquetting with heathen powers
which is here, as so often elsewhere,
denounced.  vrith oil] So Hos.
xii. I (2).  Tby messengers afar
off] Comp. the negotiations with
Egypt denounced by Isaiah and
Hosea, the Assyrian alliance of
Ahaz, and the coalition formed by
Azariah against Tiglath-Pileser.'
 Kast bumbled thyself even
to Sheol] ' No servility was too
great for thee.' She61 is here used
metaphorically, as in vii. 11 b (see
note). A reference to the infernal
deities (Ew.) seems less appro
priate. '° 'With the length of tby Jour
ney] i.e., not merely ' with the long
journey to Assyria,' but ' with thy
ceaseless quest for help and protec
tion,' including of course embassies
to foreign kings, but also every
other specimen of untheocratic
policy.  It is without result]
Lit., 'it is despferate.' Sept. traia-o-
fiai. The word is the same as in
Jer. ii. 25, xviii. 12, but in a dif
ferent context.  Renewal of thy
strength] Vulg., 'vitam mantis
tuas.' The Hebr. idiom is similar
to that in Gen. xviii. 10, 14, 'when
this season liveth (again),' i.e., a
year hence.  Tbou feltest not
weak] Dathe (ap. Stier), ' non sen-
tis morbum tuum.' So Jer. v. 3,

' See Smith, Assyrian Eponym Canon, pp. 117-8, Schrader, K. A. T., pp. 114-120,
and especially the same writer's Keilinschriftcn und Geschichtsforschung (Giessen,
1878), pp. 395-421.

72

ISAIAH.

[chap. LVIL

strength, therefore thou feltest not weak. " And at whom hast
thou been alarmed so as to fear, that thou hast played the
traitor, and me has not remembered, neither hast taken it to
thy heart ? Surely I have been silent, and ^ that for long,«
and therefore thou fearest not me. '^ T will make known
'' my righteousness, and as for thy works — they cannot profit
e Hiding myself, Sept., Vulg., Lowth (omitting one letter, and pointing differently).
>> So Pesh., Lowth, Weir.— Thy, Hebr. text.

' Thou hast smitten them, and they
did not feel weak.'
" And at ^vhom bast tbou been
alarmed . . . ] The verse is not
ironical, as De Dieu and others
(misled by the te.xt-readingof w. 12a),
but contains a kindly remonstrance
(comp. li. 12, 13). 'Who is there
so strong and so terrible as to jus
tify thee in thy infidelity towards
Jehovah? No one. But is there
no excuse for the behaviour of the
Jews? There is, viz., Jehovah's
long "silence" (comp. xiii. 14), the
cessation of his interpositions in
behalf of his people.' This seems
to me the easiest way to explain the
connection, which is certainly rather
loose, between the two halves of
the verse. Jehovah admits,' in
other words, that the calamities of
the Israelites have increased their
alienation from him (comp. Ixiii.
17, lxiv. 5). In the next verse he
announces that he will try a new
argument with these walkers 'by
sight' and not 'by faith.'^Ewald
thinks the prophet here resumes in
his own language, dropping that of
the more ancient writer to whom
he ascribes lvi. 9-lvii. 1 1 a. There
is at any rate a very noticeable
change in the prophet's tone, which
all at once becomes soft and en
couraging.  Surely I bave been .
silent . . . ] ' Surely it is because
I have been silent, that thou ac-
cordest me no fear.' Notice the
prominent position of 'me' in the
Hebrew, corresponding to the em
phatic (because otherwise unneces
sary) mention of the pronoun ' I '
in this and the next verse. ' Surely,'

lit., 'have not . . .' (prefixed to whole
sentence as xxviii. 25). ' I have
been silent,' &c. ; comp. xiii. 14
(note). The participial clause in
the Hebr. is causal.
" / irill make known . . . ]
Jehovah will try a fresh argument.
If ' silence ' has taught, no lessons,
the speech of mingled mercy and
judgment may work more effectu
ally on the heart. Precisely so,' in
xlvi. 13, the same Divine speaker
says to those who are 'far from
righteousness,' ' I bring near my
righteousness.' (Dr. Weir com
pares Ps. xxii. 3ij xcviii. 2). —
Those who retain the text -reading
generally explain it as a piece of
irony — ' I will show thy righteous
ness in its true colours^as "filthy
rags'" (lxiv. 6, Auth. Vers.). I
doubt if this can be shown to suit
the context ; in the next chapter,
which expressly deals with the
self-righteous, it might perhaps
pass, but the persons addressed
here are not even acknowledged
as worshippers of Jehovah. Add
to this, that the word rendered
'will make known' is constantly
used in 1 1. Isaiah of the prophetic
revelation of the deliverance of
Israel. Rashi, Hitzig, and Knobel
avoid a part of the objections to the
text-reading by taking the words
literally — ' I will show thee how to
obtain righteousness,' Rashi sup
posing internal righteousness to be
intended, the other two external
righteousness,' i.e., dehverance,
success in the sight of men (comp.
liv. 17). But Rashi's view pre
supposes a misinterpretation of

13. 44-

Per qucsto la Scrittura condiscende \ .4 vostra facilitate, ecc. Dante, Paradise, iv.

chap, lvii.]

ISAIAH.

73

thee. '^ When thtiu criest, let thy ' medley of gods ' deliver
thee ! but the whole of them the wind shall carry off, a breath
shall take away, while he that taketh refuge in me shall
inherit the land, and take my holy mountain in possession.
'¦' And one said. Cast up, cast up, prepare the way ; take
up the stumbling-block out of the way of my people.
'^ For thus saith the high and exalted One, who dwelleth
for ever, whose name is Holy One : I dwell in the high and holy
' Abominations, Weir (emendation).

'thy works' in the second verse-
half, while Hitzig's and Knobel's
is not quite suitable in this connec
tion, for, as 7/. 13 shows, there must
be a great sifting of Israel before
Jehovah's righteousness can become
Israel's. Even in liv. 17 (which
Hitz., Knob, ought to have com
pared), it is only of ' the servants of
Jehovah' that the phrase 'their
righteousness ' i.e., their ' outward
justification') is used, and it is im
mediately qualified by the addition
' (which is) of me.'  Thy works]
i.e., thy idols (xli. 29, comp. i. 31).
 They cannot profit tbee] A
phrase specially belonging to idols
(see on xliv. 10).
'^ 'When thou criest] Under
the rod of chastisement. The
speaker does not mean to empha
size the terrors of the judgment,
but, assuming its near approach,
shows that no help but Jehovah's
will be of any avail.  Thy med
ley of gods] The idea is not merely
that of number (comp. Jer. ii. 28),
but of variety. Jehovah says ironi
cally that the Jews had set up
a kind of Pantheon, open to all
religions. Comp. Mic. i. 7, 'she
heaped them (viz., theidols) together
out of the hire of a harlot.' The
Hebr. is peculiar, but not so pecu
liar as to necessitate Dr. Weir's
ingenious correction.  shall in
herit the land] viz., Judah (xlix. 8).
The familiar promise attached
sometimes to fulfilment of the Law
(Deut. iv. I, comp. 40, v. 33), some
times to moral qualities, such as
humility (Ps. xxxvii. 11), righteous

ness (Ps. xxxvii. 29), and, as here,
trust in Jehovah (Ps. xxxvii. 9).
Comp. lvi. 7.
'* And one said . . . ] Another
of those mysterious voices which
fill the air round about the prophet.
It conveys a summons to prepare
the way for the people of Jehovah
(comp. xl. 3, lxii. 10), and to remove
the ' stumbling-blocks ' which Jeho
vah himself (Jer. vi. 21 Weir) had
placed in Israel's path. _ Comp.
xxvi. 7.
'* Here a new paragraph begins
— the concluding one of the sec
tion. The ground of Israel's hope
of salvation is the combined high
ness and humbleness (andvdh Ps.
xviii. 36) of Jehovah (comp. lxvi. 2,
Ps. cxxxviii. 6). As an old Jewish
writer says, 'Wherever the Scrip
ture bears witness to the Divine
mightiness, it brings out side by
side with it the Divine humbleness,
e.g., Deut. X. 17, comp. 18; Isa.
lvii. 15 a, comp. 1 5 i5 ; Ps. Ixviii. 4,
5.' ' Jehovah cannot direct the
affairs of his people from without ;
he desires to be enthroned in their
hearts. When they turn away
from him, he punishes them ; but
by gentle, spiritual means he moves
them to return to him as penitent
sinners.  'Who dwelleth for
ever] i.e., the eternal, the un
changeable (like ' the First and the
Last,' xliv. 6).  'Whose name is
Holy One] i.e. who reveal myself
as the Holy One. See on xl. 25. 
The high and boly place] i.e., the
heavenly temple (vi. i).  'Witb
bim also that is crushed . . . ]

' Megilla, 31 a, quoted by Del. on Ps. xviii. 6

74

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LVli.

place, with him also that is crushed and lowly in spirit, to revive
the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of those who
are crushed. '^ For I will not contend for ever, nor will I be
wrathful continually, for the spirit would faint before me,
and the souls which / have made. "¦ For his unjust gain I
was wrathful and smote him ; I hid my face, and was wrath
ful, because he went on perversely in the way of his own

' With,' i.e., in close proximity to.
The prophet implicitly contradicts
the Epicureans of his day, who de
nied what the psalmist (above) calls
the ' humbleness ' of God, and said,
' Is not God in the height of
heaven ? how can he perceive ? '
(Job xxii. 12, 13). ' Crushed,' not
' contrite ' (Auth. Vers, after Vulg.),
which is a misleading rendering.
' Crushed in spirit ' is almost syno
nymous with lowly, hills being the
emblem of pride, and level land of
humility ; it implies, in addition,
that the lowly state of mind has
been produced by affliction — in the
present case, the affliction of Zion ;
comp. Ixi. I, 2, Ixv. 14, lxvi. 2, Ps.
xxxiv. 18 (19), cxlvii. 2, 3.
'^ Jehovah is 'a wise and faith
ful Creator.'  For I will not
contend . . . ] To ' contend ' =
to send adversity, to punish (as
xxvii. 8). The idea of this verse is
very characteristic of the tender
hearted author ; see xiii. 3, and
comp. Ps. ciii. 9, Ixxviii. 38, 39
(post-Exile psalms).  The souls
which / bave made] The expres
sion is noteworthy, as implying the
separate personality of man (comp.
Zech. xii. 1, Jer. xxxviii. 16) ; the
Old Testament writers are not
always equally explicit (see Ps. civ.
29, Job x.xxiv. 14). The choice of
the word for ' soul ' (neshamdh, lit.,
' breath ' is itself significant ; it
means the principle of life breathed
immediately by God into the human
body (Gen. ii. 7), the self-conscious
personal spirit.
" For his unjust gain] Lit.,
' for the iniquity of his gain.' Del.
renders ' for the guilt of his self-
seeking,' i.e., for his desire for
worldly possessions. I doubt if we

have a right to introduce such a
paraphrase into the text ; the more
so, as it is perhaps not strictly ac
curate. The fact is, that 'unjust
gain ' is used by the prophets and
psalmists, precisely in the same
way as ' bloodshed,' as a repre
sentative of the besetting sins «f
the Jews. Jeremiah, for instance,
says (vi. 13), 'For from the least
unto the greatest of them every
one gaineth unjust gain ' : else
where (v. i) he even denies that
there is a single man of probity
and justice left. Similarly, Ezekiel
says (xxxiii. 31), ' Their heart goeth
after their unjust gain,' and the
typical righteous man in Ps. cxix.
(v. 36) prays, ' Incline my heart to
thy testimonies and not to unjust
gain,' and the very prophecy before
us singles out the passion for money
as the chief sin of the spiritual
shepherds of the Jews. It is just
the same with the sin of murder
(including doubtless judicial mur
der), which is laid at the door^ of
the Jews with a really surprising
persistency ; comp. i. 1 5, v. 7,
xxxiii. 15, lix. 3, Jer. ii. 34, Ezek.
vii. 23, Hos. iv. 2, Mic. iii. 10, vii.
2, Prov. i. II. We are, therefore,
abundantly justified in supposing
that where a prophet or a psalmist
seems to lay a disproportionate em
phasis on a single sin, such as mur
der or unjust gain, he means to
include all the other besetting sins
of the Jews under this head, espe
cially, of course, those sins of vio
lence, to which the upper classes
(chiefly addressed by the prophets)
were peculiarly prone. Only thus
can we understand a passage like
the present, which seems to ascribe
the Exile to simple ' covetousness,'

CHAP. LVII.]

ISAIAH.

75

heart. '* His ways have I seen, ''and I will heal him ; and I
will lead him', and give a requital of comfort to him and to his
mournful ones. '" ' He createth ' the fruit of the lips ; ' Peace,
peace to the far off and to the near,' saith Jehovah, ' for I
will heal him.' ^° But the wicked are like the sea that is tost
k But, Ges., Naeg.
' So Kay. — I create, Rashi, Kimchi, Calv., Vitr. — I have created, Vulg. — He who
createth, Naeg. ; or, created, Ew. — Creating, Sept., Ges., Hitz., Del. — I who created,
Targ. (connected with v. i8 ; so also Ges.).

and Hke Ps. li. 14, where the typical
Israelite, who makes no other in
dividualising reference, and else
where lays the chief stress on his
sinful nature, prays, ' Deliver me
from (the guilt of) bloodshed . . .
and my tongue shall sing aloud
of thy righteousness.' I may add,
that there is perhaps a special
reason here for the selection of
'unjust gain' as a representative
sin in the Divine law of the corre
spondence of punishment to guilt.
Land being the object of a high
born Jew's covetousness, expulsion
from his land was to be his punish
ment ; see V. 8, 9, Jer. vi. 12, 13.
" His -ways bave I seen] Je
hovah has seen the thorny ways in
which His people has been wander
ing ; He will heal his wounds (xxx.
26), and guide him by an easier
path (lviii. 11), or, as Ew., ' I have
seen the amendment of his ways.'
 A requital of comfort] As a
compensation for his long suffer
ings (comp. on xl. 2).  And to
his mournful ones] (' And ' =
namely). So Ixi. 2, 3 ; comp. the
fuller phrase in Ixvi. 10.
'" He createth . . . ] It is an ex
clamation of the prophet (Kay) ; a
participial clause, as in xl. 22, 23.
 The fruit of tbe lips] "This
may mean (i) praise and thanks
giving (as Ges., Ew., Del., Kay) ;
comp. Hos. xiv. 2, Heb. xiii. 15. On
this view of the passage, it contains
a second argument (the first being
drawn from Jehovah's mercifulness)
for the ' healing ' or restoration of
Israel, viz. that praise is one of
God's ' creations ' or appointments,
and that Israel, having been
'formed' to 'tell out His praise'

(xliii. 21), must not be hindered
from his mission. Or (2) with Je
rome, the Rabbis, Calv., Hitz.,
Henderson, we may take 'the fruit
of the lips ' to refer to the word of
Jehovah which follows. In any
case it is not ordinary speech
which is thus described, but some
happy and happy-making commu
nication, worthy to be called a
'fruit' (as in Prov. x. 31), comp.
Mohammed's saying of the garden
of Eden, ' No vain discourse shall
they hear therein, but only " peace " '
(Kor^n, Sur. xix. 63). But the
first way is surely the preferable
one. Hitherto the lips of faithful
Israelites ('his mournful ones') have
been sealed by sorrow ; now Je
hovah, by his creative word, causes
them to blossom with praise. 
Peace, peace] i.e., perfect peace
(as xxvi. 3).  To the far off and
to tbe near] i.e., either ' to the
Gentile and to the Jew' (Stier,
Naeg., after Eph. ii. 17, comp. xiii.
6), or, which suits the context
better, ' to him who is far from Je
rusalem and to him who is near to
it ' (Kimchi, Calv., Ew., Del.), see
Dan. ix. 7, and comp. xliii. 5-7,
xlix. 12. No degree of remoteness
was to disqualify true Israelites for
the enjoyment of the promise.
20, si p^ moving contrast. The
ungodly] those who are, whether
only inwardly or also outwardly, in
a state of alienation from Jehovah,
shall never ' enter into peace.' For
the figure, comp. Jude 1 3, ' wild
waves of the sea, foaming out their
own shame.' This closing sentence
of the second portion of prophecy
agrees with xlviii. 22, except that
'my God' comp. vii. 13) is substi-

76

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LVIII.

up, for it cannot rest, and its waters toss up mire and mud.
^' There is no peace, saith "" my God, "" to the ungodly.
" Jehovah, many Hebr. MSS.— God, Sept. (Vatican MS.), Targ.— Jehovah my
God, a very few Hebr. MSS.— The Lord [Jehovah] Elohim, Sept. (Alex. MS.), Vulg.

tuted for ' Jehovah,' as if the speaker
would thus put his seal to the
Divine oracle. The phrase is self-
assertive ; the prophet magnifies

his office. Jehovah is in a special
sense the God of ' his servants the
prophets ' (Am. iii. 7).

CHAPTER LVIII.
Contents. — The Jewish nation is first rebuked for its formal religion,
shown especially in its unspiritual mode of fasting, which deprives its
prayers for deliverance of all efficacy (vv. 1-4) ; then the true mode of
fasting is held up for imitation (vv. 5-12) ; finally, the duty of Sabbath-
observance is inculcated, and a promise of ' inheriting the land' attached
to it. The practical tone here adopted reminds us of lvi. 1-8 (see intro
ductory remarks).
' Call with the throat, hold not back ; like a trumpet raise
thy voice, and declare unto my people their rebellion, and
unto the house of JaCob their sins. ^ And (yet) me they con
sult daily, and to know my ways they desire : as a nation that
hath done righteousness, and hath not forsaken the law of
its God, they ask of me judgments of righteousness, *the
approach of God they desire.* ^ Wherefore have we fasted,
» So most moderns. — In approaching to God they delight, Sept., Pesh., Targ.,
Vulg., Calv., Vitr., Kay.

' Call with the throat] Not
merely with the lips, i.e., softly
(i Sam. i. 13), but ' k plein gosier,'
as Calvin puts it. Comp. Ps. cxlix.
16, ' High praises of God in their
throat.'  Declare unto my peo
ple . . . ] A reminiscence of Mic.
iii. 8. Obs., the priests are not
mentioned in this homily ; the laity
alone are addressed.
^ And (yet) . . . ] Rebellious
and sinful as they are. Or else
understand, ' For they deem them
selves to be righteous,' and continue
' and ( = consequently) they consult
me,' &c.  Me tbey consult]
< Me ' is put emphatically at the be
ginning of the verse — 'me, the All-
holy and the All-just.' 'Consult'

is the usual word for applying to
an oracle or a prophet, and no doubt
consultations of the prophet are in
cluded (see Ezek. xx. i), but direct
prayer to God is also meant (see v.
4 and comp. Iv. 6).  My ways]
i.e., my dealings with my people.
 The law] Hebr. mishpdt (see
on xhi. l).  Judgments of
righteousness] i.e., manifestations
in act of Jehovah's fidelity tq his
covenant-engagements with Israel.
Comp. on li.x. 9.  The approach
of God] i.e., his aipproach to judg
ment. Alt. rend, spoils the paral
lelism. ^ 'Wherefore have ¦we fasted]
The reproofs in this part of the
prophecy remind us of Zech. vii. 5,

CHAP. LVIII.]

ISAIAH.

n

and thou seest not — humbled our soul, and thou takest no
notice ? Behold, in your fasting ye pursue business, and all
your '' tasks ye exact'' ^ Behold, it is for strife and conten
tion ye fast, and to smite with the fist of wickedness : ye do
not so fast at this time as to make your voice to be heard in
the height. * Can such be the fast that I choose, the day
when a man humbleth his soul ? Is it to bow down one's
head like a bulrush, and to make sackcloth and ashes his
couch ? Wilt thou call this a fast, and a day acceptable to
•i So Ges. (Thesaurus), Hitz., Naeg., Weir. — ^Workmen ye drive, Ges. (Commen
tary), Ew., Del.

6 (comp. viii. 19), Joel ii. 12, 13.
Fasting, both public and private,
appears to have become more and
more prevalent in and after the
Babylonian period ; the passage be
fore us may refer equally to special
private fasts and to those required
by the ecclesiastical authorities
(comp. Matt. ix. 14, Luke xviii. 12).
¦The effect of the prophetic exliorta-
tions was peculiar (see on v. 7) ; it
was not till after the last siege of Je
rusalem that the evil of formal fast
ing began to be at all generally felt.
That great calamity, however, did
open the eyes of the Jewish people.
The short homily on the fasting
of the heart, which, according to
Taanith, ii. I, was pronounced at
public fasts, is quite in the spirit of
the prophetic exhortations ; comp.
also quotations from Talmud (Ne-
darim babli, p. \o a, Kiddushin
jerush., end), in Gratz's KoMlet,
pp. 33, 34.  Humbled our soul]
A characteristic phrase of the Le
vitical legislation, which almost (I
must not say ' entirely,' for in Ps.
xxxv. 13, the two forms of expres
sion are combined) supplanted the
word ' to fast ;' see Lev. xvi. 29, 31,
xxiii. 27, 32, Num. xxix. 7, xxx. 13.
It was evidently a well-known
technical phrase when our prophet
wrote, for in v. 5 he uses it as such,
simply deepening its meaning. 
'Ye pursue business] (The rend.
' business ' seems absolutely neces
sary here, as also in Ecclesiastes,
where Sept. renders rpdypa. It is
doubtful, however, in spite of Ges.,

whether this meaning can be es
tablished elsewhere.) Unlike the
Sabbath, the fast-days (except the
great Day of Atonement) appear
not to have involved the cessation
of business. Hence the prophet
continues. All your tasks ye ex
act] Ye are specially anxious at
such times that the service of God
should not interfere with that of
mammon. Ye ' exact ' the full tale
of works, like slave-drivers (the
participle of the verb has this
meaning, see Ex. v. 6, Job iii. 18).
' The prophet paints throughout
from the life,' observes Delitzsch
in his first edition, ' and we cannot
be persuaded by Stier's false zeal
for Isaiah's authorship to give up
the opinion that we have here a
figure drawn from the experience
of the exiles in Babylon ! ' That
the prophet paints from the life is
certain, but no more that this.
* Behold, it is for strife . . . ]
The only result of this formal fast
ing is strife and violence.  TTe
do not so fast . . . ] This glaring
inconsistency prevents your prayers
for a Divine interposition (v. 2)
from rising to the pure 'height,'
where Jehovah dwelleth (lvii. 15
Hebr.). Comp. Lam. iii. 44, 'Thou
hast covered thyself with clouds, so
that prayer may not pass through.'
 'When a man humbleth his
soul] viz., according to the inten
tion of the legislator.  Xiike a
bulrush] ' With a merely physical
inclination of the head' (Kay). 
¦Wilt thou call] From this point

78

ISAIAH.

[CHAP.. LVIII.

Jehovah? ^Is not this the fast that I choose — to loose the
bands of wickedness, to untie the thongs of the yoke, and to
set them that are crushed at liberty, and that ye burst in
sunder every yoke .'' ' Is it not to break thy bread to the hungry,
and that thou bring miserable outcasts to their home ? When
thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and hide not thy
self from thine own flesh ? ' Then shall thy light break forth
as the morning, thy new flesh shall quickly shoot forth, and
thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of Jeho
vah shall be thy rearward. ^ Then shalt thou call, and Jehovah
shall answer ; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.
If thou remove from the midst of thee the yoke, the stretching
out of the finger, and speaking wickedness, '" and minister thy
the prophet addresses personified
Israel (see v. 14).
^ To untie tbe thongs of the

yoke] Metaphorically, of course.
The elaborate and merciful legisla
tion for the protection of Hebrew
slaves (Ex. xxi. 2 &c., Deut. xv. 12
&c.. Lev. xxv. 39 &c.) a.ppears to
have been long a dead letter (see
Jer. xxxiv. 8-22) — a warning, be it
observed, not to attach too much
importance to the argumentum e
silentio with regard to the date of
Hebrew laws. — As to the Jewish
yoke, see Del.'s note on x. 27.  To
set them that are crushed . . .] In
the spirit of him who cherishes the
' crushed reed' (xiii. 3, same word).
^ The same duties are enforced
by the great Exile-prophet Ezekiel
(xviii. 7, 16). These and similar
exhortations seem to have had
great effect in the post-Exile
period ; in fact, a new formalism
appears to have arisen out of
them (Matt. vi. 1-4). Comp. the
LXX. rendering of i. 27 b, and the
Rabbinic use of ' righteousness '
(i^'ddkah) for alms-giving — a fore-
announcement of which is found as
early as Dan. iv. 27, ' redeem thy
sins by beneficence' (lit., righteous
ness,' see Q.P.B.).  To break
tby bread] Alluding to the oval
cakes which formed the Jewish
bread.  Miserable outcasts]
Referring probably to Jews in
foreign slavery ; comp. Joel iii. 2-

8, and especially Neh. v. 8.  To
their home] i.e., to their native
land (as xiv. 17).  Hide not
thyself] = turn not coldly away
(Deut. xxii. i).  Thine own
fiesb] not merely thine own kindred
(Gen. xxix. 14, xxxvii. 27), but, more
broadly, thine own countrymen ;
see the close parallel in Neh. v. 5.
^"''' A series of glorious pro
mises to the obedient.  Tby
righteousness] i.e., thy justifica
tion in the eyes of all the world
(liv. 17); or, perhaps more suitably,
thy inward, personal righteousness
(i. 27, xxxiii. 5, 6).  The glory of
Jetovah . . . ] Almost word for
word as in lii. 12.
^ Then shalt tbou call . . . ]
A contrast to the unacceptable and
unanswered prayers of the past
(vv. 2, 4).  The stretahlng out
of tbe finger] The middle finger,
t-iic ' infamis digitus,' Pers. ii. 33.

the

The objects of contempt are not
mentioned, but can be easily sup
plied from the context. I doubt if
we have a right to compare lvii. 4,
Lxvi. 5 : — there is no mention in this
chapter of a party entirely hostile
to belief in Jehovah.  Speakr
ing wickedness] i.e., as the con
text shows, plotting evil against
others. '" And minister tby suste
nance . . . ] Surely not ' thy dain
ties ' (as Knob.). The noun lite
rally means ' thy soul,' i.e., that in

CHAP. LVIII.]

ISAIAH.

79

sustenance to the hungry, and satisfy the humbled soul ; then
shall thy light rise in darkness, and thy thick darkness be as
the noon, " and Jehovah shall lead thee continually, and satisfy
thy soul in dry places, and thy bones shall he make supple ;
and thou shalt be like a well-watered garden, and like a foun
tain whose waters disappoint not. '^ And " thy children shall
build up" the ancient ruins ; thou shalt raise up the founda
tions of past generations, and men shall call thee Repairer of
the breach, Restorer of roads for habitation.
" If thou turn thy foot from the Sabbath, so as not to do
thy business on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight,
the holy thing of Jehovah honourable, and honour it, so as
not to do after thy wont, nor pursue thy business, nor speak
" So Weir (emendation). — Through thee shall be built up, Sept., Vulg., Ew.,
Bottcher, (so too nonnulli, mentioned by Calvin). ^(They that shall spring) from thee
shall build up, Hebr. text, according to most.

which thy life consisteth (Deut.
xxiv. 6), not 'dainties,' but bread.
[This verse shows how unsafe is
the common argument that such
and such a Hebrew word must
have a particular meaning, because
it has this meaning somewhere else
in the same section. Here is ' soul '
used in two senses close together.]
 Tbe humbled soul] ' Hum
bled,' not by formal fasting, but by
misery. " Shall lead tbee continually]
For it was not enough to be guided
(or to have been guided back) to
Palestine: see on xl. ii.  in
dry places] The Messianic age
seems to have receded for a time
into the dim distance. There are
still ' dry places ' to apprehend, but
a foretaste of the expected blessings
shall be granted to the'faithful. 
Like a well-\ratered garden] So
Jer. xxxi. 12 (nowhere else); for
the idea, comp. xliv. 3, 4.
''^ Shall build up ... ] Closely
parallel with Ixi. 4.  The ancient
ruins] Lit., the ruins of antiquity ;
by 'antiquity' is meant the long
period of the Exile (comp. xiii. 14,
lvii. II Hebr.).  The breach]
i.e., the broken down walls. 
Roads for habitation] We should

have expected 'roads for travelling,'
but Job xxiv. 13 proves that 'to in
habit roads ' is an idiomatic Hebrew
phrase. It seems to have come
from a time when a large part of
the country was uninhabitable, be
cause devoid of roads.
'^. '* "The prophet evidently re
gards the fast-days as mere forms
without authority or significance.
AU the more strict is his view of
the claims of the Sabbath.  Turn
tby foot from the Sabbath] As if
it were holy ground (Ex. iii. 5). A
similar phrase in Prov. iv. 27. 
Thy wont] Lit, thy ways, i.e.,
thy wonted round of occupations.
 Wor speak words] Not that
either now or at any later time
absolute silence was a part of the
unwritten Sabbath-law (see Del.'s
note), but that ' in the mukitude of
words there wanteth not transgres
sion' (Prov. A. 19, comp. Eccles. v.
3). So ' a man of tongue ' = a ma
licious speaker, Ps. cxl. 11 (comp.
V. 9 above). "The phrase will also
cover false or unfounded statements
(Hos. x. 4, Job XV. 13?) 'words of
the lips ' (xxxvi. 5). Observe the
emphasis laid on ¦words,\>o\h human
and divine, as well in the Old as in
the New Test. (comp. on ix. 8).

8o ISAIAH. [CHAP. LIX.
words ; ^* then shalt thou delight thyself in Jehovah, and I
will make thee to ride over the heights of the land, and to eat
the inheritance of Jacob thy father ; for the mouth of Jehovah
hath spoken it.
'* Then Shalt thou delight thy- over . . . ] i.e., to take triumphal
self . . . ] The condition being, possession of Palestine with its
' If thou call the Sabbath a delight,' hills and fortresses (Deut. xxxii. 13,
we should expect the apodosis to comp. xxxiii. 29). Comp. for the
run ' Then shall Jehovah delight idea Ixv. 9 ; also Ezek. xxxiv. 13, 14,
himself in thee,' and this is evi- xxxvi. 1-12 (obs. Ezekiel's passion
dently the meaning.  To ride for ' the mountains of Israel ').

CHAPTER LIX.

Contents.— ^This chapter continues the subject of chap, lviii. With all its
observance of the outward forms of religion, the prophet's contemporaries
(unless we suppose his point of view to be ideal, that is, prophetically
imaginative, and not historical) are guilty of open violations of the moral
law (vv. 1-8). But soon the prophet assumes that his admonitions have
borne fruit. The Jews penitently confess their sins, and their breach of
the covenant with Jehovah ; they lament their unhappy state, and own
that they have no claim upon their God for assistance (vv. 9-1 5 a). Then
follovvs a splendid theophany. As there is no other champion, Jehovah
interposes. The last verse communicates a special word of promise to
the true Israel. — The first part of the chapter presents affinities to
Proverbs (see especially on vv. 7, 8), and to Ps. lviii. (see Kay, The Book
of Psalms, p. 181).
' Behold, the hand of Jehovah is not too short to deliver,
nor his ear too heavy to hear ; ^ but your iniquities have been
separating between you and your God, and your sins have
hidden the Face from you, so that he heareth not. ' For your
' The prophet meets some im- Jehovah,' i.e., the self-manifesting
plied objections of the Jews.  side of the Divine nature (see on
The band of Jehovah . ] Ixiii. 9, i. 12, xl. 10). Notice the
Comp. 1. 2, Num. xi. 23. absence both of article and of
' Your iniquities . . . ] ' For a suffix (in the Hebrew)' ' Face '
long time past your acts have been (pantm) has almost become a
belying your professions, and pre- proper name.'
eluding an answer to your prayers ' ' Your hands] ' The very hands
(lviii. 2-4).  Have hidden tbe ye stretch out in prayer, i. 15' (Dr.
Face . . . ] 'The Face' means Weir).  Are defiledwltb blood]
much the same as ' the Name of On this accusation, the strangeness
' The only other passages in which histir ( ' to hide ') and panim. ( ' face ') without a
suffix occur together are, according to Dr. Weir, liii. 3, Job xxxiv. 29. In the former
passage there is no occasion for a suffix ; in the latter, it is ' the Face ' of Jehovah, as
i)ere, which is spoken of

CHAP. LIX.]

ISAIAH,

8r

hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity ;
your lips speak lies, and your tongue muttereth depravity.
* None " preferreth his suit " with truthfulness, and none
pleadeth with honesty ; they trust in chaos, and speak empti
ness ; they conceive trouble, and bring forth iniquity. * Basi
lisks' eggs they hatch, and spiders' webs they weave ; he that
eateth of their eggs will die, and, if one be crushed, it breaketh
out into a viper. * Their webs will not serve for clothing,
neither can men cover themselves with their works ; their
works are works of mischief, and the deed of violence is in
their hands. ' Their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed
innocent blood ; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity ; de
solation and destruction are in their highways. ' The way of
' Similarly Lowth, Ges., Knob., Naeg., 'Weir. — Speaketh in public, Hitz., Ew. ,
Del.

of which is only not felt because
of its frequency, see notes on i. 1 5,
lvii. 17. I entirely coincide with
Dr. Weir, that 'the description in
this and the following verses can
scarcely [cannot possibly] apply to
Israel in exile.'
'' None preferreth bis suit] In
vv. 1-3 grace was seeking and
pleading ; hence the second per
son. At this point the remonstrance
passes into a denunciation — The
sense ' to prefer a suit ' ( = in Jus
vocare, KoKfiv eVl Sliajv), is justified
by Job ix. 16, xiii. 22 ; it accords
well with vv. 14, 15. Dr. Weir
remarks, ' Perhaps qore is here the
person who appeals to the judge
for vindication and assistance. If
so, he will be qdre in relation to the
judge, nishpdt in relation to his
adversary.' A different view was
taken in /. C. A., p. 210.  They
trust In chaos] The basis of
society (if it can be said to have
one) is, not faith in God and good
ness, but falsehood and deceit, in
other words, a lifeless, unproduc
tive chaos (see on xl. 17). 
Emptiness] That which has no
moral content.  Conceive trou
ble . . . ] The same image in
Job XV. 35, Ps. vii. 14 (15), comp.
Isa. xxxiii. 11.
^ Basilisks' eggs tbey batch]
They brood over purposes as per-
VOL, II.

nicious as the eggs of basilisks
(see on xiv. 29), and as unprofitable
to others as spiders' webs. So the
figures are explained in the sequel,
though the application of the
second strikes a Western reader
as far-fetched (see on v. 6).  He
that eateth . . . ] When any of
their plans are opposed, they take
a cunning and malicious revenge.
For the mixture of images in the
last clause, comp. Deut. xxxii. 32, 33.
^ Their webs . . . for clothing]
Here the prophet gives a fresh turn
to the figure. The Jews themselves
are now the weavers, not of any
useful object, but of works of vio
lence. '' Their feet run ... in their
highways] The first half of the
verse occurs again in Prov. i. 16
(except that ' innocent ' is want
ing) ; the second reminds us of
Prov. xvi. 17, ' The highway of the
upright is to avoid evil' (i.e., he
bestows as much care on avoiding
evil as the pioneer does on con
structing a road). These demoral
ised Jews, however, build up their
highways with ' desolation and de
struction ' (an assonance in the ori
ginal). ^
* Note the four words for ' way'
in this and the preceding verse,
all found in the Book of Proverbs.
In V. 7 we have the laboriously
G

82

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LIX.

peace they know not, and there is no justice in their tracks ;
their paths they have made for themselves crooked ; whoso
ever treadeth thereon knoweth not peace.
^ Therefore hath justice been far from us, and righteous
ness doth not overtake us ; we wait for light, but behold dark
ness, for gleams of light, but we walk in thick darkness.
10 VVe grope like blind men along the wall ; and as eyeless
men we grope ; we have stumbled at noonday as in the
twilight; amidst ''those full of life (P)*" as dead men. "We
growl, all of us, like bears, and mourn sore like doves ; we
•> So Ew., Del., Naeg. — Dark places, Targ., Vulg., D. Kimchi, Rodiger, Knob.

constructed ' highway ' : m v. 8,
first, the most general word for
'way,' next, the waggon-tracks, and
lastly, the paths made by the con
stant treading of wayfarers.  For
themselves] i.e., in their interest.
— — Crooked] reminds us of Prov.
X. 9, xxviii. l8, ii. 15.  Knoweth
not peace] Note the suggestive
variation on the opening clause of
the verse.
9-15 a Here the prophet speaks in
the name of his penitent people.
Contrast the self-righteous language
of lviii. 3.  Therefore] i.e., be
cause of our sins ; not because
Jehovah cannot or will not help us
(comp. V. 12).  Hatb justice
been far from us] ' Justice ' or
' judgment ' — either rendering is
admissible. ' Judgment ' would
mean a judicial interposition of
Jehovah on behalf of his people ;
this would suit the immediate con
text, including z/. 11, but would not
fit V. 14, and hardly v. 15. 'Jus
tice' or 'right' will suit all the
passages ; only we must distin
guish (with Naeg.) between theo
cratic and civil 'justice.' The
theocratic covenant entitled Israel
to expect the help of Jehovah in
time of need. Israel, however,
complained (as xl. 27) or at least
lamented (as here) that its ' right '
was withheld, and the claims of
'justice' disallowed. There is no
essential difference between the
two renderings ; it is on account
oi V. 15 that I prefer 'justice.' In
V. 14 it is of course civil 'justice

which is meant ; it is implied that
the absence of theocratic is con
ditioned by that of civil 'justice.'
The former is called, in the parallel
line, ' righteousness,' still alluding
to the covenant between Jehovah
and Israel. — Knobel suggests that
the despondency of the Jews may
have arisen from Cyrus's temporary
transference of the seat of war
from Babylonia -to Asia Minor (he
quotes Xen. Cyrop. vi. 2 9, Justin
i. 7) : and Delitzsch too thinks that
this is conceivably right. I doubt
it greatly : it is Jehovah, and not
Cyrus, or any human champion, of
whom the Jews here complain. All
that is certain is that the prophet
is painting from the life ; it is no
rhetorical phrasemonger that we
have before us. But the historical
reference of the section is wrapt in
obscurity. '" 'We grope like blind men
. . . ] Comp. Deut. xxviii. 29 : it
is not clear at first sight which pas
sage is the original, and which the
imitation.  Amidst those full of
life] On Knobel's theory, this will
refer to the arrogance of the Baby
lonians, who, according to the story,
ventured to hold a revel at the very
height of the siege of Babylon.
But reading, rendering, and inter
pretation are perhaps all rather
doubtful. " Iilke bears . . . like dovos]
The 'dove' is a well-known symbol
of lamentation (comp. xxxviii. 14,
Ezek. vii. 16, Nah. ii. 7) ; Horace
and Ovid (quoted by Bochart), but

CHAP. LIX.]

ISAIAH.

83

wait for justice, but there is none, for deliverance, but it is far
from us. '^ For our rebellions are manifold before thee, and
our sins each testify against us ; for our rebellions are with us ;
and as for our iniquities, we know them, — '' treason and un
faithfulness to Jehovah, and drawing back from after our
God, speaking " perverseness and transgression, conceiving
and uttering from the heart lying words. '* And justice hath
been driven back, and righteousness standeth afar off"; for
truth hath stumbled in the broad place, and rectitude cannot
« So Graetz (see on xxx. 12). — Oppression, Hebr. text.

no other Biblical writer, speak of
the bear as ' groaning ' (gemere,
gemitus). "^ Before thee] implying that
they are well known to Jehovah ;
comp. Ps. xc. 8, Prov. xv. 11. 
'WT'ltta us] i.e., in our consciousness ;
so, in the Hebr., Job xii. 3 {^eth),
xv. 9 ('z>«).
" A threefold description of
apostasy opens the verse. 
Treason (lit., ' diruptio' sc. foederis),
unfaithfulness (lit., ' belying,' i.e.,
atheism, Jer. v. 12), and drawing
back (i.e., the overt act of apos
tasy). Evidently the prophet refers
to a paganising movement of special
intensity, of which we would gladly
have received more ample informa
tion. — Then follow sins of the lips
(comp. on vi. 5).  Transgres
sion] Lit., ' deviation ' Hebr.
sdrdh). Naeg. remarks that this
phrase (' speaking deviation ') is
elsewhere used only of the false
teaching of ' pseudo-prophets ' D eut.
xiii. 5 -- Hebr. 6, Jer. xxviii. 16, xxix.
32), and that the writer is probably
alluding to the seductive discourses
of such persons. This is possible
indeed, but far from certain, as sins
of the lips are ascribed to the
whole nation in v. 3, and ' devia
tion ' from moral and spiritual
truth was not peculiar to prophets
(comp. i. 5, Hebr.).
'* The confession passes on to
public sins, especially the crying
Jewish sin of injustice.  Justice
bath been driven back] If this

passage refers to the Babylonian
exiles (which is in my opinion very
doubtful), it supplies a valuable
confirmation of the continuance of
Jewish institutions during the Cap
tivity (comp. Ezek. viii. i, &c.). 
Katta stumbled in tbe broad
place] ' Broad places ' was a name
specially given to the recesses on
each side of the city-gate, ' used as
places of assembly during the day,
and as places of rest for guests
[say rather for strangers, Judg. xix.
20] during the night." Here, during
the continuance of the Jewish state,
the ' elders ' and ' princes ' sat and
judged (comp. Jer. v. i, Zech. viii.
16, 2 Chron. xxxii. 6). The question
cannot be avoided. Has the pro
phet in view the circumstances of
the pre-Exile period ? or may we
venture to conjecture that the Baby
lonian cities, like those of mediseval
Europe, contained separate ' Jew
ries ' or Jewish quarters, each with
its own ' broad place ' or ' forum ' ?
 ror truth . . . ] Justice has
perished, because truth and recti
tude, its essential presuppositions,
have previously been overthrown.
 Cannot enter] i.e., cannot find
admittance to the tribunal, to give
evidence for the right.  Hatb
been left behind] Or (for the
phrase leaves it open whether the
absence spoken of is self-caused
or due to others), ' hath become an
absentee' — 'terras Astrsea reliquit.'
 nXaketb himself a prey] So
excellently Auth. Vers. ; ' muss Je-

' Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, p. 57,
a 3

84

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LIX.

enter ; ^^ and truth hath been left behind, and he that avoid-
eth evil, maketh himself a prey.
And Jehovah saw it, and it was evil in his eyes that there
was no justice ; '^ and he saw that there was no man, and was
stupefied that there was none to interpose ; therefore his own
arm brought deliverance unto him, and his own righteousness
upheld him. "And he put on righteousness as a coat of

dermanns Raub sein,' Luther. The
word sums up vv. 3-7. Comp. Ps.
Ixxvi. 6 a (same verb in Hebr.).
'° ' Here a new verse ought to
begin- This mistake of our present
arrangement of the verses is spe
cially unfortunate, as the words
which follow evidently introduce a
new stanza or strophe of the pro
phecy. For other instances of
faulty verse-division, see i. 16 ;
l.xiii. 19 Hebr. ; Ixvi. 3 ; Gen. xlix.
24 ; I Kings ii. 46 — iii. I ; iii. 4, 5 ;
Jer. ii. 23 ; Neh. vii. 73 ; xii. 23.
(Comp. Last Words.)  And Je
hovah saw it] ... ] But had
not Jehovah seen it from the first?
Yes (comp. xviii. 4, Ps. x. 14) ; but
he had not shown this in act. It
was Israel's penitent confession
which drew forth the Divine love-
tokens. It was a genuine ' fast '
(contrast lviii. 2-4), 'a rending of
the heart and not [merely] the gar
ments ' (Joel ii. 13), the germs of a
new life. — The tenses in vv. i^b-
17 are at first sight difficult to ex
plain. Del. thinks that they are
historical perfects ; that Jehovah
has already equipped himself for
judgment, and seen with surprise
that no man takes his side, but not
as yet obtained satisfaction for his
dishonoured holiness. To me it
appears that to divide the descrip
tion of the theophany between the
past and the future seriously injures
its poetical effect, nor can I see that
it is necessary to do so. The case
seems to me to be analogous to that
¦of Joel ii. 18, 19. The Jews in the
time of Joel were in great trouble,
and had been called to repentance.
The prophet foresees that Jehovah
will pity and grant relief, and de
scribes this in prophetic perfects

('Then was Jehovah jealous . . .
pitied . . . answered and said').
Precisely so here. All is still future,
though described as past in the lan
guage of prophetic certitude. 
That there was no man] The ap
parent parallelism of Jer. v. i is de
lusive ;' no man ' does not here mean
' no man of honesty and integrity,'
but ' no champion.' It corresponds
to the phrase in the next line, ' none
to interpose.' Comp. Ezek. xxii.
30, ' And I sought for a man among
them who should make up the
fence . . . but I found none.' In
the parallel passage, Ixiii. 5, we find
' none to help,' and ' none to up
hold.' It is only the necessities of
parallelism which have separated
the substantive from its participial
adjective.  'Was stupefied]
' Durior est metaphora de Deo
usurpata, quae, nisi fallor, alibi non
occurrit. Sed Jesaias passim valde
est ivep-yrjs in omni sua dictione, et
figuras orationis ex alto petit. In
re ipsS significat summum ejus rei
de qua agitur napaSuiov. A parte
Dei ipsius docet metaphora, Deum
instar stupentis aliquamdiu tacitum
exspectasse, hoc est, moram aliquam
traxisse antequam ecclesias labo-
ranti succurreret ' Vitringa, com
paring Ps. 1. 21, ' These things thou
doest, and I am silent.' If the
precise word ' was stupefied ' is not
again applied to Jehovah (except
in Ixiii. 5), an equally forcible one
is in Jer. xiv. 9, ' Why shouldst
thou be as a man in consternation
(nidhdm), as a mighty man that
cannot deliver?' The painfid as
tonishment spoken of here is appa
rently inconsistent with other pas
sages, in which deliverance from
trouble is ascribed to God alone.

CHAP. LIX.]

ISAIAH.

85

mail, and the helmet of deliverance upon his head ; and he
put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and clad himself
with jealousy as a mantle. " According to their deserts, ac
cordingly he will repay, wrath to his adversaries, retribution
to his enemies ; to the countries he will repay retribution.
" And they shall fear the Name of Jehovah from the sun's
setting, and his glory from the sun's rising ; ^ for he shall
come like a rushing stream,* " which the breath of Jehovah
driveth," ^"but as a Goel shall he come to Zion, and unto
^ So Sept., Vulg., Symmachus, Saadya, Ew., Knob. — For . . . like a straitened
(i.e., dammed-up stream, Lowth, Ges., Del., Naeg. — For adversity shall come in like
a stream, Hitz. — When the adversary (or, adversity, Targ.) shall come in Hke the (or
a) river, Hebr. accents, Targ., Pesh., Calv., Vitr., Henderson, Kay.
s So Vulg., Lowth, Ges., Hitz., Ew., Knob., Del, Naeg.— The Spirit of Jehovah
shall Uft up a banner against him, 'Targ., Vitr., Henderson, Kay.

But we have no right to strain a
bold, poetical phrase in a dogmatic
interest. — — Wone to interpose]
viz., in battle ; elsewhere in prayer
(Iiii. 12).  Therefore bis own
arm . . . ] Sword and bow are un
necessary ; ' with battles of swing
ing will he fight against them'
(xxx. 32). — The words recur in Ixiii.
5, widi the changes of 'my' and
' me ' for 'his ' and ' him, and ' fury'
for ' righteousness ' ; comp. Job xl.
14, Ps. xcviii. I.  Deliverance]
Here and in v. ly in the common
sense of victory (as i Sam. xiv. 45).
'^ To the countries be will
repay retribution] The fate of
the rebel Israelites is merged in
that of the heathen. By ' the coun
tries,' the prophet means, not merely
the peoples of Asia lilinor who,
under the leadership of Croesus,
had helped the Babylonians against
Cyrus (Knob.), but all the nations
of the heathen world, banded to
gether for a final struggle against
Jehovah. It is as an act in the
great drama of the world-judg
ment that the prophet regards the
impending deliverance of the Jews
(comp. on chap. xxiv.).
'^ Those Gentiles who are spared
are imagined as hastening from
their distant abodes in tremulous
anxiety to meet Jehovah.  Fear
tbe Name of Jehovah] A striking
amplification of the common phrase
'fear Jehovah,' found also in Deut.

xxviii. 58, Mic. vi. 9 (probably: see
Q. P. B.), Neh. i. 11, Ps. Ixxxvi. 11,
and especially cii. 15 (which is
clearly a quotation from our pas
sage). 'Name'; see on xxx. 27,
bciii. 9.  He shall come] i.e.,
Jehovah, or, more correctly, the
Name of Jehovah. Comp. ' (the
Face) heareth,' lix. 2 ; the Name
of Jehovah cometh,' xxx. 27. 
]Like a rushing stream . . . dri-
veth] So, in xxx. 27, 28, after men
tioning the coming of the Name of
Jehovah, the prophet continues,
' And his breath is as an overflow
ing stream.' Alt. rend, is in itself
noble and poetical ; comp. Jer.
xlvi. 7, 8, where the hostile move
ment of Egypt is compared to a
flood. It has been vigorously sup
ported by Dr. Kay, but is contrary
to the connection, which requires a
continuous description of the theo
phany. I feel uncertain, however,
whether the words rendered ' rush
ing ' and ' driveth ' are not corrupt.
'"^ But as a CS-oel shall be come]
This prediction differs rather in
tone from xli. 14, xliii. i, and similar
passages in which Jehovah is re
ferred to as Israel's Goel. It wants
the usual setting of kindly en
couragement, and reminds us rather
of less evangelical prophecies, such
as chap. i.  To Zion] i.e., to the
remnant of Israel — ' those that have
turned from rebellion' (comp. i. 27),
as the parallel line tells us. This

86

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LX.

those that have turned from rebellion in Jacob : the oracle
of Jehovah. " And I — this is my covenant with them, saith
Jehovah, My spirit which is upon thee, and my words which
I have put in thy mouth, shall not withdraw from thy mouth,
nor from the mouth of thy seed, nor from the mouth of thy
seed's seed, saith Jehovah, from henceforth even for ever.
7) is the spiritual Israel, to whom
a similar promise has already been
given in xliv. 3. Klostermann in
deed has a strange theory that the
recipient is the prophetic writer,
and that his prophetic gifts are to
descend to his sons and grandsons.
But the promise is too high for an
ordinary man, and its validity is
not confined to 'sons and grand
sons' ; it is to last 'from hence
forth even for ever.' ' To whom
can such words apply, but to the
imperishable people of Jehovah?
Israel, according to II. Isaiah, is
destined to be the religious centre,
from which the words of truth
radiate in all directions.  iwy
words ... in thy mouth] The
' words ' referred to are not the
message of the true God which
Israel is to carry to the Gentiles
(Knob.), but all God's revelations,
whether declaratory of his character
or predictive of the future of the
world, of all which Israel is the
depository (comp. li. 16 ?).

limitation is one which English
students of the prophecies would
do well to remember : it shows
that the Messianic promises to
Israel are only meant for a con
verted and regenerate people.
°' And X — tbis Is my covenant
witb them] There are several re
markable points about this closing
verse, (i) its change of number and
person ('with them . . . upon thee');
(2) its tone of promise and en
couragement ; (3) the difficulty of
connecting it with the preceding
verses. 'The first point is slight ;
a change almost as striking occurs
in i. 29. The plural doubtless
refers, not to the converts spoken
of in V. 20 (as V. F. Oehler), but to
the person addressed in the second
person together with his descend
ants. The second and third points
seem to me to indicate that the
verse has been removed hither
from some other position. The
recipient of the ' covenant ' (or,
appointment, see footnote on xiii.

CHAPTER LX.
Contents. — Song upon glorified Zion, in five stanzas — I. vv. 1-4; 11. vv.
5-9; IIL vv. 10-14; IV. vv. 15-18; V. vv. 19-22. The leading idea of
the first stanza is the return of the exiles ; of the second, the rebuilding
of the temple ; of the third, the glory of the new Jerusalem ; of the
fourth, the prosperity of the state ; while the fifth and last exhausts the
powers of language in describing the favour which Jehovah will extend to
his righteous people.
The song looks as if it were a designed counterpart to the magnificent
ode in chap, xlvii. The one described Babylon's fall ; the other glorifies
Jerusalem's rising again. It further resembles its lyric predecessor in the
' Klostermann supposes the author of this verse to be a student of Isaiah, who has
assumed his master's mantle (Zeitschr.f. luther. Theologie, 1876, p. 46).

CHAp. LX.]

ISAIAH.

87

looseness of its connection with the prophecies among which it is inserted,
and it is not an unreasonable conjecture that both songs originally existed
in a separate form.
' Arise, be lightsome, for thy light hath come, and the
glory of Jehovah hath dawned upon thee. ^ For, bejhold, the
darkness shall cover the earth, and a deep gloom the nations,
but upon thee shall Jehovah dawn, and his glory shall appear
upon thee ; ' and nations shall set forth unto thy light, and
kings to the brilliance of thy dawning. * Lift up thine eyes
round about and see : they are all gathered together and
come unto thee ; thy sons come from far, and thy daughters
are supported on the side. ° Then shalt thou " see and be
radiant ; and thy heart shall '' throb and be enlarged ; for the
abundance of the sea shall turn unto thee, the riches of the
nations shall come unto thee. ^ A swarm of camels shall
« Fear. Many Hebr. MSS., Lowth, Vitr., Ges. (another reading).
•¦ Tremble. Some MSS., Sept. (another reading).

', ' The ideal Zion (see on xl. 9)
is personified as a woman lying on
the ground in mental and bodily
prostration — it is the same figure as
in h. 23, Hi. i. Thick darkness en
folds the earth, the darkness which
typifies alienation from God. But
Jehovah has begun to reveal him
self anew — not as yet to the whole
earth, but to its central, one may
almost say its mediatorial people,
Israel. As ' the children of Israel
had light in their dwellings,' when
there was ' thick darkness in all the
land of Egypt,' so now there are
beaming over Israel the first rays
of a newly risen sun (comp. ix. 2).
Zion however is still held by the
stupor of captivity ; she is therefore
bidden to arise and drink in the
transfiguring brightness. Contrast
the summons to Babylon in xlvii. i.
' The glory of Jehovah] Jeho
vah is a ' sun ' as well as a ' shield '
(Ps. Ixxxiv. 11), the 'sun of right
eousness' (Mai. iv. 2). The same
figure is implied in Ps. xviii. 12
(13), Hab. iii. 4, where the same
word (nSgah, 'brilliance') is used
for the appearance of the Divine
glory as in v. 3.
* iMitt, up . . . and come unto
tbee] Repeated from xlix. 18. 

Thy sons . . . tby daughters]
See on xlix. 22.  Supported on
tho side] i.e., on the hip (so lxvi.
12), the arm of the mother 'sup
porting ' the child's back, a custom
still kept up both in the Semitic
and the non-Semitic East. Older
children would be carried on the
shoulder (xlix. 22).
^ Then Shalt thou see] If the
former summons had been neg
lected, then (when the prophecy
has been fulfilled) thou shalt per
force take notice. Alt. reading in
volves a tautology.  Be radiant]
viz., with joy ; the same word oc
curs in Ps. xxxiv. 6 (5).  Shall
throb] ' As a man shudders at an
unexpected deliverance' (Ibn Ezra).
Comp. Jer. xxxiii. 9, '"They shall
fear and shudder (the same word as
here) for all the goodness,' &c. 
Be enlarged] i.e., have a sense of
freedom and happiness (so Ps. cxix.
32). The opposite is ' to be strait
ened' (so Lam. i. 20, comp. Jer. iv.
19, Q. P. B.).  The abundance
of the sea] i.e., the wealth of the
maritime countries of the West (in
Hebrew, 'the sea').
^¦' This passage has perhaps a
bearing on the question as to the
date of II. Isaiah. As Prof. A. S.

ISAIAH.

[chap. lx.

cover thee — young camels of Midian and Ephah, from Sheba
shall they all come, bearing gold and incense, and heralding
the praises of Jehovah. ' All the flocks of Kedar shall gather
unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee :
they shall go up mine altar acceptably, and my glorious house
will I glorify. "* Who are these which fly as the clouds, and
as doves to their lattices ? ^ Yea, " for me the countries wait "
and the ships of Tarshish are the foremost, to bring thy sons
from far, their silver and their gold with them, to the name
of Jehovah thy God, and to the Holy one of Israel, inasmuch
as he hath glorified thee.
'° And strangers shall build thy walls, and their kings
" Unto me the countries shall assemble, Luzzatto, Geiger (changing vowel-points).

Wilkins remarks, 'the country with
which the historic Isaiah was espe
cially familiar would lie somewhat
out of the direct line of this com
merce.' ' Still the tradition con
necting these nations with Abraham
(comp. Gen. xxv. 2-4, 13) can
hardly have been unknown to
Isaiah, and this will sufficiently
account for his giving them so
honourable a mention. On the
other hand, it is extremely doubtful
whether the names Kedar and
Nebaioth (in v. 7) were still tribal
appellations in the time of the
Exile. If therefore we assign a
Babylonian origin to II. Isaiah,
we must probably assume that the
names in question are used with
poetical liberty. — On the commerce
of Arabia, see Alexander's notes,
and comp. Movers, Die Phonizier,
ii. 3, p. 293.
' Ephah] A 'son' of Midian
(Gen. xxv. 4) ; mentioned (under
the form Khayappa) in an inscrip
tion of Tiglath-Pileser II. in com
pany with Massa and Tema, tribes
of N. Arabia.^  Sheba] The
caravans of the Midianites, espe
cially those of Ephah (Gen. xxv. 4),
appear to have gone to Sheba (or
Yemen) for gold and spices. 
The praises] i.e., the praiseworthy
deeds (as I.xiii. 7).

' Kedar . . . Webaioth] On
the locality of the tribes thus in
dicated, see Sprenger, Journal of
Royal Asiatic Soc, 1872, p. 8.
** •Who are tbese . . .] The
predictive tone gives place for a
moment to the descriptive. It is a
vision of the sea which we have be
fore us — of the sea covered by ships
which with their outspread sails
resemble the clouds, or flights of
home-sick doves (comp. Hos.xi. 1 1).
^ The countries xvait] The
'countries' (i.e., the 'far-off peoples,'
xlix. l) 'wait' in believing expect
ancy for the blessings, which be
long to them too, ,at least in the
second rank. This is one motive
for their haste. Another is regard
for the children of Zion, who are
impatient to be restored to their
home.  Ships of Tarshish] Or,
' Tarshish-ships ' (ships of the first
class, suitable for long voyages,
comp. I Kings x. 22.  Their
silver] i.e., the silver of the Gen
tiles (w. 6, II, not of the Israelites.
 To tbe name] i.e., to the
place of the name (xviii. 7). The
clause is almost a verbal repetition
of Iv. 5 b.
'^ And strangers ... J ' The
walls of Zion are raised with the
willing co-operation of converted
foreigners (lvi. 6, 7),' thinks De-

' "Wilkins, Phoenicia and Israel (Lond. 1871), p. no.
"* Schradt-r, Keilinschriftcn und Gcschiclitsforschung, pp. 261-2 ; comp. Friedr.
Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies f p. 304.

chap. LX.]

ISAIAH.

89

shall minister unto thee, for in my wrath I smote thee, and
in my favour I will have compassion upon thee : " and thy
gates shall stand open continually, day nor night they shall
not be shut, that men may bring unto thee the riches of the
nations, and their kings led along : '^ for the nation and king
dom that will not serve thee shall perish, and those nations
shall surely be laid waste. '^ The glory of Lebanon shall come
unto thee, the fir and the plane and the sherbin together, that
I may glorify the place of my sanctuary, and make the place
of my feet honourable. ''' And the sons of them that afflicted
thee shall go unto thee crouching, and all they that spurned
thee shall bow down to the soles of thy feet, and they shall
call thee, City of Jehovah, Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
'^ Instead of thy being forsaken and hated, and with none
passing through, I will make thee an everlasting pride, the

litzsch. But does not the context
(see vv. II, 12, 14) point rather to
the mass of the heathen world than
to williiig proselytes ? Is not the
submission of these foreigners
rather a consequence of the recent
judgment (comp. lix. 19 a) than the
result of spiritual affinities ? See
Ixi. 5, 6, where the assignment of
menial services to 'strangers' is
evidently intended as a retribution
(comp. xiv. 2). This passage illus
trates Ixi. 4 (see note).
" Thy gates shall stand open]
Because there will be ' no night
there' (comp. v. 20, Rev. xxi. 25),
and no foes seeking entrance, but
an endless stream of caravans. 
And tbeir kings led along] i.e.,
not 'accompanied by a large re
tinue' (Kimchi, Vitr., Lowth, Ges.
in Commentary), but (as the verb
always means) ' led captive ' (same
word in xx. 4), or at least 'led
against their will.' All eager to
minister to Israel, the 'far-off na
tions ' force their reluctant chiefs to
join them. The reason is given in
the next verse.
'* The prosperity of Gentile na
tions shall depend on their relations
to Israel (comp. Zech. xiv. 17, 18).
 Nations . . . laid -waste]
' Nation ' and ' territory ' being con

vertible terms in Hebrew, whatever
is predicted of the one may also
be predicted of the other (comp.
xxxvii. 18, 2 Kings iii. 23, Hebr.).
'^ The barren hills of Jerusalem
shall henceforth be decked with the
most beautiful forest-trees (comp.
xli. 19).  The place of my sanc
tuary] What sanctuary? It is
natural to think first of the temple.
The trees which have been men
tioned might be required, either, if
felled, for the temple-buildings (so
Vitr.), or, if unfelled, for decorating
the temple-courts, comp. Ps. lii. 8,
xcii. 13 (so Cel.). But the Shekinah
is no longer confined to a single
house : all Jerusalem has become
the ' sanctuary' of Jehovah (so too
perhaps iv. 5).
'* The sons of them that af
flicted thee] ' The sons,' appa
rently because the ' afflicters '
themselves will have perished in
the Divine judgment.  zion of
the Holy One . . .] A combination
like ' Bethlehem (of) Judah.'
'^ Forsaken and bated] Zion is
again imagined as Jehovah's bride
(comp. 1. I, liv. 6). But the figure
is not carried out consistently. —
The word ' hated ' is used in Gen.
xxix. 31, Deut. xxi. 15, of a less be
loved wife.

90

ISAIAH.

[chap. lx.

delight of successive generations. "^ And thou shalt suck the
milk of nations, and the breast of kings shalt thou suck, and
thou shalt know that I Jehovah am thy saviour, and that thy
Goel is the Hero of Jacob. '^ Instead of copper I will bring
gold, and instead of iron I will bring silver, and instead of
wood copper, and instead of stones iron ; and I will make
^ peace thy government, and righteousness thy magistrates '^.
" Violence shall no more be heard of in thy land, desolation
nor destruction in thy borders ; and thou shalt call thy walls
Salvation, and thy gates Praise.
'" No more shalt thou have the sun for a light by day,
and as for brightness, the moon shall not enlighten thee ; but
thou shalt have Jehovah for an everlasting light, and thy God
for thy glory. ^" No more shall thy sun go down, and thy

•^ Thy government peace (i.e., peace-loving)
Henderson.

Sept., Saad., Hitz., Knob.,

'^ And tbou shalt su^k . . . ]
Perhaps a reminiscence of Deut.
xxxiii. 19, ' They shall suck the
abundance of the seas.'  The
breast of klnfff] ' Of kings ; '
perhaps to exclude a realistic inter
pretation. The phrase strikingly
indicates the new feeling of tender
ness towards Zion which shall
animate the kings of the earth,
(comp. xlix. 23).  That I Jeho
vah . . .] Repeated from xlix. 26 b.
" Instead of copper . . .]
Evidently an allusion to the ac
count of Solomon in i Kings x. 21,
27. The language is of course
figurative, and means that the new
Jerusalem shall be at the height of
splendour and security (metal tak
ing the place of stone).  'Will
make peace thy government]
For the prosopopeeia, comp. xxxii.
16, 17, lix. 14. — It has been
questioned whether ' peace ' and
'righteousness' are accusatives of
the object or of the predicate.
But, as Naeg. well remarks, it
would be comparatively little to
say that Jerusalem's governors
should be men of peace and
righteousness, for this would not
exclude much unhappiness and un
righteousness among the governed.

But if Peace and Righteousness
themselves are the governors, it is
as much as to say that government
in the ordinary sense has become
superfluous. — This passage evi
dently implies that those for whom
our prophet wrote only had the
Messianic belief in its wider sense,
Jehovah alone being Israel's king.
'^ Shalt call tby walls Salva
tion . . .] There is the same doubt
as to whether the abstract nouns
are objects or predicates as in v.
17. Such names as 'Salvation'
and ' Praise ' would not be impos
sible ; Naeg. (on xxvi. i) reminds
us that the walls of Babylon were
named.' But it is more forcible to
take ' Salvation ' and ' Praise ' as
accusatives of the object. The
meaning of the passage will then
be, ' Thou shalt need no walls nor
gates, for Jehovah shall be a con
stant source of salvation, and of a
renown which shall keep all foes at
a distance.' Comp. xxvi. i, xxxiii.
21. We need not mind the obvious
inconsistency with vv. 10, 11, for
we are in the region of symbol and
metaphor. '° The sun for a light] See note
on xxx. 26.
™ Go down] Lit., 'go in,' viz.

' See Records of the Past, v. 124 ; Schrader, R. A. T., p. :

CHAP. LXI.] ISAIAH. 91
moon shall not withdraw itself, for thou shalt have Jehovah
for an everlasting light, and thy days of mourning are ful
filled. ^' And thy people shall be all righteous, they shall
possess the land for ever ; the shoots of my plantation, the
work of my hands, for showing myself glorious. " The smallest
shall become a thousand, and the least a great nation ; I
Jehovah in its time will hasten it.
into his chamber (Ps. xix. 5).   Tbe shoots of my plantation]
Itself] Lit. ' himself Both sun and therefore flourishing ; comp.
and moon are masc. in the Semitic Ps. Ixxx. 9, 10.
languages, and have male divinities '^'^ The smallest] i.e., he who has
corresponding to them. few or no children.  A thousand,
'^ Thy people . . . for ever] i.e., probably, a chiliad, or part of
Now that Israel is righteous, there a tribe (so Del.) ; comp. Mic. v. 2'
will be no reason for the stem dis- (Hebr. i), which makes a fine con-
cipline of exile ; comp. lix. 13, 14. trast with ' nation' in the next line.

CHAPTER LXI.

A SOLILOQUV of the Servant ' concerning the message of grace, com
fort, and prosperity committed to him for Zion by Jehovah. — But is it really
' the Servant ' who is the speaker ? The title itself does not occur once
throughout the soliloquy. Hence it is not surprising that several modern
critics (Hitz., Ew., Knob., Diestel) question this view, and assign the
speech to the prophet who writes these chapters ; the Targum, too, dog
matically asserts, ' (Thus) saith the prophet.' Our conclusion will depend
mainly on that which we have adopted with regard to 1. 4-9 — a passage
in some respects closely parallel to the present. There, as well as here,
the title of the speaker is withheld ; there, as well as here, the opening
verse declares the mission of the speaker to be pre-eminently one of
consolation. It is true that in 1. 5 the speaker suddenly turns aside to
describe his patience under persecution ; but this is all the more reason
why in the present chapter he should compensate us for our disappoint
ment by resuming the strain so abruptly cut short. Diestel '' urges two
objections against assigning this soliloquy to the Servant, viz., i. that the
personification of the Servant ceases with chap, liii., and 2. that as the
prophet is himself a member of the organism of the Servant, whatever
can be predicated of the one both can and must be true of the other.
The answer to i. is, that it is an assumption based on a too exclusive view
of chaps, liv., lv., and the very loosely connected discourses which
follow ; to 2., that precisely as in xliv. 26 we find the prophetic writer
' So Hengst., Stier, Del., Seinecke, Kay, Naeg., and so /. C. A., p. 216. De-
Htzsch, therefore, is not so comparatively isolated as he supposes. (Jesaia, 3te Ausg.
p. 620.) ^ Der Prophet Jesaia, erklart von Dr. A. Knobel, Vierte Auflage, herausgeg. von
Dr. L. Diestel, p. 487.

92 ISAIAH. [chap. LXI.
described as ' his (Jehovah's) servant,' without precluding the higher
acceptation of the term in lii . 1 3, so the occurrence of the phrase ' the
servants of Jehovah' in liv. 17 does not destroy the superior right of
Him who is pre-eminently the Servant of Jehovah. True, the speaker in
chap. Ixi. does not expressly assume the title ; but is it necessary that he
should ? Having been introduced as the Servant in xiii. 1-4, why should
he not sometimes speak in his OAvn name ? It may safely be affirmed
that, but for the absence of the title ' the Servant,' no one could fail to
be struck by the appropriateness of vv. 1-3 (especially) to the personal
Servant of Jehovah : — the great things which the speaker volunteers to do
are so far beyond the range of a mere prophet like our author. This
need not, however, hinder us from admitting that vv. 4-9 have nothing
to mark them out as belonging to the Servant. Just as here and there
in St. John's Gospel the speeches of our Lord suddenly pass into re
flexions of the Evangelist, so it may here be that the prophet for a time
takes the place of the Servant ; comp. 1. 10, 11.
'The Spirit of °^the Lord^ Jehovah is upon me, because
Jehovah hath anointed me to bring good tidings to the
afflicted, hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to pro
claim liberty to the captives, and "^ opening (of the prison) ''
to the bound ; ^ to proclaim an acceptable year of J ehovah,
" Omitted in Sept., Vulg., one MS. (Kennicott), two early editions.
i" Opening (of the eyes), Hebr. text (see crit. note).
' The Spirit ... Is upon me] five times, except xli. 27). To
Precisely the same statement is proclaim liberty . . . ] The phrase
made respecting the Servant in is peculiar, and is probably taken
xiii. I.  Hath anointed me] from the Law of Jubilee (Lev. xxv.
Anointing was the rite with which 10, comp. Ezek. xlvi. 17, Jer. xxxiv.
both priests (Ex. xxix. 7, Lev. vii. 8), but is applied with poetical free-
36) and kings (i Sam. ix. 16, x. i, dom ; the Law of Jubilee says
xvi. 1 3) were consecrated. But the nothing about the release of prison-
phrase 'to anoint' seems to be also ers or the remission of debts.' 
used metaphorically for 'to appoint To the captives] See on xiii. 7.
to a sacred office.' Thus in i Kings ^ An acceptable year] Obs.
xix. 16 Elijah is directed to 'anoint ' the antithesis between the 'year'
Elisha, though as the sequel shows, of grace and the ' day of vengeance '
Elisha was never actually anointed. (so Ixiii. 4, whereas xxxiv. 8 is only
So, too, in xiv. I Cyrus is called partly parallel). It reminds us of
'Jehovah's Anointed One,' i.e., His the contrast in Ex. xx. 5, 6 (comp.
chosen instrument ; and in i John Deut. vii. 9), where retribution is
ii. 20 (comp. V. 27) the 'unction declared to descend to the third
from the Holy One' is also clearly and fourth generation, but mercy
metaphorical.  To bring good to the thousandth ; comp. also liv.
tidings] Hebr. /Ma.yj^r, happily 8 (note). 'Year ' is of course used
rendered by Sept. eiayyfXiVacrSni rhetorically, though, strange to say,
(similarly throughout II. Isaiah, this passage gave rise to the theory
where verb and participle occur of some of the Christian Fathers
' Mr. Fenton has explained the institution of the Jubilee as a relic of the ' 'Village
Community ' system of land-tenure (Hebrew Social Life, 1880).

CH.\P. LXl].

I.SAIAH.

93

and a day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all mournful
ones ; ' to set upon the mournful ones of Zion — to give them
a coronet instead of ashes, oil of joy for mourning, a mantle
of renown for a failing spirit, so that men shall call them oaks
of righteousness, the plantation of Jehovah for showing him
self glorious. * And they shall build up the ruins of antiquity,
the desolations of the forefathers shall they raise up, and shall
renew the ruined cities, the desolations of past generations,
*And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and aliens
shall be your ploughmen and your vinedressers, ^but ye —

that the public ministry of our
Lord lasted but a single year. 
All mournful ones] Zion occupies
the foreground of the speaker^s
thoughts (comp. next verse and
lvii. 1 8 b), but the marks of suscep
tibility of the Divine promises are
in the two opening verses perhaps
designedly left free from national
hmitations (comp. lvii. 15). See
above, on ' to the captives,' and
below on ' a failing spirit.'
* To set ... to give] It seems
as if the speaker corrected himself.
The verb 'to set' is appropriate for
the ' coronet,' but a more general
word is required for the 'oil of joy'
and the ' mantle of renown.'  A
coronet Instead of asbes] In 7/.
10 we read of the bridegroom's
' coronet ; ' by using the same word
here the prophet may imply that
the penitents were newly espoused
to their Divine Lord. The Hebrew
expresses the change in their state
by a striking assonance (pe'er ta-
khath 'efer), which Ewald strives
to represent by ' schmuck statt
schmutz.' 'Ashes,' i.e., ashes strewn
upon the head, were a sign of mourn
ing; comp. 2 Sam. xiii. 19.  Oil of
joy] The phrase only occurs again
in Ps. xiv. (v. 7 = Hebr. 8), the royal
nuptial song.  A failing spirit]
The word is the same as in xiii. 3,
' a dimly burning wick ' (comp. xiii.
4, and Ezek. xxi. 7 = Hebr. 12), a
p'hrase which, be it remarked, refers
at any rate partly to the Gentiles.
 Oaks of righteousness] i.e.,
strong and enduring, because
'rooted and grounded in right

eousness. Whose righteousness ?
we may ask; that of man or of God?
The former, is certainly the most
natural reply : ' righteousness ' in
a phrase of this construction ought
to mean an intrinsic quality of the
'oaks'; comp. liv. 14. It. is no
counter-argument that in v. 10
'righteousness' means God's right
eousness as exhibited in the pros
perity of his own, for we have the
two senses of righteousness equally
close together in liv. 14, 17. The
next words, tbe plantation of
Jehovah, &c., are repeated almost
verbally from lx. 2 1 b.
* And they shall build up . . .]
The implied subject is ' strangers '
(see V. 5). We have thus a varia
tion from the parallel passage lviii.
12. Obs., the speaker's attention
is concentrated on the first act of
the great drama of Israel's regene
ration. He presently passes on
to the more splendid second act,
which he describes as if it syn
chronised with the first. The first
act is the return of the exiles and
the rebuilding of the desolate cities
of Judah ; the second, the union
of Jews and Gentiles in one great
and glorious religious community.
^ Shall stand and feed] The
description is still true to life.
(Thomson, The Land and the
Book, p. 599).  TTour plough
men . . . ] No brilliant prospect
for the ' aliens,' if the peasants of
the Messianic period were to be
as miserable and downtrodden a
race as the Fellahs of Palestine
are now ! But we must evidently

94

ISAIAH.

[chap LXI.

the priests of Jehovah shall ye be called ; men shall name you
the ministers of our God ; the riches of the nation shall ye
eat, and " of their glory shall ye make your boasf^ ' Instead
of your shame ye shall have double, and (instead of) reproach
they shall exult for their portion ; therefore in their land they
shall possess double, everlasting joy shall be unto them. ' For
I Jehovah love justice, I hate things torn away unjustly, and I
will give them their recompence faithfully, and an everlasting
= To their glory shaU ye succeed, Saadya, Rashi, Ges. (Thesaurus), Hitz., Ew.,
Knob.

suppose that all classes in the
' coming age ' were to partake in
their several degrees of the Mes
sianic blessing. A relative differ
ence between classes would remain,
but it would be accepted thankfully
even by those lowest in 'the scale
(comp. xiv. 14). The highest place
would naturally be reserved for
the Israelites. These would be
called the priests of Jehovab, for
they would have realised the ideal
set forth in Ex. xix. 6, and be able
to dispense with a separate sacer
dotal order (see, however, lxvi. 21).
The priests, as Hermann Schultz
justly remarks,' were only an official
representation of Israel's national
idea, viz. that those, with whom
their God had entered into cove
nant-relations, should be both out
wardly and inwardly worthy of their
high position. The existence of
the priesthood did not by any means
imply that the rest of the people
were profane ; it was only provi
sional. But when the Israelites
had become a 'kingdom of priests'
(E.x. /. c), who were to occupy the
place out of which the faithful por
tion of the people had just been
raised ? The Gentile world (comp.
Zech. viii. 23). This ' natural and
surelynot unlovely touch of national
complacency ' was never quite lost
by any of the old Testament writers.
 Shall ye make your boast]
It is a strong argument for this
reading that the same verb in the
same conjugation occurs in this

sense in Ps. xciv. 4, which forms
part of the deutero- Isaianic section
of the Psalter (Ps. xci.-c).^
^ ITe shall bave double] i.e.,
double compensation. Comp. Zech.
ix. 12, 'Yea, to-day do I foretell
that I will recompense double unto
thee' ; also Jer. xvi. 14-18, 'where
the unparalleled grandeur of the
second restoration of the Jews is
justified by the extreme severity
of their previous chastisment.' ' It
is not, however, double compensa
tion in honour which is intended
(Naeg., and partly Knob.), for this
would not be concrete enough for
the prophets. ' The land' was the
one blessing which included all
others. Hence the prophecy con
tinues, tberefore (i.e., the result
will be that — see on xxvi. 14) in
their land they shall possess
double, i.e., their ancient land
( = ' their portion ' in the former
half of the verse) shall be restored
in more than its old fertility and
with extended boundaries. Thus
the idea of this passage is the
counterpart of that in xl. 2 ; the
peculiarity of Jer. xvi. 14-18 is that
it unites both ideas (see above).
* ror I Jehovah love justice
. . . ] The speaker quotes a con
firmatory utterance of Jehovah.
The 'right' of the Israelites has
been violently ' torn away ' (comp.
X. 2, same word) : Jehovah, who
hates injustice, will compensate
them for their sufferings. Kloster-
mann's interpretation is over-

' Alttestametttliche Theologie, ist ed., i. 1S3-4.
2 See Canon Elliott's comparative list of passages in the Speaker's Commentary,
lv. 506, &c. *LCA.,p. 147.

CHAP. LXI.]

ISAIAH.

95

covenant will I make with them ; ^ so that their seed shall be
known among the nations, and their offspring in the midst of
the peoples — all that see them shall acknowledge them, that
they are a seed which Jehovah hath blessed.
'" I will greatly rejoice in Jehovah ; let my soul exult in
my God, for he hath clothed me with garments of salvation,
in a robe of righteousness hath he arrayed me, like a bride
groom that maketh his coronet priestly, and like a bride that
putteth on her jewels. " For like the earth which bringeth
forth its sprouting, and like a garden which causeth the things
sown in it to sprout, so [the Lord] Jehovah shall cause right
eousness to sprout, even renown before all the nations.
it is evidently the Servant and not
Jehovah, who is the subject of com
parison. The Israelitish bridegroom
appears, from Cant. iii. II, to have
been crowned ' on the day of his
espousals,' and so at least in later
times was the bride. A well-known
passage in the Mishna (Sota, ix. 14)
states that during the war of Ves
pasian bridegrooms were forbidden
to wear crowns i^atdroth), and that
during that of Titus (Gratz corrects
' Quietus ') the prohibition was ex
tended to brides — a sign of the
passionate grief of the Jews at the
ruin of the nation. The promise of
Jehovah, realised by faith, is com
pared by the Servant to such a
headdress. From the expression
' maketh priestly,' it would seem
that the style of this headdress
resembled that of the priests' tiara
(Ex. xxix. 9, comp. Jos. Ant. iii. 7,
3). To suppose that this resem
blance was symbolical of the priestly
character of the head of the house
hold, seems to me farfetched. It
is well known that archaic forms
and fashions linger longest in ritual
and ceremonial observances.
" Cause ... to sprout] Another
allusion (comp. xiii. 9, xliii. 19, lviii.
8) to the self-fulfilling power of the
Divine word.  Renown] Lit.,
' praise.' The prophet means events
stirring up men to praise Israel
and Israel's God.

subtle': 'the Israelites shall not
return as conquerors, as their
ancestors entered Canaan, by the
right of the strongest, but with the
free-will of theii- former enemies.'
 Their recompence] i.e., com
pensation for their sufferings (comp.
on V. 7).  raitbfully] i.e., with
out curtailment, in exact accordance
with his promise.  An everlast
ing covenant] See on lv. 3.
' Known] i.e., renowned.
'" I will greatly rejoice . . .]
According to the Targum, Jeru
salem is here the speaker, appro
priating and rejoicing in the fore
going promises. This is certainly
plausible, for the speaker clearly
implies that he looks forward to
a share in the promised blessings,
and how can the Servant, himself
the mediator of these blessings, feel
this longing i" — How? by his sym
pathy; for though hehas not literally
shared in the sin of his people, he
has 'taken it upon him' (liii. 4, 11)
out of sympathy, and must be both
able and desirous, through the
same fellow-feeling, to share in the
coming blessedness. It is the Ser
vant of Jehovah, then, who con
tinues to speak.  C-arments of
salvation] The figure reminds us
of lix. 17.  Righteousness] i.e.,
the prosperity which a righteous
God will give (comp. on liv. 17).
 Iiike a bridegroom . . .] The
simile is very loosely attached, but
' It is, however, accepted, I see,

by Delitzsch, in his third edition.

96

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LXII.

CHAPTER LXII.
Contents. — A continuation of the bright promises of the last chapter,
concluding with the welcome summons to depart from Babylon. — Most
modern critics regard this chapter as the soliloquy of the prophet ; Vitr.
alone gives it to a chorus of prophets and other servants of God, while
Henderson, Stier, Kay, Naeg., assign it to the Servant of Jehovah or the
Messiah. If there is nothing in the chapter specially suggestive of the
Servant, and as the opening words ' I will not be silent ' are elsewhere
uttered by Jehovah, it is safer to follow Targ., Ibn Ezra, Kimchi,
Luzzatto, Del., and suppose Jehovah himself to be the speaker. See
also note on v. 6.
' For Zion's sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem's
sake I will not rest, until her righteousness go forth as the
shining light, even her salvation as a torch that burneth.
^ And the nations shall see thy righteousness, and all kings
thy glory, and men shall call thee by a new name which the
mouth of Jehovah shall appoint ; ^ and thou shalt be a crown
of adorning in the hand of Jehovah, and a diadem of royalty

' But will these great promises
be realised? Will Jehovah indeed
' cause righteousness to sprout ' ?
The ' deep gloom ' with which Zion
as well as the other nations is still
oppressed may well excuse a mo
ment of despondency. But Jeho
vah will not let such despondency
pass unchecked.  r win not be
silent, he says, I will not for ever
hold back that restoring and re
viving word for which my people
are longing. Comp. xiii. 14, lvii. 11,
lxiv. 12, Ixv. 6.  The shining
light] Lit, 'the brilhance'; Ewald
has ' der Sonnenstrahl.' The word
is used of the dawn (the Eastern
dawn) in lx. 3, Dan. vi. 20, and
especially Prov. iv. 18. Luzzatto is
alone in thinking of the planet
Venus. ^ '&y a new name] So in Ixv.
15, 'he shall call his servants by
another name.' It is a title of
honour which is meant, such for
instance as that in Jer. xxxiii. 16,
' Jehovah (is) our righteousness.'
This prophet however goes beyond
Jeremiah, for he speaks of a ' new

name,' one past human imagining,
and which, like the new heaven
and the new earth, depends upon
the appointment of the Creator;
compare Rev. ii. 17, iii. 12 (in the
Greek). ' A crown of adorning] Not
' the crown ; ' Jehovah has ' many
crowns.' The regeneration of I srael
constitutes a fresh claim on the
part of Jehovah to the reverence
and admiration of the universe
(comp. v.2a); this appears to be
the meaning of the prophecy.
Knobel, indeed, supposes the ex
pression to be a figurative descrip
tion of the situation of Jerusalem
(comp. on .x.xviii. i), and the fol
lowing phrase, 'in the hand,' to
be a metaphor = ' under the Divine
protection' (comp. xlix. 2). But
this is farfetched, nor is there any
allusion in the context to the
dangers of the new Jerusalem.
Jehovah is pictured as holding
the crown in his hand to exhibit
it to the admiring world (Ew.,
Del.).  In the open hand]
Comp. Bonomi, Nineveh, p. 191,

CHAP. LXII.]

ISAIAH.

97

in the open hand of thy God. ¦* No more shalt thou be named
Forsaken, neither shall thy land any more be named Desola
tion ; for thou shalt be called ^ Well-pleasing, and thy land
Married ; for Jehovah delighteth in thee, and thy land shall
be married. * For (as) a young man marrieth a virgin, thy
sons shall marry thee, and with the joy of the bridegroom
over the bride shall thy God joy over thee.
^ Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchers ; all
day and all night they are never silent : ye that are Jehovah's
remembrancers, take ye no rest ; ^ and give no rest to him,
until he establish and until he make Jerusalem a renown in
» Most render. My delight (is) in her ; comp. , however, Ohohbah, ' there is a tent
in her, ' Ezek. xxiii. 4, and Smend, ad loc.

where the guests at a banquet hold
their drinking-vessels in the deeply
hollowed palms of their hands.
¦• For the present Jehovah re
serves the mystic name of the new
Jerusalem to himself. But the
prophet is allowed to mention two
inferior, every-day names which
may appropriately be used, the one
for Jerusalem, the other for the land
of Israel. By an odd coincidence,
the name which is now repudiated
for Jerusalem — Forsaken (Hebr.
Azubah) — is also the name of the
mother of the pious Jehoshaphat
(i Kings xxii. 42), while that which
is adopted in its place — ^Well-
pleasing (Hebr. Hephzibah) — is
that of the mother of the idolatrous
Manasseh (2 Kings xxi. i).
' For as a young man . . .]
An explanation of the new names
in V. 4. As a young man marries
a virgin, so shall the restored Jewish
exiles take possession of their terri
tory ; and as a bridegroom rejoices
over his bride, so shall Jehovah
rejoice over his erring but repen
tant people (comp. 1. i). The ex
pression, tby sons shall marry
tbee, is less strange in Hebrew
than in English, the word for 'to
marry ' being properly ' to be lord
over.' * TTpon tby walls] The walls are
those of which we have heard in
xlix. 16 as being ' continually be
fore ' Jehovah ; the Jerusalem is
VOL. II.

the ideal or supersensible one (not
the less real because ideal) — see
on xl. 9. The ' watchers ' therefore
are not prophets (Knob., Del.), but
angelic beings (Targ., Ew., Hahn,
Seinecke). Their function is to
'remind' Jehovah, not of human
sin (i Kings xvii. 18) and infirmity
(Job i. 1 1, ii. 5), but of his covenant-
promise to protect his people, and
we have perhaps a sample of their
intercession in li. 9, 10 (see note on
'Awake, awake'). They are thus
analogous to that ' angel of Jeho
vah' in Zech. i. 12, who intercedes
for mercy for Jerusalem and the
cities of Judah, and perhaps to
the friendly angel-mediator in Job
xxxiii. 23. We have met with these
'watchers' before (a synonymous
word is used) in lii. 8 (see note),
where they give notice of the ap
proach of Jehovah with the return
ing exiles. In Daniel, too (e.g., iv.
13), and in Enoch (e.g., i. 5), the
angels are called 'watchers' (Hebr.)
Hrim, iEthiop. t'guhdn, i.e., vigiles),
and there is a special class of
angels called iypr)yopoi in the
Testaments of the Twelve Patri
archs. More distant, but not the
less genuine, is the relation of the
phrase to the ¦napdiCKrfros of the
Johannine Gospel.— But who is it
that declares, 1 bave set watchers >
Surely not the prophet, even grant
ing that the ' watchers ' themselves
are prophets (Knob.), Who but
H

98

ISAIAH.

[chap, lxii

the earth. * Sworn hath Jehovah by his right hand, and by
his strong arm, Surely I will no more give thy corn for food
to thy enemies, and strangers shall not drink thy grapes, for
which thou hast laboured ; ^ for they who have garnered it
shall eat it and praise Jehovah, and they that gathered it
together shall drink it in my holy courts.
'" Pass ye, pass ye through the gates ; clear ye the way of
the people ; cast ye up, cast ye up the highway ; take ye
out the stones ; lift ye up a banner over the peoples. " J3e-
hold, Jehovah causeth it to be heard unto the end of the
earth ; say ye unto the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy Salva
tion cometh ; behold, his wage is with him, and his recom
pence before him. '^ And men shall call them. The holy
people, Jehovah's released ones ; and thou shalt be called
Sought out, City not forsaken.

Jehovah could commission either
angelic or prophetic watchers ?
(So Del.)
^' ' Perhaps Jehovah's reply to
the intercession of tha' remembran
cers ' ; at the same time a special
supplement to the promise in vv.
2-5. The tone corresponds to the
circumstances of a very primitive
period, when the harvest and the
vintage were liable to be pillaged
by nomadic hordes (comp. Judg.
vi. 4, 1 1, Isa. xvi. 9).
^ In my boly courts] Lowth
and Ges. see here a reference to
the rules about the tithes and
firstfruits, which were to be eaten
' before Jehovah ' (Deut. xii. 17, 18,
xiv. 23-26). But the whole of the
harvest could not be eaten in the
courts of the temple ! The expres
sion is figurative, like ' to dwell, to
worship, in Jehovah's house' (Ps.
V. 7, XV. I, &c.), for 'to hold com
munion with Jehovah,' and simply
means ' shall eat and drink praising
Jehovah,' which indeed is the very
phrase used in the parallel line.
(So Diestel.)
10-ia The -prophet returns to the
exiles in Babylon, and urges them
not to delay their homeward march.
It is the same call which sounded in
the two former divisions of the pro
phecy (xlviii. 20, lii. 11).  clear
ye the way] An imaginative direc

tion to Jehovah's invisible servants
(so xl. 3, lvii. 14). It is tantamount
to a prophecy such as xi. 16. 
Over tbe peoples] i.e., high above
them, so as to be seen far and wide.
The 'peoples' are the Gentiles who
are to escort the Jewish exiles,
comp. xlix. 22, xi. 10, 12.
" Causeth it to be beard] viz.,
as appears from the sequel, the
news of the imminent deliverance
of Israel (as xlviii. 20).  Say ye
. . . ] This is a fresh summons,
and is not to be included in the
utterance to 'the end of the earth'
— for what object could there be in
enlisting the most remote nations •
in the service of Zion? No; the
I daughter of Zion' is in captivity
in Babylonia. Her heralds are ^
either supersensible beings (comp.
lii. 7, 8) or the prophets addressed
in xl. I. The misunderstanding of
the critics is caused by the crowd
ing of thoughts in the prophet's
jojrfuUy excited mind.  Behold,
his wage . . .] Repeated from xl.
^o-  The boly (i.e. consecrated)
people] Such they were destined
to be (Ex. xix. 6), though the ideal
was but most imperfectly realised.
But now the real andnhe ideal are
one.  Sought out] i.e., eagerly
cared for. A contrast to Jer. xxx.
17, 'She is Zion; no man seeketh
her out.'

CHAP. LXIII.] ISAIAH. 99

CHAPTER LXIII. i-6.
These six verses are entirely detached both from the foregoing and
from the following prophecy, and ought to have formed a chapter by
themselves. They contain a lyrico-dramatic dialogue (which reminds us
of that in Ps. xxiv. 7-10) between the prophet as a bystander and a
victorious warrior (i.e. Jehovah) returning from the field of battle in
Idumaea. ' This highly dramatic description,' according to Ewald,' ' unites depth
of emotion with artistic perfection, and reproduces a genuine prophetic
vision.' Certainly there is a wonderful forcefulness of phrase, and pic
torial power, in this brief prophecy, though it is impossible to read it
without shuddering (with reverence be it said) at the vehement indigna
tion which it expresses. No wonder that it drew the attention of the
seer of Patmos, who interwove some of its striking phrases in one of
the sublimest but most awful passages of the Apocalypse (xix. 13, 15).
Ewald then goes on to state one of his bold critical conjectures, viz., that
Ixiii. 1-6, together with chap, lviii. and lix. 1-20, is the work of a fresh
writer, distinct from the prophet who composed the greater part of
II. Isaiah. I do not here discuss this view as a critical hypothesis, and
merely mention it as a symbol of the striking impression made upon
Ewald by the literary affinities of these prophecies, especially Ixiii. 1-6
and the imaginative description in lix. 1 5 b-20.^ These affinities exist,
and are of some importance to exegesis, as it follows from them-^i. that
at any rate chap. lix. and Ixiii. 1-6 were occasioned by the same contem
porary circumstances, and 2. that the subject of the latter prophecy is
the same as that of the description in lix. 15 b-20, viz., a theophany, i.e., a
divinely ordained turn in the fortunes of Israel. When, therefore, Mr. Row
(refining upon the well-known patristic interpretation) supposes ' that the
mysterious warrior in Ixiii. 1-6 is Israel — not indeed Israel as he is, but
idealised into a being of a nature chiefly divine but partly human, he can
be at once refuted by pointing to lix. 15, where the warrior is expressly
affirmed to be Jehovah. Mr. Row's mistake is probably caused by his
blind following of the division into chapters. For in the first six verses
Israel is completely in the background ; it is only at v. 7 that the hopes
and fears of God's covenant-people begin to find expression. It may not
be superfluous to add, that there is this marked difference between
Jehovah, as described in the prophecies, and Jehovah's Servant, that the
one can employ violent means, when he thinks it necessary or expedient,
while the other is throughout represented as employing moral means, and
as being rewarded by Jehovah for his self-sacrifice.
Modem critics in general, both Roman Catholic* and Protestant
' Die Prophsien, iii. iig.
2 Observe that one verse is almost identical in both prophecies (comp. Ixiii. < with
lix. 16).
3 The Jesus of the Evangelists, p. 163.
¦» E.g , the two recent Rom. Cath. commentators, Rohlingand Neteler (see Naeg 's
introduction to Ixiii. 1-6).
H 2

lOO

ISAIAH.

[chap. LXIII.

deny at any rate that the primary reference of the prophecy is to the
personal Servant of Jehovah. Calvin long ago put this view with a clear
ness and a force which leave nothing to be desired ; he calls the tradi
tional Christian interpretation a violent wresting of the prophecy, which
eimply declares in figurative terms that God will interpose for His people.
The only doubt is whether Edom is to be taken literally or symbolically ;
whether, that is, the calamity described means only the general judgment
upon the world, or a special visitation of Edom ; or whether, again, we
may combine these views. Our conclusion upon this point will depend
on the opinion we have formed of the parallel prophecy in chap, xxxiv.
It is certainly a strange phenomenon, this reference to a great battle
field in Edom, when the grand object of II. Isaiah is to help the Jews
to realise their coming deliverance from Babylon. It creates a serious
difficulty for those who maintain that II. Isaiah was written at one time
and under one set of impressions. The complications of the problems of
Biblical criticism are only beginning to be adequately realised.
1 ' Who is this that cometh from Edom, in bright-red gar
ments from Bozrah ? this that is splendid in his raiment, that
* tosseth (his head) "¦ in the fulness of his strength ? ' 'I am
' So Ges., Naeg. — Bending to and fro, Del. — Stretching himself out, Ew.

' That eontetb from Edom]
From this it would appear that
the battle which chiefly excites the
writer's interest has been in Edom.
In vv. 3, 6, however, a subsequent
encounter is referred to, in which
' the peoples ' (or ' peoples,' for the
article is not expressed), i.e, the
mass of the Gentile world, feel the
weight of the mighty warrior's
hand. They are cursed, like Meroz
(Judg. V. 23), because 'they came
not to the help of Jehovah.' Thus
the national judgment upon Edom
is presented as an earlier stage
of the great world-judgment (see
introd. to chaps, xxiv. -xxvii.). 
In bright-red garments] There
is a doubt whether red is mentioned
as the proper colour of a soldier's
dress (comp. Nah. ii. 3), or as indi
cating the slaughter in which the
hero has been engaged (v. 3). Some
have felt that there would be an
incongruity in the description if a
blood-stained robe were called
' splendid.' Yet the second is the
more natural view (comp. Rev. xix.

13). It represents the warrior as
'con signo di vittoria incoronato,'
as Dante has it in a partly parallel
passage ; ' and the stress laid upon
the shedding of blood in v. 3 sug
gests that the writer himself saw
n<jthing discreditable in the cir
cumstances,  That tosseth (bis
bead)] I cannot agree with Dr.
Weir that Del.'s explanation is
absurd ; the emotional expressions
of more primitive races may appear
strange, but vi'e ought to take ac
count of them in interpreting ancient
writers. The rend, adopted, how
ever, is equally possible, and comes
home more to our feelings. The
tone of this passage reminds us of
xiii. 13, 14; comp. also Ps. lxxiv.
3, ' Lift up thy steps (O Jehovah !)
to the everlasting ruins,' i.e., ad
vance in long, swift steps.  1 am
one that speak . . . ] The warrior
himself answers with far-echoing
voice (for he is seen at a distance,
as Del. subtly remarks). ' Speak
ing' is mentioned, to recall the
numerous prophecies which had

Inferno, iv. 54.

chap. LXIII.]

ISAIAH.

lOI

one that speak in righteousness, that am mighty to save.'
^ ' Why is there red on thy raiment, and thy garments like his
that treadeth in the wine-press ? ' ^ ' The wine-trough I have
trodden alone, and of the peoples there was no man with
me ; so I * trode them in mine anger, and trampled them in my
fury ; and their life-stream besprinkled ^ my garments, and
all my raiment have I defiled. '' For a day of vengeance was
in my heart, and " my year of release " was come. ^ And I
looked, but there was no helper, and was stupefied, but there
>> Will tread . . . will trample . . . shall besprinkle, Vowel-points, Targ., Calv.,
Auth. Vers. , Kay, Naeg. (see crit. note).
« So Sept. (omitting 'my'), Pesh., Vulg.,, Ges., Hitz., Del., Naeg.— The year of
my released ones, Ew., &c. (But see Ixi. 2.)

announced this great display of
righteous wrath and equally right
eous love ; Jehovah is as mighty in
word as in act. ' Righteousness '
is not synonymous with 'truth,'
' veracity,' but, as elsewhere in IL
Isaiah, the fidelity of God to His,
revealed principles of action. 
'Why Is there red . . . ] The
speaker is evidently surprised at
this red appearance ; it is acciden
tal, and not the proper colour of
the dress (see above). The Hebr.
word for ' red ' ('ddom) suggests the
thought of Edom, and from the
sequel we may infer an ideal asso
ciation of the name of Bozrah with
the vintage (baqir), the names of
countries or cities being regarded
as emblematic of their fortunes.
^ Tbe ivine-trongb I have
trodden] The warrior accepts the
metaphor, which indeed is a stand*
ing equivalent for the carnage of
battle (Joel iii. 13, Lam. i. 15, Rev.
xiv. 18-20).  Of tbe peoples
there was no man . . . ] The
nations of the world (at any rate,
those in the neighbourhood of
Israel) are regarded as a single
body ; they are in fact united by a
common fear and hatred of Jeho
vah (Ps. ii. 2). Hence 'no man.'
 So I trode them . . .. ] The
' wine-trough ' was meant for Jeho
vah's enemies and those of his
faithful people ; but there was no
fatal decree binding the Gentile
nations to persist in their hostility.

Any one of them might have sepa
rated itself from the rest. But, as
no such separation occurred, the
Divine warrior took summary ven
geance upon them all.  Tbeir
life-stream] Lit, 'their juice'
(KimiChi, less suitably,, '-their
vigour'). Comp. Ps.. xxxii. 4,
' my sap (a synonymous word) was
turned into the drought of summer.'
— Obs., it is his enemies''blood, and
not his own, with which the dress
of the hero. is. stained^ For it is ' a
more than man' (lo'ish, xxxi.. 8) who
goes to war, and a heavenly sword
(xxxiv. 5) which cuts down the foe.
* A day of vengeance . . . my
year of release] Comp. on \x.i. 2.
' Vengeance ' ; as lix. 1 7, xxxv. 4.
 'Was in my heart] i.e., was
in my intention (as x. "]).-. — Obs.,
V. 4 places us at the moment pre
ceding the act of vengeance ; v. 5
describes the internal debate of
the hero ; vt 6, the deed which fol
lowed, contemporaneous evidently
with V. 3. ' Release ' suggests tbe
object of the Divine intervention ;
it was to procure the release of
Jehovah's people. Alt. rend, is
equally admissible, and in fact more
obvious, but does not make such
a good parallel to ' a year of ven
geance.') * And I looked . . . ] See note
on 1. 2. The first part of the verse
is a free variation on lix. r6 a, Ezek.
xxii. 30 ; the second is a repetition
of lix. 16 b, with the change of

I02 ISAIAH. [CHAP. LXIII.
was no supporter ; therefore mine arm wrought salvation for
me, and my fury — it supported me ; " and I ^ stamped upon
the peoples in mine anger, and ^ broke them to pieces " in my
fury, and ' spilled their life-stream on the ground.'
•i Will stamp, 'Vowel-points, Targ., Calv., &c.— Stamp, Ew.
« So Cappel, Lowth, Hitz., Knob.— Will break them in pieces. Many Hebr. MSS.
Targ. — Break them in pieces, Ew. — Will make them drunk. Received text, Calv., &c. —
Made them drunk, Sept. Vulg. Vitr., Ges., I.uzaito, Del. (The letters, which alone
properly form the text, leave the tense pf the rendering open).
' Will spill. Vowel-points, Targ., Calv., &c.
' righteousness ' into ' fury,' and the then, that in the next verb, broke
third into the first person. them to pieces, the figure of the
" 1 stamped] Auth. Vers., 'I will vintages is altogether deserted.
tread down.' But the verb is dif- The common reading, ' will make
ferent from either of those used (or made) drunk,' is against the
in V. 2. There is the less wonder, parallelism.

CHAPTERS LXIII. 7-LXIV.
Contents. — A thanksgiving, confession of sin, and supplication, which
' the prophet puts into the mouth of the Church of the Exile, or rather
prays out of their heart ' (Del.), for he thoroughly identifies himself with his
people. — The chapter (for such it virtually is — see on lxiv. i) falls naturally
into a number of short paragraphs. In the first (Ixiii. 7-9), the tone is
that of thanksgiving, in accordance with the beautiful custom of the
Psalmists to interlace supplication and praise ; in the second {vv. 10-14)
the prophet turns to Israel's ingratitude and rebellion, but forgets not to
record his people's 'remembrance' of Jehovah's past mercies, a remem
brance which is the first step to the recovery of prosperity (on this
characteristic retrospect see note on ^'. 11) ; in the third (vv. 15-19) the
Church supplicates Jehovah, as being still the 'father' of his people, to
' look upon' its distress ; in the fourth (lxiv. 1-5 a) it ventures further, and
utters a deep longing for a theophany, nothing short of which will touch
the root of its misery ; in the fifth and last {^v. ^b-w) it puts forth a
humble confession of its utter unworthiness, and again bases its plea for
help on the fatherly relation of Jehovah, and on the desolate condition of
his chosen land and habitation. The manner is that of a liturgical
psalm ; the prophet, as it were, leads the devotions of the assembled
Church. The tone reminds us strongly of the Lamentations ; the deso
lation of the temple and of the Jewish cities (Ixiii. 18, lxiv. 10, 11) are
described with all the emotion of a contemporary. Shall we refer this
to the mighty force of an ecstatic vision ? Or is the prophet a contem
porary of the Jewish exiles? And if so, when and where did he write?
Such are the difficult questions which meet the interpreter, but which, as
interpreter, it is not his function to answer. He has indeed difficulties
enough of his own in this chapter, the style of which is unusually abrupt,
and the text not always handed down with perfect accuracy.

CHAP. LXIII.]

ISAIAH.

103

^Jehovah's loving-kindnesses will I celebrate, Jehovah's
deeds of renown, according to that which is due for all that
Jehovah hath bestowed upon us, and the abundant goodness
toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed upon them,
according to his compassion and according to his abundant
loving-kindnesses. ' He said, Surely they are my people, sons
that will not play the liar, and he became unto them a saviour.
® In all their distress * he was distressed ^ and the angel of his
Face saved them ; in his love and in his clemency he himself
released them ; and he took them up and carried them all
the days of old. '" But they defied and grieved his Spirit of
• So Hebr. marg. and most modems. — There was no (real) affliction, Ges. ; he
was not an adversary, Dathe, Kay (both possible renderings of the text- reading). — The
versions agree with the Hebr. text in reading the negative particle.

' Iiovlng-klndnesses] See on lv.
3.  Deeds of renown] Lit., ' re
nowns ' ; as in z/. 1 5, ' mights ' =
'acts of might (or, of heroism),'
and, in lxiv. 6 ' righteousnesses ' =
'righteous deeds.'
* Ke said . . . ] The retrospect
of the prophet or the Church begins
with the original covenant between
Jehovah and Israel, and the first
great deliverance from Egypt (comp.
Ex. ii. 24, iii. 7).  Sons] Remind
ing us of i. 2, 4.
^ In all their distress] The
wanderings in the desert are re
ferred to.  He was distressed
i.e., he himself sympathised with
them. Comp. Judg. x. 16, ' His
(Jehovah's) soul was impatient for
the misery of Israel. Against the al
ternative reading (which is difficult
to construe), see Ps. cvi. 44, ' He
regarded (them) in their distress.'
Occurring as this does in a context
closely related to II. Isaiah, it may
not unfairly be viewed in the light
of an interpretation. The early
critics seem (as in ix. 3) to have
stumbled at the somewhat unusual
position of to (regarded as a pre
position and suffix).  The angel
of bis Face] No doubt this is a
synonymous phrase for ' the angel
of Jehovah,' and there may be an
allusion to the promise in Ex. xxiii.
20-23, ' Behold, I send an angel

before thee,' &c. But the novelty
of the phrase invites further inquiry.
Ewald ' considers it to be a meta
phorical equivalent for the angel
constantly in waiting for the com
mands of the heavenly King. But
it seems to be certain that the ex
pression 'the Face (or, the Name)
of God' is not merely metaphorical,
but a common mythic phrase of the
early Semites for the self-manifest
ing aspect of the Divine nature
(comp. on xxx. 27, lix. 19), and that
when the later Old 'Testament
writers discarded mythic phraseo
logy, they gave a similar content to
the term 'angel,' In the phrase,
' the angel of his Face,' we seem to
have a confusion of two forms of
expression incident to a midway
stage of revelation.  His clem
ency] Indicating that Jehovah had.
much to forgive.  He took them
up] Comp. xl. II, xlvi. 3, 4 (note).
'° But they defied and grieved
. . . ] The contrast involved in the
pronouns ' he ' and ' they ' reminds
us of the similar antithesis in chap.
liii. — It is probably the religious
and political decline of Israel, as
represented in the Book of Judges,
to which the prophet refers in this
clause : — comp. the familiar phrase,
'And the children of Israel again
did evil in the eyes of Jehovah'
(Judg. ii. II, iii. 7, &c.). The same

' Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, ii. 289.

I04

ISAIAH.

[chap. LXIII."

holiness ; so he changed for them into an enemy, he himself
fought against them. " Then * he remembered the days of
^ His people remembered the ancient days of Moses, Saadya, Rashi, Ges., Hitz.,
Ew., Del., Naeg. — He (Israel) remembered the days of old (and) the deliverer of his
people (viz. Jehovah), Horst, Stier. (This rend, is mentioned by A.E., and approved,
though not adopted, by Ges.).

combination of verbs (' defied ' and
'grieved' occurs again in Ps. Ixxviii.
40 ; and the former of these verbs,
in conjunction with 'his Spirit' (i.e.,
the Spirit of Jehovah, not that of
Moses), in Ps. cvi. 33 (comp. v. 43).
 His Spirit of holiness] It
would be dangerous to attempt a
' Theology of 1 1. Isaiah,' but there is
evidently a tendency in this book
to hypostatise the Divine Spirit
(which it mentions no less than
seven times) with special distinct
ness. The author has already
claimed to have been sent in
personal union with the Spirit of
Jehovah (see on xlviii. 16), he now
employs another phrase (comp. v.
14) which could not have been
used, except of a person. From the
connection of this verse with the .
preceding we may, I think, infer
that 'his Spirit (of holiness)' is
virtually equivalent to 'the Angel '
or 'the Face' of Jehovah ; and the
same conclusion may be reached
(see below) by comparing the last
clause of the next verse with Ex.
xxxiii. 14. Another slight coinci
dence may confirm this view. The
word in Ex. xxiii. 21 rendered in
Auth. Vers, 'provoke' is cognate
with the word here rendered 'de
fied,' and the accusative to the verb
in Ex. /. c. is the ' Angel ' of whom
it is said, ' My Name ( = Face) is in
him.' Comp. also iii. 8 'to defy
the eyes of his glory ' ( = ' to defy
his Face'). — The phrase 'Spirit of
holiness' is particularly appropriate
here, as the 'defiance' of the Jews
consisted in their transgressing that
religious covenant, fidelity to which
constituted Israel's 'holiness,' In
fact, the phrase was not improbably
coined for vv. 10, 11, as it only
occurs again in Ps. li. (see •z/. ii, or
in the Hebr. 12), a psalm probably
written by one already acquainted

with II. Isaiah.  So be changed
. . . ] For 'his name is Jealous,'
E.x. xxxiv. 14.  Be himself]
Although their Father, full of 'love
and clemency.'
" The pressure of a calamity
excites a longing for the return of
the good old days.  He remem
bered] viz., the people ; comp.
'within him.' This 'remembering'
is a characteristic feature of the
later Psalms ; see Ps. Ixxviii. 35,
Ixxvii. II, cv. 5, cxliii. 5 (and so
Deut. xxxii. 7). When man 're
members,' a corresponding 'change
of mind' seems, to human expe
rience, to be wrought in God ;
comp. Ps. Ixxviii. 39, cvi. 45 (and
the parallel in Lev. xxvi. 45). It
may also be remarked that the
point of view of edification pre
dominates in Hebrew historical
literature from the time of the Cap
tivity onwards ; in their studies as
well as in their prayers these earnest
Jewish believers 'remembered.' —
Of ihe text-reading it seems to me
impossible to give a natural transla
tion. I must still, however, agree
with Gesenius (in a note appended
to his translation of Isaiah, and
very generally overlooked) that ' if
the text is correct, the explanation
of Horst (1823) deserves particular
attention, according to which mo
sheh is taken appellatively ' (see
above). In this case there is per
haps an allusion to the Hebrew
etymology of Moses (Ex. ii. 10),
and we might render (as in /. C. A.,
p. 221), 'the (true) Moses of his
people.' I confess, however, that
this now appears to me too abstruse
an expression and too subtle a
thought for such a context. In his
Commentary, Gesenius suggests
that 'Moses' (jnosheh) is a marginal
gloss which has intruded into the
text. But this is not an adequate

chap. LXIII.]

ISAIAH.

105

old ^ ; ' Where is he that " brought them up out of the sea
with the shepherds ° of his flock ? where is he that placed
within him his Spirit of holiness ? '^ He that caused his Arm
of splendour to go forward at the right hand of Moses, that
cleft the waters before them, to make unto himself an ever
lasting monument ? '^ He that made them to go through the
deeps, like horses through the prairie, without stumbling ?
« So, many Hebr. MSS. and editions, Vulg., Kimchi, Vitr. Del. — Brought them
up . . . with the shepherd, Received text. — Brought up out of the sea the shepherd,
Sept., Pesh., three Hebr. MSS. (two of some importance), Naeg.

remedy ; we have still to account
for the unnatural position of 'his
people' ('ammo). The Sept. omits
both words, and Dr. Weir remarks,
' It would almost seem as if they
were a marginal gloss, afterwards
introduced into the text, " Moses "
perhaps explanatory of "shepherd
of his flock," and "his people" of
"his flock" or "within him"' [or,
perhaps still better, as a subject
to the verb ' remembered ']. 
¦Where Is he ... ] Here begins
a series of questions, reminding us
of those in li. 9, 10.  'With the
shepherds of bis flock] (' With '
= ' under the conduct of). These
additional words seem to follow
rather awkwardly, and I can under
stand Naeg.'s preference for a sim
pler reading (see above). Still the
parallel of Ps. Ixxvii. 20, ' who led-
dest thy people like sheep by the
hand of Moses and Aaron,' seems
to justify an adherence to the re
ceived text (comp. also Num. xxxiii.
i). From IVIic. vi. 4 it may perhaps
be inferred that popular tradition
gave a place to Miriam (called
' the prophetess,' Ex. xv. 20) among
the divinely appointed chiefs. 
¦Where is he that placed . . . his
Spirit . . . ] That the Spirit of Je
hovah was specially present among
the Israelites in their wanderings,
was the constant belief of the Bibli
cal writers. But what is more par
ticularly involved in this belief? A
Levitical prayer in Neh. ix. (see v.
20) represents the operations of the
Spirit as didactic, but the aim of
the speaker or writer is here evi
dently, not truthfulness of historic

colouring, but edification. Provi
dential guidance and sagacious
government seem to be the benefits
primarily associated with the pre
sence of the Spirit, or, as we may
also say (see above), the Face of
Jehovah. Hence we read in v. 14
' the Spirit of Jehovah brought them
to rest,' followed by ' so didst thou
lead thy people ' ; hence Jehovah
declares to Moses, ' My Face shall
go (with thee), and I will give thee
rest' (Ex. xxxiii. 14, comp. Hag. ii.
4i 5, Q- P- P-) ', and hence the
narrative in Num. xi. 10-30 ascribes
the endowment of the seventy
elders with the Spirit of Jehovah
to the inadequate provision for
the functions of government. The
qualifying term 'of holiness' is
neither otiose nor vague. It recalls
to mind (see on the same phrase in
V. 10) that the external prosperity
of the Israelites was due to the
fidelity of their God, and implies a
rebuke for their own infidelity. 
"Within him] viz., Israel, not merely
Moses (as Ges.), see last note.
'^ His Arm of splendour] An
other symbolic phrase nearly equi
valent to 'the Face of Jehovah'
(see on xl. 10).  To go forward
at the right hand of Moses]
Ready to grasp him when he
stumbled, xli. 13 (Dr. Weir). 
¦Who cleft the waters . . .] Refer
ring still, not to the Jordan, nor to
the rock in Horeb, but to the Red
Sea; comp. Ps. cvi. 9, Ixxvii. 16(17),
where 'the deeps' are mentioned,
as in V. 13.  Tbe prairie] i.e.,
not the barren 'wilderness' (as
Auth. Vers.), but the uncultivated

io6

ISAIAH.

[chap, lxiii.

'^ Like the beast that goeth down into the highland plain, the
Spirit of Jehovah ^ brought them to rest ° ; thus didst thou
guide thy people, to make unto thyself a monument of glory.
'^ Look from heaven and behold, from thy height of holiness
and splendour. Where are thy jealousy and thine acts of
might ? the sounding of thy bowels and thy compassions
restrain themselves towards me. '^ For thou art our Father,
for Abraham taketh no notice of us, and Israel doth not re-
¦• Led them, Sept. , Pesh. , Vulg. , Targ. , Lowth, Ew. (another reading).
prophecy.  From tby height]
It is not 7ndro7n, the usual word for
' height,' but ^bhUl. The rendering
seems to be established from the
Assyrian (see crit. note).  "Wliere
(is) thy jealousy] Jehovah seems
to have become callous to his
people's need; his 'jealousy' (see
on ix. 7 b) slumbers, and needs to
be ' stirred up ' (xiii. 13, where, as in
this passage, it is combined with the
expression 'heroism' or 'manifes
tation of might').  Tbe sound
ing of tby bowels . . .] A figure
for 'sympathy'; comp. xvi. 11
(note), Jer. xxxi. 20, xlviii. 36.
'^ Here the prophet gives place
as speaker to the Church.  For
thou (only) art our Father] ' Our
father,' as in lxiv. 8, and perhaps
I Chron. xxix. 10. — Not in the
wide, spiritual sense of the New
Testament, but as the founder and
preserver of the Israelitish nation
(see Deut. xxxii. 6), which hence
forth (carrying out primitive legal
eonceptions) is under the patria
potestas. This is the constant mean
ing of the title ' Father ' as applied
to Jehovah ; see e.g. Ex. iv. 22,
Hos. xi. I, Isa. i. 2, Jer. iii. 4, 19,
xxxi. 9, 20, Mai. i. 6, ii. 10. The
first example of the individualising
use of the term is in Sirach xxiii.
1-4, ' O Lord, Father and Governor
of my whole life . . . O Lord,
Father and God of my life.' ') 
For Abraham taketh no notice
of us . . .] Two explanations are
open to us: i. 'Abraham and
Jacob, fathers according to the
flesh, are long since dead, and

pasture-land, or (to adopt a word
from Messrs. Jennings and Lowe's
notes on the Psalms), the prairie.
" That goeth down] viz., from the
bare mountain-side. —Brought
them to rest] ' Rest ' is a favourite
phrase for the state of the Israel
ites in the land of Canaan after
their weary wanderings ; comp. Ex.
xxxiii. 14, Deut. iii. 20, xii. 9, Josh.
i. 13, xxii. 4, Ps. xcv. II, and the
applications in Jer. xxxi. 2 (Q.P.S.),
Heb. iv. I, 3, 9.  Thus] Sum
ming up the several stages of the
history. '^ Here, strictly speaking, chap.
lxiv. ought to begin: vv. 15-19 are
parallel to lxiv. 1-3. — It is difficult
to overrate the spiritual beauty of
the prayer contained in the former
passage. We may admit that the
most prominent motive urged by
the speaker has a nationalistic air,
but behind this, and strengthening
it, is his sense of the infiniteness of
the Divine mercy, and of the strong
vitality of the union between Jeho
vah and his people.  took from
heaven] As if Jehovah had given
up caring for his people, and with
drawn into his heavenly palace.
This bold apostrophe reminds us
of a similar outburst of the prophet-
poet of the middle ages : —
E se hcito m' k, o sommo Giove,
Che fosti in terra per noi crucifisso,
Son li giusti occhi tuoi rivolti altrove ?
The peculiar Hebr. original occurs
again in Ps. Ixxx. 15 (A. V. 14), and
nowhere else. Dr. Weir adds, that
the whole of the psalm may be
compared with this section of the

Comp. Wittichen, Die Idee Gottes als des Vaters, Gottingen, 1865.

GHAP. LXni.]

ISAIAH.

107

cognise us ; thou, O Jehovah, art our Father ; ' our Goel ' hath

know us no more, and cannot help
us. But Jehovah is the everlasting
Father and Redeemer of his people.'
So Dr. Weir, expressing (I believe)
the general view of commentators.
But let the reader ask himself,
Does this really explain the pas
sage ? Why should Abraham and
Israel be introduced in this con
nection? Is it not a platitude to
say that the remote ancestors of
the Jews cannot help them, unless
— and this is the second of our
theories — there was some chance,
from the popular point of view (and
obs., the prophet is speaking in
the name of the people), that they
might both sympathise and power
fully co-operate with their descen
dants — unless, in short, they were
regarded somewhat as demigods
(comp. the Homeric poems), or
patron-saints, or the angelic ' holy
ones' in a speech of Eliphaz the
Temanite (Job v. i)'? It was
Ewald who first pointed out some
traces of such a popular belief in
the Old Testament writings, though
he does not call attention to it in
the present passage. The instances
which he quotes (not all of them,
I think, of equal value) are Jer.
xxxi. 15 ('Rachel weeping for her
children'), Hos. xii. 4, 5 (A. V. 3,
4), Isa. xxix. 22, 23, Luke i. 54, 55,
73, xvi. 22.' Of these the first and
the last are the most striking ; the
passage from Hosea seems merely
to embody a typical interpretation
of the history of Jacob, and instead
of ' with us ' we should perhaps fol
low Noldeke and read ' with him ' ;
on Isa. xxix. 22, 23, I may refer to
my own note ; Luke i. 54 probably
alludes to Isa. xliv. 2, while vv.
55, 73, expressly refer to the past.
But if there are only a few passages
alluding to this popular belief, we
need hardly be surprised ; it was

not the object of the sacred writers
to preserve material for archaeolo
gists. These few passages, however,
seem to me sufficiently conclusive.
They enable us moreover to account
for some remarkable statements in
later Jewish writings — statements,
be it said in passing, which render
it d. priori probable that germs of
the belief expressed in them would
be found in the earlier literature.
Among these may be mentioned
the vision of Jeremiah 'who prayeth
much for the dead' (2 Mace. xv.
13, 14), and the Talmudic assump
tion that the Messianic redemption
would be the recompence of the
merits of the patriarchs (especially
Jacob and Joseph), or of the
prayers of ' ancient Rachel.' ' I
trust no reader will suppose that
there is anything derogatory to the
prophet in this view of his meaning.
The fearless security with which
the sacred writers employ popular
language is only adverse to a me
chanical theory of inspiration, and
adds greatly to the interest of Bib
lical studies. [The above stands,
with slight alterations, as it was
written several years ago. Since
then Dr. Goldziher has arrived
independently at a similar view.*
His opinion, however, is that the
prophet aims at overthrowing the
popular belief. This seems to me an
arbitrary conjecture. No evidence
in support of it can be gained from
the passage itself. The prophet
speaks in the name of the people,
and the analogy of passages (see
above) in which a controversial in
tention cannot be supposed, seems
to me to be unfavourable to Dr.
Goldziher's view. Indeed, on re
considering my note, it appears to
me that the prophet is not merely
speaking dramatically for the
people, but expressing his own

' Of course it was only the patriarchs and great men who were expected thus to
sympathise across the gulf of death. The popular belief as to the relation of the
common dead to their descendants is shown in Job xiv. 21, 22 (see Dillmann's note).
* History of Israel, i. 296. 'We might add Mic. vii. 20.
5 See Rashi on lxii. 6 and comp. Castelli, II Messia secondo gli Ebrei, pp. 184-5.
See also below, on v. 17 b, and quotation from Targum, at end of note on lxiv. 5.
* Hebrew Mythology, translated by Russell Martineau, p. 229.

io8

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LXIII.

been thy name from of old. "Why dost thou make us to
stray, O Jehovah, from thy ways, and harden our hearts so as
not to fear thee ? Return, for thy servants' sake, the tribes of
thine inheritance. '' ^ For (but) a little while have they had
« ('Mountain' is the reading of Sept., Lowth, Klostermann.) For a litde while
have thy holy people possessed (the land, Vitr., Del., Sec, or, thy sanctuary, Hitz.,
Knob. ), Hebr. te.\t, according to most. — They have been within a Httle (?) of dispossess
ing thy holy people, Hebr. text, according to Luther, Luzzatto, Seinecke, Riehm. —
For a httle while have they (viz. , thy servants, or, the enemies of Israel) had posses
sion of thy holy city, 'Weir (emendation).

beliefs. See Last Words on this
passage.]  Israel] Sometimes
used as a synonym for 'Jacob' in
the more solemn style ; see i Kings
xviii. 36 ' God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Israel.'  Our Goel . . . from
of old] The history of Israel pre
sented a continual succession of
'captivities' and deliverances (see
on xli. 14).
" 'Why dost thou make us to
stray . . .] (Comp. lxiv. 5, 7.)
It is as if the Jews would throw the
responsibility of their errors upon
Jehovah ; and this in spite of the
encouraging invitations contained
in this very book. They speak as
if it is not they who need to return
to Jehovah (lv. 7), but Jehovah who
is reluctant to return to them ;
as if, instead of 'feeding his flock
like a shepherd' (xl. 11), he has
driven it out of the safe fold into
the 'howling wilderness.' But it
is only a temporary gloom which
has settled upon the Jewish be
lievers. Depressed by melancholy,
they give way for the moment to
those human ' thoughts ' which are
not as 'My thoughts' (lv. 8).
Their question is a bold one, and
in other lips would be even blas
phemous. But an ardent affection
to their God underlies it. It is be
cause the Divine power and help
fulness has been so often proved
of old (v. 16), that Israel's present
degradation seems so unintelligible.
The sense of sin, too, has deepened
during the Exile, and with it has

arisen a painful feeling of the in
consistency of evil with the be
neficent character of the Deity.'
Fundamentally opposed to Dualism,
the Jewish believers are involved
in a speculative problem which,
from the side of the intellect, they
are utterly powerless to explain
(comp. Rom. ix. 17-22). How can
Jehovah have rejected his people ?
— this was their first difficulty, and
that which beset even the less re
ligious minds among the exiles.
How can God be the author of sin?
— this is the added sting to true
believers.  From thy ways] i.e.,
from thy righteous rules of life
(lxiv. 5).  And harden our
hearts] See on vi. 10.  Return]
Jehovah had turned away in dis
pleasure ; comp. Ps. Ixxx. 14
(quoted by Dr. Weir).  For tby
servants' sake] 'Thy servants'
are not Israel's 'fathers' or fore
fathers (Ibn Ezra and Kimchi,
following the Targum,' in the face
of V. 16), but those Jews who are
still worthy of the title of 'Jeho
vah's servants' and are therefore
competent to receive the promised
blessings. In the parallel line they
are called tbe tribes of thine
inheritance. This is not merely
a consecrated phrase, but the lan
guage of faith. Jehovah knows his
own, however widely the tribes of
Israel may be dispersed.
'^ For (but) a little while] It is
a 'pathetic fallacy.' The tedious-
ness of the Exile (see on xiii. 14)
' Comp. I. C. A., p. 224.
2 It is a favourite idea of the Targiim (see Ps. lx. 6, 7, Ixxxiv. 11), and of tbe
Talmud, that the redemption of Israel will be accorded to the merits of ' the fathers '
(see above, on v. 16). Vitringa compares the first of the eighteen Benedictions, but
ihasde there means, not ' pious deeds ' (of the fathers), but ' promises ' (as lv. 3 b).

CHAP. LXIV.]

ISAIAH.

109

possession of thy holy mountain ^ : our adversaries have
trampled upon thy sanctuary. '^ * We are become (like) those
over whom thou hast never ruled, upon whom thy name hath
never been called.*
LXIV. ' Oh that thou didst rend the heavens, that thou
didst come down, that the mountains « shook at thy presence,
^ as when fire kindleth brushwood, (as when) fire causeth water
to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, so that
f We are become as of old, when thou ruledst not over us, neither was thy name
called upon us, Sept., 'Vulg. — 'We were of old, before thou ruledst over them, &c.
Pesh. — 'We are thy people from of old, &c. , Targ. (Dr. 'Weir doubtfully suggests
that these renderings approach the truth).
B Flowed, Sept., Vulg., Ew., Stier, 'Weir., Naeg.

made the preceding period of
national independence seem but
too short.  Tby boly moun
tain] (Same phrase in lvii. 13.)
This phrase considerably dimi
nishes the harshness of the re
ceived text, as it provides the verb
in the first line with an accusative.
(The subject of the verb is, of
course, 'thy servants,' v. 17). Alt.
rend., it is true, does even more
than this, for it brings the verb in
the first line into parallelism with
that in the second. But the rend.
'within a little' has no analogy,
and besides it is difficult to think
of the pre-Exile Israelites as a 'holy
people,' which would seem to be a
title specially reserved for the re
generate Israel (lxii. 12, comp. iv. 3).
'^ 'We bave become (like)
those . . .] The meaning of this
half-verse is very uncertain. The
omission of 'like' constitutes a
serious difficulty in the ordinary
rendering.  Tbou bast never
ruled] (Comp. the complaint of
the Church in xxvi. 13 a.) The
theocratic covenant was regarded
as a pledge of the indestructibility
of the Jewish state. Other nations
may have Baal, Chemosh, Asshur,
for their king ; Israel alone can
say 'Jehovah is our King' xxxiii.
22). The prophets admit the jus
tice of the popular belief ; only they
emphasise the moral conditions on
which alone security and deliver
ance can be enjoyed.  Tby
name] The 'calling' of the 'name'

of Jehovah upon Israel gave amystic
union to the two parties ; comp.
xliii. 7, Ixv. I, Deut. xxviii. 10, Jer.
xiv. 9.
'-^ These verses are parallel to
lxiii. 15, but grander and bolder.
There the prophet in the name of
the Church petitioned that Jehovah
would look down on the misery of
his people. Here, a look is felt to
be sufficient, so widely yawns the
gulf between Israel and his God.
A revelation on the largest possi
ble scale is necessary to smite down
unbelief and annihilate opposition ;
God Himself must appear (Naeg.).
— In the modern editions of the
Hebrew Bible, the verse which, in
the printed editions of the ancient
as well as in the modern versions,
stands as lxiv. i, forms the second
half of lxiii. 19. The context is
obviously against separating this
verse from the two following (our
lxiv. 2, 3), but the arrangement in
the Hebrew Bible may also perhaps
be taken as an unconscious protest
against the interruption of a pro
phecy which is really a connected
whole (lxiii. 7-Ixiv. 12).  That
thou didst rend tbe heavens]
God seems, in time of trouble, to
be separated by thick clouds (Job
xxii. 13, 14). But the Church
firmly believes that He will show
Himself again, and only wishes
that this most certain event had
already taken place. Hence the
perfect tense, 'O that thou hadst
rent . . . hadst come down' (so

no

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LXIV.

nations trembled before thee, ^ while thou didst terrible things
which we hoped not for : [that thou didst come down, that
the mountains ^ shook at thy presence ;] '' yea, from of old
men have not heard, nor perceived with the ear, (and) eye
hath not seen, a God beside thee, who will do gloriously for
him that waiteth for him ! ' '' Thou meetest '' him who joy
fully worketh righteousness ; in thy ways they remember
thee. Behold, thou wast wroth, * and we sinned ' ; '^ * * * "
' and we went astray '. '' And we all became as one who is
uhclean, and all our righteous deeds as a menstruous garment,
and we all faded away as the leaves, and our iniquities like
•> O that thou wouldst meet, Ew. (similarly Stier).
' So Hitz., Ew., Knob., Naeg. — And we stood forth as sinners, Del.
¦' Therein (i.e., in our sins, or, in the tokens of thine anger) [have we been] a long
time, Ges., Del. — (Thou wast wroth) with them (i.e., the people) along time, Vitr., Ew.
' So Ew. — We fell away, Lowth (both Ew. and Lowih follow Sept.). — Hebr. text,
And shall we be delivered? Hitz., Del., Naeg. Meetest '

literally).  BSountains shook]
A frequent feature in the Biblical
theophanies ; comp. Judg. v. 5,
Mic. i. 4, Hab. iii. 6, and especially
Ex. xix. 18.  As when fire . . .]
To emphasise the foregoing state
ment. Solid as the mountains
seem, they shall be as powerless
as so much brushwood or water to
resist the destructive influences of
Jehovah.  To make thy name
known . . .] Name is not merely
character, but one special aspect of
the Deity (see on xxx. 27).
^ Terrible things] A standing
phrase (see Deut. x. 21, 2 Sam. vii.
23, Ps. cvi. 22) for the v/onders of
the Exodus, to which later deliver
ances are compared.  'Wbicbwe
hoped not for] Exceeding our
wildest dreams, although, as the
next verse says, we had a right to
expect great things, on account of
the mighty exploits of Jehovah in
the past. The concluding words
are probably, as Mr. Robertson
Smith has pointed out, repeated by
accident from v. i ; the passage
gains greatly by their removal.
^ From of old men have not
heard . . .] The only hving God
who, from the beginning of the
world, has proved himself to be
such by acts, is Jehovah.  Bo
gloriously] Lit., ' do,' in a preg
nant sense (as xliv. 23).

* Tbou meetest] ' Meetest ' in
such a way as to leave no doubt
of a Divine visit (etymologically,
strikest against.)  Behold, thou
wast wroth . . .] Instead of this
desired harmony, Jehovah has
manifested his displeasure, and the
only consequence has been (comp.
V. 7 end, and lxiii. 17 a) that we
sinned (or, perhaps, went on sin
ning). For Del.'s rend., comp. Gen.
xliii. 9 Hebr. ; ' and ' = ' so that,' the
' v4v consecutive ' here expressing
the sequence of fact, and not of
logic) . . . and we vrent astray]
This portion of the verse is difficult
in the extreme (see crit. note), Del.'s
rend, is grammatically the safest,
but it is harsh, and interrupts the
parallelism. 'The paraphrase of
the Targum is interesting, as illus
trative of the Jewish doctrine of
merit, referred to on lxiii. 16. It
runs, ' because of the works of our
righteous fathers which have been
from of old, we are delivered.'
" And we all became] With an
emphasis on ' all,' even more
marked in the Hebr. than in liii. 6.
 As one who is unclean] Like
the leper, who is excluded from
society (Lev. xiii. 44-46). The
people is personified as one man
(as i. 6).  Our iniquities] The
word ('dvon) includes the idea of
punishment (see on liii. 6 b). 

CHAP.-LXIV.]

ISAIAH.

I I I

the wind have carried us away : ''and there is none that calleth
on thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee ;
for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast "" delivered us "'
into the hand of our iniquities.
^ And now, Jehovah, thou art our father ; we are the clay,
and thou our fashioner, and the work of thy hands are we all.
^ Be not wroth, Jehovah, to the uttermost, and remember not
iniquity for ever : lo, do but look, we are all thy people.
'" Thy holy cities have become a desert ; Zion hath become a
desert, Jerusalem a desolation. " Our house of holiness and
splendour, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with
fire, and all our delectable things are laid waste. '^ Wilt thou,
" So Sept., Pesh., Targ., Lowth, Ew., Knob. — Made us to melt away (by means
of, or, into the hand of), Hebr. text, Vulg., &c. (unusual transitive use of the verb).

Have carried us a'way] Into a
region where Jehovah's presence is
not felt.
'' 'VSnio stirreth up himself]
From the lethargy of the con
science (same word in li. 17). 
Hast delivered us] The low ebb
of religion being ascribed (comp. v.
5 and xliii. 17) to Jehovah's with
drawal of his felt presence. 
Hand] i.e., ' power,' ' sins ' being
personified as a tyrant seeking to
destroy. Comp. the whole passage
with Ezek. xxxiii. 10, ' Thus ye
speak, saying, If our transgressions
and our sins be upon us, and we
pine in them, how should we then
live?' ^ The Church, in the boldness of
faith, has held up the mirror to Je
hovah. She has pointed out the
disastrous consequences of his pre
sent inactivity, and sums up all her
longings in the pleading ejaculation,
And now (bad as our state is),
Jehovah, tbou art our father ;
this is the hope, which will bear
the full weight of our reliance.
The Church had indeed already
expressed this great truth (lxiii. 16).
She now couples with it an appeal
to Jehovah's reasonableness. Will
the potter lightly break a vessel on
which he has lavished his utmost
skill ? — The same combination of
figures occurs in xiv. 9 (note). 

'We all] Unworthy as we are (see
vv. 6, 9).
'° Another motive for Jehovah's
interference.  Tby holy cities]
The phrase is remarkable ; else
where Jerusalem is ' the holy city '
(xlviii. 2, lii. i) : Sept. and Vulg.
read ' thy holy city.' We find how
ever 'his holy border' (Ps. Ixxviii.
54), and ' the holy land ' (Zech. ii.
12, Hebr. 16).
" Our bouse of holiness . . .]
' Our house,' i.e., that of which we
are so proud (comp. Matt, xxiii. 38).
Not ' the house of our holiness, &c.,
for the ' holiness ' and the ' splen
dour' are Jehovah's (lvii. 15, lx. 7,
comp. lxiii. 15).  All our delec
table things] The parallelism
shows that this is to be taken in a
religious sense (comp. xliv. 9), and
the phrase ' are laid waste,' or ' are
laid low in ruin' (fkhorbdh, else
where only in Jen, Ezek., and Lev.
xxvi. 31, 33), suggests that build
ings are meant — probably the tem
ple and its contents (hence 'all
. . .'). This is confirmed by Joel
iii. 5 (' my goodly delectable things '
parallel to ' my silver and my gold ').
In 2 Chron. xxxvi. 19 the phrase is
used, in connection with the de
struction of Jerusalem, of all artistic
or precious objects, sacred or other
wise. — To illustrate this verse, see
introd. to chap. lxvi.

I 1 2 ISAIAH. [CHAP. LXV.
in spite of these things, restrain thyself, Jehovah, keeping
silence, and afflicting us to the uttermost .'
" Restrain thyself] See lxiii. 15, xiii. 14 (note).

CHAPTER LXV.

Contents. — Alternate threatening and promise, the one addressed to a
polytheistic party, the other to true believers.
Most commentators regard this prophecy as the answer of Jehovah
to the foregoing prayer of the Church. This view is certainly plausible;
such deep penitence and such earnest though struggling faith ought surely
to strike a responsive chord in the divine-human heart. Unfortunately,
it will not stand a critical examination ; at least, there are objections to
it, which have not yet been answered. The most serious one is this — that
the Divine speaker not only makes no recognition of the advances of his
penitent servants, but passes by without notice the grave religious pro
blem by which they were harassed. The Church had complained that
Israel's continuance in sin was itself a consequence of the withdrawal of
the Divine favour (see on lxiv. 5). It is difficult to understand that the
only reply of Jehovah should be that he had always been ready to renew
his intercourse with his people (Ixv. i). It would appear to follow from
this inconsistency that chap. Ixv. was not originally intended to be the
sequel of chaps, lxiii., lxiv. There are also some other difficulties in the
way of admitting the ordinary view of commentators, though they touch
too closely on the domain of ' the higher criticism ' to receive a thorough
treatment here. They are such as these — that, while some passages
appear to presuppose the Exile as past, others refer to circumstances
characteristic of Jewish life in Canaan. The former are to be found in
vv. 11-25, ' But as for you . . . that forsake my holy mountain' (v. 11),
and ' They shall not build, and another inhabit,' &c. (v. 22) ; the latter
in vv. 3-5, II, where some at least of the sins referred to belong dis
tinctly to Palestinian idolatry, and in v. 8, which appears to contain a
quotation from a vintage-song. It is for criticism to say how these appa
rently conflicting phenomena are to be accounted for ; but exegesis has
a right to point out that a chapter with such pronounced Palestinian
features can hardly have been intended as the sequel of lxiii. 7-lxiv., of
which the real or assumed standing-point is in the Babylonian exile.'
' I have offered answers to those who have not asked ; I
have been at hand to those who have not sought me : I have
' Z have offered answers] Lit., (same idiom as in liii. 7, on which
' I allowed myself to be consulted ' see crit. note). The expression is
' I feel that this argument, though not without weight, is not so strong as the fore
going one.

CHAP. LXV.

ISAIAH.

11.3

said, Here I am, here I am, unto a nation which hath not
" called upon " my name. ^ I have spread out my hands all
the day unto an unruly people, who walk in a way which is
not good, after their own thoughts. ^ The people who irritate
me to my face continually, who sacrifice ^ in the gardens *",
and burn incense upon the bricks ; ¦* who tarry in the graves
» So Sept., Pesh., Targ., Vulg., Lowth, Ew., Diestel. — Been called by, Vowel-
points, Ges., Del., &c. (unusual use of the conjugation).
>> On (?) the roofs, Ew.

vague, and may mean either that
Jehovah was actually consulted (it
is the word for consulting an oracle),
or merely that He might have been.
The vowel-points (which are no
part of the text, but embody an
ancient interpretation) in the se
cond half of the verse imply that
the Gentiles are the people referred
to, and consequently favour the
former view of the meaning. St.
Paul, too, following perhaps the
tradition of Gamaliel, applies the
passage to the conversion of the
Gentiles (Rom. x. 20), and most
Christian commentators have done
the same. The context, however,
is very decidedly against such a
reference. There is no indication
that the prospects of the Gentiles
occupied the mind of the prophet
at this time. The sins of the Jews,
committed against light and know
ledge, must bring down upon them
a proportionately heavy punishment
— this is the burden of the section.
 Hatb not called upon my
name] Comp. lxiv. 7, xliii. 22. The
difficulties of alt. rend, are well
brought out by Del. (who however
adheres to it).
^ X have spread out my hands]
The gesture of prayer — what a con
descension !  'Who walk] The
nation is not here personified — it is
the plural number in the Hebrew.
^ 'Wrho saorifloe in tbe gar
dens] This was a characteristic
sin of the pre-Exile period (lvii. 5,
i. 29). Ew.'s correction (baggag-
goth for baggannoth), anticipated
but rejected by Vitr., is against
Hebr. usage, which requires the

preposition 'at.  TTpon tbe
bricks] i.e., upon the tilings of the
houses (2 Kings xxiii. 12, Zeph. i. 5,
Jer. xix. 13). Or, upon altars made
of bricks, which were contrary to
the Law (Ex. xx. 24, 25) ; but this
seems rather less probable, i. be
cause it implies an ellipsis, and 2.
because it points to Babylonia or
Egypt as the scene of the trans
gression. The former view, imply
ing Palestine as the locality, is
more in harmony with the con
text. * In tbe graves] The rock-graves
of Palestine with their distinct
chambers, supplied, and still sup
ply,' a comfortable resting-place on
emergencies. Of course, to lodge
in the houses of the dead involved
ceremonial impurity, but the con
text shows that the persons spoken
of had cut themselves adrift from
the religion of Jehovah. — What
was the object of these visits to the
graves? Vitr. and Ges. think of
propitiatory sacrifices to the dead,
but the parallel passages (viii. 19,
xxix. 4) rather suggest necromancy.
Sept. already adopts this view, in
serting the words Sia Ivviwia (the
revelations being expected in
dreams). But the graves were, in
popular estimation, not only the
abodes of the dead, but those of
demons, or infernal deities or demi
gods (comp. Matt. viii. 28, Mark v.
3). The revelations might therefore
be looked for from these, and the
offence against Jehovah would be
the greater. So Jerome, who ren
ders the next line, 'et in delubris (?)
idolorum dormiunt,' commenting

VOL. II.

' E. von Orelli, Durch' s Heilige Land (Ba^el, 1879), P- ^78.

114

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LXV.

and °in secret places" take up their lodging, who eat swine's
flesh, and broth of abominations is in their vessels ; 'who say,
Keep by thyself, do not come near me, for I "am holy unto thee"!
These are a smoke in my nose, a fire burning all the day
" In the caves, Sept.
¦• Make thee holy, Geiger.

thus, ' ubi stratis pellibus hostiarum
incubare soliti erant, ut somniis
futura cognoscerant. Quod in fano
./Esculapii usque hodie error celebrat
ethnicorum multorumque aliorum.'
Comp. Virg. .tEn. vii. 87, &c. 
'Wbo eat swine's flesh] That is,
in sacrificial meals, as the context
shows (comp. lxvi. 17). The flesh
of the swine was forbidden by the
Law (Deut. xiv. 8, Lev. xi. 7), not
merely for dietetic reasons, but pre
sumably from its connection with
the myth of Adonis, who was said
to have been killed by a wild boar
in the forests of Lebanon ; an ad
ditional reason for the prophet's
indignation is mentioned in the
note on lxvi. 3. How loathsome
swine's flesh was to pious Jews
may be seen from the narratives in
2 ]\iacc. vi., vii. The charge of eat
ing it points on the whole to Pales
tine rather than to Babylonia as
the country of the offenders, for not
even an allusion to the swine has
yet been found in the cuneiform
inscriptions. It is true that, as
Bochart remarks,' 'there were no
swine in Judsea, as long as the com
monwealth of the Jews stood : ' it
was in a ' far country ' that the pro
digal son was sent into the fields
to feed swine (Luke xv. 13-15).
But we know that there were swine
in Galilee in our Lord's time (Matt.
viii. 30), and that some at least of
the Phoenicians sacrificed swine
(Lucian, de ded Syrid, c. 54).
Ewald points to the mention of eat
ing swine as confirming his view
that these chapters were written in
Egypt ; but though the swine does
appear to have been sacrificed in
Egypt (Herod, ii. 47, 48), its flesh

was 'forbidden to all initiated in
the mysteries, and only allowed to
others once a year.' ^  Broth of
abominations] i.e., broth made of
the unclean animals offered to
heathen deities. ' Abominations '
(shiqqiiqim) occurs only in this and
the next chapter (lxvi. 3, comp. v.
17) in Isaiah; it is specially cha
racteristic of Jeremiah and the
writers who followed him. We
find it however once in Hosea (ix.
10), once in the disputed Book of ¦
Deuteronomy (xxix. 17, Hebr. 16),
and often in the disputed Book of
Leviticus. For the construction of
the phrase of which these words
form part, comp. v. 12a.
° 'Who say, Keep by thyself)
An allusion to some heathen myste
ries, into which the Jewish renegades
had been initiated (comp. lxvi. 17).
Idolatry was bad enough itself,
but that idolaters should assume
a superiority over Jehovah's 'holy
ones ' (comp. lxvi. 5) was still
worse.  X am holy unto thee]
i.e., by implication, unapproachable,
tabooed, sacrosanctus (comp. on iv.
3). So of the priests it is said,
' Thou shalt sanctify him therefore,
for the food of thy God doth he
present : he shall be holy unto
thee ' (Lev. xxi. 8, quoted by Bau
dissin). Geiger's reading is plau
sible (comp. Ezek. xliv. 19 end,
Hag. ii. 12, 13).' But a warning
not to run the risk of becoming
' sanctified ' (and therefore disquali
fied for ordinary work) by contact,
does not sufficiently bring out the
pride of these pagan ' Pharisees.'
 These are] i.e., these supply
the material of. A smoke in my
nose] The indignation of the

' -Hierozo'icon, i. 696.
2 Sir Gardner Wilkhison, note on Herod, ii. 47 (Rawlinson).
' See Geiger, Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel, pp. 56, 172, 493.

CHAP. LXV.]

ISAIAH.

115

long. ^ Behold, it is written before me ; I will not keep silence,
except I have requited, and requited into their bosom. 'Your
iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith
Jehovah, who burned incense upon the mountains, and re
proached me upon the hills ! And I will measure their re
compence first into their bosom.
' Thus saith Jehovah, As when grapes are found in the
cluster, and one saith, ' Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it,'
so will I do for my servants' sake, that I destroy not the
whole : * and I will bring out from Jacob a seed, and from
Judah possessors of my mountains, and my chosen ones shall
take it in possession, and my servants shall dwell there.
'"And Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks, and the
valley of Achor a place for oxen to lie down in, for my people
who have enquired of me.

speakermakeshis breath issue forth
like smoke. Comp. nasus proflat
iras. ^ It is written before me] The
subject may be either the sin of
the Jews (Calv., Hitz., Knob., Del),
which is ' written,' as Jeremiah says
(xvii. i), ' with a pen of iron,' or the
Divine decree for its punishment
(Vitr., Ges., Stier, Naeg., Kay).
'The fortunes of men, past, present,
and future, are all noted in the
heavenly books or registers (iv. 3,
Ps. lvi. 8, Dan. vii. 10), but in this
passage it is rather the past than
the future which is recorded, as
appears from the emphatic ' before
me.' Comp. Mai. iii. 16, 'Jehovah
hearkened and heard it, and a
book of remembrance was written
before him'
' TTour iniquities . . . ] Some
take this as the accusative to the
verb at the end of the last verse.
But the change of pronoun is harsh
in the extreme, and it is more natu
ral to suppose that v.'j a has been
left imperfect (the verb ' I will re
quite ' being omitted), owing to the
excitement of the speaker — that it
is, in fact, an exclamation.  TTpon
the mountains] Again a Palesti
nian feature ; comp. lvii. 7, Hos.
iv. 13  And Z will measure . . .]
The most pressing act which Jeho

vah as Judge has to perform is to
punish these evil-doers, both fathers
and sons. See the parallel, Jer.
xvi. 18 (which passage is the origi
nal ?).
' Transition from threatening to
promise marked by a figure from
the vintage. Jehovah will not re
ject all Israel because of its many
bad members. His dealings will
be like those of vintagers, who, if
they find even a few good grapes
on a cluster, say to each other, Be-
stroy it not, for a blessing is In it]
(' A blessing ' = a source of blessing,
as xix. 24, Gen. xii. 2). Perhaps,
as Mr. Samuel Sharpe and Pro
fessor Robertson Smith have in
dependently conjectured, these are
the opening words of a vintage-song.
This would account for the words
'Destroy not' (A I tashkheth) at
the head of Ps. Ivii.-lix. Each of
these three psalms was probably
sung to the air of this favourite
song. ^ MCy mountains] This is one
of Isaiah's striking phrases, though
not confined to him (see on xiv. 24),
 Sharon . . . Actaor] i.e., the
whole land from east to west ; see
on xxxiii. 9, and Josh. vii. 24-26.
The same prominence is given to
agriculture in an earlier ideal pic
ture of the future (xxx. 23, 24).

ii6

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LXV.

" And as for you that forsake Jehovah, that forget my
holy mountain, that set in order a table for Gad, and fill up
mixed drink for M'nf — '^ I destine you for the sword, and
(which occurs four times in Ezra
and Nehemiah), but this is rather
the Aramaic izgad ' a messenger.'
In Phoenician inscriptions we find
the names Gad-astoreth and Gad-
moloch (de Vogiie). The preva
lence of the worship of the deity
called Gad in Syria has been abun
dantly shown by Mordtmann,' who
quotes inter alia a remarkable pas
sage from the Christian writer,
Jacob of Serug ; ' Henceforth, on
the summit of the mountains, they
build monasteries, instead of Beith-
gade ' (gadi, the plural of gad in
Syriac, teeans generally both ' the
good fortunes, viz. Jupiter and
Venus, though in the Peshito ver
sion of our passage it is the equiva
lent of Gad and M'ni conjointly).
[It is possible, however, that Gad
has a Babylonian origin. ' Jupi
ter,' according to Mr. Sayce,' ' was
properly termed Lubat-Guttav ; pos
sibly this Gad (in Isa. Ixv. ii) is
derived from Guttav, with a change
of the dental to assimilate the word
tothe Semitic ^fl^ltick.' Of course,
the existence of a Babylonian ana
logue would not prove that the
worshippers spoken of lived in
Babylonia. The analogy might go
back (as in other cases) to a remote
antiquity.]— — ror TC'ni] i.e., for
Destiny ; Sept. r^ t\:xo. M'nf is
probably Venus, called in Arabic
' the lesser fortune.' M'nf, like
Gad, was a Syrian deity, though the
evidence for this only belongs to
the post-Exile period. De Luynes
and Levy have found the name
in compound proper names on
Aramsean coins of the Achaemeni-
dffi ; the latter has also found it on
a Sinaitic inscription.* Delitzsch

" The tone of threatening is
resumed (as so often).  That
forget my holy mountain] This
need not, as most commentators
suppose, imply that the persons
addressed are the Jewish exiles in
Babylon. It may simply mean,
' that keep aloof from the rites and
ceremonies of the temple.' A si
milar phrase, 'to forget Jerusalem,'
occurs in Ps. cxxxvii., which all
will probably admit to be a post-
Exile work.  That set in order
a table] Alluding to the ' lectister-
nia,' or meals prepared for divine
beings. This feature will suit Ba
bylonia as well as (probably) Pales
tine. See the second calendar
translated by Sayce in Records of
the Past, vii. 159-168 (every day of
the month Ebul is marked by a
royal offering) ; and comp. Herod.
i. 181, Bel and Drag, v.w, Ep. of
Jude vv. 26, 27. The only other
allusions to ' lectisternia ' in the
canonical books are Jer. vii. 18, li.
44, It is a remarkable fact that a
similar practice in honour of Gad
survived in certain Jewish families
even down to the time of Rashi
(nth cent.)'-  For Gad] i.e., for
Good Fortune ; Sept., ra Saipovico.
Gad is probably the star-god Jupi
ter (called by the Arabs 'the greater
fortune'). His cultus exemplifies the
closeness with which polytheistic
rites cling to their native soil. Its
origin (see, however, below) was
Canaanitish ; comp. Baal-gad (i.e.,
Baal in the character of the god
of good fortune), the name of a
place to the south of Hermon,
mentioned in Josh. xi. 17, xii. 7.
Some have also traced the name
of Gad in the proper name Azgad

' See the Talmudic and Rabbinic authorities in Chwolson, Die Ssabier, ii. 226.
The Arabic writer en-Nadim also mentions lectisternia in honour of ' the lord of for
tune ' (i.e., Jupiter) ; these were given by the heathen population of HarrSn (Chwolson,
op. cit. 32).
^ Zeitsciir, d. deutsch. morg. Ges,, xxxi. gq-ror.
3 Transactions of Soc. of Bibl. Archceology, iii. 170-1.
< Levy, Zeitschr. d. deutsch. morg. Ges., xiv. 410; Rodiger, in Addenda to Gese
nius' Tiiesaurus, p, 97.

CHAP. LXV.]

ISAIAH.

117

ye all to the slaughter shall bow down, because I called and
ye did not answer, I spoke, and ye did not hearken, but did
that which was evil in mine eyes, and that in which I had no
pleasure ye chose. '^ Therefore thus saith the Lord, Jehovah :
Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall hunger ; behold
my servants shall drink, but ye shall thirst ; behold, my .ser
vants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed ; ''' behold, my
servants shall sing aloud for gladness of heart, but ye .shall
cry out for anguish of heart, and for breaking of spirit shall
ye howl. '^ And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto
my chosen ones — ' ' Then may the Lord Jehovah slay thee * ',
but his servants shall he call by another name, "^ so that he
who blesseth himself on earth shall bless himself by the God
" So Ew. — Most, And the Lord Jehovah shall slay thee.
of the sentence, and involves a
harsh change of number. Del.,
who, on supposed grammatical
grounds (see crit. note), adopts it,
yet assumes that ' the prophet has
in his mind the words of this im
precatory formula (hence the singu
lar "... kill thee ''), though he does
not express them.'  By another
name] It is implied that the name
'Israel' has become debased by
the lapse of so many of the Israel
ites. Comp. the ' new name ' in
lxii. 2b.
'^ Shall bless himself by] i.e.,
shall wish himself the blessings
which proceed from. So Gen. xxii.
18, xxvi. 4, Jer. iv. 2, Ps. Ixxii. 17.
 Tbe Cod of tbe Amen] Comp.
Rev. iii. 14, ' The Amen, the faith
ful and truthful witness.' The ex
pression is generally derived from
the custom of saying Amen (i.e.,
' It is sure') in a solemn covenant
(comp. Deut. xxvii. 15 &c.) : Targ.
renders ' the God of the oath ' — at
any rate a plausible paraphrase. I
confess, however, that I can hardly
believe that our prophet would have
coined such a phrase, which seems
to me to belong to a more liturgical
age, when ' Amen ' had become a
common formula in the temple-
services. One is tempted to alter

remarks that there is no Babylo
nian analogue for M'nf. Finzi and
Lenormant, however, have both
found a Babylonian god of the
second order called ' great Manu.' '
M'nf may very possibly be a Semi-
tised form of Manu. — M'nf appears
to be a mascuHne form ; we know
that among the Babylonians at
least there was a masculine as well
as a feminine Venus (see on xiv. 12).
It seems probable that the Arabic
Manit represents a collateral femi
nine form of the name.^ If so, we
have an interesting link between
Syrian and pre-Mohammedan Ara
bian religion, Manat being the
name of one of the three chief
deities of Arabia, who were re
cognised for a time by Mohammed
as mediators with Allah (Kordn,
Sur. liii. 19-23).
'* Por a curse] i.e., as the cen
tre of a formula of imprecation.
Comp. Num. v. 21, Zech. viii. 13,
Ps. cii. 8 (Q. P. B.), and especially
Jer. xxix. 22, 'And from thee shall
be taken a curse . . . saying, Je
hovah make thee like Zedekiah and
like Ahab, whom the king of Baby
lon wasted in the fire.' The for
mula is quoted imperfectly, like the
first words of a song. Alt. rend.
seems to me to interrupt the flow

' They refer to the Brit. Mus. collection of cuneiform inscriptions, iii. 66.
' Comp. Sprenger, Leben Mohammads, ii. 16.

ii8

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LXV.

of 'the Amen ' ; and he who sweareth on earth shall swear by
the God of ' the Amen ' ; because the former distresses are
forgotten, and because they are hidden from mine eyes.
¦' For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth ; and
the former things shall not be remembered, nor come up into
the mind. " Rejoice ye rather, and exult for ever on account
of that which I create ; for behold, I create Jerusalem (anew)
as exultation and her people as joy ; '^ and I will exult in Jeru
salem, and rejoice in my people, and no more shall there be
heard in her the sound of weeping, nor the sound of a cry.
^° And no more shall there proceed thence an infant of
(a few) days, nor an old man who cannot fill up his days ; for
the youth shall die when a hundred years old, and the sinner,
' Faithfulness, Weir (see below).

the vowel points, and read 'omen
or 'emUn 'faithfulness' (xxv. i) in
stead of 'dmen ; comp. Sept., tov
6iov TOV dXridivov. [Similarly, I ob
serve, Dr. 'Weir.]  Hidden from
mine eyes] One chapter of the
heavenly book (see on v. 6) is can
celled ; its contents are as though
they had never been. The con
tinuity of Israel's development is
restored. 17-25 -pjjg ^^T^ creation. Justin
Martyr (Dial c Tryph. c. 8i) quotes
these verses as a prediction of the
millennium. " I create new heavens and a
new earth . . . ] This is no mere
poetical figure for the return of
prosperity (as, e.g., Albert Barnes
would have it). "The prophet does
his utmost to exclude this view by
his twofold emphatic statement —
' new heavens shall be created, and
the old shall pass away.' The
fundamental idea is that nature
itself must be transformed to be in
harmony with regenerate Israel ;
we have met with it in more than
the germ already (see xi. 6-9 with
note xxx. 26, xliii. 19, li. 16). The
supposition of Dr. Kohut,' that we
have here a loan from Zoroastrian-
ism is altogether gratuitous, i. be
cause such a conception arises

naturally out of the fundamental
BibUcal idea of the perpetual crea-
torship of God (comp. John v. 17),
and 2. because the regeneration of
nature expected by the prophet
differs from that taught in the
Bundehesh in several essential par
ticulars — e.g., he looks forward to
the continuance of births and
deaths {vv. 20, 22) and of the ordi
nary process of nourishment (v. 21),
and he makes no mention of the
resurrection of the dead (comp. on
xxvi. 19.^  Tbe former things]
Some understand by this phrase
' the former troubles ' (comp. liv. 4) ;
others ' the former heaven and
earth' (comp. Jer. iii. 16). But
why may we not, as Naeg. suggests,
combine both references ?
" On account of ... ] Lit., in
respect of . . . (comp. xxxi. 6 Hebr.).
 1 create Jerusalem] The 'new
creation ' will still have its Jerusa
lem ! It is not a creation de nihilo,
but a transformation.  As ex
ultation] i.e., with an abounding
sense of joy as the basis of the
new nature (like ' I am prayer,' Ps.
cix. 4).
'^° Tbe youth shall die ... ]
i.e., he who dies at the age of a
hundred shall be regarded as early
lost, and even the wicked, suppos-

' Zeitschr. d. deutsch. morg. Ges., xxx. 716, 717.
' Matthcs, Theologisch Tijdschrijt, 1877, p. 585.

CHAP. LXV.]

I.SAIAII.

119

when a hundred years old, shall come under the curse. " And
they shall build houses, and inhabit them, and shall plant
vineyards, and eat their fruit : " they shall not build, and
another inhabit ; they shall not plant, and another eat ; for as
the days of * a tree « shall be the days of my people, and the
work of their hands mine elect shall use to the full. ^' They
shall not labour for vanity, nor bring forth for sudden trouble,
for they are a seed of the blessed of Jehovah, and their off
spring (shall remain) with them. " And it shall come to pass
that before they call, I will answer ; while they are yet speak
ing, I will hear. ^' The wolf and the lamb shall graze to-
I The tree of Life, Sept., Targ. (Gloss.)

ing such to exist, shall not be cut
off by the curse which pursues
them before their hundredth year.
Our prophet has not so glorious a
view of the future as that which is
embodied in xxv. 8. It is not eter
nal life which he here anticipates,
but patriarchal longevity (as Zech.
viii. 4). Comp. the picture in the
apocrypal Book of Enoch (v. 9),
' And they shall not be punished all
their life long, neither shall they
die by plagues and judgments ; but
the riumber of their days shall they
complete, and they shall grow old
in peace, and the years of their
. happiness shall be many, in ever
lasting bUss and peace, their whole
life long.' (This reminds us of the
Paradise of the Avesta, in which a
year was equal to a day, Vendidad,
ii- I33-)
" And they shall build bouses
. . . ] _ Alluding perhaps to the
curse in Deut. xxviii. 30, the exact
opposite of which forms the basis
of the promise. Comp. also lxii.
8, 9, Am. ix. 14.
'''^ As the days of a tree] In
stances enough of long-lived trees
can be found in Palestine, without
referring to the boabab-tree of
Senegal ! Comp. in Ixi. 3 ' oaks
of righteousness,' and Ps. xcii. 14,
' They shall still shoot forth in old
age.'  Shall use to the full] Lit,
. wear out. Comp. Job xxi. 13, ' They
' Legend of Ishtar, line 8 (back

wear out their days (i.e., live out
their full term) in prosperity.'
^' KTor bring fortb . . .] i.e.,
their children shall not perish by
any of God's ' four sore judgments.'
Comp. Ps. Ixxviii. 33, 'and (he
consumed) their years by a sudden
trouble.'  (shall remain) with
them] It is a part pf the 'blessing'
that their children grow up and enjoy
life with them. Comp. Job xxi. 8.
'^^ The picture of the new crea
tion is completed by a reference
to the animal world. It would be
inconsistent to leave the lower
animals with untransformed na
tures. But it is only a single fea
ture which is given, and that in
the form, mainly, of a condensed
quotation from xi. 6-9. One origi
nal clause, however, is added. And
the serpent — dust shall be his
food] i.e., the serpent shall content
himself with the food assigned him
in the primeval Divine decree (there
is a manifest allusion to Gen. iii. 14).
This, if I am not mistaken, is meant
literally ; ' much dust ' is the food
of the shades in the Assyrio-
Babylonian Hades.'  Tbey shall
not harm . . .] The subject is, of
course, the wild animals mentioned
in the original passage, xi. 6, 7.
Hence a strong presumption
(whatever be the date of chap. Ixv.)
in favour of interpreting xi. 9 (see
note) literally, and not allegorically.
side). All the translations agree.

I 20 ISAIAH. [CHAP. LXVI.
gether, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox ; and the ser
pent — dust shall be his food : they shall not harm nor destroy
in all my holy mountain, hath Jehovah said.

CHAPTER LXVL

Contents. — A declaration by Jehovah that he requires no earthly habi
tation, and is displeased with the service of unspiritual worshippers ; this
is followed by a solemn antithesis between the fate of the persecutors
and the persecuted (^v. 1-5). Next, a renewal of the alternate threats
and promises of chap. Ixv. {vv. 6-24). The former are mainly addressed
to the hostile Gentiles, but partly also to the idolatrous Jews, and the
idolatrous practices denounced (v. 17) are the same as those mentioned
in Ixv. 4, 5, viz. iiiitiation into heathen mysteries, and eating 'unclean' food.
The prophecy closes gloomily with an awful glance at the punishment of
the guilty souls (v. 24).
In deference to custom, I have treated these two parts as rightly
united in a single chapter, though not entirely convinced that this view
is correct. The most obvious interpretation of vv. 1-3 is that, at the
real or assumed standing-point of the writer, the temple was no longer
standing, and that the Divine speaker reprobates any attempt to rebuild
it and to restore the sacrificial system. On the other hand, v. 6, and
perhaps also vv. 20, 21, seem at least as clearly to imply that the temple
is in existence. I have endeavoured to remove this apparent inconsis
tency in my note on 7'. i ^ ; still I cannot think it d priori probable that
passages apparently so inconsistent should have been intended to form
part of one and the same chapter.
' Thus saith Jehovah, The heavens are my throne, and the
earth is my footstool ; what manner of house would ye build
' The heavens are ray throne The words need not, however, be
. . .] For parallels, see Ps. xi. 4, more than an emphatic declaration
ciii. 19; comp. also the words of that Jehovah 'dwelleth not in
Jesus in Matt. v. 34, xxiii. 22.  houses made with hands.' It may,
¦What manner of bouse . . . ] in fact, be another example of ' the
Many consider this to be a repro- Gospel before the Gospel' (see
bation of a plan for rebuilding the Acts vii. 48, xvii. 24), for a similar
temple, whether, with Hitzig, we statement of equal distinctness will
suppose this to have proceeded be looked for in vain in the Old
from the Jews who remained be- Testament. The ' Light which
hind in Chaldsea (the reprobation lighteth every man ' in this in-
applying, according to him, to a stance shone earlier on the banks
Chaldsean and not to a Judasan tem- of the Nile. An Egyptian hymn
pie), or whether, with Lowth and to the Nile, dating from the 19th
Vitringa, we assume a reference dynasty (14th cent. B.C.), contains_
to the temple of Herod the Great. these words, ' His abode is not

CHAP. LXVI.]

ISAIAH.

121

for me ? and what manner of place for my rest ? ^ For all
these things did my hand make ; [" I spoke *,] and all these
came into being (the oracle of Jehovah) ; but this is the man
upon whom I look, even he who is afflicted, and crushed in
spirit, and trembleth on account of my word. ^ He that
slaughtereth an ox is a man-slayer ; he that sacrificeth a
sheep, breaketh a dog's neck ; he that bringeth a meal-offering
' So Gratz, Monatschrift, 1878, p. 293.

known : no shrine is found with
painted figures : there is no build
ing that can contain him.' ' It is
also a Persian sentiment ; comp.
Herod, i. 131, ' They have no
images of the gods, no temples,'
&c. ^ All tbese things] viz., heaven
and earth, and all things therein ;
comp. xl. 26, Job xii. 9.  1 spoke]
These words seem necessary to
complete the clause ; comp. Ps.
xxxiii. 6, ' By a word of Jehovah
were the heavens made,' and v. 9,
' He spake, and it came into being'
(also Gen. i. 3).  This is tbe
man upon whom . . .] Comp.
lvii. 1 5.  Trembleth on ac
count of my word] Not in alarm,
but in a filial awe, which does not
exclude the transports of delight
(comp. Ps. cxix. 161 with v. 1 11).
The 'word' is that delivered in the
name of Jehovah by the prophets.
The phrase is only found again in
Ezra (ix. 4, x. 3).
^ He tbat slaughtereth . . .]
i.e., he that would slaughter . . .
The sacrifice (contemptuously called
the slaughter) of an ox, when
offered by unspiritual worshippers,
is as displeasing to God as the sin
of murder (comp. i. 11-15). It is
tempting to compare Ixv. 3-5, but
though the several parts of the
prophetic book beginning at chap.
xl. have many points of connection,
we must be on our guard against
illusory affinities. "The persons
spoken of here are evidently wor
shippers of Jehovah, and are there
fore distinct from those in Ixv. 3-5.

 Breaketh a dog's neck] Why
this feature ? It seems far-fetched
to suppose a covert polemical re
ference to the religious reverence
for the dog in Persia and Egypt
(comp. Bochart, Hierozoicon, i.
691-2), and better to explain the
expression from the uncleanness
and despicableness of this animal
among the Jews. Taking this pas
sage, however, in connection with
V. 17, and with Ixv. 4, one feels
that some very pecuHar sin of the
contemporaries of the prophet is
referred to, and the remains of a
Scottish scholar have thrown an
unexpected light upon it. In short,
it is totem-worship (see above, on
XV. 6) against which the prophet
lifts up his voice ; the unclean
animals referred to were, most pro
bably, the totems, or animal-fetishes,
of certain Jewish families. The
survival of this low form of religion
(ifthe word may be used in this
connection), is presupposed even
more certainly by a passage in
Ezekiel (viii. 10, 11), hitherto wrapt
in obscurity, where 'we find seventy
of the elders of Israel — that is, the
heads of houses— worshipping in a
chamber which had on its walls
the figures of all manner of unclean
creeping things and quadrupeds,
" even all the idols of the house of
Israel^'' and in the midst of the
worshippers Jaazaniah, the son of
Shaphan, i.e., the son of the rock-
badger (the 'coney' of Auth.
Vers.), which is one of the unclean
quadrupeds, according to Deut. xiv.
7, Lev. xi. 5. In fact, the proper

' Canon Cook's translation, Records of the Past, iv. 109. The hymn has also been
translated by M. Maspero (1868).

122

ISAIAH.

[chap. lxvi.

—(it is) swine's blood ; he that maketh a memorial of incense,
blesseth an idol. As they have chosen their own ways, and
their soul hath pleasure in their abominations, * so will /
choose freaks of fortune for them, and their terrors will I
bring unto them, because I called, and there was none that
answered, I spoke, and they did not hearken, but did that
which was evil in mine eyes, and that in which I had no
pleasure they chose. ' Hear the word of Jehovah, ye that
tremble at his word : Your brethren that hate you, that put
you away for my name's sake, say, ' Let Jehovah show himself
glorious, that we may look upon your joy,' but as for them,
they shall be ashamed.
^ A sound of uproar from the city, a sound from the tem
ple ; the sound of Jehovah who rendereth their deserts to his

names of the Israelites give evi
dence which is, I think, conclusive
to a philological eye, in favour of
the survival of this archaic worship.
In Isa. Ixv., Ixvi., the swine, the
dog, and the mouse are specially
mentioned in connection with an
illegal cultus, and all of them are
found in the Old Testament as names
of persons — the swine (Auth. Vers.,
Hezer, rather khezir) in I Chron.
xxiv. 15, Neh. x. 21 ; the dog
(Caleb = kalib = Arab kalb or Hebr.
keleb) in Num. xiii. 6, &c. — hence
the dog-tribe (Hebr. kdlibbi) to
which Nabal belonged, i Sam. xxv.
3 ; the mouse (Achbor) in Gen.
xxxvi. 38, 2 Kings xxii. 12, 14,
Jer. xxvi. 22, xxxvi. 12. (A panther-
totem is presupposed in Isa. xv. 6;
see above.) Of course the prophet
regarded this worship as a super
stition dishonouring to the one true
God. The tenacity with which a
section (probably a large section)
of the Israelites clung to it throws
a bright light on the repeated asser
tions of the prophets that their
people was not chosen by Jeho
vah for any merits of its own.
On this whole subject, see 'Ani
mal Worship and Animal Tribes
among the Arabs and in the Old
Testament,' by Mr. Robertson
Smith, in Journal of Philology,
where abundant parallels to the

totemism of the Israelites are ad
duced from Arabia.  Swine's
blood] See on Ixv. 4.  That
maketh a memorial . . . ] ' Me
morial ' is a technical term in the
sacrificial ritual for the burning of
a part of the minkhah or meal-
offering with incense upon the altar
(see Lev. ii. 2, Q. B. P.).  Bles
seth] i.e., worshippeth.
* So will / choose . . . ] ' The
Orientals are fond of such anti
thesis,' remarks Gesenius. It is,
however, more than a verbal anti
thesis which we have here ; it is
Jehovah's fundamental law of re
tribution (see on v. 8). So in the
Kordn (as Gesenius points out),
' . . . they say. We are with you,
we have only mocked at them :
God shall mock at them ' (Sur. ii.
13, 14); 'The hypocrites would
deceive God, but he will deceive
them' (Sur. iv. 141).  Freaks of
fortune] The word is very pecu
liar : it represents calamity under
the figure of a petulant child (comp.
iii. 4 Hebr.).
' The prophet turns abruptly to
those who in holy reverence wait
upon Jehovah. They have suflfered
for Jehovah, and He will work
mightily for them.  That put
you away] i.e., that refuse to
associate with you (comp. Ixv. 5).
In later Hebr. the word (nidddh)i%

CHAP. LXVI.]

ISAIAH.

123

enemies ! ' ' Before she travailed, she brought forth ; before
pangs came unto her, she was delivered of a man-child. ' Who
hath heard such a thing ? Who hath seen things like these ?
Can a country be travailed with in a day, or a nation be
brought forth at once ? for Zion hath travailed, and also
brought forth her sons.' * Should I bring to the birth, and
not cause to bring forth, saith Jehovah ? or should I, who
cause to bring forth, restrain it .'' saith thy God.
'" Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and dance for joy because of
her, all ye who love her ; exult together with her, all ye who

used of ' putting out of the syna
gogue ' (comp. the use of afpopi^m in
Luke vi. 22) ; niddUy is the lightest
of the three grades of excommuni
cation.  let Tehovab show
himself glorious . . . ] An ironical
speech, reminding us of v. 19. Dr.
Kay renders the verb ' . . . be
glorious ' ; but ' become glorious '
seems better, or the equivalent
given above. (Kal. is used, as in Mai.
i. 5, though we should expect Nifal.)
*-^* Alternate threats and pro
mises ; the glorious return of the
believing Jews contrasting with the
terrible and endless punishment of
their enemies.
° A sound of uproar . . . ]
The form of the verse reminds
us of xiii. 4, There, however, the
' uproar is caused by the assem
bling of Jehovah's human agents ;
here it is that symbolic thunder
which marks a theophany. There
the primary object is the destruc
tion of Babylon ; here the sole end
is the last act of the drama of the
judgment, in which all Jehovah's
enemies bear a passive part. The
catastrophe is to take place before
Jerusalem (as in Joel and Zecha
riah) ; hence it is added. From the
city . . . from tbe temple] No
doubt the latter words come in
rather strangely after the seeming
disparagement of temples in v. i.
But the inconsistency is probably
merely superficial (see above).
The precise meaning, however, of
the words ' from the temple ' will
depend on our view of the origin

of this prophecy. If written from
the point of view of the Babylonian
Exile, we must suppose Jehovah to
have (in a sense) taken up his
abode again on the site of the de
stroyed and for a long time God
forsaken temple. If from the
point of view of the restored exiles,
then we may suppose that the
temple has been rebuilt, and that
Jehovah (in a sense) issues from it
to take vengeance on his own and
Israel's enemies. However this
may be, vv. 7, 8 are written from a
new point of view. They represent
the other side of the doctrine of the
judgment (comp. a similartransition
in Ixv. 8). Israel has been restored
and an imaginary spectator bursts
out into a wondering exclamation.
The subject of v. 6 is resumed in
V. 15.
^ Before she travailed . ¦ . ]
The same figure has been used
before (see xlix. 17-21, liv. i), but
with less drastic energy. A child is
bom, a man-child, but swiftly and
without pain. The ' child ' is the
Israel of the latter days, the con
cluding stages of Israel's history
being fused in the dim prophetic
light. Grotius (who had philolo
gical instincts) explained of the
achievements of Judas Maccabeus.
He rightly felt that the age of Ze
rubbabel presented no fulfilment of
the prophet's burning words. — The
mention of a ' man-child ' is signifi
cant. ' Sweeter than the birth of a
boy,' says an Arabic proverb quoted
by Gesenius. Till Mohainmed in-

124

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LXVI.

mourned inwardly over her ; " that ye may suck, and be satis
fied, from the breast of her consolations ; that ye may press
out, and delight yourselves, from the bosom of her glory.
'^ For thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will direct peace unto her
like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing
torrent, and ye shall suck therefrom ; upon the side shall ye
be borne, and upon the knees shall ye be caressed. '^ As a
man whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you ; yea,
in Jerusalem shall ye be comforted. '^ And ye shall behold,
and your heart shall exult, and your bones shall spring up like
young grass, and the hand of Jehovah shall make himself
known towards his servants, but he shall deal indignation to
his enemies.'^ For behold, Jehovah shall come in fire, and his chariots
are like the whirlwind, to return his anger in fury, and his
rebuke in flames of fire. '^ For by fire will Jehovah hold
judgment, and by his sword with all flesh, and many shall be
the slain of Jehovah. '^ Those that consecrate and purify

terfered, the Arabs had a cruel cus
tom of burying female infants alive.
' Should X bring to the birth
. . . ] ' Should I arrange all the pre
liminary circumstances for the re
storation of my people, and stop
there ? ' ' Restrain it ' implies that
the expansiveness of Zion is such
that naught but Omnipotence will
be able to check it, and as Omni
potence has no motive for checking
it, Zion has nothing to fear either
in heaven or on earth.
10. II The prospect is so near that
the friends of Jerusalem should at
once give expression to their joy,
if they wish to be rewarded by a
share in her bliss.  mourned in
wardly] For the rend., see i Sam.
XV. 35 Hebr.
" That ye may suck . . . ] The
blessings which Jerusalem has re
ceived are compared to a mother's
milk. Comp. a different use of the
figure in w. I2 and Ix. 1 6.
" I will direct peace] So Gen.
xxxix. 21 ' (Jehovah) directed kind
ness unto him.'  TTpon the side]
See on Ix. 4. Obs., those who 'bear'
and ' caress ' are the Gentiles.

" As a man . . . ] As a mother
comforts, not merely her child, but
her grown-up son.
'^ ITour bones shall spring up
. . . ] The body is likened to a tree
of which the bones are the branches
(Job xviii. 13 Hebr). During the
anger of Jehovah, the latter had
been dried up and sapless (comp.
Ps. xxxii. 4).  Tbe hand of
Tehovab] No mere figure of speech
(Ges. renders, 'Jehovah's might'),
but God under His self-revealing
aspect (see on viii. 11).
"¦ The theophany. There is no
occasion, with Dr. Kohut, to con
nect this with the Zoroastrian doc
trine of the end of the world by
fire, even if this doctrine be really
ancient, and not rather due to Se
mitic influences. ' He cometh with
fire ' is the natural description of a
theophany in Biblical language ;
comp. xxix. 6 (note), xxx. 27, 28.
 His chariots] In Ps. xviii. 10
Jehovah rides upon ' a cherub ' ;
here, as in Hab. iii. 8, the single
chariot is multiplied, to symbolise
the ' hosts ' of natural and super
natural forces at his command.

CHAP. LXVI.]

ISAIAH.

125'

themselves for the gardens p after One in the midst ''], that
eat swine's flesh, and the abominations, and the mouse, to-
i" So Hebr. text ('One' is masc.).— Behind one (viz., one image of a goddess,
'one' being fem.), Hebr. marg., Vulg. (see Del.'s note). — One after the other, Pesh.,
Targ., Symmachus, Theodotion. Sept. omits the words.

" His sword] See on xxxiv. 5, 6.
 All flesh] See on v. 18.
" A fresh denunciation of the
sins mentioned in Ixv. 3, 4 (see
notes). Those Jews who are guilty
of them will share the punishment
of the hostile Gentiles.  Tbat
consecrate and purify them
selves] As a preparation for the
heathen mysteries in the gardens
(i. 29, Ixv. 3).  After One in the
midst] An obscure, enigmatical
phrase, and possibly corrupt. The
prevalent explanation (a) is '(Ges.,
Hitz., Knob., Del., Naeg., Baudis
sin) that it describes the way in
which the rites of the mysteries
were performed, viz., standing be
hind, or perhaps rather with close
adherence to (' after ' = ' according
to ') the directions of the hiero-
phant or leader (who would natu
rally stand in the centre of the ring
of celebrants). This is no doubt
plausible, but requires a great deal
to be supplied, unless (per impossi-
bile) we suppose that the initial rite
of purification was so complicated
that it needed a special superin
tendent even more than the mys
teries themselves. It is surprising
that those critics who, one after
another, have adopted it, have
not felt obliged to go further, and
put a blank space in their transla
tion between the words ' garden '
and ' after,' to indicate that some
words have fallen out. This is at
any rate a possible solution, (b) An

other view of the meaning is em
bodied in alt. read., but is adaptable
to the ordinary reading. Early
Jewish critics felt that some refer
ence was required to the deity" in
whose honour the mysteries were
celebrated, and appear to have
thought of the Syrian goddess
Asherah, whose licentious rites were
doubtless performed in groves.
Hence their conjectural emendation
(for such alt. read, most certainly
is), 'akhath for 'ekhddh (the feminine
for the masculine). Their general
view seems confirmed by the com
mon -use of ' after ' in technical
religious phrases, e.g., ' to walk
after other gods ' (Jer. vii. 9), ' to
walk after Jehovah ' (Hos. xi. 10),
' to lament after Jehovah ' (i Sam.
vii. 2), ' to fulfil after ( = wholly to
follow) Jehovah' (Deut. i. 36). But
the mention of swine's flesh just
afterwards suggests the worship of
Adonis (the Tammuz of Ezek. viii.
14) rather than of Asherah, and the
reference to ' the gardens ' suits this
equally well (see on xvii. 10). This
view was the prevalent one among
the post- Reformation scholars,' and
has been advocated with much
force by Prof de Lagarde (in spite
of a faulty inference from a passage
in Macrobius).'' It may now be
confirmed from the cuneiform ac
count of the Assyrian or Babylo
nian festival of Istar and Tammuz
(strictly, Dum-zi or Tam-zi), on
which occasion we are told that

' 'Scaliger, Seldenus, Drusius, Vossius, Grotius, Bochartus, Marshamus, magna in
Uteris nomina et appellari digna, huic conjecturas faverunt ; estque summ4 probabilis.'
Vitringa, ^ Hieronymi qucEstiones hebraiccs, &c., ed. Lagarde, p. 121. The words of Mac-
robius referred to are — ' (Assyrii) deo quem summum maximumque venerantur Adad
nomen dederunt ' (Saturn, i. 23). Lagarde conjectures that Macrobius found in his
Greek authority AAA miswritten for a A A (= Hebr. 'ekhaddh). But no such name of
a deity as 'elihadh has yet been found. Macrobius evidently uses ' Assyrians ' synony
mously with ' Syrians,' and wrongly derives the Syrian divine name Hadad (he calls it
Adad) from the Syriac kkadkhad (lit., 'unus unus,' but in usage 'unusquisque').
Lagarde's appeal to the Old Test, phrase, ' mourning for an (or, the) only-begotten
son ' (Am. viii. 10, Jer. vi. 26, Zech. xii. 10) is more plausible (see the wi iter's obser-

126

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LXVI.

gether shall they be consumed — the oracle of Jehovah. '* But
I ["will punish"] their words and their thoughts ; [behold the
time] is come that I gather all nations and tongues, and they
shall come and see my glory. '^ And I will work a sign upon
¦= So Maurer, Del. — I know, Pesh., Targ., some MSS. and early editions of Sept.,
Saadya, Auth. Vers., Vitr., Ges. — I have seen, Gratz.

' the figure of the goddess is carried
in procession, adorned with jewels
and robes of rich material, attend
ed by her maids of honour, Sam-
khat or Pleasure, and Haritnatu or
Lust ; and they go in procession
to meet the mourners bearing the
body of the dead Tammuz.' ' But
why should Adonis be called 'One' ?
Prof, de Lagarde would apparently
take 'ekhddh (here rendered ' One ')
in the sense of ydkhidh ' unique '
(as Job xxiii. 13), for he compares
the remarkable phrase, ' mourning
for an only-begotten son' l^ebhel
ydkhidh). But this seems hazard
ous (see note ^). The only alterna
tive is to take the word in question
as a contemptuous or evasive ap
pellation. Maurer comments thus :
' Hebr. 'ekhddh, nescio quis, per
contemptum.' It is rather more
natural to regard it as a piously
evasive phrase, somewhat like that
employed by the Rajah of Burdwan,
in speaking to Weitbrecht the mis
sionary, ' O yes, I have no objec
tion, if you do not mention one
name' (meaning the name of Jesus).'
(c) And yet, plausible as both the
above views are, especially the lat
ter, the combination of letters which
the received text presents, impresses
me by a family-likeness to other
passages of indubitable corrupt
ness. May it not be a mutilated
fragment of a clause parallel to,
though somewhat shorter than,
' those that consecrate themselves,'

&c. ? The conjecture seems to be
confirmed by the evident defective
ness of a part of the next verse.
 The abominations] A techni
cal expression in Leviticus, used
synonymously with ' swarming
things.' Among ' the uncleanest ' of
these animals are mentioned (Lev.
xi. 29) the lizard, the snail, and
the mouse, or rather, perhaps, the
jerboa, which is still eaten by the
Arabs. '* In this verse the prophet re
sumes the subject opened in v. 6,
viz., the overthrow of Jehovah's
enemies. Comp. the striking pa
rallels in Joel iii. 2, Zeph. iii. 8,
Zech. xiv. 2.  But I (will pun
ish)] Some word or words have
evidently dropped out of the text ;
an aposiopesis is not at all probable,
as there is no trace of passion or
excitement in the context, and a
parallel to the Virgilian Quos
ego — ' is not adducible in Hebrew.
Maurer's suggestion, adopted
above, is at any rate forcible. 
(Behold, the time) Is come] It is
not absolutely necessary to sup
pose that the bracketed words have
dropped out of the text (see Ezek.
xxxix. 8), but the lacuna in the open
ing words makes it a not unreason
able conjecture. Otherwise, we must
assume an ellipsis.  All nations]
This must be understood with a
limitation (see next verse).  And
tongues] This supplement is re
markable. Though not inconsis-

vations in Academy, x. 524 note), but our text reads 'ekhddh 'one,' nolydkhldh 'only-
begotten.' See further Vitringa's Comment., ii. 941, note A ; E. Meyer, Zeitschr.
d. deutsch. morg. Ges., 1877, p. 734; and Baudissin, Studien zur semit. Religions
geschichte, i. 3r5.
1 St. Chad Boscawen, in Academy, xiv. 91 (July 27, 1878). The basis of the
festival is demonstrably a nature-myth, leading up to the union of the new moon (Istar)
and the summer sun (Tam-zi or Tammuz).
* Memoir of the Rev. John James Weitbrecht, p. 543.
' Quoted by Del. in his first and second editions but not in his third. He noTir
agrees with Naeg. that the passage is probably corrupt.

CHAP. LXVI.]

ISAIAH.

127

them, and will send the escaped of them unto th.e nations, to
Tarshish, '*Put and Lud, *that draw the bow", to Tubal and
¦i So Sept., Knob., Gratz, Stade. (Del. inclines to this reading ; as to Hitz. and
Ew., see note below.) — Pun, Wetzstein.— Pul, Hebr. text.
• To Meshech, Sept., Stade. (Lowth approves in his note.)

tent with the authorship of Isaiah,
it agrees still better with a Cap
tivity-date, and reminds us for
cibly of the frequent references in
Daniel to ' peoples, nations, and
tongiies' (Dan. iii. 4, 7, 29, iv. i, v.
19, vi. 25, vii. 14). The same use
of the word ' tongue ' occurs in
Zech. viii. 23 (of post-Captivity
origin), and in vv. 5, 20, 31 of Gen.
X. (based probably on a Phoenician
document).  IWy glory] as dis
played in judicial rewards and
punishments. '° 'Work a sign upon them] viz.,
upon the assembled Gentile hosts.
The precise meaning of ' work a
sign ' is obscure. It is an emphatic
phrase (sUm. — not ndthan or 'dsdh
'oth) ; a strict rendering would be
'set a sign,' i.e., as a permanent
memorial. Elsewhere we find it
used of wonders which, by a mo
dem distinction, we call superna
tural (Ex. X. 2, Ps. Ixxviii. 43, cv.
27), but ' sign ' has a wide meaning
in the Old Test., and can be used
of any markedly providential oc
currence (see I Sam. x. 7 with the
context). Hence it may here mean
the wonderful escape of some of
the Gentile host (Ew., Del.), or the
all but total destruction of Jehovah's
enemies (' it is a vagfue but sugges
tive expression, and well calculated
to prepare the mind of the reader
for the awful description with
which the prophetic volume
closes ').' The latter was my first
view, but the eschatological paral
lel in Zech. xiv. seems to me now
to suggest some mysterious event,
which the prophet leaves his awe
struck readers to imagine.  Un
to the nations] The nations which
have had no relation to Israel, nor,
consciously at least, to Jehovah,

form a kind of outer world, with
which Jehovah has no controversy.
.  Put and Iiud] Put is either
the Egyptian Put (nasalised into
Punt), i.e., according to Brugsch,
the Somali country on the east
coast of Africa, opposite to Arabia,
or it comes from the Egyptian
Puti, another name for the people
commonly called Thehennu, i.e.,
the Marmaridffi, who lived west of
the Delta.'' Pul, the reading of the
received text occurs nowhere else
as an ethnic name ;. Put, however,
occurs in combination with Lud in
Ezek. xxvii. 10, xxx. 5 (comp. Jer.
xlvi. 9). Hence Hitz. and Ew.
suppose Pul to be a collateral-form
of Put, but the interchange of teth
and lamedh does not seem to be
established. It is better therefore
to adopt the read, of Sept. Wetz
stein's correction, however, is on
several accounts plausible. The
letters / and n (lamedh and nun)
might be easily confounded in the
Hebrew writing. Pun and Lud,
Punians (Carthaginians) and Lydi-
ans, might naturally be mentioned
together in ' the period subsequent
to the conquest of Babylon by
Cyrus, in which this part of Isaiah
places us.' ^ The Lydians, too, are
actually called Ludi in Assyrian
inscriptions of the reign of Assur
banipal. The objection, raised in
my first ed., ' that the Lydians had
already learned by experience the
might of Jehovah,' is only of
weight if chaps. Ixv., Ixvi. were
written with an eye to the same
circumstances as chap. xl. &c.
Lud (as is shown by the reference
to it in Ezek. xxx., comp. Gen. x.
13) must be a N. -African people,
though one may hesitate to adopt
Ebers' combination of Lud and

' /. C.A.,v. 234.
^ So Brugsch-Bey, History of Egypt, second ed., ii. 404.
' 'Wetzstein, as reported by Delitzsch, Jesaia, third ed., p. 720.

128

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LXVI.

Javan, to the distant countries which have not heard the re
port of me, nor seen my glory, and they shall make known
my glory among the nations. ^° And they shall bring all
your brethren out of all the nations as an offering unto Je
hovah upon horses and in chariots and in litters, and upon
mules and dromedaries, to my holy mountain, to Jerusalem,
saith Jehovah, as the children of Israel bring [or, used to
bring] the meal-offering in a clean vessel to the house of
Jehovah ; ^' and some of them also will I take unto the priests

Rut (the name for the native-born
Egyptians in the hieroglyphic in
scriptions).' See further Last
Words.  Tbat dravr the bow^]
A similar characterisation of the
Ludim in Jer. xlvi. 9. The reading
of Sept. has the air of a conjectural
emendation, and is unnecessary,
but certainly plausible. Meshech
and Tubal are several times men
tioned together ; the Muskai of the
Assja'ian inscriptions lived to the
north-east of the Tablai.  Tubal]
The Tablai of the inscriptions
dwelt to the west of the northern
arm of the Euphrates, in a part of
Armenia Minor.* They are men
tioned in the table of nations (Gen.
X. 2), also in Ezekiel (three times).
—  Javan] Javan, like Tubal and
Meshech, was famous for its traffic
in- slaves (Ezek. xxvii. 13). It is
obviously the same as 'la.Foi'-es, and
was successively applied to the
countries where Ionian Greeks
dwelt, as they became known to
the Phoenicians, and even (Zech. ix.
13, Dan. viii. 21, x. 20) to Greece
in general. Here, however, it cer
tainly designates some particular
nation, and most probably the
lonians on the west coast of Asia
Minor, though Mr. Sayce prefers
to identify it with Cyprus, which
he thinks suits the geographical
order better. Cyprus certainly
bears a name in the Assyrian in
scriptions which is siniply Javan
without the ' digamma.' Most
cuneiform scholars have read this
name Yatnan, but it is rather Yanan

(one of the Assyrian characters
having the value d as well as at or
ad). The distant countries] i.e.,
the coast-lands and islands of the
Mediterranean Sea.
*° And tbey shall bring . . .]
Not only shall the Gentiles ' stream'
to the holy city themselves (ii. 2,
lx. 4), but they shall escort the
Israelitish exiles to Jerusalem with
the tender care and reverence be
longing to holy things and persons
(comp. Zeph. iii. 10 with Keil's
note). Note the emphasis on 'alt
your brethren,' &c.  As an o^er-
ing] Or, ' as a present ' (comp.
XXXIX. i). Probably, however, the
Hebr. word (minkhah) is here used
in its technical sense. Without ab
solutely denying the acceptableness
of the ordinary meal-offering, the
prophet asserts that the honour
thus shown to the chosen people
will be fully equal to that paid to the
traditional m.inkhdh. Comp. Rom.
XV. 16, 77 npoa-cjiopd rav eBvav, where
the genitive is that of apposition.
 TTpon horses . . . mules and
dromedaries] The variety in die
mode of transport corresponds
to the wide extent of the Jewish
dispersion. A similar catalogue is
given in Zech. xiv. 15, to indicate
the multitude of hostile nations as
sembled round Jerusalem.  Ut
ters] The word only occurs else
where in Num. vii. 3 (in Lev. xi.
29 it is the name of an animal).
 Bring] Whether we render
in the present or the imperfect
tense (to keep the familiar terms)

' Aegypten. und die Bucher Mosis, i. 96-98.
^ Schrader, K. G, F., p. 156.

CHAP. LXVI.]

ISAIAH.

129

' and unto the Levites ', saith Jehovah. ^^ For like as the new
heavens and the new earth, which I make, stand perpetually
before me (the oracle of Jehovah), so shall your seed and
your name stand. ^' And it shall come to pass : from new
moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh
shall come to worship before me, saith Jehovah. ^* And they
f So many Hebr. MSS. (including almost all the oldest), and all the versions (see
Curtiss, The Levitical Priests, pp. 205-213, and comp. Del.'s note, y«j«;a, 3rd ed.,
p. 684). — Unto the Levites, Received Hebr. text.

depends on our view of the date of
the prophecy. If we think that it
was written during the Babylonian
Exile, we shall adopt the latter
tense ; if otherwise, the former.
^^ And some of them also . . .]
The language used leaves it quite
uncertain whether the Gentiles are
referred to (so Vitr., Ges., Ew.,
Alexander, Del., Kay, Naeg.), or
the Jews of the dispersion (so
Ibn Ezra, Kimchi, Hitz., Herzfeld,
Knob., Henderson, Seinecke, H.
Schultz). The advocates of the
latter view refer to lvi. 6, 7 as show
ing the utmost hopes held out to
the Gentile proselytes ; to Ixi. 6,
where the restored Jews are dis
tinguished from the Gentiles by the
title 'priests of Jehovah ; ' and to
lxvi. 22, where the permanence of
the Jewish race appears to be
guaranteed. On the other hand,
it may fairly be urged that a special
privilege granted to a select few
does not affect the general inferi
ority of the Gentile to the Jew.
The spirit of the context points
decidedly to a throwing open of
the gates as widely as possible.
When the Gentiles are converted,
a larger number of temple-officers
will become necessary, and the
same divine mercy which accepted
the converts will select those of
them who are suitable to minister
in holy things, even at the cost of
breaking through the exclusive Le
vitical system. This seems to be
confirmed by the parallel passage at
the end of Zechariah. See also on
Ixi. 6.  And unto tbe ILevites]

Both this and alt. read, presuppose
that a distinction in rank between
the Aaronite priests and the ordin
ary Levites continues ; this is
marked by the repeated preposition
in the Hebr. (comp. Deut. xviii. i,
Jer. xxxiii. 18, where the preposition
is not repeated). The prophet in
this respect occupies the point of
view of the Levitical legislation.
"'' I make] Strictly, ' I am
about to make.'  TTour name]
Perhaps alluding to the ' new name '
which was to supersede Israel (lxii.
2, Ixv. 15).
'^ From new moon to new
moon] The old forms of worship
have been reduced to the utmost ;
new moons and sabbaths alone re
main. ' All flesh ' attends in the
temple on these hallowed occasions
(comp. the similar anticipation in
Zech. xiv. 16). — Is all this to be
taken literally ? Does the prophet
mean that the old conditions of
time and space will have ceased ?
Or is the language figurative ? The
latter view is certainly nearer the
truth than the former. ' It is
already the revelation which our
Lord makes to the Samaritan
woman (John iv. 21). The literal
meaning was physically impossible ;
and so it "was plain that he (Isaiah)
spoke of a worship other than that
at any given place ' (Dr. Pusey ').
Still the prophet has but a confused
vision of this great spiritual change.
He cannot give up the idea of the
religious supremacy of Jerusalem ;
at the same time, he cannot ex
clude any from communion with

VOL. II.

Prophecy of Jesus, &c., a sermon (1879), p. 39.
K

I30

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LXVI.

shall go out and look upon the carcases of the men who
is not quenched ' (Mark ix. 43, 44,
comp. 45-48).' Both views being
so strongly supported, we must, I
think, endeavour to combine them,
and the study of primitive beliefs
may suggest a way. The eschato-
logy of the Bible is symbolic, and
its symbols are borrowed (with that
large-hearted tolerance which we
have so often had to notice) from
the popular forms of belief respect
ing the unseen world. Now it is
one of the most primitive and most
tenacious of these forms of belief
that the soul itself has a kind of
body, without which indeed those
phantom-visions in which all races
have believed would be impossi
bilities. As soon as men begin to
reflect, however rudely, upon this
belief, the theory arises that there
are different kinds of spirit, or soul.
Some primitive races say that man
has three souls ; some, that he has
four ; but a simpler and more
natural idea is that he has two.
This is said to be the belief of the
Algonquins, a tribe of North Ameri
can Indians ; ^ it also appears to
have been current upon the banks
of the Nile and of the Jordan. The
Egyptian priests, who were never
ashamed of the archaic basis of
their theology, taught this doctrine
— that after the separation of soul
and body in death, the soul went
through a series of trials in Amenti
or Hades, not however as a pure
spirit, but accompanied by an
eidolon of the cast-off body ; mean
time the body remained in the
upper world, seemingly inanimate,
but really still possessing a kind of
soul, the pale reflection of the soul
in Amenti. The Book of Job, so
full of references to popular beliefs,
and so abundant in illustrations of
II. Isaiah, contains a passage which
presupposes a closely analogous
belief among the Jews. After ex
pressing an earnest desire for a

God merely on the ground of their
local distance from the temple.
Hence the strange inconsistencies
in his picture.
'^ And they shall go out] viz.,
to the hills and valleys around
Jerusalem, where the Divine judg
ment has taken place, It is, of
course, the old and not the new
Jerusalem of which the prophet is
thinking.  And look upon] i.e.,
look with awful interest upon.
(Comp. Ps. xci. 8, and for the idiom,
Isa.Ixvi. 5, Gen. xxi. i6,xliv.34). 
For tbeir worm shall not die,
and their fire shall not be
quenched] Three questions arise
in considering this passage : i. Is
it the world of men or of souls
which is the scene of the torments ;
2. if the latter, how far are we to
interpret the description in a ma
terial sense ; and 3. in what sense
is everlastingness here predicated
of the fire and the worm? i. As
to the scene of the torments. The
context naturally leads us to sup
pose that the reference is to the
bodies of the slain, lying unburied
upon the ground ; and this view is
partly confirmed by the parallel
passage in Zechariah (xiv. 12). On
the other hand, the details of the
description suggest, by their ob
vious inconsistency, that the terms
are symbolic of the tortures of the
souls in Hades. This is the view
embodied in the Targum, which
renders the second half of the verse
thus : ' Because their souls shall not
die, and their" fire shall not be
quenched, and the ungodly shall be
judged in Gehenna, until the righte
ous say concerning them, ' We have
seen enough ; ' it also underlies the
solemn warning of Jesus, ' It is
better for thee to enter into Life
maimed, than having two hands tp
go into Gehenna, into the fire that
never shall be quenched ; where
their worm dieth not, and the fire

1 Gehenna, according to Jesus (see Matt. x. 28) as well as according to the Tar
gum, is a place where both soul and body undergo punishment.
2 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, 392.

CHAP. LXVI.]

ISAIAH.

131

rebelled against me, for their worm shall not die, and their fire

second life upon earth, the suffering
patriarch falls back into despon
dency, as he recalls to mind the
melancholy consequences of death.
' Thou overpowerest him for ever,
and he goeth ; changing his face,
and thou sendest him away. His
sons come to honour, and he
knoweth it not ; they become mean,
and he observeth them not. Never
theless, his flesh upon him feeleth
pain, and his soul upon him mourn-
eth ' (xiv. 22). So, too, in another
of his speeches Job expresses a de
gree of painful doubt whether his
body (his not entirely unconscious
body) will share the rest which his
soul (his not absolutely bodiless
soul) will enjoy in the underworld
(Job xvii. 16, Q. P.P.). In the
Book of Isaiah itself we have
met with one doubtful trace of the
belief in a duplicate body (see on
lvii. 2), and the Book of Ezekiel
has, in a highly imaginative pas
sage, a sufficiently distinct refer
ence to it (Ezek. xxxii. 25). A
kindred belief is presupposed in the
passage before us. The delivered
Israelites are represented as going
out to behold a signal instance of
righteous retribution. What they
see can be only the corpses of their
enemies. But the prophet con
tinues in terms which properly can
only belong to the souls in Hades.
How is this ? It is because of the
supposed double consciousness of
soul and body. Just as, according
to primitive belief, 'the mutilation
of the body will have a correspond
ing effect upon the soul," so the
tortures of the soul in Hades will
be felt in some degree by the corpse
on earth. The emphasis in the
prophetic statement is of course not
on the sympathy of soul and body,
but on the sense of punishment
which the personalities of the guilty
ones shall never lose (comp. 1. 1 1
end). 2. As to the materiality of
the torments of the guilty souls.

By the inconsistency of the de
scription, the prophet clearly warns
us not to understand it literally.
The Egyptian authors of the Book
of the Dead would have equally
deprecated a literal interpretation
of the torments of the condemned.
The eschatology of the Bible, as has
been already stated, is symbolic ;
the prophet, like the other men of
God, speaks in figures. His sym
bols are borrowed partly from the
valley of Hinnom, which had for
merly been the scene of the burnt
sacrifices to Moloch (comp. on lvii.
5), and afterwards became the re
ceptacle of the filth of Jerusalem,
and partly (as we have seen) from
the popular imaginations respect
ing the soul. We must be on our
guard, however, against supposing
that the kernel of his symbols is a
mere abstraction. This would be
high treason against his Semitic
origin and his prophetic calling.
There is no reasonable doubt that
material torments form a very de
finite part of his eschatology. In
one essential point, however, our
prophet is distinguished from later
non-prophetical writers, viz., his
self-restraint in referring to the
unseen world. 3. As to the ever
lastingness of the torments. Did
the prophet merely mean 'that
nothing should put the fire out,
while any portion of the carcases
remained to be devoured — that it
should be unquenchable until it
had done its work, and all was en
tirely consumed ? ' And in the ap
plication of the figure to the soul,
that pangs of conscience should
continue to afflict the guilty ones
until they were purified thereby?
This at any rate does not seem
to have been the interpretation of
the early readers of the prophecy.
Not to quote again the words of
our Lord, the proverbial use of the
fire and the worm in Sirach vii. 17,
Judith xvi. 17,^ would hardly have

' Ibid. i. 407.
- Mr. E. White is carried too far by his controversial bias, when he accuses the
K 2

132

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. LXVI.

shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abomination unto
all flesh.

arisen, if the Jewish people had
given the phrases so mild a mean
ing. But the theory mentioned
may I think be refuted out of the
Book of Isaiah itself, where we
read (xxxiv. lo) respecting the fire
with which guilty Edom is threat
ened, that it shall be quenchless,
and that its smoke shall go up for
ever, so that ' none shall pass
through ' Edom ' for ever and ever.'
There is no art lire pensie here ;
the everlastingness spoken of is
absolute and without qualification.
The phrase ' perpetual burnings '
(xxxiii. 14, see note) has quite
another reference.  An abomin
ation] The Hebr. word (derdon)
only occurs again in Dan. xii. 2
post-Christian writer of Judith of ' going beyond prophecy, and yielding to the influ
ence of a philosophical doctrine of an immortality learned from Greece and Egypt, and
not found iij his national Scriptures' (Life in Christ, 3rd ed., p. 170).

(which, from the context, appears
to be an allusion to our passage).
— Such is the awful picture with
which the Book of Israel's Con
solation closes. Is there not an
incongruity in this ? The early
Jewish critics appear to have
thought so. They directed that
when this chapter (or the last chap
ter of the Minor Prophets, the
Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes)
was read, the last verse but one
should be repeated to correct the
sad impression of the last. One
cannot but sympathise with them.
But how should there not be a dif
ference between the Old Testa
ment and the New ?

CRITICAL NOTES.

I. 7. Dnt, the reading of the text, may be either the gen. of the
subject or of the object. If of the subject, the whole phrase will
mean 'like a subversion in which strangers (or, enemies) are the
agents.' If of the object, 'like a subversion of strangers' land.'
The former meaning is natural in itself, but there are three objec
tions to it ; {a) that a gen. standing alone after an infinitive of a
noun used infinitivally is, according to usage, a gen. of the object
(see Deut. xxix. 22, Jer. xlix. 18), {b) that nSSnD is the standing term
for the catastrophe of Sodom and Gomorrah (which is also an ob
jection to Dr. Neubauer's suggestion D*1t), and {c) that the context
shows that Sodom is in the mind of Isaiah here. The latter meaning
has only one argument against it, viz. that it is forced, and requires
us to take D»"it in different senses in two successive lines. It is
better therefore to suppose that D*7f was written either carelessly (the
word having occurred just before) or by design, from a patriotic
motive, instead of DHD- Against Lowth's conjecture Dit, see my
Notes and Criticisms, ad loc. (Ibn Ezra supposed DHt to be a col
lateral form of DII.) Mr. Robertson Smith also accepts DHD-
I. 9. DUD3. To attach this word to the first half of the verse
makes this disproportionately long. Geiger' has shown that the old
Jewish students of Scripture (represented by the Versions) were
startled by some of the hard things said of Israel, and substituted
milder expressions. He even thinks that the text was sometimes
gently touched from the same patriotic motive. Certainly in this
verse, if anywhere, 'we may assume a softening interpolation ; that
the judges should be called ' judges of Sodom ' might be tolerated,
but that the entire people should, even in a hypothesis, be likened to
Sodom, was too great a shock. Three of the versions (Sept., Pesh.,
Vulg.) omit the word, and the fourth (Targ.) gives a rendering which
clearly reveals a dissatisfaction with the text, even in its mitigated
form : the offence remained, to the author of this rendering, even
after the insertion of the gloss. It seems to me possible that a
similar feeling of national complacency dictated the change of D11D
into Dnt in v. 7.
I. 12. <as niK'i^ Read 'a niS")^, and see note in I.C.A., p. 39.
' Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel (Bres^^a, 1857), p. 346, &c.

134 CRITICAL NOTES.
Geiger ' has shown by a number of passages that the authors of the
points and the early translators took great offence at the expression
' to see God.' Hence, they frequently modify this phrase ; but as
where one modifies it another sometimes does not, we are now and
then able to produce documentary evidence that the original reading
has been changed. It was enough (or seemed enough) to change
the vowels ; the letters of the text were allowed to remain. Yet it is
doubtful whether the reading of the points in the present case is
even grammatically admissible, not so much on account of the as
sumed syncope of n, which Bottcher and Stade in their grammars
call in question (for even if the Massoretic pointing in the four other
supposed cases of syncopated infin. Nifal be erroneous, yet the prin
ciple of such a syncope is assured by the admitted examples of syn
copated Hifil — see, e.g., iii. 8, xxiii. ii), as because of the prepositional
use of ''3D, which only occurs elsewhere in two passages precisely
analogous to the present (Ex. xxiii. 15, xxxiv. 20). Del. in his 3rd ed.
admits the plausibility of this argument ('vielleicht aber eben nur
vielleicht riehtig '). — The same offence at the anthropomorphism, ' to
see God,' dictated the Sept. version of xxxviii. 11 (see vol. i., p. 224,
note ^).
I. 17, b. mVVI p**- The rendering adopted has been objected to as
giving the Vav a kind of sarcastic value. But the Vav of association,
though commoner in Arabic, is not unknown in Hebrew (see below
on vii. i). Auth. Vers, is grammatically less probable. For the
principle of the Hebrew idiom, see Driver {Hebrew Tenses, § 197,
obs. 2), who compares Jer. xiii. 27.
n. 16. monn nrSK'. 'B> is evidently the same as nvaB'D, which
occurs in Num. xxxiii. 52 (comp. Lev. xx'vi. i), in the sense of
'carved idolatrous obelisks,' and in Prov. xxv. 11 of 'chased (silver)
vessels. ' The (Aramaic) root is ilDB' ' to pierce through,' ' to distinguish,'
and hence ' to look at.' The Vulgate and Saadya have understood the
phrase to mean all kinds of ornaments ; but the usage of the word
nOti'D (comp. also Ezek. viii. 1 2) favours the view that some sort of
imagery was represented on the foreign works of art referred to. The
wider meaning ' objects which attract the gaze ' is, however, amply
defensible on the analogy of the Aramaic khezvo and Assyrian ta-
¦martu, both used of costly things, and both from roots meaning 'to see.'
Ewald's ' watch-towers of pleasure ' is derived from the Peshito, and
confirmed by the Aramaic ni3D ' watch-tower,' but has the Hebrew
usage against it, and is scarcely suitable at the close of the catalogue.
III. 10. nOK- The present reading is no doubt grammatically
defensible (cf. Gen. i. 4, vi. 2), but it is weak. Should we not read
ntf'X, thus completing the parallelism between v. lo and v. 11?
(Lowth has a similar suggestion).
' Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel, p. 337-9.

CRITICAL NOTES. I 35
III. 12. VE'33 here without connoting oppression; comp. 1.x. 17,
Zech. x. 4. The plural is to be explained as a construction Kara
(Tvvea-iv. The thought of the prophet was, ' My people's governors
are a petulant child and the court women.' He began to write this
down and then broke up the clause into two, to produce a rhythmic
parallelism (comp. xli. 27, Zeph. iii. 10).
IIL 25. yma, WJIO is a poetic archaism (see Notes and Criti
cisms, ad loc). In usage it always implies dependence or weakness
(the former even in Job xix. 19, Job being described as a kind of
emir). It does not appear to connote fewness ; else there would be
no occasion for the familiar compound phrase ISDD 'no (Gen.
xxxiv. 30, &c.). Hence in xli. 14, we should render ' petty folk '
(Sept. ¦wrongly oXtyoo-rds). ' Dependents ' would probably be the
best general rendering ; this will include warriors (implied here) and
household servants (see Job xxxi. 31).
V. I. 'Tit niitJ'. For the objection to the ordinary view, see
my note ad loc. The phrase should probably be explained, on the
analogy of D''in DltJ*!? 'bed of love' (Ezek xxiii. 17), 'a song of
love,' i.e. 'a lovely song.' Two ways of explaining the ''in of the
text are open to us. {a) It may be an example of the popular
apocopated plural (z for tm), recognised by Ewald in 2 Sam. xxii. 44
(Ps. cxliv. 2), Lam. iii. 14, Cant. viii. 2, and perhaps Ps. xiv. 9
{Lehrbuch, § 177 a). If Ewald {Die Dichter des Alien Bundes, ii.
425) may be followed, we have another instance of 'TiT for DiTiT in
Cant. vii. 10, but this is very doubtful. But although the Himya-
ritic plural of tens is formed by / without the n which should follow,
I question whether the second mode of explanation {f) is not better,
not only for Isa. v. i (which is not included by Ewald in his instances
of the apocopated plural), but for the other passsages quoted above.
Bishop Lowth writes, '[There is in all such cases] a mistake of
the transcribers, by not observing a small stroke, which in many
MSS. is made to supply the D of the plural, thus 'nn.' See below,
on liii. 8.
V. 13. For 'no read *tb, with Hitz. &c. ; comp. Deut. xxxii. 24.
An error of the ear rather than of the eye.
VL 6. nasi. Ges., Hitz., Knob., Luzzatto, render 'hot stone'
{Gliihstein, pietra infuocatd), and refer to the Eastern custom of
cooking food on stones heated in a fire (comp. i Kings xix. 6, f)V"i).
But naVT is not necessarily a 'hot stone,' see Esth. i. 6, &c., and for
post- Biblical Hebrew, Joma, i. 7.' (Vulg. rightly, calculus ; Ewald,
Stiickstein.) VII. I. ^3* K71. The singular is used, because Pekah is only an
appendage to his more powerful neighbour. The Vav before his
name is that of association (=' together with'); see i. 13^, xiii. 9,
' Siegfried, review of I.C.A., in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift, 1872, p. 179.

136 CRITICAL NOTES.
xiii. 5, xlviii. 16 b, li. 19, and, for other examples, Ewald, Lehrbuch d. h.
Spr., § 339 a (or see Kennedy's transl. of Ewald's Syntax).
On VII. 8, 9. (See end of note.) The corruption of "la^DN (As-
napper) from 7fi:rn]DN (Assurbanipal) is easy. Two letters only had
become effaced in the manuscript from which Ezra iv. 9, lo was
copied. Friedr. Delitzsch, Paradies, p. 329, in adopting this identi
fication, remarks that Assurbanipal was the conqueror of Susa, and
that the Susanchites are among the nations which Asnapper trans
ported to N. Israel (Ezra iv. 9, 10).
VII. 14. riDPrn. — Dr. Pusev has published his view of the ren
dering and etymology of HOTV in a learned note to a university
sermon. See Prophecy of Jesus, &c., Oxford, 1879, pp. 48-51. With
characteristic independence, he boldly defends the rendering ' vir
gin,' and the connection of DD?!; with D7J? 'to hide.' His argu
ments are drawn partly from the Biblical usage of ilDpu, partly
from the superior suitability which he attributes to the native
Hebrew root. He remarks incidentally that the rendering ' young
woman ' deprives the prophecy of its emphasis — a criticism which I do
not understand, for would not the article prefixed render any noun
emphatic ? On the latter, he is really suggestive ; at any rate, one or
two of the facts which he has adduced from the Arabic lexicon throw
some valuable light on the synonymik of the Semitic languages. For
instance, bint in Arabic (like ns in Hebrew) is used in the sense of
' girl ; ' and a synonym for bint is habdf, evidently derived from the
root habaa, 'to hide,' and meaning 'a girl kept in the tent,' i.e. 'not
yet married ' (Lane, pp. 692-3). Dr. Pusey, however, does not go
so far as to include habaa among the four roots from which, he re
marks, as many distinct groups of words signifying ' virginity ' are
derived ; and he will hardly deny that the Arabic gulam, ' a young' -
man, youth, boy, or male child' (Lane), is derived from the xoot^alima,
commonly rendered 'coeundi cupidus esse,' but more accurately (for
the Arabic lexicon only gives the coarsened Arabic usage, not the fun
damental meaning) 'maturus esse.' Dr. Pusey infers that nuTSI might
have the same meaning as habdt ; I follow the majority in inferring
that it might be synonymous with ^uldmat (fem. of guldm). There
would be no objection to his theory of the etymology, if rxh'S stood
alone in the Semitic vocabulary, if D.?y and D''t?-l9H, and the ana
logues of D?.y and npPl? in Arabic and Aramaic, were non-existent
— if, that is, nppy were not a member of a widely-spread family of
words which require to be accounted for in the same way. When it
can be shown that Aramaic and Arabic had a root th'S ' to hide,'
Dr. Pusey's argument will gain greatly in cogency. I admit, of
course, that the etymology does not necessarily agree with the usage
of a word (Dr. Pusey well refers to the Arabic bikr, 'a virgin,' but
etymologically only ' a young woman '), but I urge that in the case of

CRITICAL NOTES. I 37
d!?h and D*»-l7.y it does so agree, and that the context of Isa. vii. 14
does not compel us to decide that nppyn has any but the etymo
logically correct rendering 'the young woman.' May I, in conclusion,
suggest that the nuance which galima has acquired in Arabic should
not be confounded with the fundamental meaning ? It seems to me
as if Dr. Pusey's natural aversion to Arabian coarseness has impeded
him in the critical use of the Arabic vocabulary.
On the Septuagint rendering -7 irap^eVos I have no new suggestion
to propound. It may of course be used loosely like virgo. The
diroKpu^os of Aquila, Gen. xxiv. 4, may be safely disregarded. Criti
cal etymologies were not \\\q. forte of the Hellenistic Jews. Delitzsch
remarks, with laconic positiveness, ' The assertion of Jerome, Hebra-
icum TXSTi nunquam nisi de virgine scribitur, significat enim puellam
virginem absconditam, defended by Vercellone in a lengthy lecture, is
untenable' (Jesaia, ed. 3, p. 115, note 3).
VII. 25. 'iji nsi* nOtJ' 6«i3n"J<b- The rendering of Vitr. and Ew.
is variously explained (according to Ew., 'there is not even the fear
of thorns, for they are allowed to grow up anywhere undisturbed ';
which is very unnatural) ; but in any case the contrast between the
present renunciation of agriculture and the past careful pursuance
of it is entirely lost. The construction preferred is not indeed free
from awkwardness (DKI'D would have been simpler) ; but it is the
fault, not of Isaiah, but of the early editor of chap. vii. (see vol. i.
P- 43)- VIIL 9. inm has been repeated accidentally from the second
verse-half (Gratz.)
VIII. 15. DI- Most critics render D3 'among them,' which is weak
in itself, and leaves the verse rather isolated. I prefer, with Ges. and
Hitz., to attach the word to the verb (comp. Jer. vi. 21, xlvi. 12). The
plural is however less natural than the singular (for the ' stone ' and
the ' rock ' are but one), and I therefore adopt Prof de Goeje's sugges
tion {Revue critique. May 8, 1875) 'o point D.3, and explain on the
analogy of liii. 8 (see below), em being in all probability a Phoenicio-
Hebrew pronominal suffix form for the 3rd pers. masc. sing.
VIII. 19. Sept. renders the last clause of this verse, rt eK^rjrova-t
vepl tS>v ^u>vTUiv Tovs v€Kpov's; Did Sept. read B'TTiTlD? or are the
first two words simply an interpolation ?
VIII. 21, 22. The transposition of these verses is made (on the
analogy of many similar cases in ancient texts) in order to soften the
transition to ix. i. The mere difficulty of the proleptic ellipsis of
the noun to which the pronoun in 33 refers, is not great ; comp.
(with Del. on Hab. i. 5) xiii. 2, Qrf>=i^>lpah ; Job vi. 29, !!13=''J1B'!?3;
Ps. ix. 13, oniS, viz. D»13U.
On VIII. 22, ix 1-7 comp. Selwyn's Horce Hebraicce (Cambr.
i860), pp. 5-130.

138 CRITICAL NOTES.
IX. 2. Selwyn's conjecture, alluded to in vol. i. p. 60, is ?*JIl! (for
»h »Un), Roorda's ¦l!?''S, Reifmann's nSi-in.
IX. 4. K'uin. Most render 'in the tumult (of battle),' but the
parallelism leads us to expect a qualification, and this produces a
grander description.
IX. 6. naiD^- Lagarde {Semitica, i. 17) regards the q^ as a
fragment of a half-illegible word in the MS. from which the scribe
was copying. Why should it not be a case of StTToy/ja^ta, DISSS'
having been first of all written ' defectively ' D?K' ? The verse would
then run more smoothly. ' Increased (pointing, ii3'i) is the govern
ment, and peace hath no end,' &c. (So Gratz, Geschichte, ii. i, p.
223.) (naiD is no doubt an Isaianic word, see xxxiiL 23, but we have
to account for the Q clausum.)
IX. 8. 131; might also be taken in the sense of ' a thing ' (as
I Sam. xiv. 12), i.e., in this case, an evil thing. So Nestle {Theolog.
Literaturzeitung, 1878).
IX. 10. ^'^^f. Hitzig (on Job xxx. 13) conjectures '''DtS? 'helpers.'
IX. 16. Read noa'' S? with Lagarde. noa is an Isaianic word
(xxxi. 5). True, the litotes in the text may be supported by Eccles.
iv. 16. But it gives a poor parallel to DDT' vh-
X. 4. Prof de Lagarde (letter in Academy, Dec. 15, 1870) pro
poses to read T'DX np nyib >n73 'Beltis stoops, Osiris is con
founded;' comp. xlvi. I, Jer. 1. 2. Lagarde thinks that Beltis
(»n"?s;3) and Osiris were worshipped by some of the Judahites.
There is, it is true, abundant evidence ' of the worship of Beltis in
Syria at a later time ; but early testimony seems to be wholly wanting,
unless with Geiger we point ^TO^ in 2 Kings xxiii. 10 (comp. v. 7-
ITIB'k'? D*n3).^ The form again is doubtful. If the deity intended
be the Babylonian Bilit, the form (as Mr. Sayce points out to me)
should be ¦'in73. In later Phoenician, the form was certainly n7Jia
(see de Vogiie's Stile de Yehawmelek, p. 8), and the Graecised
BaaXrts is from n^P3, not *n!?JJ3 (Schlottmann; Schroder). Still less
if possible, is there any evidence that Osiris was a popular deity in
Palestine. It may perhaps be that Assir, in Ex. vi. 24, should be
Osir (comp. Hur, Ex. xvii. 10, probably =Horus), and that Amen,
the son of King Manasseh, is the same as the Egyptian Amen (=Ra,
the sun-god). Pinehas may be ' the negro ' (so Lowth and Brugsch),
and Putiel, in Ex. vi. 25, may be half- Egyptian, like the Pet-Baal
mentioned by Brugsch ; ' but the general result of Old Testament
study is to reduce Egyptian influence on the Israelites within very
'See Lagarde's note in Semitica, Heft i ; Payne Smith, Thesaurus, p. Srp (Bilati
or Belati=the planet Venus in Syriac).
* Judische Zeitschrift, ii. 259. This view is very questionable ; Jer. xx^tii. 35 en
titles us to expect Baal and not Beltis.
5 This and other interesting new comparisons are due to Mr. Tomkins, author
of Studies on tlie Times of Abraham. See ' Biblical Proper Names Illustrated,' &c.,
Victoria Institute Transactions, vol. xvi. 1882. [Mr. R. S. Poole well suggests Ahi-ra.]

CRITICAL NOTES. I 39
narrow dimensions. A sporadic reverence for either Osiris or Beltis
would surely not have been referred to in this context and in these
terms. — The case is not much improved if with Geiger ' we take the
Beltis in Lagarde's proposed reading as a symbol of Babylon, and
Osiris of Egypt. The fugitive Judahites would never think of taking
refuge in Assyria, when the Assyrians had but just ravaged Gilead
and Naphtali (ix. i, 2 Kings xv. 29).^ Prof, de Lagarde's ingenious
conjecture must therefore on various grounds be decidedly rejected.
Gladly would we learn more of the popular religion of Palestine, but
we must not read our own fancies into the scanty records at our
disposal. (Sept. seems to have had a mutilated Hebrew text ; it
renders by guess tov /xr) kpuirirr^v ets diraymyriv.)
x. 5 b. There is no various reading of moment in the MSS., but
Sept. appears to be based on a text which omitted XI n nt2D. Hitzig,
Ewald (ist ed.), and Diestel omit DT3 Sin as an intrusive marginal
note, suggested (Diestel) by v. 24. But the omission of these words
seems to leave the clause too short. Seeker (ap. Lowth) simply cor
rects DT'3 into D1''3.
X. 13. T'piKI. . . T'DKI.. Hitzig and Dr. Kay regard this as the im
perfect of habit ('I am wont to . . .'), but this hardly suits the con
text ; Ewald (so Mr. Driver, Hebrew Tenses, §§ 83, 84), as a vivid
way of representing past events as in course of happening, but yet
without implying at the same time the idea of sequence or causation.
The ' tense ' is singularly appropriate here, as it is the one which
the Assyrian kings, for the same reason as Isaiah here, habitually use
in their inscriptions. Comp. on xii. i.
X. 18. DC?J Dbps Asingular phrase; can it be correct? ODD occurs
nowhere else in Kal, and though DDJ and DDinil are found in three other
places (lix. 19, Zech. ix. 16, Ps. lx. 6), none of them seem to illustrate
our passage. ' It is easier,' as Dr. Weir remarks, ' to find objections to
all the various renderings which have been proposed, than to say which
is the true one. The ancient versions give very little assistance.' He
suggests, however (in which I do not agree), that some light is thrown
upon the passage by xxxi. 8, 9.
x. 25. Luzzatto reads Dh^ ?3f)"?y ; but, as Diestel remarks, the
next stage was to be, not the cessation of Jehovah's anger, but its
manifestation on a larger scale.
X. 27 (last clause). Probably corrupt (see note, vol. i. p. 71).
For the rendering by 'reason of,' comp. Ps. Ixviii. 3, (Hebr.), and
see note on lvii. i.
X. 33. ^'^^<B. Gesenius's explanation, adopted in my translation
and also by Del., 'foliage, lit. glory,' seems not to suit the passages
(six in Ezekiel), in which n"iKS occurs in the plural. The several
' Judische Zeitschrift, ix. irg,
2 Hitzig in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift, xv. 228.

140 CRITICAL NOTES.
branches would not naturally each be called the ' glory ' of a tree.
Better, therefore, to derive the word from the root par 'to break
forth,' and render 'bough' (see Ezek. xvii. 6), or collectively
' boughs.' XL 3. '3 'in^ini. The phrase is without a parallel, and was evi
dently suggested by the four nil of the preceding verse. Alt. rend.
would run more literally, ' And he shall smell delightedly at the fear
of Jehovah.' I cannot reconcile myself to such an expression, the
object of the 'smelling' having no reference (as in Am. v. 21, Lev.
xxvi. 31) to ceremonial observances, n'ln, 'to make Ci-n'='to
breathe,' as ptNn 'to make ears'='to hear,' fB'?,! 'to make tongue'
= 'to slander' (quoted by Naeg.).
XI. 4. For the second I'lS read ^'''lu with Lagarde (see vol. i. p. 76).
XI. 8. T\'\!ri IT. Render, ' lay down his hand.' See Wetzstein's
second excursus in third ed. of Delitzsch's Jesaia. (The original
meaning of the root is shown from the Arabic to be probably deniit-
tere, rather than tender e.)
XI. 15. D*U3. Read DV5?3 with Gesenius (in Thesaurus) and Luz
zatto, ^ and V being easily confounded in the earlier stages of the
alphabetic characters. So perhaps Sept., Pesh., Vulg., though their
renderings may be mere guesswork (comp. Kimchi). To call in the
aid of the Arabic in this exceedingly plain piece of Hebrew seems
very dubious.
xn. I. iJDmri-l • ¦ 3K>J. My _ friend Mr. Driver suggests' that
this may be taken as a prayer ('May thine anger turn,' &c.), comp.
Ps. Ixxxv. 5 with 2-4, and cxxvi. 4 with 1-3. To me this does not
seem natural, as the next verse is entirely in the strain of thanks
giving. I would not, however, assert that ¦ 5 is to be understood, but
rather that the construction with the imperfect, in poetic Hebrew as
in epigraphic Assyrian, is a vivid, emotional way of representing even
past events as in course of happening (comp. on x 13). Whether
another imperfect with simple Vav follows, makes no difference (see
on the other hand Delitzsch, whose references, however, scarcely
prove his case).
xn. 2. nin» IT' n'lbtl. The termination n,. is not, as is generally
supposed, a poetic or archaic form instead of n ^, . . but an apocopated
flexional form of the feminine n,.. It comes either from >r^, or from
the accusative (?) nn,., as may in all cases be satisfactorily shown '
(Hupfeld on Ps. xvi. 6). In the present instance certainly the for
mer alternative is the more obvious one (it assumes an Aramaizing
apocope of the suffix) ; but Hupfeld's comment must be supplemented
by that of Geiger,^ who appears to have shown the reason why, at
least in Ex. xv. 2, Isa. xii. 2, and Ps. cxviii. 14, the apocopated form
' The Use of the Tenses in Hebrew, § 84 (o).
* Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel, pp. 274-S.

CRITICAL NOTES. I4I
was adopted. It is well known that the later Jews (even in the
times of the Septuagint) scrupled to pronounce the Tetragrammaton.
nj, it is true, is only half of the Tetragrammaton, but it is natural
that the same scruple (I speak of pre-Massoretic times) should have
prevented the pronunciation even of this half How could this be
avoided ? By connecting the syllable HJ (wherever the sense appeared
to allow it) so closely with the preceding word, that the hearer was
not conscious of hearing the Divine name. Hence in Ex. xv. 2, the
Samaritan Pentateuch reads n'mDTI as one word, and Sept. translates
or paraphrases there /3orj6b^ Kal a-KeTraa-Trj's iyevero. The later ver
sions, however, express the nj, and it is in accordance with this later
abatement of scrupulousness that the Massoretic text of Isa. xii. 2 in
troduces nin\ It was apparently still the custom among some public
readers of the Scriptures to let the a* be absorbed in the preceding
word, and to make the true sense quite clear the Massoretic critics
inserted the full name nini (only here however, not in Ex. xv. 2, nor
in Ps. cxviii. 14). (The case is much stronger than can be shown in
this condensed note. Nor can inconsistencies on the part of the
Massoretes be pleaded against Geiger's view ; perfect consistency is
not a virtue even of these careful critics.)
XIII. 6. In his lectures on The Old Testament in the Jewish
Church, p. 423, Mr. Robertson Smith developes more fully his view
of the origin of Shaddai 'the rain-giver.' He thinks that the deriva
tion from "CW is discredited by the fact of its having been suggested
by the punctuation, which was itself determined by a faulty traditional
etymology (from the relative ^ and n). I agree that the Aramaic
affinity pointed out by him and Gesenius is plausible, though I
desiderate a good Assyrian cognate ; but I am not convinced that
the derivation from "ntJ' (already present to the mind of our prophet)
stands or falls with the Jewish traditional etymology. If you had 'Its'
(unpointed) before you as the name of a god, you might quite well
form the hypothesis that it was connected with IIB'.
xiiL. 21. D'''S'wild cats.' See my Notes and Criticisms, p. 23.
D'ns. This corresponds to the Assyrian akhu (singular), which is
given as the equivalent of the Accadian lig-bar-ra, i.e. ' striped beast
(dog).' Houghton, Trans. Soc Bibl. Arch., V. 328.
XIV. 6. Read n'l'iD Cf] and n confounded, as in 2 Kings x. 32,
where read, with Targ., Hitz., filSp^).
XIV. 21. Dny. To the question, 'Why should cities be denounced
so unqualifiedly ? ' (vol. i. p. 93), Dr. Weir replies by referring to the
view of the antitheistic origin of Babylon given in Gen. xi. ; how in
genious, but how far-fetched ! Ibn Ezra, adopting Targ.'s rendering
'enemies,' compares i Sam. xxviii. 16, where, however, Sept's read
ing is now generally adopted. (See Q. P. B.) Read D''?v; a similar
correction is necessary in xxiv. 15, Ps. Ixxii. 9, Jer. xlix. 3. (For other
shght errors in this section, see xiii. 22, xiv. 4, 6.)

142 CRITICAL NOTES.
XIV. 22. pj. Comp. Assyrian «/^M ' family ' (Friedr. Delitzsch,
Assyrische Studien, i. 20).
xiv. 30. '''TI33. Hupfeld, on Ps. xxxvii. 20, suggests ''!i33, comp.
'''iri, V. 25. "13 is an Isaianic word (see xxx. 23).
 J'nn*. ' Shall he slay.' From a Semitic point of view, a
verb is never used impersonally. If there is no other subject, the
' nomen agentis ' of the verb is always either expressed or, as here,
implied. But who is 'the slayer' in this passage? Not Jehovah.
for he is the speaker, but the enemy who is Jehovah's 'rod' (x. 5).
(Comp. Hos. vi. 11, and Wiinsche's note, to which I am indebted.)
XIV. 32. »13. Read D*13, with Sept., Pesh., Targ., Gratz.
XV. 1. h'h.- If the pointing is correct, this must be a collateral
form oi'yh (it occurs again in xxi. 11, but in pause). It is interest
ing that it should occur in a Moabite inscription (on the stele of
Mesha, 1. 15, we have n'?'?3 ballelah). Comp. on xxiii. 11.
XV. 5. Read ¦IVu'T'. with Lagarde and some earlier scholars (see
Ges.). Why suppose a unique verbal form, when transposition is so
natural ?
XVI. I. Gratz {Geschichte, ii. i. 258), reads ^^CIO nSB'N. He ex
cises V. 2, and connects vv. i and 3.
XVI. 4. Lagarde's edition of Targ. reads S'7t3?t3D=D''ni3 ; but this
is probably not the original reading — see Geiger's Urschrift, p. 300
note. I therefore adhere to the statement in vol. i. p. 100, note ^
Comp. the mispointing in Gen. xlix. 26.
XVII. r. Omit ''VD with Lagarde. The scribe had 1»1?D in his head,
and began to write it over again. He would not spoil his manuscript
by excising it, and so it remained a non-word. See on xxviii. 25,
xliii. 12, and Q. P. B. (2nd ed.) on Zech. ii. 2, Mai. ii. 11.
XVII. 9. liDSni tyinn. Sept. renders (oi/ Tpovov KaTsXnrov) ot 'A/iop-
paioi Koi ol Euaioi. The reading implied is plausible ; only 'Amorites'
and ' Hivites ' must be transposed. As Lagarde points out {Semitica,
i., p. 31) CI and ''1 look very similar in Phoenician and old Hebrew cha
racters, and might easily be confounded by a scribe. Still the received
text gives a very appropriate sense (see Commentary) ; the only doubt
is whether "I^DX would have been used in the sense of ' the summit of
a hill' so near to v. 6, where it means 'the top of a tree.' Vulg. has
' (derelicts) sicut aratra et segetes ' (comp. E^'in to 'plough,'and T'DV
'sheaf') ; Pesh., Theodotion, Saadya take Horesh and Amir to be
names of places ; and so Aquila and Symmachus understand Amir.
Hitzig strangely adopts this view, comparing Harosheth (Judg. iv. 2).
Surely a resource of despair ! In conclusion, it is worth suggesting
that the strange story in Procopius and in the Jerusalem Talmud of
Jewish fugitives in Africa (see Ewald, History, ii. 229, 230), may per
haps have some connexion with this passage of Isaiah.
XVIII. I. '3 7V7V. See my Notes and Criticisms, p. 20 (where

CRITICAL NOTES. 1 43
on line 23, for 'day' I should have said 'year') ; see also Stade's
discussion of the phrase, De Isaice Vaticiniis .^thiopicis, pp. 89-94,
where he comes to the same conclusion as that here adopted. In
h'h'i comp. Arabic sar^aru, the ' creaking ' insect (Lane), also found
in Assyrian ('the cricket,' Friedr. Delitzsch, Assyrische Studien, i. 26).
XVIII. 2. Read with Stade \0'\>. The Metheg of the received
text no doubt indicates that they understood the word (or words)
somewhat as M'Gill or Dehtzsch, against whom see commentary.
Ipip might be an adjective (like IVIU), but is more probably a sub
stantive meaning 'great strength'; comp. Arab, kuwwat, i. robur, 2.
pars quaedam funis.
XVIII. 7. Read DVt3 (comp. parallel clause), with Sept., Targ.,
Vulg., Lowth, Knobel, Stade. Ges. renders as I have done, but
thinks the second » is retroactive. This, however, is not proved by
Job xxxiii. 17, where a o has dropped out of the text (see Dillmann,
ad loc). Ewald reads Dy Dylp- I observe that Del., in his 3rd ed.,
thinks the text-reading is established by 'parallels like Zeph. iii.
10.' But ''iny, there, should be taken in the sense of ' sweet
odours ' (comp. Ezek. viii. 11), parallel to ''nniD ; for the form of the
sentence, comp. on iii. 12.
XIX. 7. niK'' ''a'"'?!?. Del. (on Prov. viii. 29) denies that na ever
means the shore, whether of the sea, or of a river, and in the third
edition Q>i\^\^ Jesaia renders the above words 'at the mouth {Mundung)
of the Nile,' i.e. where the stream approaches the sea. But the
ordinary view seems more appropriate. Dr. Weir has ' " by the
brink of the river," i.e. where the last vestige of green might be sure
to be found.'
XIX. 10. '131 ninnB" ITll. There are several difficulties in both
halves of this verse, which have not been adequately recognised by
most commentators. Philologically I see no objection to my render
ing (which is the common one) of the first half ; but I am not quite
sure of the ordinary exposition, partly because the meaning of the
second half is so uncertain, and partly because the preceding verses
are full of minute special features. In the second half there are two
difficulties: i. that DJK everywhere else (even Jer. li. 32) means
'pond,' 'marsh' — see especially Ex. vii. 19, viii. i, where it is used
in this sense in connection with the Nile; and 2. that ISt^ »B'V is
a strange way of expressing ' hired workmen ' — after ''B'j; we naturally
expect n3X?D (Dr. Weir), and there is no apparent reason for passing
over the usual form D''T3B'. I do not object to the text because it
is not quite plain (the variations of the versions make it probable that
there was from the first some uncommon expression in it), but because
the actual reading, as commonly understood, is so difficult to justify.
The 13K' read by Sept., Pesh. is plausible (Dr. Weir compares xxiv. 9);
these versions suppose an allusion to the barley-wine of Egypt

144 CRITICAL NOTES.
(Herod, ii. 77). But this hardly suits the context. I lean myself to
the view of Targ. , Saad., Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Gratz {Monatsschrift, 1877,
p. 376), that "OW meant 'dams,' comp. 130 'to stop up,' Arab, sakara
'to dam up a river.' This harmonises admirably with the preceding
verses, but not so well with the first half of this verse. Either, there
fore, the text of the first verse-half must be corrupt, or the ' pillars '
have an obscure reference to the * dams,' or at any rate to the Nile.
XIX. 18. Dinn "I*J?. So most MSS. and editions, the Massora
(see however Geiger, Urschrift, p. 79), and the Peshito. The other
reading Dinn T"!? is supported by 15 MSS. in the text and one
in the margin (Kennicott and de Rossi) ; also by Symmachus, the
Vulgate, Saadya, the Talmud {' Menachoth, noa'), Rashi, Vitr., Ges.
{Thesaurus, but not Commentary), Hitz., Naeg. Aquila and Theodo
tion have "Apes, which leaves the reading doubtful. Sept. has toXis
auSiK, i.e., pTVn Tiv, which Geiger (as above) boldly maintains to be
the true reading. Din (deliberately altered, he thinks, into Din by the
Egyptian Jews) being a disparaging corruption of this. To me the
Sept. reading looks more like a retort upon the Palestinian Jews for
expounding Dinn "itlf in a manner complimentary to Onias.
XXL II, 12. The Greek versions referred to in vol. i. p. 127
(note "), translate as if they read T'yB'D t3''^an, which Dozy accord
ingly proposes to read {De Israeliten te Mekka, p., 7 2). For a
complete restoration of the text, however, Gratz's is perhaps more
satisfactory {Geschichte der Juden, ii. i, p. 485). The translation of
it runs thus :— The fugitives (TllJn) '^^H ""''> "'^ hofa Seir ;
' Watchman, what of the night ?
¦Watchman, what of the night of distress ? '
The watchman saith,
'The morning cometh, the night fleeth ('pn B3l) I
O that ye would ask ! Ask ye ;
Return, come.'
The supposition is that the Simeonites in mount Seir (i Chr. iv.
42, 43) applied for restoration to the privileges of citizenship.
xxii. 3. nt^pO 'without the bows being strung' either on their
side or the enemy's.
XXII. 5. uitS'. The word stands so close to Elam, that it seems
inevitable to take it as the name of the tribe referred to in the com
mentary. Added to this, the other yic means, not ' a cry of despair '
(which the ordinary rendering presupposes), but 'a cry for help.'
The remark is Luzzatto's.
XXII. 14. For the construction'^ '1D3, Riehm {Der Begriff der
Siihne im A. T, p. 9) well compares Ezek. xvi. 63.
XXII. 15. pb. iSa/^wa in Assyrian means 'a high officer,' from
sakin ' to set up, place, make ; ' saknu and |3b alike descend from
the period of ' undivided ' Semitic speech. As a rule, no doubt,

CRITICAL NOTES. 1 45
organic s in Assyrian remains so in the corresponding word in
Hebrew ; but there are exceptions, e.g. bis/u =703, isid = ID*. At a
later time, the Babylonian form of this word {sagnu) became the
Hebrew s'agan (see comm. on xli. 25). In this case, the sibilant is
just what we should expect, since Assyrian proper names, when
transferred into Hebrew, usually change their sibilants, e.g. Sarrukin
becomes '\\T\^, and S'amirina tiipB*. Obviously, the Jews- were not
conscious that they already had the same word under the form Ipb.
M. Ganneau has found the title ' the pD of Qarthadachat ' applied
to a person dedicating a -vase to Baal-Lebanon in a Phoenician in
scription {AthencBum, Apr. 17, 1880, pp. 502-4).
XXIII. 7. rwh)! Dsi) nstn-- Del. (see vol. i. p. 134) regards 'y as
the vocative, remarking that ' the omission of the article is not sur
prising (xxii. 2, Ewald § 327 a), whereas, on the other view, though
possible (see xxxiL 13), it is still harsh (comp. xiv. 16).' The phrase
is harshly constructed, on any view of it ; but nt''?V as epexegetical
of D5? seems to me peculiarly harsh, and considering that a plurality
of persons (viz. the Phoenicians in general) has been addressed just
before {v. 6), it is rather unlikely that a fresh company (viz. the
Tyrians) should be referred to now.
XXIII. 1 1. n'lJtyD. Possibly an intentional Phcenicism ; comp.
the Moabitism in the prophecy on Moab (see above on xv. i). At
any rate, there is an affinity with Phoenician in the suffix with 3 (comp.
on liii. 8). See Euting, Sechs phdniz. fnschriften aus Idalion, p. 15,
(also referred to, I see, by Del. in his 3rd ed.).
XXIII, 13. one's pK. Ewald's conjecture D*jy33 ifs^, which for
merly attracted me, still deserves chronicling. Kuenen's objections
to it are ; i. that usage requires ''3V:3n pS ; and 2. that it is na
tural to expect a reference to a fresh people rather than to the Phoeni
cians, who have been addressed all along {Theologisch Tijdschrift,
187 1, pp. 74, 75). The first is not very important ; the phrase quoted
by Dr. Kuenen only occurs in catalogues of nations. We can as
well say D»:y:3 j^lX as D''nE''?a ps. The second is really strong. (See
further my Notes and Criticisms.)
xxxv. 15. DnS3. 'May it not be -niS? j^isa, somewhat as xxv.
3? Comp. Esth. X I, the only other passage, except xi. 11, in which
D''n **« is found.' Dr. Weir.
XXIV. 19. 'For rvf\ read T\, inf. abs. with n being without ex
ample, and the n being taken from next word : so read pS (n re
peated from last word).' Dr. Weir after Maurer, Hitzig, Knobel.
XXIV. 22. Dr. Weir reads T'DSn t)ps ; comp. ^iDnn fjOS xxxiii. 4.
xxvi. 4. Ges. suggests that ilin'' may be a gloss on the uncom-
. mon Pi; ; so too Knobel. But though Aquila already has iv t(5 /cuptu
Kupios, it is possible that the text is imperfect.
VOL. H. L

146 CRITICAL NOTES. :
XXVII. 6. Has not D»D»n fallen out (comp. Eccles. ii. 16)? There
is a similar doubt in lxvi. 18.
XXVIII. II. (jjjip. See Hupfeld or Perowne on Ps. xxxv. 16.
XXVIII. 16. 'The construction 'I am he that have founded' is
most unnatural ; read np'. (I am glad to find myself supported by
Dr. Weir, who also suggests nD.'D, and by Stade, Hebr. Grammatik,
§2141^.) fipi» is not a genuine parallel. There is no occasion to take
it as 3 s. m. imperf. Hif ; it can equally well be partic. Kal (comp.
Arab, qatil).
 Read K'*D» ; I forget to whom the suggestion is due.
The Hifil is used absolutely, as Nah. iii. i. The letters » and n are
easily confounded in the square character. The Sept. translator
either reads t5'i3.''., or (since 'Targ. has an equivalent rend.) falls into
paraphrase. Pesh. follows Sept., Targ.
xxviiL 18. lasi. This is the only passage in which the Pual of
ia3 is used in the sense of 'cancelling.' But the meaning is in-
accordance with the root-meaning (whether we adopt the Hebrew
or Arabic sense of ' covering,' comp. Gen. vi. 14, or the Aramaic of
'wiping out'). Hence the conjecture laill (comp. Jer. xxxiii. 21)
is unnecessary, though supported, .not merely by Hupfeld, to whom
Del. refers, but by Targ., Seeker, Lowth, Houbigant, and Dr. Weir.
XXVIII. 25. The difficult words n'l1E5> Ind pDJ are simply mis
written for myK' and nDD3. The scribe did not like to spoil his ma
nuscript by excising the faulty letters (as in xvii. i, xliii. 12, see notes):
Wellhausen, Geschichte fsraels, i. 409 (the conjecture had already
been made, so far as miB' is concerned).
XXVIII. 29. n^B'in • ¦ ¦ «'?an. Comp. Job xi. 6, where read with
Mr. Robertson Smith and (partly) Merx, niB'in^ CN^a *3. Another
sign of the gnomic affinities of this paragraph.
XXIX. I. pK^IX. Del. and Hitzig {Jesaia, but not Gesch. d. V.
Israel) explain, 'God's hearth ;' comp. Ezek. xliii. 15, 16. But this
meaning is very dubious, even in Ezekiel (see Notes and Criticisms,
pp. 31, 32, and comp. Smend on Ezek. /. c), whereas that adopted
has the support of usage, and suits the context.
XXIX. 9. Read -inDJiirj. See the parallel passage Hab. i. 5, and
comp. for the form of the phrase Zeph. ii. i (where read •1B'"l31 •lE^tJ'iann
for the unintelligible 'pnn).
XXIX. 22. Dm3X"ns ma "itJ'K. Wellhausen regards these words as
a gloss based on the late legend of the deliverance of Abraham from
the furnace of the Chaldeans {Geschichte Israels, i. 373, note '). But
is not the expression too forcible for a mere gloss, and may not
Abraham's deliverance from his idolatrous kinsmen (see my note,
vol. i., p. 166) be typical of the deliverance of the faithful Israel from
the tyrant, the scorner, and the unrighteous (xxix. 20)? I admit,
however, that the clause comes in very unexpectedly ; it does not

CRITICAL NOTES. 1 47
fall in quite naturally with the context ; and if we approach the pas
sage with the presuppositions {a) that- Abraham is a legendary or
mythical personage, and {b) that this personage only attained im
portance at a late period of Hebrew literature compared with Isaac
('Abraham first appears in Isa- xl.-lxvi.' [xli. 8, li. 2], says Well
hausen), it becomes natural to excise the words, as this talented
though hypercritical scholar has proposed. My objection to admitting
his view is not that he supposes a gloss to have intruded into the
received text. Considering the large number of glosses which in
truded into the Hebrew text reproduced by the Sept. , it would be
no wonder if, with all the care bestowed by the Palestinian Jewish
critics, a fair number of glosses should have Ungered in the Mas
soretic text. It is rather this : that in the present position of inquiry
a commentator on the prophets, whether of orthodox or rationalistic
leanings, cannot allow himself to take the mythical theory of the
early Jewish narratives into account. I have thought it, however,
only fair to warn the student of the rocks which may be hidden even
in a passage so simple grammatically as the present. No book of
the Bible can be fully understood by itself; a future commentator on
Isaiah will be able to assume positive critical results which are yet far
from having been attained.
xxx. 18. DIT. This, the text-reading, does not give a suitable
sense. D-1"i with a gerund following can only mean 'to arise for
action' (so Ges. in Thesaurus); we have no right to import thg'-
meaning of 'desire' from the Arabic. Rashi indeed explains by
pmn'', and similarly Delitzsch (' God will withdraw Himself from
Israel's history to His royal and judicial throne in heaven '). But
how forced a view, and how opposed to the context ! Yet the view
of Ges., though supported by the usage of the Psalms (see Ps. xvii-L
47, xxi. 14, &c.), does not suit the parallelism. 7 n3n means 'to ex
pect with longing' (as may also be urged against DeL's rendering) ;
DIT ought, it would seem, to have a similar meaning. It is best there
fore to adopt the reading of two MSS. DITi, not in the artificial sense
' stirreth not ' given to it by Ewald, ' but in that which it undoubtedly
bears in Ps. xxxvii. 7,' ' (where note the paralleUsm). The difficulty
of the passage partly arises from the fusion of two distinct prophecies
(see Commentary).
xxx. 32. Read D3, with Q'ri, Targ., Vulg., and many MSS., in
cluding the Babylonian Codex ; ^ so Naegelsbach. Chap, xxiii. 13
must not be quoted in favour of a3, for there both land and people of
Chaldaea are referred to — here only the Assyrian army.
' Alotes and Criticisms on the Hebrew Text of Isaiah (Macmillan, 1868), pp. 32, 33.
^ By this title I designate a Codex of the prophets (i.e. the so-called later prophets),
with the Babylonian punctuation, dated A.D. 916-17, and now preserved at St. Peters
burg. It was edited for the Russian Government in a superb photo-lithographic fac
simile by Dr. Hermann Strack in 1876. 1. 2

148 CRITICAL NOTES.
On XXX. 33. nnan. From nan, i. an object spat upon ; 2. the
• abominable ' place where children were sacrificed to Baal as Moloch,
comes n^an (as n^ijt from B'S). The word is masculine ; and the
feminine suffixes at the end of the verse are to be referred (as Del.
points out) to the nD3, or ' high place ' on which any sacrifice had to
be offered. The Jewish derivation from Pi'n 'a drum,' has only an
imaginative, ' Haggadic ' value ; though in Egypt, as well as, accord
ing to the legend, in Palestine, the tambourine was possibly asso
ciated with Baal-worship. (So Mr. Tomkins, referring to Revue
Egyptienne, i. 43.)
xxxi. 8. Sept., Vulg., and the Babylonian Codex read N7 for i? ;
comp. xxii. 3 (see above).
xxxii. I. Read D^ICI. The scribe began to write toae'O?, which
the parallel line led him to expect here. A similar error in Ps. lxxiv.
14 (end). XXXIII. I. Read ^m73^ ; the argument of Ges. (in Thesaurus,
s.v. n^J) is conclusive. 3 and 3 confounded, as Ex. xvii. 16, Josh.
viii. 13 (comp. v. 9 p''l).
XXXIII. II.- Notice the rhjmie. Assonance and even rhyme are
more frequently and deliberately employed in Hebrew poetry than is
observed at first sight. — 'The last clause, remarks Dr. Weir, 'is dif
ficult. The present reading seems to have been that of the copy
from which Sept. was translated ; so of the other old versions, except
Pesh., which puts 3 before D3ni1, and joins it to the preceding clause
(as Sept. also does), and the Targ. which gives, "My word shall
destroy you as the whirl-wind chaff." A conjectural reading is 1D3 Tin
for D3ni1, which seems borne out by other passages of Isaiah, as
iv. 4, xi. 4, and especially xxx. 27, 28.' The conjecture is that of
Seeker and Lowth.
XXXIII. 14 b. Dr. Weir proposes to render, ' Who will abide for
us the devouring fire ? ' i.e., on our behalf, for the salvation of the
people. XXXIII. 23. D3in"p 1ptn*"?3. A hard passage. The subject of
the verb is clearly the ropes which have just been mentioned (not
the sailors, as A. E., Kimchi, Drechsler) ; hence 'their mast,' i.e. the
mast which it is their function (according to the ancient Greek and
doubtless also the Phcenicio-Hebrew system) to bind to the tcrroTrcSi;
(a piece of wood set in the keel). Now arises a difficulty with p.
"To render, with most since Cocceius, 'the stand' {i.e. the lorow.)
seems to contradict these primitive naval arrangements ; so that I
have preferred, with Luzzatto, the Jewish commentator, and Naegels
bach, to recur to the original sense of 'firm,' or rather ' upright.' It
is true (as remarked in the review of vol. i. in the Dublin) that p does
not occur as an adjective elsewhere in the sense of physical, but only
in that of moral uprightness, but there is no reason whatever why the

CRITICAL NOTES. 1 49
physical sense (guaranteed by the use of p the substantive for
'pedestal') should not occur — comp. p^V (i) straightness, (2)
righteousness. On the whole passage, comp. the beautiful ode of
Horace : ' O navis, referent ' (i. 14).
XXXIV. 12. Read DtJ'fNI 1N1p» n3l'?on nn with Dr. Weir ; comp.
xli. 12, 1, 2.
xxxv. I. "ISIO DIE'E'V The final j of the verb is assimilated to
the following D; comp. Dina, Num. iii. 49 (Ibn Ezra). Apparent
orthographical errors may now and then indicate phonetic laws. So
Ezek. xxxiii. 26, 'n jn'tJ"!/ {m before t becomes n).
xxxv. 7. 'Pityy. The suffix has not yet been explained. Del.
thinks of the female jackal, comp. Lam. iv. 3, but how strangely !
Nor is it easy to see why reeds and rushes should be endowed with
an enclosure. Pesh. has nit, in Vulg. orietur, whence Knobel con
jectures nsv.'. Or might we read riNJ* (comp. Job viii. 11)?
xxxv. 8. That «ini Id"? can be construed, no one doubts ; and
ingenuity can alwaj^s devise a point of connection with the context.
Mr. Wordsworth suggests that 'for them' may refer to the blind,
deaf, and lame of ?'». 5, 6 {Bampton Lectures, 1881). The difficulty
of the words ID? XI n is increased by their vicinity to ^^^ "l?!!, which
Ewald, with great plausibility, connects with the two preceding words.
If some one of the current readings must be chosen, that of Ewald
seems preferable ; though I am not convinced of its correctness.
xxxv. 10. Read as in lv. 11, and see Driver, Hebrew Tenses,
§ 14 y note '-
XXXVII. 16. D*3'n3n 3B". It is debated whether this should be
rendered 'who sitteth between,' or, 'upon the cherubim.' It is best
to adhere to the undeniable usage, and render ' who inhabiteth the
cherubim.' So Ewald, who does not, however, mean anything sub-
stantially different from the alternative rendering (see his Commen
tary on Ps. xxii. 4). Riehm, however (rendering, like Ewald, ' in-
habitest '), thinks the Hebrew phrase meant that Jehovah in the
temple was altogether inclosed by the cherubs and their wings.
XXXVII. 24. Elsewhere Lebanon is opposed to 7D13 (xxix. 17).
But as '3 means properly a plantation of noble growths, the cedars of
Lebanon may conceivably be honoured with this appellation.
XXXVII. 28. T'Vp J^a"? is probably a corruption of ^Op ^3a^ ; see
Commentary. So Wellhausen, 4th ed. of Bleek's Einleiiung in das
Alte Testament, p. 257, note'.
XXXVIII. 8. Read CDE'n, for the sake of simplicity and ' concord.'
XXXVIII. 1 1. The Babylonian Codex is among those which read
i'?n. XXXVIII. 12. nn 'my dwelling.' Kimchi well compares Ps.
Ixxxiv. II, where the verb "ill occurs in this sense. But I must still
maintain that it is an Aramaism, and ' not part of the proper Hebrew

150 CRITICAL NOTES.
vocabulary ; in the Targums it is the constant rendering of n-U '
{Notes and Criticisms, p. 37). Compare Assyrian duru and Arabic
ddru, 'dwelling.'
xxxviiL 12. ''nisi?. Ftirst emends niBp; and so my Notes and
Criticisms, p. 37 : it is not a conjecture for 'JDlpa, as Del. sup
poses (in both his 2nd and his 3rd ed.). The rendering of A. V;
follows the Chaldee usage.
XXXVIII. 16. '131 vn* Dni'py. Gratz {Geschichte,' \i. 1, p. 478)
conjectures this to be a prayer of the king that his life might be
spared for his people's sake. Comp. Lam. iv. 20, 'The breath of
our nostrils, the anointed of Jehovah.' The sense would then be,
' O Lord ! [mayest thou recover me] for their sakes, that they may
live ; indeed, for every one of them is the breath of my hfe.'
XXXIX. I. VW^>- Read S?DE' p (after 2 Kings xx. 12). So Sept.,
Pesh. For instances of the confusion of 1 and 3 see Driver,
Hebrew Tenses, § 75 «, note.
XL. 21. nnoiD. We may either supply the prep, from C'N'nD
comp. xlviii. 9 (see however Commentary), or read 'DD, and suppose
that the first D dropped out, owing to the D preceding and the D fol
lowing. Vitr. thinks that the Massorites accented offpxn nnoiD
to show that it was the common object of all the three verbs. More
probably they assumed an ellipsis of D.
XL. 24. 73 PiX. The phrase only occurs here. But we find px f]X
repeated three times in xli. 26, and fiS repeated without a nega
tive in xli. 10, xliv. 15, xlvi. 11 ; for the repetition of 73 comp.
xxxiii. 20. There is, therefore, no occasion for Dr. Weir's conjec
ture b3rt IK.
 -lyir . . . -ivuiJ. Sept., Pesh., -lyi.t . . . wp;. 'A good deal
may be said in favour of this reading, (i) 17D3 is not found else
where in Nifal, nor yit in Piel or Puak (2) The meaning is good
(comp. xvii. 10, 11). "Before they have planted or sown, i.e. pro
pagated themselves in any way ; nay, before they have themselves
taken root. TJ'st may be used of the plant, Gen. i. 29, and perhaps
VD3 may also of the ifOJ, for " to shoot forth fresh plants." ' Dr. Weir.
XL. 31. ¦I3X '\hv\ My own rend, is that of Sept, Targ., Pesh.,
Vulg., Saadya, Bochart, Lowth, Ewald, Naegelsbach. It seems to be
required by the parallelism with fi*7nn (for which word Dr. Pusey
compares Arab, akhlafa, to put forth fresh feathers after moulting ').
Hitz. indeed objects (i) that though n'?y='to grow up' in v. 6,
there is no instance of such a sense of nbyn, and (2) that instead of
n38< we should, on the view opposed to his own, expect nvi3. But
as to (i), the observation, though adopted by Del., seems incorrect ;
for in Ezek. xxxvii. 6, npyn is used of bringing flesh upon the bones.
And with regard to (2), let me simply ask. Why? Are not the pinion-
feathers renewed ? — As to the form rriSN, it is, strictly speaking, a

CRITICAL NOTES. 15 I
nomen unitatis (see Ewald, Gramm. arab., § 295, Lehrbuch der hebr.
Sprache, § 1760-), but the distinction is not always present to the
Hebrew writers.
XLI. 8. *3nN. Dr. Weir, while admitting that the pronominal
suffix of 3ni< elsewhere always denotes the object ('my lover'='he
who loveth, or loved, me ') thinks that in this passage it marks the
subject, and renders 'whom I have loved' (comp. Deut. iv. 37).
Comp. Vitringa,
XLL 10. "l^n'ifDN. For the sense adopted, comp. Ruth i. 18
(partic. Hithp. = ' steadfastly purposing,') and especially Ps. Ixxx. 16,
18 (Piel used precisely as here) ; also (with Naeg.) Matt. xii. 18, where
the "iDns of Isa. xiii. i is rendered ypino-a.
XLL 25. Read 03; with Clericus, Seeker, Lowth (besides those
mentioned already).
XLI. 27. pen receives a colour from the parallel word "1E}'3D,
precisely as innS in the famous passage Job xix. 25 is coloured by
the corresponding word '7NJ (as if ' the future defender of my right ').
XLII. 2. KB'''. Reifmann's conjecture JN^J (Del., Jesaia, p. 440)
is very plausible. It brings out with much force the contrast between
the old and the new dispensation ; comp. Am. i. 2, iii. 8.
XLII. 6. ptriKI. The presence of the jussive is a great difficulty.
I cannot bring myself, with my friend Mr. Driver, to render ' that
I may take hold' {Hebrew Tenses, § 176 Obs.), and would rather
suppose a laxity of pronunciation, which has found expression here
and there in the punctuation. What the sense requires seems to me
clearly '1.
XLII. 15. n'''K. This passage is strongly against the view that D"K
can mean ' islands.' The sense required and established by etymo
logy (it is cognate with Arab, away, 'he sojourned') is 'habitable
land.' Hence elsewhere 'countries' (see Commentary on xl. 15).
XLII. 2 1. Note the construction, which, though thoroughly Hebrew
(Job xxxii. 22, Lam. iv. 14, Ewald), reminds us still more of Arabic.
XLH. 25. non. The adverbial accusative is doubtless used for
the sake of the assonance with HDriPD (Del.).
XLIII. 9. lV3p3. Of the three ways of understanding this word—
(i) as an ordinary perfect, (2) as a precative perfect, and (3) as ai?''.
imperative — the second and third are alone suitable to the context.
A precative perfect, however, seems too much of an Arabism to be
easily admitted, especially as the evidence for it in Hebrew is not by
any means strong (see Driver, Hebrew Tenses, § 20). There is no
choice, therefore, but to accept the form as an imperative. One can
hardly suppose a corruption of the text, for the same form occurs in a
similar context in Joel iv. 11 ; comp. 11?3 Jer. 1. 5.
XLiiL 12. 'nyE>ini. The view proposed in my commentary is
supported by the parallel of xxviii. 25 (see above).

152 CRITICAL NOTES.
XLIII. 22. On the force of ''3 here, see Ewald, Lehrb. der hebr.
Sprache, § 354^ {=Hebrew Syntax, by Kennedy, p. 269).
XLIII. 28. Sept., Pesh., also render in the past tense.
XLIV. 5. Read IT'S 3n|3'', with Klostermann. A repeated letter
here, as so often, was dropped. '3 3n3 'to write upon,' as Neh. vii. 5,
viii. 14, xiii. i. 'Write with his hand ' is surely a very harsh expres
sion, though I see it has the authority of Dr. Kay.
XLIV. 1 2. ' Unstreitig ist ein Wort ausgefallen ' (Del.). Read, as the
first word of the verse, with Sept., Pesh., either T^r!, (Del.), or inO
(comp. Prov. xxvii. 17), which would easily fall out, owing to the pre
ceding nnv Mr. Driver {Hebrew Tenses, § 123 /3), prefers "iiyi (jussive
form) or 10! ; but the analogy oi v. 13 favours the perfect.
XLIV. 14. Trail. Read n'DSI, 1 or ' and 7 might possibly be con
founded in the square character ; but more probably the first t, is pro
duced by the vicinity of another word beginning with h. This seems
to me much more natural than to suppose a 'periphrastic future,' the
instances of which given by Del. on Hab. i. 1 1 may perhaps require
sifting. The three other supposed instances in Isaiah all seem to me
very doubtful. In xxi. i, the construction is rather gerundial ; in
xxxvii. 26, the phrase is ? riTI 'to serve for'; and in xxxviii. 20,
though there is no n*il expressed, the 7 is still that of tendency (see
translation). XLIV. 15. 1D^. It is not very natural in this individualising de
scription (contrast xiii. 17, where it is a class of persons who say DflK
to npBD) to regard this as a collective. The suffix is amply de
fensible as a singular (see on liii. 8). Sept., however, (not Pesh.)
tajjes it as a plural.
XLIV. 23. ps nvnnn. This and similar phrases always have an at
least implied reference to Shedl. It is Sheol, as the context shows,
which is called n''nnn pS in Ezek. xxxi. 14, 16, 18, nrnnn ps in
Ezek. xxvi. 20, xxxii. 18, 24 ; ni''nnn 113 in Ps. Ixxxviii. 7, Lam. iii.
55, and, more explicitly still, ninnn ^IKB' in Ps. Ixxxvi. 13 (comp.
nnnD 71St5', isa. xiv. 9). In Ps. cxxxix. 15 the context is obscure,
but even there we have no right, I think, to depart from the universal
meaning of the phrase elsewhere. Possibly, as Hupfeld suggests,
Shedl is there used as an image of an utterly dark, mysterious place.
XLV. II. 'Or should we not read I^Nt^n?' (Pencil note of Dr.
Weir's). See Commentary.
XLV. 24. IDS "h. Read ipt<.». with Luzzatto. The "? probably arose
out of the mark put by the scribe to separate the name of God
from the following word. Comp. the use of P'siq in the Masso
retic text of Ex. xvii. 15, Jer. xxiii. 6, xxxiii. 16. For a parallel to
such an interruption of the speech, see lvii. 19.
XLVI. 4. <n''B'y. Klostermann would read ''nODy {Zeitschr. f. luther.
Theologie, 1876, p. 18). But the received text gives a finer meaning :
'I have made,' or begotten ; paternal love impels me to 'carry.'

CRITICAL NOTES. I 53
XLVI. 8. Read 1CtJ'3nn (N and 3 may be confounded in several
older forms of the characters). Comp. above on xxix. g. The
commentaries cite the Vulgate as reading ' confundamini ' ; but the
Codex Amiatinus has ' fundamini ' (Heyse), and this is the rendering
of St. Jerome in his Commentary (' imb fundamini, ne rursum subitus
idolatriae vos turbo subvertat '). In any case, ' fundamini ' and not
'fundemini,' seems to be established.
XLVH. 7. IJ? 'for ever.' See Commentary, and compare the form
of V. 6. Hitzig goes so far as to deny that iy ever means ' usque ' or
' adeo ut,' and certainly the passages generally quoted require revi
sion. In I Sam. ii. 5, ly may very well = ' for ever,' as here ; in
I Sam. XX. 41, it probably has the prepositional meaning ' unto ' (see
Sept) ; in Job viii. 21, Ewald, Dillmann, Merx, and Hitzig point iy,
and the connexion seems to require this ; in Job xiv. 6, ' until '
yields a perfectly satisfactory sense. In Josh. xvii. 14 (where what
Ges. calls the fuller form ICK ly stands at present) we should pro
bably rather read IK'S ^y — notice that a second iy follows ; and
Gratz proposes to read 7y ' because ' in our passage {Monatsschrift,
1881, p. 228).
XLVII. 1 1, ning'. Not ' its dawn ' (Dr. Weir remarks that IDK* occurs
nowhere else with a suffix), but 'to charm away.' How does the
word obtain this meaning ? Through the root-meaning of ' dark
ness.' IHE}' is properly 'to be dark' (whence IDS' 'the morning-
grey '. To ' charm ' is to bring something about by dark, mysterious
means (see Wiinsche on Hos. vi. 3) ; comp. our own phrase ' the
black art' It is not therefore (as might be supposed by the oft-
repeated reference to the Arabic Sahara) a sense not thoroughly native
to Hebrew. XLVIII. 6. nnX3. Very possibly we should read nnV3 'ardua in-
tellectu,' as in the parallel passage, Jer. xxxiii. 3.
XLVIII. 18, 19. Ewald's view of the construction, alluded to in
the Commentary, is peculiar. He puts ' O that thou hadst ' down to
'as the ^^a/wj' thereof' into a parenthesis, and continues 'his (Israel's
name shall not be cut off nor destroyed before me,' thus making
the last clause a categorical affirmation of Israel's indestructibility.
Against this see my note. The slight change in the construction is
simply due to the fact that the consequence expressed in n"i3»"K7 is
still future. On M'l see Driver, Hebrew Tenses, §§ 1277, 140. His
alternative rendering is one of those subtleties in which able gram
marians delight, but which the exegete is obliged regretfully, but de
cidedly, to reject The version of Hitz., Del. (see above, p. 8, note s)
seems almost to require ^iTil (comp. Deut xxxii. 29) or n*n'' (as Mic.
ii. 11), as Del. himself frankly admits ; comp. also Ps. lxxxi. 14-16
(yisN). XLIX. 5. fiDN'' \h (Q'ri, 1^). The reading of the text is harder than

154 CRITICAL NOTES.
that of the margin, but is not on that account (comp. ix. 2) to be
preferred. The latter is evidently required by the context The
division among the ancient interpreters was partly occasioned by
their party prejudices. Thus St. Jerome objects to the rendering of
Sept., because it gives up 'a very strong testimony against the perfidy
of the Jews.' He himself renders ' et Israel non congregabitur ' (the
exact opposite of Aquila).
XLIX. 7. nt3. Most explain this as either an infinitival substan
tive or an uncommon adjective. But it is more natural (comp. next
phrase) either to point nT.3 (Aram, partic. Piel) with Luzzatto, or
(as this would be unique in Hebr.) to read nT33 (comp. liiL 3) with
Lagarde.  3ynp. According to Ew., Hitz., Del., a participial sub
stantive in Piel=' object of abhorrence' (Ewald, Lehrbuch, § 160 «,
compares IFIDD in liii. 3). Ges., however, remarks that the easiest
explanation is to take the Piel as 'poetically intransitive '=3y"nD. But
how much more natural to read 3y'np with Luzzatto (pointing, how
ever, 3PnD) ! It really seems as if the authors of the points made a
desperate, though partial, attempt to efface a meaning which was
offensive to the national pride.
XLIX. 8. Ewald would insert D''13 ll'N? from Sept, and supports
this by Just. Mart c. Tryph. c. 1 2 2 (but wrongly, for Justin quotes
from chap. xiii.). Against this, see Commentary.
XLIX. 12. DJD. Clericus and Hupfeld (on Ps. cvii. 3) conjecture
I''DJD for the Psalm-passage, and this seems to be absolutely necessary
there, since the West has been already mentioned in the parallel line.'
It is, I think, but little less necessary here. It is clear from the mis
takes of Sept. that abbreviations were of frequent occurrence in the
most ancient Hebrew MSS. See the instances in Frankel, Vorstudien
zu der Septuaginta, pp. 214-6 (a notable one is ets 0civaTov=iD7, as
if this were abbreviated from n.ip?, liii. 8 ; see also Jer. iii. 19, Judg.
xix. 18).
L. 4. n-1y7 If it is undesirable in any case to appeal solely to the
superabundant Arabic vocabulary, it is specially so in a section so
plain and natural in its phraseology. I incline to agree with Kloster
mann, that both niyi) and r\vh are only variants for the one true
reading niy")^. Comp. the use of ny'i for 'to teach' in Prov. x. 21.
Perhaps 'to edify' (suggested by Del. on Prov.) would be the best
rendering. LI. 6. 'D* p-1D3. Del. objects to a singular p to the plural D'SS
'gnats,' as Talmudic (which has probably preserved a good many
fragments of the Ancient Hebrew vocabulary) gives the singular as
n|3. A friend suggests that p in Num. xiii. 33 may perhaps mean
' Auth. Vers., too, boldly renders in Ps. I.e. 'from the south,' though perhaps by
a guess ; see Poole, Synopsis ad loc.

CRITICAL NOTES. I55
'a gnat,' or collectively 'gnats' (parallel to DP3n3) ; but it seems
safer and more natural in that place (the particle of comparison
being wanting) to explain p, on the analogy of the passages referred
to in my note, as 'thus miserably.' An easy and, I think, self-
evident correction of li. 6 is suggested by Dr. Weir. ' Is not,' he
asks, ' the right reading D*33, the next word beginning with D* ? '
LL 19. iDms *D. I doubt if this text is translatable. The com
mentators quote Am. vii. 2, 5, but there iD = 'in what plight,' a
meaning which will not suit here. Probably there is an error of the
ear, and we should read "JDHJ'' {Notes and Criticisms, p. 32 ; so after
wards Lagarde). Comp. the false reading 1S3 for 'nS'3, Am. viii. 8 ;
B'S for B", 2 Sam. xiv. 9, IDK^I for IDNI, Zech. iv. 2, &c., I^fi'n for
ISixri, Zech. xi. 13.
LII. 5. I'Xiip. As Del. (3rd ed.) remarks, the pointing is very
strange ; we should expect the Pual partic, or, if a reflexive at all
(which, however, seems out of place), Hithpoel and not Hithpoal.
Luzzatto's view is very plausible, and in harmony with the pheno
mena brought out so fully (perhaps too fully) by Geiger in his Urschrift.
He would point I'Siip, and accounts for the actual pointing from an
aversion on the part of the Massorites to speak of Jehovah's name as
' reviled.' All that they succeeded in doing, however, was to shroud
the passage in obscurity.
LII. 8 (end). On the view of the text adopted, Del. thinks we
should expect \\'''h ; but the accus. loci is amply justified (see 2 Sam.
xv. 34). At the end of my note (p. 37), I have suggested that 31E}'
might be taken as the short for ni3tJ' 31B' ; comp. Ps. Ixxxv. 5, where
•133-1B' corresponds to 3py» ni3E> n3E', v. 2 (Q'ri). One of the best
discussions of nur 31K' is by Dr. Kuenen, Theologisch Tijdschrift,
1873, pp. 520-21. A priori, it certainly seems probable that nuc
and 31E' should be of cognate origin (comp. 'to rejoice with a great
joy,' &c.) ; and, as a matter of fact, the meaning 'to restore the re
storation of suits all the passages in which the phrase occurs, whereas
the alternative meaning does not ni3tJ' from y\V, as niPl from Dn
(Ezek. xxxii. 5), nit"? from H^=|*1^ (Prov. iv. 24).
LII. 15. n-n. No word in the whole of the Old Testament so
forcibly exemplifies the necessity for keeping the philological depart
ment in exegesis separate from the theological (see Preface to Vol. i.
p. xi.). Through a failure in this respect, even Dr. Pusey is unable
(be it said with all respect) to state the facts of Hebrew usage accu
rately.' The truth is, as Mr. Taylor remarks, that 'ntn does not
mean besprinkle (a person with a liquid), but sprinkle (a liquid upon a
person) ' ; ^ Mr. Urwick wholly misses the point when, after Reinke,
¦ Tlie Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah according to the Jewish Translators, Intro
duction to the Enghsh Translation, by Rev. E. B. Pusey, p. xxxviii.
^ Review of The Fifty-Third Chapter, Sec, in the Academy, May 19, 1877, p. 441.

156 CRITICAL NOTES.
he quotes Lev. iv. 6, 17, in favour of the old rendering.' In one
point, I entirely agree with Dr. Pusey, viz. that the reference of many
of the moderns to the Arabic nazA, ' to leap,' is out of place. The
case is parallel to that of my in 1. 6. There are so many undoubtedly
Hebrew words both for 'to help ' and ' to leap,' that it is quite un
necessary to resort to the Arabic Lexicon. It is also worth noticing
(though the objection is not absolutely fatal) that nazct is rare in grave
and classical literature, being used properly of animals, and mostly
in an obscene sense. ^ If a conjecture is to be ventured upon (for
Mr. Taylor's new interpretation of nt» — see note on Essay X. — seems
the effort of despair), I would suggest IR! (if no one has offered it
before). The word occurs in Hab. ill 6 (comp. Job xxxvii. i) with
an implication of fear ; but in another context it might be used
differently. A reference to Stade's comparative table of the forms
of the Hebrew characters will show that the confusion between in'
and nt'' might easily have occurred.
Dr. Weir's comment on this word and its context is peculiar. He
sees no difficulty in the omission of 7y or 7^ after T\f,, which he
regards as a justifiable poetical licence (as if a licence of this kind
were credible, when so much depended on intelligibility — consider
the position of this prophecy !) ; nor yet in the context, which he
considers to be in perfect harmony with the meaning sprinkle. He
explains the connection thus : — ' As many shrank back in horror
from him, as one unclean or accursed ... so shall he sprinkle many.
Many who looked upon him as unclean, and avoided and loathed '
him as such, shall themselves be cleansed by him.' But where is the
Servant said to be a priest ?
LIII. 3. D»EJ'»K 7lq. Dr. Kay explains, ' ceasing to be of men ' ; of
so mean appearance that He- ' was no longer reckoned with men '
(A. Ezra). But Job xix. 14, and the analogy of the Arabic khadilu
' abstaining from aiding ' or ' holding back from going with ' (Lane),
justifies the rendering adopted (so Del.).
LIII. 4. Many MSS., Pesh., Vulg., insert Sin before D^3B'. This
adds force, and Lowth and Bleek incline to accept it.
LIII. 5. upi'pE'. 32 MSS. read •13»pi'?B', and Dr. Weir suggests
S'i'ah^ 'our retribution.'
LIII. 7. njyi Nifal tolerativum ; comp. v. 12, lv. 6, Ixv. i, Ps.
ii. 10, Gen. xiii. 16. We need not therefore quote Ex. x. 3 (with
Del.) ; the syncope of n in Nifal is questionable (see on i. 12). On
the syntax of the clause, see Del.'s note in his 3rd ed.
LIII. 8. 'UI 1111-nsi. For the view of the construction, see
Ewald, Lehrbuch, § 277^ {=Hebr. Syntax, by Kennedy, p. 38),
where Ew. compares, not indeed our passage, but lvii. 15, Ezek.
' Urwick, The Servant of Jehovah, p. 102.
' See Tayler Lewis, ' The Purifying Messiah ; Interpretation of Isa. Iii. 13 ' ; Biblio-^
theca Sacra, 1873, pp. 166-177.

CRITICAL NOTES. I 57
xvii. 21, xliv. 3, Neh. ix. 19, and refers to the demonstrative force
of ns in the Hebrew of the Mishna. — To revert to the exegesis. Dr.
Weir thinks that liii. 8a is precisely parallel to xxxviii. 1 2, ' my age
{i.e. my full Ufe-circle, my life-time) is cut off like a weaver's web ' ;
but the meaning thus ascribed to 111 is arbitrary. 1in can only
have one of these three meanings — (a) ' his contemporaries ', {b) ' those
like-minded with him' (in = a class of characters,' comp. Ps. xii.
8, xiv. 5, cxii. 2, Prov. xxx. 11-14), or {c) 'his dweUing,' ic his
grave (comp. xxxviii. 12). Both {b) and {c) anticipate unnaturally
the statements of subsequent verses ; Seinecke (approved by Riehm)
thinks that {b) is supported by the plural suffix in id"?, but see next
note, {a) is favoured by the parallel passage, lvii. i.
LIII. 8. iD7. I had already, in 1870, explained this mysterious
form (Z C. A., p. 192) by a reference to the Phoenician suffix ^ or
em for the 3rd pers. sing., following Schroder {Die Phonizische
Sprache, p. 153), and Bickell {TTieologisches Literaturblatt, Bonn, 1869,
p. 366).^ Dr. Pusey, in 1877, notices the same linguistic fact {Jew
ish Interpreters, &c. p. liii.), but overlooks his English predecessor.
The sufi&x t reminds us of course of Aramaic ; the appended m is
doubtless ' a remnant of the primitive Semitic " nunnation " or " mim-
mation " ; in other words, the pronoun of the third person singular,
like the noun, was terminated by n or m.' The same explanation
in all probability applies to the suffix in em in viii. 15 (see note
above), and those in dmo or emo in xliv. 15, Job xx. 23, xxii. 2, xxvii.
23, Ps. xi. 7, but not to Gen. ix. 26, 27, Ps. xxviii. 8,* lxxiii. 10 (where
the reference is collective). The 0 in the Hebrew form seems to
point to a marginal note, to the effect that 0 or Av was to be read,
and not dmo or emo. The correct pronunciation would therefore
seem to be bem, lem, pdnem, &c. — It is quite true, as my late friend.
Dr. Diestel observed,'* that the above merely proves the possibility
that 1D^ may be singular, but when the remainder of this paragraph
(putting aside the dubious vnD3) is so strikingly individuaUsing in
its phraseology, have we not a right to demand that of two possible
meanings that one should be chosen which harmonises with this cast of
phraseology ? Dr. Diestel certainly misses the mark when he main
tains that my view is against the usage of II. Isaiah, referring to iD7
in xliv. 15, as ' also collective.' It is noteworthy that both Pesh. and
Vulg. understand the suffix to be singular ; Targ., however, to be plural.
LIII. 9. I'tyy. To the difficulty urged in my note (p. 48), I
may add that to use 'J^ synonymously with T'On or pnx is quite
' Or, as Del. untranslateably expresses it, ' Einem Zeitgeist huldigende Zeitgenossen-
schaft ' (on Ps. xii. 8).
' See also Stade in Morgenldndische Forschungen (1875), p. 202, &c. ; Lehrbuch
der hebr. Gramm. (1879), p. 205. .
' But here we should probably read, with Sept., it3y>
* Knobel's Jesaia, 4te Aufl., von Dr. L. Diestel (1872), p. 444.

158 CRITICAL NOTES.
natural, for i:y is etymologically 'humble,' and 'humility' is the
fundamental note of Biblical piety. But l''B'y has not the parallel
root-meaning of 'proud.' It is therefore not without some reason
that Del. has abandoned the view which he held as lately as 1864
{Hiob, i'* Ausg., note on xxi. 28), viz. that 'rich' here = ungodly,'
and now maintains that there is an antithesis between the first clause
and the second — ' He was appointed to be buried with deceased
malefactors, but when dead he was appointed to lie in a rich man's
grave.' It seems to me as if Delitzsch had here^r once confounded
philological and Christian exegesis. — Ewald (and so I. C. A.)
conjectures piB*^. Against this it is urged by Del. that the word
(which he wrongly quotes as p'B'y) occurs nowhere else. This, how
ever, is not decisive ; both 1133 and I'lns are airaf X£yo/;i£va.
LIII. 9. l''nD3. There is no evidence that D*rib was used for
'the state of death,' on the analogy of D"n ; nor yet for 'violent
death,' which is rather D'J^iDD, Ezek. xxviii. 8 (which determines the
reading of v. 10), and even D''ntop is only used in construction with
a collective noun. The alternatives are either to read Vn'DIl or inb3.
The former, which is the reading of three of de Rossi's MSS.,' is ren
dered either ' his tombs ' or ' his tomb,' according as we suppose the
subject of the prophecy to be a collective term for a real person : in the
latter case, the plural will be honorific (comp. nusCD, Isa. liv. 2, Ps.
cxxxii. 5). I much doubt, nowever, whether nD3 will bear the render
ing ' tomb.' It is true, there is the analogy of B'n| in Job xxi. 32,
but the very definite use of nD3, both in Biblical and in Rabbinic
Hebrew, for 'high place' or ' altar,' makes this wider use highly im
probable. Ezek xliii. 7 has been quoted in its favour, but in that
passage we ought, with the Babylonian Codex, to point DniD3. On
the whole, I prefer inb3 ; an intrusive » is no novelty in the O. T.
text 'In his death ' = after his death (Lev. xi. 31, &c.) ; Shak-
spere's ' Speak me fair in death.'
LIII. 10. .*^r)r|. I understand this as referring to 1S31 (comp.
Mic. vi. 13, Nah. iii. 19), but not as grammatically in combination
with it. This seems the most natural view.
 D''B'n. The difficulty of rendering the text-reading na
turally is obvious, whether we prefer to make ni'n* or IB'Si the sub
ject. A similar error in Ps. xlix. 19.
LIII. 12. D''313. The rendering adopted is the only one fully
in harmony with the parallel line. The alternative is to take the
preposition distributively, as serving to specialise the contents of the
p^O ; comp. e.g. Gen. xxiii. 18 (Job xxxix. 17, often referred to, is
an unfortunate example, for it would suggest that the p^n only in
cluded a part, and not the whole, of the Dp'i). DeL's note on
' Ibn Ezra keeps the reading vnD3. t^Jt gives '3 the sense of ' tomb,' and says
that it has two construct forms of the plural, like D*1D.

CRITICAL NOTES. 159
this passage is obscurely expressed, and seems inconsistent with his
translation. LIV. 9. The Babylonian Codex has 'b]3.
LIV. 15. 1-13V The renderings 'sojourn,' 'congregate,' do not
suit the context As Ewald rightly holds, IIH borrows its meaning
here from ni^ (comp. 11X— mv. t13-nt3. IIB^niB'), as in Ps. cxL 3.
 7ia' "YT^. Alt. rend., which brings before us Israel's
.moral conquest of his enemies, is not in harmony with the context,
which speaks only of the failure of their hostile enterprises. Besides,
as Dr. Kay points out, the preposition here precedes the verb ; where
the phrase 7y ^a3 or *> Sa3 means 'to join the opposite party,' the
preposition follows. Perhaps, however, this is too subtle a distinction.
LIV. 17. VB'in. Comp. Syriac khob 'to be defeated,' z'k&. 'to
conquer.' LV. 13. DB*. This is one of the passages which seem to require
the rendering 'monument' (note niS in the parallel clause). See
also especially lvi. 5, Ps. cxxxviii. 2 (observe 73, which hardly suits
the rend, 'name'), (2 Sam. iii. 13, Gen. xi. 4). In fact, if Ges.'s
etymology be accepted, this should be the primary meaning of the
word. LVL II. Read D*y'in npii.
LVII. 3 end. Klostermann reads n3t) naS3D, simplifying the
construction at the expense of a tautology.
LVII. 13. n*^13p. Sept iv Ty 6XC\j/u a-ov, 'probably reading
npivn3 or inp1X3, an indication that there was some different ar
rangement of the letters of the text, and apparently favouring "['XIpB'.'
Dr. Weir.
LVIII. 6. 'The ancient versions seem to have had a different text.'
Dr. Weir.
LVIII. 7. D''inp. Read D'TJ-ID. An accidental transposition,
as in 2 Kings xi. 2, where the k'thibh is, by an obvious error, D»nibD.
Ewald apparently supposes a peculiarity of pronunciation in both
cases {Lehrbuch, § 131 ^) ; but surely this is improbable. Del.
assumes a secondary formation from 111 viz. lip, of which the form
in the text would be a passive participle.
On LVIII. 1 1. yW. The ancient versions stumbled at this word,
and it is possible that we have here a very ancient corruption of
tl'bn', 'he shall renew.' But we need not in this case read 'nnpvy,
' thy strength ' (as Seeker and Lowth) ; Hupfeld (on Ps. vi. 3) well
compares Ps. xxxii. 3, 'my bones waxed old.'
LviiL 12. "|DD. "^ Should we not read ^*33?' Dr. Weir. The
text-reading is, of course, not untranslateable, but there is no obvious
reason here for such a construction. The case is different in Ps.
Ixviii. 27, Job xviii. 15.
LIX. 3. >h^'». The same form (the passive of the Arabic

l6o CRITICAL NOTES.
seventh verbal stem) occurs in Lam. iv. 14. It is odd that it should
only occur as a derivation of hni. Luzzatto suspects that the
authors of the points wished to avoid a confusion with 115X33 from
7S3 'to redeem.'
LIX. 18. 7y3. The versions seem to have found this gramma
tical anomaly unintelligible ; so too Bp. Lowth, who adopts Vy3 for
7U3 from Targ. (see his note).
 The difficulty of the closing words lies in the fact that'
npa is elsewhere only used of the eyes or (once, viz., xliL 20) of the
ears. We should therefore expect, mpnpa Dniypi. It is tempt
ing to suppose that we have in the Massoretic text a combination of
two readings — one, that just quoted (favoured by Sept), and the
other ninnna DniOS^I (favoured by Pesh., Vulg.). This is the view
of Dr. Neubauer, who remarks that a combination of this sort, where
manuscript authorities were equally divided, would be quite in the
spirit of the Massoretic critics {Academy, June 11, 1870).
LXIII. 3. D3nsi. Point this, and the corresponding verbs in
this and the following verses, according to the rule of ' vav consecu
tive.' So Luzzatto. It is only those who are unaware of the numerous
instances in which, from exegetical or theological peculiarities, or from
some obscure causes, the Massoretic punctuation is entirely or probably
erroneous, who will accuse such a proceeding of uncritical rashness.
Here the cause of the wrong pointing is patent — it is the theory, em
balmed in that other record (the Massoretic punctuation being also one)
of early Jewish exegetical traditions, the Targum, that this section of
prophecy relates to the future (comp. on xliii. 28.) It is singular that
in V. 5 the authors of the points should have allowed themselves to
write ycfini mechanically following lix 16). This is one of those
inconsistencies which occasionally puzzle us in the Massoretic punc
tuation. — Comp. Driver, Hebrew Tenses, § 84 a, 176 Obs. i, (he in
clines to agree as to V.I.).
 *n^S3S. 'The initial S is miswritten by an Aramaism
for n ; comp. Jer. xxv. 3, and perhaps Mic. vii. 15.
LXIII. 9. Dr. Kay objects that IX 17 can only mean, ' he was re
duced to a strait,' ' which, of course, is not suitable here.' But it is
as suitable as any other anthropomorphic expression (see, e.g., lix. 16).
LXIII. 1 1. The reason why the accents unite IDy nB'b appears from
Targ., which paraphrases 'the mighty deeds which he had done
through Moses to his people.'
 The Babylonian Codex has »yi ; Baer, too, adopts this
as the Massoretic reading. This determines the subject of 131p3.
LXIII. 15. The meaning 'habitation' has been generally ac
quiesced in, but seems very uncertain, and has no philological foun
dation. The verb 73T is found only in Gen. xxx. 20, where it
is commonly rendered ' dwell (with me),' not to suit the context, but

CRITICAL NOTES. l6l
in obedience to a prejudice as to the meaning of ^13t. The
writer himself seems to have felt that the root ^3> was unfamiliar to
his readers, and he therefore selects an alternative root 13t to illus
trate tl73T. We are evidently justified in expecting some light
from the alUed languages, especially from Assyrian. In Chaldee, ^3T.
and the cognate words have no connection with the idea of ' dwell
ing,' but wi^h that of ' manure.' In Arabic, too, according to Lane,
zabala means — i. to dung, manure ; 2. to bear, carry. The latter
meaning is important for us, for M. Stanislas Guyard has lately
pointed out ' that Assyrian also possesses the root zabal, in the
sense of 'bearing' (whence zabil kudurri,^ 'crown-bearer' = Arab.
waz'tr [vizier], a tide of the kings tributary to Assyria), and hence of
'elevating.' My friend Mr. Sayce corroborates the meaning of
'elevation' for zabal hy a reference to bilingual tablets (see, e.g., the
British Museum Inscriptions, vol. ii. p. 15, 1. 45), where the Accadian
sagil (lit 'high head')^ is explained by the Assyrian zabal. It
cannot be denied that several passages of the Old Testament gain in
force if we explain 731 on the analogy of zabal. How suitably, for
instance, does Solomon, after alluding to Jehovah's dwelling in ' thick
clouds,' refer to the newly built temple as a 7^t n'^ 'a house of
height' (i Kings xii. 12, 13, comp. ix. 8a), a house which by its
elevation pointed men upwards to the heavenly temple (comp. Isa.
vi. i) ! How opposite is the same sense of ' elevation ' in a descrip
tion of the sun and moon (Hab iiL 11) ! We cannot exactly see
this of Ps. xlix. 15, but the decided meaning of ' glory ' (already hit
upon by the Vulgate) is at any rate as suitable to that obscure and per
haps corrupt passage as any other. In Gen. xxx. 20, where the verb
occurs, the same decided meaning of ' honour ' is appropriate, and,
as M. Guyard remarks, avoids the necessity of understanding a pre
position. In the passage of Isaiah before us, the gain in force by
substituting ' height ' for ' habitation ' is obvious. Of course, a vague
sense like ' habitation ' may just suffice for the passages in which 7-13f
occurs. But what greater claim has it than ' elevation ' ? The sup
posed tradition in its favour seems really to be based on a guess.
 We might take the second part of the verse as a ques
tion, with Dr. Gratz, who also reads 13''7S (comp. Sept.)
LxiiL 19. The versions (see p. 109) certainly favour the supposi
tion of corruptness, though II. Isaiah does contain rather extreme
cases of constructions in which the logical syntax is not expressed,
e.g. xli, 2 a, 24, xlviii. 14 b. Mr. Driver compares Gen. xxxi. 40, Job
xii. 4.
' 'Remarques sur le mot assyrien zabal,' &c. ; Journal asiatique, ao6t-sept.,
1878, pp. 220-5. A part of M. Guyard's evidence, however, seems doubtful.
' Mr. Norris, with exemplary self-restraint, leaves this title untranslated (Assyrian
Dictionary, i. 310).
' Comp. 130 and 227a in the Syllabary in Sayce's Elementary Assyrian Grammar.
VOL. II. M

1 62 CRITICAL NOTES.
LXIV. 4 (5). nns. Gratz {Monatsschrift, 1880, p. 52) reads nnv;
' formerly thou wast favourable, but now thou art wroth.' But there
is an emphasis in the nns (how often the personal pronoun is used
when Jehovah speaks ! ). 'It was because thou, whose nature is to
be gracious, becamest angry,' &c.
 SQn31. The rend, adopted seems called for (as against
DeL's) by the statement at the end of v. 6 (7).
 D^iy Dn3. To illustrate Ew.'s view of the passage, comp.
iii. 12 (note above). It is against it, however, that SjVp is never
elsewhere constructed with 3. (DeL takes Dn3 in a neuter sense (so
St Jerome, ' in ipsis,' sc. peccatis) ; comp. xxx. 6, xxxviii. 16, xliv. 15,
Ezek. xxxiii. 18. Possible ; but probable here?
LXV. 15. '131 ¦in''Dni. The suffix seems to me to prove that this is
a fragment of a formula of imprecation. Not, however, the opening
words. Hence the perfect need not be the precative, the existence
of which is doubtful (see on xliii. 9), nor need we be surprised by the
omission of Dns or n^S3.
*** The reader is requested to take notice of a few Addenda to these Notes
at the beginning of this volume.

ESSAYS
ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE COMMENTARY
ON ISAIAH.

L THE OCCASIONAL PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH
IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY.

The editor of a modern classic of the interest and importance
of the Book of Isaiah would naturally preface his illustrations
with a life of his author. But of Isaiah what has the editor
to tell? Later legend, indeed, hovered busily about the
prophet ; ' but, except as giving evidence of his posthumous
influence, its imaginative creations are of no interest to the
student of Isaiah. The prophet is not, however, a mere
name, vox et prczterea nihil, for his works are the monuments
of a widely-reaching activity ; and through his teaching, and
probably through a scanty but enthusiastic band of disciples,^
he was the means of beginning, or at any rate of greatly
strengthening, that remarkable phase of belief which we may
call, in the literal sense of the word, the Messianic. Of the
latter I shall say more in a subsequent essay ; my immediate
subject is the place of Isaiah in the history of his times, and
the chronological arrangement of his extant ^ prophecies.
By thus limiting my subject, I do not intend to deny that
Isaiah, by some of his prophecies, was an important factor in
the history of later times — that he foretold, and by foretelling
contributed to bring about (for such is the Biblical doctrine of
prophecy ^), events long subsequent to his own age ; but I am
equally far from affirming it. Either course would require
me to carry my researches into the domain of the ' higher
criticism,' whereas at present, in the interests of the student,
I have limited myself to the functions of an exegete, and
only pretend to set before the reader the facts (sometimes
the conflicting facts) supplied by the text itself.
¦ One Rabbinic authority makes Amoz, the father of Isaiah, a brother of King
Amaziah, and there is a general agreement that Isaiah himself was martyred by being
sawn asunder at the order of Manasseh. (See references in Gesenius, Commentar iiber
den Jesaia, i. 3-15. ) The former story is evidently based on an etymological fancy ;
the latter may have been occasioned by Isa. lii. 13-liii. 12. (So Fiirst, Geschichte der
biblischen Literatur, ii. 393).
' Comp. viii. 12-16, xxviii. 23-29 ; both passages presuppose such a. band of
disciples. ' For of course we have no reason to assume that all Isaiah's prophetic writings
have been preserved.
* Comp. notes on ix. 8, lv. 11. This doctrine of the self-fulfilling power of pro
phecy explains the imprisonments of Micaiah and Jeremiah, and a similar belief is
presupposed in the narrative of Balaam (Num. xxii. 6).

1 66 ESSAYS.
The prophecies with which I am now concerned are the
occasional ones— that is, those which were called forth by
passing events. A difference of opinion in specifying these is
hardly possible, except in the case of xxi. i-io, but critics
are very much divided as to the time when the prophecies
were composed. Nor can this be greatly wondered at. In
the first place, Israelitish history has only come down to us
in fragments. If even the plays of Aristophanes contain
numerous obscure allusions, though the author lived subse
quently to the rise of history {la-roplrj), how much more
should we expect this to be the case with the religious litera
ture of a nation with no gift for scientific research ! In the
second place, it is evident from the form of not a few pro
phecies that they are summaries of discourses delivered at
various times, and even when it is not so, the cultivated style
of the oracles sufficiently proves that they have been much
altered since the time of delivery ; we cannot, therefore, be
sure that they give an absolutely faithful picture of the
prophet's original feelings and circumstances. Hence a
distinction must be drawn between two entirely separate
objects of enquiry — viz. i. the date of Isaiah's original dis
course or discourses, and 2. that of the final editing of the
discourse or summarising of the discourses.'
But it may be asked. Have we not already in the Book
of Isaiah itself an authoritative chronological arrangement?
This is the view of Hengstenberg. ' In the first six chapters,'
remarks this celebrated critic, 'we obtain a survey of the
prophet's ministry under Uzziah and Jotham. Chap. vii. to
X. 4 belongs to the time of Ahaz. From x. 4 to the end of
chap. xxxv. everything belongs to the time of the Assyrian
invasion in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah ; in the face of
which invasion the prophetic gift of Isaiah was displayed as
it had never been before. The section, chap, xxxvi.-xxxix.,
furnishes us with the historical commentary on the preceding
prophecies from the Assyrian period, and forms, at the same
time, the transition to the second part, which still belongs to
the same period.' ^ The faults of this theory are, i . that it
implies the infallibility of the later Jewish editors of Isaiah,
and 2. that it regards the prophecies of Isaiah, or at any rate
those in the first part, as if they had been sent out into the
world singly, whereas internal evidence strongly favours the
view that underlying our present book there are several
partial collections, made either by Isaiah, or by Isaiah's dis-
' See /. C. A., introduction, p. xii.
" Christology of the Old Testament, ii. 2, 3.

ESSAYS. l6j
ciples, or perhaps some by the former, and others by the
latter. If we accept this position, it will be extremely un
likely that after the combination of these small collections
the prophecies should turn out to be in exact chronological
order. In fact, before the recent Assyrian discoveries it
seemed easy to show that this was no less improbable than the
similar view that the Minor Prophets, as they stand, are in
chronological order ; for how could the section x. 5-xii. 6,
evidently written in the crisis of an invasion, be rightly
placed so far from chaps, xxviii.-xxxii., which only express
an increasing confidence that an invasion was inevitable ?
The discovery of the large part played by Sargon in the
affairs of Palestine has, it is true, made Hengstenberg's
position a more tenable one. The prophecy in x. 5-xii. 6
may conceivably refer to the invasion of Sargon, and those in
xxviii.-xxxii. to that of Sennacherib.' Hence it is less sur
prising that, after being abandoned by scholars in general,
Hengstenberg's view should again be independently maintained
by Mr. George Smith the Assyriologist.^ Still, some of the
old objections to it remain in full force. Some prophecies
(«.^. chap. i. and chap. xvii. i-ii) cannot be in their right
chronological order, unless the remarks in the preceding
commentary are very far wrong indeed. The evidence for
the existence of groups of prophecies is moreover too strong
to be disregarded ; and it would argue a mean estimate of
the intellect of those who formed these groups to suppose
that chronology was their only guide, and that affinity of
subjects had no influence on their selection of prophecies.
I assume, then, that the actual order of the prophecies in
the Book of Isaiah is not strictly chronological. The results
of the present work, however, tend to show that the devia
tions from chronological accuracy are not considerable. A
brief summary will make this at once clear, and serve as a
table of contents to the introductions in the preceding com
mentary. Isaiah came forward as a young prophet (vi. i) in the
year of the death of Azariah,^ that warlike and enterprising
monarch, who ventured to defy Assyria by heading a con
federacy of discontented Syrian |Jowers. Jotham, the next
' This is certainly conceivable, but far from probable, as the phraseological points
of contact between the prophecy in x. 5-xii, 6 and chaps xxviii. xxix. (see vol. i. p.
68) naturally suggests a contemporary origin.
' Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archmology, ii. (1873), 328-9.
^ The text of Isa. vi. i calls him Uzziah, and so 2 Kings xv. 13, 2 Chr. xxvi, ; but
the name is given as Azariah in 2 Kings xiv. 21, and in the contemporary Assyrian
inscriptions as Azriyau. On the Syrian coalition, see vol. i,, p. 43, and note the refer
ence to Schrader.

l68 ESSAYS.
king, was as secular in tastes as his father, and the denuncia
tions in chap. ii. and in ix. 8-x. 4 may well have been
delivered in substance during his reign. In these sterner
passages aur prophet reminds us of his predecessor Amos.
But as soon as a real calamity draws near, the tone of his
discourses begins to soften, and the passages which we
naturally turn to as typical of his genius are centred in the
three invasions of Judah by Rezin, Sargon, and Sennacherib.
Rezin and his Israelitish vassal were already at the gates of
Jerusalem when Isaiah delivered the substance of the pro-
j)hecies in vii. i-ix. 7, famous as containing the first distinct
predictions of the Messiah. Chap. xvii. I-I I evidently
belongs to the same period, but is probably a little earlier •
than vii. i-ix. 7. In 724 (?) Shalmaneser opened that siege of
Samaria which was so soon brought to its fatal end by Sargon,'
and we may presume that chap, xxviii. embodies the dis
courses of Isaiah on that striking occasion ; but Shalmaneser
has left but little impression on the Israelitish literature com
pared with Sargon, his successor. It is to this king's inter
ference with the affairs of Judah ^ that we are, as I believe,
indebted for the following important group of prophecies : —
Chap. xiv. 29-32, a prophecy on Philistia.
Chap. xix. I -16, a prophecy on Egypt.
Chap. XX., a prophecy on Egypt and Ethiopia.
Chap, xxix.-xxxii., a prophecy on the Egyptian alliance and the Assyrian
invasion.
Chap. X. 5 — xi. 16, a prophecy on the Assyrian invasion and the times
following.
Chap, xxii,, a prophecy on the siege of Jerusalem.
Chap, i., a prophecy on the spiritual lessons of the invasion.
(Perhaps also chap, xvi 13, 14, the epilogue attached to an
older prophecy on Moab, and chap. xxi. 1 1-17, containing
short prophecies on Dumah and Kedar.)
The Philistines, destined to suffer so much from Assyria,
were already hankering after independence, when Isaiah
wrote the short prophecy in xiv. 29-32 : ' The rod which
smote them ' {i.e. Shalmaneser) was ' broken,' but the prophet
warned them that the new king (Sargon) would dart upon
them like a basilisk, and punish them for their disobedience.
The unfavourable 'oracle of Egypt' (xix. 1-16) probably
comes from the same period. The ' hard lord ' into whose
hand the Egyptians are to be delivered (xix. 4) is Sargon,
' There is some doubt respecting the chronological limits of the siege of Samaria ;
it is safest, however, to follow Sargon's express statement, that he captured Samaria in
the beginning of his reign. See further Schrader, K. G. F., pp. 314-15 ; Smith, The
Fponytn Canon, p. 175.
' Sec inttod. to x. 5-xii. 6 (vol. i. pp. 68, 69).

ESSAYS. 1 69
and the event referred to is the defeat of Shabaka, King of
Egypt and Ethiopia, B.C. 720, near the Philistine town of
Raphia. It does not appear that Sargon interfered with
Judah on this occasion. Hezekiah had- probably refrained
from assisting Shabaka, so that the Assyrian army would
naturally keep to the coast-road. The security of Judah will
also perhaps account for the falling off in style which has
been noticed in chap. xix. When the danger was nearer
home, the prophet's voice became trumpet-toned.
The woes denounced on Egypt in chap. xix. were not
immediately realised, and in chap. xx. Isaiah renews his
warning. Still, the results of the battle of Raphia were by
no means insignificant. To Rahab, ' the arrogant one,' (such
was the symbolic name of Egypt in Hebrew : see on xxx. 7)
the acknowledgment of Assyrian supremacy was galling in
the extreme ; a still greater national calamity was the dis
memberment of the country (see introduction to chap. xx.).
That Hezekiah should have thought it worth while after this
to seek Egyptian assistance is a fact so improbable that
nothing short of Isaiah's authority (see chaps, xxx. xxxi.)
could establish it. Chap. xxix. also belongs in substance to
this period ; it declares that Jerusalem itself is in imminent
peril. Shortly after, in xxxii. 9-20, the prophet repeats his
denunciation to the frivolous ladies of Jerusalem.
Nor are these the only words spoken by the great prophet
at this dark period. The two prophecies on the Egyptian
alliance contain some passages which clearly refer to this
later stage in the history. Thus chap. xxx. 18-33 evidently
assumes that the people of Judah are actually suffering from
an Assyrian invasion, and xxxi. 4 announces that Jehovah
will, as it were, personally descend, and fight for Jerusalem.
We are, in fact, in the midst of the first of the two invasions
under Hezekiah, when Sargon {i.e. probably his Tartan, or
commander-in-chief) took ' all the fenced cities of Judah.' '
Hezekiah had probably followed the example of Yavan, King
of Ashdod, and refused the usual tribute to the King of
Assyria ; so, at least, we may infer from the statement of
Sargon that the Judahites who used to bring tribute, were
* speaking treason.' "^ The fate of Ashdod seemed likely to
become that of Jerusalem, and Isaiah (who had already
pointed out the danger, xx. 6) felt the urgency of the call for
prophetic admonition. Of his discourses during this critical
period at least three appear to have been preserved — chap. x.
' 2 Kings xviii. 13 ( = Isa. xxxvi. 1). On this passage, see vol. i. p. 197.
' See introd. to chap. xx. (vol. i. pp. 120-1).

1 70 ESSAYS.
5-xii. 6, chap. xiv. 24-27, and chap. xxii. The date of the
first two is absolutely certain (see introds.), and even Mr.
Robertson Smith admits that they were written in the time of
Sargon.' The only reasonable doubt can be with regard to
chap, xxii., the explanation of which, as the student will have
seen, requires a more than ordinary degree of exegetical tact.
At length the tide of invasion turned, and very soon after
wards, if I am not mistaken, in a case which again especially
calls for tact, Isaiah wrote one of his most beautiful prophecies,
chap. i. The generality of its contents (which marks it out
as composed for an introduction) makes it unusually difficult
to pronounce upon its date ; yet there is some internal
evidence which points to the time of Sargon's invasion. It
would, in fact, be an incongruity if a prophet like Isaiah had
been able to compose a purely literary work.
Three years after the subjugation of Judah occurred an
event second only in importance for Palestine to the battle of
Raphia — the conquest of Babylonia by Sargon (710). From
a narrative certainly based on an early tradition (2 Kings
XX. 12, &c. = Isaiah xxxix. i, &c.), we may probably infer that
Hezekiah had had some thoughts of a Babylonian alliance.
Isaiah would, of course, be opposed to this, but the fall of
Babylon must have profoundly shocked him as an evidence
of the (humanly speaking) irresistible progress of Assyria.
The prophecy in xxL i-io, which, taken by itself, is so ob
scure,^ seems in most respects easier of explanation, if we
refer its origin to the siege of Babylon in 710. I say 'in
most respects,' for I do not deny the striking plausibility of
some of the arguments for a Captivity origin.
Isaiah took no narrow view of his prophetic mission, and
the fall of Babylon was, according to him, a warning to other
nations besides his own. ' Behold the land of Chaldea,' he
cried to the proud merchant people of Phoenicia ; ' this people
is no more' (xxiii. 13). Indeed, Tyre was nearer to the
common foe, and had a still better reason for alarm (in pro
portion to its greater power) than the second-rate or third-
rate kingdom of Judah. So sure is Jehovah's prophet of the
catastrophe that he bursts into an elegiac ode on the ruin
of Zidon's greatest daughter. The concluding verses of the
chapter, however, which form no part of the elegy, and seem
' The Prophets of Israel (xWz), -pTp. 297-8.
^ The obscurity consists in the depression into which the writer apparently falls at
the news of the fall of Babylon. In I. C. A., p. xxvii., I conjectured that he was
' almost unmanned by affection for his adopted home.' But this is not very probable
in a pious Jewish exile, and the theory of a Babylonian origin is also opposed (though
not, of course, absolutely disproved) by the numerous points of contact with Isaiah
(see vol. i. pp. 123-4).

ESSAYS. I 7 1
to have been added by an after-thought, prophesy a revival
of Tyre at the end of ' seventy years.' '
The third event which called forth the energies of the
prophet was the invasion of Sennacherib ; the attendant cir
cumstances have been described already (vol. i. pp. 200-3).
Great as the war was — greater even tban the invasion of
Sargon — only four of the extant prophecies appear to have
been originated by it. These are chap, xviii., chap. xvii. 12-14,
chap, xxxiii., and chap, xxxvii. 22-35 (or 32). The first of
the four was evidently produced by the news of the approach
of the Assyrians, and the consequent excitement of the
warlike Ethiopians. The second and third were (according
to the historical sketch referred to above) probably composed
during the march of the Assyrian general, who, after captur
ing forty-six fortified towns, was so wonderfully and provi
dentially checked beneath the walls of Jerusalem. The
fourth has all the incisive energy which we should expect
from the circumstances under which the Book of Isaiah itself
declares it to have been delivered.

Such now appears to me, upon a reconsideration of the
subject, to be the most probable chronological arrangement of
the occasional prophecies. My endeavour has been to avoid
arbitrary conjecture, and, whenever practicable, to explain the
prophet's allusions from the contemporary Assyrian inscrip
tions. I confess therefore to some disappointment when that
excellent scholar, Mr. Robertson Smith, expresses the opinion
that one of the historical bases of the preceding sketch is un
sound, and that ' the mere statement of this hypothesis is
sufficient to show its extreme improbability.' ^ A page or two
in reply to Mr. Robertson Smith's leading obj'ections is indis
pensable to complete this essay.
Did Sargon invade Judah, and threaten, or even cap
ture Jerusalem, or not ? The grounds on which three well-
known Assyriologists* maintain that he did, have been already
given ; the docunientary evidence is, no doubt, scanty, still it
exists, and historical probability is altogether in favour of this
view. Mr. Robertson Smith's counter argument has not yet
been put in a complete form ; but appearances rather indicate
' Hence one of the arguments for the view that the epilogue, as we may call these
verses, is the work of some unknown writer at the close of the Babylonian exile.
Against it see my note on xxiii. 15-18.
' The Prophets of Israel, (1882), p. 296. ' Sajce, Schrader, and Oppert.

172 ESSAYS.
that he has been biassed by a partiality for a distinguished
recent critic.
In admiration for Julius Wellhausen's brilliant genius I
hardly yield to Mr. Robertson Smith. But I cannot help
adding that his insight is sometimes marred by excessive self-
assertion. His personal dislikes are indeed painfully visible
in some of his critiques in the Gottingen Gelehrte Anzeigen,
and his bias against Assyriology ' (shared, it is true, by others
in Germany) comes out very strongly in an article in vol. xx.
of the Jahrbil.cher fiir deutsche Theologie (1875), replied to
with exemplary calmness by Schrader, in vol. ii. of the fahr-
bUcher fiir protestantische Theologie { 1 876), in his article on
' The Azriyahu of the cuneiform inscriptions, and the Azaryah
of the Bible.' I am the more confirmed in my opinion that
Mr. Robertson Smith has been ' misled ' by German influences,
when I notice his own insufficient estimate of the value of the
Assyriologists' work in p. 377 of The Prophets of Israel, where
Gutschmid's extravagant attack on Assyriology is charac
terised as setting forth the state of things ' very forcibly,
though perhaps (!) with an extreme of scepticism,' and no
mention is made of Schrader's reply, so impressive from its
honesty and documentary completeness, in the K.G.F.
Mr. Robertson Smith objects to the view which I have
advocated, that it represents Judah as suffering ' precisely in
the same way, and to the same extent,' both from Sargon and
Sennacherib, that ' history does not repeat itself exactly,' and
that ' we must conclude that Isaiah held precisely similar
language in the two cases, and that he did this in the second
invasion without making any reference back to the events of
the siege which has called forth similar predictions two years
before' (p. 295). 'Precisely' and 'exactly' are words that
shoot beyond the mark. It has not been asserted that history
' repeated itself exactly,' nor that Isaiah used ' precisely
similar language ' in the two cases. History may surely have
repeated itself in the career of Hezekiah, as it did in that of
Merodach-Baladan, but the repetition need not have been
'exact'; all that is claimed by Mr. Sayce and myself is a
parallelism between the two invasions. Next, with regard to
the language of Isaiah. It is true, that in both groups of pro
phecies (those referring to Sargon as well as those to Senna
cherib), Isaiah is well assured that Jehovah will interpose for
Mount Zion ; but is there not a variety amidst the similarity .'
In Sargon's reign, Isaiah says that the chief men of the city
have been captured, and that many of the inhabitants of Jeru-
' Comp. introd. to chap, xxxvii. (vol. i., p. 198).

ESSAYS.

^7i

Salem shall be slain (xxii. 3, 14) ; in Sennacherib's, he implies
that all shall escape (xxxvii. 22). In Sargon's, he declares
that Jerusalem shall be reduced to extremities (xxix. 1-6) ;
in Sennacherib's, that the Assyrian shall not come before the
city, nor raise a bank against it (xxxvii. 33 ; see vol. i. p. 202),
In Sargon's, his tone towards his countrymen is most severe
(see introd. to chap, xxii.) ; in Sennacherib's, it is one of con
solation and hope.
But why, asks Mr. Robertson Smith, did Isaiah make no
reference during Sennacherib's invasion to the events of the
former crisis .¦" The question could only be answered with
certainty from the contemporary Jewish annals, which we do
not possess. It may be that there were circumstances con
nected with Sargon's siege of Jerusalem, which it was no un
mixed pleasure to remember (comp. chap, xxii.), but I do not
care to reconstruct history speculatively. Mr. Robertson
Smith thinks it also ' highly improbable that [Hezekiah]
would have been allowed to restore the Judsean fortresses '
(p. 296). Bnt Sargon, in his latter years, was enfeebled by
age, and Sennacherib,, on his accession, had work enough
on his hands nearer home, on his southern and eastern
frontier. Next, my friendly critic is surprised at the non-
mention of any punishment of Judah in the Annals of Sargon.
But these annals cannot claim to be exhaustive. The por
tion for 7 1 1 seems to be little more than an extract from an
eponym list, where only the chief object of the year's cam
paign is recorded. Is it reasonable to suppose that, while,
Philistia was punished for ' speaking treason,' Judah was
allowed to go scot free ? Certainly the peoples of Palestine,
according to Isa. xx. 6, had very different anticipations. On
the following page our author questions whether the Book of
Kings would have entirely ignored the invasion of Sargon,
had it really taken place. But he might as well question
whether Sargon captured Samaria, because the Book of Kings
is silent as to the fact' The written traditions of the Jews
have obviously come down to us in so fragmentary a state
(thanks to the catastrophe of the Exile) that hardly any
omission can much surprise us. We may well be thankful
for the supplementary and corrective uses of the Assyrian in
scriptions, and not least, as students of the prophecies of
Isaiah. Mr. Robertson Smith himself admits this, which in
creases my disappointment that I have failed to convince him
on this important question of detail. All opinions on ancient
' The absence of any reference to Assurbanipal, except under the mutilated form
Asnapper (Ezra iv. lo), may also be mentioned in this connection.

174 ESSAYS.
history must be held with a certain amount of reserve, and
be liable to modification or correction from more thorough
criticism, or the discovery of more complete evidence. Mr.
Robertson Smith is well able to contribute to this desirable
result. Let me add that, if I have, in the foregoing commen
tary or elsewhere, expressed myself too positively, I regret it,
as it may perhaps have encouraged his own too positive con
tradiction. At any rate, he will, I know, echo the words with
which I concluded this essay in the first edition, that ' the
prophecies have surely become more vivid through being read
in this new light, and the character of Isaiah as a " watcher "
of the political as well as spiritual horizon does but shine
with a steadier and more enlivening glow.'

II. THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE PROPHECIES.

That there is some principle (or, that there are some prin
ciples) of arrangement in the Book of Isaiah, is now universally
acknowledged. The book is no mere anthology of single
prophecies ; this cannot even be said of chaps, i.-xxxix.,
where a continuous thread of thought is undoubtedly wanting.
But the plan of the book is by no means easy to grasp. It
seems simple enough to suppose with Hengstenberg that the
prophecies in chaps, i.-xxxix. are arranged chronologically,
or with Vitringa that similarity of contents was the guiding
principle of the collector and editor. But neither theory can
be carried out without violence to facts. The suggestion has
therefore been offered to divide the book into four smaller
books or parts, viz. chaps, i.-xii., chaps, xiii.-xxiii., chaps.
xxiv.-xxxv. (with its appendix, chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix.), and
chaps, xl.-lxvi.; and this view has been adopted by Gesenius,
Havernick, and (in 1856) Dr. S. Davidson. When, however,
we come to analyse these groups, we find that they are by no
means homogeneous, and that there are several breaks in the
continuity. Hence Ewald and Delitzsch seem fully justified
in subdividing the book still further. These eminent scholars
differ widely, it is true ; the reason being that while Delitzsch
regards the prophet Isaiah as himself the sole author and
editor, Ewald postulates a variety of authors and several
editors. Controversy, however, is not my object. Those who
wish to see the thoughtful and only too ingenious arrange
ment of Delitzsch can easily refer to his widely-known

ESSAYS. 1 75
commentary (Introduction, paragraph 2). My own view
on the subject of this essay continues to be based on that of
Ewald, and, in offering it anew for acceptance, I would merely
remark that it is in no way bound up with any preconceived
opinion as to the unity or plurality of the authorship of the
book. It was stated in the present writer's former edition of
Isaiah,' that at any rate that part of the book which contains
occasional prophecies ' appears to be composed of several
smaller books or prophetic collections.' This view, I repeat,
will still be the most probable one, even if we should admit
the Isaianic authorship of the entire book. Let us see what
it is that it involves. ' The chapter which opens the book in
the traditional arrangement is evidently intended as a general
introduction to a large group of prophecies. It is impossible,
however, to trace any distinct connection between that chapter
and the three following ones, which certainly constitute a
single homogeneous prophecy. Equally difficult is it to trace
a connection between chap. i. and chaps, vi.-x. 4 ; the latter
chapters, with the exception of ix. 8-x. 4 ' (see vol. i., p. 64),
'are as distinct and homogeneous as the prophecy already
mentioned.' But there is a general agreement between the
historical circumstances of chap, i., of chaps, x. 5-xi. i6, and
of most of the minor prophecies on foreign nations, all of
which were probably written under the shadow of the first
Assyrian invasion under Sargon. It seems therefore reason
able to suppose that, after the retirement of Sargon, Isaiah
prepared ' a new and enlarged edition of his works,' consisting
of the two prophetic writings mentioned above (ii.-v., and
vi. I-ix. 7), supplemented by x. 5-xii. 6 ^ (which once doubt
less had an independent existence, and which was now inserted
as a pendant to the prophecy of Immanuel), and by most of
the prophecies on foreign nations.^ Later still, Isaiah, or some
of his disciples availing themselves of his literary material,
made several insertions in his already extant works, and
added a new one to their number. The insertions are xiv.
24-27, which looks like an appendix to x. 5-xii. 6 (compare
vol. i. p. 93), xvii. i-ii, xvii. 12-xviii. 7, and, according to-
conservative critics, xiii. i-xiv. 23, which were included
among the' oracles on foreign nations. The only one of these
^ I. C. A., Introduction, pp, xii. -xiv. The reader will at once notice the points irk
which I have modified my views.
' I am aware that Ewald considers chap. xii. to be an insertion of post-Exile origin.
But it is not my object here to discuss questions belonging to the ' higher criticism.'
' Amos had already given a series of short decisive oracles on the neighbouring
peoples (i. 3-ii. 3). Zephaniah (ii. 4-15), Jeremiah (xlvi.-li.), and Ezekiel (xxv.-xxxii. )<
did so afterwards.

1 76 , ESSAYS.
insertions which requires any special explanation is the last-
mentioned, and to this I will return presently. The new
prophetic work consists of chaps, xxviii.-xxxii. ; it seems
intended as a memorial of the state of the Jews during
Sargon's intervention in the affairs of Palestine. Four
groups of chapters still remain, viz , xxiv.- xxvii., xxxiv. and
xxxv., xxxvi.-xxxix., and xl.-lxvi. Let me begin with the
third. It consists of a historical narrative in which two
prophecies (xxxvii. 21-35 ^.nd xxxix. 5-7) and a poem
(xxxviii. 9-20), the latter ascribed, not to Isaiah, but to
Hezekiah, are imbedded. By whom the narrative was
written, and when, is much disputed (see vol. i., p. 203) ; but
that the first of the two prophecies is the work of Isaiah is
admitted on all hands, and the analogy of chaps, vii. and xx.
shows that the narrative, long as it is, exists for the sake of
the prophecies, and not the prophecies for the narrative. The
parallel of Jer. lii. suggests further that Isa. xxxvi.-xxxix.
were originally intended as a conclusion or appendix to the
Book of Isaiah.
As to the three other groups, we must first of all separate
chaps, xl.-lxvi., the difficulty with regard to which is, not so
much its position, as the arrangement of its contents. Not,
I say, its position, for supposing Isaiah to have written these
chapters, he or his disciple-editor could not well have placed
them anywhere else.' To its internal arrangement I return
presently. There remain chaps, xxiv.-xxvii., and xxxiv.,
xxxv., which must be taken in connection with xiii: i-xiv. 23.
Why these groups of prophecies received their present position
is certainly not clear at first sight ; plausible reasons are all
that can be given. The last-mentioned not unnaturally heads
the series of foreign oracles with its emphatic description of
the day of Jehovah — that day which is always coming anew,
whether Babylon or Assyria, Moab or Philistia, be its most
prominent victim ; while the group, chaps, xxiv.-xxvii., not
unsuitably closes it, since the restoration of Israel in which
these prophecies culminate is, in fact, the object of history
as viewed by Jehovah's prophets. There is also a striking
similarity between the closing verse (xxvii. 1 3) and the passage
(xi. 1 1-16) which concludes the predictive portion of the group
X. 5-xii. 6. As to chaps, xxxiv., xxxv., their wide and com
prehensive character fully explains their present position at
the end of what we may call the first book or volume of
Isaiah (chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix. being regarded as an appendix),
' Chap, xxxix. 6, with its reference to a ' carrying to Babylon,' forms a natural link
between the two halves of the book.

ESSAYS. 177
Chap, xxxv., in particular, would commend itself as a finale
to one of the most characteristic feelings of a Jew. We have
already seen how distressed the Rabbis were by the gloomy
tone of the last verse of chap. lxvi. On the other hand, such
a comforting word as ' They shall overtake gladness and joy,
trouble and sighing shall flee away,' would appear a most
appropriate epilogue to the works of so great a prophet.

With regard to the second part of Isaiah, the writer has
already stated that he cannot see his way to adopt any of the
current arrangements (vol. i. p. 237). The discourse no
doubt makes a fair show of continuity. There are none of
those headings which in the first part so rudely dispel the
dream of homogeneousness, and one can read on for a con
siderable way without any striking break in the thread of
thought. Besides this, there occurs at equal intervals in the
volume an expression which looks as if it were intended to
mark the close of a book, in the manner of a chorus or
refrain — ' There is no peace to the ungodly ' (xlviii. 22, lvii.
21), and the closing verse of the last chapter may be regarded
as repeating the idea of this refrain in a new and more
striking form. On this ground, Friedrich Riickert, scholar
as well as poet, suggested in 1831 a division of the prophecy
into three parts, each consisting of nine chapters ; and Rue-
tschi, a Swiss scholar, attempted, on this basis, to draw out
the design of the book, and to show that there was a unity,
not only of form, but of subject and of time.' This view has
met with a large measure of acceptance ; it flatters the natural
love of symmetry, and appears to accord with the supposed
fondness of the Jews for the number three (it gives three
books with three times three subdivisions). Voices on the
other side, however, have not been wanting, and chief among
these is Ewald's, who declares the popularity of Riickert's
view to be inconceivably perverse.^ It is, in fact, too simple,
too mechanical. Had it really the support of the contents,
Riickert, a dilettante student of the prophets, would hardly
have been the first to discover it. Nor are the writers who
hold with him at all at one among themselves as to the
arrangement of the prophecies within the three books.
Naegelsbach, for instance, the latest commentator on Isaiah,
' Theolog. Studien und Kritiken, 1854, p. 261 &c.
' So I suppose I may paraphrase the characteristic ' es ist im guten sinne unbe-
greiflich ' (Ewald, Die Propheten, iii. 29, note 2).
VOL. II. N

178 ^/ESSAYS.
only admits five discourses in the last book, and Prof. Birks
prefers a sevenfold to a ninefold subdivision. Approaching
the book with disenchanted eyes, we see that there is a much
larger number of interruptions of continuity than Riickert's
division supposes ; and, while granting the importance of the
division at xlviii. 22, we can attach comparatively little weight
to that at lvii. 21, chap. lvi. 1-8 being closely akin to chap, lviii.,
and even chap. lvii. not so violently separated from the next
chapter by its subject-matter as, for instance, lvi. 8 from lvi.
9, and chap. lxii. from chap, lxiii. We cannot, indeed, suppose
that the occurrence of the same striking verse at equal inter
vals is purely accidental. But may it not be that the two
verses at the end of chap. lvii. were added by an after
thought to gratify a fondness for external symmetry ? that
the original prophecy ended at xlviii. 22,' and that the re
mainder of the book grew up by degrees under a less per
sistent flame of inspiration ? This view clearly involves no
disparagement to the spiritual importance of the latter
prophecies, the importance of which stands in no relation to
their technical perfection.
It is the frequency with which the thread of thought is
broken which makes it, in my opinion, so difficult to offer a
satisfactory division of the latter part of Isaiah. Even in
chaps, xl.-xlviii. which are tolerably coherent, there are
several points at which it is quite uncertain whether or not
we ought to begin a new chapter : this is particularly the
case in chaps, xlii.-xlv. To me, indeed, it is tolerably clear
that xliii. i-xliv. 5 forms one section in itself, and xliv. 6-
xlv. 25 another. But when I find Delitzsch connecting xliii. '
I- 1 3 with chap, xiii., and Ewald, not only accepting chap.
xliv. as an independent section, but even forming xliv. 1-9
into a single paragraph, I am obliged to distrust my own
insight. In the portion beginning at chap, xlix., however, the
difficulties of distribution are much increased. The opening
chapter, no doubt, connects itself with the preceding part by
the obvious parallelism of verses 1-6 with xiii. 1-7, and down
to lii. 12 (see note below) there is no unusual break in the
continuity. But from lii. 13 to liii. 12 both style and ideas
become strikingly different (see p. 39). It seems to me clear
that, though not discordant with the other passages relative to
the Servant, this obscure and difficult section cannot have been
originally intended to follow chaps, xlix. i-lii. 12. Let any
plain, untheological reader be called upon to arbitrate ; I have
^ lii. 12 has equally the appearance of having been designed as the close of a
book. It would be a plausible conjecture that xlix. i-lii. 12 was originally meant as an
epilogue.

ESSAYS. 1 79
no doubt as to his decision. And this section does but
introduce a series of still more strikingly disconnected pas
sages which occur at intervals in the remainder of the book —
viz. lvi. I -8 ; lvi. 9-lvii. 2I ' ; lviii. i-lix. 21 ; lxiii. 1-6 ; lxiii.
7-lxiv. ; Ixv. ; Ixvi.^ The preceding commentary will, I hope,
have proved that these opinions are not thrown out loosely
and at random. But a mere glance is sufficient to show the
wide discordance of tone between chaps. Ix.-lxii. and the
passages to which I have just referred.

IIL THE CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN THE BOOK
OF ISAIAH.

I.
An influential modern writer upon the Old Testament,
whose name is now at least as often heard as that of Ewald,
has thought it necessary in the preface to his most considerable
work to defend himself against the charge of arguing points
of criticism upon concealed metaphysical premisses. He ob
serves in reply ^ that, if he were to introduce his researches
by an explicit statement of his theory of the universe, he
would make it appear that his critical method and results
are the outcome of his views on theology, and consequently
of no value to those who do not belong to his own school of
thought. The object of the present work, as has been stated
already, is mainly exegetical, and only indirectly critical ; but
it is, perhaps, for that very reason important to meet the ex
pectations of any section of its readers with more than usual
fi-ankness. For it is emphatically not a party-book, but de
signed to help as many students as possible to a philologically
sound view of the text, from which they may proceed, if they
are so disposed, to the fruitful investigation of the ulterior
critical problems. Most English books on Isaiah carry their
theological origin on their forefront ; this one can hardly be
said to do so. The same reason which weighed with Dr.
' The tone of lvii. 11J-21 is more in harmony with that of xl.-lii. 12, than the
earlier part of the chapter (see on lvii. 11 a).
' I cannot bring myself to beheve that chaps. Ixv.., lxvi,, in spite of their unde
niable points of contact, were written continuously, much less (see on Ixv, i) that they
were intended as a sequel to chap, lxiv. Even chap. lxvi. is not as a whole very co
herent ; compare vv. 1-5 with vv. 6-24.
' Dr. A. Kuenen, Historisch-kritisch onderzoek naar et ontstaan . . . van de boeken
des Ouden Verbonds (Leiden, 1861), vol. i. pp. vii. viii. of the preface,
N 2

1 8o ESSAYS.
Kuenen has influenced the writer. But as he has not thought
it right to express himself fully in the main body of the work,
he hastens to repair the omission in the supplementary portion.
' There is a philological exegesis, and there is a Christian '
(Preface, vol. i. p. vii.). In what sense this laconic aphorism
is intended, the present essay will show. Its scope, then, is
not polemical. The ' strife of tongues ' too often leads to the
' darkening of counsel,' and the essays on Biblical subjects
called forth by controversy have seldom been those which
have permanently advanced the sacred interests of truth.
After spending even a short time in the heavy air of contro
versial theology, the student is forced to exclaim with a kin
dred spirit among the prophets,' ' Oh that I had in the wilder
ness a lodging-place of wayfaring men ! ' And if in these
days of toleration he cannot join in the same prophet's watch
word, ' Fear is on every side,'^ yet the misunderstanding and
suspicion which from opposite sides meet the Biblical inves
tigator may well render him as reluctant to publish on ques
tions of the day as Jeremiah was to prophesy. Still there is
a worse fate than being misunderstood, and that is to be ' to
truth a timid friend ; ' and if the conclusions of this essay
should incur the reproach of triteness, yet there may be
something a little new and suggestive in the road by which
they have been reached. For they were certainly as great
a surprise to the writer as any of his results in the critical or
exegetical field, and, as the preceding commentary will have,
shown, he belongs to a school of interpretation mainly, at
any rate, composed of rationalists. It is true he has come to
believe in a definitely Christian interpretation of the Old
Testament, but this he thinks should be based entirely
upon the obvious grammatical meaning. To give even the
slightest stretch to a word or construction in deference to
theological presuppositions, is a fault of which he has an un
feigned horror. Believing personally in the Virgin-born, he
dares not render a certain famous text in Isaiah, ' The virgin
shall conceive ; ' and while accepting the narrative in Matt.
xxvii. 57-60, he scruples to translate another celebrated pas
sage, ' He was with the rich in his death.'
It will perhaps be said that all Biblical expositors are now
agreed in admitting the full supremacy of the grammar and
^ See Jer. ix. 2. Jeremiah was evidently a profound student of the writings of
inspired men, and has, 1 think, a better title than Ezra to be regarded as the father of
the Soferim (students of Scripture : A. V. 'scribes ').
2 Jer, vi, 25, XX. 3, 10, xlvi. 5, xlix. 29, comp, Ps, xxxi, 14, (Hitzig and Ewald
ascribe Ps, xxxi, to Jeremiah, It would, however, be too bold to assert that all pas
sages with affinities to Jeremiah were actually written by that prophet, who seems, in
fact, to have been the founder of a school of writers,)

ESSAYS. I 8 I
the lexicon. They are doubtless agreed in theory, but their
practice does not always correspond. I may seem to be un
necessarily earnest, and even, I fear, discourteous, and I am
eager to proceed to still more interesting matters. But even
this point has a degree of importance, and the evidence for it
cannot be relegated to a footnote. Let me refer, then, to the
two passages quoted above — Isa. vii. 14, liii. 9.' It is a fact
which I have myself emphatically stated, that the word 'almah
is used everywhere else of an unmarried woman. But it is also
a fact that this is only inferred from the context, and there is
nothing in Isa. vii. 14-16 to enable us to determine positively
whether the mother of Immanuel was a married or simply a
marriageable woman. We may, indeed, suspect from the form
of the prophecy that Isaiah ' saw something peculiar in her
circumstances ' (vol. i. p. 48) ; but we cannot venture to go an
inch further. Just as 'elem might legitimately be used of a
young man who happened also to be married, so might 'almah
be used of a young woman who was also a wife. It is stretch
ing language unduly, and converting translation into exegesis,
to exclude this full possibility with such a meagre context as
the prophecy of Immanuel.
With regard to the second passage referred to, a protest is
perhaps still more necessary, because two eminent scholars
(Dr. Delitzsch and Dr. Kay), while rejecting the ungramma
tical rendering of Vitringa (and Auth. Vers.), continue to
illustrate the passage by quoting Matt, xxvii. 57-60. How
this can be done without a violation of the rules of parallelism,
and an injury to the harmony of the style, it is difficult to
understand (see note p. 48). This, then, appears to be a case
of the involuntary nullification of a rendering by the exegesis,
and reminds us forcibly of the words of Scaliger, ' Non
aliunde dissidia in religione pendent, quam ab ignoratione
grammaticae.' I have ventured to use the phrase ' a definitely Christian
interpretation of the Old Testament. I do not thoroughly
like it, any more than I like the distinction between the na
tural and the supernatural. Both expressions, however con
venient and for purposes of classification indispensable, are
but provisional to those who have learned 'to sum up all
things in Christ ' (words which have happily not yet become
a -Shibboleth, and which have as profound a philosophical as
ireligious significance). Everything in the Old Testament
stands in some relation to Christ, whether ' definitely ' or not.
Nor is this all. Every revolution of the ancient heathen
' On the Christian interpretation of these passages, see below.

152 ESSAYS.
world, whether in politics or in thought, is a stage in its
journey towards that central event, which is the fulfilment of
its highest aspirations. Plato speaks almost as if he foresaw
the crucifixion,' and Seneca insists on the historic character
of the ideal wise man, ' even though within long periods one
only may be found. ^ As an accomplished historical theologian
has well said :
' The fact that such a character [as Jesus Christ], so unique,
so divine, should have come into the world, leads us to feel
that there surely must have been in earlier tinaes some shadows
at least, or images, to represent, dimly it may be, to former
generations that , great thing which they were not actually to
witness. It would lead us to believe that there must have
been some prophetic voice to announce the future coming of
the Lord, or else the very stones would have cried out.' '
But provisionally one must draw a distinction between
some foreshadowings, some prophecies, and others. There
are not, indeed, two Spirits of prophecy, the one for the Gen
tile, the other for the Jewish world ; but in our present condi
tion of ignorance it is at least not irrational to maintain that
the ' prophetic voices ' which announce the Messiah in the Old
Testament are so definite and distinct, and in such agreement
with history, as to prove that God has in very deed revealed
himself to Israel (not for Israel's sake alone) in a fuller sense
than to other nations.
It is not, however, everyone who is honestly able to come
to this conclusion. It depends on one's moral attitude to
wards the two great Biblical doctrines summed up in the ex
pressions ' the Living God,' and ' the God-man Jesus Christ'
If you believe heartily in the God of Revelation and of Pro
vidence, you are irresistibly impelled to a view of the Scrip
tures, which, though it may be difficult to demonstrate, is
none the less in the highest degree reasonable. It is only
half of your belief that the Biblical writers saw deeper into
spiritual things and spoke more forcibly of wbat they had
seen than ordinary men. It seems to you the most natural
thing in the world that, at important moments in the history
of God's people, and at the high-water marks of the inspira
tion of His prophets, typical personages should have been
' Plato, De republ., ii. pp, 361-2. It is just possible that Plato's imaginative pic
ture of the sufferings of the righteous man was inspired by the story of Osiris (though
the important detail of the resurrection is wanting) ; but from a Christian point of
view this most touching story is, in its post-mythic or spiritualised form, an unconscious
prophecy of the Gospel, Tertullian, I think, calls our Lord ' alter Osiris,'
^ Seneca, De constant., c. 7, § i.
5 Sermon preached in Westminster Abbey by the Very Rev. Dr. Stanley, Christmas
Day, 1879. (.Abstract in Daily Telegraph. Dec. 26.) On revising my work, Icannot
help adding, Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus Tam eari capitis?

E,SS.\YS. 183
raised up, and specially definite prophecies have been uttered.
Not that the laws of human nature were violated, nor that
Christian interpreters are to explain the prophets unphilo-
logically, but that God overruled the actions and words of
His servants, so as to cast a shadow of the coming Christ.
If, again, you believe in the true though ' veiled ' Divinity of
Jesus Christ, and humbly accept His decrees on all subjects
related to His Messiahship, you will feel loyally anxious to
interpret the Old Testament as He beyond question inter
preted it. You will believe His words when He says (and I
attach no special importance to the accuracy of this parti
cular report of His words, for the idea of it pervades all the
four Gospels) : ' The Scriptures are they which testify of me.'
You will reply to non-Christian critics, ' In spite of modern
criticism and exegesis, there must be some sense in which the
words of my Lord are true. He cannot have mistaken the
meaning of His own Bible, the book on which in His youth
and early manhood He nourished His spiritual life. He who
received not the Spirit by measure, cannot have been funda
mentally mistaken in tJie Messianic character of psalms and
prophecies.' In short, there are two fixed points with the class of
students here represented : i. that in order to prepare suscep
tible minds for the Saviour, a special providential guidance
may be presumed to have been given to the course of certain
selected lives and the utterances of certain inspired person
ages ; and 2. that this presumption is converted into a certainty
by our Lord's authoritative interpretation of the Old Testa
ment. To accept these two' fixed points is to many persons
a very real ' cross.' The torrents of ridicule which have been
poured out upon ' circumstantial fulfilments ' have left a
general impression that they can only be admitted by doing-
violence to grammar and context, which to a modern student
is nothing short of ' plucking out ' his ' right eye.' Hence
many 'liberal' theologians' have been fain to stunt their
religion in favour, as they suppose, of their philology, and their
example has been followed with less excuse by many who
are guiltless of special study. But must there not be some
mistake both on the side of the cross-bearers and of the cross-
' It is a pleasure to be able to except F. D. Maurice. Speaking of the attractive
ness to the Rabbis of the time of Christ of ' merely incidental ' statements, such as
Mic. V. 2, he observes, ' I do not see that it was any disparagement to their wisdom
that they recognised a divine order and contrivance even in such circumstances as
¦ these. . . . Devout men welcome such coincidences and recurrences as proofs that
they are under a divine education. Why should the like be wanting in a national
story ? Why should they not be noted in a book which traces all the parts of it as the
fulfilment of a divine purpose? ' (Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, p. 341.)

1 84 ESSAYS.
rejecters ? Can it be that human nature is ' divided against
itself,' and left to choose between intellectual and religious
mutilation ? Here at least scepticism is the truest piety. It
is the conviction of the writer that there is a ' more excellent
way,' and that the philological and the Christian interpretation
can be honestly combined, without any unworthy compromise.

The definitely Christian elements in the Old Testament
are mainly (not by any means entirely) of two kinds : i. fore
shadowings of special circumstances in the life of Christ,
occurring as it were casually in the midst of apparently
rhetorical descriptions ; and 2. distinct pictures of Jesus Christ,
the suffering Messiah. It is of the former that I speak at
present. We have a right to expect them, and we, as a
matter of fact, find them. But it must be remembered, in
deference to common sense, that the passages in which they
occur admit of another but a perfectly combinable interpre
tation. The object of special or circumstantial features in
an Old Testament description is primarily to symbolise the
character of the person or work referred to, and the literal
fulfilment of the clause or verse containing them in some
event of the life of Jesus Christ is a superabundant favour to
those who believe in the Providence of a ' Living God.' ' For
prophecy has in the first place to do with principles and
broad general characteristics, and only in the second with
details. This caution should be borne in mind to avoid
misunderstanding the sequel. — The special foreshadowings
spoken of are exemplified in no portion of the Old Testament
to the same extent as the Psalms ; they relate especially in
this book to scenes or features of the Passion. The following
references have already been given in the New Testament : —
Ps. xxxiv. 20, in John xix. 36 ;
Ps. xli. 9, in John xiii. 18 ;
Ps. xxii. 18,' in John xix. 24 (not Matt, xxvii. 35) ;
Ps. Ixix. 10, in Rom. xv. 3 ;
Ps. Ixix. 21, in John xix. 28.
But the Biblical writers have only given us specimens —
the parallelisms are both more numerous and more striking
than might be supposed from these few instances. In Ps.
xx.xv. II, we have a foreshadowing of the false testimony
against Jesus ; in Ps. xxii. 7, 8, Ixix. 12, of the revilings ; in
' Comp. Mr. C. H. H. Wright, Zechariah and his Prophecies, p. 239.
' Our Lord Himself regarded the whole psalm as prophetic of Himself, as we must
infer from His utterance of the opening words (Matt, xxvii. 46, Mark xv. 34).

ESSAYS. 185
Ps. xxii. 16, of the piercing of the hands and the feet (or, if the
other reading be adopted, the cruel, ' lion-like ' worrying of the
helpless prey); in Ps. Ixix. 21, of the offering of the gall and
vinegar. It should be observed that these parallels are not
such as can be disputed (like some of the Old Testament
references in the Epistles) on the ground of far-fetched
Rabbinic exegesis ; they are taken from psalms which, with
one exception,' are, as we shall see presently, in a very strict
sense Messianic, and, in fact, also supply instances of our
second class of prophecies — viz. distinct pictures of the "suffer
ing Messiah. It is of course possible to maintain ^ that the
whole of the narrative of our Lord's Passion was suggested
by reminiscences of these passages of the Psalms ; but the
conjecture would not be a plausible one, i. because of the
extreme casualness of the Psalm-parallels,' and 2. because the
whole of the Gospel-narrative, from the beginning of Mat
thew to the end of John, is pervaded by a parallelism to the
Old Testament. Yet Strauss himself did not suppose that
the whole narrative was a conscious or unconscious fiction on
the basis of Old Testament reminiscences. It may be con
tended, therefore, that the existence of these circumstantial
prophecies in the Book of Psalms confirms the view that there
are similar circumstantial prophecies in the Book of Isaiah.
That they were conscious prophecies the writer does not sup
pose, and to many they will only seem accidental coincidences.
It is their amount and quality which give them significance ;
and the full Christian explanation of them as due to Providen
tial overruling (a ' pre-established harmony ') is therefore in sole
possession of the field."
I have ventured to state my belief that the psalms to
which these circumstantial foreshadowings belong are Mes
sianic. Let me briefly explain my position. There is much
haziness in the minds of most persons as to the meaning
of the words Messiah and Messianic. I have, therefore,
first of all to state in what sense I use these expressions. I
think I am in harmony with the Biblical writers if I define
' The exception is of course Ps. xxxiv. , which is only Messianic in so far as any
characteristic utterance of a pious sufferer is in the highest degree true of Christ. But
the overruling of Providence is as manifest in the Hteral fulfilment of John xix. 36 as
in any other passage of the group.
* Strauss did in fact hold that Psalms xxii. and Ixix. , ' together with the extract
from Isa. liii,,' ' form, as it were, the programme according to which the whole history
of. the Crucifixion in our Gospels is drawn up' {New Life of Jesus, Eng. Transl.,
li. 369), ° I mean that except in the hght of the Gospel-narratives no one would have thought
of regarding these incidental phrases in the Psalms as anticipations of scenes in the
Passion, * See Delitzsch, 'Der Messias als Vcrsbhner,' Saat auf Hoffnung, 1866, pp. 116-
138, especially p. 136.

1 86 ESSAYS.
the word Messiah as meaning one who has received some
direct commission from God determining his life's work, with
the single limitation that the commission must be unique, and
must have a religious character. Thus Cyrus will not be a
Messiah, because ' his function was merely preparatory ; he
was to be instrumental in the removal of obstacles to the
realisation of [God's kingdom] ' (/. C. A., p. i66). An in
dividual priest will not be a Messiah, because he has received
no unique personal commission ; even the High Priest Joshua
is only represented as typical of Him who was to be pre
eminently the Messiah (Zech. iii. 8). David was a Messiah
(compare Ps. xviii. 50), because he was God's vicegerent in the
government of His people Israel ; the laws which David was
to carry out were not merely secular, but religious, and of
Divine appointment. Each of David's successors was in Hke
manner theoretically a Messiah. The people of Israel was
theoretically a Messiah, because specially chosen to show
forth an example of obedience to God's laws (Ex. xix. 5, 6),
and to preach His religion to the Gentiles (Isa. ii. 3, lv. 5).
Above all, a descendant of David who should take up the ill-
performed functions of his royal ancestors was to be, both in
.theory and in fact, the Messiah (Isa. ix. 6, 7, &c.) ; and so, too,
was the personal Servant of 'Jehovah (Isa. Ixi. i), who was
both to redeem His people from their sins, and to lead thern
in the performance of their commission.
Hence we may reckon five groups of Messianic psalms : —
I. Psalms which refer to a contemporary Davidic king,
setting him, either directly or by implication, in the light
of his Messianic mission. II. Those entirely devoted to the
future ideal Davidic sovereign. III. Those which relate to
the future glories of the kingdom of God, but without ex
pressly mentioning any Messiah. IV. Those which, though
seemingly spoken by an individual, in reality describe the
experiences of the Jewish nation in their unsteady performance
of their Messianic commission. V. Those in which, with
more or less consistency, the psalmist dramatically introduces
the personal and ideally perfect ' Servant of Jehovah ' (to
adopt the phrase in Isa. xiii. &c.) as the speaker.
On the first group there cannot be much difference of
opinion. It contains Psalms xx., xxi., xiv., ci., cxxxii. The
interest of the interpreter is more awakened by the second
group, containing Psalms ii., ixxii., ex. In Ps. ii. we are
presented first with a picture of the whole world subject to
an Israelitish king, and vainly plotting to throw off the yoke ;
then with the divine decree assuring universal dominion to

ESSAYS. 187
this particular king ; then with an exhortation to the kings
of the earth to submit to Jehovah's Son.' It is, I know,
commonly supposed that the psalm has a primary reference
to circumstances in the life of David, but the ordinary Chris
tian instinct seems to me much nearer the truth. Even
granting for the moment that the chiefs of the Syrians and
the Ammonites could be dignified in Hturgical poetry with the
title ' kings of the earth,' there is not the slightest indication
in 2 Sam. vii. or elsewhere, that a prophet ever conveyed an
offer to David of the sovereignty of the whole world. Even
Jewish tradition, so zealous for the honour of the Davidic lyre,
has not ascribed this psalm to David. Who, then, can the
Son of Jehovah and Lord of the whole earth be but the
future Messiah, whom the prophets describe in such extra
ordinary terms ? Why should we expect the psalms always to
have a contemporary political reference ? If one psalmist (see
below) takes for his theme the Messianic glories of Jerusalem,
why may not another adopt for his the glories of the Messiah
himself .¦¦
. The same arguments apply to Ps. Ixxii., which a Uni
tarian divine pronounces ' the most Messianic in the collection,'
adding that it ' is applied by Bible readers in general, with
out hesitation or conscious difficulty, to the Messiah of
Nazareth, as beautifully describing the spirit of his reign.' ^
The judgment of the plain reader is not to be lightly disre
garded, and though Mr. Higginson goes on to speak of ' its
true historic marks, which assign it distinctly to the accession
of Solomon,' other critics {e.g. Hupfeld) altogether deny these,
and the Messianic interpretation has not yet been satisfactorily
refuted. The psalm is not, indeed, a prediction (as King
James's Bible makes it), but is at any rate a prayer for the
advent of the Prince of peace and of the world. Ps. ex.,
again, is as a whole only obscure to those who will not admit
directly Messianic psalms. How significantly the first of the
two Divine oracles opens, with an invitation to sit on the
throne, 'high and lifted up' (Isa. vi. i), where the Lord
Himself is seated ! Can we help thinking of the 'El-gibbor
in Isaiah (ix. 6), and still more of the ' one like a son of man '
who ' came with the clouds of heaven,' and was ' brought near
before the Ancient of days ' (Dan. vii. 13)? True, that ' son
of man ' is not said to be a priest, but he agrees with the
personage in the psalm in that he is conceived of as in
heaven, and as waging war and exercising sovereignty on earth
' The Aramaic bar, not admitting the article, suited the unique position of the
personage spoken of
^ Higginson, Ecce Messias, p. 30.

1 88 ESSAYS.
from heaven. Neither in Daniel nor in the psalm is any
thing said about the Davidic origin of the high potentate,
but his nature and functions are clearly those of the Davidic
Messiah. The priestly character of the ' lord ' in Ps. ex. i can
be fully explained from Zech. iii. 8, vi. 11-13, where a priestly
element in the Messianic functions is distinctly recognised.
Over the third group I may pass lightly. It contains
some late psalms, such as xcvi.-c, in which the happiness of
being under Jehovah's personal government is celebrated, and
also Ps. lxxxvii., in which, chief among the Messianic privi
leges of Jerusalem, the conversion of the heathen is represented
as their being ' born again in Zion ' (comp. Isa. xliv. 5).
The fourth contains a number of psalms commonly re
garded as Davidic, and as typically Messianic, and some
which are merely supposed to describe the sufferings of a
pious individual. In both subdivisions the language is often
hyberbolical, which is explained in the case of the former by
the typical character of the writer, and the overruling influence
of the Spirit. A similar explanation might plausibly be
offered for the seeming hyperboles of the latter subdivision,
for every pious sufferer is in a true sense a type of Jesus
Christ. But it is much simpler to suppose that these psalms
really describe the experiences of the Jewish nation in the
pursuit of its Messianic ideal : the supposed speaker is a per
sonification. This is no arbitrary conjecture. The Jewish
nation and its divinely appointed ideal were, in fact, to the
later prophets and students of Scripture a familiar subject
of meditation. I need hardly remind the reader of the
' Servant of Jehovah ' in some parts of II. Isaiah, but may be
allowed to state my opinion that one principal object of the
Book of Jonah was to typify the spiritual career of Israel, and
that the so-called Song of Solomon was admitted into the
Canon on the ground that the Bride of the poem symbolised
the chosen people. Can we wonder that some of the psalmists
adopted a similar imaginative figure .''
One of the most remarkable of these psalms is the eigh
teenth. It is probable enough that the psalmist in writing it had
the life of David in his mind's eye ; but it would be unreasonable
to suppose that he merely wished to idealise a deceased king,
or even the Davidic family. The world-wide empire claimed
by the supposed speaker, and the analogy of cognate psalms,
are totally opposed to such a hypothesis. But when we con
sider that the filial relation to God predicated of David as
king in 2 Sam. vii. is also asserted of the Israelitish nation
(Ex, iv. 22, Hos. xi. i, Ps. Ixxx. 15), and that in Isa. lv. 3-5

ESSAYS. 1 89
the blessings promised to David are assured in perpetuity to
the faithful Israel, it becomes difficult to deny that David may
have been regarded as typical of the nation of Israel— Another
of these psalms is the eighty-ninth, which supplies further
evidence of the typological use of David. The psalmist has
been describing the ruin which has overtaken the Davidic
family, but insensibly passes into a picture of the ruin of the
state, and identifies ' the reproach of the heels of thine
anointed' {v. 51) with 'the reproach of thy servants ' {v. 50).
— Ps. Ixxi. is another important member of this group, as
anyone must admit who will candidly apply this key ; see
especially v. 20, where the reading of the Hebrew text is not
' me,' but ' us.' Perhaps also Ps. cii. may be added. The
expressions in vv. 3-9 are, some of them at least, far too
strong for an individual, whereas in the mouth of the perso
nified people they are not inappropriate. The words in z/. 23
'he hath shortened my days ' (virtually retracted in v. 28)
remind us of Ps. Ixxxix. 45 ; and those in the parallel clause,
' he hath weakened my strength in the way,' are perhaps an
allusion to the ' travail in the way ' of the Israelites in the
wilderness (Ex. xviii. 8). There are some reasons, however,
¦ for rather placing this psalm in the next group.
The remaining members of the fourth group are the so-
called imprecatory psalms ' {e.g. v., xxxv., xl., lv., lviii. Ixix.,
cix.). As long as these are interpreted of an individual
Israelite, they seem strangely inconsistent with the injunctions
to benevolence with which the Old Testament is interspersed.^
If, however, they are spoken in the name of the nation —
' Jehovah's Son,' their intensity of feeling becomes intelligible.
Certainly it was not ' obstinate virulence and morbid morose-
ness ' which inspired them, for ' each of the psalms in which
the strongest imprecatory passages are found contains also
gentle undertones, breathings of beneficent love. Thus,
" When they were sick, I humbled my soul with fasting ; I
behaved myself as though it had been my friend or brother."-
" When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting, that was
to my reproach." " They have rewarded me evil for good,
and hatred for my love ! " ' ^ And, ' finally in the most awful of
these psalms, the denunciations die away into a strain which,
in the original, falls upon a modern ear with something of
• Some of these psalms, however (xxxv., xl., lv., Ixix.), belong more properly to
the fourth group.
'' Ex. xxiii. 4, 5 ; Lev. xix. i8 ; Prov. xx. 22, xxiv. 17, 18, 29, xxv. 21, 22, comp.
Job xxxi. 29, 30.
3 Bishop Alexander, Bampton Lectures on the Psalms, i8y6, p. 53 (Ps. xxxv. 13,
Ixix. 10, II ; cix. 4, 5).

igo ESSAYS.
the cadence of pathetic rhyme {v'libbee kJialdl b'kirbee, " and
my heart is pierced through within me ").' '
Among the psalms not ascribed to David which belong
to this group is the forty-first, from which a quotation is made
in a Messianic sense in John xiii. i8. It is only the people
of Israel which can at once confess its former sins {v. 4),
and appeal to its present ' integrity ' {v. 1 2). — The fifth and
last group marks the highest level attained by the inspired
poets. It contains Ps. xxii., xxxv., xl., lv., Ixix., cii. I can
not think that the persistency of the traditional interpreta
tion, at any rate as regards the two first of these psalms,
is wholly due to theological prepossessions. In some of its
details, the traditional Christian interpretation is no doubt
critically untenable, but in essentials it seems to me truer
than any of the current literary theories. Let me briefly
refer to the twenty-second psalm, which presents such strik
ing affinities with II. Isaiah. In two respects it is distin
guished from most others of the same group ; it contains no
imprecations and no confession of sinfulness. It falls into
two parts. The first and longer of these is a pathetic appeal
to Jehovah from the lowest depth of affliction. The speaker
has been God's servant from the beginning {vv. 9, 10), yet
he is now conscious of being God-forsaken {v. i). Not only
are his physical sufferings extreme {vv. 14-17), but he is the
butt of scoffers and a public laughing-stock (vv. 6, 7). Who
his enemies are — whether heathen oppressors or unbelieving
Israelites — is not here stated, but from a parallel passage
(Ps. Ixix. 8) it is clear that the hostility arises, partly at least,
from the sufferer's fellow-countrymen. Only after long
wrestling with God does the psalmist attain the confidence
thkt he has been heard of Him {v. 21). At this point the
tone suddenly changes. The prayer becomes a joyous
declaration of the answer which has been vouchsafed, and a
promise of thank-offerings. ' But he does not end there.
He treats his deliverance as a matter of national congratula
tion, and a cause of more than national blessings. He not
only calls upon his fellow-countrymen to join him in his
thanksgiving {v. 23), but breaks out into an announcement
which draws the whole world within the sphere of his triumph
{vv. 27, 28, 31).'^ I need not stay to point out how unsuitable
is language of this description to any of the Israelites men
tioned in the Old Testament, and how unnatural it is that
the establishment of God's universal kingdom should be
' Ibid., p. 57. (It is not necessary to assume that the faithless friends in Ps. xxxv.,
lv. , are mere figures of speech. )
^ Maitland, The Argument from Prophecy (S. P, C. K.) pp. 95, 96.

ESSAYS. I 9 I
placed in sequence to the deliverance of an individual sufferer.'
The difficulties are strikingly analogous to those which meet
us in II. Isaiah.^ There, as here, some features of the de
scription seem to compel us to explain them of an individual
Israelite, while others remain unintelligible unless referred in
some way to the people of Israel, with its Messianic,^ mission
ary functions. There, as here, the deliverance of the sufferer
has a vital influence on the spiritual life, first of all of his own
people, and then of all mankind. There, as here, the newly-
acquired spiritual blessings are described under the figure of
a feast. Is it so very bold to explain Ps. xxii. and the psalms
like it as utterances of that ideal and yet most real personage,
who in II. Isaiah is the fruit, from one point of view, no doubt,
of special revelation, but from another equally justified and
perfectly consistent with the former, of an intense longing for
the fulfilment of Israel's ideal ? To assume that both the
sacred poets and the poet-prophet are feeling their way (not,
however, at random) to the presence of the Redeemer .' That
they have abandoned the hope of an earthly King of Israel,
and are conscious, too, that even the noblest members of the
nation are inadequate to the Messianic functions ? And that
hence they throw out in colossal outlines an indistinct because
imaginatively expressed conception of One who shall perfectly
fulfil these functions for and with his people ?
The above is but a bare statement of results, which, what
ever be their intrinsic value, may claim a certain degree of
attention on account of the process by which they were gained.
It is not often that a Saul, in searching for his father's asses,
finds a kingdom. The object of the special study, of which
these results are the principal fruit, was the composition of
a chapter in a literary history of the Old Testament. It now
appears to the author that they supply a sound basis for the
' Christian interpretation ' at any rate of the Psalter ; but this
is entirely an after-thought. That there is a mysterious x in
this wonderful book became clear to the author from a purely
' Hupfeld, I know, denies that the anticipations expressed in vv. 27-31 stand in
any relation to the deliverance of the speaker. But by this denial he destroys the
unity of plan of the poem ; it is certain, too, that the later O. T. writers often con
nect the conversion of the heathen with the sight of the wonderful deliverance of
Israel. And the very connection which Hupfeld denies in Ps. xxii., he grants in the
parallel passage in Ps. cii (vv. 16-18).
2 It would be instructive to make out a list of the numerous parallels in these
psalms to II. Isaiah and the Book of Job (for the author of Job, as we have seen, is
not without flashes of Gospel light). Comp. for instance, Ps. xxii. 6, ' I am a worm,'
with Isa. xli. 14, Job xxv. 6 ; ibiii. 'and no man,' with Isa. lii. 14, liii. 2 ; ibid. ' de
spised of people,' with Isa. xlix, 7 ; vv. 16, 17, with Job's descriptions of his sickness ;
vv. 26, 28 with Isa. Iv. i, 21. Vv. 27-29 also find their best commentary in Isa, lii.
14, 15.
3 On the sense of the word Messianic, see above, pp. 185-6.

192 ESSAYS.
literary point of view. Applying the key furnished by the
Christian theory, he then found himself in a position to ex
plain this mystery, and was further enabled to rediscover those
peculiar, circumstantial prophecies which are so natural and
intelligible upon the Christian presuppositions.

3-
Such being the case with the Psalter, are we not justified
in expecting corresponding phenomena in the Book of Isaiah,
viz. I. foreshadowings of special circumstances in the life of
our Saviour ; and 2. distinct pictures of Jesus Christ, the
suffering Messiah ? We may for our present purpose leave
on one side the question whether or not this book is of com
posite origin. It is at any rate a very comprehensive work,
by no means limited to the thoughts and prospects of the
age of Isaiah. Indeed, it may be called a text-book of pro
phetic religion, and strange would it be if belief in the
Messiah were the only dumb note in its scale.
The foreshadowings of special events in the life of Christ
pointed out in the Book of Isaiah by New Testament writers,
are even fewer in number than those in the Psalms. Com
pare the following passages :—
Isa. vii. 14, Matt. i. 23 ;
Isa. ix. I, 2, Matt. iv. 15, 16;
Isa. liii. 12 (fourth clause), Luke xxii. 37.
To these are added by the higher exegesis ' liii. 5 (first clause),
liii. 9, and the last clause of liii. 12 — added, we can hardly
doubt, in the spirit of the apostolic age, which, as the use of
Traw in Acts iii. 13, 26, iv. 27, 30, shows, interpreted the ' Ser
vant ' to mean Jesus Christ. Let me touch upon each of
these passages. [Add. 1. 6, comp. Matt. xxvi. 6y, xxvii. 30.]
(a) Isa. vii. 14. — It is true that the sign given to Ahaz
consists chiefly in the name and fortunes of the child Imma
nuel, but the mother is not to be left entirely out of account ^
(see note ad loc). Isaiah's ' dim intuition ' of something re
markable in the circumstances of the mother must, from a
Christian point of view, be ascribed to the ' Spirit of Christ
which was in ' the prophet (i Pet. i. 11). This is one part of
' If we admit the phrases ' higher ' and ' lower criticism, ' why not also ' higher ' and
' lower exegesis ' ? By ' higher exegesis ' I understand one which ' interprets prophecy
in the light of fulfilment, and develops the germs of doctrine in a New Testament
sense ' (Preface to vol. i.) ; it stands or falls with a belief in the predominant divine
element in prophecy.
^ I admit an error of judgment in /. C. A., p. 31.

ESSAYS. 193
the unexpected ' pre-established ' harmony between the verbal
form of the prophecy and its fulfilment. Another part is the
meaning of the name. Isaiah and Ahaz may have under
stood it to mean simply ' God is on our side ;' but the fulfil
ment in the Person of Jesus Christ revealed a depth of
meaning which Isaiah (though with 'El gibbor, ' God-the-
Mighty-One,' before us in Isa. ix. 6, we should speak hesi
tatingly) did not probably suspect.
{b) Isa. ix. I, 2. — It is most remarkable (and might at
first sight justify a suspicion of interpolation) that Isaiah, a
man of Judah, should have delivered this exuberant promise
to the border-districts of Israel, especially as their inhabitants
had most likely approximated more to heathenism than those
of the rest of Israel. The coincidence with the circumstances
of Jesus Christ is too remarkable to be explained away. The
Jews certainly inferred from this passage of Isaiah that the
Messiah would appear in Galilee.'
{c) Isa. liii. 12 (fourth clause). — The prophet merely meant
that the Servant of Jehovah was regarded as a transgressor ;
but by a providentially ' pre-established harmony ' the coinci
dence with facts is even literally exact. Such honour did the
Hand which moves the world put upon the words of prophecy.
{d) Isa. liii. 5 (first clause). — The context shows that by
' pierced ' the prophet intended to signify a violent death
accompanied by torture. As Vitringa remarks, ' there is no
word in Hebrew which can more appropriately be referred to
the torture of the cross of Christ.'
{e) Isa. liii. 9. — Dr. Weir observes, ' When the whole verse
is viewed in connection, there seems no reference fo the burial
of Christ in the grave of Joseph of Arimathea. It would,
indeed, be scarcely consistent with the spirit of the Bible,
which makes little account of the mere possession of riches,
to give prominence in the prophetic page' to the circumstance
of Christ's being buried in a rich man's grave. Surely it
added nothing to the glory of the Saviour to have His body
entombed in J oseph's sepulchre ; it was a high honour to
Joseph that he was privileged to supply a resting-place for
the body of Jesus ; but surely it did not add to the honour of
Jesus to lie in the rich man's tomb.' I need not repeat what
I have said above on the inconsistency into which some
eminent expositors appear to have fallen. Those who, like
Stier, appeal to the singular ' rich man ' in the second clause,
as indicating Joseph of Arimathea, forget that the alter-
' Eisenmenger, EntdecUes Judenthum, ii. 747. Delitzsch also refers to Literatur
blatt des Orients, 1843, col. 776.
VOL. U. O

194 ESSAYS.
nation of numbers is a characteristic Hebrew idiom (comp
Isa. X. 4).
(/) Isa liii. 12 (last clause). — This is one of the passages
which, from an evangelical point of view, place Isa. liii. as
much above Ps. xxii., as that psalm, owing to its complete
freedom from imprecations, is (as it may seem to us in some
of our moods) above Ps. Ixix. It received a fulfilment of
which the prophet could never have dreamed in Luke xxiii. 34.
Let us now turn to the other group of passages in Isaiah,
containing a distinctly Christian element, viz. the portraits of
the teaching, suffering, but in and through his suffering trium
phant Messiah (xiii. 1-7, xlix. 1-6, 1. 4-9, lii. 13-liii. 12). No
greater problem, whether we regard its intrinsic difficulty or
the importance of its issues, is presented to the Old Testa
ment interpreter than that of explaining these wonderful
passages. Their difficulty arises partly from the abruptness
with which they are introduced, partly from the apparent in
consistency of some of the expressions, partly (if we may
judge from the efforts of some to explain it away) from the
extraordinary distinctness with which the most striking of
them at any rate prefigure the life of Jesus Christ. Let us
first of all clearly understand the alternatives set before us.
{a) It is one source of difficulty, that the portrait-passages
are introduced abruptly. (There is an analogy for this, how
ever, in the abruptness of the two earliest Messianic pro
phecies in chaps, vii. and ix.). The alternatives in this case
are to suppose (i) that these passages are based on extracts
from a separate work, which, perhaps, contained a spiritualised
biography of the great martyr-prophet, Jeremiah ; and (2)
that the prophetic writer is carried beyond himself by a spe
cially strong inspiration of the ' Spirit of Christ.' The former
alternative is proposed by Dr. Duhm, of Gottingen.' The
theory partly agrees with that of Ewald, according to whom
xl. I, 2, lii. 13-liv. 1 2, lvi. 9-lvii. 1 1, were taken from an earlier
prophet, but the difference is sufficient to allow us to quote
Ewald's authority as opposed to the view of Dr. Duhm.
The objections to the latter are (i) stylistic (how, e.g., can
xiii. 1-6 be ascribed to a different author from the rest of the
prophecy .'); and (2) that the theory makes the prophet re
sponsible for gratuitously misleading his readers, {b) It is
also said that some of the expressions used of the Servant
are inconsistent. This may be explained, i. on the quota
tion-theory just mentioned ; 2. as due to a haziness in the
author's conception of the Servant (a view unfavourable to his
' Duhm, Die Theologie der Propheten (Bonn, 1875), p. 289,

ESSAYS. 195
poetic vigour, and not to be adopted without compulsion), or
3. on a subtle but beautiful and (as it seems to me) well-sup
ported theory to be mentioned presently, (c) Another source
of difficulty to some minds is the extraordinary resemblance
of the description to the Person of Jesus Christ. Here, again,
we have our choice of alternatives, (i) We may say with
Mr. Matthew Arnold, that this harmony between II. Isaiah and
the Gospels is perfectly natural. ' To a delicate and penetrat
ing criticism it has long been manifest that the chief literal
fulfilment by Christ of things said by the prophets was
the fulfilment such as would naturally be given by one who
nourished his spirit on the prophets and on living and acting
their words.' ' Or (2) we may hold that the Divine Spirit
overruled in such a way the mental process of the prophet
that he chose expressions which, while completely conveying
his own meaning, also corresponded to a future fact in the life
of Jesus Christ. This does not exclude us from searching
for a point of contact in the prophet's consciousness, and such,
I think, it will be possible to find.^ Nor does it prevent us
from accepting thankfully the element of truth in Mr. Matthew
Arnold's too self-eulogistic observation. The harmony be
tween Isaiah and the Gospels is, in fact, perfectly natural. But
it is also perfectly unique, and what is unique may in one
very good sense be called supernatural. And so we come
round again to the judgment of the plain reader, that the
hand of God is in this extraordinary correspondence, and as
we read the chapter afresh we are conscious of something of
the impression which it produced upon the Earl of Rochester,
whose vivid language is traceable in his biographer's report.
' He said to me,' says Bishop Burnet, ' that, as he heard it
read, he felt an inward force upon him, which did so enlighten
his mind, and convince him, that he could resist it no longer :
for the words had an authority, which did shoot like rays or
beams, in his mind ; so that he was convinced, not only by the
reasonings he had about it, which satisfied his understanding,
but by a power which did so effectually constrain him, that
he did, ever after, as firmly believe in his Saviour, as if he had
seen him in the clouds.' ^ 4-
With this striking confession, with which nothing need
prevent even a philologist from agreeing, it would be natural
' Arnold, Literature and Dogma (Lond., 1873), p. 114.
2 Some suggestions in aid of this are given in the Essay on the Servant of
Jehovah. ' Burnet's li''e of John Earl of Rochester (Lives and Characters, ed. Jebb, p.
229). O 2

196 ESSAYS.
to close this essay. Definitely Christian elements of the two
principal kinds mentioned above have, it is believed, been
found, without any injury either to common sense or to lite
rary exegesis, in the noblest of all the prophetic books. But
a few remarks seem at any rate expedient on what may be
called the secondary Christian elements in the Book of Isaiah
— secondary, only so far as they relate to doctrines, and not
to material, objective facts in the life of the Saviour. To
treat these fully would require a peculiar spiritual 'x^dpiafi.a,
not to mention the heavy demand which it would make on
the remaining space. Stier, with all his faults, still deserves
a most honourable place among Christian interpreters for the
spiritual insight with which he has treated this department of
exegesis, and to his important work I provisionally refer the
reader. Two of these ' secondary ' Christian elements, how
ever, imperatively require to be noticed.
(a) First, the divinity of the Messiah (I take the word
Messiah in an enlarged sense, thus including the truths em
bodied in the Messianic king, and in the personal ' Servant of
Jehovah '). Both parts of Isaiah give us to understand clearly
(and not as a mere inrovoidj that the agent of Jehovah in the
work of government and redemption is himself divine. Not,
indeed, the much-vexed passage in iv. 2, where, even if the
date of this prophecy allowed us to suppose an allusion to
the Messiah, ' sprout of Jehovah ' is much too vague a phrase
to be a synonym for ' God's Only-begotten Son.' But the
not less famous 'El gibbor in ix. 6 may and must still be
quoted. As Hengstenberg remarks, it ' can only signify God-
Hero, a Hero who is infinitely exalted above all human heroes
by the circumstance that he is God. To the attempts at
weakening the import of the name, the passage x. 21 ' [where
'Elgibbdr is used of Jehovah] 'appears a very inconvenient
obstacle.' ' And who can doubt that, granting the subject of
chap. liii. to be an individual, he must be an incarnation of
the Divine .' That such a conception — such a revelation — was
not opposed to primitive religious beliefs has been already
pointed out in the notes on ix. 6, xiv. 14.
{b) Next, Vicarious Atonement. It is not surprising that
most of those who deny the personal Servant are unwilling to
allow the presence of this doctrine in Isa. liii.'^ Yet in itself
' Christology of the Old Testament, iii. 88.
' In / C. A., p. 191, 1 fully admitted this idea, but my inadequate explanation of
' the Servant ' compelled me to give the vicariousness an artificial turn. For a survey of
the interpretations opposed to the full Christian one, see V. F. Oehler, Der Knecht
Jehova's im Deuterojesaia, ii, 66-136, To the list might now be added Riehm 's, in
his Messianic Prophecy (Eng. Transl. ), p. 147, and Albrecht Ritschl's, in his Die chrisl
liche Lehre von der Rechifertigung, &c., ii, 64, 65.

E.SSAYS. 197
it cannot be regarded as an unexpected phenomenon, nor
ought it to be described as a ' heathenish idea.' As Oehler
has well observed, ' That the intercession of the righteous for
a sinful nation is effectual, is a thought running through the
entire Old Testament, from Gen. xviii. 23 sqq. and Ex. xxxii.
32 sqq. (comp. Ps. cvi. 23, and subsequently Amos vii. I sqq^
onwards.' ' And though no doubt it is also stated ' that
guilt may reach a height at which God will no longer accept
the intercession of His servants ' (Jer. xv. i, comp. xi. 14),
yet this is not inconsistent with the idea of Vicarious Atone
ment, as even Christians understand it, and in chap, liii., the
blessings promised by the Servant (whatever we understand
them to be) are not promised unconditionally to every member
of the community.^ Now, intercession is one form of substi
tution. But there was another and a more striking form of
it constantly before the eyes of the Israelites in their sacrifices,
whether the taking of life was involved in them or not, for
the offerer was represented ' by his offering. And so the way
was prepared for the revelation (comp. Isa. liii.) of One to
whom a prohibition like that addressed to Jeremiah could not
apply, because He was not only perfectly righteous Himself,
but able, by uniting them mystically to Himself, to ' make
the many righteous ; ' of One whose sacrifice of Himself was
so precious that it could be accepted even for a people which
had deliberately broken its covenant with Jehovah, and which
therefore was legally liable to the punishment of extermina
tion. (Here the conception implied, as it would seem, by the
prophet passes, strictly speaking, beyond the range of the
sacrificial ideas of the Old Testament. For the law recog
nised no sacrifice for deliberate violations of the covenant.
Be it remembered, however, that even chap. liii. and the lead
ing New Testament writers make a distinction among those
who are equally liable to the legal sentence of death ; some,
though rebels, are at least susceptible of penitence.) It is true
that none of the other foreshadowings of Christ contain this
' Oehler, Old Testament Theology (Eng. Transl.), ii. 425.
2 See commentary on liii. 11 ( ' the many ').
5 In every case of a sacrifice (whether with or without shedding of blood) there is
representation (or, using the word loosely, ' substitution '). But we must carefully
guard against an error of the older divines, viz. that when a victim was put to death, it
was as a substitute for the penal death of the sacrificer. This view is now generally
abandoned by Old Testament scholars. The truth is that the blood, according to the
Hebrew conception, is the vehicle of the ' soul ' (Lev, xvii, 11), and the shedding of
the blood of the victim signifies the offering of its hfe in place of the life of him who
offers it. The pure 'soul' of the victim 'covers' (19?) or atones for the impure
'soul' of the offerer ; the innocence of the one neutralises the sin of the other. (It
must be remembered, however, that the verb in question sometimes has for its subject
Jehovah, especially in tbe Psalms ; God ' covers' or cancels sin, without our being told
how this is possible).

198 ESSAYS.
characteristically (though not exclusively) Christian element
of Vicarious Atonement. But that constitutes no reason why
it should not occur once. In fact, it is really necessary that
it should occur somewhere, to explain that wonderful psalm
which, next to Isa. liii., contains the clearest anticipation of
Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, for there is a gap between
the former and the latter pdrt of Ps. xxii., which can only
be filled up by assuming the Vicarious Atonement from Isa.
liii. The writer of the psalm foresaw, as it were in a vision,
the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, but
it was not revealed to him how those sufferings produced so
immense a result. His spiritual intuitions were true, but
limited. But the prophet of the Servant of Jehovah saw
further, and it is upon this ground especially that he has been
rightly called an Evangelist before the Gospel.

IV, THE ROYAL MESSIAH IN GENESIS.
It is a singular fact that the prophet Isaiah should be at once
so communicative and so reserved on the subject of the Royal
Messiah; The prophecies in chaps, ix. and xi. are so distinct
and vivid, that we naturally look for more revelations in the
same lofty style. Whatever be the reason, whether some
prophecies on the Messiah have been lost, or whether Isaiah
did not regard his audience as sufficiently prepared for further
teaching — our expectations are unrealised. I venture, how
ever, to adduce a specimen of an early Messianic prophecy
of the same type as those in Isa. ix., xi., which, as it seems to
me, has been much misapprehended. Here, again, there is
reason to suspect that the instinct of simple Christian readers
has led them nearer to the true meaning than the critical
researches of ' liberal ' divines. Some qualifications, indeed,
are necessary in my opinion to the traditional Christian view.
These will be explained in the following essay, which will
probably be new to most readers, though the substance of it
has already appeared in a theological paper.'
It is necessary to mention that I had at first a strong pre
judice irt favour of the rendering, ' until he (or, one) come to
Shiloh,' which is certainly the most natural meaning of the
four Hebrew words taken by themselves; And what event
was so likely to be referred to in this group of historical and
descriptive songs (whether we regard Gen. xlix. 3-27 as really
' Theological Review, 1^75, pp. 300-306.

ESSAYS. 199
the work of one man, or as a collection of ancient popular
songs, ascribed by a poetical fiction to Jacob, makes no differ
ence to the argument) as the assembly of the tribes of Israel
at Shiloh (Josh, xviii. i), when 'the land had been subdued
before them ' ? Indeed, the closing words of this very verse
(Gen. xlix. 10) inevitably suggest a comparison with the
words just quoted, and therefore favour the view that it is the
assembly at Shiloh which is referred to. We cannot, indeed,
interpret ' until ' in the most obvious of its possible meanings.
It cannot signify that the ' sceptre ' of Judah was to be re
signed at the point of time referred to. Occurring as the
clause in question does in the midst of an unqualified eulogy
of the tribe of Judah (contrast the sayings on the less fortu
nate tribes of Simeon, Levi, and Issachar), it can only be
intended to mark a great increase in the power of Judah,
otherwise the blessings already promised would be neutralised.
I therefore took the passage to mean, ' Judah shall be always
the head of the tribes of Israel, which, under her valiant
leadership, shall vanquish the tribes of Canaan, and celebrate
their victories by a solemn assembly at Shiloh.'
But the question at once arose, How far do the traditions
of the Israelites agree with this conjectural paraphrase? First,
Did Judah enjoy the priority among the tribes of Israel be
fore the meeting referred to in Joshua ? and, secondly. Did
she succeed in maintaining, and more than maintaining, that
priority afterwards ?
There are some plausible arguments for answering both
questions in the affirmative, i. It is true that the personal
leadership of the Israelites in their wanderings was not in the
hands of a Judahite, but in those first of a Levite, and then
of an Ephraimite. It is true also that on various solemn
occasions Judah appears as low as third or fourth in the list
of tribes (Numb. i. 7, 26, xiii. 6, xxvi. 19; Deut. xxvii. 12),
the order being regulated by the seniority of the sons of Jacob.
On the other hand, Judah is the most numerous of all the
tribes at both the censuses (Numb. i. 27, xxvi. 22), and it is
only natural to expect that its superiority in numbers would
give it a priority de facto, if not de jure, whenever peculiar
zeal and energy were requisite. And this we find to have
been actually the case. The tribe of Judah took the lead in
pitching the tents on the arrival of the Israelites at a halting-
place and removing them on their departure (Numb. ii. 3, x.
14). It was, again, the captain of the Judahites who had the
privilege of making his offering to the tabernacle on the first
day (Numb. vii. 1 2). And when the territory of Canaan was

200 .ESSAYS.
portioned out among the tribes by Jo.shua, it was Judah who
received the first 'lot' (Josh. xv. i). 2. The very first thing
which is related after the death of Joshua is a privilege ac
corded to the Judahites. ' The children of Israel,' we are
told, ' asked Jehovah, saying, Who shall go up first against
the Canaanites ? And Jehovah said, Judah shall go up '
(Judg. i. 2). The privilege is renewed in the war against
Benjamin (Judg. xx. 18). A long interval elapses before the
greatest of the heroes of Judah appears on the stage in the
person of the second Israelitish monarch.
It would seem, therefore, at first sight as if the men of
Judah had enjoyed a sufficient priority among the tribes to ac
count for the enthusiastic language of the ' Blessing of Jacob.'
But there are two objections to this view. I. The assembly
of Shiloh, of which, indeed, we have but very scanty informa
tion, was not so manifestly a turning-point in the history of
Judah as to explain this decisive promise of imperial rule ;
and, 2. the words ' and unto him ' ought, by the rules of
parallelism, which are adhered to in this chapter with unusual
strictness, to refer to the subject of the verb in the preceding
line. The next question is, Wha.t other meaning can ' coming
to Shiloh ' have .' Dr. Kalisch, one of our most prominent
English critics, understands it to refer to the election of Jero
boam as king by the northern tribes ; Tuch, Hitzig, and Dozy
to pilgrimages to Shiloh, which the pious imagination of the
supposed song-writer represented as perpetual — though, by
the way, the Shiloh of Dozy is very remote from that of
Tuch and Hitzig, being no other than the Arabian Mecca!'
The main objection to both these explanations is that they
compel us to put an unnatural sense on ''? ly, whether, with
Kalisch and Luzzatto, we render ' even when ' {a), or, with
Tuch and Hitzig, ' as long as ' (b). With regard to {a), al
though iy does not necessarily introduce a terminus ad quem,
it does imply that the act or state which it introduces is inti
mately connected with that described by the preceding verb.
And it would be absurd to say that the accession of Jeroboam
was in any way connected with the sceptre not departing from
( = remaining with) Judah. Against {b) it must be urged that
• Mr. Samuel Sharpe, I think, has suggested that ' coming to Shiloh ' may allude
to some historical event not recorded in the Old Testament, which took place at the
temple of Shiloh (as to this temple see i Sam. i. 9, Jer. vii. 12, xxvi. 6, 9), and re
marked that the genealogist in i Chron. vi. appears deliberately to avoid any mention
of Eli and Shiloh, in accordance with the natural jealousy of later writers for the ex
clusive sanctity of the temple at Jerusalem. But though there are many omissions
in the historical part of the Old "Testament (history not being the primary object of
ils authors), I doubt if an actual turning-point in the fortunes of Judah and of the
Israelites could or would have been entirely ignored.

ESSAYS. 201
the sense is contrary to Hebrew usage. And there is this
further objection to Tuch's explanation, that the regular word
for pilgrimages and solemn journeys of any kind is, not simply
to ' go,' but to ' go up ;' comp. Ex. xxxiv. 24 ; i Sam. i. 3, &c.;
Isa. ii. 3 ; Deut. xvii. 8.
Failing to be satisfied with the geographical meaning of
Shiloh, some have tried to extract from it some other sense,
such as ' rest-bringer ' (as Hengstenberg formerly) ; or ' rest,'
or ' place of rest ' (as Kurtz). Colenso and Delitzsch (for
once united) adopt Kurtz's view, so far as the meaning of
Shiloh is concerned, but think it is used here with a double
meaning (Shiloh the town and ' resting-place '), ' to render the
oracle more mysterious,' as the former thinks. And they
compare the supposed play upon the name of Shechem in
Gen. xlviii. 22. The objection is, that while Shechem is
known to have been used in the sense of ' back,' Shiloh is not
known in that of ' rest.' There is absolutely no authority for
such an uTra^ Xsyofisvov. It would really be a less violent
assumption to suppose that an Ephraimitish scribe (or editor)
had substituted ' Shiloh ' for ' Hebron ' (just as in Deut. xxvii.
4, the Samaritans changed ' Ebal ' into ' Gerizim '), for it was
the coronation of David at Hebron which formed the true
turning-point in the fortunes of Judah (see 2 Sam. v. 3).
Two other explanations have a claim to be m.entioned
from their ingenuity. One is a very old guess, quoted from
the Rabbinical compilation called the Yalkut, by Delitzsch,
' until he come whose;is tribute ' (i^ V, cf. Ps. Ixviii. 30, Hebr.),
which involves no interference with the received text, except
dividing the group of letters. The other is that of Matthew
Hiller,' a learned German Orientalist of the eighteenth cen
tury, 'until there come his (Judah's) asked one ' (n^'E'=nS*NEf,
comp. I Sam. i. 17), thus forming a parallel to Mai. iii. i,
'the Lord whom ye seek.' Both explanations imply that
the writer of Gen. xlix. 10 had a clear and vigorous belief in
the advent of the Messiah. This, in fact, seems to me certain,
whatever be the construction of the disputed clause ; other
wise how can one make sense of the passage .' It is also
confirmed by the last line, which reminds One strongly of the
Messianic promise in Ps. ii. 8.
But I am not prepared to accept either of the above ex
planations. They are both founded on a late form of the
text, the older form being not n^'tJ', but m'i). The former
' Onomastica Sacra (Tubingae, 1706), p. 911. Prof de Lagarde (whom no one
will suspect of* theological prejudice) has independently proposed the same explanation
in his own Onomastica Sacra (Gottingen, 1870), ii. 96.

202 ESSAYS.
would require the relative ; the latter has against it the elision,
which we should hardly expect in a word which it was so im
portant to make intelligible. And, above all, neither of them
accounts for the phenomena of the ancient versions.
The facts about the versions are briefly these. There are
two renderings, both claiming the authority of the Sept., to,
aTTOKSt/jbsva avTw and m airoKsnai. The former rendering is
also that of Theodotion ; those of Aquila and Symmachus
are unknown (in spite of the commentators), as Dr. Field has
pointed out in his edition of the Hexapla fragments. The
Targums of Onkelos and Jerusalem render, 'whose is the
kingdom ; ' the Syriac and Saadya, ' whose it is ; ' the Vulgate
' qui mittendus est,' i.e. either n>^, of which Siloam (' which
is, by interpretation. Sent,' John ix. 7) is a collateral form, or
the passive participle u?^. From these renderings together
we may safely infer (i) that the earliest known form of the
Hebrew did not read rh^^, and (2) that there was a wide
spread exegetical tradition explaining the passage of the
Messiah. Most critics have drawn a third inference, viz. that
the text followed by the versions had vB*, which, as some
think, means Shiloh, or, as others, is another way of writing
I7B', i.e. with vowel-points, Sw, 'whose.' But we have al
ready seen that Shiloh does not make a satisfactory sense,
and pointing i?^' involves two difficulties : (i) the abbrevia
tion of the relative, which seems to be peculiar ' to the
Hebrew of the northern tribes and to the debased Hebrew
of Ecclesiastes, and (2) the ellipsis ' whose ' for ' whose is the
kingdom/ which I suppose is unexampled for boldness in any
language.^ The second difficulty is in my opinion insuperable.
Nor can it, I think, be called probable that the Septuagint
translator of Genesis (a fairly good scholar, be it remembered)
should have extracted such a meaning as to, airoK. axnSi or
w airoK. from such a miserable scrap of a sentence as w.
Must he not (and compare in this connection the other versions
quoted above, except Vulg.) have either known or half-con-
sciously divined that something had dropped out of the text ?
If he had the same text that we have, he may have supplied
either N-W {soil. ta^B'in) or more thoughtfully Da^i?n from
Ezek. xxi. 32 (A. V., 27), which most regard as an allusion to
' Job xix. 29 would be an exception, if {'^{J* were correct. But there is reason
upon reason against admitting this (see Dillmann ad loc).
'' Wellhausen's theory presents only the first of these difficulties. He would pro
nounce i^tj", and strike out ^-i') as an intrusive various reading. But this has the
effect of spoiling the parallelism, and making v. 10 less symmetrical than vv. g, 11 (see
Geschichte Israels, i. 375).

ESSAYS. 203
the passage before us. But it is quite as possible that he
found in his copy of the Hebrew a word before, rh (1^), of
which c is but a fragment, the rest of the word having be
come obliterated, as is so often the case in ancient manuscripts.
The disconnected letters would naturally be drawn together,
as perhaps in Job xxvii. 1 8, xiii. 8, and other instances quoted
by Dr. Merx.' The latter alternative is clearly preferable, as
it avoids the abbreviation of the relative (see above). There
still remain two questions, but these can easily be answered :
(i) What words are there in Hebrew meaning 'to lay up'
(airoKsifiai) and containing a B* ? Answer : Two ; rf?' (Symma
chus renders HE', used impersonally, in Hos. vi. 11, by diro-
Ksirai), and D-1'E', comp. Assyrian simtu, ' destiny.' (2) What
construction admits of being equally well rendered to, airo-
Ksifisva aiirS and w airoKsiTat ? Answer : 3rd sing, masc,
perf. or imperf. Hofal followed by V, the relative being sup
plied either with the verb, or with the preposition and pro
nominal suffix. If so, the probably true reading will be neither
nW nor rhf (iW), but either Ch) r6 nw or, as Dr. Ronsch has
already suggested for the reading of the Sept.,^ (i?) n? DSJ'-l'.
And we thus obtain a prophecy, in flowing, parallelistic rhythm,
of that ideal. Messianic king, whom Isaiah saw in prophetic
vision, and of whom he said that ' his rule should be ample '
(ix. 7), and that 'unto him should the nations seek' (xi. 10).
Render therefore —
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
Nor the staff (of authority) from between his feet,
Until he come for whom it (i.e. the dominion) is appointed.
And to him be the obedience of peoples,
the meaning of which will be, ' The dominion granted to
Judah shall only give place to a far wider monarchy, viz. that
of the Messiah.'
[Two observations by way of appendix. — i. That the
above explanation does not stand or fall with the hypothesis
as to the existence of a fragment of an older reading in the
Hebrew MS. used by the Sept. translator — the corruption of
the text may have been complete before the Sept. version of
Genesis was made ; and 2. that if this explanation be rejected,
we must, I fear, go back either to Mr. Sharpe's hypothesis (see
p. 200, note '), or to my own alternative suggestion of the sub
stitution of ' Shiloh ' for ' Hebron,' both of which are far more
violent, and therefore, in my opinion, far less acceptable.]
' Das Gedicht von Hiob (Jena, 1871), pp. liii.-lvi. of the introduction.
- Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theologie, x%T2, p. 291. Dr. Ronsch does not
give the steps by which he reached his conclusion, but it was his suggestion which
started my own train of thought in the latter part of this essay.

204 ESSAYS.
V. THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH.

Who has not heard of ' one of the great results of German
criticism ' that the personage called the ' Servant of Jehovah '
is not really an individual at all, but a collective term for the
Jewish people ? And that the view which formerly prevailed
was due to a theological prejudice in favour of orthodox
Christianity ? Such at least is the form in which popular
writers set forth this ' result,' though their teachers at any
rate are too learned to maintain the second, contrary to the
notorious facts of early Jewish exegesis.' Now Strauss and
Dr. Kuenen (whose names may in the present context with
out offence be combined) are both extremely able critics,
but both, as it seems to me, more skilful in the analysis of
composite literary works than in fellow-feeling {Nachempfind-
ung, to borrow an expressive German word) for the imagi
native conceptions of great poets. The facts, in the lan
guage of a Review not usually favourable to orthodoxy, may
be briefly stated thus : — ' " The Servant of Yahveh " is, at
least sometimes, a collective term for the people of Israel.
He is, however, at other times described in language quite
unsuitable to a body of persons. The Christian view' [in
its crudest form, which rejects points of contact for revelation
in the consciousness of the prophets] 'is opposed to the
analogy of Hebrew prophecy. What third theory is open ? ' ^
The ' Westminster Reviewer ' here complains of ' liberal critics '
for 'not having given enough attention to the phenomena
which partly prevent a more general acceptance of their own
views.' He charitably conjectures that there is something in
the opposition of conservative critics besides theological re
pulsion, viz. a sense that the ' collective ' theory does not do
justice to the most salient and impressive passages devoted to
' the Servant.' And does not this suggest the real point of
difference between the two sides, viz. that Dr. Kuenen starts
from the passages in which the conception of ' the Servant '
is least developed, and conservative critics from the highest
points which the prophet's poetic intuition (not to speak
theologically) has reached .¦• And is it not fairer to estimate
a poet's ideas rather by their strongest than by their weakest
expression— rather by the passages in which he has fully
1 Strauss, New Life of Jesus, Eng. Transl., i. 314-8 ; Kuenen, The Prophets and
Prophecy in Israel, pp. 221-2. Comp. Neubauer and Driver, The Jewish Interpreters
&f Isaiah liii.
' Westminster Review, Oct. 1875, p. 475.

ESSAYS. 205
found his voice, than by those in which he is still labouring
after fitting accents ?
The exegetical facts have been sufficiently laid before the
reader in the preceding commentary. It has, I hope, been
shown that ' the Servant ' is neither exclusively the people of
Israel as a whole, nor the pious portion of it, nor the class
of prophets, nor any single individual, but that some form of
conception must be found which does justice to the elements
of truth contained in all these theories. In my earlier work '
I was captivated by an extremely tempting theory of Ewald,
which has hardly met with the attention which it deserves.
' Sometimes,' I said, ' the prophet views the people of Israel
from an ideal, sometimes from a historical point of view.
Hence in several important sections the " Servant of Jeho
vah " (like the Zion of xl. 9, &c.) is. a purely poetical figure,
personifying the ideal character of the pious Israelite,
and decorated by the prophet with all the noblest achieve
ments of faith, whether actually realised in the past, or merely
hoped forfrom the future' (/. C.A., p. 155). This theory does
not exclude the possibility that some features in the descrip
tion may have been taken from individual righteous men (such
as Jeremiah), just as Dante in his pilgrimage through the
unseen world is at once a banished Florentine and the repre
sentative of humanity ; and as Calderon's Philotea is said to
be sometimes the ideal of the Church, and sometimes a single
soul. But I erred, and Ewald erred, in regarding this per
sonage as a ' purely poetical figure.' The truth in the theory
is, that ' the Servant ' does in reality embody the highest
qualities of the Israelite^he is not merely a collective term.
But the truth which it has entirely missed is, that the prophet
actually sees as it were in vision (such is the strength of his
faith) the advent of such an ideal Israelite. And one whole
side of the difficulty connected with the Servant it has left out
of view, viz., the application of the very same term to the
actual people of Israel. Well may the ' Westminster Re
viewer' call out for some fresh theory to reconcile the
apparently conflicting phenomena !
I believe myself that the theory of Delitzsch and Oehler
(see vol. i. p. 259) meets the requirements of the case ; but
that it admits of a fuller and more complete justification than
those eminent scholars have supplied. I reached it myself
from the starting-point of the fragment of truth taught me
' A complete retractation of the writer's former opinions might justly exp.ose him
to the charge of instability. But in his present view he hopes to retain the element of
truth in his former position. The most widely known living commentator on Isaiah
(Dr. Delitzsch) has himself not always held his present theory. See above, p. 40.

2o6 ESSAYS.
by Ewald. Let me attempt to explain the course of my
thought. — I. The tfuth in Ewald's theory (as I ventured to
state above) is, that ' the Servant ' in the finest and therefore
regulative passages does really embody the highest Israelitish
ideal. We Aryans of the West are accustomed to draw a
hard and fast line between the ideal and the real ; but the
unphilosophical Israelite made no such distinction. The
kingdom of God he regarded as really in heaven, waiting to
be revealed ; and so the ideal of Israel was to an Israelite
really in heaven, in the super-sensible world, waiting for its
manifestation. But in order to be real, this ideal must at the
same time be personal. This is one important elemejit in
the solution of our question. — 2. Next let us consider the
state of mind of the Jewish exiles, for whom (as all agree)
chaps, xl.-lxvi. of Isaiah were (mainly, at any rate) written.
During the interruption of the ceremonial system they felt
the want of a more spiritual type of religion, and above all
of a new ideal, high enough for veneration, but not too high
to be imitated. They belonged, as we have seen to an ima
ginative race, prone to symbolism, and averse to abstract con
ceptions. One of their number, less absorbed than some in
the national traditions,' and not without some flashes of the
light of the Gospel, produced a wonderfully striking type of
character, divested of everything Israelitish in appearance, into
which he flung in profuse abundance the new divinely-inspired
thoughts which were craving for utterance. The result (as
after long thought I have satisfied myself) was the poem of
Job, in which Job is the type of the ideal righteous man,
' made perfect through suffering. But there were others who,
with all their admiration for Job, retained an overpowering
interest in the national institutions. One of these was a
prophet, for the author of the 40th and following chapters of
the Book of Isaiah, as all will agree, either is one of the Jewish
exiles, or (to use the language of Delitzsch) 'leads a life in
the spirit among the exiles,' reaching in the power of the
Spirit across the centuries to the contemporaries of the author
of Job. Others were psalmists ; for it must, as we have seen,
be admitted, that some at least of the psalms refer, not to a
historical individual, but (in different shades of the concep
tion) to an ideal and yet (in the psalmist's mind) real repre
sentative of the people of Israel. 3. Here I come to the
point where I have felt obliged to diverge from Ewald. These
' That the pubhcation of the ' Book of the Law ' by Ezra presupposes a long
study of the Pentateuchal (or Hexateuchal) narratives and laws, and a band of patient
students, all critics will probably agree.

ESSAYS. 207
devout and inspired men were acutely sensible of the incom
petency of the actual Israel for the embodiment of the newly
revealed ideal. They felt that, if expressed at all, it must be
through a person ; and the longings which they felt for the
appearance of such a person, and their faith that Jehovah had
not deserted his people, prepared their minds for a special
revelation that such a Person would appear. Only it was not
in a definite prediction that their newly attained conviction
found expression. Theirs was rather a presentiment {Ahnung)
than a clear view of the future, and hence a certain vagueness
in it, which, however, almost if not quite disappears at the
two highest points of the Old Testament revelation. Psalm
xxii. and Isaiah liii. It was not, therefore (as I once thought),
the ideal and yet real Genius of Israel, who preached to an
unbelieving generation, who was slain but not given up to the
power of Hades, and for whom an endless life and a posterity
were reserved — but a literal human being perfectly righteous
himself, and able therefore to ' make the many righteous.'
Thus much to account for the assertion that in the more
salient and elaborate passages' the ' Servant of Jehovah' is the
historical Redeemer of Israel and the world. I am not with
out hope that the difficulty felt by some in conceiving of such
a surpassing revelation may have been relieved by showing
the point of contact for it in the mind of the prophet. The
remaining portion of the theory of Delitzsch and Oehler does
not seem to require a lengthened justification. In xiii. 19
and xliii. 10 the ' Servant ' is evidently the people of Israel as
a whole ; while in xli. 8, 9, xliv. i, 2, 21, xiv. 4, and xlviii. 20,
it is the kernel of the nation, the spiritual Israel. No doubt
' Servant of Jehovah ' was a common prophetic title for the
people of Israel, and the sublime interpretation given to it
sometimes in chap, xlii.-liii. is superimposed upon this. It
was the fact that Israel did not act up to his title ' Servant of
Jehovah,' which filled the pious exiles with a longing for a
person who should realise it, and by redeeming the Israelites
from their sins enable them to realise it likewise. Difficult
it was of course to imagine how such a redeemer could arise.
' Oh for a clean among the unclean ! ' cried mournfully one of
the inspired writers among the exiles (Job xiv. 4). Yet he
must be ' bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh ; ' else how
can he offer himself a sacrifice for us, and be our teacher ?
The prophet in Isa. liii. leaves the solution of the problem to
God ! he trusts Him who cannot abandon His people to pro
duce such an Israelite. And here is the point of contact
' These are xiii. 1-7, xhx. 1-9, 1. 4-10, Ui. 13-liii. la.

208 ESSAYS.
between the personal and the national ' Servant of Jehovah,'
viz. that the person is, strange as it seems, the mature product,
the flower and fruit, of the Jewish nation. If all this has a
New Testament sound, if Jesus Christ, der grosse Jude, as
Zinzendorf calls him,' answers to this description, so much
the better ! But the present writer, at any rate, started from a
point of view — viz. that of Ewald — which is not in the faintest
degree theological. Is not the theological prejudice rather
on the side of our liberal critics ? Why should they grant
the personality of the Messiah (who might surely be a ' col
lective term ' ; comp. Isa. xxxii. i, 2), but not that of the Ser
vant ? May not one of their motives unconsciously be that
the Servant, as described in Isa. xlii.-liii., is more distinctly
superhuman than the Messiah ?

2.
I have spoken in the preceding section of the need felt
by the Jewish exiles (among whom the author of II. Isaiah,
to say the least, moves in spirit) of a new ideal, a new object
of hope, and tried to show how this want was actually sup
plied. It must not, however, be supposed that there was no
point of contact between the new ideal and the old. New
phases of prophecy are as carefully adapted to the old, as to the
moral and social state of the persons for whom they are pri
marily designed. Thus the ' one increasing purpose ' becomes
more and more manifest, and no past phase can be set aside
as useless or uninstructive. The connection of the new ideal
with the old is the subject of the conclusion of this essay.
The Old Testament is pervaded by a longing for the
' kingdom of God ' to be set up on earth. Jehovah no doubt
was Israel's heavenly king, but the prophets and other holy
men yearned for a time when the reality of earth should
correspond to the ideal of heaven, and when He whom with
more and more intensity they believed to be the rightful
Lord of the world should be universally acknowledged by his
liege subjects. The universal and (for the Semitic king was
not an arbitrary despot) spontaneous obedience of mankind
to the will of Jehovah is the kernel of the conception of ' the
kingdom of God.' There is, however, a certain variety in the
way of expressing this conception. According to some Old
Testament passages, Jehovah himself, after an act of swift
1 ' 'Wann, grosser Jude, wann kommt deine Stunde ? ' A line in a metrical prayer
sung by Zinzendorf before the Moravian Church on the Jewish Day of Atonement,
Oct. 12, 1739.

ESSAYS. 209
and sure judgment, is to undertake the personal government
of the world ; according to others, a wonderfully endowed
descendant of David is to be enthroned as his representative.
The fprmer type of expression is particularly prominent in
the later psalms, but is also found in the prophets (see Isa.
iv. S, 6, xxiv. 23, Joel iii. 21, Zech. xiv. 3-1 1) ; the latter be
came current in the prophetic literature through the splendid
revelations of Isaiah, but is far from unrepresented in the
Book of Psalms, though to what extent is a matter of much
controversy. — These two forms of the conception are never
entirely fused in the Old Testament, though an incipent
union, pointing in a New Testament direction, cannot (see pp.
187, 196) fairly be denied.
It is one of the great peculiarities of the last twenty-seven
chapters of Isaiah that they contain no distinct reference to the
royal Messiah. The ' David ' in lv. 3, 4 is not the second David
predicted in Hos. iii. 5, Jer. xxx. 9, Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 24, but the
David of the historical books and the Psalms. Still we must
not conclude too hastily that the older Messianic belief has
left no traces in the second part of Isaiah. This would be a
strange result indeed — a dumb note in the scale of prophetic
harmony ! Even if the author of the prophecies of ' the Ser
vant ' be not Isaiah, he has certainly formed himself, to say
the least, in no slight degree on his predecessor ; and in
limning the portrait of Jehovah's ideal Servant, he was in
a manner bound to preserve some at least of the features of
the Messianic king. And this is what we actually find in the
prophetic description of the Servant. In the statement that
'kings shall shut their mouths because of him' (lii. 15), and
that ' he shall divide spoil with the powerful ' (liii. 1 2), it is
clear that for the moment the humble-minded Servant is
represented as a conqueror in the midst of a victorious host.
This is not without analogy,' nor is it so anomalous as it may
.seem. It was natural and necessary that the die, from which
the coins with a royal stamp had proceeded, should be broken,
the royalistic form of the Messianic conception having become
antiquated with the hopeless downfall of the kingdom of
Judah ; but equally so that fragments of the die should
be gathered up and fused with other elements into a new
whole. The ideal and yet real Israelite of the future has
' There is, in fact, a parallel for it in Zech. ix. g, where the royal Messiah is described
as ' lowly,' as if by an anticipation of the meek Servant of Jehovah, It was not enough
for the prophet, and for those to whom he prophesied, that the Deliverer should be a
just judge and a victorious warrior : he must also be one with his people in experience
of suffering, and who could be touched with a feeling of their infirmities. It is clear
that this passage was written in a time of national depression.
VOL, IL P

2IO ESSAYS.
therefore some points in common with a king, but withal
he is much more than an earthly king. He is a prophet,
for it is written that ' he shall bring forth (God's) law to
the Gentiles ' (xiii. i) ; a priest, for ' he shall make ... an offer
ing for guilt' (liii. lo) : and yet he is more than a prophet, for
he is in his own person ' a covenant of the people and a light
of the Gentiles ' (xiii. 6), and more than a priest, for the vic
tim which he lays down is his own life (liii. lo). Exclusively,
he is neither king nor prophet nor priest, but all of them
together and more.' These are but words ' thrown out ' (to
adopt a phrase from Mr. Matthew Arnold) at an object beyond
the power of language to describe. Of the Servant of Jeho
vah, as well as of the earlier Messiah, it may be said, ' His
name is called. Wonderful.'

VI. THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CRITICAL
CONTROVERSY.

It is with some hesitation that I cross the border which
separates exegesis from the higher criticism. The public
is eager for results ; a Chaldean Genesis, a Babylonian Isaiah,
and even M. Jacolliot's Sanskrit life of 'Jeseus Christna'
receive the same undiscriminating welcome. For though
keenly interested in criticism, the public takes wonderfully
little pains to master the preliminaries. It demands the truth
about Homer, with the slenderest knowledge of the Homeric
poems ; and to have the mystery of Isaiah dispelled, when
it has but skimmed the surface of the Isaianic prophecies.
And yet the chief thing is, not to know who wrote a pro
phecy, but to understand and assimilate its essential ideas ;
this is important for all — the rest can be fully utilised only
by the historical student. Parts there may be of the exegesis
which remain vague and obscure till we know the circum
stances under which a prophecy was written,^ but these in
the case of Isaiah form but a small proportion of the whole.
There is no absolute necessity for an honest exegete to give
any detailed treatment to the higher critical problems.
A comprehensive discussion of the date and authorship
of II. Isaiah is therefore not to be looked for ; and it is
chiefly because I have given the outlines of such a discussion
' Delitzsch, Zeitschrift fiir lutherische Theologie, 1850, p. 34.
2 Vol. i. p. 237.

ESSAYS. 2 I I
elsewhere that I return to the subject here. For though
the pages devoted to it in my earlier work are not yet by
any means superseded, they require both filling up and cor
recting, especially in the survey of the arguments for the
unity of the authorship. The present essay will therefore be
necessarily in a high degree incomplete and fragmentary ; it
only supplements, and will at the right moment be supple
mented. It relates exclusively to the last twenty-seven
chapters : not as if chaps, i.-xxxix. constituted ' the First
Isaiah,' and chaps, xl.-lxvi. 'the Second,'' but simply be
cause the data furnished by the disputed chapters in the first
part of the book are found with important additions in the
second ; and it is mainly concerned with one special question
relative to these chapters, viz., what evidence do they afford
as to the locality in which they were composed ?
The section in The Book of Isaiah Chronologically
Arranged headed ' Arguments in Favour of the Unity of
Authorship' is introduced by a quotation from Dr. Franz
Delitzsch, containing the admission that, ' there is not a single
passage in the book (Isa. xl.-lxvi.) which betrays that the
times of the Exile are only ideally, and not actually, present
to the prophetic writer.' ^ It was tempting to make the most
of these suggestive words ; but it was a mistake. One may
still admire the childlike candour and the strong faith in the
absolute security of prophecy, which rendered the admission
possible, but a renewed examination has shown that it was en
tirely uncalled for, and that some passage of II. Isaiah are in
various degrees really favourable to the theory of a Palestinian
origin. Thus, in lvii. 5, the reference to torrent-beds is alto
gether inapplicable to the alluvial plains of Babylonia ; and
equally so is that to subterranean 'holes' in xiii. 22. And
though, no doubt. Babylonia was more wooded in ancient
times than it is at present,^ it is certain that the trees men
tioned in xli. 19 were not for the most part natives of that
country, while the date-palm, the commonest of all the
Babylonian trees, is not once referred to. The fact has not
escaped the observation of Mr. Urwick, who has devoted
special attention to the agricultural and botanical references
in both parts of Isaiah, with the view of obtaining a subsi-
' Yet the author of one of the most remarkable products of rationaUstic criticism
in England asserts that ' only the most uncompromising champions of what is taken
for orthodoxy now venture to deny that the Book of Isaiah is the work of two per
sons. . . . [cc. i.-xxxix. constitute the work of the former, cc. xl.-lxvi. that of the
latter]. (The Hebrew Migration from. Egypt, Lond., 1879, p. 61 note.)
* See /. C. A., Introduction, p. xvii, but comp. the qualifications of this admission
in the new (third) edition of Delitzsch's Jesaia, p. 406.
' Rawlinson's note on Herod. , i. 193. p 2

2 I 2 ESSAYS.
diary argument in favour of the unity of the book.' Mr.
Urwick, however, does not seem to have noticed that the
argument is a two-edged one. For the trees mentioned in
xli. 19 are for the most part as unfamiliar to a native of
Judsea as to a man of Babylonia.^ By a similar method it
could be proved that the Book of Jeremiah was written in
northern Israel, because in xvii. 8 a figure is taken from
perennial streams, which were unknown in the drier south ;
and even that the book of the exile-prophet Ezekiel is a for
gery, because of his frequent references to the mountains and
rivers of Israel (vi. 2, 3, xxxiv. 13, 14, xxxvi. 1-12, &c.). As
has been remarked elsewhere, ' a Semitic race, when trans
planted to a distant country, preserves a lively recollection of
its earlier home. The Arabic poets in Spain delighted in
allusions to Arabian localities, and descriptions of the events of
desert-life. Why should not a prophecy of the Exile contain
some such allusions to the scenery of Palestine,' ' especially,
it may be added, if the natural objects referred to have a sym
bolical meaning ? The allusions will, at any rate, be of small
critical value unless they be supported by historical references,
which unmistakably point away from the period of the Exile.
Such references, however, are really forthcoming, as
the elder traditionalists rightly saw. They are most nume
rous and striking in chapters lvi., lvii., Ixv., lxvi., where,
however, they are probably often under-estimated, owing to
the prejudice produced by the earlier chapters. Let us read
them by themselves, and I think we shall hardly doubt that
the descriptions refer to some period or periods other than
the Exile. And yet, on the other hand, it cannot be denied
that there are still more numerous passages which presuppose
the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews in Baby
lon. How are these conflicting phenomena to be reconciled ?
One way {a) is to suppose that they are Isaiah's involun
tary betrayals of his authorship. It will be remembered that,
according to a prevalent theory, Isa. xl.-lxvi. is a ' mono
graph ' written by Isaiah in a quasi-ecstatic state for the
future use of the exiles. No one perhaps (putting aside
Dr. Delitzsch) has better expressed this view than the present
• The Servant of Jehovah, p. 49. Mr. Urwick remarks that there were no vine
yards in Babylonia. But M. Lenormant has shown that Mesopotamia produced an
abundance of valuable wines (Syllabaires cuniiformes. Par. 1876, pp. 121-129).
'' The myrde is probably one of the unfamiliar trees. It is only mentioned (ex
cluding Isa. xli, 19, lv, 13) in two books of post-exile origin (Zech. i. 8, 10, 11, Neh.
viii. is), and in the parallel Pentateuch-passage to Neh. loc. cit. the myrtle is omitted
(Lev. xxiii. 40). Dean Perowne has suggested that it may have been imported into
Palestine from Babylonia (Smith's Bible Diet., art. 'Zechari.ih ').
3 /. C. A., p. 201.

ESSAYS. 2 I 3
Dean of Westminster, who does not, however, venture to
decide upon its merits. ' The Isaiah,' he says, ' of the vexed
and stormy times of Ahaz and of Hezekiah is supposed in
his later days to have been transported by God's Spirit into
a time and a region other than his own. . . . He is led in
prolonged and solitary visions into a land that he has never
trodden, and to a generation on whom he has never looked.
The familiar scenes and faces, among which he had lived
and laboured, have grown dim and disappeared. All sounds
and voices of the present are hushed, and the interests and
passions into which he had thrown himself with all the
intensity of his race and character move him no more. The
present has died out of the horizon of his soul's vision. . . .
The voices in his ears are those of men unborn, and he lives a
second life among events and persons, sins and suffering, and
fears and hopes, photographed sometimes with the minutest
accuracy on the sensitive and sympathetic medium of his own
spirit ; and he becomes the denouncer of the special sins of a
distant generation, and the spokesman of the faith and hope
and passionate yearning of an exiled nation, the descendants
of men living when he wrote in the profound peace of a re
newed prosperity.' '
It would carry me too far from my present obj'ect to
criticise this theory, but let me observe in passing that, if the
passages with Palestinian references can be taken as uncon
scious self-betrayals, they furnish a reply to one of the chief
objections by which it has been met. It is commonly said
(and with much justice) that so long-continued a transference
of a prophet's point of view into the ideal future is without a
parallel. For a short time a prophet of the classical period
may indeed pass beyond his habitual horizon, but he cannot
help betraying his own date in the course of a very few
verses or paragraphs. Whether or not this inference from the
classical prophecies is justified, need not here be discussed.
Suffice it to say that the reply to the objection furnished by
the proposed view of the Palestinian references is at any rate
plausible, supposing that the passages containing them form
an integral portion of the book.
{b) Another conceivable view (which again I do not pro
nounce upon, but only mention) is this — that the Palestinian
references are the involuntary self-betrayal of a prophetic writer
living in Palestine during the Exile? It is clear from several
'Abstract of University sermon by the Rev. G. G. Bradley, in the Oxford Under
graduates' Journal, Feb. i8, 1875.
2 So F. W. Seinecke, Der Evangelist des Allen Testaments (Leipzig, 1870) ; also
apparently H. Oort (at least for some part of 11. Isaiah), Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1876,
pp. 528-536.

2 14 ESSAYS.
passages (especially Ezek. xxxiii. 24), and from the fact
that, unlike the northern kingdom, Judah was not colonised
by foreigners after the fall of the state, that a considerable
number of Jews remained behind in their own country.' It
is far from incredible that some literary men should have
formed part of this remnant, and that one of them, at least,
should have been a prophet. In fact, it seems almost certain
that Lam. v. was written in Judah during the Exile, and we
cannot suppose that this was the only Palestinian production
of that long period. There are passages in II. Isaiah, besides
those already referred to, which may be considered to favour
the view under consideration {e.g. xl. 9, lii. i, 2, 5 [.'], 7-9),
though perfectly capable of explanation on the ordinary
theory. It is no doubt a little difficult to realise the selection
of a prophet in Judah to address the whole body of the
nation (the most important and most cultivated part of
which was in exile), but if there was no equally great prophet
in Babylonia, it was the only possible choice. There may
even have been special advantages in his distance from the
centre of the nation, of which we are ignorant. Certainly
this theory has the merit of simplicity ; it accounts, not only
for the Palestinian features in some of the descriptions, but
for the paucity of the references to Babylonian circumstances.
Yes, it has the merit of simplicity ; but that is hardly
a recommendation to 'those who know.' If the solution
of this problem is so extremely simple, it will be almost
unique. Complication, and not simplicity, is the note of the
questions and of the answers which constitute Old Testament
criticism. It is becoming more and more certain that the
present form especially of the prophetic Scriptures is due to
a literary class (the so-called Soferim, ' scribes,' or ' Scrip-
turists '), whose principal function was collecting and supple
menting the scattered records of prophetic revelation. This
function they performed with rare self-abnegation. Of a regard
on their part for personal distinction there is not a trace ;
self-consciousness is swallowed up in the sense of belonging,
if only in a secondary degree, to the company of inspired
men. They wrote, they recast, they edited, in the same spirit
in which a gifted artist of our own day devoted himself to
the glory of 'modern painters.' To apply the words of a great
American prose-poet, ' They chose the better, and loftier and
more unselfish part, laying their individual hopes, their fame,
their prospects of enduring remembrance, at the feet of those
' Kuenen, Religion of Israel, ii. 176; comp. his Historisch-kritisch onderzoek,
ii. 150, note 8, iii. 357-8 (on Lam. v.).

ESSAYS. 2 1 5
great departed ones, whom they so loved and venerated.' '
Surely if the prophets were inspired, a younger son's portion
of the Spirit was granted to their self-denying editors.^
St. Jerome had evidently more than a mere suspicion of
the activity of the Soferim, when he significantly remarked
that Ezra might be plausibly described as the ' instaurator '
of the Pentateuch. It is, however, to Ewald that we owe the
first rough sketch of their probable proceedings. The sub
jective element is unreasonably strong in all that great
master's work ; and a careful re-examination of the Old
Testament records from the same literary point of view as
Ewald's is urgently needed. At the same time his treatment
of the latter part of the Book of Isaiah cannot be com
plained of on the score of excessive analysis. The only
passages which he denies to have been written by ' the Great
Unnamed'' are xl. i, 2, lii. 13-liv. 12, lvi. 9-lvii. 11 (by a
prophet of the reign of Manasseh), lviii. i-lix. 20 (written
soon after Ezekiel). He also maintains, however, that the
author is well acquainted with the works of the older pro
phets, from which he now and again borrows the text of
his discourse (see, e.g., the description of the folly of idolatry
in Jer. x.). It is this free use of ' motives ' from the earlier
literature, and this combination of old material with new in
the manner of mosaic-work, which is characteristic of the
Soferim. But though Ewald has been the first, or one of the first,
in the field, he has left much land still to be occupied. First
of all, he has taken no account of the possibility that the
author of chaps, xl.-lxvi. not only put old ideas and phrases
into a new setting, but also incorporated the substance of
' Hawthorne's Transformation ; character of Hilda (chap. vi. ' She chose, ' &c. ).
^ This habit of recasting and re-editing ancient writings was still characteristic of
Jewish literary men at a much later period. As Dr. Edersheim observes, ' There are
scarcely any ancient Rabbinical documents which have not been interpolated by later
writers, or, as we might euphemistically caU it, been recast and re-edited ' (Sketches oj
Jewish Social Life, p. 131). The habit, I say, survived, but the spirit which vivified
the habit, was changed. For the editors of the Scriptures were inspired ; there is no
maintaining the authority of the Bible without this postulate. True, we must allow a
distinction in degrees of inspiration, as the Jewish doctors themselves saw, though it
was some time before they clearly formulated their view. I am glad to notice that one
so free from the suspicion of Rationalism or Romanism as Rudolf Stier adopts the
Jewish distinction, remarking that even the lowest grade of inspiration {y)'\^T\ n-113)
remains one of faith's mysteries. ^ '¦" " " '•'
^ Such is Ewald's title for the author of the greater part of Isa. xl.-lxvi., and
abundant has been the contumely it has brought upon him. ' As if,' remarks a well-
known Scotch divine, ' the praise of greatness from human lips could ever compensate
the loss of degrading the noblest of God's prophets into a man nameless and unknown '
(The Old Isaiah, by A. Moody Stuart, D.D., Edinb. 1880, p. 7). Such writers forget
the self-abnegation characteristic of BibUcal authors (where there was no special reason
for mentioning their names), and the remark of Origen with regard to the Epistle to
the Hebrews, Tt's Se 6 ypd^as rriv cTTto-ToAiif, TO ^ev dA7j0cs 0ebs otSec.

2l6 ESSAYS.
connected discourses of that great prophet, of whose style we
are so often reminded in these chapters — Isaiah. This is a pos
sibility which it is impossible to raise to a certainty, or even
to such an approximate certainty as we are so often fain to
be content with in literary criticism. For if the work of Isaiah'
has been utilised, it has been so skilfully fused in the mind
and imagination of the later prophet, that a discrimination
between the old and the new is scarcely feasible. But the
view is quite in harmony with what we know of the Soferim.
Some of the class were, from a literary point of view, mere
workers in mosaic (to repeat an expressive figure), others were
real artists, real poets and orators, quite capable, therefore, of
such work as we are supposing II. Isaiah to contain. Moreover,
the view offers two especial advantages : i. It gives a very
simple explanation (though simplicity, as we have seen, is not
always a mark of truth) of the linguistic points of contact
between the original and the ' Babylonian ' Isaiah ; and 2. it
dispenses us from the necessity of. assuming (against the con
text) such a suspension of the laws of psychology as is implied
on the traditional theory by the mention of ' Cyrus ' in xliv. 28
(see note), xiv. i. I may add that it is partly parallel to the
case of certain portions of I. Isaiah, where the preceding com
mentary has recognised the hand of another writer, perhaps
that of a disciple of Isaiah, reproducing in a new connection
authentic remains of the master's teaching (see vol. f. pp. 43,
185, 235). Still it appears to me that the objections urged
in another connection (vol. i. p. 234) against Isaiah's having
foretold the fall of Babylon have to be met, before this hypo
thesis can be said to be securely grounded.'
Secondly, there are other parts of II. Isaiah as difficult to
interpret on the theory of the original unity of the book as
any of those which Ewald has mentioned. In fact, from
chap. liii. onwards, it is the exception to find a chapter which
is not studded with passages by no means easy to reconcile
with the unitarian theory. Bleek, who, I need not say, enjoys a
high reputation for the caution and reverence of his criticism,
points out especially the three prophecies, lxiii. 1-6, lxiii. 7 —
Ixv. 25, and chap, lxvi., which, according to him, were composed
shortly after the close of the Exile,^ and even Naegelsbach
1 The hypothesis is supported by Dr. Klostermann of Kiel in a dissertation in the
Lutherische Zeitschrift, for 1876 (pp. 1-60), and in the article 'Jesaja' in the second
edition of Herzog's Real-encyclopddie. A worse advocate for a good cause could hardly
be found ; such perverse reasoning surprises one in a trained theologian. Still the
fundamental idea deserves attention. Both in the first and in the second part of
Isaiah the presence of e.xilic prophecies appears as certain to Dr. Klostermann as to
any of the ralionalistic critics.
^ Introduction lo the Old Testament ( Eng. Transl. ), ii. 49, 50. Bleek, indeed, is of

ESSAYS. 2 1 7
commenting on Isaiah in Lange's Bibelwerk, is so impressed
by the peculiarities of chaps. Ixv., lxvi., that he somewhat
arbitrarily supposes them to have been interpolated. ' It
appears,' he says, ' that one of the faithful Israelites used
every opportunity of attaching to the words of the prophet a
threat against the abhorred apostates.' His instances are,
lxiv. 9-1 1, Ixv. 3^-5«, Ixv. 1 1, 12, Ixv. 25, lxvi. 3i5-6, lxvi. 17.
But I must postpone further remarks on this too seduc
tive theme. Suffice it if I have made it plain that a number
of important exegetical questions have to be settled before the
Isaianic authorship of Isa. xl.-lxvi. can be fruitfully discussed.
It is possible that it may some day become an approximate
certainty that the latter part of II. Isaiah was once much
shorter, and that the author, or one of the Soferim, enlarged
it by the insertion of passages from other prophets, intro
ducing at the same time an artificial semblance of unity by
the insertion of a slightly altered version of the gnomic say
ing in xlviii. 22 as a refrain in lvii. 21. There is nothing dis
paraging to prophecy in such a view, as long as we maintain
the divine inspiring and overruling influence for which I have
pleaded above. On the contrary, it appears to me that it
does honour to the Spirit of prophecy by enlarging the range
of His operations, according to that saying of the Man of
God in reply to those who ' envied for his sake,' ' Would God
that all Jehovah's people were prophets ! ' It must be re
membered, however, that this view can only become an ap
proximate certainty, when the outlines have been sketched of
a history of the later Old Testament literature, in which the
place of these and similar insertions has on reasonable grounds
been indicated. The fault of modern critics has been that
they have considered the Old Testament writings too much
as isolated phenomena, whereas the complicated nature of
the problems urgently demands that the books should be
treated in connection. It may indeed be confidently antici
pated that the history of Old Testament literature will prove
the most effectual justification of Old Testament criticism.

There are still a few other points in which I desire to
supplement my earlier statement, i. As to the paucity of
allusions in chaps, xli.-lxvi. to the special circumstances of
Babylon. The fact must be allowed ; it was, indeed, so con
spicuous as to induce Ewald to suppose that the author
opinion that the passages referred to were by the same author as the earlier prophecies ;
but this may on plausible grounds be contested.

2 1 8 ESSAYS.
resided in Egypt. It is not unfavourable to the authorship
of Isaiah, who might have learned almost as much about
Babylon as is mentioned in these chapters either from travel
ling merchants, or from the ambassadors of Merodach Ba-
ladan. The only possible allusion of this kind (if we may
press the letter of the prophecy) distinctly in favour of an
exilic date, is that in xlvi. i. to the worship of Bel-Merodach
and Nebo, which specially characterised the later Babylonian
empire.' This paucity of Babylonian references would be less
surprising (for prophets and apostles were not curious ob
servers), were it not for the very specific allusions to Pales
tinian circumstances in some of the later chapters. As I have
indicated, there is more than one way of accounting for it.
2. With regard to style. It is proverbially difficult to
obtain unanimity on a question of style, but I think it will
hardly be gainsaid that the style of the second part of Isaiah
is on the whole in many ways different from that of the first.
This judgment will be none the less valid because it is founded
on an impression. The impression is no casual or arbitrary
one, but produced, as Professor A. B. Davidson truly says,
by the combined force of many elements. ' It is quite pos
sible to subject this impression to the crucible and dissolve
it, reasoning it away bit by bit, and then to assert that the
testimony of style is worth nothing. . . . But when the tide
of logic recedes, the impression remains as distinct as ever.'
The question is, whether such a diversity of style as we are
supposing necessarily argues a diversity of authorship. This
can only be decided by a careful examination of the elements
of the diversity ; and here I cannot but think that recent
English scholars have failed ; Professor Stanley Leathes,
Professor Birks, and Dr. Kay, all endeavour unduly to mini
mise the diversity in phraseology between I. and II. Isaiah.
None of them appear to understand what it is that the dis
integrating critics mean by their appeal to phraseology, and
one can well imagine that they have all felt inclined to use
language in which Dr. Payne Smith has actually expressed
himself, that ' the aberrations of the human intellect are
infinite.' ^ The truth is, however, that it is not merely upon
isolated words or phrases that those critics found their argu
ment, but upon 'the peculiar articulation of sentences and
the movement of the whole discourse ; ' and even within the
field of phraseology, it is not so much upon the fact that
1 See e.g. the Birs Nimrud Inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, Records of the Past,
vii. 73-78, in which the names of Marduk and Nabu (and no other gods) constantly
recur. Sargon, it is true, also mentions these deities with high honour, but makes
Assur precede them (Records of the Past, vii. 25).
2 The Old Testament, with a Brief Commentary by Various Writers. (S.P.C.K.).

ESSAYS. 219
some words are peculiar to the Second part of Isaiah, as upon
this, that certain words, though common to both parts, are
used in the second in a peculiar sense, and one which implies
a great development of thought. And so the argument from
phraseology runs- up into another (3) based upon the new
ideas and forms of representing ideas in the disputed pro
phecies, on which on a former occasion some may have
thought that I placed undue reliance. Ifi erred, I did so in good
company, for the tendency of the most thoughtful Continental
scholars is in the same direction. Dr. Paul Kleinert, for
instance, in his condensation of the Old Testament Prolego
mena into tables for the use of students, mentions as the second
argument for the non-Isaianic origin of II. Isaiah that ' the
development of many primary ideas (plV, DBK'D, nin'' 1D5J, &c.)
is subsequent not only to Isaiah but to Jeremiah.' ' Still
it is well, perhaps, to be reminded of the necessity of caution,
lest one should be so' far carried away in the ardour of criti
cism as to relegate to a later ' stage ' an idea which an early
inspired prophet might perhaps under peculiar circumstances
have conceived. On the other hand, conservative scholars
should take into careful consideration whether it is admissible
to maintain that an idea is Isaianic, if it can only be justified
as such by assuming, contrary to the analogy of classical
prophecy, a suspension of the ordinary laws of psychology.^
Too many theologians rush into the thick of prophetic inter
pretation without any deep study of this most fundamental
of questions. If I might return for a moment to the argument from
diversity of style, I would venture to supplement the question
as to its critical value raised above by another, Does unity of
style necessarily argue unity of authorship ? Dr. Colenso
obviously replied to this in the affirmative when he main
tained that the Book of Deuteronomy was written by the
prophet Jeremiah, and Ewald and Hitzig, by their treatment
of the Psalms, have given some support to such a position.
But I suppose all that need be inferred from unity of style is
that one of the books which display this unity exercised a
strong influence on the author of the other. We know that
the Soferim had their favourite Scriptures, and it is a conjec
ture of recent critics that when the prophetic Epigoni edited
the older prophecies, they sometimes added parallel works of
their own {Begleitschreiben), in which they sought to treat
' Abriss der Einleiiung zum Alien Testament im Tabcllenform (Berlin, 1878),
P-2S- ^ On the point thus raised, the student should refer to Prof. Riehm's Messianic
Prophecy (Eng. Transl., Edinb. 1876).

2 20 ESSAYS.
existing circumstances in the spirit of their predecessors.
This is at least a good working hypothesis, and is not in
itself inconsistent with a belief in prophetic inspiration.
4. The argument from parallel passages is sometimes
much over-rated. How prone we are to fancy an imitation
where there is none, has been strikingly shown by Mr. Munro's
parallels between the plays of Shakspere and Seneca,' and
even when an imitation on one side or the other must be
supposed, how difficult it is to choose between the alternatives !
That there are parallels between II. Isaiah on the one hand
and Zephaniah or Jeremiah on the other is certain, and that
the one prophet imitated the other is probable ; but which is
the original one .' As I have remarked elsewhere, our view
of the relation between two authors is apt to be biassed by a
prejudice in favour of the more brilliant genius ; we can
hardly help believing that the more strikingly expressed
passage must be the more original. A recent revolution of
opinion among patristic students may be a warning to us not
to be too premature in deciding such questions. It has been
the custom to argue from the occurrence of almost identical
sentences in the Octavius of Minucius Felix and the Apolo-
geticum of Tertullian, that Minucius must have written later
than the beginning of the third century, on the ground that
a brilliant genius like Tertullian cannot have been such a
servile imitator as the hypothesis of the priority of Minucius
would imply. But Adolf Ebert seems to have definitively
proved ^ that Tertullian not only made use of Minucius, but
did not even understand his author rightly.
I do not, on the ground of the difficulties encompassing
it, desire to expel this argument from our critical apparatus.
But I do think that it can only be properly used in a compre
hensive work on the Biblical and especially the prophetic
literature as a whole. And so I come round to my original
proposition that he who would take part, whether as a teacher
or a student, in the controversies of the higher criticism, must
first of all have equipped himself by a self-denying and
theory-denying examination of the texts. Can it be said that
all our critics have so equipped themselves, or that all even
of our interpreters have been fully conscious of the moral
pre-requisites ?
' Journal of Philology, vol. vi. (Camb. 1876), pp. 70-72.
'^ Ebert, Tertullians Verhaltniss zu Minucius Felix, reviewed in Jahrbiicher fiir
deutsche Theologie, 1869, pp. 740-743.

ESSAYS. 221

VIL CORRECTION OF THE HEBREW TEXT.
The subject described in the above title is one peculiarly unfit
for an essay ; it is obviously not a dissertation, but facts, which
the reader requires in order to form a well-grounded opinion
upon it, and the facts cannot be condensed into a few pages.
Still, for the same reason that I ventured to sketch the con
nection which, as I think, exists between the philological and
the theological interpretation of Isaiah, I will devote a brief
study to clearing away some possible misunderstandings
arising out of my treatment of the text.
It is a depressing discovery to the student when he first
realises the weakness of the authority for the received Hebrew
text. And yet the state of the case might fairly have been
anticipated. If, in the judgment of Lachmann and Tiscben
dorf, corruptions of some moment have taken place even in
the text of the New Testament, almost infinitely greater is
the probability that a similar misfortune on a larger scale has
befallen the text of the Old. To explain the causes, and
investigate the degree of this phenomenon, would be a subject
well worthy of a scholar's pen ; but it lies outside my immediate
province. Among the manifold causes, however, there is one
which will occur directly to every student — the transcription
of the Hebrew records from the latest archaic to the modern
or square character. M. de Vogiid, an authority on palaeo
graphy, thus describes the fortunes of the rival alphabets : —
' If we consider in its entirety the history of the Hebrew
writing, as it results from the study of the monuments alone,
we may resume it thus :
' A first period, during which the only writing in use is the
archaic Hebrew, a character closely resembling the Phoeni
cian; ' A second period, during which the Aramaic writing is
employed simultaneously with the first, and is little by little
substituted for it ;
' A third period, during which the Aramaic writing, now
become square, is the only one in use.
' The first period is anterior to the Captivity, and the third
posterior to Jesus Christ.
' The limits of the second cannot be determined exactly by
the aid of the monuments alone, for these are entirely wanting ;
but here the traditions and the texts come to our help. The
name of ashUntk ' Assyrian,' given by the Rabbinic school

222 ESSAYS.
to the square alphabet ; the part in the introduction of that
alphabet which it assigns to Ezra, a collective term for the
totality of the traditions relative to the return of the Jews,
seem to prove that the introduction of the Aramaic writing
coincides with the great Aramaic movement which invaded
the whole of Syria and Palestine in the sixth and seventh
centuries before our era.' '
It need hardly be pointed out what a wide door this series
of changes opens for confusions of various kinds. In each
of the alphabets referred to some letters are more easily con
founded than others. We have therefore presumably in the
received or Massoretic Hebrew text a combination of the errors
which arose (i) from the confusion of similar letters in the
archaic Hebrew character, (2) from the confusion of letters
in the archaic alphabet with similar letters in the Aramaic,
(3) from the transliteration into the later square character, and
(4) from the confusion of similar letters in the square character
itself, after the texts had been transliterated. We have not
yet made half enough of palaeography as an index of possible
corrections, and it would probably be worth while, as M.
Renan has suggested, to publish selected books of the Hebrew
Bible in the Phoenician character.^
Hardly less striking are the facts relative to the date of
the received Hebrew text, and the extant Hebrew MSS.
The former appears to have been settled during the Talmudic
period which preceded the Massoretic, i.e. some time before
the close of the fifth century A.D. Since then the text has
no doubt been handed down with scrupulous fidelity, but
whether ' the oracles of God ' had been as jealously guarded
in the earlier periods, at any rate before the idea of the
canon had attained complete precision, may well be doubted.
In Egypt, as the Septuagint sufficiently proves, the transcribers
of the Old Testament were specially careless : but even in
Palestine, judging from the present state of the Hebrew Bible,
its guardians do not appear to have been fully conscious of
their responsibility. True, there was a higher guardian, Pro
vidence : true, the defects of the letter have been overruled to
the good of the Church, which might otherwise have fallen (as
fragments of the Church doubtless have fallen) into worship of
the letter. But the difficulties arising out of these circum-
1 De Vogii^, Mdlanges d archiologie orientale (Par. 1868), p, 164. M. Lenormant,
in his Essai sur la propagation de {alphabet Phinicien, assigns the introduction of the
square character to the first century before the Christian era.
2 For judicious observations on this subject, see M. Berger's elaborate article,
Ecriture, in the theological encyclopaedia pubhshed by MM. Sandoz et Fischbacher,
and for a valuable list of instances of paliEographic confusions in the texts of the
Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint, Herzfeld's Gescliichte des Volkes Jisrael, iii. 80-84.

ESSAYS. 223
stances to the exegete are great indeed. Could we feel sure
that the standard text had been formed on a critical, diplo
matic basis, we might to some extent be reassured. But though
it is only a conjecture, it comes from perhaps the most com
petent of non-Jewish scholars, and has great probability on its
side, that the received text is derived from a single archetype,
the peculiarities of which were preserved with a 'servile
fidelity.' ' And even apart from this, it is but too obvious to
anyone with a sense for language that parts of the texts are
extremely incorrect ; and it stands to reason that the post-
Massoretic MSS. (the oldest are not older than the tenth
century) cannot help us in healing pre-Massoretic corrup
tions.'^ These are the grounds on which I venture to urge that
without a temperate use of conjectural (but not purely sub
jective) emendation, but little progress can be made in Old
Testament exegesis. It is from a real sense of duty that I
have utilised a number of such corrections of the text in my
translation of Isaiah. My experienced reviewer, Mr. Samuel
Cox, fresh from the study of New Testament criticism, is
slightly shocked at this, and kindly attributes it to ' the influ
ence of Ewald's somewhat too arbitrary and impatient genius.'^
This is a misconception which will interfere with the usefulness
of my work. I am in no other sense a follower of that great
critic than is Professor Delitzch or Professor Kuenen, and, in
the days when the name might not unjustly have been applied
to me, my treatment of the text was much more conservative
than at present. Purely subjective emendation, I repeat, is
not to be admitted on any excuse. If a passage is so utterly
corrupt as to give no clue to the correct reading, a commen
tator, penetrated with the spirit of Hebrew, may suggest an
approximation to what may have been in the writer's mind ;
but his suggestion should be confined to the commentary.
Some of the corrections proposed with the utmost confidence
by Ewald and Hitzig are as arbitrary as most of those of the
too brilliant Oratorian, C. F. Houbigant, in the last century.
But when a conjecture has some external support, especially
from the versions or from palaeography, it is more respectful
to the Hebrew writer to adopt it than to ' make sense ' by
sheer force out of an unnatural reading. I would not propose
to introduce even these justifiable emendations into a version
' Lagarde, Ammerkungen zur grieohischen Uebersetzung der Proverbien (Leipz.
1863), pp. I, 2 ; Symmicta (Getting. 1877), p. So.
^ On the extant Hebrew MSS., and on the state of the text in the Talmudic period,
see Hermann Strack's Prolegomena Critica in Vetus Testamentum (Lips. 1873), pp.
59-131- ' Expositor, May, 1880, p. 400.

2 24 ESSAYS.
for ecclesiastical use (though King. James's translators con
sciously or unconsciously did admit a few emendations),' but in
a work intended solely for students, it is sometimes necessary
to emphasize them as I have done (never without stating in a
prominent place the received reading), that the reader may
feel the difficulty of the passage, and judge of the effect of the
alteration. Otherwise we may go on for ever, crying Shalom,
shalom, when the text is far indeed from ' peace' or 'soundness.'
With a good will and some poetic imagination most readings,
at least in the poetical and prophetical books, admit of a
plausible translation ; but at what a grievous cost to grammar
(some grammatical rules must surely be admitted), and to a
critical conception of the duties of an interpreter !
The slightest changes are, of course, those which affect the
vowel-points, which, as we are too prone to forget, form,
properly speaking, no part of the text.^ They represent a
comparatively ancient exegetical tradition, and stand on a
somewhat similar footing to the versions, especially to the
Targums, which in some obscure places enable us to interpret
the pointed text. But the early exegetical schools had pre
judices of their own (see e.g. on xliii. 28, lxiii. 3, 6), and we
ought not to regard any of them as infallible. The Church
has abstained in her wisdom from giving more than a negative
rule of interpretation ; why should we submit to the yoke of
the doctors of the Synagogue ? I would not, however, be in
a hurry to forsake the reading of the points. Doubtless future
critics may find much to amend, but the alterations of Dr.
Klostermann ' are rather beacons of warning than examples
of critical- tact.
It will surprise no student of the Septuagint that I have
followed Gesenius, Ewald, and Hitzig in omitting, or bracket
ing, certain intrusive glosses (see iii. i, vii. 17, 20, viii. 7, ix.
15, xxix. 10, xxx. 6), analogous to those which disfigure the
Alexandrine version. The only question can be whether a
more advanced critical study of the text may not add to their
number. For instance, the concluding verse of chap, ii., a
word in xxx. 23, and a phrase in xxx. 26 seem very suspicious.
They are omitted in the Septuagint, which gives a certain
external support to the view that they are interpolations, but,
as they do not seriously disfigure the context, I have ventured
to retain them. I may perhaps be accused of subjectivism ;
' See,e.g.,'Ps. viii. i, cvii. 3, Jer. 1. 5. Alterations of the Hebrew text in accordance
with one or more of the ancient versions (e.g. Job xxxiii. 17) are also not altogether un
common in the Authorised Version.
* On the origin of the punctuation, see Gratz, Geschichte der Juden, v. 154.
5 In the article in the Lutherische Zeitschrift already referred to (1876, pp. 1-60).

ESSAYS. 225
but in the present unrevised state of the Septuagint text, it
seems unwise to appeal to it, except in comparatively urgent
cases. ' The uncritical state of the Septuagint.' Professor de
Lagarde, than whom no one has a better right to speak on
this subject, would have critics postpone using the Septuagint
altogether, until its text has been restored to the ' original
form.'' There are two objections to this : — i, the valuable
results which have been already attained by the critical use
of the Septuagint (it is sufficient to refer to the labours of
Thenius and especially of Wellhausen on the text of Samuel)
— results which would have had to be foregone if Professor
de Lagarde's wishes had been consulted ; and 2, the extreme
difficulty of his own plan for a critical edition of the Septua
gint, which in fact seems to relegate the desired end almost
to the Greek Calends. Surely we cannot be justified in
neglecting so important a witness to the Egyptian form of
the pre-Massoretic text, provided that we remember, i, that
our best MSS. of the Septuagint are faulty, and 2, that the
Hebrew MSS. which the Alexandrine translators employed
were probably still faultier.
But is it not hopeless to correct the text of the Old Testa
ment, when the critical authority both of the Hebrew and of
the Greek is so lamentably scanty ? Modifying a well-known
German proverb, I would reply that we ought not to allow
an impossible Better to be the enemy of the Good. A
perfect text is unattainable, and perhaps in one sense un
desirable ; but ¦ a more perfect one than we now possess is
within our reach. It would not be right, from a philological
point of view, to exclude the Hebrew texts from the operation
of improved critical methods ; and much more, from a theo
logical point of view, to exhibit any certainly or all but
certainly corrupt passage as the inspired ' Word of God.' The
needs of the period of the Reformation were met by the Re
formation scholars ; those of a more scientific and historical
age require the application of sounder critical principles. The
time for indifference on the part of religious students has gone
by. It may be the fact that the leaders of modern criticism,
whether in the correction of the text or in still thornier fields,
have been often devoid of interest in spiritual truths. But
there is no law either of nature or of grace that it should be
so. It is a pure loss to reverent readers of the Bible to be
shut off from the invigorating influences of critical research.
For the true spiritual meaning of the Scriptures can only be
' Ammerkungen zur griech. Uebers. d. Proverbien, pp. 2, 3.
VOL. II. Q

2 26 ESSAYS.
reached through the door of the letter, and the nearer we
approach to a correct reading of the text, the more vivid will
be our apprehension of the sacred truths which it conveys.

[Three recent dissertations are concerned with the textual criticism
of the Book of Isaiah : —
Hermann L. Strack, ' Zur Textkritik des Jesaias' in Zeitschrift fiir
lutherische Theologie, 1877, pp. 17-52. Valuable from its account of the
St. Petersburg MSS.
G. L. Studer, ' Beitrage zur Textkritik des Jesaja,' in Jahrbiicher fUr
protestantische Theologie, 1877, Heft 4; 1881, Heft i. Confirms the
view that an editor of Isaiah has to strike the mean between conservative
immobility and the ' chartered libertinism ' of hypothesis.
Paul de Lagarde, Semitica, Part I. (Gottingen, 1878). Pp. 1-32 con
tain critical notes, occasionally very striking, on chaps, i.-xvii. of Isaiah.
The older books hardly need mention. Kocher's reply to Bishop
Lowth, under the title Vindicice S. TextHs Hebrcei Esaice Vatis (Berne,
1736), is little known, but worth consulting.]

VIII. THE CRITICAL STUDY OF PARALLEL PASSAGES.

The exaggerated value sometimes attached to the argument
from parallel passages must not drive us to the other extreme
of treating them as non-existent or unimportant. This
thought, among others, has suggested the present essay, one
object of which is to qualify and supplement the discouraging
remarks which the over-statements of some critics obliged me
to offer (p. 220). It would indeed be an unfortunate result,
were any of my student-readers to draw an inference from
words of mine unfavourable to the study of parallelisms of
expression — a study which is, in my own opinion, a whole
some and much-needed corrective of the various kinds of
theoretical bias. The criticism of the Old Testament, which
draws its material from so many sources, may yet derive some
light from a discriminating selection of parallel passages ; and
so, still more manifestly, may its exegesis. The principle of ex
plaining the Scriptures by themselves has, it is to be feared,
fallen into some disrepute, for which the blunders of our
popular ' Reference Bibles '" supply an ample justification.
And yet our forefathers, whose uncritical but devout Scripture-
knowledge is piled up, stratum above stratum, in these editions,
were doubtless right in their principle, however widely they
may have erred in its application. A few pages will not be
wasted on the enforcement of this doctrine, especially as a

E.SSAYS. 227
request made in my first preface fell but too probably on
unheeding ears.
Self-abnegation is the mark of prophetic writers quite as
much as of their editors (comp. p. 214). They experienced
no Sturm und Drang, no ' storm and stress ' of an unchastened'
individuality. They never attempted to set themselves on
high, on the pedestal of original genius. Isaiah, che sovra gli
altri come aquila vola, is as dependent on his less famous pre
decessors as a Marlowe or a Shakspere. On at least two
occasions (such at least is the most probable view of chap.
ii. 2-4 and the main part of chaps, xv. i-xvi. 12) he inserts
passages from earlier prophets, whose entire works have not
come down to us ; and he is not without some striking affini
ties (some of which at least will be reminiscences) of contem
porary prophets. Look again at his elaborate style, and the
artistic distribution of his poetic material ! His art is no
doubt subordinate to his inspiration, but in no disparaging
sense ; and its comparatively high perfection attests a longer
history of Hebrew poetry and prophecy, and a more numerous
band of unrecorded prophetic writers, than we are accustomed
to suppose. But it is enough on this head to refer to the
Introduction to Ewald's great work on the prophets (now
translated); I content myself here with grouping (and observe
it is on this grouping that the value of ' references ' largely
depends) a few striking parallels between the prophet Isaiah
and other writers — first of all, those who are acknowledged
on all hands to be his predecessors or contemporaries ; ' next,
those respecting whose chronological relation to Isaiah more or
less doubt has arisen ; and lastly, some of those who certainly
belong to a later age. In conclusion, it will be only fair to set
down some of the striking parallels between the acknowledged
and the disputed portions of the Book of Isaiah, and also
some of the parallel passages for the latter in other books of
the Old Testament.
To the first of the three classes of writers mentioned belong
Amos, Hosea, and Micah, the two former being older, the
latter probably younger, than our prophet. It has been well
observed that the characteristics of Amos and Hosea have
found their synthesis in Isaiah.^ It is not surprising, there
fore, that there should be striking points of affinity between
these three prophets — of an affinity, moreover, which extends
beyond mere forms of expression to fundamental conceptions
and beliefs. Take the following carefully selected instances :
' I.e. the predecessors or contemporaries of the author of the acknowledged pro
phecies. The disputed prophecies require, of course, to be considered separately.
' Duhm, Die Theologie der Propheten, p. 104.
Q 2

2 28 ESSAYS.
the student will be repaid for the trouble of examining them
by a more critical and comprehensive knowledge of the
prophetic Scriptures.
Isa. i. II, 14 Am. v. 21, 22, Hos. vi. 6, Mic. vi. 6-8 (against formal
worship).
„ iv. 2 „ ix. 13, Hos. ii. 21, 22 (fertility in the Messianic age).
„ v. II, 12 „ vi. 5-7 (luxury of the princes).
„ v. 20 „ V. 7, vi. 12 (confusion of morals).
„ ix. 10, &c. „ ix. II, 12 (the Messianic empire).
„ i. 21 Hos. iv. 15 (spiritual adultery).
„ i. 23 „ ix. 1 5 (' law-makers, law-breakers ').
„ i. 29 „ iv. 13 (idolatrous groves).
„ i. 2 Mic. i. 2 (prosopopoeia of inanimate nature).
„ ii. 2-4 „ iv. 1-3.]
„ iii. 15 „ iii. 2, 3 (strong figure for oppression).
„ v. 8 „ ii. 2 (violent extension of landed estates).
„ yii. 14, 1 „ V. 3-5 (the Messiah and his birth).
,, IX. 7 )
. „ xxx. 22 „ v. 13 (idols to be destroyed m the Messianic age).
„ xxxii. 13, 14 „ iii. 12 (destruction of Jerusalem).
„ xxxviii. 17 „ vii. 19 (strong figure for the forgiveness of sin).
The second class of writings to be compared with Isaiah in
cludes especially Job, Joel, Zech. ix.-xi., the Psalms, and the
Pentateuch.' I venture to offer these as fair specimens of
parallel passages : —
Isa. i. 8 Job xxvii. 18 (figure from a booth in a vineyard).
„ V. 24 „ xviii. 16 (root and branch consumed).
„ xix. 5 „ xiv. 1 1 (rivers dried up — a quotation).
„ xix. 13, 14 „ xii. 24, 25 (figurative description of general unwisdom).
„ xxviii. 29^ „ xi. 6 (God's wisdom marvellous).
„ xxxiii. II „ XV. 35 (reap as you sow).
„ xxxviii. 12 „ iv. 21, vii. 6 (figures from the tent and the weaver's
shuttle).
(See also the other parallels between the Song of Hezekiah
and the Book of Job in vol. i. pp. 222-3.)
Isa. ii. 4 Joel iii. 10 (' swords into ploughshares,' and the reverse).
„ iv. 2 „ iii. 18 (fertility in the Messianic age).
;; xxviii.22l " ;"-'4(pn).
„ xxxii. 15 „ ii. 22-29 (outpouring of the Spirit, &c.).
„ XI. 1-4 , 2ech. ix. 9 (the Messianic King).
«• XXXII. 1 I
" ^' vii' 1^1 " '^^ '° (""eturn of captives from Egypt and Assyria).
1 I might have added Judges, Joshua, and 2 .Samuel (see notes on ix. 3 x. 26,
xxviii. 21). Joel and Zech. ix.-xi. are included out of deference to the traditional
opinion ; for personally I have no doubt that Joel, and in its present form, the whole
of the latter part of Zechariah, belong to post-Exile times. The question of the date
of the Book of Job is too intimately connected with that of the date of II. Isaiah for
me to hazard an opinion upon it here.
" See critical note, p. 146 of this volume.

ESSAYS.

229

Isa. vii. 14
„ viii. 8,1.
„ vui. 7, .

\ Ps. xlvi. 7, 1 1 (God, or Jehovah, is with us).

xvn. 12 )
ix. 5
xxxiii. 13
xxxiii. 18
xxxiii. 2 1
xxxiii. 22
xxxiii. 22

1. 2 a
i. 26
xxx. 9
i-3
i. 6
i-7 i. 9, ID
i- 17, 23
X. 2
i. 19
i. 24, iii. I,
X. 16, 23,
xix. 4
iii. I i
(but see
note)
iii. 9
iv. 5
V. 8
V. 10
V. 23
V. 26
xxxiii. 19
X. 26
xi. 15, 16
xii. 2 6
xxx. 17

„ xlvi. 3, 6 (the enemies compared to a flood).
„ xlvi. 9 (the instruments of war broken).
„ xlvi. 10 (summons to the heathen to acknowledge
Jehovah).
„ xlviii. 13 (' counting the towers ; ' see my note on
Isa. /. c).
„ xlvi. 4 (Jehovah comp. to a river ; see on Isa. /. c).
„ xlvii. 6 ('our king').
„ xlviii. 14 (the nation's divine patron ; Delitzsch re
marks : ' There is reason to conjecture
that the proper concluding words [of
Ps. xlviii.] are lost. The original close
may have been in fuller tones, and have
run somewhat as Isa. xxxiii. 22 ').
Deut. xxxii. i (' Hear, O heavens ').
„ xxxii. 6, 20 (faithless children).
„ xxxii. 6,28, 29 (' Israel is without knowledge').
„ xxviii. 35 (Israel's sickness).
„ xxix. 22, Auth. Vers. 23 (naSHD).
„ xxxii. 32 (' Sodom, Gomorrah ').
I Ex. xxii. 22, Deut. xxvii. 19 (the orphan and the widow).
Lev. xxv. 18, 19, xxvi. 18, 25 (prosperity through obes-
dience).
Ex. xxiii. 17, xxxiv. 23 (piKn ; also Mai. iii. 1).

Lev. xxvi. 26 (the staff of bread).
Gen. xix. 5 (' their sin as Sodom ').
Ex. xiii. 21, (Num. ix. 15, 16 ('a cloud by day,' &c.),
Deut. xix. 14 (violent extension of estates)..
„ xxviii. 39 (curse upon the vineyards).
„ xvi. 19, Lev. xix. 15 (unjust judgment).
\ „ xxviii. 49 (the swift, unintelligible foe).
\ Ex. xiv. 21, 22 (the passage of the Red Sea);
„ XV. 2 (song of Moses quoted).
Deut. xxxii. 30, Lev. xxvi. 8 (' one thousand at the rebuke
of one ').
The exegetical value of these parallels, is too obvious to
need exhibiting. Their critical significance, however, which
is sometimes even greater, may not be at once apparent.
First with regard to Job. I would not venture to assert that
all the passages quoted involve reminiscences on the one side
or the other ; and yet in some cases this is too plain to be
mistaken. Thus (a) between Isa. xix. 5 and Job xiv. 1 1 the
most scrupulous critic must admit a direct relation of debtor

230 ESSAYS.
and creditor, though which passage is the original, is a ques
tion differently answered. And {b) the parallels referred to
on Isa. xxxviii. 12, &c. are held by one of our leading com
mentators {Hezekiah' s authorship of the Song being assumed^
to prove the Solomonic (or, more strictly, the pre-Hezekianic
origin of the Book of Job. Secondly, with regard to the
Pentateuch. The number of references to Pentateuchal nar
ratives is smaller in the acknowledged than the disputed pro
phecies, and appears to me insufficient to justify even a con
jecture as to Isaiah's acquaintance or non-acquaintance with
that famous Elohistic document, the date of which is so excit
ing a subject to modern critics. We cannot even be sure that
Isaiah refers to any written narrative ; his language may be
perfectly explained from oral tradition. It is different, I think,
with regard to the apparent allusions to Deuteronomy. The
presumption from the number of such references in the first
chapter of Isaiah certainly is that the author or editor of
that chapter had the book, or a part of the book, of Deutero
nomy before him. But I must not allow myself to wander
too far from the exegetical frontier (p. 210), and will only add
a remark on the parallels between Isaiah and Psalms xlvi.-
xlviii. It has been conjectured by Hitzig (with whom I was
formerly inclined to agree) that the latter are the lyric effusions
of the prophet Isaiah on occasion of the successive overthrows
of the Syrians, Philistines, and Assyrians.' It is, however,
simpler, and therefore perhaps in this case safer to explain
their Isaianic affinities from the influence of the prophet upon
contemporary writers. I say ' contemporary writers ' advisedly ;
for though, in deference to Dr. Delitzsch,^ I have placed these
psalms in the second rather than in the first class, I can
entertain no doubt that they belong at any rate to the age of
Isaiah and Hezekiah.
Class III. includes Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Zech. i.
-viii., xii.-xiv.,^ Ezekiel, and above all, Jeremiah, upon whom
the acknowledged prophecies of Isaiah exercised a most
powerful influence. Compare
Isa. xxviii. 4 Nahum iii. 12 (simile of the early fig).
„ xi. 9 Hab. ii. 14 ('the earth full of the glory of Jehovah').
„ xxxiii. I „ ii. 8 (retribution to the tyrant).
„ xviii. I, 7 Zeph. iii. 10 (tribute from beyond Ethiopia).
„ ii. 3, iv. 1 Zech. viii. 21-23 (spiritual honour of Jerusalem and the
Jews).
1 Hitzig, Die Psalmen (Leipz. 1863), vol. i. p. xxiii. ; I.C.A., Introduction, p. xv.
2 This critic, followed by Canon Cook in the Speaker's Commentary, places these
psalms in the reign of Jehoshaphat (comp. 2 Chron. xx. ).
5 Zech. ix.-xi. ought, however, in my opinion, to be included ; see above, p. 228,
note ¦.

ESSAYS. 231
Isa. xix. 24 Zech. viii. 13 (Israel a source of blessing).
vi. 13 „ xiii. 9 (repeated purifications).
i. 3 Jer. viii. 7 (irrational creatures wiser than Israel).
i. II, 12 „ vi. 20, vii. 21 (formal worship unacceptable).
V. 1-7 „ ii. 21 (Israel compared to a vine).
vi. „ i. (inaugurating vision).
vi. 9, 10 „ V. 21 (judicial blindness).
XV. xvi. „ xlviii. (against Moab).
^^J'' } T> xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15 (the righteous King).
xxxiii. 19 „ V. 15 (the unintelligible foe).
X. 20-22 Ezek. vi. 8, xii. 16 (the remnant of Israel).
XV. 2 „ vii. 18 ('on all their heads baldness').
xxxvi. 6 „ xxix. 6, 7 (Egypt a ' cracked reed ').
I now turn to the parallels between the acknowledged
and the disputed prophecies of Isaiah, less with the view of
furnishing material for the higher criticism than of helping
the reader to form a fuller idea of the literary and prophetic
physiognomy of the book. For, to be quite candid, I do not
believe that the existence of such numerous links between the
two portions of Isaiah is of much critical moment. There are
points of contact,-as striking, if not as abundant, between Old
Testament books which no sober critic will ascribe to the
same author. Dr. Moody Stuart's remark, questionable even
in reference to ordinary literature, is especially • so in its
application to inspired writers : — 'An assiduous author might
become the double of another by a skilful repetition of his
ideas. But he cannot by any art fashion himself into his second
half ; he cannot engraft his own conceptions into the other's
mind by completing his deepest thoughts, and so fit them in,
and fill all up, as if only one thinker had conceived the
whole.' ' On the contrary, it is a characteristic of the prophetic
literature that, in the midst of superficial divergences, there
"is a fundamental affinity between its various elements. As
cribe it, as you please, to the overruling divine Spirit, or to
the literary activity of the Soferim (see p. 214), or to both
working in harmony, but the fact cannot be denied. We may
now proceed to compare —
i. II, 13 with lxvi. 3 (against formal worship).
i. 15 „ lix. 2, 3 (prayers unanswered through sin).
i. 21 „ lvii. 3-9 (spiritual adultery).
i. 26 „ Ixi. 3 (' City of righteousness,' ' Oaks of righteous
ness').
i. 27, iv. 2, 3, \
vi. 13, X. 20, I „ xlviii. 10, lix. 20, Ixv. 8, 9 (doctrine of the ' rem-
22, xxxvii. 31, [ nant ').
32 )
i. 29 „ lvii. 5, Ixv. 3, lxvi. 17 (idolatrous gardens).
1 The Old Isaiah (Edinb. 1880), p. 41.

xl.-lxvi. (captivity, though the parallel is incomplete).

232 ESSAYS.
i. 30 with lxiv. 6 (figure of the fading leaf).
ii. 2, 3 „ lvi. 7, lx. 12-14 (pilgrimages to the temple).
ii. II, 17, V. 15 „ xl. 4 (high things abased).
iii. 26 „ li. 17, lii. i, 2, lx. I (Zion sitting on the ground).
V. 7 „ lx. 21, Ixi. 3 (Israel, Jehovah's planting).
V. 13, vi. 12, xi.
II, xxii. 18,
xxxix. 5-7 (?)
vi. I „ Ivii. 15, lxvi. i (the two divine thrones).
vi. 9, 10, xxix. 18 „ xiii. 7, 18-20, xliii. 8, xliv. 18, lxiii. 17 (judicial blind
ness).
vi. II „ lxiv. 10, II, (cities laid waste).
ix. 8 „ xiii. 9, lv. 1 1 (self-fulfilling power of prophecy).
xi. I „ liii. 2 (the puny Plant).
xi. 2 „ Ixi. I (the Spirit rests upon the divine Agent).
xi. 6-9, xxx. 26 „ Ixv. 17-25, lxvi. 22 (future glorification of nature).
xxviii. 5 „ lxii. 3 (Jehovah a ' crown ' to His people ; His
people a 'crown' to Him).
xxviii. I, 7, 8 „ lvi. 11, 12 (carousing habits of the rulers).
xxix. 16 „ xiv. 9, lxiv. 8 (the clay and the potter).
xxxii. 15 „ xliv. 3, 1 1 (outpouring of the Spirit).
Better proofs than these can hardly be required of the
intimate connection between I. and II. Isaiah. The writer of
the latter prophecies evidently knows the former, as our
native idiom finely has it, ' by heart' Some readers, however,
may perhaps be impressed more by exact verbal correspon
dences, such as the following : —
bxiB''' t^np ' Israel's Holy One,' fourteen times in the acknowledged
prophecies (including x. 17), and fourteen times in the disputed ones
(including xlix. 7). Comp. also ' your Holy One,' xliii. 15. Rare
outside Isaiah.
131 ''' ''S ' the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken,' i. 2, 20 ; also xl. 5,
lviii. 14. Peculiar to Isaiah (but Mic. iv. 4 has 'l niK3V '* *S).
'» IDS'' 'saith Jehovah' (the imperfect tense), i. 11, 18, xxxiii. 10; also
xli. 21, lxvi. 9 (comp. xl. i, 25). Peculiar to the Book of Isaiah,
Ps. xii. 6 being an echo of Isa. xxxiii. 10.
1*as ' hero,' as a title of Jehovah in relation to his people, i. 24 (see
note) ; also xlix. 26, lx. 16. Only parallels, Gen. xlix. 24, Ps. cxxxii.
2, 5-
NB'JI DI 'high and exalted,' ii. 13, vi. 1 ; also Ivii. 15 (comp. hi. 13, lvii.
7). Peculiar to Isaiah.
W'D *'?3* 'streams of water' or 'water-courses,' xxx. 25 ; also xliv. 4.
Peculiar to Isaiah.
'My mountains,' xiv. 25; also xlix. II, Ixv. 9. So Ezek. xxxviii. 21
(omitted in Fiirst's Concordance), and Zech. xiv, 5.
It would be easy to make out a longer list, but the gain
would, in my opinion, be problematical. I am not a Pro
fessor of Philosophy, and cannot think that a valuable
' cumulative argument ' is produced for the unity of Isaiah by
counting up words like nas and P^ns, nis and "its, which occur
(how could they help occurring ?) in both parts of the book ;

ESSAYS. 233
and it is wjth real sorrow that I notice a ' tutor in Hebrew '
priding himself on the discovery that 'V'i^\ and its participle
or noun, occurs fourteen times in the later portion, and seven
times in the earlier.' ' Perhaps, however, the following data
deserve tp be mentioned, if it be only to warn the student
against overrating the force of the previous instances : —
1-lS 'glow' or 'glowing fire,' xxxi. 19; also xxiv. I5(?), xliv. 16, xlvii.
14, 1. II. Elsewhere only Ezek. v. 2.
Qi'S ' countries ' (specially used of the maritime countries of the
West), xi. II ; also xxiv. 15 (.?), xl. 15, xli. i, and ten other pas
sages. (But note the infrequency in I. Isaiah, and see further
below.)
N"I3 ' to create,' iv. 5 ; also xl. 26, xli. 20, xliii. 7, and thirteen other
passages. (But the infrequency of this word in the first part con
trasts remarkably with its frequency in the second. It is not
specially Isaianic, whereas the emphasis on the divine creatorship
is peculiarly deutero-Isaianic. See Last Words on iv. 5.)
UtJ 'the stock of a tree,' xi. 1 ; also xl. 24. Elsewhere only Job xiv. 8.
riB'J 'to dry up,' xix. 5 (Nifal); also xli. 17 (Kal). Elsewhere only
Jer. xviii. 14 (Nifal ; transposing letters), li. 30 (Kal).
D''Ki'KV 'offspring,' xxii. 24; also xxxiv. I, xiii. 5, xliv. 3, xlviii. 19, Ixi.
9, Ixv. 23,. Elsewhere only four times in JoId.
inn ' chaos,' or ' a thing of nought ' ; a characteristic word derived
from the narrative of the cosmogony: xxix. 21, also xxiv. 10,
xxxiv. II, xl. 17, 23, and six other passages. The same remark
applies as in the case of S13.
Qvl7!?n ' vexatious petulance,' iii. 4 ; also Lxvi. 4. Peculiar to this
book. (But the related verbal stem is not uncommon.)
To these we may add two phrases : («) 7Xm'» 'm: ' the
outcasts of Israel,' xi. 12, lvi. 8 ; elsewhere only Ps. cxlvii. 2.
But the value of this correspondence will be diminished by
comparing xvi. 3, 4, xxvii. 13, Jer. xl. 12, xliii. 5, Deut xxx.
4 ; {b) nja'K" 'D ' who can turn it back ' (said of God's work),
xiv. 27 ; also xliii. 13 (see note), and three times in Job (with a
different suffix). And, lastly, a Hnguistic fact of much more
importance, viz. the habit of repeating a leading word in
successive clauses, which is characteristic of both portions
of the Book of Isaiah. See i. 7, iv. 3, vi. 11, xiv. 25, xv. 8,
xxx. 20, xxxvii. 33, 34; and also xiii. 10, xxxiv. 9, xl. 19,
xliL 15, 19, xlviii. 21, 1. 4, li. 13, liii. 6, 7, liv. 4, 13, lviii. 2,
lix. 8.^ In grammatical parlance, it is the figure siravacpopd,
another variety of which abounds in the so-called Step-psalms
(as the very name, perhaps, is intended to indicate) and in the
Song of Deborah.
It still remains to furnish references to parallel passages
for the disputed portions of Isaiah, corresponding to those
' Urwick, The Servant of Jehovah, p. 37.
" The examples are taken from Delitzsch, who remarks that the list is not offered as
complete.

2 34

ESSAYS.

which have been already given for the undisputed ones. Some
of these, of course, will be originals, some will involve re
miniscences, while a few may perhaps arise from undesigned co
incidences. We must also allow for the bare possibility that, in
the case of two parallel passages, neither one may be original,
but both dependent on some lost work. It is specially im
portant to bear this in mind in an enquiry peculiarly liable to
be impeded by prejudice, that prejudice I mean which is
unavoidably caused by the combination of the acknowledged
and the disputed prophecies in one volume. Let me also
remind the reader of the grounds for caution which I have
mentioned above, derived from the phenomena of non-Biblical
literatures (p. 220). Compare, then —
with Deut. xxix. 23 (the ' overthrow ' of Sodom and Go
morrah).
Gen. vii. 1 1 (' windows opened ' at the Deluge).
Lev. xxvi. 41, 43, comp. 34 ('guilt paid off').
Deut. xxxii. 39 (' I am He ').
„ „ ('none that rescueth out of my hand ').
Gen. xi. 31-xii. 4 (call of Abraham and Israel).

Ex. xiv. 21-31 (passage of the Red Sea).
Gen. xxv. 29-34, xxvii. (Jacob's sins).
Deut. xxxii. 15, xxxiii. 5, 6 (Jeshurun).
Gen. xxii. 17, xxxii. 12 (Israel as the sand).
Ex. xvii. 5-7, Num. xx. 7-13 (water from the rock).
Ex. xxi. 7, Deut. xxiv. i (law of divorce).
Gen. ii. 8 (Eden).
„ xlvii. 4 ; comp. xii. 10 (Israel's guest-right in
Egypt).
Ex. xii. II, 51, xiii. 21, 22 ('in trembling haste';
Jehovah in the van and in the rear).
Gen. viii. 21, ix. 11 (the Deluge, and Jehovah's oath).
Deut. xxxii. 13 ('riding over the heights of the land').
„ xxviii. 29 (' groping like the blind ').
Ex. ii. 24, iii. 7, xxiii. 20-23 (Jehovah's sympathy with
Israel, and the guidance of His Angel).
Deut. xxxii. 7 (' remembering the days of old).
Ex. xxxiii. 14, Deut. iii. 20, xii. 9 ('rest' in Canaan).
Deut. xxviii. 30 (a promise modelled on a threat).
Gen. iii. 14 (dust, the serpent's food).

Isa

xiii. 19

,,

xxiv. 18 c

xl. 2
xli. 4, &c.

(see note)

5) 3J

xliii. 13
xli. 8, 9 1
li. 2 ;
xliii. 16,17'

JJ

li. 9, 10
lxiii. 11-13J

JJ
JJ

xliii. 27
xliv. 2

JJJJ

xlviii. 19
xlviii. 21

JJJJJJJJ

1. I (but 1
see note) )
li-3lii. 4

JJ

lii. 12

JJJJ JJ

liv. 9 (see 1
note) )
lviii. 14
lix. 10

JJ

lxiii. 9

JJ

lxiii. IT

JJJJ

lxiii. 14
Ixv. 22

J)

Ixv. 25

Notice also the mention of Sarah (unique outside the Pen
tateuch) in li. 2, of Noah in liv. 9 (comp. Ezek. xiv. 14, 20),
and of the 'shepherds' of Israel {i.e.- Moses, Aaron, and
perhaps Miriam) in lxiii. 11. These allusions to the Penta-

ESSAYS.

235

teuch in the disputed prophecies are a fact of some critical
moment ; not so much on account of their number (for such
references are not wanting in I. Isaiah) as of their phraseo
logical exactness and of their referring almost, if not quite,
exclusively ' either to Deuteronomy or to the portions of the
first four books of the Pentateuch commonly regarded (by
Delitzsch no less than by Knobel), as Jehovistic. I do not
wish to prejudge the still open questions relative to the
higher criticism, but am bound to give some indications of
the critical bearings of textual and exegetical data. A
study which has such a varied outlook on history as well as
theology ought not surely to be put aside as dull and unprofit
able. The next group of parallels which invites us connects the
second part of Isaiah with Job. There are parallelisms, as
we have seen, between the first as well as the second part and
the Book of Job ; but comparatively few. The illustrative
value of those which I have now to mention is so great that
a separate essay will be required to unfold their significance.
Compare

Isa. xxvii. i'
„ li. 9, 10
„ xl. 2
„ xl. 7
„ xlii. 5
„ xl. 14
„ xl. 23, 24
„ xhv. 25
„ xl. 27
„ xlix. 14
JJ xli. 14
„ xliv. 24
JJ xiv. 9
„ 1.6

I with Job xxvi. 12, 13 (mythic expressions).
„ „ vii. 1 1 (a ' warfare ' of trouble).
I „ „ xii. 2 (' the people ' = mankind).

„ xxi. 22 (God's perfect wisdom ; He has no
teachers).
„ xii. 17-21 (God's omnipotence shown in revolu
tions).
„ iii. 23, xix. 7, 8, xxvii. 2 (complaints against Pro
vidence).
„ xxv. 6 (man likened to a worm).
„ ix. 8 (God ' alone stretched forth the heavens ').
„ xl. 2 (murmuring rebuked).
„ xii. 4, 5, xvi. 10, xix. 18, 19, xxx. 10 (humiliation
and scorn, the lot of the righteous).
„ 1. 9 „ „ xiii. 28 (human frailty ; a close verbal parallel).
„ lii. 14,15 1 „ J, ii. 12, Ps. xxii. 6 a (the unrecognisable form of
„ liii. 3 I the righteous sufferer).
,, liii. 3 „ „ xix. 14 (desertion of friends ; verbal parallelism).
„ liii. 9(seei „ „ xvi. 17, vi. 29, 30, xxvii. 4 ('although he had
note) ) done no wrong,' &c.).
„ lix. 4 „ „ XV. 35 (pernicious scheming ; a proverbial ex
pression).
„ lxiii. 10 „ „ xxx. 21 (God 'turning himself into an enemy),
„ lxiv. 5 JJ JJ xiv. 4 (none without sin : — in Job /.ir. render, ' Oh
for a clean one among the unclean ! '),
1 The only exceptions which occur to me are the allusions in xl. 2 to Lev. xxvi. 41,
43 (a passage of a section of Leviticus — xvii. -xxvi. — which presents striking resem
blances to the Book of Ezekiel), and in liv. 9 to Gen. ix. 11 (Elohistic), which is, how
ever, not certain (see my note).

236 ESSAYS.
Next come the parallelisms of the Psalms, on which I need
not delay long. They chiefly occur in the later psalms, the
authors of which may be truly said (as I have remarked, on
lii. 9, of the author of Ps. xcviii.) to have known II. Isaiah
' by heart.' Canon Elliott has given a list of the most striking
of these passages, and it will be noticed as a singular fact that
only one of them relates to the acknowledged prophecies of
Isaiah.' This of course does not prove that the latter part of
Isaiah was a work of recent composition — we know how long
it was after Shakspere's death before his works received the
honour of quotation. It does, however, show that these later
prophecies exercised a special attraction upon post-Exile
writers, which is a fact of no small significance. — The most
interesting parallels in the earlier psalms are undoubtedly
those in Ps. xxii., to which I have referred already (p. 191,
note ^). See also those relative to Jehovah's ' highway in the_
desert ' (note on xl. 3), His care of ' grey-headed ' Israel (on
xlvi. 4), ' Rahab ' (on li. 9), ' the loving-kindnesses of David '
(on lv. 3), and 'the holy Spirit' (on lxiii. 10).
A large and important group follows. Compare
Isa. xiii. 19-221 with Jer. 1. 39, 40 (Babylon 'overturned' like Sodom; de-
„ xxxiv. 14 ' solate, and haunted).
„ xxxiv. 6, 7 „ „ xlvi. 10, 1. 27, li. 40 (Jehovah's ' sacrifice,' &c.).
JJ xl. 5, 6 )
and pa- r „ „ xii. I2, &c. (' all flesh ; ' see vol. i. p. 240, col. 2).
rallels )
'' „ xl. 12, 22'
and pa
rallels
„ xl. 13, 14 „ „ xxiii. 18 (who is Jehovah's counsellor?).
„ xl. 18-20I „ „ X. 3-1 1 (Jehovah contrasted with the idol-gods,
and pa- 1 and an ironical description of the
rallels ) origin of the latter).
„ xliii. 5 I J! JJ XXX. 10, xlvi. 27, 28 (' my servant Jacob ; ' pro-
„ xliv. 12 * mises of restoration).
„ xiv. 9 „ „ xviii. 1-6 (the symbol of the potter).
„ xlvi. I „ „ 1. 2 (gods of Babylon broken).
„ xlviii. I „ „ iv. 2, V. 2 (true and false swearing).
„ xlviii. 6 „ „ xxxiii. 3 (see critical note above).
;; Si^°} .. .. 1-8,11.6,45 ('Go ye out of Babylon').
„ xlix. I „ ,, i. 5 (predestination).
„ li. 15 JJ J, xxxi. 35 ('who stirreth up the sea,' &c. ; a quo
tation).
„ lv. 3 (see]
note) \ „ „ xxxii. 40 (' an everlasting covenant ').
„ Ixi. 8 )
1 Speaker's Commentary, vol. iv. pp. 506-512 (' Excursus on Psalms xci.-c.'). The
solitary parallel alluded to is that between Ps. xcix. 3, 5, g and Isa. vi. 3, by no means
one of the closest. Two parallels are given for Isa. xii. , but the Isaianic authorship
of this chapter is disputed on plausible grounds by Ewald and Lagarde, though ac
knowledged by most critics.

X. 12 (description of creation).

ESSAYS. 237
Isa. lvi. 9 with Jer. xii. 9 (' wild beasts, come to devour ').
„ lvii. 20 „ „ xlix. 23 (' the sea which cannot rest ').
„ lviii. II „ „ xxxi. 12 (' like a watered garden').
„ Ixv. 7 „ „ xvi. 18, comp. xxxii. 18 ('their recompence
first ').
„ lxvi. 16 „ „ xxv. 31, 33 ('holding judgment with all
flesh,' &c.).
The number and closeness of these parallels (as compared
with those connected with I. Isaiah) is a phenomenon which
prepares us for the still greater abundance of parallel passages
in the post-Exile psalms. The fact is not without its bearing
on the ' higher criticism.' ' Some scholars have even offered
the hypothesis that, where the parallelism is the strongest (viz.'
in Jer. x., 1., li.), the text of Jeremiah has been interpolated by
the same exiled prophet who, as they suppose, was the author
of Isa. xl.-lxvi. This view (supported by the eminent names
of Movers and Hitzig) is too peremptorily rejected by Dean
Payne Smith,^ who has perhaps not given much thought to
the complication of such critical questions. Each field of
philological inquiry calls peculiar faculties into exercise, and
our distinguished Syriac lexicographer would be the last
¦person willingly to put a stigma through his dogmatism on the
¦inquiries of some as conscientious, and even as reverent, as
himself In the spirit of confraternity, I venture to protest
against the irritating and inaccurate statements which so
repeatedly occur in the Dean's contribution to the Speaker's
Commentary, whenever he has occasion to deal incidentally
with questions of date and authorship. Non tali auxilio. Agree
ing as I do with the Dean's religious presuppositions, I am the
more surprised at what appears to me a violation of Christian
love, and a disregard for the charismata of his brethren. At
any rate, it would be unseemly for me to meet dogmatism
with dogmatism, even were it a part of my plan to furnish a
text book of the 'higher criticism.' Suffice it to have indi
cated anew the variety of interest attaching to the comparative
study of the Hebrew prophets.
The most important parallels to Ezekiel are suggested by
chaps. Ivii.-lix. of Isaiah. These chapters, it will be remem
bered, stand out from the rest of the ' Book of the Servant '
by their striking peculiarities of form and content. Indeed,
1 On this subject see, besides the critical and exegetical works of Movers, Hitzig,
Graf, &c. , Kiiper's Jeremia: librorum sacrorum interpres atque vi7idex (Bcrl. 1837), or
better, the excursus in pp. 274-291 of his Das Prophetcnthum des Alien Bundes (Leipz.
1870), and Caspari's 'Jesaianische Studien ' in the Zeitschrift fiir lutherische 'theologie,
1843, pp. 1-73. Both these works discuss the relation of the disputed prophecies of
Isaiah to the other prophecies between Isaiah and the Exile besides those of Jere
miah. 2 Spea/ier's Commentary, vol. v. pp. 387, 554.

238 ESSAYS.
with regard to chaps. Iviii.-lix., the impression formed by
Ewald ' on stylistic grounds was so strong that he ascribed
them to a younger contemporary of Ezekiel. A general
impression cannot of course be analysed ; but the following
passages will at least establish the real affinity of these
chapters with Ezekiel : —
Isa. lvi. 1-8 comp. Ezek. xx. 11-21 (see above, p. 62).
„ lvi. 9 „ „ xxxiv. 8, xxxix. -4.
JJ lvii. 7, 9 JJ JJ xxiii. 40, 41.
„ lviii. 7 „ „ xviii. 7, 16 (works pleasing to God).
„ lix. II „ „ vii. 16 ('mourning like doves').
As a rule the tone of Ezekiel is too different from that of
II. Isaiah to admit of much parallelism either of thought or of
expression ; he is rather a legal than an ' evangelical prophet.'
Yet a few parallels may be traced. The description of Sheol
in Isa. xiv. 9, &c., closely resembles the dirge upon Egypt in
Ezek. xxxii. 18-32. Isa. xxvi. 19 may be illustrated from
Ezek. xxxvii. i-io, Isa. li. 2 from Ezek. xxxiii. 24, and Isa.
li. 17 from Ezek. xxiii. 32-34.
The so-called Minor Prophets follow. Compare —
Isa. xxvi. 19 I j^gg_ .^,j_ 2 (Israel's resurrection).
(see note) f ^ '
„ xliii. II „ xiii. 4 (' no saviour beside me ').
„ lvii. 3 „ i. 2, ii. 4 (spiritual adultery).
„ lviii. I „ viii. I, Mic. iii. 8 (a mission to rebuke).
„ xxvi. 21 Mic. i. 3 (a strong anthropomorphism).
„ xxiv. 23 „ iv. 7 (Jehovah 'become king' in mount Zion).
„ xli. 15 „ iv. 13 (Israel's threshing-time announced).
„ lvii. I, 2 „ vii. I, 2 (the pious have become extinct).
„ xiii. 6, 9 Joel i. 1 5 (a striking assonance quoted).
„ xliv. 3 „ ii. 28 (the outpouring of the Spirit).
„ xlix. 23 „ ii. 27 (' knowing Jehovah,' &c.).
„ lii. I „ iii. 17 (Jerusalem free from foreigners).
„ xxiv. I Nah. ii. 11, A. V. 10 (assonances).
„ li. 19 „ iii. 7 (' who condoleth with thee ? ').
„ li. 20 „ iii. 10 (a verbal parallelism).
„ lii. I, 7 „ ii. I, A. V. i. 15 (' the feet upon the mountains,' &c.).
„ xxxiv. 16
„ xiii. 21
„ xxxiv. II
„ xlvii. 8 „ ii. 15 (' I and none beside').

Zeph. ii. 14 (the desolate city).

The critical importance of some of these parallels (viz.
those in Joel, Nahum, and Zephaniah) has no doubt been
exaggerated ; but no thoughtful person will disregard them.
They show how instinctively the prophets formed as it were
a canon of prophetic Scriptures for themselves, and also how
' The Prophets of the Old Testament, Eng. Transl., vol. iv. p. 253.

ESSAYS. 239
free they were from the morbid craving for originality. But
they have not the interest of the parallelisms in some of the
former groups.'

Enough, I hope, has been said to show the value of a
careful examination of parallel passages, which is indeed a
great step towards the comparative study of the Old Testa
ment. Here I might lay down the pen, were it not for certain
peculiar phenomena of the Book of Isaiah, which the student
is in some danger of overlooking. That Isaiah, taken as a
whole, has divergences as well as affinities relatively to other
books, none will be tempted to deny ; but it is not every
one who has a clear and "single eye for discerning linguistic
differences within the Book of Isaiah itself The prejudice
of the unity of authorship is of such a natural growth that
I seem bound in fairness to supplement my list of parallelisms
between I. and II. Isaiah by a corresponding conspectus of
the principal phrases and expressions peculiar, at any rate, to
the latter prophecies. To be absolutely complete, it would
no doubt be necessary to go further, and collect the words
and formulae found in the acknowledged, but absent or rare
in the disputed prophecies ; in fact, nothing short of a
thorough analysis of the two parts of the book would enable
the reader to estimate the state of the evidence with mathe
matical precision. Such, however, is not my object. I would
rather allure the student to work for himself with his Hebrew
Bible and his Concordance on the lines which I have marked
out ; and should indeed be somewhat afraid of weakening the
force of the more striking portions of the evidence by com
bining them with those of less significance. Now, the most
essential of the linguistic peculiarities within the Book of
Isaiah itself are those which meet us in the disputed pro
phecies. The natural tendency is to accommodate II. Isaiah
to I. Isaiah, volatilising the differences between them, rather
than vice versa ; so that if, in pursuance of my object, a
selection has to be made, it will not appear strange if I devote
the remainder of this Essay to the peculiar words, phrases,
and forms of the disputed portion of the Book of Isaiah.
It has been said by Dr. Franz Delitzsch ' that though
the disputed prophecies contain some things which cannot
1 Mr. 'W. H. Cobb thinks he has proved the single authorship of Isaiah by show
ing from the Concordance that the vocabulary of Isaiah xl.-lxvi, (taken as a whole)
does not agree with that of the later prophets, Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, and Mala
chi ('Two Isaiahs or One,' Bibliotheca Sacra, 1881, p. 230, &c.). But such an un
critical use of the Concordance is of little service.

240 ESSAYS.
be paralleled from the others, that which is characteristically
Isaianic predominates.' ' Now, I admit that it requires great
nicety of judgment to determine such a point ; but I must
confess that, after a careful revision of the data, I have come
to an opposite conclusion. Not that I suppose this conclu
sion to carry with it the non-Isaianic origin of the latter pro
phecies. If on general grounds it is probable that Isaiah in
his old age entered upon a new field of prophetic discourse,
it will appear natural to suppose that new forms of expres
sion should have met the promptings of his intellect The
occurrence of numerous peculiar phrases and expressions in
II. Isaiah will only become a matter of primary importance,
should they warrant the inference that the author belonged to
a different linguistic stage from the historical Isaiah. Two
writers of the same period may conceivably differ very
widely in the character of their diction ; but it can hardly be
admitted that a writer, conspicuous for the purity of his
style in one prophetic book, should have sunk to a lower
level in another, while soaring higher than ever in thought
and imagination. My own opinion is that the peculiar ex
pressions of the latter prophecies are, on the whole, not such
as to necessitate a different linguistic stage from the historical
Isaiah ; and that consequently the decision of the critical
question will mainly depend on other than purely linguistic
considerations. But more of this elsewhere.
I. Among the most characteristic expressions of the latter
prophecies are —
(i) Those descriptive of the attributes of Jehovah, and
emphasising especially His uniqueness, eternity, creatorship,
and predictive power : —
{a) ' I am Jehovah, and there is none else (or, beside),'
xiv. 5, 6, 18, 22, xlvi. 9.
{b) ' The First and the Last,' xli. 4, xliv. 6, xlviii. 1 2.
{c) ' To what will ye liken me?' xl. 18, 25, xlvi. 5.
(cf) 'The creator of the heavens' (xlii. 5, xiv. 18), 'the
maker of everything ' (xliv. 24) ; comp. xl. 22 (note), xiv. 12.
{e) ' Who announced (this) from the beginning,' and pa
rallel expressions. See xli. 26, xliii. 9, xliv. 7, xiv. 21,
xlviii. 14,
(/) ' The Arm of Jehovah,' for the self revealing aspect of
the Deity, xl. 10, and six other passages (see on xl. 10).
{g) The use of ' Holy One' {Qadosh) as a proper name,
xl. 25, lvii. 15, for which no doubt a point of contact may be
found in the characteristically Isaianic ' Israel's Holy One,'
' Der Prophet Jesaia, 3te Ausg. , p. .v.xxi.

ESSAYS.

241

comp. also ' God, the Holy One,' {haqqadosh, with the article),
v. 16, but which may by some be regarded as a later develop
ment (it is only found elsewhere in a prophecy of the Baby
lonian period — Hab. ii. 3, and in writings possibly belonging
to the age of the Captivity — Job vi. 10, Ps. xxii. 4).
(2) Equally characteristic is the ironical language of II.
Isaiah with regard to idolatry — see xl. 19, 20, xli. 7, xliv. 9-17,
xlvi. 6, and note the parallels referred to in my note on the
first-mentioned passage. In the acknowledged prophecies
idolatry does not receive a large share of the prophet's atten
tion, though contemptuous expressions, side-thrusts as it were,
are not wanting (ii. 20, xxxi. 7).
(3) So, too, is the abundant use of personification. Zion,
Jerusalem, Israel, constantly appear in the character of per
sons. See on xl. 9, and comp. essay on 'The Servant of
Jehovah.' II. Passing to the vocabulary, let me mention (i) peculiar
words, and (2) peculiar significations, first reminding the
student that in order to estimate the importance of any single
instance, he will have to consider whether the word or the
signification is strictly peculiar to II. Isaiah,' or whether it
occurs elsewhere (though not in I. Isaiah), and if so, where
(the comparative study of the vocabularies of Job and II.
Isaiah would be a real critical and exegetical service). It
should also be borne in mind that lists similar to those which
follow might be made out for I. Isaiah. I have mostly chosen
words which occur but once in chaps, xl.-lxvi.^

!?''S^?

xli. 9

lit
xlviii. 21
nsis
lviii. 8
^1t
xlvi. 6
D'JDB'K
lix. 10
ft
lxvi. 11
nisiu
li. 7
mt
lx. 3
b«J
' to be impure
(Nif.
and
man
liii. 3
Hif) lix
. 3, lxiii.
3
^nn
liii. 3
D''^1W
lxiii. 4
Jin
xl. 22
113
' to stir up
(strife).
liv
15
DDH
xlviii. 9
E'B'3
(Piel) lix.
10
n''3!J'n
1. 10
pM
xl. 22
nsD
xlviii. 13
pxm
lxvi. 24
¦ID'
(Hithp.) Ixi. 6
ntn
lvi. 10
tav
Ixi. 10
D'DCn
lxiv. I
t1D''B''
xliii. 19, 20
nionn
xlix. 19
nn3
(verb and noun) xlii. 3, 4 ;
Snr
lxiii. 15
Ixi. 3
1 Under the name ' II. Isaiah ' I include all the disputed prophecies— not merely
chaps, xl.-lxvi.
'' The list, which is not complete, is based upon the invaluable Zusammenstellung
at the end of Naegelsbach's Jesaia.
VOL. II. R
242

ESSAYS.

•

ins

(Piel) Ixi. 10

nyny
xlvii. 8
n33
(Piel) xliv. 5 ; xlv
- 4
ni5?
1.4
bm
lxiii. 7 (repeated.
lix.
18)
ni:v
xlvii. I
o'Vaa
xl. 2
CDV
xlix. 26
ninna
1. I
niy
(verb) lxvi. 3
mD-13
lxvi. 20
miD
lxiii. 3
D'St5'3
xlvii. 9, 12
nvz
xlii. 14
J11D
xli. 15
nXD
(always with n|1 or )Jl)
DTIID
liii. 9
xiv. 7; xliv. 23; xlix.
!2'':»DD
xlv. 3
13; lii. 9; liv. i; lv. 12
3K3D
(plural) liii. 3, 4
nipnps
Ixi. I
n'?D
(Nifal) li. 6
pi3
Ixv. 4
-inDo
liii. 3
3X
lxvi. 20
xlviii. 19
1-i ni^
lx. 4; lxvi. 12
xlii. 11
cnno
lviii. 7 (?)
nmu
xxiv. II
nnE'D
lii. 14
rh'i'i
xliv. 27
n'B'D
xlv. 1
IDIV
lviii. 3, 4
n33
lvi. 10
nvi
h. 14 ; lxiii. i
nnJ:
(plural) lix. 9
nwp
li. 17, 22
m3
lxvi. 5
ITI
xlv. I
CNU
lvii. 10
D3n (pi
ural) xl. 4.
nt3
(Hifil) lii. 15 {
?);
(Kal)
57p-| (Piel denominat.) xl. 19
lxiii. 3
IDtJ*
xlvii. II
nv3
lxiii. 3, 6
tyi^B*
xl. 12
IJD
xliv. 15, 17, 19;
xlvi
. 6
njinn
liv. 8
IJD
xli. 25
xl. 14 (plur-), 28 ; xliv. 19
bo
xliv. 25
(sing.)
D'-ny
(Pual) xl. 20
lxiv. 5
n»nn
xl. 20
To these may be added the following peculiar forms : —
{a) iD^ for i^) xliv. 15, liii. 8. (If, however, my view is correct, there
is an analogy for this in viii. 15, on which see crit. note, p. 137.)
{i) ^niS for '•J^S liv. 15 1 No doubt 'Aramaisms. The same usage is
(c) onisfor DJjl4< lix- 21 ) found in i and 2 Kings, Jeremiah and
Ezekiel. It also occurs, however, in
Josh. xiv. 12 (perhaps Gen. xxxiv. 2),
where, as here, it may possibly be due to
a later editor.
(d) ''1?'?S!5« (°^ ^n^SJO lxiii. 3. An Aramaism.
(e) VSI-ip lii- 5- Hithpoal (with n assimilated).
(/) ''^DD !"'• '°' ^'^' f""""^ i^?C (Aramaising), or from K?n, another
form of n^n (2 Chron. xvi. 12), with the final x omitted before the
initial }< of the next word : for parallel cases, see 2 Kings xiii. 6,
Jer. xxxii. 35. So Olshausen, Lehrbuch, § 2^5 f, followed by
Klostermann and Delitzsch (ed. 3).
ESSAYS. 24

0

(g) -1^82? lix. 3- The form reminds one of the Rabbinic Nithpael ;
see, however, crit. note above, p. 1 59.
2. Words used with a peculiar shade of meaning. (Not a
complete list.)
(a) "linK 'future time'; xli. 23, xlii. 23.
(b) D"S ' maritime lands of the west ' ; xlii. 1 5 (see note), and other
passages. (c) "ina 'to test' for )n3, as in Aramaic ; xlviii. 10.
(d) Tin 'to declare' = ' to prophecy'; xliii. 12, xliv. 8, xlviii. 3.
(e) hvn ' the people ' = ' mankind ' ; xl. 7, xlii. 5, comp. xliv. 7.
(/) rain 'to fix' or 'found' ; li. 4.
(g) I'an 'business,' lviii. 3, 13 (as in Ecclesiastes).
(h) "in* 'abundance,' used adverbially for 'exceedingly,' lvi. 12.
(i) yho ' interpreter ' = ' prophet,' xHii. 27.
(k) pDtD ' impoverished,' xl. 20.
(/) DStyD ' ordinance ' or ' law,' used technically for (the true) religion
in its practical aspect ; xlii. i, 3, 4, li. 4.
(m) p<iv ' true ' ; xli. 26, comp. lix. 4.
(n) pIV ' righteousness ' = ' success ' (God's justificadon of His people
before the world) ; xlv. 8, 24, xlvi. 13, li. 5, 6, 8, lvi. i, lix. 17,
Ixi. 10, II, lxii. I.
(o) Knp ' to call ' = ' to prophesy ' ; xl. 2, xliv. 7, lviii. i, comp. Ixi. i, 2.
Looking back upon the preceding lists, it is obvious that
there is not only a large genuinely Hebrew element peculiar
to II. Isaiah, but also a certain Aramaising tendency. In
7i» ' to be impure ' we notice an Aramaic weakening of i;
into s (comp. ^yJ 'to reject'), t'^} 'to grope,' is suggested
by the Ara.ma.ic gash ' palpavit ' ; the genuine Hebrew synonym
is WD (Deut. xxviii. 29, Job v. 14). 'lO.* ' exceedingly,'
reminds one of Aram. I'Jii? ; ^90 ' business ' (a sense which
can hardly be avoided in lviii. 3, 13) of g'bhB ' business,'
in Syriac, from c'bhd ' to desire,' and X^XE?* ' a matter,' in
Chaldee, from '^W ' to ask.' IJD ' to worship ' (which only
occurs in II. Isaiah) is the Syriac s'ged, Chald. s'gid, though
the use of the Hebrew word is more limited than that
of the Aramaic, *13D being only used of idolatry (eiE'3 and
other similar technical words of Aramaic origin are limited
in the same way). n33 ' to give an honourable surname to '
(peculiar to II. Isaiah and Job), though it has both Aramaic
and Arabic affinities, is yet most probably suggested by the
Aramaic. &:iO, ' viceroys,' the Hebraised form of an Assy
rian and Babylonian word (see note, p. 144), doubtless came
to the Jews through the Chaldee s'gan, plur. signin {Dan. ii.
48, &c.). Add to these the harsh idiom in xxvi. 1 1 (see note).

244 ESSAYS.
which would lose its harshness in an Aramaic sentence ; and
the phrase ' all nations and tongues' (lxvi. i8), which reminds
us of a well-known expression in the Chaldee portions of the
Book of Daniel (see note, p. 127). If the Massoretic text
were correct in xiv. 4, we should also include the singular
form il3niD, ' exactress of gold ' (Auth. Vers., margin), from
Chald. 3D'n = Hebr. 3nt 'gold.' And yet, when all has been
said, most will probably admit with Dr. S. Davidson ' that
' the diction of the second part of Isaiah is tolerably pure and
free from Chaldaisms.' Sporadic Chaldaisms are in fact no
novelty in Hebrew literature, and with our very conjectural
knowledge of the phases of the Hebrew language, and the
process of the final editing of the Hebrew Scriptures, it seems
rash to trust to them as a criterion of language. Certainly
the case for the antiquity of II. Isaiah, on the linguistic side,
is more favourable than for that of the Book of Job, and
almost infinitely more so than for that of Ecclesiastes. We
must not, indeed, build too much on this comparative purity of
diction ; but on the other hand we must not fail to recognise it.

IX. JOB AND THE SECOND PART OF ISAIAH:
A PARALLEL. I.
If it is no easy task in the case of parallel passages to dis
tinguish the original from the imitation, how much more
difficult must it be in the case of parallel books ! This reflec
tion forms the link between the present and the preceding
essay. The allusion, I need hardly tell the reader, is on the
one hand to the ' Book of the Servant of Jehovah,' and on the
other to the twenty-second Psalm and the Book of Job. It
is not my object, however, to discuss the literary relation be
tween these books, but rather to show by a few details that
the parallelism actually exists. Nothing, perhaps, is more
helpful to a right appreciation of books than to compare those
which amidst some divergences have a real and predominant
affinity. The twenty-second Psalm, short as it is, embodies
the essence of some of the most striking passages of the
' Book of the Servant,' but I must content myself with the
brief enforcement of this view in a previous essay (pp 190-1)
The Book of Job claims a fuller treatment, not with regard
' Introduc'ion to the Old Testament, ii. 54.

ESSAYS. 245
to its literary aspects, however tempting these may be,' but
to the fundamental parallelism of thought between it and
II. Isaiah. The common view that the hero of the poem of Job is
simply an individual must, it is clear, be abandoned. I do
not know whether Chateaubriand's views on Biblical subjects
are original, or whether he drew from some Catholic theo
logian ; but his comment on the speeches of Job is too
strikingly true to be withheld. He says, ' II y a dans la m^-
lancolie de Job quelque chose de surnaturel. L'homme indi-
viduel, si malheureux qu'il puisse ttre, ne pent tirer de pareils
soupirs de son ime. Job est la figure de Thumanit^ souf-
frante, et I'ecrivain inspire a trouv^ des soupirs, pour exprimer
tous les maux partages entre la race humaine.' ^ This is, in
fact, the thesis which the following pages are to defend, though
not without giving the fullest weight to the elements of the
poem which compel us to regard the hero as an individual.
The truth is that Job is at once an individual and a type :
need I remark how interesting a parallel is suggested with
the Servant of Jehovah ?
But I must first of all invite the reader to accompany me
in a brief preliminary survey. I leave the Prologue for the
present out of the question, and turn at once to the speeches
which, indeed, are capable of standing independently of both
Prologue and Epilogue. An analysis would occupy us too
long ; I will only point to the continually recurring passages
in which the sufferings of Job are spoken of in terms hardly
suitable to an individual. Sometimes, for instance, we are
startled at the ejaculation.
My days are swifter than a runner.
They have fled away without having seen prosperity (ix. 25),
although we have learned from the Prologue that ' this man
was the greatest of all the sons of the east ' (i. 3) ; and then
by still more excessive complaints, in which Job's Oriental
sense of dignity seems to vanish altogether, and which must
sound strangely enough to those who have watched in real
life the calm heroism of great sufferers —
O that my vexation were duly weighed,
And my calamity lifted with it into balances !
For it would then be heavier than sand of seas ;
Therefore have my words been rash (vi. 2, 3).
• I have touched upon these in a paper called 'The Book of Job ; a Literary and
Biographical Study,' in Eraser's Magazine, July 1880, pp. r26-i34. The parallelism
between Job and the Introduction to Proverbs has but little corresponding to it in II.
Isaiah, the influence of proverbial wisdom upon the latter being comparatively slight.
The range both of thought and expression in the Book of Job is wider than that in
II. Isaiah. ' Ginie du christianisme (Paris 1802), ii. 305.

246 ESSAYS.
How surprising it is again, when Job falls to meditating on
the hardships of humanity —
Has not frail man a hard service upon earth.
And are not his days like the days of a hireling? (vii. i)
One would have thought that it would be some comfort to
the sufferer, that he was not worse off than the rest of his
kind ! But no ; it does but open the floodgates of lamenta
tion — Like a slave, who panteth for shade.
And like a hireling who waiteth for his recompence.
So am I made to possess months of disappointment.
And troublous nights have been allotted to me (vii. 2, 3).
And again, after the pathetic reflection,
Man, born of woman,
Short of days and full of unrest,
Cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down,
Fleeth like a shadow and stayeth not (xiv. i, 2),
how hard it is, on the ordinary hypothesis, to account for the
(apparent) invasion of self-consciousness in the second line of
the next verse.
Yet upon him dost thou keep open thine eyes,
And me dost thou bring into judgment with thee (xiv. 3) !
Equally strange phenomena are the political and social
digressions in which Job repeatedly indulges. The changes
of empires, the violence of tyrants, and their immunity (not
universal, however, as Job virtually admits in chap, xxvii.)
from punishment, the hardships of slavery and poverty, the
calamities of war, pestilence, famine, and wild beasts, are
mingled inextricably with the personal theme of his unmerited
sufferings. It is strange, no doubt ; but Job himself seems to give us
the clue to the mystery, when he and his friends unexpectedly
fall into language implying that he is not an individual, but a
plurality of persons. ' P'or me the graves' (Job ; xvii. i). ' How
long will ye hunt for words,' ' Wherefore are we . . . held un
clean in your sight ' (Bildad ; xviii. 2, 3). ' He counteth me
as his adversaries ' ' (Job ; xix. 1 1). Perhaps I might add, in
illustration, xvi. 10 and x.xvii. 11, 12, where Job addresses
his friends as if they were the assembled multitude of ' wise
men.' Certainly, I can see no other explanation of those
apparently hyperbolical complaints, that strange invasion of
self-consciousness, and that no less strange 'enthusiasm' of
' See, however, above, p. 26 (top of col. i).

ESSAYS. 247
humanity,' of which I have spoken above, than the view ex
pressed or implied by Chateaubriand that Job is a type of
righteous men in affliction — not merely in the land of Uz, nor
among the Jews in Babylonia,' nor yet, on Warburton's theory
of the poem, in the Judsea of the time of Nehemiah, but wher
ever on the wide earth tears are shed and hearts are broken.
Not that Job ceases to be an individual ; it is evident, not
merely from the Prologue, but from Ezek. xiv. 14, 20, that
there was an ancient tradition of a Hebrew king Priam, whose
name had. become the symbol of immeasurable woe. That
Job is a type no more destroys his claim to be an individual
than the typical character of Dante in his pilgrimage and of
Faust in (Goethe's great poem annuls the historical element in
these two poetical figures. Job, in fact, if I read him aright,
is ' not merely a patriarch in the already remote youth of the
world, but the idealised portrait of the author himself ^ The
sacred poet, we may reverently conjecture, was prepared
by providential discipline for his appointed work. ' In the
rhythmic swell of Job's passionate complaints, there is an
echo of the heart-beats of a great poet and a great sufferer.
The cry, " Perish the day in which I was born " (iii. 3), is a true
expression of the first effects of some unrecorded sorrow. In
the life-like description beginning " Oh that I were as in
months of old " (xxix. 2), the writer is thinking probably of
his own happier days, before misfortune overtook him. Like
Job (xxix. 7, 21-25), he had sat in the "broad place" by the
gate, and solved the doubts of perplexed clients. Like Job,
he had maintained his position triumphantly against other
wise men. He had a fellow-feeling with Job in the distress
ful passage through doubt to faith. Like Job (xxi. 16), he
had resisted the suggestion of practical atheism, and with the
confession of his error (xlii. 2-6) had recovered spiritual peace.'
All this is credible, and more than credible, if we remember
that mere artistic creations are not in harmony with the old
Semitic mind — that personal experience is the basis of the
Biblical Hebrew as well as of the old Arabian poetry. This
is not, however, the only channel by which the author's subjec
tivism has impressed itself on the traditional story. ' There
is yet another aspect to the personality of the author of " Job"
— his open eye and ear for the sights and lessons of external
nature. He might have said with a better right than Goethe,
" What I have not gained by learning, I have by travel." ^
' See on xl. 12 (vol, i. p. 242).
2 The passages within inverted commas are quoted from the paper in Eraser's
Magazine, referred to above.
^ ' 'Was ich nicht erlernt habe, das hab' ich erwandert.'

248 ESSAYS.
He is such a one as Sirach describes (Ecclus. xxxix. 4), " He
will travel through strange countries, for he hath tried the
good and the evil among men." From a wide observation
of nature he derived the magnificent scenery — scenery, how
ever, which is more than scenery, for it furnishes important
elements of his sacred philosophy. Not that the imagination
is allowed to be inactive. . . . For the full and free considera
tion of his subject, he felt that he required an absolutely clear
medium, disengaged from the associations even of the true,
the revealed religion. (Is he not in this point a warrant for
the " apologetic " treatment to which we, like the author of
" Job," though in other forms, are obliged to subject our re
ligion ?) With a poet's tact, and with a true sympathy for
doubters, he created an ideal medium, in which hardly any
thing Israelitish is visible. The elements which he fused
together came from the three countries with which he seems
to have been best acquainted — Arabia, Judah, Egypt. From
Arabia he takes the position which he assigns to Job, of a
great agriculturist-chieftain. The stars of the Arabian sky
must have deepened his unmistakeable interest in astronomy
(ix. 9, xxxviii. 31-33). Personal knowledge of caravan life
seems to have suggested that most touching figure, which
our own Thomson has so finely, though so inaccurately, para
phrased ' (vi. 1 5-20). And the same desert regions doubtless
inspired those splendid descriptions of the wild goat, the wild
ass, and the horse (chap, xxxix.) which extorted a tribute of
admiration from the traveller Humboldt. But neither agri
cultural life alone, nor the phenomena of the desert, have fur
nished him with sufficient poetic material. He who would
' rise to the height of this great argument ' must have gained
his experience of life on a more extensive and changeful
theatre. From Judah, then, the poet borrows his picture of
city-life, which presupposes a complex social organism, with
kings, priests, judges, physicians, authors, and wise men. This
description of the sessions of Job in the gate (chap, xxix.) is
distinctly Judsean in character. It was the Nile-valley, how
ever, which supplied the most vivid colours to his palette.
He is acquainted with the Nile and its papyrus-boats (ix. 26),
with the plants which grow on its banks (viii. 11, xl. 21), and
with the habits of the two wonderful animals which frequent
its shores (xl. iS-xli. 34). He is no less familiar with mining
operations (xxviii. i-ll), such as were practised since the
' In Cairo's crowded streets
The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain.
And Mecca saddens at the long delay.
(Summer, 980-2 ; of the caravan which perished in the storm. )

ESSAYS. 249
earliest times by the Egyptians. But the author of " Job "
is no mere observer of details. Phenomena are in his eyes
but manifestations of the perfect and all-ruling but incompre
hensible wisdom of God.' No contrast can be greater than
that of the over-taught, sophisticated modern, who exclaims
with Leopard i, . . . conosciuto il mondo
Non cresce, anzi si scema,
and the author of ' Job,' who beholds the universe with an
eye quickened by the thought of God. In him, the fountain
of admiration has not been dried up by an ill-assimilated
science. ' Orion and the Pleiades above, the forests and the
torrents below . . . the neck of the war-horse, the scales of
Leviathan, are marvels in his eyes — the speaking fragments
of an almighty life behind. From us, the wonder of these
things is gone.' ' But the more we live ourselves into the
Biblical literature, especially into the inspired and inspiring
poem of ' Job,' the more the wonder comes back to us. ' My
Father made them all'
The infinite wisdom of God — this is one of the sacred
poet's two solutions (or substitutes for solutions) of the pro
blem before him, How are the sufferings of Job to be recon
ciled with the Divine justice .'' The other is embodied in the
Epilogue, which seems to have been appended by an after
thought, either by the poet himself or by one of the Soferim
or Scripturists. It is this, that Job, after passing victoriously
through his trial, was restored to twice his former prosperity.
The two solutions are seemingly inconsistent : but are not so
in reality. The one applies to the case of Job both as an
individual and as a type ; the other only as a type. The
sufferings of any innocent individual could not, at that early
stage of revelation, be accounted for ; God is All-wise, was
the only thought which could quiet the troubled mind. The
same truth had, no doubt, its bearing on the sufferings of the
innocent as a class ; but there was also another still more
comforting thought in reserve, viz. that they would yet receive
compensation ; they would ' inherit the earth ; ' there would
be, in Christian language, a millennium. Now let us turn to
the Book of the Servant. The people whom the prophet
addresses (whether as a contemporary or across the centuries,
we need not here enquire) are preoccupied by the thought.
Why is redemption so slow in coming ? And the answer is.
Because of your sins, especially your unbelief Only a
righteous people can be delivered ; a people which trusts its
' James Martineau, Hours of Thought, first series, p. 31.

250 ESSAYS.
God implicitly, and devotes itself tp carrying out His high
purposes. But how faint and dim the prospect of the people's
ever becoming righteous ! Hence (not to repeat my former
explanations (the inner necessity for a special Divine interpo
sition. A divine-human representative must appear, and at
once atone for the breach of the covenant, and ' make the many
righteous.' And so the Servant, like another Job, appears on
the stage, and suffers more than even Job suffered, and through
his suffering wins the reward of eternal life for all who become
his spiritual children. The sufferings of the Servant are those
of an individual, but they are also those of the representative
of a class ; his reward, too, is not merely that of an indivi
dual, but purchased for a great company. This is, in brief,
the parallelism between the Book of Job and of the Servant
of Jehovah.

Let me now briefly indicate some of the points of detail
in which this affinity can be traced.
I. Both Job and the Person in whom the predictions of
II. Isaiah culminate are Jehovah's righteous servants. ' Hast
thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him
in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one that feareth
God and escheweth evil .¦¦ ' (Job i. 8). ' The righteous one,
my servant ' (Isa. liii. 9). Job has, indeed, a fault, but it only
appears in the course of his trial — he misinterprets the All-
wise Creator.
2. Both in the Prologue and in the body of the poem Job
is represented as a leper (ii. 7, vii. 5, 15, &c.). The sufferings
of the Servant in II. Isaiah are also described in language
suggestive of this fell disease (see on liii. 3, 4). The leprosy of
the Servant is doubtless typical ; but so also is that of Job, if
at least we have been right in regarding Job as at once an
individual and a type. It is, moreover, worth noticing that,
in the pictures drawn by Job's friends of the prosperity to
which he would be restored upon his repentance, and in the
narrative of the Epilogue, no allusion is made to his recovery
from leprosy. (See v. 17-26, viii. 5-7,20-22, xi. 13-20, x.xii. 21-
30, xlii. 7-17.) May we not infer that the leprosy of Job was
in its highest meaning only one form of expression among
others for the manifold misery of ' the woman-born ' ?
3. The horror with which Job's appearance fills his friends
reminds one strongly of the similar effect of the disfigured
form of the Servant (see parallel passages in preceding essay).
4. The mockery and desertion by his friends of which

ESSAYS. 251
Job complains find a close parallel in the experience of the
Servant (see parallel passages).
5. Job is restored to more than his former prosperity ;
' Jehovah gave Job twice as much as he had before' (xlii. 10).
The Servant passes through trial to a glorious reward (liii. 12),
and the faithful remnant of Israel, which is mystically united
to Him, receives ' double instead of its shame ' (Ixi. 7).
6. So near does Job stand to his God that he can inter
cede effectually for his guilty friends (xlii. 8, 10). Of the
Servant the same is told us (liii. 12). We must not dilute
the parallelism, but neither must we exaggerate it. For the
Servant ' makes interceession for the rebellious,' i.e. for the
breakers of the covenant, who had committed the ' sin unto
death,' for which none but a Divine intercessor is allowed to
pray (i John v. 16).
7. Last of all (for I will leave some parallels for the
student to glean), let me mention the obvious correspondence
between the happy immortality anticipated by Job (xix. 25-
27) and the triumphant life after death of the Servant of
Jehovah (Isa. liii. 10-12).
But the strong points of resemblance between the Books
of Job and of II. Isaiah, and especially between the portraits
of the patriarch and of the Servant, must not be allowed to
conceal from view the equally strong elements of contrast.
That luxuriant growth of imaginative ornament which twines
around the Book of the Patriarch has but a slender counter
part in the Book of the Servant. The author of the latter
never forgets that he is a prophet, and though he does not
literally address the people in the market-place, his style is
chiefly modelled on tliat of the spoken prophecies. He does
not, indeed, refuse a large literary and, as one may say, poetical
element ; ' writing in private, without any view to oral delivery,
he could not wholly exclude the graces of literature ; but
there are times when, as in chap, lviii. 1-7,^ the reproduction
of the true prophetic style is so complete that we could be- .
lieve ourselves standing in the crowd gathered round a pro
phetic orator. — Another consequence of his prophetic character
which equally distinguishes him from the poet of ' Job ' is
his studious self-concealment. True, he does apparently refer
to himself on four occasions (xl. 6, xliv. 26, xlviii. 16, lvii. 21),
whereas the Book of Job contains no direct allusion to the
author ; but the four references to himself are in no sense
autobiographical, while the Book of Job is so eloquent in its
• It is noteworthy that the affinity of ' Job ' with the Book of Proverbs has nothitig
really corresponding to it in II. Isaiah.
2 See also note on xlviii. 6.

252 ESSAYS.
seeming silence that we can venture to read 'between the
lines ' the life of the author himself Whether the prophetic
writer of II. Isaiah had passed through such great deeps of
spiritual experience as the author of ' Job,' whether he took
as wide an interest in nature and in man, whether he was a
traveller, or had never moved from Jerusalem, we may feel
inclined to question, but cannot venture to pronounce dogma
tically. It is of course possible that being a prophet and a
confessor, in picturing Him who was both and more than both,
he may to some extent have pictured himself ; but there could,
from the nature of the case, be no design in this partial co
incidence. The vocations of the two writers were different,
though not unrelated. The author of 'Job' wrote as a theistic
moral teacher, excluding, for more than merely artistic reasons,
considerations drawn from revealed religion. ' He has not,
indeed, solved, nor even tried theoretically to solve, the
problem of human suffering, but at least concentrated into
a focus the data for its discussion, so far as they could be
derived from the experience of his day. The author of II.
Isaiah wrote as an interpreter of the signs of the times to the
Jewish exiles, as an agent in the great work of preparation
for redemption, and as the final revealer of that wonderful
personage who should by his life and death explain all the
problems and fulfil all the aspirations both of Israel and
of humanity. But the one beyond question helped the other.
I cannot say with some recent writers ' that the poet of ' Job '
was ' inspired ' by the prophet of II. Isaiah, for it can, I think,
be made reasonably certain that ' Job ' is the earlier of the
two works, and that if any work has suggested the theme and
the mode of treatment of ' Job,' it is, not II. Isaiah, but the
glorious little treatise (chaps, i.-ix.) which opens the Book of
Proverbs.^ Nor can I even adopt the converse of this pro
position, and maintain that the Book of the Servant was
suggested by that of the Patriarch, for the influence of the
latter appears to me rather indirect than immediate, and the
author of the former to have immensely outrun his pre
decessor : — how could it be otherwise when he was a prophet 1
But I do most fully admit the importance of the general and,.
if I may say so, atmospheric influence of the Book of Job,
which must have contributed to a ' fit audience, though few,'
most precious elements of thought preparing them for higher
truths. In a word, I think with Dr. Mozley that from a
• Seinecke, Der Evangelist des Allen Testaments (he\p2. 1870), and Hoekstra, in an
essay entitled 'Job, the Servant of Jehovah,' which opens the 'Iheologisch Tijdschrift
for 1871,
^ See the paper in Eraser already referred to, pp. 129-130,

ESSAYS. 253
Christian point of view this great work was the providentially
appointed pioneer of the supreme revelation of the suffering
Saviour. ' If the Jew was to accept a Messiah who was to
lead a life of sorrow and abasement, and to be crucified be
tween thieves, it was necessary that he should be somewhere
or other distinctly taught that virtue was not always rewarded
here, and that therefore no argument could be drawn from
affliction and ignominy against the person who suffered it.
The Book of Job does this. It devotes itself to the enunciation
of this injustice and irregularity as a law or principle of the
present order of things. However the mass might cling to
the idea of a visibly successful Messiah, such a book would
insensibly direct the minds of the better sort into another
channel, and prepare them for the truth of the case. It spoke
things (pcovavra avvsToicriv, in describing the afflictions of one,
whom when the ear heard, it " blessed him, and when the eye
saw, it gave witness to him ; who delivered the poor that
cried, the fatherless and him that had none to help him." '
And thus [to the few who had " ears to hear "] it stood in a
particular relation to the prophetic books of Scripture — a kind
of interpretative one ; supplying a caution where they raised
hopes, suggesting suspicions of apparent meaning and con
jectures as to a deeper one, and drawing men from a too
material to a refined faith. By the side of a long line of
prophecy, as a whole outwardly gorgeous and flattering, and
promising in the Messiah a successful potentate, and opener
of a glorious temporal future for the Jewish nation, there rose
one sad but faithful memento, and all that appearance of ap
proaching splendour was seen in qualifying connection with
other truths.' ^

X. ISAIAH AND HIS COMMENTATORS.
I.
It is an unfortunate custom which, though of modern origin,
promises to be difiicult to eradicate — that of interpolating
exegetical observations with a long array of names of
authorities. In spite of the eminent precedents which may
be claimed on behalf of the practice, its extension is, I think,
very much to be deprecated. If, indeed, ' always, everywhere,
and by all ' complete unanimity were enjoyed as to the objects
* Job xxix. II, 12.
2 Mozley, Essays Historical and Theological, ii. 227-8.

2 54 ESSAYS.
and method of exegesis, we might safely allow the commen
tator the same liberty which we grant the poet ; it is pleasant
to read a Miltonic roll of famous names. But in the unideal
conditions of human thought it is not open to us to make
light of the distinctions of ages and schools. To mix up a
St. Augustine with an Ibn Ezra, an Estius with a Calvin, a
Hengstenberg with a Hitzig, is equally offensive to the
historical sense and injurious to the exegetical student.
Perhaps the practical point of view is that from which one
may have most hope of disestablishing the custom ; the
practical danger is too manifest to be ignored. Commen
taries are not written primarily for the finished scholar, and
nine students out of ten are without a living conception of
what these bare lists of names symbolise. Not only are
their memories clogged with a useless skeleton of knowledge,
but their judgments are biassed by a misplaced regard to
often very questionable authorities. Authority has no doubt
a value, but only to those who possess a clear insight into the
grounds of its existence. There are commentators whom we
may gladly hear on a theological inference,' but whose opinion
is of little or no importance on a point of grammar. It is
history which alone enables us to discern between various
charismata — the history, that is, of exegesis, which is itself
the history of philology, philosophy, and theology in mini
ature. It is impossible here even to sketch the outlines of these
three great subjects ; but some of my readers may thank me
for that elementary information which will vivify the few
names of commentators which I have thought it necessary
to mention. Besides, it is of consequence to the student not
to tie himself to any single commentator or school of com
mentators. The Scriptures shine with a prismatic radiance,
and the gifts and perceptions of their expositors are equally
manifold. The richest stores of the intellect have been
lavished on the illustration of the prophecies, and it were
self-impoverishment to neglect to turn them to account. A
really good commentary on a many-sided author is never
quite superseded. Two or three representative works should
always be at hand, not as crutches for the indolent, but as
friendly guides to those who have already a preliminary
knowledge of the text. I speak here only of commentators ;
a special handbook is required for the versions, and in its
absence the Introductions of Bleek and Keil are familiar to
' See, e.g., the quotation from St. Athanasius in the supplementary note on
xlv. 14.

ESSAYS. 255
all. And I can say but little of the earlier exegetical writers,'
who would involve me in too many digressions, and, indeed,
like the versions, require a very special treatment. The
object of my work has been to place the reader in the centre
of the great modern exegetical movement, and it is on the
merits and demerits of those who have taken part in this
movement that the reader is entitled to expect a word of
guidance. But how can I omit St. Jerome, who in his seclusion at
Bethlehem laid the foundation of a philological exegesis, and
bridged over the gulf between the Synagogue and the Church 1
The only ancient Latin commentary on Isaiah comes from
his facile pen (a.d. 410). It is divided into eighteen books,
and, like this Father's exegesis in general, may be described
with Dr. Merx as 'eine fleissige, elegante, aber principlose
Compilation.' Not the least valuable element in its multi
farious contents is that derived from St. Jerome's Jewish
rabbis (see his notes on i. 10, vi. i, vii. 8, xiii. 10, xiv. 19,
XX. 6) ; there are also golden grains in his geographical
and archaeological notices (see e.g. on a^^t xix. 6, and on
l^vOos xix 10). ^ Among Christian teachers. St. Jerome
probably owes much to Origen, like whom he expatiates
freely in the allegoric mysticism of ' tropology.' His merit,
however, and it is not a slight one, is this— he distinctly lays
down that ' tropology ' must never violate text and context,
kzs tantiim legibus circumscripta, ut pietatem seqiiatur et
intelligentics serinonisque textum^ and that the fundamental
sense of the Scriptures is the literal {fundamenta faciens
Scripturarum).* In the preface to the fifth book (on Isa.
xiii.-xxifi.), written in a simpler style than usual at the
request of the bishop Amabilis, he even hazards a gentle
censure of his great predecessor Origen, who liberis allegorice
spatiis evagatur, et interpretatis nominibus singulorum in-
genium suum facit ecclesim sacramenta.^
The next great link between Jewish and Christian scholar
ship was Nicolas De Lyra (died 1340), a Franciscan
monk at Paris, the author of Postillce perpetuce, in 85 books
^ My plan prevents me from more than mentioning R. Saadyah (892-942), born
in the Fayyurn in Upper Egypt, who was one of the early lights of Jewish-Arabic
philology, and whom I have referred to occasionally as a translator. His Arabic ver
sion of Isaiah was edited in a very faulty manner by Paulus (Jeuce, 1790-1), and will
be re-edited, it is hoped, by Prof de Lagarde. Salomon Munk made important con
tributions to a more accurate text in vol. ix. of Cahen's great Bible (Paris, 1838). It
would be interesting to examine his commentary, which has been discovered (in Arabic)
in a new collection of MSS. in the St. Petersburg Hbrary, though, from his date and
theological position, we cannot expect it to be seriously philological.
^ Gesenius, Der Prophet Jesaia, p. 115.
3 Comment, in Abac. i. 11. ¦* Praef inlibr. quint. Is. 5 Ibid.

256 essays.
(Benedictine edition, Antwerp, 1634). The well-known
verse, ' Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset,' ' is
in reality a tribute to Jewish scholarship, for Lyra was so
largely dependent on Jewish exegesis as to receive the not
unmerited nickname ' simia Salomonis ' (Rashi's name being
properly R. Solomon Yifkhaki). Let us pay the debt of
gratitude to the name of Lyra, and be thankful that we are
not reduced, like Luther, to submit to his infiltration of
JewLsh exegesis. Lyra's great teacher, RASHI (died 1107),
was the glory of the rabbinical school of northern France.
He has left commentaries on nearly the whole of the Old
Testament, printed in the rabbinical Bibles, and partly
translated into Latin by Breithaupt (3 vols., Gotha, 17 10).
His merits are thus summed up by (jratz the historian : —
' His accurate tact and his sense of truth guided him to the
right meaning and the appropriate connection. Only he too
often allowed himself to be diverted by the Agadic exegesis,
assuming that the exposition in the Talmud and in the
Agadic literature was meant to be taken seriously. Yet he
was conscious, though somewhat vaguely, that the simple
sense {W^) was the contradictory of the Agadic explanation
(K'n'7). In his old age this consciousness became more dis
tinct, and he expressed the intention to his learned grandson
and disciple (Rashbam) of recasting his commentaries on the
Bible in the sense of a sober, literal exegesis.' ^ A greater
genius than Rashi was the illustrious Abraham Ibn Ezra
of Toledo (died 1 167), poet, philosopher, theologian, and
exegete. His commentary on Isaiah (one of his earlier works)
has received the honour of a critical edition from Dr. Fried-
lander, who has appended a valuable glossary for the benefit
of those who are not conversant with the technical terms of
the rabbis, and who has also published a translation.' As
Mr. C. Taylor, editor of The Sayings of the Jewish Fathers
remarks : ' The large class to whom the term Rabbinic
suggests a futile display of misapplied subtlety will see occa
sion to revise their judgment after some study of the work
now presented to them in a comparatively popular form.'^
The obscurity of the author's style is the chief drawback to
the perusal of his works in the original.
'Or, 'totus mundus delirasset.' There are also other forms of the couplet. 'With
regard to Rashi's influence on Lyra and on Luther, see Dr. Siegfried's papers in the.
Archiv fUr wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Allen Testamentes, i. 428, &c., ii. 39, &c.'
'' Gratz, Geschichte der Juden, vi. 73. Rabbi Eleazar, of Beaugenci, whose Hebrew
commentary on Isaiah has been edited by Mr. Nutt (1879), was a pupil of Rashbam,
the second grandson of Rashi.
5 Published for the Society of Hebrew Literature by Triibner & Co., 1873 (trans
lation), 1877 (text).
¦* 'The Academy, Dec. i, 1873, p. 451.

ESSAYS. 257
David Kimchi of Narbonne (died 1235) was distin
guished alike as a grammarian, a lexicographer, and an
e.xegete, though less by any original contributions of his own
than by his sound judgment, and his discriminating use of
the labours of others.
Of these three celebrated commentators, Ibn Ezra is
decidedly the most original, and it is not perfectly clear why
- Dr. Merx denies him the capacity of historical criticism,'
when he has certainly anticipated modern historical scepti
cism (in the good sense) on such a salient point as the author
ship of Isa. xl.-lxvi. Ciesenius more plausibly complains of
the Jews for ' preferring the superstitious and often crazy
Rashi to the clear-headed and thorough Ibn Ezra.' ' None
of them present us, however, with what we naturally look for
at supposed Messianic passages, viz. a traditional Jewish
exegesis. Ibn Ezra is the most eccentric ; many passages
commonly regarded as Messianic are explained by him from
the history of David, Hezekiah, &c., though he protests
against being supposed to be a disbeliever in the Messiah's
advent.' Kimchi is the most polemical ; he loses no op
portunity of expressing his horror at the idolatry of the
Christians (D'^^O). But a common ' Jewish interpretation
of prophecy ' is altogether wanting ; the most striking proof
of this is the thick octavo volume in which the comments of
Jewish writers on the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah have been
brought together by Dr. Neubauer and Mr. Driver at the in
stance of Prof Pusey. There was evidently no tradition, no
rule of interpretation, to bind the Jewish rabbis. All that we
have in this admirably edited work is the anti-Christian inter
pretations of individual Jews, ' privatmeinung, notbehilf, ab-
findung mit christlicher theologie.' '' '
To return to Christian exegesis. It is sad but true that,
by the unhistorical antedating of ' unwritten traditions,' the
Roman Catholic Church has done its utmost to cut the nerve
of historical exegesis. It has even, by its declaration of the
' authenticity ' of the Vulgate (without, however, providing a
critical text of that version), and by the ominous decree, ' ad
coercenda petulantia ingenia,' made it practically all but
impossible to be, even in the most humble sense, an exegete
of the original texts.^ Non ragioniam di lor, we must say,
> Die Prophetic des Joel (Halle, 1879), p. 255.
' Der Prophet Jesaia, p. 123.
' Friedlander, Essays on tlie Writings of Abraham Ibn Ezra, p. 98.
^ Lagarde, Symmikta, vol. ii. (Getting. 1880), p. 13.
*'.... Perspiciensque banc veritatem et disciplinam contineri in hbris scriptis
et sine scripto traditionibus, quss ab ipsius Christi ore ab apostohs acceptfe, aut ab
VOL. II. S

258 ESSAYS.
but in a very different tone from the stern Florentine, ma
guarda e passa. The leaders of the Reformation took a
directly opposite attitude. They appealed, in the interests,
as they believed, of spiritual religion, from an unverifiable
tradition to the text of the sacred Scriptures, and the study
of the Bible immediately rose to a position of primary
importance. Exegesis, without becoming less Christian be
came distinctly more scientific. In the Old Testament, for
instance, the Protestant divines sought to harmonise their
exegesis, not merely with their Christian assumptions, but
with the rules of the new philology. The atomistic mode of
treatment gave way to a patient, thoughtful study of contexts.
The reaction against dogmatic accretions inspired a whole
some dread of the licence of allegory. A growing distrust
set in of the manifold senses of the older expositors ; in fact,
one of the greatest dangers of Protestant exegesis became the
identification (so unnatural, if it be understood extensively,
and not intensively) of the literal interpretation with the
Christian. I speak of course, merely of tendencies, not of
accomplished results.
It was in the Reformed Church, which attached greater
importance than the Lutheran to the authority of the Scrip
tures on all points of doctrine, that the problem of Biblical
exegesis was apprehended with most distinctness. Mus-
CULUS, however (whom I have had occasion to cite once),
has been praised by a competent judge for his careful dis
tinction between the scientific and the practical elements
of exegesis, and his special attention to the former ; ' and
Musculus was an adherent of the doctrines of Luther. In
the Reformed Church the name of the ardent Hebraist Pel-
LICANUS deserves honourable mention, as we have been
reminded by a recent discovery in our national library.^ His
ipsius apostolis, Spiritu Sancto dictante, quasi per manus traditss, ad nos usque
pervenerunt. ' ' Prseterea, ad coercenda petulantia ingenia, decernit, ut nemo, suae
prudentiae innixus, in rebus fidei, et morum ad asdificationem doctrinas Christianas
pertinentium, sacram scripturam ad suos sensus contorquens, contra eum sensum.
quem tenuit et tenet sancta mater ecclesia, cujus est judicare de vero sensu et interpre-
tatione scripturarum sanctarum, aut etiam contra unanimem consensum patrum ipsam
scripturam sacram interpretari audeat, etiamsi hujusmodi interpretationes nullo
unquam tempore in lucem edend« forent.' Canoncs Concilii Tridentini, Sessio
Quarta. (I fail to see how the former quotation is reconcileable with any theory of
historical development, or how the art of exegesis is ever to be practised either by
master or by scholar with such a sword of Damocles suspended over his head. )
' Musculus; Tn Esaiam prophetam commentar ii locupletissimi, Basil., 1570.
Comp. Diestel, Geschichte des Allen Testamentes in der christUchen Kirche (lena,
1869), p. 268. ^
^ Pellicanus was the predecessor of Reuchlin as a writer on Hebrew Grammar.
The story of his exertions to learn the sacred tongue can be read in his autobiography,
edited by Professor Riggenbach for the festival of the fourth centenary of the Uni
versity of Tiibingen, in 1877. His grammar (entitled De modo legendi et intellimidi

ESSAYS. 259
notes upon Isaiah, which are concise, and mainly devoted to
paraphrasing the grammatical sense, occur in the third volume
of his Commentaria Sacra (Zurich, 1540). But the only
writer of this age who still retains, and is likely to retain, his
importance is CALVIN (1509-64). 'Unrivalled in his own
age,' says Diestel, ' his works offer even yet a rich store of
Biblical knowledge.' ' Mercerus ^ was no doubt a far deeper
Hebraist (though the scholarship of Calvin has been most
unduly disparaged by Richard Simon), but if we consider
Calvin's deep insight into the aim and method of historico-
philological exegesis, the extent of his exegetical labours, and
the high average level which, in spite of the enforced rapidity
of his work, he attained, we shall probably come to the con
clusion that, even as an Old Testament interpreter (and he is
more than this), there is no greater name in the Reformation
age (nor perhaps in any subsequent one) than that of Calvin.
It is indeed remarkable that one so eminent as a dogmatic
theologian should also have shown himself so loyal to the
principles of philology. The only apparent effect of his
dogmatic speculations upon his Biblical exegesis is to give
it a greater depth. The most celebrated specimen of his
exegesis is his commentary on the Psalms, of which it is
hardly possible to speak too favourably ; but even his work
on Isaiah,' though neither so mature nor so elaborate, well
deserves to be consulted. It certainly gives one a high idea
of the exegetical lectures — not by any means confined
within a narrow range— which this great Reformer was
constantly delivering to the future ' ministers of the word of
God.' In the seventeenth century the centre of Biblical studies
was transferred to Holland. The national characteristics of
coolness, good sense, and thoroughness, appear in the Dutch
exegesis : let it suffice to mention GROTIUS and De Dieu.
The former (i 583-1645) was primarily a statesman and a
jurist. His peculiarity as an exegete consists in his
thoroughly secular attitude towards the Biblical writings ; he
writes as a layman for laymen. Of the depth of meaning of
HebrcEum) was lost sight of, till Dr. E. Nestle discovered it in the British Museum
copy of the 1504 Strasburg edition of Reisch's Margaritha phi losophica, of which
PelUcanus' Hebrew Grammar forms part. A photolithographic reproduction of this
curious work was brought out by the discoverer in honour of the Tiibingen festival.
1 Diestel, op. cit. p. 267.
2 Mercerus (Le Mercier) was, although a Huguenot, regius professor of Hebrew
at Paris. He died 1570. Schlottmann calls him ' the greatest Old Testament
exegete of the sixteenth century' (Das Buch Hiob, p. 121). It is to be regretted
that he has left no commentary on Isaiah.
s Printed at Geneva, 1551, and dedicated to King Edward VI.
S 2

200 ESSAYS.
the Scriptures he has no real comprehension ; but he has done
yeoman's service for the letter. He wrote ' annotationes '
in the strict sense of the word — i.e. scattered, unconnected
notes on certain difficult passages — extending over the whole
of the Old Testament, including the Apocrypha. De Dieu
(i 590-1642) excels where Grotius is deficient, as a grammarian
and a lexicographer ; he not only sifted the vast and multi
farious Rabbinical tradition, but actually advanced Hebrew
philology by an independent comparison of the cognate
languages.' He had also a keen and subtle judgment, and
stimulates even where he does not convince. Well qualified
as he was, however, he seems to have objected on principle
to add to the number of continuously written commentaries ;
he has therefore only given us a spicilegium. Nor did any
of the great Orientalists (not even our own Pococke), who
formed a kind of philological ' succession ' in the seventeenth
and the early part of the eighteenth century, choose the
prophet Isaiah as the subject of special study.^ ALBERT
SCHULTENS (1686-1750), who has left an ineffaceable mark
on Hebrew philology, confined himself, like De Dieu, to
observations on difficult passages,' which, though highly
praised by Gesenius, require to be read with caution, on
account of the author's illusion as to the illustrative value of
the Arabic vocabulary. It was, however, a remarkable pro
duction for a youth of twenty-three, and reminds us forcibly
of the early achievement of one of his greatest successors.
In 1722 the academic world of Franeker was gathered in
the university church to listen to an oration from Albert
Schultens 'in exequiis principis theologi Campegii Vitringa.'
There is a refreshing enthusiasm in VITRINGA* ('ardens,
vehemens, et nobile quid ac magnificum spirans,' are the
epithets of his friend Schultens) which makes us wonder
whether he can be really the countryman of Hugo Grotius.
But this ardour is not inconsistent with a love of completeness
and an aKpL^zta, which have always characterised the best
type of Dutch philology. One is tempted to add, with a
prolixity peculiar to himself ; for who else in a land fruitful
above others in philologists would have thought of devoting
1 See his posthumous work. Animadversion es in Veleris Testamenti libros omnes
(Lugd. Bat., 1548).
2 Bochart, the French Protestant (died 1667), only touched on antiquarian and
especially zoological allusions ; here, however, he shows vast reading. His works are —
Geographia sacra, Caen, 1646 ; Hierozoicon, London, 1663.
^ Schultens, Alb. : An imadversiones philologicce et critica; ad varia loca Vet. Test.
Amstelod., 1709.
1 Vitringa : Commentarius in Librum Proplietiariim Jesaice, &c. Tomi duo-
Leovardias (i.e. Leuwarden), 1714-20, and 1724.

ESSAYS. 261
two folio volumes of 710 and 958 pages respectively to a
commentary on a single author of no great length ? Not
that Vitringa is properly chargeable with verbosity, but that
he has the cheerful faith that all truth is divine and therefore
reconcileable, and not enough intellectual independence to
sift the pretensions of all the claimants of that sacred name.
His exegesis is, in a word, involved in an ' infinita sensuum
silva,' if I may borrow an expression from St. Jerome, who
would certainly not have recognised his own type of tropology
in Vitringa's. The mitigation is that the various senses and
fulfilments of the prophecies are carefully kept asunder, and
that no pains are spared to explain and illustrate the primary
grammatical sense and historical background. Vitringa was,
for his day, a fine Hebrew and especially Rabbinical scholar,
and his commentary is a mine of learning, and even of sound
sense, which may still be worked with advantage. His
preface on the aims and methods of prophetic exegesis is a
brilliant piece of modern Latin composition, and reveals the
author as equally fervent in his Christianity and profound in
his erudition. Only one remembers the very different ideal
of a commentary in Calvin's golden preface to his work on
the Romans, and sighs at the two folio volumes !
Vitringa is a specimen of the late summer of Continental
orthodoxy ; it is natural that when England has her word
to say, it should be marked with the secularity of the English
eighteenth century. ROBERT LowTH (1710-1787), Professor
of Poetry at Oxford, by his lectures on the sacred poetry of
the Hebrews (first edition, 1753) began that important
aestheticising movement in Biblical criticism which, with all
its faults of shallowness and sometimes perhaps irreverence,
fulfilled (one may venture to surmise) a providential purpose
in reviving the popular interest in the letter of the Scriptures.
What Lowth began was continued with far greater ability
and insight by Herder ; but an Englishman may be proud
that Lowth began it. The principles which he thus introduced
to the world were further exemplified in his translation of
Isaiah,' in which the English text was for the first time
arranged according to those rules of parallelism, not, indeed,
discovered, but first brought vividly home, by the Oxford
professor. A long preliminary dissertation restates the
principles and characteristics of Hebrew poetry, and does
justice to the acute Rabbi Azariah de' Rossi (151 3-1 576), who
' treated of the antient Hebrew versification upon principles
' Isaiah. A New Translation, with a Preliminary Dissertation and Notes,
Critical, Philological, and Explanatory. Lond. 1778.

262 ESSAYS.
similar to those above proposed, and partly coincident with
them.' The chief faults of the translation are, not certainly
its fidelity, nor yet (if I may venture to differ from Dean
Milman ') its inharmoniousnes, but the inappropriate selection
of a Latinised vocabulary, and further, from a critical point
of view, the recklessness with which the translator treats the
Massoretic text. There was, indeed, an epidemic of arbitrarj'
emendation in the air, and Lowth did but follow the example
of Cappellus and Houbigant (comp. p. 223). I do not deny,
however, that he has often considerable reason for his changes ;
it is rather his inconsiderate haste, which gives him so much
the appearance of holding a brief against the traditional text.
Where he is most probably right, the discovery is often not
due to himself, but to one or another learned friend, especially
the recently deceased Archbishop Seeker. His emendations
were examined more or less successfully by David Kocher in
a small volume of Vindicice (Berne, 1786). The Bishop's
notes partly justify his emendations, partly illustrate the
text from classical poets and modern travellers. He does
not go deeply into the fulfilment of the prophecies, but in
the main adopts the ordinary Christian view without dis
cussion. His exposition of the prophecy of Immanuel is,
however, sufficiently peculiar to deserve quotation. After
stating that ' the obvious and literal meaning ' is not Messianic
(he explains ' the virgin ' to mean ' one who is now a virgin '),
he continues : —
' But the prophecy is introduced in so solemn a manner ;
the sign is so marked, as a sign selected and given by God
himself, after Ahaz had rejected the offer of any sign of his
own choosing out of the whole compass of nature ; the terms
of the prophecy are so peculiar, and the name of the child so
expressive, containing in them much more than the circum
stances of the birth of a common child required, or even
admitted ; that we may easily suppose, that, in minds pre
pared by the general expectation of a great Deliverer to
spring from the house of David, they raised hopes far beyond
what the present occasion suggested ; especially when it was
found, that in the subsequent prophecy, delivered immediately
• Dean Milman complains of the Bishop for having ' forgotten that he was trans
lating a poet,' and having 'chilled Isaiah down to the flattest — correct perhaps— but
unrelieved, inharmonious prose ' (Annals of St. Paul's, p. 468). The Dean had
evidently not read the ' preliminary dissertation,' in which the translator simply claims
the merit of fidelity. To be at once hteral and elegant or harmonious is surely im
possible. Gesenius, with whom the Dean compares Bishop Lowth unfavourably, is
certainly not 'harmonious,' but he has this great advantage over the Bishop, that hia
vocabulary is simple and natural. The Latinised style of high society is the most
unfitted of all for a Hebrew prophet.

ESSAYS. 263
afterwards, this child, called Immanuel, is treated as the Lord
and Prince of the land of Judah. Who could this be, other
than the Heir of the throne of David ; under which character
a great and even a Divine Person had been promised.'
Both the works of Bishop Lowth were translated into Ger
man, and, with the notes of Michaelis and Koppe, were, for
good or for evil, among the revolutionary influences of that
unsettled age in Germany. The words of Dean Milman are
therefore true in their fullest sense of the great critical Bishop,
that his inquiries ' make an epoch unperceived perhaps and
unsuspected by their author.' ' 2.
If Calvin is the predominant figure in the Old Testament
exegesis of early Protestantism, the modern period may
without any substantial injustice be said to date from
Gesenius (1785-1842). Himself a rationalist of the old
school, and a zealous promoter of the rationalistic movement
in his university, it is not surprising if his exegesis fails to
satisfy the deeper requirements of our time. He honestly
thought that to allow predictions in the Old Testament was
to degrade the prophets to the rank of soothsayers, and that
a ' Christian interpretation ' was only attainable by doing
violence to philology. The truth is that he was more of a
philologist than a theologian ; a susceptibility for religious
ideas was still dormant in his nature. In two respects, how
ever, he marks an advance ; he absolutely repudiates the
shallow and now antiquated aestheticising of the disciples of
Herder, and the extravagant disintegrating criticism introduced
by Lowth's editor, Koppe,^ which, 'whenever the prophet
stopped to draw breath, and the discourse surged up anew,
fancied it discovered the patchwork of uncritical collectors.'
His great work on Isaiah is hardly yet superseded ; it marks
precisely the point which historical and archaeological research
had attained at the date of its composition. It contains also
much lexicographical information, and if it entirely neglects
the prophetic teaching, this is at any rate better than mis
representing it. The dates of Gesenius' chief works are :
^ Annals of St. Paut s, 2nd ed., p. 467.
2 E.g. in his introduction to chap. i. , where hp opposes Koppe, who divided the
chapter into three unconnected pieces on the ground of alleged irreconcileable differ
ences between the descriptions of the internal state of the nation, Lagarde, it may be
here noticed, in his note on chap. i. in Semitica i. , simply follows in the wake of Koppe,
except that he supposes the disintegrated fragments to be not complete in themselves,
but portions of longer discourses now lost. He offers no discussion of the historical
backgrounds proposed for the chapter.

264 essays.
Hebrew Grammar, first ed. 181 3 ; Isaiah, 1821 ; Thesaurus,
vols, i.-iii. fasc. i, 1835-42, completion by Roediger, 1852-58.
Hitzig (1807-1875) resembles Gesenius in his rationalism
(Paulus and Gesenius were his earliest academic teachers),
which he ever expressed with the most fearless sincerity.
The refined monotheism of the Old Testament was discovered,
according to him, by superior intellectual vigour ' {durch eine
stdrkere Denkkraft) ; but the intellect of the Israelites, he
thinks with Lassen and M. Renan, was singularly limited,
and Old Testament prophecy is an illusion produced by the
objectifying of the higher self.^ In exegesis, however, Hitzig
displays a rare grammatical sense, and a tact for eliciting the
connection, though his explanations are sometimes charge
able with over-subtlety. Of reverence there is of course no
more trace than in Gesenius, but his more flexible intellect
enables him to sympathise more keenly with transitions of
thought and feeling. His discussions of the historical back
ground of the prophecies are in their way equally remarkable,
and his acuteness in combination extorts admiration, even
where it fails to produce conviction. Criticism to him is no
merely destructive power (as it was in the main to De Wette).
Both in the criticism of the text and in that of history he
aimed at positive results, though he was under a great illusion
as to the invariable trustworthiness of his methods. His
faults are, however, less conspicuous than his merits in his
early commentary on Isaiah (1833), dedicated to Heinrich
Ewald, his still youthful teacher, whose grammatical labours
he was the first to appreciate and to utilise.
E'WALd's governing idea was that of reconstruction. It
was no doubt also that of his period ; we find it in Hitzig,
but not so strongly developed as in Ewald. As a theologian,
he partook (unlike Hitzig) in that yearning for a deeper
religion which accompanied the great rising of the German
nation ; but he never succeeded in dissipating a certain
luminous haze which blurred the outlines of his religious
ideas. As a philologist, he takes the highest rank. By his
Hebrew grammar he earned from Hitzig the title of ' second
founder of a science of the Hebrew language,' and Professor
Pusey cordially admits the ' philosophical acuteness,' whereby,,
as he says, ' as a youth of nineteen (.? 24) he laid the founda
tion of the scientific treatment of Hebrew grammar.' ' As an
interpreter of the prophets (it would take too long even to
' Geschichte des Volkes /srael (heipz. 1869), p. 82.
' Der Prophet Jesaia, Allgemeine Einleiiung, p. 24.
' The Minor Prophets (Oxf. 1879), p. iii.

essays. 265
touch upon his other labours), he reminds us somewhat of
his master Eichhorn, whose poetic enthusiasm he fully shares,
though he holds it in check by a strong sense of the pre
dominantly religious character of the prophetic gifts. His
style has something in it of Orientalism,' which conveys a
deep though vague impression of the grandeur and beauty of
prophecy ; his translation of the prophets has a rhythmic
flow, which, though at the cost of elegance, gives some faint
idea of the movement of the original. His distinctive merits
appear to be threefold : — i. He starts with a conception of
prophecy derived from the prophets themselves. This con
ception is no doubt vague and indefinite, for he totally ignores
the New Testament ; but it is at any rate free from the
anti-dogmatic theories of the rationalists. 2. He has the eye
of a historian, and treats the prophetic literature as a whole.
No critical theory (as I have suggested already) can be
properly estimated until we see how it dovetails into the
author's scheme of the historical development of the Old
Testament literature. 3. He bestows special care on the
connection of thought, though his over-subtle views of
Hebrew syntax may have sometimes led him beyond the
borders of the natural and the probable. I might, perhaps
add a fourth merit — his conciseness. He spares his reader
those wearisome discussions of rejected opinions which render
so many German works unreadable. He even disdains the
help of archaeological and historical illustrations, and confines
himself mainly to that which he regards as essential, viz. the
prophetic ideas. His faults, too obvious to need a long de
scription, are an overweening self-confidence, an excessive
predilection for minute systematising, and a lack of dialectic
power which often prevents his reader from discovering the
real grounds of his theory (how unlike, in this latter respect,
one of his most influential successors — the author of the
Religion of Israel). The following are the dates of Ewald's
chief works (a complete list would occupy nearly three
pages) — Hebrew Grammar, first ed., 1827, fifth edition re
cast, 1844, Die propheten des alien Bundes, first ed., 2 vols.,
1840-41, second ed., 3 vols., 1867-68 ; the same translated in
five volumes, 1875-81.
It is not surprising that the shallowness of Gesenius and
1 Karl Hase, himself a rationaUst of a more cultured school than Gesenius and
Hitzig, has given one of his medallion portraits of Ewald. ' Nach Gesenius hat
Ewald' die Geschichte des alttestamentUchen Volkes aufgerollt, er ein riickschauender
Prophet mit der orientalischen Zungengabe, kiihn und zu Opfern bewahrt fiir die Frei-
heit, nur durch seine sittUche Entriistung gegen jede abweichende Meinung leicht
verstort' (Kirchengeschichte, p. 582).

266 essays.
Hitzig, and the vagueness of Ewald, were profoundly ob
noxious to those who resorted to the Scriptures for supplies
of spiritual life. Even had the new exegesis been free from
theological objection, it would have required unusual strength
of faith to admit in practice (what all admit in words) that
our knowledge of the sense of revelation is progressive. ' It
is not every interpreter who is able, like Luther and Calvin,
to place his novel views in a light which shall appeal as
strongly to the religious experience of the Christian as to the
scholarly instincts of the learned. The rise of new difficulties
is as essential to the progress of truth as the removal of old
puzzles ; and it not seldom happens that the defects of
current opinions as to the sense of Scripture are most palpable
to the man whose spiritual interest in Bible truths is weak. . ,
Thus the natural conservatism of those who study the Bible
mainly for purposes of personal edification is often inten
sified by suspicion of the motives of innovating interpreters ;
and even so fruitful an idea as the doctrine of a gradual
development of spiritual truth throughout the whole course
of the Bible history has had to contend, from the days of
Calvin down to our own time, with an obstinate suspicion that
nothing but rationalism can make a man unwilling to find
the maximum of developed spiritual truth in every chapter
of Scripture.' ' Only by such feelings as these can we ac
count for the almost unvarying opposition of HENGSTENBERG
(1802-69) to the new criticism and exegesis — an opposition, I
must add, intensified by his editorship of a Church news
paper,^ which kept him in a continual atmosphere of party strife.
Anxiety for his personal religion, which he had learned in
the school of trial, and not of this or the other theologian,
converted the youthful Hengstenberg into an ardent cham
pion of revelation, and a certain heaviness of the intellect
(which no English reader of his works can fail to observe) made
him regard any attempt, such as Bleek's, at a via media, as
sophistry or self-delusion. Hengstenberg had no historical
gifts, and never seems to have really assimilated that doctrine
of development which, though rejected by Pietists on the one
hand and Tridentine Romanists on the other, is so profoundly
Christian. He was therefore indisposed to allow the hu
man element in inspiration, denied the limited nature of the
Old Testament stage of revelation, and .as Dr. Dorner
has pointed out,' made prophecy nothing but the symbolic
' Mr. Robertson Smith, British and Foreign Evangelical Review, July 1876,
p. 474- " The Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, founded 1827.
' History of Protestant Theology, vol. ii. pp. 436-7.

ESSAYS. 267
covering of the eternal truths of Christianity. These seem
to Dr. Dorner grave faults, which seriously detract from the
value of Hengstenberg's exegesis. And yet it should be
borne in mind that the rationalistic exegesis had been equally
one-sided, and with results far more dangerous. Even from a
scientific point of view, it was desirable that the old cri
ticism and exegesis should be once restated in a modern
dress, lest perchance in the hot haste of the innovators certain
precious elements of truth should be -lost. I do not think
that there is much in Hengstenberg which cannot now be
found in a more acceptable form elsewhere ; and his works
are but ill translated. But it may be well for the student
at least to dip into the Christology of the Old Testament^
which is still the most complete expression of the theory
which interprets the Old Testament solely and entirely in the
light of the New.
Hengstenberg's exegesis of Isaiah was confined to the
Messianic passages : but a devout and thoughtful commen
tary on the whole of the book was begun in the same spirit
by Drechsler,^ and, on his death in 185 1, completed by
August Hahn, with an important appendix 'by Franz
Delitzsch, indicating the thread of thought in chaps, xl.-lxvi.,
and arguing with great fulness of detail for the Isaianic author
ship of the disputed prophecies. Neither Hengstenberg nor
Drechsler are strong on the linguistic side ; and they have
another unfortunate resemblance in the vehemence with which
they impute motives to other critics. With Drechsler may be
coupled Rudolf Stier,' better loved perhaps in England
than in his own country, who has left us an exposition of
chaps, xl.-lxvi., of real value for its spiritual insight, and con
scientious endeavour to base the Christian or theological
upon the philological meaning. Much of what has been said
above of Hengstenberg is, however, applicable to Stier. He
is vehement and incisive in his language (but his vehemence
somehow hurts less than that of others), has no historical
sense, and is not a sound Hebrew scholar, being (unlike
Hengstenberg) afraid of deriving anything, even in scholar
ship, from a rationalistic source.
We are in a very different atmosphere as we read the
commentary of Knobel'' (died 1863). A model of conden-
1 First edition, 2 vols., 1829-35 ; second, 4 vols., 1854-57 (recast). Translated in
Clark's Foreign Theological Library (for Isaiah, see vol. ii.).
2 Vol. i., 1845 ; vol. ii., part i, 1849, part 2, 1854 (posthumous) ; vol. iii. (con
taining chaps, xl.-lxvi.), by Hahn and Delitzsch, 1857.
s Jesaias, nicht Pseudo-Jesaias (Barmen, 1850).
< First ed., 1843 ; fourth (posthumous), edited by Diestel, 1872. (Diestel, whose

268 ESSAYS.
sation, it well deserves its name of ' exegetical handbook."
Great merit is due to it for its linguistic and archaeological
aKpi/3sia, but the author's view of prophecy is low (see his
Prophetismus, Breslau, 1837), and in the latter part of Isaiah
his excessive realism blinds him to the poetry of the form —
he seems to expect the prophet to write with the exactness'
of a bulletin. One of the most useful parts of Knobel's work
is the collection of stylistic peculiarities in II. Isaiah, which,
however, requires careful sifting.
But without depreciating his predecessors, apart from
whom his own achievement would have been impossible, it is ¦
but fair to admit that far the most complete and equal
commentary is that of Dr. Franz DELITZSCH.' He who
will patiently read and digest the new edition of this masterly
work will receive a training both for head and heart which
he will never regret. I think, indeed, that the learned author
is now and then over-subtle in his grammatical observations,
and too positive of the correctness of the received text ; and
also that, in spite of his intention to be strictly philological,
he has once or twice unconsciously wrested language in the
interests of theology ; and I know that in the judgment of
many his sentences are packed so full of meaning as to have
become obscure. But these are but spots upon the sun ; and
I heartily take for my own a sentence from a writer whom I
have had occasion to criticise severely — Dr. Klostermann : —
' Delitzsch, from his full stores of knowledge, with his open
eye for all that is irregular and uncommon, his delicate ear
for all shades of expression, his reverent enthusiasm for the
word of the prophets, his unremitting toil, and conscientious
regard to minutis, has provided a commentary, with which
it will not be easy for another successfuly to compete.'^
And yet, though it may be long before an equally finished
work is produced, there is still so much obscurity, so much
diversity of opinion, that we cannot regret the labour which
another scholar has bestowed from the same point of view.
Naegelsbach's recent work (1878) is fresh and independent
even to a fault. Not many, I fear, of its new interpretations
are likely to stand ; but thoughtful criticism of the exegetical
tradition is always valuable, and the book has in some pas
sages really advanced the interpretation of Isaiah. Perhaps
its special characteristic is this— that it regards the Bible as
one great organism, of which the Book of Isaiah is a part,
university lectures on Old Testament rehgion were of so high an order as to deserve
publication, has himself, too early for science, since passed away).
1 First ed., 1866 : third, 1879. (Clark's translation is from the first.)
' Zeitschrift fiir lutherische Theologie, 1876, p. i6.

essays. 269
and that it carries out this principle with greater fulness
than previous writers. The abundance of well-chosen parallel
passages is a boon equally to the pure linguist and to the
exegete ; of the invaluable collection of deutero-Isaianic words
at the end of the book I have spoken already.
But to come nearer home. Is it not a strange phe
nomenon that our English and American theologians should
be so little awake to the importance of a thorough study of
the prophets? General dissertations on prophecy are not,
indeed, entirely wanting, but calm and candid, self-denying
and theory-denying exposition of the sacred texts is still
sadly in arrears. Putting aside the modest, but very useful,
compilation of the American Albert Barnes (Glasgow, 1845),
I can call to mind but four professedly independent commen
taries on the whole of Isaiah ' — those respectively of Drs.
Henderson, Alexander, and Kay, and of Professor Birks.
The first of the four certainly supplied with more or less
ability a want painfully felt in our exegetical literature. It
is unambitious in its object, and confines itself mainly to the
letter of the sacred text. But though full of valuable in
formation, it is an unsafe guide even in its chosen field of
scholarship. The colour of its exegesis is orthodox, but it
stands entirely apart from every form of scientific theology.
The second is by far the most complete, and does high
honour to the American theology of its date. It is at once
full (some perhaps will say, too full) and accurate ; but its
point of view is that of Hengstenberg, and it is no longer at
the centre of the exegetical movement. The third, from its
brevity, would seem to address itself to the class for whom
the Speaker's Commentary was originally intended — the inquisi
tive but much occupied laity, and the practical clergy. In spite
of its incompleteness, it is certainly one of the most original
contributions to Canon Cook's series. Like Ewald, the author
puts aside mere historical and arch^ological investigations as
not touching the root of the matter : the text itself, both in its
primary grammatical sense and in its spiritual application,
absorbs the energies of the interpreter. But I shall best
consult the interests of the student by quoting the words of a
courteous and fair Continental critic, though of an opposite
school to the author. He writes thus, in reviewing, with that
discriminating tact which characterises him, the two exe
getical works of Dr. Kay on the Psalms and on Isaiah : —
' Dr. Kay is one whom I would gladly see on our side. He
' Henderson, first ed. 1840 ; second, 1852. Alexanderj edited by Eadie, 2 vols.,
Edinburgh, 1865. Kay, 1875. Birks, first ed., 1871 ; second, 1878.

270 ESSAYS.
is not only a good Hebrew scholar ; not only very well read
in the Old Testament ; but also, if I am not altogether deceived,
a thoroughly earnest and above all an upright man. ' The
drawback which Dr. Kuenen finds is a ' self-confidence ' which
goes hand in hand with ' very subjective and fantastic views,
in which he often stands entirely alone, or which at least,
have hardly an adherent besides himself, but which not
withstanding are propounded in so positive a tone that the
unsuspicious reader may well be taken by surprise.'^ I have
myself been often struck by the ' subjective ' character of Dr.
Kay's Hebrew philology, though I gladly admit that one may
learn much from his rare command of the facts of the
language. His theological arguments would, I venture to
think, have gained considerably both in intrinsic value and in
effectiveness, if he had been able to recognise the elements of
good in those who are still struggling towards the light. In
one sense, no doubt, ' the true light now shineth,' and I at
least must agree with Dr. Kay, as against Dr. Kuenen in his
review, that ' no one who is held in the chains of naturalistic
speculation is qualified to expound the writings of the
prophets ' (p. 3). But this general principle will not, I
submit, justify the learned author in throwing down the
gauntlet (as he has done) to all critical inquiry into the
historic and prophetic literature of the Old Testament. If
you wish to overcome heterodoxy, you must surely do so
from within, and not from without. Heterodoxy is a product
of mixed origin, and you must not violate charity and truth
by imputing it to a single cause. Are you sure that your
own form of ' supernaturalism ' is adequate to all the facts of
the Scriptures (to say nothing of physical science) ? Have
you, indeed, already discovered all those facts, so that you
have no further ' light ' to wish for .'' Even if you reply in the
affirmative, charity and truth both forbid you to assume that
all who are not equally confident are either already ' natu
ralists,' or drifting into ' naturalism.' Surely it is as plain
as the day that there is a growing school of criticism and
exegesis, neither in any stiff sense orthodox, nor yet ration-.
alistic, which welcomes and assimilates fragments of truth
from all quarters. Dr. Kay will, I trust, listen to this echo
of a younger and more hopeful generation.
Some of these remarks are equally applicable to Professor
Birks, who is, however, without the counterbalancing merit of
sound Hebrew scholarship. Of his painfully unphilological
' Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1871, p. 367.
' Ibid., 187s, p. 569.

ESSAYS. 271
treatment of the stylistic peculiarities of II. Isaiah I have
spoken elsewhere ; his historical tact may be estimated by
his contemptuous attitude towards ' the boastful bulletins of
idolatrous kings' (p. 376)— £^. the royal Assyrian inscrip-
tion.s. Still Professor Birks is an acute and generally a
sensible writer ; and I will not deny that some germs of
thought may be elicited from his commentary. But I admit
that I am much more favourably impressed by the open-
minded tone, and the political, and, in general, the historic
insight of Sir EDWARD Strachey in his ' inquiry into
the historical meaning and purpose of the prophecies of
Isaiah.' This is emphatically a popular work ; it seeks
primarily for the moral and political lessons of the great
prophet, and treats of the historic background in complete
subordination to these. There is much, therefore, which
strongly attracts the cultivated lay reader ; it is only critics of
the new historical school (of the existence of which the author
is evidently unaware) who will be unpleasantly impressed by
some features of the book. Conservative critics, on the other
hand, will have their tastes gratified by the attempt (offered
with all due modesty) to discover a new historical argument
for the unity of the book, by the aid of the Assyrian inscrip
tions. The argument applies directly, indeed, only to chaps.
xiii., xiv., xxi. i— 10, and xxxix., 6 ; but it has evidently a
certain indirect bearing on the authorship of chaps, xl.-lxvi.
I have independently, but on similar grounds, arrived at the
same conclusion as Sir Edward Strachey with regard to the
authorship of chap. xxi. i-io, but the problems of chaps.
xiii., xiv., xxxix. 6, and xl.-lxvi., are not so easily solved (see
vol. i. pp. 81, 234), and must still be left to what is perhaps
invidiously called the ' higher criticism.' It is with regret
that one notices in a work of so wholesome a tendency, so
many uncalled-for reflections on this department of inquiry.
The author seems to forget that, though common sense has
much to do with science, it is a trained and cultivated common
sense which is required. Many as are the faults of German
writers on the Bible, a disparagement of the necessity of
philological training is not one of them. But I cannot allow
myself to part from so sympathetic a work in the tone of
complaint. Let me rather quote a passage with which I am
in the heartiest agreement, and which well expresses one of
the primary requisites both of the commentator upon Isaiah
and of his reader. ' If we will be rational, no less than if we
' This is the second title of his work, Jewish History and Politics in the Times of
Sargon and Sennacherib. Second edition, revised, with additions, London, 1874.

272 ESSAYS.
will be Christian, we must steadily recognise the reality — the
objective, independent reality — of that communication which
Isaiah was thus qualified to become the recipient of How
this could be, how God reveals His mind and will to men,
how the poetic or other human faculty gives form and ex
pression to truths not imagined nor discovered, but communi
cated from on high — this can never be explained: an
explanation is a contradiction in terms, an assertion that the
Infinite is definable, that the Superhuman is subject to the
laws, and expressible in terms, of the human ' (pp. 87, 88).

NOTE.
Among minor exegetical works on Isaiah, both Continental and Eng
lish, the following seem to have a claim to be mentioned : —
E. F. K. Rosenmi-iller : Jesaice vaticinia annotatione perpetuA illus-
travit E. F. C. R. 3 vols. Lips. 181 1-20.
T. Roorda. Annotationes ad vaticinia Jes. i.-ix. 6, in JuynboU's
Orientalia, i. 67-174. Amstel. 1840.
C. P. Caspari. Beitrdge zur Einleiiung in das Buch Jesaja, Berlin,
1848. [Conservative : thorough to a fault.]
 Ueber den syrisch-ephraimitischen Krieg unter Jotham und
Ahaz (1849).
E. Meier. Der Prophet Jesaja. Erste Halfte [cc. i.-xxiii.]. Pforz
heim, 1850. [School of Ewald.]
S. D. Luzzatto (died 1865). // Profeta Isaia volgarizzato e commentato
ad uso degli Israeliti. Padova, 1855-67.
[An Italian translation with a Hebrew commentary. Acute and very
suggestive.] L. Reinke. Die messianischen Weissagungen hei den grossen und
kleinen Propheten des Alien Testaments. Giessen, 1859-62. [Roman
Catholic ; learned and accurate. Vols. i. and ii. refer to Isaiah.]
V. F. Oehler. Der Knecht Jehova's im Deuterojesaia. Stuttgart,
1865. \IVot by the author of the well-known Old Testament Theology, but
from a kindred point of view. Contains a commentary on all the pas
sages relative to the ' Servant of Jehovah.']
L. .Seinecke. Der Evangelist des Alien Testaments. Leipzig, 1870.
[Accepts the unity of chaps, xl.-lxvi., but dates the book at the close of the
Babylonian Exile ; the author, however, is placed in Palestine. * A sug
gestive commentary, though its forte is not in philology. Comp. Riehm's
review in Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1872, pp. 553-578.]
B. Stade. De IsaicE Vaticiniis Aithiopicis Diatiibe. Leipzig, 1873.
[A learned philological and historical commentary on chaps, xvii. 12-14,
xviii., and xx.]
A. Hildebrandt. Juda's Verhaltniss zu Assytien in Jesaja's Zeit
nach Keilinschriften und Jesaianischen Prophetieen. IVIarburg, 1874. [A
suggestive but premature illustration of Isaiah from the Assyrian in
scriptions.] Aug. Klostermann. 'Jesaja Cap. xl.-lxvi. Eine Bitte um Hiilfe in
grosser Noth.' Zeitschrift fiir lutherische Theologie, 1876, pp. 1-60.

ESSAYS. 273
Aug. Klostermann. Art. 'Jesaja' in Herzog's Real-encyclopHdie, vol. vi.
[Arbitrary, but suggestive.]
H. Oort. 'Jesaja xl.' Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1876, p. 528, &c.
A. Kohut. ' Antiparsische Ausspriiche im Deuterojesaias.' Zeitschr.
d. d. m. Ges. 1876, pp. 709-722. [A wild attempt to show that II. Isaiah
is pervaded by an anti-Zoroastrian tendency. Answered by de Harlez in
the Revue des questions historiques, April 1877, and Matthes in the
Theologisch Tijdschrift, Nov. 1877].
J. H..Scholten, ' De lijdende knecht Gods, Jes. liii.' Theologisch Tijd
schrift, 1878, p. 117 &c.
Ed. Reuss. Les Prophetes, 2 vols., Paris, 1876. [Arranged chrono
logically with introductions, and short, very clear footnotes. The publi
cation was postponed by the Franco-Prussian war. From a ' liberal '
point of view.]
Friedr. Kostlin. Jesaia und Jeremia. Ihr Leben und Wirken aus
ihren Schriften dargestellt. Berlin, 1879. [A re-arrangement of the
' genuine ' prophecies, with historical illustrations.]
Lagarde's Semitica and a few articles in journals by Kleinert and
others have been referred to already.
To the English works mentioned above, and in the course of the
commentary (for Perowne, see on chap. viii. 16; Taylor, on viii. 21 ;
Sayce, onx. 5, &c. ; Urwick, Neubauer and Driver, on lii. 13, &c.) add ; —
G. Vance Smith. The Prophecies Relating to Nineveh and the Assy
rians. Lond. 1857. [One of the first attempts to utilise the Assyrian
monuments.] R. Payne Smith. The Authenticity and Messianic Interpretation of
the Prophecies of Isaiah vindicated in a Course of Sermons preached before
the University of Oxford. Oxford and London, 1862. [A useful intro
duction to the Messianic prophecies, from Hengstenberg's point of view ;
the lines of Jewish interpretation are well sketched.]
J. M'Gill. 'Critical Remarks on Isa. xviii. i, 2,' in Journal of Sacred
Literature, 1862, pp. 310-324. [The work of an eminent Professor of
Oriental Languages at St. Andrew's ; retrograde exegesis.]
Rowland Williams. The Hebrew Prophets translated afresh from the
original. 2 vols, [each containing a part of Isaiah]. Lond. 1866-71.
[Very complete in its plan, combining as it does the literary, historical,
philological, and theological points of view. Its chief merits are analo
gous to those of Sir E. Strachey's book noticed above ; the philology is
eccentric and unsound. The view of prophecy resembles in its vagueness
that held by Ewald.]
Stanley Leathes. The Witness of the Old Testament to Christ; being
the Boyle Lectures for 1868. Lond. 1868. [An appendix on the argu
ment from style, which betrays a grave misconceptioii of its nature— see
above, p. 218— is the reason for mentioning this pleasingly written popu
lar work.]T. K. Cheyne. Notes and Criticisms on the Hebrew Text of Isaiah.
Lond. 1868.
 The Book of Isaiah Chronologically arranged. Lond. 1870.
C. Taylor. ' An Interpretation of D''13 ilTS' in Journal of Philology,
1879, PP- 62-66. [Thinks that 'the word required is one which describes
a passive condition of wonderment,' on account of the following clause ;
and suggests 'so shall he agast, or aghast, many nations,' making
n-J'=ntlT; comp. D''tn, lvi. 10. But the meaning of D*tn is doubtful,
if indeed the text is correct.]
H. Kriiger. Essai sur la thMogie d'Esaie, y.\.-\ii.Y'\. Par. 188 1. [A
VOL. II. T

2 74 ESSAYS.
faithful and sympathetic study of the religious ideas of II. Isaiah, well
adapted for English students.]
W. H. Cobb. 'Two Isaiahs or One?' in Bibliotheca Sacra, 1881,
p. 230, &c. ; 1882, p. 104, &c. [See above, p. 239, note. If the critical
value of the conclusions is but slight, the tables will still be useful com
panions to the student of the text of ' Isaiah.']
¦W. Robertson Smith. The Prophets of Israel and their Place in
History to the close of the Eighth Century B. C. Edinburgh 1 882. [Freshly
written, learned and suggestive. The author's arrangement of the pro
phecies of Isaiah differs considerably from the above, owing to his rejec
tion of the theory of an invasion of Judah by Sargon. See above. Essay I.]
S. M. Schiller-Szinessy. An Exposition of Isaiah lii. 13, 14, 15, and
liii. Cambridge, 1882. [The subject of the prophecy, Israel, as repre
sented by the pious in his midst, culminating in the Messiah.]
To these must be added the primitive, unconscious commentators, to
whom the present work has been so largely indebted, and of whom we
have by no means heard the last. Three deserve to be mentioned with
special honour, though, inasmuch as (like most of the Hebrew chroniclers)
they wrote anonymously, they can only be entered under the names of
their translators.
George Smith. The Assyrian Eponym Canon. Lond. 1875.
 History of Sennacherib ; translated from the cuneiform inscrip
tions. Edited by A. H. Sayce. Lond. 1878.
E. A. Budge. History of Esar-Haddonj from the cuneiform inscrip
tions. Lond. 1880.
(For further references, see the present work passim. The time has
hardly come for a critical conspectus of Assyriological literature.)

XI. II. ISAIAH AND THE INSCRIPTIONS.

We have now traversed most of the subjects directly or
indirectly connected with the interpretation of Isaiah, and
with the foregoing rapid survey of the history of the exegesis
of the book it would seem as if we had reached our goal.
All that remained would be in that case to resume the
' gathering up ' of the ' fragments ' which might have escaped
insertion in the commentary. But before taking this last
step, I must return to a ' fragment ' of more than ordinary
significance, which has already found a place at the end of
the first volume. It relates to a discovery which not only
throws great light on some of those passages which ' remain
vague and obscure till we know the circumstances under
which they were written ' (p. 210), but also has a special bear
ing on the great question (too great to be entered upon here)
of the limits or conditions of prophecy.
The remarkable favour shown to the Jewish exiles by Cyrus
has long attracted the attention of students. Was it dictated

ESSAYS. 275
by political motives ? such is the first possibility which pre
sents itself In reply, it must be observed that if gratitude
had any influence on the action of Cyrus, it can only have
been as ' a lively sense of favours to come.' The statement of
the prophet in xlv. 1 3 (' He shall build my city, and mine
exiled ones shall he send home, not for price, and not for
reward') precludes us from supposing that his countrymen
were conscious of having placed Cyrus under an obligation.
The accuracy of the prophet, however, is not in the least
disparaged by the hypothesis that one of the secondary
motives of the Persian was the belief that the restored Jews
would form a useful outpost in a distant part of his dominions.
This leaves us free to maintain, with the prophet, that the
determining motives of Cyrus were religious ones ; and this
view of the case has appeared to be confirmed by the history
of Persian religion. The description of Ormazd in such an
early document as the inscription of Darius referred to in the
note on xlv. 7 might, from the purity of its monotheism, have
been penned by a Jewish prophet in honour of Jehovah. It
would have been quite in the spirit of the highest Old Testa
ment revelations to regard such homage to Ormazd as un
consciously offered to the true God Jehovah (vol. i., p. 256),
and a devout monotheist like Cyrus as only needing some one
to 'teach him the way of God more perfectly.' Such a
friendly guide it was natural to discover in the author of the
prophetic passages relative to Cyrus, which, as I have 'sug
gested elsewhere, may be plausibly viewed as an apologia for
the Jews and their religion addressed to their conqueror.'
The prophet himself does not as yet look upon Cyrus as a
full adherent of the true religion, but he cherishes the firm
conviction that Cyrus will become such at no distant day.
But now comes Sir Henry Rawlinson's discovery among
the latest treasures from Babylon, and throws the gravest
doubt not only on our, but on what we have supposed to
be the prophets, estimate of Cyrus. It represents him as a
complete religious indifferentist, willing to go through any
amount of ceremonies, to soothe the prejudices of a susceptible
population. Fresh from the pages of II. Isaiah, it is difficult
to realise that Cyrus was capable of this. He there appears
like an idealised David, a ' man after God's own heart ' in the
fullest sense of the phrase. His conquest of Babylon is the
signal for an iconoclasm which marks the downfall of the false
1 See below, supplementary notes. The view is equally admissible, whether the
standing-point of the author of the latter chapters be actually, or only ideally, at the
close of the Exile. T 2

276 ESSAYS.
religions. ' Bel boweth down, Nebo croucheth ; their idols
are given up to the beasts and to the cattle' (xlvi. i) — such is
the vision before the prophet's inner eye. Not so, says the
' broad ' and politic Cyrus. ' The gods dwelling within them
to their places I restored ' {ili asib libisunu ana asrisunu utir) ;
' daily I addressed Bel and Nebo that the length of my days
they should fulfil ; that they should bless the decree of my
fate, and to Merodach my lord should say that Cyrus the
King thy worshipper and Cambyses his son . . .' {yomi sam
makhar Bel va Nabu sa araku yomiya litamu litibkaru amata
dunkiya va ana Marduk bilya ligbu sa Kuras sarru palikhika
va Kambuziya ablusu. . . . )'
The authenticity and accuracy of the newly-discovered
inscription are self-evident. The concessions of Cyrus to
idolatrous polytheism are, indeed, just what might have been
expected, were it not for the strong language of the prophet.
They are but typical examples of the practice of the Persian
rulers. Cyrus in Babylonia is the pattern of his son Cambyses^
and even of the religious Darius in Egypt. But we cannot
admit the accuracy of the inscription without detracting
somewhat from the accuracy of the inspired prophet. This
is no doubt painful to a reverent mind, but here, as ever,
truth is the healer of its own wounds. Has not Wisdom
already been justified of her children 1 Throughout our study
of Isaiah have we not noticed ' a gracious proportion between
the revelation vouchsafed and the mental state of the person
receiving it'.? There is no defect implied in _ the revelation,
but only in the receptiveness of the human organ. The
admission of this relative defect involves no moral disparage
ment of the latter. In the case before us, for instance, the
prophet overrates Cyrus just because he is so completely a
prophet. His character is too simple, too religious, for him
to realise a mental state so mixed, a policy so complicated
with non-religious considerations. He cannot distinguish
between the king and the man, between a public and private
character. He cannot form a conception of a religious indif
ferentist. He will have ' no bowing in the house of Rimmon.'
1 These are the last connected words in the inscription. I here follow the word-for-
word translation of Sir H. Rawlinson ; in vol. i. , pp. 299, 300, I gave his more readable
alternative version. The transUteration is also that of the Nestor of Assyriologists ;
it differs in many technical points from that with which we are familiar. See Art. II.
in 'Journal of Royal Asiatic Soc, Jan. 1880, pp. 70-97.
2 In this reference to the religious policy of Cambyses I follow the contemporary
hieroglyphic account, which differs considerably from that of Herodotus. See
Brugsch, History of Egypt, ii. 297, and comp. Dr. Birch, Rede Lecture (1879),
p. 40. 5 I have already remarked that the s'ight inaccuracy in x. 10 (see my note) is a
parallel to the case before us. See also on xxxvi. 10.

'f.

ESSAYS. 277
It is unfortunate that the cylinder-inscription is too im
perfect to clear up the history of the fall of Babylon ; but
the deficiency is supplied by another cuneiform text, for the
decipherment of which we are indebted to Mr. T. G. Pinches.'
The text is arranged in the form of annals, and covers, includ
ing the fragmentary portions, the whole of the reign of Nabu-
nahid or Nabonidus, the last of the Kings of Babylon.^ The
chief point of interest in it is that it shows how it was that
Cyrus found Babylon so easy to conquer. Nabonidus, in
fact, spent the last years of his reign idling in his palace near
Babylon, while his son was with the army in Accad (the
northern part of Babylonia). He even neglected the due
worship of the gods, thereby giving great dissatisfaction to
the priests. Not until his seventeenth year did he rouse
himself from his inaction. It was under the pressure of fear.
There had been a revolt among the people of ' the lower sea '
{i.e. the Mediterranean). Then he began to think of his
neglected gods, for the text records that ' the god Bel came
forth' — i.e. probably the image of Merodach was carried
round in procession (see on xlvi. i ). The images of the temples
of other cities were also brought, especially those of Accad,
and this explains the statement of Cyrus in the former in
scription that he had restored the gods of Sumir and Accad
to their places. Another revolt, which occurred in the last
year of Nabonidus, was still more favourable to Cyrus ; it was
among the people of Accad. Four months after this, Cyrus
descended to Babylon, .and took it, without, as it would seem,
even a street-battle.' He then began that policy of religious
conciliation which is to readers fresh from Isaiah so unavoid
able a surprise.
A minor point which is finally settled by the cylinder-
inscription is the genealogy of Cyrus.
The line of descent from Achsemenes to Cyrus is, i.
Achaemenes, 2. Teispes, 3. Cyrus, 4. Cambyses, and 5. Cyrus.
Teispes, it will be remembered, is also mentioned both in
Herodotus (vii. 11) and in the Behistun inscription of Darius*
among the ancestors of the latter king.
September 1880.
• Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. vii. pp. 139-176.
2 So Mr. Pinches, in opposition, however, to Sir H. Rawlinson, who thinks that the
years belong to the reign of Cyrus.
5 It was on the i6th of the Babylonian month Dumuzi (Tammuz). On the isth,
corresponding to Midsummer-day, there was a religious festival, of the nature of a
marriage-feast, and probably of an orgiastic character (comp. Dan. v.). See Mr. Bos-
cawen's letter in Athen(Bum, July 9, 1881.
¦• Records of the Past, vii. 87.

278 ESSAYS.

The above results would be sufficiently important, were it
certain (as I have hitherto assumed it to be) that Cyrus was
a Zoroastrian believer ; and as soon as we have put aside our
preconceived opinion respecting Cyrus, we can see that they
are in themselves plausible. Prof Sayce, indeed, appears to
think that the theory of Cyrus's indifferentism is excluded
by the religious veneration with which he speaks of the
Babylonian deities. But is it not a characteristic of primitive
paganism, as opposed to the full Biblical religion, that it
permits the most various forms of belief to exist peaceably
side by side ? I for my part can see nothing more wonderful
in the religious tolerance of Cyrus than in that of any other
primitive pagan monarch. The really surprising fact, which I
have not here to consider, is, that this primitive tolerance
does now and then give way to a violent spirit of religious
centralisation ; e.g. in the noted case of Antiochus Epiphanes.
But such instances belong to the decline of a civilisation. And
certainly if Darius, who makes such a parade of his Zoroas
trian faith, adopted the policy of religious indifferentism in
Egypt, it is difficult to see why Cyrus (even though a less
fervent Zoroastrian) should not have done so in Babylonia
and Palestine. But the main result of Prof Sayce's recently
published study on the inscription ' is independent of this
incidental expression of opinion ; and, startling as it is, it
must, I am sure, meet with general acceptance. I ought to
add that M. Haldvy (so well known in connection with Semitic
inscriptions) has simultaneously come to virtually the
same conclusion.^ The point is this, that Cyrus, though of
Aryan origin,' was in all probability not a Zoroastrian at all.
Before, by his victory over Astyages, he became king of the
Medes and Persians, he was, in right of his birth, king of
' Anzan ' or Susiana. ' I am Cyrus,' he says, ' son of Cam-
buziya, great king, king of Susiana, grandson of Cyrus, great
king, king of Susiana, great-grandson of Teispes, great king,
king of Susiana.' Now, Susiana or (speaking loosely) Elam,
as the merest tyro in Assyriology knows (witness the names
Kudur-mabug, Kudur-nankhundi, and the annals of Assur
banipal), was peopled by a non-Aryan and idolatrous race.*
1 Letter in the Academy, October 16, 1880, pp. ^j6-j.
2 ' Cyrus et le retour de I'exil, ' in Revue des dtudes juives. No. i, pp. 41-63.
' His name, however, is probably non-Aryan ; see below, on xliv. 28.
* Comp. Mr. Sayce's paper on 'The Languages of the Cuneifonn Inscriptions of
Elam and Media,' in Trans. Soc. Bibl, Arch. iii. 465-485.

ESSAYS. 279
Teispes, the Achaemenian (see above) was no doubt a Persian,
and therefore an Aryan, but he and his band of fellow-Aryans
found for themselves a new home among a non-Aryan people.
' The main bulk of their relatives,' as Prof Sayce remarks,
' seem to have been left behind in Persis, and we cannot
wonder, therefore, that the invaders of Anzan [the native
name for Elam] should have intermarried with the old inha
bitants of their new home, and adopted their religious ideas
and art' This is not a mere hypothesis. It is expressly
stated by Darius in the famous Behistun inscription that
Gomates, the first pseudo-Smerdis, had destroyed the Zoroas
trian temples {Records of the Past, vii. 91). This, as Prof.
Sayce has well pointed out, would have been an absurd act
in the pretender, if Cyrus and his sons had been pure-blooded
Zoroastrians. Darius, on the other hand, was (to use his
own words) ' a Persian, son of a Persian,' and naturally enough
a strong Zoroastrian both in belief and in policy. He ' be
longed to the elder branch of the family which had remained
behind in Persis, while the younger branch had sought a
new kingdom among the non-Aryan population of Elam.'
Another documentary evidence pointed out by Prof Sayce,
is the peculiar expression used by Darius in speaking of
Veisdates, the second pseudo-Smerdis. He does not say that
Veisdates was a Persian, but that he was ' a man who dwelt
(in a certain town) in Persia.' His followers, too, are stated
in the proto-Medic text to have been not Persians, but the
old ' families of Anzan [Elam].'
We can now appreciate the force of the strange silence of
Cyrus in the cylinder-inscription with regard to Ormazd, the
supreme God of Zoroastrianism, to whom Darius so constantly
and devoutly refers. The cause is one which it is a little
painful to admit. Cyrus, on whom the prophet of Jehovah
lavishes such honourable titles ; Cyrus, who, the prophet even
appears to hope, may be won over to the true faith ; is a
polytheist and an idolater. Still the inscription, when rightly
understood, is not in conflict with the prophecy, but only with
a gloss upon the prophecy. Nebuchadnezzar is called in
Jeremiah (xxv. 9, xxvii. 6, xliii. 10) ' My Servant' ; and the
conversion of idolaters to the true faith is the standing
hope of the prophets. The peculiarity of II. Isaiah is that in
it the conversion of an individual king is hoped for, whereas
elsewhere the prophecy of conversion is vague and general.
Yet it should be remembered that the conversion of Cyrus is
only a hope, not an assured certainty, and that all prophecy
relative to events in the spiritual sphere is limited by the

28o ESSAYS.
possibility of the moral resistance of the persons prophe
sied of
The shock may be painful ; but, as I have said before,
truth heals its own wounds. Our loss, if loss it be, is com
pensated by a greater gain. It has often been said that the
Old Testament religion has been deeply influenced by Zoro
astrianism ; and though I have repeatedly had occasion to
combat this view (see notes above on xxvi. 19, xlv. 7 ; also
/. C.A., p. 130), I could not anticipate such a complete docu
mentary refutation of it. We now know that the Aryan and
Zoroastrian element did not obtain supremacy in the Achae
menian empire till the accession of Darius, too late to exert
any marked influence on Jewish modes of thought. M.
Haldvy remarks that the case of the Persian religion is ana
logous to that of the Persian language, which had no political
importance in the empire of the ' great king ' ' ; and further that,
' in spite of the long residence of a Persian dynasty at Susa,
the name of Ahuramazda was so repugnant to the Susian?
that the Susian redactor of the Behistun Inscription adds the
descriptive term " God of the Aryans." '
Of direct, circumstantial illustrations of II. Isaiah from the
newly-found inscriptions I am not able to indicate many (see
notes on xiii. 17, xlv. 2). Knobel, no doubt, would have
found more ; and M. Halevy's microscopic eye has discovered
points of contact in chaps, xiii.-xiv. 23, xlv. I- 7, xlvi., from
which he thinks he can determine the date of those prophetic
passages. I venture to think that this part of his able and
stimulative paper does not show much evidence of sound
judgment. Why not be content with the one great result
relative to the religious position of Cyrus ? ^
October 1880.
' Aramaic was the official, as well as the commercial language.
2 Dr. Kuenen (Hibbert Lectures, 1882, pp. 135-6, 321-2) disputes the soundness of
the historical results assumed above, partly on a priori grounds, and partly on the
authority of M. Oppert, who, however, is too fond of isolation to be a safe guide.
The gloss in the British Museum Corpus of Assyrian Inscriptions (ii. 47, i8), peremp
torily declares that Anduan (pronounced, as it states, Anzan) signifies Elamtuv, i.e,
Elam (Sayce, Trans, Soc. Bibl. Arch., 1874, p. 475).

28l

LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH.

^vvaydyerc ra ncpta-a-eva-avra icXaa-ftaTu, Iva jxr) ti oTrdXijrai.
(Evang. d. Joann. vi. 12.)
Now that 'the vintage is done,' the 'gleaning grapes' are more in
number than might have been anticipated. But the printing has been
long, and the Book of Isaiah is so many-sided that I could not help
obtaining some fresh results during the interval. Nothing surely is
trivial which helps us to realise any portion of a literature so peculiar
from every point of view as the prophetic. The contents of the following
supplementary notes relate partly to the exegesis of the text, partly to its
illustration from other sources. L trust that the friendly reader, who has
accompanied me hitherto, will not desert me before the end, ' that both
he that soweth and he which reapeth may rejoice together.'
On i. 24 (vol. i. p. 9). The view adopted in the Appendix to
chap. i. that Jehovah Sabaoth is a combination of two proper names
has been sanctioned in the Corpus Inscr. Semit. (i. 33), where among
other parallels Astar-Kemosh is cited from line 17 of the Moabite
inscription of Mesha.
On ii. 6, 8 (vol. i. pp. 16, 17). The co-existence of idolatry with
the spiritual religion of the prophets and their disciples is a fact
which must be accepted even if it cannot be explained. A fusion of
races may account for something, but rather in the northern section
of the nation than in the southern. For although Canaanitish elements
in the popular religion of Judah are not wanting (Isa. i. 29, xvii. 8,
10), yet 'on the whole it is probable that the popular religion was
not so largely leavened with Canaanite ideas and Canaanite immor
ality as in the North ; there is nothing in the prophecies of Isaiah
and Micah corresponding to the picture of vile Ucentiousness under
the cloak of religion [in N. Israel] drawn by Amos and Hosea.'
' In the population of Judsea the fusion of Canaanite and Hebrew
elements was not so great as in Ephraim and Manasseh ' ; and for
several reasons it is probable that S. Israel retained more super
stitions of the primitive Hebrews, such as are probably alluded to
in Amos ii. 4, and rather fully described in Ezek. viii. 10, &c. (see
below on Ixv. 4). The practice of divinadon, too, appears to have

282 LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH.
been specially strong in Judah, and there had been no Elijah in the
southern portion of the country. {The Prophets of Israel, 1882, pp.
200-3.) On iv. 2 (vol. i. p. 26). Prof de Lagarde's note on this passage
in his Semitica is not remarkably lucid. How nilT' Vtat and ^"iXn na
can be antithetical, consistently with the synonymous predicates, is
more than I can understand. Nor does the learned professor attempt
to explain the nOTXn HDS of Gen. xix. 24, which must of course have
included the fruits of cultivated soil ; and, as I have remarked in the
commentary, the opposite of the Talmudic phrase 'field of Baal' (see
below) is — not 'fruit of the land' — but 'field of fountains. ' Still, as
one competent reviewer of the Semitica ' has been attracted by Prof.
de Lagarde's explanation, I will quote a few more sentences, and
leave the reader to judge for himself. ' nin» HDV and pKn ''"13 are
evidently opposed .... riDX is that which grows without cultiva
tion ; it is said of hair, of wood, of the abS of the field. Lev. xiii. 37,
Eccl. ii. 6, Gen. ii. 5. If we were not in the region of the religion of
Jahwe, a formula would be used which is still current among Semitic
people, in order to define the word nOS still more distinctly as to
auTo/ia-ruis ^vkv. 7y|in IT'S of the Gemoro is the antithesis to t*D7?^D '^''5
of the Mishno {Aloed katon, ii. 11, i ; comp. Buxtorf, 2412.) 'Baal's
land,' according to Wetzstein (Zeitschr. d. d. m. Ges. xi. 489),
means in Arabic land which is nourished, not by springs, but by the
rain of heaven ; ' Baal's fruit,' that which grows on such land ' [comp.
Lane, Arabic Lexicon, s.v. ba'luti\. A candid admission is added
that, however far Isaiah may be from Christianity, ' we are certainly
here on the road to the Messiah.'
On iv. 5 (vol. i. p. 28). Wellhausen {Geschichte Israels, p. 350
note) doubts the genuineness of t<"J3-1' the creative activity of Jeho
vah being a subject characteristic of the writers of the Exile. No
doubt the verse is imperfect, if not corrupt, at the end, but I am not
so clear of a corruption at the beginning. Granting that X"i3 is an
Aramaism, does it follow that every Aramaism in Isaiah is a corrup
tion ? Ryssel has lately pointed out again how growing an influence
was exerted by Aramaic from the times of Ahaz onwards {De Elohistce
Pentateuchi sermone. Lips. 1878, p. 25), and the period of Ahaz is
suitable for the date of chap. iv. That S13 is of Aryan origin is a
hypothesis of Lagarde's and Wellhausen's which does not agree with
my own view of the probable affinities of Gen. i.
On chap. vi. (vol. i. p. 37). A parallel to 'Holy, holy, holy,' is
suggested by Friedrich Delitzsch in the thrice-repeated 'gracious,'
and ' may they be at hand ' {assiir, ligrtibu) uttered, the one at the
beginning, and the other at the end, of Assyrian intercessory chants.
( Wo lag das Paradies ? p. 253.)
' Dr. Eberhard Nestle, .in SchUrer's Z/fc/-flto?-x«'to«!^.

LAST 'WORDS ON ISAIAH. 283
On chap. vi. (appendix). The kinship of the seraphim and
cherubim maintained in the appendix to chap. vi. is confirmed by
Ezekiel's transference of an important detail from Isaiah's picture of
the seraphim to his own description of the cherubim (comp. Isa. vi.
2, Ezek. i. ii), and also by the fusion of the two figures in Rev. iv. 8.
It has been illustrated with great fulness of knowledge by the Rev.
H. G. Tomkins, a communication from whom I am permitted to
publish here. The reader will notice the interesting confirmation
(near the end of the note) of my own and M. Lenormant's theory of
the connection of kirubu (the steer-god) and /4?^r?/i5K ('the circling
bird '). Before we listen to Mr. Tomkins, however, let me supple
ment the appendix to chap. vi. in a few particulars, i. I have there
spoken of the colossal bulls of Assyria as having the special function
of guardians of the temples and palaces ; an authority seemed to be
lacking for their being also regarded as the divine throne-bearers.
Friedrich Delitzsch, however, points out ( Wo lag das Paradies ? p.
182) that the awful 'seven spirits' with whom George Smith has
already familiarised us ' actually bear this name in the inscriptions,^
and he maintains that they are fundamentally the same as the steer-gods.
2. I have designedly abstained hitherto from consulting the Egyptian
mythology, fearing to distract the reader's attention by cross-lights.
But, as Mr. Tomkins has so strikingly illustrated the conception of
the seraph from Egyptian sources, a brief reference to Egypt for the
cherubim may not be out of place. That winged figures, reminding
us somewhat of the cherubim, were common in Egyptian temples,
¦has often been pointed out. Dr. Lieblein expresses himself as
follows : —
' The cherubim of the Hebrews are perhaps identical with the
winged genii of the Egyptians (see 'S.o^^H^wS.; Monimcnti, plate lv. 2).
Like the cherubim, the latter are always in couples, and they
protect and defend, repelling the enemy with their extended wings.
.... Their name in Egyptian is not known ; but there is a Coptic
word {korb, repellere, abigere), which will indicate their function, and
which I recognise, both as to sound and as to signification, in the
Hebrew k'riibhiin. Possibly too the Kerberos of the Greeks was
derived from the same Egyptian word korb, repellere, abigere '
{Recherches sur la chronologic egyptienne, Christiania, 1873, p. 131).
3. It should also be mentioned that M. Lenormant's ground for
assuming that the Hebrew cherub was sometimes popularly regarded
as a great bird, such as an eagle, is not Ps. xviii. 11, but the description
of the cherubim of the ark in Ex. xxv. 18-22 : — 'c'dtaient des kurubi
plutot que des kirubi, c'est-&,-dire de grands oiseaux, aigles ou vau-
1 Chaldean Genesis, edited by Sayce, p. 104.
2 e.g. in the Deluge-story, col. 2, line 44, we are told that, together with the gods
Raman Nabu, and Ea, 'the throne-bearers went over the mountain and plain'
(Chald. Gen., p. 283).

284 LAST -WORDS ON ISAIAH.
tours, aux ailes dtendues en avant et ombrageant le convercle ou
propitiatoire ' {Les origines de Fhistoire, p. 128).
Mr. Tomkins writes as follows : —
' Perhaps the earliest figure that may illustrate the seraph is found
in Egypt, and seems to have been overlooked in this relation. I
have long suspected that the I seref (as the name may be
read) which is represented at Beni Hassan with other marvellous
composite creatures of the time of the 12th dynasty {Rosellini, i. pi.
xxiii.) indicates the conception of the seraph, and is connected with
n a word rendered by M. Pierret chaleur, chauffer, chaleur vitale
{Vocabulaire, 516).
' It is then the word fl"iE> of the Bible, with the same idea of the
burning one, from the root fjIB', which we find in Assyrian sarapu, to
burn, and surupu, burnt (Sayce, 513, 222 a). The creature depicted
at Beni Hassan is the winged hawk-headed lion, the gryphon in fact,
allowing for the substitution of the Egyptian hawk for the Eastern
eagle. Now the lion and eagle symbolise heat, especially that of the
sun, and the combination is most ancient. In Egypt we have besides
this seref the gryphon, akhekh, a name which with another determina
tive denotes a serpent and appears, like saraf, to be derived from
the idea of burning, since we have akh, a holocaust, a brazier for
incense (compare nx, akh, a brazier, Jer. xxxvii. 22, and the root
nns Gesenius), and akhu, fever ; also akhi, a kind of bird (Pierret,
Vocab. 78-79), and akh (with the determinative of a wing), to fly. I
mention this series to illustrate the connection of ideas between fire
and flight, associated in the dragon or the gryphon.
' The I seref of Beni Hassan is illustrated in a most in
teresting way by the colloquy between a jackal and an Ethiopian
cat, which M. Revillout has brought before the readers of the Revue
egyptienne from a demotic papyrus of about the time of Augustus
(1880, 58 ; 1881, 86). Here we meet with a graduated scale of
destruction from the smallest insect upwards, and at the head of all
the destroyers we find the seref, which M. Revillout regards as a
monstrous bird, probably the rokh of the Arabs,' but nevertheless
identifies as the creature of Beni Hassan ; and indeed the detailed
description of him in the papyrus gives us "his beak as of an eagle,
his eye as of a man, his strong sides as of a lion, his scales as of some
creature {abakh, fish or turtle?) of the sea, his venom as of a serpent";
and " he seizes [his prey] in his claws in an instant, and takes them
above the top of the clouds of heaven." ^ But below this supreme
' [Or, at any rate, of the Arabian Nights.']
' [This description closely resembles that of the divine Zu bird in the primitive
Babylonian mythology, ' the cloud- or storm-bird, the flesh-eating bird, the hon or

LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH. 285
creature we find another gryphon called nitr. Now 113 in Chaldee
is fire, and here we have, it seems, one more witness to the fiery nature
of the gryphon under whatever name. It is the symbol of Menthu and
Seti or Ba'al, and seems to have come from the East to Egypt ; and
so, indeed, do the Egyptian words in question.
' In very ancient Babylonian cylinders a god stands on a gryphon,
or a gryphon appears as guardian attendant on a god. {Studies on
the Times of Abraham, pi. iii. a. c.).
' The brazen " seraph " of the wilderness, the seraphim of Isaiah's
vision, and the keriibim of the ark find in Egypt some analogous
expressions of form and symbol.
'When Isaiah "saw the Lord (Adonai) sitting upon a high and
exalted throne," " seraphim were standing above Him." This suggests
to me the symbolic ursei or royal serpents above the enthroned god,
and the figure of the heaven above all, in Egyptian scenes of worship.
I mean only to refer to the position, not to the form, of the seraphim.
The beak of the eagle, the sides of the lion, the eye of the man, in the
Egyptian seref, are not the only points by which the seraphim are
brought near to the cherubim of Ezekiel's vision, and the Apocalypse
joins the six wings and the adoring cry of the seraph with the attri
butes of the cherub.
' In the biblical visions everything is divinely exalted and hallowed,
however the leading ideas of fire and flight, of royal attendance and
ministry, may be clad in ancient form.
' The seraphim have both wings and hands. So also is Isis repre
sented with wings below her arms. In the stately and graceful figure
of Nut at the bottom of the magnificent sarcophagus of Seti I. (at
the Soane Museum) the goddess has wings (below her arms) folded
closely round, and reaching towards, but not to, her feet. The
seraphim reverently " with twain covered their feet." In Isaiah's
sublime vision there is nothing indicated of a form that might not be
human, except the wings. The purifying coal (stone ?) from the altar
reminds one of the cognate verb ejlX {tsaraf) to purge by fire, as in
Assyrian tsarapu, purifier (Sayce, 227).
' The Abbi Vigouroux, who has treated with great care the subject
of Ezekiel's vision, notices that some of the nirgalli the winged lions
of Assyrian portals, have human figures to the waist with their
shoulders, arms, and hands, free above their wings. {La Bible, &c.,
iv. 348). ' We have seen the way in which the idea flits from bird to quad
ruped or serpent among the Egyptians ; Mr. Cheyne has noticed the
giant bird, the bird of prey, the bird with sharp beak.' Both these mystic birds remind
us of the' Chinese storm-bird and the rokh of the Arabian Nights. See Sayce, iu
Smith's The Chaldean Account ofGtnesis (Lond. 1880), p. 123.]

286 LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH.
same thing among the Israelites and the Assyrians {Isaiah, first ed.,
ii. 273). He connects kirubu, the steer-god, with kurubu, "the
circling bird ; " indeed the kirubu of the portal of Hades is addressed
as "the bull produced by the god Zu," but the god Zu is identified
with the vast storm-bird. (Lenormant, Les Origines, &c., p. 116). The
same association seems true of the idea of the seraph.
' The visible or imaginable expressions served as symbols of ideas,
rather than as pictures of existing forms, and like the kerUbim of the
ark, and the brazen serpent {sdrdf) in the wilderness (Num. xxi. 8),
were hallowed and claimed for the service of the true God as a
"shadow of heavenly things." In Egypt the serpent " shai," as M.
Revillout writes, " seems to symbolise the supreme divinity, or, to
express myself better, the divine forces of nature."
' Above the Enthroned, the prophet sees revealed " the bright
seraphim in burning row," and their cry is in his ears not only the
shout of universal homage but the restitution of alienated glory.'
On chap. vii. (vol. i. pp. 40, 41). Prof de Lagarde expresses
with great cogency the view that this chapter is the work of a later
editor. He calls it ' ein cento aus echten, aber musterhaft unge-
schickt zusammengeflickten, ausspriichen des Isaias.' Unfortunately,
he takes the opportunity of introducing anew his extremely con
temptuous opinions of prophecy and the prophets {Semitica, i. 9-13).
On vii. 1 3 (vol. i. p. 46). A misunderstanding in a very suggestive
article, ascribed to the Rev. W. H. Simcox, in the Church Quarterh
Review (July 1880, p. 433, note), suggests to me to sum up as briefly
as possible my views respecting the 'house of David.' I venture to
hold that the royal princes (not the ' princes ' of the Auth. Vers, of
Jeremiah) formed a kind of order, distinct, nominally at any rate,
from the D*l'B', that they held high positions in the State, and in
Jeremiah's time exercised the royal function of judgment (Jer. xxi.
II, 12 ; comp. on Isa. i. 10). Further, that during the reign of
Josiah, the D'lnb' (a term which probably includes representatives
of the people), and the royal princes, were both equally chargeable
with grave offences prejudicial to the State (Zeph. i. 8). Here was
no doubt the germ of a possible oligarchy. It appears from Brugsch's
History that the same germ existed in Egypt. Normally, this royal
order would supply the counsellors and officials of the king ; abnor
mally, they would (allying themselves perhaps with the Dnb of
non-royal origin) convert the king into a kind of maire du palais.
It has been objected by the writer mentioned above that the mas
sacres of Jehoram, AthaUah, and Jehu would have left but few royal
princes remaining. But is this so certain ? ' David, according to
2 Sam. V. 14-16, had no less than eleven sons born in Jerusalem ;
and in Zech. xii. 12 a sort of secondary royal family is mentioned,
co-ordinately with " the house of David," viz. , " the house of Nathan " '

LAST WORDS ON ISATAH. 287
{PC. A. p. 88). It seems to me that if all the legitimate descendants
of all the kings and kings' sons be included, the ' house of David '
(which ought strictly to include the 'house of Nathan,' from which
the recognised Davidic representative, Zerubbabel, was descended,
(Luke iii. 27, 31) would be too numerous and widely-spread to be
destroyed. Besides, the descendants of the long-lived Uzziah would
have grown up by the time of the Syrian war.
On vii. 9 (vol. i. p. 46, see end of note). Friedrich Delitzsch
remarks {Paradies, p. 287) : 'The name [Samsi-muruna] reminds us
of that of the Canaanitish (Phoenician) royal city Shimron-meron,
Josh. xii. 20, which was perhaps miswritten for Shemesh-meron '
(comp. Hal^-vy's explanation in my note). Samsi-muruna is men
tioned by Sennacherib, together with Sidon, Arados, and Byblos
(Delitzsch, op. cit. p. 272).
On vii. 13 (vol. i. p. 48). In the foot-note I have mentioned one
relic of the primitive custom of giving authority to the mother-in-law.
Indian zenana-life might also have been referred to ; and perhaps
Mic. vii. 6 may be quoted in this connection — 'A daughter-in-law
shall rise up against her mother-in-law.'
On vii. 14 (vol. i. p. 49). The ' sign ' of Immanuel. Mr. Robert
son Smith adopts the explanation of Roorda and Kuenen, ' that a
young mother who shall become a mother within a year may name
her child " God with us ; " ' and he remarks elsewhere that viii. 3, 4
is a parallel prophecy, with ' a similar and quite unambiguous sign '
{The Prophets of Lsrael, pp. 272, 425). There is, of course, no doubt
that, in some sense, the birth of Maher-shalal-hash-baz may be called
a ' sign ' (see commentary, ad loc.) ; the only difference between my
self and Mr. Smith is as to whether ' sign ' in vii. 14 is to be used in
a different sense from that in which it is used in vii. 1 1 ; whether it
is probable that Isaiah offered Ahaz a wonderful ' sign,^ in vii. 1 1, and
finally gave him one of a lower and quite ordinary kind. I cannot
see that this is probable. Mr. R. Smith does not offer an explana
tion of ' thy land, O Immanuel,' in viii. 8.
On ix. 6 (vol. i. p. 59). Prof FTa.nz Delitzsch. {Academy, April 10,
1880) supposes me to hold that the five titles of the Messiah form a
complete sentence, and remarks that the oldest Assyrian name which
he has met with is Abu-ina-ekalli-lilbur — ' May the father become old
in the palace.' I am grateful for the reference, but the complaint
should have been addressed to Luzzatto, and not to me (see my
note). Such an elaborate sentence-name as Luzzatto supposes, would
not be natural in Isaiah's time, though .it might be in that of the
writer of Chronicles, who distributes the sentence — 'I have given
great and high help ; I have spoken visions in abundance ' among
'the imaginary sons of Heman,' giving a fragment of it to each
(i Chron. xxvi. 4).

288 LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH,
On x. 9 (vol. i. p. 70). Kadesh, on the Orontes, the southern
capital of the Hittites, had a Semitic name ; hence a slight presump
tion that the northern capital had one too. Friedrich Delitzsch
{Paradies, p. 268) thinks that Carchemish is of Aramaic origin ; he
analyses it, after G. Hoffmann, into E*'!? T]"!? ' fortress of Mish,'
on the ground that the earlier name of Oropos {i.e. Carchemish ?)
was Telmessus (or Telmissus), i.e. K'*» "pn, ' heap of Mish ' (the
'fortress' having at last become a 'ruinous heap'). Both this
scholar and Mr. Sayce reject Gesenius's connection of the word with
Chemosh. On xi. II (vol. i. p. 79). 'And from the countries of the sea.'
I would not under any circumstances propose to remove these words
from the text, since, whoever wrote them, they have come down to
us with the highest sanction, and both Isaiah and the Soferim or
Scripturists (see p. 214) must be regarded as 'men of the Spirit'
(Hos. ix. 7, Hebr.). But the fact that Qi^K and D»n "X are specially
characteristic of chaps. xl.-lxvi., renders it a little doubtful whether
Isaiah himself -wrote the latter phrase in this verse, which, indeed,
seems complete without it. It is possibly due to an editor of Isaiah,
a deep student of Scripture, and firmly persuaded of the truth of the
promise of deliverance from the D''*^, so explicitly given in the latter
part of the Book (lx. 9). The earliest absolutely certain occurrences
of C'S are in Jer. ii. 10, xxxi. 10. I doubt whether Isaiah would
have used DTi ''''X as a technical phrase in but one passage of his
' occasional prophecies.'
On xiii. 6 (vol. i. p. 83). The explanation of ' the day of Jehovah '
here given will only suit an advanced period of prophetico-religious
thought. In Amos v. 18, probably the earliest passage in which the
phrase occurs (the antiquity of Joel being very uncertain), the ' day
of Jehovah,' which the men of N. Israel 'long for,' must have been
a day of victory, and not a day of judicial retribution for Jew and
Gentile. It is possible that the conception of these Israelites may
have been, not an attenuation of a larger prophetic one, but the
primitive, popular germ of the much more developed conception in
dicated in Isa. xiii. 6-11, Joel iii. 11-16. This is the view proposed
by Mr. Robertson Smith {The Prophets of Lsrael, p. 397), who remarks
that ' the " days " of the Arabs often derive their name from a place,
but may equally be named from the combatants, e.g., " the days of
Tamim against Bekr.'" Amos was probably the first prophet to take
up this popular phrase, the import of which he deepened by including
the idea that ' the day ' would be one of ' darkness and not light,' for
the sinners of Israel as well as of the nations.
On xiii. 10 (vol, i. p. 84). M. Lenormant has pointed out that,
according to the Assyrian calendar, k'sil should be the constellation
of the xnonth kisiluv (I^D? Chisleu, Auth. Vers. Zech. vii. i, Neh. i. i)

LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH. 289
— i.e., the sagittary {Les origines de Vhistoire, i. 247). But why should
there not have been more than one brilliant constellation called k'sill
We can thus give a natural explanation of the plural, and do justice
to the ancient authorities in favour of Orion.
On xiii. 21 (vol. i. p. 86). The word okhim (' shriekers '?) is to
be connected with the Assyrian akhu, which corresponds to the ' Ac
cadian ' lig-bar-ra, i.e., 'beast (dog) striped.' The identification is
due to Mr. Houghton, Trans. Soc Bibl. Arch. v. 328. On fiyytm
(rendered ' wild cats ') see my Notes and Criticisms on the Hebrew
Text of Isaiah, p. 23.
On xiv. 4-21 (vol. i. pp. 85-90). Dr. Budde has well pointed
out how completely ih.eform of this mdshdl is elegiac {Zeitschrift ftir
die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1882, pp. 12-14). Its resemblance
to the first four Lamentations is all the more remarkable, as the pre
ceding discourse (xiii. i-xiv. 2) and the prophetic epilogue (xiv. 22, 23)
are written in entirely different styles. Dr. Budde has proposed
various emendations to restore symmetry to the song, the most im
portant of which, however, has already been made by Ewald (see
on V. 20).
On xiv. 13, 14 (vol. i. pp. 89, 90). The similarity and the con
trast of the general Oriental and the Israelitish view of royalty will
be manifest. Some Israelitish kings had not even a shadow of divinity
(Hos. viii. 4). The Davidic king, no doubt, approaches the honour
accorded to the Babylonian and Ass)?rian kings ; he is called Jehovah's
son (2 Sam. vii. 14, Ps. Ixxxix. 27), but so too is the people of Israel
(Ex. iv. 22, Jer. xxxi. 9, Hos. xi. i). It is only the Messiah who is
described somewhat as the neighbouring peoples would describe their
kings — not only as ' my companion and the man who is my neighbour '
(Zech. xiii. 7, pronouncing re'i), but even ' el gibbor (^yi. 7, Hebr. 6).
The exaggerated royalism of the proto-Babylonians, however, led
them, in some of the inscriptions, to attach the determinative prefix
of divinity to the names of their kings. Two examples of this are
given by Prof Sayce, Trans. Soc Bibl. Arch. v. 442 ; comp. Lenor
mant, Etude sur quelques parties des syllabaires cuneiformes, p. 14.'
On xiv. 23 (vol. i. p. 93). The bittern is probably called kippod
from its habit of erecting or bristling out the long feathers of the neck,
reminding one of the spines of the porcupine or hedgehog. In Arabic,
Syriac, and Ethiopic, the cognates of kippod actually mean the hedge
hog ; in Talmudic the usage is uncertain. The variety of meaning
reminds one of the variety in the usage of rim (see on xxxiv. 7). The
bittern, unlike the hedgehog, abounds in the marshy grounds of Meso
potamia, and its ' strange booming note ' (Tristram) is as awesome a
sound as the wail of the hysena.
' I am indebted for these references to Mr. H. G. Tomkins, Studies in the Time
of Abraham, p. 34.
VOL. II. U

290 LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH.
On chaps, xv. xvi. (vol. i. p. 96). I have endeavoured to do
justice to the various textual phenomena. Knobel's statement,
though true in the main, is a little too unqualified — ' the passage is
throughout so peculiar that it must be the only work of its author
in the Old Testament.' To counterbalance my own argument,
and so give the reader every opportunity of forming an unbiassed
opinion,- 1 quote here Dr. Weir's view as to the authorship of the
prophecy, from the manuscript notes lent to me. On xvi. 1-5, he
confirms the opinion I have myself expressed ; his suggestion in the
words italicised would, I think, carry more weight were it accom
panied by a literary analysis. But from this, Dr. Weir pmdently
abstained. ' Assuming, therefore, that the two concluding verses of this
prophecy are from Isaiah, is the rest of it also originally his, or is it
to be assigned to another and an older author ? The majority of
modern expositors are disposed to adopt the latter alternative ; and
Hitzig, followed by Maurer, had made an elaborate attempt to prove
that the real author of the prophecy is Jonah, and that we have a
Scriptural reference to it in 2 Kings xiv. 25. The style, it is said,
differs considerably from that of Isaiah ; the frequent repetition of
*3 and J3 by has been specially noted ; also the accumulation of
geographical names. No trace here, it has been said, of Isaiah's
light and rapid march — of his bold transitions and combinations ;
the stream of thought flows tediously and heavily along, and cause
and consequence are marked with cumbrous accuracy. It must be
allowed that these remarks are not altogether groundless. The style
of the prophecy certainly differs in some parts from the usual style
of Isaiah's compositions ; though none but an impatient and fastidious
critic would pronounce it heavy and tedious. To account for this
difference, it is to be observed that there is in this prophecy a more
copious outflow of sympathetic emotion than we usually find in the
earlier prophecies of Isaiah, arising probably in part from the historical
relationship which subsisted between Israel and Moab ; and such
emotion is quite inconsistent with the light and rapid march which
some critics desiderate here. And if this is not thought to furnish
an adequate explanation of all the alleged peculiarities, there is no
reason why we should refuse to avail ourselves of the hypothesis that
some of the verses, especially in the fifteenth chapter, may have been
quoted from an earlier prophecy.^
' Granting this, it appears to me very certain that the prophecy is
substantially from the pen of Isaiah. The middle stanza (xvi. 1-5)
is, I should say, unquestionably Isaiah's. In the last stanza the de
scription of the vine of Sibmah may be brought into comparison
with V. 1-6, and the prominence given to the ' pride ' of Moab as the
^ The italics are the editor's.

LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH. 29 1
cause of Moab's fall is just what we should expect from the author
of chap. ii. In the first stanza (chap, xv.) also there are indications,
not obscure, of the hand of Isaiah, as in the latter part of v. 6, and
in the closing words of the stanza (nt3»i;B in the construct state
being found only in Isaiah — comp. iv. 2, x. 20, xxxvii. 3).'
On XV. 6 (vol. i. p. 96). 'The waters of Nimrim.' Seetzen had
already identified Nimrim with the lower part (still called Nahr
Nimrin) of the Wady pointed out (see note in vol. i.) by Consul
Wetzstein, the luxuriant meadows of which form a strong contrast
with the gloomy scenery of the Wady en-Numeira. As to the mean
ing of the name Nimrim, it is rather tempting to connect it with
Arab, namir, Assyr. namri ' transparent,' and to suppose that Beth
Nimra derived its name from the waters. But it has been pointed
out that there are other places with names from the same root, and
that in olden times there were divisions of Arab tribes bearing names
(Namir, Anmar, Nomeyr) strongly suggestive of the panther. The
Syriac writer, Jacob of Sarug, also speaks of bar nemre, ' the son of
panthers,' as a false deity of Harran. I find it therefore impossible
to resist the conclusion that in Nimrim, as well as in the other cases,
there is a reference to the panther. What this panther is, will be
clear to those who are convinced by Mr. M'Lennan's evidence, that
in widely separated countries a primitive form of worship prevailed
called totemism— ?'.^. ' animals were worshipped by tribes of men who
were named after them and believed to be of their breed.' It is,
certain that the ancient Semitic peoples worshipped many animal
gods, and the most reasonable view is that these were totems or
animal-fetishes. Such a totem to some of the Semitic clans of Syria
and Arabia was apparently the panther, and from this panther the
places called Nimra, Nimara, &c., naturally derived their names.
(See further below, on Ixv. 4, lxvi. 3, 17.) So Mr. Robertson Smith,
to whose important paper in the Journal of Philology for 1880 I refer
the reader. I do not, however, see that there is a radical difference
between him and Graf Baudissin as to the import of the animal
deities of the Semites ; for it must be remembered that the planets
were regarded by primitive man (comp. the Accadian term for the
planets, lubat — i.e. 'a kind of carnivorous quadruped,' Lenormant)
as having a quasi-animal existence.
On xvii. 2 (vol. i. p. 104). The Assyrian inscriptions speak of a
place called Qarqara, 'thrown down, dug up, burned with fire' by
Shalmaneser IL, and again 'reduced to ashes' by Sargon. (See
Records of the Past, iii. 99, ix. 6.) Mr. G. Smith identifies this place
with Aroer, and brings the latter event into connection with Isa. xvii.
2 {Trans. Soc Bibl. Arch., ii. 328). For the interchange of sounds,
comp. K5J-IX and «pn« in Chaldee.
On xvii. 8 (vol. i. pp. 105-6). Dr. Stade {Gesch. des Volkes Israel,
u 2

292 LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH.
1 88 1, p. 184) and Mr. Robertson Smith {The Old Testament in the
Jewish Church, p. 226) have recently revived the opinion that the
word Asherah is not the name of a goddess, but means ' a pole,' and
that this pole was the symbol of the sacred tree, which stood on or
near the altars of the 'high places.' This seems to be opposed, not
only by the occurrence of Asher in Hebrew literature (most probably
to be explained on the analogy of Gad, as originally a divine name),
but also by passages of the Old Testament literature (see i Kings
XV. 13, 2 Chron. xv. 16, 2 Kings xxi. 7, where an image of the
Ashdrah is spoken of ; 2 Kings xxiii. 4, 7, where we find vessels and
tents for the Ashdrah ; i Kings xviii. 19 — 'the prophets of the Baal and
the prophets of the Ashdrah '). ' The truth is that the word Asherah has
a twofold value in the Old Testament, i. as a divine title, and 2. as
a material symbol of a divinity. The feminine termination indicates
that the divinity was a goddess ; but what goddess is intended ? Dr.
Franz Delitzsch, in his review of vol. i. conjectures that Ash&ah was
first of all a title of the goddess Ashtoreth, which among the Canaanites
in course of time supplanted her proper designation. My original
view, however, remains unrefuted. Compilers were prone to con
found names {e.g. Sargon and Sennacherib in Isaiah, Cyrus and
Darius in Daniel), and when the worship of Ashdrah had passed
away, it was natural to identify this goddess with the better known
Ashtoreth, in spite of the difference of the initial guttural. I now
suspect, however, that the truth may perhaps unite elements both of
Dr. Delitzsch's and of my former view. As has been remarked
already (vol. i. p. 89), there was a masculine as well as a feminine
Ishtar (Istar) or Venus ; king Mesha, for example, speaks of Astar-
Kemosh (Inscr. 1. 17). May not the Canaanitish Asherah correspond
to the feminine Ishtar (identified in an important cuneiform inscrip
tion with Beltis), who represents ' the luxuriously sensual goddess of
rest in the arms of love ' (Friedr. Delitzsch ''), while Ashtoreth, or
more properly Astart, may be a later popular derivative of Ishtar or
Ashtar, the stern god of war ? M. Pinches has already remarked
that ' two such opposite attributes could not long remain the charac
teristics of one goddess [deity] ; so, gradually becoming distinct in
the popular mind, they became the attributes of two distinct goddesses
[deities] of the same name but of different parentage.' ^
On chap, xviii. In an essay on this chapter {Friends' Quarterly
Examiner, Oct. 1881), Mr. Thomas Hodgkin has attempted a new
theory of the meaning of this chapter, based upon a careful study
of Brugsch- Pasha's History of Egypt. He concludes 'that in this
chapter the' prophet warns the world-shadowing kings of Ethiopia
¦ I take these references from Graf Baudissin's very complete article ' Aschera ' in
Herzog's Realencyclopddic, 2nd ed., i. 719-25.
^ George Smith's Chalddische ^Genesis, p. 272.
2 Records of the Post, .xi. 60.

LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH. 293
of the insecure tenure by which they hold their empire. They may
send despatch-boat after despatch-boat down the Nile to summon
their vassals of the Delta to their intended campaign against Assyria,
campaigns which are to be commenced at least upon the often-
devastated soil of Palestine. All will not avail them .... Summer
and winter will pass over the unburied corpses of the Ethiopians and
their Egyptian subjects in the land of Israel' This theory, as well
as the older one that the Jews are the nation referred to in vv. 2, 7,
is due to a want of tact in dealing with the peculiar phraseology of
these verses. Mr. Hodgkin's ' land-mensuration and husbandry ' (in
the last clause but one) is no less absurd than the ' scattered and
peeled ' which he rightly rejects in a previous clause. Mr. Hodgkin
also misses the connection between chap, xviii. and xvii. 12-14. See
also vol. i. p. 109,
On xviii. 2 (vol. i. p. no), 'vessels of papyrus.' Compare Me-
moires du due de Rovigo, i. 94 : ' On donna la lettre k porter k un fellah
qui ne prit pas d'autre moyen pour exdcuter sa commission, que de
lier ensemble deux bottes de joncs, sur lesquelles it se plaga assis k
la turque, avec sa pipe et un peu de dattes, ne prenant que sa lance
pour se defendre contre les crocodiles, et une petite rame pour se
diriger. Place ainsi sur cette frele embarcation, il s'abandonna au
cours du fleuve, et arriva sans accident'
On XX. 6 (vol. i. p. 123). Dr. Kay illustrates the historical' bear
ings of this prediction (i) by Sennacherib's expression (xxxvii 6),
'this bruised reed, Egypt,' which 'looks as if Egypt had suffered
some serious reverse,' and (2) by Nahum's prediction (iii. 8-10) of
the ' exile ' and the ' captivity ' of ' No-Amon ' (the Egyptian Thebes).
Both references are in point, though Dr. Kay's suggestion that it
was Sargon who captured ' No-Amon ' is only possible through his
singular heresy relative to the state of cuneiform decipherment
{Speaker's Commentary, vol. v. p. 143). The merest tyro in Assyri
ology knows that it was Assurbanipal by whom the Egyptian Thebes
was captured and spoiled. Sennacherib's expression, 'this bruised
reed,' doubtless refers to the crushing defeat which Egypt sustained
at Raphia, and which was perhaps an incipient fulfihnent of the
prediction in xx. 6, just as the captivity which followed on the
subsequent conquest of Egypt was a full and complete one.
On xxi. I (vol. i. p. 125). Another explanation i^ tenable. D'' ll'nD
may mean either 'plain country of the sea' or 'desert of the sea.'
The writer of the heading may have designedly chosen an ambiguous
expression (comp. perhaps v. 11); Dr. Delitzsch compares for the
former meaning mat tihamtiv 'land of the sea,' a phrase for Baby
lonia in the cuneiform inscriptions.
On xxi. 13 (vol. i. p. 128). Prof H. L. Strack criticizes the word
' superfluously ' ; might not the Dedanites have lived outside ' Arabia,'

294 LAST WORDS ON KAIAH.
using this word in the limited sense of antiquity ? But Dedan appears,
from V. 1 6, to be included under ' Kedar,' and Assurbanipal expressly
recognises a part, at least, of Kedar as Arabian : his words are, ' and .
the Kidrai of Vaiteh son of Birvul (?) king of Aribi ' (G. Smith, Assur
banipal, p. 271, Records of the Past, i. 96). Besides, Aribi is a fairly
comprehensive term, though not nearly so wide as our Arabia
(Schrader, K. A. T, p. 56).
On xxii. 13 (vol. i. p. 134). They are sacrificial feasts which are
referred to, for at that time (as Mr. Robertson Smith points out)
sacrifice and feast were identical. Thus we get an incidental con
firmation of the date assigned in vol. i. to chap. i. , which contains so
striking a description (see i. 11) of the multiplied sacrifices called
forth by the danger of the state.
On xxii. 17 (vol. i. p. 135). The view of "151 as a vocative (so
Pesh., Ibn Ezra, Kimchi, Hitz.,Ew.) certainly gives more force to the
passage than any other.
The omission of the article under the excitement of feeling ought
not to need a justification (comp. Isa. i. i. Job xvi. 18).
On xxiii. 3 (vol. i. p. 138). Friedrich Delitzsch thinks Shihor
means the Pelusiac arm of the Nile, comparing Josh. xiii. 3, ' Shihor
which is before {i.e. to .the east of) Egypt' ; he doubts the connection
with T!i> ' dark-grey ' ( Wo lag das Paradies 2 p. 311).
On xxvi. 8 (vol. i. p. 151). The Name, or Face, of Jehovah seems
an approach to a personal mode of being in the Godhead. The
Semitic deities, indeed, were not triads but duads. They were
originally the productive powers of nature, and were grouped in
couples of male and female principles, under the names of Baal and
Baalath (or Baaltis), and Ashtar (or Ashtor) and Ashtoreth, or by a
cross-division, Baal and Ashtoreth. In Eshmunazar's inscription
(vii. 8, 9, Schlottmann), the king and his mother say that they have
built two houses or temples, the one ' to the Baal of Sidon,' and the
other 'to Ashtoreth (or Astarte), the Name of Baal.' (Ewald's ren
dering — 'To Ashtoreth of the name of Baal,' and Dillmann's 'To
the heavenly Ashtoreth (wife) of Baal,' seem to me unnatural, and
to be due to a prejudice against the androgynous character of the
Semitic deity.) It is remarkable that they should have built two
temples. This shows that the unity of the Godhead was lost sight of
by the Phoenicians, at any rate in the fourth century B.C. The com
piler of the Book of Kings, however, who adheres to the unity of
the Godhead, speaks indifferently of ' the house of Jehovah ' and of
' a house (built) unto the name of Jehovah ' (i Kings iii. i, 2). Com
pare Ginsburg's note on the Ashtar-Chemosh of the Inscription of
Mesha {The Moabite Stone, 1871, p. 43).
On xxvii. I (vol. i. p. 155). (Add a reference to Ezek. xxi. 9(14).)
The heavenly sword of Jehovah (comp. xxxiv. 5), reminds us of the

LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH. 295
heavenly bow. For the ' bow of Jehovah ' is not only ' set in the
(visible) cloud' (Gen. ix. 13), but also 'round about the Throne' in
heaven (Rev. iv. 3) ; and the ' bow ' like the ' sword ' has its Assyrian
parallel, viz. the ' bow ' of Istar, the ' archer of the gods,' granted, as
was believed, to her devoted servant Assurbanipal {Records of the
Past, ix. 49, 52).
On xxvii. 8 (vol. i. p. 158). The best exegesis of this passage is
given by Riehm, Der Begriff der Siihne im A. T., pp. 12, 13, note 2.
On xxviii. 10 (vol. i. p. 161). With ' a little here, a little there,'
comp. the word used by Micah 's opponents in Mic. ii. 6 : ' Do not
keep dropping,' i.e., constantly finding fault (a part, at least, of the
meaning of the Hebrew).
On xxviii. 18 (vol. i. p. 163). Mr. Robertson Smith takes the
' covenant with Death ' and the ' covenant with Shedl ' to refer to an
aUiance with ' the fatal power of the Assyrians ' {The Prophets of Israel,
1882, p. 284).
On xxviii. 29 (vol. i. p. 165). Besides ix. 6, referred to in my
note, comp. Job xi. 6, where Mr. Robertson Smith acutely corrects
n^E'in'? ?''K^Q O 'fo"^ wonders (belong) to (his) wisdom' (or, his
realising power).
On xxx. 22 (vol i. p. 174). It is remarkable and instructive that
in this description of the break with Israel's past which must precede
the conferring of God's best gifts, nothing is said of the destruction
of the high places. It is only by inference that we can assume the
tacit opposition of Isaiah to the ancient custom of worshipping at
the local sanctuaries — an inference drawn partly from Isaiah's stress
on the supreme importance .of Mount Zion (ii. 2, 3, xxviii. 16, xxix. 8),
and partly from the more or less complete temporary abolition of the
'high places by the prophet's royal friend, Hezekiah. Considering
Isaiah's reserve, is it not more than probable that Dathe, Roorda,
and Kuenen are right in reading ' the sin (of Judah) ' {khattath)
instead of 'the high places ' {bdmoth) in Mic. i. 5 ? They have, more
over, on their side the authority of the three most ancient versions^
Sept., Pesh., and Targ. The received reading is an altogether un
paralleled expression, and brings Micah, the peasant-prophet, into
opposition to his leader (as we may fairly regard Isaiah), the most
original and creative of all the prophets. Bdmoth may have been
originally a marginal note, intended to explain in what the sin of
Judah consisted. Even the abolition of idolatry is spoken of by
Isaiah as something still future — a proof of the imperfect character
of Hezekiah's early reformation.
On XXX. 29 (vol. i. p. 176). Can the ' feast ' referred to have been
that of Booths or Tabernacles? It is true, Neh. viii. 17 distinctly
affirms that this feast had not been observed ' since the days of Jeshua
the son of Nun unto that day ' ; but this must mean ' not observed

296 LAST WORDS- ON ISAIAH.
in the formal way prescribed by the Law.' For the Biblical references
compel us to assume that some kind of festival was kept after the
autumn ingathering, during which men lived in the open air in
booths (Hos. xii. 9) ; and though the feast doubtless had what may
be called its secular side, a religious, ' Jehovistic ' aspect cannot be
ignored (i Kings viii. 65 ; 'the feast').
On xxxi. I (vol i. p. 178). The reputation of the Egyptian
cavalry is forcibly shown by a passage in Sennacherib's description
of the battle of Altaku : — ' The kings of Egypt, and the soldiers,
archers, chariots, and horses of Ethiopia, forces innumerable, gathered
together and came to their assistance,' &c. {Records of the Past, i. 36).
The illustration is due to M. Vigouroux.
On xxxvi. 2 (vol. i. p. 205). 'The Rab-shakeh.' This hybrid
formation is more startling to us than it was to the Assyrians, who
had fully adopted sak ' captain ' into their vocabulary. Such for
mations were not altogether uncommon. M. Lenormant compares
the name of the god Papsukal, the messenger of the gods, from the
Accadian pap and the Semitic sukal.
On xxxvii. 24 (vol. i. p. 214). The Rev. H. G. Tomkins kindly
supplements my note thus : — ' Comp. further the mention of the
felUng of cedars, &c. in I^ebanon and Amanus in the Assyrian Annals,
and the "Remenen " (Lebanon) in Egyptian sculptures in reUef, with
trees felled.'
On xxxix. 7 (vol. i. p. 234). Dr. Delitzsch, in his review of vol. i.,
has the following remark : ' The parallel from Isaiah's contemporary,
Micah ("Thou shalt go to Babylon," iv. 8), he passes over very lightly ;
"Babylon is mentioned there only as a part of the Assyrian empire."
Certainly, but as the ruling city of the empire of the world, though
that empire be held at the time by Assyria.' But how is it possible
for Babylon to be mentioned as at the same time a part of the Assyrian
empire, and a symbol of the capital of the imperial power aTrXSs?
The two significations of Babylon cannot surely be combined. One
is also entitled to ask what evidence there is for this symbolic use of
the term Babylon at so early a date ? It is true that ' the River ' —
i.e., the Euphrates — is used once in Isaiah (viii. 7) to represent the
Assyrian empire ; but this is not a parallel case, the expression being
chosen simply in order to produce a striking poetical figure. I am
now able to refer for a full expression of my views on Mic. iv. 8, to
my note on the passage in the Cambridge School edition of Micah,
where the hypothesis of interpolation is advocated, but not on any
arbitrary ground.
On xliv. 28 (vol. i. p. 285). Dr. Kuenen proposes {Hibbert
Lectures, 1882, p. 132) to pronounce, not ro'i 'my shepherd,' but re'i
' my companion,' comparing Zech. xiii. 7, where, as he truly says,
this correction is required to match the parallel line {' the man who

LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH. 297
is my neighbour '). The mistake would be a natural one ; in Jer.
iii. I, Sept. and Pesh. misread wm instead of re'im. But the
received pronunciation gives a good sense here (' my shepherd '=
'the shepherd appointed by me,' comp. 'his king,' Ps. xviii. 50, Heb.
51), and produces a parallelism with ' his anointed ' in the next verse.
If, however, we accept the correction, it is the highest title which
Cyrus has received from the prophet ; see above on xiv. 13, 14.
On xlv. 7 (vol. i. p. 289). In the closing words of this striking
declaration, does 'all these things' mean 'all that has been men
tioned,' or 'all this that thou seest' {i.e. the universe, comp. lxvi. 2)?
Naeg. is nearly solitary among the moderns in preferring the latter
view, though Rab Chanina in the third century a.d. appears to have
adopted it. ' Great is peace ' (the peaceable character), he observed,
' for it is made equal to the whole creation in the words of the pro
phet' It was the same Rabbi who said that he had learned 'much
from his teachers, more from his school-fellows, but most of all from
his pupils.' On xlv. 8 (vol. i. p. 289). The mythic form of speech referred
to may be illustrated by the Arabic phrases mentioned above on iv. 2
{Last Words). See also Lagarde on Astarte, Nachrichten der Gbtting.
Ges., 1881, p. 398 ; Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Lsrael (1882),
pp. 172, 409.
On xlv. 14 (vol. i. p. 292). This voluntary servitude is yet not
servile ; the symbol reminds us of xliv. 5 (clauses i and 3). 'Mystic
union' explains it. The 'higher exegesis' (if I may repeat the phrase
ventured upon above, p. 192) is therefore in thorough accord with
the primary, natural meaning of the passage. St Athanasius ex
presses it thus, ' Because of our relationship to His (Christ's) body,
we too have become God's Temple, and in consequence are made
God's sons, so that even in us the Lord is worshipped, and beholders
report, as the Apostle says, that God is in them of a truth ' {Select
Treatises, Oxford transl., Part I. p. 241). The direct reference of
course is to i Cor. xiv. 25, where St Athanasius interprets ev v/juv
'in you,' i.e. in mystic union with you, for which I think he has the
analogy of this passage of Isaiah (Sept iv o-ot o ®€os). St. Paul,
indeed, is not improbably alluding to the prophecy ; he says that the
heathen visitor ' shall worship God,' but clearly means 'God in the
Church,' as St Athanasius explains (comp. my note on Isa. I.e.).
On U. 6. Prof H. L. Strack remarks, 'Would not the moth
{W) be a more likely animal to select for an image of perishability
(comp. Job iv. 19, xxvii. 18)?' He would explain as Delitzsch.
But in Job xxvii. 18 we should rather read B'''3Di; 'a spider,' with
Sept (one of two renderings), Pesh., Merx, and Hitzig. A single
passage of Job does not outweigh the Semitic parallels cited in my
note.

2 98 LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH.
On lii. 13, &c. (The portrait of the Servant.) A combination of
influences, both Biblical and Platonic (comp. reference above, p. 182,
note '), seems to have produced the outer form of a remarkable pas
sage in the Wisdom of Solomon (ii. 12-21) -which has been too much
overlooked,^ and which seems to be a link between the Jewish and
the Hellenic world analogous to that supplied in another section
of prophecy by the Sibylline Oracle on the Koprj and her royal child
(see on Isa. xi. vol. i. p. 75).
On liii. 10. 'It pleased Jehovah.' A poet's words often have
deep and true meanings, of which he was not himself conscious, but
which he would certainly not have disowned. Such a meaning of
the prophet's expression has been pointed out by Dr. Weir. ' Obs.,
it is not God, but Jehovah. We thought him smitten by Elohim {v.
4) ; but no. It was by Israel's God and for Israel's sake.'
—  Wellhausen denies that OB'S in this passage has the sense
of 'guilt- offering.'^ As a commentator on Isaiah, I am not called
upon to discuss the theory which lies at the root of this bold negation.
The question is a complicated one ; but I may venture to assert thus
much — that the position of Kalisch,^ that the laws concerning the
sin-offerings and guilt-offerings were modified or amended at a late
period, is certainly much more tenable than that of Wellhausen (viz.
that 'sin-offerings and 'guilt -offerings' were absolutely unknown
prior to the Babylonian Captivity). In Isa. i. 1 1 (comp. Mic. vi. 7)
we have already found one probable allusion to the ' guilt-offering,'
and Wellhausen has still to prove that the rendering ' guilt-offering '
is unsuitable for DCVK in 2 Kings xii. 1 7, Hos. iv. 8. Moreover, in
the passage quoted from the exile-prophet Ezekiel (xl. 39) there is
nothing, as Delitzsch remarks,* to indicate that the sin-offering and
the guilt-offering were of later introduction than the burnt-offering,
in combination with which they are mentioned. Nor are the sup
posed novelties referred to at all more frequently by the later writers.
Sin-offerings are mentioned twice (Neh. x. 34, 2 Mace. xii. 43) ;
guilt-offerings only once (Delitzsch says, not even once ; but in Ezra
X. 19 we should probably point D^DB'X with Gratz, Gesch. der Juden,-
ii- 2, P- 133)-
On chap. lvi. (Introduction). The remark made above on the
growing strictness of the observance of the Jewish Sabbath acquires
special importance in view of the recent discovery of an Assyrian
Sabbath — a ' dies nefastus,' on which the king at any rate was closely
restrained from almost every form of activity. We do not know how
far this severe rule extended in Assyria, but the probability is that
' Not, however, I observe, by Dr. Mozley (Essays, ii. 224).
* Wellhausen, Geschichte Israels, i. 76.
5 Kalisch, Leviticus, i. 274.
•• Delitzsch, ' Pentateucli-kritische Studien," i. in Zeitschrift fiir kirchliche Wis
senschaft und kirchliches Leben, 1880, p. 8.

LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH. 299
the sacerdotal influence was more extensive there than either in
Israel or in the Judah of the pre-Babylonian periods. In the time
of the prophet Hosea, the Sabbath was, at any rate in Israel, a bright
and cheerful day (Hos. ii. 11). On the Assyrian and Babylonian
Sabbath, see Sayce in Records of the Past, i. 164, vii. 157, &c., where
authority is produced for the statement that the word sabbath itself,
under the form sabattu, was not unknown to the Assyrians. Compare
also Wellhausen, Geschichte Lsraels, 1. ii8-g, who omits the Baby
lonian parallel, but traces the development of the Sabbath with great
fulness, and calls attention to a point which has an important bearing
on Isa. lvi., viz. that Hosea (ii. 11) and even the principal author of
Lamentations (ii. 6) presuppose that, so far from its being a bond of
union, the Sabbath would pass away of itself in a foreign land.
On lxiii. 6. Two of the oldest St. Petersburg MSS. (dated 916
and 1009 respectively) agree with the ordinary printed text, but in
the former 3 has been altered prima manu into 3. See Strack,
Zeitschr.f. luth. Theol. 1877, p. 51.
On lxiii. 16, 'for Abraham taketh no notice of us.' My note
requires supplementing in two points. First, granting that the
speaker does not intend (as Dr. Weir supposed) to deny that Abraham
and Jacob can ' take notice ' of their descendants, what precisely is
his meaning ? Calvin supposes the argument to be similar to that in
xlix. 15 ; 'potius enim nature jura cessabunt, qu&.m te nobis patrem
non praebeas,' but is *3 ever 'though,' unless perhaps when its clause
stands first ? It is better to follow St. Jerome, and ascribe the in
attention complained of on the part of the patriarchs to the degene
racy of their descendants ; to apply the language of Deut xxxii. 5,
the Jews of the Exile were 'their not-children ' — 1*33 ^ — i.e. the
very reverse of their children. The next question is, whether the
prophet himself is to be supposed to endorse the words which he
utters in the name of the people, or whether he simply condescends
to the popular phraseology. On reconsidering my note it appears to
me that there is serious difiSculty in the latter view. It might indeed
be justifiable if the passage stood alone ; but some of the other ex
pressions referred to in my note can hardly be thus explained — they
seem clearly to show that the Biblical writers themselves believed in
the continued interest of the 'saints' in human affairs. The fact that
this was generally believed in by the Jews of later times (comp. Matt.
xxvii. 47, 49, and the Talmudic legends) ought not to bhnd us to the
evidence of the antiquity of the belief (nor, I must add, to the en
dorsement of it by our Lord and by the New Testament writers — see
Luke xvi. 25-31, ix. 30, 31, John viii. 56, on which see Godet, Heb.
xii. I, Rev. vi. 9-1 1). Nor can we fairly appeal to those mythic
expressions, such as the Face and the Arm of Jehovah, and per
haps the ' hewing Rahab in pieces,' which are symbols of truths and

300 LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH.
phenomena not to be adequately expressed in human language ; for
since the saints are still literally human beings, that which is pre
dicated of them must also be intended literally. This belief in the
sympathy of the ' saints ' corresponds to that in the intercession of
angels, which we have found already in li. 9, lxii. 6, and which is also
presupposed in Job v. i ('saints' in Auth. Vers, should be 'holy
ones,' i.e. angels), xxxiii. 23 ('messenger' should be 'angel'). It is
true that these beliefs are not prominently brought forward in the
Old Testament teaching ; this, however, is only because they had
not yet been denied. It would seem that the progress of revelation
had brought about a deeper view of the infinite distinction between
God and man, and of the necessity of some mediating link be
tween them — such a view as ultitnately issued in the fully-developed
doctrine of the Memra or Logos. [If I may refer to Calvin again,
it is interesting to notice how the honesty of the man conflicts with
his anxiety not to support the practice of invoking the saints. He
admits that our passage by no means proves that the faithful de
parted have no more interest in human affairs, but he thinks it
necessary to give a strong practical caution against invoking them.
Stier, quoting Calvin's concession, admits with equal candour that
' grade das Nicht-anerkennen setzt eher ein Kennen, das Nicht-
fiirsorgen doch ein etwelches Wissen um die Nachkommen voraus,'
and continues : ' Wir wollen hier nich eingehen in die Tiefen des
geheimnissvollen Verhaltnisses der Todten zu den Lebenden,' sug
gesting, however, that from New Testament passages inferences may
be deduced, ' denen welter nachzugehen nicht Jedermanns Ding ist'
Here he shows a calmer judgment than the great Protestant
champion. On lxiv. 1 1. ' Where our fathers praised thee ' — praise including
prayer (Ps. Ixv. i, 2).
On lxvi. 17, 'after One in the midst' A reference to the worship
of Tammuz, or Adonis, is perfectly consistent with the composition
of the prophecy in Palestine. There are several certain or highly
probable allusions to this cultus in the prophets. Ezekiel (viii. 14)
expressly refers to the women who sat at the gate of the outer court
of the temple ' weeping for the Tammuz ' {i.e. the divinised sun of
autumn). The refrain of the Adonis-dirge is probably preserved in
Jer. xxii. 18 (where, however, 'his glory,' parallel to 'my sister,' can
hardly be correct) ; and, in Isa. xvii. 10, we have already traced an
allusion to the Adonis-gardens. After the Restoration of the Jews,
we find the name Tammuz given to the fourth Hebrew month. The
cultus of Adonis lingered on at Bethlehem, even in the Christian
period, according to St. Jerome.' In the passage before us, the
prophet says nothing of the ' weeping ' for Adonis, and Ezekiel, who
1 Opera, ed. Ben., iv. 564 (ep. xlix. ad Paul.).

LAST WORDS ON ISAIAH. 3OI
mentions the 'weeping' of the Hebrew devotees, is silent as to the
procession. On lxvi. 19. 'Put and Lud that draw the bow.' The points of
my note are these : i. that Pul (the received reading) occurs nowhere
else in the Old Testament, whereas Put (the reading of the Septuagint)
does, and that in connection with Lud, 2. that Lud being a N.
African people (see note), it is reasonable to suppose that the nation
coupled with it is also N. -African. From the extreme south of Spain
to northern Africa is an easy transition, but I admit that Tubal and
Javan do not follow quite naturally. True, the names of places are
not always given in geographical order. But it is quite possible that
Wetzstein's emendation (palaeographically a slight one) of Pul into
Pun {i.e. Carthage) is correct From Carthage to Asia Minor (assum
ing with Wetzstein that Lud means Lydia) is a natural transition, and
Javan and the maritime countries follow then as a matter of course.
[My friend, Mr. Sayce, is so impressed with the necessity for bringing
these geographical references into a natural order that (in a private
communication) he boldly identifies ' Pul ' with the ' Apuli ' of Cen
tral Italy. He remarks, ' I do not admit that " Lud " is a N. -African
people in Ezek. xxx. 5. It there means the Lydian soldiers by whose
help Psammetichus made Egypt independent of Assyria, and his suc
cessors maintained their power. 'Ludim, Gen. x. 13, is distinguished
from Lud (Lydia) in v. 22. These Ludim are the Lydian soldiers
by whom the power of the Saitic dynasty was maintained.' Dr. Stade
gets rid of these Ludim in Gen. Ic and Jer. xlvi. 9, by emending the
word into Lubim ' Libyans.' {De populo Javan, Giessen, 1880.)]

INDEX,

I. GENERAL.

ABE

EGY

AnEN Ezra, see Ibn Ezra
Adonis, myth of, i. 107 ; ii. 114, 125,
300
Alexander, Dr. J. A., i. 219 note'^ ; ii.
269
Alphabets, various, used in Hebrew
writing, ii. 221
Amorites, supposed reference to, i. 106 ;
ii. 142
Anath, Semitic goddess, i. 74 Ttote '
Anemone, etymology of, i. 107
Angels, belief in guardian, i. 145
Animals, figures from, i. 1 79-80
Apologia, Jewish, in II. Isaiah, i. 286 ;
ii. 27s
Apulians, supposed reference to, ii. 301
Aramaic, prevalence of, i. 161, 207
Arnold, IMr. Matthew, i. 153, 259
note < ; ii. 195, 210
Aroer, ii. 291
Ashdod, siege of, i. 121
Asherah and Ashtoreth, worship of, i.
10, 105 ; ii. 292
Assurbanipal, Assyrian king, i. 211-12,
286 ; ii. 295
Assyrian, illustrations from, i. 12, 17,
31, 40, 41, 45, 46, 69, 71, et passim.
Assyrian kings, their boastfulness, i. 214
Astronomy, Babylonian, i. 303-5
Athanasius, St., ii. 297
Atonement, vicarious, ii. 196-8
Babylon, captures of, i. 124, 288, ii.
277
Babylonians, religious sentiment of, i.
304
Belshazzar, feast of, i. 126, ii 277 note^
Beltis, supposed mention of, i. 67 ; ii.
'38-9 .. ^
Birks, Prof., 1. 197, 222 ; 11. 269,
271
Book of the Dead, quoted, ii. 31
Boscawen, Mr., i. 230-1, 273 ; ii. 126
Bradley, Dean, ii. 213
Bunsen, Baron, ii. 39 note

Calvin, ii. 259, 299
Cambyses, religious policy of, ii. 276
Captivity, Babylonian, reference to, i.
233-4 ; ii. 296
Carchemish, site and importance of, i.
70 ; ii. 288 (also Addenda opposite
i. I)
Chaldseans, origin of, i. 140
Chateaubriand, on Job, ii. 245
Cherubim, signification of, i. 37, 40--42,
H4, 212 ; ii. 149, 283-6
China, Jesuit missionaries in, ii. 22
Conjecture, conditions of critical, in
correction of text, ii. 223-4
Consciousness, belief in double, ii. 131
Cook, Canon, i. 1 1 5-6
Covenant, religious use of term, i. 268 ;
ii. 7, 58, 109
Cox, Rev. S., ii. 223
Crane, character of its note, i. 225
Cyrus, genealogy of, ii. 277
— religious policy of, i. 299-301 : ii.
274-280

Darius, religious position and policy
of, ii. 276, 279
David, house of, i. 48, 75 \ ii- 286
Davidson, Dr. S., ii. 174, 244
Davidson, Prof. A. B., ii. 218
De Dieu, sketch of, ii. 260
Deity, belief in manifoldness of, i. 1 75 ;
ii. 294
Delitzsch, his criticisms of vol. i., ii.
287, 292, 296
— sketch of, ii. 268
Delitzsch, Friedr., i. 40-I, 211 ; ii. 136,
288, &c.
Drechsler, sketch of, ii. 267
Driver, Rev. S. R., i. 209; ii. 1 5 1-6,
&c.

Edersheim, Dr., ii. 215 note"^
Egypt, Semitic influence on, i 117
Egyptian, illustrations from, i. 61, 63,

304

INDEX.

EGY
99, 112-117, i66, 173 ; ii. 31, 120,
et passim
Egyptians, their view of the next world,
i. 88 note'' ; ii. 130-131
Eunuchs, Israelitish, ii. 63
Ewald, sketch of, ii. 264-5
Ezekiel, compared with II. Isaiah, ii.
237-8

Family-idea, the, predominant in He
brew society, i. 20, 21
Fasting, history of, ii. 77
Felix, IVIinucius, ii. 220
Forgiveness, doctrine of, i. 158, 189
Fulfilments, circumstantial, ii. 183, &c.

Gad, traces of worship of, ii. 116
Gesenius, sketch of, ii. 263
Glosses, in Hebrew text, i. 19, 20, 45,
SI. 52, 54, 167. 170; ii. 105, no,
145, 224
Goldziher, Dr., i. 93 ; ii. 107
Gratz, Dr., ii. 142, 144, &c.
Grotius, sketch of, ii. 259

Hal^vy, M. , on the Cyrus-inscriptions,
ii. 278-280
Hardening, judicial, i. 39 ; ii. 2
' Hebrew Migration from Egypt,'
quoted, ii. 211 note'
Heilprin, Mr., i. 132
Henderson, Dr., ii. 269
Hengstenberg, sketch of, ii. 266-7
Hezekiah, is he chargeable with selfish
ness ? i. 236
— Song of, its relation to Job, i. 222-3
High places, i. 19, 103, 206
Hincks, Dr., i. 197
Hitzig, sketch of, ii. 264
Hivites, supposed mention of, i. 106 ;
ii. 142
Hodgkin, Mr., i. 109 ; ii. 292
Holiness, conception of, i. 3, 27, 37,
64

Ibn Ezra, sketch of, ii. 256
Idolatry, i. 17, 19, 71, 105-6
Immanuel, i. 49-50
Immortality, i. 148, 227
Incarnations, kings regarded as divine,
i. 89-90 ; ii. 289
Isaiah, in the light of history, ii, 165,
&c.
— not arranged chronologically, ii.
167

LAG
Isaiah, partly made up of small collec
tions of prophecies, ii. 175
— second part of, its arrangement, ii.
I77> &c.
— two parts of, compared philologi
cally, ii. 230
— Palestinian references in second part
of, ii. 213-4
— second part of, its few allusions to
Babylonian circumstances, ii. 217-8
— links between two parts of, ii.
231-3

Jasher, Book of, i. 278
Javan, ii. 128, 287
Jehovah, day of, i. 83 ; ii. 288
— prophetic interpretation of name, i.
250
— God of the world, i. 23, 295
— meaning of his return to Palestine,
i. 239
Jeremiah, a type of ' the Servant,' ii.
26
Jerome, St., ii. 255
'Jewish interpretation of prophecy,' the
phrase criticised, ii. 257
Job, date of, ii. 228 note '
— its affinities with Isaiah, ii. 44, 45,
131, 191 note'', 228, 244-253
Joel, date of, ii. 228 note '
Jonah, a symbol of Israel, ii. 26
Judaism, is it a proselytising religion ?
i. 279 note '
Judges, power of, in Judah, i. 5
Judgment, doctrine of, i. 10, 83, 141-2
Justification, meaning of, ii. 27, 52
Justin Martyr, i. 50; ii. 118, 154

Kay, Dr., sketch of, ii. 269-270
Kimchi, David, ii. 257
Kir, locality of, i. 132
Kleinert, Dr. Paul, ii. 7, 219
Klostermann, Dr., ii. 69, 86, 94, 152,
216 note', 224, 268
Knobel, sketch of, ii. 267-8
Koppe, ii. 263
Koran, referred to, i. 15, 18, 195, 238,
250, 260, 289 note''; ii. 75, 117,
122
Kuenen, Dr., i. 122, 193, 198, 210,
212 ; ii. 145, 155, 179, 204, 269
— his Hibbert Lectures, ii. 280, 296

Lagarde, Prof, de, i. 66, 67, 76, 106,
298; ii. 126, 142, 154, 201, 223-6,
282, 286

INDEX.

305

LAN
Land, Dr. ii. 4, 68
Land-tenure, Hebrew law of, i. 30
Lenormant, M., i. 41, 201, Z03, ii. 283,
288, &c.
Light, prse-solar, i. 154
Lilith, or night-fairy, i. 192
Lowth, Bishop, sketch of, ii. 261-3
Lydians, supposed mention of, ii. 127,
301
Lyra, Nicolas^de, ii. 255-6

McLennan, Mr., ii. 291
Magic, i. 16, 21, 47, 58, 303
Martensen, i. 9
Martineau, James, ii. 249
Maurice, F. D., ii. 183
Medes, use of term, in Isaiah, i. 85
Merit, doctrine of, ii. 108
Merodach, Babylonian god, i. 155,
296-7
Merodach-Baladan, i. 199, 229, 231
Merx, Dr., ii. 255, 257
Messiah and lilessianic, meaning of
terms, ii. 185-6
M'ni, traces of worship of, ii. 116
Moabite Stone, referred to, i. 96-7,
103, 206, 295 ; ii. 142
Moloch, sacrifices to, i. 177 ; ii. 69
Mozley, Dr., i. 225 ; ii. 252-3, 297
Musculus, a commentator, ii. 258
Myrtle, late references to, i. 253 ; ii.
212
Mythology, embodied in popular reli
gious phrases, i. 6, 9, 12, 22, 36, 55,
84, 86, 94, 155, 17s, 192, 227, 241,
264, 289; ii. 17, 31

Nabonidus, fall of, ii. 277
Naegelsbach, sketch of, ii. 268
Names, symbolism of, i. 57, 165
Nature, regeneration of, i. 18, 77i l^9i
183; ii. 118-9
Nebo, Babylonian god, i. 297
Neubauer, Dr., i. 54 ; ii. 160, 248, 257
Nisroch, obscure name of Assyrian god,
i. 219

Olympus, Oriental equivalents of
Mount, i. 15, 90
Onias, temple built by, i. 113
Origen, referred to, ii. 7, 215 note "
Origenists, doctrine of, on evil spirits,
i. 146
Osiris, supposed mention of, i. 67 ;
ii. 138
VOL. II.

SCR
Parallel passages, critical study of,
ii. 226, &c.
— argument from, ii. 220
Pauthier, M., ii. 21, 22
Payne Smith, Dr., ii. 69, 218, 237, 273
Pellicanus, a commentator, ii. 258
Phoenician, illustrations from, i. 92,
103, 106, 138, 151; ii. 68, 145
Pillars, erection of, to Jehovah, not for
bidden, i. 119
Predestination, a Semitic doctrine, i.
27, 287; ii. II
Prophecy, i. 25, 35, 237 ; ii. 276
— creative and self-fulfilling, i. 64, 76,
263 ; ii. 3, 12, 165 note '
— fictitious Assyrian, i. 286-7
Prophetic writers, their self-almegation,
ii. 227
Psalms, Christian element in the, ii.
184, &c.
. — imprecatory, ii. 189
Punishment, everlasting, doctrine of,
ii. 131
Pusey, Dr., ii. 51 note ', 129, 136, 155,
157

Queen-mother, rank of, i. 48

Rashi, ii. 256
Rawlinson, Sir Henry, i. 196, 299 ; ii.
275-6
Remnant, doctrine of, i. 10; ii. 13
Renouf, Mr. le Page, i. 116, 210
Resurrection, doctrines of, i. 154
Righteousness, meanings of term, in II.
Isaiah, i. 261, 289 ; ii. 1, 8
Rig-veda, quoted, i. 32
Rochester, Earl of, ii. 195
Roman Catholic exegesis, ii. 257
Row, Prebendary, ii. 99
Riickert, Frederick, ii. 177
Rutgers, Dr., i. 194, 267, 269; ii. 4

Saadyah, ii. 39, 255
Sabbath, history of, ii. 62, 298-9
Saints and angels, doctrine of, ii. 31,
107, 299
Salvation, meaning of term, i. 80
Samaria, second kingdom of, i. 46
Sargon, his invasion of Judah, i. 68-9,
196, &c. ; ii. 169, 171-4
Sayce, Prof., i. 68, 197, 206-7; ''• 1 28,
278-9. 301. &<:•
Schrader, Dr., i. 11, 198-203, &c.
Schultens, Albert, ii. 260
Scripturists, see Soferim

3o6

INDEX.

SEN
Sennacherib, his invasion of Judah, i.
185, 196, &c. ; ii. 171
— his character, i. 200
Septuagint, critical value of, ii. 225
Seraphim, i. 36, 42 ; ii. 283-6
'Servant of Jeiiovah,' special meaning
of the phrase, ii. 204-210
She&l, i. 31, 88-91, 224; ii. 130-2
Shiloh, ii. 198, &c.
Sibylline oracles, i. 75 ; ii. 298
Siloam, inscription of, i. 72 note
Sinim, land of, ii. 20-23
Sraerdis, pseudo-, ii. 279
Smith, Prof. Robertson, i. 83; ii. no,
115, 122, 141, 146, 287-8, 291-7
Soferim, i. 20; ii. 214-7
Souls, primitive theory concerning, ii.
130
Spain, Arab poets in, ii. 212
Spirit, doctrine of the, ii. 7, 104, 105
Stanley, Dean, i. 29 ; ii. 182
Stars, once regarded as animated, i. 12
Steinthal, Dr., ii. 31 note''
Stier, sketch of, ii. 267
Stones, sacred, i. 163 ; ii. 70
Strachey, Sir E., i. 122, 160, 232-4,
250; ii. 271-2
Strack, Dr. H. L., ii. 147, 226, 293,
298-9
Strauss, D. F., ii. 185, 204
Stuart, Dr. Moody, ii. 215, 231
Style, argument from diversity of, ii.
218-9
Swift, character ot its note, i. 225
Swine, flesh of, why forbidden, ii. 114
Sword, mystic Divine, i. 155, 190; ii.
294

Tabernacles (or Booths), Feast of,
i, 176; ii. 295
Tattooing, supposed allusion to, i. 279

JOB
Tertullian, ii. 220
Text, relatively weak authority of
Hebrew, ii. 222-3
Thothmes III., his conquests in Pales
tine, i. 99
Tiele, Prof., i. 37, 41, 106, 137
Tirhakah, is the name correct? i. 1 09
Toilette, Hebrew ladies', i. 23
Tomkins, Rev. H. G., ii. 148, 284-6,
296
Torments, nature of future, ii. 131-2
Totem-worship, relics of Semitic, ii,
121-2, 291
Transcription, sources of error in, ii.
222
Trent, Council of, ii. 258-9
Types, ii. 183

Union, mystic, i. 8, 281, 292; ii. 297

Vitringa, sketch of, ii. 260-1
Vogiie, M. de, ii. 221

Wellhausen, Dr., i. 166; ii. 146,
149, 172, 202, 298, &c.
Williams, Dr. Rowland, i. 175, 233
Wines, Mesopotamian, ii. 212 note '
Woman, honour paid to, in Messianic
descriptions, i. 270 (coL i. top)
Wordsworth, Rev. J., ii. 149

Zechariah, date of latter part of, ii.
228 note ', 230 note '
Zinzendorf, Count, ii. 208 note '
Zoroastrianism, its relation to Judaism,
i. 76, 148, 154, 256, 289; ii. 118,
119, 124, 280

IL PASSAGES, CHIEFLY BIBLICAL, ILLUSTRATED.

,*, The first numerals refer to the chapter and verse ; the second to the volume
an4 page. I Kings ix. 13, i. 17
— xviii. 5. i. 17

Gen. i. 2, i. 143
— ix. 13, ii. 295
— xlix. 10, ii. 198-203
Ex. vi. 24, 25, ii. 138
— xxxiii. 14, ii. 105
Deut. xvi. 21, 22, i. 119
Judg. X. i6, ii. 103
I Sam. xiv. 47, ii. 57
— xxviii. 14, i. 88
t Kings ix. (Jehu), 232

2 Kings iii. 25, i. 96
2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23, i. 300
Ezra X. 19, ii. 298
Neh. viii. 17, ii. 295
Job xi. 6, ii. 295
— xi. 7, 8, i. 47
— xvi. 17, ii. 49
— xvii. 16, ii. 131

INDEX.

307

JOB
Job xix. 25, ii. 151
— xxvi. 12, 13, i. 15s
— xxvii. 18, ii. 298
— xxxviii. 5, i. 242
— xxxviii. 6, i 163
Psalm ii., ii. 186-7
— xvii. 15, i. 6
— xviii. ii. 188
— xviii. 10, i. 40
— xviii. 36, ii. 73
— xviii. 50, ii. 186
— xxii., ii. 14, 15, 184 note', 190-1
— xxii. 16, ii. 185
— xxii. 26, 29, i. 147
— xxxi. (authorship), ii. 180 note ^
— xxxiv., ii. 185 note^
— xxxv., ii. 189-90
— xlv. 6, i. 63 note '
— xlvi.-xlviii. (Isaianic affinities of), ii.
230
— xlvi. 4, i. 54, 188
— xlviii. ii. 190
— xlviii. 13, i. 188
— U. 14, ii. 75
— lv. 2, 189-90
— Ixi., Ixiii. (authorship of), 1. 253 note '
— bcxii., ii. 187
— Ixxviii. 25, i. 72
— Ixxxii. i. 145
— lxxxiii. 8 (9), i. 120
— Ixxxvii., ii. 188
— Ixxxix. , ii. 60
— Ixxxix. 10, ii. 31
— Ixxxix. 27, ii. 40
— xci. 9, i. 257
— cii., ii. 190
— cii. 28, i. 250
— cvii. 3, ii. 16, 154
. — ex. i,i. 63, ii. 187
— cxlvii. 4, 5, L 247
Prov. ix. 10, i. 246
Eccles. xii. 5, i. 135
Jer. ii. 31, i. 294
— vi. 13, ii. 74
— ix. 2, ii. 180
— XV. I, ii. 197
— xxi. II, 12, i. 48
— xxvi. 21, i. 21

SOT
Jer. xlviii. 12, 13, i. 103
— xlviii. 32, 33, i. 102
Lam. V. 22, ii. 55
Ezek. i. 10, i. 41
— vi. 2, 3, ii. 212
— viii. 10, II, ii. 121
— x. 14, i. 41
— xxviii. 13-16, i. 40
— xxx. 17, i. 118
— xxxii. 27, i. 88
— xxxiii. 10, ii. 1 10
— xxxiii. 24, ii. 28-9
— xxxvii. i-io, i. 153-4
— xl. 39, ii. 298
Dan. iv. 13, ii. 97
— vii. 13, ii. 187
Hos. vi. 2, i. 153-4
Joel iii. 14, i. 131
Jonah iv. 11, i. 158
Mic. i. 5, ii. 295
— iv. I, 4, i. 14
— iv. 5, ii. 4
— iv. 10, i. 234, ii. 296
Zech. ix. 9, ii. 209 note '
— X. II, i. 74
— xiii. 7, ii. 296
MaL i. II, i. 119, 256
— iii. I, i. 261
Matt. viii. II, i. 147
— xxvi. 13, ii. 64
Mark ii. 10, II, i. 189
Luke xiii. 33, i. 131
— xvi. 24, ii. 28
John xviii. 5, 6, i. 250
— xviii. 37, ii. 60
Acts viii. 27, ii. 63 note^
Kom. XV. 1 5, ii. 128
I Cor. xiv. 25, ii. 297
Gal. vi. 17, i. 279
Phil. iv. 7, i. 150
I Tim. iv. 10, i. 80
2 Tim. i. 10, i. 223
Heb. iv. 12, ii. 12
— xi. 12, ii. 28
Rev. i. 5, ii. 60
— iv. 3, ii. 295
— vi. 16, ii. 34
— xxi. 10, i. 241

APOCRYPHA, ETC.

I Mace. X. 51-66, i. 113
Sirach xxxviii. I, ii. 57
— xxxix. 4, ii. 248
Wisd. Sol. ii. 12-31, ii. 297
— xi. 20, i. 243
Baruch iv., ii. 17

Baruch vi. 8, i. 288
Enoch V. 9, ii. 119
Pirke Abhothiii. 16, i. 144 (twice)
— iv. 16, i. 148
Sota ix. 14, ii. 95

3o8

INDEX.

III. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM V^^ESTERN LITERATURE.

Burns, i. 35
Calderon, ii. 205
Dante, i. 24, 41, 72, 148, 242, 260 ; ii.
72, 100, 106, 205, 247
Dryden, i. 256
Emerson, i. 266
Goethe, i. 35, 53, 274; ii. 247-8
Hawthorne, ii. 215
Heine, ii. 63
Homer, i. 34, 144, 178-9, 302
Horace, ii. 149
Juvenal, i. 61, 214
Leopardi, ii. 249

Macaulay, i. 1 55
Marlowe, i. 12
Milton, i. 16, 61, 223, 242, 288
Pascal, i. 260
Plato, i. 107 ; ii. 182
Rovigo, due de, ii. 293
Seneca, ii. 182, 220
Shakspere, i. 18; ii. 17, 158, 220
Spenser, ii. 8
Thucydides, i. 251
Virgil, i. 54, 175, 188; ii. 62, 83
Wordsworth, i. 12, 55
Young, i. 250

IV. ETYMOLOGIES, ETC. (Incomplete.)

Ariel, i. 166 ; ii. 146
Asnapper, ii. 136
Caleb, ii. 122
Chisleu, ii. 288
Cyrus, i. 285-6
Esar-haddon, i. 219
Jeshurun, i. 278
Rab-saris, i. 205, and
vol. ii.

Addenda in

Rab-shakeh, i. 205, ii. 296
Rahab, i. 155; ii. 31
Sabaoth, i. 5, 11-13; "• ^81
Sargon, i. 121
Sennacherib, i. 204
Shaddai, i. 83 j ii. 141
Tartan, i. 121, and Addenda in vol. ii.
Topheth, ii. 148

'a^rsA ii. 289
niJK ii. 151, 288
ma i. 262 note ¦
in 'ii. 157
njri ii. 155-6
!?.n? ii. 160-1
nsa ii. 146
a^n? i- 41
catj'ti i. 260
)1D 'i. 256 ; ii. 144-S
n^'^a i. 49; ii. 136, 181

¦)i{f>5; ii. 158
nap ii. 289
DST i. 191
d'aib ii. 284
ni2^ 1W ii. 15s
intrii. IS3
nnin i. s
Nifal tolerativum, ii. 156
Suffix e 01 im 2 s. m., ii. 137, 157
Vav of association, ii. 134-6

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Paul, Trench, & Co.'s Publications. 35

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