264

TYRE SHALL BE RESTORED.

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time, and that the prophet either farther limits this by a phrase equivalent to 'for about a whole generation,' or else implies that the seventy years the long time of oblivion-shall be as monotonous, and perhaps as short to look back upon, as those of a single reign. The days of a king,' the representative of a nation, seems fitter to express for a generation' than the days of a man' would have been and we may compare the phrase with 'the days of a hireling,' in chapters xvi. 14, xxi. 16. At the end of this time, Jehovah will visit Tyre: the old alliance, ‘the brotherly covenant,' shall be renewed with Israel, and Tyre shall share with the other nations of the earth the blessings which Isaiah promises to them all in turn, when they shall have come, through sufferings, to the knowledge of the God of Israel. Then Israel will have a part in the worldly prosperity of Tyre, as Tyre in her spiritual. This restoration of Tyre is foretold by a strange though expressive image:-at the end of seventy years Tyre shall again play the harlot with all the nations of the earth and her gains shall be holiness to Jehovah. The harlot* converts into a matter of traffic 'what should be a sacred relationship: so trade brings men together merely as buyers and sellers, not as brethren; and consequently rapidly degenerates from self-interest into selfishness, unless it be perpetually counter-balanced by other and nobler aims in the man. The Hebrew lawgivers and prophets saw that, in their times, and for their nation, such counterpoises could not be made effectual, and therefore discouraged commerce itself: and the contemptuous image of the harlot implies this feeling here, though we have at the same time the recognition that trade is not essentially evil in the declaration that its gains shall be dedicated to Jehovah. The Mosaic law expressly forbids the offering to Jehovah the gains of a harlot, and this may tell us that Isaiah has here laid aside his illustration, as poets and orators do, as soon as the momentary purpose is served, though to the perplexity of their prosaic commen

* Harlot is hire-lot,' and originally synonymous with 'hireling.' Chaucer says of the 'Sompnour,' or servant of the ecclesiastical court,

'He was a gentle harlot, and a kind.'

tators.

THE SONG OF TYRE.

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The translation-'it shall be to Tyre as the song of the harlot,' and the explanation that verse 16 is not Isaiah's address to Tyre, but an extract from some popular song of the day called 'the harlot's song,' is preferred by most modern translators. But such criticism seems to me somewhat fanciful.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE ASSYRIAN ARMIES.-NATIONAL

ISAIAH XXIV.-XXVII.-UTTER DESOLATION OF JUDAH-ACTUALLY CAUSED BY COVENANT BROKEN BY AHAZ-HE SHUTS THE TEMPLE.-GOD'S COUNSELS OF OLD.-MOAB PUT FOR ASSYRIA.— PATIENCE IN NATIONAL CALAMITIES. THE WIFE DIVORCED, AND TAKEN BACK. THE SILVER TRUMPET SOUNDED.-EXPANSION OF ISAIAH'S VIEWS.

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ISAIAH xxiv. to xxvii. It is agreed that these chapters

I

form a continuous discourse. The older controversy as to its subject, has naturally produced the modern one --in which the rationalists differ among themselves as well as from the orthodox-as to its date and author. say naturally, because there is no more frequent, I might almost say constant, phenomena in Biblical criticism than this, that the reaction against the orthodox interpretations makes it impossible for the student who is under its influence simply to examine the text as it is: he must find some explanation which shall not merely explain the text but shall also be as strong and hostile a protest as possible against the orthodox interpretation. But I would ask the reader who has accompanied me thus far, still to adhere to the method which has served us hitherto, taking the text as it stands, and considering that Isaiah is, as usual, setting forth-forth-telling rather than foretelling-universal laws, with a special (and to us chiefly illustrative) application to his own times.

The contents agree well with the date which is indicated by the place of the prophecy in the book :—namely, about the time that Sennacherib was besieging Lachish or Libnah.* Samaria, which fell into the power of the Assyrians in the sixth year of Hezekiah, and from that time became available as one of their military posts and bases of operation, was about thirty miles from Jerusalem.

*See below, chapter xx.

ISAIAH XXIV. 1

-23.

THE JUDGMENT.

267

So were Lachish and Libnah; and therefore we have only to remember the extent of ground that a large army covers, and the way in which even modern Christian armies, and much more those of ancient barbarians, sweep, and always used to sweep, whole countries with the besom of destruction,' to understand that Isaiah's picture of what he and his fellow citizens were seeing around them, and daily expecting, is no exaggeration of reality. Facts, at such times, go beyond the strongest imagination. And we shall have a more accurate conception of the state of things, if we remember that this last invasion of Sennacherib came upon a people already exhausted by the repeated calamities which, from the end of the reign of Jotham, had fallen on them from every quarter. We may here look back with advantage to chapter i., which, whatever its date, describes precisely the condition of Judea and Jerusalem, about the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign.

The Hebrew employs the same word for earth' and land,' and a translation will best approach this poetic indefiniteness, by giving sometimes one, and sometimes the other. I might make a like remark as to the interchange of the perfect and imperfect tenses; but I hope the reader has already sufficiently realized this characteristic, to find it a help rather than a hindrance to his enjoyment and appreciation of the Hebrew seers.

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Jehovah is come to judge his people. Ahaz shut up the temple, and altogether changed the national worship for idolatry and though this public and open 'transgression of the laws, change of the ordinance, and breach of the covenant' with the LORD of the nation, was publicly atoned for by Hezekiah, yet there was but too much evidence that the greater part of the people were still, as to heart and faith, better represented by Ahaz than by his pious son and successor and therefore Jehovah was 'turning upside down' the whole country-man and beast, cultivated fields and walled cities, political order and social relations-emptying out and scattering its contents, as if it were a bottle, or other vessel. The prophet sees Jerusalem in confusion, taken by assault, and the people in voluntary exile or in captivity.

268

THE LAND LAID WASTE.

But from the beginning it was a part of his office to preach that a remnant should return; and (whether alluding or not to any passing event we cannot now say) he sees this remnant, brought through suffering to the knowledge of Jehovah, and raising songs of praise to him in the various lands in which they are scattered. Their lot seems to him even better than his own and that of his countrymen at home; for at home the spoiler and the 'treacherous dealer' are upon them, they are hunted from one refuge to another, and the windows of heaven are opened as in the days of Noah, and the foundations of the earth shaken as with a universal earthquake :- Broken, all broken is the earth; shattered, all shattered is the earth; the earth doth quake, doth quake exceedingly; the earth doth reel, doth reel, like a drunken man, and swayeth to and fro like a hammock.'-Such is the more literal rendering; the verbs (as in verse 3) are repeated in the intensive form, in the Hebrew; and I do not see that its wild force is not admissible into an English version. The hammock (the same word as in chap. i. 8) is still used throughout the East by the night-watchers of vineyards.

Most commentators understand 'the host of the high ones on high' in verse 21 to be angels good or bad, or even those angelic princes represented in the book of Daniel as the lords of the several nations: but it seems simpler to take the words in their natural connection with the moon' and the 'sun' in the 23rd verse, and not to attempt to define and fix the image more than the prophet himself has done. Some thought of spiritual powers supporting the kings of the earth, there probably is here as in the words of Jeremiah- Behold I will punish the multitude of No, and Pharaoh and Egypt with their gods and their kings; '* or as when Isaiah himself says—' The idols are moved at his presence ;'t—but I see no reason for finding here the later demonology of the Jews.

In that day Jehovah will come to judge both the host of heaven and the kings of the earth who have been the instruments of his righteous judgments: they shall be + Chap. xix. 1.

*Chap. xlvi. 25.