all existence whatsoever to the deities of other nations, yet these occupy a secondary and shadowy existence. Their images are called 'nothings,' the work of men's hands (ii. 8, 18), and their presence in Israel's sanctuaries is not tolerated. So far Isaiah does not differ from the teaching of Amos and Hosea or transcend it. But in his conception of Yahweh as the universal righteous Judge he adds new features. In chaps. ii-v he proclaims the advent of a great day of the Lord which is to be a day of judgment.' As long as the storm of Assyrian invasion was still withheld from Judah, he predicts in general terms that it will come with destructive power over the land and destroy all its material splendour and break down human pride, not only the cedars of Lebanon and the oaks of Bashan, but also the high walls and towers and the stately ships of Tarshish. The destruction wrought on this day of judgment will serve to reveal that God stands alone in His supremacy of might (ii, 12-21).

To God is ascribed by Isaiah the title Holy One of Israel' which frequently recurs throughout the prophet's oracles. He is acclaimed as 'Holy' in the song of the seraphs on the occasion of the prophet's consecrationvision. Into the primitive conceptions which underlie this word 'holy' in the Hebrew original we need not enter here, since they are dealt with in the note on chap. vi. 3. Stated in brief, Isaiah lifted the expression above popular usage by importing into it high ethical meanings -the moral attributes of Yahweh Himself. Holy connotes God's supreme exaltation combined with perfectly righteous character, whose presence could not be surveyed or approached by sinful men. The fundamental conception therefore which underlies this word, as Isaiah employs it, is righteousness. It is by righteousness Yahweh exaits and sanctifies Himself1 (v. 16). .

1 Though these words may be a later insertion (see notes), they accurately express the mind of the prophet.

Moreover, Yahweh's nature is spiritual. In a notable passage the prophet asserts that God is spirit in contrast with the Egyptians who are but men (xxxi. 3). The idea which is involved in the word 'spirit' is moving, absolute, invincible energy as opposed to human weakness and inertness, the latter quality being especially characteristic of Egypt.

2. We shall now fittingly consider the contrasted state of human sin in the teaching of Isaiah. This sin in Israel assumed various forms, and might be viewed from varied aspects. In the presence of God's holiness and exalted purity it assumes the aspect of uncleanness. This is how Isaiah regarded himself and his own countrymen in the hour of his consecration-vision (vi. 8):

'In that fierce light which beats about a throne

And blackens every blot.'

But a more characteristic aspect is expressed by the word rebellion against Divine parental authority and solicitude -the rebellion of sons against One who is not merely Sovereign but also Father (i. 2-4). To this conception of the Divine relationship to His people and their sinful relationship to Him we have already referred. It approximates the dominating conception presented in the oracles of Hosea.

This is also expressed by the terms 'backsliding,' forsaking of God,' ' estrangement' from Him and 'doing despite' to Him, variant phrases which are accumulated in chap. i. 4. The modes in which this sinful conduct manifests itself are very various-the pride and arrogance of wealth; the military ostentation of horses, chariots, and fortresses (ii. 7, vii. 3; cf. xxii. 8-11). As in Amos and Hosea, one all-prevailing form of Israel's declension was idolatry, which in a notable passage is characterized as the most loathsome uncleanness (xxx. 22). Under the same category we might include the soothsaying borrowed from abroad, and, above all, the necromancy to which that troubled generation resorted instead of seeking the clear

light of Divine teaching (viii. 19, xxviii. 18). Chap. v contains a catalogue of prevailing vices; the sin of drunkenness, of selfish greed of landed possession, and also bribery corrupting the administration of justice, being conspicuous among them.

3. Faith in God is inculcated by Isaiah as it had never been taught previously. It is a new note in prophecy, and the occasion of its proclamation by the prophet was the dramatic moment when he was confronted by the scheming politician Ahaz (vii. 3 foll.). Isaiah challenges the incredulous monarch, who relied more on the strong material support of Assyria than on the invisible might of Yahweh, and declared to him: "If ye will not believe, ye shall not abide secure.' This faith in the Divine power and presence which shall protect and save His people was expressed in a name Immanuel, ' God-with-us,' and it may be regarded as the watchword of Isaiah's message to his countrymen at this dark moment of their fortunes, when the king trusted in Tiglath-Pileser and the people resorted to the dark rites of necromancy and made covenants with Sheol' (xxviii. 15-18). This quiet rest,' this ‘refreshing' (xxviii. 12), is compared to the waters of the Shiloaḥ stream that softly flow (viii. 6). This faith becomes still more defined as the years roll on. Faith in God was essentially bound up with Yahweh's dwellingplace, Zion. The symbolic names which were given to Isaiah's children, and the very name that the prophet himself bore, were signs from 'the Lord of Hosts who dwells in Mount Zion.' Zion shall be preserved; but in later days the prophet clearly asserts: 'Behold, I have founded in Zion a stone, a stone well tested, a corner-stone of precious solid foundation' (xxviii. 16). The following verse clearly shows that the 'foundation' is ethical: right and justice. This shall never be shaken, though the scourge' of Assyrian invasion pass over Judah.

4. The eschatology of Isaiah does not lie beyond earth's confines or even the times in which he lived. Therein (as

we have shown in the introductory remarks to chap. xxiv) we see the contrast between Isaiah's teaching and that of Apocalyptic. The day of the Lord, the Messianic age, and the rule in righteousness of David's son do not belong to the remote future1, for Isaiah's message was intended to be one of practical and present help. The fact that it was not historically realized by the pre-exilian Jews is but one of the many illustrations (e. g. the parousia in the first Christian century) of the foreshortening of perspective in the anticipations of prophecy..

1

In the early stages of Isaiah's ministry he predicted for his countrymen destructive chastisements, and a like fate was to overtake the northern kingdom (ix. 8—x. 4). The first eight chapters of our prophetic collection, nearly the whole of which consists of the genuine utterances of the prophet, are filled with denunciations of Judah's sin and of the dire punishment which will ensue. These oracles may with considerable probability be assigned to the reign of Ahaz (735-15 B. C.). Even the consecrationvision of the sixth chapter bears the impress of this time, and Cheyne is probably right in assigning to its composition the date 734 B. C. The most remarkable feature of that sublime chapter is its almost unrelieved gloom. When we turn to the LXX we find ourselves deprived even of the solace of the concluding phrase in verse 13, 'the holy seed is the stock thereof 2 The prophet's message is to produce no effect. The people are to be impervious to truth. And this barren ministry is to continue while God's chastisements are to fall, cities are to become desolate, and the land wasted. Even the remnant left after the previous calamities have done their work is to be consumed in the devouring flame.

1 An exception might be made of ii. 2-4 if the phrase in the latter days' be the genuine expression of Isaiah. This brief utterance might then be considered to refer to a more remote future than the age of the prophet. But it is possible that the phrase is redactional.

2 Only found in Q marg.

But the prophet's mind did not always remain anchored in this gloomy roadstead. The conception that God was nevertheless present among His people, embodied in a name of significant potency, Immanuel, became the nucleus for an ever-growing hope. We are not of the opinion ingeniously set forth by Hackmann in his mono, graph Isaiah's anticipations respecting the future1, that at the beginning of his career the prophet regarded the future of Judah with hope which passes away as his life proceeds into utter gloom, while, on the other hand, at the opening of his prophetic ministry the prophecies of destruction are all directed against Ephraim. This view, in our opinion, completely inverts the progress of Isaiah's mind and renders his attitude to Assyria in 705-1 unintelligible. The theory of Hackmann can only be sustained by wholesale excisions of inconvenient passages in Isaiah's later oracles, and by violent exegetical assumptions respecting the earlier ones.

The prophet borrowed from his Ephraimite contemporary Hosea the custom of naming his children with

1 Die Zukunftserwartung des Jesaia (1893). According to this writer chap. vi contains a prophecy of complete destruction, not of Judah, but of Ephraim. But there is not a single indication in the chapter which would lead us to identify this people' in verse 9 with the northern kingdom exclusively (see Hackmann's discussion of this question, p. 72 foll.). The argument based on ix. 7-20 and xxviii. 1-4 is fallacious (see p. 75), since, as our commentary has shown, these can hardly be called the earliest among the prophecies with a definite historic reference. They should be assigned to a date about nine years after 734.

? i.e. not only ix. 1-7 and xi. 1-9, but many others of which the English reader, who is not in a position to study the original monograph (in German), will find a list in Dr. Buchanan Gray's useful and discriminating article in the Expositor, November, 1894, p. 341. We have not space here to deal with Guthe's more reasonable theory, which I find it impossible to accept, developed in his Zukunftsbild des Jesaia. The reader will find a brief summary of this theory and of others in Gray's above-mentioned article, p. 332 foll. (see also Hackmann's monograph, p. 157 foll.).