It is certain that the writings of the ancient prophets were carefully preserved during the captivity, and they were frequently referred to, and cited by the later prophets. Thus, the prophecy of Micah is quoted in Jer. xxvi. 18. a short time before the captivity; and, under it, the prophecy of Jeremiah is cited in Dan. ix. 2., and the prophets, generally, in ix. 6. Zechariah not only quotes the former prophets (i. 4.), but supposes their writings to be well known to the people. (vii. 7.) The prophet Amos is cited in the apocryphal book of Tobit (ii. 6.), as Jonah and the prophets in general are in xiv. 4, 5. 8. It is evident that Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, Zechariah, and the other prophets, who flourished during the captivity, carefully preserved the writings of their inspired predecessors; for they very frequently cited and appealed to them, and expected deliverance from their captivity by the accomplishment of their predictions.

Although some parts of the writings of the prophets are clearly in prose, instances of which occur in the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, and Daniel, yet the other books, constituting by far the larger portion of the prophetic writings, are classed by Bishop Lowth among the poetical productions of the Jews; and (with the exception of certain passages in Isaiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel, which appear to constitute complete poems of different kinds, odes as well as elegies) form a particular species of poesy, which he distinguishes by the appellation of PROPHETIC. On the nature of which see Vol. I. Part II. Chap. II. § VI. 1.; and for some Observations on the Interpretation and Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies, see Part II. Chap. IV. of the same volume.

IX. The prophetical books of the Old Testament are sixteen in number (the Lamentations of Jeremiah being usually considered as an appendix to his predictions); and in all modern editions of the Bible they are usually divided into two classes, viz. 1. The Greater Prophets, comprising the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel; who were thus designated from the size of their books, not because they possessed greater authority than the others." 2. The Minor Prophets, comprising the writings of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These books were anciently written in one volume by the Jews, lest any of them should be lost, some of their writings being very short. The order, in which the books of the minor prophets are placed, is not the same in the Alexandrian or Septuagint version as in the Hebrew. According to the latter, they stand

as in our translation; but in the Greek, the series is altered to the following arrangement :-Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. But this change is of no consequence, since neither in the original, nor in the Septuagint, are they placed with exact regard to the time when their sacred authors respectively flourished.

Moab, and Ammon. These memorials of events are the more valuable, as very few of them are noticed in the sacred history, and profane history is almost totally wanting for the periods which they comprise. The writings of the minor prophets, therefore, may be regarded as a kind of supplement for the history of their own times and the age immediately following.2

Much of the obscurity, which hangs over the prophetic writings, may be removed by perusing them in the order of time in which they were probably written. Different schemes of arrangement have been proposed by various biblical critics. Van Til, whose order was adopted by Professor Franck, divides them into the four following periods; viz. I. Prophets who delivered their Predictions during the Continuance of the Jewish Polity.

1. In JUDAH and ISRAEL, under Uzziah,-Hosea, Amos, Isaiah (ch. i.-vi.);—under Jotham and Akaz, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah (vii.-xii.);—under Hezekiah, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah. (ch. xviii.-xxii.)

2. Prophets, who delivered predictions against OTHER NATIONS:-against Nineveh, under Pul, Jonah ;-against Palestine, towards the commencement of Hezekiah's reign, Isaiah (xiv. 28. xxxii.);—against Moab (xv. xvi.);— against Damascus (xvii.), and Egypt. (xix. xx.)

II. Prophets who delivered their Predictions between the carrying of the Israelites into Captivity by the Assyrians, and the first Expedition of Nebuchadnezzar.

III.

1. In JUDAH, under Hezekiah, Hosea and Isaiah (xxiv. lvi.); -under Manasseh, Joel and Habakkuk ;-under Josiah, Zephaniah and Jeremiah.

2. Prophets who delivered predictions against OTHER NATIONS-against Nineveh under Hezekiah, Nahum ;— against Edom, Obadiah ;-against Arabia, Isaiah (xxi.), and Tyre. (xxxiii.)

Prophets during the Babylonish Captivity who delivered their Predictions.

1. Concerning THE JEWS, in Judæa, Jeremiah; in Babylon, Daniel; in Chaldæa, Ezekiel; in Egypt, Jeremiah.

2. Against the ENEMIES OF THE JEWS, viz. against Babylon, Jeremiah (1. li.); Egypt and Ethiopia, Jeremiah (xlvi.); and Ezekiel (xxvi.—xxviii.) ;—Moab, Jeremiah (xlviii.), and Ammon (xlix.) ;—Moab, Ammon, Edom, and the Philistines, Ezekiel. (xxv.)

IV. Prophets who delivered Predictions in Judæa after the Captivity.

1 Qui propterea dicuntur Minores, quia sermones eorum sunt breves, in eorum comparatione qui Majores ideo vocantur, quia prolixa volumina condiderunt. Augustin. de Civ. Dei, lib. xviii. c. 29.

Calmet, Dissertations, tom. ii. pp. 372-374.

Franckii Introductio ad Lectionem Prophetarum, pp. 39–42. Bishop Gray's Key, p. 420.

According to this table, the times when the prophets flourished may be referred to three periods, viz. 1. Before the Babylonian captivity;-2. Near to and during that event;

and, 3. After the return of the Jews from Babylon. And if, in these three periods, we parallel the prophetical writings with the historical books written during the same times, they will materially illustrate each other. The second volume of Mr. Townsend's Harmony of the Old Testament will be found of considerable service in studying the writings of the prophets.

For a sketch of the profane history of the East, from the time of Solomon to the Babylonian captivity, illustrative of the Prophetic Writings, see the articles Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Media, and Persia, in the Historical and Geographical Index in this volume.

1. THIS book is, by the Hebrews, called D (SEPHER JONAH), or the Book of Jonah, from its author Jonah, the 1 Professor Jahn and Dr. Ackermann divide the prophets into four periods; viz. 1. Those who prophesied under Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah;-2 Prophets whose age has not been recorded;-3. Prophets, from the age of Josiah to the end of the captivity; and, 4. Prophets who lived after the captivity. The arrangement above given is preferably adopted, as being more simple and comprehensive.

son of Amittai, who was a native of Gath-Hepher in the tribe of Zabulon, which formed part of the kingdom of Israel, and afterwards of Galilee. (Jon. i. 1. with Josh. xix. 13. and 2 Kings xiv. 25.) He is supposed to have prophesied to the ten tribes according to Bishop Lloyd, towards the close of Jehu's reign, or in the beginning of Jehoahaz's reign; though Witsius, Blair, and Bishop Newcome, Jahn, and others, with greater probability, place him under Jeroboam II. about forty years later. With the exception of his sublime ode in the second chapter, the book of Jonah is a simple narrative.

II. It is very probable, that, at the time Jonah promised the restoring and enlarging of the coasts of Israel in the days of Jeroboam II. (2 Kings xiv. 25.), when both the king and people were exceedingly wicked, he also invited them to repentance and reformation. But the Israelites still continuing impenitent and obdurate, God took occasion to send him to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, to denounce the impending divine judgments against its abandoned inhabitants. Jonah, declining the commission, was cast into the sea from the vessel in which he was sailing to Tarshish, and was swallowed by a large fish; not, says Irenæus,2 that he might be swallowed up, but that, by his miraculous deliverance (preparing Jonah to preach more dutifully, and the Ninevites to hear more effectually), the people of Israel might be provoked to repent by the repentance of Nineveh.3 The time of Jonah's continuance in the belly of the fish was a type of our Lord's continuance in the grave. (Luke xi. 30.) The fame of the prophet's miraculous preservation was so widely propagated as to reach even Greece: whence, as Grotius, Huet, Bochart, and other learned men have remarked, the story was derived of Hercules having escaped alive out of the fish's belly.

III. The SCOPE of this book is to show, by the very striking example of the Ninevites, the divine forbearance and long-suffering towards sinners, who were spared on their sincere repentance. From the conduct of the Ninevites, Jesus Christ takes occasion to reprove the perfidiousness of the Jews. (Matt. xii. 41.) The evidence offered by Jonah was sufficient to convince and lead the former to repentance; while the Jews, who had the greater evidence of miracles, and the more convincing evidence of our Saviour's doctrine, continued obstinately impenitent. Some critics have imagined that the prophecy of Jonah is a parabolic history; but from the manner in which the sacred historians and Jesus Christ speak of him (2 Kings xiv. 25. Matt. xii. 39. 41. xvi. 4. and Luke xi. 29.) it is evident that this book is a true narrative of a real person, and that Jonah was a prophet of considerable eminence.5

IV. The book of Jonah consists of two parts; viz. PART I. His first mission to Nineveh, and his attempt to flee to Tarshish, and its frustration, together with his delivery from the stomach of the great fish which had swallowed him. (ch. i. ii.)

PART II. His second mission, and its happy result to the Ninevites, who, in consequence of the prophet's preaching, repented in dust and ashes (iii.); and the discontent of Jonah, who, dreading lest his veracity as a prophet should be questioned in consequence of God's merciful change of purpose, repined at the sparing of the Ninevites whose destruction he seems to have expected. (iv.) No reproof can be more gentle than that given by God to the murmuring prophet (10, 11.), or present a more endearing picture of Him" whose tender mercies are over all his works."

§ 2. ON THE BOOK OF THE PROphet amos.

I. Author.-II. Occasion of his prophecy.-III. Its scope.IV. Synopsis of its contents.—V. Observations on its style. BEFORE CHRIST, 810-785.

I. AMOS is the third of the minor prophets, according to the order adopted in our modern Bibles: he is supposed to have been a native of Tekoah, a small town in the kingdom of Judah, situate about four leagues to the south of Jerusalem. There is, however, no proof of his being a native of this place, except his retiring thither when driven from Bethel

2 Adversus Hæres. lib. iii. c. 22.

Roberts's Clavis Bibliorum, p. 667.

See Grotius de Veritate, lib. i. c. 16. in notis. Huet, Demonstr. Evangelica, prop. iv. vol. i. p. 433. 8vo. edit. Bocharti Opera, tom. iii. p. 742. et seq. Pfeiffer in Difficiliora Loca Scripturæ, Centuria 4. Locus lxxxvi. (Opp. tom. i. pp. 447, 448.)

The reality of the history and prophecy of Jonah is fully proved against the modern neologians by Alber, Institutiones Hermeneutica, Vet. Test. tom. iii. pp. 399-407.

principal subject of all the prophets, viz. "the guilt of the Jewish nation in general, their disobedient refractory spirit, the heavy judgments that awaited them, their final conversion to God, their re-establishment in the land of promise, and their restoration to God's favour, and to a condition of the greatest national prosperity, and of high pre-eminence among the nations of the earth, under the immediate protection of the Messiah, in the latter ages of the world. He confines himself more closely to this single subject than any other prophet. He seems, indeed, of all the prophets, if I may so express my conception of his peculiar character, to have been the most of a Jew. Comparatively, he seems to care but little about other people. He wanders not, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, into the collateral history of the surrounding heathen nations. He meddles not, like Daniel, with the revolutions of the great empires of the world. His own country seems to engross his whole attention; her privileges, her crimes, her punishment, her pardon. He predicts, indeed, in the strongest and clearest terms, the ingrafting of the Gentiles into the church of God. But he mentions it only generally: he enters not, like Isaiah, into a minute detail of the progress of the business. Nor does he describe, in any detail, the previous contest with the apostate faction in the latter ages. He makes no explicit mention of the share which the converted Gentiles are to have in the reestablishment of the natural Israel in their ancient seats: subjects which make so striking a part of the prophecies of Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, Haggai, and, occasionally, of the other prophets. He alludes to the calling of our Lord from Egypt: to the resurrection on the third day: he touches, but only in general terms, upon the final overthrow of the Antichristian army in Palestine, by the immediate interposition of Jehovah; and he celebrates, in the loftiest strains of triumph and exultation, the Saviour's final victory over death and hell. But yet, of all the prophets, he certainly enters the least into the detail of the mysteries of redemption. We have nothing in him descriptive of the events of the interval between the two advents of our Lord. Nothing diffuse and circumstantial, upon the great and interesting mysteries of the incarnation and the atonement. His country and his kindred is the subject next his heart. Their crimes excite his indignation; their sufferings interest his pity; their future exaltation is the object on which his imagination fixes with delight. It is a remarkable dispensation of Providence, that clear notices, though in general terms, of the universal redemption, should be found in a writer so strongly possessed with national partialities. This Judaism seems to make the particular character of Hosea as a prophet. Not that the ten tribes are exclusively his subject. His country is indeed his particular and constant subject; but his country generally, in both its branches, not in either taken by itself."

According to this view of the subject, the general argument of Hosea's prophecy "appears to be the fortunes of the whole Jewish nation in its two great branches; not the particular concerns (and least of all the particular temporal concerns) of either branch exclusively. And to this grand opening the whole sequel of the prophecy corresponds. In setting forth the vices of the people, the picture is chiefly taken, as might naturally be expected, from the manners of the prophet's own times; in part of which the corruption, in either kingdom, was at the greatest height; after the death of Jeroboam, in the kingdom of Israel; in the reign of Ahaz, in the kingdom of Judah. And there is occasionally much allusion, sometimes predictive allusion, to the principal events of the prophet's times. And much more to the events in the kingdom of Israel, than to those in Judah. Perhaps, because the danger being more immediately imminent in the former kingdom, the state of things in that was more alarming, and the occurrences, for that reason, more interesting. Still the history of his own times in detail in either kingdom is not the prophet's subject. It furnishes similes and allusions, but it makes no considerable part, indeed it makes no part at all, of the action (if I may so call it) of the poem. The action lies in events beyond the prophet's times; the commencement, indeed, within them; but the termination, in times yet future; and although we may hope the contrary, for aught we know with certainty, remote. The deposition of Jehu's family, by the murder of Zedekiah, the son and successor of Jeroboam, was the commencement: the termination will be the restoration of the whole Jewish nation under one head, in the latter days, in the great day of Jezräel; and the intermediate parts of the action are the

1 Bishop Horsley's Hosea, Preface, pp. vii. viii.

judgments which were to fall, and accordingly have fallen, upon the two distinct kingdoms of Israel and Judah, typified by Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi."2 The SCOPE of this prophet's prediction is, 1. Partly to detect, reprove, and convince the Jewish nation generally, and the Israelites in particular, of their many and heinous sins, especially of their gross idolatry; the corrupt state of the kingdom is also incidentally noticed;-2. Partly to denounce the imminent and utter rejection, final captivity, and destruction of the Israelites by the Assyrians (if the former persisted in their wicked career), notwithstanding all their vain confidence in the assistance to be afforded them by Egypt;-and, 3. Partly to invite them to repentance with promises of mercy, and evangelical predictions of the future restoration of the Israelites and Jews, and their ultimate conversion to Christianity.3

III. The prophecy of Hosea contains fourteen chapters, which may be divided into five sections or discourses, exclusive of the title in ch. i. 1.; viz. DISCOURSE 1. Under the figure of the supposed4 infidelity of the prophet's wife is represented the spiritual infidelity of the Israelites, a remnant of whom, it is promised, shall be saved (i. 2 11.), and they are exhorted to forsake idolatry. (ii. 1—11.) Promises are then introduced, on the general conversion of the twelve tribes to Christianity; and the gracious purposes of Jehovah towards the ten tribes, or the kingdom of Israel in particular, are represented under the figure of the prophet taking back his wife on her amendment. (ii. 11-23. iii.) DISCOURSE 2. The prophet, in direct terms, inveighs against the bloodshed and idolatry of the Israelites (iv. 1—14. 17—19.), against which the inhabitants of Judah are exhorted to take warning. (15, 16.) In chap. v. 1-14. the divine judgments are denounced against the priests, the people, and the princes of Israel, to whom are held out promises of pardon in v. 15. which are continued through verses 1-3. of chap. vi. The metaphors used by the prophet on this occasion are remarkably strong and beautiful. The resurrection, the morning, and the refreshing showers, in their season, supply them; in a more immediate sense they denote a speedy and gracious deliverance, but in a remote sense they refer to the resurrection of Christ (compare Hosea vi. 2. with 1 Cor. xv. 4.) and the blessings of the Gospel.

DISCOURSE 3. The prophet's exhortations to repentance proving ineffectual, God complains by him of their obstinate iniquity and idolatry (vi. 4—11. vii. 1—10.), and denounces that Israel will be carried into captivity into Assyria by Sennacherib, notwithstanding their reliance on Egypt for assistance. (vii. 1116. viii.)

DISCOURSE 4. The captivity and dispersion of Israel is further threatened (ix. x.); the Israelites are reproved for their idolatry, yet they shall not be utterly destroyed, and their return to their own country is foretold. (xi.)5 Renewed denunciations are made on account of their idolatry. (xii. xiii. 1-8.) DISCOURSE 5. After a terrible denunciation of divine punishment, intermixed with promises of restoration from captivity (xiii. 9-16.), the prophet exhorts the Israelites to repentance, and furnishes them with a beautiful form of prayer adapted to their situation (xiv. 1-3.); and foretells their reformation from idolatry, together with the subsequent restoration of all the tribes from their dispersed state, and their conversion to the Gospel. (4-9.)

IV. The style of Hosea, Bishop Lowth remarks, exhibits the appearance of very remote antiquity; it is pointed, energetic, and concise. It bears a distinguished mark of poetical composition, in that pristine brevity and condensation which is observable in the sentences, and which later writers have in some measure neglected. This peculiarity has not escaped the observation of Jerome, who remarks that this prophet is

Bishop Horsley's Hosea, Preface, p. xxvii.
Roberts's Clavis Bibliorum, p. 656.

Bishop Horsley contends at great length, contrary to most interpreters,

See the Preface to his version of

that the prophet's marriage was a real transaction, and a type of the whole Jewish nation, distinct parts of which were typified by the three children Jezräel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi. Hosea, pp. viii.-xxv. Witsius, however, has shown that the whole was a figurative representation. Miscell. Sacr. lib. i. pp. 90-92. The prediction in Hosea xi. 10, 11., respecting the return of the Israelites to their own country, was partly fulfilled in consequence of Cyrus's decree (2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23. Ezra i. 1-4.); but, in its fullest extent, it remains to be accomplished in the future restoration of the Jews to their own land. This is one instance, among many, in which the language of the We have the authority of an prophets is adapted to two or more events. inspired writer to extend this remark to another part of the same chapter. (Compare xi. 1. with Matt. ii. 15.) Smith's Summary View of the Prophets, p. 177.

recorded in the Scriptures concerning the wife of Isaiah, we find two of his sons mentioned in his prophecy, who were types or figurative pledges of God's assurance; and their names and actions were intended to awaken a religious attention in the persons whom they were commissioned to address and to instruct. Thus, Shearjashub (vii. 3.) signifies “a remnant shall return," and showed that the captives, who should be carried to Babylon, should return thence after a certain time; and Maher-shalal-hashbaz (viii. 1. 3.), which denotes "make speed (or, run swiftly) to the spoil," implied that the kingdoms of Israel and Syria would in a short time be ravaged.

4. ON THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. I. Author and date.-II. Genuineness of Isaiah's prophecies.— III. Scope.-IV. Analysis of the contents of this book. V. Observations on its style.

BEFORE CHRIST, 810-698.

THOUGH fifth in the order of time, the writings of the prophet Isaiah are placed first in order of the prophetical books, principally on account of the sublimity and 'importance of his predictions, and partly also because the book, which bears his name, is larger than all the twelve minor prophets put together.

I. Concerning his family and descent nothing certain has been recorded, except what he himself tells us (i. 1.), viz. that he was the son of Amotz, and discharged the prophetic office in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, who successively flourished between A. M. 3194 and 3305. There is a current tradition that he was of the blood-royal; and some writers have affirmed that his father Amotz or Amos was the son of Joash, and, consequently, brother of Uzziah king of Judah. Jerome, on the authority of some rabbinical writers, says, that the prophet gave his daughter in marriage to Manasseh king of Judah; but this opinion is scarcely credible, because Manasseh did not commence his reign until about sixty years after Isaiah had begun to discharge his prophetic functions. He must, indeed, have exercised the office of a prophet during a long period of time, if he lived in the reign of Manasseh; for the lowest computation, beginning from the year in which Uzziah died, when he is by some supposed to have received his first appointment to that office, brings it to sixty-one years. But the tradition of the Jews, which has been adopted by most Christian commentators, that he was put to death by Manasseh, is very uncertain; and Aben Ezra, one of the most celebrated Jewish writers, is rather of opinion that he died before Hezekiah; which Bishop Lowth thinks most probable. It is, however, certain, that he lived at least to the fifteenth or sixteenth year of Hezekiah; which makes the least possible term of the duration of his prophetic office to be about forty-eight years.

The name of Isaiah, as Vitringa has remarked after several preceding commentators, is in some measure descriptive of his high character, since it signifies the Salvation-of-Jehovah; and was given with singular propriety to him who foretold the advent of the Messiah, through whom all flesh shall see the salvation of God. (Compare Isa. xl. 5. with Luke iii. 6. and Acts iv. 12.) Isaiah was contemporary with the prophets Amos, Hosea, Joel, and Micah.

Isaiah is uniformly spoken of in the Scriptures as a prophet of the highest dignity: Bishop Lowth calls him the prince of all the prophets, and pronounces the whole of his book to be poetical, with the exception of a few detached passages. It is remarkable, that his wife is styled a prophetess in viii. 3., whence the rabbinical writers have concluded that she possessed the spirit of prophecy: but it is very probable that the prophets' wives were called prophetesses, as the priests' wives were termed priestesses, only from the 1 Præf. in xii. Proph.

Lowth's Prælect. xxi. vol. ii. p. 96. Bishop Horsley differs in opinion from Bishop Lowth, as to the cause of the obscurity which is observable in the prophecies of Hosea. Bishop Horsley ascribes it, not to the great antiquity of the composition, nor to any thing peculiar to the language of the author's age, but to his peculiar idioms, frequent changes of person, his use of the nominative case absolute, his anomalies of number and gen der, and the ambiguity of pronouns. See the Preface to his version of Hosea, pp. xxix.-xliii

Besides the volume of prophecies, which we are now to consider, it appears from 2 Chron. xxvi. 22. that Isaiah wrote an account of the Acts of Uzziah king of Judah: this has perished with some other writings of the prophets, which, as probably not written by inspiration, were never admitted into the canon of Scripture. There are also two apocryphal books ascribed to him, viz. "The Ascension of Isaiah," and "The Apocalypse of Isaiah," but these are evidently forgeries of a later date; and the Apocalypse has long since perished.

II. Until the latter part of the eighteenth century, Isaiah was universally regarded both by Jews and Christians as the sole author of the book which bears his name. Koppe was the earliest writer who intimated that Ezekiel, or some other prophet who lived during the exile, might have been the author; as Doederlein was the first of the German commentators and critics who expressed a definite suspicion against the genuineness of those predictions which were delivered against the Gentiles, but especially the last twenty-seven chapters. Justi, Eichhorn, Bauer, Paulus, Rosenmüller, Bertholdt, De Wette, and others, have adopted the notions of Doederlein; and by various arguments have endeavoured to prove that the chapters in question first originated during the Babylonian captivity. These arguments have been copi ously examined and refuted by Professor Jahn, whose observations may be arranged under the following heads :-viz. 1. Proofs that all the prophecies ascribed to Isaiah are really his productions;-2. An examination and refutation, in detail, of objections against particular predictions;-and, 3. An examination of the questions whether Isaiah was the author of chapters xxxvi.-xxxix.

1. PROOFS THAT ALL THE PREDICTIONS ASCRIBED TO ISAIAH ARE REALLY HIS PRODUCTIONS.

i. "The STYLE differs scarcely any in the different prophecies. We find every where the same descriptions of particular objects, and the same images, taken from trees, especially cedars, firs, and oaks; from the pains of childbirth, from history, and from the golden age. The beginning of the prophecy constantly enters into the midst of the subject, and every where poetical passages are inserted; as v. 1-6. xii. 1-6. xiv. 4-20. xxv. 1-5.; so, exactly in the same manner, xlii. 10-13. lii. 9. s. lxi. 10. lxiii. 7. Ixiv. 11. Every where the same clearness and obscurity, the same repetitions, and the same euphony of language, are observable. The visions are similar; comp. ch. xxi. and ch. xl. with ch. vi. Even the same phrases occur repeatedly: e. g. ban amp occurs in the first part seventeen times, in the second twelve times. 1, which occurs in all the rest of the Bible only nine times, is found in the first part of Isaiah four times, in the second six. DNYNY, which is elsewhere only to be met with four times in the book of Job, is found here twice in the first part, and five times in the second. is used in lxv. 10. just as in xxxiii. 9. xxv. 2.: ma¬ps), in xl. 1. xli. 7. 21. lxvi. 9. just as in i. 11. 18. xxxiii. 10., instead of which the other prophets say, or . The expressions applied to the Sabæans, op stretched out, or tall, xviii. 2. 7., and TM, men of measure, or tall men, are peculiar to our prophet, as well as many others, which we have not room

Gray's Key, p. 365.

• Ibid. p. 372.

Ascensio enim Isai et Apocalypsis Isaia hoc habent testimonium. Jerom. Coinment. on Isaiah, ch. Ixiv. (Op tom. iii. p. 473.) See also tom. iv. p. 344. The anabatieon or ascension of Isaiah is mentioned by Epiphanius, among the books received by Hierax, founder of the sect of the Hieracites, in the fourth century. Hæres. 67. Dr. Lardner's Works. vol. iii. p. 402.

The arguments of the various neologian objectors against the genuineness of Isaiah's predictions, and especially those of Professor Gesonius, are also very fully and ably renewed and refuted, first, by Professor Lee, in his Sermons and Dissertations on the Study of the Holy Scriptures, pp. 157-208.; and, secondly, by Dr. Hengstenberg in his "Christologie des Alten Testaments." (Christology of the Old Testament.) That part of Dr. H.'s treatise, which relates to the genuineness of Isaiah's predictions, has been translated into English by Professor Robinson of Andover (Massachusetts), and will be found in the Biblical Repository for the year 1831. (vol. i. pp. 700-733.) As the arguments of these learned writers do not admit of abridgment, the reader is necessarily referred to their publications.