INSCRIPTIONS, SEMITIC
IRON
dressing the wounds of his patient will be quickened by
the prospect of an adequate remuneration. See
Surely we cannot venture to suppose, with Jiilicher
that the Good Samaritan’s
was a
hostelry. It is much more probable that the
place differed but slightly from the so-called Good Samaritan’s
Inn on the way to Jericho, which bears the name of
Nor would it be reasonable to suppose that a different sort of
lodging-place is meant by the
(EV inn) of Lk. 2 7
that Lk. uses different words in 2 7 and in 10 34 may only arise
from a difference in the literary source.
I t is true that in
seems to mean a room that was lent to
pilgrims (for the passover) but the context in 2 7 is
adverse to
the meaning ‘guest-chamber’ as to that of
That
of Jer.
41
‘the lodging-place of
Chimham’) is meant, is quite impossible, though this has
been suggested (cp Plummer,
Luke,
54).
See
C
HIMHAM
,
and
cp N
ATIVITY
.
That
an Oriental ‘manger’
was not like those of the
West is shown at great length
L k . 27)
who
states that
persons find on their arrival that the apart-
ments usually appropriated to travellers are already occupied
they are glad to find accommodation in the stable,
when the nights are cold or the season
adds that
‘the part of the stable called
the manger could not reason-
ably have been other than one of those recesses, or a t least a
portion of the
which we have mentioned a s affording
accommodation to travellers under certain circumstances.’
INSCRIPTIONS (SEMITIC).
See
W
RITING
,
INSPIRATION
Job
3 2 8 ,
RV breath.’ See
INSTRUMENTS
OF
MUSIC
I
Ch.
INTERPRETER
Gen.
42
23
Job
EV,
Gen.
4 6 1 3
a corruption
O f
I
.
IPHEDIAH,
RV
Iphdeiah
30,
re-
deems’), b. Shashak in a genealogy of B
EN
JAMIN
IPHTAH
Josh.
R V ; AV J
IPHTAH
IPHTAH-EL
Josh.
RV
AV
I
Ch.
IRA
watchful ?
[BAL]).
P
APYRI
.
S
PIRIT
,
P
ROPHET
.
See M
USIC
,
and elsewhere.
See A
MBASSADOR
,
I
P
ARACLETE
.
82511
THAH-EL
).
See
I
.
I
.
b. Ikkesh, the Tekoite, was one of David’s heroes
S.
;
I
Ch.
11
[BNA])
.
in
I
Ch.
27 o
[A]
he is a t the head
the sixth
David’s army. Marq.
(Fund.
would read
(cp
L
B
in Ch.) and identify him with the
in
I
K.
4
14
see
T h e
I
THRITE
another of David’s heroes,
S.
38
(ora8
I
Ch. 11
ta
T h e
was one of David’s ‘priests
S. 20
26
cp Dr.
o
[B],
e.
o
[A],
o
Pesh.
Perhaps for
we
ought to read
the Jattirite (so Th.,
Klo.,
after Pesh.; cp L).
See
A
BIATHAR
.
111.
4).
IRAD
:
[ADEL]
Gen.
Philo explains,
(de
Post.
Mangey,
possibly he read
which
the
altered.
The best reading seems to be
(cp
Mt. ‘Ebal)
Lagarde
prefers
T o read
‘wild ass: and compare the ‘sons
of
Hamor
members of the Ass-clan (?) Gen. 33 19-does not
of the genealogy, nor
we helped by the
proper name Arad. T h e name is probably
of
Bab. origin. See
7.
IRAM
a
phylarch
or
rather clan
of Edom (Gen.
3 6 4 3
om.],
I
Ch.
A
L]).
In Gen.
Hebrew text had
(a variant of
so also
reads in Ch.
B. W.
Bacon, following Ewald, suggests that originally Zepho
2171
T.
K.
C.
stood before
thus making the number
of
clans twelve. But from
of Gen.
3611
(see Z
EPHO
)
we shall do better to adopt the reading
Zophar
(cp Z
OPHAR
), and may then with probability emend
into
(Omar) which precedes Zepho in Gen.
so
that all the sons of Eliphaz but
will be included in the list of clans of Edom.
It is also.
possible, however, with
A.
Cook,
to connect Iram
with the
S.
Judahite names
I R A ,
cp G
ENEALOGIES
5
n.
W. R.
suggests a connection with
the name
of
a village near the ruins of Petra (see
S
ELA
,
See also Haupt’s note in Ball,
SBOT,
Gen.
94.
See Lag.
ii.
cited b y
Nestle,
where the order is
(Fazon).
T.
K. C.
IRI
76,
‘my watchman’?; cp
and
see I
RAM
).
I
.
b.
in a genealogy of
B
EN
JAMIN
g,
a)
I
Ch.
In
I
Ch.
the name is
I
R
:
w p a
note that Jerimuth precedes
in
v.
on
which
see also A
HER
.
I
Esd.
862
AV
[A]).
IRIJAH
‘Yahwb sees‘),
a
captain
of
the
Jeremiah (Jer.
IR-NAHASH
as
if
‘city of Nahash’;
so’
is represented as
a
descendant of
in
I
Ch.
[L]) see T
EHINNAH
.
The name has actually
been taken to mean Bethlehem (see Jer.
and on
2
cp N
AHASH
) but it is certainly
corrupt.
Probably it has arisen
of
Cor-ashan
(I
30
which is itself an easily explicable corruption of
Beer-
in Josh.,
I
Ch.,
comes from
A less plausible
would
he
‘serpent’s well.’
adds that
was the brother of
(B,
[A]),
or
which
means that Beer-sheba was closely related to
(in
the
With
cp
in Josh.
193.
T h e reference to the
confirms the above
planation.
T.
K.
C.
See
4.
IRON
a
fenced city
of
Naphtali named between Migdal-el
and
Josh.
Now
a village
m. W. from Hazor and about the same distance
W.
by
S.
from Kadesh (Josh.
On a hill to the NE.
are the ruins of a monastery, which was originally a
synagogue like the famous one at
(Guerin.
Gal.
1 2 5 8 ) .
T h e
Israelites of course derived the use of iron from the
IRON
Vg.
Canaanites, and it was comparatively late
iron displaced bronze as the metal
ordinary use.
We should naturally
expect this. In Egypt the use of bronze preceded t h a t
of iron, though iron was perhaps not wholly unknown
as early as the great pyramid of Gizeh, where a piece of
wrought iron has been found in an inner joint near the
mouth of the air-passage on the southern
For a
later period we may mention the oxidised remains of
some wedges of iron intended to keep erect the obelisks
of Rameses 11. at
Iron is also frequently re-
ferred to in the lists of tribute (see Brugsch’s
Hist.
In Babylonia and Assyria, too, the actual work-
ing
of
iron seems to have been late, though it was
Here pointed out for the first time, though
H.
P.
Smith
seems on the verge of the suggestion.
Except where it gives an explanatory translation, as ‘falcatos
4
though it sometimes gives the literal transla-
tion
of
the same expression a s ferreos currus Josh. 17
Trans.
International
‘74,
2172
IRON
certainly manufactured and employed much more in
these countries than
the Nile Valley.
There is no trace of iron in the early
and it seems clear
that iron did
not
displace bronze till after 800
for in the
ninth ,century we still find ‘bronze axes’ mentioned in the in-
scriptions.
Place found hooks grappling- irons,
ploughshares, etc., at
and
abundance
scale-armour of iron in a very decomposed state at
It
is recorded
by the Assyrian king
)
that he received 3000 talents of copper and
5000
talents
of iron
as
tribute from the land of
Damascus). At about the time of Amos, then, iron
was plentiful in Syria.
This,
however, is no proof that
iron was not well known in Syria and Palestine at an
earlier date.
If Hommel is correct, the Canaanites de-
rived their first knowledge of iron from Babylonia.
Both
and Ass.
were,
he
says, connected with
the
and the New
the
Semitic
having become
in
Semitic
45
It
is
probable, however, that before iron was much
used, in Babylonia, it was worked in
N.
Palestine.
There iron-smelting must have been understood at an
early period. The iron chariots of the Canaanites (see
C
HARIOT
,
3 ) , so
familiar to us from the OT, are
mentioned also in the historical inscriptions of Egypt
they came from the valley of the Kishon and the
district to the
and iron objects were found by Bliss
in the fourth of the ruined cities in the mound of
el-Hesy (Lachish), which he inclines to date about
W e can therefore readily understand that
a
Canaanite legend (from which the Israelite legend in
Gen.
4 2 2
must be derived) placed the ancestor of iron-
workers as well as brass-workers in primeval
(cp
C
AINITES
,
I O ) .
We are in no uncertainty as to the source whence the
Canaanites obtained their iron; it was the monntain-
range of Lebanon (Dt.
8 9
;
see L
EBANON
).
Jeremiah,
too
speaks of iron from the N.
but whether
the eulogist of wisdom refers to these northern mines in
Job
cannot be determined. The unknown writer
may have travelled beyond the limits of Palestine.
The
Egyptians
iron (with other metals) from the
peninsula had this poet travelled there? At
any rate, smelting-furnaces were well known to the later
Hebrew writers (Jer.
Dt.
I
K.
There are but few
O T
passages of really early date
which refer to iron. The references in the Hexateuch
Nu.
Dt.
Josh.
228)
occur in documents of late com-
position. The account of Goliath‘s spear
( I
S.
177)
was written at least zoo
after David’s
time, and the mention
of
an axe-head of iron in
K.
5
(certainly not due to
a
copyist
belongs to a com-
paratively late stratum of prophetic legend. The most
important reference in the David-narratives is doubtless
that in
S.
The phrase axes of iron used there
suggests, however, that axes of bronze were still in use
cp Am.
1 3
threshing-instruments of iron (see A
XE
,
6).
It is remarkable that according to tradition no iron
instrument was used in the construction of Solomon’s
temple. The editor of the tradition accounts for this
by the legal orthodoxy of his hero (see Dt.
and
cp Josh.
8 3 1 ) .
is bolder; he supplies
the omission
( I
Ch.
22
3
and elsewhere), and even repre-
sents Solomon
as
having able iron-workers of his own
Ch.
though obliged to send to Tyre for
a
chief
artificer.
W e now pass to Syria and Palestine.
ISAAC
I t has often been supposed
the graphic description in
Nah. 2 3
contains a reference
to
steel. Where AV renders
chariots shall be with flaming torches
’
(taking
as if
the
of Gesenius-Rodiger gives fulgent
chalybe vel
currus.’
RV too has ‘the chariots flash
with steel,’ without, however, committing itself to the hypothesis
that the Assyrian chariots had scythes.
hypothesis as is
shown elsewhere
(C
HAR
I
O
T
,
I
),
is untenable nor is
ing ‘steel’ a t
all
well
I n fact, the word
is corrupt not improbably
should be
‘covering’ (from
‘to be covered,’ in
‘to
a
word often used in connection with horses, chariots, and warriors.
Render therefore ‘the (metal) plating of the
flashes
like
In
of Nahum’s fondness for Assyrian technical
terms
(see
S
CRIBE
) this is not a difficult
Steel
then,
is not
in the
OT,
for
no one will
defend
rendering ‘steel’
in
S.
22 35
Ps.
18 34
20
24
Jer.
15
(see B
R
A
SS
).
From the time of Amos onwards iron was in genera1
use among the Israelites as well
as
among the Syrians
(see above).
Writers
of a later date mention iron objects in abundance
tools
(
I
K.
6 7
K.
6 5 )
pans (Ezek.
nails for dbors
Ch.
22
bars for
city-gates
(Ps.
107
Is. 45
a
or pen (Job 1924 Jer.
hunters’ darts (Job 417
horns (Mic. 4 13 cp
I
K.
22
fetters
(Ps. 105
Note also
that the ideal ’described in
60
includes
instead
of
stones’
obviously a hyperbole.
Numerous literary metaphors are derived from iron.
Thus, affliction is symbolised by the smelting-furnace
(Dt.
and
a
severe
by rod, and slavery by
a yoke of iron
(Ps.
Dt.
obstinacy by an iron
sinew in the neck (Is. 484) a destructive imperial power
by iron teeth (Dan.
77)
a
tiresome burden by a mass
of iron (Ecclus.
22
15)
insuperable obstacles by iron
walls
Macc.
1 1 9 ) .
As
a beautiful simile drawn from
this metal we may select Prov.
2717,
‘Iron sharpens
iron,
so
a man sharpeneth the countenance
of
his
friend.’
K.
c.
IRPEEL
‘God heals’
cp
and
in
CIS
2
no. 77 N
AMES
,
an unknown city
of Benjamin, grouped with
(or rather Bahurim)
and Z
ELA
, Josh.
W e should probably read,
And Bahurim, and
and
(taking over
from v.
Observe that
in
the corruption (see
given, but the true reading
is not represented. Neither is
the second corruption
represented
(see
M T the true reading
and the two corruptions
and
both find a place.
however, gives
and
T.
K. C.
IR-SHEMESH
Josh.
another
name of
v.].
IRU
Caleb
( I
Ch.
cp I
RAM
.
ISAAC
or
[Am.
Jer.
Ps.
54
[ADL,
but in Am. 7 9
Popular tradition could not mistake the obvious mean-
ing of Isaac. According to J (Gen.
Sarah
laughed
to herself when she overheard the promise of
a son when it was fulfilled, she exclaimed,
Whoever hears of it will laugh at me (Gen.
21
66
see
SBOT).
E, however, gives other accounts. On the birth
The
Syriac and Arabic words for ‘steel,’ which resemble
appear to be loan-words from Persian.
Del.
quotes the phrase ‘Forty
his chariots with
trappings
they
away.
On
the metal plating of the chariots see Billerbeck in
Beifr.
3
and cp C
HARIOT
,
3,
and
the re-
mainder of this difficult
of Nahum, see
S
H
O
E
.
A
better sense, however, is obtained by pointing
instead
of
(Vg.
and hy reading
of
T h e proverb
then
becomes ‘Iron is sharpened
iron so a
man
is
sharpened by the
(lip, mouth) of his friend.’
So
p. 424).
and
are sometimes
confounded.
hardly satisfactory, because h e does
not adequately account for
Amos (1 3) mentions threshing instruments of iron.
Dr.
J. H.
Gladstone, ‘The metals used by the great nations
This
the statement in Josh.
17
(cp Judg.
See WMM
As.
Bliss
A
Mound
M a n y
Cities
Wi.
here ‘iron of
and Chalcis.’ H e ex-
of
antiquity
April 1898, p. 596.
413).
plains
(which in
M T
follows
but in the next verse)
and in Ezek. 27
11
a s meaning Chalcis
of Damascus,
near Antilibanus ( A T
180).
But
(end).
5
On
Og’s iron bedstead see
B
ED
.
So Flinders
in Hastings’
DB,
‘axe.‘
ISAAC
ISAAC
Isaac she cried out, 'God has given me cause to laugh'
21
in
v .
of the same chapter she sees Ishmael
laughing,'
or
rather playing
Lastly, P tells
us
(Gen.
that Abraham laughed in surprise
on
hearing the promise. Evidently the voice of tradition
varied.
W e might have expected to hear, but we do
not hear, that Isaac, like Zoroaster
16,
and
c.
I
) ,
laughed on the day of his birth.
It is customary to suppose that Isaac was originally
a t once
a
tribal name and a divine title, and that the
full form of the tribal name was
El
laughs
(so
also Ed. Meyer). 'The divine title
he who laughs,' the
has been thought to
point to the god of the clear sunny sky
the myth of
laugh has no doubt a solar connection.
It
would be safer to explain the name as the cheerful, or
-friendly one (cp Job
who turns a smiling counte-
nance towards his worshippers.
Such a conception of
their deity might seem natural to the pastoral tribes
-who, to judge from the traditional narratives, honoured
became identified with the name of Isaac, and who
in early times paid him religious homage as the divine
patron of
It is much more probable that Isaac like Abraham
J
ERAHMEEL
) and
J
A
COB
is an ancient
popular corruption.
With much probability it
be regarded as
a
corruption of
the brother
,defends,' cp Ass.
stronghold
').
is close to the
(Rehoboth) one of
of Isaac
below), and is probably to he identified
with the ancient
T h e equivalent name
appears elsewhere a s
B
EZALEEL
,
also as
All
these are udahite names which must perhaps ultimately be
traced
to the primitive Jerahmeelite divine name
the original
of
Isaac
T h e religious importance
of
can now he more fully considered.
;
is very rare in the older literature.
It is
specially
frequent
Job cp
4
where
'terror,' is the result
of a n apparition. Hence 'ghost' may
to
some to he a
plausible
gives
similarly
But the objection from late
usage
T h e matter is important in its bearing on early
spirit-lore. More probably
is here an old word meaning
I
.
thigh ;
ancestor
;
clan (as sprung from a single ancestor
W R S Kin. 34
Daniel,
The narrators found comparatively little to say about
Isaac (for the reason see below,
5 )
but some of their
First in
importance is that of Abraham's sacrifice
of
his
son,' accomplished in will
but not in act (Gen.
22
Few of the
early narratives have received more light than this from
analytic and historical criticism.
It
has become certain that the story has been considerably
altered since
E
wrote it. The editor or compiler of
J E
not only
anpended
(an unoriginal passage, full of reminiscences),
also introduced several alterations into
The most remarkable of the editorial changes concerns
locality of the sacrifice.
It is obvious that such
a
sentence as
'
Go into the land of the Moriah
(so
in the
Hebrew) and
offer
him
. .
.
on
one of the mountains
which
I
will tell thee of,'
is
no
longer in its original
form, and most critics have thought that the Moriah
was inserted (together with the divine name Yahwh
1 4 )
by the editor of
JE.
This writer was probably
a
Judahite, and it is supposed that he wished to do
honour to the temple of Jerusalem by
on
the
hill where it was
one of the 'greatest events in the
life of Abraham (see M
ORIAH
). We are, at any rate,
See
; Schirren,
Myth-
186
(laughter of the dying sun-god). D e
Goeje, thinking of the 'only son in Gen. 22, formerly made Isaac
= t h e spring sun.
Am. 8
read, with
for the impossible
of
MT.
From Am. 5 5 , however, it appears that northern as well
as
southern Israelites resorted to the sanctuary of Beersheba-
a recognition, perhaps of the early connection
of
Israel with
the land of
to
Kadesh apparently belonged. This
illustrates Amos's remarkable use of Isaac
as
a
for
Israel
and so Symm. in
I n
Gen.
31
42
53 the singular phrase 'the fear of Isaac
are of great interest.
not entitled to assume that the original locality was the
temple mountain
nor is it safer to suppose, with
hausen and Stade, that Mount Gerizim is intended, and
to read,
to
the land of the Hamorites
(cp Gen.
33
Hamor the father of Shechem
'),
for
Gerizim
is
undoubtedly too far
and we hear nothing
of Abraham's having to climb a steep mountain.
suggestion (adopted by Ball in S B O T ) is at
first
sight more attractive.
A
vague expression, such
as Go into the land of the Amorite
would harmonise with one of
leading objects, which
was to represent Abraham's action
as,
not a concession
to surrounding superstition, but the height of
devoting faith.
The patriarch,
Dillmann rightly
holds, is supposed to set
off
with his only son
'
without balancing the claims of
rival sanctuaries, just as he set off from
'not
knowing whither he went' (Heb.
but following his
invisible Guide. The reading the land of the Amorite,'
however, cannot be held satisfactory.
It leaves
us
without a clue to the situation of the place of sacrifice,
except that it was in Palestine, more than two days'
journey from Beersheba. The mere name (however
we read it) in
v.
14
tells
us
nothing.
No
sanctuary
in Palestine proper with a name at all resembling this
is mentioned in the
OT.
In considering the question of the reading in
would have been better to try another course. The
sanctuary
v.
4 ,
means
sacred place
was no
doubt well known, at least by hearsay,
to
most Israelites.
It was called (the narrative being Elohistic)
(or
(v.
14)
we abstain here from questioning the
accuracy of this reading, and of the El-roi and
roi
of
Gen.
(see, however, end of this section).
Is
there, then, any sacred place bearing this name,
or
a name that might fairly be regarded as another form of
this ? There
is
the divinity who, according to
appeared
to the exhausted Hagar, and was called by her
God of seeing (Gen.
16
13)
and the name was shared by
the divinity's sanctuary.
It was
the neighbourhood
of the well
of Lahai-roi or
that Isaac dwelt
(Gen.
2511
see below), and
it is reasonable to
suspect that here may be the'sacred spot intended by the
narrative
the mountain may be the nearest hill to the
well called
which we have elsewhere iden-
tified with B
EER
-
LAHAI
-
ROI
. The place is
I
O
hours
S.
of
Ruheibeh (Rehoboth), on the road to Beersheba. Going
at a leisurely pace, it might conceivably take Abraham
three days to reach it.
this case the expression which
the editor of J E misread as to the land of the Moriah'
was probably to the land of (the)
As
Winckler has pointed
both Kadesh and Beer-
lahai-roi lay,
all probability, in the region anciently
called
or
(see M
IZRAIM
,
A bright
light
is
now thrown on details which have hitherto caused
embarrassment, such as the loneliness of the place of
sacrifice, and the precaution taken by Abraham of
carrying wood for the altar (cp Grove, in
art. Moriah
Habitations, indeed, there must have
would surely read very oddly, especially as
35
Abraham's ass
occupies a rather prominent position.
Bleek and Tuch suggested
(Gen.
Judg.
See the hooks of travel
Tristram's Land
where a strong, but not too
opinion is expressed.
Samaritan tradition, identifying the mountain with Gerizirn,
purely sectarian and artificial.
Cp Geiger,
4
This view was first proposed by B.
Racon
April,
Genesis,
who thinks, however, that the
original reading in v . was
(cp 201
Nu.
E
cp
Gen.
2462
This is
improbable.
Bacon
also
thinks that in
14
E
originally wrote, not
hut
5
in
fell out the corruption
of
into
then became
easy, and after the editor had misread
as
it was natural for him to prefix
(Gesch.
accepts the proposed reading for Moriah in
2176
ISAAC
ISAAC
been not very far from
but there was
no
walled
city like Jerusalem, and the ascent of the hill would
take less time and trouble than Mount Gerizim. The
itself is to be imagined as bare of trees but near at
hand
could see thick brushwood
in
which a
was caught by the horns.
This view of the story, too, enriches
us
with something
that we did not know to be recoverable,
of the name of
old southern sanctuary
of
(or, as he calls it,
The editor of
JE
having already adopted a fine narrative accounting
for the name
1-14),
and wishing to attach the great
event described in our ch. 22 to the central sanctuary of
Judah (see M
ORIAH
), introduced the changes to which
reference has been made.
Elsewhere, however (see
JERAHMEEL),
in treating the apparently corrupt text
of Gen.
suggestions have been made which
favour the emendation of Gen.
as follows,-' and
Abraham called the name of that place Well of
even as it is called to this day.'
Thereare, also,
related aspectsunder
Moriah' story must be considered. Thewriter obviously
wishes, in the most considerate manner, to
oppose the practice of sacrificing firstborn
sons (cp
F
IRSTBORN
),
and, subordinately
to this, to justify the substitutionary sacrifice of an animal.
In
treating this past of our subject, we need not linger
on the famous passage of Philo of Byblus (professedly
reproducing
a
primitive Phoenician story), in which
(or rather
E l )
is said to have sacrificed his only
son
to free his country from the calamities of war.
In spite of its doubtful attestation and modernised form,
the story has the appearance of being based on tradition.
Probably it was told at Byblus to justify the rite of
sacrifice, and a similar myth may have been
current
the Canaanitish
of the
Israelites.
The story in Gen. 22, however, is clearly
intended as
a
basis for the abrogation of the rite.
There may have been stories having the same object
among the Canaanites or the Israelites
these, not
the story in Philo of Byblus, would be the right
narratives to compare with the Elohist's.
So
far,
however,
as
an opinion is possible, the form of the
Elohist's story is, apart from the detail about the ram,
all his own. It was suggested, indeed, by circumstances
already related in the traditional narratives
but it was
moulded by himself, and it is bathed throughout in an
ideal light.
Evidently this pious writer felt that for the
higher religious conceptions
no
traditional story would
be
an
adequate vehicle.
The course which he adopted shows the writer to have
been
a
great teacher.
He admits the religious feeling
which prompted the sacrifice of a firstborn son but he
suggests that the idea of such a sacrifice is unnatural
(the unsophisticated mind of
cannot take it in,
a n d Abraham himself would never have thought of it but
for
a
divine oracle), and earnestly insists that Israel's
God demands no more and no less than absolute
devotion of the heart.
One thing more he
that there are stages in religious enlightenment, and
that an act which was justifiable in the wild days of
JEPHTHAH
was no longer tolerable. In the
Southern Kingdom a protest against the continuance or
revival of human sacrifices was raised by the writer
of Mi. 66-8 in the Northern, at an earlier date, by the
There is a fine Indian parallel
to
the story of the deliverance
Isaac in
(Max Miiller,
purpose.
Gen. 222, and thinks that the original seats of both Abraham
and Isaac were in the north near
the true [accord-
ing to him] Kirjath-arba). The journey referred to in Gen. 22
would thus he from the far north to the far south.
Muller
FHG 3
See
Kamph.,
des
Re?.
'96
where recent literature is referred to.
On
human
'in Babylonia, cp Ball,
P S B A 1 4
iv.
;
in Egypt,
and
Griffith, Tom6
where
son
of
a Brahman
who had been all
sacrificed in honour of
is
ated by the gods, and adopted by a priest. The stage of moral
development, however, represented in this story, is more ad-
vanced than that in
22.
It is true, the narrator is behind the prophet in
spirituality-thousands of rams,
the latter. will
not propitiate the high God (God
of heaven),-but the Elohist spoils his
pathetic narrative bv a close which.
for modern taste, could hardly he more prosaic.
And
Abraham lifted
up
his eyes, and looked, and behold,
a
caught in the thicket by his horns, and Abraham
went and took the ram, and offered him up
for
a
offering instead of his
son
(22
13).
The first readers of
the Elohist, like the first readers of the epilogue of the
Book of Job, had standards and requirements different
from ours.
Below the new taste for spirituality lay
the old taste for ritual.
If human sacrifices were
not to be offered, what was the surrogate for them?
The voice of humanity in certain priestly circles had,
appears, spoken for a ram, which in the symbolism
of vicarious sacrifice was henceforth to represent a man.
The animal selected was not always the same. At the
Syrian Laodicea
(
it was a stag,
which animal was annually sacrificed in place of
a
maiden as late as the second century
We would
gladly know at what date this stag sacrifice was intro-
duced.
Did the humane Israelitish priests precede or
follow the priests of Phcenicia? And was the original
substitute for the life of the firstborn
son
among the
Israelites a ram
or a stag
? When we con-
sider
(
I)
that wild
were not usually sacrificed
among the Israelites;
( 2 )
that in Gen.
a
sheep is
spoken of as
a
victim and
( 3 )
that in the region of
we should expect a gazelle
rather than
it seems best to abide by the ordinary reading ram.'
No
subsequent narrative comes up to that in 22
1-14,
though the idyllic tone and the deep religious spirit of
account of the finding of the right wife
for Isaac (ch. 24) claim admiration (see
R
EBEKAH
).
The narratives respecting
Isaac himself tend to lower our estimate of his
character but we must remember that the patriarchs
represent the highest Israelitish ideals only in part they
also
embody Israelitish weaknesses.
Isaac's shiftiness
in his relations with Abimelech (Gen.
need
not
be excused when we have
to
upon him
as a
tribal representative
the repetition of, virtually,
the same story twice over in the life of Abraham (cp
Gen. 12
J
20 E)
is an indication of the compara-
tive lateness of the traditional stories of that patriarch,
as well
as
of the fondness of the people for this particular
tradition, which showed how inviolable were the persons
of their ancestors.
The mingled greatness and weakness of Isaac
is
most
strikingly shown in the story of his paternal benedictions,
one of which, however, is more fitly styled
a
curse
27).
It is to us a somewhat repellent narrative,
on account of the unfilial and unbrotherly craft
of
Jacob and the love of good eating ascribed
to
Isaac.
With the ancients it must have been popular.
As to
Expl. Fund
Crum
PSBA
and Masp.
D a w n
in Semitic
W R S
Maspero includes the
gazelle among the animals substituted for human victims in
ed. he notices Flinders Petrie's recent discoveries.
Porphyr.
De
256
;
168;
cp
WRS
466.
On the commutation of victims, cp Lang,
Ritual,
and
'Stag'
is Clermont-Gannean's reading
7th ser.
11
There
is the same doubt as to the
of
in the
sacrificial tablet of Marseilles
here however the mean-
ing
'
stag
'
is certainly preferable.
,'A
'
' in Phoenician
is
Were the stags spoken of in the Marseilles tariff substi-
tutes for
Robertson Smith
467)
suspects an allusion in
S.
to
an ancient stag sacrifice
that at
This hypothesis, however, is not borne out by
the most recent criticism (see
ad
and Bu. in
SBOT).
2178
ISAAC
the craft
Jacob, we need not excuse it, for it was
inherited by the tribes of Isaac and Jacob from their
nomad ancestors. As to Isaac’s passion for
a
certain
food, this too was, no doubt, a tribal failing a notable
Arabic
song
in the
(Freytag, 506) reckons
‘roast flesh
as
first among the pleasures of life.
The
detail mentioned in
would not, however, have
been thought of but for the necessity of giving scope
to the cunning of Jacob.
Possibly, too, the first tellers
of the story may have thought that Isaac, being
a
semi-
divine hero, and being about to pronounce fateful
oracles (see
should not be treated otherwise
than as a deity.
It was in festival raiment
that Jacob the deceiver approached his father (the
Jews in Jerome’s time said that they were
priestly garments), and Robertson Smith has plausibly
the view that the skins worn by Jacob
on
his arms and neck were analogous to those worn by
worshippers in many lands at sacrificial ceremonies (cp
E
SAU
).
At any rate, it is evident that the pronouncing
of the oracles was a quasi-divine act, and that, accord-
ing to the narrators, the circumstances connected with
it were overruled by their God to the accomplishment
of his own ends.
It would seem that this was not one
of the very earliest narratives
in the oldest stratum
of
tradition Isaac and Ishmael (both attached to
roi) must have taken the place afterwards occupied by
Jacob and Esau. The details of the present genealogical
connection were
of
course afterthoughts.
(If
Isaac was
originally
a
hero we can the better under-
stand how the Israelites, whilst frequenting his sanc-
tuary, adopted comparatively little of his legend.
)
It is, however, not only at
but also a t
R
EHOBOTH
, B
EERSHEBA
, and G
ERAR
, that we find Isaac
These three places come before us in
26
1-33,
which is substantially the work of J, though
editorial insertions have been made, and
33
(as Bacon
-see below, n. 4-has rendered very probable) should
change places with
21
31-33.
It was at Beersheba, accord-
ing to ]
E, that Isaac spent the second part of his
life, and no doubt it was there, not at Mamre or Hebron
(as
in 3527, represents), that tradition supposed the
patriarch to have died. According to the most probable
view of 2133, it was Isaac, not Abraham, who planted
the sacred tree
at
Beersheba, invoking the name of
It was there, too, that he ‘intreated Yahwh
for his wife, because she was barren,’ and’that
Esau
and
Jacob were
It was at
however,
endeared to Isaac (as
involuntarily suggests) by
the memory of the interrupted sacrifice (and not less to
Ishmael by the memory of his mother Hagar), that
Isaac received his wife that evening when he had gone
out on some unknown errand into the open country.
It is worth remarking that the
Mnweileh (in
which the well of Lahai-roi should be placed) must at
one time have been better watered and more cultivated
than at present (Palmer).
On
apocryphal allusions, see A
POCRYPHA
,
T. K.
C.
437
;
cp 467.
T h e reader should be cautioned against some inaccurate
though seemingly very critical statements in Maspero’s
Nations
To make Isaac a resident at Hebron
effaces one of
distinctions between him and Abraham.
Was
the tree a n
(‘tamarisk’)? or an
and
was the divine name, which Isaac, according to the original
J,
invoked,
‘the everlasting (or ‘ancient
deity,’
or
(supposing
to be corrupt)
‘the most high deity’?
Probably the order of the narratives
is 24
251-6116
See Bacon
(Genesis,
cp
who thinks that, in 2133,
J
originally wrote ‘Isaac,
‘Abraham’
being due to the writer of
JE,
who
transposed the
passage
;
hut cp
and Ball.
Gen.
is interesting (cp
E
TERNAL
, T
AMARISK
).
ISAIAH,
PROPHET
ISAIAH (Prophet)
CONTENTS
Biographical facts
I
).
Prophecies without narratives
Narratives in
Is.
Resulting picture of
Is.
ISAIAH,
in
RV
Mt.
33,
and
E
SAIAS
, in
AV; and in AV Ecclus.
everywhere
except in title of book; there
[see
JESHAIAH,
4
son of
K.
Is.
1
I
Ch.
2622
32 etc. ,-the most gifted and powerful of those early
prophets who are known to us by written records.
The name is to be explained probably either as ‘help of
[so
J.
H.
Mich.], cp
or
a s
helps,’ from
[so
Del.]; cp Sab.
and the names
has
so
of the prophet-L everywhere,
BNA
everywhere except Ch.
[BA] and
in
Ecclns.
but never except Ezra 8 7
of
the other
six bearers of the
J
ESHAIAH
).
I. Isaiah lived at Jerusalem, was married
and
had children
he was of
social
When he needs
a
he
to the chief priest (see U
RIAH
),
and his whole conduct and bearing
bespeak one who can claim social respect. In this he
contrasts with Amos
Micah.
may presume
therefore that be had every educational advantage which
the capital could supply,
it is plain that he inherited
a
literary tradition
of
no very recent date. The heading
in Is.
1
I
refers to Uzziah,
Ahaz and Hezekiah
as the kings in whose days (or period) he prophesied.
This heading, however, is probably the work of
a
late
editor, who gained his information from a study of the
works of Isaiah.
From the reference to Judah and
Jerusalem as the subjects of the prophecies, we may
assume the statement to have been intended to apply
only to chaps. 1-12. It remains true, however, that we
have
no
reason to suppose that Isaiah prophesied under
Manasseh.
The story that he was put to death (the
later legend said, sawn asunder cp Heb.
1 1 3 7 )
by order
of Manasseh,
as a
punishment for speeches
on
God and
on the holy city which were contrary to the law, obtained
a
wide currency, but has
no
support in the
Book of
Kings, and is
of
These dry bones of biography need to be clothed
with living flesh, and for this we must turn to Isaiah’s
which contain the very
essence of his life.
Grand and an-
tiquely simple was his character, and
those who have been enabled by
a
thorough criticism
and exegesis to form
an
idea of the limits, the period,
and the meaning of his discourses, will find themselves
in
a
position to rectify some common misapprehensions.
It will be convenient to obtain our first introduc-
tion to Isaiah from certain stillextant narratives respecting
portions of his prophetic ministry, proceeding from his
disciples or admirers at different
(a)
Is.
6,
71-16, (c)
( d ) 20, ( e ) 36-39
(2
K.
Ch.
32).
From (a)-which is
an
account
of
the vision by which
Isaiah was set apart as
a
prophet-we learn that he
entered
on
his ministry in the year of the death of Uzziah,
alternative restoration
(the only
restoration retained
in P R E P ) 8
does not seem plausible, yet
the Arabic
for
might perhaps lend it some support.
With reference to the
equivalents, it may be noted here
that the first vowel is oftenest or or
the being frequently
doubled
so
Klo.; cp
I
Ch. 231
but
also (four times in B, once in A, once
or
I
Ch. 25
so
Klo. ;
I
Ch.
2 5
cp Neh.
I
Ch.
Besides the
and Justin,
cp the passage quoted from a
MS
on the prophets in
p.
2180
discourses,
&
See
42.
ISAIAH, PROPHET
probably in
B
.
c.
Isaiah had evidently been
waiting for indications of the .divine will-otherwise how
should the words Send me have darted at once to his
lips
?
Already, too, he had the not less humbling than
exalting consciousness of,
a
divine presence which ,glori-
fied the world.
To this was
now
added the sense of a
new and special relation between himself and
H e
was sent to work among his people as a prophet. At the
same time he had a presentiment, which in the light of
his newrelation
seemed to him arevelation, that,
being such as it was, not merely Israel, but even Judah,
was doomed to
The revelation was, it is true,
as yet more like an objective fact than a subjectively
realised truth, or rather like many a flash of insight
which visits and revisits us for moments, and then
disappears, till at length a sad or
experience
makes it
ours
for ever.
Nor was it so terrible a
presentiment
as
it may appear to
us,
because it was
evidently accompanied by
a
revelation
of
the conversion
of a remnant,
as
we gather from the name which Isaiah
gave to his eldest son
S
HEAR
-
JASHUB
And we
must believe that,
as
time went
on,
apparent changes
for the better in the moral condition of Israel somewhat
dimmed Isaiah’s perception of the contents of his earli-
est revelation.
Only by the sternest experience could
he be absolutely and entirely convinced, in the depths
of
his nature, of the necessity for the fall of Judah.
(6)
Probably to a period shortly before the writing
down of the consecrating vision belongs the
.
(to apply Dante’s phrase) which is related
in our second narrative piece
(6).
Isaiah
and Ahaz are the sole acting figures.
Perhaps it is because the consecration narrative
serves as a preface that the prophet or his secretary
has made no reference to the revelation of the ‘rem-
nant.
’
The unbelief of Ahaz was in fact an unpardon-
able offence which made Isaiah indisposed to look at
the brighter side of his revelation. Nothing can well
he sterner than Isaiah’s prophecies at this period (see
or
Zntr.
though a short
time is allowed before the sad end.
The story of the great refusal of Ahaz is well known.
The king expected
a
siege, and was preparing for it,
when Isaiah accosted him.
H e bade him not be afraid,
reminding him that
was the head
of
Jerusalem,
whereas the rulers
of
Damascus and Samaria were but
mortals, and no better than half-burned fire-
brands
;
in short the coalition against Judah
in
common parlance, end in smoke.’ The prophet, how-
ever, saw clearly the inefficacy of his appeal.
Ahaz had
no confidence either in his material, or-worse by far-
in his spiritual, bulwarks.
To
his friendly
‘
fear not *
Isaiah therefore added
a
caution against the dangers of
unbelief. What those dangers were he did not say;
but Ahaz caught his meaning, and had no need to
question him.
An established house’ was a common
phrase for
a
family which did not die out, and re-
mained in its ancient seat
(
I
2 3 5
I
K.
11
38)
;
Isaiah’s caution, therefore, if we may consider its
reference
as
limited to Ahaz, threatened the king with
nothing less than the extinction of his dynasty.
At
this point
(Is.
the record becomes incomplete the
omission is veiled by
a
conventional introductory formula,
indicating a fresh stage in the discourse. Probably some
startling announcement
was
made, for the accrediting
of which Isaiah conjectured that Abaz would
a
sign.’
Then this extraordinary man, who deals
with the
though his equal or superior, gives
The closing words, ‘ a holy seed
is
the stock thereof,’ are
probably an editorial attempt to make sense of a corrupt passage.
For a possible restoration see Che.
Budde’s rendering:
‘When then a tenth is there, it shall serve again for pasture
World,
p.
is
improbable. T h e natural sense
that given in
EV.
T h e following word
(‘like the tere-
binth’) should probably he emended to
‘for consump-
tion
. .
Cp review
of
Marti’s
in
Jan.
2181
ISAIAH, PROPHET
Ahaz
carte
in the choice of a ‘sign’ (see
I
MMANUEL
). The king has no doubt that Isaiah can,
as we should say, work a miracle, and consequently
believes that one way to safety from his present foes
would be to obey the prophet but he is not sure that
some worse trouble for himself might not follow.
H e
does not believe that
will be strong enough, a
little later, to save him from Assyria and yet how can
he accept
help in the smaller trouble
he
is prepared to accept it in the greater? The only way,
from his point of view, to avert the danger from Assyria
is to make it
a
friend, which will moreover be able
to save him from Syria and Ephraim.
Friendship
involves the protection
of
the weak by the strong,
so
that there is really no cause (Ahaz thinks) to introduce
religious considerations into the question.
Then
Isaiah, to save his honour as a prophet,
as
it
were,
a
sign at the unbelieving
He says that
‘God with us’-will be the name
which any one of the children soon to be born will
receive from its mother, for before the tender palate of
the child can distinguish between foods, the lands
of
Rezin and Pekah will have been devastated by Assyria.’
Isaiah has, in fact, not less political than religious in-
sight. If he could have put
off
the prophet, and spoken
only
as
a
statesman, he might have asked why Ahaz
should pay Assyria for humiliating Syria and N. Israel
when it was its own interest to do this. There was, at
any rate,
no
immediate necessityfor burdening his small
territory with tribute to Assyria the unbelieving king
was as weak in politics as he was in religion.
If we
possessed a fuller record of the declarations of Isaiah
cannot be relied upon, being fragmentary,
and partly recast by
a
late editor), we should prob-
ably find that the immediate punishment of the king’s
unbelief specified in it was this
-
that deliverance
from
and Pekah would be a ‘sign to him, not
of
good, but of evil import. Since the king has rejected
the opportunity
so
graciously given him of winning
favour, he must not look for
a
long continuance
of calm days. Disaster is looming right in front of him.
That the sign which Isaiah indignantly hurls at
Ahaz is one which, in
our
fragmentary record, appears
to be of happy augury, has caused
a
difficulty to many
students.
Prof.
F. C.
Porter in particular has felt
this
so
strongly that he has devised a new interpreta-
tion of Immanuel which deserves consideration (see
I
MMANUEL
). Two chief objections to it must, however,
be mentioned.
(
I
)
‘God
is with
us
no means expresses
the faith or the
assumption’ of Ahaz; the true
object of the king’s worship was neither the old national God,
nor the Yahwl: of Isaiah but-policy. Hence his perturbation
of mind, with which contrast theconfidence arising ont of asense
of oneness with their God possessed
the
N.
Israelites (Am.
5
18
6
13).
T h e explanation of Immanuel
as
a n expression of the false
faith of the multitude
is
opposed by the analogy of the name
which
conveys a truth accepted by Isaiah.
It is perfectly true, however, that the unbelief of Ahaz made
the confidence of the happy mothers of
Is.
only too likely to
prove of short duration. They would suppose that Yahwl: was
unreservedly favourable to their people, whereas he had but
granted a short interval before the sin of Ahaz should bring its
terrible punishment on king and people. T h e sign was not a s
happy a one a s Isaiah had intended.
(c)
The third piece of narrative
is
(cp next art.,
6). From
73
we already know that in 734 Isaiah had
a
son named Shear-jashub, who was old
enough to accompany his father in his
walks.
From
we learn that
shortly afterwards he had another
son,
named
whose name portended the fall of the
Dillmann’s objections to this explanation
that
produces the impression that the child of a mother well known
to
Isaiah and to Ahaz is meant, and
that ‘thy land
0
Immanuel’
in
can
be understood of a historical
But
can be shown to he a gloss, and
(88)
should
rather
’y
Certainly the passage
is
difficult;
but
no
solution seems available,
2182
ISAIAH,
PROPHET
two northern kingdoms.
These two
sons,
apparently,
are the ‘children whom
has given him,’ and,
like himself, they are signs and omens in Israel’ of
divine appointment.
His
children, at any rate, are
‘signs’ in virtue of their names, which are doubtless
as
well known in Jerusalem as that of the crown prince
himself. With regard to Isaiah we are not told that
h e received his name by divine appointment.
It
is
only the prophet Jeremiah who claims to have been
consecrated from his birth, and who may therefore
conceivably have regarded his name as an omen (cp
Jer.
1
IO).
It is enough that Isaiah and his
sons
alike
prophesy of the future, and rouse the dull consciences
of
men.
.
Thus, when the crisis comes, Isaiah will
not stand alone.
Before his inward consecration (in
B
.
?) he felt himself unclean through his soli-
darity with his people; but now, by solidarity with him,
the members of his family
detached, like
himself, from’ the
‘
people of unclean lips
among
whom they dwell. For Isaiah‘s wife, too, is a prophetic
personage
though she may not bear a prophetic
name she participates in the privileges of her husband.
Chap.
20
describes the strange procedure by
which Isaiah gave,
so
to speak, an acted prediction of
the fate reserved for two neighbouring
The people of Ashdod revolted
from Assyria in
and Judah (now itself
a
vassal of
the Great King) was tempted to follow their example.
Isaiah heard an inner voice bidding him go about, like
one of the poorest class, without either sandals or an
upper garment. He obeyed till the siege and capture
in
7 1 1 ,
which was a still more striking omen
of the punishment
in
store for rebellion. This
is
the
prophetic action recorded of Isaiah.
Generally
h e was contented with spoken prophecy,-either upon
grounds, or because spoken prophecy was less
susceptible than acted prophecy of misinterpretation.
The strange attire in which he appeared for three
years. need not have meant what it was at length
declared to mean.
It might have signified merely the
prophet’s grief (cp
Mi.
for Ashdod but as we see
from
3-6,
it was a perfectly unsympathetic announce-
ment of the fate of the north Arabian countries of
and
which had long been important factors in
Palestinian politics.
To
this Isaiah added a graphic
description of the confusion of the statesmen of Pales-
tine
(‘
this coastland
’)
at the fall of the single great ally
on
whom they had counted
I
SAIAH
a
( e ) From the two remaining narratives we must not
expect too much, owing to the lateness of their date
One of them
is no doubt earlier than the
other
even the earlier is
of contra-
dictions to the ideas and the implied situations in the
universally acknowledged prophecies.
So
much, how-
ever, we may admit to be just conceivable
:-(
I
)
that
Hezekiah in
B
.
C.
really did take pains to
propitiate Isaiah, and did convince the prophet of his
disposition to obey the divine oracles and
that
Isaiah in consequence declared that on this occasion
Jerusalem should escape a siege. The grounds for this
view, however, are more hypothetical than one likes, and,
a t any rate, the details of Hezekiah‘s embassy to Isaiah
and the speeches assigned to the prophet are altogether
untrustworthy.
And yet how transcendently great this
prophet of
must have been to have formed the
subject of
so
much imaginative writing!
And how
highly the later Jews must have valued the privilege
of
prophetic revelation to have devoted themselves
so
earnestly to filling up the gaps in its historical record
!
W e now turn to those discourses of Isaiah which
have no accompanying narratives.
W e will view them
as revelations of a great religious character, and treat
them with the respect due to all such revelations
countries.
(see next art.,
He uses the same phrase as in
8
18.
2
26;
but
G
E
OG
R
A
PHY
,
2183
ISAIAH,
PROPHET
we will not require them to exhibit throughout
a
cast-iron
consistency. The criticism which we
have sought to employ elsewhere has not
been controlled by preconceived ideas
respecting Isaiah’s prophetic system,
and we-may therefore venture, as
historians, to build upon its conclusions. W e have
heard from Isaiah’s lips his own account of his con-
secrating vision. Criticism justifies us in holding that
he lost
no
time
expanding and applying the stern
truth which had lodged itself in his mind.
For
both
Israel and Judah he announced a grievous disaster,
which to the deeply-moved prophet appeared not less
awful than a judgment upon the world
Never
again did he write in a style so poetic,
so
sublime.
Probably he learned that a manner at once more
pointed and with more personality was better fitted to
win the. attention of the people
indeed, in
26-21
he
writes, it would seem, more to relieve himself than to
impress others.
H e
anticipates a captivity like that in Jehoiachin’s time,
when (if we may trust the narrative) few, except the
poorer class, were left in Judah, and says that young
men of tyrannical character will be the rulers of the
humiliated state which should remain.
This picture of the future (which, apart from the
reference to the rulers who would take the place
of
the
captive king, he repeated in
and
58-24)
did not correspond to facts.
The punishment of the sins of Judah‘s
rulers was delayed; the Davidic king remained
on
an, as yet, unshaken throne.
H e
nised the divine will that Ahaz should have a fair trial
and choose between the broad and the narrow way.
Again and again he offered counsel to Ahaz; but the
young king was too wilful to listen, and his counsellor
began to grow weary’
One trial more, as we
have seen, was given, but in vain; and then Isaiah
distinctly pointed to the waters of the river
to
Assyria) as the source of the calamity in store for
Judah as well as for Israel
We have but fragments of Isaiah’s discourses at this
period; but it is plain that the unbelief of Ahaz had
greatly deepened the prophet’s conviction
of coming ruin no words of Carlyle are
more fraught with indignation and grief than
821
Still, even here all is not dark.
Many, we are told,
not all, will rue their opposition to the divine word
(8
and if we could be sure that
8
9
and
2-7
were written at this period by the prophet, we should
feel that Isaiah was by no means destitute of the richest
consolation.
The strict conservative view, however,
is difficult
in
the extreme, and though Isaiah certainly
believed that a ‘remnant’ would (like himself and his
disciples,
in humble, penitent faith, to
and
so
escape captivity, it is not safe to sup-
pose that Isaiah pictured to himself its future history.
He had
none for the survival of the ancient kingdom but did
he believe that in Samaria too there was
a ‘remnant’ which would turn’? Three
important prophecies (not counting
26-21
and shorter passages) relate to Israel :
17
and
The second and third of these contain
passages which may seem to favour an affirmative
answer
but a strict criticism will not allow
us
to
regard
and
as more genuine than
Yes
Isaiah had
no
hope for the country which,
on
the
ground of its past leadership, still arrogated to itself
the name of Israel.
It
is
probable, however, that when
the Assyrian hosts actually drew
near
Samaria (later
than the prophet had at first anticipated), Isaiah‘s hopes
In
Isaiah expresses himself more plainly.
Isaiah was not at all perplexed at this.
Had Isaiah any hope for (northern) Israel
Dillmann
(on
Is.
28 5
quotes all these passages as con.
evidence.
2184
ISAIAH, PROPHET
for his own land revived. He appears at that time to
have expected
an
Assyrian invasion of Judah, and in
prophetic vision to have seen the foe pressing on to the
capital.
There is actually a record of this vision
that fine descriptive passage, 10 28-32,
and we have some reason to think that
Isaiah at that time uttered the defiant
words of
and in
17
announced the destruc-
tion
Assyrian invaders of Judah.
This,
if
true,
was certainly not
patriotism on the part of Isaiah.
There mnst have
change in the internal
condition of Judah, which to Isaiah’s prophetic eye
spoke of a modification (surely not a reversal) of
purpose. W e can hardly err in connecting
this with
a
change in the government of the country.
It is possible that Hezekiah had considerable political
influence even before his father’s death, and that he
was supposed, on good grounds, to have been influenced
by the preaching of Isaiah. This will account for the
hopeful spirit of
and
(the present writer
would formerly have added, of a third
passage,
14
28-32,
which the heading
states to have been written in the death-year of king
Ahaz,’
Isaiah at this time no longer appre-
hended
an
immediate Assyrian invasion the reason
of which is, that the Assyrian arms had (in 721
or 720) received
a
temporary check in
N.
Babylonia.
He was well aware, however, that Sargon would
soon
he as dangerous as ever, and if he was still confident
in the present security of Jerusalem. it was because the
ruler of Judah was now, what Ahaz had not been,
a
believer.
For Isaiah does not yet regard the individual
as a moral unit.
If Yahwk protects Zion, it is because
Zion’s ruler has responded to the demand for ‘faith’
25
Eight years passed, and still Isaiah held the
same
language.
For though the greater part of
(next art.,
is certainly of late
origin, and written for other
stances than those of the eighth
century, yet enough remains to
us
that Isaiah
in
711 regarded an Assyrian conquest
of
Judah
as
contrary to the plan of
The grand rebuke
addressed to Assyria in
(apart from the inter-
polations) should not improbably be combined with
which is the misplaced conclusion of the
Isaianic prophecy (next art.,
9
I
) .
Thus in 711
(this date may,
on
good grounds, be assumed) Isaiah
believed it to be
purpose to break Assyria in
his (Yahwe‘s) land, and on his mountains to tread him
under foot’
(1425).
No
light is thrown either in
or in
on
the condition of affairs in Judah
but we must assume that Hezekiah still maintained the
attitude of one who believed Yahwk and his prophet,
for without this we know that Isaiah could have seen no
hope for his country
(7
g
25
It is
Sargon states, in a fragmentary inscription
2
the inhabitants of Philistia Judah, Edom, and
Moah
revolt from the Assyrian
and entered
into negotiations with
passage
relates to the time preceding the siege
mentioned
above-but it is allowable to suppose either that the Assyrian
scribe put down four of the best-known names of Palestinian
peoples somewhat a t random, or that Hezekiah confessed his
error to Isaiah, and gave pledges of future obedience.
At any rate, Isaiah, who had already expressed such
strong
in the present safety
of
Zion, could not
and would not change his tone without solid reasons.
Again eight years elapsed but now symptoms of a
change appear.
The next prophecy in chronological
order to the great ‘ W o e ’
on
Assyria
is
287-22 (next art.,
end).
No
passage
of Isaiah gives
us
quite such graphic details as to the
The
passage, however, is really
an imaginative composition
like the poem io
(see next art.,
6
It is
death, most probably, that
is
referred to in both
poems. See Marti‘s commentary, and cp
SBOT,
‘Isa.,’ Heb.
where a n emended text
is
exhibited.
ISAIAH, PROPHET
faults
of
the upper classes at Jerusalem, and it is remark-
able that Isaiah appends to these details a solemn re-
statement of the spiritual
of the security of Judah.
If
we take this prophecy in combination with one of
certainly not much later date (the denunciation of Shebna,
:
next art.
we may infer that Isaiah
again thought he saw an imminent prospect of the de-
portation of many of the leaders of the state to Assyria
(cp
3
I
).
There was indeed still
a
possibility of averting
this fate.
But would these clever politicians adopt it
Of the king, however, we hear nothing.
Isaiah seems
to regard Hezekiah
as,
to a great extent, the puppet of
the predominant political faction. Indeed, remembering
the story of Padi of Ekron, one is inclined to think
that such dependence may have been generally the lot
of the small kings of Palestine at this time.
At any
rate, Isaiah’s great object is to startle the politicians
out of their security. H e warns them that, though the
horizon is clear at present, it will not remain
so.
H e
will not
on
this occasion say when the storm will break
out.
Add year to year, let the feasts run their course
Certain it is, however, that before long A
RIEL
)
will be marked out as his prey by the Assyrian
Jerusalem (for this is the meaning of the symbolic name
employed) will be besieged and reduced to great straits.
It is not the Assyrian, however, who will deal the final
blow. A theophany will take place
Yahwk himself,
the storm-God and the war-God, will appear
and
destroy the guilty city (cp
What was the cause of the change in Isaiah’s preach-
ing? It was the rise to power of an Egyptian party at
Jerusalem.
The peoples of Palestine and
saw in the new (Ethiopian) dynasty of Egypt the only
power which could save them from the oppressive and
uncongenial rule of Assyria (cp
E
G
YPT
,
66).
Isaiah,
on political, hut vastly more on religious, grounds,
insisted
on
the futility of an alliance with Egypt
(chaps. 30
H e supplemented his ‘woe’ upon
Jerusalem by the declaration that the Egyptian allies
of Judah should be defeated, for
himself would
fight
on
the side of the Assyrians (so we must under-
stand 313).
This cycle
of
prophecies (28-31) is of
the highest value both for the history of Judah and
for the biography of the prophet.
It gives
us a
graphic picture of the excitement
at
Jerusalem and the
opposition to Isaiah’s preaching, and shows how the
initial revelation of Judah‘s doom was gradually fixing
itself more and more in the prophet’s mind.
It also
confirms
an
idea which has probably already suggested
itself to us-that Isaiah’s interest is not in the circum-
stantial details of his prophecy, but in the connection
between national sin and national
His object
is
to reveal God in history, not-except
in
a secondary
sense-to turn the course of events.
The negotiations with Egypt do not appear to have
a s
yet succeeded, and if chap. 18 (next art.,
9
[a],
3)
was
written at this period, it shows that Isaiah
had for
time trinmphed over the Egyptian
party.
Otherwise he‘ would certainly not have given
Judah a further breathing-time. Otherwise, too, he would
not have
so
calmly bidden the Ethiopian ambassadors
return to their own land.
It is remarkable that Isaiah
should speak
so
respectfully of the Ethiopians, for
not
long since he spoke quite otherwise of Egypt
A
fuller acquaintance with this period of Egyptian history
might enable us to explain
It is still more re-
markable that Isaiah should have adopted
so
lofty
a
tone
of
enthusiasm in speaking of the prospects
of
Judah. May we not venture to assume that Hezekiah
had initiated something in the nature of a
something which might be charitably regarded as turn-
Or,
if
there was
a
second Assyrian invasion, the
See
where the supposed fact of an early reform
Isaiah’s main object was moral
prophecy
18
might refer to this.
the
is
cohtroverted.
amendment he has
no
programme for any
other
reform.
2186
ISAIAH, PROPHET
ing to
Isaiah has already told
us
how far,
a t an earlier time, the
‘
princes’ of Judah were from
practising the virtues which befitted them.
Must we
not conjecture that Hezekiah had lately made examples
of some of the chief offenders among them
Shebna)? If
so,
and prophet were destined to
be sadly disappointed.
The prophecy in chap.
(if
rightly dated) had been delivered on the assumption
that the rulers of Judah had really turned to
I t did not indeed promise that there should be no
Assyrian invasion. Sennacherib would, of course, take
the field against the kings of Palestine (including
kiah) who had refused tribute.
But it did guarantee
(upon implied conditions) that the invasion should be
stopped at the outset by a supernatural intervention.
This, however, did not happen.
As Sennacherib and
Isaiah agree in stating, widespread desolation was
wrought in Judah by the irresistible warriors of Assyria.
To
all-to the prophet not less than to his countrymen
-this was
a
sign of
displeasure. All that
could now be hoped for was to avert destruction from
Jerusalem.
The rulers took one means
of doing this
Isaiah wished them to
take another.
Sacrifices had never been so abundant,
nor public prayers
so
fervent
cp Am.
5
24
with
but Isaiah, like Amos, attached no
intrinsic value to ceremonies.
One means, and one
only, there was to check the progress of Sennacherib
it was to change their lives.
Their God would forgive
the past, and restore to them his protecting care. They
would sow and reap, undeterred by Assyrian warriors
they would ‘eat the good of the land.’ On the other
hand, if they rebelled against the divine will they would
suffer the hardships of
a
siege (see H
USKS
).
If your sins be scarlet they may become white as snow;
If
they he red a s
they
become as wool.
If ye be willing and
the good of the land shall y e eat
But
if y e refuse and rebel,
shall ye eat’ (1
Even in the too brief summary
the discourses
of Isaiah delivered at this period
us
deeply. W e
long to know what effect they produced.
Only a late
tradition on this subject has come down to
u s ;
it
is
that contained in chaps.
(next art.,
I
It may
be barely possible to hold that a
effect was pro-
duced, that Isaiah assured Hezekiah of safety.
If this
was the case, he very soon changed his tone.
It
is
that, as the last Assyrian
warriors disappeared, Isaiah, sick at
heart, used language
: next art.,
[b],
2)
which can be understood only as a final acceptance
of
the doom pronounced in
69-13.
He bows to the
decree of the God of Israel.
For Judah there is no
more hope; for himself no further ministry.
The
heart of this people’ has become gross, and there is
no possibility of salvation. Therefore cities must be-
come waste, and houses uninhabited, and, should
a
tenth be left, this must, in turn, he consumed. For
the small prophetic band-himself, his children, and
his disciples-there may still be a future (cp
but he has received no revelation on this subject nor
could he, without a psychological miracle, have even
imagined
a
condition of things totally opposed to the
present.
Only a short time ago he could anticipate
the restoration to Jerusalem of ‘judges
as
at the first,
and counsellors as at the beginning’
(126).
Now it
would appear as if, by a moral compulsion, he placed
himself by the side of Amos, who had prophesied of the
guilty worshippers in the sanctuary at Bethel, that not
one should flee away, not one should escape (Am.
9
I
) .
The reader may need to be reminded that the
latter
of this
of Isaiah is based
line emended).
critical conclusions which are not
as
yet generally accepted.
The criticism
of the prophecies of Isaiah is slowly
emerging from
a
position analogous to
.
that
in
which the Hexateuch was before the publication
2187
ISAIAH, PROPHET
of Wellhausen’s
The reader may, if he
will, keep his mind in suspense as to the critical prob-
lems of the day, and confine his attention to the
earlier part of the present article.
Should he do so,
he will obtain a sound though an incomplete concep-
tion of the great prophet.
But to those who have
seen the weakness of the old
and the strength
of that which offers itself as on the whole far more in
accordance with facts, and who find the synthesis of
new and old presented in this article historically credible,
it may be safely said that the more they contemplate
the character of Isaiah as now disclosed to them, the
grander it will appear.
W e have not hitherto realised
the scale and proportions of his truly heroic faith.
What Abraham was in legend, Isaiah was in fact.
He
was
prepared to trust God in the darkness as implicitly
as the ‘father of the faithful,‘ when, according to the
noble story, he lifted up his hand, at the divine com-
mand, to slay his only son.
For we may be
the variations in his picture
of
the future attest this-
that Isaiah loved his people dearly, and was alive to
the least indications of moral progress. And yet he
could, with breaking heart, give
up
the present Israel to
its doom,
so
complete was his faith in the all-wise pur-
pose of the God of Israel.
How that which seemed the
end of all things could yet not be
a
fatal blow to the
divine purpose, it was not for him to judge.
As
a
man and
a
prophet we have now fully recognised
Isaiah‘s greatness. Was he also a
In
(next art.,
j
very fine taunt:
ing poem on Sennacherib is assigned to
him
:
but the lateness of the narrative
in which it
is
placed,
with the late character
of
the phraseology, prevent
us
from accepting this assign-
ment. Another fine taunting poem also has been claimed
for Isaiah-that in
which was not originally
connected with the late prophecy against Babylon in
chap. 13 (see
ii.,
But ideas and
phraseology alike point away from Isaiah, unless we apply
a
very imperfect criticism to both sections of the evidence.
I t must suffice here to mention the fact that in14
reference
is
made to a fully developed myth of Babylonian origin, for
which there is no parallel in the works of the pre-exilic prophets
and to point out the similarity of this taunting song to that
these songs were probably composed with
to the story of Sennacherih, and both are of late
origin. Probably
(next art.,
3) also should be
included in the group
above,
Nor can we reckon as more than a curiosity
of
criticism the theory that Pss. 46-48 were written by
Isaiah, the first when the Syrians, the second when the
Philistines, and the third when the Assyrians
overthrown. The
truth
is
that Isaiah was too
great to be a literary artist his words were deeds.
The preceding sketch requires to be supplemented by
a
sympathetic survey of the prophetic literature of the
6
~-
Unk
n
o
wn
post-exilic period (see P
ROPHETIC
L
ITERATURE
).
A critical rearrange-
ment of the
of the Book of
Isaiah not only makes Isaiah a simpler and
a
grander
and therefore also a more truly antique personality than
he could be according to the older criticism it intro-
duces
us
to a number
of
less original,
in some re-
spects more attractive personages, who being neither
public men nor ambitious of fame in an age
that
was passing away, have not been remembered by name.
They drew their inspiration
(so
they must have believed)
from the divine Spirit which dwelt within the community
(Is.
cp S
PIRIT
), and they were content with the
hope
so
touchingly expressed by a psalmist of similar
Remember me,
0 L
O
RD
in the gracious welcome
of
T h y people;
Oh visit me with Thy
;
That I may look on the prosperity of T h y elect,
May rejoice in Thy nation’s joy,
May triumph with Thy inheritance.
(Ps. 106
Kay’s translation.)
It may be hoped that English students will not any
longer cherish the unfounded prejudice that to follow
ISAIAH,
BOOK
ISAIAH,
BOOK
out the many traces of plurality of authorship in Isaiah
involves less appreciation of those passages of the book
which were not written by the son of Amoz.
Besides the commentaries and histories of Israel see Dr.,
Isaiah,
his
and
(‘93);
W R S Proph.
Duhm
d e r
21.
Beitv.
76-84 (‘90)
;
Hackmann:
des
Smend, A T
203.227
Duff,
Old
Test.
(‘94);
A.
B.
T h e Theology
of
Isaiah in
T . 4 (beginning a t 296)’
though a good
does
not go deep enough into critical and historical problems to
achieve his aim
J.
Meinhold,
(‘98);
cp
also
6
of
G. A. Smith’s art. Isaiah’ in Hastings’
See
also
P
ROPHECY
,
T
EMPLE
.
(other bearers of the name).
T.
K.
C.
ISAIAH (BOOK)
CONTENTS
Introductory
I
).
Earlier criticism
Critical principles
4).
Chaps. 1-12
The criticism of the Book
of
Isaiah has been almost
revolutionised within the last twenty
The
problems have become more compli-
cated,
methods of the critics more
varied and subtle. The present position
of
criticism cannot be properly understood, however,
without some acquaintance with an earlier stage.
It
is necessary, therefore, to preface this article by
a
sketch of what appeared certain or probable before
1880. T o give the student a mixture of the two criti-
cisms would be misleading.
H e has to pass
as
quickly
as possible through the initial stage already traversed by
criticism, that he may not perplex himself with unreal
difficulties,
.
A . E
ARLIER
C
RITICISM
W e must begin with the criticism
of
I.
Isaiah
Is.
1- 39),
and then proceed to that of
Isaiah
Is.
remarking by way of introduction that
critics in general are agreed that the final redaction of
the Book of Isaiah must have been anterior to the
composition of Ecclesiasticus (probably about 180
B
.
C.
because of the description of Isaiah‘s wide range as
a
prophet in Ecclus.
4822-25,
a passage which occurs not
only in the Greek and the Syriac, but also in a lately
discovered fragment of the Hebrew text.
Abraham Kuenen
one of the greatest of
recent higher critics,’ gave
sketch of
the growth of
I.
Isaiah in the first edition
of his
in
A .
C
HAPTERS
1-39.
earliest
parts of the book Kuenen takes to be the two collec-
tions,* chaps.
1 - 1 2
and
The former consists
entirely of genuine prophecies
of
Isaiah; the latter
contains some prophecies dating from the last years
of
the exile.
A
characteristic of the second group is that
headings are prefixed to the prophecies, with the peculiar
term
‘(divine) utterance,’ or ‘oracle’
( 1 3 1
1 4 2 8
221
is naturai to
assume that this was the later of the two collections,
and it is possible that the present position of the
short prophecy,
is due to the editor
of
this
group, who may have wished, by transferring this
passage from
(near which
must once have
stood) to a place amongst the oracles
of
his own
collection, to connect the two groups, and give them an
appearance of homogeneousness. This editor certainly
lived in post-exilic times, whereas the collector of
chaps.
1-12
was either Isaiah himself or one
of
his
disciples (cp
Time passed, and other prophecies
came
to
light which rightly or wrongly were ascribed to
the prophet Isaiah. Another editor, wishing to complete
Until quite lately the school of Dillmann has been regarded
England, as elsewhere among students of Isaiah, as represent-
the farthest point
which a
criticism can go. The
to reconsider thin s however shown in the art.
‘Isaiah’ (Hastings,
2
by Prof.
d.
A. Smith, justifies
the hope that the transition to a more consistent critical position
will not be so slow in England.
2189
Chaps. 49-55
Soliloquies in Chap.
Chaps. 56-66
Redaction
22).
a Book
of
Isaiah, attached chaps.
28-33
24-27
and
and appended, as a suitable close for the book,
a
historical account of Sennacherib’s invasion and Isaiah’s
prophetic activity at this period.
prophecies.
-
a.
The
earliest.-These are, Kuenen thought, in chaps.
2-4,
written in the first years of Ahaz, before the outbreak
of the Syro-Ephraimitish
Chap.
5
describes
Isaiah’s expectations a few years later, after the first
defeat experienced by Ahaz.
During the same war
Isaiah wrote his account of his great vision (chap.
6 ) ,
and from chap.
7
we learn what he held out in prospect
to Ahaz at the height of the crisis. Chaps.
and
S
I
-96
are only a little later than chap.
whilst the
prophecy in
97
which in
presupposes
the defeat of Rezin by the
and the devasta-
tion of N. Palestine, was probably delivered shortly
after the close of the Syro-Ephraimitish war, when the
N. kingdom was beginning to recover from its serious
disasters.
also, in spite
of
the heading in
28,
may be placed in this period. The Philistines,
threatened by the Assyrian power, may have sent an
embassy to Ahaz, the
of
desiring
his support.
The prophecies of the Assyrian period.-These
are divided into two classes-(a) those before and
. .
those after Hezekiah’s revolt.
(a)
T o the former class belong 21
and
which suggest
that the Assyrian power was gradually extending towards
Egypt. More certainly chap. 28 belongs to the three years of
the siege of Samaria. Chap. 23 refers to Shalmaneser’s campaign
against
The obscurity of
v.
permits no very
positive critical inference; but the mention of Assyria confirms
the Isaianic authorship. Nor is Kuenen prepared to give u p
the epilogue
15-18),
though he recognises the comparative
weight of the objections to the genuineness of this passage and
indeed
of
the whole prophecy. The ‘hard king’ of 1 9 4 is
Sargon, who is actually named in chap.
20.
Then come the important chaps. 29-32, all of which belong
to the year before Sennacherib‘s invasion, and open the second
class of the prophecies referred to. 29
is regarded as a two-
fold prediction, first of Jerusalem’s extreme danger, and then
of her deliverance.3 T h e prophecies in 22
(Shebna) and
were delivered not much later.
T h e description in
22
is viewed a s partly imaginative the preparations for the
defence of Jerusalem were such as would naturally he made on
the approach of a foe. 10 5-12
6
was written during the invasion
14
is closely connected with it, and may he regarded as its
epilogue.
Jerusalem itself was threatened when chap. 1 was
written, and
17
18
and 33 belong to the same period. All
these prophecies express a firm assurance of the speedy destruc-
tion of the foe.
The prophecy against Moab.
This prophecy (chap.
receives from Kuenen a careful
consideration. H e
the peculiarity in language, in
style, and in ideas of 15
which
assigns to an older
prophet of the
The epilogue he
may
heading in
I
is of course due to a n editor
of no
authority (cp
C
HRONOLOGY
,
This implies the reading ‘the adversaries of Rezin’
which isaccepted by Dillmann, hut rejected by
Duhm
and
Cheyne (see
SBOT).
Kuenen, however, is not unconscious of its
view of 29
has been till quite lately the one
generally held, I t has been well stated by Driver
(Zsaiah,
ISAIAH,
BOOK
well have been written
Isaiah, when he adopted the work
of
his predecessor,
the same time a s 21
(see above,
6
The earlier prophet most probably lived
the great con-
quests of Jeroboam II., when Edom was subject to Judah (cp
1 6 6
with
147).
iii. T h e historical chapters
are re-
garded as having been compiled from
ments shortly after the time of Hezekiah, and inserted
by the collector of chaps. 1-35 (or perhaps of the whole
book), partly to illustrate the prophecies of the Assyrian
period, partly to
the narratives in
8
20 (cp above,
i.).
Later additions. -a.
Chaps. 24-27. -The earliest
of the
inserted in I. Isaiah is held to be
that in chaps. 24-27.
The evidence against Isaiah’s
authorship is not indeed
so
overpowering as in the case of
chaps. 40-66, because of the obscurity of the prophecy,
but
is
still forcible enough.
Points of contact between
the language of these chapters and that of Isaiah are
not wanting but there is such a striking difference in
style, in imagery, in vocabulary, and even in ideas, that
on this ground alone we may be sure that Isaiah
is
not
the author.
Then the historical situation-however
difficult of interpretation some features in it may be-is
certainly not that
of
any of the acknowledged prophecies
of Isaiah.
Kuenen’s conclusion is that the author lived
during the first part of the exile and that he predicts
the fall of Babylon. On three points he remains in
doubt-(I) where the prophet lives, whether in
(cp
or elsewhere;
whether
is to
be regarded as a prophecy, or as a description, and
whether it relates to the whole earth, or to Judah and
Jerusalem; and
( 3 )
whether
pictures the con-
dition of Jerusalem, or of the hostile city mentioned in
(according to Kuenen), of Babylon.
Chaps.
the same period Kuenen assigns
chaps.
The writer’s silence as to the
Persians and his indignation against Edom are the
reasons for placing these chapters early in the Exile.
Peculiar ideas and words are of course not as abundant here
a s
chaps. 24-27.
but the historical situation is defined even more plainly than
a s that of the
Exile, and more definitely of the close of the
Exile. T h e Babylonian oppression is presupposed, and the tone
of the writer is evidentlyemhittered
the thought of the suffer-
ings of his people. This embitterment prevents us from identify-
ing the author with the so-called
Isaiah. The little prophecy
in 21
is also
account of
clearly not Isaiah‘s work, and
is probably not much later than
Chaps. 40-66 are regarded
by
the Knenen of 1863) as forming a
single book in three equal parts (chaps. 40-48 49-57
58-66) marked by a kind of
(4822
the substance of which was written by one man,
before the capture of Babylon by Cyrus,
the
different prophecies or poems composing it may have
been collected and arranged after that event.
a.
evidence
as
to authorship.
---Knenen ex-
amines at length the external evidence for and against
Isaiah‘s authorship of this book.
T h e evidence for it is,
the testimony of Ecclus.
(which, however simply proves that the writer was not in a
position to
between works
of
different ages copied
into
the same roll).
T h e ‘edict of Cyrus’ in Ezra 1
Ch. 3623 (which has
been
to imply that Cyrus had become acquainted with
the prophecies ascribed to Isaiah, hut which
reality merely
implies that the narrator had such an
3.
T h e use made of
Is.
40-66
hy prophets who lived after Isaiah
hut hefore the middle part of the Exile (the extreme insecurity
of which argument, in the form in which Delitzsch presented it,
is shown by Kuenen).
produced.
This last remark applies also to 13
C
HAPTERS
On the opposite side, too, some external evidence is
For the later view of these ‘refrains,’ see Duhm or
SBOT
Isaiah ’).
On the question whether the publication of the ‘edict
of
Cyrus’ is a historical fact, and whether the kernel of the ‘edict
is genuine, see
;
E
ZRA
ii.,
; I
SRAEL
,
Kuenen, in both editions of his
Introduction,
whilst admitting
the fact of the return
maintained that the so-called.
‘edict’ was a free composition
of the Chronicler.
ISAIAH, BOOK
Stress
is laid on the position of chaps.
which are separated
from the preceding collection
of
prophecies by some historical
chapters, and must once have circulated in a separate form.
Without any
grounds an editor who had noticed
reference to a Babylonian captivity in 39
may have supposed
that chaps.
were a grandly planned supplementary prophecy
by Isaiah.
Historical situation.-The
most important argument, however, is that based on
the historical situation in those chapters.
All agree
that, at least in general, the author addresses the
Israelitish exiles in Babylon.
Jerusalem and the cities of Judah lie in ruins; and this sad
state of things has already lasted a considerable time (51 3 52 5
58
63
64
9-11
42
58
63
Deliverance, however, is a t hand
;
Cyrus will conquer Babylon
and release the Jews, who, on their retiirn
rebuild Jeru-
salem and the temple, and enjoy
prosperity
41 27 43
46 13 58
60
IO
61
4
66
this connection, it
noteworthy that no mention is made of
Israelitish kings or of sacrifices. On the other hand, the keep-
ing of the sabbath (562-s)
and
fasting (58
are specially
We are at once inclined to place such a book in the
second half of the Exile.
This conclusion is strengthened
the writer’s accurate know-
ledge of the very heart and soul of the exiles (see,
4027
Nor is there anything in the book suggestive of the
pre-exilic age.
If Isaiah had written it, he would
certainly have betrayed his real as opposed to his
imaginary period by some involuntary allusion.
On the contrary,
(I)
all the allusions to the age of Isaiah to
the continuance of Jerusalem and of the temple and to
as the home of the prophet which have been
chaps.
rest without excepdon
misunderstanding.2
derived hy the prophet from the predictions of Israel’s
liberation and the fall of Babylon loses
all its significance if the
writerwerenot
48). At first sight indeed, the passages in which idolatry
is attacked3 may seem inconsistent with an exilic date; hut
observe
(
I
)
that the writer frequently has in view not Israelites
but the surrounding heathen population
that sometimes
is rather of a danger than of an actual fact that the prophet
speaks (3) that Ezekiel (20
refers to idolatrous prac-
tices among the exiles by the river Chehar
(4)
that we
cannot infer from the attachment of the returned exiles to the
religion of
that those left behind were all devoted mono-
theists.
Language and ideas. -Nearly
200
years could
not have passed away without leaving their impress on
prophetic language and ideas.
The second Isaiah is in
fact very
from Isaiah b. Amoz, both as a writer
and as a thinker.
I
.
Of the personal Messiah expected by the
son of
there is not a trace in
11.
Isaiah (see M
ESSIAH
).
It is to a widely different figure-the ‘servant of
that
Isaiah assigns the liberation and the regeneration of
Israel. In connection with this it should he noticed that the
older prophet is much more universalistic in his pictures of
the future than the younger, who is by
no
means free from an
extreme nationalism and cherishes exaggerated expectations
of the future glory
(for which, it is true, there are points
of contact
in
some of Isaiah’s prophecies
;
see,
11
19
23
46
24
58
62
65
Other differences, too, may be referred to.
the high respect for the
expressed
chaps.
58
is
unlike Isaiah (contrast 1
The uniqueness
of the divinity
more prominent in the second
part of Isaiah, and is proved by arguments which Isaiah b. Amoz
could hardly have used, whilst the
ideas of that
prophet’s discourses are somewhat in the background in chaps.
It
need hardly be said that this is among the weaker of the
arguments here adduced.
Here we may reply in
words
of
‘Du sprichst
ein grosses Wort
aus.
These passages are
646
though Kuenen admits it to he
that where general
are used for the sins of the exiles, the
reference may he to moral and religious laxity rather than to
idolatry. Not a few passages, too, refer specially to horn heatheri
men.
something to correct in the older theories.
4
This
is one of the many points in which later criticism finds
Here
again Kuenen in 1863 expresses views which later
criticism shows to be inaccurate.
ISAIAH, BOOK
ISAIAH, BOOK
Such-apart from the linguistic and stylistic argu-
ment, which is not at all adequately presented by the
older critics-is the reasoning by which Kuenen in
justified his disintegration of the Book of Isaiah.
If we
compare it with that of conservative critics we are struck
by its superior naturalness.
It is the outcome of a
critical movement of long duration, and cannot fail to
be, to
a
large extent, in accordance with facts.
L
ATER
C
RITICISM
If we apply the same critical methods still further, we
cannot fail to see weak points.
The earlier criticism
abounds in inaccuracies, and the newer
criticism, after well-nigh twenty years
of elaboration. has so far completed
its task that Kuenen's older view (still to
a
extent represented in
books) needs to be
superseded.
If we do not adopt that form of the newer
criticism which is due to Kuenen himself, it is because
a
growing criticism cannot be tied down to the results
of a single man, and because much work has been
brought to maturity since 1889 (the date of Kuenen's
second edition).
The interval between the traditional view of the Book
of Isaiah and that which is now presenting itself was too
great to be traversed without
a
halt.
The criticism
which has just been summarised will enable the reader
to break the journey.
He will now be in
a
better
position to consider those points in which the earlier
solutions of critical problems may have been unsatis-
factory, and consequently to do justice to the criticism
which still remains to be described.
The fault of the earlier critics was that they had an
imperfect sense of the deep gulf between the old and
the new Israel.
Even the books which
had the most beneficial effect
pre-exilic
Israelites were not in all respects suitable
for, or even intelligible to, the much altered people of
the later age. The prophetic writings in their present
form are post-exilic works ; such pre-exilic records as
they contain have been carefully adapted to the wants
of post-exilic readers.
With regard, then, to Is.
our first question should be, not,
Is
there any reason
this or that chapter or section should not be the work
of Isaiah? but, T o what age do the ideas, expressions,
and implied circumstances most naturally point ? W e
can seldom expect to find that the whole of a long
passage belongs to the same period, because
a
post-
exilic editor would almost certainly have found it neces-
sary to modify what the earlier writer had said by longer
or shorter insertions. It must be remembered, too, that
the prophets
of
the eighth century were too great and
too much absorbed in their message to spend much time
in the written elaboration of their prophecies.
We can
hardly expect to find that Isaiah left much in writing,
and we must also make allowance for the perils to the
ancient literature arising from the collapse of the state.
It will be well for the student to be continually revis-
ing his earlier results in the assignment of dates in the
light of his later critical acquisitions. Critics are some-
times accused of arguing in a circle because they, by
anticipation, mention facts in favour of the non-Isaianic
origin of
a
prophecy derived from sections which only
later will be proved to be non-Isaianic.
This accusation
is
not reasonable.
It
is
necessary that the whole
of relevant facts should be before the student, and it
is
important to see what points of contact a disputed
prophecy has with other prophecies which are equally
disputed.
T o economise space, it
is
sometimes neces-
sary to leave the student to distinguish between those
arguments which are immediately available, and those
which will only later be seen in their full force.
It
will be found that each step we take in the assignment
of dates will supply subsidiary facts (especially phraseo-
logical) in proof of conclusions already seen to be
probable.
But the student must not be in
a
hurry,
and must sometimes let difficult problems wait till he
is
riper for them.
It is too bold to maintain that we still have any collec-
tion of Isaianic prophecies which in its present form
goes back to the period of that prophet,
T o begin with chaps.
1-5.
Chap.
1
has,
properly speaking, no connection with chaps.
It is a preface to the whole collection of the prophecies.
of Isaiah (chaps.
2-33
or
35).
It seems to be composite.
Verses
are
probably) the close of a separ-
ate prophecy of an earlier date (see below), whilst
are certainly
a
post-exilic insertion (cp Marti). The early
section formed by chaps.
2-5
has been much altered.
contains fine prophetic writing; but if
a
disciple of
Isaiah really bestowed much editorial care upon it-
if it was welded by such an editor into a
the traces of his work have entirely disappeared.
Chap. 2 (soon after
is composed of two different frag-
ments of similar contents, on the day of
6-10
18-21,
and
11-17),
which have been brought together
an early
editor, and had prefixed
to
them an important
prophecy
3
I
(735 B
.c.)
is nearly in
its
original form (see especially
Marti); but the appendix,
is
the possibility of
doubt post-exilic3
It was in fact a fixed custom of later editors
to
adapt prophecies of judgment (most early prophecies were
such cp Am. 3
to the use
of
contrite post-exilic readers
Messianic appendices.
But what of
Why should
have a
as well a s a n
?
it has been
moved
its
original
to
fill the
a passage
which had become illegible.
It
was originally intended to he the
appendix to
which appears
he a fragment of an in-
dependent prophecy of Isaiah against tree-worship, linked to
1 2 - 2 6
by the editorial passage, 127
Chap.
5
and
8-24
is editorial) form
two
distinct hut related prophecies
(735
B.C.).
In
its
original form this came most probably from
a
disciple
5
26-30 see
7,
begin.).
The next group of prophecies is
7
of Isaiah (about
B . C . ) .
It con-
sisted of a prologue on Isaiah's in-
augural vision, and prophecies
invasion of Rezin,
the ruin of Syria and Ephraim, and the Assyrian
invasion, and concluded with a divine warning t o
Isaiah and his disciples, and
an
epilogue of great
interest,
as
showing the editorial care which, in this
instance at least,
a
disciple of Isaiah bestowed on his
master's work.
To
this has been added
a
fragment
on the despair of the people of Judah ;
(except
the last words) are late and editorial. Other traces
of
late editorial work could be mentioned.
One of them is the opening verse of chap.
7 ,
which
is
depend-
ent on
K.
165 (late pre-exilic), and another possibly
(this
passage, however, can be defended as
Editorial work
is also plainly discernible
in
7
17-25
;
hut on this we cannot linger.
The most important monument of an editor is not
the closing words of chap. 6 in
M T
(not in
' a
holy seed is the stock
but the Messianic
appendix,
9
2-7
[
I
-61.
This appendix, though recently
defended by Duhm, is (in the opinion of some scholars)
is the
prophecy
itself which in a large sense may he called Messianic.
Duhm regard; it a s the work
of
Isaiah, hut refers it to the
prophet's old age when he may have written prophetic poems
like this passage
like 9
2-7
11
for the edification
his disciples. But the prouounced universalism of the religion
of
2
2-4,
and its similarity in phraseology to passages which have
an unmistakable post-exilic impress, and are regarded
Duhm
himself a s late, besides its want of a natural connection with the
context both in
Is.
2
and in Mic. 4
(for Mic. 4
gives a second
edition of the
romanticallv-soundine
is
a later addition to a late prophecy.
theory impossible.
M
ICAH
and see
Is.
9-16;
Sta.
Z A T W I
Mitchell,
and on the other side especially Bertholet,
Die
der
etc.,
Giesehrecht (Beitv. 27) Duhm Hackmann Cheyne.
Stade in 1884 took a middle
TW
4
See
I
SAIAH
i.
3 n., and cp Che. Znfr.
T h e
passage was a t any rate composed and inserted later ;
at
what
period,
is
disputed.
v.
should probably run thus (or nearly thus)
:
'for consumption shall be on its plants,
and parching on
and
is
a
second attempt
to
make
of a corrupt
passage.
ISAIAH, BOOK
ISAIAH,
Messiah
as
a
ruler-a
of
almost as certainly late as anything in the whole com-
pass of prophetic
Its combination of
enthusiasm and moderation gives the passage a unique
position among Messianic prophecies
to assign it to
post-exilic times (which were not incapable of fine as
well as poor literature) involves
no
disparagement.
It
is clearly an independent composition attached by the
editor by means of the linking verse,
9
I
Observe
the vagueness of 9
6
which implies that the hope
of the Messiah was already well defined in the popular
mind, which could easily fill up the outlines. In the
age
of
Isaiah such vagueness is
Both
these additions, when accepted as Isaiah‘s,
not
but distort the interpretation of the portions really due
to the prophet.
The next prophecy is
10
to which
was prefixed-bya later editor, probably to fill
the
space on a roll which was too large for
the prophecy
16.
Originally this
fine passage, which is hardly to be
combined with
5
belonged to
the same group of prophecies as
a n d
8-24
(see above,
It
nearly
its original
f o r m ; but, besides minor changes due to accident,
9
and
have been substituted for passages
which had become illegible.
The latter is the most
important because (as rightly emended by Lagarde) it
contains a reference to
and
which is
un-
expected in this
Chap.
10
is Isaianic, but,
even apart from the editorial insertions (see
S B O T ) ,
does
not all come from one time.
are clearly an
insertion from some other source ;
they were not
written as a part of Isaiah‘s great
upon the
Assyrian. The passage describes the expected march
upon
Jerusalem of a foe from the
N . ,
and
doubts whether a passage so full of plays upon names
can be Isaiah‘s.
If it is not Isaiah’s, one might
plausibly ascribe it to Micah, who, in the bitterness of
his spirit, makes very similar plays on the names of
towns
in
danger of capture from the Assyrians (Mic.
1
W e may probably date
722
B.c.
10
a t any rate, is certainly not Isaiah‘s. It refers, it is
true, to the Assyrian invasion but it treats this as typical
of the attack of the assembled heathen nations
on
Jerusalem expected by late eschatological writers. It
tells
us of
the great final judgment
on
all
enemies, from which transgressors within Zion itself
will not be exempt (cp. Is.
128
3314, and passages in
the Psalms).
There is, however, a bare possibility
that some scarcely intelligible fragments
of
Isaiah may
have been worked into his material by the editor.
The
Isaianic portion,
may be dated
7 1 1
B.C.
T o this composite work (ch.
10)
three appendices were
attached-(I) the last
very late indeed,
so
ex-
ceedingly poor is it, and so entirely unprophetic in
The first
(11
is a description of the
See Che.
Intr.
44.46
(cp
T o
the works there cited (against Isaianic origin) add
D i e
57-59 (‘97)
Sellin,
36-38
(‘98).
Sellin places the prophecy a t
the close of the Exile ; h e thinks that it refers to Zerubbabel.
His disparagement of the phraseological argument is inconsist-
e n t with his own practice.
I t is true however that the text is
in several respects corrupt.
for
it is surely
necessary to read
(SBOT,
Heb.
I f this be admitted, Isaiah
cannot
have written the passage,
for
and
are not used by Isaiah.
On
no stress
can be laid the word is corrupt.
T h e name of the
king. however if the text be emended is not such as Isaiah
would have
(see
M
E
S
SI
A
H
,
cp
Crit. Bid.).
T h e fact that this fine
produced no effect on
Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, is not inconsistent with the
sketch of the growth
of
the prophecies given in this article
(against
The phrases in v . 26 are too hyperbolical as applied to the
Assyrians.
Peiser and Wi. acutely find a reference to the
merians (cp
4
19-31).
See
G
EB
AL
and
for
a
parallel see
and
S
ICCUTH
.
On this point there is unanimity among critics.
chap. 12 exilic with
would be needless caution.
8 ) .
See
S
H
O
E
.
To
make
It is not well linked to the context.
A
. .
.
better connection was
for the
.
former passage
though in
neither case is any mention made of
that sifting of the population of Jerusalem to which
Isaiah
(1
2 5 )
refers as a condition of better government.
There is also none of Isaiah‘s classic moderation in the
terms of the description.
The elaborate description
of the transformation of the animal world, and the
extravagance of
v.
46,
is in the taste of the later
period.
( 3 )
The second appendix
is marked out as
such with singular definiteness. Whoever wrote
11
certainly regarded it as a suitable close.
On
the other
hand, we can well understand a subsequent writer
wishing to insert something
on
the restoration of the
exiles of Israel and Judah.
The style is poor (note
the impossible expression
of Jesse for the Messi-
anic king) the rhythm still poorer the phraseology
and ideas late.
‘Assyria’ means to the writer the
Persian empire.
This
is
one of the most assured and
suggestive results of criticism.
W e have
now
all the first part
of
our Book
of Isaiah
1-12).
and
on
to a collection
of
.
ten oracles
mostly
on
the
of the Israelites. each with
a
heading containing the word
ex-
pression which specially belongs to collectors and editors
(cp also
306,
where it forms part of a Iate insertion).
a.
Four
short
passages,
however
18
strike the eye as having no editorial headings.
These must once have stood in some other connection
all appear to be genuine works of Isaiah.
(I)
The first
is perhaps the true conclusion of Isaiah‘s prophecy on
the failure of the plan of the Assyrian king
see
I
SAIAH
13).
The second is either an appendix
attached by Isaiah to
(see below), or a short
independent prophecy
of
uncertain date.
( 3 )
The third
(which has a late, artificial appendix,
7)
belongs to
the time of Sennacherib’s invasion (Duhm, Cheyne).
The fourth, as the brief historical preface states,
is
contemporary with the siege of Ashdod by Sargon in
7 1 1
B
.C.
It has been thought to predict the ruin of
Egypt and Ethiopia but upon archaeological grounds
must be held to refer rather to the fate anticipated
for Pir’u, king of
(to whom
king of
Ashdod, fled for refuge). See A
SHDOD
,
This Pir’u, not the Egyptian Pharaoh, is the king
who will grievously disappoint the Judahites, accord-
ing to
Is.
20
to which 306 is parallel, in complete
accordance with Sargon’s own statement in the frag-
mentary cylinder text.
The opening verse therefore
comes from some ill-informed early editor or biographer.
6.
Of the
ten
w i t h
only two
can be regarded as certainly
(
I
)
and
15-18.
(I)
The former was evi-
dently written before
7 2 0
the latter falls into
two parts, of which the first (I
SAIAH
i.,
17)
have been written in
701,
and the second a year
or two earlier.
Kuenen’s former view that
is an imaginary description can hardly be maintained
but it is probable that the descriptions
in
8-10
See
Is.
62-66;
remark
38)
that, though this prophecy
also
have been written at the end of the Exile, or shortly before
Haggai, it contains nothing inconsistent with Isaiah‘s author-
ship implies a wrong point of view. Considering the
state of the prophecies ascribed to Isaiah, we have to
ask, not, Can we with some ingenuity imagine Isaiah uttering
this or that passage? but,
To
what period does this anonymous
fragment
of prophecy most naturally belong?
In
Zntr.
Is.
the
cited but Pir’u is wrongly taken to be
=Pharaoh (so
Schr. and formerly
At this period, however,
a s Winckler has shown, Egypt had not yet begun again to he
a
factor in Asiatic politics.
3
On the interpolated passage
see
Is.
93,
and
cp
especially Stade,
Z A T W 3
(‘83).
2196
So
first
2 4
cp
SBOT
Isa.’ (Heb.).
ISAIAH,
BOOK
ISAIAH,
BOOK
have been amplified.
On
the text of this most import-
a n t prophecy
see
SBOT
(Heb.)
In
(or 720) Sargon was completely defeated by the
Elamites at
in N. Babylonia
Chron.
B,
col.
1,
lines 33-35
2
which led to a pretty general
rising in Syria and Palestine.
king of
with the help of the N. Arabian
(see
again -asserted his independence.
Both in the
and in the
however, Sargon put down the
rebellions, and Hanun fell into the hands of the
Assyrians.
Foreseeing this, Isaiah
have written
this prophecy on the other hand, the headings are not
generally
so
accurate, and the language used of Zion
seems to Duhm' more in accordance with post-exilic
views than with Isaiah's.
Even Winckler, to whom
the above historical explanation
belongs, feels compelled to sacrifice
the
poor
his people'
(v. 32)
as
post-exilic
in
appearance (in
spite of
Marti agrees with Duhm, and the present
now coincides.
See
I
S
A
I
A
H
SBOT
(Heb.)
but cp.
Is.
(4-8) There are also prophecies in which it has been
suspected that there
is
a t least an Isaianic
(?),
23.
As
to
the only portion which can be at all plausibly
viewed
as
Isaianic
is
16
14
(beginning
'
I n three years
').
has also been regarded as a scrap of Isaiah's work.
At any rate it has the appearance of
an insertion. T o
regard it as Isaianic, however, is reasonable only if the prophecy
i n
which it is enclosed can be shown to be an older work adopted
by Isaiah
and
against Isaiah's authorship is the striking
between
and
and between
5
96
(passages suspected of being late).
Nor is it in accordance with the critical results obtained
elsewhere to regard part of 16
Isaianic ; those phraseologi-
cal
points in it which a t one time seemed Isaianic are now
rightly viewed in a different light
is suspicious,
j u s t
because it appears also in
The original elegy
on Moab may be most plausibly referred to the time of
Nebuchadrezzar
;
but not on grounds derived from parallel
passages in Jer. 48 (see
J
EREMIAH
As to oracles
and
21
shares the same
suspicion as
and is best regarded as post-exilic.
The two oracles in
21
and
suggest the danger
to
which Edom and Arabia were exposed, either from
A T
or from the later
Chaldean invasion (Che.). As to oracle
Dillmann's
view that
an
Isaianic elegy on Tyre was retouched on
a
large scale by
a
post-exilic writer is the most conserva-
tive view which has still any claim to be considered.
The blockade of Tyre
Shalmaneser IV. (who died during
the blockade) and Sargon must have greatly interested Isaiah,
a n d the prophet, if he described the fate of Damascus and
Philistia, is not very likely to have passed over that of Tyre.
Still it is on the whole hardly worth while to search chap. 23
for fragments of a prophecy on Tyre
Isaiah ; the results of
a n analysis are too precarious, especially if we take account of
recent proposed emendations of the text. We may, it is true,
suppose
to
be of comparatively earlydate,
though not Isaianic.
I t was a t any rate written before
chadrezzar's siege of Tyre
in
586-573
B
.C.
13,
which is a
prophecy of the capture of the city by the Chaldeans, is
clearly a later insertion it is the work of a post-exilic editor
who held the mistaken opinion that Tyre had been stormed
a n d destroyed by Nehuchadrezzar. T h e epilogue
15-15,
all
i n prose, except the dance-song in
is
another hand,
a n d is also obviously post-exilic.
(9)
Of the ten oracles with headings two still remain
t o be
chaps.
and
(IO)
chap.
19.
(9) a.
S o
far as the oracle
on
Babylon (chap.
is
con-
cerned, the older critics gave
correct date; chap.
13,
( 3 )
1428-32
may plausibly be claimed for Isaiah.
Duhm
dates this prophecy between the battle of
(333)
a n d the capture of Tyre and
by Alexander
and
suggests that the name Ahaz' has taken the place of Arses
king of Persia from 338 to 336
So
Kuenen in
Che.
Is.
In 1889 De!.
231)
described this
as
present
the prevailing opinion.
Later criticism, however, has attacked
it with some vigour.
See Duhm's commentary, and Che.
Znfr.
Is.
Driver's suggestion that the body of the
prophecy may have been written by Isaiah in anticipation of
foray
E.
Palestine
in
734
(Isaiah,
may be mentioned.
which
is
closely related
to,
but earlier than, Jer.
50J
(see
J
EREMIAH
11
is
of
not much earlier date than
chap.
40
etc.
The ode 'on the king of Babylon,'
however
can hardly have been written by the
author of the oracle.
14
and
vv.
(which stand outside both oracle and ode,
and are more inelegant in style than either) must surely belong
to an editor, who probably
the ode from an anthology.
The ode
is parallel to the poem on Sennacherib in
and both songs most probably refer to the same
Assyrian king ('king of Babylon in 1 4 4 is therefore a
That Isaiah would
expected or even wished Sennacherih
to
excluded from the royal tombs is indeed most unlikely.
The fact that the poet did both wish and expect this contumely
for Sennacherib only confirms the view that the author of the
ode was not that
The phraseology the
pations, and the ideas of the song are alike
to the
theory of its Isaianic authorship. See I
SAIAH
i.,
( I O )
Chap.
19
is
one of the most difficult sections of
the first half of Isaiah.
I t seemed natural that the prophet should have left some
more definite record of his expectations for Egypt than is to be
found in chap. 20 or chaps.
Eichhorn, however could
not see anything Isaianic either in the main prophecy
in the
supplement
16
or 18-25), and Ewald found such a falling off
in the style that he felt obliged to assign it to Isaiah's declining
years. T h e present writer till 1892 thought that a t any rate
and
contained an Isaianic element.
H e now
recognises that even this is
too
conservative a view, and that
the points of contact with Isaiah are not greater than can be
accounted for by imitation.
Not only
but
also
and
are post-
exilic.
The
'
harsh lord
'
( v . 4 )
is
not
but some Persian king the writer may not have meant
any single king.
Stylistic
exegetical data point
unmistakably to the Persian period, though not neces-
sarily to
so
late
a
date
as
the time of Artaxerxes Ochus
(so
Duhm).
The supplement
(vv. 16
or
18
to
which possesses
the highest religious interest, still more manifestly
belongs to the time when the fusion of Israelites and
non-Israelites first became a reasonable
to the early Greek period.
Before
275
it can
hardly have been written.
See H
ERES
, and cp
SBOT
Isa.' (Heb.) on
1 9 1 8 ,
and
no.
col.
522.
Chap.
For
a
time the present writer
(supported by Driver) accepted the view of
K
Y
.
1877 p.
that Is.
was Isaianic
and related to one of the three sieges of Babylon by the
Assyrians
(710,
and 696
The chief ad-
vantage of that view
is
that it affords
a
ready explana-
tion of the grief which the prophet expresses at the
hard vision announced' to him.
The difficulties
the view cannot, however, be completely surmounted
(see Znfr.
Zs.
Driver
too has fully
abandoned Kleinert's attractive view. Winckler's view
( A T
that the war between
pal and his brother
is referred to, has
also not found acceptance.
W.
H.
Cobb
revises the theory of Isaiah's authorship.
He takes
21
to refer to the invasion of Palestine by Assyria.
Against this see Marti,
Marti's
own view,
however, which is an improved form
of
the usual critical
view, is not free from objection.
Elsewhere (see
Bib.)
the present writer has sought to show that the
poem
in
relates really, not to Babylon, but to
Edom, which, in later times, came to be regarded as
arch enemy.
The emendations that
necessary relate mainly to proper names.
Cp Budde
Cobb
1896
thinks that 'king of
here
used as a title of an Assyrian king, since Sennacherib, as well
as
Sargon and
repeatedly calls himself 'king of
The supposition is as needless as it is improbahle.
The introduction to the ode can easily
Le
shown to be of late
editorial origin.
Winckler who originally proposed to explain the ode of
Sennacherib
; Cohb,
1896,
p.
now finds it necessary to interpret
of the murder of Sargon
Maurice, quoted
Strachey
(Jewish History and
confident' that the description exactly
to Sennacherib.
Plumptre (in
O T Com-
mentary) preferred Sargon.
2198
ISAIAH,
BOOK
Let
us
now turn to that remarkable collection of
prophecies
chaps.
28-33,
beginning,
for reasons of convenience, with chap.
The phenomena of chapters
32
are very peculiar.
That chap.
33
is later than any part of chap.
32
is
certain, both on account
of
the phraseology and because
of the ideas. It could not indeed otherwise have been
possible for Duhm to assign
and
15-18
to
Isaiah.
In
is described
as
a
first, and
9-20
as
a
second appendix.
It is possible, however, that
Bickell
is
right in connecting
15-20
(he emends
with much skill) with
The
main question is
not whether vv.
(or
15-20)
are Isaianic or not for the late date of this passage is even
more certain than
of
11
nor can it be very
much earlier than
vv.
6-8
which Duhm
to
be
I t is rather this
:
Are
a
genuine though strangely mis-
placed Isaianic fragment, akin to 3
24?
It
is certainly
conceivable that it once stood at the end of chaps. 28-31, follow-
ing the analogy of that very striking little prophecy (cp Intr.
180).
I n order to recognise it as Isaianic, however, it would
be
necessary a t any rate to emend the text and even then there
is
a rhetorical indefiniteness which
the passage
from 3
and does not suggest Isaiah as the author.4
On the whole, the remark of Stade is
as
true now as
when it was first made, that when we pass from chap.
31
to chap.
32
we find an altogether new set of ideas
and an entirely changed
As to chap.
so
far as it relates
to
the period
of
Sennacherib's invasion it gives in many ways an in-
accurate
of the facts.
In reality,
however, it is addressed to a later genera-
tion which regards the Assyrian invasion
as
typical of
later crises in Jewish history.
Hence the absence of
any attempt to imitate Isaiah's style hence, too, the
liturgical tone which presupposes
a
not very early part
of
the post-exilic period.
The only question is whether we may venture to follow Duhm
and Bickell, the former of whom identifies the enemies referred
t o
with the Syrians under Antiochus Eupator (cp
8
with
I
Macc.
662
29
respectively) and the situation with that pro-
duced
the battle of
and the capture of
B
.c.),
when Jerusalem was a t the last gasp and the
Jewish revolt seemed
crushed, whilst the
finds in
chap. 33
two
poems, the first written after a defeat,
the second after Simon the Maccabee's conquest of the Akra of
I t is at least not impossible aprophecy
ater than
B.C.
is
not indeed to be expected; hut the
phenomena of this appendix to an appendix are somewhat
peculiar. Chap. 33 is more than usually unconnected: it may
therefore he composite. In this case
I
will he due to the
editor. Moreover, the exulting tone of the latter part of the
chapter agrees extremely well with
proposed date.
14)
as a religious class-name (almost
=
lawless, see
H
YPOCRISY
)
is specially characteristic of Joh which probably be-
longs to the
Greek period. At the
time it is not
impossible that this usage began earlier and that
exulta-
tion is a reaction from the preceding
of the writer
(as
often in the psalms). Bickell rearranges too
how-
ever.
The
'may plausibly be referred to the
dark period of the third Artaxerxes (see
Zs.
)
but the use of
(see above) and the reference to the
Tax-collectors (cp
I
Macc.
in
18
(for emended
(142 B
.c.).
See his article in
.
Duhm thinks that no post-exilic writer would have written
so
drily and in such an incidental manner of the expected king.
I t is evident however that there were long spaces in the earlier
post-exilic
in
the hope of the Messiah was
no
means vital and in which consequently the Messiah would he
spoken of
enthusiasm. On the arguments for a late
date see Zntr.
Is.
3
passage is too
to he dated with precision
but clearly belongs to the age
o f
the Wisdom-literature, and
to
any very early part of that period.
Stade's objection to
9-20,
that the passage is inconsistent
with Isaiah's conviction that
will not let Jerusalem be
captured
4
is, however invalid, because Isaiah
does not seem t o have had such a
a t this period (see
I
S
AIA
H
According to Duhm
are of uncertain
origin, but most probably Isaianic; of
9-14
he appears to
have no doubt, hut places it in Isaiah's period.
Stade
'97, and see
SBOT
(Heb.) 106
;
Marti,
242.
ISAIAH,
BOOK
text, see
S
CR
IBE
),
together with the peculiarities of the
poem, incline the present writer to agree with Marti in
dating the work about
163
The objection drawn
from the history of the canon is no doubt weighty but
it is not absolutely conclusive (see
C
AN
O
N
,
39,
col.
665,
n.
I).
The removal of the chaps. just considered
from the work
(28-31
: I
S
AIA
H
end) to which
they are appended makes it somewhat
easier to appreciate that work.
only the framework of chaps.
28-31
is
Isaianic, the inserted passages do not all equally blnr
the outlines of Isaiah's picture of the future.
Still we
must
on
that account think lightly of the critical
problems which remain.
No
part of the true Isaiah
has been
so
systematically manipulated out of regard
to
the feelings of later readers
as
this.
a.
Let us first of all take
29
16-24
and
30
18-26.
It
is certain from the context that Isaiah
was
addressing him-
self not to a penitent and believing community which stood in
need of comfort, and whose chief fault
was
their dreaming of
earthly means of
God's promises, but to irreligious
politicians and a 'rebellions' unreceptive people. If we apply
the principles set forth above (see 4), and ask to what age the
ideas, the expressions, and the
in
most naturally point, we cannot doubt that these passages are
of post-exilic origin and addressed to the same set of people as
32
15-20.
their being intended for
same
audience as that which listened to the preceding prophetic
speeches, and we are disposed to doubt Isaiahssanity. By sucha
flattering view of the religious condition of his hearers he would
have defeated his own
Resides what ideas could the
rulers possibly have attached to the description of a spiritually
regenerated people? The mention of a 'great slaughter' when
the 'towers' should fall might perhaps have arrested their
attention;
the only 'slaughter' which they would have
thought of would he that of the Assyrians, whereas the prophetic
writer means a general destruction of all the opponents of what
he regards as the true religion both without and within Jeru-
salem.
The affinity of these passages to the post-exilic type
of thought and expression is too striking to be over-
looked or doubted by the student.
6.
Other post-exilic additions are, probably,
2823-29
and
The latter passage develops the idea of
the great slaughter'
it is more in the manner
of
21)
than in that of the two late additions
just considered, being warlike and grandly, though
luridly, picturesque.
if really Isaiah's, must be addressed to an inner
circle of
who have assimilated the prophetic teaching
of a 'remnant.
However, the leading idea of the
is
characteristically late. Its first
seems
t o
be in Jer.
hut it is not quite certain whether Jer.
is
Jeremiah's (see Stade,
As to the phraseology,
in
29,
which occurs only in Prov. and Job (Mic.
is
corrupt), is perhaps the only very suspicions word. I t
improbable that Isaiah would have used it.
The most remarkable insertions of all, however,
are those
According to the older critics (see
above,
2,
Isaiah put a double-faced enigma
before his hearers, which only excited blank amazement
as being 'out of all relation to the facts'
but can
the delightful part of the prophecy in
really have
been written by Isaiah
Duhm has already recognised later insertions in
8
and we cannot stop short there. We must evidently include
7
among the interpolated passages, for here too we are
by
the great falling off in the style, and the wide difference in the
picture of the future.
Rhythm and parallelism came easily to
Isaiah there are hut slight traces of them
(all)
the passages
assigned here io a later writer. And whereas Isaiah can bear
to contemplate a sore judgment upon Jerusalem, the author o f
has before him a future day when all nations shall
gather together
the holy city, and he cut off'
With this view Hackmann agrees.
H e is, indeed, its
originator, except that he defends
v. 7
giving a new turn to
the meaning. I n short, his idea is that the dream in
7
is
a
figure for the suddenness of the appearance of the foes before
Jerusalem.
This is ingenious ;
but Hackmann forgets Job 208,
16
(end).
Apart from the interpolations just considered, chap.
Though defended a s Isaianic by Duhm, it has been
by Guthe and Smend. Hackmann
and Cheyne
(Zntr.
Is.
regard
it
as
on
all grounds post-
exilic.
2200
Surely not.
ISAIAH,
BOOK
ISAIAH, BOOK
29
appears to be a combination of three distinct
prophecies (each very short but very striking) dealing
respectively with the destruction of Jerusalem, the
culpable insensibility of the rulers to the divine teaching,
and the fatal consequences
of
a
formal religion.
Chap.
contains a fragment of a prophecy on the
Egyptian alliance ; and there are two more fragments
on the same subject
in
and
clearly formed the close of an ancient prophetic col-
lection;
(with
and the supplement
must have been misplaced.
Except
the Isaianic prophecies may
e
assigned to
B.C.
the oracle
2
is
earlier, and
supposes the siege of Samaria. 28
7-22
may belong to
it gives a warning to Jerusalem, suggested by the
doom of Samaria.
The difference between the older and the newer
criticism is perhaps even more conspicuous in the group
of chapters (24-27) placed before that
which we have been discussing.
(i.)
Referring by way of contrast to what
Kuenen thought
in
1863 (above,
iv. a ) , let
see what
Duhm thought in
1892.
( a ) His
method is that which
all good critics now employ
he begins, that
is,
by
removing later accretions.
Among these he classes
the song in
which com-
memorates the destruction of a strong city and states that on
this account another mighty city will
God.
the
taunting song on Moab,
;
a n artistic poem) (26
which stands alone in the
OT
in respect of the many variants
which
have
penetrated into the text
;
and (4) the little song in
The prophecyitself comprises chaps.
24256-8
I
is
quotation from the margin, which roperly speaking
illustrates
and is therefore misplaced,
are
the remainder of a n exhortation to the Jews to break off from
their sins, and so become entitled to deliverance, which is
certainly parenthetical and very possibly a later insertion.
Let
us
then look first at the prophecy
or
apocalypse.'
I t describes the desolation of a great world-empire by war,
and closes with the final judgment upon Israel's oppressors,
the setting u p of the divine throne in the holy city, and a
festival, full of refreshment and consolation, for all peoples.
The author, Duhm thinks, lived under John Hyrcanus
he saw
of Jerusalem and the devastation
of
Judah by Antiochus Sidetes, the beginning of the war
with the Parthians, in which the Jews were forced to
take part
(
B
.c.
and the defeat and death of
Antiochus
(
B
.c.
128).
The last is the event obscurely
referred to in
which the writer cannot for
his part regard as a happy omen, because the barbarous
will invade and devastate Palestine. In 25
Duhm finds the exultation of the Jews at the
destruction of Samaria, and the demolition of the
temple
on
Gerizim ; the
city of nations is
Rome (cp
The same
background is assigned to
however,
Duhm refers
to
the time of King Alexander
who made
pay tribute (Jos.
135).
The last of the dates just quoted is the least
important; the Moabites were not dangerous to the
Jews in post-exilic times.
The reference to them in 25
is
The other dates are
rather plausible. The Parthians did not indeed actually
invade Palestine before
B.C.
40
(cp
and
Dillmann's note); but the author may have expected that
they would' do
so
in
The hatred of the Jews for
the Samaritans might well find expression
in
a psalm,
30
relates to the embassy to Egypt and
is Isaianic.
4
are a late insertion based on a fragment
66 7a)
which
described the flight of
king of
and his followers
to Pir'u king of
in
N
this
late
with 366
late), and see
30 76
is a late insertion of a scribe (see
31 56-9
is
composite,
but
altogether post-exilic
Is.
is obviously Messianic in the wider sense, and
is
a
later insertion addressed to the post-exilic community.
Cp Bertholet,
Die
etc.,
Is.
;
cp
Smend,
Z A T W
71
2201
and the poor style of the song in 25
favours a late
date.
These passages, however, are admittedly accre-
tions. Their date is of less importance than that of the
main prophecy or apocalypse, which refers to so many
popular religious beliefs.
T o Duhm's date for the main prophecy there are
objections derived from the history of the Canon (see
C
ANON
,
39, cp n.
I,
col. 665).
Strong reason
is
required for making any considerable part of Isaiah
later than
zoo
B.
c.
Chap. 33 indeed,
as
an appendix
to an appendix,'
since internal evidence favours
this, be made
;
but can we venture to assign
the important collection of prophecies and songs in
chaps. 24-27 to a period even later
Maccabees?
The matter concerns the history of religious ideas
as
well as of literature.
Will not the period of the fall of
the Persian and the rise of the
empire answer all the requirements of the passages? It
is
a
pity that the historical evidence is not stronger but
Marti's treatment of
it
in his commentary is certainly
too superficial.
opening section is the monument of a time of long-
continued misery
Syria and Palestine. Such a time began
under Artaxerxes
and lasted till the consolidation of the
power of the
in Palestine
T h e frequent
passage of Persian armies marching to Egypt must have caused
much distress to the Jews; and once, if not twice, they were
concerned in a revolt against Persia. Cruelly did Artaxerxes
punish them ; a s Noldeke says 'much blood appears to have
been shed in Judaea' a t this time.' Most probably too Robertson
Smith is right in transferring the defilement'of
temple
mentioned by Jos.
to
this
and seeing in
the narrative a legendary or even
distortion of facts.
T h e phrase 'the city (or, perhaps, cities) of destruction' (24
may allude to the fate of Sidon and
;
it would be
unsafe to add of
26
a
liturgical poem) may
describe the feelings of the pious community of Jerusalem when
their city had been spared by the army of Alexander. They
were deeply grateful for this, but were still painfullyconscious of
the ruin wrought by the tyrant Ochus. T h e deportation of
many Jews to Hyrcania and elsewhere3 had made a gap
the population, and only by a
of healing' (read
from God could the martyrs be restored to their
brethren.
For a study of the ideas, phraseology, and situation,
see Znfr.
and see below
on
Chaps. 24-27 were prefixed to
to indicate
that for the Dost-exilic aee the chief interest of the
latter group of prophecies was
The two closely related
positions in chaps.
were doubt-
less added to promote the same interest.
T h e former chap.34 (observe the strange use made of
I t relates to the
These nations
popular
is sombre in the extreme,
great future
uoon the hostile nations.
author
of
thcsc
wrote
Jer.
w h y ?
were
of
sanie school
of
or
this
outburst
at
that
these
in
same
If
of
is correct,
of
prophccics to
chops.
has
A .
the
the
4
cp
Torrey,
Che.
2202
ISAIAH,
BOOK
ISAIAH, BOOK
attached were already
a
book of
a
sacred scripture.
These two prophecies, then, were
very probably the latest of the group.
T o
an
equally late period we must refer the appending
of certain narratives (chaps.
to
which reference has been made already (see
These narratives which are derived ultimately from prophetic
in most respects with the text of
K.
18
T h e older critics were in the main right
but
their analysis of the narratives was incomplete, and they gave
too much credit for accuracy to the account as a whole. Under
the influence of this impression they assigned too early a date to
the historical document from which it seemed to be derived.
I
SAIAH
6).
It has been shown (especially by Stade and Duhm)
that Is.
36-39
consists of two distinct narratives :
( a )
(a)
Psalm.-As
to the inserted passage,
of Hezekiah) which Knenen in 1863 did not
deny to Hezekiah, there can no longer be any doubt that
it is
a
post-exilic thanksgiving-psalm on the deliverance of
the faithful community of Israel from some great danger
(cp
Ps.
30)
the song or supplication
’
(see M
ICHTAM
)
is
not found in the parallel section of Kings.
passage, which to the last was
held by Kuenen to be Isaiah‘s (though he recognised the
weight
of
the counter arguments), and certainly belongs
to the original narrative (more strictly to the second of
the narratives) is held by
Duhm, Cheyne, and
Marti to be certainly post-exilic.
This is
Evidently this was taken by the narrator (or more prob-
ably by the first editor) from some lyric anthology, such
as
that from which we have already supposed the song
in
144b-21
to have been taken.
It
is
in fact a fine dra-
matic lyric’ (cp
Pss.
46
showing at once
a
vivid
realisation of the traditional story, and a sense of its
continued value to the community, which
(as
we have
seen) regarded the invasion of Sennacherib as typical
of
a
great future event.
The final redaction of the first half of Isaiah may be
dated (like the appendix to chap.
19)
about
220
but this is not free from doubt.
Taking
this collection for the moment
as
a unit, and putting
aside all but historical considerations, we
can no more dream of assigning it to Isaiah
than of ascribing By the waters of Babylon
we sat down
wept
(Ps.
137
I
)
to the authorship of
David. There might have been
a
case for the Isaianic
origin of Go ye out from Babylon
(48
if only the
passage had run, Behold, in the latter days my people
shall go forth from Bahylon.’ There might have been
a
case for such an origin of ‘Thus saith
to
Cyrus’
and of
holy and our beautiful
house
. .
.
is burned u p ’
if these passages
had been introduced by Behold,
I
will raise up a king,
Cyrus by name,’
and
In days to come
will send
fire upon Jerusalem.’
No
literary critic, however,
would
of supposing that the author of chaps.
66
was
a
prophet of the eighth century who had become
dead to his actual present, and lived again in imagina-
tion among men still
On this point the newer critics have nothing to add
to what was
so
well said by Kuenen in 1863. Indeed,
that eminent critic in his earlier stage was right both
positively and negatively
as
regards chaps.
40-48
266)
also recognises that these narratives came
from a separate work of prophetic origin.
See Che.
I s .
Intr.
I s .
Skinner,
Isaiah
p.
278,
who holds, however, that the song is
on
a
of individual experience, which was adapted for use in
the temple by a n editor.
36
3 8 J
On chaps.
40-48
we can be somewhat briefer.
O
F
This was
the theory
which Franz Delitzsch sought
to
reconcile the requirements of criticism and of orthodox
theology.
The later insertions (apart from the Songs
on the Servant)
detected by recent critics in chaps.
cannot be discussed
here. The most remarkable of these are to be found in chap. 48.
The editor
has actually interspersed
the
Second Isaiah’s writing
2203
(Duhm would say
40-55)
he was right, at any rate
negatively,
as
regards chaps.
56-66.
Where he failed
was in not giving due weight to certain phenomena in the
second part of chaps.
40-66
which (as conservative
critics saw) pointed away from Babylon as the place,
and from the closing years of the Exile
as
the time of
It
is
this second part of chaps.
40-66
that we have
now to consider.
The first question is, Have chaps.
49-55
been rightly assigned to the Second Isaiah?
( a )
Kuenen himself in 1889 already saw
the difficulty of his former position.
H e came to the conclusion that chaps.
501:
54A were written
after the return from Babylon and even expressed some doubt
whether chap. 49 should not ’be added to the group
2
In 536
B.C.
the Second Isaiah might have brought
the original Prophecy of Restoration to
and
Kuenen thought it not unreasonable to credit the same great
writer with the composition of the four chapters just mentioned.
Kosters, too, who did not accept the tradition of
a return in 536, was of opinion that
49 12-26
51
1-16
51
cannot have the same origin as chaps.
40-48.
They were written, according to him, in
Palestine,
not by the Second Isaiah.
The following
are Koster’s arguments.
There is no doubt a general
resemblance to chaps.
But observe that nowherein these
passages are the persons addressed described collectively a s
‘Jacob’ and Israel,’ and that in 52
I
Jerusalem is called the
‘holy city’
a characteristically late phrase, found
also in 48 (which is probably interpolated), and in Neh. 11
I
18
Dan.
9 24
cp also 64
I
O
thy holy cities
As to contents. Almost throughout, the point of view is
shifted from the exiles at Babylon to the small and struggling
community of Zion. There .are indeed points of contact with
the preceding prophecies but this only proves that the writer
this section was acquainted with the other work, not that h e
it. Moreover, when he comes to speak of the departure
of the exiles from Babylon, his expressions are inconsistent with
those of a parallel passage in the other work3 (contrast 52
‘not
in hurry shall ye go out,’ with 48
‘flee ye from
and if not in
in
491218
he admits the idea of a
general retnrn of the Diaspora, which is not mentioned in the
earlier chapters but was one of the chief hopes of the later Jews.
(See also
argument from internal evidence,
I
.
As to style and diction.
or
(c)
On the other hand, several things must be
observed.
(
I
)
The disputed passages are written in the manner
of
Isaiah, and contrast strongly with chaps.
they display an optimistic idealism which residence in the
Jerusalem of Haggai and Zechariah would have speedily
diminished
and (3) the address in 55
appropriate enough
for a preacher in Babylonia, would have sounded hollow and
insincere if spoken at Jerusalem.
Thus the evidence does not all point in one direction,
and a reconciling theory is required.
Let
then
suppose that the passages in question were written
in
Babylonia by
a
writer of the school of
Isaiah, but
with an eye to the circumstances of
The
writer’s object was partly to induce Babylonian Jews
with severe reproaches addressed to his own contemporaries,
whom he conceived to have fallen back into obstinate unbelief
(see
Isaiah SBOT). Nor can we here consider the question
Where did 6 e author of chaps.
live? Probably the
answer is, at Babylon. See Intr.
Zs.
In
the present writer began, not from a conservative
point of view, to set forth these phenomena on a large scale,
to
indicate the provisional conclusions to which they appeared
to-lead (see
and the art.
‘
Isaiah’ in
H e has lately
summed up the results of a
second period of study in the
Introduction
Zsaiuh
and in his
contributions on Isaiah to
SBOT.
T o these works and to
Duhm’s commentary (which has given the first complete ex-
planation of the historical background of most of
Is.
be
must send the reader for a fuller treatment of the subject.
[Marti’s fine commentary can now be added.] See also the im-
portant critical notes on Isaiah in Stade’s
I
,
which
really opened the subject to discussion.
49
50
52
be treats
another connection. See
farther
on in this article
Kosters also refers to
from thence,’
in
52
I I,
as proving
that the writer was not a t the time in
but
48
we have from Babylon
4
The words, the people ’in whose heart is my law’ (51
from
would be strange indeed if written a t Jerusalem.
ISAIAH, BOOK
ISAIAH, BOOK
to go
to Judaea and assist in the regeneration of Israel,
partly to encourage sorely tried workers in Jerusalem,
such
as
Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
Sellin
has endeavoured to show that
chaps.
4 0 - 5 5
were written, not in Babylonia, but at
Jerusalem between
and
500
to comfort the
Jews for the failure of the high hopes attached to
BABEL
Those passages which seem to refer to
the fall of Babylon heregards as having been written by
the same author at Babylon about
545
B.C.
The passages which are most certainly Babylonian are, Sellin
thinks 40
18-20
41
41
6-8
[41 17-20?] 41
25
42
14-16
43
43 14
1-13 46
I
T
48 14
The
in various passages to 'the former things' (41
22
42
with which 'new things'
486)
or ' a new
thing' (43
19)
are contrasted is explained by this theory. The
successes of Cyrns are the 'former things' prophesied some
thirty years ago, the glorification of Israel and the accomplish-
ment of
God's
purposes for the world through Zernhbabel, as
the Messianic king of Israel, are the
things' now just
being
When the hopes attached to Zerubbabel
failed in one sense the prophet was still able to look forward to
their realisation
(see chap.
53).
It is absolutely impossible to accept this theory as a
whole.
But to those who do not accept Kosters' theory
(that chaps.
4 9 - 5 5
are a later appendix to chaps.
it may seeni plausible to hold that chaps.
40-55
were
written
a t
with the object of encouraging the
community of Jerusalem to hope for
a
speedy regenera-
tion, and of stimulating patriots in Babylonia to go
to Jerusalem and help forward the cause of progress.
We say ' a t Babylon,' because certain passages pre-
suppose that Jerusalem is desolate, which, strictly
speaking, it was
Only a writer living at a dis-
tance from Judaea can have indulged in such idealism.
Another difficult problem .relates to the four very
beautiful songs
on
the Servant of
12).
It has been doubted
whether these songs are exilic or post-
exilic.
A
careful exegesis, however,
proves that they could be removed without material
injury to their surroundings, and that the tone of
thought differs from that of the prophecies among
which they are placed.
They must have received
their present position from
a
later editor, who wrote
(or
but not
which (cp
is more recent still. These passages
were designed to link the songs with their prophetic
framework. The inserter and editor cannot be identified
with the Second Isaiah still less was he the author of
the songs.
H e did his work subsequently to the
expansion of the
Book of the Second Isaiah;
in other words, he had before him the main part of
The songs on the Servant of
have one general
object-that of exhibiting the highest Israelitish ideal in
accordance with law and prophecy.
They are not,
however, without differences among themselves, which
require to be studied.
In the first three songs the Servant is an imaginative
fusion of all the noble teachers and preachers of the
Jewish religion in and after the time of
those of
whom the writer of Daniel says,
And the teachers shall
shine as the splendour
of
the firmament, and those who
make the many righteous as the stars for ever and ever
But the text seems to be incorrect (see
SBOT ad
The 'new things' are here described quite
except
so far as relates to Zernbhabel.
It
is possible that the writer of
chaps.
did mean to suggest that the successes of Cyrus had
been prophesied a good while before they took place. The
older prophecies were no doubt accommodated by interpreters
('95)
that the songs on the Servant were not
their present position.
Laue Die
...
des
see
,
,
.
t o
circ
S
Che.
Is.
,
Isa.
:
Schian, Die
in
'06.
D
.
agree in holding
intended for
Lieder
im
and
on
the
views of Sellin, Kittel, and Bertholet, see p.
Duhm rightly points out that the quiet concentrated
character, and the missionary and pastoral
ascribed to
the Servant, will only snit the period opened by Ezra.
2205
(Dan.
These the poet may have supposed t o
form
a
band, whose members would proceed in various
directions to 'bring the
law
to the nations'
Their experiences were not uniformly favourable but
they knew that in the end their faith in the God who
sent them would be rewarded.
In the fourth song, however, the conception of the
Servant is somewhat modified.
Looking back on the
sufferings of righteous Israelites both under Babylonia
and under Persia, the poet saw them irradiated by
a
glorious divine purpose.
H e fused the different name-
less martyrs into one colossal form, and identified this.
personage with the people of Israel,
perhaps without
a thought of Jeremiah, who certainly regarded himself
as
representing the true Israel.' I t would seem that
the opening and closing
stanzas
see emended
text in
SBOT)
were written
the description of the
fortunes of the Servant as
a
framework to receive it.
Schian and Kosters think that this last of the songs,
was written by
a
different writer from the rest it is the
oldest of the songs according to the former critic, the
most recent according to the latter.
The grounds
of
this view do not appear to be adequate.
Already in the
third song there is an approach to the characteristics of
the fourth, and the phraseology of the latter is much
less obscure than has commonly been thought, if proper
text-critical methods are applied.
C p Budde,
'
The so-called Ebed-Yahweh Songs etc
pp.
See further
S
ERVANT
It would seem that after the insertion of the Songs
Is.
4 0 - 5 5 ,
a prophetic writer did them the highest
honour in his power by imitating them.
Three brief soliloquies of this ideal
personage
and
6
a r e
introduced in chaps.
(on which see
The writer evidently regards the Servant as a personifi-
cation of the company of prophets of whom he himself
is one, and gives vividness to his prophecy by introduc-
ing the Servant of
first as discoursing on his
delightful mission, and then as importuning
fulfil his promises.'
At this
the
writer
refer to the
theory (based on-an earlier one
proposed in 1881 in the article Isaiah
in
Ency.
which he put forward
in
TOR.
and Oct.
'or.
H e divided the
second Isaiah
two books,
chaps.
and
a
collection of discourses
consisting of chaps. 49 1-52
1 2
; 52
(a later insertion
the Second Isaiah),
56
5 7 2 1
(beginning with a long
passage from an older prophet!-and
The second book,
being left incomplete by the author, was well adapted to receive
additions from the Sophkim or students and editors of the
religious literature.
Such
passages were
56
63-66.
This theory was in advance
of
the current criticism
of the time, but is now superseded by a more completely
defensible theory.
Chaps.
5 6 - 6 6
contain
no
works of the Second Isaiah,
but, with the possible (or probable) exception of
t o
the same
period-that of Nehemiah.
Duhm indeed assigns all these eleven chapters to a single
writer of Nehemiah's age whom he calls
(as
the
successor of Deutero-Isaiah).
The date is, on the whole,
correct, so far
regards
56-63
6
;
this portion gives a vivid
picture
of
the difficulties with which Nehemiah and Ezra con-
tended and throws fresh light on the dealings of the orthodox
Jews
the
On the other hand the view that
the book bas anything like literary unity, and
it is the work
of one man is not at all satisfactory. Cp
die
in
c.
die
des
('99).
We'
may hold it to be practically certain that chaps.
6 0 - 6 2
were written
as
an appendix to chaps.
40-55;
probably the original order was
61 62 60
(cp Duhm).
As
to
it belongs indeed to the same period
Che.
Is.
but cp Dnhm's commentary.
Ed. Meyer
recognises this
;
c p
also
Che.
2206.
ISAIAH, BOOK
ISHBAAL
as
the surrounding prophecies but it shows in a special
degree the
of Ezekiel.
We now pass to chap.
which stands
in many respects alone in the prophetic literature.
It
is
at any rate later than the neighbouring prophecies,'
for
though some illustrate it by Neh.
the prayer of
Nehemiah there given, and his account of what he
found at Jerusalem, do not correspond to such
a
terrible
situation
as
we
find
in this strange work. That a date
in the age of Nehemiah is impossible cannot indeed be
said, considering how imperfect is
our
information.
But it
is
more probable that the work
is
a fresh monu-
ment (cp on chaps.
24-27,
13)
of the oppression and
persecution
of
the Jews by Artaxerxes Ochus.
Pos-
sibly the opening verses
were added later to
soften the gloom
of
the passage (cp
Ps.
89).
For objections to this view see G. A. Smith (Hastings'
and Marti's commentary.
has to account for
by making it a later addition.) T h e objections are not
insuperable.
I
.
T h e view under consideration separates
from
the
compositions which make up chaps. 56-06. I t is set
apart already, however, by its form and contents.
The passage expresses a consciousness of guilt not to he
found in Pss. 44 74 79, which, also, have been assigned to
the time of Ochus. But it was possible, even after the
of the Law by Ezra, to take different views of the rela-
tion of the people to its God, according to the extent given to
the conception of the people. T h e inner circle deserved to he
called pious and loyal tn the covenant
(Ps.
44 17
79
but
the people a t large were far from
exactly to this
description. they were 'neither cold nor hot.
3.
I n 63
the possession
of
the Holy Land
is
said to have
lasted but ' a little while,' which points to an earlier part of the
period. T h e text, however, is notoriously doubtful.
18
should be emended thus (see
SBOT,
Why do the wicked trample thy dwelling-place?
Our adversaries tread down thy sanctuary.
Marti's suggested emendation
is
hardly a n improvement upon
this.
4.
I n 64
[IO]
the temple, over the destruction of which the
liturgical poet laments, is described a s our holy and
glorious
house where our fathers praised thee,' which points to the
first
temple. But
(
I
)
the
first
and the second temple are regarded
by Haggai (2 3 9) as the same house, and can be so regarded by
another writer and
the second temple had no doubt been
enriched by
from the Jews abroad before the time of
Ochus (cp
5.
Ps. 74 points to the conviction that prophecy has ceased in
Israel. But
Is.
betrays no such conviction. We must,
however, be quite sure of the correctness of the text of
Ps.
There is much corruption close
There is no prophet any
is, on more than one ground, to he regarded a s a gloss on
.the corrupt reading
which should be
('sanctuary').
'There is no longer among us any sanctuary.
This is to suppose that
the authors of Ps. 74 and
and of
Is. 63 7 etc threw themselves
back imaginatively into the time of the
invasion. The
commemorative fast-days would provide a n occasion for this.
P
SALMS
,
B
OOK
OF).
This, however, is not quite such a
natural view a s that here adopted. One may admit that there is a
general resemblance between most of the products of the later
Persian period but those which express the deepest misery can
hardly find a home except in
period of the insane cruelties
of that degenerate Persian king, Ochus. I t is remarkable that
there are parallels of thought, expression, and situation between
Is.
and Ps. 74 and 79, to which Robertson Smith
has
already given this date.
T o
a still later time belong two outbursts
of
bitter
animosity in
The final redaction of chaps.
40-66
may be placed
with
in the earlv Dart of the Greek
There is one alternative, no doubt.
The first
of the Book
(unless chap.
33
be of a later date)
was
comnleted between
and
2 2 0
B.C.
(cp
end), and there appears to be no reason
why the second half may not have reached its
final
form
about the same time.
On the redaction of Isaiah
as a
whole see above,
I
(end).
Recent
students
no
hook can be recommended than
in the
(2
vols., 96,
with
23.
Literature.
which Driver's
Zsaiah
('Men of the Bible')
may be combined. For special students the
commentaries
of
Delitzsch (4th ed.,
Dillmann and Kittel
(6th ed. of the
in
Duhm in
and
It
could not be placed in its chronological order a t the end
of
the book because of the unmitigated
gloom
of the conclusion.
in
is
a
good book for those who do not read German.
Among the well. known excellent
introductions
to the
whole OT,
is as critical from the point of view of
as
was that of Kuenen
German translation, '92)
ten years before.
One special introduction has appeared
(Cheyne's
Introduction,
etc., 95 Germ.
3.
Among
articles
G.
A.
Smith's may be specially
mentioned
2
This writer's earlier
volumes on Isaiah ('Isaiah,' in
Expositor's Bible,
two separate
parts, 88,
stimulating a s they are, are open to very
much adverse criticism. (English critics have lain too much
under the spell of Dillmann.) This scholar is now giving way
to the force of argument (whether his point
is quite clear,
careful readers of Duhm and Marti, and of similar hooks on other
prophets, will be able to judge). His article, however, is, to-
gether with Skinner's unpretending but learned work, one of
the most hopeful signs in English Bible-study, which
present
in the O T department is too predominantly moderate.
G. A.
Smith's inclusion of the 'theology' of Isaiah (a bad
gener-
ally accepted term) limits the criticism somewhat unduly, and
leads him into statements which are not as securely founded a s
one could wish. But he is true to himself; and what he says,
even when critically defective, is sure to be educationally most
useful.
T h e bibliography which occupies over two closely
printed columns, is
so
full
it would seem like imitation to
give the like here. Besides it is really better for the student
to find out
for himself from the references
contained in first-rate books. C.
H. H.
Wright has a learned
article in Smith's
and Klostermann
6
T o learning Klostermann joins a singular independ-
ence of view but he often leads the student
rough,
ways.
4.
Investigations
of
parts
of
Isaiah.
Articles by
Stade
in the
have left their impress on
all
later works
(cp
Intr.
' D i e Composition des
B.
Jes.,'
4
Lagarde
('78,
pp.
critical notes
on chaps, 1-17.
('go)
cp Siegfried's review
'go,
p. 568.
We find these words in
the preface,
can
other epithet for Dillmann's treat-
ment of the text but "antiquated." It cannot be right for an
interpreter to put sentences into the mouth of such masters of
speech as the prophets, which
the awkwardness of their
form and
unnaturalness of their contents are nothing short
of offensive. Guthe,
Das
('85).
Winck:
ler,
A T
'97;
Forsch.
'93,
etc.;
J.
Ley,
J.
Die
36-39
valuable.
The Exile's
Book
Consolation
based
two articles
in the
Zt.,
Nov
98
(exegetical and con-
troversial). Neubauer and
The
chapter
Isaiah
according
the Jewish
vols. '76, '77. See
also
I
S
A
I
A
H
i.;
M
ESSIAH
. S
ERVANT
O
F
THE
L
ORD
.
Among
commentators
vols. fol.,
stands out
his exemplary thoroughness. But
the reconstruction of exegesis produced its first great work
Hitzig
Ewald
(Die
41
ed., 67,
Dillmann (5th ed. of
in
'go)
worthily followed. C p Del.
where
the titles of Cheyne's earlier works on Isaiah are given
;
Che.
2
268-286
Zntr.
T h e greatest weakness in most commen-
taries
Isaiah is their too great dependence on the
MT.
Among the older exegetical scholars of our day no one has
perceived this
so
clearly as Klostermann, as can he seen to
some extent from his article
in
just referred to, and
still more from his indispensable work,
und
('93).
If the present
Book
in
English edition,
should be grouped by scholars with this little work, and
the collections of critical emendations of other able workers, it
will be a recompense. For many specimens of the fine work
of
Lagarde,
Duhm, etc., the reader
referred to
SBOT.
Later results on several parts of
be found in
Crit.
[ADEL]), daughter of
I
(Gen. 11 29).
The strong probability is that
father of
is a variant of 'the father of
(similarly Ball,
Gen.
59,
foot). But instead of comparing
and
we can now see that
comes from
which was a
necessary emendation of
See
T. K.
C.
5.
works.
6. Text of
Isaiah.
IC.
c.
ISCARIOT.
See J
UDAS
I
SCARIOT
.
ISDAEL,
G
IDDEL
I
5 3 3
I
S
HBAA
L
or
5,
G
IDDEL
,
2.
man of Baal
cp the Greek forms
[end of
I
],
[end of
also the form
in
M T of
I
Ch.
8 3 3 9 3 9
:
i. Most critics hold that the true
name
of
Saul's
2208
2207
ISHBAAL
ISHBI-BENQB
under Jashobeam (see
I
)
we may remark
(
I
)
that out of the final
in
(
shame
Baal),
combined with 6 from
den
son of
'),
a syllable
has been produced in M T of
2
S.
(the letters being
transposed), thus completing Joshebbasshebeth (cp
RV)
that, the final
in
having been dropped,
the initial
in
'the Hachmonite') has been
corrupted into a
thus producing the otherwise un-
known word
(RV
Tahchemonite')
and
( 3 )
that the name of the warrior's father can be supplied
from
I
Ch.
On the third point, notice the similar
designations of Eleazar and Shammah in
2
S.
(and cp Budde,
ad
Marq.
Fund.
The corruption, however, of this passage reaches still
further.
In
S.
we are told that the hero was chief of
the captains' (so
EV)
from the sequel, however, it is
clear that we should, with Wellhausen, read
chief of the three' (cp
'these things did the
three
mighty men
').
The three was in fact the title of
David's noblest heroes, next to whom came the thirty'
(see D
AVID
,
A
BISHAI
). The verse continues
most tantalisingly with three meaningless words, for
a
probable restoration of which see A
DINO
. At the close
hear of 800 slain at once.'
In Ch. the number is
put at
300
but the reading 800 (which
both in
Sam. and in Ch. increases to 900) is supported by the
obvious fact that it was by outdoing Abishai (cp
18)
that
Ishbaal obtained the first place. The account of Ishbaal
in
S.
2 3 8
should therefore most probably be read thus
-'
Ishbaal, son of Zabdiel, a Hachnionite, chief of the
three.
He brandished his spear against 800 men, slain
at one time
The Greek renderings are
[Jos.
in
S.
[L]
.
in
I
Ch.
27
[B,
A,
L],
in
I
Ch.
[probably a mere
textual error for
[B],
[A],
TBS
ad
mentions seven codices with the reading
and
three with
3. A Korahite :
I
Ch. 1 2 6
[AL]). See
T. K. C.-S.
A.
C.
ISHBAH
the clan to which the
people of Eshtemoa belonged,
I
Ch.
417
[A],
and
[I-]).
makes Ishbah a son of
MT, as it now stands,
mentions neither of his parents (see Be. ad
ISHBAK
in Gen.];
[E
in Gen.];
[B in Ch.]), a
'son of Abraham by Keturah (Gen.
I
Ch.
132).
Identified by Fr. Del.
and Ball (Smith's
with Yasbuk,
a
district in
N.
Syria men-
tioned by Shalmaneser
in his monolith inscription
Its king or chieftain was an ally
of
the
Yasbuk must therefore have lain some-
where between the Euphrates and the Orontes. Yasbuk
suggests the spelling
[BAL],
E
N
[A]),
the supposed name of a
Philistine giant (see
2
S.
21
(not mentioned
in
Ch.
20).
The words
so
read, however (given more
accurately in Kt. with
instead of
have to be taken
with their context. Notice first, with Wellhausen, that
the closing words of
(EV 'and David waxed
faint
'),
are very inappropriate in a description of a single
combat. T h e verb should probably be
while
iii
appears to conceal the name of the giant with whom
David fought thus we get the sense
'
and
. . .
arose'
(cp
I
The two opening words of
should
obviously be read
'and they
David and
I
reads 'chiefof
the
or 'chiefof the
knights.
(SBOT)
suggests that the
of
stands for
whence we should
restore
'
Ishbaal
cp
Marq.
2210
ISHBI-BENOB (Ktb.
Kr.
.
.
The former is read in
S. by Be. and Gr.
successor was, not
I
SHBOSHETH
but Ishbaal,
and they account for the form Ishbosheth ( ' m a n of
of the shameful idol), and for the faulty
pronunciation Eshbaal by
scruple see Hos.
and cp
and
of
I
K.
see also J
ERUBBAAL
M
ERIBAAL
.
Bosheth
for Baal gratifies the love of alliteration.
thinks
Bosheth in Ishbosheth and
hosheth is a distortion of Besheth, which
is the name of a
deity,
inferred from such names
as
'man of
and suggests that
(powerful?-cp
Am.
Tab.
may have been a designation of the consort of Baal
There is, however, still another explanation which may
seem to avoid some
of
the difficulties of both these views (see
I
.
The youngest son of Saul,' and, under the tutelage
of
A
BNER
his successor. His authority is said
to
have extended over Gilead, the
ites? Geshurites?), Jezreel, Ephraim, Benjamin, and (in
fact) all Israel' except Judah
That his
capital was fixed at Mahanaim on the
E.
of the Jordan
shows that Saul's house felt itself safer in Gilead
2
than within reach of the Philistines, unless indeed we
suppose with Winckler that Ishbaal was gradually
pushed by the conquering David into trans-Jordanic
territory.
So
much at all events is certain, that Ishbaal
was a political nonentity
the true chief of the house of
Saul was Abner.
Ishbosheth or Ishbaal was too young
for his position (the statement as to his age in
2
S.
210
implies
a
wrong chronological scheme), and equally
devoid of shrewdness and courage. The precise amount
of
truth in the story of the dispute concerning Rizpah
37-12)
cannot be determined
Winckler indeed
hazards the conjecture that Abner murdered Ishbaal in
the hope of becoming king himself.
The tradition or
legend, however, ascribes
death to two of his
captains.
But the story is difficult.
T o a man
'reckoned
as belonging to the same tribe as
selves (see B
EEROTH
, B
EN
JAMIN
, §
3),
who had also,
when they came upon him, the sacredness attaching
to a sleeper (see D
AVID
,
col.
1032,
n.
2 ) ,
and
who was above all the anointed of Yahwe,' they dealt
afatal blow
A plausible explanation has been given by Ewald
136).
The two reputed Benjamites may
have been descendants of the Canaanites, and have had
to flee to
from the Canaanitish town of
Beeroth, when Saul put to death the Gibeonites
S.
4
3,
cp
The murder of Ishbaal would in this case
be the performance .of the sacred duty of avenging
The Greek forms of the name are
[cod. 93 Aq. Symm., Theod.].
I n
occurs
odd reading
-Bat
[A],
hut
in 3
7
and
Symm.
Theod.].
If the view maintained elsewhere
be adopted, the form 'Ishbosheth'
a
better claim to he
adopted than Ishbaal.
2.
Either Ishbosheth (or a name which may underlie
Ishbosheth see M
EPHIBOSHETH
) or Ishbaal seems to
be the true name of the first hero on the list of David's
mighty men, which
is
to be restored
2
238
I
Ch.
11
(see
JASHOBEAM).
If we may follow the prevalent
theory, Ishbaal is to be preferred; but in either case
the name of David's hero has undergone a strange
transformation.
Anticipating the explanation given
Another corruption
of
the name appears to occur in
in
I
Wi. (Gesch. 2
has tried to make out that Saul was
of Jabesh who conquered the
of Benjamin,
which had previously had the leadership of
N.
Israel on this
side of the Jordan.
3
The scene is vividly
in
which in
6
is
to be
preferred to
M T
(Driver Budde
H. P.
Smith etc.).
It
should be observed,
that
S.
4
3 is
a
marginal
gloss
of
uncertain age and
(We.
161).
It
bas
suggested
that
David's treatment of the two captains
is in a line with his
of the Amalekite who slew Saul
S. 1 14. But is this tradition to be trusted
See
I
SRAEL
:
16 cp
Gesch.
But see S
AUL I
.
ISHBOSHETH
ISHMAEL
his men) tarried in Nob'
they should be replaced
either after
'with him,'
or
before
The latter position is that recommended by Kittel
(Kau.
who, appealing to the
of
(see
below), finds in
(end of
pronounced
the
name of David's antagonist. At any rate it seems
plain that the words rendered and Ishbi-benob should
rather be read and tarried in Nob,' unless indeed we
boldly correct
Nob' into 'Gob,' and ' G o b ' into
Wellhausen, Kittel, and Rudde read
'
for 'Noh com-
paring
in MT. This
is
either,
much or too
little.
know of no place called
but we do know
of 'Noh.
It remains worthy of consideration, however
whether the hold step mentioned above would not really be
proof of true critical circumspection.
If Nob is correct it may mean the place called
by Jer. and now known as
which is on an old
road from Ramleh to Jerusalem, a little to the NE. of
Aijalon and some 13 m. NW. of Jerusalem.
Though
really more than 700 ft. above the sea-level, it lies
on
flat ground.
Twice in
1 1 9 2
Richard
I.
stayed here
with his army,
nor
can it be denied that it was
a
natural
place for David and his men coming from Jerusalem
(see D
AVID
) to tarry in, awaiting the Philistines
Pesh. has, and David and Joab and Abishai feared the
ISHBOSHETH
S. 2
8
41
EV
T. K. C .
(following
.
See I
SHBAAL
,
I
M
EPHIBOSHETH
.
a
title of B
ENAIAH
I
)
in
S.
is a fragment of
('valour')
the lost letter is
supplied in the Kr.
with which
I
Ch.
EV follows.
The son of a valiant man (EV), how-
ever, is only half right ;
'
son
(of),' which was added
by a scribe's error, should be omitted with
unless
is
a
corruption of
After all, it may be best to read
'son of
a
Jerahmeelite of
(Che.).
ISHHOD
I
RV, AV
in mg.
of
EV rendered 'my husband'
(so
the antithesis to Baali (Hos.
abbrev. from
I
SAIAH
ISH-HAI,
the
son
of
See H
OSEA
,
6.
. .
I
.
A Jerahmeelite, representing the sons of Appaim,
I
Ch. 2
See
J
ERAHMEEL
,
a.
.-
in a Judahite genealogy;
I
Ch. 4
[A],
Mentioned in a
genealogy;
I
Ch.
442
4.
A Manassite,
I
Ch.
524
I
Ch.
7 3
RV
I
SSHIAH
,
I
.
Ezra1031 AV.
ISHMA
abbrev. from
I
SHMAEL
?),
an
obscure place- or family-name in
I
Ch.
[B],
and I
SHMAELITES
, I
SHMEELITE
,
I
Ch.
2
I
.
Ishmael, the son of Abraham and
is the personification of a group of tribes
who were regarded as near kinsmen of the Israelites.
Their wild mode of life is admirably portrayed in the account
of their ancestor-' h e shall be as a wild-ass among men his hand
shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him
and he shall dwell (as a dangerous enemy) over against all his
brethren (Gen. 16
Another passage states only that Ishmael
dwelt in the desert and was an archer (Gen. 21
According to some statements the home, or original
abode, of Ishmael was the wilderness to the
S.
of
Palestine as far
as
the frontier
of
Egypt.
When Hagar
See
I
SSHIAH
,
5.
ISHMAEL
2211
is
driven forth together with her child Ishmael, an angel
appears to her in the desert of Beersheba (Gen. 21
The other account places the appearance of the angel
between
and
(Gen. 16
)
is obscure
the site of Kadesh
is
no longer doubtful (see K
ADESH
,
I
).
The state-
ment in Gen.
agrees with the passage which
represents Ishmael as dwelling in the wilderness of
(Gen.
the N. part of the Sinaitic
peninsula.
His mother was
an
Egyptian (Gen.
25
cp M
IZRAIM
,
The corresponding word in
another account (Gen. 219) may perhaps be
a
addition by the compiler
the same narrative,
however, mentions that Ishmael's mother took
a
wife out
of
Egypt
On
the other hand
Esau,
the ancestor of the Edomites, marries a daughter of
Ishmael (Gen.
363)
in both passages she is
designated as the sister of Nebaioth, Ishmael's
firstborn but whilst in the former passage she is called
she bears in the latter the name of Basemath.
In
2634, however, Basemath is another wife of
Esau.
How this confusion
is
to be explained we cannot
say but it seems clear at least that the references to
Ishmael's connection with Egypt on the one side and
with Edom on the other, accord with the geographical
position of the Ishmaelites in the N. of the Sinai desert.
moreover, is the region explicitly assigned to them
in Gen.
2518,
though there we read that their domain
extended much farther in the direction of Arabia, for
such is doubtless the meaning of the phrase 'from
Havilah,' whatever uncertainty there may be as to the
precise position of H
AVILAH
or as to the
author's conception of it.
The idea that the Ishmaelites
were actually spread over this wide territory agrees with
all that can be ascertained respecting the
'sons'
of
Ishmael.
According to Gen.
Ch.
Ishmael
had twelve sons these are to be regarded as eponyms
of tribes or localities.
In this case we
have even less right to attach
a
strictly
literal sense to the number twelve than
in the case of the twelve sons of Israel (cp I
SRAEL
,
G
ENEALOGIES
, i.
5).
Nor is it possible to ascertain
whether at any time there were twelve tribes forming
some kind of religious confederation under the name
of
God hears
whether the tribe of
Ishmael, in consequence of its superiority, came
to
be re-
garded
as
the father of several smaller tribes, or whether,
finally, this classification be due to some other cause.
That the genealogy cannot be treated as the expression of
a
fixed political system is abundantly clear from the fact that in an
ancient narrative
8 24)
the Midianites are reckoned among
the Ishmaelites, whereas, according to the genealogical lists
in
Genesis,
was a step-brother of Ishmael.
The name of Ishmael must have played
a
considerable
part in very ancient times. Soon, however, it fell com-
In
I
Ch.
the chief overseer of David's camels is the
Ishmaelite Obil, which may be plausibly
explained
as
a Hebrew, or specifically Ishmaelite, form
of the Arabic
'
camel-herd (see
A
BEL
).
Another
Ishmaelite (but see A
BIGAIL
,
2
I
THRA
)
married a
of David and was the father of the military chief Amasa
( I
Ch.
[L],
see A
MASA
). Moreover,
version of the story of Joseph describes the people who
brought Joseph into Egypt
as
Ishmaelites
whereas
E.
calls them Midianites
renders
'in
by
in
28). The Yahwistic narrator (8th
century
c.
speaks of Ishmaelites carrying spices on
their camels from Gilead to Egypt he must therefore
have been acquainted
Ishmaelite caravans engaged
in traffic of this kind.
In subsequent times we hear no
more of Ishmael as an actually existing people for the
mention of the Ishmaelites, together with several other
ancient peoples, in
Ps.
is
a
mere
figure of speech referring to some hostile nation
of
the
author's own time.
2212
pletely into the background.
ISHMAEL
ISHMAEL
On
the other hand, some of Ishmael's sons' are
mentioned later, and even very much later we find
them, moreover, in several places separ-
ated by considerable distances.
(
I
)
The
first-born, Nebaioth, not unfrequently
appears as
(not to mention slight variations of
spelling) in Assyrian inscriptions' (see Del.
Par.
Schr.
147).
As an example may be cited
the great inscription of
(668-628
c.
This
seems therefore to have dwelt
in the Syrian desert or farther
Its name is not to be
confounded with that of the
A
considerable number of passages in the pro-
phetical and poetical books make mention of K
EDAR
.
which
is
invariably described as a desert people
in the
sense of the term.
The Assyrian inscriptions several times mention the
or
(see Del.
Schr.
Once, in an inscription of
tlie name is
used even as a synonym of
with the
variants there given). Furthermore, Pliny
65)
refers to
the
a s an Arabian tribe in the neighbourhood of the
Nabatieans (cp also
111
From these passages we may conclude with tolerable
certainty that the tents of Kedar were pitched in the
Syrian desert, perhaps encroaching upon Arabia proper.
(3)
is identified by Del.
with
the
or
(?)
of
inscriptions. Their home, he states, was
SW.
of the
Dead Sea, towards the Egyptian
in the
ancient territory of Ishmael (but cp
(4)
is
probably the eponym of the oasis
of
or
now usually called
(about half-way between Damascus
the
present capital of Nejd), on the
border of the Syrian
desert.
In
the place appears as
in Ptol.
and in Steph. Byz. on the authority of the well-
informed
a s
D
UMAH
.
Massa seems to occur
in
Ass. as Mas'u (mentioned
with
a
N.
Arabian tribe (see Schr.
2
K G F
261
etc.,
KAT on
Gen.
Del.
Par.
302).
Cp
[i.]
( 6 )
Tema
south country,' from the root
cp
synonym
from
is doubtless identical
with the modern
or
(in the N. of the
Tema was unquestionably one of the most
important stations on the ancient trade route from
Yemen to Syria. On its historical importance and
on
other biblical references see
Jetur was one of the tribes that waged war with the
Israelites settled to the
E.
of the Jordan
(
I
Ch.
519).
From
IO
it would seem that they dwelt there in the
times of Saul. This is, however, probably wrong but
the position may be right for the Chronicler's time. The
domain of Jetur must accordingly have been not far from
the Israelite Peraea somewhat fuller information on the
subject may be obtained from Strabo
(753,
755,
who places the Ituraeans, a people doubtless identical
wtih Jetur, in the southern part of the Antilibanus, and
also, it would seem, in the eastern spurs of this monntain
range.
The
or
are not unfrequently
mentioned during the ages in question. They were
partially subdued by the Jewish king
I.
(107
and compelled to adopt the Jewish religion
(Jos.
Ant.
11
3);
buf it is scarcely probable that they
remained faithful to the Mosaic law.
Afterwards this
country, like many other districts of Syria, served
a
succession of masters, until in
on the death
of the last Iturcean king
(Sohaim), it was
finally incorporated with the province of Syria (see
Dio,
4 6 3 2 ,
106,
7,
I O ;
Eutrop.
distinct from this are
(of
and his successors), who appear to belong
to a Babylonian subdivision (see
KB
2
The spelling
occurs once in a military inscription
3
On two inscriptions
see
'99,
2213
6
14
Strabo,
59
Ann.
12
23).
The Ituraeans were an unusually savage people, and the
neighbourhood of, Damascus suffered much from their
depredations (Strabo,
755)
gentium
barbaros, says Cicero in speaking of them
2
See J
ETUR
,
I
TUREA
.
Like the Ishmaelites of old, the Iturieans used the how a s their
chief weapon ; several authors mention
archers in the
armies of Rome (see Cicero,
2 9 ;
Lucan,
230,
; and compare
Sequester in
Similarly, in Latin inscriptions dating from the time of t h e
Emperors we read of
soldiers
34367,
4368,
In some of the passages above mentioned the Iturieans
are represented a s Arabs (cp also Pliny,
whilst in
others the Arabs and the Iturieans are distinguished.
In the
fourth century after Christ the name of this people seems
io
have been obsolete.
No
genuine tradition as to Jetur or any of
his brethren is to be found in Arabian literature, and the sole
surviving traces of their existence are the geographical names
and
( 8 )
Naphish occurs in
I
Ch.
together with Jetur,
among the enemies of the Reubenites but nothing else
is
of this tribe.
See also M
IBSAM
, M
ISHMA
,
K
EDEMAH
.
Whether the language of the tribes who bore the
names of Ishmael and of his sons was more nearlv
related to Hebrew or to Arabic remains
The former view
an open question.
might seem to derive some support from the OT.
That a few of these tribes are occasionally described
as
Arabs would prove nothing to the ccntrary, for in the
O T the term
Arab does not necessarily convey the
precise ethnographical and linguistic sense which
w e
attach to it at present (cp A
RABIA
,
I
,
3).
In favour
of
the hypothesis that the Ishmaelite language was a t
least closely akin to that which we call Arabic, it may
be mentioned that in an Assyrian inscription
2
the god of Kedar bears the name of
Afar
here
is the Arabic
not the Hebrew
whilst
admits of being taken
as
an ancient
Arabic plural of
'heaven.'
Of the Iturzean
proper names in the inscriptions
3
4367
some
are undoubtedly Aramaic, others probably Arabic but
from these facts no certain conclusion can be drawn
with regard to the original nationality of the people in
question, as niust be apparent to any one who
is
moderately well acquainted with the personal
of
those times and countries. Still less can we build
an
argument upon the Arabic name Suhaim, which was
borne by the last Ituraean king, for of the use of this
name there are other instances in Syria at that period,
and it is moreover quite uncertain whether this Suhaim
was himself of Iturzean extraction.
The occasional use of the name Ishmael in later
times, long after it had become obsolete in reality, as
a
designation of the Arab race, and the theory of the
Muslim genealogists, who regard Ishmael as the
ancestor of one half of the Arabs, cannot be derived
from any independent native tradition
it must be
b. Nethaniah b. Elishama; the
of
G
EDALIAH
whom Nebuchadrezzar had made
governor of Judah after the captivity of Zedekiah (Jer.
40
8
41
[LXX,
47
8
and
48
in
The terrible episode is briefly told elsewhere
(see I
SRAEL
,
43). It is enough to mention here
that it was an act of vengeance on the Babylonians.
who had overthrown the
of David, to which
Ishmael himself belonged.
This conjecture is not
only intrinsically probable, it appears to be proved
by the fact that not only Gedaliah and his Jewish
attendants but
also
the
who were there'
at Mizpah), namely, the warriors, fell victims to the
rage of Ishmael. Another person was not less eagerly
bent on this fell deed-this was the Ammonite king
Baalis-the same perhaps who, at the beginning
of
Zedeltiah's reign, had sought
to
induce that king
head
a
confederacy against the Babylonians (Jer.
27
3).
2214
mere speculation based
upon
the
T. N.
With Baalis Ishmael designed
place the captives
whom he carried away from Mizpah, among whom
were relations of his own-certain daughters of the
king,’ whom Nebuzaradan had left.
The plan was
deeply laid
but word of it had got abroad, and but
for his unsuspecting simplicity the honest and patriotic
governor might have escaped (Jer. 40
Treachery
came
t o
the aid of revenge. First, Ishmael and his ten
companions were entertained at a meal by the hospitable
governor, and then, perhaps at night, they set upon their
host and all who were about
them.
certain pilgrims, who arrived the next day with offerings
spread the news. Their dead bodies were thrown into
9
-possibly the ancient reservoir, the remains
which
,may still be seen
on
the
W.
side of the hill of
(see
$4). This gave time for
captains) to come up with them.
Ishmael
and his ten warriors had to give way to superior force.
escape to the Ammonites. The seventh day of Tishri
(the seventh month), the day of
murder, was
long observed by the Jews
as
a
fast-day (see S
HAREZER
,
b.
of the family of Saul
(1
Ch. 8
944).
revolution
Ch. 23
I
).
They paused by the great waters that are in
4.
Ch. 19
I
T
om.
B).
5.
Jehohanan, a captain who took ’part in
6.
One of the b‘ne
among the
those with foreign wives (see
E
ZRA
i.,
5
end).
T.
N . ,
T. K.
[BAL]).
I
SMAIAH
,
see D
AVID
,
1
1
a
I
SHMAEL
,
I
.
I
Ch. 2
See
Elpaal in
a
genealogy of B
ENJAMIN
(I
Ch.
perhaps the same as Shemer
or
in
v.
(see S
HAMED
). See
11
I.
glory
’),
one of the sons Of H
AMMOLEKETH
I
Ch.
(
[A],
[L]
Virum-decorum
As
of
P a n d
sometimes seem
‘
Jegar-sahadutha’ in Gen. 31 47
;
see
ISHPAH
I
Ch.
8
16
RV, AV
(\?$!*
§
a
Benjamite
I
(
in
represents the
of
A
proper name seems wanted.
name? More probably we should read
Issachar
(cp
I
Ch.
ISH-TOB
(AV
[Vg.],
is mentioned with
and Maacah in
S.
10
6 8
(but not
ISHMEELITE (
..
ISLE,
ISLAND
in
I
Ch.
6
According
to
AV, it is the name of
a
state (otherwise unknown) which furnished twelve
times
as
many warriors
as
Maacah.
It appears certain,
however, that the words a thousand
after the
king
of
Maacah (see
RV
of
v.
6)
should be omitted
they must have arisen, by corruption of the text,
sequently to the time of the Chronicler (see
I
Ch.
19
7).
Kau.
preserve’and‘
before Ish-tob
This, however, is hardly
natural
it seems better to read
(the
king of Maacah) Ish-tob, and with
,
. .
(see
king
(so
Jos. Ant.
vii.
I
,
Klo., W i . ) ; or rather, it is
a
substitute for his name, for it only describes the king as
of
RV renders ‘the men of
which is philologically quite possible, though here
improbable.
The second reference to Ish-tob
8)
may be an interpolation from
version
of
V.
6.
ISHUAI
T.
C .
§
: Gen. 4617
(
[A],
Ishuah)
I
Ch.
7
is absent from the parallel list in
Nu.
26
44.
ISHVI
4 2 ;
cp I
SHVAH
).
I
.
b.
Gen. 4617 (AV I
SUI
;
[A],
The
Ishvite
occurs in
Nu.
[BAL],
[F]).
2.
The second of the three sons of Saul mentioned
I
.
All four names are given by the Chronicler
( I
Ch.
8
33).
evidently read
after
and
Ewald
(Hist.
Well-
hausen, Driver, and others conclude that
or
s
transformation of
Ishbaal (see
I
).
This is
slightly forced and as Klostermann points out,
is replaced
in
I
S.
31
is
obvious that the notice in
14
49
with
kind of art prepares the way for that in
But
it would be rash to ’say with Klostermann that the two names
synonymous.
is
simply due to textual error. T h e
wrote ‘Jonathan, Malchishua, and
instead
of ‘Jonathan,
and Malchishua.
But of the first
remained
which
corrupted into
The first three letters became effaced. That
is not mentioned has already been accounted for. (He was not
on the fatal battlefield.
reading is but a guess.)
T.
IC.
C.
usually
but
in
Is.
41
j
42 4,
in
25
Esth. 10
I
[also Dan.
11
In Jer.
Jer.
‘region.’
sense we expect, and this could perhaps
he reached by read-
ing
rather
‘
a hadrenderingof Lowthinsomeotherpassages
of
Is.
seems to connote distance.
The biblical writers draw within the circle
of
their
hopes and aspirations a number of countries which were
accessible by sea.
‘Islands’ for ‘far countries‘ is
also
Egyptian records.
‘
Islands
in
the
midst
of
the sea,’ the lands of the sea,’ and the
connection with special reference to the coasts of Greece
and Italy
( W M M
As.
334 359 363 369).
The later O T writers constantly use the term, and we
find the ‘isles of
(Ezek.
the ‘isles of
Cp
rendering of
in Is.
23
2216
Document Outline
- Title
- Key to Signatures in Volume II
- Maps in Volume II
- Contributors to Volume II
- Eagle - Eglath-Shelishiyah
- Eglon - Egypt
- Egypt, River of - Enos
- En-Rimmon - Essau
- Eschatology
- Esdraelon - Evil-Merodach
- Exact - Ezra-Nehemiah
- Ezra, the Greek - Flint
- Flock, Tower of the - Gaius
- Galatia - Gallery
- Galley - Geography
- Geography - Gilgal
- Giloh - Goshen
- Gospels part 1
- Gospels part 2
- Gospels part 3
- Gotholias - Hamu or Hami, names with
- Hamuel - Heath
- Heathen - Hermon
- Hermonites - Hippopotamus
- Hirah - Horonaim
- Horonite - Inn
- Inscriptions - Isle, Island
- Israel
- Issachar - Javan
- Javelin - Jeremiah (book)
- Jeremiah, Epistle of - Jerusalem
- Jerusalem - Job (book)
- Jobab - John, Son of Zebedee
- Joiada - Jotham
- Jozabad - Kedesh
- Kedeshah - Kushaiah