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