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thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. Yea, every boot of the booted warrior, and the cloak rolled in blood, they are to be burned up as fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

IV

Later in the book there is a Messianic passage which, with all its obscurity and difficulty, still declares plainly that the deliverance shall be wrought out at the cost of pain to the deliverer. He shall suffer, and by means of his suffering, even by means of his death, we shall be saved.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion:-"Thy God reigneth!" Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Žion. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord. For

ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel be your rearward.

Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: so shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider. Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And they made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days,

and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many: for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

The opening words indicate a situation quite different from the fear of the Assyrians with which the book began. The Golden Age, as it is here foreseen, includes among its initial blessings the restoration of the "waste places of Jerusalem." But in the time of Isaiah there were no waste places in Jerusalem. The holy city was protected and delivered, as he said it would be.

It is evident from the arrangement of the chapters that this passage is in the second volume of Isaiah. The first volume ends, like the book of Jeremiah, with chapters of history taken from Kings. (Is. 36-39— II Kings 14-20, as Jer. 52—II Kings 24:18-25:21.) It appears, however, by a comparison of the situation in the first volume (1-39) with the situation in the second volume (40-56) that between the two is a space of two hundred years. In I Isaiah the great enemy is Assyria, at first threatening, then destroying the northern kingdom, then invading the southern kingdom, even to the walls of Jerusalem. In II Isaiah there is no mention of Assyria; the Assyrians have disappeared in the long past. Their place is taken by the Chaldeans, whose city of Babylon has now become the

capital of the world. In the days of King Hezekiah, when Isaiah was in the midst of his ministry, the Chaldeans were a subject people, under the rule of Assyria, trying to persuade the Jews to join them in rebellion (Is. 39). Now they rule the nations; they have destroyed Jerusalem; they have carried the Jews into captivity. Already, however, on the horizon appear the Persians (Is. 45); they shall conquer the Chaldeans; and thus the long exile shall be ended, and the holy city shall be rebuilt and inhabited. A central purpose of I Isaiah was to declare that Jerusalem should not be overthrown by the Assyrians. A central purpose of II Isaiah was to declare, two hundred years later, that Jerusalem, overthrown by the Chaldeans, should again become the city of the Jews. Both volumes bear the name of Isaiah because the first volume begins with an account of his ministry, and contains many of his sermons; as two of the historical books, for a like reason, bear the name of Samuel.

IX

THE PROPHETS: THE CHALDEAN PERIOD

MOS and Hosea, preaching in the northern king

AMOS

dom, and Micah and Isaiah, preaching in the southern kingdom, in the shadow of the Assyrian invasion, were followed a century later by a second group of prophets who dealt with the conditions attending the invasion of Judah by the Chaldeans, the fall of Jerusalem at their hands, and the captivity of the conquered Jews in Babylon.

I

Except the first of the group, Zephaniah. He was moved to prophetic speech by the menace of invasion not of the Assyrians, but of the Scythians. These wild tribes are not named in the book, but Herodotus says that at that time they came swarming from the north, and put all the civilization of the world in peril. That was in Josiah's day, the book says, and evidently before the reformation which Josiah set on foot after the appearance of Deuteronomy. A fair guess at a date is 625. Down came the Scythians, and made their fearful way along the coast road through the land of the Philistines on their way to invade Egypt. Thence they were turned back, probably by a bribe. Zephaniah

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