And thy land Beulah ('married'): For the Lord delighteth in thee, And thy land shall be married." *-62: 4. (2.) In the earlier days of his prophetic work, Isaiah had foretold, distinctly, though with some vagueness as to times and seasons, what was given him to see of the great period of the world's history then just opening, and the foreign policy of Hezekiah had been guided for the most part by his foresight. First, Assyria was to be the scourge of God, "the rod of his indignation (7: 17-8: 8; 10: 1-11). Then that burden should pass away. The great monarchy should crumble and fall (10: 12-19, 24-26). From Egypt, unstable and treacherous, little was to be hoped or feared (19: 125). But another empire should rise in its place mightier and more terrible. "The glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency," should become the oppressor of the nations, and lead Israel into captivity (14: 2). Babylon was to succeed Nineveh. To Isaiah accordingly Hezekiah's policy in courting the king of Babylon seemed fatally suicidal (39: 5-8), accelerating the destined end. But he saw also, in his trust in a righteous Ruler of the world, that that empire, founded as it was on brute colossal strength, could not stand. From those who had come as messengers from the king of Babylon, or from previous intercourse with Israelites who had travelled there, he had already heard the names of new tribes, young and vigorous, that were hovering on its frontiers, and had been led to see in those tribes the future destroyers of the "Golden City" that oppressed the world.

"I will stir up the Medes against them."

-13: 17.

Go up, O Elam ( Persia): besiege, O Me

dia."-21: 2.

the Medes and Persians were already familiar to the prophet's mind as destined to overthrow Babylon, and so to be the deliverers of Israel. One who had that knowledge might easily learn more. He might hear that that people differed from Assyrians and Chaldeans with a difference which brought them into close sympathy with the faith of Israel. They too were monotheistic, bowed down before no idols, were worshippers of the God of Heaven, saw in Light and the glory of the Sun the one visible symbol of the Divine.* Assume only that Isaiah learnt this, and can we wonder that his faith in their future should become stronger? Here at last was a people before whom "Bel should bow down, and Nebo stoop" (46: 1). The leader of that people, bearing what was probably a titular name embodying their faith, Koresh, or in its Greek form, Cyrus, the Sun, would come, whenever the right time arrived, as a deliverer. With a wonderful expansion of thought, far above the narrowness into which later Judaism stiffened, he could see in such a king, heathen though he might be, "the righteous man from the East" (41: 2), the ally of Israel as the true servant of the Lord (41: 9), the shepherd of the Lord, performing all

* See Ezra 1 : 2; 2 Chron. 36: 22; Herod. i. 131. Compare also the article Magi," in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible,

The analogy of Pharaoh, as having the same The fact that such a name should, in the case of meaning (Ra the Sun), is at least interesting. the historical Cyrus, supersede for foreigners like the Greeks and Jews the name (Agradates) which the ruler had previously borne, has its exact counterpart in the looseness with which Pharaoh is used as the proper name of Egyptian kings by the earlier Jewish historians. The view here taken of the occurrence of this name in Isaiah's

The credit of having made this coincidence familiar to English readers must be assigned to the late Professor Blunt, Scriptural Coincidences, iii. 5.

Jonah's journey to Nineveh (Jonah 3: 2), and Jeremiah's to Euphrates (Jer. 13: 5), may be mentioned as showing that such intercourse was at least probable.

his pleasure (44: 28).* He does not shrink even from applying to him a yet higher name. The heathen Cyrus is the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed of the Lord (45: 1), the true representative and type, even as David and Solomon had been, of the greater anointed one. With the thought of such a leader present to his mind he sees the downfall of Babylon with a new distinctness (47: 1-9), and in spirit hears the couriers as they travel through the desert, not only as before, crying out, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen " (21: 9), but with fuller joy:

"Go ye forth of Babylon,

Flee from the Chaldeans, ye

With a voice of singing declare ye,

Tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; Say ye, The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob."-48: 20.

zon.

It was well for the prophet that he had this glorious vision in the far horiThe immediate prospect, the actual surroundings of his life, were dark and dreary enough. Of the two parties that had been struggling for mastery under Hezekiah-one following the king and the prophet in their zeal for Jehovah, the other courting foreign alliances and favoring foreign idolatries the latter had got the young king into its hands, and he threw himself into its policy with a fanaticism which has no parallel but in the history of the Zidonian Queen of Israel. The sins of Ahaz were revived. The ritual of Assyria and Chaldæa, especially in its astrological and thaumaturgic forms, superseded the worship of the temple. Foul symbols of a yet fouler worship appeared in the holy place. Women wove hangings, probably, that is, wreaths or garlands, for the "Grove" and its orgies, and men gave themselves up to yet darker abominations. Sabbaths and Sabbatical years were alike neglected. The adherents of the old régime kept up for the most part the form without the life. A few faithful ones among the inner circle of the late king's household still remained. As they died out it was but too evident that yet darker days were close at hand.t

*So in like manner Jeremiah does not hesitate

to speak of the Chaldean Nebuchadnezzar as "the

servant of the Lord," 25: 9; 27: 6.

I must again refer to the article on "Manasseh," in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.

Such is the picture, traced in outline, of the opening years of the reign of Manasseh. It remains for us to see whether the second volume (as we have called it) of Isaiah's prophecies fits into it and throws light on it. Our first illustration, however, must be taken from the preface to the earlier collection of his writings, written, we may well believe, like most other prefaces, after the latest of them, and therefore belonging to nearly the same period as the second.

Could the evils which have been spoken of be indicated more clearly than in the words which there meet us?

(1) Manasseh's youth made him a mere tool in the hands of others, probably of the queen-mother.

"As for my people, children are their oppressors,

And women rule over them."-3: 4, 12. "The child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient,

And the base against the honorable.”—3 : 5.

(2) There are the two concurrent evils, coëxisting then to a degree to which it would be difficult to find a parallel in either earlier or later periods, of a hypocritical formalism, the poor residuum of Hezekiah's reformation, and an open, shameless adoption of heathen usages; and the language of the prophet, in the earlier and later volumes, is pitched in the same note as regards both of them.

"Your new moons and your appointed Sabbaths my soul hateth:

They are a trouble unto me; I am weary
to hear them.

And when ye spread forth your hands, I
will hide mine eyes from you;
Yea, when ye make many prayers I will
not hear."-1: 13, 14.'

"Behold, ye fast for strife and debate,

And to smite with the fist of wickedness:

Is it such a fast that I have chosen?
A day for a man to afflict his soul?
Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush,
And to spread sackcloth and ashes under
him?

Wilt thou call this a fast,

And an acceptable day to the Lord?"

-58:4, 5.

This was one side of the picture. On the other was an abject imitation of Chaldæan soothsaying, against which the prophet bears his protest:

"They are soothsayers like the Philistines. Their land also is full of idols."-2: 6, 8. "Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer,

That frustrateth the tokens of the liars,
And maketh diviners mad;
That turneth wise men backward,
And maketh their knowledge foolish."

-44: 25.

"But ye are they that forsake the Lord, That forget my holy mountain, That prepare a table for that Troop, And offer a drink-offering unto that Number." -65: 11.

The reign of Hezekiah, honored by surrounding nations, and zealous for Jehovah, had been distinguished -as that of Solomon was before, and that of Josiah afterwards-by a large accession of proselytes of alien birth; and their attachment to their new faith was stronger than that of many Israelites. They were faithful, while others swam with the stream of evil. Among these were some officers of the king's hârem, who, like Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian eunuch, in the reign of Zedekiah (Jerem. 38: 7), were conspicuous for their steadfastness. For both such classes the prophet, rising above all national and traditional. feeling, has words of the fullest sympathy.

"Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak,

*The words Gad and Mem, thus rendered in the English version, are probably names of the planets now known as Jupiter and Saturn, the givers of good or evil fortune.

It is, I think, at least probable that we may see in Eliakim, of whom such glorious praise is spoken in 2 Kings 18: 20-25, one of this class. He is described as being "over the house" (2 Kings 18: 18; Isaiah 36: 3), and is told that he shall one day succeed Shebna in the office of scribe (18: 21). Now, in the later history of the kingdom of Judah, as in other Eastern monarch

ies, the confidential officers over the king's household were, for the most part, as the case of Ebedmelech shows, eunuchs, and in the monuments of Assyria the beardless face of the scribe at once identifies him. On this hypothesis we get once again a striking coincidence between the earlier and later utterances. The man who has no hope of children of his own, to whom is promised "a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters" (55: 5), is to have a “sure place" (22: 23), is to be "a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the house of Judah" (22: 22).

Behold, I am a dry tree.

For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths,

And choose the things that please me,
And take hold of my covenant;

Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls

A place and a name better than of sons and of daughters:

I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off."-56:3–5.

Idolatry was becoming darker and Moloch worship was remore cruel. vived (2 Kings 16: 3, 4).

They shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired,

And ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen."-1: 29. "Against whom do ye sport yourselves,

Inflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree,

Slaying the children in the valleys in the clifts of the rocks?"—57 : 5.

As the prophet saw the men of his own generation falling asleep, he looked, half wistfully, at their end.

"The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart:

And merciful men are taken away, None considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace: They shall rest in their beds, each one walking in their uprightness." -57: 1, 2.

The sense of being left alone, the last witness for righteousness in an evil generation, mocked and taunted, was almost more than he could bear.

"Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil is accounted mad: * And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.

And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor."-59: 15, 16.

The witness which he bore against the sins of nobles and priests and people exposed him to shame and contumely. He who had been the honored counsellor of kings was treated as the vilest out

I gave my back to the smiters,
And my cheeks to them that plucked off

the hair:

I hid not my face from shame and spitting."-50: 5, 6.

We know that the fanatic cruelty of

Manasseh did not end here. He "shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another" (2 Kings 21: 16). Foremost among the victims of that persecution must have been the prophets who with Isaiah had bravely borne their testimony, "setting their faces as a flint," asking the question which the martyrs of truth have asked in all ages, in the same tones and with the same answer:

"He is near that justifieth me; Who will contend with me?

Behold, the Lord God will help me; Who is he that shall condemn me? ---50:8, 9. As one after, another of that noble army was led forth to die by all the strange tortures that Eastern cruelty could invent, we may well think of the prophet's mind as learning new lessons which nothing else could have so clearly taught him. His expectations of the coming Christ were colored and modified by this new experience as they had been by former ones. If he had been led to pass from the weakness and cowardice of Ahaz to the thought of the great battle and the mighty Conqueror whose name shall be called Wonderful (9: : 5-7); if, in contrast with man's injustice, there had risen before him the vision of a righteous king, "the rod out of the stem of Jesse," upon whom should rest "the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom and understanding" (11: 19); if the hopes of Hezekiah's youth had formed and fashioned his hopes of one greater than Hezekiah in the far future, as the Psalmist's hopes (Psalms 45 and 72) had had their historical starting-point in the glory of Solomon, it might well be that the Divine Education through which the Eternal Spirit was leading him made the latter end of his life as fruitful as the beginning, and gave him yet deeper insight into the mysteries of God. So it was that he learnt to see that as he and his fellow-prophets

found that the road to the fullest victory and the most perfect blessedness was through pain and sorrow, there must be throne for Him, the greater Prophet, the a like discipline, a like pathway to the and felt in the reign of Manasseh he was redeeming King. Through what he saw taught to think of the Christ that was marred more than any man, and his form to come as one "whose visage was so more than the sons of men (52:14), growing up as a tender plant, and as form nor comeliness" (53:2). What a root out of a dry ground," with "no had been true in part of those who were now bearing His reproach, suffering for sins not their own, should be true in its completeness of Him.

"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."

-53: 4, 5.

The patient, silent suffering of the martyr-prophets presented the type of the higher, more wonderful silence: "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 opened he not his mouth.”—53: 7. It may at first seem strange that the volume which contains such notes of woe, pitched, as it were, in the sad minor of a plaintive sorrow, should open as this opens with such exulting consolation: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God" (40: 1). It may be that we shall never know the full meaning of each separate portion of this prophecy, or the reasons of its change from joy to sorrow, and back again to joy. To do that we ought to be able to connect each section with the events of the prophet's life, and the thoughts which were working in his heart, and these we have no data to decide on, and can but suggest more or less probable conjectures. Thus much, however, may be said, that the contrast between the gloom and the brightness had been the same throughout. Out of the disasters and defeat and guilt of Ahaz rose the wonderful prophecies of chapters 9 and 11 and 25. Was it

strange, if he had been sustained in the midst of suffering, foreseeing the captivity of his people, by the thought of their restoration, that he should begin now with words which would give to others the same help and comfort with which he himself had been comforted of God? Was it not in harmony with ail his previous history that the strength of the consolation should be proportionate to the depth of the distress, that through the thickest night there should pierce the rays of the far-off golden dawn?

Other points indicating at once a continuity of thought such as was natural in the writings of the same man, and the influence as natural of new circumstances, can only, within the limits of the present paper, be touched on sparingly. The instances given will, how ever, be enough to show that there is no difficulty in tracing the same man in the two volumes of the prophecies that bear his name, and may help others to continue the comparison for themselves. (1.) Among the influences which were at work on the mind of Isaiah in his earlier life, a very high place must be assigned to the writings of Micah the Morasthite. Living at the same time, witnessing the same evils, we find the seer of Moresheth uttering noble words which the more conspicuous adviser of Hezekiah took up and repeated. It would almost seem as if the one prophet, living not in the capital city, but in an obscure village, speaking, not in the lofty language of Isaiah's poetry, but in half-humorous allusions to the names of the towns of Judah (1 : 10-16), and in imagery drawn from the scenery and occupations of shepherd-life, had been to the other as one who suggests thoughts afterwards to be developed, and sets an example of courage in denouncing evil afterwards to be followed. The bold words of Micah in the days of Hezekiah, which a hundred years afterwards were appealed to as a precedent (Jerem. 26: 18), may well be thought of as influencing the thoughts and teaching of Isaiah. Certain it is that the parallelisms between them are more numerous and striking than between any other two writers in the Old or New Testament. The first great vision of a better time in Isaiah 2: 2-4:

NEW SERIES-VOL. I., No. 1.

And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob;

And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths:

For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and

the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people :

And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks:

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more".

In their outward mode of teaching, in the strange, portentous disregard of conventional order, the one prophet reproduced the acted symbolism of the other:

"At the same time spake "Therefore I will wail and the Lord by Isaiah the son howl, I will go stripped and of Amoz, saying, Go and naked."-Mic. 1:8. loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he barefoot."—Is. 20 ; 2. did so, walking naked and

Both bear their testimony against the same evils in all but the same words:

"Thy princes are rebel- "The heads thereof judge lious, and companions of for reward, and the priests thieves every one loveth thereof teach for hire." gifts, and followeth after Mic. 3: 11.

rewards."-Is. 1: 23.

Both look to the house of David as the stock from which the deliverer shall

come:

5