THE English words prophet, prophesy, and prophecy, have long been appropriated, by established usage, to the prediction of future events. To prophesy, according to the universal acceptation of the term, is to foretell, and a prophet is one who does or can foretell things yet to come. This restricted application of the terms in question has materially influenced the interpretation of the prophetic scriptures by modern and especially by English writers. It is necessary, therefore, to compare the common use of these expressions with the corresponding terms in Greek and Hebrew.
The Greek fiQotpqrijs (from TIQO^^I) is used in the classics not only to denote specifically a foreifilier, but more generally an authoritative speaker in thgLjipmp’ ^ ^OT^ in which sense it is applied to the official expounders of the oracles, and to poets as the prophets of the muses, i. e. as speaking in their name, at their suggestion, or by their inspiration. This latitude of meaning, in the classical usage of the term, agrees exactly with its application in the Greek of the New Testament, not only to those gifted with the knowledge of futurity, but in a wider sense to inspired teachers or expound ers of the will of God in the primitive church. It is evident, therefore, that our prophet, prophesy, and prophecy, are much more restricted in their import than the Greek words from which they are derived, as employed both by the classical and sacred writers.
It may be said, however, that in this restricted usage we adhere to the primary and proper import of the terms, as the noo in fiQocprj^i and nQoyrjTrjg, no less than the prae in praedico, must have originally signified before, i. e. beforehand. Even this might be plausibly disputed, as the primary sense of nQo would seem to be not temporal but local, the idea of priority in time being given by the best lexicographers as secondary to that of antecedence or priority in place, in which case the particle in composition may have originally signified, not so much the futurity of the things declared, as the authority of the person who declared them. (Compare nQosarcoe, nqo’iGia^ vos, antistes, praetor, praefectus, foreman.) But even granting that the obvious and common supposition is correct, viz., that the JTQO in TIQO^w and A its derivatives has primary reference to time, the actual extension of the terms to other authoritative declarations, and especially to those made in the name of God, is clear from the usage both of the classics and of the New Testament. Looking merely to these sources of elucidation, we might still assert with confidence, that the modern use of the words prophet and prophecy is more restricted than that of the Greek terms from which they are derived.
But this is a very small part of the evidence on which the affirmation rests. The prophets, of whom the New Testament chiefly speaks, are not heathen prophets, nor even the nQo^raL of the apostolic churches, but the prophets of the old dispensation. The terms applied to them must there fore be interpreted, not merely by a reference to etymology, or to classical usage, or to that of the New Testament itself, but by an appeal to the import and usage of the Hebrew terms, which the Greek ones are designed to represent. As soon as we resort to this source of illustration, the doubt which seemed to overhang the question, when considered as a question of Greek usage, disappears. We have here no probabilities to balance as to the primary import of a particle, no extension of the meaning of the whole word to account for or explain away. The etymology of ^aa, and the cognate verbal forms, makes it impossible to look upon foresight or prediction as their primary and necessary import. The only derivation, which can now be regarded as philologically tenable, is that which makes the word originally signify the act of pouring forth or uttering, a natural figure in all languages for speech, and more especially for public, solemn, and continuous discourse. In actual usage, the Hebrew words are admitted by modern writers of all schools and creeds to signify specifically one who speaks (or the act of speaking) for God, not only in his name and by his authority, but under his influence, in other words, by divine inspiration. The precise meaning of the noun x^3 is clear from Exodus 7: 1, where the Lord says unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet, i. e. thy interpreter, thy organ of communication. (See Gesenius’s Thesaurus, s. v. aDj.) The etymology proposed by Redslob, which gives ara the sense of a person sprinkled or baptized with the Spirit of God, if it can be established, only makes the primary and essential reference to inspiration still more certain than the common one. The few departures from this simple elementary idea, which the lexicons still recognise, may all be reduced to it more easily and naturally than to any other. For example, when Abraham is called a prophet (Gen. 20: 7), there is no need of diluting the sense of the expression into that of a mere friend of God, which is sufficiently implied in the strict and common sense of an inspired person. It is equally unnecessary, on the other hand, to give the verb the sense of raving or becoming mad, when applied to Saul (1 Sam. 18: 10), since it is there expressly mentioned that an evil spirit from God had come upon him, so that he was really inspired, however fearful and mysterious the nature of the inspiration may have been. A complete induction of particulars would show, with scarcely the appearance of a doubtful case or an exception, that the essential idea, running through the whole Hebrew usage of the verb and noun, is that of inspiration. The suggestion of Gesenius, that the verb is used exclusively in passive or reflexive forms because the prophet was supposed to be under a controlling influence, is not improbable in itself, and harmonizes fully with the usage of the words as already stated.
Another obvious deduction from the usage of the language is, that although jra, like many other terms of such perpetual occurrence, is em ployed both in a wider and a more restricted sense, the distinction thus made is not that between inspiration in general and the foresight of the future in particular. There is probably not a single instance in which the word denotes the latter, except as one important function of the power which it properly describes. The gift of prophecy included that of prophetic fore sight, but it included more. The prophet was inspired to reveal the will of God, to act as an organ of communication between God and man. The subject of the revelations thus conveyed was not and could not be restricted to the future. It embraced the past and present, and extended to those absolute and universal truths which have no relation to time. This is what we should expect a priori in a divine revelation, and it is what we actually find it to contain. That the prophets of the old dispensation were not mere foretellers of things future, is apparent from their history as well as from their writings. The historical argument is stated forcibly by Gill when he observes, that Daniel proved himself a prophet by telling Nebuchadnezzar what he had dreamed, as much as by interpreting the dream itself; that it was only by prophetic inspiration that Elijah knew what Gehazi had been doing; and that the woman of Samaria very properly called Christ a prophet, be cause he told her all things that ever she did. In all these cases, and in multitudes of others, the essential idea is that of inspiration, its frequent reference to things still future being accidental, i. e. not included in the uniform and necessary import of the terms.
The restriction of these terms in modern parlance to the prediction of events still future has arisen from the fact that a large proportion of the revelations made in Scripture, and precisely those which are the most surprising and impressive, are of this description. The frequency of such revelations, and the prominence given to them, not in this modern usage merely, but in the word of God itself, admit of easy explanation. It is partly owing to the fact that revelations of the future would be naturally sought with more avidity, and treated with more deference, than any other by mankind in general. It is further owing to the fact that of all the kinds of revelation, this is the one which affords the most direct and convincing proof of the prophet’s inspiration. The knowledge of the present or the past or of general truths might be imparted by special inspiration, but it might also be acquired in other ways; and this possibility of course makes the evidence of inspiration thus afforded more complete and irresistible than any other. Hence the function of foretelling what was future, although but a part of the prophetic office, was peculiarly conspicuous and prominent in public view, and apt to be more intimately associated with the office itself in the memory of man.
These considerations seem sufficient to account, not only for the change of meaning which the words have undergone in later usage, but also for the instances, if any such there be, in which the Bible itself employs them to denote exclusively prophetic foresight or the actual prediction of the future. But there is still another reason, more important than either of these, afforded by the fact, that the old dispensation, with all its peculiar institutions, was prospective in its character, a preparation for better things to come. It is not surprising, therefore, that a part of this economy so marked and prominent as prophecy, should have exhibited a special leaning towards futurity.
This naturally leads us from the theoretical idea of a prophet as a person speaking by divine authority and inspiration, to the practical consideration of the end or purpose aimed at in the whole prophetic institution. This was not merely the relief of private doubts, much less the gratification of private curiosity. The gift of prophecy was closely connected with the general design of the old economy. The foundation of the system was the Law, as recorded in the five books of Moses. In that, as an epitome, the rest of the Old Testa ment is contained, at least as to its seminal principles. The single book of Deuteronomy, and that the very one with which critical caprice in modern times has taken the most liberties, exhibits specimens of every style employed by the sacred writers elsewhere. Still more remarkably is this true of the whole Pentateuch, in reference not merely to its manner but its matter, as comprising virtually all that is developed and applied in the revelations of the later books. To make this developement and application was the business of the prophets. The necessity of such an institution was no after thought. The law itself provides for it. The promise of a prophet like unto Moses, in the eighteenth of Deuteronomy, according to one of its most plausible interpretations, comprehends the promise of a constant succession of inspired men, so far as this should be required by the circumstances of the people, of which succession Christ himself was to be the greatest.
This promise was abundantly fulfilled. In every emergency requiring such an interposition, we find prophets present and active, and in some important periods of the history of Israel they existed in great numbers. These, though not all inspired writers, were all inspired men, raised up and directed by a special divine influence, to signify and sometimes to execute the will of God, in the administration of the theocracy. Joshua is expressly represented as enjoying such an influence, and is always reckoned in the Jewish tradition as a prophet. The judges who succeeded him were all raised up in special emergencies, and were directed and controlled by a special divine influence or inspiration. Samuel was one of the most eminent prophets. After the institution of the monarchy we read constantly of prophets distinct from the civil rulers. After the schism between Judah and Ephraim, there continued to be prophets even in the kingdom of the ten tribes. They were peculiarly necessary there indeed, because the people of that kingdom were cut off from the sanctuary and its services, as bonds of union with Jehovah. The prophetic ministry continued through the Babylonish exile, and ceased some years after the restoration, in the person of Malachi, whom the Jews unanimously represent as the last of their prophets.
In tracing this succession, it is evident that the history attaches no importance to the unbroken series of incumbents, and describes them as deriving their prophetic character, not from their predecessors, but immediately from God. The cases of Joshua and Elisha are perhaps the only ones in which a prophet is expressly said to have inducted his successor into office; and even if it could be fairly inferred from these, that such was the ordinary practice, still the silence of the history implies that the validity of the prophetic ministrations was dependent upon no external rite of transfer and upon no unbroken continuity in the succession. This presumption is the stronger as a perfect series cannot be made out, even by inference and combination, from the recorded history, which usually speaks of the prophets so as to suggest the idea, not so much of an order which could never be interrupted or suspended, as of one which should not wholly cease until its purpose was accomplished, and should never be wanting in any emergency which called for a divine interposition. In this, which is the true sense of the promise, it was signally fulfilled, so that although we may not be able to demonstrate a perpetual succession of inspired representatives or messengers from God, we can safely affirm that he never left himself without witness, or his people without counsel, consolation, or reproof.
With respect to the nature of the inspiration under which these prophets spoke and acted, there can be no doubt that the Bible itself represents it as plenary, or fully adequate to the attainment of its end. (2 Tim. 3: 16. 2 Pet. 1: 21.) Where this end was external action, it was sufficiently secured by the gift of courage, strength, and practical wisdom. Where the instruction of God’s people was the object, whether in reference to the past, the present, or the future; whether in word, in writing, or in both; whether for temporary ends, or with a view to perpetual preservation; the prophets are clearly represented as infallible, i. e. incapable of erring or deceiving,, with respect to the matter of their revelation. How far this object was se cured by direct suggestion, by negative control, or by an elevating influence upon the native powers, is a question of no practical importance to those who hold the essential doctrine that the inspiration was in all cases such as to render those who were inspired infallible. Between this supposition and the opposite extreme, which denies inspiration altogether, or resolves it into mere excitement of the imagination and the sensibilities, like the afflatus of a poet or an orator, there seems to be no definite and safe position. Either the prophets were not inspired at all in any proper sense, or they were so inspired as to be infallible.
As to the mocle in which the required impression was made, it seems both vain and needless to attempt any definite description of it. The ultimate effect would be the same in any case, if not upon the prophet, upon those who heard or read his prophecies. So far as any thing can be inferred from incidental or explicit statements of the Scripture, the most usual method of communication would appear to have been that of immediate vision, i. e, the presentation of the thing to be revealed as if it were an object of sight. Thus JViicaiah saw Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd (1 Kings 22: 17), and Isaiah saw Jehovah sitting on a lofty throne (Isai 6: 1). That this was the most usual mode of presentation, is probable not only from occasional expressions such as those just quoted, but from the fact, that a very large proportion of the prophetic revelations are precisely such as might be painted and subjected to the sense of sight. The same conclusion is confirmed by the use of the words seer and vision as essentially equivalent to prophet and prophecy. There is no need, however, of supposing that this method of communication, even if it were the common one, was used invariably. Some things in the prophecies require us to suppose that they were made known to the prophet just as he made them known to others, i. e. by the simple suggestion of appropriate words. But this whole question is rather one of curiosity than use, even in reference to interpretation.
A kindred question, but distinct from this, is that respecting the mental and bodily condition of the prophet, under the influence of inspiration. Whatever we imagine to have been the mode of the communication, whether visual or verbal, in the general or in any given case, it may still be made a question whether the prophet, in receiving such communications, was as fully in possession of his faculties, and in the exercise of self-control, as at any other time; or whether, on the contrary, he was in what the Greeks called fx<jra(7f£, a state of passive subjection to a higher power, holding his own faculties in temporary but complete abeyance. It is well known that the prophets and diviners of the heathen world, during their seasons of pretended inspiration, exhibited the outward signs of violent excitement often amounting to insanity. That this was not regarded as an accidental circumstance, but as a natural and necessary sign of inspiration, may be gathered from the etymological affinity between the Greek words ^dvTig and pavta or paivofiai. The early Fathers uniformly speak of this maniacal excitement as characteristic of the heathen inspiration, whether real or pretended, and describe the inspiration of the Hebrew prophets as distinguished by the opposite peculiarities of calmness, self-possession, and active intelligence. This is distinctly and repeatedly asserted by Chrysostom, Augustin, and Jerome, who ascribes the contrary opinion to Montanus and his follow ers. In our own day it has been revived, not only by Gesenius and others, who deny the real inspiration of the prophets, but by Hengstenberg, who steadfastly maintains it. In the first part of his Christology, he undertakes to explain the disregard of chronological relations by the prophets, and their fragmentary manner of exhibiting a subject, from the ecstatic state in which they uttered their predictions. This opinion has not only been attacked and ridiculed by later writers of a very different school, but disavowed by others of the same school, especially by Havernick, who in his Introduction to the Old Testament (<§> 199) argues at length in favour of the doctrine that the mental condition of the prophets in receiving their divine communications cannot have been a morbid one. The most serious objections to the theory of Hengstenberg, besides its opposition to the common judgment of the church in every age, and its apparent derogation from the dignity of the prophetic character, are, the want of any clear support in Scripture, and the inutility of such a supposition to attain the end at which he aims, and which may just as well be answered by supposing that the peculiarities ascribed to the extraordinary state of the inspired writers, were directly produced by something negative or positive in the divine communication itself. If they bring remote events into juxtaposition, the simplest explanation of the fact is, not that they were in a state which rendered them incapable of estimating chronological distinctions, but that these distinctions were withheld from them, or that although acquainted with them they intentionally overlooked them and combined the objects in another mode and on another principle. This view of the matter is entirely sufficient to explain what Peter says (I Pet. 1: 12) without resorting to a supposition which, unless absolutely necessary, is to be avoided as of doubtful tendency.
It has been disputed whether the prophets of the old dispensation had any training for their work at all analogous to what we call a professional education. Some have supposed the sons of the prophets, frequently mentioned in the books of Kings, to have been young men in a course of preparation for the prophetic ministry. To this it has been objected, that their ministry depended on the gift of inspiration, for which no human training could compensate or prepare them. But although they could not act as prophets without inspiration, they might be prepared for those parts of the work which depended upon culture, such as a correct mode of expression, just as men may now be trained by education for the work of the ministry, although convinced that its success depends entirely on the divine blessing, It is not to be forgotten that the inspiration under which the prophets acted left them in full possession of their faculties, native and acquired, and with all their peculiarities of thought and feeling unimpaired. The whole subject of prophetic education is, however, one of surmise and conjecture, rather than of definite knowledge or of practical utility.
To the government the prophets do not seem to have sustained any definite or fixed relation, as component parts of a political system. The extent and manner of their influence, in this respect, depended on the char acter of the rulers, the state of affairs, and the nature of the messages which they were commissioned to deliver. As a class, the prophets influenced the government, not by official formal action, but as special messengers from God, by whom he was represented in particular emergencies, and whose authority could neither be disputed nor resisted by any magistrate without abjuring the fundamental principles of the theocracy. Even the apostate kings of Israel acknowledged the divine legation of the prophets of Jehovah, The opinion that the priestly and prophetic functions were regarded as identical, or commonly united in the same persons under the theocracy, is wholly destitute of scriptural foundation. It is no doubt true that priests might be inspired, and that the High Priest may have been so always ex officio. Two of the most eminent prophets (Jeremiah and Ezekiel) were unquestionably priests. But the sacerdotal and prophetic offices, as such, were perfectly distinct, as well in function as in purpose, being instituted to promote the same great end in different ways, the one by maintaining the symbolical and sacramental forms of the theocracy, the other by correcting their abuse, and keeping constantly in view their spiritual import and design,, as shadows of good things to come.
The relation of the prophets to the people and the manner of their inter course appear to have been subject to no uniform and rigid law. From Elijah’s hairy dress and John the Baptist’s imitation of it, some have hastily inferred that the prophets were commonly distinguished by a peculiar dress and an ascetic mode of life. Whether the same conclusion can be drawn from the sackcloth mentioned in Isaiah 20: 2, is considered doubtful. The truth appears to be, that from the very nature of the prophetic ministry, it was exempted from the rules of rigid outward uniformity. Eichhorn has justly mentioned as a characteristic difference between the heathen and the Jewish prophets, that whereas the former tried to enhance their authority by darkness and seclusion and mysterious accompaniments, the latter moved among the people without any such factitious advantages.
With respect to the promulgation and preservation of the prophecies, there have been various opinions and many fanciful conjectures. Some suppose the prophets to have been a kind of demagogues or popular orators, whose speeches, unless previously prepared, were afterwards recorded by themselves or others. Another supposition is that the prophets were inspired writers, and that their prophecies were published only as written compositions. A distinction as to this point has by some been drawn between the earlier and the later prophets. From the death of Moses to the accession of Uzziah, a period of nearly seven hundred years, a large proportion of the prophets are supposed to have performed their functions orally and without leaving any thing on record; whereas after that period they were led to act not only for the present but the future. We have no cause to doubt, how ever, that we now have in possession all that was written aforetime for our learning. And in the case of any prophecy, the question whether it was orally delivered before it was written, is comparatively unimportant, as our only concern with it is in its written form. The idea that the prophecies now extant are mere summaries of long discourses, is ingenious and plausible in certain cases, but admits of no historical or certain demonstration.
A question of more moment is that with respect to the way in which the writings were preserved, whether by private circulation as detached compositions, or by solemn enrolment and deposit in the sanctuary. The modern critics who dispute the integrity and genuineness of many passages lean to the former supposition; but the latter is unquestionably favoured by the whole drift of Scripture and the current of ancient usage, sacred and profane, with respect to writings which were looked upon as sacred. It may well be doubted whether among the ancient Hebrews there was any extensive circulation of books at all, and it seems to me to be as hard to disprove as to prove the position, that the only literature of the nation was THE BOOK or SCRIPTURE (i?sri), which from the time of Moses was kept open, and in which the writings of the prophets may have been recorded as they were produced. At all events, it seems unreasonable and at variance with the tenor of Scripture to suppose that writings held to be inspired were left to circulate at random and to share the fate of other compositions, without any effort to attest their genuineness or to secure their preservation.
Upon this improbable hypothesis some modern critics have constructed a theory as to the formation of the Heberew Canon. They suppose that the books now composing the Old Testament were long in circulation as detached compositions, or at most in small collections; but that after the Babylonish exile, measures were taken to secure the national literature from destruction by bringing together the most highly esteemed books then extant, to which others were added from time to time until the period of the Maccabees. In a similar manner they account for the threefold division of the Old Testament, into the Law, Prophets, and Scriptures (crai: 3, ayio- YQctya), found in all Hebrew manuscripts, and referred to, not only by Philo and Josephus, but in the New Testament (Luke 24: 44). This they account for, by supposing that the five books of Moses, because of tl eir superior authority, were first placed together by themselves; that the earlier histories and prophecies were then joined in a second volume; and that a fourth was opened for the reception of books which might be afterwards discovered or composed. The obvious design of this whole theory is to account for the admission of books into the canon, which these critics are unwilling to recognise as ancient, such as Daniel, Esther, Chronicles, and many of the Psalms.
Others attempt to account for the threefold division, as founded on the subjects of the different books. But this supposition is precluded by the fact, that historical books are found in all the three divisions; Genesis in the first; Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings in the second; Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ruth, and Esther in the third; to which it may be added, that Daniel is found in the third division, and that Jeremiah’s Prophecies are separated from his Lamentations.
The uniform tradition of the Jews is, that the sacred books were finally collected and arranged by Ezra and his contemporaries, under the guidance of divine inspiration, and that the threefold division is coeval with the formation of the canon. As to the principle of the division, some of the Jewish doctors teach that it is founded on the different degrees of inspiration under which the books were written, the highest being that of Moses, and the lowest that of the Hagiographa or Scriptures. This last opinion is not only destitute of evidence or scriptural foundation, but at variance with the tenor of the sacred writings and of dangerous tendency.
The most satisfactory solution of the fact in question is the one which supposes the law to have been placed first as the foundation of the whole, and the remaining books to have been divided, not with respect to their contents or the degree of inspiration in their writers, but with respect to their official character, the second great division being appropriated to the writings of men who were not only inspired but prophets by profession, who possessed not only the prophetic gift but the prophetic office, while the third place was reserved for those who, although equally inspired, held no such station. Thus the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, having been composed, according to the ancient tradition, by dwss or official prophets, are prefixed to the prophecies properly so called, while the writings of David and Daniel, who were not such, are included in the third division. The principal difficulty in the way of this hypothesis arises from the fact, that different writings of the same man, viz. Jeremiah, are found both in the second and third division. This single exception to the general rule has been accounted for by some, upon the ground, that the book of Lamentations, although written by a Prophet in the strict sense, is more an expression of personal feeling than the other prophecies; by others, upon the ground of its liturgical character, which naturally led to its insertion in the same part of the Canon with the Psalms. Another objection to this whole explanation of the threefold division has been drawn from the absence of entire uniformity in the application of the name K”>33 to the official or professional prophet, and offish (seer) to an inspired person, simply as such. The difficulty here referred to does not lie in the promiscuous use of 7iQoq>r^s in the New Testament, where David, for example, is expressly called a Prophet. This is sufficiently explained by the want of any Greek equivalent to seer. But the same solution is not applicable to the use of both words seer and prophet, in the Old Testament itself, with reference to one and the same person. (E. g. Gad the seer, 1 Ch. 21: 9; Gad the prophet, 2 Sam. 24: 11.) How far this rare departure from the usage ought to weigh against the theory in general, or how far it may be accounted for by special circumstances in the case of Gad, are questions which may be considered doubtful. All that need be affirmed is that this hypothesis respecting the division of the Hebrew Canon, although not susceptible of demonstration, is more satisfactory and probable than any other which has been proposed.
The application of the name d^ns, ayioyQa^a, or Scriptures, to the third division only, has been variously explained; but the simplest and most natural solution is, that the first two divisions having been distinguished by appropriate names, the third was left in possession of that which, if there had been no division, would have been appropriate to the whole. Thus under stood, the three parts of the Canon are the Law, the Prophets, and the (other) Scriptures.
In the second of these great divisions, that of the Prophets properly so called, a prominent place, and for the most part the first r/lace, has been always held, so far as we can trace its history, by a book bearing the name of Isaiah. A Talmudical tradition represents it as having formerly been preceded by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Some of the modern German writers take advantage of this statement, as a ground for the presumption that the book in its present form was not completed until after those of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. This supposition, the design of which is to facilitate the critical rejection of the later prophecies, is not only an unauthorized inference from a fact extremely dubious at best, but at variance with the simultaneous close of the whole canon, which we have seen to be the only well-sustained hypothesis. The Talmudists themselves explain the fact which they allege, upon the ground that Jeremiah and Ezekiel are for the most part minatory prophets, and that the more consolatory writings of Isaiah were subjoined as a relief and antidote. A far more probable solution is, that the arrangement in question, if it ever prevailed, arose from the intimate connexion of the second book of Kings with Jeremiah, and perhaps from a traditional ascription of it to that prophet as its author. The necessity of any explanation seems, however, to be superseded by the doubt which overhangs the fact itself, especially when taken in connexion with the uniform position of Isaiah before the other two, in the most ancient manuscripts now extant, both of the Hebrew text and of the ancient versions.
The name Isaiah is a compound word denoting the Salvation of Jehovah, to which some imagine that the Prophet himself alludes in ch. 8: 18. The abbreviated form (rpupzj1;) is never applied in Scripture to the Prophet, though the rabbins employ it in titles and inscriptions. Both forms of the name are applied in the Old Testament to other persons, in all which cases the English Version employs a different orthography, viz. Jeshaiah or Jesaiah. In the New Testament our Version writes the name Esaias, after the example of the Vulgate, varying slightly from the Greek ‘Haaia?, used both in the Septuagint and the New Testament. To the name of the Prophet we find several times added that of his father Amoz (•pEij), which several of the Greek Fathers have confounded with the name of the prophet Amos (D^), though they differ both in the first and last letter. This mistake, occasioned by the Septuagint version, which writes both names alike (Wjuofe), may be considered the more venial, as two of the latest writers on Isaiah in the English language have, in the very act of setting Cyril and Eusebius right, themselves committed a like error by misspelling the name Amos (tri^x). The more ancient mistake may have been facilitated by a know ledge of the Jewish maxim, now recorded in the Talmud, that whenever a prophet’s father is named, the father was himself a prophet. The Jews themselves, in this case, are contented with observing the affinity between the names Amoz (ftex) and Arnaziah (sin^sa«), upon which they gravely found a positive assertion that these men were brothers, and that Isaiah was therefore of the blood-royal, being cousin-german to the first king mentioned in the opening of his prophecies. This tradition has had great vogue among Jews and Christians, some of whom account for the urbanity and polish of Isaiah’s manner as a natural effect of his nobility. It is unfortunately true, however, that the Jewish doctors sometimes invent facts for the purpose of filling up the chasms of history, and this is especially to be suspected where the statement seems to rest on an etymological conceit or any other fanciful analogy. At all events, we have no satisfactory assurance of the truth of this tradition, any more than of that which makes the prophet to have been the father-in-law of king Manasseh. The most probable statement is that made by one of the most learned and judicious of the rabbins (David Kimchi), that the family and tribe to which Isaiah be longed are now entirely unknown. Of his domestic circumstances we know merely, that his wife and two of his sons are mentioned by himself (ch. 7: 3. 8: 3, 4), to which some add a third, as we shall see below.
The only historical account of this Prophet is contained in the book which bears his name, and in the parallel passages of Second Kings, which exhibit unequivocal signs of being from the hand of the same writer. The first sentence of Isaiah’s own book, which is now commonly admitted to be genuine, assigns as the period of his ministry the four successive reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, one of the most eventful periods in the history of Judah. The two first reigns here mentioned were exceed ingly prosperous, although a change for the worse appears to have com menced before the death of Jotham, and continued through the reign of Ahaz, bringing the state to the very verge of ruin, from which it was not restored to a prosperous condition until long after the accession of Hezekiah. During this period the kingdom of the ten tribes, which had flourished greatly under Jeroboam II., for many years contemporary with Uzziah, passed through the hands of a succession of usurpers, and was at length overthrown by the Assyrians, in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign over Judah.
Among the neighbouring powers, with whom Israel was more or less engaged in conflict during these four reigns, the most important were Damascene Syria, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines, who although resident within the allotted bounds of Judah, still endeavoured to maintain their position as an independent and a hostile nation. But the foreign powers which chiefly influenced the condition of south-western Asia during this period, were the two great empires of Assyria in the east, and Egypt in the south west. By a rapid succession of important conquests, the former had sud denly acquired a magnitude and strength which it had not possessed for ages, if at all. Egypt had been subdued, at least in part, by Ethiopia; but this very event, by combining the forces of two great nations, had given unexampled strength to the Ethiopian dynasty in Upper Egypt. The mutual jealousy and emulation between this state and Assyria, naturally tended to make Palestine, which lay between them, a theatre of war, at least at intervals, for many years. It also led the kings of Israel and Judah to take part in the contentions of these two great powers, and to secure themselves by uniting, sometimes with Egypt against Assyria, sometimes with Assyria against Egypt. It was this inconstant policy that hastened the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, and exposed that of Judah to imminent peril. Against this policy the prophets, and especially Isaiah, were commissioned to remonstrate, not only as unworthy in itself, but as implying a distrust of God’s protection, and indifference to the fundamental law of the theocracy. The Babylonian monarchy, as Havernick has clearly proved, began to gather strength before the end of this period, but was less conspicuous, because not yet permanently independent of As syria.
The two most remarkable conjunctures in the history of Judah during Isaiah’s ministry, are, the invasion by the combined force of Syria and Israel, in the reign of Ahaz, followed by the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, and the Assyrian invasion in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, ending in the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib’s army, and his own ignominious flight. The historical interest of this important period is further heightened by the fact, that two of the most noted eras in chronology fall within it, viz. the era of Nabonassar, and that computed from the building of Rome.
The length of Isaiah’s public ministry is doubtful. The aggregate duration of the four reigns mentioned in the title is above one hundred and twelve years; but it is not said that he prophesied throughout the whole reign, either of Uzziah or Hezekiah. Some, it is true, have inferred that his ministry was coextensive with the whole reign of Uzziah, because he is said to have written the history of that prince (2 Chron. 26: 22), which he surely might have done without being strictly his contemporary, just as he may have written that of Hezekiah to a certain date (2 Chron. 32: 32), and yet have died before him. Neither of these incidental statements can be understood as throwing any light upon the question of chronology. Most writers, both among the Jews and Christians, understand the first verse of the sixth chapter as determining the year of king Uzziah’s death to be the first of Isaiah’s public ministry. Some of the Jewish writers, who adopt this supposition, at the same time understand Uzziah’s death to mean his civil death, occasioned by the leprosy with which he was smitten in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, for his sacrilegious invasion of the house of God, so that he dwelt in a separate house until his death. There seems to be no sufficient ground for this explanation of the language, or for the alleged coincidence of the event with the twenty-fifth year of Uzziah’s reign, any more than for the notion of the oriental Christians, that Uzziah was deprived of the prophetic office, for his sin in not withstanding Uzziah, and after twentyeight years of silence was restored in the year of that king’s death, a fanciful interpretation of the facts recorded in chap. vi. The modern writers are agreed in understanding the expression literally, and in connecting the last year of Uzziah’s life with the first year of Isaiah’s ministry. It is by no means certain, as we shall see below, that the sixth chapter is descriptive of Isaiah’s inauguration into office, still less that it was written before any of the others. But it cannot be denied that the chronological hypothesis just stated is strongly recommended by the fact of its removing all objections to the truth of the inscription (chap. 1:1) founded on the extreme longevity which it would otherwise ascribe to the prophet, by enabling us at once to deduct half a century. If we reckon from the last year of Uzziah to the fourteenth of Hezekiah, the last in which we find any certain historical traces of Isaiah, we obtain as the minimum of his prophetic ministry a period of forty-seven years, and this, supposing that he entered on it even at the age of thirty, would leave him at his death less than eighty years old. And even if it be assumed that he survived Hezekiah, and continued some years under his successor, the length of his life will after all be far less than that of Jehoiada the High Priest who died in the reign of Joash at the age of 130 years. (2 Chron. 24: 15.)
The Jews have a positive tradition that he did die in the reign of Manasseh, and as a victim of the bloody persecutions by which that king is said to have filled Jerusalem with innocent blood from one end to the other. (2 Kings 21: 16.) Some accounts go so far as to give the pretext upon which the murder was committed, namely, that of discrepance between Isaiah’s teaching and the law of Moses, as well as the precise form of his martyrdom by being sawn asunder, some say in the body of a tree, which had opened to receive him. The substantial part of this tradition is received as true by several of the Fathers, who suppose it to be clearly alluded to in Heb. 11: 37. It has also found favour among many modern writers, on the ground of its intrinsic credibility, and the antiquity of the tradition. Hengstenberg assents to it moreover on the ground that it enables us more easily to account for the peculiar features of the later prophecies (ch. 40—66), by supposing them to have been written in the days of Manasseh, in the old age of the prophet, and after his retirement from active life. Havernick, on the other hand, rejects the tradition, first, on the general ground that fabulous accounts are especially abundant in the Jewish martyrology, and then on the special ground, that this assumption leaves us unable to account for the omission of Manasseh’s name in the inscription of the book, without admitting that the title may have been prefixed to a partial collection of Isaiah’s prophecies, or by the hand of a later writer, which he holds to be unauthorized and dangerous concessions. To the suggestion that Manasseh may have been omitted because under him Isaiah had ceased to appear in public as a prophet and employed himself in writ ing, it is answered that if Uzziah is distinctly mentioned simply because Isaiah was inducted into office at the close of his long reign, he could scarcely have omitted Manasseh under whom so large a proportion of his prophecies were written, if not publicly delivered. In weighing the arguments of Havernick, it must not be overlooked that his hypothesis compels him to regard ch. 37: 38 as later than the times of Isaiah, simply because the event there recorded must have taken place in the reign of Manasseh, This fact, together with the insufficiency of his objections to the contrary hypothesis, may at least dispose us to abstain from such a positive decision of the question as would cut us off from the assumption of a longer term of public service, however probable on other grounds, and however necessary to the full solution of questions which may afterwards present themselves during the process of interpretation. With this proviso, we may safely leave the precise chronological question, as the Bible leaves it, undetermined.
From the references, which have been already quoted, to the historical writings of Isaiah, some have inferred that he was an official historiographer, in which capacity the older prophets seem to have acted, as appears from the canonical insertion of such books as those of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, among the Prophets. We have no reason to suppose, however, that Isaiah held any secular office of the kind, distinct from his prophetic ministry. Nor is it clear in what sense the citation of Isaiah by the Chronicles as a historical authority should be understood. The reference may be simply to the historical portions of his book, or to the corresponding passages of Second Kings, of which, in strict discharge of his official functions, he may well have been the author. That the books referred to were more copious histories or annals, of which only summaries or fragments are now extant, is a supposition which, however credible or even plausible it may be in itself, is not susceptible of demonstration. The question as to the identity and fate of these historical writings is of no importance to the exegesis of the book before us. The books still extant under the name of the Vision and Ascension of Isaiah are universally admitted to be spurious and apocryphal. Our attention will therefore be exclusively confined to the canonical Isaiah.
This book not only forms a part of the Old Testament Canon as far as we can trace it back, but has held its place there without any change of form, size, or contents, of which the least external evidence can be adduced. The allusions to this Prophet, and the imitations of him, in the later books of the Old Testament, are not confined to any one part of the book or any single class of passages. The apocryphal writers who make mention of it, use no expressions which imply that it was not already long complete in its present form and size. The same thing seems to be implied in the numerous citations of this book in the New Testament. Without going here into minute details, a correct idea of the general fact may be conveyed by simply stating, that of the sixty-six chapters of Isaiah, as divided in our modern Bibles, forty-seven are commonly supposed to be directly quoted or dis tinctly alluded to, and some of them repeatedly. The same thing may be illustrated clearly on a smaller scale by stating, that in the twenty-one cases where Isaiah is expressly named in the New Testament, the quotations are drawn from the first, sixth, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twenty-ninth, fortieth, forty-second, fifty-third, sixty-first, and sixty-fifth chapters of the book before us. These facts, together with the absence of all countervail ing evidence, show clearly that the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (Luke 4: 17) known and quoted by our Lord and his apostles was, as a whole, identical with that which we have under the same name. We find accordingly a long unbroken series of interpreters, Jewish and Christian, through a course of ages, not only acquiescing in this general statement, but regarding all the passages and parts, of which the book consists, as clearly and unquestionably genuine. This appears for the most part, it is true, not as the result of any positive reasoning or investigation, but as a negative assumption, resting on the want of any proof or even ground of suspicion to the contrary. Hence it is that in the older writers on Isaiah, even down to the middle of the eighteenth century, the place now occupied by criticism, in the modern sense, is wholly blank. No one of course thought it necessary to defend what had never been attacked, or to demonstrate what had never been disputed.
This neglect of critical investigation and discussion, although easily accounted for, as we have seen, led to a violent reaction towards the opposite extreme, as soon as the first impulse had been given to that kind of learned speculation. The critical processes employed, with paradoxical assurance, on the Greek and Roman classics, by the school of Bentley, were transferred to Scripture, and applied not only to particular expressions, but to whole passages and even books. That this new method would be early carried to excess, was not only to be apprehended as a possible contingency, but confidently looked for as a natural and even unavoidable result. The causes which facilitate inventions and discoveries tend also to exaggerate their value. Of this general truth we have abundant illustration without going beyond the field of biblical learning. The supposed discovery that Buxtorf and the Rabbins had attached too much importance to the masoretic pointing, led Cappellus, Houbigant, and Lowth, to reject it altogether—not only its authority but its assistance—and to make the Hebrew text a nose of wax between the fingers of an arbitrary and capricious criticism. The discovery that sufficient use had never yet been made of the analogy of Arabic in He brew lexicography, led Schultens and his school to an extreme which seemed to threaten a transfusion of the spirit of one language into the exhausted vessels of another. In like manner, the idea that the Hebrew text had been too uncritically handled, seems at first to have been wholly unaccompanied by any apprehension that the process of correction could be either misapplied or pushed so far as to defeat itself. In all such cases the first movements must be tentative. The primary object is to ascertain whatcarabe done. In settling this point, it is necessary to assume provisionally more than is expected to abide the test of final and decisive experiment. The writers who originally undertook to separate the genuine and spurious portions of Isaiah, acted of course on the presumption, that any part might prove unsound, and therefore set no bounds to their avidity for textual reforms and innovations. The natural result was a grotesque disguise and mutilation of the book by means of numberless erasures, transpositions, combinations, gratuitous assumptions of imaginary authors, two or more of whom were often thought to be identified within the bounds of one connected passage.
Particular examples of this critical mania, as displayed by Koppe, Eichhorn, Bertholdt, and others, will be given hereafter in the exposition. What has been here said in the general will suffice to explain the fact that these extravagant results, and the confusion into which they threw the whole subject of interpretation, soon produced a new reaction. Rosenmiiller, DeWette, and especially Gesenius, who may be regarded as the representatives of a more moderate and later school, have no hesitation in expressing their contempt for the empirical and slashing criticism of their predecessors, and, as a proof of their sincerity, assert the integrity and unity of many passages which Eichhorn and his fellows had most wantonly dismembered. This is undoubtedly a retrograde movement in the right direction, and as far as it goes has had a salutary influence, by making the criticism of the Hebrew text something more than idle guess-work or fantastic child’s play. At the same time, it is not to be dissembled that the ground assumed by these distinguished writers is itself, to use a favourite expression of their own, unkrilisch and unwissenschaftlich, i. e. neither critical nor scientific. The ground of this charge is that their own mode of critical procedure differs from that which they repudiate and laugh at, only in degree, i. e. in the extent to which it is applied. They expunge, transpose, and imagine less; but still they do all three, and on precisely the same principles. They mark out no new method, they establish no new standard, but are simply the moderate party of the same school which they represent as antiquirt and exploded.
The consciousness of this defect betrays itself occasionally in the naivete with which Gesenius and DeWette appeal to their critical feeling as the ultimate ground of their decisions. The real principle of these decisions is identical with that assumed by Eichhorn and his school, to wit, that where there is a colourable pretext or the faintest probability in favour of a change, it is entitled to the preference, always provided that it does not shock the critical GefM of the performer, a proviso which experience has proved to be sufficient to prevent all inconveniences that might arise from a too rigorous construction of the rule. If, for example, after three-fourths of a sentence or a passage have been sacrificed because they may by possibility be spurious, it is found convenient to retain the fourth, for any exegetical pur pose or to prove another point, it is effected without scruple or delay by a response of the GefM in its favour. In this convenient process, the ysvdos of the radical reformers, as the earlier critics may be justly called, if not avowed in theory, is still held fast in practice, viz. the doctrine that the general presumption is against the truth and authenticity of every thing traditional or ancient, and in favour of whatever can by any means be substituted for it. The difference between this and the old-fashioned criticism seems to be the same as that between the principle of English jurisprudence, that a person accused is to be reckoned innocent until he is proved guilty, and the rule adopted in the criminal proceedings of some other nations, that he ought to be held guilty till he proves his innocence. A fundamental maxim of this whole school of criticism, upper and lower, first and last, extreme and moderate, is this, that what is possible is probable and may be held as certain if it suits the convenience of the critic; in other words, “ things must be as they may.”
Another proof that this whole system is uncritical, or destitute of any settled principle, distinct from that of the exploded method which it supersedes, is furnished by the absence of consistency and unity in its results. In one important point, these writers, it is true, display a singular agreement. This is their unanimous rejection of the twenty-seven chapters at the end of the collection, as the product of a later age; a unanimity arising neither from the clearness of the case nor from any real unity of principle among the critics who exhibit it, but simply from the fact, now universally admitted, that these chapters form a continuous unbroken composition, so that in order to be rid of any one part, it is requisite to sacrifice the whole. The particular grounds of this rejection will be stated and examined in a special introduction to that portion of Isaiah. The comparison about to be made here will be restricted to the remainder of the book, with the exception of the four historical chapters which connect the two divisions (ch. xxxvi-xxxix). and which have usually shared the same fate with the twenty-seven.
The earliest chapters are precisely those respecting which these critics are the least divided. It is commonly agreed among them that the six first are genuine productions of Isaiah, to which it can hardly be considered an exception, that ch. 2: ‘2—4 is supposed by many to be still more ancient. The only observable dissent from this general judgment seems to be the paradoxical opinion of the Dutch writer Roorda, that ch. 2: 2-4 is the only portion written by Isaiah, and that all the rest of the first five chapters is the work of Micah! Ch. 7: 1-16 is regarded by Gesenius as probably not the composition of Isaiah, who is mentioned in the third person. This opinion is refuted by Hitzig and repudiated by the later writers. Koppe’s idea that the twelfth chapter is a hymn of later date, after being rejected by Gesenius, and revived by Ewald, has again been set aside by Umbreit. The genuineness of ch. 13 and ch. 14: 1-23 is more unanimously called in question, on account of its resemblance to ch. 40—66, which this whole class of critics set aside as spurious. Ch. 15 and 16 are ascribed by Koppe and Bertholdt to Jeremiah; by Ewald and Umbreit to an unknown prophet older than Isaiah; by Hitzig, Maurer, and Knobel to Jonah; by Hendewerk to Isaiah himself. Eichhorn rejects the nineteenth chapter; Gesenius calls in question the genuineness of vs. 18-20; Koppe denies that of vs. 18-25; Hitzig regards vs. 16-25 as a fabrication of the Jewish priest Onias; while Rosenmiiller, Hendewerk, Ewald and Umbreit, vindicate the whole as a genuine production of Isaiah. The first ten verses of the twenty-first chapter are rejected on the ground of their resemblance to the thirteenth and fourteenth. Ewald ascribes both to a single author; Hitzig denies that they can be from the same hand. Ewald makes the prophecy in ch. 21 the earlier; Hitzig proves it to be later. Koppe, Paulus, Eichhorn, and Rosenmiiller, look upon it as a vaticinium ex eventu; Gesenius, Ewald, and the other later writers as a real prophecy. The twenty-third chapter is ascribed by Movers to Jeremiah; by Eichhorn and Rosenmiiller to an unknown writer later than Isaiah; by Gesenius and DeWette to Isaiah himself; by Ewald to a younger contemporary and disciple of the prophet. The continuous prophecy contained in ch. 24—27 Knobel shows to have been written in Palestine about the beginning of the Babylonish exile; Gesenius, in Babylon towards the end of the captivity, and by the author of ch. 40-66; Umbreit, at the same time, but by a different author; Gramberg, after the return from exile; Ewald, just before the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses; Vatke, in the period of the Maccabees; Hitzig, in Assyria just before the fall of Nineveh; while Rosenmiiller, in the last editions of his Scholia, ascribes it to Isaiah himself. Ch. 28-33 are supposed by Koppe to contain many distinct prophecies of different authors, and by Hitzig several successive compositions of one and the same author; while most other writers consider them as forming a continuous whole. This is regarded by Gesenius and Hitzig, notwithstanding the objections of preceding critics, as a genuine production of Isaiah; but Ewald doubts whether it may not be the work of a disciple. Most of the writers of this school join ch. 34 and 35 together, as an unbroken context; but Hitzig no less confidently puts them asunder. Rosenmiiller, DeWette, and others, set these chapters down as evidently written by the author of ch. 40-66, while Ewald on the other hand maintains that this identity is disproved by a difference of style and diction.
No attempt has here been made to detail the grounds of these conflicting judgments, much less to decide between them. This will be done, so far as it seems necessary, in the exposition, and particularly in the introductions to the several chapters. The object aimed at in the foregoing statement is to show, that no additional security or certainty has been imparted to the criticism of the text by these empirical conjectures, and to confirm the previous assertion that they rest on no determinate intelligible principle or standard of comparison. A further confirmation of the same position is afforded by the tests of genuineness and antiquity, explicitly asserted and applied by the writers of this school. A more correct expression would perhaps be tests of spuriousness and later origin; for, as we have already seen, the use of a criterion, in the hands of these critics, is seldom to establish or confirm, but almost always to discredit what has commonly been looked upon as genuine.
One of the surest proofs of spuriousness, according to the theory and practice of this school, is the occurrence of idioms and words belonging to a period of Hebrew composition later than the days of Isaiah. This method of discrimination, however unobjectionable in itself, is nevertheless often so employed as to be altogether violent and arbitrary in its application. This is effected, first, by exaggerating, in the general, the real difference be tween the older and the later writings, and the practical facility of recognising the peculiar style of either. Conclusions which have properly been drawn, in one case, from a variety of premises, including the assumption of the date as a fact already known, are most unreasonably drawn in others from a single element or item of the same proof in default of all the rest. This kind of sophistry is more delusive in the case of Hebrew than of Greek or Latin criticism, partly because we have fewer data upon which to form a judgment, partly because peculiar causes kept the written Hebrew more unchanged than other languages within a given period, and tended to obliterate in some degree the usual distinctive marks of earlier or later date. This is particularly true if we assume, as there are some strong grounds for doing, that the whole ancient literature of the Hebrews was contained in the canon of their scriptures, so that later writings were continually formed upon a few exclusive models. But whether this be so or not, the influence exerted by the books of Moses on the style and language of succeeding writers was immeasurably greater than in any other case at all analogous.
Besides this general and theoretical exaggeration of the difference be tween the older and the later Hebrew, there is also chargeable upon these critics an habitual proneness to lose sight of the distinction between what is really peculiar to the later books, or to the times in which they were composed, and that which after all, on any supposition, must be common to the different periods. That there must be a common stock of this kind is selfevident; and that it must be very great in comparison with that which is peculiar and distinctive, is as fully established by the facts of this case and the analogy of others like it, as any maxim of comparative philology. And yet some German critics of the modern school, although they do not venture to avow the principle, proceed in practice just as if they held the use of an expression by a later writer to be in itself exclusive of its use by one of a preceding age. And even when they do profess to make the distinction just insisted on, they often make it in an arbitrary manner, or prevent its having any practical effect, by confounding archaisms with neologisms, i. e. mistaking for corruptions of a later age forms of expression which have been transmitted from the earliest period in the dialect of common life, but are only occasionally used in writing, and especially in poetry, until the language ceases to be spoken, and the difference of learned and colloquial style is thereby lost. The profounder study of comparative philology in very recent times has shown the fallacy of many such objections to the antiquity of certain passages, and at the same time shaken the authority of similar criticism in other cases, not admitting of direct refutation.
The bad effect of these fallacious principles of criticism is often aggravated by a want of consistency and fairness in their application. This is especially apparent in the younger German writers of this school, who often push to a pra-ctical extreme the theoretical assumptions of their more discreet or more enlightened teachers. Even where this is unintentionally done, it argues an eagerness to prove a point, or to sustain a foregone conclusion, not very likely to be found connected with a high degree of candour and impartiality. A signal illustration of this critical unfairness is the practice of evading the most certain indications of antiquity by noting them as imitations of a later writer. Where the recent date of the composition is already certain, the existence of such imitations may be certain also; but to assume them in the very process of determining the date, is little short of an absurdity. By setting down whatever can be found in other later books as proof of recent origin, and every thing which cannot as a studied imitation of antiquity, the oldest writings extant may be proved to be a hundred or a thousand years younger than themselves. Indeed it may be stated as a fatal vice of this whole system, that it either proves too little or too much, that it is either pushed too far or that it ought to be pushed further, that the limit of its application is determined by no principle or rule but the convenience or caprice of the interpreter. Stat pro ratiom voluntas. The critical process is too generally this, that where the admission of a passage as genuine would lead to consequences undesirable in any point of view, the critic fastens upon every singularity of thought or language as a ground of suspicion, and the most unmeaning trifles by accumulation are converted into arguments; whereas in other cases altogether parallel, except that there is no urgent motive for discrediting the passage, indications equally abundant and conclusive are entirely overlooked. Sometimes the evidence of later date is found exclusively in one part of a long unbroken context, all admitted to be written by the same hand, though the critic fails to see that this ad mission is destructive of his argument so far as it is founded on diversity of language as a test of age. For if a later writer can be so unlike himself, why not an older writer also 1
This remark, however, is applicable rather to the question of identity than that of age. For a favourite process of the modern critics, and especially of some below the highest rank, is that of proving a negative, by showing that a passage or a book is not the work of its reputed author, with out attempting to show whose it is. Some of the means employed for the attainment of this end might seem incredible, as serious attempts at argument, but for the formal gravity with which they are employed. Sometimes the demonstration is effected by enumerating forms of expression, which occur nowhere else in the undisputed works of the reputed author, and inferring that he therefore could not have employed them in the case under consideration. The first absurdity of this ratiocination lies in the very principle assumed, which is, in fact if not in form, that whatever any writer has said once, he must, as a general rule, have said again if not repeatedly. Now what can be more certain or notorious than the fact that what the greatest writers say most frequently, is that which is least characteristic, while the thoughts arid expressions which are most admired, quoted, and remembered, are for the most part ana^, teyopeva, things which could only be said once, which would not bear to be repeated, by themselves or others? What would be thought of an attempt to prove the Ars Poetica spurious, on the ground that the words exlex, sesquipedalia, cotis, litura, quincunce, and the phrases purpureus pannus, ab ovo, lucidus or do, callidajunctura, norma loquendi, in medias res, incredulus odi, sagax rerum, ad unguem, vivas voces, ore rotundo, decies repetita, laudator temporis acti, the simile of the mountain and the mouse, and the proverbial saying, occupet extremum scabies, occur nowhere else in the writings of Horace? But this case, strong as it is, affords a very insufficient illustration of the theory and practice of the German critics now in question. Not content with the assumption of a false and arbitrary test of identity, they make the application of it more unreasonable still, by rejecting every proof adduced in opposition to their doctrine, as itself suspicious or unquestionably spurious. A parallel case would be that of a critic who, on being reminded that the phrase ab ovo is used in the same sense in the third satire, and ad unguem in the first, should set the argument aside by referring both these compositions to the times of Juvenal or Persius. With equal justice the tenth eclogue of Virgil might be taken from him, by first rejecting the Georgics and the last ten books of the JEneid as unquestionably spurious, and then enumerating all the single words, grammatical constructions, and peculiar idioms, to which no perfect counterparts are found in the remainder of his poems.
But besides this linguistical method of discrediting a large part of Isaiah as unquestionably not his composition, there is another process used for the same purpose, which may be entitled the rhetorical argument, consisting in the arbitrary affirmation that the style of certain passages is too prosaic, the xxxii I N T R O D U 0 T I O N.
metaphors too much confused, the rhythm loo harsh, the allusions too obscure, the illustrations too familiar, the expression too inelegant, to be imputed to so great a writer. This mode of criticism is pregnant with absurdities peculiar to itself. In the first place may be stated the unreasonable weight which it attaches to rhetorical distinctions in general, not to mention the peculiar stress laid on the technicalities of scholastic rhetoric in particular. This error is connected with a false hypothesis, to be considered afterwards, as to the light in which the prophets viewed themselves and were regarded by their readers. If they aspired to be nothing more than orators and poets, then rhetorical considerations would of course be paramount; but if they believed themselves, and were believed by others, to be inspired revealers of the will of God, it is absurd to imagine that they would or could allow the clear and strong expression of that will to be controlled by mere rhetorical punctilios.
Another flaw in this critical process is its puerile assumption that the prophets, even as mere orators and poets, must be always doing their best; that if ever striking, they must strike at all times; that if ever tender, they must always melt; that if they ever soar, they must be always in the clouds; whereas analogy demonstrates that the greatest writers, both in prose and verse, go up by the mountains and down by the valleys, or in other words, exert their highest faculties at intervals, with long and frequent seasons of repose, while poetasters and declaimers prove the hollowness of their claims by a painful uniformity of tension1 and a wearisome monotony of failure.
A third defect is one which might with equal justice have been charged against some arguments before recited, namely, the vague and indeterminate character of this criterion, as evinced by the diversity of its results. Not only does one critic censure what another critic of the same school leaves unnoticed; but the same thing is positively represented by the two as a beauty and a deformity, nay more, as fatal to the genuineness of a passage, and as a certain demonstration of it. It may seem invidious and perhaps presumptuous to add, that this unsafe and two-edged instrument could scarcely be intrusted to worse hands than those of some late German critics, who, with all their erudition, ingenuity, and show of philosophical aesthetics, are peculiarly deficient in that delicate refinement and acute sensibility of taste, which a less profound but far more classical and liberal training has imparted even to inferior scholars of some other nations, and especially of England. To this unfavourable estimate of German taste and literary judg ment there are eminent exceptions, even in the ranks of theological and biblical learning; but among these it would be impossible to class the writers who are most remarkable for an unhesitating reckless use of the rhetorical criterion now in question. On the contrary, it may be stated as a curious and instructive fact, that the imputation of inelegance, awkwardness, obscurity, and coarseness, has been lavished on Isaiah with peculiar prodigality by those interpreters who seem to be most open to the charge themselves, and who, in the very act of passing judgment on the Prophet or his writings as devoid of taste and genius, often show most painfully and clearly that their circumscribed professional pursuits, however thorough and successful, have been insufficient to compensate for the want of a more enlarged and humanizing culture.
The revulsion of feeling, necessarily occasioned in the great majority of cultivated minds, by these rhetorical attacks upon some portions of Isaiah, with a view to prove them spurious, must be greatly aggravated by another argument employed for the same purpose, which may be distinguished from the lexicographical, grammatical, and rhetorical tests already mentioned, as the ethical or moral test. This consists simply in accusing certain passages of being animated by a narrow, selfish, mean, and sometimes even by a fierce? malignant, cruel, vindictive, blood-thirsty spirit, wholly foreign from Isaiah’s character, and from the temper of the age in which he lived. Without insist o- on the arbitrary difference assumed in this objection to exist between certain periods of the sacred history, in point of moral elevation and enlarge ment, let it be observed how perfectly factitious and imaginary this peculiar tone of the disputed passages must be, when it has failed to strike the most enlightened readers of the Prophet for a course of ages. This is a question wholly different from that of philological or even rhetorical distinctions, which might easily escape the view of any but professional and critical readers, and be first discovered by the searching processes of modern scrutiny. But when the critic passes from the field of orthography and etymology to that of morals, he is stepping out of darkness into sunshine, from the bench to the bar, from the position of a judge to that of an advocate, who, far from being able to decide the controversy by a dictum, has to plead his cause at the tribunal of a multitude of trained minds and enlightened con sciences. The want of familiar and devotional acquaintance with the Scriptures, on the part of many learned German critics, must disable them from estimating the advantage thus enjoyed by Christian readers, whose opinions have been formed upon the Gospel, and who certainly would be the first to mark any real inconsistency between it and the spirit of the ancient prophets. To such spectators, and in such a light, there is something almost ludicrous in the solemnity with which some unbelievers in the inspiration of the Bible utter sanctimonious complaints of an immoral and unhallowed temper in those parts of the Old Testament which they, for reasons afterwards to be considered, are unwilling to acknowledge as authentic, while they pass by, with discreet indulgence, indications far more plausible in other places. If it be said, that these immoral tendencies escape the ordinary reader on account of his foregone conclusion that the whole proceeds from God and therefore must be right; the answer is, that a hypothesis, which thus brings all the parts of an extensive varied whole into agreement, bears upon its face the clearest marks of truth, and that the fact alleged affords an incidental proof that the position of the adverse party, which compels him to see every thing distorted and at variance with itself, must be a false one.
This last suggestion opens a new view of the whole subject. Thus far the question has been stated and discussed as one of criticism merely, not of hermeneutics or of doctrinal belief, with a view to show that even on historical and literary grounds, the modern German mode of dealing with the text of Isaiah, and of settling the antiquity and genuineness of its several parts, is wholly untenable, because capricious, arbitrary, inconsistent with itself, and at variance with analogy, good taste, and common sense. The reader must, however, have observed that in exposing the caprices of these critics, I have frequently described them as resorting to these methods only where they had strong reasons for desiring to discredit a particular portion of the book, at least so far as to dispute its antiquity. It will now be proper to explain how such a motive can be supposed to exist, the rather as the neological interpreters of Germany are often praised by their admirers, on the ground that, although they are skeptical, their very skepticism renders them impartial and gives their testimony greater weight, in every case except where the question of inspiration is directly and formally at issue. The practical effect of this superficial estimate has been the practice of adhering servilely to these neologists until they openly deny some fundamental doctrine of religion, then protesting against that specific error, and again walking closely in their footsteps, till another opportunity or palpable necessity for protesta tion or dissent occurs. Besides the want of harmony and unity in any course of criticism or exegesis thus conducted, it is evident that such a mode of dealing with a system, which is known and acknowledged to be unsound in principle, must lead the writer and the reader into many other dangers than the few which are upon the surface. Incedis per ignes suppositos cineri doloso. To avoid these hidden and insidious dangers, it is neccessary to compare the different theories of criticism and interpretation, not in their formal differences merely, but in their intimate connexion with diversities of fundamental principles and doctrinal belief. In order to effect this, it will be expedient to consider briefly the historical progress of opinion with respect to the principles of exegesis, as we have already traced the change of theory and practice in the treatment of the text. These two important parts of the same great subject will be found to illustrate and complete each other.
Isaiah himself, even leaving out of view the large part of his book which a capricious criticism has called in question, may be said to express every where his own belief that he was writing under an extraordinary influence, not merely human but divine. This is at least the primafacie view which any unsophisticated reader would derive from a simple perusal of his undisputed writings. However mistaken he might think the prophet, in asserting or assuming his own inspiration, such a reader could scarcely hesitate to grant that he believed it and expected it to be believed by others. In one of the oldest and best of the Jewish Apocrypha (Sirach 24: 25), Isaiah is called the great and faithful prophet who foresaw what was to happen till the end of time. Josephus and Philo incidentally bear witness to his universal recognition by their countrymen as one inspired of God.
We have seen already that our Lord and his Apostles cite the whole book of Isaiah with more frequency than any other part of the Old Testa ment. It now becomes a question of historical interest at least, in what capacity and character Isaiah is thus quoted, and with what authority he seems to be invested in the New Testament. The simple fact that he is there so often quoted, when connected with another undisputed fact, to wit, that his writings, even at that early date, held a conspicuous place among the Sacred Scriptures (leoa yQ dp (.tat a, yQayai ayiai) of the Jews, would of itself create a strong presumption that our Lord and his apostles recognised his inspiration and divine authority. We are not left, however, to infer this incidentally; for it is proved directly by the frequent combination of the title Prophet with the name Isaiah (Matth. 3: 3. 4: 14. 8: 17. 12: 17. Luke 3: 4. 4: 17. John 1: 23. 13: 28. Acts 8: 28-30. 28: 25); by the repeated statement that he prophesied or spoke by inspiration (Mark 7: 6. Rom. 9: 29); by the express declaration that some of his predictions were fulfilled in the history of Christ and his contemporaries (Matth. 3: 3. 4: 14. 8: 17. Acts 28: 25); and by the still more remarkable state ment that Isaiah saw Christ and spoke of his glory (John 12: 41). These expressions place it beyond all possibility of doubt that the New Testament describes Isaiah as a Prophet in the strictest and the highest sense inspired of God. This is alleged here, not as a reason for our own belief, but simply as a well-attested fact in the history of the interpretation.
Coming down a little lower, we find all the Christian Fathers taking for granted the divine authority and inspiration of the Prophet, and regulating their interpretation of his book accordingly. But not content with thus acknowledging his right to a place among the sacred books of the Old Testament, they ascribe to him a certain pre-eminence as belonging rather to the new dispensation. Eusebius describes him as the great and wonderful prophet, and even as the greatest of prophets. According to Cyril, he is at once a prophet and apostle; according to Jerome, not so much a prophet as an evangelist. The latter elsewhere represents him as non solum prophetam sed evan-> gelistametapostolum, and his book as nonprophetiam sed evangelium. As the old Jewish doctrine upon this point is maintained by the rabbinical expounders of the Middle Ages, it may be affirmed that both the Old and New Testaments, according to the Jewish and the Christian tradition, represent Isaiah as inspired.
From the Fathers this doctrine passed without change into the Re formed Church, and from the Talmudists and Rabbins to the modern Jews, so far as they continue to adhere to their religion. Much as the Protestant Church has been divided since the Reformation, as to doctrine in general, as to the interpretation of Scripture in particular, and even with respect to the right method of interpreting Isaiah, all schools and parties, until after the middle of the eighteenth century, held fast to the inspiration of the Prophet as a fundamental principle, to which all theories and all exegetical results must be accommodated. Even the lax Arminian school of Grotius and Le Clerc, however much disposed to soften down the sharp points and asperities of orthodox opinion, upon this as well as other subjects, did not venture to disturb the old foundation. The very faults and errors, with which the stricter theologians charged their exegesis, were occasioned in a great degree by their attempt to reconcile more liberal and superficial views of the Prophet’s meaning with the indisputable axiom of his inspiration. That a secret skeptical misgiving often gave complexion to their exegesis, is extremely probable; but it is still true, that they did not venture to depart from the traditional opinion of the whole church in all ages, as to the canonical authority and inspiration of the book before us. They sought by various means to belittle and explain away the natural results of this great principle; but with the principle itself they either did not wish or did not dare to meddle.
After the middle of the eighteenth century, a memorable change took place in Germany, as to the method of interpreting Isaiah. This change was closely connected with the one already mentioned, in relation to the criticism of the text. As the skeptical criticism of the classics was the model upon which that of the Hebrew text was formed, so a like imitation of the classical methods of interpretation became generally current. The favourite idea now was, that the Hebrew books were to be treated simply and solely as remains of ancient Jewish literature, and placed, if not upon a level with the Greek and Roman books, below them, as the products of a ruder period and a less gifted race. This affectation was soon carried out in its details ad nauseam. Instead of prophecies, and psalms, and history, the talk was now of poems, odes, orations, and mythology. The ecclesias tical and popular estimate of the books as sacred went for nothing, or was laughed at, as a relic of an antiquated system. This change, although apparently confined to technicalities, could never have been wrought without a deep defection from the ancient faith, as to the inspiration of the Scriptures. Under the pretext of exchanging barbarism for refinement, and of putting biblical and classical pursuits upon a footing of equality, the essential distinction between literature and scripture was in fact abolished, without any visible or overt violence, by simply teaching men to treat them and to talk of them without discrimination.
This momentous change was undesignedly promoted by Lowth’s ingenious and successful effort to direct attention to Isaiah’s character and value as a poet. Believing justly that the exposition of the Prophet’s writings had been hindered and perplexed by a failure to appreciate the figurative dress in which his thoughts were clothed, the learned and accomplished prelate undertook to remedy the evil by presenting, in the strongest light and in extreme relief, this single aspect of Isaiah’s writings. In attempting this, he was unconsciously led to overcolour and exaggerate the real points of difference between the ordinary prose of history or legislation and the lively elevated prose of prophecy, applying to the latter all the distinctive terms which immemorial usage had appropriated to the strictly metrical productions of the Greek and Roman poets. This error led to several unfortunate results, some of which will be considered in another place. The only one that need be mentioned here is the apparent countenance afforded by Lowth’s theories and phraseology to the contemporary efforts of the earlier neologists in Germany to blot out the distinction between poetfy and prophecy, between the ideal inspiration of the Muses and the real inspiration of the Holy Ghost. This was the more to be regretted, as there does not seem to be the slightest reason for suspecting that the Bishop had departed in the least from the established doctrine of his own church and of every other, with respect to the divine authority and origin of this or of the other sacred books. That Lowth, by his un warrantable changes of the text, and his exclusive disproportionate protrusion of the mere poetical element in scripture, gave an impulse to a spirit of more daring innovation in succeeding writers, is not more certain than the fact, that this abuse of his hypotheses, or rather this legitimate deduction of their more remote but unavoidable results, was altogether unforeseen. In ably and honestly attempting to correct a real error, and to make good an injurious defect, in the theory and practice of interpretation, he unwittingly afforded a new instance of the maxim, that the remedy may possibly be worse than the disease.
By the German writers, these new notions were soon pushed to an extreme. Besides the total change of phraseology already mentioned, some went so far as to set down the most express predictions as mere poetical descriptions of events already past. From this extreme position, occupied by Eichhorn and some others, DeWette and Gesenius receded, as they did from the critical extravagance of multiplying authors and reducing the ancient prophecies to fragments. They admitted, not only that many portions of Isaiah had reference to events still future when he wrote, but also that he was inspired, reserving to themselves the right of putting a convenient sense on that equivocal expression. Among the later German writers on Isaiah, there is a marked variety of tone, as to the light in which the Prophet is to be regarded. While all, in general terms, acknowledge his genius and the literary merit of his writings, some, in expounding them, appear to vacillate between condescension and contempt. Of this class Hitzig is perhaps the lowest; Knobel and Hendewerk exhibit the same peculiarities with less uniformity and in a less degree. Gesenius treats his subject with the mingled interest and indifference of an antiquary handling a curious and valuable relic of the olden time. Ewald rises higher in his apparent estimation of his subject, and habitually speaks of Isaiah in terms of admiration and respect. Umbreit goes still further in the same direction, and employs expressions which would seem to identify him fully with the orthodox believing school of criticism, but for his marked agreement with neology in one particular, about to be stated.
The successive writers of this modern school, however they may differ as to minor points among themselves, prove their identity of principle by holding that there cannot be distinct prophetic foresight of the distant future. This doctrine is avowed more explicitly by some (as by Hitzig and Knobel) than by others (as Gesenius and Ewald); but it is really the TTQWXOV \jje~dos of the whole school, and the only bond of unity between them. There is also a difference in the application of the general rule to specific cases. Where the obvious exposition of a passage would convert it into a distinct prediction, Gesenius and Hitzig usually try to show that the words really relate to something near at hand, and within the reach of a sagacious human foresight, while Ewald and Umbreit in the same case choose rather to convert it into a vague anticipation. But they all agree in this, that where the prophecy can be explained away in neither of these methods, it must be regarded as a certain proof of later date. This is the real ground, on which ch. XL-LXVI are referred to the period of the exile, when the conquests of Cyrus and the fall of Babylon might be foreseen without a special revelation. This is the fundamental doctrine of the modern neological interpreters, the foregone conclusion, to which all exegetical results must yield or be accommodated, and in support of which the arbitrary processes before described must be employed for the discovery of arguments, philological, historical, rhetorical and moral, against the genuineness of the passage, which might just as easily be used in other cases, where they are dispensed with, simply because they are not needed for the purpose of destroying an explicit proof of inspiration.
From this description of the neological interpretation there are two important practical deductions. The first and clearest is, that all conclusions founded, or necessarily depending, on this false assumption, must of course go for nothing with those who do not hold it, and especially with those who are convinced that it is false. Whoever is persuaded, independently of these disputed questions, that there may be such a thing as a prophetic inspiration, including the gift of prescience and prediction, must of course be unaffected by objections to its exercise in certain cases, resting on the general negation of that which he knows to be true. The other inference, less obvious but for that very reason more important, is that the false assumption now in question must exert and does exert an influence extend ing far beyond the conclusions directly and avowedly drawn from it. He who rejects a given passage of Isaiah, because it contains definite predictions of a future too remote from the times in which he lived to be the object of ordinary human foresight, will of course be led to justify this condemnation by specific proofs drawn from the diction, style, or idiom of the passage, its historical or archaeological allusions, its rhetorical character, its moral tone, or its religious spirit. On the discovery and presentation of such proofs, the previous assumption, which they are intended to sustain, cannot fail to have a warping influence. The writer cannot but be tempted to give prominence to trifles, to extenuate difficulties, and to violate consistency by making that a proof in one case, which he overlooks in others, or positively sets aside as inadmissible or inconclusive. This course of things is not only natural but real; it may not only be expected a priori, but established ex eventu, as will be apparent from a multitude of cases in the course of the ensuing exposition. All that need here be added is the general conclusion, that the indirect effects of such a principle are more to be suspected than its immediate and avowed results, and that there cannot be a graver practical error than the one already mentioned of obsequiously following these writers as authoritative guides, except when they explicitly apply their TTQMTOV ipEvdo? as a test of truth. The only safe and wise course is to treat them, not as judges, but as witnesses, or advocates, and even special pleaders; to weigh their dicta carefully, and always with a due regard to what is known to be the unsound basis of their criticism and exegesis. That this discretion may be vigilantly exercised, without foregoing the advantages arising from the modern philological improvements, is attested by the actual example of such men as Hengstenberg and Havernick and others, trained in the modern German school of philology, and fully able to avail themselves of its advantages, while at the same time they repudiate its arbitrary principles in favour of those held by older writers, which may now be considered as more sure than ever, because founded on a broader scientific basis, and because their strength has been attested by resistance to assaults as subtle and as violent as they can ever be expected to encounter. Some of the critical and hermeneutical principles thus established may be here exhibited, as furnishing the basis upon which the following exposition of Isaiah is constructed. In the first place, it may be propounded, as a settled principle of critical investigation, that the bare suggestion of a way in which the text may have been altered in a given case, and the ipsissima verba of the author, either by fraud or accident, confounded with the language of a later writer, only creates a feeble probability in favour of the emendation recommended, so as at the utmost to entitle it to be compared with the received opinion. Even the clearest case of critical conjecture, far from determining the question in dispute, only affords us an additional alternative, and multiplies the objects among which we are to choose. Our hypothesis may possibly be right, but it may possibly be wrong, and between these possibilities mere novelty is surely not sufficient to decide. The last conjecture is not on that account entitled to the preference. There are, no doubt, degrees of probability, susceptible of measurement; but in a vast majority of cases, the conjectural results of the modern criticism are precisely such as no one would think of entertaining unless previously determined to abandon the traditional or prevalent belief. If the common text, or the common opinion of its genuineness, be untenable, these critical conjectures may afford the most satisfactory substitute; but they do not of themselves decide the previous question, upon which their own utility depends. If the last chapters of Isaiah cannot be the work of their reputed author, then it is highly probable that they were written towards the close of the Babylonish exile; but it cannot be inferred from this conditional admission, that they are not genuine, any more than we can argue that a statement is untrue, because if not true it is false. The characteristic error of the modern criticism is its habitual rejection of a reading or interpretation, not because another is intrinsically better, but simply because there is another to supply its place. In other words, it is assumed that, in a doubtful case, whatever is established and received is likely to be spurious, and whatever is suggested for the first time likely to be genuine, and therefore entitled not only to be put upon a footing of equality with that to which it is opposed, but to take precedence of it, so that every doubt must be allowed to operate against the old opinion and in favour of the new one.
But in the second place, so far is this from being the true principle, that the direct reverse is true. Not only are the chances, or the general presumption, not in favour of a change or innovation, as such; they are against it, and in favour of that which has long been established and received. The very fact of such reception is presumptive proof of genuineness, because it shows how many minds have so received it without scruple or objection, or in spite of both. Such a presumption may indeed be overcome by counter vailing evidence; but still the presumption does exist, and is adverse to in novations, simply viewed as such. If it were merely on the ground, that the mind, when perplexed by nearly balanced probabilities, seeks something to destroy the equilibrium, and finds it in the previous existence of the one belief and its reception by a multitude of minds, we might allege the higher claims of that which is established and received, if not as being certainly correct, as having been so thought by others. In this the human mind is naturally prone to rest, until enabled by preponderating evidence to make its own decision, so that even in the most doubtful cases, it is safer and easier to abide by what has long been known and held as true, than to adopt a new suggestion, simply because it cannot be proved false. Here again the fashionable modern criticism differs from that which is beginning even in Germany to supersede it, inasmuch as the former allows all the benefit of doubt to innovation, while the latter gives it to received opinions.
The general principle just stated is peculiarly important and appropriate in the criticism of the Hebrew text, because so far as \ve can trace its history, it has been marked by a degree of uniformity, arising from a kind of supervision, to which no other ancient writings, even the most sacred, seem to have been subjected, not excepting the books of the New Testament. To call this Jewish scrupulosity and superstition does not in the least impair the strong presumption which it raises in favour of the text as it has been transmitted to us, and against the emendations of conjectural criticism. The wonderful resemblance of the Hebrew manuscripts now extant is admitted upon all hands, and explained as an effect of the masoretic labours in the sixth or seventh century, by means of which one Hebrew text acquired universal circulation. But this explanation needs itself to be explained. The possibility of thus reducing many texts to one has nothing to support it in the analogy of other languages or other writings. The variations of the text of the New Testament afford a memorable instance of the contrary. It is in vain to say that no such means were used to harmonize and reconcile the manuscripts; in other words, that no Greek masora existed. How can its absence be accounted for, except upon the ground, that the Hebrew critics followed ancient usage, and recorded a tradition which had been in existence for a course of ages? These considerations do not go to prove the absolute perfection of the masoretic text; but they unquestionably do create a very strong presumption—stronger by far than in any other like case—against innovation and in favour of tradition. The validity of this conclusion is in fact conceded by the signal unanimity with which the recent German critics, of all classes, set aside the fantastic mode of criticism practised by Cappellus, Houbigant, and Lowth, and assume the correctness of the masoretic text in every case except where they are driven from it by the stress of exegetical necessity. That the principle thus universally adopted in relation to the criticism of letters, words, and phrases, is not extended by these critics to the criticism of larger passages, argues no defect or error in the principle itself, but only a want of consistent uniform ity in its application. Tf it be true, as all now grant, that in relation to the elements of speech, to letters, words, and single phrases, we may safely presume that the existing text is right till it is shown to be wrong, how can it be, that in relation to whole sentences or larger contexts, the presumption is against the very same tradition until positively proved to be correct? That this is a real inconsistency, is not only plain upon the face of it, but rendered more unquestionable by the very natural and easy explanation of which it is susceptible. The criticism of words and letters, though identical in principle with that of entire passages, is not so closely connected with the evidence of inspiration and prophetic foresight, and is therefore less subject to the operation of the fundamental error of the rationalistic system. This is the more remarkable because in certain cases, where the main question happens to turn upon a single word or letter, there we find the same capricious license exercised, without regard to probability or evidence, as in the ordinary processes of criticism on a larger scale. From these theoretical concessions and these practical self-contradictions of the modern critics, we may safely infer the indisputable truth of the critical principles which they are forced to grant, and from which they depart in practice only when adherence to them would involve the necessity of granting that, the absolute negation of which is the fundamental doctrine of their system.
All this would be true and relevant, if the book in question were an ancient classic handed down to us in the manner just described. But Isaiah constitutes a part of a collection claiming to be a divine revelation. It is itself expressly recognised as such in the sacred books of the Christian religion. The authenticity and inspiration of the parts are complicated together, and involved in the general question of the inspiration of the whole. Whatever evidence goes to establish that of the New Testament adds so much to the weight of Isaiah’s authority. Whatever strength the claims of the New Testament derive from miracles, from moral effects, from intrinsic qualities, is shared in some measure by the book before us. The same thing is true of the external and internal evidence that the Old Testament proceeds from God. The internal character of this one book, its agreement with the other parts of Scripture, and with our highest conceptions of God, the place which it has held in the estimation of intelligent and good men through a course of ages, its moral and spiritual influence on those \who have received it as the word of God, so far as this can be determined separately from that of the whole Bible or of the entire Old Testament; all this invests the book with an authority and dignity which shield it from the petty caprices of a trivial criticism. Those who believe, on these grounds, that the book, as a whole, is inspired of God, not only may, but must be unwilling to give ear to every skeptical or frivolous suggestion as to the genuineness of its parts. Even if there were more ground for misgiving than there is, and fewer positive proofs of authenticity, he whose faith is founded, not on detached expressions or minute agreements, but on the paramount claims of the whole as such to his belief and reverence, would rather take for granted, in a dubious case, that God had providentially preserved the text intact, than lift the anchor of his faith and go adrift upon the ocean of conjecture, merely because he could not answer every fool according to his folly.
The result of these considerations is, that as the neological interpreters assume the impossibility of inspiration and prophetic foresight, as a principle immovable by any indications of the contrary, however clear and numerous, so those who hold the inspiration of the Scriptures as a certain truth, should suffer this their general belief to influence their judgment on particular questions both of criticism and interpretation. The effect should not be that of closing the mind against conviction, where the reasons are sufficient to produce it, but simply that of hindering all concessions to an arbitrary and capricious license of conjecture, and all gratuitous sacrifices of received opinion to the mere possibility of some new notion. It is certainly not to be expected that believers in the inspiration of the Bible as a whole, should be content to give up any of its parts as readily as if it were an old song, or even a more valuable relic of some heathen writer.
In conformity with what has just been stated as the only valid principle of criticism, in the technical or strict sense, the laws of interpretation may be well defined to be those of common sense, controlled by a regard to the divine authority and inspiration of the book, considered as a fact alreadyestablished or received as true. The design of biblical interpretation is not to prove, although it may illustrate, the canonical authority of that which is interpreted. This is a question to be previously settled, by a view of the whole book or of the whole collection which includes it, in connexion with the various grounds on which its claims to such authority are rested. Every competent expounder of Isaiah, whether infidel or Christian, comes before the public with his opinion upon this point formed, and with a fixed determination to regulate his treatment of particulars accordingly. The writer who should feign to be neutral or indifferent in this respect, would find it hard to gain the public ear, and harder still to control the public judgment. While the rationalist therefore avowedly proceeds upon the supposition, that the book before him is and can be nothing more than a human composition, it is not only the right but the duty of the Christian interpreter to treat it as the work both of God and man, a divine revelation and a human composition, the contents of which are never to be dealt with in a manner inconsistent either with the supposition of its inspiration or with that of its real human origin. The latter hypothesis is so essential, that there cannot be a sound interpretation, where there is not a consistent and a constant application of the same rules which control the exposition of all other writings, qualified only by a constant recollection of the well-attested claims of the book expounded to the character of a divine revelation. One important practical result of this assumption is, that seeming contradictions and discrepancies are neither to be passed by, as they might be in an ordinary composition, nor regarded as so many refutations of the doctrine that the writing which contains them is inspired of God, but rather interpreted with due regard to the analogy of Scripture, and with a constant preference, where other things are equal, of those explanations which are most in agreement with the general fact of inspiration upon which the exposition rests. The attempt to explain every passage or expression by itself, and to assume the prima facie meaning as in every case the true one, without any reference to other parts of the same book, or to other books of the same collection, is absurd in theory and directly contradicted by the universal usage of mankind in determining the sense of other writings, while it practically tends to put the Christian interpreter in a situation of extreme disadvantage with respect to the neologist, who does not hesitate to press into the service of his own interpretation every argument afforded by analogy. The evil effect of this mistaken notion on the part of Christian writers is not merely that they often fail to vindicate the truth, but that they directly contribute to the triumph of its enemies.
With respect to the prophetic parts of Scripture, and to the writings of Isaiah in particular, a few exegetical maxims may be added to the general principles already stated. These, for the most part, will be negative in form, as being intended to preclude certain fallacies and practical errors, which have greatly hindered the correct interpretation of the book before us. The generic formulas here used will be abundantly exemplified hereafter by specific instances arising in the course of the interpretation.
All prophecies are not predictions, i. e. all the writings of the Prophets, and of this one in particular, are not to be regarded as descriptive of future events. The contrary error, which has arisen chiefly from the modern and restricted usage of the word prophet and its cognate terms, has generated some ot the most crude extravagancies of prophetic exegesis. It has been shown already, by a historical and philological induction, that the scriptural idea of prophecy is far more extensive, that the prophets were inspired to reveal the truth and will of God, in reference to the past and present, no less than the future. In Isaiah, for example, we find many statements of a general nature, and particularly exhibitions of the general principles which govern the divine administration, especially in reference to the chosen people and their enemies or persecutors.
All predictions, or prophecies in the restricted sense, are not specific and exclusive, i. e. limited to one occasion or emergency, but many are descriptive of a sequence of events which has been often realized. The vagueness and indefiniteness which might seem to attach to such predictions, and by making their fulfilment more uncertain to detract from their impressiveness and value, are precluded by the fact that, while the whole prediction frequently admits of this extensive application, it includes allusions to particular events, which can hardly be mistaken. Thus in some parts of Isaiah, there are prophetic pictures of the sieges of Jerusalem, which can not be exclusively applied to any one event of that kind, but the terms and images of which are borrowed partly from one and partly from another through a course of ages. This kind of prophecy, so far from being vague and unimpressive, is the clearest proof of real inspiration, because more than any other beyond the reach of ordinary human foresight. Thus the threatening against Babylon, contained in the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Isaiah, if explained as a specific and exclusive prophecy of the Medo-Persian conquest, seems to represent the downfall of the city as more sudden and complete than it appears in history, and on the other hand affords a pretext, though a very insufficient one, for the assertion that it may have been composed so near the time of the events foretold as to bring them within the reach of uninspired but sagacious foresight. No such hypothesis, however, will account for the extraordinary truth of the prediction when regarded as a panorama of the fall of Babylon, not in its first inception merely, but through all its stages till its consummation.
All the predictions of Isaiah, whether general or specific, are not to be literally understood. The ground of this position is the fact, universally admitted, that the prophecies abound in metaphorical expressions. To assert that this figurative character is limited to words and clauses, or at most to single sentences, is wholly arbitrary, and at variance with the acknowledged use of parables, both in the Old and New Testament, in which important doctrines and events a-re presented under a tropical cos tume, throughout a passage sometimes of considerable length. These facts are sufficient to sustain the negative position, that the prophecies are not invariably clothed in literal expressions, or in other words are not to be always literally understood.
The prophecies of this book are not to be always understood in a figurative or spiritual sense. The contrary assumption has engendered a vast motley multitude of mystical and anagogical interpretations, sometimes superadded to the obvious sense, and sometimes substituted for it, but in either case obscuring the true import and defeating the design of the prediction. The same application of the laws of common sense and of general analogy, which shows that some predictions must be metaphorical, shows that others must be literal. To assert, without express authority, that prophecy must always and exclusively be one or the other, is as foolish as it would be to assert the same thing of the whole conversation of an individual throughout his lifetime, or of human speech in general. No valid reason can be given for applying this exclusive canon of interpretation to the prophecies, which would not justify its application to the Iliad, the jEneid, the Divina Commedia, or the Paradise Lost, an application fruitful only in absurdities. Isaiah’s prophecies are therefore not to be expounded on the general principle, that either a literal or figurative sense must be assumed wherever it is possible. We have already seen the fallacies resulting from the assumption, that whatever is possible is probable or certain. To set aside the obvious and strict sense, wherever it can be done without absurdity, is forbidden by the very nature of the difference between literal and figurative language. That which is regular and normal must at times assert its rights or it becomes anomalous. On the other hand, to claim precedence for the strict and proper sense in every case, is inconsistent with the fact that symbols, emblems, images, and tropes, are characteristic of prophetic language. In a word, the question between literal and tropical interpretation is not to be determined by the application of invariable formulas. The same remark may be applied to the vexed question with respect to types and double senses. The old extreme of constantly assuming these wherever it is possible, and the later extreme of denying their existence, may be both considered as exploded errors. That words may be naturally used with a primary and secondary reference, is clear from all analogy. That some things in the old dispensation were intended to be types of cor responding objects in the new, is clear from the New Testament. A fantastic philotypia is not more likely to engender error than a morbid typophobia, except that the first is not merely negative in its effects, and may be exercised ad libitum, whereas the other prides itself on never adding to the revelation, but is satisfied with taking from it. Both may exist, and both must be avoided, not by the use of nostrums and universal rules, but by the exercise of sound discretion in specific cases, guided by the obvious canon, founded on experience and analogy, that types and double senses do not constitute the staple even of prophetic language, and are therefore not to be wantonly assumed, in cases where a simpler and more obvious exposition is abundantly sufficient to meet all the requisitions of the text and context.
The question, under which of these descriptions any prophecy must be arranged, i. e. the question whether it is strictly a prediction, and if so, whether it is general or particular, literal or figurative, can only be determined by a thorough independent scrutiny of each case by itself, in reference to form and substance, text and context, without regard to arbitrary and exclusive theories, but with a due regard to the analogy of scripture in general, and of other prophecies in particular, especially of such as belong to the same writer, or at least to the same period, and apparently relate to the same subject. This is far from being so attractive or so easy as the sweeping application of a comprehensive canon to all cases, like and unlike; but it seems to be the- only process likely to afford a satisfactory result, and one main purpose of the following exposition is to prove its efficacy by a laborious and fair experiment.
In executing this design, it is essential that regard should be paid to the exterior form as well as to the substance of a passage, that rhetorical embellishments should be distinguished from didactic propositions, that prosaic and poetical peculiarities should be distinctly and correctly estimated at their real value. Experience has clearly shown, that such discrimination does not always accompany the habit of perpetually praising the sublimity and beauty of the author’s style, a practice perfectly compatible with very indistinct and even false conceptions of rhetorical propriety. The characteristics of Isaiah, as a writer, appear by some to be regarded as consisting merely in the frequent occurrence of peculiar forms of speech, for which they are continually on the watch, and ever ready to imagine if they cannot find them. The favourite phenomenon of this kind with the latest writers is paronomasia, an intentional resemblance in the form or sound of words which are nearly related to each other in a sentence. The frequent occurrence of this figure in Isaiah is beyond a doubt; but the number of the instances has been extravagantly multiplied; in some cases, it would almost seem, for the purpose of detracting from the author’s merit; sometimes with an honest but mistaken disposition to enhance it. It is an important observation of Ewald’s, that a mere assonance of words is probably fortuitous, except where a similar relation can be traced between the thoughts which they express. The truth in reference to this and many other kindred topics, can be ascertained only in the way proposed above, i. e. by a due regard to the matter and the manner of each passage in itself considered. This discriminating process necessarily involves a scrupulous avoidance of two opposite extremes, which have, at different periods, and in some cases simultaneously, done much to pervert and hinder the interpretation of the book before us. The first extreme particularly prevalent in earlier times, is that of understanding the most highly wrought descriptions, the most vivid imagery, the boldest personifications, as mere prose. This is especially exemplified in the irrational and tasteless manner of expounding apologues and parables by many of the older writers, who insist on giving a specific sense to circumstances which are significant only as parts of one harmonious whole. The other extreme, of which we have already traced the origin, is that of turning elevated prose diversified by bursts of poetry, into a regular poem or series of poems, technically so considered, and subjecting them as such to all the tests and rules of classical poetry, and even to the canons of its versification. To expound Isaiah without any reference to the perpetual recurrence of antitheses and other parallel constructions, would be now a proof of utter incapacity. Far more indulgence would be probably extended to the no less extravagant but much less antiquated error of seeking perfect parallels in every sentence, torturing the plain sense into forced conformity with this imaginary standard, altering the text to suit it, and in short converting a natural and unstudied form, in which the Hebrew mind expressed itself without regard to rules or systems, into a rigorous scholastic scheme of prosody. The recurrence of a certain theme, refrain, or burden at nearly equal intervals—a structure natural and common in the elevated prose of various nations, for example in the sermons of the great French preachers—may be very properly compared to the strophical arrangements of the Greek dramatic style. But when, instead of an illustrative comparison, the passages thus marked are gravely classed as real strophes and antistrophes, and formally distributed among imaginary choruses of Prophets, Jews, and so forth, this pedantic affectation of confounding Hebrew prophecies with Greek plays, becomes chargeable with wasteful and ridiculous excess. It can only be regarded as a natural and necessary consequence of this overstrained analogy between things which occasionally coincide in form, that some of the most recent German critics do not hesitate to strike whole verses from the text of Isaiah, on the ground that they cannot be genuine because they make the strophes unequal, and that one of them winds up a comparison between prophetic and dramatic poetry with several pages of imaginary, far-fetched, or fortuitous coincidences, both of thoughts and words, between the writings of Isaiah and the Eumenides of ^Fschylus. The golden mean between these hurtful and irrational extremes appears to lie in the assiduous observance of the true poetical ingredients of Isaiah’s style, both in themselves and in their various combinations, with a rigid abstinence from all scholastic and pedantic theories of Hebrew poetry, and all peculiar forms and methods which have sprung from them or tend to their promotion.
Under this last description may be properly included the fantastic and injurious mode of printing most translations of Isaiah since the days ofLowth, in lines analogous to those of classical and modern verse. This arrange-‘ ment, into which the good taste of the Bishop was betrayed by a natural but overweening zeal for his supposed discovery of rhythm or measure in the Hebrew prophets, and which the bad taste of succeeding writers bids fair to perpetuate, is open to a number of objections. In the first place, it proceeds upon a false or at least exaggerated supposition, that Isaiah wrote in what we are accustomed to call verse. If the predominance of parallel constructions is a sufficient reason for this mode of priming, then it might be adopted with propriety in many works which all the world regards as prose, in various parts at least of Seneca, Augustin, Larochefoucauld, Pascal, Johnson, and even Macaulay. The extent to which it might be carried is exemplified by Bishop Jebb’s ingenious effort to extend Lowth’s system to the Greek of the New Testament, in doing which he actually prints long extracts from the Gospels in the form of Lowth’s Isaiah. Another proof of the unsoundness of the theory, when carried thus far, is the want of unity among the various practitioners, in Germany and England, with respect to the division and arrangement of the clauses, the regard due to the masoretic accents, and the rhythmical principle on which the whole must after all depend. Be tween some specimens of this mode of typography there seems to be scarcely any thing in common but the uneven termination of the lines. A third objection to this mode of printing is the fact, which any correct eye and ear may bring to an experimental test, that so far from enhancing the effect of the peculiar construction of Isaiah’s sentences, it greatly mars it, and converts a numerous prose into the blankest of all blank verse, by exciting expectations which of course cannot be realized, suggesting the idea of a poetical metre in the strict sense, and then thwarting it by consecutions \holly inconsistent with the fundamental principles of prosody, however sonorous or euphonic in themselves. In England and America, this modern fashion seems to be already an established usage, and is even pushed so far as to require quotations from certain parts of Scripture to be printed like poetical extracts in a small type and in lines by themselves, a usage-which we may expect to see extended to the rest of the Bible on the principles of Jebb. In Germany, the younger and inferior writers appear still enamoured of this wonderful discovery; but some of their more eminent interpreters, above the common average in taste, exhibit symptoms of reaction. Ewald con tents himself with marking the divisions of the sentences and clauses after the manner of bars in music, while DeWette, in his excellent translation of the Bible, prints the whole like prose. This is the more significant because DeWette, in his Introduction to the Psalms, had carried out Lowth’s system of parallelisms in detail, with greater minuteness and precision than any preceding writer. In the preface to his Bible, he speaks of the arrangement of the Hebrew distichs in distinct lines, as of value only to the Hebrew scholar, while Ewald says expressly that the modern custom violates the ancient usage, and mistakes for poetry the mixed or intermediate prophetic style. Partly for these and other reasons of a kindred nature, founded on what I believe to be the true characteristics of Isaiah’s style, partly in order to save room for more important matters than the marking of divisions, which the simplest reader even of a version can distinguish for himself so far as they have any real value, the translation of Isaiah will be found in this work printed as prose, and m the closest union with the exposition. This is the method which has been successfully pursued by several judicious German writers of the present day, especially by Hengstenberg, as well in his Christology as in his Commentary on the Psalms, perhaps as a matter of convenience merely, but it may be also with regard to some of the considerations which have just been stated. With respect to the translation in the present vol ume, this arrangement is moreover rendered necessary by the relation which it is intended to sustain to the exegetical matter which accompanies it. No attempt has here been made to give a new translation of the book, complete in itself, and suited for continuous perusal. The translation is part and parcel of the commentary, closely incorporated with it, and in some degree inseparable from it. After the study of a passage with the aid here furnished, it may no doubt be again read with advantage in this version, for the sake of which it has been not only printed in a different type, but generally placed at the beginning of the paragraph. This explanation seems to be required, as the whole form and manner of the version have been modified by this design. If meant for separate continuous perusal, it must of course have been so constructed as to be easily intelligible by itself; whereas a version introduced as a text or basis of immediate exposition, admit ted of a closer approximation to the idiomatic form of the original, with all its occasional obscurity and harshness, than would probably have been en dured by readers of refined taste in an independent version.
To this account of the precise relation which the version of Isaiah in this volume bears to the accompanying exposition, may be added a brief state ment of the twofold object which the whole work is intended to accomplish, namely, a correct interpretation and a condensed historical synopsis of opinions with respect to it. The arduous task here undertaken is to aid the reader in determining the sense, not only by my own suggestions, but by those of others. This historical element has been introduced both as a means of exegetical improvement, and for its own sake, as an interesting chapter of the history of opinion on a highly important subject. In order to appreciate the particular results of this historical analysis, it will be proper to give some account of the materials employed. A brief and general sketch of the progress of opinion and of gradual changes in the method of interpretation having been previously given in a different connexion, it will only be necessary here to add a chronological enumeration of the works which have exerted the most lasting and extensive influence on the interpretation of Isaiah.
The first place in this enumeration is of course due to the Ancient Versions, and among these to the Greek translation commonly called the Septuagint, from the old tradition of its having been produced by seventy-two Jews at Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The additional circumstances, such as the translation of the whole law by each man separately, and their entire agreement afterwards, are not found in the oldest authorities, and are now rejected as mere fables. It is even a matter of dispute among the learned, whether the whole of this translation was executed at once or by degrees, by few or many writ ers, for the use of the synagogues in Egypt or as a mere literary enterprise. Against the unity of the translation is the different character of the version in different parts. The Pentateuch is commonly regarded as the best, and Daniel as the worst. The version of Isaiah is intermediate between these. It is important as the record of an ancient exegetical tradition, and on account of the use made of it in the New Testament. The writer shows a special acquaintance with the usages and products of Egypt, but is grammatically very inexact, and governed in translation by no settled principle. Hence he abounds in needless paraphrases and additions, euphemistic variations, and allusions to opinions and events of later times, although the number of these has been exaggerated by some critics. The Hebrew text used by this translator seems to have been the one now extant, but without the masoretic points. The seeming variations, used by Houbigant and Lowth as means of textual correction, are most probably the mere result of ignorance or inadvertence. The extreme opinions formerly main tained in reference to this version have been gradually exchanged for a more moderate and discriminating estimate, acknowledging its use in many cases of difficult interpretation, but denying its paramount authority in any. Be sides the frequent citation of the Septuagint, occasional reference will be made to the other old Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. fragments of which have been preserved by early writers. Of these interpreters, Aquila is commonly supposed to have been distinguished by his slavish adherence to the letter of the Hebrew, Symmachus by freedom and a greater regard to the Greek idiom, while Theodotion stood in these respects between them.
Next to these versions stands the Chaldee Paraphrase or Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, the date of which is much disputed, but assigned by a majority of modern critics to the time of Christ, or that immediately preceding. It derives its value partly from its high repute and influence among the Jews, partly from its intrinsic character as being on the whole a skilful and correct translation into a cognate dialect, although disfigured like the Septuagint by many arbitrary explanations, by additions to the text, and by allusions to the usages arid doctrines of the later Jews. Its critical as well as exegetical adherence to the masoretic text is much more close than that of the oldest Greek translator.
The ancient Syriac version, commonly called the Peshito, on account of its simplicity and fidelity, is one of the most valuable extant. Its precise date is unknown, but it appears to have hern looked upon as ancient and occasionally needing explanation, even in the days of Ephrem Syrus. It has been ascribed by different critics to a Jewish and a Christian writer, but the latter supposition is the best sustained, both by external and internal evidence. The opinion of some writers, as to the use made by this translator of the Targum and Septuagint, appears to be regarded now as groundless, or at least exaggerated. This version, as a whole, is characterized by great exactness and a close adherence to the original expression, rendered easy by the near affinity of Syriac and Hebrew.
The Vulgate or common Latin version of Isaiah, regarded as authentic in the Church of Rome, was executed by Jerome, about the end of the fourth century, and afterwards substituted for the older Latin version, commonly called Itala, in use before, of which only fragments are now extant. This version, notwithstanding many errors and absurd interpretations, is on the whole a valuable record of ancient exegetical tradition, and of the fruit of Jerome’s oriental studies. Its influence on modern exegesis, more especially within the Church of Rome, has of course been very extensive.
In these four versions we possess what may be called the exegetical tradition of the Jewish Synagogue, the Latin Church, the Greek Church, and the Syrian Church in all its branches. This, in addition to their mere antiquity, entitles them to a consideration which cannot be claimed by other versions, even though intrinsically more correct. At the same time, let it be observed, that in addition to the original defects of these translations, their text is no doubt greatly corrupted, having never been subjected to any such conservative process as the Masora or critical tradition of the Jews. This fact alone shows the folly of attempting to ascribe to either of these versions a traditional authority superior to that of the Hebrew text. From these direct and primary versions, many mediate or secondary ones were formed in early times, the exegetical authority of which is naturally far inferior, although they are occasionally useful in determining the text of their originals, and even in explaining them, while still more rarely they exhibit independent and remarkable interpretations of the Hebrew text. To some of these mediate versions, there will be found occasional references in the present work, especially to the Arabic version of the Septuagint, made at Alexandria, and printed in the third volume of the London Polyglot. A still more frequent mention will be made of an immediate Arabic version by the celebrated Jewish teacher and grammarian of the tenth century, Saadias Gaon, whose translation of the Pentateuch is found in the same Polyglot, although his version of Isaiah was not brought to light till near the end of the last century. Both in its merits and defects, it resembles the more ancient ver sions, but approaches still more closely to the exegesis of the rabbins. The occasional citations of this version are derived from other writers, and particularly from Gcsenius.
Next to the Ancient Versions may be named the Greek and Latin Fathers who have written on Isaiah. Besides Origen and others, whose interpretations have been wholly or in a great measure lost, there are still extant those of Eusebius, Cyril of Alexandria, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Procopius, on the whole or part of the Septuagint version of Isaiah. These are valuable, not so much for any direct aid which they afford in the interpretation of the Hebrew text, as for the light which they throw upon the prevalent theories of interpretation at a remote period, and especially upon the allegorical and mystical method of expounding the Old Testament, of which Origen, if not the inventor, was the most successful champion and practitioner. Jerome, the only Latin Father who has written on Isaiah, while he has some defects and faults in common with the Greek expounders, has the great advantage of direct acquaintance with the Hebrew text, and with the Jewish method of explaining it. The good effects of this superior knowledge, and of his untiring diligence, are greatly neutralized by haste and inadvertence, by a want of consistency and settled principles, and by a general defect of judgment. The only Fathers, of whose expositions a direct use will be made in the present work, are Chrysostom and Jerome, and of these only in the earlier chapters. All further references of the same kind are derived from other commentaries.
Of the Rabbins, several are carefully compared and often quoted. These are Solomon Jarchi, noted for his close adherence to the Targum and the Jewish tradition; Aben Ezra, for his independent rationalistic views and philological acuteness; David Kimchi, for his learning and good sense, and for his frequent reference to older writers. He often cites, among others, his brother Moses, and his father, Joseph Kimchi. The Michlal Jophi of Solo mon Ben Melech, with the additional notes of Jacob Abendana, is chiefly a selection of the best rabbinical interpretations, particularly those of David Kimchi. The opinions of Abarbenel and other rabbins are occasionally cited on the authority of other writers.
Of the Reformers, the two greatest are kept constantly in view, through out the exposition. Luther’s translation will be always valued, not only for its author’s sake, but for its own. Though often inexact and paraphrastical, it almost always gives the true sense, and often gives it with a vigour and felicity of phrase, never attained in like degree by the more accurate and learned versions of the present day. Calvin still towers above all interpreters, in large commanding views of revelation in its whole connexion, with extraordinary insight into the logical relations of a passage, even where its individual expressions were not fully understood. These qualities, to gether with his fixed belief of fundamental doctrines, his eminent soundness of judgment, and his freedom from all tendency to paradox, pedantic affectation, or fanciful conceit, place him more completely on a level with the very best interpreters of our day, than almost any intervening writer. Of the other Reformers, only occasional citations will be met with, such as Zwingli, Oecolainpadius, and Fagius.
As a representative of the old school of orthodox interpreters, we may take the annotated version of Junius and Tremellius, distinguished by learn ing, ingenuity, and exegetical acumen, but disfigured by unnatural and forced constructions, in which the Hebrew idiom is often sacrificed to some paradoxical novelty. Less frequent reference will be made to other writers of the same school and period, who were not accessible directly, or whose influence on later writers has been less considerable.
The honours due to the original and independent founder of a school may be justly claimed by John Cocceius, whose opinions gave occasion to protracted controversies in the Church of Holland. The description usually given of him, that he finds Christ every where in the Old Testament, is hardly expressive of his peculiar character, as set forth in his work upon Isaiah. A more exact description would be, that he finds the Church and the events of Church history throughout the prophecies, not as a mystical or secondary meaning, but as the proper and direct one. Of this system many striking specimens will be presented in the exposition.
The description of Cocceius, which has been already quoted, is commonly accompanied by one of Grotius, as his exegetical opposite, who finds Christ nowhere. Here again the portrait is by no means an exact one, at least as he appears in his brief notes on Isaiah. He probably professes to find Christ predicted there as often as Cocceius does, but with this difference, that Grotius finds him always hidden under types, the lower or immediate sense of which is to be sought as near as may be to the date of the prediction. A comparison between these two eminent writers is enough to show the incorrectness of the common notion, that the hypothesis of types and double senses is peculiar to t le stricter theologians of the old school, and the rejection of them characteristic of the more liberal interpreters. Cocceius seldom resorts to the assumption of a double sense, while Grotius seldom recognises Christ as a subject of prophecy, except where he can institute a typical relation. The grand objection to the exegesis of the latter, as exemplified in this book, is its superficial character and the skeptical tendencies which it betrays. Its shining merits are ingenious combination, happy conjecture, and abundant illustration from the Greek and Roman classics. The nearest approach to him, in all these qualities, without the least appearance of dependence, imitation, or collusion, is found in John Le Clerc, more commonly called Clericus. The likeness is the more exact because neither he nor Grotius has done justice to his own capacity and reputation in interpreting Isaiah.
The first complete exposition of Isaiah is the great work of Campegius Vitringa, Professor at Franeker, originally published in 1714. Of the preceding commentaries, every one perhaps may be described as holding up some one side of the subject while the others are neglected. But ID this work are collected all the materials which at that time were accessible, not in an undigested state, but thoroughly incorporated and arranged with a degree of judgment, skill, and taste, not easily surpassed. It is besides distinguished by a candour, dignity, and zeal for truth without the least ad mixture of acrimonious bigotry, which have secured for it and for its author the esteem of all succeeding writers who have read it, of whatever school or party. So complete is Vitringa’s exposition even now, that nothing more would be required to supply the public wants but the additional results of more profound and extensive philological investigation during the last century, were it not for two defects which the work, with all its varied and transcendent merit, does exhibit. The first is a want of condensation, a prolixity, which, although not without advantages to readers who have leisure to secure them, is entirely unsuited to the tastes and habits of the present age. The other is too strong a leaning to the mystical and allegorical interpretation of the plainest prophecies, arising from a mistaken deference for the old exegetical canon, that the prophecies must be made to mean as much as possible. To this must be added the erroneous hypothesis, not yet exploded, that every prophecy must be specific, and must have its fulfilment in a certain period of history, to determine which recourse must frequently be had to fanciful or forced interpretation.
Nearly contemporary with Vitringa was the learned German Pietist, John Henry Michaelis, Professor at Halle, who, in conjunction with his brother, published there in 1720 a Hebrew Bible with marginal annotations. Those on the first part of Isaiah are by no means equal to the notes of C. B. Michaelis on the Minor Prophets in the same volume. The former are more meager and contain less independent exposition, leaning chiefly upon some preceding writers and especially Sebastian Schmid. These notes, however, have considerable value on account of their references to parallel passages, less numerous than those of many other writers, but selected with great care, and with a constant view to the elucidation of the text. Occasionally also an original interpretation here presents itself. The whole work is characterized by orthodox belief and a devout spirit.
Independently of both these works, though some years later, appeared the Exposition of Isaiah by John Gill, a Baptist minister in London. Though designed for the doctrinal and practical improvement of the English reader, it is still distinguished from other books of that class by its erudition in a single province, that of talmudic and rabbinic literature. In this depart ment Gill draws directly from his own resources, which are here extensive, while in other matters he contents himself with gathering and combining, often whimsically, the opinions of preceding writers, and especially of those contained in the Critici Sacri and in Pool’s Synopsis. His original suggestions are but few and generally founded on his own peculiar views of the Apocalypse, not as an independent prophecy, but as a key to those of the Old Testament.
Before either of the works last mentioned, and nearly contemporary with Vitringa, appeared a Commentary on Jsai h by Dr. William Lowth, prebendary of Winchester, which is usually printed, with his other expositions of the Prophets, as a part of Bishop Patrick’s Commentary on the Bible. The work on Isaiah has exerted little influence on later writers, the less perhaps because eclipsed by the brilliant success of the Translation, published, more than half a century afterwards, by the author’s son, Robert Lowth, successively Bishop of Limerick, St. David’s, Oxford, and London, universally acknowledged to be one of the most accomplished scholars and elegant writers of his age or nation. The influence of Lowth’s Isaiah has already been described, so far as it can be regarded as injurious to the cause of sound interpretation or enlightened criticism. Its good effect has been to raise the estimation of Isaiah as a writer of extraordinary genius, and to introduce a method of expounding him, more in accordance with the principles of taste, than some adopted by preceding writers. Besides his work upon Isaiah, he contributed to this end by his lectures, as Professor of Poetry at Oxford, de Sacra Poesi Hebraeorura, which have been frequently republished on the continent, and still exert a salutary influence on the Ger man critics. In his criticism of the Hebrew text, he follows the exploded system of Cappellus, Houbigant, and others, who assumed the masoretic text to be as faulty as it could be without losing its identity, and seem to make it the great object of their criticism to change it as extensively as possible. Many of Lowth’s favourite interpretations, being founded upon critical conjecture, are now worthless. The style of his English version, which ex cited universal admiration when it first appeared, has, in the course of nearly seventy years, become less pleasing to the cultivated ear, partly because a taste has been revived for that antique simplicity which Lowth’s contemporaries looked upon as barbarous, and of which a fir superior specimen is furnished in the common version. Among Lowth’s greatest merits, in the exposition and illustration of Isaiah, must be mentioned his familiarity with classical models, often suggesting admirable parallels, and his just views, arising from a highly cultivated taste, in reference to the structure of the prophecies, and the true import of prophetic imagery.
Almost simultaneous with the first appearance of Lowth’s Isaiah was the publication of a German version, with Notes for the Unlearned, by John David Michaelis (a nephew of John Henry before mentioned), Professor at Gottingen, and for many years the acknowledged leader of the German Orientalists. His interpretations in this work are often novel and ingenious, but as often paradoxical and fanciful. His version, although frequently felicitous, is marred by a perpetual affectation of colloquial and modern phraseology, for which he sometimes apologizes on the ground that the original expression would not have sounded well in German. He agrees with Lowth in his contempt for the masoretic text, which he is constantly attempting to correct; but is far below him in refinement of taste and in a just appreciation of the literary merits of his author. With respect to more important matters, he may be said to occupy the turning point between the old and new school of interpreters. While on the one hand, he retains the customary forms of speech and, at least negatively, recognises the divine authority and inspiration of the Prophet, he carries his affectation of independence and free-thinking, in the details of his interpretation, so far that the transition appears natural and easy to the avowed unbelief of his pupils and successors. Besides the one already mentioned, occasional reference is made to other wrorks of the same author.
The German edition of Lowth’s Isaiah, with additional notes, by Koppe, a colleague of Michaelis at Gottingen, deserves attention, as the work in which the extravagant doctrines of the modern criticism with respect to the unity, integrity, and genuineness of the prophecies, were first propounded and applied to the writings of Isaiah. The opposite doctrines were maintained, in all their strictness, by a contemporary Swiss Professor, Kocher, a disciple and adherent of the orthodox Dutch school, in a book expressly written against Lowth.
Passing over the comparatively unimportant works of Vogel, Cube, Hensler, and the annotated Latin versions of Dathe and Doederlein, occasionally cited in the present volume, we may mention as the next important link in the catena of interpretation, the famous Scholia of the younger Rosenmiiller, for many years Oriental Professor at Leipzig. The part relating to Isaiah appeared first in 1791; but the publication and republication of the several parts extend through a period of more than forty years. As a whole, the work is distinguished by a critical acquaintance both with Hebrew and the cognate dialects, and an industrious use of the ancient versions, the rabbinical interpreters, and the later writers, particularly Grotius and Vitringa, whole paragraphs from whom are often copied almost verbatim and without express acknowledgment. From its comprehensive plan and the resources of the writer, this work may be considered as an adaptation of Vitringa to the circumstances of a later period, including however an entire change of exegetical and doctrinal opinions. Without any of the eager zeal and party-spirit, which occasioned the excesses of Koppe and Eichhorn, Rosenmiiller equally repudiates the doctrine of prophetic inspiration in the strict sense, and rejects whatever would imply or involve it. The unsoundness of his principles in this respect has given less offence and alarm to readers of a different school, because accompanied by so much calmness and apparent candour, sometimes amounting to a neutral apathy, D no more conducive to correct results than the opposite extreme of partiality and prejudice. This very spirit of indifference, together with the plan of compilation upon which the Scholia are constructed, added perhaps to an original infirmity of judgment, make the author’s own opinions and conclusions the least valuable part of this extensive and laborious work. In the abridged edition, which appeared not long before his death (1835), many opinions of Gesenius are adopted, some of which Gesenius in the mean time had himself abandoned. The acknowledgment of Messianic prophecies, which Rosenmuller, in his later writings, seems to make, does not extend to prophecies of Christ, but merely to vague and for the most part groundless expectations of a Messiah by the ancient prophets.
An epoch in the history of the interpretation is commonly supposed to be marked by the appearance of the Philological, Critical, and Historical Commentary of Gesenius (Leipzig, 1821). This distinction is not founded upon any new principle or even method of interpretation which the author introduced, but on his great celebrity, authority, and influence, as a gram marian and lexicographer. Nothing is more characteristic of the work than the extreme predilection of the writer for the purely philological and archae ological portions of his task, and the disproportionate amount of space and labour lavished on them. The evidence of learning and acuteness thus afforded cannot be questioned, but it is often furnished at the cost of other more important qualities. The ablest portions of the work have sometimes the appearance of excursus or detached disquisitions upon certain questions of antiquities or lexicography. Even in this chosen field, successful as Gesenius has been, later writers have detected some infirmities and failures. Of these the most important is the needless multiplication of distinct senses and the gratuitous attenuation of the meaning in some words of common occurrence. The merit of Gesenius consists much more in diligent investigation and perspicuous arrangement than in a masterly application of the principles established and exemplified in the best Greek lexicons. His proneness to mistake distinct applications of a word, and accessory ideas suggested by the context, for different meanings of the word itself, is recognised in the occasional correction of the fault by his American translator (see for example Heb. Lex. p. 148), to whom the public would have been indebted for a much more frequent use of the same method. If any apology is needed for the frequent deviations, in the following exposition, from Gesenius’s decisions, it is afforded by the rule which he professes to have followed in his own use of the cognate dialects: ultra lexica sapere. (Preface to Isaiah, p. vi.) With respect to candour and impartiality, Gesenius occupies the same ground with Rosenmuller, that is to say, he is above suspicion as to any question not connected, more or less directly, with his fundamental error, that there can be no prophetic foresight. Another point of similarity between them is their seeming hesitancy and instability of judgment, as exhibited in frequent changes of opinion upon minor points, without a statement of sufficient reasons. The many variations which may be traced in the writings of Gesenius, from his early Lexicons and Commentary on Isaiah to his great Thesaurus, are no doubt proofs of intellectual progress and untiring diligence; but it is still true, that in many cases opposite conclusions seem to have been drawn from precisely the same premises. The Commentary on Isaiah never reappeared, but the accompanying version was reprinted, with a few notes, in 1829. This translation is a spirited and faithful reproduction of the sense of the original, and for the most part of its characteristic form, but not without unnecessary paraphrases and gratuitous departures from the Hebrew idiom. In these respects, and in simplicity of diction, it has been much improved by DeWette, whose translation of Isaiah (contained in his version of the Bible, Heidelberg, 1839) is avowedly founded upon that of Gesenius. The same relation to the Commentary is sustained by Maurer’s notes for students (in the first volume of his Commentarius Criticus in Vet. Test. Leipzig, 1835), which exhibit in a clear and compact form the substance of Gesenius, with occasional specimens of independent and ingenious exposition.
A very different position is assumed by Hitzig, whose work upon Isaiah (Heidelberg, 1833) seems intended to refute that of Gesenius wherever a dissent was possible, always excepting the sacred fundamental principle of unbelief in which they are united. This polemical design of Hitzig’s work has led to many strained and paradoxical interpretations, but at the same time to a remarkable display of exegetical invention and philological acuteness, both in the application of the principles of Ewald’s Grammar where it varies from Gesenius, and in original solutions of grammatical and other problems. In some points Hitzig may be said to have receded to the ground of Eichhorn, as for instance in the wildness of his critical conjectures, not so much in reference to words or letters as to larger passages, and also in his leaning to the old idea of predictions ex eventu, or historical allusions clothed in a prophetical costume. The metaphysical obscurity of Hitzig’s style, in certain cases, may be either the result of individual peculiarity, or symptomatic of the general progress in the German mind from common-sense rationalism or deism to the more transcendental forms of unbelief. Another characteristic of this writer is his undisguised contempt, if not for Isaiah in particular, for Judaism and its faith in general. In point of taste, he is remarkable at once for high pretensions and for gross defects.
Hendewerk’s commentary on Isaiah, (Konigsberg, vol. 1, 1838, vol. 2, 1843) though indicative of scholarship and talent, has a less marked and in dependent character than that of Hitzig, and exhibits in a great degree the faults and merits of a juvenile performance. The author’s reading seems to LX IN T R O D U C T K) N. have been limited to modern writers, and the controversial attitude which he is constantly assuming with respect to Hengstenberg or Hitzig, while it makes his exposition less intelligible, unless compared with that of his opponents, also impairs the reader’s confidence in his impartiality and candour. His original suggestions are in many cases striking and in some truly valuable, as will appear from the examples cited in the exposition.
A place is due, in this part of the chronological succession, to two works on Isaiah in the English language. The first is by the Rev. Albert Barnes of Philadelphia, (3 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1840,) well known by previous pub lications on the Gospels and Epistles, and by a later work on Job. His exposition of Isaiah comprehends a large part of the valuable substance of Vitringa, Rosenmiiller, and Gesenius, with occasional reference to the older writers, as contained in Pool’s Synopsis and the Critici Sacri. The great fault of the work is not its want of matter, but of matter well digested and condensed. Particular and even disproportionate attention has been paid to archaeological illustration, especially as furnished by the modern travellers. Practical observations are admitted, but without sufficient uniformity or any settled method. The author’s views of inspiration in general, and of the inspiration of Isaiah in particular, are sound, but not entirely consistent with the deference occasionally paid to neological interpreters, in cases where heir judgments are, in fact though not in form, determined by a false assumption, which no one more decidedly rejects than Mr. Barnes. The New Translation, which accompanies the Commentary, seems to be wholly inde pendent of it, and can hardly be considered an improvement, either on the common version, or on that of Lowth.
Some of the same remarks are applicable to the work of Dr. Henderson, (London, 1840,) in which there are appearances of greater haste and less laborious effort, but at the same time of a more extended reading, and a more independent exegetical judgment. The English author, though familiar with the latest German writers who preceded him, is not deterred by their example or authority from the avowal of his doctrinal belief, or from a proper use of analogy in the interpretation of the Prophet. Further description of these two works is rendered unnecessary by the frequency with which they are quoted or referred to in the Commentary.
Ewald’s exposition of Isaiah, contained in his collective work upon the Hebrew Prophets, (Stuttgart, 1841,) derives great authority from his acknowledged eminence in Germany, as a profound philosophical grammarian. His attention has been given almost exclusively to the chronological arrangement of the parts and the translation of the text. The latter has great value, not only as containing the results of Ewald’s philological re searches, but also on account of its intrinsic qualities, and more especially its faithful exhibition of the form of the original in its simplicity. In this respect it is a great advance on all preceding versions. The Commentary is extremely meager, and remarkable, like most of Ewald’s writings, for the ab sence of all reference to other modern writers or opinions. The liberties taken with the text, though not very numerous, are sometimes very violent and arbitrary. The sweeping criticism, on which his chronological arrange ment rests, will be considered in another place. From the rationalistic school of Rosenmiiller and Gesenius, Ewald differs in regarding Isaiah as inspired, which admission really extends, however, only to a kind of vague, poetical, anticipation, wholly exclusive of distinct prophetic foresight of the distant future, in rejecting which, as a thing impossible or not susceptible of proof, he coincides with the preceding writers.
Umbreit’s practical Commentary on Isaiah (Hamburg, 1842) is little more than a declamatory paraphrase, composed in what an English reader would regard as very questionable taste. The real value of the work con sists in a translation of Isaiah, and occasional notes on different questions of philology and criticism. On such points the author coincides for the most part with Gesenius, while in his general views of prophecy he seems to approach nearer to Ewald, with whom he frequently concurs in making that a vague anticipation which the other writers take as a specific prophecy. At the same time, he differs from this whole class of interpreters, in frequently alluding to the Saviour and the new dispensation as the subjects of prediction, but in what sense it is hard to ascertain; the rather as he practically holds the modern doctrine, that distinct prediction of the distant future is sufficient to disprove the genuineness of a passage.
Knobel’s Isaiah (Leipzig, 1843) is exceedingly convenient as a condensed synopsis of the principal interpretations. In the expression of his own views, the author shows his strict adherence to the modern school of criticism and exegesis. His critical decisions, with respect to some portions of the book, are very arbitrary, and the detailed proofs, by which he sustains them, in a high degree extravagant. In rejecting the hypothesis of inspiration, and in asserting the mere human character and origin of the prophecies, he is un commonly explicit and decided, both in this work and in one which he had previously published upon prophecy in general. On the whole, with the exception of a few good exegetical suggestions, he may be looked upon as having retrograded to the ground of the old neologists from that assumed by Ewald and Umbreit.
It is gratifying to be able to conclude this list of German writers with a few names, belonging to a very different school, and connected with a powerful reaction in favour of old principles, as being perfectly consistent with the valuable fruits of late improvements and discoveries. The way of this important movement, so far as Isaiah is concerned, was opened, not by regular interpreters of this book, but by Hengstenberg in his Christology (1829), followedby Kleinert in his volume on the genuineness of Isaiah’s prophecies (1829), and still more recently by Havernick in his Introduction to the Old Testament (1844). An application of the same essential principles to the direct interpretation of Isaiah has been made by Drechsler, Professor at Erlangen, the first volume of whose Commentary (Erlangen, 1845) reached me too late to allow the present use of any part of it except the Introduction, to which reference is made below. Besides the exegetical works already mentioned, occasional references will be found to others illustrative of certain passages or certain topics. As most of these are too well known to need description, it will be sufficient here to name, as authorities in natural history and geography the Hierozoicon of Bochart and the Biblical Researches of Robinson and Smith.
It only remains to speak of the arrangement and division of the book before proceeding to expound it. The detailed examination of particular questions under this head will be found in the exposition itself, and for the most part in the special introductions to the several chapters. All that is here intended is a general statement of the case, preparatory to these more minute discussions. The progress of opinion upon this part of the subject has been closely connected with the succession of exegetical and critical hypotheses already mentioned. The same extremes, reactions, compromises, may be traced substantially in both. The older writers commonly assumed that the book was arranged in chronological order by the author himself. Thus Jerome says expressly, that the prophecies belonging to the four reigns follow one another regularly, without mixture or confusion. J. H. Michaelis regards the first verse of the first, sixth, and seventh chapters, and the twenty-eighth verse of the fourteenth chapter, as the dividing marks of the four reigns. This supposition of a strict chronological arrangement, although rather taken for granted than determined by investigation, is by no means so absurd as some have represented it. It rests on immemorial tradition, and the analogy of the other books, the few exceptions tending rather to confirm the rule. The principal objections to it are, that the first chapter is evidently later than the second; that the sixth, containing the account of Isaiah’s ordination to his office, must be the first in point of date; and that the seventeenth chapter relates to the first years of the reign of Ahaz, whereas ch. 14: 28 is assigned to the year in which he died.
These objections, though by no means insurmountable, as will be seen hereafter, led Vitringa to relinquish the hypothesis of strict chronological arrangement by the author himself, for that of arrangement by another hand (perhaps by the men of HezeJciah mentioned Prov. 25: 1), in the order of subjects, those discourses being placed together whose contents are most alike. He accordingly divides Isaiah into five books, after the manner of the Pentateuch and Psalter, the first (ch. i—xn) containing prophecies directed against Judah and Israel, the second (ch. xin—xxm) against certain foreign powers, the third (ch. xxiv-xxxv) against the enemies and unworthy members of the church, the fourth (ch. XL-XLVIII) relating chiefly to the Babylonish exile and deliverance from it, the fifth (ch. XLIX—LXVI) to the person and reign of the Messiah, while ch. xxxvi—xxxix are distinguished from the rest as being purely historical. The titles in ch. 1:1. 2: 1. 7: 1. 13: 1. 14: 28 etc. he regards as genuine, except that the names of the four kings were added to the first by the compiler, in order to convert what was at first the title of the first chapter only into a general description of the whole book.
This ingenious hypothesis still leaves it unexplained why certain series were separated from each other, for example why ch. xin—xxin are inter posed between ch. i-xn and ch. xxiv-xxxv. This led Koppe, whom Gesenius describes as the pioneer of the modern criticism, to reject that part of Vitringa’s theory which supposes the book to have received its present form in the reign of Hezekiah, while he carries out to an absurd extreme the general hypothesis of compilation and re-arrangement by a later hand. According to Koppe and Augusti, the book, as we now have it, is in perfect confusion, and its actual arrangement wholly without authority. To confirm and explain this, Eichhorn and Bertholdt assume the existence of several distinct collections of Isaiah’s writings, to each of which additions were gradually made, until the whole assumed its present form.
The same general view is taken of the matter by Hitzig and Ewald, but with this distinction, that the former thinks the frame-work or sub stratum of the original collections still remains, and needs only to be freed from subsequent interpolations, while the latter sticks more closely to the earlier idea, that the whole is in confusion, partly as he supposes from the loss of many prophecies no longer extant, and can be even partially restored to its original condition, only by critically reconstruct ing it under the guidance of internal evidence. Ewald accordingly abandons the traditional arrangement altogether, and exhibits the disjecta membra in an order of his own. The critical value of the diagnosis, which controls this process, may be estimated from a single principle, assumed if not avowed throughout it, namely, that passages which treat of the same subject, or resemble one another strongly in expression, must be placed together as component parts of one continuous composition. The absurdity of this assumption might be rendered palpable by simply applying it to any classical or modern author, who has practised a variety of styles but with a frequent recurrence of the same ideas, for example, Horace, Goethe, Moore, or Byron. The practical value of the method may be best shown by a comparative statement of its actual results in the hands of two contemporary writers, Ewald and Hendewerk, both of whom have followed this eccentric method in the printing of their commentaries, to the great annoyance of the reader, even when assisted by an index. Without attend ing to the larger divisions or cycles introduced by either, a simple exhibition of the order in which the first chapters are arranged by these two writers, will be amply sufficient for our present purpose.
Hendewerk’s arrangement is as follows. Ch. 6.—Chs. 1-5.—Ch. 7 (vs. 1-9.)—Ch. 17 (vs. 1-14.)—Ch. 7 (vs. 10-25.)—Chs. 8, 9.- Ch. 10 (vs. 1-27.)—Ch. 14 (vs. 24-27.)—Ch. 10 (vs. 28-34.)—Chs. 11, 12.—Ch. 14 (vs. 28-32.)—Chs. 15, 16.—Chs. 18, 19.—Ch. 21 (vs. 11-17.)—Ch. 23.—Chs. 28, 29.—Ch. 20.—Chs. 31, 32.—Ch. 22.— Ch. 33.—Chs. 36-39.—Chs. 24-27.—Chs. 34, 35.—Ch. 13.—Ch. 14 (vs. 1-23.)—Ch. 21 (vs. 1-10.)—Chs. 40-66.
Ewald’s arrangement is as follows. Ch. 6.—Chs. 2-4.—Ch. 5 (vs. 1- 25.)—Ch. 9. (vs. 7-20.)—Ch. 10 (vs. 1-4.)—Ch. 5 (vs. 26-30.)—Ch. 17 (vs. 1-11.)—Chs. 7, 8.—Ch. 9 (vs. 1-6.)—Ch. 14 (vs. 25-32.)— Chs. 15, 16.—Ch. 21 (vs. 11-17.)—Ch. 23.—Ch. 1.—Ch. 22.—Chs. 28-32.—Ch. 20.—Ch. 10 (vs. 5-34.)—Ch. 11.—Ch. 17 (vs. 12-18.)— Ch. 18.—Ch. 14 (vs. 24-27,)—Ch. 33.—Ch. 37 (vs. 22-35.)—Ch. 19. —Ch. 21 (vs. 1-10.)— Ch. 13.—Ch. 14 (vs. 1-23.)—Chs. 40-66.- Chs.34, 35.—Ch. 24.—Ch. 25 (vs. 6-11.)—Ch. 25 (vs. 1-5.)—Ch. 25 (v. 12.)—Chs. 26, 27.—Ch. 12 is rejected as of later origin, but without determining its date. These arrangements, and particularly that of Ewald, may be reckoned not only the latest but the last achievement of the higher criticism. “ The force of nature can no further go.” We need look for no invention beyond this, unless it be that of reading the book backwards, or shuffling the chapters like a pack of cards.
Long before this, Gesenius had recoiled from the extremes to which the higher criticism tended, and attempted to occupy a middle ground, by blending the hypotheses of J. H. Michaelis and Vitringa, or in other words assuming a regard both to chronological order and to the affinity of subjects, at the same time holding fast to the favourite idea of successive additions and distinct compilations. He accordingly assumes four parts or books. The first (ch. i-xn) consists of prophecies belonging to the earliest period of Isaiah’s ministry, with the exception of a few interpolations. The sixth chapter should stand first, according to the Jewish tradition as recorded by Jarchi and Aben Ezra. The first chapter is somewhat later than the second, third, and fourth. The seventh, though authentic, was probably not written by Isaiah. The eleventh and twelfth may also be spurious, but were early added to the tenth. This book he regards as the original collection, and the first verse as its original title or inscription. The second book (ch. XIII—xxm) consists of prophecies against foreign nations, excepting ch. xxn, which he sup poses to have found its way here from having been early joined with ch. xxi. A characteristic feature of this book is the use of burden, as a title or inscription, which he thinks may be certainly ascribed to the compiler. The third book (ch. xxiv-xxxv) contains a series of genuine prophecies belonging to the reign of Hezekiah (ch. xxvm-xxxm), with two other series of later date, placed by the hand of a compiler at the beginning (ch. xxiv-xxvii) and the end (ch. xxxiv, xxxv) of this collection, while it was further augmented by a historical appendix (ch. xxxvi-xxxix), in which Isaiah makes a prominent figure. The fourth and last book (ch. XL-XLVI), as Gesenius thinks, was added to the others long after the captivity.
Here, as in other cases previously mentioned, Gesenius differs from his predecessors in the higher criticism, only in degree, refusing to go with them in the application of their principles, but holding fast the principles themselves. If, on the one hand, he is right in assuming, upon mere conjecture, several different collections of the writings of Isaiah formed successively, and in rejecting, upon mere internal evidence, the parts which do not suit his purpose or his theory, then is it utterly impossible to give any definite reason for refusing our assent to the more thorough application of the same process by the bolder hand of Ewald. If, on the other hand, Gesenius is correct in drawing back from the legitimate results of such a theory, then is it utterly impossible to find a safe or definite position, without receding further and relinquishing the theory itself. This additional reaction has not failed to take place in the progress of the controversy. It is most distinctly marked and ably justified in Havernick’s Introduction to Isaiah, where the author lays it down, not as a makeshift or a desperate return to old opinions without ground or reason, but as the natural result of philological and critical induction, that the writings of Isaiah, as now extant, form a compact, homogeneous, and well-ordered whole, proceeding, in the main, if not in all its parts, from the hand of the original author. Whoever has been called to work his way through the extravagant and endless theories of the ’ higher criticism,’ without those early prepossessions in its favour which grow with the growth of almost every German scholar, far from finding this new doctrine strange or arbitrary, must experience a feeling of relief at thus landing from the ocean of conjecture on the terra firma of historical tradition, analogical reasoning, and common sense. The advantages of such a ground can be appreciated far more justly after such experience than before it, because then there might be a misgiving lest some one of the many possibilities proposed as substitutes for immemorial tradition might prove true; but now the reader, having found by actual experiment, not only that these ways do not lead him right, but that they lead him nowhere, falls back with strong assurance, not by any means upon all the minor articles of the ancient creed, which he is still bound and determined to subject to critical investigation, but on the general presumption, which exists in all such cases, that the truth of what is obvious to common sense and has been held from the beginning, instead of being the exception is the rule, to which the flaws, that may be really discovered by a microscopic criticism, are mere exceptions.
That Havernick especially has not been governed by a love of novelty or opposition is apparent from the fact of his retaining in its substance Gesenius’s division and arrangement of the book, while he rejects the gratuitous assumptions, held by that eminent interpreter in common with his predecessors. According to Havernick, the whole book consists of five connected but distinguishable groups, or series of prophecies. The first group (ch. i-xn) contains Isaiah’s earliest prophecies, arranged in two series, easily distinguished by internal marks. The first six chapters have a general character, without certain reference to any particular historical occasion, which accounts for the endless difference of opinion, as to the precise date of their composition. The remaining six have reference to particular occasions, which are not left to conjecture but distinctly stated, They embrace the principal events under Ahaz, and illustrate the relation of the Prophet to them. The sixth chapter, though descriptive of the Prophet’s ordination, holds its proper place, as an addendum to the foregoing prophecies, designed to justify their dominant tone of threatening and reproof. The second group (ch. xiii-xxiii) contains a series of prophecies against certain foreign powers, showing the relation of the heathen world to the theocracy, and followed by a sort of appendix (ch. xxiv—xxvii), summing up the foregoing prophecies and showing the results of their fulfilment to the end of time. He maintains the genuineness of all the prophecies in this division and the correctness of their actual position. The apparent exception in ch. xxn he accounts for, by supposing that Judah is there represented as reduced by gross iniquity to the condition of a heathen state. Another explanation, no less natural, and more complete, because it accounts for the remarkable prophecy against an individual in the last part of the chapter, is afforded by the supposition, that Judah is there considered as subject to a foreign and probably a heathen influence, viz. that of Shebna. (See the details below, p. 38fe.) Havernick’s third group (ch. xxviii-xxxm) contains prophecies relating to a particular period of Hezekiah’s reign, with a more general prospective sequel (ch. xxxiv, xxxv), as in the second. Here again he examines and rejects the various arguments adduced by modern critics to disprove the genuineness of certain parts. The fourth group (ch. xxxvi-xxxix) describes in historical form the influence exerted by the Prophet at a later period of the reign of Hezekiah. Regarding this and the parallel part of Second Kings as collateral derivatives from a historical writing of Isaiah, Havernick is led by the mention, in ch. 37: 38, of an event which happened after the supposed death of Isaiah, to ascribe that verse and the insertion of these chapters to a somewhat later hand. He maintains, however, that so far from being inappropriate, they constitute a necessary link between the third group and the fifth (ch. XL-LXVI), in which the whole result of his prophetic ministrations to the end of time is vividly depicted.
The critical and philological arguments of Havernick, in this part of his work, are eminently learned and ingenious, highly original and yet conservative of ancient and invaluable truth. A reference to them is the more important here because they came into my hands too late to influence the expositions of the present volume, the coincidence between them, as to principle if not in all particular conclusions, being only the more satisfactory and striking upon that account. The same remark ap plies, in some degree, to Drechsler’s Introduction, which may be considered as a further movement in the same direction, not occasioned by the other, but the fruit of independent labour in the same field and under the same influence. It is certainly an interesting and instructive fact, that in two such cases, the conviction of the unity, integrity, and uncorrupted genuineness of the book before us, even as to its arrangement and the nexus of the parts, should have been reached without collusion, by a thorough sifting of the very arguments alleged against it by the ablest critics of the past and present generation. Drechsler’s idea of Isaiah as a whole differs from Havernick’s, in going further from the modern theory, retaining less of its substratum, the hypothesis of different collections, and ascribing to the book, as we possess it, a more absolute and perfect unity. Drechsler dismisses the whole question with respect to the precise date of particular passages, as equally insoluble and unimportant; directs attention to the fact that through out the book the only editor, compiler, or arranger, of whom any trace can be discerned, is one who exercised the rights of an author; draws from this and other marks of an internal kind, a confirmation of the old opinion, that the form and the contents of the collection are, so far as we can hope to ascertain, from one and the same hand; and thenceforth assumes it as a principle or maxim, that whatever may have been the date of any passage as originally uttered, we have no need or authority to trace it further back than its reduction to its present shape by the original author.
With respect to the divisions of the book, his theory may seem at first sight artificial, but is really distinguished by simplicity as well as ingenuity. He sets out by assuming two great crises or conjunctures in Isaiah’s ministry, about which all his prophecies may be arranged. The first is the invasion in the reign of Ahaz, the second the invasion in the reign of Hezekiah. These he regards as the centres of two great prophetic schemes or systems, forming one harmonious whole, but between themselves distinguished by the prevalence of threatening and reproof in one, of promise and consolation in the other. To each of these great critical events in the history corresponds a central point or focus in the prophecy, from which in both directions we may trace a regular connexion in the book, stretching back into the past and forward into the future, in the way of preparation on the one hand and completion on the other. The focus of the first great prophetic scheme he fixes in the seventh chapter, that of the other in the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh. The sixth is a direct preparation for the seventh; the fifth for the sixth; the second, third, and fourth, for the fifth; the first is a general introduction to the whole. Then on the other side, the promises and threatenings of the seventh chapter are repeated, amplified, and varied, first with respect to Judah and Israel in ch. vin—xu, then with respect to foreign powers in ch. xin—xxiu, and lastly in a general summing up and application to all times and places in ch. xxiv-xxvii, which closes the first system. The other central prophecy, in ch. xxxvi and xxxvn, is likewise introduced by a preparatory series (ch. xxvm-xxxv), all relating to Sennacherib’s invasion, and on the other hand carried out, first historically (ch. xxxvm, xxxix), then prophet ically (ch. XL-XLVI) to the end of time.
However fanciful or German this hypothesis may seem, it cannot be attentively considered without giving rise to this reflection, that a book affording the materials and conditions even for a fanciful device, of which unity and symmetry are essential elements, cannot well be a farrago of dis cordant parts, produced at random and combined by chance. The opposite hypothesis, if once assumed, can be applied with ease to any case, however clear the signs of unity may be, for the details of proof are all involved in the primary assumption; but it is not quite so easy to maintain the hypo thesis of harmony where harmony does not exist. It requires little ingenuity or learning to discover and exaggerate appearances of discord even where is agreement; but to create the appearance of agreement in the midst of discord is beyond the reach of any sophistry or eloquence except the most consummate. The truth, however, seems to be, that Drechsler’s theory, however fanciful it may appear, especially as stated by himself, is but another exhibition of the truth maintained by Havernick, to wit, that the book before us is, in form as well as substance, the original and genuine production of Isaiah.
The view which has now been taken of the progress of opinion, with respect to the arrangement and division of the book before us, first its down ward progress from a firm traditional belief to the extreme of a lawless and irrational skepticism, and then its upward course by dint of argument to an enlightened and confirmed historical assurance, makes it almost impossible to close without a glance at the ulterior stages which may yet remain of this restorative process. Considering the principle on which it has been thus far carried on. the proved unsoundness of the contrary hypothesis, and the -analogy of all like cases, it might plausibly be stated, as the probable result of this return to experience and common sense, that men whose eyes have thus been opened will eventually throw to the moles and to the bats the cherished figment, upon which a large part of their errors have been built, to wit, the groundless assumption, that the sacred writings of the Jews were passed from hand to hand- by private circulation and transcription like the Greek and Roman classics, accidentally collected into volumes, mixed together, mutilated, magnified by forgery or ignorant interpolation, and at last sent down to us, to be the subject of empirical decisions without number or agreement. Or if this be gone already, it may be the next step to discard the notion, not monopolized by any class or school of critics, that the several parts of such a book as that before us were, and must have been, delivered as set speeches or occasional discourses, then reduced to writing one by one, and put together by degrees, or even by a later hand and in a distant age. On this gratuitous assumption rests a large part of the most perplexing difficulties which attend the critical interpretation of Isaiah, and which all would disappear if we could see sufficient reason to conclude, that the book is a continuous production of a single mind, at one great effort, long protracted, it may be, but not entirely sus pended, or renewed from time to time upon occasion. The mention of dis tinct events and dates no more establishes the fact here questioned, than the sweep of Paul’s chronology, in his epistle to the churches of Galatia, proves that it was written piecemeal from the time of his conversion. All analogy, both scriptural and general, without some countervailing reason for believing otherwise, would favour the conclusion that a book like that before us was produced by a continuous effort. But besides this negative presumption, we have one distinct example of the very thing proposed, or rather two, for it is matter of record that the Prophet Jeremiah twice reduced to writing, by divine command, the prophecies of many years, (see Jer. 36: 2, 4, 28, 32,) or rather of his whole preceding ministry. If this be possible in one case, it is possible in others. If we have no difficulty in supposing that Jeremiah’s constant inspiration was sufficient to ensure the truth of such a record, or that he was specially inspired for the very purpose, we need have none in supposing that Isaiah, in the last years of his ministry, recorded the whole series of his prophecies, and left them upon everlasting record, as we have them now. To us it matters little whether he recalled exactly the precise words uttered upon each occasion, or received by a new revelation such a summary as God was pleased to substitute instead of it. Our concern is not with prophecies now lost, whether written or oral, but with those now extant and recorded for our learning. It is these, and only these, that we interpret, it is only these that can command our faith. The supposition now suggested, while it would preclude a thousand petty questions gendered by the neological hypothesis, would also, when combined with the traditional devotion of the Jews to the preservation of their scriptures, furnish a solid ground for the belief, that what Isaiah wrote three thousand years ago we read to-day, without resorting to the needless supposition of a miracle, or shutting out the possibility of minor deviations from the autograph in every extant manuscript. All that we needed we should have, to wit, a rational assurance that the book, as a book, without descending to enumerate its letters, is precisely what it was, in form and substance, when originally written.
If this supposition were assumed as the basis of our exposition, it would materially modify its form, in some respects, by putting an end to the accustomed method of division into prophecies with separate dates, and introducing the same method which is practised with respect to Paul’s epistles, or the undivided prophecies, like that of Hosea. The conventional division into verses and chapters (the latter wholly modern and in several instances absurd) might be retained as a convenient mode of reference; but the exegetical division of the first part of Isaiah would no longer be historical or critical, but merely analytical and logical, as in the present universal mode of dealing with the last twenty-seven chapters of the book. In the exposition of the prophecies which occupy the present volume, the usual distinctive plan has been adopted, partly in deference to established custom and the authority of other writers, partly because the ideas just expressed were not assumed a priori, as an arbitrary basis of interpretation, but deduced from it a posteriori, as its actual result. In the mean time, it will be observed that various opportunities have been embraced, to check and counteract the tendency to needless or excessive subdivision.
The arrangement of the Commentary is as follows. The usual division into chapters is retained, as being universally familiar and in general convenient. The analysis of these divisions, and other preliminary state ments and discussions, are prefixed as special introductions to the chapters. The literal translation, sometimes combined with an explanatory paraphrase, is followed by the necessary comments and the statement of the different opinions. In the order of the topics, some regard has been had to their comparative importance, but without attempting to secure a perfect uniformity in this respect, which, if it were attainable, would probably add nothing to the force or clearness of the exposition. The prophecies expounded in the present volume may be considered introductory, in various respects, to the remainder of the book, not only because earlier in date, and relating for the most part to a nearer futurity, but also as affording the only satisfactory data, upon which the exposition of the rest can be founded. The Later Prophecies, extending from the fortieth chapter to the end, are abundantly sufficient, both in quantity and quality, to constitute the subject of another volume.
