Lecture V.
Note 1, p. 191. — The literature of the book of Isaiah, with which we shall be mainly occupied in the next four Lectures, is enormous; for an account and estimate of the commentators it is enough to refer to Mr. Cheyne's tenth essay appended to his Prophecies of Isaiah, 1881. This exceedingly useful book gives the English reader so complete a view of the present state of the exegetical questions connected with Isaiah that a general reference to it may take the place of many notes on individual points which would otherwise have called for remark. The book is indispensable to every one who has not access to a full library of Continental exegesis, while, on the other hand, those who have themselves worked in the same field will best appreciate the exhaustive studies witnessed to on every page. In addition to other help which these Lectures derive from it, I ought here to acknowledge repeated obligations to the translation for felicitous phrases. On the other hand, it will appear by and by that I am in very many cases at variance with Mr. Cheyne as regards the order and date of the several prophecies, a point on which he seems to have been misled by the Assyriologists. Of modern foreign commentaries, those of Gesenius, Ewald, Hitzig, and Delitzsch may be chiefly recommended to the student. The learned commentary of Dr. Kay offers little assistance in the mainly historical objects contemplated in the present Lectures. For the historical exegesis of the Prophet, the labours of Ewald are the necessary starting-point of every student, though in part now antiquated by Assyrian researches. The student should not overlook the contributions of Lagarde in his Prophetoe Chaldaice, p. il., and in his Semitica, I.
Note 2, p. 193. — This is the natural inference from the fact that for a time Jeroboam retired from Shechem to Penuel beyond the Jordan (1 Kings xii. 25).
Note 3, p. 194. — For the chronology of Ahaz's predecessors we must take as our point of departure the campaign of Tiglath Pileser against Pekah and Rezin B.C. 734. At this time Ahaz was king of Judah. Further we know that Menahem was still alive B.C. 738 (supra, p. 160), while 2 Kings xv. 37 shows that Pekah was king and had begun to attack Judah before the death of Ahaz's father Jotham, Ahaz, therefore, must have come to the throne between 738 and 734; and, as it is hardly to be supposed that the Syro-Ephraitic war was prolonged more than one or two years before the Assyrians interfered, the date of Jotham's death may be taken approximately as B.C. 735, so that 734 would count as the first year of Ahaz. Now reckoning backwards we find that the Judsean chronology assigns to the reigns from Athaliah to Jotham inclusive, 6 + 40 + 29 + 52+16 = 143. The northern chronology gives for the same period 102 years of the dynasty of Jehu, 10 of Menahem, and some 3 years more up to the expedition of Tiglath Pileser — in all about 115 years. The Assyrian monuments (supra, p. 150) show that this reckoning is right within a few years, but if anything is rather too long than too short, so that the Judaean chronology of the period is out by about 30 years. The discrepancy may be so far reduced by assuming that part of Jotham's reign fell in his father's lifetime, as we know that he acted as vizier while Uzziah was a leper (2 Kings xv. 5). But even this does not put all right, and is at best a mere hypothesis, which finds a very uncertain stay in the supposed Assyrian reference to Azariah or Uzziah B.C. 740. In reality it seems probable that the necessary shortening of Judaean reigns must be sought at more than one part of the period with which we are dealing, and that the error is distributed between the 69 years of Joash and Amaziah and the 68 of Uzziah and Jotham. For Amaziah, Uzziah's father, was contemporary with King Joash of Israel, and his defeat by that monarch seems to have fallen near the close of Amaziah's reign. At least it is a highly plausible conjecture of Wellhausen (Z.f. d. Theol., 1875, p. 634) that Amaziah's murder in a popular rising was due to the discontent produced by his absurd challenge to Joash and the misfortunes that followed. In this case the first year of Uzziah cannot have fallen anything like so late as the 15th year of Jeroboam II., to which the present Judaean chronology appears to assign it (6 + 40 + 29 = 75 = 28 + 17 + 16 + 14). But, on the other hand, the campaign of Joash against Jerusalem must have fallen in his later prosperous years. [The three campaigns of Joash against Syria must be at the end of his reign, since it was left to his son to improve his victories.] Thus we are led to conclude that Uzziah came to the throne about the same time with Jeroboam II. The rest of the error belongs to the prosperous days of Uzziah and Jotham, Avhich may very well be reduced by 15 or 16 years, and yet leave time for the great internal changes alluded to in the early chapters of Isaiah.
The chronology from B.C. 734 downwards offers a much more complicated problem, for here we have to deal with a multitude of discordant data. According to the present chronology of the book of Kings, Manasseh's accession opens the last third of the second 480 years of Israel's history, and so falls 160 years before the return or 110 before the destruction of the temple in the 11th year of Zedekiah (B.C. 586). For the last part of these 110 years we have a sure guide in the chronology of the book of Jeremiah, in which the reckoning by years of kings of Judah is adopted, and checked by another reckoning by years of Jeremiah's ministry, and by a third by years of Nebuchadnezzar, whose dates are known by the Canon of Ptolemy (Syncellus, p. 388). Now, the book of Kings divides the 110 years as follows: --
Manasseh: 55
Amon: 2
Josiah: 31
Jehoiakim: 11
Zedekiah: 11
The 11 years of Zedekiah are certain from Jer. xxxii. 1; 2 Kings XXV. 8. Further,
4 Jehoiakim = 23 Jeremiah (Jer. xxv. 1), 13 Josiah = 1 Jeremiah (Jer, xxv. 3).
Therefore 1 Jehoiakim = 20 Jeremiah = 32 Josiah; that is, Josiah reigned 31 years as stated in Kings. But now, if Jehoiakim really reigned 11 years, 21 Jehoiakim =10 Zedekiah =18 Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxxii. 1), and so 4 Jehoiakim = 1 Nebuchadnezzar, an equation actually given in the Hebrew text of Jer. xxv. 1, but rightly wanting in the Septuagint. For in reality 4 Jehoiakim is, according to Jer. xlvi. 2, the year of the battle of Carchemish, when Nabopolassar was still on the throne, but in his last year (Berosus ap. Jos., c. 'Apion. i. 1 9). Hence we must conclude that the first year of Nebuchadnezzar — that is, the first year which began in his reign — was really the fifth of Jehoiakim, and that the latter reigned not 11 but 12 years. [1] The 12 years of Jehoiakim seem also to be confirmed by Ezek. i. 1 seq., which Wellhausen uses to support the current chronology. According to Ezekiel, the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity (i. 2) is the 30th year of another unnamed era. It appears from xxiv, 1 , where the ninth year is the ninth of Zedekiah, that Ezekiel counts as the first year of captivity the first year of Zedekiah — that is, the first year that began in exile. Thus the first year of the anonymous era will be the 18th of Josiah if Jehoiakim reigned 11 years, but the 19th if he reigned 12. As the 18th year of Josiah is that of his great reformation, it would appear that Ezekiel reckons from that event. His era is the era of reformed worship. But in that case it seems a mistake to assume, as Wellhausen does (ut supra, p. 623), that the 18th year would be the first of the reformed era. If the first year of captivity is the first that began in captivity, the first year of reformation must be that which began after the reformation, or the 19th of Josiah. It is indeed probable, since Ezekiel reckons by Babylonian months, and so begins the year in the spring, that his first year begins with Josiah's reformed passover. But if so, the spring era was already in use in Josiah's time in priestly circles (comp. 2 Kings xxii. 3, LXX.), and so, in spite of 2 Kings xxiii. 23, which belongs to the editor, not to the sources, and therefore has no chronological authority, that passover must have fallen in the 19th year of the king. For it is to be noted that it is always in priestly circles or in connection with events of the temple that a reckoning by years of the king is found. The assignation of 11 years to Jehoiakim instead of 12 may be a mere oversight, the Hebrew chronicler supposing that Nebuchadnezzar commanded at Carchemish as king. It may, however, be systematic, as the number 11 is the key to the last 110 years of the kingdom (Manasseh, 55; Amon + Josiah = 33). In any case it would have the effect of disordering by one year any calculations as to earlier dates.
Let us now go back to the time of Hezekiah. Taking the reigns from Manasseh to Zedekiah inclusive at 110 years, and that of Hezekiah at 29, we get 1 Hezekiah == B.C. 724; but allowing one more year for Jehoiakim the date is 725. But for the reign of Hezekiah we have the following synchronisms: —
(1) 2 Kings xviii. 9; 4 Hezekiah = the year of the commencement of the siege of Samaria = B.C. 724-722 by the Assyrian monuments.
(2) 2 Kings xviii. 13; 14 Hezekiah = the year of Sennacherib's invasion = B.C. 701 by the monuments.
These dates are quite inconsistent with one another, and the question arises which we shall take as our guide. Let us begin with (1). It is plain that, according to the received chronology, this date is at least one year out; but if we introduce the correction already found requisite for Jehoiakim it is probably exact (supra, p. 403). In other words, if this date is original and accurate, the book of Kings is probably right — certainly not more than two years wrong — in assigning 29 + 55 + 2 = 86 Years to Hezekiah, Manasseh, and Anion taken together. There is therefore high probability that (1) is an independent and valuable datum, and that the sum of the years of Hezekiah, Manasseh, and Anion is also accurately known. And in general this result is borne out by the statement of Jer. xxvi. 18, that Micah, who predicts the fall of Samaria, prophesied under Hezekiah, a statement inconsistent with synchronism (2), which makes Ahaz be still on the throne when Samaria was captured.
When we pass now to (2) we are encountered by a very complex problem; for the statement that Sennacherib attacked Samaria in Hezekiah's fourteenth year is closely connected with the assignation to that prince of a total reign of 29 years. The connection is as follows: — At 2 Kings xx. 1 we learn that Hezekiah's sickness took place about the time of the Assyrian invasion, and at verse 6 we find that after this sickness Hezekiah lived 15 years. Now 29= 14 + 15, which at first sight seems to bear out (2). A closer examination, however, shows that there is something wrong. Merodach Baladan, whose embassy is placed after Hezekiah's sickness, was no longer king in B.C. 701, and the history contains internal evidence (ver. 6) that Hezekiah's sickness fell before the expedition of Sennacherib. One, therefore, of the numbers 14, 15, 29 is certainly false, and has been calculated from the other two. In that case we have three possibilities, (a) 14 and 29 are right and the 15 is wrong. If so, Manasseh came to the throne in 686, and not in 695 as the received chronology states. In this there is no intrinsic improbability, for to make that king begin the third section of the 480 years from Solomon's temple seems to be certainly a part of the artificial chronology. But in that case it is very singular that the artificial chronology should have found its end served by a date for Manasseh which is indeed false, but combined with 29 and with 2 Kings xviii. 9 gives a date almost, if not quite, exact for the fall of Samaria. Such a coincidence could only be the result of design, and the design is an incredible one, for it implies knowledge of the true Assyrian chronology and a determination to fix the fall of Samaria (a non-Judaean date) correctly, at the expense of the date 701, which directly affected Judah. (6) 14 is right and 29 is wrong, and derived from a combination of the 14 with 15. In this case a similar argument applies. The false 29, and the artificial (but independent) date for Manasseh combine to give the true date for the fall of Samaria. And neither (a) nor (6) gives the least clue to the reason of the discordant data (1) and (2). (c) There remains a third hypothesis, viz. that 15 and 29 are the dates from which the 14 has been derived, and this view, I think, enables us to give a tenable hypothesis for the whole system of numbers.
To develop it, I return to the assumptions already found probable, that the fourth year of Hezekiah coincides with the first year of the siege of Samaria, and that Hezekiah, Manasseh, and Amon together reigned 86 years. I do not assume that the years of each king are truly known, for the accession of Manasseh seems to be an artificial date. But it is highly probable that the true reign of each of these kings was once known. For in the time of Uzziah dates were not yet popularly reckoned by years of kings (Amos i. 1), while this reckoning appears under Hezekiah. This does not seem to be accident. The sundial of Ahaz, as well as his interest in star worship, point to the fact that astronomy (combined, of course, with superstition) was one of his foreign tastes, and it is impossible that he could have dealt with astronomy without feeling the need for a more exact calendar on the Assyrian model. It seems also that the reckoning by years of kings really went by the Assyrian Calendar from the time of Josiah downwards, If so, the time of Ahaz or Hezekiah is almost the only one at which it could have been introduced. I apprehend, then, that from the time of Ahaz downwards there was an exact record of years reigned, such as there is no trace of at an earlier date, except in concerns of the temple (the latter probably reckoned by the Phoenician Calendar; see Dillmann's essay in Monatb. Berl. Ac., 27 Oct. 1881). Again, though the book of Kings in its present form dates from the Exile, or indeed, as regards the schematised chronology, from after the restoration, the main stock of it is certainly earlier even in its redaction, and so might well contain the true years for Hezekiah and his successors. If so, the schematiser of the chronology would not change more than was necessary, and if he lengthened Manasseh's reign would correspondingly shorten Hezekiah's. Thus it is intelligible that the fourth year of Hezekiah comes in at the true date, or, at least, within a year or two. We may assume, therefore, that the choice of the number 29 was not arbitrary. But now again it is the independent judgment of critics that, in its present form, 2 Kings xviii. 13-xx. 19, with the exception of the remarkable versos xviii. 14-16 (not found in the parallel passage in Isaiah), belongs to a pretty late date (Wellhausen, in Bleek, § 131), or at least was retouched after the fall of the kingdom. In that case it is easy to understand how the fourteenth year of Hezekiah may be an insertion or correction made on the presupposition that Hezekiah's sickness corresponded with the year of Sennacherib's invasion. It is not quite certain that this even requires us to hold the 15 to be part of the original tradition, for Jerome gives an interpretation of Isa. xxxviii. 10 which makes the sickness fall at the bisection of Hezekiah's clays, and it is probable that this explanation was traditional.
The foregoing argument is undoubtedly of a very hypothetical character, but it seems to show that at all events it is possible to explain (2) from (1), but not vice versa; and this, combined with the argument from the date of Micah, and the fact that (1) gives a date for the siege of Samaria as accordant with the monuments as we can possibly expect, seems to entitle us to give it the preference. Hezekiah's first year is thus fixed for 725 (724). It does not follow that Manasseh's first year was 695, for that is a schematised date, and there is force in Wellhausen's argument that the strength of the prophetic party in Judah at the time of the reaction under Manasseh makes it probable that Hezekiah reigned some considerable time after the defeat of Sennacherib.
If the first year of Hezekiah was 725, Ahaz's reign is shortened to some ten years. But his 16 years will not fit with either (1) or (2); and, though the ages given to him and Hezekiah at their accessions rather demand a lengthening than a shortening of his reign, it is difficult to assign much value to these, when numbers so much more essential to be remembered are indubitably most corrupt.
Note 4, p. 202. — The nature of this divination by means of familiar spirits, as the wizard or Ba'al Ob pretended, is seen from the narrative of the witch of Endor. In reality, the performance was a form of ventriloquism, and the Ob or familiar spirit seemed to speak from beneath the ground or out of the stomach of the diviner. The Greeks called such diviners , and their father Eurycles was said to prophesy truly "by the daemon that was within him," Schol. on Arist., Vespae, 984 (1019); Iamblichus cited by Lagarde, Abhandlungen, p. 189. In Syriac these subterranean spirits are called Zakkure, and the conception is well illustrated in the second Syriac romance of Julian the Apostate, published by Hoffmann (Julianos der abtrunnige, Leyden, 1880, p. 247), translated by Noldeke, Z. V. M. G., xxviii. 666 seq. See also Noldeke's note.
Note 5, p. 211. — Compare O. T. in J. Ch., Lect. iv. p. 109 seq.; Lect. vi. p. 159 seq.
Note 6, p. 217. — Mr. Cheyne, mainly following Kleinert in Theol. Stud. u. Krit., 1877, p. 174 seq., defends the authorship of Isa. xxi. 1-10 by Isaiah, arguing that the ideas and phraseology are Isaiah's, that the second part of the prophecy seems to have been written at a distance from Babylon, with the fate of which the prophet expresses a certain sympathy, and that the reference may therefore be to the siege of Babylon by Sargon in 709, to which date Mr. Cheyne assigns the expedition of Merodach Baladan to Hezekiah. I do not think that these arguments have all the weight claimed for them. There is good reason for holding that the embassy of Merodach Baladan fell in the reign of Sennacherib (infra, Lect. VIII), and it seems impossible to question that the destruction of Babylon, spoken of in ver. 2 as effected by Elam and Media, must be the capture of the city by Cyrus. The prophecy, therefore, belongs to the Chaldaean cycle.
Note 7, p. 217. — It may here be convenient to give in connected form the chronological order of the chief prophecies, according to the results of the following Lectures. Of course, there is necessarily a large element of hypothesis in the details.
First Period. — From the year of Uzziah's death to the outbreak of the Syro-Ephraitic war. Chaps. ii.-v., and probably (as Ewald conjectures), ix. 8 — x. 4, the latest part of this collection dating apparently from the first epoch of the war, circa 735 B.C.
Second Period. — Prophecies at the time of Ahaz's resolution to do homage to Assyria, and during the ensuing campaign of Tiglath Pileser (734 B.C.). Chaps, vii. 1 — ix. 7 (chap, vi., recording Isaiah's first vision, seems to have been published as a preface to this collection). Chap, xvii. 1-11 seems also to date from the same period.
Third Period. — The time of Assyrian domination.
(a) Prophecies apparently occasioned by the impending fall of Samaria, 722-720 B.C., or restating the prophet's position after that event. Chap, xxviii. (before the fall of Samaria); chap. x. 5— xi. (after that event).
(b) At the time of the revolt of Ashdod, 711 B.C. Chap. XX.
(c) Under Sennacherib: — (1) During the first movements of revolt in Philistia, 704 B.C. Chap. xiv. 29-32.
(c) Prophecies addressed to Judah while the plan of revolt was ripening, 704-701 B.C. Chaps, xxix.- xxxii. (3) Against the other nations in revolt against Assyria. Chap. xxi. 11-17, Duma and the nomads of the Syro- Arabian desert; chap, xxiii., Tyre; chap, xviii., Ethiopia; chap, xix., Egypt, The re- issue of the old prophecy against Moab, chaps, xv. xvi., may belong to the same period. (4) During the campaign in Judaea, 701 B.C. Chaps, i., xxii. (5) In the last stage of the campaign, after the fall of the party opposed to Isaiah. Chaps, xxxvii. 6, 7; xxxvii. 21-35; xxxiii. (6) Chaps, xiv, 24-27; xvii. 12-14, seem to belong to this period, but their exact position in it is uncertain.
Irregular as the arrangement of these prophecies seems to be, it is not without a principle. Chap. i. seems to have been prefixed as a general introduction to the whole book, for which its contents well ht it. With this exception, the part of the book that precedes the large Babylonian prophecy of chaps, xiii. xiv. is well arranged, apart at least from the trans- position of ix. 8 — x. 4. It contains two sections which Isaiah himself may have published very much as they stand, followed by a great and self-contained prophecy against Assyria, which might well be chosen as the close of a first attempt at a collected edition of some of Isaiah's principal pieces. Again, from chap, xiii. to chap, xxiii. we have a collection of prophecies which, with the exception of chap, xxii., are all directed against foreign nations. As it now stands, this collection contains also Babylonian prophecies, and so must be of Exilic or post-Exilic date. But the main part of it may well be of earlier collection, and chaps, xiii., xiv. 1-23, perhaps do not properly belong to it at all. Finally, from chap. xxix. onward we have prophecies of the time of Sennacherib addressed to Judah. That xxviii., which dates from an earlier period, is associated with these is explicable from the subject, and it is not unlikely that Isaiah himself may have published it as a preface to the later prophecies with which it is now associated. The chief breaches of chronological order are entirely due to the plan adopted of putting the prophecies against foreign nations together, as was also done in the collection of the oracles of Jeremiah. A study of the varying order of the several parts of the last-named book in the Hebrew and LXX. respectively is the best exercise by which one can convince oneself that the order in which a. collection now stands cannot be held to afford any sure clue to the chronological order.
Note 8, p. 218. — See Cheyne on the passage, and, as regards the Cherubim, his article in Encyc. Brit., s.v., where references to the relevant literature are collected. If the Seraphim are a personification of the lightning flash they have some analogy to the Phoenician (C. I. S., p. 38).
Note 9, p. 224. — On the idea of holiness a great deal has been written. I need only refer to two of the most recent discussions. Duhm (Theologie der Propheten, p. 169 seq.) lays particular emphasis on the relation of the idea to the worship of God. The idea is aesthetic; Jehovah's majesty presents itself as holiness to the worshipper in the act of worship. It would be more correct to say that the idea of consecration to God is a religious or aesthetic and not strictly an ethical idea; it becomes ethical in the prophets because religion becomes ethical. In the elaborate article on the notion of holiness in the Old Testament in Baudissin's Studien, part ii. (1878), there is a useful collection of material. The most important thing in it, as Noldeke observes in his review of the book (Lit. Centralbl., 1879, No. 12), is the part devoted to show that the notion of holiness has not the primary sense of purity. It may be now held as agreed among scholars that the Arabic words on which this idea was based are taken from the Greek . That the word is old Arabic in the sense of holy seems clear from Kuds as the name of two mountains in Arabia (Yakut iv. 38, seq.; see also Noldeke, l. c.); but its use in the Koran is influenced by Judaism; the word seems almost to have disappeared from the ordinary Arabic vocabulary, and the explanation of the commentators on Sur, ii. 28 that kadasa fi'l ard, like sabaha fi'l ard, means "to go far off" (Ibn Sa'ud, Egn. ed., i. 59), does not go for much. So Noldeke judges that the arguments from Arabic for the sense of "depart" require confirmation. The Aramaic Kdasha, an earring, literally a "holy thing," that is, no doubt, an amulet (comp. the lehashim or amulets as articles of finery, Isa. iii. 20), is noteworthy. The remarks on the idea of holiness in the text of this Lecture are exclusively based on the earlier parts of the Old Testament down to the time of Isaiah.
Lecture VI.
Note 1, p. 236. — In viii. 1 for roll read tablet. That a tablet inscribed in large letters to catch the eye of every one is meant is the plausible explanation of Ewald, Propheten, i. 8. A facsimile of the Siloam inscription, with commentary, etc., will appear in the forthcoming part of the Oriental series of the Palaeographical Society.
Note 2, p. 239. — The explanation of ix. 14 given in the following verse is regarded as a later and inaccurate gloss by most recent critics.
Note 3, p. 246. — On this topic, and in general on Isaiah's theocratic ideal, see Wellhausen, Geschichte, i. 431 seq.
Note 4, p. 248,— The (A. V. Branch) of Isa. iv. 2 is not, as in Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15, a sprout from the stock of David, but, more generally, that which Jehovah causes to spring forth, viz. from the land, as appears from the parallel "the fruit of the land." This, I think, excludes all reference to the king of chap, xi., such as is still thought of by Lagarde, Semitica, i. 8 seq., in spite of his apt illustration from Semitic heathenism, where Baal's land is, like the land of Canaan, such as derives fertility from the rains of heaven, not from irrigation (comp. Hosea ii. 21). The word is best rendered, I think, by "spring" in the old English sense of young, fresh growth (as in Shakspeare's poems). This enables us to keep up the connection with the cognate verb, as in Zech. vi. 12 (" the man whose name is Spring and from under him it shall spring up," that is, wherever he treads fresh life and growth follow), as well as to feel the identity of the word in such a passage as Psalm lxv. 10, "Thou blessest the springing thereof."
Note 5, p. 250. — In justification of the Authorised Version in this rendering see Lagarde, Semitica, i. 13.
Note 6, p, 251. — Compare Ewald, Geschichte, iii. 664; and on 2 Kings xvi. 18, to which allusion is made a few lines down the page, see ibid., p. 667.
Note 7, p. 267. — This verse, certainly mistranslated in the Authorised Version, may run, "In that day shall his strong cities be like the deserted places of forest and hill-top, which were left desert before the children of Israel." Possibly, however, we should correct by the aid of the Septuagint (Lagarde, Semitica, i. 31) "the deserted places of the Hivite and the Amorite."
Note 8, p. 267. — Flesh is never a common article of food with the peasantry of Syria. Bread and other cereal preparations with milk, generally eaten sour, and dibs, or grape honey, are the ordinary diet, as Seetzen, for example, found in the Hauran (Reisen, i. 48; comp. Prov. xxvii. 27; Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, 1822, p. 293). Where there is much cultivation of cereals the supply of milk is of course correspondingly limited. According to Isaiah vii. 22, the whole land of Judah shall become free pasture ground, with the result that the kine and ewes shall yield abundance of milk, and the man who has a young cow and two sheep shall have abundance of milk for his family, but no bread or wine, As the vineyards are the first thing to be destroyed, requiring as they do the most sedulous cultivation, the honey mentioned by Isaiah is doubtless natural honey, such as John the Baptist found in the desert, or Jonathan in the woods. As the wild bee frequents desert places, swarming in the woody or in the rocky sides of deep watercourses, the abundance of honey is another indication of the desolation of the land. At vii. 15 the true rendering is that the child whose infancy falls at the time of the destruction of Damascus shall eat butter and honey when he is of age to distinguish the good from the bad. That is, when his infancy begins to pass into rational childhood the land shall be already reduced to the state of depopulation described in verses 21 seq.
Note 9, p. 272. — The view that the sign given by Isaiah refers in its original sense to the birth of our Lord is still upheld by Dr. Kay, and some remarks on the subject, with reference to his argument, may not be out of place. The first point is the meaning of the word 'almah, rendered the oldest version, and "virgin" in the A. V. The word is not a very common one, though rather commoner than the masculine ''elem, a young man or lad, of which it is the regular feminine. This fact is alone sufficient to show that virginity is not the radical idea, and a comparison with the Arabic and Aramaic leaves no doubt that both in the masculine and the feminine the meaning is a young person of marriageable age. There is in fact another and common word for a virgin (bethulah). Even the latter word can be used of a young bride (Joel i. 8), and when the idea of virginity is to be made prominent it is not out of place to express it more directly (Gen. xxiv. 16; Judges xxi. 12). But is it then at least the ease that usage limits the word 'almah to a virgin? The word only occurs six times apart from our passage; twice it is used of a grown-up girl still unmarried (Gen. xxiv. 43; Exod. ii. 8), twice it seems to be used of the slave girls of Solomon's harem (Cant. i. 3; vi. 8). In Prov. XXX. 19 Dr. Kay feels the force of the argument against his view so much that he backs up his appeal to Hengstenberg by the suggestion that the passage is allegorical; Ps. lviii. 25 may be fairly taken with the two passages first quoted. On the whole the evidence does not bear out the supposition that virginity is an essential in the notion; though a marriageable girl naturally stands distinguished from a married woman, and thus Isaiah probably means a young woman who has not yet been a mother. But this suits the acceptation of the passage which we have adopted. The prophet's point is that before a woman presently to be married can have a child emerging from babyhood certain things will occur. That this is at all events the correct determination of the date which he has in view (viz. the following year) is absolutely clear. For the same date is given again in the parallel prophecy viii. 3, 4, by a similar and quite unambiguous sign.
The objection to all this is mainly that the sign offered by Jehovah must be of a grander and miraculous character. But what is the nature of a prophetic "sign"? Another "sign" given by Isaiah is his walking naked and barefoot for three years (xx. 3); he and his children are living signs to Israel (viii. 18). So, too, in Ezek. iv. 3; xii. 6, 11; xxiv. 24, 27, the signs are mere symbolic actions or God-given pledges for the fulfilment of His word. They are, as it were, seals set to prophecy, by which its truth can he put to the test in the future. What Dr. Kay further urges for the Messianic references from combination with Isa. ix. 7, Micah v. 3, is plainly not demonstrative, for the combination is not indicated in the Bible itself.
Note 10, p. 273. — See Ewald on the passage, and Lagarde, Semitica, i. 31 seq., where the identity of Na'aman with Adonis in ably maintained. Note further that the river now called the Nahr Na'man is the ancient Belus, which seems to confirm the view that Na'man is a divine name.
Note 11, p. 276. — I here follow what I may call the certain correction made independently by Selwyn and Studer.