We must now compare this circumstantial and undoubtedly, in the main, reliable narrative with the corresponding account in 2 Ki. xviii. 13—xix. 37 (cf. Is. xxxvi., xxxvii.). We are at once struck by their remarkable agreement with regard to certain leading features of the campaign. Both relate (1) the capture of the "fenced cities” of Judah, (2) the investment of Jerusalem by an Assyrian army, (3) the submission of Hezekiah and the exaction of a heavy tribute; and another important point of correspondence is (4) that Sennacherib himself does not claim to have effected the reduction of Jerusalem. But there is one essential difference between the two records: whereas Sennacherib represents Hezekiah's surrender as the consequence of the siege of Jerusalem, the Hebrew historian places it before the assault on the capital. It is obviously of the utmost importance for the understanding of Isaiah's work that a satisfactory solution of this discrepancy should be obtained, and a number of widely diverging theories have been propounded with that object. One suggestion is that Sennacherib has purposely falsified the sequence of events in order to give the appearance of success to what was really an abortive attack on Jerusalem1. Other critics have supposed that the biblical narrative combines the accounts of two entirely different Assyrian invasions of Judah, one in 701 and another near the close of Sennacherib's reign2. But of this second campaign no independent evidence whatever has been discovered. The most reasonable supposition after all is that Sennacherib's narrative simply breaks off before reaching the last and most unfortunate stage of the campaign, in other words that the Old Testament parallel to the Assyrian account is found in 2 Ki. xviii. 13-16, while the subsequent narrative of vv. 17 ff. refers to events passed over in Vol. 1. pp. 280 ff.), and Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, Vol. 11. pp. 95— 97;

1 So Schrader, Cuneiform Inscr. Vol. I. p. 301.

2 This theory seems to have been first started by the two Rawlinsons. See G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies, Vol. II. p. 165 (2nd Ed.). In a modified form it is still upheld by Winckler (Geschichte Bab. u. Assyr. p. 254). A similar view, once prevalent, was that 2 Kings xviii. 13 (14)-16 refers to Sargon's supposed campaign in 711 and what follows to Sennacherib's in 701.

silence by the inscription. There is no improbability in the assumption that Jerusalem was twice blockaded in the course of the war, provided a sufficient motive can be assigned for a renewal of hostilities on the part of Sennacherib. Such a motive is readily enough suggested by the situation in which the Assyrian king found himself towards the close of this campaign; and in this way we are led to a conception of the progress of events which, if not altogether free from difficulty, has commended itself to many of the best critics as affording the most satisfactory solution of a somewhat intricate problem.

We must assume, then, that after the terms of capitulation had been arranged and after the first siege of Jerusalem had been raised, Sennacherib saw reason to change his mind, and to insist on the absolute surrender of the capital. His position at the end of an arduous campaign, and in front of an enemy who might at any time be reinforced from Ethiopia, was becoming daily more critical, and he probably realised that it would be a strategical blunder of the worst kind to leave an important fortress like Jerusalem in the hands of so doubtful a vassal as Hezekiah. It is possible also that Hezekiah, encouraged by the rumour of Tirhakah's advance, may have been indiscreet enough to exhibit some indication of a hostile disposition. At all events, the steps now taken by Sennacherib reveal at once his eagerness to obtain possession of Jerusalem, and his inability to direct the whole force of his army against it. We are told, indeed, that he sent from Lachish, "a great host" with the Rabshakeh and other officers to demand the surrender of Jerusalem; but it is evident that the display of force was merely a stratagem, and that the Great King relied mainly on the eloquent tongue of his chief minister. The object of the mission, in fact, was in the first instance to intimidate Hezekiah by threats, and failing that to induce the people to rise up against him. But Hezekiah, now acting under Isaiah's advice, declined to enter into fresh negotiations, and the officers retired baffled to Lachish. A second attempt1 to play on the fears

1 Unless, indeed, we have here two parallel accounts of a single occurSee Introductory Note on ch. xxxvi. f.

rence.

of Hezekiah by means of a royal letter met with no better success, and Sennacherib was obliged to proceed southwards, leaving Jerusalem still unreduced in his rear.

The state of matters within the walls of Jerusalem during this crisis will fall to be more fully considered in the next chapter. Here it is enough to say that the resolute attitude of the king was due solely to the lofty faith and courage of Isaiah and his confident and reiterated predictions that the Assyrian should not be permitted to inflict the smallest injury on Jerusalem (ch. xxxvii. 6, 7; 21-35). These anticipations were more than realised, when in a single night "the angel of the Lord...smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand" (xxxvii. 36), and Sennacherib was compelled to return to his own land1. The political consequences of this mysterious calamity, as read in the light of our fuller knowledge of Assyrian history, may seem meagre and disappointing. It is now known that Sennacherib survived the catastrophe for 20 years and during that time waged many successful wars. It is certain also that the deliverance did not permanently affect the relations of Judah to the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrian monarchs still exacted their yearly tribute from the kings of Jerusalem and treated them as their subjects. On the other hand it may well be doubted whether Sennacherib was able to enforce the hard conditions which he imposed on Hezekiah at the time of his submission2. The very fact that during the 20 remaining years of his reign he never again appeared in Palestine, or renewed the attack on Egypt, is sufficient proof that his policy was permanently altered by the serious disaster which there befel him. But if we measure the crisis by the spiritual interests that were at stake we shall find that it possesses an importance that cannot be over-estimated. Whatever may be uncertain, it is certain that the political existence of Judah was then saved from seemingly inevitable extinction. If Sennacherib had attained his object the people would have been led into captivity (see ch. xxxvi. 17). Israel would have perished as a nation, and with it the hopes on which the religious future of humanity depended would have 2 See above, p. xviii.

1 See further on ch. xxxvii. 36.

been lost. That this result was averted was due to the inspiration which guided Isaiah throughout his life and to the providential interposition which crowned his prophecies with their fulfilment. The events of 701 form, therefore, a fitting close to the public career of the great prophet, who from this time vanishes from the stage of history.

CHAPTER II.

THE LIFE AND PROPHETIC ACTIVITY OF ISAIAH.

OF Isaiah's private life very few details can be gathered from his writings. We know that he grew up to manhood under the brilliant reign of Uzziah, and he must have been still a young man, though probably married, when in the year of that king's death he received his call to the prophetic office. His name, in Hebrew Yěsha'yahu ("salvation of Jehovah") appears not to have been an uncommon one in Israel (1 Chr. xxv. 3, 15; xxvi. 25; iii. 21; Ezra viii. 7, 19; Neh. xi. 7), and although to the prophet himself it had a symbolic significance as embodying a cardinal principle of his ministry (ch. viii. 18), it throws no light on the circumstances of his birth or the religious disposition of his parents. Of his father Amoz nothing further is

known. The fancied resemblance of his name to that of the prophet Amos does not exist in the original, and the notion that the younger prophet was the son of the older was only the speculation of some Greek, ignorant of Hebrew orthography. Equally worthless is the Jewish tradition which makes Amoz a brother of king Amaziah, and Isaiah consequently a member of the royal house of Judah. From the fact, however, that Isaiah was intimately acquainted with the ways of the court and had at all times ready access to the presence of the king, as well as from a certain aristocratic loftiness of thought which appears in his writings, we may probably conclude that he belonged to a good family and had enjoyed all the advantages of education and social intercourse that were

open to the son of a prominent citizen of Jerusalem. Of the religious influences that moulded his youthful character little can be said. It is possible that a great earthquake in the days of Uzziah (Am. i. 1; Zech. xiv. 5) may have left an ineffaceable impression on his mind and furnished the imagery for his first and most powerful delineation of the great day of Jehovah (ch. ii. 12 ff.). But Isaiah was not left to interpret the signs of the times by his own unaided reflections. He had "a more sure word of prophecy" in the teaching of his own immediate predecessors Amos and Hosea. Two years before the earthquake Amos had appeared at Bethel with a message of doom which sent a momentary thrill of terror through the whole northern kingdom (Am. vii. 10). His work in North Israel was continued by Hosea, whose career preceded that of Isaiah by a very short interval. The influence of both these prophets can be clearly traced in the earlier discourses of Isaiah, and it is reasonable to suppose that before his own call his mind was thus imbued with those great prophetic principles to which he was destined to give such forcible expression.

It was amidst the forebodings naturally suggested by the death of Uzziah that Isaiah became conscious of his prophetic vocation. The statement that he first saw the Lord "in the year that king Uzziah died" has doubtless something more than a mere chronological interest. The aged monarch, who had so well upheld the credit of the State, was either just dead or else in the last stages of leprosy. The recent history of the kingdom of Samaria furnished an ominous warning of the troubles that might follow the removal of a capable ruler at such a time; and may be that Isaiah had a presentiment that the death of this king would be the prelude to a period of anarchy and confusion such as he afterwards pictured as a feature of the divine judgment on Israel's sin (ch. iii. 1 ff.). The significance of the vision of ch. vi. becomes at least somewhat more intelligible to our minds if we regard it as the answer to apprehensions such as these. At a time when his thoughts were occupied with the decease of a sovereign whom he had learned to revere as the embodiment of wise and experienced statesmanship, there was

it