: come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon nothing shall be left, saith the LORD. And of 7 thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah to 8 Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days. reported to have been uttered. The announcement naturally left on Hezekiah's mind the impression that his own days would be spent in peace, whereas in reality the most critical juncture of his reign still lay before him, and it is hardly credible that Isaiah should have disclosed to him the remote fate of his descendants, without warning him of the more immediate and personal consequences of his folly. This difficulty would be removed if we could hold that the prophecy was uttered after the deliverance from Sennacherib; but we have seen that this supposition is inadmissible on historical grounds. A more serious consideration is that Isaiah's Messianic ideal leaves no room for a transference of the world-power from Assyria to Babylon, or the substitution of the latter for the former as the instrument of Israel's chastisement. He uniformly regards the intervention of Jehovah in the Assyrian crisis as the supreme moment of human history and the turning point in the destinies of the kingdom of God, to be succeeded immediately by the glories of the Messianic age. The prediction, moreover, is without a parallel in the prophetic literature of Isaiah's age (in Mic. iv. 10 the clause "and thou shalt go to Babylon" is inconsistent with the context, and in all probability a gloss). These objections are partly neutralised by the hypothesis that some nearer and more limited judgment is referred to, such as the imprisonment of Manasseh in Babylon (2 Chron. xxxiii. 11) in the reign of Asshurbanipal. The terms of the prophecy fall short of a deportation of the people and a destruction of the city, only the fate of the treasures and the royal family being indicated. No great stress, however, can be laid on this limitation (comp. a somewhat similar case in Am. vii. 17) and the suggestion fails to harmonise the prediction with Isaiah's known anticipation of the course of events. It is possible that the prophet's actual communication had reached the late writer of this narrative in a form coloured by subsequent events. 7. The words which thou shalt beget seem, according to usage, to imply that the calamity would fall on Hezekiah's own children. 8. Good is the word of the LORD] An expression of pious resignation, including repentance; cf. 1 Sam. iii. 18. there shall be peace and truth (or steadfastness) in my days] In the Old Testament the postponement of a calamity is always regarded as a mitigation of its severity; see I Ki. xxi. 28f.; 2 Ki. xxii. 18 ff. Hezekiah's words probably mean no more than that mercy is mingled with judgment in the sentence pronounced on him. Adrammelech, 'ǎgäläh, 215 f. agriculture, allusions to, xxx, lxix, 59, Ahaz, 13, 25, 95, 135; Isaiah's interview Ahnâs, see Hanes akhrat yumi (Assyr.), 15 alliance with Egypt denounced, xxxiv, Amos, xxiii, xxv f., xxviii, liv, lxv, 6, Amoz, confounded with Amos, xxii anarchy, a Divine judgment, xxiii, xxvii, Anathoth (Anata), 93 'ancient' = elder, 23, 80, 186 anemone, sacred to Adonis, 136 angel of the Lord, connected with pesti- lence, xxi, 275 'ani and 'ānāv, 97 anklets, 27 Anzan, 109, 158 appear before God,' 7 'appointed barley,' 215 Aquila, Greek transl. of, 64 Ar of Moab, 124 'ǎrābāh, 126 Arabia, oracle on, 161 f. Aralu (Assyr.), 114 f. Aramaic, language of commerce and Ararat Armenia, 276 Arnold, M., referred to, lxvi Arpad, xii, 86, 265, 268 Arraignment, the Great, 2 arrowsnake, 257 'artificer,' 23 ascending rhythm, 184 Ashdod, xv, xviii, xxxiv, 153 asp, 98 ass, 4, 245; used in war by Persians, 159 Asshurbanipal, 54, 146, 285 assonance, alliteration, &c., 33, 35, 81, 106, 165, 180, 184, 188, 218, 229 Azria'u of Jaudi, xii note camels, used in war, 159 Canaan, of Phoenicia, 176 canon, of O.T., 204; order of Isaiah in, 'captivity' in Isaiah's teaching, Ivii, 37 'carriages' baggage, 93 Chaboras, river, 268 Chaldæa, Chaldæans, xvi, 108, 177 'chariot' for riding train, 159; see horses Cheyne, quoted or referred to, xv, lxxvi, - of Isaiah, - Chronicle, Babylonian, quoted, 275 commerce, compared to prostitution, 178 'confederacy' = conspiracy, 68 congregation, mount of, see assembly controversy, Jehovah's, with Israel, liii, I-9 convocation, 8, 31 cormorant, 256 Cornill, referred to, 253 crimson, 9 crocus, autumn, 258 cultus, Isaiah's attitude to, 6 cuneiform inscriptions, references to, ix, Cush, 100, see Ethiopia Damascus, x, xiii, xxviii ff., 64, 86, 132; Darius Hystaspis, 204 daughters- subordinate towns, 128, 133 day day of battle, 19, 74, 79 day of Jehovah, xxiií, xxvii, xlviii, lxv, death, abolition of, 189; covenant with, Dedan, 161 Delitzsch, quoted or referred to, 2, 5, 15, 30, 54, 66, 78, 95 f., 110, 143, 207, 227, Delitzsch, Friedrich, 283 Deluge, 181, 184 demonology, 257 deportation, Assyrian policy of, 88, 265 destruction, city of, 150 - devils goat-shaped demons, 110 Dillmann, quoted or referred to, 3, 6, 18, Dimon, 127 Diodorus, referred to, 236 disciples, Isaiah's, xxxi, xl, Ivi, lxxii, 70 dragon, 199 dream, figure for disenchantment, 219 Driver, quoted or referred to, 85, 99, 105, Duhm, quoted or referred to, xlii, lii, 12, 'ēdim )( 'ārim, 249 Edom, x, xv, xvii, 101, 122; oracles on, Egypt, first encounter with Assyria, xiv; Egyptian party, xiv, xvi, xxxvii, 168, 'ereçariç, 97 Esarhaddon, 54, 275; conquest of Egypt Eshmunazar, inscription of, xlv, 39 Ewald, referred to, 2, 5, 37, 85, 102, 131, fig, early, 208; use in Eastern medicine, 282 fire, symbol of Jehovah, 46, 239, 250; 'firstborn of the poor,' 120 five, a round number, 150 "fulness' of the earth, xlviii, 45, 254 future state, ideas regarding, 117 galil circuit, 73 Galilee, 73 'galley with oars,' 251 Gallim, 93 gardens, seats of heathenish cults, 12; of Adonis, 136 |