blessings of which it stood in need. The first prophet who wrote down his prophecy, Amos, and his younger contemporary Hosea, draw dark and threatening pictures of the “day of the Lord," a "day of darkness and not of light," a day of vengeance against Samaria and against the kingdom of Israel for all its iniquities. Both, however, emphasize the prophecy of a reunited kingdom, when the children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head" (Hos. 2:2) -a head specified by Hosea as "David their king (Hos. 3:5). The prophecy of Amos concludes with the cheering words:

66

In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old. . . . And I will bring again the captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof; and they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God (Amos 9:11; 14-15).

Hosea's prophecy, "On that day God will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely" (Hcs. 2:20), refers to the peaceful reunion and re-establishment of Israel and Judah on their land, and not to the universalistic ideas that the late prophets associated with the Messianic age. These loftier ideas were not crystallized until the time of Isaiah, who, with his broad view of life and his statesman's insight into the events of history, gave to this latent ideal of the Jewish people a tendency not clearly defined nor accurately described, but distinctly higher and broader. None of the later prophets added anything substantially new to the portrait, drawn by this greatest prophet of Judah, of the future kingdom of Israel and its ideal king.

Isaiah's ministrations extended over a protracted and troublous period in the history of Judah." During the long reign of Ahaz, godlessness and corruption swayed the court

and the nobles, while, without, a formidable enemy was waiting for a favorable opportunity to destroy the kingdom of Judah and put a foreign ruler on its throne (Is. 7:6). Nor did peace and repose attend the more righteous reign of Hezekiah. Internal dissensions and revolutions gave probability to the threat of Sennacherib's Assyrian hosts to ruin the nation. The lives of the nobles and the wealthy classes were steeped in immorality and vice, excessive luxury undermined the strength of the people, the worship of the God of Israel was forsaken.

Such a state of affairs furnished a fitting opportunity for the display and utilization of the wonderful natural gifts of Isaiah. He brought to a vocation to which he had been called early in life, not only a nature richly endowed with gifts of the highest order of genius, but also a knowledge of facts and a boldness of spirit which made him unhesitating in his judgments and inexorable in his demands. Out of his feeling that the

present was irredeemable, since the upper classes of society were deaf to his rebukes, he developed the lofty theory of the “ remnant," which is the basis of almost all his consolatory prophecies. Exile is inevitable, God's punishment must be poured out upon the sinful nation, but a remnant will return, and in the land of Zion will establish a kingdom of justice and of righteousness. The king is all that a Jewish king should not be, hence a new king will arise, who, endowed with the Divine spirit, will reform the administration of David's realm, and establish peace and equity in the land.

"For centuries the monarchy had been the centre and the pivot of the Jewish constitution, and accordingly one prominent feature in the delineation of the future sketched by the prophets is the figure of the ideal king, who will realize the highest possiblities of earthly monarchy, governing Israel with perfect justice and perfect wisdom, and securing for his subjects perfect peace." "1

Isaiah, however, gave a more definite character to this comparatively vague hope in the description of the child Immanuel

(Is. 7: 14), which he first sketched in outline to Ahaz. Later (Is. 9:5) he further developed his ideal, endowing the child with exalted qualities, and regarding him as the future savior of Israel, who will increase his dominions, and establish peace upon the throne of David, and picturing him in Chapter XI as the embodiment of the highest ideals of the nation:

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of its roots. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. And he shall inspire him with the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his hips. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.