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the sake of what follows, the promise of Jehovah's sure deliverance. When the danger actually came, it was hardly less immediate and the deliverance was no less dramatic than in the imaginative picture painted in advance.

From the present danger and promised deliverance, the prophecy passes into one of the wonderful Messianic passages of this book:

And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of Jehovah 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 Jehovah. And his delight shall be in the fear of Jehovah; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither decide after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and decide with equity for 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 waist, and faithfulness the girdle of his loins.

And the wolf 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. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.1

With the earlier part of the general section just considered we may connect the effective bit in 14 24-27

Jehovah of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely, as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulder. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For Jehovah of hosts hath purposed, and who shall annul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?

This is one of several similar, short oracles, of which Isaiah seems to have uttered very many. One of the finest of these may perhaps come from this period.

1 11 1-9.

Ah, the uproar of many peoples, that roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters! The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but he shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm. At eventide, behold, terror; and before the morning they are not. This is the portion of them that despoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.

The translation does remarkably well in preserving something of the sound effect of the original. As one reads of the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters (ûsheôn leummim kisheôn mayim kabbirim yishsha'ûn), one recalls Homer's favorite poluphloisboio thalasses, loud-roaring sea, in which we hear so marvellously the boom of the breaker followed by the swishing rush of the water on the beach.1 Homer was fond of onomatopoetic lines, and Isaiah, too, knew how to suit the sound to the thought. The very repetition of the same sound and even the same word, which would be so offensive were it undertaken by any one other than one of the world's masters of words, gives us the full impression of the terrible, swift advance of great armies.

With Jehovah's rebuke the figure changes to express the change in that figured. The armies are no longer rushing masses, like mighty waters, but multitudes of driven individuals, like chaff before the wind of the mountain threshing floor, like dust before the storm-wind. No longer have we the uproar of many peoples (hamon ammim rabbim), but the chaff before the wind and the whirl of dust before the storm-wind (mots liphne-ruach and galgal liphne supha). Then the whole fate of the scattered army is summed up:

At eventime, and behold terror!
Not yet morning; they are not.2

Isaiah's power of emotional suggestion is exemplified also in his prophecy concerning the Ethiopian embassy :

1 E.g. Iliad A 34.

βῆ δακέων παρὰ θῖνα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης,

She went in silence along the shore of the loud roaring sea.

2 Seeking to give the terse effect of the Hebrew by a slavishly literal translation.

M

Hoy, land of whirring wings,
Which is beyond the rivers of Cush;
That sendeth envoys by the sea,

In vessels of reed upon waters.

The creepy effect of the opening mourners' cry is heightened by the description of the far distant land where the air is resonant with the superabundant insect life of the tropics. It suggests lonesome, dank, impenetrable regions.

Literary qualities somewhat similar to those of the prophecies just considered are seen also in the "burden of the valley of vision,"1 the exact occasion of which is uncertain. The picturing of the tumult in the city, of the prophet's anguish; of the breaches in the wall with the houses torn down to repair the holes, of the mad revelry of the people "Let us eat and drink," they say, "for to-morrow we shall die" is all in Isaiah's style, as is also the sudden contrast at the close-Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts.

As a matter of sober history, Sennacherib suddenly withdrew from Palestine and Jerusalem was spared, though not through aid of Egypt. Whatever the immediate cause, Isaiah's faith was vindicated and the prestige of Jerusalem as Jehovah's unconquerable dwelling place was greatly enhanced. Isaiah's fame too was established, and many later prophecies were added to the rather fragmentary literary remains of his long and eventful ministry. Such, for example, are the dooms pronounced upon Babylon, the oppressing city, given in chapters 13 and 14. They would have been meaningless to the contemporaries of Isaiah the son of Amoz. All of Isaiah's genuine prophecies are to be found in chapters 1-35 of the book bearing the prophet's name. To this collection of prophecies, most of which were written or spoken by Isaiah, was added a narrative section in which Isaiah figures prominently, chapters 36-39. These narratives are found almost in duplicate in 2 Kings 18 13-20 19. This was probably material preserved among the disciples of Isaiah, much as the narratives concerning Elijah were treasured by his followers.2 The noble prophecies added to the book of Isaiah which once terminated with 36-39 will be considered in connection with the later ages from which they emanate.3

1 22 1-14.

2 See Chapter VI.

'Chapter XIX.

CHAPTER XI

MICAH THE LAST OF THE EIGHTH-CENTURY PROPHETS

(About 722 to 680? B.C.)

WHILE Isaiah was active in the affairs of state in Jerusalem, the prophet Micah was writing or speaking in the borderland district of Judea, near the Philistine frontier. He is, indeed, often called a younger contemporary of Isaiah.

In many respects Micah suggests the man Amos who also lived in the rural portion of Judea. His home, Maresha, was at the edge of the foothills, just above the Philistine plain, not much more than twenty miles to the westward of Amos's home at Tekoa. From Jerusalem it lay about twenty-seven miles distant, toward the southwest.1

Although Isaiah had attacked those who were dispossessing the small landowners, his vision was not so filled with the economic problems of the times as that of these prophets who dwelt among the poor peasants and better understood their lot. The terribly expressive figure that Micah used to describe the cruel oppression of the people is not surpassed by any of Amos's pictures.

And I said, Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: is it not for you to know justice? ye who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.2

Amos was stirred to the depths of his nature by the moral obliquity of a people who could say that Jehovah was with them, while they trampled upon the poor,3 and Micah was no less deeply moved by the sight of those who used high and responsible position for mercenary ends, and yet leaned upon the Lord, saying, "Is not 1 For description of the region, see Kent, Biblical Geography and History, p. 186 f. 3 Amos 5 11-14.

23 1-3.

Jehovah in the midst of us, no evil shall come upon us.1 Such moral perversity, with its natural accompaniment of hatred and opposition to all who saw and taught moral truth, greatly roused both these teachers of elemental righteousness.2

Micah's song of woe to the land-monopolists is highly suggestive of Isaiah's.3

Woe to those who devise wrong on their couch,4

With morning light they perform it,

Since 'tis in their power.

They covet fields and grasp,

Yea houses, and take them away.
They wrong master and house,

Yea, a man and his heritage."

Yet, both in spirit and thought, we find Micah more closely kindred with Amos than with Isaiah. Such a passage as this might easily have been written by Amos, who indignantly repudiated the insinuation of the Bethel priest that he was prophesying as a means of livelihood. Both the insinuation and hot denial may be more fully appreciated after noting Micah's picture of the professional prophets "that make my people to err; that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and whoso putteth not into their mouths they even prepare war against him."7

In clear moral insight into the conditions of their times, in bold and stern denunciation of evil, and also in power of concrete picturing and the use of homely, effective illustrations, these two champions of the common people were kindred spirits. Though Micah may have been familiar with the teaching of his greater predecessor, he was no mere imitator; his thought and his style were his own.

In one passage he gives one of the most remarkable series of plays upon names hat was ever devised. It is one of the instances in which we see that the Hebrew punned not as a witty exercise, but for the purpose of making his thought pierce dull ears. Farrar has thus attempted to represent it in English:

1 Micah 3 11. 2 Amos 5 10, Micah 2 6.

4 Kittel, Bib. Heb. Note in loc.

6 Micah 2 1-2.

3 See p. 146.

Canon

5 Kittel, Bib. Heb. in loc. 7 Micah 35..

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