A deci-sion on the passage is complicated by his- torical considerations. The high priest Onias III.,
" And in the pr. names D-in "in Jg 135, a-\r n^p 28, O^nn n'^up 'ascent of Ileres' S13; 1418 ig dub,, see Moore.
t The form of the word is perfectly regular and normal : cf. 3-1N a lying-in-wait (Job SS-"*), 3¥','5 an attemUng (Is iV), ^~j> * flainny (Ob »), -as' a breaking, j-in a killing, ^3ri a destruction (Mic 210), i:) a catcA (Pr 328), etc "
t The present t«xt of the Targ. pjcpresaes a combination of both readings, (1) and (2): :-inD7 K-i'njn sroa n-2 ump 'the city Beth-Shemesh fsee Jer 4313, cited above), which is destined to be destroyed ' (cited in the Talm. ^c without the last clause : »ee Lei ». NHWB ii. 112V
after his deposition by Antiochus Epiphaucs, — or, according to other statements, bis .son, Onias IV.,* — di-spairinj' of better times in JuihJi, siiug:;5 refuge in Egypt (c. B.C. ITU-lOO) with Ptolemy Philometor; and conceived the idea of building there a temple, dedicated to Jehovah, in which the ancient ntes of his people might be carried on without molestation, and which might form a re- ligious centre at least for the Jews settled in IJgypt. Upon his application to Ptoiemy, the king granted the disused site of a sanctuary of Bubastis at Leontopolis, in the ' nome,' or district, of Heliopolis, and there Oni.is erected his temple.f In support of his plan he had pointed to Is 19"' and its context,! as a prediction that a temple to Jehovah was to be built in Egypt.p The.se facts have been sujiposed to have a bearing upon both the re.-uiing and the exegesis of the pas.sage under consideration. Certainly, if the passage be (Bjiiah's, they will not all'ect either ; in that case, the lirst view given above is the only one which can be regarded as probable. But there are scholars whom that view fails to satisfy ; and, without going so far as to deny Isaiah's authorship of the whole of igiii(i8i-23_ it must be granted that the clause in V." 'one shall be called,' etc., might well be a later addition to the original text of the prophecy : the verse would not read incompletely without it, nor does it add anything material to the main tliouuht of the verse, 'those who hold, then, that this clause (with or without the context) is not Isaiah's, adopt the following views about it.
(4) Duhm boldly translates 'shall De called Leontopolis,' explaining heres from the Arab. haris, properly the hriiher, crusher, a poet, name for a lion. But that a verj- special and lig. application of an Arab, root, not occurring in Heb. even in its usual Arabic sense, should be found in Heb., is most improbable.
Dillmaun's suggestions are better worthy of consideration. First (5), adhering to Isaiah's authorship, but deeming (1) and (2) above both unsuitable, he thinks it possible (agreeing in this with Bredenkamp) that 'citj' of righteousness' was the original reading,|| supposing tliat heres, ' sun,' and heres, 'destruction,' were alterations made intentionally after B.C. 170, for the purpose of introducing a more definite allusion to the temple of Leontopolis (which was situated, as said above, in the nome of Heliopolis), the former by tho.se who viewed this temple with approval, the latter by tho.se who judged it schismatic. But he goes on (6) to throw out the suggestion that, after all, the whole clause may have been added at this later date, heres, 'sun,' being the original reading, which was altered afterwards by the Jews of Palestine into heres, ' destruction,' in order to obtain a con- demnation of the Egyptian temple, H and by the Jews of Egj'pt into zedek, ' righteousness,' in order to make the prophecy more distinctly favourable to it.
(7) C\\eyns (Introd. to Is. pp. 102-110), followed by Skinner, rejecting the view that the passage was written in the interests of the temple of Leon-
* See on this question Baethgen, ZATW, 1886, p. 278ff.
t Probably at Tell el-Yahudiyeh (about 10 miles N. of Heli. opolis), near which there are the remains of a Jewish necropolis (Naville, as cited below, pp. 13-15, 19 f.). The place was after- ward scalled On'ton.
t See ios. A nt. xni. iii. 1 end.
% Jos. BJ I. i. 1; vii. X. 2-3; Ant. xii. v. 1, ix. 7; xin. iii 1-S, X. 4; XX. 10; Ewald, Hist. v. 355f. ; Sch,.rer, ii. fi4-l-.')4D. See also Naville, The Mound of the Jeio and the City of Oniat (7th Memoir of the Egyp. Expl. Fund), 1890, pp. l*-20.
n So Geigei, Urschnft (1857), p. 79f. (treating the verse, how- ever,— and indeed the whole passage, 19i'*-25, — aa a late addition to Isaiah's prophecy, written for the express purpose of glorify- ing the temple of Leontopolis).
U Dillm. IS thus far following Hitzig, Jemja (183.1), pp. 219, 233 (who indeed assies the whole of 19'6-'.:i to the same age, and even sucrgestfl Omas himself as its autl^r).
IRI
topolis, and interpreting the words in v." ('five cities speaking the language of Canaan ' [Hebrew], etc.), not as a symbolical expression tor tlie con- version of Egyptian cities to the worsliip of J", but as referring to Jewish colonics in Egypt main- taining their national language and religion, sup- poses vv.'"-^ to have been written in the latter years of Ptolemy Lagi (c. B.C. 290), when there were un- questionably many Jewish settlements in Egypt : the original reading was 'city of the sun,' tlie meaning being that one of these Jewish colonies, [ireserving loyally the faith of their fathers, should nourish even in Heliopolis, the city of the sun-god, till- lleb. name of which should be Ir-hahreij ; the reading was altered afterwards, when the Jews of Pal. began to show hostility towards the Egyptian temple, by the Jews of Egypt into ' city of riglit- eousne.ss,' and then further "by the Jews of Pales- tine, as a counter-blow, into ' city of destruction.'