las been elaborated by Paul Volz [Die vnrexil. Jahweprophetie u. der Messias, Gbttingen, 1897, cf. Briicfener, Komp. des B. Jes. ). Besides the evidence stated above from the language and historical allu- sions of the separate Messianic passages, the follow- ing are the chief reasons oflered. The functions assigned to the Messiah by the disputed passages are not religious but political : to rescue Israel from her heatlien tyrants and to govern her in righteousness, but neither to teach the people of God, whether as prophet or as priest, nor to con- vert tlie lieathen. 'The r61e is national, not uni- versal. How, it is asked, can these teatuies be harmonized either with this fact that before the Exile the temperof prophecy is mainly threatening and judicial, or with that other, that when the jue- exilic prophets do open up the future they lay down the lines of a universal ethic ? tiesides, where is there room for so glorious a representa- tive of J" in a future which is to be filled m ith the manifest and all-sufficient presence of J" Himself ? To the present writer these arguments not only appear inconclusive for a late date of the Me.isianic pas.sages, but in some respects appear to support the tradition of an early date. For, that the functions of the Messiah are described in the passages as national surely suits an early, rather than the later, stages of Israel's religious develop- ment ; no detailed picture of the Messiah which was later than the second Isaiah could have omitted the duties and hopes on which the latter so brilliantly insists, of converting the heathen to the knowledge and discipline of J". Nor is the temper of pre-exUic prophecy so exclusively judi- cial as is now frequently alleged. The prophets insist that a remnant of Israel shall survive the judgment. Isaiah himself not only predicted, but, during the most influential period of his career, strenuously laboured for, the continuation of the Jewish State. It is not a difl'erent dispensation which, like the later apocalyptic prophecy, he anticipates, but a continuance of the present poli- tical conditions, purified and exalted. Now among these political conditions in Judah, was the dynasty of David. In contrast with the frequent usurpations of the throne of N. Israel, David's house persisted in Judah practically unchallenged. Since David's ovm day the religion of J" was closely wedded with the dynasty, and, besides, David had been successful in achieving the ideal of the unity of all Israel. By Isaiah's time, tlierefore, the political presuppositions of the Messianic oracles in Is 1-39 were all present. We may even affirm
ISAIAH
ISAIAH
489
that it would ha\e been passing strange if his anticipations of tbe relifrious and political future of Judah had been dissociated from the Davidic monarchy. Moreover, it ought not to be forgotten that none of these disputed passages attribute to the Messiah any of the measures for acliieving the establishment of Israel which were required by the exilic or immediately post-exilic ages of the nation's history. Tlicro is no word in them of bringing back the exiles or portions of God's [jcople scattered over the world ; and no word of tlie post-exilio dream of a world-empire. On the contrary, in the tasks which these passages assign to the Messiah, ■we see exactly the two main ends upon wliich Isaiali's prophetic activity wa-s bent : the deliver- ance of Judali from the Assyrian invasion which overthrew the kingdom of N. Israel, and the establishment of justice and a pure civic life among the people of J".
Such considerations amply disprove Volz's con- tention that the conception of the Messiah was one foreign to the spirit of prophecy, and only dragged into the service of their doctrine by the later prophets, out of the poi)ular religion of Israel- It is true that the hope of tlie Messiah may have been an article of the popular creed, just as, according to Amos, was the hope of tlie victorious day of J ". Hut if the prophets, an<l, in particular, Isaiah, did not actually create the ideal of a victorious an<l righteous monarch for Israel, Isaiah certainly re-created it : gave it those moral elements with which we may be sure the popular religion w,as incapable of investing it.
\ I. The Theology of Isaiah.— We are now in a position to discern the authentic doctrine of Isaiah upon God, religion, Israel, and the world. Like all the earlier prophets, Isaiah reveals his doctrine in no abstract or systematic form, but point by point in connexion with some event of contemporary history or some emergent pha.se of the character of his generation. Now two great facts were before him, and may be said to liave formed from first to last the starting-jioint, if not the full premise, of his teaching. One was the moral badness of Israel's life, taken alon<j with their stupid misunderstanding of what their God required of them. Isaiah's generation were not as a whole consciously apostate from J " ; they were assiduous in His wor.ihip, lavisli of sacrifice to Him, and careful to observe at all points the ritual which they believed to be His will. Hut they were shamelessly immoral. Luxury and the vices whicli spring from it sapped the national life. The ad- ministration of justice was corrupt. The rich oppressed the poor, civic duties were neglected. All this evil state of the peo]jle was contrary to tlie will of J", and due to tlieir misunderstanding of the character and demands of their God. He was a God of rigliteousne.18, and He had already made known to Israel His turaJi, as a demand for the very virtues they neglected. He loathed the assiduous worship wfiicli tlicy combined with a life so im- moral. He rcuarded the evil features of the latter aasin and rebellion, which re(|uired a very thorough punishment, one severe enough to destroy the bulk of the nation.*