3. Apart even from the occasions when it is brought into connexion with the Day of Jahweh, the idea of vengeance upon the heathen nations occupies the forefront of expectations as to the future. Those nations in particular are specified which either aided to the best of their ability in the destruction of Jerusalem, or at least indulged in savage mockery and malicious jubilation over it. Among these the pre-eminence belongs to Edom (Is 345%, Ob 18, Jer 4977, J1 4[3]!9; also Am 14* was in all probability added after the Exile). Jer 48 is directed against Moab; Is 137%, and the whole series of threatenings contained in Jer 50f., against Babylon; Jer 46 against the Egyptians; ch. 47 against the Philistines; 49 against the Ammon- ites; Zeph 2%, Jl 4 (3)!*, Zec 9%" against almost all the neighbours of Israel. But no less frequent are the threatenings which are directed against the nations in general, and which contemplate the laying waste and depopulating of the whole earth (Mic 71, Is 241#-)—nay, the trampling down of the nations by Jahweh Himself as one treads grapes (Is 631#-) ; or the burning of them to lime (Is 33”). Zechariah in the second of his night-visions sees four horns (128: [2!#:]), which represent the hostile powers in all four quarters of heaven that have scattered Judah ; but he beholds at the same time four smiths that are to cut off the horns. In his eighth vision, again, he sees (64-) the war-chariots which drive out in all directions to execute the judgment. And the reason why Jahweh is sore displeased against the nations is because, when He was a little displeased (with Judah), ‘they of themselves helped forward the affliction’ (eae Here the old conception that Jahweh employed the heathen as His rod of chastisement for Israel is almost forgotten, and we hear only of the offence of the heathen. In Mic 7%, indeed, the guilt of Judah is freely admitted, but this con- fession is at the same time coupled with the hope of revenge. Cf. also Is 8°, Jer 10° 25°". Never- theless, all these threatenings do not prevent very different expectations regarding the Gentile nations from being expressed elsewhere. 4
In all the passages discussed above, judgment upon the heathen is the condition of the gathering
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together and reuniting of Israel in the Holy Land. From all sides they are to stream: neither floods nor deserts can check them, for Jahweh Himself prepares the way for them and leads them (Is 35!*- 114#), According to Is 27, they are gathered by Jahweh one by one from all quarters, and fol- low the call of the great trumpet that summons them home; cf. also Jer 301% 4677, Zec 10°. In a way altogether unique the deliverance of the captives is connected in Zec 9% 1054 with vic- torious conflicts of Judah and Ephraim with the Tonians, 7.e. the Greek world-power. As in Ezk 3758, the expectation is firmly established that the exiles of the Northern kingdom as well are to return (cf. Hos 2?, Mic 2%, Jer 318 504, Ob18); of envy and jealousy betwixt Judah and Ephraim no more is heard (Is 111”).
A favourite expectation of the post-exilic period is evidently that the heathen themselves shall bring the exiles home, and thus play a very humiliating réle. We already encountered this expectation in an addition to Deutero-Isaiah (Is 49M. see above, p. 7072, small type), cf. also Is 60% and v.%. According to Is 66", certain of those who have escaped Jahweh’s judgment upon the heathen are sent to the distant nations to bring reverently to Zion, as an offering to Jahweh, all yet banished Israelites. According to Is 60”, foreigners shall then build their walls for the Judahites, and kings shall minister to them; according to v.™ (cf. also Mic 7'%), the sons of their former oppressors shall pay them lowly hom- age. They themselves are to be as priests, 7.¢. free from all secular employment; for the foreigners shall be their shepherds, farmers, and vine-dressers (Is 615), Of the same kind is the expectation ex- pressed in Is 141**, that the Israelites, after their arrival in the land of Jahweh, shall make slaves of the heathen that brought them home, and thus ‘they shall take them captive whose captives they were, and they shall rule over their oppressors.’ Elsewhere (Is 114, Am 9”, Ob #-) the subjuga- tion of the former vassals of the Davidic kingdom is thought of as the work of the already returned exiles. To quite a different order of thought be- longs the expectation (connecting itself with Ezk 38 f.) that the mass of heathen peoples, gathered before the walls of Jerusalem, which they already look upon as a certain prey, shall be speedily de- stroyed through the sudden intervention of Jahweh (cf. Is 995. Ti. 3028 3324- 2b, Mic Gieiio. Zee 1224. [where also the princes of Judah co-operate in the destruction of the nations] 1422" [where the terrible punishment inflicted on the assailants, and the im- mense booty that falls to Judah, are described)) ; on the different expectation expressed in Zec 14**-, see preceding column. If we are right in assigning these passages to the post-exilic period, they can have in view only one coming final attack by the heathen peoples on Jerusalem. The frequent vacil- lation and obscurity of statement is due to their eschatological character, which can tolerate the close conjunction of heterogeneous elements.