4. If, in all the above expectations hostile to the heathen, we meet with a particularism which can be regarded only as a denial of the message of Deutero-Isaiah, there are, fortunately, not wanting numerous witnesses that his work had not been by any means in vain. Zee 2'°('!) foresees many peoples attaching themselves to Jahweh, that they may belong to His people and dwell in Judah. According to 8%, many peoples and nations shall come to seek Jahweh and entreat His favour; ten men of different languages shall lay hold of the skirt of one Jew, that they may go with them of whom they have heard that God is with them. But a merely external attachment is not all. The whole of the heathen are to stream to the moun-
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tain of Jahweh, there to receive instruction as to the manner of conduct He requires, and to submit to His judicial decisions; universal peace among the nations shall be the result (Is 277, Mic 41, Zeph 3°, Is 60%). In like manner, the feast of fat things which Jahweh, according to Is 258, will pre- pare on Zion for all peoples, must be understood as a sacrificial meal by which they are received into the fellowship of the people of God; v.’ declares how at the same time the covering shall be destroyed which has hitherto been cast over all peoples, and has kept them from the joyful ful- filment of the will of God which is known even to them. According to Is 56°", not only foreigners but even eunuchs who have attached themselves to Jahweh and keep His Sabbaths, may present to Him in Zion sacrifices that shall be well-pleasing in His eyes, for His house shall be called ‘an house of prayer for all nations’ (v.”). ,
But the victory over particularism reaches its culminating point in the remarkable prophecy of Is 19%, which contemplates the conversion of the Egyptians and their joining with Assyria and Judah in a common worship of the true God. It may be that Assyria is here only a symbolical name (for Syria), and that the special circum- stances of a late period (the 3rd, if not the 2nd, cent. B.C.) supplied the motive for this prophecy. But, in any case, it is an important witness that all the particularism of the later post-exilic period had not been able to quench the spirit of Deutero- Isaiah. The same remark applies to the Book of Jonah. The simple teaching of this much mis- understood, and therefore inadequately appreciated, little book, is that God in His mercy desires not the death of sinners, even among the Authors but that they should turn and live; and, further, that it is within His power to effect such a turning, in opposition to all human expectation. Hence it only shows a carnal disposition and a low desire for revenge, if Judah, instead of rejoicing in the conversion of the heathen, is filled with fury be- cause vengeance has not yet overtaken Nineveh (which here probably stands for Babylon). Thus understood —and_ the closing words of the nar- rative imperatively demand this interpretation— this little book, too, represents the highest eleva- tion reached by the point of view characteristic of Deutero-Isaiah.
5. In what precedes we have brought together all the expectations concerning the heathen world. But the centre round which the expectations of this period revolve is always Israel, the ‘heritage’ of Jahweh (Is 19”). It is for it, above all, that the joyful message is meant, which comforts the mourners of Zion (Is 611); on it is accomplished the wondrous transformation, nay the conversion of all conditions into their opposite (Is 29178.) and therewith the triumph of the patient and the poor among men (y.?°),
The principal guarantee for all blessings of the Messianic age is found—as in the earlier prophecies —in the restored personal presence of J ahweh, or, to be more precise, in the indwelling of His ‘glory’ (Zec 2* %- 88, Is 4° [where cloud and shining flame, after the purifying judgment is over, are meant to recall the fiery cloud in which Jahweh once accom- panied Israel on the wilderness march]). With His appearing upon Zion, He enters at the same time on the kingly rule over Israel, and judicial author- ity over all nations (Is 24 33” 2423" Jer 10°, Ob 21, Zeph 3”, Zec 14°). Under His sway, the popula- tion (which in post-exilic times was long so small) is to multiply beyond measure (Zec 8°, Hos 2! [1°}) ; the walls of Jerusalem must stretch far out (Mic 7, Jer 317), nay even be dispensed with alto- gether, on account of the multitude of men and cattle (Zec 2°); for Jahweh Himself will be to
RELIGION OF ISRAEL