'2. The notes of time are also peculiar:
(1.) It was a time when the pride of Assyria was yet at its height (ch. x, xi), and when the Jews had al- ready suffered from it. This first took place in the time of Menahem (B.C. 772-761).
('2.) The Transjordanic territory had already been swept by the armies of the invader (x, 10), but a still further desolation threatened it (xi, 1-3). The first may have been the invasion of Pul (1 Chron. v, 26), the second that of Tiglath-pileser.
(3.) The kingdoms of Judah and Ephraim are both standing (ix, 10, 13 ; x, 6), but many Israelites are nev- ertheless exiles in Egypt and Assyria (ix, 11 ; x, 6, 8, 10, etc.).
(4.) The struggle between Judah and Israel is sup- posed to be already begun (xi, 14). At the same time, Dama!^cus is threatened (ix, 1). If so, the reference must be to the alliance formed between Pekah king of Israel and Kezin of Damascus, the consequence of which was the loss of Elath (739).
(5.) Egypt and Assyria are hoik formidable powers (x. 9, 10, 11). The only other prophets to whom these two nations appear as formidable, at the same time, are Hosea (vii, 11; xii, 1; xiv, 3) and his contemporary Isaiah (vii, 17, etc.) ; and that in prophecies which must have been uttered between 743 and 740. The expecta- tion seems to have been that the Assyrians, in order to attack Egypt, would march by way of Syria, Phoenicia, and Philistia, along the coast (Zech. ix, 1-9), as they did afterwards (Isa. xx, 1), and that the kingdom of Israel would suffer chiefly in consequence (Zech. ix, 9- 12), and Judah in a smaller degree (ver. 8, 9).
(6.) The kingdom of Israel is described as "a flock
X.-Y Y Y
for the slaughter" in ch. xi, over which three shep- herds have been set in one month. This corresponds with the season of anarchy and confusion which fol- lowed immediately on the murder of Zechariah the son of Jeroboam II (760). This son reigned only six months, his murderer Shallum but one (2 Kings xv, 8- 15), being put to death in his turn by Menahem. Mean- while another rival king may have arisen, Hunsen thinks, in some ot.her part of__the country, who may have fallen as the murderer did, before Menahem.
(7.) The symbolical action of the breaking of the two shejjherds' staves— Favor and Union— points tlie same way. The breaking of the first showed that God's favor had departed from Israel, that of tiie second that all hope of union between Judah and Ephraim was at an end.
All these notes of time, it is claimed, point in the same direction, and make it i)robable that the author of ch. ix-xi was a contemporary of Isaiah, and prophe- sied during the reign of Ahaz. According to Knobel, ch. ix and x were probably delivered in Jotham's reign, and ch.xi in that of Ahaz, who summoned Tiglath-pileser to his aid. Maurer thinks that ch. ix and x were written between the first (2 Kings xv, 29) and second (2 Kings xvii, 4-6) Assyrian invasions, ch. x during the seven years' interregnum which followed the death of Pekah, and xi in the reign of Ilosliea*
(III.) Ch. xii-xiv. By the majority of those crit- ics who assign these chapters to a third author, that au- thor is supposed to have lived shortly before the Baby- lonian captivity. The grounds for separating these three chapters from ch. ix to xi are as follows:
1. This section opens with its own introductory for- mula, as the preceding one (ix, 1) does. This, however, only shows that the sections are distinct, not that they were written at different times.
2. The oliject of the two sections is altogether differ- ent. The author of the former (ch. ix-xi) has both Israel and Judah before him ; he often speaks of them togeth- er (ix, 13; X, 6; xi, 14; comp. x, 7); he directs his prophecy to the Transjordanic territory, and announces the discharge of his ofiice in Israel (xi, 4 sq.). The au- thor of the second section, on the other hand, has only to do with Judah and Jerusalem : he nowhere mentions Israel.
3. The political horizon of the two prophets is differ- ent. By the former, mention is made of the Syrians, Phoenicians, Philistines (ix. 1-7), and (ireeks (ver. 13), as well as of the Assyrians and Egyptians, the last two being described as at that time the most powerful. It therefore belongs to the earlier time when these two nations were beginning to struggle for supremacy in Western Asia. By the latter, the Egyptians only are mentioned as a liostile nation : not a word is said of the Assyrians. The author consequently must have lived at a time when Egypt was the chief enemy of Judah.
4. The anticipations of the two prophets are differ- ent. The first tremljlcs only for Ephraim. He predicts the desolation of the Transjordanic territory, the car- rying away captive of the Israelites, but also tlie return from Assyria and Egypt (x, 7, 10). But for Judah he has no cause of fear, .lehovah will protect her (ix,8), and bring back those of her sons who in earlier times had gone into captivity (ver. II). The second prophet, on the other hand, making no mention whatever of the northern kingdom, is full of alarm for Judah. He sees hostile nations gathering together against her, and two thirds of her inhabitants destroyed (xiii, 6) ; he sees the enemy laying siege to .Jerusalem, taking and plimdering it, and carrying half of her people captive (xii, 3; xiv, 5, 5). Of any return of the captives nothing is here said.