a.nd all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her pala.oes, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dra.gons, a court for owls [or, 'ostriches']. And the wild beeBts of the desert shall meet with the wild be&ets of the island [equivalent to 'jackals '], and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the night-monster also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest. There shall the a.rrow- 1make make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow; there, verily, shall the vultures assemble, every one with her mate" ( eh. xxxiv. 11-15). (2) In the idyllic passages, oh. :xi. 6-9; xnv. 1-10; :xl. 11; and lxv. 25, of which we will quote one only: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the ca.lf a.nd the young lion and the fa.tling together; and a little child she.II lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the o:x. And the suck- ing child shell play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the basilisk's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain." (3) In the account of woman's finery (eh. iii. 16-24). (4) In the imitative description of rushing water, in oh. :x:vii.: "Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing ·of mighty waters. The nations shell rush like the r11Shing of many waters " (eh. :z:vii. 12, 13). (5) In the graphic portraiture ofa.n army marching on Jernsalem: "He is come to Aiath, he is passed through Migron; at Mich- ma.sh he bath laid up his baggage : they are gone over the passage : they have taken up their lodging at Geba ; Rama is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled. Lift up thy voice, 0 daughter of Gallim: Hearken, 0 Laisha ! 0 thou poor Anathoth ! Madmenah is removed ; the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee. That very day shall he halt at Nob; he !!ball shake his hand at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem " (eh. L 28-32). 7. The seventh and last point, giving energy and force to Isaiah's style, is the effective use of rhetorical amplification. By a. repetition of the same idea. in different words, which is sometimes twofold, sometimes threefold, often fourfold, occasionally as much as fivefold, a deep impression is pro- duced-an impression at once of the earnestness of the_writer and of. the vast importance of the points on wbic_h he insiJ3ts with so much reiteration. ".Ah sinful nation," he says," a. people laden with iniquity, a. seed of evil- doers, children that deal corruptly: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they a.re gone a.way back- ward." ( eh. i. 4). And a.gain, " Thou. bast been a strength to the poor, a. strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall" ( eh. :u:v. 4). And, "Who ha.th measured the waters in the hollow of his ha.nd, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a. measure, and weighed the mountains in sea.lee, and the THE BOOK OF THE PROPIIET ISAIAH. xvii
hills in 0, balance?" (cb. xl. 12). And," With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding?" ( eh. xl.14) . .And, " He bath borne our griefs, and carried oar sorrows. . . . He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we a.re healed" (eh. liii. 4, 5). .Another form of rhetorical amplification may be noted in oh. ii. 13-16; iii. 2, 3, 18-23; v. 12; xxii. 12, 13; xli. 19; xlvii. 13, etc. .A further characteristic of Isaiah's style is its wonderful variety. Some- times smooth and gently flowing (eh. xi. 6-9; x:u::v. 5-10; Iv. 10-13), at other times abrupt and harsh (eh. xxi. 11, 12; lvi. 9-12), now and then simple and prosaic (eh. vii. 1-3; viii. 1-4), anon soaring into the highest flights of poetic imagery (eh. ix. 2-7; xi. 1-9; xiv. 4-23, etc.), it inchides every kind of artificial ornament known at the time-parable (ob. v. 1-7), vision (eh. vi. 1-13), symbolic action (eh. xx. 2), dramatic dialogue (eh. xxi. 8, 9; xxix. 11, 12; :x:l. 6-8; lxiii. 1-6), lyric bursts of song (eh. xii. 1-6; xxvi. 1-18), refrains (eh. ii. 11, 17; v. 25; ix. 12, 17, 20; x. 4; xlviii. 22; lvii. 21, etc.), assonance (eh. v. 7; vii. 9, etc.); and uses· all, as occasion arises, with equal point and appositeness. Isaiah's style has thus no single peculiar colouring. .As Ewald remarks, "He is neither the specially logical, nor the specially elegiacal, nor the specially :oratorical, nor the specially admonitory prophet, as perhaps Joel, or Hosea, or. ,l\ficah, in whom a particular colouring more predominates. Isaiah ia . capable of adapting his style to the most different subjects, and in this , consists his.greatness and his most distinguished excellence." 1 The diction of. the book is that of the purest and best times of Hebrew literature. It is remarkably free from archaisms. .A certain number of "Aramaisms" or "Chaldaisms" have been pointed out,1 more especially .in the later prophecies; .but these are not Bllfficiently numerous to disturb the general conclusion (which is that of Dr. S. Davidson 8 and of Mr. · Cheyne,' as well as of other critics) that the vocabulary, on the whole, may be pronounced "pure and free from Chaldaisms." The number of words not occu,rring elsewhere in the Bible (a1rat >,,e-y6µ.&a) is large, and _tho vocabulary is ampler than perhaps that of any other book of Scripture. -, 'Propheten des Alten Bundee,' p. 173. •1 Bee Mr. Oheyne's ' Propheoies of Isaiah,' vol. ii. p. 248; Knobel, ' Exegetiaohe1 Handbuoli,' vol. v. p. 297. • • Introduotion to the Old Testament,' vol. ii, p. M. • •i>ropheoiea of Iaaiah,' voL ii. p. 2f4. •
JIAU& C xl'iii INTTIODUCTlON TO