And the fat of fed beasts;

And in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs,
Or of he goats, I delight not.

If

ye come to see my face,

Who hath required this at your hand? Trample on my courts no more;

Bring no more oblations; Vain is the incense;

An abomination is it unto me; New moon and sabbath,

The calling of assemblies

I cannot away with

Iniquity and festal assembly together! Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth:

They are a trouble unto me;

I am weary to bear them.

And when ye spread forth your hands,
I hide mine eyes from you:

Yea, when ye make many prayers,

I do not hear:

Your hands are full of blood.

Wash you, make you clean;

Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes. Seek judgement, restrain the oppressor,

Judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

Come now, and let us plead together, saith the Lord:
Though your sins be as scarlet,

They may become white as snow;
Though they be red like crimson,
They may become as wool.

If ye be willing and obedient,

Ye shall eat the good of the land:

But if ye refuse and rebel,

Ye shall be devoured with the sword:

For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

How is she become a traitress,

The faithful city!

She that was full of judgement,
Where righteousness abode !

'WASH YOU, MAKE YOU CLEAN'

315

Thy silver is become dross,
Thy wine corrupted:
Thy princes are rebellious,
And companions of thieves:
Every one loveth gifts,

And followeth after rewards:

They judge not the fatherless,

Neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore saith the Lord,

The mighty One of Israel,

Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries,

And avenge me of mine enemies :
And I will turn my hand upon thee,

And purge away thy dross in the furnace,
And take away all thine alloy.

And I will restore thy judges as at the first,
And thy counsellors as at the beginning:

Afterward thou shalt be called, The fort of righteousness,
The faithful city.

[Zion shall be redeemed through judgement, and her converts through righteousness. But destruction of rebels and sinners together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed.]

For

ye love,

ye shall be ashamed because of the oaks which And ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen.

For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth,

And as a garden that hath no water.

And the strong shall be as tow, and his work as a spark, And they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

§ 7. A vision of peace.-The next sub-group extends over chapters ii, iii and iv. It opens with a famous fragment which we have already heard, but which will be here repeated (Part I, p. 602). Professor Duhm thinks that it may have been written by Isaiah in his old age; Professor Cheyne thinks it is the work of a post-exilic writer. The nobility and grandeur of the fragment are in either case the same.

[The word that Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.]

[And it shall come to pass in the sequel of the days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established at the head of the mountains, and exalted above the hills. And nations shall stream unto it, and many peoples shall go and say,

Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Israel;

That he may teach us of his ways,

And that we may walk in his paths:

For out of Zion goeth forth teaching,

And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

And he shall judge between the nations,

And arbitrate for many peoples;

And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares
And their spears into pruninghooks.

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
Neither shall they learn war any more.]

§ 8. Guilt and punishment.—The next portion of this sub-group contains seventeen verses. It seems to consist of three fragments, of which the second has been wrongly wedged in between the more connected first and third. Here they have been transposed. The third fragment (here placed second) is really shorter than it seems, for it apparently contains a double recension of the same statements. The fourth sentence answers to the second, and the third is a late and prosaic paraphrase of the mutilated first. The date of all three sections is probably early in Isaiah's career; Professor Cheyne dates them soon after 740 B. c.' The ruin of Israel and Judah because of their idolatry and pride is threatened. That chastisement is the Lord's day.

A.

[O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.]

For the Lord hath rejected his people, the house of Jacob,
Because they are filled with sorcery from the East,
And with soothsayers like the Philistines,

And they join hands with strangers.

And their land is become full of silver and gold,
Neither is there any end of their treasures;

Their land is also full of horses,

Neither is there any end of their chariots:

'THE GLORY OF HIS MAJESTY

Their land also hath become filled with idols:

They worship the work of their own hands,

That which their own fingers have made.

317

Therefore the mean man is humbled and the great man made low

And thou canst not forgive them (?).

Enter into the rock,

And hide thee in the dust,

Before the fear of the Lord

And the glory of his majesty,
When he ariseth to terrify the earth.

B.

And the idols shall utterly vanish away.
And men shall go into caves of the rocks
And into holes of the ground,

Before the fear of the Lord

And the glory of his majesty

When he ariseth to terrify the earth.

[In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which he made for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats.]

And men shall go into clefts of the rocks,

And into hollows of the crags

Before the fear of the Lord,

And the glory of his majesty,

When he ariseth to terrify the earth.

[Cease ye from man in whose nostrils is a breath, for at what is he to be accounted?]

C.

And the high looks of man shall be humbled,

And the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down,
And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

For a day hath the Lord of Hosts upon everything that is proud and lofty,

And upon everything that is high and exalted:

And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are lofty and high, And upon all the oaks of Bashan,

And upon all the lofty mountains,

And upon all the high hills,
And upon every tall tower,

And upon every fenced wall,
And upon all the ships of Tarshish,

And upon all the carving of delight.

And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down,
And the haughtiness of men shall be humbled,
And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

§ 9. Misgovernment and its consequences.-The next section seems to belong to a somewhat later period, and to refer to the probable consequences of the accession of the youthful Ahaz to the throne. If so, it must belong to the very beginning of his reign, 735 B. C., before the Syro-Ephraimite invasion. The short paragraph, The Lord hath stationed himself,' seems written in a different and better rhythm from that of the preceding verses, and may have to be regarded as a separate fragment.

For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah stay and staff, the mighty man and the man of war, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder, the captain of fifty and the favourite and the counsellor, the magician and the skilled enchanter. And I will make children to be their princes, and outrage shall rule over them. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall storm at the elder, and the base at the honourable. When one man taketh hold of his brother in the house of his father, saying, Thou hast a cloak, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand: in that day shall he protest, saying, I will not be an healer; for in my house is neither bread nor cloak: make me not a ruler of the people. For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah falleth: because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory. Their respecting of persons doth witness against them; and they declare their sin, they hide it not. Woe unto them! for they have done evil unto themselves.

[Happy is the righteous, for it is well with him: for he shall eat the fruit of his doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the retribution of his hands shall be given him.]