for it impressed upon the people the thought that Yahweh CHAPTER VIII ISAIAH WITH the fall of Samaria in 721 northern Israel ceased to ' play a part in history, and the mission of the Hebrew race was intrusted to Judah. With reference to religion we may say that the centre of interest had shifted to Judah before the fall of Samaria, for Isaiah, one of the most influential of the prophets, began his career about 740. Before studying him we may briefly notice his contemporary, Micah, fragments of whose discourses are embedded in the book which bears his name. We might suppose Micah to be the man who transplanted the prophetic movement from Israel to Judah, for he seems to have been a disciple of Amos. Like Años, he was a simple-hearted countryman who was revolted by the corruptions of city life. His conception of his office is like that of the older prophet-he regards himself as a plain-spoken warner, "full of might by the spirit of Yahweh, to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin" (Micah 3:8). As the transgression of Israel was concentrated at Samaria, so the sin of Judah was concentrated at Jerusalem (15). The phenomenon is too familiar to need comment; in the great cities vice makes itself more odiously visible than in the smaller towns and villages. In the cities the rich and the devotees of pleasure congregate, and there they find those who minister to their profligacy. This is what impressed the preacher who was accustomed to the simple life of the country. The details given by Micah are much like what we read in Amos. The nobles are covetous and oppressive; they devise iniquity on their beds and when the morning comes they put their plans into effect; they covet fields and seize them, houses and take them; so they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance (2:1f.). They do not hesitate to evict the women of their people from their homes, and they sell the children into slavery because of debt (29). They plunder travellers on the highway, and when they are rebuked by the prophet they bid him hold his peace. Yet they are the ones who ought to know better: "Is it not for you, chiefs of Jacob, is it not for you to know justice? Yet they hate the good and love the evil, tear the skin from men's bodies and the flesh from their bones" (3:1f.). While they silence the true prophets, they encourage the false who drivel of wine and strong drink (2:11). Prophets, seers, and soothsayers, all are in the same condemnation, and the same shame will overtake them all. Their venality is too evident: "If one does not give them to eat, against him they declare war" (3:5). Deceiving the people and pandering to their vices, they lead them on to their destruction. Because of this false teaching Zion is built up in blood, and Jerusalem in iniquity. Yet the evildoers are confident that Yahweh is in the midst of them and that no evil will come upon them (3:11). The sequel is plainly evident to the prophet, and is announced in words that were remembered long after his time: "Therefore Zion shall be ploughed as a field for your sake, and Jerusalem shall be ruins, and the temple mount overgrown with bushes" (3 12; cf. the reference in Jer. 26: 18). The close parallel with Amos must be evident-justice will be done though the heavens fall. In Isaiah we find a man of more genial temper and a larger outlook. His general position, however, is the same taken by his predecessors, and we have no difficulty in supposing that he was acquainted with the words of Amos and Hosea. With Hosea he shared the belief that the life of the prophet is shaped by his calling. He says that he and the children God has given him are signs and portents in Israel. He named one of his sons Shear-jashub, and another Maher shalal-hash-baz in order to emphasise his message. At one time he went naked and barefoot for three years, so as to impress upon his people the impending fate of Egypt (20 : 1-6). Perhaps if we had the full record of his life we should have more instances of such symbolic actions, but these are enough to show his conception of the prophet's office and work, or rather of the complete identification of the prophet's person and his work. Yet there is little of the enthusiastic visionary in Isaiah, and the impression made by his words is that of a wise and sane counsellor, preaching righteousness to the people, and even confronting the monarch in the calm consciousness of a man who is sure that he has the right on his side. The vision by which Isaiah was determined to undertake the work of a prophet (related in chapter 6) is one of the most impressive in the Old Testament, and it reveals as clearly as any part of the book what was the guiding principle of his life. He saw Yahweh, he says, sitting on a lofty throne in the temple. We can hardly doubt that in the mind of Isaiah the Jerusalem temple was the dwelling-place of Israel's God. Amos and Hosea seem not to have given the same importance to any of the sanctuaries of the northern kingdom. In one instance, indeed, Amos sees Yahweh standing in or over the temple at Bethel, but this is only in order to throw the building down and thus destroy the worshippers. To these earlier prophets Bethel was no more than Gilgal or any of the others-Yahweh was not in them. But to Isaiah the temple of Jerusalem did not stand on the same level with the other sanctuaries of the land; Yahweh had his dwelling there as he had not in other places of worship. This attitude toward the temple became influential in the later development of religious belief. In this temple Yahweh had his throne, where he was visible to the spiritual eye and in human form, though of supernal brightness. He was attended by the seraphim, mythological figures which are nowhere else mentioned in the Old Testament. Possibly they were originally the per sonification of the lightnings. Elsewhere we read of the cherubim as attendants of the throne, or the host of heaven takes this office (I Kings 22:19). If once serpentine in form (the word saraph is used to denote the fiery serpents which infest the desert), they have now become partly humanised, possessing hands and feet, though also furnished with wings. Their office is to proclaim the uniqueness of Yahweh, his apartness from earthly things. This sanctity is proclaimed as a warning, such as Moses received at the bush. To approach the divinity without undergoing some cleansing process is dangerous. Isaiah realises this, for he feels that he is undone: "I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips," is his cry. The conception of holiness seems on the way from the physical to the ethical, for the uncleanness of the lips must refer to sinful utterance. A coal from the altar removes the defilement, for fire, especially sacred fire, is one of the most potent means of purification. In connection with the proclamation of Yahweh's sanctity the seraphim affirm that the whole earth is full of his glory. As the sun shines from one part of heaven to the other, so Yahweh enlightens his whole creation. This universalism is beyond anything we have yet found in Israel. Isaiah's readiness to volunteer in response to the divine call for a messenger probably indicates that he had been meditating on the need of the hour, and had debated the question whether he was not the man to carry the warning to his people. The form of the command is, however, strange: "Go and tell this people: 'Hear on, but understand not; gaze on, but perceive not!' Make the mind of this people stupid and make their ears dull, besmear their eyes too, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears and understand with their heart, and their health be restored" (69 f.). To us the strangeness is in the conception that the message is sent not to heal but to aggravate the disease, not to convert but to harden the hearers. Yet such a conception is not foreign to the Old Testament |