Egypt had been subdued, at least in part, by Ethiopia; but this very event, by combining the forces of two great nations, had given unexampled strength to the Ethiopian dynasty in Upper Egypt. The mutual jealousy and emulation between this state and Assyria, naturally tended to make Palestine, which lay between them, a theatre of war, at least at intervals, for many years. It also led the kings of Israel and Judah to take part in the contentions of these two great powers, and to secure themselves by uniting, sometimes with Egypt against Assyria, sometimes with Assyria against Egypt. It was this inconstant policy that hastened the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, and exposed that of Judah to imminent peril. Against this policy the prophets, and especially Isaiah, were commissioned to remonstrate, no only as unworthy in itself, but as implying a distrust of God's protection, and indifference to the fundamental law of the theocracy. The Babylonian monarchy began to gather strength before the end of this period, but was less conspicuous, because not yet permanently independent of Assyria.

The two most remarkable conjunctures in the history of Judah during Isaiah's ministry are the invasion of the combined force of Syria and Israel in the reign of Ahaz, followed by the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, and the Assyrian invasion in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, ending in the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib's army and his own ignominious flight. The historical interest of this important period is further heightened by the fact, that two of the most noted eras in chronology fall within it, to wit, the era of Nabonassar, and that computed from the building of Rome.

The length of Isaiah's public ministry is doubtful. The aggregate duration of the four reigns mentioned in the title is above one hunded and twelve years; but it is not said that he prophesied throughout the whole reign either of Uzziah or Hezekiah. Some, it is true, have inferred that his ministry was

30-extensive with the whole reign of Uzziah, because he is said to have written the history of that prince (2 Chron. 26: 22), which he surely might have done without being strictly hist contemporary, just as he may have written that of Hezekiah to a certain date (2 Chron. 32 : 32), and yet have died before him. Neither of these incidental statements can be understood as throwing any light upon the question of chronology. Most writers, both among the Jews and Christians, understood the first verse of the sixth chapter as determining the year of king Uzziah's death to be the first of Isaiah's public ministry. Some of the Jewish writers, who adopt this supposition, at the same time understand Uzziah's death to mean his civil death, occasioned by the leprosy with which he was smitten in the twentyfifth year of his reign, for his sacrilegious invasion of the house of God, so that he dwelt in a separate house until his death. There seems to be no sufficient ground for this explanation of the language, or for the alleged coincidence of the event with the twenty-fifth year of Uzziah's reign, any more than for the notion of the oriental Christians, that Uzziah was deprived of the prophetic office for his sin in not withstanding Uzziah, and after twenty-eight years of silence was restored in the year of that king's death, a fanciful interpretation of the facts recorded in chap. vi. The modern writers are agreed in understanding the expression literally, and in connecting the last year of Uzziah's life with the first year of Isaiah's ministry. It is by no means certain, as we shall see below, that the sixth chapter is descriptive of Isaiah's inauguration into office, still less that it was written before any of the others. But it cannot be denied that the chronological hypothesis just stated is strongly recommended by the fact of its removing all objections to the truth of the inscription (chap. 1: 1) founded on the extreme longevity which it would otherwise ascribe to the prophet, by enabling us at once to deduct half a century. If we reckon from the last year of Uzziah to the fourteenth of Hezekiah, the last in which

we find any certain historical traces of Isaiah, we obtain as the minimum of his prophetic ministry a period of forty-seven years, and this, supposing that he entered on it even at the age of thirty, would leave him at his death less than eighty years old. And even if it be assumed that he survived Hezekiah, and continued some years under his successor, the length of his life will after all be far less than that of Jehoiada, the high-priest, who died in the reign of Joash at the age of 130 years. (2 Chron. 24 : 15.)

The Jews have a positive tradition that he did die in the reign of Manasseh, and as victim of the bloody persecutions by which that king is said to have filled Jerusalem with innocent blood from one end to the other. (2 Kings 21: 16.) This tradition is received as true by several of the Fathers, who suppose it to be clearly alluded to in Heb. 11: 37.

From the references, which have been already quoted, to the historical writings of Isaiah, some have inferred that he was an official historiographer, in which capacity the older prophets seem to have acted, as appears from the canonical insertion of such books as those of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, among the Prophets. We have no reason to suppose, however, that Isaiah held any secular office of the kind, distinct from his prophetic ministry. Nor is it clear in what sense the citation of Isaiah by the Chronicles as an historical authority should be understood. The reference may be simply to the historical portions of his book, or to the corresponding passages of Second Kings, of which, in strict discharge of his official functions, he may well have been the author. That the books referred to were more copious histories or annals, of which only summaries or fragments are now extant, is a supposition which, however credible or even plausible it may be in itself, is not susceptible of demonstration.

This book not only forms a part of the Old Testament Canon as far as we can trace it back, but has held its place there with

out any change of form, size, or contents, of which the least external evidence can be adduced. The allusions to this Prophet, and the imitations of him, in the later books of the Old Testament, are not confined to any one part of the book or any single class of passages. The apocryphal writers who make mention of it, use no expressions which imply that it was not already long complete in its present form and size. The same thing seems to be implied in the numerous citations of this book in the New Testament. Without going here into minute details, a correct idea of the general fact may be conveyed by simply stating, that of the sixty-six chapters of Isaiah, as divided in our modern Bibles, forty-seven are commonly supposed to be directly quoted or distinctly alluded to, and some of them repeatedly. The same thing may be illustrated clearly on a smaller scale by stating, that in the twenty-one cases where Isaiah is expressly named in the New Testament, the quotations are drawn from the first, sixth, eighth, tenth, eleventh, twenty-ninth, forty-second, sixty-first, and sixty-fifth chapters of the book before us. These facts, together with the absence of all countervailing evidence, show clearly that the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (Luke 4: 17) known and quoted by our Lord and his apostles was, as a whole, identical with that which we have under the same name. We find accordingly a long unbroken series of interpreters, Jewish and Christian, through a course of ages, not only acquiescing in this general statement, but regarding all the passages and parts, of which the book consists, as clearly and unquestionably genuine.

Isaiah himself, even leaving out of view the large part of his book which a capricious criticism has called in question, may be said to express everywhere his own belief that he was writing under an extraordinary influence, not merely human but divine. This is at least the prima facie view which any unsophisticated reader would derive from a simple perusal of his undisputed writings. However mistaken he might think the

prophet, in asserting or assuming his own inspiration, such a reader could scarcely hesitate to grant that he believed it and expected it to be believed by others. In one of the oldest and best of the Jewish Apocrypha (Sirach 24 : 25), Isaiah is called the great and faithful prophet who foresaw what was to happen till the end of time. Josephus and Philo incidentally bear witness to his universal recognition by their countrymen as one inspired of God.

We have seen already that our Lord and his Apostles cite the whole book of Isaiah with more frequency than any other part of the Old Testament. It now becomes a question of historical interest at least, in what capacity and character Isaiah is thus quoted, and with what authority he seems to be invested in the New Testament. The simple fact that he is there so often quoted, when connected with another undisputed fact, to wit, that his writings, even at that early date, held a conspicuous place among the Sacred Scriptures (ἱερὰ γράμματα, γραφαι ἅγιαι) of the Jews, would of itself create a strong presumption that our Lord and his apostles recognized his inspiration and divine authority. We are not left, however, to infer this incidentally; for it is proved directly by the frequent combination of the title Prophet with the name Isaiah (Matt. 3:3; 4: 14; 8: 17; 12: 17. Luke 3:4; 4: 17. John 1: 23. Acts 8: 28-30; 28: 25); by the repeated statement that he prophesied or spoke by inspiration (Mark 7: 6. Rom. 9:29); by the express declaration that some of his predictions were fulfilled in the history of Christ and his contemporaries (Matt. 3:3; 4: 14; 8: 17. Acts 28: 25); and by the still more remarkable statement that Isaiah saw Christ and spoke of his glory (John 12:41). These expressions place it beyond all possibility of doubt that the New Testament describes Isaiah as a Prophet in the strictest and the highest sense inspired of God.

With respect to the prophetic parts of Scripture, and to the