Biblical commentary on the prophecies of Isaiah

Front matter

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CORNELL

Introduction

TO THE

PROPHETICG-PREDICTIVE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

In the Canon of the Old Testament the prophetico-historical are followed by the prophetico-predictive books. Both together, under the name of C^*^?^, form the middle of the three divisions in the collection, — the first, in accordance with their position, being designated the " Former Prophets " (CS'^an D''yB'K"in), while the second are named the " Later Prophets " (D'Jhnxn D'xuan). in the Masora this middle division is sometimes called 5<riD7B'X, " tradition," ' because the Torah is regarded as the fundamental revelation of God, and post- Mosaic prophecy as tradition (n7^P_, for which the Aramaic is NHOTB'K, from Q^B'K, tradere) flowing from this original source in a continuous stream ; the Former Prophets are then, under the title of »r}]ay_ NPio^f«, distinguished from the Later Prophets, which are called s^^jin Nrio^fN. .

It is true that the Torah also is a prophetical work, and is cited as such in Ezra ix. 11; for Moses, the mediator of the revelation of law, is, as such, the prophet to whom no other was like, Deut. xxxiv. 1 ; but it was not becoming that the Pentateuch, which is separated from the Book of Joshua under the name of minn (lao), should be included in the division of the Canon which is designated " the Prophets ; " it is certainly the unique record of the fundamental revelation which has ever conditioned the existence and life of Israel as the nation pre-eminently associated with the history of re-

J Regarding this Masoretic title, see Johannes Delitzsch, De Inspiratione ScriptiLrae Sacrae, 1872, p. 7 f.

VOL. I. A demption, and from which, moreover, all prophecy in Israel has been derived. And this holds true, not merely of prophecy, but of all later writings. Not only the prophetic style of writing history, but also the non-prophetic, — i.e. the priestly, the political, the popular styles, — has its model in this Torah. The former follows the Jehovistico-Deuteronomic type, the latter the Elohistic.^

The opinion that the historical works found among the Hagiographa were placed there merely because of their later origin, but should properly have been ranged among the " Former Prophets," ^ rests on a misconception concerning this variety in the style of writing history. Ezra, — whom we have good ground for regarding as the author of the great " Book

1 With reference to the Pentateuchal criticism, we purposely remark here, in a conspicuous position, that the acknowledged Isaianic discourses present parallels to all the constituent portions of the Pentateuch. (1) The Jehovist : jn tyipHn \sh'2, xxx. 29, cf. niDS, xxxi. S'X.Ex. xii. 13, 23, 27 (only here in Jehovistic context is the name of the festival referred to the verh riDS) ; nirfb • ■ • naSD, xix. 19 "X^ Gen. xxviii. 18, 22, xxxi. 13 (as, inasmuch as the law forbids the erection of a n3V0, not only as a means of heathen worship, Lev. xxvi. 1, but also absolutely, Deut. xvi. 22, the view which the prophet reveals appears to be shaped by a reference to the naVO of Jacob at Bethel).— (2) The Law of the Two Tables : <ja niXI^

i. 12'X.ijQ-nN niKnb,Ex.xxxiv.24(alsoDeut. xxxi. 11).— (3) Deuteronomy,

i. a-Xjthe beginning of the Song iVTXn, Deut. xxxii. 1. — (4) Deuteronomy together with the Law of Holiness : i. 7, HDDB' D^S^S "X, Lev. xxvi. 33,

noDty D3n^? nn^m; b'n nifiiB' nan^'x.Lev. xxvi. 31, 33, v.t cai-iyi nnn ; nnx wh^^ ont oanaaij oanonN 'x^Deut. xxviii. 33 (cf. 5i ; Lev.

xxvi. 16) ; Dnt riDSnOD HDDBn 'Xj Deut. xxix. 22, niDVI DHD n3SnD3 (cf. the reference to Sodom and Gomorrah in ver. 10 if.). Add also xxxvi. 7, according to which Hezekiah abolished the high places, and centralized the worship in the Temple of Jerusalem : the restriction of worship to one place, accordingly, does not date from Josiah's time.— (5) The Elohist : iv. 5, nini Nim 'X. Gen. i. 1 (though I would not adduce this parallel, if "Wellhausen did not pronounce xna to be the late production of theological abstraction, and the passage in Isaiah corrupt); i. 14, D3''B'in'XjNum. X. 10, xxviii. 11 ; NlpD, i. 13 (which occurs with the Elohist and elsewhere also, but not with the Jehovist), and mV3> in the same verse "X., TTYiV Num. xxix. 35 (and elsewhere also, but not with the Jehovist) ; mDP in the same verse ■Xj Lev. ii. 2, ix. 16, v. 12, vi. 8, |n3n TDpni (viz. the matK)- -^nd is not the altar in heaven, vi. 6, the antitype of the n3TD mDpn in Ex. XXX. 27, etc. ?

= This view has been maintained, e.g., hy B. Anger, Geschuhte der messianischen Idee (edited by Max Krenkel, 1873), p. 9.

of Kings" to which the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxiv. 27) refers under the title D'aPsn isp ^ym, a collection bearing on the history of Israel, to which he had appended, as the concluding portion, the history of the time of the Eestoration, — is nowhere called a " prophet " (K'??), and, in fact, he was not one. The Chronicler also — who, besides the Books of Samuel and of Kings, both of which have been arbitrarily divided into two parts, had also before him that work of Ezra as his main source of authority, and thence produced the historical compendium lying before us, the conclusion of which was made up of the memorabilia of Ezra (now, however, in separate form as the Book of Ezra) — makes no claim to be a prophet. Nehemiah, too, — from whose memorabilia our Book of Nehemiah is an extract, arranged in the same fashion as the Book of Ezra, — was not a prophet, but a Tirshatha, i.e. a provincial governor under the king of Persia. The Book of Esther, however, through its relegation of the religious element to the background, is as far as possible removed from the prophetic style of writing history ; from the latter, indeed, it differs as characteristically as the Feast of Purim, the Jewish Carnival, differs from the Passover, the Israelitish Christmas. But it must seem strange that the Book of Euth stands among the Hagiographa. This little work so closely resembles in character the closing portion of the Book of Judges (chaps, xvii.— xxi.) that it might have been placed between Judges and Samuel, and probably did actually stand there originally ; only for liturgical reasons has it been placed beside the sodalled five Megilloth (festival rolls), which succeed one another in accordance with the festival calendar of the ecclesiastical year ; for the Book of Canticles forms the lesson read on the eighth day of the Feast of Passover, Euth is read on the second day of the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), Kinoth (Lamentations) on the ninth of the month Abib, Koheleth (Ecclesiastes) on the third day of the Feast of Tabernacles, while Esther is read in the Feast of Purim, which falls in the middle of Adar.

This is also the simplest answer to the question why the Lamentations of Jeremiah are not appended to the collection of Jeremiah's prophecies. The Psalms, however, — though David may be called a prophet (Acts ii. 30), and Asaph is named "the seer" (nrhriY — stand first among the Hagiographa, inasmuch as they do not belong to the literature of prophecy (nKHj), but of that of sacred lyric poetry (n'tsmn"). Their prophetic contents are entirely lyric in their origin, whereas the lyric contents of the Lamentations throughout presuppose the official position and public announcements of Jeremiah as a prophet. Among the canonical books of the prophets (D''N''33) are found only the writings of those who, in virtue of special gifts and calling, were commissioned publicly — whether by word of mouth or by writing — to proclaim the word of God ; and this they did freely, not being fettered, like the priests, by legal forms. For, though the name ^^'?J denotes one who announces, publishes, proclaims, i.e. (as we must further conceive of him) one who speaks as tlie organ (na, "mouth," Ex. iv. 15 f.; Jer. xv. 19) of God; and though the earliest application of the term (see Gen. xx. 7 ; of. xviii. 17—19 ; Ps. cv. 15), which is revived in the writings of the Chronicler, is far wider than the later ; yet here, in designating the middle division of the Canon of the Old Testament, the word is certainly not so restricted as in Amos vii. 14, where it indicates one who, having gone through a school of the prophets, or at least having been educated through intercourse with prophets, had wholly devoted himself through life to prophetic teaching. It has, however, a specific sense that has been incorporated into the organism of the theocratic life : here it is the designation of one who comes forward, on the basis of a divine vocation and divine revelations, as a public teacher, and who thus professes not merely the gift of prediction, but also by preaching and writing exercises the office of a prophet, — an office which, at least on Ephraimitish soil, had further received a distinct and characteristic impress through the institution of the schools of the prophets. This explains the fact that the Book of Daniel could not find a place among the d''N''33. For Daniel was not a prophet in this sense : he received and became the medium of divine revelations, but he was not a divinely commissioned public teacher like Nathan and Gad, Ezekiel and Zechariah. As remarked by Julius Africanus (in his letter to Origen concernin<T Susanna), not only did the way and manner in which the divine disclosures were made to him differ from the eirlirvoia 7rpo<f)rjTiKi], but he did not hold the office of a prophet, so that

INTRODUCTION. 5

the Talmud (Megilla 3a), speaking of the post-exile prophets ' in relation to him, says, " They stood above him, for they were prophets, but he was not a prophet " (n^^D ''Si''1]> inrs

It is thus because of a fundamental distinction between literary productions of a prophetic character properly so called, and those which are not prophetic in the same strict sense, — a distinction that holds alike in the domain of history and in that of prediction, — that all the books of historical and predictive content, which stand among the Hagiographa (D'aina, which the grandson of Sirach renders by the expressions to, aWa iraTpia jSt/SXta and to, Twnra t&v ^i^Xuov), have been excluded from the middle division of the Old Testament Canon entitled n''N''33. Distinction was made between the historical books from Joshua to Kings, and the predictive books from Isaiah to Malachi, as works of men who exercised the prophetical office, and thus as works of a prophetic character ; and such books, on the other hand, as Chronicles and Daniel, which, though recognised as having been written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, were not written on the occasion of a call to make prophetic announcements through speech and writing, and did not thus originate from true prophetic inspiration. The two different styles of writing history are also really unmistakable. Each of them has its own peculiar history. The non-prophetic — considering its history and remains — we would call the national or annalistic. It is evidently quite possible that a prophetic historical work like the Books of Kings and an annalistic work like the Books of Chronicles, may have borrowed certain elements from the other historical style ; but when once the distinguishing features of the two styles have been discerned, those elements which are foreign to the peculiar nature of each work, and which have merely been utilized for carrying out its design, nearly always admit of being made out with certainty.

The oldest type of non-prophetical historic composition is found in the priestly-Elohistic style of writing in the, Pentateuch, as distinguished from the Jehovistic-Deuteronomic style. These two styles are continued in the Book of Joshua, and this, too, in such a way that, generally speaSing, the latter appears in those portions which narrate the history of the conquest, while the former occurs in those sections which describe the division and apportionment of the land. The Book of Judges, at the very beginning, which holds up the history of the judges as a mirror in which one may see and learn of God's dealing in salvation, bears the impress of a prophetic historical production ; while the concluding portion, like the Book of Euth, deals with Bethlehemitish stories, which point to the Davidic kingdom, the promised kingdom which formed the centre of prophecy. And though the main portion of the book is founded upon oral and even written forms of the stories regarding the judges, there are also introduced extracts from a more complete work, in which the prophetic peficil of a man like Samuel had combined into an organic whole the accounts of the judges, not merely down to the times of Samson, but even to the complete overthrow of the Philistine oppression. That the Books of Samuel are a prophetico-historical work is expressly attested by the Chronicler in a passage which refers to the main body of these books : in those pieces, however, which record the encounters with the four Philistine children of the giants, 2 Sam. xxi. 15 S. (= 1 Chron. xx. 4 ff.), and those which tell of David's heroes (Dn'3J) who stood nearest to him, 1 Sam. xxiii. 8 ff. (= 1 Chron. xi. 11 ff.), they contain at least two remnants of national or popular historical composition, which delights in the repetition of the same words at the beginning and the end, after the manner of a refrain, and touches on the domain of an epic or national ode, reminding us, as Eisenlohr has fitly said, of the legend of Eoland and Artus, and the Spanish Cid.

More of such remains are found in the Chronicles, as the list of those who joined David during the time of persecution by Saul, 1 Chron. xii. 1-22, beginning with the words : " Mio these are they who came to David at Ziklag, while he was still hard pressed hy Saiil the son of Kish ; and they belong to the heroes who are ready to help in ivar, armed with hews, with the right hand and the left using stones and arrows by means of the bow." Some of these pieces may have fallen into the hands of the later historians separately, and may have been incorporated without any change ; but, so far as they are tabulated, the Chronicler leaves us in no doubt regarding their main source. After giving a census of the Levites from the age of thirty years and upwards,' in 1 Chron. xxiii. 2-2 4a, he adds in ver. 24& and other verses following, in a sketchy manner, that David, considering afterwards that the heavy work of former days had now ceased, reduced to twenty the age at which service should begin ; for " in the last words of David pn ''^3'i '2''?i"'!]i?'7) ihe descendants of Levi are numhered from the age of twenty." He here refers to the last part of the history of David's life in the " book of the Kings of Israel " C^^o "iDD '??"!?".) which lay before him ; and we learn from 1 Chron. xxvii. 24, regarding the other work from which such lists had been transferred into this his leading source. There, after giving the list of the princes of Israel, he remarks concerning a general census that David had intended to make, " Jodb, the son of Zeruiah, began to count, iut he did not finish ; and there arose because of this an outburst of wrath upon Israel, and this numbering was not put into the numbering (-iaDD3, but read 1303, ' into the book ') of the Chronicles (D''D'n nan) of David." Hence the Annals or Chronicles of David contained such tables, which bore the character of national historic writing ; and from these Annals they were transferred into the large Book of Kings lying before the Chronicler.

These official annals began with David. The kingship of Saul rose into little more than a military supremacy ; and the kingdom, as reunited under him, did not develop beyond the first stages of a military constitution. Under David, however, king and people entered into a mutual relationship of the most extensive kind, and the thorough organization of the kingdom was necessarily followed by the multiplication of public servants of various kinds and degrees. We see David, as supreme head of the kingdom in all respects, even in matters of religion, acting on his official supremacy; and we meet with several entirely new offices instituted by him. Among these was the post of the I'^tD, i.e. " recorder," or, as the LXX. often designatively renders the word, viTO(iV7}naT6- jpacpoi, or (as in 2 Sam. viii. 16) o eVi twv vTrofivijfiaTwv (Jerome, in genuine Eoman fashion, " a commentariis "). The Targums similarly render «,'n,3T^5? sapo, "the officer over the memorabilia " (= ^''jnan "lao bv, over the annals, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 8 ; cf. Ezra iv. 15 ; Esth. vi. 1). The T'DTD had to keep the national annals, and his office was different from that of the "isiD, or chancellor. The naiD had to prepare the public documents ; the •\''2m had to preserve them, and to incorporate them in the connected history of the nation. That it was David who instituted the office of national annalist in Israel is proved by the fact that references to the annals begin with the Chronicles (d'om nan) of David, 1 Chron. xxvii. 24, and are afterwards continued in the " Book of the Chronicles of Solomon " (ncb'i^ nai nao, which is an abbreviation from nD^tylj D'D'n ''-i3T isd), 1 Kings xi. 41. Thereafter, references to them are carried on in Judah to the end of Jehoiakim's reign, and in Israel to the end of the reign of Pekah. Under David, and also under Solomon, the office of national annalist was filled by Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud. The fact that, apart from the annals of David and those of Solomon, nothing but the annals of the kings of Judah and those of the kings of Israel are ever cited,is easily and simply explained. When we view the national annals as a whole, they naturally divide themselves into four parts : the first two, the annals of David and of Solomon, set forth the history of the still united kingdom; while the last two, the annals of the kings of Judah and of Israel, presented the history of the nation as divided. The original state archives doubtless perished in the flames when Jerusalem was burnt by the Chaldeans. Copies made from these documents, however, were preserved ; and the histories of the reigns of David and Solomon in the historical books which have been handed down to us, particularly rich as they are in annalistic material, show that diligence in copying and distributing was specially directed to the annals of David and of Solomon, and that these probably were circulated separately, like single decades of Livy.

Pdchard Simon thought the icrivains publics were prophets, and in more recent times also the annals have occasionally been regarded as prophetic historical compositions. I. Appeal is made to the statements of the Chronicler regarding prophetic materials in the work which formed his main source, the great Book of Kings; and it is assumed that this great Boole of Kings contained the combined annals of the kings of Judah and of Israel. But {a) the Chronicler cites his chief source under various designations, as a Book of the Kincrs, once

INTKODUCTION, 9

(2 Chron. xxxiii. 8) as ''"i.^'n (i,e. res gestae, or his(orice) of the kings of Israel, but never as the annals of the kings of Judah or Israel ; he even designates it once as isp snip ■ Dopsn, commentarius libri regum, and thus, as an explanation and elaboration of our canonical Book of Kings, or — what we leave undecided — of an older Book of Kings altogether. (h) In this Midrash there were, of course, inserted numerous and extensive pieces of a prophetico-historical character, for the purpose of illustrating the history of the kings ; but the Chronicler expressly states, on several occasions, that these were incorporated materials (2 Chron. xx. 34, xxxii. 32). Among tlie documents which were taken into the annals, there must also have been pieces of a prophetic character, and not merely those referring to priestly and Levitical matters, military affairs, and such like ; but it would be the greatest literary blunder to imagine that such pieces as the histories of Elijah and Elisha, which are plainly of Ephraimitish and prophetic origin, have been taken from the annals, especially because Joram of Israel, during whose reign Elisha flourished, is the' only monarch of the northern kingdom in whose case there is no reference to the annals. The character of the documents which were chiefly utilized in the annals, and incorporated into the connected history, may be perceived from an instance found in 2 Chron. XXXV. 4, where the arrangement of the Levites into classes is referred to the " writing of David " (iw ^ns) and the " writing of Solomon " (nb^B' ^^?P), which passed for royal writings, either because they were drawn up by order of the king, and confirmed by him, or because records actually written by the king's own hand formed tlie basis of the sections in the annals (cf. 1 Chron. xxviii. 11-19). When we further bear in mind that the accounts given by the Chronicler of the arrangements made by David regarding the priests and the Levites, point to the annals as the original source, we have — at least in 2 Chron. xxxv. 4 — a confirmation of the governmental and (so to speak) royal character of these annals.

II. A second reason for regarding the annals as prophetic historical works is the consideration that otherwise, especially in the kingdom of Israel, they could not have been written in the theocratic spirit. But (a) the official or state origin of the work is implied in the very fact that they end just where the work of a prophetic historiographer would properly have begun. For, of references to the annals in our Book of Kings, there are fourteen (counting from Eehoboam and Jeroboam) in the history of the kings of Judah (references being wanting only in the cases of Ahaziah, Amaziah, and Jehoahaz), and seventeen in the history of the kings of Israel (the case of Joram being the only one in which no reference is given) ; in neither line do the annals come down to the last monarch in the two kingdoms, but only to Jehoiakim and Pekah, from which we must infer that the writing of the national annals ceased with the approaching fall of the two kingdoms. (5) When we look more closely at the thirty - one references, we find that sixteen of these merely state the rest of the acts of the king mentioned are written in the annals: 1 Kings xiv. 29 ; 2 Kings viii. 23, xii. 20, XV. 6, 36, xvi. 19, xxi. 25, xxiii. 28, xxiv. 5; 1 Kings XV. 31, xvi. 14; 2 Kings i. 18, xv. 11, 21, 26, 31. In the case of four Israelitish kings, it is merely stated further that their n^i2|i (heroism, i.e. their brave conduct in war) is described in the annals, 1 Kings xvi. 5, 27 ; 2 Kings X. 34, xiii. 8. More definite statements, however, regarding what was to be read in the annals, are found in the case of Abijam, whose war with Jeroboam was there described,

1 Kings XV. 7 ; in the case of Asa, xv. 23, all whose bravery, and all that he did, and all the cities that he built, being tliere related ; in the case of Jehoshaphat, xxii. 46, where reference is made to the heroic deeds that he performed, and the kind of wars that he carried on ; in the case of Hezekiah,

2 Kings XX. 20, where mention is made of all his heroism, and how he made the pool and the aqueduct, and brought the water into the city; in the case of Manasseh, xi. 17, all that he did, and the sin whereby he sinned ; in the case of Jeroboam, 1 Kings xiv. 19, what kind of wars he carried on, and how he ruled; in the case of Zimri, xvi. 20, his conspiracy that he formed; in the case of Ahab, xxii. 39, all that he did, and the ivory house that he constructed, and the cities that he built ; in the case of Joash, 2 Kings xiii. 12, xiv. 15, his heroism, how he warred with Amaziah, king of Judah; in the case of Jeroboam, 2 Kings xiv. 28, his bravery, how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus and Hamath, that belonged to Judah, for Israel ; in the case of Shallum, xv. 15, his conspiracy which he formed. These references furnish plain proof that this annalistic history was not prophetico-pragmatical in its character. It recorded outward events, it had its roots in the popular mind and its sphere of action in the national life and institutions ; compared with the prophetic history, id was more secular than sacred, more a hisbory of the people than a history of redemption.

The numerous references of the Chronicler to historical writings by prophetic authors show the constant literary activity in the field of history which was displayed by the prophets generally, after the time of Samuel, with whom, properly speaking, begins the era of the prophets in Israel as a nation settled and constituted under the law (Acts iii. 24). That writer, at the close of the history of David, refers (1 Chron. xxix. 29) to the words of Q"}}"^) Samuel the seer (nKhn), of Nathan the prophet (K"??!!), and of Gad the seer (nrhn); at the end of the history of Solomon (2 Chron. ix. 29) to the words of O'np'n) the prophecy of (nsup) Ahijah the Shilonite, and the visions of (nirn) Jedi (or Jedo) the seer; in the case of Eehoboam (2 Chron. xii. 15), to the words of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer ; in the case of Abijah (2 Chron. xiii. 22), to the commentary of (B'lIP) the prophet Iddo; in the case of Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. XX. 24), to the words of Jehu the son of Hanani, which were included in the Book of the Kings of Israel ; in the case of Uzziah (2 Chron. xxvi. 22), to a complete history of that king, which was composed by Isaiah the son of Amoz ; in the case of Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxxii. 32), to the vision of (ti'!!)) Isaiah, as an account that could be found in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel ; in the case of Manasseh (2 Chron. xxxiii. 19), to the words of Hozai. There is certainly room for doubting whether, in these citations, ''^3'7 does not rather (as, for instance, in 1 Chron. xxiii. 27) denote the historical account of such and such a person. The following reasons, however, prove that, in the mind of the Chronicler, historical accounts written by the person named were meant, (a) From

2 Chron. xxvi. 22 we see how easy and natural it was for him to think of prophets as historians of particular epochs in the history of the kings, (b) In other places also, where ''?3"n is combined with the name of a prophet (as in 2 Chron. xxix. 30, xxxiii. 18), the latter is the genitive of the subject or author, not of the object, (c) In the citations given above, nnna is used interchangeably with ''?,3'=i"^J?, an expression which still more decidedly requires us to understand it as referring to authorship ; and (d) this view is put beyond all doubt by the interchange of "J? ^Vp, in 2 Chron. xiii. 22, with i^y '7.3^, in 2 Chron. xii. 15. That these accounts, however, which are named after prophets, were not lying before the Chronicler as separate writings along with his main source, is evident from the fact that, except in 2 Chron. xxiii. 18 f., he never refers to both together. They had been incorporated in " the commentary of the Book of Kings " (2 Chron. xxiv. 27) lying before him, where, along with the annalistic sources of the work, they could easily be distinguished as prophetic productions. And inasmuch as it is conceivable that the author of our canonical Books, of Samuel and Kings should not have made use of these sources composed by prophetic authors, it is legitimate to ask whether it be still possible for critical analysis to discover these sources, either in whole or in part, — ^just as one may with certainty say that the list of officers used as a boundary-stone in 2 Sam. XX. 23-26, and the survey given in 1 Kings iv. 2-19 of Solomon's ministers and his court, together with the details as to the requirements of the royal kitchen (1 Kin^s v. 2 ff.), the number of stalls for the king's horses (1 Kings v. 6), and similar matters, have been derived from the annals.

This is not the place to enter more minutely into such an analysis. It is enough for us, through the references given in Chronicles, to have cast light on the restless activity of the prophets, from the time of Samuel onwards, engaged in writiufr history, — an activity which, even without the express references, is obvious from the many historical extracts in the Book of Kings from the writings of prophet-historians. Both authors draw, directly or indirectly, from annalistic and prophetic sources. But the Book of Kings and the Chronicles themselves also, taken as a whole — when we look at their authors.