The prophecies of Isaiah;

Front matter

w

M<:i^M

Mi m

Preface

The first edition of this first volume appeared in 1880, the second in 1882. I have done my best to make the third edition worth procuring even for those who already possess the first. Very many passages will reveal traces of a revision which, if not so thorough as that which Delitzsch is in the habit of giving, is yet not superficial, and which witnesses to the author's belief that in the study of the prophets nothing is trivial or insignificant. The results of Assyriological research have again, to the best of my power, been sifted and utilised, so that M. Maspero's complaint that ' les hdbraisants rejettent systematiquement I'aide que pourrait leur offrir I'antiquitd (^gyptienne et assyrienne' less than ever applies to the present work. I may have erred, but it seemed worthier of a student of the Old Testament to qualify himself to some extent for a personal judgment, than either to stand aloof and wait for others, or to transfer in pellmell confusion all the various illustrations of the Old Testament proposed by Assyriologists. Something, too, has been attempted for the further correction of the text ; the slowness with which I have, since my first contributions in 1868, moved towards critical independence will, I hope, be a guarantee that I have no

Vlll PREFACE.

parti pris against tradition. The ' critical notes ' in the second volume have received numerous additions ; and if I am to a great extent eclectic, yet there will be found evidence of personal judgment and mature principle. How far any fresh light has been thrown in this edition on the meaning and the progress of religious ideas I cannot venture to say. I have, at any rate, proved my continued adherence to the historical principles gained long since from Ewald. A not unfriendly reviewer, from the secure vantage-ground of a German university, has, I observe, accused me of theological bias in some parts of the exegesis in the second volume, though he as good as acquits me of any in the first. I have re-examined the sentences in which such a bias may be detected in the first, and will make some reply to him in the preface to the second volume. It will be easy, for there is no fundamental difference between us. But I may at least ask here. Where is the commentary entirely free from theological or philosophical bias ? It has, at any rate, been my own object, as a commentator, to confine my theological bias within the narrowest possible area, and to meet the curiosity which in England is so generally felt as to the tendencies of an author in one of the essays attached to the commentary. The same remark applies to my critical bias. I cannot pretend to be without at least provisional conclusions. I am not so modest as to think that I have made no contributions to critical thought. These conclusions or contributions may here and there have influenced my exegesis, but not, as I think, unduly ; and certainly not so much as the

PREFACE. IX

bias of more orthodoxly critical commentators both of the 'right' and of the 'left' has affected their exegesis. My constant effort has been to suppress myself as a critic as much as possible, though I considered myself bound, as far as I could, to acquaint the student (see Essay VI.) with the present state of one important part of the critical controversy. In this connection I may quote a sentence or two from the preface to the first edition of this volume. ' It appears to the author that a more thorough exegesis must (in England and America) precede the fruitful investigation of critical problems. It is the interest of all parties to ascertain the exegetical data, and these he has endeavoured to set down impartially, without allowing himself to be deterred by accusations of inconsistency, such as even his earlier work* was exposed to from the Speakers Commentary on Isaiah. If it is a fact that the exegetical phenomena are conflicting, let them be fairly represented as such ; the final critical solution will have to take account of all the data of the problem.'

The prospects of Old Testament study in England are more hopeful now than when I first began to write. Free and reverent investigation is at least sincerely tolerated, though within my own range of observation it has not received much countenance

' This work on Isaiah, published in 1870, contained an amended version, which aimed at reconciling in some degree English style and Hebrew scholarship. Mr. Matthew Arnold (in his Isaiah of Jerusalem) censures the translation in the present work precisely as if its object was the same as that of my earlier attempt. I have not recalled the latter ; nideed, it partly supplements the present work, especially in the introduction, which contains a moderate statement of the anti-traditional point of view scarcely as yet suoerseded ,

X PREFACE.

from the authorities. We have still to live in hope in this as in so many other respects. A single professorship at each of our national universities will not always be held sufficient for a study which ramifies in so many directions as that of the Old Testament.^ If I may refer to but one of its departments, Old Testament Exegesis has, so far as I am aware, no official recognition in the English universities'^ though, at Oxford at least, the interpretation of the New Testament is not unfairly represented by two learned professors. Isolated students of this and other sections of the subject may no doubt be found, but what the study requires is a small band of qualified scholars who are at the same time teachers, and who have distributed among themselves the different departments of this wide field of research. As yet we hear little said about these things in the organs of Church and University opinion, and it may therefore be unfair to expect much help from those who officially have the means of giving it. But the horizon is, as I said, not without gleams of hope. Men of the younger generation, trained in a more historic school than their elders, are at least friendly to critical investigations ; and if the energies of most of them are absorbed by the questions of the hour, yet there are some left who can give more than a friendly regard, and to those I appeal, out of my unwilling seclusion, to take

" I am most glad to be able to refer to the Inaugural Lecture of Professor Driver at Oxford (as reported in the Times), which describes these ramifications. Compare also the sketch of the field of Old Testament study in my own Essay on the Maintenance of the Study of the Bible in Essays on the Endowment of Research (Lond., 1876). To the practical suggestions of that essay I should not now commit myself

' I gratefully retract this (February, iS

PREFACE. Xi

their part distinctly and ungrudgingly, in spite of all discouragements, in a work of which few can estimate the beneficial results, and for the want of which not only philology, but theology and the Church in general suffer — the application of modern methods to the criticism and exegesis of the Old Testament.

*^* The reader will kindly refer to the 'Critical Notes' and 'Last Words' in the second volume, which sometimes explain or illustrate the translation and commentary, and especially to the emendations of the text due to the late Dr. Weir, Professor of Hebrew in the University of Glasgow. Specimens of Dr. Weir's exegesis have also been given ; but this, though generally sober, and sometimes very clear-sighted, is by no means so remarkable as his criticism of the text. I am much indebted to Dr. Weir's representatives for permission to examine his note-books, and am glad thus to honour the memory of a singularly fresh and candid mind.

Addendum. — On xliv. 4 (p. 283). There is great doubt whether the best Massoretic reading is 133 ' amidst ' (?), or p3 ' as amidst ' (' being defective) or 'as young (grass).' The Sept. reading is preferable.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

(On the complicated question of the chronology of this period, see Vol. II. of Duncker's History; Wellhausen, 'Die Zeitrechnung des Buchs der Konige seit der Theilung des Reiches,' in Jahrbiicher fiir deutsche Theologie, Vol. XX. (1875), pp. 607-640; Schrader, K. A. T., ed. 2, pp. 458-468 ; Kamphausen, Die Chronologic der hebraischen Konige (1883); Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel, pp. 144-151, 402, 413-419-)

740? Death of Uzziah. (So too Duncker; Wellhausen, 750; Kamphausen, 736.)

734. Expedition of Tiglath-Pileser against Damascus, Israel, and Philistia ; tribute of Yahukhazi Yahudai, i.e. Jehoahaz ( = Ahaz) the Judahite, to Assyria.

727. Accession of Shalmaneser.

724? Accession of Hezekiah. (D., 728 ; W. and K., 714.)

722. Accession of Sargon and fall of Samaria.

720. Great defeat of Egypt at Raphia.

713 ? Merodach Baladan's embassy to Hezekiah.

711. Sargon's siege of Ashdod, and (probably) invasion of Judah; Hezekiah's illness.

710. Sargon's conquest of Babylon.

709. Capture of Merodach Baladan.

705. Accession of Sennacherib.

701. Sennacherib's invasion of Judah.

681. Accession of Esar-haddon.

672. Esar-haddon's conquest of Egypt.

586. Nebuchadnezzar's capture of Jerusalem.

539. Capture of Babylon by Cyrus.

536. First return of Jewish exiles.

PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS.

II. Isaiah. Second part of the Book of Isaiah.

/. C. A. ' The Book of Isaiah Chronologically Arranged' (by the present writer).

Q. P. B. 'The Holy Bible, &c., with Various Renderings and Readings ' (published by Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode, Printers to the Queen).

K. A. T. 'Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, von Eberhard Schrader' (2nd ed., Giessen, 1883).

K. G. F. ' Keilinschriften und Geschichtsforschung.' Same author (Giessen, 1878).

A. E. Aben Ezra (also referred to in the commentary as Ibn Ezra).

Bi. Bickell.

Calv. Calvin.

Del. Delitzsch.

Ew. Ewald.

Ges. Gesenius.

Gesch. Geschichte.

Hend. Henderson.

Hengst. Hengstenberg.

Hitz. Hitzig.

Houb. Houbigant.

Knob. Knobel.

Kr. Krochmal.

R. P. Records of the Past (12 vols., Bagster).

T. S. B. A. Transactions of Society of Biblical Archseology.

Z. D. M. G. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft.

La. Lagarde.

Lo. Lowth.

Lit., Luz. Luzzatto.

Naeg. Naegelsbach.

Olsh. Olshausen.

Pesh. Peshito.

Sept. Septuagint.

Symm. Symmachus.

Targ. Targum.

Theod. Theodotion.

We., Wellh. Wellhausen.

Chapter I

• The Great Arraignment ' is the title appropriately suggested by Ewald for this prophecy. Jehovah is the plaintiff, Israel the defendant, the prophet a deeply interested bystander and interlocutor. Hence the prophecy naturally falls into four symmetrical stanzas or strophes, dividing at vv. 10, i8, 2.4 (Ewald, Drechsler). Str. i. contains the charge, with an appeal to the witnesses ; ii. meets a preliminary objection of Israel's to the production of a charge ; in. offers reconciliation on condition of Israel's amendment ; iv. fulminates the judgment which the rejection of this gracious offer renders inevitable. The prophecy begins by addressing the whole people as equally guilty ; then directs itself more especially to the higher classes ; Wd, last of all, anticipates that some will be converted, and so escape destruction. There is no finer specimen of prophetic oratory than this (see on v. lo).

It is difficult to say when this prophecy was most probably composed, or rather, it was difficult in the infancy of Assyrian studies. Hence we find, among the elder critics, Caspari ' referring to the period of Uzziah and Jotham ; Ges. and Knob, to that of Ahaz ; Vitr., Hitz., Ewald, to that of Hezekiah. The fact is that, in some respects, it might have been written almost equally well in any one of these periods, which suggests that it was designed, in its present form, as a preface to a larger or smaller collection of Isaiah's prophecies. Still it would be strange if Isaiah had been able altogether to exclude references to passing events, nor does he appear to have done so. He tells us that the land of Judah has been flooded with a foreign soldiery — ' your land, strangers devour it ' {v. 7), a description which points rather to the Assyrians than to an army partly composed of Israelites (vii. i). There are no points of contact between this prophecy and those composed (see e.g. chap, xxxiii.) with reference to Sennacherib's invasion. It must therefore have been composed before that event, — not after it (Oort), as there is no allusion to the collapse of the Assyrian enterprise. There seems no alternative but to suppose Isaiah to refer to the first Assyrian invasion of Judah, viz. that of Sargon.* He wrote, probably, after the stress of the storm had passed,

1 See especially his Beitrdge zur Elnl. in das Buck Jesaja, part i.

2 Why such an invasion is' held to be probable, if not certain, is explained in introduction to chap. X. 5-xii. 6.

2/

ISAIAH.

[CHAP. I.

or even when the invasion was over, for during a calamity it was not his wont to speak so roughly and discouragingly. Indeed, he speaks quite as much to the next generation as to the men of his own time ; it is a purely literary product that we have before us. As he depicts the sufferings caused by the invasion {vv. 7-9), he deepens the shadows to impress the future readers of his prophecies. He offers not so much a realistic account of what actually took place, as what might and must result from a continued neglect of true religion. (From this point of view, comp. the e-yKoraXeK^^iyo-erai of LXX. and the derelinquetur of Vulg.) And yet his description is based upon facts, and is not entirely imaginative. The sketch of the moral and religious condition of Judah applies at any rate to some extent to the reign of Hezekiah, whose reformation was only superficial. The crimes imputed to the princes in vv. 15, 18, 21 (only mentioned again in Isaiah's earliest discourses, iv. 4, v. 7), and the openness of the ' apostasy,' are no less characteristic of the reign of Ahaz, to which Delitzsch still refers it. The theory that chap, i., though written in the reign of Hezekiah, was designed as an introduction to prophecies of various periods, enables us to reconcile all the conflicting data.

' Vision of Isaiah, son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. ^ Hear, O heavens, and give

' The heading, in its present form, belongs to the whole of the prophecies of Isaiah. There may, however, have been a time when it stood at the head of a smaller portion of prophecy, for the words 'concerning Judah and Jerusalem' do not suit all the prophecies.

Vitringa supposes the heading to have been originally written for chap, i., and to have had the concluding words (' in the days of,' &c.) added to it by the scribes who collected Isaiah's works into a volume. But as the very similar heading to chap. ii. belongs to a group of prophecies (ii.-v.), it is reasonable to suppose that the heading of chap. i. once did likewise. It cannot, indeed, have been penned by Isaiah, if (as is most probable) none of the prophecies were really written in the reign of Uzziah. Here, as in the case of the headings of the Psalms, we seem driven to assume the handiwork of the scribes during the Exile, a period when the study of the religious writings formed the chief consolation of the pious. The same writer, or writers, may have prefixed the headings of Hosea and Micah, and perhaps of some of the other books, also of Isaiah ii. and xiii. (note the similarity of form).

vision] Perhaps collectively

for ' visions ' ; occurs again in the headings of Nahum and Obadiah.

A technical term for the prophetic intuitions or inward perceptions.

A synonymous phrase is 'hearing' (xxviii. 22 ; comp. xxi. 10). He who 'makes to see' is of course Jehovah (Am. vii. i), through the objective influence of His Spirit (see on viii. 11). Thus 'vision ' = prophetic revelation (comp. i Sam. iii. 15), just as ' seer ' = prophet ; but while ' seer ' was early supplanted by ' prophet ' {nabi), i Sam. ix. 9, ' vision' held its ground till a much later time (Dan. ix. 23, i Chr. xvii. IS). 'Prophecy' {ribfcah), only occurs thrice (2 Chr. ix. 29, XV. 8, Neh. vi. 12). And Jerusalem] i.e. especially Jerus., Isaiah being distinctively a city-prophet. ' Rear, o heavens] i.e., either :

Chap. 1.] Isaiah

ear, O earth, for Jehovah speaketh : sons I have made great and high, and they have broken away from me. ^ The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass its master's crib : Israel is without knowledge, my people is without understanding. * Alas for the sinful nation, the people burdened with guilt, the seed of evil doers, the sons that do corruptly : they have forsaken Jehovah, they have spurned Israel's Holy One, they have withdrawn backward. ^ Why " will ye be still smitten

" On what part, Vulg. , Lowth, Ew.

Bear witness to the judicial sentence which Jehovah is about to deliver (of. Deut. iv. 26, XXX. 19, xxxi. 28, Ps. 1. 4, Jer. vi. 19) ; or, since Jehovah is speaking rather in sorrow than in anger, Listen with reverence to Jehovah your Creator, whom His rational creatures refuse to hear, cf.

Jer. ii. 12. Many find here an allusion to Deut. xxxii. i, but (apart from the question as to the date of Deuteronomy) there is so much greater depth of feeling in the passage of Isaiah that one is loth to admit an imitation. The expressions (see Lowth) are the common property of poets. The tenderness of these opening verses reminds us of Hosea, as the section w. 10-20 reminds us by its severity of Amos.

Sons] This word is placed in

the forefront to account for the singular favours about to be mentioned. What can a loving parent

refuse to his sons ? 1 bave

made ^reat andblgrb] i.e., I have reared Israel to maturity, and set him on high among the nations.

Comp. Hos. I. 10 Rebelled]

The highest degree of sin. ' For he addeth unto his sin rebellion,' Job xxxiv. 37, ' . . . sons of the living God' (xi. I, Ex. iv. 22).

3 xbe ox ... ] So Jeremiah (viii. 7) contrasts the insensibility of Israel with the sagacity of the stork.

* Seed of evil doers] i.e., a seed (or race), consisting of — not descended from — evil doers. Comp. xiv. 20, Ixv. 23, where the context

is clearer than here. Forsaken

. , . spurned . . . withdrawn backward] Observe the climax — alienation, insult, idolatry. On the implication in the last phrase, see Ezek. xiv. 3. It is, however, not so much outward idolatry which is referred to, as the idolatry of the

heart; see on v. 21. Israel's

Holy One] i.e., He who shows himself holy in the midst of Israel.

Holiness is an idea which has had a long history, and it is not easy to realize it in its original simplicity.

In Isaiah's mind, however, it evidently stood in close relation to the conception of the Divine glory. In vi. 3 the Trisagion is accompanied by ' The whole earth is full of his glory.' But Isaiah himself indicates a distinction already developed between God's glory and His holiness. The sense of creaturely weakness is awakened by the thought of the one (vi. 5, first clause), the consciousness of transgression by that of the other (vi. 5, second and foil, clauses) ; and this because, whereas the glory of God extends overall nature, His hoHness is specially exhibited in judicial interpositions within the sphere of His kingdom. And yet the Israelites, who owed so much to these interpositions, displayed, not contrite awe but insulting contempt, (On Holiness see Oehler, Theology of the Old Testament, i. 1 54, &c., Duhm, Die TheologiederPropheten, 169-172; Baudissin, Studien zur semit. Religionsgeschichte,\\. 1-142, Delitzsch, art. ' Heiligkeit ' in Herzog-Plitt's Real-Encyclopddie, Kriiger, Essai sur la theologie d'Esaie xl.-lxvi., pp. 19-26.)

* Why will ye ... ] Why

B 2

ISAIAH.

[chap. I.

going on in apostasy ? Every ''head is sick, and every*" heart faint. ® From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no sound part in it ; wounds and wales and festering sores — not pressed, and not bound up, and not softened with oil. ' Your land — a desolation, your cities — burnt with fire, your tillage — in your face strangers devour it ; even a desolation, like the overthrow of " Sodom. ' And the daughter of Zionis left as a booth in a vineyard, as a lodging-place in a cucumbert The whole, Ew.

" So Ew., Studer, Lagarde. Text has, strangers.

bring down fresh judgments upon your head through persisting in your infidelity .'' Kay well compares Ezek. xviii. 31. (On the rend, see

Del. and Kay.) ^Every bead Is

sick . . . ] Instead of descending from the public to the private calamity, the prophet adopts the more striking plan of ascending from the individual to the body corporate. He singles out the two noblest members of the body, the seats of the intellectual and moral life. There is not a head nor a heart which has escaped the infection of sin. Cf. Jer. xvii. 9. ' The heart is . . . wofuUy sick,' Gen. viii. 21.

8 rrom tlie sole . . . ] It is the state which is thus characterised (cf. X. 16, xvii. 4). The meaning of the figures is determined by that of the figures in v. 5. The inward sickness of the individual produces a mass of moral corruption in the nation, and no attempt has been made to apply a remedy. ' Binding up ' is a well-known figure for spiritual regeneration, Hos. xiv. 4, Ps. xli. 4. ' To heal ' {rafd) in Hebrew means properly to sew up a wound.

' The condition of the land is as sad as that of the people. The wild soldiery of Sargon has wrought a ruin only comparable to that of Sodom. But the men of Sodom were foreigners, Israel is a 'son.' It was a painful surprise to the Israelites that their land could become the prey of the Gentiles, comp. Ixiii 19, Jer. x. 25. [On the reading, see crit. note. The textread, seems to me scarcely translatable. The conjecture "... of a rain-storm ' is plausible (comp. Ps. xc. 5) ; but I, the verb 'overturn' is specially appropriated to the ' catastrophe' of Sodom and Gomorrah (xiii. 19, Am. iv. 11, Jer. xlix. 18, 1. 40, Deut. xxix. 23 [22], and 2, we should not expect, in so artistically composed a chapter, to find zdrem so close to zarlm — a confusion would be unavoidable.]

* There is one qualification to be made ; the capital remains, but how forlorn and helpless ! See

Notes and Criticisms, p. 2.

Tbe daugrbter of Zlon] A highly poetical phrase, here and in general a personification of the city and inhabitants of Jersusalem. Sometimes, however, it seems to mean the city without the inhabitants (Lam. ii. 8) ; sometimes the inhabitants without the city (Mic. iv.

10). As a bootb ... a lodg-

Ingr-place] Temporary shelters for the watchmen. See xxiv. 20, xxvii. 3 (note). Job xxvii. 18 ; also Trench's instructive note. Parables, p. 19s, and Wetzstein's in Delitzsch,

Hiob, p. 318. As a besieged

city] This is very difficult to harmonise with the preceding figures.

Can Isaiah have written thus ? Dr.

Weir's conjecture is very ingenious.

True, Jerusalem had walls, but it might as well have been without them, for the Assyrian ' despiseth cities ' (or citadels), xxxiii. 8. See the Hebr. of Prov. xxv. 28, 2 Chr. xxxii. 5.

CHAP. I.]

ISAIAH.

field, as a ^besieged city.'^ ' Had not Jehovah Sabaoth left us a remnant, [almost '] like Sodom should we be, Gomorrah should we lesemble !

'" Hear the word of Jehovah, ye judges of Sodom ; give

■i Fort of watch (comp. 2 Kings xvii. 9), Hitz., Ges. ( rAsMaraj).— City broken through, i.e. defenceless, Weir{conj.).

<= Omitted in Sept., Pesh., Vulg. ; comp. Rom, ix. zg (after Sept.). So Geiger.

° The first revelation closes with a reflection in the name of the people. It is touching to see how the prophet's human feelings force an utterance. He seems to feel that the statement in v. 7 was too strong : — ' not yet quite like

Sodom. ' Teliovata Sabaotli]

The phrase is used as a kind of seal or attestation to a specially solemn prophecy. This has become almost a rule with most of the prophets. Yet there are some exceptions, as Ewald remarks.

Hosea, Ezekiel, and Micah (if, as many critics think, iv. 1-4 is quoted by Micah from another prophet) avoid it altogether. Jehovah Sabdoth is, I think, a fuller, and more expressive proper name for the God (primarily) of Israel : more expressive than Jehovah alone in that it lays special stress on his supramundane being, thus becoming equivalent to the latter phrase ' the God of heaven,' 2 Chr. xxxvi. 23, Neh. i. 4, S, Ps. cxxxvi. 26, (Gen. xxiv. 3, 7 ?), &c. See also Appendix to this chapter.

'" Yet strange to say, the principal men of Jerusalem think they have completely discharged their religious obligations. A second revelation dispels this illusion.

By an apostrophe which Steinthal the philologist pronounces unequalled, the prophet addresses them as Judgres of Sodom (comp. iii. 9, and, with Dr. Kay, Deut. xxxii. 32). Into this short phrase he condenses the philosophy of their misfortunes. So severe a punishment argues a more than commonly heinous offence. Out of this passage perhaps the Arabs have distilled the proverb, ' More unjust than a kadee of Sodom' {fiadi = katsifi, the word used by Isaiah, and in a similar context by Micah iii. 9). Obs., no mention is made of the king. The judges seem to have acquired the whole executive power, and to have greatly impaired the royal prerogative (cf. Jer. xxxviii. 5). — — Tbe Instruction of our Cod] A. V. renders ' the law,' implying, as usual, a reference to the Mosaic law. This, however, is doubtful at best. The word ( Torah), rendered ' teaching,' means etymologically, ' direction,' or ' instruction,' and hence was the suitable term for the authoritative counsel given orally by the priests (Deut. xvii. 11) and prophets to those who consulted them on points of ritual and practice respectively.

It is unsafe, therefore, in the majority of passages to render Torah 'law' (with A. v.), when 'instruction ' or ' revelation ' will suit all the requirements of the context. See Isa. ii. 3, viii. 16, xlii. 4, Jer. xviii. 18, Ezek. vii. 26, Hag. ii. 11, Zech. vii. 12 ; and especially Jer. xxvi. 4, 5, where, ' to walk in my Torah ' is parallel to 'to hearken to the words of my servants the prophets.' There are, indeed, a few passages where some modern critics render Torah ' law.' ' The written law of Moses had come into general acceptance from the days of Josiah,' and ' the " law " already presented itself during the Exile as the one lofty object which, despised and rejected now, would in the future once more win from all mankind a lofty reverence and unique acknowledgment.' So writes Ewald, referring to Isa. xlii. 4, 21, Ii. 4, 7, Lam. ii. 9 (2 •), Ezek. vii. 26 {History of Isratl, V. 133). Even here, however, the sense '(prophetic) revelation' is quite satisfactory.

The Book of II Isaiah is not con«

ISAIAH.

[chap. 1.

ear to the instruction of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. " Of what use is the multitude of your sacrifices to me ? saith Jehovah ; I am satiated with the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, and in the blood of bullocks and lambs and he-goats I have no pleasure. '^When ye come to *see my face,^ who hath required this at your hands — to trample

f So Pesh. Luz., Geiger. — Appear before me, Ew., Del., Naeg. (after Hebrew vowel-points).

cerned with legal ordinances ; Ezek. vii. 26 is explained by Deut. xvii.

II ; and in Lam. ii. 9 Torah is parallel to ' (prophetic) vision.' The only absolutely certain reference to the Pentateuch is in Mai. iv. 4. (Am. ii. 4, and Hos. viii. 12 appear to allude to early compends of laws.) The context, however, shows that such a reference cannot be intended here, and that Torah means the revelation which Isaiah is about to communicate.

'' The 'judges of Sodom' may multiply sacrifices, but Jehovah attaches no value to them. Not that Isaiah intends to condemn ritual altogether, any more than St.

James does (i. 26, 27). His utterance must be qualified by what he tells us himself of his early vision (see vi. 6), and by a consideration of his circumstances. He was not only a prophet, but a reformer, or at any rate the friend of a reforming king, and it is not probable that he was inwardly hostile to the very foundations of the established order of things. It is true, however, that the duties of religion which he most inculcates are the moral ones, and that he is no friend to the existing priesthood (xxviii. 7). He seems rather to tolerate forms than to recommend them. For statements of contemporary prophets, see Am. v. 21-24, Hos. vi. 6. ('and not sacrifice ' = ' more than burnt-offerings'), Mic.vi. 6-8. -Sacrifices] Isaiah means those in which the life of a victim was taken. Of this class, the most important were the burnt-offerings. The mention of rams may perhaps point to guilt-offerings (see on liii. 10), the only kind of sacrifice limited to -a ram in Leviticus. Or, if our Leviticus be of late date, the ' rams ' may be a vestige of the high estimate of rams in primitive times (cf. Gen. xxii. 13). 'Fat' is mentioned because, except in burnt-offerings, the fat pieces were burnt ; ' blood,' because in all the sacrifices of this class the blood was sprinkled on the altar.