176 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



in the overthrow of his enemies, but also in the no less 

 certain humiliation of his own land before the Assyrians, 

 who would pour over Judah like the Euphrates in flood. 

 Yet the faithlessness of Ahaz cannot change the issue of 

 God s care for His own. Suddenly, as he describes these 

 calamities, the prophet turns against the invading heathen: 



Arm yourselves and be undone ; 

 Arm yourselves and be undone ; 

 Devise a counsel, and it shall be broken ; 

 Speak a word, and it shall not stand, 

 For with us is God. 1 



And so Isaiah rises again to a bright vision of hope, when 

 the throne of David shall no longer be held by a renegade 

 like Ahaz ; but when the whole people, reconciled to 

 Jahveh, and joyful in the light of His countenance, shall 

 flourish under the unending government of a great and 

 perfect Davidic king, in whose days even the heathen 

 nations shall forsake their idols and join themselves to 

 Jahveh, God of Israel. 



In this scheme, which grew up in Isaiah s mind at an 

 early stage of his prophetic activity, there was much that 

 could not be verified in his own lifetime. There never 

 lived a true prophet whose hopes and aspirations were 

 bounded by the circle of his own circumstances. True 

 prophecy is always ideal, seeking to grasp not the immedi 

 ate future, but the eternal and unchanging principles 

 which Jahveh, the living God, is ever working out more 

 fully among His people. The critical study of prophecy 

 has done no greater service than to point out how small 

 a fraction of the prophetic writings is strictly predictive. 

 Not detailed events lying in the future, but broad religious 

 principles, are the ground on which the prophets are at 

 home. But then these principles are grasped with such 

 firmness, with so concrete a hold, that they never remain 

 floating, as it were, in the air, but are always applied with 

 confidence to the special needs and special circumstances 

 of the theocracy. And so it was with Isaiah. Part, at 



1 Isa. viii. 9. 



