1874] VARIOUS EXTRACTS 237 



the older and more impetuous Prophecy of the northern 

 kingdom in a way that made written prophecy much 

 more suitable to its purposes. 



With regard to the motives that might lead a prophet 

 to commit his speeches to writing, &quot; Nothing,&quot; says 

 Ewald (Proph. i. 48), &quot; is more instructive than what 

 Isaiah tells us in his own case. When his contemporaries 

 refused to comprehend and believe great truth which he 

 had repeatedly preached, then especially the prophetic 

 spirit which had led him to speak summoned him also to 

 write, that by this means he might work for his own time, 

 and lay down in an everlasting memorial for ages what 

 he felt to be as true as his own life (viii. i, 16; xxx. 8). 

 Or, if a prophet had already laboured long and experienced 

 much, and now looked back on his whole past activity, 

 he might think it well to perpetuate the weightiest of his 

 speeches and deeds in writing as an enduring monument 

 for the instruction of far and near, of present and future 

 ages. Thus we read in Jer. xxxvi., that in the fourth 

 year of Joiakim, Baruch wrote to Jeremiah s dictation a 

 roll containing all the words which God had spoken to 

 him since his first call under Josiah that is, through a 

 period of more than twenty years. Of course, such a 

 collection could not reproduce verbally all the prophet s 

 inspired speeches, but would gather together in a con 

 densed form all that was most memorable, and present 

 these materials in a form shaped by the prophet s own 

 free judgment.&quot; Ewald further points out that such 

 passages as Is. viii. i ; xxx. 8, indicate that besides actual 

 prophetic books the prophets were accustomed to express 

 leading thoughts in short proverbial forms upon tablets 

 exposed to public view. This appears to have been done 

 in presence of witnesses (viii. 2 ; xxx. 8, DriN with them 

 (witnesses), and in a large bold character (OFON Enm), 

 so as to be easily read (cf. Hab. ii. 2). An age in which 

 this was an effective way of appealing to the people at 

 large was manifestly one in which education was widely 



