70 



in Literature. A well-known critic of the German school says of 

 chap, vii, 2, 



-i And the heart (of King Ahaz) was moved, and the heart of his 

 people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind," 



that " this fine simile is sufficient to prove that Isaiah himself is 

 the narrator.'" I may safely challenge him or anyone who 

 agrees with him to show me any chapter in the entire book, no 

 matter to what author the critics may have assigued it, in which 

 the same acute sensitiveness to the beauties of nature is not 

 found. It is not even absent from the four chapters of the 

 historical fragment.* 



The critics draw a distinction between the " genuine " and the 

 B second n Isaiah from the alleged fact that the more gloomy and 

 terrible passages are to be found in the former, and the more 

 alluring and peaceful in the latter. But the distinction is as 

 great between the " second 9 Isaiah and the eight or ten " frag- 

 ments " (not written, according to the critics, either by the 

 genuine or by the "second" Isaiah), with the exception of 

 chap, ixxv, which, though a " fragment," far transcends any- 

 thing else in the whole book as a picture of radiant beauty and 

 prosperity. The critic forgets, conveniently, such passages as 

 these when he endeavours to establish a distinguishing contrast 

 between the genuine and the u second " Isaiah. 



(3 ) The tendency to repetition, of which we find instances in 

 the undisputed Isaiah in twelve instances, one of them being a 

 fourfold repetition of a whole sentence. It is also repeatedly 

 found throughout the whole volume. The use of the phrase. 

 - woe unto you," in chap, v, is an instance. The same phrase 

 occurs in chap, xlv, ascribed to the " second " Isaiah. In the 

 " second 11 Isaiah repetition often assumes such forms as " Awake, 

 awake/' " cast ye up, cast ye up." All these are lor the sake of 

 emphasis. 



(4) There is an analogous tendency of the prophet to quote 

 his own words, a habit not quite peculiar to Isaiah but much 

 more common with him than with any other prophet. Thus 



* I may mention that the three most striking and sustained descrip- 

 tions of natural phenomena in the whole book are chaps, ii and xi, 1-9, in 

 the undisputed Isaiah and chap, xxxv in the ** fragments."' The first is 

 one of the finest description^ to be found in any author, illustrating 

 Nature in her awfulness, and may be compared with the powerful 

 passage of the desolation of Moab, chaps, iv and xvi, in the '* fragments." 

 Hundreds of shorter passages of the same character can be found in the 

 whole b:>ok. 



