Expositor's Bible: The Book of Isaiah Part 4

_Until cities fall into ruin without an inhabitant, And houses without a man, And the land be left desolately waste, And Jehovah have removed man far away, And great be the desert in the midst of the land; And still if there be a tenth in it, Even it shall be again for consuming.

Like the terebinth, and like the oak, Whose stock when they are felled remaineth in them, The holy seed shall be its stock._

The meaning of these words is too plain to require exposition, but we can hardly over-emphasize them. This is to be Isaiah's one text throughout his career. "Judgement shall pa.s.s through; a remnant shall remain." All the politics of his day, the movement of the world's forces, the devastation of the holy land, the first captivities of the holy people, the reiterated defeats and disappointments of the next fifty years--all shall be clear and tolerable to Isaiah as the fulfilling of the sentence to which he listened in such "forced and desperate peace" on the day of his consecration. He has had the worst branded into him; henceforth no man nor thing may trouble him. He has seen the worst, and knows there is a beginning beyond. So when the wickedness of Judah and the violence of a.s.syria alike seem most unrestrained--a.s.syria most bent on destroying Judah, and Judah least worthy to live--Isaiah will yet cling to this, that a remnant must remain. All his prophecies will be variations of this text; it is the key to his apparent paradoxes. He will proclaim the a.s.syrians to be G.o.d's instrument, yet devote them to destruction. He will hail their advance on Judah, and yet as exultingly mark its limit, because of the determination in which he asked the question, _O Lord, how long?_ and the clearness with which he understood the _until_, that came in answer to it. Every prediction he makes, every turn he seeks to give to the practical politics of Judah, are simply due to his grasp of these two facts--a withering and repeated devastation, in the end a bare survival.

He has, indeed, prophecies which travel farther; occasionally he is permitted to indulge in visions of a new dispensation. Like Moses, he climbs his Pisgah, but he is like Moses also in this, that his lifetime is exhausted with the attainment of the margin of a long period of judgement and struggle, and then he pa.s.ses from our sight, and no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day. As abruptly as this vision closes with the announcement of _the remnant_, so abruptly does Isaiah disappear on the fulfilment of the announcement--some forty years subsequent to this vision--in the sudden rescue of the holy seed from the grasp of Sennacherib.

We have now finished the first period of Isaiah's career. Let us catalogue what are his leading doctrines up to this point. High above a very sinful people, and beyond all their conceptions of Him, Jehovah, the national G.o.d, rises holy, exalted in righteousness. From such a G.o.d to such a people it can only be judgement and affliction that pa.s.s; and these shall not be averted by the fact that He is the national G.o.d, and they His wors.h.i.+ppers. Of this affliction the a.s.syrians gathering far off upon the horizon are evidently to be the instruments. The affliction shall be very sweeping; again and again shall it come; but the Lord will finally save a remnant of His people. Three elements compose this preaching--a very keen and practical conscience of sin; an overpowering vision of G.o.d, in whose immediate intimacy the prophet believes himself to be; and a very sharp perception of the politics of the day.

One question rises. In this part of Isaiah's ministry there is no trace of that Figure whom we chiefly identify with his preaching, the Messiah.

Let us have patience; it is not time for him; but the following is his connection with the prophet's present doctrines.

Isaiah's great result at present is the certainty of a remnant. That remnant will require two things--they will require a rallying-point, and they will require a leader. Henceforth Isaiah's prophesying will be bent to one or other of these. The two grand purposes of his word and work will be, for the sake of the remnant, the inviolateness of Zion, and the coming of the Messiah. The former he has, indeed, already intimated (chap. iv.); the latter is now to share with it his hope and eloquence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (Map) Isaiah's World]

CHAPTER V.

_THE WORLD IN ISAIAH'S DAY AND ISRAEL'S G.o.d._

735-730 B.C.

Up to this point we have been acquainted with Isaiah as a prophet of general principles, preaching to his countrymen the elements of righteousness and judgement, and tracing the main lines of fate along which their evil conduct was rapidly forcing them. We are now to observe him applying these principles to the executive politics of the time, and following Judah's conduct to the issues he had predicted for it in the world outside herself. Hitherto he has been concerned with the inner morals of Jewish society; he is now to engage himself with the effect of these on the fortunes of the Jewish State. In his seventh chapter Isaiah begins that career of practical statesmans.h.i.+p, which not only made him "the greatest political power in Israel since David," but placed him, far above his importance to his own people, upon a position of influence over all ages. To this eminence Isaiah was raised, as we shall see, by two things. First, there was the occasion of his times, for he lived at a juncture at which the vision of the _World_, as distinguished from the _Nation_, opened to his people's eyes. Second, he had the faith which enabled him to realize the government of the World by the One G.o.d, whom he has already beheld exalted and sovereign within the Nation. In the Nation we have seen Isaiah led to emphasize very absolutely the righteousness of G.o.d; applying this to the whole World, he is now to speak as the prophet of what we call Providence. He has seen Jehovah ruling in righteousness in Judah; he is now to take possession of the nations of the World in Jehovah's name. But we mistake Isaiah if we think it is any abstract doctrine of providence which he is about to inculcate. For him G.o.d's providence has in the meantime but one end: the preservation of a remnant of the holy people. Afterwards we shall find him expecting besides, the conversion of the whole World to faith in Israel's G.o.d.

The World in Isaiah's day was practically Western Asia. History had not long dawned upon Europe; over Western Asia it was still noon. Draw a line from the Caspian to the mouth of the Persian Gulf; between that line and another crossing the Levant to the west of Cyprus, and continuing along the Libyan border of Egypt, lay the highest forms of religion and civilisation which our race had by that period achieved.

This was the World on which Isaiah looked out from Jerusalem, the furthest borders of which he has described in his prophecies, and in the political history of which he ill.u.s.trated his great principles. How was it composed?

There were, first of all, at either end of it, north-east and south-west, the two great empires of a.s.sYRIA and EGYPT, in many respects wonderful counterparts of each other. No one will understand the history of Palestine, who has not grasped its geographical position relative to these similar empires. Syria, shut up between the Mediterranean sea and the Arabian desert, has its outlets north and south into two great river-plains, each of them ending in a delta. Territories of that kind exert a double force on the world with which they are connected, now drawing across their boundaries the hungry races of neighbouring highlands and deserts, and again sending them forth, compact and resistless armies. This double action summarises the histories of both Egypt and a.s.syria from the earliest times to the period which we are now treating, and was the cause of the constant circulation, by which, as the Bible bears witness, the life of Syria was stirred from the Tower of Babel downwards. Mesopotamia and the Nile valley drew races as beggars to their rich pasture grounds, only to send them forth in subsequent centuries as conquerors. The century of Isaiah fell in a period of forward movement. a.s.syria and Egypt were afraid to leave each other in peace; and the wealth of Phnicia, grown large enough to excite their cupidity, lay between them. In each of these empires, however, there was something to hamper this aggressive impulse. Neither a.s.syria nor Egypt was a h.o.m.ogeneous State. The valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile were, each of them the home of two nations. Beside a.s.syria lay Babylonia, once a.s.syria's mistress, and now of all the a.s.syrian provinces by far the hardest to hold in subjection, although it lay the nearest to home. In Isaiah's time, when an a.s.syrian monarch is unable to come into Palestine, Babylon is generally the reason; and it is by intriguing with Babylon that a king of Judah attempts to keep a.s.syria away from his own neighbourhood. But Babylon only delayed the a.s.syrian conquest. In Egypt, on the other hand, power was more equally balanced between the hardier people up the Nile and the wealthier people down the Nile--between the Ethiopians and the Egyptians proper. It was the repeated and undecisive contests between these two during the whole of Isaiah's day, which kept Egypt from being an effective force in the politics of Western Asia. In Isaiah's day no Egyptian army advanced more than a few leagues beyond its own frontier.

Next in this world of Western Asia come the PHNICIANS. We may say that they connected Egypt and a.s.syria, for although Phnicia proper meant only the hundred and fifty miles of coast between Carmel and the bay of Antioch, the Phnicians had large colonies on the delta of the Nile and trading posts upon the Euphrates. They were gathered into independent but more or less confederate cities, the chief of them Tyre and Sidon; which, while they attempted the offensive only in trade, were by their wealth and maritime advantages capable of offering at once a stronger attraction and a more stubborn resistance to the a.s.syrian arms, than any other power of the time. Between Phnicia proper and the mouths of the Nile, the coast was held by groups of PHILISTINE cities, whose nearness to Egypt rather than their own strength was the source of a frequent audacity against a.s.syria, and the reason why they appear in the history of this period oftener than any other State as the object of a.s.syrian campaigns.

Behind Phnicia and the Philistines lay a number of inland territories: the sister-States of Judah and Northern Israel, with their cousins Edom, Moab, and Aram or Syria. Of which JUDAH and ISRAEL were together about the size of Wales; EDOM a mountain range the size and shape of Cornwall; MOAB, on its north, a broken tableland, about a Devons.h.i.+re; and ARAM, or SYRIA, a territory round Damascus, of uncertain size, but considerable enough to have resisted a.s.syria for a hundred and twenty years. Beyond Aram, again, to the north, lay the smaller State of HAMATH, in the mouth of the pa.s.s between the Lebanons, with nothing from it to the Euphrates. And then, hovering upon the east of these settled States, were a variety of more or less NOMADIC TRIBES, whose refuges were the vast deserts of which so large a part of Western Asia consists.

Here was a world, with some of its const.i.tuents wedged pretty firmly by mutual pressure, but in the main broken and restless--a political surface that was always changing. The whole was subject to the movements of the two empires at its extremes. One of them could not move without sending a thrill through to the borders of the other. The approximate distances were these:--from Egypt's border to Jerusalem, about one hundred miles; from Jerusalem to Samaria, forty-five; from Samaria to Damascus, one hundred and fifteen; from Damascus to Hamath, one hundred and thirty; and from Hamath to the Euphrates, one hundred; in all from the border of Egypt to the border of a.s.syria four hundred and ninety English statute miles. The main line of war and traffic, coming up from Egypt, kept the coast to the plain of Esdraelon, which it crossed towards Damascus, travelling by the north of the sea of Galilee, _the way of the sea_. Northern Israel was bound to fall an early prey to armies, whose easiest path thus traversed her richest provinces. Judah, on the other hand, occupied a position so elevated and apart, that it was likely to be the last that either a.s.syria or Egypt would achieve in their subjugation of the States between them.

Thus, then, Western Asia spread itself out in Isaiah's day. Let us take one more rapid glance across it. a.s.syria to the north, powerful and on the offensive, but hampered by Babylon; Egypt on the south, weakened and in reserve; all the cities and States between turning their faces desperately northwards, but each with an ear bent back for the promises of the laggard southern power, and occasionally supported by its subsidies; Hamath, their advanced guard at the mouth of the pa.s.s between the Lebanons, looking out towards the Euphrates; Tyre and Sidon attractive to the a.s.syrian king, whose policy is ultimately commercial, by their wealth, both they and the Philistine cities obstructing his path by the coast to his great rival of Egypt; Israel bulwarked against a.s.syria by Hamath and Damascus, but in danger, as soon as they fall, of seeing her richest provinces overrun; Judah unlikely in the general restlessness to retain her hold upon Edom, but within her own borders tolerably secure, neither lying in the a.s.syrian's path to Egypt, nor wealthy enough to attract him out of it; safe, therefore, in the neutrality which Isaiah ceaselessly urges her to preserve, and in danger of suction into the whirlpool of the approach of the two empires only through the foolish desire of her rulers to secure an utterly unnecessary alliance with the one or the other of them.

For a hundred and twenty years before the advent of Isaiah, the annals of the a.s.syrian kings record periodical campaigns against the cities of "the land of the west," but these isolated incursions were followed by no permanent results. In 745, however, five years before King Uzziah died, a soldier ascended the throne of a.s.syria, under the t.i.tle of Tiglath-pileser II.,[11] who was determined to achieve the conquest of the whole world and its organization as his empire. Where his armies came, it was not simply to chastise or demand tribute, but to annex countries, carry away their populations and exploit their resources. It was no longer kings who were threatened; peoples found themselves in danger of extinction. This terrible purpose of the a.s.syrian was pursued with vast means and the utmost ferocity. He has been called the Roman of the East, and up to a certain degree we may imagine his policy by remembering all that is familiar to us of its execution by Rome: its relentlessness, impetus and mysterious action from one centre; the discipline, the speed, the strange appearance, of his armies. But there was an Oriental savagery about a.s.syria, from which Rome was free. The a.s.syrian kings moved in the power of their brutish and stormy G.o.ds--G.o.ds that were in the shape of bulls and had the wings as of the tempest. The annals of these kings, in which they describe their campaigns, are full of talk about trampling down their enemies; about showering tempests of clubs upon them, and raining a deluge of arrows; about overwhelming them, and sweeping them off the face of the land, and strewing them like chaff on the sea; about chariots with scythes, and wheels clogged with blood; about great baskets stuffed with the salted heads of their foes.

It is a mixture of the Roman and Red Indian.

[11] The Pul of 2 Kings xv. 19 and the Tiglath-pileser of 2 Kings xvi.

are the same.

Picture the effect of the onward movement of such a force upon the imaginations and policies of those little States that cl.u.s.tered round Judah and Israel. Settling their own immemorial feuds, they sought alliance with one another against this common foe. Tribes, that for centuries had stained their borders with one another's blood, came together in unions, the only reason for which was that their common fear had grown stronger than their mutual hate. Now and then a king would be found unwilling to enter such an alliance or eager to withdraw from it, in the hope of securing by his exceptional conduct the favour of the a.s.syrian, whom he sought further to ingratiate by voluntary tribute. The s.h.i.+fting att.i.tudes of the petty kings towards a.s.syria bewilder the reader of the a.s.syrian annals. The foes of one year are the tributaries of the next; the State, that has called for help this campaign, appears as the rebel of that. In 742, Uzziah of Judah is cursed by Tiglath-pileser as an arch-enemy; Samaria and Damascus are recorded as faithful tributaries. Seven years later Ahaz of Judah offers tribute to the a.s.syrian king, and Damascus and Samaria are invaded by the a.s.syrian armies. What a world it was, and what politics! A world of petty clans, with no idea of a common humanity, and with no motive for union except fear; politics without a n.o.ble thought or long purpose in them, the politics of peoples at bay--the last flicker of dying nationalities,-- _stumps of smoking firebrands_, as Isaiah described two of them.

When we turn to the little we know of the religions of these tribes, we find nothing to arrest their restlessness or broaden their thoughts.

These nations had their religions, and called on their G.o.ds, but their G.o.ds were made in their own image, their religion was the reflex of their life. Each of them employed, rather than wors.h.i.+pped, its deity. No nation believed in its G.o.d except as one among many, with his sovereignty limited to its own territory, and his ability to help it conditioned by the power of the other G.o.ds, against whose peoples he was fighting. There was no belief in "Providence," no idea of unity or of progress in history, no place in these religions for the great world-force that was advancing upon their peoples.

From this condemnation we cannot except the people of Jehovah. It is undeniable that the ma.s.s of them occupied at this time pretty much the same low religious level as their neighbours. We have already seen (chap. i.) their mean estimate of what G.o.d required from themselves; with that corresponded their view of His position towards the world. To the majority of the Israelites their G.o.d was but one out of many, with His own battles to fight and have fought for Him, a Patron sometimes to be ashamed of, and by no means a Saviour in whom to place an absolute trust. When Ahaz is beaten by Syria, he says: _Because the G.o.ds of the kings of Syria helped them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me_ (2 Chron. xxviii. 23). Religion to Ahaz was only another kind of diplomacy. He was not a fanatic, but a diplomat, who made his son to pa.s.s through the fire to Moloch, and burnt incense in the high places and on the hills, and under every green tree. He was more a political than a religious eclectic, who brought back the pattern of the Damascus altar to Jerusalem. The Temple, in which Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, became under Ahaz, and by the help of the priesthood, the shelter of various idols; in every corner of Jerusalem altars were erected to other G.o.ds. This religious hospitality was the outcome neither of imagination nor of liberal thought; it was prompted only by political fear. Ahaz has been mistaken in the same way as Charles I. was--for a bigot, and one who subjected the welfare of his kingdom to a superst.i.tious regard for religion. But beneath the cloak of religious scrupulousness and false reverence,[12] there was in Ahaz the same selfish fear for the safety of his crown and his dynasty, as those who best knew the English monarch tell us, was the real cause of his ceaseless intrigue and stupid obstinacy.

[12] Isa. vii. 12.

Now that we have surveyed this world, its politics and its religion, we can estimate the strength and originality of the Hebrew prophets. Where others saw the conflicts of nations, aided by deities as doubtfully matched as themselves, they perceived all things working together by the will of one supreme G.o.d and serving His ends of righteousness. It would be wrong to say, that before the eighth century the Hebrew conception of G.o.d had been simply that of a national deity, for this would be to ignore the remarkable emphasis placed by the Hebrews from very early times upon Jehovah's righteousness. But till the eighth century the horizon of the Hebrew mind had been the border of their territory; the historical theatre on which it saw G.o.d working was the national life.

Now, however, the Hebrews were drawn into the world; they felt movements of which their own history was but an eddy; they saw the advance of forces against which their own armies, though inspired by Jehovah, had no chance of material success. The perspective was entirely changed; their native land took to most of them the aspect of a petty and worthless province, their G.o.d the rank of a mere provincial deity; they refused the waters of s.h.i.+loah, that go softly, and rejoiced in the glory of the king of a.s.syria, the king of the great River and the hosts that moved with the strength of its floods. It was at this moment that the prophets of Israel performed their supreme religious service. While Ahaz and the ma.s.s of the people ill.u.s.trated the impotence of the popular religion, by admitting to an equal place in the national temple the G.o.ds of their victorious foes, the prophets boldly took possession of the whole world in the name of Jehovah of hosts, and exalted Him to the throne of the supreme Providence. Now they could do this only by emphasizing and developing the element of righteousness in the old conception of Him. This attribute of Jehovah took absolute possession of the prophets; and in the strength of its inspiration they were enabled, at a time when it would have been the sheerest folly to promise Israel victory against a foe like a.s.syria, to a.s.severate that even that supreme world-power was in the hand of Jehovah, and that He must be trusted to lead up all the movements of which the a.s.syrians were the main force to the ends He had so plainly revealed to His chosen Israel. Even before Isaiah's time such principles had been proclaimed by Amos and Hosea, but it was Isaiah, who both gave to them their loftiest expression, and applied them with the utmost detail and persistence to the practical politics of Judah. We have seen him, in the preliminary stages of his ministry under Uzziah and Jotham, reaching most exalted convictions of the righteousness of Jehovah, as contrasted with the people's view of their G.o.d's "nationalism." But we are now to follow him boldly applying this faith--won within the life of Judah, won, as he tells us, by the personal inspiration of Judah's G.o.d--to the problems and movements of the whole world as they bear upon Israel's fate. The G.o.d, who is supreme in Judah through righteousness, cannot but be supreme everywhere else, for there is nothing in the world higher than righteousness. Isaiah's faith in a Divine Providence is a close corollary to his faith in Jehovah's righteousness; and of one part of that Providence he had already received conviction--_A remnant shall remain_. Ahaz may crowd Jerusalem with foreign altars and idols, so as to be able to say: "We have with us, on our side, Moloch and Chemosh and Rimmon and the G.o.ds of Damascus and a.s.syria." Isaiah, in the face of this folly, lifts up his simple gospel: "Immanu-El. We have with us, in our own Jehovah of hosts, El, the one supreme G.o.d, Ruler of heaven and earth."

CHAPTER VI.

_KING AND MESSIAH; PEOPLE AND CHURCH._

ISAIAH vii., viii., ix. 1-8.

735-732 B.C.

This section of the book of Isaiah (vii.-ix. 7) consists of a number of separate prophecies uttered during a period of at least three years: 735-732 B.C. By 735 Ahaz had ascended the throne; Tiglath-pileser had been occupied in the far east for two years. Taking advantage of the weakness of the former and the distance of the latter, Rezin, king of Damascus, and Pekah, king of Samaria, planned an invasion of Judah. It was a venture they would not have dared had Uzziah been alive. While Rezin marched down the east of the Jordan and overturned the Jewish supremacy in Edom, Pekah threw himself into Judah, defeated the armies of Ahaz in one great battle, and besieged Jerusalem, with the object of deposing Ahaz and setting a Syrian, Ben-Tabeel, in his stead.

Simultaneously the Philistines attacked Judah from the south-west. The motive of the confederates was in all probability anger with Ahaz for refusing to enter with them into a Pan-Syrian alliance against a.s.syria.

In his distress Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-pileser, and the a.s.syrian swiftly responded. In 734--it must have been less than a year since Ahaz was attacked--the hosts of the north had overrun Samaria and swept as far south as the cities of the Philistines. Then, withdrawing his troops again, Tiglath-pileser left Hoshea as his va.s.sal on Pekah's throne, and sending the population of Israel east of the Jordan into distant captivity, completed a two years' siege of Damascus (734-732) by its capture. At Damascus Ahaz met the conqueror, and having paid him tribute, took out a further policy of insurance in the altar-pattern, which he brought back with him to Jerusalem. Such were the three years, whose rapid changes unfolded themselves in parallel with these prophecies of Isaiah. The details are not given by the prophet, but we must keep in touch with them while we listen to him. Especially must we remember their central point, _the decision of Ahaz to call in the help of a.s.syria_, a decision which affected the whole course of politics for the next thirty years. Some of the oracles of this section were plainly delivered by Isaiah before that event, and simply seek to inspire Ahaz with a courage which should feel a.s.syrian help to be needless; others, again, imply that Ahaz has already called in the a.s.syrian: they taunt him with hankering after foreign strength, and depict the woes which the a.s.syrian will bring upon the land; while others (for example, the pa.s.sage ix. 1-7) mean that the a.s.syrian has already come, and that the Galilean provinces of Israel have been depopulated, and promise a Deliverer. If we do not keep in mind the decision of Ahaz, we shall not understand these seemingly contradictory utterances, which it thoroughly explains. Let us now begin at the beginning of chapter vii. It opens with a bare statement, by way of t.i.tle, of the invasion of Judah and the futile result; and then proceeds to tell us how Isaiah acted from the first rumour of the confederacy onward.

I. THE KING (chap. vii.).

_And it came to pa.s.s in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it._ This is a summary of the whole adventure and issue of the war, given by way of introduction. The narrative proper begins in verse 2, with the effect of the first news of the league upon Ahaz and his people. Their hearts were moved, like the trees of the forest before the wind. The league was aimed so evidently against the two things most essential to the national existence and the honour of Jehovah; the dynasty of David, namely, and the inviolability of Jerusalem. Judah had frequently before suffered the loss of her territory; never till now were the throne and city of David in actual peril. But that, which bent both king and people by its novel terror, was the test Isaiah expected for the prophecies he had already uttered.

Taking with him, as a summary of them, his boy with the name Shear-Jashub--_A-remnant-shall-return_--Isaiah faced Ahaz and his court in the midst of their preparation for the siege. They were examining--but more in panic than in prudence--the water supply of the city, when Isaiah delivered to them a message from the Lord, which may be paraphrased as follows: _Take heed and be quiet_, keep your eyes open and your heart still; _fear not, neither be faint-hearted, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Remaliah's son_. They have no power to set you on fire. They are _but stumps of expiring firebrands_, almost burnt out.

While you wisely look after your water supply, do so in hope. This purpose of deposing you is vain. _Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pa.s.s._ Of whom are you afraid? Look those foes of yours in the face. _The head of Syria is Damascus, and Damascus' head is Rezin_: is he worth fearing? _The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and Samaria's head is Remaliah's son_: is he worth fearing?

Within a few years they will certainly be destroyed. But whatever estimate you make of your foes, whatever their future may be, for yourself have faith in G.o.d; for you that is the essential thing. _If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established._[13]

[13] There is a play upon words here, which may be reproduced in English by the help of a North-England term: If ye have not _faith_, ye cannot have _staith_.

This paraphrase seeks to bring out the meaning of a pa.s.sage confessedly obscure. It seems as if we had only bits of Isaiah's speech to Ahaz and must supply the gaps. No one need hesitate, however, to recognize the conspicuous personal qualities--the combination of political sagacity with religious fear, of common-sense and courage rooted in faith. In a word, this is what Isaiah will say to the king, clever in his alliances, religious and secular, and busy about his material defences: "Take unto you the s.h.i.+eld of faith. You have lost your head among all these things.

Hold it up like a man behind that s.h.i.+eld; take a rational view of affairs. Rate your enemies at their proper value. But for this you must believe in G.o.d. Faith in Him is the essential condition of a calm mind and a rational appreciation of affairs."

It is, no doubt, difficult for us to realize that the truth which Isaiah thus enforced on King Ahaz--the government of the world and human history by one supreme G.o.d--was ever a truth of which the race stood in ignorance. A generation like ours cannot be expected to put its mind in the att.i.tude of those of Isaiah's contemporaries who believed in the real existence of many G.o.ds with limited sovereignties. To us, who are full of the instincts of Divine Providence and of the presence in history of law and progress, it is extremely hard even to admit the fact--far less fully to realize what it means--that our race had ever to receive these truths as fresh additions to their stock of intellectual ideas. Yet, without prejudice to the claims of earlier prophets, this may be confidently affirmed: that Isaiah where we now meet him stood on one side believing in one supreme G.o.d, Lord of heaven and earth, and his generation stood on the other side, believing that there were many G.o.ds.

Isaiah, however, does not pose as the discoverer of the truth he preaches; he does not present it as a new revelation, nor put it in a formula. He takes it for granted, and proceeds to bring its moral influence to bear. He will infect men with his own utter conviction of it, in order that he may strengthen their character and guide them by paths of safety. His speech to Ahaz is an exhibition of the moral and rational effects of believing in Providence. Ahaz is a sample of the _character_ polytheism produced; the state of mind and heart to which Isaiah exhorts him is that induced by belief in one righteous and almighty G.o.d. We can make the contrast clear to ourselves by a very definite figure.

The difference, which is made to the character and habits of men if the country they live in has a powerful government or not, is well known. If there be no such central authority, it is a case of every man's hand against his neighbour. Men walk armed to the teeth. A constant att.i.tude of fear and suspicion warps the whole nature. The pa.s.sions are excited and magnified; the intelligence and judgement are dwarfed. Just the same after its kind is life to the man or tribe, who believe, that the world in which they dwell and the life they share with others have no central authority. They walk armed with prejudices, superst.i.tions and selfishnesses. They create, like Ahaz, their own providences, and still, like him, feel insecure. Everything is exaggerated by them; in each evil there lurks to their imagination unlimited hostility. They are without breadth of view or length of patience. But let men believe that life has a central authority, that G.o.d is supreme, and they will fling their prejudices and superst.i.tions to the winds, now no more needed than the antiquated fortresses and weapons by which our forefathers, in days when the government was weak, were forced to defend their private interests.

When we know that G.o.d reigns, how quiet and free it makes us! When things and men are part of His scheme and working out His ends, when we understand that they are not monsters but ministers, how reasonably we can look at them! Were we afraid of Syria and Ephraim? Why, the head of Syria is this fellow Rezin, the head of Ephraim this son of Remaliah!

They cannot last long; G.o.d's engine stands behind to smite them. By the reasonable government of G.o.d, let us be reasonable! Let us take heed and be quiet. Have faith in G.o.d, and to faith will come her proper consequent of commonsense.

For the higher a man looks, the farther he sees: to us that is the practical lesson of these first nine verses of the seventh chapter. The very gesture of faith bestows upon the mind a breadth of view. The man, who lifts his face to G.o.d in heaven, is he whose eyes sweep simultaneously the farthest prospect of earth, and bring to him a sense of the proportion of things. Ahaz, facing his nearest enemies, does not see over their heads, and in his consternation at their appearance prepares to embark upon any policy that suggests itself, even though it be so rash as the summoning of the a.s.syrian. Isaiah, on the other hand, with his vision fixed on G.o.d as the Governor of the world, is enabled to overlook the dust that darkens Judah's frontier, to see behind it the inevitable advance of the a.s.syrians, and to be a.s.sured that, whether Ahaz calls them to his quarrel or no, they will very soon of their own motion overwhelm both of his enemies. From these _two smoking firebrands_ there is then no real danger. But from the a.s.syrian, if once Judah entangle herself in his toils, there is the most extreme danger.

Isaiah's advice is therefore not mere religious quietism; it is prudent policy. It is the best political advice that could have been offered at that crisis, as we have already been able to gather from a survey of the geographical and political dispositions of Western Asia,[14] apart altogether from religious considerations. But to Isaiah the calmness requisite for this sagacity sprang from his faith. Mr. Bagehot might have appealed to Isaiah's whole policy in ill.u.s.tration of what he has so well described as the military and political benefits of religion.

Monotheism is of advantage to men not only by reason of "the high concentration of steady feeling" which it produces, but also for the mental calmness and sagacity, which surely spring from a pure and vivid conviction that the Lord reigneth.[15]