ever, to the reproof and exhortation, is made at the close of the second book. From chap. lv. 1, the preaching of repentance appears first intermingled with the announcement of salvation. Up to that, the prevailing tendency of the Prophet had been, throughout, to comfort the godly; but from chap. lv. 1, the other tendency shows itself by the side of it, that of calling sinners to repentance, by which alone they can obtain a participaton in the promised salvation. In chap. lvi. 9, lvii. 21, the latter tendency appears distinctly and exclusively. The second book had commenced with the announcement of salvation, and thence to the close had advanced to reproof and threatening. The third book takes the opposite course; and thus the two principal portions of reproof and threatening border upon one another. Yet, the reproof and threatening do not go on without interruption and distinction, so that no boundary line could be recognized between the two books. At the close of the second book, the Prophet has preeminently to do with apostates, while, at the beginning of the third, he has to do with hypocrites; so that thus these two portions of reproof supplement one another, and conjointly form a complete disclosure of the prevailing corruption, according to its two principal tendencies. But the third book is distinguished from the second by this circumstance, that in it reproof and threatening are not limited to the beginning, which corresponds with the close of the second book. At the close of chap. lix. the Prophet returns to the announcement of salvation; but with chap. lxiii. 7, a new preaching of repentance commences, which goes on to the end of chap. lxiv. The Prophet, in the Spirit, transposes himself into the time when the visitation has already taken place, and puts into the mouth of the people the words by which they are, at that time, to supplicate for the mercy of the Lord. This discourse implies what has preceded. In the view of the glorious manifestation of the Lord's mercy and grace which are there exhibited, the Prophet calls here upon the people to repent and be converted, in order that they may become partakers of that mercy. If they, as a people, are anxious to attain that object, they must repeat what the Prophet here pronounces before them. But that, up to this time, has not been done, and hence that has taken place which is spoken by St Paul: "The election have obtained it, but the

rest have been blinded." In chap. lxv., which contains the Lord's answer to this repenting prayer of the people, and is nothing else than an indirect paraenesis, reproof and threatening likewise prevail, and it is only at the close that the promise appears. The last chapter, too, begins with reproof and threatening. Rightly have the Church Fathers called Isaiah the Evangelist among the prophets. This appears also from the circumstance that the reproof is so thoroughly an appendage of the promise, that it is only at the close, after the whole riches of the promise have been exhibited, that it expands itself. It appears, farther, also from the circumstance that, even in the last book, the threatening does not prevail exclusively, but that, even there, it is still interwoven with the most glorious promises which are so exceedingly fitted to allure sinners to repentance.

In the whole of the second part, the Prophet, as a rule, takes his stand in the time which was announced and foretold in the former prophecies, and especially, with the greatest clearness and distinctness, in chap. xxxix., on the threshold of the second part, -the time when Jerusalem is captured by the Chaldeans, the temple destroyed, the country desolated, and the people carried away. It is in this time that he thinks, feels, and acts; it has become present to him; from it he looks out into the Future, yet in such a manner that he does not everywhere consistently maintain this ideal stand-point. He addresses his discourse to the people pining away in captivity and misery. He comforts them by opening up a view into a better Future, and exhorts them to remove by repentance the obstacles to the coming salvation.

Rationalistic Exegesis, everywhere little able to sympathize with, and enter into existing circumstances and conditions, and always ready to make its own shadowy, coarse views the rule and arbiter, has been little able to enter into, and sympathize with this ideal stand-point occupied by the Prophet; nor has it had the earnest will to do so. To its rationalistic tendencies, which took offence at the clear knowledge of the Future, a welcome pretext was here offered. Thus the opinion arose, that the second part was not written by Isaiah, but was the work of some anonymous prophet, living about the end of the exile,—an opinion which, at the time of the absolute dominion of Rationalism, has

obtained so firm a footing, that it has become all but an axiom, and, by the power of tradition, carries away even such as would not think of entertaining it, if they were to enter independently and without prejudice upon the investigation.

The fact which here meets us does not by any means stand isolated. The prophets did not prophecy in the state of rational reflection, but in exstasis. As even their ordinary name, “seers,” indicates, the objects were presented to them in inward vision. They did not behold the Future from a distance, but they were rapt into the future. This inward vision is frequently reflected in their representation. Very frequently, that appears with them as present which, in reality, was still future. They depict the Future before the eyes of their hearers and readers, and thus, as it were, by force, drag them into it out of the Present, the coercing force of which exerts so pernicious an influence upon them. Our Prophet expressly intimates this peculiar manner of the prophetic announcement by making, in chap xlix. 7, the Lord say : "First I said to Zion: Behold there, behold there," by which the graphic character of prophecy is precisely expressed, and by which it is intimated that hearers and readers were led in rem praesentem by the prophets. Even grammar has long ago acknowledged this fact, inasmuch as it speaks of Praeterita prophetica, i.e. such as denote the ideal Past, in contrast to those which denote the real Past. Unless we have attained to this view and insight, it is only by inconsistency that we can escape from Eichhorn's view, that the prophecies are, for the most part, disguised historical descriptions,-a view into which even expositors, such as Ewald and Hitzig, frequently relapse. Frequently, the whole of the Future appears with the prophets in the form of the Present. At other times, they take their stand in the more immediate Future; and this becomes to them the ideal Present, from which they direct the eye to the distant Future. From the rich store of proofs which we can adduce for our view, we shall here mention only a few.

This mode of representation meets us frequently so early as in the parting hymn of Moses, Deut. xxxii., which may be considered as the germ of all prophetism; compare e.g. vers. 7 and 8. On the latter verse, Clericus remarks: "Moses mourns over this in his hymn, as if it were already past, because he foresees

that it will be so, and he, in the Spirit, transfers himself into those future times, and says that which then only should be said."

In Isaiah himself, the very first chapter presents a remarkable proof. The Present in chap. i. 5—9 is not a real, but an ideal Present. In the Spirit, the Prophet transfers himself into the time of the calamity impending upon the apostate people, and, stepping back upon the real Present, he, in the farther course of the prophecy, predicts this calamity as future. The reasons for this view have been thoroughly stated, even to exhaustion, by Caspari in his Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Buch Jesaia. In the second half of ver. 2, the kingdom appears as flourishing and powerful, To the same result we are led also by the description of the rich sacrificial worship in ver. 15-19. If, then, we view vers. 5-9 as a description of the Present, we obtain an irreconcilable contradiction. Farther Everywhere else Isaiah always connects, with the description of the sin, that of the punishment following upon it, but never that of the punishment which has followed it.-In chap. v. 13, in a prophecy from the first time of his ministry, the future carrying away of the people presents itself to the Prophet as present. Similarly, in vers. 25, 26, the Praet. and Fut. with Vav Conv. must be understood prophetically; for in chap. i.—v., the Prophet has, throughout, to do with future calamity. In the Present, according to ver. 19, the people are yet in a condition of prosperity and luxury,—as yet, it is the time of mocking; it is only of future calamity that vers. 5 and 6 in the parable speak of, the threatenings of which are here detailed and expanded.-In the prophecy against Tyre, chap. xxiii., the Prophet beholds as present the siege by the Chaldeans impending over the city, and describes as an eye-witness the flight of the inhabitants, and the impression which the intelligence of their calamity makes upon the nations connected with them. From the more immediate Future, which to him has become present, he then casts a glance to the more distant. He announces that after 70 years-counting not from the real, but from the ideal Present-the city shall again attain to its ancient greatness. His look then rises still higher, and he beholds how at length, in the days of Messiah, the Tyrians shall be received into the communion of the true God.--The future dispersion and carrying away of the people is anticipated by the Prophet in the passage, chap. xi. 11, also, which may be considered as a

comprehensive view of the whole second part.-It is true that, in the second part, as a rule, the misery, and not the salvation, appears as present; but, not unfrequently, the latter, too, is viewed as present by the Prophet, and spoken of in Preterites, comp. e.g., chap. xl. 2, xlvi. 1, 2, li. 3, lii. 9, 10, lx. 1. If, then, the Prophet is to be measured by the ordinary rule, these passages, too, must have been written at a time when the salvation had already taken place.-In chap. xlv. 20, the escaped of the nations are those Gentiles who have been spared in the divine judgments. They are to become wise by the sufferings of others. The Prophet takes his stand in a time when these judgments, which were to be inflicted by Cyrus, had already been completed. Even those who maintain the spuriousness of the second part must here acknowledge that the Prophet takes his stand in an ideal Present.--In chap. liii. the Prophet takes his stand between the sufferings and the glorification of the Messiah. The sufferings appear to him as past; the glorification he represents as future.

Hosea had, in chap. xiii., predicted to Israel great divine judgments, the desolation of the country, and the carrying away of its inhabitants by powerful enemies. This punishment and judgment appear in chap. xiv. 1 (xiii. 16) as still future; but in ver. 2 (1 ff.) he transfers himself in spirit to the time when these judgments had already been inflicted. He anticipates the Future as having already taken place, and does not by any means exhort his contemporaries to a sincere repentance, but those upon whom the calamity had already been inflicted :-"O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." This parallel passage shews especially, with what right it has been asserted that the addresses to the people pining away in exile "were out of place in the mouth of Isaiah, who, as he lived 150 years before, could prophesy only of the exiled” (Knobel).—Micah says in chap. iv. 8 (compare Vol. i. p. 449 ff.): "And thou tower of the flock, hill of the daughter of Zion, unto thee it will come, and to thee cometh the former dominion." If the Prophet, a cotemporary of Isaiah, speaks here of a former dominion, and announces that it shall again come back to the house of David, he transfers himself from his time, in which the royal family of David still existed and