Israel's happiness is inseparable from the ruin and destruction of Israel's foes. So the description we have just read of the joyous return of many exiles demands for its completion an ode of triumph over the enemy. That is the character of the poem with which the sixty-third chapter begins-the most vigorous and most original of all Trito-Isaiah's compositions. In form it is a dramatic dialogue between a chorus of Israelites and a triumphant warrior who approaches the city stained with the blood of battle. To the first challenge the mysterious figure replies: It is I, that am glorious in victory, mighty in power to save. Asked by the chorus why his garments are so red, as though he had been treading the winepress, the speaker reveals himself as Jehovah, and describes how, alone and unaided, he has won a victory over the enemies of Israel. No Assyrian or Persian army, as in former days, served as the instrument of his vengeance-the rod of his anger-but his own hand has wrought the victory. The English Bible, following the received Hebrew text, represents the victor as coming from Bozrah, the capital of Edom. Scholars have searched in vain for an incident in the history of that nation which might afford some ground for such a chant of victory. And in the later verses, where the victory is described, it is not Edom but 'the peoples' that are the foe. From these facts two different conclusions are possible. Some scholars believe that the reading of the ordinary text is right, and suppose that Edom is mentioned (as in chapter xxxv) without any special reference, but merely as a type of heathen. countries. A more probable view, and better supported, is that the proper names have crept into the text through a very natural misreading of the original. Particular names appear out of place in a poem whose whole character is ideal. Its dramatic form and apocalyptic tone give it the air, not of recording an actual event, but of giving shape to an indefinite hope. The poem ends abruptly, the conclusion having been lost. Perhaps that is just as well: for already the vigour of the style is beginning to fail, and the last words which remain are little more than a feeble repetition of what has been better said already. § 114. After this follow two very remarkable utterances, which are closely connected both in substance and in style. They are both prayers, and both remind us of the later psalms; yet in tone they are strongly contrasted. The first is a beautiful expression of meditative piety. After a thankful commemoration of Jehovah's mercies to Israel, which were requited with ingratitude and rebellion, it tells how, taught at last by suffering, Israel looked back with longing upon the days of old, when Jehovah led his people through the wilderness. The fourth stanza is incomplete; and it may well be that others have been lost. § 115. The transition from that prayer to the next is like passing from the hundred-and-sixth psalm to the seventy-fourth. For though the main subject is the same, the language has changed from quiet meditation to ardent entreaty. Such a prayer defies analysis: for each of the six moving stanzas contains a separate appeal. Incidentally it tells us a good deal about the historical situation. The Samaritans have broken down the city walls which Ezra began to build, and have even invaded the sanctity of the Temple. The people, in despair, have turned away from the worship of Jehovah, and plunged into strange idolatries. By some method of necromancy they have appealed to Abraham for aid, but have obtained no answer. Now they plead that, after all they are the sons of Jehovah they entreat that he will cease from the wrath which frightens them into further sin, and will deliver them from the cruelty of their foes. : It was natural that sufferers in the Maccabaean age, finding this prayer so apt for their own situation, should use it as a psalm. In order to adopt it more completely they seem to have added the stanza which makes verses 9 to 11 in our Bible. It refers to the burning of the Temple in terms which remind us of the Maccabaean psalms. The deep and true feeling which penetrates the whole of this prayer, and lends it a special dignity of style, has made it one of the most famous passages in the book of Isaiah. The characteristic defects of the author are not, indeed, altogether absent. Echoes of the earlier prophets are heard throughout: the connexion of thought is not clear: and there is the usual downward tendency at the close. But these defects, like the spots in the sun, are only visible through the telescope of analysis. The ordinary eye perceives only the glorious light and heat of an exalted passion. CHAPTER XXXI THE GREAT SACRILEGE THE last eight prophecies of Trito-Isaiah form a distinct group, which offers a striking contrast, not only to the pathetic humility of §§ 114, 115, and the cheerful confidence of §§ 108, 109, but also to the moral exhortation of § 106. The tone of these last utterances is one of restless excitement, as if a great crisis were impending. The subject is no longer morality nor national hopes, but forms of worship. The persons concerned are the same as in § 104: on the one side the pious Jews who are obedient to the code of law which Ezra brought from Babylon on the other side are the Samaritans and all who sympathize with them. The prophet turns his address from one class to the other, while his voice rings, not evenly and calmly, but with the fitful violence of a fire-alarm. A half suppressed fury mars the style and the rhythm of all these eight prophecies and the last of them can hardly be described as a poem at all. What is the occasion of so much excitement? The poems do not offer any direct account of the matter: but they contain allusions which may guide us to a probable explanation. We find no traces of any external event. On the surface the situation in Jerusalem is unchanged. The pious Jews are suffering, but full of hope that their brethren will return from exile and share the glory which is to come. The unfaithful Jews, mainly the descendants of those who were not carried into exile, are intriguing with the Samaritans, and perhaps adopting their syncretic worship. At any rate they are maintaining the old custom of sacrificing in high places, contrary to the law of Deuteronomy. The Samaritans, a people of mixed race, who combine the All that was true when the earlier I. The first verse of chapter lxvi implies that some one is proposing to build a new Temple to Jehovah, which will be a rival to that in Jerusalem. A few years later the Samaritans did actually build a temple on Mount Gerizim, which became the centre of schismatic worship for many centuries. We can scarcely doubt, therefore, that they were the leaders in the movement. The prophet, however, seems to address himself to others besides the Samaritans: to a party among the older inhabitants of Judah, who were strongly opposed to Ezra's new code, out of sympathy with the rigorism of the Restoration, and attached to old customs which the reformers reckoned heathenish. It is easy to imagine how such a party, resenting the violence of Ezra's methods, might regard him as a heretic, and be willing to join in building a new temple where the ritual would be more to their taste. Their feeling would be strengthened by a righteous indignation against the cruel insult which the Samaritans had received when all foreign wives were suddenly driven away from Judah to their former homes. We can also sympathize with the prophet. In spite of all the differences of worship, and all the mutual outrages, which divided the Jew from the Samaritan, he had cherished (it would seem) a hope that at last the schismatics would repent, renounce their heathenish ways, and come humbly to beg for admission to the outer court of the Temple. When he realizes that after all they acknowledge no inferiority, but claim to be true worshippers of Jehovah, and propose to erect a rival sanctuary, his indignation knows no bounds. It overflows upon all who in any degree associate themselves with the impious and defiant race of bastard heretics. II. Two of these prophecies (§ 116 and § 122) denounce a |