[ [2]] Caspari very justly remarks: "Nothing can be clearer than that 2 Chron. xxviii. 5 ff. comes in between 2 Kings xvi. 5 a. b.; that the author of the books of the Kings gives a report of the beginning and end; the author of the Chronicles, of the middle of the campaign." But we cannot agree with Caspari in his transferring to Idumea the victory of Rezin. According to Is. vii. 2, Aram was encamped in Ephraim. According to 2 Kings xvi. 5, both of the kings came up to Jerusalem and besieged her. The expedition against Elath, 2 Kings xvi. 6, was secondary, and by the way only.
[ [3]] The words: "In threescore and five years more, Ephraim shall be broken and be no more a people," have, by rationalistic critics, without and against all external arguments, been declared to be spurious. The reasons which serve as fig leaves to cover their doctrinal tendency are the following: (1) "The time does not agree, inasmuch as the ten tribes sustained their first defeat very soon afterwards by Tiglath-pilezer; the second, nineteen to twenty-one years later, by Shalmanezer, who, in the sixth year of Hezekiah, carried the inhabitants of the kingdom of the ten tribes away into captivity." But the question here is the complete destruction of the national existence of Israel; and that took place only under King Manasseh, when, by Azarhaddon, new Gentile colonists were brought into the land, who expelled from it the old inhabitants who had again gathered themselves together; comp. 2 Kings xvii. 24 with Ezra iv. 2, 10. From that time, Israel amalgamated more and more with Judah, and never returned to a national independence. This happened exactly sixty-five years after the announcement by the Prophet. Chap. vi. 12 compared with ver. 13 shows how little the desolation of the country (ver. 16) is connected with the breaking up as a nation. It is, moreover, at least as much the interest of those who assert the spuriousness, as it is ours to remove the chronological difficulties; for how could it be imagined that the supposed author should have introduced a false chronological statement? His object surely could be none other than to procure authority for the Prophet, by putting into his mouth a prophecy so very evidently and manifestly fulfilled. (2) "The words contain an unsuitable consolation, as Ahaz could not be benefitted by so late a destruction of his enemy." But, immediately afterwards, he is even expressly assured that this enemy will not be able to do him any immediate harm. Chrysostom remarks: "The king, hearing that they should be destroyed after sixty-five years, might say within himself: What about that? Although they be then overthrown, of what use is it to us, if they now take us? In order that the king might not speak thus, the Prophet says: Be of good cheer even as to the present. At that time they shall be utterly destroyed; but even now, they shall not have any more than their own land, for 'the head of Ephraim,'"
&c. The preceding distinct announcement of the last end of his enemy, however, was exceedingly well fitted to break in Ahaz the opinion of his invincibility, and to strengthen his faith in the God of Israel, who, with a firm hand, directs the destinies of nations, and, no less, the faith in His servant whom He raises to be privy to His secrets.--(3.) "The use of numbers so exact is against the analogy of all oracles." But immediately afterwards (ver. 15 comp. with chap. viii. 4), the time of the defeat is as exactly fixed, although not in ciphers. In chap. xx. Isaiah announces that after three years the Egyptians and Ethiopians shall sustain a defeat; in chap. xxiii. 15, that Tyre would flourish anew seventy years after its fall; in chap. xxxviii. 5, he announces to Hezekiah, sick unto death, that God would add fifteen years to his life. According to Jeremiah, the Babylonish captivity is to last seventy years; and the fulfilment has shown that this date is not to be understood as a round number. And farther, the year-weeks in Daniel.--But in opposition to this view, and positively in favour of the genuineness, are the following arguments: The words have not only, as is conceded by Ewald, "a true old-Hebrew colouring," but in their emphatic and solemn brevity ("he shall be broken from [being] a people") they do not at all bear the character of an interpolation. If we blot them out, then the Prophet says less than from present circumstances, from ver. 4, where he calls the kings "ends of smoking firebrands," in opposition to ver. 6, and from the analogy of ver. 9, where the threatening is much more severe, he was bound to say. His saying merely that they would not get any more, was not sufficient. He could make the right impression only when he reduced that declaration to its foundation--i.e., their own destruction and overthrow. Ver. 16, too, would go far beyond what would be announced here, if we remove this clause. He announces destruction to the kings themselves. Finally, the symmetrical parallelism would be destroyed by striking out these words. The words: "If ye believe not, ye shall not be established," would, in that case, be without the parallel members. They are connected with the clause under discussion so much the rather, that in them it is not specially Judah's deliverance from the Syrians and Ephraimites that is looked at, but its salvation in general.
[ [4]] By a minute and trifling exposition of what is to be understood as a whole, and comprehensively, many misunderstandings have been introduced into this passage. The defeat of Asshur should take place very soon, but the devastation of the country had been so complete that a longer time would be required before the fields would be again completely cultivated.
[ [5]] Gesenius mentions Pellicanus as the first defender of the Non-Messianic interpretation. But this statement seems to have proceeded from a cursory view of an annotation by Cramer on Richard Simon's Kritische Schriften i. S. 441, where the words: "this historical interpretation Pellicanus too has preferred," do not refer to Isaiah but to Daniel. Nor is there any more ground for the intimation that Theodorus a Mopsuesta rejected the Messianic interpretation.
[THE PROPHECY, CHAP. VIII. 23-IX. 6.]
(Chap. ix. 1-7.)
UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN.
In the view of the Assyrian catastrophe, the Prophet is anxious to bring it home to the consciences of the people that, by their own guilt, they have brought down upon themselves this calamity, and, at the same time, to prevent them from despairing. Hence it is that, soon after the prophecy in chap. vii., he reverts once more to the subject of it. The circumstances in chap. viii. 1-ix. 6 (7) are identical with those in chap. vii. Judah is hard pressed by Ephraim and Aram. Still, some time will elapse before the destruction of their territories. The term in chap. vii. 16: "Before the boy shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good," and in chap. viii. 4: "Before the boy shall know to cry, My father and my mother," is quite the same. This is the less to be doubted when it is kept in mind that, in the former passage, evil and good must be taken in a physical sense. The sense for the difference of food is, in a child, developed at nearly the same time as the ability for speaking. If it had not been the intention of the Prophet to designate one and the same period, he ought to have fixed more distinctly the limits between the two termini. It might, indeed, from chap. viii. 3, appear as if at least the nine months must intervene between the two prophecies of the conception of the son of the Prophet, and his birth. As, however, it cannot be denied that there is a connection between the giving of the name, and the drawing up of the document in vers. 1 and 2, we should be obliged to suppose that, in reference to the first two futures with Vav convers. the same rule applies as in reference to ויצר, in Gen. ii. 19. The progress lies first in ותלה; the event falling into that time is the birth.