[25] See further on this passage pp. 180-183. As is there pointed out, while these passages on the Messiah are indeed infrequent and unconnected, there is a very evident progress through them of Isaiah's conception of his Hero's character.
[26] Stanton: The Jewish and Christian Messiah.
[27] Delitzsch, who fancies that the fall of Samaria is a completed affair only in the vision of the prophet, not in reality.
[28] 2 Kings xvii. 5.
[29] Ewald. The original runs thus: "Ki tsav la-tsav, tsav la-tsav qav la-qav, qav la-qav; z'eir sham z'eir sham."
[30] Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, Letter cxxxvi.
[31] It will be noticed that in the above version a different reading is adopted from the meaningless clause at the end of verse 27 in the English version, out of which a proper heading for the subsequent itinerary has been obtained by Robertson Smith (Journal of Philology, 1884, p. 62).
[32] The authenticity of this hymn has been called in question.
[33] Dean Plumptre notes the identity of the ethical terminology of this passage with that of the book of Proverbs, and conjectures that the additions to the original nucleus, chaps. x.-xxiv., and therefore the whole form, of the book of Proverbs, may be due to the editorship of Isaiah, and perhaps was the manual of ethics, on which he sought to mould the character of Hezekiah (Expositor, series ii., v., p. 213).
[34] Perhaps for land—'arets—we ought, with Lagarde, to read tyrant—'arits.