[104] When we get down among the details we shall see clear evidence for this fact, for instance, that Amos prophesied against Israel at a time when he thought that the Lord's anger was to be exhausted in purely natural chastisements of His people, and before it was revealed to him that Assyria was required to follow up these chastisements with a heavier blow. See Chap. VI., Section [2].
[105] That is, of course, not the Nile, but the great Wady, at present known as the Wady el 'Arish, which divides Palestine from Egypt.
[106] So already in the JE narratives of the Pentateuch.
[107] Lecky: History of European Morals, I.
[108] The present writer has already pointed out this with regard to Egypt and Phœnicia in Isaiah (Expositor's Bible Series), I., Chaps. XXII. and XXIII., and with regard to Philistia in Hist. Geog., p. 178.
[109] I put it this way only for the sake of making the logic clear; for it is a mistake to say that the prophets at any time held merely theoretic convictions. All their conviction was really experimental—never held apart from some illustration or proof of principle in actual history.
[110] יהוה צבאות: 1 Sam. i. 3; iv. 4; xvii. 45, where it is explained by the parallel phrase God of the armies of Israel; 2 Sam. vi. 2, where it is connected with Israel's battle emblem, the Ark (cf. Jer. xxii. 18); and so throughout Samuel and Kings, and also Chronicles, the Psalms, and most prophets. The plural צבאות is never used in the Old Testament except of human hosts, and generally of the armies or hosts of Israel. The theory therefore which sees the same meaning in the Divine title is probably the correct one. It was first put forward by Herder (Geist der Eb. Poesie, ii. 84, 85), and after some neglect it has been revived by Kautzsch (Z. A. T. W., vi. ff.) and Stade (Gesch., i. 437, n. 3). The alternatives are that the hosts originally meant those of heaven, either the angels (so, among others, Ewald, Hist., Eng. Ed., iii. 62) or the stars (so Delitzsch, Kuenen, Baudissin, Cheyne, Prophecies of Isaiah, i. 11). In the former of these two there is some force; but the reason given for the latter, that the name came to the front in Israel when the people were being drawn into connection with star-worshipping nations, especially Aram, seems to me baseless. Israel had not been long in touch with Aram in Saul's time, yet even then the name is accepted as if one of much earlier origin. A clear account of the argument on the other side to that taken in this note will be found in Smend, Altiestamentliche Religionsgeschichte, pp. 185 ff.
[112] The full list of suspected passages is this: (1) References to Judah—ii. 4, 5; vi. 1, in Zion; ix. 11, 12. (2) The three Outbreaks of Praise—iv. 13; v. 8, 9; ix. 5, 6. (3) The Final Hope—ix. 8-15, including vv. 11, 12, already mentioned. (4) Clauses alleged to reflect a later stage of history—i. 9-12; v. 1, 2, 15; vi. 2, 14. (5) Suspected for incompatibility—viii. 11-13.
[113] So designated to distinguish him from the first Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.