of art along with that of the general national life, impels it to describe the Divine element in the history with a freedom and affecting force, but at the same time with a prevailing tenderness and moderation, the union of which was wholly impossible in earlier historical works; and it is this combination of freedom, purity, and sublimity, which renders the compositions of this era permanent models of narratives treated in a similar free style. But this subject has been already discussed at length in the first volume of this history.

Of works about nature no trace is any longer to be found in this period. The spirit of wisdom and investigation, which had been so powerfully excited in earlier ages, desired certainly to advance step by step to grasp at everything, even at what did not stand in close connexion with religion. What deeper questions it gradually raised about all natural objects, is shown pre-eminently in the book of Job: even the growing predilection for explaining the meaning and origin of the names of ancient persons and places' springs from the first powerful impulse of scientific efforts. For the further independent prosecution of such beginnings, the destinies of the nation proved too unpropitious; literature, like the general life of the people, came to revolve more and more closely round the nature and history of the true religion. In this sole direction, however, the spirit which had been awakened in Israel made at this very time the highest exertions, and achieved the most lasting success, while its previous earthly supports shook more and more violently. In later ages it was not till the period of the decay of the national power of the Greeks that their higher spirit, after its long course of activity, attempted and executed its most immortal works; and in the same way the divine spirit in Israel struggled to consummate its work with a freedom and a boldness corresponding to its growing feeling of the irresistible decline of its earthly energies. For all the victories which the ancient popular power could still attain, and even the last great elevation of the surviving kingdom of Judah, soon proved too weak to provide a permanent remedy for the deeper offences of antiquity which now appeared in such exuberant luxuriance.

1 Vol. i. p. 20.

SECTION III.

THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH TILL ITS FALL.

THE DEVELOPMENT AND POWER OF THE MESSIANIC HOPE.

The southern kingdom had held its ground through the violent storms of the preceding age; it had even risen afresh, after the fall of the northern, to a more effective comprehension of the higher religion and to new power abroad. A marvellous elevation of spirit, such as had been spontaneously produced in the course of the extraordinary events under Hezekiah, marks all its efforts and aspirations, and breathes through all the poetic and prophetic utterances of the concluding decades, which discuss all the general relations of the kingdom: and on the other hand, in the decline of the monarchy there was displayed the fresh energy and the unbounded and cheerful outlook with which, in the first days of its existence under Moses and Joshua, the young community had gazed into its future.

In that age, however, the soaring hopes of the youthful community had only looked for the perpetuity of the pure Theocracy; but now the noblest expectation could not help being directed to the coming of the true human king through whom the Theocracy would be consummated, and thus the development of all Messianic hopes was enabled to make an important step in advance. The belief was certainly just that if the community were ever to witness the fulfilment of what had been in ancient days its inmost hope,' and were to approach the consummation of the true religion and its own felicity, it could only be by some one individual in this condition first living the perfect life and thus becoming the leader and king of the kingdom of God, the consummation of which was at length to take place; or else this perfecting of the community could never be effected at all. Now it was for the most part in Judah only that these hopes had their living spring, and in Judah the continuous existence and development of the true community had long been inseparably linked with the house of David,3 and hence it was natural that that house and that alone should be looked to to produce the perfect king. It was not, however, till during the last fifty years that Isaiah was the first to grasp this truth with creative genius, and himself, so to speak, royal in

1 P. 60 sq.

2 Ibid.

Vol. iii. p. 201 sq.; supra, p. 10 sqq.

nature, recognised for the first time the real character and the certain coming of the true and perfect king. The picture of the perfect king (Messiah) of the kingdom of God, which formed the principal subject of this circle of expectations, and hence conferred on them their lasting name, was conceived by him with all the nobleness of his royal spirit, and drawn in wonderful truth with all the glow of his clear soul; and he was followed by other and similar prophets. The ancient community of Jahveh in both kingdoms had long ago passed through every kind of misery which bad monarchy could cause, and not one, even of the better princes, had ever set before his age the consummation of the kingdom of God as the sole and final aim of all its hopes and endeavours; but this only increased the fervour and truth with which the conception shaped itself in the mind of the great prophet of what the king must be, who, as the consummator of the kingdom of God, was to fulfil every hope and satisfy every yearning. This brilliant type of blessed expectation he constantly held up before the potentates of Israel, whether they were oppressed and despairing, or whether they were degenerate; but he clung to it with if possible still greater purity, and proclaimed it with still greater enthusiasm, when Sennacherib threatened the kingdom of Jahveh with sudden destruction. At this crisis the eternal and glorified expectation of the kingdom of God was for the first time placed in antagonism to all heathen dominion by violence; and nothing is more marvellous than the undaunted attitude of Isaiah in encountering the fury of the dreaded king of kings with the calmness of this blessed hope.

2

The just conception of this perfect king, and the firm anticipation of his necessary coming, really constitute the greatest creative work of Isaiah. This thought, once uttered by him in all its force and clearness, could never disappear; on the other hand, it replaced all the vaguer hopes of former times, and became the inmost impulse of the whole subsequent history; if it ever flagged, it always revived to quicken everything with fresh power, until it had run through all the possibilities open to it in the course of national development. The outward centre of Israel's history, that is, the summit of its power as a people, was reached with Solomon ; but its inward centre, the germinating of a new idea, which, in spite of the decline of outward power, tempted forth creatively all the highest perfection of the future, was supplied for the first time by Isaiah, and could never disappear. The necessity and certainty of a

1 P. 178 sqq.

2 Is. xi. comp. with vii.-ix. 6, xxxii.

future consummation of the kingdom of God had certainly been expressed by the greatest prophets before Isaiah; and it could not fail to be recognised as soon as all the greatness which had been attained in the community from the time of Moses to David and Samuel was seriously endangered in the confusion of a later day; for the inner soul rose up against the possibility of all this going to ruin, and pressed, consequently, with more or less clearness, for its perfection. How this consummation was to be effected still remained, however, very indeterminate; and the feeling of a vague necessity remained wholly obscure, and was consequently liable to be destroyed, so long as no definite way was opened for this inner necessity to pass into realisation. By the side of this, it is true, the centuries of the division and decline of the monarchy were at an early period penetrated, as has been observed, with the anticipation that the house of David could not remain for ever thus depressed, but in the consummation of the kingdom of God would rise again to loftier splendour; 2 such was the subsequent effect of the recollection of David's greatness. But Isaiah was the first to point out the way in which alone these confused anticipations could be fulfilled. There must come some one who should perfectly satisfy all the demands of the true religion, so as to become the centre from which all its truth and force should operate. His soul must possess a marvellous and surpassing nobleness and divine power, because it is his function perfectly to realise in life the ancient religion, the requirements of which no one had yet satisfied, and that, too, with that spiritual glorification which the great prophets had announced. Unless there first comes some one who shall transfigure this religion into its purest form, it will never be perfected, and its kingdom will never come. But he will and must come, for otherwise the religion which demands him would be false; he is the first true king of the community of the true God, and as nothing can be conceived of as supplanting him, he will reign for ever in irresistible power; he is the divine-human king, whose coming had been due ever since the true community had set up a human monarchy in its midst, but who had never come. He is to be looked for, to be longed for, to be prayed for; and how blessed it is simply to expect

1 Pp. 60, 139.

2 The earliest writer to mention this belief is the oldest narrator of the history of the kings, 1 Kings xi. 39; cf. 2 Sam. vii. 11-16. Next follow Amos ix. 11 and Hosea, who, indeed, laconically calls the Messiah who is to be hoped for, David, Hos. iii. 5; with allusion, however, to the family of David, which continued in Judah,

as is clear from Hos. i. 7, and 1 Kings xii. 16.

That the passage about Shiloh, Gen. xlix. 10, does not refer to this, needs now no lengthy proof. The expression about the seed of the woman, Gen. iii. 15, falls shortly before Isaiah's time; but it contains only a general Messianic hope, and not a reference to an individual Messiah.

him devoutly, and trace out every feature of his likeness! To sketch the nobleness of his soul is to pursue in detail the possibility of perfecting all religion; and to believe in the necessity of his coming is to believe in the perfecting of all divine agency on earth. Before the lightning flash of this truth in Isaiah's soul, every lower hope retreated. The nature of the Messiah, and the certainty of his coming, are now the main subjects of all anticipation; and if Isaiah still follows ancient usage and speaks of David's house as a foundation of sacred hope,' yet his soul is filled with nothing but the picture of the spiritual glory of the Messiah, by the side of which everything else sinks into indifference; his strongest feelings are his certainty and his clear and brilliant ideal, and it is to these that he endeavours with all his power to direct the faith of his hearers.

The advent of this Messiah cannot indeed be brought about by violence. But it would be very erroneous to suppose that Isaiah had only imagined it possible after the lapse of centuries. On the other hand, it is obviously implied, and is confirmed by express testimony,' that the perception of such a necessary consummation, as confident as it was clear, involved the most powerful impulse towards it. The question cannot here be seriously made to turn on a previous calculation of future times; and if experience shows that the hope of the final consummation could not be fulfilled as soon as the inspired longing desired, yet it remains essentially true and necessarily indestructible, and readily rises to fresh power in every unpropitious age. If, however, the hope is really active, and is not content to remain idle, it must not only believe in a certain and possibly approaching fulfilment, it must immediately impel the soul to strive after so much of it at any rate as is attainable; nay, the belief itself constitutes this powerful effort, inasmuch as the Messiah can only be conceived as consummating everything human. The ages subsequent to Isaiah are therefore already Messianic, i.e. Christian, at any rate in aspiration,

Is. xi. 1, comp. with ix. 6, xxxvii. 35, as well as with xxix. 1. Micah, as a country prophet, limits the origin of the Messiah still more consistently to the Davidic Bethlehem, Mic. iv. 8, v. 1 [2] sqq. See further remarks in the Propheten des A. B. i. p. 514 sqq.

2 In passages like Is. vii. 14 sqq., xxxvii. 30-32, the prophetic spirit attempts to conceive the course of Messianic development as fulfilled in the ensuing years, an attempt which was subsequently repeated by almost every prophet; and Jeremiah, who extends this period the furthest into

the future, still does not think of it as reaching over more than a century. This struggle of the spirit after a nearer survey of the future arises solely from the fervour of the belief itself; hence the pure truth and substance of the belief do not suffer from the constant postponement of its fulfilment. But to assert that the prophets conceived the fulfilment as separated from their own age by a wide gap of centuries, would be to mistake and misrepresent all the facts. In this respect, however, the firmest anticipation is to be found in Mic. vii. 11.