THE PROPHETIC BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

SPECIAL TEXT: "And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers; and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left."—ISAIAH.

NOTES.

1. Isaiah, (i. e., the Lord is Salvation), son of Amoz, a prophet in Jerusalem during 40 years, (B. C. 740-701.) He had great religious and political influence during the reign of Hezekiah, whose chief adviser he was. Tradition states that he was "sawn asunder" during the reign of Manasseh; for that reason he is often represented in art, holding a saw." (Cambridge Bible, p. 82.)

2. Character of Isaiah's Prophet Writings: "In Isaiah we see prophetic authorship reaching its culminating point. Everything conspired to raise him to an elevation to which no prophet either before or after could as a writer attain. Among the other prophets, each of the more important ones is distinguished by some one particular excellence, and some one peculiar talent: in Isaiah, all kinds of talent and all beauties of prophetic discourse meet together so as mutually to temper and qualify each other; it is not so much any single feature that distinguishes him as the symmetry and perfection of the whole. * * * * He is not the especially lyrical prophet, or the especially elegiacal prophet, or the especially oratorical and hortatory prophet, as we should describe a Joel, a Hosea, a Micah, with whom there is a greater prevalence of some particular color; but, just as the subject requires, he has readily at command every several kind of style and every several change of delineation; and it is precisely this that, in point of language, establishes his greatness, as well as in general forms one of his most towering points of excellence." (Smith's Bible Dictionary, pp. 1162-3.)

3. Isaiah as a Messianic Prophet: The following are the outlines of Messianic prophecies in the book of Isaiah: A scion of David, springing from his family, after it has fallen into a very low estate, but being also of divine nature, shall, at first, in lowliness, but as a prophet filled with the Spirit of God, proclaim the divine doctrine, develope the law in truth, and render it the animating principle of national life; he shall, as high priest, by his vicarious suffering and his death, remove the guilt of his nation, and that of other nations, and finally rule as a mighty king, not only over the covenant people, but over all nations of the earth who will subject themselves to his peaceful sceptre, not by violent compulsion, but induced by love and gratitude. He will make both the moral and the physical consequences of sin to cease; the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, and all enmity, hatred, and destruction shall be removed even from the brute creation. This is the survey of the Messianic preaching by Isaiah, of which he constantly renders prominent those portions which were most calculated to impress the people under the then existing circumstances. * * * * Jesus Sirach (xlviii: 22-5) bestows splendid praise upon Isaiah, and both Philo and Josephus speak of him with great veneration. He attained the highest degree of authority after the times of the New Testament had proved the most important part of his prophecies, namely, the Messianic, to be divine. Christ and the Apostles quote no prophecies so frequently as those of Isaiah, in order to prove that he who had appeared was one and the same with him who had been promised. The fathers of the Church abound in praises of Isaiah. (Kitto's Biblical Literature, pp. 49-50.)

4. The First Nephi on Isaiah as the Messianic Prophet. "And now I, Nephi, write more of the words of Isaiah, for my soul delighteth in his words. For I will liken (apply) his words unto my people, and I will send them forth unto all my children, for he verily saw my Redeemer, even as I have seen him. And my brother Jacob also has seen him as I have seen him: wherefore I will send their words forth unto my children, to prove unto them that my words are true.. Wherefore, by the words of three, God hath said, I will establish my word." (II Nephi ii: 13.)

5. Jeremiah, Book of. Arrangement: "The absence of any chronological order in the present structure of the collection of Jeremiah's prophecies is obvious at the first glance; and this has led some writers (Blayney, Pref. of Jeremiah) to the belief that, as the book now stands, there is nothing but the wildest confusion—'a preposterous jumbling together' of prophecies of different dates. Attempts to reconstruct the book on a chronological basis have been made by almost all commentators on it since the revival of criticism; and the result of the labors of the more recent critics has been to modify the somewhat hasty judgment of the English divine (Blayney). Whatever points of difference there may be in the hypothesis of Movers, Hitzig, Ewald, Bunsen, Nagelsbach, and others, they agree in admitting traces of an order in the midst of the seeming irregularity, and endeavor to account, more or less satisfactorily, for the apparent anomalies. The conclusion of the three last-named is that we have the book substantially in the same state as that in which it left the hands of the prophet, or his disciple Baruch." (Smith's Bible Dictionary, p. 1261.)

5. Jeremiah: "The author of the prophecies of this book was the son of Hilkiah, a priest, and a native of the priestly city of Anathoth, situated three miles north of Jerusalem. He was early called to the prophetic office (chap. i: 6), and began his career as a prophet in his native place. This he soon left, to prosecute his calling in Jerusalem; and here, in the exercises of it, he spent the greater part of his life. His ministry commenced seventy years after the close of Isaiah's, and extended from the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign to the eleventh of Zedekiah's, i. e., from 629 to 588 B. C., thus embracing a period of forty-one years. It was a life-long protest against the iniquity and folly of his countrymen, and conceived in bitter foreboding of the hopeless ruin they were bringing down upon their heads." (Bagster's Bible Helps, p. 37.)

6. Jeremiah and His Contemporaries: "Jeremiah was contemporary with Zephiniah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, and Daniel. None of these, however, are in any remarkable way connected with him, except Ezekiel. The writings and character of these two eminent prophets furnish many very interesting points both of comparison and contrast. Both, during a long series of years, were laboring at the same time and for the same object. The representations of both, far separated as they were from each other, are in substance singularly accordant; yet there is at the same time a marked difference in their modes of statement, and a still more striking diversity in the character and natural disposition of the two. No one who compares them can fail to perceive that the mind of Jeremiah was of a softer and more delicate texture than that of his illustrious contemporary. His whole history convinces us that he was by nature mild and retiring." (Cycl. of Biblical Literature, Vol. II, p. 83.)