alone could be possible. For, what was this matter; what was it that led to these utterances of Isaiah ?

The chapter in which the passage occurs gives us the situation with unusual clearness. It tells us how Judah was in a deplorable condition; how Rezin, king of Syria, in confederation with Pekah, king of Israel, had gone up to Jerusalem to war against it; how Rezin and Pekah had resolved to dethrone Ahaz, and set up a son of one Tabeal in his place. In this crisis Isaiah goes to Ahaz and encourages him with promises of divine aid. He tells Ahaz not to be faint-hearted, for Syria and Ephraim shall not set their strange king in the midst of Judah; and that within threescore and five years Ephraim shall cease to be a people. Ahaz is then directed to ask a sign" of Jehovah as a pledge for the truth of Isaiah's words. When Ahaz hesitates, Isaiah tells him that Jehovah of himself shall give him a sign. "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings."

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Here is the whole of this wonderful prophecy, which may be called one of the great corner-stones of dogmatic Christology. In the first place, what is meant by "a sign?" It is an outward and visible mark of an invisible something to be signified. How then could the birth of a child 740 years later be a sign to Ahaz in any sense whatsoever? Unless literally intended and literally accepted, it would have been nonsense. But who can doubt of its literal meaning when he reads the concluding verse, mentioning the two obnoxious kings, and thus proving at once the reference to present disasters? Beside the terrible anxiety of Ahaz, what trifling with his own anxiety for Judah, had Isaiah been alluding even to the birth of the traditional Deliverer, although that Deliverer was supposed to be at hand.

As the danger which threatened Judah on every side was imminent, so was the sign to be a present and visible sign. Like a wise oracle, Isaiah allows himself a certain Delphic margin. He does not commit himself to a day or a year, but promises that within the time required for a young woman, then in her maidenhood, to conceive and bear a child, and also for that child to come to years of discretion which together might be a period within twenty years or so-Syria and Israel (both of them, it must be remembered, threatened at that very time by the Assyrians) would be completely overthrown.

It is not uncommon to meet with persons who regard the name of Immanuel as of special importance. It is believed that, the fact of the child being called "God with us," clearly indicates that the child intended could be no other than Christ. But in addition to the above considerations, how, it may be asked, if Christ were a Divine Being, could time and nurture be required to enable Him to know the difference between good and evil? If the child in question were indeed God, such knowledge would have been intuitive. In truth, the name was nothing more than a mere token to signify that Jehovah was on the side of Judah, and would protect it. Almost every Hebrew name commemorated some event or idea in a similar way.

In chap. ix. 6, we probably have a genuine reference to the ideal personage who was to sit upon the throne of David, and establish the Jewish kingdom for ever. Still the statement, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given," seems to refer to a past rather than a future event, The child "is to be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." The highest of these titles is a disputed reading. The term "everlasting" is a mere hyperbole for long life. None of these titles, however, are incompatible with ordinary modes of flattering princes. The obelisk of Usertesen, at

Heliopolis, is thus dedicated to the Pharaoh who erected it: "The Horus of the sun; life of all who are born; king of the upper and lower country; Kheperkara; lord of the two diadems; life of all who are born; son of the sun, Usertesen; beloved of the divinities of An; living for ever; the good god; Kheperkhara; he hath executed this work at the beginning of the 30 years' circle; he, the gifted with life for evermore."1 "To show how the divine and human nature of a king were thought to be distinct, he [the king] was often represented offering to himself, in the Egyptian sculpture, his human doing homage to his divine character." The emperor of the Romans was their divus imperator. The Grand Lama of Thibet and the Emperor of China are addressed by the name of God. amongst Western nations the same forms of adulation are applied equally to kings and to the King of kings. The ruling monarch or chief was always looked upon as the Father of his people. Many barbarous nations to this day ascribe divine attributes to their chiefs. In the Polynesian islands the chiefs are held to be gods, and they alone are believed to be immortal.

"2

Even

Of course this was not the case with the Jews. But primitive beliefs account for traditional customs. Isaiah, moreover, as a prophet was also a bard; and the above passage, like many similar ones, may have been just such an adulatory ode as a laureate would have written on the birth of a royal prince, in whom the hopes of the nation centred, Indeed the prince might very possibly have been the son of Ahaz, the future King Hezekiah.

The eleventh chapter is unquestionably a foretelling of the Messiah. But in the eleventh verse the Deliverer's task is indicated by the promised recovery of the remnant of Jehovah's people, which shall be left from Assyria and from Egypt, &c. That is, by liberation from misfor1 Erasmus Wilson, The Egypt of the Past. 2 Rawlinson's Herodotus, ii. 292.

tunes either then pressing, or immediately threatening, the people of Judah. The remaining acts, here spoken of as the work of the coming Messiah, were all accomplished long before the time of Jesus; and the other allusions to the Messiah (chaps. xxviii. and xxxii.) bear the same construction.

Of the poetic incense with which regal personages are besmeared, we probably have another instance in the 110th Psalm, which is also cited as prophetic of Christ. "The Lord said unto my Lord [the King], Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool," &c. This was doubtless addressed to the victorious David; just as Molière celebrated, in fulsome language, the victories of Louis XIV.; or Shakespeare, with still more extravagance, the virtues and conquests of his Maiden Queen.

The prophecy of the Messiah's advent in Zechariah ix. 9: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass," must be referred to the same perilous time as the first of Isaiah's prophecies. Who the author was, is extremely doubtful. Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, as he himself tells us, (chap. i.), wrote in the second year of Darius, or about 519 B.C.: but this ninth chapter is full of allusions to historical events of a much earlier period; and especially refers to Jehovah's defence of Ephraim, as the kingdom of Israel is called, and speaks of Ephraim as still in existence. Whereas, Samaria was captured by Shalmaneser, and Ephraim ceased to exist as a monarchy, in the year 721 B.C., or about 200 years before the time of Zechariah's writing. Future triumph-the predominant idea-and the dominion of the promised King (whose peaceful and judicial character are marked by his riding on an ass) is defined as extending from sea to sea-i.e., from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean; and from the river to the ends of the earth-i.e.,

from the brook of Egypt to the boundaries of the land of Canaan.

In Jeremiah xxii. the promise of a King of the house of David resembles the foregoing: Judah is to be saved, and Israel shall dwell in safety. The writer goes on to lament bitterly over the depravity throughout the land, and even amongst the prophets in Jerusalem. Micah announces a similar prediction (chap. v.): Bethlehem, the birthplace of their favourite king, is to be that also of the hereditary sovereign. His temporal charge is announced in the fifth verse. "And this man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land; and when he shall tread in our palaces," &c. A contingency which was so imminent at the moment of the prophecy that it scarcely demanded inspiration to foresee it.

The 72d Psalm is also truly Messianic. But it need hardly be pointed out that it had no verification in the career of Jesus; although the language is such as to apply with very little distortion to the idea of Christ. It was not fulfilled that the king of Tarshish and of the isles should bring presents; nor that the kings of Sheba and Seba should offer gifts. But it may be thought true that, all kings shall fall down before him; that all nations shall serve him; that his name shall endure for ever; and that all nations shall call him blessed. After what has been said about courtly sycophancy, it is superfluous to add that this extravagant language might very well apply to the ideal Prince, whose exalted character and dominion could not be heightened by exaggeration.

The famous passage in Psalm xxii., "They pierced my hands and feet, &c., they cast lots upon my vesture," cannot be thought to have any fulfilment in Jesus. Mr. Matthew Arnold looks upon the alleged prophecy as "trifling," "a playing upon words which nowadays we should call childish." Certainly we must bear in mind