side the field of the present work. But the issue in the present case is something entirely within the scope of the Modern Reader's Bible—the question of the divisions of the sacred books. The facts seem to be these. The prophetic literature of the Old Testament was arranged under the names of the reputed authors, ending with the book of Zechariah (our Zechariah i-viii); following these were anonymous prophecies with subject-titles. The last of these subject-titles was 'My Messenger' (Malachi). How positively this was understood as a subject-title is illustrated by the fact that the Septuagint translates it as 'angel,' and the Targum ascribes the authorship of the book to Ezra. But in process of time 'Malachi' was read as a personal name, and thus the closing section of the prophetic roll seemed to follow the general form; it was natural then that the intervening sections with their subjecttitles should attach themselves to the preceding book of Zechariah. This account of the matter seems probable in itself, and is further confirmed by New Testament references. Four passages from the latter part of Zechariah are cited in the New Testament: three of them are cited without the name of any author, the fourth is ascribed by St. Matthew to Jeremiah.* Now if an anonymous prophecy is * Matthew xxvii. 9-10; compare Zechariah xi. 12-13. The other passages are Zechariah ix. 9 (in Matthew xxi. 5 and John xii. 15); chapter xii. 10 (in John xix. 37 and perhaps Revelation i. 7); xiii. 7 (in Matthew xxvi. 31 and Mark xiv. 27). being quoted, it is natural for Jeremiah, the lengthiest of the prophetic writers, to give his name to the whole roll of prophecy, as David has given his name to the whole collection of psalms. If, however, the writing had appeared under the name of Zechariah, St. Matthew could not have ascribed it to Jeremiah without being guilty of misquotation. Under these circumstances, to have followed the Biblical headings in this edition would have been to pronounce on a question of authorship; the plan I have adopted leaves the question open. In any case, authorship is a matter of importance chiefly to the historian. But it would have been a real literary loss to be deprived of the subject-title 'My Messenger,' which gives such unity and suggestiveness to the final division of prophecy. : It is hardly necessary to bespeak attention for the scriptures included in this volume. They are 'minor' only in length for the rest, it is doubtful if any collection of miscellaneous literature has ever brought together so many writers of such surpassing interest. They stretch over a period of time which, on one theory of dates, is as great as that which in English literature separates Wycliffe from Browning. Of the individual prophets, Amos was a herdsman and dresser of sycomore trees; Daniel a mage, and one of a triumvirate administering a world empire; Jonah was a missionary; Micah a plain countryman; Zephaniah of royal descent; the rest have died away from human record leaving only their works to speak for them. As we go through these prophetic writings we are introduced to Babylon, land of mystery, of dreams and interpreters, of mutations in a single moment from an emperor intoxicated with omnipotence to the dim consciousness of beast life, from a royal orgy to the writing upon the wall of doom. We see the Chaldean again as a world conqueror, taking the nations in his net and sacrificing only to his drag. In one prophetic book Nineveh appears as a vast city of three days' journey, swept through and through with an infectious thrill of penitence; another prophet gives us a realistic word picture of Nineveh in her careless gaiety, Nineveh smitten with bewildering destruction, Nineveh desolate and a thing of the past. Here it is that we view most clearly the picturesque corruption of northern Israel, where the sterner Hebrew strain was adulterated by the luxury and joyous imagination of Tyre. At one point we have a glimpse of border warfare and border hate. Elsewhere the prophecies deal with Judah, or with Israel in general. We see this Israel in the full strength of national hope, looking for a King of Peace who shall enter in lowly triumph, and garrison his land, with his people as the weapons of his war. We see the ebbing of these hopes, and the gradual withdrawing of the Divine Shepherd, until Israel is left a flock for the slaughter. Jerusalem is presented under the siege, yet with mighty hopes of repentance and deliverance. The exiles are seen as a scattered 'church' witnessing in the heart of the Babylonian 'world.' In Haggai and Zechariah we have the return from exile, and the reweaving of the strands of national life in renewed Temple service, a recovered prophecy, and a princedom taking the place of the old kingship. And Malachi reflects the dull period when the impulse of the exile has been exhausted, and there is nothing but a weary looking for a Messenger of God, who shall effect a rousing for which native energy is no longer left. The sacred thought embodied in these varied scriptures is at once varied and the same. Hosea loves to dwell upon God's yearning love, the love of the husband for the fallen wife, of the father for his prodigal son. Amos takes his stand for morals as against religion itself, when the two have irreligiously clashed. Micah presents the true and the false prophecy contending in the struggles of daily life. But other themes grow together into the one prophetic theme of judgment—the Hebrew counterpart of our modern providence. With Nahum it is a judgment upon the foe, as a form of mercy to God's people; Jonah comes as a corrective, with the thought of Jehovah's mercy extending outside his people to the sixscore thousand innocents of Nineveh. The mystery of judgment which troubled the wise men of Israel - the impunity of the wicked appears in Habakkuk magnified to the scale of nations: this prophet's problem is the sight of the Chaldean allowed to prosper and punish wickedness less great than his own. Several of the prophecies are filled with a 'Day of the Lord': the judgment regularly appears as a visitation first upon Israel, to destroy the evil that is in it; then there is a purification and restoration, and finally a judgment between Israel and the nations; there is at the last an inauguration of a heaven, but it is a heaven upon earth. The literary forms under which this thought is conveyed cover the whole range of prophecy; moreover, they involve certain minor peculiarities of structure which render specially important what the present edition endeavours to supply the reflection of literary structure in the printed page. The simplest of all literary forms is the story: this is ideally represented in Daniel and Jonah. For prophecy a natural form is discourse: the sermons of the Minor Prophets seldom remain at the dead level of discourse, but flash into realistic pictures or dramatic dialogue. In Amos the most artificial rhetoric is sanctified for spiritual effects; he has a grasp of style which can draw in even the preface as an artistic interruption. In Hosea scattered outbursts of prophetic truth in conflict with everyday life have crystallised into brief epigrams. In several prophets we have the 'doom form,' which produces in speech the effect which music produces when it combines recitative and song. The emblem - which is in prophecy what the fable is in philosophy is used to express stages of spiritual declension or of advancing doom. Elsewhere we have the apocalypse, or great 'unveiling,'-unveiling of the future in a philosophy of history, and unveiling of the unseen |