Hosea's message is still the message which moves the world and raises up the fallen. God cares for me, however fallen I am. His heart yearns; in suffering He labors to make me appreciate His love; patiently He waits. to welcome the penitent home. The marvel is that we can withstand that love so long!

CHAPTER XL.

ISAIAH.

"And I said: Here am I; send me." Isaiah vi, 9.

66

Righteousness exalteth a nation,

But sin is a reproach to any people." Prov. xiv, 34.

ISAIAH was the type of a Christian man in public life. His prophetic activity extended over forty years of most eventful history. Beginning to prophesy in 740 B. C., the year that King Uzziah died, he continued his work through the short independent reign of Jotham, the reign of the weak Ahaz, and the good Hezekiah. Under the last of these monarchs he held the position. of a confidential adviser,-a position which made him the most important political figure in Israel after David. Hezekiah no doubt accorded him this position on account of the strong utterances which Isaiah had made at the time of the Syrian war in the reign of Ahaz.

These forty years of Isaiah's life were most eventful ones; they covered a period which called for the highest talent in

statesmanship, and which severely tested. the sagacity of the wisest and the faith of the most devout. First there came the coalition of Syria and Israel against Judah in the reign of Ahaz, when the overthrow of Jerusalem was threatened. Ahaz and all his people were greatly terrified; their hearts, we are told trembled "as the trees of the forest, tremble before the wind." Isaiah alone retained his courage, and uttered upon this occasion some significant prophecies which will be considered in subsequent chapters.' He foresaw that the new and powerful king of Assyria, Tiglath-pileser III., would soon give Judah's neighbors on the north enough to do to defend their own dominions and that thus Judah would be relieved, but in spite of his brave and hopeful utterances others remained hopeless. The event justified Isaiah's faith; the Assyrian king made his expedition into the West; chastised Judah's enemies, and saved Jerusalem. All this was about 735-733 B. C.

The next great event was the destruction of Samaria and the captivity of the kingdom

1 See Isaiah chs. vii, 1-ix, 6, and also below chs. xli, xlii.

of Israel in 722 B. C. Tiglath-pileser had changed the Israelitish dynasty, putting Hoshea on the throne. After the death of Tiglath-pileser in 727 and the accession of Shalmaneser IV. to the Assyrian throne, Hoshea rebelled. The armies of Shalmaneser beseiged Samaria for three years. During the siege Shalmaneser was succeeded by Sargon, whose armies finally captured Samaria and deported 27,290 of its inhabitants.1 Judah was all this time subject to Assyria. The temptation for her to rebel with her northern neighbor must have been strong, and it was doubtless owing to Isaiah that it was resisted. Other nations in Palestine and Syria rebelled also, and in the year 720 another great battle was fought at Raphia in which they were defeated.

Some years of quiet followed, when the Philistine city of Ashdod rebelled against Assyrian rule. The armies of the powerful Sargon came clamoring by Judah's very doors again as they marched in 711 to subdue the rebels.*

1 The number is taken from an inscription of Sargon's.

* Cf. Isaiah xx, 1, and Roger's History of Babylonia and Assyvia, vol. ii, 169.

In 705 Sargon was succeeded by his son Sennacherib. This event was the signal for another revolt on the part of all of Assyria's western subjects. In all these petty states there were two political parties, one which favored making Assyria their suzerian, and the other of which advocated the expulsion of Assyria from the West by obtaining the aid of Egypt. Isaiah had all along belonged to the first of these parties, and had felt that he had the guidance of Jehovah in so doing. Up to this time he had also been able to persuade the king to adhere to the Assyrian policy. Now, however, the king chose to act in accord with the Egyptian party and joined them in their rebellion against Assyria.1 This brought against Jerusalem the armies of Sennacherib in the great siege of 701 B. C.,—a siege in which, though the armies of the Assyrian suffered disaster and withdrew, 2-resulted in the resubjugation of Judah to Assyria. Several of Isaiah's most important prophecies were

1 We now know this from Sennacherib's own statement. See Price's Monuments and the Old Testament, p. 181 ff.

* See 2 Kings xix, 35, and the reference in n. 1.