and he laid it upon my mouth, and said: "Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.".

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then said I: "Here am I; send me." And he said: "Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed."

Then said I, "Lord, how long?" And he answered: "Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. And if there be yet a tenth in it, it shall again be eaten as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose stock remaineth, when they are felled: so the holy seed shall be the stock thereof."

1

Jotham (1 Kings xv. 32-38). In the second year of Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel began Jotham the son of Uzziah king of Judah to reign. Five and twenty years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord: he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done. Howbeit the high places were not removed: the people sacrificed and burnt incense still in the high places. He built the higher gate of the house of the Lord. Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? In those days the Lord began to send against Judah Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah. And Jotham slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father: and Ahaz his son reigned in his stead.

Ahaz (1 Kings xvi.; Isaiah vii. 2-16). In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah Ahaz the son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign. Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, and did

1 teil tree. Terebinth.

not that which was right in the sight of the Lord his God, like David his father. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel. And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.

Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to war: 1 and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him. And it was told the house of David, saying, "Syria is confederate with Ephraim." And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

2

Then said the Lord unto Isaiah: "Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field; and say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands,3 for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal: thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established."

Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying: "Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above." But Ahaz said: "I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord."

And he said: "Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?

1 Rezin, with Menahem of Israel, had paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser in 738 B. C. Pekah and he now aimed to force Judah to join them in a coalition against Assyria.

2 Shear-jashub. The name, 'A Remnant Shall Return,' is a symbol of Isaiah's characteristic teaching that the approaching judgments on Judah were to leave a nucleus of the faithful who should begin a better era.

3 the two tails . . . firebrands. These two smoking fag-ends of firebrands.' 4 Tabeal is a Syrian name.

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a young woman is with child, and shall bring forth a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be forsaken."

At that time the king of Edom recovered Elath to Edom, and drave the Jews from Elath: and the Edomites came to Elath, and dwelt there unto this day.

So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying "I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me." And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house, and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria hearkened unto him: for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew Rezin.

And king Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus and king Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, and the pattern of it, according to all the workmanship thereof. And Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that king Ahaz had sent from Damascus : so Urijah the priest made it against king Ahaz came from Damascus. And when the king was come from Damascus, the king saw the altar: and the king approached to the altar, and went up unto it. And he burnt his burnt offering and his meal offering, and poured his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings, upon the brazen altar, which was before the Lord, and drew near from the forefront of the house, between the [new] altar and the house of the Lord, and put it [the blood] on the north side of the altar. And king

1 The Chronicler states that at this time Pekah of Israel took a multitude of captives from Judah; but that, on being warned by the prophet Oded that he was thereby incurring guilt, he released them, "and with the spoil clothed all that were naked among them, and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palm trees, to their brethren." He records further of Ahaz: "In the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord, this is that king Ahaz: for he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him: and he said: 'Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me.'"

2 By sprinkling the blood first on the old altar and then on the new, the king symbolized the transference of efficacy from the one to the other.

Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying: "Upon the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, and the evening meal offering, and the king's burnt sacrifice, and his meal offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their meal offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle upon it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice and the brazen altar shall be for me to enquire by." Thus did Urijah the priest, according to all that king Ahaz commanded.

And king Ahaz cut off the borders of the bases, and removed the laver from off them; and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pavement of stones. And the covert for the sabbath that they had built in the house, and the king's entry without, turned he from the house of the Lord for the king of Assyria.

Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David: and Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead.

Hezekiah's Reforms (2 Kings xviii. 1-8; 2 Chron. xxxii. 30, 31). Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abijah the daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did. He removed the high places, and brake the pillars, and cut down the asherah. And he brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made : for unto those days the children of Israel did sacrifice to it. And it was called Nehushtan.2

And Jehovah was with him: whithersoever he went forth he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and served him not. He smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper spring of the 1 to enquire by. The reference is probably to the practice of divination (common in Babylonia) by inspecting the entrails of sacrificial victims.

2 Nehushtan. The Brazen One. On p. 416 it is mentioned that the prophet Micah preached in Hezekiah's reign. The Chronicler here records a tradition that Hezekiah cleansed the temple, instituted special sacrifices, and celebrated a great passover feast.

waters of Gihon, and brought them straight down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works. Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.

Hezekiah's Sickness (2 Kings xx. 1-11). In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him: "Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live." Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, saying: "I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight." And Hezekiah wept sore. And it came to pass, afore Isaiah was gone out of the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying: "Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord. And I will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake."

And Isaiah said: Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover. And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah: "What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the Lord the third day?" And Isaiah said: "This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?" And Hezekiah answered: "It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees." And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.

1 waters of Gihon. Now called the Virgin Spring. Its waters were brought by a rock-cut tunnel through the Temple hill to the Pool of Siloam within the city wall. In 1880 an inscription was discovered, recording the completion of this tunnel.