But of another thing, Gentlemen, I am certain: that we were badly
taught in that these books, while preached to us as equivalent,
were kept in separate compartments. We were taught the books of
Kings and Chronicles as history. The prophets were the Prophets,
inspired men predicting the future which they only did by chance,
as every inspired man does. Isaiah was never put into relation
with his time at all; which means everything to our understanding
of Isaiah, whether of Jerusalem or of Babylon. We ploughed
through Kings and Chronicles, and made out lists of rulers, with
dates and capital events. Isaiah was all fine writing about
nothing at all, and historically we were concerned with him only
to verify some far-fetched reference to the Messiah in this or
that Evangelist. But there is not, never has been, really fine
literature--like Isaiah--composed about nothing at all: and in
the mere matter of prognostication I doubt if such experts as
Zadkiel and Old Moore have anything to fear from any School of
Writing we can build up in Cambridge. But if we had only been
taught to read Isaiah concurrently with the Books of the Kings,
what a fire it would have kindled among the dry bones of our
studies!
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.
Scholars, of course, know the political significance of that
famous meeting. But if we had only known it; if we had only been
taught what Assyria was--with its successive monarchs Tiglath-
pileser, Shalmaneser, Sargon, Sennacherib; and why Syria and
Israel and Egypt were trying to cajole or force Judah into
alliance; what a difference (I say) this passage would have meant
to us!