_THE BOOK OF MICAH_
The Book of Micah lies sixth of the Twelve Prophets in the Hebrew
Canon, but in the order of the Septuagint third, following Amos and
Hosea. The latter arrangement was doubtless directed by the size of
the respective books;[774] in the case of Micah it has coincided with
the prophet's proper chronological position. Though his exact date be
not certain, he appears to have been a younger contemporary of Hosea,
as Hosea was of Amos.
The book is not two-thirds the size of that of Amos, and about half
that of Hosea. It has been arranged in seven chapters, which follow,
more or less, a natural method of division.[775] They are usually
grouped in three sections, distinguishable from each other by their
subject-matter, by their temper and standpoint, and to a less degree
by their literary form. They are A. Chaps. i.-iii.; B. Chaps. iv.,
v.; C. Chaps, vi., vii.
There is no book of the Bible, as to the date of whose different
parts there has been more discussion, especially within recent
years. The history of this is shortly as follows:--
Tradition and the criticism of the early years of this century
accepted the statement of the title, that the book was composed
in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah--that is, between
740 and 700 B.C. It was generally agreed that there were in it
only traces of the first two reigns, but that the whole was put
together before the fall of Samaria in 721.[776] Then Hitzig
and Steiner dated chaps, iii.-vi. after 721; and Ewald denied
that Micah could have given us chaps, vi., vii., and placed them
under King Manasseh, _circa_ 690-640. Next Wellhausen[777] sought
to prove that vii. 7-20 must be post-exilic. Stade[778] took a
further step, and, on the ground that Micah himself could not
have blunted or annulled his sharp pronouncements of doom, by the
promises which chaps, iv. and v. contain, he withdrew these from
the prophet and assigned them to the time of the Exile.[779] But
the sufficiency of this argument was denied by Vatke.[780] Also
in opposition to Stade, Kuenen[781] refused to believe that Micah
could have been content with the announcement of the fall of
Jerusalem as his last word, that therefore much of chaps, iv. and
v. is probably from himself, but since their argument is obviously
broken and confused, we must look in them for interpolations, and
he decides that such are iv. 6-8, 11-13, and the working up of v.
9-14. The famous passage in iv. 1-4 may have been Micah's, but was
probably added by another. Chaps, vi. and vii. were written under
Manasseh by some of the persecuted adherents of Jehovah.
We may next notice two critics who adopt an extremely
conservative position. Von Ryssel,[782] as the result of a
very thorough examination, declared that all the chapters were
Micah's, even the much doubted ii. 12, 13, which have been
placed by an editor of the book in the wrong position, and chap.
vii. 7-20, which he agrees with Ewald can only date from the
reign of Manasseh, Micah himself having lived long enough into
that reign to write them himself. Another careful analysis by
Elhorst[783] also reached the conclusion that the bulk of the
book was authentic, but for his proof of this Elhorst requires a
radical rearrangement of the verses, and that on grounds which
do not always commend themselves. He holds chap. iv. 9-14 and v.
8 for post-exilic insertions. Driver[784] contributes a thorough
examination of the book, and reaches the conclusions that ii. 12,
13, though obviously in their wrong place, need not be denied to
Micah; that the difficulties of ascribing chaps, iv., v., to the
prophet are not insuperable, nor is it even necessary to suppose
in them interpolations. He agrees with Ewald as to the date of
vi.-vii. 6, and, while holding that it is quite possible for
Micah to have written them, thinks they are more probably due to
another, though a confident conclusion is not to be achieved. As
to vii. 7-20, he judges Wellhausen's inferences to be unnecessary.
A prophet in Micah's or Manasseh's time may have thought
destruction nearer than it actually proved to be, and, imagining
it as already arrived, have put into the mouth of the people a
confession suited to its circumstance. Wildeboer[785] goes further
than Driver. He replies in detail to the arguments of Stade and
Cornill, denies that the reasons for withdrawing so much from
Micah are conclusive, and assigns to the prophet the whole book,
with the exception of several interpolations.
We see, then, that all critics are practically agreed as to the
presence of interpolations in the text, as well as to the occurrence
of certain verses of the prophet out of their proper order. This
indeed must be obvious to every careful reader as he notes the somewhat
frequent break in the logical sequence, especially of chaps, iv. and
v. All critics, too, admit the authenticity of chaps, i.-iii., with
the possible exception of ii. 12, 13; while a majority hold that
chaps, vi. and vii., whether by Micah or not, must be assigned to the
reign of Manasseh. On the authenticity of chaps, iv. and v.--_minus_
interpolations--and of chaps, vi. and vii., opinion is divided; but we
ought not to overlook the remarkable fact that those who have recently
written the fullest monographs on Micah[786] incline to believe in the
genuineness of the book as a whole.[787] We may now enter for ourselves
upon the discussion of the various sections, but before we do so let
us note how much of the controversy turns upon the general question,
whether after decisively predicting the overthrow of Jerusalem it was
possible for Micah to add prophecies of her restoration. It will be
remembered that we have had to discuss this same point with regard both
to Amos and Hosea. In the case of the former we decided against the
authenticity of visions of a blessed future which now close his book;
in the case of the latter we decided for the authenticity. What were
our reasons for this difference? They were, that the closing vision of
the Book of Amos is not at all in harmony with the exclusively ethical
spirit of the authentic prophecies; while the closing vision of the
Book of Hosea is not only in language and in ethical temper thoroughly
in harmony with the chapters which precede it, but in certain details
has been actually anticipated by these. Hosea, therefore, furnishes us
with the case of a prophet who, though he predicted the ruin of his
impenitent people (and that ruin was verified by events), also spoke of
the possibility of their restoration upon conditions in harmony with
his reasons for the inevitableness of their fall. And we saw, too, that
the hopeful visions of the future, though placed last in the collection
of his prophecies, need not necessarily have been spoken last by the
prophet, but stand where they do because they have an eternal spiritual
validity for the remnant of Israel.[788] What was possible for Hosea is
surely possible for Micah. That promises come in his book, and closely
after the conclusive threats which he gave of the fall of Jerusalem,
does not imply that originally he uttered them all in such close
proximity. That indeed would have been impossible. But considering how
often the political prospect in Israel changed during Micah's time, and
how far the city was in his day from her actual destruction--more than
a century distant--it seems to be improbable that he should not (in
whatever order) have uttered both threat and promise. And naturally,
when his prophecies were arranged in permanent order, the promises
would be placed after the threats.[789]
FIRST SECTION: CHAPS. I.-III.
No critic doubts the authenticity of the bulk of these chapters. The
sole question at issue is the date or (possibly) the dates of them.
Only chap. ii. 12, 13, are generally regarded as out of place, where
they now stand.
Chap. i. trembles with the destruction of both Northern Israel and
Judah--a destruction either very imminent or actually in the process
of happening. The verses which deal with Samaria, 6 ff., do not
simply announce her inevitable ruin. They throb with the sense either
that this is immediate, or that it is going on, or that it has just
been accomplished. The verbs suit each of these alternatives: _And I
shall set_, or _am selling_, or _have set_, _Samaria for a ruin of
the field_, and so on. We may assign them to any time between 725
B.C., the beginning of the siege of Samaria by Shalmaneser, and a
year or two after its destruction by Sargon in 721. Their intense
feeling seems to preclude the possibility of their having been
written in the years to which some assign them, 705-700, or twenty
years after Samaria was actually overthrown.
In the next verses the prophet goes on to mourn the fact that the
affliction of Samaria reaches even to the gate of Jerusalem, and he
especially singles out as partakers in the danger of Jerusalem a
number of towns, most of which (so far as we can discern) lie not
between Jerusalem and Samaria, but at the other corner of Judah, in
the Shephelah or out upon the Philistine plain.[790] This was the
region which Sennacherib invaded in 701, simultaneously with his
detachment of a corps to attack the capital; and accordingly we
might be shut up to affirm that this end of chap. i. dates from that
invasion, if no other explanation of the place-names were possible.
But another is possible. Micah himself belonged to one of these
Shephelah towns, Moresheth-Gath, and it is natural that, anticipating
the invasion of all Judah, after the fall of Samaria (as Isaiah[791]
also did), he should single out for mourning his own district of the
country. This appears to be the most probable solution of a very
doubtful problem, and accordingly we may date the whole of chap.
i. somewhere between 725 and 720 or 718. Let us remember that in
719 Sargon marched past this very district of the Shephelah in his
campaign against Egypt, whom he defeated at Raphia.[792]
Our conclusion is supported by chap. ii. Judah, though Jehovah be
planning evil against her, is in the full course of her ordinary
social activities. The rich are absorbing the lands of the poor
(vv. i. ff.): note the phrase _upon their beds_; it alone signifies
a time of security. The enemies of Israel are internal (8). The
public peace is broken by the lords of the land and men and women,
disposed to live quietly, are robbed (8 ff.). The false prophets
have sufficient signs of the times in their favour to regard Micah's
threats of destruction as calumnies (6). And although he regards
destruction as inevitable, it is not to be to-day; but _in that day_
(4), viz. some still indefinite date in the future, the blow will
fall and the nation's elegy be sung. On this chapter, then, there
is no shadow of a foreign invader. We might assign it to the years
of Jotham and Ahaz (under whose reigns the title of the book places
part of the prophesying of Micah), but since there is no sense of a
double kingdom, no distinction between Judah and Israel, it belongs
more probably to the years when all immediate danger from Assyria
had passed away, between Sargon's withdrawal from Raphia in 719
and his invasion of Ashdod in 710, or between the latter date and
Sennacherib's accession in 705.
Chap. iii. contains three separate oracles, which exhibit a similar
state of affairs: the abuse of the common people by their chiefs and
rulers, who are implied to be in full sense of power and security.
They have time to aggravate their doings (4); their doom is still
future--_then at that time_ (_ib._). The bulk of the prophets
determine their oracles by the amount men give them (5), another sign
of security. Their doom is also future (6 f.). In the third of the
oracles the authorities of the land are in the undisturbed exercise
of their judicial offices (9 f.), and the priests and prophets of
their oracles (10), though all these professions practise only for
bribe and reward. Jerusalem is still being built and embellished
(10). But the prophet, not because there are political omens pointing
to this, but simply in the force of his indignation at the sins of
the upper classes, prophesies the destruction of the capital (12). It
is possible that these oracles of chap. iii. may be later than those
of the previous chapters.[793]
SECOND SECTION: CHAPS. IV., V.
This section of the book opens with two passages, verses 1-5 and verses
6, 7, which there are serious objections against assigning to Micah.
1. The first of these, 1-5, is the famous prophecy of the Mountain
of the Lord's House, which is repeated in Isaiah ii. 2-5. Probably
the Book of Micah presents this to us in the more original form.[794]
The alternatives therefore are four: Micah was the author, and Isaiah
borrowed from him; or both borrowed from an earlier source;[795] or
the oracle is authentic in Micah, and has been inserted by a later
editor in Isaiah; or it has been inserted by later editors in both
Micah and Isaiah.
The last of these conclusions is required by the arguments first
stated by Stade and Hackmann, and then elaborated, in a very strong
piece of reasoning, by Cheyne. Hackmann, after marking the want of
connection with the previous chapter, alleges the keynotes of the
passage to be three: that it is not the arbitration of Jehovah,[796]
but His sovereignty over foreign nations, and their adoption of His
law, which the passage predicts; that it is the Temple at Jerusalem
whose future supremacy is affirmed; and that there is a strong
feeling against war. These, Cheyne contends, are the doctrines of a
much later age than that of Micah; he holds the passage to be the
work of a post-exilic imitator of the prophets, which was first
intruded into the Book of Micah and afterwards borrowed from this
by an editor of Isaiah's prophecies. It is just here, however, that
the theory of these critics loses its strength. Agreeing heartily
as I do with recent critics that the genuine writings of the early
prophets have received some, and perhaps considerable, additions from
the Exile and later periods, it seems to me extremely improbable
that the same post-exilic insertion should find its way into _two_
separate books. And I think that the undoubted bias towards the
post-exilic period of all Canon Cheyne's recent criticism, has in
this case hurried him past due consideration of the possibility of
a pre-exilic date. In fact the gentle temper shown by the passage
towards foreign nations, the absence of hatred or of any ambition
to subject the Gentiles to servitude to Israel, contrasts strongly
with the temper of many exilic and post-exilic prophecies;[797]
while the position which it demands for Jehovah and His religion
is quite consistent with the fundamental principles of earlier
prophecy. The passage really claims no more than a suzerainty of
Jehovah over the heathen tribes, with the result only that their war
with Israel and with one another shall cease, not that they shall
become, as the great prophecy of the Exile demands, tributaries and
servitors. Such a claim was no more than the natural deduction from
the early prophets' belief of Jehovah's supremacy in righteousness.
And although Amos had not driven the principle so far as to promise
the absolute cessation of war, he also had recognised in the most
unmistakable fashion the responsibility of the Gentiles to Jehovah,
and His supreme arbitrament upon them.[798] And Isaiah himself, in
his prophecy on Tyre, promised a still more complete subjection of
the life of the heathen to the service of Jehovah.[799] Moreover the
fifth verse of the passage in Micah (though it is true its connection
with the previous four is not apparent) is much more in harmony with
pre-exilic than with post-exilic prophecy: _All the nations shall
walk each in the name of his god, and we shall walk in the name of
Jehovah our God for ever and aye_. This is consistent with more
than one prophetic utterance before the Exile,[800] but it is not
consistent with the beliefs of Judaism after the Exile. Finally,
the great triumph achieved for Jerusalem in 701 is quite sufficient
to have prompted the feelings expressed by this passage for the
_mountain of the house of the Lord_; though if we are to bring it
down to a date subsequent to 701, we must rearrange our views with
regard to the date and meaning of the second chapter of Isaiah. In
Micah the passage is obviously devoid of all connection, not only
with the previous chapter, but with the subsequent verses of chap.
iv. The possibility of a date in the eighth or beginning of the
seventh century is all that we can determine with regard to it; the
other questions must remain in obscurity.
2. Verses 6, 7, may refer to the Captivity of Northern Israel, the
prophet adding that when it shall be restored the united kingdom
shall be governed from Mount Zion; but a date during the Exile is, of
course, equally probable.
3. Verses 8-13 contain a series of small pictures of Jerusalem in
siege, from which, however, she issues triumphant.[801] It is
impossible to say whether such a siege is actually in course while
the prophet writes, or is pictured by him as inevitable in the near
future. The words _thou shalt go to Babylon_ may be, but are not
necessarily, a gloss.
4. Chap. iv. 14-v. 8 again pictures such a siege of Jerusalem, but
promises a Deliverer out of Bethlehem, the city of David.[802]
Sufficient heroes will be raised up along with him to drive the
Assyrians from the land, and what is left of Israel after all these
disasters shall prove a powerful and sovereign influence upon the
peoples. These verses were probably not all uttered at the same time.
5. Verses 9-14.--In prospect of such a deliverance the prophet
returns to what chap. i. has already described and Isaiah frequently
emphasises as the sin of Judah--her armaments and fortresses, her
magic and idolatries, the things she trusted in instead of Jehovah.
They will no more be necessary, and will disappear. The nations that
serve not Jehovah will feel His wrath.
In all these oracles there is nothing inconsistent with authorship
in the eighth century: there is much that witnesses to this date.
Everything that they threaten or promise is threatened or promised
by Hosea and by Isaiah, with the exception of the destruction (in
ver. 12) of the Maççeboth, or sacred pillars, against which we find
no sentence going forth from Jehovah before the Book of Deuteronomy,
while Isaiah distinctly promises the erection of a Maççebah to
Jehovah in the land of Egypt.[803] But waiving for the present the
possibility of a date for Deuteronomy, or for part of it, in the
reign of Hezekiah, we must remember the destruction, which took place
under this king, of idolatrous sanctuaries in Judah, and feel also
that, in spite of such a reform, it was quite possible for Isaiah to
introduce a Maççebah into his poetic vision of the worship of Jehovah
in Egypt. For has he not also dared to say that the _harlot's hire_
of the Phœnician commerce shall one day be consecrated to Jehovah?
THIRD SECTION: CHAPS. VI., VII.
The style now changes. We have had hitherto a series of short
oracles, as if delivered orally. These are succeeded by a series of
conferences or arguments, by several speakers. Ewald accounts for the
change by supposing that the latter date from a time of persecution,
when the prophet, unable to speak in public, uttered himself in
literature. But chap. i. is also dramatic.
1. Chap. vi. 1-8.--An argument in which the prophet as herald calls
on the hills to listen to Jehovah's case against the people (1,
2). Jehovah Himself appeals to the latter, and in a style similar
to Hosea's cites His deeds in their history, as evidence of what
He seeks from them (3-5). The people, presumably penitent, ask how
they shall come before Jehovah (6, 7). And the prophet tells them
what Jehovah has declared in the matter (8). Opening very much like
Micah's first oracle (chap. i. 1), this argument contains nothing
strange either to Micah or the eighth century. Exception has been
taken to the reference in ver. 7 to the sacrifice of the first-born,
which appears to have become more common from the gloomy age of
Manasseh onwards, and which, therefore, led Ewald to date all chaps.
vi. and vii. from that king's reign. But child-sacrifice is stated
simply as a possibility, and--occurring as it does at the climax of
the sentence--as an extreme possibility.[804] I see no necessity,
therefore, to deny the piece to Micah or the reign of Hezekiah. Of
those who place it under Manasseh, some, like Driver, still reserve
it to Micah himself, whom they suppose to have survived Hezekiah and
seen the evil days which followed.
2. Verses 9-16.--Most expositors[805] take these verses along with
the previous eight, as well as with the six which follow in chap.
vii. But there is no connection between verses 8 and 9; and 9-16
are better taken by themselves. The prophet heralds, as before, the
speech of Jehovah to _tribe and city_(9). Addressing Jerusalem,
Jehovah asks how He can forgive such fraud and violence as those
by which her wealth has been gathered (10-12). Then addressing the
people (note the change from feminine to masculine in the second
personal pronouns) He tells them He must smite; they shall not enjoy
the fruit of their labours(14, 15). They have sinned the sins of
Omri and the house of Ahab (query--should it not be of Ahab and
the house of Omri?), so that they must be put to shame before the
Gentiles[806](16). In this section three or four words have been
marked as of late Hebrew.[807] But this is uncertain, and the
inference made from it precarious. The deeds of Omri and Ahab's house
have been understood as the persecution of the adherents of Jehovah,
and the passage has, therefore, been assigned by Ewald and others
to the reign of the tyrant Manasseh. But such habits of persecution
could hardly be imputed to the City or People as a whole; and we
may conclude that the passage means some other of that notorious
dynasty's sins. Among these, as is well known, it is possible to
make a large selection--the favouring of idolatry, or the tyrannous
absorption by the rich of the land of the poor (as in Naboth's case),
a sin which Micah has already marked as that of his age. The whole
treatment of the subject, too, whether under the head of the sin or
its punishment, strongly resembles the style and temper of Amos. It
is, therefore, by no means impossible for this passage also to have
been Micah's, and we must accordingly leave the question of its date
undecided. Certainly we are not shut up, as the majority of modern
critics suppose, to a date under Manasseh or Amon.
3. Chap. vii. 1-6.--These verses are spoken by the prophet in his own
name or that of the people's. The land is devastated; the righteous
have disappeared; everybody is in ambush to commit deeds of violence
and take his neighbour unawares. There is no justice: the great ones
of the land are free to do what they like; they have intrigued with
and bribed the authorities. Informers have crept in everywhere. Men
must be silent, for the members of their own families are their foes.
Some of these sins have already been marked by Micah as those of his
age (chap. ii.), but the others point rather to a time of persecution
such as that under Manasseh. Wellhausen remarks the similarity to the
state of affairs described in Mal. iii. 24 and in some Psalms. We
cannot fix the date.
4. Verses 7-20.--This passage starts from a totally different temper of
prophecy, and presumably, therefore, from very different circumstances.
Israel, as a whole, speaks in penitence. She has sinned, and bows
herself to the consequences, but in hope. A day shall come when her
exiles shall return and the heathen acknowledge her God. The passage,
and with it the Book of Micah, concludes by apostrophising Jehovah as
the God of forgiveness and grace to His people. Ewald, and following
him Driver, assign the passage, with those which precede it, to the
times of Manasseh, in which of course it is possible that Micah was
still active, though Ewald supposes a younger and anonymous prophet as
the author. Wellhausen[808] goes further, and, while recognising that
the situation and temper of the passage resemble those of Isaiah xl.
ff., is inclined to bring it even further down to post-exilic times,
because of the universal character of the Diaspora. Driver objects to
these inferences, and maintains that a prophet in the time of Manasseh,
thinking the destruction of Jerusalem to be nearer than it actually
was, may easily have pictured it as having taken place, and put an
ideal confession in the mouth of the people. It seems to me that all
these critics have failed to appreciate a piece of evidence even more
remarkable than any they have insisted on in their argument for a late
date. This is, that the passage speaks of a restoration of the people
only to Bashan and Gilead, the provinces overrun by Tiglath-Pileser
III. in 734. It is not possible to explain such a limitation either by
the circumstances of Manasseh's time or by those of the Exile. In the
former surely Samaria would have been included; in the latter Zion and
Judah would have been emphasised before any other region. It would be
easy for the defenders of a post-exilic date, and especially of a date
much subsequent to the Exile, to account for a longing after Bashan and
Gilead, though they also would have to meet the objection that Samaria
or Ephraim is not mentioned. But how natural it would be for a prophet
writing soon after the captivity of Tiglath-Pileser III. to make this
precise selection! And although there remain difficulties (arising from
the temper and language of the passage) in the way of assigning all
of it to Micah or his contemporaries, I feel that on the geographical
allusions much can be said for the origin of this part of the passage
in their age, or even in an age still earlier: that of the Syrian
wars in the end of the ninth century, with which there is nothing
inconsistent either in the spirit or the language of vv. 14-17. And I
am sure that if the defenders of a late date had found a selection of
districts as suitable to the post-exilic circumstances of Israel as the
selection of Bashan and Gilead is to the circumstances of the eighth
century, they would, instead of ignoring it, have emphasised it as a
conclusive confirmation of their theory. On the other hand, ver. 11 can
date only from the Exile, or the following years, before Jerusalem was
rebuilt. Again, vv. 18-20 appear to stand by themselves.
It seems likely, therefore, that chap. vii. 7-20 is a Psalm composed
of little pieces from various dates, which, combined, give us a
picture of the secular sorrows of Israel, and of the conscience
she ultimately felt in them, and conclude by a doxology to the
everlasting mercies of her God.
FOOTNOTES:
[774] See above, pp. 6 f.
[775] Note that the Hebrew and English divisions do not coincide
between chaps. iv. and v. In the Hebrew chap. iv. includes a
fourteenth verse, which in the English stands as the first verse of
chap. v. In this the English agrees with the Septuagint.
[776] Caspari.
[777] In the fourth edition of Bleek's _Introduction_.
[778] _Z.A.T.W._, Vols. I., III., IV.
[779] See also Cornill, _Einleitung_, 183 f. Stade takes iv. 1-4,
iv. 11-v. 3, v. 6-14, as originally one prophecy (distinguished by
certain catchwords and an outlook similar to that of Ezekiel and the
great Prophet of the Exile), in which the two pieces iv. 5-10 and v.
4, 5, were afterwards inserted by the author of ii. 12, 13.
[780] _Einleitung in das A.T._, pp. 690 ff.
[781] _Einleitung._
[782] _Untersuchungen über dis Textgestalt u. die Echtheit des Buches
Micha_, 1887.
[783] _De Profetie van Micha_, 1891, which I have not seen. It is
summarised in Wildeboer's _Litteratur des A.T._, 1895.
[784] _Introduction_, 1892.
[785] _Litteratur des A.T._, pp. 148 ff.
[786] Wildeboer (_De Profet Micha_), Von Ryssel and Elhorst.
[787] Cheyne, therefore, is not correct when he says ("Introduction"
to second edition of Robertson Smith's _Prophets_, p. xxiii.) that it
is "becoming more and more doubtful whether more than two or three
fragments of the heterogeneous collection of fragments in chaps.
iv.-vii. can have come from that prophet."
[788] See above, p. 311.
[789] Wildeboer seems to me to have good grounds for his reply to
Stade's assertion that the occurrence of promises after the threats
only blunts and nullifies the latter. "These objections," says
Wildeboer, "raise themselves only against _the spoken_, but not
against the written word." See, too, the admirable remarks he quotes
from De Goeje.
[790] See below, pp. 383 ff.
[791] x. 18.
[792] Smend assigns the prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem
in iii. 14, along with Isaiah xxviii.-xxxii., to 704-701, and
suggests that the end of chap. i. refers to Sennacherib's campaign
in Philistia in 701 (_A. T. Religionsgeschichte_, p. 225, _n._). The
former is possible, but the latter passage, following so closely on
i. 6, which implies the fall of Samaria to be still recent, if not in
actual course, is more suitably placed in the time of the campaign of
Sargon over pretty much the same ground.
[793] See above, p. 363, _n._ 2.
[794] So Hitzig ("ohne Zweifel"), and Cheyne, _Introduction to the
Book of Isaiah_; Ryssel, _op. cit._, pp. 218 f. Hackmann (_Die
Zukunftserwartung des Jesaia_, 127-8, _n._) prefers the Greek of
Micah. Ewald is doubtful. Duhm, however, inclines to authorship by
Isaiah, and would assign the composition to Isaiah's old age.
[795] Hitzig; Ewald.
[796] As against Duhm.
[797] So rightly Duhm on Isa. ii. 2-4.
[798] Amos i. and ii. See above, pp. 124, 133.
[799] Isa. xxiii. 17 f.
[800] Jer. xvii.
[801] Wellhausen indeed thinks that ver. 8 presupposes that Jerusalem
is already devastated, reduced to the state of a shepherd's tower in
the wilderness. This, however, is incorrect. The verse implies only
that the whole country is overrun by the foe, Jerusalem alone standing,
with the flock of God in it, like a fortified fold (cf. Isaiah i.).
[802] Roorda, reasoning from the Greek text, takes _House of
Ephratha_ as the original reading, with Bethlehem added later; and
Hitzig properly reads Ephrath, giving its final letter to the next
word which improves the grammar, thus: הצעיר אפרת
[803] Isa. xix. 19.
[804] So also Wellhausen.
[805] _E.g._ Ewald and Driver.
[806] For עמי read עמים with the LXX.
[807] Wellhausen states four. But תושיה of ver. 9 is an uncertain
reading. רמיה is found in Hosea vii. 16, though the text of this,
it is true, is corrupt. זכה in another verbal form is found in Isa.
i. 16. There only remains מטה, but again it is uncertain whether we
should take this in its late sense of tribe.
[808] And also Giesebrecht, _Beiträge_, p. 217.