defended. 2 Chron. xxxii. 1-8. He endeavored to prepare himself as well as possible to meet the mighty foe; and he did all that he could to inspire confidence in God among the people. Notes on Isaiah xxii. 9-11. Yet as if not quite confident that he could be able to hold out during a siege, and to resist an army so mighty as that of Sennacherib, he sent embassadors to him, and acknowledged his error, and sued for peace. Sennacherib proposed that he should send him three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold, and gave the implied assurance that if this were done his army should be withdrawn. 2 Kings xviii. 13, 14. Hezekiah readily agreed to send that which was demanded; and to accomplish this he emptied the treasury, and stripped the temple of its ornaments. 2 Kings xviii. 15, 16. Sennacherib then went down to Egypt (see Notes on ch. xxxvi. xxxvii.), and was repelled before Pelusium by the approach of Tirhaka king of Ethiopia, who had come to the aid of the Egyptian monarch. On his return, Sennacherib sent messengers from Lachish, and a portion of his army to Jerusalem to demand its surrender. Isa. xxxvi. 2. To this embassy, no answer was returned by the messengers of Hezekiah (Isa. xxxvi. 21, 22); and the messengers of Sennacherib returned again to him to Libnah. Note on Isa. xxxvii. 8. At this period Sennacherib was alarmed by the rumor that Tirhakah whom he had so much reason to dread, was advancing against him (Isa. xxxvii. 9), and he again sent messengers to Hezekiah to induce him to surrender, intending evidently to anticipate the news that Tirhakah was coming, and to secure the conquest of Jerusalem without being compelled to sit down before it in a regular siege. This message like the former was unsuccessful. Hezekiah spread the case before JEHOVAH (ch. xxxvii. 15—20), and received the answer that Jerusalem was safe. Sennacherib advanced to attack the city; but in a single night 185,000 of his men were destroyed by an angel of the Lord, and he himself fled to his capital, where he was slain by his two sons. ch. xxxvii. 36-38.

These events were among the most important in Jewish history. They occupy, therefore, a considerable portion of the early prophecies of Isaiah. Isaiah lived during their occurrence; and a large portion of his prophecies from ch. xiv. to ch. xxxix. are occupied with allusions to, and statements of these events. He gave himself to the work of preparing the nation for them; assuring them that they would come; and yet that Jerusalem should be safe. He seems to have labored to inspire the mind of Hezekiah and the minds of the people with confidence in God, that when the danger should arrive they might cast themselves upon him, and look to him entirely for defence. In this he was eminently successful; and Hezekiah and the nation put unwavering confidence and trust in God. An accurate acquaintance with the causes, and the various events connected with the invasion and overthrow of Sennacherib is indispensable to a clear understanding of Isaiah; and these causes and events I have endeavored to

present in the Notes in the several chapters which refer to that remarkable invasion. Soon after this, Hezekiah became dangerously ill; and Isaiah announced to him that he should die. Isa. xxxviii. 1. Hezekiah prayed to God for the preservation of his life, and an assurance was given to him that he should live fifteen years longer. Isa. xxxviii. 5. In attestation of this, and as a demonstration of it the shadow on the sun-dial of Ahaz was made to recede ten degrees. See Notes on ch. xxxviii. 8.

Hezekiah, after his signal success over his foe, and the entire deliverance of his kingdom from the long-dreaded invasion, and his recovery from the dangerous illness, became eminently prosperous and successful. He was carressed and flattered by foreign princes; presents of great value were given him, and he was encompassed with all the usual splendor and magnificence of an oriental monarch. 2 Chron. xxxii. 23, 27, 28. As a consequence of this, his heart was lifted up with pride; he gloried in his wealth, and magnificence: and valued himself on his conspicuous station, and even became proud of the divine interposition in his favor. To show what was in his heart, and to humble him, he was left to display his treasures in an ostentatious manner to the embassadors of Merodach-Baladan king of Babylon (2 Chron. xxxii. 25, 31), and for this received the assurance that all his treasures and his family should be carried in inglorious bondage to the land from whence the embassadors came. 2 Kings xx. 12-18. Notes on Isa. xxxix. The remnant of the life of Hezekiah was peace. Isa. xxxix. 8. He died at the age of fifty-four years; and was buried in the most honored of the tombs of the kings of Judah (2 Chron. xxxii. 33); and was deeply lamented by a weeping people at his death.

The reign of Hezekiah stretched through a large portion of the prophetic ministry of Isaiah. A large part of his prophecies are, therefore, presumed to have been uttered during this reign. It is probable that to this period we are to attribute the entire series from ch. xiii. to ch. xxxix. inclusive. The most important of his prophecies, from ch. xl. to ch. lxvi. I am disposed to assign to a subsequent period-to the reign of Manasseh. The reasons for this may be seen, in part, in 2 of this Introduction.

Hezekiah was succeeded by his son Manasseh. The reasons for thinking that any part of the life of Isaiah was passed under the reign of this wicked prince have been stated above. He was the fifteenth king of Judah, and was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty-five years. It was during his reign, and by him, as we have supposed, that Isaiah was put to death. He forsook the path of Hezekiah and of David; restored idolatry, worshipped the idols of Canaan, rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah had destroyed, set up altars to Baal, and planted groves to false gods. He raised altars to the whole host of heaven even in Jerusalem and in the courts of the temple; made his son pass through the fire to Moloch; was addicted to magic and to divination; set up the idol of Astarte in the house

of God, and caused the people of his nation to sin in a more aggravated form than had been done by the heathen who had formerly inhabited the land of Canaan. To all this he added cruelty in the highest degree, and "shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another." Probably most of the distinguished men of piety were cut off by him, and among them, we suppose, was Isaiah. See 2 Kings xxi. 2 Chron. xxxiii.

So great were his crimes that God brought upon the land the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh from the hiding place where he sought a refuge amidst briars and thorns, and bound him, and carried him to Babylon (2 Chron. xxxiii. 11.)—another proof that Babylon was at this time a dependent on the Assyrian monarchy. In Babylon, Manasseh repented of his sins and humbled himself, and he was again restored to his land and his throne. After his return he removed the worship of idols, and restored the worship of JEHOVAH. He built a wall on the west side of Gihon and extended it around to Mount Ophel, and put Jerusalem in a posture of defence. He broke down and removed the altars which he had erected in Jerusalem, and in the temple; and he removed all the traces of idolatrous worship except the high places, which he suffered still to remain. There is evidence of his reformation; and the latter part of his reign appears to have passed in comparative happiness and virtue.

It was only during the early part of his reign, we suppose, that Isaiah lived, and there is in his prophecies no express mention made of Manasseh, and no certain indication that he lived during his reign. If he lived during any part of it, as we suppose he did, it is evident that he withdrew entirely, or nearly so from the public exercise of his prophetic functions, and retired to a comparatively private life. There is evidently between the close of the xxxixth chapter of his prophecy, and the period when the latter part of his prophecies commences (ch. xl.), an interval of considerable duration. It is not a violation of probability that Isaiah after the death of Hezekiah, being an old man, withdrew much from public life, that he saw and felt that there was little hope of producing reform during the impious career of Manasseh; and that in the distress and anguish of his soul, he gave himself up to the contemplation of the happier. times which should yet occur under the reign of the Messiah. It was during this period, I suppose, that he composed the latter part of his prophecies, from the xlth to the lxvith chapter. The nation was full of wickedness. An impious prince was on the throne. Piety was banished, and the friends of JEHOVAH were bleeding in Jerusalem. The nation was given up to idolatry. The kingdom was approaching the period of its predicted fall and ruin. Isaiah saw the tendency of events; he saw the abounding crimes; he saw how hopeless would be the attempt at reform. He saw that the captivity of Babylon was hastening on, and that the nation was pre

paring for that gloomy event. In this dark and disastrous period, he seems to have withdrawn himself from the contemplation of the joyless present, and to have given his mind to the contemplation of future scenes. An interval perhaps of some ten or fifteen years may be supposed to have elapsed between his last public labors in the time of Hezekiah to the prophecies which compose the remainder of the Book. During this interval he may have withdrawn from public view, and fixed his mind on the great events of future times. In his visions he sees the nation about to go into captivity; and he describes it. Yet he sees also that there would be a return from bondage, and he comforts the hearts of the pious with the assurance of such a return. He announces the name of the monarch by whom that deliverance would be accomplished, and gives assurance that the captive Jews should again return to their own land. But he is not satisfied with the announcement of this comparatively unimportant deliverance. With that he connects a far greater and more important deliverance, that from sin under the Messiah. He fixes his eye, therefore, on the future glories of the kingdom of God; sees the long promised Messiah; describes his person, his work, his doctrine, and states in glowing language the effects of his coming on the happiness and destiny of mankind. As he advances in his prophetic descriptions the deliverance from Babylon seems to die away and is forgotten; or it is lost in the contemplation of the event to which it had a resemblance-the coming of the Messiah-as the morning star is lost in the superior glory of the rising sun. He throws himself forward in his descriptions, places himself amidst these future scenes, and describes them as taking place around him, and as events which he saw. He thinks and feels and acts as if in that period; his mind is full of the contemplation; and he pours out in describing it the most elevated language and the sublimest poetry. It was in contemplations such as these, we suppose, that he passed the close of his life; and in such visions of the glorious future, that he sought a refuge from the gloom and despondency which must have filled a pious mind during the early part of the reign of the impious and blood-thirsty Manasseh.

Isaiah was cotemporary with the prophets Jonah, Hosea, and Micah. They however performed a less important public part, and were not favored with visions of the future glory of the church, like his. In a single chapter, however, the same language is used by Isaiah and by Micah. See Isa. ii. 2-4. Comp. Micah iv. 1-4. In which prophet the language is original, it is impossible now to determine.

The period of the world at which Isaiah lived was in some respects a forming period. We have seen that it was during his life that the kingdom of ASSYRIA which had so long swayed a sceptre of entire dominion over the East, began to wane and that its power was broken. The kingdom of BAB

YLON that ultimately became so vast and mighty, and that destroyed Assyria itself, was established during his life on a basis that secured its future independence and grandeur. The kingdom of MACEDON whose rise was followed by so great events under the emperor Alexander, was founded about the time when Isaiah began his prophetic life (B. C. 814) by Caranus. CARTHAGE had been founded about a half a century before (B. C. 869); and ROME was founded during his life. B. C. 753. SYRACUSE was built by Archias of Corinth, during his life. B. C. 769. It is of some importance in recollecting the events of ancient history to group them together, and some advantage may be derived to the student from connecting these events with the name and life of Isaiah.

The following tables copied mainly from Jahn's Biblical Archaeology will give a correct view of the principal chronological events in the time of Isaiah, and may be of use in the correct understanding of his prophecies.