ssyrians,
therefore, it would be necessary to make an alliance with some other
nation whose gods were very powerful. So the people of Jehovah began
to "strike hands with the children of foreigners." The rulers of
Jerusalem set about making coalitions with the other nations of
western Asia: with the Philistines, the Syrians, the Phoenicians and,
most of all, the Egyptians. The gods of the Egyptians were supposed to
be especially strong: Osiris and Isis were the chief of their deities
and they were believed to be the gods of the underworld--of Sheol, or
Hades, the abode of the dead. So when these poor ignorant politicians
at Jerusalem finally did succeed in arranging for an alliance with the
crafty and deceitful kings of Egypt they said to themselves: "Now we
are safe. The Assyrians cannot hurt us now. We have made a covenant
with Death."

THE STATESMAN-PROPHET, ISAIAH

It is good to know that among many misguided people there was one man
whose wisdom of the eternal Truth of God made him stand like a rock
while the multitudes ran to and fro in uncertainty and despair. Isaiah
was a comrade and co-worker in spirit with the prophets named in the
three preceding chapters, Amos, Hosea, and Micah. It is by no means
impossible that he had listened to the sermons of Hosea, and thus
caught from him his inspiration. He must certainly have known Micah
personally, for they lived and preached only some twenty-five or
thirty miles apart--Micah in the village of Moresheth and Isaiah in
the city of Jerusalem.

=Isaiah's message.=--Isaiah's special message to his people was that
all the nations of the world are subject to the righteous rule of the
God of righteousness, Jehovah; and that the attempt to find safety for
their nation by alliances with other nations and their gods was
utterly foolish and wrong. Undoubtedly this message found a response
in the hearts of those who remained faithful to Jehovah.

This message grew out of the great and splendid ideas as to Jehovah's
character which Amos and his successors had been working out: that he
was a God of righteousness and love, not greedy for burnt-offerings,
not flaring up into fits of anger, and needing to be soothed and
mollified by peace offerings; but a God who asks only for justice and
fair-dealing among men, and for true love in response to his own.
Isaiah repeated these great truths to his own people in Jerusalem in
glowing words whose eloquence is unsurpassed. For example: