uctory chapter describing the vision of the glory of God which
the prophet had when called to his office, there follows, in the form of
visions, allegories, symbolic actions, and direct addresses, a series of
vivid descriptions of the sins of Jerusalem and the judgments of heaven
that are about to fall upon her. With these are interspersed
denunciations of the false prophets that flatter the people in their
sins, and fervent addresses to his fellow-captives remarkable for their
plainness and evangelical spirit. The _second_ part opens with a series
of prophecies against seven foreign nations, in which the order of time
is not observed--first, short prophecies against the four neighboring
nations, Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia (chap. 25); secondly, a series of
prophecies against Tyre, to which is appended a short prophecy against
Sidon (chaps. 26-28); thirdly, a like series of prophecies against Egypt
(chaps. 29-32). These prophecies were fulfilled through the same
Chaldean power that executed God's righteous vengeance on the covenant
people. As the number _seven_ is made out by separating Sidon from Tyre
to which it properly belonged, it is rightly held to be a symbolic
number, as in the book of Revelation and elsewhere, seven being the
well-known symbol of completeness. With the announcement of the fall of
Jerusalem (33:21) the thunders of God's wrath that had so long rolled
over her die away; and the series of prophecies that follows is mainly
occupied, like the last part of Isaiah, with predictions of the future
glory of Zion, in connection with God's awful judgments upon the wicked
within and without her borders. Of these the last nine chapters contain
a description of the vision which God vouchsafed to the prophet of a new
Jerusalem, with its temple, priests and altars, rising out of the ruins
of the former, of larger extent and in a more glorious form. He sees
the land of Canaan also divided out to the returning captives by lot, as
it was in the days of Joshua, but upon an entirely different plan.

The general plan of the temple is after the model of Solomon's; yet this
vision is not to be understood as a mere prophecy of the rebuilding of
Solomon's temple with the city in which it stood, and of the
repossession of the land after the Babylonish captivity. Several
particulars in the description make it plain that it was not intended to
be literally understood. See chaps. 42:15-20; 45:1-8; 47:1-12; and the
whole of ch