rary prophets of the kingdom of the ten tribes, which was
poisoned in its very first origin, found a different state of things;
the field there was already ripe for the harvest of judgment. And at
the time of Jeremiah, Judah had become like her apostate sister. At
that time it was not so much needed to comfort the miserable, as to
terrify sinners in their security. It was only after the wrath of God
had manifested itself in deeds, only after the judgment of God had been
executed upon Jerusalem, or was immediately at hand,--it was only then
that, in Jeremiah, and so in Ezekiel also, the stream of promise broke
forth without hinderance.

Chronology is, throughout, the principle according to which the
Prophecies of Isaiah are arranged. In the first six chapters, we obtain
a survey of the Prophet's ministry under Uzziah and Jotham. Chap. vii.
to x. 4 belongs to the time of Ahaz. From chap. x. 4 to the close of
chap. xxxv. every thing belongs to the time of the Assyrian invasion in
the fourteenth year of Hezekiah; in the face of which invasion the
prophetic gift of Isaiah was displayed as it had never been before. The
section, chap. xxxvi.-xxxix., furnishes us with the historical
commentary on the preceding [Pg 3] prophecies from the Assyrian period,
and forms, at the same time, the transition to the second part, which
still belongs to the same period, and the starting point of which is
Judah's deliverance from Asshur. In this most remarkable year of the
Prophet's life--a year rich in the manifestation of God's glory in
judgment and mercy--his prophecy flowed out in full streams, and spread
to every side. Not the destinies of Judah only, but those of the
Gentile nations also are drawn within its sphere. The Prophet does not
confine himself to the events immediately at hand, but in his ecstatic
state, the state of an elevated, and, as it were, armed consciousness,
in which he was during this whole period, his eye looks into the
farthest distances. He sees, especially, that, at some future period,
the Babylonian power, which began, even in his time, to germinate,
would take the place of the Assyrian,--that, like it, it would find the
field of Judah white for the harvest,--that, for this oppressor of the
world, destruction is prepared by _Koresh_ (Cyrus), the conqueror from
the East, and that he will liberate the people from their exile; and,
at the close of the development, he beholds the Saviour of the world,
whose image he d