nius_ cannot avoid remarking: "The prophetic eye of [Pg
137] Isaiah foresaw, even at that time, that, in a political point of
view, Babylon would, in a short time, altogether enter into the track
of Assyria."

CHAPTERS XVII., XVIII.

These two chapters form one whole, as, generally, the series of the
ten _burdens_ is nowhere interrupted by inserted, heterogeneous,
independent portions. Chapter xx. forms an appendix only to chapter
xix. In the same manner, the prophecy against Sebna in chap. xxii.
16-25, stands in an internal connection with vers. 1-15; in that which
befel him, the destinies of the people were to be typified. That these
two chapters belong to one another is clearly proved by the parallelism
of chap. xvii. 10, 11, and chap. xviii. 4-6.

The inscription runs: "Burden of Damascus." It is at the commencement
of the prophecy that the Syrians of Damascus are spoken of; the
threatening soon after turns against Judah and Israel. This is easily
accounted for by the consideration that the prophecy refers to a
relation where Judah and Israel appear in the retinue of Damascus. It
was from Damascus that, in the Syrico-Damascenic war, the whole
complication proceeded. Aram induced Israel to join him in the war
against Judah, and misled Judah to seek help from Asshur. In a general
religious point of view, also, all Israel, the kingdom of the ten
tribes, as well as Judah, were at that time, as it were, incorporated
into Damascus; comp. ver. 10, according to which Israel's guilt
consisted in having planted strange vines in his vineyard, with 2 Kings
xvi. 10, according to which Ahaz got an altar made at Jerusalem after
the pattern of that which he had seen at Damascus. The circumstance
that Israel had become like Damascus, was the reason why it was given
up to the Gentiles for punishment.

From the comparison of chap. x. 28-34, it appears that chap. xvii.
12-14 belongs to the time of Hezekiah, when Israel was threatened by
the invasion of Sennacherib. In chap. xvii. 1-11, in which, at first,
the overthrow of Damascus and the kingdom of the ten tribes appears as
still future, the Prophet [Pg 138] thus transfers himself back to the
stand-point of an earlier time. To this result we are also led by the
chronological arrangement of the whole collection. The Prophet,
stepping back in spirit to the beginning of the complication, surveys
the whole of the calamity and salvation which arise to I