ernicious an
influence upon them. Our Prophet expressly intimates this peculiar
manner of the prophetic announcement by making, in chap. xlix. 7, the
Lord say: "First I said to Zion: _Behold there, behold there_," by
which the graphic character of prophecy is precisely expressed, and by
which it is intimated that hearers and readers were led _in rem
praesentem_ by the prophets. Even grammar has long ago acknowledged
this fact, inasmuch as it speaks of _Praeterita prophetica_, _i.e._,
such as denote the _ideal_ Past, in contrast to those which denote the
_real_ Past. Unless we have attained to this view and insight, it is
only by inconsistency that we can escape from _Eichhorn's_ view, that
the prophecies are, for the most part, disguised historical
descriptions,--a view into which even expositors, such as _Ewald_ and
_Hitzig_, frequently relapse. Frequently, the whole of the Future
appears with the prophets in the form of the _Present_. At other times,
they take their stand in the [Pg 171] more immediate Future; and this
becomes to them the _ideal_ Present, from which they direct the eye to
the distant Future. From the rich store of proofs which we can adduce
for our view, we shall here mention only a few.

This mode of representation meets us frequently so early as in the
parting hymn of Moses, Deut. xxxii., which may be considered as the
germ of all prophetism; compare _e.g._ vers. 7 and 8. On the latter
verse, _Clericus_ remarks: "Moses mourns over this in his hymn, as if
it were already past, because he foresees that it will be so, and he,
in the Spirit, transfers himself into those future times, and says that
which then only should be said."

In Isaiah himself, the very first chapter presents a remarkable proof
The Present in chap. i. 5-9 is not a _real_, but an _ideal_ Present. In
the Spirit, the Prophet transfers himself into the time of the calamity
impending upon the apostate people, and, stepping back upon the real
Present, he, in the farther course of the prophecy, predicts this
calamity as future. The reasons for this view have been thoroughly
stated, even to exhaustion, by _Caspari_, in his _Beitraege zur
Einleitung in das Buch Jesaia_. In the second half of ver. 2, the
kingdom appears as flourishing and powerful. To the same result we are
led also by the description of the rich sacrificial worship in vers.
15-19. If, then, we view vers. 5-9 as a description of the Present, we
obtain an irreconcilable con