ian power
is intimated also by the circumstance, that Hezekiah ventured to rebel
against the Assyrians, and the embassy of the Chaldean Merodach Baladan
to Hezekiah, implies that, even at that time, many things gave a title
to expect the speedy downfal of the Assyrian [Pg 191] Empire. But the
fact that Isaiah possessed the clear knowledge that, in some future
period, the dominion of the world would pass over to Babylon and the
Chaldeans,--that they would be the executors of the judgment upon
Judah, we have already proved, in our remarks on chaps. xiii., xiv.,
from the prophecies of the first part,--from chap. xxiii. 13, where the
Chaldeans are mentioned as the executors of the judgment upon the
neighbouring people, the Tyrians, and as the destroyers of the Assyrian
dominion,--and from chap. xxxix. The attempt of dispossessing him of
this knowledge is so much the more futile, that his contemporary Micah
undeniably possesses it; comp. Vol. i. p. 464. So also does Habakkuk,
between whose time and that of Isaiah, circumstances had not
essentially changed, and who likewise still prophesied before the
Chaldean monarchy had been established.

While this foreknowledge of the future _elevation_ of Babylon had a
_historical_ foundation, the foreknowledge of its _humiliation and
fate_, following soon after, rested on a _theological_ foundation. With
a heathenish people, elevation is always followed by haughtiness, with
all its consequences; and, according to the eternal laws of the divine
government of the world, haughtiness is a matter-of-fact prophecy of
destruction. Proceeding from this view, the downfal of the Chaldean
monarchy was prophesied by Habakkuk also, at a time when it was still
developing, and was far from having attained to the zenith of its
power. In the same manner, the foreknowledge of the future _deliverance
of Israel_ rises on a theological foundation, and is not at all to be
considered in the same light as if _e.g._, the Prophet had foretold to
Moab its deliverance. That which the Prophet here predicts is only the
individualization of a general truth which meets us at the very
beginnings of the covenant-people. The principle which St. Paul
advances in Rom. xi. 2: "God hath not cast away His people whom He
foreknew," and ver. 29: "For the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance," meets us, clearly and distinctly, as early as in the books
of Moses. In Levit. xxvi. 42-45, the deliverance from the land of