rophets not unfrequently represent the Lord appearing to judge the
whole world; and in Israel, the _Microcosmos_, it was indeed judged. We
have a perfectly analogous case, _e.g._, in Is. chap. ii.-iv. It is
only by means of a very forced explanation, that it can be denied that
after the prophet has, by a few bold touches, from ii. 6-9, described
the moral debasement of the Covenant-people, and marked out pride as
its last source, the last judgment upon the whole earth forms the
subject of discourse. In that judgment there will be a most clear
revelation of the vanity of all which is created--a vanity which, in
the present course of the world, is so frequently concealed--and that
the Lord alone is exalted, and that those who now shut their eyes will
then be compelled to acknowledge these truths. That Isaiah has this
general judgment in view, is too clearly proved by the sublimity of the
whole description, by the express mention of the whole earth, _e.g._,
ii. 19, and by not limiting, in the individualized description in ver.
12 sqq., the high and lofty which is to be brought low to Judah alone,
but by extending it to the whole world. But in iii. 1 ff. the prophet
suddenly passes over to the typical, penal judgment upon Judah; and the
[Hebrew: ki], at the commencement, shows that he does not consider this
subject as one altogether new, but as being substantially identical
with the preceding subject. This reminds us forcibly of the mode in
which, in the prophecies of our Lord, the references to the destruction
of Jerusalem, and to the last judgment, are connected with one another.
In the "burden of Babylon" in chap. xiii. likewise, the judgment of the
Lord upon the whole earth is first described. Nor is it only on the
territory of prophecy that this close connection of the general
judgment with the inferior judgments upon the Covenant-people appears.
In Ps. lxxxii. 8, _e.g._, after the unrighteousness prevailing among
the Covenant-people has been described, the Lord is called upon to come
to judge, not them [Pg 427] alone, but the whole earth; compare my
Commentary on Ps. vii. 8, lvi. 8, lix. 6.

The prophet thus passes over, in ver. 5, from the general
manifestation of divine justice to its special manifestation among the
Covenant-people, and mentions here, as the most prominent points upon
which it will be inflicted, Samaria and Jerusalem, the two capitals,
from which the apostasy from the Lord spread over the rest of the