ans in the whole of the south of Palestine to near
Jerusalem; then, the Philistines, or when called by their cities, the
Gazeans and Ashdodians; the Ph[oe]nicians, the Samaritans or Chutteans,
the mixed population of Galilee, the Arabs of Perea.... As soon as the
Jewish people, who, up to that time, had been altogether insignificant
in a political point of view, rose against [Pg 473] the Syrian empire,
at first for their religious peculiarities, then, for their political
independence, and, finally, even for the recovery of the _ideal_
possession of their country--an idea which had been kept alive by
tradition,--it could not but be that those who were naturally the
supports and centres of the Syrian operations, became the objects of
the hostile Jewish operations; and that the whole national portion of
the population, although not Greeks, were anew inflamed by their old
hatred of, and opposition to, Judaism; so that they considered that
Hellenic struggle as also a national one. This period thus produced at
the same time a revival of the old national struggle of the inhabitants
of Palestine, modified and increased by the struggle of Hellenism with
the national reaction which served as a superstructure for it." The
objection, raised even by _Caspari_, that a prophecy of the victorious
struggles in the time of the Maccabees must be strange and surprising
in a prophet of the Assyrian period, will not startle those who look at
the analogies--such as the prophecy in Is. vi. In the latter prophecy,
first the Chaldean, and then the Roman catastrophes, are described in
sharp outlines, but without any mention of the names of the instruments
of punishment. It is only in reference to the executors of the first of
these judgments that more distinct disclosures were given to the
prophet himself at a subsequent period. The announcement in Zech. ix.,
where the Greeks are expressly mentioned, is, in reality, not less
miraculous. According to all prophetical analogies, it is _a priori_
probable that this detailed prophecy of the Maccabean period, and the
similar one in Daniel, should have been preceded by some older prophecy
which refers to the same facts, but only in general outlines, such as
we have in the passage under consideration. If any doubt should
still remain, it would be removed by a glance at the conflicting
interpretations. _Ewald_ and _Hitzig_ think of the Assyrian invasion,
to which vers. 9, 10, are likewise referred by them,