, too, borrows, in chap. xiii. 6, a sentence from Joel i.
15, the peculiarity of which proves that the coincidence is not
accidental. Such verbal repetitions must not be, by any means,
considered as unintentional reminiscences. They served to exhibit that
the prophets acknowledged one another as the organs of the Holy
Spirit,--to testify the [Greek: akribe diadochen], the want of which in
the times after Ezra and Nehemiah is mentioned by Josephus as one of
the reasons why none of the writings of [Pg 292] that period could be
acknowledged as sacred. (See the Author's _Dissertations on the
Genuineness of Daniel_, p. 199.) _Further_,--The description of the
threatening judgment in chap. i. and ii. is, in Joel, kept just in that
very same generality in which we find it in the oldest prophecies that
have been preserved to us, viz., in Amos, in the first chapters of
Isaiah and of Hosea; whilst in later times, the threatening is,
throughout, particularized by the express mention of the instruments
who were, in the first instance, to serve for its fulfilment, viz., the
Assyrians and Babylonians. That which Judah had to suffer from the
former was so severe, that Joel, in chap. iv. 4 ff.--where he mentions,
although, as it were, only in the way of example, nations with which
Judah had hitherto already come into hostile contact--would scarcely
have passed them over in silence, in order to mention only the far
lesser calamity inflicted by other nations.

But just as little can we think of an earlier period. It is certainly
not accidental, that among all the prophets whose writings have been
preserved to us, no one appeared at an earlier period; any more than it
is accidental, that no prophecies are extant of the distinguished men
of God in earlier times, of whom the historical books make mention,
especially Elijah and Elisha. It was only when the great divine
judgments were being prepared, and were approaching, that it was time,
through their announcement, to waken from the slumber of security
those who had forgotten God, and to open the treasures of hope and
consolation to the faithful. Formerly, the living, oral word of the
prophets was the principal thing; but now that God opened up to them a
wider view,--that their calling had regard not only to the present, but
also to the future time, the written word was raised to an equal
dignity. Nothing, then, but the most cogent reasons could induce us to
make, in the case of Joel only,