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PATRIOTISM AND RELIGION

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inhabitant shall not say, I am sick the people that dwell therein are forgiven their iniquity.]

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Professor Cheyne describes the foregoing section in the following way: The language and ideas of this chapter are not those of Isaiah, but of a later writer, who has absorbed much besides Isaiah, and is a contemporary of the Psalmists, into whose style he frequently falls. The author imaginatively places himself in the time of Sennacherib's invasion, and endeavours to write as Isaiah would then have written, though it is probable that he is thinking of the sufferings endured by his people in post-exilic times, when Persian armies were not infrequent visitors in Palestine. His composition is strongly apocalyptic' (i. e. revealing). It discloses the fate of the assembled hostile nations, of which the later prophets speak, and of which the hosts of Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) or of Ochus (359-338 B. C.) are forerunners. In form, it is the prayer or meditation of the later Jewish community which is in the main righteous, from a legal point of view, though it still includes sinners who are to be destroyed, and craves for a full visible assurance that its sins have been forgiven.' There is only a bare allusion to the Messianic king, 'who only appears sporadically in the later literature.'

There seems a strange mingling of outward and inward in these aspirations for the future. The material and the spiritual seem oddly combined. It is not merely that the combination of health and sinlessness sounds to us arbitrary. We remember that to antiquity disease (especially sudden or severe disease) was regarded as a sign of God's displeasure, and therefore of sin. This was one of the illegitimate deductions that hung as a heavy and depressing cloud upon the old Jewish religion. Against it, as against all false and cruel combinations of suffering and sin, the Book of Job, as we have seen, is a sublime and permanent protest. But there is something over and above the implied connexion between disease and sin which surprises us in this section. It is the combination in the desired future of goodness and plunder. As to this combination we have again to remember what has already been often said as to the peculiar connexion among the later Jews of their religion and their patriotism.

To some extent that connexion improved both, for it made both intensely real and vivid and living, enabling the Jews to go through the Maccabean martyrdoms, for example, with heroic courage and constancy. But to some extent it also corrupted both, for patriotism when fired by the flame of religion tends to become fanatical and virulent, while religion when it becomes

a phase of patriotism easily grows narrow, and acquires not unfrequently external and material elements.

So here we see the desire for vengeance upon the national oppressor (be it the Persians under Artaxerxes Ochus or the 'Greeks' under Antiochus Epiphanes and his successors) falsely dignified by a religious veneer. At the same time within the writer's own community there is no reason to suppose that the moral ideal for days of peace was not what he so finely describes in the words which follow the question, 'who amongst us can dwell with everlasting burnings?'

It is an immense satisfaction that Judaism is now severed from national limits; our religion and our country are not conterminous; there are millions of our religious brotherhood who are not of our nation; there are millions of our nation who are not of our religious brotherhood. Hence we Jews are peculiarly well situated; we need never allow our religion to harm our patriotism or our patriotism to harm our religion. We have only to notice the evil results of an identification of nation with religion in the case of Russia to be the more stimulated to take the utmost pains to get all the benefits we can from our own position of vantage. Even in countries further west than Russia we see tendencies of a narrowing and dehumanizing identification of religion with country. We Jews should be the purest universalists. No German, for instance, is better able than a German Jew to have a true patriotism for Germany untainted by any narrowing jealousy of the foreigner. No German is better able than a German Jew to bear a true love to his own religious brotherhood untainted by any prejudice against his fellow-citizens of other creeds. In all countries none are better able than Jews to seek to succour the oppressed and to help the downtrodden, not because they belong to this religion or to that, not because they belong to this nation or to that, but for a reason far higher: because they are human, because they too are children of God, be their race or religion what it may.

There are many individual difficulties in this last section, but I have not space to touch on more than one or two of them. The first paragraph describes the day of retribution upon Israel's enemies; they who carry off the spoil are the Jews. In the second paragraph the 'valiant ones' are the Jewish warriors. If the writer dramatically assumes the position of Isaiah, we may explain' the words,' He hath broken the covenant,' &c., by a reference to Part I, p. 380. 'Hezekiah's tribute has been paid, but Sennacherib perfidiously continues his ravages.' The term Ariels 'probably alludes' to the opening of § 5. The writer reads Ariel for Arial, and

'THE LORD IS OUR KING'

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interprets the term to mean God's lion, a designation which would, of course, be equally suitable for a fortified city and for a warrior (Cheyne). The 'everlasting burnings' in the third paragraph seem to refer to the supernatural phenomena of the judgement, which terrify the guilty consciences of faithless Israelites. The writer supposes the everlasting fire of God to have become visible for the protection of the good, and for the destruction of the wicked.' In the fourth paragraph, the king in his beauty is the Messiah. In his days there is no longer tribute or impost. The fifth paragraph implies the popular idea that the foreigner's speech is really what it seems: gibberish without meaning. The sixth paragraph is difficult. As here translated (with an emended text) it means that the new stream in Zion will be no great river for warships to sail on. It is the stream of the city of peace. The opening of the seventh and last paragraph gave the suggestion (I suppose) for our familiar Sabbath hymn: Ain kaylohainu, there is none like our God.'

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CHAPTER V

ISAIAH XXIV-XXVII

§1. The final judgement.-The last selection from the Book of Isaiah which I propose to give comprises its 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th chapters. These chapters form a separate booklet or group, and are of late post-exilic origin, as is now universally allowed. The exact date is doubtful, because the allusions are dark and vague, and the writer, whose theme, the last judgement and the final deliverance of Israel, is now already familiar to us, speaks for the most part in vague, though often poetic generalities. It will be better to say something as to a possible date when we have heard the whole.

The first section is the twenty-fourth chapter. This in Dr. Skinner's words 'is mainly an announcement of the last judgement, but partly also a gloomy survey of the actual state of the world' (and more especially of the author's own little world, Judaea). The writer feels that he is living in the last days, and in the universal wretchedness and confusions of the age he seems to discern the beginning of the end. His thoughts glide almost imperceptibly from the one point of view to the other, now describing the distress and depression which exist, and now the more terrible visitation which is imminent.'

Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. The earth shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoiled; for the Lord hath spoken this word.

DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN

The earth mourneth and fadeth away,

The world languisheth and fadeth away,

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The noblest of the people of the earth do languish. (?) For the earth is profaned under the inhabitants thereof; Because they have transgressed the laws, violated the ordinance,

Broken the everlasting covenant.

Therefore a curse devoureth the earth,

And they that dwell therein are accounted guilty: Therefore the inhabitants of the earth burn,

And few men are left.

The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth,
All the merryhearted do sigh.

The mirth of pipes ceaseth,

The noise of them that rejoice endeth,
The joy of the harp ceaseth.

They shall not drink wine with a song;

Strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.

The desolate city is broken down;

Every house is shut up, that no man may come in. There is a crying because of the wine in the streets; All joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone. In the city is left desolation,

And the gate is smitten unto ruins.

For so shall it be in the midst of the earth among the peoples, as at the beating of an olive tree, as the after gleaning when the vintage is done.

But these lift up their voice, they shout;

For the majesty of the Lord they cry aloud from the sea, "Therefore glorify ye the Lord in the coastlands,

Even the name of the Lord God of Israel in the coastlands of the sea.'

From the border of the earth we have heard songs of praise : Glory is come for the righteous!

But I

say, I am sick, I am sick, woe unto me! The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously;

Yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously.

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