elation. It is significant of the character of all the literature we are studying that the element of the prophecy which thus rose up into new life is that which embodies emotion and intuition, and that as it soared to its highest reaches, more and more it cut loose from the trammels of fact and the limitations of time and space.

The writings of the prophets as we have them begin with Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, in the middle of the eighth century B.C., the time when under Jeroboam II of Northern Israel and Azariah of Judah, the two little kingdoms flickered up into a final period of prosperity and apparent independence before the great power of the Euphrates aroused itself and extended its borders once more to meet those of Egypt. Of these we may take the prophecies of Amos and Isaiah as examples of the prophecy at its strongest and noblest.

The first appearance of Amos, a rough herdsman from the hills of Judah, before the wealthy and cultivated nobles of Samaria, men grown fat with riches and luxury, is a most dramatic incident. He begins with a series of denunciations against their hereditary enemies:

Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have

threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron:

But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad.

I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the Lord.1

Then he follows with denunciations of Gaza and Ashdod, of Tyrus, of Edom because "he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever", of Ammon, and of Moab, "because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime." Then when his hearers are lulled by these satisfying denunciations of their enemies, suddenly and without warning he turns on them:

Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;

That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek:

And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the 1 Amos i. 3-5.

wine of the condemned in the house of their god.1

Here we have the prophecy at its best; the sharp perception of the concrete facts is fused by imagination into a message of the deeper meaning which underlies it. Amos always shows this combination: both his descriptions of the oppressive luxury of the nobles and the imagery in which he denounces the punishment of them are extraordinarily vivid:

Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;

That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;

That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David;

That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.2

And for the punishment:

And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused 1 Amos ii. 6-8. 2 Ibid., vi. 3-6.

it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.

So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.1

And again:

Thus saith the Lord; As the shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch.

Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, saith the Lord God, the God of hosts,

That in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon him I will also visit the altars of Beth-el: and the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and fall to the ground.

And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith the Lord.2

In all his declaration of the new and unwelcome truth, that Jehovah would punish his chosen people for their unrighteousness as well as reward them for their good deeds, Amos has the sharpest and strongest sense of the actual evil for which the punishment 2 Ibid., iii. 12-15.

1 Amos iv. 6-8.

would come and the imagination and feeling which clothed those facts with spiritual power.

So in the same way with Isaiah, a younger and greater contemporary of Amos. He is the most notable of all the prophets, for he more than any of them shows this complete balance of the unfailing grasp of fact and the power of the imagination which fuses the fact into an expression of the higher truths which lie behind. In all his prophecies one feels the statesmanship of a man who, looking beyond the mountains of Judah to the movements of the great world outside, recognized that Assyria was irresistible and that the only hope for Judah was to bow before the storm and trust in the Lord God. Moreover, one finds in Isaiah's prophecies what one does not find in those of the other prophets, a firm confidence that they will have weight: one recognizes that here is a man who impressed his own high and inspired purpose on the actions of weak and unwilling kings.

What I wish to emphasize now, however, is the solid and vivid appreciation of fact and the high imagination of his messages. Of the grasp of fact one can find many instances. His warning to Hezekiah not to intrigue with Egypt, not only shows the statesman's insight into the situation, but recreates the situation for us: