A. NEW VOLUME IN THE "INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL COMMENTARY" SERIES.
The work was originally assigned to Dr. A. B. Davidson ; but that eminent divine had made very little progress with it at the time of his death. No one who is acquainted with his commentary on the Synoptic Gospels in the Expositor's Greek Testament will doubt that the world has lost much. This conviction does not interfere with our appreciation of the volume now before us. It is an excellent piece of work, showing on every page a thorough mastery of the subject. That it will surprise some readers we are sure. It is not very long since Biblical students were told that they must find two authors in the Book of Isaiah. The discovery of a trite-Isaiah is quite recent. A very large propor- tion of readers still remains ignorant of the division. More than half the clergymen in England, we imagine, still believe in the single authorship, and, if pressed by passages which seem to indicate the fall of Jerusalem and the exile of its inhabitants, would account for them by saying that they were predictions. But Professor Gray goes far beyond a double or even a triple authorship. He thinks that the whole book, as we have it, was put together after the Exile, a great many poems and fragments of poems being included, their dates extending over several centuries. We cannot, within our limits of space, give Professor Gray's conclusions, much less the arguments by which he reaches them. He leaves, we see, to Isaiah some of the most important passages—chapter vi., for instance, where the prophet relates the story of his mission. We should explain that a second volume is to follow, in which Professor Gray will carry on his commen- tary to the end of =mix., when it will be taken up by Professor Peake.
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