BOOKS.

THE POETRY OF ISAIA.H.*

THREE great poetical books—the Book of Job, the Psalms, and the Book of the Prophet Isaiah—are the glory of Hebrew 'literature. No,. other race can set their like beside them. The defy time, and stand superior to all changes, whether of thought or language. Neither Homer nor Virgil, neither Dante nor Milton, ansalis with such a living voice, not only to the learned, but to the unlettered. There is, indeed, much in them that may perplex, but their inspiration is none the less -catholic "Their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words unto the end of the world." Nor does such a remark 'apply, we think, more closely to any of them than to that large and various collection of " Oracles " which bears the 'common name of "Isaiah." Few books present to scholars more numerous or more difficult problems. The text is frequently obscure and mutilated; many of the poems are ;Separated from one another by an interval of two hundred years, and an editor who lived, perhaps, five centuries after Isaiah .could hardly possess full information as to their original shape, their Provenance, or their proper grouping. None the less, these matters affect ordinary people very little, although, doubtless, .8°Ens noble passages which are familiar to us in our public services at times confuse or mislead. Who, for instance, can

oar the words, "Thou hest multiplied the nation, and not iuereased the joy," read on Christmas Day without feeling that they dull and darken the most glorious of prophecies P d surely that "Song of the Vengeance of Jahveh" which tells how He " cometh from Edom," His garments "sprinkled"

The Book of isaiah. Translated, with Introductions, Critical Notes, do., by /1.13ox, MA, London Sir Liam Pitman and Sons. [7s. Od not.]

and " stained " with blood, can only by a strange perversion of its meaning be read in Holy Week. Or again, in. that terrific passage (xxviii. 10) where the drunkards mock Isaiah and mimic his weary iterations in senseless words (" tsav-le-tsav, tsav-le-tsav; kav-le-kav, ; here a little, there a little ") the Revised Version might at least have made all clear by the use of inverted commas. But after all these are minor matters, and so, too, are many of the questions which confront critics. Our grandfathers knew nothing of " deutero-Isaiah," and were careless to distinguish the "lyrical" sweetness of the "idealist," whose song opens with the words, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people," from "the fire and vigour," the stern "practical" purpose of that Isaiah who met Aliaz as he stood making plans against a siege "at the end of the conduit of the upper pool," and bade him have no fear of "those two tails of smoking fire-brands," the Kings of Israel and of Syria. And with most of us it is much the same. There is such a living unity in " Isaiah" ; it has been brought together with what Liddon, we think, calls such "an inspiration of selection " ; and it glows with such a splendour of poetry and faith that all other thoughts are lost in wonder and in awe. The intellect and the critical sense are overmastered by the very first words of the "Great Arraignment" with which the book opens :— "Hear, 0 heavens, and give ear, 0 earth, for the Lord hate spoken : I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

The ex knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib Israel cloth not know, my people cloth not consider."

Majesty of conception, tenderness and intensity of feeling, clearness of illustration, perfect simplicity of expression—in fact, half the virtues that go to the making of great poetry— are to be found in these few words ; and where in literature is there such a model of sublimity as the chapter (vi.) which describes the Prophet's call P Part of it is, indeed, prose, but it is prose which makes most poetry seam dull and dead. There is not a word too much ; every phrase tells, and prints itself indelibly on the mind. There is the utmost boldness and the finest reticence. The imagination is stirred to the extreme bounds of possibility, but is not strained beyond them. The real and the ideal seem to blend wholly into one, as we look upon the six-winged Seraphim and hear that celestial song at which "the foundations of the thresholds were moved." That "live coal" which was "taken with the tongs from off the altar" seems substantial to our sense. The words of seer and seraph have alike the same reality, and when at last from amid "the smoke" that "filled the house" there is heard "the voice of the Lord," we are struck with awe rather than astonishment.

But to dwell on the poetic, power of those parts of Isaiah which our publio services make so familiar is superfluous. Who needs to be reminded of the words which tell how" there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse," on whom "shall rest the spirit of the Lord," and who "shall judge the poor with righteousness and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth" P And who does not know bow such words as

"He was despised and rejected of men" fall upon the ear with a music to which even Handel can add no new beauty P Nor is it necessary to speak of that "taunt song" upon the King of Babylon, the English rendering of which in our Bible has a rhythm and melody almost beyond verse. But it may, perhaps, be permissible to quote, almost without comment, one or two passages from chapters which are too little read. And take first this description of the Assyrian advance on Judah (x. 28) :— " Ho is come to Aiath, He is passed through Migron ; At Miolimash he layeth up his baggage ; They are gone over the Pass ; They have taken up their lodging at Gobs.; Ramah trombleth ; Gibeah of Saul is fled.

Cry aloud with thy voice, 0 daughter of Gallim I Listen, Laishah I Answer her, Anathoth I Madmenah is a fugitive; The inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to floe.

This very day shall he halt at Nob; Ho shaketh his hand at the Mount of the Daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem."

Surely Milton never wrote lines more majestioal in sound; but,. their life and movement, their irresistible sweep and

onrush, are, we think, beyond his art. Or look at this fragment (xxxi. 4) :—

" Like as when the lion growleth, and the young lion over his prey, If a multitude of shepherds be called forth against him, Ho will not be dismayed at their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them ; So shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight upon Mount Zion and upon the hill thereof."

That is Homer at his best, and we add a passage (xvii. 12) that seems beyond Homer, giving the version of our editor :— " Ah, The roar of many peoples that roar like the roaring of seas! And the thunder of mighty nations thunderous as the thunder of Ocean But Ho checks it, and it flees afar, And is chased like the chaff before the wind, like whirling dust before the hurricane. At eventide, behold terror, before morn it is no more!

Such is the portion of our spoilers, and the lot of our plunderers!"

To many of our readers these extracts will be very familiar, but we have ventured to make them, because they lie somewhat, as it were, off the beaten track, and also because in them it is possible, to study Isaiah far, less as a prophet than as a poet, whereas for the most part it is not easy to do so. In his noblest passages the spiritual and poetic elements are so closely interwoven that sharply to distinguish them and determine how much each contributes to the total effect seems an idle endeavour. Here and there, no doubt, ae in that Song of the Ransomed Which begins, "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them," poetry clearly prevails; but on the whole, perhaps, it is the passion and earnestness of the prophet which appeal to us most directly. And yet in spite of this etrOng impression it is, we think, the spirit of poetry which gives to the work of Isaiah its peculiar and Denetrating charm. Other preachers have had the same fire of 6nthiwia. sm, the same force of 'conviction, and a not less burning eloquence.; but few indeed have possessed in equal measure that gift of breathing into words and thoughts a quickening spirit, of making them speak to us with a living voice; which is true " poetry " (Trod/1-m)) because it is in fact a "Creative" act Look, for instance, at the great fifth chapter. The topics with which it deals are almost commonplaces of prophetic utterance,—the love of Jehovah for Israel, the "woes" that await the unrighteous, and the threat of foreign conquest. But to these old thoughts Isaiah gives a new life. The take form and character in his hands, and become instin# with personality. The sad 'yearning song, "To my' beloved touching his vineyard," with which the chapter opens, is a living cry, and -in the closing verses, when Jehovah "lifts Up an ensign to the nations and hisses unto them fiom the ends of the earth," the advamee Of the Assirian hosts is before 'our eyes, and stirs in each of us an almost individual alarm. But' it is perhaps the central portion (8-25) of this Mighty oracle which, if we may use the phrase, is' most suffused with poetry. Never, indeed, was there an utterance mere severe' than this "Sixfold Woe." It is as stern as though it had been spoken' among the granite crags of Sinai. And Yet it has in it a strange charm which can be felt rather than described. To hear it read is to assist, as it were, "At 'a Solemn Music." The sense Of terror is dissolved in a sense of awe and a consciousness of spiritual beauty. The words haunt the ear with their: majestic cadences, but, above all, their " inbreatit'd" harmony wakes a living echo in our own breasts. Our hearts seetri to beat in unison with the divine will, to be touched into noble, though grave, accord with the divine judgments, and we catch from the sacred poet some portion at least of his own inspiration.

It is necessary, however, to add that even this -wonderful chapter seethe critically to be a •collection Of fraginents. As printed in this volume, the first part is a separate poem ; the second is marked as having "suffered not inconsiderably in its text" and lost much of its "symmetrical arrangement," while the third part is. attached to the section ix. 7—x. 4. And this method of breaking up the work into its component parts. is probably in the main ,justified, while the separate "oracles" or "poems" gain much in clearness by being set, as far as possible, each in its historical setting, and Mr. Box deserves high praise for his admirable critical work. His "Introductions" are models of clear statement ; hie notes short and to the point; he prints the text so that its "rhythmical articulation and movement are set plainly before the reader's eye, and. by the employment of various forms of type makes it easy to distinguish between what he considers in each great division to be original, inserted, or editorial work ; while those who—like the present writer—are not Hebraists may accept the testimony to his scholarship which Dr. Driver expresses in the preface. In short, tie student could hardly find a more useful work. But, after all, the poetry of Isaiah, like that of Homer, is independent of commentators, and his, living , unity equally defies "The Separatists." Our English version is still the noblest piece of poetic prose in our language, and all the work of critics, commentators, or translators only serves to deepen our sense, of its supreme greatness.