And the lofty shall be made low. He fells the thickets of the forests with the axe, And Lebanon falls by a mighty hand. Yet there shall come forth a shoot from the stem of Jesse, And a scion shall grow out of his root; And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of the knowledge and fear of Jehovah. He shall be of quick discernment in the fear of Jehovah, And shall not judge according to appearances, Nor decide according to hearsay. But he shall judge the poor in righteousness, And speak for the right of the oppressed in the land. He shall smite the evil doer with his tongue, And slay the wicked with the breath of his lips. And the leopard shall lie down with the kid, And the calf and the young lion, and the fatling shall be together, And a little child shall lead them. And the heifer and the she-bear shall feed together, Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like an ox; The suckling shall play upon the hole of the aspic, And the weaned child lay his hand upon the den of the basilisk: They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, As the waters cover the depths of the sea.-Is. x. 33, 34 and xi. 1–9. "Contemporary with Isaiah, the sublimest of our prophets, was Micah, the Morasthite, who uttered these words: The sun goeth down over the prophets And the diviners confounded. Yea, they shall all cover their faces Because no fulfilment cometh from Jehovah. But I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord, To declare unto Jacob his transgression And unto Israel his sin. For this reason shall Zion be ploughed as a field, And Jerusalem shall become heaps, And the temple-hill as the high places of the forest. But in the last days it shall come to pass That the hill of the Lord's temple shall be established in the top of the mountains, And it shall be exalted above the hills, And nations shall flow unto it; And many people shall come and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, And to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may teach us of his ways And we may walk in his paths. For the law shall go forth from Zion And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And be arbiter of strong nations afar off. They shall beat their swords into plough-shares, And their spears into pruning-hooks; Nation shall not lift up the sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his own vine and under his figtree, And none shall make them afraid: For the mouth of the Lord of Hosts has spoken it. — Micah iii. iv. "Such prophets as these spoke in the days of Hezekiah, a weak but pious man. When indeed could the word of prophesy be more seasonable or more needed? The doctrine of retribution was now fully developed. Israel had ceased to be; Judah still existed, through the piety of her kings. Had the prophet to speak of judgment — he had only to point to the hills of Ephraim, and her sons on the banks of Chebar: was the faithfulness of Jehovah and his recompense of obedience, the theme the seed of David still sat upon the throne of Judah, while so many dynasties had successively occupied that of Israel. But there was another occasion for a prophet; for danger threatened on all sides, and Sennacherib with his immense host besieged Jerusalein. Today the army of the conquerer stood around the terrified city and its trembling king. He goes dejected to the house of the Lord, spreads out before him the letters and demands of the haughty invader, and prays to Jehovah. Isaiah the prophet declares to him, ' He shall not come into this city; for I will defend it to save it, for mine own sake and for David my servant's sake." And in the morning Sennacherib flees before the angel of the Lord, who had smitten his hosts during the night. But Jehovah, who was so benign towards those that called upon him in humility, showed himself equally severe towards the proud. When Hezekiah, thoughtless and vain, had shown his treasures to the Babylonians, a nation then of little account in comparison with the Assyrians, Isaiah appears before him, and says, 'Behold the time cometh, when all that is in thine house and all that thy fathers have collected unto this day shall be carried away to Babylon, nothing shall remain, saith Jehovah.'t "To Hezekiah succeeded his son Manasseh, a prince wholly unlike his father, who, as a punishment of his offences, was carried away to Babylon, and brought back when he repented and returned to Jehovah. His reign is the picture of the history of the people in this period; sin, and punishment, repentance and favor! "Some time after began the days of Josiah, who was pious and prosperous under the guidance of Hilkiah, as Joash had been under that of Jehoiada, and Uzziah under that of Zechariah. The lost volume of the law was found, the temple purified, the passover kept, and the abominations of the high places of the valley of Tophet, and the horses of the sun were removed. The king stood by a pillar in the temple and made a covenant with the Lord, and it is written, There was no king before him like unto him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.' For this he was permitted to see the downfall of the hostile kingdom of Assyria, and he and his people were happy. *2 Kings xix. 33, 34. † Isaiah xxxix. 2 Kings xxiii. 25. "But after the death of Josiah, Judah hastened with rapid strides to its destruction under the government of wicked princes. The prophecy of Isaiah to Hezekiah was fulfilled in the days of Jehoiakim. The vessels of the temple and the sons of the chief men of the land were carried away to Babylon. Jehoiakim, his son and successor, was deposed, after a reign of three months, and all the men of valor or property were removed to Babylon. Two prophets, who accompanied their exile, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, were chosen by Jehovah, in these awful times, to make known his word to his people. "The last king that sat upon the throne of David was Zedekiab, another son of Josiah. He was seduced, in the ninth year of his reign, to rebel against Babylon and to league himself with Egypt. The Chaldeans invested Jerusalem, and it fell, in the three hundred and seventeenth year of the division of the kingdoms. The king was carried to Riblah, and his eyes put out, after he had witnessed the slaughter of his sons. He was then carried captive to Babylon, and awfully was the prophecy of Ezekiel fulfilled: 'I will bring him to Babel in the land of the Chaldeans, and he shall die there; yet he shall not behold it.** "The vessels of the house of God, small and great, the treasures of the temple and of the palace, and of all the princes, were carried by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon. The youths were slaughtered in the sanctuary, and neither age nor sex was spared; Jehovah gave everything into his hand. All that remained was carried away to Babylon. They burnt the house of the Lord, and the house of the king and all the houses of Jerusalem. And the army of the Chaldeans broke down the walls of Jerusalem round about, "Thus Jeshurun, the once beloved people of Jehovah, the once glorious daughter of Zion, lay in desolation and misery. The glory of Solomon was scarcely discernible in its ruins; the blessing of David had vanished from his throne, and even * Ezek. xii. 13. that which Joshua and the Judges had earned with toil and blood was lost. David, Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, had called upon them to fear Jehovah, but the superstitions of the neighboring nations had more powerful attractions, and the law was too heavy a yoke for their untamed necks. Hence this awful punishment and unheard of retribution. Prophets were not wanting, to point out and enforce the lesson. Hear how our Jeremiah pours forth his heart-rending sorrows: How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How is she become as a widow once great among the nations! The queen of the lands, how is she become a slave ! She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. Of all that loved her she hath none to comfort her, All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest, All her persecutors overtake her at the borders. The ways of Zion mourn because no man comes to the solemn feasts : All her gates are desolate, her priests sigh, Her virgins are afflicted, and are in bitterness. Her adversaries are victorious, her enemies prosper; For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy; From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed. Her princes are become like deer, that find no pasture. They fall without strength before the pursuer. Jerusalem calls to mind in her misery the pleasures of the days of old. Now she falleth into the hand of her enemy, and none help her; Her adversaries see her and mock, because she must keep her sabbaths. -She seeth that the heathen enter into her sanctuary, Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congrega tion. See if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, With which the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his anger." "Admirable !" exclaimed Myron, unable to resist the beauty of this lamentation. Elisama continued: "It is the finest of all the songs of our prophets, and its echo still lives in the hearts of the children |