ranked among the most remarkable of the chronological prophecies. The precise times at which they were delivered are expressly marked; and accordingly identified with the first and last years of Ahaz king of Judah. According to this period, which extended to sixteen years, the first of those remarkable predictions is divided; which, in determining the time when the Israelites should cease to be a people, declared that the national existence was limited to twenty-one years, of which it may be cursorily observed that it was a sabbatical period.

To form any just idea of the suitableness of the time at which this disclosure was made; it seems necessary to take into account the precise position in which the kingdoms were placed, of the existence of which it determines the duration.

The time chosen for its delivery was that in which, an invasion of the kingdom of Judah was projected by the confederate forces of the Israelites and Syrians. The object of this coalition, in which Pekah king of Israel engaged with Rezin king of Syria, was to cut off the succession of David, and to set an alien prince upon his throne; in contempt of the promise which had been expressly given, that the Messiah should be of his lineage, and the inheritor of his kingdom; the duration of which, it was declared, should be for ever. At this remarkable conjuncture, which drew forth the splendid prophecy of the immacu

late conception and birth of Immanuel; in whom the throne of David would be re-established, and through whom deliverance from impending danger was exclusively to be sought; the downfall of the kingdoms, confederate against Judah, was proclaimed, and the period of their national existence consequently prescribed to the schismatic tribes of Israel, among which, that of Ephraim— from the times of Jeroboam, who was of that tribe,—had obtained a supremacy. “And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind. Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field; and say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal: Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within sixteen and five

years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established."*

The periods thus accurately defined, are the twelve years of the reign of Ahaz to the accession of Hoshea, and the succeeding years to the ninth of this prince, in which this extraordinary prediction received a signal accomplishment. For, on appealing to the testimony of history, the best interpreter of prophecy, it appears, from that part of the sacred record in which the circumstances of the captivity are detailed, that, according to the precise term which had been fixed, the event proved answerable to the prediction. "And the king of Assyria," it declares, "found conspiracy in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and brought no tribute to the king of Assyria.... Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria and besieged it three years. And in the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor, by the river of Gozan; and in the cities of the Medes." †

In the singular manner in which these twenty

Is. vii. 2-9.

+ 2 Kings, xvii. 4, 5 6.

one years to the captivity are distributed into two periods, of sixteen and five years; which has occasioned as singular a corruption of the text of the prophet; there is a propriety which imparts to the circumstances of the prediction even greater appositeness and precision. It is not merely observable, that these different periods mark the precise length of the reign of Ahaz, to whom it was delivered; and as much of the reign of his son Hezekiah, under whom it was fulfilled, as remained to the consummation of that great national crisis; but they contribute to mark the conterminous bounds of a great moral contrast, in the reigns of these monarchs, to which we are to look, for the proper ground of the distribution of the term, prescribed by the divine appointment, to the national existence of Israel.

In the earlier period of sixteen years, during which the throne had been occupied by Ahaz, the Jewish nation, encouraged by the example, and seduced by the influence, of that idolatrous prince, had arrived at an unprecedented degree of iniquity. After the secession of the Israelites under Jeroboam, the Jews had maintained their allegiance to the royal line of David; and under a succession of peculiar kings had received many signal deliverances. But under Ahaz occurred that apostacy of the house of Judah" which was the ruin of him and of all Israel.”* This aban

* 2 Chron. xiii. 4.

doned prince set up molten calves in his dominions, burned incense in the valley of Hinnom, and sacrificed his children to the gods of the heathen. Instead of relying for deliverance upon the promises of God, through an expected Deliverer, he applied for assistance to the king of Assyria; committed sacrilege against the temple of the Lord, and spoiled it of the sacred utensils. Finally, trusting for safety in the gods of Syria, he offered them sacrifice; and at length shutting up the temple of the Lord, he made idolatry the established religion of the land. As far therefore as it seems possible for the Jewish nation to have been guilty of defection from the true God, and from the hope of deliverance through a promised Messiah, they appear to have fallen into the lowest state of apostacy.

But during the five succeeding years, in which the sceptre was held by Hezekiah, to whom it had descended from Ahaz, the opportunity of repentance and amendment were allowed to the devoted people; who, in contempt of every warning, and defiance of every menace, continued to rush madly upon destruction. Under this pious prince, the national worship, which had been suspended under his father, was restored with extraordinary splendor. He purified the temple, which had been closed in the preceding reign, and celebrated the passover with unusual pomp and solemnity; of which the schismatic tribes