ters to the enemies of their country; instead of being permitted to enjoy such despoliation of their neighbors' dominions. Only occasionally, even in the great imaginative passages of their writings, do we find anything which appears to favor the treatment of captives as freemen (Isa. 56:7; 61:1). The contrary seems to have been expected and encouraged (Isa. 14:2; 49:23, 24; 61:5). Nevertheless these men were all to be treated humanely. Anything in the nature of severity or unkindness was frowned upon by these ethical teachers who professed to speak for their God.
That the prophets knew what it usually meant for delicately reared people to be taken as captives of war and carried as slaves into foreign parts is painfully evident from their writings. One prophet speaks of the people of Egypt, upper and lower, being taken, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks stripped to their shame (Isa. 20:4). Another, in speaking of the fall and spoliation of Nineveh, pictures the city as a delicately reared woman who goes forth with her maids, dishonored and abased:
She is made bare, she is carried away;
Her maids mourn for her as with the voice of doves,
Tabering upon their breasts.
—Nahum 2:7.
Another prophetic writer in similar strains speaks of Babylon as a woman who has fallen from her lofty estate to become a captive and a mill-wench:
Come down, and sit in the dust,
O virgin daughter of Babylon;
Sit upon the ground without a throne,
daughter of the Chaldeans:
For thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
Take the millstones, and grind the flour;
Remove the veil, take off the skirt,
Uncover the leg, pass through the waters.
Thy nakedness shall be uncovered;
Yea, thy shame shall be seen.
I will take vengeance, and will absolve none.
Sit thou silent, or get thee into darkness,
O daughter of the Chaldeans,
For thou shalt no more be called, the lady of kingdoms.
—Isa. 47:1 ff.
