of secondary applications of texts; but, from the point of view of positive science, there is absolutely no reason to see a predictive element in any part of the Old Testament. Indeed, "the Messiah" (with a definite article) is not an Old Testament phrase at all; it has been read into it. The word Messiah (properly Māshiah), which means "the anointed one," is the ordinary title of the human king. Then, also, the integrity and early date of the prophecies have been shown to be delusive. In fact, some of the prophets have been reduced to myths. How much written prophecy may have existed before the exile is a difficult question; the earliest certainly do not go beyond the eighth century. In any case, all were re-edited after the exile when the scattered remnants of prophecies from a multitude of anonymous writers were collected into a number of books, to which the names of the prophets were given. As Robertson Smith says, "the collections of all remains of ancient prophecies, digested into the four books named from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel, and the twelve minor prophets, were not formed till after the time of Ezra, 250 years at least after the death of Isaiah." The higher critics discovered the composite or mosaic character of the books, and were enabled to correct the traditional view of their origin.
Thus, in the prophecy of Isaiah, it was soon discovered that the last twenty-two chapters were by an entirely different writer—a "great unknown prophet" about the time of the Babylonian Captivity; "they cannot be understood in a natural and living way except by looking at them from the historical standpoint of the exile," says Dr. Driver. The whole chronological order of the book is confused, so that it has clearly been redacted by an incompetent later editor, who inserted many fragments which belonged neither to the real nor to the deutero-Isaiah. Thus, the "Messianic" prediction in ii. 2-4 is probably a post-exilic text; so also the "prediction" of the root of Jesse (xi. 10). And the "predictions" which are assigned to Isaiah have lost all super natural character. He was not only a prophet or religious teacher, but he was an able politician; he shows a clear appreciation of the dangers of the situation, and often gives a shrewd forecast of the course of events. Profoundly religious as he is, he is persuaded that a king (Messiah) is
