required who shall rule over Israel in the name and spirit of Jehovah, and he is confident that Jehovah will raise one up; his Messianic ideal consists simply in the perfect performance of the ordinary duties of a monarch—there is no reason for thinking that he looks beyond that immediate ideal. In c. xi. his fanciful millennium is simply a hopeful anticipation of the downfall of Assyria (for it was his policy to dissuade an Assyrian alliance) and the rise of a new Davidic kingdom; he has perfect confidence in the ultimate triumph of Jehovah. Thus, also the famous text on the conception by a virgin (vii. 14 sqq.) is now easily understood. The Hebrew word, in the first place, does not mean a "virgin" in the physical sense; it means any young woman of age to become a mother. So far from alluding to the "Virgin" Mary and Christ, Isaiah simply says that any woman who may conceive and bear a child within a year may call him Emmanuel (God with us); foretelling that before the infant reaches the age of intelligent childhood Judah will be laid desolate, all wealth and hindrances to union with God swept away, nothing will be between men and God. It was a political forecast for the coming few years, such as the great statesman often gave; and, like all similar predictions, they were not always realized, and were generally inaccurate in details and exaggerated in colouring.
The most destructive criticism has fallen to the lot of Daniel. Not only is the book not the work of a prophet Daniel of the Babylonian captivity, but the very existence of such an individual is "more than doubtful."[1] It seems hard to part with the most familiar of the prophets (personally alluded to as the author of the book by Christ), but critics are so unanimous in ascribing the book to the second or third century B.C. that the figure of Daniel recedes into the land of myth. It was compiled by a late Jewish writer out of some old folk-stories. Its date is not quite clear, but, as Driver admits, it cannot be older than 300 B.C., and its date is more probably about 168 or 167, where even Delitzsch puts it. Professor Sayce here conspires with the critics in demolishing the book, pointing out that the writer is entirely unacquainted with Babylonian names and
- ↑ Reuss, quoted approvingly by Cheyne.
