i. As regards the Assyrian, they did not attempt to minimise the

danger. They represented the peril from the kingdom of Nineveh as God's appointed scourge for the transgressions of Judah, as it had been for the transgressions of Israel.

Thus Micah sees in imagination the terrible march of the invader by Gath, Akko, Beth-le-Aphrah, Maroth, Lachish, and Adullam. He plays with bitter anguish on the name of each town as an omen of humiliation and ruin, and calls on Zion to make herself bald for the children of her delight, and to enlarge her baldness as the vultures, because they are gone into captivity.[502] He turns fiercely on the greedy grandees, the false prophets, the blood-stained princes, the hireling priests, the bribe-taking soothsayers, who were responsible for the guilt which should draw down the vengeance. He ends with the fearful prophecy--which struck a chill into men's hearts a century later, and had an important influence on Jewish history--"Therefore, because of you shall Zion be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem become ruins, and the hill of the Temple as heights in the wood";--though there should be an ultimate deliverance from Migdal-Eder, and a remnant should be saved.[503]

Similar to Micah's, and possibly not uninfluenced by it, is Isaiah's imaginary picture of the march of Assyria, which must have been full of terror to the poor inhabitants of Jerusalem.[504]

"He is come to Aiath! He is passed through Migron! At Michmash he layeth up his baggage: They are gone over the pass: 'Geba,' they cry, 'is our lodging.' Ramah trembleth: Gibeah of Saul is fled! Raise thy shrill cries, O daughter of Gallim! Hearken, O Laishah! Answer her, O Anathoth! Madmenah is in wild flight (?). The inhabitants of Gebim gather their stuff to flee. This very day shall he halt at Nob. He shaketh his hand at the mount of the daughter of Zion, The hill of Jerusalem."

Yet Isaiah, and the little band of prophets, in spite of their perils, did _not_ share the views of the Assyrian party or counsel submission. On the contrary, even as they contemplate in imagination this terrific march of Sargon, they threaten Assyria. The Assyrian might smite Judah, but God should smite the Assyrians. He boasts that he will rifle the riches of the people as one robs the eggs of a trembling bird, which does not dare to cheep or move the wing.[505] But Isaiah tells him that he is but the axe boasting against the hewer, and the wooden staff lifting itself up against its wielder. Burning should be scattered over his glory. The Lord of hosts should lop his boughs with terror, and a mighty one should hew down the crashing forest of his haughty Lebanon.