xix. 13), as if, with so much power and beauty in the

matter within, he did not so much require a painstaking finish in the outside. The structure of the strophe is always easy and beautifully rounded.

Still the main point lies here,--that we cannot in the case of Isaiah, as in that of other prophets, specify any particular peculiarity, or any favourite colour as attaching to his general style. _He is not the especially lyrical prophet, or the especially elegiacal prophet, or the especially oratorical and hortatory prophet, as we should describe a Joel, a Hosea, a Micah, with whom there is a greater prevalence of some particular colour; but, just as the subject requires, he has readily at command every several kind of style and every several change of delineation; and it is precisely this that, in point of language, establishes his greatness, as well as in general, forms out of his most towering points of excellence._ His only fundamental peculiarity is the lofty, majestic, calmness of his style, proceeding out of the perfect command which he feels he possesses over his subject matter. This calmness, however, no way demands that the strain shall not, when occasion required, be more vehemently excited, and assail the hearer with mightier blows; but even the extremest excitement, which does here and there intervene, is in the main bridled still by the same spirit of calmness, and, not overstepping the limits which that spirit assigns, it soon with lofty self-control returns to its wonted tone of equability (ii. 10--iii. 1, xxviii. 11-23, xxix. 9-14). Neither does this calmness in discourse require that the subject shall always be treated only in a plain level way, without any variation of form; rather, Isaiah shows himself master in just that variety of manner which suits the relation in which his hearers stand to the matter now in hand. If he wishes to bring home to their minds a distant truth which they like not to hear, and to judge them by a sentence pronounced by their own mouth, he retreats into a popular statement of a case drawn from ordinary life (v. 1-6, xxviii. 23-20). If he will draw the attention of the over wise to some new truth, or to some future prospect, he surprises them by a brief oracle clothed in an enigmatical dress, leaving it to their penetration to discover its solution (vii. 14-16, xxix. 1-8). When the unhappy temper of the people's minds which nothing can amend leads to loud lamentation, his speech becomes for a while the strain of elegy and lament (i. 21-23, xxii. 4, 5). Do the frivolous leaders of the people mock? he outdoes them at their own weapons, and crushes them under the fearful earnest of divine mockery (xxviii. 10-13). Even a single ironical word in passing will drop from the lofty prophet (xxvii. 3, _glory_). Thus his discourse varies into every complexion: _it is tender and stern, didactic and threatening, mourning and again exulting in divine joy, mocking and earnest;_ but ever at the right time it returns to its original elevation and repose, and never loses the clear ground-colour of its divine seriousness.--_Ewald, quoted in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible,_ vol. i. pp. 888, 889, article ISAIAH.

[2] The title of the book is _"The_ VISION _of Isaiah,"_ which suggests these remarks--

(1.) Being a _vision,_ it will frequently speak of events that are yet future, as if they had already occurred. So in iii. 8: "Jerusalem _is ruined;_ Judah _is fallen."_ In v. 13: "Therefore my people _are gone into captivity._"

(2.) What is seen in vision must be subject to the laws of _perspective._ One who views the snowy Alps from a distance may see two mountain peaks, which really are many miles apart, as one object. The illustration is imperfect; yet it may serve to explain how, to the eye of a seer, a nearer event may be blended with one that is _in the same direction, but vastly more remote;_ the type, for instance, melting into the antitype, or the interval between the first and second advents of the Messiah being indiscernible.

(3.) It is, as a whole, _The Vision;_--_one_ vision. It consists, indeed, of various parts; yet from the very outset these represent the same _vision._ Judah _is rebellious; is sentenced to exile; is redeemed; is purified. These elements, on a large scale, compose the book as a whole;_ and, on a smaller scale, they compose the first chapter. The body is made up of portions similar in quality to itself, and to each other. The visions are greatly diversified in size, form, colouring, and other detail; but in essential characteristics it is one vision.--_Dr. Kay, in The Speaker's Commentary,_ vol. v. p. 19.

THE PROPHET OF THE LORD.

i. 1. _The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah._

+I. The nature of the prophet's endowment:+ a "vision" into the very heart of things, a power of distinguishing between the seeming and the real. +II. The sadness and the joy of the prophet's life:+ sadness arising from his "vision" of human sin (vers. 2-15); joy arising from his "vision" of the wondrousness of the Divine mercy (ver. 18).

_Application._--1. In these latter days the prophetic endowment, to a greater or lesser extent, is possessed by all God's people (1 John ii. 20). 2. The Church should pray that it may be possessed to the fullest extent by all who are called to minister in holy things. Prophets of clear and penetrating "vision" are among the greatest gifts which God can confer upon the Church.[1] 3. This great endowment must be used not merely for the detection and exposure of human sin, lest we become cynical and inhuman, but also for the discovery of the abounding evidence of the Divine compassion (as in