others as truly as any person can express his own thoughts.1 And if at any time they did not clearly understand the prophetic revelation communicated to them, they asked for an explanation: such was the conduct of Daniel (Dan. ix. 18-23. x. 1. et seq.), and of Zechariah. (i. 9. iv. 4. vi. 4, 5.)

V. The early prophets committed nothing to writing; their predictions being only, or chiefly, of a temporary nature, are inserted in the historical books, together with their fulfilment. Such appears to have been the case with Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah, and others; but those who were gifted with the spirit of prophecy in its most exalted sense, and were commissioned to utter predictions, the accomplishment of which was as yet far distant, were directed to write them, or cause them to be written, in a book. (Compare Isa. viii. 1. xxx. 8. Jer. xxx. 2. xxxvi. 2. 28. Ezek. xliii. 11. Hab. ii. 2. &c.) The predictions, thus committed to writing, were carefully preserved, under a conviction that they contained important truths, thereafter to be more fully revealed, which were to receive their accomplishment at the appointed periods. It was also the office of the prophets to commit to writing the history of the Jews; and it is on this account that, in the Jewish classification of the books of the Old Testament, we find several historical writings arranged among the prophets. Throughout their prophetic and historical books, the utmost plainness and sincerity prevail. They record the idolatries of the nation, and foretel the judgments of God which were to befal the Jews in consequence of their forsaking his worship and service; and they have transmitted a relation of the crimes and misconduct of their best princes. David, Solomon, and others, who were types of the Messiah, and from whose race they expected that he would descend, regarding the glories of their several reigns as presages of His, are described not only without flattery, but also without any reserve or extenuation. They write like men who had no regard to any thing but truth and the glory of God.

The manner in which the prophets announced their predictions, varied according to circumstances. Sometimes they uttered them aloud in a public place; and it is in allusion to this practice that Isaiah is commanded to "cry aloud, spare not, lift up his voice like a trumpet, and show the people of God their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins." (Isa. lviii. 1.) Sometimes their predictions were affixed to the gates of the temple, where they might be generally read (Jer. vii. 2.); but, upon important occasions, "when it was necessary to rouse the fears of a disobedient

1 Smith's Select Discourses, p. 190. et seq.

21 Chron. xxix. 29. 2 Chron. xii. 15. xiii. 22. xx. 34. xxvi. 22. xxxii. 32. In addition to the information thus communicated in the sacred volume, we are informed by Josephus, that, from the death of Moses until the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, the prophets who were after Moses committed to writing the transactions of their own times. Josephus cont. Apion. lib. i. c. 8.

people, and to recal them to repentance, the prophets, as objects of universal attention, appear to have walked about publicly in sackcloth, and with every external mark of humiliation and sorrow. They then adopted extraordinary modes of expressing their convictions of impending wrath, and endeavoured to awaken the apprehensions of their countrymen, by the most striking illustrations of threatened punishment. Thus Jeremiah made bonds and yokes, and put them on his neck (Jer. xxvii.), strongly to intimate the subjection that God would bring on the nations whom Nebuchadnezzar should subdue. Isaiah likewise walked naked, that is, without the rough garment of the prophet, and barefoot (Isa. xx.), as a sign of the distress that awaited the Egyptians. So Jeremiah broke the potter's vessel (xix.); and Ezekiel publicly removed his household goods from the city, more forcibly to represent, by these actions, some correspondent calamities ready to fall on nations obnoxious to God's wrath; this mode of expressing important circumstances by action being customary and familiar among all eastern nations."2

Sometimes the prophets were commanded to seal and shut up their prophecies, that the originals might be preserved until they were acomplished and then compared with the event. (Isa. viii. 16. Jer. xxxii. 14. Dan. viii. 26. and xii. 4.) For, when the prophecies were not to be fulfilled till after many years, and in some cases not till after several ages, it was requisite that the original writings should be kept with the utmost care; but when the time was so near at hand, that the prophecies must be fresh in every person's recollection, or that the originals could not be suspected or supposed to be lost, the same care was not required. (Rev. xxii. 10.) It seems to have been customary for the prophets to deposit their writings in the tabernacle, or lay them up before the Lord. (1 Sam. x. 25.)3 And there is a tradition, that all the canonical books, as well as the law, were put into the side of the ark.

It is certain that the writings of the antient prophets were carefully preserved during the captivity, and they are frequently referred to, and cited, by the later prophets. Thus, the prophecy of Micah is quoted in Jer. xxvi. 18. a short time before the captivity; and, under it, the prophecy of Jeremiah is cited, in Dan. ix. 2. and the prophets, generally, in ix. 6. Zechariah not only quotes the former prophets (i. 4.), but supposes their writings to be well known to the people. (vii. 7.) The prophet Amos is cited in the apocryphal book of Tobit (ii. 6.), as Jonah and the prophets in general are in

1 Ezek. xii. 7. compared with 2 Kings xxv. 4, 5. where the accomplishment of this typical prophecy is related. Vide also Ezek. xxxvii. 16-20.

2 Dr. Gray's Key, p. 335.

3 Josephus confirms the statement of the sacred historian. Ant. Jud. lib. vi. c iv. § 6.

4 Epiphanius, de Ponderibus et Mensuris, c. 4. Damascenus de Fide Orthodoxâ, lib. iv. c. 17.

xiv. 4, 5. 8. It is evident that Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, Zechariah, and the other prophets, who flourished during the captivity, carefully preserved the writings of their inspired predecessors; for they very frequently cited and appealed to them, and expected deliverance from their captivity by the accomplishment of their predictions.

Although some parts of the writings of the prophets are clearly in prose, instances of which occur in the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, and Daniel, yet the other books, constituting by far the larger portion of the prophetic writings, are classed by Bishop Lowth among the poetical productions of the Jews; and (with the exception of certain passages in Isaiah, Habakkuk and Ezekel, which appear to constitute complete poems of different kinds, odes as well as elegies) form a particular species of poesy, which he distinguishes by the appellation of prophetic. On the nature of which see Vol. II. pp. vol. 468, 469.

VI. The prophetical books are sixteen in number (the Lamentations of Jeremiah being usually considered as an appendix to his predictions); and in all modern editions of the Bible they are usually divided into two classes, viz. 1. The Greater Prophets, comprising the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel; who were thus designated from the size of their books, not because they possessed greater authority than the others. 2. The Minor Prophets, comprising the writings of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zecharaiah, and Malachi. These books were antiently written in one volume by the Jews, lest any of them should be lost, some of their writings being very short. The order, in which the books of the minor prophets are placed, is not the same in the Alexandrian or Septuagint version as in the Hebrew. According to the latter, they stand as in our translation; but in the Greek, the series is altered to the following arrangement: Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. But this change is of no consequence, since neither in the original, nor in the Septuagint, are they placed with exact regard to the time when their sacred authors respectively flourished.2

Much of the obscurity, however, which hangs over the prophetic writings, may be removed by perusing them in the order of time in which they were probably written; and, though the precise time in which some of the prophets delivered their predictions, cannot per

1 Qui propterea dicuntur Minores, quia sermones eorum sunt breves, in eorum comparatione qui Majores ideo vocantur, quia prolixa volumina condiderunt. Augustin, de Civ. Dei, lib. xviii. c. xxix.

2 Calmet. Preface Générale sur les Prophètes, in his comment. Littéral, tom. v. pp. 557-559. Carpzov. Introd. ad Libros Biblicos Vet. Test. pars iii. c. i. pp. 187. Bauer, Herm. Sacr. pp. 397-404. Jahn, Introd. in Libros Sacros Vet. Foed. pp. 310-346. Dr. Gregory Sharpe's Argument in Defence of Christianity from Prophecy, pp. 1–64.

haps be traced in every instance, yet the following arrangement of the prophets in their supposed order of time (according to the tables of Blair, Archbishop Newcome, and other eminent critics, with a few variations), will, we think, be found sufficiently correct for the right understanding of their predictions.

According to this table, the times when the prophets flourished may be referred to three periods, viz. 1. Before the Babylonian Captivity;-2. Near to and during that event;-and, 3. After the return of the Jews from Babylon. And if, in these three periods, we parallel the prophetical writings with the historical books written during the same times, they will materially illustrate each other.

VOL. IV.

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