kingdom of Samaria, since they had ceased to exist in their corporate capacity many years before Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and led away its inhabitants into exile. Some individual members of the ten tribes may have found their way to Babylon during the period whilst Judah and Benjamin were in captivity there; but there is no historical evidence of the return of the remnant of any of the tribes which, on the accession of Rehoboam to the throne, renounced the rule of the house of David. In fact, the ten tribes wholly disappear from the page of history from the period when Shalmanessar invaded the kingdom of Samaria; and ever since the return of the exiles from Babylon, the Hebrew people have been known by the name of Judeans (subsequently corrupted into Jews), from the fact that those who came back to Palestine consisted exclusively of the remnant of the two tribes which had remained faithful to the dynasty of Judah."11

Bearing in mind this important fact, let us turn to the chapter of the text, and let us determine for ourselves, whether the manumission of the Hebrews, by the edict of Cyrus, can be reasonably held to answer to the sense of the following prophecy: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall

11 Ce ne furent généralement que des descendants des tribus de Juda et de Benjamin qui profitèrent de la permission de Cyrus; ça et là peut-être quelques familles des autres tribus se joignirent aux Judéens, mais la masse des Israélites continuait à rester dans les différentes provinces de l'empire Persan. Ce sont les Judéens, ou les anciens habitants du royaume de Juda, qui travaillent seuls à la restauration des institutions mosaiques et à l'accomplissement de la mission des Hébreux. (Munk. Palestine, 462a.)

put forth His hand again, the second time, to collect the remnant of His people which shall be left, out of Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Ethiopia, Persia, Shinar, Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And He shall raise a banner for the nations, and He shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah, from the four extremities of the earth. And the jealousy of Ephraim shall be removed, and the persecutors of Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not annoy Ephraim."

"'12

Here the prophet evidently speaks of an ingathering essentially different from that of the termination of the captivity of Babylon, when only Judah and Benjamin returned. He mentions, by name, the very places to which the ten tribes had been deported; and he adds, that not only "the dispersed of Judah," but also "the outcasts of Israel," or the ten tribes, shall be brought in, and that the twelve tribes, which had split into two rival kingdoms, shall forget their differences, and be consolidated into one great and glorious nation.13 This surely must be the sense of the prophecy, if it is to be tested by the same standard of critical exposition which is applied to ordinary writings. Moreover, the twelfth chapter of

12 Isaiah, xi. 11, 12, 13.

13 Compare Ezek. xxxvii. 16-28, where the tribes of Judah and Benjamin are represented as "the stick of Judah," and the ten other tribes as "the stick of Joseph," and where it is prophesied that both sticks are to become one; i. e., the remnants of the whole of the twelve tribes are to be constituted into one great and powerful State.

Isaiah, which, in all probability, originally formed part of the eleventh, confirms this explanation of the prophecy. The twelfth chapter opens with a description of the united people of Israel, elated with joy and triumph, hailing the appearance of the promised Messiah, and singing unto God, their deliverer, songs of thankfulness and praise.

As the interpretation of "the second ingathering” as the return from the captivity of Babylon, is confined to the section of Christians called Rationalists, so, on the other hand, it seems tolerably certain that Orthodox Christianity, which recognises Jesus of Nazareth to be the sole subject of the prophecy under consideration, would fain apply the whole chapter, including the verse which speaks of "the second ingathering,14 to the advent of that personage, some eighteen centuries ago, if it did not occur that the prophet indentified, in the clearest possible manner, the gathering in of all the dispersed Jews with the coming of Messiah. Orthodox Christianity, therefore, is driven to the necessity of dividing the chapter into two parts, one of which it holds to have been accomplished at the period which it denominates the first coming of Jesus; and the other, it maintains, will be fulfilled at the time of his second coming. All this, however, is gratuitous assumption. Neither the prophet Isaiah, nor any inspired writer of the Hebrew Scriptures, speaks of two Messianic advents, but of one and one only. The chapter before us makes no distinction, in point of time, between the

14 See Adam Clarke, end of the first note on Isaiah, xi.

clearly-defined occurrences which which are to mark Messiah's advent: and, so far from representing the complete regeneration of the moral world as the result of many centuries after the promised Messiah shall have appeared, the prophet of the text mentions the universal peace and harmony that shall prevail, as well as the ingathering of the dispersed of Judah and of Israel, as the especial events which are to characterize the inauguration of the Messianic age. The promised regenerator of mankind is to be known by the accomplishment of these, his appointed tasks; and no one, according to the Jewish view of prophetic Scripture, is entitled to the name of "the Messiah," who does not vindicate his claim to that high office, by means of the fulfilment of the conditions which the word of inspiration has assigned to his coming.

VII.

ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE ADVENT OF MESSIAH.

SECOND LECTURE.

.(1858 ,28 May) פי בהר בחקתי התריח Delivered on Sabbath

ISAIAH xi. 1-10.

A CONSIDERABLE portion of the preceding lecture was devoted to the criterion of evidence and proof laid down by the prophet, with respect to the credentials of the promised Messiah. The grounds on which we dissent from the exposition which orthodox Christianity assigns to the prophecy of the text, are, that of the several conditions distinctly attached by Isaiah to the advent of him who is to be acknowledged as Messiah, not one was fulfilled during the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, or has been accomplished up to the present time. Non-Jewish expositors do not ignore this difficulty, but they plainly shew the distress to which they are reduced, whenever they make an attempt to establish harmony between Christianity and the prophecies of Isaiah.1 To escape from the difficulty, many commentators

1 See quotation from Hengstenberg's Christology, in the preceding lecture.