Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTRODUCTION THE BOOK OF ISAIAH, ESPECIALLY THE FIRST PART, CHAPS. I.-XXXIX. § 1. The Time of the Prophet. The first requisite for an understanding and appreciation of the prophecies of Isaiah is the knowledge of his time, and of the periods during which he exercised his ministry. The first period embraces the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham. The starting-point is determined in accordance with the view taken of chap. vi.; but, in any case, Isaiah appeared about the end of Uzziah's reign, and thereafter laboured continuously through the sixteen years of Jotham's reign. The first twenty- seven years of the fifty-two during which Uzziah reigned run parallel with the last twenty-seven of the forty-one during which Jeroboam II. ruled. The kingdom of Israel, under Joash and his son Jeroboam II., and the kingdom of Judah, under Uzziah and his sou Jotham, each passed through a season of outward splendour greater in height and duration than had ever been previously experienced. In proportion as the glory of the one kingdom faded, that of the other flourished ; the bloom of the northern kingdom grew fainter as that of the south grew brighter and excelled the other. But outward splendour, in this case as in the former, carried within it the seeds of ruin and decay ; for prosperity degenerated into luxury, and the worship of Jehovah stiffened into idolatry. It was during this last and longest season of prosperity in Judah that Isaiah appeared, called to the sad taskof vainly preaching repentance, and therefore also of announcing the judgment of hardening and devastation, of the ban and banishment. The second period of his ministry extends from the accession of Ahaz to that of Hezekiah. During these sixteen years three events occurred, all combining to bring on a new and momentous turn... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.