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ment o f Assyria. It is a forecast o f Sen nacherib’s overthrow: “And the light o f Israel shall be for a fire and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day.” Je hovah will lift up his rod after the man ner of Egypt, that is, as it was long ago lifted up by Moses over the Red Sea to open the way for Israel’s deliverance and the destruction of their foes. And this intervention is “because o f the anointing, or of the oil” ; that is, because o f the con secration o f David’s royal line out of which Messiah was to spring. So in Psalm 89:20, 22, 23:, I have found David my servant. V/ith my holy oil have I anointed him . . . The enemy shall not exact upon him Nor the son o f wickedness afflict him. And I will beat down his adversaries be fore him And smite them that hate him. The Targum confirms this interpretation by its paraphrase o f this passage: “The nations shall be broken before the Mes siah.” The Messianic character of this allu sion is indicated by comparison with an undoubted Messianic passage, the ninth chapter o f Isaiah. In Isa. 9 :4 we have the same words as in 10:27,—rod, staff, burden, shoulder, yoke. Also a reference (10:26) to Midian as in 9:14. The subversive criticism comes off bad ly at various points after Mr. Bout- flower’s studies are finished. Thus the in terpretation o f the burden of Babylon as referring to a Neo-Babylonian monarch and consequently its post-exilic dating, is shown by our author to be altogether un necessary. —o— This is a practical, highly spiritual study of a great subject. The Scripture back ground is the first two chapters of St. John’s First Epistle. The style of the book is easy and fluent, and the outline is kept clearly in view. There are frequent il lustrations from life and beautiful poetic selections. The book is recommended to all who would know their Lord better and enjoy a closer fellowship with Him. “ Strong Son o f God, immortal love Whom we, that have not seen Thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing when we cannot prove.” 139 pages. Revell. Price $1.25. —O”— The Outlined John B y R obert L ee This book is a collection o f annotated blackboard outlines from the Gospel of John. Five divisions are made: Prologue—The Divine Word (1:1-18). Section I—Life Offered (1:19-12:50). Section II—Light Shining (13-17). Section III—Love Triumphing (18-20). Epilogue—Christ and His Own (21). One hundred and twenty-seven outline studies are furnished. The book will be especially helpful to pastors, teachers and Bible students. 140 pages. Pickering & Inglis, London. Price $1.50. Fellowship With God B y H enry W. F ancher
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New Light on Isaiah From Archeology A R eview B y E rnest G ordon The prophecies o f Isaiah are often in coherent, simply because we know so little of the history of the period. But our knowledge is increasing, thanks to arche ological excavation in the Near East. Charles Boutflower’s “The Book of Isa iah: chapters 1-39”* is an attempt to dis entangle the many obscure passages and to bring them into a related whole. This he does, as the title page explains, “by the light of the Assyrian monuments.” Cer tainly this is a surer method than that of mere verbal criticism. Let us illustrate. Chapter 21 deals with “the burden of Dumah.” Dumah has ben identified with Edom. Not so, says Mr. Boutflower. Dumah is the chief town o f the Jowf oasis is Arabia, known until recently as Dumat-el-Jandal, or rocky Dumah. The Arabian campaign o f Sennacherib which the seer predicted is recorded by Sen nacherib in a tablet, “Telhenu, Queen of the Arabs in the midst of her desert . . . Thousand camels I took from her hand. She with Hazael the terror of my battle overcame them . . . to Adummatu they fled for their lives . . . ” Adummatu is the Assyrian variant of Dumah. Inscriptions o f Ashurbanipal enlarge the history:—“Telhunu, the priestess of Dilbat, delivered Hazael into the hands of Sennacherib my grandfather and wrought his overthrow.” Telhunu was, then, both queen and priestess. This fact throws light on the prominence given in the inscriptions to the Arabian queens: the kings, though taking the lead in war, otherwise occupied the place o f prince-consort. This in turn explains the position occupied by the queen o f Sheba (in Arabia). “May she not have been one o f these royal priest esses who was led to seek after a purer faith, seeing that her visit to Solomon certainly partook o f a religious character. It was ‘the fame o f Solomon concerning the name o f Jehovah’ which brought her to Jerusalem.” In the same chapter the watchman saw a chariot with a couple o f horsemen re turning with others from the fall of Babylon. To what army did they belong? If we know, we can identify the particular sack of Babylan referred to. Now horse men were the outstanding figures in the Assyrian armies, “warlike governors and commanders, clothed in coats of. mail, cav alry-men, horse-riders”- (Ezek. 23:12, Ewald’s translation). The bas-reliefs from Kouyunjik, Nimrud, and other sites reveal that the Assyrians had a great fondness for fighting in pairs, in order that the soldier might be encouraged by his comrade. Thus in the well-known bas- relief representing the siege o f a city by Ashurnatsirpal all the Assyrian warriors are seen to be thus grouped; while the ♦The Macmillan Co., New York, $6.50.
Gates o f Balawat, which give so vivid an idea of the conduct o f Assyrian cam paigns,, offer many illustrations of “horse men in pairs.” Isaiah sees an Assyrian army returning from the sack o f Babylon and their cry of triumph, “Fallen! fallen! is Babylon! and all the graven images o f her gods are shivered to the ground” is in exact ac cordance with Sennacherib’s recital: “ The gods dwelling therein, the hands o f my people took and they shivered them.” The Assyrian word translated “shivered” is the same that Isaiah uses in Hebrew. Jehovah, through the mouth o f Isaiah (37:29), sent this message to Sennach erib : “I will put my hook in thy nose and my bridle in thy lips and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou earnest.” It was the very way in which Assyrian monarchs maltreated and disgraced cap tive kings. The Rassam Cylinder gives Ashurbanipal’s description o f his treat ment o f Vaiteh, king of Arabia: “ Grasp ing with my hand a butcher’s knife I bored his cheek. Through his jaw I put a rope. I placed a dog-collar on him and at the eastern gate of Nineveh I set him to guard his cage.” At the gate Zinjirli, is a bas-relief representing Esarhaddon hold ing ropes by which Tirhakah o f Ethiopia and Baal of Tyre are ringed through the nose. Did the Jewish people keep the Sab batical year at this time? It has often been denied. Mr. Boutflower thinks that the 30th verse of Isaiah 37 indicates that they did. “ Ye shall eat this year such as groweth of itself: and the second year that which springeth o f the same and, in the third year sow ye and reap and plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof.” The first year they were to eat self- sown grain. This was not because it was tlie year of an invasion, for the Assyrian invasion did not come until the time o f sowing was past. It was a Sabbatical year in which the Jews refrained from plant ing. Further, it was a Sabbatical year fol lowed by a year of Jubilee when again there was no planting. Hence the second clause, "and the second year, that which springeth o f the same.” The probability o f this interpretation- is strengthened greatly by the fact that the Hebrew word translated “that which groweth o f itself” is elsewhere used only in the regulations respecting the Sabbatical and the Jubilee years (Lev. 25:4, 11). It is the word saphiach, “growth from spilled kernels.” The third year the people would be free to plant again. This interpretation im plies that the great deliverance from Sen nacherib occurred in a year of Jubilee,— a fitting coincidence. “And it shall come to pass in that day that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulders and his yoke from off thy neck and the yoke shall be destroyed because o f the anointing" (Isa. 10:27). What do the last four words mean? The prophet announces God’s punish-
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