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The Fundamentals ing? or, (2) that former predictions are now before his eyes coming to pass? The truth is, the prophet seems to live in the atmosphere of both the past and the future. This is true of Isaiah, who in his inaugural vision (ch. 6) paints a scene which Delitzsch describes as “like a prediction in the process of being fulfilled”. The same is presumably true of chapters 24-27. There the prophet repeatedly projects himself into the future, and speaks from the standpoint of the fulfillment of his prediction. This was an outstanding characteristic of Isaiah. At one time he emphasizes the fact that he is pre- dicting, and a little later he seems to emphasize that his pre- dictions are coming to pass. Accordingly, if a decision must be made as to when Cyrus was actually predicted, it is obviously necessary to assume that he was predicted long before his actual appearance. This is in keeping with the Deuteronomic test of prophecy, which says: “When a prophet speaketh in the name of Jehovah, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which Jehovah hath not spoken; the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of him” (Deut. 18:22). There is a similar prediction in the Old Testament: King Josiah was predicted by name two centuries before he came. (1 Kings 13:2; cf. 2 Kings 23:15, 16.) Dr. W. H. Cobb, in the “Journal of Biblical Literature and Exegesis”, 1901 (p. 79), pleads for a “shrinkage of Cyrus”, because Cyrus figures only in Chapters 40-48, and is then dis- missed. Dr. Thirtle in his volume entitled, “Old Testament Problems” (pp. 244-264), argues that the name “Cyrus” is a mere appellative, being originally not Koresh (Cyrus), but Horesh (workman, artificer, image-breaker), and that chapter 44:27, 28 is therefore a gloss. But in opposition to these views the present writer prefers to write Cyrus large, and to allow frankly that he is the subject of prediction; for, the very point of the author’s argument is, that he is predicting events
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