One Isaiah 87 which Jehovah alone is capable of foretelling or bringing to pass; in other words, that prescience is the proof of Jehovah’s deity. Isaiah lived in an age when prediction was needed; cf. Amos 3 :9. Political events were kaleidoscopic and there was every incentive to predict. But Jehovah’s predictions alone were trustworthy. That Isaiah’s prophecies contain wonderful predictions is attested both by Jesus ben-Sirach in Ecclus. 48-20-25, which was written about 180 B. C., and by Josephus in his “Antiqui- ties” XI, I, 1, 2, dating from about 100 A. D. Why should men object to prediction on so large a scale? Unless there is definiteness about any given prediction, unless it transcends ordinary prognostication there is no especial value in it. The only possible objection is that prediction of so minute a character is “abhorrent to reason”. But the answer to such an objection is already at hand; it may be abhorrent to reason, but it is certainly a handmaid to faith. Faith has to do with the future even as prediction has to do with the future; and the Old Testament is pre-eminently a book which encourages faith. The one outstanding differentiating characteristic of Israel’s religion is predictive prophecy. Only the Hebrews ever predicted the coming of the Messiah of the kingdom of God. Accordingly, to predict the coming of a Cyrus as the human agent of Israel’s salvation is but the reverse side of the same prophet’s picture of the Divine agent, the obedient, suffering Servant of Jehovah, who would redeem Israel from their sin. Deny to Isaiah the son of Amoz the predictions concern- ing Cyrus, and the prophecy is robbed of its essential char- acter and unique perspective; emasculate these latter chapters of Isaiah of their predictive feature, and they are reduced to a mere vaticinium ex eventu, and their religious value is largely lost.
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