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reached the mouth of Isaiah, he gave up the soul. This, because Isaiah had charged his
people with being of "unclean lips." The legend has, with variations, passed into the
pseudepigraphic "Martyrdom of Isaiah" (in its original form, probably a Jewish, in its
present form a Christian book), which forms the first part (ch. i.-v.) of the Pseudepigraph,
"the Ascension of Isaiah" (ed. Dillmann, Leips. 1877). Other versions of the legend, from
a Targum, in Assemani, Catal. Bibl. Vat. I. p. 452, and in a marginal note on Isaiah 66:1
in the Cod. Reuchl.
** Justin, Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, and Epiphanius. Comp. Schurer, Gesch. d. Jud.
Volks, II., p. 283, note 112, and pp. 685, 686.
As we have already marked, these sins were national, and this in a more special sense
than merely the identification of a nation with its rulers and their public acts. As this
condition of the people was not exceptional, but the outcome of a long course, so the
Divine judgments were to be cumulative, extending back from the first beginning to the
present stage of guilt (2 Kings 21:15). And commensurate not only with the sin of Israel,
but with their utter unfaithfulness to the meaning and purpose of their calling, would be
the coming evil.*
- Kings 21:12. The same expression for terrifying news occurs in 1 Samuel 3:11;
Jeremiah 19:3.
In the figurative language of Scripture, the desolation of Jerusalem would be as complete
as that of Samaria and of the house of Ahab - as it were, a razing to the ground, so that
the builder might stretch over it the measuring line and apply the plummet, as if not
anything had stood there (comp. Isaiah 34:11; Lamentations 2:8; Amos 7:7-9). Nay,
Jerusalem would be thoroughly emptied and cleansed, as a dish that was wiped, and then
turned upside down.*
- Other explanations of the figure - of which several have been offered - seem artificial.
For Judah - the remnant of what had been the inheritance of God - would be cast off, and
surrendered to their enemies for "a prey and a spoil" (2 Kings 21:12-14). Here the history
of Manasseh abruptly breaks off in the Book of Kings, to be resumed and supplemented
in that of Chronicles (2 Chronicles 33:11- 20). This in itself is noticeable, first, as casting
fresh light on the "prophetic" character of the history as presented in the Books of the
Kings, and, secondly, as attesting the historical value of those of Chronicles. In the Books
of the Kings, the writer, or compiler, gives not the annals of a reign, nor the biographies
of kings and heroes; but groups together such events as bear on the Divine issues of this
history, in relation to the calling of Israel. This explains not only the brief summary of the
longest reign in Judah or Israel - that of Manasseh, which lasted fifty-five years - but
specifically the omission of what he had done for the defense of Jerusalem and Judah (2
Chronicles 33:14), as well as of his captivity, his repentance, return to his capital, and
(^)