11.

BOOK OF HOSEA. Hosea, the son of Beeri, is generally supposed to have begun to prophesy about 800 B. C., during the reign of Jeroboam II., king of Israel, and to have executed his office during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, and Ahaz, and to have died in the third year of Hezekiah, king of Judah.

12. It is most probable that he was an Israelite, and lived in the kingdom of Samaria, or of the ten tribes, as his predictions are generally directed against their wickedness and idolatry. Bishop Horsley says of him: "He seems, indeed, of all the prophets, if I may so express my conception of his peculiar character, to have been most of a Jew. Comparatively, he seems to care little about other people.

13. "He wanders not like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, into the collateral history of the surrounding heathen. He meddles not like Daniel with the revolutious of the great empires of the world. His own country seems to engross his whole attention-her privileges, her crimes, her punishments, her pardon. His country and his kindred is the subject next to his heart. Their crimes excite his indignation; their sufferings interest his pity; their future exaltation is the object on which his imagination fixes with delight."

14. Of his style the same judicious critic re marks: "He delights in a style which always becomes obscure when the language of the writer ceases to be a living language. He is more laconic than any other of the prophets.

He writes in short, detached, disjointed sen tences; not wrought up into periods, in which the connection of one clause with another, and their relations to each other, are made manifest to the reader by an artificial collocation, and by those connective particles that make one discourse of parts, which otherwise appear as a string of unconnected propositions, which it is left to the reader's discernment to unite. His transitions from reproof to persuasion, from threatening to promise, from terror to hope, and the contrary, are rapid and unexpected. His similes are brief, accumulated, and often introduced without the particle of similitude. Yet these are not the vices, but the perfections, of the holy prophet's style; for to these circumstances it owes that eagerness and fiery animation which are the characteristic excellence of his writings, and are so peculiarly suited to his subject."

15. BOOK OF ISAIAH. Although the fifth prophet in the order of time, still, with the utmost propriety, Isaiah has been placed first in the order of the prophets in our Bible, on account of the surpassing importance and sublimity of his predictions, as also from the length of his book, being of greater bulk than the prophecies of the twelve minor prophets taken together.

16. We know with certainty concerning this exalted writer, only what is stated in his own book, that he was the son of Amoz,. (not the prophet,) and discharged the prophetic office in

the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, who flourished success ively between B. C. 810–698.

17. The Jews have a tradition that he was the son of Joash king of Judah, and consequently brother of Uzziah, thus making Isaiah one of the royal race of the house of David They have also a tradition that he lived until the reign of Manasseh, by which cruel king they affirm that he was sawn asunder: but there is no Scriptural foundation for this; and the extreme old age, and long exercise of the prophetic office, that this would make necessary, render this tradition almost impossible. It is the opinion of one of the most celebrated Jewish writers, Aben-Ezra, that he died about the fifteenth year of Hezekiah's reign.

18. The name of Isaiah is descriptive of his high character, since it signifies the "salvation of Jehovah," and was given with great propriety to him who foretold the advent of the Messiah, through "whom all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

19. The peculiar sublimity, both in matter and style, has attracted the admiring attention of both Jew and Christian to the glorious prophecies of this book. It is more frequently quoted in the New Testament than any other of the sacred books, the Psalms only excepted The distinct manner in which the inspired writer speaks of the birth and sufferings of Christ, and the glories of his kingdom, has ever rendered it eminently instrumental in the convic

tion of the unbelieving, in confirming the doubtful, and in strengthening the faint-hearted.

20. The force and magnificence of Isaiah's style have, in all ages, been highly appreciated Jerome felt and expressed the difficulty of preserving its energy in a translation; and yet it does so happen that even when weakened by translation, so much of its native strength and effulgence does still remain, as to arrest the attention of the general reader, as to something

uncommon.

21. Says Bishop Lowth: "Isaiah, the first of the prophets both in order and dignity, abounds in such transcendent excellences, that he may probably be said to furnish the mos perfect model of prophetic poetry. He is at once elegant and sublime, forcible and ornamental; he unites energy with copiousness and dignity with variety. In his sentiments there is uncommon elevation and majesty; in his imagery the utmost propriety, elegance, dignity, and diversity; and notwithstanding the obscurity of his subjects, a surpassing degree of clearness and simplicity. To these we may add, there is such sweetness in the composi tion of his sentences, that if the Hebrew lan. guage is at present possessed of any remains of its native grace and harmony, we shall chiefly find them in the writings of Isaiah."

22. Jerome, not contented to style him a prophet only, calls him also an evangelist, observing, so distinct are his predictions of Christ and his kingdom, that he seems rather to speak

of things past than of things to come. He calls him also an apostle; and, on the same grounds, "the evangelical prophet" is the distinction which is now generally associated with his

name.

CHAPTER VII.

PROPHETICAL BOOKS.

BOOK OF JOEL. All that is certainly known of Joel is what is found in the title of his book, that he was the son of Pethuel Tradition states that he was of the tribe of Reuben, and a native of the town of Bethoron, a town situated on the confines of the territories of Judah and Benjamin. It is equally uncertain under what sovereigns he flourished.

2. The opinion of modern commentators is, that he delivered his predictions during the reign of Uzziah; and that, consequently, he was contemporary with Amos and Hosea, if indeed he did not prophesy before Amos, B. C 810-660, or later.

3. The prophecies of Joel are confined to the kingdom of Judah. He inveighs against the sins and impieties of the people, and threatens them with divine vengeance; he exhorts to repentance, fasting, and prayer; and promises the favor of God to those who should be obedient. The principal predictions contained in this book are the Chaldean invasion, under the