fore Christ. It has been a light to them and to the world. Blot out the name Isaiah, you have not destroyed a line of the book; disown his claim, you do not invalidate its authority. The sun remains the same whether designated sol, as in Latin, or helios, as in Greek. And in regard to the allegation that evidence of more than one hand is seen in the work, we think that, as in the case of Homer, it is more easy to conceive of one Isaiah than of two or several.

The objectors would have effected something of a nature to trouble the friends of revealed religion had they proved that these writings were uncongenial with the Mosaic system, unconducive to the good of the Hebrews, unsuitable for the benign purposes of Providence, unfitted to perform a part in the education of the human race, unhistorical in their particulars, irreligious in their tone, and immoral in their tendency. This they have not done and cannot do, for the very reverse of the qualities here implied are those by which the entire book (speaking generally) is distinguished. Three prime spiritual truths are exhibited, and most variously and impressively exhibited, in the work:-I. God is; he is the living and true God, in contradistinction to idols; he is the sole God, in contradistinction to Persian Dualism; he is a Mind separate from and independent of creation, in contradistinction to visionary theories of speculative and transcendental philosophy. II. God is the Governor of the world, who exercises judgment in the earth, punishing the guilty, rewarding the obedient, using all men and the mightiest states as his instruments, and aiming only at one thing, namely, to (III.) make holiness, and with it happiness, universal; which grand aim will be realised in a coming age, when, inferior instruments having performed their part, the great Messiah will begin his reign of piety, love, and peace, which shall embrace all nations and extend over endless ages. These three ideas, pursued throughout the work in union with instances of partial retribution, local restriction, national and political colcuring, give to the prophecies of Isaiah an ideal character; so that you have only to strike out what is temporary and limited, in order to gain divine truth in all the width of its historical import, and true prophecy in its application to Jesus and in its bearing on future ages. The theory, however, which supposes that the second part was composed during the exile, is confuted by passages which require an earlier date. The effect of the captivity was to disabuse the minds of the people so that they put away that idolatry and its abominations, the practice of which, especially as exhibited in the century that preceded the exile, was the cause why they were appointed of God to undergo that calamity. A state of actual and gross idolatry is, then, charac

teristic of a period anterior to the depor tation of the Jews beyond the Euphrates. Such a state is described as existing at the time when these prophecies were uttered, as in xlviii., where (2) it is implied that the city of Jerusalem is still standing entire (comp. lxvi. 6), and in lv. 1-3; also with the moral and social degeneracy which idolatry produces, in lvii. lviii.; in the last passage, with a clear implication (2-4) that the temple services were then ('this day') actually proceeding; comp. lix. The second part, perhaps the loftiest of all the productions of the human mind, derives a unity and a completeness from the subject. Standing at a considerable distance from the actual events, the prophet, enlightened by Him to whom all things and all times are one eternal present, foresees and declares that the religious and moral depravity in the midst of which he lived would inevitably end in the captivity of the nation; that this punishment would produce reformation, reformation turn aside the anger of God, who would restore his penitent people to their native land, and give them, in reward for their obedience, a degree of prosperity and happiness such as they had never before experienced. This is the prophet's theme. But the manner in which his utterances are put forth is as novel, various, lofty, and impressive, as the thoughts themselves are grand. We have here to do, if not with the first of prophets, certainly with the finest of poets. Say these are not real predictions; you cannot deny that they contain the very essence of true religion. Refuse to Isaiah the honour of being their author; you are still obliged to reverence the manifestations of a mind that is not the less great for being unknown.

The prophetic powers of the writer are put beyond a question, for he describes a state of things far greater than could have ensued from any glorification of restored Judaism; and we argue that if the author possessed the faculty of so looking into the future, he may well also have seen and foretold the overthrow of the Chaldean empire, and the restoration of the captive Hebrews by the favour of Cyrus. That Isaiah did predict such a state of things is obvious. In the midst of glowing descriptions of the coming glory of Israel, he interweaves declarations whose fulfilment did take place, and is yet taking place, but which not even a prophet of the captivity could, unless inspired, foresee. In brief, these declarations amount to this, that the Gentiles should be converted to God, and a spiritual reign commence which would be a source of blessedness to all nations, and eventually prove the glory of Israel (xli. 1; xlii.-xliv. 1-5; xlix. 14-26; li. 4—lv.; lx. lxii.).

In exhibiting the spread of the kingdom of God over the world the prophet speaks

of a personage in terins which find no counterpart save in Jesus, the Christ of God, whom they accurately describe, to prepare for whose appearance they must have powerfully wrought, and whose claims over our own hearts they still assert. Thus:

'Behold my servant whom I uphold, Mine elect in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him:

He shall bring forth judgment to the nations.
He shall not cry nor raise his voice,
Nor cause it to be heard in the streets.

A bruised reed shall he not break,

And smoking flax shall he not quench;
He shall not fall nor be discouraged,
Till he hath established judgment in the earth;
And the isles shall wait for his law.'

The Hebraism of Isaiah is of a character most dissimilar to that developed in the law' and the early history. It still, indeed, has Jerusalem for its centre, but its circumference is the entire world. It rests on Moses, but its spirit is, to a large extent, the spirit of Jesus. This widened vision, which embraces the Messiah, and the disclosure of whose objects occasioned and sustained the expectation of his advent (xlii. 1-9; xlix. 1-6; liii. lxi.), seems to us inexplicable if you deny that it was a natural and healthful offshoot of Mosaism, produced under the genial and fostering warmth of the Divine Mind. Most extraordinary and without a parallel would it be, that the development and adequate expression of the national ideal should have been the work of a false, an unknown, or an inferior prophet; and that views of God, of human duty and human good, which found their archetype in Jesus Christ, but which the world is not yet civilised enough to receive into its heart and life, should have sprung from a mixture of Hebrew exclusiveness, sagacity, and spiritual hallucination. See PROPHET.

ISLES (L. insula, F. isle, 'an island'), in the strict sense of portions of land surrounded by water, is a term which does not fully correspond with the Hebrew original, for that sometimes denotes a coast or country lying (westwardly) on the sea shore, or, still more vaguely, a distant land or remote western districts (Genesis x. 5. Is. xx. 6; xl. 15. Ezekiel xxxix. 6), especially the coasts of Europe (Isaiah xxiii. 2,6; lx. 9. Jer. ii, 10; xxv. 22). These islands, or western coastlands, appear in connection with Tyre, since from the Phoenicians it was that the Hebrews obtained the little knowledge they had of maritime affairs and the maritime districts of the West. Indeed, the islands and shores of the Western or Great Sea, the Mediterranean, were peopled by a Phoenician population, with which the mother cities on the northern coast of Palestine kept up a constant commercial intercourse (Isaiah xi. 11; lxvi. 19. Ezek. xxvii. 35). When it is said, in Esther x. 1, that 'Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land and the isles of the sea,' the writer meant by these terms to represent the

whole world as his vassals, though he may have had a special reference to the expedition undertaken by Xerxes against Greece.

ISRAEL (H. he fights with God, or God's fighter) is a name given to the patriarch Jacob in consequence of his wrestling with an angel, termed el, or god (Gen. xxxii 24, 28; xxxv. 9). Jacob received this name on the banks of the Jabbok, the scene of his famous wrestling with the angel. He was on his return journey to the Land of Promise. He had arrived almost on its frontier when he received the somewhat alarming tidings that his still implacable brother was coming to meet him with four hundred men. Jacob's perplexities were increased by having to wrestle with an unknown opponent. But in the course of the combat the true character of his antagonist broke upon him, and holding him fast he refused to let him go till he had blessed him, that is, given him the promise of victory over Esau, hence the name, Wrestler with God.'

This name, Israel, was, on the severance of the kingdom under Rehoboam, retained by the ten tribes in contradistinction to that of Judah, the name of the tribe which, with Benjamin, remained faithful to the national institutions. That the national designation should have been held by the revolted tribes may possibly be accounted for by the fact, that they were the greater number and covered the larger part of the land, as well as from the predominance of the cultivated tribe of Judah, who, in possession of the capital, might easily give its own name to the southern kingdom. On the blending of the tribes in one commonwealth, which took place on the return from captivity in Assyria, Israel' ceased, except historically, to be a distinctive appellation (Luke i. 80).

In the establishment of a separate kingdom under Rehoboam, Israel gained the larger portion both of men and territory. Jerusalem and the province of Edom fell to the lot of Judah; four-fifths of the country and the sovereignty over Moab belonged to Israel. Jerusalem was hemmed in very closely by the alienated population. In the pass of Gophna its last town was Geba, only six miles distant. On the eastern road also, Jericho, eighteen miles off, was Israelitish (2 Chron. xxviii. 15). In fact, the tribe of Judah would have stood alone but that it commanded some of the Benjamite towns. The barrier between the two kingdoms was Mount Ephraim.

'Israel,' as denoting the land occupied by the ten revolted tribes, may be described as being the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, whose boundaries were on the north, Lebanon; on the west, the Mediterranean; on the south-west, Philistia; on the south-east, the northern extremity of the Dead Sea and the river Arnon; and on the east, the Arabian desert. Its capital was Samaria. The king

dom of Israel was ruled successively by twenty kings during a period of about 250 years, being at last destroyed by the Assyrians, cir. 720 A. C., in consequence of the sins, chiefly the idolatry, of the nation (2 Kings xvii. 23).

ITALY, called by the Greeks Hesperia, or the Western Land, as it lay to the west of Greece, probably the Hebrew Kittim (Gen. x. 4), or Chittim (Numb. xxiv. 24), a fruitful peninsula in the north-west of the Mediterranean Sea, was divided into, 1, Upper or Northern Italy, or Gallia Cisalpina and Liguria; 2, Middle Italy, or Italy Proper, comprising Etruria, Umbria, Picenum, Samnium, Latium, and Campania; 3, Lower Italy, or Magna Græcia, which consisted of Lucania, Bruttium, Calabria, and Apulia.

Already at the day of Pentecost appeared in Jerusalem strangers from Rome,' the capital of Italy (Acts ii. 10), shewing that in the then metropolis of the world had been made a preparation for the gospel, which was afterwards successfully proclaimed and established there chiefly by the apostle to the Gentiles (Acts xviii. 2; xxvii. xxviii. Heb. xiii. 24).

ITUREA, a district which in the time of Jesus belonged to the tetrarchy of Philip, son of Herod. Ituræa is mentioned in connection with Trachonitis (Luke iii. 1), and is hence to be looked for in the north-eastern part of Perea. In 1 Chron. v. 19, we find a tribe of Arabs, called Jetur (comp. 1 Chron. i. 31, and Genesis xxv. 15), belonging to the Hagarites, whom Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, subdued and expelled. Jetur is obviously the root of Ituræa. We are thus taught that it lay in the region north-east of the Jordan, where were Batanæa

and Auranitis, which also were under Philip's government. The name has not in modern times been discovered, so that we can give only this general reference for the locality, which the ancients describe as a high land full of clefts and caverns.

IVORY, correctly given in the Hebrew as teeth, or elephants' teeth, was known to the Hebrews long before they were familiar with the animal itself, which, springing from India, passed through Persia and Western Asia into the more western parts of the world, though elephants of a kind inferior to those in India existed in Africa at very early periods. It does not appear that elephants were well known to the Jews till, in the time of the Maccabees, they had to meet them in the field of battle. Ivory seems to have originally come to the Israelites from the Phoenicians, who imported products of India and distributed them over the west (Ezekiel xxvii. 15). Some idea may be formed of the luxury of the Phoenicians from the statement -even if confined to overlaying, and that only in case of pleasure-vessels-that they used ivory for the benches of their ships (6). As in Egypt, so in Palestine, ivory was employed for decorating, chiefly by inlaying, chairs, couches, and other pieces of furniture (1 Kings x. 18. Amos vi. 4), though sometimes it was lavished on rooms or even entire edifices (1 Kings xxii. 39. Amos iii. 15. Psalms xlv. 8). Domestic utensils and images of idols also were by the ancients made of ivory. Comp. Rev. xviii. 12. Solomon himself imported ivory with gold, silver, apes, and peacocks. This cut exhibits articles of the kind, being a part of the tribute paid by the Ethiopians, as depicted on a temple in Nubia.

JABESH (H. dryness), sometimes called Jabesh-gilead, a considerable city (not to be confounded with Jabez in Judah, 1 Chron. ii. 55) lying in the north of Gad, or the south-west of Manasseh, in Gilead, beyond the Jordan (Judg. xxi. 8, seq. 1 Sam. xi. 1. 2 Sam. ii. 4), identified with the modern Wady Jabes, which, lying to the southeast of Beisan (Bethshan, or Scythopolis), sends its waters from the east into the Jordan, some miles below the southern end of the Lake of Galilee.

JABBOK (H. evacuation), a river on the east of Jordan, which rises in the high lands of Bashan, and falls into the Jordan opposite Sichem. It is small, but has water in summer. The upper Jabbok, the Nahr Amman, formed the western boundary of the Ammonites (Numb. xxi. 24. Deut. iii. 16). The lower Jabbok was the northern boundary of the Amorite kingdom of Sihon. The Jabbok divided the high land of Gilead between Gad and Manasseh. It is now called Wady Zerka. Comp. Gen. xxxii. 22.

JABIN (H. he that builds), a Canaanitish king of Hazor, in Galilee, who at the invasion of the Israelites effected a confederacy against them, and was beaten by Joshua (Joshua xi. 1, seq.). The same name was borne by a successor of the preceding, who, in the time of the Judges, held the Israelites in subjection for twenty years, at the end of which his general, Sisera, was slain by Barak and the heroine Deborah (Judg. iv. 1, seq.). JACINTH, or Hyacinth, in Hebrew tehshem, called in the common version ligure, from the translation of the Seventy (Exod. xxviii. 19. Revel. xxi. 20), is a transparent red stone, with a tendency to yellow and brown, less valued now than of old.

JACOB (H. he that supplants; A. M. 3344, A. C. 2204, V. 1836), one of the three great patriarchs in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed (Gen. xxii. 18); a promise of which we of these days have seen, and are more and more fully seeing, the gradual fulfilment. He was the son of Isaac and Rebekah, and twin-brother of the elderborn Esau, whose heel in the birth he took hold of, and so received the name of Jacob (Gen. xxv. 21-26). The quiet, domestic character of the latter made him the darling of his mother, who, unhappily misleading him, through false kindness, aided him to procure his brother's privileges as the firstborn, and so gave occasion to hatred between her two sons, and great and lasting trouble to her favourite. Having reason to think that her son's safety demanded flight, she led her husband to send Jacob to Haran, their native

land, in order to choose a wife of his own kindred (xxvii). While on his way, Jacob had a remarkable dream, and received of God a promise of great wealth and honour; which induced him to set up a monument of stones, on which he poured oil (comp. Jer. iii. 9), in commemoration of the Divine condescension (xxviii.). Arrived in Haran, he was well received by his maternal uncle, Laban, whom, according to the usage of the country, he served seven years for the hand of the fair Rachel, but was deceitfully made the husband of the ill-favoured Leah. Another seven years' service made Rachel his wife. By the two, and Bilhah and Zilpah, their handmaids, Jacob had twelve sons and one daughter (xxix. xxx. 1—24 ; xxxv. 16, seq.). Meanwhile, Jacob formed with Laban an arrangement by which he acquired large possessions, employing means the character of which may not be without parallels, but which, whether found in modern or in ancient times, Christian morality condemns (xxx.). The relations between Jacob and his uncle, which had for some time been of an unpleasant kind, this transaction seriously troubled and darkened, so that, a separation becoming desirable, Jacob, after twenty years' service, proceeded to return into Canaan with his wives, children, and cattle. Obliged to steal away, he was pursued and overtaken by Laban in Gilead, where, after disputes of a threatening nature, the unele and nephew came to terms of peace (xxxi.). Resuming his journey, Jacob, having had an extraordinary interview with God (see ISRAEL), was alarmed by finding on the road before him his brother Esau, whose wrath he dreaded, and whom he took steps for conciliating. Such measures were not unnecessary. Esau's purpose being changed by the generous present of Jacob, he now showed him much brotherly love and offered a guard for his protection (xxxii. xxxiii.). On leav ing his Bedouin brother, Jacob, still journeying towards the south-west, at length arrived in Canaan, coming to Shalem, a city of Schechem' (18), where he erected an altar, which he called El-elohe-Israel, God, the God of Israel. From this place he went southwardly to Bethel, where he built another altar, which he denominated El-beth-el, God of Bethel, or of God's house. Travelling hence, he lost in childbirth, at Ephratah (Bethlehem), Rachel, whom having buried in the way, he set a pillar upon her grave. At last, he reached Hebron and rejoined his father, whose death brought once more together Jacob and Esau, who, having united in the obsequies of their parent, separated ap

parently for ever (xxxvi. 6-8). While Esau repaired to Mount Seir, Edom, Jacob settled in Canaan, where he had to bewail the apparent loss of his beloved son Joseph (xxxvii.), whom, however, compelled by famine to send for corn into Egypt, he found there in the office of grand vizier, and to whom he on invitation went down. Here he lived many years, in the enjoyment of every earthly good, in the district of Goshen, expressly chosen as the best fitted for the abode of himself and his family (xxxix.-xlvii.). Arrived at the advanced age of 147 years, Jacob felt the approach of death. He therefore called his sons around him, and, with the knowledge of a father and the prophetic eye of a sage, pronounced on them characteristic blessings and died. According to an oath which he had taken from Joseph, his dead body, having, in agreement with Egyptian usage, been embalmed, was conveyed into Canaan, and interred at Hebron (xlviii.-1.). Thus was preserved a memorial of the promise made by God to Abraham, Isaac, and himself, that the land of Canaan should belong to their race; and thus, even in death, was the right of possession illustrated, and actual possession in some sort taken.

Jacob is one of those passive characters that are constantly under the power of circumstances, from which, receiving an impress, they prove good or bad according to events. Thus we find him all his life subject to outward influences, without possessing the internal power necessary to subdue them to his will. Under the hand of his mother, and living tranquilly in her tent, he reciprocates the love which he excites in her and her household; but, yielding to the pressure of her stronger will, he commits a misdeed that proves the first of a series of bad or unhappy actions, in which he is carried along in life, now flying from his injured brother, now, through his own evil conscience, mistrusting that brother's generosity; serving his uncle during his prime, and gaining advantage over and freedom from him only by the cunning which is the characteristic resource of weakness; till, yielding to the imperious demands of hunger, he forms a connection with a foreign land, into which he is at length involuntarily led, and where he terminates his days in a state of prosperous dependence. Had he possessed more internal power, he would hardly have done his mother's evil bidding, or been necessitated to lean on the unsafe staff of Egyptian munificence.

JACOB'S WELL was, in the days of our Lord, the name of a fountain in the vicinity of Schechem, not far from the road leading from Jerusalem to Galilee, which was considered to have been dug by the patriarch whose name it bore (John iv. 6, 12). There can be scarcely a doubt that, like other nomads, Jacob, when in these parts, was com

pelled to dig wells for watering his cattle (Genesis xxxiii. 18; xxxvii. 12), though no mention is made of such a fact in the Book of Genesis, nor are we sure that the well which now bears the patriarch's name is that which bore it in the earliest times of the gospel; yet there is nothing to prove the contrary, and the local tradition is not to be contemned.

JAEL (H. a kid), the wife of Heber the Kenite, between whose house and the king of Hazor relations of amity existed. Availing herself of these, Jael invited Sisera, ge neral of Jabin, king of Hazor, to accept the shelter of her roof when, being defeated, that soldier was flying for his life. He accepted the asylum, was kindly treated, and then, while asleep, was slain by his hostess (Judg. iv. 7, seq.). The deed is highly praised (v. 24.) It was an act of heroic patriotism, by which a tyrant, who had basely invaded the independence of Israel, and was perilling the highest interests of the world, was cut off.

JAIR (H. light; A. M. 3941, A. C. 1607, V. 1451), a Gileadite, one of the Hebrew Shophetim, or Judges, who ruled Israel for two-and-twenty years. His private property was large, for he possessed in his native district thirty towns; so that to each of his thirty sous, whose dignity was such that they rode en thirty ass-colts, he gave one of these places, which, after him, were named Havoth-jair, Jair's villages (Judg. x. 3-5. Comp. 1 Kings iv. 13).

JAIRUS, a ruler of the synagogue, whose daughter Jesus restored to life; in doing which he gave utterance to an intimation of his doctrine that death is properly but a sleep, in the words, the maid is not dead, but sleepeth' (Matt. ix. Mark v. Luke viii.)

JAMES (the Elder), in the original the sume name as Jacob, is a name borne in the New Testament by one of the Twelve Apostles, son of the Galilean Zebedee and Salome, and brother of the apostle John, in conjunction with whom he, while pursuing his business as a fisherman, was called to the high office of being an apostle of Jesus Christ (Matt. iv. 21, 22; x. 2. Mark i. 19, 20. Luke v. 10; vi. 14). The two, with Peter, were admitted into the special confidence of the Lord (Mark v. 37; xiii. 3. Luke viii. 51); so that James was present at his transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 1) and at his humili ation in the garden (Matt. xxvi. 37), a privi lege which may have been the occasion why their mother preferred a petition for their preeminence (Matt. xx. 21). James and John appear to have been distinguished for energy of character, which, while yet unrestrained by the mild and loving spirit of the gospel, broke out on one occasion into a request that Jesus would smite with lightning an inhospitable village of Samaritans (Luke ix. 52), on which account it probably was that they received from their Master the name of