shall the fire devour thee, the sword shall cut thee off, it shall consume thee like a cankerworm.' The wealth and influence of the Assyrians were indeed great, but their leaders would be powerless in the day of desolation: 'Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven; thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the swarms of grasshoppers, that camp in the hedges in the cold season, but when the sun arises, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.'

The Assyrians were not merely to suffer severe losses, but they were to be partially exterminated, and their former greatness and power forgotten. Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria! thy nobles are at rest; thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathers them. . . . There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is deadly. All that hear the report of thee shall clap their hands over thee; for upon whom has not thy wickedness passed continually?'

This conclusion aptly conveys the prophet's object, and illustrates the Divine justice which never fails to vindicate the wrongs of the oppressed and to humble the pride of the arrogant. This idea pervades the whole work, which chronicles the glory of God and the triumph of His faithful servants, as well as the fall of a political foe; although treating of an event of paramount worldly importance, Nahum, unlike his great contemporary Isaiah, never comes forward as a statesman, weighing political details or calculating human influences. Therefore, in a purely religious point of view, the orations of Nahum are of singular interest, setting forth God's power and justice with the utmost earnestness and dignity. They are distinguished by a unity of thought and expression not easily attainable in works which embrace a variety of events or refer to different epochs. The language is always adapted to the subject, and it exhibits a rare

intensity of feeling and great elevation of thought. Brilliant imagery adorns the hymn of thanksgiving; and Nineveh's doom is announced in accents of awe-stirring solemnity.

VII. ZEPHANIAH (640).

The reign of Hezekiah, memorable as it proved for the political history of Judah, was even more important in the annals of prophecy. It was distinguished by a bright constellation of those great men who immortalised both their age and their nation; but it was followed by a long period of idolatry and moral degeneracy, during which no inspired voice seems to have been raised.

The first heralds of the return of a better time were the utterances of the prophet Zephaniah. Not that the influence of many years of wickedness had already yielded to a happier dawn and a purer light; for the baneful and protracted reign of Manasseh, standing out in sad contrast to that of the pious king Hezekiah, and the equally iniquitous, though short, rule of his son Amon, had inflicted upon the nation deadly wounds that could not so easily be healed. But the throne which Amon had desecrated, and which was vacated by his violent death, was left to his son Josiah, who was destined once more to raise and to restore it to its ancient honour. It was in the earlier part of Josiah's reign that Zephaniah prophesied; and his efforts may have contributed to stimulate the pious young king to those religious reforms which secured the stability of Mosaism for ever. His indignant invectives were hurled against a depraved people, long left to their own unchecked recklessness, as well as against those who should have been their guides and instructors. They reflect a time of anarchy and violence, when no Divine or human authority had the power of restraining licen

tiousness and idolatry. They dwell on that ever fruitful theme of prophetic eloquence-the punishment of the people for sins committed during generations with revolting pertinacity. He predicted to the rebellious community a complete and universal doom, which would overtake the king on his throne, the nobles in their palaces, and the merchants in their abodes of wealth and luxury-in fact, all those who with mocking incredulity had exclaimed, 'The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil.' He announced this doom in decisive, though somewhat general terms: 'I will utterly destroy all things from off the land, says the Lord. I will destroy man and beast, destroy the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the ruined houses with the wicked; and I will cut off man from the face of the earth, says the Lord. And I will stretch out My hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the ministers of the idols with the priests, and those who worship the host of heaven on the roofs, and who worship and swear by the Lord, and swear also by their idol, and those who have turned back from the Lord, nor seek the Lord, nor search after Him. Silence in the presence of the Lord God! for the day of the Lord is at hand: for the Lord has prepared a sacrifice, He has sanctified His guests. And in the day of the Lord's sacrifice, I will punish the princes and the king's children, and all that are clothed with foreign apparel. . . . Their wealth shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation; they build houses, but do not inhabit them; and they plant vineyards, but do not drink the wine thereof.'

He then made an allusion to some dreaded event, though its interpretation remains a matter of conjecture. The source of alarm to which he referred was most probably the danger which was then threatening Judea

either from the invasion of the Chaldeans or of the hordes of Scythians, whose thirst for adventure and rapine spread terror far and wide; for those ravaging tribes were looked upon as the instruments of God's vengeance, and the scourge appointed by Him to punish the Hebrews for their wickedness and disobedience: The great day of the Lord is near; it is near, and hastens greatly; the day of the Lord calls aloud; then the hero cries bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and black shadows, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities and against the high towers. And I will bring anguish upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord; and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath; and the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of His zeal for He will annihilate, nay, crush suddenly all the inhabitants of the land.'

Predicting misfortune as the inevitable result of sin, Zephaniah hardly mitigated the dread announcement by a single expression of hope or encouragement. Yet he could not refrain from a word of advice, deeply felt but diffidently uttered, and he urged upon all that it still lay in their own power somewhat to shield themselves from the impending calamities: Assemble, yea assemble, O shameless nation, before His decree matures-like chaff passes the time-before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger comes upon you! Seek the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, who exercise His judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: perhaps you may be protected in the day of the Lord's anger.'

But he promised no happier fate to the heathen nations

which had taken up arms against the people of the Lord, and which, ever restless and aggressive, had alternately triumphed over the Hebrews and succumbed to their valour. The Philistines, the Moabites, and the Ammonites trembled no less than the Jews before the invading hosts; nor should the two greatest countries, Egypt and Assyria, those strongholds of ancient idolatry, escape the general desolation For Gaza shall be forsaken and Ashkelon be a waste; Ashdod shall be driven out at the noon-day, and Ekron shall be uprooted. . . . I have heard the taunt of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon, wherewith they taunted My people, and rose up against their boundaries. Therefore, as I live, says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, a breeding-place of nettles, and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation: the remnant of My people shall spoil them, and the residue of My nation shall possess them.

Ye Ethiopians also, you shall be slain by My sword. And He stretches out His hand against the north and destroys Assyria, and makes Nineveh a desolation, and parched up like a wilderness. . . . This is the exulting city that dwells carelessly, that says in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become a desolation, a den for beasts! every one that passes by her hisses, and waves bis hand.'

Then the prophet returns to his chief subject-his own people. His language becomes more vivid and more. forcible as he dwells upon their fatal wickedness, and unfolds a picture full of gloom and despair: "Woe to her that is refractory and polluted, to the city of oppression! She obeys no voice; she accepts not correction; she trusts not in the Lord; she draws not near to her God. Her princes within her are roaring lions, her judges evening wolves that save nothing till the morrow; her