easily the Lord could give deliverance, without any appeal for help to Assyria?*

* We mark that throughout the names are here symbolical (comp. Isaiah 8:18). That Shear Yashub

recurs in Isaiah 10:21 (comp. ver. 20)is only in accordance with the reflection of the future upon

the present, which is a characteristic of prophecy - nor can we fail to remark concerning this Shear

Yashub that it is "a remnant of Jacob" and its return is "to El-Gibbor" [God the Mighty], comp.

Isaiah 9:6.

If so, it casts still furt her light on the place occupied by symbolism, not only in the Old Testament,

but in Hebrew, and in measure in all Eastern thinking. Symbolism is, so to speak, its mode of

expression - the language of its highest thinking. Hence its moral teaching is in parables and

proverbs; its dogmatics in ritual and typical institutions; while in its prophecy the present serves as

a mirror in which the future is reflected. To overlook this constant presence of the symbolical and

typical in the worship, history, teaching, and prophecy of the Old Testament is to misunderstand

not only its meaning, but even the genius of the Hebrew people.

We turn once more to the course of this history to trace the results of Ahaz' appeal to Assyria as

against Syria and Israel.* Unfortunately, of the two groups into which the Assyrian inscriptions of

that reign have been arranged, that which is chronological and also historically the most

trustworthy has in important parts been destroyed or rendered illegible by a later monarch of a

different dynasty (Esarhaddon).**

* We are here following the arrangement of Schrader, both in his work, Die Keilinschrifter u. d. A.

Test. and in the articles contributed by the same scholar to Riehm's Hand-Worterb.

** Schrader, Die Keilinschr. pp. 242, 243. That scholar complains of the misarrangement of the

texts. One of the plates, seen by Sir Henry Rawlinson, which records the killing of Rezin, had

been left in Asia, and has since hopelessly disappeared.

Nevertheless we are able to gather a sufficiently connected history at any rate of twelve out of the

eighteen years of the reign of Tiglath-pileser. Its beginning, and to the period of the taking of

Arpad, has been described in the previous chapter. And thus much may be added generally, that

"the picture of Tiglath-pileser derived from the Assyrian inscriptions entirely corresponds with

what we know of him from the Bible.*

* Schrader u.s. p. 247.

Further, we learn that in Tiglath-pileser's expedition against the Syro -Israelitish league his first

move ment was against Israel and the smaller nations around Judah (2 Chronicles 28:17, 18). A

brief account of the campaign against Israel is given in 2 Kings 15:29, 30, which we cannot help

thinking is there out of its place.*

* This may in part account for the confusion in the notice about "the 20th year of Jotham."

But it correctly indicates, in accordance with the Assyrian inscriptions, the priority of the march

against Israel to that upon Damascus, which is recorded in 2 Kings 16:9, and it seems also alluded

to in 2 Chronicles 28:16, comp. ver. 17. From the Assyrian inscriptions we learn that Tiglath-

pileser made an expedition against Philistia - that country being presumably named as the utmost

western objective of a campaign which was equally directed against Samaria, the Phoenician

towns, Edom, Moab, and Ammon, and even affected Judah. To the latter the notice in 2

Chronicles 28:20 may possibly bear reference.

Judging from the order of the conquered cities mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions, Tiglath-

pileser had left Damascus aside, and marched straight on the old Canaanitish towns at the western

foot of Lebanon, which commanded the road to Palestine. Two of these are specially mentioned,