070. Preface

PREFACE This volume completes the arrangement and analytical paraphrase of the prophetic writings of the Old Testament begun in the Messages of the Earlier Prophets. The hearty response of the public to that volume has encouraged the authors to continue and finish their task.

We cannot expect in a work like this to avoid criticism. Opinions differ widely regarding the exact dates to be assigned to particular prophetic addresses. Many will be led, for reasons that seem fair and convincing, to differ from the authors in regard to the proper setting of certain passages. Such candid criticism is only helpful and contributory to the desired result of establishing the true history of prophecy. This is the goal of modern scholarship. It is not of supreme importance to determine whether Isaiah, the son of Amoz, or one of his spiritual disciples, wrote chapters 24 to 27 of the book that bears his name; the one needful task is to ascertain the proper position of their contents in the development of Old Testament revelation. The authors have adopted the conclusions embodied in this volume after repeated and minute consideration of the data. While not infallible, it may be said that conclusions which in the main agree with those of such careful scholars as George Adam Smith, Kirkpatrick, Driver and Nowack cannot be regarded as without a reasonable foundation.

Three remarks may help to prepare the reader to appreciate the point of view of the authors in a rearrangement of the prophetic material which otherwise might impress some readers as unduly radical and even reckless. In the first place, as was intimated in Vol. I. (pp. 12, 84), the principle of arrangement is strictly historical. Every passage is arranged chronologically according to the period to which it refers. In no other way can the student of prophecy be enabled to estimate the progress of revealed truth. The fragmentary condition (see Vol. I., pp. 11–14) of the majority of the prophetic books and the absence of dates or clear chronological data compel the scholar to rest his final judgment on the authority of tradition and mere juxtaposition, or else upon a careful analysis and comparison of the subject-matter of a passage. The latter seems to be the only sure criterion. It is open to revision, but not to rejection.

Again the prophetic writings, historically studied, gain wonderfully in clearness, force, significance, and spiritual impression. The reader puts himself into the situation of the prophets, catches the glow of their convictions, and climbs the sublime heights of their hopes. He forgets the writers in their messages and comes face to face, not with the mouthpiece of Jehovah, but with his living word. The messages of the prophets thus become communications for to-day and for all times.

We may be permitted to add that a paraphrase knows no partisanship. It should be without color. This volume may prove useful even to those who hesitate to accept the historical conclusions of its authors. Their chief aim has been to render into expressive English the exact thought of each prophetic paragraph. The explanatory headings indicate the interpretation which is deemed to be on the whole the truest and most helpful. To the Reverend Samuel B. Sherrill, who has reviewed this volume in manuscript, we are indebted for valuable suggestions.

F. K. S.

C. F. K.