Critical Remarks on an Alleged Interpolation in Isaiah 7: 8 [pp. 558-575]

570 Isaiah 7: 8. [OCTOBER
that the truth of this assumption has been questioned or de nied by critics and chronologers of no mean name, among
whom it will suffice to mention Piscator and archbishop
Usher.
According to these writers, the prediction has reference,
not to the conquest of Samaria by Shalmaneser, but to the
extinction of the Israelites as a distinct nation, by their amal gamation with Assyrian colonists, when "the king of Assyria
brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava,
and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in
the cities of Samaria, INSTEAD OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL,
and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof,"
(2 Kings 17: 24.) Which king of Assyria is meant, appears
from Ezra 4: 2, where the foreign colonists say to the Jews
-c-" We seek your God, as ye do, and we do sacrifice unto
him, since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which
brought us up hither." Now it was Esar-haddon who car ried Manasseh into captivity (2 Chr. 33: 11), which event,
according to the Talmud and the Seder Olam, took place in
the twenty-second year of Manasseh's reign, i. e. sixty-five
years from the date of this prediction. It was probably in
the course of the same expedition that he effected the amal. gamation before mentioned, to which, as Usher argues, the
expression of Isaiah is peculiarly appropriate. He does not
say, that in sixty-five years Ephraim should be overthrown,
or conquered, or made captive, but that it should be so bro ken or smitten as to cease to be a nation, which was signally
accomplished, when it became impossible to distinguish the
pure Israelites, if any such there were, from the Samaritans
or men of mixed descent.
In order to an impartial judgment, the difficulties which
attend this exposition must be distinctly stated. The fol lowing objections have been urged, in substance, by Vitringa
and Gesenius.
(1.) Too much stress is laid upon the phrase, "that it be
not a people," which might, without any impropriety, be
used in relation to the downfal of the government of Israel,
and the cessation of its independence.
(2.) It is assumed, without proof, that the Israelites re mained distinct until-the time of Esar-haddon, and then for
the first time lost their nationality.
(3.) It is assumed, without proof, that the introduction of
the Aramean, colonists was synchronous, or nearly so, with