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

Is7aiah 7: 8.
the king and people were to be dispelled, and that the irrelevancy of this clause to that design does constitute an argument against its being genutine. We dispose of the objection,
therefore, not by denying its allegation, but by admitting
and explaining it.,The prophet himself appears to have perceived the want of correspondence in the members of this
sentence, and to have added the first clause of the next verse
for the very purpose of supplying what would otherwise have
been a great defect in his consolatory prophecy. The train
of thought, in which the passage had its origin, may be thus
described. Intending to allay the fears excited by the presence or approach of the invaders, the prophet looks first at
the king of Syria, as the more powerful of the confederates,
and assures his hearers, that the bounds of Syria were not to
be enlarged —" the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head
of Damascus Rezin"-after which he turns to Ephraim, and
is suddenly engrossed with a prophetic view of the final catastrophe which awaited that apostate kingdom-" within
threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be
ot a people"-then, as if remembering that this prediction,
however interesting or important, was not adapted to his immediate purpose, that of encouraging the invaded Jews,. he
repeats, in reference to Ephraim, what he had just before
predicted as to Syria, viz. that its boundaries were not to be
enlarged by the conquest of Judea —"' and the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria Remaliah's son."
The whole may then be paraphrased as follows.' Be not
afraid of Rezin and Pekah. Rezin is sovereign of Damascus,
and Damascus is the capital of Syria, nor shall either become
more than it now is. As for Ephraim its utter destruction
is approaching; in sixty-five years it shall cease to be a
people. And in the mean time, though the kingdom still
subsists, it shall not be enlarged. Pekah shall never reign
in any other capital, nor shall Samaria be the capital of any
other kingdom.' This relation of the clauses may be rendered obvious by simply inserting "in the mean time" after
"'and" at the beginning of v. 9.*
This view of the passage, if it does not render it entirely
natural in its construction or entirely free from doubt, may
at least be said to exempt it from an absolute necessity of
mutilation. Any exposition of the passage, as it stands, if
coherent with the context and consistent with itself, must be
* Calvin translates the particle interea.
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