II. ISAIAH, URIAH THE PRIEST AND ZECHARIAH

There is another coincidence, or at least a probable coincidence, between a passage in Isaiah (viii. 2), and other passages in the Books of Kings (2 Kings 16:10, 18:2), and Chronicles (2 Chron. 29:1), which goes to determine that the prophet was contemporary with Ahaz; thus identifying the age of Isaiah and the date of his prophecying, with a period a hundred and forty years before the Babylonish captivity, of which event nevertheless he is full to overflowing. The following is the coincidence I suppose.

It appears to have been an object with this prophet to warn Judah from depending upon Assyria for help against Syria and Israel.—He saw by the spirit, more to apprehend in the ally than in the adversary (opposed as this opinion was to the judgment of a generation who did not allow for the ambition of Assyria, and especially of Assyria when absorbed in the Babylonish empire [See Lightfoot, Vol. i. p. 114, fol. Hosea 5:13; 7:11.] , in its present profession of amity; nor the approaching downfall of Syria and Israel, in their actual strength). However, to impress this his prophetical view of things upon Ahaz the more effectually (the policy of that monarch having been to court Assyria [2 Chron. 28:16.] ), he takes his pen, and writes in a great roll, again and again, after the manner of his age and nation, when symbolical teaching prevailed, one word of woe, Maher-shalal-hashbaz—“hasting to the spoil he hasteth to the prey”—which, being interpreted, spake of Assyria, that so it should come to pass, touching the havoc about to be wrought by Assyria; first, on the kingdoms of Syria and Israel; and eventually, when merged in the Chaldean kingdom, on Judah itself. And to render this act more emphatic, or to impress it the more memorably on the King, he calls in two witnesses, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah (Isa. 8:2) [Lightfoot, Vol. i. p. 101.] .

Now who are they? Names, it may be said, of unknown individuals perhaps; nay, possibly mere names; the whole being a figure, and not a fact. Yet I discern, on turning to the sixteenth chapter of the second Book of Kings, that one Uriah, he also a priest, was a person with whom king Ahaz was in close communication, using him as a tool for his own unlawful innovations in the worship of his country; “when he introduced into the temple the fashion of the altar which he had seen at Damascus:” in all which, we are told, “Uriah the priest did according to all that king Ahaz commanded” (v. 16). If therefore this was the same Uriah (for the coincidence turns on that), we have one witness taken from the confidential servants of the King. And with respect to Zechariah, the other witness, I learn from the eighteenth chapter of the same Book of Kings, that twenty and five years old was Hezekiah when he began to reign, and that “he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem,” and that “his mother name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah” (v. 2). It should seem, therefore, that Ahaz, who was father of Hezekiah, was son-in-law of one Zechariah; if therefore this was the same Zechariah—for the coincidence again turns on that—we have a second witness taken from amongst the immediate connections of the King; and it may be added, that the probability of these parties mentioned in Isaiah being the same as those of the same names mentioned in the Book of Kings, is increased by their being two in number: had Uriah alone been spoken of in Isaiah, or Zechariah alone, and a single person of the same name been met with in the Book of Kings, as about the person of Ahaz, the identity of the two might have admitted of more dispute than when Uriah and Zechariah are both produced by the prophet, and are both found in the history. If the names had been twenty instead of two, and all had been found to agree, no doubt whatever of the identity could have been entertained.

Here, then, we can account for the choice of Isaiah, who wished the transaction in which he was engaged to be enforced upon the attention of Ahaz with all the advantages he could command, and so selected two of the King’s bosom friends to testify concerning it.

This, I say, induces the belief that the prophet really was contemporary with Ahaz; for how can we suppose, that if his pretended prophecy had been a forgery of after times, so happy, because so trivial an evidence of its genuineness, should have been introduced, and the names of his witnesses have been selected, according so singularly with those of two men certainly about the person of Ahaz whilst he lived? And how difficult it is to imagine that a forger, even admitting that he adopted those names by a fortunate or astute device, should have stopped where he did, and not have taken care to make it clear that by them he meant the Uriah who was the priest of Ahaz, and the Zechariah who was his relation, instead of leaving the matter (as it is left) open to dispute [It is scarcely necessary to remark that Uriah (Isaiah 8:2) and Urijah (2 Kings 16:16) are the same word in the Hebrew.—Dr. Lightfoot takes for granted that the parties named in Isaiah and in Kings are the same. Vol. i. p. 101, fol.]!