those
wreaths of flowers which the guests at a banquet bind round their brows,
and which gradually fade as their wearers drink deeper and deeper. "Woe
to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading
flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley
of them that are overcome with wine. Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and
strong one; as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, as a tempest
of mighty waters overflowing, shall be cast down to the earth with
violence. The crown of the pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be
trodden underfoot, and the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which
is on the head of the fat valley, shall be as the first ripe fig before
the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in
his hand he eateth it up." While the cruel fate of the perverse city was
being thus accomplished, Jahveh Sabaoth was to be a crown of glory to
those of His children who remained faithful to Him; but Judah, far from
submitting itself to His laws, betrayed Him even as Israel had done.
Its prophets and priests were likewise distraught with drunkenness; they
staggered under the effects of their potations, and turned to scorn the
true prophet sent to proclaim to them the will of Jehovah. "Whom," they
stammered between their hiccups--"whom will He teach knowledge? and whom
will He make to understand the message? them that are weaned from the
milk and drawn from the breasts? For it is precept upon precept, precept
upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a
little!" And sure enough it was by the mouth of a stammering people, by
the lips of the Assyrians, that Jahveh was to speak to them. In vain did
the prophet implore them: "This is the rest, give ye rest to him that is
weary;" they did not listen to him, and now Jahveh turns their own gibes
against them: "Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon
line, line upon line, here a little and there a little,"--"that they may
go and fall backward, and be broken and snared and taken." There was to
be no hope of safety for Jerusalem unless it gave up all dependence on
human counsels, and trusted solely to God for protection.*

* Isa. xxviii. Giesebrecht has given it as his opinion that
only verses 1-6, 23-29 of the prophecy were delivered at
this epoch: the remainder he believes to have been written
during Sennacherib's campaign against Judah, and suggests