Rationalistic Exegesis, everywhere little able to sympathize with, and enter into existing circumstances and conditions, and always ready to make its own shadowy, coarse views the rule [Pg 170] and arbiter, has been little able to enter into, and sympathize with this ideal stand-point occupied by the Prophet; nor has it had the earnest will to do so. To its rationalistic tendencies, which took offence at the clear knowledge of the Future, a welcome pretext was here offered. Thus the opinion arose, that the second part was not written by Isaiah, but was the work of some anonymous prophet, living about the end of the exile,--an opinion which, at the time of the absolute dominion of Rationalism, has obtained so firm a footing, that it has become all but an _axiom_, and, by the power of tradition, carries away even such as would not think of entertaining it, if they were to enter independently and without prejudice upon the investigation. The fact which here meets us does not by any means stand isolated. The prophets did not prophesy in the state of rational reflection, but in _exstasis_. As even their ordinary name, "seers," indicates, the objects were presented to them in inward vision. They did not behold the Future from a distance, but they were rapt into the future. This inward vision is frequently reflected in their representation. Very frequently, that appears with them as present which, in reality, was still future. They depict the Future before the eyes of their hearers and readers, and thus, as it were, by force, drag them into it out of the Present, the coercing force of which exerts so pernicious an influence upon them. Our Prophet expressly intimates this peculiar manner of the prophetic announcement by making, in chap. xlix. 7, the Lord say: "First I said to Zion: _Behold there, behold there_," by which the graphic character of prophecy is precisely expressed, and by which it is intimated that hearers and readers were led _in rem praesentem_ by the prophets. Even grammar has long ago acknowledged this fact, inasmuch as it speaks of _Praeterita prophetica_, _i.e._, such as denote the _ideal_ Past, in contrast to those which denote the _real_ Past. Unless we have attained to this view and insight, it is only by inconsistency that we can escape from _Eichhorn's_ view, that the prophecies are, for the most part, disguised historical descriptions,--a view into which even expositors, such as _Ewald_ and _Hitzig_, frequently relapse. Frequently, the whole of the Future appears with the prophets in the form of the _Present_. At other times, they take their stand in the [Pg 171] more immediate Future; and this becomes to them the _ideal_ Present, from which they direct the eye to the distant Future. From the rich store of proofs which we can adduce for our view, we shall here mention only a few.