_Galil_, but not that the country was limited to them. The qualification, "of the Gentiles," is nowhere else met with in the Old Testament; it is peculiar to the Prophet. It serves as a hint to point out in what the disgrace of Galilee and Peraea consisted. This _Theodoret_ also saw. He says: "He calls it 'Galilee of the Gentiles' because it was inhabited by other tribes along with the Jews; for this reason, he says also of the inhabitants of those countries, that they were walking in darkness, and speaks of the inhabitants of that land as living in the shadow and land of death, and promises the brightness of heavenly light." It is of no small importance to observe that Isaiah does not designate Galilee according to what it was at the time when this prophecy was uttered, _but according to what it was to become in future_. The distress by the Gentiles appears in chap. vii. and viii. everywhere as a _future one_. At the time when the Prophet prophesied, the Jewish territory still existed in its integrity. In vers. 4, and 5-7, he announces Asshur's inroad into the land of Israel as a _future one_; in the present moment, it was the kingdom of the ten tribes in connection with Aram which attacked and threatened Judea. The superior power of the world which, according to the clear foresight of the Prophet, was threatening, could not but be sensibly felt in the North and East. For these formed the border parts against the Asiatic world's power; it was from that quarter that its invasions commonly took place; and it was to be expected that there, in the first instance, the Gentiles would establish themselves, just as, in former times, they had maintained themselves longest there; comp. Judges i. 30-38; _Keil_ on 1 Kings ix. 11. But very soon after this, [Pg 74] the name "Galilee of the Gentiles" ceased to be one merely prophetical; Tiglathpilezer carried the inhabitants of Galilee and Gilead into exile, 2 Kings xv. 29. _At a later period_, when the Greek empire "peopled Palestine, in the most attractive places, with new cities, restored many which, in consequence of the destructive wars, had fallen into decay, filled all of them, more or less, with Greek customs and institutions, and, along with the newly-opened extensive commerce and traffic, everywhere spread Greek manners also," this change was chiefly limited to Galilee and Peraea; Judea remained free from it; comp. _Ewald_, _Geschichte Israels_, iii. 2 S. 264 ff. In 1 Maccab. v. Galaaditis and Galilee appear as those parts of the country where the existence of the Jews is almost hopelessly endangered by the Gentiles living in the midst of, and mixed up with them. What is implied in "Galilee of the Gentiles" may be learned from that chapter, where even the _expression_ reverts in ver. 15. With external dependence upon the Gentiles, however, the spiritual dependence went hand in hand. These parts of the country could the less oppose any great resistance to the influences of