As a promise made by Jehovah must be kept, the anticipation of its fulfilment became strong as the prospect of it grew dim. The days of disaster were the days of expectation. The prophets laid stress on the condition, charged the delay upon lukewarmness, and urged the necessity of stricter conformity with the divine will; but the people, oblivious of duty, held to the pledge and cherished the anticipation. When the national hope assumed the concrete form of faith in the advent of an individual, when the conception of the individual became clothed in supernatural attributes, is uncertain. Probably the looked-for deliverer was from the first regarded as more than human. It could hardly be otherwise, as he was to be the representative and agent of Jehovah, an incarnation of his truth and righteousness. The Hebrews easily confounding the human with the super-human, were always tempted to ascribe supernatural qualities to their political and spiritual leaders, believing that they were divinely commissioned, attested and furthered; and the person who was to accomplish what none of them had so much as hopefully undertaken, would naturally be clothed by an enthusiastic imagination, with attributes more than mortal. The poets depicted the stories of the future restoration in language of extraordinary splendor. Joel, some say eight hundred years before Jesus, two hundred years before the first captivity, foreshadows the restoration, but without any portraiture of the victorious Prince. A century and a half later we will suppose, the first Isaiah speaks of the providential child of the nation, on whose shoulder the government shall rest, whose name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty Potentate, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace; whose dominion shall be great, who shall fix and establish the throne and kingdom of David, through justice and equity for ever, and in peace without end; a lineal descendant from David, a sprout from his root. "The spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, "The spirit of wisdom and understanding, "The spirit of counsel and might, "The spirit of knowledge and fear of Jehovah. "Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, "And faithfulness the girdle of his reins; "To him shall the nation repair, "And his dwelling place shall be glorious." The second Isaiah, supposed to have written during the exile and not long before its termination, associates the hope of restoration and return with king Cyrus, on whose clemency the Jews built great expectations, intimating even that he might be the promised deliverer. "He saith of Cyrus: 'He is my shepherd; he shall perform all my pleasure.' He saith of Jerusalem: 'She shall be built;' and of the temple: 'Her foundation shall be laid.'"