2. THE LOSS OF TERRITORY (ix. 8-21).--So awful a calamity, in which the dying did not die out of sight nor fall huddled together on some far off battle-field, but the whole land was strewn with her slain, ought to have left indelible impression on the people. But it did not. The Lord's own word had been in it for Jacob and Israel (ix. 8), _that the people might know, even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria_. But unhumbled they turned in the stoutness of their hearts, saying, when the earthquake had passed:[5] _The bricks are fallen, but we will build with hewn stones;[6] the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars_. Calamity did not make this people thoughtful; they felt God only to endeavour to forget Him. Therefore He visited them the second time. They did not feel the Lord shaking their land, so He sent their enemies to steal it from them: _the Syrians before and the Philistines behind; and they devour Israel with open mouth_. What that had been for appalling suddenness this was for lingering and harassing--guerilla warfare, armed raids, the land eaten away bit by bit. _Yet the people do not return unto Him that smote them, neither seek they the LORD of hosts._ [5] Read past tenses, as in the margin of Revised Version, for all the future tenses, or better, the historical present, down to the end of the chapter. [6] It is part of the argument for connecting ix. 8 with v. 25 that this phrase would be very natural after the earthquake described in v. 25. 3. WAR AND DEFEAT (ix. 13-17).--The next consequent calamity passed from the land to the people themselves. A great battle is described, in which the nation is dismembered in one day. War and its horrors are told, and the apparent want of Divine pity and discrimination which they imply is explained. Israel has been led into these disasters by the folly of their leaders, whom Isaiah therefore singles out for blame. _For they that lead these people cause them to err, and they that are led of them are destroyed._ But the real horror of war is that it falls not upon its authors, that its victims are not statesmen, but the beauty of a country's youth, the helplessness of the widow and orphan. Some question seems to have been stirred by this in Isaiah's heart. He asks, Why does the Lord not rejoice in the young men of His people? Why has He no pity for widow and orphan, that He thus sacrifices them to the sin of the rulers? It is because the whole nation shares the ruler's guilt; _every one is an hypocrite and an evil-doer, and every mouth speaketh folly_. As ruler so people, is a truth Isaiah frequently asserts, but never with such grimness as here. War brings out, as nothing else does, the solidarity of a people in guilt.