[794] So Hitzig ("ohne Zweifel"), and Cheyne, _Introduction to the Book of Isaiah_; Ryssel, _op. cit._, pp. 218 f. Hackmann (_Die Zukunftserwartung des Jesaia_, 127-8, _n._) prefers the Greek of Micah. Ewald is doubtful. Duhm, however, inclines to authorship by Isaiah, and would assign the composition to Isaiah's old age. [795] Hitzig; Ewald. [796] As against Duhm. [797] So rightly Duhm on Isa. ii. 2-4. [798] Amos i. and ii. See above, pp. 124, 133. [799] Isa. xxiii. 17 f. [800] Jer. xvii. [801] Wellhausen indeed thinks that ver. 8 presupposes that Jerusalem is already devastated, reduced to the state of a shepherd's tower in the wilderness. This, however, is incorrect. The verse implies only that the whole country is overrun by the foe, Jerusalem alone standing, with the flock of God in it, like a fortified fold (cf. Isaiah i.). [802] Roorda, reasoning from the Greek text, takes _House of Ephratha_ as the original reading, with Bethlehem added later; and Hitzig properly reads Ephrath, giving its final letter to the next word which improves the grammar, thus: הצעיר אפרת [803] Isa. xix. 19. [804] So also Wellhausen. [805] _E.g._ Ewald and Driver. [806] For עמי read עמים with the LXX. [807] Wellhausen states four. But תושיה of ver. 9 is an uncertain reading. רמיה is found in Hosea vii. 16, though the text of this, it is true, is corrupt. זכה in another verbal form is found in Isa. i. 16. There only remains מטה, but again it is uncertain whether we should take this in its late sense of tribe. [808] And also Giesebrecht, _Beiträge_, p. 217. CHAPTER XXV _MICAH THE MORASTHITE_ MICAH i. Some time in the reign of Hezekiah, when the kingdom of Judah was still inviolate, but shivering to the shock of the fall of Samaria, and probably while Sargon the destroyer was pushing his way past Judah to meet Egypt at Raphia, a Judæan prophet of the name of Micah, standing in sight of the Assyrian march, attacked the sins of his people and prophesied their speedy overthrow beneath the same flood of war. If we be correct in our surmise, the exact year was 720-719 B.C. Amos had been silent thirty years, Hosea hardly fifteen; Isaiah was in the midway of his career. The title of Micah's book asserts that he had previously prophesied under Jotham and Ahaz, and though we have seen it to be possible, it is by no means proved, that certain passages of the book date from these reigns. Micah is called the Morasthite.[809] For this designation there appears to be no other meaning than that of a native of Moresheth-Gath, a village mentioned by himself.[810] It signifies _Property_ or _Territory_ of Gath, and after the fall of the latter, which from this time no more appears in history, Moresheth may have been used alone. Compare the analogous cases of Helkath (_portion of_--) Galilee, Ataroth, Chesulloth and Iim.[811]