Yet throughout the Hebrew Old Testament the Eschatology of the Nation greatly predominates over that of the Individual. Indeed in pre-Exilic times “the day of Yahwe,” with its national judgments, constitutes the all but exclusive subject of the prophetic teaching as to the future. Only from the Exile, (597 to 538 B.C.), onwards, does the eschatological development begin to grow in complexity, for now the individualism first preached by Jeremiah begins to maintain its claim also. But not till the close of the fourth century, or the beginning of the third century B.C., do the separate eschatologies of the individual and of the nation issue finally in their synthesis: the righteous individual will participate in the Messianic Kingdom, the righteous dead of Israel will arise to share therein,--thus in Isaiah xxvi, 1-19, a passage which it is difficult to place earlier than about 334 B.C. The resurrection is here limited to the just. In Daniel xii, 2, which is probably not earlier than 165 B.C., the resurrection is extended, not indeed to all members of Israel, but, with respective good and evil effects, to its martyrs and apostates. And the slowness and incompleteness of the development throughout the Hebrew Old Testament is strikingly illustrated by the great paucity of texts which yield, without the application of undue pressure, any clear conviction or hope of a heightened, or even a sheer, maintenance of the soul’s this-life consciousness and force after death. Besides the passages just indicated, Dr. Charles can only find Psalms xlix and lxxiii, and Job xix, 25-27, all three, according to him, later than Ezekiel, who died in 571 B.C.[198] The textually uncertain and obscure Job-passage (xix, 25, 26) must be discounted, since it evidently demands interpretation according to the plain presupposition and point of the great poem as a whole.--And the same result is reached by the numerous, entirely unambiguous, passages which maintain the negative persuasion. In the hymn put into the mouth of the sick king Hezekiah, for about 713 B.C., (a composition which seems to be very late, perhaps only of the second century B.C.), we hear: “The grave cannot praise Thee … they that go down into the pit cannot hope for truth. The living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day.” And the Psalter contains numerous similar declarations. Thus vi, 5: “In death there is no remembrance of Thee: in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?” and cxv, 17: “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence; but _we_ praise the Lord.” See also Psalms xxx, 19; lxxxviii, 11.