continued unmoved, even when the rock began to shake in an alarming
way. Only it must not be forgotten that the significance of
Jerusalem to Isaiah did not arise from the temple of Solomon, but
from the fact that it was the city of David and the focus of his
kingdom, the central point, not of the cultus, but of the
sovereignty of Jehovah over His people. The holy mount was to
him the entire city as a political unity, with its citizens,
councillors, and judges (xi.9); his faith in the sure foundation
on which Zion rested was nothing more than a faith in the living
presence of Jehovah in the camp of Israel. But the contemporaries
of the prophet interpreted otherwise his words and the events which
had occurred. In their view Jehovah dwelt on Zion because His
house was there; it was the temple that had been shown by history
to be His true seat, and its inviolability was accordingly the
pledge of the indestructibility of the nation. This belief was
quite general in Jeremiah's time, as is seen in the extremely
vivid picture of the seventh chapter of his book; but even as
early as the time of Micah, in the first third of the seventh
century, the temple must have been reckoned a house of God of an
altogether peculiar order, so as to make it a paradox to put it on
a level with the Bamoth of Judah, and a thing unheard of to believe
in its destruction.

At the same time, notwithstanding the high and universal reverence
in which the temple was held, the other sanctuaries still
continued, in the first instance, to subsist alongside of it.
King Hezekiah indeed is said to have even then made an attempt
to abolish them, but the attempt, having passed away without leaving
any trace, is of a doubtful nature. It is certain that the
prophet Isaiah did not labour for the removal of the Bamoth. In