[63] Lit. _from the head_, "da capo." I am not sure, however, that it does not rather mean _beforehand_, like our on ahead.
[65] This seems to me to be more likely to be the meaning of the prophet, than the absolute _from the beginning_. It suits its parallel _beforehand_, and it is more in line with the general demand of the chapter for anticipation of events. It is literally from the head, "da capo," _cf._ p. 117.
[66] ראשנות r'ishonôth is a relative term, meaning _head things_, _things ahead_, _first things_, _prior things_, whether in rank or time. Here of course the time meaning is undoubted. But _ahead of_ what? _prior_ to what?--this is the difficulty. Ewald, Hitzig, A. B. Davidson, Driver, etc., take it as prior to the standpoint of the speaker; things that happened or were uttered previous to him,--a sense in which the word is used in subsequent chapters. But Delitzsch, Hahn, Cheyne, etc., take it to be things prior to other things that will happen in the later future, early events, as opposed to הבאות of the next clause, which they take to mean subsequent things, _things that are to come_ afterwards. I think Dr. Davidson's reasons (see _Expositor_, second series, vol. vii., p. 256) are quite conclusive against this view of Delitzsch, that in this clause the idols are being asked to predict events in the near future. It is difficult, as he says, to see why the idols should be given a choice between the earlier and the later future: nor does the הבאות of the contrasted clause at all suggest a later future; it simply means _things coming_, a term which is as applicable to the near as to the far future. Nevertheless, I am not persuaded that Dr. Davidson's own view of _r'ishonôth_ is the correct one. The rest of the context (see above) is occupied with predictions of the future only. And _r'ishonôth_ does not necessarily mean previous predictions, although used in this sense in the subsequent chapters. It simply means, as we have seen, _head things_, _things ahead_, _things beforehand_, or _fountain-things_, _origins_, _causes_. That we are to understand it here in some such general and absolute sense is suggested, I think, by the word אחריתן which follows it, _their result_ or _issue_, and is confirmed by ראשון, r'ishôn (masc. singular) of ver. 27, which is undoubtedly used in a general sense, meaning _something_ or _somebody on ahead_, an anticipator, predicter, _forerunner_ (as Cheyne gives it), or as I have rendered it above, neuter, a _prediction_. If _r'ishôn_ in ver. 27 means a thing or a man given beforehand, then r'ishonôth in ver. 22 may also mean things given beforehand, predictions made now, or at least things selected and announced as causes now, whose issue, אחריתן, may be recognised in the future. In a word, r'ishonôth would mean things not necessarily _previous_ to the speech in which they were allowed, but simply things _previous_ to certain results, or anticipating certain events, either as their prediction or as their cause.