Hezekiah, Babylon’s Embassy, and the Shadow of Exile

Isa 39:3-8 The consequences of this coqueting with the children of the stranger, and this vain display, are pointed out in Isa 39:3-8 : “Then came Isaiah the prophet to king Hizkiyahu, and said to him, What have these men said, and whence come they to thee? Hizkiyahu said, They came to me from a far country (K. omits to me ) , out of Babel. He said further, What have they seen in thy house?

Hizkiyahu said, All that is in my house have they seen: there was nothing in my treasures that I had not shown them. Then Isaiah said to Hizkiyahu, Hear the word of Jehovah of hosts (K. omits tsebhâ'ōth ); Behold, days come, that all that is in thy house, and all that thy fathers have laid up unto this day, will be carried away to Babel (בּבל, K. בּבלה): nothing will be left behind, saith Jehovah.

And of thy children that proceed from thee, whom thou shalt beget, will they take (K. chethib, 'will he take' ); and they will be courtiers in the palace of the king of Babel. Then said Hizkiyahu to Isaiah, Good is the word of Jehovah which thou hast spoken. And he said further, Yea (כּי, K. אם הלוא), there shall be peace and stedfastness in my days. ” Hezekiah’s two candid answers in vv.

3 and 4 are an involuntary condemnation of his own conduct, which was sinful in two respects. This self-satisfied display of worthless earthly possessions would bring its own punishment in their loss; and this obsequious suing for admiration and favour on the part of strangers, would be followed by plundering and enslaving on the part of those very same strangers whose envy he had excited.

The prophet here foretells the Babylonian captivity; but, in accordance with the occasion here given, not as the destiny of the whole nation, but as that of the house of David. Even political sharp-sightedness might have foreseen, that some such disastrous consequences would follow Hezekiah’s imprudent course; but this absolute certainty, that Babylon, which was then struggling hard for independence, would really be the heiress to the Assyrian government of the world, and that it was not from Assyria, which was actually threatening Judah with destruction for its rebellion, but from Babylon, that this destruction would really come, was impossible without the spirit of prophecy.

We may infer from Isa 39:7 (cf. , Isa 38:19, and for the fulfilment, Dan 1:3) that Hezekiah had no son as yet, at least none with a claim to the throne; and this is confirmed by 2Ki 21:1. So far as the concluding words are concerned, we should quite misunderstand them, if we saw nothing in them but common egotism. כּי (for) is explanatory here, and therefore confirmatory.

אם הלוא, however, does not mean “yea, if only,” as Ewald supposes (§324, b ), but is also explanatory, though in an interrogative form, “Is it not good (i. e. , still gracious and kind), if,” etc.? He submits with humility to the word of Jehovah, in penitential acknowledgement of his vain, shortsighted, untheocratic conduct, and feels that he is mercifully spared by God, inasmuch as the divine blessings of peace and stability (אמת a self-attesting state of things, without any of those changes which disappoint our confident expectations) would continue.

“Although he desired the prosperity of future ages, it would not have been right for him to think it nothing that God had given him a token of His clemency, by delaying His judgment” (Calvin). Over the kingdom of Judah there was now hanging the very same fate of captivity and exile, which had put an end to the kingdom of Israel eight years before. When the author of the book of Kings prefaces the four accounts of Isaiah in 2Ki 18:13-20, with the recapitulation in 2Ki 18:9-12 (cf.

, Isa 17:5-6), his evident meaning is, that the end of the kingdom of Israel, and the beginning of the end of the kingdom of Judah, had their meeting-point in Hezekiah’s time. As Israel fell under the power of the Assyrian empire, which foundered upon Judah, though only through a miraculous manifestation of the grace of God (see Hos 1:7); so did Judah fall a victim to the Babylonian empire.

The four accounts are so arranged, that the first two, together with the epilogue in Isa 37:36. , which contains the account of the fulfilment, bring the Assyrian period of judgment to a close; and the last two, with the eventful sketch in Isa 39:6-7, open the way for the great bulk of the prophecies which now follow in chapters 40-66, relating to the Babylonian period of judgment.

This Janus-headed arrangement of the contents of chapters 36-39 is a proof that this historical section formed an original part of the “vision of Isaiah. ” At any rate, it leads to the conclusion that, whoever arranged the four accounts in their present order, had chapters 40-66 before him at the time. We believe, however, that we may, or rather, considering the prophetico-historical style of chapters 36-39, that we must, draw the still further conclusion, that Isaiah himself, when he revised the collection of his prophecies at the end of Hezekiah’s reign, or possibly not till the beginning of Manasseh’s, bridged over the division between the two halves of the collection by the historical trilogy in the seventh book.

Isa 39:3-8 The consequences of this coqueting with the children of the stranger, and this vain display, are pointed out in Isa 39:3-8 : “Then came Isaiah the prophet to king Hizkiyahu, and said to him, What have these men said, and whence come they to thee? Hizkiyahu said, They came to me from a far country (K. omits to me ) , out of Babel. He said further, What have they seen in thy house?

Hizkiyahu said, All that is in my house have they seen: there was nothing in my treasures that I had not shown them. Then Isaiah said to Hizkiyahu, Hear the word of Jehovah of hosts (K. omits tsebhâ'ōth ); Behold, days come, that all that is in thy house, and all that thy fathers have laid up unto this day, will be carried away to Babel (בּבל, K. בּבלה): nothing will be left behind, saith Jehovah.

And of thy children that proceed from thee, whom thou shalt beget, will they take (K. chethib, 'will he take' ); and they will be courtiers in the palace of the king of Babel. Then said Hizkiyahu to Isaiah, Good is the word of Jehovah which thou hast spoken. And he said further, Yea (כּי, K. אם הלוא), there shall be peace and stedfastness in my days. ” Hezekiah’s two candid answers in vv.

3 and 4 are an involuntary condemnation of his own conduct, which was sinful in two respects. This self-satisfied display of worthless earthly possessions would bring its own punishment in their loss; and this obsequious suing for admiration and favour on the part of strangers, would be followed by plundering and enslaving on the part of those very same strangers whose envy he had excited.

The prophet here foretells the Babylonian captivity; but, in accordance with the occasion here given, not as the destiny of the whole nation, but as that of the house of David. Even political sharp-sightedness might have foreseen, that some such disastrous consequences would follow Hezekiah’s imprudent course; but this absolute certainty, that Babylon, which was then struggling hard for independence, would really be the heiress to the Assyrian government of the world, and that it was not from Assyria, which was actually threatening Judah with destruction for its rebellion, but from Babylon, that this destruction would really come, was impossible without the spirit of prophecy.

We may infer from Isa 39:7 (cf. , Isa 38:19, and for the fulfilment, Dan 1:3) that Hezekiah had no son as yet, at least none with a claim to the throne; and this is confirmed by 2Ki 21:1. So far as the concluding words are concerned, we should quite misunderstand them, if we saw nothing in them but common egotism. כּי (for) is explanatory here, and therefore confirmatory.

אם הלוא, however, does not mean “yea, if only,” as Ewald supposes (§324, b ), but is also explanatory, though in an interrogative form, “Is it not good (i. e. , still gracious and kind), if,” etc.? He submits with humility to the word of Jehovah, in penitential acknowledgement of his vain, shortsighted, untheocratic conduct, and feels that he is mercifully spared by God, inasmuch as the divine blessings of peace and stability (אמת a self-attesting state of things, without any of those changes which disappoint our confident expectations) would continue.

“Although he desired the prosperity of future ages, it would not have been right for him to think it nothing that God had given him a token of His clemency, by delaying His judgment” (Calvin). Over the kingdom of Judah there was now hanging the very same fate of captivity and exile, which had put an end to the kingdom of Israel eight years before. When the author of the book of Kings prefaces the four accounts of Isaiah in 2Ki 18:13-20, with the recapitulation in 2Ki 18:9-12 (cf.

, Isa 17:5-6), his evident meaning is, that the end of the kingdom of Israel, and the beginning of the end of the kingdom of Judah, had their meeting-point in Hezekiah’s time. As Israel fell under the power of the Assyrian empire, which foundered upon Judah, though only through a miraculous manifestation of the grace of God (see Hos 1:7); so did Judah fall a victim to the Babylonian empire.

The four accounts are so arranged, that the first two, together with the epilogue in Isa 37:36. , which contains the account of the fulfilment, bring the Assyrian period of judgment to a close; and the last two, with the eventful sketch in Isa 39:6-7, open the way for the great bulk of the prophecies which now follow in chapters 40-66, relating to the Babylonian period of judgment.

This Janus-headed arrangement of the contents of chapters 36-39 is a proof that this historical section formed an original part of the “vision of Isaiah. ” At any rate, it leads to the conclusion that, whoever arranged the four accounts in their present order, had chapters 40-66 before him at the time. We believe, however, that we may, or rather, considering the prophetico-historical style of chapters 36-39, that we must, draw the still further conclusion, that Isaiah himself, when he revised the collection of his prophecies at the end of Hezekiah’s reign, or possibly not till the beginning of Manasseh’s, bridged over the division between the two halves of the collection by the historical trilogy in the seventh book.

Isa 39:3-8 The consequences of this coqueting with the children of the stranger, and this vain display, are pointed out in Isa 39:3-8 : “Then came Isaiah the prophet to king Hizkiyahu, and said to him, What have these men said, and whence come they to thee? Hizkiyahu said, They came to me from a far country (K. omits to me ) , out of Babel. He said further, What have they seen in thy house?

Hizkiyahu said, All that is in my house have they seen: there was nothing in my treasures that I had not shown them. Then Isaiah said to Hizkiyahu, Hear the word of Jehovah of hosts (K. omits tsebhâ'ōth ); Behold, days come, that all that is in thy house, and all that thy fathers have laid up unto this day, will be carried away to Babel (בּבל, K. בּבלה): nothing will be left behind, saith Jehovah.

And of thy children that proceed from thee, whom thou shalt beget, will they take (K. chethib, 'will he take' ); and they will be courtiers in the palace of the king of Babel. Then said Hizkiyahu to Isaiah, Good is the word of Jehovah which thou hast spoken. And he said further, Yea (כּי, K. אם הלוא), there shall be peace and stedfastness in my days. ” Hezekiah’s two candid answers in vv.

3 and 4 are an involuntary condemnation of his own conduct, which was sinful in two respects. This self-satisfied display of worthless earthly possessions would bring its own punishment in their loss; and this obsequious suing for admiration and favour on the part of strangers, would be followed by plundering and enslaving on the part of those very same strangers whose envy he had excited.

The prophet here foretells the Babylonian captivity; but, in accordance with the occasion here given, not as the destiny of the whole nation, but as that of the house of David. Even political sharp-sightedness might have foreseen, that some such disastrous consequences would follow Hezekiah’s imprudent course; but this absolute certainty, that Babylon, which was then struggling hard for independence, would really be the heiress to the Assyrian government of the world, and that it was not from Assyria, which was actually threatening Judah with destruction for its rebellion, but from Babylon, that this destruction would really come, was impossible without the spirit of prophecy.

We may infer from Isa 39:7 (cf. , Isa 38:19, and for the fulfilment, Dan 1:3) that Hezekiah had no son as yet, at least none with a claim to the throne; and this is confirmed by 2Ki 21:1. So far as the concluding words are concerned, we should quite misunderstand them, if we saw nothing in them but common egotism. כּי (for) is explanatory here, and therefore confirmatory.

אם הלוא, however, does not mean “yea, if only,” as Ewald supposes (§324, b ), but is also explanatory, though in an interrogative form, “Is it not good (i. e. , still gracious and kind), if,” etc.? He submits with humility to the word of Jehovah, in penitential acknowledgement of his vain, shortsighted, untheocratic conduct, and feels that he is mercifully spared by God, inasmuch as the divine blessings of peace and stability (אמת a self-attesting state of things, without any of those changes which disappoint our confident expectations) would continue.

“Although he desired the prosperity of future ages, it would not have been right for him to think it nothing that God had given him a token of His clemency, by delaying His judgment” (Calvin). Over the kingdom of Judah there was now hanging the very same fate of captivity and exile, which had put an end to the kingdom of Israel eight years before. When the author of the book of Kings prefaces the four accounts of Isaiah in 2Ki 18:13-20, with the recapitulation in 2Ki 18:9-12 (cf.

, Isa 17:5-6), his evident meaning is, that the end of the kingdom of Israel, and the beginning of the end of the kingdom of Judah, had their meeting-point in Hezekiah’s time. As Israel fell under the power of the Assyrian empire, which foundered upon Judah, though only through a miraculous manifestation of the grace of God (see Hos 1:7); so did Judah fall a victim to the Babylonian empire.

The four accounts are so arranged, that the first two, together with the epilogue in Isa 37:36. , which contains the account of the fulfilment, bring the Assyrian period of judgment to a close; and the last two, with the eventful sketch in Isa 39:6-7, open the way for the great bulk of the prophecies which now follow in chapters 40-66, relating to the Babylonian period of judgment.

This Janus-headed arrangement of the contents of chapters 36-39 is a proof that this historical section formed an original part of the “vision of Isaiah. ” At any rate, it leads to the conclusion that, whoever arranged the four accounts in their present order, had chapters 40-66 before him at the time. We believe, however, that we may, or rather, considering the prophetico-historical style of chapters 36-39, that we must, draw the still further conclusion, that Isaiah himself, when he revised the collection of his prophecies at the end of Hezekiah’s reign, or possibly not till the beginning of Manasseh’s, bridged over the division between the two halves of the collection by the historical trilogy in the seventh book.

The first half consisted of seven parts; the second consists of three. The trilogical arrangement of this cycle of prophecies has hardly been disputed by any one, since Rückert pointed it out in his Translation of the Hebrew Prophets (1831). And it is equally certain that each part consists of 3 x 3 addresses. The division of the chapters furnishes an unintentional proof of this, though the true commencement is not always indicated.

The first part embraces the following nine addresses: chapters 40; 41, Isaiah 42:1-43:13; 43:14-44:5; 44:6-23; 44:24-45:25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; 48. The second part includes the following nine: chapters 49; Isa 50:1-11; 51; Isa 52:1-12; 52:13-53:12; 54; Isa 55:1-13; Isa 56:1-8; 56:9-57:21. The third part the following nine: Isa 58:1-14; 59; 60; Isa 61:1-11; Isa 62:1-12; Isa 63:1-6; 63:7-64:12; 65; 66.

It is only in the middle of the first part that the division is at all questionable. In the other two it is hardly possible to err. The theme of the whole is the comforting announcement of the approaching deliverance, and its attendant summons to repentance. For the deliverance itself was for the Israel, which remained true to the confession of Jehovah in the midst of affliction and while redemption was delayed, and not for the rebellious, who denied Jehovah in word and deed, and thus placed themselves on the level of the heathen.

“There is no peace, saith Jehovah, for the wicked:” with these words does the first part of the twenty-seven addresses close in Isa 48:22. The second closes in Isa 57:21 in a more excited and fuller tone: “There is no peace, saith my God, for the wicked. ” And at the close of the third part (Isa 66:24) the prophet drops this form of refrain, and declares the miserable end of the wicked in deeply pathetic though horrifying terms: “Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh;” just as, at the close of the fifth book of the Psalms, the shorter form of berâkhâh (blessing) is dropt, and an entire psalm, the Hallelujah (Ps), takes its place.

The three parts, which are thus marked off by the prophet himself, are only variations of the one theme common to them all. At the same time, each has its own leading thought, and its own special key-note, which is struck in the very first words. In each of the three parts, also, a different antithesis stands in the foreground: viz. , in the first part, chapters 40-48, the contrast between Jehovah and the idols, and between Israel and the heathen; in the second part, chapters 49-57, the contrast between the present suffering of the Servant of Jehovah and His future glory; in the third part, chapters 58-66, the contrast observable in the heart of Israel itself, between the hypocrites, the depraved, the rebellious, on the one side, and the faithful, the mourning, the persecuted, on the other.

The first part sets forth the deliverance from Babylon, in which the prophecy of Jehovah is fulfilled, to the shame ad overthrow of the idols and their worshippers; the second part, the way of the Servant of Jehovah through deep humiliation to exaltation and glory, which is at the same time the exaltation of Israel to the height of its world-wide calling; the third part, the indispensable conditions of participation in the future redemption and glory. There is some truth in Hahn’s opinion, that the distinctive characteristics of the three separate parts are exhibited in the three clauses of Isa 40:2 : “that her distress is ended, that her debt is paid, that she has received (according to his explanation, 'will receive' ) double for all her sins.

” For the central point of the first part is really the termination of the Babylonian distress; that of the second, the expiation of guilt by the self-sacrifice of the Servant of Jehovah; and that of the third, the assurance that the sufferings will be followed by “a far more exceeding weight of glory. ” The promise rises higher and higher in the circular movements of the 3 x 9 addresses, until at length it reaches its zenith in chapters 65 and 66, and links time and eternity together.

So far as the language is concerned, there is nothing more finished or more elevated in the whole of the Old Testament than this trilogy of addresses by Isaiah. In chapters 1-39 of the collection, the prophet’s language is generally more compressed, chiselled ( lapidarisch ), plastic, although even there his style passes through all varieties of colour. But here in chapters 40-66, where he no longer has his foot upon the soil of his own time, but is transported into the far distant future, as into his own home, even the language retains an ideal and, so to speak, ethereal character.

It has grown into a broad, pellucid, shining stream, which floats us over as it were into the world beyond, upon majestic yet gentle and translucent waves. There are only two passages in which it becomes more harsh, turbid, and ponderous, viz. , Isa 53:1-12 and Isaiah 56:9-57:11 a . In the former it is the emotion of sorrow which throws its shadow upon it; in the latter, the emotion of wrath.

And in every other instance in which it changes, we may detect at once the influence of the object and of the emotion. In Isa 63:7 the prophet strikes the note of the liturgical tephillâh ; in Isaiah 63:19 b -64:4 it is sadness which chokes the stream of words; in Isa 64:5 you year, as in Jer 3:25, the key-note of the liturgical vidduy , or confessional prayer.

And when we turn to the contents of his trilogy, it is more incomparable still. It commences with a prophecy, which gave to John the Baptist the great theme of his preaching. It closes with the prediction of the creation of a new heaven and new earth, beyond which even the last page of the New Testament Apocalypse cannot go. And in the centre (Isaiah 52:13-53:12) the sufferings and exaltation of Christ are proclaimed as clearly, as if the prophet had stood beneath the cross itself, and had seen the Risen Saviour.

He is transported to the very commencement of the New Testament times, and begins just like the New Testament evangelists. He afterwards describes the death and resurrection of Christ as completed events, with all the clearness of a Pauline discourse. And lastly, he clings to the heavenly world beyond, like John in the Apocalypse. Yet the Old Testament limits are not disturbed; but within those limits, evangelist, apostle, and apocalyptist are all condensed into one.

Throughout the whole of these addresses we never meet with a strictly Messianic prophecy; and yet they have more christological depth than all the Messianic prophecies taken together. The bright picture of the coming King, which is met with in the earlier Messianic prophecies, undergoes a metamorphosis here, out of which it issues enriched by many essential elements, viz.

, those of the two status , the mors vicaria , and the munus triplex . The dark typical background of suffering, which the mournful Davidic psalms give to the figure of the Messiah, becomes here for the first time an object of direct prediction. The place of the Son of David, who is only a King, is now take by the Servant of Jehovah, who is Prophet and Priest by virtue of His self-sacrifice, and King as well; the Saviour of Israel and of the Gentiles, persecuted even to death by His own nation, but exalted by God to be both Priest and King.

So rich and profound a legacy did Isaiah leave to the church of the captivity, and to the church of the future also, yea, even to the New Jerusalem upon the new earth. Hengstenberg has very properly compared these prophecies of Isaiah to the Deuteronomic “last words” of Moses in the steppes of Moab, and to the last words of the Lord Jesus, within the circle of His own disciples, as reported by John.

It is a thoroughly esoteric book, left to the church for future interpretation. To none of the Old Testament prophets who followed him was the ability given perfectly to open the book. Nothing but the coming of the Servant of Jehovah in the person of Jesus Christ could break all the seven seals. But was Isaiah really the author of this book of consolation? Modern criticism visits all who dare to assert this with the double ban of want of science and want of conscience.

It regards Isaiah’s authorship as being quite as impossible as any miracle in the sphere of nature, of history, or of the spirit. No prophecies find any favour in its eyes, but such as can be naturally explained. It knows exactly how far a prophet can see, and where he must stand, in order to see so far. But we are not tempted at all to purchase such omniscience at the price of the supernatural.

We believe in the supernatural reality of prophecy, simply because history furnishes indisputable proofs of it, and because a supernatural interposition on the part of God in both the inner and outer life of man takes place even at the present day, and can be readily put to the test. But this interposition varies greatly both in degree and kind; and even in the far-sight of the prophets there were the greatest diversities, according to the measure of their charisma.

It is quite possible, therefore, that Isaiah may have foreseen the calamities of the Babylonian age and the deliverance that followed “by an excellent spirit,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 48:24), and may have lived and moved in these “last things,” even at a time when the Assyrian empire was still standing. But we do not regard all that is possible as being therefore real.

We can examine quite impartially whether this really was the case, and without our ultimate decision being under the constraint of any unalterable foregone conclusion, like that of the critics referred to. All that we have said in praise of chapters 40-66 would retain its fullest force, even if the author of the whole should prove to be a prophet of the captivity, and not Isaiah.

We have already given a cursory glance at the general and particular grounds upon which we maintain the probability, or rather the certainty, that Isaiah was the author of chapters 40-66; and we have explained them more fully in the concluding remarks to Drechsler’s Commentary (vol. iii. pp. 361-416), to which we would refer any readers who wish to obtain a complete insight into the pro and con of this critical question.

All false supports of Isaiah’s authorship have there been willingly given up; for the words of Job to his friends (Job 13:7-8) are quite as applicable to a biblical theologian of the present day. We have admitted, that throughout the whole of the twenty-seven prophecies, the author of chapters 40-66 has the captivity as his fixed standpoint, or at any rate as a standpoint that is only so far a fluctuating one, as the eventual deliverance approaches nearer and nearer, and that without ever betraying the difference between the real present and this ideal one; so that as the prophetic vision of the future has its roots in every other instance in the soil of the prophet’s own time, and springs out of that soil, to all appearance he is an exile himself.

But notwithstanding this, the following arguments may be adduced in support of Isaiah’s authorship. In the first place, the deliverance foretold in these prophecies, with all its attendant circumstances, is referred to as something beyond the reach of human foresight, and known to Jehovah alone, and as something the occurrence of which would prove Him to be the God of Gods.

Jehovah, the God of the prophecy, new the name of Cyrus even before he knew it himself; and He demonstrated His Godhead to all the world, inasmuch as He caused the name and work of the deliverer of Israel to be foretold (Isa 45:4-7). Secondly , although these prophecies rest throughout upon the soil of the captivity, and do not start with the historical basis of Hezekiah’s time, as we should expect them to do, with Isaiah as their author; yet the discrepancy between this phenomenon and the general character of prophecy elsewhere, loses its full force as an argument against Isaiah’s authorship, if we do not separate chapters 40-66 from chapters 1-39 and take it as an independent work, as is generally done.

The whole of the first half of the collection is a staircase, leading up to these addresses to the exiles, and bears the same relation to them, as a whole, as the Assyrian pedestal in Isa 14:24-27 to the Babylonian massâ in Isaiah 13-14:26. This relation between the two - namely, that Assyrian prophecies lay the foundation for Babylonian - runs through the whole of the first half.

It is so arranged, that the prophecies of the Assyrian times throughout have intermediate layers, which reach beyond those times; and whilst the former constitute the groundwork, the latter form the gable. This is the relation in which chapters 24-27 stand to chapters 13-23, and chapters 34-35 to chapters 28-33. And within the cycle of prophecies against the nations, three Babylonian prophecies - viz.

Isaiah 13-14:23; Isa 21:1-10, and 23 - form the commencement, middle, and end. The Assyrian prophecies lie within a circle, the circumference and diameter of which consist of prophecies that have a longer span. And are all these prophecies, that are inserted with such evident skill and design, to be taken away from our prophet? The oracle concerning Babel, in Isaiah 13-14:23, has all the ring of a prophecy of Isaiah’s, as we have already seen; and in the epilogue, in Isa 14:24-27, it has Isaiah’s signature.

The second oracle concerning Babel, in Isa 21:1-10, is not only connected with three passages of Isaiah’s that are acknowledged as genuine, so as to form a tetralogy; but in style and spirit it is most intimately bound up with them. The cycle of prophecies of the final catastrophe (chapters 24-27) commences so thoroughly in Isaiah’s style, that nearly every word and every turn in the first three vv.

bears Isaiah’s stamp; and in Isa 27:12-13, it dies away, just like the book of Immanuel, Isa 11:11. And the genuineness of chapters 34 and Isa 35:1-10 has never yet been disputed on any valid grounds. Knobel, indeed, maintains that the historical background of this passage establishes its spuriousness; but it is impossible to detect any background of contemporaneous history.

Edom in this instance represents the world, as opposed to the people of God, just as Moab does in Isa 25:1-12. Consider, moreover, that these disputed prophecies form a series which constitutes in every respect a prelude to chapters 40-66. Have we not in Isa 13:1-2, the substance of chapters 40-66, as it were, in nuce ? Is not the trilogy “Babel,” in chapters 46-48, like an expansion of the vision in Isa 21:1-10?

Is not the prophecy concerning Edom in chapter 34 the side-piece to Isa 63:1-6? And do we not hear in Isa 35:1-10 the direct prelude to the melody, which is continued in chapters 40-66? And to this we may add still further the fact, that prominent marks of Isaiah are common alike to the disputed prophecies, and to those whose genuineness is acknowledged. The name of God, which is so characteristic of Isaiah, and which we meet with on every hand in acknowledged prophecies in chapters 1-39, viz.

, “the Holy One of Israel,” runs also through chapters 40-66. And so again do the confirmatory words, “Thus saith Jehovah,” and the interchange of the national names Jacob and Israel (compare, for example, Isa 40:27 with Isa 29:23). The rhetorical figure called epnanaphora, which may be illustrated by an Arabic proverb - “Enjoy the scent of the yellow roses of Negd; For when the evening if gone, it is over with the yellow roses,” - is very rare apart from the book of Isaiah (Gen 6:9; Gen 35:12; Lev 25:41; Job 11:7); whereas in the book of Isaiah itself it runs like a favourite oratorical turn from beginning to end (vid.

, Isa 1:7; Isa 4:3; Isa 6:11; Isa 13:10; Isa 14:25; Isa 15:8; Isa 30:20; Isa 34:9; Isa 40:19; Isa 42:15, Isa 42:19; Isa 48:21; Isa 51:13; Isa 53:6-7; Isa 54:5, Isa 54:13; Isa 50:4; Isa 58:2; Isa 59:8 - a collection of examples which could probably be still further increased). But there are still deeper lines of connection than these. How strikingly, for example, does Isa 28:5 ring in harmony with Isa 62:3, and Isa 29:23 (cf.

, Isa 5:7) with Isa 60:21! And does not the leading thought which is expressed in Isa 22:11; Isa 37:26 (cf. , Isa 25:1), viz. , that whatever is realized in history has had its pre-existence as an idea in God, run with a multiplied echo through chapters 40-66? And does not the second half repeat, in Isa 65:25, in splendidly elaborate paintings, and to some extent in the very same words (which is not unlike Isaiah), what we have already found in Isa 11:6.

, Isa 30:26, and other passages, concerning the future glorification of the earthly and heavenly creation? Yea, we may venture to maintain (and no one has ever attempted to refute it), that the second half of the book of Isaiah (chapters 40-66), so far as its theme, its standpoint, its style, and its ideas are concerned, is in a state of continuous formation throughout the whole of the first (chapters 1-39).

On the frontier of the two halves, the prediction in Isa 39:5, Isa 39:7 stands like a sign-post, with the inscription, “To Babylon. ” There, viz. , in Babylon, is henceforth Isaiah’s spiritual home; there he preaches to the church of the captivity the way of salvation, and the consolation of redemption, but to the rebellious the terrors of judgment. That this is the case, is confirmed by the reciprocal relation in which chapters 40-66 stand to all the other literature of the Old Testament with which we are acquainted.

In chapters 40-66 we find reminiscences from the book of Job (compare Isa 40:23 with Job 12:24; Isa 44:25 with Job 12:17, Job 12:20; Isa 44:24 with Job 9:8; Isa 40:14 with Job 21:22; Isa 59:4 with Job 15:35 and Psa 7:15). And the first half points back to Job in just the same manner. The poetical words גזע, התגּבּר, צאצאים, are only met with in the book of Isaiah and the book of Job.

Once at least, namely Isa 59:7, we are reminded of mishlē (Pro 1:16); whilst in the first half we frequently met with imitations of the mâshâl of Solomon. The two halves stand in exactly the same relation to the book of Micah; compare Isa 58:1 with Mic 3:8, like Isa 2:2-4 with Mic 4:1-4, and Isa 26:21 with Mic 1:3. And the same relation to Nahum runs through the two; compare Nah 3:4-5 with Isa 47:1-15, Nah 2:1 with Isa 52:7 , Isa 52:1 , and Nah 2:11 with Isa 24:1; Nah 3:13 with Isa 19:16.

We leave the question open, on which side the priority lies. But when we find in Zephaniah and Jeremiah points of contact not only with Isaiah 40-66, but also with chapter 13-14:23; Isa 21:1-10; 21:34-35, which preclude the possibility of accident, it is more than improbable that these two prophets should have been imitated by the author of chapters 40-66, since it is in them above all others that we meet with the peculiar disposition to blend the words and thoughts of their predecessors with their own.

Not only does Zephaniah establish points of contact with Isaiah 13 and 34 in by no means an accidental manner, but compare Isa 2:15 with Isa 47:8, Isa 47:10, and Isa 3:10 with Isa 66:20. The former passage betrays its derivative character by the fact that עלּיז is a word that belongs exclusively to Isaiah; whilst the latter is not only a compendium of Isa 66:20, but also points back to Isa 18:1, Isa 18:7, in the expression לנהרי־כוּשׁ מעבר.

In Jeremiah, the indication of dependence upon Isaiah comes out most strongly in the prophecy against Babylon in Jer 50-51; ; in fact, it is so strong, that Movers, Hitzig, and De Wette regard the anonymous author of chapters 40-66 as the interpolator of this prophecy. But it also contains echoes of Isaiah 13-14; 21, and 34, and is throughout a Mosaic or earlier prophecies.

The passage in Jer 10:1-16 concerning the nothingness of the gods of the nations, sounds also most strikingly like Isaiah's; compare more especially Isa 44:12-15; Isa 41:7; Isa 46:7, though the attempt has also been made to render this intelligible by the interpolation hypothesis. It is not only in Isa 40:6-8 and Isa 40:10, which are admitted to be Jeremiah’s, that we meet with the peculiar characteristics of Jeremiah; but even in passages that are rejected we find such expressions of his as יפּה, אותם for אתּם, נבער, תּעתּעים, פּקדּה, a penal visitation, such as we never meet with in Isaiah II.

And the whole of the consolatory words in Jer 30:10-11, and again in Jer 46:27-28, which sound so much like the deutero-Isaiah, are set down as having been inserted in the book of Jeremiah by Isaiah II. But Caspari has shown that this is impossible, because the concluding words of the promise, “I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished,” would have no meaning at all if uttered at the close of the captivity; and also, because such elements as are evidently Jeremiah’s, and in which it coincides with prophecies of Jeremiah that are acknowledged to be genuine, far outweigh those of the deutero-Isaiah.

And yet in this passage, when Israel is addressed as “my servant,” we hear the tone of the deutero-Isaiah. Jeremiah fuses in this instance, as in many other passages, the tones of Isaiah with his own. There are also many other passages which coincide with passages of the second part of Isaiah, both in substance and expression, though not so conclusively as those already quoted, and in which we have to decide between regarding Jeremiah as an imitator, or Isaiah II as an interpolator.

But if we compare Jer 6:15 with Isa 56:11, and Isa 48:6 with Jer 33:3, where Jeremiah, according to his usual custom, gives a different turn to the original passages by a slight change in the letters, we shall find involuntary reminiscences of Isaiah in Jeremiah, in such parallels as Jer 3:16; Isa 65:17; Jer 4:13; Isa 66:15; Jer 11:19; Isa 53:1; and shall hear the ring of Isa 51:17-23 in Jeremiah’s qı̄nōth , and that of Isaiah 56:9-57:11 a in the earlier reproachful addresses of Jeremiah, and not vice versa . In conclusion, let us picture to ourselves the gradual development of Isaiah’s view of the captivity , that penal judgment already threatened in the law.

(1.) In the Uzziah-Jotham age the prophet refers to the captivity, in the most general terms that can be conceived, in Isa 6:12, though he mentions it casually by its own name even in Isa 5:13. (2.) In the time of Ahaz we already see him far advanced beyond this first sketchy reference to the captivity. In Isa 11:11. he predicts a second deliverance, resembling the Egyptian Exodus.

Asshur stands at the head of the countries of the diaspora , as the imperial power by which the judgment of captivity is carried out. (3.) In the early years of Hezekiah , Isa 22:18 appears to indicate the carrying away of Judah by Asshur. But when the northern kingdom had succumbed to the judgment of the Assyrian banishment, and Judah had been mercifully spared this judgment, the eyes of Isaiah were directed to Babylon as the imperial power destined to execute the same judgment upon Judah.

We may see this from Isa 39:5-7. Micah also speaks of Babylon as the future place of punishment and deliverance (Mic 4:10). The prophecies of the overthrow of Babylon in Isa 13:14, Isa 13:21, are therefore quite in the spirit of the prophecies of Hezekiah’s time. And chapters 40-66 merely develop on all sides what was already contained in germ in Isa 14:1-2; Isa 21:10.

It is well known that in the time of Hezekiah Babylon attempted to break loose from Assyria; and so also the revolt of the Medes from Asshur, and the union of their villages and districts under one monarch named Deyoces, occurred in the time of Hezekiah. It is quite characteristic of Isaiah that he never names the Persians, who were at that time still subject to the Medes.

He mentions Madai in Isa 13:17 and Isa 21:2, and Kōresh ( Kurus ), the founder of the Persian monarchy; but not that one of the two leading Iranian tribes, which gained its liberty through him in the time of Astyages, and afterwards rose to the possession of the imperial sway. But how is it possible that Isaiah should have mentioned Cyrus by name centuries before this time (210 years, according to Josephus, Ant.

xi. 1, 2)? Windischmann answers this question in his Zoroastrische Studien , p. 137. “No one,” he says, “who believes in a living, personal, omniscient God, and in the possibility of His revealing future events, will ever deny that He possesses the power to foretell the name of a future monarch. ” And Albrecht Weber, the Indologian, finds in this answer “an evidence of self-hardening against the scientific conscience,” and pronounces such hardening nothing less than “devilish.

” It is not possible to come to any understanding concerning this point, which is the real nerve of the prevailing settled conclusion as to chapters 40-66. We therefore hasten on to our exposition. And in relation to this, if we only allow that the prophet really was a prophet, it is of no essential consequence to what age he belonged . For in this one point we quite agree with the opponents of its genuineness, namely, that the standpoint of the prophet is the second half of the captivity.

If the author is Isaiah, as we feel constrained to assume for reasons that we have already stated here and elsewhere, he is entirely carried away from his own times, and leads a pneumatic life among the exiles. There is, in fact, no more “Johannic” book in the whole of the Old Testament than this book of consolation. It is like the produce of an Old Testament gift of tongues.

The fleshly body of speech has been changed into a glorified body; and we hear, as it were, spiritual voices from the world beyond, or world of glory. Isa 40:1 In this first address the prophet vindicates his call to be the preacher of the comfort of the approaching deliverance, and explains this comfort on the ground that Jehovah, who called him to this comforting proclamation, was the incomparably exalted Creator and Ruler of the world.

The first part of this address (Isa 40:1-11) may be regarded as the prologue to the whole twenty-seven. The theme of the prophetic promise, and the irresistible certainty of its fulfilment, are here declared. Turning of the people of the captivity, whom Jehovah has neither forgotten nor rejected, the prophet commences thus in Isa 40:1 : “ Comfort ye, comfort ye may people, saith your God.

” This is the divine command to the prophets. Nachămū ( piel , literally, to cause to breathe again) is repeated, because of its urgency ( anadiplosis , as in Isa 41:27; Isa 43:11, Isa 43:25, etc.) The word יאמר, which does not mean “will say” here (Hofmann, Stier), but “saith” (lxx, Jerome) - as, for example, in 1Sa 24:14 - affirms that the command is a continuous one.

The expression “ saith your God ” is peculiar to Isaiah, and common to both parts of the collection (Isa 1:11, Isa 1:18; Isa 33:10; Isa 40:1, Isa 40:25; Isa 41:21; Isa 66:9). The future in all these passages is expressive of that which is taking place or still continuing. And it is the same here. The divine command has not been issued once only, or merely to one prophet, but is being continually addressed to many prophets.

“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,” is the continual charge of the God of the exiles. who has not ceased to be their God even in the midst of wrath, to His messengers and heralds the prophets. In the commentary on the second half of Isaiah 40-66, I have referred here and there to the expositions of J. Heinemann (Berlin 1842) and Isaiah Hochstädter (Carlsruhe 1827), both written in Hebrew - the former well worthy of notice for criticism of the text, the latter provided with a German translation.

For the psalm of Hezekiah (ch. 38) Professor Sam. David Luzzatto of Padua lent me his exposition in manuscript. Since then this great and noble-minded man has departed this life (on the 29th Sept. 1865). His commentary on Isaiah, so far as it has been printed, is full of information and of new and stirring explanations, written in plain, lucid, rabbinical language.

It would be a great misfortune for the second half of this valuable work to remain unprinted. I well remember the assistance which the deceased afforded me in my earlier studies of the history of the post-biblical Jewish poetry (1836), and the affection which he displayed when I renewed my former acquaintance with him on the occasion of his publishing his Isaiah; so that I lament his loss on my own account as well as in the interests of science.

“Why have you allowed twenty-five years to pass,” he wrote to me on the 22nd Feb. 1863, “without telling me that you remembered me? Is it because we form different opinions of the עלמה and the ילד ילד לנו of Isaiah? Are you a sincere Christian? Then you are a hundred times dearer to me than so many Israelitish scholars, the partizans of Spinoza, with whom our age swarms.

” These words indicate very clearly the standpoint taken in his writings. Of the commentaries written in English, I am acquainted not only with Lowth , but with the thoroughly practical commentary of Henderson (1857), and that of Joseph Addison Alexander , Prov. in Princeton (1847, etc.) , which is very much read as an exegetical repertorium in England also.

But I had neither of them in my possession. Isa 1:1 What I have said here on Isa 1:1 as the heading to the whole book, or at any rate to Isaiah 1-39, has been said in part by Photios also in his Amphilochia , which Sophocles the M. D. has published complete from a MS of Mount Athos (Athens 1858, 4).

Isa 40:2 The summons is now repeated with still greater emphasis, the substance of the consoling proclamation being also given. “Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her affliction is ended, that her debt is paid, that she has received from the hand of Jehovah double for all her sins. ” The holy city is thought of here in connection with the population belonging to it.

על־לב דּבּר (to speak to the heart) is an expression applied in Gen 34:3 and Jdg 19:3 to words adapted to win the heart; in Gen 50:21, to the words used by Joseph to inspire his brethren with confidence; whilst here it is used in precisely the same sense as in Hos 2:16, and possibly not without a reminiscence of this earlier prophecy. אל קרא (to call to a person) is applied to a prophetic announcement made to a person, as in Jer 7:27; Zec 1:4.

The announcement to be made to Jerusalem is then introduced with כּי, ὅτι, which serves as the introduction to either an indirect or a direct address (Ges. §155, 1, e ). (1.) Her affliction has become full, and therefore has come to an end. צבא, military service, then feudal service, and hardship generally (Job 7:1); here it applies to the captivity or exile - that unsheltered bivouac, as it were, of the people who had bee transported into a foreign land, and were living there in bondage, restlessness, and insecurity.

(2.) Her iniquity is atoned for, and the justice of God is satisfied: nirtsâh , which generally denotes a satisfactory reception, is used here in the sense of meeting with a satisfactory payment, like עון רצה in Lev 26:41, Lev 26:43, to pay off the debt of sin by enduring the punishment of sin. (3.) The third clause repeats the substance of the previous ones with greater emphasis and in a fuller tone: Jerusalem has already suffered fully for her sins.

In direct opposition to לקחה, which cannot, when connected with two actual perfects as it is here, be take as a perfect used to indicate the certainty of some future occurrence, Gesenius, Hitzig, Ewald, Umbreit, Stier, and Hahn suppose kiphlayim to refer to the double favour that Jerusalem was about to receive (like mishneh in Isa 61:7, and possibly borrowed from Isaiah in Zec 9:12), instead of to the double punishment which Jerusalem had endured (like mishneh in Jer 16:18). It is not to be taken, however, in a judicial sense; in which case God would appear over-rigid, and therefore unjust.

Jerusalem had not suffered more than its sins had deserved; but the compassion of God regarded what His justice had been obliged to inflict upon Jerusalem as superabundant. This compassion also expresses itself in the words “for all” ( bekhol , c. Beth pretii ): there is nothing left for further punishment. The turning-point from wrath to love has arrived. The wrath has gone forth in double measure.

With what intensity, therefore, will the love break forth, which has been so long restrained!

Isa 40:3 There is a sethume in the text at this point. The first two vv. form a small parashah by themselves, the prologue of the prologue. After the substance of the consolation has been given on its negative side, the question arises, What positive salvation is to be expected? This question is answered for the prophet, inasmuch as, in the ecstatic stillness of his mind as turned to God, he hears a marvellous voice.

“Hark, a crier! In the wilderness prepare ye a way for Jehovah, make smooth in the desert a road for our God. ” This is not to be rendered “a voice cries” (Ges. , Umbreit, etc.) ; but the two words are in the construct state, and form an interjectional clause, as in Isa 13:4; Isa 52:8; Isa 66:6 : Voice of one crying! Who the crier is remains concealed; his person vanishes in the splendour of his calling, and falls into the background behind the substance of his cry.

The cry sounds like the long-drawn trumpet-blast of a herald (cf. , Isa 16:1). The crier is like the outrider of a king, who takes care that the way by which the king is to go shall be put into good condition. The king is Jehovah; and it is all the more necessary to prepare the way for Him in a becoming manner, that this way leads through the pathless desert.

Bammidbâr is to be connected with pannū , according to the accents on account of the parallel ( zakeph katan has a stronger disjunctive force here than zekpeh gadol , as in Deu 26:14; Deu 28:8; 2Ki 1:6), though without any consequent collision with the New Testament description of the fulfilment itself. And so also the Targum and Jewish expositors take במדבר קור קול together, like the lxx, and after this the Gospels.

We may, or rather apparently we must, imagine the crier as advancing into the desert, and summoning the people to come and make a road through it. But why does the way of Jehovah lie through the desert, and whither does it lead? It was through the desert that He went to redeem Israel out of Egyptian bondage, and to reveal Himself to Israel from Sinai (Deu 33:2; Jdg 5:4; Psa 88:8); and in Psa 88:4 (5.)

God the Redeemer of His people is called hârōkhēbh bâ‛ărâbhōth . Just as His people looked for Him then, when they were between Egypt and Canaan; so was He to be looked for by His people again, now that they were in the “desert of the sea” (Isa 21:1), and separated by Arabia deserta from their fatherland. If He were coming at the head of His people, He Himself would clear the hindrances out of His way; but He was coming through the desert to Israel, and therefore Israel itself was to take care that nothing should impede the rapidity or detract from the favour of the Coming One.

The description answers to the reality; but, as we shall frequently find as we go further on, the literal meaning spiritualizes itself in an allegorical way.

Isa 40:4 The summons proceeds in a commanding tone. “Let every valley be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low; and let the rugged be made a plain, and the ledges of rocks a valley. ” והיה, which takes its tone from the two jussive verbs, is also itself equivalent to ויהי. Instead of גּיא (from גּיא), the pointing in Zec 14:4, we have here (according to Kimchi) the vowel-pointing גּיא; at the same time, the editions of Brescia, Pesaro, Venice 1678, have גּיא (with tzere ), and this is also the reading of a codex of Luzzatto without Masoretic notes.

The command, according to its spiritual interpretation, points to the encouragement of those that are cast down, the humiliation of the self-righteous and self-secure, the changing of dishonesty into simplicity, and of unapproachable haughtiness into submission (for ‛âqōbh , hilly, rugged, compare Jer 17:9 together with Hab 2:4). In general, the meaning is that Israel is to take care, that the God who is coming to deliver it shall find it in such an inward and outwards state as befits His exaltation and His purpose.