ISAIAH
ISAIAH
4al
ciations, w."'-'" a picture of the Messianic age, vv.-''"'" apocalyptic ju(l;^iiieiit on Assj-iia ; 31 tlie Egj'ptian alliance, willi a promise for Israel and doom on Assyria ; 32'"" a picture of tlie Messianic aj,'e, vv."-" against the women of Jerusalem, vv.'""** anollier picture of the future ; 33 denunciation of an invader of Judah, and atlirniation of her deliverance. (5) Chs. 34. 35, Israel's triumph over Edom, return from exile, and blessedness.
B. Then follows the historical section 36-39, of which 30 f. narrates Sennacherih's demand for the surrender of Jerusalem ; 38, Ilezekiah's sickness and cure, with his hynm ; and 3"J, Merodach-bal- adan's emba.ssy to Ilezekiah.
C. Chs. 40-C6, the real or a-ssumed standpoint of the bulk of which is the end of the IJahylonian exile, though there are some chapters which appear to liave been written in Palestine. (See below.)
IV. CniTICISM OF THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE
Book. — The preceding analysis reveals not only that the lik. of Isaiah is the combination of several earlier collections of oracles (ch. 1 a general preface, (a) 2-12 consisting of minor collections, (6) 13-27, (r) 28-35, ((/) 30-39 (?), (e) 40-00), but also that, while many of these have obviously risen from the circumstances of Isaiah's own day, others reflect other periods, especially the Babylonian exile, and some, e.y. the apocalyptic pas-sa^es, betray q style and temper very dillerent from tne oracles that ue- long to I.saiah's lifetime. Moreover, while some of the collections are entitled Isaiah's, others make no claim to be from his hand. Nevertheless, though Ibn Ezra hinted a few doubts and Calvin wrote as if he felt that ch. 55 at least was ' uttered during the captivity in Babylon ' (on 55'), up to the end of last century the book was universally understood to be covered by the title in its lirst verse, and therefore as Isaiah's throughout. About 1780, J. B. Koppe in the Germ. ed. of Lowth's Cuynmcntary was the lirst to undermine this posi- tion. He was followed by Eichhorn (Introd. iii. 70), and by Diiderlein (h.sain.1, 1TS9, Pra-f. xii), who takes it as obvious that 40 11'. are by an anonymous prophet about the end of the Exile. (Vatke refers to a more detailed proof of this by J. E. .lusti). Not without opposition from the conservative school (e.g. J. V. Jloller, De authentia oracc. Es. cc. 40-00), this view was developed by the ^eat critics of the beginning of this century; and It was further perceived that if 40-06 be exilic, parts of 1-39 must also fall to the same date. In 13'-14^ 21'-"' 34. 35 As.syria is no longer as in Isaiah's day the dominant world power, nor do these oracles emphasize Jerusalem as the inviolate fortress of (iod. Babylon takes Assyria's place, her fall is imminent, I.srael is in exile but about to be restored. To these non-Isaian chapters the critics added 24-27, which, although they appear to have some reflections of the age before the Exile, and do not allude to Babylon, yet contain phra.ses descrip- tive of the Exile as actual, with promises of Israel's deliverance thcrolrom, and hojics of the establish- ment of Zion, and the rcpojiulation of the Holy Land. To this list of exilic and post-exilic oracles some addeil ch. 12, and it was agreed that IS-IO'-" was an oracle older than Isaiah's time, to which Isaiah himself added 10"- ". All the rest of the discourses in 1-39, .siive for some glosses, were still regarded lus Isaiah's own.
Such was virtually the position of criticism down to IS',10. It had l)eon established by Ccseniua, Ewald, Knobcl, and Keuss, and was »upi)orted by Kuenen (in I8G3), Chcyne {Is. chronul. arranr/fii, 1870, Prophceies of Is. 1880-81, though there ia little introduction in this vol., and Knc lirit. art. ' Isaiah,' 18S1 ; se« bilow on 40-00), Pelitzsch (who had previously argued for the unity of the book, but m 1879~S0 interpreted 40-66 as from the close
of the Exile ; see more fully his Cumm.* 1889, Eng. ed. 1S90), W. R. Smith {Propfi. of Isr. ISS2), Driver [Isaiah, Life and Times, 1888), G. A. Smith [Tfie Expositor's Bible, 1888), Dillmann (1.S90). Some of these carried their doubts further than the passages described above. To the non-Isaian oracles some added 23""'*, some the whole of 23, some 19 in whole or part, and some even .33. Others (see below) denied the unity of 40-66. Even conservative critics like Oehler, von Orelli, and Bredenkamp accepted 40-66 as from another than Isaiah, but the latter two ar-nied for the authenticity of several of the dispute.! passages in 1-39, Bredenkamp and Klostermann for some in 40-66.
During the last ten years the Bk. of Isaiah, in common with all the prophetic writings, has been subjected to a still more rigorous analysis and criticism, with the result that while Kirkjiatrick {Doci. of the Propliets, 1892), Driver [Introd.'), and Skinner [Cnmbndye Bible for Schools, 1S96) Jkdhere in the main to the position of the majority of critics before 1890, Duhm (in Nowack's Hand- kommentar, 1892), Hackmann {Die Zukunftseniytr- tung des Jes. 1S93), Cheyne {Introd. to the Bh. of Is. 1895, cf. his edition of the text and translation in Haupt's SPOT, 1898), have ca-st doubt upon the authenticity of many more portions of 1-39. There can be no question that the thorough analysis to which those critics have subjected the text of 1-.39 has been successful in discovering a number of late glosses and other insertions in the genuine jiro- phecies of Isaiah. In all the prophetic books the presence of such is now generally recognized. But Duhm, Hackmann, and Cheyne have cut more deeply than this, and subtracted from Isaiah long ])assage3 which were previously regarded as genuine. Their reasons are sometimes mainly subjective ; they base their conclusions upon the precarious distinction between the real Isaian style and what they consider to be imitations of it, or infer them from a change of rhythm. The feature of Duhm's able essay is the relegation of a con- siderable number of passages to the 2nd and even to the 1st cent, before Christ. He founds this upon their apocalyptic character, but he reserves for Isaiah not a few oracles and phra-ses quite as apocalyptic as those he transfers to the late date. In tlie latter, too, there are historical allu- sions which are suitable to the Assyrian period ; Duhm either alters the reading of these, or strains their meaning to suit the Greek period. And, tinally, there is the almost indubit^ible fact which he fails to discredit, that the prophetic Canon was so fixed by Ii.C. 200 as to render impossible the inclusion within it of the prophetic Book of Daniel. Duhm, indeed, argues that the latter was excluded because of its apocalyptic character ; but if he is ri'dit, the same reason should have excluded from the Bk. of Isaiah the passages which, l>ecause of their apocalyptic character, Duhm assigns to the 2nd cent. "This argument therefore, for the presence in Isaiah of features of so late a date, may be said to have failed (for details see Ex- positor, July to Dec l.sy2, and Crit. Bevietc, 1893). HacKmann {op. cit. p. 143 IT.) denies to Isaiah the two pictures of the Messiah Q'"* and lli-K — the former on the grounds that it starts from the ruin of the Jewish state which was not actual in Isaiah's lime, and implies a rejection of the reigning king, Ahaz or Ilezekiah, and a oon- tidcnco in an unliorn One, which it is iuconoeir- alde to associate with Isaiah. It suits lictter a time when there was no king in Israel and the peojile hiui not independent existence. The do- strurtion of David's dynii-ity is also implied, he thinks, by II''*, the picture of universal fence in which and the * sopemataral ' elomenta are farther