Chs. 40-00 have no title and make no claim to be by Isaiah. 40-48 plainly set forth the ruin of Jerusalem, and the Exile as having already taken place. Israel is addressed as if the time of their penalty in servitude to Babylon were exhausted, and their deliverance is proclaimed as immediate. C3'rus is named as their saviour, and is pointed out as already u|M>n his career, and blessed with success by J". Nor is it possible to argue, as some have tried to do, that the prophet is predicting these things as if they had already hapjx'ned. For, as part of an argument for the unique divinity of the God of Israel, CjTus, 'alive and irresistible, and already accreilited with success, is jHjinted ont as the unmistakable proof that Junner prophecies of a deliverance for Israel are already coming to ]iass. Cyrus, in short, is not presented as a prediction, but as a proof that a prediction is being fulfilled. Unless he had already niipearcd, and was on the point of striking at Babylon, with all the prestige of unbroken victory, a great part of 40-48 would be uiiiutcliigible' {Isai. 40-66, ' Ex|M)sitor's Bible,' 911". ; see the argument there in detail). There Ls thus a very clear date for these chapters ; they must have been written between Srifl, Cyrus' advent, and 5.'1S, Babylon's fall. If 41" implies the union of Cyrus with the Medes in 549, the ]K)ssible years are reduced to eleven. Pcrhai>s they should be confined between 545, when Cyrus took
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494
ISAIAH
ISAIAH
Sardis, and 538. With this ajrree the thou^jhts, the local colour, and the lany:uage of tlie chapters (on the Inst see Cheyne, Cumin, ii., and Driver, Isaiah'-, 19'2 tr. ). Nor is there any need to limit tliis proof to 4^>-48, though Babylon and Cyrus are conlined to them. From 49 to 55 the circumstances are still of exile ; as A. 15. Davidson remarks, 49 is parallel to 42, and takes for >;ranted the picture of Israel's restora. ion in 48. The first real break occurs at 52", where the prophecy of the sin-bearinj; Servant is introduced. Not only is tliis written with con- siderable dift'erence of style, but, if it be left out, 54' follows naturally upon 52'^. Yet 52"-53 is an evident development from the previous sections on the Servant scattered througliout 40-52. And the whole question is raised wliether these sections formed originally a poem by themselves, and if so, whether they are by a dillerent author from the rest of 40-55. Cheyne thinks there is much which makes it impossible for anj' of these passages to have originally sprung, each at the place which it now occupies, from the progress of the prophet's thoughts. This is doubtful (for rejusons the present writer has expressed on p. 313 fl'. of Is. 40-68), and it would oe difficult to understand why, if originally an independent poem, these sections were broken up and placed j ust where they are now. In any case there is nothing in them incompatible with their being from the same hand as the rest of 40-55 ; and indeed Cheyne assigns them to that hand. (For other opinions see above). 56'"' is assigned by Cheyne and others to Nehemiah's time ; but an earlier date is not impossible ; v.*, however, appears to imply that some Jews have already returned (see the linguistic analysis in Cheyne, 312 f.). 5(3'-57 is the passage which most clearly reflects the scenery of Palestine, and charges the Jews both witli political sins they could commit only in their own land, and with superstitions also most natural there. Critics have been divided between a pre-exilic date, such as Manasseh's reign, when idolatry and persecution were in force (so since Ewald), and a post-exilic date (so latterly Cheyne, who, after a literary analysis of the passage, places 56^-57'** shortly before Ezra's arrival and the rest later ; the former position is by no means certain, especially after a study of Zee 1-8 and ' Malachi ' ; but prob- ably the whole prophecy is post-exilic). 58 by most critics (including the present wTiter) has been assigned to the Exile ; this is possible, but Cheyne gives strong reasons for a post-exilic date. 59 is very difficult to analyze and assign ; probably it is the fusion of two prophecies, one of which speaks as if Israel, in their own land, were responsible for civic justice, the other as if the great deliverance from exile were just at hand. Some argue, not very successfully, for a pre-exilic date of at least portions of this chapter, but Cheyne for a date after Ezra. 60 was previously taken by Chejme in his JQR article to be by the same hand as 4011"., but in his Introd. he argues for its authorship by a post-exilic imitator of that writer, on the grounds of the ideas of the chapter, its poor style, and that the author speaks as if he were a resident of Jerusalem at a time when the city had again a