Ch. 65, taken by the majority of critics as the divine answer to the prayer of 63'-64, has been assigned both to Babylonia and Palestine, both to the years before the end of tlie Exile and to those after the Return. Some (l)illmann, in /ore) argue for the former, on the ground that the idolatrous practices mentioned are all suitable to IJabylonia, that Israel's occupation of the Holy Land is repre- sented as future in v.", and that the phrase ' forget my holy mountain ' (without reference to the re- built temple) recalls the exilic Ps 137^ To this view the present writer adhered in 1891, but he does not now feel the conclusiveness of it. For the promise of v.* may be naturally interpreted, not of the lirst return to Zioii and occupation of the surrounding district, but to the full possession of Palestine as a whole, which was still unrealized long after the first return. Hesides, the idolatrous customs charged may just as ea-sily have been pre- valent in Palestine a.s in any other country of Western Asia, and Cad and Meni (v.") were un- doubtedly Syrian deities, and worshipiied in Pales- tine from time immemorial. In the iloubt in which these allusions of the pro(ihi'iy leave us as to its exact date, we are not lussislecf either by the iilcas or by the langiiage of the passiige (for details see Cheyne, Jntrotl. 32011'.): these cannot determine between two periods so close to each other as the yi'ars just liefore or the century after the Iteturn. Cheyne, who acce|)ts the Palestinian origin, argues that the Samaritans are the people against whom the chapter is a<ldri's:<ed. and lixrs the ilate as that of the troubles of thv .lews with the Samaritans, which Nehemiah describes. Hut that the charge 111 Ok'aiust BUiierstitious and 8emi-|>at;an Jews may
also plausibly be argued, and there are really no sullicient data to lix a date. On the whole, a Palestinian * and post-exilic origin is the most probable.
Efpially obscure is the question of ch. 66. The chapter is probably not a unity, ami the text is un- usually corrupt. There are echoes of chs. 40-55, but it is quite impossible to assign the chapter to the great evangelist of the Exile. The temple either has been rebuilt or is being rebuilt (vy_i-4. «. ») . tim restored community has already been formed, but is not complete (v.*). The lan- guage points to a post-exilic date. The attacks upon the idolatrous customs reveal a clo.se con- nexion between the chapter and 05. On the whole, therefore, a date soon after the Return ajipears jirobable for the bulk of the chapter ; but there are i)rolpably later insertions. On this see Dill- mann, Dulim, and especially Cheyne.
Xl. The Theology ok I.saiaii 40-66. — (o) Chapters 40-55, as we have .seen, are addressed to Israel in circumstances very dill'erent from those of the generation to which Isaiah of Jerusalem sjioke. Isaiah had before liiiu a nation on their own soil : responsible for justice and social reform, for the defence of a fatherland and the conduct of a foreign policy. He appealed to kings, statesmen, and dehnite cla-sses ot society. But chs. 40-55 are addressed to a people in exile, without native leaders or the opportunity of developing great personalities : with no civic life and few social res])onsibilities ; a people in the passive state, with occasion for the exercise of almost no quali- ties save those of penitence and faith, of memory and lioiie. Moreover, with Isaiah, and indeed with all prophets up to the Exile, the burden of prophesying is the people's guilt and their doom of exile. But this doom has now been fullilled. Jeremiah limited it to 70 years. These are aliimst exhausted, and there are signs that the Babylonian Empire, the instrument of the doom, is approaching its tail. Cyrus, king of Anslian and Persia, hav- ing conquered the NIedes (H.C. 545), and perhaps also the Lj'dians (542), is descending on Babylon. What is of imniediate interest to Israel, therefore, is not, as formerly, the immoral stjiteof the people and the imminence of certain events of chastise- ment, but the dawn of that reilemption and restora- tion which was promised to appear after the fullil- ment of God's sentence. In a word, what is now needed is not so much new predictions of the future as proofs that the fullilment of former predictions is at hand. Consequently, while the problem before the spirit of Israel isstill substantially what it was with I.siiiah, viz. the survival of a people of J", both the factors of the problem and tb ■ mclho<i of its solution are very ilill'erent. Some recent critics hardly exaggerate when they say that prophecy proper ceiused with the Exile, r'or in- stead of the characteristic prophet, ilenouncing his people upon moral grounds and predicting their doom, we have in Is 40 a commi.ssion (;ranti-d to a number t of voices (who.se hearers, inileed, so little feel themselves to be oflicial prophet-s that they remain anonymous) to comfort Israel ami proclaim that the ancient |)roniiseato herarealKuit to be fulfilled. But the proof of this require something more than an appi'al to present facts, whether in Israel's own conduct or the general history ol the world alK)nt her : the whole history and destiny of Israel are brought in, with a full and rcasimed revelation of her (jimI.