If this character which we attribute to the prophecy be correct--viz., that it is a summary or ideal account of the attitude of the alien world to Israel, and of the judgement God has ready for the world--then, though itself be exilic, its place in the Book of Isaiah is intelligible. Chaps. xxiv.-xxvii. fitly crown the long list of Isaiah's oracles upon the foreign nations; they finally formulate the purposes of God towards the nations and towards Israel, whom the nations have oppressed. Our opinions must not be final or dogmatic about this matter of authorship; the obscurities are not nearly cleared up. But if it be ultimately found certain that this prophecy, which lies in the heart of the Book of Isaiah, is not by Isaiah himself, that need neither startle nor unsettle us. No doctrinal question is stirred by such a discovery, not even that of the accuracy of the Scriptures. For that a book is entitled by Isaiah's name does not necessarily mean that it is all by Isaiah; and we shall feel still less compelled to believe that these chapters are his when we find other chapters called by his name while these are not said to be by him. In truth there is a difficulty here, only because it is supposed that a book entitled by Isaiah's name must necessarily contain nothing but what is Isaiah's own. Tradition may have come to say so; but the Scripture itself, bearing as it does unmistakable marks of another age than Isaiah's, tells us that tradition is wrong: and the testimony of Scripture is surely to be preferred, especially when it betrays, as we have seen, sufficient reasons why a prophecy, though not Isaiah's, was attached to his genuine and undoubted oracles. In any case, however, as even the conservative critic whom we have quoted admits, "for the religious value" of the prophecy "the question" of the authorship "is thoroughly irrelevant."
We shall perceive this at once as we now turn to see what is the religious value of our prophecy. Chaps. xxv.-xxvii. stand in the front rank of evangelical prophecy. In their experience of religion, their characterisations of God's people, their expressions of faith, their missionary hopes and hopes of immortality, they are very rich and edifying. Perhaps their most signal feature is their designation of the people of God. In this collection of prayers and hymns the people of God are not regarded as a political body. They are only once called the _nation_ and spoken of in connection with a territory (xxvi. 15). Only twice are they named with the national names of Israel and Jacob (xxvii. 6, 9, 12). We miss Isaiah's promised king, his pictures of righteous government, his emphasis upon social justice and purity, his interest in the foreign politics of his State, his hopes of national grandeur and agricultural felicity. In these chapters God's people are described by adjectives signifying spiritual qualities. Their nationality is no more pleaded, only their suffering estate and their hunger and thirst after God. The ideals that are presented for the future are neither political nor social, but ecclesiastical. We saw how closely Isaiah's prophesying was connected with the history of his time. The people of this prophecy seem to have done with history, and to be interested only in worship. And along with the assurance of the continued establishment of Zion as the centre for a secure and holy people, filling a secure and fertile land,--with which, as we have seen, the undoubted visions of Isaiah content themselves, while silent as to the fate of the individuals who drop from this future through death,--we have the most abrupt and thrilling hopes expressed for the resurrection of these latter to share in the glory of the redeemed and restored community.
Among the names applied to God's people there are three which were destined to play an enormous part in the history of religion. In the English version these appear as two: _poor and needy_; but in the original they are three. In chap. xxv. 4: _Thou hast been a stronghold to the poor and a stronghold to the needy, poor_ renders a Hebrew word, "d[=a]l," literally _wavering_, _tottering_, _infirm_, then _slender_ or _lean_, then _poor_ in fortune and estate; _needy_ literally renders the Hebrew "'ebhyôn," Latin _egenus_. In chap. xxvi. 6: _the foot of the poor and the steps of the needy, needy_ renders "d[=a]l," while _poor_ renders "'[=a]nî," a passive form--_forced_, _afflicted_, _oppressed_, then _wretched_, whether under persecution, poverty, loneliness or exile, and so _tamed_, _mild_, _meek_. These three words, in their root ideas of _infirmity_, _need_ and positive _affliction_, cover among them every aspect of physical poverty and distress. Let us see how they came also to be the expression of the highest moral and evangelical virtues.