RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Isaiah
student upon the track of a better Hebrew text than the one which has been transmitted. There is in mind here not only the Tn3 of xxix. 3 in the Septuagint, which alone explains why Yahweh, who is beleaguering Ariel in verse 1, has made mention of the siege of Ariel by David in early times, but also the toi agapetoi sou of xxvi. 17. In this latter case the ^]1*1 v, which apparently lay before the translator, goes back to an original T|JJ?> which belonged to verse 18 and marks "pJDD as superfluous, suggested indeed by the doubled Dip of Jonathan.
Such cases as this, which are frequent, are sufficient to enable the student to correct the errors and sometimes the gaps which occur in the synagogue text of the Hebrew. Again, the original of x. 11 was doubtless originally " shall I not also do so to Samaria and her idols and to Jerusalem and her images." The present text sets the lot of Samaria as a type and prophecy of the lot of Jerusalem, and pictures the fall of Samaria as a past event, which is the result of a redaction which changed the text of the prophet to square with a later historical situation. Mistakes of pointing are also to be noted, as when TOOK*! in i. 7 is thus pointed as a noun instead of ilDpB'l as a verb, or in x. 13 the waw in TDKl and TIIKI is given the simple shewa instead of kamets. Still worse is the pointing 13T for "lin in ix. 8, for which the Septuagint has thanatos, " death," which corresponds closely to the " pestilence " for which the proposed reading stands. Accentuation and vocalization are both astray in ix. 1, " in the former time," where for. nj?3 should be read (njflJQ and the words should be joined with the clause which goes before. Part of the errors of text are due to the difficulties which underlay the consonantal form. This especially occurs in transferring an initial H to the end of the preceding word, but appears also in the loss of the letter in the middle or
end of a word, as when D?N*IN for Di"6 HN1N was given the form D?K*IX. A similar case occurs in viii. 6, where the double reading flNSJ' riN1B>(D) came to be written nNKW(D), and then was changed into HN BWD. Other changes are caused by the inclusion in the text of notes originally made in the margin, for a case of which cf. vii. 8-9 with verse 4. With such enlargements of the text correspond also gaps, which are the result of carelessness or chance, or which rest upon intended shortening of the reading or upon customary abbreviations. A case of the last is found in viii. 21, where " curse by their king and their God " should read " curse the house of their king and their God," where the letter beth, represented in the English by " by," is an abbreviation or a mistake for beth, " house." Between " for " and " head " in viii. 8 has fallen out the word XWK
T V t
" I will take away." If, as in the last case cited, a word may fall out, so frequently from a word a letter may be missing, of which numerous examples might be cited. To these causes of change may be added exchanges of letters which either look or sound alike. Thus, in xi. 4, ^"ly demanded by the par-
allelism appears as flX, and in i. 7, xxv. 2, and xxix. 5, instead of D^f there appears D^IT. Intentional amendment appears in the change from the third person to the first in v. 3-6, influenced by verse 2. Indeed, the riddles of interpretation in whole sections of Isaiah, such as the six deliverances of chaps, xxviii.-xxxv., the section xxiv.-xxvii., and their relation to other parts of the book require as a preliminary to their solution the amendment of the text, which is a preliminary to the work of the higher criticism and the determination of the time to which these sections belong.
3. Authorship: It is evident that a prophet who intervened in public affairs in crises so important, . whose experiences were so large, who, A thP ^i"10 even m the quiet of private life, was ij^Genera1? unvaryingly diligent in instructing a band of disciples with a broad future in view, employed writing not only for the purpose of extending his personal activity beyond his immediate environment, as, for example, to the Israelites in exile, to the end that they might have his words of comfort in their original form, but that he had an outlook upon the more distant future. This must have been especially the case when the subject matter was issued at the joining-point of the past and the future when old things were becoming new, when the utterances were needed as a means of recognizing God's work at the time and for the time. It must have been in such a spirit that the prophets wrote their books and unified their earlier utterances in written discourse. They were enabled in this way to supplement by adding historical notices and even to refer to the words of earlier prophets. Since, in the book ascribed to Isaiah, there exist in the first person recollections of the fifty-second year of Uzziah, and in close connection with these and in similar style discourses which relate to affairs at least sixteen years later in the time of Ahaz, and inasmuch as these latter approve themselves as Isaianic by their congruity with the activities and character of Isaiah as shown in chaps, xxxvi.-xxxvii., and further, since in this book there appear whole series of addresses parallel in matter with the occasions of the time, and setting forth the same main idea, it is a fair presumption that Isaiah undertook a collection of his prophecies. The question is whether the present book contains" only his sayings, or contains them in full, or in their original order. Until this is settled, it is of little use to quote what Sirach, Ambrosius, Jerome, Cyril, and others down to the present have said as to the worth of Isaiah from a Christian, ethical, or esthetic standpoint.
To judge of all this a thoroughly new workingover is required, a historical investigation, and for „ this there is no better and no other
lations of startlng"Pomt than the section in chaps. i.-xxa:v.anclxxxv'-_xxx'x-' a trustworthy narrative xl.-lxvi. which has found place also in the Books of Kings (xviii. 13 sqq.). This narrative is interjected by the compiler of the book between two well-arranged collections of anonymous addresses, the first of which have relation to the Assyrian period and correspond to the contents of chaps, xxxvi.-xxxvii., while the second series has
Isaiah