THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOC
ment upon Israel (Amos i.-ii). In xv.-xvi. Isaiah has so remodeled an old prophecy that it now has a relation to the foregoing " burden "; x. 5-12 is specifically Isaianic, so that the arrangement of at least three of these " burdens " is his. But there is a clear connection of these with the oracle in xvii. 12-xviii. 7, which shows a deliverance in Zion and the substitution of the government of a Davidic rule in place of that of the condemned tyrant of the peoples. This tyrant, the king of the satirical song in xiv. 4 sqq., is an ideal representation of the tyranny which is opposed to God, which subdues the world and oppresses God's people, but is cast into the depth of Hades. By his overthrow' Yahweh frees the world of its incubus, and Zion becomes the refuge of the peoples under the Davidic dynasty. Similarly, the downfall of Babylon is pictured in xiii., and it is possible that in chap xix. the tyrant who oppresses the Egyptians is this same ideal tyrant by whose overthrow Egypt is to become a province of Canaan. The explanation of the position of xxi.-xxii. between the entirely parallel " burdens " of xix.-xx. and xxiii. is more difficult. In xxi. clearly the fate of heathen cities is determined by the decrees of Yahweh, for the execution of which the watchers are waiting. Chap. xxii. shows a contrast in the view of the valley of vision, where the watcher bewails the coming misfortune, while in the second part the expectations of Shebna for a quiet death f.nd honorable burial in a chosen place are predicted to be baseless. The two chapters seem to show the necessity of the purgation of sin through death, out of which resurrection is to come. But this is related to the portrayal in xxiv. The succeeding chapters seem to portray like processes through which alike Israel and the nations are to pass, the particular judgments upon the nations which have been passed in review being generalized until there comes into view the salvation of the once rejected people, awakened into new life (xxvi. 1-19, cf. ix. 2). So that in the second half the ruling idea is the universal kingdom of Yahweh as it arises out of the judgment of the nations and the humiliation of human might and centers of power, the earthly representation of which is the throne and city of David raised to a glorious eminence.
The transmission and arrangement of this book demand of the reader that he view as the source of
its peculiar prophetic content and as
f thSUl S 'ts Pre<iictive subject the historically
ve°stigation. known Isaiah» who orally and by
writing sought to mold public opinion and reared up by esoteric instruction the followers and disciples (viii. 16 sqq., lix. 21) who were heirs of his prophecy to continue his testimony. These heirs of Isaianic prophecy received his testimony and made it fruitful partly by publishing in book form his oral and written testimony for " Judah and Jerusalem " (i. 1), and partly by reproducing in the circles of the faithful the esoteric instruction given them (xlviii. 16) and making it the basis and guide of their addresses. In order to preserve essentially and in completeness the testimony of Isaiah, these developments of Isaianic contents required later fixation in writing and union with the then existing book of Isaiah. Since the author
of the addition in lxiii. 7-lxvi. 24, whose theodicy reproduces Isaianic declarations, looked back upon the destruction of the temple, and since the preacher of xli. 1 sqq. had seen the victorious march of Cyrus, the origin of the present book is later than 550 B.C. This method of treating the Isaianic deliverances, apart from other results, was worked out in abbreviations (as in ii.-iv.), enrichment (as in the lyrics of the Deutero-Isaiah), and reinterpretation (e.g., xiv. 5 sqq.). In view of these results fuller justice is clone the book if its relation to the historical Isaiah is the guide to its exegesis than if the tradition regarding its authorship is disregarded and its authors are scattered along through the centuries. (August Klostehmann.) III. The Critical View: The Book of Isaiah in its present form is very generally regarded as possessing a certain unity of plan and purpose. The traditional view has from time immemorial discovered, in this unity, the pen of a single author, Isaiah, the contemporary of Hezekiah, 1. The while recent critical scholarship main-
Prot>lem. tains that this writing was arranged and edited by some unknown scribe or scribes, acting as diaskeuasts in the first quarter of the first century B.C. In a little over a quarter of a century, after Doderlein (1775) in his commentary on Isaiah first threw serious doubt on the genuineness of Isa. xl.-lxvi., a fragmentary hypothesis of the origin of this prophetic work gradually gained in popularity. The latter view was first enunciated by Koppe in his notes to Bishop Lowth's work on Isaiah (1779-81). Koppe's theory, that the canonical Book of Isaiah was made up of eighty-five fragments, never won general acceptance as it was strenuously opposed by the Hebraist Gesenius and the commentator Hitzig. But a new form of the fragmentary hypothesis (see below, §§3 sqq.), differing materially from that of Koppe, has won many adherents among Biblical scholars since it was brilliantly advocated by Duhm (1892), Cheyne (1895), and Marti (1900).
To understand fully the history of critical opinion, and especially its latest phases, one must note the structure of the book. All commentators, modern as well as ancient, have observed the threefold division into which the Book of Isaiah naturally falls: (1) i.-xxxv., (2) xxxvi.-xxxix., (3) xl.lxvi. The second of these groups,
2. Struc- giving an account of Isaiah's activity ture of in the crisis produced by Sennacherib's
the Book, invasion, 701 B.C., was excerpted from the Book of Kings. Chapters xxxvi.xxxix. form the dividing line between the two main sections of the work. The passages on one side differ from those on the other in historical background, point of view, theological conceptions, diction and phraseology. The earlier chapters reflect the historical changes and movements of 740-701 b.c; the monarchs mentioned — Hezekiah, Sargon (xx. 1), Sennacherib (xxxvi., xxxvii. 17, 21, 37), and Merodach-Baladan (xxxix. 1) — are those of the eighth century. In the third section (xl.-lxvi.) Cyrus is in the flood tide of his victorious career (xliv. 28, xiv. ; cf. xli. 2-3, 25, etc.); the Assyrian has
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