Companion to the Bible

by E. P. Barrows

I. ISAIAH.

5. According to the Hebrew arrangement already noticed (No. 1, above), the book of Isaiah, as the first of those belonging to the greater prophets, stands at the head of the whole collection of prophetical books; although Hosea, Amos, and Jonah, and in all probability Joel also, entered upon their prophetical office before him. Micah was contemporary with him. Of the private history of Isaiah we know almost nothing, except that he was the son of Amoz (chap. 1:1), and that he was married and had sons (chap. 8:1-4). The Jewish tradition is that he was sawn asunder under the reign of Manasseh, to which it has been supposed that there is a reference in the epistle to the Hebrews (chap. 11:37); but all such traditions are uncertain. Isaiah prophesied "in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah." Chap. 1:1. If, with many, we suppose him to have entered upon his office in the last year of Uzziah, we have sixty-two years to the close of Hezekiah's reign. He certainly exercised the prophetical office to the fifteenth year of Hezekiah's reign, and possibly through the remaining fourteen years. As the superscription is silent respecting any prophecies uttered in Manasseh's reign, we are not warranted to extend the period of his activity beyond that of Hezekiah, although he may have survived him, and have perished in the way indicated by the Jewish tradition.

6. The book of Isaiah naturally falls into two great divisions. The first, after an introductory chapter, contains a great variety of prophetic messages, delivered on special occasions. Chaps. 2-39. The second division, comprising the remaining twenty-seven chapters, seems to have had no special occasion, but to have been written after the overthrow of Sennacherib's army, probably in the old age of the prophet, for the comfort and encouragement of God's people in all coming ages. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God"—this is its great theme as expressed in the introductory verse. Of the various plans for classifying the contents of the first part, all that rest upon the rationalistic view that the book is a collection of writings belonging to different authors and ages are false and groundless. Among evangelical men, who hold the unity of the book and its authorship by Isaiah, there have been various schemes of classification. It has been proposed by Drechsler and others to arrange all of Isaiah's prophecies around two great central events in the history of his times; namely, the invasion of Judah in the reign of Ahaz by the allied forces of Israel and Syria (chap. 7), and in Hezekiah's reign by Sennacherib, king of Assyria (chaps. 36, 37). That these were the two great crises of Isaiah's age, and that many of his prophecies had reference to them directly or indirectly, cannot be denied; but to affirm that all his prophecies, extending over a period of from forty-eight to sixty-two years, were connected with those two events, either directly or by way of anticipation beforehand and natural sequence afterwards, is more than can be established by any probable arguments. We must be careful not to thrust upon the prophet a systematic arrangement beyond any that ever existed in his own consciousness. The following brief analysis will be sufficient for the general reader.

The title prefixed to the first chapter refers certainly to the first part, and probably to the whole book. The contents of the first chapter are well suited to constitute a general introduction to the book, and there is much ground for the opinion that the prophet prefixed them, as such an introduction, to the whole collection of prophecies. The four chapters that follow were evidently written during a period of great worldly prosperity. They contain visions against Judah and Jerusalem of a threatening character, but interspersed with glorious promises to the true Israel. The sixth chapter records a vision which the prophet had of Jehovah in the temple, with the awful message to the people which he received from His lips. Many regard this as the prophet's inauguration to his office, and consequently as the first of his prophecies in order of time. The four preceding chapters will then naturally fall into the reign of Jotham. There is no decisive ground, however, for understanding the words, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" (verse 8,) as containing the original call of Isaiah to the prophetical office. They may have reference to the special message which he immediately receives; a message of the most weighty import, and often quoted in the New Testament. The confession of Isaiah, moreover, that he is "a man of unclean lips," may be very naturally referred to his previous exercise of the prophetic office. According to this view, the preceding four chapters belong to the latter part of Uzziah's reign.

The series of prophecies that follows (chaps. 7-12) is connected with the invasion of Judah by the allied kings of Israel and Syria. In this emergency Ahaz, instead of seeking help from Jehovah, had hired the Assyrians to defend him against the confederate forces. The prophet predicts the overrunning of the land by these same Assyrians in whom the Jews had reposed their confidence; and afterwards the overthrow of the Assyrians themselves, and the universal establishment of the Messiah's kingdom, who is foretold under the name of Immanuel. The series closes with the millennial song of Zion.

Next we have a series of prophecies relating mainly to the heathen world (chaps. 13-23), through all of which the prophet keeps prominently in view the great truth that the nation which will not acknowledge Jehovah and minister to the welfare of his people must perish. He begins with Babylon, and passes in order to Philistia, Moab, Syria (with which as a confederate nation Ephraim is joined), Ethiopia and Egypt (first separately and then conjointly), Babylon again under the enigmatical name of "the desert of the sea," Edom, and Arabia. Next follows a prophecy against "the valley of vision," that is, Jerusalem, to which is appended one against Shebna. The prophet then passes to Tyre, and so he brings this series to a close.

The four chapters that follow (24-27) are general in their character. They exhibit Jehovah as the avenger and deliverer of his people, who abases the proud and destroys sinners as well within the pale of Zion as without in the heathen world, while he exalts his true worshippers to honor and salvation.

The next series of prophecies (chaps. 28-35) was apparently delivered in view of the approaching invasion of the Assyrians, by which the destruction of the kingdom of Israel was completed, and Judah was overrun and desolated; but which ended in the overthrow of the invading army, and the deliverance of Hezekiah and his kingdom. The prophet denounces, first upon Ephraim and then upon Judah and Jerusalem, God's heavy judgments for their iniquities, especially for the sin of making Egypt instead of Jehovah their confidence; foretells the utter and perpetual desolation of Edom, which here represents all the powers that array themselves in hostility against God's people; and describes in glowing language the glory and peace of Zion under the future reign of the Messiah.

Next follows the history of Sennacherib's invasion and overthrow; of Hezekiah's sickness and miraculous recovery, and of his sin in connection with the mission of Merodach-baladan's servants. Chaps. 36-39.

In the second part of Isaiah, which includes the last twenty-seven chapters, the prophet is occupied with the future redemption and glory of Zion. In the clear light of inspiration, and in accordance with the explicit prophecy that has just been quoted, he takes his stand in the future of Babylon's supremacy, and of the captivity of Zion and the dispersion of her children; and he comforts the true Israel by the promise of restoration and elevation to a greater than the former glory, when all nations shall submit themselves to Jehovah, and shall minister to the peace and welfare of Zion. If we divide these twenty-seven chapters into three equal sections of nine chapters each, the first and second close with the words: "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked" (chaps. 48:22; 57:21); while the third ends with a more extended, threatening against the wicked (chap. 66:24). The prominent characteristics of these three sections are thus given by Keil:

"The first of these sections (chaps. 40-48) portrays the relation of Israel to the heathen nations; and from the redemption of Israel effected through Cyrus, the servant of God, it unfolds the certain victory of the Theocracy over the gods and powers of the heathen world. The second section (chaps. 49-57) exhibits Israel as the seat of salvation for the world. This it does by carrying out the thought that, just as Cyrus is to redeem Israel from the Babylonish captivity, so must the true servant of Jehovah, by his vicarious suffering and death, make expiation for sin, raise the covenant people to true glory, and make them, through the establishment of 'the sure mercies of David' (55:3), the centre of salvation for the whole world. Finally in the third section (chaps. 58-66), after an exhortation in which the sins of the people are acknowledged and rebuked (chaps. 58, 59), the prophet foretells, in a series of majestic images, how the Theocracy shall be glorified when it shall become, in connection with the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, the perfected kingdom of God." Introduction to the Old Testament, § 65. This view of the glorification of the Theocracy in the latter days is preëminently just, provided only that we do not understand the Theocracy in a gross literal sense. It is the true kingdom of God, once embodied in the old Theocracy, but now existing under the freer forms of Christianity, that is heir to all this glory.

7. As Isaiah holds the first place among the Hebrew prophets in the canon, in the extent of his writings, and in the fulness of his prophecies concerning the Messiah and his kingdom, so has he been first also in receiving the assaults of those who deny the supernatural character of revelation. Since the last quarter of the last century persistent attempts have been made to show that the whole of the second part (chaps. 40-66) and various sections of the first part, particularly all those that relate to the overthrow of Babylon, belong not to Isaiah, but to an unknown prophet who lived about the close of the exile. In support of this view many arguments have been adduced; but the real argument which lies at the foundation of the whole is the belief that no such insight into the future is possible as that which this part of the book manifests, upon the supposition that Isaiah was himself the author of it. The denial of the genuineness of the chapters in question began and has always gone hand in hand with the denial of the reality of prophetic inspiration. In the view of rationalists prophecy is no revelation of the future through the illumination of the Holy Spirit. It is only anticipation and shrewd conjecture of the future from the course of the present. The possibility of prophecy, therefore, is limited by the possibility of human foresight. Reasoning from this false position, the critic first assumes that Isaiah cannot have been the author of the last part of the book which bears his name, and then proceeds to find arguments against its genuineness. To meet him we must plant our feet firmly on the great historic truth that God has made to men a supernatural revelation, of which prophecy in the proper sense of the word—the revelation of the future by his Spirit—constitutes an important part. We do indeed find that in the matter of prophecy, as in all other parts of God's operations, the great law is: "First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." The way for the fuller revelations is prepared by previous intimations of a more general character. Precisely so was it in the present case. Moses himself had more than once predicted the captivity of the covenant people and the desolation of their land as the punishment of their foreseen apostacy from God's service, and also the preservation of a remnant and its restoration upon repentance. Lev., chap. 26; Deut., chaps. 28-32. When Solomon had dedicated the temple, and his kingdom was at the zenith of its glory, he received from the mouth of God himself the solemn warning: "If ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them; then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a by-word among all people." 1 Kings 9:6, 7. When the prophet wrote, these awful threatenings had been fulfilled upon the kingdom of the ten tribes, and he had been commissioned to announce their approaching fulfilment upon Judah also, and that in the form of a captivity in Babylon: "Behold, the days come, that all that is in thy house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons which shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon" (39:6, 7). Micah also had foretold, in express terms, both the Babylonish captivity, and the subsequent delivery of God's people (4:10). We see, then, what a full preparation had been made for the revelations vouchsafed to Isaiah in the chapters now under consideration. They relate not to something new and unheard of, but to a captivity which he had himself foretold in accordance with the threatenings of God by former prophets. Under the illumination of the Holy Spirit he is carried into the future of Zion. In prophetic vision he sees her land wasted, her temple burned, and her children groaning in captivity. As the nearest interposition of God in her behalf, he foretells her liberation by Cyrus, the anointed of the Lord, and her restoration to the promised land. But this is only the earnest and pledge of a higher redemption through the Messiah, the true servant of Jehovah, under whom she shall be glorified with a perpetual salvation, and her dominion extended over all the earth. To limit the prophet's vision to the deliverance from Babylon would be to make him a messenger of glad tidings which mocked the hopes of the covenant people; for this deliverance did not fulfil the just expectations which his lofty promises awakened in the bosoms of the pious remnant of Israel. No; it is in Christ's redemption alone, of which that of Cyrus was only a shadow, that Zion receives in full measure the glorious promises which shine forth in this part of Isaiah.

If now we consider the form of these promises, we find that they bear throughout the stamp of true prophecy, as distinguished from history. They have neither the dress of prose history, with its dates and circumstantial details, such as we find in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, nor of historic poetry, like the song of Deborah and Barak; like the seventy-eighth hundred and fifth, and hundred and sixth psalms. They are expressed in a series of poetic images, in which, with the exception of the name of Cyrus, all is general; images, moreover, drawn for the most part, not from the great events connected with the conquests of Cyrus, but from the earlier history of Israel. Let any one read, for example, the forty-sixth and forty-seventh chapters of Isaiah, and ask himself whether a writer who lived in Cyrus' day could have described the fall of Babylon without specific allusions to the agencies by which it was brought to pass. As to the historic references which some find to the march of the Jewish caravans of returning captives through the desert that lay between Babylon and Palestine, whoever reads the passages in question without a previously formed conclusion, must be satisfied that they are poetic descriptions of the redemption and restoration of God's people borrowed mainly from the primitive journey of Israel from Egypt to Canaan through the wilderness of Arabia. God, as then, goes before his people, opening for them in their extremity "rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys;" making "the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." Even Cyrus is mentioned not as the king of Persia, but as a man raised up from the east to execute God's vengeance on the oppressors of his people.

According to Ctesias and Plutarch, the name Cyrus signifies sun. Strabo says that his name, before ascending the throne of Persia, was Agradales. Some are of opinion that the word Cyrus (Heb. Koresh) was an appellation common to the kings of Persia. We do not need, however, the help of this hypothesis. God himself explains the ground on which he is mentioned by name: "For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, have I even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me" (45:4). According to Josephus (Antiq. 11. 1, 2), Cyrus was moved to issue his decree for the liberation of the Jews by a knowledge of the prophecies of Isaiah in which he is mentioned by name. With this agree the terms of the edict: "The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah." Ezra 1:2, compared with Isa. 44:28. If this view be correct, the mention of Cyrus by name was a part of God's plan for the restoration of the covenant people.

It is not true, as has been asserted, that the prophet follows Cyrus in the details of his conquests. On the contrary, his notices of him are few and general. As to the sins of the people which he rebukes, they may be all naturally referred to the times of Isaiah, while some of them, as the neglect of the established sacrifices and oblations (43:23, 24), and the offering of sacrifices in connection with an impure heart and life (66:3), presuppose the existence of the temple and altar at Jerusalem, where alone sacrifices could be lawfully offered. The sin of seeking heathen alliances (57:9) points also unmistakably to the same period. Although the prophet is carried forward in vision to the future of the covenant people, he does not wholly forget the men of his own generation, but occasionally administers to them severe rebukes, thus mingling the present with the future, after the manner of all the prophets.

The other arguments which have been urged against the genuineness of this part of Isaiah are only of secondary importance, and can readily be answered. It is said that the style is more diffuse and flowing than in the first part. The answer is that this agrees well with both the altered circumstances of the prophet and the altered character of his theme. Most of his earlier prophecies were delivered under the pressure and excitement of public life, when he went before rulers and people charged with specific messages from Jehovah, and these, too, mostly of a denunciatory character. But the part now under consideration was written in the serenity of retirement, with the general purpose of comforting God's people by a view of the future glory in reserve for them. It is entirely natural, then, that the style of the first part should be more concise and abrupt, that of the latter more diffuse and flowing; even if we do not make allowance for the influence of age. But notwithstanding this difference between the two parts, both have the same general costume, and the same peculiar expressions and turns of thought, by which they are sufficiently marked as the productions of the same pen. It should be added that the Hebrew of this second part of Isaiah is in general as pure as that of the first part. The few Chaldaisms which it exhibits may be explained as belonging to the poetic diction. Such Chaldaisms exist, moreover, in the earlier books. "Some words, as seganim (princes, 41:25), may be explained by the intercourse of the Jews with the Assyrians in the days of Isaiah." Davidson's Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 857.

8. It has been shown that the arguments against the genuineness of this part of Isaiah (and by parity of reason against certain sections of the first part) have their ground in the denial of prophetic inspiration, and cannot endure the test of sober criticism. The evidence, then, for the genuineness of these chapters remains in its full force, and it is of the most weighty character. If we look to external testimony, there is the undeniable fact that, as far back as we can trace the history of the book of Isaiah, they have constituted an integral part of it. They are recognized as such by Josephus (Antiq. 11. 1, 2); by Jesus the son of Sirach, in the book called Ecclesiasticus (48:24, 25); and always in the New Testament when quotations are made from them—Matt. 3:3; 8:17; 12:17-21; Luke 3:4; 4:17-19; John 1:23; 12:38-41, where a quotation from the last part of Isaiah is joined with one from the first part; Acts 8:28-33; Rom. 10:16, 20, 21. That they were appended by fraud and forgery no one pretends to affirm. The character of this part of the book, not less than the character of those who had the Jewish canon in custody, is a sufficient protection against such a supposition. That they should have been appended through ignorance is inconceivable. How can the name of so great a prophet have remained unknown? According to the hypothesis in question, he lived about the close of the Babylonish captivity. He was contemporary, therefore, with Daniel; with Zerubbabel also, Jeshua, and the other chiefs of the restoration. Did no one of these know who was the man that prophesied so abundantly of the work which they had so much at heart? And did his name indeed escape the knowledge of the learned scribe Ezra? And if they did not know his name, why did they append his writings to those of the true Isaiah, thus tacitly ascribing to him their authorship? Why did they not leave them without a name, as they did the books of Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles? That these chapters have always constituted a part of the book of Isaiah, and been acknowledged as such, is a fact which admits of but one explanation; that, namely, of their genuineness. The Great Unknown, as he is called, is no other than Isaiah himself, whom the principles of certain critics do not allow them to acknowledge as Isaiah.

The internal evidence for the genuineness of these chapters has already been partly considered in an incidental way. It is found in the purity of the Hebrew, which belongs to the age of Isaiah, not of Cyrus; in the undeniable allusions to the temple sacrifices and oblations as then existing (43:23, 24), and to the sin of seeking heathen alliances (57:9); and especially in the fact that a writer living near the close of the exile must have referred in a more particular and historic way to the great events connected with Cyrus' conquests. It may be added that there are in the later prophets some clear allusions to this part of Isaiah. Jeremiah, who undeniably made use of prophecies contained in the first part of Isaiah, was acquainted with the second part also. Compare Jer. 10:3,4, with Isa. 40:19, 20; 41:7; Jer. 31:35, with Isa. 51:15, where a whole clause is repeated from Isaiah, which agrees in the Hebrew to every letter; Jer. 50:2, with Isa. 46:1, 2. Compare also Zeph. 2:15, with Isa. 47:8; Nah. 1:15, with Isa. 52:7.

9. The arguments urged against the genuineness of certain sections of the first part of Isaiah are for substance the same as these that have now been examined, and need not a separate consideration. We come on solid grounds to the conclusion that Isaiah was the author of the whole collection of prophecies which bear his name, and that the arrangement of these prophecies in their present form also proceeded from him.