It would be inappropriate were we here to take up and refute all the arguments against the genuineness of the second part, which rationalistic criticism has brought together. Besides those which we have already refuted, we shall bring into view only this argument, which, at first sight indeed, may dazzle and startle even the well-disposed, viz., the difference between the first and second parts, as regards language and mode of representation. The chief error of those who have adduced this argument is, that they judge altogether without reference to person,--a matter, however, quite legitimate in this case,--that they simply apply the same rule to the productions of Isaiah which, in the productions of less richly endowed persons, has indeed a certain right, e.g., on the prophetical territory of Jeremiah, who, notwithstanding the difference of subject, yet does not understand so to change his voice, that it should not soon be recognized by the skilled More than of all the prophets that holds true of Isaiah, which Fichte, in a letter to a Königsberg friend, writes of himself (in his Life, by his son, i. S. 196): "I have properly no style at all, for I have them all." "Just as the subject demands," says Ewald, without assigning to the circumstance any weight in judging of the second part, "just as the subject demands, every kind of speech, and every change of style are easily at his command; and it is just this in which here his greatness, as, in general, one of his most prominent perfections, consists." The chief peculiarities of style in the second part stand in close relation to the subject, and the disposition of mind thereby called forth. The Prophet, as a rule, does not address the mass of the people, but the election (ἐκλογή); nor the sinful congregation of the Lord in the present time, but that of the future, purified by the judgments of the Lord, the seed and germ of which were the election of the Present. It is to the congregation of brethren that he addresses Comfort. The beginning: "Comfort ye, Comfort ye, Zion," contains the keynote and principal subject. It is from this that the gentle, tender, soft character of the style is to be accounted for, as well as the frequent repetitions;--the comforting love follows, step by step, the grief which is indefatigable in its repetitions. From this circumstance is to be explained the habit of adding several epithets to the name of God; these are as many shields which are held up against despair, as many bulwarks against the things in sight, by which every thought of redemption was cut off Where God is the sole help, every thing must be tried to make the Congregation feel what they have in Him. A series of single phrases which several times recur verbatim, e.g., "I am the Lord, and none else, I do not give mine honour to any other, I am the first and the last," are easily accounted for by the Prophet's endeavour and anxiety to impress upon the desponding minds truths, which they were only too apt to forget. If other linguistic peculiarities occur, which cannot be explained from the subject, it must be considered that the second part is not by any means a collection of single prophecies, but a closely connected whole, which, as such, must necessarily have its own peculiar usus loquendi, a number of constantly recurring characteristic peculiarities. The character of unity must necessarily be expressed in language and style also. The fact, however, that, notwithstanding the difference of style betwixt the first and second parts, the second part has a great number of characteristic peculiarities of language and style in common with the first part (a fact which cannot be otherwise, if Isaiah was the author of both), was first very thoroughly demonstrated by Kleinert, while Küper and Caspari have been the first conclusively to prove, that the second part was known and made use of by those prophets who prophesied between the time of Isaiah and that of "the great unknown."
The close connection of the second part with the first is, among other things, proved also by the circumstance that both are equally strongly pervaded with the Messianic announcement. Chap. i.-xii. especially have, in this respect, a remarkable parallel in the second book of the second part. The fact, moreover, that the single Messianic prophecies of the second part agree, in the finest and most concealed features, with those of the first part, will be shown in the exposition.
[ [1]] Chap. xxxvii. 38, (comp. 2 Kings xix. 37), describing apparently the murder of Sennacherib as belonging to the past, does not decide any thing as to the composition of this chapter by Isaiah, "inasmuch as the year which is assigned for Sennacherib's death, B.C. 696, is not historically ascertained and certain. Nor can the supposition, that Isaiah lived until the time of Manasseh, and himself arranged and edited the collection of his prophecies on the eve of his life, be liable to any well-founded doubts" (Keil, Einleitung, S. 271). The inscription in chap. i. 1, only indicates that the collection does not contain any prophecies which go beyond the time of Hezekiah.
[ [2]] To a certain degree analogous are those other passages of the Old Testament, in which the Past presents itself in the form of the Present, as the deliverance from Egypt in Ps. lxvi. 6; lxxxi. 6. Faith, at the same time, makes all the old things new, fresh, and lively, and anticipates the Future.
[CHAP. XLII. 1-9.]
The 40th chapter has an introductory character. It comforts the people of the Lord by pointing, in general, to a Future rich in salvation. In chap. xli. the Prophet describes the appearance of the conqueror from the East for the destruction of Babylon,--an event from which he derives, as from a rich source, ample consolations for his poor wretched people, while, at the same time, he represents idolatry as being thereby put to shame. It is on purpose that, immediately after the first announcement of this conqueror from the East, his antitype is, in chap. xlii. 1-9, contrasted with him. In the preceding chapter, the Prophet had shown how, by the influence of the king from the East, the Lord would put idolatry to shame, and work out deliverance for His Church. In the section now before us, he describes how, by the mission of His servant, the Lord would effect, definitely and absolutely, that which the former had done only in a preliminary, limited, and imperfect manner. In the subsequent section, the Prophet then first farther carries out the image of the conqueror from the East; and from chap. xlix. he turns to a more minute representation of the image of the true Saviour. In chaps. xlii. 10, to xliii. 7, the discourse turns, from a general description of God's instruments of salvation, to a general description of the salvation in its whole extent; just as it is the manner of the second part ever again to return from the particular to the general.
Here, where the Servant of God is first to be introduced, He is at first spoken of; it is in ver. 5 that the Lord first speaks to His servant. In chap. xlix., on the contrary, the Servant of God, being already known from chap. xlii., is, without farther remark, introduced as speaking.
In the whole section, the Lord is speaking. It falls into three divisions--First, the Lord speaks of His servant, vers. 1-4; then He speaks to His servant, ver. 5-7; finally. He addresses some closing words to the Church, ver. 8, 9. The representation, in harmony with the nature of the prophetic vision, bears a dramatic character.
In ver. 1-4, the Lord, as it were, points to His servant, introduces Him to His Church, and commends Him to the world: "Behold my Servant," &c. He, the beloved and elect One, upheld by God, and endowed with the fulness of the Spirit of God, shall establish righteousness upon the whole earth, and bring into submission to himself the whole Gentile world, by showing himself meek and lowly in heart, an helper of the poor and afflicted, and combining with it never-failing power. The aim: He shall bring forth right to the Gentiles. is at once expressed at the close of ver. 1. In ver. 2-4, the means by which He attains this aim are then stated. The bringing forth, or the establishing of right, recurs again in ver. 3 and 4, in order to point out this relation of ver. 2-4 to ver. 1.