“Babylon is fallen, is fallen” (xxi, 9).
“Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defensed cities of Judah, and took them” (xxxvi, 1).
“So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned and dwelt in Nineveh.
“And it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nishrock his god, that Addrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Armenia; and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead” (xxxvii, 37, 38).
Sennacherib ascended the throne 702 B.C. and died 680 B.C. Isaiah lived in the preceding century.
“That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid” (xliv, 28).
“Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus” (xlv, 1). “He shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives” (xlv, 13).
Cyrus conquered Babylon B.C. 538, and released the Jews from captivity and permitted them to return and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple B.C. 536, nearly two centuries after the time of Isaiah.
Regarding these passages, Dr. Lyman Abbott, in a sermon on “The Scientific Conception of Revelation,” says: “If you take up a history and it refers to Abraham Lincoln, you are perfectly sure that it was not written in the time of George Washington. Now, if you take up the book of Isaiah and read in it about Cyrus the Great, you are satisfied that the book was not written by Isaiah one hundred years before Cyrus was born.”
Prof. T. K. Cheyne of Oxford University, the leading modern authority on Isaiah, says: “That portion of the Old Testament which is known as the book of Isaiah was, in fact, written by at least three writers—and possibly many more—who lived at different times and in different places.” Nearly all of the ninth chapter, which, on account of its supposed Messianic prophecies, is, with Christians, one of the most valued chapters of the Bible, Professor Cheyne declares to be an interpolation.