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plain words the transportation to Babylon? No one that I know of has ever attacked the genuineness of those words of Micah. Could not Isaiah see what Micah saw? We see therefore that the Babylonian exile was already in Isaiah's time well known to prophecy as a fact of the future.

But Isaiah's chief commission was to announce the whole great period of salvation, that begins with the deliverance out of exile and reaches to the end of time. For although Isaiah is not silent in regard to the judgments that threaten either Israel or the heathen, still the proclamation of salvation is the proper contents of his discourses. In fact the opening words of xl. 1 especially characterize the second part as "a book of consolation" (see FUERST, Kan. d. A. T., p. 15). By this he honors his name (salus Jovae). The TALMUD expresses the difference between the three great Prophets by saying that the book of Jeremiah is 77, that of Ezekiel

comp. FUERST, I. c.). While the other) כוליה נחמתא that of Isaiah however חורבנא וסופיה נחמתא

Prophets were called more to illumine single parts of the near or remote future, of greater or less circumference, Isaiah, as the great chief Prophet, stands in the midst and lets the light of his prophetic word fall on the great, wide circumference of the entire future of salvation, which for him begins with the deliverance from the exile. As the broad river to the narrower branches, as a grand edifice to the buildings that front and flank it, so is Isaiah's prophecy related to that of the other prophets. It is, therefore, incorrect to say that Isaiah only lives in the exile, and that his gaze does not extend beyond the horizon of this period of history. Isaiah is just as conscious that he prophesies, i. e., that the exile is a thing of the future for him also (comp. xli. 9; xlviii. 6, 16; lii. 5; lvi. 10-lvii. 21 and the comm. in loc.), as he is conscious that the period of exile does not form the limit of his prophetic gaze. In fact he distinguishes most clearly three stages of that future history that he contemplates. The servant of Jehovah suits neither the time of Cyrus, nor that of the new creature. It suits only in the time between as the mediation of both. For without the servant of Jehovah, Israel when returned could not possibly have risen to the grade of the new creature. One may quite as well insist that the author of chaps. xl.-lxvi. stood under the cross of Christ, and that he read the writings of Paul, consequently that at least chaps. lii.-lv. were written in the time after Christ, as that this author lived in the exile. For he speaks of the sufferings of the servant, of the fruits of them, and of the new way of salvation thereby conditioned not less plainly than he does of the redemption of Israel out of the exile. In fact DUнм (l. c., p. 291) acknowledges that the view of the Deutero-Isaiah approaches very near that of Paul. It is objected that the naming of Cyrus and the description of relations peculiar to the exile (comp. lxiv. 9-11; lxiii. 3b-5 a; lxv. 11, 12, 25; lxvi. 36-6; lxvi. 17) prove that we have before us specific prediction and not prophecy. As such things are impossible, only a contemporary of the exile can be the author of xl.-lxvi. This leads me to the inquiry into the ethical character of genuine prophecy, and then to the other question whether chaps. xl.-lxvi. correspond to that distinction between prophecy and prediction that I have myself asserted.

b. Of course the naming of Cyrus (xliv. 28; xlv. 1) must surprise us in the greatest degree. But let us first notice the connection in which this naming occurs. In the first Ennead (xl.-xlviii.) the Prophet has directed his gaze to a double deliverance of his people: to the bodily one out of the captivity of the exile, and to the spiritual one from the chains of idolatry. He seeks to bring about the latter by convincing his people of the nothingness of idols and of the sole divinity of Jehovah. For this purpose he argues thus: Prophecy and fulfilment belong only to the omniscient and almighty God. It is a test of divinity that idols cannot sustain. I announce to you long before the punishment of the exile has even begun, that Israel shall be delivered from the same by a prince that shall bear the name Cyrus. If this prophecy be not fulfilled, then may you doubt the divinity of Jehovah. But if it be fulfilled, then know that the LORD is God.

Seven times the Prophet presents this syllogism with the greatest emphasis. He would evidently have men regard this, not as mere rhetorical ornament, but as meant in earnest, and make a practical test with it. Now let one suppose the author of our chapters to have been a contemporary of Cyrus, and to have only feigned this prophecy, then it would be but a worthless comedy. This would-be prophet was then an impostor that blasphemously abused the name of God. For if Cyrus was already there, and all that Isaiah prophesies of him had already happened, or at least was at the point of taking place, then that argument wholly lacks foundation. Then Jehovah does not prophesy, but an impostor pretends to prophesy in His name things that in fact were not future but past. The pretended prophecy, then, would be a product, not of the Holy Spirit, of the Spirit of truth, but of the spirit of lying. If any would assume that the pretended prophet still meant only

to attain a good object by morally objectionable means, that, therefore, his fraud was a pious fraud, then nothing is gained thereby. A truly pious Israelite could not possibly have been willing to prop his faith in Jehovah by means which Satan, Jehovah's enemy, uses to gain his ends-by lies! But a man who is capable of desecrating God's name by gross lies cannot at the same time be interested to have God's name sanctified. Such a man is an inward contradiction. One is involuntarily reminded here of the words of Christ: "If Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?" (Matt. xii. 25 sqq.). And how does this lying procedure agree with the moral character of our prophecy in general? Every one receives the impression, and the modern critics themselves cannot ignore it, that there runs through the entire prophecy a spirit of elevated, moral earnestness. Moral effect in the hearer and reader indeed is meant to be the chief aim of the prophecy. How does Christ agree with Belial? Comp. STIER, Isaiah, nicht Pseudo-Isaiah, p. xlvi. F. A. LöwE, Weissagung u. Weltgeschichte, Zurich, 1868, p. 13. It is incomprehensible how a man like DUESTERDIECK (D. Pro. Isa., ein Vortr. Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. XVIII. 3, p. 386 sqq.) can assert that the author of xl.-lxvi. stood in the midst of the mighty crisis brought about by Cyrus (l. c. p. 401), and yet at the same time produced the prophecy that is "not only the holiest of all of our prophetic book, but of the entire Old Testament." Can then the author of a fictitious prophecy of Cyrus, seven times repeated, be at the same time the interpreter of the holiest of all of the divine revelation?

c. But it is objected that still the name Cyrus is quite a special prediction, just as also those other traits of special exile life that confront us in the last three chapters. But the name Cyrus is not a name like any other. According to our Prophet's construction, Cyrus stands at the head of the period of salvation. He represents the great turning point in the history of Israel with which begins the "return" () of the holy nation. The name of the man that occupied this high and important position is no subordinate, small incident that one cannot see from a distance. On the contrary, this name stands forth so great and illustrious in history, even in profane history, that we must include it among the great outlines which, according to our statement, can alone be the subject of prophecy. But were I even mistaken in this view, still only the name Cyrus would need to be given up. Then we would need to assume that xliv. 28 another word stood in the place of h, and that xlv. 1 the same word was either simply interpolated (which the construction allows), or was substituted for another word. We would need then, of course, to grant also that the words 78 Dwa (xlv. 5), which manifestly presuppose the mention of the name, were inserted by the interpolator. This would leave untouched the chief thing, the prophecy of the redeemer from the east. The reproach of lying would not then concern the real author of the prophecy, but only some uninvited intruder. But although I confess that this point is the most difficult, still I do not believe that there are material reasons to compel the adoption of this construction.

d. As for the traces of authorship in the exile to be found in the last three chapters, viz.: in lxiv. 9-11; lxv. 3 b-5 a; lxv. 11, 12; lxv. 25; lxvi. 3 b-6; lxvi. 17, they are of three sorts. I must first say in general, that the last Ennead (lviii.-lxvi.) does not appear to have received its finishing touches from the hand of the Prophet. Perhaps death arrested him. He seems rather to have left behind only the materials. At least it must seem strange to us that the matter is not, as in both the Enneads that precede, more arranged in nine distinctly marked discourses. [Comp. below the introduction to chaps. Iviii.—lvi.-TR.]. This very condition of the original text invited and facilitated the work of an interpolator. Now, as I have said, I find three sorts of such interpolations. In regard to the first sort, I must primarily recall the fact that to the request of the people that the LORD would even remember that all Israelites are His people (lxiii. 7-lxiv. 9) the reply is made: neither all Israelites shall be saved, nor shall all be rejected (lxv.). The Prophet intimates by this, that in the time when the redemption will begin, i. e., at the end of the exile, a division shall be effected. And this division actually took place when Cyrus gave the permission to return. The contrast between the apostates and the faithful Israelites was distinctly marked. The original contents of the last three chapters offered a fitting opportunity for the expression of those sentiments that the latter felt toward the former in consequence of that contrast. Hence we find in these chapters those passages that have so specific a coloring from the exile, which, of course, if they were genuine, must be construed as the most specific prediction. Such are lxv. 3 b-5 a; 11, 12; lxvi. 3 b-6; lxvi. 17. A second sort of interpolation I find in the passage lxiv. 9-11. Here the condition of the Holy Land and of the Holy City are spoken of in a way that shows that the sacred places must already have lain waste when these words were written. A third interpolation of still another sort I find in lxv. 25. Here an earlier saying of the Prophet (comp. xi. 6-9) is abruptly repeated. For particulars see the comm. in loc.

Regarding passages of the first sort: on the one hand they contain such exact details relative to Babylonian idolatry, and on the other, party sentiment finds in them such intense, fresh and lively expression, that some have supposed the Prophet has wholly translated himself here into the exile life, and saw it as plainly as his own actual present time, while others, who deny the possibility of such translation into the future, maintain that the passages in question were composed by one living in the exile. I share neither of these views. It was no affair of prophecy to observe the special traits of the future; it was no affair of Isaiah's to furnish "Scenes of exile life." On the other hand the great mass of xl-lxvi. are so unmistakably genuine prophecy, in fact the crown of all Old Testament prophecy, that we can ascribe them to no other than to the king among the prophets, to Isaiah. If now single passages in the last chapters bear undoubted marks of originating in the exile, then they must be later additions to the original writing of Isaiah. This applies also to passages of the second and third sort. Even KNOBEL and DIESTEL, who, for the sake of making the whole out to be not genuine, will admit no interpolations, are still inclined to explain lxv. 25 as "a disconnected addition." And lxvi. 3 6–6 is manifestly an interpolation, interrupting the connection, and occasioned by a misunderstanding of what precedes. But if one interpolation occurs, may there not be several, even though the seam in every case is not equally noticeable? I have distinctly declared lxiv. 9–11; lxv. 3 b−5 a; 11, 12; 25; lxvi. 3 b-6; 17 to be interpolations. I confess however that I hold these to be only the ones most plainly recognizable as such. As remarked above, the Prophet seems to me to have left the last Ennead in a form not completely wrought out. Precisely hereby some later person, was moved to put a finishing touch to it. What is most probable is that the final editor of the work did this. Thus it may be that we possess the last chapters only in a form more or less wrought over. What is the boundary between the work of the Prophet and that of the reviser, is likely never to be made out.*

* No one will follow the Author in admitting interpolations, unless first entangled by the criterion, he sets up (end of 2) as the mark of genuine prophecy. In a distant view one observes general outlines, but not details. Prophecy is viewing at a distance. Hence prophecy in general will never meddle with special prediction. Where the latter occurs it is only a seeming detail, while in fact, properly understood, it belongs to the grand outline, eg, the naming of Cyrus-or if not, then it must be suspected as an interpolation. Such is the canon the Author adopts. Is this self-evident? It will not appear so to multitudes. Is it proved by the mere analogy of viewing a city or mountain at a distance? One must not be betrayed by so shallow a fallacy. An exact statement of the nature of prophesying, we see, involves the question: does prophecy med ile with details? This cannot be settled by any aprioral dictum: nor by an analogy drawn from some totally different sphere. It can only be settled by observing the facts: have we or have we not examples of such prediction. If the Author has nothing but his canon to oppose to the passage in question, then we accept the passage as genuine, and must simply reverse his canon. It seems that he has something additional. It is this: chap. lviii.-lxvi., depart from the fundamental number three, and though we have nine chapters, we have only five discourses. Nine discourses are demanded for the sake of consistency. This abnormity opens the door to many things, among others to a reasonable account of the supposed interpolations. The reflecting reader will see that by that door will come in more than the Author himself would welcome. In fact nothing remains certainly the genuine production of Isaiah. For as DR. NAE GELSBACH says above. "It will perhaps never be wholly made out where is the boundary between the work of the Prophet and that of the reviser." In such uncertainty, each will draw the line to suit himself.

Only those will be entangled in this quandary that share the Author's fancy for an exact and lucid scheme of the entire book, or rather, who is captivated by his particular scheme. But most students will agree with DR. J. A. ALEXANDER (Introduction to his Commentary, Vol. I. p. 75, Ed. 1875) who thus remarks on the arrangement of HALVERNICK Who follows RUCKERT, and to which our Author's bears resemblance: "As an aid to memory, and a basis of convenient distribution, this hypothesis may be adopted without injury, but not as implying that the book consists of three independent parts, or that any one of the proposed divisions can be satisfactorily interpreted apart from the others. The greater pains taken to demonstrate such a structure, the more forced and artificial must the exposition become: and it is best to regard this ingenious idea of RUCKERT, as an aesthetic decoration rather than an exegetical expedient. After carefully comparing all the methods of division and ar rangement which have come to my knowledge, I am clearly of the opinion that in this part of Scripture, more perhaps than in any other, the evil to be shunned is not so much defect as excess; that the book is not only a continued, but a desultory composition; that although there is a sensibie progression in the whole from the beginning to the end, it cannot be distinctly traced in every minor part, being often interrupted and obscured by retrocessions and resumptions, which, though governed by a natural association in each case, are not reducible to a system."

To recur to the Author's analogy of a distant view of a city: the parallel between that and prophetic prospect cannot be exact. A man on the street of that distant city, must not necessarily be like a man in the imperial city the Prophet sees far off in the future. Conversation at the gate of that city far off in the vista, must not be like the discourse of men in that city the Prophet sees. In a moral and historical survey, things seemingly minute by common measures, rise into great prominence. Jenny Geddes and her stool in St. Giles Cathedral Church of Edinburg, in 1637, and the masqueraders of the Boston harbor Tea party, are such to us in the distant survey of the past. No one charges the historian with an unphilosophical attention to minute details that takes

may

REPLY TO THE SECOND OBJECTION. a. It is said that there exists between Isaiah and the author of these chapters "a great diversity of spirit and of views." Let us contemplate these reputed diversities as they are specified in the latest edition of KNOBEL'S Commentary as revised by DIESTEL. First, the author is thought to cherish the most transcendent hopes in regard to the return home: xli. 18 sq.; xliii. 19 sq.; xlviii. 21; xlix. 10 sq. These passages, promise all of them to those returning abundance of water, and have more or less direct relation to Exod. xvii. 6 (comp. especially xlviii. 21). No one is justified in saying that the author would have them understood literally with reference to the return-way out of the exile. But if at the same time he had in mind a second return, lying still in the remote future, then we must wait for the future to show us whether the expectations regarding it are superabounding. They are by no means more so than what Isaiah says of the same return xi. 15, where he speaks of the drying up of the Red sea, and of the smiting the Euphrates into seven shallow brooks. To the same transcendent expectations are thought to belong, what the author says of the new heaven and new earth (li. 6; lxv. 17; lxvi. 22; lx. 19 sq.), of the splendor and riches of the new Jerusalem (liv. 12; lx. 1 sqq.; lxvi. 12), of the great age of the Jews that be looked for (lxv. 20) and of their relation to the heathen (xlix. 22 sq.; lx. 9, 10, 12; lxi. 5 sq.; liii. 11). All this is thought to be foreign to the more natural sense of Isaiah. But do not the germs of all this lie already in the first eleven chapters of the book? We have shown already above, that the principle of the world's renewal is expressed in passages like ii. 2 sqq.; iv. 2 sqq., (see also commentary on the " П iv. 2). Can anything more glorious be said of the Zion of the future than is said ii. 3; xi. 9? Is not the great age spoken of lxv. 20, a consequence of the same new, higher principle of life, of whose operation in the impersonal creature xi. 6 sqq., speaks? Finally, what is said about the relation of Israel to the heathen in the passages named, has after all its root in what the Prophet has already expressed ii. 2 sqq.; ix. 2 sqq. 7; xi. 10 sqq.--KNOBEL urges further, that calling Judah and Jerusalem a sanctuary (xlviii. 2; lii. 1; lxiii. 18; lxiv. 9 (10) attests the later period. It is true that the expression py, beside xlviii. 2; lii. 1, occurs only Dan. ix. 24; Neh. xi. 1, 18. Yet the expression is so natural and has so little that is specific in it, that one can only treat its unfrequent occurrence in the literature as accidental. It is strange that it occurs so seldom in general, thus the weight of the fact is lessened, when it is noticed that it appears in Isaiah for the first in part second. If he did not invent the expression, still he is the first from whom we have a writing that contains the expression. As regards Ixiii. 18; lxiv. 9 (10) see above d.-It is urged that the importance attached to the observance of the Sabbath points to a later period (lvi. 2 sqq.; lviii. 13). If now it must be admitted that neither in the historical nor in the prophetic books of the older period, is found frequent mention of the Sabbath, still the institution was known and recognized by them as ancient and holy (see Amos viii. 6; 2 Kings iv. 23, comp. SCHULTZ, Alttestl. Theol. I. p. 216). But like the most of the commandments of the law, it was badly observed by idolatrous Israel. In lvi. and lviii. Isaiah presents in prospect, a time in which the new way of salvation spoken of in liv. and lv., will bring forth its glorious fruits. Shall we wonder then if the Prophet among these fruits makes especially prominent the sanctifying of the Sabbath, since in fact this was the most patent sign of the universal reign of the worship of Jehovah and of the overthrow of idolatry? Representations of God, as one that troubles Himself very little about the earth, as they appear in xl. 27; xlvii. 10; xlix. 14; lvii. 15, are said to occur only in

note of such things. In his prospect they are prominences and belong to the grand outline. It is this that af fords the proper analogy for prophetic surveys of the future. And this shows that the distinction made in the Author's canon between prophecy and prediction, and grand outline and details is illusory, and results from pressing an analogy between things unlike. We may agree that prophecy will dea! only in genera! outline. But whatever the Prophet sees and depicts, belongs to this outline and is a prominence in his prospect, however insignificant and unobservable it may be to other ways of seeing. And such are the things represented in those texts, which the Author would surrender as interpolations. This leaves prediction and prophecy absolutely synonymous in that respect wherein the Author attempts a distinction.

It may be added that the Author's chief reason for admitting the notion of interpolations, may be turned against his scheme of the contents of the book of Isaiah. If the departure from the rule of three, i. e., from the nine discourses, be such palpable proof that chapters lviii.-lxvi., were left incomplete by the Prophet, this defect would have been as evident to the final editor as to modern commentators, and must have appeared equally important. If such an editor dared to tamper with the text at all in the way of giving it polish and completeness, his first care would be to carry out this rule of three, and furnish the arrangement into nine discourses, accordIng to the Prophet's (supposed) original intent. But there is no evidence that such an arrangement was required for completeness and finish, and thus the Author's reason for thinking Isaiah left his composition unfinished is imaginary.-TR).

the later books of the Old Testament. But, not to mention other passages like Ps. ix. 19; x. 1; xiii. 2, is not this representation found xxix. 15 sq., which is admitted to be Isaiah's? What, moreover, is to be said, when KNOBEL explains the controverting of idols with reasons, and the apology for Jahve as the sole God (xl. 12 sqq.; xli. 21 sqq.; xliii. 9 sqq.; xliv. 6 sqq.; xlv. 11 sqq. ; xlvi. 1 sqq.; xlviii. 3 sqq.), and the proof of Jahve's divinity from prophecy and fulfilment (xli. 21 sqq.; xliii. 9 sqq.; xliv. 7 sq.; xlv. 19, 21; xlvi. 10; xlviii. 3 sqq.), the servant of Jahve (lii. 13 sqq.), and the representation of a representative endurance of punishment (liii. 4 sqq.; Ivii. 1) to be "favorite subjects" of the author's that do not appear in Isaiah? We shall show below, that the dialectics with which the Prophet enters the lists against idols and for Jehovah, and which are found already in the germ ii. 20; xxx. 22; xxxi. 7, by no means pertain to a mere pet theme that involuntarily comes uppermost, but that, in the passages named, it quite accords with the practical tendency to wholly deliver from the bonds of idolatry the nation that at the end of the exile would be ripe for this. The servant of Jehovah is just as little a mere pet theme. This notion in all circumstances stands sui generis. If Isaiah is not the author of chapters xl.-lxvi., then the "y is peculiar to this author, for no where else does it appear. But just in the recognized genuine passages of Isaiah are to be found the germs also of this conception. Such is the П iv. 2; very especially however they xi. 1, to which passage manifest reference is had liii. 2. To this may be added, that the word, beside xi. 1, occurs only xl. 24 and Job xiv. 8. A representative endurance of punishment lies at the foundation of the entire sacrificial worship (comp. liii. 7), and that the idea was taken up into the national consciousness, and further developed is proved by expressions like that of Micah, Isaiah's contemporary, who, vi. 7, speaks of the giving of the first born son as an atoning sacrifice. Must, therefore, this idea have been foreign to Isaiah? Must it point to the period of the exile? And must Isaiah necessarily speak of it before he proceeded to make his prophetic sketch of they? Finally it is urged as a discrepancy that our author looks for a theocracy without a king, whereas Isaiah will not do without a king (ix. 5 (6); xi. 1; xxxii. 1; xxxiii. 17). It is true indeed that in our chapters the promised redeemer is never called king. Manifestly the author avoids the word, but he has the substance. For royal works and royal honors are in richest measure attributed to this Redeemer. It is said of Him that He will set up justice and law on earth (xlii. 4; li. 4), and will judge the people (li. 5; lxiii. 1–6). He will also be light and salvation to the heathen, (xlix. 6), all kings of the heathen will pay Him homage as the prince and commander of the nations (lv. 4 sqq.; xlix. 7; Ix. 2 sq., 10 sqq. ; lii. 15; liii. 12. Comp. Ixi. 2-5 and the commentary). One must wonder that He, who will be over all kings, does not Himself receive the royal title. But just in this seems to lie also the solution of the riddle. The title appeared to the Prophet too inferior, too liable to misconstruction. One might have supposed the redeemer would be only a king of the same genus as the others, only, perhaps, a higher species of this genus. But the Prophet knows that this 7, as he calls Him lv. 4, will be toto yenere different from all other kings. He will even be, on the one hand, as the despised servant, (seemingly) low beneath them, and on the other, by reason of the extent, power and glory of His kingdom, immeasurably high above them. So that one may say: the title appeared to the Prophet to suit neither the lowliness nor the highness of the servant.

b. As regards style and the use of words, it is indeed acknowledged that our author has in these respects great resemblance to Isaiah. KNOBEL says: "The author writes, indeed, like Isaiah, very enthusiastically, fervently and lively, but much more flowingly and smoothly, also more broadly and more diffuse." FUERST (Gesch. d. bibl. Lit. II. p. 643) says of the Unnamed, that He "occupies the highest position among the later prophets as a classic." This saying is properly a contradiction; for classic writing is found only in the period of the splendor of a language, not among the epigonoi. FUERST involuntarily gives us to understand that the chapters xl.—lxvi. belong still to the classic productions of Hebrew literature. UMBREIT also (in HERZ., R. Encycl. VI. p. 518) says: " If the son of Amoz were really the author also of the later books, then, not only in respect to form, but also in the perfection of the prophetic spirit . . . he attained the highest pinnacle." And on the next page he calls the author of chapters xl.-lxvi. "Isaiah risen again in a new body of the spirit." Therefore we find here again the admission, that chapters xl.-lvi., in respect to the "form" or "body," belong to the grandest productions of the Hebrew spirit. And this writing, to which men cannot refuse the reputation of a classic even as to form, must still have originated, not in the classic period, but in a period when Hebrew was just at the point of disappearing as a living tongue? The Psalms of the exile, Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra, Daniel, Chronicles would be the books which, in

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