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Uto Cestamcnts

UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF

The Rev. CHARLES AUGUSTUS BRIGGS, D.D.

Professor of Theological Ettcyclopedia and Symbolics Union Theological Seminary, New York

The Rev. SAMUEL ROLLES DRIVER, D.D.

Regius Professor of Hebrew, Oxford

The Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, M.A., D.D.

Late Master of University College, Durham

The International

Critical Commentary

On the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments

EDITORS' PREFACE

THERE are now before the public many Commentaries, written by British and American divines, of a popular or homiletical character. The Cambridge Bible for Schools, the Handbooks for Bible Classes and Private Students, The Speaker's Comme7itary, The Popular Commentary (Schaff), The Expositor's Bible, and other similar series, have their special place and importance. But they do not enter into the field of Critical Biblical scholarship occupied by such series of Commentaries as the Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum A. T ; De Wette's Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum N. T. ; Meyer's Kritisch-exegetischer Xom?nentar; Keil and Delitzsch's Biblischer Commentar iXber das A. T. ; Lange's Theologisch-homiletisches Bibelwerk ; Nowack's Handkommentar zum A. T. ; Holtzmann's Handkommentar zufn N. T Several of these have been translated, edited, and in some cases enlarged and adapted, for the English-speaking public ; others are in process of translation. But no corresponding series by British or American divines has hitherto been produced. The way has been prepared by special Commentaries by Cheyne, EUicott, Kalisch, Lightfoot, Perowne, Westcott, and others; and the time has come, in the judgment of the projectors of this enter- prise, when it is practicable to combine British and American scholars in the production of a critical, comprehensive Commentary that will be abreast of modern biblical scholarship, and in a measure lead its van.

The International Critical Commentar

Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons of New York, and Messrs. T. & T. Clark of Edinburgh, propose to publish such a series of Commentaries on the Old and New Testaments, under the editorship of Prof. C. A. Briggs, D.D., D.Litt., in America, and of Prof. S. R. Driver, D.D., D.Litt., for the Old Testament, and the Rev. Alfred Plummer, D.D., for the New Testament, in Great Britain.

The Commentaries will be international and inter-confessional, and will be free from polemical and ecclesiastical bias. They will be based upon a thorough critical study of the original texts of the Bible, and upon critical methods of interpretation. They are designed chiefly for students and clergymen, and will be written in a compact style. Each book will be preceded by an Introduction, stating the results of criticism upon it, and discuss- ing impartially the questions still remaining open. The details of criticism will appear in their proper place in the body of the Commentary. Each section of the Text will be introduced with a paraphrase, or summary of contents. Technical details of textual and philological criticism will, as a rule, be kept distinct from matter of a more general character ; and in the Old Testament the exegetical notes will be arranged, as far as possible, so as to be serviceable to students not acquainted with Hebrew. The History of Interpretation of the Books will be dealt with, when necessary, in the Intfroductions, with critical notices of the most important literature of the subject. Historical and Archaeological questions, as well as questions of Biblical Theology, are included in the plan of the Commentaries, but not Practical or Homiletical Exegesis. The Volumes will con- stitute a uniform series.

The International Critical Commentary

ARRANGEMENT OF VOLUMES AND AUTHORS

THE OLD TESTAMENT

GENESIS. The Rev. JOHN Skinner, D.D., Principal and Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature, College of Presbyterian Church of England, Cambridge, England. [Now Ready.

eXODUS. The Rev. A. R. S. KENNEDY, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, University of Edinburgh.

LEVITICUS. J. F. Stenning, M.A., Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford.

NUMBERS. The Rev. G. Buchanan Gray, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, MansfieVi College, Oxford- [JVow Ready.

DEUTERONOMY. The Rev. S. R. Driver, D.D., D.Litt., Regius Pro- fessor of Hebrew, Oxford. \Now Ready.

JOSHUA. The Rev. George Adam Smith, D.D., LL.D., Principal of the University of Aberdeen.

JUDGES. The Rev. George Moore, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Theol- ogy, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. {Norw Ready.

SAMUEL. The Rev. H. P. Smith, D.D., Professor of Old Testament Literature and History of Religion, Meadville, Pa. \Now Ready,

KINGS. The Rev. Francis Brown, D.D., D.Litt, LL.D., President and Professor of Hebrew and Cognate Languages, Union Theological Seminary, New York City.

CHRONICLES. The Rev. Edward L. Curtis, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. [Now Ready,

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH. The Rev. L. W. Batten, Ph.D., D.D., Pro- fessor of Old Testament Literature, General Theological Seminary, New York City. ^

PSALMS. The Rev. Chas. A. Briggs, D.D., D.Litt., Graduafe Fro- fessor of Theological Encyclopaedia and Symbolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York. [2 vols. Now Ready

PROVERBS. The Rev. C. H. Toy, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Hebrew. Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. [Now Ready,

JOB. The Rev. S. R. Driver, D.D., D.Litt. Regius Professor of He- brew. Oxford.

The International Critical Commentary

ISAIAH. Chaps. I-XXVII. The Rev. G. Buchanan Gray, D.D., Pro- fessor of Hebrew, Mansfield College, Oxford. [^IVcrtU Ready.

ISAIAH. Chaps. XXVIII-LXVI. The Rev. A. S. Peake, M.A., D.D., Dean of the Theological Faculty of the Victoria University and Professor of Biblical Exegesis in the University of Manchester, England.

JEREMIAH. The Rev. A. F. Kirkpatrick, D.D., Dean of Ely, sometime Regius Professor of Hebrew, Cambridge, England.

EZEKIEL. The Rev. G. A. Cooke, M.A., Oriel Professor of the Interpre- tation of Holy Scripture, University of Oxford, and the Rev. Charles F. BuRNEY, D.Litt., Fellow and Lecturer in Hebrew, St. John's College, Oxford.

DANIEL. The Rev. John P. Peters, Ph.D., D.D., sometime Professor of Hebrew, P. E. Divinity School, Philadelphia, now Rector of St. Michael's Church, New York City.

AMOS AND HOSEA. W. R. Harper, Ph.D., LL.D., sometime President of the University of Chicago, Illinois. \N(yw Ready.

MICAH, ZEPHANIAH, NAHUM. HABAKKUK. OBADIAH. AND JOEL.

Prof. John P. Smith, University of Chicago; W. Hayes Ward, D.D., LL.D., Editor of The Independent, New York; Prof. Julius A. Bewer, Union Theological Seminary, New York. \N(yw Ready,

ZECHARIAH TO JONAH. Prof. H. G. MITCHELL, D.D., Prof. John P. Smith and Prof. J. A. Bewer. {In Press.

ESTHER. The Rev. L. B. Paton, Ph.D., Professor of Hebrew, Hart- ford Theological Seminary. [Now Ready.

ECCLESIASTES. Prof. George A. Barton, Ph.D., Professor of Bibli- cal Literature, Bryn Mawr College, Pa. [JVow Ready.

RUTH, SONG OF SONGS AND LAMENTATIONS. Rev. Charles A.

Briggs, D.D., D.Litt., Graduate Professor of Theological Encyclopaedia and Symbolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York.

THE NEW TESTAMENT

ST. MATTHEW. The Rev. WiLLOUGHBY C. Allen, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer in Theology and Hebrew, Exeter College, Oxford. \Now Ready.

ST MARK. Rev. E. P. GouLD, D.D., sometime Professor of New Testa- ment Literature, P. E. Divinity School, Philadelphia. \_N(m) Ready.

ST. LUKE. The Rev. Alfred Plummer, D.D., sometime Master of University College, Durham. {.Njw Ready.

The International Critical Commentary

ST. JOHN. The Very Rev. John Henry Bernard, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's and Lecturer in Divinity, University of Dublin.

HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS. The Rev. WiLLlAM Sanday, D.D., LL.D., Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Oxford, ana the Rev. WiL- LOUGHBY C. Allen, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer in Divinity and Hebrew, Exeter College, Oxford.

ACTS. The Rev. C. H. Turner, D.D., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and the Rev. H. N. Bate, M.A., Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of London.

ROMANS. The Rev. William Sanday, D.D., LL.D., Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and the Rev. A. C. Headlam, M.A., D.D., Principal of King's College, London.

\_Now Ready.

i. CORINTHIANS. The Right Rev. Arch Robertson, D.D., LL.D,, Lord Bishop of Exeter, and Rev. Alfred Plummer, D.D., late Master of University College, Durham. \Norw Ready.

II. CORINTHIANS. The Rev. Dawson Walker, D.D., Theological Tutor in the University of Durham.

GALATIANS. The Rev. Ernest D. Burton. D.D., Professor of New Testament Literature, University of Chicago.

EPHESIANS AND COLOSSIANS. The Rev. T. K. Abbott, B.D., D.Litt., sometime Professor of Biblical Greek, Trinity College, Dublin, now Librarian of the same. {Now Ready.

PHILIPPIANS AND PHILEMON. The Rev. Marvin R Vincent, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature, Union Theological Seminary, New York City. {Now Ready.

THESSALONIANS. The Rev. James E. Frame, M.A., Professor of Biblical Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York City.

{In Press, THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. The Rev. Walter Lock, D.D., Warden of Keble College and Professor of Exegesis, Oxford.

HEBREWS. The Rev. James Moffatt, D.D., Minister United Free Church, Broughty Ferry, Scotland.

ST. JAMES. The Rev. James H. Ropes, D.D., Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism in Harvard University.

PETER AND JUDE. The Rev. CHARLES BiGG, D.D., sometime Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.

{Now Ready.

THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. The Rev. E. A. Brooke, B.D., Fellow and Divinity Lecturer in King's College, Cambridge.

REVELATION. The Rev. Robert H. Charles, M.A., D.D., sometime

Professor of Biblical Greek in the University of Dublin.

[I

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH

GEORGE BUCHANAN GRAY VOL. I

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5 DEPARTMENTAL

AL Critical Commentary

A

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL COMMENTARY

ON

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH

I-XXXIX

BY

GEORGE BUCHANAN GRAY, D.D., D.Litt.

fROFESSUR OF HEBREW AND OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS IN MANSFIELD COLLEGE, OXFORD

XL-LXVI

BY

ARTHUR S. PEAKE, D.D.

RYLANDS PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL EXEGESIS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I INTRODUCTION, AND COMMENTARY ON I-XXVII t

NEV^ YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1912

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7%e Rights of Translation and Reproduction are Reserved

I

PREFACE.

This Commentary should have been written by another ; and all who are in any way familiar with the work of the late Dr. A. B. Davidson, and conscious of the profound sympathy and penetrating insight that he always brought to the interpretation of Scripture, must regret that he had made no substantial progress with the Commentary, which the editors of this series had entrusted to him, at the time when Christian scholarship and Christian life were left the poorer by his death.

After Dr. Davidson's death, the editors, with a view to the speedier completion of this series, decided to make the Commentary on Isaiah the work of two writers; and at their request I undertook the preparation of the Com- mentary on chs. 1-39. For the present volume I am, then, entirely responsible ; and, owing to the unequal size of the two main parts of the Book of Isaiah, the con- clusion of my work must be held over for the second volume, which will also contain Dr. Peake's Commentary on chs. 40-66, completing the work.

For the general Introduction to the entire book I am also solely responsible, though Dr. Peake, who has read it, is in general agreement with it, and in particutar with such references as it contains to chs. 40-66. The more special Introduction to those chapters will be written by him, and appear in vol. ii. The second volume will also contain full Indexes to the whole work.

I cannot claim, as 1 could in writing my Preface to

Vi PREFACE

%

the Commentary on Numbers, in this series, that the lack of recent Commentaries is in itself sufficient justification for the publication of a new one. Once again I have been able to avail myself of the learning of Dillmann, with on this occasion the additions or corrections of Kittel ; but as a commentator on Isaiah, Dillmann stands far less alone. Like all who have devoted themselves to the study of Isaiah since 1892, I am profoundly indebted to the Commentary of Bernhard Duhm, as my frequent references to him may be left to show ; frequently agree- ing with him, I have also frequently differed from him ; but often when I have differed, I have differed because I first have learnt from him. In some respects Duhm seems to me to have led those astray who have followed him too closely, and particularly by his line- and strophe- divisions; but that is only a small offset to the really great service which he has rendered. Marti in brief com- pass has found it possible to advance frequently beyond Duhm ; and to his work I have constantly turned, and seldom unrewarded. But to come now nearer home. Two names of Oxford scholars should always be associ- ated with the study of Isaiah : they are those of Robert Lowth (Introduction, § 44) and T. K. Cheyne. The Commentary of the latter at the end of last century for long stood out conspicuous, in the general dearth of good English Commentaries on the Old Testament; it was itself the successor of earlier and valuable works on Isaiah, and it has been succeeded and, in some measure superseded, by his later works, especially (though even these are not his latest discussions of Isaiah) his edition of the Hebrew text and of an English Translation with notes in Haupt's Sacred Books of the Old Testament. But the English student is also happy in the possession of excellent shorter Commentaries by Skinner {Cambridge Bible), Whitehouse {Century Bible), and Wade {West- minster Commentaries). The last appeared too recently to be of much use to me in the preparation of this volume. Briefer still, but admirable also, and to be commended in

I

PREFACE vii

particular because, as in Dr. Skinner's, the text is printed in poetical form, is McFadyen's Commentary in The Bible for Home and School. Of works not taking the form of a Commentary it must suffice to refer to Driver's Isaiah: His Life and Times, the famous volumes in the Expositors Bible by the distinguished Principal of Aberdeen Uni- versity, and to the translations in poetical form by Box (1908), Glazebrook {Studies in the Book of Isaiah, 19 10), and Kent (in the Students^ Old Testament : The Sermons, Epistles, and Apocalypses of Israel's Prophets, 1910). But my purpose here is not to compile a catalogue, or to re- peat what will be found elsewhere (pp. xvi fif.) ; sufficient has been said to show that recent works on Isaiah are lacking neither in quality nor in quantity. One other work in French may be referred to; I have found Condamin's Livre dlsate (1905) valuable not only for its intrinsic merits, but because it is based on a different theory of rhythm, and it frequently criticises the work of writers with whom, in general, I am in greater agree- ment.

I have made no attempt to record opinions with any- thing approaching the fullness of reference that marks Harper's Commentary on Amos and Hosea in this series. Consideration of space alone forbade it ; two volumes for a commentary on what, after all, is a short book may seem ample, yet they are but little when compared with the 1600 double-columned folio pages of Vitringa, or even the i6cx) smaller pages of Gesenius. But I have endeavoured to discharge that part of my duty which consists in atten- tion to the history of exegesis : if I have seldom or never referred to some Commentaries of the 19th century, though they were excellent in their day, it is because much that was said in them, as much that is said in my own, has an earlier origin. I have made constant use of Jerome's Commentary as a good example of patristic scholarship and exegesis, and as the source of so much that served throughout the Middle Ages, and of not a little that is rightly repeated to-day. Another important source of

Vin PREFACE

interpretation is to be found in the work of the mediaeval Jewish scholars, among whom I have chiefly consulted Rashi, Kimhi, and Ibn Ezra. I have made more occa- sional use of, or at least more limited reference to, Calvin, Grotius, Vitringa, and Koppe; but with Gesenius' great Commentary (1821) comes a fresh and plentiful source of valuable information and suggestion ; it still repays constant use of it ; Hitzig and Ewald, among those who fill up the time before the recent writers to whom 1 have referred, also made characteristic contributions to the interpretation of Isaiah.

The task of interpreting the Book of Isaiah is by no means complete; and this is largely because the philo- logical basis is as yet far from secure. This cannot be conveniently discussed in briefer commentaries ; but as a contributor to the present series I have, as in duty bound, devoted much attention to it. I might be more satisfied with the result of my labours if I could feel that two or three important fields of inquiry were really worked out. As it is, I must at least indicate here what appear to me certain general grounds for considering much of the interpretation tentative and uncertain.

I. The text is frequently corrupt, frequently at least open to suspicion of corruption, even where it has very generally been accepted without demur. Ultimately in many passages we shall always be driven back on conjec- ture ; but I am persuaded that the evidence of the Greek version has not been as yet completely and accurately sifted (cp. Introduction, § 4).

Another but partially worked out subject that bears very considerably on the soundness of the text, and often in consequence on interpretation, is that of metre or rhythm. I came to the study of Isaiah still sceptical on the subject of Hebrew metre; I remain sceptical of the finality of any existing theory of it ; but the approxima- tion to regularity in the parallel periods is too striking to be neglected, and I have systematically drawn atten- tion to it in the small print notes prefixed to the trans-

PREFACE IX

lations: at the same time I have endeavoured to make the irregularities, which in the present text at all events are frequent, as obvious as the approximations to regu- larity. At the present stage metrical arguments alone appear to me a precarious textual criterion, but as con- firmatory of other considerations they often have value. I discuss the matter more fully in the Introduction

(§§ 44-57).

2. Uncertainty of another kind is due to the in- sufficiency of our historical knowledge. The brilliant genius of Winckler, in particular, has started many theories of ancient history, geography, and thought which, if sound, would largely modify the interpretation of the Book of Isaiah, as well as most of our conceptions of the history of Israel and the influence of the Jews on religion and history. I have not found myself able to go very far in adopting these theories, but the discussions of Winckler and others serve at least to throw into relief the in- adequacy of our knowledge of the facts (as distinguished from theories based upon them) of that history which must form the background to the Book of Isaiah.

The plan of the present series provides for a trans- lation of the poetical parts of the Old Testament : this has called for a translation of by far the greater part of the Book of Isaiah, virtually, indeed, of the whole of it apart from chs. 36-39. I have aimed at making my translations the pivot of the Commentary ; apart from it they have, indeed, little claim to consideration ; I have deliberately, where necessary, sacrificed form and style, in order to make them as expressive as possible of what I understand the Hebrew text to mean, but also of the numerous uncertainties which appear to me at present to beset the text. For this reason I have introduced many marks of interrogation; and as additional marks of interrogation I would suggest that the single inverted commas, which indicate emendation, should be regarded : few emendations are certain, though many enable us to approximate more closely to the original thought of the

X PREFACE

writer than do the prevalent conjectural translations of the existing Hebrew text. By conjectural translation I mean translations that rest on ancient or modern guesses at the meaning of words or phrases, and either lack sup- port in usage and etymology altogether, or obtain the semblance of such support only by means of improbable inferences from actual usage (see, e.g.^ p. 458 top). In some cases, if any translation at all is attempted, there is no escape from guessing, and it is merely a question whether the guess shall take the form of conjectural emendation, or of conjectural translation.* Where the sense seemed to me hopelessly obscure, and any prevalent conjectural rendering or reading more likely to conceal than to illumine the meaning of the passage as a whole, I have preferred to leave words or lines entirely un- translated.

1 would draw attention here to what I have discussed more fully in the Introduction : the line divisions of the translations are determined by regard for parallelism and with disregard of rhythm or metre, where this conflicts with parallelism.

In general, I have given entire in the translations what appears to me to constitute a single poem, and no more ; occasionally, for particular purposes, I have, however, brought together in translation what may be a collection of one or more poems, or fragments, rather than a single poem (see, e.g.y i^"^^ 5^"^*). The small print in the transla- tions indicates the possibility that the words in question are intrusive ; but the degree of uncertainty so indicated varies greatly ; in some cases it is very slight.

So many features of these Commentaries are now familiar that they call for no special explanation here. But to one detail I must refer. I have in general followed

* I have discussed these alternatives in an essay entitled English Versions and the Text of the Old Testament (in Mansfield College Essay s^ presented to the Reverend A. M. Fairbaim, D.D.^ London, 1909), and both in that Essay and in Hastings' Smaller Dictionary of the Bible, art. Text, Versions, and Languages, § 40, I have given illustrations of conjectural translation in the EV. See also S. R. Driver, Expositor, Jan. 1910, p. 23.

H

PREFACE Xi

Swete's text of the Greek version, accepting his authority in matters of accentuation, etc., when I had no occasion to question it. But one principle of accentuation followed in that text is misleading in relation to many, of the more or less minute, points of philology. I refer to the accen- tuation of the proper names and of transliterations of Hebrew words, for which there is no authority in the oldest Greek MSS. In Swete's text the accentuation of the later MSS is abandoned, and the Greek forms in question are accentuated in accordance with the accentua- tion of the vocalised Hebrew of the Massoretic text.* Unfortunately, owing to a misunderstanding, the accentua- tion of Swete's text has been allowed to stand in some of the transliterations cited in this Commentary; it was in- tended that all such words should have been consistently, as they are frequently, left without accent as in Lagarde's edition, and in the names cited in EBi. For the same reason, breathings (which in Swete's text are inserted in accordance with the existing Massoretic Hebrew text, so that they possess no authority of their own) are omitted.

Unless, in common with most modern writers on Isaiah, I am fundamentally wrong in the conclusion that the Book of Isaiah is not, as we have received it, the work of Isaiah, it must be one of the main tasks of a com- mentator on the book to disengage the work of that prophet from the accretions which it has received, and so to recover, as I have attempted to do in the last division of the Introduction, the spirit and teaching of a single personality in place of the confused and composite form that must present itself, if we attempt to treat the entire book as the work of a single mind. This, I say, is one of the tasks of the commentator ; another is, of course, to do the same service for the author of the main part of chs. 40-55. But there is yet another; and that is to do justice to other contributors ,to the book, and, above all, to approach with sympathy the work of, perhaps, many nameless writers that now forms so large a part of it.

* Swete, Old Testament in Greeks i. p. xiii.

XU PREFACE

m

No full justice can be done to a book which is a great monument of Jewish religion after the Exile, if all our attention is devoted to determining whether this or that passage is " genuine," and dismissing it as not " genuine," if it is not the work of Isaiah. In reference to works such as the Book of Isaiah, the term " genuine " is indeed misleading. None of these nameless writers may have possessed the religious genius of Isaiah, but together they represent the play of the earlier prophetic teaching on the Jewish Church. In religion, as elsewhere, great person- alities count first, and it is the privilege of a student of the Book of Isaiah to come face to face with one, if not two, such personalities : but the religious community is the necessary outcome, or field of action, of the great religious personality and his teaching, and the student of the Book of Isaiah has but half entered into his inherit- ance, if he communes with Isaiah and the great exilic prophet, but fails to feel the life of that post-exilic religious community which not only preserved for them- selves and for us the words of the earlier prophets, but preserved them in books which were also made to breathe the hopes and aspirations that sustained the Jews through centuries of isolation, oppression, and temptation.

I cannot bring this Preface to a close without acknow- ledging my gratitude to Dr. Driver for the help which I have again received from his reading of my proofs, and the numerous suggestions which he has made with regard to them. These have withheld me, at times at least, from unsafe places, and they have enabled me to enrich my Commentary ; my only regret is that, without more extensive alteration of the printed sheets than seemed reasonable, I could not enrich it still more from the same source.

G. BUCHANAN GRAY.

December 191 1.

CONTENTS.

XXlll

xxiii

XXV

xxix xxxii

FAGH

Principal Abbreviations employed, . . • . xv

Addenda and Corrigenda, .

Introduction,

§§ 1-3. Title and Place in the Canon, § 4. Text and Versions,

§§ 5-7" The Book of Isaiah a post-exilic Compilation, §§ 8-40. Origin and History of the Book of Isaiah,

'(i) External Evidence, .... xxxii

(2) The Greek Version and the Prophetic Canon, . xxxix

(3) The testimony of the Book of Isaiah to itself, . xlv

(4) Prophetic teaching and Prophetic literature, . Hi!

(5) Tentative synthesis from the preceding evidence, Iv

Kteria for distinguishing the words of Isaiah from the additions of later writers, .... Ivii

§§ 44-57* The poetic forms of the Prophetic literature, and of the

Book of Isaiah in particular, . . . . lix

§§ 58-76. Isaiah in relation to the political and social conditions

of his age, ...... Ixviii

§§ 77-89. Isaiah as Prophet and Teacher, .... Ixxxi

Chronological Table, .•••«. xcvii

Commentary, ....... i

Map I. Egypt, Syria and Assyria . . . To face title-page

,, 2. Moab and part of Judah, to illustrate the Commentary on

Is io"-*» 15. 16, . . . To face page 273

xiii

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PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS EMPLOYED,

I. Texts and Versions.

Aq. AV. EV. MT

OT. RV.

M * • •

w> . .

!L . . .

S . . .

Symm. .

E . . .

Theod. .

H . . .

Aquila (p. xxvi).

Authorised Version.

English Version.

The Massoretic Text {t.g. the vocalised text of the Hebrew Bible). Variants in the Hebrew codices have been cited from De Rossi, Variae Lectiones Vet. Test.y vol iii., or R. Kittel, Biblia Hebraica.

Old Testament.

Revised Version.

The Greek (LXX) Version of the Old Testament (ed. Swete, Cambridge, 1887-1894). The readings of the codices are, when necessary, distinguished thus: — (K^ ©^ (Alexandrian, Vatican, etc.). For the cursives, reference has been made to Vet, Test. Graece^ cum variis lectionibus^ ed. Holmes, Oxon. 1798, which is cited as HP followed by a numeral.

Jewish recension of the Hebrew (unvocalised) text, i.e. the consonants of the ordinary Hebrew MSS and printed Bibles.

The consonants of the traditional Hebrew Text (J^) irrespective of the present word divisions and after the removal of the vowel consonants : see p. xxv.

Old Latin version of ffi : see p. xxix n. *

The Syriac Version (Peshitto).

Symmachus (p. xxvi).

The Jewish Aramaic Version or Targum (p. xxvi).

Theodotion (p. xxvi).

Vulgate.

XVI

PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS EMPLOYED

2. Author's Names and Books.

[See also the literature cited at the beginning of several sections of the Commentary ; the works thus given are, within the section, often cited by the author's name only.]

AJSL

ATAO Baud.

BDB

Box, G. E. . Breasted, J. H.

Bredenkamp, C. J. . Che[yne], T. K. .

CIS , , , Cond[amin], A. . COT .

Dav[idson], A. B. . DB . , ,

Del[itzsch, Franz] . Del.

Di[llmann, A.] Dr[iver, S. R.]

American Journal of Semitic Languages and Litera- ture.

See Jeremias.

W. W. von Baudissin, Einleitung in die Biicher des Alien Testaments, 1901.

A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament based on the Lexicon and Thesaurus of Gesenius^ by F. Brown, C. A. Briggs, and S. R. Driver, Oxford, 1906.

The Book of Isaiah, 1908.

{\) A History of Egypt, 1906;

(2) Ancient Records of Egypt, 1906 (a collection of Egyptian historical texts, transliterated, translated, and annotated).

Der Prophet Jesaja erlailtert, 1886- 1887.

/*/= The Prophecies of Isaiah, ed. 5, 1889 ;

Introd= Introduction to the Book of Isaiah, 1895 ;

SBOT, see SBOT below.

Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, Paris, 1881 ff".

Le Livre d^Isaie, 1905.

The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the OT. ', a. transla- tion (London, 1885), by O. C. Whitehouse, of the second edition of Die Keilinschriften und das alte Testament (abbreviated KAT), by Eb. Schrader. References are given to the pages of the 2nd German edition which are marked in the margin of the translation.

A third edition of the German work i^KAT^) has been edited (and indeed entirely rewritten) by H. Zimmern and H. Winckler (1903).

Hebrew Syntax (Edin. 1894).

Dictionary of the Bible, and in particular A Diction- ary of the Bible, edited by James Hastings (Edin. 1898-1902).

Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah (translated from the 4th edition, 1889), Edin. 1890.

In reference to Assyrian matters stands for Friedrich Delitzsch (especially Assyrisches Handworterbuch, 1896).

Per Prophet Jesaja, 1890.

{\) A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew (ed. 3, Oxford, 1892).

(2) An Introduction to the Literature of the OT

PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS EMPLOYED

XVll

Dupim, B.] . EBi,

Eich[horn, J. G. L.]

Ew[ald, H.] . Exp.

Ges[enius, W.] Ges-B. .

Giesebrecht, Fried. . O— Iv. • • •

Gressmann, H.

Hal[6vy, I.] .

Hackmann, H. • Hitz[ig, F.] . Houb[igant, C. F.] .

HPN .

• •

Ibn Ezra, Abraham

(tii67) JBLit. . Jer[ome](t420)

• •

Jeremias, A.

/PA JThS KAT KB

Kennett, R. .

VOL. I. — b

(abbreviated LOT), cited according to the pagina- tion of ed. 8 (Edin. 1909), which is also that of editions 6 and 7.

Das Buchjesaiay 1892 (ed. 2, 1902).

Encyclopaedia Biblica, edited by T. K. Cheyne and J. S. Black, 1 899- 1 903.

(1) Einleitung in das Alte Testament, ed. 2, 1 787;

(2) Die Hebrdischen Propheten, 1816-1819.

Die Propheten des Alien Bundes, ed. 2, 1867, 1868.

The Expositor.

Der Prophet Jesaja, 1821.

Wilhelm Gesenius' Hebrdisches und Aramaisckes Handw'&rterbuch ilber das Alte Testament . . . bearbeitet von Frants Buhl, 19 10.

Beitrdge zur Jesaiakritik, 1890.

Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, as edited and enlarged by the late E. Kautzsch . . . second English edition, revised in cucordance with the twenty- eighth German edition {igog), by A. Cowley, 1910.

Der Ursprung der israelitisch-jiidischen Eschatologie,

1905. Le Livre (Tlsaie (in course of publication in Revue

Semitique : carried down to ch. xxii., July 191 1). Die Zukunftserwartung des fesaia, 1893. Der Prophet /esaja, 1833. Biblia Hebraica cum notis criticis et versione latina,

t. IV, Prophetae posteriores, Paris, 1753. Studies in Hebrew Proper Names, by G. Buchanan

Gray, 1896. Hebrew Commentary on Isaiah in Buxtorf's Biblia

Rabbinica. Journal of Biblical Literature (Mass., U.S.A.). Commentariorum in Isaiam libri octo et decem, in

Migne's Patrologia Latina, vol. 24.

(1) ATAO — Das Alte Testament im Lie hte des alien Orients (ed. 2, 1906) ; English translation by C. L. Beaumont (191 1) ;

(2) BNT=Babylonisches im Neuen Testament, 1905. Journal of Philology.

Journal of Theological Studies.

See COT.

Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, ed. Eb. Schrader (Berlin,

1889 ff.). A collection of Assyrian and Babylonian texts

transliterated and translated into German by various

scholars. The Composition of the Book of Isaiah, 19 10.

XVlll

PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS EMPLOYED

Ki[mhi, David]

(t 1230) Kit[tel, R.] .

Kon[ig, Ed.] •

Koppe, J. B. • Kue[nen, A.] . Lag[arde, P. de]

Levy, J. . Liebmann LOT . Lowth, R.

Luzzatto, S, D.

Marti, K. Meinhold, J, . NHB . Numbers .

NSE . NSI

Onom, • •

Oo.

Or[elli, C. von]

Ottley, R. R. , PEFQuSt. . PRE .

Rashi . •

Hebrew Commentary on Isaiah in Buxtorf s Biblia Rabbinica.

(1) Der Prophet Jesaj a, a new edition (1898) of Di. ;

(2) Biblia Hebraica, 1906. Historisch-Kritisches Lehrgebdude der Hebrdischen

Sprache^ 1881, 1895 • the concluding volume (cited as Kon. iii. or simply Kon.) appeared in 1897 with a fresh title, Historisch- Comparative Syntax der Hebrdischen Sprache.

The references to the Syntax are to the sections, but

the references to the earlier volumes are to the pages.

D. R, Lowth's Jesaias . . . mit Zusdtzen und

Anmerkungen, i779fif. Historisch - critisch Onderzoek . . . Tweede dttly De

Profetische Boeken des ouden verbondes, 1889. (i) Semiiica, i., 1878; (2) Uebersicht iiber die . . . iibliche Bildung der

Nomina : abbreviated BN. NHB =■ Neuhebrdisches u. Chalddisches Worlerbuch. See p. 397. See Dr.

Isaiah: a new translation; with a preliminary dissertation^ and notes^ critical, philological, ana explanatory y 1778 (ed. 3, 1795, has been used). // Profeta Isaia volgarizzato e commentato ad uso degP Israeliti, 1867 (an Italian translation with Hebrew Commentary). Das Buck Jesaja, 1900. Die Jesajaerzdhlungen Jesaja j6-j9, 1 898. See Levy. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of

Numbers, by George Buchanan Gray, 1903. Lidzbarski, Handbuch der Nordsem. Epigraphik, 1898. G. A. Cooke, A Text-book of North-Semitic Inscrip- tions, 1903. Onomastica Sacra, ed. Lagarde (Gott. 1887).

This contains several ancient Onomastica, includ- ing those of Eusebius and Jerome. H. Oort (see p. 397). The Prophecies of Isaiah (English translation by J. S.

Banks, 1889), '1904. Isaiah according to the Septuagint, 1904, 1906. Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement. Herzog's Real-Encyklopddie fiir Protestantische Theo-

logie u. Kirche ; 3rd edition, by A. Hauck. R[abboni] Sh[elomoh] Y[ishaki] (1040-1105).

Hebrew Commentary on Isaiah in Buxtorf 's Biblia Rabbinica.

IK

PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS FMrLOYED

XIX

Rev. Bibl.

Rogers, R. W. Saad. SBOT .

Sievers, E. •

Skinner, J.

Smith, G. A. . Sta[de, B.] . Th. Ti[jd.] .

Vitr[inga, C] .

Wade, G. W. . Whitehouse, O. C.

ZATfV . ZDMG .

ZDPF ,

Revue Biblique Internationale publide par Vkcole pratique d^£tudes Bihliques itablie au couvent Dominicain Saint- Etienne de Jerusalem (Paris).

A History of Babylonia and Assyria, ed. 2, 1 90 1.

Saadiah (t942).

The Sacred Books of the Old lestameut, ed. Paul liaupt. (Part lo, The Book of Isaiah, by T. K. Cheyne — Hebrew Text, 1899; English translation, 1898.)

Metrische Studien. i. Studien zur hebrdischen Metrik, Erster Theil ; Unlersuchungen : Zweiter Theil ; Textproben (including Is 1-5. 14. 3722^- ^q). These studies are published in the Abhandlungen der Philologisch- Hisiorischen Classe der Kiinig. Sdchsichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften^ Ein- undzwanzigster Band (1901).

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah (vol. i (i.-xxxix.), 1896; vol. 2 (xl.-lxvi.), 1898), in The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges.

The Book of Isaiah, 1889, 1890.

Lehrbtuh der Hebrdischen Grammatik, 1879.

Theologisck Tifdschrift (Leiden).

Theologische Studien u. Kritiken (Gotha).

Commentarius in librum pivphetiarum Jesaiae . . . editio nova, Leovardiae, 1724.

Ihe Book of the Prophet Isaiah (1911),

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah (^Century Bible), i., 1905.

Zeitschrift fiir die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft.

Zeitschrift des deutschen morgenldndischen Gesell- schaft.

Zeitschrift der deutschen Paldstina- Vereins.

Biblical passages are cited according to the Hebrew enumeration of chapters and verses : where this differs from the English enumeration, the reference to the latter has commonly (except in the philological notes) been added in a parenthesis.

The sign t, following a series of references, indicates that all examples of the phrase, word, or form in question, occurring in the OT, have been quoted.

The single inverted comma [e.g. "and *he' strikes bargains," 2^) is used to indicate departures from the Hebrew consonantal text ; such readings are not necessarily conjectural ; many rest on the evidence of (Sr.

al.=alii (others).

Cp. = Compare.

Ct.= Contrast.

NH = New Hebrew (the language of the Mishnah, etc.).

H

i

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA,

P. 69 (phil. n. on 3^*) ; also p. 80 (n. on 4*), p. 86 (n. on 5*), p. Ill (n. and phil. n. on 6^^). Whether or not lyn, to exter- minate, also developed the specific meaning to exterminate by depasturing, or whether or not "l^y3, a (domestic) beast, gave rise to a denominative vb. meaning to depasture, depasturing seems to be in the writer's mind both in 3^*, where the treatment of the vineyard, however reckless and destructive, is yet probably con- ceived as yielding some profit (cp. v.^*^) to the persons ad- dressed, and in 5^ where destruction by animals is suggested by the parallel D»"ID. In these passages, therefore, even if depasture could not be defended as a literal rendering, it might be admitted as a paraphrase bringing out the particular form of destruction which was probably in the writer's mind. If the text of J^ in Ex 22* was sound, and not, as it probably is, corrupt (see, e.g.. Dr. ad loc), "lyn might perhaps be a denominative of "i^y3, beast; in this case it might either mean to depasture, or merely (being quite synonymous with njn) to graze. But, apart from the very doubtful evidence of Ex 22*, nothing suggests that "lya was a

denominative of "l^ya ; on the other hand, "i^ya may rather be a noun created after the root had developed the meaning to de- pasture. If the meaning attaching to lya, when it is used ot animals, is a direct development from the root, so far from being merely synonymous with njn, to graze, it should be to graze destructively, to remove (or destroy) by grazing, to depasture ; for the idea of total removal, or destruction, is so fundamental to, or so closely associated with, the root "iy3 and its derivatives, that, as applied to animals, it would naturally call up the idea of the destruction which they do, rather than the profit they receive, by feeding ; lya would therefore be entirely fitting in reference to the reckless indifference of the persons addressed in 3^* and to the destructive browsing of the beasts let in through the broken walls and hedges of 5^ but (unless the word lost much of its force) "sv^h would not be a suitable substitute for r\)rh in a promise such as Budde would make of 6^^ (see n. there)

Setting aside the meanings to burn, to blaze {e.g. Ex 22^, Is

xxii ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

jsi ^17 ioi7 2^9 ^225 438 52!^ and so in the Aramaic of ST), as prob- ably going back to a distinct root, a possible connection between most of the remaining meanings of "ij;! can be discerned. In Syr. ^Ik^ bears the meanings to search out^ and then to glean {i.e. to search out the last grapes and remove them) : see Payne Smith, s.v. jSn,

^

and cp. I K 14^^ (Pesh.) ^-.S^AlD? yJ\ To glean would suit Is 3^* admirably : Ye

have gleaned my vineyard to the last grape ; but since it would not also suit 5^, it would be rather hazardous to postulate glean as a meaning of lya in Hebrew. The idea of total removal (e.g. of y-in, Dt 136; !?^3, I K 14IO; \in\>r\, Dt 2613), which is so con- spicuous in Hebrew, may also start from the meaning to search out. If the idea of total removal of pasture by cattle was early developed, the Heb. and Syr. 1^y3, I^IjO, a (domestic) beast^

Ai.jJMy a camel, and, more rarely, an ass, Eth. beraivi, an ox, may have meant literally total removers (of herbage), depasturers.

Possibly also jtJ> (5cil^, dung, was so called as that which is put away : cp. i K 14^0 ^^^ -,^3^ itj^xa. Other denominatives will then have arisen with meanings derived directly from l^ya,

beast, and ^, dung] cp. "lyn (Kal, Niph., Piel, Hiph.), to be brutish, stupid (see, e.g.. Is 19^^), ;JLO (Peal and Ethpeal), to be

fierce] for derivatives from mj, dung, see Lane. ^'

P. 321, line 26. The entire collection of the Elephantine papyri is now published; see E. Sachau, Aramdische Payprus und Ostraka aus einer jUdischen Militdr-kolonie zu Elephantine, Leipzig, 191 1. It now seems clear that the Jewish colony at Elephantine was military in origin.

P. 382, 1. 8 of small print. K3255^ is probably, if a Hebrew name, a hypocoristicon of 0)n>n:j', as is NtV of ^nny, and NVDK' of "in^ytDK^. In the OT (l)n''33B^ occurs only in Chr., Ezr., Neh. But on seals, some of which are probably pre-exilic, it occurs with some frequency ; in^^ntr, probably also n^J^K^, and perhaps ^:3[K'] too, occur stamped on jar handles found at Tell el-Judeideh (about 22 miles from Jerusalem). See M. A. Levy, Siegel u. Gemmen, pp. 40, 45 ; Bliss and Macalister, Excavations in Palestine, 119 f.; Clermont-Ganneau, PEF Qu. St., 1902, pp. 264-266 ; Lidzbarski, Ephemeris, i. 183 (cp. p. 182), ii. 70.

1

INTRODUCTION.

5S 1-2. Title and Place in the Canon,

I. The Book of Isaiah is one of the eight sections, or volumes, entitled D"'fc?''33, Prophets^ which constitute the second of the three parts of which the Hebrew Scriptures, D^N'^33 min D''l'inD1, consist. This part, according to a mediaeval Jewish distinction,* subdivides into D^^t^Ni D"'K''33, the Former Prophets^ consisting of the four books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and the Q*3inK D''fc<^3D, the Latter Prophets^ consisting of the four books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, " The Twelve " (the " Minor Prophets," as the last named is commonly called, constituting a single volume).

In Hebrew printed Bibles, in Hebrew MSS, and in Hebrew tradition, the eight books called " Prophets " form a group which is never broken either by omission or intrusion ; moreover, when and where the custom of confining a single roll f to a single book \ did not exclusively prevail, and many books were written in the same roll or codex, the " former prophets " always precede the " latter prophets " without variation of order. On the other hand, there is evidence of some variation of order within the group of the latter prophets.

In Hebrew printed Bibles, Isaiah immediately follows Kings, and is then followed by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, "The Twelve"; and this is the order of the latter prophets in the earliest extant Hebrew MSS, such as the codices at St. Petersburg,

* H. E. Ryle, The Canon of the Old Testament, p. 228.

t H. St. J. Thackeray argues that in early times each book occupied two

rolls: %t^JThS\\,^ 85-98; Grammar of the OT in Greek, p. 65.

X Lk 4"; Baba Bathra, 13d.

xxiii

XXIV INTRODUCTION

dated in the years which correspond to a.d. 916 and 1009 respectively, and commonly in other MSS, except those written in Germany or France. On the other hand, according to a Rabbinic decision recorded in Baba Bathra^ i4<^,* the correct position of Isaiah is after Ezekiel; this order is also found in many MSS, especially those written in Germany or France. In other MSS, e,g, a Paris MS dated 1286 and Brit. Mus. MS Oriental 2091, a yet different arrangement is found, viz. Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, "The Twelve"; see, further, C. D. Ginsburg, Introd. to the Massoretico- Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible (1897), pp. I ff. For different views of the relative antiquity of the different arrangements and for the reasons of them, see Ryle, Canofiy pp. 225-229 ; E. Konig, Einleitung in das AT^ p. 458.

2. In ffir the " latter prophets " are separated from the "former prophets," Kings being followed by Chronicles, and, in most MSS, by other books also, before any of the "latter prophets" occur. In the arrangement of the group, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, "The Twelve," the MSS of f& differ: in some, e.g. B (and consequently in Swete's edition of C&), A, and V, the minor Prophets precede Isaiah, which is followed by Jeremiah (together with Baruch, Lam., and the Letter of Jeremy) and Ezekiel. In K, Isaiah stands first of the group. Varieties of arrangement are also found in various lists of the Jewish Scriptures in Greek and Latin writers : thus Isaiah stands first of the group, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, " The Twelve," in lists of the Eastern Church, such as those of Melito (latter half of 2nd cent. A.D.), Origen (f 254), Leontius (f c. 543), and in lists of the Western Church, such those of Ruffinus (f 410), and Cassio- dorus (t c. 570) ; but it stands after " The Twelve " in the Eastern lists of Athanasius (t 373), Epiphanius (f 403), Amphilochius (t after 394), John of Damascus (f before 754), the Laodicene Canons (f. 360), and in the Western lists of Hilary (f 367), Augus- tine (t 430), and the Council of Carthage (a.d. 397). See, further, Swete, Introd. to the OT in Greeks pp. 197-230.

3. The title of the Book in Heb. MSS and commonly in Hebrew references is simply iTiyK^, Isaiah ; so in fflr it is Ho-ata?. Occasionally in references to the book fuller titles are found, such as Isaiah the prophet (Acts 8^^, ' Ho-atai/ tov 7rpo<f>T^Tr]v ; cp. v.28)j f^e look of the prophet Isaiah (Lk 4^'^ /StySAtov tov Tr/ao^^Jrou^

* The passage is translated at length in Ryle, Canon, pp. 273 f.

TEXT AND VERSIONS XXV

'Ho-aiov) : in dSt^ the title runs Ho-atas opa/xaricrTOS (rd. opafiaTiaTrj<i) ; but the full title of EV does not rest on MS authority.

The form of the name in the Title — iTj/r' (Origen, Je<T<ria) — differs from that which is used in the Book itself, viz. in'y»\ So also of other prophets whose names ended with the divine name, the shorter form occurs in the title, whether that or the longer form occurs in the books : see n'or, nnay, iTjcj*, n'n3T. That is to say, the form of the name in the title is governed by the usage of the age when the title was added, not by the usage of the Book to which it is prefixed. On the earlier use of both forms, see Bonk, in ZA TfV, 1891, pp. 126 ff. : at the end of proper names the shorter form n' is already exclusively employed in the Assouan and Elephantine Papyri (5th cent. B.C.).

§ 4. Tgxt and Versions,

4. It is unnecessary to write at length on the Text and Versions of the Book of Isaiah, for all that is of peculiar import- ance to the study of this book is limited to the question of the value of the Greek version ; for the rest the conditions are those which are discussed in any general treatment of the Text and Versions of the Old Testament,* and which have also been briefly described by the present writer in Hastings' Smaller Dictionary of the Bible ^ art. Text and Versions. Elaborate accounts of the Versions of Isaiah in particular are given by Ges. (i. 56-106), and (with special reference to chs. 24-27) by Liebmann, in ZATWy 1902, pp. 1-56, 285-304.

In the present work the symbol J^^ is used as a convenient abbreviation for the consonants of the traditional Hebrew text, irrespective of the present word divisions and after the removal of the vowel letters (n, \ ^). It is important to observe that the symbol denotes in any particular instance a hypothetical text ; for though there can be no question that these vowel letters were much more sparingly used in the period when the prophecies were written than later (cp. G-K. § 7), and that they still were more sparingly used as late as the date of the Greek version (see, e.g.^ the phil. nn. on 8^^ 2i2); yet to some extent and for some purposes, especially, for example, to indicate a final vowel, they were employed as early as the age of Isaiah (cp. the Siloam Inscription, Mesha's Inscription, etc.). Nevertheless, in all cases it is important to consider what meaning a passage may have borne apart from these vowel letters ; for there can * See also Dr., Samuel^ Introd. §§ 3-4 (ed. i, pp. xxxvi-lxxxiv).

xxvi INTRODUCTION

4

never be any certainty that they are due to the original author, and at times their presence or absence makes a serious difference to the meaning ; see, e.g., i^^'^^.

The variations* between the existing Hebrew MSS, the earliest of which is dated a.d. 916 (§ i), present as usual but little of interest. Nor are the variants from the consonants of the Hebrew text suggested by the Vulgate, the Targum,t or the Syriac Version, J or the surviving fragments § of the Greek translations (2nd cent. a.d.) of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, numerous or important; more frequently these versions show a different interpretation from that which is embodied in the vowels added by the Massoretes (6th-8th cent. A.D.) to the consonants of the Hebrew text ; cp., as an interesting example, 3^^, where Aq. C render D*B^3, but MT

points D''C'3.

But in spite oF this evidence that the text of Isaiah, in common with that of the rest of the Old Testament, has been handed down with great care since the 2nd cent, a.d., there can be no question that between 700 B.C. and a.d. 100 it suffered in many passages serious corruption. This is clear from internal evidence, as the discussion of numerous passages in the Com- mentary must be left to show. It is also clear that the Greek version, the date of which was probably not much later than 150 B.C. (§ 22), was made from a text differing considerably from 1^. But though the difference between the Hebrew original of the Greek version {(&) and the traditional Hebrew text (J^) is clear, the exact form, and in many cases even the approximate form, of the Hebrew original of ffi cannot be determined. Indeed, it has been questioned whether (& is of any appreciable value for the determination of the original text. For example, Mr. Ottley, to whom we are indebted for a useful edition of Codex Alexandrinus (A) of Isaiah, with introduction and notes, writes, " In Isaiah I find it hard to see that the LXX gives any

* Collected in De Rossi, Variae Lectiones Vet. Test. (1786), vol. iii.

t Lagarde, Prophetae Chaldaice (1872). Cp. Bacher, Kritische unter- suchungen zum Propheten-Thargum^ in ZDMG^ 1874. See, further, the Bibliography in Stenning's art. Targuni, in DB.

X D. L. Warszawski, Die Peschitta zu Jesaja {^Kap. 1-39), ihr Verhaltnis zum massoretischen Texte, zur Septitaginta u. zum largurn, Berlin, 1 897.

§ Collected in F. Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt.

TEXT AND VERSIONS XXVii

proof at all (unless in a few isolated exceptions) of an older and superior Hebrew text : because the translators seem to have been so constantly mistaken in reading their Hebrew, or unable to translate it, as to deprive their witness of all authority " (i. 49) ; and again (p. 50), " the failures of the translator (or translators) in reading his original may have been largely justified by illegibility of MSS, and very likely by abbreviations also ; the actual script may have been difficult. But over and above all this, it seems as if his knowledge of Hebrew was imperfect : and if this was so, he may have thought that he saw before him not merely some- thing different from the reality, but something such as no skilled ' Hebrew writer would have written. The hypothetical Hebrew ' underlying his Greek need not therefore be always good or

^classical Hebrew, and this must be taken into account. If this view be correct, it takes away yet more from any claim of the LXX to give decisive witness as to a Hebrew text older than we have, or can trace from other sources." There is much here that rests on correct observation ; but the conclusions drawn are unsound. There can be little question (i) that the translators sometimes, and even often, misread the Hebrew before them; (2) that their knowledge of Hebrew was imperfect ; (3) that the Hebrew which they thought they saw before them was such as no skilled Hebrew writer would have written. But over against this we have to observe: (i) the possibility that a translator misread his text is balanced by the equal or almost equal probability that copyists of the original text also at times misread ; moreover, what was obviously misreading on the part of the translators does not in all cases seriously conceal the reading which was actually before them, and which may be a valuable variant of the reading in f^, just as while some misprints are extremely confusing, or, simply because they make some sense, dangerous, others that make nonsense are im- mediately detected and understood. We must then reckon with the possibility of mis-copying, whether we follow J^ or whether

-we follow mSc* and we have no more ground for refusing to con-

* Mr. Ottley, indeed, would meet this by a dogmatic consideration, " Some minds, moreover, will still not refuse to entertain the idea that the Heb. text has been guarded, not only by the watchful care of the Jews, but also by the special providence of the Almighty " (ii. p. xvii). Yet even if dogmatic considerations were in place here at all, it is difficult to see why the

XXVIU

INTRODUCTION

sider the evidence of C&, because the translators* sometimes misread their original, than we have for refusing to consider the evidence of |^ ; (2) the lack of knowledge of Hebrew on the part of the translators may in some passages make the recovery of the text which they translated difficult, or impossible ; on the other hand, in other cases it may be the surest pledge of the actual existence of a particular reading; even translators with inadequate knowledge do not make nonsense of their translation in mere wilfulness : if only the nonsense in the translation can, as is sometimes the case, be seen to be the equivalent (or an obvious misreading) of Hebrew letters that, rightly understood, make good sense, we have about the best evidence we can possess that such a Hebrew reading actually existed; the translators of Judges, as is well known, makes nonsense by rendering the precative '^2, iv i/xoi; but an €v i/xot making nonsense is better proof than if it made sense that the translators actually read the Hebrew letters ^3 ; (3) ** Hebrew such as no skilled Hebrew writer would have written " is to be found not only in the Hebrew which the Greek translators in some passages attempt to render, but in the present Hebrew text itself; and in some places where the Hebrew is impossible, or at least poor and improbable, in the present Hebrew text, it is good in what appears to have been before the translators of ffi.

The main difficulty in the use of ffi is occasioned by its tendency, which is at times very conspicuous, to paraphrase. But though it is important that this should be fully recognised, and duly allowed for, it is still the fact that the mass of the translation is either not paraphrastic at all, or not paraphrastic in such a manner as to prevent the recognition of the Hebrew text lying behind it. Generally speaking, ffi: renders three different forms of service: (i) where it agrees with J^, it proves the existence of the reading in question at least as early as c. 150 B.C. ; (2) where it differs from J^, and the Hebrew lying behind it is obvious, it proves the existence of a reading differing from J^ about 150 B.C. ; (3) even when it is obviously paraphrastic it may more or less clearly support f^ (cp. e.g. 8^n.), or raise a more or less serious suspicion of J^.

Almighty granted to the text of the Jews a special Providence which He withheld from the Greek Text, which became the Bible of the Christian Church.

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH A POST-EXILIC COMPILATION XXIX

Much more work needs to be done, both on the text of G itself, which at present needs in many passages to be laboriously sought for,* and on the idiosyncrasies of the translators ; and till this has been accomplished, the actual evidence of Cr cannot be either exhaustively or in all cases accurately determined. At present it is necessary for each succeeding investigator of the Book of Isaiah to test critically the suggestions of his predecessors, for readings have been claimed for 6r on very questionable grounds ; and, on the other hand, there are readings latent in ffi that have not been considered. A difficult practical question, however, arises, viz., how in a commentary of limited scope to discuss with fullness f the evidence of this version, or to indicate it with brevity without at the same time misleading the reader. It has been found impossible to include a reference to all variants or possible variants, and it has seemed best where the Hebrew equivalent of (Sc is ambiguous to quote the Greek rather than, if not as well as, a possible Hebrew equivalent. Occasion- ally the Greek has been cited without comment where it may seem to some at least to raise or strengthen a reasonable suspicion of the correctness of the text of f^.

Valuable special studies of the Greek translation of (& and the Hebrew text underlying it are those of Liebmann (see p. 397 below) on chs. 24-27, and Zillesen on oh. 53, in ZATPVxxv. 261-284.

§§ 5-7. TAe Book of Isaiah a post-exilic Compilation.

5. It is probable that the title "Isaiah," attached to the entire book (§ 3), was intended to imply that the prophet Isaiah was the author of the whole, and that the book, as we now have it, owed its form to him. It is true that it would be in accord-

* Swete, OTin Greeks vol. iii., prints the text of B with the variants of K A O Q Z r ; other variants must be sought in Holmes and Parsons, Vet. Test. Graece, iii. For attempts to group the MSS of Isaiah, see Liebmann, in ZATW, 1902, pp. 9ff. ; Ottley, i. Sff. The proportion of the Old Latin Version of ffi that has survived is fortunately large — about three-quarters of the whole ; see Petrus Sabatier, Bibliorum sacrorum versiones antiquaey ii.

515-^39.

t A reference to the notes on 2* 25^'- 34'^'", in ZATW, 191 1, pp. m- 127, will show what is the present writer's conception of adequate fullness, and the consequent impossibility of discussing all the passages that need it, with any approach to fullness in the present work.

XXX INTRODUCTION

ance with Jewish practice to entitle the book from a prominent word in the opening sentence,* and such is the name Isaiah, though title and book differ as to the orthography of the name (§ 3)) true, too, that the Talmud, in the passage already (§ i) referred to, records that " Hezekiah and his college wrote Isaiah " — whatever that may mean.f Yet the simplest supposition is that the titles of the " latter prophets " implied authorship from the first, as they certainly suggested it later. Be this, however, as it may, the references in the NT (§§ iif.) are sufficient evidence that it was customary, as early as the ist cent, a.d., to attribute anything and everything in the book so entitled to Isaiah, and the passage in Sir. discussed below (§ 14) carries back this custom to the beginning of the 2nd century B.C. It is precarious to infer the existence of a conflicting theory, or tradition, from the fact that Isaiah, according to some authorities, had its place in the Canon after Jeremiah and Ezekiel

But ancient as the theory that Isaiah is the author of all that is in the book that bears his name may be, it is certainly very erroneous. The book is badly arranged : to refer to but a single point, the account of the prophet's call stands not at the beginning, where we might expect it (cp. Jer i, Ezk i, Hos i, but cp. Am 7^^^*), but in ch. 6. Yet bad arrangement dy itself need prove nothing more at most than that the arrangement of the material was not due to Isaiah : the material arranged might still be entirely his ; Mohammed was the author, though not the arranger, of the entire Koran, and an analogy for the position of the account of Isaiah's call in the middle of the book may be found in the fact that Mohammed's call is only recorded towards the close of the Koran (Sura 96).!

6. The proof that Isaiah is, nevertheless, not the author of the Book of Isaiah, lies in the fact that a large part of the Book was written at the least two centuries after his time, and some of it later still. How large a part is subsequent to the age of Isaiah it may be difficult to determine ; but even a superficial critical survey of the Book must discern that so much is subsequent

* Cp. e.g. nanD3 as a title of Numbers : Numbers, p. xx. t Cp. Driver, LOT, p. viif. ; Cheyne, Introd. p. xviii. X Cp. G. B. Gray, The Comparative Study of Semitic Literature, in the Contemporary Review, July 1907, pp. 84 fF,

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH A POST-EXILIC COMPILATION xxxi

to his age that it is incorrect and misleading to speak or think of the Book as the work of Isaiah; it is, on the other hand, a compilation of the post-exilic period, containing, it is true, prophecies of Isaiah which were already ancient when the Book was compiled, but containing also, and in larger quantity, prophecies and narratives of much more recent date.

Just as parts of the Book unmistakably presuppose the conditions of the 8th century b.c. as those under which they were written, so others as clearly pre-suppose the conditions of the 6th century. Thus 9*^-10* pre-supposes the existence oVi^^i'* Fl^cc^ "^ the Northern kingdom, which came to an end in 722 B.C., and ' J Jf JPy predicts its fall ; chs. 40-55 pre-suppose the Babylonian Exile, ? ^ ^ </,

which began in 597 (586) B.C., as an existing fact, and predict its approaching end, presuppose that Cyrus has already advanced far in his victorious career, and predict that he will become master of Babylon (which as a matter of fact he did in 538 b.c.), ^ and release the Jewish exiles. A prophecy, unless it can be ; shown to be a vaticifitum ex eventu^ must have been written before -^ what it predicts, but after what it pre-supposes; 9^-10* was therefore written before 722 b.c., and 40-55 before 538; but the latter section, since it pre-supposes that Cyrus has already achieved remarkable victories, must have been written after c. 550 B.C. Much of chs. 56-66 probably pre-supposes conditions that prevailed nearly a century later — in the middle of the 5th century ; but this is less superficially obvious and as yet less ..^ generally admitted. Ch. 13 pre-supposes an age when Babylon ^^ ^ ^^ > ^ was still "the glory of kingdoms" (13^^) but already threatened by the Medes : the conditions, not predicted but pre-supposed as already existing, are again not those of the age of Isaiah, when Assyria was the dominant worldpower ; they are those of the 6th century B.C., the age of the Babylonian exile, which is almost unmistakably pre-supposed also in 14^'*; thus 132-142, like 40- 55, was written long subsequent to the age of Isaiah. On similar grounds, not to speak here of passages of more ambiguous origin, ai^"^*^ 24-27. 34 f. must have been written not earlier than the 6th century B.C.

7. Thus, then, we have to recognise in the Book of Isaiah at least these different elements : (a) prophecies of the 8th century B.C., {b) prophecies of the 6th century B.C. or later, and {c) the work of an editor who brought together these prophecies which,

xxxii INTRODUCTION

though so widely separated in time, are intermingled in a single compilation.

The fact that the Book of Isaiah is not the work of the prophet of Isaiah, but a post-exilic compilation, ought to be the starting-point in all detailed criticism, or interpretation of the Book. In a continuous work, such as the historical narratives of Josephus or Thucydides, alien matter may have intruded ; but, unless signs of interpolation can be detected, the presumption is that any section of the whole is of the same origin as the rest. On the other hand, in a compilation of disconnected pieces of different authorship and different ages, no such presumption holds : each piece must be judged by itself. It does not follow that a passage is not Isaiah's because it contains no unmistak- able evidence that it was written in the 8th century ; but just as little does it follow that a passage must be Isaiah's because it bears no unmistakable marks of belonging to a later age. It may well be that much in this or any similar compilation must, for lack of decisive evidence, remain of uncertain date and origin. But the fact that much proves uncertain or ambiguous, when we attempt a more detailed and exact analysis of the Book and its contents, cannot invalidate the conclusion that follows from what is obvious, viz., that the Book is a post-exilic compila- tion : nor is it wise to minimise the significance of this conclusion.

We may now proceed to a more detailed examination of the origin of the Book of Isaiah : and in the first instance to an examination of the external evidence to the existence of the Book.

§§ 8-19. Origin and History of the Book of Isaiah : (i) External Evidence.

8. Apart from the significance of the Greek version (§§ 20- 22), and the history of the Prophetic Canon (§§ 23-26), external evidence shows : (i) that the Book of Isaiah in its present form and extent existed at latest by the end of the ist century a.d. (§§ 10-13); (2) that a Book of Isaiah having certain of the most conspicuous features of the present Book, if not the present Book itself, existed about 180 b.c. (§§ 14-17); moreover, certain external evidence suggests (3) that part of the Book of Isaiah,

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH xxxill

viz. chs. 40-66 in whole or in part, about 300-200 b.c. passed in certain circles under the name of Jeremiah (§§ 18, 19). The most reasonable inference from the evidence is that neither the present Book of Isaiah nor a book either approaching it in extent or possessing its outstanding features existed long before 200 B.C., but that either this present Book or a book possessing the same outstanding features and attributed to Isaiah existed not long after that date.

9. The nature of the Book of Isaiah, as indicated in §§ 5-7, necessarily limits the significance of certain forms of external evidence. A quotation of known age from any part of a work like the histories of Thucydides or Josephus would determine the terminus ad quern of the entire work, even though it were anonymous ; but a mere quotation, say from ch. 66 of the Book of Isaiah, while it would determine the terminus ad quem of that particular prophecy, would prove nothing as to the date of the Book of Isaiah ; for the quotation might be from ch. 66 before that chapter was included in the compilation that now bears the name of Isaiah, just as a quotation (Jer 26^^) from a prophecy now included in "The Twelve" (Mic 3^2^ only proves that Micah's prophecy existed before Jeremiah's time, and proves nothing with regard to the date of " The Twelve," which as a matter of fact also contains prophecies of the 5th cent. (Malachi), and cannot have been compiled for at least two centuries after the quotation in Jeremiah.

10. But there is other evidence that is available for proving not only the date of some particular passage, but of the book in which such passages are incorporated.

It is unnecessary to labour the point that the conclusion of the Canon of the Jewish Scriptures, which may be fixed about the end of the ist cent, a.d., prevented henceforth any addition to, or alteration in, the books included within it ; and that since Isaiah formed part of this Canon, the Book at that time existed in its present form and extent. It will suffice to refer, for a matter so generally admitted, to standard works on the Canon of the Old Testament.

But in view of recent theories (§ 17) that would place the final stages in the compilation of the Book of Isaiah much later than was formerly considered possible, it is worth collecting the evidence of the New Testament of which some {e.g» Romans)

VOL. I. — c

XX XIV

INTRODUCTION

carries us back to the middle of the ist cent. a.d., and all to some part of that century.

Quotations from, or allusions to, the Book of Isaiah in the NT may be divided into three classes : the first class consists of those quotations which specify Isaiah, or the Book of Isaiah, as the source ; the second specify or imply the Jewish Scriptures as the source ; and the third, mostly allusions rather than quotations, specify no source. Only the first two classes are of interest here.

IT. The passages from Isaiah (J^ or ffi) cited in the NT with direct reference to that book, and the NT passages in which the citations are made, are as follows :

Is i^ cited in Ro 9^^.

69f.

Mt I3i4f-, Jn i240f-, Ac 2 826f. ; cp. Mk 4I2, Lk 810.

82391(91^.),, Mt4i5^-.

I022f.		»	Ro 927^.
„10		»	Ro 1512.
29I3		»	Mt 158^-, Mk f^:
4o3-5		»	Mt 33, Mk i'^ Lk 3^-6, Jn i^.
42I-4		»	Mt 12I8-21.
53^		»	Ro iqIS, Jn 1 25^8.
53^		})	Mt 817.
53'^-		a	Ac 832*..
6iif-		»	Lk 4i8f-.
651^-		jj	Ro io20f-.

12. The passages cited with some formula implying that they are derived from the Jewish Scriptures, or in some cases more specifically from "the prophet(s)" (Mt 122, Jn 6*^ Ac 7*^), are :

IS71*		cited	in Mt i23.
814 ( + 2	'816)		„ Ro 9=^3 (i p 28).
glTf.			„ He 213.
25«			„ I Co 1554.
28iif.			„ I Co 1421
2816			„ Ro 933 loii, I P 2«
29io( +	610)		„ Ro 118.
2914			„ I Co ii9.
(406-8)			„ (i P i24f.).

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH XXXV

45^"		cited	in	Ro 14I1.
49'		}f	>>	Ac 1347.
49*		>»	))	2 Co 62.
S»»		>»	M	Ro 224.
5^^ =	Nah	■") „	»	Ro ioi«.
52"		>)	)>	2 Co 6^7.
S3"		>>	J)	(Mk 1528), Lk 2 237.
54'		)>	J>	Gal 4^^.
54"		i>	J>	Jn 645.
5S»		>J	M	Ac 13^4^
56^		»	»	Mt 2ii3=Mk iii7 = Lk I94«.
5920f.		))	J>	Ro Il26f..
64*		»	>>	I Co 29 (free).
66Jt		))	))	Ac 749^-.

13. In addition to these quotations in the NT, the following quotations from Josephus {B/^ written about 73-75 a.d., and Anf., written about 93 a.d.) and other works of the ist century A.D. may be given here :

Is i^® is referred to Isaiah in Asc. Is 3^®.

19^9* j^ j^ ^^ Jos. Anf. xiii. 3^; -^vii. lo^.

4428 4^1 ^^ ^^ ^^ Jos. Anf, xi. ii^-.

432 „ „ „ 4 Mac 1 81*.

Philo (first half of the ist cent a.d.) refers Is i* to "a certain prophet, the kinsman and friend of Moses (Quaes f. 43)."

14. We may next consider the evidence of the Book of Ecclesiasticus, which was written about 180 B.c.t The author in his praise of famous men (44^-5021) writes thus of Isaiah

(4822-25) . J __

* It would perhaps be arguable, though the point is not here put forward as having any probability, that Jos. refers to an uncanonical pseudepigraphon whence Is 19^** was subsequently incorporated in the present Book ; he speaks not only of a or ^Ae Book of Isaiah, but also of his books : see An^. xi. i^ t6 ^i^Xlop rrjs avroO vpoiprjreias 6 'Haatas KaTiXiire ; Ant. x. 2' diravd* 8<ra 7rpoe<f>rjT€v<X€v iyypdyj/as ^i/3\otj /carAtTrei'.

t Mr. Hart {Ecclesiasticus in Greek) argues ingeniously, but unsuccessfully (cp. e.g. Kennett, p. 89), that Ecclesiasticus was written c. 280 B.C.

X Du. (p, vii) remarks, without, however, alleging any reason, that it is by no means certain that Ben Sirach wrote /\%'^'^.

a-

XXXVl INTRODUCTION

22 For Hezekiah did that which was good,*

And was strong in the ways of David, f Which Isaiah the prophet commanded (him), Who was great and faithful in his vision. J

23 In his days § the sun stood still,||

And he added life to the king; .2* By the spirit of might he saw the end, -^ And comforted the mourners in Sion :

25 Yor ever he declared things that should be, And hidden things before they came.

Just before this passage, in vv.^^^*, Ben Sirach had summarised, as the most significant events of Hezekiah's days, the approach and overthrow of Sennacherib, and, referring to the prayer of the people to God, had said, playing on the name of Isaiah (cp. Is 7^*), as in v.22b j^g plays on the name of Hezekiah, that Yahweh " saved them by the hand of Isaiah " (in''yiJ'^ n^3 Dy^'Vl).

15. From the main passage we can infer with certainty that this writer referred, and that apparently without any uncertainty, chs. 40-66, or at least what is most characteristic in those chapters, to the prophet Isaiah. V.^* refers unmistakably to the recurrent arguments from prophecy in, e.g.^ 4121-24 4^9 ^59 48"^^-, and vv.24*^' are intentionally coloured with the phraseology of Is 40-66 : what the idols could not do, Isaiah by the spirit of might

(cp. Is 1 12) could : cp. nnriDii ni\-i3 T^n cf?\v ny . . . n^nnx nrn |Kn ':zh with iK'ya i6 "ik'k dipdi rr'nns h^c^nid t-^d (Is 4610), nanpn is^k ns i:i> n'»r (Is 4122). Cp. also p^x ^i»3« Dm''^ with

^Dj; IDHD IDm (Is 40^), 'li1 VV '^2^6 D1S5'i» D-bx b Dnji> (Is 6 1 2^-).

t Of David, %%-, ^ his father, ©.

X Vv.22C' ^- 23 are missing, through mutilation of the MS, from ^. Vv.22o- d 23 above are translated from ©. For "^ 5 has |Ym? ] .^ v ^ ^ Vn the {most) praiseworthy of the prophets, ffi is probably correct. 'Ef opdvet aiiTov, in his vision, probably corresponds to uunn in the original ; cp. Spaais = pin in 40^, and also, e.g., in Is i^, Nah i^ ; but it might also =inNnoa : cp. 11^ 49^; that it renders nann (cp. 46^"), as Peters infers, is improbable, more especially if opdo-ews in 46^' is a gloss from 48^ (Smend, Peters).

§'E»' rats rj/Jiipais avrov : & 01, »/^? ^Q{)V), becatise by his hand'. cp. 46^.

irAi'e7r65i(re»' = nDy, 46^ in reference to Jos 10^^; here, too, probably avtirbbKytv renders ^Dy, though the allusion is to B'Dcn dbti, koX dvi^-q 0 ijXios, Is 388.

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH XXXVii

i6. We can, further, infer with great probability that in Ben Sirach's Book of Isaiah chs. 40-66 were already preceded by chs. 36-39, and certain visions, or prophecies (cp. n. on ptn in i^ in the Commentary), corresponding to some or all of chs. i- 35. V.23 certainly refers to the narrative that appears both in 2 K 20 and Is 38 ; Ben Sirach has already (vv.^^^i) drawn on the group of narratives (2 K 17^^-20 = Is 36-39) to which this belongs in his praise of Hezekiah ; his recurrence to it in prais- ing Isaiah is best accounted for by the supposition that these chapters stood in his Book of Isaiah : for he selects in praising the prophets Jeremiah (49^^-) and Ezekiel (49^*^-) certain phrases or incidents from the books that bear their names. The entire first part of Is., viz. chs. 1-35, would be summarily recalled by the term vision in v.^s^^ if that word already stood in the title to the whole Book of Isaiah (i^)

17. The great characteristic of the Book of Isaiah as it now exists is that it consists of a group of prophecies, chs. 1-35, which we will call A ; a historical section, chs. 36-39, B ; and another group of prophecies, chs. 40-66, C. The present book, then, expressed in a formula, is A + B + C.

It is highly probable, if not certain, that the Book of Isaiah as it existed c. 180 B.C. already consisted of A + B + C, just as the " Book of the Twelve " must already have contained twelve sections referred to twelve different prophets ; cp. Sir 49^0.

But the question remains : were the three parts as they existed then co-extensive with the three parts as they exist now?"^

This is a question which the direct testimony of external evidence does not answer. Till recently the identity of Ben Sirach's Book of Isaiah and our own was not questioned. But Du. and several others since have claimed that both A and C received accretions after 180 B.C. It is entirely a question of probability which must be estimated in the light of internal as well as external evidence.

18. Meantime we may proceed to consider the evidence of 2 Ch 3622^' = Ezr 1^-3. This appears to give a terminus a quo for the Book of Isaiah, to show that when Chronicles was written, i.e. not earlier than 300 b.c., and perhaps later, though a Book of Isaiah may have existed, and doubtless did exist, it was less extensive than the present Book ; that as yet chs. 40-66 formed no part of it.

XXXVlll

INTRODUCTION

The last verses of Chronicles read as follows :

20^ And they (viz. the exiles) were servants to him (Nebu chadnezzar) and his sons, until the rule of the sovereignty of Persia, ^i in order to fulfil (niK^oi') the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land enjoyed her sabbaths : all the days of its desolation, it kept sabbath to fulfil seventy years. 22 And in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order to complete (nii?3f5) the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, and he made proclamation through all his kingdom and also (put it) in writing, saying, 23 Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, "All the kingdoms of the earth hath Yahweh, God of Heaven, given to me, and he hath commanded concerning me that I should build for him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah : whosoever then is among you of all his people, Yahweh his God be with him, and let him go up (Ezr i^) to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of Yahweh, the God of Israel."

In v.21 the Chronicler quite obviously, and even explicitly, refers to the fulfilment of the prophecy in Jer 29^^ that the Exile would last seventy years and then come to an end. In vy22f. and Ezr i3 = Ezr i^"^ it seems equally obvious that the Chronicler is referring to the fulfilment of Yahweh's words in Is 4428, Cyrus " shall perform all my pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built, and to the Temple, Thy foundation shall be laid," just as the words that immediately follow in Is. " Thus saith Yahweh to . . . Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him and to loose the loins of kings" (45^), obviously seem to prompt the opening words of Cyrus' decree in Ezr i2*.

19. But this prophecy in Is 442^ is referred not to Isaiah, but to Jeremiah ! unless, therefore, appearance deceive us, Is 40- 66 was attributed by the Chronicler, and if so, certainly not by him alone, to Jeremiah ; in this case chs. 40-66 as yet formed no part of a Book of Isaiah.

Du. seems to have been the first to recognise the obvious significance of 2 Ch 3622'' fQj. tjjg history of the Book of Isaiah. It had been obscured previously, and is still obscured, by a prevalent, but most improbable, inter- pretation {e.g. see Ryle, Bertholet, Curtis on the passage) : according to this interpretation, v.^^ as well as y.^^ refers to the prophecy of seventy years ; but (i) v.^2 is far more naturally taken as giving an additional statement to

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH XXxix

v.^^ rather than a mere repetition, as referring to a further fulfihnent rather than repeating a reference to the same ; note, "and in the first year," etc. ;

(2) though m^aV, v.^, might be a mere synonym of hkSdS, v. 2^, it is at least as probable that it means in order to complete the fulfilment of what Jeremiah said : Jeremiah had prophesied that the exile must last seventy years : it had done so, and that prophecy was fulfilled (v.^i) : Jeremiah had also (in Is 44^ 45^) prophesied that Cyrus would secure the rebuilding of the Temple ; in order to complete the fulfilment of Jeremiah's predictions, Yahweh had moved Cyrus to give the Jews permission to return and build the Temple ;

(3) whether we admit the distinction in (2) or not, v.^ is closely linked with v.^, and the prophecy to be fulfilled, referred to in v.'^, is most naturally identified with the prophecy cited by Cyrus in his decree in v.^ ; only so is the entire form of vv.^'- really explained ; if v.^ was merely to repeat v.**, the writer would rather have said simply, In the first year of Cyrus, Yahweh brought up the people, or moved Cyrus to let the people return, to Judah ; the double reference to the building of the house clearly indicates that this is the point to which the writer in v.^ moves forward.

It would be preferable, if the interpretation just suggested were proved impossible, to infer that Jeremiah in \.^ has been accidentally substituted for Isaiah, or that the entire clause i.tdt 'S3 m.T nan ni'?3'? in v. 22 is a mis- placed variant of 'n' 'S3 rriiT 'yi'x rwvhvh in v.*^ But inasmuch as other con- siderations tend to show that the Book of Isaiah was certainly not complete much, if at all, before 180 B.C., and there is certainly no evidence to show that chs. 40-66 were attributed to Isaiah much earlier than Sir 48^^"^ {c. 180 B.C.), it is unnecessary to assume textual corruption, and very unwise to prefer an unnatural to an obvious interpretation * of 2 Ch 36^.

§§ 20-27. Origin and History of the Book of Isaiah : (2) The Greek Version and the Prophetic Canon.

20. In addition to the direct external testimony to the exist- ence of the Book of Isaiah before the ist cent, a.d., there are two important matters that indirectly testify to it — the existence of an early Greek version of the Book, and the existence of a

* It is interesting to observe how Josephus, intentionally or unintention- ally, softens down the difficulty ; and it is significant that he quite clearly and naturally sees in 2 Ch 36^ a fulfilment of Is 44^^ 45^ : see Ant. xi. i^* 2, especially § 2, where he says : '* Now Cyrus knew this (raCra, viz. that Cyrus* name had been foretold by the * prophets,' etc. ) from reading the book of his prophecies which Isaiah left behind him : for this (prophet) said secretly [iv 6Liro{)p-f)Tif) that God spoke thus to him : * My will is, that Cyrus, whom I have appointed king of many and great nations, send my people to their own land, and build my Temple.' This Isaiah foretold 140 years before the Temple was demolished. Accordingly, when Cyrus read this ... an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to carry out (7rot^<rot) what was so written," etc.

xl INTRODUCTION

prophetic canon prior to the conclusion of the entire Canon of the Old Testament at the end of the ist cent. a.d.

(a) The Greek Version.

In respect of the relation between the Hebrew text and the Greek version, the Book of Isaiah presents a striking contrast to the Book of Jeremiah. The Greek version of the Book of Jeremiah differs widely from the present Hebrew text both in extent and in arrangement : from this fact it is a reasonable inference that at the time the Greek version was made the form and extent of Jeremiah had not been firmly fixed, and it is a tolerably certain inference that at that time even the prophetic books were not protected from re-arrangement and expansion by any theory of the sanctity of Scripture such as protected the entire Canon from the ist cent. a.d. onward. In arrangement the Book of the Twelve also differs in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles. On the other hand, both in extent and arrangement^ the present Hebrew Text and the Greek Version of the Book of Isaiah ar^ substantially identical. Two or three' verses (2^2 381^ 40"^ 56^-), present in |^, are absent in ©, and in sundry other places ffi is shorter than J^ by a clause or two ; and in much the same number of cases © has clauses not found in J^. There is no difference of arrangement.

The most natural and obvious conclusion to draw is that, at the date when the Greek version was made, the Book of Isaiah had already reached its present form and 2i\sOy with the possible excep- tion of some or all of the slight + and - of ffi, its present extent.

21. An alternative conclusion is, mdetdi possible : a Book of

Isaiah, smaller than the present, may have been translated into

Greek at a certain date; additions may have been made after

that date to the Hebrew text, and these additions may have been

subsequently translated into Greek, and added to the existing Greek

version, yet so that their position in the version corresponded

exactly to their position in the original (ct. Jeremiah). But if

this were actually the case, the additions to the original Greek

version should reveal themselves as such by differences of style

and method, for even quite brief additions to the original text of

(& are commonly betrayed by stylistic differences.* But as a

matter of fact the Greek version of Isaiah is marked in general

* See nn. on 11^ and the references in Thackeray, Grammar^ p. 294, under "Interpolations."

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH xH

by greater homogeneity of style than the versions of Jeremiah and " the Twelve" : such differences as exist are not perhaps sufficient to prove difference of translators, and, if they are sufficient, they would point to chs. 40-66 (or perhaps 40-55, 56-66) proceeding as a whole from one translator and chs. 1-39 as a whole from another ; they would lend no probability to a theory that such parts of the Book of Isaiah {e.g. chs. 24-27) as have been regarded by some recent writers as the latest parts of the book, and not written before the last third of the 2nd cent. B.C., were translated by a different hand from that which translated the main body of chs. 1-39.

Thackeray has argued that whereas three hands are distinguishable in the Greek version of Jeremiah (a. chs. 1-28 ; /3. 29-51 ; 7. 52 — Greek enumera- tion) and two in Ezekiel (o. chs. 1-27 and 40-48 ; /3. 28-39, including a heterogeneous section /3^. 36-^"'^), there is no similar evidence pointing to the work of different translators in Isaiah ; he is able 10 point to common character- istics that run through the whole Book of Isaiah, for example, the translitera- tion of mxas in the phrase ni«3J< niiT, which, rarely found outside Isaiah, occurs in Isaiah fifty-three times ; the phrase /xiKpbs kuI fx^yas, or &irb fiiKpov ^ws fieyiXov, occurs in five places (9'^ (^^' 22"* ^* 23*' ^^)> where the Hebrew does not immediately suggest it ; the phrase e^s rbv aluva xp^'^o*' is used seven times in Isaiah, and elsewhere only in Ex 14"*, Bar 3^*^ (cp. rbv aldva xpbvov, V.*'), Jth 15^** : and in general Isaiah is marked by greater correctness of style than Jeremiah and Ezekiel : see/T/iS iv. 245-266, 398-41 1 ; Grammar^ 11 f. I have myself drawn attention to differences as between chs. 1-39 and 40-66, and amongst others to differences in the use of the article and in the rendering of tdk na and dkj ; the particles ?rdXt»', 5iJ, bioTi^ and rolvvv, which are frequent in chs. 1-39, are almost entirely absent from chs. 40-66 : see /TAS, 1911, pp. 286-293.

22. What, then, is the date of the Greek version ? Briefly stated, the most important evidence is as follows : — (i) the author of Wisdom, commonly supposed to have written about 50 B.C.,* must have been familiar with the existing version of Isaiah, for in 2^2 be quotes the very peculiar version of Is 3^^ ffi : cp. also Wis 15^® with Is 44^0 ffi. Other later or more uncertain but interesting traces of ffir are to be found in 4 Mac iS^*^- (cp. Is 432), Orac. Sibyll. iii. 606 (cp. Is 2^^^-), 708 ff. (cp. Is ii^ff-); (2) the translator of Ecclesiasticus in his prologue (c. 132 B.C.) refers to (Greek) versions of "the law and the prophecies (at 7rpo<j>7)T€Lai) and the rest of the books " ; (3) the style and language of the version.

* Thackeray {Grammar, 61 f.), on grounds of Greek orthography, proposes an earlier date, c. 130 B.C. ; cp. Church Quart. Keviezv, Oct. 1910, pp. 209 f.

\

xlii INTRODUCTION

It is possible that a more thorough and detailed investigation of the style and language of fflr may yield more convincing results than have been obtained at present. Thackeray {JThS iv. 583, x. 300-303) adduces considerations, worthy indeed of attention, but by no means final or conclusive on this particular issue, to show that Isaiah was translated earlier than the other prophetical books : (l) the Greek of Isaiah approaches more nearly than that of the other prophetical books to the classical style : in the Grammar^ Thackeray classifies it as good koiv^ Greek with the Pentateuch, translated in the 3rd cent. B.C., but also with i Mac. which cannot have been written before the end of the 2nd cent. B.C.; (2) "the greater ease of style, and the tendency to give a free rather than a verbatim rendering," may ho. "marks of a comparatively early date," though the analogy of the Aramaic Versions would, so far as it had any value, point to the opposite conclusion; the earliest Targum is far less free than the later Targums ; (3) some of the renderings in Isaiah agree with renderings in the Book of Exodus; there are also, it may be added, affinities with renderings in other books of the Pentateuch ; see Ges. i. 56, and cp. the use of 6.px<^v as an equivalent in Pent, and Is. (also in Ezk.) of l'?D, to which H. Wiener draws attention in Bibli- otheca Sacra^ 191 1> PP- 491 ff. In the Grammar^ Thackeray "conjectures" that Isaiah may have been translated near the beginning of the 2nd cent. B.C., the other prophetical books nearer its close. The occurrences in Isaiah of the form ovQd% (ixrjdels) and oidels {firjdeis) would indicate a date not much, if at all, before 132 B.C., if we could trust the orthographical tradition: unfortunately we cannot do so ; see Thackeray, Grammar, pp. 58 ff. It is scarcely safe at present to assert more than that proof is not yet forthcoming that the language and style of the version are less compatible with a date c. 150 B.C., or even earlier, than with a later date.

The Greek version, then, is certainly not later than the Book of Wisdom, t.e. than the first half of the ist cent. b.c. More- over, either (a) this version is earlier than 132 B.C., or (d) the prophecies referred to in the Prologue to Sir. did not include Is., or (c) the version known to the author of the Prologue and the existing version are not identical. Of these alternatives (a) is the most probable, though neither (d) nor (c) can be ruled out as absolutely impossible; and, indeed, if Thackeray is right in considering the version of large parts of 2-4 Kings to be not earlier than the ist cent. B.C., then the TrpofftrjTeiat of the Prologue to Sir. were at all events not co-extensive with the books of the " prophetic Canon " (cp. §1).

Failing good evidence to the contrary, it will be wise to reckon with the probability that the Greek version of Isaiah existed, if not even earlier, at least very soon after 150 B.C., and consequently that by the same date the Book of Isaiah had attained its present extent, except for any sections which can be

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH xliii

shown to have been translated into Greek by other hands than those responsible for the main body of the work (cp. § 21).

23. {b) The "prophetic Canon."

After the final determination of the Canon of Scripture at the end of the First Century a.d., every book included in it was protected from expansion or alteration (§ 10). But the final determination of the Canon was, probably, the last of three stages, of which the first was the acceptance of the Law, i.e. the Pentateuch, in the 5th cent. B.C. (Neh 8); the second consisted in the constitution of a second group of sacred writings, which continue to exist as the second part of the Hebrew Bible, "the Prophets" (§ i). This second stage was probably reached early in the 2nd cent B.C. ; for Daniel, written^. 167 B.C., though it would naturally belong to the group, as a matter of fact forms no part of it.*

24. Can we then argue : The prophetic Canon was complete before the middle of the 2nd century B.C., probably even before c. 165 B.C., the Book of Isaiah forms part of that Canon, there- fore the Book of Isaiah can contain nothing of Maccabaean origin, can scarcely contain anything written after the close of the 3rd cent. B.c. ? The argument has been used, and its validity has been disputed. It is scarcely safe to press it too far, or to rely on it exclusively. The final determination of the entire Canon falls at a period (ist-2nd cent. a.d.) when we have evidence that a very strict theory of the letter of Scripture was developing. But we are not justified in assuming that the same theory existed in the 2nd cent. B.C., and that it was applied to the earlier and smaller bodies of Scripture that had gained, or were then gaining, form and recognition. As a matter of fact, we have evidence that such a theory, even if it existed, was ineffective : " the Law " received additions after the time of Ezra (Numbers^ p. xxxi ff".), the Books of Jeremiah and "The Twelve " differ in extent or arrangement or both in fflr and J^, Isaiah (J^) itself has in all probability received some very slight additions even after the date of €r, and harmless additions to the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch {Numbers^ p. xxxviii f.)

* For a fuller discussion of the summary statements of this section, refer- ence must again be made to standard works on the Canon. It is to be observed that Du. (p. vif.) disputes the value of the argument from the absence of Daniel.

xliv INTRODUCTION

show a similar tendency in the neighbouring Samaritan com- munity.

Thus the rigid theory of the finality of Scripture and the strict division between Scripture and its interpretation, which prevailed from the ist cent. a.d. downwards, had been preceded by a period during which the ancient words of the prophets were subject to adaptation to the new conditions and needs of later generations. Ancient promise or threat and modern interpreta- tion, application, or modification, were at this period not kept absolutely distinct, but were combined into new written words adapted to present needs.

25. And yet the failure of Daniel to be incorporated in the prophetic Canon shows that in some degree the extent of expansion or change to which " the Prophets " were subjected was limited. Is it likely that entire sections like chs. 24-27, (32) 34-35 were first incorporated in the Book of Isaiah after the middle, or even after the end, of the 2nd cent. b.c. ? Daniel and, say. Is 24-27 are, indeed, not quite in the same case: to have included Daniel in the prophetic Canon would have been to expand that Canon by the introduction of the work of a prophet not yet recognised ; whereas, if chs. 24-27 had indepen- dently established a claim to be Isaiah's, their inclusion merely meant that the work of a prophet already recognised in the Canon was made more complete.

On the whole, it seems improbable that long sections not obviously related to the existing Book, and the place which they now occupy in it, were first incorporated in it after "the Prophets " had become a body of Scripture. They would naturally, like Daniel, have found their way into the "writings."

26. Du. and Marti dismiss the argument from the Canon altogether, on the ground that the History of the Canon must be judged by what it contains and not vice versa. This is perfectly true ; and if any section of the Book bears unmistakable evidence of having been written at the end of the 2nd cent. B.C., it certainly follows that the Book of Isaiah and the prophetic Canon were still open to expansion as late as that. But if it is a case of probability merely, if it merely seems probable, without appearing certain, that a section of the Book was written at so late a date, then we are justified in placing probability over-against prob- ability : a possible, but not necessary, theory of the interpretation

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH xlv

and origin of a section may rightly be judged unproven if it conflicts with the probable, even though not certain, history of the prophetic Canon.

27. Reviewing the various lines of evidence which have already been discussed, we should not expect to find much in the present Book of Isaiah that was written after c. 180 B.C., still less to find much that was written after r. 150 B.C., unless differenced in (K can be established which point to different translators. On the other hand, there is no reason why even much of the Book may not have been written as late as the 3rd cent. B.C., for our present Book, in common probably with the Book of the Twelve, appears to have taken shape within that century, and rather perhaps towards its close than its beginning. Whether matter so late even as the 3rd cent. B.C., and, if any, how much of such matter is to be found in the Book, will be determined mainly by internal evidence.

§ 28-35. Origin and History of the Book of Isaiah : (3) The Testimony of the Book of Isaiah to itself.

28. When we turn to interrogate the Book itself as to its origin and history, two significant features at once strike us: (i) the arrangement of the matter; (2) the presence of several titles.

To the arrangement of the Book a passing reference has already been made in § 5. Certain principles of arrangement can be detected,* but none is consistently carried through. Regard for the subject-matter may have exercised some influence in keeping, if not in bringing, together kindred prophecies or sections: as in Ezekiel (chs. 25-32) and Jeremiah (chs. 46-51), so in Isaiah (chs. 13-23), prophecies concerning foreign nations are grouped together ; yet this principle of arrangement is less consistently carried through in Isaiah, for (i) the foreign prophecies in chs. 13-23 are interrupted by a section, or sections, dealing with Judah in ch. 22 ; (2) other foreign prophecies appear elsewhere in the Book ; Edom is the subject of ch. 34, Babylon of ch. 47 ; so in the book of " The Twelve " prophecies concerning foreign nations are separated from one another ; see, e.g.. Am i f., Nahum ; in this case the reason is obvious : the book of " The Twelve " is a compilation which in

* Ges. pp. iSff. ; Cornill, Die Composition des Buches fesaia^ in ZATW iv. 83-105 ; Che. Introd. xxii.

Xlvi INTRODUCTION

its arrangement is primarily governed by the principle that previously existing books (Amos, Nahum, etc.) should be retained distinct in the compilation : the same principle is probably responsible for the separation in the existing Book of Isaiah of chs. 34 and 47 from chs. 13-23.

Another principle that has exercised some influence in the "arrangement of Isaiah is regard for chronology : " the year in which Uzziah died" (6^), i.e. c. 740 B.C., is followed in ch. 7 by a section that refers definitely to the reign of the next king but one to Uzziah, Ahaz (from c. 735 B.C.); 14^^ refers to "the year in which king Ahaz died," which was not later than 715 B.C.; 20^ refers to the year 711 B.C., and the Assyrian king Sargon; chs. 36-39, to the days of Hezekiah and Sennacherib, the successor of Sargon; 44^^ etc. to Cyrus, c. 550 B.C. Yet a detailed examination shows that, apart from the striking disregard of chronology, which allows ch. 6, the record of Isaiah's call to be a prophet, to stand after a group of his prophecies (chs. 1-5), chronological sequence is frequently violated in the present arrangement of the Book. The extent to which prophecies are out of chronological sequence may be in part due to the inadequacy of the post-exilic (§§ 5-7) editor's knowledge ; but in part this also is probably due to the desire to keep distinct the previously existing books which he has incorporated in his compilation. And in any case the extent of chronological inconsequence in the Book of Isaiah is after all no greater than in the Kor'an, though that work was arranged within a generation of its composition, and while a considerable amount of valuable tradition as to the age of its several parts was still young.

29. Certainly the presence of various titles strongly suggests that the editor of the Book of Isaiah has incorporated in his compilation previously existing books much as he found them, without attempting any free and general rearrangement of the material thus at his command. This editor may himself be the author of the title in i^, but scarcely of the title in 2^ for 2^, far from being the heading of a mere section, is as wide in its scope as i^ ; it stands where it does because the editor has here incorporated, title and all, a previously existing book. A further title occurs in 13^ which runs, "the Oracle of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos saw," and in the succeeding chapters down to ch. 23 a number of sub-titles follow, "the Oracle of

V

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH xlvii

Moab" (15^), "the Oracle of Damascus" (17^), and so forth. Was 13^ hke 2^ originally the title of a previously existing book which the editor of Isaiah incorporated entire, or was it shorter like the titles of 15^ 17^ etc., and merely a sub-title of a section? On the one hand, the general title of an entire book containing oracles on several nations would more appropriately have run, " The Oracles which Isaiah the son of Amos saw " ; on the other hand, the editor who had already (i^) prefixed a title indicating Isaiah as author of the whole volume, had no obvious reason for reasserting his authorship in this particular sub-title. On the whole, it seems most probable that chs. 13-23 are derived from an independent " Book of Oracles " ; possibly this was at one time anonymous, and the later ascription to Isaiah was recorded by attaching a clause to the title of the first section of the Book, while it still circulated separately and before it had come to form part of the present Book of Isaiah.

30. We find no further titles; but other sections of the book are marked off by certain characteristics. Chs. 28-32 consist of a series of sections beginning with the exclamation "•in (28^ 29^ 30^ 31^ 33^) ; these are widely separated from a series of shorter sections which begin with the same exclamation (5^"^^) ; these two series of similar sections are probably separated in the present Book of Isaiah because the editor found them in different works which he has incorporated entire : cp. the separation of the prophecies in chs. 34. 47 from chs. 13-23. Chs. 36-39 (except 39^'^^) are an extract from the Book of Kings.

The book thus divides into these sections :

a. I. General Title attributing authorship to Isaiah (i^), and d ' a small group of prophecies (i^-^i).

b. 2-12. A Book of prophecies mainly concerning "Judah <"

and Jerusalem," ascribed in a title (2®) to Isaiah. /) 1 .

c. 13-23. " Oracles " which the title to the first section (13I) '^^^ -^ p^^ probably intends to attribute to Isaiah. ^ p i, 1

d. 24-27. Anonymous Prophecy. - '

e. 28-33. A collection of poems beginning with ^in. "^*^ Jv^/O-^^ / 34 f. Anonymous Prophecy. ""

g. 36-39. Mainly an extract from 2 Kings. h. 40-66. Anonymous Prophecy.

Of these sections, g. has its analogy in Jer 52, and the analogy suggests that it once formed the close of a volume

Xlviii INTRODUCTION

attributed to Isaiah, whether that volume contained the whole or only part (§ 17) of what now stands between the title i^ and this historical appendix in chs. 36-39. There is also this differ- ence between chs. 1-39 and 40-66, that whereas much in chs. 1-39 was written later than the age of Isaiah and as late as most, if not all, of 40-66, yet throughout 1-39 we constantly return to direct references to Isaiah, or prophecies unmistakably of his age ; but in 40-66 there is no reference to Isaiah, nor are there any prophecies of his age.

31. Probably, then, a stage, if not the latest, consisted in attaching chs. 40-66 to chs. 36-39, which latter chapters were already preceded by chs. 1-35 in whole or in part. Whether this attachment of chs. 40-66 to 1-39 was in the first instance due to the fact that a roll containing a Book of Isaiah — 1-39 — was filled out with what was understood to be an anonymous prophecy (chs. 40-66), either simply to fill a blank space, or to make the fourth prophetic collection approximate more nearly in size to Jeremiah, Ezekiel and " The Twelve," or whether chs. 40-66 were attached to chs. 1-39 because they had already come to be attributed to Isaiah, are speculations that need be pursued no further here ; see, however, Eichhorn, Eitileitung^ iii. (1783) 94; Ges. pp. 17 f. ; Cheyne, Introd. xviif., 237 f.

Both books, chs. 1-39 and chs. 40-66, had had their own separate history before they came, whether by accident or design, to be treated as a single work. Chs. 40-66 appear to contain work of at least two periods {c. 540 and c. 450 b.c.) separated from one another by nearly a century : the matter will be fully argued in its proper place in the Commentary. An editor must have brought together the work of these two different periods, and that scarcely much before, and possibly, even probably, considerably after, the close of the 5th century.

32. It remains to discuss here the separate history and the complexity of chs. 1-39 more fully. From the nature of the case, various alternative theories are often possible : no attempt will be made to discuss or even to mention them all : it must suffice to indicate so much as will suggest the complexity of the problem, and the number of stages by which chs. 1-39 may have attained their present form.

The Book that contained chs. 40-66 was in the first instance anonymous ; but the Book that was concluded with chs. 36-39 —

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH xlix

the long extract from Kings relating to Isaiah — was probably from the first understood to consist entirely of prophecies by Isaiah and narratives relating to him, in this resembling the Books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. As a matter of fact, Is 1-39 may contain the work of nearly as many different writers as the book of " the Twelve," but, unlike that book, it passed as the work of, or about, a single prophet.

33. But how much of chs. 1-35 belonged to the Book of which chs. 36-39 formed the closing section ? In all probability at least the three sections which are referred by separate titles to Isaiah, viz. (a) ch. i ; (d) chs. 2-12 ; (c) chs. 13-23. But did this Book also include from the first the anonymous chapters 24-35 ^ Of these chapters, 28-33 (32) contain much that is ad- mittedly the work of Isaiah, whereas chs. 24-27. (33). 34. 35 con- tain nothing that can with any probability be defended as work of the 8th cent. b.c. A theory that the anonymous sections 24- 27. 33. 34. 35 are subsequent interpolations cannot be considered proved, but it would have in itself nothing improbable. Only it would be reasonable to believe that if chs. 24-27. 33. 34. 35 were interpolated into a Book of Isaiah that consisted of i. 2-12. 13- 23. 28-32, they were so interpolated because they were already believed to be the work of Isaiah, or, if we prefer the alternative, because the interpolator wished them to pass as Isaiah's. Again, if these prophecies were added to a book that closed with chs. 36-39, it is easy to see why they were inserted somewhere in the middle among the prophecies rather than appended to the narratives, though the reason for the particular place assigned them may not be obvious. On the other hand, if they were interpolated after chs. 40-66 had been already added to a book which consisted of chs. i. 2-12. 13-23. 28-32. 36-39, it is by no means easy to see why they were interpolated where they now stand rather than at the close of the prophecies in chs. 40-66, for they are certainly not very obviously connected with their present setting. From this point of view, then, there seems some probability that, if interpolated at all, chs. 24-27 and 33-35 were interpolated before chs. 36-39 and 40-66 were united, i.e. before c. 180 B.C. ; and if this were so, it would follow that chs. 24-27 and 33-35 were written before 180 b.c. The case is rather different with i9i7(i9)-25 . \{ this were written c. 160 b.c, it must have been interpolated ; but it may equally well have been inter- VOL. I. — d

I

INTRODUCTION

polated after the union of chs. 36-39 and 40-66, as before : after 66 it would have stood in no natural connection; in ch. 19 the verses are attached to others which also deal with Egypt.

34. We proceed next to a survey of the sections of which several, if not all, once existed separately as smaller books.

Ch. I may have been a prophetic fly-sheet of about the size of the Book of Obadiah, or its several parts may have been first put together by the final editor of the Book : see Introd, to ch. i in the Comm.

2-12. This section, which opens with its own title and has the main body of its contents enclosed between poems (2^** 12) relating to the Ideal Future, may well have formed a Book of Isaiah. But if so, like our present Book it had itself had a history. It may be noted that (i) the section is wider in its scope than " Judah and Jerusalem " (2^), for see 9^- 10*; (2) the account of Isaiah's call falls in the middle of it, ch. 6 ; (3) chs. 6-8 are more largely narrative than " vision," ptn (2^ ; cp. n. on i^) ; (4) in 525-29 ^^ i^ayg ^ clear case of mis- placement; these verses form the close to 9'^- 10*; (5) not a little even of these chapters is later than the age of Isaiah.

There is room for various conjectures; 6-8^8 shows in the main at least a clear chronological sequence, and is drawn in part, if not entirely, from an autobiographical work by Isaiah; chs. 2-5 contain prophetic poems and sayings. It is possible that 2^ was in the first instance a title to a small body of prophecy — say 2-4, or 2-5, to which the extracts from autobiographical, or biographical, memoirs — 6-8^8 — were appended, as chs. 36-39 were appended to 1-35.* The remainder of chs. 2-12, including the prophetic poem on Ephraim (g'^-io^), may have gained its way into this Book at one time or at several. It is, of course, conceivable that some or all of such additional matter was added by the final editor of the Book : but this is not probable ; for had he been freely re-arranging his material, it would have been natural to group 9^-10* with other prophecies concerning Ephraim, such as ly^^^^ 28^-*.

* It is less probable that the Book, claiming in its title to be prophecies concerning Judah and Jerusalem, contained, in addition to 2-5, ^-\q^. and that 6-9^ was subsequently interpolated between 2-5 and 9'-io^ (Di.) ; nor is Di.'s argument that Isaiah himself is answerable for combining 2-5. 6-9" (or 6-11^^) at all conclusive.

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH li

But if we cannot speak with certainty as to the original contents of the Book to which 2^ was the prefixed title, or as to its contents when used by the editor who incorporated it into Is 1-39, so neither can we speak with certainty as to the date of the Book, either in its original or expanded form. In its expanded form, however, it must be a work of the post-exilic period: for not a little of 2-12 was first written in that period, ch. 12 by very general consent, probably also other passages, viz. 22-4 42-6 (9I-8) II and parts of 10.

Chs. 13-23. This book consists of (a) a series of "oracles" indicated by title (13^) and sub-titles (15^ 17^ 19^ ai^-"-^^ 22^ 23I), (d) sections not entitled "oracles" (1424-27. 28-32 1^12-14 jg. ( 1 917-25). 20. 22^^-^^). The term KBTD, which appears in the titles that give so striking an external feature to this section, occurs nowhere else in the Book of Isaiah except in 30^, but it is found in the titles of certain sections of the book of " The Twelve " ; see Hab i\ Nah i^, Zee 9I 12^, Mai i^. This Book of Oracles, if, as seems likely, the ten sections entitled KU'O, orac/e, once existed separately, was a post-exilic work, for some of the oracles were themselves written in the Exile or later — certainly 13^-14* 2ii-i<>, possibly also 15 f. 19 (in whole or part), 23 ; but the Book also contained some work belonging to the age of Isaiah ; see ch. 17. It is possible, and indeed far from improbable, that the untitled sections were, most or all of them, added to the " Book of Oracles " before that work was utilised by the editor of Isaiah 1-39 ; but some at least of the additions, g.^. c. 20, must have been made after the " Book of Oracles " as a whole had been attributed to Isaiah.

Chs. 24-27. This anonymous prophecy is certainly post- exilic, and so, too (even though they be of independent origin), are the songs now incorporated with it; see more fully the Introduction to the section in the Commentary.

Chs. 28-33. Externally these chapters are held together by the recurrent ^in at the beginning of sections. A further striking characteristic is the constant interchange of denunciations which bear the stamp of a particular period in Isaiah's career, and passages of glowing promise. Some almost certainly, and possibly all, of the passages of promise are of post-exilic origin (see, g.g.y on 28^^- 29i'^-24 30I8-26). Since this feature does not run through the whole of chs. 1-39, we may infer that it marked these

Ill INTRODUCTION

chapters before they were incorporated in chs. 1-39. In chs. 28-33 we appear to have a record of a period in Isaiah's career made the basis of a (late) post-exilic work; see, further, on 28-33 ') ^^^ ^or ^^ elaboration of the hypothesis barely suggested here, see M. Briickner, J^ie Composition des Buches Jes, cc,

28-33 if' 1897).

Chs. 34f. An anonymous post-exilic prophecy.

35. This summary statement of much that will be found more fully discussed in the Commentary is enough to show that the Book of Isaiah is the final stage in a literary process of which many of the previous stages fell within the post-exilic period. And thus an analysis of the Book itself, though it may not indicate a precise date for the origin of the complete Book, certainly prepares us for the suggestion of 2 Ch 36 (see above, § 18), that the Book did not as yet exist c, 300 b.c., and to believe that it did not exist any long time before 180 b.c.

We can only go further, if we can determine the age of the latest section of the Book ; for the Book, of course, in its final form is later than its latest section. Unfortunately there are several sections which are clearly post-exilic, but of which the exact age is anything but clear. The present writer hesitates, as the Com- mentary must be left to show, to follow Du. and others in assigning much, or Kennett in assigning more than half, of the book to the 2nd cent. B.C., and some passages even to the end of that century. But it is extremely difficult to believe that chs. 24-27 were written until far on in the post-exilic period, and 1^19-25 may have been written as late as 160 B.C., and inserted in the then virtually closed Book. Even after that date a few brief notes — marginal glosses in the first instance — may have found their way into the text and probably did ; see 2^0 6^3 (last clause), etc.

The exact age of the last editor's work cannot be determined ; but the character of the age can be divined. Is 24-27 is an apocalyptic work, and forms part of the Book of Isaiah ; no great time after the conclusion of that Book we have evidence of the activity of apocalyptic thought in Daniel and the earlier portions of Enoch, The latest editor of the Book, as probably enough some of the editors of the books he utilised or incorpor- ated, lived in an age saturated with apocalyptic thought. It need not surprise us if the thought of the age has frequently

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH liii

affected the form in which even the ancient prophecies have been handed on to us.

§§ 36-39. Origin and History of the Book of Isaiah : (4) Prophetic Teaching and Prophetic Literature,

36. Literature was not the primary expression of prophecy. Elijah was a speaker, he was not a writer; and (so far as we know) Amos was the first prophet to record his teaching in writing. But the earliest of even the so-called literary prophets were speakers first and writers afterwards : Amos, Isaiah, Micah, and doubtless Hosea, too, were called in the first instance to deliver a message to the nation by word of mouth. The call to write, when it is recorded (Is 30^, Jer 36^), came to these prophets later ; their first need was fitness or power to speak, pure lips, and not "the pen of the ready writer." Later, prophecy, especially as it passed over into apocalyptic, became purely literary; it was expressed from the first in writing. There is also much of the prophetic literature of which we cannot say with certainty whether it rests on spoken prophecy or not.

37. Much of the Book of Isaiah, including perhaps most or all of that which is unrelated to the prophet Isaiah, may rest on no previously spoken word : it may have had literary form from the first : in this case all that is needed is to trace the literary process to its literary origin. But much certainly goes back to the public or private utterances of the prophet Isaiah, and in this case we have to inquire what is the relation between the first literary stage and the spoken word. Our information on this point is unfortunately scanty, but it is suggestive ; so also is the form of the written record itself. The questions that arise cannot be adequately answered ; but much of the Book of Isaiah can only be satisfactorily discussed and interpreted, if the possi- bilities or probabilities in this matter are constantly kept in mind.

38. The records of Isaiah's teaching consist of {a) prophecies, {V) memoirs of the prophet, either (a) autobiographical, 6-8^^ (in the main), and a document underlying 28-32 ; or ifi) bio- graphical, 20. 36-39.

In b ((3) we certainly see Isaiah through the medium of others, and, probably, in chs. 36-39 through the medium of somewhat long popular tradition. In d (a) we have Isaiah's

liv

INTRODUCTION

account of himself; but how do the prophecies stand related to him and his spoken words ? *

The first thing to be remarked is that the prophecies are almost without exception poems or poetic fragments (§§ 44 ff.), and that these poems are short. Probably the longest poem is q7_jq4 and 526-29^ and this, in Hebrew, scarcely exceeds 300 words. We have therefore no speech, sermon, oration (or what- ever other term we may prefer to use) of Isaiah's that would have taken in its present literary form more than 4 or 5 minutes to deliver.

Now, were these poems (a) Composed first and then recited by the prophet in public ; or (y8) were they written after the prophet had spoken or preached in a different style and at greater length, in order to perpetuate, not the words of his speech, but the ideas that had formed the substance of it ; or (y) are some of them, and particularly the more fragmentary, pregnant sayings remembered by his hearers, and subsequently grouped together much like the " Logia " of the Gospels ?

39. The alternatives just suggested are not mutually exclusive : all three processes may actually have taken place and each may account for some of the prophecies that have survived in literary form. Certainly the prophets may at times have availed them-

selves of the methods of the Moshelim (Nu 21 2^: see Numbers^ pp. 299 f., xiii f.) ; but, having gathered their audience, they may have held it by reciting, instead of songs of past victory, poems of their own composing in which they laid bare the real signifi- cance of the present ; perchance the song of the vineyard in 5^-^ had such an origin. So, too, in view of much that is fragmentary, it is far from improbable that we owe something to the memory of the disciples of the prophet (cp. S^^-^^); and certainly the grouping of six or seven brief "Woes" in 5^24 recalls the "Beatitudes" of the Gospels which we have received in two very different groupings, one of which at least is not that of their author. But probably the bulk of the prophecies in the Book of Isaiah, as in Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, are condensations into artistic poetic form of what Isaiah had said in public at greater length, but without the same restraint of form. This is suggested by the particular instance recorded in 30^ (8^^ is more ambiguous), read in the light of the full account given * Cp. Cheyne, Introd. xxix.

^

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH Iv

by Jeremiah (ch. 36) of the way in which he came to commit his teaching to writing : not till Jeremiah had been teaching for more than twenty years did he compose the prophetic poems which summarise what he had said. How early, or how often, Isaiah gave literary form to his teaching we cannot determine : there is some reason for believing that it was some years after his Call that he wrote his account of it (see on ch. 6), and the preparation of these memoirs may have been Isaiah's first literary work. In the case of the prophecies on the Northern kingdom, the two most probable alternatives are these : either (a) Isaiah wrote 9'^-io* 17^"® 28^-* and despatched the written poems to be recited or read by others, or (d) he himself, like Amos (Am 7^®"^*), proceeded to some place in the North, delivered his message, and subsequently reduced the substance of what he had said to literary form. Some of the " oracles " on foreign nations were presumably cast in literary form from the first (cp. Di. xxi), though ch. 18 again may well be a summary of what Isaiah had previously spoken.

§ 40. Origin and History of the Book of Isaiah : (5) A tentative synthesis from the preceding evidence.

40. In the preceding analytical discussion it has several times been pointed out that more than one theory will satisfy many of the phenomena: no synthesis of results can therefore be more than tentative; all that is offered here is one such tentative theory * of the origin of the Book of Isaiah.

At times rather than continuously between the years c. 740 to 701 B.C., and perhaps somewhat later, Isaiah was a public teacher in Judah ; he gradually gathered around him disciples. Some years after he had been teaching he wrote some memoirs recording the experience which made him a prophet and the way in which he had in the earlier years (735-732) of the reign of Ahaz delivered his prophetic message. He also at various times perpetuated in the form of prophetic poems the substance of what he had said in rebuke of the sins of Judah (see, e.g.^ 2-4), or Ephraim (9^-10^ 17^'^^ zS^-*), or in reference to political issues of the day in which foreign nations also were involved (see, e.g., * For another recent theory, see Kennett, pp. 39-42.

Ivi INTRODUCTION

chs. 1 8. 28-31); in some cases he was moved to do this by ^ the unwillingness of the people to listen to him (30^).

The memoirs and prophetic poems of Isaiah, forming small booklets, became the treasures of his disciples and their suc- cessors ; it is probable enough that early owners of these booklets made annotations in them, and we have, perhaps, an instance of 7 th century annotations in 7^^' ^.

But the personality of Isaiah impressed itself not only on his

immediate disciples : he became the hero of popular story, and

some of these stories relating to the latest period(s) in his life

\ were a century or more later written down, and found their way

' like the similar cycle of stories about Elijah and Elisha into the

Book of Kings (2 K 18-20).

Various writers during and after the Exile wrote oracles on ^ foreign nations ; and a great writer produced a book (Is 40-55) intended to rouse and encourage the Exiles in Babylon.

After the Exile much of the existing prophetic literature was newly arranged and expanded, especially by the addition of passages of promise and comfort ; and among the results of this activity were books closely resembling chs. 2-12 and chs. 13-23.

New and independent prophecy was also produced, and in 1 the middle of the 5th cent. b.c. much of 56-66 was written. Later, chs. 40-55 and 56-66 were combined into a single book.

Other independent post-exilic works are chs. 34 f., 24-27 — the latter written late in the post-exilic period.

Possibly about the beginning of the 3rd cent. b.c. the existing Books of Isaiah (2-12 and 13-23 and ? 28-32) were brought together by an editor who prefixed a title i^ and another booklet of Isaiah's (i^"^^), and added (36-39) to the prophecies the narratives from 2 K 17^^-20 (with the omission, however, of 2 K iS^^-^^ and the addition of Is 38^-20): whether this editor also included in his work chs. 24-27 and 33. 34. 35, or whether these sections were later interpolated, is uncertain. i Some time before 180 b.c, chs. 1-39 (24-27. ^^f.posstd/y being absent) and 40-66 were united in a single whole, which with Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and " The Twelve " formed four volumes of prophecy of approximately equal size.

After 180 B.C. the Book of Isaiah may have received some

f additions such as ig^'^-^^y possibly even, though less probably, 24-

27. 34 f.

CRITERIA FOR DISTINGUISHING WORDS OF ISAIAH Ivii

About 150 B.C. the Book of Isaiah was translated into Greek. • After this date it is very doubtful whether the Book received any additions extending beyond a clause or a verse : such small additions, however, were made to the Hebrew text and include 6^3 (last clause) 220.

Against even such minor additions the Hebrew text was secured from the end of the ist cent. a.d. onwards by the conclusion of the Canon and the doctrine of the finality of Scripture. Thenceforward the Book of Isaiah could no longer be adapted to the needs or hopes of the living community by addition or alteration, but only by exegesis ; between the 5th and the 9th centuries a.d. the approved exegesis was closely wedded with the text by means of the vowel points. At times these vowel points are flagrantly at variance with the actual sense of the text, and embody not a possible interpretation of the prophecies, but the hopes of these later Jews (see, e.g.^ on

§§ 41-43. Criteria for distinguishing the words of Isaiah from the additions of later writers.

41. The task of interpreting a work with a history so long and complicated and yet in detail so obscure and uncertain as that which has just been sketched, is difficult indeed. There is no question that the Book contains words of Isaiah and words of other and later authors ; nor can there be any serious doubt that in parts of the Book these two elements are closely inter- mingled. We may immediately set aside chs. 40-66, 24-27, 34 f. as containing no words of Isaiah, though in their turn these chapters also present their own similar problems of analysis. But in chs. 1-23, referred by title to Isaiah, and in chs. 28-33, how and to what extent can the earlier and the later elements be distinguished? The earlier critical method was rough and ready, and left correspondingly rough places for the interpreter ; tacitly the accepted canon was : what cannot be clearly proved to be later than the age of Isaiah is the work of Isaiah. But the canon is illegitimate. The Book of Isaiah is a late com- pilation : even the books incorporated in it and attributed to Isaiah — chs. 2-12 and 13-23 — are post-exilic works. All that can be strictly claimed is that what clearly proceeds from Isaiah

Iviii

INTRODUCTION

is to be regarded as his, all that clearly proceeds from other or later writers is not to be regarded as his, and all that is neither clearly his nor clearly not his must be regarded as un- certain. And, of course, there is wide range in the degrees of uncertainty.

42. The criteria for distinguishing the work of different writers and determining the date of any particular passage are mainly of three kinds.

(a) The Political and Social implications.

In some cases these are clear and ample ; they show that chs. 6-8 are, in the main, the work of Isaiah; that chs. 132-22 and 40-55 (in the main) are works of the exilic period. In other cases the interpretation of what is implied is less clear. It is certain that if 11^ implies that the dynasty of David has fallen, the prophecy, 11^*^, was written no earlier than the Exile ; but many interpreters find themselves able to place an interpretation on the verse which would leave the date an open question.

(d) Style and Language.

These may prove or help to prove either (i) that a passage, or even a clause, is not Isaiah's ; or (2), more definitely, the ap- proximate date of such a passage. It is unnecessary to use the argument from style and language to prove that chs. 40-55 are not the work of Isaiah ; for it is abundantly clear from criteria of class (a) alone that these chapters were written 150 years after the close of Isaiah's career. At the same time, style and language alone would suffice to show that 40-55 were not the work of Isaiah, though they would not quite so closely define the date of that work.

The data have been very carefully collected by Cheyne {Intro- ductioti), who at times may overrate the significance of them.

(<:) Ideas.

In this case, too, there is frequently room for difference of judgment on the facts; for we cannot write the history of Hebrew ideas with such precision and certainty as to rule out the possibility that some ideas which seem to find expression solely in later religion may not have been current earlier. In particular is there difference of judgment at the present time as to the critical significance of certain eschatological ideas (see below, § 89).

POETICAL FORMS OF THE PROPHETIC LITERATURE lix

43. In most cases a final judgment on any passage will rest in some measure on criteria of all three classes ; and in cases where no single type of criteria yields ground for certainty, the combination of probabilities derived from a study of the three classes may yield a high degree of probability approaching certainty ; in others, even all the criteria combined will only give a balance of probabilities (9^"^), and sometimes this will be of the slightest kind, so that to one observer the balance may seem, if it inclines at all, to incline to one side, though to another observer it will appear to incline to the other.

Kennett (pp. 4 f. ) states the problem well ; but his method of solution would be sound only if our knowledge of all periods of Jewish history were full instead of being with reference to some periods exceedingly meagre, and with refer- ence to most, inadequate. "It is necessary," he writes, "to inquire with reference to each section or fragment which literary criticism declares to be homogeneous, at what period every one of its phrases would have a clear meaning. ... If history repeats itself, it seldom does so to such an extent that every word and phrase of a document written in one age will be equally suitable to another : and for practical purpose it will usually be enough to point out one period of history to which such a document really corresponds in all its parts." Unfortunately for this method, there is a vast difference between suitability to a particular age and suitability to what is known of the same age : a document may very well correspond, or not be inconsistent with, what is known of two or three different periods of all of which next to nothing is known ; and if the correspondence with only one such period is pointed out, a false impression of certainty or probability is necessarily given. As a matter of fact, considerable parts of the Book of Isaiah are not inconsistent with what is known of more periods than one (cp. e.g. the introduction to 19^"^') : if our knowledge were increased, the range of ambigu- ity might be diminished ; on the other hand it might be increased ; for what had seemed peculiar to a particular period may be shown by fuller knowledge to have been common to more than one : till lately an allusion to a Jewish Temple in Egypt would have corresponded to what was known of the period from c. 160 B.C. to 73 A.D. only ; it is now known that there was a Jewish , Temple in Egypt from before 525 down to 411 B.C. also. /

§§ 44-57. The poetical forms of the prophetic literature^ and of the Book of Isaiah in particular.

44. Robert Lowth (1710-1787), sometime Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford and Bishop of London, rendered two great services to the critical study of the Old Testament. He revealed by a masterly analysis the parallelistic structure of Hebrew poetry ; and he perceived that the prophetic

Ix INTRODUCTION

literature was poetical in form."^ He also proved that in trans- lating from Hebrew poetry it is possible to reproduce not only the sense, but also the form, in so far as this depends on parallel- ism ; and in his translation of Isaiah he presented the poetical form of the original to the eye of his readers. In this he was followed amongst others by Koppe, who translated his Isaiah into German, by Gesenius in the translation prefixed to his Com- mentary, and by the English scholar Henderson (1840). Un- fortunately this practice suffered a check ; and even in Cheyne's Commentary,! which in other respects marked a notable advance in the criticism and interpretation of the Book, the prophecies were translated throughout in the form of prose : still more unfortunately the RV (1885), which presented the Psalms, Job, and other poetical parts of the OT in poetical form, by printing the Prophets as prose, obscured the important fact that the greater part of these books is no less poetical in form than either Psalms or Job.

Parallelism is one of the forms of Hebrew poetry : is it the only one? Since the time of Lowth the question of Hebrew metre, which he had treated as non-existent or irrecoverable, has received repeated attention. Into the general question \ it is impossible to enter at length here ; but it is necessary to explain the principle on which the form given to the translations, and the account taken of metre in the Commentary, have been decided.

45. In the translations the division into lines has been deter- mined primarily by regard to parallelism : i.e. Lowth's method has been resumed. This would be justifiable even if the metre were always clearly to be recognised — which it is not; for there would be no reason to adopt in translating from Hebrew a method which for good reasons has found no favour with those who have translated the metrical lines of other poetry: in translations (which are not themselves metrical) from Homer or Vergil, for example, it is not customary to distinguish in the

* De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum Praelectiones (1753) ; A new translation of Isaiah (1778).

t The Prophecies of Isaiah (1880, 1882 ; ed. 5, 1889).

X Cp. Harper, Amos and Hosea (in this series), pp. clxiv-clxix, and W. H. Cobb, A Criticism of Systems of Hebrew Metre (1905), — a useful survey of the subject, with (pp. 191-202) an extensive bibliography.

POETICAL FORMS OF THE PROPHETIC LITERATURE Ixi

translation the lines of the original ; neither is there any reason so to distinguish the Hebrew metrical lines if, or when, these lines do not coincide with the periods of parallelism, as Du., for example, has not infrequently done (see, e.g., p. 212 below, note on the structure of 11^"^).

46. But parallelism is not a constant phenomenon of Hebrew poetry : lines frequently occur which are not related to their neighbours by parallelism of terms, or even by a general parallelism of sense. What Lowth called "synthetic parallel- ism" (Dr. LOT 363) is in reality absence of parallelism in

lines such as

Yet I have set my king Upon Zion, my holy hill.

But in a poem which contains for the most part lines parallel in sense, the remainder of the poem in which parallelism is absent tends to fall into periods of the same length. So, in the example just cited,

'^mp -in ji-'v^y

contains two periods of the same length as the periods in v.i of the same Psalm which are related to one another by parallelism —

If an entire poem contained no parallel lines, there would be no sound reason for distinguishing the lines in the English transla- tion ; yet if the end of the lines always coincided with a pause in the sense, the line-division might be retained in English as a form of articulation ; and when, as is most frequently the case, parallelism is sometimes present, sometimes (though generally less frequently) absent, it is convenient to show the line-division throughout.

This approximation to a similar length and rhythmical character in the periods of a poem is the best evidence that parallelism is not the only form of Hebrew poetry, but that it followed also certain rhythmical laws, however elastic those laws may have been.

47, So far it is assumed that the rhythmical unit and the

Ixii INTRODUCTION

sense divisions in Hebrew poetry are identical; and that that poetry has nothing to show like —

Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed

In the beginning how the heavens and earth

Rose out of Chaos; or if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed

Fast by the oracle of God, I thence

Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous song —

in which passage the rhythmical units regularly close where there is no sense-division, and the pauses of sense occur in the middle of the rhythmical units. If the assumption is wrong, and if Sievers is right in his contention that " run on " lines do occur even with frequency in Hebrew poetry, it might have a considerable bearing on textual criticism ; but it would not affect the correct method of dividing the lines in an English translation : these might and should still serve the useful purpose of clearly presenting the parallelistic structure coinciding with sense-divisions.

But the more elaborate metrical analysis of Hebrew texts, such as Bickell or Sievers oifers, rest on too precarious a basis to be made as yet a secure instrument even of textual criticism.

48. The prominent element in Hebrew poetry is the accented syllable; the laws that governed the number of unaccented syllables that accompanied it are obscure, though it is obviously an over-statement, as Cobb (pp. cit. 123 f.) caustically points out, to say that the number of unaccented syllables was " a matter of no consequence" (Harper, Amos and Hosea, p. clxvii). We may, then, at the present stage of investigations into Hebrew metre, obtain a provisional determinant of rhythm in Hebrew poetry by observing the accented syllables. Each word, or each complex of words united by makkeph, represents, generally speaking, a single-word accent ; it may be that in some cases in a word of five or more syllables the secondary accent also ranks

as a word-accent, and that, e.g. ioi^na^ Ps 2^, DiTnn^njn Is lo^sd contains not one accent only, but two. Seeing that MT can no more be trusted in its particular applications of makkeph than in

POETICAL FORMS OF THE PROPHETIC LITERATURE Ixiii

respect of the vowels, it will be seen that there is room even in this simpler determination of rhythm for no little uncertainty.

49. Broadly speaking, the lines of Hebrew poetry are related to one another in one of two ways : they are equal, or they are unequal; in the one case we have a balancing rhythm^ in the other an echoing rhythm ; for example, in i^

)r]:\> niB^ jn^ 3'- "^ ' ' rH

v5>y3 D)3K i^om , . _ t.«-^ *^^

the lines in each couplet balance one another ; each line of the first couplet certainly contains three accents; each line of the second couplet also contains three accents, if MT is right, and it probably is so, in leaving the nh in each line unconnected by makkeph with the verb ; if the makkeph is inserted the lines still balance, but the length of each is two accents. In the one case the couplet may be described as 3 : 3, in the other as 2 : 2.

50. Examples of echoing rhythm* are found later in the same chapter, especially in vv.^i-^s, and also, e.g.^ in 132-8 14^-21 ^ J 21. 26. 27 ujay serve as examples :

nW niTin na^K ^ : ^

man esK'Da n^v npi'ii rvi^in

In each of these couplets a line of three accents is followed by a line of two : the rhythm is 3 : 2.

51. Within the broad distinction into balancing and echoing couplets, minor distinctions are to be observed, especially in balancing couplets : the length of the lines in balancing couplets

* On account of its use in elegies, this rhythm has also been termed the Ktnah [elegy) rhythm. But it can no longer be maintained that the rhythm \s peculiar to elegy, though it may be said to be characteristic of it. On this rhythm, see Budde, ZATW^ 1882, pp. 1-52; Dr. ZOT' 457-459 ; EBi. s.v. Lamentation^ § 2, and Poetical Literature^ § 8. For examples in the Book of Isaiah of the rhythm not in elegy, see i^"'- 40^''

V

t^

•,1.

Ixiv

INTRODUCTION

commonly varies between two and four accents : e.g. 32^1 contains two couplets 2:2:

nnton nm

and in addition to i^ given above, ^i^^'^' ^ ^^ may serve as examples of 3 : 3 :

Couplets which in the last analysis are 4 : 4 are rarer. Of course, wherever a succession of couplets 2 : 2 occurs, it would be possible, by combining two lines, to express the rhythm as 4 : 4. The real distinction, however, lies here — that in some periods of four accents there is a marked pause after the second accent, and also the two parts of this period of four accents are parallel in sense (cp. 32^1 above), whereas in others there is neither pause nor parallelism within the periods in either line, or at least not in both of the lines of four accents that constitute the couplet. Clear examples of couplets 4

4 are 5^^ q^^* «* :

"1-VP3 nnDlJ'3 l-JD^ IHDK^

See also note on rhythm prefixed to chs. 15 f.

Periods of five accents without a pause scarcely occur ; for most couplets 5 : 5 can also be treated rhythmically as double couplets of 3 : 2, with 2 : 3 as a rare variant. And the same is true of periods of six accents, though these may occasionally, from certain points of view, be treated as rhythmical units ; for successive periods may be differently divided, some into 3 : 3, others in 2:2:2; see on i^^* and 261-^^; cp. also, e.g.^ Ps i^ — 2:2:2 followed by 3 : 3.

52. There is less variety in echoing couplets: the prevailing type of these is 3 : 2, already illustrated (§ 50). Obviously 3 : 2 may be regarded as an abbreviated 3 : 3, and we might, therefore, expect 2 : i and 4 : 3, abbreviations of 2 : 2 and 4 : 4

POETICAL FORMS OF THE PROPHETIC LITERATURE Ixv

respectively, to be as frequent variations on 3 : 2 as are 2 : 2 and 4 : 4 on 3 : 3 ; but 2 : i is not, at least, a frequent variant, and 4 : 3 (cp. Sievers' frequent "Siebeners") rarely possesses the characteristic echoing value of 3 : 2. Interchanging with 3 : 2 we find rather 4 : 2 or 2 : 2.

That the echo is the really characteristic thing in periods of five accents appears from two considerations: (i) these periods are, with the rarest exceptions, divided into 3:2; the obvious alternative 2 : 3, which would give no echoing effect, does occur, but with such rarity * that some writers consider its occurrence sufficient evidence that the lines have suffered accidental trans- position: such accidents certainly occurred, for see Ps 18**^ = 2 S 22**^; (2) the rhythmic echo is frequently combined with a sense echo, i.e. two terms of the first line are paralleled in the second line, the third is not merely not paralleled, — that happens often enough in parallel couplets 3 : 3, — but it has nothing corresponding to it.

53. So far this analysis of the rhythmical facts has been confined to the couplet, f or distich, which is so prevalent in all Hebrew poetry. There also occur, though with far less frequency, monostichs and tristichs; tetrastichs, too, though these can generally be regarded as two distichs. The distich is a rhythmical complex in itself: the monostich is not ; it merely acquires a specific rhythmical quality from its relation to other lines, most of which will almost invariably be found to be com- bined into distichs. The monostich is a period in a poem equivalent in length to one line of a distich. A tristich is a complex of three rhythmically similar lines, and for this reason can only occur in balancing rhythm. Both monostichs and tristichs are of relatively rare occurrence even in the existing text, and in the original they were probably rarer still. Whether three lines are to be regarded as a tristich, or as a distich followed or preceded by a monostich, will sometimes, when all three lines are not parallels, be uncertain. In the translations the second line of the distich and the second and third of tristichs are inset.

* Cp. Sievers, Metrische Siudien, pp. 1 1 1 f.

t It is because the couplet is so characteristic of Hebrew poetry that I prefer the symbols 2 : 2, 3 : 3, 4 : 4, 3 : 2, etc., which describe the couplet, to the terms dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, for lines of two, three, four, five, and six accents respectively. VOL. I. — e

Ixvi INTRODUCTION

54. Rhythmically similar periods may, from the point of view of parallelism, be different in character : and inasmuch as par- allelism is made the basis of the line-divisions of the translations in this volume, rhythmically similar periods are differently treated. This applies more especially to the typical echoing lines. In the examples given above the entire period of five accents divides into two unequal lines, of which the second and shorter is parallel to the first and longer :

And I will restore thy judges as at the first, And thy counsellors as at the beginning.

Denoting the ideas or main terms by a. b. c, and the parallel ideas by a' b', etc., the scheme is a. b. c | b' c'. In other cases there is no parallelism between the unequal divisions of the period of five accents ; and parallelism, if it occurs, is between the entire periods — the scheme being a. b. c. d. e | a' b' c' d' e', or, almost invariably, with less complete correspondence, a. b. c. d. e — a' b' c' f. g., and so forth ; cp., for example :

I am satiated with burnt-offerings of rams and fat of fed

beasts ; And in the blood of bullocks and he-goats I delight not.

Here the distich is 5 : 5, and the parallelism of terms or ideas, which extends over the entire length of the lines, may be repre- sented thus : — a. b. c. (b). d | b' c' d' a'. But if parallelism were disregarded and rhythm only considered, each line of the above distich would be correctly described as 3 : 2.

55. Enough, perhaps, has been said to indicate the chief varieties of couplets or distichs that occur in Hebrew. There remains the question. How are such distichs combined into a poem ? Must a poem consist entirely of distichs identical both in rhythmical quantity and in rhythmical quality? For example, does a poem necessarily consist of a succession of couplets 3:3; and, if the couplets are occasionally interrupted by monostichs or tristichs, must these consist exclusively of lines of three accents? Or is it possible for couplets 3 : 3 to be interchanged with other balancing distichs 2 : 2 or 4 : 4, or even with couplets of another quality and kind, viz. the echoing couplets 3:2? Certainly in our present text we get almost every possible combination, within a few verses, and, unless all the separate

POETICAL FORMS OF THE PROPHETIC LITERATURE Ixvii

poems are exceedingly short, within the same poem. But (i) the mixture of lines of different quality, the echoing and the balancing, is probably far less frequent than the mixture of lines of different length but of the same quality ; (2) the extent of mixture, even of lines of the same quality but of different length, was probably less in the original texts ; (3) the extent of mixture differs greatly, at all events in the present text, in different poems ; (4) it is generally possible to discern a dominant rhythm^ i.e. a rhythm which occurs more frequently throughout the poem in question than any other rhythm, and commonly more often than all other rhythms put together.

56. If the preceding remarks suggest that there is considerable uncertainty or irregularity in Hebrew rhythms or metre, they will very correctly convey the impression left on the present writer by his study of them. Is the uncertainty and irregularity so great as to cast doubt on the very existence of rhythm, or, at least, on the value of these rhythmical uncertainties and irregu- larities for the criticism or interpretation of the Book? Such scepticism is not unnaturally provoked by the far-reaching changes that are often made in the text in obedience to hypo- thetical laws of metre. On the other hand, there is too much approximation even to metrical regularity to justify such com- plete scepticism. The notes on rhythm prefixed to the various poems must be left to tell their own tale : the attempt is there made to analyse the actual facts of the existing text, and to give the reader a clue to, if not always a complete statement of, the differences in quantity or quality in the Hebrew text of the lines and distichs of the poem, as presented in the translations. Without some such statement the reader would often acquire a very erroneous impression — sometimes suspecting irregularity where regularity prevails, and sometimes the reverse ; * a refer- ence back to these notes will also give a measure of the value to be set on the rhythmical considerations when such are sub- sequently referred to in the commentary or philological notes.

It may be rarely wise to insist on any textual change merely on rhythmical grounds : on the other hand, when rhythmical and other considerations point towards the same change, though each consideration taken by itself may have slight weight, taken

* This needs to be borne in mind by those who use the translations of Du. , Cheyne, or Box.

Ixviii

INTRODUCTION

together they may have much. Further, though a line may seem abnormally long, all that the rhythm will suggest is that one or more words are intrusive ; it will not determine which — unless, indeed, we can pass beyond the detection of rhythm of word accents to syllabic rhythm.

Again, the mere occurrence of a 2:2 distich in the midst ot 3 : 3 distichs (as, e.g., in 2^-^) may be a very unsafe ground for treating the 2 : 2 distich as intrusive. On the other hand, a change in the dominant rhythm, as, say, from 3 : 3 to 3 : 2 (see chs. 13. 34), may generally raise a suspicion that we have passed from one poem to another.

57. A further form of Hebrew poetry is the strophe. If the lines of the original be leproduced in the translation, so, too, should the strophes. They are marked off in the translation by spaces.

In some cases the strophic division is obvious, as, e.g., in g'^-io*, where each strophe closes with a refrain. In other cases the division is less obvious; we can only be guided by the greater sense-pauses.

In connection with the strophe, the question of regularity again presents itself. Are the strophes of a poem necessarily of the same length ? In certain cases they appear to be so ; in others it is doubtful whether there is more than some approxima- tion to regularity. Du., in general, succeeds in reducing the poems to strophes of regular length, but sometimes at con- siderable cost; see the notes in this Commentary prefixed to

11^-8 13.

§§ S^~73' — Isaiah in relation to the political and social conditions of his age.

58. The greater part of Isaiah's life fell within the last half of the 8th cent. B.C., but he must have been born from ten to twenty years before 750 ; and, since he was certainly living and active in 701, he probably outlived the century, possibly even by as much as ten or twelve years. In his boyhood his countryman Amos, of the land and kingdom of Judah, prophesied against the neighbouring kingdom of Israel ; and Jerusalem, the home of Isaiah, lay about half-way between Tekoa, the home of Amos, and Bethel, the scene of his preaching. Both Tekoa and Bethel lay within an easy day's walk of Jerusalem, at a distance of

■

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE AGE Ixix

about twelve miles from the capital. In Isaiah's early manhood and the first years of his own activity as a prophet, Hosea, a native of the Northern kingdom, was preaching to his own people of judgment to come ; and about half-way through Isaiah's active life his teaching was enforced by Micah. Isaiah living in the capital, and Micah living in the country, a day's journey towards the coast, and the coast road by which merchants and soldiers from time immemorial had passed, as they still passed, from the valley of the Euphrates to the valley of the Nile, saw and judged some things differently, yet with fundamental agreement.

59. Isaiah received the call to prophesy in the year that Uzziah, king of Judah, died (6^), i.e. in, or within a year or two of, 740 B.C. — as late as 738 on one interpretation of certain Assyrian records, not necessarily quite so late as 740 on another.

Ahaz became king of Judah not later than 735 B.C., for Tiglath-pileser * ^ ipentions him (Ja-u-ha-zi (mit) Ja-u-da-ai) along with other Syrian princes as paying tribute to him in 734 B.C. ; and, according to 2 K 16', Is 7^*^', he was already king during the Syro-Ephraimitish war which preceded Tiglath-pileser's \ campaign of 734. To Ahaz' predecessor, Jotham, the Book of Kings assigns a reign of 16 years, which would carry back the death year of Uzziah to 751 ; but, as is well known, these chronological statements of Kings cannot be implicitly trusted ; a date as early as 751 for Isaiah's call is improbable, since he was still active 50, if not 60, years after that date. ..

Now, in the Annals of the year 738, Tiglath-pileser mentions an Azariah '~)'Z^ i*^' (Az-ri-ia-a-u, 1. 131 ; Az-ri-a-[u], 1. 123 ; [Az-ri-i]a-a-u, 1. in ; [Is-ri-]ia-a-u, 104; Is-ri-ia-u, 105) of the land of Ja-u-da-ai (1. 104), or Ja-u-di (1. 105). Since Uzziah of Judah was (also) called Azariah according to several passages in the OT (cp. 6^n.), there seemed to be at least a good prima facie case for the identification of "Az-ri-ia-u (mat) Ja-u-da-ai (Ja-u-di)," and n'ly (or nm.T ^'?D (nnTy. S>chra.Aex {Keilinschriften und Geschichtsforshung^ ^^. 395- 421 ; cp. KAT^) argued for the identification, and it was generally accepted, with the result that Uzziah's death was placed in 740 (the year to which Schrader erroneously referred this part of the Annals) or later. It thus became necessary to contract Jotham's reign within very narrow limits.

On the basis of Rost's edition of the Annals (1893), which placed several things in a new light, and of native inscriptions of a land of '^N' in northern Syria discovered in 1890 close to Zinjirli (see now Cooke, NSI^ pp. 159 ff-)* Winckler {Altor. Forschungeriy i. 1-23) challenged the identification, and argued that the Az-ri-ya-u of the inscriptions was not king of Judah ^^'^'') but of nx', to which the Assyrian Ja-u-di might equally well correspond.

* Clay Tablet, Reverse 1. il.

Ixx INTRODUCTION

Briefly stated the case stands thus : according to the inscription, Az-ri-ia-u was the prime mover in opposition to Assyria, and was supported by 19 districts of Hamath ; these districts were conquered by Tiglath-pileser and made an Assyrian province ; the fate of Az-ri-ia-u himself is, owing to a muti- lation of the inscription, obscure : " 19 districts of Hamath . . . which in their sin and folly had taken the side of Az-ri-ia-u I added to the territory of Assyria" (11. 130-132) ; cp. "who had taken the side of and strengthened Az-ri-ia-u" (1. ill).

Now it would certainly be remarkable if two contemporary kings of two countries, the names of which are scarcely distinguishable, had the same name ; remarkable also, in spite of the parallel case of Jaubidi, king of Hamath in 720 B.C. (Sargon, Nimrud-inscription, 1. 8), that a king of a northern Syrian state should bear a name compounded with n\ On the other hand, (i) it is not certain that Azariah rather than, or as well as, Uzziah was the name of the king of Judah ; (2) a somewhat parallel caprice of similarity, which certainly led to a wrong identification, is afforded by Mena- hem, king of Israel (and therefore of Samaria), in 738 B.C., and Menal?em, king of Samsimuruna in 701 B.C. (Sennacherib's inscription : Taylor Cylinder, ii. 47) ; (3) nothing in the OT, or in what is otherwise known of the history of the period, would lead us to expect that Uzziah of Judah would be the leader of an opposition to Assyria, and supported by the distant districts of Hamath (only) ; (4) so late a date as 738 for the death of Uzziah, though not impossible, is, failing direct evidence, not very probable.

60. Of Isaiah's life between the year of his call, c. 740 b.c. and 735 we have no direct and unambiguous records ; but we may infer from 8^ (n.) that he had during these years himself grown assured of, and probably also gained recognition for, his pro- phetic calling. In pursuit of it he may have visited Ephraim (§ 39)j ^^^ spoken according to the tenor of 9^-10'*. In 6-8* we can trace his activity in the opening years of the reign of Ahaz, who succeeded to the throne c. 735. He had then been already some time married, and was the father of a child at least three or four years old (7^n.), to whom he had given the name Shear- Yashub, which, meaning "a Remnant shall return," ex- pressed an important element in his teaching (§ 86). He appears to have had easy access to the king (71^- : chs. 36 ff.), and he may have belonged to a family of some standing, though the inference to this effect drawn from 8^ is precarious, and the view that he was of royal blood (i^n.) rests on nothing more than Rabbinic ingenuity. Another son was born to him in 734, and to the younger as to the elder he gave a name, Maher-shalal- hash baz, embodying one prominent element in his teaching, his\^ conviction, viz., that Damascus and Israel were doomed to early 1

V

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE AGE Ixxi

extinction. In thus using these opportunities of his domestic life to enforce and emphasise his teaching, he was adopting a practice, and perhaps dehberately following the example, of Hosea (Hos i). At this time, as probably throughout his life, he was resident in Jerusalem (cp. 6^ 7^ 22^^^- 28^* 36-39).

61. For more than twenty years (c. 733-711) the life of Isaiah remains a blank to us, except so far as we can follow it by surmise and conjecture : there is no narrative of this period, except, perhaps, that which records the embassy from Merodach- baladan (ch. 39), and no prophecy that can wt't/i certainty be referred to these years (though see 14^® n. 28^-^). And yet within these twenty years falls the most outstanding event, for a Jew, of the whole century: in 72*, Samaria, the capital of the Northern kingdom, was, after a three years' siege, captured by the Assyrians ; the tribes, which had hitherto been the more numerous and more powerful common inheritors with Judah of the Land of Promise which Yahweh the God of Israel had given to His people, were exiled, and their land became an Assyrian province.

The fact, if it be a fact,* that Judah between 734 and 711 quietly accepted the Assyrian over-lordship and took no part in the attempts of Samaria in 724-722, or of several neighbouring states in 720, to cast it off, is at best scarcely more than a partial reason for this remarkable silence. Isaiah certainly preached a policy of non-intervention ; and if Judah during this period practised it, Isaiah may have been satisfied with the external policy of Judah, and so have found little occasion for reiterating this particular element in his teaching. But the injustice and unrighteousness against which he also raised his voice were scarcely less in need of denunciation during these years than during other parts of his life. Some of the prophecies, the date of which cannot be closely determined, may therefore belong to these years : for example, parts of chs. 2-5.

* Neither the OT nor the Assyrian inscriptions directly record any revolt of Judah from Assyria during this period. But in an inscription of the year 717, Sargon speaks of himself as mu-sak-nis {mdtu) Ja-u-du sa asar-su ru-u-ku, "subduer of the far-off land of Ja-u-di" (Nimrod Inscription, 1. 8 ; KB ii. 37). From this it has sometimes been inferred (cp. KAT^ 67) that Judah took part in the Syrian revolt of 720, as it certainly did in the revolt of 711. It is, however, possible that Ja-u-di is here nK» and not .tiiT. See above, § 59.

Ixxii

INTRODUCTION

62. Ch. 20, a narrative referring to the year 711 B.C., relates that, on one occasion at least, Isaiah enforced his spoken message by strange symbolical action ; for three years he went barefoot and half-clad, and so by his conduct represented the lot of those whose captivity he predicted.

Again some years are a blank, and then, in a series of prophecies (in chs. 28^-31, and, perhaps, ch. 18) we are able to trace, and in a group of narratives (chs. 36 f. and perhaps also 38 f.) to see the deep impression left on the popular mind by, the part which Isaiah played at the time of Sennacherib's invasion of Palestine in 701, and probably, if Sennacherib really invaded Palestine some ten years later (§ 70), on that occasion also.

The date of Isaiah*s death is unknown : even if the tradition, based probably on some Midrash, and perhaps alluded to in He 11^'', that Isaiah was sawn asunder by King Manasseh,* deserved credence, it would determine little ; for the date of Manasseh's accession cannot be closely or certaintly fixed; according to some chronological schemes it is to be placed as early as 698 — i.e. 29 years (2 K 18^) after 727, in which year, accord- ing to one statement in the Book of Kings (2 K i2^% the earliest date of the accession of Hezekiah must be placed, according to others as late as 686, i.e. 29 years after the date which another statement in Kings (2 K i2>^^), if correct, would require us to assign to Hezekiah's accession. But the date of Isaiah's death would be brought down to about 690 b.c. at earliest, if he really played a part on the occasion of Sennacherib's (hypothetical) second invasion (§ 70).

63. Isaiah's life was spent during a time of change in the political and social conditions of Judah. This change was due in large measure to the new and greater activity of Assyria,!

* ** Beliar was wroth with Isaiah ; and he dwelt in the heart of Manasseh, and he sawed him in sunder with a wooden saw," Ascension of Isaiah, 5^ (probably written in the first century A.D.) ; Charles, Asc. of Isaiah, p. xliv.

t For the evidence for the details enumerated in the following sections, see the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser (ed. Rost, 1893), Sargon (ed. H. Winckler, 1889), Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, and Asshurbanipal ; also the Assyrian Eponym lists [KB i. 204-215) and the Babylonian Chronicle {KB ii. 273 ff. ). New editions of the Inscriptions of the Assyrian kings just mentioned are promised in the Vorderasiatische Bibliothek, but none has yet appeared. Meantime KB ii. contains a convenient collection of most of

4

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE AGE Ixxili

which followed on the accession of Tiglaih-pileser to the throne of that country in 745 B.C., and which was already beginning to make itself felt in the West by the year 742, and probably, there- fore, a year or two before the death of Uzziah and the call of Isaiah.

Since the disruption of the united kingdoms of Judah and the northern tribes on the death of Solomon, c. 930, Judah the smaller had also been the weaker of the two, and often stood rather in the position of a vassal-state to the Northern kingdom. The attendance of Jehoshaphat of Judah on Ahab of Israel (i K 22), when that monarch was conducting one of those campaigns against Syria which formed the characteristic political feature of the 9th cent. b.c., may not have been altogether voluntary, but rather the service rendered by a vassal to his over- lord. And this relation of the two kingdoms to one another may account for there being no direct reference to Judah, as distinct from Israel, in the Assyrian records of the 9th cent. Be this as it may, Assyria had already in the 9th cent, made itself felt among the Syrian and Palestinian states. As early as 876, Asshurnazirpal with his army reached the coast of Northern Phoenicia, and re-established that command of the line of communication with the Mediterranean which had been won by Tiglath-pileser i. in the 12th cent, and subsquently lost. To secure what he had won, Asshurnazirpal left an Assyrian colony in Aribua, a town near the river Sangara (mod. Nahr-el-Kebir), and on the northern frontier of the state of Hamath. Phoenician cities as far south as Tyre, far further south than he himself or his army proceeded, sent him gifts. On the other hand, Damascus was neither attacked nor, like the Phoenician states, induced to send gifts. Shalmaneser 11. made several attempts to extend the ; area of Assyrian authority in Syria, though at first without any success. Ben-hadad of Damascus was the leader of a Syrian league which checked the Assyrian advance ; his chief supporters were Hamath and Israel. In 854, Shalmaneser fought a battle)

the more important. A clear and admirable presentation of the history of Assyria from the accessitm of Asshurnazirpal to the death of Asshurbanipal will be found in R. H. Rogers, History of Babylonia and Assyria {^^. 2, 1903), ii. pp. 46-282 ; in the same work fuller references to editions and translations of the inscriptions relating to each reign will also be found. A recent full discussion of Sargon's reign in particular is, A. T. Olmstead, Western Asia in the days of Sargon of Assyria (New York, 1908).

Ixxiv

INTRODUCTION

against the combined Syrian forces at Karkar near the Orontes and further south than the Nahr-el-Kebir ; the Assyrian king claimed a victory, but, since neither tribute nor acquisition of territory followed, the victory was barren ; similarly fruitless were the Assyrian western campaigns of 849 and 846 B.C. The next campaign, that of 842 B.C.; was more effective; Ben-hadad of Damascus had now been succeeded by Hazael, and Ahab of Israel by Jehu. Israel had fallen away from the Syrian league, and Jehu in this year paid tribute to Assyria, in this perhaps anticipating the policy of Ahaz of Judah a century later {735 B.C. ; cp. Is 7). Damascus, though it suffered siege and the ravaging of its immediate surroundings, successfully resisted the Assyrians, and Shalmaneser was unable to capture the city, either in this year or in 839. Nor could his successor Shamsi-Adad (825-813 b.c.), who rather lost ground in the West : but Adad-Nirari (812-783) repeated the limited success of Shalmaneser; he received tribute from Israel as well as from Sidon, Tyre, Edom, and Philistia, and he besieged and harassed, but failed to conquer, Damascus. During the reigns of the next three kings (782-745), Assyria suffered a marked decline; a (probably) unsuccessful campaign against Damascus in 773, and others against the far more northern towns of Hadrach and Arpad in 755 and 754 respectively, exhausts the list of the Assyrian western movements during this period. Thus for a full generation Assyria had passed practically out of sight of Israel and Judah, and even their bulwark (172) Damascus had felt but little shock from Assyrian attack.

64. Egypt during the same period was also weak and divided (§ 68), and exercised little influence and no restraint over Palestine. Thus there was the same opportunity which David had used with so much vigour and success three centuries before for the Pales- tinian states to enjoy freedom from the thrall of the great Empires of the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates valleys, and to strive for the supremacy among themselves. Alike in Israel and Judah the 1 period of Assyria's greatest weakness was covered by a single reign j — of Jeroboam 11. in the North, and of Uzziah in Judah. This ) meant internal political stability not only for Judah, but for the generally more unstable Northern kingdom. According to 2 K 1425-28 (cp^ Am 6^*), Jeroboam re-established the dominion of Israel from the Dead Sea in the South to the entering in of

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE AGE Ixxv

yamath (cp. Nu 13^^ n.) in the North, and also gained the supremacy over Damascus. One of the earliest and most signifi- cant of Uzziah's achievements (2 K 14-^), unless it is rather to be attributed to his predecessor Amaziah, was the recovery of Elath (which was lost again by Ahaz, 2 K 16^) ; he thereby regained for Judah that command of the trade route to the Red Sea which Solomon had held (i K g^^), but which had subse- quently been lost. The Chronicler, in a passage where he may well be drawing on ancient and trustworthy data, gives further illustrations of the success and strength of Judah at this time : Uzziah waged successful war against the Philistines, Ammonites, and Meunim (? Minaeans) ; he strengthened the fortifications of Jerusalem ; he devoted himself to the rearing of cattle, of which he had many, and agriculture (2 Ch 26®-^^).

65. The Books of Kings and Chronicles record the success and prosperity of the kings, Jeroboam and Uzziah ; but we are not left merely to infer from this that others besides the kings were prosperous ; the prophecies of Amos and Isaiah speak clearly of wealth and luxury, and the dissoluteness that accom- panies them, in both the Northern (Am 3!^ 5I1 6'*-^, Is 9^ 17* 28^-*) and the Southern (Is 2^ 310^. 59.12f.14.22 gg^f.) kingdoms. But though increase of wealth extended beyond the king, it was not widely or evenly distributed ; the lot of the weaker seems rather to have become aggravated. Not a little of the increased wealth was probably due to trade (see below, p. 53); and not a little of the wealth so acquired was expended in bringing unjust pressure to bear on the weak, in repeating the conduct of Ahab towards Naboth which had so provoked Elijah ( i K 2 1) : the nouveaux i-iches bought up the patrimonies of their needier fellow-countrymen ; by aggregation great estates arose (below, pp. 90 ff.), and cruel evictions (Mic 2^) aroused the indignation of the humane. In the courts the weak could obtain no redress, for money again bribed the judges (lo^).

66. But if the weaker and poorer had not shared in the increased wealth and luxury of Uzziah's time, there is little reason to suppose that they profited by the changes that came after his death and during the lifetime of Isaiah : the most immediate effect, so far as Judah was concerned, was that that country became tributary to Assyria in 735-734 B.C. and remained so : tribute meant heavier taxation, and this was doubtless to a

Ixxvi INTRODUCTION

large extent wrung out of the poor, even though the king obtained it directly from the "mighty men" of Judah (cp. 2 K 15^0 of Israel). Be that as it may, this is clear : whereas Isaiah had grown up to early manhood in the latter half of a long and pros- perous reign, a citizen of a country that paid no tribute to any foreign power, near neighbour to the kindred kingdom of Israel, which was also free and prosperous, within a year or two of his call he had seen the kingdom of Israel torn by faction after the death of Jeroboam {c. 746), and heard of Assyria's more vigorous action in the West. Arpad offered a stern resistance to Tiglath- pileser, but in 740 it fell before him ; and Assyria recovered what the kings of the 9th century had won for it, and their weaker successors had lost — access to the Mediterranean. But this was merely the prelude to greater achievements in the West than the greatest of the past; in 738, Tiglath-pileser defeated an extensive coalition of Syrian states, which included, or consisted of, "19 districts of Hamath," " which in their disloyalty had fallen away to Azriyau of the land of Ja-u-di," who is identified by many with Uzziah (Azariah), king of Judah (see above, p. Ixx) ; these districts he made an Assyrian province ; he captured Kullani (lo"^ n.) ; he received tribute, amongst others, from Rason of Damascus, Menahem of Samaria (whose land, according to 2 K 151^^-, he had invaded), Hirom of Tyre, and Zabibi, queen of Arabia. About 735, Ahaz paid tribute (2 K i6''^-), and hence- forward Judah was tributary to Assyria. In 734, Tiglath-pileser was in Philistia, and captured Gaza, furthest S. of the Philistine cities and nearest to Egypt; in 733 and 732 he was attacking Damascus and Israel ; in the former year he captured the northern districts of Israel (2 K 15^^), and in the latter year he achieved what his predecessor in the 9th century had attempted and failed to achieve, the capture of Damascus ; the native sovereignty was abolished (17^); Damascus became an Assyrian province. Ten years later, in consequence of Hoshea's withholding the annual tribute to Assyria (2 K 17*), the same fate befell Samaria, after a protracted siege (724-722) conducted by Shalmaneser (727-722) and Sargon (722-705) successively. In accordance with the new Assyrian policy, the Israelites were carried captive to dis- tant districts (Gozan, Media, etc. — 2 K 17^), while Babylonians, Cuthites, and others were settled in Samaria. Henceforward, instead of a kindred people, Judah had on its northern border

I!

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE AGE Ixxvii

which lay but an easy day's walk from Jerusalem, an Assyrian province and a mixed population (2 K ly^*-*^).

67. In 720, Sargon quelled an important and extensive rising in Syria, which may have been instigated or fomented by Merodach-baladan of Babylon (see on ch. 39) ; he defeated Yaubidi of Hamath at Karkar — the scene of an earlier victory of Shalmaneser 11. (p. Ixxiv) — and the combined forces of IJanno of Gaza and Sibe (Biblical So, or rather S^w^) of Musri (Egypt? : see § 68 f.) at Raphia, on the coast between Gaza and Egypt ; perhaps also in the same campaign he inflicted defeat on Judah (but see above, p. Ixxi n.).

In 715, Sargon (Annals, 97-99) subdued certain Arab tribes, and received tribute from, amongst others, Pir'u (? Pharaoh), king of Mu§ur (? Egypt). It may be surmised that Judah did not remain uninterested in these events, but there is no evidence that in this year it took any active part in opposition to Sargon, or that Sargon came any nearer to Judah than Arabia.

In 711, by his Tartan (20^) rather than in person, Sargon quelled another rising, of which Ashdod was the centre, but in which not only Philistia, but also Moab, Edom, and Judah were concerned (see Sargon's Annals, 205-221 ; General Inscription, 90-110). Moreover, behind these Palestinian states stood, according to Is 20^, Egypt and Ethiopia (DnVD and triD) ; accord- ing to Sargon's inscriptions, Musur and Miluhha, which have commonly likewise been equated with Egypt and Ethiopia.

68. In 712 (Breasted) the Ethiopian dynasty established its authority over, and at the same time brought union and increased strength to, Egypt, Till recently (see below) it was supposed that Sabako, the first of the Ethiopian kings of Egypt, succeeded to the throne as early as 728 : on that hypothesis, now known to be erroneous, there was little difficulty in accounting for Egypt, or, as under the circumstances, it was quite natural to say, Ethiopia, intriguing with the Syrian states and inducing them to oppose Assyria ; the identification of So (Kio, 2 K 17* MT), or rather S6we (Kip, cp. Assyr. Sib'i), with Sabako, though frequently made, was always more questionable and, in- deed, indefensible. Before the accession of the Ethiopian dynasty lies a period of great obscurity in Egyptian history, though this much may be said, that the Delta was at the time governed by a number of petty princes, and the Pharaoh of the lists who is mentioned immediately before Sabako is Bokchoris. It is possible, then, as Breasted even recently has written (A^zV/. of Egypt, S49f.), that So (2 K 17*) was "an otherwise unknown Delta dynast," that "unable to oppose the formidable armies of Assyria, the petty kinglets of Egypt con- stantly fomented discontent and revolt among the Syro-Palestinian states, in

Ixxviii INTRODUCTION

order, if possible, to create a fringe of buffer states between them and the Assyrians," possible also that the " Pir'u, king of Musur," of Sargon's record of 715 B.C. was Bokchoris, who in that case is mentioned by his title (Pharaoh) instead of his proper name ; just as Hebrew writers use the expression, not found in Egyptian, "Pharaoh, king of Egypt" {e.g. 36^ n., cp. F. LI. Griffith, in DB, s.v. "Pharaoh").

Alt {Israel u. Aegypten^ pp. 44 ff.) conceives the situation somewhat dift'er- ently : according to him, the pressure of Ethiopia on Egypt, which had already become severe in the time of the Ethiopian Pi'ankhi (from about 741 B.C. according to Breasted's chronology, or earlier according to others), had brought about a certain reaction against the gradual dissolution of the Egyptian kingdom into a large number of petty princedoms, especially in the Delta, that marked the period of the 22nd and 23rd dynasties {c. 945-f. 718, Breasted). The Pi'ankhi stele (Breasted, Ancient Records, iv. 860-883) reveals Tefhakhte of Sais, whose son Bokchoris became the sole ruler of the 24th dynasty, as exercising a supremacy over the Delta princes, and as so far anticipating that renewed unity of Egypt which certainly marks the time of the Ethiopian dynasty. Under these circumstances, Tefnakhte may already have exercised sufficient political farsightedness to have perceived the danger threatening Egypt from Assyria, and to have provoked the Palestinian states to oppose the Assyrian advances.

But there are certainly here unsolved, or but partially solved, problems ; and Winckler, and after him others, have sought quite another way out.

69. As early as 1893, Winckler, in Altor. Forschtmgen, i. 24 ff., argued that the Assyrian Musur and the Hebrew Misraim in many cases meant not Egypt, but "the country abutting on Edom, the later Nabataea." In his earlier or later discussions of the subject, accordingly, Sibe, the ally of IJanno of Gaza, becomes an Arab sheikh, and Pir'u (cp. the Sabaean nn:' yns), king of Mu§ur in 715, is Arabian not Egyptian; it is again the Arabian people whom Pir'u ruled, and not Egypt under the new Ethiopian dynasty, that stand behind the revolting Palestinians in 71 1 and even in 701; Egypt first co-operates with Palestine under Tirhakah in the (hypothetical) second cam- paign of Sennacherib in Palestine about 691 B.C. (see § 70). The theory that the Assyrian Musur and the Hebrew DnsfD may refer not only to Egypt, * but also to a district in North Arabia, has also been presented by others ; various forms of the theory and various conclusions drawn from it may be studied in H. Winckler, Alt&r. Forschungen (1893), i. 24-41, Musri-Meluhha, Mdin (1898), KAT^ (1903), 67, 70-72, I36-I5i» ^72, 273 (see also Index, s.v. Mu§ri), Die jungsten Kdmpfer wider den Panbabylonismus (1907); F. Hommel, Vier neue Arabische Landschaftsnamen ; T. K. Cheyne, Mizraim^ in EBi. iii. (1902), and, e.g., Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel {i^o^), xi f, 1 71-173; Decline and Fall of the Kingdom of Judah (1908), xiii ff., xlif., 88; The Two Religions of Israel {\<)ii), pp. 335, 345. 356-361 (see also references in Index to Misrim in the three works last named). It is not without significance that Breasted in his History of Egypt is able to dispense with the theory of the North Arabian Mu?ri, and that Ed. Meyer {Die Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstdmme { 1 906), 455-47 1 ) decisively and totally rejects the theory ; see also against the theory in its application to the times of

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE AGE Ixxix

Isaiah, Fr. Kiichler, Die Stellting des Propheten Jesaja zur Politk seiner Zeit (1906) ; A. T. Olmstead, Western Asia in the days of Sargon of Assyria (1908), pp. 56-71. A. Alt in his survey of the relations between Israel and Egypt in the time of Isaiah {Israel u. Aegypten, 1909, pp. 41-87), while admitting Pir'u, king of Mu§ur in 715 B.C. (Sargon, Annals, 97), to bean Arabian, limits the significance of the Arabian Mu§ur, and allows far more for the activity of Egypt in Palestine than do most of those who admit the existence of a kingdom of Musur in Arabia.

Fortunately for the understanding of Isaiah, it is of relatively little im- portance whether between 720 and 701 B.C. the power that kept stirring up the Palestinian states was Egypt, the history of which country immediately prior to 712 is obscure, or Mu§ur in North Arabia, of which, as an inde- pendent kingdom in Arabia sufficiently important to divide with Assyria the interests of Palestinian states, nothing is known for certain, and which, perhaps, has never enjoyed more than a speculative existence.

70. Sennacherib, Sargon's successor, had also once at least to secure Assyrian authority in Syria by force: in 701, Philistia and Judah at the instigation, not of an Arabian kingdom of Musur or Meluhha (Wi.), but of the Ethiopian dynasty in Egypt, were in revolt. In two respects Sennacherib's campaign, which was undertaken to suppress this revolt, was not an unqualified success : victory over the Egyptians at Eltekeh was not followed up by an invasion of Egypt itself, and Jerusalem, though it was besieged, was not captured. Nevertheless Judah, in common with the rest of Syria, remained tributary to Assyria. According to a hypothesis which would explain the allusion to Tirhakah in 37®, Sennacherib was again called back to Syria {c. 690 b.c.) : the nearest support for this hypothesis in Assyrian sources is an account of a campaign against Arabia, the date of which is un- known, but which may have taken place about 690.

This campaign was already known by allusions to it in inscriptions ot Esarhaddon and Asshurbanipal, when in 1904 (Orientalische Literatur- zeitung, cols. 69, 70), Scheil announced the discovery of an inscription of Sennacherib describing the campaign. This inscription was published by Ungnad, in Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmdler, i. 77 ff.; and in a translation, for which I am indebted to Prof. R. W. Rogers, it runs as follows : *' Telhunu, the queen of Arabia, in the desert, from her I took away a thousand camels. The fear of my dominion cast her down, and Hazail also. They left their tents and fled to Adummatu, whose location is in the desert, a place of thirst, where there is neither provision nor place to drink." If from Arabia, Sennacherib (who is himself described in Herod, (ii. 141) as '* king of the Arabians and of the Assyrians," and whose army, as the " army of the Arabians"), somewhat repeating his movements of 701, advanced on, without entering, Egypt, and also attacked Judah, it would be possible to

Ixxx INTRODUCTION

regard the different narratives which, it is clear, have been combined in chs. 36 f. (see Comm. ), as narratives of different events and not different and discordant narratives of the same event, and also to justify the allusion to ** Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia" (37^) ; Tirhakah was not king of Ethiopia in 701, he was king in or soon after 694. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether either Hezekiah or Isaiah, who are also associated with the narra- tive that refers to Tirhakah, were alive in 690 ; Isaiah would probably at that time have been between 70 and 80 years of age. Some further discussion of these points will be found in the discussion of chs. 36 f. in the Comm.

71. Since the Egyptian chronology comes into consideration on several occasions, it may be convenient briefly to indicate here the grounds on which, contrary to earlier views, the date of Tirhakah's accession can be fixed with certainty as falling after 701 B.C., and consequently the beginning of the Ethiopian dynasty as falling about 712 or 714 B.C., and not as early as 728.

According to a Serapeum stele (Breasted, Ancient Records^ iv. 959), an Apis died at the age of 21 years, 2 months, 7 days, on the 21st day of the I2th month of the 20th year of Psamtik : since according to the same stele the Apis was born in the 26th year of Tirhakah, Tirhakah's reign cannot have exceeded 27 years. Now Tirhakah was certainly still alive and king in 668-667, for Asshurbanipal, who became king of Assyria in 668, defeated Tirhakah in his first campaign ; Asshurbanipal also states of Tirhakah (Rassam Cylinder, ii. 21 ; KB ii. p. 166 f.), il-lik limat mu-H-lu, his nighi- fate came {upon him), which should mean that Tirhakah was not only defeated at that time, but died. In that case the year of Tirhakah's succession is 694-693 ; it cannot have been earlier. Some Egyptologists, disregarding this interpretation of the Assyrian inscription, and reckoning back 138 years, a number obtained from calculations based on data given in the Egyptian records (Breasted, Ancient Records, iv. 1026-1029) from the close of the 26th dynasty in 525 B.C., obtain 663 as the date of Psamtik i.'s accession and Tirhakah's death ; this gives 689-688 as the date of Tirhakah's accession.

The years of accession of Tirhakah's immediate predecessors, Sabako and Shabataka, the first two kings of the Ethiopian dynasty, cannot be so closely determined by the inscriptions. But from an inscription that mentions year 3 of Shabataka, it appears that Shabataka's third year was near 700 B.C. (Breasted, iv. 887 ; and cp. 452 n. c). Manetho assigns to Sabako 8, to Shabataka 14 years — in all 22 years ; Syncellus 12 years to each of these kings — in all 24 years. Thus the earliest date, that rests on any evidence, for the beginning of the Ethiopian dynasty is 24 years before 694-693, i.e. 718- 717 ; Breasted's dates are 712 B.C. for Sabako, 700 for Shabataka.

Bokchoris, who immediately preceded Sabako, reigned at least 6 years, exactly the period stated by Africanus (44 according to Syncellus).

72. The ultimate goal of the Assyrian advance resumed by Tiglath-pileser iv. and his successors was first attained after the Hfetime of Isaiah : after an apparently unsuccessful invasion of Egypt in 676, Esarhaddon captured Memphis in 671, and Assurbanipal took Thebes in 667.

ISAIAH AS PROPHET AND TEACHER Ixxxi

73. This rapid sketch may serve to make clear the political conditions under which Isaiah lived, and to which not a little of the form of his teaching is due. Briefly, Isaiah's public life coincided with the first half of the period of 80 years from the accession of Tiglath-pileser to the Assyrian conquest of Egypt, during which the Assyrian advance westwards and supremacy in the West was, though at first resisted, unchecked : conquered districts never permanently recovered their independence, tribu- tary states never permanently escaped the necessity of paying tribute : for example, Damascus never recovered the indepen- dence which it lost in 732, nor did the retreat of Sennacherib release Judah from tribute.

§§ 74-89. Isaiah as Prophet and Teacher,

74. Isaiah appears from the first to have discerned the meaning and issue of the new spirit and policy (§ 63) of Assyria, and to have realised the fruitlessness of political combinations against that power : he was certainly convinced of the wrongness of Judah in taking any part in them. Against all such combina- tions, of which there was no lack, he consistently set himself. No one who instigated these combinations, whether as at one time it was Merodach-baladan (721-709 B.C., and also 702 b.c.) of Babylon (cp. ch. 39), or as at others one of the kings of the Ethiopian dynasty which established its authority over Egypt about 712 B.C. (§ 71), or, as it may have been earlier, one of the Delta chieftains who divided authority in Egypt prior to 712, or, as some think, the rulers of a region in Arabia called Mu§ur (§ 69), counted against Assyria : they were one and all helpless and useless (cp. ch. 20).

The only, yet at the same time an overwhelming, counter- weight to Assyria was not political, nor human : it was the power and purpose of Yahweh. Yahweh was using Assyria to achieve His purpose (10^) : so long as Assyria carried out that purpose no powers would avail against it : as soon as Assyria overstepped its commission, it, too, must go down before the greater power of Yahweh (10^"^'^). Not man, but God determines history — that is the key-note to Isaiah's political action and advice; not by clever alliances, but by watching for and quietly carrying out the will of Yahweh is the true welfare of the state to be secured. VOL. I. — f

Ixxxii INTRODUCTION

The advance of Assyria was, according to Isaiah, by the will of Yahweh ; that advance would necessarily entail the withdrawal of the Syro-Ephraimitish army from Jerusalem, therefore let Ahaz and his people put away their fear of Syria and Ephraim (ch. 7), nor pay Assyria to do what it will assuredly do, unpaid by them : such seems to have been Isaiah's advice in 735, and if so it included a condemnation of Ahaz in becoming voluntarily, and while as yet there was no need, a tributary to Assyria, in seeking by political action instead of reliance on Yahweh to escape the attack of the combined forces of Ephraim and Damascus. But, once the step had been taken, Isaiah judged it to be the will of Yahweh that Judah should remain tributary, and certainly that it should not attempt to escape that tribute by yielding to the invitations, whether of Egypt, or Babylon, or its neighbours in Palestine, to revolt. Finally, though it was the will of Yahweh that Assyria should punish not only Ephraim but Judah too, it was (if we may trust the popular biographical stories of the prophet in chs. 36-39) the will of Yahweh, as Isaiah read it, that Jerusalem should not be taken by Sennacherib ; consequently in 701 he is as confident that the Assyrians will not capture Jerusalem as he had been in 735 that the Syro- Ephraimitish army would not do so ; and he counsels Hezekiah accordingly. But though on the one occasion he was con- vinced that Ra§on, and on the other that Sennacherib, would not capture Jerusalem, it is quite another question whether he ever abandoned his belief that the sin of Judah would lead Yahweh to destroy His people and their land (§§ 85-87).

75. In 735, Isaiah appears to have appraised at its true worth the condition of Ephraim and Syria, and in 701 (and ? 711) the promises of Egypt. Whether his diagnosis of the political situa- tion was at other times and in all respects equally correct, or his policy of non-intervention always politically sound, is a secondary question. And not only is it a secondary question ; it may, if it is not kept in its place, very seriously obscure what is of primary significance in the life and character of Isaiah. Isaiah is of " the goodly fellowship of the prophets " ; and consequently how far he secured the safety of the Jewish state at the time, and so secured its continued existence for another century, is of little moment ; what is all-important to determine, so far as we can, is his faithfulness and fruitfulness as a teacher sent from

\

ISAIAH AS PROPHET AND TEACHER Ixxxiii

God : what had he himself learned from God, what did he teach his own age, and what through it has he contributed to man's increasing knowledge and consciousness of God ?

76. These questions can be answered up to a point; but, owing to the uncertainty that hangs over many questions of the literary origin of much of Is 1-39 (§§ 8-43), they cannot with advantage be pursued into the detail that has sometimes been attempted. Here, at all events, no fresh elaborate attempt will be made to trace development in Isaiah's conceptions and teaching, to bring to light conflicting conceptions in his view of the future, for example, or in his judgment of Assyria, and then to determine the chronological sequence of the changes.

All the more elaborate structures of Isaiah's " theology " rest of / / '

necessity on shifting and insecure foundations ; even if it were * i

certain, and it is not, that passages such as ii^*^ 9^'^ 32^"* were ^[ the work of Isaiah at all, it is altogether uncertain at wnat period jf X of his life he composed them, and how he came by, or how he modified, his conceptions of a Messiah.*

77. If there is one passage in which, above all others, we may feel certain that Isaiah speaks to us in his own words, it is ch. 6 ; and that chapter, in spite, if not also in some measure in virtue of its brevity, clearly reveals to us a personality of great spiritual depth and moral power. And this revelation, though in that case the name of the person revealed would be unknown, would remain, even if any one cared to question Isaiah's authorship of the chapter. As a matter of fact, there is no ground for raising such a question, or for doubting that we owe that chapter and much else in the Book of Isaiah to one and the same person. But, in attempting a synthesis of Isaiah's character and teaching, it will be well to start from, and at every possible point to return to, this record. We are not at liberty to affirm that nothing that

* For theories of changing expectations of the future attributed to Isaiah, see, e.g.^ B. Duhm, Die Theologie dkr Propheten (1875), pp. 158-168 (in some respects modified in his Comm., 1892) ; H. Guthe, Das Zukunftsbild des Jesaia (1885), a theory withdrawn in Jesaia {Religionsgeschichtliche Volks- bucher), 1907 ; F. Giesebrecht, Beitrdge zur Jesaiakritik (1890), pp. 76-84; H. Hackmann, Die Zukunftserwartung des Jesaia (1893). Cp. also G. A. Smith, DB ii. 489-491, and also in the Review of Theology and Philosophy, 1907 (July), pp. 2 ff., where, inter alia^ the reason of Guthe's modification of his earlier complex theory is criticised. See also Exp., 1904, pp. 330-342. On Isaiah's attitude towards Assyria, see F. Wilke's/waw u. Assur, 1905.

Ixxxiv INTRODUCTION

finds no expression here was ever elsewhere expressed by Isaiah ; but the more clearly whatever else claims to be Isaiah's can be related to this chapter, the more confident may we feel that the claim is good.

78. Isaiah, though a prophet and a pioneer in religious ex- perience and the apprehension of religious truth, was none the less, and indeed necessarily and naturally, the child of his people's past, the inheritor of their beliefs and experience. To him, as to them, Sion had been pre-eminently the place of Yahweh's earthly abode (8^^ ; cp. 8^ n.) from the time that David, the chosen of Yahweh, had encamped there (29^), and by Yahweh's power, then and there manifested, had wrested it from the Jebusites (2 S 5*'^^ 6).* But the hereditary belief of childhood became the conviction begotten of personal experience ; it was in Sion that Isaiah himself saw with his own eyes Yahweh seated on His throne in royal state (6^^-). Again, to Isaiah, as to his countrymen, the people of Israel, both (81^) Judah and the tribes of the now separate Northern kingdom, were connected by special and peculiar ties with Yahweh ; they were Yahweh's family (i^), Yahweh's people (i^), compared with whom others were aliens (i''); they were His treasure and carefully tended possession (51-''). And so in turn Yahweh was peculiarly the possession of Israel : the people recognised the existence of gods of other nations as well of their own, and, when necessary, distinguished Yahweh by the term God of Israel (cp. e.g. Jg ii2i-24)- Isaiah's favourite term for Yahweh is a modification of this older term, and it retains (though with a difference (see below)) the sugges- tion of Yahweh's special relation to Israel : Yahweh is the Holy One of Israel. It is unnecessary to attempt any complete cata- logue of popular beliefs, such as that in Seraphim (6^), which find expression in Isaiah. The two that have been more particularly referred to are important for this reason : though Isaiah rises above the old limited thought of God which confined Him in the range of His presence and the extent of His authority, he retains what there was of permanent value in the belief in the local manifestation of deity and His connection with a single people ; a more exalted conception of God did not rob Isaiah of the great intensity of the limited popular belief; God does not cease to be

* These passages are derived from a Jewish work probably already ancient in the time of Isaiah, and familiar to him.

ISAIAH AS PROPHET AND TEACHER Ixxxv

near because He is also afar off (lo^n.); nor, again, because He is God of all, does Yahweh cease to claim the special service of a nation or an individual ; nor, because His glory fills the i whole world, does He cease to be intensely personal, commun- , ing as a person with His servants the prophets, and still therefore ' best described in that anthropomorphic and anthropopathic lan- guage which had its roots in those more limited religious beliefs, in which the personal qualities of a god, and the devotion of his worshippers to him, were accentuated by his relations or conflicts with other and similar deities.

79. But Isaiah is not only the child of his people, he is the child also of the new prophetic movement which began while he was still a boy (§ 58). There is no direct allusion, it is true, in any of Isaiah's prophecies to either Amos or Hosea, and not very much that can be said to be unmistakably due to either of these two older prophets ; but there is too much resemblance in the fundamental positions of all three prophets for it to be probable that, in a small country, no knowledge of the earlier passed to and influenced the later. Only this must be added : Isaiah, though, unlike Amos (7^*), he did not refuse the title ] prophet (8^), was no prophet of the school ; he did not repeat, merely because he approved, what he had heard about Amos' preaching at Bethel, or what he had read in some fly-sheet containing the substance of Hosea's teaching. It is probable enough that he was familiar with what Amos had taught and Hosea was teaching before the crucial day in the year of Uzziah's death ; but he first began to say with power the same things, or

to treat of similar themes, after that day on which he saw Yahweh, and heard and obeyed His call to service (ch. 6). Even before his call, as we may well believe, there had been added, in the mind of Isaiah, to the old and limited conceptions which he had received in childhood from his natural kinsmen or ordinary acquaintance, some of the new and wider conceptions of spiritual kinsmen such as Amos and Hosea ; and all these conceptions, popular and prophetic alike, were fused by his own personal experience, as recorded in ch. 6, into a vital unity, which became Yahweh's message through him to his people.

80. The vision that showed Yahweh seated in §ion con- vinced Isaiah also that the whole earth was the sphere of Yahweh's action (6^) ; the sin of Israel (6^- ^^'), Yahweh's own

Ixxxvi INTRODUCTION

peculiar people, is seen as a blot in the world-enveloping blaze of Yahweh's glory ; the weakness and meanness of man and of all that man relies on for help, or looks up to as lofty and majestic, is seen in heightened relief against the absolutely unrivalled majesty and the inaccessible exaltation of Yahweh ^51-6 26-19 2 1 If.). Neither here nor elsewhere does Isaiah take occasion to assert with precision, like the later Jewish prophet (45^* ^^' 22)j that there is no God but Yahweh, or, like Muhammed, that there is no God but the (one) God ; yet his conception of Yahweh leaves no room for any other being of the same class (cp. 2^^^-) ; the world that is full of Yahweh's glory has no room

> left in which to reflect the glory of any other God ; and if Assyria is Yahweh's instrument (lo^^-), made merely to serve His pur- pose, or, failing to do so, to be by Him destroyed, there is n6 place for any gods of Assyria to control and guide that nation. The images, whether of Yahweh or of other gods, which abounded in Judah (2^), and commanded the devotion of the people, are of no real value and quite powerless to help (2^^ : cp. 2^ n.) ; and the same is true of the spirits that were supposed to haunt trees and gardens (i^^f- : cp. 17^®), and of the spirits whom the necro- mancers consulted (8^^). But whether Isaiah denied all reality

I of existence to national gods other than Yahweh, or whether he

' assigned to them some subordinate position in Yahweh's world government, we cannot determine with certainty. In this virtual monotheism, Isaiah was anticipated by Amos. Into a fuller dis- cussion of its origin and nature it is not possible to enter here. But two things may be said: (i) this apprehension of the greatness and uniqueness of Yahweh, carrying with it the total disregard of, if not absolute disbelief in, the gods of other nations, was the accompaniment not of national aggrandisement, 1 but of national decline ; it was the very men who perceived before- hand the approaching doom of Israel and the destruction of its existence as a nation who also believed and taught that Yahweh so controlled the entire world that no room was left for any other divine controllers ; and the fact that in the course of his ministry the larger part of Yahweh's people perished or were exiled from their land, and that the Northern kingdom ceased to be, never led Isaiah to waver in his conviction that Yahweh alone was exalted and great. In earlier times and to the great bulk of

\ Isaiah's contemporaries Israel seemed as necessary to Yahweh as

ISAIAH AS PROPHET AND TEACHER Ixxxvii

Yahweh was to Israel ; in Isaiah's thought Israel owed everything to Yahweh (i^), and through Him alone could be; Yahweh, on the other hand, was in no way dependent on Israel, but would rather vindicate His greatness by Himself destroying His people since they had turned away from Him, and become incurably sinful and corrupt (6^*^* : cp. §§ 83-87). (2) But if the increased sense of the greatness of the God of Israel, and the new sense of His uniqueness which characterises the prophetic teaching in general and Isaiah's in particular, was in no way the reflection of an increase in the national strength and fame of Israel, so neither was it the outcome of speculation on the fusion of peoples and of a common principle lying behind all their deities. The new prophetic conception of Yahweh is no abstraction from qualities common to Yahweh the god of Israel, and Chemosh the god of Moab, or the gods of the conquering Assyrians. And the prophetic conception of Yahweh is as distinct and different from j the monistic speculations which appear to have arisen in 1 Babylon, as it is from the old popular Hebrew religion. There may be room to question the absoluteness, and certainly the explicitness, of the monotheism of the prophets of the 8th century ; there can be no doubt of the intensity with which they apprehended Yahweh as a distinct and living personality. He is to them not power, but person ; not the lowest common measure of all known deities, but a personal God whose activity com- prehends all that seemed to them worthy in the activity which other nations had attributed to their several gods.

81. On one occasion Isaiah had been allowed to see Yahweh ; but not every day, nor, so far as we know, ever again after the first occasion, did Isaiah see Yahweh as he had seen Him then ; yet what he had once seen he must have known to be always there, though by no means there alone; the power that ruled the world was Yahweh, and Yahweh dwelt in Jerusalem — unseen (cp. 18*), unheard, unrecognised even or misunderstood,