book, chapters x to xii, symbolism is discontinued, and the cryptic and mystic language suitable to history in the guise of prediction takes its place. This literal portion follows history more circumstantially than any other part of the book, until the events of about 166 B.C., after which, instead of giving to the victories of Judas Maccabeus the credit they deserve (cf. xi, 34), its predictions of Antiochus's later career and death are vaguer and less verifiable. This fact seems significant for the time when the Book of Daniel was composed. The period of affliction culminates and passes, however, and the foreshortened prophecy of the end, which was broached as a judgment and a kingdom (vii, 9-14), is resumed and completed in terms of personal deliverance and resurrection and blessedness (xii, 1-3). Daniel himself, the old-time worthy from whose day the legends and premonitions have come, does not fully understand the meaning of his own visions (xii, 4, 9); "but they that are wise shall understand" (xii, 10). Our examination of the Book of Daniel has carried us far beyond the period of the Chaldean exile, into an entirely new range and atmosphere of the Biblical literature. We must return now to take up other works of that earlier age tracing to contemporaries of the Daniel of history. III Second Isaiah: Finisher of the Vision. No attentive reader of the Book of Isaiah can pass from the thirty-ninth chapter- or even the thirty-fifth where the prophetic strain is interrupted by four chapters of narrative — to the fortieth, without being at once aware of an entire change of scene and tone. It is like suddenly emerging from suspense and dimness into a larger and brighter world. The scene, which hitherto has been localized to one land's affairs, has become as wide as heaven; and in the sight of God, Who sits throned above the circle of the earth, all the nations are pictured as nothing and the inhabitants as grasshoppers (xl, 17, 22). The time, though not specified, is certainly not that of Isaiah the son of Amoz. It reveals an entirely different set of conditions. There is no trace of such struggle with Assyrian peril or diplomatic fatuity or debasing social tendencies as plagued that prophet all his life. The tone of discourse has changed from austere warning and censure to a fervid strain of encouragement and hope, which for the most part continues through the rest of the book. This whole fortieth chapter reads like the introduction to a new book of prophecy. Its opening words, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God," strike the keynote. "Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem; and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she hath received of Jehovah's hand double for all her sins" (xl, 1, 2). It is on account of this remarkable transition in chapters xl to lxvi that modern scholars have deemed them the work of a later author, unnamed, whose prophecy has become united with that of the great prophet of Hezekiah's time, and whom accordingly they distinguish as the Second Isaiah, or Deutero-Isaiah.1 This verdict of scholarship, assigning the Book of Isaiah to at least two prophets,2 opens the question of their relation to each other; to which question a variety of answers has been given, according to the critics' sense of their vital or merely mechanical connection. I have already recorded my view that "the Second Isaiah ... is an organic sequel and supplement to the First," and that accordingly "the two parts, while set in a different scene 1 As already noted, p. 167. 2 A third, or Trito-Isaiah, has by some critics been assumed for chapters lvi-lxvi; the warrant for this, however, does not seem to me sufficient. and subtending two widely sundered epochs of time, are in reality one book, with one homogeneous scheme of thought, and with a clear coördination and consecution of elements." 1 १९ NOTE. The consideration of the First Isaiah in connection with the events of his time has necessitated a division in our study of the book; and this has been in some ways a disadvantage, as it has tended to impair the sense of its unitary trend. The reader should here review the sections on Isaiah of Jerusalem," pp. 167-178, on The Crisis Met and Weathered,” pp. 179–185, and on " Isaiah's Vision of Destiny," pp. 189-194. Attention is called also (p. 192) to the condensed scheme of the book, with its suggested five divisions, or acts," of which three have been considered. The parts yet to come before us are: INTERMEZZO AND SHIFT OF SCENE, xl ACT IV. The second onset: the Chaldean experience, xli-lv. Why a As noted above,2 the Book of Isaiah, by a title which doubtless was given late, is called "The Vision of Isaiah the Son of Amoz." A vision but one of unique character; not like the mystic second-sight of Ezekiel or the fantastic dreams of the Book of Daniel. It is lucid and literal. Except for the initial experience of the touching of the prophet's lips (vi, 7), it contains no hint of trance or occult illumination. Rather it is like the rational insight of a statesman and sage, who has an intuitive sense of spiritual forces and tendencies both in his nation and in the world at large, who thinks deeply and feels intensely, and whose faith in the divine will and word is absolute. In a word, it is the vision which comes of sound spiritual illumination. Of this vision we have already considered, as compared with the presage of other prophets, its broadened horizon and its higher plane3 qualities which belong equally to all parts of the book, giving it unity of tissue. It remains 2 See above, pp. 168, 189. 1 See above, pp. 167, 168. 3 See above, pp. 190, 192. to note the large tract of time over which its compass extends. It covers virtually the whole range of Israel's prophetic movement, from the early menace of disaster and captivity before the fall of the northern kingdom to the opening era of adjustment and settledness after the return from Chaldean exile a span of two centuries.1 Thus the meaning of the whole field of literary prophecy lies, as it were, mapped out before us. A vision has a point or points of view, as well in current movements and conditions as in space and time. This is what necessitates the assumption of a Second Isaiah. There are two widely separated epochs of history, focal points we may call them, from which the book's vision opens out. These are the epochs connected with the greatest achievements of two world conquerors, Sennacherib and Cyrus, and with the relation of Israel to the two great empires of Assyria and Babylonia, as these were at the proudest stage of their history. When the career of Isaiah the son of. Amoz ended, the vision, though nobly begun, was only half told. Its stage of stress and dimness ended with the miraculous rescue of Jerusalem from the Assyrian peril (701 B. C.).2 This event, however, far from being a finality, was only the occasion of a new birth—the birth, effected not without uncertain travail, of that vital and redeeming faith for which the prophet had labored (cf. xxvi, 17, 18; xxxvii, 3; lxvi, 7-9). The spiritual awakening thus symbolized was the earnest, the guaranty, of the redemption to come. And here the First Isaiah, whose fervid utterances are the soul of the vision, had to lay down his work. 1 For the second stage of the vision, therefore, its stage of triumph and completion, modern criticism recognizes a prophet otherwise unknown who, living near the close of 1 For an outline of this period see above, pp. 133-137. the Chaldean exile, supplemented the earlier work, writing just as Cyrus the Persian was well embarked on the career of conquest in which he became master of Babylon and released the Jewish captives to their ancestral home. The occasion was ripe. The people, purified by their ordeal of captivity and suffering, were at last ready to be called from their long sequestration and girded for their unique mission (cf. xl, 27-31). Great events were casting their shadows before signs of terror to the nations, of promise and opportunity to the people of Jehovah. So this prophet, called for distinction the Second Isaiah, by a masterful interpretation of these momentous signs and of the agencies by which Jehovah's great purpose was to be wrought, finished the vision begun so long before. Of the period of spiritual childhood and youth which succeeded to the new birth in Israel - in other words, the educative century that intervened between the campaigns of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar Continuity with the First Isaiah the Second Isaiah had no occasion to write. He could take the meaning of it for granted, being concerned rather with the future that was opening so brightly before the now adult and redeemed Israel. This accounts for the gap of a century and a half that is to be understood between the thirty-ninth and the fortieth chapters and for the abrupt change in scene and situation of the chapters succeeding. It is as if the later writer could ignore the annals of this period, as well known, or as not belonging to his dramatic purpose. NOTE. This gap is bridged by the history and literature that we have from other sources. It is the literary product of this intercalary period that we have considered, with glances at its historic setting, in Chapter V ("After the Reprieve ") and, for the early years of the exile, in our study of the Book of Ezekiel. The conditions recognized in the Book of Daniel were for the most part those of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, which ended a little more than a decade before the Second Isaiah began his message. |