Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/399

ISAIAH 383 not as supplemented by those which come after) is that they emphasize too much to a Christian feeling the stern, destructive side of the series of divine interpositions in the latter days. But we will not attempt to exhaust a subject on which any thoughtful reader is competent to speak. VI. How is it, then, that so many Biblical students (especially in Great Britain and America) still adhere to the view, so profoundly opposed to philological exegesis, that one man wrote the whole of the book of Isaiah ] Partly no doubt from a fear lest, in giving up the view of Isaiah held in the time of Christ, the orthodox theology should be insensibly undermined. The fear was at one time justified, i.e., in the early stages of the critical controversy; but the fact that orthodox theologians and men of deep Christian faith do hold the composite origin of Isaiah is a practical proof that the fear is no longer opportune. Another reason is a certain instinctive aversion to the questioning of time-honoured traditions, and an aesthetic abhorrence of disintegration a bad reason, for (1) ancient traditions are seldom entirely wrong, and it is the element of truth which gives them vitality, and (2) disintegration is only a preliminary to reconstruction. A third reason, often operating in combination with the second, is worthy of all respect. It is that in reading the disputed prophecies, especially those which form the latter part of the book, conservative critics (if we may be allowed the phrase) are conscious of a number of peculiarities both of phraseology and (in chaps xL-lxvL) of historical allusion which raise associations of the age of Isaiah. We have already referred to the latter class of peculiarities. They are indeed of more importance than the former, which can obviously be explained by the profound influence which so great a prophet as Isaiah must have exercised, and demon- strably did exercise, on his successors. The view which has been indicated above as the most just to exegetical facts, and to what we know from other sources of the editorial activity of the Sopherim, is that the latter part of the book of Isaiah is of an origin as composite as the former. It is, however, of course our duty to mention the prevalent explanation of the conservative school of critics, viz., that the allusions to the scenery of Palestine and to the religious condition of the Jews of a time prior to the exile are Isaiah s involuntary betrayals of his authorship. It is admitted that there are numerous passages which presuppose the fall of Jerusalem and the residence of the exiles in Babylonia, But it is urged that the other class of passages are so many providentially permitted indications of the true date of the author, who was in reality the subject of an extraordinary ecstatic impulse, which almost, but not altogether, effaced his consciousness of the present. To quote from the same able and interesting sermon referred to above, " The Isaiah of the vexed and stormy times of Ahaz and Hezekiah is supposed in his latter days to have been transported by God s Spirit into a time and a region other than bis own. The voices in his ears are those of men unborn, and he lives a second life among events and persons, sins and suffering, and fears and hopes, photographed some times with the minutest accuracy on the sensitive and sympathetic medium of his own spirit." The objection is, first, that this theory is extremely artificial; secondly, that the only allusions greatly worth considering occur in masses in those portions only of the second part of Isaiah which, for a combination of reasons, should most probably be separated from the remainder ; and thirdly, that this theory does not do justice to those passages which contain indications at once of a Palestinian locality and of a post- exile date. But if sufficient account has not yet been taken by many anti-traditionalist critics of the data which conflict with the Babylonian origin of Isa. xl.-lxvi. as a whole, it must in fairness be admitted that conservative critics have not adequately appreciated those which make distinctly for a Babylonian origin. Take Isa. xl.-xlviii. by itself (it must be allowed to form a whole), abstracting from all considerations of modern controversy, and no one would j dream of assigning it to any other time than the close of the exile, any more than he would of ascribing " By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept " (Ps. cxxxvii.) to the authorship of David. There might have been a case for the Isaianic origin of " Go ye out from Babylon " (xlviii. 20), if the passage had only run, " Behold, in days to come my people shall go forth from Babylon." There might have been a case for such an origin of " Thus saith Jehovah to Cyrus" (xlv. 1), if the passage had but run thus, " Behold the days come that I will raise up a king, Cyrus by name." But no one fresh from the perusal of the other great prophetic writings would imagine such a thing as that Isaiah had died to his actual present, and lived again among men still unborn. A few points of detail have still to be considered. (a) To the argument from phraseology, on which Knobel in particular has laid great stress in the anti-traditional interest, it is impossible to do justice here. A bare list of names would not be luminous, and the lists given by recent English conservative critics warn us of the difficulty of constructing such catalogues fairly. None of these critics appear quite to understand the object of the appeal to phraseology, or to be aware that the mere peculiarity of a word is not important, unless it points to a different linguistic stage from that of the historical Isaiah, or unless its sense is one that implies a great development of thought. It appears to us indeed that the argument from phraseology is not one of much critical moment ; but on this part of the subject we must refer to more special treatises. (b) KC7 can we satisfy ourselves that the existence of parallels between passages of the disputed prophecies and passages of pre-exile prophets a chief bulwark of the conservative theory as presented by Delitzsch is a fact of much greater value. x In some respects indeed these parallels are most interesting and instructive. They help us to form a fuller idea of the literary and prophetic physiognomy of the prophecies. They show us too how instinct ively the prophets formed as it were a canon of prophetic Scrip tures for themselves, and also how free they were from the morbid craving for originality." But on which side the originality lies it is not always easy for a candid mind to determine ; one must be on one s guard against a prejudice in favour of the more brilliant genius, and against thinking that the more strikingly expressed passage is necessarily the more original. For has not a brilliant genius been known to copy word for word from an extremely ordi nary writer ? Having said thus much by way of caution, let us add some of the more striking parallels to passages of Isa. xl.-lxvi. in prophets earlier than the close of the captivity. Isa. xxxiv. G, 7 ; comp. Jcr. xlvi. 10. Isa. xl. 13, 14, Isa. xl. 18, 20, and parallels, Isa. xli. 14, Isa. xliii. 5, Isa. xliv. 2, Isa. li. 15, Isa. Iv. 3, Isa. Ivi. 9, fsa. Ivii. 9, Isa. Iviii. 7, Isa. li. 19, Isa. li. 20, Isa, lii. 1, 7, Isa. xlvii. 8, 10, Isa. Ixvi. 20, (c) With regard to the historical appendix to the first part of the book of Isaiah (chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix. ), we must be, as usual, on our guard against admitting too simple a solution. Knowing, as we do, from 2 Chr. xxxii. 32 (comp. ix. 29) that the prophet wrote one, if not more than one, historical monograph, it would be natural to assume that this appendix is an extract from that monograph. When we examine it more closely, however, we see that this cannot be the case. " This is shown (1) by the variations with which the Jer. xxiii. 18. Jer. x. 3-11. Jer. xxx. 10, xlvi. 27. Jer. xxxi. 35. Jer. xxxii. 40. Jer. xii. 9. Ezek. xxiiL 40, 41. Ezek. xviii. 7, 16. N"ah. iii. 7. Nah. iii. 10. Nah. i. 15 (Heb. ii. 1). Zeph. ii. 15. Zeph. iii. 10. 1 For similar arguments of minor importance, sec Cheyne, The Prophecies of Isaiah, vol. ii, pp. xv. , 202.