INTRODUCTION J. ORIGIN AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH In the middle of the book of Isaiah, as it has come down to us, occurs a purely narrative and historical section, consisting of four chapters (36-39) — written for the most part in prose dealing with Isaiah's conduct during the blockade of Jerusalem by the Assyrians and with his relations to King Hezekiah, and having all the appearance of being an excerpt from a biography of the prophet. This simple fact furnishes, to begin with, three great divisions of the book: Chaps. 1-35; Chaps. 36-39; Chaps. 40-66. With the third division, which readily lends itself to subdivision, we shall deal more explicitly later. It is easy to show that the first division (Chaps. 1-35) ultimately rests upon smaller groups, at least some of which must have been circulated independently. This superscription — "the vision, or word, or oracle, of Isaiah the son of Amoz" occurs at the beginning of Chaps. 1, 2, and 13. Such a repetition would have been unnecessary and unnatural, had all the prophecies originally appeared together as one whole: nothing would in that case have been necessary but the superscription at the beginning of the book. Therefore we are justified in regarding Chaps. I (or 2)-12 as a group by itself. It is natural to take as the second group Chaps. 13-23. These chapters, in addition to their special superscription, are held together in two ways: (1) by the fact that almost every oracle in the entire group deals with foreign peoples, for example, Babylon, Moab, Egypt, Tyre; and (2) by the word burden (or rather oracle, utterance) which heads most of these oracles (cf. Chaps. 13, 15, 17, 19, etc.). Another group is constituted by Chaps. 28-33, in which all the chapters but one begin with Woe, and it is no accident that these chapters deal with a single period (704-701 B.C.) and, in the main, with a single theme, the projected assault of the Assyrians upon Judah, and Judah's endeavor to negotiate an Egyptian alliance. The remaining oracles on both sides of this group further constitute two groups by themselves: Chaps. 24-27, a great picture of the convulsion of the world, following not inappropriately the oracles upon the heathen nations; and Chaps. 34 and 35, describing the destruction of Edom and of all the nations opposed to Judah, with the great golden age which should follow. The first half, then, of the book of Isaiah divides itself naturally as follows: Chaps. 1-12; Chaps. 13-23; Chaps. 24-27; Chaps. 2833; Chaps. 34, 35; Chaps. 36-39. The history of the ultimate origin of these groups and of their subsequent association into a connected whole must, in the nature of the case, be largely conjectural. What is certain is that the figure of the great prophet and his genuine oracles began to gather upon themselves, not long after his death, the eager and reverent attention of his countrymen, who, in later ages, incorporated in his book the work of other hands, sometimes inferior but often akin, in spirit and literary power, to Isaiah's own. This process of amplification went on till at least the fourth century B.C. (Chaps. 24-27). But the original oracles of Isaiah are undoubtedly to be found most of all in the first and fourth groups - Chaps. 1-12 and 28-33. II. THE POLITICAL CONDITIONS OF ISAIAH'S TIME Throughout the whole of Isaiah's career, and indeed for nearly a hundred years after, the background of Hebrew history was Assyria. The presence of that mighty empire Chap. 32 begins with behold, which is not unlike woe in the Hebrew. |