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The Book of Isaiah: Critical Problems and a New Commentary1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
Extract
Professor Gray's commentary on Numbers (1903) not only filled a vacant place in English exegetical literature, but had to do with a book that has usually been perfunctorily treated by serial commentators; and this made an intrinsically valuable work doubly welcome. Isaiah, on the contrary, competes with the Psalms for the distinction of being the subject of more commentaries than any other book in the Old Testament, and of some of the best. The inevitable question therefore is, Wherein does the volume before us mark an advance beyond its predecessors? To answer this question it will be necessary to indicate the problems with which the critical study of Isaiah is at present chiefly concerned, and to show what progress has been made toward a solution of them.
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1913
References
2 Primarily, 44–66; 13 1–14 23; 21 1–10.
3 Isaiah 40–66; 13 1–14 23; 21 1–10; 24–27; 34 and 35.
4 E.g. Ewald harbored doubts as to the genuineness of chapters 12 and 33. Hitzig's vigorous attack upon 19 16–25, in which he followed the lead of Koppe, had also made some impression.
5 The most typical of these are chapters 10 and 18; but compare also the briefer prophecies, more or less fragmentary in character, 8 9 f.; 14 24–27; 17 12–14; 29 6–8; 30 27–33; 33; 37 22 ff.
6 Compare 28 1–4 with verses 5 f.; 29 1–4 with verses 6–8; 29 9–15 with verses 16–25; 30 1–17 with verses 18–26 and 27–33; 31 1–4 with verses 5–9.
7 The reader should be apprised that here and throughout this article the word “eschatology” is used, after the example of some recent German authors, for the prophet's expectations or predictions about the future of his people, without implying that these expectations were “eschatological” in the etymological sense or in the established English meaning of the word.—Ed.
8 See 8 16–18, a passage hardly noticed by Duhm.
9 Since the doctrine of the Remnant implies, some sort of a judgment from which the Remnant escapes, this doctrine is not in such sharp contrast with the eschatology of doom as are the doctrines of the invulnerability of Zion and the Messianic King.
10 See especially chs. 2, 10, 18.
11 See the series of articles by Stade in the Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (1881–84), supplemented by his Geschichte des Volkes Israel (Vol. I, 1881–85); A. Soerensen, Judah und die assyrische Weltmacht (1885); Guthe, Das Zukunftsbild des Jesaia; Giesebrecht's article, Die Immanuel-Weissagung, in Theologische Studien und Kritiken (1888), and his monograph Beiträge zur Jesaiakritik (1890); Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia (1892, 2d ed. 1902).
12 Stade sought to justify his retention of a part of the anti-Assyrian prophecies, while rejecting the rest, by pointing out that in the accepted group Isaiah was dealing with the one historical nation, Assyria; whereas the rejected prophecies dealt vaguely with many nations. The accepted prophecies were thus construed historically, while the rejected prophecies were vaguely eschatological.
13 Only chapters 6–8 and 28–31 (in their original form) are allowed to have been composed by Isaiah.
14 Among these are 28 5–6 (a gloss upon verses 1–4); 29 16–25; 30 18–26; 31 5–9, in its present form; chap. 33. On the other hand, 28 23–29; 29 5–8 (substantially); 30 27–33; and all of chap. 32 are accepted.
15 In the criticism of chapters 36–37, the other main problem of Isa. 1–39, Duhm accepted Stade's results.
16 Cf. Hackmann, Zukunftserwartungen des Jesaia (1893)Google Scholar; Cheyne, Introduction to the Book of Isaiah (1895)Google Scholar; Brückner, Die Composition des Buches Jesaia, 28–33 (1897)Google Scholar; Volz, Die Vorexilische Jahwehprophetie und der Messias (1897); Marti, Das Buch Jesaia (1900).
17 In dating 22 1–14 after the withdrawal of Sennacherib, Hackmann followed a suggestion of Soerensen.
18 This seems to be the author's own view of his work; see Encyclopaedia Biblica, col. 2184.
19 In attaching ii, 2–4 to chapter i, Marti follows Lagarde; i, 27 f., also, is an eschatological gloss.
20 Isa. vi, 13b and vii, 15 are eschatological glosses, and viii, 8b–19 is an eschatological fragment offsetting viii, 5–8a.
21 Within chapters xiii–xxiii are various eschatological fragments or glosses, notably xiv, 24–27; xiv, 28–32 (especially verse 32); xvii, 12–14; and cf. xvii, 7 f.; xviii, 3, 5, 7.
22 The following representative commentaries and introductions cited by the names of their authors may be mentioned. Cheyne (1880, 5th ed. 1890), suggestive of what was to come, but now largely antiquated; Bredenkamp (1886–87) and Orelli (1887, 3d ed. 1904), representatives of the strict conservative position; Delitzsch (4th ed. 1889), because of the piety and learning of its author, exerted an important influence in recommending the older criticism to timid students, but shows little apprehension of the fundamental problems of the book, which are too often glossed over by means of a somewhat sentimentalizing exegesis; Dillmann (5th ed. 1890), a lineal descendant of Ewald, and the best representative of the older critical position, characterized by solid learning, a thesaurus of the history of criticism and exegesis, but with a strong tendency toward harmonizing exegesis; the sixth edition (1908), edited by Kittel, has all the merits of the fifth, with important concessions to recent criticism, a work of permanent value; G. A. Smith (Expositor's Bible, 1889), a work of great originality and inspiration, which has perhaps done more to interest the lay reader and the preacher in Isaiah than any other work, but the glowing imagination which has accomplished this tends to fuse many sections of Isaiah into a false unity, and thus obscures the real problems of the book; Skinner (Cambridge Bible, 1896) and Whitehouse (Century Bible, 1905), two works whose value is not to be judged by their limited scope, both representing the principles of the older criticism; Skinner's introduction, an admirable exposition of Isaiah's religious significance on the basis of these principles; Whitehouse, to be especially commended for its wealth of archaeological illustration; Box (1908), an excellent translation in metrical form, with brief but illuminating introductions, and notes to the several prophecies, embodying the principles of Duhm and Cheyne; a handbook of results, not of processes; McFadyen (Bible for Home and School), elementary; Wade (Westminster Commentaries, 1911), a fair commentary of the reproductive kind, showing incidental traces of Duhm's exegesis, but making no very positive contribution to the subject; Kuenen's Introduction (Onderzoek, 1889), an admirable, condensed exposition of the older critical views of Isaiah, regarding many of Stade's positions as hypercriticism; Driver (Literature of the Old Testament, 1891) maintains the older critical positions; in the revised edition (6th ed. 1897) he describes many of the results of recent criticism, but occupies a very reserved attitude toward them; Cornill's Introduction (English trans., 1907) may be said, in general, to occupy Duhm's standpoint, but the discussions are not at all exhaustive.
23 Winckler, Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen (1892); Meinhold, Die Jesaiaerzählungen, Jes. 36–39 (1898); Nagel, Der Zug des Sanherib gegen Jerusalem (1902); Prášek, Sanheribs Feldzüge gegen Juda (1903); to which I venture to add my own essay, The Invasion of Sennacherib, Bibliotheca Sacra (1906); Wilke, Jesaia und Assur (1905); Küchler, Die Stellung des Propheten Jesaia zur Politik seiner Zeit (1906); Staerk, Das assyrische Weltreich im Urteil der Propheten (1908), (not accessible to me).
24 Küchler's monograph is also important for its polemic against another thesis of Winckler propounded in his Geschichte Israels (1895) and in his Keilinsschriften und das Alte Testament, namely, that the eighth-century prophets were largely actuated in their attitude toward Assyria by political considerations. Küchler shows conclusively that Isaiah, at least, was governed exclusively by religious and idealistic motives.
25 Meinhold, Studien zur israelitischen Religionsgeschichte, Bd. I, Der heilige Rest (1903); Guthe, Jesaia (Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher, 1907); Kennett, The Composition of the Book of Isaiah (1910); Nowack, Die Zukunftshoffnungen Israels in der assyrischen Zeit (Festschrift Holtzmann, 1902, inaccessible to me).
26 Gressmann argues, further, that Palestine was physically not the kind of a land in which the idea of cosmical catastrophe would be likely to arise, and infers from this that the whole notion is foreign.
27 Gressmann, op. cit., p. 212.
28 Gressmann even conjectures that this optimistic outlook was cultivated in the schools of the “false prophets.”
29 Gressmann is here at a decided disadvantage as compared with Gunkel. In Schöpfung und Chaos Gunkel had a real myth to start with, whose existence in the earliest times could be proved; Gressmann has none.
30 Scholars have often conjectured that Isaiah explained the name in some prophecy now lost.
31 “Prophet of Isaiah” is a misprint. Other misprints noticed are “Chs. 28–32” for 28–33 (p. xlvii); “unlike” for alike, p. 32; “Cheyne, p. 29” for p. 27 (p. 110); “vv. 18–23” for 19–23 (p. 157); “8a–10” for 8c–10 (p. 148); “prophetic” for antiprophetic (p. 377, line 11). The last mistake results in a serious misunderstanding of the view criticised.
32 A concise and clear statement of the author's theory of the successive stages in the formation of the book will be found in § 40 (pp. lv–lvii).
33 Vol. V (1912), pp. 86 ff.
34 In passing, one inexplicable omission should be noted. In §§ 58–73, “Isaiah in relation to the political and social conditions of his age,” there is no reference to Hezekiah's reforms. Since the attempt has often been made to connect the prophecies of hope in one way or another with these reforms, a discussion of their date and character is of great importance.
35 See Sennacherib's inscriptions.
36 The allusion to 37 22 in this connection is unfortunate. The joy at Sennacherib's retreat is countenanced by Isaiah in chapter 37; in chapter 22 it is rebuked. The comparison suggests the great critical difficulties in which the prophecies supposed to be delivered in this period are involved.