A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40-55 9781472556134, 9780567044617

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PREFACE According to C. R. North, it was the intention of one of the original editors of the International Critical Commentary, S. R. Driver, to write a commentary on Isaiah as a whole, but he abandoned the project because the question of the suffering servant's identity overwhelmed him.1 A. B. Davidson later began work on a commentary on the whole book for the ICC but died before making any substantial progress.2 When G. B. Gray and A. S. Peake then took up the work, they divided it between them in accordance with the accepted distinction between chapters 1-39 and 40-66, but it was intended to publish the commentary in three volumes, covering chapters 1-27, 28-48, and 49-66. Gray completed the commentary on chapters 1-39 and the first volume was duly published, but the material on chapters 28-39 had to wait on someone's writing the commentary on chapters 40-48 after Peake's death, and it was thus never published.3 The commission regarding chapters 40-66 was passed on to J. N. Schofield, who in due course first invited David Payne to share in the task, and then eventually passed on the entire task to him. Payne in turn invited John Goldingay to work with him. H. G. M. Williamson was subsequently asked to write a commentary on chapters 1-27. His commentary will include an introduction to Isaiah as a whole. We worked as follows. David Payne wrote textual and philological notes on chapters 40-41 and passed these to John Goldingay. Goldingay incorporated these in a textual, philological, literary, exegetical, and theological work on the sixteen chapters, and wrote the introduction. He passed this work on to Payne section by section, and Payne then produced further textual and philological notes for Goldingay to include in a final manuscript. The resultant whole was substantially too long for the ICC series, so Goldingay abbreviated it so as to give prominence to the textual, philological, and exegetical material; the literary-theological material appears in Goldingay's The Message of Isaiah 40-55: A Literary-Theological Commentary (London/New York: T. & T. Clark, 2005). We completed the work in 1999-2000; editorial difficulties then unavoidably delayed the publication of the volumes. We are grateful to Graham I. Davies for his very careful reading of 1 C. R. North, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah, (London/New York, revised, 1956), p. 1. 2 See G. B. Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Isaiah, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh/New York, 1912), p. v. 3 For Gray's work on chapters 1-27, see previous note.

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PREFACE

the manuscript and for his comments, which saved us from many slips. Our crediting some of his observations as '(G. I. Davies)' gives only slight indication of what we owe him. As a result of these comments a careful redaction critic will find occasional differences in (e.g.) the translation from that in the literary-theological exposition just mentioned.

ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY A AB ABD ace. AncB adj. adv. AfO AHw AJSL Akk. ALUOS ANEP ANET AOAT aph Aq Ar. Aram. art. ASTI ATANT ATD AUSS b. BASOR BDB BeO BETL BetM BEvT Bib BibOr

Aleppo Codex of MT Analecta biblica. Rome D. N. Freedman (ed.). The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols., New York, 1992 accusative Anchor Bible. Garden City, NY adjective adverb, adverbial Archiv fur Orientforschung W. von Soden. Akkadisches Handworterbuch, 3 vols., Wiesbaden, 1965-81 American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures Akkadian Annual of Leeds University Oriental Society J. B. Pritchard (ed.), The Ancient Near East in Pictures, Princeton, 2 nd ed., 1969 J. B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, Princeton, 3 rd ed., 1969 Alter Orient und Altes Testament aphel Aquila Arabic Aramaic article Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments Das Alte Testament Deutsch Andrews University Seminary Studies Babylonian Talmud Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford, 1907. Reprinted with corrections, 1953 Bibbia e oriente Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium. Paris Bet Miqra Beitrage zur evangelischen Theologie Biblica Biblica et orientalia. Rome

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BJRL BKAT BL BN BRes BSac BTranslator BWANT BWL BZ BZAW BZNW C CAD CBOTS CBQ cf ch., chs CHP cl. col., cols consec CP CQR CuBi CurTM DCH DG dif. lee. Diss. dittog. DJD DTT esp. EstBib EstEcl ET

ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY

Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester Biblischer Kommentar: Altes Testament. Neukirchen H. Bauer and P. Leander, Historische Grammatik der hebrdischen Sprache des AIten Testamentes, Halle, 1922 Bib Usehe Notizen Biblical Research Bibliotheca Sacra Bible Translator Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament. Stuttgart W. G. Lambert (ed.), Babylonian Wisdom Literature, Oxford/New York, 1960 Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur ZA W Beihefte zur ZNW Cairo Codex of MT The [Chicago] Assyrian Dictionary, 21 vols., Chicago/ Gliickstadt, 1964-. Coniectanea biblica: Old Testament Series. Lund Catholic Biblical Quarterly compare chapter, chapters W. G. E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, J SOT Sup 26, rev. ed., 1986 clause column, columns consecutive J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, Oxford/New York, 1968 Church Quarterly Review Cultura biblica Currents in Theology and Mission D. J. A Clines and others (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, 8 vols., Sheffield, 1993Davidson's Introductory Hebrew Grammar: Syntax, 4 th ed., revised by J. C. L. Gibson, Edinburgh, 1994 difficilior lectio, the more difficult (and therefore perhaps more original) manuscript reading Dissertation dittography Discoveries in the Judaean Desert. Oxford/New York M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, New York/London, 1926 especially Estudios biblicos Estudios ecclesidsticos English translation

ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY

Eth. ETL EvQ EvT EVV EWS Exp ExpT f. FRLANT GK H HAL

hap. leg. haplog. HAR Heb. hi hit HKAT HS HTR HUB HUCA HW IBD IBHS IDB imper. indie. inf. inf. abs. intr. itp J

Xlll

Ethiopic Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses Evangelical Quarterly Evangelische Theologie English versions T. Muraoka, Emphatic Words and Structures in Biblical Hebrew, Jerusalem, 1985 Expositor Expository Times feminine Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments. Gottingen W. Gesenius, Hebrdische Grammatik, ed. and enlarged by E. Kautzsch, Leipzig, 20th ed., 1909. ET Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, Oxford/New York, 2nd ed., 1910 Holiness Code L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, and others, Hebrdisches und Aramdisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament, 3 rd ed., 5 vols., London/New York, 1967, 1974, 1983, 1990, 1995 hapax legomenon haplography Hebrew Annual Review Hebrew hiphil hitpael Handkommentar zum AT R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, Toronto/Buffalo/ London, 1967, 2nd ed., 1976 Harvard Theological Review [see tGoshen-Gottstein] Hebrew Union College Annual Hebrdische Wortforschung (W. Baumgartner Festschrift), FT Sup 16, 1967 J. D. Douglas and others (ed.), The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 3 vols., Leicester/Wheaton, IL, 1980 B. K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, Winona Lake, IN, 1990 G. A. Buttrick and others (ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, 4 vols., Nashville, 1962. Supplementary Volume, 1976 imperative indicative infinitive, infinitival infinitive absolute intransitive itpael Yahwist source (of the Pentateuch)

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JANES JAOS JB JBL JETS JJS JM JNES JNSL JQR JRAS JSNT JSOT JSS JTS juss. K KAT KJV lit. L LD LXX m. maqqeph m.c. MH MHP MS/MSS MT n. NEB NedTT NERT

NIV NJPS NKZ NRT

ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY

Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of the American Oriental Society The Jerusalem Bible, London, 1966 Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society Journal of Jewish Studies P. Jotion, Grammaire de VHebreu biblique, Rome, 2 nd ed., 1947. ET A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, translated and revised by T. Muraoka, Rome, 1991 Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Journal for the Study of the New Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal of Semitic Studies Journal of Theological Studies jussive Kethib Kommentar zum AT King James' [Authorized] Version literally Leningrad Codex of MT Lectio Divina Septuagint masculine maqqeph metri causa Mishnaic Hebrew L. Alonso Schokel, A Manual of Hebrew Poetics, Rome, 1988 Manuscript/Manuscripts Masoretic Text noun The New English Bible: The Old Testament, Oxford/ Cambridge, 1970 Nederlands theologisch tijdschrift W. Beyerlin (ed.), Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating to the Old Testament, OTL, 1978. ET of Religionsgeschichtliches Textbuch zum Alien Testament, Gottingen, 1975 The Holy Bible: New International Version, London, 1979 Tanakh. The Holy Scriptures. The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text, Philadelphia, 1988 Neue kirkliche Zeitschrift Nouvelle Revue Theologique

ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY

n.s. NTS obj. OBO OTL OTS P PBH PEQ petucha PG pi Pi el PL pi. plene p., pp. prep. prob. ptpl pu PuS Q Q qatal R RB REB RecSR rev. RevExp RevQ RevScRel RHPR RHR RV s. S SB SBLMS SBLSP SBT ScHi SCljr SEA setuma

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new series New Testament Studies object Orbis biblicus et orientalis. Friburg/Gottingen Old Testament Library. London/Philadelphia Oudtestamentische Studien Priestly source (of the Pentateuch) Post-biblical Hebrew Palestine Exploration Quarterly petucha' ('open'), the marking of a new 'chapter' in a Hebrew MS by starting a new line (cf setuma) Patrologia graeca. Paris piel E. Jenni, Das hebrdische Pi el, Zurich, 1968 Patrologia latina, Paris plural spelled fully, with vowel letters page, pages preposition probably participle pual J. M. Oesch, Petucha und Setuma, OBO 27, 1979 Qere Qumran, in the setting of sigla such as lQIsa, which denote a Qumran document, in this case the first Isaiah manuscript from Cave 1 Hebrew verb aspect (traditionally 'perfect') Reuchlin Codex of MT Revue biblique Revised English Bible Recherches de science religieuse revised Review and Expositor Revue de Qumran Revue des sciences religieuses Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses Revue d'histoire des religions The Holy Bible [Revised Version] singular Sassoon MS of MT S. Buber's recension (of Midrash Tanhuma) Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers Studies in Biblical Theology. London/Naperville, IL Scripta hierosolymitana Sources Chretiennes. Paris Svensk exegetisk arsbok setuma' ('closed'), the marking of a paragraph break in

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SJOT SJT ST STK Sup Syh Sym Syr Syr. TBii Tg TGUOS Th THAT

ThWAT

TLZ TR trans. TSK TTCHV TTH TynB TWNT

TZ UF Ug. UT vb VD Vg Vol. VT wayyiqtol WD weqatal

ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY

a Hebrew MS by a space in the middle of the line (cf petucha) Scandinavian Journal for the OT Scottish Journal of Theology Studia theologica Svensk teologisk kvartalskrift Supplement Syrohexaplaric Symmachus Syriac (text) Syriac (language) Theologische Biicherei Targum Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society Theodotion E. Jenni and C. Westermann (ed.), Theologisches Handworterbuch zum Altes Testament, 2 vols., Munich, 1971 and 1976. ET Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, 3 vols., Peabody, MA, 1997 G. J. Botterweck and others (ed.), Theologisches Worterbuch zum Alien Testament, 8 vols., Stuttgart, 1970-95. ET Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Grand Rapids, MI, 1974— Theologische Literaturzeitung Theologische Rundschau translation, translated, translator Theologische Studien und Kritiken W. G. E. Watson, Traditional Techniques in Classical Hebrew Verse, J SOT Sup 170, 1994 S. R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew and Some Other Syntactical Questions, Oxford/New York, 1874, 1892 Tyndale Bulletin G. Kittel and G. Friedrich (ed.), Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament, 10 vols., plus index, Stuttgart, 1933-79. ET Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Grand Rapids, MI, 1964-76 Theologische Zeitschrift Ugarit-Forschungen Ugaritic C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook, Rome, 2 nd ed., 1967 verb Verbum Domini Vulgate Volume Vetus Testamentum w-consecutive plus yiqtol Wort und Dogma w-consecutive plus qatal

I WMANT WTJ WUNT y. yiqtol ZAH ZAW ZNW ZST ZTK

Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament. Neukirchen Westminster Theological Journal Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. Tubingen Jerusalem Talmud Hebrew verb form (traditionally 'imperfect') Zeitschrift fiir Althebrdistik Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift fur systematische Theologie Zeitschrift fiir Theologie und Kirche

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY In the commentary, some works on Isaiah are referred to by the author's name plus f (e.g. fElliger), others by a short title (e.g. Elliger, ZAW 49, p. 112, or Elliger, Verhdltnis, p. 43). All these works are listed in the Bibliography below. Works on particular sections or texts in Isaiah are referred to by an author's name plus *(e.g. * Elliger). These works are listed in the bibliography at the end of that major section of commentary. Some reference works are referred to by abbreviations (e.g. EWS); details regarding these works appear in the Abbreviations. General works on OT study have a full reference in a footnote the first time they occur; later allusions refer back to that point in the commentary. Primary sources are listed in this bibliography under GoshenGottstein, Kittel, and Thomas (Hebrew), Burrows, Cross, Parry/ Qimron and Steck (lQIsa), Sukenik (lQIsb), Skehan/Ulrich (4QIs), Milik (5QIs), Sperber and Stenning (Targum), Rahlfs and Ziegler (Greek), Field (Hexapla), Voobus (Syro-Hexapla), Brock (Syriac), Gryson, Monachi..., and Weber (Latin), and Derenbourg (Arabic). Abel, F.-M., 'Le commentaire de Saint Jerome sur Isai'e', in RB 25 (1916), pp. 200-25. Abma, R., Travelling from Babylon to Zion', in JSOT1A (1997), pp. 3-28. Ackroyd, P. R., Theological Reflections on the Book of Isaiah', in King's Theological Review 4 (1981), pp. 53-63; 5 (1982), pp. 8-13, 43-48.

Ahuviah, A., 7© vw?2 mnnnn bv •'ODD^Dn mm p cricrrr

"W 17FOVT, in BetM 22 [70] (1977), pp. 370-74, 391-92. Albertus Magnus, Postilla super Isaiam. c. 1250. Reprinted in Opera omnia, Vol. 19, pp. 1-632. Aschendorff, 1952. Albertz, R., 'Das Deuterojesaja-Buch als Fortschreibung der JesajaProphetie', in Die Hebrdische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte (R. Rendtorff Festschrift, ed. E. Blum and others), pp. 241-56. Neuchirchen, 1990. —Welts chopfung und Menschenschdpfung untersucht bei Deuterojesaja, Hiob und in den Psalmen, Stuttgart, 1974. Alden, R. L., Tsaiah and Wood', in The Law and the Prophets (O. T. Allis Festschrift, ed. J. H. Skilton), pp. 377-87. Nutley, NJ, 1974. f Alexander, J. A., The Later Prophecies of Isaiah, New York/ London, 1847. Reprinted in The Prophecies of Isaiah, 2 vols., New York/London, 1848; rev. ed., New York, 1865. f Allegro, J. M., 'Commentary on Isaiah (D) and (E)'; 'Tanhumim\ in Qumran Cave 4: I (4Q158-4Q186), pp. 27-30, 60-67. DJD 5, 1968.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Allis, O. T., The Unity of Isaiah, Philadelphia, 1950. Almagor, R., "lmuer 120 7© itTnnK r p m T , in Leshonenu 36 (1971), pp. 51-66, iii-iv. Alonso, N., The Problem of the Servant Songs', in Scripture 18 (1966), pp. 18-26. tAlonso Schokel, L., 'Isaiah', in 77ie Literary Guide to the Bible (ed. R. Alter and F. Kermode), pp. 165-83. Cambridge, MA, 1987. |Althann, R., 'Yom, "Time", and Some Texts in Isaiah', in JNSL 11 (1983), pp. 3-8. Anderson, B. W., 'Exodus and Covenant in Second Isaiah and Prophetic Tradition', in Magnolia Dei (G. E. Wright Memorial, ed. F. M. Cross and others), pp. 339-60. Garden City, NY, 1976. —'Exodus Typology in Second Isaiah', in Israel's Prophetic Heritage (J. Muilenburg Festschrift, ed. B. W. Anderson and W. Harrelson), pp. 177-95. New York/London, 1962. Anderson, G. W., The Prophetic Gospel, London,o1952. Andre, G., 'Deuterojesaja och Jobsboken', in SEA 54 (1989), pp. 3342. tArmstrong, J. F., 'A Study of Alternative Readings in the Hebrew Text of the Book of Isaiah', Diss. Princeton, 1958. Ashby, G., 'The Chosen People', in Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 64 (1988), pp. 34-38. f Aytoun, R. A., 'The Servant of the Lord in the Targum', in JTS 23 (1922), pp. 172-80. Bailey, K. E., '"Parables" in Isaiah and Their Significance for OT and NT Translation and Interpretation', in Literary Structure and Rhetorical Strategies in the Hebrew Bible (ed. L. J. de Regt and others), pp. 14-30. Assen, 1996. fBaltzer, D., Ezechiel und Deuterojesaja, BZAW 121, 1971. Baltzer, K., 'Liberation from Debt Slavery after the Exile in Second Isaiah and Nehemiah', in Ancient Israelite Religion (F. M. Cross Festschrift, ed. P. D. Miller and others), pp. 477-84. Philadelphia, 1987. —'Zur formgeschichtlichen Bestimmung der Texte vom GottesKnecht im Deuterojesaja-Buch', in Probleme biblischer Theologie (G. von Rad Festschrift, ed. H. W. Wolff), pp. 27-43. Munich, 1971. —'Stadt-Tyche oder Zion-Jerusalem?', in Alttestamentlicher Glaube und Biblische Theologie (H. D. Preuss Festschrift, ed. J. Hausmann and H.-J. Zobel), pp. 114-19. Stuttgart, 1992. Revised ET, 'The Polemic Against the Gods and its Relevance for Second Isaiah's Conception of the New Jerusalem', in Second Temple Studies (ed. T. C. Eskenazi and K. H. Richards), Vol. 2, pp. 52-59. JSOT Sup 175, 1994. Banwell, B. O., 'A Suggested Analysis of Isaiah xl.-lxvi.', in ExpT16 (1964-65), p. 166. tBarnes, W. E., 'Cyrus the "Servant of Yahweh"', in JTS 32 (1931), pp. 32-39.

XX

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barstad, H. M., The Babylonian Captivity of the Book of Isaiah, Oslo, 1997. —'The Future of the "Servant Songs" ', in Language, Theology, and the Bible (J. Barr Festschrift, ed. S. E. Balentine and J. Barton), pp. 261-70. Oxford/New York, 1994. —' "Lebte Deuterojesaja in Judaa?"', in Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift 83 (1982), pp. 77-87. —'On the So-called Babylonian Literary Influence in Second Isaiah', in SJOT 1987/2, pp. 90-110. t—A Way in the Wilderness, Manchester, 1989. fBarthelemy, D., Critique textuelle de VAncien Testament, Vol. 2, Isai'e, Jeremie, Lamentations, OBO 50/2, 1986. —'Le grande rouleau d'Isai'e trouve pres de la Mer Morte', in RB 57 (1950), pp. 530-49. = Etudes d'histoire du texte de VAncien Testament, OBO 21, 1978, pp. 1-20. Baumgartel, F., 'Die Septuaginta zu Jesaja das Werk zweier Ubersetzer', in J. Herrmann and F. Baumgartel, Beitrdge zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Septuaginta, pp. 20-31. BWANT n.f. 5. Stuttgart, 1923. Beaucamp, E., 'Le iie Isai'e', in Revue des Sciences Religeuses 62 (1988), pp. 218-26. —Livre de la consolation dfIsrael, Paris, 1991. Becker, J., Isaias—der Prophet und sein Buch, Stuttgart, 1968. Bedenbaugh, B., 'The Doctrine of God in Deutero-Isaiah', in Lutheran Quarterly 11 (1959), pp. 154-58. Beecher, W. J., 'The Servant', in The Prophets and the Promise, pp. 263-88. New York, 1905. = Classical Evangelical Essays in Old Testament Interpretation (ed. W. C. Kaiser), pp. 187-204. Grand Rapids, 1973. Beegle, D. M., 'Proper Names in the New Isaiah Scroll', in BASOR 123 (1951), pp. 26-30. Beer, G., 'Die Gedichte vom Knechte Jahwes in Jes 40-55', in Abhandlungen zur semitischen Religionskunde und Sprachwissenschaft (W. W. G. von Baudissin Festschrift, ed. W. Frankenberg and F. Kiichler), pp. 29-46. BZAW 33, 1918. Begg, C. T., 'The Peoples and the Worship of Yahweh in the Book of Isaiah', in Worship and the Hebrew Bible (J. T. Willis Festschrift, ed. M. P. Graham and others), pp. 35-55. JSOT Sup 284, 1999. Begrich, J., 'Das priesterliche Heilsorakel', in ZAW 52 (1934), pp. 81-92. = Begrich, Gesammelte Studien zum Alien Testament, pp. 217-31. TB1121, 1964. t—Studien zu Deuterojesaja, Stuttgart, 1938: TBii, Munich, 1969. fBentzen, A., Jesaja II, Copenhagen, 1943. —'Der Knecht Jahwes', in Messias: Moses redivivus: Menschensohn (ATANT 17, 1948), pp. 42-71. Expanded ET King and Messiah, pp. 48-72, 99-109. London, 1955. Berges, U., Das Buch Jesaja, Freiburg, 1998. tBeuken, W. A. M., Jesaja, Deel II A, B, Nijkerk, 1979, 1983.

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fBevan, A. A., 'Notes On Certain Passages in Deutero-Isaiah', in Journal of Philology 17 (1888), pp. 125-27. f Biddle, M. E., 'Lady Zion's Alter Egos', in tMelugin and Sweeney, pp. 124-39. Birnbaum, S. A., 'The Date of the Incomplete Isaiah Scroll from Qumran', in PEQ 92-93 (1960-61), pp. 19-26. —'The Date of the Isaiah Scroll', in BASOR 113 (1949), pp. 33-35. Blaisdell, C. R., 'Speak to the Heart of Jerusalem', in Encounter (Indianapolis) 52 (1991), pp. 49-61. Blank, S. H., Prophetic Faith in Isaiah, London, 1958. t—'Studies in Deutero-Isaiah', in HUCA 15 (1940), pp. 1^6. Bleeker, L. H. K., 'Jojachin, der Ebed-Jahwe', in ZAW40 (1922), p. 156. Blenkinsopp, J., 'Scope and Depth of the Exodus Tradition in Deutero-Isaiah 40-55', in Concilium (London) 10, 2 (1966), pp. 2226 = Concilium (Paramus, NJ) 20 (1966), pp. 41-50. —'Second Isaiah—Prophet of Universalism', in JSOT 41 (1988), pp. 83-103. = P. R. Davies (ed.), The Prophets, pp. 186-206. Sheffield, 1996. —'The Unknown Prophet of the Exile', in Scripture 14 (1962), pp. 81-90, 109-18. Blocher, H., Songs of the Servant, Leicester/Downers Grove, IL, 1975. fBoadt, L., 'Intentional Alliteration in Second Isaiah', in CBQ 45 (1983), pp. 353-63. Boer, R., 'Deutero-Isaiah: Historical Materialism and Biblical Theology', in Biblical Interpretation 6 (1998), pp. 181-204. tBonnard, P. E., Le Second Isai'e, Paris, 1972. Box, G. H., The Book of Isaiah, London/New York, 1908. tBreslauer, S. D., 'Power, Compassion and the Servant of the Lord in Second Isaiah', in Encounter (Indianapolis) 48 (1987), pp. 16378. Briggs, C. A., Messianic Prophecy, New York, 1886. Bright, J., 'Faith and Destiny: The Meaning of History in DeuteroIsaiah', in Interpretation 5 (1951), pp. 3-26. Brock, S. P., 'Text History and Text Division in Peshitta Isaiah', in The Peshitta: Its Early Text and History (ed. P. B. Dirksen and M. J. Mulder), pp. 49-80. Leiden/New York, 1988. fBrock, S. P. (ed.), Isaiah. The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version. Part III/l. Leiden, 1987. Brockington, L. H., 'The Greek Translator of Isaiah and His Interest in 8o£a', in VT 1 (1951), pp. 23-32. t—The Hebrew Text of the Old Testament: The Readings Adopted by the Translators of the New English Bible, Oxford, 1973. Brownlee, W. H., 'The Manuscripts of Isaiah from which DSIa was Copied', in BASOR 127 (1952), pp. 16-21. t—The Meaning of the Qumran Scrolls for the Bible with Special Attention to the Book of Isaiah, New York/London, 1964.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

—The Servant of the Lord in the Qumran Scrolls', in BASOR 132 (1953), pp. 8-15; 135 (1954), pp. 33-38. fBroyles, C. A., and Evans, C. A. (ed.), Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah, 2 vols., FT Sup 70, 1997. Brueggemann, W., 'Five Strong Rereadings of the Book of Isaiah', in The Bible in Human Society (J. W. Rogerson Festschrift, ed. M. D. Carroll R. and others), pp. 87-104. JSOT Sup 200, 1995. ^—Isaiah, 2 vols., Louisville, 1998. —'Second Isaiah', in Hopeful Imagination, pp. 90-108. Philadelphia, 1986/London, 1992. = fSeitz, pp. 71-90. —'Unity and Dynamic in the Isaiah Tradition', in J SOT 29 (1984), pp. 89-107. = Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology, pp. 252-69. Minneapolis, 1992. —'Weariness, Exile and Chaos', in CBQ 34 (1972), pp. 19-38. Brunot, A., 'Le poeme du Serviteur et ses problemes', in Revue Thomiste 61 (1961), pp. 7-24. fBuber, M., 'The Mystery', in The Prophetic Faith, pp. 202-35. ET New York, 1949. —'Redemption (Isaiah and Deutero-Isaiah)',1 in On the Bible, pp. 160-65. New York, 1968. ET from imK ? DO V2, Jerusalem, 1945. |Budde, K., 'Das Buch Jesaja Kap. 40-66', in Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments (ed. A. Bertholet), pp. 653-720. Tubingen, 1922. —Die sogenannten Ebed-Jahwe-Lieder, Giessen, 1900. ET 'The Socalled "Ebed-Yahweh Songs"', in American Journal of Theology 3 (1899), pp. 499-540. Bundy, D. D., 'Ephrem's Exegesis of Isaiah', in Studia patristica 184 (1990), pp. 234-39. —'The "Questions and Answers" on Isaiah by Isoc bar Nun', in Orientalia lovaniensia periodica 16 (1985), pp. 167-78. f Burrows, E., 'The Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah', in The Gospel of the Infancy, pp. 59-80. London, 1941. Burrows, M., 'Orthography, Morphology, and the Syntax of the St. Mark's Isaiah Manuscript', in JBL 68 (1949), pp. 195-211. —'Variant Readings in the Isaiah Manuscript', in BASOR 111 (1948), pp. 16-24; 113 (1949), pp. 24-32. —'Waw and yodh in the Isaiah Dead Sea Scroll', in BASOR 124 (1951), pp. 18-20. fBurrows, M., and others (ed.), The Isaiah Manuscript and the Habakkuk Commentary, The Dead Sea Scrolls of St. Mark's Monastery Volume 1. New Haven, 1950. Buttenweiser, M., 'Where Did Deutero-Isaiah Live?', in JBL 38 (1919), pp. 94-112. f Calvin, J., Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, 4 vols., ET reprinted Edinburgh, 1850-54. van Cangh, J.-M., 'Nouveaux fragmentes hexaplaires: Commentaire sur Isaie d'Eusebe de Cesaree', in KB 78 (1971), pp. 384-90. Carmignac, J., 'Six passages dTsai'e eclaires par Qumran', in Bibel und Qumran (ed. S. Wagner) pp. 37-46. East Berlin, 1968.

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Zimmerli, W., 'Le nouvel "exode" dans le message des deux grands prophetes de FexiF, in Maqqel shdkedh: la tranche d'amandier (W. Vischer Festschrift), pp. 216-27. Montpellier, 1960. —'Jahwes Wort bei Deuterojesaja', in VT 32 (1982), pp. 104-24. Zwingli, H., Complanationis Isaiae prophetae foetura prima, 1529. Reprinted in Corpus Reformatorum 101, pp. 1-412. Zurich, 1959.

INTRODUCTION

1. CHAPTERS 40-55 IN THE CONTEXT OF THE BOOK CALLED ISAIAH1 In this volume we do not rehearse the arguments for reckoning that Isaiah 40-66 comes from a different author or authors from those of Isaiah 1-39.2 Within the book called Isaiah, chapters 40-55 then form a discrete unit. Both the adverbial phrase and the verbal clause in that statement need emphasis. Chapters 40^-55 are an integral part of the book, f B. Duhm (2nd ed., p. vii) believed that chapters 40-66 were originally attached to Jeremiah, f C. H. Cornill (pp. 103-4) that a redactor linked the work of Second Isaiah to that of First Isaiah because the former happened also to bear the actual name Isaiah, and R. H. Pfeiffer that the link came about purely because chapters 1-39 and 40-66 fitted conveniently onto one scroll.3 If one of these possibilities were correct, there might be no more (though no less) basis for considering Isaiah 40-55 in relation to Isaiah 1-39 than in relation to Hosea, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Psalms, or Lamentations. But in different ways, the antecedents of this present commentary in the ICC series already subverted the assumption that Isaiah 1-39 and Isaiah 40-66 are unrelated wholes, and there are indeed substantial and historical links between Isaiah 40-55 and the rest of the book. These suggest that their forming part of the same work with chapters 1-39 and 5666 is more than accident or convenience. Isaiah is one book, and chapters 40-55 require to be related to what has preceded and to what follows. There is no such thing as 'the Book of DeuteroIsaiah'.4 Second Isaiah is not a prophetic book5 that strangely lacks the heading that prophetic books usually have. Historically, the interrelationship of the book's parts is simple to state in outline but impossible to determine in detail. Isaiah 1-39 contains a number of explicit references to the Judah of the eighth century BC when Assyria was the great middle-eastern power, and to the activity of a prophet called Isaiah ben Amoz in that period. Isaiah 40-55 contains a number of explicit references to the circumstances of the sixth century BC when Babylon was the great power. The Babylonian period is spoken of not as future, as if Isaiah 1 On 2

the phrase 'the book called Isaiah', see on 'The Poet-Prophet' below. For a classic statement, see S. R. Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (Edinburgh/New York, 9th ed., 1913). Driver's crucial argument is his first, the fact that the prophecies overtly address people who live in the exile or afterwards, not people who live in the eighth century. His second and third arguments relate to literary style and theological ideas. 3 Introduction to the Old Testament (New York, 1941; rev. ed., 1948), p. 415. 4 Von Waldow, Interpretation 22, p. 259. 5 Koch, Profeten II, p. 124; ET p. 118.

2

ISAIAH 40-55

were prophesying it, but as present, as if the prophecies come from someone who is contemporary with it. As the Jewish exegete flbn Ezra noted in the eleventh century AD, the way Isaiah 40-55 speaks as if the fall of Jerusalem is long past and the contemporary question concerns the restoration of the community suggests it comes from that period, not from the eighth century BC. There are other arguments (e.g. linguistic ones) that also suggest the chapters come from an author other than Isaiah ben Amoz, but it is the fact that they address people for whom the fall of Jerusalem is long past that remains the conclusive indication that they come from the sixth century BC (or later). Isaiah 56-66 includes no explicit historical references but among other things takes up ideas and themes from chapters 40-55 as well as having its own links with chapters 1-39. Different parts of the book (particularly within chapters 1-39) may presuppose other contexts such as the imminent collapse of Assyria in the seventh century BC, or later developments in the Second Temple period. But the crude historical outline that has characterized the study of Isaiah since Duhm will be sufficient for the moment. Its significance in the present context is that Isaiah 40-55 came into being as part of a process that also brought into being Isaiah 1-39 and Isaiah 56-66. The obvious assumption is that a form of Isaiah 1— 39 existed by the sixth century and that chapters 40-55 were added to this material. By a similar process chapters 56-66 were then added later. But the usual view is that a significant amount of the material within chapters 1-39 itself comes from the sixth century or later and that elements within chapters 40-55 come from the Persian period. We do not have to take account of theories that virtually the entire book comes from the Persian and Greek periods in order to begin to reckon that a simple three-stage understanding of the book's growth dies the death of a thousand qualifications. Indeed, one could reverse the understanding of this process and see 'Second Isaiah' as the person who played a decisive part in putting the material in chapters 1-39 into the form that we know, putting a distinctive stamp on the existent 'Isaianic tradition' and turning it into an introduction to chapters 40-55 (so "("Williamson). 'Third Isaiah' has similarly been seen as the person who fulfilled an analogous role in relation to the material in chapters 40-556 to that hypothesized for Second Isaiah in relation to chapters 1-39. Chapters 40-55 could thus speak to the Second Temple community to which 'Third Isaiah' belonged, perhaps in the time of Haggai and Zechariah, perhaps in the time of Ezra and/or Nehemiah. On either of these understandings of the process whereby the book came into being (and on other understandings) the position of 'Second Isaiah' between 'First' and 'Third Isaiah' gives 'Second Isaiah' a key place in that process. Historically the chapters need to be understood in the context of this larger whole. Isaiah 40-55 links with chapters 1-39 and chapters 56-66, historically and rhetorically. 6

So Elliger, Verhdltnis.

INTRODUCTION

3

It takes up motifs and oracles from chapters 1-39 and declares their fulfilment or reapplication or suspension or transformation, or uses them as resources for understanding and speaking to the situation two centuries later (see, e.g., f Clements). Its motifs and oracles are in turn taken up in chapters 56-66 and subjected to analogous treatment for a community that has to live with the largely unfulfilled vision of chapters 40-55. Such interrelationships are not confined to the different parts of Isaiah. Chapters 40-55, for instance, indeed have substantial and historical links with Hosea, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Zechariah, Psalms, and other OT books (see fSommer). But these interrelationships within the book do mean that a commentary on a part of Isaiah will need to see this segment as part of Isaiah as a whole. At some level in the process whereby the book came into being, its different parts were designed to be read in relation to each other. It might then be significant to see the treatment of individual words and themes in one part in the light of the treatment in another part. The same point can be made on a synchronic basis, and again such interpretation is two-way. Chapters 40-55 affect the significance of chapters 1-39 and 56-66. Statements about the community's blindness and deafness in chapters 1-39, for instance, eventually turn out to be set in the context of further statements about that blindness and deafness in chapters 40-55. Promises of Zion's renewal in chapters 56-66 appear in the context of earlier statements about that renewal in chapters 40-55. Seeing statements in the light of other statements may be necessary because the latter are consciously in dialogue with the former. In that case, it is part of the exegesis of the particular passage. Alternatively, seeing them in this light may not affect the specifics of exegesis, but it may affect our grasp of a passage's significance as part of a whole. A parallel might be the interpretation of Job, where each part (the framework story, the statements of Job and those of his friends, Yhwh's statements, and so on) needs to be interpreted in its own right but also as part of a whole. Chapters 1-39 and 56-66 also affect the significance of chapters 40-55. Within chapters 40-48, declarations that Babylon would fall to the Medes (chapters 13-14) provide evidence that Yhwh is indeed sovereign in history. Statements about the community's blindness and deafness in chapters 40-55 constitute not merely contemporary assessments of the sixth-century community but statements of links with the community to which chapters 1-39 refer. The recurrent reminder that the God who is setting about Jacob-Israel's restoration is 'the holy one of Israel' gains part of its significance from the fact that chapters 1-39 have described this God as the great threat to the community in its rebelliousness. Such specific links with chapters 1-39 again suggest that in the exegesis of chapters 40-55 some interest attaches to the way words are used earlier in the book. Further, the taking up and reworking in chapters 56-66 of promises

4

ISAIAH 40-55

in chapters 40-55 may raise both positive and critical questions about the significance of the latter. A theological theme that runs through the whole book is the destiny of Jerusalem/Zion (see, e.g., tDumbrell). Chapters 1—39 speak of Yhwh's commitment to the city, of its deep sinfulness, of its necessary punishment, and of its destined fall, but they do not make clear how these can be coherently interrelated. The city's fall to the Babylonians has sharpened the question. Chapters 40-55 and 56-66 reaffirm all the aspects of the way this motif is handled in chapters 139 and declare that God's commitment will have the last word. Chapters 56-66, in particular, reaffirm the promises of Zion's restoration in even more glorious technicolor than that which chapters 40-55 use, but they do that in the context of other statements that make clear that those promises have not been fulfilled in anything like that technicolor. This again makes us reconsider the significance of the promises in chapters 40-55. The need to see chapters 40-55 as part of a whole can thus be argued on both a diachronic and a synchronic basis. We have assumed that the nature of a commentary lends itself to study that is synchronic and also linear. First, we focus on reading chapters 40-55 sequentially, and treat them as following chapters 1-39. From a diachronic perspective this may sometimes involve anachronism. For instance, we treat 42.1-4 as taking up issues raised in 2.2-4 and taking them further. Historically it may be that 2.2-4 is later than 42.1-4, but if so, the book as we have it invites us to read the older passage in light of the later one, and we are accepting that invitation. Further, we have not attempted systematically to consider the ways in which material in chapters 40-55 is taken up in chapters 56-66. We have left that as a task belonging in a commentary on chapters 5666. 2. ISAIAH 40-55 AS A DISCRETE ENTITY Chapters 40-55 are thus an integral part of a book. But they form a discrete unit within the book. The oldest manuscript of Isaiah, lQIsa, leaves a three-line space at the bottom of a column at the end of chapter 33. While this might have been the accidental by-product of a change of scribe at that point, scribal practice suggests that it more likely reflects scribal recognition of a major division in the book. It has thus stimulated reflection on the way the book as a whole here divides into two halves.7 Chapters 1 and 33 open and close the first half, introducing major themes and summarizing them in retrospect. In a sense, the

7 See E. Tov, 'The Text of Isaiah at Qumran', in jBroyles and Evans, pp. 491-511 (see pp. 498-99); |Brownlee, pp. 247-59; tRichards; tEvans; also fGoldingay.

INTRODUCTION

5

opening half of any book by its nature and position forms an introduction to the second half, and in this particular case we can see the book raising issues that are taken up again in the second half. Chapters 34-35 and 36-39 have concrete links with chapters 1-33 that have justified the dividing of the book after chapter 39 that is presupposed by this commentary. But they do also comprise a dedicated prophetic/poetic introduction and narrative introduction to the second half of the book. Chapters 34-35 open up some of the themes that will receive more extensive treatment in chapters 40-66, though this is not to imply (with f Torrey) that they are of the same authorship as chapters 40-66. Diachronically, chapters 34-35 may be retrospective (partial) summaries of the subsequent chapters. Chapters 36-39 take the narrative background of the book from the time of Isaiah ben Amoz to that of 'Second Isaiah', from Assyrian domination to Babylonian domination, from a location in Judah to one in Babylonia. Again, diachronically the chapters were doubtless fashioned as we have them (or at least were put in their place) subsequent to the work of 'Second Isaiah', and they also balance the Ahaz narrative (chapters 6-8) in the first half of the book. Thus chapter 40 constitutes a new beginning in marking a transition from narrative about Hezekiah's day to proclamation to the sixth-century community, but within the book as a whole, it does not form a wholly new beginning. It has been provided with a dedicated double introduction. Nor does chapter 55 constitute final closure. We have noted that the issues raised in chapters 40-55 are taken further in chapters 56-66. Indeed, writers such as jTorrey, tHaran, |Kaufmann, |Smart, and |Murtonen have continued to resist the thesis that chapters 56-66 are of separate authorship. Even if they are right, within the second half of the book chapters 40-55 form a discrete unit. One formal indication of this is the inclusio formed by 40.1-11 and 55.6-13 (see comment). Further, in 66.18-24 motifs from each of these passages are taken up once more. That fact witnesses to the need to look back to chapters 40-55 at the close of the book, but also to the earlier self-containedness of chapters 40-55. The recurrence of the comment 'there is no wellbeing for the wicked' at 48.22 and 57.21 is insufficient to suggest that chapters 40-66 should be divided into three sections at these points. The statement in 48.22 does close off chapters 40-48, which focus on a number of themes that distinguish them from chapters 49-55 with their distinctive foci. But they do not constitute any form of ending, for a major significance of chapter 48 is to provide the strongest statement of the problem of Jacob-Israel's resistance to Yhwh, alongside a statement of Yhwh's commitment to Jacob-Israel. Chapters 40-48 lead into the further handling of this problem in chapters 49-55. A further indication that chapter 55 constitutes an end is the new beginning at 56.1, which announces an attempt to hold together the

6

ISAIAH 40-55

concerns of chapters 1-39 and those of chapters 40-55.8 While chapters 40-55 share concerns with chapters 34—35 and 36-39 and with chapters 56-66, this sharing comprises overlap rather than identity. Chapters 40-55 have a distinctive agenda that makes it appropriate to consider them as a discrete unit, even though they form a unit with various forms of relationship to the material on either side. We may speculate that the relationship of overlap rather than identity reflects diachronic factors in9 the relationship of chapters 40-55 to the chapters on either side. Chapters 34-35 may have come into existence before or after chapters 40-55, but not at the same time. Chapters 36-39 presumably came into existence earlier but may have been put in this position later. We assume the traditional critical view that the material in chapters 56-66 came into existence later. This event means that chapters 40-55 turn out not to be a final word, but one could not guess this from 55.12-13 as one could from 48.22. Chapter 55 could once have closed a book. It would not be at all impossible for chapter 48 to do that, but it would be a less likely ending. Internal to chapters 40-55 there is a further aspect of the relationship between diachronic and synchronic approaches. There is a distinctive focus to the study of these chapters in Europe (in the old-fashioned sense of Europe as the continent from which Britain distinguishes itself). This is the attempt to trace the process whereby the material in chapters 40-55 itself came into being. In a sense this study is a traditional enough occupation. It has been common to treat the four so-called servant songs as a discrete strand within the book, which might or might not have been the work of Second Isaiah but was not part of its original composition. This has encouraged the proliferation of theories about the servant's identity over the past century. A similar approach has been taken to the passages that attack divine images, and to the admonitory material in the chapters (e.g. the admonitory strand in chapter 48). A number of glosses have also been identified within the chapters. These redactional approaches nevertheless took for granted that the bulk of the material came from a single prophet working in the 540s BC. Current study of the chapters' development (see, e.g., the works of Berges; Hermisson; Kratz; Merendino; Steck; van Oorschot; Vermeylen) is more open-minded about the last question. While some of the material, especially in chapters 40-48, indeed came from a 'Second Isaiah' (usually still located in Babylon) in the 540s BC, 8 Cf R. Rendtorff, 'Jesaja 56,1 als Schiissel fur die Komposition des Buches Jesaja', in Kanon und Theologie (Neukirchen, 1991), pp. 172-79; ET in Canon and Theology (Minneapolis, 1993), pp. 181-89. 9 See fTorrey, pp. 98-104; more recently, for example, O. H. Steck, Bereitete Heimkehr (Stuttgart, 1985); P. R. Ackroyd, 'Isaiah 36-39', in Von Kanaan bis Kerala (J. P. M. van der Ploeg Festschrift, ed. W. C. Delsman and others; AOAT 211, 1982), pp. 3-21 = Ackroyd, Studies in the Religious Tradition of the Old Testament (London, 1987), pp. 105-20, 274-78; cf Seitz, Destiny; C. Hardmeier, Prophetie im Streit vor der Untergang Judas (BZAW 187, 1990).

INTRODUCTION

7

chapters 40-55 as we have them came into being through a process that took a century or more. Indeed, |Vincent and others have in effect questioned the axiom that chapters 40-55, even if redacted, fundamentally reflect the ministry of a single individual prophet in the mould of the individual pre-exilic prophets. But even if this axiom is still to be accepted, in the framework of this approach the work of this individual has been expanded in a number of contexts, such as Babylon or Jerusalem in the 530s, the 520s, and the fifth century. The expansion reflects different needs in the community as circumstances change and prophets seek to address them. The expansion may involve both the reworking of existent prophecies and the creating of new ones. The text as we have it is therefore a layered document, and redaction-criticism seeks to identify the layers. Along with reviewers of this work in the English-speaking world, we have several kinds of unease with this study: • It is based on the conviction that repetitions, syntactical unevenness, varying theological emphases, and varying symbolism suggest diversity of authorship. It is such repetitions in 45.1-7 (for instance) that provide f Kratz with his starting-point. But the assumption that poets and prophets aim at or achieve succinctness and consistency is gratuitous. • It has to make arbitrary decisions about what a prophet may have said. For instance, t v a n Oorschot assumes that a prophet in Babylon would not have talked about Jerusalem. This provides him with the starting-point for understanding the process that takes the material 'from Babylon to Zion'. Such assumptions also seem gratuitous. • It presupposes a process for which we have no analogies in the ancient world. The process is conceivable in the age of the wordprocessor and the internet, but difficult to conceive in the age of the scroll. • It produces inherently implausible results. "fKratz believes that the specific references to Cyrus belong to a late layer of the material and constitute a coded reference to Darius. It is easier to believe that a prophet who said Cyrus would mean Cyrus and that a prophet who meant Darius would say Darius. • It produces results that differ quite markedly at the hands of different exponents of the method. If the material did come into being by a staged process, this suggests that we cannot recover that process. In this commentary we sometimes note the implications of redaction-critical theories for particular sections and have used exegetical insights that emerge from them, but we have taken the text broadly in the form that we have it as the basis for the commentary. There is another inquiry that overlaps with the redaction-critical one—the attempt to give more precise and sequential dates to individual oracles or to whole sections within chapters 40-55 (e.g. fS. Smith; f Morgenstern). It has been common to date chapters 40-48

8

ISAIAH 40-55

before the fall of Babylon and chapters 49-55 after that event (so recently, e.g., f Blenkinsopp). The problem with this venture is that it requires us to assume that events within the poet's vision correspond to events in the empirical world. Isaiah 44.24-45.25 is set on the eve of the fall of Babylon and commissions the effecting of the exiles' restoration. But in itself that does not mean that historically the passage dates from just before the fall of Babylon. It could be earlier, or even later. It is within the vision that this is its setting (|Hessler). The commission to leave Babylon in 48.20 means that the city has fallen within the vision, but this does not fix what is the date in the world outside the vision. Indeed Babylon already seems to have fallen in 43.14-15: so writers such as |Haran (p. 139) assume that the whole of chapters 40-66 post-dates this event. Given the possible difference between the visionary world and the empirical world, we have not sought to relate the dating of material to the latter. 3. THE TEXT OF ISAIAH 40-55 Our concern in this commentary is thus to offer an interpretation of the text of Isaiah 40-55 in the form in which we have it. But what we mean by 'the text of Isaiah 40-55' is newly difficult to define. The commentaries of writers such as "jTbn Ezra or f Calvin show how in the pre-critical period the meaning of this expression was selfevident. It referred to the traditional text that had been put into definitive form as what we call the Masoretic Text in the century or two before Ibn Ezra's time. By Calvin's day, forms of this text had come to appear in the first printed edition of the Prophets in Hebrew in 1485-86 and then in the second edition of the Rabbinic Bible, published in 1524-25. In the mid-twentieth century the same text still appeared in the Bible Society Hebrew Bible edited by |N. H. Snaith, which was based on a British Museum manuscript of 1482. This traditional text includes some variant readings in the form of the Kethib and Qere, but that phenomenon did not seem to imperil the assumption that the traditional text could be identified as the Hebrew text of Isaiah. A defining characteristic of modernity and thus of biblical criticism was to question tradition, and textual criticism therefore regarded it as an open question whether the traditional text was the text. Before the question of the dating of Isaiah 40-55 became an issue, from the time of Capellus in the late seventeenth century scholars thus began making suggestions for the alteration of the traditional text to conform it to what they thought was the original text. A development thus took place that was analogous to the contemporary one traced by Hans Frei in The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative.™ Pre-critical study assumed the identity of the biblical narrative and a sequence of events that took place in history. Critical study saw that there was a difference between these two, and chose to focus theologically on the 10

New Haven/London, 1974.

INTRODUCTION

9

second rather than the first. Pre-critical study likewise assumed the identity of the traditional text and the 'original' text. Critical textual study saw the difference between these and again chose to focus on the second rather than the first. A postmodern context makes one aware of the ambiguity of these decisions. In both cases, critical study chose to put the emphasis on something that can now seem an unattainable will of the wisp rather than something that at least has the virtue of existing. Whereas an assumed aim of Isaianic textual criticism has been the ascertaining of the book's original text, this now seems an equivocal notion. Modernity's model for studying this text came from the era of the printing press, which is approximately coterminous with modernity itself. In this era, it was entirely meaningful to think of a book as having an original text and to assume that this text is the same in all copies, except where officially revised. This may not have been so meaningful in the age of the manuscript, as it ceases to be so meaningful in the age of the word processor. The oldest extant copies of Isaiah in Hebrew are manuscripts discovered near the Dead Sea at Qumran in the 1940s and 1950s. One need not reckon that all these had been copied at Qumran itself. On the contrary, it is usually assumed that members of the community took some manuscripts there from elsewhere. The discoveries included one virtually complete version of Isaiah, lQIsa (that is, the first Isaiah manuscript from Cave 1 at Qumran) and another that includes about half of chapters 40-55 (lQIsb). The manuscripts of Isaiah from Qumran are especially numerous compared with those of other OT books. On the basis of characteristics such as handwriting styles, lQIsa has been dated between the early second and the midfirst century BC. The other Isaiah manuscripts come from various times between the mid-first century and the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. The manuscripts are as follows. lQIsa: complete for chapters 40-55 except for a few letters at the beginning of eight successive lines at 45.10-16. lQIsb: 40.2-3; 41.3-23; 43.1-13, 23-27; 44.21-28; 45.1-13; 46.3-13; 47.1-14; 48.17-22; 49.1-15; 50.7-11; 51.1-10; 52.7-15; 53.112; 54.1-6; 55.2-13 4QIsb: 40.1-4, 22-26; 41.8-11; 42.2-7, 9-12; 43.12-15; 44.19-28; 45.20-25; 46.1-3; 48.6-8; 49.21-23; 51.1-2, 14-16; 52.2, 7; 53.11-12 c 4QIs : 44.3-7, 23; 45.1-4, 6-8; 46.8-13; 48.10-15, 17-19; 49.22; 51.8-16; 52.10-15; 53.1-3, 6-8; 54.3-5, 7-17; 55.1-7 4QIsd: 45.20; 46.10-13; 47.1-6, 8-9; 48.8-22; 49.1-15; 52.4-7; 53.812; 54.1-11 4QIss: 42.14^25; 43.1-4, 16-24 4QIsh: 42.4-11 4QIsi: 54.10-13 5QIs: 40.16, 18-19; 741.25

10

ISAIAH 40-55

Other Qumran scrolls include quotations from chapters 40-55 that reveal the way the chapters were being utilized in the period. There are many of these quotations, further underlining the book's importance at Qumran. Indeed, the verses with which Isaiah 40-55 almost begins, the command to prepare Yhwh's way in the wilderness, provided the members of the community with the warrant for their vocation. They saw themselves as its fulfilment (see The Community Rule, 1QS 8.14; 9.19-20). The use of such passages of scripture at Qumran has provided new material and stimulus for the study of the influence of Isaiah 40-55 on later believing communities and on the circumstances in which it might be appropriated. The most substantial collection of quotations comes in 4Q176 Tanhumfm, which refers to 40.1-5; 41.8-9; 49.7, 13-17; 43.1-2, 4^6; 51.22-23; 52.1-3; 54.4^-10; 52.1-2; see also the pesharim 4Q164 (54.11-12) and 4Q165 (40.11-12); 11Q13 2.15-16 (52.7); anda Damascus Document 6.7-8 (54.16). Some of these agree with lQIs against the MT in matters of substance as well as spelling (see, e.g., on 54.8a, 9a, 10a).b lQIsa has been11 most recently published by fParry and Qimron, lQIs by fSukenik. The 4Q biblical manuscripts have been published by |Skehan and Ulrich; the other 4Q manuscripts by |Allegro, with important comments by Strugnell (see at 40.3); the 5Q manuscript (comprising only a few letters identical with the MT) by tMilik. Most attention has focused on lQIsa. As well as updated spelling and attempts to clarify meaning by the addition of the conjunction and of suffixes, it contains many evident slips, despite the fact that it has been heavily emended, sometimes by the original scribe, sometimes by a subsequent scribe. Some of these emendations conform the text more to the Masoretic tradition, some make it more independent, f Kutscher concluded that lQIsa was a personal copy of the text rather than an 'official' one like lQIsb. The latter is closely similar to the Masoretic manuscripts from a millennium later, which were previously our oldest copies of the Hebrew text of Isaiah. Paradoxically, this makes lQIsb at least as important as lQIsa because it confirms the antiquity of the textual tradition represented by the MT. There are indeed many slight differences between lQIsb and the MT, but these are mostly matters of spelling or morphology, or the absence or addition of the copula w. But the other Qumran fragments listed above have some readingsb in common with lQIsa asa well as others in common with lQIs , suggesting that lQIs represents more than merely the vagaries of a single scribe, though in general the 4Q manuscripts are also nearer to the MT than to lQIsa (see fMorrow, p. 171). After the Qumran scrolls, the next oldest complete manuscripts of 11 E. Puech published a further fragment comprising words from 44.23-25, read as in MT (see 'Quelques aspects de la Restauration du Rouleau des Hymnes' in JJS 39 [1988], pp. 38-55 [see p. 55]). Both lQIs a and lQIs b are also to be published in DJD.

INTRODUCTION

11

Isaiah are the Masoretic codices from the ninth to twelfth centuries AD. Semitic writing strictly records only consonants, but scribes had developed the practice of marking some vowel sounds by utilizing some of the less significant consonants and giving them this new meaning. By the time of the Qumran scrolls there were a number of ways of doing this. By the late first millennium, subsequent scribes had developed several further ways of indicating vowel sounds more fully. The system represented in most Masoretic codices and used in printed Hebrew Bibles was developed at Tiberias, and was thus used by the scribes belonging to the Ben Asher family there. A copy of the Prophets made by Moses ben Asher, dated AD 895, was discovered in a Cairo synagogue and is thus known as the Cairo Codex. Finds from the storeroom ('geniza') of the Old Cairo synagogue included many other fragments of older manuscripts of Isaiah and other texts, from the sixth to ninth centuries, using the older Babylonian system for indicating the vowels. We refer to some of their variants, on the basis of information in HUB. Some manuscripts with sigla such as Eb 51 have the simpler version of this Babylonian pointing and come from the earlier part of this period. Others with sigla such as Kb 13 have the more complex Babylonian system and come from the eighth and ninth centuries.12 The St Petersburg Codex of the Prophets, dated AD 916, uses the Babylonian sigla but follows the Western tradition in its actual text and 13pointing. It was published in a facsimile edition by H. L. Strack. The Hebrew University Bible edition of Isaiah (HUB) reproduces the Aleppo Codex. It was copied by Solomon ben Buya'a, who lived in the early tenth century AD, and vocalized by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher. Biblia hebraica in its various editions (fKittel, "(Thomas) reproduces the oldest extant complete Hebrew Bible, the Leningrad Codex (dated AD 1008/9). It was copied by Samuel ben Jacob in Cairo but says it was made from manuscripts copied by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher. It is available in an older facsimile edition edited by S. Loewinger and a modern one edited by D. N. Freedman and others. A simpler vowel system appears in the Reuchlin Codex, written in Italy in 1105 and published in a facsimile edition by A. Sperber.14 The work of the Masoretic movement was to standardize the text, with the result that direct witnesses to other readings disappeared. The many other medieval Hebrew manuscripts deriving from the period after that of the MT manuscripts are copies15of them. Their distinctive readings were listed by B. B. Kennicott and J. B. de 12 13

See classically P. Kahle, The Cairo Geniza (London, 1947). H. L. Strack, Prophetarum posteriorum Codex Babylonicus Petropolitanus (St Petersburg, 1876); see E. Wiirthwein, Der Text des Alien Testaments (Stuttgart, 1952), p. 32; ET The Text of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, 1979/London, 1980), p. 35. 14 Codex Reuchlinianus (Copenhagen, 1956): see Wiirthwein (see above), p. 22 (ET p. 25). 15 Vetus Testamentum Hebraice cum variis lectionibus (Oxford, 1776-80).

12

ISAIAH 40-55

Rossi16 in the eighteenth century. But it is usually reckoned that these reflect changes that came about after the standardization of the MT rather than that they incorporate witness to readings that are older than the MT (though contrast fArmstrong). On the other hand, where biblical quotations in first-millennium Jewish writers differ from the MT, these more likely witness to older readings. HUB thus includes them in its apparatus. The likelihood must be allowed that the MT also sometimes incorporates readings that are relatively new and would have been unknown a millennium earlier. Nevertheless the similarity of lQIsb to the great MT manuscripts confirms the hypothesis that the MT represents a text that had changed little over the previous millennium. We have noted that both lQIsb and the MTa manuscripts preserve spelling conventions older than those of lQIs , though also ones that were different from the practice of the period in which the book was actually written. They thus make some limited use of vowel letters in generally incorporating medial y and w and final h. But they do not make the fuller use of vowel letters,a and of the newer formulations of suffixes, that characterize lQIs . The spelling in the other Qumran manuscripts varies between a greater conservatism than lQIsb or the MT, and the modernity of lQIsa (fMorrow, p. 171). The distinctiveness of lQIsa confirms the hypothesis that in late antiquity the text of Isaiah was extant in various forms. This had been an implicit assumption of textual criticism since the seventeenth century, when scholarship began proposing emendations to the traditional Hebrew text on the basis of the Septuagint. That practice presupposed that the LXX was translated from a different Hebrew text from the one preserved by the Masoretes. This text could be recovered by translating the Greek back into Hebrew so that the resultant hypothetical text could be the basis for emending the traditional Hebrew. The same process could be undertaken on the basis of other ancient translations, though these were later and were thus assumed to be of less importance compared with the LXX. One might therefore think of us as having access to three slightly from late antiquity, the protodifferent textual traditions of Isaiah by the Masoretic as represented by lQIsb, the Greek as represented LXX, and the distinctive form represented by lQIsa. Where lQIsa and the LXX differ from the MT, they usually do so independently. There are few places where they agree on a difference from the MT. To express the matter in this way may put a question mark by the way traditional criticism has utilized the resources of the other two text forms as the basis for emending the Masoretic form. Each of the text forms represents a separate tradition or independent recension of the text. The differences between them may mean that the LXX or lQIsa more closely represents the 'original form of the book'. Or they may equally mean that these text forms embody interpretations of 16

Variae lectiones Veteris Testamenti (Parmae, 1784-88).

INTRODUCTION

13

the text form that they are translating or copying, or that earlier instances of such interpretations lie behind those text forms. It was in the mid-second century BC in Egypt that, along with other OT books, Isaiah was translated into Greek: see especially the works of R. R. Ottley, J. Ziegler (editor of the standard version of the text), I. L. Seeligmann, J. Koenig, and A. van der Kooij. While all translation involves some interpretation, the translation of Isaiah is freer than that of many other books in the Greek OT. Where phrases in the Hebrew are missing, this often reflects omission where the Hebrew text contained repetitions. Extra material in the Greek often reflects a desire to clarify matters, and from time to time to relate the text to the translator's own day (see, e.g., the comments on 40.5b, 26). A notable example is the addition of the words 'Jacob' and 'Israel' in 42.1, which make the servant's identity explicit. One can never prove that such a difference between the Greek and Hebrew indicates a Greek addition rather than a Hebrew loss (see the comment), but such addition in the Greek is easier to understand than loss from the Hebrew. A notable example of omission in the LXX is the allusion to the servant's being struck by God in 53.4b (see comment). The (mis)understanding of a verb in 53.10a may be another example of a theologically motivated distinctiveness in the LXX. A more prosaic reason for differences between the LXX and the Hebrew is that sometimes the translator had difficulty with the Hebrew, and one characteristic feature of the translation is its recourse to certain favourite expressions in this situation (see note on 40.6b). A related device is the adoption of phrases from elsewhere in the translation, or from elsewhere in the OT. In the Christian period three revisions of the Greek translation were made, associated with the names of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus. Ziegler notes the differences between them and the LXX in his edition of the latter. The Aramaic version of Isaiah in Targum Jonathan is a more paraphrastic and interpretative translation and one that is assumed itself to belong to the same tradition as the work of the Masoretes. The most sustained student of the Tg of Isaiah, B. D. Chilton, maintains that the Tg as we have it is the deposit of two main stages of interpretation. One was undertaken in the Tannaitic period in the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 and was concerned for the restoration of the temple. The other came from the Amoraic period, from study in fourth-century Babylon that presupposed an acceptance of dispersion. Chilton suggests that the messianism of the in Tannaitic period appears in the interpretation of the servantfigure 52.13-53.12, but that of the later period in 42.1-4; 43.10-12.17 The standard text of the Tg as a whole is that of A. Sperber, but J. F. Stenning produced a convenient edition of the Tg of Isaiah with a facing translation. 17

'Two in One', in fBroyles and Evans, pp. 547-62 (see pp. 555-57).

14

ISAIAH 40-55

The Syriac version of Isaiah was part of the Bible in the Syriacspeaking church. We do not know whether it had an earlier life within Judaism or whether it was a Christian creation. The oldest (fragmentary) Syriac manuscript of Isaiah, which includes leaves covering 40.1-54.12, is dated 459/460; it is the oldest extant dated biblical manuscript. Apparent knowledge of the Syr by fourthcentury Syriac writers suggests that it must have been in existence by the early fourth century. The translators are usually reckoned to have worked from a Hebrew text not very different from the MT but sometimes to have utilized both the LXX and other Jewish exegetical traditions in interpreting the Hebrew. Its rendering of passages quoted in the NT, such as 40.3-5, 6b, 8; 42.1-4, does not seem to have18 been influenced by their rendering in Syriac versions of the NT. On the other hand, A. van der Kooij finds several indications that its rendering of 49.1-6 is influenced by Christian convictions (see comment). He also finds these indications in 52.15a and 53.2b, but the evidence is slight and the Syr's rendering of 53.9a and 12b is odd if it presupposes Christian faith (see comment). In general the Syr's translation is quite literal, but like the LXX it sometimes omits phrases, for instance when it is puzzled by them (e.g. 40.20a; 47.7a; 54.15). It can add or omit the copula (e.g. 40.3, lla, 18a, 20a, 31a) and vary prepositions, suffixes, and verb forms, often in order to make the text smoother (e.g. 42.20b, 24b, 25a; 44.2b, 24; 45.8b, 9a; 48.5b, 8a, 11, 15). It can omit repetitions (e.g. 48.11; 55.1b) or offer what seems to be a conflate text (e.g. 44.9, 16). It can clarify or simplify the unclear (e.g. 42.3b; 44.7b; 51.12) and modify the theologically implausible (e.g. 47.6a) (see works in the Bibliography by Brock, Delekat, Goshen-Gottstein, Jenkins, Rowlands, Running, and van der Kooij, and for the text, see tBrock).19 The first major translation of the OT into Latin, the Old Latin, may have come into being in the form of a number of originally independent versions rather than through a single process. It was made from the LXX, perhaps in the second century AD. It is available in an edition edited by Gryson. Two centuries later, the Bishop of Rome commissioned the great Christian scholar Eusebius Hieronymus (Jerome) to make a new translation that would be the officially recognized version. Jerome settled in Bethlehem in 385, in order to do so with access to experts in Hebrew. He was thus sometimes able to get behind the LXX to provide a more accurate version of the Hebrew. A notable instance is his ability to get nearer 18 See A. Gelston, 'Was the Peshitta of Isaiah of Christian Origin?', in |Broyles and Evans, pp. 563-82 (see pp. 570-72). 19 For general introduction, see P. B. Dirksen, 'The Old Testament Peshitta', in Mikra (Compendium Rerum Iudicarum ad Novum Testamentum ii, 1; ed. M. J. Mulder; Assen/Philadelphia, 1988), pp. 255-97; R. P. Gordon, 'The Syriac Old Testament', in The Interpretation of the Bible (ed. J. Krasovec; JSOT Sup 289, 1998), pp. 355-69; M. Weitzman, The Syriac Version of the Old Testament (Cambridge/New York, 1999).

INTRODUCTION

15

to the right translation of 40.20a than any other version in antiquity; see also, for example, 46.7a; 48.13. Like other translations, the Vg often smoothes out the Hebrew when it changes swiftly between persons or number, and sometimes varies from it in adding or omitting the copula (e.g. 42.20; 43.7, 22). Isaiah was one of the first books Jerome translated, in the early 390s, on some views the very first. As well as the LXX, Jerome consulted Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus, and through his Jewish contacts had access to Jewish exegetical traditions, and thus sometimes compares with the Tg (e.g. 42.19a). The influence of Christian conviction is commonly seen in passages such as 41.2a; 45.8; 51.5b, 14b. As with the Syr, if this influence is there, it is strange that there is so little evidence of its presence in 52.13-53.12 (e.g. see on 53.2a). On the other hand, the ongoing influence of the Vg on modern English versions can be seen in passages such as 51.17b and 54.11a. The critical edition of the Vg is the work of the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St Jerome in Rome (see fMonachi). We have implied above that these various translations of Isaiah are less helpful as aids in reconstructing an older text of the book than critics a century ago thought. We have recorded many of the proposals for emending the text generated by the LXX, other translations, and the industry of scholarship, but have done so mostly for the sake of record. On the other hand, study of the ancient translations, like study of the medieval commentators, is of significance for the exegesis of the text. It is rarely the case that these translations and commentaries fail to handle the questions that we still have to handle, and it is commonly the case that they open up what are still basic interpretative options. So what do we mean by 'the text of Isaiah 40-55'? In this commentary we focus on the hypothetical pre-Masoretic Hebrew text of the Greek or Roman period. It might be possible to hypothesize forms of the text from an earlier period, as implicitly the NEB does when it omits (e.g.) 40.7b and 48.17b. We view such hypotheses as instances not of textual criticism but of redaction criticism. In practice we generally conclude that they are questionable even as redaction-critical exercises, but the point here is that they are not bases for changing the form of the text that has come down to us. We have assumed that it is meaningful to think of there being one such text of Isaiah from the Greek period. It is possible, that is, to imagine that there then came into being a first official copy of the book called Isaiah approximately in the form that we know. This will be a copy made in Jerusalem and deposited in the Temple precincts with other Jewish religious documents ('canon' is perhaps an anachronistic term). Yet Jews in the Roman period evidently did not believe it was vital for every subsequent copy of this hypothetical original to be exactly the same. The Qumran data point in this direction, as does the rabbinic evidence noted by S. Talmon that 'even the model codices that were kept in the Temple precincts not

16

ISAIAH 40-55

only exhibited divergent readings, but represented conflicting texttypes'.20 The attitude this represents compares not so much with the age of the word-processor and the internet but with the late modern age. In this period, translations of the Bible into English multiplied exponentially, and these scriptures thus exist in a variety of text forms, not least among groups firmly committed to the inerrant authority of the scriptures. The Bible is sacred and authoritative but has no one standard form. This is a considerably less logical situation than the one encouraged by the Masoretes, but it seems twice in history to have been the actual situation. Of course in the modern age there are occasions when scholars arguefiercelyfor or against particular translations (e.g. of Rom 3.25, or of Isa 53.10), and the point of the discussion that Talmon quotes is that rabbinic authorities took steps to resolve differences between the scrolls. We might then still take it as a heuristically useful aim to attempt to establish the text of the hypothetical first copy of Isaiah deposited in the Temple precincts. The difficulty is that we lack criteria for knowing which of a variety of possible early text forms was the original. A more realistic aim is to seek to establish a text that could have existed in the early Greek or Roman period, one that would fit in the family of Isaiah texts that would have been accepted in Jerusalem in that period. We assume that the MT is the descendant of such texts. Even if it does not correspond to any text that actually existed then, it is a text that for the most part could have existed then. Individually its readings for the most part correspond to readings that existed then. It is the exceptions that we have tried to eliminate. So we assume that the MT as represented by the Aleppo Codex, the Leningrad Codex, and the Cairo Codex are fundamentally reliable guides to the form of this text. Nevertheless it is in principle likely that this text was affected by changes of various kinds during the millennium that passed before these copies were made. The significance in this connection of other manuscripts such as those from Qumran and of the ancient versions is that they may provide us with alternative traditional forms of the text. They are not preMasoretic forms, but they might in principle preserve pre-Masoretic readings and thus help us to reconstruct a more authentic preMasoretic text. Similarly we cannot rule out the possibility that changes have come about in the Masoretic process that are not reflected in the other textual traditions. Thus speculative textual emendations with no ancient support may from time to time restore that pre-Masoretic text. We have assumed this to be the case (e.g.) at 44.7b. The question will be: Does evidence from the versions or does scholarly speculation produce a text that seems more likely to be the pre-Masoretic one? We have been conservative in deciding that this may be the case, though less conservative than (e.g.) fBarthelemy. 20 Talmon (see on 40.18a), p. 97. See further 'The Three Scrolls of the Law that were Found in the Temple Court', Textus 2 (1962), pp. 14—27.

INTRODUCTION

17

Many of the minor variations between manuscripts and traditions fit into patterns—for example, the omission or addition of the copula. At the end of the commentary on ch. 40 we have listed the variants for that chapter for illustrative purposes, but have not always included them in the rest of the commentary.

4. THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE CHAPTERS Like the study of the Pentateuch, at the end of the twentieth century the study of Isaiah returned to questions that occupied scholarship at the end of the nineteenth century and reopened these. The question of the prophet's location is one example. Another is the question whether chapters 40-55 is a written composition. In the first part of the twentieth century, the development of form criticism led to the units being studied as relatively brief oral messages, but H. Gunkel recognized that the oral forms are more difficult to distinguish here because the prophet uses them with greater creativity and independence.21 While assuming that short oral units were the building blocks from which Isaiah 40-55 was composed, f H. Gressmann thus also recognized that 'the dissolution of prophetic types' begins with Second Isaiah (p. 295). f J. Begrich similarly assumed that the chapters are literary compositions utilizing oral models. Subsequently *j\H. von Waldow pressed for a more radically form-critical approach, so that Isaiah 40-55 became a collection of actual oral messages delivered in the context of the exiles' worship. Their arrangement might then be based on catchwords (so earlier jMowinckel). In the twentieth century the most creative commentaries on Isaiah 40-66 have been those of fJames Muilenburg and fClaus Westermann. Westermann started from the form-critical work of Begrich and von Waldow and demonstrated how illuminating it could be to consider the small units within the chapters against the background of the everyday forms of speech with which a Judean community would be familiar. These included the forms of speech associated with legal gatherings at the city gate, with religio-political events such as the accession of a king, and with religious contexts such as the worship and counselling ministry of priests and prophets. Westermann also assumed that the work had been ordered as a whole, and in the latter part of chapters 40-55 recognized with Begrich that many longer units do not fit the classically defined short genres, but his emphasis lay on the study of individual units against their background in Israel's worship as von Waldow described it. In this respect Muilenburg's work contrasted with Westermann's. He treated the material more as poetry than as preaching, thus emphasized its independence and creativity, and sought to perceive 21 'Fundamental Problems of Hebrew Literary History', in What Remains of the Old Testament and Other Essays (ET London/New York, 1928), pp. 57-68 (see pp. 65-66): ET from Deutsche Literaturzeitung 21 (1906), cols 1797-1800, 1861-66.

18

ISAIAH 40-55

how it worked as a literature. He started from the assumption that Isaiah 40-66 formed a coherent whole. It was therefore essential to interpret each unit in the light of what preceded and what followed. He saw the chapters as composed of longer units than those conceived of by form criticism, units that combined earlier genres but were divided into strophes, and paid attention to the significance for the material's interpretation of its use of repetition, wordplay, imagery, and changes of tone. Insights emerge from both these starting-points. The question is how to combine them. Paradoxically, Muilenburg's work is more compelling on matters of detail than on the larger scale. He has clear views on the bounds of units, their division into 'strophes', and the relationship of units to one another, but these views often seem impressionistic. They are not capable of being supported by concrete data in the text. Two aspects of Westermann's observations on the forms of speech become relevant here. First, delimiting units into small numbers of verses works better in chapters 41-44 than it does elsewhere, but even here the units come in sequences. In identifying the structure of the whole, form-critical insights thus offer some control on impressionism. Second, the coherence of longer sequences such as chapter 48 suggests that they were composed as wholes rather than compiled from earlier shorter units (see the discussion in f Melugin). If this is so, it raises the question whether that was also the case with the material in chapters 41-44. We thus incline to the view that the everyday forms of speech reflected in the poems are one stage further back behind the poems themselves than Westermann (sometimes) implies. As form critics before von Waldow had assumed, the poems were composed in such a way as to utilize oral speech forms, but they were composed as artful wholes. Admittedly, one might imagine the prophet receiving words from God in the context of the community's worship and sharing these there, and these will then have formed part of the raw material for the written work. And one can imagine the written work as composed for oral delivery, as prophecy designed to be heard. Perhaps the people responsible for compiling chapters 40-55 as we know them had to hand a variety of shorter and longer pieces that were then shaped into a careful arrangement. This work might no doubt have involved leaving some material to one side and incorporating material from other sources. There is no necessary implication that the material appears in the order in which the individual units came into being. The way the parts form an integrated whole might imply that the work involved modifying the material's wording in order to make it form a connected whole. It seems implausible that such a closely integrated whole emerged through the combining of disparate material as it stood. Compositional artistry and a degree of cutting and pasting are not mutually incompatible.22 22

Cf R. Alter, The World of Biblical Literature (New York, 1992), p. 20.

INTRODUCTION

19

Commentators such as fG. A. F. Knight and |J- D- Smart also sought to interpret the unfolding chapters as they stand, but they did so more on the basis of theological criteria than literary ones. Like Muilenburg, they are thus vulnerable to the charge of reading understandings into the text rather than finding them there. One feature of study in the last part of the twentieth century has been the attempt to find a structure of chapters 40-55 inherent in the material itself and thus reflected in characteristics of the text. Isaiah 40-55 is not a structured whole in the manner of a work such as Lamentations where we can distinguish betweenfiveseparate poems, and trace concrete markers of structure such as the use of an acrostic form. Nor is it a work structured in the manner of a narrative such as Ruth or Esther, with a series of distinguishable acts or scenes. There is movement through the chapters, though it has a spiral as much as a linear character. It might be more appropriately compared with a symphony or a suite than with a piece of Aristotelian rhetoric (as f Gitay suggested). It is the spiral character of the material that makes it possible for different readers to have different understandings of the interrelationships of units, both of which may have some validity. Whereas Hessler, for instance, sees 42.10—17 as the introduction to what follows,23 we argue that it is the conclusion to what precedes. But the units are not hermetically sealed, and there is thus truth in Hessler's understanding. The various attempts to describe the structure of chapters 40-55 thus differ from each other, but they have features in common, and this is of a piece with the analogy with a musical work. There are ways in which strong themes develop and points at which strong structural markers appear. There are other themes or structural markers that different interpreters may appropriately highlight in different ways. It is thus not unreasonable for fLaato (pp. 12-14) to offer two understandings of the macro-structure of chapters 40-55 (both different from ours). First, interpreters have long made a distinction between chapters 40^8 and 49-55. The former focus on Jacob-Israel, on arguing for the sole deity of Yhwh, and on the role of Cyrus as deliverer. The latter focus on Jerusalem-Zion and on the servant of Yhwh, pictured more in individual terms than was the case earlier. In pre-modern study chapters 40-48 could be seen as applying to the community in the Babylonian exile, while chapters 49-55 were more likely to be seen as relating to God's ultimate purposes. Structurally the commission to leave Babylon in 48.20-21 signals the end of a major section, while the comment in 48.22 constitutes a supplementary end-marker. We have noted that chapter 48 has been seen as the end of a stage in the prophet's ministry (e.g. f Haran) or as marking the end of the material that comes from Second Isaiah (e.g. fMorgenstern). Within chapters 49-55, 52.7-12 has commonly been seen as 23

'Gott der Schopfer', p. 99.

20

ISAIAH 40-55

another such end-marker. Verses 7-10 form an inclusio with 40.1-11 and vv. 11-12 constitute another commission to depart. Thematically, 49.1-52.12 as a whole is characterized by a distinctive joint focus on prophetic testimony (49.1-6; 50.4—9) and on the destiny of Zion (49.14-50.3; 51.1-52.2). Redaction-critically, 52.7-12 has been seen as the end of Second Isaiah at some stage in the material's history (e.g. Elliger, Verhdltnis). Following on this section, 52.13-55.13 has in common a return to the lack of concrete reference that characterized the opening chapters. The servant in 52.13-53.12, the woman in chapter 54, and the addressees in chapter 55 are all unnamed, and thus the discussion returns to the level of principle that characterized 40.1242.17. The last part of chapter 55 forms another inclusion with 40.111. Within chapters 40-48, 44.23 has commonly been seen as an endmarker. This brief hymn or thanksgiving at 44.23 forms a response to the promises of deliverance and restoration that have run through preceding chapters. It is more a matter of dispute where we should reckon that this major section begins. In the introduction to 40.1-31 we have argued that that whole chapter is an introduction to chapters 40-55. In the introductions to 41.1-42.17 and to 42.18-44.23 we have then shown how each of these comprises two parallel sequences of material. The first of these double sequences also closes with praise, in 42.10-17. The second half of chapters 40^8 is the section whose analysis is most controversial. It is noteworthy that even L has no chapter divisions between 45.13 and 48.17. We have followed the medieval chapter divisions in seeing the material about Babylon's gods (chapter 46) and about Babylon herself (chapter 47) as coherent sections. We have then seen 44.24-45.25 as one whole and 48.1-22 as another. We thus outline chapters 40-55 as follows: 40.1-31 40.1-11 40.12-31 41.1-44.23 41.1-20 41.21-42.17 42.18-43.21 43.22-44.23 44.24-48.22 44.24-45.25 46.1-47.15

Introduction Yhwh is returning to Jerusalem Yhwh the creator has Jacob-Israel's destiny in hand Yhwh's vindication and Jacob-Israel's deliverance Yhwh's unique power and Yhwh's commitment to servant Israel Yhwh's unique power and Yhwh's achievement through the servant Yhwh's commitment to blind and deaf Israel Yhwh's commitment to using Jacob-Israel as witness Yhwh's work with Cyrus The triumph of Cyrus The fall of Babylon's gods and of their city

INTRODUCTION

21

48.1-22 The challenge to Jacob-Israel 49.1-52.12 The servant and Jerusalem-Zion 49.1-13 The servant's testimony and its implications 49.14-50.3 Yhwh's response to abandoned Zion 50.4-11 The awakening of Yhwh's servant 51.1-52.12 The awakening of Yhwh and of Jerusalem-Zion 52.13-55.13 Yhwh's act of restoration and transformation 52.13-53.12 The fruitfulness of the servant's ministry 54.1-17a The renewing of the abandoned woman/city 54.17b-55.13 The broadening of the covenant commitment There is a nuance to the first half of this outline. Since the work of tGressmann, it has often been reckoned that songs of praise such as 44.23 provide a starting-point for discerning the structure in chapters 40-55. This thesis seems to work more in the exceptions than in the rule. Many passages that have been described as songs of praise in this connection (notably 45.8; 48.20-21; 52.7-12; 54.1-3) are not actually songs of praise.24 But it is the case that the passages that open the middle two major sections, 44.24-45.7 and 49.1-12, are followed by a call to heaven and earth that is based on Yhwh's new act (see 45.8; 49.13). They are thus distinguished from what follows as well as set off from what precedes and are thereby marked as 'gemstone passages' (f Mettinger) that relate to what precedes as well as to what follows. This fits with the arguments we note for seeing 44.24-45.8 as closing off the sequence 43.22-44.23 as well as introducing what follows. There are reasons of substance as well as reasons of form for seeing the chapters in this way. It fits with the manner in which the 'argument' of the material as a whole moves forward. The actual naming of Cyrus in 44.24-45.7 brings 41.1-44.23 to its climax, and the testimony of the servant-prophet in 49.1-6 begins to handle the great unsolved problem on which 44.24-48.22 has eventually focused. Both these thus link with what precedes as well as with what follows. Perhaps we should see 52.13-53.12 as a further 'gemstone' passage that also links with what precedes as well as with what follows. Retrospectively it then completes an ABABA pattern in 49.1-53.12 and takes further the pressing question that 49.1-6 began to answer. The way these 'gemstone passages' relate both to what precedes and to what follows also illumines the disagreement noted above, over whether 42.10-17 is a conclusion or an introduction or whether the former function is fulfilled by 42.10-12 or 42.1013, the latter function by 42.13-17 or 42.14-17.

24

Cf fLee, p. 188, and fDeming's reference to 'so-called hymns' (p. 31).

22

ISAIAH 40-55

5. THE POETIC FORM OF THE CHAPTERS The first modern Isaiah scholar was |R°bert Lowth, who approached biblical poetry as one would approach other literature, in analyzing its prosody. The first formal feature of Hebrew poetry that Lowth identified is that the unit of thought is characteristically a line of about six words. Such a line then usually divides into two parts that complement each other in some way. Lowth called this phenomenon 'parallelism'. We refer to such a line as a bicolon, and refer to either of the parts of such a line as a colon. Second Isaiah also includes a number of tricola, lines of three cola. These sometimes mark the end of a section or draw attention to some other point. Sometimes all three cola parallel each other. More often the tricolon has an AAB or ABB shape. We do not think that any have an ABA shape, though 51.3b has been so understood. The word 'parallelism' is misleading insofar as the second colon in a line usually does more than merely repeat the first. Rather it takes the thought further. Even individual words are rarely simply synonyms of words in the first colon. In general, by its nature the second colon strengthens, reinforces, and intensifies the point made in the first. It may do that by giving it more definition or by expanding it, by clarifying it or by explaining how it is so. Parallelism can work over several lines as well as between the cola in a line, again strengthening, reinforcing, intensifying, defining, expanding, clarifying, or explaining.25 The relationship between the two cola is sometimes highlighted by their word order. In general, word order manifests more variation than is the case in prose; on word order in Isaiah 40-55, see tRosenbaum. Thus the first word in the second colon may be the one that pairs with the last word in the first colon, so that these are juxtaposed (e.g., 41.1a), or the expected order ABCABC may be varied to ABCACB (e.g. 41.10a), or the line may work chiastically, ABCCBA (e.g. 40.12a). Such arrangements may reflect in the prosody the realities to which the words refer. Alliteration may similarly underline and bring home something of the message of the words in the links it makes. Sometimes the poetry works with strict regularity. A series of lines may then comprise three-word bicola (referred to as 3-3) or bicola with three words in the first colon and two in the second (3-2). Ellipsis is one reason for the shortness of the second colon: some word from the first applies also in the second (e.g. 40.4b, 10b, 27a). But strict regularity over a series of lines is unusual, and in its nonregularity the poetry resembles less the sonnet or traditional hymnody than rap, charismatic choruses, and Ugaritic and Babylonian poetry. Of the last, W. G. Lambert notes that the Babylonian Theodicy utilizes odd numbers of cola (often but not 25

84.

See R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York, 1985/Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 3 -

INTRODUCTION

23

invariably for emphasis), and in a poem mostly characterized by 4stress rhythm includes lines that 'can only be made to have four principal stresses by unnatural means' (BWL, p. 66). Commentators and editors such as |Duhm, fTorrey, and f Thomas assume that the irregular form of the MT is not original and propose ways of making it more regular by removing or adding words, or by otherwise emending the existent text. We do not think there are grounds for assuming that the poetry of Isaiah 40-55 originally manifested more regularity than it does in its extant Hebrew form, or that a text that may be more regular (such as the LXX's hypothetical original version of a particular line) is likely to be more original than a less regular one. Thus we have sometimes noted emendations made for the sake of a more regular metre, but do not assume that in itself this is actually a good basis for emending the text. While a bicolon is commonly the unit of thought, sentences often extend over more than one such line. Sometimes a line that could constitute a sentence is subordinated to a preceding line by enjambment. Sometimes a line that is not self-contained is so subordinated. Sometimes qualifying material anticipates a main clause, often with the use of the w-apodosis construction. Sometimes two whole lines may belong together poetically (and not merely syntactically), the evidence being that they manifest an ABBA or ABAB pattern: see, for example, 48.17b-18a and 18b-19a. The poetry in chapters 40-55 does not work with any regular conventions regarding strophes or units beyond the individual line, and each putative section has to be considered in its own right in order to discern markers of beginnings, endings, and subdivisions. A number of sections have a chiastic structure. But the discerning of these sometimes lies in the eyes of the beholder, and in considering chiasms we have therefore looked for concrete textual markers rather than relying on our impressions of parallels in the thinking of the passage. (We use the term chiasm to refer both to envelope structure, ABBA, and to pivot patterning, ABCBA.) It is a characteristic of poetry to be more dense than prose. One way in which this denseness is achieved is by the omission of the particles that characterize prose, such as the article ha-, the objectmarker W, and the relative "aser. Another such feature is that use of ellipse just noted: any word or part of a word (such as a preposition or suffix) in one colon in a line may also apply to the other colon. In prose the presence of particles and the repetition of prefixes and suffixes aids clarity. Their absence in poetry makes more for allusiveness in the interrelation of words and clauses. This in turn compels the hearers to be more involved in the task of interpretation (see, e.g., 41.2-3). Admittedly the principle of economy is compromised by the free use of the copula w, though perhaps only apparently so, because the w is frequently epexegetical (e.g. 40.1a; IBHS 39.2A). In Isaiah 40-55 the copula means 'and' much less commonly than is the case in prose.

24

ISAIAH 40-55

The principle of economy is also compromised by the prevalence of repetition in these chapters. That prevalence reflects the fact that Isaiah 40-55 is prophetic rhetoric as well as poetry. Poetry may be composed chiefly for the benefit of the poet's self-expression; it is a means of saying what one needs to say. Prophecy, too, may be a means of fulfilling the prophet in some way, but overtly its concern is to do something to some people, and it has its effect by means of rhetorical devices such as repetition, allusiveness, allusion, questioning, confrontation, invitation, and argument. The use of the Hebrew 'tenses' in poetry differs from that in prose, and raises particular problems in Isaiah 40-55. Even in prose the 'imperfect' can be used in a variety of ways to refer not only to the future but also to the past or the present, as well as in modal and volitional ways, while the 'perfect' can be used in a variety of ways to refer to the present or the future as well as the past (see IHBS 30-31). We have therefore not used the terms 'perfect' and 'imperfect' and instead have referred to these as the 'qatal' and 'yiqtol' forms. In poetry the two verb-forms approximate much less often to European past and future than is the case in prose. Further, as happens elsewhere in the OT and in Ugaritic poetry, in a number of passages in Isaiah 40-55 the two forms appear in parallelism in a way that suggests that they have the same time reference.26 Thus in 40.13, 14b, 15, there appear three occurrences of qatal paired with yiqtol. NRSV renders the first pair by two perfects ('has directed/has instructed'), the second by two aorists ('taught/showed'), the third by two presents ('are accounted/takes up'). In other passages the audience is expected to work out that the two forms have the distinctive temporal significance that commonly attaches to them in prose and plays an important part in everyday communication. Thus NRSV renders the qatal/yiqtol in 45.13 by perfect/future ('I have aroused/I will make straight'); so also 46.4b, lib. In some of the many instances where the two forms have the same time reference, they may be primarily stylistic variants, but we have tried to convey the variation in translating. In a number of passages, for instance, a series of qatal verbs is concluded by a yiqtol (see 40.12-13, 14, 24; 42.25; 44.14; 49.13), each time in elevated style at the end of a colon, with its subject or object preceding it (|Saydon, p. 296, comparing TTH 85; cf also vv. 19-20). But it seems unlikely that the audience is expected regularly to take alternating verb forms as merely stylistic variants. The nature of Hebrew parallelism would also make this unlikely, since it characteristically involves a second expression adding to the first in some way rather than merely repeating it. Where the verb forms appear in parallelism it is thus more likely that they have different implications, even if they have the same tense (time) reference. To put it another way, the possibility of alternating qatal and yiqtol gave Hebrew poetry something of the 26 See, for example, the comments in A. Niccacci, The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose (JSOT Sup 86, 1990), pp. 193-97.

INTRODUCTION

25

flexibility that European languages possess in their range of aspect (e.g. 'I was going', 'I used to go', 'I went', 'I would go', 'I have gone'). First, the line may refer to the future. Here an 'instantaneous qatal' (compare the 'prophetic perfect') (cf IBHS 30.5. lde) is complemented by a yiqtol with the future reference characteristic of prose usage. The effect of the qatal is vividly to convey the certainty of the event. The effect of the yiqtol is to own that this is nevertheless an event that is not yet actual. We have translated instantaneous qatals in general by an English continuous present, and thus in this combination at 49.13 have translated 'is comforting/will have compassion'; at 51.6 'are shredding/will wear out'; at 51.11 (where the order is unusually yiqtol/qatal) 'will overtake/are fleeing'; at 52.8 'are lifting/will resound'. Second, the line may refer to the present, both verb forms being ways of expressing a general truth. A 'gnomic qatal' is then complemented by a yiqtol suggesting what can recurrently happen. In English we can use a present or a modal verb for this usage. Thus at 40.19a we have translated 'casts/will beat' (but see the comment), but at 40.15 'count/rising'. Third, the line may refer to the past. Here the qatal establishes the time reference and the yiqtol may suggest modal connotations. Thus at 40.13 we have translated 'directed/could instruct', at 40.14 'taught/ could enable him to know'. In substance, a key feature of poetry is the use of imagery, which enables the poet or prophet to say things that could not otherwise be said: to say new things. Isaiah 40-66 contains a concentration of symbolism that might be compared with that in Ezekiel, Psalms, and Job. Commentaries may sometimes seem to opt arbitrarily for more literal or more metaphorical understandings when the chapters picture the levelling of a road, the greening of a desert, the wasting of of mountains, the making of a path through the sea, and the worship the animal world (40.3-4; 41.18-19; 42.15; 43.16, 20).27 Our assumption is that the prophecy's 'descriptions' of the future need always to be understood as pictures in metaphor. 6. THE POEMS' AUDIENCE(S): THEIR TIME The material in Isaiah 40-55 is designed to do something to an audience. What was this audience? There are three or four possibilities. We take as a working hypothesis that it was in the late Persian or early Greek period that the book called Isaiah reached the form in which we have it, and that this took place in Jerusalem. Admittedly there is no hard evidence for this chronology or location, but in any case the material in chapters 40-55, at least, does not relate itself in specific ways to such a context. In its final form the book did not concretely address a particular audience. 27

Hessler, EvT 25, pp. 349-50.

26

ISAIAH 40-55

For what reason, then, did it come into being? We are reduced to speculation over this matter, but three guesses may be hazarded. They correspond to three sorts of reasons why we have written this commentary. One is in order to find out what we think. It is an exercise in human intellectual creativity. From this perspective, it does not matter whether anyone ever reads the commentary. We have enjoyed writing it, and learned much more from doing that than any reader ever will. But second, writing the commentary takes place in the context of the work of a scholarly or scribal guild. It is part of a dialogue with colleagues and friends, not to say rivals and opponents. And third, writing the commentary is part of the fulfilment of a vocation. We want people to appreciate the significance of the Isaiah 40-55, for their individual and corporate self-understanding and life. Despite the comments above on the difference between poetry and prophecy, equivalents of all these considerations seem likely to have played a part in the coming into being of the book called Isaiah. But if one asks why the book was preserved, the third reason seems likely to have been determinative. At least, the evidence we have of the book's influence in the Persian, Greek, and Hasmonean period points in this direction. In the Persian period or early in the Greek period, the end of Chronicles and the beginning of Ezra express the conviction that prophecy in Isaiah 40-55 was fulfilled when Cyrus commissioned Judeans to return to Jerusalem to build Yhwh's house (notwithstanding the passages' reference to Jeremiah). The authors believe that the Second Temple community's life began as a fulfilment of this prophecy. Isaiah 40-55 thus constituted part of the charter of the Jerusalem community in that period in a fashion analogous to the role played by the narrative in the Torah. In the second century, Daniel 10-12 utilized material from Isaiah in a different way in formulating its understanding of what God had been doing and was about to do, in the life of the contemporary Judean community and in international affairs as these affected the community.28 The book was apparently assumed to reflect patterns in events that could be of ongoing significance for the people of God. There was a dynamic about words that came from Yhwh that made them an ongoing power in the community. They were not limited in their power to the occasion when they were uttered. A third aspect of the book's significance stands in tension with that. It seems likely that the community recognized that many aspects of the book's vision for its future had not found realization in its experience. The preserving of the material that now constitutes chapters 40-55 may presuppose that events in the 530s BC could be read as a partial vindication of them. But the partial nature of that vindication would then also make it both possible and necessary to 28 See, e.g., J. Goldingay, Daniel (Word Biblical Commentary; Dallas, 1989), pp. 284-85.

INTRODUCTION

27

look for their fuller realization. The fact that their vision was partly fulfilled provided grounds for holding onto it. The fact that it was not wholly fulfilled also provided reasons for holding onto it. And we know that in the Hasmonean period some Judeans saw the commission to prepare a way in the wilderness for Yhwh's coming as a commission that they must fulfil, in anticipation of a coming that was indeed still future and might be imminent. Ben Sira also implies that chapters 40-55 are a revelation about the End.29 Indeed, Zech 12.10-13.1 has already projected onto 'that day' the vision in Isa 52.13-53.12. We thus know that the book called Isaiah was being applied to the life of the Judean community in the Persian, Greek, and Hasmonean periods, and it seems a reasonable guess that this corresponds to a major motivation for it being brought into being. This is not to imply that this was part of some broader canonical project whereby material was shaped to function as canon (see f Clements, pp. 97-98), but it is to imply that the process was 'essentially thematic and religious rather than literary or biographical'.30 It is then striking that the book makes no clear reference to events in these periods. It was preserved as a deposit of aspects of God's dealings with the community over several centuries in a form that did not in any large-scale or specific way make explicit its significance for these later periods. Apparently it was assumed that the way the material concretely addressed earlier audiences could still be instructive for later ones. The community that read it was applying material in Isaiah to its own day in a way that presupposed a largely fixed text rather than a text that could itself be updated. In our discussion of the Hebrew text itself we have indicated what we mean by a largely fixed text, by analogy with the situation in the late modern period. In late antiquity, as now, the text was fixed in principle butflexiblein detail. We assume that by the end of the Persian period, chapters 40-55 had already reached the form in which we have them, perhaps apart from some matters of detail. The matters of detail might include the accidental or purposeful alteration of individual words, the relocation of lines, and the addition or omission of words, phrases, or lines. Thus (for instance) the NEB omits part of 40.7 and 14 in the conviction that these are additions (the latter is missing from the LXX). It changes the wording of 41.1a in the conviction that it has become assimilated to that of 40.31, adds 'before him' to 41.2b in the conviction that it has been omitted (making the colon rather short), and moves 41.6-7 to follow 40.20. If such changes happened, they might belong to the later Persian period or early Greek period. Working backwards, we assume that an earlier stage in the Persian period saw the community in Jerusalem coming to read the material in chapters 40-55 in the context from which the material in chapters 29 30

See Laato, 'About Zion', pp. 14-17. Clements, 'Unity of Isaiah', p. 101.

28

ISAIAH 40-55

56-66 does come, the end of the sixth century and/or the fifth century. For readers in this period, Cyrus may have become a figure for a later Persian ruler, and a challenge to leave Babylon may have become a challenge to the people of Zechariah's day or Ezra's day to do so. Perhaps chapters 40-55 were edited and reworked for such reading. There are at least two possible models for such a process. One is the reworking of material from Isaiah ben Amoz in the time of Josiah into the form in which it now appears in Isaiah 1-39, as pictured by the influential hypothesis of H. Barth.31 Such reworking happens in such a way as not overtly to refer to the period in which it happens. The process of supplementation has to be inferred. It is not transparent. The other model is the process assumed by the traditional view of chapters 40-55 and of chapters 56-66. Here prophets in the Babylonian and early Persian period overtly address the issues of that time. The process is transparent. If the material in chapters 40-55 has been reworked in the Persian period, this has happened on the basis of the first model, in such a way as to mask the process. The evidence for its having happened is circumstantial. For instance, 40.1-11 could be a later Jerusalemoriented introduction to material that originally addressed the Babylonian community (so fMerendino). But there is no need for it to be so. If we had other specific grounds for reckoning that Isaiah 40-55 reflected the Persian period, we would have reason to associate this and other passages with that period. But we do not have such grounds, so that the theory is an unnecessary complication. And if reworking in the Persian period did happen, our comments on redaction-criticism have indicated that in any case we are sceptical about whether we can now recover the process. It has been maintained that the material in chapters 40-55 actually came into being in the Persian period, along with that in chapters 5666. Some of the issues the chapters raise make good sense in this context. We can infer from a comparison of Chronicles and Second Temple prophecy that the future of the Davidic monarchy was a matter of debate in that context, and Second Isaiah's democratization and secularization of the Davidic theology would make a distinctive contribution to such a debate (|Davies, pp. 218-20). The allusions to Cyrus in Isaiah 40-55 were then in their origin (inaccurate) prophecies after the event, or figures for a later ruler, or mistaken glosses (|Torrey). None of these theories makes as much sense as the traditional critical assumption that the material in chapters 40-55 comes from the 540s and relates to the imminent fall of the Babylonian empire to the Persians. This event will make it possible for Judeans in Babylon to go home and for Jerusalem to be rebuilt. The prophet's understanding of Cyrus and of the destiny of the people as a whole offers people in the sixth century a 31

Die Jesaja-Worte in der Josiazeit (WMANT 48, 1977).

INTRODUCTION

29

controversial alternative view to the hope for a restoration of the Davidic monarchy. So we can reckon that chapters 40-55 were being read in the Persian period and the Greek period, but they do not directly address their needs. A further theoretically possible audience for the prophecies is eighth-century Jerusalem, but the same would be true of such an audience. Their context does not influence the prophecies. If they heard them, they overheard them rather than hearing themselves directly addressed by them. Pre-critical commentators such as |Ibn Ezra and |Calvin were in agreement that whatever the date of the prophecies, they were not intended for an eighth-century audience. They do not tell an eighth-century audience of a day when comfort will come to its descendants (contrast 39.5-8). They actually address the people to whom that message comes. If they were delivered in the eighth century, this has no significance for their interpretation. One might further note, however, how R. K. Harrison, a proponent of an eighth-century date, agrees with |Torrey that the references to Cyrus in chapters 44-45 are later glosses.32 These references are the Achilles heel of any attempt to date chapters 40-55 in any period other than the mid-sixth century. The references have to be removed or allegorized. The audience directly addressed by Isaiah 40-55 lives not in the Assyrian period, or the Persian period, or the Greek period, but late in the Babylonian period, in the 540s. fBrevard Childs (p. 325) suggests that 'the characteristic feature of Second Isaiah, in striking contrast to Amos or Jeremiah, is that these chapters have no real historical context once they are removed from their present canonical setting within the book of Isaiah'. This is a considerable exaggeration. While it is true that the chapters have no superscription, data within them made it quite apparent to pre-critical scholarship that chapters 40-55 related to the circumstances of Judeans in the sixth century, even if it then assumed that the prophecies actually came from Isaiah ben Amoz. And while they do contain fewer concrete historical references than Amos and Jeremiah, it is not clear that they contain fewer than many earlier sections of Isaiah itself, or of books such as Joel or Micah. The sixth-century context of the chapters is explicit. The effect of setting them in the context of chapters 1-39 is not to turn them into a prophetic word tied to no historical referent (against fChilds, p. 326). 1 It is to put together the historical activity of the God who brings calamity in chapters 1-39 and the historical activity of the God who brings restoration in chapters 40-55. The preserving of the prophetic word certainly implies the assumption that it will continue to speak in the future. But this applies no more to chapters 40-55 than to chapters 1-39, or to the work of other prophets, and it stands in no tension with the material's historical rootedness. In being incorpor32 R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, 1969/London, 1970), p. 794.

30

ISAIAH 40-55

ated in the larger book, the prophet's words do not become 'fully eschatological' (|Childs, p. 326—though we admit to being unsure what that means). These chapters remain not statements about what Yhwh will do 'in that day' or 'at the end of the days' or 'in days to come'. Like most of any prophet's words, they are indeed statements of Yhwh's ultimate purpose and intention, but they are applied concretely to a historical situation, and in the setting in the book they continue to be that. They thus both illumine the nature of Yhwh's ultimate intention and model the way in which that ultimate intention may from time to time be partly and concretely implemented in history. Childs goes on to note this, and perhaps this is what he means by their being 'eschatological', but it needs to be distinguished from the suggestion that the prophecies relate distinctively to the End, or are timeless. Isaiah 40-55 addresses issues in the life of the Judean community in the 540s. That community believes that Yhwh has abandoned it. It knows that powers such as Babylon and Persia are much more powerful than it is. It is tempted to make images of Yhwh as aids for its worship, or to worship the Babylonian gods who seem so impressive. It believes that the devastation of Jerusalem and the sojourn of many of its people in Babylon and other parts of the Babylonian empire may last forever. In that context Second Isaiah has some controversial convictions to express. Yhwh is about to return to Jerusalem, and so are the Judeans scattered around the empire. The rise of Persian power is not a threat but is the means of bringing that about. The key to the future is not even a Judean anointed king but a Persian one. The significance of God's commitment to David is that it means a commitment to Israel. The Judean community has learned nothing from the experience of being devastatingly chastised by Yhwh, but this does not mean that Yhwh has finished with it. Indeed Yhwh intends to fulfil the original purpose of adopting it, and to be recognized in the whole world through what happens to it. Yhwh has the power and the commitment to do that. And Yhwh intends also to bring about the inner renewal of the people that its chastisement has failed to achieve. 7. THE POEMS' AUDIENCE(S): THEIR LOCATION Chronologically, the 540s BC have priority as the period against which the poems have to be read. Geographically, where is their audience? Although Judah is named only three times (40.9; 44.26; 48.1), there is no controversy over whether the 'you' who are addressed are people from Judah, people whose families belonged to the area around Jerusalem. Even more strikingly, Judah is named only once in chapters 56-66 (65.9). In chapters 40-48 the prophet often addresses Jacob or Israel, usually in parallelism, and in chapters 4955 often addresses Zion or Jerusalem, less often in parallelism. Insofar as Jacob-Israel and Zion-Jerusalem have personal referents,

INTRODUCTION

31

they denote Judean people, but the terms then raise several questions. Do they denote different groups? Where are they located? And why are they referred to by these terms? The traditional critical view locates the people who embody Jacob-Israel specifically in Babylon. The argument for this view is circumstantial, even if less so than that for f Duhm's locating of it in Lebanon or Phoenicia or jEwald's locating of it in Egypt, both appealing to 49.12.33 Many features of the material are intelligible on any hypothesis regarding its audience's location. It would not be Judeans in Babylon alone who might well be disillusioned about Yhwh or fearful that they had been cast off by Yhwh, and impressed by Babylonian power and religion. People who had not been taken to Babylon might also be fearful that the Judean community in Babylon might be there forever, or even inclined to think that they would be wise to settle there forever. They, too, might be aware of the Babylonian creation story, tempted to make images of Yhwh or of Babylonian gods, uncertain about the future of the Davidic monarchy, aware of the rise of Cyrus and uncertain what it might mean. They, too, might be discouraged by their own feebleness, longing for refreshment like land withered by drought, and needing provision if they are to persist on their journey. They, too, might be blind to the significance of Yhwh's chastisement, unable to make the regular offerings to Yhwh, and promised victory over their imperial masters and the collapse of the empire. Indeed, much of this analysis of the people's need matches Jerusalemite self-description in Lamentations. People in Jerusalem could be concerned about whether fellow-Judeans who had been transported would ever return, so that talk about the exiles' return is not in itself a sign that the material comes from Babylon. Conversely, Judeans in Babylon could be concerned about the destiny of Jerusalem, so that talk about Jerusalem is not in itself a sign that the material comes from there. Further, from the beginning the material gives equivocal concrete evidence regarding its audience's location. On the one hand, chapter 39 seems to prepare the way for a transition from a location in Jerusalem to one in Babylon (see vv. 5-7). On the other, chapter 40 begins with good news for Jerusalem (see vv. 1-2, 9-11). Such ambiguity persists through the chapters. Yhwh declares that Cyrus 'will build my city and send off my exile community' (45.13). Both city and exile community are in focus. While 52.11 speaks of Babylon as 'there' (see comment), fCassuto (pp. 150—51) suggests that the 'going out' of 55.12 presupposes a Babylonian setting: it contrasts with the 'coming out' of Jer 31.9. A Jerusalem perspective is implied, or at least an exclusively Babylonian perspective is excluded, by several aspects of the description of the people. They have been brought from far away (41.8-10) and are now spoiled and plundered, robbed and confined (42.22). It might also be implied by the 33

See the comment; also Barstad, Babylonian Captivity, and his references.

32

ISAIAH 40-55

description of Cyrus as being brought from far away (46.11), by Yhwh's talk of sending to Babylon (43.14), and by the references to topography (with the stress on mountains) and to specific species of trees. The prophet promises that people will return to Jerusalem from all four points of the compass (43.5-6; cf 49.12, 22). The whole world is also the material's horizon when it is speaking of the nations themselves (e.g. 41.5-7; 42.1-12; 43.9; 45.6, 14, 20-25; 49.1,6), and in another way when it speaks of Jacob-Israel as scattered not merely by the Babylonians but long before by the Assyrians (e.g. 43.5-7; 49.12). On the other hand, many of the prophet's emphases make more sense against a Babylonian background. Information about the rise of Cyrus will have caused more talk and raised more questions there. The power of Babylonian religion, the practicalities of imagemaking, and the significance of astrology and other forms of divination were more prominent realities there. Talk of undertaking a journey has more literal application there. The dramatic vision of the fall of Babylon's gods (46.1-2) would have more force there. The command to leave Babylon (48.20) applies directly there. The greater stress on Jerusalem-Zion as a symbol than as a bricks-and-mortar reality under the audience's feet suggests a setting away from Jerusalem itself (|A. Robinson, e.g., p. 447). The adoption of a Jerusalem perspective in poems addressed to a community in Babylon is more intelligible than the converse. fMeek thus notes six passages that suggest a Babylonian provenance in the 540s for the poems (41.2; 43.14; 44.28; 45.1; 48.14, 20), all of which |Torrey emends or reinterprets in order to maintain a setting in later Jerusalem. Yet even if the chapters' original covert audience was exclusively people in one place or the other, their overt audience includes the city of Jerusalem as well as the community in Babylon. Jerusalem is the explicit but indirect addressee in 40.1-2 and the explicit and direct addressee in 40.9-11. The entirety of what follows in these chapters is implicitly of interest to the community geographically focused on Jerusalem. In 40.12-31, in contrast, Jacob-Israel as a whole is the explicit and direct audience. Admittedly the passage does not specify what is the referent of the term Jacob-Israel (e.g. whether Judean or exilic or both). We have inferred that it is in Babylon, but perhaps we should not attempt to force a specific interpretation on it. JacobIsrael is also the audience in 41.1-20, sometimes explicitly and directly, sometimes less so. The description of it as taken from the ends of the earth like Abraham (41.8-9) suggests that it is pictured in its theological location in Judah, but this might not mark that as its present geographical location. In 41.21-42.17 the identity of the direct audience is left implicit. Jacob-Israel is unmentioned, though Zion-Jerusalem reappears as indirect audience in 41.27. In 42.18-44.23 Jacob-Israel is often addressed but not identified. It can be read as located in Babylon, as a people in exile promised a return to its home (which therefore plays a prominent place in the

INTRODUCTION

33

rhetoric). Or it can be read as a people living around a largely depopulated capital promised the restoration of its exiled population (who therefore play a prominent place in its rhetoric). Indeed, these two alternatives apply to the material as a whole. They reflect the fact that each community is of significance for the other. The material implicitly invites us to read it from both perspectives (among others, such as the perspectives of the Babylonians, of the Persians, and of other peoples whom the latter might release from the former). And in doing so, it may appropriately be read socio-critically in the sense of being asked what praxis in community and society it warrants. That reading is appropriate not least because this concern is prominent in the book called Isaiah itself (a fact reflected in the role of the prophets as a significant intertext for Karl Marx). We have concluded that the traditional critical view that the poet worked in Babylon is probably right. It thus seems likely that the audience that embodies Jacob-Israel is to be distinguished from the people that live in the literal Jerusalem-Zion. The material's distinguishing between these two and moving its focus from the one to the other loses something of its point if the two are identical. But the material's frequent assumption of a Judean perspective, which can be read as a pointer to a location in Judah, needs to be taken into account in reading the poems. They can be read as addressing Judeans in Babylon who had been transported there at the beginning of the sixth century, and their descendants, but also as addressing Judeans in Palestine who had not been transported there, and their descendants. They do34address both lamenting JerusalemZion and battling Israel-Jacob. They do so throughout, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. As W. A. M. Beuken puts it, Second Isaiah commonly presupposes two audiences, 'one on the stage.. .and one in the house'.35 The chapters make explicit that the audience on the stage, taking part in the drama of the chapters, is sometimes in Babylon, sometimes in Jerusalem. We are left to infer the location of the audience in the house, the people among whom the prophet actually lived and worked. From time to time the prophet also addresses (for instance) the members of the heavenly court (40.1-11), the peoples of the world (41.1-4), and the other 'gods' (41.21-29). It is in the drama of Isaiah 40-55 that the prophet addresses those. That is a means of directly communicating with an actual audience of people from Judah. But Jacob-Israel and Zion-Jerusalem are also characters in this drama, characters on the stage. We can no more simply assume that these characters have a corresponding referent in the physical audience before whom the prophet stands than we would assume this for the members of the heavenly court, the peoples of the world, or the other gods. To put it another way, 'the poet is neither in Babylon 34

Hessler, EvT 25, p. 351. 'The Confession of God's Exclusivity by All Mankind', in Bijdragen 135 (1974), pp. 335-56 (see p. 346). 35

34

ISAIAH 40-55

nor in Jerusalem, but with one thrust of his eyes, as if from the highest mountain, embraces at the same time Babylon and Jerusalem'.36 The implied author can be in both places, and we have to make allowance for that in seeking to infer the location of the actual author. We might compare the way a number of prophets address foreign nations (see, e.g., Isa 13-23; 47; Jer 46-51; Ezek 25-32). This is generally a rhetorical trope. As a rule prophets did not physically address foreign nations, even (e.g.) in the persons of the nations' representatives in Jerusalem. They usually addressed their own community, for whom Yhwh's intentions regarding foreign nations were of great significance. Admittedly, should representatives of these nations hear the oracles and take them as addressed to them, they would not exactly be mistaken. The prophet did mean that Yhwh really was saying these things to these nations. On the stage they were the audience and in the house Judeans were overhearing Yhwh speak to them. It would then be as if they drifted into the house and overheard Yhwh speaking to them. Similar questions arise in the work of the prophets in relation to the Judean communities in Judah and elsewhere. Jeremiah lives in Jerusalem and historically addresses the Jerusalem community. Within chapters 29 and 50-51 the book also addresses the exilic community (see also chapter 24). This is surely in part rhetorical, perhaps entirely so. Historically these chapters, too, address people in Jerusalem. But if the messages were passed on to the exilic community and they took note of them, Jeremiah would hardly complain, even if this were not his direct intention. The validity of his message to Judeans in Jerusalem would depend on its being a truthful account of Yhwh's attitude to people in Judah and in Babylon, and therefore one that people in Babylon could validly hear and respond to. To complicate matters but to add to the parallel with Isaiah 40-55, questions about this material in Jeremiah also arise on the chronological plane. Rhetorically the book addresses people just before and just after the fall of Jerusalem, but historically it may address people living later in the sixth century. This audience on the stage might then be people in Jerusalem, but that is not clear. If its intended audience was in Jerusalem, its actual audience soon included people in Babylon, and/or maybe in Egypt. In a parallel way in chapters 3 and 30-31 the prophet rhetorically addresses Ephraim. Historically he was surely addressing Judeans, but he may have also meant his words for the survivors of the northern kingdom.37 A converse picture emerges in Ezekiel. The prophet lives in Babylon and historically addresses the community there, but in chapters 11-13 and elsewhere the book also addresses the Jerusalem community. This is surely rhetorical in that historically these 36 L. 37

Alonso Schokel in lecture notes referred to by |Lack (p. 111). See J. Unterman, From Repentance to Redemption: Jeremiah's Thought in Transition (JSOT Sup 54, 1987).

INTRODUCTION

35

chapters, too, address the Babylonian community. But if the messages were passed on to the Jerusalem community, Ezekiel would surely rejoice rather than object. Once again, questions also arise on the chronological plane. Rhetorically the book addresses people just before and just after the fall of Jerusalem, but historically it may address people living later in the sixth century and afterwards. The rhetorical audience of the actual book is in Babylon but its intended audience might be in Jerusalem. Certainly its actual audience soon included people in Jerusalem. The possibilities for Isaiah 40-55 are yet more complicated. Rhetorically the chapters seem sometimes to address Zion-Jerusalem and sometimes Judeans in Babylon, though their 'you' is commonly unidentified. Logically, the prophet might have lived in Jerusalem and directly addressed the community there, or might have lived in Babylon and addressed the community there; or might have lived in Jerusalem and addressed the Babylonian community or might have lived in Babylon and addressed the Jerusalem community; or might have intended to address both communities, living in either location. Even if the prophet had in mind a particular audience in the house, if the other audience came to hear prophecies that were rhetorically addressed to them, this could hardly be reckoned inappropriate. If it is most likely that the prophet addressed the Babylonian community in the 540s, nevertheless the rhetorical setting of the book called Isaiah as a whole is Jerusalem. The Jerusalem community is the book's implicit audience and the Second Temple Jerusalem community its intended audience, even if it, too, also had an actual audience in Babylon in the later period. In the commentary we often refer to the prophet's audience as 'the Judean community', and intend this term to be an ambiguous one. It refers to an audience of Judean people, who might be in Judah or in Babylon, or conceivably somewhere else. Certainly there are ears in other places where the prophet would be glad to be heard. The fact that the material addresses both Jerusalem and the exiles relativizes the question as to where the author is. If we imagine the prophecies being heard in Jerusalem, they address a situation of the following kind. Rebellion against their Babylonian overlords had led to punitive invasions of Judah in the 590s and the 580s. This resulted in death and destruction in Jerusalem and other towns and in the deportation to Babylon of tens of thousands of people, including as far as possible all the significant people in Jerusalem. Davidic rule was thus terminated and the area put under the control of Babylonian-appointed governors. The poems in Lamentations both grieve over the loss of the city's people and indicate that nevertheless there were people left behind who could (for instance) write such prayers with their literary and theological qualities. The numbers of people deported according to 2 Kings and Jeremiah by no means suggest that the Babylonians emptied Judah, or even Jerusalem. Some forms of prayer and

36

ISAIAH 40-55

worship were resumed in the Jerusalem temple. This seems likely to be where the prayers in Lamentations themselves were used. Jeremiah 40-41 speaks of the return to Judah of many people who had taken refuge in neighbouring countries during the troubles, speaks of the assassination of the governor by supporters of the exking, and refers to ongoing conflict between people who accepted and who resisted Babylonian rule. One consequence was the voluntary exile of a further Judean group in Egypt. Lamentations also indicates an acceptance that the fall of Jerusalem was not unjust. It was the deserved consequence of the city's wrongdoing, specifically of the moral failure of its leadership, and in particular of priests and prophets. The same understanding is expressed in Kings, though we do not know where that was written. The book of Jeremiah looks at the matter in a similar way and urges the community to submit to Babylonian authority, though it also promises that foreign rule and the absence of much of the population will not last forever. If we imagine the prophecies being heard in Babylon, the situation has some overlap. Jeremiah 27-29 suggests that for a while the deported community was not inclined to settle in Babylon. It had prophets who encouraged it to expect a speedy return to Judah and the re-establishment of the Davidic monarchy, and it had priests who supported this assumption. The book of Ezekiel shows that this priest-prophet held different views. It portrays the Judean community able to meet together. Further, the last paragraph of 2 Kings records that the former Judean king Jehoiachin was released from prison in Babylon. For Judeans in general, too, the situation improved as years passed. The Murashu texts indicate their freedom to engage in business and buy property.38 We may infer from people's subsequent reluctance to return to Judah that they were quite comfortable in Babylon. The stories in Daniel and Esther testify to the possibilities as well as the pressures of life in dispersion as opposed to exile. But both the Murashu texts and these OT works relate to the Persian period. Further, while Isaiah 40-55 implies that the prophet does not expect the Judeans to welcome its message, they do not make explicit that this is because they are at this time too comfortable in Babylon. The Babylonians themselves give a different impression of conditions in the sixth century in their own accounts of the way they treated transported peoples as effectively slave-labour on building projects.39 These match the prophet's allusions to conditions that were prison-like (see, e.g., 42.7, 22). By the 540s Babylon itself was in a state of disorder. Internally, the king, Nabonidus, was in conflict with the priesthood over his desire to encourage the worship of the god Sin rather than Marduk. For a 38

On these see ABD and its references. See, e.g., D. Smith-Christopher, 'Reassessing the Historical and Sociological Impact of the Babylonian Exile', in Exile (ed. J. M. Scott; Leiden/New York, 1997), pp. 7-36; also D. L. Smith, The Religion of the Landless (Bloomington, IN, 1989). 39

INTRODUCTION

37

period he took up residence in Tema, in the northwest of Babylonia, and in his absence the new year festival was not celebrated in Babylon. Externally, city and empire were threatened by the victories of the Median king Cyrus. While the troubles of the empire would no doubt be known and wondered at in Jerusalem, they would be of even more pressing concern in Babylon itself. 8. THE POEMS' AUDIENCE(S): THEIR IDENTITY40 On the stage, Second Isaiah's Judean audience is frequently addressed as Jacob-Israel or Zion-Jerusalem. It is also designated as Yhwh's servant. Jacob-Israel is first addressed in 40.12-31 (see v. 27), and is then the dominant figure on the stage through 40.1249.13. In 49.14-52.12, at least, the dominant figure on the stage is Jerusalem-Zion. The image of Yhwh's servant appears from time to time throughout chapters 41-53, arguably becoming more prominent as these chapters unfold. What is the significance of these various terms for the audience? What do they convey? What claim do they make? The terms 'Jacob' and 'Israel' are used in close correlation. Outside their appearance in the context of phrases to denote Yhwh as holy one or restorer of Israel and as king or strong one of Jacob, it is hard to find examples of either term occurring in isolation from the other. The regular usage involves their appearing in parallelism (40.27; 41.8, 14; 42.24; 43.1, 22, 28; 44.1, 5, 23; 45.4; 46.3; 48.1, 12; 49.5, 6). The exceptions are 44.2 (where Jacob is paralleled by Jeshurun); 44.21 (where the combination is Jacob, then Israel, then Israel again); 45.17-19 (where Israel is followed by Jacob two verses later); 46.13 (where Israel is paralleled by Zion); 48.20-49.3 (where Jacob is followed by Israel five verses later). Neither term appears in 49.755.13 (except in divine names). In chapters 56-66 the terms are never used together, while in chapters 1-39 they are used together only occasionally (e.g. 9.7 [8]; 10.20; 27.6, in passages probably of varying date). Within the OT as a whole, the term 'Israel' is used with a wide variety of references. It can denote (for instance) the ancestor also known as Jacob, the ethnic group that traces its descent from him, the political entity that occupied an area north and south of Jerusalem in the time of David, the political entity that occupied an area north of Jerusalem after Solomon's day, a religious group of people with a certain commitment, and also a theological entity, the people especially favoured by Yhwh.41 This can generate confusion in usage outside the OT, including modern scholarly writing. The 40 Some paragraphs in this section are adapted from Goldingay, 'Isaiah 40-55 in the 1990s'. 41 See P. R. Davies, In Search of 'Ancient Israel' (JSOT Sup 148, 1992; 2nd ed., 1995), pp. 48-50, and his references.

38

ISAIAH 40-55

references are interconnecting and overlapping, and no doubt people will have made tendentious use of their ambiguity. To describe one's group as 'Israel' could be to make a claim. Consciously or unconsciously texts are written to serve the interests of their authors and their communities. That is not a total explanation of them, but it is one level of explanation. A possible question of any text, then, is 'Whose interest does it serve?' fN. K. Gottwald (pp. 54-55) thus saw the chapters as especially concerned to bolster the position of the exilic community, an aristocratic oligarchy destined to resume power in Jerusalem. They then lack any reflection on the need to safeguard against the abuse and corruption of power that characterized their pre-exilic predecessors. What were the power realities within and between the Judean communities? The community in Babylon comprised chiefly the religious and political leadership from Jerusalem and its families, numbering some thousands, who had been removed there by the Babylonian army. People once used to power and significance, they now found themselves insignificant and powerless. They were disunited among themselves in their interpretation of their religious and political circumstances, taking different attitudes to international political prospects in Babylon and to the future of Yahwistic religion in its relationship to matters such as worship by means of images. They were thus characterized by internal and external conflict. As for Jerusalem and Judah, Lamentations pictures the city itself as desolate and empty. This picture of an abandoned city seems likely to be an exaggeration, more likely rhetorically than ideologically motivated. The same poem can speak of the city's emptiness (e.g. 1.4, 5) and of the problems that beset its population (e.g. 1.11, 16). The surrounding Judean hills continued to be occupied by small communities of farmers and shepherds who in total numbers outnumbered the exiles (see 2 Kgs 25; Jer 40^3), and it would be surprising if there was no occupation of the city. Isaiah 40-55 speaks of Zion as Yhwh's people (51.16), yet it also presents an image of the city and of the land of Judah as ruined, desolate, and empty (e.g. 44.26; 49.19; 51.3). Now implying in this way that the Judean community did not exist might constitute an ideological claim, parallel to one in the modern Middle East. If prophet and people represent themselves as Zion in exile (cf "fVolz's comment on 40.2), this could give ideological support to a claim to be the real Israel. Representing themselves as Zion's children, entitled to return to their mother city, could have a parallel function. But the double description of the city parallels the one that appears in Lamentations. This means that, on the hypothesis that Isaiah 40-55 comes from Babylon, both people in Jerusalem and people elsewhere could describe city and land as empty. Such descriptions offer no indication of the whereabouts of their audience, nor of any tendentiousness on the part of people speaking in these terms. To describe city and land as desolate need carry no implication of making a claim to ownership of city and land, or of a rejection of the

INTRODUCTION

39

actual population of Jerusalem and Judah. There is a contrast with the 'myth of the empty land' found in some OT books.42 One can imagine that people in Jerusalem might look down on people in Babylon and vice versa. Jeremiah 24 and Ezekiel 11 seek to counter an assumption apparently prevalent in Jerusalem between 597 and 587 that the community there is safe whereas the community in Babylon is under Yhwh's judgment, but these are not context-less claims for the superior theological status of the Babylonian community. The evidence from a slightly later period, after Persian rule arrived and people began to return from Babylonia to Judah, is that there could be some antipathy between the communities in Judah and in Babylon. There are also indications of related tensions within the community in Judah. Within each community there were at least some people who regarded the other as contaminated (see, e.g. Zechariah 3; Ezra 3-6; and the indications of conflict within Isaiah 56-66). It would not be surprising if the same attitude obtained in the 540s. Such judgments can serve claims to power. Earlier still, on the one hand, Lamentations grieves over the removal of the city's leadership (e.g. 2.9; 4.13-16), while on the other it lays responsibility for the city's fall squarely at the feet of that leadership and thus at the feet of its survivors now in Babylon. But in texts from the period from 587 to 539 there are no explicit indications of a dismissal of one community by the other. The tensions of the Second Temple period are not evident here.43 In taking up the speech of Lamentations and announcing a response to its pleas, in a non-ideological fashion Isaiah 40-55 may implicitly see itself as one in destiny with the Jerusalem community rather than set over against it. The prophet's usage is implicitly inclusive rather than exclusive. In her 'Response' to Gottwald (pp. 74, 78), C. A. Newsom notes that Isaiah 40-55 makes much use of the terms 'children', 'sons', and 'daughters', and refrains from describing its community as 'kings', 'princes', 'priests', and 'prophets', in Lamentations' manner. This might suggest selfeffacement, though it might constitute an evasion of responsibility. Second Isaiah does witness to divisions within the community it addresses (wherever that is), at least in implying that the prophet and any group that identified with the message expressed in these chapters had a different perspective on events from the rest of the community. |R- R- Wilson (p. 63) finds expressed in 51.1-16 an exclusivist tendency on the part the prophet's group, but in our comment on the passage we question this understanding. But the prophet did believe that the community still felt the abandonment of Yhwh to which Lamentations refers and was inclined to worship 42 For example, R. P. Carroll, 'The Myth of the Empty Land', in Ideological Criticism of Biblical Texts (ed. D. Jobling and T. Pippin; Semeia 59, 1992), pp. 43-57. 43 Cf W. Zimmerli's discussion in 'Israel im Buch Ezechiel', in VT 8 (1958), pp. 7590; also Ezechiel (BKAT, 1969), pp. 1258-61; ET Ezekiel (2 vols; Philadelphia, 1979 and 1983), Vol. 2, pp. 563-65. Ezekiel also uses the term 'Judah' rarely. The two later prophets thus contrast with Jeremiah.

40

ISAIAH 40-55

Yhwh by means of images and/or to be impressed by the Babylonian gods with their images. It had not owned the religious or theological reasons for the Babylonian defeat and it was not prepared to see Yhwh's hand in the rise of Cyrus. Still less was it prepared to see Cyrus as Yhwh's anointed, as if promises of the re-establishment of the Davidic monarchy could be abandoned. We have already alluded to a feature running through much of Isaiah44 40-55, what G. von Rad called 'the motif of democratization'. Within chapters 41-42 this is represented by the treatment of Jacob-Israel as God's servant. Expressions such as 'servant', 'chosen', 'fear not, for I am with you' that appear in 41.8-16 belong to the king, in origin or by familiar usage. They are now reapplied to Jacob-Israel. The main features of the portrait of the servant in 42.14 are also royal in background, and in the commentary we argue that they also presuppose application to Jacob-Israel. But what is this Jacob-Israel, and over against whom is democratization asserted? Is Jacob-Israel the Babylonian community, or is it the community in Judah, or is such an antithesis not implied? Is democratization simply asserted over against the potential power of the Davidic monarchy? On the surface, the prophecy's point is not that the title 'Israel' belongs to the Babylonian community rather than the community in Judah, or vice versa. It is that the community addressed means something rather than nothing and that significance attaches to all of it, rather than to the Davidic house alone. In Second Isaiah's democratization there is a force capable of working powerfully against ideologies, for by definition it works against loci of power. It puts all human entities under the authority and protection of deity. Of course it can be subject to ideological appropriation. Yet Isaiah 40-55 seems to work against that, too. Its Jacob-Israel (however identified) might gain too unequivocal comfort from being reminded in 41.8-16 of its high status as Yhwh's personal servant. If it should do so, such comfort is quickly subverted by the reminder of the vocation involved in servanthood in 42.1-9 (as we read the passage). It is more explicitly and devastatingly subverted by the assessment of its servanthood offered in 42.18-25. 'This is a kind of ideological literature that incorporates a reflex of ideological auto-critique.'45 The prophet's critique of the community might in turn be judged ideological because it leaves the prophet as the one person unsullied by disobedience and the one person to whom everyone must yield. But the other side of that coin is the degree of suffering involved in the prophetic vocation, supremely in the picture in 52.13-53.12 (as we read that passage). The chapters are about prophetic power, but this is power that receives such radical redefinition that ideology deconstructs. 44 45

Theologie (see at 40.8), Vol. 2, p. 254; ET p. 240. R. Alter's comment concerning the story of Jacob/Israel and Esau/Edom in The World of Biblical Literature (New York, 1992), p. 68.

INTRODUCTION

41

Lamentations and Isaiah 40-55 may have covert concerns to justify political positions, or they may not. Perhaps the better way to put it is to grant that there may well be an aspect of self-interest in every text, but that this consideration may be a particularly significant factor in the shaping of these specific texts, or it may not. The exiles may actually be quite ignorant of the situation in Jerusalem and too preoccupied with their own situation to reflect on the situation anywhere else: that is, their silence about the Jerusalem community may be significant, but there are several ways in which it could be significant. We do not have enough knowledge of the socio-historical context of Isaiah 40-55 to provide the undergirding for a properly sociocritical interpretation, or to test the application of socio-critical models to it. The matter is simply too conjectural. Aside from questions regarding Gottwald's assumption that relationships between the two communities are to be understood by means of a conflict model rather than a consensual one, we do not even know for certain whether the material in Isaiah 40-55 is of Babylonian background, or perhaps of mixed origin. The whole of the book called Isaiah may be of Jerusalem provenance. If it is, a quite different socio-historical understanding would be possible and necessary. Socio-critical interpretation does draw our attention to the fact that within Isaiah 40-55, Jacob-Israel is not merely a cipher (e.g. for the Judean community in Babylon or in Jerusalem). It is an expression like 'the church'. When a preacher reminds a congregation that it is 'the church', this sets a symbol before them. It is a way of suggesting possibilities, visions, hopes, and obligations. It is not usually a way of asserting that the word 'church' belongs to them as it does not belong to the congregation across the street. It implies a contrast with how they see themselves rather than a contrast with how other people see themselves. Admittedly, churches do make claims to be the church, and elements within the sixth-century Judean community may have made an exclusive claim to be the real Jacob-Israel. One cannot exclude the possibility that the poems in Isaiah 40-55 make this claim for the community in Babylon or in Jerusalem. If so, they do this with a reticence that contrasts with the language of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who indulge in direct critique of the community in Judah. Indeed, Second Isaiah explicitly does the opposite of undergirding any claim to exclusive ownership of the designation 'Jacob-Israel' on the part of its audience. In traditional prophetic fashion this prophet tells the audience that it has no true right to this designation (see 48.1-11). The terms 'Jacob' and 'Israel' are thus applied to a people that needs to be reminded of its significance before Yhwh and of its obligations to Yhwh. The usage recalls the description of Judeans as 'Israelites' in Dan 1.3 (cf also the use in Chronicles). 'Zion-Jerusalem' is also a complicated symbol. 'Zion' originally denoted a fortified hill in the pre-Israelite city of Jerusalem. In

42

ISAIAH 40-55

chapters 40-55, as elsewhere, the name is used in parallelism with the name 'Jerusalem' itself, though in isolation 'Zion' has more the connotations of Israel's religious centre and of the place to which Yhwh is committed. 'Jerusalem' is more capable of a purely geographical and political reference. In Isaiah 40-55, ZionJerusalem frequently denotes the city of Jerusalem itself (44.26, 28; 46.13; 51.3, 11). It also denotes the community that inhabits this city (explicitly in 51.16; perhaps also in 40.1-2). That needs distinguishing from what we might call the corporate personality or spirituality embodied in the city from time to time (e.g. 40.9; 41.27; 49.14; 51.3, 17-52.2, 7-10), though the distinction is sometimes hard to make. Elsewhere 'Jerusalem' can occasionally mean the population of the city that has been deported elsewhere (so, e.g. 2 Kgs 24.14). We have noted that |Volz viewed 'Jerusalem' as a figure for the exilic community itself in a passage such as 40.2, and H. G. M. Williamson sees the prophet as speaking of the exilic community 'proleptically' as Jerusalem in 40.9-10; 44.26; 46.13; 49.14-21; 52.7-10.46 But it seems doubtful whether Jerusalem or Zion could be used without qualification to refer to the Jerusalemite community in (for instance) Babylon (see comment on 40.2a). The tendency of the symbol ZionJerusalem is to be geographically fixed but open toflexibilityin the people who link with it. The tendency of the symbol Jacob-Israel is to be more fixed in its reference to people but more flexible geographically (cf |Willey, p. 225). More likely the way to see the matter is to reckon that the deportee community can be identified as Jacob-Israel or as Zion-Jerusalem's children. On the stage Zion is addressed because her children are in the house. Address to Zion is for overhearing by the deportees. |S. L. Stassen suggests that 40.1-11 with its Jerusalem-Zion focus introduces 40.12-48.22 with its JacobIsrael focus, while 49.1-13 with its Jacob-Israel concern introduces 49.14-55.13 with its Jerusalem-Zion concern. The two foci of the whole are thus bound together. There is another way of expressing the difference between the terms Jerusalem-Zion and Jacob-Israel. The latter is a thoroughly human collective person. The former is less of a real historical entity and more of an archetype (|Hessler, p. 238). To say that Jacob-Israel is Yhwh's people is analogical language. To say that Zion-Jerusalem is Yhwh's wife is to use metaphor or myth. The metaphor enables Yhwh's passion to receive expression as fundamental to the work of deliverance and restoration. Again, saying that Jacob-Israel is the community's ancestor is a different kind of statement from saying that Zion is its mother. Zion is represented or embodied by the royal temple state in Jerusalem, but it is more than a mere personification of that. Jacob-Israel is identified as Yhwh's servant from time to time in chapters 41-48, though chapter 42 recognizes the problem in that 46 'The Concept of Israel in Transition', in The World of Ancient Israel (ed. R. E. Clements; Cambridge/New York, 1989), pp. 141-61 (see p. 145).

INTRODUCTION

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designation, first by portraying the role the servant is to fulfil and then by making explicit how Jacob-Israel is incapable of fulfilling it. In chapters 49-50 the prophet speaks as Yhwh's servant. We have concluded that the portrait of the servant in 52.13-53.12 is also a portrait of the prophet, though the identity of the servant there is even more controversial than in earlier chapters. Zion-Jerusalem is never identified as the servant, though the identification has been suggested (see tWilshire). In chapters 49-54, the portrait of a woman/city and of a servant interweave, without ever being brought into explicit interrelationship. Rhetorically, the servant and Zion are actually in two different places, the servant in Babylon, Zion in Judah. |P. T. Willey (pp. 180-81) describes city and servant as also occupying parallel universes of discourse. It is easier for Jacob-Israel and the servant to be related because the former is nearer to being an unequivocally referential noun. It refers to an empirical entity, the people that in one way or another identifies itself as Jacob-Israel's descendants. The fact that there can be 'slippage' between singular and plural in the context of references to Jacob-Israel as servant (e.g. 42.22; 43.6-12) reflects that primary reference of the servant image. But it remains an image. To put it another way, 'Yhwh's servant' is to 'Jacob-Israel' what 'Yhwh's wife' is to 'Zion-Jerusalem'. |R. Lack sees the symbolism of the book called Isaiah as key to understanding it, and fP. D. Miscall aims in his commentary to conduct the modern reader through the 'labyrinth of images' in the book. We have hypothesized that it was readers in Palestine in the late Persian or early Greek period who were first in a position to discover what the book called Isaiah as a whole did to them. For them the material represented part of their authoritative religious and theological tradition. As such it was of ongoing significance for people living long after the prophecies were delivered. But we have also noted that chapters 40-55 comprise a discrete unit within this whole, and we have argued that these chapters' implicit audience is one living in the late Babylonian period in Babylon itself. One of our concerns, then, is to note the rhetorical strategies that the text uses to carry this audience along the path it seeks to encourage them to tread. In Isaiah 40-55 it proceeds by the use of allusiveness and a gradual move towards greater specificity. Our reading will involve following the text as it unfolds. It will involve reading in the light of what has preceded and hearing echoes of that, recognizing there what we now see were anticipations of what we read at this later point. It will involve re-considering the significance of what we read there, and letting what preceded cast light on what we now read, in the light of where it has in fact led. It will also involve guessing where the text must lead, identifying questions we feel it will need to clarify. But we will not too easily turn the page to discover the answer from what will actually follow. The reader does not at this point know what that is, and the nearer is compelled to wait for it. Allusiveness at one point

44

ISAIAH 40-55

must be allowed to be what it is, if we are to do justice to this part of the text. Indeed, we must allow for the possibility that apparent clarity at one point may turn out to be an illusion. The next chapter may mystify it. At the end we may look back over the way we have walked, though not in such a way as to make the journeying redundant. It is a Second Isaiah image: the text's talk of a journey becomes a figure of the journey on which it takes its audience. 9. THE POET-PROPHET As part of the questioning of the assured results of modern criticism as these affect Isaiah, it is possible to query whether we should reify an individual prophet designated 'Second Isaiah'. |Ronald Clements (pp. 112-13), for instance, points out that chapters 40-55 are unique within the book called Isaiah if they represent the work of one person. The rest of the book would make one expect to find here oracles and poems from a number of prophet-poets. We must allow for the possibility that the modern concern to identify material that came from a key individual is an anachronism, and it is in deference to this possibility that we have left consideration of the possible single 'author' of these chapters to the end of this Introduction. But chapters 40-55 do give a more prominent place to the T of a prophet, and do work as a more coherent whole, than either chapters 1-39 or chapters 56-66. Admittedly the T of a prophet is not allpervasive in chapters 40-55, and it is conceivable that material from a number of prophet-poets has been put together to make this whole, as has probably happened in chapters 1-39 and chapters 56-66. But if chapters 40-55 do represent the work of one person, their distinctiveness in this respect might relate to the distinctive position that the chapters have in the development of the book as a whole, on a hypothesis such as f Williamson's. The importance of the individual prophet 'Second Isaiah' has sometimes been overestimated, sometimes underestimated. The text presents us with a collection of poems that do refer to an individual prophet, but they do so only from time to time. Perhaps at both points we might read with the grain. fBrevard Childs (p. 325) suggests that the incorporation of chapters 40-66 in 'the book of Isaiah' means that they 'are now understood as a prophetic word of promise offered to Israel by the eighth-century prophet, Isaiah of Jerusalem'. That seems a questionable way to articulate the matter. The English phrase 'the book of Isaiah' might indeed suggest a book that emanates in its entirety analogous to the expression Tsalm[s] of from that prophet. It is David'. But mizmor leddwid is a notoriously more ambiguous expression than 'Psalm of David'. Similarly the Hebrew title of this book is not 'the book of Isaiah' but simply 'Isaiah'. To use Terence Collins's happy phrase, it is 'the book called Isaiah'.47 One might compare the books 'of Samuel, whose title probably implies the 4

7 The Mantle of Elijah (Sheffield, 1993), pp. 37-58; cf tWilliamson.

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conviction that Samuel wrote part of them, but not that he wrote all of them. The same is true of the Proverbs 'of Solomon. That book goes on to make explicit that it includes material from other sources. We may infer that the title 'Isaiah' implies a relationship between Isaiah and the whole book, but the title leaves open the nature of that relationship. Of course even the title 'Isaiah' is actually later than the book itself. In accordance with ancient middle-eastern custom, the book would once presumably have been known by its opening words, 'The vision of Isaiah'. That of course would not imply the assumption that these words were a marker of authorship, any more than is the case with the use of an opening phrase to designate the title of other books. Nor need Isa 1.1 in itself imply that the whole book comes from Isaiah in the time of the four eighth-century kings.48 It is in keeping with that perspective on the book's relationship with Isaiah that chapters 40-55 incorporate material that speaks with the T of a prophet who functions in the sixth century. According to C. R. Seitz, 'in Second Isaiah, the "prophet" becomes a figure depicted in the literature (49.1-6; 50.3-9 [sic]) alongside Zion and Jacob/Israel. In this manner the single identifiable prophetic voice in the wider book—the prophet Isaiah—is respected and allowed to stand alone.'49 If the material spoke about the prophet in the third person, as in due course it does in 50.10-11 and 52.13-53.12, the analogy with Jacob-Israel and Zion-Jerusalem might hold. But 49.16 and 50.4-9 takefirst-personform and invite as realistic a reading as that usually applied to chapter 6 or to other books where the prophet speaks as T. It is the prophet who speaks. In asking after the implied author of chapters 40-55, we will begin from 50.4-9. An early Christian 50 writer such as Chrysostom assumes that the prophet speaks here. Traditional Jewish exegesis as represented by writers such as |Rashi makes the same assumption, and "fCalvin with his historical instinct agrees with the Jewish exegetes. The prophet here speaks of having been given the tongue of a disciple and of being woken up to listen like a disciple, and thereby establishes both a link with and a distinction from the prophet Isaiah ben Amoz. Isaiah had urged that his teaching should be sealed among his 'disciples' (8.16). This speaker asks to be seen as one of these disciples or as like one of them. If the request refers to being one of Yhwh's disciples, the point is little affected. The prophet is not Isaiah, but is someone who is identified with Isaiah's teaching and who claims to have had an ear opened by Yhwh and to have been given a tongue that can speak as such a disciple would. This fits the nature of this prophet's work, which is (among other things) a distinctive new preaching of Isaianic themes. This is not to imply that a 'school' of such disciples had existed through the years since 48 49 50

See J. Goldingay, 'Isa i 1 and ii 1' in VT 48 (1998), pp. 326-32. Destiny, p. 206. See, e.g., Homilies on First Corinthians vii, 7; Homilies on Second Corinthians ii, 7.

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ISAIAH 40-55

Isaiah's ministry. This may have been so, but we have no evidence of it.51 Like many others, this prophet has met with opposition and physical attack but has kept up a commitment to the message Yhwh gave and is convinced of eventual (indeed imminent) vindication. We are given no basis for this opposition, but one may perhaps infer it from the content of the message over the previous ten chapters. That has constituted a challenge to see the rise of Cyrus as brought about by Yhwh and as Yhwh's means of bringing down the Babylonian empire. Passages such as 45.9-13 indicate that this message was not welcome to Judeans. It would obviously be unwelcome to Babylonian authorities. While earlier prophecy included other promises of Babylon's downfall, it had also encouraged Judeans to see Babylon as Yhwh's agent and had urged Judah to submit to Babylon and settle down under its sovereignty. Second Isaiah is opposing this prophetic view that may also have been the security of leading Judeans in Palestine and in Babylon who hoped for a quiet(er) life if they remained loyal to Babylonian sovereignty. The testimony in 50.4-9 is preceded by another in 49.1-6. Exegetes such as |Rashi and *jTbn Ezra again recognized that here, too, the prophet speaks. While these words begin in the same way as Isaiah's own, with a summons to 'listen' (cf 1.2), they go on to suggest a connection with Jeremiah. As Jeremiah had sensed himself acknowledged by Yhwh before he was formed in the womb and set apart to be a prophet before he was born, so Second Isaiah speaks of being summoned before birth and named when still in the womb. The sense of being called to embody the commitment to Yhwh to which Israel as a whole was called, and the sense of having laboured fruitlessly (49.3-4), also recall Jeremiah. It was Jeremiah's calling, too, to seek to bring the people back to Yhwh, though he was also 'a prophet to the nations'. These links with Jeremiah cohere with the links with the book called Jeremiah that run through Isaiah 40-55 and that would have made it not seem too odd if the chapters had featured as part of that book, instead of part of Isaiah, as Duhm thought they once had. It is striking that these two major passages in which the prophet speaks as T set up links with Isaiah ben Amoz and with Jeremiah, the two prophets with whom scholars have seen especially close links in chapters 40-55. f E. Voegelin (pp. 488-91) suggests that those two prophets supremely embody two different responses to the disparity between what Israel was called to be and what it actually was. Both announce the need for a third exodus, not only from the imperial civilizations (Abraham) and from Egypt (Moses), but an 'Exodus of Israel from itself. One response (Isaiah's) was to form a group who would safeguard the awareness of that calling until the moment when Yhwh implemented it. The other (Jeremiah's) was to embody the calling of Israel in oneself. Second Isaiah identifies with both these responses to the tension between vision and reality. 'The Exodus has 51

See Clements, 'Unity of Isaiah', pp. 94-95.

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happened in the soul of the author, and his work is the symbol of a historical event' (pp. 494-95). The words we read are there because the prophet believes they have this significance, and moreover they are the fruit of experience over the years. Those two passages in chapters 49-55 are the major first-person ones, but two briefer references appear at either end of chapters 4048. We have followed lQIsa and the LXX in reckoning that the prophet first speaks in 40.6. In the commentary we note the telling links between 40.1-11 and chapter 6. It may even be the case that in chapter 40 we re-enter the scene of First Isaiah's commission, the workings of Yhwh's court in heaven. 'Second Isaiah' speaks as one who is party to the deliberations of this court. Yet there is a contrast in the intention that Yhwh is now concerned to implement. The period of First Isaiah's ministry of warning is over. The ministry now to be exercised is one of 'comfort'. There is also a contrast in the T that responds to the voice commissioning a preacher. Whereas Isaiah ben Amoz volunteers to speak of calamity, this voice resists the commission to speak words of comfort. Second Isaiah knows how harshly the warning of calamity has been fulfilled and is not clear that those on whom it has fallen can hear a message of comfort. We have already noted that events justified this doubt. The scene in 40.1-11 and the chapters that follow must indeed be read as part of the book called Isaiah, but this is not incompatible with their being the work of an individual prophet whose commission is reflected here.52 Then at the other end of chapters 40-48, the prophet once more speaks briefly in the first person. The solemn closing lines at 48.16b are introduced with a description of Yhwh's commission that uses the actual terminology of 6.8. Second Isaiah is 'sent' as First Isaiah was. Of course, this prophet does not give us a name, but then, Isaiah himself did not do that. It was someone else (perhaps 'Second Isaiah') who did so. The puzzling question then becomes: 'Why did Second Isaiah's editor not tell us this prophet's name?' Perhaps the answer is that this editor was willing to cooperate with the prophet's own desire to stay under the shadow of the Isaiah who was a significant inspiration, as indeed did 'Third Isaiah'. Perhaps the editor was so willing because the editor was the prophet. In chapter 6, Isaiah ben Amoz speaks as T without using his own name, but one of the introductions to chapters 40-55, that in chapter 39, has implicitly noted that time has moved on. Hezekiah is dead by now, and so therefore is Isaiah (39.5-8; fSeitz, p. 121). Following on the disappearance of that first prophetic voice in the book, in several passages in chapters 40-55, 'Second Isaiah' speaks as T in the same way as First Isaiah had. In chapter 61 'Third Isaiah' will in turn do so. The prophet's language raises another question. fBebb Wheeler 52

Contrast Melugin, 'Servant', p. 23, summarizing Seitz 'Divine Council'.

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ISAIAH 40-55

Stone has noted that the chapters reflect a woman's experience and concerns in a way paralleled by few OT books. The community's experience, needs, hopes, and promises are described and expressed in terms of those of a woman's experience of being a wife and a mother, of rape, divorce, and widowhood. Her restoration will be that of a woman, loved by her husband, surrounded by children, enjoying a woman's finery (54.1-12). It is in such a connection that Second Isaiah mentions Sarah, her only mention outside Genesis (51.1). The distinctive experiences of a woman also contribute to the portrayal of Yhwh. While Yhwh can be pictured as a warrior, Yhwh can also shriek like a birthing woman (42.14) and care like a mother for the children of her womb (49.15). There is a converse phenomenon. Prophets such as Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel took a woman's unfaithfulness as a key symbol for speaking of the unfaithfulness of the people of God. Second Isaiah speaks much of the people of God's unfaithfulness, but invariably attributes that to the 'male' Jacob-Israel, and perhaps implies that it is especially the men (who had the leadership in the community) who are responsible for its plight. Conversely, the male servant figure that the chapters portray has a very different cast of behaviour from the common male stereotype embodied by Cyrus, suggesting 'a paradigm of power that surely subverts the patriarchal paradigm' (f Stone, p. 94). Madam Babylon, on the other hand, is critiqued for a failure of the distinctively female virtue of compassion or 'womb-love' (47.6). The female figure Jerusalem-Zion is never accused of unfaithfulness. Except in 40.2 she appears only as victim. And only Second Isaiah has God speaking to 'my daughters' as well as 'my sons' (43.6). Israel's having a number of women prophets would allow for the possibility that Second Isaiah was a woman, which might be another reason for letting the poems remain anonymous. The commission of a nfbasseret, which suggests a woman herald (40.9), might then be her commission. On the other hand, the testimony in 50.4-9 comes from someone who apparently has a beard to pull (presumably literally). Further, we take the portrayal of the servant in 52.13-53.12 as a description of the prophet's own actual or potential experience, and that is the portrait of a male. The implication is that the prophet wants to be thought of as a man. |Schmitt suggests that the portrayal of Yhwh as mother derives from the motif of Zion as mother, but more likely it is part of the evidence that the author was conscious of the nature of many of a woman's distinctive experiences. If the poet was a man, then at least this was a man who knew about the nature of many of a woman's distinctive experiences, had reflected on them, and knew how to use them theologically and pastorally. But to leave open the question about the prophet's gender, we will seek to avoid referring to this prophet-poet as 'he'. Our conclusions regarding the origins of Isaiah 40-55 are thus as follows. Behind them lies the ministry of an individual Judean, the T who speaks from time to time in the chapters, who takes up the

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words of Isaiah ben Amoz and other existent Israelite traditions and works them into a message for a new age. We refer to this person both as prophet and as poet and assume that the two words qualify each other. By designating this person as a prophet we mean that this is someone who claims to speak words from God to people and words from people to God. By designating this prophet as a poet we mean that this is someone who uses the communicative and persuasive devices of poetry in this two-way speaking. We do not know whether this Second Isaiah would have welcomed the designations 'prophet' or 'poet', nor do we know anything of the prophet-poet's social location or function. Whatever the unity or diversity of the material, the fact that chapters 40-55 works as a whole implies that some individual or some group has assembled the material in such a way that the elements form part of a message occupying a broader canvas. Our working assumption is that this individual or group is the same or overlaps with the author(s) of the material, but again it is impossible to be certain of the historical relationship between them. We have suggested that the collection makes distinctive sense against the background of Babylon in the 540s as opposed to (say) Jerusalem over the next decades, and the tightness of the chronology supports the notion that assembler(s) and author(s) are to be identified. 10. THE MESSAGE OF ISAIAH 40-55 There emerges from Isaiah 40-55 a particularly articulate comprehensive theological perspective. The chapters' message focuses on God, Israel, Jerusalem, the prophet, and the world. (1) The one who speaks to the prophet's community is 'your God' (40.1). The description indicates that the committed relationship or covenant between Yhwh and Israel has not been dissolved, as Yhwh threatened it could be, but has been restored, as Yhwh promised it could be (e.g. Hos 1.9-2.3 [1]). As warrior and as shepherd Yhwh is about to win a great victory over Israel's overlord and its gods. As shepherd Yhwh is acting as king and exercising authority over the king of the Babylonian superpower. Israel's God is 'Yhwh Armies' (e.g. 44.6), capable of the energy and vigour of a warrior yelling and roaring into action (42.13-17). But shepherding can also be a caring image. As shepherd Yhwh will see that the flock gets properly looked after, in accordance with the way different sheep have different needs (40.11). In seeking to combat incredulity at that claim about Yhwh's imminent action, Second Isaiah seeks to rehabilitate Yhwh in the eyes of the people, first by expounding the implications of Yhwh's being the creator of the heavens and the earth (40.12-31). That meant having complete control of the raw materials involved in making the world and complete control of the task itself. It also means being in effortless control of the world on an ongoing basis—creation is not just an activity of the past but a sovereignty in the present. It means

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ISAIAH 40-55

an undisputed authority over other heavenly powers such as the Babylonians reckoned controlled world events. There is no reason to be threatened by the power of the nations, by the humanly made images of Babylon, by the rulers of the nations, or by those heavenly powers. Being the sovereign creator means Yhwh never runs out of energy or insight, and can share energy with people who 'look to Yhwh'. Their expectancy that Yhwh is going to act gives them new strength in the meantime. Being the creator also means Yhwh can transform desert into wetland for the needy or wetland into desert for the oppressor (41.18-19; 42.15). Yhwh alone is the world's creator (44.24). Yhwh's will is sometimes implemented via heavenly aides, the shadowy but real entities addressed in 40.1-11 who have the task of lowering mountains and raising ravines. But there is no doubt that such heavenly beings are much less than God. As the awesome, transcendent creator, Yhwh is 'the holy one' (40.25)-in other words, is God (ha*el; 42.5; 43.12). 'I am the one', says Yhwh, the one whose existence antedated and will postdate that of any other 'deity' (43.10). Yhwh can say, 'I am first and I am last; apart from me there is no God' (44.6; cf 45.5). While the OT regularly assumes that there is a decisive qualitative difference between Yhwh and the deities worshipped by other peoples, it is sometimes prepared to refer to the latter as ^elohim (e.g. Ps 82). Second Isaiah underlines the difference by reserving the noun "elohim to Yhwh (41.23; 42.17 prove the rule). In particular, Yhwh will not yield the splendour of God to deities who can be represented by images (42.8), which by their inert and dumb nature show that the gods they represent are much less than God. Fancy thinking that human beings should worship such objects that human beings made (44.9-20)! In contrast to the deities these represent, Yhwh has given the evidence of being God by showing the capacity to announce intentions ahead of time and then to fulfil these, and Yhwh is now doing so again (42.9; 43.9; 44.26). It is not merely the case that a Judean prophet claims ex post facto that the Persian conquest of Babylon was arranged by Yhwh. Long ago, Isaiah of Jerusalem and other prophets spoke of the fall of Babylon, and in the present, as events are still unfolding, this Second Isaiah declares how these events are destined to turn out. (One may speculate that the fact that Babylon did fall and the Judeans were encouraged to go home played a significant role in the community's reckoning that the words of the prophet had been authenticated—to speak anachronistically, in its making them part of the canon—even though there were other aspects of them that stood unfulfilled.) The deities the Babylonians worshipped, and the Judeans were tempted by, do not do anything. They are outwardly very impressive, but in reality are empty nothings. The fall of Babylon will mean the fall of Babylon's gods, exposed by this event (46.1-7). And when Yhwh declares an intention, no one can reverse it (43.13), whereas when earthly experts declare what is going to happen, Yhwh can reverse their predictions (44.25). Events are

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bound to take place because 'the mouth of Yhwh has spoken' and because 'the word of our God stands forever' (40.5, 8). There can be periods of divine inactivity, but they are succeeded by decisive action (42.14). Yhwh thus brings about both the disasters and the constructive events of history, and specifically of Israel's experience (45.7). Yhwh is not by nature a hidden God. Yhwh did not speak in hiddenness, but rather made it possible for Israel to know the divine purpose— the trouble is the people turn away from it (45.18-25). If capable of hiding because of the people's resistance, Yhwh is one who now once again acts as a God who delivers (45.15), as Israel's deliverer (mdsia\ 43.3), in line with Israel's original act of deliverance from Egypt and from the forces gathered at the Red Sea (43.16-17; 44.27). Those are among the events from the past that Jacob-Israel must simultaneously forget (because of the importance of the new event that is coming) and remember (because they provide the basis for knowing Yhwh can bring about this new event) (43.18; 44.21). Yhwh is thus not merely the holy one but 'Israel's holy one', 'your holy one'—and not merely the king, but your king (43.15), not merely the world's creator but Israel's creator (43.1, 15). Earlier chapters in Isaiah use the title 'Israel's holy one' with a threatening sense. Yhwh's holiness finds expression in authoritative and decisive action against Israel, because of the wrongdoing that characterizes its life as a community. Second Isaiah emphasizes that Yhwh is not only 'the holy one of Israel' but 'the holy one of Israel'. The description implies a relationship with Israel that cannot ultimately be defined by hostility, even if that is what Israel deserves. So 'the holy one of Israel is your restorer' (41.14; cf 43.14). A restorer (go"el) is a member of the family who has the resources and capacity to come to the aid of another member of the family in need and is under moral obligation to do so. Yhwh agrees to be defined by that family relationship with Israel and the obligations it brings. Punishment cannot be the last word in this relationship. (2) The message concerns 'my people' (40.1). Israel is a people that especially belongs to Yhwh, one valuable and honourable in Yhwh's eyes; Yhwh loves this people and is prepared to give up sovereignty over other more impressive nations in order to keep possession of it (43.1-4). The chapters' de facto Israel consists mostly of families from the clan of Judah, along with some Benjaminites and some Levites, who survived the fall of Jerusalem and were in exile in Babylon, were scattered around other parts of the eastern Mediterranean such as Egypt, or had managed to remain in Judah. But theologically these groups represent the people of Israel whose story tells of how Yhwh long ago chose their ancestors Abraham and Sarah in Babylon(!), rescued their descendants from Egypt, and settled them in Canaan. The people are Jacob-Israel (e.g. 41.8, 14), descendants of their eponymous ancestor. But Jacob-Israel is an entity characterized by wrongdoing, failure,

52

ISAIAH 40-55

and rebellion in relation to Yhwh. It is for these that their city fell and its people were taken off into exile. Thus they are a people decimated and demoralized, like grass withered by the hot desert wind (40.6-7). Is there really any prospect of their coming back to life? They reckon that Yhwh has put them and their destiny out of mind (40.27). They are as insignificant as a worm (41.14), a weak and needy people looking for water and unable to find any (41.17). They have not been calling on Yhwh despite their demoralized state—or because of it—and have not really faced up to the rebelliousness that put them into the situation where they find themselves (43.22-28). Yet this people remains one Yhwh chose, took hold of, and summoned from far away (41.8-16). That made Jacob-Israel Yhwh's servant, and this relationship meant that Yhwh was committed to Jacob-Israel. Yhwh is 'with' Israel—that is, stands by its side and acts on its behalf, in the manner of the master-servant relationship (e.g. 41.10; 43.5). Israel therefore need not be afraid, like other peoples. Yhwh upholds it. It has suffered long enough, endured punishment that well satisfies the demands of rightfulness (40.2). It will see its oppressors disappear. Being Yhwh's servant thus puts Israel in a position of privilege. But a master chooses a servant in order to get a job done. The task in question is to proclaim Yhwh's authority (mispdt) and teaching (tbrah) to the nations (42.1^), to be a covenant of people, a light to nations, opening blind eyes and releasing people in prison (42.6-7). How this is to come about is not specified, perhaps partly because it is a rather academic question, since we can already work out that this servant is in no position to do any such thing. He is blind and deaf; Israel is itself imprisoned and despoiled, because of that wrongdoing with which the chapters started (42.18-22; cf 40.2). Instead of being a servant of Yhwh and a light to the world, it is a servant of foreign rulers, despised and loathed by the world (49.7). It is in no position to do anything for the blind and the prisoner. That is the more so because its sitting in darkness extends beyond (metaphorical) physical imprisonment to inner lack of discernment regarding why it is in this position (42.23-25). Indeed, it extends to a positive resistance to the way Yhwh intends to go about putting matters right (45.9-13). The people continue to be a community of rebels (46.8), far away from the faithful act of deliverance that Yhwh nevertheless intends to bring about (46.12-13). Rebels since birth, they have never been inclined to trust in Yhwh rather than in images (48.1-11). Yhwh looks back with anger and sadness at the way the community has declined to listen to Yhwh's directions for its life, and has thus watched its life fall apart and watched the promise to Abraham fail to find fulfilment (48.17-19). It has to come to do so, and to look at the future Yhwh's way rather than its own (55.9-11). It continues to be the case that there is no shalom for rebels (48.22). Yet Yhwh does not intend to let go of this servant or replace him by another. Rather, Yhwh still intends that as servant, Israel should function as witnesses to Yhwh (43.10-12). Being a witness is not,

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after all, such a difficult task but simply a matter of saying what one has heard and seen. Witness is thus another way to describe the declaring of Yhwh's praise, and it was for this that Jacob-Israel was brought into being (43.21). Israel is still destined to function thus, as people who can testify to having heard Yhwh declare the intention to do certain things and then to having seen Yhwh do them. It is thus for Yhwh's own sake that Yhwh intends to forgive them and persist with them, because otherwise Yhwh's own reputation would be compromised (43.25; 48.11). Yhwh has swept away their rebellions like the sun dissolving the morning mist; they may return to Yhwh knowing that Yhwh has taken this action (not to cause Yhwh to do so) (44.22). The fall of Babylon and its gods will be the event that has the capacity to win Jacob-Israel back to Yhwh as the one who will carry the community even as their gods drop the Babylonians (46.34). It is an action that will issue in their coming to affirm once again their identity as Yhwh's people (44.1-5). Paradoxically, it is the act of witnessing to this that will build up Israel's own trust in Yhwh, as it pays heed to its own testimony to what Yhwh has said and done. Yhwh will make a covenant for them as a people that will be equivalent to the old covenant with David, so that as a people they summon nations and witness to them as David once did (55.3-5). Through Yhwh's freeing and re-establishing Jacob-Israel, it will become a covenant for people (49.8-12), a sign of what Yhwh can do for people. This is their privilege as Yhwh's servants (54.17). Yhwh intends to bring the scattered people back to their land; Yhwh's sons and daughters will be brought back home (43.5-6), and Yhwh will provide for them on their journey (48.20-21). Yhwh is even now commissioning the divine arm to act in the way it acted when dealing with the dragon, so that once again Yhwh's people can walk through water and come with shouting to Zion (51.9-11). The prophet can already hear the heralds declaring that Yhwh is acting as king in Zion again. The sleeves of Yhwh's shirt are rolled up to wield the sword against the city's overlords (52.7-10). But the exiles have to be ready to leave Babylon, putting away the stain that comes from living in a land dominated by the Babylonian gods and their images—though they may do so in a relaxed fashion; there need be no unseemly haste about this exodus (52.11-12). To put it another way, they must turn to Yhwh for sustenance and not think that they have a future anywhere else (55.1-2). The people who allegedly long for Yhwh to deliver them must start believing that Yhwh can actually do so (51.1-8). (3) 'My people' is focused on Jerusalem-Zion (40.1). Indeed, it can be identified with Jerusalem-Zion (51.16). The sense of abandonment and loss that the exilic community feels is mirrored in that of the city they left (49.7). Indeed, it was of course the actions of those one-time inhabitants of the city that led to its being abandoned (50.1-2). The city is now to be 'comforted'. There are two senses in which this is so. Yhwh's comfort is an action on the people's spirits that enables them to look to the future with hope rather than resignation

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ISAIAH 40-55

(40.1), because Yhwh's comfort is also an action in the world, on the political plane. It restores the city. Jerusalem and the other towns of Judah are to be rebuilt and reinhabited (44.26). Metaphorically, Yhwh's comfort opens up streams that will turn desert into wetlands and forest. Yhwh is looking forward to returning to the Jerusalem that was abandoned in 587, returning in might and power (40.9-10). It is for this reason that heavenly civil engineers are constructing a highway on which Yhwh may appear in splendour (40.3-5). It had been as if Zion had been made to drink a poisoned cup instead of a blessing cup. Now she can get to her feet again (51.17). It had been as if Zion was a wife abandoned by her husband, and with no one to comfort her (54.6-7, 11). Now her husband promises that the commitment of the future will make that abandonment seem only momentary (54.8-10). Yhwh could no more forget Jerusalem-Zion than a mother can forget her baby. As the people will be restored, so will their city—indeed, the increase and the thriving of the people contributes to the restoring of the city (49.14-21). Its people will be brought back; the fact that at the moment they are deservedly in the control of a mighty foreign power is no obstacle now that Yhwh has decided the moment has come (49.22-26). Their mother can put on her splendour and sit on her throne (52.1-2). The city can know that it will never again be invaded by those who are uncircumcised and stained (suggesting both unbelieving foreigners and uncommitted Israelites?). It will be as if its stones are studded with jewels (54.11— 12). And its inhabitants will become disciples of Yhwh, so they will not imperil its relationship with Yhwh or its safety again (54.13-17). Like the exiles, the city can start rejoicing in light of what Yhwh is about to do (54.1). (4) Although Yhwh intends to restore Jacob-Israel so that it can indeed function as servant, the fulfilment of that intention lies in the future. To cope with the facts of the present, the prophet who speaks these words of encouragement and rebuke is to fulfil the role of Jacob-Israel as servant, on an interim basis (49.1-4). Like Jeremiah, this prophet was summoned by name before birth, and prepared and kept ready for the role Yhwh had in mind. That was to involve being Yhwh's 'servant', like the original Isaiah (20.3). On an ongoing basis, Yhwh gives this prophet a listening ear—a disciple's ear, as is appropriate for one who is both a disciple of Yhwh and a disciple of the original Isaiah (50.4). But further, as Yhwh's servant this prophet has a vocation to be the Israel in which Yhwh is glorified, by virtue of being someone responsive to Yhwh's word in a way that Jacob-Israel at the moment is not. Ironically, the prophet shares Jacob-Israel's inclination to doubt and discouragement when unable to see Yhwh at work, but unlike Jacob-Israel, overcomes that inclination (49.4), despite experiencing hostility and opposition (50.5-11). The prophet is summoned to be Yhwh's servant in order to bring Jacob-Israel back to Yhwh so that it can itself function as Yhwh's servant. Perhaps this is the indirect way the prophet will also bring

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light to the nations (49.5-6), though that might also involve the people and leadership of Babylon and Persia (over)hearing the prophet's message to the exiles. The prophet's direct task is to sustain the weary exiles (50.4), standing firm in the assurance that Yhwh will remain faithful. That will be one way of encouraging the people to stand firm in faith and hope, too, in conviction about the act of deliverance that Yhwh will certainly bring about—or rather, one way of encouraging them to start standing firm (cf 51.1-8). They have to choose to take the prophet's stance rather than that of the prophet's (Babylonian?) assailants, who are on their way to self-destruction (50.10-11). Yhwh's servant reappears in 52.13-53.12. Once again his affliction plays a key role in winning people back to Yhwh. Insofar as this chapter is a portrait of Yhwh's servant, it is one that describes Yhwh's vision of Jacob-Israel, Yhwh's servant par excellence. But the stress on the servant's submission to Yhwh makes clear this is no description of Jacob-Israel as it is. The description has closer links with the portrait of the prophet as interim servant. Whoever fulfils this vision will be one who experiences the kind of rejection and affliction that comes to the prophet, and more, perhaps even death at the hand of adversaries. But the servant can take the suffering and death that come as a result of serving God and can turn these into an offering to God that contrasts with the unwillingness to yield to God that characterizes the people as a whole. This offering might even compensate for that rebelliousness. Further, the offering will see its fruit in the people themselves coming to recognize Yhwh's own activity in the life of this servant. Whereas they first assumed that his suffering issued from his wrongdoing, they will come to see that it issued from theirs, from his identification with them, his rejection by them, and his willingness to make his persecution something he accepts and gives to God. Yhwh promises that this servant's affliction, too, will not be the end, but will be succeeded by extraordinary exaltation. (5) One aspect of that is that his ministry will benefit not only his own people but many nations and kings, so that they become a kind of reward for his ministry (52.13-15; 53.12). That brings together two sides to the chapters' message about the world as a whole. As the creator, Yhwh is giver of breath and thus of life to the people who live on the earth (42.5). This is part of the background to Yhwh's intention to bring illumination to the people who live on the earth (42.6). Yhwh's being the only deity really entitled to be described as God links with the conviction that Yhwh is God for the whole world. Yhwh deserves worship, by the peoples all over the earth, and the whole creation should respond with enthusiasm to Yhwh's restoring Jacob-Israel (42.10-12; 44.23; 49.13). Creation's flourishing will mirror the act of deliverance and blessing that Yhwh enacts for Jacob-Israel (55.12-13). Indeed, the created world does more than worship and mirror. In response to Yhwh's word, it brings about the deliverance (45.8).

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Considered over against Yhwh's sovereignty as creator, the nations are much less impressive than they think they are, and/or than Israel thinks they are. Indeed, their weightiness is no more impressive than that of dust on scales (40.15). That is evidenced by their at-a-loss-ness when confronted by contemporary political events (41.1-7, 21-29). They can offer no explanation for the rise of a conqueror from the east, who is key to Israel's own destiny. Even if they can work him into their understanding of events ex post facto, none of them declared ahead of time that this conqueror would arise. They have not yet done the required recalibration of their theology; at the moment they are just in a panic, trying to shore up the gods that were supposed to shore them up in a crisis. The peoples of the world who make images, trust in images, and bow down to images are deluded and will be shamed (42.17; 44.9-11, 18-20). The conqueror who looks really impressive is actually Yhwh's agent, summoned in connection with the achievement of Yhwh's purpose. He is Yhwh's shepherd, Yhwh's anointed, fulfilling the kind of role the Davidic king once fulfilled in carrying out Yhwh's will as he defeats foreign nations and commissions the building of the city of Jerusalem and its temple (44.28; 45.1). As Yhwh's agent, Cyrus, and through Cyrus the whole world, is due to recognize Yhwh as the only real God (45.1-7). Through summoning a Persian conqueror from the east, Yhwh is quite able to send to Babylon to break down the bars of a prison and demolish an imperial army (43.14-17). Thus the superpower that controls the destiny of the Judean people and the other peoples in its world is about to be put down and replaced by another (chapter 47). It will go from power, stateliness, and dignity to being just an ordinary state of the kind it was before its rise to power—which is no indignity to a people that has never been anything else, but means gloom and bewilderment to a one-time superpower. It had been Yhwh's agent in bringing disaster on Judah (among other peoples), but that gave it no excuse for the merciless way it treated Judah. As the sole superpower of its world, it had thought that it was invincible, and it thought it had the resources to withstand any threats that did come to it—but it is about to find out that it was wrong. The invincible warrior will end up committing suicide (49.26), drinking the poisoned cup that Yhwh takes from Zion to give to it (51.18-23). There is a sense in which Second Isaiah has a universalistic message—Yhwh has a positive purpose for the whole world, and Yhwh's work in relation to Israel is designed to draw the whole world to recognize Yhwh as it escapes from the trauma involved in the overthrow of Babylon (45.18-25). The world is to be forced to acknowledge that its gods were no-gods that could not deliver it at its moment of need, but in doing so they will find that they indeed find deliverance as they bow down to Yhwh. Yet the prophet's message keeps a focus on Israel and Israel keeps a special position in relation to Yhwh. The wealth and recognition of the nations is to come to the exilic community and the city to which

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the exiles return (45.14—17). As the world comes to bow the knee to Yhwh and acknowledge its shame in having trusted in no-gods, Israel triumphs and glories (45.24-25). The nations and their leaders will be Yhwh's means of bringing Jerusalem's children home, and these leaders will bow prostrate before her (49.22-23). That will be the means of the whole world coming to acknowledge Yhwh—but to acknowledge that Yhwh is Jerusalem's saviour and restorer (49.26). 'Comfort, comfort my people'; 'my word will do what I determined and achieve what I sent it for' (40.1; 55.11).

I. 40.1-31: INTRODUCTION Isaiah 40 has no superscription such as those that open prophetic books. While 40.1 is the beginning of a new synagogue lection and opens a new section in the MT, lQIsa, and 4QIsb, chapter 40 introduces motifs that make links with previous material in the book. The opening references to Jerusalem-Zion constitute an important example, for the present and future of Jerusalem-Zion in its chosenness, wickedness, danger, and security are a theme of great prominence in Isaiah 1-39. G. von Rad sees Isaiah 40^-55 linking more prominently with the tradition of the exodus than with those of David or Zion, but he also notes that the prophet's thoughts 'dwell continually on Zion' (Theologie [see at 40.8], p. 253; ET p. 239). It is an indication of its importance that Jerusalem-Zion features in both the opening and closing subsections of 40.1-11 (whereas it is doubtful whether the exodus features at all, and David certainly does not).1 More specifically, chapter 40 has special links with chapters 6 and 28. In vv. 1-11 in particular, the account of Isaiah's vision of Yhwh enthroned in heaven, and of Isaiah's responding to Yhwh's question about someone who would accept a mission, seems to have provided the framework and the inspiration for the account of Second Isaiah's commission (as we take it to be) in 40.1-11. 'The Book of Isaiah consciously brings the ministry of eighth-century Isaiah to a close in chap. 39 and, by means of 40:1-8, causes the reader to "reenter the divine council where Isaiah was first commissioned"' (Melugin, 'Servant', p. 21, summarizing *Seitz, pp. 243-44). And there we hear a new message. The commission to speak of calamity gives way to a commission to speak of restoration. The threefold ki ('for') of 40.2 thus contrasts with the threefold Id of 6.5. 'This people' (6.9, 10) has again become 'my people' (40.1). Isaiah 40.1-11 also contrasts with the scene in heaven in 1 Kgs 22.19-22 where Yhwh's heavenly and earthly aides take part in the decision-making process, for here a decision has been made and there is nothing to discuss (f Brueggemann). Verses 12-31 then reverse another aspect of chapter 6. Isaiah ben Amoz had been commissioned to stop people understanding, acknowledging, seeing, or listening (6.9-10). Second Isaiah implies that all these are now possible (40.21, 26, 28). Chapter 40 as a whole also takes up chapter 28 with its similar 1 Cf R E. Clements, 'Zion as Symbol and Political Reality: A Central Isaianic Quest', in fVan Ruiten and Vervenne, pp. 3-17.

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warnings, and thus also reverses these. A series of expressions recur here: The fading flower' (28.1, 4); 'a flower fades' (40.7, 8) 'There, the Lord has a strong and mighty one' (28.2); 'there is the Lord.. .as a strong one' (40.10); '...and one mighty in power (40.26) 'Whom does he teach knowledge and whom does he enable to understand...' (28.9, cf 19); 'whom has he consulted so that he has enabled him to understand.. .and taught him knowledge' (40.14) 'The faint' (28.12); 'the faint' (40.29) 'Stumble' (28.13); 'stumble' (40.30) 'Listen' (28.14, cf 12, 23); 'do you not listen' (40.21, cf 28) 'Weight' (28.17); 'weighed' (40.12) 'Will not stand' (28.18); 'stands for ever' (40.8) Other parallels include reference to the wind carrying away the people represented as a fading flower (28.2; 40.7, cf 24); to waters (28.2; 40.12); to the people pictured as feeding from their mother (28.9; 40.11); to a ravine (28.1, 4; 40.4); to God's decision (mispat; 28.6, 17, 26; 40.14, 27); and to the Lord Yhwh (28.22; 40.10). In connection with vv. 1-11 we will note further links with preceding chapters in the book, by means of which the material sets itself firmly in the context of those preceding chapters. But the links with chapters 6 and 28 that appear through vv. 1—31 support the view expressed in L and in the medieval Christian tradition that vv. 1-31 constitute one unit. Admittedly other Masoretic MSS divide vv. 1-31 into several units (e.g. A begins a new line after vv. 5 and 16, as does lQIsa after w. 5, 8, 11, 16, 24, and 26; though the apparent omission and addition of material at the end of vv. 8 and 16 complicates the evidence there). *De Moor thus exaggerates the unity of the Jewish tradition. The Masoretic and other traditions also mark subdivisions of vv. 1-31 by means of a mid-line space at various of the above points. A has them after vv. 2, 8, 11, 20, 24, and 26. But there is no uniform tradition about divisions after 40.1 until we reach 42.1. In form, motif, and content, however, w. 12-31 differ sharply from vv. 1-11, and the two constitute a double introduction to what follows.

La. 40.1-11: YHWH IS RETURNING TO JERUSALEM Verses 1-11 contain motifs that reappear in various parts of chapters 40-55 and 56-66. The commissioning of the heralds with their message concerning comfort and the return of Yhwh repays detailed comparison with 52.7-12 (and 62.1-12). The idea that Israel's restoration emerges in part from their having been fully punished (v. 2) recurs in 51.17. The way provided by God reappears in 52.7-12 (and 62.1-12), just noted, and in 41.17-20; 42.14-17; 43.14-21; 48.20-21; 49.8-12; 51.9-11 (also 57.14-21). The motif of God's splendour reappears in chapters 60-62 and 66 (also in a different sense in 42.8, 12; 43.7; 48.11) and the affirmation of the reliability of Yhwh's word in 44.26; 45.23; 55.11. While they have such links with what follows, vv. 1-11 are not an introduction to all the prophet's major themes or a summary of the chapters' message in a nutshell, and we should not overestimate their significance. They need not have formed Yhwh's first-ever words to the prophet (contrast, e.g., |Begrich, p. 95 = 99). The introduction to a work is often written last and does not need to trailer every theme in order to fulfil its function. There are varying views about unity within vv. 1-11. The whole divides into four subsections, vv. 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-11 (so most MT MSS). These lack syntactical links and they have been taken as originally separate sayings, but there are many connections between them. Formally, none is a prophetic message. All represent commissions of some kind: to comfort, to clear a way, to call out, to shout a message. All follow imperative commissions with indicative statements giving grounds for the task. The verb 'call out' (qdrd") comes in each of the first three subsections, and comparable expressions also appear in the last subsection. Verses 9-11 also corresponds to vv. 1-2 in comprising three imperative commissions to speak to Jerusalem, one of them repeated, leading into a balancing series of clauses conveying the content of the message to be delivered—three ki ('for/that/indeed') clauses in v. 2, three hinrieh ('there is') clauses in vv. 9-10 (tKiesow). tBegrich (pp. 5, 55= 13, 61) sees vv. 1-8 as a unit which is complete in itself, but that is to take no account of its relationship to vv. 9-11. The latter comprise the positive good news for Jerusalem balancing the negative of vv. 1-2, describe the coming for which vv. 3-5 prepare the way, and issue the full commission that in vv. 6-8 is begun but interrupted. Without vv. 9-11, indeed, vv. 1-8 would now seem limp. In vv. 1-11 as a whole the commission commanded in vv. 1-2 is issued in vv. 3-5, 6-8, and 9-11. The content of the proclamation commanded in vv. 1-2 is hinted at

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indirectly in vv. 3-5, obscured by the diversion of vv. 6-8, and finally made in vv. 9-11. Through the four subsections 'Yhwh' is 'your God' (vv. 1, 2), 'our God' (v. 3), 'our God' (vv. 7, 8), 'your God' (vv. 9, 10). *Freedman thus sees vv. 1-11 as a chiasm: 1-2: Your God.. .Yhwh (Jerusalem) 3-4: Yhwh our God 5: Yhwh.. .Yhwh 6-8: Yhwh our God 9-11: Your God.. .Lord Yhwh (Zion-Jerusalem) Persuasively, he then sees vv. 9-11 as the putting into effect of the commission in vv. 1-2. Interpreters differ regarding where come the transitions between the prophet's own statements and the reporting of statements by others, transitions that would be marked in English by quotation marks. They also thus differ on how individual lines and verses function as part of a whole. But there are explicit indications at a number of points regarding who is the speaker, while the particle 'Yes' Caken) often begins a statement; it thus suggests a change of speaker at v. 7b (see comment). The passage points, then, to its being a report of words from the following speakers: 1-2: 'Your God' (see v. lb) (on the third person reference to Yhwh, see the comment on v. 2) 3-5: 'A voice' (see v. 3a) 6aoc: 'A voice' (perhaps the same, perhaps different) 6a(3-7a: T (or an anonymous speaker: see the comment on 'I say/ someone says' in v. 6) 7b-8: The same voice as v. 6aoc, responding to vv. 6-7a 9-11: Continuation of vv. 6-7a, or more likely of w. 1-2 In w. 1-11, then, a prophet speaks, relaying a series of commissions overheard as they were issued by Yhwh and other anonymous voices. It is a composition that reflects acquaintance with existent prophecy and perhaps meditation on it. It combines elements from various kinds of speech, rather than being an example of a regular Gattung. Nor are there indications of the social context of the prophetic experience. It seems more likely that vv. 1-11 form part of a single composition than that they were of separate origin but were capable of being drawn together so effectively, but scholars have suggested a number of ways in which vv. 1-11 might have developed in order to reach the form in which we have them. Verse 7b ('Yes, the people are grass') is commonly regarded as a gloss. tDuhm sees w. 5-8, with their more individual concern, as a later insertion into vv. 1-11. We have seen that his view that the opening and closing verses belong together is correct, though this need not imply that they were originally justaposed. Going beyond Duhm, *Loretz (Orientalia 53, pp. 287-88; ZAW 96, pp. 217—18) views vv. 2a and 9-11 as the original kernel of the verses, while Vermeylen {Isaiah, pp. 37-39) sees

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a three-stage growth involving vv. 9 and 11, then 1-3, 5 (and 10?), then 4, 6-8. In contrast, fKiesow locates the kernel in vv. 3-5 (less the opening and closing phrases), which formed an introduction to chapters 40^8, expanded by vv. 1-2, 9-10 (v. 11 being a subsequent further expansion) in connection with the addition of chapters 49-52, while *Kratz (ZAW 105, p. 407) sees 40.1-5 as the original kernel, forming with 52.7-10 an inclusio around the original Second Isaiah. |Merendino infers from links with material in chapters 56-66 that the passage came from the circles that produced those later chapters (see, e.g., pp. 69-70 on the parallels with vv. 9-11), while fvan Oorschot (pp. 105-27) associates vv. 1-5 and 9-11 with his 'first Jerusalem redaction' of Second Isaiah. |Morgenstern (p. 3) also saw 40.1-5, 9-11 as later than the rest of the material, though precisely its lack of concrete allusion to a context makes such arguments difficult to sustain or refute, and *Kratz (ZAW 106, pp. 243-61) is able to argue that its parallels with Jeremiah 25 and 50-51 and Lamentations suggest that it rather takes further an existent (non-Isaianic) Jerusalem tradition. Indeed, fE. Nielsen (pp. 195, 203-4) saw vv. 1-11 as reflecting a processional or entrance liturgy, and fVincent sees the words of comfort as responding to a regular cultic lament in the liturgy of the First Temple. *Krinetzki, *Ettore and *Fokkelman analyse features such as assonance in the passage, which provide linkage and emphasis (CHP, pp. 222-28). I.a.i. A commission to comfort (40.1-2) Verses 1-2 have some well-turned structural features. Two bicola of imperatives, 'comfort, comfort.. .encourage.. .call out' (plus a phrase identifying the speaker) in vv. l-2aoc are followed by two bicola of clauses introduced by Id ('for/that/indeed') in v. 2a(3-b. The opening two bicola use three different imperative verbs. The second two bicola include three similarly formed subordinate clauses. The two inner bicola (v. 2a) balance each other, in that both comprise two self-contained parallel clauses, while the first and last of the bicola (vv. 1, 2b) are more complex sentences formed without parallelism. Outwardly the combination of imperatives and Id clauses parallels passages such as 44.23; 49.13; 51.1-3; 52.9. Although there is variety in the function of these various imperatives, so that in themselves these parallels do not determine the form or function of the verses, they do initially hint at the fact that vv. 1-11 comprise not merely a prophetic commission but the announcement that God's reign is being implemented in the life of the people and of the world (fMerendino)—though admittedly that is always to some degree implicit in a prophetic commission. The threefold Id contrasts with the threefold Id of 6.5. *Merendino (p. 62) proposes a complex development of vv. 1-2.

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40.1. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Etymologically the

verb for 'comfort' (nhm) suggests breathing deeply or panting (cf Arabic nahama),! so that the piel might imply 'cause to draw a deep breath of relief, but there is little indication here or elsewhere in the OT that people who used the verb were aware of this. N. H. Snaith more plausibly suggests that the verb means 'to bring about a change of attitude' (the niphal means 'repent').2 In passages such as 49.13; 51.3; 52.9 the word denotes an act that brings comfort by changing the situation that causes pain, but more usually it denotes words that bring comfort to people in distress (so 51.19). The parallelism suggests this meaning here, but the context shows that these are nevertheless words that effectively bring the people out of their distress. They do so by their content or reference (their talk of restoration), but also by their sound and imagery. The verb thus indissolubly interweaves the twin factors of decision/effect and emotion/affect.3 'Comfort' is a plural verb. Thus God is not its subject. Who is the subject is more difficult to determine. Ancient and modern interpreters have sought to make the matter explicit. The latter have been inclined to see the comforters as Yhwh's supernatural agents, but there is no background for that in the book so far, and what follows will tend to emphasize the way Yhwh stands and works alone (cf |R. R. Wilson, p. 54). While the prophet may well be overhearing events in the heavenly court, this does not carry the implication that Yhwh is acting via its heavenly members. Yhwh does not need the help of other heavenly beings, whose impotence or non-existence is rather emphasized (e.g. 40.12-41.29). The LXX added 'priests', perhaps reading the text in the light of Deut 20.1-4 (|K6nig) and/or Mai 1.6; 2.7; 3.1 (*Snodgrass, p. 26); and see note below. *Freedman (pp. 188-91) suggests that the comforters are the nations, on the basis of their role elsewhere in chapters 34^1. More plausibly the Tg has 'prophets' being urged to 'prophesy comforts'. It reinforces its reference to prophecy in vv. 6, 9, and 13 (on this theme in the Tg of Isaiah, see |Chilton, pp. 52-56). More specifically, we might see these prophets as the disciples of Isaiah mentioned in 8.16 at the close of the account of Isaiah's ministry in chapters 6-8, among whom the prophetic torah was then sealed. f R. R. Wilson (p. 54) sees them as Second Isaiah's own disciples. Comforting God's people and bringing the message announced in v. 2 is indeed more naturally the role of earthly figures such as prophets, and Second Isaiah indeed claims a place among the disciples (50.4). On the other hand, among the prophets who then commission with conviction is the one who expresses objections in v. 1 D. W. Thomas, 'A Note on the Hebrew Root Dm\ ExpT44 (1932-33), pp. 191-92; G.2 B. Mitchell, 'A Note on the Hebrew Root Dm\ ExpT 44 (1932-33), p. 428. See 'The Meaning of "the Paraclete"', ExpT 57 (1945-^6), pp. 47-50 (see p. 48); cf Pi*3 el, p. 247. On the basis of Syriac usage, fDe Boer suggests 'renew'. H. Simian-Yofre in ThWAT on nhm, II (introduction).

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6, which is odd. There is no other reference in these chapters to a group of prophets who might be ministering in the 540s, disciples of Second Isaiah or other prophets. The group who will in due course be mentioned are Jerusalem's lookouts, in 52.8 (cf v. 9 here; |Merendino). By declaring that the city's victorious king is returning, they will indeed bring comfort to it, and they may thus most plausibly be identified as the comforters here. The Vg's populus meus makes 'my people' subject rather than object. As in English, this is grammatically possible but less natural in the context. The word for 'comfort' usually has an object, the parallelism with v. 2a would be poorer, and the phrase 'Yhwh has comforted his people' comes in 49.13; 52.9. If 'my people' were the subject, 'Jerusalem' (v. 2) would presumably be the implicit object of the verb, but it is remote, and elsewhere it is not the people's task to comfort Jerusalem. The Vg's consolamini may take the verb as niphal (with the h elided: but contrast GK 51o), suggesting 'Be comforted, my people' — though the Vg could be deponent active rather than passive (see tSnaith). The fact that the comforters are not directly identified is actually instructive. It has a number of effects. It puts the stress in the verse on the fact of the comfort rather than the comforters' identity. 'Whoever speaks to Jerusalem can declare its comfort' (|Hessler). In a context when people have lost faith and hope in Yhwh and are inclined to place their trust in other deities, the formal anonymity of the comforters whom Yhwh commissions leaves the emphasis on Yhwh in person (jKnight). The repetition of the verb, a stylistic feature in Isaiah for the conveying of intense feeling (cf 24.16; 26.3; 29.1; 38.11, 17, 19; 43.11, 25; 48.11, 15; 51.9, 12, 17; 52.1, 11; 57.6, 14; 62.10; 65.1), further serves to emphasize the abundance of this comfort. The difficulty of identifying the comforters reflects but one 'overwhelming' aspect to this simple verse in its complexity (*Fokkelman, p. 71, though even he underestimates the point). Its cast involves as many as seven, mostly unidentified, entities: the author (Second Isaiah, but perhaps some later prophet), the speaker (probably identical with the author, or perhaps a supernatural member of the heavenly court), 'you' in the expression 'your God' (probably people in exile, but perhaps people in Jerusalem in the exile or later, or the people of Yhwh as a whole), God (presumably to be identified with 'Yhwh' in v. 2), 'my people' (probably to be identified with 'Jerusalem' and to be seen as the community focused on that city, but other identifications are possible), the comforters (earthly or heavenly agents of God), and the audience (initially perhaps identical with 'you', but implicitly covering a wider company of readers of the prophecy). The image of a 'people' implies a tribe/clan/family form of relationship with Yhwh, but in itself the very general term 'am would not indicate reference to any particular group. We will need the next line to clarify who 'my people' are. *Van Dijk takes am here to mean

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c

'(fortress-)city', reflecting amam n, 'be strong', perhaps instanced in Ugaritic, but this seems precarious and unnecessary. The parallelism with 'Jerusalem' here and elsewhere in Isaiah 40-66 need not imply the meaning 'city' (see on v. 2), and there is no indication elsewhere in BH that am was used with this sense. Verses 1-2 also suggest no awareness of the possibility that the original connotation of 'Yhwh's people' might be 'Yhwh's flock', but it is striking that this image is presupposed in v. 11 in the balancing verses at the end of the section.4 The phrase 'says your God' compares with others in Isaiah that introduce statements by prophets (1.11, 18; 33.10; 40.25; 41.21a, 21b; 66.9). These cluster at the beginning and end of the book's major sections. The parallel with ch. 1 is especially noteworthy in the context of other links with that chapter in vv. 1-11. There, the challenge about wrongdoing is given emphasis by the formula. Here, it is succeeded by a promise about restoration. The implication is that 'comfort, comfort my people' are words that a prophet relates, having heard God speak them. In the absence of indication that anyone other than the prophet is speaking, there is no particular reason to take them as spoken by a heavenly being who is overheard and reported by the prophet: contrast vv. 3, 6 (fElliger wonders whether such a reference to a [heavenly] voice got lost from v. 1). The suffix itself hints that the prophet is the one who speaks rather than a heavenly figure. Within the prophet's audition such a suffix might naturally refer to Yhwh's hearers in the heavenly assembly, to the heavenly comforters, but over against 'my people' it points to the audience that Yhwh intends should overhear these words. It thus brings into the frame the 'ideal readers' of the prophecy (*van Wieringen, p. 85). It might even be that the words 'says your God' are not a quotation formula but part of God's own words, like the third-person reference to Yhwh in v. 2. They are a piece of selfidentification made to recall the passages just noted (cf *Andersen, pp. 4-5). The verb is yiqtol, a usage distinctive of the book called Isaiah (but see Ps 12.6 [5]). It contrasts with the qatal of the 'messenger formula', 'thus Yhwh has said', which the prophets commonly use (in Isaiah see, e.g., 7.7; 18.4; 28.16; 37.6, 33; 42.5; 43.1, 14, 16; 56.1, 4; 65.8, 13). It also contrasts with the participle of 40.6 and 44.26-28. It has in common with the qatal that it suggests a dynamic event rather than an authoritative result. It thus contrasts with the further alternative formula, the noun phrase ne*um-yhwh ('Yhwh's oracle'; e.g. 41.14; 43.10)—though |E. Nielsen (pp. 203-4) suggests the yiqtol recalls the form of an oath. |Calvin renders the yiqtol as future ('will say'). A medieval rabbinic midrash on this verse, Pesiqta deRab Kahana 16, had already taken it as a promise that God will keep on comforting Israel (*Teugels, p. 445). GK 107f takes it as present continuous ('is saying'), North as frequentative ('does say'), and IBHS 31.3d as 4 tGrimm and Dittert, following R. M. Good, The Sheep of His Pasture (Chico, CA, 1983).

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incipient present ('begins to say'), but it is more naturally taken as expressing a past act in a lively way, like an English historic present (cf TTH 27; GK 107h). The speaking event is perhaps the same one as that to which v. 5 will refer; this makes for another parallel with chapter 1. The yiqtol phrase regularly follows the opening of the actual words, unlike the messenger formula, thus giving those words the prominence referred to above. The commission to comfort is systematically expounded in Pesiqta deRab Kahana 16, the first of a sequence of rabbinic sermons relating to the sabbaths that follow the Ninth of Ab. The fast marks the destruction of the First and Second Temples. Not surprisingly, Isaiah 40-66 provides the lections for these sabbaths and the texts for these sermons. Indeed, the sabbaths are subsequently known as the the 'Seven of Consolation'. Sermon 16 describes how a sequence of ten ('minor') prophets was commissioned to go and comfort Jerusalem, but the city refused their comfort because each had also been a discomforter. Which kind of message should it believe? Finally the prophets went to the Holy One to report the city's refusal of their message. So the Holy One declared, ' "You and I together shall go and comfort her". Thus we say: Comfort, comfort my people but read the letters for my people as with me" And the holy one so summons not only the prophets, but the creatures of upper and lower worlds, the living and the dead, for now and in the world to come. The next section of the pisqa adds that after the fall of Jerusalem it is God who needs comfort. 'Comfort, comfort my people, means, Comfort me, comfort me, my people'. (LXX): |Ottley infers a (mis) reading of DDTT^K as an abbreviation for D^ron CTiT^ft, LXX's way of satisfying the desire to make the verb's subject explicit. 4O.2aoc. Encourage Jerusalem, call out to her. Verse 2 clarifies several

implicit uncertainties about v. 1. First, what is the nature of the comfort v. 1 speaks of? We have seen that 'comfort' can be a matter of action or of speech. The verbs 'encourage' (lit. 'speak to the heart of) and 'call out' now make clear that here the second is the case. *Fischer is right that dibber ^al-leb does not suggest 'love-talk', but neither does it necessarily denote moving people to a decision. References c in Isaiah 40-66 disprove rather than prove his contention that leb/ al-leb refers to will rather than mind, and the prophet will portray Yhwh as Zion's husband pledging love to her (see esp. chapter 54). The second verb in v. 2aa restates this phrase and is introduced by epexegetical w, a common usage in Isaiah 40-55 (see IBHS 39.2.4). No 'and' is implied. Like 'speaking', 'calling out' (qara*) is the business of prophets (cf v. 6, and see the comment there). It characteristically suggests a confrontational proclamation (e.g. 58.1; Jer 2.2; Jonah 3.2) and

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thus Second Isaiah here typically turns round a term that is apt to suggest judgment (cf later 61.1; Zech 1.14, 17). Yet this prophet's proclamation of restoration will turn out to be confrontational and controversial. Second, what sort of words are being referred to? H. van Dyke Parunak suggests that the notion of comfort is closely linked with that of forgiveness.5 In general his references do not bear this out, though 12.1 (from a chapter with which Isaiah 40 indeed has links) does presuppose a connection between comfort and cessation of anger. Does it hold here? Third, what people is it that is being comforted? Both the exilic community and the people left behind in Judah could view themselves as the real people of God over against the other party whom they might view as rotten fruit, and it might be that the exilic community, for instance, was tempted to forget about Jerusalem (per impossibilel—cf Ps 137). Verse 2 makes explicit that the comforting of God's people involves the encouraging of Jerusalem. In the next two references to 'Jerusalem' (40.9 and 41.27), and often subsequently, it is 'Zion' that stands in parallelism with 'Jerusalem'. Perhaps it does not do so here because Jerusalem is more a figure for the earthly city in its sinfulness: 'precisely guilt-ridden Jerusalem... is privileged to receive the proclamation of salvation' (|Koole). Fourth, who, indeed, is the God who speaks in v. 1? Even that might not be capable of being taken for granted in a period when Judah was offered many new gods to worship. Verse 2 makes explicit what is this God's name. Fifth, most tellingly and most urgently, however, how can the prophet thus speak of an ongoing relationship between Yhwh and Israel in the circumstances of exile when the prophetic word and the events of history have re-designated 'my-people' as 'not-my-people'? The answer will come in the three Id clauses that comprise the second and third bicola of v. 2. What is the Jerusalem that is the object of encouragement? The parallelism between vv. 1 and 2aoc need not be synonymous; the clauses could commission an encouraging of Jerusalem regarding its relationship with God that was designed to be a means of comforting the people of Yhwh as a whole (flbn Ezra), perhaps with a special focus on the exilic community. But more likely 'Jerusalem' and 'my people' are to be identified, the one standing for the other by metonymy as cities often do in the OT (see M. Tsevat in ThWAT on yerusalaim). This fits the unfolding proclamation of vv. 1-11 with its picture of the 'people' as grass (vv. 6-8) and of 'Jerusalem' receiving good news (vv. 9-11), as well as earlier and later identification of Zion as 'my people' (10.24; 51.16; cf 52.9; 65.19). 'Jerusalem' is the focus of vv. 1-11 as a whole and here specifies the reference of the phrase 'my people'. The two terms together refer to Israel as focused on the city, the Israel to which the exiles also belong. It is less 5

See 'A Semantic Survey of nhm\ Bib 56 (1975), pp. 512-32 (see pp. 516-7).

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plausible to take the identification as indicating that the name of the city has become a title for the exilic community (|Kissane). The OT can occasionally speak of Judah or Jerusalem being exiled (e.g. 2 Kgs 24.14; Jer 52.27), probably by metonymy. But it is not an established usage and in the immediately preceding chapters 'Jerusalem' unequivocally refers to the city itself, as it does in passages that follow such as 44.26, 28. There is no basis for postulating this metaphorical usage elsewhere in these chapters. In Isaiah 40-55 the exilic community appears as Zion's children destined to return home to their mother (cf Newsom, Semeia 59, p. 76). The apparent necessity of postulating a metaphorical usage has arisen from the evidence that material in the following chapters is addressed to people in Babylon. A possible response to the awareness that the opening verses focus on Jerusalem is to question that other assumption: perhaps the material as a whole belongs to Jerusalem (so, e.g. f Torrey). The fact that the material goes on to emphasize the downfall of Babylon and the return of the exiles need not preclude this. Jeremiah 50-51 illustrates the possibility of such an interest on the part of Jerusalem-based tradition (cf *Kratz, ZAW 106, p. 253). More likely the problem here is failure to allow for the converse greater fundamental importance of the destiny of Jerusalem for prophet and people in exile (cf fBegrich, p. 92 = 96). It is entirely natural for a Babylonian prophecy to concern itself with Jerusalem, as the prophecies of Ezekiel show. It is particularly natural that oracles that belong in the Isaiah tradition should focus on Jerusalem, since the city is a key theme in chapters 1-39. There are thus good historical and literary reasons for the appearance of Jerusalem in chapter 40. It does not carry any necessary implications regarding the attitudes of the exilic community and the Jerusalem community to each other, for example, that one took the view that it alone was the people of Yhwh and that the other did not 'count' as the real people of God, though it might go along with or be capable of being used to bolster such attitudes. Thus the Tg's paraphrase of the first encouragement (see below) rightly assumes that the city itself is spoken of here. When R. E. Clements describes Jerusalem-Zion as 'the intended addressee' throughout vv. 1-11 ('Zion as symbol' [see above], p. 7), he presumably refers to the audience in the house, for on the stage the addressee in vv. 1-2 is someone who speaks to Jerusalem; and see (e.g.) on v. 9a. And if 40.1-11 does come from the circles that produced the material in Isaiah 56-66, its original audience will indeed presumably have been the actual people of Jerusalem, who are encouraged by the prospect of Yhwh returning and bringing home more of the exiles (cf Zech 1-8). In its new context here it nevertheless provides the background in terms of God's purpose for the original return of exiles. This fact provides another reason for avoiding overconcern with the comforters' identity. They are a theological/poetic device to encourage the exiles. We are not invited

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to ask who historically were expected to take on this role: there is no literal mission to Jerusalem to be fulfilled. 40.2a(3. For she has completed her service, for her wrongdoing has been paid for. Three Id clauses comprise the rest of v. 2 (LXX lacks the second Id, Vg also the third). After a command to call out we might expect an indication of the content of this proclamation, and the RSV thus takes all these clauses as the object of the verb ('call out to her that...'). But if they were, it would be normal to omit the Id, or to add 'saying' or 'and say' (e.g. 6.3). One might also expect the verbs to be in the second person (cf vv. 9-11). 'Call out' can be used in the absolute: cf v. 6; 44.7 (also 50.2; 48.13, with the preposition 'to', but there the meaning is different). Thus the Vg more plausibly understands v. 2apb as a sequence of causal clauses (cf 1 Kgs 18.27; Ps 17.6). They explain the basis of the commissioned proclamation, not its content. The KJV translates the first two 'that', the last 'for'; in contrast |Elliger sees the first two clauses as causal and the last as asseverative, though asseverative ki likely also keeps some causal nuance. 6 Verse 2 thus illustrates the difficulty of distinguishing the different senses of ki (*Fokkelman, p. 70), or the way the particle can stimulate reflection on a passage's rhetoric. Our expectation that the content of the proclamation needs to be signified is actually correct, but it is vv. 9-11 that will fulfil it. An introduction with no content in vv. 1-2 is thus followed by content with no introduction in vv. 9-11. The prophet heightens suspense by giving the reasons for the proclamation here but holding back its content until much later. Verse 2a(3b functions to answer one of the implicit questions raised by v. 1, regarding how the prophet can once more speak of 'my people.. .your God'. The verbs are qatal, perhaps to be understood as declarative, 'I declare that she has...': so *Geller ('Poetic Analysis', p. 414). When male' is used of a period of time, it is usually intransitive qal ('be full, complete'; e.g. Gen 29.21; Jer 25.12, of the exile). 'Her service is complete' is difficult, however, despite the LXX and Vg, since the verb is feminine, whereas 'service' (saba") is masculine (except perhaps in Dan 8.12, where the text is very problematic). The preferable way to construe the MT (with negligible difference in sense) is to take 'Jerusalem' as subject, the verb as transitive, and 'service' as object (*jTbn Ezra). This forfeits an element of syntactical parallelism with the next half-line ('her penalty has been paid'), though in any case the verb there is niphal rather than qal. Further, Jerusalem is again the subject in v. 2b. The Tg understands 'she is [about to be] full of her army', that is, of her people, of returned exiles. For such use of the verb, cf 2.6, and the piel in Jer 51.14. 6 See J. Muilenburg, 'The Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages of the Particle ^"D in the Old pp. 135-60 • - Testament', - • - in • HUCA 32 ~~ (1961), "~ " " (esp. pp._148, pp. 148, 159); A. Aejmelaeus, 'Function and Interpretation of ''D in Biblical Hebrew', in in JT JBL' 105 (1986), pp. 193-209 (esp. pp. 204^5).

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The word sabci means army or warfare, thus military service, thus service generally (including religious service), and hardship or forced labour (Job 7.1; 14.14; cf Assyrian sdbu, a term for a labour force). While Israel's history since the division of the kingdom might be seen as a period of warfare or bondage, warfare did not really characterize the exilic period in particular, to which v. 2 refers. The word thus more likely denotes the period as a period of hard, fruitless toil, which it was both for people in Jerusalem and for Judeans in Babylon. |Rignell understands sabci to suggest a period of religious service during which Israel has been offering expiation for sin, but it may be doubted whether sabci actually can mean 'service' without the connotation of warfare or hard labour.7 *Scheiber refers it to a man's 40-year period of liability for military service (from age 20 to age 60) and connects it with the period from 587 to 547. Insofar as the word carries military connotations, 41.1-20 with its focus on war will bring these out, and nuance the claim that war is over. Admittedly, the more sacral nature of the succeeding phrase 'her wrongdoing has been paid for' fits with the understanding of 'service' to mean 'religious service'. The verb rasah n ('to pay, make amends') is a different root from the more common rasah I ('to be pleased').8 It appears in a similar context, with reference to the exile as compensation for cdwon, in Lev 26.41, 43; cf 2 Chr 36.21, which lacks cdwon but also uses male". The NRSV takes the verb to mean 'pay' rather than 'pay for', and takes cdwon to mean 'penalty'. This would be the only occurrence of this nuance of the noun in Isaiah 40-66, and the parallels rather suggest 'pay for/make amends for/expiate wrongdoing' (*Geller 'Poetic Analysis', p. 414). On the basis of taking the verb as rdsdh I, the LXX, Yg, and Tg take the phrase to mean 'her wrongdoing/guilt is pardoned', but such an idea is only allusively expressed, and the verse seems to state that Jerusalem has endured her punishment. Pardon therefore does not come into it. But perhaps the meaning of the two verbs had become conflated; prophet and audience did not have a dictionary that gave them separate entries.9 ilft A2: M. Dahood10sees this as an archaic (Canaanite) m. form, used for assonance/symmetry. *Geller ('Poetic Analysis', p. 414) also sees the sufformative as assimilated to the context despite the noun's being m., but offersa the alternative rendering 'she is complete [with regard to] her service'. lQIs has the m. vb ft^D. While other instances of ftbfo meaning "fulfil a period of time" use the pi (e.g. 65.20; Gen 29.27, 28; 2 Chr 36.21 and Dan 9.2, of the exile), &bt2 qal can also be used transitively (BDB, p. 590), so there is hardly need to repoint i7K >>ft with |Marti. iTN!3!£: LXX TaTTetvcoais ('abasement') is perhaps just a loose rendering of the slightly enigmatic Hebrew, though |Ziegler (p. 123) suggests it reflects a 7

See J. R. Spencer, 'The Tasks of the Levites', in ZAW 96 (1984), pp. 267-71. HAL; cf S. Fraenkel, 'Zur Wurzel HH"1', in ZAW 19 (1899), p. 181. Cf P. R. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration OTL, 1968, pp. 121, 241-42. 10 See Ugaritic-Hebrew Philology, BibOr 17, 1965, p. 20.

8 9

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marginal gl. HDII? (cf the next colon, and Vg malitia) misread as PHI?; T\^V itself would be a feasible marginal gl. in the light of Lam 1.3. fOttley suggests the Vg's malitia is a slip for militia. 40.2b. She has accepted from Yhwh's hand double for all her failings.

The MT's accents produce a 4—2 line. We could rework the accentuation to produce a 3-3 line and thus produce neat pairs through vv. 1-2 (3-2, 3-2, 3-3, 3-3), but this would obscure the fact that v. 2b is marked as the close of vv. 1-2 by actually being longer than any of the three preceding lines. Although Yhwh is now referred to in the third person, this does not mean that the clause cannot be the continuation of the words begun in v. 1. Prophets move easily between speaking for Yhwh, in the first person, and speaking about Yhwh, in the third (cf 41.14-16, 17-20). Both the oral delivery of their message and the lack of devices such as speech marks when their words were written down will have made it easy to leave unclear the precise distinction between their words and Yhwh's. The experience of double restitution could be taken literally (cf Exod 22.3, 6, 8 [4, 7, 9]), denoting punishment and damages (|McKenzie). *Phillips suggests it denotes punishment affecting a second generation, not just the generation that actually deserved it; Lam 5.7 has the people of Jerusalem lamenting that they are now bearing the penalty for the previous generation's failings. The prophet might thus be taking up the people's lament and suggesting that Yhwh grants the point (so *Geller, 'Poetic Analysis', p. 419). The notion might also then be taken up in the idea of undeserved vicarious suffering in chapter 53 (cf |De Boer). | Jerome and tQimchi give it precision in another way, referring it to the city's fall first to Babylon, then to Rome, while |Stone (p. 93) refers it to Jerusalem/ Zion's political and sexual oppression. But even if Jer 16.18 denotes the two deportations of 597 and 587 or Babylon and Egypt as the two agents of deportation, none of these 'doubles' is within the explicit horizon of Isaiah 40. In keeping with the implication of other phrases in vv. 1-2, it may indeed imply that a warning such as Jer 16.18 was well-fulfilled (cf Jer 17.18), but it likely does so without intending mathematical precision. If the Jeremiah passages themselves belong to the exile or after, this precise point falls, though they are still evidence that the notion of double punishment was a familiar one in the period. |Ibn Ezra takes it to indicate double the affliction that any other nation has experienced. fS. Smith (pp. 65, 168) suggests that the reference is to Nebuchadnezzar as the hand or agent of Yhwh (as Cyrus is in 47.6; cf 41.10) and to his (excessive) severity rather than Yhwh's own (cf also Zech 1-2). At the same time a merely double penalty compares favourably with the sevenfold one threatened in Lev 26.18, 21, 24, 28. It might thus even hint that the city has been treated more mercifully than the people might have anticipated. Lamentations Rabbah 1.57 suggests that the doubleness of the

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punishment indicates one reason why God's 'comfort' was doubled at the beginning of vv. 1-2 (cf *Krinetzki, p. 60). 'She has received the cup of comforts from before Yhwh as if she had suffered twice for all her failings' (Tg). Pesiqta de Rob Kahana 16 goes further, noting that the people 'sinned with the heart, they were punished at the heart, yet they will be comforted by the heart' (Zech 7.12; Isa 1.5; 40.2); 'they sinned in double measure, they will be smitten in double measure, and will be comforted in double measure' (Lam 1.8; Isa 40.1, 2) (*Teugels, pp. 445-46). The rendering 'from before' rather than 'from the hand of represents a typical Targumic safeguarding of the transcendence of Yhwh by removing anthropomorphisms, while the 'as if retreats from what could sound like an accusation of divine injustice but draws attention to the terrible sense of judgment felt by the exiles (*Riggans, pp. 25-27). While in other contexts 'double' could mean 'equivalent', the parallels suggest that 'double' is quite appropriate as a translation here.11 Again, in other contexts the expression could refer to a double blessing to make up for the suffering of the exile (so fLowth), but the links with the previous clauses also make this difficult. The expressions are different when that point is explicitly made in 61.7: the verb there is yiqtol rather than qatal and the preposition is tahat rather than b of price (GK 119p). 'Failings' is the term conventionally rendered 'sins'. The secular connotation of the verb hatci is 'to miss the target' or 'miss the way': see BDB. In ThWAT, K. Koch queries the notion of the term hata's 'basic meaning'. This may be granted without also accepting his implausible approach to the relationship between the secular and religious usage of the term. It often occurs paired with 'dwon (e.g. 1.4; 5.18; 6.7; 13.9, 11; and more commonly in Jeremiah, e.g., 30.14, 15; 50.20). Here hatta disambiguates cdwon, confirming that it means 'wrongdoing' rather than 'penalty'. The LXX (but not Vg) omits the 'all'. a rare synonym of ifDCBQ, perhaps chosen because it makes for a fourth cl. beginning with the sound ki (cf *Fokkelman, p. 71). *Morris emends to D"H£Q, 'redemption'; but see *Condamin.

I.a.ii. A commission to clear the way for Yhwh (40.3-5) Verses 3-5 open with a two-word colon. It would be hard to parallel the poet's use of a such a stand-alone colon (cf f Elliot-Hogg), but neither does the colon make the beginning of a very plausible tricolon. The substance of vv. 3-5 comprises five balanced bicola, the 11 Against "Thomas, *Kline, and *von Rad (ZAW 79), who takes up M. Tsevat's observations on the use of Akk. mistannu, in 'Alalakhiana', in HUCA 29 (1958), pp. 109-34 (see pp. 125-26), and fSnaith, who derives a meaning 'cover' from the meaning of the vb 7SD ('fold double') (cf Ton). In critique of Tsevat see J. M. Lindenberger, 'How Much for a Hebrew Slave', in JBL 110 (1991), pp. 479-82. *Schell renders 'quittance'—a receipt that corresponds to the payment. JM lOOo suggests that the apparent dual form is adverbial.

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first two (in v. 3) paralleling each other, the next two both paralleling each other and internally parallel. The subsection then closes with another colon that could more plausibly complete a tricolon (so MT) but could stand alone, and *Sacon plausibly links it with the opening colon, so that five bicola are bracketed by opening and closing cola that form a clear new beginning and ending ('A voice is calling out'/ 'Yhwh's mouth has indeed spoken'). The cola and lines gradually increase in length, producing an increase in intensity cthat comes to a climax with v. 5 (|Merendino). The LXX omits bd ardbah ('in the steppe'), which may well be a simple condensation (cf HUB, which notes that Kennicott MS 109 also lacks it). This makes it natural to link bammidbdr (in the wilderness) with the preceding line (cf Mark 1.3 and parallels) and to construe v. 3a as a 3-3 bicolon (fTorrey) or even vv. 3-5 as a consistent sequence of 3-beat lines (|Kosmala, pp. 441-43). |S. Smith (p. 67) describes vv. 3-5 as a proclamation ordering revolt against Babylon. This is not an obvious implication of them. 40.3. A voice is calling out: in the wilderness clear Yhwh's way, direct a

highway for our God in the steppe. The introductory formula suggests that the prophet now reports the words of a different voice from that of vv. 1-2, presumably that of another celestial (or human) member of the heavenly court, perhaps the official court commissioner (mazklr).12 The phrase 'our God' points to a human member of the court, but the author may simply be using the term appropriate to him as an Israelite. Again it is not the identity of the speaker but the words that count. The term 'wilderness' (midbar) applies to the eastern side of the ridge that runs through Judah, and in part as it runs through northern Israel, and also to the much larger area to the further northeast, east, south-east, and south. 'Steppe' (cardbdh) forms a soundpair as well as a word-pair with the first term. In addition, v. 3b complements the two masculine nouns in v. 3 a with two feminine nouns in v. 3b, heightening parallelism and adding emphasis.13 'Steppe' can designate areas such as the high plain east of the Jordan, but particularly the Rift Valley and the area either side from the Dead Sea south, and the northern extent of the Jordan Valley as far as Lake Kinneret—the Arabah. But there is no need for the two words to have a specific geographical reference, such as the area that literally separated Babylon from Judah. The wilderness is Yhwh's regular home when not choosing to dwell in Jerusalem. All the above areas with their mountains and ravines would be difficult terrain for a king on the march. The words 'clear Yhwh's way' recall the clearing of a route for an army. The practice is known 12 See R. de Vaux, Les institutions de VAncien Testament Paris, 1958, Vol. 1, pp. 2023; ET Ancient Israel London, 1961, p. 132. 13 A. Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism Bloomington, IN, 1985, p. 106; CHP, pp. 123-27.

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explicitly from slightly later writers,14 but was perhaps already familiar in the sixth century, though the obstacles in mind later are less formidable ones than those indicated by v. 4 here (contrast 57.14; 62.10; the phrase also recalls Mai 3.1). Yet here 'clear/direct' suggests the improvement of an existent road rather than the creation of a new one (|Vincent). The second verb yasar (pi) can mean either 'level' or 'straight'. In translating it 'direct' we do not have to choose between these, though it seems that the related misor in v. 4 must mean 'level' (cf Tg here). 'Way' (derek) suggests not merely a stretch of road but a more dynamic three-dimensional reality: one walks 'in' a way much more often than 'on' it (K. Koch in ThWAT, § III.l). The parallel term 'highway' (mesillah) is a less familiar, more precise term. It is usually taken to denote a trunk road as opposed to a byway or city street,15 but N. L. Tidwell argues that it denotes the approach road to a city leading to the gate, palace, and temple, which was thus part of the processional route to the sanctuary.16 The motif of a road for Yhwh in any case recalls the processional routes used for religious festivals and triumphal royal processions in Babylon (and cf Ps 24.7-10). tHerbert quotes lines from a Babylonian hymn: 'Make [Nabu's] way good, renew his road. Make straight his path, hew out for him a track'; and see fStummer; fStuhlmueller, pp. 74-82. fYoung also compares the allusion in the Esarhaddon vassal-treaties to smoothing the king's way (ANET, p. 535a; see line 54). |Vincent sees vv. 3-5 as a fragment of a pre-exilic proclamation delivered by a cult prophet urging people to prepare Yhwh's processional way for the new year festival. But f Stummer also refers to a road for Marduk's return from Elam, which argues against the processional understanding. On any account the deity travels along this road and thus 'appears' to everyone watching (cf v. 5). The passage also suggests a varied background in Israel's own traditions, and it seems likely that these are more fundamental to it and are augmented by Babylonian motifs. The former will include exodus-wilderness traditions such as Yhwh's journey through the wilderness to the land (e.g. Ps 68), emphasized by *Tidwell (JTSA 3, pp. 49-54), and Israel's journey with Yhwh from Egypt through the wilderness.17 On the other hand, these are more explicitly the background to later passages, esp. 43.14-21 and 48.20-21, which also feature the associated motifs of the blossoming of the wilderness and of provision in the wilderness. Those are absent from Isaiah 40 (cf 41.19, where the parallelism of wilderness/Arabah recurs). Koenig 14 Xenophon, Anabasis V/l 13; Diodorus H/13-14; cf Josephus, War III/6 2 [III/ 118]). 15 So D. A. Dorsey, The Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel, Baltimore/London, 1991, pp. 211-43. 16 See 'No Highway!', VT 45 (1995), pp. 251-69. On the different Hebrew words see also his 'A Road and a Way', Semitics 1 (1980), pp. 50-80. 17 So, e.g., F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA/London, 1973), pp. 108, 173-74.

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{Oracles, pp. 68-74) sees the journey as one from Egypt to Sinai, where Yhwh will be revealed, but this is a motif that does not subsequently feature. Here indeed the road is explicitly one for Yhwh in person to march on (cf w. 9-11; Mai 3.1). The focus on a return to Jerusalem in vv. 1-11 reflects a broader biblical background than a new exodus concern. The fact that vv. 1-2 have already implied an awareness of Hos 1.9; 2.16, 25 (14, 23) suggests that Hosea's motif of the wilderness as the world outside the promised land and the place of Yhwh's chastisement (Hos 2.16-22 [14-20]) is also in the background here (*Davis). Nevertheless the return is not really an equivalent to a new conquest but more a picture reminiscent of Ezekiel's way of envisaging Yhwh's relationship with Jerusalem (see, e.g. Ezek 10.18-22; 11.22-23; 43.1-5; and cf the restoration of Jerusalem motif in, e.g. Isa 60) (*Kilian). The prophecy thus apparently assumes that Yhwh has abandoned Jerusalem (cf Ezek 11.22-23) and is now to return along a new royal highway. Probably the highway is implicitly also one for the Judeans to march on their own return to Jerusalem, as the Tg assumes with its rendering 'a road before the people of Yhwh.. .the congregation of our God'—though the passage makes no explicit reference to Babylon as the starting point of this road. Nevertheless the focus exiles' (NEB) but on news of the here is not on 'News of the returning returning God. Grammatically, mesilldh le^lohenu could just possibly suggest 'a highway provided by our God' (LXX, Vg translate as a genitive; cf GK 129) rather than one for God to travel (jPreuss). But this is not the natural understanding nor the one suggested by the context, which speaks explicitly of Yhwh's coming to Jerusalem. More likely the second colon disambiguates the first and makes clear that Yhwh's way is the way for Yhwh to walk (*Clines, pp. 79-80)— indeed, the preposition might apply to the first colon as well as to the second. It also makes for alliteration (fBoadt, p. 357). The highway is necessary because Yhwh wishes to travel (*Fokkelman, p. 76). Although subsequent passages will recall 11.11-16, which talks of a mesilldh and of Yhwh making a way (the verb drk hi), that road is one for the people not for Yhwh, so there is little resonance of that here (against, e.g., Melugin in |Melugin and Sweeney, p. 298). Isaiah 40 also contrasts with Isaiah 35 where the road is explicitly one for the people to travel to the city where Yhwh is, to judge from Isaiah 33.18 Yhwh has now left and needs to return. In this context 'Yhwh's way' can hardly mean the way of life Yhwh approves. The road is a metaphorical material one, not an ethical one (against Simian-Yofre, Bib 61, pp. 531-37). But this is the sense of the expression elsewhere in the OT, so that it was quite natural for the Qumran community in its Community Rule to see itself as fulfilling this command by applying itself to the study of the Torah in the wilderness (see 1QS 8.14; cf 9.17-21; vv. 1-5 as a whole are quoted in an anthology of passages of consolation, 4Q176 18

See O. H. Steck, Bereitete Heimkehr (Stuttgart, 1985).

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Tanhumim). It was also natural for the Gospels in the light also of Mai 3.1 to see John the Baptist—geographically not far away from Qumran—as urging contemporary Jews to do the same (e.g. Mark 1.3).19 The ethical understanding is also suggested by the LXX's pi. TpiPous for mesilldh\ cf Vg, Syr, Tg, and further Justin Martyr's Tag bbovs (Dialogue with Trypho 50) and Hilary's vias for derek in v. 3a (cf Ziegler in his edition of LXX). Isaiah 40.3 may have provided the early Christian movement with the title 'the way'—that is, 'the way of the Lord' (*McCasland). As with v. 1, the question arises as to who is the subject of the imperatives in v. 3. In v. 2 a call was to be issued to Jerusalem, but it is difficult to see Jerusalem as the subject of these imperatives. Although this voice 'calls out', as v. 2 required, the content of the call does not seem to match the concern of v. 2. In 41.14-16, threshing mountains and hills (cf v. 4) is the task of the audience and in 62.10 (and perhaps 57.14) clearing a road seems to be a human task. It is indeed the case that the divine decisions reported in Isaiah 40-55 are understood to be put into effect through human agents rather than through God's working 'direct'. It was through Nebuchadnezzar that Yhwh blasted the people (v. 7) and it will be through Cyrus that Yhwh restores them (44.24-45.7). Verse 3 could thus be addressed to the nations (|Ibn Ezra) or more specifically to Cyrus and his forces (tCalvin). But in 41.14-16; 57.14; 62.10 the metaphor's reference is different, while the act being referred to in 4 0 . 3 ^ looks more like a supernatural one. If Yhwh's aides feature in 40.1-11 this could thus be their task, though in 45.2, 13; 49.11 equivalent acts are undertaken by Yhwh in person. But in any case, we must again be wary of being literalistic about a poetic figure. NTlp 'Tip: MT (to judge from the conjunctive accent), LXX, Vg, Tg take 'Tip as cstr., as in 6.4, suggesting 'the voice of someone calling out'. GK 146b and JM 162d rather understand it as an introductory exclamation equivalent to 'Hark' (cf 13.4; 52.8; 66.6). But the phrase reads more naturally as a noun cl. (tElliger; cf GK 116n); see also v. 6. The small zaqeph accent on N"Hp is then a stronger disjunctive than the great zaqeph accent on "O"IftD—it is the same as the accent at the end of each of the first two nD clauses in v. 2 (tDelitzsch; cf GK 15f; JM 15k). It thus suggests that after the introductory phrase, 'in the wilderness' (emphasized by coming first in the sentence) opens the first cl.; it comprises four words each of which has a parallel in the second cl. though the word order is varied between the two els. IDS: HDS pi means 'to clear, free from clutter': cf 57.14; 62.10; Gen 24.31; Lev 14.36; Mai 3.1; Ps 80.10 [9]. *Haupt's 'make a direct way' (i.e. straight across the desert) is thus hardly justified. The change of LXX agrees with the s. WS. 43.9. All the nations must gather, at once, peoples must assemble. Who among them could announce this? They must inform us of first events. They must provide their witnesses so that they may be shown to be in the right, so that people may listen and say 'It is true'. Once again, the

prophet challenges the nations to give an account of what is going on. Syntactically the antecedent for the phrase 'among them' must be the nations/peoples of the previous bicolon (many MSS have 'among you'; see HUB and cf Vg, Syr). But the identity of the speaker is still presupposed and not stated, the antecedent of 'them' can be disputed

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(f Elliger insists 'they' are the gods themselves), and the reference of 'this' is not specified. The challenge issued here not surprisingly repeats with variation the challenges of chapter 41. It resembles that in vv. 1-7 in addressing the nations, who were there questioned regarding who has been acting in recent events. But it resembles that in vv. 21-29 in concerning who could announce or interpret recent events, a question there addressed to the gods themselves. One question presupposes the other. If the gods were able to speak about events, their devotees would be able to do so. If the devotees were able to speak about events, that would evidence their gods' ability to do so. We have seen that expressions such as the 'first' events are of open reference (see 41.22). In this context (see vv. 1-7), presumably 'this' is the victorious advance of Cyrus; cf the equally uninterpreted occurrence in 45.21. That context could suggest that the 'first' events are those associated with the exodus (vv. lb, 3b), but in chapter 41 the 'first' events also seemed to be the first stage of Cyrus's campaign. That suggests that 'this' and 'first' events stand in synonymous parallelism, the we ('and') attached to the verb 'inform' being explicative. The plural then typically complements the singular in this parallelism. 'Announce' and 'inform' have denoted announcement before and after the event, though more often the former (see 41.22, 23, 26). Either way they likely suggest a reference to those recent first stages of Cyrus's victories. 'They', then, are to produce witnesses who can testify to their ability to interpret these events. The third bicolon (v. 9b) thus takes up from 41.26 this further theme of the vindication offered by the proven ability to announce/inform of events. In isolation the obvious way to render its second clause is 'and must listen...', the subject continuing to be the nations/peoples, but in the context this makes poor sense. 'Or must listen...' makes attractive if subtle sense, the idea being that the nations/kings either speak via their witnesses or listen, but 'or' is a rare meaning for Hebrew we. A third possibility is to take the witnesses as the subject. It was their task to listen (cf 42.13-20), and in due course to testify to what they had heard (|Elliger). But here the 'listening' takes place after the 'providing', which suggests a listening to the witnesses, not by them. Isaiah 41.26 points to a fourth possibility. It has already spoken of someone announcing and then of someone else listening. That suggests the rendering we have adopted here, which presupposes that the verbs in this second clause are impersonal (cf GK 144f; JM 155b). The court will be able to listen to the witnesses' testimony and acknowledge its truth.

"HIT 1!DpD: the first vb is qatal ni in form; cf LXX awrjx0r)aav, Vg congregatae sunt. Imper. would require "HOpPI; GK 51o, 106n are hesitant to regard this as an exception and are inclined to emend to yiqtol/jussive 1!D|T ( f T plZEDrP, Syr ntkriswri). M. Dahood sees the vb as qatal precative20 and 20

'Hebrew-Ugaritic Lexicography ix', in Bib 52 (1971), pp. 337-56 (see p. 342).

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*Dempsey suggests that the imper. /jussive vbs on either side provide strong support for this understanding. In the parallel cola of v. 9aa the qatal and yiqtol formally complement each other but have similar meaning. DG 60 suggests that this is not merely how we argue the point but how the text was making it. Only in such a context could a qatal be read as precative. It does not carry this meaning within itself but derives it from the accompanying vbs. On the other hand tMujica (pp. 196-98) suggests that the other vbs must rather be examples of yiqtols with past meaning. The use of lin*1 with a literal past statement would be unique in Isaiah 40-66. 11 IT often binds two verbs (see on 40.5), and this is likely an instance by virtue of its modifying the verb in the second colon as well as the first (so |Franke, p. 35). 120Knl: Vg et collectae sunt suggests repointing as 1 consec. The MT is supported by LXX's ml awaxQrjcJovTai (and cf Syr wntknsri). fElliger imaginatively wonders if |*Dp referred to nations already gathered, while *pN urged on remaining stragglers, but more likely the 1 is explicative (cf Brongers, 'Alternative Interpretationen' [see on 42.12], p. 274). |*Ilp and DIK 1are a word pair.21 ^ftK ?: on LXX dpxovTes, see on 41.1a. No doubt the 'all' in the first colon appliesa also in the second (see on 41.11). T T : lQIs has "HT1, assimilating to the other vbs: see t Rubinstein, p. 316; also more generally fKutscher, pp. 269-74 (ET pp. 350-58), on the changes in idioms and in the use of qatal and yiqtol, whereby they work more like 'tenses', which have affected lQIsa readings. lQIsb has TVT. The suffix on the parallel vb also applies to this one (fBeuken). ^JTDCF: for MT's pi., LXX dvayyeXei, Vg audire nos faciet, Syr nsmc suggest a second s. vb following nft; contrast Tg. But parallelism sometimes does combine s. and pi. vbs, as it combines tenses in v. 9aa (see introduction to 42.18-25). The MT implies the second colon is a adifferent construction (cf 44.7) (tElliger). Sym and Th support the MT. lQIs 1IT MT lacks the suffix, again perhaps assimilating to the previous vbs (f Rubinstein, p. 316); LXX

3

has UJJUV.

^ipllTl: tDuhm repoints ipliT*] ('so that they may vindicate them'). For the'qai, cf 43.26; 45.25 (also Pss 51.6 [4]; 143.2; Job 4.17; 9.2; 11.2; 13.18; 25.4; 40.8); for the hi, cf 50.8; 53.11 (cf. e.g., Deut 25.1; 1 Kgs 8.32; Job 27.5). jOlley (pp. 51-52) suggests that here (and elsewhere) LXX's 8IKOUOW has its Classical Greek meaning 'do justice to' rather than 'vindicate', but patristic comments on the LXX do not support this view.22 IPOIZn: lQIsa has hi lIPDEn ('and they must inform'). It could be assimilating to v. 9a, but it is arguably a better reading for the parallelism it generates (fKutscher, p. 275; ET p. 359). The LXX omits. lQIsb and Vg follow the MT. nft&: lit. 'truth', perhaps implicitly adverbial, '[in] truth'. Cf Syr bqwst\ taken as the first word of v. 10; Vg et dicant: Vere (fOttley).

21 See W. G. E. Watson, 'The Hebrew Word-Pair 'sp//qbs', in ZAW 96 (1984), pp. 426-34 (see p. 431) = TTCHV, pp. 301-12 (see p. 308). 22 See T. Muraoka, 'On Septuagint Lexicography and Patristics', in JTS n.s. 35 (1984), pp. 441-48 (see p. 445).

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43.10a. You are my witnesses (Yhwh's oracle), my servant, the one that

I chose. It seems that blind and deaf Jacob-Israel is to be Yhwh's witnesses to that capacity to make sense of events. The backing of this absurd suggestion by the asyndetic 'Yhwh's oracle' (as at 41.14) is reinforced in the LXX by the addition of the further backing Kayw [idprvs. fSeeligman (pp. 28-29), comparing Acts 15.8, sees this as a Christianizing gloss presupposing that it is the Christian community that the clause addresses. But Yhwh does function as witness in v. 12, on which the addition might thus be based (HUB). The declaration that the people are Yhwh's witnesses is followed by a repetition of their identification as Yhwh's servant. Literally the expression is 'and my servant' (weCabdi; lQIsa lacks the we, LXX the suffix). The Tg takes it as a second subject for the sentence, 'You are my witnesses and so is my servant' (which the Tg then glosses with 'the anointed', rrisyh"). That would be syntactically odd, and also difficult in content. Israel itself will again be described as both servant and witnesses in 44.1, 8. 'My servant' is rather a second predicate, the 'and' being another explicative meaning 'that is' (tSpykerboer). The construction follows 41.9 (where see), including its "aser ('[the one] that'). If Syr suggests the plural 'my servants' (but see fBarthelemy), that likely assimilates the noun to the plural 'witnesses'. The singular rather picks up the word as it has been used consistently in Isaiah 41-42 and will continue to be used through Isaiah 43-53 (see 44.26 and on the eventual plural at 54.17b). The attachment of the further familiar phrase 'whom I chose' supports the assumption that this is the familiar singular 'servant'. 43.1Oboc. So that you might acknowledge and trust in me, might

understand that I am the one. One would expect 'so that people may acknowledge...'. fBegrich (p. 41 =48) emends the text along these lines. This helps to draw our attention to the surprising nature of the MT. God is at work through Israel for Israel's own sake. EVV take this enlightenment of Israel as the object of its being witnesses, but it is doubtful if a purpose clause would be understood to depend on the noun clause. More likely it depends on the immediately preceding verbal clause (cf, e.g., 41.20; 43.26; 44.9; 45.3). Enlightenment is the object of Israel's being chosen (f Volz). The MT's accents link the third verb with the two preceding ones and take the ki clause as dependent on all three: 'so that you might acknowledge, believe me, and understand, that I am the one'. At this point the hearer would more likely expect a 3-3 than a 4-2 or 2-2-2 line, and the 3-3 understanding presupposed by our translation suggests good parallelism of the verbs ('acknowledge/trust' paralleled by 'understand') and the objects ('in me' and 'that I am the one'), the second colon adding strength and specificity to the first. The LXX omits 'in me'.

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43.10b(3. Before me no God was shaped and after me there will be none.

'God' is "el, which we have noted to be a transcendent and absolute term, though it will be used for images in chapter 44. It thus suggests some irony here. The Babylonians could indeed conceive of gods coming into being, both metaphysically (see Enuma Elish) and physically (in the form of images). Neither possibility applies to Yhwh. This line's affirmation will be developed and expanded in vv. 1113.

the form suggests that "11T is an initial 1 verb (GK 70a). Some Vg MSS have formator ('shaper') rather than formatus ('shaped')—a theological alteration. m m &b " H i m lQIsa has mn Kb n n » 1 ('and after him there was not'): see *Orlinsky, in JBL 69 (1950), pp. 158-60. LXX's .. .dXXos Oeos mi [ier |ievos might imply 'can be rescued' rather than 'can rescue' a(cf Syr), but the point is still the same. ^X7SK: lQIs HTIIJSN implies the later vocalization—cf v. 17 (fKutscher, p. 30; ET p. 39). n ^ C T : grammatically, the f. suffix could be a 'dummy or impersonal pronoun' referring back to an action rather than to a grammatically identifiable word (so IBHS 6.6d). But this precise vb form recurs from 14.27 where the suffix refers to Yhwh's hand—as it can here. ILc.iv.

Yhwh will defeat Babylon and open up a new future (43.14-21) The messenger formula expanded in the characteristic fashion of the exilic Isaiah (v. 14a) suggests the beginning of a new section. This introduction is followed by a promise (v. 14b) and by Yhwh's self27 See, for example, E. Sellin, 'Wenn wurde das Moselied Dtn 32 gedichtet?', in ZA W 43 (1925), pp. 161-73; S. Hidal, 'Some Reflections on Deuteronomy 32', in ASTI 11 (1977-78), pp. 15-21. 28 See P. Sanders, The Provenance of Deuteronomy 32 (OTS 37, 1996); pp. 418-21 concern Isa 43.11-12.

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declaration (v. 15). Surprisingly, vv. 16—17 then comprise another expanded messenger formula, introducing an exhortation followed by a further promise in w. 18—21. Verses 14-15 are thereby isolated as an apparently complete unit, marked off by setumot in the MT, by a new line andb an indented line in lQIsa, and by indentation and a space in 4QIs . As a complete section, this would be much shorter than normal. tWestermann sees vv. 14-15 as a conclusion to vv. 8-13 suggesting the vindication of Israel, Yhwh's witnesses, over Babylon as witnesses of the gods. This seems forced. In vv. 14-15 we once again move from polemic to promise, as happened between 42.18-25 and 43.1-7 (with which vv. 14-15 also link: see below). In relation to material in the closer context, they link more closely with what follows in vv. 16-21 than with what immediately precedes. Verses 813 have announced Israel's destiny to be witnesses to Yhwh's sole deity, present, past, and future, but in the exposition of Yhwh's deity in vv. 11-13 the past received most prominence. Now in vv. 14-15 and 16-21 that emphasis suffers a twofold subversion in the twofold promise of the victory and provision of the warrior God. The events that they promise are the ones that will turn Israel into witnesses (fSpykerboer), opening their blind eyes (v. 19) and their dumb lips (v. 21). The point of vv. 14-15 lies in their making the prophecy's first specific mention of Babylon and the Chaldeans as they announce the downfall of city and regime. They have an envelope structure: 14a Solemn introductory substantiation 14b Promise 15 Solemn concluding substantiation The balance between vv. 14a and 15 appears in their content and language as well as their function, as epithets reappear with subtle variation. The parallelism between 'Babylon' and 'Chaldeans' in the first and last cola of v. 14b opens up the further possibility of reading vv. 14-15 as an ABCBA chiasm. The introduction and conclusion are bicola, while the promise has extra emphasis as a tricolon. If we ignore the maqqeph in v. 14a, every colon has three stresses. A comparison with the opening subsection to vv. 1-7 is suggestive. Verses 14-15, like vv. l-3a, move from an expanded messenger formula (cf v. la; and cf restorer/restored), via a divine undertaking with qatal followed by w-consecutive plus yiqtol verbs (cf v. 2, yiqtol verbs), to a solemn self-declaration by Yhwh (v. 3a; 'holy one of Israel' recurs in vv. 3, 14). But this is not a 'fear not' oracle and it is addressed to people in the plural. A similar movement may be discerned in 42.5-9, with jussives in the middle element. Verses 16-21 then add positive content to the picture. They are again marked off by indentations in the MT, lQIsa and 4QIsb. The MT's verse division points to one chiastic structure in the subsection:

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16-17 Introduction (3 cola, then 4) the background in Yhwh's activity in creation and for Israel 18-19 Substance (2 cola, three times) 18 Exhortation: ' D o n o t . . . ' 19a Statement (the heart of the matter): 'Here I a m . . . ' 19b Promise: 'Yes, I am t o . . . ' 20-21 Conclusion (4 cola, then 3) the foreground in Yhwh's praise by creation and by Israel But there are other apparent pairings that point to a different understanding. Verses 18-19a look like a pair of bicola that belong together in contrasting earlier events and new events. Verses 19b and 2ObocP then belong together in their talk of wilderness, rivers, and desert. Verses 20a and 20by-21 then belong together, the latter clarifying the former. The chiastic aspects to the section might then be expressed as follows: 16-17 18 19a 19b—21

Yhwh as one who made a way of life through water Forget the old event Look at the new event Yhwh as one who will make a way of life with water

See further fR. H. O'Connell, pp. 177-78. If we redivide v. 17 as suggested in the comment, ignore maqqephs in vv. 17 (two), 18 (two), and 20, and add a maqqeph in v. 19a, all seven bicola can be read as having six stresses, though the similar vv. 19b and 2Oboc|3 divide 2 - 2 - 2 rather than 3-3. The opening tricolon is 3 - 3 - 3 , the closing one 3-3-2 (see the comment). In the M T v. 19a could be read as a 3-2-2 tricolon at the centre of the subsection (fKiesow). tElliger notes how the introduction and conclusion envelop the unit in worship. The former does so through its participles' links with hymnody. Criisemann (Studien [see on 40.22], pp. 90-92) suggests they are citing a hymn, and their language is untypical, but in general such participles are very characteristic of the prophet. The latter does so through its lyrical tone and its looking to praise. Between them the section moves from the hymnody of the first exodus to the hymnody of the second as it offers the most systematic exposition of the exodus—Red Sea story in chapters 40-48—still with an emphasis on finding a way through the Red Sea and a way through the wilderness rather than the escape from Egypt (vv. 16, 19). Second Isaiah's message concerns a journey rather than an escape from a prison (tKiesow, p. 196): see 40.3, 14, 27; 42.16; subsequently 48.17; 49.11; 51.10. The passage's outline threefold structure parallels that of vv. 14-15 and thus further binds together vv. 14-15 and 16—21. Like vv. 14-15, vv. 16-21 address people in the plural, a sign of their parenetic nature (fMerendino, comparing Exod 14.13 at the Red Sea). Like vv. 14-15, vv. 16-21 have some resemblance to vv. 1-7. The expanded messenger formula in vv. 16-17 recalls v. 2 in its imagery and recalls vv. 3b-4 in its reference to the exodus and to an

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equivalent new event. The closing statement regarding the purpose of Yhwh's action and Yhwh's shaping of the people, in vv. 20by-21, similarly recalls the earlier closing statement in v. 7 (Yhwh's 'shaping' appeared both in v. 1 and v. 7). These shared links with vv. 1-7 support the idea that vv. 14-21 form one unit (|Merendino). Despite the further parallels with w. 1-7, vv. 16—21 parallel vv. 1415 in not being a 'fear not' oracle. It is not surprising that in v. 18 we meet with an exhortation based on the expanded messenger formula, but the actual content of the exhortation is surprising. The encouragement not to be afraid is strikingly replaced by the exhortation not to remember (|Begrich, p. 14 = 21). Once again the poet takes up a familiar form and reworks it. Here a single modification revolutionizes the form's significance. If such a promise of restoration originally responded to a lament, the lament is addressed subtly and in the end devastatingly. In their prayers the people are apparently and reasonably inclined to remind Yhwh of the acts that brought them deliverance from Egypt (vv. 16-17). Having colluded with this in underlining the wonder of that event and having aroused the anticipation that they will see its like again, Yhwh then actually moves from reassurance mode into argument mode and says 'forget it', though subsequently it transpires that this has other implications than might at first seem. In relation to vv. 8-13, the key motif of witness also disappears, along with the polemic tone of the court form. The motif of the 'first events' recurs (vv. 9, 18), though it plays a quite new role. In the context of the court scene polemic, paradoxically that was a motif that audience and Yhwh had in common. In the context of a promise of restoration, it becomes a motif that divides God and people. Whereas vv. 8-13 urged knowledge on the basis of the past, vv. 16—21 urge the forgetting of the past. At the end of the spiral of material comprising 42.18-43.21, vv. 19b—21 also recall both the form and the imagery of the closing sections of the previous two spirals, 41.17-20 and 42.10-17. On grounds of style and vocabulary |Merendino confines the original form of w. 16-21 to vv. 16, 18-19a, 20b, 21b; but see jvan Oorschot's comments (p. 71). 43.14. Yhwh has said this—your restorer, the holy one of Israel. For your sake I am sending off to Babylon and I will bring down all of them as fugitives, bring down Chaldeans into their boats with a cry. The

familiar phrases qualifying the "messenger formula" underline the importance of what follows and undergird its claim. From the qatal form of the verb 'send off (sdlah pi), fHaran (p. 139) argues that the fall of Babylon must be past, but the point of v. 14 is then unclear, and the instantaneous or performative qatal (see on 41.10b; 42.1b) is too familiar in these chapters for such an inference to be required. The LXX thus uses future onToaTeXo), though the Vg has a more literal emisi and the Tg takes the verb as a

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past tense reference to Yhwh's sending Israel into exile in Babylon for its sins. From the verb 'send' itself, |Barstad (p. 93) sees v. 14b as evidence that the oracles presuppose a non-Babylonian setting and thus support the thesis that they come from a prophet in Jerusalem. We have noted that other passages such as 41.9 presuppose a Jerusalem perspective, though it is doubtful if this need indicate that the prophet was actually there. The verb is piel, as at 50.1 (also 45.13 with different meaning); contrast the qal at 42.19; 48.16; 55.11. In traditional terms the former might be seen as a good example of the intensive connotation of the piel (e.g. GK 52f), perhaps suggesting a more peremptory sending than is the case with the qal. The rendering 'send off reflects a resultative understanding of the piel of verbs that are transitive in the qal. The qal focuses on the action, the piel on the result achieved (see Pi'el, pp. 193-96; IBHS 24). M. Dahood renders 'I am making [Babylon] cross the underworld river', which is a lot to read into a familiar enough verb.29 The verb has no object (contrast Jer 51.2; see also Isa 10.6). Idiomatically it could be taken as co-ordinate with the next verb, 'I am sending for them all to be brought down...', a common usage with the qal (see BDB, p. 1018a) but also instanced in the piel in 2 Chr 32.21 MT. But the conqueror of 41.1-7, 21-29 is someone Yhwh is sending to Babylon. Indeed, the past verbs there would also justify the past verb here. The sending has happened, though the arriving is still future. The person's name is still withheld (it will come only at 44.28; 45.1), though Babylon itself is named for the first time. 'Bring down' (yarad hi) recalls 41.2 with its use of a similar form from the verb radah for the conqueror's bringing down kings. The usage links with the talk of the bringing down of the king of Babylon in 14.2, 6, 11 (and cf the qal of yarad in 47.1). It also makes for a further ironic link with Ps 107.23 (cf that at 42.10, where the qal also occurs, and see the introduction to 41.17-20 above). Yhwh is causing all Babylon to embark on their ships and go down to the sea. With the LXX's Kai eneyepaj and the Tg's w^hytyt we assume that the verb is a w-consecutive following on the preceding (instaneous) qatal, 'I am sending' (cf TTH 113.1; IBHS 32.2.3c); contrast the Vg's perfect et detraxi and the Syr w'ytyt (cf f Saydon, p. 293). We have followed the LXX and Syr in reckoning that the prophet speaks of bringing down the Babylonians '[as] fugitives' rather than 'in boats/with rudders' (Tg) or bringing down the bars of the city's gates or its river's barrage or of its prison (Vg) or bringing down strong ones (Th); see the note on barihim. The Hebrew word order is 'I will bring down [as] fugitives all of them, and/even Chaldeans in the boats of their cry'. The versions take the w to mean 'and'. The fugitives are then a different entity from the Chaldeans. But the plural descriptive phrase 'fugitives all of them' then lacks an antecedent. More likely the w is explicative and the plural anticipates 29 'Hebrew-Ugaritic Lexicography xi', in Bib 54 (1973), pp. 351-66 (see pp. 359-60). The final h on bblh he takes as accusative.

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the plural noun 'Chaldeans'. The suffix on 'all of them' might thus anticipate that noun (cf GK 131k-o) or might compare with 44.9; on the expression, see on 40.26ba. The Chaldeans were a Semitic people who captured Babylon from its Assyrian overlords in the seventh century and established the neo-Babylonian empire. Strictly the term thus does not mean 'inhabitants of the city of Babylon' but 'inhabitants/leaders of the country of Babylonia' (cf tEUiger), though it could be used to refer to people of the capital city in particular. 'In the boats of their cry' is another allusive expression. The boats are presumably craft that ply the Euphrates, which runs through the city. A 'cry' (rinnah [onomatopeic], 'a ringing/resounding noise') often indicates exultation (see, e.g., 44.23, and the related verb in 42.11), but it can express exhortation or grief. DD^-J: on the form, see GK 93qq. r n i D : lQIsa has ^ m n ('against Babylon'), 4QIsb simple TTmrn: from LXX's mi eTTeyepw ('and I will stir') fScholz infers THPtfm, HUB TTHW). But in the vb's meaning (as opposed to tense) the Vg,n Tg, and Syr correspond to the MT. D nn3: cf LXX (peijyovTas, Syr 'rwq'. Tg 'ptt'lIZm ('in boats') (DTT; Chilton renders 'with rudders'—cf BDB) provides good parallelism, and tEhrlich speculated that DTT") is a word for vessels. M. Dahood provides backing for this by emending DrP"Q ('their freighters'), from a hypothesized noun cognate with Ug. br and Greek Papig.30 fCaspari (p. 25) suggests the same emendation with the meaning 'their diviners'. Vg vectes ('door locks') presupposes the repointing DTT'*"Q, which denote bars such as those that comprise or secure a city's gates. This pointing makes possible a reference here to the breaking down of city gates (as in 45.2), or of a river barrage (cf v. 14b (3) designed to protect Babylon's weak point where theriverenters it, or of the gates of the exiles' metaphorical prison (cf 42.22). But such interpretations require considerable reading into the text; contrast 45.2 where the context makes it quite clear that the word refers to bars, and 15.5 where the MT apparently points 'bars' but the context points to 'fugitives'. Along with 27.1 and Job 26.13 these are the only occurrences of the actual form DTfiD meaning 'fugitives', whereas 'bars' is quite common (e.g. Lam 2.9). But the verb n*O ('flee') is very familiar (e.g. 22.3; 48.20). The idea of bringing down the strong or brave (fortes, Th) or the nobles (AV) presupposes a link with Syriac brh otherwise uninstanced in Hebrew.31 fKissane prefers CHIPD (metathesis), 'young men', providing a nice link with 42.22 MT. fVolz and tKohler emend D^D DTp-Q to D ^ t a / M K t o TP-Q ('bars of your/the prisons'). rmfctt: fEwald repoints nVJKSl ('with laments [which they cry]'); iTDK otherwise means 'mourning' (29.2; Lam 2.5) and fHitzig renders the 30 'The Linguistic Position of Ugaritic in the Light of Recent Discoveries', in Sacra pggina (BETL 12; Paris, 1959), Vol. 1, pp. 267-79 (see pp. 275-76); cf A. Alt, 'Agyptisch-Ugaritisches', in AfO 15 (1945-51), pp. 69-74 (see pp. 69-71). 31 See G. R. Driver, 'Studies in the Vocabulary of the Old Testament. v\ in JTS 34 (1933), pp. 33-44 (p. 39). In 'Glosses' (see on 43.12), p. 128, he sees the whole line as a gloss.

296

ISAIAH 40-55

repointed text 'bring down into mourning their cry', though 'cry' is an odd object for this verb. The LXX and Tg follow MT. In LXXSca and LXX A , K\oCoig is surely a slip for TTXOLOLS and/or an inference from the verb that follows rather than witness to a Heb. text that referred to the Babylonians being bound in fetters; cf fOttley. fKissane emends nVJK to m3D")N ('castles'), fHessler to n"P")N ('lions'), comparing 15.19; 2Kgs 17.24-28. DfDH: *Guillaume emends to •]"]£! (metathesis), 'of/with their masts' (cf 30.17; 33.23). fVolz adds iTK before D n n ('Where are their cries [of exultation]?'; cf 51.13). G. R. Driver puts the PPK after DP131 where it could have been lost at the end of the verse, esp. before nDN.32 LXX 3eQr\Govrai ('they will be bound [in fetters/to their oars]') may be an inner-Greek slip for 8er|6T]aovTai ('they will cry for mercy'), which could then represent MT (fTorrey). Dahood (Psalms //[see on 40.12a], p. 196) postulates a homonym meaning 'refuge'. 43.15.1 am Yhwh, your holy one—creator of Israel, your king. As we

have noted, v. 15 forms with v. 14a a supportive bracket around v. 14b, which carries the freight of vv. 14—15. Again the phrases gain their supportive power from their familiarity. As usual, it is difficult to determine how to identify subjects and predicates in a noun clause such as this. The MT's accents imply 'I Yhwh am...'.

N i l 11: NEB's 'your creator, Israel' is grammatically possible and parallels v. 1, but why should the suffix have been left to be inferred? Further, since v. 11 the addressees have been pi., and 'creator of Israel' here parallels 'holy one of Israel' in v. 14a. On LXX 6 Kcrra8ei£as, see on 40.26. DDD^E: LXX takes as an epithet of Israel rather than of Yhwh. 43.16. Yhwh has said this, the one who provides a way in the sea, a path

in powerful waters. Although vv. 14-15 are short to be a complete oracle, v. 15 made an entirely plausible end for one, and v. 16 certainly suggests a new beginning. Yet another expanded messenger formula in vv. 16-17, this time expanded by means of participial phrases rather than titles as in v. 14 (|Merendino), emphasizes the authority of the command and promise in vv. 18-21. f Watts links the reference to the sea with the growth of sea power in the Mediterranean, tonight with Cyrus's water-borne entry to Babylon, but these understandings seem prosaic. We may rather compare the prophet's previous promise of Yhwh's provision of a 'way' and 'paths' in 42.16, at an equivalent point in the previous spiral. The Tg renders the participles in vv. 16-17a by perfect verbs, 'tyqyn and (pyq\ so also the Vg's dedit.. .eduxit. They could suggest an allusion to creation, but v. 17 will imply that they refer to Yhwh's acts at the Red Sea. Further, the use of participles points to the fact that such acts are not confined to the past. The gender patterning (f., m., m., f.) corresponds to the unusualness or contradictoriness of the 32

'Hebrew Notes on Prophets and Proverbs', in JTS 41 (1940), pp. 162-75 (p. 164).

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event (CHP, p. 127). One Kennicott MS has 'many' for 'powerful' (see HUB; cf Syr), probably conforming to a more familiar expression. i"O: Aq, Th, Sym, and some LXX MSS begin on, suggesting ^D before PD. 43.17a. .. .who leads out chariot and horse, army and powerful one, all at once. The Tg and Vg continue to use past verbs. In isolation, v. 17a might refer to Yhwh's leadership of Israelite or cosmic forces (tKnight), but the change of subject in v. 17b is then sudden and vv. 16—17 as a whole become disjointed. 'Chariot', 'horse', and 'army' are very prominent in the Red Sea story (see Exod 14.4, 6, 7, 9, 17, 18, 23, 26, 28; 15.1, 4, 19, 21). Then typically the last of the four terms in v. 17a, 'powerful one', introduces a novelty at the end of the bicolon. The word 'izzuz comes only here and at Ps 24.8. There in parallelism with gibbdr, a word of similar meaning, it applies to Yhwh. In the course of questioning whether even in vv. 16-17 Second Isaiah refers to the exodus, fSimian-Yofre (p. 543) suggests that here hayil weHzzuz denotes not 'army and powerful one' but (literally) 'might and powerful one' and refers to Yhwh as the subject. This is unlikely in the context, given the recurrence of hayil with the meaning 'army' alongside the other words in Exodus 14—15. 'Might' is indeed the basic meaning of hayil, but the word is hardly ever used of God; kbah is almost invariably preferred (see H. Eising, ThWAT on 'chayiP). The adjectival noun 'powerful [one]' might denote the commander of the forces (|Schoors), but in the context is more likely distributive, like 'chariot' and 'horse'. The 'powerful one' is the elite warrior. The related noun cezuz ('power') also appeared in 42.25 as a novel term coming as the last in a sequence of four words following on three more familiar from Israel's traditions, and it applied there to Yhwh (as elsewhere: cf Pss 78.4; 145.6). The verb 'lead out' iyasd" hi) has been used for Yhwh's command of heavenly forces in 40.26, and more literally for the command of an army in passages such as 2 Sam 5.2 and 10.16 (cf also Ezek 38.4). Here the notion of Yhwh as military commander is extended so that it extends to the Egyptian army. But he leads it to its death. Verse 17a closes with Second Isaiah's characteristic 'all at once' (see on 40.5). The MT links this with v. 17b, and it does precede the verb in 41.1 and 52.8 (|Oswalt), but it usually comes at the end of a colon and surely belongs with v. 17a. Here it modifies and binds the whole, which thus comprises a neat 3-3 bicolon. Ziegler provides d|ia as the LXX reading, but the codices have dXXct ('but'), taken with the next cl.

298

ISAIAH 40-55 a

lQIs has ^ m (cf Syr). on the lQIsa form n n i n , see on WWK in v. 28. The LXX omits the 1 and takes TIT 12 as an adj. 43.17b. They lie down, they do not get up. They are extinguished, snuffed like a wick. The phrases that qualify 'Yhwh has said this' in vv. 16-17 nicely move between three forms of the verb, each in a pair. Verses 16-17a depend on two participles, while v. 17b depends on two yiqtol verbs and two qatal verbs. The participles thus govern two whole bicola, the pairs of finite verbs only one colon each, with the four finite verbs following each other quite asyndetically. The variety coheres with the completeness of the restoration and of the destruction, while the hastening change within v. 17b suggests the process of calamity and then its irreversible actuality. It graphically reflects the accelerating demise of the forces and contrasts with the impressiveness of the sequence of nouns in v. 17a. The yiqtol verbs can hardly be pressed to have different time reference to vv. 16-17 as a whole (against |Rutersworden, p. 5). lQIs a has IDIDKT—cf on ^USK in v. 13. "OIH: some rabbinic references have passive "OUT"1 (see HUB), no doubt because of the passive sense.

43.18. Do not call to mind first events, do not consider earlier events. When we come to the actual command to which w . 16-17 have led the way, its chiastic form contributes to its impact. The order of words in v. 18b is 'earlier events do not consider'. The negative, however, is not Id" ('thou shalt not') but the perhaps milder "al (tYoung; but see discussion in IBHS 34.2.1b). NEB takes the verbs to refer to the community's present practice. It is to stop dwelling on events of the past in the way that it is inclined to do. 'First events' have not previously been the events of the exodus and Red Sea deliverance. 'Earlier' (qadmorii; only here in Isaiah) can also suggest the distant past or the nearer past; so can LXX TOI dpxaLa, Vg antiqua, and Tg dmn W . It, too, refers to the prophets in Ezek 38.17; cf the use ofqedem in Isa 45.21 and 46.10 (contrast 51.9). More likely both words refer to the more recently preceding, first stages of Yhwh's work through Cyrus. T^OTD: lQIsa has s. TOTf!, perhaps simple metathesis. 43.19. Here I am, doing something new. Now is it to grow. Are you not to acknowledge it? Yes, I am to make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. The campaigns of Cyrus indicate that Yhwh is already acting, and the participle 'doing' might refer to that (cf *van Nijen, p. 152). But the subsequent yiqtol verb 'is about to grow' (tismah) can hardly have present meaning in this context, and TTH 135.3 thus rightly takes the participle 'doing' Coseh) as a participle of the

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immediate future. Once again the use of the participle in a 'salvation promise', which Merendino suggests is unusual, parallels one in vv. 1-7 (see v. 6; cf also 41.13; 42.9). On the verb 'grow' see 42.9, where already it accompanied talk of 'new' events, and see on 44.4. As usual the Tg replaces the verb, here by 'is revealed'. If 'grow' had 'messianic' connotations in a context such as 42.9, presumably here these attach to Cyrus. Together the two words are suggestive of creativity (jRendtorff, p. 11). Despite the singular 'something new' (cf Tg hdt"; LXX and Vg repeat the plurals from 42.9), the time reference is surely the same (against tElliger). The 'here I am' (hineni) draws further attention to the significance to this new act of Yhwh, as does the 'now' (cattah). In the context, talk of rivers and a way must again recall the Red Sea, but the symbolism has been reworked and in part reversed. lQIsa nnm; cf Vg, Tg, Syr. Kennicott MS 30 points not as qal but as hi,TOl&n(see HUB), which gives poor sense. mxnn WITT: the negative rhetorical question is not an appeal (as the translation 'will you not' might imply) but a strong affirmation (cf JM 161c, Vg utique, LXX mi yvokreaGe airrd). It stands in a sequence with n]]il in v. 19aoc and *)K in v. 19b. Driver ('Glosses' [see on 43.12], p. 157) sees no reason to m i n n Wbn as a gloss. lQIsa omits the suffix H. There seems a emend to miHm on the basis of LXX or to follow lQIs , with tElliger. riDCT lQIsa TIQl^T; see on D^Blin in v. 28. M. Burrows (BASOR 113 [1949], p. 30) follows lQIsa / ' r r n : ! (the ending is difficult to read); cf *Trever, (BASOR 121 [1951], pp. 13-16; 126 [1952], pp. 26-27). But aside from questions about the ending this looks like assimilation to v. 16: cf *Orlinsky, JBL 69 (1950), pp. 160-64; BASOR 123 (1951), pp. 33-35. 43.20aba. Wild animals will honour me, jackals and ostriches, because I am providing water in the wilderness, streams in the desert. The Tg

apparently makes the worshippers human beings who honour Yhwh for making places habitable by human beings that are currently inhabited only by jackals and ostriches, while Hessler (EvT 25 [1965], p. 362) has the animals standing for the gentiles. But the MT seems to speak of the animal world itself joining in the praise of Yhwh when something new buds, as in 42.10-12 (and cf 55.12-13)—not because they are enjoying the water but because they see what Yhwh has done in bringing down Babylon and restoring Israel. To smooth the verse, fVolz omits the fourth colon as a doublet of v. 19bp so that the third colon links with the fifth, but this destroys the parallelism and the climactic function of the closing tricolon: see what follows.

300

ISAIAH 40-55

m;O1 D^n ('jackals and ostriches'): the latter are lit. 'daughters of greed'. G. R. Driver argues for 'wolves and33eagle owls', comparing Arabic tindn and wanat (the word for stony land); cf HAL. Tim- lQIsa has a more prosaic yiqtol ]flN, a fairly frequent change (Rubinstein, VT 3 [1953], p. 92: and see on v. 9). 43.20bp-21. To give drink to my people, my chosen, a people that I shaped for myself: they will declare my praise. The MT takes the first colon with the preceding four (cf Tg). Verse 21 then comprises a separate sentence, 'The people that I shaped for myself, they will declare my praise'. But rhetorically a tricolon (v. 20b) followed by a bicolon (v. 21) is less likely than a bicolon followed by a tricolon, for sections commonly close with a line of distinctive length (cf 41.5, 3 3-2; 41.29, 3-2-3; 42.25; 43.7, 13, all 4-4). Further, vv. 16-21 began with a tricolon. All this also argues against |Fohrer's deleting of the last colon. Further, the middle colon ('the people that I shaped...') seems to be in parallelism with the first ('my people, my chosen'). The LXX appends v. 21 asyndetically to v. 20, though introducing variety by rendering 'am ('people') in two different ways, .. .TTOTiaai TO yevo9 |iou TO EKXEKTOV, Xaov |iou, ov TT€pi€TroiricFdu\r]V ras dpeTas \iov SiriyetaGai. The Vg takes v. 21 as an independent sentence (or two), populum istum formavi mihi laudem meam narrabit. That involves understanding the rare poetic zu (cf 42.24) not as a relative 'that', as it usually is, but as a demonstrative 'that', an alternative to zeh (cf Tg)—which lQIs a reads. On zu see IBHS 17.4.3d, 19.2d, 19.5. Whereas the addressees have been plural in vv. 14-19, the people is now spoken of in the singular in the first two cola, though in the plural again for the final one (cf the alternation in vv. 8-13). The phrase 'the people that I shaped' again recalls the Red Sea story, for there Israel is 'the people that I acquired/created' (Exod 15.13, 16). Both passages use the expression "am zu. The appearance of this rare relative particle in both passages indicates that v. 21 echoes Exodus 15.34 The Tg particularizes 'my people' to 'the exiles of my people'. "HTQ: on the apposition, see IBHS 12.1c. lQIsa has ^TPQI, to ease the syntax; LXX and Syr omit the second 'my' for the same reason. ^ n i T LXX T7epL€TroLr|adp.Tiv may suggest "11M ('keep') rather than MT's or may indicate free translation presupposing a link between HIT and (fZiegler, pp. 125-26). TlTTf! might be a second (asyndetic) relative cl., 'that will declare...', but we have rather taken it as a finala cl. without formal link with what precedes (cf GK 120c). Contrast lQIs TlTim nDST. The vb perhaps results from the influence of Aramaic usage (fKutscher, p. 166 [ET p. 219]; 33 'Birds in the Old Testament', in PEQ 87 (1955), pp. 5-20, 129-40 (see pp. 12-13, 135). 34 See D. W. Goodwin, Text-Restoration Methods in Contemporary U.S.A. Biblical Scholarship (Naples, 1969), pp. 92-96, on this archaizing form. Of course if Exod 15 belongs to the Second Temple period (so, e.g., M. L. Brenner, The Song of the Sea [BZAW 195, 1991], e.g., p. 37) the echoing is the other way round.

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see also discussion in Talmon, World of Qumran, pp. 124-27). LXX and Tg have pi. n. Syrristwn('shall drink'), with no object, perhaps originated as a corruption ofrisbhwn('shall praise').

Bibliography to 42.18-43.21 Baldauf, R., 'Jes 42,18-25', in Ein Gott—Eine Offenbarung (N. Fiiglister Festschrift, ed. F. V. Reiterer), pp. 13-36. Wurzburg, 1991. Baltzer, K., 'Liberation from Debt Slavery after the Exile in Second Isaiah and Nehemiah', in Ancient Israelite Religion (F. M. Cross Festschrift, ed. P. D. Miller and others), pp. 477-84. Philadelphia, 1987. Barnes, W. E., 'The Masoretic Reading of Isaiah xliii 14', in JTS 29 (1928), pp. 252-55. Dempsey, D. A., 'A Note on Isaiah xliii 9', in Fr41 (1991), pp. 21215. Grimm, W., Die Heimkehr der Jakobskinder (Jes. 43,1-7). Berne/ Frankfurt/New York, 1985. Guillaume, A., 'Isaiah xliii. 14', in JTS 49 (1948), pp. 54-55. Hontheim, J., 'Bemerkungen zu Isaias 42', in ZTK 30 (1906), pp. 745-61. Maalstad, K., 'Einige Erwagungen zu Jes. xliii 4', in VT 16 (1966), pp. 512-14. Mulder, M. J., 'Filologische kanttekekeningen bij Jes. 41:23b; 42.19b en 43.14b', in fGrosheide, pp. 141-49. van Nijen, A. J., 'Overwegingen voor een preek over Jesaja 43:1621', in fGrosheide, pp. 150-56. Orlinsky, H. M., 'Photography and Paleography in the Textual Criticism of St. Mark's Isaiah Scroll, 43:19', in BASOR 123 (1951), pp. 33-35. —'Studies in the St. Mark's Isaiah Scroll', in JBL 69 (1950), pp. 14966. —'Studies in the St. Mark's Isaiah Scroll, iii: Masoretic HEfT in Isaiah xlii,25', in JJS 2 (1950-51), pp. 151-54. Reisel, M., 'The Relation between the Creative Function of the Verbs nt0l)-'"lir-&*"n in Isaiah 43:7 and 45:7', in Verkenningen in een stroomgebied (M. A. Beek Festschrift, ed. M. Boertien and others), pp. 65-79. Amsterdam, 1974. Schmitt, H. C, 'Erlosung und Gericht', in Alttestamentlicher Glaube und Biblische Theologie (H. D. Preuss Festschrift, ed. J. Hausmann and H.-J. Zobel), pp. 120-31. Stuttgart, 1992. Simon, E., 'The Jews as God's Witness to the World', in Judaism 15 (1966), pp. 306^18. Stassen, S. L., 'Die rol van Egipte, Kus en Seba in Jesaja 43:3 en 45:14', in Journal of Semitics 4 (1992), pp. 160-80. Stern, P., 'The "Blind Servant" Imagery of Deutero-Isaiah and its Implications', in Bib 75 (1994), pp. 224-32.

302

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Trever, J. C, 'Isaiah 43:19 according to the First Isaiah Scroll', in BASOR 121 (1951), pp. 13-16. —'Some Corrections regarding Isaiah 43:19 in the Isaiah Scroll', in BASOR 126 (1952), pp. 26-27. Vieweger, D., and A. Bockler, '"Ich gebe Agypten als Losegeld fur dich"', in ZAW108 (1996), pp. 594-607. von Waldow, H. E., '.. .denn ich erlose dich\ Neukirchen, 1960. Williamson, H. G. M., 'Word Order in Isaiah xliii. 12', in JTS n.s. 30 (1979), pp. 499-502. Willmes, B., 'Gott erlost sein Volk', in BN 51 (1990), pp. 61-93.

Il.d. 43.22-44.23/45.8: YHWH'S COMMITMENT TO USING JACOBISRAEL AS WITNESS A second fourfold sequence of poems now parallels 42.18-43.21, though at each point the second sequence heightens or sharpens or specifies the force of the first. Isaiah 43.22-28 is another counteraccusation like 42.18-25. Indeed, tMerendino suggests that they once followed each other. Isaiah 44.1-5 is another 'fear not' oracle like the one at 43.1-7. Isaiah 44.6-23 is a further polemical scene, like 43.8-13. After 43.1, the next points where there is a dominant trend in the manuscript tradition in marking the location of a new section in the bookb are 44.6 (A, L, lQIsa; cf LXX, Syr) and 45.8 (A, C, lQIsaa, lQIs ; cf LXX, Syr). A also marks 44.1; 45.1; L marks 44.24; lQIs marks 43.3, 11, 14; 44.2, 21, 23; lQIsb marks 45.1. The marking of 45.8fitswith the view that 44.24-45.7 (better 45.8) comprises the end of the major section. It would constitute the fourth element in this spiral, corresponding to 43.14-21 in its predecessor. On the other hand, 44.24-45.8 is formally distinctive from 43.1421. Further, in length 43.22-44.23 compares with the preceding spiral, while also conforming to a pattern whereby each spiral is slightly longer than its predecessor (41.1-20, about 38 lines; 41.2142.17, about 46; 42.18-43.21, about 50; 43.22-44.23, about 55). In some respects 44.21-23 balances 43.14-21 and might be seen as the fourth and closing element in 43.22-44.23 (cf |Lee p. 175). In topic 44.24 begins a section more explicitly concerned with Cyrus that goes on at least to the end of chapter 45. We might thus follow L in seeing 44.23 as the end of a major section, marked by a doxology. An inclusio is then formed by 43.25 and 44.22 in words that draw attention to a distinctive concern of this spiral. Perhaps the right way to see the matter is to view 44.24-45.8 as both concluding what precedes and introducing what follows: it is here that Cyrus is first explicitly mentioned. A new synagogue lection runs from 44.6 to 45.16. The continuous spiral nature of the arrangement also makes it possible to suggest the analysis we have presented without radically opposing the view that 42.14-44.23 forms two series of parallel sections (see, e.g., fHardmeier, p. 168, where 42.14-17 is similarly described as a bridge passage; also fKratz, p. 152). It is less likely that 44.23 and 45.8 are a hymnic inclusio around 44.24-45.7 (so f Mowinckel). Praise seems to close off sections of the prophecy not to introduce them, and anyway it is doubtful whether 45.8 should be designated a hymn.

304

ISAIAH 40-55

We thus outline 42.18-45.8 as follows: (1) Israel has been too unresponsive to be Yhwh's servant (Yhwh's counter-charge to Israel's accusation) 42.18-25 Israel has been too blind to be Yhwh's servant, in its failures Israel's deafness simply asserted

43.22-28 Israel has made Yhwh its servant, with its failures Israel's actual shortcomings emphasized (2) But Israel is not to be afraid, for Yhwh is its creator and deliverer (background in 'fear not' oracle) 43.1-7 Yhwh delivers those who bear Yhwh's name

44.1-5 Yhwh recreates a people to bear Yhwh's name

Promise of salvation from... Promise of positive blessing (protection, rescue) (fruitfulness, increase) (3) Israel's status and calling as Yhwh's servant and witnesses still stands (background in court: speech of Yhwh as plaintiff vs. the gods, Israel being Yhwh's witnesses) 43.8-13 Israel's God is the only one, others are futile

44.6-23 Israel's God is the only one, others are futile (developed in vv. 9-20) Israel still to be witnesses Israel's sins swept away (4) Israel's deliverer and maker will fulfil a purpose in present history and people will acknowledge it (polemical self-designation; promise of deliverance—direct and indirect) 43.14-21 Yhwh will defeat Babylon (named for the first time)

44.24-45.8 Yhwh will rebuild Jerusalem by means of Cyrus (named for the first time) New journey through desert New land, city, and temple The comments on 44.24-45.8 appear in the treatment of Section III (a), 44.24-45.25.

II.d.L Israel itself has made Yhwh its servant, with its failings (43.22-28) The point just made about the spiral nature of the chapters is illustrated by the beginning of 43.22-45.8 as well as by its end. While

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43.21 formed a good ending and while formally 43.22 marks a change, from promise to indictment, the speaker in 43.22-28 continues to be Yhwh (the 'me' of v. 22 has no antecedent in this new section) and the transition at v. 22 is effected by a straightforward welo" ('and/but not'). This invites the hearer to link the passage directly with what precedes, as well as to perceive a parallel with the equivalent counter-charge in 42.18-25. lQIsa thus sees 43.14-44.5 as one section (that is, it begins a new line at 43.14 and not again until 44.6). The promises of 43.1-21 do not resolve the problem raised by 42.18-25, which is now restated. Israel's failures, wrongdoings, and rebellions still have to be handled. Verses 22-28 have a number of verbal links with what precedes: 'for the sake of, vv. 14, 25; 'call to mind/remind', vv. 18, 25, 26; 'first/original', vv. 18, 27; 'honour me', vv. 20, 23; 'recount', vv. 20, 26. Both 42.18-25 and 43.22-28 respond to Israel's complaints towards Yhwh by vigorous counter-accusation, but 42.18-25 lacks reference to court proceedings and is therefore characterized as a less formal argument form, whereas 43.22-28 includes the explicit (still, of course, metaphorical) challenge to legal action (v. 26) and is thus closer to the legal form of a counter-charge at the town gate than was 42.18-25.l We may infer from it that the people had accused Yhwh of being unfair in bringing calamity on them despite the prayer and worship they had offered. It is to this charge that Yhwh responds. Jacob-Israel forms an inclusio to vv. 22-28, and *Baltzer (pp. 1215) sees the section as in part a midrash on the story of Jacob in Genesis 27-32. The passages have many verbal links. There Jacob was called (27.36); cf v. 22. There he served and wearied himself (31.41-42); cf vv. 22-23. There he brought his father a gift from his flocks (27.9-10); cf v. 23—the same verb form, though with inconsecutive. There he accumulated sheep (30.32); cf v. 23. There he gained honour/wealth (kdbdd, 31.1); cf v. 23. There he made an offering to Esau (32.14, 19 [13, 18]); cf v. 23. There he took poplar (libneh, 30.37); cf v. 23—frankincense is lebonah, and both words would be associated with the word for 'white', Idbdn, Jacob's fatherin-law's name. There he gained much in Paddan Aram (31.18); cf v. 24. There he offered a sacrifice (31.54); cf v. 24. The story has of course already been taken up in Hosea 12, which also specifically notes that Jacob served there (12.13 [12]); cf v. 23. A series of rhetorical patterns also characterize vv. 22-24. First, a series of seven occurrences of [we] lo* ('[and/but] not') runs through vv. 22, 23a (two), 23b (two), and 24a (two), marking Yhwh's accusations (this is what Israel has not done) and self-defence (this is what I have not done) and drawing attention to the ironic contrasts with the story in Genesis. All four bicola concern Israel's worship. All four refer to the burden or cost or effort involved in this for Israel. After the seven negatives, the 'on the other hand' Cak) which 1 tBegrich, ppv 23-26 = 3(K33, and for possible background in international law, J. Harvey, 'Le "Rib-pattern"', in Bib 43 (1962), pp. 172-96.

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opens v. 24b provides a contrasting introduction to Yhwh's positive accusation, which concerns not Israel's worship but the shortcomings and rebelliousness of its life, and the burden these imposed on Yhwh. The first four bicola thus form a group over against the last, though other links hold together the first, third, and fifth over against the second and fourth: You were weary (ydgac qal) (v. 22) You did not offer sacrifice (v. 23a) (internal chiasm) I did not weary (ydgac hi) (v. 23b) You did not offer sacrifice (v. 24a) (internal chiasm) You did weary (ydgac hi) (v. 24b) The I-you confrontation in the verses is a strong feature, while the first person verb makes the middle bicolon stand out. It constitutes a central element in Yhwh's self-defence. At the same time v. 24a connects back with it, as cane links with incense and sacrifices with offerings (but in chiastic order), and v. 24b does the same by repeating its two verbs. The confrontation reappears in vv. 26-28, reflected in suffixes, preformatives and sufformatives, and the forceful pronoun "attdh ('you') in v. 26. In these contexts, the further 'I-I-your-my-your-T of v. 25 may be more confrontational and less purely comforting than it is often read. In other respects there is a paradoxical relationship between v. 25 and what precedes and follows. We have noted that the verb 'call to mind' links back with v. 18, while Yhwh's acting 'for my own sake' recalls the 'for the sake of his just purpose' in v. 21 of the parallel section 42.18-25 (cf also 43.10, 14, where Yhwh acts for Israel's sake, each time a form of lema an). In turn the nouns 'rebellion' and 'failing' reappear in verbal form in v. 27, while the verb 'call to mind' (zdkar qal) which closes v. 25 immediately reappears at the opening of v. 26 as 'remind' (zdkar hi). 43.22. Now it is not me you have called, Jacob, for you have grown

weary with me, Israel. The w is missing in some MSS (see HUB), also the Syr, Vg, and the Reuchlin Tg codex. This seems more likely haplography than dittography in the MT. LXX's vvv may represent the w, and in the case of the Tg codex, the evidence is complicated by the Tg's adding some introductory words (see below). As we have noted, with the w ('and/but') v. 22 carries straight on grammatically from what precedes. The original shaping of Israel and the imminent refreshing of Israel were designed to lead it to recount Yhwh's praise—or as it could have been put, to call on Yhwh in praise (cf 12.4-6). At the same time the copula could reflect emotion or could follow on from an unstated sentence (GK 154b)— namely, the charge against Yhwh expressed in Israel's lament: 'We called on you and you have not responded'. Either way, the assertion in v. 22 is that in fact they have not 'called' on Yhwh. So far in Isaiah 40-43 Yhwh has usually been the subject of the

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verb qam—indeed, the LXX rewrites v. 22 to keep this usage here so as to signify 'I did not call you ...'. fTorrey takes the MT itself to imply a reminder that the relationship between Yhwh and Israel was based on Yhwh's call of Israel, not vice versa. But the MT suggests that the problem lies not in the subject of the verb but in the object, for the word order puts the object 'me' before the verb. It could, indeed, have been expressed by means of a mere suffix. The MT thus also suggests that Israel's problem lies not in a failure to call but in the direction of its calling. Admittedly an object precedes its verb in vv. 24a and 25b, but there this takes place in chiasms. The verb also appears late in v. 23a(3 (another chiasm) and in v. 27a and v. 27b (to emphasize the subject). "fCheyne's claim that the word order need not indicate emphasis is not justified by his parallels, 1 Sam 2.3; Jer 31.8; Pss 7.14 [13]; 63.9 [8]; 139.17: none involves a direct object preceding its verb, and all may involve some emphasis. In what sense have the people failed to call on Yhwh? The second colon hints that it is something to do with having 'toiled'. The verb yagct plays a key role in the five bicola that comprise vv. 22-24. It appears in the first, central, and final bicolon, each time in the second half of the line. The nature of the link between v. 22a and 22b has been a matter of dispute. The Tg with its 3ry makes the obvious assumption that the conjunction Id has its common meaning 'for' (cf Aq, Th). Verse 22b provides the reason for Israel's failure to call on Yhwh. The verb yagac then has the more negative meaning 'be weary', as in 40.28-31, rather than the positive meaning 'work hard', as in 47.12, 15 (a context ironically similar to the present one); 49.4; 57.10 (?); 62.8; 65.23. In either case the verb can be followed by the preposition b to indicate the object of the toil or the cause of the weariness. The Tg interprets the cause as 'the teaching of my torah'. Sym renders Id 'but' (8e), a common implicit connotation of such a Id after a negative (cf 10.7; 28.27; 29.23; 49.10; 52.12b; 62.4a, 9; 65.20, 22, 23): see BDB, p. 474. |Morgenstern takes it as example of asseverative Id,2 though we have noted (see on 40.2) that asseverative Id commonly keeps some connective/causal connotation. tEhrlich sees it as a misreading of an original hi ('with me'), originally before the verb and thus paralleling the 'me' of v. 22a, and subsequently reinserted after the verb. BDB p. 472b itself takes this as a passage where Id means 'to the point that' (cf 22.1); cf DCH, Vol. 4, p. 386b. Vg nee laborasti in me may witness to a repetition of the negative (another welo" in place of Id!) but may simply assume that the negative in v. 22a carries over to v. 22b and then that the verb has the positive sense. The LXX makes the same assumptions in the context of its reversal of the meaning of the verse as a whole to 'I did not call on you .. .nor make you work hard...'. Given that 'for/but' is so common a significance of Id and fits well here, that the previous use of yaga in chapter 40 emphasized the 2 So also A. Schoors, 'The Particle n D', in Remembering All the Way... (OTS 21, 1981), pp. 240-76 (see p. 273).

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negative meaning, and that we have no direct evidence of a text that read welo" rather than ki, it seems best to take the economic view that Id is original and that the Tg indicates the way a hearer would naturally understand the colon. The idea, then, is that Jacob-Israel was tired of its relationship with Yhwh and that this was the reason for its failure to call on Yhwh in prayer. To put the two cola together, Jacob-Israel was tired of calling on Yhwh—because (it would say) it met no response. The confrontational nature of the line is emphasized by the bare address 'Jacob-Israel'. There are no friendly epithets such as 'my servant'/'my chosen' here; compare 40.27 (fKoole). The link with 40.27-31 clarifies the sense in which Israel had not called Yhwh (with the emphasis on 'me'). It is a well-known formcritical insight on these chapters that the prophet is commonly responding to the prayers people prayed, to their laments. But it is also the case that the responses are commonly confrontational ones. Now 40.27-31, which goes on to note the way in which people (such as the audience) get weary, begins by noting the way Israel is praying in its weariness (v. 27)—except that its utterance is not really prayer but complaint about Yhwh. Isaiah 43.22 nuances 40.27-31: 'You called, but you did not call me; you were weary, and it was a weariness with me\ 43.23a. You have not brought me sheep as your whole offerings nor honoured me with your sacrifices. The emphasis on 'me' in v. 22 does

not explicitly continue in vv. 23-24, and there is neither ground nor need to assume that it does so implicitly. The focus turns to the nature of people's inaction rather than the direction of it. Calling on Yhwh was naturally accompanied by offerings where possible. The passage connects verbally with Ps 50.13-14, 23, where the words 'call', 'honour', and 'sacrifice' (qdra\ kdbed pi, zebah) recur. Verse 23 also links back to what precedes more specifically than v. 22 did. Like its calling, Israel's 'honouring' would be a response to Yhwh's 'honouring' (v. 4) and an imitation or anticipation of the wild animals' 'honouring' of Yhwh (v. 20) (f Miscall). Israel has not been honouring Yhwh with sacrifices. 'Sheep' (seh) is a general term for small cattle, covering both sheep and goats, as opposed to the general term for large cattle such as oxen, cows, and bulls (sor). The words come together in 66.3. The Tg introduces v. 22 'It was said by means of the prophets'. Verses 22-24 do recall pre-exilic passages that critique Israel's worship, and like theirs its interpretation raises questions. Challenges such as 1.10-20 (cf Jer 7.21-26; Amos 5.21-27; Mic 6.1-8; Ps 50) themselves presuppose that Israel indeed offered Yhwh whole offerings and sacrifices, ad nauseam. Here v. 23a speaks of their not offering sacrifices. To what can it refer? (a) The emphatic object in v. 22a might imply that the reference here is to worship offered to other gods. But we have seen reason to

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doubt whether that is the right assumption about v. 22 and have noted that there is no basis for reckoning that the emphasis in v. 22a carries over into v. 23. (b) tNorth also understands the charge to run 'You did not bring me ...', but infers that the people are reckoned to have made offerings to themselves, not to Yhwh. This seems rather modern, as well as unjustified by the context. The more common assumption that v. 23a implies a preference for 'spiritual' worship, 'real' worship, seems to introduce an alien antithesis. (c) Similarly the notion that the prophet is here rejecting sacrifice as such (tGrimm and Dittert) seems to read post-OT thinking into the text. (d) fTorrey takes v. 23a as a rhetorical question, 'Have you not brought me sheep...?'. The answer, of course, is 'Yes', and v. 23b indicates the response that this was not what Yhwh wanted. While Hebrew, like English, can indeed leave context or tone of voice to indicate that something is a question, here this understanding seems arbitrary. So does *Scott's simple deletion of the negatives in vv. 23a, and 24a. (e) Verse 23a might be read in the light of v. 23b, the point then being that the sacrifices people were expected to offer were not burdensome (cf Ps 50). While the clarification of one bicolon by the next is a feasible process, this seems to require a lot to be read back from v. 23b. (f) The two cola of v. 23a alone might be run together in such a way so as to disambiguate the first: 'You did not bring me sheep as your whole offerings or sacrifices in such a way as to bring me honour'. Even if the worship was offered, it was not offered in such a way as to effect what it suggested. This solves one difficulty but raises another, for the link with what follows in v. 23b is then unclear. (g) An attractive understanding of the rhetoric of the passage as a whole sees the denials of vv. 22-24a as determined by the affirmations in v. 24b. The denials are hyperbole, like those in Gen 45.8; Exod 16.8; 1 Sam 8.7. Expressed more prosaically, the prophecy means 'you have not so much wearied yourself in worshipping me as wearied me with your wrongdoing' (*Booij). Israel's worship is overshadowed by other activities. In effect it did not exist. The accusation that they have failed to make Yhwh the object of their call will be paralleled by the accusation that they have failed to make Yhwh the object of their service. (h) Less subtly, if it is the exiles who have failed to pray to Yhwh (v. 22), presumably it is also the exiles who have not been making offerings and sacrifices. Now the distinction between the exilic generation and their pre-exilic predecessors should not be made too sharply. All belong to one people, and the present generation is implicated in the sins of the past (and vice versa). Nevertheless, lengthy concern with the activities of the pre-exilic community is not obviously in place in the exilic Isaiah's prophetic ministry (jMerendino, who then infers that vv. 23-25 are post-exilic expan-

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sion). Indeed, it would reduce the parallel with the pre-exilic prophets, who were confronting their contemporaries, not recalling the wrongdoing of previous generations. So v. 23a reminds the present community that it has not been making sacrifices and offerings, and v. 23b then recalls the reason for this. It is not their neglect — v. 23a is not a complaint. Yhwh's taking the people into exile had closed off the requirement that they make offerings and sacrifices—these were excluded there. D&mn: LXX omits, though some MSS have fjveyKas. LXX MSS exhibit several variations (confusions and duplications) in v. 23. ^pH^i? HE?: construct, lit. 'the sheep of your whole offerings'; so also lQIsb; 4QJtsg. lQIsa has s. H 711? 7, conforming to s. Hfe (fRosenbloom); cf Vg. LXX, Tg have pi. followed by s. TrDTI: adverbial ace. (on which see GK 118q). It can hardly be a second airect obj. of "^milD, as this vb could not govern such a n. as single obj.; against f Duhm, who appeals to GK 117ff. There the examples with vbs such as "fftD surely also need to be seen as adverbial ace. lQIsa ("OTOm makes the point explicit; cf LXX, Vg, Syr. Tg adds "[IZTTp ('holy', lit. 'of your holiness') here and in v. 24. 43.23b. I have not made you serve with an offering, nor made you weary with frankincense. Again the statement recalls passages from earlier prophets such as Mic 6.1-8 and Jer 7.21-26. The two cola are parallel word-by-word and suggest 'I have not made you serve laboriously with an offering of grain and frankincense'. Like the verb 'work hard/be weary', the verb 'cause to serve' (cdbad hi) can have a neutral/positive connotation (see 2 Chr 34.33) or a negative one (e.g. Exod 1.13) and in this sense the two words in v. 23b could be heard either way. But 'cause to serve' is much more commonly a negative idea, and 'work hard/be weary' was negative in v. 22, so that the line would likely be heard negatively (cf Tg's 'I did not increase...'). If it is desired to avoid the idea that Yhwh here disclaims responsibility for the regulations concerning offerings, it is thus difficult to do so by putting the emphasis on the precise verbs, suggesting that Yhwh's expectations with regard to offerings were not grossly demanding (cf Ps 50), or Yhwh's instructions were designed to be a means of joy rather than a burden, or Yhwh did not succeed in winning Israel to committed service. In the context of the understanding of v. 23a just suggested, more likely the idea is that the reason Israel in exile has not been bringing offerings is that they have ceased to be required. By taking the people into exile Yhwh has made offerings impossible, for they can be brought only in the land, in the place Yhwh chooses (cf Deut 12.13). In the Jerusalem temple, indeed, it was precisely (grain) offerings and frankincense that some people did bring after the fall of Jerusalem (Jer 41.5). nmftn "pmrilH »•?: lQIsa has nmO Wb nrPIBI? N11?! ('and you did not make an offering to me'), perhaps trying to make sense of a difficult phrase

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(tKutscher, pp. 206-7; ET p. 274) by assimilating to the meaning of v. 23a (tRosenbloom). 4QIs§ agrees with MT. LXX omits. On the vocalization of the vb, see JM 68f. nilD^D: the D parallels that in v. 22. It is hardly D of price (fNorth; see GK119p). 43.24a. You have not gained me cane with money nor soaked me in the fat of your sacrifices. |Torrey understands v. 24a, like v. 23a, as a rhetorical question, answered by v. 24b. The problem of the reference of v. 24a is better handled by assuming that it continues to describe the worship that Israel in exile has not had to offer. Aq, Th, Sym K