ISAIAFI, PROPHECY OF (ante). The reasons alleged by some critics, within this cen• tury, for denying that Isaiah wrote the last 27 chapters of the book called by his name are: 1. As, according to a tradition mentioned in the Talmud, the order in which the three great prophets were arranged was originally Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah, it is to be inferred that Isaiah was placed last because of a suspicion which somewhere existed that the latter part had been written after Ezekiel. To till§ it is answered that the infer ence would not be warranted even if the alleged order of arrangement were certain; but that it is not certain or probable is shown by it witness earlier than the Talmud. that is, the author of Ecelesiasticus, who refers to the•three prophets in the order in which they now stand—Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. 2. The writings of the prophets who lived after Isaiah, and before the captivity, do not show an acquaintance with the second part of the prophecy. To this it is answered: (1) thatthe fact would not prove the non-exist ence of the second part when these prophets wrote; and (2) that in fact, as will hereafter be more fully shown, Jeremiah and other prophets of the time specified, do quote this second part (yet the objector insists that, on the contrary, it contains quotations from them). 3. The last part differs from the first in style and religious views. To this, other critics reply that no differences. exist which !are- inconsistent with unity of authorship; that the first part contains the germs of the principal things exhibited in the second; and that the style of the latter part greatly resembles that of the former, although it naturally rises in fullness and sublimity as the scope of the prophecy is enlarged. 4. Isaiah lived more than a century before the captivity in Babylon, and did not once foretell it; but as the author of the second part narrated so fully the special condition of the Jews at that time, and the general oriental relations, even calling Cyrus by name, he must have been an eye-witness of what he described. The answers to this are: (1) This reasoning, which
is simply the assumption that absolute prediction •is impossible, will appear without force to those who take notice that the prophet ascribes all tile predictions which he records to God as their author, who claims the prerogative of foretelling the future, and exercises it in regard to Cyrus, Babylon, and the Jews, for the express purpose of reveal ing himself to those who did not know him. (2) If the reason alleged proved that the second part of the prophecy was written after, or at, the captivity, it would equally prove that it was written after, or at, the coming and crucifixion of Jesus Christ; for these events are described in it as clearly as is the deliverance of the Jews by Cyrus. (3) In the first part of the prophecy Isaiah does foretell the captivity in Babylon. In chapter i. he promises a restoration and redemption. which admit of a primary reference to the return from captivity; in vi. he speaks of a time when the cities of Judah would be • wasted without inhabitant, the houses he without man, the land be desolate, and the men be removed far away; xxxix., he tells Hezekiah: " Behold, the days come, that all that is in thy house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shallbe car ried to Babylon: nothing shall be left;" xiv., he foretells that the Lord would stir up the Medes against Babylon, would set Israel in their own land, and that in the day of their deliverance they should say concerning Babylon: "How hath the oppressor ceased, the golden city ceased!"