ISAIAH (r141,t;"; Sept. 'Ho-aias). I. Tzenes and circumstances of the Prophet Isaiah. —The heading of this book places the prophet under the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah ; and an examination of the pro phecies themselves, independently of the heading, leads us to the same chronological results. Chap ter vi., in which is related the call of fsaiah, not to his prophetic office, but to a higher degree of it, is thus headed : In thc year in which king Uzziah died I saw the Loyd,' etc. The collection of pro phecies is chronologically arranged, and the utter ances in the preceding chapters (i. to vi.) belong, for chronological and other reasons, to an earliei period, preceding the last year of the reign of Uzziah, although the utterances in chapters ii. iv. and v. have been erroneously assigned to the reign of Jotham. We have no document which can, with any degree of certainty, or even of proba bility, be assigned to that reign. We by no means assert that the prophetic ministry of Isaiah was suspended during the reign of Jotham, but merely that then apparently the circumstances of the times did not require Isaiah to utter predictions of importance for all ages of the church. We cer tainly learn from the examples of Nathan, Elijah, and Elisha, that a powerful prophetic ministration may be in operation, although the predictions uttered, finding their accomplishment within the times of the prophet, are not preserved for subse quent ages. As, however, the position of affairs was not materially changed under the reign of Jotharn, AVe may say that the first two utterances have a bearing upon that reign also. These two prophecies contain the sum and substance of what Isaiah taught during twenty years of his life. If these prophetic utterances belonging to the reign of Uzziah had not been extant, there would, doubt less, have been written down and preserved similar discourses uttered under the reign of Jotham. As, however, the former utterances were applicable to that reign also, it was unnecessary to preserve such as were of similar import.
The continuation of prophetic authorship, or the writing down of uttered prophecies, depended upon the commencement of new historical developments, such as took place under the reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah. Several prophecies in the seventh and following chapters belong to the reign of Ahaz ; and most of the subsequent prophecies to the reign of Hezekiah. The prophetic ministry of Isaiah
under Hezekiah is also described in an historical section contained in chapters xxxvi.-xxxix. The data which are contained in this section come down to the fifteenth year of the reign of Hezekiall ; consequently we are in the possession of historical documents proving that the prophetic ministry of Isaiah was in operation during about forty-seven or fifty years, commencing- in the year B.C. 763 or 759, and extending to the year B.C. 713. Of this period, from one to four years belong to the reign of Uzziah, sixteen to the reign of Jotham, sixteen to the reign of Ahaz, and fourteen to the reign of Hezekiah.
Staudlein, Jahn, Bertholdt, and Gesenius, have, in modern times, advanced the opinion that Isaiah lived to a much later period, and that his life ex tended to the reign of Manasseh, the successor of IIezekiah. For this _opinion, the following reasons are adduced :— I. According to 2 Chron. xxxii. 32, Isaiah wrote the life of King Hezekiah. It would hence ap pear that he survived that king.
2. We find aitradition current in the Talmud, in the Fathers, and in Oriental literature, that Isaiah suffered martyrdom in the reign of Manasseh, by being sawn asunder. It is thought that an allusion to this tradition is found in the Epistle to the He brews (xi. 37), in the expression they were sawn asunder (erpto-Ono-av), which seems to harmonise with 2 Kings xxi. 16, moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much.' 3. The authenticity of the second portion of the prophecies of Isaiah being admitted, the nature of this portion would seem to confirm the idea that its author had lived under Manasseh. The style of the second portion, it is asserted, is so different from that of the first, that they could not well have been composed by the same author, except under the supposition that a considerable time intervened between the composition of the first and second portion. The contents of the latter— such as the complaints respecting gross idolatry, the sacrifice of children to idols, the wickedness of rulers, etc.—seem to be applicable neither to the times of the exile, into vvhich the prophet might have transported himself in the spirit, nor tu the period of the pious Hezekiah, but are quite appli cable to the reign of Manasseh.