The Unity of the Book of Isaiah - Linguistic and Other Evidence of the Undivided Authorship #229398

WE have been assured so persistently of late years that the Book of Isaiah is the work of two, or, more probably, of several hands of widely differing dates, that any attempt to run counter to the stream may seem a somewhat hopeless one. Yet when we have regard not only to the immense importance of the issue at stake, but to the curiously dissimilar nature of the evidence ranged on the two sides, we do well to feel that till the new view, in one definite and undisputed form, has absolutely and utterly crushed out the old belief, it is wise to keep the question open, to hold one's judgment in abeyance, to be ready to consider with open mind each fresh statement of the case as it is urged. The last recorded utterance of Isaiah to Hezekiah is the Divine pronouncement of the Captivity of Baby lon, though Nineveh was then the capital of the empire. This threat may well be the key to the promise of the deliverance from that captivity dwelt on in the twenty seven succeeding chapters, which leads on to the thought of deliverance from a mightier foe than Babylon and by a mightier deliverer than Cyrus.