Isaiah - Introduction to Chapters 40-66

One cannot approach this
last part of our book that speaks so clearly and directly of our Lord,
both as to His sufferings and the glory that shall follow, without fear
lest he should fail to discern the intent of the Spirit in moving this
holy man of God thus to speak; or, on the other hand, to deduce what is
not in accord with that intent: that is, to err either in omission or commission.
We know well that we are about to enter an apartment of the divine Word
in which are treasures of gold, silver, and precious stones of truth, but
without the light given by the same Spirit, who is the real Author of the
book, we shall fail to find them. May the Lord deign to anoint our eyes
with that eyesalve that shall cleanse them from all film, and enable us
to see "wondrous things" in this holy Word.

With this in view, I cannot
esteem necessary any lengthy attempt to show the unity of the whole book
in the single authorship of its threefold parts. For 2,000 years and more
there was not a whisper of a "Second Isaiah," or (since no one has ever
discovered to whom these marvelous pages could be attributed), "The Great
Unknown."

In the eighteenth century
there arose a school of theologians, mostly residing in Germany, comprising
names that have since become notorious, rather than famous, among all who
love and reverence the Bible, as Eichorn, Paulus, Hitzig, Nobel and others,
whom we can but class with those keen-witted false prophets that our enemy
constantly sends out into the world to offset the grace of God. For just
before the time of their appearing, Wesley, Whitefield, Watts, Doddridge,
Venn, and a host of kindred-spirited evangelists had been commissioned
to go over all the earth with the gospel of Christ. Then later the modern
"Tubingen School" (as it is called, since most of its adherents were connected
with the university of that name) sent out its poison marked with that
sure evidence of its Satanic source by claiming superior insight, a higher
degree of candor and knowledge, generally, enwrapped in the appropriated
name of "Higher Criticism."

But it
must not be thought that it is because investigation as to the genuineness
of this part of the book is feared or shirked that it is not taken up.
Christian scholars, certainly not less entitled to respect, both
on account of their ability and of their integrity, than those with German
names as given above (and indeed, including many from that country, as
Keil, Delitzsch, Hengstenberg and many others) have followed patiently
all the arguments of these opponents of truth, have analyzed them, and
torn them to shreds.*

For us the clear testimony
of the prophets, apostles and inspired writers of the New Testament will
be all that we need. John Baptist testified of himself as "the voice of
one crying in the wilderness, as said the prophet Esaias." That is, not
"The Great Unknown," but the well-known Isaiah wrote the words in chapter
40. This is followed by Luke 4:17-21 , the Lord Jesus Himself distinctly
confirming the genuineness of chapter 61. Then comes Matthew 8:17 and
John 12:37-41 . As to Acts 8:26-40 , Birks writes:

If these verses
which the eunuch was reading are not Isaiah's, and do not really predict
the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, but are a doubtful guess at the sufferings
of Israel by a nameless writer in the days of Cyrus  —what conclusion will
follow? The eunuch would have been deceived and taught a double falsehood
by a conspiracy of no less than three parties, the evangelist Philip, an
angel of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit of God! This grand religious fraud
would then have been the first step in the conversion of Ethiopia to the
Christian faith!

Paul adds his voice to the sure
truth in his letter to the Romans (10:16-21). One feels that to pursue
the theme further would be an unjustifiable waste of time.

The root of the attack really
lies in the determination of the human will to eliminate God from His creation
altogether. Admit that God is, and can be active in the affairs of men,
and all such difficulties disappear. Take the simplest and clearest "proofs"
of the impossibility of Isaiah having written this part of the book that
has borne his name. How could Isaiah speak as if he himself were one of
the captives in Babylon, whereas when he wrote Israel was not there at
all? Our opponents say: "It is a first principle that the historical horizon
of a prophet belongs to his own time. He takes his stand in his own generation
and looks onward from it," which is a piece of reasoning quite worthy of
self-styled Rationalism; for putting this into plain English it means that
being
a prophet he cannot see beyond the horizon of his own times! For, if
he can, where is the limitation of his Vision?

But we are even told the
very name of the man who should decree the building of the city and the
house, long before he came into existence! Marvelous beyond credence, is
it not? that God, who could call all worlds into being, whose every attribute
is without limit, should be able to foreknow what lay two hundred years
in the future for His people Israel, and by His Spirit actually communicate
the name that a man should bear before he was born! That is far too great
a strain on the credulity of, and is detected at once as evidence of fraud
by, the keen intellect of Rationalism!

But even as to this name
of Cyrus, hear what Josephus, the Jewish historian, writes: "Now Cyrus
learned this (as to building the House) by reading the book that Isaiah
had left of his own prophecies 210 years before. . . . These things Isaiah
foretold 140 years before the temple was destroyed. When Cyrus therefore
had read them, and had admired their divine character, an impulse and emulation
seized him to do what was written."

With this the first verses
of Ezra come into line: "Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God
of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and
hath charged
me to build Him a house at Jerusalem."

It is therefore certain that
whoever wrote that prophecy wrote it before, and long before, Cyrus was
born, or the fraud would have been transparent; but who but God could possibly
be the Author of such a prophecy, let the human hand be whose it may? How
well Delitzsch writes of this blatant, self-styled Rationalism:

Modern criticism
visits all who dare assert that Isaiah was indeed the human writer with
the double ban of want of science and want of conscience. No prophecies
find any favor in its eyes save such as can be naturally explained. It
knows exactly how far a prophet can see, and where he must stand in order
to see so far. But we are not tempted at all to purchase such omniscience
at the price of the supernatural.

We will then leave this question
of authorship, and if the learned rationalists of our day prefer to call
him "The Great Unknown," we shall adopt the words of the Holy Ghost used
in another connection, and say, "Whom ye thus ignorantly name has been
declared to us as Isaiah." For that is the only name among men that
by its very significance fits the contents of this "third part of the book."
Does it not mean "The salvation of Jehovah"? And might not these chapters
from 40 to 66 be so entitled, and to have as its author, one whose significant
name expresses it? In these "the salvation of Jehovah" is more clearly
set forth than in any other of the Old Testament pages.

Further, there is peculiar
and inimitable beauty in the numerical structure of this third part that,
apart from all other proof (and this abounds), bears on it evidence of
its perfect unity with the parts that have preceded it. It is not too much
to say that the three subdivisions of this third division
are divinely marked out for us. Twice we get the words, "There is no Peace,
saith my God to the wicked," marking the termination of the first and second
parts by the inerrant Finger of God.

This imprint
of the number of divine manifestation, "three," is even more marked in
this later part than anywhere else. I have already noted that Delitzsch**
gives a testimony as to this that is of peculiar value, since he draws
no deductions from it, and is apparently unaware of the striking
value of what he finds, so that none can say with regard to these writers
that they have first put in what they afterwards take out, for they apparently
did not discern what was in.

Three! Why, here we have
not only one three, but this raised again and again to ever higher powers:
three
main
divisions of this third division, and each one of this three itself divided
into three  —and these again similarly subdivided into three.

I am not unaware that this
will be met with a shrug, and perhaps with a pitying smile by many; but
they might as well assume to pity those who with gladness discern the beauties
of His works impressed on all nature, and the closer studied, the more
clearly discerned  —from those constellations that pursue their march through
the heavens, down to the invisible diatom; the aid of the telescope on
the one side and the microscope on the other only revealing perfections
of His unrivalled Fingerprints, not discernible to nature's vision. That
same bond of perfection that binds in unity all nature, also binds together
the parts of our book, although it may, and does need, more than nature's
powers to discern them.

Let me then repeat that God
Himself has put His Fingerprint on this part of the book in the divisions.
It is composed of 27 chapters divided into three threes each, thus:

1: Chapters 40 to 48, closed
by the words, "No peace to the wicked."
2: Chapters 49 to 57, closed
by the words, "No peace to the wicked."
3: Chapters 58 to 66, closed
by the same finality of "No peace to the wicked" in Gehenna.

The subdivisions of the first are:

1: Chapters 40 to 43:13.
2: Chapters 43:14 to 45:25.
3: Chapters 46 to 48.

But once again, take the
first of these subdivisions, and we find three sub-sections there:

1: Chapter 40,
2: Chapter 41.
3: Chapters 42 to 43:13.

Let the reader consider for
himself chapter 40, and can he fail to discern again three divisions?

1: Verses 1-11: The God of
all comfort speaks to Israel.
2: Verses 12-26: Contrast
with vain idols.
3: Verses 27-31: Divine
strength manifested in weakness.

Yet even once again note
the clear threefold division in verses 1 to 11, marked by three voices:

1: Verses 1, 2: The "voice"
of comfort from Jehovah.
2: Verses 3-8: The "voice"
in the wilderness, telling of contrast; frail man and the eternal Word.
3: Verses 9-11: The voice
of Jerusalem, "Behold your God."

Surely so marvelous a structure,
such a succession of trinities, can no more be attributed to chance or
mere coincidence than the structure of a flower or of a butterfly's wing.
The true Author is neither a first nor second Isaiah, but God.