The inclusion of occasional references
to the history, culture, and religion of Mesopotamia would not be unusual for
an Israelite prophet writing during the Neo-Assyrian or the Neo-Babylonian
periods. During these times Jehu submitted to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser
III, Ahaz submitted to Tiglath-pileser III (2 Kgs 16:2; 2 Chr 28), Hezekiah
formed a coalition with Mreodach-baladan of Babylon (Isa 39), Manasseh was a
vassal of Assyria and spent some time in Assyria (2 Chr 33:10-13), and Judah
was controlled by Babylon from 605 until the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE (2
Kgs 24-25; Jer 39:40; 52).
When Isa 46:1-2 and 47:12-13 refer,
derogatorily, to Babylonian gods and religious officials (see also 44:25), this
is not surprising, since one would expect the Israelite prophets to know the
names of the gods of other nations. Determining precise historical background(s)
of such texts is not so easy, however. When foreign religious officials are
mentioned, for example, it is not always easy to determine if they are Assyrian
or Babylonian (44:25). It is difficult to distinguish religious and cultural
features from the time of Tiglath-pileser III (the overlord of Ahaz) and the
time of Sennacherib (during Hezekiah’s reign), and to distinguish either from
Babylonian religious and cultural features from the time of Nebuchadnezzar (the
time of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah). Based on the long period of contact between
Judah and the Mesopotamian empires, the prophets in Judah probably had more
than a rudimentary knowledge of the religions of Mesopotamia and the methods
its peoples used to divine the will of their gods (44:25; 47:12-13). This kind
of religious knowledge would not require a prophet or his audience to live in
Assyria or Babylon.
In contrast, James Muilenburg believes
that the movement of the two main Babylonian gods, Bel and Nebo, as described
in 46:1-2, represents the experience of “one who has seen the sacred
procession” in Babylon, and Klaus Baltzer views this text as a parody of the
New Year’s Festival. Although Babylon’s akītu festival was likely well
known in all the surrounding nations and could have been the object of a
parody, it seems unlikely that Isa 46:1-2 describes this festival, for this
text does not depict the idols being joyfully paraded in a procession. Instead,
they are burdens carried into captivity, a common image in the ancient Near
East for communicating the defeat of a nation’s gods. (Gary V. Smith, “Cyrus or
Sennacherib? Historical Issues Involved in the Interpretation of Isaiah 40-55,”
in Bind Up the Testimony: Explorations in the Genesis of the Book of Isaiah,
ed. Daniel I. Block and Richard L. Schultz [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2015],
178-79)