The following comes from Paulus Wyns, God is Judge: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Biblaridion Media, 2011), 125-30; he is basing his comments on James William Thirtle, Old Testament Problems: Critical Studies in the Psalms and Isaiah (London: Morgan & Scott, 1916) ( cf. Margaret Barker, "The Original Setting of the Fourth Servant Song” [2000]):
Resolving
the Cyrus Problem in Isaiah
To
suggest that Thirtle simply posits that the name “Cyrus” should be treated as
an appellative does not do justice to his proposal. He presents a methodically
researched position that demonstrates intertextual correspondence between
Isaiah 44-45 with earlier ‘Hezekiah’ prophecies; moreoever, he provides the
political motivation behind the change and offers a plausible philology for the
transformation. Firstly, Thirtle observes the unusual format of the prophecy—Cyrus
is spoken to in the present tense: “The passage is not in the form of a prediction:
it presents the king as being addressed, as one then living and present
to the prophet, just as plainly as ‘Jacob my servant’ is employed with
reference to the chosen people . . .(Thirtle, OT Problems, 245) To
understand this as prophetic prolepsis will simply not do—God (Isaiah) is
speaking to ‘His anointed’, not to someone who is still 150-200 years in the
future. Thirtle also points out the parallelism between 44 and 45:
|
Isaiah 44 |
Isaiah 45:1 |
|
11. the workmen חרשׁ (ch-r-sh) . . .
shall be ashamed together |
Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus כרשׁ (k-r-sh) . . .
[27] |
|
20. Is there not a lie in my right
hand? |
Whose right hand I have held חזק (ch-z-q) |
Thirtle
remarks that, “There is cohesion and cogency in the prophecy as a whole, as
compromising the two chapters. There is, however, not allusion, but contrast as
well. The ‘workman’ who makes idols has ‘a liar in his right hand’ (44.20); the
one whom the Lord addressed through the prophet is subject to another influence—the
Lord ‘holds his right hand’ (45.1). (Thirtle, OT Problems, 253) The
contrast is between the workmen [29] who are ashamed because their right hand trusts
in a lie (idol) and the Lord’s anointed whose right hand is strengthened by Yahweh.
The Hebrew for held or strengthened in Isa. 45:1 is a paronomasia on Hezekiah.
[30] Thirtle remarks on the absurdity of such language being applied to a
heathen king, particularly after Isaiah’s diatribe against idolaters: Cyrus
claimed to be a successor of the Babylonian kings, and acknowledged the
supremacy of Marduk, the Babylonian god, whose hand Cyrus held at the New Year ceremony.
The correspondences noted by Thirtle that demonstrate continuity with earlier
Hezekiah material are best illustrated in tabular form:
|
Isaiah 45:1 |
Hezekiah |
|
His anointed |
Hezekiah the anointed king |
|
Whose right hand I have held (חזק) |
Hezekiah (חזקיה) |
|
. . . that thou mayest know that I, the LORD< which call thee
by thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant’s sake, and
Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee,
though thou hast not known me. (vv. 3b, 4) |
Hezekiah—a prototype of the Messiah—named Immanuel before
he was even born (though thou hast not known me) He was the Prince of
peace and the Wonderful Counsellor (Isa. 9:6, 7) the branch out of
the root of Jesse (Isa. 11:1-5) |
|
. . . they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make
supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none
else, there is no God. (v. 14) |
Immanuel (God with us) |
Yahweh
will “open the double doors” for the anointed, “so that the gates will not be
shut” . . .and will “break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of
iron.” (Isa. 45:1b, 2b). The phrase occurs only in Psalm 107, a Psalm that
is intertextually linked with First Isaiah (1-39) and with Deutro-Isaiah
(40-55) because the Sitz im Leben is the right of Hezekiah :[31]
|
Isaiah 38 |
Psalm 107 |
|
10. In the prime of my life I shall go
to the gates of Sheol |
18. Their soul abhorred all manner of
good, and they drew near to the gates of death. |
|
2. Hezekiah prayed unto the Lord |
13. Then they cried out to the LORD in
their trouble . . . |
|
4-5. And the word of the LORD came to
Isaiah, saying, Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of David
your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will
add to your days fifteen years’. |
20. He sent His word and healed them,
And delivered them from their destructions. |
|
17. . . . You have lovingly delivered
my soul from the pit of corruption, For You have cast all my sins behind Your
back. |
16. For He has broken the gates of bronze, and cut the bars of
iron in two. |
|
20. The LORD was ready to save me;
Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments All the days of our
life, in the house of the LORD. |
15. Oh, that men would give thanks to
the LORD for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of
men! |
The
individual suffering of Hezekiah has a collective dimension (They cried
out . . . Ps. 107:10) as the king (the Suffering Servant) lay on his deathbed
the faithful remnant in the city fasted (Their soul abhorred all manner
of good and they drew near to the gates of death. Ps. 107:18); God heard
the nation’s distress caused by the Assyrian siege which coincidentally (sic)
coincided with the mortal illness of their king. The “breaking in pieces of the
gates of bronze and the cutting of the bars of iron” is a metaphor for the
bonds of death. Hezekiah is resurrected from his death bed and is called into
the presence of the high priest “call my servant to Eliakim the son of Hilkiah”
[32] were he is clothed with priestly garments and receives a prophetic pronouncement
about his descendant, the Messiah, who will possess the “key of the house of
David” [33] and is able to open the doors of death and “none shall shut” (Isa.
22:22; cf. Rev. 3:7). Peripeteia is the motif of the chapter—a sudden reversal
of fortunes. Shebna had been planning to replace the Davidic dynasty and had
used the illness of Hezekiah and his childlessness as an opportunity to curry
favor with the Assyrians. Shebna had established himself as a “nail in a sure
place” but his nail would be removed in that day (Isa. 22:25) and
replaced with Hezekiah’s nail. Shebna built himself an ornate tomb amongst the
kings of Judah (1 Kings 2:10; 2 Chr. 32:33) betraying his dynastic aspirations.
Instead Shebna would suffer an ignominious death and Hezekiah who was at death’s
door (with him died the Davidic dynasty) would be raised. In that day,
one “nail” would be hammed home and another “nail” would be removed—a complete
reversal of fortunes. These prophecies have nothing to do with Cyrus and the “gates”
that Yahweh will break open have nothing to do with the gates of Babylon; “.
. on this rock [34] I will build My
church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matt.
16:18).
Here
are the more lengthier footnotes from the above (others have been embedded into
the main text):
[27]
The change from חרשׁ to כרשׁ is a simple re-vocalization. With the addition of
vowels and pointing the later Masorites rendered Cyrus as כּוֹרֶשׁ (kôrêsh).
[29]
Thirtle (OT Problems, 254 fn.) notes the other places in this part of Isaiah
in which חרשׁ occurs in connection with the making of idols—ch. 40.19,20 (‘workman’);
41.7 (‘carpenter’). See also 44.11 (‘workmen’). He remarks that: “This same
word has also been impressed into significant service by translators of the New
Testament into Hebrew (including Franz Delitzsch and Isaac Salkinson), by being
made to stand for τεκτων in Mark 6.3—‘Is not this the
Carpenter?’ (See also Matt. 13.55)
[30]
Strengthened or held: חזק is the root for Hezekiah: חזקיה, “Strengthened of Yah”.
The literary device of paromoeosis and paronomasia is typical of the Hebrew
writings.
[31]
For inter-textual links between Psalm 107/Isaiah and Psalm 107/Job, see
G. Booker, Psalm Studies (Austin, Texas: Booker Publications, 1988)
[32]
Harry Whittaker (Isaiah, 249) notes the similarity between the Hebrew
phrasing in Isaiah 22:20; wəqārāʾṯî ləʿaḇdî ləʾelyāqîm ben-ḥilqiyyāhû (call my
servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah) and 1 Kings 1:32 (qirʾû-lî ləṣādôq), where
the prepositional prefix l’ is also repeated; “call to me Zadok
the priest.” Whittaker proposes that Isaiah 22:20 should be understood in the
same manner: “call my servant to Eliakim the son of Hilkiah.”
[33]
This is royal language not priestly terminology, moreover the phrases in Isaiah
22:21-23 are inter-textually linked with the Messianic Emmanuelle (God with us)
prophecy in 7:14 and 9:6-7 “government”/”father” etc regarding the throne of
David. Hezekiah acts as a proto-type of the Messiah and in Isa 22 he is clad
in priestly garments and functions as a priest-king (Melchizedek) like his
ancestor David.
[34]
The rock is a reference to Peter’s Messianic statement (You are the Christ, the
Son of the living God.) and not to Peter himself (a small stone or pebble) and
is therefore not a pronouncement on Apostolic succession. Shebna built a “habitation
for himself in a rock” (Isa 22:16) but unlike Peter, Shebna refused to accept
Yahweh’s anointed as his rock.