If there can be no
such thing as fulfilled prophecy, it becomes logically necessary to explain all
apparent fulfillments as mere vaticana ex eventu, that is, prophecies
after the event. The problem for the antisupernaturalist becomes particularly
acute in the case of the references to King Cyrus by name (44:28; 45:1). It
might be a plausible supposition that some keen political analyst living in the
early 540’s could have made a successful prediction of the eventual success of
the able young king who had already made a name for himself in Media by 550
B.C. But it is quite another thing for an author living in 700 B.C. to foresee
events 150 years in advance of their occurrence.
It is usual in this connection
to urge that the Scripture seldom predicts a future historical figure by name.
Yet it should be pointed out where the occasion calls for it, the Bible does
not hesitate to specify the names of King Josiah was, according to I Kings 13:2, foretold by a prophet of Judah back in the time of Jeroboam I (931-910),
a full three centuries before he appeared in Bethel to destroy the golden calf
and idolatrous sanctuary which Jeroboam had erected. This of course may be
explained away as a late interpolation in I Kings; but there are other
instances which cannot be so neatly disposed of. Thus Bethlehem is named by
Micah (5:2) as the birthplace of the coming Messiah seven centuries before the
birth of the Lord Jesus. This was a fact well known to the Jewish scribes in
the time of Herod the Great.
It is important to
observe that the historical situation confronting Isaiah in 690 B.C. gave ample
warrant for so unusual a sign as the prediction of Cyrus by name 150 years in
advance of the fall of Babylon. Judah had sunk to such a low ebb in matters of
religion and morals that the very honor of God demanded a total destruction of
the kingdom and a removal of the populace into exile (just as he had been
foretold or forewarned in Lev. 26 and Deut. 28). If God was going to vindicate
His holy law and honor His own promises of disciplinary chastisement, there was
no alternative but devastation and captivity. But once a people had been
carried off into exile in a distant land, there was virtually no hope that they
would ever return to their ancestral soil. Such a thing had never happened
before in history, and humanly speaking, there was no prospect that the dispersed
Judah of a future generation would ever return to the land of promise. It was
therefore altogether appropriate for God to furnish a very definite token or
sign to which sincere believers might look as an indication of their coming deliverance
and restoration to Palestine. This sign was furnished in the specifying of the
very name of their future deliverer . . . It should be pointed out that even in
the first part of Isaiah, the greatest emphasis is laid upon fulfilled prediction,
and many future events are foretold. Some of these fulfillments took place within
a few years of the prediction; e.g., the deliverance of Jerusalem from the
power of Sennacherib by sudden supernatural means (37:33-35),the defeat of
Damascus within three years by the Assyrian emperor (8:4, 7), and the
destruction of Samaria within twelve years after Isaiah foretold it (7:16). Other
events were not to take place until long after Isaiah’s death; e.g., the fall
of Babylon to the Medes and Persians (13:17), and the eventual desolation of
Babylon which should render it an uninhabited and accursed site forever (13:19,
20). Also, another long-range prediction was the coming of the glorious Light to
Galilee in a future generation (9:1, 2), which was to be fulfilled by the
ministry of Christ seven centuries later (cf. Matt. 4:15, 16).
As for a foreknowledge of the Babylonian Exile, it should be pointed out that even chapter 6, which is acknowledged by all critics to be authentically Isaianic, points forward to the utter depopulation and devastation of Judah which took place under Nebuchadnezzar. In verses 11 and 12 we read we read that God’s judgment is to be visited upon Judah “until cities be waste without inhabitant and houses without man, and the land become utterly waste, and Jehovah have removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land” (ASV). The following verse, when translated according to the indications of the context, contains a reference to the restoration of the captivity from Exile: “Yet it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten up . . .” Some interpreters have construed yāshūb (“will return”) as having the force of the adverb “again,” but such an interpretation is excluded by the appearance of the name of Isaiah’s son three verses thereafter. IT is obvious that Shear-jashub (7:3) was a name bestowed upon this child as a token of Isaiah’s faith that God would fulfill the promise of 6:13, that a remnant would return (yāshūb) . . . Isaiah 13:1 furnishes serious embarrassment to the theory of an Exilic Deutero-Isaiah. Chapter 13 contains a burden of divine judgment upon the city of Babylon, which in Isaiah’s day was a mere subject province under the Assyrian empire. Nevertheless, this opening verse states: “The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see.” This constitutes the clearest affirmation possible that the Eighty Century Isaiah foresaw the coming importance of Babylon, her devastation of Palestine and her ultimate downfall before the onslaughts of the Medes (cf. v. 17). In view of the often-repeated argument that Isaiah’s name does not appear in chapters 40-66 and that therefore he is not to be regarded as the author of predictions involving a knowledge of sixth century events, it is interesting to observe that his name is expressly affixed to this earlier chapter in which such a knowledge is most clearly implied.
It should be noted
that chapter 13 occurs in a series of burdens pronounced against foreign
nations who posed a threat to Israel (chaps. 13-23). It is quote clear that the
Eighth Century Isaiah wrote denunciations of this sort, and the language of
chapter 13 is altogether similar to that employed in the rest of the chapters
in this series. It is only in the interests of salvaging the theory of a
Deutero-Isaiah that critics have been compelled to assign a late Exilic date to
chapter 13. But as E.J. Young points out (Who Wrote Isaiah? p. 43): “If
chapter 13 be denied Isaiah, it is practically impossible to explain its
position in the prophecy. Why would a later editor ever have thought that
Isaiah had prophesied concerning Babylon?” This point is especially well taken
in view of the fact that denunciations is difficult to see why chapter 13 would
not have been placed in close proximity to these other denunciations if in
point of fact it was composed at the same time. (Gleason L. Archer, Jr., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction [Chicago:
Moody Press, 1964], 321-22, 323, 337-38)
