Evidence for a Preexilic Location in Judah
Since the evidence commonly cited to
support a Babylonian exile audience for Isa 40-55 is inconclusive at best, what
evidence from these chapters can we cite in support of a non-Babylonian and
non-exilic setting for these chapters?
(1) Isaiah 41:8-14 offers two hints
about the location of the prophet and his audience: First, God claims he took
Israel (“the offspring of Abraham,” v. 8) “from the far ends of the earth” (v.
9), a phrase that a prophet living in Babylon would probably not use if he was
addressing an exilic audience. Second, in 41:10, 13, 14, God encourages his
people to “fear not,” even though they are at war with some enemy (vv. 11-12).
A war setting does not coincide with any known Babylonian event while the
people were in exile. The promise in 41:12 that God will cause the enemy to
“become nothing” (יִהְי֥וּ כְאַ֛יִן, yihyû kē’ayin) and perish is
reminiscent of only one way that Judah fought: YHWH’s defeat of the Assyrian
army at Jerusalem in 701 BCE (Isa 37:36). Thus the setting here is preexilic,
and this war coincides with events happening in Jerusalem in the time of
Hezekiah.
(2) Isaiah 42:2 describes a people
“plundered and looted, all of them trapped in holes.” Since these images of war
(cf. 1 Sam 14:11) do not match any known setting from the Babylonian exile,
they must refer to some preexilic event. These circumstances match the
references to war against the destruction/ruin of Jerusalem in 51:13-14, 17-19.
This prophecy predicts that the cup of God’s judgment that Jerusalem is now consuming
will be drunk by her tormentors (51:22-23). This war could refer to Judah’s
defeat when Sennacherib conquered forty-six walled cities. The great reversal
of destinies when the enemy will drink the cup of God’s wrath (51:22-23) could
refer to the angel from God defeating the Assyrian army (385,000 troops) around
Jerusalem in 701 BCE (37:36).
(3) The future destruction of the
temple referred to in Isa 43:28 indicates that this prophecy was issued at some
time before the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in 586 BCE.
The two verbs וַאֲחַלֵּ֖ל (wa’aḥallēl), “and I will pollute,” and וְאֶתְּנָ֤ה
(wē’ettěnâ), “and I will give,” point to the future plan of God, which
requires a preexilic dating and is most naturally understood as a warning to
the people in Jerusalem.
(4) Although the defeat of Babylon and
the removal of its gods mentioned in 46:1-2 and 47:1-15 are often connected to
Cyrus’ defeat of Babylon in 539 BCE, the Cyrus Cylinder claims that Cyrus did
not destroy Babylon in that conquest; instead, he entered the city peaceably.
Therefore, this prophecy probably refers to Sennacherib’s complete leveling of
Babylon in 689 BCE, a preexilic event. This prophecy argues that Hezekiah
should not trust in an alliance with Babylon cf. 39:1-8), because God will soon
destroy that city.
(5) The lack of a specific mention of
Babylon in the eschatological messages of the prophet that predict that God
will bring people back to their land from the north and the south, the east and
the west, and even from the ends of the earth (Isa 43:5-6), also argues against
a Babylonian exilic setting. This orientation to Judah does not seem to refer
to events at the time of Cyrus, when the Judeans returned from captivity in
Babylon, but to the final restoration of God’s people when God establishes his
kingdom.
A preexilic Jerusalem/Zion is
reflected in the comment, “the destroyers and devastators will depart from you”
(49:17). This does not describe Judeans departing from some peaceful Babylonian
location. The departing of the destroyers mentioned here could refer to the
flight of the remaining Assyrian troops after 385,000 were killed at Jerusalem
(Isa 37:36).
(6) In most of Isa 40-55, the audience
is identified as Jacob/Israel (mainly in chs. 40-48) or Zion/Jerusalem (mainly
in chs. 49-55). From the very beginning, the prophet offers “comfort” to
“Jerusalem” and “my people” (40:1-2), who are to go up on a high mountain to
spread the good news to “the cities of Judah” (40:9). Newman Whybray turns
things upside down with his statement that “Jerusalem (and also ‘Zion’) is
often used by Deutero-Isaiah to designate the exiles rather than the actual
city.” The names Israel and Jacob in the titles “the God of Israel/Jacob” and
“the Holy One of Israel” (41:14, 16; 44:6; 45:15; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7 26; 52:12;
55:5) offer little help in resolving this issue. Of relevance here is
Tiemeyer’s examination of the use of “Jacob/Israel” in Isa 40-55, which “little
favours identifying Jacob-Israel with the exilic community in Babylon.” Some of
these texts in Isa 40-55 that mention Jacob and Israel lack evidence for
defining the location of the speaker or audience (40:27; 44:23), while the
contexts of others apparently point to a literal location of Jacob/Israel in
Palestine (41:8; 42:24; 43:22, 28; 44:21; 45:19; 46:3). A third group of texts
offer encouragement on the basis of God’s eschatological deeds to fearful
individuals whose geographical location is unknown (43:1, 5; 44:1-2; 46:13;
49:6). One text does refer to people in exile.
Scholars who have carried out a
similar examination of the combination of the names Jerusalem and Zion (or of
either term used alone) found in 49-55 suggest that the names can point to
people in the literal city of Jerusalem, people in exile, or people in both
locations. Even though these terms point to a place, in some texts this place
may be a theological symbol (i.e., the place of God’s presence), suggesting
that they may not refer primarily to a geographic place (40;1, 9; 44:14; 51:16,
17; 52:9), though some examples are unclear (41:27; 46:13; 51:16), while others
seem to point to a place (and people) in Judah in an eschatological setting
(51:3, 11; 52:1, 2, 7, 8, 9). Only two examples refer to a place (i.e., the
city of Jerusalem) after the exile in Babylon (44:26, 28). (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], 186-88)
