Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter Mattfeld" <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com>]

Isaiah 1-39, the Pre-Exilic clues

In an earlier post I argued that Isaiah chapters 1-39 is genuine and of the
8th century century BCE. We will now consider some additional clues, as I
understand them.

We need to first establish the terminal date for Isaiah's oracles (chapters
1-39). His last oracle (Isa. 39:1-8) is about Hezekiah's sons, "born to
him," who will be carried off to Babylon to serve as eunuchs in the palace
there. This is in response to Hezekiah's showing off all his treasure to the
ambassadors of  Merodach-Baladan II.  Merodach was a king of Babylon in the
period 722-710 and 703-702 BCE (cf. p. 485, notes to 2 Kings 20:12-15,
Herbert G. May & Bruce M. Metzger, The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the
Apocrypha, RSV, Oxford University Press, 1977). So, the last oracle is not
later than 702 BCE. Hezekiah's sons, "born to him," never were carried off
to Babylon, so this failed prophecy I regard as proof that this is 8th
century BCE.

Isaiah predicted Babylon would be destroyed by the Medes and Elamites (Isa.
13:17; 21:2). Babylon was indeed destroyed, but not in the manner predicted
by the Prophet. In 689 BCE Sennacherib recaptured Babylon and this time he
totally annihilated the city. He tore down to the foundations everything,
walls, buildings, shrines, ziggurats, throwing the rubble into the canals.
He then diverted the Euphrates to flow over the rubble of the city and thus
wipe Babylon from off the face of the earth (cf. 3.272, A.L. Openheim,
"Sennacherib," The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, 1962).

If  Isaiah 1-39 had been composed at some later period, the 6th century BCE
or later, why have the Prophet err so grieviously in predicting Babylon's
fall to Medes and Elamites, why not have him predict an Assyrian destruction
of the city ?  May and Metzger understand Isaiah to have been active circa
742-687 BCE (p.822, introduction to Isaiah, Oxford Annotated Bible, 1977).
As Babylon was destroyed in 689 BCE, I doubt this terminal date's validity.
Merodach's last date of reign is 702 BCE as king of Babylon, and this has
got to be the terminal date for Isaiah, so I would emend the scholar's date
to circa 742-702 BCE instead of 742-687 BCE, for Isaiah is apparently
unaware of Babylon's demise in 689 BCE. I thus understand the Prophet's
unfulfilled prophecy about Babylon's fall to Medes and Elamites to be proof
this is a genuine 8th century BCE prophecy.

Babylon remained a deserted ruin throughout the remaining years of
Sennacherib. His son and successor, Esarhaddon, restored the city in the
course of his reign (681-669 BCE).

Jeremiah, a prophet of the 6th century BCE (ca. 597-587 BCE) predicts that
Babylon will fall to the mountain nations of  Ararat, Minni, Ashkenaz and
Media (Jer. 51:27-28). Notably absent from this list of Babylon's future
destroyers is Elam. Isaiah had claimed Elam and Media would destroy Babylon,
why doesn't Jeremiah include Elam ? The answer: Elam had been destroyed in
640 BCE by Asshurbanipal as a world power when he overran that nation
destroying its capital at Susa. Elam never recovered, hence the reason
Jeremiah in 587 BCE doesn't list it as a power that will accomplish
Babylon's destruction. For me, this is evidence that Isaiah's oracle about
Babylon's fall to Elam and Media is a genuine 8th century BCE prophecy- it
reflects the current political reality, in the 8th century Elam is a world
power, in the 6th she is a "has-been".

Isaiah understands that soon, God will intervene personally and end
Assyria's oppression of Judah. He prophecizes that God will destroy the
Assyrian power in the mountains of Judah, at Jerusalem (Mt. Zion). The
Assyrian yoke will then be released from Judah's neck and the remaining
Assyrians will become slaves of forced labor to the Judaeans at Jerusalem
(Isa. 10:12, 24-27; 14:25; 30:29-33; 31:4-9). If Isaiah was a creation after
the 6th century BCE or later, why have the Prophet so grievously erring in
predicting God's destroying Assyrian power at Jerusalem and her soldiers
becoming slaves at Jerusalem ? Nowhere in Isaiah (chapters 1-39) do we have
the Prophet proclaiming that God will destroy Assyria at Nineveh, using
Medes and Chaldeans (Babylonians), as happened in 612 BCE. Isaiah
consistently sees Assyria's demise in the mountains of Judah, near
Jerusalem, not a beseiged Nineveh. The Prophet's failed prophecy is for me a
marker that he is indeed a genuine prophet of the 8th century BCE.

Isaiah predicted Tyre's fall to the Chaldeans (Isa.23:13). He also had
predicted Hezekiah's sons, born of his own body, to be carried off to
Babylon (perhaps by Chaldeans or Assyrians ?). Neither prophecy was
fulfilled. Mainland Tyre was conquered by Assyria and later a Chaldean
Babylon, but the island citadel never fell as prophecized by Isaiah and
still later Ezekiel (Ezek. 27:32, 29:18-19).

In conclusion, it is the "unfulfilled prophecies" that reflect the political
reality of Elam's power in the 8th century BCE that makes Isaiah 1-39 an 8th
century BCE creation.

All the best,

Walter

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by Heidelberg
Baden-Wurttemburg
Germany