The book of Isaiah is a crucial foundation for both Jewish and Christian theology. No OldTestament book is quoted as frequently by New Testament writers. Its content is broad andsweeping. Its focus is Jewish, specifically on the Southern Kingdom, but its words also cover almost the entire known world. As Andrew Hill and John Walton write, “Some of the richestHebrew literature known is found here as well as a bold and forthright presentation of thetrustworthiness and sovereign power of the God of Israel.”

The book of Isaiah provides the most significant contribution of all Old Testament prophetic writings. The Hebrew Old Testament lists it as the first and primary of the propheticwritings. Its importance is based upon the breadth of its focus. Isaiah focuses on Israel’s presentsituation, the future exile community, and the predictive future of the Messiah’s appearance.Because it is a collection of prophecies, most of which are difficult to date, it can be a dauntingtask to bring some semblance of theological organization and application for the modern dayreader. The passage of focus in this essay, Isaiah 14:3-23, is no exception.Although its theological importance really cannot be overstated, Isaiah is also the center of great controversy and debate. Most of this controversy centers around two issues, the unity of composition and predictive prophecy. Both of these issues drive to heart of the reliability andapplicability of this book. Any attempt to exegete Isaiah must make certain conclusionsregarding these issues. Although they do not directly affect the passage of Scripture that thisessay focuses on, they never the less do affect the overall authority of the book.The very first verse of Isaiah sates that the author is Isaiah the son of Amoz. This verseseems to imply that the following writings are the visions that Isaiah received from God. In 2:1;

Andrew E. Hill and John H. Walton,

A Survey of the Old Testament

,(Grand Rapids:Zondervan, 2000), 415.1

27:3; 13:1; 20:2; 37:6, 21; and 38:1 the authorship of Isaiah is reaffirmed. It is in this area that thefirst challenge to Isaiah’s authorship is found. The most widely held critical hypothesesconcerning the authorship of Isaiah is that large portions of the book were not written by thenamed author.This theory, first developed in the modern period by J.C. Doderlein, steadily gainedground during the nineteenth century until it was developed into its classical form byDuhm in his commentary of 1892. According to Duhm, not only are the three major division of Isaiah to be ascribed to authors of three different historical periods, so that ithas become customary to speak of Proto-, Deutero-, and Trito-Isaiah (chapters 1-39, 40-55, and 56-66 respectively), but even within these major divisions later material is also to be separated out.

The reasons for this critical hypotheses center on two issues. One is the significant change in theliterary style in chapters 40 -66. As Walton and Hill state,Even a casual reading of the book of Isaiah in English we can detect a major shiftoccurring at chapter 40. The style becomes more poetic and theoretical. The tone becomes conciliatory rather than condemning. Indictment and judgment oracles thatmake up a large part of the first thirty-nine chapters become much rarer. The historicalsituation seems to have changed dramatically.

Even more recent computer analysis of the writing style supports the view that multiple authorswrote the book.

But for as many arguments that exist for supporting multiple authorship, thereseem to be just as many arguments against it. The most compelling of all reason for singleauthorship is the striking unity of composition. One example of this is the title “the Holy of Oneof Israel” which appears twelve times in chapters 1-39 and fourteen times in chapters 40-66. Yetelsewhere in the entire Old Testament this title is only used four times (Ps. 71:22; 89:18 and Jer.50:29; 51:5). As Gleason Archer writes,

H. G. M. Williamson,

The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah’s Role in Compositionand Redaction

, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 1-2.

Hill and Walton, 416.

John N. Oswalt,

The New International Commentary on the Old Testament: The Book of Isaiah 1-39

,(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986), 26.

3Thus it furnishes very strong evidence of the unity of the entire production. The onlyalternative possible to advocates of the Deutero-Isaiah theory is to assert that theunknown prophet or prophets who contributed to chapters 40-66 were so dominated bythe influence and message of the eighth-century Isaiah that they felt constrained toemploy his favorite title of God with even greater frequency than he did himself…Conservative scholars have pointed out at least forty or fifty sentences or phrases whichappear in both parts of Isaiah, and indicate its common authorship.

Another compelling evidence for unity of composition is the present form of the book. If themultiple author view is correct, it is very difficult to explain how all the portions ended upexisting as one unity.

In addition, there are no outside historical evidences to support a multipleauthor view. Only internal literary criticism can account for multiple authors.The second primary reason for the Proto-, Deutero-, and Trito-Isaiah view is the changein audience from the present to the future. This issue also directly affects the dating of the book.It is certainly unique among other Old Testament literature. S. R. Driver states that,In the present prophecy there is no prediction of exile: the exile is not announced assomething still future; it is presupposed, and only the release from it is predicted. Byanalogy, therefore, [that is, with Jeremiah and Ezekiel] the author will have lived in thesituation which he thus presuppose, and to which he continually alludes.

Even Oswalt, who is strong supporter of Proto-Isaiah, acknowledges, “that the other prophets,while predicting the future, do not seem to address their words to people in the future as seems to be the case with chs. 40-55 (550 B.C., some 150 years later than Isaiah) and chs. 56-66 (500B.C.? some 200 years later than Isaiah).”

But a greater issue appears to be at the foundation of this argument. The issue of predictive prophecy provides a fairly clear division betweenconservative and liberal thought on this issue. Although Professor Williamson in his book on

Gleason L. Archer,

A Survey of Old Testament Introduction

,(Chicago: Moody, 1994),382.

Oswalt, 19.

Williamson, 3.

Oswalt, 23-24.