gument.
Not the least among these is Margalioth's observation of the numerous phrases which
appear in both parts of the book but only rarely elsewhere in Scripture. Furthermore, the
appearance of similar concepts in various parts of the book (e.g., in chs. 1-5 and 60-66, or in
chs. 7-12 and 36-39) also suggests a kind of unity which none of the theories quite succeeds in
explaining. 12 But perhaps the most compelling argument for the compositional unity of the
book is based on its thought structure. The unity of thought which runs through the book has
been largely ignored in recent years, because of the attempt to isolate the supposed
component parts. Each part has been exegeted by itself without reference to its larger literary
context. But unless one assumes that the process of the formation of Isaiah was completely
random or was controlled by societal reasons unrelated to the actual statements of the book,
this is an unreasonable way to proceed. Without automatically assuming that one writer sat
down and started writing at 1:1 and worked straight through to 66:24, one may still logically
expect that there were reasons for putting one set of ideas in conjunction with another that
were more significant than mere word association (to which some scholars resort to explain
why one statement followed another). In fact, whoever assembled the book and however it was
assembled, there is an observable structure about its thought that explains the power of the
book and without which the book becomes little more than a collection of sayings put together
for no apparent reason.
While the following suggestions are not the only way to understand the thought of the book,
they have not been imposed from the outside but emerge from an inductive study. As such
they reflect a unity of thought that argues against the book's having been composed out of
diverse materials which were then exposed to a complex redactional process extending over
hundreds of years (esp. since there is no external evidence that such a process ever existed).
Since the structure of the book will be discussed in detail later in the Introduction, it will suffice
here merely to sketch the outlines in order to convey the sense of the point being made. The
central theme of the book relates to the nature and destiny of the people of God. While this
people is, on the one hand, destroyed and corrupted (ch. 1), it is called to be a manifestation of
the glory of the only God in the world (2:1-5). This calling may be summed up in the word
servanthood. The book then seeks to answer the question: How can a sinful, corrupt people
become the servants of God? This theme is developed in the following way: Chs.
