Isaiah (in Hebrew, Yeshayahu, "Salvation of God"), the earliest and most sublime of the four greater Hebrew prophets, was the son of Amoz (2 Kings xix, 2-20; Isaiah xxxvii, 2), and he uttered his oracles during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. The dates of his birth and death are unknown, but he lived from about 760 B.C. to about 700 B.C. He was married and had three sons—the children referred to in Isaiah viii, 18; and he appears to have resided near Jerusalem. But by most competent critics it is now held that the last twenty-seven chapters (40-66) of the book bearing his name were the work, not of the prophet, but of a later writer who is commonly styled the second or Deutero-Isaiah. In this portion of the book, Cyrus, who was not born till after 600 B.C., is mentioned by name (Isaiah, xliv, 28; xlv, i); and events which did not take place till a century after the prophet's death are referred to as happening contemporaneously with the writer's account of them. The style of these last twenty-seven chapters, also, is different, and the tone is more elevated and spiritual. Dore's ideal portrait is more suited to the second or pseudo-Isaiah, than to the real one. |
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