UNIVERSALISM IN SECOND ISAIAH1

Abstract

In 1965 I published what was intended to be a semi-popular article on 'The Missionary Message of Second Isaiah'. This reflected the consensus view at that time that the great prophet of the exile not only proclaimed an explicit monotheism, but also discerned as a corollary the vision that YHWH must be the God not of Israel alone but of all mankind, and that Israel was called to be YHWH's witness to the world. Dissentient views had already been expressed by Snaith and de Boer, of which that article took brief notice, but as late as the end of the last decade Wodecki could write in a similar vein without showing any awareness that there was a contrary opinion. In 1967, however, appeared SVT 14, containing two substantial studies by Orlinsky and Snaith, both of which seriously challenged the concept of Second Isaiah as a universalist, and in their wake came the Commentary (1975) and Study Guide (1983) of Whybray. Whybray's contribution was significant in two respects. In the first place, by writing a com mentary on the whole of Isa. 40-66, he submitted himself to the discipline of coming to terms with all the passages in Second Isaiah, including those most amenable to a universalist interpreta tion, and of presenting an alternative exegesis of these passages. In the second place, his Study Guide alerts beginners to the serious study of this prophet to the fact that this is a disputed question, and Whybray can hardly be blamed for presenting his own conviction that the universalist interpretation is mistaken. Many others have contributed to the scholarly debate over this question, and a select bibliography is provided at the end of this article.2 It is neither practicable nor necessary to consider every contribution in detail, nor even to review the overall position of each writer. The purpose of this article is rather to attempt to narrow the difference between the opposing sides in the debate by drawing attention to an unexpected amount of common ground, and then to scrutinize the exegesis offered by the opponents of universalism in Second Isaiah of the crucial remaining passages to determine whether it is convincing.