XIX. PROPHET AND MARTYR 313 ISAIAH xlix. 1-9; l, 4-11.
XX. THE SUFFERING SERVANT 336 ISAIAH lii. 13-liii.
XXI. DOUBTS IN THE WAY 381 ISAIAH xlix.-lii. 12.
XXII. ON THE EVE OF RETURN 397 ISAIAH liv.-lvi. 8.
XXIII. THE REKINDLING OF THE CIVIC CONSCIENCE 408 ISAIAH lvi. 9-lix.
XXIV. SALVATION IN SIGHT 428 ISAIAH lx.-lxiii. 7.
XXV. A LAST INTERCESSION AND THE JUDGEMENT 445 ISAIAH lxiii. 7-lxvi.
721. Fall of Samaria. Captivity of Northern Israel.
701. Deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib.
696?-641. Reign of Manasseh. Supposed time of Isaiah's death.
629 or 628. Jeremiah called to be a prophet.
607. Fall of Nineveh and Assyria. Babylon supreme.
599-598. Siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar. First Captivity of the Jews.
594. Ezekiel begins to prophesy in Chaldea.
587. Destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar. Second Captivity of the Jews. Flight of many Jews with Jeremiah to Egypt.
585. Battle of the Eclipse. Triple League: Babylon, Media, Lydia.
561. Nebuchadrezzar dies. Evil-Merodach succeeds.
554. Nabunahid or Nabonidos usurps the throne of Babylon. Harder times for the Jews.
549. Fall of Median monarchy before Cyrus.
545. Cyrus attacks Babylonia from the north, and is repulsed. Invades Lydia, and takes Sardis and King Crœsus.
Permission to the Jews to return and rebuild Jerusalem. Zerubbabel, Joshua.
401. Revolt and defeat of Cyrus. The Anabasis. #/
This volume upon Isaiah xl.-lxvi. carries on the exposition of the Book of Isaiah from the point reached by the author's previous volume in the same series. But as it accepts these twenty-seven chapters, upon their own testimony, as a separate prophecy from a century and a half later than Isaiah himself, in a style and on subjects not altogether the same as his, and as it accordingly pursues a somewhat different method of exposition from the previous volume, a few words of introduction are again necessary.
The greater part of Isaiah i.-xxxix. was addressed to a nation upon their own soil,--with their temple, their king, their statesmen, their tribunals and their markets,--responsible for the discharge of justice and social reform, for the conduct of foreign policies and the defence of the fatherland. But chs. xl.-lxvi. came to a people wholly in exile, and partly in servitude, with no civic life and few social responsibilities: a people in the passive state, with occasion for the exercise of almost no qualities save those of penitence and patience, of memory and hope. This difference between the two parts of the Book is summed up in their respective uses of the word _Righteousness_. In Isaiah i.-xxxix., or at least in such of these chapters as refer to Isaiah's own day, righteousness is man's moral and religious duty, in its contents of piety, purity, justice and social service. In Isaiah xl.-lxvi. righteousness (except in a very few cases) is something which the people expect from God--their historical vindication by His restoral and reinstatement of them as His people.