Perhaps it was the capacity for reinvention that kept the flame burning in those early days, because plenty more change was to come. All empires fall, after all, and in 539BCE the Babylonians were smashed like a ripe avocado by the mighty Persian King Cyrus (at last an name that’s easy to spell), who made good on his promise to repatriate their captives. The belligerent prophet, or school of prophets, whose words are recorded in the second half of the book ‘Isaiah’ was/were impressed, as far as he/they were concerned Cyrus, whose empire was the largest and most powerful the world had ever seen, was sent by none other than Yahweh. He was, despite his manifest wickedness, the ‘Messiah’ a word meaning ‘promised deliverer’. And it was the mighty Yahweh who directed him.
It wasn’t until some time in the fourth century BCE that what we now think of as the book of Isaiah was compiled. The texts that go to make up the book vary in age by around two hundred years, beginning with the recorded account of the ecstatic, mystical vision of the original Isaiah, a prophet and leading figure in the society of his pre-exilic time. He was a contemporary of the likes of Amos and Micah, prophets better known for their outcries against injustice, and his own world view was influenced by them. “Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” he demanded.
Later parts of the contemporary book of Isaiah were written after the death of the original prophet, using the works of his disciples, those who might have been considered in the ‘school’ of Isaiah, writing both in Babylon, and after their eventual return to Judah. The whole book is important for various reasons, but particularly because of its recurring themes of salvation and the messiah, motifs which would become deeply meaningful a few hundred years later.
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