Related articles
The Impact of the Exile
“How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princes among the provinces has become a vassal.” (Lam 1:1)
For the Jews, the exile was a totally shattering event. With the exile, the Jews lost everything
that identified them as a people. They lost their land, their king, their city, their temple, their religious system, and probably thought they had lost their God as well.
One of the gravest mistakes made by the nation of Judah through their history was complacency.
They had a tendency to take God's promises as unconditional. They believed that nothing could alter the
fact that they were God's people, that they would always occupy the land, that God would always dwell
in the temple, and that there would always be a son of David ruling in Jerusalem. Whatever they did,
however evil, God would always be with them and protect them against their enemies. Popular
understanding believed that the mere physical presence of the temple guaranteed their security in the
land. Several of the prophets, including Jeremiah, attempted to shake the people from this complacency,
warning them that the Day of the Lord would not be good news for them if they did not repent and
remain faithful to God.
Following the exile, a number of difficult questions would have arisen: Firstly, if Yahweh was
truly the God of Israel, why had he allowed the Babylonian gods such as Marduk to take his land, burn
his temple and deport his people? Secondly, the popular understanding was that if a nation was
victorious in war, that meant that their god was more powerful. Did the fall of Jerusalem mean that the
Babylonian gods were more powerful than Yahweh? Thirdly, was it just for Yahweh to use the
Babylonians to be his tool of judgement, when they were even more wicked than God’s people (Hab
1:5ff)?
Prophets before the exile warned the people that God will send judgement, and helped the people
come to a new understanding of their relationship with Yahweh. The coming judgement would be
because of their persistent sin and breaking of the law-code of Deuteronomy. God was actually faithfully
doing what he had promised in the covenant. The exile would act as a purging of idolatry. Slavery in a
foreign nation would serve to bring them back to God. God’s anger will eventually be turned away, and
the people will be allowed to return to the land. Is 40-66 looks forward to this time, when God will give
them a fresh start.
Context of chapters 40-66
Chapter 39 finishes with prediction given to Hezekiah of the Babylonian captivity (39:5-8). Chapters 40 - 66 are about the return from exile in Babylon, but look ahead to much more - freedom from the taskmaster of sin.
Even though this section was given by Isaiah in the time of Hezekiah, it is actually speaking about the return from the Babylonian captivity, and should be read in the light of this historical setting.
The fact that it was given over one hundred years earlier should not surprise us. One of the main points
Isaiah makes in chapters 40-48 is that God is showing that He is greater than idols because he can predict the future. He specifically predicts that King Cyrus would be the one that He would use to fulfil his purposes. If this prophecy was given with Judah already in exile, when the Babylonians were already
declining in power, and the Persians were on the rise, it would make nonsense of this point being made
by Isaiah. Even though the prophecies were given at the time of Hezekiah, the setting is during the exile
in Babylon, and the final chapters are set in the time after the return to the land.
We should note that the nation had been destroyed and the city of Jerusalem flattened. The
people were in a foreign land as a refugee people. In Babylon, they were given freedom to live in
communities, build houses and engage in trade (Ezek 1:1). They would have had the scars of the exile
with them, all having lost loved ones, friends, and seen the atrocities committed by the Babylonians.
There would have been even more temptation to idolatry for the Jews in exile. The religion of the people
was forced to go through a major change, as there was no temple, so it was no longer possible to offer
sacrifices.
The universal belief in the Near East was that a god and his people were inextricably bound
together. The god (or gods) needed the people as much as they needed him, for he needed the sacrifices
they brought him. This view is violently attacked in Ps 50:7-13. The conquest of his people meant the
conquest of their god by the god of the conqueror, and he was bound to fade away into impotence,
starved as he was by the ending of his sacrifices. This world view would have been held by many in
Israel, therefore the shock would have been great when Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed. The
people would be thinking, “The Babylonian gods must be greater than Yahweh”, and Yahweh had been
humbled in the eyes of the nations. In this part of the book, God, through the prophet Isaiah, vindicates
himself, especially in 40-48.
The second half of Isaiah is often called: 'The Book of Comfort'. It contains words of consolation for Judah set in a future day when Assyria had fallen and Babylon had destroyed Judah. It is often divided into three sections: 40-48, 49-57, 58-66, with each section ending: "There is no peace for the wicked" (48:22, 57:21), and the warning in 66:24 - (dead bodies of wicked). I prefer a different division between the second and third sections, so the first two sections are set with Israel in exile in Babylon (40-48 & 49-55), then the third section set with Israel restored to the land (56-66).
Division outline
Section I. Deliverance from Babylon through God’s servant Cyrus (40:1 - 48:22)
Section II. Salvation of Zion through God’s suffering servant (49:1 - 55:13)
Section III. The glorious restoration of Zion (56:1 - 66:24)
Related articles