No prophet of the Old Testament ever reached loftier heights in his understanding of religion than did Deutero-Isaiah. In his conception of Yahweh as the creator of the heavens and the earth, he made a sharp distinction between Yahweh and the deities of foreign nations. Yahweh was the presence on which all existence depended; he could not be adequately conceived as like any of the objects in the created universe. Although Deutero-Isaiah speaks of Yahweh as a person — if the deity is to have any meaning for human beings, it must be conceived in terms that have been drawn from experience, and personality is the most appropriate symbol that can be found — Yahweh does not have a human personality in every respect, but only in some of them.
Deutero-Isaiah's interpretation of history recognizes that the course of events is something more than a chaotic sequence without meaning or order. A divine element, as well as a human element, exists in history; a purpose is achieved through the historical process, which is what Deutero-Isaiah means when he declares that Yahweh knows the end from the beginning. Deutero-Isaiah's predictions do not imply that all of the things that happen are known in advance, nor do they imply that human beings cannot alter the course of events by the choices they make. Deutero-Isaiah's greatest achievement is his development of the idea of vicarious suffering. Although he was speaking primarily about the suffering of his own people, we must not think that he was attempting to give a historical account of the way only they were responding to their misfortunes. Rather, he was setting forth an ideal that, if followed, would throw new light on the question of unmerited suffering. People would realize that the situation in which they were placed provided an opportunity for them to exhibit to foreign nations the true spirit of their religion. Like the other prophets before him, Deutero-Isaiah never doubted that the divine purpose ultimately would be achieved, but the method by which it would be accomplished was something quite different from what was previously conceived. Vicarious suffering was an idea of great significance, and although it seems to have been too lofty an ideal for the majority of the people either to grasp or to follow, some individuals believed its truth. Through the centuries that followed, many occasions exemplified this ideal. Christians have long recognized that the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth are supreme examples of what Deutero-Isaiah proclaimed to his contemporary exiles in Babylon.
