The Book of Isaiah, as it now appears in our Old Testament, contains far more than can be attributed to the prophet. As a whole, the book is a rather large collection of writings that were produced by a number of different authors, some of whom were separated by relatively long periods of time. For example, Old Testament scholars have long recognized that Chapters 1–39 constitute a unit that is quite separate and distinct from Chapters 40–66.
Generally, Chapters 1–39 are attributed to the prophet Isaiah. These chapters deal primarily with Judah and Jerusalem at a time when the city was still standing and when the southern kingdom was threatened with invasion by the Assyrians. The group of chapters beginning with Chapter 40 appears to have been written from the point of view of conditions that prevailed more than a century later. In fact, the writer indicates very clearly that the Babylonian captivity has existed for a long time. He believes that the punishment is nearly complete; the time is close at hand when the captives will return to their homeland and rebuild the city of Jerusalem, which has long been in ruins.
A careful reading of each of these two groups of chapters reveals that the prophet Isaiah did not write all of the first thirty-nine chapters, nor did one person write all that is contained in Chapters 40–66. Ample evidence indicates the work of several different authors. The editors who assembled the entire collection of manuscripts placed them all under the name of Isaiah because they were quite certain of those materials that belonged to him, and putting them all together indicated their location in the sacred writings rather than precise authorship of each part.
