Dating Prophetic Texts: Isaiah 10:5-12:6 as a Test Case

In an essay entitled “Dating Prophetic Texts” (HS 48 [2007] 55-73), Marvin Sweeney treats formal characteristics, historical allusions, and intertextual citations or allusions as joint criteria for dating prophetic texts. His first example: Isaiah 10:5-12:6.

Sweeney is the first to admit that this text block is layered, but he contends that the interpreter’s first obligation is to the text as it stands. He summarizes a case he makes elsewhere for construing the entire unit as a prophetic manifesto of the Josianic restoration. The chief clues in the text that point in this direction are the following:

(1) The rise of a new monarch (11:1-9) is presented as the occasion for a restoration in which the king and his capital will once again be honored by surrounding nations, the territory repopulated by an influx of past waves of refugees, a united front created in a greater Israel made up of Judah and Ephraim such that it will be possible to pacify and dominate Israel’s immediate neighbors (11:10-14). In conjunction with the rise of a new monarch, the breaking of the yoke of Assyrian hegemony is predicted (10:24-27). All of this speaks directly to the concerns and hopes of the people of Jerusalem and Judah at the time of King Josiah’s accession to the throne.

(2) The portrayal of the new Davidic monarch as a young boy or baby in Isa 11:6, 8 suggests a Josian setting. Josiah came to the throne at the age of eight.

(3) 11:15-16 predicts the defeat of both Egypt and Assyria. This fits the situation during King Josiah’s reign, in which Egypt and Assyria were allies opposed to a breakup of the joint control they exercised over their neighbors. It does not fit the reign of Hezekiah, which allied itself with Egypt against Assyria. Isa 12:1-6 with its allusions to the exodus from Egypt ties in nicely with similar allusions in 10:24-26 and 11:15-16. Deliverance from Assyria is described or alluded to according to the precedent of deliverance from Egypt. One can well imagine that in the days of Josiah, who made the celebration of Passover a key feature of his program, remembrance of deliverance from Egypt might serve to reinforce the hope of a repeat, this time from Egypt and Assyria.

Isa 11:1-16 and 12:1-6 are sometimes dated to the exilic/post-exilic period, but there are no compelling reasons to do so. The details referred to above point in the direction of an earlier date. The hopes the text block embodies were realistic in the days of Josiah, but not thereafter.

Sweeney also seeks to identify the building blocks that went into the construction of the larger unit. He makes a number of compelling suggestions. He persuasively associates the boasts of Isa 10:8-11 with Sargon II, and suggests that the one who menacingly shakes his hand at Jerusalem from Mount Nob (10:27end-34)[1] is this same Assyrian king, who traveled, ex hypothesi, from northern Israel, and as is in fact known, through Judah, and on to Philistia where he went on to defeat the Egyptians at Raphia (720 bce). Passing through, Sargon II subdues Judah (Sargon claims he did so in a description of the 720 campaign). The wording of Isa 10:6-12, 27end-32 suggests that Sargon threatened to attack and make a full end of Jerusalem. Isa 10:33-34 amount to a counter-threat on the part of YHWH. Should the Assyrian king attack Zion, he will be brought low.

Sweeney associates Isa 10:16-19 with judgment upon Assyria. It no doubt is so intended from the standpoint of the Josianic redaction, but I concur with J. J. M. Roberts that 10:16-19 reads most naturally as judgment upon northern Israel. That would make 10:16-19 the conclusion to 9:7-10:4. 10:20-23+24-27 is best understood as elaboration on 10:16-19 in its original sense, applied to northern Israel. 10:16-19+21-23 may have once constituted the conclusion to 9:7-10:4. As Roberts points out, 10:20-23 is addressed to northern Israel; 10:24-27, on the other hand, to Zion.[2] Reasons for understanding Isa 11:1-12:6 as prophecy in the service of the Josianic restoration were outlined above.

As Sweeney has it, Isa 10:5-12:5 amounts to the announcement of a royal savior. In the shadow of Assyria’s loss of hegemony (viewed as punishment for imperial overreach in fulfillment of Isa 10:12b), and under the aegis of a son of Jesse, Judah and Israel will be reunited, Philistia, Edom, Moab, and Ammon subjugated, and exiled populations located in Assyria and Egypt ingathered. The unit packs unrivalled punch if read in the context of the Josianic restoration. The suggestion that the specifics and the announcement itself are the product of a historical novelist of the Persian period (Otto Kaiser) cannot be ruled out, but has nothing to commend it.

In short, it makes sense to date Isa 10:5-12:6 “as is” to the reign of Josiah, in connection, perhaps, to his accession to the throne. The thesis of a Josianic edition of Isa 1-39* is a powerful one, and will, I’m sure, continue to be explored by scholars in the future.

The original nucleus of Isa 10:5-12:6, 10:5-15, 27end-34, is best dated to the reign of Hezekiah, on the occasion of Sargon II’s march to do battle against the Egyptians in 720 bce. In forthcoming posts, I will introduce and present Isaiah 10:5-15, 27end-34.

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[1] Mount Nob is to be identified with Mount Scopus, the location of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

[2] See the notes to Isaiah provided by Roberts in the HarperCollins Study Bible (gen. ed., Wayne Meeks; New York: HarperCollins, 1993).