Book of Isaiah
In studies on the composition of prophetic literature, the larger textual layers reinterpreting earlier texts, the so-called Fortschreibungen, received much attention. It is well-known that beside these larger literary elaborations prophetic books also contain shorter explanatory interpolations, often called glosses, which intend to clarify a particular imagery of the prophecy (e.g., Isa 9:14). A systematic reading of these short annotations has been neglected, however, in studying the formation of prophetic books. The present article reconsiders the Isaiah-Memoir from this perspective.
Recent studies on the history of composition of the Book of Isaiah generally recognise the secondary character of Isa 10:16-19 in relation to the prophecy against Assyria. It is generally presupposed that these verses elaborate on the famous anti-Assyrian pericope, Isa 10:5-15. Verses 16-19 are most often dated to the seventh century when the book of Isaiah was subject to a major re-edition, the so-called Assyrian redaction, or - more rarely - to the exilic period when the entire book underwent another process of re-reading. Deriving vv. 16-19 from either the late Neo-Assyrian or the Babylonian era involves, however, several difficulties and needs to be reconsidered. While accepting the secondary character of Isa 10:16-19 on its current location, this study proposes a different interpretation and date for this text and assigns it a basically different role in the compositional process of the prophecies in its context than it has so far been proposed.
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