Isaiah 40-55, 2 Volumes (review)

Hebrew Studies 50 (2009) 402 Reviews Scholars will no doubt quibble with Goldenberg’s presentation of some issues or his selection of what material to highlight. This is inevitable for a volume like this. In general, Goldenberg’s presentation is judicious in its reliance on earlier scholarship and at times highly innovative in its treatment of the issues. There are some areas that could have been expanded more profitably. For a treatment of religious phenomena in Second Temple Judaism, very little attention is paid to Hellenism (p. 69) or apocalyptic literature (pp. 78–79). Both represent dramatic turning points in the history of religious ideas and activity in Judaism. In addition, the use of Islam as the terminus ad quem for this volume is misleading. There is virtually no discussion of developments in Judaism in late antiquity outside of the mainstream rabbinic documents. In a volume that highlights so well the transformations in Judaism and its multiple streams, one would have liked to see a fuller treatment of “other” forms of Judaism in late antiquity as represented , for example, in the Hekhalot texts (p. 190) or the Aramaic Incantation Bowls. Notwithstanding these reservations, this work is a welcome entry to the library of histories of ancient Judaism and is highly recommended. Alex P. Jassen University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455 jassen@umn.edu ISAIAH 40–55, 2 VOLUMES. By John Goldingay and David Payne. ICC. Pp. Vol. 1, l + 368; Vol. 2, 381. New York: T & T Clark, 2006. Cloth, $180.00. One of the latest additions to the eminent International Critical Commentary series is this joint production of J. Goldingay and D. Payne. In the preface (pp. ix–x), the authors lay out briefly the long history of the ICC’s delay in publishing a complete commentary on the book of Isaiah, and describe the process with which they worked: Payne is primarily responsible for the textual and philological notes, while Goldingay produced the bulk of the explicitly exegetical work and the lengthy introduction. (Therefore, for the most part, interpretive decisions are discussed below as Goldingay’s, although one suspects that there is a good deal of fluidity between the authors’ respective tasks.) The two authors have succeeded, independently in their respective tasks and jointly through their interaction, in producing a detailed and ultimately quite judicious commentary on the sixteen chapters of the book of Isaiah Hebrew Studies 50 (2009) 403 Reviews normally taken to be a literary unit within this corpus. The philological and textual notes provide a nearly comprehensive overview of the most important differences in the major witnesses and of the oddities of DeuteroIsaiah ’s Hebrew. The exegetical comments explore a wide range of available interpretive options, nearly always provide sufficient and compelling reasons for the interpretive choices made, and often supply the reader with a full range of earlier, alternate interpretations. With few exceptions, Goldingay’s readings demonstrate a sound grasp on the prophetic book’s meaning, generally staying faithful to the present state of the Masoretic Text (although he frequently relies on the versions to flesh out or augment his interpretations ). Emendations are infrequent, but occur often enough to suggest that Goldingay is sensitive to the transformation any text undergoes in the process of repeated copyings and re-interpretations (nonetheless, the authors rightly eschew the idea that there is a single demonstrable Urtext to which the versions may be traced back [p. 9]). In form and in content, these volumes are a fitting addition to the ICC, and—along with H. G. M. Williamson’s recently appeared volume on chapters 1–27—are sure to provide a solid foundation for planned volumes on the remaining chapters (28– 39, 56–66). Insofar as Goldingay has laid out a compelling case that the author (and editors) responsible for Isaiah 40–55 was (/were) potentially calling both the Judahites in the Babylonian captivity and the remnant living in Judah to renewed faith in Yhwh and in the deity’s mighty acts in history to alleviate the suffering of the people, this commentary hews closely to what I take to be the modern consensus view on these middle chapters of Isaiah. Goldingay and Payne’s book is similarly representative...