The materials for an exact history of the return from Exile do not exist in our Bibles; the accounts found in Ezra and Nehemiah raise questions which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. The Prophets who had foretold the destruction of the kingdom of Judah had never been able to rest in the thought that this was the final chapter in Jehovah's dealings with His people, and their faith forced them to peer through this impending disaster and dimly discern a purpose yet to be disclosed. This is often pictured in merely general terms, but in Jeremiah and Ezekiel these hopes issued in the definite prophecy of the restoration of the Jews to their own land within a certain period. When political changes brought this on the horizon of possibility, the times wakened the "voice of one crying in the wilderness," in some respects the most wonderful of all that noble band we have been studying. The name of this herald has not been preserved, but he is known to criticism as the Second Isaiah. This does not of course mean that he bore that name, but it is a convenient designation for the writings that occupy the second half of the work included under the name of Isaiah. The separation of chapters xl.-lxvi. from those which precede, as from different hands, is one of the most universally accepted results of criticism. The preceding chapters end with a historic survey of events that happened in the lifetime of the great Isaiah of Jerusalem, and then suddenly the whole outlook and atmosphere change. Critics claim that the test of language and style is itself decisive, but while this must remain a question on which only Hebrew experts are qualified to pronounce, the difference of theological ideas, and the change of situation cannot be missed by any attentive English reader. Indeed that the situation has changed is a fact which has never been challenged. From chapter xl., the audience addressed consists no longer of the proud and scornful peoples of the time of Hezekiah, but of penitent captives far from their native land some 150 years later; the accepted explanation used to be that Isaiah transported himself to this later time by a miracle of prophetic inspiration. But there is really only one adducible reason for attributing this prophecy to Isaiah: it is bound up with the book that bears his name as the title. This reason is of little value when we admit our ignorance of the method by which the Old Testament was finally edited, and when the internal evidence entirely contradicts the traditional theory. For it must be borne in mind that the explanation that this is due to a prophetic transportation is only a hypothesis framed to fit the conditions, and has no claim to acceptance if there can be found one that does equal justice to the facts without appealing to such an unusual method. Moreover, the hypothesis of prediction does not fit the facts, for while some parts of the prophecy have predictive form, others have not.