[239] The question whether this is the land of China is still an open one. The possibility of intercourse between China and Babylon is more than proved. But that there were Jews in China by this time (though they seem to have found their way there by the beginning of the Christian era) is extremely unlikely. Moreover, the possibility of such a name as Sinim for the inhabitants of China at that date has not been proved. No other claimants for the name, however, have made good their case. But we need not enter further into the question. The whole matter is fully discussed in Canon Cheyne's excursus, and by him and Terrien de Lacouperie in the _Babylonian and Oriental Record_ for 1886-87. See especially the number for September 1887. [240] His _humbled_, _His poor_ in the exilic sense of the word. See _Isaiah i.-xxxix._, pp. 432 ff. [241] On the "Motherhood of God" cf. _Isaiah i.-xxxix._, p. 245 ff. [242] For צדיק, the _righteous_ or _just_, which is in the text, the Syr., Vulg., Ewald, and others read עריץ, as in the following verse, _terrible_ or _terribly strong_. Dillmann, however (5th ed., 1890, p. 438), retains צדיק takes the terms _mighty_ and _just_ as used of God, and reads the question, not as a question of despair uttered by the people, but as a triumphant challenge of the prophet or of God Himself. He would then make the next verse run thus: _Nay, for the captives of the mighty may be taken, and the prey of the delivered, but with him who strives with thee I will strive._ [243] The English version, _Where is the bill_, is incorrect. The phrase is the same as in lxvi. ver. 1, _What is this house that ye build for Me? what is this place for My rest?_ It implies a house already built; and so in the text above _What is this bill of divorce_ implies one already thought of by the minds of the persons addressed by the question. [244] _Cf._ p. 221. Dillmann's view that _righteousness_ means here personal character is contradicted by the whole context, which makes it plain that it is something external, the realisation of which those addressed are doubting. What troubles them is not that they are personally unrighteous, but that they are so few and insignificant. And what God promises them in answer is something external, the establishment of Zion. _Cf._ also the external meaning of _righteousness_ in vv. 5, 6. [245] _Isaiah. i.-xxxix._, p. 441. [246] _Cf._ p. 315. CHAPTER XXII. _ON THE EVE OF RETURN._ ISAIAH liv.-lvi. 8. One of the difficult problems of our prophecy is the relation and grouping of chs. liv.-lix. It is among them that the unity of "Second Isaiah," which up to this point we have seen no reason to doubt, gives way. Ch. lvi. 9-lvii. is evidently pre-exilic, and so is ch. lix. But in chs. liv., lv., and lvi. 1-8 we have three addresses, evidently dating from the Eve of the Return. We shall, therefore, treat them together.