THE SECOND ISAIAH: Prophet of Captivity
By Lee Cook

    The second Isaiah, a prophet who lived during the Babylonian captivity, was a great Hebrew and a daring teacher. He was a truly inspired prophet. As usual, the priests and scribes resented the introduction of any new and expanded concept of the Universal Father. They did not appreciate any attempt by a young upstart to improve their established beliefs and practices, no matter how lofty and sublime his pronouncements. So the younger Isaiah was surely a thorn in the sides of the Jewish priests and scribes. But in spite of their opposition, he got his message across, and very eloquently.

    It was during the Babylonian captivity that the Jewish priests and scribes rewrote their entire history. Their nation had fallen before the armies of Babylon. Their national god had suffered from the international preachments of the spiritual leaders. They greatly resented the loss of their national god and this led them to go to considerable lengths to invent numerous fables and miraculous events in an effort to restore the Jews as the chosen people. Their paramount objective in writing this fictitious history was the “rehabilitation of the Jewish nation, the glorification of Hebrew traditions, and the exaltation of their racial history.”

    Following the Babylonian captivity, the Jewish priesthood made liberal use of their fictitious history. And even during the captivity, they could have exercised considerably more influence over their fellow captives had it not been for the presence of the second Isaiah, the young and determined prophet who was not to be deterred from his appointed task of greatly expanding the Jews‘ concept of the Universal Father.

    The second Isaiah was a “full convert to the elder Isaiah’s God of justice, love, righteousness, and mercy. He also believed with Jeremiah that Yahweh had become the God of all nations. He preached these theories of God with such telling effect that he made converts equally among the Jews and their captors.”

    The young prophet left his teachings on record, “which the hostile and unforgiving priests sought to divorce from all association with him, although sheer respect for their beauty and grandeur led to their incorporation among the writings of the earlier Isaiah.” They buried his writings among those of the elder Isaiah and can be read in chapters forty to fifty-five inclusive. It appears that some changes may have been made in his writings subsequent to his death.

    “No prophet or religious teacher from Machiventa [Melchizedek] to the time of Jesus attained the high concept of God that Isaiah the second proclaimed during these days of captivity. It was no small, anthropomorphic, man-made God that this spiritual leader proclaimed:

    Behold he takes up the isles as a very little thing.

    And as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

    At last Machiventa Melchizedek beheld human teachers proclaiming a real God to mortal man. Like Isaiah the first, this leader preached a God of universal creation and upholding.”

    I have made the earth and put man upon it. I have created it not in vain; I formed it to be inhabited.

    I am the first and the last; there is no God beside me.

    “Speaking for the Lord God of Israel, this new prophet said:”

    The heavens may vanish and the earth wax old, but my righteousness shall endure forever and my salvation from generation to generation.

    Fear you not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.

    There is no God beside me--a just God and a Savior.

    “And it comforted the Jewish captives, as it has thousands upon thousands ever since, to hear such words as:”

    Thus says the Lord, “I have created you, I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine.”

    When you pass through the waters, I will be with you since you are precious in my sight. Can a woman forget her suckling child that she should not have compassion on her son? Yes, she may forget, yet will I not forget my children, for behold I have graven them upon the palms of my hand; I have even covered them with the shadow of my hands.

    Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

    “Listen again to the gospel of this revelation of the God of Salem:”

    He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom. He gives power to the faint, and to those who have no might he increases strength. Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

    “This Isaiah conducted a far-flung propaganda of the gospel of the enlarging concept of a supreme Yahweh. He vied with Moses in the eloquence with which he portrayed the Lord God of Israel as the Universal Creator. He was poetic in his portrayal of the infinite attributes of the Universal Father. No more beautiful pronouncements about the heavenly Father have ever been made. Like the Psalms, the writings of Isaiah are among the most sublime and true presentations of the spiritual concept of God ever to greet the ears of mortal man prior to the arrival of Michael [Jesus] on Urantia [earth]. Listen to his portrayal of Deity:”

    I am the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity.

    I am the first and the last, and beside me there is no other God.

    And the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear.

    “And it was a new doctrine in Jewry when this benign but commanding prophet persisted in the preachment of divine constancy, God’s faithfulness.” He declared that:

    God would not forget, would not forsake.

    “This daring teacher proclaimed that man was very closely related to God, saying:”

    Every one who is called by my name I have created for my glory, and they shall show forth my praise. I, even I, am he who blots out their transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember their sins.

    “Hear this great Hebrew demolish the concept of a national God while in glory he proclaims the divinity of the Universal Father, of whom he says:”

    The heavens are my throne, and the earth is my footstool.

    “And Isaiah’s God was none the less holy, majestic, just, and unsearchable. The concept of the angry, vengeful, and jealous Yahweh of the desert Bedouins has almost vanished. A new concept of the supreme and universal Yahweh has appeared in the mind of mortal man, never to be lost to human view. The realization of the divine justice has begun the destruction of primitive magic and biologic fear. At last, man is introduced to a universe of law and order and to a universal God of dependable and final attributes.”

    “And this preacher of a supernal God never ceased to proclaim this God of love:”

    I dwell in the high and holy place, also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit.

    “And still further words of comfort did this great teacher speak to his contemporaries:”

    And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your soul. You shall be like a watered garden and like a spring whose waters fail not. And if the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a defense against him.

    “And once again did the fear-destroying gospel of Melchizedek and the trust-breeding religion of Salem shine forth for the blessing of mankind.”

    “The farseeing and courageous Isaiah effectively eclipsed the nationalistic Yahweh by his sublime portraiture of the majesty and universal omnipotence of the supreme Yahweh, God of love, ruler of the universe, and affectionate Father of all mankind. Ever since those eventful days the highest God concept in the Occident has embraced universal justice, divine mercy, and eternal righteousness. In superb language and with matchless grace this great teacher portrayed the all-powerful Creator as the all-loving Father.”

    “This prophet of the captivity preached to his people and to those of many nations as they listened by the river in Babylon. And this second Isaiah did much to counteract the many wrong and racially egoistic concepts of the mission of the promised Messiah. But in this effort he was not wholly successful. Had the priests not dedicated themselves to the work of building up a misconceived nationalism, the teachings of the two Isaiahs would have prepared the way for the recognition and reception of the promised Messiah.” [97:7]

    In view of the second Isaiah’s momentous and permanent contribution to the enlarging concept of the Universal Father, we can hope he was permitted to die of natural causes. The occupation of prophet and teacher among the Jews of those days was a hazardous undertaking. All too many of them were stoned to death or put to death in various other ways.

    Paper 139 presents a brief biography of each of the twelve Apostles, including the method of their death:

    Andrew, Philip, and Peter were crucified. On the day that Peter was crucified in A.D.67, his wife was thrown to the wild beasts in the arena at Rome.

    James was put to death by the sword. Matthew and Thomas were also put to death, although we are not told by what method.

    James and Judas Alpheus, John Zebedee, Nathaniel, and Simon Zelotes died of natural causes. Nathaniel died in India and Simon Zelotes died in Africa.

    Judas Iscariot committed suicide. [The authors of Part IV provide a detailed analysis of why Judas betrayed Jesus. His decision to betray Jesus did not occur overnight. Over a period of time his frustration and resentment developed to the point that he was willing to betray Jesus. In addition to Paper 139:12, see 177:4; 179:4; 183:2,3; 186:1; 193:4]

    Said Jesus in his last Temple discourse: My Father has sent you the wise men and the prophets; some you have persecuted and others you have killed.

    He also warned them of the catastrophic events to come: Do you not comprehend that a terrible day of reckoning will come when the Judge of all the earth shall require of this people an accounting for the way they have rejected, persecuted, and destroyed these messengers of heaven? Do you not understand that you must account for all of this righteous blood, from the first prophet killed down to the times of Zechariah, who was slain between the sanctuary and the altar? And if you go on in your evil ways, this accounting may be required of this very generation. [175:1:22]

Note: The Melchizedeks are the second most high-ranking Sons of God in our local universe of Nebadon. It was Machiventa Melchizedek, the Sage of Salem, who volunteered to come to earth in 1973 B.C. to keep alive on earth the truth of the one God and to prepare the way for the subsequent mortal bestowal of a Paradise Son of that Universal Father:” Jesus of Nazareth. Melchizedek lived on earth 94 years. [Genesis 14:18ff]  [Paper 35:1,2 and Paper 93]