Our literary critics have decided that this chapter was forbidden ground
to Isaiah, that, if we are to believe them, he had no connection with
this prophecy.

We are asked to believe that the author of this fifty-third chapter, the
most minute and tender prophecy concerning the Messiah's sufferings for
his people, and rejection by them, has dropped out of sight! We are
asked to believe that the name of the prophet who gave this dramatic
picture of what was to take place on Calvary seven hundred years later,
has been lost in the fog of the passing centuries! We are asked to
believe that the name of the author of the first thirty-nine chapters,
the less important part of the book, has been preserved, but oblivion
has overtaken the author of the book from the fortieth chapter to the
end.

The assumption is an affront to the intelligence of the ordinary reader
of the Bible. It is an impeachment of the honesty of the authors of the
gospels, which the unshaken faith of God's people can never concede.

The reader can now sum up the testimony of Matthew, Mark (see i. 3,
R.V.), Luke, John, and John the Baptist, all of whom with one voice
contradicts the critics. We also prefer, with these witnesses, to
discredit the men who are picking out clauses, verses and chapters here
and there, and guessing them off to authors of their own invention, who
have never been known or heard of.

It is not sufficient for the critics to say that these New Testament
authors knew better, but deferred to popular sentiment, based on
tradition. That can not satisfy our estimate of them as God's divinely