The "New Exodus" Theme in Isaiah 40-55

    The prophet who authored chapters 40-55 pictured the exiles' return from Babylon as a "new exodus," a repetition of God's salvation of the people from their slavery in Egypt. So in 51:9-11 the prophet declares:

  Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces,
    who pierced the dragon?
  Was it not you who dried up the sea,
    the waters of the great deep;
  who made the depths of the sea a way
    for the redeemed to cross over?
  So the ransomed of the LORD shall return,
    and come to Zion with singing . . .

The similarity between the two events is fairly obvious. In both situations Israel is held in a foreign country and is not free to leave. In both situations God intervenes and forces Israel's oppressors to release them. Moreover, in both situations the Israelites struggle to trust that God will really save them. In the Exodus story, the people lose hope on the shore of the Red Sea and ask Moses "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?" (Exod. 14:11). This makes the Exodus an excellent analogy for Second Isaiah's purposes. For he sees the Judean exiles, too, as standing on the threshold of their path out of Babylon, but struggling to believe that God will actually intervene and make their escape possible. The author's message to the exilic community is that God is both able and willing to set them free, and that he has in fact done just this sort of thing before.
    This, it seems, is why Second Isaiah alludes in several places to the way in which God provided miraculously for the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai. In 41:17-18 the prophet, speaking for God, says:

  When the poor and needy seek water,
    and there is none,
    and their tongue is parched with thirst,
  I the LORD will answer them,
    I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
  I will open rivers on the bare heights,
    and fountains in the midst of the valleys;
  I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
    and the dry land springs of water.

The prophet here is emphasizing that just as God has provided for Israel in the past, he will provide for the exiles now. Just as the people were forced to cross a barren, parched wilderness on their way from Egypt to Canaan, so the returnees from Babylon will have to pass through the arid region which lies between Mesopotamia and the more fertile area of the Levant. Yet, the prophet urges, God displayed in the first Exodus his ability to care for his people in such a desert. Now he will do the same for those who are willing to follow him back to Jerusalem.
    The one other place in Isaiah which employs this kind of Exodus imagery is 35:5-10. There, at the end of the main oracular section of First Isaiah, we find the prediction that in the day of restoration "waters shall break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert . . ." (35:6). This is already reminiscent of God's provision of water for Israel during their desert wanderings. The prophet of chapter 35 goes on, however, to declare: "A highway shall be there [i.e., in the desert], and it shall be called the Holy Way . . . " (35:8). This image of a highway in the desert, a smooth path on which the exiles can return, is strongly reminiscent of 40:3 where the divine voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God . . . ." Such a close parallel in imagery suggests that the author of chapter 35 knows Second Isaiah's prophecy, making it even more likely that his talk about "streams in the desert" is drawing on the same "new Exodus" motif.