4 - Between Disaster and Restoration

Summary

Promises of Israel's restoration appear throughout the Latter Prophets. This chapter argues that modern interpreters have overlooked the surprising amount of attention specifically paid to the fate of the northern tribes of Israel throughout the Latter Prophets, even in books by prophets who lived long after the destruction of the northern kingdom.Whereas many have suggested a narrowing in the scope of Israel such that prophecies such as those of Second Isaiah refer to the restoration of Judah, this chapter argues that the prophets consistently take a more expansive view of Israel and that Second Temple period readers would have—and in fact did—read these prophecies as referring not only to those from Judah exiled by the Babylonians but also to the northern tribes scattered by the Assyrians in the eighth century BCE. The prophets' promises therefore remained unfulfilled so long as the northern tribes had not returned.