According to certain scholars the last ten chapters of the book of Isaiah were not written by the canonical prophet but by one of his followers after the Babylonian exile. If this theory is correct it suggests that God used the dreadful experience of exile — the loss of home, of country, of temple — to broaden the people’s faith. The Jewish people came to know a foreign people not as enemy but as neighbor. They could find in them the presence of God. Thus they could imagine being the people of God as something wider than blood kinship.”The foreigners who join themselves to the LORD… and hold to my covenant, them I will bring to my holy mountain
and make joyful in my house of prayer.”
