In the sixth century BCE, following the Babylonian exile, Jewish messianic thinking had added to the Israelites’ expectations a figure who would prepare the way for the messiah’s coming, a figure that II Isaiah (as we call the unknown prophet who authored Isaiah 40–55) simply called the voice that “prepared the way.” The voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”—these were the exact words of this prophet (Isa. 40:3).
