Anyone trying to discern the plan underlying the structure of the second and larger half of the book of Isaiah must stand well back and survey it as a whole. Otherwise he will lose his way in the details, the considerable number of problems of literary criticism which occur, and the apparent stumbling blocks, if not contradictions in the composition. Such a survey must accept, as an established conclusion of scholarship, that the previous history of two blocks of tradition, chs. 24-27 and 36-39 is distinct and separate.