GOOD SHEPHERD LUTHERAN CHURCH Gaithersburg, Maryland

The Book of the Isaiah – Who was Isaiah? How many “Isaiah’s” Were There? The First of Six Sessions The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost – October 18, 2020

I. Prophecy in the Land of Israel Now there’s a pretentious title! Well, we shall try to do it briefly. About this time last year we were studying “The Twelve Minor ”, and we talked a great deal about prophecy, covering the pre-writing and the writing prophets, the “Navi” and the later writing prophets. Today we turn to Isaiah, responding to requests from some of our class members. Perhaps I have stalled a bit. How does one get one’s arms around 66 chapters? Awe inspiring! That’s the only way I can describe the impact of walking into the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit at the Israeli Museum in Jerusalem. The huge center room is almost dark, and there in the center of the room, is the unrolled scroll of the . It is an exact replica of the actual scroll found in a cave in the late 1940's. It is thought to have been transcribed during the 1st century BCE!1 This is the book we shall begin reading. It is one of Fresco in the Sistine Chapel the ancient major prophets who lived in and through Isaiah tumultuous times in the history of God’s people in the Holy by Michaelangelo Land. We shall hear names huge in ancient history. Some will be kings of Israel and others the huge military names of this age such as Assyria and Babylon.

II. More than Readers of Entrails and Crystal Balls Prophets in ancient Israel have too often been confused with fortune tellers or

1. The Book of Isaiah – This Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah, except for slight edge damage, is fully intact, and scholars report that there are no significant differences with this 1st century text and the Book of Isaiah we have in our today! This scroll, and other scrolls and the thousands of DSS fragments are kept is physically secured in climate controlled vaults. The accuracy of this ancient scroll of Isaiah, very closely matching the copies we have today is simply awesome, a miracle for which we are deservedly grateful. It was not until the 16th century CE and the arrival of the printing press that we were reasonably able to expect exact copies! When we read Isaiah, we are reading Isaiah, a book dating about 750 years before the birth of Christ.

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 1 Rev. 4 pdf Page 1 predictors of the future. But they were, from the beginning, far more than this. Among the earliest of the prophets is one named . He confronted King over his affair with Bathsheba, and about his arranging for the death of her husband, , a faithful general in David’s army. 2 “Prophet” comes from two Latin roots, “Pro” and “Phetus.” “Phetus” means “to speak, and “Pro” is “in behalf of“. A prophet is one who speaks in behalf of Yahweh, God. A prophet is also a Historian. The prophets of Israel and Judah appear to know well the history of God’s people and of their neighbors. Ccave 4 at Cumran Finally, a prophet was wise in the politics of the Several Hundred Scrools Found Here region and the social issues of their society. One remembers the voices of the prophets such as : “I hate, I despise your feasts and to the noise of your songs I will not listen, but let justice roll down like rivers and righteousness like an everlasting stream.”3 At one moment or another, Isaiah will be all of these.

III. What We Kn ow about Isaiah According to :1, we know that Isaiah is the son of Amoz, who sees a vision “concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, Kings of Judah.”4 Isaiah is the 8th Century BCE prophet for whom the book is named. He is the son of Amoz, who is mentioned several times in the book of Isaiah and in II Kings, but nothing much more is known about him.5 Isaiah Scrool at Israeli Museum Interior of the Room Resembles a Scrool Jar

2. Uriah – Bathsheba’s husband. David arranged for Uriah to be placed in the front lines of the army. He was killed in battle. It seems that David, caring for the young widow, is off the hook. But not so. Nathan confronts him! First, with a parable, and then with the judgement of God.

3. Amos 6:21, 23-24.

4. Isaiah 1:1.

5. Amoz or Amotz– Mentioned only in Isaiah 1:1, 2:1, and 13:1, and finally in II Kings 19:2, 20; and 20:1. He is not mentioned elsewhere in the . There is, however, Talmudic tradition that when a prophet’s father’s name is given, the father was also a prophet. There is also a rabbinical tradition that Amoz was the brother of

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 1 Rev. 4 pdf Page 2 We can more closely date the work of Isaiah to the mid-eighth century in chapter 6 which brings us the first person narrative of Isaiah’s call to the prophetic mission. It begins: “In the year King Uziah died, I saw the Lord . . .”6 We know that year as 740 BCE. Uziah had ruled for 52 years and was considered a strong king. It seems that Isaiah had worked as a prophet who appears to have the ear of the kings, for, possibly, 64 years, finishing his work in the 14th year of the reign of Hezekiah, also a strong king. Some biblical scholars believe that Isaiah’s wife was called “the The Prophet Isaiah prophetess,” either because she also possessed the prophetic gift as did 18th. Century Russian Icon Deborah7, and Huldah8, or perhaps simply because she was the wife of Kizhi Monastery a prophet. Isaiah and his wife would parent three sons. Karelia, Russia The eldest was Shear-jashub, meaning “a remnant shall return.”9 The next son was , meaning “God with us.”10 The third son was named Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, meaning “Spoil quickly, plunder speedily.11” It is believed that Isaiah lived until the close of the reign of Hezekiah, and perhaps into the reign of Mannaseh. The date of his death, however, and the cause of his death are unknown. Later Jewish tradition believes that he was martyred by the command of Mannaseh by being sawed in two.

IV. So, Who Are the Writers of this Book? Isaiah is the first of Latter Prophets in the and the First of the major prophets in the Christian canon as well. Its first verse in the first chapter ascribes it to Isaiah ben Amoz, and for a long part of its history that has been the end of the conversation about the authorship of the book. That is, until Johann Christoph Doderlein, writing in 1775, proposed that the book of Isaiah was the work of two prophets, and those two were separated by “more than a

Amaziah, the king of Judah at that time. This would have made Isaiah a member of the royal family.

6. :1- 13. This is the text for our next session, featuring the call of Isaiah.

7. Judges 4:4.

8. II Kings 22:14-20.

9. :3.

10. Isaiah 7:14.

11. :3.

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 1 Rev. 4 pdf Page 3 century.”12 This thesis defends itself when we note the historical realities that are occurring between the close of the 39th chapter of Isaiah and the beginning of the 40th chapter. In the 39th chapter, the year is 701 BCE. We might imagine that Isaiah is walking the wall of Jerusalem with Hezekiah as they look down upon more than 200,000 or so of the army of Assyria which was besieging Jerusalem.13 Sennacherib was the Assyrian king and commander.14 Isaiah is encouraging Hezekiah to resist the Sennacherib’s Siege of Jerusalem demands from the messengers of Sennacherib to Hezekiah to surrender and accept deportation as had happened to the Northern Kingdom (Israel) in 722 BCE. Hezekiah was terrified. But according to II Kings 19 and II Chronicles 32, an angel of the Lord descended at night upon the Army of Assyria and 185,000 of the men were killed, and Sennacherib was forced to withdraw, and was never able to recover from the defeat. The remainder of Hezekiah’s reign was peaceful. Then comes chapter 40! It announces the preparation of the people in exile in Babylon for returning home. Since the story in chapter 39, Assyria has fallen to another power, which has grown to be a power in the Middle East, named Babylon. Its ascent into being a major regional power, its defeat of Judah and Jerusalem, a further ten year “truce” and finally a full deportation of all of the skilled people of Judah has taken place, and those people have been in exile in Babylon for 37 years! Nearly all of this has taken place between chapter 39 and chapter 40 in the Book of Isaiah! We have heard over and again the stunning words that open chapter 40 in Handel’s Messiah. “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord. Speak ye tenderly to Jerusalem, and csry undto her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she has received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exhalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and , the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”

12. Richard Clifford, (1992), “Isaiah, Book of Second Isaiah”. In David Noel Freedman edition. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. 3. Doubleday, p. 473.

13. This siege of Jerusalem is thought to have involved just one division of the huge Assyrian army that had been brought into Judiah.

14, Sennacherib, once back home in Assyria, will write: “I shut up the Jew Hezekiah like a bird in a cage, and I sat on my throne on the Mount of Olives and watched him.”

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 1 Rev. 4 pdf Page 4 Almost, we can sing along with it. God is going to redeem His people! This joyous prophecy is about going home, back to Jerusalem. Some other things have changed as well in the book. Style has changed, and Isaiah’s name is not again mentioned. There seems to be a consensus since most of the 20th century among Old Testament scholars. Chapters 1 - 39 Proto-Isaiah Contains the words and works of the 8th Century BCE Prophet, Isaiah Chapters 40 - 55 Deutero-Isaiah Anonymous 6th century writer working during the exile and expecting the return to Judah. Look for rejoicing at the thought of going home. But also look for the suffering servant passages, the Chapters 56 - 66 Trito-Isaiah Anonymous writer working after the return of the Exiles from Babylon.

While few scholars disagree with the assumption that there is more than one hand in Isaiah’s book, there is a continuingly shared interest in the unity of the book. Proto-Isaiah is teaching, history, prophecy, and the significant involvement of Isaiah in the influence of leaders and kings of Judah. Perhaps he is a member of the royal family. In the ancient world, it was not uncommon to add to another’s work. In fact, we have seen in our earlier studies of the prophets that it was not altogether surprising to find identical passages in one or another of the Minor Prophets, and sometimes it has happened among the Major Prophets, leaving some scholars to wonder where a passage might have first appeared. The Book of the Prophet Isaiah A Historical - Textual Study October 18 “Who Was Isaiah? How Many Isaiah’s Were There? October 25 “The Day Isaiah Went to Church” Some Significant Passages in Isaiah November 1 “Significant Passages Part I” November 8 “Significant Passages Part II” November 15 “Significant Passages Part III” A Few Passages that Have Inspired Hymns November 22 “Hymns Inspired by Isaiah”

A PROMISE ALREADY IN THE MAKING - (For when this Pandemic breaks!) There is an oft expressed hunger among us to be able to be together in worship and to be able to sing with our wonderful choir and one another. That could be a while yet, and it will probably come to us in “steps.” However, in the meantime, I am already working on a class series on “Hymns We Hunger to Sing Again!

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah – Session 1 Rev. 4 pdf Page 5 Yes, Doris and I are regular worshipers in our online worship, singing with Peter and our outstanding quartet, and with Mr. Pannebaker at the organ. How blessed we are! But Doris and I, two octogenarians, don’t raise much noise as we sing in our Den each Sunday. and on some Wednesdays. Nonetheless, we believe that in God’s grace there will be better days. And, we want to be ready! The class series planned for THAT day will begin with the wonderful hymn based on Isaiah 6:1-6, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” But I need your help! Please send me the hymn or hymns you are hungering to sing when we can gather and sing again. My e-mail is: [email protected]. And, there is more wonderful news. Already, since my “announcement”, I am receiving hymns for this promised series. I have a folder started . . .! We shall study the scripture that inspires the hymn, we shall study the hymn stanzas, and we shall sing the hymn. And by the way, I mentioned that powerful hymn from Isaiah 6 last week, but this week I have another: It is the refrain to the hymn “My Life Goes on in Endless Song.” (ELW 763) There are four stanzas and each concludes with these powerful words: “No storm can shake my inmost calm, while to that rock I’m clinging! Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?”

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