Isaiah, The Prophet And The Prophecy An Introduction To Isaiah The Gospel According To Isaiah Isaiah 1:1 Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission. www.Lockman.org Whenever I start a new book of the Bible, either in a study or just for my own personal study, I find I always want to know a bit about the background of the book. Who is it that the Holy Spirit used to write the book? What do we know about the person that God is using? Isaiah, the man, was a prophet of God and we will see that his base of operations was in Jerusalem in the southern kingdom of Judah. In the book, Isaiah provides the vision or prophecy given to him by God. This prophecy includes the current, near future and far future of God’s people, the Jews. He deals with both kingdoms that were in existence during his life, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Isaiah also spends a lot of time telling us about the Messiah, to include significant detail about His first and second coming. Isaiah also provides some history of events taking place in the region as well. The one thing I have learned over the years reading and studying this book is that Isaiah is a magnificent book to not only read, but to also study. I think Oswalt said it best about this book. “Of all the books in the OT, Isaiah is perhaps the richest. Its literary grandeur is unequaled. Its scope is unparalleled. The breadth of its view of God is unmatched. In so many ways it is a book of superlatives. Thus it is no wonder that Isaiah is the most quoted prophet in the NT, and along with Psalms and Deuteronomy, one of the most frequently cited of all OT books.” (Oswalt 1986, 3) Dr. Utley goes further in regard to how the authors of the New Testament relied on Isaiah. “The content of the book of Isaiah shows up all over the New Testament. Isaiah is quoted more often in the NT than any other prophet (over 411 times). His message was one of a radical universal monotheism and a redemptive plan for all creation.” (Utley 2001, 1) As to where the book is placed into our Bible, let’s do a quick review of our Old Testament. The Old Testament is subdivided into five parts in most Bible translations. Old Testament 5 books of the Law (Torah) (Books of Moses) 12 books of history 5 books of wisdom 5 major prophets 12 minor prophets The book of Isaiah is the first of the major prophets. It falls immediately after the last book of wisdom, the Song of Solomon, also known as the Song of Songs. The reason why Isaiah is referred to as a major prophet has nothing to do with the content of the book or the author; but it has to do with the overall length of the book. Those books categorized as “Major Prophets” just happen to be longer books than the smaller prophetical books. Those shorter length books are called the minor prophets. Again, it is not a statement on the content or the author, just the length. By the way, if you were to look in the Hebrew Bible, you would find an entirely different order for the books. It would look quite foreign to those who have spent a lifetime in other translations. www.theunsafebible.com © The UnSafe Bible 2020 1 Hebrew Bible Torah – Five Books of Moses Nevi’im - The Prophets The Former Prophets Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings The Latter Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, The Twelve Kethuvim – The Writings Right at the very beginning of the book, Isaiah, the man, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, lets us know the who, what, when and where of the book. Isaiah 1:1 “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem, which he saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” (NASB95) He gets right down to it, just who is Isaiah? He begins the process of answering that question for us with the very first part of verse 1 of the book. He lets us know that he is the son of Amoz, not to be confused with Amos. Jewish tradition says he is related to the king, but we are not told one way or the other in the scriptures. We just know that his lineage is simply he is the son of Amoz, you know Amoz right? Isaiah also self identifies as the author by stating the book is the vision of Isaiah, in other words, it is prophecy. Prophecy about who, what and where? He answers that question by telling us the prophecy concerns Judah, the southern half of the nation of Israel and more specifically, the capital of Judah, Jerusalem. The time period that Isaiah minsters in covers the reign of four kings, and mostly likely a portion of a fifth as well. Isaiah 1:1 is not the only place where Isaiah claims to be the author of the book. Isaiah leaves footprints of authorship for us in multiple place: 1:1; 2:1; 7:3; 13:1; 20:2,3; 37:2,6; 38:1, 4, 21; 39:3, 5, 8. In the new testament, there are 22 references to the prophet from Jesus as well as the disciples. There was no question about the authorship of the book with Jesus or His followers. The Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus had no doubt as to who penned Isaiah or that section of the book that contains a prophecy naming names. Flavius Josephus …for he stirred up the mind of Cyrus, and made him write this throughout all Asia:—“Thus saith Cyrus the King:—Since God Almighty hath appointed me to be king of the habitable earth, I believe that he is that God which the nation of the Israelites worship; for indeed he foretold my name by the prophets; and that I should build him a house at Jerusalem, in the country of Judea.” This was known to Cyrus by his reading the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies; for this prophet said that God had spoken thus to him in a secret vision:—“My will is, that Cyrus, whom I have appointed to be king over many and great nations, send back my people to their own land, and build my temple.” This was foretold by Isaiah one hundred and forty years before the temple was demolished. Accordingly, when Cyrus read this, and admired the divine power, an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written; so he called for the most eminent Jews that were in Babylon, and said to them, that he gave them leave to go back to their own country, and to rebuild their city Jerusalem, and the temple of God, for that he would be their assistant, and that he would write to the rulers and governors that were in the neighborhood of their country of Judea, that they should contribute to them gold and silver for the building of the temple, and, beside that, beasts for their sacrifices. (Josephus and Whiston 1987, 286) www.theunsafebible.com © The UnSafe Bible 2020 2 About Isaiah being the author of the book. There is no record of any serious scholar doubting the Isaianic authorship of the entire book before the twelfth century when Ibn Ezra, a Jewish commentator, did so. With the rise of rationalism, however, some German scholars took the lead in questioning it in the late eighteenth century. (Constable 2003, Isaiah 1:1) As you do additional reading or research into this book, you will see that there are those who think chapters 1 – 39 were written by one Isaiah, and a different Isaiah wrote chapters 40 – 66. You may see the term “Deutero-Isaiah” thrown about. There are even those who say there are three Isaiah’s. This is called the Trito-Isaiah theory and subdivides the book three ways, 1-39, 40-55, 56-66. These are theories which question the authorship of this book, something that Jesus did not have any issues with. The theories questioning the authorship of Isaiah predominately date from the late 1700’s and involve ideas from a bunch of dead German theologians. Rather than bore you with the history of who said what and when about their theories and the arguments from scholarship, I am going to rely on “the” authority of the Word of God. None other than Jesus Christ as well as someone who walked and talked with Jesus, the apostle John. There was no question, at that time, as to who the author was and in fact it appears that the Holy Spirit, knowing in advance of the attempt to question authorship of the book, planted something for us in advance in John. In John 12, Jesus is having a discussion with a crowd of people and John refers to two sections of scripture from Isaiah. The references are from both portions of the so called Deutero-Isaiah discussed earlier. You will see that Isaiah is named by name as the author of both sections. John 12:35–41 “So Jesus said to them, “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.