The book of prophet Isaiah – volume 2 (Explanation on the prophecies – 40 to 55) Tânia Cristina Giachetti Ministério Seara ágape https://www.searaagape.com.br/livrosevangelicosonline.html 1 The book of prophet Isaiah – volume 2 (Explanation on the prophecies – 40 to 55) Ministério Seara Ágape Ensino Bíblico Evangélico Tânia Cristina Giachetti São Paulo – SP – Brazil May 2018 2 This book is dedicated to those children of God who seek the knowledge of His will and believe in the immutability of His word, in His goodness to us, and in His power to liberate our lives. 3 I thank the Holy Spirit, a God always present and a faithful companion, who teaches me every day to overcome His challenges by faith and makes me know a little more about Jesus, the Lord and King of all things, whose faithful and unchanging word is capable to transform all situations in order to accomplish in full the project of the Father for our lives. 4 “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose against you will be as nothing and shall perish. Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who wage war against you will be as nothing at all. For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you” (Isa. 41: 10-13). 5 Introduction This is the second volume of ‘The Book of Prophet Isaiah’, addressing chapters from 40 to 55. From now on the content of the prophecy comes to be exilic, and the focus is given to the coming of the Messiah (Here, He is prefigured in David, Cyrus and, often in Isaiah, called the ‘Servant’). As I said in the first volume, this book initially arose as a curiosity on my part concerning the prophets of the Old Testament, not the same way I wrote some years ago, but with the thirst to know more deeply what they meant in each verse. I sought to know how to situate the prophecy in History, what characters they were referring to, the location of the cities there, and the figures of speech used at the time to give me more insight into the writings of the prophets. As I wrote it, I experienced many things, and the main teaching was to know God more comprehensively, to see Him from another perspective, as a God greater than I imagined; a God who has an infinite, timeless consciousness, and is able to see a distant future as if it had already happened, and to turn thousands of years into few seconds before His eternal eyes. While we think of such small things close to us, He is ‘flying high’ and planning things that we will only come to understand a little later. It is interesting to notice the Jewish view of that time and the figures of speech that were used for a particular historical moment. It was all fitting into a larger plan already designed by God for mankind, timing precisely every second and moving each character into His service so that Jesus would come to us at the right time. The Gentiles were already in God’s plan. We can see Jesus in every verse and in every prophecy, using even the prophet as a mirror of His. Another thing that called my attention in this second part of Isaiah’s prophecies is the call of Cyrus as an instrument of God to deliver His people from the Babylonian captivity. Cyrus was obedient to the voice of the God of Israel within him, even more than the Jews themselves, and accomplished His design, for the Lord found in him a propitious heart to carry out His justice. God called a Gentile and clothed him with authority to accomplish this mission, but did not interfere in his private life, so to speak, allowing him to exercise his free will and choose his own spiritual way. In other words, Cyrus did not become a Jew, but he respected other religions, like all rulers of his dynasty, not having a specific religion, according to historians. He seemed only to enjoy the doctrine of Zoroaster (In Latin, Zoroastrós; in Ancient Greek, Zoroastres, Ζωροάστρης Zōroastrēs; in later Greek orthographies, Ζωροάστρις Zōroastris), Greek name of Zarathushtra (in modern Persian: Zartosht), a prophet and poet born in Persia (present-day Iran) in the 7 th century BC and who founded Zoroastrianism (in the 6 th century), the first monotheistic religion of Antiquity after Judaism, officially adopted by the Achaemenid rulers (558-330 BC). The meaning of his name in Persian (Zarathustra) is obscure; but in Greek, Zoroastres means ‘he who gazes at the stars’, ‘he who observes the stars’; astron = star. According to Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda (‘Wise Spirit’) was the God of Good, the God of principle, who created all things. The Book of Isaiah was written around 700-681 BC. It speaks of the double position of the people of Israel before God (especially Jerusalem, for he was prophet of the southern kingdom), their accommodation and lack of true love to the Lord. Isaiah worked to give the people the clarity of this hypocrisy in the hope of changing their attitude. Isaiah (prophetic period: 740-681 BC) was an educated man connected to the court. Like Amos (760-750 BC), Isaiah attacks the dominant groups of society: authorities, 6 magistrates (judges), landowners and politicians; also rises against social injustices. Isaiah is hard and ironic with the ladies of the court from the upper class of Jerusalem (Isa. 3: 16-26; Isa. 4: 1; Isa. 32: 9-14). During his ministry four kings of Judah reigned: Uzziah or Azariah (781-740 BC, from 791 BC as co-ruler of Amaziah), Jotham (740- 732 BC, from 748 BC as co-ruler of Uzziah), Ahaz (732-716 BC) and Hezekiah (716- 687 BC, since 729 BC as co-regent of Ahaz). According to historical sources (The Bible of Jerusalem) Isaiah was born in 765 BC, so he was 25 years old when he was called by the Lord to be His prophet. We can divide the book of Isaiah into three parts: from chapter 1 to 39; from chapter 40 to 55, and from chapter 56 to 66. The first part of Isaiah’s prophecy conveys messages of punishment and judgment for the sins of Israel, Judah and the surrounding nations, and deals with some events that occurred during the reign of Ahaz and Hezekiah. From chapter 40 to chapter 55 the prophet speaks to the people who are in exile in Babylon, giving them the hope of liberation, as well as prophesying about the Messiah and His saving mission in the person of the ‘Servant’ of the Lord. From 56 th chapter the prophecy is not only addressed to the returning exiles, but seems to be addressed again to the people who are still in Israel practicing idolatry and sin of rebellion, at the same time speaking more intensely about the Messianic kingdom to come. Isaiah was the first prophet to speak about the coming of the Messiah. Some references can be seen in relation to this: Isa. 2: 1-5; Isa. 4: 2; Isa. 7: 14; Isa. 9: 1-7; Isa. 11: 1-5; Isa. 16: 5; Isa. 41: 1-29, especially verses 2 and 25; Isa. 42: 1-9; Isa. 44: 26; Isa. 44: 28; Isa. 45: 1; Isa. 45: 13; Isa. 48: 14-15; Isa. 49: 1-7 with special focus on v. 7; Isa. 50: 1-11, with special focus on v. 10; Isa. 52: 13; Isa. 53: 1-12, with special focus on vs. 2 and 11; Isa. 59: 16-21; Isa. 63: 1-6. Here, many explanatory texts are repeated in several chapters so that people can read each one separately without losing sight of the whole. I hope you enjoy this work and have your own experiences with the Lord as you read about Isaiah. May the Holy Spirit be your guide and teacher in this reading! Tânia Cristina Notes: • The version used here is the New Revised Standard Version, NRSV – 1989 (1995). The New International Version (NIV) will be used concurrently to facilitate the readers’ understanding. • Words or phrases enclosed in brackets [ ] or parenthesis ( ), in italics, were placed by me, in most cases, to explain the biblical text, although some verses already contain them [not in italics]. Source of research: • J. D. Douglas – The New Bible Dictionary, 2 nd edition 1995. • Wikipedia.org and crystalinks.com (for some images). 7 Index Chapter 40 8 Chapter 41 17 Chapter 42 31 Chapter 43 47 Chapter 44 58 Chapter 45 70 Chapter 46 78 Chapter 47 82 Chapter 48 102 Chapter 49 105 Chapter 50 117 Chapter 51 121 Chapter 52 124 Chapter 53 127 Chapter 54 131 Chapter 55 135 Volumes 1 and 3 of this book: https://www.searaagape.com.br/thebookofprophetisaiah1.pdf https://www.searaagape.com.br/thebookofprophetisaiah3.pdf • In many texts we’ll use ‘Lexicon Strong’s Concordance.’ Strong’s Concordance is a concordance of the King James Bible (KJV), created by the English theologian Dr. James Strong (1822-1894), along with a team of theologians, and first published in 1890. It is about a cross-reference between each word in the KJV and the original text in Hebrew or Greek.