Isaiah

Isaiah son of Amoz prophesied in Jerusalem across four reigns - Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah (Isa 1:1; Isa 2:1). His ministry spanned the Assyrian rise that swallowed the northern kingdom, the confrontation with Ahaz in the Syro-Ephraimite war, and the Sennacherib crisis under Hezekiah. The Chronicler credits him as a court historian for Uzziah (2 Chr 26:22), and the book that bears his name preserves his throne vision, his confrontations with kings, his sign-acts, and oracles whose words the New Testament writers attribute to him by name.

The Vision in the Year Uzziah Died

Isaiah dates his commissioning to the death-year of Uzziah, the same king whose acts he had earlier chronicled. He saw the Lord enthroned, high and lifted up, with seraphim crying "Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isa 6:3). The thresholds shook, smoke filled the house, and Isaiah cried "Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts" (Isa 6:5). A seraph touched a live charcoal from the altar to his mouth, and his iniquity was taken away (Isa 6:6-7). Then he heard the voice of "the [Speech] of Yahweh" asking, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" - and answered, "Here I am; send me" (Isa 6:8).

The commission that followed was hard: a message that would harden rather than soften, a people who would hear without understanding and see without perceiving, a land going waste until only a stump remained - "so the holy seed is its stump" (Isa 6:9-13).

Confrontation with Ahaz

When Rezin of Syria and Pekah of Israel marched on Jerusalem in the days of Ahaz, the house of David trembled "as the trees of the forest tremble with the wind" (Isa 7:2). Yahweh sent Isaiah, with his son Shear-jashub, to meet Ahaz at the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway of the fuller's field, with the word: "Take heed, and be quiet; don't be afraid" (Isa 7:3-4). The two threatening kings would not stand. But the warning carried a condition: "If you⁺ will not believe, surely you⁺ will not be established" (Isa 7:9).

Yahweh then offered Ahaz a sign of any depth or height. Ahaz, masking unbelief as piety, refused to ask. Isaiah's reply turned past Ahaz to the whole house of David: "Therefore the Lord himself will give you⁺ a sign: look, the young woman will be pregnant, and give birth to a son, and will call his name Immanuel" (Isa 7:14). Before that child knew to refuse evil and choose good, the lands of the two threatening kings would be forsaken - and on Judah itself, Yahweh would bring "the king of Assyria" (Isa 7:16-17).

A second sign-name belonged to Isaiah's own household. He was told to write on a great tablet "For Maher-shalal-hash-baz," with Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah as witnesses; the prophetess conceived and gave birth, and Yahweh told Isaiah to give the child that name, because before he could say "father" or "mother" the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria would be carried off before the king of Assyria (Isa 8:1-4).

A Three-Year Sign Against Egypt and Ethiopia

When Sargon's general Tartan took Ashdod, Yahweh told Isaiah to loose the sackcloth from his loins and the sandal from his foot. He walked naked and barefoot for three years, "for a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia" - that the king of Assyria would lead off Egyptian captives and Ethiopian exiles, "young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt" (Isa 20:1-4). Coastlanders who had counted on Egypt for rescue would say, "Look, such is our expectation, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria: and we, how shall we escape?" (Isa 20:6).

Isaiah's burden-oracles range further still: "The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw" (Isa 13:1) opens a sequence of judgments on the nations.

The Sennacherib Crisis

In Hezekiah's fourteenth year Sennacherib king of Assyria took the fortified cities of Judah and sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem (Isa 36:1-2; cf. 2 Ki 19:1-2). Hezekiah tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, went into the house of Yahweh, and sent Eliakim, Shebna, and the elders of the priests - covered with sackcloth - to Isaiah son of Amoz (Isa 37:1-3; 2 Ki 19:1-3). Their plea was that Yahweh would hear Rabshakeh's words "to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard: therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant who is left" (Isa 37:4; 2 Ki 19:4).

Isaiah's reply through the messengers was "Don't be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the attendants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me" (Isa 37:6; 2 Ki 19:6). Yahweh would put a spirit in Sennacherib so that he would hear news, return to his own land, and fall by the sword there (Isa 37:7; 2 Ki 19:7).

After Hezekiah's prayer in the temple, Isaiah sent the longer oracle. "The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and laughed you to scorn" (Isa 37:22). Sennacherib's blasphemy had risen against the Holy One of Israel; "Because of your raging against my [Speech], and because your arrogance has come up before me, therefore I will put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came" (Isa 37:29). The sign for Hezekiah was agricultural: the people would eat what grew of itself for two years and sow in the third (Isa 37:30). The remnant of Judah would take root downward and bear fruit upward (Isa 37:31). The Assyrian king would not enter Jerusalem, "for I will defend this city to save it, for [my Speech's] sake, and for my slave David's sake" (Isa 37:33-35). That night the angel of Yahweh struck 185,000 in the Assyrian camp, and Sennacherib went home to Nineveh and was killed in the house of his god Nisroch (Isa 37:36-38).

Hezekiah's Sickness and Recovery

In the same days Hezekiah was sick to death, and Isaiah came to him with the word, "Set your house in order: for you will die, and not live" (Isa 38:1; 2 Ki 20:1). Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed, weeping intensely (Isa 38:2-3; 2 Ki 20:2-3). Before Isaiah had left the middle court of the city, Yahweh's word came back: "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears: look, I will heal you" (2 Ki 20:5). Fifteen years would be added to Hezekiah's days, and Yahweh would deliver the city out of the king of Assyria's hand "for [the sake of my Speech], and for my slave David's sake" (2 Ki 20:6; cf. Isa 38:5-6).

Isaiah called for a cake of figs to be laid on the boil, and Hezekiah recovered (2 Ki 20:7). When Hezekiah asked for a sign that he would go up to the house of Yahweh, Isaiah called to Yahweh, who brought the shadow back ten steps on the steps of Ahaz (2 Ki 20:8-11; Isa 38:7-8). Hezekiah's "writing" - a thanksgiving psalm - follows: "I said, In the noontide of my days I will go into the gates of Sheol... Yahweh is [ready] to save me: Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments All the days of our life in the house of Yahweh" (Isa 38:10, 20).

The Babylonian Envoys

When Merodach-baladan king of Babylon sent letters and a present after Hezekiah's recovery, Hezekiah was glad and showed the envoys his treasury, his armory, and everything in his house (Isa 39:1-2). Isaiah came to him and asked what they had said and where they had come from; Hezekiah's answer - "from a far country... even from Babylon" - and his admission that he had hidden nothing from them, drew Isaiah's reply: "Hear the word of Yahweh of hosts: Look, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have laid up in store until this day, will be carried to Babylon" (Isa 39:3-6). His own sons would be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon (Isa 39:7). Hezekiah accepted the verdict: "The word of Yahweh which you have spoken is good. He said moreover, For there will be peace and truth in my days" (Isa 39:8).

The Chronicler's Note and Sirach's Praise

The Chronicler closes Uzziah's reign by noting that "Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, wrote" the rest of his acts (2 Chr 26:22). Sirach's hymn of praise to the fathers reaches Hezekiah and Isaiah together: when Sennacherib pressed Jerusalem, "they called to God Most High... and saved them by the hand of Isaiah," who "smote the army of Assyria, And discomfited them by the plague" (Sir 48:20-21). Of Hezekiah, Sirach says he "did that which was pleasing to the Lord, And was strong in the ways of David, Which Isaiah the prophet commanded, Who was great and faithful in his vision" (Sir 48:22). "In his days the sun went backward, And he added life to the king" (Sir 48:23). And of the prophet's longer reach: "By a spirit of might he saw the latter end, And comforted the mourners of Zion. To eternity he declared the things that will be, And hidden things before they came to pass" (Sir 48:24-25).

New Testament Citations of Isaiah

The New Testament writers name Isaiah more often than any other Old Testament prophet when introducing a quotation. Mark opens his Gospel "Even as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Look, I send my messenger before your face, Who will prepare your way; The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make⁺ ready the way of Yahweh" (Mark 1:2-3). Jesus, confronting the Pharisees over the tradition of the elders, says, "Isaiah prophesied well of you⁺ hypocrites... This people honors me with their lips, But their heart is far from me" (Mark 7:6-7).

John traces the unbelief that met Jesus' signs to the same prophet: "that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?" - and again from the throne-vision context, "He has blinded their eyes, and he hardened their heart..." (John 12:38-40). John adds, "Isaiah said these things, because he saw his glory; and he spoke of him" (John 12:41), folding the throne-vision of Isaiah 6 into the glory of Christ.

Paul leans on Isaiah twice in succession on Israel's remnant: "And Isaiah cries concerning Israel, If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved... And, as Isaiah has said before, Except Yahweh of hosts had left us a seed, We had become as Sodom, and had been made like Gomorrah" (Rom 9:27-29). On Israel's unbelief he again says, "Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report?... And Isaiah is very bold, and says, I was found by those who did not seek me; I became manifest to those who did not ask of me" (Rom 10:16, 20). For the Gentiles' hope, Paul cites Isaiah on the root of Jesse: "There will be the root of Jesse, And he who rises to rule over the Gentiles; On him will the Gentiles hope" (Rom 15:12).

Peter draws the suffering-servant material into his account of Christ: "who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again... who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree... by whose stripes you⁺ were healed" (1 Pet 2:22-24) - the language of Isaiah 53 carried over into apostolic preaching.