{"id":5235,"date":"2012-05-23T01:00:50","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T08:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/?p=5235"},"modified":"2013-03-28T13:37:36","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T20:37:36","slug":"bob-isaiah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/2012\/05\/23\/bob-isaiah\/","title":{"rendered":"BOB – Isaiah"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Stephen Rodgers<\/em><\/p>\n

ISAIAH IN\u00a010\u00a0WORDS\u00a0OR\u00a0LESS<\/strong><\/p>\n

“A coming messiah will save people from their sins.”<\/p>\n

TITLE<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ll let you in on a little secret: this section is about to get really repetitious for the next few months. \u00a0ALL the prophetic books take their name from the prophet who…well…prophesied<\/em> them. So there’s really no great mystery here. \u00a0However, there may be some good background material…<\/p>\n

MSB:<\/p>\n

The book derives its title from the author, whose name means \u201cThe LORD is salvation,\u201d and is similar to the names Joshua, Elisha, and Jesus. Isaiah is quoted directly in the NT over 65 times, far more than any other OT prophet, and mentioned by name over 20 times.<\/em><\/p>\n

Per Constable:<\/p>\n

The title of this book of the Bible, as is true of the other prophetical books, comes from its writer. The book claims to have come from Isaiah (Isa 1:1; 2:1; 7:3; 13:1; 20:2; 37:2, 6, 21; 38:1, 4, 21; 39:3, 5, 8), and Jesus Christ and the apostles quoted him as being the writer at least 21 times, more often than they quoted all the other writing prophets combined. There are also many more quotations and allusions to Isaiah in the New Testament without reference to Isaiah being the writer. The only Old Testament book referred to more frequently than Isaiah in the New Testament is Psalms.<\/em><\/p>\n

AUTHOR\u00a0&\u00a0AUDIENCE<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m going to have to stake out some rather serious real estate either in this section or in the OBJECTIONS section below to deal with the issue of bipartite or\u00a0tripartite\u00a0authorship (over and against the traditional claim of a single author and a unified book). I’ll deal with that later and just use this section to give you a brief biography of Isaiah son of Amoz, sometimes referred to as the “prince of prophets.”<\/p>\n

So let’s start with the summary out of the MSB:<\/p>\n

Isaiah, the son of Amoz, ministered in and around Jerusalem as a prophet to Judah during the reigns of 4 kings of Judah: Uzziah (called \u201cAzariah\u201d in 2 Kings), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (Isa 1:1), from ca. 739\u2013686 B.C. He evidently came from a family of some rank, because he had easy access to the king (Isa 7:3) and intimacy with a priest (Isa 8:2). He was married and had two sons who bore symbolic names: \u201cShear- jashub\u201d (\u201ca remnant shall return,\u201d Isa 7:3) and \u201cMaher-shalalhash-baz\u201d (\u201chasting to the spoil, hurrying to the prey,\u201d Isa 8:3). When called by God to prophesy, in the year of King Uzziah\u2019s death (ca. 739 B.C.), he responded with a cheerful readiness, though he knew from the beginning that his ministry would be one of fruitless warning and exhortation (Isa 6:9\u201313). Having been reared in Jerusalem, he was an appropriate choice as a\u00a0political and religious counselor to the nation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Isaiah was a contemporary of Hosea and Micah. His writing style has no rival in its versatility of expression, brilliance of imagery, and richness of vocabulary. The early church father Jerome likened him to Demosthenes, the legendary Greek orator. His writing features a range of 2,186 different words, compared to 1,535 in Ezekiel, 1,653 in Jeremiah, and 2,170 in the Psalms. Second Chronicles 32:32 records that he wrote a biography of King Hezekiah also. The prophet lived until at least 681 B.C. when he penned the account of Sennacherib\u2019s death (cf. Isa. 37:38). Tradition has it that he met his death under King Manasseh (ca. 695\u2013642 B.C.) by being cut in two with a wooden saw (cf. Heb. 11:37).<\/em><\/p>\n

The primary audience that Isaiah addressed were the people of Judah, who were failing to live according to the requirements of God’s law. (As previously mentioned,<\/a> the “Covenant Lawsuit” is a recurring theme throughout all of the prophetic books). However, it should be understood that while his audience was Judah, his message actually encompassed Israel and the surrounding regions.<\/p>\n

DATE<\/strong><\/p>\n

As mentioned in the excerpt from the MSB above, we actually have a very good idea of the time period during which Isaiah prophesied: roughly from 740 BC to 700 BC (which we know since he names the relevant reigning\u00a0monarchs\u00a0at the outset of the book in Isa 1:1). Additionally, while it’s not completely clear how active his ministry was beyond that, we know that he was still alive in 681 BC, since he recorded the death of Sennacharib (Isa. 37:38).<\/p>\n

<\/strong>BACKGROUND\u00a0&\u00a0SETTING<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>There are some similarities between Judah during the ministry of Isaiah and the last several decades in the United States. Essentially there was a period of increasing economic and political prosperity that unfortunately was accompanied by moral decline as well. So on one hand, Judah was able to successfully resist the encroaching Assyrians (unlike the northern kingdom of Israel), even to the point that Babylonian envoys were seeking political and military alliances (2 Kings 20:12 ff). On the other hand, the spiritual state of Israel was in such decline that that was less difference (spiritually speaking) between Israel and the pagan world-powers with each passing day.<\/p>\n

This was the context into which Isaiah stepped as a prophet of the LORD.<\/p>\n

HISTORICAL\u00a0&\u00a0THEOLOGICAL\u00a0THEMES<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are three major themes that run throughout Isaiah:<\/p>\n