Isaiah

Judaean prophet

• Born: c. 760 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Jerusalem, Judah (now in Israel)
• Died: c. 701-680 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Probably Jerusalem, Judah (now in Israel)

Because of his clear grasp of political reality and the power of his poetic utterances, Isaiah is generally considered to be the greatest of the Old Testament prophets.

Early Life

Although there are sixty-six chapters in the book that bears his name, Isaiah (i-ZAY-uh), the great prophet of the eighth century b.c.e., probably wrote only the first thirty-nine of them. Stylistic and historical evidence indicates that the later chapters were written in the sixth century b.c.e., after the people of Judah had passed into the Babylonian captivity predicted at the end of Isaiah’s own works. The author of chapters 40-55 is probably a single anonymous prophet, called for want of a name “Deutero-Isaiah” or “Second Isaiah.” The final chapters, called “Trito-Isaiah” or “Third Isaiah,” are probably by various hands. At any rate, although these later chapters are clearly in the tradition of Hebrew prophecy, they have no other claim to the name of the great prophet Isaiah. In actuality, they may have been attached to the earlier chapters simply for the sake of convenience.

Isaiah was the son of Amoz; evidently he was a native of Jerusalem. Beyond that, very little is known about the life of Isaiah before he was called to prophesy around 742. Because he obviously had access to the inner area of the Temple, some scholars conjecture that Isaiah was a member of a priestly family and may even have studied for the priesthood himself. As a young man, he might have been a “wisdom teacher.” Certainly he was familiar with the wisdom literature that was so much a part of Hebrew education.

The tone of Isaiah’s poetry suggests that he was of aristocratic background. His pronouncements regarding specific rulers and councillors, his comments on statecraft, and his exposures of international intrigues all reveal the knowledge of an insider. Although the prophet Isaiah, like Amos and Hosea, forecast doom if the people of Judah did not reform, his warnings were often addressed to the ruling classes in words that evidence firsthand knowledge of their self-centered, luxurious, and corrupt way of life.

Even if Isaiah had not been an insider in court circles, he would have attracted attention because of his intellectual brilliance and his poetic genius. His social status, however, gave him an additional sense of security in his dealings with councillors and with kings. Even when God himself spoke to him, Isaiah did not hide behind false modesty but volunteered with confidence for whatever mission God had in mind. It is undoubtedly this confidence that sustained him when God sent him out naked and barefoot, supposedly for three years, in order to attract the attention of his countrymen to the predictions that they had ignored.

Aside from this unusual episode, Isaiah seems to have lived a godly yet normal life. He was married—whether before or after his call is not clear. He had two sons, probably after he began to prophesy, as their names reveal his preoccupation with God’s intentions toward his people. He maintained his court contacts, at times being called on to advise the king.

It is clear that when Isaiah became the prophet of Judah, he did not emerge wild-eyed from the wilderness, nor did he change except in the intensity of his dedication. The rulers of Judah could not complain that God had not given them every chance to turn to him; he had sent to them a prophet who spoke their language and understood their problems, a moderate, rational man who insisted only that private and public life should be subject to the will of God.

Life’s Work

In the sixth chapter of Isaiah, the prophet describes the experience that directed his life. The moment is dated as falling within the year of King Uzziah’s death (probably 742 b.c.e.). After seeing a vision of God enthroned, surrounded by angels, Isaiah’s first reaction was the sense of his own uncleanness in the sight of God. After being forgiven, he heard God ask, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for Me?” Isaiah’s immediate response was to utter the well-known words, “Here am I! Send me!”

During the next four decades, Isaiah took his advice, his satirical comments, his diatribes, and his predictions of doom to the people of Judah, later expanding his warnings to address the neighboring Jewish state of Israel as well as pagan lands ranging from Egypt and Syria to powerful Assyria. Because so many manuscripts were lost after the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, scholars cannot be certain of the chronology of Isaiah’s thirty-nine chapters. Specific historical references date some segments, however, while others reflect themes that clearly preoccupied the prophet throughout his life.

Shortly after Isaiah began his life of prophecy, Judah was threatened by the allies Israel and Syria, who had joined forces in the hope of conquering Judah and placing a puppet on the throne and eventually defeating the powerful nation of Assyria. Isaiah was troubled by the fact that Israel’s intended puppet was not of the house of David; furthermore, he was convinced that Assyria was in the ascendancy with the permission of God. Thus, on both counts Israel and Syria were defying God.

Given these convictions, it fell to Isaiah to convince King Ahaz that God would protect Judah. Taking his son Shear-jashub (whose name means “a remnant will return”), Isaiah went to meet Ahaz, carrying the reassurances that the king needed. Later, at the command of God, Isaiah fathered a second son, whom he named Maher-shalal-hash-baz (the spoil comes, the prey hurries). Isaiah then explained to the nervous king that the baby’s name had been assigned by God, who thereby promised that before the child learned to speak, the defiant countries would be despoiled by Assyria.

Such messages from God, dictating specific directions that Judah’s foreign policy should take in troubled times, evidently alternated with advice in domestic matters. God’s protection could be depended on only if Judah obeyed his moral laws. At court, in the streets of Jerusalem, and on the outlying estates of the wealthy, Isaiah saw the real danger to Judah. In Isaiah 5:8-24, he points out the inner rottenness of his people: the atheism and drunkenness of its men, the triviality and extravagance of its women, the smugness and greed of its elite. In the country, the great landholders extended their properties, squeezing out the poor. In Jerusalem, corrupt judges dispensed injustice. At the Temple, priests offered worthless sacrifices that could not substitute for righteousness. At court, great officials served their own interests. Such a society, the prophet warned, would not be protected by the God to whom Judah gave lip service.

In chapters 10 and 11, Isaiah expresses his preoccupation with a later threat, that of Assyria, which was no longer threatened by alliances against it. Realizing its own vulnerable position, Judah was fearful. Again, Isaiah warned that military might and political stratagem would be useless; only God’s intervention on behalf of a righteous people could save Judah.

The power of Isaiah’s God, however, was not limited to dealings with Judah or even Israel. Isaiah’s warnings were addressed to Moab and Samaria, to Egypt, and even to Assyria itself, a nation that he saw as the tool of God, powerful but destined eventually to be destroyed. In 711, Isaiah walked naked and barefoot through the streets of Jerusalem in order to point out the approaching fall of Egypt, which had betrayed a confederate to the Assyrians (Isa. 20:1-6). Not only their unrighteous cowardice but also their defiance of the governing plan of God had doomed the Egyptians.

For a country as defenseless as Judah, Isaiah’s warnings about defying Assyria made sense. In 703 he advised King Hezekiah against sending an embassy to Egypt in order to plot against Assyria, which clearly would constitute a rejection of common sense as well as of God’s plan (Isa. 30:1-7). In 701 the Assyrian king Sennacherib and his army were at the gates of Jerusalem. Isaiah urged Hezekiah to depend on patience and righteousness, not the Judaeans’ inferior military forces, as the appropriate defense. When Sennacherib’s men suddenly began to die, perhaps because of a plague, he withdrew, and Isaiah’s God was appropriately credited with having saved the city.

Isaiah’s role at Hezekiah’s court is illustrated in chapter 38. Sick and believing that he was about to die, Hezekiah was visited by Isaiah, who brought a message from God: Put your spiritual house in order, and you shall be spared. The repentant king turned to God and was promised another fifteen years of life. Still, death would at last come to him, as it would to Jerusalem itself. Isaiah’s portion of the book concludes with a prophecy of the Babylonian conquest and captivity, with the promise—reflected in the name of Isaiah’s first son—that a remnant would return.

Isaiah’s thirty-nine chapters contain no specific references to events in his life after about 700 b.c.e. Whether he continued his work into old age, whether he ceased to prophesy, or whether there is truth to the legend that he was cut in two during the reign of Manasseh is not known. It is ironic that this man who spent his life transmitting God’s directions to the heads of nations should disappear so silently from the stage of history.

Significance

Isaiah is considered the greatest of the Old Testament prophets not only because of the fact that so much of his work remains but also because of his stature as a poet and as a representative of the God he served.

Unlike prophets of a humbler station, Isaiah could speak to the aristocracy as one of them. He could rebuke the daughters of Zion for their frivolity with references to their tinkling anklets; he could rebuke the great landowners by detailing their greedy appropriation of land. No pretense, no hypocrisy was proof against his penetrating eye; no foreign intrigue was too complicated for his mind to fathom.

The exactness of Isaiah’s perception is one of the qualities that makes him a great writer. It is not known whether all of his work was in poetic form or whether segments were deliberately written in prose. It is undisputed, however, that all of his work is evidence of a remarkable talent. His style is so individual that scholars have been able to separate his own words from later additions with a surprising degree of agreement.

Although Isaiah’s words continue to be significant to the faiths that depend on the Judaic tradition, they would be far less significant if they had come from a lesser person. Even more important than the intellectual brilliance and the poetic genius of Isaiah is the quality of his obedience to God. When God asked who would go as his messenger, without hesitation his greatest prophet answered, “Here am I! Send me!”

Bibliography

Church, Brooke Peters. The Private Lives of the Prophets and the Times in Which They Lived. New York: Rinehart, 1953. Though admittedly conjectural, a plausible reconstruction of the life of Isaiah based on a scholarly study of the chapters generally attributed to the prophet. Despite this skepticism about the text, the work is imaginative, readable, and useful.

Cohon, Beryl D. The Prophets: Their Personalities and Teachings. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939. In three chapters, the author treats the three separate bodies of work into which the Book of Isaiah is usually divided. Using fairly lengthy excerpts from the text, Cohon reconstructs the historical setting of the prophecies in prose.

Herbert, A. S. The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 1-39. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Part of the Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible. A passage-by-passage explanation of the text. Clear and uncluttered. Contains a useful chronological table of events in the eighth century b.c.e., as well as a number of maps.

Herbert, A. S. The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 40-66. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1975. Covers Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah, the chapters attributed to writers of the sixth century b.c.e. Includes helpful maps, as well as a table of historical events from 626 b.c.e. to approximately 500 b.c.e.

Kraeling, Emil G. The Prophets. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969. A scholarly work dealing with the prophets in chronological order. Emphasizes the prophets’ response to external and internal pressures. Includes chronology.

Motyer, J. Alec. The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary. Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1999. Commentary by a lifelong student of Isaiah.

Phillips, J. B. Four Prophets, Amos, Hosea, First Isaiah, Micha: A Modern Translation from the Hebrew. New York: Macmillan, 1969. Casts four prophetic books in modern poetic form. The translation of First Isaiah ceases after chapter 35 because of the close parallel between chapters 36-39 and 2 Kings.

Sawyer, John F. A. The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Examines Isaiah’s influence, from the cult of the Virgin Mary and anti-Semitism to Christian feminism and liberation theology.

Scott, R. B. Y. The Relevance of the Prophets. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1968. An excellent background study, ranging in subject matter from the definition of prophecy and the significance of prophecy in Hebrew life to the relation of the prophets to society, to history, and to conventional religious structures.

Smith, J. M. Powis. The Prophets and Their Times. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941. An important study by a great biblical scholar. Places the prophets within their historical periods.