Isaiah the Messenger

Isaiah sees God but is purified. God appoints Isaiah as a prophet and tells him to warn the people of Israel about the impending judgment coming to them.

Judgment and Hope

God gives Isaiah various prophesies and visions about judgment for Jerusalem and the nations. But God's kingdom will one day rule, righting the world's wrongs.

Hezekiah's Faith

Assyria threatens Judah as prophesied, but God answers King Hezekiah's prayers and defeats them. Hezekiah falls deathly ill, but God remembers him and heals him.

A Holy Seed

God's Servant is featured, rising from Israel's burnt stump. He is rejected and killed but is resurrected. His death pays for the sins of everyone.

New Heaven & Earth

Isaiah prophesies that the Servant will rule God's kingdom, creating a New Jerusalem. The wicked are expelled and the righteous stay. All nations are welcome.

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH

OT/NT: Old Testament

SECTION: Major Prophets (1 of 5)

TRADITIONAL AUTHOR:  Isaiah

KEY PEOPLE:  Ahaz, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Jotham, Uzziah.

SUMMARY:  Canonically, Isaiah is the twenty-third book of the Holy Bible (1), the twenty-third book of the Old Testament (2), and first of the five Major Prophets books (3). 
 

According to Isaiah 1:1, the prophet Isaiah’s career extended through the reigns of four kings in the southern kingdom of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. He served as God’s emissary to Judah for more than fifty years, roughly a hundred years before the other three major writing prophets —  Jeremiah (4), Ezekiel (5) and Daniel (6). While the political scene in Judah was different from that in the northern kingdom of Israel, the sins of the people were distressingly similar: idol worship, the oppression and marginalization of the poor for personal gain, and business practices that fundamentally threatened God's Law (7). Like his contemporary Amos (8), Isaiah clearly saw that lip-service worship leads to self-serving social ethics.

While the book of Isaiah provides several historical touch points that anchor the prophet in a particular period of Judah’s history, the book ranges in its visions from Isaiah’s own times through to the end of time when God creates “new Heavens and a new Earth” (Isaiah 65:17). The prophecy to King Ahaz that God would give him the sign of a baby named Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14) is picked up seven hundred years later by Matthew (9) as a vision (Matthew 1:23) of the coming Messiah about to be born (10).

Isaiah’s calling was to serve as God’s emissary before the people of Judah and proclaim their sinful status in God’s eyes. Later, the prophet insisted that his prophecies be recorded for future generations: “Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness. For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction” (Isaiah 30:8-9). The people’s sinfulness is defined by their disregard of God’s law or God’s Covenant (11) claims on them as His people. The prophecies against the sinful people are so strong that one could describe the situation as follows: God’s desire for those whom He has called as His people is such that if they will not be His people, then they will be no people at all.

COMING UP: Next up is the Book of Jeremiah. Click HERE to explore!

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FOOTNOTES:

  (1)  http://www.downriverdisciples.com/the-good-news

  (2)  http://www.downriverdisciples.com/old-testament

  (3)  http://www.downriverdisciples.com/ot-major-prophets

  (4)  http://www.downriverdisciples.com/jeremiah

  (5)  http://www.downriverdisciples.com/ezekiel

  (6)  http://www.downriverdisciples.com/daniel

  (7)  http://www.downriverdisciples.com/the-law

  (8)  http://www.downriverdisciples.com/amos

  (9)  http://www.downriverdisciples.com/matthew

(10)  http://www.downriverdisciples.com/the-birth-of-jesus

(11)  http://www.downriverdisciples.com/covenants

SOURCES:

(a) Theology of Work https://www.theologyofwork.org/old-testament/isaiah/an-overview-of-the-book-of-isaiah