AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ISAIAH (Part I)

NOTICE

We are now in the Prophets section of the Bible and we begin with the biggest prophet. Prophet Isaiah is the biggest because of two reasons: the first is that his scroll is the biggest for when it was divided into chapters, it made 66 chapters. Secondly, he served as a prophet for a long time than all the other prophets.

In these introductions, I will try and briefly address who the prophets of Israel were, what their message generally was and since we will be handling particular prophets who served in specific times with peculiar situations; I will always try to constrain the discussion within those limits. Let us look at the book of Isaiah and sketch it for a first-time reader to be comfortable with reading.

TITLE

Majority of ancient cultures did not just name children. They named after the gods they worshipped. The names were in some incidences based on some heroic act. Thirdly, names were given in relation to a phenomenon that occurred in their family or community lives. These cultures never gave names just because they sounded good like today’s people do. Naming was an intentional and sacred practice. One’s name had an effect on their present and future as well.

In the world of the Bible, names do matter, and they have great significance. Names revealed something about one’s personality, character and their belief system. A name communicated one’s career and what that individual essentially stood for. The seriousness in a name is seen in God himself changing the names of His people effectively giving them new identities. Abram’s name was changed to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, and Jacob to Israel and a few others. The importance of a name is further emphasized when we are told that we are saved under a specific name (Acts 4:12, Joel 2:31–32).

This kind of naming is what the theologians term as Theophory. The term ‘theophory’ is a combination of two Greek words; ‘Theos’ which means ‘God’ and ‘Foros’ which means ‘Bearer’. In this context, Theophory was a term given to the naming style of most theistic cultures. It refers to the practice of embedding the name of a god or a deity in, usually, a proper name. The world of the Bible is dominantly a theophory culture. There could be more theophorys in the Bible but the most dominant ones are three:

1. El-Theophory,
2. Yah-Theophory and
3. the Baal-Theophory

El is a general name for a deity and its English equivalent according to me is ‘God’. All Biblical names that begin with El like El Shaddai in Genesis 17:1 and those that end with El like Samuel, Daniel, Ezekiel etc. imply this about God. Since El is a general name of God which means ‘might’ and ‘power’, the term can only be monotheistic (used to imply the one true God all other gods exclusive) based on the context, otherwise it is polytheistic (used to imply all gods even the one true god inclusive) and can mean gods (Genesis 1:26).

Baal was the primary god of the Phoenicians (Akkadians, Babylonians, Canaanites etc). He is perceived to be with the attributes of might and power but the god is appreciated as ‘Lord’ of fertility, weather, rain, wind, lightning, seasons, war, patron of sailors etc. This god was understood as the lord of economic situations. This is the rival Lord to Yah in the Old Testament. Many of his worshippers were named after him and when the Israelites were in Canaan some of them started naming their children after this god (Judges 7:1)

Yah is a situational name of ‘God’, and it is commonly translated as ‘Lord’ and I concur with this English translation especially if its (Lord) meaning is not confused with Might and Power as EL is, but it is understood as Authority over a situation. When we address God as Lord, we are referencing an existing situation in relation to his authority over the same.

When Moses first encountered God and he told him he was I AM WHO I AM, in Hebrew Ehye Asher Ehye (Exodus 3:14). Moses knew this was not a name he could present to every mind and since he understood the importance of a god’s name before he represented him anywhere he inquired for this God’s name he had met at a burning bush and “God said to Moses, ‘I am the LORD [YHVH].  I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by My name the LORD (YHVH) I did not make myself known to them.”  (Exodus 6:2, 3). This sacred name comprises the following Hebrew letters:  yud, hey, vav, hey—YHVH.

The Jews could not mention this name probably for two reasons, like the original Hebrew it had no vowels but a Tetragrammaton (a combination of two Greek words meaning four letters) which meant difficulty in pronunciation. Secondly, in the observance of the third law of the Decalogue (Exodus 20), the Jews could not utter this name so they replaced it with another term ‘Adonai’ (my Lord) and the only attempt they could make on uttering YHVH was  Jah/Yah (Exodus 15:2, 17:16, Psalm 68:5). It is this name after the introduction of vowels by the Masoretic scribes that was pronounced as Yahweh (Jehovah). Though they could not utter it, they named children after this name, and these were Jeremiah, Zechariah,  and Prophet Isaiah that we are handling was named after this God.

The name Isaiah comes from the Hebrew Yesha‘yah (Hebrew transliteration), and in the Hebrew text of some parts of the Old Testament, the name appears as Yesha‘yahu. The name is a combination of two words; Yesha which means Salvation and Yahu which means ‘of Jehovah.’ The name, therefore, can be translated as “Salvation belongs to the Lord” as in ‘only the Lord saves’ or “The Lord is Salvation” It is from the name of the prophet that we begin to understand his commission. The name of the Prophet is categorically under what the theologians call; Yah-Theophory.

The commission of the great prophet was to turn the Jews to the Lord as the only hope of their salvation. He indicated this even in the names he gave to his children. Isaiah was married to a prophetess (8:3). The two Sons he had, he named them as follows; The elder was Shear-Jashub (7:3), whose name means “a remnant shall return”; and the younger was Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (8:3), which means “the spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth.” The intentional naming can be traced in the times of his ministry each son was born.

I have exhausted you under this section on the issue of the name for two reasons; first, the theology of a name is very important to any serious Bible student for salvation is embedded in the name we confess. Secondly, of all the prophets in the Bible, prophet Isaiah stressed the issue of the name of the Lord; he called him ‘the holy one of Israel’. He prophesied a coming messiah born of a virgin (Isaiah 7) whose name would be Emmanuel (Isaiah 9) which he said meant it would be the almighty and powerful God condensed to dwell with us.

AUTHORSHIP

The book of Isaiah does not suffer issues of canonicity like some of the books in the Bible. The issues surrounding the book are about its authorship. Biblical scholars due to Biblical criticism are divided on the authorship of Isaiah. An ordinary reader like myself has always known the book of Isaiah to have been written by the same prophet (Isaiah). Biblical criticism, however, gave birth to the doubt of single authorship of the Isaianic scroll and this scepticism began in the 1780s. According to Edward Young (An Introduction to the Old Testament, P.216) “In 1789 appeared the commentary of Doederlein, in which the Isaianic authorship of 40-66 was denied.”.

Later in 1892, Professor Bernham Duhm in his commentary on the book of Isaiah revolutionalised the study of the book when he argued that the book had three Isaiahs. The indigenous Isaiah who wrote chapters 1-39, the Second Isaiah whom he designated as Deutero-Isaiah whom he argued to have written chapters 40-55 and a third Isaiah he called Titro-Isaiah to have ministered in the period of chapters 56-66.

Along the way, three schools of thought emerged and the first school of thought followed these 17^th century critical scholars and defended the authorship of three Isaiahs. The second school of thought argues that the book belongs to two prophets one being Isaiah who wrote and ministered in the period of chapters 1-39 and another prophet who lived in Babylonia in the latter part of the exilic period and this prophet they call; Deutero-Isaiah ministered in the period of chapters 40-66.

The third school of thought maintains that the whole scroll belonged to one prophet, Isaiah son of Amoz as the first verse says (1:1). According to Judaism, the book belonged to one prophet. After reading from all these materials (both for and against), it is my conclusion that the book belonged to one prophet and the entire volume was written by the same prophet. What makes the book as a whole powerful is the revelation the man of God received both within his time and beyond his time. The word of God is with greater force if we consider the book of Isaiah to be by the same prophet than when we break it into pieces.

OUTLINE

The book can be best outlined in two sections and that is from chapters 1-39 and from chapters 40 to 66. Thematically (other important details withstanding) the book breaks down as follows:

There are three Judgments in chapters 1-27: Judah is judged 1-12, Nations are judged 13-23, the World is Judged 24-27. Prophet Isaiah, for the first time, discusses the difference between the nations and the world. After these judgments we have the Prophet addressing King of Judah Hezekiah, and the events that happened to his life of which are of great significance to the present and future of the kingdom of Judah chapters 36-39.

From chapters 40-48 the Prophet shares oracles about the worship of the one true God and forbids idolatry (worship of idols in various fashions). In chapters, 49 to 57 he picks up the theme he had developed in chapters 7 and 9 about the virgin birth of the Messiah who was essentially God himself with us and this time presents him as the suffering servant of Yahweh (Ebed Yahweh). Finally, Prophet Isaiah demonstrates proper eschatology by sharing the eschaton (last of the last things) of eschatology and that is the New World and New Heavens. The book covers almost the entire narrative of heilsgeschichte (salvation history).

Next, I will look at the prophets in a broad sense.

God bless you I invoke TRUTH, REASON and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)

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