The Book of Isaiah

Abstract

The book of Isaiah is perhaps best known through its long history of reception in descriptions of Jesus as the Messiah of Israel, beginning with the New Testament. In the Hebrew Bible, the book of Isaiah begins with the latter prophets. There, it is followed by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the book of the Twelve (the minor prophets). Together, these books portray the messages and activities of the prophets of ancient Israel from the period of the late divided monarchy during the rise of the Assyrian Empire through the era of Babylonian domination and on into the Persian period, when, beginning with the rise of the Persian king Cyrus, there arose the opportunity for return to the land and a restoration of what had been lost. Standing at the head of this prophetic collection, the book of Isaiah straddles this entire history. The first half of the book portrays the fate of the northern kingdom of Israel and that of the southern kingdom of Judah in the days of Isaiah the prophet under the power of the Assyrians, whereas the second half of the book looks forward to days beyond the prophet, to restoration and renewal after the fall of Babylon at the hands of King Cyrus. Known as the latter prophets, this collection of books follows the primary history of the Hebrew Bible, a sequence there divided up into “the Torah” and “the former prophets” (Genesis–Deuteronomy and Joshua–2 Kings, respectively). Beginning with the creation of the world and the story of the garden of Eden, this primary history came to be the context within which the message of the prophet Isaiah was understood. Thus, the book of Isaiah ends with an evocation of the “messianic” hopes of Isaiah 11 alongside the expectation for a new creation and the punishment of that serpent, who was to eat dust because of his role in the fall of the first humans (Gen. 1:1; 3:14; Isa. 11:6–9; 65:17–18, 25; 66:22). In the modern era, scholarship turned its attention to reconstructing various aspects of the history behind the book of Isaiah and its place in the Hebrew Bible. Initial efforts focused on reconstructing the authentic words of the prophet himself in their genuine historical context within the cultures of the ancient Near East and the various streams of ancient Israelite tradition. In the early 21st century, this interest has been joined by robust efforts at understanding the process that saw the words of the prophet turned into a book related to the Hebrew Bible more broadly.