The Legacy of Isaiah: Insights and Impact

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Isaiah 1:17-20 NIV

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My Thoughts

The passage from Isaiah emphasizes seeking justice, defending the oppressed, and repentance for sins. Isaiah’s life spanned through key historical events, forecasting Israel’s downfall and Judah’s reforms under Hezekiah. His teachings cover moral reformation, warnings, and prophecies concerning the Messiah while maintaining a focus on national rather than individual issues.

One day I would like to do an in-depth study of Isaiah but for now, I have found a couple of commentaries that provide excellent information on the Prophet Isaiah that I would like to share……Bill

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Commentaries:

Spurgeon

The Prophet Isaiah. Several things are known of him. (1) He was called to his work the last year of the reign of Uzziah. (2) He lived at Jerusalem during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, and most of his life seems to have been spent as a sort of court preacher or chaplain to the king. (3) He is the most renowned of all the Old Testament prophets, his visions not being restricted to his own country and times. He spoke for all nations and for all times, being restricted to his own country and times. “He was a man of powerful intellect, great integrity and remarkable force of character.” (4) He is quoted more in the New Testament than any of the other prophets and, because of the relation of his teaching to New Testament times and teachings, his prophecies have been called the “Bridge between the old and new covenants.” (5) He married and had two sons.

The Nature of His Teachings. In his inaugural vision recorded in the sixth chapter Isaiah has impressed upon him some truths that shaped his whole career. He saw: (1) The holiness and majesty of God; (2) The corruption of those about him; (3) The certainty of awful judgment upon the wicked; (4) The blessing of those whose lives are approved of God; and (5) The salvation of a remnant that was to be the seed of a new Israel. With these truths burning in his soul he pressed the battle of righteousness into every sphere of life. He strove to regenerate the entire national life. He tried to make not only religious worship, but commerce and politics so pure that it could all become a service acceptable to God. He, therefore, became a religious teacher, preacher, social reformer, statesman, and seer.

Conditions of Israel (The Northern Kingdom). Isaiah began to prophecy when it was outwardly rich and prosperous under the rule of Jeroboam IL Inwardly it was very corrupt. It soon went to pieces, however (621 B. C.), being conquered and carried into captivity by the Assyrians.

Conditions of Judah (The Southern Kingdom). During the reigns of Ahaz, Jotham, and Uzziah, oppression, wickedness, and idolatry existed everywhere. Ahaz made an alliance with Assyria, which finally brought destruction to Israel, but Hezekiah listened to Isaiah and made reforms, and God destroyed the Assyrian army before Jerusalem was destroyed.

Nature of the Contents of the Book. The contents of the Book have been said to include: (1) Warnings and threats against his own people because of their sins. (2) Sketches of the history of his times. (3) Prophesies of the return of Israel from captivity. (4) Prophesies concerning the coming of the Messiah. (S) Predictions of the judgment of God on other nations. (6) Discourses that urge upon Israel moral and religious reformation. (7) Visions of the future glory and prosperity of the church. (8) Expressions of thanksgiving and praise.

The Center of Interest. The prophet deals primarily with the nation and not with the individual. He speaks primarily of the present and not of the future. These two facts must be kept constantly in mind as we read and interpret the book.

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Derek Kidner

The historical context

Isaiah lived through a pivotal period of his nation’s history, the second half of the eighth-century bc, which saw the rise of written prophecy in the work of Amos, Hosea, Micah, and himself, but also the downfall and disappearance of the greater part of Israel, the ten tribes of the northern kingdom. (See The Prophets in The Song of Songs)

In 740 bc the death of King Uzziah (6:1) marked the end of an ‘Indian Summer’ in which both Judah and Israel had enjoyed some fifty years’ respite from large-scale aggression. This would soon be only a memory. The rest of the century was to be dominated by predatory Assyrian kings: Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Shalmaneser V (726–722), Sargon II (721–705) and Sennacherib (705–681). Their ambitions were for empire, not for plunder alone; and in pursuit of it they uprooted and transplanted whole populations, punishing any sign of rebellion with prompt and hideous reprisals.

In 735 Jerusalem felt the shock wave of their approach when the armies of Israel and Syria arrived to force King Ahaz into an anti-Assyrian coalition. Isaiah’s confrontation with the king (ch. 7) brought to light the real issue of this period, the choice between quiet faith and desperate alliances. The king’s decision to stake all, not on God but on Assyria itself, called forth an implied rejection of him and his kind, and the prophecy of a perfect king, Immanuel, to arise out of the felled stock of the Davidic dynasty.

Israel paid for her rebellion with the loss of her northern regions (‘Galilee’; 9:1) in c. 734 and of her national existence in 722. For Judah, bordered now by a cosmopolitan Assyrian province (2 Ki. 17:24) in the territory where Israel had stood, there was every discouragement to patriotic gestures.

But it was a patriot who followed King Ahaz. Hezekiah (for whose chronology see on 2 Ki. 18:1) was a firebrand in whom faith and impatience took turns to kindle the flame. Much of Isaiah’s energy was devoted to keeping him out of intrigues against Assyria (see on 14:28–32; 18:1–7; 20:1–6). In the end this struggle came to a head in a bitter conflict between the prophet and a pro-Egypt faction at court, implicit in chs. 28–31. The sequel was Hezekiah’s revolt against Assyria (chs. 36, 37), which brought the might of Sennacherib down upon him in 701 bc and left the little kingdom of Judah almost prostrate in spite of the miraculous rescue of Jerusalem.

Isaiah’s dealings with Hezekiah were never confined to questions of political prudence, nor to the immediate future, and his last encounter with the king pinpoints the difference between these two men of faith. In 39:5–7, Isaiah looks far ahead to the Babylonian captivity, the fruit of the king’s disobedience, but the king’s only reaction is relief: ‘There will be peace and security in my lifetime.’ It was an understandable horizon for a monarch; unthinkable for a prophet. So the prophecy goes on to completion in the final section.

The events implied in chs. 40–55 are identified beyond doubt by the name of Cyrus (44:28; 45:1), which carries us at once into the world of the sixth century. Cyrus, king of Anshan in southern Persia, had seized control of the Median Empire by 550 bc and most of Asia Minor by 547. This put him in a commanding position against the Babylonian Empire (where the Jews had been captive since before the fall of Jerusalem in 587). This empire was itself weak and divided by now, the king, Nabonidus, being absent from the capital (where his son Belshazzar deputized for him) and at odds with the priests. In 539 Cyrus defeated the Babylonian army in the field and his forces entered Babylon without a fight. True to God’s prophecy in Is. 44:28, he repatriated the Jews (among other subject peoples) with instructions to rebuild their temple (Ezr. 1:2–4; 6:2–5). His own inscription on the ‘Cyrus Cylinder’ (now in the British Museum) reveals that this was his general policy, in order to enlist the good offices of the gods whom he restored to their sanctuaries (see on 41:25).

A considerable number of Jews returned, but soon fell foul of the ‘people of the land’ by rejecting their help in rebuilding the temple (Ezr. 4:3). The whole work came to a halt for nearly twenty years until Haggai and Zechariah inspired a new attempt in 520, which was completed in 516. Many commentators see this situation, with its human tensions and its preoccupation with Jerusalem and the temple, as the background presupposed in chs. 56–66. In this commentary, however, the thread that binds the last chapters together is taken to be thematic rather than historical, a preoccupation no longer with Babylon but with the homeland and the mother city, both as they were in their imperfection and as they pointed beyond themselves to the new heavens and earth, and to the ‘Jerusalem above’.

F. Derek Kidner, “Isaiah,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, ed. D. A. Carson et al., 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 629–630.

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