Isaiah: the Holy One and the suffering servant
Isaiah proclaims the Holy One of Israel, who judges his people's sin and comforts them, saves through a suffering servant, and will create new heavens and a new earth. Few books of the prophets are quoted more often in the New Testament.
About the book
The name Isaiah means ‘the LORD is salvation’. The book opens as "the vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw" under four kings, from Uzziah to Hezekiah (Isaiah 1:1). Isaiah was called in the year King Uzziah died, about 740 BC (Isaiah 6:1), and preached in Jerusalem while Assyria swept the region, until about 680. The map under the Jesus tab places the book in the divided monarchy (930–586 BC).
Jews and Christians have long received all sixty-six chapters as this Isaiah's. The opening verse heads the whole book, and the New Testament quotes both halves as his: John sets Isaiah 53:1 beside 6:10, both as Isaiah's words (John 12:38-41), and Paul introduces chapters 53 and 65 alike with "Isaiah says" (Romans 10:16, 10:20). The book's God declares "the end from the beginning" (Isaiah 46:10), and its name for him, "the Holy One of Israel", runs through both parts (Isaiah 1:4, 41:14). The great Isaiah scroll found near the Dead Sea, from about the second century BC, already holds all sixty-six chapters as one book Dead Sea Scrolls.
Since the late eighteenth century many scholars have assigned chapters 40–55 to a prophet among the exiles in Babylon around 540 BC and, since the late nineteenth, 56–66 to his disciples after the return. From chapter 40 on, they note, Jerusalem lies in ruins and the people are in Babylon as the present setting; Cyrus, the Persian king who would free them, is named as one already on the scene (Isaiah 45:1); Isaiah's own name no longer appears, and the style changes. Many of them still read the book as one carefully shaped whole. Many others, among them evangelicals, who stress the authority of Scripture and the telling of the gospel, hold that God showed Isaiah the exile and the return long before, and that all sixty-six chapters come from him.
How it unfolds
Isaiah falls into two great movements: judgement (1–39) and comfort (40–66).
| Chapters | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1–12 | The Holy One judges Judah; Isaiah's call; Immanuel |
| 13–35 | Words to the nations and the whole earth: Babylon, Assyria, Egypt |
| 36–39 | Hezekiah: rescue from Assyria, the exile to Babylon foretold |
| 40–55 | Comfort: the return from exile, the servant of the LORD |
| 56–66 | The restored people and the nations; new heavens and a new earth |
Key passages
The God Isaiah saw in the temple is above all holy. The seraphim called to one another:
Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts; all the earth is full of His glory.
Isaiah 6:3
Isaiah cried, "Woe is me, for I am ruined" (Isaiah 6:5); cleansed by a coal from the altar, he answered the Lord's call: "Here am I. Send me!" (Isaiah 6:8). The Holy One judges his people, yet pleads with them: "Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow" (Isaiah 1:18).
Chapter 40 opens a new note: "Comfort, comfort My people" (Isaiah 40:1). The grass withers, but God's word stands forever, and those who wait for him rise again:
But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31
The comfort comes through the servant of the LORD. The servant is sometimes Israel itself (Isaiah 41:8), but in the servant songs of chapters 42, 49, 50 and 52:13–53:12 he appears as one person, a light for the nations (Isaiah 49:6) who bears the sins of others though he has done no wrong. The book ends looking to a whole new world: "For behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth" (Isaiah 65:17).
The book and Christ
The New Testament reads Isaiah as a book about Christ. Matthew sees the birth of Jesus fulfil the sign of the virgin's son, Immanuel, "God with us" (Matthew 1:23), and the church has long read at Christmas "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given" (Isaiah 9:6). The debate over the word ‘virgin’ in Isaiah 7:14 is taken up in Has biblical prophecy been fulfilled?
The servant's song shows the cross:
But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:5-6
When an Ethiopian official reading this chapter asked, "who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" (Acts 8:34), Philip "began with this very Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus" (Acts 8:35). Matthew Henry writes on these verses, "Our sins were the thorns in Christ's head, the nails in his hands and feet, the spear in his side" Matthew Henry.
In the synagogue at Nazareth Jesus read from chapter 61, where the LORD anoints one "to preach good news to the poor", and said, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:21). John even says that in the temple vision of chapter 6 Isaiah "saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about Him" (John 12:41), and the promised new heavens and earth come into view at the Bible's end (Revelation 21:1).
Reading it
Two or three chapters a day takes three to four weeks; begin with Isaiah 1. Read Isaiah 40, and the song that runs from 52:13 to the end of Isaiah 53, slowly. Chapters 36–39 nearly repeat 2 Kings 18–20; you may read them side by side.
Read the oracles of chapters 13–35, full of unfamiliar names, more quickly, holding their thread: the Holy One of Israel is Lord of all the earth. Then go on to Jeremiah.
Practice
- Practice 1 of 6
Which of these sums up how Isaiah unfolds?
- Practice 2 of 6
What did the seraphim call out when Isaiah saw the Lord in the temple?
- Practice 3 of 6
What did Philip do for the Ethiopian official reading Isaiah 53?
- Practice 4 of 6
After reading from Isaiah 61 in the synagogue at Nazareth, what did Jesus say?
- Practice 5 of 6
Which foreign king does Isaiah name, and call the LORD's "anointed"?
- Practice 6 of 6
Which view of who wrote Isaiah 40–66 is paired with a reason its holders give?
Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.
Related topics
Source
- Qumran, Dead Sea Scrolls 1QIsa^a — A complete Isaiah scroll from about the 2nd century BC; it agrees in substance with the Masoretic text a thousand years later, with many small differences, mostly of spelling.
Lessons from the Bible, the church's creeds and classic commentary. Each book's author and date are given as the church has received them, and scholars who see them otherwise are presented fairly. Scripture quotations: BSB.