Isaiah

The day of the LORD and salvation through the coming Messiah: judgment, then comfort and glory.

Isaiah is the prince of the prophets and the most quoted prophet in the New Testament. He ministered in Jerusalem for about sixty years under Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, during the rise of Assyria and the fall of the northern kingdom. He saw the Lord high and lifted up in the temple, heard the seraphim cry “Holy, holy, holy,” confessed himself undone, and answered, “Here am I; send me” (6:1–8).

The book has two great divisions. Chapters 1–39 announce judgment on Judah, Israel, and the nations, interwoven with promises of a coming King—Immanuel, the Child whose name is Wonderful, the Branch out of Jesse. They close with the historical account of Sennacherib’s invasion and Hezekiah’s illness. Chapters 40–66 open with “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people” and look beyond the Babylonian captivity to redemption through the Servant of the LORD, who is wounded for our transgressions, and to the new heavens and new earth.

Isaiah sees the Messiah’s first and second comings more clearly than any other prophet. He describes the virgin birth, the ministry in Galilee, the forerunner’s voice in the wilderness, the suffering Servant, the Spirit-anointed preacher of good tidings, and the King who will judge the earth and reign in righteousness. No wonder Jerome called him more an evangelist than a prophet.

Writer: Isaiah
Written: During Isaiah’s ministry, about 758–698 BC.
Name: The Lord is salvation

Title and authorship

Yeshayahu means “Jehovah is salvation,” nearly the same as the names Joshua and Jesus. In the New Testament the King James Bible transliterates the Greek form as Esaias, an honest testimony to the translators’ faithfulness to the text before them.

Isaiah the son of Amoz wrote the whole book (1:1). The New Testament quotes both halves under his name; John 12:38–41 quotes Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 6 together and says, “These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.” The complete Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran, copied before Christ, contains all sixty-six chapters as one book.

Historical background

Jerusalem during the Assyrian crisis, from the year King Uzziah died (about 758 BC in the traditional chronology) into the reign of Hezekiah (about 698 BC). Isaiah is mentioned in 2 Kings 19–20 and 2 Chronicles 26 and 32.

Judah and Jerusalem in Isaiah’s day, the exiles who would later read chapters 40–66, and the nation that will see its promises fulfilled at the coming of the Messiah.

The Assyrian crisis

Isaiah lived through the Syro-Ephraimite war (Ahaz, chapter 7), the fall of Samaria in 721 BC, and Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah in 701 BC. Assyrian records boast of 46 walled cities of Judah taken, but Scripture records the angel of the LORD smiting 185,000 Assyrians before Jerusalem (37:36).

Cyrus named in advance

Isaiah names Cyrus as the shepherd who will decree the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple (44:28–45:1), about 150 years before Cyrus conquered Babylon. Critics answer by dating the second half of the book after Cyrus; believers see the God who declares “the end from the beginning” (46:10).

The Dead Sea Scrolls

Among the Qumran scrolls, Isaiah is one of the best represented books, and the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa-a) preserves all 66 chapters as a single book. Chapters 40–66 carry no new title and no hint of a different author; the scroll treats Isaiah as one prophecy.

Key passages

Isaiah 9:6–7

The Child born and the Son given, whose government and peace shall have no end upon the throne of David—first and second advents in one prophecy.

Isaiah 53:5–6

“He was wounded for our transgressions... the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Isaiah 40:31

They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength.

Isaiah 53:4–5

The Servant bears griefs and is wounded for the sins of others.

Outline

1–12 · Judah’s sin and messianic hope

The Lord confronts his people while promising the coming King.

13–35 · The nations and the coming day

Judgments broaden outward and restoration remains before Israel.

36–39 · Hezekiah’s crisis

Assyrian pressure, answered prayer, and the Babylonian visitors form a historical bridge.

40–66 · Comfort, redemption, and glory

The Lord’s servant, salvation, restoration, and the new creation fill the final movement.

Original language

עַלְמָה (almah, H5959) — “virgin”

A young woman of marriageable age, never used in Scripture of a married woman. Matthew, following the inspired sense, renders it parthenos, virgin (Matthew 1:23). A young woman conceiving naturally would be no sign.

עִמָּנוּ אֵל (Immanu-el, H6005) — “Immanuel”

“God with us.” The name identifies the virgin’s Son as God Himself come among His people (Isaiah 8:8, 10; Matthew 1:23).

עֶבֶד יְהוָה (eved YHWH, H5650) — “servant of the LORD”

The Servant songs (42:1–9; 49:1–13; 50:4–11; 52:13–53:12) move from Israel, the servant who failed, to the individual Servant who fulfils Israel’s calling and suffers for the sins of others.

קְדוֹשׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל (qedosh Yisrael, H6918) — “the Holy One of Israel”

Isaiah’s characteristic title for God, found about twenty-five times in the book and only six times elsewhere. It appears in both halves, a mark of the book’s unity.

הֵילֵל (helel, H1966) — “Lucifer”

“Shining one” or “morning star.” Isaiah 14 addresses the king of Babylon and then the power behind him, who said, “I will be like the most High.” Christ is “the bright and morning star” (Revelation 22:16); Lucifer is the counterfeit.

Doctrinal study

The first and second advents

Isaiah often places both comings side by side with no indication of the gap between them. Isaiah 61:1–2 speaks of preaching “the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God”; Christ read only the first phrase in Nazareth and closed the book (Luke 4:18–21). The day of vengeance awaits His return.

Substitutionary atonement

Isaiah 53 describes a Servant who bears griefs, carries sorrows, is wounded for transgressions not His own, is led as a lamb to the slaughter, makes His soul an offering for sin, and then sees His seed and prolongs His days. Philip began at this Scripture and preached Jesus to the Ethiopian (Acts 8:32–35).

The millennial kingdom

Isaiah’s kingdom passages describe the nations streaming to Jerusalem to learn the LORD’s ways (2:2–4), the wolf dwelling with the lamb (11:6–9), the desert blossoming (35), and people living so long that one dying at a hundred is a child (65:20). These are literal promises to be fulfilled on earth when Christ reigns.

Commentary notes

Isaiah and the Bible

Isaiah’s 66 chapters parallel the 66 books of the Bible: 39 chapters of judgment and law, then 27 of comfort and grace. Chapter 40 opens with the voice crying in the wilderness, the first theme of the New Testament (Matthew 3:3), and chapters 65–66 end with new heavens and a new earth, as Revelation does.

Titles of Christ in Isaiah

Isaiah calls the Messiah the Branch of the LORD (4:2), Immanuel (7:14), Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace (9:6), a rod out of the stem of Jesse (11:1), a tried and precious corner stone (28:16), a king who shall reign in righteousness (32:1), the arm of the LORD (53:1), a man of sorrows (53:3), and the Redeemer who shall come to Zion (59:20).

A prophet as a sign

Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign against Egypt and Ethiopia (20:2–4), and he named his sons as prophecies: Shear-jashub, “a remnant shall return,” and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, “haste to the spoil.” He said, “I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs” (8:18), words Hebrews 2:13 applies to Christ.

Christ in the book

  • Immanuel, born of a virgin (7:14)
  • The Child born and Son given (9:6)
  • The Branch and rod from Jesse, anointed by the Spirit (11:1–2)
  • The tried and precious corner stone (28:16; 1 Peter 2:6)
  • The suffering Servant (52:13–53:12)
  • The Anointed Preacher of good tidings (61:1–3; Luke 4:18)
  • The Warrior-King coming from Edom with dyed garments (63:1–6; Revelation 19:13)

Applications

Historical

  • Isaiah is sent to Judah and Israel to preach coming judgment from Assyria and Babylon unless they turn from their sin, and to point them to the promised Messiah. He also describes the judgment of Israel’s enemies.
  • Isaiah’s named kings place him alongside the histories in Kings and Chronicles.
  • The book addresses present crises while announcing events beyond the prophet’s own day, including Cyrus’s role in the return from Babylon.

Doctrinal

  • Isaiah describes Israel in the Tribulation before the Second Coming, the first and second comings of Christ like no other prophet, the fall of Lucifer, hell, and the millennial kingdom. He touches every doctrinal prophecy, paralleling the history in Kings and Chronicles.
  • The first and second comings of Christ are central: the Servant suffers for sin, and the King establishes righteousness.
  • Israel’s future restoration and the blessing of the nations are joined to the Lord’s sovereign purpose, not to the nation’s ability to rescue itself.

Devotional

  • God has preserved His complete revelation so that we can present the Saviour, warn of His soon coming, and keep ourselves right with God. Isaiah’s vision shows the order of true service: seeing the Lord, seeing oneself, being cleansed, and then being sent.
  • A vision of God’s holiness exposes personal uncleanness and prepares a servant to speak his word faithfully.
  • Isaiah directs trust toward God’s revealed promises during circumstances that encourage dependence on political alliances and outward religious observance.

Answering the critics

Modern criticism divides Isaiah into two or three books (chapters 1–39, 40–55, and 56–66), arguing that chapters 40–66 were written by unknown prophets during and after the exile because they name Cyrus and address the return from Babylon.

The Jews and believers throughout history held Isaiah to be the sole author, and so did Jesus Christ (John 12:37–41). The New Testament quotes the “second Isaiah” under Isaiah’s name (Matthew 3:3; Romans 10:16–20). The Isaiah scroll presents the prophecy as one book, and the title “Holy One of Israel” runs through the whole book. The real objection is to predictive prophecy itself; a God who knows the future can name Cyrus before he is born.