Isaiah
Part 1
Tonight, we will begin taken a close look at the Book of Isaiah. We will begin by doing an overview of this great book. In the following weeks, we will be looking at each chapter, but we will not be looking at each chapter in detail. Sometimes we might only cover 1 chapter, other times we may cover 10 chapters in one lesson.
Isaiah is called “The Messianic Prophet”, because of his many prophecies about Jesus. The New Testament quotes and applies more scriptures from the book of Isaiah than any other Old Testament prophet.
Isaiah
was God’s spokesman to
The key word of Isaiah is salvation. This word appears 26 times, but only 7 times in the other prophetic books combined.
The theme of the book is found Isaiah’s name, which means “Salvation is of the Lord.”
Here are some of the key verses:
Isaiah 1:18 " Come now, and let us reason
together," Says the LORD, "Though your sins are like scarlet, They
shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as
wool.
Isaiah 7:14 "Therefore the Lord Himself
will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and
shall call His name Immanuel.
Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto
us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name
will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of
Peace. 7 Of the increase of His
government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David
and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will
perform this.
Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the
iniquity of us all.
Key phrase is “Holy One of Israel” which appears 25 times.
Key chapter is Isaiah 53, which describes the suffering servant. It’s message is the love of God, the sin of man, and the salvation that Christ would bring.
Isaiah writes about the glory of God and the salvation made through Jesus. His prophecies and judgment from God revealed condemnation and hope. The book is sometimes called the miniature Bible since it has 66 chapters and two main divisions – chapters 1 – 39 and 40 – 66. This corresponds to the number of books we have in the Bible and the two major divisions because there are 39 books in the O.T. and 27 in the N.T.
In
the first 39 chapters, Isaiah pronounces God’s judgment on the immorality and
idolatry of
Isaiah’s favorite designation for Jehovah (Yahweh) is “The Lord of Hosts”, used 62 times in the book.
“The name designates the Lord as
omnipotent, and...is used by all the writing prophets except Ezekiel, Joel,
Obadiah, and Jonah. The term ‘hosts’ designated the armies of
The N.T. references the book of Isaiah 43 times. Most of these references had to do with the prophecies of Jesus and His work of salvation. All, of the prophets, especial Isaiah offer convincing proof that the Bible is the Word of God because when these prophets would speak and say things were going to happen they did. Some of which would happen hundreds of years later. For example, notice the following predictions that Isaiah made that came to pass:
Predictions fulfilled in his lifetime:
Predictions fulfilled after his lifetime:
Predictions about the Messiah:
While not a detailed list, all these prophecies that came to pass could not have been predicted by man. The only way these things could have predicted is by God revealing these truths through the prophet Isaiah.
The earliest copy of Isaiah in the original Hebrew language was A.D. 900 for many years, but thanks to the discover of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, we have a copy that dates back 100 B.C. and confirms that the authenticity of the A.D. 900 copy.
Let’s talk about Isaiah himself:
His name means “salvation of the Lord” or “the Lord is salvation”, and is symbolic of his message. He is described as “the son of Amoz” (Isa 1:1; 2:1; 13:1). He was married to a prophetess (8:3) and had two sons who had prophetic names that symbolized his message (8:3-4; 7:3): Shear-Jashub (“the remnant shall return”, Isa 7:3) and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (“in-speed-spoil-booty-hastens”, Isa 8:3).
The
Bible tells us nothing about Amoz, but tradition says that Amoz was a brother
of Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of
Isaiah
received his visions in the days of “Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings
of
During Isaiah’s time, it was a time of
great political turmoil for the nation of
It
soon became apparent that
Later,
in a moment of weakness Hezekiah showed the ambassadors from
The following are the lessons taught by
Isaiah:
GENERAL
OUTLINE
THE ASSYRIAN PERIOD - CONFLICT AND VICTORY
(1-39)
THE BABYLONIAN PERIOD - HOPE FOR TROUBLED
TIMES (40-66)
There are many reasons Christians should read and study the book of Isaiah. Some of the reasons are:
Finally, Isaiah serves as a great example for us today because when God was looking for someone to send to His people to give them the opportunity to turn from their ways we see Isaiah say:
Isaiah 6:8 "Here am I! Send me."
Isaiah was committed to serving God and he did and
said exactly what God told him to do. For example he proclaimed;
Isaiah 59:2 But your iniquities have separated
you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that
He will not hear.
He also used great illustrations that you could
see in your mind that would add emphasis to the point he was making such as:
Isaiah 57:20 But the wicked are like the
troubled sea, When it cannot rest, Whose waters cast up mire and dirt. 21 "There is no
peace," Says my God, "for the wicked."
We have several examples in the O.T. when God would have his prophets do something outlandish things to make his point. Well, Isaiah had his as we read in:
Isaiah 20:2 at the same time the LORD spoke by
Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, "Go, and remove the sackcloth from your
body, and take your sandals off your feet." And he did so, walking naked
and barefoot. 3 Then the LORD
said, "Just as My servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years
for a sign and a wonder against Egypt and Ethiopia, 4 "so shall the king of
Assyria lead away the Egyptians as prisoners and the Ethiopians as captives,
young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame
of Egypt.
Isaiah went around naked for 3 years to make this
point. I do want to point out that this word naked can mean no clothes or
partial clothes like a loin cloth. Coffman say the following:
"Sackcloth
was regarded as the appropriate dress for prophets; it was made of the coarse hair
of the goat." As for the instruction here to walk naked and barefoot, it
is a mistake to think that Isaiah was totally nude. Hailey's quotation from
Delitzsch has this: "What Isaiah was directed to do was simply opposed to
common custom, not to moral decency."F6 No doubt, he actually wore a loin cloth or
some other very abbreviated garment. This instead of the prophet's customary
dress was sensational enough.
One verse, that some misapply is:
Isaiah 14:12 " How you are fallen from
heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the
ground, You who weakened the nations!
Some think this is talking about Satan and how he fell
from heaven, but context will show that Satan is not being spoken of. Instead,
is talking about the king
Isaiah 14:4 that you will take up this proverb
against the king of Babylon, and say: "How the oppressor has ceased, The
golden city ceased!
So, Lucifer is not one of the names of Satan.
While I am on topic of names, let me show you some of the titles of Christ that
come from Isaiah:
This concludes our introduction to Isaiah, I hope
it will encourage you to start reading it so that it will be on your mind as I
begin to expound on each chapter in the coming weeks.
Much of
the information in this lesson came from Mark Copeland’s study on Isaiah, Know
Your Bible Frank J. Dunn, and Halley’s Bible Handbook.