Who is Isaiah?
1. Isaiah’s life and times
Isaiah the son of Amoz, brother of King Amaziah of Judah, prophesied in Jerusalem during a pivotal period in Israel’s history (742–701 B.C.).
Many things transpired in Isaiah’s day that typified what would happen at the end of the world. As both a prophet and poet, Isaiah encoded layers of meaning into his prophecies that require one to search them in order to discover their meaning.
At a young age, Isaiah saw God in the temple at Jerusalem, where God called him as a prophet:
Isaiah 6:8–10Then I heard the voice of my Lord saying, Who shall I send? Who will go for us? And I replied, Here am I; send me! And he said, Go, and say to these people, Go on hearing, but not understanding; Go on seeing, but not perceiving. Make the heart of these people grow fat; dull their ears and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand in their heart, and repent, and be healed.
So far had his people drifted away from God that he sent Isaiah to warn them of calamities that lay just ahead.
Isaiah’s prophecies divided people into those who would see, hear, understand, repent, and be healed of their behavioral dysfunctions and those who refused.
His prophecies spell out the evil consequences of people’s not paying attention to God’s commandments, but they also portray the glories God promises those who take his words to heart.
Isaiah’s name, “Jehovah is Salvation” (Hebrew yeshayahu), heralded a message of hope to those who would understand his words.
When Isaiah was prevented by a ruling king from prophesying to the people, he called his children by symbolic names that portended Assyria’s imminent invasion of Israel and God’s deliverance of a remnant of his people.
Two sons—Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, “Hasten the Plunder, Hurry the Spoil,” and Shear-Jashub, “A Remnant Shall Repent/Return”((Isaiah 7:3; 8:3))—prefigured what was about to happen.
After more than forty years of serving as God’s prophet—covering the reigns of five kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Manasseh—Isaiah was sawn in half by the wicked King Manasseh((Ascension of Isaiah 5:1, 11)).
Toward the last part of his life, Isaiah lived in Israel’s desert regions with a small coterie of prophets to escape Manasseh’s wrath. Eventually, however, the king’s cohorts tracked him down.
2. What things did Isaiah teach?
Isaiah describes his book as being written in “parables.”((Ascension of Isaiah 4:20))
Although anchored in history, Isaiah’s prophecies are end-time in nature, in which history acts as an allegory of the end-time.
From that perspective, those parts of Israel’s history Isaiah chose to record possess the dual function of foretelling the end of the world. Having seen “the end from the beginning” in a cosmic vision1, Isaiah patterned his prophecies in such a way that the end was foreshadowed by events in the beginning.
Although many people believe we are nearing the end of an age, even the end of the world, few have a clear idea of what to look for that may reveal where we are in the sequence of events.
A lot of popular ideas to which people subscribe, when analyzed and compared with the prophecies themselves, are seen to have no clear scriptural basis so that the truth lies buried under mounds of speculation.
God’s answer to this tide of “zeal without knowledge” is the prophecies of Isaiah. With as much detail as still allows for the exercise of faith, they spell out the end from the beginning so that a believer is left in no doubt about events that are about to overtake the world.
Layers of literary structures transform the Book of Isaiah into an end-time prophecy that was preconceived by a single author. A woven tapestry of terms, concepts, and typologies interconnect all its parts.
As a case in point, a seven-part literary structure covering the entire Book of Isaiah develops a theology of spiritual ascent on a ladder to heaven.
Isaiah’s “good news” or gospel, in other words, shows that Jesus’ gospel was not an innovation but was had among Israel’s prophets from the beginning. Isaiah teaches how persons who love God by keeping his commandments that are the terms of his covenants are spiritually reborn on ascending levels of a ladder to heaven.
Isaiah realized his prophecies would be most relevant to people at the end of the world, not in his day. He knew Israel’s ancient history would repeat itself on the world stage and that his writings would, at that time, finally be understood:
Isaiah 29:18In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book and the eyes of the blind see out of gross darkness.
3. Can Isaiah’s prophecies help me?
In a world growing ever more perplexing, oppressive, and invasive, would it assure you to know where current events are headed—that from the beginning God prepared a way through them for those who believe in his Word?
God determined not only to deliver you from the worst-case scenario the world has ever known but to allow those very times to reshape you into far more than you were before?
Would it comfort you to know that God has orchestrated adversarial end-time conditions for the very purpose of empowering you above them provided you align yourself with his will?
It may admittedly be difficult for anyone to conceive that Isaiah’s prophecies capture not only an entire timeline of end-time events but that they additionally teach a theology of salvation based on God’s covenants—a theology designed to re-create his children ever closer to his own image and likeness.
We don’t see it as our task, however, to convince you of Isaiah’s end-time message.
We know from experience that as you enter this journey of discovery, you will convince yourself as you apply the simple interpretive tools we provide.
These interpretive tools have always existed within Isaiah’s writings themselves. But they were not made known because they waited for the time his prophecies would be fulfilled.
Once you start on your journey of applying them in your personal search, you will discover that Isaiah’s prophecies help open up all of God’s Word to your understanding.
Because the knowledge of God’s covenants was largely lost over many centuries, understanding them is essential to knowing how God operates in human history and in his children’s personal lives. We observe this, particularly with the prophecies of Isaiah.
People’s breaking the covenants in the past did not invalidate the covenants themselves, which are eternal.
The Sinai and Davidic Covenants, for example, remain as operative today as they were anciently. Isaiah illustrates that when we relate to God through them, we obtain power with him to accomplish his designs for his children’s happiness.
Isaiah 54:10The mountains shall be removed and the hills collapse with shaking, but my charity toward you shall never be removed, nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says Jehovah, who has compassion on you.
- Isaiah 46:10 [↩]