Isaiah Overview
About This Episode
Isaiah is one of the most important books for both the Old and New Testaments. In this intro episode, Seth and David talk about what prophecy is and why Isaiah is so important to the Biblical story.
Understanding Isaiah: The Prophet of History and Hope
Show Notes
The Historical Context of Isaiah's Ministry
David and Seth begin by discussing the significance of Isaiah as one of the most influential books in Scripture, noting that 47 of its 66 chapters are referenced in the New Testament. They explain that Isaiah's prophecies were beloved by New Testament authors because they contain clear Messianic predictions that were fulfilled in Jesus, such as "unto us a child is born" and prophecies about the suffering servant.
Isaiah's ministry took place during a time of intense political crisis. David and Seth explain that Isaiah prophesied during a period when the divided kingdoms of Israel (north) and Judah (south) had been at war with each other for decades. Meanwhile, the Assyrian Empire was consolidating power and expanding its territory, threatening both kingdoms.
This created a volatile political situation where both kingdoms were trying to determine how to respond to this emerging superpower. The northern kingdom of Israel attempted to form a coalition with Syria against Assyria and pressured Judah to join them, even plotting to assassinate Judah's king when they refused.
The Role of a Prophet in Ancient Israel
David and Seth explore what prophecy actually meant in ancient Israel by examining Deuteronomy 18, which establishes the role of prophets. Unlike surrounding nations that used divination, fortune-telling, and other occult practices to seek divine guidance, Israel was commanded to listen to prophets whom God would raise up. These prophets were meant to speak God's words to the people and especially to guide kings in their policies and administration.
Prophets were validated by the fulfillment of their prophecies. If what a prophet said came to pass, it proved they were truly speaking for God. David and Seth point out that much of Isaiah's book contains prophecies against various nations - these served as his "resume," demonstrating that he truly heard from God when these events occurred during his lifetime. This established credibility was crucial for both Isaiah's contemporaries and future generations who would read his prophecies about more distant events.
Isaiah's Message to Kings Ahaz and Hezekiah
David and Seth delve into Isaiah's interactions with two kings of Judah: Ahaz and Hezekiah. King Ahaz was a wicked king who imported idol worship and pagan practices. When faced with pressure from Israel and Syria to join their coalition against Assyria, Ahaz ignored Isaiah's counsel to trust God and instead formed an alliance with Assyria, offering them tribute and essentially inviting them to conquer the northern kingdom.
In contrast, Ahaz's son Hezekiah faced a similar situation when Assyria later turned against Judah. When Assyria besieged Jerusalem, Hezekiah followed Isaiah's counsel, went to the temple to pray, and trusted God. That night, 185,000 Assyrian soldiers mysteriously died, delivering Jerusalem.
This contrast between the two kings illustrates the central question of the first section of Isaiah: "Will you trust the God of history?" David and Seth emphasize that this theme runs throughout the book - the call to trust God who controls world events rather than relying on political alliances or idols.
The Structure and Timeline of Isaiah's Prophecies
David and Seth outline the three major sections of Isaiah's book. The first 39 chapters deal with events during Isaiah's lifetime, including the conflicts with Assyria and his prophecies to kings Ahaz and Hezekiah. Chapters 40-55 address the Babylonian exile, which occurred about 100 years after Isaiah's time. Chapters 56-66 deal with themes related to the return from exile, roughly 150 years after Isaiah lived.
This extended timeline has led some scholars to suggest multiple authors for the book. However, David and Seth explain that Isaiah's prophecies about future events served an important purpose - they would provide comfort to future generations who would experience these events. When exiled Israelites read Isaiah's prophecies written a century earlier, they could be confident that God would restore them just as Isaiah had predicted.
David and Seth highlight how this long-range prophetic perspective is part of what made Isaiah so compelling to New Testament authors, who saw in Jesus the fulfillment of prophecies written hundreds of years earlier.
The Suffering Servant and Isaiah's Enduring Message
David and Seth conclude by introducing one of the most significant themes in Isaiah - the suffering servant. They read from Isaiah 52-53, which describes a servant who is "despised and rejected by men" but who bears the griefs and sorrows of others. This theme of a servant who suffers begins in chapter 1 and runs throughout the book, pointing to one who will save Israel from their rebellion and evil.
Isaiah's message transcends his immediate historical context to speak to future generations. Even when facing the worst possible scenario - conquest by Babylon, destruction of the temple, and exile - God had not abandoned his people. David and Seth emphasize that this message of hope amid judgment is what makes Isaiah unique among the prophets and explains why his book was so influential for New Testament writers who saw Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecies about Emmanuel and the suffering servant who would bring redemption.
Seth: Israel starts plotting an assassination of the king of Judah.
David: Oh, man.
Seth: To put their own puppet king in there.
David: So that they'll join the coalition.
Seth: So that they'll join the coalition.
David: Oh, that is intrigue.
Seth: That's right. And so at one point, Israel even invades Judah and kills 120,000 Judean soldiers in this effort to gain Judah's military might along with them.
Intro: Welcome to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Spoken Gospel is a ministry that's the. Dedicated to speaking the gospel out of every corner of scripture. In Luke 24, Jesus told his disciples that every part of the Bible is about him. In each episode, hosts David and Seth work through a passage of scripture to see how it's all about Jesus and his good news. Let's jump in.
David: Well, welcome everybody, to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. We are starting our journey through the Book of Isaiah, one of the largest, most important, most influential books in the Bible. I'm so excited. How are you feeling? Set. I mean, you really said, I've set the stakes high.
Seth: You put the bar real high.
David: So you're going to jump over it.
Seth: I mean, it is. Of the 66 chapters in the book of Isaiah, 47 of them are mentioned in the New Testament.
David: Oh, my gosh.
Seth: The. The. The New Testament authors loved the Book of Isaiah, and they pulled a lot of their theology about the Messiah and who Jesus was from the Book of Isaiah. It's a massively important book in our Bibles.
David: Yeah. Why do you think it is that it was such a beloved book?
Seth: I have thought about that. Part of the reason is because of the types of things that Isaiah says, like that we. That we're really familiar with. Like unto us a child is born. The virgin shall conceive and bear a child named Emmanuel. There will be a suffering servant whose wounds by which we are healed. Like, there are things that we, like, know as Christians that are. That are, like, repeated every Christmas and Easter because of Isaiah. Because there just doesn't seem to be anybody else in history who fits the details quite like what Isaiah is prophesying.
David: So it's kind of like there are many other prophetic books that seem to talk about things that there are analogs to.
Seth: Yes.
David: You know, in the near future, or. Oh, I could see that happening through these means. Or. Oh, it just happened.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And a lot of other prophets have things that they kick out.
Seth: That's right.
David: You know, but Isaiah seems.
Seth: Isaiah seems to have a lot of those.
David: Okay.
Seth: And I think uniquely, I mean, we've just come out of like Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And they're prophets of doom. Like.
David: Yeah, totally.
Seth: Like, by and large their prophecies are negative in nature. And something that is interesting about Isaiah is that he like butts up like God's judgment of evil right next to his promises of compassion and redemption. And like there's very few chapters where those two themes aren't smashed together almost constantly. So you have an Isaiah as something that is really stark, like a lot of the other prophets, but in a really condensed format also. Really hopefully.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And I think that, like, is easier to digest.
David: Totally.
Seth: It's more fun to read like when you're in Torah school as an ancient Hebrew, it's like, man, Ezekiel's dark days.
David: Yeah.
Seth: But Isaiah, you get hope.
David: Yeah. When you're memorizing those passages. Really interesting. It reminds me because it is true. I didn't think about how doom filled or hopeless large swaths of Ezekiel and Jeremiah were. And a lot of the minor prophets as well. A lot of doom, a lot of judgment.
Seth: Israel, you're messing up.
David: Yeah. And all the nations are going down too. And it was just like, man, good grief. I mean, I get it, but golly.
Seth: Yeah.
David: But it sounds, this sounds more like the Psalms in a sense. You know, it reminds me of the Psalms or in the Psalms, a lot of times you have like this, like, oh, what's going to happen? Yeah, nothing good is ever going to come to me. But I know that you will save me and that you'll come through and that your steadfast love will endure forever. And it seems like that's kind of how you described a lot of Isaiah's prophecies where there's like, hey, let's get serious. Let's talk about some really serious things.
Seth: Yeah.
David: But there's hope.
Seth: Yes. And I think that, like, it's. That's more fun to read.
David: Yeah. It's true.
Seth: Not that. No part, all parts of the Bible are edifying, but it does feel like it makes it more ripe for imagination and for like meditation as well. So that might be. I mean, I'm like speculating on the minds of the apostles, New Testament writers.
David: But like, these are so, so let me, let me segue into another question by making maybe a really dumb observation.
Seth: Yes.
David: But it's like, it's interesting to think, okay, we're talking about different prophets who are hearing from God and saying what they're hearing. And Ezekiel and Jeremiah seem to have their own kind of doom tone.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And there are moments of hope, but it's very Different Isaiah kind of sounds different. Is he hearing different words from God? Like, is he a different kind of prophet? Which just kind of lead me to the question of, like, so how does prophecy work? And why does God talk differently to different prophets? Why is the book structured so differently? I'm just curious about that kind of stuff.
Seth: Well, I think that whenever we, whenever we have a conversation like, what is prophecy? I think it's just helpful to go back to the book of Deuteronomy, which.
David: That makes sense, which is everybody goes.
Seth: Back to the book of Deuteronomy to talk about prophecy. Well, this is where we get the first, like, laws from God about what prophets do and how they interact with the nation of Israel. So if you go jump to Deuteronomy 18, in chapter 9, it says this. Chapter 18, verse 9, it says, when you come into the land that your Lord, your God is giving you. So this just. Let's recap Israel's history. Moses has just led Israel out of slavery in Egypt. They've gone up on Mount Sinai. They've been given a set of commands by God and a promise that there's a land for theirs to take. Yep, Israel is now a nation. For the first time, God is speaking directly to Moses. And now they're about to go and rule a kingdom. And so that's this, that's the history up to this moment. They're about to take the land. And when you're there, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. And then he lists things like divination, fortune telling, necromancy, the interpreting of omens. The interpretive of omens. So interesting. When you go into the land, you're not to look for divine guidance from the sorcerers, from reading the livers or the fatty lobe of the liver or whatever it is. That's not how we talk to God. And then in verse 15, we're told how God will speak to his people, the Lord your God, instead of any of this. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me, Moses, from among you, from your brothers. It is to him that you shall listen, just as you desired of the Lord your God. At Horeb, which is Mount Sinai, on the day that we gathered there. And when we were there at Mount Sinai, you said, let me not hear anymore again the voice of the Lord, my God, to see this great fire anymore, lest I die. And the Lord said to me, they're right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command you. Remember that moment on Mount Sinai. Fire, flame, smoke.
David: Yep.
Seth: Israel's like, hey, I don't want to have that close of an interaction with God. That seems terrifying. Moses, you go, you act as this mediator.
David: You go listen to God and we'll listen. He'll put his words in your mouth. You come tell us what he said.
Seth: That's right. So the role of a prophet does this for Israel.
David: Yep. Speaks to God's people, God's words.
Seth: That's right.
David: Okay.
Seth: And in particular, in the context of becoming a kingdom and becoming a nation in the land of Israel. So the prophet was always supposed to have some sort of, like, access to the royal throne room. He was supposed to direct the kings of Israel in their policies and administration.
David: In the land of Israel, because they're not supposed to go anywhere else for divine guidance as they grow and flourish as a nation.
Seth: That's right.
David: Okay.
Seth: Because prophecy was, like, common throughout the ancient world. Every king had their prophets. Everybody talked to their gods about how to. Who to go to war with and who not to go to war with and which treaty to make.
David: And they all had their different mechanisms and different incantations.
Seth: That's right. Yeah. And God says, hey, no cantrips, no weird stuff. Just listen to the prophet. And that's who a prophet is. He is this person who God communicates to his laws. And that person, the prophet, applies those laws to new situations that Israel may not have known how to deal with in the past. It's like, hey, when an army comes up against us, what do we do? The law doesn't tell us whether or not to go to war.
David: Right.
Seth: It tells us how to go to war in some circumstances, but not what to do in this particular circumstance.
David: That's right.
Seth: The prophet is supposed to interpret and help them know what God says.
David: Yes.
Seth: Okay. Is that.
David: Yes. Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. Yeah. So was Israel in a particular moment in time when they needed prophecy? Is that why Isaiah kind of comes to the fore here?
Seth: Yes.
David: Because I'm like, are they in, like, a crisis and they don't know what to do?
Seth: Most certainly they're in a crisis. So Israel is a couple hundred years after their civil war. So there's a civil war in Israel where the north and south divide from one another. And since that time, the northern southern kingdoms have been at war with each other for decades and decades and decades. Lots of blood has been spilled in Conflicts between those two nations. And you could read about those in First Kings. However, during this time, when they're at conflict with one another, there is this looming power in the north called Assyria.
David: Yep.
Seth: And they were just like a loosely connected set of tribes until this man named Tiglath Pileser. What a great name. The third.
David: Oh, the third. There were two before him. Oh, God. They're like, we've stumbled upon a good name. We need to hold on to this.
Seth: Let's keep going with Tiglath Pileser because it's so good. And he basically starts consolidating power among these territories, and as he does so, looks to expand his empire. And just immediately south of the Assyrian territories is Israel and Judah. So as this is happening, Judah and Israel, the two countries are just noticing the changing world landscape, and they're trying to figure out how to be faithful to God.
David: Right.
Seth: In this changing world landscape.
David: Yep. A superpower is amassing on our borders. What does that mean for our little emerging nation?
Seth: That's right. Should we ally with them for protection? Should we resist them?
David: Should we grow an army? Should we start to make peace treaties.
Seth: That's right. And run away? And so for a couple generations, Judah in the south kind of just try to remain neutral.
David: Okay.
Seth: They paid some like. Like some tribute money. It's like, hey, let's be friends. And they sent tribute money to them. But Israel in the north hated Assyria.
David: Okay.
Seth: And they were a little bit further north, so they had some border. More border conflicts with that. Right?
David: Yeah.
Seth: And so they start trying to form a coalition to fight Assyrian dominance within.
David: Israel or with other.
Seth: Within Israel and with Syria. Oh, another nation.
David: All right.
Seth: And then they start pressuring Judah in the south.
David: Come join us.
Seth: Join their coalition. And Isaiah even talks about this when Judah says, hey, we don't want to be a part of it. Israel starts plotting an assassination of the king of Judah.
David: Oh, man.
Seth: To put their own puppet king in there.
David: So that they'll join the coalition.
Seth: So that they'll join the coalition.
David: Whoa. That is intrigue.
Seth: That's right. And so at one point, Israel even invades Judah and kills 120,000 Judean soldiers in this effort to gain Judah's military might along with them. And so it's into this situation that Isaiah is born and prophesies.
David: Okay, so is it fair to say that Isaiah is born into a civil.
Seth: War two decades into a civil war.
David: Two decades into a civil war?
Seth: More than that.
David: But yes, that's like his setting, surrounded by an amassing world Power that their little nation is still trying to figure out how they're going to coexist, defend, or die underneath.
Seth: That's right.
David: And so it's extremely volatile politically.
Seth: Yes.
David: And then, like, I'm sure it also has all these religious, in a sense, faith connotations.
Seth: Yes.
David: In the fact that, like, well, these. We have these two scattered tribes, like groups of tribes in the north and the south.
Seth: And then.
David: But what does this also mean for all the promises God gave them about their land and.
Seth: Yeah.
David: How it's going to flourish? Like. Yeah. I have so many questions. Okay. I can reserve them for now.
Seth: I mean, I think those are all the right questions to start asking. So Isaiah is living during this time of, like, intense political crisis. And as a prophet, he is supposed to guide the king in how he's supposed to act. And the king of the throne during this time period is a man named Ahaz. King Ahaz. He's not a great king. He's responsible for, like, putting a whole bunch of idol shrines in Israel. He's starting to, like, import all of the polytheism and the pagan practices of the nation surrounding them. He's generally described as a pretty wicked and evil king.
David: And Ahaz is doing this at least partly, if not a lot, for these two reasons that we've talked about. One, being maybe these idols or these new practices will give me better or different guidance on how to handle the Assyrian crisis.
Seth: Yes.
David: But then two, to kind of sync up his practices with the Assyrians so that he can curry favor with. Oh, he's not trying to curry favor with them. He's trying not.
Seth: Yeah.
David: But maybe with the. With the Syrians or something.
Seth: Yeah, he. We don't quite. We're never told his motivations explicitly. We just know that from the Book of Kings that that's what he's doing.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Generally when you import alliance, like, import gods, you're trying to curry favor with the gods that you're, like, with the nations whose gods you're importing. But in this particular case, they're against Assyria, they're against Syria, and they're against Israel. And so they're trying to maintain their little sphere of sovereignty and trying to figure out how to handle this conflict. And so what ends up happening in Isaiah's day is that as Israel and Syria start pressuring Judah to join their coalition against Assyria, Judah just goes around them and goes to Assyria and says, hey, we know you're the up and coming player here. We want to be on your good side. We'll start paying you money if you take care of this little problem for us, and you can have all that land.
David: This little problem being northern Israel.
Seth: This little problem being northern Israel.
David: What king did that?
Seth: King Ahaz. Oh, this is what Isaiah tells him not to do.
David: Well, yeah, that is messed up.
Seth: And Isaiah tells him, if you do this, they'll betray you.
David: Of course they will.
Seth: They'll betray you. And so that's. And then this is actually where we get the Emmanuel prophecies, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But, like, this is the political situation happening in the first part of Isaiah.
David: Okay.
Seth: And then a little bit later in Isaiah, we have another fairly similar situation happening. But just fast forward a couple. A couple of years. Assyria eventually takes over Israel and Syria, and. And, you know, just like Isaiah prophesied, starts gunning for Judah in the south. But by this time, Ahaz's son is on the throne. Hezekiah. And Hezekiah has to deal with the same problem his father did or has to deal with mistakes of his father. Assyria's on their doorstep now. Assyria's own war journals Chronicle the 46 towns in Southern Judah that they conquer. And they hole up in this military city called Lachish.
David: Do we have these outside the Bible?
Seth: We have these outside the Bible.
David: That's cool.
Seth: And, like. And the Bible also mentions them, so, like, there's some cool stuff there. And then basically from Lachish, they start to besiege Jerusalem. And it's in that place. It's like, okay, will Hezekiah trust where Ahaz, his father did not trust?
David: And by trust you mean. Listen to what the prophet says.
Seth: Yes. Isaiah told Ahaz, don't. Don't go into an alliance with Assyria. Trust your God. He will deliver you.
David: Yep.
Seth: Ahaz is like, no, never mind, man.
David: I mean, and it doesn't make any sense.
Seth: That's right.
David: Right. Trust God to do what? Where is he? Yeah, Assyria is there. I can go shake their hand. I'm just supposed to sit around and wait for God to do something?
Seth: Yeah.
David: Like what. What was. What was Isaiah asking Ahaz to do?
Seth: Literally, I think he was just asking him to pray. Just because. To stop and pray. Because when he tells this to Hezekiah, when the army is besieging Jerusalem, Hezekiah just goes to the temple and prays. And that night, 185,000 Syrians die overnight.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And like, you can read the Assyrian war journals. The records of this just. This embarrassment just are gone from history. Like it's like something miraculous happened because Hezekiah prayed and that's all he did. He trusted God to control the outcome of the battle, and things changed.
David: Okay, those are two helpful parables to kind of like, have us think about this as we're asking the question, what is prophecy?
Seth: Yes.
David: Like. Prof. Like, a prophet speaks God's word and will to the king, and the king is supposed to listen to it. And if he does, then God's will and kingdom come to earth.
Seth: Yep.
David: If he doesn't, then bad things happen.
Seth: Bad things happen.
David: To put it very scholarly. Bad, bad juju. Okay, yeah, I get that.
Seth: What?
David: Are there any other features about Isaiah's prophecy? Because right now it just sounds like he is, you know, a conflict happens. The king comes to him and says, what do I do? Isaiah prays and says, do this, don't do that.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Is he doing anything else, like, socially, like? Because I know a lot of the other prophets speak against injustice. They speak, you know, to the people on, like, hey, fix your, you know, your rigged measurements and things like that. What else is he talking about?
Seth: I mean, so this. Maybe. Let's just talk about the structure of Isaiah and this will get us a little bit closer to the question you're asking. So Isaiah has three really well defined sections, universally recognized as, like, three, like, clear divisions in the text. The first one is the first 39 chapters.
David: Okay.
Seth: Chapters one to 39 deal with the conflicts with King Ahaz and King Hezekiah. So that first 39 chapters deals with all that goes on during that period. Isaiah's prophecies during that time, his commands to the kings and got his oracles against the rest of the world. So this is probably what you're getting at here. For most of those first 39 chapters, there's like a couple chapters about Ahaz, a couple chapters about Hezekiah. From chapters 13 to 36, Isaiah is just prophesying the end of evil world empires, the end of Babylon, the end of Moab, the end of Philistia, the end of Assyria. Like, God is coming to judge evil both in Israel and Judah, but also across the whole world.
David: So if. If Isaiah, or if a prophet, especially like a courtship prophet, a court prophet to the king, is supposed to answer questions of what do I do in this given political situation? Why is Isaiah spending so much time talking about other nations?
Seth: Because in Deuteronomy, the question that comes after saying, okay, instead of going to the diviners, listen to my prophet.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And he'll tell you what to do first question any reasonable person will ask is like, well, how do I know what he's saying is true?
David: Oh, right, yeah, yeah. Is he just making all this up?
Seth: Is he just making all this up? Is he just pretending to talk to God and tell me what to do?
David: Right.
Seth: And then Deuteronomy says, well, if his words come to pass.
David: Yeah.
Seth: If the things he says, that's how.
David: You know a real prophet is a real prophet.
Seth: That's right.
David: If their words come to pass.
Seth: That's right.
David: If they don't, you stone them.
Seth: Yeah, that's right. That's like real, real intense. And so these prophecies are Isaiah's resume.
David: Okay.
Seth: In a sense, these are the things Isaiah is prophesying that come true during his lifetime.
David: Oh, man. And he's prophesying against world nations, world.
Seth: Powers, nations that fall and rise during, like battles that happen.
David: Oh, dang. Okay. So, okay, I think there's like a metaphor coming to mind, but it's like he's not saying, I bet a blue truck will drive by in some time today.
Seth: Yes.
David: And it's like, well, the odds of that happening are pretty good. Yeah.
Seth: Yeah.
David: But if I said, like, I'm going to tell you something. South Korea is going to invade North Korea very soon and that is. And it's going to fall. And then you just kind of wait around and nothing happens. And it's like, you're a liar.
Seth: You're a liar.
David: That's right.
Seth: Or.
David: And then I'm like, oh, you know what? Greece is going to merge with Italy for some reason. Yes. What?
Seth: Why?
David: That would never happen. And then it does. What's going on with this guy? And so it's like, I think a lot of like modern day in times prophets, you know, they kind of either speak very vaguely and it's like, well, oh, a battle will happen or earthquakes will happen. It's like, well, yeah, of course.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And then it's like, oh, they're real. Or on the other side, they get really specific and miss it.
Seth: It doesn't, it doesn't matter.
David: And people still trust them, which is weird. But Isaiah is kind of doing both. He's getting, he's putting the stakes as high as possible, talking about things you could never just know or predict or guess at. And it sounds like there's quite a volume of them.
Seth: Yep.
David: So he didn't get lucky one time.
Seth: Got lucky.
David: He was just right multiple times. And at the highest level of, you know, of possibility to prove. I think I'm hearing you say that he's A real prophet of God.
Seth: Yes.
David: And he can hear about what God is going to do on world kingdom scales throughout history.
Seth: That's right.
David: Like, is that.
Seth: That's right. That's exactly right. So in the, in the book, the way that it works is Ahaz is supposed to trust this God who controls world events.
David: Right.
Seth: And he doesn't.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And then right after the Ahaz story ends, you get like prophecy after prophecy of world power falling and falling and evil being judged throughout the world. And then you get to Hezekiah and the question is, will Hezekiah trust the God of history?
David: Right.
Seth: Will he trust the one Isaiah speaks on behalf of?
David: Yeah.
Seth: Will he trust the one who can control nations by his word alone in Hezekiah? That's the, that's the call here. In the book of Hezekiah, in his first 39 chapters, I see. Will you trust this God of history?
David: The God of history?
Seth: The God of history.
David: Yeah, that seems like a, like you should, like. I should like, highlight. Write that in like next to Isaiah in my Bible. Will I trust the God of history? Is that like a good. I mean, that's great theme statement.
Seth: That's a great theme statement, at least for that specific section of Isaiah.
David: Will you trust the God of history? And so all of these other things Isaiah is doing is really proving that he does hear from God and that you need to listen to him.
Seth: That's right.
David: Okay.
Seth: That's right. So that's the first 39 chapters.
David: Oh, right. Okay.
Seth: That's the first 39 chapters. The second section and the second section begins to talk about a different political situation. That 39th chapter ends with this looming threat of Babylon on the horizon. And so, like, there's a whole. There's. We'll get there. Okay, we'll get there. So Hezekiah defeats the God, defeats the Assyrians for Hezekiah. But God warns there's this other power behind the scenes. The power of Babylon will come and destroy Israel. So that's just mentioned in passing. And then we jump. Okay, and chapter 40 and onwards assumes that the Babylonian invasion has already occurred.
David: Okay.
Seth: That Israel is destitute and that they are outside of their homeland waiting to go back home.
David: Yeah. And what's the time frame between the ravishing of the Assyrian army under Hezekiah? 180, whatever. Thousand and the. Like, the.
Seth: The invasion of Babylon, historically, it's about 100 years. Oh, gosh, it's about 100 years.
David: So Isaiah's dead.
Seth: Isaiah's dead. Isaiah's dead.
David: When this Stuff is coming true when.
Seth: This stuff is coming.
David: So he's writing about things that have happened in the future.
Seth: That's right.
David: So this is why.
Seth: Yes.
David: A lot of scholars, or some scholars think that there's different authors. That's exactly because they don't. A lot of scholars aren't even Christians. And so they don't think that a God of history exists that can tell a prophet what's going to happen in such detail.
Seth: Yeah. One way to think about the way that Isaiah is organized is historically. So a lot of people will say chapters one to 39 happened during Isaiah's lifetime. Chapters 40 to 55 happened during the Babylonian exile, which about 100 years later. And then chapters 56 to the end deal with the return from exile. So another 50 years later. And so that's a decent way to understand. And it kind of fits some of the language used during those periods of time and that.
David: That spans those events.
Seth: Yes.
David: Assyrians invasion, Assyria's invasion, Babylonian invasion. Return from Exile covers what, 150 years. Okay, 150 years.
Seth: Yeah. It would be like Isaiah prophesying to Ulysses S. Grant. He's the president who led America out of the civil War.
David: Okay.
Seth: Prophesying to him about 9, 11 and the Taliban.
David: Okay.
Seth: That's the span of history that we're dealing with here.
David: Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Seth: Yes. So that's, that's, that's. However.
David: Yeah.
Seth: I think there's also problems with understanding it primarily in a chronological fashion.
David: Oh, okay.
Seth: Because it's not quite clear that Isaiah intends to communicate to audiences 100 and. 150 years into his future. Because the prophecies that a lot of people consider, like in that 40 to 55 about the return from Babylon, those would still make sense to people living during Isaiah's time. And the prophecies of the very end that presumably are about the end of exile actually have a lot of details in them that don't make sense about the post exilic period. Idolatry is mentioned frequently throughout that section. And idolatry is not a problem in Israel during that time. Like the Babylonian exile does, what God.
David: Intends it to do, cleanses and purifies.
Seth: The land, cleanses Israel of their idolatrous tendencies, and brings them back to Torah observance.
David: Right.
Seth: The fact that there's a whole bunch of like, warnings against idolatry, the back half the book makes it seem like Isaiah is still speaking to people in his day.
David: That's interesting. So a way to say that would be. He. He maybe uses pictures omens In a sense.
Seth: Yes.
David: About a coming Babylonian invasion. And then, of course, what would that mean? Exile.
Seth: Yes.
David: But there's promises of God, of course we're going to come back.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And he uses that as a picture or a warning or a teaching mechanism to talk to the people of his day.
Seth: That's right.
David: To get them to do what?
Seth: Primarily, what Isaiah is doing in those first 39 chapters is he's calling Israel to trust their God, not trust the political machinations of the day, not trust the idols of other nations, but to trust their God alone. And he has prophecy after prophecy that comes true during his lifetime, during his span of life, he's been proven successfully. He's like a successful prophet. He's proven that he's God's spokesman, that he has the ability to. To see things before they happen by God's grace and warn people of what's to come. And so I think what's more likely happening is that Isaiah is also writing these prophecies about events far in the future so that future generations will benefit and realize that the God of history in the past of their past is the same God of history for them. So when Israel does finally go into exile and they pick up the book of Isaiah, they see all through Ahaz's lifetime, all through the conflicts during that period, throughout the rest of the world, through Hezekiah's lifetime. Isaiah was right. God was the God of history. And now they're in Babylon.
David: Yep.
Seth: Is God still the God of history? Have they so forfeited themselves that God is done with them? But when Isaiah says no, there's comfort for you. That's the first words of chapter 40, comfort, comfort my people, Israel, you will return from your Babylonian exile. There's a degree of certainty that people centuries later can have that God will do what he's always intended to do.
David: I don't want to pit Ezekiel and Isaiah against each other.
Seth: Yes.
David: But psychologically, for a reader, yes. Ezekiel's writing while the temple's being destroyed. He's prophesying while the temple's being destroyed.
Seth: That's right.
David: And he's talking about doom and the temple's destroyed. And he's like, hope afterwards. And that'll have a huge measure of hope bringing abilities, you know, to the people of Israel. But imagine if you had this other prophetic book that was written, you know, 100 years earlier that said, hey, this is going to happen, but comfort, comfort my people.
Seth: Yes.
David: And it was written by a prophet that had been proven again and again and again to Know what God was going to do on a global scale. Imagine the comfort.
Seth: That's right.
David: That having a promise that you know would come true 100 years beforehand in your hands.
Seth: That's right.
David: That's even better.
Seth: That's right.
David: In a sense. Than a prophet in your day saying, hey, I know this was bad, but God's going to come through.
Seth: That's right.
David: We're like, well, I'm glad you said that. Thank you. But we also have a hundred year old promise from a very reliable prophet. Yeah. So that's like the.
Seth: Yeah. So I think there's a sense which Isaiah is writing for future generations makes sense. And he's like got a track record that he think he can preach comfort to them. But it's also written for people in Isaiah's contemporaries. As events are unfolding, he's being proven to be God's prophet. That God is worthy of trusting over the political machinations and idols of their day. And this is going to continue to prove true hundreds of years in the future. Israel, God will always preserve his people. He will always restore us back to who we were meant to be. So when we get to that very end of the book where people assume it's talking about the end of exile or the return from exile and he goes back to idolatry. No, he's making his final point. Hey, we are called to be something. We are called to be God's people. Israel, God is in control of our history. There's no massive deportation that can thwart God's plans for us. So let us act as we are meant to be. Let's be the people God has intended us to be from the beginning.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Like does that make sense?
David: Oh, it makes a ton of sense. Because what he kind of does is he shows Israel the worst thing that could happen.
Seth: Yes.
David: A power bigger and badder than Assyria. You're afraid of Assyria. Imagine a bigger batter power that could come in Babylon and imagine they wipe us all out and destroy the temple and exile us. God still hasn't given up on us. So here in the middle of this situation where you're afraid of the worst thing happening, be faithful because God can save you. God can be faithful to bring you home and protect you. It's really fascinating. What that also makes me think about is how if Isaiah was really powerful to the post exilic people or the people in exile because it was written 100 years earlier.
Seth: Yeah.
David: By a faithful prophet. It's like what kind of compounding effect does that have for the People who, you know, like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who wrote the Gospels. Yeah. Right. As they were. Like, we're seeing these prophets, these prophecies come true hundreds of years later from the same reliable prophet.
Seth: That's right.
David: Who said all these true things about our nation. And now look, here is this promised one, this emmanuel, and we'll talk about that later. But just think about the nature of prophecy.
Seth: Yes.
David: As a. As a. As a proof and a comfort is like, he's proven to be a faithful prophet so we can listen to him. And he promised all this stuff about a messiah.
Seth: Yes.
David: And then whenever he's here, it's like, oh, look, we can trust this. And it's. It's real, it's true, and it's a comfort.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And it's all found in Jesus.
Seth: Yes.
David: So, like, that's just really interesting, too.
Seth: Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense that the biblical authors picked up on Isaiah's prophecies of hope because he seems to write across generations, seems to stretch his own prophecies, throw them into the future, and say, expect this type of faithfulness from God in the future, where he will come and deliver his people from their sin and their evil at the hands of an Emmanuel.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Okay. So we've talked a bit about the historical situation, the nature of prophecy, the structure of the book. Is there anything else we need to lay out as we kind of try to round out an introduction to Isaiah?
Seth: I think those are the big buckets to get our heads in. What we'll talk about through the next several podcasts is this idea of being God's servants. One of the most famous parts of the Book of Isaiah are these four songs in chapters 40 and onwards that are called the servant songs, where this person, a servant, suffers and dies for his own people. Yeah. So let me read one of them. It says this in Isaiah 52:13, behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. But chapter 53, verse 3, he was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows acquainted with grief. Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteem him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. These are famous passages.
David: Yeah, very.
Seth: In the book of Isaiah. And they lie at the center of Isaiah's understanding of the redemption and rescue that God will provide for his people, Israel. And that idea of a servant coming who will suffer begins all the way in chapter one of the book of Isaiah. Oh, and so what I want to do in the next episodes is trace that theme through the book of Isaiah of this servant who suffers in expectation of a servant who will save Israel from themselves and their evil.
David: I'm very excited. Okay. I just want to start right now. Yes. Okay. All right. But come back for the next episode as we trace the theme of the suffering servant throughout the book of Isaiah. It's to going to be an amazing journey. I can't wait for it. So thank you, Seth. Thank you all for joining us as we began this look at the book of Isaiah. And we will see you next time.
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