← All Books
No. 23Major Prophets
Isaiah
Judgment, comfort, and a servant who suffers
StatusEssential
Read66 chapters
DifficultyIntermediate
Isaiah 1 - 66 · Ministry set in the 8th century BC, with material reaching to the exile and beyond · Jerusalem and Judah
The Point
God is holy and his people have failed, and he does the saving himself.
What This Book Is
The largest of the prophets, moving from searing judgment to some of the most beautiful comfort in Scripture, and containing the servant songs the New Testament reads as fulfilled in Jesus.
Overview
Isaiah is long, and it helps to know its shape. The first thirty nine chapters address a nation in crisis. Assyria is devouring the region, Judah's leaders are looking for political alliances, and Isaiah keeps insisting the real problem is spiritual. His indictments are blistering, and notably they target worship and injustice together: God says he is sick of their festivals while their hands are full of blood and the orphan goes undefended.
Chapter 6 contains his call, a vision of God high and lifted up with the seraphim calling holy, holy, holy, and Isaiah's response is not enthusiasm but ruin. Woe is me, for I am undone.
From chapter 40 the tone changes completely. Comfort, comfort my people. These chapters speak past the immediate crisis to exiles who will need to hear that their warfare is over, that God has not forgotten them, that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. The mockery of idol making in these chapters is some of the sharpest writing in the Bible.
Woven through are four passages about a servant, culminating in chapter 53, which describes one who is despised, who carries our sorrows, who is pierced for our transgressions, and by whose wounds we are healed. The New Testament reads these as pointing to Jesus, and Philip explains them that way to an Ethiopian official in Acts.
The final chapters look further still, to new heavens and a new earth.
Structure
- Chapters 1 to 12: Indictment and hopeJudah accused, Isaiah called, and a child promised.
- Chapters 13 to 35: The nationsOracles against surrounding powers and against false security.
- Chapters 36 to 39: NarrativeHezekiah, an Assyrian siege, and a fatal display of treasure.
- Chapters 40 to 55: ComfortExile addressed, idols mocked, and the servant songs.
- Chapters 56 to 66: New creationJustice, restoration, and new heavens and a new earth.
Themes
HolinessJusticeComfortThe servantTrustNew creation
Why It Matters
Isaiah supplies much of the vocabulary the New Testament uses for Jesus, and chapter 53 is quoted or echoed more than almost any other Old Testament passage. It also holds together two things we tend to separate: a God whose holiness makes a prophet feel undone, and a God who comforts like a mother. Its insistence that worship without justice is offensive to God has fuelled reformers ever since.
How to Read It
- Read chapter 6 first if the book feels overwhelming. It sets everything else up.
- Read chapter 40 when you are tired, and chapter 53 slowly, more than once.
- Notice how often justice for the poor sits directly beside worship in the indictments.
- Take the authorship discussion calmly; it has been debated a long time by serious readers on all sides.
Key Verse
Isaiah 53:5
“But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.”
Did You Know?
- The Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran, copied around the second century BC, contains the entire book and is remarkably close to the later Hebrew text.
- Handel's Messiah draws heavily on Isaiah for its libretto.
- Isaiah has sixty six chapters, and readers have long noticed the rough parallel with the sixty six books of the Protestant canon, though nothing is made of it in the text.
Where to Start Reading
Isaiah 6Isaiah 40Isaiah 65:17-25