Isaiah 1:1 - Isaiah's Vision
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Introduction
Introduction
[READING - Isaiah 1:1]
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem, which he saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
[PRAYER]
[CONTEXT] God promised Abraham that through his descendants the whole world would be blessed.
He promised David that through His rule the world would be led into salvation.
But by Isaiah’s day, many descendants of Abraham and many heirs to the Davidic throne no longer believed the promises of God.
This lead the people of God to often fear the world and distrust the Lord.
[INTER] Will we trust YHWH? Will we trust the God who saves?
Will we trust Him in a crisis?
Will we trust something or someone else besides Him? Will we trust ourselves instead?
What are the consequences if we don’t trust Him? What does He promise if we do?
These were the questions facing God’s people as the prophet Isaiah stepped onto the scene.
And these are the questions facing us as we begin our study of the book of Isaiah.
[CIT] In Isaiah 1:1 we are given the superscription—the heading of the whole book—which includes the who, the what, and the when of Isaiah’s writings.
[PROP] In order to understand Isaiah, we have to understand these key pieces of information in Isaiah 1:1.
[TS] We’ll discuss each KEY piece, but because it comes first in v. 1, let’s begin with THE WHAT…
Major Ideas
Major Ideas
Key #1: The What (Isa. 1:1a)
Key #1: The What (Isa. 1:1a)
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem…
[EXP] We are immediately told what we are reading when in v. 1. This the first key piece of information; we are reading a vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
A VISION
Almost every prophetic work in the OT uses a superscription to introduce its readers to the who, the what, and the when of its message, but Isaiah’s superscription does something unique.
Most other prophetic works begin with “The words of…”
For example, Jeremiah’s superscription begins, “The word of Jeremiah,” and Hosea’s begins, “The word of the Lord which came to Hosea.”
Ezekiel’s and a few others are a bit different but similar to one another in that they come around to saying, “the word of the Lord came” to prophet so and so (cf., Ezek. 1:3).
The superscription in Nahum, Habakkuk, and Malachi are alike in that they all refer to “the oracle,” which is more literally translated as “the burden”, but that burden in Nahum and Habakkuk comes to them in a vision while Malachi’s burden comes to him as “the burden of the word of the Lord,” (Malachi 1:1).
Obadiah’s superscription is just “The vision of Obadiah.”
So why does this matter?
Well, ‘the word of’, ‘the burden of’, and ‘the vision of’ in the context of the prophets all refer to supernatural revelation from God…
…but ‘the word of’ communicates the idea of a spoken or written message (and surely that applies to Isaiah as well because his message was spoken and written),
…‘the burden of’ communicates the idea of a weighty feeling upon the prophet or the ones receiving his message (and that surely applies to Isaiah as well because he was often burdened for the people of God),
…but ‘the vision of’ communicates the idea of divine insight; the idea of seeing behind the scenes from God’s perspective.
Isaiah’s vision is a vision from God giving divine insight into world events from Isaiah’s day to our day to the end of days.
CONCERNING JUDAH AND JERUSALEM
This divine insight primarily concerns Judah and Jerusalem in the southern part of God’s Kingdom, but God has insight for Israel in the north in addition to many other nations.
This superscription is not wrong because it only mentions Judah and Jerusalem but includes others.
Responding to that absurd claim, John Calvin pointed out that it wasn’t wrong for Peter to preach to Gentiles like Cornelius although he was the apostle concerned with the Jews, and it wasn’t wrong for Paul to preach to Jews in their synagogues although he was the Apostle concerned with the Gentiles.
In the same way, it is not a mistake to say that Isaiah’s vision concerns Judah and Jerusalem although it also includes messages concerning other nations.
Isaiah’s vision is a vision from God and it is indeed a vision for the world, and everyone—including us—had better pay attention.
[ILLUS] Imagine that I came up to you tonight and said, “I had a dream about the next year of your life.” Would you be interested in what I had to say?
You may not trust what I had to say. You may not change anything about your life based on my dream, but I do think you’d be interested to hear about it whether you believed it or not.
[APP] Well then we should be interested in what Isaiah has to tell us because it doesn’t just concern his day or the next year of our lives, but it is concerned with his day and our day and everyday leading up to the end of time.
We should be interested in Isaiah’s vision because although it came through Isaiah, God is the source of this vision. (The source of my dream about the next year of your life might have been too much Dateline before bed.)
You might be interested in what I have to say about the next year of your life, but you know I don’t know it all and I can’t see it all, so you would rightly not put much trust in my prognostications.
But you should be very interested in what Isaiah has to say and put all your trust in it because he got his information from the One who knows and sees it all.
[TS] Key #2: The Who—if we’re going to understand Isaiah, we should know something about the prophet himself.
#2: The Who (Isa. 1:1b)
#2: The Who (Isa. 1:1b)
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz…
[EXP] Despite the similarity in spelling, Amoz, the father of Isaiah, is not the prophet Amos. Jewish tradition, however, has it that Amoz was the brother of Amaziah, the king of Judah before King Uzziah.
This would’ve have made King Uzziah and the Prophet Isaiah cousins. If Isaiah was a member of the royal family, it would help explain how he had such direct access to the kings of Judah during his lifetime.
However, other prophets who weren’t members of the royal family had access to the kings of God’s people as well, so Isaiah’s access to royalty doesn’t prove that he was royalty.
If he wasn’t apart of the royal family, he might have been a part of a scribal family. A seal from around the time of Isaiah was discovered with the name Amoz on it who was described as a scribe—someone employed because of their proficiency in reading and writing.
The idea of Isaiah as a scribe makes sense to some people because Isaiah vocabulary is rather large compared to some of the other prophets.
One writer said, “For Isaiah, words are watercolors and melodies and chisels to make truth and beauty and goodness,” (Eugene Peterson, “Introduction to Isaiah” in The Message).
But whether he was royalty or a scribe or a royal scribe we know that Isaiah was a husband and a father.
His wife isn’t named but is describe as a prophetess in Isaiah 8:3, which probably just means that she was married to a prophet, but his two sons were give symbolic names.
One son was named Maher-shalal-hash-baz, which means “swift to the treasure, speedy is the prey” because before he was old enough to cry, Assyria would plunder the treasure of Syria and Israel and set them to running.
Maher-shalal-hash-baz’s name was a way of saying that that would happen soon.
Isaiah’s other son was named Shear-jashub, which means “a remnant shall return” (Isa. 7:3).
Some have seen these two names as a good summary of Isaiah’s book.
Chapters 1-39 center on fast approaching judgment in the form of exile.
Chapter 40-66 center of on a remnant of God’s people returning to the Promised Land.
In Isaiah 6, we have what most consider to be Isaiah’s prophetic call. Chapters 1-5 are given to show us the circumstances in which Isaiah was called prophesy.
If Uzziah and Isaiah were cousins, it would make sense that Isaiah would describe the year of his call as “the year of King Uzziah’s death” (Isa. 6:1).
In Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees a vision of YHWH in all His holy grandeur, worshipped by heavenly beings who constantly proclaim His holiness.
Isaiah immediately knows that he is an unclean sinner who lives in a soup of unclean sinners.
How can Isaiah speak the holy words of God as a prophet when he has unclean lips?
Isaiah confesses, his lips are cleansed, his iniquity is taken away, and he is forgiven by the grace of God.
The prophet is then ready and commanded to go and tell.
Isaiah spoke the word of God and likely wrote the word of God until he was probably killed for doing so.
The superscription in Isaiah 1:1 mentions four kings—Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah—but Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, ruled alongside his sick father for 9 years beginning at age 12.
Once his father died, Manasseh becomes the worst of all the kings of Judah as described in 2 Kings 21.
He built pagan altars in the temple, built more pagan altars in the temple courts, burned his own sons in sacrifice to a pagan idol, filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and so on.
As Manasseh came to the throne, Isaiah’s speaking ministry may have come to a close, but his writing ministry (where we get the last 27 chapters of Isaiah) may have continued until, as tradition has it, Isaiah was sawn in two by Manasseh’s henchmen.
An apocryphal work called The Assumption of Isaiah says that an evil priest tried to tempt Isaiah to retract his prophecies and avoid death, but empowered by God’s Sprit, Isaiah resisted and was sawn in two.
Some believe that Hebrews 11:37 is in reference to Isaiah’s death; that verse says that some heroes of faith in the OT era were sawn in two, tempted, and put to death with the sword.
[APP] Isaiah endured to the end.
May God grant us the faith to do the same.
[TS]…
#3: The When (Isa. 1:1c)
#3: The When (Isa. 1:1c)
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem, which he saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
[EXP] Isaiah began his ministry in the year that King Uzziah died. King Uzziah (a.k.a., Azariah) was a good king who ruled for 52 years.
During that time Judah prospered, but when that prosperity went to Uzziah’s head, he thought he could offer incense in the temple, a task reserved for priests as commanded by God. Eighty or so priests tried to stop him, but because of Uzziah’s arrogance his was struck with leprosy for the rest of his life.
Even so, 2 Kings 15:3 says of him…
He did right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done.
Uzziah’s son, Jotham, ruled with his father as sort of the face of the Kingdom of Judah once Uzziah developed leprosy. He ruled 16 years.
During his reign, Syria (a.k.a., Aram) and Israel to Judah’s north began to threaten Judah (cf. 2 Kings 15:37).
Judah would soon have to decide trust the Lord or to trust someone else.
Upon his death, 2 Kings 15:34 says of Jotham…
He did what was right in the sight of the Lord; he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done.
2 Chronicles 27:6 says…
So Jotham became mighty because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God.
But then we come to Ahaz, Jotham’s son, who reigned as King of Judah for 16 years. Ahaz was not a good king.
When Syria and Israel invaded Judah, Ahaz surrendered the throne of David to the Assyrians, becoming a vassal state to a pagan power rather than trusting in YHWH (cf., 2 Kings 16:7).
As 2 Chronicles 28:22 says…
Now in the time of his distress this same King Ahaz became yet more unfaithful to the Lord.
Ahaz did many other terrible things too, which you can read about in 2 Chronicles 28.
Despite his father, Hezekiah, Ahaz’s son, was a great king who ruled for 29 years.
He opened the temple, which his father had closed.
He regathered the priests and Levites.
He instituted reforms according to God’s Law.
He reinstituted Passover.
He destroyed idols.
It was a good time in Judah…
…but Assyria soon came to put Hezekiah’s trust in the Lord to the test.
Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.
What will Hezekiah do?
Will he trust the Lord?
Isaiah encouraged Hezekiah…
‘Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, “He will not come to this city or shoot an arrow there; and he will not come before it with a shield or throw up a siege ramp against it. “By the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he shall not come to this city,” ’ declares the Lord. ‘For I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’ ”
[APP] During his prophetic career, Isaiah’s message to God’s people was always, “Trust the Lord. YHWH saves.”
But we must remember that this message did not originate with Isaiah; this was YHWH’s message through His prophet, and YHWH’s message to His people is always “Trust me; I will save you.”
That’s what Isaiah’s name means, “YHWH is salvation.”
[TS]…
Conclusion
Conclusion
Through Isaiah YHWH is going to take us from Jerusalem to the New Jerusalem, from fallen creation to the new creation.
He is going to call us to repent, announce judgment on us if we don’t, and give hope to those of us who are striving to follow Him.
Through Isaiah, YHWH is going to show us a better King than any king in Isaiah’s day, a better King than any king in human history.
YHWH is going to show us the perfect King, a shoot from the stump of Jesse who is endowed with the Holy Spirit and rules with perfect justice. It’s under His rule that the promises of God will be fully realized.
But before this perfect King can rule, YHWH will show us that He must suffer.
In His suffering He won’t look like a king but will look instead like a humble and gentle servant, like a sacrificial lamb.
He will be humiliated and mocked and then savagely beaten and murdered.
BUT then YHWH will raise Him from the dead and glorify Him and then commands His people to rejoice in salvation!
YHWH will save through the King of David who will die and rise and rule forevermore.
I wonder who that King could be?
[PRAYER]