Isaiah Intro

Isaiah 1:1-3

Introduction

Imagine you are a citizen in the capitol city of a country and there is a growing sense of turmoil and unrest around you. You nation has enjoyed many, many years of prosperity and relative stability, however there is a growing threat from a large, opposing empire. The confusion arises because your political leaders seem inconsistent in how they view this enemy abroad. Some, we’ll say president’s for the sake of our imagination, see the threat as a threat and disavow the violence and growth of this foreign power. Others are supportive of what was once a sworn enemy, maybe this will be good to see their power and influence in the world grow.

But this period of prosperity has caused your nation to grow complacent, complacent when it comes to seeing threats abroad, but even more complacent in recognizing threats from within. Yours was once a nation that honored God with your way of life and with your hearts. Your worship and devotion meant something and drove you to love and care for others.

But now? Though much is good and continues to be good, faithlessness is on the rise. Worship looks like going through the motions and holidays that were rooted in hearts of worship have now become merely secular holidays.

The people’s hearts were turned from God and toward the politicians and political power of the day, trusting in kings and leaders for continued prosperity rather than in YHWH. This prosperity, growing and unchecked by obedient hearts has caused a growing divide among the nation. Wealth becomes concentrated among the elite, and those with power use violence to oppress those without. Religious practice continues but it is rotten and hollow.

National identity is fractured and society is buckling. Meanwhile, that foreign threat is growing and there is arising a distinct possibility that whatever national identity remains now will cease to exist within a generation or two.

That is the political and historical context for the book of Isaiah. BUT, it doesn’t sound like anything terribly foreign from our world today. That description could apply to many nations and people throughout the ages, indeed parts of that could apply to our country. The point is this: We must understand the context of Isaiah, and we’ll look at that more throughout our study, but though Isaiah was written to a particular people at a particular point in history, there is truth, wisdom, and lessons in this text that most assuredly apply to us today.

Here’s where we’re headed: I’m going to give a little bit more overview and background for Isaiah and then we will get into the text this morning.

Authorship

First I want to talk about authorship. who wrote the book of Isaiah? The text tells us in the first few words: Isaiah 1:1 “1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.”

This is a vision of the prophet Isaiah. Now, the answer isn’t quite that simple, though maybe it is. There are many schools of thought in church history and scholarly analysis of the authorship of Isaiah. Some say there are two Isaiahs and the book is split in half between chapters 1-39 and 40-66. Others says there there are three Isaiahs, splitting the second half even further. I know of one scholar who thinks there are four Isaiahs! Others think the book of a product of some sort of prophetic school of thought over the course of a century or two, prophets all in the line of an originator named Isaiah. Now, I say all that not to get into a debate about the authorship of Isaiah, nor to persuade you of one of these views, but because these are prominent views out there. If you read an commentary or work on Isaiah, chances are you’ll at least come across a reference to these different views.

Here’s where I’ll be operating from: I believe in the unity of the author, we’re told in scripture that this is the vision of the prophet Isaiah. Within the text itself, we’re presented with an expansive piece of work that says of itself: this is Isaiah’s book.

Most of the arguments around these things are made on literary grounds and now textual or archeological or any other sort of evidence. And we should take comfort in knowing that there is no evidence that at any point in history was the book of Isaiah presented as anything other than one, single, unified volume by a single author.

Some will argue that the languages, tone, and focus shift from section to section, indicating a change in authorship. But others have observed incredibly unique and rare Hebrew phrases that appear throughout Isaiah and almost nowhere else in scripture. This book has the quality and character of its author. But the greatest argument for a unity of authorship, that is one Isaiah, is the thematic through-lines of this book. That’s what we’ll uncover as we study together.

Take, for instance, the theme of servanthood in Isaiah. Could a sinful people like Judah truly serve a holy and perfectly righteous God? The question emerges in the opening chapters and again when the prophet himself is called in chapter 6: I am a man of unclean lips! And it will be carried through to the very end of the book!

I will add as a quick aside, I think there is good, valid scholarship (and people worth learning from!) who hold different views on this and I don’t want us to get to caught up in those debates. That’s not the purpose of this class.

Ok, we’ll talk more about this as we go, but now I want to give a little bit of specific historical background

Historical Background

Isaiah begins around the year 740BC, late in the reign of King Uzziah. He was King of Judah from 790-740BC, fifty years, and this was a period of relative stability and prosperity for the nation. But during that time, Judah experienced significant moral and social decay. This was a time of apostasy as a nation, turning to idols and foreign gods, worshipping YHWH with empty worship. They were a nation that had become complacent and it showed in their obedience and their loyalty to YHWH.

Meanwhile, there are other empires on the rise. The Assyrian empire—with its great cities, Asshur and Nineveh—is conqueror the nations around it. Assyria has become a major threat to the Northern Kingdom of Israel and, in fact, in 722BC, just 18 years after the start of Isaiah’s ministry, the Northern Kingdom will fall.

So what will Judah do? Should they become pro-Assyria? Isaiah’s message is not to be for Assyria or for Egypt or any of the other growing powers in the region, but instead they should be pro-YHWH! The people had turned away from God and they were trusting in the political power of the age!

Sound familiar?

During this time of prosperity, though there was wealth and success, there was growing oppression! Justice was being ignored, instead the people were finding ways to extract all they could from their neighbors or from the poor in their midst. When our focus becomes ourselves, we will have no problem oppressing others! When our focus is on God, we must care for those around us. This was not happening in Judah.

And so God raises up Isaiah to speak a prophetic word to the nation! Two final things we’ll talk about before we get into the text today, and I promise we will: Theme and prophecy, in general.

Themes

There are many themes throughout the book of Isaiah. But I want to highlight a few of them for us at the outset:

God’s sovereignty and control over history: a major assertion in the prophet’s ministry is that the LORD is the true King and ruler of everything. He is sovereignly in control over all things, all nations. It is not fluke that Assyria rises as a threat. Look at Isaiah 10:5 “5 Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury!” God uses Assyria as a means of consequence and punishment for Judah in their unfaithfulness.

Sin and Judgement: much of the prophet’s work is an indictment against Judah for their unfaithfulness and their sin. These opening chapters read like a cosmic court case, with YHWH bringing a case against Judah, outlining their offenses. And it is true that a judgement is coming! We’ll see this in the opening verses today.

The coming messiah and suffering servant: Yet even in the midst of sin and judgement, there is a promise of a messiah coming, a King in the line of David that will be a solution when all these other Kings have failed. “Servant of the Lord” is a key Christological theme throughout Isaiah, we’ll see in some of the most famous passages from Isaiah that this servant is without sin and blemish and that he will bear the sins of the nation, functioning as a sacrificial lamb in their place. Isaiah 53:6 “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.”

Salvation and Restoration: the prophet’s vision then includes a future restoration, a salvation from the sin and then this magnificent restoration of Jerusalem, Zion, that becomes the center of the the New Heavens and the New Earth where a truly faithful community will be established with YHWH at the center and which will be filled with people of all nations! This is what we look forward to, what Jesus already established in his life and secured in his death and resurrection. The Kingdom Isaiah spoke of is at hand! And yet, it is still coming!

Prophetic Literature

Finally, how do we approach prophetic literature? We’ll talk more about this over our study, I want to start us with two ideas:

Much of the book of Isaiah is poetry. NOT that the prophet set out to write a nice set of poems for a book but that he receives ultimately a vision that is to be interpreted metaphorically. Look at Isaiah 1:5–6 “5 Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.”

The vision if an image of a body that is sick from head to toe. Now we wouldn’t say that Judah is literally a sick body, but the image gets the point across. A common image throughout is that Judah is like a vineyard, well they may have vineyards in Judah, but they’re a nation state, a Kingdom. Not a country vineyard. But the image is communicating a deeper truth. It’s a more striking message to say: you are like a body that is totally sick, from head to toe! Rather than saying: you’re corrupt! All of you!

That’s then an interpretive challenge for us—to think literarily as we read the poetic vision of Isaiah.

Secondly, I want to say this: the vision God gave Isaiah was for a specific people in a specific time and place and moment in history. It also contains in it universal messages and wisdom for all people in all times but we must not remove it from its historical context. We ground it there and see what it has to teach us today. We are not Judah at this time and place, we live in America and it’s not to simple to say that the church is like Israel, there’s theological complexity here. The book points us to Jesus, assuredly, but we ought to also make sure it’s grounded in the real time and place from where it came.

Finally, I want to us to understand that prophetic writing is not first or primarily about telling the future. Much of prophetic writing is, as we’ve said, grounded in the current reality of a people or nation. It’s a present-indictment to Judah.

Let’s turn to the text of Isaiah:

Isaiah 1:1–3 ESV

1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”

Immediately, we’re set in time and place. It gives us the who, when, and what of Isaiah.

Who? Isaiah, son of Amoz. When? during the reigns of these Kings. What? A vision concerning Judah and its capital city: Jerusalem. And we should note, the book presents everything else after this verse as the vision, one unified work of prophetic vision from Isaiah to the people. I want to emphasis the unity of the book and part of that unity stems from right here!

And these are the first words spoken by the prophet, speaking God’s word: Isaiah 1:2–3 “2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.””

This is the opening charge against Israel/Judah (I’ll use those titles interchangeably): She has forsaken the Lord. The language here is like that of a courtroom, with YHWH bringing His charge against Judah/Israel. And who are the witnesses in the courtroom? The heavens and the earth! “Hear o heavens and give ear O earth!” It’s not merely that these are the witnesses of the cosmic courtroom, but the implication is that Israel has has gone against the created order of things, their sin is in forsaking God and who He called them to be!

He then makes the comparison to nature: a stubborn ox knows its owner. A donkey is intelligent enough to know to whom it belongs and upon whom it can depend! But no so with Israel, those that are so-called the “Children of God.”

His indictment highlights something about the nature of Israel’s relationship with YHWH. He raised them, brought them up, yet they have rebelled. It’s as a caring father bringing up His children. They are in a covenantal Father-child relationship with YHWH, a relationship that has gone well, he has raised them and nurtured them and yet they rebel and this covenantal closeness highlights all the more the grief of their rebellion.

Finally, what is the result of their stubbornness and rebellion? They do not know YHWH. Do you remember our Exodus study? Why did God rescue this people out of Egypt?

Exodus 6:7 “7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”

Through the experience of the Exodus and through the revelation of the Law and the giving of His presence, Israel knew YHWH. That Hebrew word, to know, is a covenantal word. They were in covenantal relationship with him and they knew what He had done for them. Remember, he gives them the passover as a feast that the future generations would know Him and remember what He had for this people.

And here, generations later, at the outset of Isaiah’s ministry, is a people that no longer know their God.

It’s an inverse of Exodus and their trajectory at this point is not freedom from slavery, but destruction and exile.

The question for us—how have we forgotten Him? How have we forgotten the good news of the Gospel of Jesus? What things and idols have we turned to and now have become so distracted that we do not know Him.

We’ll explore these things as we study Isaiah, but I also want us to remember this: we’ll cover sections of Isaiah that seem to offer little hope. But the whole book eventually points us to the hope of restoration, hope that is found in Jesus.

Amen.