Isaiah (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament: Prophetic Books)

By J. Gordon McConville

The book of Isaiah has been regarded from the earliest Christian period as a key part of the Old Testament's witness to Jesus Christ. This commentary by highly regarded Old Testament scholar J. Gordon McConville draws on the best of biblical scholarship as well as the Christian tradition to offer a substantive and useful commentary on Isaiah.

McConville treats Isaiah as an ancient Israelite document that speaks to twenty-first-century Christians. He examines the text section by section--offering a fresh translation, textual notes, paragraph-level commentary, and theological reflection--and shows how the prophetic words are framed to persuade audiences.

Grounded in rigorous scholarship but useful for those who preach and teach, this volume is the second in a new series on the Prophets. Series volumes are both critically engaged and sensitive to the theological contributions of the text. Series editors are Mark J. Boda, McMaster Divinity College, and J. Gordon McConville, University of Gloucestershire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781493436767

J. Gordon McConville

J. Gordon McConville is professor of Old Testament theology at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham, England. He is the author of several books and studies on Old Testament topics, including Law and Theology in Deuteronomy (JSOT Press), Time and Place in Deuteronomy (with J. G. Millar, JSOT Press) and Judgment and Promise: An Introduction to the Book of Jeremiah (Apollos).

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BAKER COMMENTARY on the OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETIC BOOKS

Mark J. Boda and J. Gordon McConville, EDITORS

Volumes now available

Isaiah, J. Gordon McConville

Hosea–Micah, John Goldingay

© 2023 by J. Gordon McConville

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

Grand Rapids, Michigan

www.bakeracademic.com

Ebook edition created 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-3676-7

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are the author’s translation.

Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.

Contents

Cover

Half Title Page    i

Series Page    ii

Title Page    iii

Copyright Page    iv

Series Preface    viii

Author’s Preface    xi

Abbreviations    xii

Introduction    1

Part One:  Yahweh’s Vision for a Renewed Jerusalem (1:1–12:6)    19

1. A Rebellious People (1:1–31)    21

2. A Future Vision—and Yahweh Alone Exalted! (2:1–22)    46

3. A World Turned Upside Down (3:1–4:1)    63

4. Survivors in Purified Jerusalem/Zion (4:2–6)    74

5. Cries against Injustice (5:1–30)    82

6. Isaiah’s Vision of Yahweh Enthroned (6:1–13)    101

7. The Sign of Immanuel (7:1–25)    117

8. A Child Is Given (8:1–9:7 [6])    130

9. Yahweh’s Anger Not Finished (9:8 [7]–10:4)    154

10. Assyria, the Rod of My Anger (10:5–34)    161

11. A Shoot from the Roots of Jesse (11:1–16)    177

12. Sing Praise to Yahweh! (12:1–6)    190

Part Two:  Oracles about the Nations (13:1–27:13)    195

13. A Day of Yahweh for Babylon (13:1–22)    197

14. The Fall of the Morning Star (14:1–32)    204

15. Lament for Moab (15:1–16:14)    218

16. Judgment on Damascus—and Jacob! (17:1–14)    227

17. Ethiopians Bring Tribute to Zion! (18:1–7)    233

18. Blessed Be My People Egypt! (19:1–25)    238

19. Isaiah Acts Out the Humiliation of Exile (20:1–6)    248

20. Fallen, Fallen Is Babylon! (21:1–17)    252

21. The Key of the House of David (22:1–25)    260

22. Tyre and Sidon, Ships of Tarshish (23:1–18)    271

23. Overview of Isaiah 24–27    278

24. The Desolation of the Earth (24:1–23)    280

25. Death Swallowed Up Forever (25:1–12)    291

26. Your Dead Will Live! (26:1–21)    298

27. The Dragon Slain (27:1–13)    308

Part Three:  True and False Trust (28:1–35:10)    317

28. A Covenant with Death (28:1–29)    319

29. The Vanishing of Ariel’s Enemies (29:1–24)    332

30. Egypt’s Help Is Worthless (30:1–33)    343

31. Yahweh Will Protect Jerusalem (31:1–9)    356

32. In Righteousness a King Will Reign (32:1–20)    362

33. Your Eyes Will See the King! (33:1–24)    372

34. Vengeance on Edom (34:1–17)    385

35. The Ransomed of Yahweh Will Return (35:1–10)    394

Part Four:  A Miraculous Deliverance of Jerusalem (36:1–39:8)    403

36. Sennacherib Besieges Jerusalem (36:1–22)    407

37. Miraculous Deliverance! (37:1–38)    415

38. Hezekiah’s Sickness and Recovery (38:1–22)    429

39. Isaiah Predicts Babylonian Exile (39:1–8)    436

Part Five:  Cyrus, the Servant, and the Redemption of Zion/Jerusalem (40:1–55:13)    441

40. Good News Proclaimed to Jerusalem (40:1–31)    445

41. One from the East (41:1–29)    460

42. Here Is My Servant! (42:1–25)    474

43. Servant-Israel as Yahweh’s Witnesses (43:1–28)    487

44. The Vanity of Idols (44:1–28)    500

45. Cyrus, Yahweh’s Anointed (45:1–25)    510

46. Babylon’s Gods Humbled (46:1–13)    522

47. Lament for the Daughter of Babylon (47:1–15)    529

48. Yahweh Creates New Things (48:1–22)    537

49. The Servant as Light to the Nations (49:1–26)    548

50. The Servant as Example and Teacher (50:1–11)    560

51. Rejoicing in Yahweh’s Return to Zion (51:1–52:12)    568

52. Suffering Servant (52:13–53:12)    584

53. The Barren One Made Fertile (54:1–17)    605

54. Going Out with Joy (55:1–13)    615

Part Six:  The True Character of Glorified Zion/Jerusalem (56:1–66:24)    625

55. Outsiders Included in the Covenant (56:1–12)    627

56. Reviving the Spirit of the Lowly (57:1–21)    635

57. Fasting as Freeing the Oppressed (58:1–14)    645

58. Yahweh Himself Brings Righteousness (59:1–21)    654

59. Yahweh’s Glory Comes to Zion (60:1–22)    664

60. The Servant Anointed to Bring Good News (61:1–11)    673

61. Jerusalem Vindicated before Kings (62:1–12)    682

62. Lament, Confession, and Petition (63:1–64:12 [11])    689

63. Servants of Yahweh; New Heavens and a New Earth (65:1–25)    704

64. Yahweh’s People Redeemed Forever (66:1–24)    717

Bibliography    729

Subject Index    741

Author Index    748

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings    752

Cover Flaps    782

Back Cover    783

Series Preface

The Baker Commentary on the Old Testament (BCOT) is innovative in its conception and in its division into canonical subsections for the purposes of its writing, editing, and publication. Among the advantages of this plan is that the commentaries on the books in any given subdivision can share in addressing issues that are distinctive to that literature. The present series of commentaries on the prophetic books, therefore, pays particular attention to features that are prominent in them, such as their rhetorical strategies and their relationship to history.

The books in question are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Hosea–Malachi. It will be immediately apparent that the selection has been based on the order of books in the Christian Old Testament rather than that of the Hebrew Bible. It therefore includes Lamentations, which is not normally regarded as a prophetic book, and Daniel, which is distinct in some important ways from the others. This selection accords with a methodological principle that applies to BCOT as a whole. It needs no other defense than that of the canonical tradition itself, of which the Old Testament, based broadly on the Septuagint, is not only an ancient form but also the most widely known today. In that context, Lamentations has time-honored associations with Jeremiah. Daniel too has been received by readers of the Old Testament (as distinct from the Hebrew Bible) as a member of the company of prophets. Indeed, this perception of him has made an enormous contribution to the Christian notion of prophecy, no doubt because half of the book (chaps. 7–12) is composed of mysterious visions that purport to disclose the future.

There is, inevitably, a certain theological parti pris in any choice of canonical format. While the commentaries’ location within the Christian theological and canonical traditions is to be affirmed, they are also constrained by the nature of the prophetic books themselves, and those writing for the series are committed to methods of interpretation that are widely applied to these books in biblical scholarship. These methods include close analysis of the text in the original languages (Hebrew largely, Aramaic in part of Daniel), with due attention to variants from the standard Masoretic Text where appropriate. Each volume provides the author’s own translation, together with notes to explain the choices made. The commentaries also necessarily include historical investigation in order to establish as much information as possible about the original settings of the texts and thus about their audiences. Such investigation takes account not only of historical events but also of factors such as social setting and cultural milieu. This task is complicated by the fact that a number of the books have been composed over time in a variety of settings. Historical investigation therefore needs to be complemented by attention to the formation and structure of the books and is finally inseparable from theological interpretation.

A particular feature of the series is its attention to the texts’ rhetorical strategies—that is, how the prophets and writers use language in order to express meaning and to persuade their audiences. The commentaries therefore explain the literary forms found in the books, the effects achieved by the authors’ choices in matters of expression, and the rhetorical devices employed in the service of an overall rhetorical purpose. Each volume in the series devotes space in the introduction and regularly in the running commentary to these aspects of the prophetic books.

The fundamental purpose of this series of commentaries is to explore the theological message of the books for the benefit of their intended readership. That readership consists primarily of serious students of the Bible, including those who wish to draw on good biblical scholarship for the purpose of teaching or preaching. These commentaries are therefore not intended to be like the International Critical Commentary series, for example, which is a resource primarily for scholars and researchers. Nor, however, do they aim primarily to supply application; rather, they intend to be a substantial resource for readers in their own quest to understand Scripture. That being so, each commentary will occasionally include a theological reflection at the close of a chapter. These reflections can be neither comprehensive nor definitive, and the authors have had the freedom to perform this reflective task in their own way. The intent has been to think about what the prophetic books can teach us about God, humanity, and creation—with an eye toward contemporary concerns such as sexuality, war, religious conflict, and spirituality. In this way we hope to highlight the distinctive contribution of each prophetic book and its relationship to other parts of the canon.

The idea of the canon means, first, considering the individual book in its Old Testament context and then moving out toward the New Testament. Theological interpretation of the prophetic books is bound to consider their message on the canvas of the whole of Scripture, and particularly the person and work of Christ. The relationship of the Old Testament book to Christology and the New Testament is multifaceted and cannot be encompassed by a single category, such as fulfillment. The volumes therefore aim to develop and practice a hermeneutic that shows the capacity of texts to take on new meanings in new situations. Such a dynamic can occur within the prophetic books themselves, yet for Christian readers it culminates in the New Testament’s awareness that all the promises of God find their Yes in [Christ] (2 Cor. 1:20 ESV). The authors are therefore sensitive to the ways in which texts are meaningful through the full scope of the biblical story, including the coming of Christ, the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church, and the life of the church in its expectation of Christ’s return.

Such themes are among the most profound in Christian theology and have a long history of diverse interpretation. The present series takes no particular party line other than the shared commitment of its authors to the central tenets of historic Christianity and a high view of the Old Testament as an indispensable part of Christian Scripture, given to the church under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is our prayer that the volumes offered here will make a contribution to the ongoing task of doing Christian theology for the present generation.

Mark J. Boda

J. Gordon McConville

Author’s Preface

It has been a privilege to write this commentary on the book of Isaiah for the BCOT series. I am grateful to Jim Kinney, Wells Turner, and the other editors at Baker Academic for the opportunity to do so, and also to Mark Boda, my fellow editor of the present series, for his enormous scholarship and especially for his rigorous and perceptive editing of this volume.

I dare to add to Isaiah’s rich history of interpretation only because of what I have gained from others. As a teacher of the Old Testament, I am over my head in debt to the large number of people who have been my own teachers, colleagues, students, and friends. Among them I mention Gordon Wenham, my PhD supervisor, encourager, and later colleague; Alec Motyer, from whom I inherited the mantle of teaching Hebrew at Trinity College, Bristol (with an Irish accent, as a wag put it), and who wrote a fine commentary on Isaiah; Andrew Lincoln, Craig Bartholomew, Dee Carter, Melissa Raphael, Crispin Fletcher-Louis, Lloyd Pietersen and Philip Esler, colleagues and collaborators at the University of Gloucestershire. And the Hebrew reading group over many years—among whom, most recently, Trish Jelbert, Georgina Jardim, Matt Lynch, Graham Dancy, Nana Du, David Gray, and Robert Walker—accompanied me through large parts of Isaiah and frequently kept me right.

My dear wife, Helen, has been patient beyond the call of marital vows during my prolonged closeting with the prophet. I am more than grateful to her for her endless forbearance and support. She is owed this long-awaited post-Isaianic period, now (partly) realized!

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

October 2021

Abbreviations

Bibliographic and General

Principal Commentaries on Isaiah

Old Testament / Hebrew Bible

New Testament

Other Ancient Sources

Introduction

The Book of Isaiah: Its Scope

Those who try to describe the book of Isaiah find themselves reaching for metaphors. It has been called a cathedral because it is vast, composed of many parts, and yet has an overall harmonious shape within which the parts can be understood.1 It frequently attracts musical analogies, such as an overture to a great oratorio,2 and its nuanced messianic theology has been likened to variations on a theme.3 These too adumbrate both harmony and variety. It has been called the Fifth Gospel, perhaps because the NT writers found it so important for their understanding of who Jesus was,4 testifying to the book’s immense scope and influence. Its own name for itself, in its superscription, is the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, that he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the time of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah (Isa. 1:1). This highlights an important feature of this fascinating book: it takes into its purview a huge swath of the history of Israel and Judah and other nations, spanning at least two centuries, from Isaiah’s own neo-Assyrian period (8th cent. BCE), through the Babylonian ascendancy (6th cent. BCE), into the time of Persia (late 6th cent. onward), and possibly even later than that.

These different periods are reflected in the content of the book. The first historical horizon is that of Isaiah himself. The prophet’s relatively few narrative appearances in the book coincide with key episodes in the life of Israel and Judah in the latter decades of the eighth century. Prominent among these is the so-called Isaiah memoir (roughly chaps. 6–8). This comprises, first, the account of his vision of Yahweh enthroned and his prophetic commission (chap. 6); second, his encounter with King Ahaz in the so-called Syro-Ephraimite crisis caused by the hostile military alliance of Israel (the Northern Kingdom, or Ephraim) and Syria (735–733 BCE), in which he gives the king the famous sign of Immanuel (7:14); and third, foreshadowings of the ascendancy of Assyria, which would shortly swallow up the kingdom of Israel (722 BCE) and later engulf Judah itself (7:17–8:8, referring to 701 BCE).

A brief cameo in chapter 20 shows Isaiah performing a symbolic act, walking naked like a captive, portraying the Assyrian subjugation of Egypt and Ethiopia (714–711 BCE), to demonstrate the folly of trusting in an alliance with these brittle powers, based on the kingdom of Ashdod, into which King Hezekiah’s Judah was tempted to be drawn. Isaiah’s final appearances occur in the extended narrative of the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrian Sennacherib in 701 BCE, during which he prophesies to King Hezekiah that the city will be miraculously delivered (chaps. 36–39).

These three glimpses into the prophet’s life and times span about thirty-five years, in which the power of Assyria was borne by successive kings: Tiglath-pileser III (744–727), Shalmaneser V (726–722), Sargon II (721–705), and Sennacherib (704–681 BCE). The episodes disclose one of the book’s main themes, the lordship of Israel’s God Yahweh (LORD) over history and all the nations. Apart from them, the discourse in chapters 1–39 consists mainly of prophetic words spoken to Judah. Many of these convey Yahweh’s anger because of Judah’s persistent sin and lack of trust in Yahweh, a theme highlighted by Isaiah’s commission in 6:9–13, which leads to the expectation that Yahweh’s judgment upon his people will last for a long time. Yet there are also words of promise, giving rise to hopes of the people’s ultimate restoration and indeed of saving works of Yahweh that will extend to other nations (e.g., 2:2–4; chaps. 12; 24–27; 35). Reassurance for Judah also comes in the extended section known as the Oracles about the Nations (OAN) in chapters 13–27, whose rhetorical purpose is partly to display the subjection of powerful hostile forces to Yahweh’s judgment, thus providing an avenue of hope for Judah’s future (as in 14:1–2). Even judgment against the nations, however, is punctuated by notes of hope for them too, exemplified by the remarkable passage in 19:23–25.

The prophet Isaiah does not appear and is not named after chapter 39. In chapters 40–55, the historical lens focuses on the impending end of the Judean exile in Babylon. This section of the book presupposes the defeat of Judah by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the deportation of large numbers of Judeans to Babylonia, where they maintained their Jewish identity. These things are narrated elsewhere in the OT (2 Kings 24–25; 2 Chron. 36:17–23; Jer. 52), but not in Isaiah. The key event that dominates Isa. 40–55 is the overthrow of the Babylonian kingdom in 539 BCE by King Cyrus II of Persia (named in 44:28–45:1), and the issue is to challenge the exiles to believe that, through Cyrus, Yahweh is accomplishing a new and spectacular glorification of Zion (Jerusalem). The motif of newness in the acts and purposes of Yahweh is prominent (42:9; 43:18–19; 48:6). The exiles must grasp this fundamental change in their situation and boldly take the opportunity to return to Judah to fulfill the ancient mission of Israel to be a witness to Yahweh among the nations. In this context, the formerly generalized concept of the servant of Yahweh is freshly applied—first, to the whole redeemed community identified as Jacob-Israel (41:8), and subsequently to a mysterious figure who suffers on their behalf and in their stead (50:4–9; 52:13–53:12) to bring them new life.

A further shift in perspective occurs in chapters 56–66. The overthrow of Babylon is no longer the hot issue, and Cyrus has disappeared from the scene. Historical references are few; only chapters 60–62 have affinities with chapters 40–55 and their theme of Zion’s glorification. But these chapters are dominated by sharp prophetic remonstrances, calling the redeemed community to adhere to the goal of establishing righteousness and right worship in the land. This includes casting off old prejudices and welcoming formerly excluded classes of people into the heart of the community (chap. 56). The call to faithfulness identifies the truly faithful as the servants of Yahweh (from 54:17; cf. 63:17; 65:13–16), who are distinguished from those who continue in or return to patterns of rebellion against Yahweh. The rhetoric of these chapters develops the notion of newness prominent in chapters 40–55 to a new level in anticipation of new heavens and a new earth (65:17; 66:22).

The Book of Isaiah: Its Relation to History

This brief overview makes clear that the book of Isaiah is deeply embedded in the history and politics of western Asia in the eighth to the sixth centuries BCE. However, the nature of the relationship between word and event is elusive. Many individual sayings lack any reference to a particular occasion. To take one example among many, the announcement of the fall of Babylon in 21:9 could be given a plausible background in Assyrian campaigns against Babylon in Isaiah’s own time or in the city’s later defeat by Cyrus of Persia in 539 BCE (see comments on chap. 21). This historical opacity suggests that meaning is to be found, not in the history that lies behind the text, but in patterns of intertextual meaning within the book, which in turn point to patterns in history itself under the governance of Yahweh. Another angle on this is afforded by chapter 1. The image of the nation as a body bruised and beaten in 1:5–8 probably corresponds to the devastation of Judah by Sennacherib in 701 BCE, yet this is not specified, and the retrospect on it in v. 9, itself undatable, shows that the primary function of historical reference is to illuminate historical meaning, especially regarding Yahweh’s relationship with Israel. This point is also served by the panoramic view taken in 1:21–26. These verses portray a movement in the history of Zion-Jerusalem that shows awareness of the trajectory from punishment to restoration and therefore encompasses the long stretch from Isaiah’s time up to the return from exile two hundred years later. The historical moment is always subject to the larger picture, and the lens moves easily between these poles.

Chapters 2–5 in general consist of sayings that cannot readily be situated. It is a curiosity of the book’s structure that Isaiah’s great vision of Yahweh enthroned comes only after this initial run of sayings. The concrete datum, the year of King Uzziah’s death (6:1), is in some contrast with this historical elusiveness found in chapters 2–5. One effect of this structural feature is to cast cautionary light on the significance of historical particularity. Isaiah the prophet will become a dominant presence in the book, not in himself, but by virtue of the prophetic word entrusted to him. This becomes clear in the sequence that runs from the vision through 8:18 (the Isaiah memoir). In these chapters, texts slice through several historical horizons. The scene of the Immanuel sign in chapter 7 has its historical base in the Syro-Ephraimite crisis (735–733 BCE), in which the sign functioned to spur King Ahaz to confront that situation in faith, but the composition of chapters 7–8 reflects on the sign from the point of view of developments after that time. In it, the issue shifts from the scene of Ahaz’s dilemma to one in which the danger is no longer from the Syrian-Israelite alliance, which has become a historical relic, to the overwhelming military advance of Assyria. There is a coherence of theme in 7:1–8:10 organized around the motif of Immanuel, God [is] with us, but it is not grounded in a single event. Rather, the composition evinces a historical layering in which the horizons subtly shift, and the dominating factor is the unfolding meaning of the sign over time.5 It is like a painting in which the same character appears in different parts of the canvas representing different stages in their story.

A further example of the subordination of historical reference to theological and thematic ordering is the occurrence of lengthy oracles against Babylon in chapters 13–14, making an abrupt break from the Assyrian drama in chapters 7–12. The creative interplay between particularity and theme is evident in 14:25, where a word against the Assyrian unexpectedly intrudes into the Babylonian material. In this way, there occurs a kind of melding of the two powers as instances of the inevitable defeat of all hubristic human defiance of the one God, Yahweh, who alone is exalted (2:11, 17; 5:16). Neither in the Assyrian section (chaps. 6–11) nor in chapters 13–14 does the name of any actual king appear, suggesting a certain representativeness on the part of individuals.6 The prioritizing of Babylon in this OAN section (chaps. 13–27) anticipates the Babylonian section of the book and the fall of Babylon to Cyrus (chaps. 40–55; note 13:17), thus functioning as a compositional device that links the two great subsections of the book (chaps. 1–39 and 40–55). That linkage itself, on the book’s broadest canvas, illustrates the theme of the rise and fall of empires under the sway of the plan and purpose of Yahweh.

The Structure of the Book

The preceding observations suggest that the contents of Isaiah have been carefully structured according to a discernible pattern. This is not to be simply taken for granted, however. Because many of the individual sayings in the book cannot be pinned down to time and place, some have thought that the book is an anthology of sayings and narratives lacking a fundamental unity.7 Because of the changing historical reference points, chapters 40–55 and chapters 56–66 were long considered to be completely separate works from chapters 1–39 (see Authorship below). We have already noticed that the changing scenes in the book can contribute to a certain sense of unevenness. One obvious instance is the absence of Davidic messianic expectations in chapters 40–66.8 Similarly, the Immanuel motif is limited to chapters 7–8. There is, indeed, no unified eschatology in the book: the transcendence of death in 25:8 is not taken up again; conversely, the expectations of new heavens and a new earth appear only in chapters 65–66. The possible future salvation of non-Israelite nations is also developed as a theme after chapter 40. So too is the concept of the servant of Yahweh, which takes on a distinctive new meaning in chapters 40–55. In addition, the style of discourse changes in those chapters, with fewer discrete oracles and a pattern of longer, connected rhetorical compositions. (See the overview to chap. 40 for more on this.)

However, there are unmistakable signs of careful structuring activity in the book. This is not necessarily uniform and can be seen within relatively short units as well as on a larger scale. So, for example, chapters 6–12 include prophetic sayings that warn Judah of a judgment coming in the form of Assyria (7:17–8:10; 9:8–21 [7–20]); yet the same chapters look beyond such warnings to a time when Assyria will in turn fall under Yahweh’s judgment (10:12, 20–27). Similarly, chapters 2–4 bracket a series of judgment sayings directed at preexilic Jerusalem with two visions of a future glorified Zion (2:2–4; 4:2–6).9 These sections have apparently been formed with a purpose that goes beyond mere recording and evinces theological reflection. These examples show an interest in the relationship between judgment and salvation for Israel in the context of Yahweh’s governance of all the nations.

There are also signs of purposeful structuring on the broader canvas of the book. This is evident, first, in that it can be subdivided into distinct sections with much agreement among commentators about their boundaries, albeit with some variations. These major divisions are briefly characterized below:

I. Chapters 1–12. These chapters afford an initial conspectus of the Isaian concept of Israel’s destiny, or more specifically, that of Zion-Jerusalem. They contain some of the prophet’s fundamental charges of human sin against Yahweh, chiefly addressed to the people of Judah (e.g., 5:1–7) but extending to all of humanity (2:6–22). Yet they also unfold a history that will go through judgment on Zion to its salvation (1:21–31) in a panorama that opens to salvation for the nations (2:2–4). The historical roots of these chapters are in Isaiah’s own time and the ascendancy of Assyria, visible especially in chapters 6–8, 10, and at their heart are two vital components: (1) Isaiah’s vision of Yahweh exalted, together with his prophetic commission (chap. 6); and (2) the sign of Immanuel, God (is) with us (7:14), whose potential entailments for both judgment and salvation are played out in the remainder of chapters 7–8. Following this Immanuel sequence, two of the book’s most important Davidic messianic prophecies occur, 9:2–7 [1–6], and 11:1–9. Finally, this first major section of the book finds its climax in chapter 12, a hymn, or hymns, of thanks and praise to Yahweh for the salvation of Zion.

II. Chapters 13–27. These chapters are broadly classified as Oracles about the Nations (OAN), since they mostly consist of sayings about nations in the region, from Mesopotamia to Africa, peoples generally having some relationship to Israel and Judah in the periods covered by the book. They have the effect of setting Yahweh’s purposes for Israel in the context of his purposes for the whole world. These oracles are not simply denunciations of foreign nations but also contain messages both negative and positive concerning Israel (including the messianic 16:5) and some surprisingly favorable sayings about others (esp. 19:23–25). Chapters 24–27 have often been marked out as separate from 13–23 because they are perceived to be distinctively eschatological in nature, but it is preferable to count them together with 13–23. (See also overviews of chaps. 13 and 24.) As with chapters 1–12, this section ends with announcements of future salvation for Israel (chap. 27).

III. Chapters 28–35. Although marked out primarily by the distinctive material on either side of it (chaps. 13–27 and 36–39), this section has its own character. It reverts to judgment sayings against Israel-Judah, featuring a series of woe sayings (28:1; 29:1, 15; 30:1; 33:1). Yet there is a renewed assertion of both a Davidic king (32:1) and the kingship of Yahweh (33:17–22). Like the previous two sections, this one ends with a vision of salvation for Israel-Zion (chap. 35). Chapters 34–35 are sometimes read separately from chapters 28–33 because of their close mirror-image relationship to each other (see the overviews of those chapters). Based on chapter count, chapter 33 marks the halfway point of the book, signaled in the Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran (1QIsaa) by a space left at the end of chapter 33. The themes of chapter 35 also anticipate the great visions of salvation in chapters 40–55.

IV. Chapters 36–39. This section is unique in Isaiah, largely narrative in form and closely similar to 2 Kings 18:13–20:21. It tells, first, of the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrian King Sennacherib in 701 BCE, culminating in its miraculous deliverance (chaps. 36–37) and, second, of two episodes in the life of King Hezekiah—when he was healed after a life-threatening illness (chap. 38) and when he entertained a Babylonian embassy in Jerusalem (chap. 39). The sequence of these two subunits is nonchronological, since the siege of Jerusalem came later than the two reported episodes in Hezekiah’s life. (See also the overview of chap. 36.) The sequence suits the structure of Isaiah better than Kings, however, because it allows chapter 39, with its ominous prophecy about a future subjugation of Judah by Babylon, to lead into chapter 40, with its announcement that the period of subjugation has ended.

V. Chapters 40–55. The distinctiveness of these chapters has been discussed above (The Book of Isaiah: Its Scope; see also the overview of chap. 40). Its two subsections (chaps. 40–48 and 49–55) each culminate in a call to the Babylonian exiles to depart from Babylon, using language that also celebrates Yahweh’s redemption of Zion (48:20–21; 55:12–13). However, the admonitory coda of 48:22 mitigates the triumphant tone of 48:20–21.

VI. Chapters 56–66. This section too has been outlined above. It may be added that its final chapters (65–66) have affinities with chapter 1 in the motif of Israel’s rebelliousness (65:2; cf. 1:2–4) and in the idea of the heavens and earth (65:17; 66:22; cf. 1:2), suggesting that the composer of the latter chapters had a view of something like the final form of the book.

This account of the book’s form has once again highlighted the distinctiveness of its parts yet has also suggested a level of organization in the whole book. For example, the major subsections tend to end on notes of celebratory anticipation. Likewise, parts of the book appear to be aware of other parts: examples are the familiarity of chapters 65–66 with chapter 1; the apparent recollection of 6:8 in 40:6; and the anticipations of chapters 40–55 in chapters 12, 13–14, 35, and 39. In addition, certain theological themes run across the book’s divisions. We have observed the motif of newness, important in chapters 40–55 and taken up in 65–66. This is adumbrated in 9:1 [8:23] with its basic division in Israel’s history between past and future.10 Similarly, the motifs of seeing and hearing and, conversely, blindness and deafness are first encountered in Isaiah’s commission (6:9–10) and later recalled and reapplied (29:9–10; 35:5; 42:18–20; 43:8–10; 52:15). The destiny of Zion-Jerusalem—with its various guises as the faithful city (1:21) and the mountain of the house of Yahweh (2:2; cf. 25:6, 10)—also runs through the whole book, as indeed does the distinctive name for Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel (e.g., 5:19, 24; 10:20; 17:7; 30:15; 41:16; 61:9, 14).11 The idea of the plan of Yahweh set over against the plans of the nations is a further running motif.12 So too is the concept of righteousness (ṣədāqâ), which occurs in distinctive yet related ways in the book’s three main subdivisions.13 And finally, the unidentified we voice in 1:9 tantalizingly hints at a point of view from outside and above the historical particulars of the immediate context. A we voice occurs in some other places, notably in Isa. 53:1–6,14 but it is not clear if these first-person plural interjections represent a single overarching view. Nevertheless, they alert us that some perspectives in the book appear to know the end from the beginning.

There are reasons, therefore, to think that the whole book has been organized in such a way as to bring its disparate parts into relationship with each other. For this reason, in this commentary I often refer to the finished book as the composition.

Authorship

Do the unifying features indicated above lead to the conclusion that the book has been written by a single author? Its superscription (1:1) naturally led many readers to suppose that Isaiah the prophet was himself responsible for the book in its entirety, a view that prevailed until the rise of critical scholarship in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and continues to have its advocates today. In the present commentary, I take the more usual modern view that the book was composed over a relatively long period and completed much later than Isaiah’s own lifetime. Out of respect for those who maintain the more traditional view, let me say why I differ.15

It is quite reasonable to argue that biblical prophets did indeed have visions and that in principle there is no reason to exclude in advance the possibility of the genuine revelation of future events. But as I read Isaiah, the idea that it is a disclosure of far future events does not seem to account convincingly for the actual content of the book. Isaiah did indeed seal up a scroll containing some of his words for future discovery and reading (8:16–20). But that scroll was evidently confined to his preaching at the time of the Assyrian crisis, and Isaiah’s intention was to prove in due course that the words of judgment he spoke then were true. We do not have a narrative of the opening of this scroll (the nearest to an allusion is perhaps 29:11–12). But the events that demonstrated the truth of Isaiah’s words would have been played out in the Assyrian period.

My question is what sense the people of Isaiah’s day could have made of a prophecy whose context and issues were not only irrelevant to them but also beyond their power to imagine. Chapters 40–55 are not just a vision of events ahead of time; they constitute a rhetorical discourse, calling for certain responses from an audience. And the responses demanded could only make sense to an audience in the later period. They could not have been made by the people of Isaiah’s own day.

In addition, although we do observe that the book of Isaiah has a certain unity, we also see that it exhibits significant differences as it develops. It seems unlikely that a single author would have been responsible for some of the book’s puzzles, such as the virtual absence of an overtly messianic theme after chapter 40 or the novelty in that section of the Israel-servant motif.

The alternative to the theory of a single author is that the book came into its present form in stages. The classical critical view, going back to the eighteenth century, attributed Isa. 40–66 to the work of an exilic prophet, and this was refined by B. Duhm in his commentary of 1892, who proposed a further subdivision into chapters 40–55 (Deutero-Isaiah / Second Isaiah) and chapters 56–66 (Trito-Isaiah / Third Isaiah). On this view, the three units were properly treated as separate books, and until comparatively recently, it was common for commentary series to publish a separate volume on each.16 This older view has now been almost entirely superseded by theories that see the development of the book as a whole as a more complex process of integration.

The process from the utterance of Isaiah’s first prophetic words to the formation of the book we now possess cannot be known with any certainty.17 However, it is reasonable to think that a preliminary collection of Isaiah’s sayings was written down on a scroll, either by the prophet himself or perhaps by his disciples (8:16), much as Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch wrote down the early words of that prophet (Jer. 36:4). That chapter of Jeremiah shows how such a recording activity could be ongoing, with an initial collection augmented by the addition, in due course, of new words of the prophet (Jer. 36:27–32; in Isaiah, cf. 30:8). The adverse comment in Jer. 36:24 that the king and his courtiers failed to respond appropriately to the prophetic words also shows how these words were held in honor by the faithful even in a written form that stood one step removed from the original oral utterance. It is therefore likely that a collection of Isaiah’s sayings was not only built up during his lifetime but also preserved by those who regarded his sayings as the authentic word of Yahweh.18

How this first collection of Isaiah’s sayings endured beyond his own lifetime becomes a matter of increasing speculation. While Isa. 8:16 testifies to a group close to Isaiah—his disciples or, strictly, those taught by me—there is no evidence that such a group would have continued beyond the prophet’s own lifetime. So how were Isaiah’s prophetic words preserved and honored?

One possible answer is a succession of editions. For example, much of the material concerning Assyria—especially texts such as 10:16–34 that look forward to its downfall—has been ascribed to a so-called Josianic redaction, coming from the time of King Josiah in the late seventh century BCE, when Assyria was indeed in decline.19 Further editions are then postulated in connection with other important moments in Judah’s history, notably the aftermath of Jerusalem’s fall in 587 BCE.20

This approach faces problems in practice, however. There is no secure way of matching historical event and textual development, partly because the history of Judah and the Jews in the period is only imperfectly known and partly because texts are capable of being read against quite different historical backgrounds.21 Nor is the idea of successive editions necessarily helpful, since it implies a certain model of intermittent, systematic updating, which may obscure a more complex reality. Words like redaction and redactor are merely convenient terms for designating fresh interventions in the perpetuation of the prophetic corpus and the anonymous people responsible for them, with the implication that they brought new perspectives or emphases to bear on what they inherited. While some such mechanisms must have existed, it is intrinsically difficult to describe them, and attempts to do so can face the objection that they depend on dubious criteria, such as the idea that a given author, editor, or redactor can be recognized by the regular use of certain kinds of language and ideas.22

The relationship between chapters 1–39 and 40–66 poses its own set of questions. Like chapters 1–39, the latter block has been subjected to somewhat complex analyses of successive layers of composition.23 However, because of the widespread recognition of the similarities and continuities described above, it is now common to think that the growth of the book involved developments running across its various parts. Specifically, it is thought that chapters 1–39 include additions that reflect perspectives from chapters 40–55.24 In one version of this, Deutero-Isaiah is regarded as the effective author of chapters 2–55.25 Others too think there never was an edition of chapters 1–39 apart from chapters 40–55.26

The idea of editions or redactions is based on the reality that the book presumably grew incrementally over a long period. Though we cannot trace its history precisely, its survival and growth must nevertheless be due to an understanding of the word of God held within a community that expected God to continue to speak to them through the prophetic word. The book of Isaiah testifies to a view of that word in which the historic prophet Isaiah was remembered and esteemed as the seminal prophet, yet saw that the words of God he bequeathed could be reinterpreted and reapplied by later generations. Those who undertook this work of reception and fresh proclamation remain nameless. It is unclear whether this work of transmission went through stages of oral delivery in the manner of the older prophets; yet it undoubtedly addressed new audiences in new situations, as chapters 40–66 make abundantly clear. Nevertheless, their work has come to us in the literary forms we now possess. The anonymity of those who both received and shaped the tradition has produced the terminology of redaction and redactor because of our need to imagine actual people working purposefully to preserve and expand authoritative prophetic texts. The approach described here requires a view of the relationship between human words and word of God that is different from one that ascribes virtually everything in the book to the prophet Isaiah. The difference, however, is not at the level of textual exegesis but of theological hermeneutic.27

For reasons such as those observed above (see Structure of the Book), the strong tendency in studies of Isaiah is to recognize the unity of the book. Modern approaches to it were developed first through redactional studies28 and later in a variety of ways. It may be consciously theological, in the sense that the book has been received by successive believing communities who have shaped it according to theological criteria, as in Brevard Childs’s canonical approach.29 In some forms, it places emphasis on matters of rhetoric and style that cut across considerations of redactional process. The work of Muilenburg and Melugin may be mentioned in this regard.30 Recent appropriations include the studies of Tiemeyer, who considers chapters 40–55 as a rhetorical unity,31 and of Heffelfinger, who proposes a concept of lyric sequence in the poetry of chapters 40–55 and considers the block as a paratactic-cohesive whole.32

The search for unity may place emphasis, finally, on the role of the reader in finding coherence through themes and motifs.33 There is, no doubt, a relationship between aspects of coherence as perceived by the reader and as constructed by authors or redactors.34 However, it is true that the concept of unity does not automatically deliver a set of right interpretations, and readers inevitably make their own selections when attempting to account for coherence.35 In the final analysis, the endless inventive individuality of the parts of this enormous book resists any reduction to a single theme.

Isaiah and Theology

The story of the development of the book of Isaiah is not unrelated to the book’s character as a work of theology nor to its theological interpretation. In our account of its composition, we have noticed that its preservation and perpetuation implied a view of the word of God as spoken by a prophet and subsequently mediated in written forms. The book as a historical phenomenon cannot therefore be separated from its existence as theological testimony.

What is it about the book of Isaiah that makes it theologically relevant to readers in a time and world vastly different from its own? More specifically, how can issues that were pressing to an Ahaz or a Hezekiah or a group of exiles in Babylonia have anything to do with issues that face believing communities today? On the broad canvas of history, these events were fleeting and insignificant. Yet their very particularity, and even their obscurity, is of the essence of their enduring meaning.

The successive authors and redactors who produced the book of Isaiah were shaped within the matrix of Israel’s faith in Yahweh, to which the prophetic books themselves testify alongside others in the OT canon. That stream of belief cannot be described apart from its deposit in the canonical books: it has no reference points apart from them. From Isaiah itself, however, we can infer that the book was heir to ancient traditions about Yahweh’s election of Israel and his decisive deliverance of the people from slavery in Egypt. The typology of this exodus evidently underlies texts in Isaiah such as 43:2 and 52:12. The ideas of Yahweh as creator and only God are also best understood as received from the tradition, even though the book of Isaiah probably played its own part in refining these ideas (40:25–26; 43:15; 44:6). The same is true of the concepts of covenant and Torah.

These theological postulates of Isaiah attest to an underlying conception that Yahweh, who has worked in Israel’s history in the past, continues to do so in the ever-changing present. As he delivered the people from Egypt, so he can deliver them again from Babylon. The individual events are significant because they testify to something that transcends them: the power of Yahweh to work again and again as he has done in the past. This is not to diminish or elide the individual events; the importance of Yahweh’s further acts depends on the intrinsic value of those that have already occurred.

While Yahweh’s acts in the past become models for future ones, this fundamental postulate also leaves room for the new and different. One reflex of this in the book is the prevalence of Jacob/Israel (e.g., 40:27), names that take their meaning from Israel’s ancient traditions. But the historical referent of Israel kept changing, from a united kingdom under David and Solomon to the Northern Kingdom—Israel as opposed to Judah—a kingdom that disappeared from history in 722 BCE. In the time frame of Isa. 40–55, Jacob-Israel can, in the external world, refer only to the remnant population of the kingdom of Judah in its historic territory, together with Jewish exiles in Babylon. The premise of this section of the book is that the people once constituted as a nation can continue in new forms; its identity as the elect people of Yahweh devolves upon entities that in the real world are known by other names. Jacob-Israel is about to take new forms by virtue of what Yahweh is about to do in Babylon, one such form being servant of Yahweh (41:8; 49:3), who is destined even to become suffering servant (52:13–53:12).

The motif of newness in Isaiah attests precisely to this pattern. Paradoxically, the effectiveness of the idea of newness depends on the premise that Yahweh has acted for Israel’s good and salvation in the past; yet it opens up the possibility that Yahweh can and will act in quite new ways in the future (48:3; cf. 48:6–7). The book of Isaiah as a whole embodies the idea that the same God, Yahweh, can continue acting in new ways. It is a testament to the centrality of reinterpretation in the work of theology: a grateful and faithful reception of the past together with a readiness for the radically new. This validates and even renders essential the christological interpretations of Isaiah found variously in the NT.

For Christian readers, theological readings of Isaiah belong within a long history of scriptural interpretation that allowed the particularities of the OT to serve the understanding of Christ and the gospel. Distinctions were made, essentially, between a plain, or literal, sense and several figurative senses. Figuration was a wide umbrella that could shelter various kinds of theological reflection, including typological, moral, and eschatological.36 Such distinctions cannot exhaustively describe the possibilities for valid theological interpretation. Explorations of figurative meanings, however, always depend on the primary or natural meanings of texts. In this connection, Auerbach’s concept of figura is relevant: something real and historical that announces something else that is also real and historical.37

There is no single, prescriptive way to do theological reflection on OT texts. In the commentary that follows, a short theological reflection concludes most chapters. At the end of chapter 37, I offer one example of interpretation according to the several senses noted above, but generally the reflections do not follow a prescribed pattern.

Language, Form, and Translation

Theological reflection in Isaiah encounters the further challenge of language. That the book is largely poetic in form is not accidental but essential to the ways in which it creates meaning.38 Poetic expression is often ambiguous, and in Isaiah it can be frankly opaque. At times, it seems, the poet/prophet is simply exulting in language itself, with its rich sounds, its capacity for sensory evocation and emotive intensity, its onomatopoeia, its double entendre.39 The interpreter is therefore regularly faced with a depth of possible meanings.

A further factor is the character of the poetry as allusive. For example, the metaphor of the vine (5:1–7) is enmeshed with other OT instances of the image (e.g., Ps. 80:8–18 [9–19]) and is subjected to further intertextual resonance within the book (Isa. 27:2–6). Yet it brings its own ambiguities. When the audience is exhorted to remember not the former things (43:18), this obviously implies a reference to something in the past that they are expected to be familiar with, yet what the former things are is not stipulated.40 The play with this idea is further illustrated by the contrary exhortation in 46:9 to "remember the former things." Thus the ambiguities inherent in poetic language itself are augmented by those created by the juxtapositions of texts. Textual units are often found side by side with others that run counter to them. This feature of the book is central, especially for the interpretation of chapters 40–55.41

It follows from these observations that the idea of a plain or natural sense of the text, as discussed in the preceding section, is not straightforward. It is by no means true that answers to plain-sense questions are somehow objective and necessarily precede nonobjective figurative interpretations. Just reading the text involves rereadings and cross-readings that are not entirely different in kind from some forms of figurative reading. Readers of texts always operate within worlds or complexes of meaning. For both Jewish and Christian readers, there is an obvious canonical aspect to these complexes—for Jewish readers, the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh; for Christian readers, the twofold canon of Old and New Testaments. To recognize this is not to suppose that true interpretations are delivered on a plate by virtue of intracanonical overrides (e.g., Matt. 1:23 on Isa. 7:14). The act of reading requires several distinct kinds of attention to the text, from the establishing of the text itself by the techniques of textual criticism, through philological and exegetical studies, to the synthetic moves involved in reading alongside other texts, and to dimensions that are theological or even spiritual. There is an inescapable unity to these elements in interpretation. They cannot ultimately be picked apart and isolated from each other.

The remarks above