ISAIAH - BEFORE WE BEGIN!

I know I’m a little bit weird about things like this, but I can’t begin to express how excited I am, and have been, to get stuck into our next series, which is on the book of Isaiah.

Over September and October, we will be having Sunday morning talks on Isaiah, our small groups can work through a study guide on Isaiah, and our daily reading plan will be working through Isaiah.

I’m excited because this is one of the more significant books of our bible.

I know there isn’t a ranking, but Isaiah is particularly significant because it appears to have three lives before we read it.

We’ll go into more detail in this post, but the understanding of most biblical scholars is that Isaiah, as a text, is the result of an editing process, bringing together at least two parts from different points in history.

The two most clear points of reference in Isaiah are to the time of Isaiah himself, roughly 740-690 BC, rooted in the Assyrian Crisis (more on that once we start reading) and the end of the Babylonian exile, around 540-530BC.

The third life reflects the role that Isaiah plays in our New Testament gospels. Isaiah is quoted or alluded to 65 times in the four gospels, which is more than any other Old Testament text.

So, as we journey through Isaiah together, we’ll get a chance to explore why these words were so important to different people across history, and what they have to offer us today.

I have learned my lesson and am now doing the context and introductory blog posts before we start the reading, so as not to use up time to reflect on the first few weeks of readings.

In this post, I’m going to explore the literary and historical context of Isaiah, which are deeply connected.

Next week, we’ll dip our toes into the key theological themes that arise in Isaiah.

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A good place to start when studying any book of the bible is to ask the questions ‘when was this written?’ and ‘who wrote it?’

What I hadn’t fully realised until starting to prepare for this series is the extent to which answering these questions will shape our understanding of Isaiah.

It turns out that for a majority of modern scholars of the bible, Isaiah is a composite text, which means that it is made up of different parts. Broadly speaking, the key divides are as such:

‘Proto-Isaiah’ or ‘First Isaiah’

Most of this is believed to have been written in the time of Isaiah himself and it centres on the most immediate crisis of the day – the Assyrian threat. The Assyrians were one of the three major powers in the ancient Near East, along with Babylon and Egypt.

The Assyrians, located to the North East of Israel, had to go through Israel to get to Egypt, first through the Northern Kingdom and then through the Southern Kingdom of Judah. They were powerful and destructive as they spread and so there was great concern in Israel about the threat posed by the Assyrians.

First Isaiah is focussed on themes like the sovereignty of God, a condemnation of social injustice and the coming judgement.

Traditionally, First Isaiah is said to span chapters 1-39.

Some would take out small bits which suggest later authorship – Chapters 13-14, 24-27 and 34-35. This creates what theologian Peter Enns calls a ‘whiplash’ effect, with the interspersal of newer writing in amongst the old.

‘Deutero-Isaiah’ or ‘Second Isaiah’

This is the second largest chunk of material, and it is concerned with the time of the Babylonian captivity. This is highlighted immediately in what is thought to be the first chapter of this part, Isaiah 40, which says

“Comfort, O comfort my people,  says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” – Isaiah 40:1-2

This language of comfort speaks more into the situation of the captives in exile, in particular need of God’s comfort, than it does to those awaiting Assyrian attack. As well as this, the exile is framed as a punishment for the people, and this speaks to the ‘penalty having been paid’.

Furthermore, the next few verses, which are later used to describe John the Baptist, also appear to be speaking about the return from exile.

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” – Isaiah 40:3-5

This is announcing the plan for the return of the exiles to Judah and describes the ways in which their parade will reveal God’s glory. These themes don’t make much sense in the context of the time of Isaiah.

(Quick side note- I only noticed on proof-reading this post that Isaiah writes that ‘a voice crys out’ and then begins that cry by saying ‘in the wilderness’. Matthew 3 says ‘a voice crys out in the wilderness’ and then begins with ‘prepare the way’. Matthew says before this that John was preaching in the wilderness, so it could be that the subtle difference is trying to highlight John’s role and potential fulfilment of this as a prophetic statement.)

Another reason to read a later authorship of some parts of Isaiah is that there are people named who existed after the time of Isaiah. 45:1, for example, mentions Cyrus, the Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539 and who released the exiles.  

For many scholars, Second Isaiah covers chapters 40-66, but an increasing number have made arguments for a third part to the text, one which was written later even than Second Isaiah.

‘Trito-Isaiah’ or ‘Third Isaiah’

The idea of a Third Isaiah is rooted in the thought that some of the text appears to make most sense in the time after the exiles had returned to Jerusalem and were starting to rebuild their lives. Whilst Second Isaiah may have been towards the end of exile, some of the concerns of at the end of our book of Isaiah, particularly chapters 55-66, speak to the rebuilding of the temple and a theme of a new creation. These could be encouragements to exiles, but would fit better in the life of those who had already returned from Babylon. Whilst there is a substantial difference between First and Second Isaiah, the possibility of a Third Isaiah is less crucial.

So, what difference does all of that make?

Well, there are a few things this highlights.

First, it provides explanations for us when the text feels like it shifts gears or changes tones. The understanding of a composite text is one which embraces slight variety in how the text reads. We don’t need to be distracted or challenged unnecessarily if things don’t appear to line up entirely.

Second, it can offer us a greater appreciation for the intricacy of our biblical texts. The editing process of Isaiah was so beautifully done that it produced a book which reads coherently, even if certain parts were written hundreds of years apart. The underlying messages unify the parts as if they had been threaded together. Whilst technically we can analyse the different elements that make up the text, we should (and can!) read Isaiah still as one story.

Finally, it brings us closer to the intentions of the authors and what they had to say about God in their times. I’ll write next week about the biblical genre of ‘Prophetic texts’, but if we can understand biblical prophets as being a mouthpiece of God in their own contexts, then we can learn more from some of these passages which might otherwise be read as predicting the future.

But more on that next time…