We begin now our epic journey through the writings of the Isaiah tradition. Chapters 1 – 39 are credited to the man Isaiah, prophet in the court of King Uzziah of Judah and subsequently Kings Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. Difficult to understand, so laden are his words with elaborate symbolism, Isaiah combines judgement and challenge with hope for Zion and the Davidic monarchy.

There are several ‘defining’ geo-political events involving Judah that occurred through the course of Isaiah’s prophetic ministry. Each of these is reflected to some extent in his enormously eloquent outbursts. At its heart however, Isaiah Book 1 is, in the vein of its contemporaries, Amos, Hosea and Micah, a proclamation of judgement on Israel & Judah for injustice and idolatry, but with a Messianic twist.

Isaiah is broadly understood to be comprised of three books. Book 2 (chapters 40-55) is from the time of the Babylonian exile, while Book 3 (chapters 56-66) explores the new challenges faced by the ‘remnant’, the people who returned to Jerusalem and must establish their faith in land that is no longer theirs. As Isaiah is big enough to span three weeks of reading we will look at it in these sections. We must, however, read it as one whole, particularly as certain exilic and post-exilic themes have been inserted back into the earlier chapters to the give the work its hegemony.

Isaiah, during his youth, would have likely experienced the temporary Assyrian invasion of Israel and the resulting levy imposed on King Menahem as well as the subsequent capture of Israel’s northern territories (2 Kgs 15:19-20, 29) and the capture and exile of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh (see 1 Chr 5:26). Later, during the reign of King Ahaz, Judah was shaken by the Syro-Ephraimitic crisis (see 2 Kgs 16:5-18; 2 Chr 28:5-25). Ahaz became Vassal to Tiglath-Pilesar III (the Assyrian king) in order to protect Judah from the threatening alliance between Syria (Aram) and Ephraim (Israel – Ephraim by this point was the largest and most dominant tribe). Only a few years later, Israel fell completely to the Assyrian King Sargon II. Finally, Sargon’s successor, Sennacherib came to destroy Jerusalem as well, but was defeated, according to 2 Kings by ‘an angel of the Lord’ (see 2 Kgs 18:17-19:37; 2 Chr 32:1-23; Isa 36-37).

In Isaiah’s mind (as in all the minds of the People of Israel) Assyria was the mighty enemy. What makes Isaiah’s perspective significant is that he interprets this adversary not as some random aggressor, but as a tool in the hand of their Suzerain, Yahweh, and a tool that will someday experience its own punishment (8:1-10, 10:5-19). The dissolution of Israel as a nation is all part of the plan.

This idea of a sovereign purpose to Israel’s catastrophes is not only radical as an idea; it is a means to establishing Yahweh as God of the nations. No tribal deity would destroy his people, unless they had offended it beyond repair. For Yahweh to dismantle his nations’ infrastructures and disperse his people as judgement, yet still promise recovery is odd, to say the least. It only makes sense in the context of a wider plan, a larger celestial court (see Isaiah’s commission in ch 6), in which not only Israel & Judah, but also Assyria, Babylon, Moab, Damascus, Cush and Egypt are tried and judged accordingly. And the king of this court is no longer simply a tribal god; he is Lord of the whole earth, a Suzerain before whom even Assyria must bend its will.

Party to this judgement and evolving as a vision of godly kingship is the vision of a Messiah. The Messianic theme in Book 1 is found in 9:1-7 and 11-12. This vision is of a new king from the line of David who could re-create the glory days of a united Israel, and better. If Isaiah’s rebuke to Ahaz (7:13-17) – which is now a famous messianic passage – was intended to also refer to this king then it is clear Isaiah expected him born within a matter of years. Regardless of this, Isaiah’s vision of an enthroned king of righteousness was clearly something he expected to be see in his lifetime. Perhaps Hezekiah, with his sweeping reforms, resembled what Isaiah longed for.

It is equally hard to know whether Isaiah expected Jerusalem to fall. Were his words of judgement on Jerusalem (see 3:1-4:6) a vision of refining pathos, or could he imagine the desecration that would occur a hundred and fifty years later? Did Sennacherib’s defeat at the hand of Yahweh confirm his belief in the impregnability of Zion?

These speculations are intriguing because finding the Isaiah of the 8th century BCE is not easy. This is true of any historical text, but Isaiah is unique in its clearly evident two-hundred-plus year authorship. What we have in Book 1 is a collection of prophecies to pre-exilic Judah, within the context of a work redacted in its current form for a post-exilic Yehud (Judah’s new name under Persian rule). In much the same way as Chronicles, Isaiah 1-39 tells us as much about this new 5th century community as it does about the 8th century crises.

It is likely that the majority of prophecies against the surrounding nations (13-27) were later additions to Book 1, in which case the vision of Yahweh as God and Judge of all the nations may well be a creative solution to an earlier theological problem. Maybe not. We can never know for sure. But what Isaiah presents for us is the power of an evolving tradition of thought. Faced with exile, Isaiah’s readers weren’t content to sit tight with what they knew; most of those dreams had been shattered already. New ideas emerged and a vision of a God more adept at dealing with the challenges of their situation became apparent to those who sought it. Yet the words of the past were the root from which these new branches grew; the old lending weight to the new and the new providing fresh meaning for the old.

In our Western world that seems so often to have run out of steam, will we stay with what we know, or are we prepared to seek out a new vision of God that can revitalise and inspire for the long days to come?