isaiah

situating isaiah in the hebrew bible

• TaNaK

– T - torah

–N - neviʾim (prophets)

– K - kethuvim (writings)

isaiah

• judgment

• salvation

יׁשעיהו

יׁשע / יהו

isaiah

1-39 40-55 56-66

40112:1-5 53 61:1-2

Exile

isaiah

1-39 40-55 56-66

40112:1-5 53 61:1-2

literary structure

• chaps. 1-12: judgment and salvation

• chaps. 13-27: the nations

• chaps. 28-35: woes, future King, and vengeance

• chaps. 36-39: jerusalem is delivered, exile is near

isaiah 1:1

The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

important dates

• 734: the syro-ephraimite coalition

• 733: damascus falls

• 722: the north falls

• 701: sennacherib’s palestinian campaign, lachish falls, jerusalem is delivered

• 586: jerusalem is sacked

• 540: first of the exiles return to jerusalem

isaiah 1:2-6; 12-20

isaiah 2:1-5

Isaiah 5:1-7 (NRSV)

Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines;

he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it;

he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

isaiah 5:1-7 (NRSV)

And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem

and people of Judah,

judge between me

and my vineyard.

What more was there to do for my vineyard

that I have not done in it?

When I expected it to yield grapes,

why did it yield wild grapes?

isaiah 5:1-7 (NRSV)

And now I will tell you

what I will do to my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge,

and it shall be devoured;

I will break down its wall,

and it shall be trampled down.

isaiah 5:1-7 (NRSV)

I will make it a waste;

it shall not be pruned or hoed,

and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;

I will also command the clouds

that they rain no rain upon it.

isaiah 5:1-7 כי כרם יהוה צבאות בית יׂשראל

ואיׁש יהודה נטע ׁשעׁשועיו

לצדקה והנה צעקה ויקו למׁשפט והנה מׂשפח

For the vineyard of YHWH is the house of Israel,

And the men of Judah are His pleasant planting;

He expected justice (mišpāṭ), but look, bloodshed (miśpāḥ);

Righteousness (ṣǝḏāqāh), but look, outcry (ṣәʿāqāh)!

isaiah 7:9b

אם לא תאמינו כי לא תאמנו

If you do believe, you will not stand

isaiah 9:1-7

isaiah 11:1-9

isaiah 13-23

“The nations section makes absolutely clear that any foreign alliance is doomed to failure from the start. Foreign alliances derive their logic from the notion that nations act outside the will and purpose of Yahweh and could therefore be enlisted as agents of support simply by virtue of their military strength. The nations section reveals the folly of all political scheming when it takes independently of trust in the on God of all the nations. ‘The Egyptians are human, and not God; their horses are flesh, and not spirit’(31.3). Isaiah reveals that trust in foreign alliances very quickly turns into a form of idolatry, a belief that some force in the human realm of activity can be better trusted than the God who sets up the nations and brings them down” (Seitz, Isaiah 1-39, 125).

isaiah 40:15 (NASB)

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, And are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales; Behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust.

isaiah

1-39 40-55 56-66

40112:1-5 53 61:1-2