People of the Bible

Isaiah

Prophets · Around 700 BC · Appears in The book of Isaiah

Isaiah is the great prophet whose book foretells both the judgment and the salvation of God's people, and who saw, centuries in advance, the coming of the Messiah. Called by a vision of the LORD high and lifted up, he answered, Here am I; send me, and his prophecies of the suffering servant are read at the heart of the Christian gospel.

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.Isaiah 6:8 (KJV)

The vision of the holy God

Isaiah prophesied in Jerusalem over the reigns of several kings of Judah, in a dangerous age when the great empire of Assyria threatened to swallow the small nations of the region. His ministry was born in a vision that marked him for life. In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple, and the seraphim cried one to another, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts, until the posts of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.

Undone by the sight, Isaiah cried, Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Then a seraph flew to him with a live coal from the altar and touched his mouth, declaring his sin purged and forgiven. And when he heard the voice of the Lord asking, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us, the cleansed prophet answered, Here am I; send me. That moment, the vision of God's holiness, the cleansing of grace, and the ready sending, is the pattern of every true call to serve God.

The word to kings and the trust of Zion

For decades Isaiah spoke God's word to the kings and people of Judah, warning of judgment for pride, injustice, empty religion, and idolatry, and calling the nation to trust the LORD rather than foreign alliances. He confronted proud rulers and comforted frightened ones. When the Assyrian army under Sennacherib surrounded Jerusalem and its commander mocked the God of Israel, Isaiah stood beside King Hezekiah, told him not to fear, and promised that the LORD would defend the city for his own sake, and in a single night the threat was broken.

Isaiah's message held two truths in tension: God's people would indeed be judged and carried into exile for their sin, yet God would not abandon them. Woven through his warnings are some of the most soaring promises in all Scripture, including the great word of comfort, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, and the assurance that those who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength and mount up with wings as eagles. He saw beyond the coming ruin to a restoration only God could bring.

The coming King and the suffering servant

No prophet saw the Messiah more clearly than Isaiah. He foretold a child to be born, a son given, upon whose shoulder the government would rest, whose name would be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace, and of the increase of whose government and peace there would be no end. He promised a virgin would conceive and bear a son called Immanuel, God with us, and that a great light would dawn on those who walked in darkness.

Above all, in the fifty-third chapter, Isaiah described a servant despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, by whose stripes we are healed. He is led as a lamb to the slaughter and opens not his mouth, and the LORD lays on him the iniquity of us all, yet he shall see his offspring and prolong his days beyond death. The church has read that chapter for two thousand years as a portrait of Jesus painted seven centuries before the cross.

The vineyard and the heart of worship

Isaiah's warnings were not vague; they cut to the way people actually lived. He sang a song of a vineyard the LORD had planted and tended with every care, expecting good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes; he looked for judgment, but behold oppression, for righteousness, but behold a cry. The nation's outward religion was flourishing while the poor were crushed, and Isaiah declared that God was weary of their many sacrifices and solemn feasts while their hands were full of blood.

In their place God called for a changed life: Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. And with the call came astonishing mercy: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Isaiah taught that God desires not mere ritual but a heart turned to him in truth and mercy, and that his forgiveness reaches even the deepest stain.

His character and significance

Isaiah is the prophet of the holiness of God, forever marked by that vision of the thrice-holy LORD and by his own answering readiness, Here am I; send me. He was fearless before kings, tender toward the grieving, and clear-eyed about both the sin of the people and the depth of God's mercy. His willingness to be sent, whatever it cost, sets the pattern for every servant of God who has come after him.

He is often called the greatest of the writing prophets, and his book has been called a Bible in miniature, moving from judgment to comfort, from the sin of the nations to the salvation of the world. His words shaped the hope of Israel through exile and beyond, and he is quoted in the New Testament more than almost any other prophet. His vision of God's holiness has formed the worship of the church, which still sings the seraphim's song, Holy, holy, holy.

Where Isaiah points to Christ

Isaiah's prophecies are read every Advent and every Good Friday because they point so plainly to Jesus. He foretold a virgin bearing a son called Immanuel, God with us, the very meaning of the incarnation, and a light dawning on those in darkness, which the Gospels apply directly to Christ's coming. He foresaw the forerunner, the voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, fulfilled in John the Baptist.

And in the suffering servant of chapter fifty-three, Isaiah gave the clearest word in the Old Testament of what the cross would mean: a sinless one bearing the sins of many, silent before his accusers, numbered with transgressors, making his soul an offering for sin, and rising to justify many. When Philip found the Ethiopian reading that very chapter and asking of whom it spoke, he began at that same Scripture and preached unto him Jesus. All of Isaiah's soaring hope finds its center in Christ, the King, the light, and the Lamb the prophet longed to see.

A note on the sources: everything above is drawn from the biblical text itself. Where a detail comes from later tradition rather than Scripture, it is named as tradition. Dates for the earliest figures are traditional and approximate, and Scripture does not always give them. The aim is to tell each life honestly, and to let it do what the whole Bible does, point to Jesus Christ the Lord.

Related: Elisha · Daniel · All the people of the Bible