A PROLOGUE:TO THE BOOK OF ISAIAH
The book of the prophet Isaiah is a problem to the first reader without some prefatory comments to orient the reader not used to its unusual style. The difficulties of language and parlance are explained hereunder.
Isaiah’s call to the ministry seems to have been precipitated by his vision in an encounter with God in chapter six when he is anointed with fire and appointed to be the prophet of God in Jerusalem.
Sinful Isaiah is purged, anointed and commissioned to be His spokesman to a rebellious populace, whose ears would be shut to his entreaties. The Lord’s seraphic messenger forewarns him that in the final days of Jerusalem only a tenth of the people would remain after successive attacks invasions, sieges, and wars by Samaria (Israel) ; Egypt; Syria; Assyria, Ammon; Edom (Esau’s descendants); and Babylon.
Isaiah, however, can use ‘Ephraim’ to denote the tribe, territory, or area given by Joshua to the 12 tribes of Israel after crossing Jordan River to first settle the Promised Land of Canaan. It is important for the reader to make these distinctions which the text, syntax, scene and history of the two kingdoms: Israel and Judah, and the events occurring during his lifetime help determine.
DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY THE MODERN READER.
1. The imagery and oblique allusions to the main historical actors of the time;
2. The combined influence of the Hebrew language and the later Septuagint’s Greek manuscripts consulted;
3. The metaphors, metonyms, and pseudonyms without the reader’s historical knowledge from the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles can be puzzling or even an enigma;
4. The allegories and similes can, at times, be off-putting, because they are based upon the historical scenario of Israel’s surrounding environs;
Considering the above factors the reader may find the text abstract and without much further thought miss the treasures of the prophecies, the promises, their later fulfilment, and glorious description of the end times which are corroborate with other major and minor prophetical books of Scripture end times’ predictions on the second coming of Christ, called the Second Advent.
The book’s historical sequence in prophecy, promise and narration is consistent and cohesive. However, it can be difficult to discern between Isaiah’s own convictions and his direct revelations from God.
Seven centuries before Christ’s birth Jehovah was about to remove the ten rebel idolatrous tribes from the north alluded to under the pseudonyms of Israel, Samaria, or Ephraim. The two apostate but opposing segments of Solomon’s kingdom of David were Judah (& Benjamin) in the south, and the ten confederate rebel tribes of Israel in the north. Despite faithful prophets over multiple decades who had warned them they were both ripe for destruction and captivity by Syria, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, the Medo-Persian usurping empire and the sufferings of increasing civil war between each other.
Isaiah the prophet of Judah, was born at the end of King Uzziah’s reign. He was to serve the Lord as His main spokesman through the last days of Uzziah and the ensuing reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah before his rumoured martyrdom by Manasseh, righteous Hezekiah’s wicked son, whose idolatrous evil acts exceeded Ahaz, his grandfather.
