Isaiah

Isaiah is a prophet of Judah, son of Amoz, whose oracles and visions are gathered in the biblical book that bears his name; the Hebrew name Yeshayahu means “Yahweh is salvation,” and it appears in its Greek form, Esaias, in the Septuagint and in the New Testament.

The book’s own superscription places his ministry in Jerusalem during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah (Isaiah 1:1), and 2 Kings 19–20 narrates him advising Hezekiah during the Assyrian crisis. The passages attributed to him address a nation under threat and under judgment: he offers Ahaz a sign of a child named Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14), announces a son given to David’s throne whose government will have no end (Isaiah 9:6–7), and speaks of a foundation stone laid in Zion, “a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation” (Isaiah 28:16). He charges the people with honoring God with their lips while their hearts are far off (Isaiah 29:13), and describes Yahweh as waiting to be gracious and as a God of justice (Isaiah 30:18). In the later chapters the tone turns to consolation: “Don’t be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine” (Isaiah 43:1), with promises of protection through water and fire (Isaiah 43:2), of sins blotted out (Isaiah 43:25), and of salvation offered to “all the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 45:22).

Two historical and linguistic points are worth stating plainly. First, the Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14 is ‘almah, “young woman,” while the Greek Septuagint renders it parthenos, “virgin” — and the Gospel of Matthew quotes that Greek form in applying the verse to Jesus’ birth (Matthew 1:23), a move that rests on the Greek text. Second, since the late eighteenth century most critical scholars have assigned chapters 40–66 to one or more later writers speaking in the prophetic tradition of Isaiah, while Jewish and Christian tradition historically received the whole book as the work of a single prophet. The New Testament cites Isaiah often; Matthew 13:14 invokes his prophecy of a people who hear without understanding (compare Isaiah 6:9–10) as fulfilled in those who reject Jesus’ teaching, and Isaiah 9:6–7, 28:16, and 45:22–24 are all given christological readings in the New Testament.

Traditions differ in how they read him. Jewish liturgy treats Isaiah as the great prophet of consolation and reads much of chapters 40–66 as promise to Israel, generally without applying the Immanuel child or the servant songs to Jesus; Jewish interpretation has also often identified the child of Isaiah 9:6–7 with a royal figure of Isaiah’s own day, such as Hezekiah. Christian tradition reads the book as messianic prophecy and, in the Eastern churches, venerates Isaiah as a prophet and ranks him first among the major prophets; within Christianity, most modern historical critics accept multiple authorship of the book while many conservative Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox readers maintain the unity of the single prophet. The differences are real and long-standing, and they turn on questions of how prophecy is fulfilled and on how the Greek and Hebrew texts of Isaiah 7:14 are weighed.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.