The New Testament’s favourite Hebrew prophet: Isaiah

-

Of all the prophets, Isaiah is the one most often read in the lectionary. It is also the most quoted book, apart from the Psalms, in the New Testament. Isaiah provides some of the key Old Testament readings for both the Christmas and Easter lectionary cycles, and much of the libretto for Handel’s Messiah.

The book as we have it falls into three main sections. Much of the first section, chapters 1-39, relate to the time when Assyria is the major power in the Middle East. Isaiah’s ministry covers the time of four kings of Judah, and by the end of his prophesying Israel, the northern kingdom has fallen, and Judah, especially the city state of Jerusalem, stands alone.

One of the features which makes Isaiah stand out in his day is the miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem from an Assyrian siege. The section of 2 Kings which includes this story is also repeated as chapters 36-39 of Isaiah. Isaiah emphasises that the Lord has made his home on Mt Zion. If his people trust him, he will defend them. According to the biblical account, the Assyrian King Sennacherib’s army are struck down by God, possibly by a plague. Sennacherib’s own records give no account of why his siege failed, but merely recount an unsuccessful siege of Jerusalem and a substantial financial tribute.1 This failed siege is seen in scripture as a stunning vindication of Isaiah’s prophecy.

A detail of the Assyrian carved record of Sennacherib’s campaign (see note 1)

Perhaps because of this prophetic success, Isaiah’s theology was carried on by one or more disciples, who not only edited his voluminous prophecies, but brought his theology up-to-date for subsequent generations. Most notable among these disciples was the anonymous prophet2 who prepared the people for the end of their exile in Babylon, nearly 200 years later. The section containing his work is the most coherent in the book, consisting of chapters 40-55. It is also the section which is most used in the lectionary.

While this anonymous prophet, sometimes called Isaiah of Babylon, continues the emphasis found in Isaiah of Jerusalem on the importance of that city, he particularly uses the first Isaiah’s way of identifying God as the Holy One of Israel. The most significant sections of his prophecy, however, are what have become known as the Servant Songs, most famously the song of the suffering servant,3 read in the Good Friday Liturgy, and treated from New Testament times on as a prophecy of the crucifixion.

This and the other servant songs have always presented something of a conundrum: whom did Isaiah have in mind? Some have seen the servant as inspired by Jeremiah, others as a self-portrait, and others as at least in part the nation’s calling. Perhaps the prophet is simply offering a vision of the kind of person God wants: what true calling means. It is a vision that Christians see reaching its fulfilment in Jesus of Nazareth in such a way that it is impossible for them to read these texts without hearing the gospel story.

If the first section of Isaiah perhaps has more prophecies focussed on the calling of a true king, and the second on the calling of a true servant, the final section has a significant vision of the promised kingdom, Jerusalem triumphantly restored, where there will be true justice and peace. All these themes occur throughout the book, and help make it feel like a unity, but they can be seen as emphases of their particular sections.

The readings from Isaiah in the lectionary are too numerous to mention. However, their significance will often derive more from relating them to the gospel of the day than from their context in the book of Isaiah. With Isaiah more than any other book of the Old Testament, the Christian theological tradition tends to overpower the historical context. This is especially true in Ordinary Time; let me take two examples to illustrate.

In Year A, Proper 22, the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time has a reading from Isaiah 5, which portrays God as the owner of a vineyard, a metaphor for his people Israel. The gospel reading has Jesus telling a parable about the owner of a vineyard, and the disrespect its tenants show him. In Year B, on the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Proper 19, an excerpt from one of the servant songs relates to a gospel in which, after Peter confesses Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus tries to teach his disciples that the cross is the way of true service.

Essentially, prophecies from the book of Isaiah, all three sections, do so much to shape the Christian gospels, that now, especially when reading from Isaiah in the liturgy, the gospel inevitably shapes our understanding of what Isaiah is about. There is perhaps no other book of the Old Testament where it is so hard to imagine what Jewish readers hear when they listen to the same text. Whether it is helping us interpret Christmas with “unto us a boy is born”,4 or Good Friday with “he was wounded for our transgressions”,5 Christians read Isaiah as a book about Jesus, almost a fifth gospel.6

Notes

  1. Sennacherib’s monumental inscription is now in the British Museum, it includes a reference to shutting Hezekiah up “like a bird in a cage”. See https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=295077&partId=1

  2. Scholars tend to refer to the Isaiah who prophesied in Jerusalem beginning in 740BC as First Isaiah, or occasionally Isaiah of Jerusalem, and to the one who prophesied in Babylon around 540BC as Second Isaiah, or Isaiah of Babylon. For convenience’s sake, rather than because people think they all came from the same author, chapters 56-66, largely coming from the time after the Exile, are sometimes referred to as Third Isaiah.

  3. Isaiah 52:13–53:12 is the Old Testament Reading for Good Friday. The responsorial psalm is Psalm 22. The passion narratives of all four gospels echo phrases from these two readings which underscore their value, and help the early Christians interpret the crucifixion as God’s triumph prepared for by the prophets, rather than a disastrous end to the Jesus movement. An excerpt from the suffering servant passage is also read as the related reading on the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Proper 24, Year B.

  4. Isaiah 9:6

  5. Isaiah 53:5

  6. One scholar in fact titled his book on Isaiah The Fifth Gospel, (John Sawyer – Cambridge University Press, 1996)

Comments

Post a Comment

Some frequently read posts

The material reality of love: the letters of John

-
Image
Although there are three letters which bear John’s name, the second and third are very short, and perhaps show something of how the teaching of the longer letter is put into action in some specific relationships. Only the first letter is used in the lectionary. This letter in particular shares some significant thinking and vocabulary with the Fourth Gospel. Whether this means they come from the same person or simply the same theological circles is impossible to say. None of them give their author a name. Tradition has associated them with John the Apostle, but there is no way of knowing exactly what relationship, if any, he had with the circles from which these writings came. Detail from a portrait of John the Apostle by Alonso Cano. John is sometimes portrayed blessing a poisoned chalice. For more on this story, see the page for this picture at the Louvre. Apart from the festivals of John the Apostle and All Saints’ Day, readings from 1 John provide the second reading
Read more

Welcome to Lection and Liturgy

-
Welcome to Lection and Liturgy. I have backed up to this site a series of posts making a guide to the whole of the Christian Bible, aimed particularly at those who read it in public. My name's Doug Chaplin, I work as a priest and trainer in the Church of England. Everything here is written in a purely personal capacity. I hope the posts here will help people read Scripture in ways which help their listeners understand what is being read. You can read more about this site in this introductory post , and you can follow it in "book order" using this Reading Guide Index . So here it is: the Bible in 90 posts.
Read more

The first papal encyclical? 1 Peter

-
Image
My title is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Historically, Rome seems not to have had a single monarchical bishop until well into the second century. Nonetheless, there is a sense that, in looking back to Peter as the first pope, church tradition reflects his calling to be first among the apostles, the rather wobbly rock on which Jesus chooses to start building his church, as well as his clear association with Rome, from where this letter appears to be written. More accurately, calling it an encyclical picks up the way in which it is written to a circle of churches rather than a single congregation. Peter’s first letter is read mainly on the Sundays of Easter during year A. This reflects the way in which it begins with a celebration of the resurrection which remains the frame for the rest of the letter. There are a number of overlaps with some of the letters of Paul, in language and theology. First Peter also shares an expectation with the later Pauline letters that women an
Read more

Visions, vindication and victory: the strange world of the Apocalypse

-
Image
The Revelation to John, also known as the Apocalypse, contains seven letters, which make up the second and third chapters. However, it is not itself a letter, but the only New Testament book which as a whole is in the literary genre of apocalyptic. This is a type of literary description of visions that claim to unveil the meaning of history for those in the know. 1 They often contain the metaphor of a journey through heavenly or spiritual realms with a guide. The vision at the heart of the Apocalypse is that the soft power of the Lamb’s self-sacrifice will be triumphant over the hard power of the mighty Roman empire. While readings from this book are used on a number of feast days, 1 Revelation also provides the second reading for the Sundays of Easter in Year C. Its celebration of Christ’s triumph draws out a key aspect of the Easter gospel. Readers are somewhat prone to introducing readings from this book wrongly. It is the Book of Revelation in the singular, not R
Read more

On the periphery of the Bible: 2 Peter and Jude

-
Image
Some books of the Bible are effectively marginalised. In today’s church, Second Peter and Jude are among those which are pushed out to the edge of the canon. Modern scholars’ doubts that 2 Peter was written by Peter are paralleled by the early church’s reluctance to accept the book as one for public reading. Jude was rather more popular in the earliest centuries. When it comes to our lectionaries, there are only two readings from Second Peter, and none from Jude. One comes in Advent, 1 and the other is one of those provided for the Feast of the Transfiguration. 2 Today’s scholarship is overwhelmingly convinced that 2 Peter is not from Peter’s hand, but written to perpetuate the author’s view of Peter’s teaching. It seems something almost written in the genre of a testament or farewell speech (see 2 Pet 1:14-15). Quite oddly, 2 Peter’s second chapter plagiarises the letter of Jude, which is a good reason for treating them together. Jude’s letter, like Peter’s second chap
Read more