Reading Isaiah in Advent: Part 1: Introduction

"[Isaiah] is truly full of living, comforting, tender sayings for all poor consciences and miserable disturbed hearts." - Martin Luther

Its Advent and I don't think anything would be quite as fitting for this season of preparation as getting into the book of Isaiah. The book balances between preparation and appearing. It is a book of present darkness and future dawns. It is a book where many find hope and solace as well as chiding and punishment.

I do not want to get bogged down with too much detail and I plan on summarizing this after we have finished reading Isaiah, but I do want to set the historical stage for Isaiah. So here goes.

"It was the best of times it was the worst of times…"

Dickens' phrase rings true in the book of Isaiah. The setting is in the time of King Uzziah. Abraham J. Heschel, the famous Jewish theologian, says that Isaiah lived at one of the highest points of Israel's power around the mid-750s b.c.e. [sic]. The great powers around were weak and in such times small powers can become great. Heschel will also say that Uzziah thus fell into hubris. Though the kingdom of Israel had become disunited and the Northern Kingdom would be destroyed, many people indulged in a life that acted as if nothing would befall their corner of the promised land.

It would of course fall some years after Isaiah's ministry and the bleak predictions of Isaiah would come true, but also, as is so often the case, the need for hope, comfort, and a calling for One to come beside us.

A quick statement

It is important to point out that Isaiah is divided into two different books (some say three but this is a minority opinion). The first part runs from Chapters 1 - 39 and the second part runs from 40 - 66. In the interest of time I will be covering three chapters at a time and try and offer a summary at the end of Advent right before Christmas Eve. If you have any questions, please comment and I will try and answer them. Sorry to be so brief with the history, but this is more of devotion and a meditation rather than a commentary. I will try and not use these, by I am addicted to those things. So without further ado, the book of Isaiah...