Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)
, “the salvation of Jehovah”). ) The son of Amoz (Isa. 1:1; 2:1), who was apparently a man of humble rank. His wife was called “the prophetess” (8:3), either because she was endowed with the prophetic gift, like Deborah (Judg. 4:4) and Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20), or simply because she was the wife of “the prophet” (Isa. 38:1). He had two sons, who bore symbolical names. He exercised the functions of his office during the reigns of Uzziah (or Azariah), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (1:1). C. 762. C. 698), and may have been contemporary for some years with Manasseh.
Thus Isaiah may have prophesied for the long period of at least sixty-four years. His first call to the prophetical office is not recorded. A second call came to him “in the year that King Uzziah died” (Isa. 6:1). He exercised his ministry in a spirit of uncompromising firmness and boldness in regard to all that bore on the interests of religion. He conceals nothing and keeps nothing back from fear of man. ), 2 Kings 15:19; and again, twenty years later, when he had already entered on his office, by the invasion of Tiglath-pileser and his career of conquest.
Ahaz, king of Judah, at this crisis refused to co-operate with the kings of Israel and Syria in opposition to the Assyrians, and was on that account attacked and defeated by Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Samaria (2 Kings 16:5; 2 Chr. 28:5, 6). Ahaz, thus humbled, sided with Assyria, and sought the aid of Tiglath-pileser against Israel and Syria. The consequence was that Rezin and Pekah were conquered and many of the people carried captive to Assyria (2 Kings 15:29; 16:9; 1 Chr. 5:26). Soon after this Shalmaneser determined wholly to subdue the kingdom of Israel. C. 722).
C. 726), who “rebelled against the king of Assyria” (2 Kings 18:7), in which he was encouraged by Isaiah, who exhorted the people to place all their dependence on Jehovah (Isa. 10:24; 37:6), entered into an alliance with the king of Egypt (Isa. 30:2-4). This led the king of Assyria to threaten the king of Judah, and at length to invade the land. C. 701) led a powerful army into Palestine. Hezekiah was reduced to despair, and submitted to the Assyrians (2 Kings 18:14-16). ) led an army into Palestine, one detachment of which threatened Jerusalem (Isa. 36:2-22; 37:8).
Isaiah on that occasion encouraged Hezekiah to resist the Assyrians (37:1-7), whereupon Sennacherib sent a threatening letter to Hezekiah, which he “spread before the Lord” (37:14). The judgement of God now fell on the Assyrian host. “Like Xerxes in Greece, Sennacherib never recovered from the shock of the disaster in Judah. ” The remaining years of Hezekiah’s reign were peaceful (2 Chr. 32:23, 27-29). Isaiah probably lived to its close, and possibly into the reign of Manasseh, but the time and manner of his death are unknown. ).
) One of the heads of the singers in the time of David (1 Chr. 25:3, 15, “Jeshaiah”). ) A Levite (1 Chr. 26:25). ) Ezra 8:7. ) Neh. 11:7.
Smith's Bible Dictionary (1863)
the prophet, son of Amoz. C. He was married and had two sons.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898) & Schaff's Bible Dictionary
ISA'IAH (Jehovah's salvation). Very little is known of the personal history of this eminent prophet. He was the son of Amoz. Isa 1:1; 2 Kgs 20:1. He began his prophetic career under Uzziah, probably in the last years of his reign, Isa 6:1, and continued it during the succeeding reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Zech 7:1. c. 760 and 713 or 698, the year of Hezekiah's death. He was married and had two sons. 1 Kgs 7:3; Isa 8:3, etc. His wife is called a prophetess, and his children, like himself, had prophetical names emblematic of Israel's future. He wore a hair-cloth dress. Rev 20:2.
He seems to have been held in high esteem, especially by Hezekiah. Isa 37:2; Isa 38:1. In addition to the prophecies which we have by this prophet, he wrote a history of Uzziah's reign, 2 Chron 26:22, which is lost. The Bible does not indicate the mode of his death. A Jewish tradition (in the Talmud), however, states that when nearly 90 years old he was sawn asunder in a hollow carob tree, in Manasseh's reign. Comp. Heb 11:37. The "mulberry tree of Isaiah," in the Kedron valley, near Jerusalem, marks the traditional spot of his martyrdom.
"It signifies much that he was not a celibate, but had a family; that he was not a wanderer in the desert or over hill and vale, but had a house and home; that he lived not in a secluded retreat or remote village, but in the great city, at the capital and court of Judah, the seat of all Hebrew blessings and hopes, with all its social, political, and religious influences. He is the first prophet since Elisha of whom we have any details. " He mentions, however, distinctly his divine call and commission. Heb 6:1-8. T. , and is more frequently quoted than any other.
In him the Messianic prophecies reach their highest perfection. He draws the picture of the suffering and triumphing Saviour of Israel and the world, lineament after lineament, until at last he stands before us in unmistakable clearness and fulness. Isaiah is also one of the greatest of poets. "In him we see prophetic authorship reaching its culminating point. Everything conspired to raise him to an elevation to which no prophet, either before or after, could as writer attain.
Among the other prophets each of the more important ones is distinguished by some one particular excellence and some one peculiar talent; in Isaiah all kinds of talent and all beauties of prophetic discourse meet together, so as mutually to temper and qualify each other; it is not so much any single feature that distinguishes him as the symmetry and perfection as a whole. . . . " — Ewald. Propetecy of. Isaiah is divided into two parts. The first, comprising the first thirty-nine chapters, is composed of a variety of individual prophecies against nations and denunciations of sin.
Social vices, ch. Isa 3, and idolatry, ch. Isa 8, are rebuked without mercy. , Moab, Isa 15, Ethiopia, Isa 18, Egypt, Isa 19, and Tyre, Isa 23, pass successively before the prophet's mind, and their doom is predicted. The prophecies of Babylon's desolation and of Tyre's ruin are among the most poetic and the sublimest passages in all literature. Chs. Isa 36-39 are concerned with Sennacherib's invasion and episodes in the life of Hezekiah. " It takes its position at the close of the Babylonian captivity, and prophesies its close and the glories of the Messianic period of Israel's history.
Of all the prophetic writings, none are more evidently inspired and truly evangelical than these last twenty-seven chapters. Isaiah prophesies of the Messiah with distinctness and in a way that his predecessors had not done. We find prophecies of his birth, Isa 7:14; Isa 9:6, of his Davidic descent, Isa 11:1-2, etc. But the fullest as well as the most distinct of the predictions is contained in the fifty-third chapter. , on account of the graphic and faithful picture it gives of the Messiah, as the "Man of sorrows," suffering in the stead of mankind.
This chapter of itself will stand always as an evidence of prime importance for the divine mission of Christ. The authenticity of the second part of Isaiah, from chs. Isa 40-66, has been assailed by modern critics, who regard it as a later production of some "great unknown" prophet at the end of the Babylonian exile. But it is characteristic of prophetic vision to look into the far future as if it were present; and it makes not much difference for the divine character of the prophecy whether it was uttered 500 or 700 years before its fulfilment.
The description of the servant of God who suffers and dies for the sins of the people in ch. Isa 53 applies to no other person in history, with any degree of propriety, but to Jesus Christ.
Hitchcock's Bible Names (1869)
the salvation of the Lord