Author: © Christian National Church of Christ

Question:
How does Isaiah describe the city women of his time?
Answer:
Here, even before the woman symbol appears, the city is identified as female by feminine pronouns. It is more specifically designated as a widow, another female figure. Before the verse ends, it reflects back on an earlier time when she was a princess, another female figure, but now she is a slave to sin.
It reads in Isaiah 3:16-24 NIV: The Lord says, “The women of Zion are haughty, walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, strutting along with swaying hips, with ornaments jingling on their ankles. Therefore, the Lord will bring sores on the heads of the women of Zion; the Lord will make their scalps bald.” In that day the Lord will snatch away their finery: the bangles and headbands and crescent necklaces, the earrings and bracelets and veils, the headdresses and anklets and sashes, the perfume bottles and charms, the signet rings and nose rings, the fine robes and the capes and cloaks, the purses and mirrors, and the linen garments and tiaras and shawls. Instead of fragrance there will be a stench; instead of a sash, a rope; instead of well-dressed hair, baldness; instead of fine clothing, sackcloth; instead of beauty, branding.

Question:
What judgement awaits an evil situation?
Answer:
If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

Hebrews 10:26-28
The Lord takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people.

Isaiah 3:13 NIV:
By the wrath of the Lord Almighty the land will be scorched, and the people will be fuel for the fire; they will not spare one another.

Isaiah 9:19 NIV:

Question:
What is Isaiahs’s opinion of the religious practices of his time?
Answer:
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.

Isaiah 1:14 NIV

Question:

What is Isaiahs’s demand for social justice?

Answer:

Isaiah was a prophet who demanded that the kings not just pay lip service to justice, but implement it in practice. He insisted that people should “seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:17 NIV: Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.). Isaiah is just as insistent in his demand for justice as other prophets such as Amos or Jeremiah. The prophetic word exposes collective, societal sins, such as denying justice to orphans, widows and the poor can’t say it enough. After announcing God’s judgment on nations and rulers, Isaiah reveals God’s vision of a just future as nonviolence (Isaiah 2:4 NIV: He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.), equity for the poor (Isaiah11:4 NIV: but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. ) and a renewed creation (Isaiah 65:17-25 NIV: “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them. Before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.)

Question:
What extremity will this lead to, according to the prophet Isaiah?
Answer:
In that day seven women will take hold of one man and say, “We will eat our own food and provide our own clothes; only let us be called by your name. Take away our disgrace!”
Isaiah 4:1 NIV
Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives violated.
Isaiah 13:16 NIV
“I will make mere youths their officials; children will rule over them.”
Isaiah 3:4 NIV

“Question:
What was the internal situation in the nation at the time Isaiah began his ministry?
Answer:
His call to prophecy about 742 BCE coincided with the beginnings of the westward expansion of the Assyrian empire, which threatened Israel and which Isaiah proclaimed to be a warning from God to a godless people. {“It reads in Isaiah 3:8 NIV: Jerusalem staggers, Judah is falling; their words and deeds are against the Lord, defying his glorious presence.”}

Question:
Under the terms of his contract, how long does Isaiah have to remain at is task?
Answer:
Then I said, “For how long, Lord?” And he answered: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged.
Isaiah 6:11 NIV:

Question:
How is the Prophet Isaiah summoned to begin his work?
Answer:
Isaiah, Hebrew Yeshaʿyahu (“God Is Salvation”), (flourished 8th century BCE,) The earliest recorded event in Isaiah’s life is his call to prophecy as now found in the sixth chapter of the Book of Isaiah; this occurred about 742 BCE. The vision (probably in the Jerusalem Temple) that made Isaiah a prophet is described in a first-person narrative. (A throne high and lifted up” 6:1) According to this account he “saw” God and was overwhelmed by his contact with the divine glory and holiness. (“I am a man of unclean lips. and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. 6:5) He became agonizingly aware of God’s need for a messenger to the people of Israel, and, despite his own sense of inadequacy. ( Receives assurance of pardon. Your guilt is taken away, and sins forgiven.” 6:7) Isaiah offered himself for God’s service: “Here am I! Send me.” He was commissioned to give voice to the divine word. It was no light promise; he was to condemn his own people and watch the nation crumble and perish. As Isaiah tells it, he was only too aware that, coming with such a message, he would experience bitter opposition, willful disbelief, and ridicule, to withstand which he would have to be inwardly fortified. (All this came to him in the form of a vision and ended as a sudden, firm, and lifelong resolve. 6:8)

Question:

At what points has the text of Isaiah been corrected by reference to the Isaiah scroll, which was among the first of the finds in the Dead Sea Caves?

Answer:
A thousand years older than any copies of Isaiah that had hitherto been known, this has necessitated minor correction at thirteen points: 3:24 (Insertion of the word “Shame”); 14:4 (“Insolent fury” replaces “Golden City”); 14:30 (“I” replaces “He”); 15:9 (“Dibon” twice replaces “Dimon”); 21:8 (“he who saw” replaces a Lion”); 23:2 (“your messengers passed over the sea” replaces “who passed over the sea, they replenished you”); 33:8 (“witnesses” replaces “cities”); 45:2 (“the mountains” replaces “the swellings”); 45:8 (“that salvation may sprout forth” replaces “that they may bring forth salvation”); 49:24 (“tyrant” replaces “righteous man”); 51:19 (“who will comfort you?” replaces “how may I comfort you?”); 56:12 (“us” replaces “Me”); 60:19 (addition of “by night”). In each case the corruption had resulted from a copy list’s error in the days when all books had to be written out by hand. In each case, the corrected text makes better sense than the version previously known.

Question:
What theological differences are there between 1 Isaiah and 2 Isaiah?
Answer:
Examples of the doctrinal differences they mention are that “Second Isaiah” does not mention the Messianic King or faithful remnant of Israel, but instead emphasizes the suffering Servant. Another is that God’s rule and uniqueness was also more emphasized in “Second Isaiah”.
1 Isaiah emphasizes the holiness of God {Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts 6:3}
2 Isaiah stresses His everlastingness: “Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, The Lord, the first, and with the last; I AM HE!” {41:4}
1 Isaiah pictures the coming of the Messianic King: And the government will be on His shoulder, and His name will be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace'” {9:6}
2 Isaiah revolves about the idea of the Suffering Servant: He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and aquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not” {53:3}.
The author of 1 Isaiah was himself called to be a prophet{“Whom shall I send? “Send me” 6:8}
In 2 Isaiah it is the community of Israel that is called to be a prophet “To the nations” {42:1}, whose function it is to establish “Justice on the earth” {42:4} and be “a light to the nations” {42:6; 49:6}.