Prophets
יְשַׁעְיָהוּ
Isaiah
Sixty six chapters whose voice and setting shift markedly partway through.
Hebrew nameYeshayahu, meaning the lord is salvationChapters66Position5 of 8 in Prophets
Read it
Open chapter 1What is in it
The early chapters address a kingdom under threat and are largely warning. From chapter forty the tone changes to comfort and the setting appears to be exile, which is why the book is commonly discussed in parts.
It contains some of the most quoted poetry in the Bible, and some of its hardest sustained argument about what worship is worth when justice is absent.
If you read one chapter
Isaiah 58
A fast that God rejects, and what he asks for instead.
Passages worth knowing
- Isaiah 1:11 to 17Sacrifice refused where justice is missing.
- Isaiah 6The vision in the temple.
- Isaiah 40Comfort ye, and the turn in the book.
- Isaiah 53The suffering servant, read very differently by different traditions.
- Isaiah 58:6 to 7The fast that is chosen.
Questions to sit with
- 01
Chapter 1 attacks the offerings the Torah commands. How do the two sit together?
- 02
What changes at chapter 40, and what does the change suggest?