The Life and Times of Isaiah — Steve Gallagher

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Introducing the Book of Isaiah

Okay, we're going to get into the book of Isaiah today. Let me just mention before I get started that these are going to be expository messages that I bring through the prophets, or at least through Isaiah.

I'm hoping to get to the other prophets. So, in other words, it's a preaching style where you are going through the Word of God and, you know, giving messages. So it's some kind of mixture of teaching and preaching.

Today is going to be all teaching because it's introductory. What I want to do is introduce the book of Isaiah. The title of my message is very lofty. It's The Life and Times and Writings of Isaiah. That sounds pretty exciting, but in one hour, I'm not going to get too far into that.

Isaiah’s Background and Prophetic Character

But anyway, we'll give you a good overview, I'm hoping, of who he was and, you know, the times he lived in and so on. Isaiah was part of the aristocracy ruling in Jerusalem in his time. And someone said that he was the nephew of King Uzziah.

And that very well could be the case. And if it's the case, then that means Uzziah's son, Jotham, which would be the second king that Isaiah operated under, Jotham would have been his cousin. And then Jotham's son, Ahaz, would have been his nephew.

And Hezekiah would have been his great-nephew, right? And Manasseh, Hezekiah's son, you know, you can see now at this point, there's the familial connection is being lost. And we'll get into that a little bit later.

But anyway, he definitely was part of the, as I say, the aristocracy, the ruling upper class, you know, of the time. He mingled with royalty, that's for certain. And he wasn't afraid to confront and to tell it like it was.

And I want to read a little section out of the pulpit commentary that kind of gives a good sense about who this man was and the way that he ministered as a prophet during the 8th century BC. Let me just read this, Isaiah's temper is one of great earnestness and boldness.

He lives under five kings of whom only one is of a religious and God-fearing disposition. Yet he maintains towards all of them an uncompromising attitude of firmness with respect to all that bears upon religion.

He conceals nothing, keeps nothing back out of a desire for court favor. But this boldness and severity for God and uncompromising sternness where God's honor is concerned are counterbalanced by a remarkable tenderness and compassion towards the individuals who fall under notice as having provoked God's anger.

As a writer, it is generally allowed that Isaiah transcends all the other Hebrew prophets. A lofty and majestic calmness, a grandeur and dignity of expression is perhaps his first most patent characteristic.

However strong the feelings that move him, he always succeeds in maintaining a perfect self-control. All right, so that just gives us a little bit of a sense about who he was and how he operated. Isaiah truly was a great prophet.

You know, we think a lot about Jeremiah because Jeremiah's story comes out in a richer way, in more detail through his writings and so on. And so, you know, we think of all that Jeremiah went through and he truly was a suffering prophet and, you know, and so on.

Isaiah's greatness was different. You know, his greatness was in his ability to communicate the heart of God in a very eloquent fashion, you know, in a way that really moved people and so on. Well, anyway, I want to just kind of give a backdrop on the day and age which he lived.

Judah’s Kings and the Historical Setting

You all have a timeline there with you and for those on the website, you can just look over to the right side of the page and you'll see a link to a timeline. You can just click on that and you'll have the exact same thing we're looking at.

And let's just go down about, oh, maybe about a third the way down this list of Judean kings just to kind of give us a background of what was going on. You see, Joash referred to his life covered in 2 Chronicles 24, and then his son Amaziah, and then his son Uzziah.

I did a message one time called The Three Backslidden Kings, and these are the three because they all started off well and they all ended poorly. And so there was a kind of a pattern being established here by these different kings, the generations, but Uzziah is the first important one because now in during his reign is when Isaiah is born, as we'll see here in a minute, and Uzziah was a great king.

He truly was a great king. And during his time, Judah prospered and grew into a very strong nation and so on. And he reigned for a very long time, 51 years, I believe. So that is kind of the backdrop of what was going on at that time.

The northern tribes of Israel had long since utterly given themselves over to idolatry. And actually Uzziah, when he came into power, King Jeroboam II in the northern tribes of Israel, he was probably halfway through his reign and he also had a very strong reign.

King Jeroboam II was probably the strongest, most prosperous of all the Israelite kings. And he reigned, I think, for 40 years and he also had led the nation, the northern tribes, into a time of prosperity and strength.

So at this point, probably not long before Isaiah was born, both sides, if I could put it that way, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, both countries were doing well outwardly. And we'll get into more of what was going on in Uzziah's time later.

Anyway, you can see this timeline here that goes in conjunction with these kings. And I want to just say, well, first of all, I got this particular timeline. I chose this one out of the inductive study Bible because it seemed as good as any of the others I've seen.

I've seen a number of them and they all vary a little bit here and there, but they're all fairly close. I'd say the widest range that I've seen on any date was maybe 20 years. So these dates are fairly accurate.

They're close enough. They're not perfect. No one has a perfect dating system and there's some reasons for that. For one thing, there were different dating systems that were incorporated during that time.

You know, the Egyptians had one dating system and the Assyrians had another. And depending on who the king was in Israel or Judah, as to which dating system they used. For instance, I think it was the Egyptians that would always count, if there was any portion of a year in a king's reign, let's say he came into power in December and he left 20 years later in January, well they would count them as full years.

So instead of it saying 20 years, he reigned for 20 years, it was actually 22 years. And you can see how over time that would really throw off the whole system. It should be 20 years, but they say 22 years.

And I think the Assyrians' system was the opposite. If there was any part of that year that, you know, the same sort of thing, they would throw out the whole year. So anyway, whatever. Just don't put too much stock in the numbers.

Just let this timeline give you a general reference as to when these different kings reigned and what was going on at that time. That will just save you a lot of heartache if you don't get too hung up on that.

Isaiah’s Early Life and Uzziah’s Pride

I want to just apply to this timeline a timeline, you know, for Isaiah's life, sort of a shorter version. And let me just spend a few minutes to go through his life. He was probably born about 765 BC.

Again, you know, it could be a few years in either direction, but, you know, it was about that time. And again, that was right pretty much in the middle of King Uzziah's reign. King Uzziah had a tremendously successful reign.

God really blessed this man. And kingdom became stronger than it had ever been since King Solomon's day. So no king preceding Uzziah had led the country into the condition that he did before that. Anyway, so about 15 years later, I'll say 750, Uzziah was struck down with leprosy and that occurred when he rose up in pride.

He went into the temple and attempted to perform one of the priestly duties in the temple, which was to light the incense and so on. And the priests came in and tried to stop him and he went into a rage, as most proud men do.

And as soon as he went into a rage and reacted that way, God smote him, and it says it that way, smote him with leprosy. Now that was a very significant thing. For all these years, he has enjoyed the blessings of God on his reign, on his kingdom.

But you know what happens? You know, it happens to all of us. When things are going our way, we just tend to slip spiritually. We tend to start becoming self-sufficient. We tend to start becoming proud, start looking at all of our accomplishments, and before you know it, man, doom is headed your way.

And he did this to himself. I mean, he just was probably over a matter of years even growing increasingly more proud and hard-hearted and self-righteous and who knows what, until he finally had this experience.

I would imagine, just knowing how the Lord is, that he probably sent people to try to talk to him, but all to no avail. The significant part of this is this, that Jotham, his son, came in and shared the reign with his father, but Uzziah, it seems as though he was put into a leper house.

That word that says separate house, it could mean a leper's house, but one way or the other, we know he was quarantined away from everyone. I mean, there was nothing that you could do to a man, especially in those days, to more humble him than to smite him with leprosy.

And he spent the remainder of his years, by this numbering system would be 11, and that's probably about right. The next dozen years or so, he spent sequestered away in a house covered with this malignant disease and no one can come around him.

If he did venture out into public, he would have to cover his face and announce to everyone that a leper was there. I mean, it was just horrible, horrible disease. So Jotham's reign really started well into, you know, before Uzziah ever died.

So if this numbering system's right, Isaiah would have been about 15 years old at this point when this happened. During those first years, it was Jotham now, who was the king, all right, in 745, now this is a date that is certain.

Assyria’s Rise and Isaiah’s Calling

The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser came into power. And he was a very ambitious king, and he was bent on conquest, and that spread alarm everywhere. Because Assyria was growing, it was a growing power to the east, you know, and everyone was taking notice of it when Tiglath-Pileser came into power.

In fact, it says in 2 Kings 15, 19, that about that time, not long after that, Assyria invaded Israel, and that was the first out of four invasions down into Palestine. But anyway, something was happening.

There was a lot of fear in the air. If we went back to the Cold War years when, well, none of you hardly were alive when I'm talking about, but in the early 60s, like the Cuban Missile Crisis and things like that, John remembers it.

But anyway, it would have been like that, you know, how we used to live in a certain, with a certain sense of dread in the United States, because Russia was bent on conquest, they were powerful, you know, it would have been that way, except that we were equals with Russia, and it wasn't that way for Judah.

Judah was just a tiny nothing scrap of a nation, and Assyria is a world power, you know, so that would have been the difference there. But anyway, when Tiglath-Pileser came into power, it definitely affected things, and it must have been right about that time that Isaiah was called into the office of prophet.

So it would have been very close to the same time, and I just find that it's interesting that, you know, these two events are coinciding, and to me it seems like the Lord, that at the same time He's creating a little bit of fear in His people, He's also raising up a prophet to announce God's will and to warn them of judgment and so on.

Well next week I'll get into the opening chapters of Isaiah, and we'll talk more about the word of the Lord that came through Isaiah during this reign of Jotham and Uzziah. All right, so 739, Uzziah finally succumbs to the agonies of leprosy.

So he dies in 739 thereabouts, and it is that year that Isaiah has this tremendous vision recorded in Isaiah 6, and I'll get into that hopefully, my plan is to in a couple of weeks. But that vision was almost unparalleled in Scripture, especially during the Old Testament times.

Now later Daniel would have some pretty powerful revelations of God and His throne and so on, and of course in the book of Revelation John had some tremendous sights into what actually goes on there, but this was very powerful, and it was a significant milestone in Isaiah's life and ministry.

Ahaz’s Apostasy and Isaiah’s Ministry

Okay so a few years later, you know 735 thereabouts, Jotham dies. He was young, you know, I don't know why, Jotham seemed like he was a decent man, not a great king like his father, but a decent man and was trying to do the right thing.

There's nothing said about him backsliding or anything like that, but on the other hand he also wasn't rooting out the idolatry that was going on in the land at the time. You know, so he wasn't strong in that sense, but again he was trying to do the right thing, and when he dies his son Ahaz comes into power.

And if you want to open up to 2 Chronicles 28, I want to just look at a few verses here that kind of sum up what Ahaz was like. We're painting a picture of what it was like for Isaiah to minister during this time, because he had just started getting his feet under him as a prophet, and Jotham dies and Ahaz takes power in Judah.

So let's see what it was like for this young prophet who was probably maybe 30 years old at this point. Let's read these verses, 2 Chronicles 28, 1. Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he reigned 16 years.

I'll say 16 long, horrible years in Jerusalem. And he did not do right in the sight of the Lord as David his father had done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. So we see that he is following down the same path, leading the nation into idolatry and apostasy that the northern kingdom had already long since given over to.

Alright, but continuing here, tells now what some of the things he did. He made molten images for the bales. Moreover, he burned incense in the valley of Ben Hinnom, and burned his sons in fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel.

He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills and under every green tree. And there was more to it than that. He also, later we read that he closed up the temple, locked the doors on the temple, and basically banned the worship of Jehovah and so on.

So we see that Ahaz must have just been a very wicked son. You know it kind of gives credence to my thought of Jotham as being sort of a benign ruler, you know, probably not a strong ruler. He was a decent man, but he probably didn't discipline his son and so on.

You know, he probably let him just kind of go his own way, and this is where your own way often takes you. Anyway, I don't know, that's conjecture, but Ahaz was a very wicked young man. And so when Ahaz comes into power, God starts raising up trouble for the nation of Judah, and of course the people apparently are just always right there ready to follow any wicked king.

So this is what Isaiah came into, and a large portion of the first part of the book occurs during his reign. Okay, so now a couple of years after Ahaz takes power, Tiglath-Pileser invades Judah, and we see that in verse 20, it's mentioned.

I'm not getting into the story now, but I'm just kind of touching on all of this. And then a few years later, Hezekiah comes into power, and things begin to change, because Hezekiah apparently saw the excesses of his father, and you know, just as he's biding his time, waiting for his opportunity to rule in the nation, he's watching the mistakes his father is making, he's seeing the judgment of God upon the land, and he's waiting for his opportunity, and Ahaz is cut down also at a young age.

I mean, he died at 36, so I don't know how he dies, it doesn't say, but God struck him down and allowed Hezekiah to come in and take power. Well, Isaiah cut his teeth as a prophet during Ahaz's reign, but now he gets to enjoy 29 years of respite, if I could put it that way.

You know, 29 years, instead of being treated with scorn by his nephew, or by this young king, anyway, now he begins to be brought into the inner circle of advisors to the king, and he's starting to be treated with respect.

So when Hezekiah comes to power, Isaiah was about 37 years old, and Hezekiah, it says here, was 25. So we know there's a 12 year difference, or right around there, you know, give or take. Isaiah being a little bit older than Hezekiah.

Hezekiah, the Fall of Israel, and Sennacherib

And so anyway, Hezekiah is king for a while, and then Sargon, another king of Assyria, who had overthrown the previous king, captures Samaria, the northern tribes of Israel, and takes them into exile.

That is the end of the northern tribes, 722 BC. That is the end is also a date that you can circle as certain. God finally, after years of warnings and so on, God finally put an end to the nation of Israel, the northern tribes.

And it was probably about the next year that Hezekiah instituted the Passover, if you remember the story, that was one of, part of the reforms that he brought in, and I'll get into that later in the book of Isaiah, but one of those reforms was to get the Passover established again, and during that time, he sent out messengers across the northern kingdom of Israel, and there were still some Jews up there, and so, you know, he tried to encourage them to come down and get right with Jehovah.

All right, so that was 722. 701 is the next significant date, and that is another date that is certain. That's when Sennacherib invades Judah, and we'll see that story in detail later. I'll just mention here that 2 Kings 18 .13 says that it was the 14th year of Hezekiah, and according to this dating system, that wouldn't be true.

It would be the 27th year, but probably it was the 14th year of his sole leadership, and again, the dating system, I didn't think to mention this also, is that a lot of these kings would bring their son along as co-regency.

So you have, let's say Uzziah, that was a force enforced, but a lot of times it wasn't. They just did it to try to teach their son how to be a king, and so there would actually be two kings. The man and his son would reign at the same time, and so it just throws more confusion into all the dating systems.

But anyway, 701, Sennacherib invades Judah, and by this point, Isaiah is 64 years old, and he's still right around there. So when you're reading the story of all that occurred during that time, well, Hezekiah's about 50, 52, and Isaiah is in his mid -60s, something like that.

And it was about that same time that Hezekiah got sick and was healed, and if that's the case, then we know that Hezekiah died in 686 BC, because 701 is certain, and we also know certain for certain, that Hezekiah died 15 years later, so we know that Hezekiah died in 686, or within a year of that.

So that was when Manasseh takes over, and it seems that during this period, during the late years of Isaiah's life, he seems to have retired from public life, and it was probably during the first years of Manasseh taking power that Isaiah kind of backed off of being prominently involved with things and so on, and that seems to be when he wrote the second part of the book of Isaiah, which I'll talk about here in a minute, chapters 40 -66.

The whole atmosphere of the book of Isaiah completely changes with chapter 40. It all shifts, and so something is different. There's definitely a time gap between the first part of the book of Isaiah and that last part.

It's like the whole style completely changed. Anyway, let's look at 2 Kings 21 real quick. I want to just read the first few verses again to kind of give a sense about what it was like in Manasseh's time.

Manasseh’s Idolatry and the Judgment of Judah

Now Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king, and he reigned 55 years in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Hephzibah, something like that. Now again, it very well could be that when it says he was 12 years old, that he was brought into the throne room of his father Hezekiah and was starting to be trained in that.

I don't know. But anyway, he didn't follow after his father's footsteps, that's for sure. Verse 2, he did evil in the sight of the Lord according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel.

For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed, I could say had painstakingly destroyed. And he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the hosts of heaven and served them.

I mean, he completely gave over to idolatry. He built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, in Jerusalem I will put my name. For he built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.

He made his son pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and used divination and dealt with mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. It's incredible.

So he's following in the footsteps of his grandfather. Look at verse 11, because Manasseh, this is what the Lord spoke through the prophets, I don't know if it may have been Isaiah, because Manasseh, king of Judah, has done these abominations, having done wickedly more than all the Amorites did who were before him, and has also made Judah sin with his idols.

Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, behold, I am bringing such calamity on Jerusalem and Judah that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle. I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.

I will abandon the remnant of my inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies, and they will become as plunder and spoil to all their enemies, because they have done evil in my sight and have been provoking me to anger since the day their fathers came from Egypt, even to this day.

Those two verses, verses 14 and 15, are key, key verses in the Old Testament, because that sums up really the Jewish nation. But look at verse 16, moreover Manasseh shed very much innocent blood until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides his sin with which he made Judah sin in doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

Isaiah’s Martyrdom

Okay, so that is King Manasseh where Isaiah was forced to spend the rest of his life. We don't know how long he lived, but there is a question about whether he was martyred by Manasseh or not. I don't know if you've ever run into the question, but I want to tell you why I believe that he was martyred, and also I should mention that all of these notes, and especially things like this, are on the notes section in the website.

You'll see right next to the timeline there a link for notes, and that's where all this stuff can be found. Why do I believe that Manasseh martyred Isaiah? Okay, well let me give you five reasons. Number one, Isaiah lived to complete the record of the reign of Hezekiah and of course survived him.

Number two, the testimony of the Jewish writers including Josephus. In other words, this is a tradition that goes back all the way to the early Jewish writers. And number three, that also was attested to by the early Christian writers, Justin Martyr, Augustine, Jerome, they all said that Isaiah was martyred by Manasseh.

Number four is the verse which we just read here, verse 16, that says that Manasseh shed innocent blood, basically killed many people, martyred many people. And lastly, Hebrews 11 .37, it states that some of the ancient saints were sawn asunder.

This tradition actually came in two forms. One was that Isaiah was fastened between two planks and sawn in half that way, and others said that he was put into an empty log and that was sawn in half. But either way, it seems certain that that's what happened to him.

Apparently Manasseh's excuse to martyr Isaiah was that Isaiah had claimed to see the Lord in the sixth chapter, and Manasseh cited the Lord in the sixth chapter in Exodus 33 .20, no man shall see me and live.

And so he used that as an excuse to martyr this dear prophet. Okay. All right. So that's the backdrop on his life. At least it kind of gives you an overview. Are you guys keeping up with me okay? I know I've been kind of flying through this.

The Two Major Halves of Isaiah

Now let me just talk about the book of Isaiah for a minute. It's very interesting. There's 66 chapters in the book of Isaiah, and there are 66 books in the Bible. And also interesting is that the first section, which is definitely different than the second section, the first section has 39 chapters, and that's how many books there are in the Old Testament.

And not only that, but those, the flavor or the atmosphere of those 39 chapters is primarily denunciatory. In other words, there's a lot of reproof, there's a lot of warning of judgment coming, and so on for their wickedness and sin, which very much relates to the Old Testament, the basic message of the Old Testament.

And the second section of the books, starting with chapter 40, there's 27 chapters in that section, and there's 27 books in the New Testament. And the primary message of it is a gospel of salvation. So it just is one of those fascinating little tidbits that you run across sometimes in the Bible.

You just get the sense that the Lord's in it, that the Lord is just kind of letting you know that it isn't the way it is by accident, that He is behind all of it. And I'm going to break down the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah’s Eight-Part Structure

I mean, you can take it into those two sections, but just to break it down a little more detail, you're not going to keep up with this. Again, this will be in my notes, but I'm doing this just to kind of give you an idea of the flow of the book.

The first section, which would cover the first 12 chapters, is a denunciation of Judah, primarily. And the second section, which would cover chapters 13 to 23, is a denunciation of other nations. The third section is known as Isaiah's Apocalypse.

That's chapters 24 through 27. It's a fascinating section of Scripture. We'll get to that before long. And the fourth section, again, he returns back to confronting Judah, but also Israel. And that goes from 28 to 35 or through 35.

The fifth section is a historical section of the book, which is basically the story of Hezekiah and Sennacherib and all of that what happened in Hezekiah's sickness and all of that stuff. So there's a little kind of in between the first part of the book and the second part of the book is this four chapters dealing with history.

And then starting that second section, which would be, you know, we'll say the sixth portion of the book, chapters 40 through 48, what he does is he is addressing the captives in Babylon as if he was there right at the end of their captivity.

Now he's giving this 150 years before all this happens, but he's prophesying as if he's right there with them in Babylon, you know, 150 years later when they're about to be released. And those nine chapters, 40 through 48, it's a word of hope for the Jewish people that God is going to set them free.

And he says that in a number of different ways and so on. It's very interesting. The next section is about the coming Messiah. That's chapters 49 through 57. And of course, within that is Isaiah 53, the suffering servant, which is contrasted with the triumphant coming Messiah, you know, and the Jews had a hard time reconciling those two and figuring it out and so on.

But anyway, that's that section. And then the final section, chapters 58 through 66, deals with the Messiah's reign. And a lot of that will be when the new Jerusalem comes down to earth and what life will be like under the government of King Jesus.

Isaiah’s Chronological Arrangement

All right. And let me just mention a couple of other things about the flow of the book. First of all, say it's chronological. Almost every commentary agrees with this that in other words, it starts with chapter one and moves all the way through chronologically.

You could almost, you know, attach sections to the different kings. And again, this last section from 40 to 66 apparently was written during Manasseh's wicked reign. So it's laid out chronologically. And, you know, I'll just mention that Isaiah and probably the case with most of the prophets, these were prophecies that were delivered verbally and then written down later.

That seems to be the case. And it very much seems to be a compilation of just a lot of different prophecies that Isaiah gave during his long years as a prophet there in Judah. All right. We've got a few minutes left and I want to just touch on one final thing.

The Unity of Isaiah and the Deutero-Isaiah Debate

And that is that there's been a lot of debate over whether or not there were two different people who wrote the book of Isaiah. If you've ever heard the term Deutero-Isaiah, that is a term that was created by the higher criticism people who mostly existed 100 years ago and before.

They did not believe that the Isaiah of the first 39 chapters was the same person who wrote the last 27 chapters. They believed it was written by two different people. And primarily the reason they believed that is because they could not imagine a prophet writing with the exact detail that he wrote with.

For instance, mentioning King Cyrus by name, you know, which he does on a couple of occasions, you know. And so they're like in their fleshly mindset, probably unsaved theologians. This all started in Germany back in the mid -1800s.

They can't imagine that God could actually tell one of his prophets a name, you know, and such detail about so many of the things that would happen in Babylon and so on. But I want to just give you some arguments in favor of the unity of this book.

In other words, that it was written by one man and that man was Isaiah. First of all, even though the flavor changed and in some ways the style changed from chapter 40 on, the basic writing style remained the same throughout the whole book.

Ways of saying things and ways that he would, you know, just communicate different things. Terms that he would use. All those remained the same. Even though the message became much softer and it did seem to be like at a different time period.

Well, that would make sense that there was a period of time that Isaiah was hiding out or whatever. And then he came forth with these final prophecies. Also, as early as 250 BC, the entire contents of the book were being ascribed to Isaiah by various Jewish writers.

In 132 BC, the Septuagint Greek Old Testament accepted it as one book. You would think that if it was two books, they would have had the book of Isaiah and then the book of whoever the other guy was or whatever.

But no, and this is just a few hundred years later, they're accepting it as one book. Josephus ascribes the prophecies found in the second part of the book to Isaiah. That's another argument. But the crowning argument, the coup d 'etat, as John would say, of this is that a number of New Testament writers in referencing statements made by Isaiah during the second half of the book said the prophet Isaiah said.

And I have a list of them here. I don't know if you would want them. Should I read them out? Okay. Matthew 3 .3 is referencing Isaiah 40 verse 3. Matthew 8 .17 is referencing Isaiah 53 verse 4. Matthew 12 verses 17 to 21 is referencing Isaiah 42, 1 through 4.

Mark 1 verses 2 and 3 references Isaiah 41, 3. Luke 3 verse 4 references Isaiah 40 verse 3. Luke 4 .17 to 19 references Isaiah 61 verses 1 and 2. John 1 .23 references Isaiah 40 verse 3. John 12 .38 references Isaiah 53 .1.

Acts 8 .28 to 33 references Isaiah 53 verses 7 and 8. And then in Romans 10, there's three different verses Paul references here. Romans 10 .15, he references Isaiah 52 .7. And then in verse 16, he references Isaiah 53 .1.