Isaiah ( UK : / aɪ ˈ z aɪ . ə / or US : / aɪ ˈ z eɪ . ə / ; Hebrew : יְשַׁעְיָהוּ , Yəšaʿyāhū , " Yahweh is salvation"; also known as Isaias or Esaias from Greek : Ἠσαΐας ) was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named.
109-461: The text of the Book of Isaiah refers to Isaiah as "the prophet", but the exact relationship between the Book of Isaiah and the actual prophet Isaiah is complicated. The traditional view is that all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah were written by one man, Isaiah, possibly in two periods between 740 BC and c. 686 BC, separated by approximately 15 years. Another widely held view suggests that parts of
218-850: A Greek fragment of Leviticus (26:2–16) discovered in the Dead Sea scrolls (Qumran) has ιαω ("Iao"), the Greek form of the Hebrew trigrammaton YHW. The historian John the Lydian (6th century) wrote: "The Roman Varro [116–27 BCE] defining him [that is the Jewish God] says that he is called Iao in the Chaldean mysteries" (De Mensibus IV 53). Van Cooten mentions that Iao is one of the "specifically Jewish designations for God" and "the Aramaic papyri from
327-562: A Hebrew text (which would have had the Tetragrammaton). She also mentions Septuagint manuscripts that have Θεός and one that has παντοκράτωρ where the Hebrew text has the Tetragrammaton. She concludes: "It suffices to say that in old Hebrew and Greek witnesses, God has many names. Most if not all were pronounced till about the second century BCE. As slowly onwards there developed a tradition of non-pronunciation, alternatives for
436-519: A book containing the text of 17th-century writings, five attacking and five defending it. As critical of the use of "Jehovah" it incorporated writings by Johannes van den Driesche (1550–1616), known as Drusius; Sixtinus Amama (1593–1629); Louis Cappel (1585–1658); Johannes Buxtorf (1564–1629); Jacob Alting (1618–1679). Defending "Jehovah" were writings by Nicholas Fuller (1557–1626) and Thomas Gataker (1574–1654) and three essays by Johann Leusden (1624–1699). The opponents of "Jehovah" said that
545-594: A cedar-tree, but his presence was betrayed by the fringes of his garment , and King Manasseh caused the tree to be sawn in half. A passage of the Targum to Isaiah quoted by Jolowicz states that when Isaiah fled from his pursuers and took refuge in the tree, and the tree was sawn in half, the prophet's blood spurted forth. The legend of Isaiah's martyrdom spread to the Arabs and to the Christians as, for example, Athanasius
654-545: A component of theophoric Hebrew names in the Bible: jô- or jehô- (29 names) and -jāhû or -jāh (127 jnames). A form of jāhû/jehô appears in the name Elioenai (Elj(eh)oenai) in 1Ch 3:23–24; 4:36; 7:8; Ezr 22:22, 27; Neh 12:41. The following graph shows the absolute number of occurrences of the Tetragrammaton (6828 in all) in the books in the Masoretic Text, without relation to the length of the books. Six presentations of
763-640: A different term, whether in addressing or referring to the God of Israel. Common substitutions in Hebrew are אֲדֹנָי ( Adonai , lit. transl. "My Lords" , pluralis majestatis taken as singular) or אֱלֹהִים ( Elohim , literally "gods" but treated as singular when meaning "God") in prayer, or הַשֵּׁם ( HaShem , "The Name") in everyday speech. The letters, properly written and read from right to left (in Biblical Hebrew ), are: The Hebrew Bible explains it by
872-695: A group of Shasu whom it calls "the Shasu of Yhwꜣ" (read as: ja-h-wi or ja-h-wa ). James D. G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson suggested that the Amenhotep III inscription may indicate that worship of Yahweh originated in an area to the southeast of Israel. A later inscription from the time of Ramesses II (1279–1213 BCE) in West Amara associates the Shasu nomads with S-rr , interpreted as Mount Seir , spoken of in some texts as where Yahweh comes from. Frank Moore Cross says: "It must be emphasized that
981-523: A newly constructed road through the wilderness was taken up by all four Gospels and applied to John the Baptist and Jesus. Christians point to Chapter 53 and its discussion of a suffering servant as a striking prediction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the messiah predicted by Isaiah. Isaiah seems always to have had a prominent place in Hebrew Bible use, and it is probable that Jesus himself
1090-466: A representation of יהוה must be pre-Christian in origin". Similarly, while consistent use of Κύριος to represent the Tetragrammaton has been called "a distinguishing mark for any Christian LXX manuscript", Eugen J. Pentiuc says: "No definitive conclusion has been reached thus far." And Sean McDonough denounces as implausible the idea that Κύριος did not appear in the Septuagint before
1199-455: A secondary function indicating vowels (similar to the Latin use of I and V to indicate either the consonants /j, w/ or the vowels /i, u/). Hebrew letters used to indicate vowels are known as אִמּוֹת קְרִיאָה (imot kri'a) or matres lectionis ("mothers of reading"). Therefore, it can be difficult to deduce how a word is pronounced from its spelling, and each of the four letters in
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#17327648039291308-506: A summary of its contents like the following: The older understanding of this book as three fairly discrete sections attributable to identifiable authors leads to a more atomised picture of its contents, as in this example: While it is widely accepted that the book of Isaiah is rooted in a historic prophet called Isaiah , who lived in the Kingdom of Judah during the 8th century BCE, it is also widely accepted that this prophet did not write
1417-512: Is יְהֹוָה the Lord , whilst the Ktiv is probably יַהְוֶה (according to ancient witnesses)", and they add: "Note 1: In our translations, we have used Yahweh , a form widely accepted by scholars, instead of the traditional Jehovah. " In 1869, Smith's Bible Dictionary , a collaborative work of noted scholars of the time, declared: "Whatever, therefore, be the true pronunciation of
1526-687: Is a common Hebrew prefix form, Yeho or "Y hō-", and a common suffix form, "Yahū" or "-Y hū". These provide some corroborating evidence of how YHWH was pronounced. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia it occurs 5,410 times in the Hebrew scriptures. In the Hebrew Bible , the Tetragrammaton occurs 6828 times, as can be seen in Kittel's Biblia Hebraica and the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia . In addition,
1635-811: Is a transcription of the Exodus 3:14 phrase אֶהְיֶה ( ehyeh ), "I am".) In Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium 5.3, he uses the spelling Ἰαβαί. Among the Jews in the Second Temple Period magical amulets became very popular. Representations of the Tetragrammaton name or combinations inspired by it in languages such as Greek and Coptic, giving some indication of its pronunciation, occur as names of powerful agents in Jewish magical papyri found in Egypt. Iαβε Iave and Iαβα Yaba occurs frequently, "apparently
1744-600: Is also listed on the page of saints for May 9 in the Roman martyrology of the Roman Catholic Church . The Book of Mormon quotes Jesus Christ as stating that "great are the words of Isaiah", and that all things prophesied by Isaiah have been and will be fulfilled. The Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants also quote Isaiah more than any other prophet from the Old Testament. Additionally, members of
1853-412: Is divided between verse and prose passages, and a currently popular theory is that the verse passages represent the prophecies of the original 8th-century Isaiah, while the prose sections are "sermons" on his texts composed at the court of Josiah a hundred years later, at the end of the 7th century. The conquest of Jerusalem by Babylon and the exile of its elite in 586 BCE ushered in the next stage in
1962-575: Is insufficient evidence for Amorites using yahwi- to refer to a god. But he argues that it mirrors other theophoric names and that yahwi- , or more accurately yawi , derives from the root hwy in pa 'al , which means "he will be". The adoption at the time of the Protestant Reformation of "Jehovah" in place of the traditional "Lord" in some new translations, vernacular or Latin, of the biblical Tetragrammaton stirred up dispute about its correctness. In 1711, Adriaan Reland published
2071-649: Is presented in the text of the Bible. According to the ancient rabbis, Isaiah was a descendant of Judah and Tamar , and his father Amoz was the brother of King Amaziah . While Isaiah, says the Midrash , was walking up and down in his study he heard God saying "Whom shall I send?" Then Isaiah said "Here am I; send me!" Thereupon God said to him," My children are troublesome and sensitive; if you are ready to be insulted and even beaten by them, you may accept My message; if not, you would better renounce it". Isaiah accepted
2180-461: Is that the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was Yahweh ( יַהְוֶה ). R. R. Reno agrees that, when in the late first millennium Jewish scholars inserted indications of vowels into the Hebrew Bible, they signalled that what was pronounced was "Adonai" (Lord); non-Jews later combined the vowels of Adonai with the consonants of the Tetragrammaton and invented the name "Jehovah". Paul Joüon and Takamitsu Muraoka state: "The Qre
2289-834: Is the Persian king Cyrus the Great , who is merely the agent who brings about Yahweh's kingship. Isaiah speaks out against corrupt leaders and for the disadvantaged, and roots righteousness in God's holiness rather than in Israel's covenant. Isaiah was one of the most popular works among Jews in the Second Temple period (c. 515 BCE – 70 CE). In Christian circles, it was held in such high regard as to be called "the Fifth Gospel", and its influence extends beyond Christianity to English literature and to Western culture in general, from
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#17327648039292398-473: Is the four-letter Hebrew theonym יהוה ( transliterated as YHWH or YHVH ), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible . The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are yodh , he , waw , and he . The name may be derived from a verb that means "to be", "to exist", "to cause to become", or "to come to pass". While there is no consensus about the structure and etymology of
2507-476: Is the shepherd of Yah". The Mesha Stele , dated to 840 BCE, mentions the Israelite god Yahweh . Roughly contemporary pottery sherds and plaster inscriptions found at Kuntillet Ajrud mention "Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah " and "Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah". A tomb inscription at Khirbet el-Qom also mentions Yahweh. Dated slightly later (7th century BCE) there are an ostracon from
2616-597: The Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex , both of the 10th or 11th century, mostly write יְהוָה ( yəhwā ), with no pointing on the first h . It could be because the o diacritic point plays no useful role in distinguishing between Adonai and Elohim and so is redundant, or it could point to the qere being שְׁמָא ( š mâ ), which is Aramaic for "the Name". The scholarly consensus
2725-483: The first half of the book (chapters 1–39) originated with the historical prophet, interspersed with prose commentaries written in the time of King Josiah 100 years later, and that the remainder of the book dates from immediately before and immediately after the end of the 6th-century BC exile in Babylon (almost two centuries after the time of the historical prophet), and that perhaps these later chapters represent
2834-449: The 740s BC . He may have been contemporary for some years with Manasseh . Thus, Isaiah may have prophesied for as long as 64 years. According to some modern interpretations, Isaiah's wife was called "the prophetess", either because she was endowed with the prophetic gift, like Deborah and Huldah , or simply because she was the "wife of the prophet". They had two sons, naming the elder Shear-Jashub , meaning "A remnant shall return", and
2943-546: The Masoretic Text has the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew. This corresponds with the Jewish practice of replacing the Tetragrammaton with " Adonai " when reading the Hebrew word. However, five of the oldest manuscripts now extant (in fragmentary form) render the Tetragrammaton into Greek in a different way. Two of these are of the first century BCE: Papyrus Fouad 266 uses יהוה in the normal Hebrew alphabet in
3052-728: The Quran or the Hadith , but appears frequently as a prophet in Muslim sources such as the qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ and various tafsirs . Al-Tabari (310/923) provides the typical accounts for Islamic traditions regarding Isaiah. He is listed among the prophets in the book of salawat Dalail al-Khayrat . He is further mentioned and accepted as a prophet by other Islamic scholars such as ibn Kathir , Abu Ishaq al-Tha'labi and al-Kisa'i and also modern scholars such as Muhammad Asad and Abdullah Yusuf Ali . According to Muslim scholars, Isaiah prophesied
3161-628: The Torah that both Jesus and Muhammad were prophets. Among his several proofs, al-Ridha references the Book of Isaiah , stating "Sha'ya (Isaiah), the Prophet, said in the Torah concerning what you and your companions say 'I have seen two riders to whom (He) illuminated earth. One of them was on a donkey and the other was on a camel. Who is the rider of the donkey, and who is the rider of the camel?'" The Exilarch
3270-569: The bishop of Alexandria ( c. 318) wrote, "Isaiah was sawn asunder". In February 2018, archaeologist Eilat Mazar announced that she and her team had discovered a small seal impression which reads "[belonging] to Isaiah nvy" (could be reconstructed and read as "[belonging] to Isaiah the prophet") during the Ophel excavations, just south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem . The tiny bulla
3379-465: The libretto of Handel's Messiah to a host of such everyday phrases as " swords into ploughshares " and " voice in the wilderness ". General scholarly consensus through most of the 20th century saw three separate collections of oracles in the book of Isaiah. A typical outline based on this understanding of the book sees its underlying structure in terms of the identification of historical figures who might have been their authors: While one part of
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3488-498: The qere in the margin as a note showing what was to be read. In such a case the vowel marks of the qere were written on the ketiv . For a few frequent words, the marginal note was omitted: these are called qere perpetuum . One of the frequent cases was the Tetragrammaton, which according to later Rabbinite Jewish practices should not be pronounced but read as אֲדֹנָי ( Adonai , lit. transl. My Lords , Pluralis majestatis taken as singular), or, if
3597-485: The songs of the Suffering Servant , which Christians say are a direct prophetic revelation of the nature, purpose, and detail of the death of Jesus Christ. The Book of Isaiah is quoted many times by New Testament writers. The Gospel of John says that Isaiah "saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him." The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates Saint Isaiah the Prophet with Saint Christopher on May 9 . Isaiah
3706-485: The tetragrammaton , a cedar-tree opened, and Isaiah disappeared within it. King Manasseh ordered the cedar to be sawn asunder, and when the saw reached his mouth Isaiah died; thus was he punished for having said "I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips". A somewhat different version of this legend is given in the Jerusalem Talmud . According to that version Isaiah, fearing King Manasseh, hid himself in
3815-646: The 37 quotations from the prophets in the Pauline epistles , and takes pride of place in the Gospels and in Acts of the Apostles . Isaiah 7:14 , where the prophet is assuring king Ahaz that God will save Judah from the invading armies of Israel and Syria, forms the basis for Matthew 1:23 's doctrine of the virgin birth , while Isaiah 40:3–5's image of the exiled Israel led by God and proceeding home to Jerusalem on
3924-563: The Amorite verbal form is of interest only in attempting to reconstruct the proto-Hebrew or South Canaanite verbal form used in the name Yahweh. We should argue vigorously against attempts to take Amorite yahwi and yahu as divine epithets." Egyptologist Thomas Schneider argued for the existence of a theophoric name in a Book of the Dead papyrus dating to the late 18th or early 19th dynasty which he translated as ‘adōnī-rō‘ē-yāh , meaning "My lord
4033-589: The Assyrians, whereupon Sennacherib sent a threatening letter to Hezekiah, which he "spread before the L ORD ". Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: "Thus said GOD, the God of Israel, to whom you have prayed, concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria— this is the word that GOD has spoken concerning him: Fair Maiden Zion despises you, She mocks at you; Fair Jerusalem shakes Her head at you. Whom have you blasphemed and reviled? Against whom made loud your voice And haughtily raised your eyes? Against
4142-675: The Christian era. Speaking of the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever , which is a kaige recension of the Septuagint, "a revision of the Old Greek text to bring it closer to the Hebrew text of the Bible as it existed in ca. 2nd-1st century BCE" (and thus not necessarily the original text), Kristin De Troyer remarks: "The problem with a recension is that one does not know what is the original form and what
4251-465: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints consider the founding of the church by Joseph Smith in the 19th century to be a fulfillment of Isaiah 11 , the translation of the Book of Mormon to be a fulfillment of Isaiah 29 , and the building of Latter-day Saint temples as a fulfillment of Isaiah 2:2 . Isaiah ( Arabic : إِشَعْيَاء , romanized : Ishaʿyāʾ ) is not mentioned by name in
4360-706: The Existing One". It also explains the ease of Israelites applying the Olam (or 'everlasting') epithet from El to Yahweh. But J. Philip Hyatt believes it is more likely that yahwi- refers to a god creating and sustaining the life of a newborn child rather than the universe. This conception of God was more popular among ancient Near Easterners but eventually, the Israelites removed the association of yahwi- to any human ancestor and combined it with other elements (e.g. Yahweh ṣəḇāʾōṯ ). Hillel Ben-Sasson states there
4469-467: The Hebrew Bible, Islamic tradition states that Hezekiah was king in Jerusalem during Isaiah's time. Hezekiah heard and obeyed Isaiah's advice, but could not quell the turbulence in Israel. This tradition maintains that Hezekiah was a righteous man and that the turbulence worsened after him. After the death of the king, Isaiah told the people not to forsake God, and warned Israel to cease from its persistent sin and disobedience. Muslim tradition maintains that
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4578-689: The Holy One of Israel! According to the account in 2 Kings 19 (and its derivative account in 2 Chronicles 32) an angel of God fell on the Assyrian army and 185,000 of its men were killed in one night. "Like Xerxes in Greece, Sennacherib never recovered from the shock of the disaster in Judah. He made no more expeditions against either Judea or Egypt." The remaining years of Hezekiah's reign were peaceful. Isaiah probably lived to its close, and possibly into
4687-478: The Jews at Elephantine show that 'Iao' is an original Jewish term". The preserved manuscripts from Qumran show the inconsistent practice of writing the Tetragrammaton, mainly in biblical quotations: in some manuscripts is written in paleo-Hebrew script, square scripts or replaced with four dots or dashes ( tetrapuncta ). The members of the Qumran community were aware of the existence of the Tetragrammaton, but this
4796-449: The Masoretic Text. The first appearance of the Tetragrammaton is in the Book of Genesis 2:4. The only books it does not appear in are Ecclesiastes , the Book of Esther , and Song of Songs . In the Book of Esther the Tetragrammaton does not appear, but it has been distinguished acrostic -wise in the initial or last letters of four consecutive words, as indicated in Est 7:5 by writing
4905-516: The Old Testament, 26 times alone (Exodus 15:2; 17:16; and 24 times in the Psalms), 24 times in the expression " Hallelujah ". According to De Troyer, the short names, instead of being ineffable like "Yahweh", seem to have been in spoken use not only as elements of personal names but also in reference to God: "The Samaritans thus seem to have pronounced the Name of God as Jaho or Ja." She cites Theodoret ( c. 393 – c. 460 ) as that
5014-592: The Prophet Isaiah "knew more perfectly than all others the mystery of the religion of the Gospel". Jerome (c. 342–420) also lauds the Prophet Isaiah, saying "He was more of an Evangelist than a Prophet, because he described all of the Mysteries of the Church of Christ so vividly that you would assume he was not prophesying about the future, but rather was composing a history of past events." Of specific note are
5123-491: The Samaritan enunciation of the tetragrammaton YHWH (Yahweh)". The most commonly invoked god is Ιαω ( Iaō ), another vocalization of the tetragrammaton YHWH. There is a single instance of the heptagram ιαωουηε ( iaōouēe ). Yāwē is found in an Ethiopian Christian list of magical names of Jesus, purporting to have been taught by him to his disciples. Also relevant is the use of the name in theophoric names ; there
5232-457: The Tetragrammaton and some other names of God in Judaism (such as El or Elohim) were sometimes written in paleo-Hebrew script , showing that they were treated specially. Most of God's names were pronounced until about the 2nd century BCE. Then, as a tradition of non-pronunciation of the names developed, alternatives for the Tetragrammaton appeared, such as Adonai, Kurios and Theos. The 4Q120 ,
5341-456: The Tetragrammaton appeared. The reading Adonai was one of them. Finally, before Kurios became a standard rendering Adonai , the Name of God was rendered with Theos ." In the Book of Exodus alone, Θεός represents the Tetragrammaton 41 times. Robert J. Wilkinson says that the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever is also a kaige recension and thus not strictly a Septuagint text. Origen ( Commentary on Psalms 2.2) said that in
5450-457: The Tetragrammaton can individually serve as a mater lectionis . Several centuries later, between the 5th through 10th centuries CE, the original consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible was provided with vowel marks by the Masoretes to assist reading. In places where the word to be read (the qere ) differed from that indicated by the consonants of the written text (the ketiv ), they wrote
5559-483: The Tetragrammaton continued to be articulated until the second or third century CE and that the use of Ιαω was by no means limited to magical or mystical formulas, but was still normal in more elevated contexts such as that exemplified by Papyrus 4Q120 . Shaw considers all theories that posit in the Septuagint a single original form of the divine name as merely based on a priori assumptions. Accordingly, he declares: "The matter of any (especially single) 'original' form of
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#17327648039295668-555: The Tetragrammaton must originally have been YeHūàH or YaHūàH". The element yahwi- ( ia-wi ) is found in Amorite personal names (e.g. yahwi-dagan ), commonly denoted as the semantic equivalent of the Akkadian ibašši- DN. The latter refers to one existing which, in the context of deities, can also refer to one's eternal existence, which aligns with Bible verses such as Exodus 3:15 and views that ehye ’ăšer ’ehye can mean "I am
5777-488: The Tetragrammaton should be pronounced as "Adonai" and in general do not speculate on what may have been the original pronunciation, although mention is made of the fact that some held that Jahve was that pronunciation. Almost two centuries after the 17th-century works reprinted by Reland, 19th-century Wilhelm Gesenius reported in his Thesaurus Philologicus on the main reasoning of those who argued either for יַהְוֹה / Yah[w]oh or יַהְוֶה / Yahweh as
5886-636: The Tetragrammaton with some or all of the vowel points of אֲדֹנָי (Adonai) or אֱלֹהִים (Elohim) are found in the Leningrad Codex of 1008–1010, as shown below. The close transcriptions do not indicate that the Masoretes intended the name to be pronounced in that way (see qere perpetuum ). ĕ is hataf segol ; ǝ is the pronounced form of plain shva . In the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Hebrew and Aramaic texts
5995-444: The Tetragrammaton, Κύριος, or ΙΑΩ in correspondence with the Hebrew-text Tetragrammaton. They include the oldest known example, Papyrus Rylands 458 . Scholars differ on whether in the original Septuagint translations the Tetragrammaton was represented by Κύριος, by ΙΑΩ, by the Tetragrammaton in either normal or Paleo-Hebrew form, or whether different translators used different forms in different books. Frank Shaw argues that
6104-429: The beginning of the 2nd century BCE). The theonyms YHW and YHH are found in the Elephantine papyri of about 500 BCE. One ostracon with YH is thought to have lost the final letter of an original YHW. These texts are in Aramaic , not the language of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (YHWH) and, unlike the Tetragrammaton, are of three letters, not four. However, because they were written by Jews, they are assumed to refer to
6213-405: The collections of Shlomo Moussaieff, and two tiny silver amulet scrolls found at Ketef Hinnom that mention Yahweh. Also a wall inscription, dated to the late 6th century BCE, with mention of Yahweh had been found in a tomb at Khirbet Beit Lei . Yahweh is mentioned also in the Lachish letters (587 BCE) and the slightly earlier Tel Arad ostraca, and on a stone from Mount Gerizim (3rd or
6322-410: The coming of Jesus and Muhammad , although the claim is disputed by other religious scholars. Isaiah's narrative in Islamic literature can be divided into three sections. The first establishes Isaiah as a prophet of Judea during the reign of Hezekiah ; the second relates Isaiah's actions during the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC by Sennacherib; and the third warns the nation of coming doom. Paralleling
6431-465: The country and who now owned the land, and there were further conflicts over the form of government that should be set up. This background forms the context of Trito-Isaiah. The Book of Isaiah focuses on the main role of Jerusalem in God's plan for the world, seeing centuries of history as though they were all the single vision of the 8th-century prophet Isaiah. Walter Brueggemann has described this overarching narrative as "a continued meditation upon
6540-482: The destiny of Jerusalem". God's plan for the world is based on his choice of Jerusalem as the place where he will manifest himself, and of the line of David as his earthly representative – a theme that may possibly have originated with Jerusalem's reprieve from Assyrian attack in 701 BCE. God is "the holy one of Israel"; justice and righteousness are the qualities that mark the essence of God, and Israel has offended God through unrighteousness. Isaiah speaks out for
6649-471: The divine name in the LXX is too complex, the evidence is too scattered and indefinite, and the various approaches offered for the issue are too simplistic" to account for the actual scribal practices (p. 158). He holds that the earliest stages of the LXX's translation were marked by diversity (p. 262), with the choice of certain divine names depending on the context in which they appear (cf. Gen 4:26; Exod 3:15; 8:22; 28:32; 32:5; and 33:19). He treats of
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#17327648039296758-408: The earlier translation κύριος". Of this papyrus, De Troyer asks: "Is it a recension or not?" In this regard she says that Emanuel Tov notes that in this manuscript a second scribe inserted the four-letter Tetragrammaton where the first scribe left spaces large enough for the six-letter word Κύριος, and that Pietersma and Hanhart say the papyrus "already contains some pre- hexaplaric corrections towards
6867-425: The entire book of Isaiah. The composition history of Isaiah reflects a major difference in the way authorship was regarded in ancient Israel and in modern societies; the ancients did not regard it as inappropriate to supplement an existing work while remaining anonymous. While the authors are anonymous, it is plausible that all of them were priests, and the book may thus reflect Priestly concerns, in opposition to
6976-430: The entire book, or even most of it, to one person, the book's essential unity has become a focus in more recent research. The book can be read as an extended meditation on the destiny of Jerusalem into and after the Exile. The Deutero-Isaian part of the book describes how God will make Jerusalem the centre of his worldwide rule through a royal saviour (a messiah ) who will destroy the oppressor ( Babylon ); this messiah
7085-419: The first person א ( '- ), thereby affording translations as "he who causes to exist", "he who is", etc.; although this would elicit the form Y-H-Y-H (יהיה), not Y-H-W-H. To rectify this, some scholars propose that the Tetragrammaton derived instead from the triconsonantal root הוה ( h-w-h ) —itself an archaic doublet of היה—with the final form eliciting similar translations as those derived from
7194-472: The following: Isaiah was one of the most popular works in the period between the foundation of the Second Temple c. 515 BCE and its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE. Isaiah's "shoot [which] will come up from the stump of Jesse" is alluded to or cited in the Psalms of Solomon and various apocalyptic works including the Similitudes of Enoch , 2 Baruch , 4 Ezra , and the third of the Sibylline oracles , all of which understood it to refer to a/the messiah and
7303-402: The foolishness of the carpenter who worships the idol that he himself has carved. While Yahweh had shown his superiority to other gods before, in Second Isaiah he becomes the sole God of the world. This model of monotheism became the defining characteristic of post-Exilic Judaism and provided the basis for Christianity and for Islam . A central theme in Second Isaiah is that of a new Exodus –
7412-439: The formation of the book. Deutero-Isaiah addresses himself to the Jews in exile, offering them the hope of return. This was the period of the meteoric rise of Persia under its king Cyrus the Great – in 559 BCE he succeeded his father as ruler of a small vassal kingdom in modern eastern Iran, by 540 he ruled an empire stretching from the Mediterranean to Central Asia, and in 539 he conquered Babylon. Deutero-Isaiah's predictions of
7521-471: The formula אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה ( ’ehye ’ăšer ’ehye pronounced [ʔehˈje ʔaˈʃer ʔehˈje] transl. he – transl. I Am that I Am ), the name of God revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. This would frame Y-H-W-H as a derivation from the Hebrew triconsonantal root היה ( h-y-h ), "to be, become, come to pass", with a third person masculine י ( y- ) prefix , equivalent to English "he", in place of
7630-423: The four letters in red in at least three ancient Hebrew manuscripts. The short form יָהּ / Yah (a digrammaton) "occurs 50 times if the phrase hallellu-Yah is included": 43 times in the Psalms, once in Exodus 15:2; 17:16; Isaiah 12:2; 26:4, and twice in Isaiah 38:11. It also appears in the Greek phrase Ἁλληλουϊά (Alleluia, Hallelujah) in Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6 . Other short forms are found as
7739-457: The general consensus still holds, this perception of Isaiah as made up of three rather distinct sections underwent a radical challenge in the last quarter of the 20th century. The newer approach looks at the book in terms of its literary and formal characteristics, rather than authors, and sees in it a two-part structure divided between chapters 33 and 34: Seeing Isaiah as a two-part book (chapters 1–33 and 34–66) with an overarching theme leads to
7848-484: The imminent fall of Babylon and his glorification of Cyrus as the deliverer of Israel date his prophecies to 550–539 BCE, and probably towards the end of this period. The Persians ended the Jewish exile, and by 515 BCE the exiles, or at least some of them, had returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the Temple. The return, however, was not without problems: the returnees found themselves in conflict with those who had remained in
7957-603: The increasingly successful reform movement of the Deuteronomists . The historic Isaiah ben Amoz lived in the Kingdom of Judah during the reigns of four kings from the mid to late 8th-century BCE. During this period, Assyria was expanding westward from its origins in modern-day northern Iraq towards the Mediterranean, destroying first Aram (modern Syria) in 734–732 BCE, then the Kingdom of Israel in 722–721, and finally subjugating Judah in 701. Proto-Isaiah
8066-604: The king of Assyria", and entered into an alliance with the king of Egypt . The king of Assyria threatened the king of Judah, and at length invaded the land. Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant brought his powerful army into Judah. Hezekiah was reduced to despair, and submitted to the Assyrians. But after a brief interval, war broke out again. Again Sennacherib led an army into Judah, one detachment of which threatened Jerusalem. Isaiah on that occasion encouraged Hezekiah to resist
8175-509: The manuscripts in which the copyists have used tetrapuncta. Copyists used the 'tetrapuncta' apparently to warn against pronouncing the name of God. In the manuscript number 4Q248 is in the form of bars. Editions of the Septuagint Old Testament are based on the complete or almost complete fourth-century manuscripts Codex Vaticanus , Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus and consistently use Κ[ύριο]ς, " Lord ", where
8284-468: The marginal notes or masorah indicate that in another 134 places, where the received text has the word Adonai , an earlier text had the Tetragrammaton. which would add up to 142 additional occurrences. Even in the Dead Sea Scrolls practice varied with regard to use of the Tetragrammaton. According to Brown–Driver–Briggs , יְהֹוָה ( qere אֲדֹנָי ) occurs 6,518 times, and יֱהֹוִה (qere אֱלֹהִים ) 305 times in
8393-529: The messianic age. Isaiah 6, in which Isaiah describes his vision of God enthroned in the Temple, influenced the visions of God in works such as the "Book of the Watchers" section of the Book of Enoch , the Book of Daniel and others, often combined with the similar vision from the Book of Ezekiel . A very influential portion of Isaiah was the four so-called Songs of the Suffering Servant from Isaiah 42, 49, 50 and 52, in which God calls upon his servant to lead
8502-535: The messianic interpretation of Enoch, interpreted Isaiah 52:13–53:12, the fourth of the songs, as a prophecy of the death and exaltation of Jesus , a role which Jesus himself accepted according to Luke 4:17–21. The Book of Isaiah has been immensely influential in the formation of Christianity, from the devotion to the Virgin Mary to anti-Jewish polemic, medieval passion iconography, and modern Christian feminism and liberation theology . The regard in which Isaiah
8611-464: The midst of its Greek text, and 4Q120 uses the Greek transcription of the name, ΙΑΩ. Three later manuscripts use 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 , the name יהוה in Paleo-Hebrew script : the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever , Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 3522 and Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 5101 . Other extant ancient fragments of Septuagint or Old Greek manuscripts provide no evidence on the use of
8720-513: The mission, and was the most forbearing, as well as the most patriotic, among the prophets, always defending Israel and imploring forgiveness for its sins. When Isaiah said "I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips", he was rebuked by God for speaking in such terms of His people. Further accounts state that Isaiah was actually the maternal grandfather of King Manasseh , which would make Queen Consort Hephzibah from 2 Kings 21 :1 his daughter and King Hezekiah his son-in-law. Hephzibah's name
8829-423: The most accurate manuscripts the name was written in an older form of the Hebrew characters, the paleo-Hebrew letters, not the square: "In the more accurate exemplars the (divine) name is written in Hebrew characters; not, however, in the current script, but in the most ancient." While Pietersma interprets this statement as referring to the Septuagint, Wilkinson says one might assume that Origen refers specifically to
8938-656: The name, the form Yahweh is now accepted almost universally among Biblical and Semitic linguistics scholars, though the vocalization Jehovah continues to have wide usage. The books of the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible except Esther , Ecclesiastes , and (with a possible instance of יה in verse 8:6) the Song of Songs contain this Hebrew name. Observant Jews and those who follow Talmudic Jewish traditions do not pronounce יהוה nor do they read aloud proposed transcription forms such as Yahweh or Yehovah ; instead they replace it with
9047-606: The nations (the servant is horribly abused, sacrifices himself in accepting the punishment due others, and is finally rewarded). Some Second Temple texts, including the Wisdom of Solomon and the Book of Daniel identified the Servant as a group – "the wise" who "will lead many to righteousness" (Daniel 12:3) – but others, notably the Similitudes of Enoch , understood it in messianic terms. The earliest Christians, building on
9156-448: The original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, as opposed to יְהֹוָה / Yehovah . He explicitly cited the 17th-century writers mentioned by Reland as supporters of יְהֹוָה , as well as implicitly citing Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791) and Johann Friedrich von Meyer (1772–1849), the latter of whom Johann Heinrich Kurtz described as the last of those "who have maintained with great pertinacity that יְהֹוָה
9265-421: The poor and the oppressed and against corrupt princes and judges, but unlike the prophets Amos and Micah he roots righteousness not in Israel's covenant with God but in God's holiness. Isaiah 44:6 contains the first clear statement of Yahwist monotheism : "I am the first and I am the last; beside me there is no God". In Isaiah 44:09–20, this develops into a satire on the making and worship of idols, mocking
9374-412: The previous or next word already was Adonai , as " Elohim " ( אֱלֹהִים /"God"). Writing the vowel diacritics of these two words on the consonants YHVH produces יְהֹוָה and יֱהֹוִה respectively, ghost-words that would spell "Yehovah" and "Yehovih" respectively. The oldest complete or nearly complete manuscripts of the Masoretic Text with Tiberian vocalisation , such as
9483-602: The prophet Isaiah. Proto-Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( Hebrew : ספר ישעיהו [ˈsɛ.fɛr jə.ʃaʕ.ˈjaː.hu] ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament . It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amoz, but there is evidence that much of it
9592-485: The recension. Hence, is the paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton secondary – a part of the recension – or proof of the Old Greek text? This debate has not yet been solved." While some interpret the presence of the Tetragrammaton in Papyrus Fouad 266 , the oldest Septuagint manuscript in which it appears, as an indication of what was in the original text, others see this manuscript as "an archaizing and hebraizing revision of
9701-528: The reign of Manasseh . The time and manner of his death are not specified in either the Bible or other primary sources. The Talmud says that he suffered martyrdom by being sawn in two under the orders of Manasseh. The book of Isaiah, along with the book of Jeremiah, is distinctive in the Hebrew bible for its direct portrayal of the "wrath of the L ORD " as presented, for example, in Isaiah 9:19 stating "Through
9810-474: The related blank spaces in some Septuagint manuscripts and the setting of spaces around the divine name in 4Q120 and Papyrus Fouad 266b (p. 265), and repeats that "there was no one 'original' form but different translators had different feelings, theological beliefs, motivations, and practices when it came to their handling of the name" (p. 271). His view has won the support of Anthony R. Meyer, Bob Becking, and (commenting on Shaw's 2011 dissertation on
9919-407: The return of the exiled people Israel from Babylon to Jerusalem. The author imagines a ritualistic return to Zion (Judah), led by Yahweh. The importance of this theme is indicated by its placement at the beginning and end of Second Isaiah (40:3–5, 55:12–13). This new Exodus is repeatedly linked with Israel's Exodus from Egypt to Canaan under divine guidance, but with new elements. These links include
10028-433: The same deity and to be either an abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton or the original name from which the name YHWH developed. Kristin De Troyer says that YHW or YHH, and also YH, are attested in the fifth and fourth-century BCE papyri from Elephantine and Wadi Daliyeh : "In both collections one can read the name of God as Yaho (or Yahu) and Ya". The name YH (Yah/Jah), the first syllable of "Yahweh", appears 50 times in
10137-499: The same. As such, the consensus among modern scholars considers that YHWH represents a verbal form , with the y- representing the third masculine verbal prefix of the verb hyh "to be", as indicated in the Hebrew Bible. Like all letters in the Hebrew script, the letters in YHWH originally indicated consonants. In unpointed Biblical Hebrew, most vowels are not written, but some are indicated ambiguously, as certain letters came to have
10246-528: The shorter names of God were pronounced by the Samaritans as "Iabe" and by the Jews as "Ia". She adds that the Bible also indicates that the short form "Yah" was spoken, as in the phrase " Halleluyah ". The Patrologia Graeca texts of Theodoret differ slightly from what De Troyer says. In Quaestiones in Exodum 15 he says that Samaritans pronounced the name Ἰαβέ and Jews the name Άϊά. (The Greek term Άϊά
10355-535: The subject) D.T. Runia. Mogens Müller says that, while no clearly Jewish manuscript of the Septuagint has been found with Κύριος representing the Tetragrammaton, other Jewish writings of the time show that Jews did use the term Κύριος for God, and it was because Christians found it in the Septuagint that they were able to apply it to Christ. In fact, the deuterocanonical books of the Septuagint, written originally in Greek (e.g., Wisdom, 2 and 3 Maccabees), do speak of God as Κύριος and thus show that "the use of κύριος as
10464-586: The unrighteous of Judea in their anger sought to kill Isaiah. In a death that resembles that attributed to Isaiah in Lives of the Prophets , Muslim exegesis recounts that Isaiah was martyred by Israelites by being sawn in two. In the courts of al-Ma'mun , the seventh Abbasid caliph , Ali al-Ridha , the great-grandson of Muhammad and prominent scholar of his era, was questioned by the Exilarch to prove through
10573-474: The word, there can be little doubt that it is not Jehovah ." Mark P. Arnold remarks that certain conclusions drawn from the pronunciation of יהוה as "Yahweh" would be valid even if the scholarly consensus were not correct. Thomas Römer holds that "the original pronunciation of Yhwh was 'Yahô' or 'Yahû ' ". Max Reisel , in The Mysterious Name of YHWH , says that the "vocalisation of
10682-539: The words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah; Deutero-Isaiah , or "the Book of Consolation", ( chapters 40 – 55 ), the work of an anonymous 6th-century BCE author writing during the Exile; and Trito-Isaiah ( chapters 56 – 66 ), composed after the return from Exile. Isaiah 1– 33 promises judgment and restoration for Judah, Jerusalem and the nations, and chapters 34 –66 presume that judgment has been pronounced and restoration follows soon. While few scholars today attribute
10791-413: The work of an ongoing school of prophets who prophesied in accordance with his prophecies. The first verse of the Book of Isaiah states that Isaiah prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah (or Azariah), Jotham , Ahaz , and Hezekiah , the kings of Judah . Uzziah's reign was 52 years in the middle of the 8th century BC, and Isaiah must have begun his ministry a few years before Uzziah's death, probably in
10900-474: The wrath of the L ORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire." The Ascension of Isaiah , a pseudepigraphical Christian text dated to sometime between the end of the 1st century and the beginning of the 3rd, gives a detailed story of Isaiah confronting an evil false prophet and ending with Isaiah being martyred – none of which is attested in the original Biblical account. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–395) believed that
11009-460: The younger Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz , meaning, "Quickly to spoils, plunder speedily." Soon after this, Shalmaneser V determined to subdue the northern Kingdom of Israel, taking over and destroying Samaria and beginning the Assyrian captivity . So long as Ahaz reigned, the kingdom of Judah was untouched by the Assyrian power. But when Hezekiah gained the throne, he was encouraged to rebel "against
11118-457: Was composed during the Babylonian captivity and later. Johann Christoph Döderlein suggested in 1775 that the book contained the works of two prophets separated by more than a century, and Bernhard Duhm originated the view, held as a consensus through most of the 20th century, that the book comprises three separate collections of oracles : Proto-Isaiah ( chapters 1 – 39 ), containing
11227-397: Was deeply influenced by Isaiah. Thus many of the Isaiah passages that are familiar to Christians gained their popularity not directly from Isaiah but from the use of them by Jesus and the early Christian authors – this is especially true of the Book of Revelation , which depends heavily on Isaiah for its language and imagery. Translations Tetragrammaton The Tetragrammaton
11336-410: Was found "only 10 feet away" from where an intact bulla bearing the inscription "[belonging] to King Hezekiah of Judah" was discovered in 2015 by the same team. Although the name "Isaiah" in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet is unmistakable, the damage on the bottom left part of the seal causes difficulties in confirming the word "prophet" or a name "Navi", casting some doubts whether this seal really belongs to
11445-431: Was held was so high that the book was frequently called "the Fifth Gospel": the prophet who spoke more clearly of Christ and the Church than any others. Its influence extends beyond the Church and Christianity to English literature and to Western culture in general, from the libretto of Handel's Messiah to a host of such everyday phrases as "swords into ploughshares" and "voice in the wilderness". Isaiah provides 27 of
11554-439: Was not tantamount to granting consent for its existing use and speaking. This is evidenced not only by special treatment of the Tetragrammaton in the text, but by the recommendation recorded in the 'Rule of Association' (VI, 27): "Who will remember the most glorious name, which is above all [...]". The table below presents all the manuscripts in which the Tetragrammaton is written in paleo-Hebrew script, in square scripts, and all
11663-539: Was the correct and original pointing". Edward Robinson's translation of a work by Gesenius, gives Gesenius' personal view as: "My own view coincides with that of those who regard this name as anciently pronounced [ יַהְוֶה /Yahweh] like the Samaritans." Current overviews begin with the Egyptian epigraphy . A hieroglyphic inscription of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1402–1363 BCE) mentions
11772-434: Was unable to answer with certainty. Al-Ridha goes on to state that "As for the rider of the donkey, he is 'Isa (Jesus); and as for the rider of the camel, he is Muhammad, may Allah bless him and his family. Do you deny that this (statement) is in the Torah?" The Rabbi responds "No, I do not deny it." Allusions in Jewish rabbinic literature to Isaiah contain various expansions, elaborations and inferences that go beyond what
11881-792: Was used as a symbolic name for Zion following its restoration to the favor of Yahweh in Isaiah 62 . It is related in the Talmud that Rabbi Simeon ben Azzai found in Jerusalem an account wherein it was written that King Manasseh killed Isaiah. King Manasseh said to Isaiah "Moses, your master, said 'No man may see God and live'; but you have said 'I saw the Lord seated upon his throne'"; and went on to point out other contradictions—as between Deuteronomy and Isaiah 40; between Exodus 33 and 2 Kings Isaiah thought: "I know that he will not accept my explanations; why should I increase his guilt?" He then uttered
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