Early on in the times of ancient Hebrews, the Jews divided the Old Testament into three components: Laws, Prophets, and the holy writings.  Later on, the Prophets were sorted out into The Former Prophets and The Later Prophets which comprised the book of Isaiah in “The Latter Prophets” (Martin, 9). Among The Latter Prophets, Isaiah is assigned uniformly in the first place and rank among other major and minor prophetic books because of its account of length, values, and coverage. Since the Savior Jesus also referred to this threefold division in his discourse with his disciples after the resurrection in Luke 24:44, the division of the Old Testament is as old as Jesus. The Jews credited the canonization and division of the Old Testament to Ezra; however, there is not any concrete evidence to support this theory.

The book of Isaiah bears the name of the writer itself. Isaiah was the son of Amoz (1:1). His name “Isaiah” which literally means “the salvation of Yahweh” or “Yahweh saves” also delivers a specific message to his original readers (Orelli, 1). He had two sons namely: Shear-Jashub which means “a remnant shall return” and Maher-shalal-hash-baz “swift is the booty and speedy is the prey” symbolically Assyria’s unrestrained yearning for conquest (Arnold & Bayer, 355). Those names were the living embodiment of Isaiah’s message to Israelites. Continue reading Isaiah, the Prophet – The Centrifugal Force for Mission →