The Book Of Isaiah And The Assyrian Crisis

According to the textbook, the book of Isaiah, which covers sixty six chapters, was composed in a time period close to three hundred years (Tullock & McEntire, 2012). Some scholars believe that the book of Isaiah was written solely by Isaiah, while other scholars believe that the book was written by several different writers. During the time that Isaiah prophesied about the Babylonians, they were not the enemy of Israel, nor were the Persians in the region (Seitz, 1996). This created confusion and did not make any sense to the targeted audience. The book of Isaiah appears to be divided into three different parts with different backgrounds, but there are sections of each part that relates to the other parts of the book (Tullock & McEntire,

The first thirty nine chapters of the book of Isaiah focus on the background of the Assyrian Crisis that occurred during the eighth century. The next sixteen chapters cover the Babylonian Exile that occurred during the sixth century. The remaining last eleven chapters centers on the reestablishment of worship that occurred during the fifth century (Tullock & McEntire, 2012). One of themes that I noticed about the book of Isaiah was that he was a messenger of the covenant. This meant that he constantly reminded Israel about the requirements of the covenant, the punishments for disobedience, and the blessings for obedience (Emadi, 2013). As a prophet from God, Isaiah had the ability to receive visions of future occurrences. I believe that this is how Isaiah was able to write all of the chapters of his book. These oracles of judgment were conditioned on either the response of the repentance of Israel or the repentance from other countries (Emadi, 2013). The book of Isaiah was composed of several oracles and prophesies of judgment pertaining to Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Moab, and Ammon and oracles of salvation of Israel (Tullock &