Isaiah

When I look at Isaiah, I do not see an outstandingly charismatic in personality character but rather a modest, faithful servant of the Lord who effectively wrote what my early mentors referred to as the fifth gospel that touched on all aspects of the gospel, combining magnificently aspects like judgement and mercy, holiness and love, righteousness and hope, and whose wonderfully memorable quotes taken as a collective exceed that of any other book of the Bible in terms of number, profoundness, sublimity. Isaiah is known as the court prophet and was of royal descent and was able to regularly rub shoulders with the high and mighty. Yet over a period of more than forty years he faithfully prophesied without fear or favour, and under five different kings, ranging from very good to very bad. It is believed under the fifth, wicked Manasseh, he was told to not prophesied and he was so hated that he suffered a martyr’s death. But Isaiah first comes to our attention under, what started off as good and ended up as bad king, Uzziah, for: “In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple … And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” Isaiah 6:1,3. It was his vision of this thrice holy God that defined his ministry from then on. He would afterward repeatedly refer to God as “the Holy One of Israel”. Following that vision, there was the call of God, which now humbled Isaiah responded to, but it came with the salutary warning that people were not going to heed his words: “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed” Isaiah 6:8-10. How blessed, we who live now are, that Isaiah prophesied such tremendous stuff that has been fulfilled to the letter, e.g. concerning the first coming of the Messiah, and will be, e.g. the second coming of the Messiah, but that he faithfully and consistently responded to God’s call.