- ISAIAH (Hebrews Yesh’yahu, i.e., “the salvation of Jehovah”). (1.) The
son of Amoz (Isaiah 1:1; 2:1), who was apparently a man of humble rank.
His wife was called “the prophetess” (8:3), either because she was
endowed with the prophetic gift, like Deborah (Judges 4:4) and Huldah (2
Kings 22:14-20), or simply because she was the wife of “the prophet”
(Isaiah 38:1). He had two sons, who bore symbolical names.
He exercised the functions of his office during the reigns of Uzziah (or
Azariah), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (1:1). Uzziah reigned fifty-two
years (B.C. 810-759), and Isaiah must have begun his career a few years
before Uzziah’s death, probably B.C. 762. He lived till the fourteenth year
of Hezekiah, and in all likelihood outlived that monarch (who died B.C.
698), and may have been contemporary for some years with Manasseh.
Thus Isaiah may have prophesied for the long period of at least sixty-four
years.
His first call to the prophetical office is not recorded. A second call came
to him “in the year that King Uzziah died” (Isaiah 6:1). He exercised his
ministry in a spirit of uncompromising firmness and boldness in regard to
all that bore on the interests of religion. He conceals nothing and keeps
nothing back from fear of man. He was also noted for his spirituality and
for his deep-toned reverence toward “the holy One of Israel.”
In early youth Isaiah must have been moved by the invasion of Israel by
the Assyrian monarch Pul (q.v.), 2 Kings 15:19; and again, twenty years
later, when he had already entered on his office, by the invasion of
Tiglath-pileser and his career of conquest. Ahaz, king of Judah, at this
crisis refused to co-operate with the kings of Israel and Syria in opposition
to the Assyrians, and was on that account attacked and defeated by Rezin
of Damascus and Pekah of Samaria (2 Kings 16:5; 2 Chronicles 28:5, 6).
Ahaz, thus humbled, sided with Assyria, and sought the aid of
Tiglath-pileser against Israel and Syria. The consequence was that Rezin
and Pekah were conquered and many of the people carried captive to
Assyria (2 Kings 15:29; 16:9; 1 Chronicles 5:26). Soon after this
Shalmaneser determined wholly to subdue the kingdom of Israel. Samaria
was taken and destroyed (B.C. 722). So long as Ahaz reigned, the kingdom
of Judah was unmolested by the Assyrian power; but on his accession to
the throne, Hezekiah (B.C. 726), who “rebelled against the king of
Assyria” (2 Kings 18:7), in which he was encouraged by Isaiah, who
exhorted the people to place all their dependence on Jehovah (Isaiah 10:24;