Proto-Isaiah

Proto-Isaiah is the first part of the book of Isaiah, chapters 1 to 39. It gathers the oracles of the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, who spoke in the name of God at Jerusalem in the eighth century before Christ. In it one hears God's judgment on an unfaithful people, the call to trust in him alone, and the promise of a king and of a remnant saved.

The prophet and his time

Isaiah, son of Amoz, exercised his ministry at Jerusalem for some forty years, under four kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. It was the time when Assyria, the great power of the north, was extending its empire and swallowing the small kingdoms one after another. The northern kingdom, Israel, fell under its blows and was deported; in the south, Judah, around Jerusalem and its Temple, remained under constant threat. To this people pressed by fear, Isaiah ceaselessly recalled that its salvation lay in its faithfulness to the God who had chosen it, and not in its armies. Chapters 1 to 39 gather his oracles, his visions and the accounts of his ministry.

The vision in the Temple: the Holy One of Israel

Isaiah received his mission in a vision, in the year of the death of king Uzziah. He saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lifted up, surrounded by the seraphim who veiled themselves before him and sang his holiness. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah 6:3 Before this holiness, Isaiah found himself unclean and lost; a seraph then took a burning coal from the altar, touched his lips with it and purified him. The voice of the Lord asked who would go for him, and Isaiah answered: “Here I am, send me.” Isaiah 6:8 From this vision he kept the name he gives to God more than any other prophet, the Holy One of Israel. The Hebrew word rendered as “holy”, qadosh (קָדוֹשׁ), says what is set apart, infinitely above all: God is the wholly other, whose purity burns sin away and calls man to holiness. The Church takes up this song of the seraphim at every Mass, in the Sanctus.

The trial of Judah

Isaiah opens the book with an indictment: Judah multiplies sacrifices and feasts, but its hands are full of blood and its courts crush the weak. God rejects this worship emptied of justice. “When you stretch out your hands, I turn away my eyes; your hands are full of blood.” Isaiah 1:15 What he asks is the conversion of the heart and the defence of the oppressed; to whoever returns to him thus, he promises an entire pardon. “Though your sins were as scarlet, they shall become white as snow.” Isaiah 1:18 The same trial returns under an image, the song of the vineyard: God planted a choice vine, surrounded it with care, and it gave only wild fruit. “He looked for justice, and behold, bloodshed; for right, and behold, an outcry.” Isaiah 5:7 The vine is the house of Israel, and its wild fruit, its injustices.

Faith or alliances

When Syria and the northern kingdom allied against Jerusalem, king Ahaz and his people trembled. Isaiah came to tell him to stay calm and to lean on God alone. Everything held in a single word, carried by one Hebrew verb, rendered as “to believe” and as “to stand firm”, aman (אָמַן): “If you do not believe, you will not stand.” Isaiah 7:9 To believe, here, is to lean firmly on God as on a rock; whoever leans elsewhere collapses. Ahaz preferred to buy the help of Assyria, and Isaiah never ceased to warn against this politics of fear, which seeks salvation from the great powers, Assyria then Egypt, instead of seeking it in God. “Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who lean on horses and do not look to the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah 31:1

The sign of Immanuel

At the heart of this crisis, Isaiah offered Ahaz a sign from God. The king refused it, and God gave one of himself: “Behold, the young woman is with child, she will bear a son, and she will call him Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14 The Hebrew word rendered as “young woman”, almah (עַלְמָה), designates a young girl of age to be a mother; the Greek version of the Septuagint translated it as “virgin”, parthenos (παρθένος). The name of the child carries the promise: “Immanuel”, Immanou-El (עִמָּנוּ אֵל), means “God with us”. In the moment when it was given, this sign assured Ahaz that God was not letting go of the house of David: before the child knew to reject evil and choose good, the two kings who frightened him would have vanished. The word overflowed that moment, however. The Church reads in it the announcement of Christ, conceived of a virgin, God made man dwelling among his own, according to the word the Gospel takes up: “He will be called Immanuel, which means: God with us.” Matthew 1:23

The child and the shoot of Jesse

Two great oracles announce a king to come. The first hails the birth of a child who will bear the government and names that pass the measure of a man. “A child is born to us, a son is given to us; he is called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:5 The second shows him coming forth from the fallen line of David, like a shoot springing from a cut stump. “A shoot will come out of the stump of Jesse.” Isaiah 11:1 Jesse is the father of David; the promised king will tie the kingship back to its root. Upon him rests the Spirit of the Lord, which tradition has numbered in seven gifts. “Upon him will rest the Spirit of the Lord, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and might, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord.” Isaiah 11:2 His reign will be one of a peace regained, where reconciled creation no longer knows violence. “The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and a little child will lead them.” Isaiah 11:6 The Church recognises in this king the Christ, son of David, upon whom rests the Spirit with seven gifts, and whose reign of peace will have no end.

The remnant

Through the judgment, Isaiah holds a hope: the chastisement will not destroy everything, a remnant will survive and return to God. This promise is inscribed even in the name of Isaiah's first son, whom he brings to meet Ahaz, the Hebrew name rendered as “a remnant will return”, Shear-Yashub (שְׁאָר יָשׁוּב). From the unfaithful mass, God always keeps a small faithful number, through which he takes up his work again. “A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.” Isaiah 10:21 This remnant, purified by the trial, is the seed of the renewed people.

The mountain of the Lord and the nations

Isaiah's gaze widens beyond Israel, to all the nations. He sees a day when the peoples will go up to Jerusalem to learn there the way of God, and when arms will become tools. “From their swords they will forge ploughshares, and from their spears pruning hooks; one nation will no longer raise the sword against another.” Isaiah 2:4 The nations themselves are under the hand of God: a long series of oracles announces the judgment of Babylon, of Assyria, of Egypt and of the neighbouring kingdoms, for the Holy One of Israel is the master of the whole earth. At the end, a great vision goes beyond history: God prepares for all peoples a feast, wipes the tears from all faces and abolishes death itself. “He will destroy death for ever; the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces.” Isaiah 25:8

The deliverance of Jerusalem

The last chapters recount the decisive trial of Isaiah's ministry. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, comes up against Judah, takes its cities and besieges Jerusalem; the chief cupbearer he sends mocks before the walls the God of Israel, denying that he can save the city. King Hezekiah carries the threat before God in the Temple and entrusts himself to him through the mouth of Isaiah, who announces that the Assyrian will not enter the city. That night, the Assyrian camp is struck, and Sennacherib lifts the siege and returns home. “The angel of the Lord went out and struck down in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand men.” Isaiah 37:36 The trust that Ahaz had refused, Hezekiah gave, and Jerusalem was saved.

Soon after, Hezekiah falls ill to the point of death. Isaiah announces his end; the king then turns to God and beseeches him in tears. God hears his prayer, adds fifteen years to his life, and gives him as a sign the shadow that retreats ten degrees on the dial. It is his recovery that brings to Jerusalem envoys from Babylon, come to congratulate him; Hezekiah shows them all his treasures with pride. Isaiah reproaches him for it and announces the judgment: these riches will one day be carried off to Babylon, and his own sons will be deported there. Thus already opens, on the threshold of Proto-Isaiah, the horizon of the exile that the rest of the book will sing.