Most of us usually jump at – or fall for – the ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ offer, but what sort of bargain are we talking about when it is ‘Buy One, Get Two Free’? This, as seasoned readers of Ichthus will have divined already is not about toothpaste, teas or tonics, but rather about the book of Isaiah. My first teacher of Hebrew and Old Testament, Clive Thexton of Methodism’s erstwhile Richmond College, began his Epworth Preacher’s Commentary of 1959, Isaiah Chapters 40-66, with the words, ‘The Book of Isaiah – like Caesar’s Gaul – is commonly divided into three parts’, and went on to say something about them, chapters 1-39, 40-55 and 56-66.

Questions about the unity of the book of Isaiah had long been voiced by both Jewish and Christian scholars, but it was in the 1892 commentary of Bernhard Duhm (1847-1928) on the whole book that the detailed argument for the division of the book into the three main parts was presented.

Of course there are those who read the book of Isaiah and who feel that a plague on the houses of all those who go dividing the book into parts might possibly be no bad thing. Perhaps the good news is that more recent studies of the Isaiah book have done something to bring these two groups of people together; surely a most welcome development. For the fact is that in recent decades critical study of the book of Isaiah has been centred on how the three parts (that some have argued for) became in the fulness of time one book. It goes something like this.

Why the Three?
According to Isa. 6 the call of the prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem took place in the year that king Uzziah died (which we believe was in or around 740 BC), and we read in this part of the book about Isaiah’s prophetic activities in the reigns of the Judean kings Ahaz (c.732-c.715 BC) and Hezekiah (c.715-c.687 BC). Further, in chs 1-39 of the book there is a good deal about coming judgement on Judah and Jerusalem, as well as hopeful passages.

But when we come to ch. 40 there is a startling change of mood with the dramatic introduction of the word of ‘comfort’ (Isa. 40.1). Moreover, the underlying message of chs 40-55 is the assurance that there is going to be a new exodus. In fact, there is a good deal of ‘exodus’ language in these chapters: there will be a highway, the hills will be levelled out, the valleys will be raised up, and water will be provided in the desert (see Isa. 41.17-20; 43.14-21).

Further, there is talk of a certain Cyrus who will make this possible, Cyrus whose right hand the Lord has grasped and who is here called the Lord’s anointed (Isa. 44.28-45). It seems reasonable to conclude that these chs 40-55 come from the closing years of the exile in Babylon and that they reflect the 539 BC entry into that city in triumph of the Persian ruler Cyrus (Cyrus the Great), and his edict that his subject peoples could return to their own lands and, moreover, worship their own gods. If this is so, then we are already around two hundred years later than the divine call to Isaiah ‘in the year that King Uzziah died’ (Isa. 6.1).

Further, what about chs 56-66? The most likely and convincing setting for these chapters is in Jerusalem at some time after the return, or following on from a series of returns from Babylon and elsewhere (for there were exiles in places and lands other than Babylon). Just how soon after, or how much later than, Cyrus’s edict are the conditions reflected in these chapters is difficult to be sure about. Our knowledge of this period is not sufficient to allow us to make detailed identification possible. At any rate it was clearly a period of history when it was most necessary to confront a whole series of issues, not only those concerned with matters of rebuilding city walls but also the temple – for Isa. 64.11 reads as if the temple has not yet been rebuilt.

There are other matters being confronted in these chapters, rather more intangible ones, issues rather harder to grasp, matters whose resolution one way or another threaten to cause untold disagreement among the populace. For example, who now makes up the people of Israel? Will they be those who have been in exile in Babylon? What about those who were in exile in other places, such as Egypt and elsewhere? What about those who never had to leave Jerusalem, and what about those of the neighbouring countries who moved into the then-less populated parts of Judah and Jerusalem? What about those who in exile had contracted mixed marriages – say Israelite people whose spouses were from other nations, cultures, religions? Can all such people worship in the temple (if and when it is rebuilt)? In fact, these chapters 56-66 in the book of Isaiah set forth a wide and welcoming attitude in such matters, shown for example in the words about the new – or the planned – Jerusalem temple,

And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
all who keep the sabbath and do not profane it,
and hold fast my covenant –
these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.

Isa. 56.6-7

Why the One?
The fact is that all this material has been handed down to us in one scroll / book. And it really is presented to us as one book: it may have three main parts, but there are words and themes found in all three parts, and there is shape and continuity, a sense of architecture about the whole thing.

First the words and themes: There is a characteristic expression used in this book for the Lord. It is ‘The Holy One of Israel’, and a few minutes work with a concordance of the Bible will demonstrate that this expression is found in all three parts of the book of Isaiah, and further that this is its main usage in the Old Testament, it being used only a few times in a limited number of other books. Further, the expression ‘briers and thorns’ occurs in a number of places throughout the Isaiah book, either by their presence to indicate a situation of destruction and distress, or else by their absence to indicate blessing and cultivation (see 5.6; 7.19, 23, 24, 25; 9.18; 10.17; 27.4; 32.13; 33.12; 55.13). Another theme found in various parts of Isaiah is ‘a light to the nations’ (see 2.5; 10.17; 9.2; 42.6-7, 16; 49.6; 60.1-3, 19-22).

Second, the shape and architecture of the book: The completed work has a definite ‘shape’ and ‘logic’ about it, rather like this:

• ch. 1 introduces themes that will be dealt with in the rest of the book
• chs 2-12 deal with Judah and Jerusalem and relationships with immediately surrounding nations
• chs 13-23, a collection of Oracles against the Nations that takes us into the wider world of the nations
• chs 24-27, the so-called Great Apocalypse, confronting us with world history, and the timescale of God
• chs 28-32 go back to Judah and Jerusalem, who are now caught up in policies and politics of the mighty Assyrian empire
• chs 33-39 through a series of pictures make a bridge from the first part of the book to what follows from ch. 40 onwards
• chs 40-55 tell thrillingly of the new possibilities for God’s people, but also warn of the life of the servant, the ‘cost of discipleship’
• chs 56-65 speak of the life back in Jerusalem, only slowly being restored, the people having to deal with problems, some old, more of them new
• ch 66 takes up themes found in chs 40-65, and also those of ch 1 and the whole of the book, so making a concluding chapter to the book of Isaiah.