1. Isaiah's ministry, as we have already seen, began at the close of the reign of Uzziah of Judah, whose rule synchronized roughly with that of Jeroboam ii. of Israel. The reigns of both of these kings were times of great prosperity for their respective countries. Israel under Jeroboam recovered much of the strength and importance which it had lost under his predecessor Joash, and its borders were extended both in the north (at the expense of Damascus and Hamath) and in the south (presumably to the detriment of Moab). Uzziah in Judah also developed the military resources of his kingdom; he conducted successful wars against the Philistines and Arabians; and he received tokens of homage from the more distant Ammonites. Agriculture was encouraged, and commerce was fostered by the facilities arising from the possession of the port of Elath (or Eloth) on the Red Sea. But in both countries prosperity brought vices in its train. In Israel there prevailed a tone of national pride and arrogance which took no account of the judgments with which the Lord had previously humbled the nation; and this irreligious self-confidence was accompanied by idolatry, luxury, and sensuality. In Judah the resultant conditions were similar. There, too, the increase of wealth and of military strength had produced a proud sense of security; the inclination to idolatry was fostered by foreign trade, which led to the introduction of foreign superstitions; drunkenness was common; and a spirit of scepticism and a confusion of moral distinctions penetrated society. The accumulation of riches enabled the wealthier classes to acquire most of the land of the country, and so tended to impair and to destroy the independence of the poor. Nor was the evil of the existence of a large landless and dependent class brought about only by the action of economic forces. Justice was corrupt; and the expropriation of the peasant proprietors was accomplished by dishonest means. It was the prevalence of these and other abuses that first impelled Isaiah to undertake the work of religious and social reform. He foresaw that the continuance of them could only rouse the resentment of a holy and righteous God, and that a heavy judgment was impending over both branches of the Hebrew people.
Jotham continued his father's policy with success. He strengthened the fortifications of Jerusalem, built castles and towers in the forests, perhaps beyond Jordan, and suppressed an Ammonite revolt. Only towards the end of his reign were the murmurs of the coming storm heard. Pekah and Rezin attacked him, though without success. But it was a warning of what was in store for his successor. In these circumstances Isaiah commenced his ministry.
2. It is convenient to distinguish three periods of Isaiah's ministry, which, although very unequal in length, are marked each by some features peculiar to itself. The first period extends from the death of Uzziah to the beginning of the reign of Ahaz. The second is the critical period of the Syro-Ephraimitic invasion, about 735. The third is the time of the Assyrian domination, culminating in the invasion and deliverance of the year 701. During all the great crises Isaiah consistently opposed the policy of the Jewish kings to enter into alliances with foreign powers. He knew that the two great world-empires, Assyria and Egypt, were preparing for a coming struggle, and that each successively sought the alliance of the smaller states which separated them. Isaiah's persistent counsel was to stand aloof from both. “In quietness and confidence,” in the loving guidance of Jehovah, was to be their strength. He especially warned the Jews of the folly of relying upon Egypt, whom he contemptuously calls Rahab Sit-still (i.e., “Braggart, that sitteth still”), and confidently predicted that Zion, in splendid isolation though closely beset and endangered, would yet remain absolutely inviolate. It was thus religion that in a sense made Isaiah a politician. In addition to this it was his special work to denounce the social wrongs and iniquity of his time and to point forward to a glorious future. Amid the general faithlessness and idolatry he never wavered in his loyalty and fidelity to Jehovah, and to the covenant which God had made with Israel.
3. The political risks of the course he advocated were indeed tremendous; for a renewed declaration of war against Assyria must have seemed to all human sagacity a perfectly desperate policy. But far more momentous were the religious issues at stake. If Jerusalem had then been surrendered or captured, all that had been gained by the work of Isaiah and other prophets would have been lost to Israel and to the world. The spiritual religion which lay in germ in the teaching of Isaiah was not as yet capable of existing apart from the nationality in which it had been born, and hence the preservation of the Hebrew State was of paramount importance for the conservation of the true knowledge of God. Yet, with all this in view, Isaiah never wavered. While all around him were paralysed with fear, his confidence remained unshaken, and in the supreme hour of danger he boldly announced that the city would be saved and the word of the Lord established. His success in this last emergency, after so many defeats at the hands of an unbelieving nation and its rulers, was an event which has had, as Robert Smith says, “more influence on the life of subsequent generations than all the conquests of Assyrian kings; for it assured the permanent vitality of that religion which was the cradle of Christianity.”
4. Isaiah seems to have lived to a fair old age. The superscription of his prophecies tells us that he saw his “vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.” It is an attractive conjecture of Duhm that his most soaring pictures of the Messiah's Kingdom come from his latest years, when the aged prophet, after a life spent in labour and conflict, turned with rapture to that ideal future which in spite of all delays and disappointments must surely be realized. It is an attractive idea, but nothing more. A Jewish tradition current in the 2nd century a.d. asserts that he outlived Hezekiah and perished in the heathen reaction under Manasseh; but this also, though not inherently incredible, is destitute of historical value. This is a case in which the silence of Scripture is as instructive as its speech. For it reminds us that Isaiah's lifework really ended with the events of 701. It was enough for one man to have guided the policy of his country through its first eventful collision with the world-power, which in its own ruthless fashion was preparing the way for a new civilization; to have enunciated the principles of the moral government of the universe that made monotheism a practical power in history; to have enriched eschatology with the figure of the ideal King of God's Kingdom; to have formed within the Jewish State a prophetic party in which the religion of the spirit eventually detached itself from its national environment; and to have left behind him an illustrious example of that faith in the unseen and eternal without which humanity cannot reach the goal appointed for it in the redemptive purpose of God.
Bishop Boyd Carpenter, recounting a conversation that he had with Tennyson about the difficulties of belief in the goodness of God, says: “Then he added, ‘After all, the greatest thing is Faith.' Having said this, he paused, and then recited with earnest emphasis the lines which sang of faith in the reality of the Unseen and Spiritual, of a faith, therefore, which can wait the great disclosure:
Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest and the best,
Let not all that saddens Nature blight thy hope, or break thy rest,
Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the shipwreck, or the rolling
Thunder, or the rending earthquake, or the famine, or the pest.
Neither mourn if human creeds be lower than the heart's desire;
Thro' the gates that bar the distance comes a gleam of what is higher.
Wait till death has flung them open, when the man will make the Maker
Dark no more with human hatred in the glare of deathless fire.”1 [Note: Tennyson and his Friends, 304.]
