Ep 389 | Isaiah 1-12, Come Follow Me 2026 (Sept 14-20)

Bryce Dunford (0:03)

Hey everybody, welcome to Talking Scripture, a podcast where we illustrate relevance and application to the Scriptures in Come Follow Me.

Mike Day (0:10)

We also dive into the history and cultures of the text.

Bryce Dunford (0:13)

Thanks for taking the time to share and subscribe to this podcast.

Mike Day (0:16)

For show notes, head over to our website, talkingscripture.org. Welcome to Talking Scripture, I'm Mike.

Bryce Dunford (0:25)

And I'm Bryce.

Mike Day (0:26)

And today we're going to be in Isaiah 1 through 12

Bryce Dunford (0:29)

And for me, this is the highlight of the Old Testament year. I love all the doctrines that we've covered, and we've seen some tremendous history. But for me, the highlight of an Old Testament year is when we get to the Book of Isaiah.

Mike Day (0:41)

So before we even get started, let's talk about who Isaiah was.

Obviously, Isaiah was a prophet. He was born probably around 770 BC, during the reigns of a couple strong Israelite kings, Jeroboam II and Uzziah in the Northern Kingdom. Jeroboam II was beautifying Samaria up north in Israel and expanding his country's borders and influence. This is a time of peace when Egypt isn't wrecking Israel and Assyria hasn't really risen. The big gorilla on the block for most of Isaiah's stuff, at least in the front bit, is going to be Assyria.

So Assyria is gonna rise up as a great power and Egypt is going down as far as its influence. And so during this time period, both Israel to the north and Judah to the south have relative peace. And so because they do, they're able to sell stuff and have businesses and I call it the Amazon times, right? Where everything is going great and you can get good deals on your favorite little trinkets. And so because it was a time of peace for both these kingdoms, there was a strong economic base that increased and what happened was we had the beginnings of great, wealthy, urban upper classes happening, right? In Israel and in Judah.

But here's the problem. The lower classes and some of the folks that lived out in the countryside, they're experiencing increased taxes and some of them are losing their land. Now, the Old Testament is really specific on what you're to do with your land and is to stay in the family. And that's really not happening. At least we think that's not happening. So there's this time period of social inequality. And then there's some hint, at least at the very beginning in Isaiah 1 and towards the end of Isaiah, that there's this condemnation of idolatry, at least in some bits here. So what do we have here? We've got wealth, social injustice, we've got some immorality, and we have great decadence, at least in some of the places. And so there's this sense of security that some of the people in Israel have and some of the people in Judah have. And we have, with this sense of security, increase in wealth. We have a rise of other warning voices at this time, too. We have Micah, who's a contemporary of Isaiah. In fact, some of Micah's stuff is directly quoted by Isaiah, or Isaiah is quoting some of Micah, like they're quoting each other. Somebody's quoting somebody, because their stuff's in both books. We also have Amos, and we also have Hosea during this time period.

Now, also, we know that he lived during the reign of kings. Now, the kings that he lived during the reign of are literally listed right there in the first bit in Isaiah 1, verse 1 And they are Uzziah, which is from 767 to 740 And in the year that he dies, that's when Isaiah gets his call. According to Isaiah 6 And Uzziah is described as righteous. Then we have Jotham from 740 to 732 Then we have Ahaz. And Ahaz dies when he's 36 He reigns from 732 to 716

And Ahaz is portrayed as a bad guy. And we're gonna get into that in a bit. After Ahaz, his son Hezekiah is portrayed as righteous. And he dies in 687 And that's kind of the end as far as who's listed as the kings, but I wanna throw this out there. Hezekiah's son Manasseh, who reigned from 687 to 642, although he's not described in Isaiah.

In the Ascension of Isaiah, he is. And this is an extra biblical text, which I highly encourage you to read. We've linked it in the show notes.

In the Ascension of Isaiah, Manasseh kills Isaiah, and he saws him in half. And I think that's what's being referenced in Hebrews 11 When the author of Hebrews 11 talks about some of the prophets being slain, I think he's actually quoting the Ascension of Isaiah, Chapter 5 You see, in Hebrews 11, we read that some of the prophets were, quote, stoned, sawn apart, and murdered with the sword. And if you've read the Old Testament, you're like, I've never read anybody being sawn apart. Well, now you have, because you've heard of Isaiah's death, at least in the Ascension of Isaiah that's not in the Bible. So that's a little bit about the history of what's happening during the 700s. Politically, Assyria is rising up and they're going to be the big gorilla on the block. We're going to talk a lot about Assyria. But during this time period, Israel's getting wealthy economically. Judah is increasing economically, but we have this disparity amongst the rich and the poor.