The Book of Isaiah Centers Around the Hope of the Coming of Christ

Shouldn’t We Know Better Than to Trust Anyone?¹

I wonder what disappointments you carry with you right now.

Some of life’s most serious disappointments have to do with other people. On the one hand, we think of miscarriages of trust that occur on an epic scale. After Germany’s defeat in World War I, for instance, its economy was in complete ruins. Inflation rose at runaway rates, and people literally had to wheelbarrow currency to the store to buy bread. Then the nation put its trust in someone who promised hope. The people democratically elected the leader of the Nationalist Social Party, Adolf Hitler. And Hitler betrayed that national trust most tragically.

On the other hand, and much more commonly, we think of miscarriages of trust that occur on a personal level. These are not the things that show up on the cover of news magazines or in the history books. And yet they impact our lives and who we are deeply. We have all experienced it: someone in whom we have put our trust disappoints that trust. They hurt that trust. They betray it.

The book of Proverbs tells us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Prov. 13:12). Have you ever had that kind of heart-sickness? You waited for someone, but they did not come. You planned the event, but they didn’t show up. You invested in the relationship, but they were not faithful. They said they would never do it again, but they did. Perhaps you even gave extra hope and extra trust. And even that they betrayed.

That person once seemed so promising, but now the sum and substance of them is only a disappointment. Why are we so focused on people?

What gets our hopes in others so high, particularly when we are aware of our own foibles? Shouldn’t we know better? Sometimes, it seems that we just can’t avoid trusting and hoping in people. We are hurtling into an unknown future, and so it’s natural to place our hope in some of our fellow pilgrims. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but at least we know these people around us. Maybe they are worthy of our trust, our hope, our faith. But then disappointment comes.

We could simply reject trusting and hoping in others entirely and consign ourselves to skepticism. The playwright Anton Chekhov, referring to how dark some literature can be, said, “When all is said and done, no literature can outdo the cynicism of real life; you won’t intoxicate with one glass someone who has already drunk up a whole barrel.” Or, as H. L. Mencken put it, “A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.”

Have we developed that kind of cynicism toward people? How can we trust anyone in the face of so much disappointment? Indeed, that precarious balance between realistic trust and glum cynicism is razor thin.

Introducing Isaiah

For a Christian, the themes of trust and hope are difficult to get away from. They’re always coming up! We look at them again in this new series through the Old Testament’s Major Prophets titled “Big Hopes.” The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are called the Major Prophets not because of a particular rank the prophets held in the Israeli military, nor because they were more important than other prophets in the Old Testament, but because their books are longer. That’s it! (Lamentations, a short song of sorrow written by Jeremiah, is also included in this group.) These books provide four powerful pictures of hope. Each one contrasts our true hope with other things that can look similar and be alluring but that finally disappoint. Here, we will look at that masterpiece of the Old Testament, the book of Isaiah.

Let me give you a basic outline of Isaiah. It has sixty-six chapters. And with the exception of four chapters in the middle, the entire book is made up of poetry, oracles, and prophecy. Chapters 1–35 consist of prophecy and poetry about God and his expression toward his people. Then in chapters 36–39, this middle section, the poetry stops and a dramatic historical event is recorded: the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians. In chapters 40–66, the prophecy and poetry return. On a broad scale, we can say that the first half of Isaiah (1–35) contains more doom and gloom, while the second half (40–66) offers more reason for hope. Yet in all of it, the people of Judah are enticed to trust in things they should not trust in.

The book does not occur in strict chronological order. Sometimes people, particularly young Christians, turn to the Old Testament and assume that it flows in chronological order, and that whatever they read about in chapter 4 must have occurred after what they read about in chapter 2. But that’s not the case in a book like Isaiah. Having said that, we will see that it does follow a general historical order.

The book was written during the second half of the eighth century b.c. (approximately 750–700 b.c.). During that time, five different kings reigned in the southern kingdom of Judah, the kingdom built around Jerusalem. Isaiah’s ministry began at the end of King Uzziah’s reign, and we think it ended during King Manasseh’s reign. Uzziah had reigned for fifty-two years. He was a great king who, in many ways, brought the splendor of Solomon back to the nation (Solomon had been gone for two centuries). During Uzziah’s reign, Judah’s historically mighty neighbor to the southwest, Egypt, had been faltering, while its up-and-coming mighty neighbor to the northeast, Assyria, was preoccupied with other matters. So Uzziah took advantage of the situation by regaining territory and political prestige for the nation of Judah. His death, around 745 b.c., then left something of a power vacuum. Isaiah describes the beginning of his own ministry in chapter 6 with these famous words: “In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on the throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple” (Isa. 6:1).

We want to know, in whom shall we place our trust and hope?

King Jotham, Uzziah’s son, followed; he reigned for sixteen years and continued his father’s programs.

King Ahaz, Jotham’s son, succeeded him and also reigned sixteen years. By this point, the Assyrian empire had grown in strength and imperial ambition. It gobbled up the northern kingdom and eventually pushed its borders to within eight miles of the walls of Jerusalem. Ahaz then made a bad decision. He decided to put his trust in the Assyrian emperor. So he made a treaty with him, paid tribute to him, and even sent Israelites to Assyria to study their styles of worship to bring back to Jerusalem! In short, he made Judah a vassal of Assyria and Assyria’s gods. Ahaz died around 715 b.c.

Ahaz’s son Hezekiah followed him, and King Hezekiah reigned twentynine years as one of Judah’s best kings. It was during his reign that the main historical crisis of the book of Isaiah occurred: the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians (chapters 36–37). In a sense, Hezekiah provoked the siege of Jerusalem exactly because he was a godly king. He would not abide the false worship or false gods of his father’s reign any longer. Instead, he led the nation in putting their hope once more in the Lord by refusing to pay tribute to the foreign king. In response, almost two hundred thousand Assyrian troops descended upon the land of Palestine. They wiped out fortified city after fortified city until Jerusalem was fairly well alone and surrounded. We will come back to this story later.

Hezekiah’s evil son Manasseh followed him, and he reigned fifty-five years. Tradition has it that early in King Manasseh’s reign, he captured and imprisoned Isaiah because he hated Isaiah’s prophecies against the false worship that Manasseh encouraged. Tradition also says that the king had Isaiah sawn in two, which may be what the author of Hebrews refers to when he speaks of great individuals of the faith being sawn in two (Heb. 11:37).

But this book is not finally about the geopolitical situation of Isaiah’s day. That is simply the stage on which the drama of Isaiah unfolds. The prophet is very clear as to what his vision is about. The book begins, “The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah” (Isa. 1:1). It’s a vision about Judah and Jerusalem. Specifically, it’s about Judah and Jerusalem’s rebellion: “See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her—but now murderers!” (Isa. 1:21).

God uses Isaiah to pronounce these types of condemnations on his people throughout the book. In chapter 5, they are called a vineyard which, though planted by God, yields only bad fruit (Isa. 5:4). God “looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress” (Isa. 5:7).

In chapter 48, the Lord says to them, “Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth” (Isa. 48:8).

In chapter 59, Isaiah tells the people, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isa. 59:2). Then several verses later, he says about them,

Their feet rush into sin;
     they are swift to shed innocent blood.
Their thoughts are evil thoughts;
     ruin and destruction mark their ways.
The way of peace they do not know;
     there is no justice in their paths.
They have turned them into crooked roads;
     no one who walks in them will know peace. (Isa. 59:7–8; cf. Rom. 3:15–17)

And in chapter 64, Isaiah laments,

All of us have become like one who is unclean,
     and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
     No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
     and made us waste away because of our sins. (Isa. 64:6–7)

That was the situation in which God called Isaiah to be a prophet. Concerning the people of Isaiah’s day, we want to know what both the problem and solution were. Concerning us, we want to know, in whom shall we place our trust and hope? This is what we want to learn from Isaiah.

This article is adapted from The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made by Mark Dever.

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