Lives of Scripture

Isaiah's prophetic call came through an overwhelming vision of the LORD enthroned in the temple, surrounded by seraphim crying "Holy, holy, holy"; overwhelmed by his own sinfulness, Isaiah was purified when a seraph touched his lips with a burning coal, then volunteered, "Here am I. Send me!" (Isaiah 6:1-8). He ministered across four reigns — Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (Isaiah 1:1). When King Ahaz panicked over an invading coalition, Isaiah urged him to trust God rather than seek Assyrian help, offering a sign: a child called Immanuel, "God with us" (Isaiah 7:1-14) — a prophecy the New Testament identifies as ultimately fulfilled in Christ's virgin birth (Matthew 1:22-23). Isaiah later confirmed God's deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib's siege and, at Hezekiah's request, gave the sign of the sun's shadow moving backward during the king's illness (Isaiah 37-38). When Hezekiah proudly showed Babylonian envoys his treasures, Isaiah warned that everything would one day be carried off to Babylon (Isaiah 39). Isaiah's book contains Scripture's clearest Old Testament portrait of a coming Suffering Servant "pierced for our transgressions... by his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5), a passage the New Testament applies directly to Jesus (Acts 8:32-35).