archives

The Woe Oracles we find in Isaiah 5:8-25 and 10:1-4 probably made up a literary whole before a redactor or a series of redactors inserted the materials currently separating them. As these are now found in Isaiah 4:2-12:6, they are the prophet's laments over a group of people that has contributed to the downfall of Israel which now (in a date after the Babylonian exile and coinciding with the time of the third Isaiah?) awaits the coming of a New Messiah and a New Jerusalem. There is a redactional phrase that connects these oracles together leading to the last vision of Yahweh's victory in battle in Isaiah 66:24: "for all this, his wrath is not turned back and his hand is still outstretched" (Isaiah 5:25b, 9:20b, 10:4b).

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I have just posted two articles at Res Biblica on the book of Isaiah.  The first is on Isaiah 22:15–25, which narrates how Isaiah is instrumental in the demotion of the king’s chancellor Shebnah and how Eliakim takes his place.  The second part of this section from Isaiah is the background for the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” mentioned in Matthew 16:19.