Introduction to Isaiah 6

Structure and Formatting

In chapters 6–8 of the book of Isaiah, there is a break in the oracles about Judah that make up the rest of chapters 1–13. During this break, the book presents narratives about Isaiah himself. They describe how Yahweh called Isaiah to be a prophet and some of the first things Yahweh sent him to tell the kings and people of Judah. These narratives describe the earliest events that the book of Isaiah records. Writers in many cultures would relate the earliest events in a story first, but there are reasons why these narratives about Isaiah are not placed first in the book. For one thing, Hebrew writers often put their most important material not at the beginning or end of a work but in the middle. That was their way of showing its importance. Also, the book of Isaiah is not a biography of the prophet, and the collection of his oracles is not designed to show who he was. Instead, it presents a case on behalf of Yahweh that the people of Judah and Israel had been very unfaithful to their covenant with him, and so it was appropriate for him to judge and punish them in order to correct them. So the book begins by calling on the heavens and the earth as witnesses to the covenant and by summarizing the charges against the people (1:2). It only introduces Isaiah after presenting much evidence to support those charges. The presentation of evidence continues in chapter 9, after this section that tells about Isaiah personally. This section has these parts:

1. Narratives about Isaiah
   1. The calling of Isaiah (6:1–13)
   2. A sign for Ahaz: a child will be born (7:1–24)
   3. Isaiah and his children (8:1–18)
   4. The child will bring light where there was darkness (8:19–9:7)

As the outline shows, this chapter describes how Yahweh called Isaiah to be a prophet.