Isaiah 1:1

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz,.... This is either the particular title of the prophecy contained in this single chapter, as Jarchi and Abarbinel think; seeing the second chapter Isaiah 2:1

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. The vision of Isaiah.

ISAIAH CHAPTER 1 Judah's sins, Isaiah 1:1-4; her judgments, Isaiah 1:5-9; her worship is rejected, Isaiah 1:10-15. Exhortations to repentance; promises of grace and mercy; threatenings of sore judgments; and complaints by reason of their backsliding, Isaiah 1:16-31. The vision, or, the visions; the word being here collectively used, as it Isaiah 22:1 1 Samuel 3:1. The sense is, This is the book of the visions or prophecies. As prophets were called seers, 1 Samuel 9:9, so prophecies are called visions, because they were as clearly and certainly represented to the prophets' minds as bodily objects are to men's eyes. Amoz; either the brother of Amaziah king of Judah, as the Hebrew writers fancy; or rather, some other person then well known. Saw, i.e. foresaw and foretold. But he speaks, after the manner of the prophets, of things to come as if they were either past or present. Concerning Judah and Jerusalem; principally, but not exclusively. For he prophesieth also concerning Egypt and Babylon, and divers other countries; which yet he doth with respect to Judah. In the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; in the time of their reign; whence it may be gathered that Isaiah exercised his prophetical office above fifty years together: see 2Ki 15 2 Kings 16.

Isaiah 1:1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, [and] Hezekiah, kings of Judah.Ver. 1. The vision of Isaiah.] That which was not unfitly affirmed of a modern expositor, that his commentaries on this prophecy of Isaiah are mole parvi, eruditione mangni, small in bulk, but great in worth, may much more fitly be spoken of the prophecy itself, which is aureus quantivis precii libellus, worth its weight in gold. A "great roll" or "volume" it is called, because it is magnum in parvo, much in a little; and it is said there to be "written with a man’ s pen," that is, plainly and perspicuously; so little reason was there that John Haselbach, professor at Vienna, should read twenty-one years to his auditors upon this first chapter only, and yet not finish it. I confess there is no prophecy but hath its obscurity - the picture of prophecy is said to hang in the Pope’ s library like a matron with her eyes covered - and Jerome saith that this of Isaiah containeth all rhetoric, ethics, and theology. But if brevity and suavity, which Fulgentius maketh to be the greatest graces of a sentence - if eloquence of style, and evidence of vision may carry it with the reader, here they are eminently met in this seraphical orator, of whom we may far better say than the learned critic doth of Livy, Non ita copiosus ut nimius; neque ira suavis ut lascicus; nec adeo lenis ut remissus: non sic tristis ut horridus; neque ita simplex ut nudus; aut adeo comptus ut affectata compositione calamistris videatur inustus. Par verbis materia, par sententia rebus, &c. A courtier he was, and a master of speech; a man of noble birth, and as noble a spirit; not the first of the holy prophets, and yet worthily set in the first place - as St Paul’ s Epistle to the Romans is for like cause set before the rest - because in abundance of visions he exceedeth his fellows; and in speaking of the Lord Christ, he delivereth himself more like an evangelist than a prophet, and is therefore called the evangelical prophet. In the New Testament he is cited by Christ and his apostles sixty different times at least; and by the more devoted heathens he was not a little respected, as appeareth by the history of that Ethiopian eunuch. The vision.] That is, The several visions or doctrines so certainly and clearly revealed to him by God, as if he had seen them with his bodily eyes. See Isaiah 2:1 Nahum 1:1. For they are not to be hearkened to who hold that these seers, the prophets, understood not their own prophecies, though it is true that those "holy men of God spake as they were moved," acted, and powerfully carried on (φερομενοι) to see and say as they did, by the Holy Ghost.

(1) The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz . . .—The term “vision,” as descriptive of a prophet’s work (1 Samuel 3:1), is the correlative of the old term “seer,” as applied to the prophet himself (1 Samuel 9:9). The latter fell into disuse, probably because the pretenders to the clairvoyance which it implied brought it into discredit. The prophet, however, did not cease to be a “seer;” and to see visions was still one of the highest forms of the gift of the spirit of Jehovah (Joe 2:28). It describes the state, more or less ecstatic, in which the prophet sees what others do not see, the things that are yet to come, the unseen working of the eternal laws of God. As compared with “the word of the Lord,” it indicates a higher intensity of the ecstatic state; but the two terms were closely associated, and, as in Isaiah 2:1, a man was said to see “the word of the Lord.” Judah and Jerusalem are named as the centre, though not the limit, of the prophet’s work.

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH Chronological Notes relative to the commencement of Isaiah's prophecy -Year from the Creation of the World, according to the computation of Archbishop Usher, 3244. -Year from the Deluge, according to the generally received Hebrew text, 1588. -Year from the vocation of Abram, 1161. -Year from the foundation of Solomon's Temple, 251. -First year of the fifth Olympiad. -Year before the building of Rome, according to the Varronian computation, 7. -Fifteenth year of the reign of Thurimas, king of Macedon. -Eleventh year of the reign of Theopompus, king of Lacedaemon. -Second year of the reign of Alyattes, king of Lydia. -Eighteenth year of AEschylus, perpetual archon of the Athenians. -Second year of the reign of Pekahiah, king of Israel. -Fifty-first year of the reign of Azariah, or Uzziah, king of Judah. -Epoch of the establishment of the Ephori at Lacedaemon by Theopompus. CHAPTER I The prophet, with a boldness and majesty becoming the herald of the Most High, begins with calling on the whole creation to attend while Jehovah speaks, 2. A charge of gross insensibility and ingratitude is then brought against the Jews, by contrasting their conduct with that of the ox and ass, the most stupid of animals, 3. This leads to an amplification of their guilt, 4; highly aggravated by their slighting the chastisements and judgments of God, though repeated till they had been left almost like Sodom and Gomorrah, 5-9. The incidental mention of those places leads to an address to the rulers and people of the Jews, under the character of princes of Sodom, and people of Gomorrah, which is no less spirited and severe than elegant and unexpected, 10. The vanity of trusting to the performance of the outward rites and ceremonies of religion is then exposed, 11-15; and the necessity of repentance and reformation is strongly enjoined, 16, 17, and urged by the most encouraging promises as well as by the most awful threatenings, 18-20. But neither of these producing the proper effect on that people who were the prophet's charge, he bitterly laments their degeneracy, 21-23; and concludes with introducing God, declaring his purpose of inflicting such heavy judgments as would entirely cut off the wicked, and excite in the righteous, who should also pass through the furnace, an everlasting shame and abhorrence of every thing connected with idolatry, the source of their misery, 24-31. ISAIAH exercised the prophetical office during a long period of time, if he lived to the reign of Manasseh; for the lowest computation, beginning from the year in which Uzziah died, when some suppose him to have received his first appointment to that office, brings it to sixty-one years. But the tradition of the Jews, that he was put to death by Manasseh, is very uncertain; and one of their principal rabbins, Aben Ezra, Com. in Isaiah 1:1, seems rather to think that he died before Hezekiah, which is indeed more probable.

Ch. Isaiah 1:1. The SuperscriptionThe verse is probably best understood as the heading of the first great collection of prophecies, ch. 1–12. The contents of these chapters are described with sufficient accuracy for the purposes of a title; whereas the phrase concerning Judah and Jerusalem is unsuitable to many of the later prophecies, and the note of time forbids us to limit the reference to ch. 1. The second difficulty (but not the first) might be removed by accepting Vitringa’s ingenious suggestion that the first half of the verse (down to “Jerusalem”) was originally the title of ch. 1, the latter part having been added in order to extend its scope to the whole book. Since, however, there is reason to suppose that ch. 1–12 once formed a separate volume (see General Introduction, p. lxxii), it is better to adopt the view which most fully accounts for all the particulars of the superscription. The word vision is used here in the wide sense of a collection of prophetic oracles (cf. Nahum 1:1; Obadiah 1:1). As the prophet was called a “seer” (ḥ ?ôzeh), and his perception of divine truth was called “seeing,” so his message as a whole is termed a “vision” (ḥ ?âzôn). See further on ch. Isaiah 2:1, Isaiah 30:10. Isaiah the son of Amoz] On the name and parentage of the prophet, see General Introduction, p. xxii. concerning Judah and Jerusalem] as distinguished from prophecies on foreign nations, ch. 13 ff. in the days of Uzziah … Judah] The words indicate generally the period covered by Isaiah’s public ministry. The author of the title probably understood that the vision of ch. 6 took place in the lifetime of Uzziah. It is not necessary to suppose that he assigned other prophecies to the reign of that king.

The vision - The first verse evidently is a title, but whether to the whole book or only to a part of it has been questioned.

.1. The vision — This is a programme word — a title applying to this entire book of prophecies, spoken or written during the reigns herein mentioned.