Uncovering Isaiah’s Vision: Outsiders, Kingdom, and God as King with Andy Abernethy

In this episode, Daniel Mikkelsen speaks with Andy Abernethy, professor of Old Testament (Wheaton College, Chicago) and expert on Isaiah, to uncover the deep riches of Isaiah’s vision. From the cultural connection of learning biblical languages to Isaiah’s profound message of God’s kingdom and His unexpected inclusion of outsiders, this episode offers insights that deepen your understanding of Scripture.

Join us as we explore:

• How learning Hebrew connects us to the culture of the Bible.
• The unique way Isaiah presents God as King.
• The unexpected inclusion of outsiders in Isaiah’s vision.
• Practical takeaways for engaging with Scripture today.

Whether you’re passionate about theology, biblical languages, or seeking inspiration for your faith, this episode is packed with insights for you.

Don’t Miss the Next Episode:

Our next episode features Zac McNeal, where we’ll explore the message of 1 Thessalonians and its enduring relevance.

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction
01:44 - Introducing Today’s Guest - Andy Abernethy
04:14 - Getting into the Study of Biblical Languages
09:05 - Learning a Language is a Skill
12:44 - The Cultural Connection Given by Learning Biblical Languages
16:16 - Uncovering Nuances: Insights from Word Studies
23:48 - The Benefit of Going Beyond Word Studies
27:30 - Why Study the Old Testament Prophets?
31:14 - The Prophets Are Like an Iron Brush for the Church
37:02 - Gems from Isaiah: God as King
41:28 - Isaiah: The Holy and Saving King
45:31 - The Unexpected Inclusion of Outsiders
52:59 - Each Prophet’s Unique Contribution
56:12 - Inviting God to Reveal Himself

Music Credits: 
Music from #Uppbeat
https://uppbeat.io/t/all-good-folks/aspire

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Podcast Keywords:
biblical languages, New Testament, Old Testament, Christ, bible study,  Relationship with God, learn biblical languages, Biblical Theology, Christianity, Covenants, New covenant, old covenant, language acquisition, Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew.

Transcript

0:00

One of the unexpected natures of what you see unfolding in Isaiah is about who are the insiders and who are the outsiders... I think one might overlook is the way that just simply beginning to learn the language is connecting you to the culture of the Bible that it's part of it. It's just like... the one thing is to recognize that Isaiah very much is presenting God as King. In the passage you talked about... I have my students usually do a word study of a verb that's called in Hebrew, it's Naham. And they do a word study on this and they realize, whoa, okay, this word can mean a lot of different things in a lot of different contexts. It can mean... Jesus talked a lot about the kingdom of God and what background does Isaiah give us to better understand Jesus' language about the kingdom of God? One way you could think about Jesus's vision... Hey there and welcome back to another episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture. I'm your host Daniel Mikkelsen. And if you don't know who I am, I'm the founder of NT Greek Tutoring, an online Greek tutoring company which hosts this podcast. I'm also a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh in New Testament and Christian origins. And I've studied New Testament at Cambridge and theology at the University of Copenhagen and Fjellhaug International University College. this podcast exists to... make gems from biblical studies accessible to everyday Christians and show how biblical languages can open up scripture and increase our love for God and his word and his mission in this world. And today I'm honored to be joined by Andrew Abanathy, or just Andy Abanathy, who is professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College in Chicago. And he's also Assistant Dean of Biblical and Theological Studies, also at Wheaton and He's also director of the MA in biblical exegesis at Wheaton College. He's written several books and articles on Isaiah in particular, but also Old Testament prophets and biblical interpretation. And I had the privilege to sit next to him in Tyndale House Library when he was at research leave in early 2020. And I have some fond memories from that time. I believe that was the time where you were writing, discovering Isaiah, I believe. Yep. That's right. Well, it's great to be on with you, Daniel. And those days at Tyndale House Library were cut short due to COVID, but I'm grateful that we had a couple of months together and I am really encouraged to see how the Lord's open doors for you to study at Edinburgh and to meet your wife by going there. that's fantastic. Thank you for having me on today. Thank you and thank you for joining and I'm very honored to have you on. Anything else you want to add before we dive into some questions? Yeah, well, I think that the aim of your podcast is a wonderful one and it's a big question that I think a lot of everyday Christians are somewhat intimidated by. There's this knowledge among some that a English or if you're an English speaking person or in the many other languages scriptures interpreted and you realize, there are some original languages before underneath all this. And there can be a bit of, I think, intimidation when one gets exposed to the world of academic studies, such as that Daniel. is right in the midst of especially doing his dissertation research and that I've been a part of for you know nearly two decades now and you know I look forward to our conversation to see what what may be of help for for your listeners. Yeah likewise and yeah again thank you. So The first question I would like to ask you is, so how did you get into the study of the biblical languages? Great question. So when I was an undergraduate student, I had a time in my life where I was not following the Lord from the age of probably 16 to 20. I was really not following God and really very rebellious in many ways. And the Lord kind of broke me back to himself and finally I turned back to him. And part of that meant I would begin reading scripture in my own everyday life. And in the US we have liberal arts Christian colleges and I ended up at one of those as a student. And so here I am reading the Bible just to know the Lord and to find life in the Lord. And while simultaneously being in a college where I was required to take some Bible classes. So I remember taking a survey of the Old Testament and survey of the New Testament class. It was probably there for the first time I realized, OK, so it's the New Testament that's written in Greek and the Old Testament is written in Hebrew. kind of getting that sorted out. And I'd say within that first year of having turned back to the Lord, I sensed a call to ministry. And I didn't know what that would involve. I imagined I would go on and do a Master's of Divinity or similar to a BTH degree in the UK. But as I was going through my undergrad curriculum, I had options of learning languages. And so I thought, well, if I have to learn a language, let me try biblical Greek. And I took biblical Greek with a professor who's now at Asbury Seminary named Fred Long. And Fred Long said something very providential early in the semester of taking Greek 101. And it was this, he said, I'm going to grade you according to how you finished the semester, not how you started it. Because some of you are going to fail your first quizzes and tests miserably because you're still figuring out what it takes to learn a language. When he said that, it kind of passed over my head. But when I took the first test in Greek class, about four or five weeks in, I failed that test so miserably. I had no clue what was needed to memorize vocabulary and to master paradigms and kind of figuring out the systems of how language works. And by the end of that first semester, I was figuring those sorts of things out and I really enjoyed, I think I had three or four semesters of Greek during my undergraduate. time. And in my final semester of my undergraduate degree, I was able to take, or final year, was able to take just one semester of biblical Hebrew. And I fell in love with Hebrew, no offense to Greek, I like Greek. But I think learning Hebrew for me, was easier because I'd already gone through the hard difficulty of learning Greek and figuring out what's involved. So the language you study second is maybe a bit easier. And then also I loved, it was just so romantic writing, you know, the writing from right to left, the squiggly lines and the, it just felt so foreign and almost romantic and. coupled with just a growing love for studying the Old Testament scriptures. So, I didn't of course think that I was going to become an Old Testament scholar someday. I was thinking I'd be in pastoral ministry or some sort of other type of ministry but that was really the starting point for me with with both Greek and Hebrew were in my undergrad times and it was kind of driven out of this. exposure I had of a pastor growing up who would talk about biblical languages. And so I thought, well, if I may be a pastor someday, I need to start learning these. so that's how it got started. Cool. Yeah. And thanks also for sharing that sort of that they can that doesn't necessarily have to be perfect from the beginning. Yeah, I think I think that that is when we are thinking about learning languages. I like to that's a hobby horse of mine or a pet peeve. I think you say that in America. That that language should be understood as as learning a skills or learning, like playing the guitar or, mean, although you're very fond of basketball, so like playing basketball, like learning how to do that. Well, yeah. And the same thing is that with languages, you have to practice a little bit all the time and then you'll be, you will reach there in the end. And often what happens is you begin, you kind of learn a language for a season and it's amazing how quickly you forget it. And then you have to go back and review and. reteach yourself and what's amazing is like wow those categories that you were initially exposed to are kind of still there and then it's a lot quicker reacquiring it and more of the language sticks that time around you know the second time around and you know it's a you know it's amazing how the mind works I mean you're you speak Danish you speak English you know all these other ancient languages and somehow are among our 86 billion neurons God has in our brain. We're able to have this capacity to just know over time, learn these systems. But as with everything, it takes time to build those pathways of remembering and learning and activating what you've learned. Yeah, it's amazing how God has created our brains to be able to remember things. when in reality, when people say they have a bad memory, it's not necessarily actually because they remember lots of stuff. We all remember lots of stuff, but just sometimes it's specific things we might not be as good at remembering about this. Yeah, that's right. And having taught Hebrew, you know, for probably, so I've been a professor for about 14 years now and I'd say at least in seven or eight of those years I've taught the beginning Hebrew kind of sequence at the two schools I've been at and it's amazing you see among your students they're all wired differently and the way that they're learning and picking up the Hebrew like may work really well for them but it doesn't quite work as well for someone else so they're trying different. ways and sharing tips with each other on what's helping these languages stick because it is a long process and it's kind of a uniquely tailored experience each person may want to have. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I even studied with people who were like amazingly gifted with languages and they learned things like within just a couple of months, a lot more than most others. the thing is, this guy doesn't know his Greek today. yeah. Yeah. Because he didn't keep it up. So it's not necessarily the most gifted that will make, that have most use out of the language. Yeah. It's the one who uses it. That's a great, great point. Yeah. So, but how have you experienced knowing biblical languages, maybe Hebrew in particular, because that's your language, have opened up scripture for you? Yeah, great question. So, you know, part of learning biblical languages is I think that one could imagine kind of like a spectrum of like benefit that happens. So, you know, I've obviously been at this for a long time, so there's benefits I'm going to get as a scholar that maybe someone just starting out won't get. as I think along the spectrum, one of the things that I think one might overlook is the way that just simply beginning to learn the language is connecting you to the culture of the Bible that it's part of it. It's just like if I came to visit Daniel in his home country and I hear Danish all around me and I might not know Danish, I might not be able to speak it, I might not be able to read every everything or you know, but there's this initial start that's being made. Now all of a sudden is like connecting me in a way to, you know, the culture in Denmark that we would that just helping me understand the context there. And it's similar with just beginning to hear the sounds and the letters, the consonants, beginning to learn some of the words, you're beginning just to recognize that our God has chosen to speak to a people with that, and through a language that was very much part of a culture. in ancient culture, in ancient Israel. And so I think that there begins to be, it's a bit of an intangible sort of benefit, but it is a benefit. And, you know, so I think that that sort of connection is difficult for me to say here in this particular passage is where I felt that. but I think there's this over arching kind of sense of your entire experience that's impacted. So I would just encourage your listeners that like, let's say they say, well, I can never go get a PhD like Daniel's doing in Greek or I can never do one in Old Testament like I've done. That even just like you could just begin learning to read and write the alphabet, hearing the sounds, memorizing some basic vocabulary, or maybe even memorizing a verse in the Greek or the Hebrew is going to have this kind of cultural connection where you're reminded that God is speaking actually to a people in a particular context. And I think that goes a long way. The other ways that I've seen kind of benefit in my experience as I've gone along is, and I'm going to kind of qualify this, but another next step might be in terms of thinking about how particular words might have unique meanings in ancient contexts that might be different than say if we're imposing what we would think a particular word would mean and from our context. So, when you look at like the he in in Hebrew, like let's say you don't even know Hebrew all that well. Like, if you just learn how to do a word study, all of a sudden, you can kind of see, wow, look at the range of different connotations or ideas that are connected to this term when it's used kind of throughout the scriptures. So one awesome website that I point people to is one that's been produced by Tyndale House is the stepbible.org and they even in English have like the Hebrew underneath what And you can kind of do word studies on a biblical term. I remember, you know, there's a range of different terms that one can look at. But for instance, I have my students usually do a word study of a verb that's called, in Hebrew, it's naham. And... they do a word study on this and they realize, whoa, okay, this word can mean a lot of different things in a lot of different contexts. It can mean to comfort and it can also mean to like, relent from kind of planning to do something. It can, you know, have a. I mean, you're like, does comfort and relenting like even relate? Sometimes it's translated as changing someone's mind. But as they begin to look at these words, they're beginning to see, okay, there are particular, a Hebrew word may not mean the same thing in every time it's being used. So, okay, so I need to be alert to this. Let's not read in to every, you know, the it's called the illegitimate totality transfer where you just like, you know, when Naham is used, someone's been comforted. So that's why they changed their mind, you know, or something like that. You know, you're trying to bring it all together. But what you begin to see is different. Context in situations where a particular use of the term would be used and in the case of this verb it Sometimes it's in the piel stem sometimes it's in the nifal stem, which don't worry about that if that's over your head But you can begin to see what are the ideas connected to? Naham and in particular one of the things that my students will recognize is whoa let's actually look at when Naham is used in the cases when God is the subject of Naham and they start seeing, okay, so okay, there's some unique nuances that come to bear here. And so I think anybody who's willing to like just do a word study, they can... just begin to kind of see shades of nuance related to a word that may not be as apparent on the front of things. So back to Naham, one thing that's really cool is, let's use this example from Jonah, where the people of Nineveh repent and we're told that then God, Nahams, he relents from bringing disaster on the people that he was going to. Now, if you're looking into this term, you're going to notice something really interesting is that back in Exodus, God does the same thing. He Nahams from bringing a disaster on the people after they have made a golden calf on Mount Sinai where he's about to wipe them out. And you begin to see like, whoa, maybe Jonah here is actually drawing a parallel where he's saying like, just as God nachamed for Israel, our God is one who nachams for the nations also, and is willing to kind of relent from disaster he's going to bring. against them. I think there's that so like thinking about just the cultural connection, becoming aware of like what words may be calling to mind when they're being used. And then I'd say, and I'll be quiet after I give one more example of the kind of way of seeing languages opened up, is as you advance in your language, The benefit of language study moves beyond just simply kind of word level where you're kind of getting familiar with words could mean and then asking, well, what does that word mean here? But you start seeing how what we would call is the discourse or the flow of thought is kind of working across an entire passage. So this is especially the case in Greek and other exceptions to this, but like when you see participles that are really prominent in Greek. But if you can find out what is the main verb in this sentence of Paul, you're like, okay, the main verb is going to direct you towards here's what the main idea of this vers is, what Paul's getting at. And these participles are kind of building and fleshing out and modifying and. setting the context for that main verb. And what that helps you do is it helps you focus in your reading on, here's what the main idea really is here and not get lost on, know, away from that central idea, but instead start seeing how everything's building towards that central idea in the passage. I found that that larger syntactic discourse level is where when you start getting more comfortable in Greek, you can just start seeing the flow of thought which really opens up passages. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. It's, it's the yeah, how the language shows how it's connected because we do that by automation within our native language or English or But when we are maybe not quite as fluent, which it's hard to be in ancient Hebrew or Koine Greek, because no one speaks that anymore. So it's going to be complicated to have any conversations with people. that sort of like knowing some of these things, I think is important to, especially on the syntactical level, I think. Although you can get like good insights into word studies and other things if you are aware of these like grammatical fallacies that might occur not to take any meaning into a word but see what does the context imply to have the word have some meaning because we do that automatically in English but not in a language we know so well. Yeah, like and we just take it for granted that you and I talking here I can figure out what you're really trying to say, what's most central and how the things you're saying around it are fleshing that out. We just do that naturally. I our brains are absolutely incredible that way, how God's wired us to communicate. But yeah, I love your point here. When you step into a foreign language, whether it's a living language currently or an ancient language, it takes time to decipher that. You know, Greek is a very case driven and highly regulated language, which is really helps guide our focus and how things are connecting. Hebrew is a little more less determined and requires maybe more out of the inference from a reader or speaker. But again, there's still the grammatical, syntactic structures that help you know, like for instance in Hebrew narrative, there's this thing called a waw in Hebrew, which does a lot of work in Hebrew. It can mean and, or but, et cetera. at a larger syntactical level, there's something called a disjunctive waw, which is based on where the waw is placed and when it's not connected to a verb. and it's functioning at a clause level, it's usually giving background information about something or like introducing a new topic. And then the narrative kind of sequence is going to flow through waw consecutives, which again have their own pattern of being connected to verbs and so forth. But all of a sudden you can just start seeing how the logic works simply by knowing how waws function within know, biblical narrative. So, these structuring devices can really go along a long way. these are the, frankly, the sorts of things that certainly after two or three semesters of learning a language a year and a half, you'll start being able to really benefit from and utilize. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt the episode, but if you're enjoying the content, please consider subscribing and leaving a like. It really helps the algorithm and helps the podcast grow. Thank you for your support and now back to the episode. yeah. which might be a way to like, moving into some of your expertise. You're specialized in, or you're a specialist in Isaiah, the Psalms and the prophets. Why that part of scripture? Great question. So when I was studying the scriptures, really in those college years, I really loved learning the Old Testament. And I loved studying the prophets and I found the prophets to have a way of kind of throwing cold water on your face and like waking you up to things and it's vision of God being so great, but also so near. And, but at the same time, even though I kind of love, love the prophets, There's also this sense of like, what in the world are they saying? They seems so obscure. And when I did my master's degree, I continued to love the prophets. And so when it came time to think about what I wanted to do for a PhD, I thought, well, if I want to do the prophets as a way to kind of serve the church, to kind of say, okay, let's let's recover this part of the scriptures that tend to be neglected. mean, we very rarely hear sermons through the prophets. And what that means is that the church is kind of nutritionally deficient. They're not receiving the nutrients that this portion of the scriptures are meant to give. And so, I thought, well, if I'm going to focus on the prophets, I had my mentor, Dr. Willem VanGemeren loved Isaiah. And I thought, well, if he loves Isaiah, if Isaiah is one of the most quoted books in the New Testament, and if Jesus loved Isaiah, and they come to find out the church has called Isaiah, the fifth gospel. let me give myself to this, this book, which is a massive book that people will maybe be familiar with some parts like that are sung and handles Messiah are quoted in the New Testament, but that represents maybe 2 % of what you find in the rest all of Isaiah, and there's just a lot, a lot there and so my My interests have continued in the book of Isaiah and right now I have expanded into the entire prophetic corpus in a handbook I'm writing right now. And again, finding this joy and being forced to have to think carefully through the prophets. And so I've found it personally refreshing, but hopefully I'm able to really serve the church through writing and teaching on the prophets. Wonderful. I think that's how we should do like scholarship. I know that some parts of the world will say no, not at all, but I actually think that that's the only really meaningful way of doing scholarship is by serving the church, trying to serve the church with the knowledge that we acquire. I was at a... lunch the other day with a couple of elders from a local church and they're going to be starting a series on Jeremiah and then Lamentation. So they're I think they'll just do six sermons on Jeremiah. They won't won't work through the whole book but then they'll work all the way through Lamentations and and I said you know and so we're just kind of just talking and I'm going to kick off their series with a sermon on Jeremiah 1 I said, know, the prophets are a lot like a a a brush of like iron. You know that that that has been set on the shelf of the church and in our lives. And what we don't realize is that sin has just been accruing all over us, our churches. And we get so defensive any time there's criticism of the church or criticism of the possibility that we may be out of step with God, but that's what the prophets do for us is here's the brush. Let's scrub here and see if there's some you know some issues that these Old Testament prophets can help expose and then bring life back back to to the church and I'm often know, invited to preach on occasion or to preach in churches. And when I do, they usually want me to preach on the prophets. And I'd say the experience is very consistent of just great appreciation of kind of, we could say velvet steel where there's this comfort with the velvet, but the steel was just also the challenge of being called to see what's really going on. perspective and turn to him. So, so it's been a joy serving in this way along with just the intellectual spiritual stimulation that comes from a level of scholarship of just really trying to get greater and greater clarity on what these scriptures may have. been trying to say originally and how they may serve as a word for us today. Yeah, yeah, wonderful. We're actually doing a sermon series over the entire year on Jeremiah. Are you really? Well, that is wonderful. So wonderful to hear. There's a Scottish minister right now who is having a sabbatical from church ministry. think the church gave him maybe six weeks and he's spending a big portion of that time preparing for a series on Isaiah. So we've a New Testament scholar from the UK had had him as a student and introduced him to me as a sounding board. And here's someone later in his pastoral ministry career having always wanted to preach from Isaiah, but being daunted by it and is really getting kind of geared up for that. And I tell you, I admire these churches and ministers who are willing just to sit under the scriptures of books that aren't always easy to understand. yeah. And sometimes harsh in a good way. Yeah. Yeah. Jeremiah is daunting in some ways because it's so right to the point. Yeah. Yeah. But Isaiah as well is the same. He's complaining in the beginning of the book, he's complaining about all the sin in people and then he might get to like have a vision of God and then he said, no, have a thought of God. Yeah, woe is me. you know, you see, say in Isaiah, if you look up how many times the phrase the Holy One of Israel occurs in the entire Old Testament, a huge percentage of those are in the book of Isaiah. And you just sense that that that here the the prophet saw God and saw a taste of his holiness of how just totally other God is as God and saw like woe is me and his sin was exposed. But yet this Seraphim comes and shows Isaiah, your sins have been wiped away. And that this holy, holy, holy God, yes, who kind of confronts you is also one who, when you lay yourself bare before him, is willing to provide forgiveness for our sin. And so it's a wonderful kind of tension between they confront but they also point you to the one who heals and it's a beautiful tension that we're brought into. Yeah. Yes. So when studying Isaiah, it is an enormous book, think. It's it's probably longer than an entire Pauline Corpus. I don't know if that's true, but it's a lot longer than many New Testament letters or books. So what would you say, that's the three, four most important things to know about it, gems to like extract from this book. Yeah, great. Great question. Yeah, so it's sixty-six chapters and I don't know if Paul's Total Corpus adds up to that many chapters, you know, Isaiah is a huge book and there's a couple like things that I found helpful as I've taught on it to help people get a hand on it. My second book that I authored on Isaiah's book called the Book of Isaiah and God's Kingdom. And in there I give kind of a use the motif of God's Kingdom as a way to help people get kind of a kind of hold on the different major elements in the book. So maybe I'll walk through those. The one thing is to recognize that Isaiah very much is presenting God as King. In the passage you talked about, Isaiah six, he says, low is me for my eyes have seen the King. So this Holy, Holy, Holy God who must judge is the King over the entire universe. He's over Babylon. He's over Syria. He he's this God who can bring judgment right now as King, but he's also a saving King. one of the great hopes of the gospel in Isaiah is, you know, proclaim the good news. What is it that your God reigns that your God comes with power and might? You see that in Isaiah 40 and 52. So Isaiah kind of grasping how Isaiah is portraying God as the Holy King and as the saving King, I think is kind of fundamental to the book. And God is king wants to establish his kingdom. And he does that. through some lead agents, namely through a Davidic king. There's this hope in Isaiah 9, 11, 16, that there'll be a ruler from the line of David who will come to establish God's rule of justice and rightness in society. We see also a lead agent is God's suffering servant. will come and provide kind of forgiveness, atonement, to allow people to come back to him. And then there's also the eschatological prophet, this one who has been anointed to bring good news to the poor, the Isaiah 61 passage. So you have God as king, who works through his lead agents to bring about his kingdom. and to create a kingdom community. So you could ask yourself, how was God trying to form a community that reflects God as their King? So for instance, if God is their King, they're going to trust him. If God is the King of the entire world, it's going to be an international community. If God is a Redeemer, this is a redeemed community, et cetera. So thinking of how the communities to reflect the nature of their God. And then the final part of a kingdom is there's a realm where is God's kingdom. And so you could think of the realm of God's kingdom in terms of God's kingdom centers in Zion, but it's over the entire world as we think of God making a new heaven and a new earth. So God is king, lead agents of the king, creating a community, a kingdom community. in within the realm of God's kingdom. So those may prove helpful for your listeners. And for me as well. So I think the next question is, because when we read the gospels, Jesus talked a lot about the kingdom of God. And what background does Isaiah give us to better understand Jesus's language about the kingdom of God? Yeah, that's a great question. like one way you could think about Jesus's vision of and John the Baptist saying the kingdom of God is at hand is in one way you can ask what was a central hope within Isaiah and what you see in Isaiah 40 is there's this voice that's crying out and saying okay in the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord. Okay so there's this sense of preparing the way for the Lord and the word Lord there is Yahweh prepare the way for God. Yeah and as it picks up on when God returns that's why they're preparing the way, is that his glory is going to be revealed. And that's very much a royal idea. And you see in Isaiah 40 verses 9 to 11 that he says, get up on the high mountain and proclaim to the cities of Judah, behold your God, behold he comes with might, behold his arm is ruling for him. Okay, you see him coming as this. ruler but he's also a shepherd who gathers lambs gently to him. Isaiah 52 has a very similar hope where it's talking about how beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring the good news. That is the gospel and what is the gospel? Your God reigns and it goes on to talk about how he comes. So Isaiah is very much pointing our hopes in the direction that someday God is going to come as king. And so when you see Jesus coming to proclaim the kingdom, it has come there. think it's wrapped up in this hope that God himself would come and set things right in this world. But of course, this kingdom, as Jesus points out, is also unexpected. It's like a little seed that grows into something much bigger. and so it might not have been exactly, like folks had maybe imagined it. And I think some of that may relate to other parts of Isaiah where God sees, where Isaiah sees a suffering servant, one who's rejected one who's everyone thought he was cursed. This servant was cursed by God. And then, then they're recognizing, wow, this is. the very work of God who's, you know. So I wonder if Jesus is kind of leaning in even to some of those elements in Isaiah of this unexpected kind of way that the saving kingdom of God would be inaugurated. But I think that we also see Jesus looking ahead. to the coming, the final coming of the kingdom, which more aligns with some of the aspects of what Isaiah is anticipating. And then you see in the book of Daniel, quite a few kind of visions of God as the king of kings who, you know, whose reign is going to come in this world over all the other kingdoms of the world. Yeah. Yeah. So, so we can talk about that sort of unexpected King, Kingship or coming of the Kingdom is maybe most people relate to like the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. But would you say there's other aspects that I as a like highlight of the unexpectedness? Yeah. I mean, one of the unexpected natures of what you see unfolding in Isaiah is about Who are the insiders and who are the outsiders? you, you, you have this kind of theme throughout is that those who, you would think should be those in the know about God are actually deaf and blind. that's a theme throughout the book, but you begin to see, Isaiah highlighting. people who actually will be insiders that are currently considered outsiders. In Isaiah 56, it has this beautiful passage where God says, don't let the foreigner say, you know, I don't have a place with God. Don't let the eunuch say, I'm cut off from his house. Now, typically, eunuchs weren't allowed to be in God's Foreigners were obviously considered not part of things, said, but if they cling to me, hold fast to my covenant and so forth, you know, he's saying they are going to have a chief place in his house. And simultaneously, you see God critiquing in those chapters the priests, he's critiquing the Israelites and the Judiates who kind of are assuming that they're right with God because they're Judaites. But he begins to use the language of my servants, representing all who kind of come in the wake of the suffering servant and who in many ways are like the suffering servant who come to see in this kind of unexpected figure, they're very one who's put them right with God as his offspring. So I think that's kind of an unexpected element that Isaiah is working towards. One other example of that is the book opens with God saying, I'm fed up with your like new moon festivals and your Sabbaths. then obviously speaking to an Israelite audience, but then at the end of the book, he envisions foreigners as being those who will be celebrating Sabbath and the new moon. And in no way with, should this be interpreted that God is going to reject Israel? Absolutely not. But what's central here is that it's the faithful within Israel. And it's the faithful outside of Israel who are God's servants. And he's calling for the people to turn to him and to see his plan of salvation unfolding so that they can experience God's redemptive work. Hmm, yeah, wonderful. Yes, that's, that's why he talks about come to me and get, get water, clean water rather than going to your broken cisterns. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the, he's in Isaiah 55, I think is what you're thinking of where he's saying, you know, Stop spending money on the things that don't satisfy. Come to me and buy my food without money. I'm not going to drain your, your account, you know, come home to me and you're going to find life in me. and, what one other kind of just crazy passage is Isaiah 19 where all of a sudden you see Egypt and Assyria being referred to as God's people and God's inheritance and and so forth and you're like, wow, Isaiah is just this could not have gone down very well when he was first proclaiming these prophecies. They're like, what? People in Egypt are going to be worshipping the Lord in their land and it still holds Juda kind of as a blessing in the midst of Syria and Egypt, but it very much speaks of these folks who've traditionally been thought of as their enemies as those who would be included as the people of God. it's Isaiah is just full of just tremendous. Yeah, rhetoric that's trying to help the people see a my heart for the world is a lot bigger than you realize in. Don't presume upon your kind of heritage to think that you're right with me, that you're my people because I'm the holy one of Israel and I will judge. I will even judge my own people. Yeah, that's wild. I came to think about, and Jesus talks about that there'll be a time when people worship in spirit and truth rather than on this particular place. I was thinking that maybe that was Isaiah sort of predicting that, like saying that people from the enemies, They will even see the light. They will know God. Yeah, it's such a striking moment where she's wondering, okay, does being connected to Mount Gerizim as opposed to Jerusalem, that like gonna be a, is that an issue? like, well, I mean, the Jews do worship correctly, but you guys don't, but there's this also reality that, you know, the father speaking, seeking worshipers in spirit and in truth and it's not geographically bound and that's going to become increasingly clear, especially during the time of the apostles. When the gospel spreads, the spirit spreads and yeah, it's a beautiful yeah, outworking that we see of of Isaiah's hopes. Yeah, so and then my wife wanted me to ask you Yeah, okay Yeah, she loves Isaiah so she said so what what place does Isaiah hold the prophet in your opinion? Well Isaiah we would I mean one way is say it's the best - No I think as I've been working on my handbook, one thing that's striking to me is how each book of the prophets offers something unique. And I think Isaiah's great, great, unique contribution is its huge story that it tells. The story that kind of begins in the Assyrian era continues with Babylon bringing judgment, continues with exile, continues with, the house of the Lord's been burnt and it's kind of in that exilic vision towards the end and the post-exilic. And then it's pointing all the way to the new heaven and new earth. And in between that, you just get these kind of glimpses of how God would be carrying out his. big plan that's going to go to the new heaven and new earth. So I think that that big kind of cosmic vision is just a really huge contribution of the book of Isaiah. One thing that surprised me and it began not just when I've been working on my handbooks, but over a decade ago, I was teaching my first teaching appointment was at Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia. While I was there, I taught Isaiah, or Isaiah, as they would say, one or two semesters. Then I said, let's do something different. I taught Jeremiah as a book. And I would say that the people loved Isaiah, but the kind of... experiential impact of studying Jeremiah was actually more profound for my students. They could connect with the suffering of the prophet. They could kind of see Jesus as kind of a suffering prophet like Jeremiah. Jeremiah's suffering gives us kind of a window into God's heart in a unique way. You know, it's obviously dealing with one of Isaiah, one of drew Israel's darkest times and so so Jeremiah is giving something different you know similarly Ezekiel and we could go along the line so also although I am biased to say I love Isaiah the most I've also come to see how each of the prophets provides the people of God with something really unique Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. And then as it is a tradition on this podcast, the final question is, it's always a question that is, so now we've been talking about Isaiah and then what is an application for everyday Christian life for for the listeners, the viewers of the podcast that they can take from this and apply? Yeah, good. Good question. So if you want to go and apply what we've been talking about. I don't want to give you a nugget of here's what you apply from X, Y, or Z passage. Instead, the application would be is go and read, go and read the book of Isaiah or read a couple of select chapters like Isaiah six, Isaiah 40, Isaiah 52 and 53, Isaiah 65. and open yourself up to inviting God to help you see him as the Holy King, as the saving king, and allow him to do his work as you read these scriptures. So that'd be my encouragement for your listeners. Yeah, thank you. That's a great one. Great one to finish on. And thank you. Thank you for joining me. Yeah, really a pleasure to be with you, Daniel. Blessings to you in your studies and marriage and in your podcast. And so to you in ministry and your service as a scholar in Chicago. Thank you. Yeah, God bless. But before you go, if you enjoyed this episode and want to keep it ad- free please consider joining our supporter program. It helps us grow, improve our content, and bring more guests on. But it also gives you great benefits in return. Check it out in the link the description below. Thank you, have a great day, and I'll see you in the next one