Product Description

Recipient of a Christianity Today 1994 Critics Choice Award!Among Old Testament prophetic books no other equals Isaiah's brilliance of style and metaphor, its arresting vision of the Holy One of Israel and its kaleidoscopic vision of God's future restoration of Israel and the world. Now, after over three decades of studying and teaching Isaiah, Alec Motyer presents a wealth of commentary and perspective on this book. His emphasis is on the grammatical, historical, structural, literary and theological dimensions of the text. Though based on the Hebrew text, his exposition easily accomodates readers without a working knowledge of biblical Hebrew. And he writes with an interest in Isaiah's meaning for Christians today.Along the historical timeline on which the Isaianic prophecies are strung, Motyer finds three central and recurring themes: the messianic hope, the motif of the city and the theology of the Holy One of Israel. Moreover, he argues, the Isaianic literature is organized around three messianic portraits: the King (Isaiah 1-37), the Servant (Isaiah 38-55) and the Anointed Conqueror (Isaiah 56-66).Preachers, teachers and serious Bible students of all types will find this commentary a wise, winsome and welcome guide to the prophecy of Isaiah. It may easily be the best one-volume evangelical commentary on Isaiah available today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #239444 in Books
• Published on: 1993-10
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Customer Reviews

Invaluable Tool For A Pastor's Library
As I work through Isaiah, I have come to appreciate this work more and more. Motyer observes and explains literary artistic value in the text with a minimum of words. He also gives bits on textual criticism, but I find they are sometimes harder for me to grasp what he is referring to unless I have dug into the textual problem already.

But the heart of this commentary is not about literary design or textual criticism. The heart of this commentary is about explaining in a well reasoned way the basic exegetical idea paragraph after paragraph with references to related issues sprinkled throughout the commentary.

One negative is that the format of the text is condensed in my view and therefore a little less comfortable to read than say the NICOT or NIVAC formats.

This past Sunday I worked on Isaiah 38-39. Motyer sees that as the beginning of a new section that ends in Isaiah 55. His outline is interesting and his explanations defending his outline are good. In Isaiah 38-39 he deals with Hezekiah's predicatment and outlines the passage with a Chiastic structure that points to Hezekiah's deeper challenge that seems to underlie the text. I found that in this passage at least, Motyer's comments were more illuminating than even the excellently written NIVAC by Oswalt or the NICOT by Oswalt. Motyer sees the Chiasm in Isaiah 38-39 as pointing to Hezekiah's difficulty in obeying the point of the law where Judah is not to make alliances with foreign nations.

The poetic structure with an emphasis on the dedication of Hezekiah in 38:8-22 and the defection of Hezekiah in 39:1-2 is a fresh and preaching alliterated point that I actually ended up using in my sermon on Hezekiah.

My respect for this author has been on the rise the more I look into his work. He packs a lot into every page. Excellent book, well worth the shekels.

Terrific One Volume Evangelical Christian Commentary on Isaiah
It's amazing how much solid exegesis and theology Motyer packed into this one volume commentary on Isaiah. Motyer is more willing to come out and say that certain prophecies in Isaiah were fulfilled by Jesus. He is also quite good at discerning the structure of the text. For example, he expounds Isaiah 26:19-26 and makes a nice diagram of the blessings associated with living under God's kingdom of justice and righteousness.

This commentary is not quite as elegantly written as the single volume masterpiece penned by Brevard Childs, but Motyer is a reliable guide through the visions that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Jothan, Uzziah, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (Isaiah 1:1-2). I highly recommend this commentary.

Rev. Marc Axelrod

Isaiah Prophesized God's Son and the Resurrection.
Isaiah's Teachings Need To Be Observed Today.,
We need some of Isaiah's preachings and teachings in today's society as there are too many frauds around to stir up trouble, those who don't believe in God and God's will. Sin will be avenged by an judging God and there will be more disasters in sinful areas such are springing up in my town by people like the false journalists and drug users, drunks among the condo dwellers; it is a drug haven in the culture of today, and God will show that it is not his Will or Purpose to put this on God-fearing people. The drunks and liars of this world will be in a sad shape after God has finished changing their lives and they will be in dire need of help from ethics, religious faith, and just plain pure good luck.

Isaiah was the seer of the Old Testament, after all, he prophesized the coming of Christ as the Son of God. In college, he was my favorite prophet, after I was assigned in Religion class to research Deuto-Isiah. Whoever would have thought that the book of Isaiah was written by two different individuals? It was.