No matter where you are from, the landscape of the place you think of as home carves the contours of your imagination. When I need to find a sense of calm, I always go to a lakeshore in Northern Minnesota at dusk—loon calls, pine tree reflections. As a transplant, I am still surprised at the red-orange Carolina soil that covers my daughter’s clothes after a day of play at school. As you begin this summer study, I invite you to think of a landscape that was formative for you. What features do you remember? What feelings do you associate with that landscape? I ask this because the book of Isaiah is a book of memory, possibility, disappointment, and grandeur—it is a book of hope, with all of its attendant complexity. It is a sweeping theological treatise spanning several tumultuous centuries of ancient history. Because of this, scholars think that this is actually (at least) three books.

Let me explain: The first part of the book (chapters 1-39) is dated to the 8th century BCE. The tiny kingdoms of Israel and Judah are ruled by different kings. These chapters are attributed to the prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem. He is writing in a time when the Assyrian Empire is a pulsating threat to both Israel and Judah. In these chapters, we hear the familiar tone of prophetic warning. The kings have few choices; their power was precarious. The prophet urges a clear-eyed focus on the power of God to save; no human designs—from massive engineering projects like Hezekiah’s Tunnel to alliances with other powers—will be the right course. The prophet says, im lo ta’aminu, ki lo te’amenu (“if you do not stand firm, you will not endure”). The kings (mostly) don’t listen. This is the oft-unspoken truth of the Hebrew prophets: their words went largely unheeded. Eventually, Assyria topples Israel, intentionally mixing them up with other peoples Assyria had conquered. This was a form of cultural genocide—designed to weaken the community’s connective tissue so that they cease to exist in a recognizable form.

Reflection Questions:

• Put yourself in the kings’ shoes. How would you respond to the advice, “just trust God and everything will be fine,” in their circumstance? Is this wise counsel in all situations?
• Put yourself in the prophet’s shoes. How would it feel to have a righteous message and not be listened to, and then to watch your nation fall to pieces?
• What kinds of “human plans” do you rely on in your life, in your ministry, as a congregation? What “alliances” do you make to manage fear and anxiety? When do those help, and when do they distort discipleship?

By chapter 40, something big has shifted. Nearly two hundred years have passed, for starters. Scholars locate these chapters to the end of the Babylonian exile (539 BCE). They can’t be from the same hand or voice as the first section of the book—we are in a totally different time. During these intervening years, Assyria has fallen, and Babylon has risen as the dominant power. What’s more, Judah’s belief that God was protecting them from harm was shattered in the final decades of that century (597-587 BCE), when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, destroying the city walls, the temple, and the Judahite monarchy and taking the people into exile. It is at the end of this period of exile that the anonymous poet-prophet’s voice rings out: Comfort, comfort, my people…tell them their penalty has been paid [Isa 40:1-3]. Scholars call this person “Second Isaiah” because they are clearly influenced by the Isaiah who was active two centuries earlier. Here we get big hopes, big promises, and big ideas. Second Isaiah returned in the first wave of exiles, and these words are designed to buoy the spirits of those who are coming behind him.

The prophet does not just promise a homecoming (which isn’t always easy) but also that God will be tending to the journey back. What’s more, they proclaim that this going out from Babylon will surpass the going out from Egypt [see Exodus 13:21-22], that the things God is doing in this moment will make you forget even the great things God has done in the past—it’s going to be that much, that big, that great…because that’s who God is. And it is here that we find the Hebrew Bible’s strongest articulation of monotheism [Isa 45:5-7].

Reflection Questions:

• The exiles “settled in” to life in Babylon. Think of an example of settling in from your own experience; when it is wise and pragmatic to accept things as they are, and when is it resigned or spiritually numb?
• Where do you or your community most need a sense of comfort right now? What would you need in order to really believe it was coming?

Second Isaiah is responsible for at least chapters 40-55; there’s a debate about their relationship to the author of chapters 56-66, which close out the book and are situated after the return, when the community is struggling to realize the grandiosity of chapters 40-55. Perhaps they were a follower of Second Isaiah, disillusioned by their context; perhaps this is Second Isaiah themselves, struggling between hope and despair as their restored city lurches into the future in fits and starts. (We call this person “Third Isaiah,” and if you’ve ever struggled with ping-ponging between despair and hope, Third Isaiah is your kin.)

Reflection Questions:

• Reflect on a time or situation where you felt yourself ping-ponging, flip-flopping, or being bounced around between hope and despair. What did your spirit need at that time?
• What makes a promise credible?
• What kinds of environments sustain life? What kinds do not?