Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-07
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH.
Its Author Was a Remarkable Man
of Great Social Prominence.
CALLED TO PREACH IN A DREAM.
How He Took Up the Political Questions
That Concerned His People.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HIS WRITINGS
WRITTEN FOR THE prspArcB.,

oiuSEdUlc uuIHOel VI Uoohs, SOmc III pTos'
and some in poetry, some history, some
proverbs, some letters and some sermons
The book of Isaiah belongs among the ser
mons.
The word prophet, we ought to keep IL
mind, means preacher. You can find an
other meaning in the dictionary and in com
mon conversation. The CONJUNCTION OF
Venus and Jupiter is just now giving occu
patton to what we are accustomed to cal
nowadays the exercise of prophecy. Prof
Totten, of Yale University, is prophet.
But this use of the word is quite recent
definition. The idea Of prediction has beer
prominent in this old word only since some
time in the last century. In the day:
when Jeremy Taylor wrote in defense of the
"Liberty of Prophesying, everybody un-
derstood that he was advocating the princi'
pie of free speech.
biblical Meaning Rf Prophet.
In the Bible, the prophet is preacher.
We may read a good many of the writings
of the Old Testament prophets" without
discovering any prediction at all. The
prophet is not fore-teller. but for-teller.
He is the man who speakes tor God And
that is the business of every preacher even
to-day. Thus God appointed Aaron, we
read, to be the prophet of Noses That is,
he was to speak for Noses he was to carry
Moses messages. Isaiah was a preacher.
The book of Isaiah is book of sermons.
I want to say something this morning
about this prophet and his book, about the
preacher and his sermons. I will begin
with the preacher.
Concerning the personal life of Isaiah we
know little. The first verse of his book,
which is a heading added by the men who
gathered these sermons together into this
volume, tells us that he lived in the days of
Uzziah, lothian, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings
of Judah. This means the eighth century
before Christ. The eighth century before
Christ was that day of national trouble
among. the little provinces of Palestine
which saw the destruction of the Northern
Kingdom by the armies of Assyria, and the
fearful dangers of the Southern Kingdom
before the same great enemy. Amos and
Hosea were the great preachers in Israel
during the youth of Isaiah. Isaiah preached
in Judah.
Very Consid erable Parsonage.
Isaiah was a man of education, culture
and evident literary gifts. He belonged to
q family of high social position in the aris-
tocratic circles of the capital. He belonged
in Jerusalem, and was much about the
court, and was a personal friend of the
greatest of the Jewish soyereigns of his life
time, King Hezekiah. Isaiah, like St.
Peter, was a married man. He had two
sons. Isaiah's wife was called the prophet
ess, probably becanse she helped her hus-
band in his work by her sympathy, by her
-
the family history of Isaiah is hidden away
under that ancient title. There is no record
of the indebtedness of Isaiah, and through
him of-all the religious world, to Isaiah's
excellent wife.
Perhaps he read to her the notes of these
great sermons. Some of the critics, who
are so much interested in making out that
nearly every chapter in the Old Testament
was written by two or three different per-
sons, may some day discover for us how
many good things In Isaiah's sermons are
due to the suggestions of his wife.
Significance of His Sons Names.
Isaiah's two sons had quite remarkable
names. The Old Testament names nave
many of them queer sound in our ears.
Fathers and mothers do not often resort
to the first five chapters of the
First Book of Chronicles to get names for
their children. But Isaiah's boys were
burdeued with names which even in those
DAYS must have seemed grotesque, angular
and awkward in the mouth. One was
named Shear-iashub, the other was Maher-
These names, we find, had
meanings. That was one advantage whichs
many of the old names had over our modern
ones-they meant something. And the
of these names had an intimate
connection with the truths which Isaiah
was preaching.
Thus Shear jashub means "a remnant will
That, We will see presently, was
one Of the most notable of the doctrines of
Isaiah. Observation-Disclosures means
speedy prey, swift spoil" That was what
Isaiah said when the politicians of Judah
refused to follow his advice concerning the
foreign relations of the Government He
declared that the kingdom would speedily
be destroyed.
Shows Their Great Earnestness.
Thus Isaiah's boys had names that were
condensed sermons, That shows how deep
the prophet and the prophecies had their
hearts in the great work. They never tried
to get away from it, even in their home,
never shut their door upon it. 1t was the
whole of their life. Every interest thev
had, even their children, was wrapped up
and included in this deepest and widest in
terest, their interest in the church and in
the state They gave their whole life to
1t is likely that Isaiah continued preach
ing 40 years. He spent 40 years in one par
ish. He was probably about 20 when he
died. His death, according to old traditions,
was by martyrdom in the reign of The bad
King Manasseh, when he is reported to have
been sawn asunder with wooden sword.
The call of Isaiah, the beginning of his
ministry, is described in chapter which,
Tor some reason which no one knows now,
Is numbered in the book not one, but six.
How He Came to Preach.
In the sixth chapter of Isaiah we learn
what it was that made this man minister.
It was not because he had tried two or three
lvocations and had not succeeded very well
clerical profession. Neither was it on ac-
count of the persuasion of his friends. Nor
was it even in consequence of a deliberate
decision made at the end of serious en-
leavor to discover his duty. This man was
,alled to God. At least that is what he said
himself, who ought to know.
The prophets, indeed, are all unanimous
n the assertion that God called them. They
we're going on about their ordinary business.
10 they say, and somehow there came
voice. God called them. And they obeyed,
sometimes unwillingly, having no sort of in
,lination toward that kind Of work, desir-
ng most earnestly to keep out of it, living,
Iome of them, in days when, as they say, a
wise and prudent man win preserve dis
rect silence. They were somehow impelled
nto this ministry by some sort of influence
rom without
All the Old Preachers Were Alike.
They were stopped, and suddenly turned
bout, and sent on message from God.
Ihe words thew sneak are Code