Many if not most commentators on Isaiah suggest that Isaiah 1 is set around the time of the Assyrian invasion of Judah in 701, a story detailed in Isaiah 36-39. I took that position in my sermon notes earlier this week. Then my colleague, Toby Sumpter, and a ministerial student, CJ Bowen, objected. Toby asked, Why wouldn’t Isaiah’s book start at the beginning of his ministry, in the days of Uzziah? Good question. CJ added, The description of the sick body and head in Isaiah 1:5-6 sounds like it could be a description of Uzziah’s leprosy (2 Chronicles 26:16-21). Good point.
Then I find that Jacob Milgrom argues that ( VT , 1964) argues that Isaiah did in fact prophesy in the time of Uzziah. The first six chapters of Isaiah, he argues, fit into that setting. Assyria doesn’t appear in the opening chapters, and Judah seems to be at peace and fairly prosperous (see the ornamented society women in chapter 3) – just as in the days of Uzziah. Judah seems militarily prepared for enemies – just as in the days of Uzziah. Isaiah even mentions an earthquake (5:25), which we know took place in the days of Uzziah (cf. Zechariah 14:5).
That looks pretty good. But then Milgrom provides an excursus arguing that Isaiah 1:2-9 “stands in contradiction” to the rest of the opening chapters. At the beginning, Isaiah describes a countryside devastated by invasion, and verse 9 says that Judah is now a remnant. This doesn’t describe Uzziah’s day, and Milgrom argues that the section has been “transplanted” from the end of the book to the beginning “to serve as introductory proof that the prophet’s assessment of history was correct.” Though the rest of chapters 1-6 belongs to the reign of Uzziah, 1:2-9 does not. It belongs, Milgrom says, to the period after 701.
Let’s assume Milgrom has made a persuasive case for saying that 1:10-6:13 belong to Uzziah’s reign, but let’s assume that he’s not persuaded us about the opening section of the prophecy. What are we to say about 1:2-9? Does this passage fit the situation of Uzziah’s reign? If not, why would Isaiah have transplanted an oracle from a later date to the beginning of his prophecy.
First, we can examine the literary connections between the account of Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26 and the opening section of Isaiah. Are there similarities between the way 2 Chronicles describes the reign of Uzziah and the way Isaiah describes the condition of Judah in his day? There are some.
1. Isaiah says that Israel does not “understand” (v. 3; byn , a pun on ben , “son”). Of the nine passages that use the verb in 1-2 Chronicles, one of them is in 2 Chronicles 26:5, where Isaiah seeks the Lord by going to Zechariah, who has “understanding” ( byn ) through visions. This is a fairly loose connection.
2. Isaiah says that the people of Judah have become sons of corruption ( shachath ; v. 4). In 2 Chronicles 26:16, Uzziah lifts up his heart to act corruptly ( shachath ). Though there is no verb connection between Isaiah 1 and the characterization of Uzziah as “strong” and “lifting his heart,” there is a conceptual connection. Judah has become “weighty” ( kaved ) with sin, and the idea of “glorifying” or “making heavy” one’s heart is closely parallel (as with Pharoah) with the notion of making one’s heart strong. The verb “lift up,” used to describe what Uzziah does with his heart, is gabah , used five times in Isaiah, sometimes to describe the pride and haughtiness of Judah (3:16). During the reign of Jotham (2 Chronicles 27), the people “acted corruptly” (v. 2).
3. Judah’s heart is faint (Isaiah 1:5). Uzziah’s heart is lifted up (2 Chronicles 26:16).
4. The word “cities” appears in both passages. Uzziah builds cities after conquering the cities of the Philistines (2 Chronicles 26:6), while Isaiah speaks of burned cities (1:7) and daughter Zion being like a besieged city (1:8).
5. Isaiah says that Judah’s land is desolated (1:7). Uzziah was a lover of the “soil” ( adamah ; 2 Chronicles 26:10).
The verbal links between the passages are few and weak. What about conceptual parallels? Here there’s more to work with.
1. Isaiah charges Judah with abandoning Yahweh and turning from him, and this is a fitting description of what Uzziah does when he becomes proud. A king who once regularly sought Yahweh and did right (2 Chronicles 26:5) becomes “unfaithful” (26:16).
2. CJ pointed to the sequence of Isaiah 1, which moves from a description of the sinful and sick condition of Israel to a warning about coming into Yahweh’s courts (1:10-15). That is parallel to the story of Uzziah, who is struck with leprosy and then is excluded from the house of God (2 Chronicles 26:21).
3. Judah has been stricken (Isaiah 1:5). While the same verb is not used, Uzziah too has been “stricken” with leprosy (2 Chronicles 26:20; here the verb is naga ).
4. Isaiah describes Judah as being sick in the head (1:5), and Uzziah’s leprosy broke out on his forehead (2 Chronicles 26:19-20). Different words are used. At a greater level of abstraction: Uzziah is the “head” of Judah, and he is literally diseased. It’s not a leap to translate Isaiah’s “sick from head to foot” into “sick from King to commoner.”
5. Isaiah says that Judah is “sick” (1:5). While the word is not used in 2 Chronicles 26, it is still the case that Uzziah became “sick.” The parallel between the sickness of the King and the sickness of the kingdom is a common theme in 1-2 Kings.
6. Judah is wounded (Isaiah 1:6). That word does not appear in 2 Chronicles at all, but there is a conceptual link with Uzziah’s “wound” of leprosy. Judah’s wounds make her unfit for the presence of God, for entering His courts. Dittos for Uzziah’s wound.
7. While the word “vineyard” is not present in 2 Chronicles 26, there are vinedressers (v. 10). Isaiah describes Daughter Zion as a tent in a vineyard.
It’s plausible that Isaiah could be describing Judah by reference to the incident in the temple with Uzziah. That event plausibly provides some of the imagery that Isaiah is exploiting. If this prophecy were delivered in the reign of Uzziah, we could expect the people of Judah to see that they have become like their king, stricken, wounded, excluded, sick. Of course, the imagery could be put to use even after Uzziah’s lifetime, so even these fairly tantalizing conceptual parallels provide no proof of the setting of the oracle.
What about historical setting? What do we know about Uzziah’s reign? The following:
1. He was a builder (2 Chronicles 26:2).
2. He started well, serving the Lord (vv. 4-5).
3. He was successful militarily, fighting Philistines (for the first time since David) as well as Ammonites and Arabians (vv. 6-8). He built the army into an impressive fighting force (vv. 11-15a).
4. He built up Jerusalem with towards, and also built defensive towers throughout the land (vv. 9-10a).
5. He supported agricultural development (v. 10b).
6. He became well known throughout the east (v. 15b).
7. After all these achievements, he became proud and tried to burn incense in the temple, despite protests from the priests. As a result, he was str icken with leprosy on the forehead (vv. 16-20).
8. After contracting leprosy, he lived separately, and was unable to go into the temple. He set his son Jotham up in the king’s house to judge the people (v. 21).
9. Jotham continued his building and fighting, successful. Like his father in his early years, he was faithful to Yahweh: “he ordered his ways before Yahweh his God” (27:6).
Now, does this sound like the situation that Isaiah describes? Even after Uzziah was stricken with leprosy, Judah remained strong and at peace. It is certainly possible that the people were unfaithful during Uzziah’s reign, as they were under Jotham (2 Chronicles 27:2). It is certainly possible that Isaiah was seeing beneath the apparent prosperity and safety of Uzziah’s Judah to the underlying rot.
Verses 7-9, though, are difficult to fit in here. If this oracle is given in the time of Uzziah, then it has to be prospective, a prophecy of destruction rather than a description of an accomplished devastation, since Uzziah spent his reign building cities and fortresses and defeating neighboring nations rather than watching cities go up in smoke. In the context of verses 7-8, verse 9 reads as if it’s a description of a Judah reduced to a remnant, as if the reduction has already taken place. The land is devastated, and all that’s left is a small band of survivors. Perhaps we are to understand the “remnant” that is left not as the ones who remain after the land is devastated, but as the remnant of “righteous ones” that prevent the city from being destroyed in the first place. If this is Uzziah’s reign, then Isaiah pictures Judah and Jerusalem as being Sodom and Gomorrah on the eve of her destruction. Judah would be “like” Sodom and Gomorrah not in the fact that she is devastated, but in the fact that she would lack the necessary ten righteous. For now, she will survive because of the righteous in her, but soon fire will fall from heaven.
It may be that the best way to solve this question is to see verse 2 as controlling the whole initial section. Yahweh begins by summoning the heavens and earth to listen to Yahweh’s charges against His son. He is putting His son on trial. If the whole of verses 2-9 is part of that trial scene (and that’s not entirely clear), then verses 7-9 could be taken as the visionary sentence, analogous to Micaiah’s vision in 1 Kings 22:17. These verses do indeed describe the Assyrian invasion (or perhaps even the Babylonian invasion, which left a small remnant in the land), but they are describing it in vision. Isaiah stands in much the same place as Micaiah, “seeing” the court summoned and the deliberations conducted and the future that lies before Judah.
Perhaps we might even see the opening section as a dialog between Yahweh and the prophet:
Yahweh summons court, presents charges against Judah, 1:2-3
Isaiah responds with lament, 1:4
Yahweh’s inspection of Judah, 1:5-6
Yahweh’s sentence, 1:7-8
Isaiah’s hope that the Lord will have compassion because of remnant, 1:9
What do we have? At long belabored last I seem to have convinced myself that Toby and CJ were probably right.