I mentioned Wildberger, Childs, and Barker in my comment above.

I’ll add here that I also very much like Paul Hanson’s commentary on Second and Third Isaiah, and Brueggemann’s commentary on the same is quite worth reading. Watts’s commentary is good in many ways, but obviously quite flawed in others. Westermann’s commentary on Second and Third Isaiah is standard. Sweeney’s commentaries are fantastic, I think.

What else?

http://feastuponthewordblog.org/2008/06/07/more-online-study-resources-annotated/

Or to use the tiny URL version, http://tinyurl.com/6bws2l

Thanks for the other commentary suggestions that have been offered by Robert, Joe, and Todd.

Best,

Gregorio

You guys ought to be familiar with the last two.

Bryan Byer’s book, Encountering the Book of Isaiah (2007), is just a historical and theological survey; but you will like the pictures and the intriguing sidebars almost on every other page.

Joe, if you do find time, I for one would be very interested in your thoughts on “the standard commentaries” (or at least a list of what the standard commentaries are!).

Thanks, Gregorio, for this list. I would very much like to take a look at many of these commentaries, and I imagine I have access to most of them in the library of the local bible college.

Yes, Robert, I very much enjoy Wildberger’s commentary for First Isaiah and Childs’ for Second Isaiah. Wildberger does not at all believe even in the unity of First Isaiah, but his interpretive commentary is simply remarkable. Childs is brilliant, though I wish his commentary would get into the texts themselves more and into the lists of important interpreters less.

Margaret Barker’s little commentary on Isaiah, published as a chapter in Eerdmans Bible Commentary, is fascinating, though it is not at all to be taken as definitive in any sense!

And there are all the standard commentaries, none of which I have time this morning to discuss or comment on. More soon, I hope.

I forgot to say this about the suggested commentaries. The words the Lord gave the Prophet Joseph Smith about the Apocrypha may well be applied to many books: “There are many things contained therein that are true … There are many things contained therein that are not true, which are interpolations by the hands of men … Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth … And whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit therefrom” (D&C 91: 1-5). I keep updating my own commentary all the time.

Robert, I am a strong proponent of the unity of Isaiah and Zechariah. Among my favorite commentators, of course, there are those who hold the opposite view. I like what you said, Robert, about the importance of understanding the historical perspectives, also. As we have a better grasp of the historical and geographical aspects, it is so enriching. Even though it is not a commentary per say, I want to add another book to the list of suggested readings on Isaiah. I will continue to add others to the list.

Very excellent.
Margalioth, Rachel. The Indivisible Isaiah: Evidence for the Single Authorship of the Prophetic Book. Sura Institute for Research, Jerusalem Yeshiva University, New York, 1964. This is a truly brilliant book in which the author shows how the second part of Isaiah fits in with the language and expressions of the first. One particular section of her book is called Thesis and Antithesis. In it she goes on to show, a wonderful quote from the Talmud. “[In Midrash Exodus Rabbah 15:29 we read,] ‘The mouth that said, Ah SINFUL NATION (1:4), is the mouth that said: Open ye the gates, that the RIGHTEOUS NATION … may enter in (26:2). The mouth that said: A PEOPLE LADEN WITH INIQUITY (1:4), is the mouth that said: THY PEOPLE ALSO SHALL BE ALL RIGHTEOUS (60:21). The mouth that said: CHILDREN THAT DEAL CORRUPTLY (1:4), is the mouth that said: AND ALL THY CHILDREN SHALL BE TAUGHT OF THE LORD (54:13). The mouth that said: A SEED OF EVIL-DOERS (1:4), is the mouth that said: AND THEIR SEED SHALL BE KNOWN AMONG THE NATIONS (61:9). The mouth that said: YEA, WHEN YE MAKE MANY PRAYERS, I WILL NOT HEAR (1:15), is the mouth that said: And it shall come to pass that, BEFORE THEY CALL, I WILL ANSWER (65:24). The mouth that said: Your NEW MOONS and your appointed seasons My soul hateth (1:4), is the mouth that said: And it shall come to pass, that from one NEW MOON to another (66:23).’ In this midrashic statement the sages point to Isaiah’s custom of prophesying solace in the same words and expressions he employs in his rebukes. This method of turning phrases of rebuke and evil portent into blessing and consolation is common … to all the prophets. In the case of every prophet we find prophecies of consolation expressed in the same vocabulary he employs for evil, and which is peculiar only to him.” And here is a different type of example: “For ye SHALL BE LIKE an oak whose leaf fadeth, AND LIKE a garden WHICH hath no water,” and contrasts this to a verse in the second half of Isaiah. Whereas here in Isaiah 1:30 the comparison is towards misery, its companion scripture turns it into a thing of good: “And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou SHALT BE LIKE a watered garden, AND LIKE a spring of water, WHICH waters fail not” (Isaiah 58:11). Like Hebrew words have here been rendered by the same English word. (I am not implying that the same Hebrew word needs to always been translated the same way into English, by the way.)

Gregorio Billikopf

Thanks for the post.

Would you like for me to add some more to the list? :)

Have a good weekend.

Also, I’m still several weeks behind, but I’ve been enjoying Joe’s seminary podcasts on Second Isaiah: http://othonors.mypodcast.com/200804_archive.html

I hope others will post more thoughts on other Isaiah commentaries. If I remember right, Joe (who I think is out of town for a bit longer) highly recommends Brevard Childs’ commentary for Second Isaiah and Wildeberger for first Isaiah—Childs because he has an insightful and imaginate hermeneutical approach to Second Isaiah, and Wildeberger for his sheer completeness (3 volumes just on chapters 1-39!).

Of Mormon authors, I’ve read (though not in their entirety) Gileadi’s work (The Literary Message of Isaiah, which is his magnum opus on Isaiah) which I think is very interesting—my one complaint is that he seems a bit too preoccupied with interpreting Isaiah as literally (through types) prophesying of specific last days events. I don’t deny that Isaiah might’ve seen the events of our day and wrote in a way that reflects this, but somehow focusing on that as his primary purpose seems to miss the historical relevance of Isaiah in his own time. That is, by reading Isaiah with more of an eye toward history, I think we can learn more about what’s going on in the text, and thus in a way that is more accurately relevant to our day in (relevant in more of a typological and thematic way, but I think this is spiritually more important than a kind of prophetic code for specific events that are to come—I think this is quite a can of worms I’m opening, because I think this is the most common way members read Revelation, though maybe I’m just saying that because I grew up where fundamentalist types of views were particularly common, but it’s always struck me as . . . well . . . let me just say a not particularly satisfying way to read these apocalyptic books).

I’ve also used Ludlow’s more recent book on Isaiah (sorry, the title’s not handy) and it’s been helpful though not particularly impressive when compared to other commentaries by non-LDS scholars.

Also, in support of Gregorio’s recommendations, I think that in many ways the older scholars on Isaiah are more valuable than a lot of the more recent scholarship that has been rather preoccupied with the question of compilation and multiple authorship (i.e., trying to tease out when and by whom what passages were written). This is another can of worms, of course, but I think many scholars have recently been coming to recognize the kind of violence to the book as a whole this modernistic project inflicts. One issue that Joe’s done a particularly good job of discussing in his seminary classes is the difference it makes whether we read Second Isaiah (who, again if I’m remembering correctly, Joe takes as the same author as First Isaiah, it’s just convenient to use these names for chapters 1-39 and 40-55, respectively—and it does seem there’s good evidence to read some sort of structural break between these sections of the book) as a prophecy as opposed to a . . . well, let’s say a after-the-fact, rewritten history, or something. Especially because (though not solely because) so much of Second Isaiah is found in the Book of Mormon, I think Mormons should be particularly inclined to read Second Isaiah as a prophecy of things to come (viz., events leading up to the exile), and the problem of many modern commentaries is that they don’t really take this aspect of the book very seriously (in their efforts to demystify and “unredact” the texts…). These older commentaries seem to do a better job of actually reading the text closely and thinking about the spiritual meaning of the text.

Well, that’s my 2 cents plus change anyway.