Writer: Isaiah

4. What indicates that Isaiah was the writer of the book?

⁴ That Jehovah commanded Isaiah to write down prophetic judgments is established by Isaiah 30:8: “Now come, write it upon a tablet with them, and inscribe it even in a book, that it may serve for a future day, for a witness to time indefinite.” The ancient Jewish rabbis recognized Isaiah as the writer and included the book as the first book of the major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel).

5. What testifies to the unity of the book of Isaiah?

⁵ Though some have pointed to the book’s change of style from chapter 40 onward as indicating a different writer, or “Second Isaiah,” the change in subject matter should be sufficient to explain this. There is much evidence that Isaiah wrote the entire book that bears his name. For example, the oneness of the book is indicated by the expression, “the Holy One of Israel,” which appears 12 times in chapters 1 to 39, and 13 times in chapters 40 to 66, a total of 25 times; whereas it appears only 6 times throughout the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. The apostle Paul also testifies to the unity of the book by quoting from all parts of the prophecy and crediting the whole work to one writer, Isaiah.​—Compare Romans 10:16, 20; 15:12 with Isaiah 53:1; 65:1; 11:1.

Moreover, these ancient scrolls refute the critics’ claims of two “Isaiahs,” since chapter 40 begins on the last line of the column of writing containing chapter 39, the opening sentence being completed in the next column. Thus, the copyist was obviously unaware of any supposed change in writer or of any division in the book at this point.a