First Glance

The words of Isaiah are more than just beautiful poetry; they are reflections of the political and social circumstances that provoked Isaiah to utter his prophecies. An understanding of these circumstances—the Syro-Ephraimite war and the moral corruption of eighth-century B.C. Judah—provides an essential background for a fuller appreciation of Isaiah’s meaning, as Yehoshua Gitay demonstrates in “Isaiah—The Impractical Prophet.” Assistant professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Beer-Sheva, Israel, Gitay has also taught at the University of North Carolina, Duke, Wesleyan and Columbia. He has written numerous scholarly articles on Isaiah and is the author of The Book […]