It took me a year and a half to complete the book of Isaiah. In that time frame, I've actually read the book multiple times, going through each of the chapters over and over again. Isaiah is a very heavy book, and by heavy, I mean full of prophecy. As such, it's not a book to just plow through. In fact, the rest of the Old Testament is solely prophetic books. That means it's crucial to research the history surrounding each passage. Some of the prophecies have already been fulfilled while others are in progress. This makes these books both extremely interesting and extremely challenging.

There were definitely times where I wanted to give up on Isaiah and move on to Jeremiah, but I knew that there was more information to be gleaned from these pages. What makes the Bible so difficult to understand is the need to understand all of it at once to understand individual verses. People love to quote a single verse, but it's easy to take things out of context and twist the meaning when we do that. As such, I found myself reading other parts of the Bible while I tried to digest Isaiah. Reading these other books and chapters helped me to stay grounded and keep the whole picture in mind.

Naturally, since it took me so long to complete the book, it's a little disjointed in my head. I watched the Bible Project's summary of the book once I finished to tie it all back together.[1]

My Favorite Part

Going in to the reading, I was looking forward to all the prophecy, specifically the Messianic prophecies. However, I found myself shocked to see that my favorite part was actually the passion in which Isaiah had for returning to God's original design. Many of us today fear the end of the world; we fear change, and we fear the loss of what we are used to. God never intended out world to be like this, but we can't conceive of a perfect utopia, because mankind can't create one; however, God can. After the judgement, there will be lasting peace and the world will return to a state of perfection (or rather there will be a new Earth that has never seen corruption).

Isaiah is eager to see this world come to fruition and encourages us to be eager to see this too. The only way to overcome the fear of change that keeps us from this is to admit our sinfulness, trust in God's promise to forgive us, and surrender to Him. When we do this continually, we too can become excited about the utopia God will create for us.

Prophecy

I didn't skip over the prophecy though. From prophecies about nations to prophecies about Christ, the book of Isaiah is loaded with prophecy. I looked far and wide for an exhaustive list of Messianic prophecies because I wanted to compare how many existed versus how many were in Isaiah. I couldn't find a list, mainly because people disagree about what actually is or isn't a prophecy. Nonetheless, below I'm going to list some of the Messianic prophecies I found. This list isn't exhaustive; I really should have been creating it as I go instead of remembering back. I'll continue to update it over time.

Scripture	Prophecy	Fulfillment
Isaiah 7:14	Born of a virgin Named Emmanuel ("God with us")	Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-35
Isaiah 9:1-5	Begins His ministry in Galilee	Matthew 4:12-17
Isaiah 9:6-7	Born a child Government on His shoulders Called Wonderful Called Counselor Called Mighty God Called Everlasting Father Called Prince of Peace Descendant of David	Matthew 1 and Luke 2 Luke 1:31-33 and Hebrews 7 Matthew 21:15 Hebrews 4:15–16 Luke 9:43 John 14 John 14:27 and Revelation 19 Matthew 1:1-17
Isaiah 11:1	Descended from Jesse	Matthew 1:1-6
Isaiah 11:10	Sign for the Gentiles	John 12:18-21
Isaiah 22:20-25	(Double prophecy) Clothed in a robe Over the governments House of Judah Key to the House of David Power to open and shut Fastened as a nail A throne for His Father's house Cut off	John 19:2 and Revelation 19:13, 16 Revelation 17:14 Matthew 1 Revelation 3:7 Revelation 3:7-8 John 20:24-27 and Colossians 2:14 Matthew 10:32 and Revelation 3:21 Matthew 27
Isaiah 53	The Suffering Servant	Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

References

1. Timothy Mackie and Jonathan Collins. "Isaiah". The Bible Project; visited June 2019