Isaiah: An Introduction & Commentary

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Sep 2001 by Wegner, Paul D

Isaiah: An Introduction & Commentary. By J. Alex Motyer. TOTC. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1999, 408 pp., $13.00 paper.

This commentary has been in preparation for 30 years-Motyer's earlier commentary (The Prophecy of Isaiah, 1993) was initially the beginnings of this work that became too large for the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary series. This commentary is a more manageable size and gives a good general overview of the book of Isaiah, as well as helpful homiletical insights, but unfortunately lacks much of the more recent research in Isaiah from the last twenty years.

Motyer's overall purpose of reading the book of Isaiah as a unified whole (pp. 2728) is commendable. The commentary is clear, concise, and peppered throughout with his British wit and sense of humor. A sample of Motyer's masterful skill in combining homiletical material with exegetical insights can be seen in his discussion of Isa 1:30: "The equivalent today is a sound economy and a growing gross national product. These have ever been the chosen god of the natural man" (p. 50).

Even with these positive elements, however, Motyer maintains several literary and exegetical peculiarities that make his book much less valuable. (1) He divides the book after chap. 37 instead of following the common division after chap. 39. Motyer suggests that R. E. Clements does something similar in dividing the text between chaps. 35 and 36. However, for Clements to suggest a bridge consisting of Isaiah 3639 between the Assyrian and the Babylonian sections is more reasonable than a division between chaps. 37 and 38, especially since Isa 38:6 makes it clear that Hezekiah's illness occurs during the events of 701 Bc described in the previous chapters. (2) For one so keenly aware of literary structure, it is surprising that Motyer groups together chaps. 1-5 and 6-12 in the earlier part of the book of Isaiah. Several scholars have noted the more logical divisions of this part of the book as follows: chap. 1: Introduction to the entire book; chaps. 2-4 begin and end with a glorious picture of Israel's deliverance, but in between describe her present corrupt state (a structure that Motyer himself notes on p. 41); chaps. 5-12: a polystrophe that begins with the song of the vineyard (5:1-7) and ends with a song of thanksgiving (12:1-6). See A. Laato, Who is Immanuel? The Rise and the Foundering of Isaiah's Messianic Expectations, Ph.D. Dissertation, Abo Akademi (Abo: Abo Academy Press, 1988); and P. D. Wegner, An Examination of Kingship and Messianic Expectation in Isaiah 1-35 (Lewistown: Edwin Mellen, 1992). (3) Motyer also divides Isaiah 40-48 into three parts, thereby losing the middle climax of Cyrus in this unit. What is equally surprising is the title he assigns to Isa 44:24-48:22, "The Great Deliverance: The Work of Cyrus," since Cyrus's deliverance has been previously mentioned twice (41:2-4, 25) and perhaps a third time (42:1-7). Few scholars divide Isaiah 40-48, which ends with the fitting refrain in Isa 48:22, "`There is no peace for the wicked,' says the Lord."

In addition to these variances in the literary structure of the book, there are several exegetical questions, of which I mention only three. (1) Isa 5:17 (p. 64) should probably be translated as "and strangers will eat in the waste places of the fat (i.e. wealthy)." It is doubtful that the noun gerim should mean "tramps" as Motyer suggests, since the concept of tramps or hobos would be foreign to this society and the word has a much broader range of meaning (including, for example, resident foreigners). However, it does not seem necessary to emend the text to "lambs" as J. N. Oswalt suggests (Isaiah 1:157). A more reasonable solution is to understand that, when God punishes Israel, the land will be vacant so that anyone will be able to come and use the land even though they do not own it (thus gerim). (2) Motyer argues that the phrase naha `al in Isa 7:2 (p. 75) cannot apply to the Syrian and Ephraimite alliance since the root naah plus `al generally means "to subdue." Instead he traces the word to the root naha "to settle or swarm" which has an Akkadian cognate with a similar meaning (see J. Emerton, ZAW 81 [1969]: 188-89). However, it is not really necessary to search out such an obscure root since the word could indeed come from the common root nuah, which would explain the feminine form in this passage and mean "to rest or settle upon the land" (see HALOT II:679-80). The phrase naha `al corresponds exactly to the same phrase in Isa 11:1 where the spirit rests upon a coming deliverer (it is interesting that Motyer does not mention Isa 11:1 here, though he appears to understand the phrase in this verse to mean "resting upon" this person; see p. 103). (3) On p. 79, Motyer's discussion of 'alma or "young girl" apparently does not take into account J. H. Walton's argument that alma may refer to a married woman (see Isa 54:4; NIDOTTE III:41519). Motyer is consistent in seeing Immanuel in Isa 7:14 and 8:8 as a reference to the Messiah who inherits the broken-down kingdom of Ahaz. However, because the context of Isa 7:14 and 8:8 is clearly the Assyrian invasion of 734-732 Bc, it seems preferable to view them as near fulfillments that create prophetic patterns that are further developed in Christ (see Wegner, Kingship and Messianic Expectation).