Book of Isaiah

The Book of Isaiah (Hebrew: ספר ישעיה‎) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve. (The order of the subsequent books differs somewhat in Christian Old Testament).

The first 39 chapters prophesy doom for a sinful Judah and for all the nations of the world that oppose God, while the last 27 prophesy the restoration of the nation of Israel and a new creation in God's glorious future kingdom; this section includes the Songs of the Suffering Servant, four separate passages referring to the nation of Israel, interpreted by Christians as prefiguring the coming of Jesus Christ.

Tradition ascribes authorship of the book to Isaiah son of Amoz, but for over a hundred years scholars have seen it as a compilation of writings from three different periods. The first, termed Proto-Isaiah (chapters 1–39), contains the words of the 8th-century BCE prophet with 7th-century BCE expansions; the second, Deutero-Isaiah (chapters 40–55), is the work of a 6th-century BCE author writing near the end of the Babylonian captivity; and the third, the poetic Trito-Isaiah (chapters 56–66), was composed in Jerusalem shortly after the return from exile, probably by multiple authors.