Isaiah the Prophet
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(salvation of Jehovah) (2 Kings 20:1) - one of the greatest Old Testament prophets, son of Amoz and, according to Jewish tradition, the brother of King Amaziah. Holy Scripture tells us that he lived in Jerusalem, had two sons, and prophesied in the reigns of the kings of Judah Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (Isa 7:3; 8:3, 18). Isaiah was called to the prophetic ministry in an extraordinary and miraculous way. He saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
Seraphim flew around Him and cried one to another: 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.' At the sight of this majesty of God's glory Isaiah cried: 'Woe is me! for I am undone... because I am a man of unclean lips... for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.' Then one of the seraphim touched Isaiah's lips with a burning coal taken with tongs from the altar and said: 'Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.' The Lord said to him: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' Isaiah answered: 'Here am I; send me' (Isa 6).
Isaiah entered the prophetic ministry in the last year of Uzziah's reign (Isa 6:1), 759 years before Christ, and continued for more than sixty years. From 2 Chronicles 32:32 it may be seen that he lived even after Hezekiah's death; and according to ancient tradition, accepted by many Fathers of the Church, at the command of King Manasseh he was sawn in two with a wooden saw between cedar boards because he rebuked the king and nobles for their impiety. According to Jerome, the apostle Paul's words 'were sawn asunder' (Heb 11:37) refer precisely to the prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah's prophecies are distinguished by extraordinary clarity and precision. Among the many, it is enough to point, for example, to his prophecy of the Savior's birth from a Virgin (Isa 7:14) and of the Savior's sufferings (Isa 53). Because of the astonishing clarity of his prophecies, Isaiah is called the Old Testament Evangelist. He describes the future so clearly, says blessed Jerome, that he seems not so much to foretell the future as to recount the history of times already past.